Accidentally Revealed Document Shows TSA Doesn't Think Terrorists Are Plotting To Attack Airplanes.

Blog Money Jihad.

Accidentally Revealed Document Shows TSA Doesn't Think Terrorists Are Plotting To Attack Airplanes.HT: Tech Dirt.By Tim Cushing.

Jonathan Corbett, a long-time vocal critic of TSA body scanners, has been engaged in a lawsuit against the government concerning the constitutionality of those scanners. In the course of the case, the TSA gave him classified documents, which he was ordered not to reveal. In using some of that information to make his case, he needed to file two copies of his brief: a public one with classified stuff redacted, and the full brief under seal, for the government and the courts to look at. Just one problem: someone over at Infowars noticed that apparently a clerk at the 11th Circuit appeals court forgot to file the document under seal, allowing them to find out what was under the redactions... Included in there is the following, apparently quoted from the TSA's own statements:

“As of mid-2011, terrorist threat groups present in the Homeland are not known to be actively plotting against civil aviation targets or airports; instead, their focus is on fundraising, recruiting, and propagandizing.”

Elsewhere, the TSA appears to admit that "due to hardened cockpit doors and the willingness of passengers to challenge hijackers," it's unlikely that there's much value in terrorists trying to hijack a plane these days (amusingly, that statement is a clear echo of Bruce Schneier's statement criticizing the TSA's security theater -- suggesting that the TSA flat out knows that airport security is nothing more than such theatrics). Read the full story here.

Video - Pres. Obama: “Stop Focusing On The Bloggers”.

Pres. Obama: “Stop Focusing On The Bloggers”HT: ZeroHedge.

“Withholding information is the essence of tyranny. Control of the flow of information is the tool of the dictatorship.” ― Bruce Coville

It is here that he makes the following statement:

“Now that the government has reopened and this threat to our economy is removed, all of us need to stop focusing on the lobbyists, and the bloggers, and the talking heads on radio and the professional activists who profit from conflict, and focus on what the majority of Americans sent us here to do, and that’s grow this economy, create good jobs, strengthen the middle class, educate our kids, lay the foundation for broad-based prosperity and get our fiscal house in order for the long haul.”

We will ignore the irony of a president talking about “profiting from conflict” when less than two months ago the world was on the verge of World War III over a fabricated, false flag-driven invasion “confirmed” by YouTube clips, and designed entirely by this administration to further (and profit) its Saudi and Qatari interests, and which was halted in the last minute thanks to none other than the Russian president, and ask: instead of stopping to “focus on bloggers” who merely do the math in a world in which math is long forgotten, let’s for one month, week or day, simply halt the Federal Reserve’s circular monetary authority which now purchases virtually all issued US Treasurys that carry any duration risk.

We wonder what that would do to interest rates, to the US debt-issuance and deficit-funding machinery, to the already crippled reserve status of the dollar, to the real default threat of a country that has long passed its Minsky Ponzi point, and to the same once great nation that cemented its world-dominance not thanks to a central bank funding a government which has spent in the past 5 years almost as much as in all of its prior history, but due to the encouragement of the entrepreneurial spirit, to minimal government meddling in (and illegal supervision of) all affairs of man and commerce, to allowing not only the reward of success but the risk of failure, and most importantly to allowing capitalism to reign free once again, if only for a brief period of time.

We will not even engage the question of just how much “wealth effect” has been left on the table with the Fed not actively monetizing all US debt in 95 years of its 100 years of existence, and certainly not engage in trite religious sermonizing written by a recently graduated drama major-cum-teleprompter operator.

Hmmm....."The bloggers, and the talking heads on radio and the professional activists who profit from conflict,"....So far i personally NEVER received or Asked for a single Penny......So much for Profiteering.Somehow doing something because it's the right thing to do doesn't come to his mind......."When does one have Enough?"

'Even an elephant runs from a swarm of mosquitoes'

Update: 

Whitehouse correspondent Keith Koffler comments : Barack Obama, Angry Young Man

First of all, DON’T LISTEN TO HIM!! Please do focus on the bloggers . . .

End of 'foodstamp Presidency' in sight? Food stamp recipients delivered one-two punch by govt shutdown.

End of 'foodstamp Presidency' in sight? Food stamp recipients delivered one-two punch by govt shutdown.(RT).

Food stamps are fully paid for through October, according to a shutdown plan released by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) on October 1. The plan outlined what would happen to federal nutrition programs once the government closed absent a funding agreement from Congress.

A $2 billion contingency fund exists for states that need administrative assistance should the shutdown last beyond November 1.

The supplemental nutrition assistance program, known as SNAP, is available to low-income Americans who need help purchasing food. It is funded by the federal government though the USDA, although it is administered by individual states.

The federal government shutdown that began on October 1 has put a spotlight on the program and other federal nutrition initiatives that Americans increasingly rely on for support.

Recipients and providers are beginning to receive more direct notices of what awaits, should the shutdown not be resolved by next month.

In Utah, Fox News 13 in Salt Lake City reported that a local provider recently received a letter from the USDA sticking to the November 1 cut-off date.

“This is going to create a huge hardship for the people we serve here in our food pantry,” Bill Tibbits, Associate Director at Crossroads Urban Center, told Fox News 13.

