http://www.infowars.com/tsa-cuts-off-nipple-ring-with-pliers/
Infowars.com
November 22, 2010
The following video is from 2008, two years before the current naked body scan and sexual molestation pat down procedures.
This blog speaks my personal opinion on current issues that effect us daily. I am strong spoken and opinionated but I believe in honesty even if it is brutal. When possible I will back up my information with resources and links to those sources. If I state a fact I will make it one that you can easily research yourself to verify if I do not link a source. The goings on in the world today make me say "What the hell?!" almost daily, so welcome to my own looming question. May we get an answer!
Friday, December 31, 2010
NJ Legislation Bans TSA Scanners and Criminalizes Unreasonable Searches and Invasive Pat Downs
Senator Mike Doherty
December 5, 2010
New Jersey Senator Michael Doherty (R-Warren, Hunterdon) announced today that he has introduced three pieces of legislation drafted to eliminate any immunity TSA agents might enjoy when violating New Jersey law during unnecessary and invasive airport screenings:
“For more than a month now, the TSA has quite literally stuck their finger in the eye of law-abiding American citizens while trampling on their constitutionally guaranteed liberties,” Doherty stated. “We call upon every state legislature in our great country to immediately act to put our federal government on notice that the dignity of our citizens shall not be the cost of a failed federal open border policy.”
The following bills were introduced:
Makes certain body searches third degree crime of sexual assault under certain circumstances. View as PDF.
Prohibits use of body imaging scanners to screen passengers and airline crew members. View as PDF.
Specifies that certain images generated by body scans violate State statutes, prohibiting invasion of privacy, pornography, and endangerment of child welfare under certain circumstances. View as PDF.
“All of these bills remove any claim that TSA agents are immune to any state statutes that they violate when searching passengers or crew,” Doherty concluded. “If we don’t take strong action against these violations, where will it lead? Today planes, tomorrow trains and buses, what then? Will the drive to the market be viewed as a ‘privilege,’ the walk to church? Will we stand upon the slippery slope of paranoia that leads to invasive searches becoming a way of daily life, or say no, and defend our rights to privacy now while we still have them.”
Senator Doherty has launched an online petition to support his efforts to stop invasive TSA screening procedures at http://www.stopthetsa.org.
Man Killed by Police Was Holding Hose Nozzle, Not Gun
http://www.infowars.com/man-killed-by-police-was-holding-hose-nozzle-not-gun/
KTLA News
December 14, 2010
LONG BEACH (KTLA) — A man shot to death by two police officers was found to have pointed a pistol-grip water nozzle at them rather than a weapon, the police chief said Monday at a news conference marked by sobs from the victim’s relatives.
Police were called at 4:40 p.m. Sunday to investigate the report of a man with a gun in the 5300 block of Ocean Boulevard near Glendora Avenue, said Long Beach Sgt. Dina Zapalski.
Officers say they fired at Douglas Zerby when he pointed the black metal-tipped object at them in a two-handed posture that looked like what a person would do when they are about to shoot a weapon, Chief Jim McDonnell said.
Police Drag Cerebral Palsy Sufferer from Wheelchair Twice
http://www.infowars.com/police-drag-cerebral-palsy-sufferer-from-wheelchair-twice/
YouTube
December 15, 2010
BBC interview wheelchair user and cerebal palsy sufferer Jody McIntryre after he was dragged from his wheelchair by police on two seperate occasions at the anti-tuition fees protest on the 9th December 2010 in London. The presenter is Ben Brown.
Feds order farmer to destroy his own wheat crops: The shocking revelations of Wickard vs Filburn
Mike Adams
Natural News
Dec 21, 2010
In arguing for S.510, the “Food Safety Modernization Act,” there are all sorts of attorneys, legislators and internet commentators who keep claiming, “The government won’t try to control the food production of small farms.” They say, “Your backyard garden is safe” and that the feds won’t come knocking on your door to control your seeds or foods.
As usual, these pushers of Big Government are utterly ignorant of the history in their own country. Because as you’ll learn right here, not only CAN the U.S. government control and dictate to single-family farms what they can grow in their own backyards; the government has already blatantly done so!
In this article, I’ll share with you the full and true story of how Big Government has already run rampant over the rights of individuals to grow their own food — I’ll even cite the US Supreme Court decision that “legalized” this tyranny.
How the tyrants came after a farmer named Roscoe Filburn
It all starts with a farmer named Roscoe Filburn, a modest farmer who grew wheat in his own back yard in order to feed his chickens.
One day, a U.S. government official showed up at his farm. Noting that Filburn was growing a lot of wheat, this government official determined that Filburn was growing too much wheat and ordered Filburn to destroy his wheat crops and pay a large fine to the federal government.
The year was 1940, you see. And through a highly protectionist policy, the federal government had decided to artificially drive up the prices of wheat by limiting the amount of wheat that could be grown on any given acre. This is all part of Big Government’s “infinite wisdom” of trying to somehow improve prosperity by destroying food and impairing economic productivity. (Be wary any time the government says it’s going to “solve problems” for you.)
The federal government, of course, claims authority over all commerce (even when such claims are blatantly in violation of the limitations placed upon government by the Constitution). But Roscoe Filburn wasn’t selling his wheat to anyone. Thus, he was not engaged in interstate commerce. He wasn’t growing wheat as something to use for commerce at all, in fact. He was simply growing wheat in his back yard and feeding it to his chickens. That’s not commerce. That’s just growing your own food.
But get this: The government insisted he pay a fine and destroy his wheat, so Filburn took the government to court, arguing that the federal government had no right to tell a man to destroy his food crops just because they wanted to protect some sort of artificially high prices in the wheat market.
This case eventually went to the US Supreme Court. It’s now known as Wickard v. Filburn, and it is one of the most famous US Supreme Court decisions ever rendered because it represents a gross expansion of the tyranny of the federal government.
The US Supreme Court sided with government tyranny
The US Supreme Court, you see, ruled that Roscoe Filburn’s wheat could be regulated and destroyed by the federal government simply because Roscoe’s wheat production might reduce the amount of wheat he bought from other wheat producers and therefore could impact interstate trade.
Now stay with me on this, because this is a really, really important point to understand.
The federal government claimed authority under the Commerce Clause of the US Constitution (Article 1, Section 8), even though the Commerce Clause was originally written primarily to prevent states from erecting tariffs, not to allow the federal government to control interstate trade. But thanks to the twisted interpretation of the government — and believe me, the government will twist every interpretation it can in an effort to assert more power over the population — the feds claimed that Filburn’s growing of his own wheat effectively reduced interstate commerce in wheat. Therefore, they reasoned, they could regulate his backyard wheat production (and order him to destroy his wheat).
