Quotes From Our Founding Fathers

"[T]he flames kindled on the 4 of July 1776, have spread over too much of the globe to be extinguished by the feeble engines of despotism; on the contrary, they will consume these engines and all who work them." --Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Adams, 1821

Quotes From Our Founding Fathers

"Were we directed from Washington when to sow, and when to reap, we should soon want bread." --Thomas Jefferson, Autobiography, 1821

Quotes From Our Founding Fathers

"[W]hen all government, domestic and foreign, in little as in great things, shall be drawn to Washington as the center of all power, it will render powerless the checks provided of one government on another." --Thomas Jefferson, letter to Charles Hammond, 1821

Quotes From Our Founding Fathers

"The State governments possess inherent advantages, which will ever give them an influence and ascendancy over the National Government, and will for ever preclude the possibility of federal encroachments. That their liberties, indeed, can be subverted by the federal head, is repugnant to every rule of political calculation." --Alexander Hamilton, speech to the New York Ratifying Convention, 1788

Quotes From Our Founding Fathers

"The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite." --James Madison, Federalist No. 45

Quotes From Our Founding Fathers

"The operations of the federal government will be most extensive and important in times of war and danger; those of the State governments, in times of peace and security." --James Madison, Federalist No. 45, 1788

Quotes From Our Founding Fathers

"The state governments have a full superintendence and control over the immense mass of local interests of their respective states, which connect themselves with the feelings, the affections, the municipal institutions, and the internal arrangements of the whole population. They possess, too, the immediate administration of justice in all cases, civil and criminal, which concern the property, personal rights, and peaceful pursuits of their own citizens." --Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution, 1833

Quotes From Our Founding Fathers

"The true test is, whether the object be of a local character, and local use; or, whether it be of general benefit to the states. If it be purely local, congress cannot constitutionally appropriate money for the object. But, if the benefit be general, it matters not, whether in point of locality it be in one state, or several; whether it be of large, or of small extent." --Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution, 1833

Quotes From Our Founding Fathers

"I consider the foundation of the Constitution as laid on this ground that 'all powers not delegated to the United States, by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states or to the people.' To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specially drawn around the powers of Congress, is to take possession of a boundless field of power, not longer susceptible of any definition." --Thomas Jefferson, Opinion on the Constitutionality of a National Bank, 1791

Quotes From Our Founding Fathers

"But ambitious encroachments of the federal government, on the authority of the State governments, would not excite the opposition of a single State, or of a few States only. They would be signals of general alarm. ... But what degree of madness could ever drive the federal government to such an extremity." --James Madison, Federalist No. 46, 1788

Quotes From Our Founding Fathers

"And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with his wrath? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep for ever." --Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, Query 18, 1781

Quotes From Our Founding Fathers

"I have lived, sir, a long time; and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth, that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid?" --Benjamin Franklin, Motion for Prayers in the Constitutional Convention, 1787

Quotes From Our Founding Fathers

"It is the duty of all men in society, publicly, and at stated seasons, to worship the SUPREME BEING, the great Creator and Preserver of the universe. And no subject shall be hurt, molested, or restrained, in his person, liberty, or estate, for worshipping GOD in the manner most agreeable to the dictates of his own conscience; or for his religious profession or sentiments; provided he doth not disturb the public peace, or obstruct others in their religious worship." --John Adams, Thoughts on Government, 1776

Quotes From Our Founding Fathers

"I now make it my earnest prayer, that God would have you, and the state over which you preside, in his holy protection, that he would incline the hearts of the citizens to cultivate a spirit of subordination and obedience to government, to entertain a brotherly affection and love for one another, for their fellow citizens of the United States at large, and particularly for their brethren who have served in the field, and finally, that he would most graciously be pleased to dispose us all, to do justice, to love mercy, and to demean ourselves with that charity, humility and pacific temper of mind, which were the characteristicks of the Divine Author of our blessed religion, and without an humble imitation of whose example in these things, we can never hope to be a happy nation." --George Washington, circular letter of farewell to the Army, 1783

Quotes From Our Founding Fathers

"Taxes should be continued by annual or biennial reeactments, because a constant hold, by the nation, of the strings of the public purse is a salutary restraint from which an honest government ought not wish, nor a corrupt one to be permitted, to be free." --Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Wayles Eppes, 1813

Quotes From The Founding Fathers

"May the father of all mercies scatter light, and not darkness, upon our paths, and make us in all our several vocations useful here, and in His own due time and way everlastingly happy." --George Washington, letter to the Hebrew Congregation in Newport, 1790

The World Just Loves Obama

Watch This Russian News Anchor Give the Middle Finger While Mentioning Obama

From:  http://www.theblaze.com/stories/watch-this-russian-news-anchor-give-obama-the-middle-finger-during-broadcast/
During a news broadcast on Russian TV, anchor Tatiana Limanova spoke about Russian President Dmitry Medvedev’s appearance at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit. Shortly after, the anchor mentioned that Medvedev will soon take an APEC leadership role previous held by U.S. President Barack Obama. The only odd thing to note, however, is that Limanova says Obama’s name while simultaneously showing her middle finger.
REN-TV, Limanova’s network, is reportedly one of Russia’s largest privately-owned news channels, claiming an audience of 113 million.
While inadvertent gesticulations can at times occur, this particular finger-placement can hardly be construed as anything else:

Here's A Shocker

Super Committee Fails to Reach Deficit Agreement

The bipartisan congressional committee tasked with finding at least $1.2 trillion in deficit reduction announced on Monday it cannot reach agreement by the Wednesday deadline, a stark if not unexpected admission that its efforts have ended in failure.

http://www.nationaljournal.com//supercommittee/super-committee-fails-to-reach-deficit-agreement-20111121

Death Panels

Feds Revoke Approval of Life-Prolonging Treatment for Breast Cancer, Insurers Could Bail on Patients

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/feds-revoke-approval-of-life-prolonging-treatment-for-breast-cancer-insurers-could-bail-on-patients/

For those unfamiliar, Avastin is a targeted therapy drug used in conjunction with chemotherapy in the treatment of certain advanced cancers — primarily colorectal, kidney, and lung, but also breast cancer. The drug works by restricting the blood supply to tumors. The goal is to starve tumors of the precious blood needed to grow, thus shrinking them. While the drug carries with it serious side effects, it has been proven successful in suppressing tumor growth in various types of cancers.
Now, however, the FDA is revoking its approval of Avastin in the treatment of advanced breast cancer only. This means that doctors can still prescribe the drug to breast cancer patients as they deem fit, but insurers now might not cover the exorbitant cost. A year’s supply of Avastin can cost roughly $100,000.
For people with certain types of advanced cancers for which there is no cure, Avastin is sometimes the last-line of defense in suppressing tumor growth and preventing the cancer from metastasizing for a prolonged period of time, improving prognosis.
Now, breast cancer patients who have been receiving the drug with good results are faced with a very difficult challenge ahead, especially if their insurers decide not to cover the cost of treatment. The Wall Street Journal notes the “chillingly blunt assertion of regulatory power against a drug for breast cancer.” In this instance, the power of a federal agency is outweighing doctors and their patients — the ones who have the most to lose The extraordinary Avastin saga has become a kind of randomized controlled trial, pitting the Food and Drug Administration’s power against potentially life-saving drugs for terminally ill patients. The results are proving that the former is far stronger, with FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg’s decision yesterday to withdraw the biologic medicine as a treatment option for women with metastatic breast cancer.

Read The Rest:  http://www.theblaze.com/stories/feds-revoke-approval-of-life-prolonging-treatment-for-breast-cancer-insurers-could-bail-on-patients/

Another One Going Galt

‘Going Galt’: Hedge Broker Shuts Down Firm With Chilling Letter About the Market

From The Blaze: http://www.theblaze.com/stories/going-galt-hedge-broker-shuts-down-firm-with-chilling-letter-about-the-market/

Ann Barnhardt describes herself as a an “an old-school commercial hedge broker specializing in CATTLE and GRAIN.” And she just shut down her business by delivering a passionate and chilling open letter posted on her website.

