Americans Who Know Their Rights Are The Real Target Of Napolitano’s “Domestic Terror” Warning

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Monday, February 22, 2010

Homeland Security chief Janet Napolitano cited examples of Muslim extremists in her warning Sunday that domestic terrorists were now as much a focus as international terrorism, but actual training manuals being used by state and federal authorities across America reveal that the primary target of the anti-terror apparatus hits a lot closer to home.

“Americans who turn to terrorism and plot against the U.S. are now as big a concern as international terrorists, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said Sunday,” reports the Associated Press.

“In the last year, Napolitano said, she’s witnessed a movement from international extremism to domestic extremism – cases in which Americans radicalized and decided to plot attacks against the country.”

However, Napolitano’s comments were clearly crafted to appeal to some on the right who claim that the Obama administration, despite its clear intensification of Bush’s “war on terror” with more raids into Pakistan and new targets in Yemen, has been “soft” on terror, with the DHS Secretary listing examples of Muslim Americans who have allegedly planned terror attacks (but not without aggressive prompting by FBI informants in almost every case).

In reality, as leaked state and federal documents illustrate, the primary focus of the war on terror is aimed at American citizens who exercise or merely show an interest in their own constitutional rights.

As President Obama’s would-be TSA head and former FBi agent Erroll Southers stated last month, white Christian “anti-government” types are now the primary target of suspicion for authorities.

In a video interview posted to You Tube, Southers outlined how the government and the TSA has to “pay attention” not to Muslim terrorists but to “anti-government, anti-abortion, survivalist types” who are “christian identity oriented.”

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As we have exhaustively documented for years, even if there were cells of Muslim terrorists planning to bomb airliners, the federal government is far more concerned with what politically active conservative and libertarian Americans are up to.

This was illustrated again earlier this month with a story concerning South Carolina’s “Subversive Activities Registration Act,” a law which mandates that “Every member of a subversive organization, or an organization subject to foreign control, every foreign agent and every person who advocates, teaches, advises or practices the duty, necessity or propriety of controlling, conducting, seizing or overthrowing the government of the United States … shall register with the Secretary of State.”

Under the sweeping terms of the law, members of tax protest organizations, the Tea Party movement and the States’ Rights movement based in South Carolina are all domestic terrorists if they fail to register their dissent with the authorities. If such groups don’t obtain what amounts to a license from the government to engage in free speech, their members face a $25,000 fine and 10 years in prison.

Leaked state and federal documents produced since the early nineties have routinely labeled politically active Americans, or merely those cognizant of their constitutional rights, as the main domestic extremist threat.

An infamous leaked report distributed by the Missouri Information Analysis Center last year listed Ron Paul supporters, libertarians, people who display bumper stickers, people who own gold, or even people who fly a U.S. flag and equated them with radical race hate groups and terrorists.

The 2009 Virginia Terrorism Threat Assessment, produced by the Virginia Fusion Center, smeared anyone who is “anti-government,” “anti-abortion,” as potential terrorists, equated people who enjoy rifle shooting practice and hunting with terrorists, and demonized the use of the Internet and websites like You Tube, Fark and Slashdot as terrorist tools. The use of “e-protests” is also talked about in the context of terrorism.

The document also discusses “special interest groups” who “incorporate a political message” in its section about domestic terrorists, which could be defined as any mildly political organization whatsoever.

These are just two of a plethora of similar police and federal government reports stretching back well over a decade that identify politically active Americans as domestic terrorists and a target of domestic authorities.

The American people are clearly being prepared for more “home grown” false flag terror attacks on soft targets in order to smooth the rollout of stifling airport-style security measures onto the streets. With passengers at bus terminals already being subjected to random pat downs, baggage and sniffer dog searches, shopping malls and other public buildings are next.

The ultimate goal is to have naked body scanners attached to lamp posts that scan your naked body as you innocently walk down the street. The only way to sell this to the public will be for them to witness repeated soft target attacks similar to those seen in Israel over the past decade.

URL to article: http://www.infowars.com/americans-who-know-their-rights-are-the-real-target-of-napolitanos-domestic-terror-warning/

HHS Bilderberger Sebelius Faces Hostile Town Hall Over Obama Care

The Dead Pelican
July 21, 2009

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Obama administration officials visited the town of Reserve, Louisiana to pitch the Obama health care plan Monday, and were greeted by a tough crowd.

Media reports indicate that it was a tough sell for Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.

THE DEAD PELICAN has obtained footage from WGNO in New Orleans where one audience member decried what he called Obama’s “socialistic” health plan.

The gentleman attending the rally was greeted with thunderous applause when he told Sebelius that “It will be a cold day in hell before he socializes my country!”

URL to article: http://www.infowars.com/hhs-bilderberger-sebelius-faces-hostile-town-hall-over-obama-care/

Obama Administration Resumes Funding of China’s Eugenics Programs

Jurriaan Maessen
Infowars
July 9, 2009

After the Bush administration in 2001 decided to cut US government funding for the United Nations Population Fund’s China program, the Obama administration is now planning to fill the pockets of the United Nations Population Fund with fresh federal funds once again. Even though recent investigations exposed the UNFPA’s intimate involvement in China’s coercive birth control policies, the new administration apparently cares not, as it allocated $50 million to the eugenicists.

	The Obama administration has demonstrated an alarming ideological bent in favour of groups like the UNFPA and Planned Parenthood.

Only days after his inauguration, President Barack Obama announced he would resume funding for the UNFPA and its ‘family planning’ activities in China and elsewhere around the globe. State Department spokesman Robert Wood explained the allocation with the following argumentation:

‘The United States is a global leader in promoting voluntary family planning and the health of vulnerable women and children in the developing world.’

As it turns out, the concept of voluntarism is not easily reconcilable with the Chinese government’s aim of reducing its population. On July 7^th, LifeSiteNews.Com reported that UNFPA’s claim that it “played a catalytic role in introducing a voluntary reproductive health approach in China” is patently false. Steven Mosher, president of the Population Research Institute, explained the policies by the Chinese government- partially funded by the UNFPA:

‘Women continue to be arrested for the crime of being pregnant. They continue to be forcibly aborted. Minorities continue to be targeted. The handicapped are forbidden children. These violations of human rights are occurring right under the UNFPA‘s nose. It is ludicrous to suggest that the UN population controllers do not know about them.’

