Tuesday, January 26, 2010

1000+ Architects & Engineers Officially Demand New 9/11 Investigation

1000+ Architects & Engineers Officially Demand New 9/11 Investigation

Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth
January 18, 2010


Congratulations to Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth.  They have reached the milestone number of 1000 A&Es!


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Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth have now reached 1000 professional members, further legitimizing calls for a new investigation into the September 11th attacks based upon physical evidence and analysis that is completely inconsistent with the official story.

A&E911Truth also has 6173+ undersigned supporters that include academics, political activists and other members of the general public. The organization has grown exponentially, largely due to efforts by fellow architect and AE911truth founder Richard Gage, AIA, to confront professional architects and engineers with the unsettling evidence - demonstrated on video - that the official story is negated by the law of physics. (Kind of a big deal, if you haven’t confronted the official story lies…).

Similarly, Patriots Question 9/11 lists hundreds of other high-profile figures, established in government, professional service, the media, education as well as 9/11 Victim’s family members and survivors who have publicly questioned the events of 9/11 and/or called for a new investigation:

200+ Senior Military, Intelligence Service, Law Enforcement, and Government Officials
700+ Engineers and Architects* [NOW OFFICIALLY 1000+]
250+ Pilots and Aviation Professionals
400+ Professors Question 9/11
300+ 9/11 Survivors and Family Members
200+ Artists, Entertainers, and Media Professionals

1000 architectural and engineering professionals and 6170 other supporters including A&E students have signed the petition demanding of Congress a truly independent investigation.

The petition is open to everyone. Click here to read/sign petition [also below].

Everyone can sign the AE911Truth petition and call upon Congress for a truly independent investigation into the 3 WTC High-rise "collapses" on 9/11. Our voices will be louder and more resonant in the halls of Congress when joined together as one voice of hundreds of architects and engineers and others.

Please Take Notice That: On Behalf of the People of the United States of America, the undersigned Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth and affiliates hereby petition for, and demand, a truly independent investigation with subpoena power in order to uncover the full truth surrounding the events of 9/11/01 – specifically the collapses of the World Trade Center Towers and Building 7. We believe there is sufficient doubt about the official story and therefore the 9/11 investigation must be re-opened and must include a full inquiry into the possible use of explosives that might have been the actual cause of the destruction of the World Trade Center Twin Towers and Building 7.

Sincerely,

The Undersigned


60 Aerospace Engineers Call for New 9/11 Investigation

Dwain Deets
January 17, 2010

As the number of verified architect and engineer petitioners at AE911Truth passes 1,000, the number describing themselves as aerospace engineers, or as engineers who have contributed professionally to the aerospace field, exceed sixty. These sixty-plus engineers were motivated to place their names on the public record as a matter of professional and social responsibility. While the skills necessary to conduct professional forensic analysis of destroyed buildings is largely distinct from those experienced in aerospace engineering, the basic physical laws involved in an analysis of the speed, symmetry, and energy input/output balance of the World Trade Center’s destruction involve only high school physics and chemistry, some lookups regarding the energy necessary to crush concrete, and basic arithmetic.

Despite the large public outcry, the media and government have refused to acknowledge the real 9/11 evidence and only worked to kill the messengers in order to spite the message. Messengers from actor Charlie Sheen to former BYU physics professor Steven Jones and beyond have had their careers and lives threatened for trying to bring the truth to light.

So what are ‘they’ hiding? Everything…

Research related links:

Political Leaders for 9/11 Truth Officially Launches
29 Engineers: Only Explosives Can Explain 9/11 World Trade Center Destruction
Badillo: New York Allows Petition for 9/11 Investigation to Go Forward
McKinney to Open 9/11 Event in Los Angeles
Principal Electrical Engineer for WTC: “Fuel and Planes Alone Did NOT Bring the Towers Down”
Political Leaders for 911 Truth
9/11 Truth Signatories Stand By Call For New Investigation
Planning skills make engineers good ‘field operative’ recruits for al Qaeda
Engineers society accused of disaster probe cover-ups
Richard Gage on Coast To Coast AM
Call For New 9/11 Investigation Reaches Crescendo
UK Telegraph reports on Charlie Sheen’s demand Obama reopen 9/11 investigation



Posted By Robert Allison
Kerrville911Truth

RA

Friday, January 15, 2010

Obama Information Czar Calls For Banning Free Speech

Obama Information Czar Calls For Banning Free Speech

Paul Joseph Watson
January 14, 2010

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The controversy surrounding White House information czar and Harvard Professor Cass Sunstein’s blueprint for the government to infiltrate political activist groups has deepened, with the revelation that in the same 2008 dossier he also called for the government to tax or even ban outright political opinions of which it disapproved.

Sunstein was appointed by President Obama to head up the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, an agency within the Executive Office of the President.

On page 14 of Sunstein’s January 2008 white paper entitled “Conspiracy Theories”, the man who is now Obama’s head of information technology in the White House proposed that each of the following measures “will have a place under imaginable conditions” according to the strategy detailed in the essay.

  1. Government might ban conspiracy theorizing.
  2. Government might impose some kind of tax, financial or otherwise, on those who disseminate such theories.
That’s right, Obama’s information czar wants to tax or ban outright, as in make illegal, political opinions that the government doesn’t approve of. To where would this be extended? A tax or a shut down order on newspapers that print stories critical of our illustrious leaders?

