Tuesday, June 11, 2013

News you might have missed


Court Room Drama




Authorities, those in uniform, are above the law.

I have to laugh at black guys who claim discrimination and state that "this shit only happens to us blacks!".

No, buddy - happens to everybody.

Pasty, cowardly, non-threatening, clean shaven and well dressed skinny White guys like yours truly included.

I have my own experiences with "police officers" at a "safety checkpoint", threats of a positive DUI test and "I can make your life hell, smart guy" (hint - the DUI test given by a police officer is ALWAYS positive if he wants it to be).


What our betters are up to while at work

Prostitution, drugs alleged in State Department memo

Regarding the latest allegations, CNN was provided the documents by a lawyer for a whistle-blower who is a former senior inspector general investigator.
They include:
• An active U.S. ambassador "routinely ditched his protective security detail in order to solicit sexual favors from both prostitutes and minor children," the memo says. The ambassador's protective detail and others "were well aware of the behavior," the memo asserts. When a diplomatic security officer tried to investigate, undersecretary of state for management Patrick Kennedy allegedly ordered the investigator "not to open a formal investigation."
On Tuesday, CNN obtained a statement from the ambassador, who vigorously denied the allegations, calling them "baseless."

A source close to the investigation of the ambassador told CNN that the ambassador's security detail reported to the inspector general that the ambassador would leave his house at night without notifying the detail. The detail followed the ambassador and saw the ambassador once go to a park that's known for illegal activity, the source told CNN. The detail said they never witnessed the ambassador engage in any sexual activity, the source said.

The ambassador went to Washington and was asked what he was doing and he denied any wrongdoing, the source told CNN. The ambassador explained that sometimes he fights with his wife, needs air and he goes for a walk in the park because he likes it.
Kennedy also issued a statement Tuesday, saying it is his responsibility "to make sure the department and all of our employees -- no matter their rank -- are held to the highest standard, and I have never once interfered, nor would I condone interfering, in any investigation."

• A State Department security official in Beirut allegedly "engaged in sexual assaults" against foreign nationals working as embassy guards. The security official, the Office of the Inspector General says, was also accused of committing "similar assaults during assignments in Baghdad, and possibly Khartoum and Monrovia." The office's memo says that an inspector general's investigator who went to Beirut to try to conduct an investigation was not given enough time to complete the job.

• A member of Clinton's security detail allegedly "engaged prostitutes while on official trips in foreign countries." The inspector general's agent assigned to investigate "concluded" that the "prostitution problem was endemic."

• In Iraq, an "underground drug ring" may have been operating near the U.S. Embassy and "supplying" drugs to State Department security contractors, but an agent sent to investigate the allegations was prevented from completing the job.

And of course, last but not least, you did hear about the NSA?


Guardian, UK: NSA collecting phone records of millions of Verizon customers daily

The National Security Agency is currently collecting the telephone records of millions of US customers of Verizon, one of America's largest telecoms providers, under a top secret court order issued in April.
The order, a copy of which has been obtained by the Guardian, requires Verizon on an "ongoing, daily basis" to give the NSA information on all telephone calls in its systems, both within the US and between the US and other countries.
The document shows for the first time that under the Obama administration the communication records of millions of US citizens are being collected indiscriminately and in bulk – regardless of whether they are suspected of any wrongdoing.
The secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (Fisa) granted the order to the FBI on April 25, giving the government unlimited authority to obtain the data for a specified three-month period ending on July 19.

Of course, if you were a faithful reader, all this would be all news to you, as published in my Israeli companies spy on Americans at AT&T and Verizon.

Go read it now - it is an article containing an interview with James Bamford, author of several books dealing with the NSA, National Security Agency.  This originally aired way back on Democracy Now! programme (a very good leftist journalist, Amy Goodman, well worth listening to on radio and watching on TV/internet).

Here is an excerpt:

JAMES BAMFORD:
And what Mark Klein was talking about, he was a supervisor for twenty-two years over at AT&T, and he discovered this secret room in this facility in San Francisco, this very tall, ten-, twelve-story building out in San Francisco, which is basically the switch, AT&T’s switch for their communications in that part of the country, the sort of western part of the country.

And what happened is that during the 1990s and early in the ’80s and the ’70s, the NSA used to collect information by putting out big dishes and collecting satellite communications that would come down. It was very easy. They put the dishes out; satellite transmits the telephone calls and messages, emails and so forth down to earth; and the satellite picks it up. And then NSA collects it. NSA didn’t have to deal with the telecommunication companies at all, because they could get the information independent of the telecom companies.

Then, in the late ’90s, things began to change, and fiber optics became a big thing for telecommunications. Fiber optics are cables in which the communications are transmitted, not electronically, but by photons, light signals. And that made life very difficult for NSA. It meant the communications, instead of being able to pick them up in a big dish, they were now being transmitted under the ocean in these cables. And the only way to get access to it would be to put a submarine down and try to tap into those cables. But that, from the people I’ve talked to, has not been very successful with fiber-optic cables. So the only other way to really do this is by making some kind of agreement with the telecom companies, so that NSA could actually basically cohabitate some of the telecom companies’ locations. And that’s what happened. NSA began making these agreements with AT&T and other companies, and that in order to get access to the actual cables, they had to build these secret rooms in these buildings.
 If that doesn't pique your interest to read the article, perhaps this tidbit will:

AMY GOODMAN: So you have these companies, AT&T and Verizon, that are secretly working with the NSA and tapping Americans’ phone lines, and these companies actually outsource the actual tapping to some little-known foreign companies?

