Tag Archives: Police State

The Draconian Senate Bill 3081…

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Another terrifying piece of legislation is in the works. The Senate Bill 3081, “Enemy Belligerent Detention, Interrogation, and Prosecution Act of 2010,” has been introduced by Senator Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) and Senator John McCain (R-AZ), says Gary Barnett at Lew Rockwell.

“Sec. 2. Placement of Suspected Unprivileged Enemy Belligerents in Military Custody.

  1. MILITARY CUSTODY REQUIREMENT.?Whenever within the United States, its territories, and possessions, or outside the territorial limits of the United States, an individual is captured or otherwise comes into the custody or under the effective control of the United States who is suspected of engaging in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners through an act of terrorism, or by other means in violation of the laws of war, or of purposely and materially supporting such hostilities, and who may be an unprivileged enemy belligerent, the individual shall be placed in military custody for purposes of initial interrogation and determination of status in accordance with the provisions of this Act. (all emphasis mine)

In addition, any individual initially captured or who in any manner comes under effective control of the U.S., may be held, interrogated, or transported by any U.S. intelligence agency and placed into military custody. With the establishment of “Interrogation Groups,” which is authorized by this Act, and composed of personnel in the Executive Branch, each person captured or held may be designated as a “High-Value Detainee.” One of the criteria for determining if one is to be designated as “high value,” should the obvious ones fail is: “Such other matters as the President considers appropriate.” This is of course so broad in nature that virtually anyone can be detained if deemed necessary by just one man’s authority. Any individual who is suspected of being an unprivileged enemy belligerent will not be provided Miranda or otherwise be informed of any rights. In addition, they “may be detained without criminal charges and without trial for the duration of hostilities.” Given that the so-called “War on Terror” may never have an end; this by design, you can see how horrendous this legislation truly is. Add to this other legislation that is already in place, and the probability that with any civil unrest or natural disaster Martial Law could now be not only implemented but “legally” administered; there is a very real and dangerous risk to any of us who won’t submit fully to the state.”

Chinese Electronic Espionage Leads To UK Office of Cyber Security…

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The Times Online reported in January that the UK’s MI5 was battling devious Chinese attempts to entrap UK businessmen, with electronic bugging devices….and sexual “honey traps”. (Not as imaginative as the CIA’s “acoustic kitty,”  but probably more effective):

“A leaked MI5 document says that undercover intelligence officers from the People’s Liberation Army and the Ministry of Public Security have also approached UK businessmen at trade fairs and exhibitions with the offer of “gifts” and “lavish hospitality”.

The gifts — cameras and memory sticks — have been found to contain electronic Trojan bugs which provide the Chinese with remote access to users’ computers.

MI5 says the Chinese government “represents one of the most significant espionage threats to the UK” because of its use of these methods, as well as widespread electronic hacking.

Written by MI5’s Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure, the 14-page “restricted” report describes how China has attacked UK defence, energy, communications and manufacturing companies in a concerted hacking campaign.

It claims China has also gone much further, targeting the computer networks and email accounts of public relations companies and international law firms. “Any UK company might be at risk if it holds information which would benefit the Chinese,” the report says.

The explicit nature of the MI5 warning is likely to strain diplomatic ties between London and Beijing. Relations between the two countries were damaged last month after China’s decision to execute a mentally ill British man for alleged drug trafficking.

Earlier this month the United States demanded that China investigate a sophisticated hacking attack on Google and a further 30 American companies from Chinese soil.

China has occasionally attempted sexual entrapment to target senior British political figures. Two years ago an aide to Gordon Brown had his BlackBerry phone stolen after being picked up by a Chinese woman who had approached him in a Shanghai hotel disco.”

So now you know better than to fraternize too cozily at a Chinese trade event.

The 14-page “restricted” report by MI5 Director General, Jonathan Evans, lists attacks on UK defense, energy, communications and manufacturing companies and is the latest and most explicit warning from UK authorities on Chinese espionage.  It was sent to hundreds of business leaders in 2009.

Evans’ lobbying led to the creation of the Office of Cyber Security (due to open in March 2010).

The UK only follows the US on this. As far back as June 2009, Barack Obama announced the need for a new official position to oversee cybersecurity in the US, a move applauded by some in the IT community, like McAfee’s Director of Threat Intelligence, Phyllis Schneck, but criticized by others, like Wayne Crews, VP at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, who argued that attempts to collectivize and centralize information technology risks were liable to crowd out private enterprise solutions.

The Cat They Sent Out Into The Cold…

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The more you dig into the history of the CIA’s covert programs, the more it resembles not so much a fast-paced who-dunnit as a low-rent why-ever-did-they-do-it. Only it wasn’t low rent. A hefty wad of tax-payer money subsidized such expensive follies as Project Acoustic Kitty, in which the agency’s whizzes tried to turn man’s favorite feline into a wired-up bot that would snoop on conversations in back-alleys:

“Victor Marchetti, a former CIA officer, told The Telegraph that Project Acoustic Kitty was a gruesome creation. He said: “They slit the cat open, put batteries in him, wired him up. The tail was used as an antenna. They made a monstrosity. They tested him and tested him. They found he would walk off the job when he got hungry, so they put another wire in to override that.”