And what does Sunstein define as “conspiracy theories” that should potentially be taxed or outlawed by the government? Opinions held by the majority of Americans, no less.

The notion that Lee Harvey Oswald did not act alone in killing JFK, a view shared by the vast majority of Americans in every major poll over the last ten years, is an example of a “conspiracy theory” that the federal government should consider censoring, according to Sunstein.

A 1998 CBS poll found that just 10 per cent of Americans believed that Oswald acted alone, so apparently the other 90 per cent of Americans could be committing some form of thought crime by thinking otherwise under Sunstein’s definition.

Sunstein also cites the belief that “global warming is a deliberate fraud” as another marginal conspiracy theory to be countered by government action. In reality, the majority of Americans now believe that the man-made explanation of global warming is not true, and that global warming is natural, according to the latest polls.

But Sunstein saves his most ludicrous example until last. On page 5 he characterizes as “false and dangerous” the idea that exposure to sunlight is healthy, despite the fact that top medical experts agree prolonged exposure to sunlight reduces the risk of developing certain cancers.

To claim that encouraging people to get out in the sun is to peddle a dangerous conspiracy theory is like saying that promoting the breathing of fresh air is also a thought crime. One can only presume that Sunstein is deliberately framing the debate by going to such absurd extremes so as to make any belief whatsoever into a conspiracy theory unless it’s specifically approved by the kind of government thought police system he is pushing for.

Despite highlighting the fact that repressive societies go hand in hand with an increase in “conspiracy theories,” Sunstein’s ’solution’ to stamp out such thought crimes is to ban free speech, fulfilling the precise characteristic of the “repressive society” he warns against elsewhere in the paper.

“We could imagine circumstances in which a conspiracy theory became so pervasive, and so dangerous, that censorship would be thinkable,” he writes on page 20. Remember that Sunstein is not just talking about censoring Holocaust denial or anything that’s even debatable in the context of free speech, he’s talking about widely accepted beliefs shared by the majority of Americans but ones viewed as distasteful by the government, which would seek to either marginalize by means of taxation or outright censor such views.

No surprise therefore that Sunstein has called for re-writing the First Amendment as well as advocating Internet censorship and even proposing that Americans should celebrate tax day and be thankful that the state takes a huge chunk of their income.

The government has made it clear that growing suspicion towards authority is a direct threat to their political agenda and indeed Sunstein admits this on page 3 of his paper.

That is why they are now engaging in full on information warfare in an effort to undermine, disrupt and eventually outlaw organized peaceful resistance to their growing tyranny.


Posted By Robert Allison


RA

Obama Information Czar Outlined Plan For Government To Infiltrate Conspiracy Groups

Obama Information Czar Outlined Plan For Government To Infiltrate Conspiracy Groups

Sunstein called for Cointelpro style effort to silence truth using army of hired provocateurs.

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Paul Joseph Watson
PrisonPlanet
January 14, 2010

Harvard law professor Cass Sunstein, Obama’s appointee to head the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, outlined a plan for the government to infiltrate conspiracy groups in order to undermine them via postings on chat rooms and social networks, as well as real meetings, according to a recently uncovered article Sunstein wrote for the Journal of Political Philosophy.

As we have often warned, chat rooms, social networks and particularly article comment sections are routinely “gamed” by trolls, many of whom pose as numerous different people in order to create a fake consensus, who attempt to debunk whatever information is being discussed, no matter how credible and well documented. We have seen this on our own websites for years and although some of those individuals were acting of their own accord, a significant number appeared to be working in shifts, routinely posting the same talking points over and over again.

It is a firmly established fact that the military-industrial complex which also owns the corporate media networks in the United States has numerous programs aimed at infiltrating prominent Internet sites and spreading propaganda to counter the truth about the misdeeds of the government and the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan.

In 2006 CENTCOM, the United States Central Command, announced that a team of employees would be hired to engage “bloggers who are posting inaccurate or untrue information, as well as bloggers who are posting incomplete information,” about the so-called war on terror.

In May 2008, it was revealed that the Pentagon was expanding “Information Operations” on the Internet by setting up fake foreign news websites, designed to look like independent media sources but in reality carrying direct military propaganda.

Countries like Israel have also admitted to creating an army of online trolls whose job it is to infiltrate anti-war websites and act as apologists for the Zionist state’s war crimes.

In January last year, the US Air Force announced a “counter-blog” response plan aimed at fielding and reacting to material from bloggers who have “negative opinions about the US government and the Air Force.”

The plan, created by the public affairs arm of the Air Force, includes a detailed twelve-point “counter blogging” flow-chart that dictates how officers should tackle what are described as “trolls,” “ragers,” and “misguided” online writers.

New revelations highlight the fact that the Obama administration is deliberately targeting “conspiracy groups” as part of a Cointelpro style effort to silence what have become the government’s most vociferous and influential critics.

In a 2008 article published in the Journal of Political Philosophy, Obama information czar Cass Sunstein outlined a plan for the government to stealthily infiltrate groups that pose alternative theories on historical events via “chat rooms, online social networks, or even real-space groups and attempt to undermine” those groups.