We’ve included the entire letter (originally presented in two parts) below (courtesy of Zero Hedge):

BCM Has Ceased Operations (source)

Posted by Ann Barnhardt – November 17, AD 2011 10:27 AM MST

Dear Clients, Industry Colleagues and Friends of Barnhardt Capital Management,
It is with regret and unflinching moral certainty that I announce that Barnhardt Capital Management has ceased operations. After six years of operating as an independent introducing brokerage, and eight years of employment as a broker before that, I found myself, this morning, for the first time since I was 20 years old, watching the futures and options markets open not as a participant, but as a mere spectator.
The reason for my decision to pull the plug was excruciatingly simple: I could no longer tell my clients that their monies and positions were safe in the futures and options markets – because they are not. And this goes not just for my clients, but for every futures and options account in the United States. The entire system has been utterly destroyed by the MF Global collapse. Given this sad reality, I could not in good conscience take one more step as a commodity broker, soliciting trades that I knew were unsafe or holding funds that I knew to be in jeopardy.
The futures markets are very highly-leveraged and thus require an exceptionally firm base upon which to function. That base was the sacrosanct segregation of customer funds from clearing firm capital, with additional emergency financial backing provided by the exchanges themselves. Up until a few weeks ago, that base existed, and had worked flawlessly. Firms came and went, with some imploding in spectacular fashion. Whenever a firm failure happened, the customer funds were intact and the exchanges would step in to backstop everything and keep customers 100% liquid – even as their clearing firm collapsed and was quickly replaced by another firm within the system.
Everything changed just a few short weeks ago. A firm, led by a crony of the Obama regime, stole all of the non-margined cash held by customers of his firm. Let’s not sugar-coat this or make this crime seem “complex” and “abstract” by drowning ourselves in six-dollar words and uber-technical jargon. Jon Corzine STOLE the customer cash at MF Global. Knowing Jon Corzine, and knowing the abject lawlessness and contempt for humanity of the Marxist Obama regime and its cronies, this is not really a surprise. What was a surprise was the reaction of the exchanges and regulators. Their reaction has been to take a bad situation and make it orders of magnitude worse. Specifically, they froze customers out of their accounts WHILE THE MARKETS CONTINUED TO TRADE, refusing to even allow them to liquidate. This is unfathomable. The risk exposure precedent that has been set is completely intolerable and has destroyed the entire industry paradigm. No informed person can continue to engage these markets, and no moral person can continue to broker or facilitate customer engagement in what is now a massive game of Russian Roulette.
I have learned over the last week that MF Global is almost certainly the mere tip of the iceberg. There is massive industry-wide exposure to European sovereign junk debt. While other firms may not be as heavily leveraged as Corzine had MFG leveraged, and it is now thought that MFG’s leverage may have been in excess of 100:1, they are still suicidally leveraged and will likely stand massive, unmeetable collateral calls in the coming days and weeks as Europe inevitably collapses. I now suspect that the reason the Chicago Mercantile Exchange did not immediately step in to backstop the MFG implosion was because they knew and know that if they backstopped MFG, they would then be expected to backstop all of the other firms in the system when the failures began to cascade – and there simply isn’t that much money in the entire system. In short, the problem is a SYSTEMIC problem, not merely isolated to one firm.
Perhaps the most ominous dynamic that I have yet heard of in regards to this mess is that of the risk of potential CLAWBACK actions. For those who do not know, “clawback” is the process by which a bankruptcy trustee is legally permitted to re-seize assets that left a bankrupt entity in the time period immediately preceding the entity’s collapse. So, using the MF Global customers as an example, any funds that were withdrawn from MFG accounts in the run-up to the collapse, either because of suspicions the customer may have had about MFG from, say, watching the company’s bond yields rise sharply, or from purely organic day-to-day withdrawls, the bankruptcy trustee COULD initiate action to “clawback” those funds. As a hedge broker, this makes my blood run cold. Generally, as the markets move in favor of a hedge position and equity builds in a client’s account, that excess equity is sent back to the customer who then uses that equity to offset cash market transactions OR to pay down a revolving line of credit. Even the possibility that a customer could be penalized and additionally raped AGAIN via a clawback action after already having their customer funds stolen is simply villainous. While there has been no open indication of clawback actions being initiated by the MF Global trustee, I have been told that it is a possibility.
And so, to the very unpleasant crux of the matter. The futures and options markets are no longer viable. It is my recommendation that ALL customers withdraw from all of the markets as soon as possible so that they have the best chance of protecting themselves and their equity. The system is no longer functioning with integrity and is suicidally risk-laden. The rule of law is non-existent, instead replaced with godless, criminal political cronyism.
Remember, derivatives contracts are NOT NECESSARY in the commodities markets. The cash commodity itself is the underlying reality and is not dependent on the futures or options markets. Many people seem to have gotten that backwards over the past decades. From Abel the animal husbandman up until the year 1964, there were no cattle futures contracts at all, and no options contracts until 1984, and yet the cash cattle markets got along just fine.
Finally, I will not, under any circumstance, consider reforming and re-opening Barnhardt Capital Management, or any other iteration of a brokerage business, until Barack Obama has been removed from office AND the government of the United States has been sufficiently reformed and repopulated so as to engender my total and complete confidence in the government, its adherence to and enforcement of the rule of law, and in its competent and just regulatory oversight of any commodities markets that may reform. So long as the government remains criminal, it would serve no purpose whatsoever to attempt to rebuild the futures industry or my firm, because in a lawless environment, the same thievery and fraud would simply happen again, and the criminals would go unpunished, sheltered by the criminal oligarchy.
To my clients, who literally TO THE MAN agreed with my assessment of the situation, and were relieved to be exiting the markets, and many whom I now suspect stayed in the markets as long as they did only out of personal loyalty to me, I can only say thank you for the honor and pleasure of serving you over these last years, with some of my clients having been with me for over twelve years. I will continue to blog at Barnhardt.biz, which will be subtly re-skinned soon, and will continue my cattle marketing consultation business. I will still be here in the office, answering my phones, with the same phone numbers. Alas, my retirement came a few years earlier than I had anticipated, but there was no possible way to continue given the inevitability of the collapse of the global financial markets, the overthrow of our government, and the resulting collapse in the rule of law.
As for me, I can only echo the words of David:
“This is the Lord’s doing; and it is wonderful in our eyes.”
With Best Regards-
Ann Barnhardt

“I am going to head out of town for a few days, but will be checking email and messages,” Barnhardt wrote, after describing her letter as “going Galt” — a reference to Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged.”
“Thanks to one and all for the kind support and prayers. Please be assured of mine in return, for all of us.”

Mega-Actress Anne Hathaway Caught Trying to Go Incognito During Occupy Protest

She is one of the highest-paid actresses in the world, but $58-million-dollar lady Anne Hathaway feels so much solidarity with the 99%, she chose to join them for an Occupy Wall Street pro-socialism rally on a cold, rainy day in Union Square.
Last year’s Oscars hostess stood alongside NYU students, professors, and labor organizers as she held up a sign that said: ‘Blackboards not bullets’.

Hathaway wanted to show support for the “Students and Workers United” rally in Union Square on Thursday, which was just one of many Occupy Wall Street-affiliated protests in the city.
Hathaway’s films have grossed approximately $3.2 billion.
The Occupy Union Square rally abruptly turned into a mobile flash mob on New York’s Fifth Avenue, causing havoc on the streets and forcing police to shut down one of Manhattan’s busiest intersections with barricades. It appears from photos snapped of the protest that Hathaway marched alongside the Occupiers down the center of the street as opposed to the sidewalks.

Read The Rest:  http://www.theblaze.com/stories/mega-actress-anne-hathaway-caught-trying-to-go-incognito-during-occupy-protest/

Ron Paul Moves Into Top Tier

The Iowa caucuses are just seven weeks away, but Republican voters in the nation's first presidential nominating state seem as torn as ever over the GOP field.

A new Bloomberg poll of likely caucus participants shows a four-way tie in Iowa, with Rep. Ron Paul joining Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich and Herman Cain in the top tier of candidates. Underscoring the uncertainty in the race, 60 percent of respondents said they could be persuaded to back someone other than their first choice for the nomination.

The poll, conducted November 10 - 12 by the West Des Moines-based firm Selzer & Co, shows Cain in the lead with 20 percent, while Paul comes in at 19 percent. Romney wins 18 percent support, and Gingrich earns 17 percent. The margin of error is 4.4 percent.

While Christian conservatives have more influence in Iowa than they do in the rest of the nation, only a quarter of likely caucus-goers say social issues are more important this year than economic issues. As many as 71 percent say they're voting on issues like jobs and taxes.

The focus on economic issues has likely advantaged Paul, who is known for his strong libertarian views. The Texas congressman wins the most support, 32 percent, from likely caucus-goers who say they've made up their minds. Romney wins 25 percent of those who are decided, followed by Gingrich at 17 percent. On top of that, 69 percent of Iowa voters who supported Paul in 2008 are once again supporting him.

Just 41 percent of Romney's support comes from Iowa voters who supported him in the 2008 caucuses. More than half, 58 percent, of likely caucus-goers said support for a health insurance mandate (which Romney passed in Massachusetts as governor and which President Obama passed at the federal level) would "rule out" their support for that candidate.