Mr Marchetti said that the first live trial was an expensive disaster. The technology is thought to have cost more than £10 million. He said: “They took it out to a park and put him out of the van, and a taxi comes and runs him over. There they were, sitting in the van with all those dials, and the cat was dead.”

The document, which was one of 40 to be declassified from the CIA’s closely guarded Science and Technology Directorate – where spying techniques are refined – is still partly censored. This implies that the CIA was embarrassed about disclosing all the details of Acoustic Kitty, which took five years to design.

Dr Richelson, who is the a senior fellow at the National Security Archive in Washington, said of the document: “I’m not sure for how long after the operation the cat would have survived even if it hadn’t been run over.”

From “CIA Recruited Cat To Bug Russians,” The Telegraph, November, 2001

Policing Wall Street…

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From Black Star News:

“In the 1980s there was one great stock fraud, which captured the imagination of the American public. That stock fraud involved a chain of electronics stores, which went by the name of “Crazy Eddie.”  These stores were founded by Eddie Antar (“Crazy Eddie”) of Brooklyn.  “Crazy Eddie” used radio advertising to hype his stores.  In the end the retail chain of “Crazy Eddie” went bankrupt; a $300 million fraud.

At the center of this fraud was Sam E. Antar, a cousin of “Crazy Eddie” Antar and the Chief Financial Officer of the “Crazy Eddie” retail chain. Currently Sam E. Antar has publicly stated that he has reformed and is now lecturing, without charge, on the “dangers” of crime. It is strange that Sam E. can afford this largesse because he filed for bankruptcy several years ago. He claims to be supported by the real estate interests of his wife’s family.

Recently he was the focus of an article, “Crazy like a fox,” by Aaron Elstein, which appeared in the October 4, 2009 issue of Crain’s New York Business.  Once a felon, always a felon. Yet Elstein referred to Sam Antar as “a former felon.”  That alone shows his bias and makes the reader believe that rather than an article the piece is meant to rehabilitate Antar.  A felon is someone convicted of a felony. There is no such thing as a former felon.

Elstein also reported:  “Mr. Antar admits working for a short-seller before.  He did research for Barry Minkow, an investor who served prison time in the 1990s for running a fraudulent carpet cleaning service.” This is like saying “The titanic ran into an ice cube.” There are several understatements in the “article.”

Sam Antar not only worked for Barry Minkow but contributed $250,000 to Minkow’s Fraud Discovery Unit, which supposedly ferrets out false information in filings by publicly listed companies. Antar claims that this $250,000 was his wife’s money. Antar’s wife must be the most generous woman in the world- doling out $250,000 as a gift to her husband’s friend.

Here’s what happened: Minkow finds false information in SEC filings. Minkow then sells the stock short, in hopes that the stock price declines. Minkow then releases his findings. Minkow then buys back the stock after the price has declined. By that very fact alone, Minkow is not an “investor.” Minkow is a short seller.

As the reader can readily determine someone is making money from this arrangement. What’s not stated in the article is that Minkow did not just run “a fraudulent carpet cleaning service.”  Minkow’s carpet cleaning business was called ZZZZ Best, a stock fraud that defrauded the American public of hundreds of millions of dollars. Minkow served seven years in federal prison for fraud among other charges.

The article is a “white wash,” a “fix.” Minkow owes the government approximately $16 million and his salary is garnished to pay the amount owed. That is why the payment could not be made out personally to Minkow but to the Fraud Discovery Unit- the money would have been seized.

During his incarceration Minkow converted to Christianity and studied for a Divinity Degree. Currently Minkow is a pastor of a Church. I find it rather amusing when convicted felons turn to God.  It has been my experience that once a stock fraud artist- always a stock fraud artist.  The money is too good and too easy. That is why the members of Aish Kodesh in Long Island participated in the stock frauds of Maier Lehmann.

Sam E. Antar is a fraudster; as is Barry Minkow.
Both have now found God. Perhaps they have monetarized God.”

Manfredonia, a trader and whistleblower on Wall Street in the 1980s, is now on a campaign to expose corruption on the Street. Please e-mail him tips to Edward@blackstarnews.com

KGB Operations Against The US

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Last week, I blogged Douglas Valentine on the secret history of America’s Central Intelligence Agency, a long history that involved revolutions, coups, torture, assassinations, and subversion. Today, the CIA is probably far larger than any other spy agency, but until 1991, the Soviet Union’s KGB was a good match.  The excerpt that follows is from a face-off between former CIA counter-intelligence chief Paul J. Redmond and former major-general of the Soviet KGB, Oleg Danilov Kalugin, and was hosted by the University of Delaware on March 12, 2003.

(Note: The KGB was disbanded in 1991, following the collapse of the Soviet Union. It has been replaced by the Russia security force, the FSB).

“We conducted a clandestine war with assassination if necessary,” he [Kalugin] said. “Our mission was to do everything we could to have a war without the fighting. This was seen as amoral in America, but it was our ideology.”

