117 days left to shut down the FBI

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Re: 117 days left to shut down the FBI

Postby Iamwhomiam » Thu Oct 09, 2014 1:20 pm

^^^^ True enough. Personally, I think he'd have more success in becoming airborne by flapping his arms.
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Re: 117 days left to shut down the FBI

Postby fruhmenschen » Thu Oct 09, 2014 6:45 pm

Wombaticus Rex » Tue Oct 07, 2014 2:33 pm wrote:Just so everyone is clear, this thread gets closed November 15th, and I'm gonna be sorely disappointed if we haven't ended the FBI by then.

That's over a month, guys. C'mon. This ain't GLP.





Yo Wombman
what happened to my Goddard Easy Rider
extension?

in other news


Here is a group that meets once a month
by conference call
contact Diogenes if you want to join

in other news
wombman
tell me it ain't so....



** Draft minutes for Sept. 24, 2014
Teleconference
------------------------------------------------------------




October 7, 2014
Craig McKee, Secretary 9/11 Monthly Teleconference Call

**********************

Draft minutes for the Wed., September 24, 2014 regular conference call

Present were:

Ken Freeland, Teleconference facilitator, Houston 9/11 Truth
Craig McKee, Teleconference secretary, Truth and Shadows
Barbara Honegger, Independent 9/11 researcher
Dwain Deets, SD 9/11 Truth
James Hufferd, 9/11 Grassroots
Ned Delaney, 9/11 Grassroots
Richard Krushnic, Boston 9/11 activist
Pablo Shanes, 9/11 Crash Test

The minutes of the August 2014 conference call were APPROVED

The amended agenda was APPROVED

1. 9/11 Virtual Walking Tour


Barbara Honegger informed the Teleconference about a new project she has been working on with Mark Snyder of Seattle 9/11 Truth called the 9/11 Virtual Walking Tour. This is a video (now posted on You Tube) that looks at exhibits in the 9/11 Museum and Memorial at Ground Zero in New York City and explains how the official story details cannot be true.

Barbara is asking the members of the Teleconference to watch the video and to make suggestions for any changes on the October teleconference call. The link to the video is here:

http://houston911truth.us5.list-manage. ... 91763ac879
2. Outreach to anti-war movement in Massachusetts


Richard Krushnic explained some positive developments in the relations between the 9/11 Truth Movement and the Anti-War Movement. Specifically, he talked about an email discussion he was involved in with members of UNAC, the United National Antiwar Coalition, that looked at the evidence that 9/11 was a false flag operation along with evidence for other false flags in recent decades. Richard said he was encouraged by the positive tone of the discussion.

3. Crash test update


Pablo Shanes, who is working with Steve De’ak on the 9/11 Crash Test project, gave an update on where the project stands. A discussion followed. Honegger suggested that Shanes contact Dr. David Griscom who has expertise in the science of impacts.

4. Announcements


* Dwain Deets recommended two new books that deal with 9/11 and related subjects. One is The Lone Gladio by Sibel Edmonds (http://houston911truth.us5.list-manage2 ... 91763ac879 and the other is The 2001 Anthrax Deception: The Case for a Domestic Conspiracy (http://houston911truth.us5.list-manage1 ... 91763ac879 .
* Honegger told the group about two witnesses to the South Tower impact (one being Ricki DeSantis) who describe the appearance the plane as being different from what is shown in videos (grey, no windows, no pilot). The two witnesses discussed this at the Sept. 13 symposium in New York City put on by Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth.
* Deets mentioned that the 9/11 Consensus Panel web site had 20,000 hits in the few days around the 9/11 anniversary.
* Deets also mentioned that a video will soon be available online of Christopher Bollyn’s talk to the San Diegans for 9/11 Truth group on Sept. 14.


Call began at 8 p.m. EST and adjourned at 9:30 p.m. EST/5 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. PST

You can hear an audio recording of the teleconference in its entirety here:
http://houston911truth.us5.list-manage1 ... 3ac879Also available are archives of earlier calls.