Because of this US Supreme Court decision in 1942, it now means the federal government can order you to halt food production in your own back yard by arguing that when you grow your own food, the amount of food you purchase from other food providers is reduced, meaning that your food production impacts interstate trade and therefore can be fully controlled by the federal government.
In other words, the federal government claims the authority right now — even without the Food Safety Modernization Act — to knock on your door and order you at gunpoint to destroy all the food in your garden, your greenhouse or your farm. They can order you to destroy all seeds in your possession and all food harvested from your own garden. And they can do all this with the full protection of U.S. law by simply citing the precedent set in Wickard v. Filburn in 1942 as ruled by the US Supreme Court.
Why the naysayers will probably starve
Still think you have the right to grow your own food? I’ve heard all sorts of naysayers claiming that S.510 — the Food Safety Modernization Act — is no threat to small growers and family farms. They say the fears about S.510 are overblown and that the government can’t possibly shut down your backyard gardens or small, local vegetable farms. They say this with the kind of smug certainty you might typically hear from a doctor who thinks he knows everything about human health (but who actually knows nothing about nutrition).
These naysayers tend to operate out of an assumption that Big Government will never take away their rights and freedoms and that expanding the reach of agencies such as the TSA, FDA, DEA and FTC with even more power and more armed agents is a good thing because the government always takes care of the people. We need more protection from e.coli, they argue, so let’s unleash 4,000 armed FDA agents instead to protect us from bacteria. (But who will protect us from the FDA?)
What these ignorant naysayers don’t understand is that government is constantly trying to expand its power to the point of tyranny. As a current example of this, look at what just happened with Chavez in Venezuela. He has now been granted what are essentially dictatorial powers over the country (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy…). Chavez is now the King of Venezuela, and whatever he says is now law. Venezuelan citizens are now slaves to his tyranny, and they must follow his orders or be executed.
The United States is moving in precisely the same direction. First, power gets stripped away from the People little by little. Then it gets concentrated in the hands of a few regulatory agencies who write their own laws and who stay in power year after year because none of their officials are elected. (Think the FDA commissioner is elected by the people? Think again…) And then, over time, a few powerful individuals concentrate power from those agencies into their own hands. Before long, the country is run by a handful of power-crazed tyrants who disregard all freedoms and rights of the People.
This is precisely what the FDA is doing with the Food Safety Modernization Act. Backed by yet more funding and a new army of agents, plus the Supreme Court ruling that says the federal government can order you to destroy the food you’re growing in your own back yard, the FDA can now pillage the countryside, going from farm to farm and house to house, burning fields and ordering the citizenry to destroy their plants, seeds and crops. This is exactly what they’ve been doing to raw milk producers and food coops, by the way (http://www.naturalnews.com/030136_R…).
That is no exaggeration. It is a documented “legal” precedent established in Wickard vs Filburn, and it can be used at any moment to destroy the ability of people to grow their own food, thereby making these people totally dependent on dead processed food (which is always FDA approved if it’s dead, of course) made in food factories that churn out nutritional deficiencies and death.
What will you eat when the government destroys your local food supply?
You see, under the argument that your backyard garden “impacts interstate commerce,” the federal government can order you to simply spray Roundup on your entire garden in order to kill it.
What will you eat then? When the GMO crops suffer a mass catastrophic failure, and the monocultured wheat dies from a global viral infection called ug99 “rust” (http://theemergencyfoodsupply.com/a…), what will you eat?
If the government has its way, you won’t eat at all. You’ll starve to death under the “protection” of the food safety thugs at the FDA who don’t believe any “live” food is safe in the first place (hence their war against raw milk).
Those people who have the foresight to grow their own gardens and protect their food sources from the tyranny of the federal government may actually have a chance at surviving. The rest will simply starve while waiting in government food lines where the feds hand out nutritionally worthless cheese and other depleted processed foods that Sesame Street absurdly thinks are “superfoods” (http://www.naturalnews.com/030626_m…).
Big Government declares war on the local food movement
Make no mistake, folks: the government is attempting to destroy the local food movement. They are trying to wipe out small, organic farms that compete with corporate agribiz in the same way the FDA has long plotted to destroy natural health supplement companies who compete with Big Pharma.
It’s all about wiping out the little guys and protecting the monopoly markets of the largest and most influential corporations that are poisoning the earth and destroying your health. As Wickard vs Filburn clearly demonstrated, the government does not believe you have any natural right or Constitutional right to grow your own food. In fact, the government believes it has the right to order you to destroy your food at the time of its choosing.
Don’t think this could happen to you? Filburn didn’t either. The idea that his own government would show up at his door and order him to burn his field of wheat was simply unimaginable. Similarly, the idea that the FDA would tear across the countryside wiping out small family farms is unimaginable to many Americans today. But that’s only because they don’t know their own history and they put far too much faith in the flimsy idea that the government somehow, in some way, respects the rights and freedoms of the People.
The obvious falsehood of that idea is evident in the way we are all being treated by the TSA. Who would have thought, just two years ago, that we’d be subjected to government-enforced molestation at the hands of airport security screeners? That idea seems unthinkable at the time, much like the idea that the FDA could seize your garden seeds or order you to destroy your greenhouse crops. Yet such actions are already within the claimed power of the federal government… merely waiting to be invoked at the time of their choosing.
Traitors to freedom
All those who voted for S.510 — which includes the entire U.S. Senate, Republicans and Democrats alike — are traitors to the freedoms upon which America was founded. They have thrust our food supply into the hands of tyrants who are just waiting to exercise their control and “authority” over as many people as possible.
Five years ago, I joked that people might one day be arrested for smuggling broccoli across state lines. Today, that joke has become a sad reality. The mere act of growing food and selling it to your neighbor without government permission is about to become a criminal act. And no, small farms are not “exempt” from S.510. They must provide financial information and apply to the FDA to be granted exemption status. That sounds a lot like slaves begging for mercy from the king, doesn’t it?
Keep the big picture in mind as you consider all this: When teens are poisoned by the aspartame in diet soda, the FDA does nothing. When children are given cancer by the sodium nitrite in hot dogs, the FDA does nothing. When countless thousands of Americans suffer heart attacks and cardiovascular disease each year from the partially-hydrogenated oils used throughout the food supply, the FDA does nothing. But when you grow fresh produce in your own back yard and carry it to your local farmer’s market to sell it without government permission, you will be arrested by the FDA as a criminal.
Shame on all those who supported this bill. May history have mercy on their souls for the suffering and injustices they have unleashed upon us all.
