FBI WATCH MAKING CRUELTY VISIBLE

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Re: FBI WATCH MAKING CRUELTY VISIBLE

Postby fruhmenschen » Tue Oct 28, 2014 2:54 pm

From rigging who gets appointed to the US Supreme Court
as described in attorney Alec Charn's book Cloak and Gavel
to making sure the head of the Department of Justice
friends the Facebook page of Wall Street
taxpayer funded FBI agents work tirelessly to keep
Mr Dow protected while they " Jones " you.


see link for full story
http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSK ... 8?irpc=932


Brooklyn prosecutor emerges as a top candidate to lead U.S. Justice Department
WASHINGTON | Mon Oct 27, 2014


Loretta Lynch, the head federal prosecutor in Brooklyn, is emerging as a leading candidate to replace U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, according to people familiar with the matter, after another top contender withdrew her name from the running last week.

Lynch, Solicitor General Donald Verrilli, and Labor Secretary Thomas Perez are among those being considered, said the people, who declined to be named about the private deliberations.

Lynch, 55, has stirred little controversy during two tenures as U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York and supporters say she could be easily confirmed. She would also be the first black woman to lead the U.S. Department of Justice, which could help counter complaints that the Obama administration is dominated by men.

The White House declined to comment on the search to replace Holder, who announced on Sept. 25 that he planned to step down.

"We don't have any personnel updates, and are certainly not going to speculate on any decisions before the president makes them,” White House spokesman Eric Schultz said.

Holder, the first black U.S. Attorney General who came into office in 2009, has said he will stay in the post until the Senate confirms a successor.

A spokeswoman for Lynch, Zugiel Soto, also declined comment.

The administration of President Barack Obama has considered multiple candidates and the White House is not expected to announce a nominee until after the midterm elections next week, so a dark horse candidate could still emerge.

Former White House counsel Kathryn Ruemmler pulled out of consideration for the job amid concerns that her involvement in controversial White House decisions could make it difficult to get her confirmed by the Senate.

Solicitor General Verrilli and Labor Secretary Perez both have an advantage of having had a working relationship with Obama. Lynch does not but she is one of several candidates Holder has encouraged the White House to look at, two sources said. Vetting inquiries into Lynch have been underway, sources said.

Lynch has developed a close relationship with Holder from the New York City borough of Brooklyn while keeping a much lower profile than her counterpart across the East River, Preet Bharara, the U.S. Attorney for Manhattan who built his name on a string of big insider-trading cases and prosecutions of politicians for corruption.

Lynch's office did indict Republican Congressman Michael Grimm in April for fraud, and has worked with Justice Department headquarters on several big cases. Her office helped investigate Citigroup Inc over shoddy mortgage securities the bank sold, which led the bank to enter into a $7 billion settlement in July. Her office was also involved in the December 2012 $1.2 billion accord with HSBC over the bank's lapses in its anti-money laundering controls.

Lynch, who grew up in North Carolina and attended Harvard University for college and law school, has chaired the attorney general's advisory committee since the beginning of 2013.

She served previously at the Justice Department, starting as a drug and violent crime prosecutor at the U.S. Attorney's office in 1990. She also previously headed the office in Brooklyn between 1999 and 2001, when she left for private practice at the law firm Hogan & Hartson (now Hogan Lovells) and then served as a board member of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
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Re: FBI WATCH MAKING CRUELTY VISIBLE

Postby fruhmenschen » Wed Oct 29, 2014 1:17 pm

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014 ... -warrants/




LAW & DISORDER / CIVILIZATION & DISCONTENTS
FBI cut hotel Internet access, sent agents to “fix” it without warrants
Alleged online gambling ring broken up after agents posed as the cable guy.
- Oct 29 2014, 10:10am EDT
When the FBI applied for warrants this summer to raid three $25,000-per-night villas at Caesar's Palace Hotel and Casino, it omitted some key investigatory details that eventually resulted in the arrest of eight individuals, including an alleged leader of a well-known Chinese crime syndicate, defense lawyers maintained in Las Vegas federal court documents late Tuesday.

The authorities built, in part, a case for a search warrant (PDF) by turning off Internet access in three villas shared by the eight individuals arrested. At various points, an agent of the FBI and a Nevada gaming official posed as the cable guy, secretly filming while gathering evidence of what they allege was a bookmaking ring where "hundreds of millions of dollars in illegal bets" on World Cup soccer were taking place.

"If this Court authorizes this duplicity, the government will be free to employ similar schemes in virtually every context to enter the homes of perfectly innocent people. Agents will frequently have no incentive to follow the warrant procedure required by the Constitution," defense lawyers wrote the Las Vegas federal magistrate presiding over the prosecution.

A hearing is set for December, and the defense will argue for a dismissal of the charges.

One of the accused defendants is Paul Phua, charged under the name Wei Seng Phua. The government alleges that the 50-year-old Malaysian man is a "high-ranking member" (PDF) of the 14K Triad specializing in loan sharking, illegal gambling, prostitution, and drug trafficking.

The investigation began this summer when the defendants started requesting a substantial amount of electronic equipment and Internet connections from Caesars Palace staff, the government said. A technician was suspicious and alerted casino security that a bookmaking operation might be underway, the government said in court papers. Nowhere in the search warrant request, however, did the authorities mention that they saw supposed wagering on computers after posing as technicians who in reality briefly disconnected the Internet.

The search warrant that led to the arrests would not have been issued had the judge been told the truth, the defense said in court papers. Evidence of what the defense called an unlawful "scheme" against its clients was produced (PDF) by the government in the pre-trial discovery process, the defense lawyers wrote (PDF):

The notion that an individual “consents” to such searches—so that the government is free to ignore the Fourth Amendment’s explicit warrant requirement—is, in a word, absurd. Our lives cannot be private—and our personal relationships intimate—if each physical connection that links our homes to the outside world doubles as a ready-made excuse for the government to conduct a secret, suspicionless, warrantless search. Only a few remote log cabins lack any Internet, electric, gas, water, cable, or telephone service
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Re: FBI WATCH MAKING CRUELTY VISIBLE

Postby fruhmenschen » Wed Oct 29, 2014 9:24 pm

In 1992 we brought Cincinnati Bell telephone supervisor
and Cincinnati investigative reporter Greg Flannery
to speak at Bates College in Lewiston Maine.

Leonard Gates told the audience how he was committing voter fraud
for the Cincinnati taxpayer funded FBI office.
Greg Flannery discussed the article he wrote in 1989
called Reach Out and Tap Someone for the national magazine In These Times.
google
leonard gates bob draise FBI voter fraud

see link for flannery article
https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http ... r22/12-14/


In other news



http://www.opednews.com/populum/pagem.p ... 9-611.html


GOP-led Purge Threat to 3.5 Million Voters: Al Jazeera Expose

By Greg Palast (about the author)

October 29, 2014 at 09:25:19
Reprinted from us4.campaign-archive1.com

Election officials in 27 states, most of them Republicans, have launched a program that threatens a massive purge of voter rolls, especially targeting minority voters.