The next monthly teleconference will take place on Oct. 29 at 8 p.m. EST, 5 p.m. PST. Send agenda items for next call to facilitator Ken Freeland (diogenesquest. at gmail. .com) by Oct. 25. Please use subject line “Agenda item for 911 Truth Teleconference.”
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Re: 117 days left to shut down the FBI

Postby Wombaticus Rex » Thu Oct 09, 2014 8:24 pm

You set that deadline yourself, man, don't appeal to me.

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Re: 117 days left to shut down the FBI

Postby fruhmenschen » Thu Oct 09, 2014 9:40 pm

ugh!
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Re: 117 days left to shut down the FBI

Postby fruhmenschen » Fri Oct 10, 2014 12:21 pm

http://www.defendingdissent.org/now/]




Thanks to the many of you who contacted me with suggestions about the Dissent NewsWire I appreciate your input. We continue to make improvements to the website, and are constantly adding new articles.

"Here's a look at a few of the articles posted this week:"

*Ferguson Protests Inspire Innovative Legal Support* [ http://www.defendingdissent.org/now/new ... l-support/]
The Black youth-led protests have led to 150 arrests. They have also inspired innovative legal support work by lawyers, activists, and local residents. As organizers prepare for a weekend of actions against police violence, they have the support of established groups such as the National Lawyers Guild, ArchCity Defenders, Missourians Organizing for Reform and Empowerment, and the ACLU, but also two new activist-led groups.

*Cops Testify Against Occupy Activist* [ http://www.defendingdissent.org/now/new ... -activist/]
To avoid being convicted on charges that could send her back to the city's Rikers Island prison for a year, Occupy Wall Street activist Cecily McMillan will likely have to prove her innocence. She was arrested earlier this year for filming the police in the act of arresting a Latino couple, and for telling them they had the right to remain silent.

*Federal Judge Enjoins Cops' '5-Second Rule' in Ferguson* [ http://www.defendingdissent.org/now/new ... -ferguson/]
Police in Ferguson, Missouri can't order protesters to keep moving, a federal judge rules, saying the (unpublished) rule violates rights to freedom of assembly and due process of law.

*Political Protest or Jury Tampering?* [ http://www.defendingdissent.org/now/pol ... tampering/]
Prosecutors ask for jury anonymity, accuse supporters of jury tampering in the politically charged case of Rasmea Odeh. Supporters say the charges against Odeh are politically motivated and have demonstrated outside the courthouse and organized call-in campaigns (DDF participate in these campaigns). Prosecutors have named one of the protest organizers, Hatem Abudayyeh of "almost certainly criminal" in their motion asking for an anonymous jury.

*U.N. Will Hear Testimony on Chicago Police Violence [ http://www.defendingdissent.org/now/new ... -violence/]*
Young activists with the police accountability group We Charge Genocide will fly to Geneva to tell their stories to a U.N. commission that is reviewing U.S. compliance with anti-torture treaties.

*Twitter Sues DOJ on Transparency * [ http://www.defendingdissent.org/now/twi ... nsparency/]
Says the company's First Amendment rights are being violated because they are not allowed to tell us how many surveillance orders they get from the FBI.

"*Take Action:*"* USA Freedom Act, It's Now or Never * [ http://www.defendingdissent.org/now/new ... -or-never/]
Time is running out for Congress to pass legislation to protect us from mass surveillance. We've engaged in street demonstrations, mass internet actions and meetings with members of Congress to push them toward reform. Earlier this week, the Defending Dissent Foundation joined with a diverse array of organizations in calling on Congress to pass the USA Freedom Act and immediately "and then immediately turn your attention to more meaningful and comprehensive reform of the [NSA's] overreaching and unconstitutional surveillance practices." Now it's your turn: send an email to your Senators telling them to pass the bill now. [ http://www.defendingdissent.org/now/new ... -or-never/]

There is much more news in the pipeline, and new blogs in development, so be sure to check back often! Thank you for your support,
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Re: 117 days left to shut down the FBI

Postby fruhmenschen » Sun Oct 12, 2014 9:56 pm

Ed Tatro and I became friends
after we brought him to speak
not once but on two different occasions
at Bates College where we held a conference for 11 years detailing evidence of crimes committed by taxpayer funded FBI agents.
He detailed the role the FBI Director
J Edgar Hoover played in planning and covering up President Kennedy' s assassination.


https://22novembernetwork.wordpress.com ... ernetwork/


THE DALLAS ACTION~PT.27: “A Front Row Seat To History-Ed Tatro And The Shaw Trial”.