Cain's standing hasn't dipped dramatically since revelations of sexual harassment charges against him from the 1990's came out. Still, 37 percent of Iowans are waiting for more information before deciding whether they believe Cain's denials.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-57324938-503544/new-poll-shows-4-way-tie-in-iowa-as-ron-paul-moves-to-top-tier/

Ron Paul Gets 89 Seconds To Speak In CBS Debate

Leaked email to Bachmann campaign indicates decision to limit air time for certain candidates was deliberate CBS News policy


Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
November 13, 2011

Congressman Ron Paul was a victim of what later transpired to be a deliberate policy on behalf of CBS News to restrict the air time of certain candidates during last night’s Republican debate, after he was afforded just 90 seconds of speaking time during the course of the event in South Carolina last night.
Paul’s campaign reacted furiously to the Texan being limited to 90 seconds in what was a 90 minute-long debate, with Campaign Manager John Tate blasting out an email entitled “What a Joke,” in which he stated, “It literally made me sick watching the mainstream media once again silence the one sane voice in this election. The one dissenter to a decade of unchecked war. The one candidate who stands for true defense and actual constitutional government. Ron Paul was silenced, in perhaps the most important debate of the cycle.”
A scientific study undertaken by the University of Minnesota last month confirmed that Ron Paul had been given the least speaking time out of all the Republican candidates during the debates, even less than the likes of John Huntsman and Rick Santorum, who have routinely been beaten by Paul in national polls.
As Marc Fortier points out, an email inadvertently sent to Michelle Bachmann’s campaign clearly indicates that certain candidates were given less air time as a result of a deliberate CBS policy.
When a CBS staffer referenced how Bachmann’s campaign had made representatives available for an after-debate webshow, CBS News political analyst John Dickerson responded by saying, “Okay let’s keep it loose though since she’s not going to get many questions and she’s nearly off the charts in the hopes that we can get someone else.”
Dickerson’s admission that CBS had deliberately ensured Bachmann was “not going to get many questions” during the debate indicated “a planned effort to limit questions to Michele Bachmann at tonight’s CBS/National Journal Debate,” the Bachmann campaign said in a statement.
Obviously, that policy of limiting air time to certain candidates was also applied to Congressman Ron Paul, despite the fact that he has consistently won straw polls and proven himself as a top tier candidate in national polls.
As we have documented, despite his popularity the establishment media has deliberately downplayed and sidelined Paul’s campaign.
After Ron Paul finished a close second to Bachmann in the highly regarded Ames straw poll, and was subsequently blacklisted by the corporate press, Politico’s Roger Simon said the reason for him being ignored was that “the media doesn’t believe he has a hoot in hells chance of winning the Iowa caucuses, the Republican nomination or winning the presidency, so we’re gonna ignore him.”
“We are in the business of kicking candidates out of the race,” CNN host Howard Kurtz responded.

http://www.infowars.com/ron-paul-gets-89-seconds-to-speak-in-cbs-debate/

Great Video On GoVt. Taking OVer Public AirwaVes

Remembering Veterans Day

"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things; the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks nothing worth a war, is worse. A man who has nothing which he cares more about than he does about his personal safety is a miserable creature who has no chance at being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself." --John Stuart Mill

Veterans Day began as Armistice Day, when on 11 November 1921, the remains of an unknown World War I American soldier were buried in Arlington National Cemetery, in recognition of WWI veterans and the official cessation of WWI hostilities "at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month" of 1918. President Warren Harding requested that "All ... citizens ... indulge in a period of silent thanks to God for these ... valorous lives, and of supplication for His Divine mercy ... on our beloved country." Inscribed on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier are the words, "Here lies in honored glory an American soldier known but to God."
In 1954, Congress was determined to additionally recognize the sacrifice of veterans before and since WWI, and those of future generations, and thereby proposed to recognize 11 November as Veterans Day. President Dwight D. Eisenhower, former Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in WWII, signed legislation establishing Veterans Day.

Insight into the sacrifice of our veterans and their families can be gained by noting that, since the American Revolution, tens of millions of Americans have served our nation with honor, and almost 1.2 million have died in defense of it. Another 1.4 million have been wounded, many gravely. The numbers, of course, offer no reckoning of the inestimable value of these Patriots' lives or the anguish borne by their families, but we do know that their sacrifices defended a most precious gift -- the gift of Liberty that we cherish to this day.

From: http://patriotpost.us/alexander/2011/11/10/the-most-noble-of-american-patriots/

Wow An OWS Sign I Can Agree With

Ron Paul: Obama Presidency On The Verge Of Being A "Dictatorship"

Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) says President Obama's continued use of the executive order "brings the modern presidency dangerously close to an elective dictatorship."

"That is arrogant," Paul said of Obama frequently using the executive order function as of late. "It is flaunting the Constitution and the whole principle of how we’re supposed to operate. The idea they can just do this and take over the legislative function and brag about it -- and Congress does nothing and the courts do nothing about it, it's very, very bad."

"He's dictatorial, is what he is," Rep. Paul said before the end of the interview.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2011/11/09/ron_paul_obama_presidency_on_the_verge_of_being_a_dictatorship.html

Bill Clinton sticks up for Rick Perry on immigration

Texas Gov. Rick Perry has an unexpected defender: former president Bill Clinton.
In an interview with USA TODAY, Clinton said he didn't think much of the Republican field vying for the nomination against President Obama. "I think that most of what they're debating is crazy," he said, noting that he watched the Las Vegas debate last month, which featured spirited exchanges between Perry and former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney.

STORY: Clinton's economic plan

"It makes my skin crawl when they attack Rick Perry for one of the best things he did," Clinton says, that is, his support of a Texas law that grants in-state college tuition to illegal immigrants brought to the state as children. "What would they like?" Clinton demands. "Would they like the kid to stand on a corner and sell dope or something?"
Perry takes the same view: He says the Texas law creates "taxpaying, contributing members" of society.
Clinton cautions Democrats against dismissing the GOP field as weak and flawed.
"It's always a mistake to underestimate your opponent," he says. "People grow in these campaigns. How many times have you seen somebody get better in the course of an election? And it's also unpredictable what happens."

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/onpolitics/post/2011/11/bill-clinton-rick-perry-presidential-election-/1

Supreme Court to hear GPS surveillance case

It sounds a bit like Big Brother: Police can place a GPS device on your car to follow all of your movements, for any length of time.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday is scheduled to hear arguments about whether investigators need to get a warrant before doing so.
Legal experts say the case, which stems from a D.C. nightclub owner's conviction on drug charges, is one of the most important Fourth Amendment cases in decades, and will determine how police conduct investigations and privacy in the high-tech age.


Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://washingtonexaminer.com/local/crime-punishment/2011/11/supreme-court-hear-gps-surveillance-case#ixzz1d4HdPgKV