These facts are in stark contrast with the claims of the United Nations population control arm, who back in 2001 maintained that ‘reproductive health programs are “fully voluntary”.’ The Population Research Institute however travelled to China’s provinces and counties where the UN Population people are active. What they witnessed is heart rendering:

‘In every village in one UNFPA county, billboard propaganda urges women to help the economy by complying with family planning policies. PRI interviewed dozens of other women and men, all of whom confirmed- without exception- that voluntarism is non-existent in this county where UNFPA operates.’

Even today, the website of the UNFPA uses the argument of the economic crisis to convince people to cut down on the number of children:

‘In the context of the financial crisis, when resources are limited, investing in family planning is even more attractive – because it is a cost-effective intervention with both short term and long term impact.’

Based on firsthand observations by the Population Research Institute, to say that the situation is dire would be an understatement:

‘Only about five miles from an UNFPA office- in a county where UNFPA claims that women are free to determine the timing and spacing of their pregnancies- PRI interviewed a young woman who reported that she came under severe pressure to have an abortion. (…) To avoid a forced abortion, this woman fled to a neighbouring town where she went into hiding (…). Unable to locate her, family planning officials attempted to force the woman out of hiding and into an abortion by arresting the woman’s mother, father, brother, sister, and mother- and brother-in-law. They were held in jail for four months. (…) While her relatives were being held in jail, to further increase the pressure on her to have an abortion, their homes were partly destroyed. The attack occurred on April 5, 2000, on the occasion of a major Chinese festival, Qingming. Family planning crews armed with jackhammers attacked this woman’s house, and her brother- and father-in-law’s homes, hammering great holes in the floors, walls, ceilings and roofs of these homes. In addition, they ransacked the homes.’

UNFPA’s response? In their ‘ Draft country programme document for China’ in 2005, the organisation states that “UNFPA will continue to use the results of the systematic monitoring, evaluation and research of its operational project sites to work with key partners to facilitate and advocate programme changes.’

Furthermore, the “draft” explains that: ‘UNFPA and the Government will build on previous experiences in the area of reproductive health in China, including those of partners such as the World Health Organisation, the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), the Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID) and The Ford Foundation.’

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Who could these “family planning crews” be exactly, as described by the Population Research Institute as thugs looking for pregnant women to intimidate? The UNFPA states that:

‘The UNFPA country office consists of a representative, two national programme officers, two junior professional officers, and national programme and support staff. National project personnel may be recruited to strengthen programme implementation.’

Reproductive health: the ultimate euphemism. Just like ‘family planning’ (who will do the planning) and ‘cost-effective intervention’. These are cold words from cold organisations dedicated to reducing the world’s population, the sooner the better.

Documenting these atrocities in great detail within a 2001 report by the Population Research Institute forced the Bush administration to withdraw their support and funding for the UNFPA indefinitely. Despite the alarming reports however, the current administration has shaken the money tree once again, providing the UNFPA with the necessary funding to continue their dubious undertakings in the People’s Republic of China. PRI’s lead investigator Colin Mason:

‘The Obama administration has demonstrated an alarming ideological bent in favour of groups like the UNFPA and Planned Parenthood, groups that have been repeatedly shown a laissez-faire attitude toward human rights and national and international laws.’

‘We believe that the evidence is conclusive’, stated the PRI-spokesman. ‘The UNFPA, contrary to its own statements, is participating in the management and support of a program of forced abortion and forced sterilization in China, and should therefore be ineligible for US funds.’

The Obama administration nevertheless says: ‘so what?’- while pouring American taxpayer’s money straight into China’s eugenics programs.

Source:

http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/jul/09070709.html

http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/mar/09032712.html

http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2001/oct/011005c.html

URL to article: http://www.infowars.com/obama-administration-resumes-funding-of-chinas-eugenics-programs/

Biden, Israel and Iran

Gary Leupp
Counterpunch
July 7, 2009

Vice President Joe Biden, apparently speaking on behalf of the Obama administration, has just given Israel the green light to bomb Iran.

“Israel can determine for itself — it’s a sovereign nation — what’s in their interest and what they decide to do relative to Iran and anyone else,” he told ABC’s “This Week” in an interview broadcast Sunday. “Whether we agree or not, they’re entitled to do that. Any sovereign nation is entitled to do that. But there is no pressure from any nation that’s going to alter our behavior as to how to proceed. If the Netanyahu government decides to take a course of action different than the one being pursued now, that is their sovereign right to do that. That is not our choice,” he declared.

The statement is presented in logically abstract terms. Any sovereign nation is entitled to do what’s in its interest regardless of what “we” think, surely. How very reasonable—magnanimous, even, coming from the mouth of the vice-president of the superpower that’s in the last eight years brutally imposed its will on two sizable Southwest Asian countries.

But to test Biden’s universalist logic imagine yourself in 1939, substitute Germany for Israel and Poland for Iran and ask whether “any sovereign nation is” really “entitled to do that.”

Of course Israel doesn’t have any “sovereign right” to attack Iran! And Biden’s implied distaste for the attack (“That is not our choice”), which may presage a calculated distancing from an action in the future, doesn’t undo the fact that he explicitly validates such action here.

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They’re entitled to do it, says Joe. Just as presumably they’re entitled to remain outside the nuclear nonproliferation treaty regime, and produce and stockpile the only nuclear weapons in the Middle East, while claiming that the Iranian nuclear program (begun under U.S. encouragement under the Shah) can only have military intentions and can only be designed to produced a “nuclear Holocaust” to destroy the Jews.

Just as presumably they’re entitled to deploy vast resources  to pressure the U.S. government to bomb Iran for them. (But no worry about the impact on U.S. foreign policy. “There is no pressure,” says Joe, “from any nation that’s going to alter our behavior as to how to proceed.” What he really means is: There’s actually a whole shitload of pressure from Israel on us to bomb Iran. But we might not do that. Because Obama thinks that the Israeli-demanded attack on Iran, like the assault on Iraq, might be a “strategic blunder.”)