The aim of the program would be to “(break) up the hard core of extremists who supply conspiracy theories,” wrote Sunstein, with particular reference to 9/11 truth organizations.

Sunstein pointed out that simply having people in government refute conspiracy theories wouldn’t work because they are inherently untrustworthy, making it necessary to “Enlist nongovernmental officials in the effort to rebut the theories. It might ensure that credible independent experts offer the rebuttal, rather than government officials themselves. There is a tradeoff between credibility and control, however. The price of credibility is that government cannot be seen to control the independent experts,” he wrote.

“Put into English, what Sunstein is proposing is government infiltration of groups opposing prevailing policy,” writes Marc Estrin.

“It’s easy to destroy groups with “cognitive diversity.” You just take up meeting time with arguments to the point where people don’t come back. You make protest signs which alienate 90% of colleagues. You demand revolutionary violence from pacifist groups.”

This is what Sunstein is advocating when he writes of the need to infiltrate conspiracy groups and sow seeds of distrust amongst members in order to stifle the number of new recruits. This is classic “provocateur” style infiltration that came to the fore during the Cointelpro years, an FBI program from 1956-1971 that was focused around disrupting, marginalizing and neutralizing political dissidents.

“Sunstein argued that “government might undertake (legal) tactics for breaking up the tight cognitive clusters of extremist theories.” He suggested that “government agents (and their allies) might enter chat rooms, online social networks, or even real-space groups and attempt to undermine percolating conspiracy theories by raising doubts about their factual premises, causal logic or implications for political action,” reports Raw Story.

Sunstein has also called for making websites liable for comments posted in response to articles. His book, On Rumors: How Falsehoods Spread, Why We Believe Them, What Can Be Done, was criticized by some as “a blueprint for online censorship.”

The Infowars office has been visited on numerous occasions by the FBI as a result of people posting violent comments in response to articles. Since the government now employs people to post such comments in an attempt to undermine conspiracy websites, if a law were passed making websites accountable, Sunstein’s program would allow the government to obliterate such sites from the web merely by having their own hired goons post threats against public figures.

The fact that the government is being forced to hire armies of trolls in an effort to silence the truth shows how worried they are about the effect we are having in waking up millions of people to their tyranny.


Posted By Robert Allison
Kerrville911Truth


RA

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Alex Jones Calls For Mass Resistance To Implementation Of Body Scanners

Alex Jones Calls For Mass Resistance To Implementation Of Body Scanners

Petitions, boycotts and lawsuits needed to halt latest manifestation of prison planet being constructed around humanity.

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Paul Joseph Watson
Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Radio talk show host Alex Jones is calling for petitions, boycotts and lawsuits en mass in an effort to block the nationwide implementation of full body scanners that represent a total violation of privacy, a health risk, and the next wave of tyranny being metered out against the American people and the people of the world under the phony pretext of fighting terrorism.

“Our long journey into domestication and dependency on the scientific dictatorship is accelerating, our entire society is being turned into a massive surveillance grid, it has been designed to persecute the people,” Jones warned on his show yesterday, adding that the scanners were the latest manifestation of the prison planet being constructed around humanity.

Allied with the contrived global warming movement, terrorism is the other prong of the pincer being used to crush freedom and advance totalitarianism in the developed world as Homeland Security follows the plan it was created to carry out – the gradual implementation of martial law in America characterized by the kind of stifling security we now see in airports being introduced into our daily lives in shopping malls, public schools, and many other buildings.

Jones warned that those who refuse the body scan and opt for a pat down will be subject to a strip search and treated like terrorists.

“We’re being trained like dogs….you’re the people they want to train to accept this, you’re the milk cows, you’re the cattle, you’re the once proud free people being trained to accept this,” said Jones, adding that the funding was already in place for body scanners at all U.S. airports in early 2009 before the Christmas Day incident magically arrived to provide the perfect pretext to push ahead with pull implementation.

“Magically that happens and they begin beating the drum within hours of it, see we must have the body scanners, it was all set, it was all rigged, every TV network, every station had their talking points,” said Jones, adding that body scanners were instantly promoted as the solution, allied with calls to renew the rapidly expiring Patriot Act.

The fact that the aborted plane bombing attack also provided the perfect justification to expand U.S. military operations into the Arabian Peninsula in the name of fighting Al-Qaeda, a process already well underway before the bombing attempt, makes the suspicious circumstances surrounding the December 25 incident all the more alarming.

As we have documented, The FBI has repeatedly changed its story in a haphazard effort to accommodate eyewitness testimony from passengers that conflicts with the official version of events.

At first the FBI denied that a second man was arrested in connection with the incident but later admitted a second man was handcuffed after Flight 253 passenger and eyewitness Kurt Haskell said he saw an Indian man being led away by authorities after sniffer dogs had found something in his luggage.

Officials then claimed that the man had not been on Flight 253 at all and was not connected with the incident, but had to reverse their statement again just days later when other eyewitnesses emerged, admitting that the man had been on the plane.

The fact that the FBI is apparently protecting accomplices involved with the bombing attempt, and thereby keeping the official story within the script necessary to pin the attack on a lone man from Yemen who was inspired by Al-Qaeda, blatantly suggests that the facts are being manipulated to fit a pre-conceived geopolitical agenda.