AP Exclusive: CIA following Twitter, Facebook

McLEAN, Va. (AP) — In an anonymous industrial park in Virginia, in an unassuming brick building, the CIA is following tweets — up to 5 million a day.At the agency's Open Source Center, a team known affectionately as the "vengeful librarians" also pores over Facebook, newspapers, TV news channels, local radio stations, Internet chat rooms — anything overseas that anyone can access and contribute to openly.From Arabic to Mandarin Chinese, from an angry tweet to a thoughtful blog, the analysts gather the information, often in native tongue. They cross-reference it with the local newspaper or a clandestinely intercepted phone conversation. From there, they build a picture sought by the highest levels at the White House, giving a real-time peek, for example, at the mood of a region after the Navy SEAL raid that killed Osama bin Laden or perhaps a prediction of which Mideast nation seems ripe for revolt.Yes, they saw the uprising in Egypt coming; they just didn't know exactly when revolution might hit, said the center's director, Doug Naquin.The center already had "predicted that social media in places like Egypt could be a game-changer and a threat to the regime," he said in a recent interview with The Associated Press at the center. CIA officials said it was the first such visit by a reporter the agency has ever granted.The CIA facility was set up in response to a recommendation by the 9/11 Commission, with its first priority to focus on counterterrorism and counterproliferation. But its several hundred analysts — the actual number is classified — track a broad range, from Chinese Internet access to the mood on the street in Pakistan.While most are based in Virginia, the analysts also are scattered throughout U.S. embassies worldwide to get a step closer to the pulse of their subjects.The most successful analysts, Naquin said, are something like the heroine of the crime novel "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo," a quirky, irreverent computer hacker who "knows how to find stuff other people don't know exists."Those with a masters' degree in library science and multiple languages, especially those who grew up speaking another language, "make a powerful open source officer," Naquin said.The center had started focusing on social media after watching the Twitter-sphere rock the Iranian regime during the Green Revolution of 2009, when thousands protested the results of the elections that put Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad back in power. "Farsi was the third largest presence in social media blogs at the time on the Web," Naquin said.The center's analysis ends up in President Barack Obama's daily intelligence briefing in one form or another, almost every day.After bin Laden was killed in Pakistan in May, the CIA followed Twitter to give the White House a snapshot of world public opinion.Since tweets can't necessarily be pegged to a geographic location, the analysts broke down reaction by languages. The result: The majority of Urdu tweets, the language of Pakistan, and Chinese tweets, were negative. China is a close ally of Pakistan's. Pakistani officials protested the raid as an affront to their nation's sovereignty, a sore point that continues to complicate U.S.-Pakistani relations.When the president gave his speech addressing Mideast issues a few weeks after the raid, the tweet response over the next 24 hours came in negative from Turkey, Egypt, Yemen, Algeria, the Persian Gulf and Israel, too, with speakers of Arabic and Turkic tweets charging that Obama favored Israel, and Hebrew tweets denouncing the speech as pro-Arab.In the next few days, major news media came to the same conclusion, as did analysis by the covert side of U.S. intelligence based on intercepts and human intelligence gathered in the region.The center is also in the process of comparing its social media results with the track record of polling organizations, trying to see which produces more accurate results, Naquin said."We do what we can to caveat that we may be getting an overrepresentation of the urban elite," said Naquin, acknowledging that only a small slice of the population in many areas they are monitoring has access to computers and Internet. But he points out that access to social media sites via cellphones is growing in areas like Africa, meaning a "wider portion of the population than you might expect is sounding off and holding forth than it might appear if you count the Internet hookups in a given country."Sites like Facebook and Twitter also have become a key resource for following a fast-moving crisis such as the riots that raged across Bangkok in April and May of last year, the center's deputy director said. The Associated Press agreed not to identify him because he sometimes still works undercover in foreign countries.As director, Naquin is identified publicly by the agency although the location of the center is kept secret to deter attacks, whether physical or electronic.The deputy director was one of a skeleton crew of 20 U.S. government employees who kept the U.S. Embassy in Bangkok running throughout the rioting as protesters surged through the streets, swarming the embassy neighborhood and trapping U.S. diplomats and Thais alike in their homes.The army moved in, and traditional media reporting slowed to a trickle as local reporters were either trapped or cowed by government forces."But within an hour, it was all surging out on Twitter and Facebook," the deputy director said. The CIA homed in on 12 to 15 users who tweeted situation reports and cellphone photos of demonstrations. The CIA staff cross-referenced the tweeters with the limited news reports to figure out who among them was providing reliable information. Tweeters also policed themselves, pointing out when someone else had filed an inaccurate account."That helped us narrow down to those dozen we could count on," he said.Ultimately, some two-thirds of the reports coming out of the embassy being sent back to all branches of government in Washington came from the CIA's open source analysis throughout the crisis.

http://news.yahoo.com/ap-exclusive-cia-following-twitter-facebook-081055316.html

Great Pics

Check out these great pics from Greece . . . uh, er, wait that's Oakland California.  Didn't see this coming did I?  Oh wait yes I did check this link out from last year:
http://cincinnatus17.blogspot.com/2010/05/vision-of-our-future.html

One More Ron Paul Story You Won't Hear About

Ron Paul wins both tallies at GOP straw poll in Iowa

Posted by

CNN Political Reporter Shannon Travis

Des Moines, Iowa (CNN) - Ron Paul has won two separate tallies for the National Federation of Republican Assemblies Presidential Straw Poll.

Paul won both the Iowa-voters-only count at the Saturday convention in Des Moines as well as a tally of non-Iowans who participated.

In the Iowa voters result, Paul took 82%. Following him were Herman Cain with 14.7%, Rick Santorum with 1%, Newt Gingrich with 0.9%, Michele Bachmann with 0.5%, Rick Perry with 0.5%, Gary Johnson with 0.2%, with Mitt Romney and Jon Huntsman 0%.
The total number of votes cast in that tally was 430.
In the tally of non-Iowans who voted, Paul won 26% followed by Cain at 25%, Perry and Santorum tied at 16%, Gingrich at 11%, Bachmann at 6%, Romney at 1%, and Huntsman and Johnson with 0%.
The total number of votes cast in that count was 101.
Though Paul won both tallies, the NFRA has not yet officially endorsed a candidate. Delegates to the convention will decide that later Saturday.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2011/10/29/ron-paul-wins-both-tallies-at-gop-pres-straw-poll-in-iowa/

Progressive’s New Snapshot Device Records Your Driving Habits

Jason DouglassInfowars.com

Progressive Insurance has introduced a new program called ‘Snapshot’ to help drivers, who curb their driving habits, save money.
According to The Progressive site the Snapshot device will be sent to the customer who must plug it into their car. This device will record information about your driving habits (i.e. miles driven, time of day and how many sudden stop you make). After 30 days of recording, the customer could earn a discount on insurance. Make note of the loophole term ‘could’.
Taken from Progressive Snapshot FAQ:

Once you get your Snapshot device in the mail, just plug it into your car’s diagnostic port (usually below the steering column), and drive as you normally would to take your snapshot. Then log in to your policy to view your driving information and projected discount.

Reading between the lines the obvious question is: will the information collected be used against the customer in order to raise their insurance rates? There are also very serious privacy concerns with this type of program.
The Department of Transportation would like to see one of these ‘snapshot’ devices in every car on the street which will make it possible to surveil, tabulate and tax everyone.

http://www.infowars.com/progressives-new-snapshot-discount-records-your-driving-habits/

Founder's Quote

"This was the object of the Declaration of Independence. Not to find out new principles, or new arguments, never before thought of, not merely to say things which had never been said before; but to place before mankind the common sense of the subject, in terms so plain and firm as to command their assent, and to justify ourselves in the independent stand we are compelled to take. Neither aiming at originality of principle or sentiment, nor yet copied from any particular and previous writing, it was intended to be an expression of the American mind, and to give to that expression the proper tone and spirit called for by the occasion." --Thomas Jefferson, letter to Henry Lee, 1825

U.S. Firm Acknowledges Syria Uses Its Gear to Block Web

By JENNIFER VALENTINO-DEVRIES, PAUL SONNE and NOUR MALAS

A U.S. company that makes Internet-blocking gear acknowledges that Syria has been using at least 13 of its devices to censor Web activity there—an admission that comes as the Syrian government cracks down on its citizens and silences their online activities.
Blue Coat Systems Inc. of Sunnyvale, Calif., says it shipped the Internet "filtering" devices to Dubai late last year, believing they were destined for a department of the Iraqi government. However, the devices—which can block websites or record when people visit them—made their way to Syria, a country subject to strict U.S. trade embargoes.




Read more: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203687504577001911398596328.html#ixzz1cBUcNxSb

Part 2: CEO Peter Schiff Talking Sense To OWS People

Second Part of a great video.




These people just don't get IT.

Successful CEO Takes On The 99%

These OWS people just don't make a lick of sense do they?





Video:

Communist Party USA Supports Occupy Movement

Communist Party USA Supports Occupy Movement Along with our President (Videos) And Obama's support: And what he has to say about a real grassroots, nonviolent political movement:

Law Bans Cash for Second Hand Transactions

Law Bans Cash for Second Hand Transactions

Cold hard cash. It's good everywhere you go, right? You can use it to pay for anything. But that's
not the case here in Louisiana now. It's a law that was passed during this year's busy legislative session. House bill 195 basically says those who buy and sell second hand goods cannot use cash to make those transactions, and it flew so far under the radar most businesses don't even know about it. "We're gonna lose a lot of business," says Danny Guidry, who owns the Pioneer Trading Post in Lafayette. He deals in buying and selling unique second hand items. "We don't want this cash transaction to be taken away from us. It's an everyday transaction," Guidry explains. Guidry says, "I think everyone in this business once they find out about it. They're will definitely be a lot of uproar." The law states those who buy or sell second hand goods are prohibited from using cash. State representative Rickey Hardy co-authored the bill. Hardy says, "they give a check or a cashiers money order, or electronic one of those three mechanisms is used." Hardy says the bill is targeted at criminals who steal anything from copper to televisions, and sell them for a quick buck. Having a paper trail will make it easier for law enforcement. "It's a mechanism to be used so the police department has something to go on and have a lead," explains Hardy. Guidry feels his store shouldn't have to change it's ways of doing business, because he may possibly buy or sell stolen goods. Something he says has happened once in his eight years. "We are being targeted for something we shouldn't be." Besides non-profit resellers like Goodwill, and garage sales, the language of the bill encompasses stores like the Pioneer Trading Post and flea markets. Lawyer Thad Ackel Jr. feels the passage of this bill begins a slippery slope for economic freedom in the state. "The government is placing a significant restriction on individuals transacting in their own private property," says Ackel. Pawn shops have been forced to keep records of their clients for years. However under this bill they are still allowed to deal in cash.

Doug MacDiarmid

http://www.klfy.com/story/15717759/second-hand-dealer-law

NYPD Police Commissioner Meeting With George Soros in Secret?