“What this means [is] if there’s not a deal, if Congress doesn’t reach a deal to get federal government back up and running, in Utah about 100,000 families won’t get food stamp benefit,” added Tibbits.

The USDA letter says in part, “in the interest of preserving maximum flexibility, we are directing states to hold their November issuance files and delay transmission to state electronic benefit transfer vendors until further notice.”

Regardless of whether the shutdown is resolved by November, a temporary boost in SNAP funding associated with the 2009 federal stimulus program will sunset on October 31.

The stimulus, or American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, added $45.2 billion to the SNAP budget, increasing benefits from $588 a month to $668 for an average household of four.

Upon the sunset, a family of four will see a five percent cut to benefits, according to AP.

That cut comes out to average less than $1.40 per person per meal in fiscal year 2014, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

One in seven - or 47 million - Americans receive SNAP benefits. Around half of those are children and teenagers. Mississippi is the state with the highest number of recipients - 22 percent of its population is enrolled in the program.

Census figures reported in September showed that in 2012, around 15 percent of Americans lived at or under the poverty level, which is $23,550 yearly income for a family of four.

The US House voted in September to cut SNAP funding by $39 billion over the next decade. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that such a level of cuts would cause up to 3.8 million people to lose food stamp benefits in 2014.

The Senate had previously voted to cut $4 billion to the program in that time period.

Another major federal nutrition program, WIC (Women, Infants and Children), is also set to shut down around November 1, based on USDA projections, and will not receive further funding. However, the USDA told Education Week that some states are capable of prolonging current funding.

“USDA is working with WIC state agencies to use all available funding resources to provide benefits to participants. [Food and Nutrition Service] will be allocating both contingency and carryover funds to state agencies for use in operating their FY 2014 WIC program, in addition to other available funds. Should a lapse extend through late October, federal WIC funding may not be sufficient to cover benefits,” the USDA’s Bruce Alexander said.

Obama blasted for cracking down on free press.

“Withholding information is the essence of tyranny. Control of the flow of information is the tool of the dictatorship.” ― Bruce Coville . 

Obama blasted for cracking down on free press.(RT).

The CPJ, a non-profit founded over 30 years ago to promote “press freedom worldwide and defends the right of journalists to report the news without fear of reprisal,” published a special report on Thursday penned by longtime Washington Post executive editor Leonard Downie Jr. in which he dismantles United States President Barack Obama’s treatment of journalists with assistance from the country’s foremost national security reporters.

Despite campaigning heavily on the promise of increased government transparency and the most open administration yet, Pres. Obama’s four-and-a-half-years in the White House so far have included a number of instances cited by Downie in which reporters were investigated, whistleblowers reprimanded and administrative actions allowed for the chilling of journalism, both domestically and on a global level.

Pres. Obama “came into office pledging open government, but he has fallen short of his promise,” Downie prefaces his report.

“Journalists and transparency advocates say the White House curbs routine disclosure of information and deploys its own media to evade scrutiny by the press,” he continues, adding, “Aggressive prosecution of leakers of classified information and broad electronic surveillance programs deter government sources from speaking to journalists.”

The report and its accompanying articles and letter to the White House mark a rare occasion in which the CPJ single-out the US for infringing on press freedoms, turning away from the international examples that are usually investigated by the organization, such as journalists exiled, imprisoned or killed for doing their work, and restrictions on the open-media in more repressive countries overseas.

Glenn Greenwald, the Guardian writer who has worked closely with a trove of top-secret documents supplied to his newspaper, wrote on Twitter that he considered the report to be a “scathing indictment” of the White House’s press attacks.

It's hard to imagine how this scathing indictment from @pressfreedom of Obama admin's press attacks isn't big news: http://t.co/c75yODVyG9
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) October 10, 2013

Gellman, who has worked with the Guardian on the NSA secrets released by Snowden since June, is referenced several times in the CPJ’s piece, but is far from the only reporter close to the Snowden case who has criticized Obama’s response to those disclosures and the ones attributed to the WikiLeaks source formerly known as Bradley Manning.

“We know from at least three national security reporters that their sources are hesitant to speak to them, and [they] explicitly cite the treatment of Bradley Manning as a reason as to why they are hesitant to disclose abuses by the United States government in the national security sector,” WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange told RT earlier this year.

In the CPJ report, White House press secretary Jay Carney refutes those allegations by saying, "The idea that people are shutting up and not leaking to reporters is belied by the facts.”

But Jean-Paul Marthoz, a senior advisor for the CPJ, added in his own report this week that “any restrictions on US journalists' freedom to report inevitably reverberates around the globe,” and accused the Obama administration of silencing the international media by curbing the activities of even domestic reporters who should be protected by the Constitution’s guarantee of press freedom.

“CPJ is disturbed by the pattern of actions by the Obama administration that have chilled the flow of information on issues of great public interest, including matters of national security,” reads a separate statement published by the organization this week. “The administration's war on leaks to the press through the use of secret subpoenas against news organizations, its assertion through prosecution that leaking classified documents to the press is espionage or aiding the enemy, and its increased limitations on access to information that is in the public interest -- all thwart a free and open discussion necessary to a democracy.”

