Obama attacked from all sides over CIA memos
The White House was engulfed by a maelstrom of anger yesterday after its decision to release memos from the Bush era providing legal cover for "enhanced" interrogation techniques in secret CIA prisons. At the same time, it made promises to protect those who implemented them from prosecution.
Judge Skeptical Of State Secrets Privilege For NSA
The Obama administration suffered a bit of a legal setback this afternoon: a federal judge in California rejected the administration's assertion of the state secrets privilege in the civil suit brought by an Islamic charity that was allegedly subjected to illegal NSA surveillance
Chinese spies may have put chips in US planes
The Chinese cyber spies have penetrated so deep into the US system ranging from its secure defence network, banking system, electricity grid to putting spy chips into its defence planes that it can cause serious damage to the US any time, a top US official on counter-intelligence has said.
Tax/Regulation Protests are Not Enough
By Kitty Antonik Wakfer
Numerous Internet news sources and commentaries have carried an increased number of reports for many months about various group in-person protests and email/petition actions in the US (and elsewhere) in regard to high government taxes and/or various regulations.
Was insect torture used on Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s children?
Bush Administration memos released by the White House on Thursday provide new insight into claims that American agents used insects to torture the young children of alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
No Amnesty for Torturers
By Dave Lindorff
Now our president whose own wife and daughters are descendants of slave victims of another era of American atrocities is telling us we should do the same thing as Germany and Japan: forget and move on.
President Obama, Slick Salesman For Banksters?
By Szandor Blestman
I would politely remind Mr. Obama that there are more than two schools of political thought in the world and to pigeon hole every issue into two arguments, whether referred to as left or right, liberal or conservative, or whatever label you would put on them, is an over simplification and a disservice to mankind.
Gen. Taguba: Accountability for torture does not stop at White House dooor
Major General Antonio Taguba called for an independent commission to investigate war crimes committed by senior members of the Bush Administration in remarks in Ames Courtroom on Tuesday, April 14. The event was sponsored by Physicians for Human Rights and the Human Rights Program at Harvard Law School.
Human-animal hybrid ban sought at Louisiana session
Legislation that would prohibit scientists in the state from creating human-animal hybrids for experimentation -- believed to be the first such ban proposed in the nation -- has been filed for debate at the lawmaking session that opens April 27.
Cigarette smuggling may be on the rise
Last month, the FBI charged two Brooklyn, N.Y., men with buying 15 cases of cigarettes from a New Jersey undercover agent who says he told the men the smokes were stolen.
Spanish judge keeps Guantanamo probe alive
A Spanish judge considering possible criminal action against six former Bush administration officials for torture at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay defied pressure to drop the case on Friday.
EPA takes first step toward climate change regs
The Environmental Protection Agency concluded Friday that greenhouse gases linked to climate change "endanger public health and welfare," setting the stage for regulating them under federal clean air laws.
British intelligence prosecution fear over US torture memos
Fresh revelations about the CIA’s torture techniques have thrown the spotlight on British intelligence, which gained valuable insight into terror networks from confessions extracted by American officers. They have raised further fears that British agents could be prosecuted for their indirect role in the abuse of detainees.
Traders, Not Investors, Fueling This Stock Rally: NYSE Chief
Wall Street’s stunning six-week rally has been fed more by traders looking to take advantage of quick swings in the market than investors with a long-term view, NYSE Euronext CEO Duncan Niederauer told CNBC.
Fed Shrouding $2 Trillion in Bank Loans in ‘Secrecy,’ Suit Says
U.S. taxpayers need to know the risks behind the Federal Reserve’s $2 trillion in lending to financial institutions because the public is now an “involuntary investor” in the nation’s banks, according to a court filing by Bloomberg LP.
The Road to Area 51
Area 51. It's the most famous military institution in the world that doesn't officially exist. If it did, it would be found about 100 miles outside Las Vegas in Nevada's high desert, tucked between an Air Force base and an abandoned nuclear testing ground. Then again, maybe not— the U.S. government refuses to say. You can't drive anywhere close to it, and until recently, the airspace overhead was restricted—all the way to outer space. Any mention of Area 51 gets redacted from official documents, even those that have been declassified for decades.