Tyranny Response Team Exposes Mobile Guard Tower
http://www.infowars.com/tyranny-response-team-exposes-mobile-guard-tower/
SouthNewJerseyTRT
December 21, 2010
Recently members of the South New Jersey Tyranny Response Team while driving down a slow backstreet in a small New Jersey town found this, a mobile guard tower!
With tinted windows hiding the “authorities” from the public, a hydraulic lift system and cameras on each side, the tower was an intimidating structure. This is a small town with low crime and the tower was placed next to a clean and well maintained city park.
What could the reason behind this be? Conditioning? Perhaps a trial run to see reaction of the people? As we watched, we saw others slow down and stare in wonderment. No one approached the Guard Tower. It seems no one complained either because the Prison Guard Tower was later brought back again for a few days.
We thought that it could be for the train station. But then why wouldn’t they just put an officer in the station? Why the blacked out windows? Why is it positioned in the middle of the park and not closer to the train station?
This is clearly meant to condition all the local citizens to accept the police state that is now America. Our nation is supposed to be based on liberty and freedom, now it has been turned into a virtual prison with literal guard towers on small streets, cameras at intersections and body scanners at our airports. This is all meant to show you that you are no better to those with the power than any common criminal. It is about conditioning, not safety.
Please, stop accepting this sort of conditioning and start working to prevent the growing police state that is now choking our once free nation.
Brutal SS Child Kidnapping In Progress
http://www.infowars.com/brutal-ss-child-kidnapping-in-progress/
*Note: We don’t know all the circumstances of this case, but obviously the child services have become an epidemic on the family, and surely there are better ways to deal with breaking apart families.
We Are Change Brum
December 25, 2010
A father and son brutally and unlawfully assaulted by policy enforcement officers (aka the police) under orders of the SS (Social Services).
Watch out for the Section 34 (4) orders to prevent the child’s father having access ‘because he is aggressive and abusive’ and watch out for the S38A exclusion orders. They don’t need to PROVE anything, they just need to SAY it. We can tell you and work with you on things to say that will perk up the Judges interest.
FBI Agents Earning Career Points Every Time They Put Someone on the Watch List
RELATED: Terrorist watch list: One tip now enough to put name in database, officials say
Dan Feidt
Twin Cities Indymedia
December 30, 2010
More than 300 newly released pages of Iowa FBI investigation files confirm the existence of a busy network of federal agents across the Midwest dedicated to clamping down on political dissenters. A Freedom of Information Act request by Des Moines' David Goodner revealed two extensive "Terrorism Enterprise" style investigations against dissenters mainly run by the Omaha FBI office into Iowa, including digging through garbage, watching restaurants, advanced data mining and cell phone record collection. The agents involved claimed "statistical accomplishment" of saving our nation from terrorism: this is exactly, how, and why, federal agents endlessly create pretend counterterror campaigns.
More incidents keep spilling out: yet another report from the Department of Justice oversight office (ZIP 2.4MB), the Office of the Inspector General, spelled out the FBI's deception towards Congress in spying on antiwar activists in Pittsburgh and elsewhere. The DOJ-OIG report focuses on FBI spying against meetings at Pittsburgh's Thomas Merton Center, the friendly group which houses Twin Cities Indymedia's counterpart, PGH Independent Media Center, and hosted many IMCers during the 2009 G20. And of course they cheated on tests about surveillance!
Download Cointelpro Gothic – the Iowa investigation, proving the existence of a national FBI Domestic Terrorism "Anarchists Team": 300 pages FBI FOIA [9MB PDF/ Browse]. Related coverage: Iowa FBI investigation in Des Moines Register | ACLU files new PGH G20 lawsuit | PGH Trib-Review: Lawsuit planned after terror list | Docs show anti-drill PA tracking | OIG: FBI Inappropriately Tracked Domestic Advocacy Groups – The Atlantic. Below the fold: How FBI launches counterterror snooping, adds dissidents to terror watchlists!
First a quick related note: Minnesotans' political activities also have been targeted in Pennsylvania, as indicated by the recently exposed confidential state homeland security contract with an Israeli-American 'counter terror' consultancy, paid by taxpayers to spy on the activities of many political dissidents. Both the Pennsylvania case and the Iowa/Omaha investigations targeted Minnesotans because their political activities made them visible. The Pennsylvania homeland security intelligence-gathering contract produced 137 reports called the "Pennsylvania Intelligence Bulletin", which were posted in full on PublicIntelligence.net. Included were entries about the August Conspiracy Tour launched from Minneapolis, mainly cribbed from website info. Along with info about any events involving the controversial Marcellus Shale gas drilling projects, various random anarchist, antiwar and Islamic events and holidays got described in ominous tones. A "Yes Men Save the World" screening could trigger illegal actions, warned the Israeli-American consultants. Download all here ZIP, or browse it on Scribd.com.
Turning back to the Iowa FBI documents, we can learn a number of important structural features about how the FBI's turbocharged domestic terrorism machine targets people, feeds data around, and adds people to the actual main Terrorist Watchlist. A number of interesting features emerge from the Iowa/Omaha FBI investigations, though heavily redacted. The investigation methods including LexisNexis and obscure tracking systems, as well as the propagandizing material distributed among authorities like the infamous tattoo paranoia pamphlet, are laid out in the docs. We can't learn everything, but we can clearly see that federal agents are incentivized to accuse people of more-or-less quasi-terrorism, then claim statistical terrorism accomplishments to advance their careers. The proof is all in these documents. Are you feeling safer yet?
Are you interested in finding out what the Feds have on you? TC Indymedia previously hosted a workshop with Rich Neumeister & Coleen Rowley on how to do FOIA requests like the one that generated this material. Get your FBI FOIA via ACLU-Oregon instructions.
FBI Midwest Anarchist Paranoia: Cases 100A-OM-51967 & 266H-OM-52112 To "Claim Statistical Achievement"For Great Justice!
These excerpts are mostly in sequential order from the document release. They chart the details and results of the FBI's two Iowa spying campaigns, from the kickoff 'predicate' findings to launch the investigation, to scribbled field notes & cell phone logs, to the closing 'cleanup' messages. For more on the cryptic codes, see How to Read an FBI File from HistoryofPhonePhreaking.org. See also FBI Files Abbreviations.
Every FBI case has 'serial' files. A handy tip as seen on the first part we look at: Serial numbers are frequently handwritten in the lower right-hand corner of the front of the document in large letters. They consist of the file number (without the HQ or Field Office identifier) followed by a dash and the serial number.
