Posts
Saturday, April 17, 2010
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
SPLC Caught On Tape Repeating Lies About Alex Jones and Cop Killer Poplawski
Infowars.com
March 17, 2010
Once again, the Southern Poverty Law Center has accused Alex Jones of inciting the cop killer Richard Poplawski.
Renea McMasters traveled to the SPLC headquarters in Montgomery, Alabama, and caught Heidi Beirich on tape.
Heidi Beirich, director of research at the Southern Poverty Law Center, repeated the accusation to Renea McMasters, who had driven from Missouri to the SPLC headquarters in Montgomery, Alabama, to find out why the SPLC has included American patriots in a recent report entitled “Active ‘Patriot’ Groups in the United States in 2009.
The SPLC report accuses We Are Change, the Constitution Party, Brave New Books in Austin, Texas, the Oath Keepers, and many other organizations of engaging “in groundless conspiracy theorizing, or advocat[ing] or adher[ing] to extreme anti-government doctrines.”
In the interview with McMasters, Beirich claims opposition to the government has led to “domestic terrorism and violence” (Beirich makes the fallacious and unsubstantiated claim at 5:12 in the above video). Beirich accuses We Are Change of espousing the same sort of conspiracy theories as James von Brunn, the white supremacist who shot and killed a guard at the Holocaust museum in Washington, D.C., on June 10, 2009.
In fact, We Are Change takes its name from a Mahatma Gandhi quote and the group with loosely-knit chapters around the world has not advocated the violent overthrow of the government or does it espouse the sort of violence or domestic terrorism Beirich eludes to in her comments.
In addition, Beirich characterizes “conspiracy theories” about the Bilderberg Group, the Federal Reserve and the international bankers as antisemitism, a claim so ludicrous it defies explanation. “People die because of this stuff [conspiracy theories],” she tells McMasters. It is domestic terrorism, she asserts numerous times.
In the Gary Franchi video below, Beirich tells McMasters Alex Jones is responsible for the murder of police officers in Pittsburgh. “Alex Jones is a lunatic,” she declares. “And hes not… the guy who shot the three cops in his front yard, Richard Poplawski in Pittsburgh, about April of 09. Do you know where he got the idea of hating the government from, who he listened to on a regular basis?… Alex Jones.”
Beirich also slanders Gary Franchi of Restore The Republic during the interview. “He’s insane as well,” declares the SPLC director of intelligence research.
Within hours of the shooting in Pittsburgh, Dennis B. Roddy of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette mentioned Alex Jones in connection with the murders. “Believing most media were covering up important events, Mr. Poplawski turned to a far-right conspiracy Web site run by Alex Jones, a self-described documentarian with roots going back to the extremist militia movement of the early 1990s,” Roddy wrote.
In fact, Poplawski murdered the police officers after they arrived following a call by his mother to have her son evicted from her house. Poplawski’s murders had nothing to do with the fear of Obama grabbing guns or rightwing extremism, as the corporate media claimed. It was about an angry young man with a disordered mind. It was the result of an emotional outburst by a deranged individual.
Gary Franchi of Reality Report TV and Restore the Republic provides additional comments made by Heidi Beirich.
On April 5, 2009, the SPLC wrote that Poplawski was “a fan of far-right websites run by anti-government conspiracy-monger Alex Jones.” Raw Story also claimed Poplawski was influenced by Alex Jones. Raw Story eventually posted a retraction after they were informed that Poplawski had no connection to Jones and in fact disliked and often criticized him.
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette did not print a retraction but did back off some of its initial claims.
There is absolutely no evidence Alex Jones was associated with Richard Poplawski. In an attempt to forge a link, the SPLC and Beirich have consistently attached the ravings of a violent minority of white supremacists to the overwhelmingly peaceful patriot movement.
In fact, as Infowars and others have documented, the FBI and the SPLC have been intimately involved in promoting the white supremacist cause in order to grow their cottage industry of fear-mongering, slander, and libel. In 2003, the McCurtain Daily Gazette obtained an unclassified copy of a memorandum from the Director of the FBI revealing the SPLC’s role at Elohim City (the Identity movement settlement in Oklahoma) in relation to the events surrounding the Oklahoma City bombing.
On April 6, 2009, Prison Planet and Infowars advised “the Daily Kos, the ADL and the other blogs who have jumped on this fallacious and slanderous bandwagon in an attempt to smear Alex Jones, Infowars and Prison Planet to follow the example of Raw Story and issue retractions. Let it be on record that we are currently considering what further action to take should retractions not be forthcoming.” The liberal website Daily Kos eventually posted a retraction.
But even with all the retractions and a lack of evidence that Alex Jones had anything to do with murder in Pittsburgh, Heidi Beirich insinuates otherwise. She repeats the discredited claim that Poplawski was motivated to murder by Alex Jones, his radio show and websites. Beirich ignores the fact Raw Story and others were obliged to post retractions when presented with the evidence and has also ignored the fact Alex Jones continues to speak out against racism and has denounced Richard Poplawski and his murderous behavior on numerous occasions.
The SPLC and the ADL continue to disseminate misleading information about Alex Jones and the patriot movement because they are alarmed by the popularity of the movement and the effectiveness of its political activism. Instead of admitting the patriot movement represents grassroots political activity in the American tradition, they continue to drag out the same old threadbare canards about racism, antisemitism, white supremacy.