Tortured Logic: Obama Writes Off Old Crimes While Promoting New Outrages
By Chris Floyd
Obama Administration is moving strenuously in court to drive these captives even deeper into limbo, asserting that no one who is plunged into the netherworld of America's little Gitmos in Afghanistan has the slightest right to any tincture of legal redress -- even if they had been kidnapped from the streets of some foreign city and "renditioned" to Afghanistan.
Aid Rots Outside Gaza
Hundreds of thousands of tonnes of aid intended for the Gaza Strip is piling up in cities across Egypt's North Sinai region, despite recent calls from the United Nations to ease aid flow restrictions to the embattled territory in the wake of Operation Cast Lead.
Mumbai Attacks Suspect Withdraws Confession
The only surviving suspected gunman in the Mumbai terror attacks has retracted his confession after claiming it was extracted by torture, his defence lawyer says.
Police 'stop attempt on Morales'
Bolivia's President Evo Morales says three foreigners have been killed after he ordered police to thwart a planned assassination attempt against him.
Russia Ends Operations in Chechnya
Russia officially ended what it called its counterterrorism operation in the southern region of Chechnya on Thursday with an announcement that carried symbolic weight as the end of a decade of Muslim separatist battles for independence.
First Kepler Spacecraft images
The Kepler spacecraft is in the initial stages of its mission to examine our region of the Milky Way in order to discover potentially habitable, Earth-like planets.
Model Teacher: High School Coach Fired for Posing for Playboy
We have another teacher fired for her private lifestyle and activities. Carlie Beck was fired from her job as cheerleading coach at Casa Roble High School in the San Juan Unified School District after she posed nude for Playboy under the name Carlie Christine.
OBAMA ACCUSED OF "CONDONING TORTURE"
US President Barack Obama has been accused of "condoning torture" following his announcement that CIA agents who used harsh interrogation techniques on terrorism suspects will not be prosecuted.
Obama Appointee Suggests Radical Plan for Newspaper Bailout
Rosa Brooks, who has moved from the L.A. Times to the Pentagon, called for more "direct government support for public media" and government licensing of the news, which critics say would destroy the independent media.
Four jailed for breaking copyright in Swedish file-sharing trial
The founders of file-sharing website The Pirate Bay have been sentenced to a year in jail in Sweden for breaking copyright laws by helping millions of users download music, movies and computer games for free.
YouTube boosts full-length movies, TV show lineup
Google Inc.'s YouTube said Thursday it is vastly expanding its library of full-length movies and TV shows it offers online, while also launching a new advertising service and adding about a dozen new content partners.
Will Tim Geithner set Goldman Sachs free?
The Federal Reserve System(Fed) is the central bank of AMERICA ; it is neither "federal" nor is there a "reserve". It is a private corporation that is owned by "member banks". What is not said is that real people own banks. Regarding the ownership of Fed stock the media all too often, anthropomorphises the banks instead of identifying the PEOPLE that own the banks ergo the Fed stock.
Russia’s nuclear attack on U.S. may start with major banks
While US scientists put forward the new doctrine of the Minimum Nuclear Deterrence (targeting missiles against Russia’s 12 key enterprises), Bigness.ru decided to draw a map of a limited strike that could paralyze the US economy. It turns out that the United States is much more vulnerable than Russia at this point. An attack against only five targets in the USA will throw the US economy back into the Stone Age.
Lawyers Set to Profit on Lehman
Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., which set a record as the largest company to file for bankruptcy protection, is on course to yield one of the biggest bonanzas for lawyers.
A 'Copper Standard' for the world's currency system?
Hard money enthusiasts have long watched for signs that China is switching its foreign reserves from US Treasury bonds into gold bullion. They may have been eyeing the wrong metal.
When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.
~Thomas Jefferson
The War on Short Yellows
Why is this important? Because Arizona, specifically Scottsdale, is home to the two biggest companies, American Traffic Solutions and Redflex Traffic Systems, in the incestuous world of promoting and operating traffic cameras for revenue-hungry governments.
