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CGI's Lady_Liberty: Spirit of America
Posted By: Susoni [Send E-Mail]
Date: Thursday, 4-Jul-2013 12:26:40
Date: Thursday, 4-Jul-2013 12:26:40
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This is an Awareness Blog to consider the future of your world. Actions are being done now to restore our freedom. County, State, and National Assemblies are forming across our world nullifying the corrupt corporations. Watch and become AWARE! Participate and be a part of making history! 62 MILLION VIEWS PER MONTH Exclusive public outlet for documentation and notices from The Original Jurisdiction Republic 1861 circa 2010.
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Leslie James Pickering noticed something odd in his mail last September: A handwritten card, apparently delivered by mistake, with instructions for postal workers to pay special attention to the letters and packages sent to his home. “Show all mail to supv” — supervisor — “for copying prior to going out on the street,” read the card. It included Mr. Pickering’s name, address and the type of mail that needed to be monitored. The word “confidential” was highlighted in green. “It was a bit of a shock to see it,” said Mr. Pickering, who owns a small bookstore in Buffalo. More than a decade ago, he was a spokesman for the Earth Liberation Front, an environmental group labeled eco-terrorists by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Postal officials subsequently confirmed they were indeed tracking Mr. Pickering’s mail but told him nothing else. As the world focuses on the high-tech spying of the National Security Agency, the misplaced card offers a rare glimpse inside the seemingly low-tech but prevalent snooping of the United States Postal Service. Mr. Pickering was targeted by a longtime surveillance system called mail covers, but that is only a forerunner of a vastly more expansive effort, the Mail Isolation Control and Tracking program, in which Postal Service computers photograph the exterior of every piece of paper mail that is processed in the United States — about 160 billion pieces last year. It is not known how long the government saves the images. Together, the two programs show that snail mail is subject to the same kind of scrutiny that the National Security Agency has given to telephone calls and e-mail. The mail covers program, used to monitor Mr. Pickering, is more than a century old but is still considered a powerful tool. At the request of law enforcement officials, postal workers record information from the outside of letters and parcels before they are delivered. (Actually opening the mail requires a warrant.) The information is sent to whatever law enforcement agency asked for it. Tens of thousands of pieces of mail each year undergo this scrutiny. The Mail Isolation Control and Tracking program was created after the anthrax attacks in late 2001 that killed five people, including two postal workers. Highly secret, it seeped into public view last month when the F.B.I. cited it in its investigation of ricin-laced letters sent to President Obama and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg. It enables the Postal Service to retroactively track mail correspondence at the request of law enforcement. No one disputes that it is sweeping. “In the past, mail covers were used when you had a reason to suspect someone of a crime,” said Mark D. Rasch, the former director of the Justice Department’s computer crime unit, who worked on several fraud cases using mail covers. “Now it seems to be ‘Let’s record everyone’s mail so in the future we might go back and see who you were communicating with.’ Essentially you’ve added mail covers on millions of Americans.” Bruce Schneier, a computer security expert and an author, said whether it was a postal worker taking down information or a computer taking images, the program was still an invasion of privacy. Basically they are doing the same thing as the other programs, collecting the information on the outside of your mail, the metadata, if you will, of names, addresses, return addresses and postmark locations, which gives the government a pretty good map of your contacts, even if they aren’t reading the contents,” he said. But law enforcement officials said mail covers and the automatic mail tracking program are invaluable, even in an era of smartphones and e-mail. In a criminal complaint filed June 7 in Federal District Court in Eastern Texas, the F.B.I. said a postal investigator tracing the ricin letters was able to narrow the search to Shannon Guess Richardson, an actress in New Boston, Tex., by examining information from the front and back images of 60 pieces of mail scanned immediately before and after the tainted letters sent to Mr. Obama and Mr. Bloomberg showing return addresses near her home. Ms. Richardson had originally accused her husband of mailing the