At the beginning, the FBI Omaha Squad 6, Cedar Rapids Resident Agency or Agent (RA) opens a case titled "Wild Rose Rebellion" on March 12, 2008. SA = Special Agent. You can see this is serial #2 of the whole FBI casefile, 100A-OM-51967. (OM means Omaha, 100A can mean the US Code violation they're suggesting). Classic: the Hoover-Esque bold/typewriter/redacted aesthetic, unchecked federal paranoia at its most pure. This kicks off the "ROUTINE" formalized FBI concept of the Wild Rose Rebellion, from which many Statistical Accomplishments can be claimed, like Nintendo Golden Coins for GMen.
The second page of real material (p13 in the PDF) shows the apparently important 'Accomplishment Information'. Similar things are in a 2005 animal rights-related FOIA posted by the ACLU for example. "Statistical Accomplishments" are a main metric for FBI career progress. According to NorthJersey.com, infamous shock jock & FBI informant/operative Hal Turner boasted of major 'statistical accomplishments'. This is the primary career incentive to fabricate terrorism cases into (and outside) the FBI:
The next part is interesting because it's essentially the bootup script of an FBI Terrorism Enterprise spying campaign, "document SAC [Special Agent in Charge] Omaha Division authority to open a new Terrorism Enterprise Preliminary Investigation" targeted at a mysterious WILD ROSE REBELLION of Iowa City. Notice the "Attn: Squad 5" area — all those squads are under Omaha it appears. SSA is Supervisory Special Agent. IA is Intelligence Agent. It looks like Squads 5, 7 and 9 are controlled by Omaha, and further indications of their structure appears later. "Counterterrorism" is probably among the main FBI headquarters branch – more on that below.
The only tangible is the intangible "potentially criminal acts" — the originating office (OO) is OM – Omaha. What a great title … case 100A-OM-51967 (Pending) has expanded its Title into the exciting WILD ROSE REBELLION – A RESISTENCE BETWEEN TWO RIVERS aka UNCONVENTIONAL ACTION – MIDWEST; TERRORISM ENTERPRISE INVESTIGATION.
ALL CAPS excitement! "Vacillating" anarchists… The FOIA did not actually produce the TEI (Terrorism Enterprise Investigation) Goals and Objectives, sadly.
This next bit includes the magical command words incarnating the FBI's powers to arbitrarily turn yr life upside down. CDC Omaha can "finds the predication for this TEI exists" because it contains essentially anything possibly illegal. (What does CDC acronym mean though?) Clearly here there is no indication of any criteria resembling actual terrorism, namely real threats to people's safety. Instead it is basically proven here: if you try to plan anything illegal then the Midwest FBI TEI Predicate is Good To Go, and the garbage searching and cellphone subpoenas May Commence!
What could possibly go wrong? Time to setup a network of federal terror investigations! Interestingly we next find the setting of "leads" in different FBI branches as triggers, as the Omaha FBI office lays total claim of ownership to controlling the WILD ROSE REBELLION situation.
The Omaha Field Intelligence Group is activated, as well as the Cedar Rapids Resident Agency.
The next order sets the trigger for collecting drivers license and other data from investigation targets, at least "provides identifying information of [redacted] LNU" … This is all kicking off in March 2008. Squad 9 is revealed as part of the Field Intelligence Group (FIG), and again OO means Originating Office, OM is Omaha (In the Case ID, OM also means Omaha). LNU means Last Name Unknown.
This one also is Omaha FIG = Yes stamped/checked, kind of an interesting stamp. FBI documents have an unique structure: hidden blocks, key handwritten additions and stamped acts-of-acceptance. Good example here. This info came through the "FIG" or Field Intelligence Group, the purely-FBI-based workgroup in each main FBI field office under the Directorate of Intelligence.
The methods used to track people they found in Iowa get spelled out to some extent. NCIC is the National Crime Information Center. Interestingly, some secret commercial database and LexisNexis play a major role in investigations. The ACS is the Automated Case Support system, a decidedly antiquated system which SAIC and other contractors have profitably tried, and failed, to replace. (LexisNexis has many special data operations it markets to law enforcement & intelligence – see the Data Analytics Supercomputer & Advanced Investigative Solutions!) Sekrit NexisLexis? Look carefully – federal panopticon typo LOLs=teh best!
Federal grant programs finance the production and publication of exciting & ridiculous documents like the "Extremist Symbols, Tattoos and Terminology" pamphlet. (Look for the grant numbers to trace who's riding the gravy train.) They may be referring to a flyer like this one, financed by Bureau of Justice Assistance Grant # 2007-MU-BX-K002, which also spawned a number of other similar goofy advisories across many industries nationwide.
Clearly indicated here: propagandizing law enforcement against anarchist tattoos. The so-called "Joint Terrorism Task Force" layer of operations is clearly the main group involved in Cruising Around.
Omaha FBI executed one hell of a garbage surveillance plan in here — Total Garbage Awareness? The federal garbage surveillance diagrams are amazing–look thru the doc to see them. [Remember, this is where your counter-terror resources were put.]
One interesting aspect is how "leads" are formalized and distributed around the anti-Anarchist Fed network. Ramsey County deemed plenty of imaginary information appropriate… Minneapolis considered it covered. Lulz…
More interesting stuff from analysts including LexisNexis and Microsoft Streets & Trips.
The query system for LexisNexis phone numbers is powerful stuff with records back to 1988 in this case.
Not released in FOIA: some CDs that looked like this. Note the case number on discs. Graffiti ticked off Feds real well – they tend to see it as the key symbols to unravelling criminal realities evidently. (100A-OM-51967)
The real raw stuff here. The intrepid Joe Fridays and Jack Bauers of the Pretend Time Iowa Rose Rebellion CounterTerrorism Force made lots of notes of comings-and goings when doing active surveillance outside restaurants. You do not want to appear on stuff like this.
Just another Minnesota tag parked near Deadwood, in the 21st Century Midwest Surveillance State…
Florida Fusion Center Surveilled Ron Paul’s Campaign for Liberty
http://www.infowars.com/florida-fusion-center-surveilled-ron-pauls-campaign-for-liberty/
Kurt Nimmo
Infowars.com
December 23, 2010
Unit set-up to fight terrorism and crime mentions a Campaign for Liberty event held at the Rosen Center Hotel in Orlando, Florida.
Public Intelligence, an international consortium of independent researchers, reports that a fusion center in Florida snooped on Ron Paul supporters and other political groups.
“Several restricted documents produced by the Central Florida Intelligence Exchange (CFIX) and obtained by Public Intelligence indicate that a variety of protests and political events are monitored by the regional fusion center for potential threats and violent activity,” the site reports.