Jones stated that if the body scanners were allowed to be implemented, it would not be long before travelers were forced to wear taser bracelets before they even enter an airport that allow officials to deliver an electric shock to anyone they deem suspicious on a whim. Homeland Security has already been busy exploring the possible roll out of such devices.

“A senior government official with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has expressed great interest in a so-called safety bracelet that would serve as a stun device, similar to that of a police Taser. According to this promotional video found at the Lamperd Less Lethal, Inc. website, the bracelet would be worn by all airline passengers,” reported the Washington Times.



In the UK, the level of detail produced by the body scanners is such that their implementation would break child pornography laws, specifically the Protection of Children Act 1978, under which it is illegal to create an indecent image or a “pseudo-image” of a child.

“They do not have the legal power to use full body scanners in this way,” said Terri Dowty, of Action for Rights of Children, adding there was an exemption in the 1978 law to cover the “prevention and detection of crime” but the purpose had to be more specific than the “trawling exercise” now being considered,” reports the Guardian.

Those vigorously pushing for the widespread rollout of body scanners in the aftermath of the highly suspicious Christmas Day bombing attempt have been found to have their own financial motives.

“Since the attempted bombing of a US airliner on Christmas Day, former Homeland Security secretary Michael Chertoff has given dozens of media interviews touting the need for the federal government to buy more full-body scanners for airports,” reports the Boston Globe.

“What he has made little mention of is that the Chertoff Group, his security consulting agency, includes a client that manufactures the machines. Chertoff disclosed the relationship on a CNN program Wednesday, in response to a question.”

Approaching the issue from a health angle, despite official assurances that the scanners are safe, there are many concerns about the physical impact of firing radiation at the body, especially if the individual has had previous x-ray scans, mammograms, or is a frequent flyer.

Dr. John Gofman, Professor Emeritus of Molecular and Cell Biology at University of California, Berkeley, maintains that there is no safe dose of ionizing radiation. Gofman argues that radiation from medical diagnostics and treatment is responsible for 50 per cent of cancers of 60 per cent of heart disease cases amongst Americans.

“The fact, that X-ray doses are so seldom measured, reflects the false assumption that doses do not matter…[but] they do matter enormously. And each bit of additional dose matters, because any X-ray photon may be the one which sets in motion the high-speed, high energy electron which causes a carcinogenic or atherogenic [smooth muscle] mutation. Such mutations rarely disappear. The higher their accumulated number in a population, the higher will be the population’s mortality rates from radiation-induced cancer and ischemic heart disease,” states Gofman.

In addition to all these issues, full body scanners would not even have stopped the Christmas Day bomber from boarding Flight 253, according to a British MP who helped design the machines.

“I must advise the Prime Minister – and the British public – that the scanners are not a “silver bullet,” said Ben Wallace, who worked on the scanners at defense research organization QinetiQ. “You would be mistaken to think that they would counter the new threat.”

“The millimetre wave technology is harmless, quick and can be deployed overtly or covertly. But it cannot detect chemicals or light plastics.”

Watch the video below in which Alex Jones outlines how the body scanners represent the latest salvo in pursuit of the totalitarian takeover of our society.





Posted By Robert Allison


RA

Airports Set To Become Primary Peddlers Of Child Porn

Airports Set To Become Primary Peddlers Of Child Porn

Invasion of the body scanners: Fat greasy perverts sitting alone in back rooms get ready to enjoy your naked children.

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The man is seeing a naked image of the woman similar to the top picture.

Paul Joseph Watson
PrisonPlanet
Tuesday, January 5, 2010

The establishment is ensuring that pedophiles and perverts are kept entertained at airport security checkpoints by mandating the mass rollout of naked body scanners that provide detailed images of your child’s genitalia, to be enjoyed by officials sitting alone in back rooms.

Despite official assurances and media talking points that claim the naked body scanners now being implemented in airports worldwide do not show enough detail to be considered a violation of privacy, the true measure of how much of an intrusion they really are is proven by the fact that they break child pornography laws in the UK that bar the production of indecent images of children.

Ministers in the UK will be forced to exempt under-18’s from the virtual strip searches or pass new legislation that protects airport workers from being prosecuted as pedophiles.

“They also face demands from civil liberties groups for safeguards to ensure that images from the £80,000 scanners, including those of celebrities, do not end up on the internet,” reports the Guardian. “The Department for Transport confirmed that the “child porn” problem was among the “legal and operational issues” now under discussion in Whitehall after Gordon Brown’s announcement on Sunday that he wanted to see their “gradual” introduction at British airports.”

“They do not have the legal power to use full body scanners in this way,” said Terri Dowty, of Action for Rights of Children, adding there was an exemption in the 1978 law to cover the “prevention and detection of crime” but the purpose had to be more specific than the “trawling exercise” now being considered.

As the Guardian report highlights, despite the fact that news organizations routinely blur out sensitive areas of the body when showing images produced by the scans, the actual resolution of the images allows airport workers to see “genitalia and breast enlargements”.

Despite the promise that the images would immediately be deleted, Simon Davies of Privacy International warns that scans of celebrities or of people with unusual or freakish body profiles would prove an “irresistible pull” for some employees.