Did the most powerful police commissioner in America have a secret meeting with leftist financier George Soros?

Len Levitt, the police journalist and blogger behind NYPD Confidential, claims in a piece on HuffPo that Soros scored a clandestine conference with Kelly at One Police Plaza, the NYPD’s headquarters, just last week.

According to Levitt, Soros was “escorted in by a retired NYPD cop, driving a wine-colored Mercedes, [and] the left-leaning billionaire was whisked in and out of police headquarters with no one being the wiser.”

Levitt claims that a Soros official confirmed the meeting to him. But NYPD has remained mum on the subject.

Soros’s face-to-face with Ray Kelly comes amidst accusation that the Open Society Institute has been a key source of funds for Occupy Wall Street. Reuters even published a story on the connection, which led to widespread outrage in the mainstream press.

Soros’s people of course vehemently deny the accusation and claim no involvement in OWS. Reuters later retracted.

Unlike the President of the United States, who at least theoretically has to publish his schedule of visitors, New York City’s Police Commissioner keeps his docket of admirers, advisors, and other invitees to his office private.

But as more and more New Yorkers ask when the Occupiers will leave, questions will fly about why the NYPD backed down from one Zuccotti Park eviction, and has yet to try another.

We know political influence was brought to bear in favor of the Occupiers.

The only question that remains is, whose influence was it?

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/did-the-nypd-police-commissioner-meet-with-george-soros-in-secret/

FBI Arrests 5 With Maps, Photos of US Facilities

SAN ANTONIO — Five foreign men were arrested during a courthouse break-in early on Wednesday and police said they found photographs of public buildings, water systems and malls from various U.S. cities in their van.

The men, at least three of whom were in their 20s, will be questioned by a joint terrorism task force including the FBI and immigration authorities, officials said.

Bexar County spokeswoman Laura Jesse said three men were found inside the 120-year-old Bexar County Courthouse, a landmark in downtown San Antonio and two in a large recreational vehicle parked in front of the building.

She said all five were Moroccans.

Inside the RV, officials say they found "photographs of infrastructure" including shopping malls, water systems, courthouses and other public buildings that they say were taken in cities across the United States.

"They got travel documents, parking passes, they have been all over the country," Police Captain Cris Andersen said.

"A lot of photographic equipment, a lot of documentation equipment (was) inside their vehicle."

"They are going to be held for interrogation by the FBI, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and the joint terrorism task force," Andersen said.

San Antonio is home to three major military bases, and officials have notified them of the incident, and have told them to be on the lookout for any suspicious activity and vehicles.

A military intelligence convention is underway at the city's Convention Center several blocks away, with top intelligence officials including White House officials set to speak, but investigators didn't say whether there was any connection.

© 2011 Thomson/Reuters. All rights reserved.



http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/fbi-plot-photos-buildings/2011/10/19/id/415023

Alex Exposes Unconstitutional Internal Checkpoint Round 2

Public Airwaves Now In The Hands Of The Govt.

Check out this article from the Blaze. Scary times people when free speech is being silenced.

Did You Know Feds Will Temporarily Cut Off All TV and Radio Broadcasts on Nov. 9?

If you have ever wondered about the government’s ability to control the civilian airwaves, you will have your answer on November 9th.

On that day, federal authorities are going to shut off all television and radio communications simultaneously at 2:00PM EST to complete the first ever test of the national Emergency Alert System (EAS).
This isn’t a wild conspiracy theory. The upcoming test is posted on the Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau website.

Only the President has the authority to activate EAS at the national level, and he has delegated that authority to the Director of FEMA. The test will be conducted jointly by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) through FEMA, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) National Weather Service (NWS).

In essence, the authority to seize control of all television and civilian communication has been asserted by the executive branch and handed to a government agency.

The EAS has been around since 1994. Its precursor, the Emergency Broadcast System (EBS), started back in 1963. Television and radio broadcasters, satellite radio and satellite television providers, cable television and wireline video providers are all involved in the system.

So this begs the question: is the first ever national EAS test really a big deal?

Probably not. At least, not yet.

But there are some troubling factors all coming together right now that could conceivably trigger a real usage of the EAS system in the not too distant future. A European financial collapse could bring down U.S. markets. What is now the “Occupy” movement could lead to widespread civil unrest. And there are ominous signs that radical groups such as Anonymous will attempt something major on November 5th- Guy Fawke’s day.

Now we know in the event of a major crisis, the American people will be told with one voice, at the same time, about an emergency.

All thats left to determine is who will have control of the EAS when that day comes, and what their message will be.

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/did-you-know-feds-will-temporarily-cut-off-all-tv-and-radio-broadcasts-on-nov-9/

Where Does It Stop?

Tennessee Becomes First State To Fight Terrorism Statewide - NewsChannel5.com Nashville News, Weather & Sports

By Adam Ghassemi

PORTLAND, Tenn. – You're probably used to seeing TSA's signature blue uniforms at the airport, but now agents are hitting the interstates to fight terrorism with Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response (VIPR).

"Where is a terrorist more apt to be found? Not these days on an airplane more likely on the interstate," said Tennessee Department of Safety & Homeland Security Commissioner Bill Gibbons.

Tuesday Tennessee was first to deploy VIPR simultaneously at five weigh stations and two bus stations across the state.

Agents are recruiting truck drivers, like Rudy Gonzales, into the First Observer Highway Security Program to say something if they see something.

"Not only truck drivers, but cars, everybody should be aware of what's going on, on the road," said Gonzales.

It's all meant to urge every driver to call authorities if they see something suspicious.

"Somebody sees something somewhere and we want them to be responsible citizens, report that and let us work it through our processes to abet the concern that they had when they saw something suspicious," said Paul Armes, TSA Federal Security Director for Nashville International Airport.

The Tennessee Highway Patrol checked trucks with drug and bomb sniffing dogs during random inspections.

"The bottom line is this: if you see something suspicious say something about it," Gibbons said Tuesday.

The random inspections really aren't any more thorough normal, according to Tennessee Highway Patrol Colonel Tracy Trott who says paying attention to details can make a difference. Trott pointed out it was an Oklahoma state trooper who stopped Timothy McVeigh for not having a license plate after the Oklahoma City bombing in the early 1990s.

Tuesday's statewide "VIPR" operation isn't in response to any particular threat, according to officials.

Armes said intelligence indicates law enforcement should focus on the highways as well as the airports.

Ron Paul Media Blackout Confirmed - Politics - The Atlantic Wire

Ron Paul Media Blackout Confirmed - Politics - The Atlantic Wire

Ron Paul loyalists have been vindicated. After months of observations that the mainstream media was ignoring the libertarian standard-bearer, a new study by the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism shows just that: the Texas Congressman, who has consistently polled in the high single digits -- Real Clear Politics's aggregate poll currently has him at 8 percent -- has received the least overall coverage of any candidate. From May 2 to October 9, Paul appeared as the "primary newsmaker in only 2% of all election stories."

The study measured mainstream exposure by compiling a list of 52 mainstream news outlets across "newspapers, cable news, broadcast television, the 12 most popular news websites in the country, and radio news." To register as a story about the candidate, he/she had to be the focus of at least 50 percent of the story. Interestingly, while Paul gained short shrift from the mainstream press, the blogosphere was an entirely different story, where the tone of his coverage was more favorable than for any other candidate:

Paul generated a good deal of attention on blogs, registering as the fifth most-discussed candidate with more than 89,000 opinions tracked about him.

Moreover, he and his candidacy fared better than any other candidate in the tone of that conversation. In all, 48% of the blogging conversation about Paul was positive compared with only 15% negative and 38% neutral. The next highest positive rating for any Republican was 34%, for Romney, and the next lowest negative rating was 24%, for Cain.

While complaints about a lack of media coverage are typical coming from any struggling candidate, Paul boosters, and even some independent observers, have argued that Paul's media blackout is particularly striking considering his concrete successes on the campaign trail. By our count those successes include:

Winning the Los Angeles Country Straw Poll last week, with more votes than Mitt Romney and Herman Cain combined.
On October 8, winning the Values Voter straw poll in Washington, D.C.
Raising $8.3 million in the third quarter, putting his fundraising clout way ahead of other second-tier candidates such as Herman Cain, who raised $2.8 million in the quarter, Michele Bachmann, who raised $4.1 million, and Rick Santorum, who raised less than $1 million.
Winning the California Republican Party straw poll in September.
Taking a close second in the Ames straw poll in Iowa in August behind Congresswoman Michele Bachmann.
As The Washington Post notes. "Paul’s support has been stable at 10 percent or 11 percent of Republican and GOP-leaning independents in the three most recent Washington Post-ABC News polls." The question is, why is that not a story for the political media?