Al Jazeera America has obtained 2.1 million names from the target lists, kept confidential until now. Experts reviewing the lists conclude it is suspiciously over-weighted with Black, Hispanic and Asian-American voters.

The targeted voters have been tagged as "potential duplicate voters," suspected of voting twice in the same election, in two different states, a felony crime punishable by 2-10 years in prison.

Until now, state officials conducting the purge have refused to turn over their lists on grounds that these voters are all subjects of a criminal investigation.
Read the full expose
Watch the 2-part TV report on Al Jazeera America,
tonight & Thursday night at 9pm ET -- on America Tonight
(check your local channel guide)
The match lists of suspected double voters, called Interstate Crosscheck, has been compiled for each state by Kansas' controversial Republican Secretary of State, Kris Kobach.

The lists are rife with literally millions of obvious mis-matches:
Al Jazeera found that nearly a fourth (23% ) of the accused voters lack matching middle names. For example, Kevin Thomas Hayes of Durham, North Carolina, is allegedly the same man who voted in Alexandria, Virginia, as Kevin Antonio Hayes.

The lists are rife with literally millions of obvious mis-matches
(image by Greg Palast)
"Jr." and "Sr." are regularly mismatched, potentially disenfranchising two generations in the same family.

While Kobach, in his public description of Crosscheck, claims that double voters are matched by Social Security number, in fact, internal documents admit that "Social Security numbers might or might not match."

So far, no case has been made against a single one of the accused double-voters on the lists, though tens of thousands have already lost their right to vote based on inclusion in the lists.
North Carolina has hired a full-time former FBI agent to arrest double voters. However, because the match list of 190,000 suspects in that state is so recklessly compiled, the Board of Elections has admitted to Al Jazeera that not one voter has been charged with the crime of voting twice. Nevertheless, the Republican-controlled Board of Elections has begun the process of removing the registration of voters on the lists.
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Re: FBI WATCH MAKING CRUELTY VISIBLE

Postby fruhmenschen » Thu Oct 30, 2014 2:27 am

see link for full story
http://m.sandiegoreader.com/news/2014/o ... tes=mobile

DO YOU PLEAD THE 5TH, SHERIFF GORE?

Lawsuit seeks to restore Facebook comment pertaining to Ruby




Oct. 29, 2014
The shooting of an unarmed woman holding her baby in Ruby Ridge, Idaho, in 1992 continues to follow San Diego County sheriff Bill Gore around and that goes for social media sites. Gore, according to a federal lawsuit, continues to dodge questions about the day’s events.

On October 27, Dimitrios Karras filed a federal complaint alleging that Sheriff Gore and his staff deleted comments he posted to the sheriff department's Facebook page, thus violating his right to free speech.

Karras posted his comment on September 2, 2014. It read:

"Sheriff Gore: Do you plead the 5th about your involvement in the MURDER of an unarmed woman who was holding her baby? REMEMBER RUBY RIDGE.”

Within an hour, the comment was removed and Karras was informed that he was not allowed to post any more comments on to the sheriff's Facebook fan page.

More than 22 years have elapsed since the FBI standoff at Randy Weaver's cabin in Ruby Ridge. At the time, Gore served as the bureau chief in Seattle, the lead office in charge of the standoff. Weaver, a white separatist facing gun charges, was holed up in the cabin along with his wife Vicki, infant daughter, and a man named Kevin Harrison.

Days before the seige, a gun battle occurred between FBI agent Michael Degan and Weaver, Harrison, and Weaver's 14-year-old son Sammy as they walked in the woods near the cabin. Weaver's son along with agent Degan were killed during the shootout. The men retreated back to the cabin where they stayed while agents surrounded the cabin.

The next day, Weaver and Harrison tried to leave to find a burial place for the deceased boy. During another shootout that ensued, Weaver's wife Vicki was shot and killed while holding her baby daughter. The men later surrendered. The FBI soon came under scrutiny for the tactics used and the murder of an unarmed woman. Gore denied that he gave the shooter the green light. He refused to testify at a congressional hearing.

Two decades later, people such as Karras still want an answer from Gore; Facebook proved to be no means of getting one, either.


"Despite receiving Plaintiff’s letter, and being on notice of First Amendment violations, Defendants continue to cherry-pick comments on the Sheriff’s Department Facebook fan page in order to cultivate a self-serving political image," reads the federal lawsuit. "Defendants continue to punish those that fail to conform to the government message by banning them from
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Re: FBI WATCH MAKING CRUELTY VISIBLE

Postby fruhmenschen » Fri Oct 31, 2014 12:18 am

see link for full story


FBI demands new powers to hack into computers and carry out surveillance
Agency requests rule change but civil liberties groups say ‘extremely invasive’ technique amounts to unconstitutional power grab

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014 ... rveillance



Wednesday 29 October 2014 14.42 EDT


The FBI is attempting to persuade an obscure regulatory body in Washington to change its rules of engagement in order to seize significant new powers to hack into and carry out surveillance of computers throughout the US and around the world.

Civil liberties groups warn that the proposed rule change amounts to a power grab by the agency that would ride roughshod over strict limits to searches and seizures laid out under the fourth amendment of the US constitution, as well as violate first amendment privacy rights. They have protested that the FBI is seeking to transform its cyber capabilities with minimal public debate and with no congressional oversight.

The regulatory body to which the Department of Justice has applied to make the rule change, the advisory committee on criminal rules, will meet for the first time on November 5 to discuss the issue. The panel will be addressed by a slew of technology experts and privacy advocates concerned about the possible ramifications were the proposals allowed to go into effect next year.

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“This is a giant step forward for the FBI’s operational capabilities, without any consideration of the policy implications. To be seeking these powers at a time of heightened international concern about US surveillance is an especially brazen and potentially dangerous move,” said Ahmed Ghappour, an expert in computer law at University of California, Hastings college of the law, who will be addressing next week’s hearing.

The proposed operating changes related to rule 41 of the federal rules of criminal procedure, the terms under which the FBI is allowed to conduct searches under court-approved warrants. Under existing wording, warrants have to be highly focused on specific locations where suspected criminal activity is occurring and approved by judges located in that same district.

But under the proposed amendment, a judge can issue a warrant that would allow the FBI to hack into any computer, no matter where it is located. The change is designed specifically to help federal investigators carry out surveillance on computers that have been “anonymized” – that is, their location has been hidden using tools such as Tor.

The amendment inserts a clause that would allow a judge to issue warrants to gain “remote access” to computers “located within or outside that district” (emphasis added) in cases in which the “district where the media or information is located has been concealed through technological means”. The expanded powers to stray across district boundaries would apply to any criminal investigation, not just to terrorist cases as at present.

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Were the amendment to be granted by the regulatory committee, the FBI would have the green light to unleash its capabilities – known as “network investigative techniques” – on computers across America and beyond. The techniques involve clandestinely installing malicious software, or malware, onto a computer that in turn allows federal agents effectively to control the machine, downloading all its digital contents, switching its camera or microphone on or off, and even taking over other computers in its network.

“This is an extremely invasive technique,” said Chris Soghoian, principal technologist of the American Civil Liberties Union, who will also be addressing the hearing. “We are talking here about giving the FBI the green light to hack into any computer in the country or around the world.”