letters, but investigators determined that he was at work during the time they were mailed. In 2007, the F.B.I., the Internal Revenue Service and the local police in Charlotte, N.C., used information gleaned from the mail cover program to arrest Sallie Wamsley-Saxon and her husband, Donald, charging both with running a prostitution ring that took in $3 million over six years. Prosecutors said it was one of the largest and most successful such operations in the country. Investigators also used mail covers to help track banking activity and other businesses the couple operated under different names. Other agencies, including the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Department of Health and Human Services, have used mail covers to track drug smugglers and Medicare fraud. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/04/us/monitoring-of-snail-mail.html?_r=1& |
BREAKING: Morsi under house arrest. Tanks on
the move in Cairo. Is Egypt on the brink of civil war? In Uncategorized on July 3, 2013 at 6:06 pm Egyptian troops are deploying to remove Morsi from power. (AP photo) Egyptian troops are deploying to remove Morsi from power. (AP photo) (Jerusalem, Israel) — In two days, we will host the 2013 Epicenter Conference here in Jerusalem amidst a horrific civil war in Syria and the very present possibility of a civil war in Egypt. As I write this at 9pm local time, here are the latest developments: Millions of Egyptians have been demanding that President Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood government step down from power because of their many failures and dictatorial approach to governing. The Egyptian issued an ultimatum earlier this week for Morsi to come to a peaceful resolution with the protestors or the army would step in with unspecified action. Morsi refused to step down from power, or make peace with the protestors. At 6:30pm, the army began mobilizing — tanks were on the move in Cairo and other cities. By 9pm, it was reported that Morsi is under house arrest. The army has seized control of state TV. Morsi’s supporters say a military coup is underway. Among the main questions now is whether the Muslim Brotherhood — the region’s original Radical Jihadist organization — will fight back, plunging Egypt into a civil war. Here’s the latest coverage and analysis. Egypt’s Mohamed Morsi remains defiant as fears of civil war grow – In exclusive interview with the Guardian, Morsi defiantly rejects call for elections, setting stage for trial of strength on the streets (UK Guardian) Egypt headed for civil war, ex-Israeli defense minister warns (Times of Israel) Egyptian clerics warn of ‘civil war’ ahead of mass protests (NBC News) http://flashtrafficblog.wordpress.com/2013/07/03/breaking-morsi-under-house-arrest-tanks-on-the-move-in-cairo-is-egypt-on-the-brink-of-civil-war/ |
Investment bank to be paid £850,000 to provide advice on transferring RBS’s troubled assets into a bad bank Investment bankers at Rothschild are to be paid £850,000 for conducting a review, commissioned by the chancellor, into whether Royal Bank of Scotland should be split into a good and bad bank. George Osborne announced the review in his Mansion House speech and said he wanted the work to be completed by autumn. RBS, 81%-owned by the taxpayer, is expected to pick up the bill. John Kingman, second permanent secretary at the Treasury, recused himself from the selection process as he was global co-head of financial institutions at Rothschild until September. He had returned to the civil service last year after joining the investment bank in 2009 after running UK Financial Investments, the body set up during the crisis to look after the stakes in the bailed-out banks. The outgoing UKFI chief executive, Jim O’Neil, also recused himself from the selection process as he prepared to move to Bank of America Merrill Lynch this year. Rothschild is to provide advice on transferring RBS’s troubled assets into a bad bank – but the remit does not extend to a wider analysis of breaking up RBS along any other lines. Slaughter & May, the law firm involved in the 2008 bank bailouts, has been tasked with advising the government on the possible creation of a bad bank. http://realnewsnow.com/2013/07/rbs-rothschild-to-consider-good-bankbad-bank-split/ |