One could argue, of course, that in positing Netanyahu’s “sovereign right” to bomb Iran, a nation which has not attacked another in modern times, Biden is just shooting off his famous mouth again. But there are at least two reasons his comments should be taken very seriously.

First of all, there is obviously much conflict within the U.S. power structure over the wisdom of a U.S. attack on Iran. The Israel Lobby demanding one may have suffered a defeat at the hands of the Pentagon, which sees such an attack as complicating the imbroglios it faces in Iraq and Afghanistan (and down the road in Pakistan?), and the intelligence community which knows that Iran does not possess a nuclear weapons program threatening the world.

Secondly, the state of Israel continues to depict the Islamic Republic of Iran as an “existential” threat to itself, while threatening to attack it with missiles if the U.S. does not do so. The Bush administration always endorsed Israel’s vilification campaign and conceded the possibility that it might act “on its own” (as though it could really do so without a green light from Washington). Dick Cheney told Don Imus on MSNBC in January 2005 that “Given the fact that Iran has a stated policy that their objective is the destruction of Israel [sic (disinformation)], the Israelis might well decide to act first, and let the rest of the world worry about cleaning up the diplomatic mess afterwards.” He implied that if the U.S. didn’t take action, the Israelis would be justified in doing so.

This remains the U.S. position under the Obama administration. And having decided for geopolitical reasons to adopt a tougher line on Israel’s illegal settlements on the West Bank, Washington is perhaps particularly disinclined to deter Israel should it opt to create the mess of which Cheney spoke. “That was not our choice,” it will say.

URL to article: http://www.infowars.com/biden-israel-and-iran/

Senate Blocks Bill To Audit The Fed As Government Prepares For Second Round Of Looting

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Tuesday, July 7, 2009

A Senate amendment based on Congressman Ron Paul’s successful House bill to audit the Federal Reserve was blocked by the Senate yesterday evening on procedural grounds, as Jim DeMint slammed the Fed for refusing to disclose where trillions in bailout funds had gone, while a top Obama administration advisor called for a second “stimulus” package to be prepared.

Republican Senator DeMint had attempted to get a provision attached to the 2010 spending bill that would have removed restrictions on auditing the Fed’s discount window operations, funding facilities, open market operations and agreements with foreign central banks and governments.

However, the amendment was blocked by Senate authorities who claimed that it violated rules for provisions attached to spending bills.

Of course, when the elite want to get their own legislation rammed through, such as the recent climate bill in the House, it’s perfectly fine for Congressmembers to be prevented from even reading it, for it to have 300 pages added at 3am in the morning before the vote, and for all kinds of pork barrel to be attached. But God forbid should representatives actually try to pass something that would benefit the American people and not the private bankers that are beyond all scrutiny and above the law.

DeMint said that the Fed has enjoyed a monopoly over money and credit in the United States since 1913 yet has never been transparent or accountable to Congress, while during that time the dollar has lost 95% of its purchasing power.

“The Federal Reserve will create and disburse trillions of dollars in response to our current financial crisis,” DeMint said. “Americans across the nation, regardless of their opinion on the bailout, want to know where the money has gone,” he added, referring to the Fed’s refusal to disclose where trillions in bailout funds has gone.

“Allowing the Fed to operate our nation’s monetary system in almost complete secrecy leads to abuse, inflation and a lower quality of life,” said DeMint.

A Reuters article about the Senate’s move to block the bill said that the Federal Reserve was “facing growing pressure as it tries to heal the ailing economy.”

In reality, the Federal Reserve has done nothing to “heal” the economy as unemployment outstrips expectations and the financial picture only looks bleaker every day. The private, run for profit Fed has taken trillions in “stimulus” funds and refused to even divulge where it has gone, even under threat of lawsuits file by Bloomberg.

Meanwhile, people like Ben Bernanke have committed financial terrorism by threatening an economic collapse if the Fed is allowed to be audited.

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Any real audit of the Fed would of course create a giant roadblock for the Obama administration’s plans to launch a whole new program of looting and grand larceny in the guise of a second “stimulus” package.

“We should be planning on a contingency basis for a second round of stimulus,” Laura D’Andrea Tyson, a member of the panel advising President Barack Obama on tackling the economic crisis, said on Tuesday,” reports CNBC.

This is precisely why Senate authorities, bought and paid for by the private bankers that now own the United States, have blocked efforts to audit the Fed, because they know that the fallout will spell disaster for their place on the power peanut gallery and in turn end the ceaseless feasting at the trough of the battered, bruised and shaken-down American taxpayer.

Watch a clip of DeMint’s comments on the Senate floor yesterday.

URL to article: http://www.infowars.com/senate-blocks-bill-to-audit-the-fed-as-government-prepares-for-second-round-of-looting/

Bill Gives Attorney General Power To Designate Gun Owners, Tax Protesters As Terrorists

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Monday, July 6, 2009

Amendments to the 2010 National Defense Authorization Act, which has already been passed by the House, would empower the Attorney General Eric Holder to define gun owners, anti-abortion activists and tax protesters as domestic terrorists in light of recent federal reports that classify millions of Americans as “extremists”.

Former impeached Florida judge and now Democratic Congressman Alcee Hastings has introduced amendments to H.R. 2647: National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2010, which would give Holder dictator powers to demonize legitimate protest groups as being affiliated with violent race hate organizations.

The bill is ostensibly aimed at preventing race “extremists” and gang members from joining the Army, but since the Army already hires felons, criminals, racists and gang members, the real purpose behind the legislation is to codify the move to label gun owners, “anti-government” activists and tax protesters as domestic terrorists, a process that has been ongoing since at least the start of the decade.

The bill’s definition of “people associated or affiliated with hate groups” include, “Groups or organizations that espouse an intention or expectation of armed revolutionary activity against the United States Government,” or “Other groups or organizations that are determined by the Attorney General to be of a violent, extremist nature.”