A glimpse into the kinds of operations that could multiply under the new powers was gained this week when Soghoian discovered from documents obtained by the Electronic Frontier Foundation that in 2007 the FBI had faked an Associated Press story as a ruse to insert malware into the computer of a US-based bomb plot suspect. The revelation prompted angry responses from the AP and from the Seattle Times, whose name was also invoked in the documents, though the FBI said it had not in the end imitated the newspaper.

Civil liberties and privacy groups are particularly alarmed that the FBI is seeking such a huge step up in its capabilities through such an apparently backdoor route. Soghoian said of next week’s meeting: “This should not be the first public forum for discussion of an issue of this magnitude.”

Jennifer Granick, director of civil liberties at the Stanford center for internet and society, said that “this is an investigative technique that we haven’t seen before and we haven’t thrashed out the implications. It absolutely should not be done through a rule change – it has to be fully debated publicly, and Congress must be involved.”

Ghappour has also highlighted the potential fall-out internationally were the amendment to be approved. Under current rules, there are no fourth amendment restrictions to US government surveillance activities in other countries as the US constitution only applies to domestic territory.

However, the US government does accept that it should only carry out clandestine searches abroad where the fourth amendment’s “basic requirement of reasonableness” applies. In a letter setting out its case for the rule 41 reform, the department of justice states that new warrants issued to authorise FBI hacking into computers whose location was unknown would “support the reasonableness of the search”.

Ghappour fears that such a statement amounts to “possibly the broadest expansion of extraterritorial surveillance power since the FBI’s inception”. He told the Guardian that “for the first time the courts will be asked to issue warrants allowing searches outside the country”.

He warned that the diplomatic consequences could be serious, with short-term FBI investigations undermining the long-term international relationship building of the US state department. “In the age of cyber attacks, this sort of thing can scale up pretty quickly.”

Another insight into the expansive thrust of US government thinking in terms of its cyber ambitions was gleaned recently in the prosecution of Ross Ulbricht, the alleged founder of the billion-dollar drug site the Silk Road. Experts suspect that the FBI hacked into the Silk Road server, that was located in Reykjavik, Iceland, though the agency denies that.

In recent legal argument, US prosecutors claimed tha
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Re: FBI WATCH MAKING CRUELTY VISIBLE

Postby fruhmenschen » Fri Oct 31, 2014 11:02 pm

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/cri ... story.html


see link for full story

Probe of FBI agent leads to release of convicted drug dealers from prison



October 31 at 5:36 PM



An investigation into possible misconduct by an FBI agent has forced authorities to quietly release at least a dozen convicts serving prison sentences for distributing drugs in the District and its suburbs, according to law enforcement officials, court documents and defense attorneys.

In addition, several suspects awaiting trial on drug charges and a man convicted but not yet sentenced have also been freed. Officials said more cases­ that could involve the agent are under scrutiny, including one involving 21 defendants.

None of the suspects or felons have had their charges dropped or convictions overturned. Most are on home detention in what many of their attorneys describe as a holding pattern, awaiting the outcome of the investigation into the agent, who was assigned to a D.C. police task force.


The scope and type of alleged misconduct by the agent have not been revealed, but defense lawyers involved in the cases­ described the mass freeing of felons as virtually unprecedented — and an indication that convictions could be in jeopardy. Prosecutors are periodically faced with having to drop cases over police misconduct, but it is unusual to free those who have been found guilty.

A law enforcement official speaking on the condition of anonymity said the agent has been suspended indefinitely. The agent has not been criminally charged.

The U.S. attorney’s office for the District said in a statement Friday that it is “conducting a case-by-case review of matters in which the FBI agent at issue played some role.”

“We have already begun taking steps to address this issue and are committed to doing everything that is necessary to preserve the integrity of the criminal justice process,” the statement said.

The decision to release the defendants and convicts was made with little or vague public notice. In one case, eight convicts and one defendant who pleaded not guilty were released to home detention Monday, with no indication publicly filed in court. One man who had served nine months of a 10-year sentence was sent back to the District from a federal prison in North Carolina. In another case, a cryptic court document ordered the “immediate release from incarceration” on Oct. 17 of four convicts and others with pending trials for the “duration of a current investigation.”


“I’ve never, ever seen something like this before,” said Robert Lee Jenkins Jr., a lawyer from Alexandria who is representing Anthony McDuffie, 50, who pleaded guilty to a drug conspiracy charge and has been released pending sentencing. “It suggests to me that whatever is going on is very significant.”

Said another defense lawyer, Gregory English, whose client was released as he awaits trial: “This is stunning.”


Among the cases was one that the head of the FBI’s Washington Field Office highlighted in a news release last year as the culmination of a year-long investigation that police said traced heroin and cocaine from suppliers in California to street dealers in the District, Maryland and Virginia. In all, 11 pounds of the drugs were seized in the searches of 26 homes and storage facilities, along with five guns. Affidavits filed in the case show that police listened in on cellphone calls during money and drug drops at a Metro station in Northeast and a barbecue restaurant in Northwest and that the dealers frequently exchanged bundles of cash totaling as much as $85,000.

Police also alleged that the group was involved in identity theft involving hundreds of credit cards, Social Security cards and driver’s licenses. U.S. Attorney Ronald C. Machen Jr. hailed the indictments last year and said police were “able to remove guns, drugs and dangerous people from the streets and take another step toward making our community safer.”

Now, all 13 people indicted — including five who pleaded guilty — are free from jail or prison. One is the alleged ringleader, Lester Pryor Jr., 63, who is awaiting trial.

English, who is representing Brandon Beale, 58, in the Pryor case, said he was planning to fight the charges­ before the revelations. He said Beale, who has been freed pending trial, was an addict, not a distributor, and he plans to argue that authorities targeted “what they thought was a group of major dealers who turned out to be a very small one,” and that the others indicted were mostly users.


“It cost the FBI a lot of money to run a wiretap, and they didn’t get what they wanted,” said English, a former federal prosecutor. He said his case is “in a holding pattern” but added: “I’d be surprised if the prosecutor proceeds with the case. If they do, our case has become infinitely stronger.”

In a statement, the spokesman for the FBI’s Washington Field Office said allegations regarding the agent first surfaced the week of Sept. 29 and involved “possible misconduct.” The statement said authorities “took immediate steps to address the incident” that included notifying prosecutors who had cases­ involving the agent.

The Justice Department’s inspector general’s office is leading the investigation into the agent. FBI officials declined further comment, and D.C. police declined to comment.

Some earlier cases­ of police misconduct in the District have had sweeping implications. In 1987, authorities dropped 300 pending criminal cases­ amid an investigation into D.C. police officers skimming drugs and money seized during raids. In that same case, convictions were dismissed against 12 who had already been sentenced.

Authorities said they were looking into virtually every case in which the agent, who has not been publicly identified, was involved. It was unclear what role the agent has had in the cases thus far.

One of those cases involves alleged drug kingpin Angel Costello and 11 others indicted with him on drug charges, according to officials familiar with the investigation. Although there was no notice publicly filed in U.S. District Court indicating a change of status for the defendants, the Federal Bureau of Prisons inmate locator shows eight people convicted in the case were freed Monday — months and years before completing their sentences. Costello has pleaded not guilty and is awaiting trial.

