Puppet MastersS


Cell Phone

Maryland cell phone tracking bill in motion


RT.com
Wed, 06 Feb 2013 11:54 UTC
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© Reuters / Nacho Doce
Officials may gain access to intimate knowledge of the whereabouts of cell users in Maryland. Phone records could be handed over without a search warrant if a new bill passes. A civil liberties group has labeled the proposal 'invasive'.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland has criticized government plans to allow law enforcement officials automatic access to these records, testifying against the intrusive tracking bill, House Bill 377 , on Tuesday. The bill is currently being considered by the Maryland House Judiciary Committee.

Law enforcement officials must obtain a search warrant prior to accessing such information, insisted ACLUM.

"Of all of the recent technological developments that have expanded the surveillance capabilities of law enforcement agencies at the expense of individual privacy, perhaps the most powerful is cell phone location tracking," said the national American Civil Liberties Union last September, in response to knowledge they obtained that numerous police departments were tracking the devices without a search warrant anyway.
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Eye 1

UK planning broad online domestic spying regime


RT.com
Wed, 06 Feb 2013 11:52 UTC
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© AFP Photo / Rainier Ehrhardt
UK officials plan to monitor Britons' online activities by placing surveillance devices on the country's telecom networks, a Parliamentary report says. The program would keep tabs on which websites were visited as well as who contacted whom.

On Tuesday the British Parliament's Intelligence and Security Committee published the report outlining a massive, national surveillance program based in the country's very electronic infrastructure. The report does not specify the number of so-called "probes" to be installed across Britain's telecommunications networks, but says it would be part of a regime stockpiling information on nearly every move Britons make online.

The new program will go beyond just keeping tabs on the Brits. If anyone abroad communicates online with someone in the UK then it will allow surveillance of their personal information as well, stretching the program's geographical reach.
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Pistol

Legal gun owner arrested for chambering round at Connecticut Chuck E. Cheese

David Edwards
Raw Story
Wed, 06 Feb 2013 11:28 UTC
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A Connecticut woman was arrested at the children's restaurant Chuck E. Cheese in Newington on Monday after she was accused of pulling her gun and chambering a round while threatening another mother.

According to Newington police, 30-year-old Tawana Bourne brandished a .380 semi-automatic handgun and chambered a round while arguing with another woman, the New Haven Register reported. Both women were at the restaurant with children.

Restaurant employees quickly called police, who separated the women and confiscated Bourne's handgun. Police said that Bourne had a legal Connecticut permit to carry the weapon.
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USA

Family Research Council President links homosexuality to pedophilia as reason for Boy Scout ban

David Edwards
Raw Story
Wed, 06 Feb 2013 11:23 UTC
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CNN host Soledad O'Brien on Wednesday told Family Research Council President Tony Perkins that he could be "on the wrong side of history" after he defended the Boy Scouts' ban on LGBT members by suggesting that homosexuals were more likely to be pedophiles.

As the Boy Scouts of American national board was set to decide if local organizations would be allowed to include gay members on Wednesday, O'Brien asked Perkins if there was "a possibility that you're wrong" because "historically there have been core values that in retrospect turned out to be flawed?"

"You're comparing immutable characteristics with characteristics that are not immutable," Perkins explained. "In part, their policy has been to protect boys, to create obviously not a perfect environment, but one that is in line with what the parents want, to ensure their children are safe when they go out in these scouting activities."
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Cult

Report: Catholic laundries enslaved women and girls in Ireland as recently as 1996

Henry McDonald
Raw Story
Wed, 06 Feb 2013 11:21 UTC
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© Shutterstock
Taoiseach Enda Kenny fails to formally apologise for involvement over female enslavement causing more outrage

After more than seven decades of exploitation and a 10-year struggle for justice, Ireland on Tuesday admitted its role in the enslavement of thousands of women and girls in the notorious Magdalene Laundry system, but stopped short of issuing a formal apology from the government.

A long-awaited report headed by Senator Martin McAleese said there was "significant state involvement" in how the laundries were run - a reversal of the official state line for years, which insisted the institutions were privately controlled and run by nuns.