JAMES BAMFORD: Yeah. There’s two major—or not major, they’re small companies, but they service the two major telecom companies. This company, Narus, which was founded in Israel and has large Israel connections, does the—basically the tapping of the communications on AT&T. And Verizon chose another company, ironically also founded in Israel and largely controlled by and developed by people in Israel called Verint.

You see, it's all connected - and even though you are seeing the tip of the iceberg, you are missing a BIG FUCKING PART of the picture - missing the forest for the trees (I have to stick that phrase anytime I can - it's almost my trademark).

Oh, and did I mention that I wrote that article (right after I saw Democracy Now!) on

Wednesday, October 15, 2008?

And the hits keep on coming...

 Off-duty cops collect DNA samples at Alabama roadblocks

 

Off-duty cops in two counties in Alabama spent the weekend collecting saliva and blood samples from drivers at roadblocks.

According to Lt. Freddie Turrentine with the St. Clair County Sheriff’s Department, drivers were asked to voluntarily offer samples of their saliva and blood for a study being conducted by the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation.

The drivers were compensated for their samples.

“They’ve got big signs up that says ‘paid volunteer survey’ and if they want to participate they pull over there and they ask them questions and if they are willing to give them a mouth swab they give them $10 and if they are willing to give them a blood sample they give them $50. And if they don’t do anything they drive off,” Turrentine explained to The Daily Caller.

Turrentine said that St. Clair County had five roadblocks from Friday afternoon through the early morning hours of Sunday. He added that Bibb County also had roadblocks of this kind.
And if they don’t do anything they drive off - oh sure, based on my experiences at a "safety checkpoint",it was just a super dooper pleasant voluntary experience for all the drivers made to stop by the, er, "off duty" police officers in full uniform in police cars manning a, errrrr, a "voluntary" roadblock that stopped ALL the cars on a road.

And as suspected... here is how it went down:

Pell City woman talks about participation in roadside saliva, blood sample survey:

PELL CITY, Alabama -- It was a little bit after midnight, early Saturday morning, when Erika Skeivelas said she saw the flashing lights.

Her 8-year-old daughter, sitting next to her, thought it might be a wreck. Skeivelas, 32, said she was traveling on Alabama 34 toward her lake house to "check on the cats." She had worked until 10:30 that evening, but had stopped by the Hometown Block Party in downtown Pell City until it had ended.
What Skeivelas saw were two St. Clair County deputies cars, with flashing lights, stopping traffic on the highway. She was then asked to be part of what she was told would be a brief roadside survey. What she participated in was a national survey looking at blood alcohol and drug levels of drivers. 
Skeivelas said she didn't think anything about taking part, because she hadn't been drinking. However, she said she didn't think it was clear the survey wasn't mandatory
"I tend to do what an officer tells me to do," she said. "I wasn't too comfortable with it. I had a minor in the car. But the officer told me it was just a safety survey, so I said, 'OK, fine, whatever.' I don't like to blow smoke up the dragon's nostrils."
She was told to pull into a car wash at the side of the road. Skeivelas said about three cars were stopped at the same time, and deputies were stopping cars on both sides of the road. She also saw some cars that turned around at the sight of the roadblock.
"There's a pretty popular bar about a half a mile from where they did the thing," she said. "That was kind of funny."
The survey took about 10 minutes, 15 at the most she said. When she had parked beside the road, a man identified himself with the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation. He wore navy blue pants and a navy blue shirt with a reflector vest. He read her several questions: Do you drink and drive? Do you take over the counter medications? Do you take prescription medications? Do they have warning labels?

Later on, she was handed an iPad to answer about 25 questions, some of which were similar to ones she had already been asked.
"I didn't get the feeling these were certified people," she said. "They looked like they had been hired by a temp organization just to read the questions."
The man then asked her if she would be willing to undergo a breathalyzer test. After this and the iPad quiz, she was asked for a saliva sample, she said. She was then told, if she was willing, she could give a blood sample to a qualified phlebotomist. (Federal officials yesterday said samples gathered were not collecting DNA.)
"I figured OK, why not? I'm already out here anyway," she said. For the saliva sample, she was given $10 in cash. She received a $50 postal order for the blood sample, which she said has already cleared the bank. However, she said she never signed any consent forms. "I can say I definitely didn't sign anything," she said.
Skeivelas said, looking back, she wasn't entirely comfortable with the way the survey was conducted.
"As a citizen, I think at the end of the day in a way, it was somewhat entrapment," she said. "I don't think it felt all that voluntary. I mean, why didn't they ask people at Wal-Mart at 2 in the afternoon? What were they going to do if the deputies could clearly smell alcohol on somebody after midnight, because you know people have been drinking and are out on the road?"

Our orwellian state is gearing up for the difficult trials awaiting it in the near future - with record unemployment, coupled with unlimited mass amnesty for mexican laborers and hordes of HB1 visa indians displacing higher paid middle class Americans, things are bound to go pop a bit...

Having a total surveillance network, with facebook profiling your personal friendships, who you know, who you talk to, with reddit and blogs showing them what political positions you support, how docile or dangerous are you, with your every email stored and available to be read by a human "specialist" who may elect to "have some fun" with "this guy" - just like the movie "Enemy of the State"...

And now the final piece of the puzzle - storage of citizens' DNA.

For our own  safety, of course.

Also, hmm, for the children.

Mustn't forget about the children.

And our safety.

1 comment:

Darth Plastic said...

The Revolution starts......in the mind.