Sounds About Right

Ron Paul proposes $1T in specific budget cuts


By DAN HIRSCHHORN 10/17/11


Ron Paul’s opinions about cutting the budget are well-known, but on Monday, he got specific: The Texas congressman laid out a budget blueprint for deep and far-reaching cuts to federal spending, including the elimination of five Cabinet-level departments and the drawdown of American troops fighting overseas.

There’s even a symbolic readjustment of the president’s salary to put it in line with the average American salary.


“Our debt is too big, our government is too big, and we have to recognize how serious the problem is,” Paul said during an afternoon speech in Las Vegas ahead of Tuesday’s GOP debate there.

The plan, Paul said, would cut $1 trillion in spending his first year in the White House and create a balanced federal budget by the third year of his presidency.

“All the current candidates and many in Washington, they sort of talk around [the problem],” Paul said. “A lot of people will say, ‘well cutting a trillion dollars in one year is radical.’ Well, I operate under the assumption that the radicals have been in charge for way too long.”

Many of the ideas in Paul’s 11-page Plan to Restore America are familiar from his staunch libertarianism, as well as tea party favorites, like eliminating the Education and Energy Departments. But Paul goes further, proposing an immediate freeze on spending by numerous government agencies at levels from 2006, the last time Republicans had complete control of the federal budget, and drastic reductions in spending elsewhere. The Environmental Protection Agency would see a 30 percent cut; the Food and Drug Administration would see a 40 percent cut; and foreign aid would be zeroed out immediately. He’d also take an ax to Pentagon funding for wars.

Appearing on CNN ahead of the speech, Paul was pressed by Wolf Blitzer on how eliminating about 221,000 government jobs across five cabinet departments would boost the economy. He responded: “They’re not productive jobs,” he said.

“You cut government spending, that money goes back to you. You get to spend the money,” Paul said during his speech. “I am absolutely convinced it is the only road to prosperity.”

Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program, food stamps, family support programs and the children’s nutrition program would be block-granted to the states and removed from the mandatory spending column of the federal budget. Some functions of eliminated departments, such as Pell Grants, would be continued elsewhere in the federal bureaucracy.

And in a noticeable nod to seniors during an election year, when Social Security’s become an issue within the Republican presidential primaries, the campaign says that plan “honors our promise to our seniors and veterans, while allowing young workers to opt out.”

The federal workforce would be reduced by 10 percent, and the president’s pay would be cut from $400,000 to $39,336 — a level that the Paul document notes is “approximately equal to the median personal income of the American worker.”

Paul would also make far-reaching changes to federal tax policy, reducing the top corporate income tax rate to 15 percent, eliminating capital gains and dividends taxes and allowing for repatriation of overseas capital without tax penalties. All tax cuts enacted under former President George W. Bush would be extended.

And like the rest of his GOP rivals, Paul would repeal President Barack Obama’s health care reform law, along with the Dodd-Frank financial regulatory reform law enacted last year. A longtime Federal Reserve critic, Paul would also push a full audit of the central bank, as well as legislation to “strengthen the dollar and stabilize inflation.”




Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1011/66114.html#ixzz1b6OFyN32

Ron Paul: Who Else is on Obama’s Secret Kill List?

Ron Paul
Tuesday, October 11, 2011

According to the Fifth Amendment of the US Constitution, Americans are never to be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. The Constitution is not some aspirational statement of values, allowing exceptions when convenient, but rather, it is the law of the land. It is the basis of our Republic and our principal bulwark against tyranny.

Last week’s assassination of two American citizens, Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Khan, is an outrage and a criminal act carried out by the President and his administration. If the law protecting us against government-sanctioned assassination can be voided when there is a “really bad American”, is there any meaning left to the rule of law in the United States? If, as we learned last week, a secret government committee, not subject to congressional oversight or judicial review, can now target certain Americans for assassination, under what moral authority do we presume to lecture the rest of the world about protecting human rights? Didn’t we just bomb Libya into oblivion under the auspices of protecting the civilians from being targeted by their government? Timothy McVeigh was certainly a threat, as were Nidal Hassan and Jared Lee Loughner. They killed people in front of many witnesses. They took up arms against their government in a literal way, yet were still afforded trials. These constitutional protections are in place because our Founders realized it is a very serious matter to deprive any individual of life or liberty. Our outrage against even the obviously guilty is not worth the sacrifice of the rule of law. Al-Awlaki has been outspoken against the United States and we are told he encouraged violence against Americans. We do not know that he actually committed any acts of violence. Ironically, he was once invited to the Pentagon as part of an outreach to moderate Muslims after 9/11. As the US attacks against Muslims in the Middle East and Central Asia expanded, it is said that he became more fervent and radical in his opposition to US foreign policy.

A d v e r t i s e m e n t
Many cheer this killing because they believe that in a time of war, due process is not necessary – not even for citizens, and especially not for those overseas. However, there has been no formal declaration of war and certainly not one against Yemen. The post-9/11 authorization for force would not have covered these two Americans because no one is claiming they had any connection to that attack. Al-Awlaki was on a kill list compiled by a secret panel within President Obama’s National Security Council and Justice Department. How many more Americans citizens are on that list? They won’t tell us. What are the criteria? They won’t tell us. Where is the evidence? They won’t tell us.

Al-Awlaki’s father tried desperately to get the administration to at least allow his son to have legal representation to challenge the “kill” order. He was denied. Rather than give him his day in court, the administration, behind closed doors, served as prosecutor, judge, jury, and executioner.The most worrisome aspect of this is that any new powers this administration accrues will serve as precedents for future administrations. Even those who completely trust this administration must understand that if this usurpation of power and denial of due process is allowed to stand, these powers will remain to be expanded on by the next administration and then the next. Will you trust them? History shows that once a population gives up its rights, they are not easily won back. Beware.

http://www.infowars.com/ron-paul-who-else-is-on-obamas-secret-kill-list/

Poll: Ron Paul v Obama a dead heat in Fla.

by Joel Gehrke Commentary Staff Writer

Public Policy Polling, a Democratic-leaning polling firm, shows Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, and former Gov. Mitt Romney, R-Mass., trailing President Obama by a mere one point in their latest poll of Florida voters. Obama has a 56 percent disapproval rating in the swing state.

PPP shows Paul trailing Obama 45-44 in a hypothetical general election match-up, while Romney lags Obama by the same margin, 46-45. Gov. Rick Perry, R-Texas, has a 7 point deficit on the president, 50-43 - likely because 63% of voters polled disagree with his characterization of Social Security as a Ponzi scheme.

That said, PPP made a point of noting that Perry's deficit to Obama recalls Dewey's loss to President Truman, which might say as much about how PPP wants Republican voters to see Perry as it does about Perry's chances in this election.

http://campaign2012.washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/poll-ron-paul-v-obama-dead-heat-fla

Facebook Tracking Its Users

'We didn't mean to track you' says Facebook as social network giant admits to 'bugs' in new privacy row

By Daniel Bates

Facebook has admitted that it has been watching the web pages its members visit – even when they have logged out.
In its latest privacy blunder, the social networking site was forced to confirm that it has been constantly tracking its 750million users, even when they are using other sites.
The social networking giant says the huge privacy breach was simply a mistake - that software automatically downloaded to users' computers when they logged in to Facebook 'inadvertently' sent information to the company, whether or not they were logged in at the time.

Most would assume that Facebook stops monitoring them after they leave its site, but technology bloggers discovered this was not the case.

In fact, data has been regularly sent back to the social network’s servers – data that could be worth billions when creating 'targeted' advertising based on the sites users visit.

The website’s practices were exposed by Australian technology blogger Nik Cubrilovic and have provoked a furious response across the internet.
Facebook claims to have 'fixed' the issue - and 'thanked' Mr Cubrilovic for pointing it out - while simultaneously claiming that it wasn't really an issue in the first place.

Mr Cubrilovic found that when you sign up to Facebook it automatically puts files known as ‘cookies’ on your computer which monitor your browsing history.

This is still the case. But Facebook claims the cookies no longer send information while you are logged out of its site. If you are logged in to Facebook, the cookies will still send the information, and they remain on your computer unless you manually delete them.

They send Facebook your IP address - the 'unique identifier' address of your PC - and information on whether you have visited millions of websites: anything with a Facebook ‘like’ or ‘recommend’ button on it.
'We place cookies on the computer of the user,' said a Facebook spokesperson - and admitted that some Facebook cookies send back the address of users' PCs and sites they had visited, even while logged out.
'Three of these cookies inadvertently included unique identifiers when the user had logged out of Facebook. We did not store these for logged out users. We could not have used this information.'

However, the site spokesperson said that the 'potential issue' had now been 'fixed' so that the cookies will no longer broadcast information: 'We fixed the cookies so they won't include unique information in the future when people log out.'

'It's just the latest privacy issue to affect a company that has a long history of blunders relating to user's private information.