“These events span the political spectrum from a summit hosted by Ron Paul’s Campaign for Liberty to anti-war protests conducted by Code Pink and Veterans for Peace. While the documents make no mention of specific threats arising from the events, they do indicate that the fusion center monitors political action in a variety of forms and sometimes requests law enforcement officers to report on constitutionally-protected activities.”
The Central Florida Intelligence Exchange was established with the assistance of an $850,000 Department of Homeland Security grant.
“The center was formed in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and brings together seven intelligence analysts from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, the Orange County Sheriff’s Office, the Orlando Police Department and other agencies. They’ll help screen public and law-enforcement information to look for terrorist leads and crime trends,” The Orlando Sentinel reported in September, 2007.
In August, CFIX produced a “Domestic Security Intelligence Report” that mentions a Campaign for Liberty event held at the Rosen Center Hotel in Orlando, Florida.
The “sensitive but unclassified” report also describes Greenpeace activities, the expansion of Muslim mosques in the state, the purchase of property in Tennessee by the Aryan Nations, a Code Pink demonstration at the Quantico Marine Corps Base in Virginia, and the appointment of an al-Qaeda leader “intimately familiar with American society.”
In June, CFIX wrote about a demonstration against BP that was part of “Seize BP Week of Action” demonstrations that were held throughout the country between June 3 and 10. “The purpose of the protests is to convince the United States government to seize BP’s assets and to ‘ensure justice’ for all of the devastation that has been caused in the Gulf of Mexico from the disaster of the Deepwater Horizon,” CFIX intelligence analysts wrote.
The CFIX reports are further evidence that state and local law enforcement and homeland security agencies established after September 11, 2001, with federal largess are working closely with the federal government to monitor political groups in the United States.
Earlier this week, the Washington Post reported on efforts by the government to assemble “a vast domestic intelligence apparatus to collect information about Americans, using the FBI, local police, state homeland security offices and military criminal investigators.”
“The system, by far the largest and most technologically sophisticated in the nation’s history, collects, stores and analyzes information about thousands of U.S. citizens and residents, many of whom have not been accused of any wrongdoing,” write Dana Priest and William M. Arkin. “The government’s goal is to have every state and local law enforcement agency in the country feed information to Washington to buttress the work of the FBI, which is in charge of terrorism investigations in the United States.”
The FBI has a long and sordid history of acting as a political police force for the establishment. The agency we are told spends its time and resources tracking down bank robbers and kidnappers was behind COINTELPRO, the illegal operation designed to neutralize and destroy political organizations and individuals frowned upon by the government, including the civil rights leader Martin Luther King.
Last year the Department of Homeland Security produced a report on domestic terrorism subsequently leaked to the media. The DHS report characterized gun owners, Obama’s political opponents, returning veterans, and other “rightwing” political activists as potential terrorist threats. Also in 2009, a Missouri fusion center report leaked to radio talk show host Alex Jones – dubbed the MIAC report – portrayed supporters of Ron Paul, Chuck Baldwin, and Bob Barr as terrorists.
In September, Pennsylvania’s homeland security designated anti-tax protesters and political activists exercising their First Amendment right to petition the government as a threat to the state’s infrastructure. Pennsylvania paid a Philadelphia-based nonprofit $125,000 to compile the list as part of the state Homeland Security’s federally mandated mission to protect public infrastructure.
It was later discovered that the Philadelphia-based nonprofit, the Institute of Terrorism Research and Response, is an Israeli company.
Tennessee Fusion Center Puts ACLU On Terror List
http://www.infowars.com/tennessee-fusion-center-puts-aclu-on-terror-list/
Kurt Nimmo
Infowars.com
December 24, 2010
On Thursday, we reported on a Florida fusion center snooping on Ron Paul and Campaign for Liberty. Now we discover that a fusion center in Tennessee has put the ACLU on a terror list.
The Tennessee fusion center is part of the Tennessee Office of Homeland Security and received its funding from the feds and the people of Tennessee.
On Wednesday, the Chattanooga Free Press reported that Tennessee antiterrorism officials placed the legislative lobbying organization on an internet map detailing “terrorism events and other suspicious activity” after the group warned schools to ensure holiday celebrations “are inclusive.”
Regardless of what you may think of the ACLU’s agenda, the inclusion of the organization on a map of supposed terrorist threats is disturbing. It demonstrates that the government considers political activism on both sides of the false right-left paradigm a threat to its monopoly on power.
The Tennessee fusion center is part of the expanding homeland security apparatus. It was created with the assistance of the DHS and the Tennessee legislature. The feds provided $500,000 for the project and Tennessee taxpayers contributed over a million dollars.
Tennessee’s fusion center follows a national trend. Originally established under the rubric of fighting terrorism, fusion centers around the country are now used for local crime, including gang activity, missing children, medical fraud, narcotics trafficking, and “other crimes.”
Shortly after the first fusion centers were established, reports Government Computer News, federal and state officials realized two things. First, the fusion concept could extend beyond counterterrorism. And second, federal grants were a powerful force in shaping fusion centers.
Tennessee, however, promotes its fusion center as an effort to combat terrorism. “The Tennessee Fusion Center (TFC) is a team effort of local, state and federal law enforcement, in cooperation with the citizens of the State of Tennessee, for the timely receipt, analysis and dissemination of terrorism information and criminal activity relating to Tennessee,” explains the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation.
“The Tennessee Fusion Center (TFC), housed with TBI Headquarters in Nashville, TN, was created in response to the intelligence failures of September 11, 2001. Fusion Centers have been developed across the country to provide an avenue of communication to enhance information sharing between Federal, State and Local law enforcement agencies.”
Following media coverage of the TFC designating the ACLU as a possible terrorist organization, Mike Browning, a spokesman for the Office of Homeland Security, said “certainly it was not our intent to post it [ACLU's letter to schools] as a terrorist incident. That was a mistake. “But I don’t believe that it’s outrageous that we’re basically taking information that was published in an open service media source and … making sure it gets to the appropriate law enforcement.”
ACLU-Tennessee Executive Director Hedy Weinberg called the Tennessee Fusion Center’s tracking of First Amendment-protected activity “deeply disturbing.”
The internet map in question appears on the GlobalIncidentMap.com website. The map details various “incidents,” including Amber Alerts, HAZMAT situations, forest fires, border security, drug interdictions, gang activity, the H1N1 “pandemic,” and oddly the “Iranian Conflict.”
Federalized fusion centers, in addition to HAZMAT and Amber Alert duties, are tasked with monitoring the political ideology of law-abiding Americans.