Calling Alex Jones and Gary Franchi insane merely demonstrates how desperate they are to slander and demean the patriot movement at all cost and continue to operate their cottage industry based on misinformation, fear, and outright lies and fabrication.
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Alex Jones on Geraldo: Media Sought to Demonize 9/11 Truth With Pentagon Incident Link
Alex Jones exposes attempt to demonize 9/11 Truth on Geraldo following Pentagon incident
Aaron Dykes
Prison Planet.com
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Alex Jones exposes key information about the Pentagon shooting and the Christmas Day Bombing during a live segment with Geraldo Rivera on FOX News this Saturday. Geraldo asks if the Pentagon shooting incident “will stick to the 9/11 Truther people”, almost as if someone had intended a smear. Alex responds in anger about why the media moved so quickly in attempt to demonize 9/11 Truthers– who broadly include, polls show, a majority of Americans and 6 out of 10 9/11 Commissioners who question the official story.
“Why is there such vitriol by the establishment against 9/11 truth?” Alex asked.
After all, Alex makes clear in the segment, it was no more than one hour after the incident that major national news outlets were reporting the connection– how were they so ready to report, and why were they so focused on Bedell’s apparent postings about 9/11? What makes the establishment so uncomfortable about 9/11 questions that its media tools work overtime to denounce it? Pundits like Bill O’Reilly, Glenn Beck and Chris Matthews constantly hype up the “hurt feelings” the movement causes or its alleged potential for violence. Then when random, lone nut acts occur, news teams dash to explain the supposed anti-government motivation behind the acts, whether seeking to link it 9/11 truth in this case, or to the Tea Party movement in the case of the IRS plane crash mentioned by Geraldo.
How can they have any idea if Bedell’s reported belief in 9/11 truth motivated his behavior? Geraldo asked what aspect of his life motivated his behavior? It may as well have been some prescription drug he was on after being diagnosed as manic depressive.
The snap-reaction of reporting Bedell to be a 9/11 truther within one hour of the incident is a smoking gun that media forces intentionally sought in order to link “violence” with those asking questions about 9/11 (who have been demonstrably non-violent) and to damage the movement via induced public anger over the incident.
Alex also exposes, for the first time on national television, how the Underwear Bomber was helped onto the plane prior to his attempted Christmas day bombing and given clearance by the U.S. State Dept. on orders of intelligence officials– despite the fact that his father had warned government authorities well in advance that his son posed a danger. Though outrageous, this behavior is part of a pattern, and frankly, part of history. From the staged Gulf of Tonkin incident that led to the Vietnam War to the now declassified Operation Northwoods documents and more, the U.S. government has proposed and carried out deceptions– including deadly lies that cost Americans lives– in order to sell the public on an agenda.
Side-pundit Kimberley seemed altogether ignorant of the very existence of false-flag terror.
“No,” she said to the entire array of declassified U.S. staged-terror. “What evidence do you have to support any of that?” Any of that, as if history itself can be shelved and packaged into the same ‘kooky, insane’ category as allegations that the 9/11 atrocity was a false-flag event. It demonstrates the frightening societal ignorance of our own history, for after all, those ignorant of history are said to be doomed to repeat it. With hundreds of incidents on the books and new suspicious events happening day by day, it is time to learn the truth and stop what is happening.
For his part, Geraldo was fair in giving Alex Jones time to speak, and even stepped in to back up Alex when Kimberley questioned “what evidence” he had for his serious allegations that the U.S. had carried out false flag attacks in the past. The “Gulf of Tonkin is very well documented,” Geraldo points out.
(ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW)
TRANSCRIPT:
Geraldo: Once a star student at San Jose State, 36 year old John Patrick Bedell, the man who opened fire in front of the Pentagon last week was a manic depressive pothead fascinated with conspiracy theories involving 9/11. We still don’t know why he shot two Pentagon guards before being shot and killed himself. But we do know a blog connected to him suggests that a criminal enterprise run out of the government could have staged the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. And that connection to the so-called 9/11 truthers is making their movement seem even more like a part of the lunatic fringe. But is that fair?
Geraldo: Joining Kimberley and me from Austin, Texas, the same town, incidentally where a tax protester recently crashed his plane into the IRS building is radio host and a leader of the ‘9/11 was an inside job’ movement, Alex Jones. Welcome.
Geraldo: The tea party people shook off that IRS plane crash incident after a couple of days. Do you think you’ll be similarly successful or will Bedell’s misdeeds stick to the 9/11 Truther people?
Alex Jones: Well, the plane crash guy had been a Democrat and was angry at the government, and this Bedell guy, look he had hundreds of different beliefs and some polls show half of Americans, 6 of the 10 9/11 commissioners question the official story. There’s a wide spectrum of different beliefs. Most people just question the official story, prior knowledge and other issues. But the bigger question is, why within one hour was national news reporting that the Pentagon shooter was a 9/11 truther? I mean, why is there such vitriol by the establishment against 9/11 truth? Right here I have ABC News U.S. Military wanted to provoke war with Cuba; U.S. military drafted plans to terrorize U.S. cities, stage terror attacks.