Posted by 22novembernetwork on October 12, 2014
CLICK THE LINK TO LISTEN! http://www.spreaker.com/user/7338953





Recently at the JFK Historical Group’s Research Conference, I had the opportunity to sit with Edgar F. Tatro, Consultant/Contributor, Nigel Turner’s “The Men Who Killed Kennedy” episodes “The Guilty Men”, “The Truth Shall Set You Free”and “The Smoking Guns”; the original editor of Madeleine Brown’s “Texas In The Morning”, among many other credits.
Here, Mr. Tatro recounts, for Us, the incredible story of his experience when, at 20 years old, he travelled to New Orleans and attended the Conspiracy Trial of Clay Shaw.
LISTEN/DOWNLOAD READY! THANK YOU!
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Re: 117 days left to shut down the FBI

Postby fruhmenschen » Tue Oct 14, 2014 1:30 pm

see link for full story


Chat logs reveal FBI informant’s role in hacking of Sun newspaper
US agency faces questions after records show Lulzsec leader, who was informant at time, helped attack that closed UK sites


http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014 ... -chat-logs



Tuesday 14 October 2014 05.00 EDT

The FBI is facing questions over its role in a 2011 hacking attack on Rupert Murdoch’s Sun newspaper in the UK after the publication of chat logs showed that a man acting as an agency informant played a substantial role in the operation.

In July 2011, a group of hackers known as Lulzsec – an offshoot of Anonymous – posted a fake story about the death of Murdoch, penetrated several News International (now News UK) corporate sites, and claimed to have obtained gigabytes of material from the company’s servers.
The Sun website after it was targeted by computer hackers, visitors to the website were redirected to a hoax story about Rupert Murdoch's suicide The Sun website after it was targeted by computer hackers, visitors to the website were redirected to a hoax story about Rupert Murdoch’s suicide. Photograph: PA

The attack was so successful that the publisher took down the websites of the Sun and the Times while technicians worked out the scale of the hack.
Advertisement

Unsealed documents obtained by Motherboard, the technology channel operated by Vice, and seen by the Guardian, show Hector Xavier Monsegur – known widely online as “Sabu” and frequently referred to as the leader of Lulzsec – played an active role in the operation.

The chat records show Monsegur encouraging others to break further into News International systems, claiming to have sources at the Sun, and even apparently helping to break staff’s passwords and to source files for stealing.

Monsegur was, however, at that time operating under the direction of the FBI, who had arrested him weeks earlier and cut a deal that kept him free if he helped to track down and secure the convictions of others in the group.

The close involvement of an FBI asset working under extraordinarily close supervision in a hacking attack on a media outlet ultimately owned by a US-listed company is set to raise further questions about the agency’s approach to tackling online crime.

Monsegur, who faced a maximum of 124 years in prison, was released earlier this year in exchange for his “extraordinary” cooperation with the FBI. Monsegur, who is currently on a 12-month supervised release programme, is believed to have cooperated with authorities because of his role as sole carer for two young relatives. He has had no contact with the media since his release.
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The chat logs, which are more than 380 pages long, show the Lulzsec group working together over several days to hack into the Sun, talking in the relaxed (and often misspelled) manner of online conversations.

The chat, in a private channel aptly named “#sunnydays”, jumped between talking through reasons to attack the newspaper, what to do when in, and technical advice on how to operate the hacks.

“what up gentlemen,” said Sabu, opening the channel’s conversation, “lets do this.”

Some members of the group had already secured limited access to servers owned by the Sun. Sabu immediately encouraged them to go further, and obtain email records.