The evidence required to show that such an organization is affiliated with a violent hate group includes people possessing tattoos identifying them with the group, individuals who attend conferences or rallies sponsored by a “hate group,” people who engage in online discussion forums of an “extremist” nature, people who possess documents, books or photographs or simply “related materials as defined by the Attorney General” that represent “hate propaganda.”

The amendments introduced by Hastings were passed by the House and the bill now moves on to the Senate for approval before it is signed by the President.

Since the definition of an “extremist” has already been established by numerous federal documents over the last few years that list law-abiding citizens as domestic terrorists, Hastings’ amendments are simply an attempt to centralize the power to demonize such groups into the hands of the Obama administration.

“This is arguably one of the worst pieces of legislation to come down the pike in a long, long time. In essence Attorney General Eric Holder — a Bill Clinton retread — will have the discretion to label Americans terrorists. Hastings is a dangerous man and should be forced to resign from congress. This amendment is part and parcel of the trend in this country to suppress dissent by patriots by calling them domestic terrorists,” warns writer Mike Baker.

Congressman Trent Franks (R-AZ) expressed his concern about the amendment on the house floor, noting that under Homeland Security’s very definition of what constitutes an “extremist”, the majority of Americans will be characterized as hate criminals.

“While the amendment seeks to keep gang members and members of violent groups out of the military, the amendment by its language is much more broad. Specifically, it confers upon the Attorney General the ability to categorize groups as hate groups, and this sounds an alarm for many of us because of the recent shocking and offensive report released by the Department of Homeland Security which labeled, arguably, a majority of Americans as “extremists,” warned Franks.

“I take extreme offense that the federal government — through a report issued under the authority of a Cabinet-level official — would dare to categorize people who are “dedicated to a single issue, such as opposition or abortion or immigration” as “right-wing extremists” and it begs the question of whether the Attorney General, under Mr. Hastings’ Amendment, can look to the Napolitano report to decide who is an extremist, or can make the same categorization of the majority of Americans as extremists who may then be kept from joining the military, or who may be discharged,” said Rep. Franks.

As we reported in April, a recent Department of Homeland Security intelligence assessment equates gun owners with violent terrorists and states that radical extremists are “stockpiling” weapons in fear of an Obama administration gun ban.

The document, Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment, states;

“Rightwing extremism in the United States can be broadly divided into those groups, movements, and adherents that are primarily hate-oriented (based on hatred of particular religious, racial or ethnic groups), and those that are mainly antigovernment, rejecting federal authority in favor of state or local authority, or rejecting government authority entirely. It may include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration.”

A similar report was also issued by the DHS at the end of March which listed the “alternative media” with other radical extremist groups and implies that people who disagree with the mass media’s version of events are potential domestic terrorists.

Both documents were just the latest in a long sordid line of training manuals in which the federal government characterizes millions of American citizens as potentially violent terrorists who are a threat to law enforcement, and designates them under the umbrella term of “extremists,” in the same context cited in Hastings’ amendments.

As we have exhaustively documented with the MIAC report and a whole host of others, the federal government apparently has very little concern for any perceived terrorist threat to America coming from the MIddle East or Al-Qaeda cells within the country, and indeed if any such threat existed we are only in more danger, because the feds have been busy training law enforcement that law-abiding American citizens who exercise their legal right to purchase firearms or who exercise their first amendment right to discuss politics or run websites, are potential terrorists who want to instigate a violent revolution.

In addition, current Department of Defense anti-terrorism training course material states that the exercise of First Amendment rights in the U.S. constitutes terrorist activity.

Over the last few years we have documented countless examples of security assessment reports from the likes of the Department of Defense, the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI, as well as police training manuals, which state that anti-war protesters, gun owners, veterans, Ron Paul supporters and those who merely cite the Constitution should be equated with extremists and domestic terrorists.

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The fact that the government is now treating people who merely criticize its conduct as domestic terrorists is the clearest signal possible that the United States has entered a period in history similar to Germany in the early 1930’s and that it can only be a matter of time before the right “emergency” provides the justification for dissidents to be targeted for round-ups and mass imprisonment.

No one can claim now that this is merely a paranoid delusion – the government itself is training its law enforcement and military arms that protesters and people who use their First Amendment rights are domestic terrorists.

The facilities for round-ups of “extremists” who dare to exercise their First or Second Amendment rights are already being prepared, again with the help of Hastings, who sponsored (HR 645) – the National Emergency Centers Establishment Act.

The bill authorizes the Department of Homeland Security to set up a network of FEMA camp facilities to be used to house U.S. citizens in the event of a national emergency.

Ominously, the bill also states that the camps can be used to “meet other appropriate needs, as determined by the Secretary of Homeland Security,” an open ended mandate which many fear could mean the forced detention of American citizens in the event of widespread rioting after a national emergency or total economic collapse.

The bill mandates that six separate facilities be established in different Federal Emergency Management Agency Regions (FEMA) throughout the country.

The camps will double up as “command and control” centers that will also house a “24/7 operations watch center” as well as training facilities for Federal, State, and local first responders.

The bill also contains language that will authorize camps to be established within closed or already operating military bases around the country.

As we have previously highlighted, in early 2006 Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown and Root was awarded a $385 million dollar contract by Homeland Security to construct detention and processing facilities in the event of a national emergency.

The language of the preamble to the agreement veils the program with talk of temporary migrant holding centers, but it is made clear that the camps would also be used “as the development of a plan to react to a national emergency.”

As far back as 2002, FEMA sought bids from major real estate and engineering firms to construct giant internment facilities in the case of a chemical, biological or nuclear attack or a natural disaster.

A much discussed and circulated report, the Pentagon’s Civilian Inmate Labor Program, was more recently updated and the revision details a “template for developing agreements” between the Army and corrections facilities for the use of civilian inmate labor on Army installations.”

Alex Jones has attended numerous military urban warfare training drills across the US where role players were used to simulate arresting American citizens and taking them to internment camps.