The CPJ has written the White House urging the president to “affirm and guarantee that journalists will not be at legal risk or prosecuted for receiving confidential and/or classified information,” as well as to be more forthcoming about government surveillance programs, revise Department of Justice guidelines with regards to targeting journalists, retire the practice of using the Espionage Act to arrest reporters and sources and “Make good on promises to increase transparency of government activities and end government intimidation of officials who might speak to the press,” among other requests.

“We understand that your administration and its Justice Department have heard the strong criticism of its use of secret subpoenas and responded with revised guidelines still to be implemented,” the CFJ’s top officers wrote the president. “And we appreciate your clear statements on the need for Americans to know and be able to publicly debate their government’s practices regarding national security. But the actions of your administration do not lean toward openness.”
Read the full story here.

NSA Admits Bulk Collection of Cell Phone Location Data, But Don’t Worry, This Was Only a Test.

NSA Admits Bulk Collection of Cell Phone Location Data, But Don’t Worry, This Was Only a Test.HT: BlacklistedNews. Source: New York Times.

Obama in Sweden:  “And I can give assurances to the publics in Europe and around the world that we’re not going around snooping at people’s emails or listening to their phone calls. What we try to do is to target very specifically areas of concern. Having said that, what I’ve said domestically and what I say to international audiences is with changes in technology, with the growth of our capabilities, if our — if our attitude is, because we can do it we should go ahead and do it, then we may not be, you know, addressing some of the legitimate concerns and dangers that exist anytime we’re talking about intelligence gathering and surveillance.”

The National Security Agency conducted a secret pilot project in 2010 and 2011 to test the collection of bulk data about the location of Americans’ cellphones, but the agency never moved ahead with such a program, according to intelligence officials.

The existence of the pilot project was reported on Wednesday morning by The New York Times and later confirmed by James R. Clapper, the director of national intelligence, at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. The project used data from cellphone towers to locate people’s cellphones.

In his testimony, Mr. Clapper revealed few details about the project. He said that the N.S.A. does not currently collect locational information under Section 215 of the Patriot Act, the provision the government says is the legal basis for the N.S.A.’s once-secret program under which it collects logs of all domestic calls from telephone companies.

“In 2010 and 2011, N.S.A. received samples in order to test the ability of its systems to handle the data format, but that data was not used for any other purpose and was never available for intelligence analysis purposes,” Mr. Clapper said.

He added that the N.S.A. had promised to notify Congress and seek the approval of a secret surveillance court in the future before any locational data was collected using Section 215.

An official familiar with the test project said its purpose was to see how the locational data would flow into the N.S.A.’s systems. While real data was used, it was never drawn upon in any investigation, the official said. It was unclear how many Americans’ locational data was collected as part of the project, whether the agency has held on to that information or why the program did not go forward.

Video - Mark Levin’s EPIC Monologue on Republicans Being Forced to Defund ObamaCare.

Senator Vitter’s Response to Obamacare’s Outrageous Exemptions - They baked that cake. Now they can eat it, too.

Senator Vitter’s Response to Obamacare’s Outrageous Exemptions - They baked that cake. Now they can eat it, too.HT: Heritage.

Here’s a simple democratic principle: Those who make the laws should be subject to the laws they make.

The Problem. President Obama, the White House staff, Cabinet secretaries, and all of the Administration’s political appointees are exempt from any legal requirement to enroll in Obamacare’s health insurance exchanges. While Members of Congress and their personal staffs are required to enroll in Obamacare’s exchanges, the White House, through questionable administrative action, is providing them hefty taxpayer subsidies to offset the resultant increase in their personal health care costs. In other words, Washington’s arrogant political class is getting exemptions or special treatment denied to ordinary Americans.

One Solution. During Senate floor debate on energy legislation last week, Louisiana Senator David Vitter (R) proposed an amendment that would end Obamacare exemptions and special taxpayer subsidies for Congress. His amendment is cosponsored by Senators Mike Enzi (R-WY), Mike Lee (R-UT), Ron Johnson (R- WI), Dean Heller (R-NV), and Jim Inhofe (R-OK). The prospect of having to vote on Vitter’s amendment shut down floor debate on the bill last week.
Vitter’s amendment would do two things. First, the President, Vice President, Cabinet secretaries, and all political appointees—the policymaking agents of the executive branch—would be enrolled in the health insurance exchanges, just like millions of other Americans. Second, Members of Congress and their staffs—including all committee and leadership office staff—would also be enrolled in the health insurance exchanges under the same terms and conditions as other Americans. In other words, Congress and its staff would not get any special subsidies at taxpayer expense for their health insurance.