Early on, writes Tom Burghardt, “fusion centers like the notorious ‘red squads’ of the 1960s and ’70s, morphed into national security shopping malls where officials monitor not only alleged terrorists but also left-wing and environmental activists deemed threats to the existing corporate order.”
As the DHS’ own reports reveal, it is not strictly left-wing and environmental activists the government is interested in surveilling and ultimately neutralizing, but patriot groups and constitutionalists as well.
Is it possible Tennessee’s homeland security – as a creation of the federal Department of Homeland Security – has deemed the ACLU a terrorist threat because of its stand against the concept and implementation of a national security monolith surveilling the American people?
In its 2007 and 2008 reports, the ACLU characterized the rapid expansion of fusion centers as an ominous threat to our constitutional rights and noted specific areas of concern — “their ambiguous lines of authority, the troubling role of private corporations, the participation of the military, the use of data mining and their excessive secrecy.”
Arizona Cops Plan to Track New Year’s Eve Gunfire
http://www.infowars.com/arizona-cops-plan-to-track-new-years-eve-gunfire/
Catherine Holland
Azfamily.com
December 30, 2010
Editor’s note: Good luck on this one. Thousands of people fire guns at midnight on New Year’s Eve. It’s jut another excuse for police to arrest people and confiscate guns.
GLENDALE, Ariz. — It’s a felony in Arizona to randomly fire a weapon, and with New Year’s Eve, a holiday often marked with celebratory gunfire, just days away, police are getting ready to track offenders.
The state law that makes random gunfire illegal is called Shannon’s Law. It was named for a 14-year-old girl who was killed by a random bullet in 1999. Shannon Smith was talking on the phone in the backyard of her Central Phoenix home when she was hit. She died instantly.
Sgt. Brent Coombs of the Glendale Police Department gave Bruce Haffner the lowdown on his department’s high-tech gunfire-detection system. It’s called SpotShotter and it’s extremely accurate.
As Part of “Operation Payback,” Dallas Server Company Raided By FBI In WikiLeaks Probe
Andrea Grimes
Dallas Observer
December 30, 2010
A virtual jaunt ’round the Western Hemisphere has led FBI investigators to anonymous users who appear to have used servers from a Dallas-based server company to disable and disrupt PayPal after the money-wiring site froze a WikiLeaks donations account earlier this month. The Smoking Gun has excerpts from the FBI affadavit, which details the federal investigation into “Operation Payback,” a hacker-led (or activist-led, depending on whose side you’re on) distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack. From the affidavit:
The attack appeared to be organized in response to PayPal’s decision to suspend a WikiLeaks’ PayPal account, which WikiLeaks was using to collect donations. The attackers, “Anonymous,” described themselves as being “average Internet Citizens” and stated that their “motivation is a collective sense of being fed up with all the minor and major injustices we witness every day.”
Multiple IP address traces took California-based agents to Germany, then France, then to Tailor Made, which has its headquarters on Irving Boulevard.
China preparing for armed conflict ‘in every direction’
http://www.infowars.com/china-preparing-for-armed-conflict-in-every-direction/
Peter Foster
The Telegraph
December 30, 2010
“In the coming five years, our military will push forward preparations for military conflict in every strategic direction,” said Liang Guanglie in an interview published by several state-backed newspapers in China. “We may be living in peaceful times, but we can never forget war, never send the horses south or put the bayonets and guns away,” Mr Liang added.
China repeatedly says it is planning a “peaceful rise” but the recent pace and scale of its military modernisation has alarmed many of its neighbours in the Asia-Pacific, including Japan which described China’s military build-up as a “global concern” this month.
Mr Liang’s remarks come at a time of increasingly difficult relations between the Chinese and US armed forces which a three-day visit by his counterpart Robert Gates is intended to address. A year ago China froze substantive military relations in protest at US arms sales to Taiwan and relations deteriorated further this summer when China objected to US plans to deploy one of its nuclear supercarriers, the USS George Washington, into the Yellow Sea off the Korean peninsula.
Feds, Police Enforce Mandatory Blood Tests At Florida Checkpoints
http://www.infowars.com/feds-police-enforce-mandatory-blood-tests-at-florida-checkpoints/
Steve Watson & Paul Watson
Prisonplanet.com
December 30, 2010
Photo: blakespot
In a shocking, but not unprecedented, turn of events drivers in Florida will be mandated to allow police to jab a needle in their arm and extract blood at DUI checkpoints should they refuse to submit to breath tests.
At what have been described as “no refusal” checkpoints, judges will be on hand to issue a warrant allowing police to demand blood.
DUI defense attorney Kevin Hayslett told 10 News WTSP that the mandatory blood tests are a clear violation of constitutional rights:
“It’s a slippery slope and it’s got to stop somewhere,” Hayslett explained, “what other misdemeanor offense do we have in the United States where the government can forcefully put a needle into your arm?”
Watch the report:
The program is gathering pace and has already been instituted in other States. As we have previously highlighted, police in Texas and Idaho are already forcibly jabbing needles into people’s arms and taking their blood at DUI checkpoints, even if they are merely “suspected” of being drunk.
The Associated Press reported last year that officers in Texas and Idaho are training to withdraw blood from “suspects” as a replacement for the standard breathalyzer test, primarily because police can’t make anyone breathe into a tube but apparently, in the “land of the free,” they can forcibly hold someone down and jab a needle into their arm and take their blood, “a practice that’s been upheld by Idaho’s Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court,”.
Nicole Watson, the College of Western Idaho phlebotomy instructor teaching the Idaho officers, described how the process would unfold.
“Once they’re back on patrol, they will draw blood of any suspected drunk driver who refuses a breath test. They’ll use force if they need to, such as getting help from another officer to pin down a suspect and potentially strap them down, Watson said.”
The practice of cops drawing blood at the side of the road has been in place in some areas since 1995 but the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has indicated that the program is ultimately intended to be introduced nationwide.
As Alex Jones exposed over a decade ago, the eventual plan, under a 1993 executive order signed by Bill Clinton, is to institute mandatory blood and urine testing at the DMV:
In October of this year, Washington DC introduced a voluntary program offering free HIV testing at the Department of Motor of Vehicles office in Penn Branch in Southeast Washington for those renewing their licenses. Participants received up to $15 to help defray their DMV costs.
The program was clearly intended to acclimatize drivers to the idea of providing blood samples when applying for a new license.
Of course, once Americans are trained to accept authority figures jabbing them with needles against their will on a whim, programs for mandatory mass vaccination will be all the more easier to implement.