In the Pryor case, a three-page order in the public court file calls for the release of five defendants who pleaded guilty, four of whom had already been sentenced. U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton describes the “court’s authorization to order the [defendants’] immediate release from incarceration for the duration of a current investigation being conducted by the government that resulted from its acquisition of new evidence.” He added that the release was in the “interest of justice.”


Several defense lawyers interviewed said they are in a difficult position because they know little of the allegations involving the agent. Many of the defendants have what are called “status” hearings in the next few weeks during which lawyers said they hope to learn additional details.

Prosecutors could still move forward with some or all of the cases but would face an additional hurdle of proving that any misconduct on the part of the agent did not have any impact on the charges. Officials said decisions will be made on the merits of the case against each suspect.

Defense lawyer Ron Earnest, who is representing James “Sweet Baby James” Burkley, 59, said he readily recommended that his client accept a seven-year prison sentence for his alleged role in the Pryor drug case. Burkley pleaded guilty Sept. 23, a week before the FBI said the alleged misconduct became known.

Earnest, who has an office in Riverdale, Md., said that in late October his client called him from the D.C. jail, where he was awaiting placement in a federal prison in North Carolina. He said Burkley told him that co-defendants in the case were being released, including the alleged kingpin.

Earnest said he called prosecutors and was soon summoned to court. He said the judge told him and other defense lawyers that “something was wrong with the investigation” and “everybody would be released, including the people who pleaded guilty.”
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Re: FBI WATCH MAKING CRUELTY VISIBLE

Postby fruhmenschen » Fri Oct 31, 2014 11:13 pm

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Re: FBI WATCH MAKING CRUELTY VISIBLE

Postby fruhmenschen » Sat Nov 01, 2014 7:51 pm

The murders of Special Agents, Christopher Lorek and Stephen Shaw

see link for full story


http://therebel.org/en/andrew-macgregor ... ephen-shaw


Created on 13 March 2014

The media has informed us that the two FBI Special Agents, Christopher Lorek and Stephen Shaw were in charge of the FBI squad that ‘arrested’ the ‘bomber suspect’ Dzokhar Tsarnaev on the 19th of April 2013. Both of these men belonged to the ‘Hostage Rescue Team’ and as such would have to be considered ‘out of the loop’ or not aware of Agent James F. Yacone’s agenda.

I would suggest that when ‘Yacone’s SWAT teams opened fire on Dzokhar Tsarnaev as he emerged from the boat he had been hiding in, that both Lorek and Shaw ordered an immediate ceasefire, and thus saved the young Tsarnaev’s life, but were unable to stop one of the SWAT team from slitting his throat.

Lorek and Shaw’s response to this felonious behaviour would have been to confront Special Agent James Yacone, and inform him of their observations of his criminal behaviour, and threaten retaliatory action if it continued. I would also believe that both Lorek and Shaw would have then written a full report on what they observed to be forwarded to the Head of the FBI, Director Robert S. Mueller.

If the problem that had arisen here had stayed with the FBI Director, then Mueller could have informed both Lorek and Shaw that Yacone’s actions were valid in the ‘present situation’ and ordered both Lorek and Shaw to desist from their objections. However, this would have left a possible impediment to Yacone’s course of action as if he continued to murder what he considered a ‘security breach’, the possibility of Lorek and Shaw exposing the affair was a strong possibility. This means that Special Agent James F. Yacone had to take measures to remove that threat.

I cannot see FBI Director Robert S. Mueller authorising the murder of two of his agents. Nor can I see Yacone approaching Mueller for that authorisation. To accomplish this act, Yacone had to go above Robert S. Mueller, and that simply means, the Secretary of State, John Kerry. Again there is no reason to believe that FBI Director, Robert S. Mueller was aware of the problems that involved the situation in Kiev, but the Secretary of State, John Kerry was very well aware.

Special Agent James F. Yacone received the authorisation to murder FBI agents Lorek and Shaw. On Friday the 17th of May, those actions were carried out. Then three days later on the 20th of May, Yacone murdered Ibragim Todashev.

On what authorisation were the murders of FBI Special Agents Christopher Lorek and Stephen Shaw murdered? Remember President Obama’s ‘Executive Orders’ for the assassination of American citizens!
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Re: FBI WATCH MAKING CRUELTY VISIBLE

Postby fruhmenschen » Sat Nov 01, 2014 9:16 pm

see link for full story


http://www.al.com/news/huntsville/index ... 57100.html



Huntsville schools paid $157,000 to former FBI agent, social media monitoring led to 14 expulsions



November 01, 2014





HUNTSVILLE, Alabama -- Huntsville City Schools paid a former FBI agent $157,000 last year to oversee security improvements, including the investigation of social media activity of public school students.

That online snooping effort, according to records provided on Thursday, led to the expulsion of just 14 students last school year. Of those students, 12 were African-American.

Madison County Commissioner Bob Harrison said the numbers suggest the system is targeting social media activities of black children. "That is effectively targeting or profiling black children in terms of behavior and behavioral issues," said Harrison.

But board member Laurie McCaulley, the only African-American member of the city school board, said expulsions are caused by serious offenses, involving weapons, drugs or sex.

"These numbers tell me that I have kids with some major issues," said McCaulley. "What I think the board is doing is trying to provide a safe environment for all children."

AL.com on Oct. 1 requested public records listing expulsions by race and expenses related to the security consultants involved in the online investigations known as the SAFe program. On Oct. 30, Huntsville City Schools provided records showing the system expelled 305 students last year. Of those, 238 were black.

That means 78 percent of all expulsions involved black children in a system where 40 percent of students are black. Expulsions related to social media investigations through the SAFe program were a small part of that total. Of those 14 expulsions related to SAFe, 86 percent involved black students.

The system also provided paperwork stating the system paid former FBI agent Chris McRae $157,190 in the last fiscal year. McRae runs the SAFe program. (Although the system took weeks to respond, this figure had been shared online by board candidate Elisa Ferrell a month ago.)

The SAFe program came to light through internal documents provided to AL.com. In subsequent interviews, Superintendent Casey Wardynski said the system security personnel investigated the social media accounts of 600 out of 24,000 city students since January.

Wardysnki has said the program operates on tips from teachers or students. Security personnel look for images of guns or gang signs on social media sites like Facebook


Keith Ward, spokesman for city schools, said McRae oversees the SAFe program, but also handles other consulting work related to security.