The Equity. The Vitter Amendment is equitable. It targets only Washington’s political class, those who make policy for the national government. Federal employees, all career civil servants, would not be deprived of their current private health insurance plans through the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP). Vitter’s approach is only fair: Capitol Hill cops, National Park Rangers, and Secret Service agents and their families are not responsible for Obamacare. Washington’s political class and allied big special interest lobbyists are responsible. And until this bad law is fully repealed, the President’s team and Congress should submit fully to its multiple and costly requirements, just like everybody else.
The Justice. Because of hasty legislative maneuvering, sloppy drafting, and an inability or unwillingness to focus on the consequences of what they were doing, Members of Congress who voted for Obamacare managed to dump themselves out of their existing coverage. Under Section 1312 of the law, they are to be enrolled in health insurance exchange plans, and will lose existing coverage in the popular and successful Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP). And just like millions of other Americans dumped out of their existing coverage, they lose their employer’s subsidy for insurance plus the generous federal and state tax breaks that accompany employer-based coverage. But the Obama Administration recently “fixed” that for them by providing special subsidies for Members and congressional staff to reduce their premium costs in the Obamacare exchanges.
Vitter’s amendment would overturn this recent action. That would be appropriate because there is no statutory authority, either in Obamacare or in Title V of the U.S Code, for the U.S. Office of Personnel Management to make government insurance contributions on behalf of federal employees to any plan other than an FEHBP plan. Curiously, the original health care law provided for employers to make a defined contribution for workers in the exchanges (a “free choice voucher”), but Congress scrapped it.

Millions of Americans are going to be losing their existing coverage and paying more for health insurance. Under the Vitter Amendment, so would the Obama Administration’s appointees, Congress, and congressional staff. They baked that cake. Now they can eat it, too.

Video - Ronald Reagan’s 50 Year Old TV Commercial On Socialized Medicine.

Can't say he didn't warn you way ahead of present day.

Totalitarianism Essay.

Obama Media puts Putin on cover worldwide except in US.   Top Time Editor Taking State Department Job With John Kerry

Totalitarianism Essay. HT: EssayMania.

Please note: any relationships you may see between these symptoms and Mr. Obama are solely the responsibility of the reader.

In the broadest sense, totalitarianism is characterized by strong central rule that attempts to control and direct all aspects of life.

 It is distinguished from dictatorship and authoritarianism by its supplanting of all political institutions and all old legal and social traditions with new ones to meet the state's needs, which are usually highly focused.(Czars)

According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, the definition of totalitarianism is a form of government that theoretically permits no individual freedom and that seeks to subordinate all aspects of the individual's life to the authority of the government (http://www.britannica.com/).

Totalitarian governments are often believed to be a solution to political or economic problems in a country. Despite the brutality and lack of freedom, at its beginning, a totalitarian government often receives overwhelming support for its ideas and goals. History has proventhat such governments have had a tremendous negative impact on their people and traditions. Totalitarian governments often emerge from developing countries that are trying to build their economy. They are also considered to be a solution for countries that have recently been through a social, economic or political downfall. At the beginning of their rule, these regimes tend to be very popular and have the support of most people in the country. This popularity is mostly due to the government's promises of an ideal society.

A totalitarian administration also requires a charismatic leader and modern developments in transportation and communication to spread its message.

In order for a totalitarian state to be built, the leader must have a tremendous will to transform the society into his version of utopia (http://www.uta.edu). A central concept in the totalitarian system is the attainment of a specific goal. This goal is the reason why a totalitarian government exists and is essential to keeping the regime in power (http://www.britannica.com/). 

In Hitler's case, his goals were the purification of the Aryan race and the expansion of his territory. In a totalitarian state, all of its resources are directed toward the achievement of the goal. Because the goal is the foundation for each particular regime, the government will never acknowledge its achievement, for that would therefore eliminate its purpose (http://www.britannica.com/). This idea of dangling the carrot in front of its citizens, but rarely delivering, prolongs enthusiasm and support for these governments.

In a totalitarian state, power is in the hands of one person, the party leader who becomes the supreme ruler. Opposition parties are not allowed and there are no elections. The citizens do not have a choice to decide who they want to be their leader. Those who disagree with the dictator are killed. Such ruler does not have to answer to anybody or to the states court of law, for in a totalitarian regime, the leader is above the law (http://www.comptons.com/). He may change the laws at any time to facilitate the achievement of his goals. The law is not binding to him, but rather it is a tool at the dictator's disposal to use as he sees fit. This powerful instrument is used to exert control over the lifestyles of the citizens. When a totalitarian government comes into power, all legal, social and political, traditions are swept away (http://www.britannica.com/). Religion, if not banned entirely, is kept under tight control. The government censors the media and commands all means of communication. Traditional social institutions and organizations are discouraged or restricted. For example, the North Korean government controlled the amount of crops produced on every farm, the type of housing units in which each family lived and censored all literary and artistic 

Summary Of Totalitarian
Totalitarianism is the idea that all motions, buisness, thought, religion, are regulated by the state or the ruling upper hand that controls the people.

Video - Daniel Ellsberg “NSA Has Your ENTIRE Digital Record! That’s The Infrastructure Of A Police State!”

Video - Coincidence Or Kill Switch? Google, Nasdaq, Amazon, Microsoft, All In Two Weeks?

Coincidence Or Kill Switch? Google, Nasdaq, Amazon, Microsoft, All In Two Weeks?(Before It's News)By Susan Duclos.