Kalugin infiltrated the United States as a journalist, attending Columbia University in New York City as a Fulbright Scholar in 1958. From 1965-70, he served as deputy resident and acting chief of the residency at the Soviet Embassy in Washington, D.C., quickly becoming the youngest general in the history of the KGB. Eventually, he became the head of worldwide foreign counterintelligence, serving at the center of some of the most important espionage cases, including the Walker spy ring.

Finding that the KGB’s internal functions had little to do with the security of the state and everything to do with keeping corrupt Communist Party officials in power, Kalugin retired from the KGB in 1990 and became a public critic of the communist system. He currently teaches at the Centre for Counterintelligence and Security Studies.

Kalugin said one of his most effective spying techniques was pitting American citizens against their own government.

“We appealed to pacifists and told them, ‘You cannot have peace unless you stop the internal situation of the U.S.,’” he said. “We got environmentalists and told them, ‘Capitalists spend any amount of money even if it does destroy your precious nature.’ Well, at the time, the Soviet Union was the most polluted country in the world,” he joked.

Kalugin listed several astonishing facts from a classified KGB report, proving just how much the organization is committed to counterintelligence. He said that in 1981 the KGB reported that they had funded or supported 70 books, 66 feature and documentary films, more than 100 television stations, 4,865 articles in magazines or newspapers, 300 conferences or exhibitions and 170,000 lectures around the world.

“Friendship, companionship—that is fine,” Kalugin said, “but national interests remain. Counterintelligence will never cease to exist. The U.S. remains priority number one.”

Ron Paul: No Military Occupation Of Haiti

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(Via David Kramer LRC blog, January 21, 2010 09:32 PM)

Statement of Congressman Ron Paul,  United States House of Representatives Statement in Opposition to H Res 1021, Condolences to Haiti, January 21, 2010

I rise in reluctant opposition to this resolution. Certainly I am moved by the horrific destruction in Haiti and would without hesitation express condolences to those who have suffered and continue to suffer. As a medical doctor, I have through my career worked to alleviate the pain and suffering of others. Unfortunately, however, this resolution does not simply express our condolences, but rather it commits the US government “to begin the reconstruction of Haiti” and affirms that “the recovery and long-term needs of Haiti will require a sustained commitment by the United States….” Continue reading →

Executive Order 12425: Interpol Brings Global Police State to US

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John Whitehead of the Rutherford Institute (via Lew Rockwell) sounds the alarm over executive order 12425, which places the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol) beyond the reach of domestic laws,  freedom of information act requests and constitutional checks.

“It’s hard to know exactly what the fallout from this executive order will be, but the ramifications for the American people could be ominous. For instance, if Interpol engages in illegal and/or unconstitutional activities against American citizens, it will be impossible for U.S. citizens to obtain information – via subpoena or other commonly used legal methods – regarding its records or activities. Continue reading →

Fed-State Partnership Parallels Nazi Gleichschaltung

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Will Grigg (in an LRC blog post) describes another crucial step in the centralizing and totalizing of federal government power in the incipient Fourth Reich of America:

“Yesterday (January 11), Barack Obama added another critical element to the architecture of wartime presidential dictatorship by signing an executive order establishing a “Council of Governors” for the supposed purpose of strengthening federal-state “partnership” in military and homeland security affairs. Continue reading →

Swine-Flu Vaccine Facts That Should Frighten You

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One of the best read articles in 2009 on Lew Rockwell was  one by Bill Sardi on eighteen reasons you shouldn´t take the swine flu vaccine.  Here´s an excerpt, but it´s worth reading the whole piece.

“4. The vaccines will be produced by no less than four different manufacturers, possibly with different additives (called adjuvants) and manufacturing methods. The two flu inoculations may be derived from a multi-dose vial and in a crisis, and in short supply, it will be diluted to provide more doses and then adjuvants must be added to trigger a stronger immune response. Adjuvants are added to vaccines to boost production of antibodies but may trigger autoimmune reactions. Some adjuvants are mercury (thimerosal), aluminum and squalene. Would you permit your children to be injected with lead? Lead is very harmful to the brain. Then why would you sign a consent form for your kids to be injected with mercury, which is even more brain-toxic than lead? Injecting mercury may fry the brains of American kids. Continue reading →

Facebook´s Misleading Privacy Tools

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Update: I deactivated my facebook account, following the fracas over the facebook friends page.  I´m still on Twitter. I will also – probably in a few months – change the format of this blog to make some part of it private,  partly to avoid plagiarism and partly for security.

According to this report, privacy advocates are outraged by Facebook´s new settings (that went into effect on Wednesday):

“The Facebook privacy transition tool is clearly designed to push users to share much more of their Facebook info with everyone, a worrisome development that will likely cause a major shift in privacy level for most of Facebook’s users, whether intentionally or inadvertently.”

Prior to the change, Facebook users could keep everything but their names and networks private.

Maybe that throws light on this.

On inquiring, Deep Capture says the inclusion of some of the names initially was an accident and has removed them. It also point out here that the characterization of the list as hacked is libelous…

Other users might want to double-check their settings.