The system this week provided a 2012 proposal showing a list of salaries to be paid through T&W Operations, the consulting firm that employs McRae. Huntsville provided records showing $586,000 to be paid for salaries of T&W employees. That includes money for McRae, but also money for at least four other individuals in data
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Re: FBI WATCH MAKING CRUELTY VISIBLE

Postby fruhmenschen » Sat Nov 01, 2014 10:04 pm

see link for full story

http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/news/hea ... orism.html



Agudath Israel Pre-Election Legislative Breakfast Focuses on Keeping NYC Safe From International Terrorism






October 31, 2014 – New York – At Agudath Israel of America’s Annual Pre-Election Legislative Breakfast, Jewish community activists, legislators and law enforcement officials heard about the challenge of terrorism and its impact on New York City law enforcement. They were highly encouraged by reports of recent successes on our shores: preventions of attacks and indictments of terrorists and organizations that support them financially.
Held at the Down Town Association in Lower Manhattan, the breakfast was coordinated by The Friedlander Group and sponsored by Atlantis National Services, Inc. and MedReview. The two main speakers were Richard Frankel, FBI Special Agent in Charge of the FBI Criminal Division, previously in Charge of the Counter-terrorism Division, and Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr.
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On the agenda as well was a tribute to the late Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau Jr. for his key role in establishing the U.S. War Refugee Board in 1944, during the waning days of World War II, which is credited with saving over 200,000 Jews. His grandson, Robert P. Morgenthau, represented the Morgenthau family and accepted the award on their behalf.
Rabbi Chaim Dovid Zwiebel, Agudath Israel’s Executive Vice President and the Breakfast Chairman, acknowledged the partnership of elected officials with a politically engaged Jewish community, and recognized the hard work of Mr. Shlomo Werdiger, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Agudath Israel, and Rabbi Abba Cohen, Agudath Israel’s Vice President for Federal Affairs and Washington Director.
Abe Eisner, a friend of Agudath Israel and Chairman of the Board of HASC Center, noted the presence of Assemblywoman Helene Weinstein and praised her for her key leadership role, particularly in the area of special education which resulted in key policy changes impacting our community.
Joseph B. Stamm, Breakfast Co-Chair and CEO of MedReview, introduced Queens Borough President Melinda Katz, who in turn lauded Agudath Israel for its powerful voice in defending Israel and standing against anti-Semitism.
Radni Davoodi, founding partner of Atlantis National Services, Inc., and an Iranian Jew who found refuge and success in the United States, expressed gratitude to this country and introduced District Attorney Cy Vance.
DA Vance said that as the world financial center, New York City has a special place in the struggle against terrorism. His office, with a staff of 530 lawyers and a workload of over 100,000 cases a year, has become a home for counter-terrorism. He prosecuted seven major cases against financial institutions that violated United States sanctions and financed terrorist regimes. BNP Paripas, a French bank, was fined 8.9 billion dollars for financing the Sudanese, Iranian and Cuban regimes; a large portion of those funds were used for counter-terrorism equipment for the New York Police Department.
The challenge, Mr. Vance said, is in finding radicalized individuals who aren’t tied formally to Al Quaeda, such as Zarein Ahmedzay, indicted for planning to explode a bomb in the New York City subway system. Attendees took strength, no doubt, from DA Vance’s assertion that “our office, in partnership with the Federal government, is better prepared than ever to fight terrorism.”
Peter Rebenwurzel, Chairman of the Raoul Wallenberg Centennial Celebration Commission, which led the efforts to award Raoul Wallenberg with a Congressional Gold Medal this past summer, spoke of the significance of this year being the 70th anniversary since the establishment of the War Refugee Board by Henry Morgenthau Jr. The Board recruited Raoul Wallenberg to save the remnants of Hungarian Jewry. He also spoke about the prevalence of anti-Semitism even at the highest level of US government which prevented the rescue of European Jewry with the notable exception of Mr. Morgenthau who felt that the overwhelming evidence of the Holocaust could no longer be ignored, and persuaded President Roosevelt to establish the board.
Robert Morgenthau, son of the legendary former Manhattan DA Robert Morgenthau Jr., spoke movingly of his grandfather’s quest to save lives. A silver charity box was then presented to the Morgenthau family by Mr. Werdiger in the name of Agudath Israel and the Holocaust survivors and their families.
Rabbi Abe Friedman, a community leader and law enforcement chaplain who enjoys a close working relationship with the FBI and works closely with Agudath Israel, introduced Special Agent in Charge Frankel, and praised him for thwarting the Bronx Synagogue bombing.
Special Agent in Charge Frankel said that since 9/11, the FBI has become a major force in counter-terrorism. One key was the growth and greater efficiency of the Joint Terrorism Task Forces (JTTF), which pair the FBI with other law enforcement agencies. Started in 1970, there are now over 100 JTTFs nationwide, with more than 4,000 members (over four times the pre-9/11 total).
Finally, SAC Frankel voiced concern over proposed legislation that would allow much stronger encryption by technology companies such as Google, preventing access to information that has saved lives in the past.
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Re: FBI WATCH MAKING CRUELTY VISIBLE

Postby fruhmenschen » Sun Nov 02, 2014 12:50 am

http://m.fightbacknews.org/2014/11/1/pa ... ding-trial


Palestinian American leader Rasmea Odeh heading to trial
Commentary by Joe Iosbaker | November 1, 2014

Rasmea Odeh with Steven Salaita at University of Chicago. (FightBack!News/Staff)
Chicago, IL - Rasmea Odeh, the well-known activist in the Palestinian community of Chicago and target of persecution by the U.S. government, goes on trial Nov. 4.

Charged with immigration fraud, the case against her is based on the grounds that, in her application for citizenship ten years ago, she didn’t mention that she was arrested in Palestine 45 years ago. Her arrest was at the hands of the Israeli defense forces, which had illegally seized Palestinian territory. She was raped and tortured by her captors, and forced to sign a confession to stop the abuse. Then an Israeli military court found her guilty without due process and gave her a life sentence. She was released after ten years in a prisoner exchange.

Why does the Department of Justice uphold decisions made by Israel’s military court? The U.S. has a history of condemning military courts in other countries. And when President Obama recently spoke at the U.N., he lectured other world leaders that it was unacceptable today to occupy another nation’s land. Why doesn’t that apply to Israel’s occupation of Palestine?

U.S. backing of Israeli occupation

The U.S. government has always spoken out of both sides of its mouth. U.S. presidents tell the Palestinians they deserve their own state, but refuse to stop Israel’s thousands of illegal settlements in Palestinian areas. The Obama administration warns against countries that defy the ‘international community,’ but has vetoed almost every single United Nations Security Council resolution condemning Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine.

There’s no denying what is happening: Israel serves the interests of the U.S. elites in the Middle East. The Israeli regime couldn’t exist without the $3 billion a year in military aid it receives from the U.S. It serves the Pentagon as a landlocked aircraft carrier. The aid - and the unjust occupation of Palestine – are the price the U.S. is willing to pay to hold down the Arab and other peoples of the Middle East.

Standing with Israel is a constant refrain from every politician in Washington. For Rasmea Odeh, this means that U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade’s office accepts the stance of the kangaroo court in Israel that convicted her.

Defeat of Judge Borman

The first judge assigned to hear her case was Paul Borman. Borman had many ties to Israel, having helped raise millions to support the apartheid government there. A campaign by the Rasmea Defense Committee called for Borman to recuse himself. At first refusing, he gave in when it was exposed that his family had partial ownership of the grocery store that was the target of the bombing that Rasmea was forced to confess to. This was a huge embarrassment for the federal court, which always denies that decisions are affected one way or the other by politics.