Hastings’ efforts to have millions of law-abiding American citizens lumped in with racist gangs and designated as “extremists” arrives on the back of Federal hate crimes legislation, which in reality would criminalize “thought crimes,” that has cleared the House and now faces the Senate as S.909, the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act (officially, the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act).

S.909 is a direct violation of the First Amendment. It allows the federal government to prosecute people involved in “hate speech” transmitted over television, radio, and the internet. The House version of the bill states:

“Whoever transmits in interstate or foreign commerce [radio, TV, internet] any communication, with the intent to coerce, intimidate, harass, or cause substantial emotional distress to a person, using electronic means to support severe, repeated, and hostile behavior, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both. (HR 1966, SEC 3, Sec. 881a)”

In other words, if a talk show host engages in “hostile” speech against a person or persons of the above mentioned federally protected group that talk show host will face federal prosecution and the prospect of a two year prison term.

The Megan Meier Cyberbullying Prevention Act would similarly criminalize free speech on the Internet if it can be deemed in any way to have been “harmful” to an individual. This represents the end of political blogging and free speech on the world wide web.

If both bills are not opposed and thrown out then the First Amendment will become nothing more than a relic of a bygone age.

All of these coordinated moves to demonize informed, armed and pissed off Americans as extremists, terrorists and hate criminals represents the federal government’s final push to brainwash the population into accepting the notion that some Americans are dangerous, that they are enemies of the state, and that they can be targeted in the same way that victims of the “war on terror” are now being targeted across the world – through misappropriation of guilt, torture and indefinite imprisonment.

RELATED: ATTORNEY GENERAL TO CLASSIFY PRO-LIFE, PRO-GUN AMERICANS AS TERRORISTS

URL to article: http://www.infowars.com/bill-gives-attorney-general-power-to-designate-gun-owners-tax-protesters-as-terrorists/

Homeland Security and U.S. Army Plan Invasion of States

Jim Kouri
NewsWithViews
July 1, 2009

The Pentagon and Department of Homeland Security recently hosted a teleconference for law enforcement agencies and associations such as the National Association of Chiefs of Police to discuss the Obama Administration’s interest in using the military during “emergencies.”

Fortunately, NewsWithViews.com had exclusive access to the discussion and the explanations by Homeland Security and Defense Departments officials.

Officials announced during the teleconference that the Department of Homeland Security’s Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator W. Craig Fugate met with the Commander, US Northern Command, General Gene Renuart, to discuss “pre-disaster planning, response and recovery in support of the federal response to the 2009 hurricane season as well as wild fires, floods and other potential disasters.”

The meeting reinforced the important relationship between the two organizations and focused on the operational role of US Northern Command and what resources and skills they bring to any major Federal effort related to all-hazards preparedness, response, recovery and mitigation. It was also an opportunity to meet operational leaders who would fill key positions in those support efforts.

“NORTHCOM plays a vital role in disaster response in support of state and local officials,” Fugate said. “I am impressed by their commitment to teamwork and interoperability. They are leaning forward and are solutions-oriented partners among the nation’s emergency response team.”

“We are committed to teaming with and supporting our civilian partners,” added Renuart. “If our federal partners, state and local officials are successful in responding to contingency operations, then ultimately we are successful. We look forward to our continued collaboration and cooperation.”

However, many law enforcement executives and organizations went on the record saying they did not appreciate the prospect of federal troops usurping the authority of local and state law enforcement agencies or the role of the National Guard unit currently under the control of governors.

“My initial reaction is: why are we allowing federal troops to basically invade the sovereignty of individual states when each state has its own law enforcement agencies and each state possesses an armed and trained National Guard and, in the case of some states such as New York, a trained militia?” according to New York police officer Edna Aquino.

“We have not used armed federal troops in New York since the Civil War when Union troops and Navy battleships attacked dissenters who opposed conscription by the Union Army,” she added.

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According to officials from the Homeland Security Department, FEMA and Northern Command share a common interest and a unified approach to disaster response and recovery.

“Both organizations also understand that the most effective plans to save lives and protect property begins with preparedness. This meeting was an important stepping stone to ensure mutual preparedness and effective planning in support of state and local officials,” said one official.

Homeland Security Department officials offered these two rationales for their joint ventures with the Department of Defense:

“Emergency preparedness is everyone’s responsibility. Everyone should have a personal response plan for a disaster, everyone should know who their first responders are at the local and state level, and everyone should be prepared to be self-sufficient for at least the first 72 hours.

“FEMA’s mission is to support our citizens and first responders to ensure that as a nation we work together to build, sustain, and improve our capability to prepare for, protect against, respond to, recover from, and mitigate all hazards.”

Political strategist Mike Baker is disturbed over this latest “emergency plan” designed to allow federal troops to operate freely within US borders.

“This is a constitutionally unsound development for our nation. While President Barack Obama and his ilk worry about how America’s military is perceived by other nations and are concerned with how we treat enemies, they seem to be willing to use extreme measures against their own citizens.

Will we witness another Branch Davidian massacre in the name of ‘emergency response’ or other rationale? It’s not a positive development for this nation,” said Baker.

Northcom was established about a year after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and is responsible for an area of operations that includes the United States, Canada and Mexico. It serves as a “one-stop-shopping” point for military support in case of an attack on American soil. However, according to officials speaking during the teleconference, the Obama Administration is expanding that role to include natural disasters or emergencies that were once the domain of state and local authorities.

Over the years, according to Baker, the federal government has expanded its role and even included other nations in operational plans within the US. For example NORAD is a joint US-Canadian command established 51 years ago to defend against nuclear-armed Soviet aircraft entering North American airspace. Decades later, the command’s mission has expanded to include early detection of threats via air, space, land and sea.

The sheer number of participants speaks to NORAD’s level of preparation and coordination to operate within US borders. Teaming up to deal with emergencies are American and Canadian NORAD agents, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, U.S. Transportation Security Administration, Royal Canadian Mounted Police, NAV Canada, the White House, U.S. Departments of Defense and Homeland Security.

“This is not something we should be celebrating. This is something we as Americans should fear,” states another NYPD officer.