“good work on owning sun honestly speaking this is going to be good shit,” he wrote. “I want their mailspools … fuck the rest”

Sabu goaded the others on, telling them the Sun was planning to fabricate a story saying Lulzsec had tried and failed to hack the newspaper – a claim likely to enrage the group – and saying there were likely to be internal communications to confirm his claim.

At the time, others in the channel were focusing on merely embarrassing the Sun by running a false news story – which they did – or replacing home pages with pictures of internet memes, such as Nyan cat.

After some login details were shared, Sabu claimed to be looking around in the server, cautioning the others to “do this carefully”, and helping them try to “root” – gain total access to – another server.

Later, another hacker obtained encrypted login details of multiple News International staff, but was unable to decrypt them and thus obtain the usernames and passwords. Sabu offered to assist at this point, and later provided the password details.

The logs also show Sabu on multiple occasions offering detailed technical help to find additional records on different servers, breaking in to new servers, or obtaining more files – which could easily have included those belonging to journalists at either the Sun or Times.

At various stages in the course of the conversation, Sabu claimed to have obtained mail records from HSBC bank, and details on the Qatari royal family.

The logs even show Sabu celebrating with the other hackers – whose names are redacted – when CNN read out messages released by the group when the websites were taken down to handle the hack. “THE GUY JUST SAID WE HAVE JOY WE HAVE FUN WE HAVE MESSED UP MURDOCHS SUN,” he posted.

Less than 10 days after the attack on the Sun, several members of Lulzsec were arrested, and later convicted, for activities in the group. They included British citizens Jake Davis (known online as “Topiary”) and then-16-year-old schoolboy Mustafa Al-Bassam (“Tflow”).

The Sun, which is challenging the UK government over police accessing the phone records of one of its reporters, declined to comment on the apparent FBI involvement in attacks on its servers.

The FBI had not responded to a request for comment by the time of publication.
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Re: 117 days left to shut down the FBI

Postby fruhmenschen » Mon Oct 20, 2014 2:13 am

Surveillance Reform Theater
by William A. Blunden / October 19th, 2014

Recently 60 Minutes aired a segment where FBI Director James Comey described how he threatened to quit as acting Attorney General back in 2004 rather than reauthorize warrantless wiretapping programs. He also described an old Hoover-era memo that he keeps on his desk as a reminder of what not to do. The memo is a request by J. Edgar Hoover to conduct “technical surveillance” on Martin Luther King Jr. The basic impression that 60 Minutes viewers come away with is that James Comey is a man who is “deeply skeptical of government power.”

This 20-minute biopic was likely timed in such a way as to prepare the public for Comey’s speech this past week at the Brookings Institution. Comey explained that in order to safeguard the public against terrorism he wanted U.S. companies to modify their encryption technology to offer a special backdoor for law enforcement. Strictly speaking Comey referred to this backdoor as a “front door,” but either way what he’s describing is a mechanism for the authorities to bypass encryption.

The concept of a secret golden key for authorities is a zombie idea from the 1990s. I’m talking about what’s known in cryptographic circles as “key escrow.” Under key escrow vendors create a built-in decryption password (also known as a decryption key) that’s held in escrow. When law enforcement agents supply a court order they can acquire the corresponding decryption key.

Key escrow died long ago and with good reason. This is because it’s impossible to create a backdoor that only the police can access. Once the escrow key finds its way out into the wild it can be utilized by crooks, spies, and oppressive governments for their own purposes. Key escrow puts everyone at risk.

In short, Comey suggests undermining digital security and privacy across an industry while concurrently asserting that he’s “looking for security that enhances liberty.”

This begs a question: why would the Director of the FBI knowingly advocate a strategy which is patently flawed? Does he assume collective amnesia? That thousands of security professionals have somehow forgotten the lessons of the past?

Good Cop/Bad Cop

Hi-tech companies need to keep quarterly profits strong and in order to do that they’ve got to manufacture the impression that they’re standing up for our civil liberties. As James Comey acknowledges encryption is a “marketing pitch.” A way to attract customers by distinguishing certain products from the rest. Government officials, many of them who end up working in the private sector after they leave office, are keenly aware of this.

