Society's ChildS


Display

Loophole shows that, yes, NSA has 'authority' to spy on americans - directly in contrast with public statements

Right, so remember that claim yesterday from Barack Obama about how there is no domestic surveillance program? And remember in our post we noted that such a statement might come back to bite him, seeing that Snowden had leaked somewhere between 15,000 to 20,000 more documents to Glenn Greenwald and somewhere in there, it seemed like there was a decent chance there was evidence that Obama was lying? Right, so, funny story... this morning, James Ball and Spencer Ackerman over at the Guardian have published the details of a neat little loophole that does, in fact, give the NSA "authority" to run searches on Americans without any kind of warrant. This is due to a "rule change" in 2011.

Image

Bizarro Earth

'Evil' seagulls held us hostage

Jim and Penny Freeman
© Jerome EllerbyLiving in Fear: Jim Fudge and Penny Freeman in their garden in Bridlington.
A brother and sister say they were too scared to leave their home because of "evil" seagulls.

Penny Freeman, 69, and her brother, Jim Fudge, 67, claim they could not leave their Bridlington home for four days due to two aggressive seagulls guarding their chick. Mrs Freeman, of Vernon Road, said: "I was held hostage in the house, too afraid to go out for four days.

"It was absolutely terrifying for us. I felt like a prisoner in my own home."

The seagulls' chick had fallen into Mrs Freeman's garden from their nest on her roof. She says they would squawk and behave aggressively whenever she or her brother stepped into the garden.

USA

Americans giving up passports jump sixfold as tougher rules loom

US Passport
© Victor J. Blue/BloombergThe stamps in a U.S. passport are displayed for a photograph in New York.

Americans renouncing U.S. citizenship surged sixfold in the second quarter from a year earlier as the government prepares to introduce tougher asset-disclosure rules.

Expatriates giving up their nationality at U.S. embassies climbed to 1,131 in the three months through June from 189 in the year-earlier period, according to Federal Register figures published today. That brought the first-half total to 1,810 compared with 235 for the whole of 2008.

The U.S., the only nation in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development that taxes citizens wherever they reside, is searching for tax cheats in offshore centers, including Switzerland, as the government tries to curb the budget deficit. Shunned by Swiss and German banks and facing tougher asset-disclosure rules under the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (Fatca), more of the estimated 6 million Americans living overseas are weighing the cost of holding a U.S. passport.

"With the looming deadline for Fatca, more and more U.S. citizens are becoming aware that they have U.S. tax reporting obligations," said Matthew Ledvina, a U.S. tax lawyer at Anaford AG in Zurich. "Once aware, they decide to renounce their U.S. citizenship."

Fatca requires foreign financial institutions to report to the Internal Revenue Service information about financial accounts held by U.S. taxpayers, or held by foreign entities in which U.S. taxpayers hold a substantial ownership interest. It was estimated to generate $8.7 billion over 10 years, according to the congressional Joint Committee on Taxation.

Arrow Down

Chinese doctor detained over baby trafficking

Beijing - Local authorities have detained nine people, including an obstetrician, on suspicion of baby trafficking at a hospital in northwestern China, state media reported.

Three government officials and three hospital managers at Fuping County Maternal and Child Health Care in Shaanxi province were also fired over the baby trafficking scandal, the official Xinhua News Agency reported late Friday.

Among the detained suspects is Zhang Shuxia, an obstetrician at the hospital who abducted newborns by sometimes falsely claiming the infants were born with congenital problems, it said. Xinhua said police had received 55 reports of child abductions and that Zhang allegedly was involved in 26 of them.

It said police had rescued twin baby girls and located a third child, all taken from the Fuping hospital.

Despite severe legal punishments, including the death penalty, child trafficking is a big problem in China. It is very profitable for the traffickers, and demand is strong, driven partly by the traditional preference for male heirs, a strict one-child policy and ignorance of the law.

Source: Associated Press

Hiliter

Best of the Web: DOT officials trying to stop 9/11 graffiti on bridges, overpasses

Some graffiti popping up on highways has a lot of people talking, and the state isn't too happy about how a group of vandals are trying to get their message across.