Borman’s recusal was a victory which rallied the spirits of Rasmea and her many supporters. It proved to the movement for justice for Rasmea and for Palestine that if we fight, we can win. It shows us that a great legal defense is required, but so is a group of supporters packing the courtroom each time Rasmea is there.

Judge Gershwin Drain

On Oct. 2, Rasmea appeared before the new judge, Gershwin Drain, where attorneys presented numerous motions. The first decision by Drain was not good. Attorney Michael Deutsch argued that the charges against Rasmea should be dismissed, showing how the case against her began with the illegal investigation of the group of 23 anti-war and international solidarity activists who were subpoenaed to a federal grand jury in 2010. Drain agreed with the prosecution’s counter-argument, that the defense hadn’t proven its case.

Tom Burke of the Committee to Stop FBI Repression (CSFR) commented, “The U.S. government doesn’t want to admit its own crimes. It’s a fact that hundreds of Arabs and Muslims have been targeted by successive administrations only for being Arab or Muslim, or for loving their own people. The raids and subpoenas of the anti-war and international solidarity activists in 2010 were violations of our First Amendment rights.”

Although that decision went against Odeh, Hatem Abudayyeh of the U.S. Palestinian Community Network (USPCN) said, “Rasmea, her lawyers and her supporters sent a message to the court that there is a pattern of the Department of Justice abusing those involved in Palestine support work.”

Latest twist: Attack on our right to fight back

In early October, Prosecutor Jonathan Tukel launched an attack on the Rasmea Defense Committee and Hatem Abudayyeh. Tukel accused Rasmea’s supporters of jury tampering. He alleged that the rallies involving members of the Palestinian community and anti-war activists are “almost certainly criminal.” Tukel is asking for an “anonymous jury” - keeping the names of the jury secret from the public and from Rasmea’s defense attorneys. Tukel used an anonymous jury for the trial of the Underwear Bomber in 2009. The meaning of his motion could not be more clear: Odeh and her supporters are dangerous to the members of the jury.

This would be laughable if the impact wasn’t so terrible. In fact, this is an effort by the prosecution to tamper with the jury. Making jurors and prospective jurors operate in secret makes them think that they are in danger.

There is nothing violent in the efforts of her defense campaign. The only violence that impacts this trial is the inhumane brutality with which the Israeli military treated Odeh in 1969. With each passing day, more people and organizations that support civil liberties are adding their voices to oppose this latest move.

‘I believe that we will win’

This attack by the office of U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade points to one other thing: the movement that supports Rasmea is putting Israel on trial. Especially after the international outcry that responded to the massacres in Gaza this summer, Israel is seen worldwide as the brutal, apartheid regime that it is. Most people hear the ring of truth when they are told that Rasmea was viciously abused at the hands of Israel.

On Oct. 2, in front of the court house in Detroit, Muhammad Sankari of the U.S. Palestinian Community Network led Rasmea’s friends and neighbors in chanting, “I believe we will win.” One of the Palestinian women supporters raised her voice louder and said, “I believe we are winning.” It appears that McQuade and Tukel fear that to be true, and are acting to put an end to the trial in the court of public opinion, and are attempting to rig the outcome of the legal proceeding as well. The rising movement of support for Palestine – the Boycott, Divestment and Sanction (BDS) campaign, the efforts for an arms embargo to stop companies like Boeing that provide the killing tools to Israel, the campus movement to defend critics of Israel like Professor Steven Salaita at the University of Illinois and the massive marches like those in Chicago that mobilized to halt the slaughter in Gaza – is in fact winning.

All out for Detroit

A major mobilization Is underway to pack the courtroom during Odeh’s Nov. 4 trial. “People from around the country will be coming to Detroit to support Rasmea. We will stand with her at her trial and demand Justice,” stated Jess Sundin of the Committee to Stop FBI Repression.
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Re: FBI WATCH MAKING CRUELTY VISIBLE

Postby fruhmenschen » Sun Nov 02, 2014 8:27 pm

see link for full story


http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/ ... story.html


Letters To The Editor
Reporter’s privilege is not constitutional

November 2 at 6:40 PM
Like nearly every piece of advocacy I’ve read on “reporter’s privilege,” “Holder’s dark legacy ” by David A. Schulz [op-ed, Oct. 30] failed to mention the landmark 1972 Supreme Court case Branzburg v. Hayes. In that case, the court held that the Constitution does not recognize such a privilege. As a result, a reporter’s promise of confidentiality, while honored in many other contexts, particularly as a matter of state law, must yield to the demand of a prosecutor to place the evidence before the grand jury.

I served the FBI in the general counsel’s office from 1997 to 2010 and had occasion to discuss with media representatives the attorney general guidelines that regulate subpoenas issued to reporters; the media representatives consistently refused to recognize the legitimacy of Branzburg. It is one thing to disagree with the court and to work to change the law (which has been done in some federal circuits and in some states). It is quite another to be, as the media are, pretty much the only major institution in the country to refuse to recognize the law of the land as legitimate — as the rest of us must do.
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Re: FBI WATCH MAKING CRUELTY VISIBLE

Postby fruhmenschen » Sun Nov 02, 2014 9:38 pm

ENOUGH ROOM: Journalists as FBI Informants
enoughroom.blogspot.com/2010/01/journalists-as-fbi-informants.html
Jan 27, 2010 - Journalists as FBI Informants. Paul Harvey was an FBI informant for many years. How many journalists working today are informants?
[PDF]Paul Harvey Part 01 of 09 - The Vault - FBI
vault.fbi.gov/paul-harvey/paul-harvey-part-01-of-09
_:§'UBJEC'1: PAUL. -HARVEY '. 5. HE§E92n92s 92~92.92.;{. &# 39;. Dg ..... informant on a case and théab he had ini"or'-*1a.tion. '. 6.
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Re: FBI WATCH MAKING CRUELTY VISIBLE

Postby fruhmenschen » Mon Nov 03, 2014 12:42 am

http://boingboing.net/2014/11/02/fbi-se ... l-pow.html

1The Bureau is seeking a rule-change from the Administrative Office of the US Courts that would give it the power to distribute malware, hack, and trick any computer, anywhere in the world, in the course of investigations; it's the biggest expansion of FBI spying power in its history and they're hoping to grab it without an act of Congress or any public scrutiny or debate.

But under the proposed amendment, a judge can issue a warrant that would allow the FBI to hack into any computer, no matter where it is located. The change is designed specifically to help federal investigators carry out surveillance on computers that have been “anonymized” – that is, their location has been hidden using tools such as Tor.

The amendment inserts a clause that would allow a judge to issue warrants to gain “remote access” to computers “located within or outside that district” (emphasis added) in cases in which the “district where the media or information is located has been concealed through technological means”. The expanded powers to stray across district boundaries would apply to any criminal investigation, not just to terrorist cases as at present.