By proposing to revive key escrow the FBI is essentially lending credibility to hi-tech companies, which come across as resisting the big bad government. Comey’s gambit makes it appear as though Silicon Valley is siding with users against intrusive government surveillance. Even though, despite marketing campaigns that plug encryption, the sad reality is that most hi-tech service providers don’t care one jot about user privacy. If anything hi-tech companies want to be able to collect as much data as possible because they can turn around and sell it. Government spies and online service providers have a lot in common.

Another thing to keep in mind is that the whole discussion of key escrow keeps the focus on overt back doors, allowing the ensuing public debate to sidestep conversations about existing covert back doors. Rest assured that the FBI has plenty of tools in their arsenal to foil encryption. It’s been this way for well over a decade. For example, do some homework on the Bureau’s Magic Lantern program. Or read up on how they snagged a Federal Cybersecurity Director on child pornography charges. The NSA, for instance, has a whole catalogue of “implants” that can be wielded to thwart encryption.

The Whole Snowden Spectacle

In addition to the mystifying resurrection of key escrow there are other signs that something is amiss. Specifically, in an early interview with the Guardian Ed Snowden declared:

I don’t want to be a celebrity, I don’t want to go somewhere and have people pay attention to me, just as I don’t want to do that in the media. There are much more important issues in the world than me and what’s going on in my life and we should be focusing on those.

And yet here we see Ed Snowden in a forlorn embrace with an American flag compliments of the techno-libertarians at Wired magazine. Then the Intercept covers how Ed is shacking up with his own pole dancing Miss Moneypenny as he stars in feature film and generally does his best to look like Tom Cruise. Avoiding the spotlight are we, Ed? Ahem.

Did you know that Julian Assange is coming out with his own line of apparel? There’s a discernable commercial aroma that’s begun to accompany all this noble whistleblowing. In the case of the Ed Snowden affair I smell a billionaire. These days the plutocrats are following the mandates of the Powell memorandum and entrenching themselves in American policymaking apparatus, forming their own news outlets and political movements.

There are reasons why President Truman regretted turning the CIA “into peacetime cloak and dagger operations.” Clandestine programs of subversion are antithetical to democracy. By spotlighting the messenger, witness Ed Snowden’s descent to celebrity status, elements in the media create a parade that leads society away from the unsettling repercussions of mass surveillance (i.e. the specter of state capture).

Denouement – Selling Snake Oil

As NSA documents trickled into the public arena a cry arose that “something must be done.” And so both politicians and executives are engaged in obligatory gestures of sham opposition and faux public debate, a choreographed mind-numbing performance aimed to placate Main Street rabble without threatening the intelligence agencies or their corporate overlords in the defense sector. The DNI’s recent report on Presidential Policy Directive 28 illustrates this.

Quelle surprise! The proposal of surveillance restructuring is noise for rub
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Re: 117 days left to shut down the FBI

Postby fruhmenschen » Mon Oct 27, 2014 5:20 pm

witter
Follow on Twitter (https://twitter.com/Igpublishing
facebook
Friend on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/pages/Ig-Publi ... 8769078839
http://www.igpub.comIg Publishing is excited to announce the paperback release of The Terror Factory: Inside the FBI’s Manufactured War on Terrorism (http://igpub.com/the-terror-factory-paperback-edition/ , Trevor Aaronson’s groundbreaking book about the FBI’s domestic counterterrorism program.

The paperback coincides with the Al Jazeera America premiere of Aaronson’s one-hour documentary “Informants, (http://webapps.aljazeera.net/aje/custom ... nformants/ ” which builds on the reporting in The Terror Factory. Produced by Al Jazeera’s Investigative Unit, “Informants” tells the stories of three FBI informants who worked counterterrorism cases. Aaronson, as the correspondent, guides viewers through the story. “Informants” premieres on Al Jazeera America tonight at 10 p.m.

First published in hardback in January 2013, The Terror Factory exposes how the FBI has, under the guise of engaging in counterterrorism since 9/11, built a network of more than 15,000 informants whose primary purpose is to create and facilitate phony terrorist plots so that the Bureau can then claim it is winning the war on terror.