Alex: We know the Gulf of Tonkin was staged. So we know governments allow attacks to happen, we know that governments sometimes stage attacks. We know that the Underwear Bomber on Christmas day, the State Dept. admits they were ordered by U.S. Intelligence to let him on the plane, and helped him get on the plane. So, in a lot of cases they open the door. That’s what 9/11 truth is saying is that this is being used to demonize us. So we don’t know what the truth is about this guy. He was into marijuana…
Geraldo: Ok, let’s bring Kimberley into the discussion. The guy was into pot, he was a manic depressive, but is Alex over-reacting or is the 9/11 connection relevant?
Kimberley: Right. I think its an over-reacted, but also you’re making some serious allegations against the U.S. government saying that they stage attacks, they allow them to occur in the United States against U.S. citizens.
Alex: That’s declassified.
Kimberley: No. What evidence do you have to support any of that.
Geraldo: Well, Gulf of Tonkin is very well documented, but–
Alex: I mean, what are you talking about. Hold on. It’s in Army Field Manuals to stage false-flag attacks, declassified 2004. But separately, why, within 1 hour were scores of newspapers and TV,
Geraldo & Kimberley: Why?
Alex: Why within 1 hour of the shooting–
Kimberley: What’s the answer?
Alex: They were demonizing 9/11 truth. Why are they so scared about 9/11 truth? Why did they do that? Why within one hour did they bring 9/11 truth out? Why did they blame the plane crash with Joe Stack on the Tea Parties.
Geraldo: Alex, just back up a second and take a deep breath. Why would he attack the Pentagon? What aspect of his life what make him manifested with that kind of violence against the Defense Department establishment. Why? Why there. Why not the Health and Human Services Department?
Alex: Let me tell you. Here’s FOX News. His parents, two weeks before, warned the government, nothing was done. Same thing with the Fort Hood shooter, same thing with the Underwear Bomber. I mean, the guy was obviously a complete lunatic. Look at video of the guy. He looks like a nut from central casting. He obviously had millions of screws loose here, okay. Maybe he was a lone nut, maybe he is. The point is, within one hour, to try and demonize 9/11 truth. This stinks to high heaven. That’s what we cover at Infowars.com, Geraldo, and I’m glad you covered this.
Geraldo: Ok, Alex. We’ll continue to stay in touch. Kimberley, thank you, see you tomorrow night.
Friday, March 5, 2010
Sunday, February 28, 2010
California is a greater risk than Greece, warns JP Morgan chief
Jamie Dimon, chairman of JP Morgan Chase, has warned American investors should be more worried about the risk of default of the state of California than of Greece's current debt woes.
Greece Bailout Plan Takes Shape
A plan led by Germany and France to bail out Greece with aid of as much as €30 billion has begun to take shape, Greek and banking officials say, but the timing and terms of any rescue remained unclear.
Friday, February 26, 2010
Sunday, January 31, 2010
But Steele insisted that these operations can turn disastrous.
Perhaps.
Classified FBI reports made available to HSToday.us on FBI surveillance of suspected terrorists living and operating businesses in Arlington, Virginia - a virtual stone’s throw from the White House - nearly two decades ago disturbingly disclosed that the Bureau agents who’d been tracking one of the suspects from Virginia to Texas to Los Angeles lost their quarry soon after he arrived in LA. The report did not explain how the FBI surveillance team managed to lose their target, but it did stress the importance of the failure – and the danger – of having not been able to keep him in sight.
While that FBI debacle was decades before Islamist jihadists became a top priority for the Intelligence Community and CT surveillance and intelligence operations were refined for this purpose “post-9/11,” Steele nevertheless believes mistakes can and are too easy to be made, and thus the risk of losing a terrorist who has been allowed into the country who may be on a mission to carry out an attack is “just too high of a risk to take.”
Steele and other IC CT veterans pointed to recent FBI reticence that resulted in suspected – and even known – terrorists not being put on terrorist watch lists. This problem was outlined in a scathing Department of Justice Inspector General report last May of its audit of the FBI’s terrorist watch list nomination practices.
The IG probe found that the FBI had frequently failed to put suspected terrorists' names on the terrorist watch list in a timely manner – and sometimes not at all. In several instances, individuals whose names matched those of suspected terrorists who were under active investigation were able to enter the country.
“We believe that the FBI’s failure to consistently nominate subjects of international and domestic terrorism investigations to the terrorist watch list could pose a risk to national security,” the IG audit determined.
The Terrorist Screening Center, which began operations in December 2003 and is managed by the FBI, was established to serve as the government’s consolidation point for information about known or suspected international and domestic terrorists.
“Our audit found that initial watch list nominations created by FBI field offices often contained inaccuracies or were incomplete, leading to delays in the inclusion of known or suspected terrorists on the watch list,” the IG report stated. “In addition, the audit determined that the FBI did not consistently update or remove watch list records when appropriate. Finally, the audit determined that FBI field offices had, at times, bypassed some of the FBI’s quality control mechanisms by excluding FBI headquarters and submitting watch list nominations directly to the NCTC.
Continuing, the IG “found that the FBI failed to nominate many subjects in the terrorism investigations that we sampled, did not nominate many others in a timely fashion, and did not update or remove watch list records as required. Specifically, in 32 of the 216 (15 percent) terrorism investigations we reviewed, 35 subjects of these investigations were not nominated to the consolidated terrorist watch list, contrary to FBI policy.”