On Thursday the Nasdaq Market suffered what they claimed was a glitch in their system which caused them to halt all trading for approximately three hours, which locked up trading in stocks with a total market capitalization of $5.7 trillion.
Taken alone, this so-called glitch, while concerning, would be nothing more than a newsflash, it happened, it ended, situation over, but over the last two weeks there have been other “glitches” and “outages” and “technical errors.”
One doesn’t have to be a conspiracy theorist to think that it is all a little too coincidental.
August 14, 2013- Microsoft’s Outlook, SkyDrive, and People technologies experienced problems, making it difficult for some people to access the cloud services.  August 18- Microsoft says it has fully recovered from a service outage that affected some users.
August 16, 2013- Google Outage: Internet Traffic Plunges 40%
August 19, 2013 – Amazon.com, the website of the world’s largest online retailer, went down today for many users across the United States and Canada.
August 20, 2013- A flood of erroneous trades hit U.S. equity options markets on Tuesday as they opened for business when Goldman Sachs Group sent orders accidentally because of a technical error, the latest trading problem to hit the options market this year.
Nasdaq, Microsoft, Google, Amazon and Goldman Sachs– Two is a coincidence, three really bad luck, but five?
[Update] Make that six, a reader just emailed me with an August 7, 2013 link- Outages effect App Store, iBookstore, Mac App Store, and iTunes for some users today.
Is it possible we are seeing a test of the Internet Kill Switch?

Hmmmm.....MFS The Other News July 28 - 2010..Seven People Have Been Entrusted With The Keys To The Internet.These smart cards are the actual keys to the Internet. There are seven of them and they hold the power to restarting the world wide web "in the event of a catastrophic event."

Brotherhood of the Internet Keys: Who Are the Chosen Seven?

Daniel Ellsberg: US on Verge of Becoming Police State Under Obama.

Daniel Ellsberg: US on Verge of Becoming Police State Under Obama.HT: Newsmax.

Daniel Ellsberg, the man who leaked the Pentagon Papers in 1971, says the United States is on the verge of becoming a police state as evidenced by the National Security Agency's data collection programs and the treatment of secret document leakers Edward Snowden and Bradley Manning. 

"We have not only the capability of a police state, but certain beginnings of it right now," Ellsberg told The Huffington Post Wednesday. "And I absolutely agree with Edward Snowden. It's worth a person's life, prospect of assassination, or life in prison or life in exile — it's worth that to try to restore our liberties and make this a democratic country."

He cited the NSA's phone- and Internet data collection programs as evidence that the nation has reached the "capability" of becoming a police state.

"When people understand that their every conversation of every kind on phones, email, chat logs whatever, is being recorded and can be retrieved, that will certainly curtail people's freedom of speech over any digital means," Ellsberg continued in an interview carried on HuffPost Live.Hmmm....."Dictatorship naturally arises out of democracy, and the most aggravated form of tyranny and slavery out of the most extreme liberty". ~ Plato.Read the full story here.

Google: "Gmail users cannot expect privacy while sending mails."

Google: "Gmail users cannot expect privacy while sending mails." HT: Ciol.By CIOL Bureau

Google made the statement that people can't expect privacy when sending a message to a Gmail address in a response to a class action complaint filed in multi-district litigation

SANTA MONICA, USA: In a stunning admission contained in a brief filed recently in federal court, lawyers for Google said people should not expect privacy when they send messages to a Gmail account.
Consumer Watchdog said that people who care about their email correspondents' privacy should not use the Internet giant's service.

Google's brief said: "Just as a sender of a letter to a business colleague cannot be surprised that the recipient's assistant opens the letter, people who use web-based email today cannot be surprised if their emails are processed by the recipient's [email provider] in the course of delivery. Indeed, 'a person has no legitimate expectation of privacy in information he voluntarily turns over to third parties."

"Google has finally admitted they don't respect privacy," said John M. Simpson, Consumer Watchdog's Privacy Project director. "People should take them at their word; if you care about your email correspondents' privacy don't use Gmail."
Google made the statement that people can't expect privacy when sending a message to a Gmail address in a response to a class action complaint filed in multi-district litigation.
The suit says Google violates federal and state wiretap laws when the company reads emails to determine what ads to serve based on the message's content. The class action complaint was filed under seal because it details many of Google's business practices about the way it handles email.Read the full story here.

"Et Tu Jones?" - Obama’s former adviser ridicules statement that NSA doesn’t spy on Americans.

"Et Tu Jones?" - Obama’s former adviser ridicules statement that NSA doesn’t spy on Americans.(RT).

"Everybody knows I love this president, but this is ridiculous," former-Special Adviser for Green Jobs Van Jones said Wednesday on CNN. "First of all, we do have a domestic spying program, and what we need to be able to do is figure out how to balance these things, not pretend like there’s no balancing to be done.”

The remark made by Jones, who currently serves as a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, directly contrasts with comments Obama made earlier in the week to late night talk show host Jay Leno.

“We don’t have a domestic spying program,” Obama told Leno during a Tuesday night interview. "What we do have are some mechanisms where we can track a phone number or an email address that we know is connected to some sort of terrorist threat."

Speaking to CNN’s Jake Tapper, Jones jabbed the president’s remarks while also assaulting the commander-in-chief’s record with regards to charging intelligence leakers like Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden with espionage.

Despite campaigning on a platform of utmost transparency, Obama and his administration have so far charged more leakers with espionage than all previous presidents combined twice over. Speaking to CNN, Jones challenged the president’s past behavior towards whistleblowers and suggested that Snowden, the 30-year-old leaker of classified National Security Agency documents, stands little chance of a fair trial in America.

“But much more important, he said something else that I thought that was really awful,” Jones continued. He said that if somebody like Snowden wanted to be a whistleblower, they could have gone ahead.