Were the amendment to be granted by the regulatory committee, the FBI would have the green light to unleash its capabilities – known as “network investigative techniques” – on computers across America and beyond. The techniques involve clandestinely installing malicious software, or malware, onto a computer that in turn allows federal agents effectively to control the machine, downloading all its digital contents, switching its camera or microphone on or off, and even taking over other computers in its network

FBI demands new powers to hack into computers and carry out surveillance [Ed Pilkington/The Guardian]
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Re: FBI WATCH MAKING CRUELTY VISIBLE

Postby fruhmenschen » Wed Nov 05, 2014 2:03 am

see link for full story


http://www.sfreporter.com/santafe/mobil ... ew/id:9445


Project Censored
Ocean acidification tops the annual list of important stories ignored by the mainstream media
FeaturesTuesday, November 4, 2014

1. OCEAN ACIDIFICATION
Our oceans are acidifying—even if the nightly news hasn’t told you yet.

As humanity continues to fill the atmosphere with harmful gases, the planet is becoming less hospitable to life as we know it. The vast oceans absorb much of the carbon dioxide we have produced, from the industrial revolution through the rise of global capitalism. Earth’s self-sacrifice spared the atmosphere nearly 25 percent of humanity’s CO2 emissions, slowing the onslaught of many severe weather consequences.

Although the news media have increasingly covered the climate weirding of global warming—hurricane superstorms, fierce tornado clusters, overwhelming snowstorms and record-setting global high temperatures—our ocean’s peril has largely stayed submerged below the biggest news stories.

"INFORMATION IS THE CURRENCY OF DEMOCRACY."
The rising carbon dioxide in our oceans burns up and deforms the smallest, most abundant food at the bottom of the deep blue food chain. One vulnerable population is the tiny shelled swimmer known as the sea butterfly. In a few short decades, the death and deformation of this fragile and translucent species could endanger predators all along the oceanic food web, scientists warn.

This “butterfly effect,” once unleashed, potentially threatens fisheries that feed over 1 billion people worldwide.

Since ancient times, humans fished the oceans for food. Now, we’re frying ocean life before we even catch it, starving future generations in the process. Largely left out of national news coverage, this dire report was brought to light by a handful of independent-minded journalists: Craig Welch from the Seattle Times, Julia Whitty of Mother Jones and Eli Kintisch of ScienceNOW.

It is also the top story of Project Censored, an annual book and reporting project that features the year’s most underreported news stories, striving to unmask censorship, self-censorship and propaganda in corporate-controlled media outlets.

“Information is the currency of democracy,” Ralph Nader, the prominent consumer advocate and many-time presidential candidate, wrote in his foreword to this year’s Project Censored 2015. But with most mass media owned by narrow corporate interests, “the general public remains uninformed.”

Whereas the mainstream media poke and peck at noteworthy events at single points in time, often devoid of historical context or analysis, Project Censored seeks to clarify understanding of real world issues and focus on what’s important. Context is key, and many of its “top censored” stories highlight deeply entrenched policy issues that require more explanation than a simple sound bite can provide.

Campus and faculty from over two dozen colleges and universities join in this ongoing effort, headquartered at Sonoma State University in California. Some 260 students and 49 faculty vet thousands of news stories on select criteria: importance, timeliness, quality of sources and the level of corporate news coverage.

The top 25 finalists are sent to Project Censored’s panel of judges, who then rank the entries, with ocean acidification topping this year’s list.

“There are outlets, regular daily papers, who are independent and they’re out there,” Andy Lee Roth, associate director of Project Censored, told us. Too many news outlets are beholden to corporate interests, but Welch of the Seattle Times bucked the trend, Roth said, by writing some of the deepest coverage yet on ocean acidification.

“There are reporters doing the highest quality of work, as evidenced by being included in our list,” Roth said. “But the challenge is reaching as big an audience as [the story] should.”

Indeed, though Welch’s story was reported in the Seattle Times, a mid-sized daily newspaper, this warning is relevant to the entire world. To understand the impact of ocean acidification, Welch asks readers to “imagine every person on earth tossing a hunk of CO2 as heavy as a bowling ball into the sea. That’s what we do to the oceans every day.”

Computer modeler Isaac Kaplan, at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration office in Seattle, told Welch that his early work predicts significant declines in sharks, skates and rays, some types of flounder and sole and Pacific whiting, the most frequently caught commercial fish off the coast of Washington, Oregon and California.




Acidification may also harm fisheries in the farthest corners of the earth: A study by the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme outlines acidification’s threat to the Arctic food chain.

“Decreases in seawater pH of about 0.02 per decade have been observed since the late 1960s in the Iceland and Barents Seas,” the study’s authors wrote in the executive summary. And destroying fisheries means wiping out the livelihoods of the native peoples of the Antarctic.

Acidification can even rewire the brains of fish, Welch’s story demonstrated. Studies found rising CO2 levels cause clown fish to gain athleticism, but have their sense of smell redirected. This transforms them into “dumb jocks,” scientists said, swimming faster and more vigorously straight into the mouths of their predators.

These Frankenstein fish were found to be five times more likely to die in the natural world. What a fitting metaphor for humanity, as our outsized consumption propels us toward an equally dangerous fate.

“It’s not as dramatic as say, an asteroid is hitting us from outer space,” Roth said of this slowly unfolding disaster, which is likely why such a looming threat to our food chain escapes much mainstream news coverage.

Journalism tends to be more “action focused,” Roth said, looking to define conflict in everything it sees. A recently top-featured story on CNN focused on President Barack Obama’s “awkward coffee cup salute” to a Marine, which ranks only slightly below around-the-clock coverage of the president’s ugly tan suit as a low point in mainstream media’s focus on the trivial.

As Nader noted, “‘Important stories’ are often viewed as dull by reporters and therefore unworthy of coverage.” But mainstream media do cover some serious topics with weight, as they did in the wake of the police officer shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo. So what’s the deciding factor?

As Roth tells it, corporate news focuses on “drama, and the most dramatic action is, of course, violence.”

But the changes caused by ocean acidification are gradual. Sea butterflies are among the most abundant creatures in our oceans, and are increasingly born with shells that look like cauliflower or sandpaper, making this and similar species more susceptible to infection and predators.

“Ocean acidification is changing the chemistry of the world’s water faster than ever before and faster than the world’s leading scientists predicted,” Welch said, but it’s not getting the attention it deserves. “Combined nationwide spending on acidification research for eight federal agencies, including grants to university scientists by the National Science Foundation, totals about $30 million a year—less than the annual budget for the coastal Washington city of Hoquiam, population 10,000.”

Our oceans may slowly cook our food chain into new forms with potentially catastrophic consequences. Certainly 20 years from now, when communities around the world lose their main source of sustenance, the news will catch on. But will the problem make the front page tomorrow, while there’s still time to act?

Probably not, and that’s why we have Project Censored and its annual list.

2. TOP 10 US AID RECIPIENTS PRACTICE TORTURE
Sexual abuse, children kept in cages, extra-judicial murder. While these sound like horrors the United States would stand against, the reverse is true: This country is funding these practices.

The US is a signatory of the United Nations’ Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, but the top 10 international recipients of US foreign assistance in 2014 all practice torture, according to human rights groups, as reported by Daniel Wickham of online outlet Left Foot Forward.

Israel received over $3 billion in US aid for fiscal year 2013-14, according to a Congressional Research Service report. Israel was criticized by the country’s own Public Defender Office for torturing children suspected of minor crimes.