Continuing, the IG report stated that “we also found that 78 percent of the initial watch list nominations we reviewed were not processed in established FBI timeframes. Additionally, in 67 percent of the cases that we reviewed in which a watch list record modification was necessary, we determined that the FBI case agent primarily assigned to the case failed to modify the watch list record when new identifying information was obtained during the course of the investigation, as required by FBI policy. Further, in eight percent of the closed cases we reviewed, we found that the FBI failed to remove subjects from the watch list as required by FBI policy. Finally, in 72 percent of the closed cases reviewed, the FBI failed to remove the subject in a timely manner.”
“Because the consolidated terrorist watch list is used by government frontline screening personnel to determine how to respond when a known or suspected terrorist requests entry into the United States, the failure to place appropriate individuals on the watch list, or the failure to place them on the watch list in a timely manner, increases the risk that these individuals are able to enter and move freely about the country,” the IG determined. “In fact, we found that several persons with names matching the subjects who were not watchlisted or who were untimely watchlisted attempted to cross US borders during the period the names were not watchlisted by the FBI.”
The IG reported that FBI agents gave a variety of reasons for why they did not put the names of terrorist suspects on the watch list. Some said they didn't know enough about the individual, "although our review of the case files suggested otherwise," the IG stated, adding that other FBI officials blamed their inexperience in counterterrorism, or lack of training on how to watchlist terrorist suspects.
And "one case agent said that he simply forgot to do the paperwork.”
The FBI assured the IG that its recommendations for resolving the myriad problems that the IG had uncovered - especially Agents’ inexperience in counterterrorism investigations and training - had largely been resolved.
But FBI Washington, DC Joint Terrorism Task Force analysts missed recognizing the Bureau’s own “indicators” of Muslim radicalization [which had been issued to law enforcement agencies in 2006 in the form of an "intelligence advisory"] when analyzing Hasan’s communications with Yemeni Al Qaeda franchise leader Anwar Al Awlaki.
to be successfully followed if allowed into the US.“Today, in this inept environment, it would be a huge gamble – I don’t know that I trust the coordination between so many offices that are necessary to pull off a high-value target surveillance like you’re talking about,” said a disgruntled, longtime IC official. An official who, conversely, conceded that such operations “are part and parcel of basic target tradecraft.”
He added: “So far, the few tracking ops that have been authorized where we’ve allowed terrorists to get on planes have gone off without a hitch … but they’re risky and getting riskier – I guess I’d have to say we’ve been lucky and haven’t lost sight of someone or screwed up by actually letting a terrorist on board [an aircraft] with a real bomb.”
Commenting on the mini-ruckus over Leiter’s admission that terrorists are sometimes secretly allowed to enter the US on airliners and Feinstein’s resulting outrage over the practice, Faddis said: “I will say this … I think part of what is prompting this kind of rhetoric from Congress [referring to Feinstein’s comment] is a lack of confidence. They do not have faith that [the Department of Homeland Security] and NCTC know what they are doing. Intertwined with that is a perceived lack of accountability. In the wake of every problem, we hear a lot about changes in procedure but we never see any sign that anyone is actually being held responsible.”
“I do agree … that there's a lack of congressional confidence in DHS, CIA, FBI, NCTC, etc. - and with perfectly good reason,” Lopez added. “Those leading our national security efforts these days - from John Brennan to Michael Leiter to Dennis Blair to Janet Napolitano - appear clueless, hapless, out of their depth."
“And with every new attack, crisis, and terrorist plot that makes the evening news,” Lopez continued, “their public performance seem to go from bad to worse to catastrophic to OMG, why couldn't they be French or something … but, right: no consequences ever seem to follow. Not unique to this administration - post 1993 [World Trade Center] bombing, post 1996 Khobar Towers, post 1998 East Africa Embassy bombings, post 9/11, no heads rolled then either.”
“Lots of new bureaucracy created, but no personal responsibility demanded,” Lopez observed, adding that the “worst part, in my view, is that no one, whether at CIA, DHS, FBI, or DoS, seems to actually know who terrorists or incipient jihadis are - not just whether or not to let them into the country (or the Army's medical schools), but who they are in the first place.”
Outspoken 20-year CIA veteran Robert Steele, who was among the first clandestine services case officers to be focused on the terrorist threat full-time in the 1980's and served in three of the Agency’s four directorates and was instrumental in setting up the Marine Corps Intelligence Center, offered a more pessimistic response to the question of whether allowing known and suspected terrorists into the country is warranted in so far as intelligence is needed on these individuals.
The short answer is, hell no. CIA and FBI are fuck-ups across the board, they treat these players like pawns on a chessboard, but neither CIA nor FBI knows how to play chess, they are still in the checkers stage … I have seen an awful lot of indications that FBI runs operations that get out of control and then they run around blaming others.”
“If we had a proper counterterrorism and counterintelligence unit dedicated to this stuff that could actually do surveillance and not get caught, then, yes, it might be good to do,” Steele candidly told HSToday.us. “It might also be necessary because NSA is running out of answers - in El Salvador the extreme left knew not to use the telephone, and that was 1980-1981.”
Similarly, former DHS Inspector General Clark Kent Ervin stated in a recentNew York Times op-ed that “given Al Qaeda’s known obsession with attacking our aviation system and its tendency to go after the same target repeatedly, anyone on a terror watch list should automatically be placed on the No Fly list. To those who fear that doing so would tip off an unsuspecting terrorist that we are watching him, I say it is far better to do that than to risk an attack. At least, people known to be, or suspected of being, tied to terrorism should automatically be placed on the so-called selectee list, so that they are subject to especially thorough airport screening.”