“Well, hold on a second, sir. That is — you are right now prosecuting more whistleblowers – not only than any American president, than every American president combined! So you can’t then come out on Leno and yuck it up and say, 'Well, whistleblowers, come on out and we’ll treat you right.' because you haven’t been doing that.”

Last week, Russia approved Snowden’s request for asylum by allowing him a one-year stay overseas as charges of spying loom stateside. Meanwhile, days earlier a military judge convicted Army Private First Class Bradley Manning with multiple counts of espionage for his role in sharing classified material with the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks. Manning’s court-martial is currently in its sentencing phase and could end with Col. Denise Lind sending him to prison for a maximum of 90 years. Read the full story here.

"Yes We Scan" - Apple’s Tim Cook, tech executives meet with Barack Obama to talk surveillance.

"Yes We Scan" - Apple’s Tim Cook, tech executives meet with Barack Obama to talk surveillance.HT: Politico.By Tomy Romm.

President Barack Obama hosted Apple CEO Tim Cook, AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson, Google computer scientist Vint Cerf and other tech executives and civil liberties leaders on Thursday for a closed-door meeting about government surveillance, sources tell POLITICO.

The session, which Obama attended himself, followed a similar gathering earlier this week between top administration officials, tech-industry lobbyists and leading privacy hawks, the sources said. Those earlier, off-the-record discussions centered on the controversy surrounding the NSA as well as commercial privacy issues such as online tracking of consumers. The White House has declined to provide any details about its new outreach since the beginning of the week. A spokesman didn’t comment Thursday about the high-level meeting with the president — and the companies and groups invited also kept quiet when contacted by POLITICO.

Obama has promised more public debate about the country’s counterterrorism policies and privacy safeguards amid a deluge of criticism about the NSA’s controversial surveillance programs. As the steady stream of revelations continues, however, the White House has chosen to meet quietly with tech executives and consumer groups behind closed doors.

The administration’s outreach began Tuesday, when chief of staff Denis McDonough and general counsel Kathy Ruemmler convened a privacy-focused huddle in the Roosevelt Room. Joining them were representatives from the Information Technology Industry Council, TechNet and TechAmerica, which together represent a diverse swath of the tech industry — from major defense contractors to companies like Facebook, Google, Yahoo and Microsoft. The American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic Privacy Information Center were also present, sources said.

While the White House at the time declined to comment, one administration aide, speaking to POLITICO ahead of the Tuesday session, portrayed it as part of a larger campaign.

“This is one of a number of discussions the administration is having with experts and stakeholders in response to the president’s directive to have a national dialogue about how to best protect privacy in a digital era, including how to respect privacy while defending our national security,” the official said.

The second meeting Thursday, however, was organized with greater secrecy.Hmmmm......."The most transparent administration Evah."Read the full story here.

'Restore the Fourth': Reddit, Mozilla, thousands of people set for July 4 NSA spying protest

'Restore The Fourth'

'Restore the Fourth': Reddit, Mozilla, thousands of people set for July 4 NSA spying protest.HT: RussiaToday.

‘Restore the Fourth’ is aimed at restoring the fundamentals of the Fourth Amendment – the part of the Bill of Rights which protects citizens against unlawful searches and seizures. Participants will display an online banner which reads, “This 4th of July, we stand by the 4th Amendment and against the U.S. government’s surveillance of internet users.”

The campaign, which was spawned on Reddit, has the support of several privacy and press freedom advocacy organizations, including Mozilla, Free Press, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Freedom of the Press Foundation, and ColorOfChange.org.

The rally was largely organized by Fight for the Future – another non-profit agency which fights against internet censorship. The organization’s co-founder, Tiffiniy Cheng, said in a statement that “the NSA programs that have been exposed are blatantly unconstitutional, and have a detrimental effect on free speech and freedom of press worldwide." The rally is expected to be Fight for the Future’s largest online mobilization since its actions against the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA).

But the protest doesn’t stop online. Organizers are planning live protests in dozens of US cities, including New York, Philadelphia, Boston, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, San Francisco, Houston, and Atlanta. Doug MacArthur, a member of Restore the Fourth's national board and moderator on Reddit’s r/news, expects between 10,000 and 20,000 people to take part in the protests in the nation’s larger cities.



MacArthur stressed the need for the protest, largely because mainstream media is failing to adequately cover the NSA leaks and what that means for everyday citizens.

"I think if you are on social media right now and political blogs, this might seem like it's an issue that's all over the political blogs. But if you turn on CNN or Fox or MSNBC, you'll see that a lot of the more mainstream channels aren't covering this as much as you might be assuming. So I really think it's important we get more citizens aware of this issue," he said, as quoted by Mashable.

Free Press CEO and President Craig Aaron echoed MacArthur’s sentiments. "We need to bring these government and corporate activities into the light of day, and the only way that will happen is if millions more people get involved and demand accountability, demand change, demand the truth,” he said in a Tuesday press conference.

However, it’s not just internet activists getting involved in the fight – one Hollywood celebrity has been very vocal in expressing his views on the NSA’s surveillance practices.