Indeed, the fact that your sons and daughters will potentially be subject to a virtual strip search where the shape and detail of their genitalia will be visible to someone sat alone in a back room begs the question of what kind of people would want to apply for such a job. If such technology is rolled out on a widespread basis, working in airport security will undoubtedly become a pull for perverts and pedophiles who will be given free reign to lust over your naked child’s body. How far will Americans acquiesce in the name of safety?

This compilation of articles proves that people in positions of power have routinely and illegally abused surveillance technologies for their own personal titillation, particularly in regard to young women and children.

A school in Overton County, Tennessee was sued to the tune of $4.2 million in damages by parents after school officials allowed surveillance cameras to be installed in locker rooms of children aged 10-14, with the images showing both girls and boys in various stages of undress.

Another case in Sutherland high school New York found that head school custodian Allen Wemes had kept a pornographic stash of footage filmed by a secret surveillance camera placed in a female restroom.

In June 2004, the director of a tutoring center in Chicago was charged with manufacturing and possessing child pornography after he was discovered to be operating a sophisticated video surveillance system in the bathroom of the Beverly Instructional Center.

These are just a few of dozens of cases in the U.S. alone where officials have been caught abusing invasive surveillance technologies for their own perverted pleasure. If similar technology is to be implemented on a mass scale in airports as is being proposed, we are going to see such violations skyrocket to an industrial level.

A familiar tactic employed to convince the public that the scanners are necessary is the repeated use of images that show concealed weapons, creating the perception that everyone is guilty and needs to be scanned. This is reinforced by the public being made to hold their hands up when they enter the scanner in a symbolic act of submission, when holding their arms out horizontally would be no different.

How much humiliation, fealty and degradation are we prepared to accept in the name of being protected from a menace that the government has proven time and again it has no motivation in stopping? The very people promoting the mass implementation of body scanners stand to reap the financial rewards because they are heavily invested in the technology.

Are we going to allow perverts and pedophiles in positions of power enjoy naked images of our children or are we finally going to draw a line in the sand and say enough is enough and start boycotting and filing lawsuits against airports and other institutions that attempt to ram through these revolting and dehumanizing measures?





Posted By Robert Allison


RA


Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Cost To Fight Each Al Qaeda Member In Afghanistan Per Year: $300 Million

Cost To Fight Each Al Qaeda Member In Afghanistan Per Year: $300 Million
By RICHARD ESPOSITO, MATTHEW COLE and BRIAN ROSS
Dec. 2, 2009


War is a Racket by Smedley D. Butler (pdf here)

As he justified sending 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan at a cost of $30 billion a year, President Barack Obama's description Tuesday of the al Qaeda "cancer" in that country left out one key fact: U.S. intelligence officials have concluded there are only about 100 al Qaeda fighters in the entire country.


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President Barack Obama addresses the nation on Afghanistan at the United States Military Academy at West Point in West Point, N.Y, Dec. 1, 2009. Obama said sending 30,000 more troops into Afghanistan is in the "vital national interest" of the United States. (Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images)


A senior U.S. intelligence official told ABCNews.com the approximate estimate of 100 al Qaeda members left in Afghanistan reflects the conclusion of American intelligence agencies and the Defense Department. The relatively small number was part of the intelligence passed on to the White House as President Obama conducted his deliberations.

President Obama made only a vague reference to the size of the al Qaeda presence in his speech at West Point, when he said, "al Qaeda has not reemerged in Afghanistan in the same number as before 9/11, but they retain their safe havens along the border."

A spokesperson at the White House's National Security Council, Chris Hensman, said he could not comment on intelligence matters.

Obama's National Security Adviser, Gen. James Jones, put the number at "fewer than a hundred" in an October interview with CNN.

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., referred to the number at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee in October, saying "intelligence says about a hundred al Qaeda in Afghanistan."

As the President acknowledged, al Qaeda now operates from Pakistan where U.S. troops are prohibited from operating. "We're in Afghanistan to prevent a cancer from once again spreading through that country," he said.

Intelligence officials estimate there are several hundred al Qaeda fighters just across the border in Pakistan.

An Obama administration official said the additional troops were needed in Afghanistan to "sandwich" al Qaeda between Pakistan and Afghanistan and prevent them from re-establishing a safe haven in Afghanistan.

"Pakistan has been stepping up its efforts," the official said.

"So the real question is will Pakistan do enough," said former White House counter-terrorism official Richard Clarke, an ABC News consultant.

"What if they take all the money we given them but don't really follow through? What the strategy then?" said Clarke.

With 100,000 troops in Afghanistan at an estimated yearly cost of $30 billion, it means that for every one al Qaeda fighter, the U.S. will commit 1,000 troops and $300 million a year.

Al Qaeda's Ideological Influence

Other counter-terror analysts say the actual number of al Qaeda in Afghanistan is less important than their ability to train others in the Taliban and have ideological influence.

"A hundred 'no foolin' al Qaeda operatives operating in a safe haven can do a hell of a lot of damage," said one former intelligence official with significant past experience in the region.

At a Senate hearing, the former CIA Pakistan station chief, Bob Grenier, testified al Qaeda had already been defeated in Afghanistan.

"So in terms of 'in Afghanistan,'" asked Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., "they have been disrupted and dismantled and defeated. They're not in Afghanistan, correct?"

"That's true," replied Grenier.