Steele said that in his opinion, the “bottom line” is “the US public is at much greater risk from a CIA or FBI screw-up than we are from a terrorist whether home grown or imported. On balance, the US IC cannot be trusted with matches; we should not let them play with fire.”
But a seasoned CIA CT agent HSToday.us frequently interviews on a not for attribution basis because he’s not cleared to speak on these matters, said “these are carefully orchestrated surveillance ops that require manpower and resources. It involves a delicate dance between us, the FBI if they’re engaged, DHS components like [Customs and Border Protection] and TSA, and others who need to know. They’re very sensitive ops and sometimes we have one of our own in place where needed to be brought into the loop to let the target board so as not to tip him off.”
what Leiter said at the January 20 hearing.But “this would not include individuals who are on the No Fly list," the official added. Several IC counterterrorists though told HSToday.us that under certain circumstances when intelligence is crucial, a person on the No Fly list could indeed be ordered to be allowed into the country without tipping the person to the fact that he or she is on the list, which comports with what Kennedy and the DHS IG indicated.
“There are absolutely cases in which we need to be able to allow individuals involved in terrorist activity to enter the country,” 20-year veteran CIA terrorist hunter Charles Faddis told HSToday.us.
Faddis, who when he retired from the Agency last spring headed the NCTC unit hunting terrorists trying to acquire weapons of mass destruction (see the January Homeland Security Today report, “The WMD Connection”), said “prohibiting this practice would be unwise and counter-productive. If we have a guy inbound whom we expect to meet with other operatives inside the United States, we very much want him to come here so we can surveil him and in the process identify additional members of his network. If we block him from entry, all we are doing is tipping him to the fact that we are on to him and denying ourselves intel.”
“Actually, that is pretty standard tradecraft and makes sense, if they are sure they can track such characters. However, both TIDE [Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment] and the FBI database are virtually worthless. Listings of 400 to 500,000 names with no supporting information (like affiliations, aliases, etc.) are not really very useful and one has to ask who does quality control on names entered and how sophisticated the retrieval applications are,” HSToday.us was told by a 42-year intelligence and IC contracting community veteran who has trained some of NCTC’s analysts.
“Certainly there are instances in which individuals under suspicion by national security officials for any number of reasons, possibly terrorism-related among them, are permitted into the country,” explained several decades-long CIA veteran Clare Lopez, who served domestically and abroad in a variety of assignments with a focus on the Middle East, homeland security, national defense, and counterterrorism.
This “doesn't automatically mean the individual personally is involved in terrorism or whatever, but the opportunity to observe behavior, connections, travel, other activities while here can be valuable from an intelligence perspective, especially if the individual may not yet be aware of US intel interest,” Lopez said, noting that “allowing the visit while keeping close tabs could result in all sorts of connected dots on a link analysis display.”
But as Leiter told the Committee, and which has been confirmed in interviews with past and present IC CT officials, NCTC analysts still do not have the capability to simultaneously query the multitude of terrorism and intelligence databases in a Jack Bauer-CTU-like way. This problem, which is compounded by shortcomings in the CT analytical capabilities of the NCTC and IC, will be the subject of an upcoming Kimery Report.
Testifying Wednesday before the House Committee on Homeland Security, Leiter acknowledged that CT intelligence “database integration, cross-database searches, and the ability to correlate biographic information with terrorism-related intelligence” has to be improved. These are all capabilities that were called for by the 9/11 Commission, the post-9/11 restructuring of the IC, and earlier by congressional blue-ribbon and NGO studied on intelligence reform.
In response to Leiter’s original disclosure that known and suspected terrorists are allowed into the United States for intelligence collection purposes, Sen. Susan Collins (R-Me.), the ranking minority member of the Senate HS Committee, said the government nevertheless should suspend or revoke visas to anyone who is in TIDE.
Meanwhile, Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Chairwoman Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) implied that she was unaware of the practice – although it’s tried and true tradecraft well known to both the Senate and House intelligence committees - and questioned whether it is a responsible CT intelligence collection practice.
"I'm strongly opposed to letting anyone that's on the watch list into the country, period,” Feinstein surprisingly stated.
Feinstein’s comment quickly raised questions about whether the intelligence committees have been briefed on intelligence operations that involve letting known or suspected terrorists into the US as part of CT intelligence collection activities.
“It is surprising that someone like Dianne Feinstein, who ought to know better in her position, wouldn't appreciate that something like this could be a useful tool for the intel community … and to even consider enacting a law to prohibit it seems knee-jerk and irresponsible,” Lopez commented.
that we want them here ...'When besieged National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) Director Michael Leiter, a veteran intelligence practitioner, disclosed last week at a Senate committee hearing looking into the failure of the Intelligence Community (IC) to uncover the botched Christmas Day bomb plot by Yemeni Al Qaeda franchise directed recruit, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, that known and suspected terrorists on US terrorist watch lists are sometimes secretly allowed into the country for clandestine counterterrorism intelligence collection purposes, there was a delayed, palpable surprise on the part of some lawmakers … and certainly conspiracy theorists.
Leiter’s revelation drew surprisingly negligible attention from the media, but the reportage it did garner was written with a near audible intonation that implied the practice not only is unusual IC tradecraft, but that it’s somehow the wrong thing to do.