"How long do we expect rational people to accept using terrorism to justify and excuse endless executive and state power?" actor John Cusack said during a press conference announcing the protests. "Why are so many in our government, our press, our intellectual class afraid of an informed public?"

Cusack, who is a board member of the Freedom of the Press Foundation, complained that many of those defending the NSA surveillance programs are focusing on supposed character flaws of former NSA contractor Edward Snowden instead of questioning the program’s legality.

Harvey Anderson, senior vice president of business and legal affairs at Mozilla, agrees with Cusack. He said in a statement that the spotlight on Snowden is a “big distraction to avoid focusing on the invasions that have actually been occurring.” The lack of transparency about the surveillance programs “undermines the openness of the internet,” he added.

There has been a massive outcry against the surveillance practices since former NSA contractor Edward Snowden leaked sensitive information in May. In just three weeks, StopWatching.us has collected more than 531,000 signatures from people calling for Congress to fully disclose details about the NSA surveillance programs.

Snowden is currently held up in the international transit zone of Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport. He is unable to travel as his passport is invalid. Washington has issued an extradition order against Snowden, calling for international cooperation in returning him to American soil.

The whistleblower has so far made asylum requests for more than a dozen countries, with ten nations already denying him refuge. Venezuela says it will consider Snowden’s request when it is received. Hmmmmm......Why do we have to read about this on Russia Today of all places?Read the full story here.

If You Like The Surveillance State, You'll Love E-Verify.

If You Like The Surveillance State, You'll Love E-Verify.(Marketoracle).By: Dr_Ron_Paul

From massive NSA spying, to IRS targeting of the administration's political opponents, to collection and sharing of our health care information as part of Obamacare, it seems every day we learn of another assault on our privacy. Sadly, this week the Senate took another significant, if little-noticed, step toward creating an authoritarian surveillance state. Buried in the immigration bill is a national identification system called mandatory E-Verify.

The Senate did not spend much time discussing E-Verify, and what little discussion took place was mostly bipartisan praise for its effectiveness as a tool for preventing illegal immigrants from obtaining employment. It is a tragedy that mandatory E-Verify is not receiving more attention, as it will impact nearly every American's privacy and liberty.
The mandatory E-Verify system requires Americans to carry a "tamper-proof" social security card. Before they can legally begin a job, American citizens will have to show the card to their prospective employer, who will then have to verify their identity and eligibility to hold a job in the US by running the information through the newly-created federal E-Verify database. The database will contain photographs taken from passport files and state driver's licenses. The law gives federal bureaucrats broad discretion in adding other "biometric" identifiers to the database. It also gives the bureaucracy broad authority to determine what features the "tamper proof" card should contain.

Regardless of one's views on immigration, the idea that we should have to ask permission from the federal government before taking a job ought to be offensive to all Americans. Under this system, many Americans will be denied the opportunity for work. The E-Verify database will falsely identify thousands as "ineligible," forcing many to lose job opportunities while challenging government computer inaccuracies. E-Verify will also impose additional compliance costs on American businesses, at a time when they are struggling with Obamacare implementation and other regulations.

According to David Bier of Competitive Enterprise Institute, there is nothing stopping the use of E-Verify for purposes unrelated to work verification, and these expanded uses could be authorized by agency rule-making or executive order. So it is not inconceivable that, should this bill pass, the day may come when you are not be able to board an airplane or exercise your second amendment rights without being run through the E-Verify database. It is not outside the realm of possibility that the personal health care information that will soon be collected by the IRS and shared with other federal agencies as part of Obamacare will also be linked to the E-Verify system.

Those who dismiss these concerns as paranoid should consider that the same charges were leveled at those who warned that the PATRIOT Act could lead to the government collecting our phone records and spying on our Internet usage. Just as the PATRIOT Act was only supposed to be used against terrorists but is now used to bypass constitutional protections in matters having noting to do with terrorism or national security, the national ID/mandatory E-Verify database will not only be used to prevent illegal immigrants from gaining employment. Instead, it will eventually be used as another tool to monitor and control the American people.
The recent revelations of the extent of National Security Agency (NSA) spying on Americans, plus recent stories of IRS targeting Tea Party and similar groups for special scrutiny, demonstrates the dangers of trusting government with this type of power. Creation of a federal database with photos and possibly other "biometric" information about American citizens is a great leap forward for the surveillance state. All Americans who still care about limited government and individual liberty should strongly oppose E-Verify.

Dr. Ron Paul
Project Freedom

Congressman Ron Paul of Texas enjoys a national reputation as the premier advocate for liberty in politics today. Dr. Paul is the leading spokesman in Washington for limited constitutional government, low taxes, free markets, and a return to sound monetary policies based on commodity-backed currency. He is known among both his colleagues in Congress and his constituents for his consistent voting record in the House of Representatives: Dr. Paul never votes for legislation unless the proposed measure is expressly authorized by the Constitution. In the words of former Treasury Secretary William Simon, Dr. Paul is the "one exception to the Gang of 535" on Capitol Hill. 

Biometric Database of All Adult Americans Hidden in Immigration Reform.

Biometric Database of All Adult Americans Hidden in Immigration Reform.(Wired).The immigration reform measure the Senate began debating yesterday would create a national biometric database of virtually every adult in the U.S., in what privacy groups fear could be the first step to a ubiquitous national identification system.