Posted By Robert Allison

RA

Monday, December 21, 2009

Obama Ordered U.S. Military Strike In Yemen

Obama Ordered U.S. Military Strike In Yemen

Cruise Missiles Launched Thursday Hit Two Suspected al Qaeda Sites; Major Escalation Of US Efforts Against Terrorists


Obama Ordered U.S. Military Strike In Yemen




By BRIAN ROSS, RICHARD ESPOSITO, MATTHEW COLE, LUIS MARTINEZ and KIRIT RADIA
December 21, 2009


On orders from President Barack Obama, the U.S. military launched cruise missiles early Thursday against two suspected al-Qaeda sites in Yemen, administration officials told ABC News in a report broadcast on ABC World News with Charles Gibson.

One of the targeted sites was a suspected al Qaeda training camp north of the capitol, Sanaa, and the second target was a location where officials said "an imminent attack against a U.S. asset was being planned."

The Yemen attacks by the U.S. military represent a major escalation of the Obama administration's campaign against al Qaeda.

In his speech about added troops for Afghanistan earlier this month, President Obama made a brief reference to Yemen, saying, "Where al Qaeda and its allies attempt to establish a foothold -- whether in Somalia or Yemen or elsewhere -- they must be confronted by growing pressure and strong partnerships."

Until tonight, American officials had hedged about any U.S. role in the strikes against Yemen and news reports from Yemen attributed the attacks to the Yemen Air Force.

President Obama placed a call after the strikes to "congratulate" the President of Yemen, Ali Abdallah Salih, on his efforts against al Qaeda, according to White House officials.

A Yemeni official at the country's embassy in Washington insisted to ABC News Friday that the Thursday attacks were "planned and executed" by the Yemen government and police.

Along with the two U.S. cruise missile attacks, Yemen security forces carried out raids in three separate locations. As many as 120 people were killed in the three raids, according to reports from Yemen, and opposition leaders said many of the dead were innocent civilians.

American officials said the missile strikes were intended to disrupt a growing threat from the al Qaeda branch in Yemen, which claims to coordinate terror attacks against neighboring Saudi Arabia. 

The al Qaeda presence in Yemen has been steadily growing in the last two years. "Al Qaeda generally has been pushed into these ungoverned areas, whether it is the Afghanistan-Pakistan border area [or Yemen]," said Richard Barrett, coordinator of the U.N.'s Taliban al-Qaeda Sancitions Monitoring Committee. "I think many of the key people have moved to Yemen."

The U.S. embassy was attacked by suspected al Qaeda gunmen last year.

And the presumed leader of al Qaeda in Yemen, Qaaim al-Raymi, has frequently appeared on internet videos, offering an alternative to the training camps in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

"If they can go to Yemen just as easily or easier and get training there and come out again," said Barrett, "all your efforts in Pakistan and Afghanistan are a waste of time."

Qaaim al-Raymi was considered a prime target of the attack Thursday but was reported to have escaped the attack. However, U.S. officials believe one of his top deputies may have been killed.




Posted By Robert Allison


RA

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Third World Under Attack From Genocidal Climate Change Policy

Third World Under Attack From Genocidal Climate Change Policy

Millions dying from starvation as a direct consequence of global warming fraud.

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Paul Joseph Watson
Thursday, December 10, 2009

The implementation of policies arising out of fraudulent fearmongering and biased studies on global warming is already devastating the third world, with a doubling in food prices causing mass starvation and death – a primary reason why the climategate crooks and their allies should be criminally investigated and hit with the strongest charges possible.

As Lord Monckton outlined in his recent Alex Jones Show appearance, climate change alarmism and implementation of global warming policies is a crime of the highest nature, because it is already having a genocidal impact in countries like Haiti, where the doubling of food prices is resulting in a substantial increase in starvation, poverty and death.

Poor people around the world, “Are being killed in large numbers by starvation as a result of (climate change) policy,” said Monckton, due to huge areas of agricultural land being turned over to the growth of biofuels.

“Take Haiti where they live on mud pie with real mud costing 3 cents each….that’s what they’re living or rather what they’re dying on,” said Monckton, relating how when he gave a speech on this subject, a lady in the front row burst into tears and told him, “I’ve just come back from Haiti – now because of the doubling in world food prices, they can’t even afford the price of a mud pie and they’re dying of starvation all over the place.”

As a National Geographic Report confirmed, “With food prices rising, Haiti’s poorest can’t afford even a daily plate of rice, and some must take desperate measures to fill their bellies,” by “eating mud,” partly as a consequence of “increasing global demand for biofuels.”

In April last year, World Bank President Robert Zoellick admitted that biofuels were a “significant contributor” to soaring food prices that have led to riots in countries such as Haiti, Egypt, the Philippines, and even Italy.

“We estimate that a doubling of food prices over the last three years could potentially push 100 million people in low-income countries deeper into poverty,” he stated.

“That’s how serious this is, these people, by their scientific fraud and financial fraud, they’re profiting enormously….while people die of starvation in a dozen regions of the world….it is a scandal of the worst proportion – our own fellow creatures are being killed by starvation because these people have lied and made up the science and hidden it so nobody else could check,” said Monckton.

If the measures currently being debated at the Copenhagen summit in the name of fighting global warming are passed, we can only expect a further assault on the already horrifying plight of the population of the third world.