As we covered earlier this year, the government is harvesting samples of DNA from every newborn child in the country, storing them in monolithic bio banks and providing them to outside researchers and other agencies such as the Department of Homeland Security, all without the consent or knowledge of parents.
In April 2008, President Bush signed into law a bill which formerly announced the process that the federal government has been engaged in for years, screening the DNA of all newborn babies in the U.S. within six months of birth.
Described as a “national contingency plan” the justification for the law S. 1858, known as The Newborn Screening Saves Lives Act of 2007, is that it represents preparation for any sort of “public health emergency.”
The bill states that the federal government should “continue to carry out, coordinate, and expand research in newborn screening” and “maintain a central clearinghouse of current information on newborn screening… ensuring that the clearinghouse is available on the internet and is updated at least quarterly”.
Sections of the bill also make it clear that DNA may be used in genetic experiments and tests, both by the government and by researchers chosen to handle the DNA samples and the information that goes with them.
Allowing the government to illegally obtain and store Americans’ blood is a total invasion of privacy and completely unconstitutional. Every effort should be made by citizens to resist this tyranny and prevent the bloodsucking state from building their national DNA database.
—
Steve Watson is the London based writer and editor at Alex Jones’ Infowars.net, and regular contributor to Prisonplanet.com. He has a Masters Degree in International Relations from the School of Politics at The University of Nottingham in England.
Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a fill-in host for The Alex Jones Show. Watson has been interviewed by many publications and radio shows, including Vanity Fair and Coast to Coast AM, America’s most listened to late night talk show.
Naked Wheelchair Protester Targeted by TSA Over Buttocks
http://www.infowars.com/naked-wheelchair-protester-targeted-by-tsa-over-buttocks/
Steve Watson
Infowars.com
December 30, 2010
A woman who hit headlines earlier this month for protesting the invasive new TSA airport security theatre by donning just a bra and panties has been targeted and prevented from flying by TSA officials who cited an “unusual contour” around her buttocks.
Wheelchair user Tammy Banovac was once again groped by TSA agents at Oklahoma City’s Will Rogers World Airport, where on November 30 she stripped to her underwear to protest what she described as persistent violation, involving the touching of her genitals at the hands of the TSA.
“If it happened anywhere else, it would have been sexual assault,” Ms Banovac has said, noting that she is hand searched every time she flies because of her disability.
Ms. Banovac’s protest led to an hour long interrogation at the hands of the TSA before she was denied access to her flight by officials who claimed they found traces of nitrates, which can be used in explosives, on her wheelchair
A video of the protest quickly became a viral Youtube sensation:
Now Ms Banovac has been targeted once again by the TSA.
This time she was fully clothed, yet TSA agents decided that after another full body groping, they were not happy for Banovac to board her flight to Phoenix.
“The stated reason was there was… They were unable to clear an unusual contour of my buttocks area,” Banovac told NewsOn6 in Oklahoma City.
According to the report Banovac was told she would be allowed to board her flight home the next day (Wed 29th December), after she had spent the night in the airport, for what purpose it is not clear.
“This is the most ridiculous sky security theatrics imaginable,” she told the reporters.
Banovac says that her earlier naked protest has backfired and that she is now routinely recognized by the TSA at airports.
Given the bizarre explanation or lack thereof for preventing her from flying for 24 hours, there can be little doubt that TSA agents are intent on punishing Banovac for her earlier protest by making her life hell every time she enters the airport.
Watch the NewsOn6 report:
This would not be the first time TSA agents have been caught pursuing a vendetta against a slave who has dared to step out of line and question the gods.
Earlier this year Stacey Armato was locked inside a glass box for almost an hour by TSA agents at Phoenix airport after she refused to allow them to put her breast milk through an x-ray device, a legitimate request that is even written into the TSA’s own guidelines.
Armato was informed by a police officer that she had been singled out by TSA agents who recognized her because she had filed a complaint against them regarding the handling of her breast milk the previous week.
Despite thousands of complaints over the security theatre, and even in the light of the revelation of gaping security flaws in TSA protocol, Big Sis Janet Napolitano has announced that the enhanced pat-downs and the naked body scanners are here to stay. Anyone who refuses to submit will presumably either be targeted in the same way Tammy Banovac has been, or simply arrested and carted off to prison, as in the case of rape victim and epileptic sufferer Claire Hirschkind.
—
Steve Watson is the London based writer and editor at Alex Jones’ Infowars.net, and regular contributor to Prisonplanet.com. He has a Masters Degree in International Relations from the School of Politics at The University of Nottingham in England.
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Airport Screening Machines and Marijuana: Good Catches?
http://blog.norml.org/2010/12/27/airport-screening-machines-and-marijuana-good-catches/#comments
December 27th, 2010 By: Allen St. Pierre, NORML Executive Director
From December 26 Washington Post: “The full-body scanners in use at 78 U.S. airports can detect small amounts of contraband and hidden weapons, all while producing controversial images of travelers.
The “good catches,” federal officials say, have largely gone unnoticed amid the criticism that erupted over the ghostly X-rays and “enhanced” pat downs. The Transportation Security Administration, which intensified airport screening last month, points to several successes: small amounts of marijuana wrapped in baggies, other drugs stitched inside underwear, ceramic knives concealed in shirt pockets.”
Check out photos of airline travelers busted for cannabis here.
With over 1,000 of these high tech scanning devices deployed at airports by our Reefer Madness-loving federal government, cannabis consumers need to pay special attention when attempting to travel with their medical or recreational cannabis supply.
Question: Do you feel safer knowing that the feds are spending billions annually on technology that is largely used on busting passengers with small amounts of a dried vegetable matter that possesses strong healing and mild psychotropic properties?
Answer: I’ll bet hip-hop legend Kurtis Blow doesn’t feel any safer after getting popped by TSA scanners for a little bit of ganja earlier this month.
Tags: airport, Kurtis Blow, scanners, TSA
Friday, December 24, 2010
Remote ‘kill switch’ added to Intel’s newest processor
http://www.infowars.com/remote-kill-switch-added-to-intels-newest-processor/
Jason Douglass
Infowars.com
December 14, 2010
We are giving up control of our computers and putting that control in another’s hands.
Lauded as a security feature, Intel’s new Sandy Bridge processor can be remotely disabled by a hardware/software combination known at Anti-Theft 3.0. Systems can be disabled over 3G networks, even while the OS is not running. Even when the hard drive is replaced, the critical systems will still be terminated.
At first this sounds great: if an owner loses a laptop it can be remotely disabled to ensure no sensitive data is compromised. But essentially we are giving up control of our computers and putting that control in another’s hands.