But the Irish Premier Enda Kenny's failure to give the women and their supporters a full, formal, public apology in the Dail on Tuesday afternoon has infuriated the victims and their supporters, who said such an approach risked undermining Ireland's attempt to right a historic wrong. Instead Kenny stated his "regret" about the stigma hanging over the women.
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Eye 2

Karl Rove: 'God bless President Obama' for killing U.S. citizen al-Awlaki

Eric W. Dolan
Raw Story
Wed, 06 Feb 2013 11:16 UTC
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Republican strategist Karl Rove ripped the media on Tuesday for attacking Bush administration officials who justified the use of torture. He also praised President Barack Obama for using drone strikes to kill suspected terrorists, including U.S. citizens.

The former Bush adviser said on Fox News that officials like Alberto Gonzales, John Yoo, Jay Bybee and others were "excoriated" and "hounded" by liberals and the media. Yet the Obama administration has faced little criticism for justifying the use of drone strikes against U.S. citizens.
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Snakes in Suits

Tennessee Republican compares homosexuality to 'shooting heroin'

Eric W. Dolan
Raw Story
Wed, 06 Feb 2013 11:14 UTC
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The author of the so-called "Don't Say Gay Bill" said Tuesday that homosexuality was "very dangerous" and compared it to injecting heroin.

During an tense interview with TMZ, Tennessee state Sen. Stacy Campfield (R) said homosexuality was dangerous because of HIV/AIDS.

"The homosexual community gets AIDS at a 50 times higher rate than the heterosexual community," he claimed. Campfield said AIDS was such large problem in Africa because sodomy was more prevalent in that part of the world. He added that sodomy was a "deadly thing to do."
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Dollar Gold

BP hit with new $34 billion Deepwater Horizon claim from southern state governments

Terry Macalister
Raw Story
Wed, 06 Feb 2013 10:45 UTC
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Latest demand comes from local and southern state governments, including Louisiana and Mississippi, hit hard by pollution following 2010 blowout

BP has been hit by a new $34bn (£21.7bn) claim for alleged economic losses and punitive damages resulting from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

The latest demand comes from local and southern state governments, including Louisiana and Mississippi, hit hard by the pollution that followed the blowout on the BP-operated Macondo well in April 2010.

BP described the methodology for calculating the claims as "seriously flawed" and the oil company said it was confident it would not have to make additional financial provisions.

BP refused to say what provisions it has already made for the $34bn claims, but admits to having taken a further $4.1bn "charge" in the final three months of 2012, bringing the total amount set aside so far to $42.2bn.
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Radar

CIA using Saudi base for drone assassinations in Yemen

Ian Black
Guardian
Wed, 06 Feb 2013 10:43 UTC
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© Photograph: ReutersSaudi Arabia has not responded to reports that the drone that killed US-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki in September 2011 was launched from the unnamed base.
The CIA is secretly using an airbase in Saudi Arabia to conduct its controversial drone assassination campaign in neighbouring Yemen, according to reports in the US media.

Neither the Saudi government nor the country's media have responded to the reports revealing that the drones that killed the US-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki and his son in September 2011 and Said al-Shehri, a senior al-Qaida commander who died from his injuries last month, were launched from the unnamed base.

Iranian state media highlighted the story, which is also likely to be seized upon by jihadi groups. Saudi Arabia has previously publicly denied co-operating with the US to target al-Qaida in Yemen. Evidence of Saudi involvement risks complicating its relationship with the government in Sana'a and with Yemeni tribal leaders who control large parts of the country.
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USA

Washington Post was forced into finally revealing drone base secret

Roy Greenslade
Guardian
Wed, 06 Feb 2013 10:34 UTC
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© Photograph: Kirsty Wigglesworth/APAn unmanned US Predator drone flies over Kandahar in southern Afghanistan.
Newspaper ends self-censorship after hearing that rival news outlet was about to publish the location

Newspaper editors are always conscious of the need to balance the public's right to know with the requirements of national security. And, most often, they oblige governments by acceding to requests not to publish sensitive information that might jeopardise operations.

But self-censorship, despite a sensible public interest justification, is increasingly difficult to attain in a competitive digital media world, as the Washington Post can testify.

For more than a year, the paper refrained from disclosing the location of a secret US military base in Saudi Arabia from which CIA drones were launched.

Comment: So basically what we have here is our government working with media to suppress information that would hurt the Obama administration's efforts to continue its murderous drone killing campaigns and appoint Brennan for CIA head. The fact that mass media outlets engage in this kind of subterfuge and censorship speaks volumes about the state of mass media and how completely it is merely just the propaganda arm of the American government.

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