Hate Crime Bill Might Make Md. A Pioneer
Maryland would become the first state to list the homeless as a class protected from hate crimes under legislation that is headed to Gov. Martin O'Malley's desk. Hate Crimes = Thought Crimes
Immigration Raid at Customs Officer’s Home Leads to Suit
James and Sheila Slaughter said that when they answered the door of their home in San Luis, Ariz., on a July afternoon last year, they were surprised to find five armed Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers strapped into bulky bulletproof vests accusing them of harboring an illegal immigrant. “Is this ‘Candid Camera’?” Mrs. Slaughter recalled askin
DHS issued report on extremism despite concerns
Civil liberties officials at the Homeland Security Department did not agree with some of the language in a controversial report on right-wing extremists, but the agency issued the report anyway.
Navies to guard undersea cable from Somali pirates
Foreign navies have agreed to protect a vessel installing an undersea high-speed Internet cable from pirates off the coast of Somalia, a Kenyan minister said on Thursday.
Police delete London tourists' photos 'to prevent terrorism'
Like most visitors to London, Klaus Matzka and his teenage son Loris took several photographs of some of the city's sights, including the famous red double-decker buses. More unusually perhaps, they also took pictures of the Vauxhall bus station, which Matzka regards as "modern sculpture".
Report: NSA tried to eavesdrop on Congress member
The National Security Agency tried to wiretap a member of the U.S. Congress without a warrant, and has engaged in "significant and systemic" illegal surveillance activities in the last few months including e-mail and telephone call interceptions, according to a report this week.
Obama consulted widely on memos
White House senior adviser David Axelrod says President Barack Obama spent about a month pondering whether to release Bush-era memos about CIA interrogation techniques, and considered it “a weighty decision.”
U.S. lays groundwork for bank stress test release
U.S. regulators on Thursday released some details about their bank "stress tests," moving to bolster the credibility of a process some investors worry might not reveal the financial sector's true health.
Turkey, Washington’s geopolitical pivot
By F. William Engdahl
The recent visit of US President Obama to Turkey was far more significant than the president’s speech would suggest. For Washington, Turkey today has become a geopolitical “pivot state” which is in the position to tilt the Eurasian power equation towards Washington or significantly away from it, depending on how Turkey develops its ties with Moscow and its role regarding key energy pipelines.
Exclusive: Ethiopia/USA/Somali pirates’ cover-up
By Thomas C. Mountain
One of the best kept secrets in the international media these days is the link between the USA, Ethiopia and the Somali pirates. First, a little reliable background from someone on the ground in the Horn of Africa.
Seeing Things
I compiled patches, insignia, and symbols referring to secret military programs. Strangely enough, this "black world" is rich with such symbolic imagery, even though it affiliates someone with deeply held secrets.
Md. Guard Issues Warning to Staff about Local TEA Party Protestors
A document issued by the Maryland National Guard on April 9 warns full-time Guard personnel to be aware of threats from local citizens protesting income taxes during grass roots events known as TEA (Taxed Enough Already) Parties -- one of which was held on Solomons Island March 22.
Abandoned in the jungle – the deadliest drug lord
They called him "Don Mario," and he was one of the most wanted men in the world: the head of a ruthless crime empire that carried out 3,000 murders in the past 18 months and smuggled hundreds of tonnes of cocaine, with a street value of tens of millions of dollars, from his native Colombia each year. California asks feds to back its IOUs
Facing what could be the largest cash flow problem in state history, California officials are asking the federal government to back billions of dollars in short-term loans the state must seek in July.
Baptist pastor beaten + tazed by Border patrol - 11 stitches
I told them I was a US citizen. I told them I was on a business trip. I told them I had no drugs or humans in the car. That wasn't enough. They wanted to search the car, and I invoked my 4th amendment rights. I DID NOT RESIST OR FIGHT BACK. YET I WAS TAZERED REPEATEDLY AND SHOVED IN BROKEN GLASS REPEATEDLY! I was IN the United States!!! I had crossed no international border!!!
Officials pressured to rethink Taser use
Family members, religious leaders and anti-police brutality groups took turns Tuesday night asking city leaders for answers, an apology and a promise to rethink the way police in the city use Tasers following the death last week of a Detroit teen.