Then, on Wednesday, Patrick Kennedy, Under Secretary of State for Management, expanded on Leiter’s revelation during his appearance before the House Committee on Homeland Security hearing, "Flight 253: Learning Lessons from an Averted Tragedy."
The public disclosures that individuals suspected of involvement in terrorism are knowingly allowed into the US first emerged in response to questioning by Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich) during the public portion of the January 20 Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs hearing, “Intelligence Reform: The Lessons and Implications of the Christmas Day Attack."
Leiter told the committee “that when people come to the country and they are on the watch list, it is because we have generally made the choice that we want them here in the country for some reason or another.”
While Leiter didn’t go into any further detail during the hearing, veteran IC counterterrorists (CT) explained in interviews with HSToday.us that there are times when individuals in terrorism databases and suspected and known terrorists who’ve deliberately been left off the No Fly and terrorist watch lists necessarily must be allowed into the country so that CT agents can gather vital intelligence on them, their movements, activities, and associations. The intent of such risky operations is to bust terrorist attacks against the United States.
Expanding on what Leiter disclosed last week, Kennedy, while responding to House HS Committee Chairman Rep. Bennie Thompson’s (D-Miss.) questions about when and how the State Department revokes US visas of persons suspected or known of involvement in terrorism, stated that the department doesn’t just “unilaterally” revoke the visas of an individual because the person may be the subject of an important CT intelligence gathering operation.
At the behest of federal intelligence and law enforcement agencies, Kennedy explained in rather surprising detail, the department sometimes is asked tonot revoke, and/or to provide visas to suspected or known terrorists in order to allow them into the United States so that their activities here can be monitored.
Kennedy explained: “We had a request from a law enforcement agency to not, revoke the visa [of a person suspected of terrorist activities]” that the Department had “come across information” indicating “this is a dangerous person. We were ready to revoke the visa,” but “we then went to the [intelligence] community and said, ‘should we revoke this visa?’ And one of the [IC] members said, ‘please, do not revoke this visa. We have eyes on this person. We are following this person who has the visa for the purpose of trying to roll up an entire network, not just stop one person.’”
“So,” Kennedy told the panel, “we will revoke the visa of any individual who is a threat to the United States, but we do take one preliminary step [first] … we ask our law enforcement and intelligence community partners, ‘do you have eyes on this person, and do you want us to let this person proceed under your surveillance so that you may potentially break a larger plot?’”
Kennedy’s point, though, seemed to be lost on Thompson, who in response said, “but I think the point that I’m trying to get at is, is this just another box you’re checking, or is there some security value to adding that box to the list” of things you check off as part of the routine process of revoking someone’s visa.
“The intelligence and law enforcement community tell us that they believe, in certain cases, that there’s a higher value of them following this person, so they can find his or her co-conspirators, and roll up an entire, plot against the United States, rather than simply knock[ing] out one soldier in that effort,” Kennedy answered.
In his prepared testimony, Kennedy stated “expeditious coordination with our national security partners is not to be underestimated. There have been numerous cases where our unilateral and uncoordinated revocation would have disrupted important investigations that were underway by one of our national security partners. They had the individual under investigation and our revocation action would have disclosed the US Government’s interest in the individual and ended our colleagues’ ability to quietly pursue the case and identify terrorists’ plans and co-conspirators.”
“No visa is issued without it being run through security checks against our partners’ data,” Kennedy added, noting that “we [have] specifically designed our systems to facilitate comprehensive data sharing. We give other agencies immediate access to over 13 years of visa data, and they use this access extensively. In November 2009, more than 16,000 employees of DHS, the Department of Defense, the FBI and [Department of] Commerce made 920,000 queries on visa records ...”
Covert intelligence collection endeavors like this have been part of basic intelligence tradecraft 101 for a very long time, going back to counterintelligence operations during the Cold War against the Soviet Union, its East Bloc satellites and its other allies around the world.
Unidentified intelligence officials unofficially acknowledged several years ago that known and suspected terrorists had been allowed into the country in order to gather crucial intelligence, and that some of these individuals are not necessarily entered into the government’s consolidated Terrorist Screening Data Base (TSDB) from which individuals are nominated to be placed on the No Fly and terrorist watch lists.
Intelligence officials explained at the time that crucial counterterrorism investigations necessitated not putting the names of some specific known and suspected terrorists under investigation on any list, including the No Fly list, so as to not tip them off that US counterterrorists have them under surveillance.
Last July, the unclassified version of the DHS Inspector General (IG) report,Role of the No Fly and Selectee Lists in Securing Commercial Aviation, disclosed that “not all known or reasonably suspected terrorists are prohibited from boarding an aircraft.” Details about the “factors that merit consideration and might mitigate the decision to place an individual on the No Fly or Selectee list” were redacted from the report.
In his March 17, 2009 memorandum to Acting Transportation Security Administration (TSA) Administrator Gale Rossides regarding TSA’s comments to the draft report, the DHS IG noted that “some individuals are not included on the [No Fly and Selectee] lists who may also prevent vulnerabilities to aviation security …”
The IC officials interviewed by HSToday.us said, “you can look to what Leiter and Kennedy had to say” to infer what the classified reasons are for “these individuals being allowed entry into the United States,” as one of the authorities said.
Nevertheless, some lawmakers and media covering the January 20 Senate HS committee hearing expressed near outrage that known and suspected terrorists are secretly allowed to enter the country, even if it’s done to gain additional vital intelligence on what they’re up to.