Monitoring all: Facebook founder and chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg
Mr Cubrilovic wrote: ‘Even if you are logged out, Facebook still knows and can track every page you visit.
‘The only solution is to delete every Facebook cookie in your browser, or to use a separate (web) browser for Facebook interactions.
‘This is not what "logout" is supposed to mean’.
The admission is the latest in a series of privacy blunders from Facebook, which has a record of only correcting such matters when they are brought to light by other people.
Earlier this year it stopped gathering browser data from users who had never even been to Facebook.com after it was exposed by a Dutch researcher.
The site was forced into a partial climbdown over changes to privacy settings which many claimed made too much public.
It also came under attack for launching a ‘stalker button’ which allowed users to track another person’s every move in a list which was constantly being updated.

Arturo Bejar, one of Facebook’s directors of engineering, admitted that users continue to be tracked after they log out but said that the data was deleted right away.
He said it was to do with the way the ‘like’ feature works, which is a button users can click on to show they like something.
He said: ‘The onus is on us is to take all the data and scrub it. What really matters is what we say as a company and back it up.’
On technology blog CNET, however, users were outraged at what was going on.
One wrote: ‘Who the hell do these people think they are? ‘Trust us?’ Why? Why should we trust a company that spies on us without our knowledge and consent?’
Another added: ‘Holy wow.... they've just lept way past Google on the creepy meter’.
According to U.S. reports Facebook has recently set up its own Political Action Committee, an American term for a lobbying outfit to get its views heard on Capitol Hill.
So far this year it has already spent £352,000 on lobbying, already ahead of last year’s total of £224,000.
The website has also been forced to deny Internet rumours it will begin charging for its services and said it will ‘always be free’.
A spokesman for Facebook said that the login and log out measures were designed for security and were there to prevent fraud.
He added: ‘We to do not use this information to target adverts’.



http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2042573/Facebook-privacy-row-Social-network-giant-admits-bugs.html

Are We Waking Up?

Herman Cain Leads Republican Field In Zogby Poll

by John Hayward
A new Zogby poll puts Herman Cain​ at the top of the Republican field, as the top choice of 28% of poll respondents. (IBOPE Zogby International says the polling sample consists of “all likely voters and of likely Republican primary voters.”)

Rounding out the top three are Rick Perry at 18%, and Mitt Romney at 17%. Fourth place goes to Ron Paul at 11%. Paul’s the most solid performer in Zogby’s polling history for the 2012 GOP race – his 11% might as well be chiseled in stone.

Interestingly, this poll was conducted after the Orlando GOP debate, but before Cain won the Florida straw poll. It’s a huge surge for Cain, who was polling at 12% just two weeks previously, and was floating at a campaign low of 8% two weeks before that. Aside from that bitter 8% number, Cain has generally done quite well in the Zogby poll, usually good enough for second or third place.

On the other hand, Rick Perry’s numbers in the Zogby poll have cratered, falling 19% in just two weeks. His debut last month was also his high-water mark thus far, when Zogby had him at 41%.

Michelle Bachmann has also been slipping steadily, chugging in at 4%. That puts her just below Jon Huntsman, which is the same way she finished the Florida straw poll. Bachmann was actually the leading candidate in Zogby’s polling from June 21 through July 25… then she plunged to 9% in the next poll and continued sliding down from there.

Romney’s been holding fairly steady in the Zogby poll. He bounces a few points up and down, but seems to hover in the 15-17% range.

Zogby’s also got President Obama’s approval rating at 42%, with 57% disapproval. That’s actually a bit better than his September 5 low of 39-61. His poor approval numbers seem to hold fairly steady, while his disapproval bounces around.

As always with poll news, the usual caveats apply: it’s one poll, it might be an outlier, Zogby’s accuracy has been questioned in the past, et cetera. Still, these numbers reflect the general shape of the race pretty well: Perry started big but fizzled fast, Romney’s been playing a careful game built around damage control, Paul’s got a loyal following but can’t reach beyond it.

I’d have guessed Cain would rank a bit lower than his Zogby numbers until now, but he had one of the best weekends a candidate could ask for in Orlando, and Zobgy’s poll is telling us the same thing the Florida straw poll did. It will be interesting to compare the first batch of polls from various sources to reflect that straw poll, and Cain’s reaction to it.

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=46473

Columnists | Ford pulls its ad on bailouts | The Detroit News

Columnists Ford pulls its ad on bailouts The Detroit News



By
Daniel Howes

Ford pulls its ad on bailouts
'Didn't take the money' boast ruffles feathers

For the only Detroit automaker that "didn't take the money" of the federal auto bailouts, Ford Motor Co. keeps paying a price for its comparative success and self-reliant turnaround.

There's no help from American taxpayers to help lighten its debt load, giving crosstown rivals comparatively better credit ratings and a financial edge Ford is working diligently to erase all on its own.

There's no clause barring a strike by hourly workers amid this fall's national contract talks with the United Auto Workers — a by-product of the taxpayer-financed bailout that General Motors Co. and Chrysler Group LLC retain until 2015.

And there's no assurance the Dearborn automaker can use the commercially advantageous fact that it didn't "take the money" proffered by the Obama Treasury Department and use it in TV ads angling to sell cars and trucks. Not if the campaign takes a whack at its Detroit rivals and suggests that Ford no longer supports the Obama administration bailouts it backed in public statements and sworn congressional testimony.

As part of a campaign featuring "real people" explaining their decision to buy the Blue Oval, a guy named "Chris" says he "wasn't going to buy another car that was bailed out by our government," according the text of the ad, launched in early September.

"I was going to buy from a manufacturer that's standing on their own: win, lose, or draw. That's what America is about is taking the chance to succeed and understanding when you fail that you gotta' pick yourself up and go back to work."

That's what some of America is about, evidently. Because Ford pulled the ad after individuals inside the White House questioned whether the copy was publicly denigrating the controversial bailout policy CEO Alan Mulally repeatedly supported in the dark days of late 2008, in early '09 and again when the ad flap arose. And more.

With President Barack Obama tuning his re-election campaign amid dismal economic conditions and simmering antipathy toward his stimulus spending and associated bailouts, the Ford ad carried the makings of a political liability when Team Obama can least afford yet another one. Can't have that.

The ad, pulled in response to White House questions (and, presumably, carping from rival GM), threatened to rekindle the negative (if accurate) association just when the president wants credit for their positive results (GM and Chrysler are moving forward, making money and selling vehicles) and to distance himself from any public downside of his decision.

In other words, where presidential politics and automotive marketing collide — clean, green, politically correct vehicles not included — the president wins and the automaker loses because the benefit of the battle isn't worth the cost of waging it.

"This thing is highly charged," says an industry source familiar with the situation. Ford "never meant it to be an attack on the policy. There was not any pressure to take down the ad."

Maybe not technically. But the nexus of politics and the auto business in today's Washington is bigger, broader and more complex than it arguably has been in who knows how long.

Add a re-election campaign for the president credited (or condemned) with executing the bailout, and it should be no surprise that a White House that insists it doesn't want to "run" the business nonetheless reserves the right to question it, implications be damned.

Whatever the politics, the ad kerfuffle exposes two opposed realities existing simultaneously for Ford:

First, a sizable cadre of current and would-be customers oppose the notion of taxpayer bailouts for automakers, whatever the economic costs to the industrial Midwest and the nation of letting them collapse. Meaning there's an advantage Ford can press to remind folks that it didn't receive direct payouts from Treasury.

Second is that Ford supported the bailouts before Congress, in public statements and still does today, despite the recurring snarkiness you hear around its offices in Dearborn that it "didn't take the money."

No, it didn't. But Ford did seek a line of credit from the feds, borrowed billions under a government program to "retool" its plants and effectively failed first. That's why it recruited a superstar CEO from Boeing Co. and gave him some $23 billion in borrowed money to save the Blue Oval from bankruptcy.

Or it would have taken the money, too.



From The Detroit News: http://detnews.com/article/20110927/OPINION03/109270322/Ford-pulls-its-ad-on-bailouts#ixzz1ZDFa2sWM



This next video is of the guy explaining himself. Maybe he should run for President?

'Stingray' Phone Tracker Fuels Constitutional Clash

By JENNIFER VALENTINO-DEVRIES
For more than a year, federal authorities pursued a man they called simply "the Hacker." Only after using a little known cellphone-tracking device—a stingray—were they able to zero in on a California home and make the arrest.


Stingrays are designed to locate a mobile phone even when it's not being used to make a call. The Federal Bureau of Investigation considers the devices to be so critical that it has a policy of deleting the data gathered in their use, mainly to keep suspects in the dark about their capabilities, an FBI official told The Wall Street Journal in response to inquiries.