“During our visit, held during a fierce storm that hit the state, attorneys met detainees who described to them a shocking picture: In the middle of the night dozens of detainees were transferred to the external iron cages built outside the IPS transition facility in Ramla,” the PDO wrote, according to The Independent.

The next top recipients of US foreign aid were Afghanistan, Egypt, Pakistan, Nigeria, Jordan, Iraq, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda—all countries that were accused of torture by human rights groups such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.

Kenyan police in Nairobi tortured, raped or otherwise abused more than 1,000 refugees from 2012 to 2013, Human Rights Watch found. The Kenyan government received $564 million from the United States in 2013-14.

When the US funds a highway or other project that it’s proud of, it plants a huge sign proclaiming “your tax dollars at work.” When the US funds torturers, the corporate media bury the story, or worse, don’t report it at all.

3. TRANS-PACIFIC PARTNERSHIP, A SECRET DEAL TO HELP CORPORATIONS
The Trans-Pacific Partnership is like the Stop Online Piracy Act on steroids, yet few have heard of it, let alone enough people to start an Internet campaign to topple it. Despite details revealed by WikiLeaks, the nascent agreement has been largely ignored by the corporate media.

Even the world’s elite are out of the loop: Only three officials in each of the 12 signatory countries have access to this developing trade agreement that potentially impacts over 800 million people.

The agreement touches on intellectual property rights and the regulation of private enterprise between nations, and is open to negotiation and viewing by 600 “corporate advisers” from big oil, pharmaceutical, to entertainment companies.

Meanwhile, more than 150 House Democrats signed a letter urging President Obama to halt his efforts to fast-track negotiations and to allow Congress the ability to weigh in now on an agreement only the White House has seen.

Many criticized the secrecy surrounding the TPP, arguing the real world consequences may be grave. Doctors Without Borders wrote, “If harmful provisions in the US proposals for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement are not removed before it is finalized, this trade deal will have a real cost in human lives.”

4. CORPORATE INTERNET PROVIDERS THREATEN NET NEUTRALITY
This entry demonstrates the nuance in Project Censored’s media critique. Verizon v Federal Communications Commission may weaken Internet regulation, which Electronic Frontier Foundation and other digital freedom advocates allege would create a two-tiered Internet system. Under the FCC’s proposed new rules, corporate behemoths such as Comcast or Verizon could charge entities to use faster bandwidth, which advocates say would create financial barriers to free speech and encourage censorship.

Project Censored alleges corporate outlets such as The New York Times and Forbes “tend to highlight the business aspects of the case, skimming over vital particulars affecting the public and the Internet’s future.”

Yet this is a case where corporate media were circumvented by power of the viral web. John Oliver, comedian and host of “Last Week Tonight” on HBO, recently gave a stirring 13-minute treatise on the importance of stopping the FCC’s new rules, resulting in a flood of comments to the FCC defending a more open Internet. The particulars of net neutrality have since been thoroughly reported in the corporate media.

But, as Project Censored notes, mass media coverage only came after the FCC’s rule change was proposed, giving activists little time to right any wrongs. It’s a subtle but important distinction.

5. BANKERS REMAIN ON WALL STREET DESPITE MAJOR CRIMES
Bankers responsible for rigging municipal bonds and bilking billions of dollars from American cities have largely escaped criminal charges. Every day in the US, low-level drug dealers get more prison time than these scheming bankers who, while working for GE Capital, allegedly skimmed money from public schools, hospitals, libraries and nursing homes, according to Rolling Stone.

Dominick Carollo, Steven Goldberg and Peter Grimm were dubbed a part of the “modern American mafia,” by the magazine’s Matt Taibbi, one of the few journalists to consistently cover their trial. Meanwhile, disturbingly uninformed cable media “journalists” defended the bankers, saying they shouldn’t be prosecuted for “failure,” as if cheating vulnerable Americans were a bad business deal.

“Had the US authorities decided to press criminal charges,” Assistant US Attorney General Lanny Breuer told Taibbi. “HSBC [a British bank] would almost certainly have lost its banking license in the US, the future of the institution would have been under threat, and the entire banking system would have been destabilized.”

Over the course of decades, the nation’s bankers transformed into the modern mafioso. Unfortunately, our modern media changed as well and are no longer equipped to tackle systemic, complex stories.

6. THE “DEEP STATE” OF PLUTOCRATIC CONTROL
What’s frightening about the puppeteers who pull the strings of our national government is not how hidden they are, but how hidden they are not.

From defense contractors to multinational corporations, a wealthy elite using an estimated $32 trillion in tax-exempt offshore havens are the masters of our publicly elected officials. In an essay written for Moyers & Company by Mike Lofgren, a congressional staffer of 28 years focused on national security, this cabal of wealthy interests comprise our nation’s “Deep State.”

As Lofgren writes for Moyers, “The Deep State is the big story of our time. It is the red thread that runs through the war on terrorism, the financialization and deindustrialization of the American economy, the rise of a plutocratic social structure and political dysfunction.”

This is a story that truly challenges the mass media, which do report on the power of wealth, in bits and pieces. But although the cabal’s disparate threads are occasionally pulled, the spider’s web of corruption largely escapes corporate media’s larger narrative.

The myopic view censors the full story as surely as outright silence would. The problem deepens every year.

“There are now 854,000 contract personnel with top-secret clearances—a number greater than that of top-secret-cleared civilian employees of the government,” Lofgren wrote, of a group that together would “occupy the floor space of almost three Pentagons—about 17 million square feet.”

7. FBI DISMISSES PLOT AGAINST OCCUPY AS NSA CRACKS DOWN ON DISSENT
Nationally, law enforcement worked in the background to monitor and suppress the Occupy Wall Street movement, a story the mainstream press has shown little interest in covering.

A document obtained in a Freedom of Information Act request by David Lindorff of WhoWhatWhy from the FBI office in Houston, Texas, revealed an alleged assassination plot targeting an Occupy group, which the FBI allegedly did not warn the movement about.

From the redacted document: “An identified [DELETED] as of October planned to engage in sniper attacks against protestors (sic) in Houston, Texas if deemed necessary. An identified [DELETED] had received intelligence that indicated the protesters in New York and Seattle planned similar protests in Houston, Dallas, San Antonio and Austin, Texas. [DELETED] planned to gather intelligence against the leaders of the protest groups and obtain photographs, then formulate a plan to kill the leadership via suppressed sniper rifles.”

Lindorff confirmed the document’s veracity with the FBI. When contacted by Lindorff, Houston Police were uninterested and seemingly (according to Lindorff), uninformed.

In Arizona, law enforcement exchanged information of possible Occupy efforts with JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, according to a report by the Center for Media and Democracy titled “Dissent on Terror.” The CEO meant to evade possible protests, and local law enforcement was happy to help.

Law enforcement’s all-seeing eyes broadened through the national rise of “fusion centers” over the past decade, hubs through which state agencies exchange tracking data on groups exercising free speech. And as we share, “like” and “check-in” online with ever more frequency, that data becomes more robust by the day.
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