“If states do not have the capability to respond on their own to a hurricane or earthquake, then perhaps they should increase their capabilities or change their leadership,” said Det. Benny Cardoza.

“Using Hurricane Katrina as an excuse to increase federal authority in the affairs of individual states is a sorry excuse and one that should be shunned by citizens and local cops,” states the decorated cop.

Why is a U.S. Army brigade being assigned to “Homeland Security?“

URL to article: http://www.infowars.com/homeland-security-and-us-army-plan-invasion-of-states/

Africom to Continue Under Obama

Daniel Volman
Global Research
June 27, 2009

With the Obama administration set to oversee significant increases in US security assistance programmes for African countries, Daniel Volman examines the US government’s plans for its military operations on the African continent over the coming financial year. Stressing that the US president is essentially continuing the policies outlined under his predecessor George W. Bush, the author considers the proposed funding increases for initiatives like the Foreign Military Financing programme and the International Military Education and Training (IMET) programme. Pointing out that the administration is yet to offer any public explanation of its policy, Volman concludes that it would be a mistake to assume that there will be no US military action if the situation in Somalia deteriorates.

At the beginning of May 2009, President Obama submitted his first budget request to Congress. The Obama administration’s budget for the 2010 financial year proposes significant increases in US security assistance programmes for African countries and for the operations of the new US Africa Command (AFRICOM). This shows that – at least initially – the administration is following the course laid down for AFRICOM by the Bush administration, rather than putting these programmes on hold until it can conduct a serious review of US security policy towards Africa. This article outlines the administration’s plans for Africa in the coming year and the money it intends to spend on military operations on the continent.

FOREIGN MILITARY FINANCING

The Obama administration proposes maintaining or significantly increasing funding for the Foreign Military Financing programme, which provides loans for the sale of weaponry and other military equipment to a number of African countries. The administration’s request raises the total funding for arms sales to Africa from $8.3 million in financial year (FY) 2009 to $25.6 million in FY 2010. The new funding includes funding for arms sales to Chad ($500,000), the Democratic Republic of Congo ($2.5 million), Djibouti ($2.5 million), Ethiopia ($3 million), Kenya ($1 million), Liberia ($9 million), Nigeria ($1.4 million), South Africa ($800,000) and African regional programmes ($2.8 million).

INTERNATIONAL MILITARY EDUCATION AND TRAINING

The Obama administration proposes small increases in the International Military Education and Training (IMET) programmes for African counties, raising the total funding for this programme from $13.8 million in FY 2009 to $16 million in FY 2010. Significant increases in funding are requested for Chad ($400,000), Djibouti ($350,000), Ethiopia ($775,000), Ghana ($850,000), Kenya ($1,050,000), Liberia ($525,000), Mali ($350,000), Niger ($250,000), Nigeria ($1,100,000), Rwanda ($500,000), Senegal ($1,100,000), South Africa ($900,000) and Uganda ($550,000). The United States will continue its major IMET programme in the Democratic Republic of Congo ($500,000), and the Obama administration is proposing to start new IMET programmes in Equatorial Guinea ($40,000), Somalia ($40,000) and Zimbabwe ($40,000).

PEACEKEEPING OPERATIONS

The Obama administration proposes major new funding for security assistance provided through the Peacekeeping Operations programme. The FY 2010 budget proposal includes increasing funding for the Trans-Sahara Counter-Terrorism Partnership – from $15 million in FY 2009 to $20 million in FY 2010 – and for the East Africa Regional Strategic Initiative – from $5 million in FY 2009 to $10 million in FY 2010. It also includes $42 million to continue operations in support of the implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Accords in southern Sudan, $10 million to continue operations to create a professional 2,000-member armed force in Liberia, $21 million to continue operations in the Democratic Republic of Congo to reform the military (including the creation of rapid reaction force for the eastern Congo), and $3.6 million for the Africa Conflict Stabilization and Border Security Program, which will be used to support monitoring teams, advisory assistance, training, infrastructure enhancements, and equipment in the Great Lakes region, the Mano River region, the Horn of Africa, Chad, and the Central African Republic. The budget request also includes $67 million to support the African Union Mission in Somalia. And it contains a request for $96.8 million for the Global Peace Operations Initiative (GPOI). The request for GPOI includes funding for the African Contingency Operations and Training Assistance Program (ACOTA) – which provides training and equipment to African military forces to enhance their peacekeeping capabilities – although the specific amount requested for ACOTA is not provided in the budget summary.

INTERNATIONAL NARCOTICS CONTROL AND LAW ENFORCEMENT

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The budget request for International Narcotics Control and Law Enforcement (INCLE) programs contains $24 million for Sudan to support implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Accords (CPA) in southern Sudan and to assist programmes to stabilise Darfur by providing technical assistance and training for southern Sudan’s criminal justice sector and law enforcement institutions as well as to contribute to UN civilian police and formed police units in southern Sudan and Darfur. It also includes funds for police reforms in the DRC; for training, infrastructure, and equipment for police units in Liberia; to operate the American-run International Law Academy in Gaborone, Botswana; and to create a Regional Security Training Center for West, Central, and North Africa. The Obama administration is also asking for funding to be provided through the INCLE programmes for the first time to provide security assistance to countries participating in the Trans-Saharan Counter-Terrorism Partnership: Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Mauritania, Senegal, Mali, Niger, Chad and Nigeria.

NON-PROLIFERATION, ANTI-TERRORISM, DE-MINING AND RELATED PROGRAMMES

The Obama administration proposes to almost double funding for counter-terrorism programmes. These include the Anti-Terrorism Assistance Program, which provides training to countries throughout the world; the Terrorist Interdiction Program/Personal Identification, Secure Comparison, and Evaluation System Program, which supports identification and watch listing systems to 18 countries (including Kenya); the Counterterrorism Financing Program, which helps partner countries throughout the world stop the flow of money to terrorists; and the Counterterrorism Engagement Program, which is intended to strengthen ties with key political leaders throughout the world and ‘build political will at senior levels in partner nations for shared counterterrorism challenges’.