In the leaked Copenhagen text that emerged earlier this week, leaders of third world countries were horrified to discover that developed nations would take on less of a burden than anticipated and that more would be demanded of poorer countries despite the fact that any further cuts in CO2 emissions would further cripple their flimsy economies and poverty-stricken people.

In addition, the leaked paper revealed that funds from climate financing, originally allocated to go to the UN and then be doled out piecemeal to third world nations, would instead be paid directly into the coffers of the World Bank and IMF, organizations that have made a habit out of looting poorer countries with crippling loans that cannot be paid back, forcing such countries to hand over their entire infrastructure to globalist loan sharks.

The fact that policies arising out of the contrived science of global warming are already killing people in vast numbers in the third world further illustrates the fact that the entire climate change movement is a Malthusian offshoot of the profusely stated goal on behalf of the global elite to eliminate a huge chunk of the global population via modern-day eugenics.

This agenda was vehemently argued for by President Obama’s top science advisor and one of the pre-eminent climate change ringleaders, John P. Holdren, in his 1977 book Ecoscience, in which he called for installing a “planetary regime” to enforce draconian population control measures such as forced abortion and mandatory sterilization through the water supply.

Watch the segment from the interview below where Alex Jones discusses how the climate crooks are deliberately devastating the third world with their lies about global warming.





Re-Post By Robert Allison
Kerrville911Truth

RA

Sunday, December 6, 2009

Sprint Received 8 MILLION Law Enforcement Requests For GPS Location Data In The Past Year

Surveillance Shocker: Sprint Received 8 MILLION Law Enforcement Requests For GPS Location Data In The Past Year


Electonic Frontier Foundation
Kevin Bankston
December 1, 2009

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This October, Chris Soghoian — computer security researcher, oft-times journalist, and current technical consultant for the FTC's privacy protection office — attended a closed-door conference called "ISS World". ISS World — the "ISS" is for "Intelligence Support Systems for Lawful Interception, Criminal Investigations and Intelligence Gathering" — is where law enforcement and intelligence agencies consult with telco representatives and surveillance equipment manufacturers about the state of electronic surveillance technology and practice. Armed with a tape recorder, Soghoian went to the conference looking for information about the scope of the government's surveillance practices in the US. What Soghoian uncovered, as he reported on his blog this morning, is more shocking and frightening than anyone could have ever expected.

At the ISS conference, Soghoian taped astonishing comments by Paul Taylor, Sprint/Nextel's Manager of Electronic Surveillance. In complaining about the volume of requests that Sprint receives from law enforcement, Taylor noted a shocking number of requests that Sprint had received in the past year for precise GPS (Global Positioning System) location data revealing the location and movements of Sprint's customers. That number?

EIGHT MILLION.

Sprint received over 8 million requests for its customers' information in the past 13 months. That doesn't count requests for basic identification and billing information, or wiretapping requests, or requests to monitor who is calling who, or even requests for less-precise location data based on which cell phone towers a cell phone was in contact with. That's just GPS. And, that's not including legal requests from civil litigants, or from foreign intelligence investigators. That's just law enforcement. And, that's not counting the few other major cell phone carriers like AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile. That's just Sprint.

Here's what Taylor had to say; the audio clip is here and we are also mirroring a zip file from Soghoian containing other related mp3 recordings and documents.

[M]y major concern is the volume of requests. We have a lot of things that are automated but that's just scratching the surface. One of the things, like with our GPS tool. We turned it on the web interface for law enforcement about one year ago last month, and we just passed 8 million requests. So there is no way on earth my team could have handled 8 million requests from law enforcement, just for GPS alone. So the tool has just really caught on fire with law enforcement. They also love that it is extremely inexpensive to operate and easy, so, just the sheer volume of requests they anticipate us automating other features, and I just don't know how we'll handle the millions and millions of requests that are going to come in.
Eight million would have been a shocking number even if it had included every single legal request to every single carrier for every single type of customer information; that Sprint alone received eight million requests just from law enforcement only for GPS data is absolutely mind-boggling. We have long warned that cell phone tracking poses a threat to locational privacy, and EFF has been fighting in the courts for years to ensure that the government only tracks a cell phone's location when it has a search warrant based on probable case. EFF has also complained before that a dangerous level of secrecy surrounds law enforcement's communications surveillance practices like a dense fog, and that without stronger laws requiring detailed reporting about how the government is using its surveillance powers, the lack of accountability when it comes to the government's access to information through third-party phone and Internet service providers will necessarily breed abuse. But we never expected such huge numbers to be lurking in that fog.

