"President Barack Obama is cancelling his planned meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin scheduled for next month in Moscow, an administration official said on Wednesday. The Obama administration has repeatedly expressed disappointment after Moscow granted asylum to former U.S. spy agency contractor Edward Snowden, rejecting U.S. pleas to hand him over to face espionage charges." Continue reading →
"The lock-down of the Boston area is not an isolated incident. It is part of a well-funded, coordinated federal program called Operation Urban Shield. Law enforcement is being trained to impose martial law. Americans are being trained to obey without question. People sometimes marvel over how a civilized populace like the pre-Nazi Germans were blind to the approach of totalitarianism. How could they miss the signs? Most Americans are missing the hint presented by armored personnel vehicles rolling into a peaceful community. The best way to avoid martial law in America is not to be here when it occurs." Continue reading →
"With little fanfare, the agency best known for airport screenings has vastly expanded its reach to sporting events, music festivals, rodeos, highway weigh stations and train terminals. Not everyone is happy. T.S.A. and local law enforcement officials say the teams are a critical component of the nation’s counterterrorism efforts, but some members of Congress, auditors at the Department of Homeland Security and civil liberties groups are sounding alarms. T.S.A. officials would not say if the VIPR teams had ever foiled a terrorist plot or thwarted any major threat to public safety, saying the information is classified." Continue reading →
"Morgan County State’s Attorney Robert Bonjean said Monday that he is not anticipating prosecuting an eavesdropping charge against Randy Newingham — at least not at this time. For the public at large, this does not mean that recording on-duty officers will never be prosecuted in Morgan County. 'We’ll review those reports and we’ll continue to monitor the decision from the 7th Circuit court,' Bonjean said. 'I don’t foresee myself making any blanket decision, just taking it on a case by case basis.' Newingham had his cellphone confiscated after he showed police a recording he had made of himself having a conversation with an on-duty officer on a golf cart." Continue reading →
"Police Chief John Duval now says that he doesn't actually believe the Free State Project or Occupy New Hampshire are domestic terror threats. 'I wish I would have worded things different in retrospect,' he says. 'I understand why their eyebrows are raised about that.' He says it was meant to refer to the 'unpredictable nature of unpredictable people who attach themselves to otherwise lawful situations.' Duval has no plans to issue a formal apology, but he has exchanged emails with Carla Gericke, president of the Free State Project, who is suing a police department for arresting her in 2011 for allegedly recording a police traffic stop." Continue reading →
"Plaintiffs in the suit complained that under ATS' PlatePass program, for example, $10.75 was automatically billed from their credit card to cover a 75 cent toll. The $11 million payment comes on top of the $4.2 million that ATS will pay to red light camera ticket recipients in New Jersey as part of a settlement for illegally issuing tickets at intersections where the yellow signal timing was not justified. Ticket recipients in that case began receiving post cards this week. The settlement agreement leaves it between ATS and Hertz to decide whether 'one or both' companies should pay the refunds." Continue reading →
"FEMA sends out Amber Alerts from cell towers in locations near the abduction. The alerts can pop up on new phones with Wireless Emergency Alert (WEA) capabilities, or phones that get the corresponding software update. It’s a voluntary system, and participating wireless companies were required to add WEA services to their phones by April 7, 2012. Californians were angry and confused about the Amber Alert, scared by an alarming phone notification they didn’t know they had. The reaction mirrors New Yorkers’ response a few weeks ago, when the first New York City mobile Amber Alert woke people up at 4 in the morning." Continue reading →
"Obama on the Jay Leno show said 'We don’t have a domestic spying program.' He said 'What we do have are some mechanisms where we can track a phone number or an e-mail address that we know is connected to some sort of terrorist threat.' Obama is incorrect. The XKeyscore program of the NSA spies on everyone. 'A top secret National Security Agency program allows analysts to search with no prior authorization through vast databases containing emails, online chats and the browsing histories of millions of individuals, according to documents provided by whistleblower Edward Snowden.' It’s not the only program of the government." Continue reading →
"Obama said the programs were critical to counterterrorism work. But he said more needed to be done to assure Americans they were not being spied on themselves. 'We don’t have a domestic spying program,' he said. 'What we do have are some mechanisms where we can track a phone number or an email address that we know is connected to some sort of terrorist threat.'" Continue reading →
"President Barack Obama on Tuesday night condemned Russia and some African countries for persecuting gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender individuals. 'I’ve been very clear that when it comes to universal rights, when it comes to people’s basic freedoms, that whether you are discriminating on the basis of race, religion, gender or sexual orientation, you are violating the basic morality that I think should transcend every country,' he said on NBC’s The Tonight Show with host Jay Leno. 'And I have no patience for countries that try to treat gays or lesbians or transgender persons in ways that intimidate them or are harmful to them.'" Continue reading →