Aaronson reports in the book that through elaborate and expensive sting operations involving informants and undercover agents posing as terrorists, the FBI has arrested — and the U.S. Justice Department has prosecuted — dozens of men who government officials say posed terrorist threats. He says evidence suggests, however, that some of those under FBI scrutiny did not have the capacity for terrorism and that FBI undercover agents provided the means, including weapons and logistical support. The expanded and updated paperback edition of The Terror Factory includes an epilogue that discusses how FBI agents in Boston missed the threat posed by the Boston Marathon bomber because they were too focused on a sting operation targeting a mentally ill man of limited capacity for violence.

Aaronson’s book has received praise from reviewers, journalists and former FBI agents. In a starred review, Publishers Weekly described The Terror Factory as “compelling, shocking, and gritty with intrigue.” Lowell Bergman, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and former 60 Minutes producer, called The Terror Factory “investigative reporting at its best.” James J. Wedick, a former FBI agent who supervised undercover work, said the author “explains just how misguided and often deceptive FBI terrorism sting operations have become.”

Aaronson has discussed his book on CBS This Morning (http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/fbi-sting ... ntrapment/ , MSNBC, This American Life, On the Media, Radio Free Europe and The Leonard Lopate Show (http://www.wnyc.org/story/266376-inside ... terrorism/ , among other outlets. The Terror Factory also inspired substantial derivative works, including the HBO documentary Newburgh Sting and Aaronon’s own one-hour documentary for Al Jazeera. A recent and well-publicized report by Human Rights Watch also cited book and related reporting.



http://igpub.com/the-terror-factory-pap ... dition/The Terror Factory (http://igpub.com/the-terror-factory-paperback-edition/
Trade Paper
284 pages
ISBN: 978-1935439967
$17.95

-Trevor Aaronson -
is author of The Terror Factory: Inside the FBI’s Manufactured War on Terrorism (Ig Publishing, January 2013). He is an investigative reporter for Al Jazeera Media Network. Aaronson co-founded the nonprofit Florida Center for Investigative Reporting and was a 2010-11 fellow at the Investigative Reporting Program at the University of California, Berkeley. A two-time finalist for the Livingston Awards for journalists under the age of 35, Aaronson has won more than two dozen national and regional awards, including the Molly Prize, the international Data Journalism Award and the John Jay College/Harry Frank Guggenheim Excellence in Criminal Justice Reporting Award.
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Re: 117 days left to shut down the FBI

Postby fruhmenschen » Wed Oct 29, 2014 9:27 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: 117 days left to shut down the FBI

Postby fruhmenschen » Fri Oct 31, 2014 12:09 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: 117 days left to shut down the FBI

Postby fruhmenschen » Sat Nov 01, 2014 9:18 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: 117 days left to shut down the FBI