AFRICOM

The Obama administration’s proposed FY 2010 budget for the Department of Defense requests some $300 million in operation and maintenance funds to cover the cost of AFRICOM operations and Operation Enduring Freedom-Trans-Sahara Counter-Terrorism Partnership operations at the AFRICOM headquarters in Stuttgart, Germany. The administration is also requesting $263 million to provide additional personnel, airlift and communications support to AFRICOM. And the budget includes a request for a total of $451 million to replace or upgrade facilities at enduring CENTCOM and AFRICOM locations, but does not provide a separate figure for AFRICOM. According to the budget, the administration intends to carry out significant investment at Camp Lemonier in FY 2010. In addition, the administration is requesting $30 million to pay the annual lease for the 500-acre base at Camp Lemonier in Djibouti and $170 million to cover the annual operational budget of the base.

The administration is requesting some $400 million for Global Train and Equip (Section 1206) programmes, some $200 million for Security and Stabilization Assistance (Section 1207) programmes, and some $1 million for the Combatant Commander’s Initiative Fund. This money will be used primarily to pay for emergency training and equipment, the services of personnel from the State Department, and humanitarian assistance to the Iraqi and Afghani armed forces, but it will be available for the use of AFRICOM as well. The administration’s budget request also contains $1.9 billion to buy three Littoral Combat Ships and another $373 million to buy two Joint High Speed Vessels, ships that will play a crucial role in US Navy operations off the coast of Africa. It also includes $44 billion to fund US Navy operations throughout the world – of which a significant proportion will be needed to cover the costs of US Navy operations in African waters – but the budget does not provide enough information to estimate these costs.

SECURITY POLICY TOWARD THE DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO AND SOMALIA

Obama administration officials have not said anything in public to explain why they are proceeding with the Bush administration’s plan to increase US security assistance to African countries and to expand US military activities on the continent. General William Ward, commander of AFRICOM, at a news conference that he held during his visit to Kinshasa in April 2009, provided one of the few pieces of evidence we have about the administration’s thinking. The United States will continue working in training and advising the armed forces of the Democratic Republic of Congo ‘to help the host nation build capacity to more effectively conduct its military operations and provide for its own security.’ The United States currently has a seven-member mobile training team training Congolese military officers. This training, Ward said at the news conference, is intended ‘to support the increased professionalization of the Congolese armed forces as best we can as they work to bring security and stability here in Congo.’ This suggests that President Obama – despite his rhetorical commitment to multilateralism and ’soft power’ and the abysmal record of military incompetence and human rights violations by the Congolese armed forces – is convinced that unilateral US military involvement can still work and that he can succeed where his predecessor failed.

The only other indication we have about the president’s true intentions is provided by his decision to authorise the use of force to rescue the kidnapped captain of the Maersk Alabama in May 2009. When he was a candidate, President Obama declared that he believed that ‘there will be situations that require the United States to work with its partners in Africa to fight terrorism with lethal force.’ But his action during the kidnapping episode show that he is also willing to use military force in situations that have nothing to do with terrorism. According to recent news articles, a debate is currently underway within the administration about the wisdom of direct US military intervention against Somali pirates or against the al-Shabaab insurgents. Top administration officials and military officers are convinced that, in the words of Defense Secretary Robert Gates, ‘there is no purely military solution’ to piracy and political conflict in Somalia. And Johnnie Carson, the president’s new assistant secretary of state for Africa, told the BBC that ‘there would be no case of the US re-engaging on the ground with troops’ in Somalia. But some in the military and a number of prominent neo-conservative leaders contend that the United States must strike back at the pirates and the insurgents to prevent future acts of piracy and terrorism against Americans. It would be a mistake to assume that Obama will not take further military action if the situation in Somalia escalates.

URL to article: http://www.infowars.com/africom-to-continue-under-obama/

Obama blocks list of visitors to White House

Bill Dedman
MSNBC
June 16, 2009

The Obama administration is fighting to block access to names of visitors to the White House, taking up the Bush administration argument that a president doesn’t have to reveal who comes calling to influence policy decisions.

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Despite President Barack Obama’s pledge to introduce a new era of transparency to Washington, and despite two rulings by a federal judge that the records are public, the Secret Service has denied msnbc.com’s request for the names of all White House visitors from Jan. 20 to the present. It also denied a narrower request by the nonpartisan watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, which sought logs of visits by executives of coal companies.

CREW says it will file a lawsuit Tuesday against the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the Secret Service. (Updated: Here’s a copy of CREW’s complaint.)

Read entire article

URL to article: http://www.infowars.com/obama-blocks-list-of-visitors-to-white-house/

You’re on the Battlefield Right Now

Arthur Silber
Once Upon a Time…
June 14, 2009

My head began exploding when I read the opening paragraph of this NYT article:

A plan to create a new Pentagon cybercommand is raising significant privacy and diplomatic concerns, as the Obama administration moves ahead on efforts to protect the nation from cyberattack and to prepare for possible offensive operations against adversaries’ computer networks.

It’s impossible to say which is more disturbing: that the Pentagon will be in charge of this “cybercommand” monstrosity, or that the U.S. government — which, as all good Americans know deep in their hearts, wants only peace and sunshine and puppy dogs and kitty cats and ponies! for all humanity (if not for any sizable number of actually existing individual persons) — is yapping about “possible offensive operations against adversaries’ computer networks.”

I mean, hell. Hell. All those bullets, bombs, missiles and nookleear thingamajigs aren’t enough? We gotta attack evil, terroristic ‘puter networks — and do so offensively? Whatever.

And then the few remaining bloody bits of my brain simply dissolved into gooey slime when I read these two paragraphs in the middle of the piece:

Some administration officials have begun to discuss whether laws or regulations must be changed to allow law enforcement, the military or intelligence agencies greater access to networks or Internet providers when significant evidence of a national security threat was found.

Ms. Leed said that while the Defense Department and related intelligence agencies were the only organizations that had the ability to protect against such cyberattacks, “they are not the best suited, from a civil liberties perspective, to take on that responsibility.”

