Puppet MastersS


Camcorder

Court OKs warrantless use of hidden surveillance cameras

Declan McCullagh
Cnet
Tue, 30 Oct 2012 00:00 UTC
Cameras
© AlamyObsessive surveillance: A huge number of CCTV cameras are in public places
In latest case to test how technological developments alter Americans' privacy, federal court sides with Justice Department on police use of concealed surveillance cameras on private property.

Police are allowed in some circumstances to install hidden surveillance cameras on private property without obtaining a search warrant, a federal judge said yesterday.

CNET has learned that U.S. District Judge William Griesbach ruled that it was reasonable for Drug Enforcement Administration agents to enter rural property without permission -- and without a warrant -- to install multiple "covert digital surveillance cameras" in hopes of uncovering evidence that 30 to 40 marijuana plants were being grown.

This is the latest case to highlight how advances in technology are causing the legal system to rethink how Americans' privacy rights are protected by law. In January, the Supreme Court rejected warrantless GPS tracking after previously rejecting warrantless thermal imaging, but it has not yet ruled on warrantless cell phone tracking or warrantless use of surveillance cameras placed on private property without permission.

Yesterday Griesbach adopted a recommendation by U.S. Magistrate Judge William Callahan dated October 9. That recommendation said that the DEA's warrantless surveillance did not violate the Fourth Amendment, which prohibits unreasonable searches and requires that warrants describe the place that's being searched.

"The Supreme Court has upheld the use of technology as a substitute for ordinary police surveillance," Callahan wrote.
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Snakes in Suits

Secret Service agent kills self amid affair probe

Alicia A. Caldwell
My Fox New York
Thu, 01 Nov 2012 05:18 UTC
secret service
A senior Secret Service agent who was being investigated by the government for failing to disclose a long-standing relationship with a foreign citizen killed himself last week in Washington, people familiar with the matter told The Associated Press.

Rafael Prieto, a married father assigned to the security detail for President Barack Obama, had acknowledged to U.S. investigators that he had been having an affair for years with a woman from Mexico, these people said. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss Prieto's death or the investigation. Prieto's relationship was revealed to Secret Service investigators by an agent who had been entangled in the Colombian prostitution scandal earlier this year, these people say. That agent was concerned that the Secret Service wasn't enforcing its rules consistently.

Secret Service rules require that employees with a security clearance notify the agency about any relationship with a foreign citizen to ensure that the person is not a risk to national security. There is no evidence that Prieto's relationship posed any security threat. Failing to disclose such a relationship would be a violation of the agency's administrative rules, not a crime.

Prieto was serving on the protective detail for Obama, though he was not on duty at the time of his suicide. As recently as 2009, he was identified as the resident agent in charge at the Secret Service's office in White Plains, N.Y. He had worked for the Secret Service for 22 years. He was 47, according to public records.
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Monkey Wrench

UAW files charges against Romney on his auto bail-out profiteering

Greg Palast
Source
Wed, 31 Oct 2012 21:43 UTC
romney
© Unknown
Broke ethics law hiding millions, say good government groups

For Mitt Romney, it's one scary Halloween. The Presidential candidate has just learned that tomorrow afternoon he will charged with violating the federal Ethics in Government law by improperly concealing his multi-million dollar windfall from the auto industry bail-out.

At a press conference in Toledo, Bob King, President of the United Automobile Workers, will announce that his union and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) have filed a formal complaint with the US Office of Government Ethics in Washington stating that Gov. Romney improperly hid a profit of $15.3 million to $115.0 million in Ann Romney's so-called "blind" trust.

The union chief says, "The American people have a right to know about Gov. Romney's potential conflicts of interest, such as the profits his family made from the auto rescue," "It's time for Gov. Romney to disclose or divest."

"While Romney was opposing the rescue of one of the nation's most important manufacturing sectors, he was building his fortunes with his Delphi investor group, making his fortunes off the misfortunes of others," King added.
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Star of David

Israel warned by US it will be on its own if Iran attacked


RT.com
Thu, 01 Nov 2012 14:39 UTC
Image
© Reuters / Baz Ratner
A military strike on Iran by way of Israel could still occur at a moment's notice, but the US is now warning its allies that any action overseas would jeopardize America's ability to assist in a Middle East war.

Although US President Barack Obama and his challenger Mitt Romney both say the next administration will be aligned with any Israeli efforts to prevent Iran from procuring a nuclear weapon, any unilateral strike on the Islamic Republic could prevent America from offering its service in the event of a war.

The United States currently has military bases across much of the world, including key stations in Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Oman. Should Israel decide to strike Iran, instability in the region is expected to become rampant and American officials fear they won't be able to rely on troops stationed overseas to come to their ally's aid.