Now that the fact is out that law enforcement is rooting through such vast amounts of location data, it raises profoundly important questions that law enforcement and the telcos must answer:


  • How many innocent Americans have had their cell phone data handed over to law enforcement?
  • How can the government justify obtaining so much information on so many people, and how can the telcos justify handing it over?
  • How did the number get so large? Is the government doing massive dragnet sweeps to identify every single cell phone that was in a particular area at a particular time? Is the government getting location information for entire "communities of interest" by asking not only for their target's location, but also for the location of every person who talked to the target, and every person who talked to them?
  • Does the number only include requests to track phones in real-time, or does it include requests for historical GPS data, and if so, why did the telcos have that incredibly sensitive data sitting around in the first place? Exactly when and how are they logging their users' GPS data, and how long are they keeping that data?
  • What legal process was used to obtain this information? Search warrants? Other court orders? Mere subpoenas issued by prosecutors without any court involvement? How many times was this information handed over without any legal process at all, based on government claims of an urgent emergency situation?
  • Looking beyond Sprint and GPS, how many Americans have had their private communications data handed over to law enforcement by their phone and Internet service providers?
  • What exactly has the government done with all of that information? Is it all sitting in an FBI database somewhere?
  • Do you really think that this Orwellian level of surveillance is consistent with a free society and American values? Really?
These questions urgently need to be asked — by journalists, and civil liberties groups like EFF, and by every cell phone user and citizen concerned about privacy. Most importantly, though, they must be asked by Congress, which has failed in its duty to provide oversight and accountability when it comes to law enforcement surveillance. Congress should hold hearings as soon as possible to demand answers from the government and the telcos under oath, and clear the fog so that the American people will finally have an accurate picture of just how far the government has reached into the private particulars of their digital lives.

Even without hearings, though, the need for Congress to update the law is clear. At the very least, Congress absolutely must stem the government's abuse of its power by:


  • Requiring detailed reporting about law enforcement's access to communications data using the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA), just as it already requires for law enforcement wiretapping under the Wiretap Act, and make sure that the government actually fulfills its obligations rather than ignore the law for years on end.
  • Requiring that the government "minimize" the communications data it collects under ECPA rather than keep it all forever, just like it is supposed to do with wiretaps.
  • Prohibiting the government from using in a criminal trial any electronic communications content or data that it obtains in violation of ECPA, just as the government is prohibited by the Wiretap Act from using illegally acquired telephone intercepts.
  • Clarifying that ECPA can only be used to get specific data about particular individuals and cannot be used for broad sweeps, whether to identify everyone in a particular geographic area or to identify every person that visits a particular web site.
It's time for Congress to pull the curtain back on the vast, shadowy world of law enforcement surveillance and shine a light on these abuses. In the meantime, we give our thanks to those like Chris Soghoian who are doing important work to uncover the truth about government spying in America.

UPDATE: Sprint has responded to Soghoian's report:


The comments made by a Sprint corporate security officer during a recent conference have been taken out of context by this blogger. Specifically, the “8 million” figure, which the blogger highlights in his email and blog post, has been grossly misrepresented. The figure does not represent the number of customers whose location information was provided to law enforcement, as this blogger suggests.
Instead, the figure represents the number of individual “pings” for specific location information, made to the Sprint network as part of a series of law enforcement investigations and public safety assistance requests during the past year. It’s critical to note that a single case or investigation may generate thousands of individual pings to the network as the law enforcement or public safety agency attempts to track or locate an individual.
Instances where law enforcement agencies seek customer location information include exigent or emergency circumstances such as Amber Alert events, criminal investigations, or cases where a Sprint customer consents to sharing location information.
Sprint takes our customers’ privacy extremely seriously and all law enforcement and public safety requests for customer location information are processed in accordance with applicable state and federal laws.
This response provides some important answers, while raising even more questions. First off, Sprint has confirmed that it received 8 million requests, while denying a charge that no one has made: that 8 million individual customers' data was handed over. Sprint's denial also begs the question: how many individual customers have been affected?

As for Sprint's claim that in some instances a single case or investigation may generate thousands of location "pings", that is certainly possible, but that doesn't make the 8 million number any less of a concern, or moot any of the important questions raised by Soghoian in his report or by EFF in its post regarding the lack of effective oversight and transparency in this area.

Even assuming that Sprint's statement about "pings" is true, 8 million — or, in other words, 8,000 thousands — is still an astronomical number and more than enough to raise serious concerns that Congress should investigate and address. Moreover, the statement raises additional questions: exactly what legal process is being used to authorize the multiple-ping surveillance over time that Sprint is cooperating in? Is Sprint demanding search warrants in those cases? How secure is this automated interface that law enforcement is using to "ping" for GPS data? How does Sprint insure that only law enforcement has access to that data, and only when they have appropriate legal process? How many times has Sprint disclosed information in "exigent or emergency circumstances" without any legal process at all? And most worrisome and intriguing: what customers does Sprint think have "consent[ed] to the sharing [of] location data" with the government? Does Sprint think it is free to hand over the information of anyone who has turned on their GPS functionality and shared information with Sprint for location-based services? Or even the data of anyone who has agreed to their terms of service? What exactly are they talking about?

These questions are only the beginning, and Sprint's statement doesn't come close to answering all of them. Of course, we appreciate that Sprint has begun a public dialogue about this issue. But this should be only the beginning of that discussion, not the end. Ultimately, the need for Congress to investigate the true scope of law enforcement's communications surveillance practices remains. Congress can and should dig deeper to get the hard facts for the American people, rather than forcing us to rely solely on Sprint's public relations office for information on these critical privacy issues.


Posted By Robert Allison


Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Obama Announces Troop Escalation In Afghanistan / Pakistan

Obama Announces Troop Escalation In Afghanistan/Pakistan


A New Strategy For Afghanistan And Pakistan? No.


Obama Promise To End The War, 2007 - "You Can Take That To The Bank"



Posted By Robert Allison

RA