Buried in the more than 800 pages of the bipartisan legislation (.pdf) is language mandating the creation of the innocuously-named “photo tool,” a massive federal database administered by the Department of Homeland Security and containing names, ages, Social Security numbers and photographs of everyone in the country with a driver’s license or other state-issued photo ID.

Employers would be obliged to look up every new hire in the database to verify that they match their photo.

This piece of the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act is aimed at curbing employment of undocumented immigrants. But privacy advocates fear the inevitable mission creep, ending with the proof of self being required at polling places, to rent a house, buy a gun, open a bank account, acquire credit, board a plane or even attend a sporting event or log on the internet. Think of it as a government version of Foursquare, with Big Brother cataloging every check-in.

“It starts to change the relationship between the citizen and state, you do have to get permission to do things,” said Chris Calabrese, a congressional lobbyist with the American Civil Liberties Union. “More fundamentally, it could be the start of keeping a record of all things.”Read the full story here.

Girl Scouts “Tag Along” with Common Core.

'The Good old days' - Lost values of by gone days.

Girl Scouts “Tag Along” with Common Core.HT: Heritage.By Lindsey Burke.The Girl Scouts of America now boasts that every merit badge is fully aligned with the Common Core State Standards Initiative—an effort to nationalize the content taught in every public school across the country. The Girl Scouts’ website states in part: “The content of all Girl Scout national proficiency badges and journeys have been correlated by grade level to national Common Core Standards, 21st Century Skills standards, [and] Financial Literacy education standards.”
The Girls Scouts might want to design a badge for understanding big government while they’re at it.
The Obama Administration has heavily incentivized the adoption of Common Core national standards. When the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers crafted the standards for English language arts and mathematics back in early 2009, the Obama Administration quickly began incentivizing the adoption of the standards through grants and No Child Left Behind waivers.
The major concern with Common Core is that it further entrenches the federal government into what is taught in our nation’s schools. We’ve seen creeping federal intervention into education for the past four decades, and such intervention is a zero-sum game: Every inch the federal government takes comes at the expense of state and local control of education.
Yet that creeping federal intervention has now made its way not only into the nation’s public schools but into its civil society institutions such as the Girl Scouts.
Imposing Common Core national standards on the merit badge system appears a far cry from the 100-year-old organization’s original purpose. The organization was originally founded in 1912 to bring girls “into community service and the open air.… Girls Scouts hiked, played basketball, went on camping trips, learning how to tell time by the stars, and studied first aid.”
By contrast, the Common Core standards’ suggested reading list directs students to read government manuals and executive orders.
The Girl Scouts—and states throughout the country—should eschew this push for standardization. State leaders in particular now have the opportunity to reject this centralization, jump off the national standards bandwagon, and work to strengthen their former state standards to better serve the unique needs of students in their states.
Uniformity and centralization are the antithesis of what we know works in education: choice and competition. Policymakers interested in improving educational outcomes should not take the national standards bait and should instead be pushing for robust and expansive educational choice options for all families, allowing parents to choose schools that use a curriculum that meets their children’s unique learning needs.
For their part, the Girl Scouts of America can earn a merit badge in educational freedom by rejecting this push for uniformity and teaching about the merits of choice, competition, and independent thinking.Hmmmm.......Why does this remind me of the deutscher madel?Read the full story here.

Obama budget would order all workers not enrolled in a tax-deferred retirement account to get one.

Obama budget would order all workers not enrolled in a tax-deferred retirement account to get one.HT: WhiteHouseDossier.By KeithKoffler.
Requiring private citizens to engage in a specific form of commerce is a new and pernicious abuse of government power. Most conservatives understand the need for some – even as they try to limit it – government encroachments in the form of taxes, regulations of economic behavior, and dictates in the name of national security. But telling you what you must do, as opposed to providing limited controls on what you do so that you don’t harm others and even perhaps yourself, is a brave new world.

And so, in case you need proof, we have a mostly overlooked provision in the Obama budget – though not by CNS News – which would order all workers not enrolled in a tax-deferred retirement account to get one.

That’s right, if this provision of President Obama’s budget passes, you are automatically enrolled in a retirement account whether you want to be or not. Even if you desperately need those funds for current expenses or are quite sure you octogenarian Aunt Noonie is going to leave you a fist full of stock options. You can opt out if you want, but the whole purpose of these “automatic opt in” schemes is that most people don’t. It’s effectively government deciding on your economic behavior.

We’ll see more of these types of government-directed lifestyle and economic choices as people get used to being ordered by Big Wet Nurse to purchase federally mandated health insurance. One area to watch out for – and we’re already seeing it with New York City Mayor Bloomberg’s cancellation of the Big Gulp and Michelle’s requirement that kids eat slightly seasoned twigs for lunch – is government control of your diet.

Because you, YOU, with your bag of Nachos – you’re raising everybody’s health costs and YOU’D BETTER CUT IT OUT. And if you don’t, well, we’ll just cart some Nachomakers off the jail for purposely addicting children to their product’s irresistible cheesy flavor. Obamacare heralds a brave new world of federal intrusion into your life. But don’t worry too much. The Politburo always knows what’s best.Hmmmm......I'm not a Dictator ....but i'll tell you how to run your lives.Read the full story here.