A stingray's role in nabbing the alleged "Hacker"—Daniel David Rigmaiden—is shaping up as a possible test of the legal standards for using these devices in investigations. The FBI says it obtains appropriate court approval to use the device.

Stingrays are one of several new technologies used by law enforcement to track people's locations, often without a search warrant. These techniques are driving a constitutional debate about whether the Fourth Amendment, which prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures, but which was written before the digital age, is keeping pace with the times.

On Nov. 8, the Supreme Court will hear arguments over whether or not police need a warrant before secretly installing a GPS device on a suspect's car and tracking him for an extended period. In both the Senate and House, new bills would require a warrant before tracking a cellphone's location.


And on Thursday in U.S. District Court of Arizona, Judge David G. Campbell is set to hear a request by Mr. Rigmaiden, who is facing fraud charges, to have information about the government's secret techniques disclosed to him so he can use it in his defense. Mr. Rigmaiden maintains his innocence and says that using stingrays to locate devices in homes without a valid warrant "disregards the United States Constitution" and is illegal.

His argument has caught the judge's attention. In a February hearing, according to a transcript, Judge Campbell asked the prosecutor, "Were there warrants obtained in connection with the use of this device?"


The prosecutor, Frederick A. Battista, said the government obtained a "court order that satisfied [the] language" in the federal law on warrants. The judge then asked how an order or warrant could have been obtained without telling the judge what technology was being used. Mr. Battista said: "It was a standard practice, your honor."

Judge Campbell responded that it "can be litigated whether those orders were appropriate."

On Thursday the government will argue it should be able to withhold details about the tool used to locate Mr. Rigmaiden, according to documents filed by the prosecution. In a statement to the Journal, Sherry Sabol, Chief of the Science & Technology Office for the FBI's Office of General Counsel, says that information about stingrays and related technology is "considered Law Enforcement Sensitive, since its public release could harm law enforcement efforts by compromising future use of the equipment."

Enlarge Image


Close.The prosecutor, Mr. Battista, told the judge that the government worries that disclosure would make the gear "subject to being defeated or avoided or detected."

A stingray works by mimicking a cellphone tower, getting a phone to connect to it and measuring signals from the phone. It lets the stingray operator "ping," or send a signal to, a phone and locate it as long as it is powered on, according to documents reviewed by the Journal. The device has various uses, including helping police locate suspects and aiding search-and-rescue teams in finding people lost in remote areas or buried in rubble after an accident.

The government says "stingray" is a generic term. In Mr. Rigmaiden's case it remains unclear which device or devices were actually used.

The best known stingray maker is Florida-based defense contractor Harris Corp. A spokesman for Harris declined to comment.

Harris holds trademarks registered between 2002 and 2008 on several devices, including the StingRay, StingRay II, AmberJack, KingFish, TriggerFish and LoggerHead. Similar devices are available from other manufacturers. According to a Harris document, its devices are sold only to law-enforcement and government agencies.

Some of the gadgets look surprisingly old-fashioned, with a smattering of switches and lights scattered across a panel roughly the size of a shoebox, according to photos of a Harris-made StingRay reviewed by the Journal. The devices can be carried by hand or mounted in cars, allowing investigators to move around quickly.

A rare public reference to this type of technology appeared this summer in the television crime drama "The Closer." In the episode, law-enforcement officers use a gadget they called a "catfish" to track cellphones without a court order.

The U.S. armed forces also use stingrays or similar devices, according to public contract notices. Local law enforcement in Minnesota, Arizona, Miami and Durham, N.C., also either possess the devices or have considered buying them, according to interviews and published requests for funding.

The sheriff's department in Maricopa County, Ariz., uses the equipment "about on a monthly basis," says Sgt. Jesse Spurgin. "This is for location only. We can't listen in on conversations," he says.

Sgt. Spurgin says officers often obtain court orders, but not necessarily search warrants, when using the device. To obtain a search warrant from a court, officers as a rule need to show "probable cause," which is generally defined as a reasonable belief, based on factual evidence, that a crime was committed. Lesser standards apply to other court orders.

A spokeswoman with the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension in Minnesota says officers don't need to seek search warrants in that state to use a mobile tracking device because it "does not intercept communication, so no wiretap laws would apply."

FBI and Department of Justice officials have also said that investigators don't need search warrants. Associate Deputy Attorney General James A. Baker and FBI General Counsel Valerie E. Caproni both said at a panel at the Brookings Institution in May that devices like these fall into a category of tools called "pen registers," which require a lesser order than a warrant. Pen registers gather signals from phones, such as phone numbers dialed, but don't receive the content of the communications.

To get a pen-register order, investigators don't have to show probable cause. The Supreme Court has ruled that use of a pen register doesn't require a search warrant because it doesn't involve interception of conversations.

But with cellphones, data sent includes location information, making the situation more complicated because some judges have found that location information is more intrusive than details about phone numbers dialed. Some courts have required a slightly higher standard for location information, but not a warrant, while others have held that a search warrant is necessary.

The prosecution in the Rigmaiden case says in court documents that the "decisions are made on a case-by-case basis" by magistrate and district judges. Court records in other cases indicate that decisions are mixed, and cases are only now moving through appellate courts.

The FBI advises agents to work with federal prosecutors locally to meet the requirements of their particular district or judge, the FBI's Ms. Sabol says. She also says it is FBI policy to obtain a search warrant if the FBI believes the technology "may provide information on an individual while that person is in a location where he or she would have a reasonable expectation of privacy."

Experts say lawmakers and the courts haven't yet settled under what circumstances locating a person or device constitutes a search requiring a warrant. Tracking people when they are home is particularly sensitive because the Fourth Amendment specifies that people have a right to be secure against unreasonable searches in their "houses."

"The law is uncertain," says Orin Kerr, a professor at George Washington University Law School and former computer-crime attorney at the Department of Justice. Mr. Kerr, who has argued that warrants should be required for some, but not all, types of location data, says that the legality "should depend on the technology."

In the case of Mr. Rigmaiden, the government alleges that as early as 2005, he began filing fraudulent tax returns online. Overall, investigators say, Mr. Rigmaiden electronically filed more than 1,900 fraudulent tax returns as part of a $4 million plot.

Federal investigators say they pursued Mr. Rigmaiden "through a virtual labyrinth of twists and turns." Eventually, they say they linked Mr. Rigmaiden to use of a mobile-broadband card, a device that lets a computer connect to the Internet through a cellphone network.

Investigators obtained court orders to track the broadband card. Both orders remain sealed, but portions of them have been quoted by the defense and the prosecution.

These two documents are central to the clash in the Arizona courtroom. One authorizes a "pen register" and clearly isn't a search warrant. The other document is more complex. The prosecution says it is a type of search warrant and that a finding of probable cause was made.

But the defense argues that it can't be a proper search warrant, because among other things it allowed investigators to delete all the tracking data collected, rather than reporting back to the judge.

Legal experts who spoke with the Journal say it is difficult to evaluate the order, since it remains sealed. In general, for purposes of the Fourth Amendment, the finding of probable cause is most important in determining whether a search is reasonable because that requirement is specified in the Constitution itself, rather than in legal statutes, says Mr. Kerr.

But it is "odd" for a search warrant to allow deletion of evidence before a case goes to trial, says Paul Ohm, a professor at the University of Colorado Law School and a former computer-crime attorney at the Department of Justice. The law governing search warrants specifies how the warrants are to be executed and generally requires information to be returned to the judge.

Even if the court finds the government's actions acceptable under the Fourth Amendment, deleting the data is "still something we might not want the FBI doing," Mr. Ohm says.

The government says the data from the use of the stingray has been deleted and isn't available to the defendant. In a statement, the FBI told the Journal that "our policy since the 1990s has been to purge or 'expunge' all information obtained during a location operation" when using stingray-type gear.

As a general matter, Ms. Sabol says, court orders related to stingray technology "will include a directive to expunge information at the end of the location operation."

Ms. Sabol says the FBI follows this policy because its intent isn't to use the data as evidence in court, but rather to simply find the "general location of their subject" in order to start collecting other information that can be used to justify a physical search of the premises.

In the Rigmaiden example, investigators used the stingray to narrow down the location of the broadband card. Then they went to the apartment complex's office and learned that one resident had used a false ID and a fake tax return on the renter's application, according to court documents.

Based on that evidence, they obtained a search warrant for the apartment. They found the broadband card connected to a computer.

Mr. Rigmaiden, who doesn't confirm or deny ownership of the broadband card, is arguing he should be given information about the device and about other aspects of the mission that located him.

In the February hearing, Judge Campbell said he might need to weigh the government's claim of privilege against the defendant's Fourth Amendment rights, and asked the prosecution, "How can we litigate in this case whether this technology that was used in this case violates the Fourth Amendment without knowing precisely what it can do?"


Read more: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904194604576583112723197574.html#ixzz1YkA6R5v3