"The Gulf states' one great fear is Iran going nuclear. The other is a regional war that would destabilize them," a source in the region tells the UK's Guardian. "They might support a massive war against Iran, but they know they are not going to get that, and they know a limited strike is not worth it, as it will not destroy the program and only make Iran angrier."
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USA

'US defeat in Syria would be end of US hegemony in Middle East' says geopolitical analyst


RT.com
Thu, 01 Nov 2012 16:04 UTC
The United States is doing everything possible to salvage 'operation Syria' and in doing so hedging all their bets on its success, says Eric Draitser, geopolitical analyst from stopimperialism.com. But that strategy, Draitser believes, will fail.

­Earlier, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the US no longer sees Syria's foreign-based National Council as a leading opposition force, due to its lack of support on the ground.

The Syrian opposition consists of various rebel militias, many of which have been infiltrated by radical Islamists linked to Al-Qaeda.

A new 51 member "National Initiative Council" is due to be unveiled in Doha next week, and will include only 15 seats for the SNC.

Meanwhile, the SNC is planning to base itself inside Syria, in an attempt to prove its relevance to skeptical international backers. But as Eric Draitser told RT, these efforts may be too little too late to fit into US plans for the region.
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Propaganda

Capitalising on disaster: NYC Mayor Bloomberg endorses Obama, citing climate change

Raymond Hernandez
The New York Times
Thu, 01 Nov 2012 18:57 UTC
Michael R. Bloomberg
© Damon Winter/The New York Times Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York introduced Barack Obama before a speech in 2008.
In a surprise announcement, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said Thursday that Hurricane Sandy had reshaped his thinking about the presidential campaign and that as a result he was endorsing President Obama.

Mr. Bloomberg, a political independent in his third term leading New York City, has been sharply critical of both Mr. Obama, a Democrat, and Mitt Romney, the president's Republican rival, saying that both men have failed to candidly confront the problems afflicting the nation. But he said he had decided over the past several days that Mr. Obama was the best candidate to tackle the global climate change that the mayor believes contributed to the violent storm, which took the lives of at least 38 New Yorkers and caused billions of dollars in damage.

"The devastation that Hurricane Sandy brought to New York City and much of the Northeast - in lost lives, lost homes and lost business - brought the stakes of next Tuesday's presidential election into sharp relief," Mr. Bloomberg wrote in an editorial for Bloomberg View.

"Our climate is changing," he wrote. "And while the increase in extreme weather we have experienced in New York City and around the world may or may not be the result of it, the risk that it may be - given the devastation it is wreaking - should be enough to compel all elected leaders to take immediate action."

Comment: Surprise? No. Just another prime example of how politicians capitalise on disaster with some climate change propaganda thrown in for good measure. Straight out of the book of Obama's chief of staff Rahm Emanuel who said, "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste."

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MIB

Mossad's Terror Squad Assassinating Iraqi Scientists


Source
Wed, 31 Oct 2012 18:28 UTC
Image
© Unknown
Iraqi sources revealed on Wednesday that a Mossad terror squad has infiltrated into Iraq to assassinate the country's scientists.

"The Mossad team which includes 30 to 40 members with Lebanese, Palestinian and Iraqi nationalities is led by a person named al-Bir who bears a Lebanese/Palestinian nationality," an informed source told the Iraqi UR News Agency on Wednesday.

According to the source, the hideout of the terrorist group is located behind a church in Salman Fayeq street in Baghdad. The members of the terror squad have killed over 1,000 Iraqi scientists in Baghdad and other cities so far and still have a blacklist to go ahead.

In 2011, reports revealed that US Department of Defense (Pentagon) and US forces in Iraq have collaborated with the Israeli spy agency, Mossad, to assassinate over 550 scientists and academic figures after the occupation of Iraq in April 2003.

"Mossad in collaboration with American forces in Iraq killed 350 Iraqi nuclear scientists and 200 university professors in Iraq from 2003 to 2008," International Reality, a Jordanian daily, said quoting a special security report prepared by US State Department in 2008 and delivered to President George W. Bush at the time.
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Megaphone

The global gap between rich and poor is at its highest level for 20 years and is growing


Refreshing News
Thu, 01 Nov 2012 17:17 UTC
Wealth & Poverty
© Alternet
Global inequalities in wealth are at their highest level for 20 years and are growing, according to a new report by Save The Children.

While the charity acknowledges progress has been made in goals such as reducing child mortality, the report says this has been uneven across income groups.

Continuing inequality could hinder further progress in improving living standards, the charity says.
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V

Wearing a mask during a protest can now cost you up to ten years in jail in Canada


RT News
Thu, 01 Nov 2012 16:11 UTC

Comment: Police-sponsored agent provocateurs (known for wearing masks while pushing peaceful demonstrations to violence) beware!

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TV

A reporter replies to Samuel L. Jackson's "Wake the f**k up, America" ad

Jon Rappoport
nomorefakenews.com
Wed, 03 Oct 2012 10:30 UTC
That reporter would be me. My reply, for starters, is a video cartoon. Watch it here:


I'm tired of celebrities who don't have a clue, who think this election is really about the differences between Obama and Romney.

This election is about the pretense of differences. As any awake American knows, we have one political party in this country. It has two heads. Its heads are corporate. Its heads are Globalist.
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