Postby fruhmenschen » Thu Nov 06, 2014 11:49 pm

http://www.courthousenews.com/2014/11/0 ... snitch.htm

see link for full story

Man Says FBI Jailed Him for not Being a Snitch




The FBI and immigration service jailed an Iranian-born legal U.S. resident for 19 months because he wouldn't infiltrate San Jose-area mosques as a paid informant, the man claims in court.
Hassan Abpikar sued Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers David Harris and Dwayne Sanchez and FBI agent Robert Carr on Tuesday in Federal Court.
He claims the men violated his civil rights, falsely imprisoned him, assaulted and battered him and caused him emotional distress throughout the ordeal.
Neither the United States nor the agencies the officers work for are named as defendants in the lawsuit.
Abpikar, 54, was born in Tehran and came to the United States legally on a student visa, eventually earning advanced degrees in math and chemistry from San Jose State University, he says in the lawsuit.
After he became a permanent legal resident in 1983, Abpikar says he applied twice for citizenship - and both times missed his interview due to "time constraints."
In 2006 - two years after being denied citizenship for missing the second interview - Abpikar says San Jose Police arrested him for using a fake ID. Police released him shortly after the arrest, Abpikar says, but ICE picked him up almost immediately despite his permanent legal resident status.
He says immigration agents had held him for two weeks when an FBI agent came calling.
According to the complaint, the agent promised his immediate release if he would work as an FBI informant.
Abpikar claims he took the agent's card, agreed to go to the FBI office in San Jose the next day, and was promptly released from custody.
Abpikar says he visited the FBI office the next day. He claims the agent said he had already conducted a background check on him and decided he was a perfect candidate to infiltrate local mosques and keep an ear out for terrorism plans and threats.
But Abpikar says he didn't agree to become an informant - that he needed time to think about it. He says he never returned to the FBI office, and was arrested during a dinner with friends three months later.
Again, the charge was using a fake ID, Abpikar says. And once again, ICE put an immigration hold on him.
After another two weeks in federal custody, Abpikar says, defendant Sanchez served him with a notice to appear in immigration court. The notice alleged that Abpikar had "committed two crimes of moral turpitude and was therefore removable from the United States," according to the complaint.
But the immigration judge tossed the case, as Abpikar had not been convicted of any crime involving moral turpitude. The judge ordered his immediate release, but he remained in custody for another four days before being let go, Abpikar says.
He claims that two years passed before he was harassed by police again. This time, Santa Clara County Sheriff's deputies arrested him on a number of charges, including petty theft and - once again - possessing false identification. He bonded out, but was arrested again after the bail bond company canceled his bail "under the order of defendants," the complaint states.
This time, Abpikar says, he told the FBI he would be an informant if they could arrange his release. But he claims that defendant Carr - also known as Garr - had taken the first agent's place and said the only way they'd have a deal is if Abpikar became a permanent informant for the bureau.
Abpikar says he declined the offer, and that defendants Harris and Sanchez then paid him a visit in jail. He says the men interrogated him about his religious practices as a Shia Muslim, his ex-wife and whether he had a criminal record - questions that Abpikar says led to more criminal charges against him.
At one point, Abpikar says, the officers offered him naturalization in exchange for his services as an informant. He says he demanded the offer in writing and was refused.
After his arraignment, he says, a Santa Clara County judge told the agents that ICE does not have jurisdiction in state matters and ordered Abpikar released on bail. But the agency put an immigration hold on him again, blocking his release.
After another 46 days in jail, Abpikar says, he at last received a hearing before an immigration judge. There, he was charged with making false statements under oath during his naturalization proceedings.
"Plaintiff was indicted before a grand jury on Aug. 20, 2008. Defendant Sanchez was the only witness to testify before the grand jury. Plaintiff alleges based on belief and information that defendants retaliated against him. Due to plaintiff's refusal to become a puppet of the FBI as an informant, defendants Carr, Harris and Sanchez framed plaintiff as a criminal," the complaint states.
Although the immigration judge ordered Abpikar released on bail, he claims a second judge intervened after the agents indicated that Abpikar had ties to terrorist groups and was a flight risk.
In January 2009 - after 6 months in custody - Abpikar says Santa Clara County correctional officers abused him verbally and physically, twisting his wrists and shouting derogatory terms about his religion and national origin. He believes Carr, Harris and Sanchez ordered the abuse.
Santa Clara County is not a defendant in the case.
Six months later, after telling his story to the San Jose Mercury News, Abpikar says he was assaulted again - this time by an inmate being held by the U.S. Marshal's Service, which - like ICE - routinely uses the Santa Clara jail to house prisoners. The assault caused nerve damage in Abpikar's brain, and he again asserts that Carr, Harris and Sanchez ordered the attack.
Abpikar eventually appealed his immigration case to the 9th Circuit. A month after filing the appeal, he was released from custody without being told why.
The 9th Circuit issued an opinion in November 2013, finding that the immigration judge had incorrectly determined that Abpikar had committed a crime of moral turpitude and ordering the judge to use a different tes
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Re: 117 days left to shut down the FBI

Postby fruhmenschen » Thu Nov 13, 2014 10:46 pm

see link for full story

http://tbo.com/list/news-opinion-commen ... -20141113/



Hassan Shibly: CAIR strikes right balance between protecting security and libertyBY HASSAN SHIBLY
Special to The Tampa Tribune
Published: November 13, 2014
Regarding “Don’t stifle FBI’s terror effort”

It is easy for editors who are not attorneys and have not represented hundreds of victims of FBI abuse to give ill-informed legal advice and advise the public to waive the constitutionally protected right to have an attorney present when approached by the FBI.