“The world will be shocked” by the next story on the National Security Agency’s vast spying operations, said Glenn Greenwald, the Guardian journalist leading the exposure—made possible by leaks from whistleblower Edward Snowden—of the agency’s far-reaching surveillance. Glenn Greenwald (R) speaking with Eric Bolling on Fox & Friends about the ongoing revelations of NSA spying and whistleblower Edward Snowden.Speaking Tuesday morning with conservative host Eric Bolling on Fox News’ Fox & Friends, Greenwald hinted that a new NSA story was forthcoming and potentially explosive. When asked if he was ready to unveil a new NSA scoop, Greenwald responded: I will say that there are vast programs of both domestic and international spying that the world will be shocked to learn about that the NSA is engaged in with no democratic accountability, and that’s what’s driving our reporting. Greenwald also gave a preview of this next exposé over the weekend during a speech given to the Socialism 2013 conference, saying it would report on “a brand new technology [that] enables the National Security Agency to redirect into its own repositories one billion cell phones calls every single day.” The example the Obama administration is setting with Snowden, Greenwald explained to Bolling, is to give a warning to future whistleblowers that the repercussions will be swift and harsh. I think what the Obama administration wants and has been trying to establish for the last almost five years now with the unprecedented war on whistleblowers that it is waging is to make it so that everybody is petrified of coming forward with information about what our political officials are doing in the dark that is deceitful, illegal or corrupt. They don’t care about Edward Snowden at this point; he can no longer do anything that he hasn’t already done. What they care about is making an extremely negative example out of him to intimidate future whistleblowers from coming forward because they’ll think that they’re going to end up like him. That’s their objective. On what he sees as “Snowden’s endgame,” Greenwald, who said he has not seen the whistleblower since he left Hong Kong, replied: Well, from the very first time that I spoke with him he said that he completely understood that once he came forward against the U.S. government and the Obama administration that he would become the most wanted man on earth, and would be hunted down by the world’s most powerful state, and that he felt that it was worthwhile to do that because he could not in good conscience allow this massive spying program aimed at the American people to be constructed in the dark. And he said obviously he wants to stay out of the clutches of the U.S. government given the way they’ve persecuted whistleblowers. He’s obviously trying to find a place where he can do that but his real goal is to continue to be part of the conversation about why he did what he did, what it is that he saw in the NSA, how these spying powers were being abused, and to continue to make people around the world and his fellow citizens in the United States aware of what their government is doing. Later on the program, Fox News legal analyst Peter Johnson Jr. said that Greenwald has been “involved with the WikiLeaks” and “has it a little bit mixed up.” Johnson called Greenwald “almost a flack, the alter-ego for the media” for Snowden. In the interview with Bolling, Greenwald explained: This is what journalism is about—shining a light on what the most powerful people in the country are doing to them in the dark. Johnson said that “transparency is the issue”—not the transparency of the U.S. government, officials or the NSA’s vast surveillance program—but about Mr. Greenwald, whom he said may be an “advocacy journalist,” not “merely a reporter.” Vid at link: http://www.rumormillnews.com/cgi-bin/forum.cgi?read=281486 |
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From LewRockwell.com The Real Meaning of the Fourth of July by Jacob G. Hornberger http://www.lewrockwell.com/hornberger/hornberger149.html Contrary to popular myth, the men who signed the Declaration of Independence were not great Americans. Instead, they were great Englishmen. In fact, they were as much English citizens as Americans today are American citizens. It's easy to forget that the revolutionaries in 1776 were people who took up arms against their own government. So how is it that these men are considered patriots? Well, the truth is that their government didn't consider them patriots at all. Their government considered them to be bad guys — traitors, all of whom deserved to be hanged for treason. Most of us consider the signers of the Declaration of Independence to be patriots because of their courage in taking a stand against the wrongdoing and tyranny of their own government, even risking their lives in the process. Yet not even the patriotism and courage of these English citizens constitutes the foremost significance of the Fourth of July, any more than the military victory over their government's forces at Yorktown does. Instead, the real significance of the Fourth of July lies in the expression of what is undoubtedly the most revolutionary political declaration in history: that man's rights are inherent, God-given, and natural and, thus, do not come from government. Throughout history, people have believed that their rights come from government. Such being the case, people haven't objected whenever government officials infringed upon their rights. Since rights were considered to be