“Not the best suited, from a civil liberties perspective…”

This is first-class comedy material. Truly, it is. I doff my blood and goo-encrusted cap to these Comedy Clowns of Mirth and Merriment.

Let us also note the concluding paragraphs of this masterpiece of black comedy (you know, when blood dries, it often turns black; I’m just saying, no reason to be concerned — they’re only trying to help and protect

us):

Frida Berrigan, a longtime peace activist who is a senior program associate at the New America Foundation’s arms and security initiative, expressed concerns about whether the Obama administration would be able to balance its promise to respect privacy in cyberspace even as it appeared to be militarizing cybersecurity.

“Obama was very deliberate in saying that the U.S. military and the U.S. government would not be looking at our e-mail and not tracking what we do online,” Ms. Berrigan said. “This is not to say there is not a cyberthreat out there or that cyberterrorism is not a significant concern. We should be vigilant and creative. But once again we see the Pentagon being put at the heart of it and at front lines of offering a solution.”

Ms. Berrigan said that just as the counterinsurgency wars in Iraq and Afghanistan had proved that “there is no front line anymore, and no demilitarized zone anymore, then if the Pentagon and the military services see cyberspace as a battlefield domain, then the lines protecting privacy and our civil liberties get blurred very, very quickly.”

In other words, you’re on the battlefield this very minute, and your computer might be a deadly weapon. In these circumstances, it’s remarkably shortsighted and selfish of you to think your computer is yours and that you’re entitled to some nambypamby notion of “privacy.” What world are you living in? The Pentagon will decide what you’re “entitled” to. Or not.

With due respect to Ms. Berrigan, it’s a little late in this game for any of us to be expressing “concerns” about whether the government, most decidedly including the administration of the Prince of Hopetastically Hopey Hopeiness, is going to be keeping “its promise to respect privacy.” I repeat: what world are you living in?

I analyzed the broader issues involved almost a year ago, in “No One Is Safe: FISA Is Only the Prelude to Nightmare.” The theme of that article was this: “The selective focus on FISA misses the crucial larger picture in a way that ensures that the ruling class’s hold on increasingly tyrannical power will never be consistently or seriously challenged — which is, of course, precisely what the ruling class wants. … [I]f the protests about FISA remain the sole (or even the major) focus of [the] complaints about the surveillance state, the protesters will make a very large gift to those who wish to oversee, regulate and control every aspect of our lives.”

The heart of my argument will be found in this passage. I repeat it, because I think a great many people still fail to understand this issue fully:

With regard to FISA and issues of liberty and privacy in general, let me now ask you a few questions. How long do you think it would take you to identify, read, and understand every provision in every statute, regulation and other authorization that gives surveillance powers to the government? Furthermore: Would you know each and every place to look, or how to determine what those places were? Additionally: With a staff of 20, or 50, could it be done, even if you were provided with limitless time and limitless funds?

I submit to you, without qualification or reservation, that you could not do it. No one could. Consider that most legislators in Washington aren’t even aware of much of what’s in the bills they so eagerly vote on. Consider the prohibitive length and complexity of legislation that comes before Congress. That’s true of what is going on now. If you tried to track down every piece of legislation, every regulation, every administrative agency ruling, and every other pronouncement still in effect that allows the government to surveil and otherwise keep track of you, me, the guy down the street, the woman next door and the man in the moon, based on alleged concern with and the need to protect us all from the ravages of drugs, “illicit” sex, any and all other suspected criminal activity and, natch, terrorism, how on God’s green earth would you do it? You couldn’t. I further submit to you that the only reason you appear to have some precious remnants of freedom left, and the only reason you remain at liberty, is that the government hasn’t comprehensively focused on all the powers it already possesses and hasn’t come anywhere close to utilizing them fully and consistently. This is the moment you should fall to your knees and thank whatever gods may be for the miraculous, close to perfect incompetence of the pathetically ineffectual blockheads in Washington.

I now add a few further comments on that last point. Many people frequently praise Obama, or Hillary Clinton, or many other Democrats on the grounds that they’re so much more able and “competent” than Republicans. Let’s assume that’s true. Given the staggering and frightening powers that the government already possesses — powers which, as my earlier discussion emphasizes, already allow the government to do whatever it wants, whenever it wants, to whomever it wants — the fact that they may be “competent” should terrify you.

If the Obama administration is determined to continue and expand America’s wars and foreign interventions for the purposes of control and domination, and it is, competence only makes the ensuing devastation and murder that much worse. This is especially true for the victims of America’s campaigns of destruction abroad. If you’re minding your own business in the Middle East or Central Asia, or Latin America, or Africa, and someone decides you’re in the way of America’s imperial plans, the last thing you want is to be hunted down by a competent killer. Your obliteration is almost certain.

In the same way, if the Obama administration is determined to consolidate and expand the scope and reach of the surveillance state, and it is, the fact that those who may wish to keep watch over a huge range of online activities, all in the name of “cybersecurity,” of course, know what they’re doing should not be a source of comfort for you. It should fill you with dread. And always remember: just as the government will never hesitate to manufacture an alleged justification for its overseas campaigns of terror, so too the government will find some reason, even if it has to concoct it out of less than nothing, if it decides to go after you.

Confronted with a government of already massive, ungraspably broad and invasive powers, powers which only increase by the day, you should pray as fervently as you can that those who would track your every keystroke, every email, and every moment of internet activity are the most colossally incompetent, ignorant fools the world has ever seen.

And when they are not, when they are competent or, far worse, even expert at what they are doing, that’s precisely when you should run for your life. Of course, where you can go to be left alone might be a problem of some significance, assuming you can even manage it. But I think you take my point.

Aw, they’re only trying to protect us. Of course. As I remark from time to time, it is a grievous error to think that those who possess enormous power of this kind seek power for some other end, whether you imagine that end is “national security” or “peace” or whatever other propaganda slogan they may throw at you. No: power is the end. It is the purpose, and the only purpose: power for its own sake. That’s the whole pathetic, detestable truth.

I respectfully suggest that you never, ever forget it.

URL to article: http://www.infowars.com/youre-on-the-battlefield-right-now/