With the Patriot Act in place and and legislation like the ‘kill switch’ bill, many of the rights we took for granted are threatened. It is well within reason to fear this type of technology as it could be used as a means of control and censorship.
The CIA recently created a ‘honeypot’ on a hijacked mirror site associated with Wikileaks and used it to identify people who download the sensitive data.
University students have been warned not do download Wikileak’s documents under threat of being blacklisted from government jobs.
Homegrown terrorism is the new buzz being cultivated by DHS and various other government agencies. In publications like MIAC report, authorities identify patriots as dangers and label them probable terrorists.
Even Geraldo Rivera has begun to see through the thin veil of false flag terrorism, identifying patsies planted by the very agencies meant to protect us.
We have lost control of our government and soon we will lose control over our own health. Constitutional rights are continually under attack and we are losing the war. With PR spins like Intel’s it is becoming increasingly difficult to keep things in perspective.
Martial Law: UK Police Chief Mulls Banning Protests
http://www.infowars.com/martial-law-uk-police-chief-mulls-banning-protests/
Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
December 15, 2010
UK police chief Sir Paul Stephenson is considering whether to ask the British government to ban protest marches altogether in response to last week’s student riots, a move that would place Britain under a de facto state of martial law.
“It is one of the tactics we will look at and something we will keep under review, and if we think it is the right thing to do then we will do it,” said the Metropolitan Police commissioner.
NUS president Aaron Porter responded: “Peaceful protest is an integral part of our heritage and it is the responsibility of the police to help facilitate that.”
Although the establishment media in Britain dutifully blamed the protesters for the violent scenes witnessed during the demonstrations, it later emerged that police had been behind a number of provocations that caused the running street battles, including pulling a disabled man out of a wheelchair and dragging him across the street, as well as repeatedly beating protesters on the head with batons.
The use of “kettling” to confine protesters into a tight area has also been heavily criticized for only heightening rage amongst the demonstrators.
Stephenson is considering whether to use the Public Order Act in an attempt to ban marches, despite acknowledging the fact that such a move could only exacerbate the situation. Other proposals are to use water cannons to disperse demonstrators, as well as snatch squads that would literally abduct so-called “trouble-makers” off the streets.
Given the fact that police are being ordered to conduct themselves in ways that only further anger protesters, the overall agenda seems to be aimed at creating agitation that can subsequently be exploited to justify excessive force.
Banning protest marches would extend the already existing no-protest zone which encompasses the area around the Houses of Parliament in Westminster, to the entire country.
The Serious Organised Crime and Police Act (SOCPA) bans the right of protest (unless it is cleared by a commissioner 6 days in advance) within a 1km radius of the UK’s seat of government. The area covers the Houses of Parliament, Downing Street, most government ministries, St Thomas’s Hospital, part of the South Bank and Lambeth Palace.
Brazen Joe Lieberman says no evidence WTC 7 collapse occurred; rebuffs new 9/11 investigation
IranContraScumDid911
You Tube
December 18, 2010
Joe Lieberman claims that there is no evidence the collapse of Building 7 occurred and that he would not support a new investigation of 9/11. No evidence WTC7 collapsed?! Building “what” indeed.
TSA Too Busy Groping, Perving, Playing God To Notice Guns And Bombs
http://www.infowars.com/tsa-too-busy-groping-perving-playing-god-to-notice-guns-and-bombs/
Man walks onto plane with loaded handgun while other stopped over harmless liquids
Steve Watson
Infowars.net
December 18, 2010
TSA agents at a Houston airport failed to stop an Iranian-American with a loaded handgun passing through security and boarding a plane, yet they did stop a woman directly behind him who was carrying liquids in her hand luggage.
Businessman Farid Seif relates his story to ABC News, noting that he only realised he had forgotten to remove a loaded snub nose “baby” Glock pistol from his bag after he had landed at his international destination and unpacked in his hotel room.
“It’s just impossible to miss it, you know. I mean, this is not a small gun,” Seif told ABC News. “How can you miss it? You cannot miss it.”
“They were very embarrassed, you know,” Seif said. “And — and they should be, you know. It’s — we’re talking about total failure.”
Seif also told ABC that while his pistol “sailed past” the screener, a woman behind him was stopped for having liquids in her bag.
The incident underscores how the enhanced and invasive TSA security procedures are pure theatre and do nothing to make anyone safer.
While the agents are busy singling out the elderly and the disabled for enhanced screening, groping women’s breasts, telling people they are “God”, and locking travelers in glass boxes over liquids such as breast milk, other passengers are being allowed to waltz through security with loaded guns and even explosive material.
As the ABC report highlights, the Department of Homeland Security has classified the results of random, covert “red team tests,” where undercover agents try to see what they can get past airport security, because the results have been so shockingly bad for the past nine years:
According to one report, undercover TSA agents testing security at a Newark airport terminal on one day in 2006 found that TSA screeners failed to detect concealed bombs and guns 20 out of 22 times. A 2007 government audit leaked to USA Today revealed that undercover agents were successful slipping simulated explosives and bomb parts through Los Angeles’s LAX airport in 50 out of 70 attempts, and at Chicago’s O’Hare airport agents made 75 attempts and succeeded in getting through undetected 45 times.
Last month, TSA head John Pistole claimed that the recent enhancement of security procedures has come in light of such past failures.
“… unfortunately, [undercover testers] have been very successful over the years. And one of the findings is that we have not been thorough enough. And the concern obviously is, if that’s an Abdulmutallab — a Christmas Day bomber — who is doing it rather than an undercover agent, then that can have catastrophic results.” Pistole told George Stephanopoulos during an interview on Good Morning America.
Yet, as in depth research has shown, the introduction of naked body scanning x-ray machines will do little to curb such failures, because the machines cannot detect explosive material effectively.
The machines would not have prevented the Christmas Day bomber from boarding Flight 253, according to their designers, and other security experts who have dismissed the devices as “useless”.
The TSA has still failed to respond to a FOIA request filed by former Congressman Bob Barr demanding information on the TSA’s recent decision to curtail enhanced pat-downs and mothball body scanners so as to avoid negative publicity during the “National Opt Out day” protest last month.
If internal TSA documents prove this was the case,it will serve as concrete proof that Big Sis’s security talk is nothing more than hot air. If the scanners were so imperative to keep us safe from terrorists then why would the TSA turn them off, as well as reining in pat downs, in a vain effort to score political points?
So rest assured, while grandma is being molested by the TSA this Christmas, it is a distinct possibility that there will be someone floating past and onto your plane armed to the teeth.
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