government-bestowed privileges, the thinking went, why shouldn't government officials have the power to regulate or suspend such privileges at will? The Declaration of Independence upended that age-old notion of rights. All men — not just Americans — have been endowed by God and nature, not government, with fundamental and unalienable rights. Governments are called into existence by the people — and exist at their pleasure — for one purpose: to protect the exercise of these inherent rights. What happens if a government that people have established becomes a destroyer, rather than a protector, of their rights? The Declaration provides the answer: It is the right of the people to alter or even abolish their government and establish new government whose purpose is the protection, not the destruction, of people's rights and freedoms. The Constitution and the Bill of Rights must be construed in light of that revolutionary statement of rights in the Declaration of Independence. The American people used the Constitution to bring the federal government into existence but also, simultaneously, they used that document to limit the government's powers to those expressly enumerated in the Constitution. With the Constitution, people limited the powers of their own government in a formal, structured way, with the aim of protecting their rights and freedoms from being infringed upon by that same government. Why did Americans deem it desirable and necessary to limit the powers of the federal government? Because they feared the possibility that their new government would become like their former government against which they had had to take up arms. (snip) On the Fourth of July we celebrate the patriotism and courage of those English revolutionaries who were willing to pledge their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor in defense of the most revolutionary declaration of rights in history — that man's rights come from God and nature, not from government. July 7, 2008 Jacob Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation. For full article: http://www.lewrockwell.com/hornberger/hornberger149.html |
That poor Ambassador Stevens had his genitals cut off, was stabbed and burned before he was dragged through the streets, then left to die. There is no doubt that Obama wanted Stevens dead and did nothing to protect him. What did Obama want hidden from the public and to die with Stevens?? This guy is worse than even Bush or Clinton--sitting in the oval office watching drones kill innocent people. The shame of it all. Let's just hope the arrest warrants that were generated from the Hague over the past couple of days will produce fruit and get Obama and Bush. A whole lot of the problems in the united States would quickly be disposed of. Maryhrt If you haven't seen this it is well worth the time to listen to it. She says it all and very well too!! It is a scathing report on our fearless leader and his pack! http://iowntheworld.com/blog/?p=186103 http://www.rumormillnews.com/cgi-bin/forum.cgi?read=281475 |
Embattled IRS official Lois Lerner will not testify before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee unless she’s given immunity from prosecution, her lawyer told POLITICO Tuesday. “They can obtain her testimony tomorrow by doing it the easy way … immunity,” William W. Taylor III said in a phone interview. “That’s the way to resolve all of this.” The comments reflect the hard-line approach Lerner, the former head of the IRS division that scrutinized conservative groups, and her legal team are taking in defending her role in the agency’s scandal. Taylor, a founding partner of Zuckerman Spaeder LLP, is even shrugging off the possibility that the full House might vote to hold Lerner in contempt. “None of this matters,” he said. “I mean, nobody likes to be held in contempt of Congress, of course, but the real question is one that we’re fairly confident about, and I don’t think any district judge in the country would hold that she waived.” The oversight panel voted along party lines last week that Lerner waived her Fifth Amendment rights at a May 22 hearing when she boldly declared her innocence in the IRS scandal and said she violated no laws — then invoked her constitutional protections to ward off self-incriminating questions from lawmakers. Republicans immediately argued that Lerner forfeited her Fifth Amendment right by speaking and they should be allowed to question her opening statement. Legal experts disagree about whether she actually did. But in the eyes of the committee, Lerner — who was placed on administrative leave after refusing the new IRS leader’s request to resign — is obligated to now answer questions related to her earlier statement. “The committee is entitled to Ms. Lerner’s full and truthful testimony without further conditions,” said panel spokesman Frederick Hill in a statement to POLITICO. “If, however, Ms. Lerner’s