The Constitution Is A Subversive Manifesto Per DHS
The Department of Homeland Security Report titled "Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment" was first brought to light by Stephen Gordon at The Liberty Papers Blog. The Report was issued a week before the scheduled Tea Parties across the country, and is all over the news today. Reading the report is depressing, not because it reveals any current threat, but because of the shoddy definitions and analysis.
GM pushes faster plan to cut U.S. dealers: sources
General Motors Corp has told U.S. dealers it is accelerating its timetable for closing about 1,700 dealerships as it rushes to meet a June 1 deadline to restructure under U.S. government oversight, people with knowledge of the discussions said.
Georgetown Says It Covered Over Name of Jesus to Comply With White House Request
Georgetown University says it covered over the monogram “IHS”--symbolizing the name of Jesus Christ—because it was inscribed on a pediment on the stage where President Obama spoke at the university on Tuesday and the White House had asked Georgetown to cover up all signs and symbols there.
Frivolous Lawsuit Filed Against Napolitano?
My co-blogger David Kopel links to the lawsuit filed by Michael Savage and others over the "Right-Wing Extremism Report" issued by DHS. Isn't the lawsuit frivolous? As I read it, the lawsuit is claiming that the issuance of a government report criticizing certain groups violates the plaintiffs' constitutional rights. But the Constitution doesn't provide a constitutional right to have the government not say things that might be considered criticism. Perhaps the plaintiffs want the Constitution to be radically reinterpreted by activist judges to invent some brand-new constitutional rights?
Veterans a Focus of FBI Extremist Probe
The Federal Bureau of Investigation earlier this year launched a nationwide operation targeting white supremacists and "militia/sovereign-citizen extremist groups," including a focus on veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan, according to memos sent from bureau headquarters to field offices.
US Congress to Investigate Surveillance Program
U.S. lawmakers have ordered an investigation into allegations the National Security Agency violated legal restrictions while intercepting some e-mails and phone calls of Americans.
Bill Would Require You to Identify Yourself At All Times
The Texas Senate has approved a bizarre measure which would require citizens to show some sort of identification to any police officer who demands it, at any time, for any reason, 1200 WOAI news reports.
Colbert Torches Obama On Bagram Decision (VIDEO)
"It's essentially the same stance taken by George Bush," Colbert added, "With one important difference: Obama makes the kids like it." Sad because it's funny because it's true.
"Tea" protests flood America
Hundreds of anti-tax 'tea parties' have been held all over the US by protesters who think Obama's bank bailout and stimulus package are mortgaging the future for an easier present.
Video Takes You on 3-D Virtual Trip Into Growing Tumor
Take a virtual trip inside the human body at a cellular level to see how blood vessels grow to feed tumors. Stopping this growth is one of the primary lines of attack scientists take in trying to defeat diseases, cancer in particular.
Obama in Mexico, pledges help to slow US arms flow
After his meeting with Calderon, Obama planned to announce he would support an inter-American weapons treaty meant to take on the bloody drug trade. Officials described the plan on the condition of anonymity so they wouldn't pre-empt the announcement. The War On Drugs Is A Big Failure!
No charges against CIA officials for waterboarding
The Obama administration on Thursday informed CIA officials who used waterboarding and other harsh interrogation tactics on terror suspects that they will not be prosecuted, senior administration officials told the Associated Press.
Source: Talk of delaying 2 WTC towers for years
The owners of ground zero, locked in a new round of heated talks with a private developer about how and when to build office towers at the World Trade Center site, have proposed indefinitely putting off two of three planned skyscrapers until the real estate market recovers, officials familiar with the negotiations say.
Navy Takes Next Step Towards Laser 'Holy Grail'
U.S. Navy ships could one day knock down incoming missiles with energy weapons that never run out of shots, and tune themselves to slice through the ocean air.
The NYT's predictable revelation: new FISA law enabled massive abuses
By Glenn Greenwald
In The New York Times last night, James Risen and Eric Lichtblau -- the reporters who won the Pulitzer Prize for informing the nation in 2005 that the NSA was illegally spying on Americans on the orders of George Bush, a revelation that produced no consequences other than the 2008 Democratic Congress' legalizing most of those activities and retroactively protecting the wrongdoers -- passed on leaked revelations of brand new NSA domestic spying abuses, ones enabled by the 2008 FISA law.