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
What’s Really Going On In Haiti?
by Chuck Baldwin
January 26, 2010
People of goodwill everywhere are rightly sympathetic to the plight of hundreds of thousands of innocent Haitians in the aftermath of the terrible earthquake that rocked the island country. Private donations and volunteer efforts are pouring into Haiti from all over the globe--especially from the United States. This is a good thing, right? So, why am I troubled?
Simply put, I cannot remember such an all-out "relief effort" by our nation's military and government forces following a natural disaster anywhere--ever! Not even New Orleans, Louisiana, and surrounding Gulf Coast communities here in the homeland received the kind of attention from Washington, D.C., that Haiti is receiving.
According to Agence France-Press (AFP), "The US military is ramping up its mission in quake-hit Haiti, with 20,000 US troops expected to operate on ground and offshore by Sunday [January 24], the US commander overseeing the region said."
No doubt, this would include ships and personnel from the USS Carl Vinson carrier group. Cost to US taxpayers to send an entire carrier group--along with more than 20,000 (so far) military personnel--to Haiti already numbers in the multiplied millions of dollars. It is also almost certain that there will be no quick exit from the island nation. There never is. In other words, our military presence (dare I say occupation?) in Haiti will doubtless last for years. At least, that's the way Latin American and European countries see it. And they are probably right.
Suffice it to say that the United States military is now completely in charge in Haiti.
At this point, it would be very enlightening for everyone to read Walter Williams' column dated January 20, 2010, entitled "Haiti's Avoidable Death Toll."
See Walter's column at:
http://tinyurl.com/haiti-avoidable-death
In short, Williams notes that the high death toll in Haiti is directly related to the inferior political/economic philosophies of the Haitian government. There is no economic liberty, which has relegated it to being one of the world's poorest nations, with no opportunity to build the kind of homes and businesses that can withstand natural disasters. Williams is right when he says, "President Barack Obama called the quake 'especially cruel and incomprehensible.' He would be closer to the truth if he had said that the Haitian political and economic climate that make Haitians helpless in the face of natural disasters are 'especially cruel and incomprehensible.'"
Williams also observes, "Corruption is rampant" in Haiti. Crime is, likewise, ubiquitous in Haiti, with little real law enforcement. Private property rights are nonexistent. Like many (if not most) third world countries, people live in tyranny and bondage to insensitive, power-mad strongmen who use up the country's resources for their own selfish purposes. Tyranny always impoverishes people; freedom enriches them.
Williams rightly concludes, "Haiti's disaster demands immediate Western assistance but it's only the Haitian people who can relieve themselves of the deeper tragedy of self-inflicted poverty." Amen.
All of that said, however, there are still several things bugging me about the Haiti story.
For one thing, why was an earthquake of this magnitude not felt beyond Port-au-Prince? (The only reports saying tremors were felt out of Haiti belong to US-controlled sources.) All of the testimonies that I have read from people living in the adjoining country of the Dominican Republic (which shares the same island with Haiti) that were quoted by French, British, or Spanish outlets universally say they felt nothing. If the foreign press is reporting the story accurately, the devastation was almost exclusively contained in and around Port-au-Prince. That is very strange to me. Even most of the roads reportedly remained open after the quake.
Another oddity is the fact that this earthquake did not produce a tsunami. It is being called "miraculous" that an earthquake measuring 7.0 on the Richter Scale did not produce a colossal tsunami, which would have affected everyone in the region.
Furthermore, does the French government know something that we don't--but should? According to a report of the Global Analysis International Intelligence (GAII), "Not coincidentally, Agence France-Press (AFP), which of course is closely affiliated with French intelligence, filed a report on 14th January which contained the following concluding sentence:
"'On Wednesday, Obama ordered a "swift, coordinated and aggressive effort to save lives" in Haiti following the murderous quake, as a massive US aid mission swung into action, using troops, naval forces, aircraft and rescue teams.'
"FACT: An 'act of God,' or natural calamity, is NOT a 'murderous quake.'
"The use of the word MURDEROUS here implies that someone is doing the MURDERING."
GAII further speculates that the earthquake may have been the work of US Black Ops, which "flattened the French embassy and many of its officials, imploded the United Nations' own establishments in the Haitian capital, and no doubt obliterated evidence of US Government and rogue official drug-running complicity . . . channeled through the Haitian capital for many years."
See the intelligence report at:
Intelligence reports are also circulating about the possible disruption of liens and seizures of trillions of dollars by the international community relative to past crimes committed by former Presidents George Bush I and II, and Bill Clinton, which were being channeled through Haiti's Central Bank.
If any of this is even remotely true, it is certainly more than convenient that the Haitian capital was destroyed.
This particular part of the story is a real sore spot with me. And I know if I broach this topic, many readers (especially my Christian brethren who live under the delusion that the Bush family can do no wrong) will refuse to believe anything I report and will even take their anger and umbrage out on me. So be it.
I am personally convinced that certain members of the Bush and Clinton families have been involved in the international smuggling of illicit drugs for decades. I have spoken in confidence with those who were in positions to know, and they have emphatically told me that both then-Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton and then-President George H.W. Bush were complicit in CIA-assisted drug running out of Mena, Arkansas. (You don't think I would say this if I did not have absolute confidence in the integrity and credibility of these sources, do you? Plus, why would they tell me this at potential great harm to themselves, if it were not true? And, no, I cannot divulge their names, for obvious reasons.) And there is absolutely no reason to believe that similar operations are not ongoing. In my opinion, it would be utterly naïve to think otherwise.