Handcuffs

Cops out of control in America: Shocking surveillance video captures cop brutally beating female shoplifter


An Iowa mother is being advised by a civil rights organization after surveillance video recently emerged of her being viciously beaten by a police officer, apparently without provocation.

Brandie Redell admits that she was trying to shoplift around $388 of women's clothing from the Von Maur department store in Davenport on February .

Yet when she was caught and questioned by police she says that Officer Scott Crow repeatedly punched her, leaving her hospitalized with an eye swollen shut and vision that is now 70 per cent impaired. Crow remains in his job and Redell is planning legal action.

Image
Damage: The punches left Redell needing hospital treatment and she says permanent impairment to her vision

Hourglass

Americans renouncing citizenship surge 66%

Image
A massive 1,131 individuals renounced their US citizenship last quarter, according to data that has yet to be officially released (though I was able to procure an advanced copy).

This is a HUGE jump.

Compared to the same quarter last year in which 188 people renounced their US citizenship, this year's number is over SIX TIMES higher.

Not to mention, it's 66.5% higher than last quarter's 679 renunciations.

This brings the total number of renunciations so far this year to 1,810.

While still embryonic, it's difficult to ignore this trend - more and more people are starting to renounce their US citizenship.

Apple Red

Signal Mountain's mystery bowl of fruit piques drivers' interest

Bowl of Fruit
© John RawlstonA bowl of fruit and dried beans rests atop a rock alongside Signal Mountain Boulevard.
Alert: An abandoned bowl of apples and oranges has been found on the edge of the highway coming down from Signal Mountain.

If you know the owner or why the fruit is sitting so neatly inside a wok perched precariously high on a rock between the two-laned road and a deadly drop of several hundred feet to the Tennessee River below, please reveal yourself.

Were they left for the birds? Was it a teenage prank? Or some kind of cult sacrifice? Was it left by a bargainer shopping at the world's longest yard sale?

Just spill the beans. The mystery is maddening for some mountaintop residents.

Sure, there are more important things to fret about than fruit. But you have to understand: On Signal Mountain, people usually know what's going on. And they know it fast.

"Nobody knows how it got there," said Pam Morrison, who lives in Walden. "A lot of people have seen it and nobody knows anything about it."

Arrow Down

Horse found slaughtered, dismembered in Miami Gardens

Horse Hoof
© Spencer Platt/Getty Images
Miami Gardens - A grisly discovery was made Wednesday morning in Miami Gardens when the bloody body of a slaughtered and dismembered horse was found dumped in the city's warehouse district.

In the past, the bodies of slaughtered horses have been found in wooded areas, away from the public, but that wasn't the case Wednesday.

According to South Florida SPCA President Jeanette Jordan, it appeared the horse was slaughtered somewhere else and the remains were dumped at 5295 NW 163rd Street.

Laurie Waggoner, Director of Operations for the South Florida Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals was called to the scene by the Miami Gardens Police Department.

"The slaughter of horses in our community continues unabated," stated Ms. Waggoner. "The only difference in this case, is the remains were disposed of in an extremely public area."

Question

Thieves dressed as ghosts strike across Sweden

Ghost
© YourJewishNews
People in Sweden have been suffering recently from thieves, who dress in ghost costumes, according to police reports.

Now, police in Sweden are warning tourists in Stockholm, to be on the lookout for people in ghosts costumes, who try to distract their victims and then pick their pockets.

Police said that tourists have reported that their pockets were picked while they were distracted by people wearing white sheets with white face paint.

"The thieves are always finding new methods. Often, the theft is carried out using some sort of distraction. They come onto people very strongly and aggressively, which scares people," Stockholm police spokesperson Gunnar Thun said.

"Many tourists think that Stockholm is a safe city. It is indeed a pretty safe city when it comes to violent crimes, but not when it comes to crimes against personal property. People got robbed often here," Thun said.

He warned tourists to watch out from the ghosts. "People should keep a safe distance from them," he said.