America is one of the few nations in the world whose Constitution assumes that the people should take precautions to hold the government accountable. Exercising one’s constitutionally protected right to have a lawyer present when approached by the FBI helps ensure agents are behaving both constitutionally and efficiently. Meanwhile, people who feel their rights are secured with legal counsel present will have the confidence to be more open.

Our concern with the FBI selectively targeting the Muslim community for interrogation and recruitment of agent provocateurs is primarily because it has been documented that such profiling is ineffective, a waste of resources and actually makes our nation less safe and less free. Law enforcement must invest our limited public resources conducting investigations based on probable cause, not religious profiling. Having a lawyer present ensures that the FBI has a legitimate investigative purpose for interrogating Americans and are not acting based on politically acceptable biases that merely serve to intimidate religious minorities and waste taxpayer dollars.

Even though the Trib failed to request any such evidence from us, it claimed “there is no evidence local FBI agents have been abusive.” I’ll wager that the Trib’s own police reporters would find this assertion patently naïve. The Founders did not write the Bill of Rights and then reject it because there was no evidence that the new American government was going to be abusive.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has documented how the FBI has targeted law-abiding American Muslims for interrogation and coerced recruitment as agent provocateurs. According to Trevor Aaronson, executive director of the Florida Center for Investigative Journalism, such FBI tactics are similar to that used by the Counterintelligence Program (COINTELPRO) against the African-American civil rights movement decades ago and has included engaging in blackmail, extortion and threats of harm to self, family and friends. Coerced individuals are then forced into mosques to promote radical violent extremism — using taxpayer dollars — to unstable and mentally disturbed youths.

These programs are not only contrary to the protections enshrined in the Constitution, but are ineffective and make our nation less safe and less free. Even with the rise of Islamic State, those engaging in acts of terrorism on U.S. soil have more often attended churches or synagogue than mosques, and yet the FBI is not engaging in similar tactics against the Christian or Jewish communities — nor should they.

Engaging in criminal plans should make one the subject of a FBI investigation — not following a particular faith. When the FBI wastes resources in questioning individuals who have engaged in no wrongdoing, they may miss catching some of the overwhelming amount of criminals and terrorists who have nothing to do with that faith.

The Trib used Sami Osmakac as an example. The Trib does not mention that Osmakac would not have had the potential ability to harm our community without facilitation by paid FBI agent provocateurs or that in the same time frame several terrorist attacks were planned in Tampa by disturbed youths who, unlike Osmakac, were not Muslim.

Selective targeting of a religious minority by the federal government undermines the Constitution and harms America as a whole. CAIR has documented how many FBI agents have received false training that the entire Muslim community is a threat and that Muslims are not entitled to First Amendment rights. In Florida and nationwide, the Muslim community has often reported extremists espousing violence in mosques who turned out to be paid FBI agent provocateurs. Examples such as these abound.

Let us not forget that only last year an FBI agent who had a documented history of beating up suspects and witnesses and falsifying evidence, threatened several Orlando Muslims with false charges to pressure them to become informants, and then shot in the back and killed one of them after six hours of interrogation in their home three days later.

Counter-productive tactics that infringe upon the rights of religious minorities are not necessary to keep our nation safe. American Muslims are invested in the security of our nation and have a track record of voluntary cooperation with law enforcement on the rare occasion a threat should arise. Former FBI Director Robert Mueller told the U.S. House Judiciary Committee that “many of our cases are a result of the cooperation from the Muslim community in the United States.” The U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Florida also has repeatedly thanked the Muslim community for helping keep Florida safe.

We are not a nation of fearful people. Our rights are not things to be cast aside because someone scary threatens us. Groups such as IS strip people of t
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Re: 117 days left to shut down the FBI

Postby Iamwhomiam » Fri Nov 14, 2014 1:53 am

:farmer:

:clock:

:hourglass:
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