After all, it has been often reported that the CIA used Army Special Forces troops to facilitate the smuggling of drugs out of Indochina during the Vietnam War, has it not? Yes, it has. That rogue elements within the US government would use war--or even earthquakes--as cover and facilitation for illegal drug smuggling or money laundering would not surprise me one bit.
I realize it is extremely difficult for many Americans to contemplate that members of their own federal government could be evil enough to be involved in anything such as is implied above. According to the thinking of many Americans, evil people only live in Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, or North Korea. And, of course, that is exactly what government propagandists want us to believe.
The truth is, no country or people has a monopoly on sin. As the prophet Jeremiah was inspired to say, "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?" (Jeremiah 17:9) The Apostle Paul agreed. He told the Philippians, "We . . . have no confidence in the flesh." (Philippians 3:3)
Thomas Jefferson said virtually the same thing when he said, "In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution."
This is why Jefferson and the rest of America's founders insisted that we should be diligent to hold our civil magistrates accountable to the limits and protections of the US Constitution. They well understood the sentiments so wisely expressed by Lord Acton, "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men." Christians, of all people, should understand this.
So, why are so many of us so quick to believe everything our government and their toadies in the national media are telling us? Are we so naïve as to believe that unregenerate politicians in Washington, D.C., are incapable of the same evil acts of barbarity and savagery that might be found in other parts of the world? Are sinners less sinful because they happened to receive their fallen nature from American bloodlines?
Am I saying that Black Ops personnel manufactured the earthquake in Haiti--and killed tens of thousands of people in the process--for the purpose of hiding or facilitating illegal activity? No, I am not. How in the world would I know it, even if it were true?
What I am saying is that, once again, for me, there are many things that do not add up regarding what is going on in Haiti. The way the earthquake behaved; the lack of related seismic and tsunamic activity usually associated with earthquakes of this magnitude; the unprecedented involvement of US military forces being used for "relief efforts" even as commanders are desperate to fill combat theaters in Iraq and Afghanistan; the occupation of another independent nation, which occurred at lightning speed; the vast sums of US taxpayer dollars being expended; the devastation done to key Haitian governmental and banking institutions--which were known to be conduits for international financial disbursements--with virtually no devastation experienced anywhere else; and intelligence reports of surreptitious activity circulating all over Europe and Latin America all add up to one big question, What's really going on in Haiti?
*If you appreciate this column and want to help me distribute these editorial opinions to an ever-growing audience, donations may now be made by credit card, check, or Money Order. Use this link:
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
All four GOP candidates for Governor of SC are scared of Lindsey Graham
As the tea party movement gains more momentum and Americans grow more disgusted with their representatives, Democrat and Republican. This has led to three South Carolina counties to vote to censure South Carolina’s senior senator. The Greenville, Charleston and Lexington county Republican Parties have all voted to censure Graham on his unpopular votes on cap and trade, illegal immigration, and the banker bailout bill. It is well documented in many polls that the majority of South Carolinians and Americans oppose cap and trade, amnesty for illegals, and over 70% opposed the banker bailout and 90 to 1 phone calls which has now placed Timothy Geithner and Henry Paulson facing possible criminal charges, with their direct involvement in bailing out themselves and hiding what AIG received.
Tennessee Follows Texas In Banning Private Gun Shows
Text size
Paul Joseph WatsonPrison Planet.comTuesday, January 19, 2010
Tennessee has followed Texas in demanding that dealers obtain licenses and turn over a plethora of information to authorities before being able to host a gun show in another devastating attack on the second amendment.
The legislation, HB 2422, which has not yet passed, would make it a Class A misdemeanor for any person to organize, plan, promote, or operate a gun show without government approval.
The bill makes it a crime for anyone who wishes to operate a gun show unless they follow the following procedures;
(1) Notifies the TBI and the chief law enforcement officer in the county in which the gun show is to be held of the dates, times, and location of the gun show;(2) Verifies the identity of each gun show dealer participating in the gun show by examining a valid photo identification document of the dealer, before commencement of the gun show;(3) Requires each gun show dealer to sign a ledger with information identifying the dealer, including the dealer’s name and address, before commencement of the gun show; and(4) Maintains a copy of the records described above in (2) and (3) at the gun show promoter’s permanent place of business for one year from the date of the gun show.
The legislation also contains a blanket ban on all unlicensed gun sales within 1,000 feet of an unapproved gun show.
The bill would take effect on January 1, 2011 if signed into law.
As we highlighted yesterday, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is actively issuing directions banning private sales of guns without licenses at gun shows in Texas, despite there being no law to justify such demands.
A caller to the Alex Jones show brought attention to BATF notices handed out at the entrance of the Texas Gun And Knife Show, on North Lamar, in Austin this past weekend.
The flyers (pictured below) state that anyone selling a firearm “will be asked to comply with” conditions including operating through a licensed FFL dealer.
The notice also states that “Selling firearms in the parking lot will not be permitted.”
“The lady at the front desk used her ‘mommy voice’ to get everyone’s attention.” Scott from Austin told The Alex Jones show, noting that the owners of the private building where the gun show was held were contacted by the APD and the BATF and directed to hand out the notices.
Scott also told listeners that a petition in protest of the directions was being handed around at the show.