attorney is interested in discussing limited immunity, the committee will listen.” Rep. Jim Jordan (Ohio), a senior oversight Republican helping oversee the IRS investigation, said the panel is still hopeful she’ll come to the committee on her own free will, arguing that questions of immunity and contempt are “down the road.” “We hope she comes in and gives us the truth and answers questions,” Jordan said in a brief phone interview Tuesday. “If that doesn’t happen, then you cross the next bridge. … If she says, ‘No, I’m going to come in and assert my Fifth Amendment rights again and not going to speak,’ then you think about what the other options are.” Oversight Republicans have not yet decided when or how to recall Lerner, but if she refuses to answer questions on her proclamation of innocence, they say she could face contempt charges. Taylor, however, said he is not afraid of that threat and is willing to take the issue to federal court if necessary. If Lerner is held in contempt, Taylor notes that a federal judge will have the final say about whether she waived her constitutional protection. That’s because criminal contempt charges go to the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia for potential prosecution. The Oversight committee, chaired by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), could initiate civil proceedings against Lerner on its own initiative. But such an option would delay Lerner’s testimony for months, if not longer, lessening her value to the panel’s IRS probe. Even if Lerner is found in the wrong, she’ll simply testify and it won’t be a huge deal, Taylor says. “If the court finds that she didn’t waive, then it’s over, and if the court finds that she did and orders her to testify, then she goes to testify,” Taylor said, later, adding that there is “no danger under any circumstances of her going to jail.” Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/07/lois-lerner-irs-testimony-immunity-93684.html#ixzz2Y0DhcWZb |
Verizon phone records story off-limits to airmen Gina Loudon President Obama has said the outrage over the federal government’s decision to monitor citizens’ phone activity is all “hype.” He might want to share his opinion with the U.S. Air Force, which is ordering members of the service not to look at news stories about it. WND has received an unclassified NOTAM (Notice to Airmen) that warns airmen not to look at news stories related to the data-mining scandal. Want to know how and why America has so rapidly come to resemble the totalitarian society described by novelist George Orwell in “1984,” one characterized by universal surveillance? It’s all exposed in a special issue of Whistleblower magazine – titled “ONE NATION UNDER SURVEILLANCE: Big Brother is watching in ways Orwell never dreamed.” The notice applies to users of the Air Force NIPRNET (Non-classified Internet Protocol Router Network), which is the only way that many troops stationed overseas and on bases in the U.S. are able to access the Internet. The last line of the executive summary states: “Users are not to use AF NIPRNET systems to access the Verizon phone records collection and other related news stories because the action could constitute a Classified Message Incident.” Cindy McGee, the mother of an airman stationed in the UAE, spoke with WND. “The fact that our government is attempting to censor our service members from the truth of what is happening here at home is truly frightening and disheartening,” said McGee. Her son received the same notice. McGee continued, “I am outraged that our government is attempting to censor the information from our military that every citizen in this country is potentially being targeted by our government in a massive overreach of their constitutional powers by unconstitutional surveillance of all Americans and storage of that data.” There have been a multitude of reports already on the latest exploding scandal of the Obama administration. Last Wednesday, the Guardian broke the news of the top-secret court order requiring Verizon to hand over all of its call data on an ongoing basis to the National Security Agency. On Friday, the Washington Post reported that the NSA and FBI are gathering data from the servers of nine U.S. Internet companies. Then reports came out that there are 50 companies from which the government is collecting data. During a press conference, the president dismissed what he called “hype” over the surveillance programs. But concern over this broad surveillance is causing legislators to look into what they can do to enable more oversight of these operations. The latest news detailing how the government keeps track of this massive amount of data and its origins was posted by the Guardian, for everyone in the world to read, except members of the Air Force. See the NOTICE TO AIRMEN at the link http://www.wnd.com/2013/06/military-told-not-to-read-obama-scandal-news/ |