EL PASO, Texas— Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan said Saturday after visiting the U.S.-Mexico border that the government needs a broader, more effective approach to border control. He suggested the Pentagon might contribute with its expertise in surveillance and monitoring.
“How do we get out of treating the symptoms and get at the root of the issue,” Shanahan said in an interview while flying back to Washington.
Considering how the military could reinforce efforts to block drug smuggling and other illegal activity comes as the Pentagon weighs diverting billions of dollars for President Donald Trump’s border wall.
Shanahan said he was not volunteering the Pentagon to take over any part of border control, which is the responsibility of the Department of Homeland Security. But he said his visit led him to question whether there should be a “wholesale redesign” of the way border control is done by the federal government.
Shanahan said the Pentagon is willing to continue supporting the DHS but wants to see a longer-term solution.
“I don’t want to just add resources and not fix the problem,” he said.
The Pentagon, for example, has agreed to temporarily provide active-duty troops to operate Border Patrol vehicles whose cameras can surveil wide areas along the border. Shanahan said this will free up the Border Patrol to do other important aspects of their mission. He said this is a function that could be developed more fully with the benefit of decades of U.S. military experience with ground and aerial reconnaissance and surveillance around the world.
In addition to speaking with Border Patrol agents and other leaders during his visit, Shanahan flew in a V-22 Osprey aircraft along dozens of miles of border west of El Paso, including two areas where DHS is proposing to replace vehicle barriers with 18-foot and 30-foot border walls.
Shanahan and the Joint Chiefs chairman, Gen. Joseph Dunford, visited a border site called Monument Site 3 where a stretch of 18-foot border wall stands atop a huge landfill. They also got an up-close look at Border Patrol vehicles used for surveillance. Vehicle-mounted surveillance cameras can see as far as eight miles away.
During the visit Shanahan tried his hand at firing a couple of Border Patrol weapons, including one that fires plastic bullets.
The two border control sites farther west are on a list of high-priority projects DHS submitted to Shanahan on Friday to support its request for money to pay for construction of roads, replacement of vehicle barriers and dilapidated pedestrian fencing, and installation of lighting. The pedestrian fencing would include detection systems that could alert border patrol agents when someone is attempting to damage or break through the fencing. The money would come from the Pentagon’s drug interdiction programs.
One such project proposed by DHS, dubbed “El Paso Project 1,” includes segments of border west of El Paso, in Luna and Dona Ana counties, New Mexico. This is among areas DHS cites as known drug smuggling corridors used by Mexican cartels.
These projects are separate from, but related to, those which Shanahan is expected to pay for by diverting money that Congress appropriated for military construction projects. This could total as much as $3.6 billion, although Shanahan has not yet determined that the diversion is justified. His visit Saturday was meant to help him decide whether to approve such spending.
DHS has yet to provide the details that Shanahan says he needs before making his decision on the repurposing of military construction funds. He has said he is likely to provide the full $3.6 billion the White House is expecting, plus $2.5 billion from the drug interdiction program. Trump authorized the use of these military funds when he declared a national emergency to build a wall.
Wall construction would be done under contracts managed by the Army Corps of Engineers, whose commander, Lt. Gen. Todd Semonite, accompanied Shanahan on Saturday. The Corps has built 126 miles (203 kilometers) of border wall in the last two years – mostly replacement barriers, Semonite told reporters.
Democrats in Congress, meanwhile, are seeking to block Trump’s emergency declaration to stop the diversion of Pentagon funds for his border wall. The House is to vote Tuesday on a resolution to block Trump.
There are about 2,900 active-duty troops and about 2,100 National Guard troops on the border in support of Customs and Border Protection. That combined total of 5,000 is expected to grow to 6,000 by March 1 as the Pentagon provides additional support.
The border mission for active-duty forces began on Oct. 30, 2018, as Trump asserted that caravans of Central American migrants posed an urgent national security threat. Critics dismissed his use of the military on the border as a political gimmick on the eve of midterm congressional elections. The active-duty mission has since been extended to Sept. 30.
“It was a pleasure speaking with you,” university official Ali Milani wrote to the student from India. “Thank you for your recent interest in The University of Farmington, a nationally accredited business and STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) institution. Here at the University of Farmington we have created an innovative learning environment that combines traditional instruction with fulltime professional experiences. We offer flexible class schedules and a focus on students who do not want to interrupt their careers.”
At the bottom of the email, it described the university as: “A nationally accredited institution authorized to enroll international students by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.”
The email and others like it were obtained by the Detriot Free Press, revealing how the university portrayed itself to potential foreign students. The email exchanges with Ali Milani – who is described in a LinkedIn profile as the president of the University of Farmington – show how the school in Farmington Hills, Michigan, may have lured students to enroll in a fake university set up by The Department of Homeland Security.
A federal indictment unsealed Jan. 30 said that the university was produced by federal agents with an investigative division of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which is part of DHS. Federal agents posed as university officials such as “Ali Milani” to trick the students, say attorneys.
Federal prosecutors allege that more than 600 students enrolled at the university knew it was improper, but the emails and attorneys tell a different story.
In addition to the emails, federal undercover agents took other steps to manipulate the foreign students, according to public records and attorneys:
Undercover investigators with the Department of Homeland Security registered the University of Farmington with the state of Michigan as a university using a fake name.
At the request of DHS, a national accreditation agency listed the University of Farmington as being accredited in order to help deceive prospective students.
The university was also placed by federal investigators on the website of ICE as n university approved by them under a government program for foreign students known as SEVIS (Student and Exchange Visitor Program).
“It seems quite clear the scheme was set up by the government not to go after legitimate offenders, but to create fear in our immigration system,” said Amer Zahr, an adjunct professor of law at the University of Detroit-Mercy and a spokesman for one of the 146 students who were detained by ICE. “They’re going after students who are trying to better their lives because America has the best education. This is who they’re choosing to go after? It’s really disturbing.”
Out of the 600+ students who were enrolled, 146 have been arrested and detained by ICE on civil immigration charges. All are from India except for Najlaa Karim Musarsa, 29, of Dearborn Heights, Michigan, who is Palestinian. She was released last week and went back to the West Bank.
In addition, prosecutors have charged eight people for being recruiters of the students, most of whom studied in engineering and technology fields. Five of them were arraigned in U.S. district court in Detroit last week and pled not guilty.
“It really shows a contempt for immigrants, Zahr said of the detaining of Musarsa and other students.
“She’s not a danger to society. She’s not trying to defraud. To treat her and others as hardcore criminals” is concerning, Zahr said. “They want to create fear, so nonwhite people, brown people don’t think of coming to America anymore.”
Concern about the detainees
There are reports in Indian-American and Indian media outlets such as The American Bazaar saying that some of the students were being held in poor conditions and not getting vegetarian food in accordance with their religious and cultural beliefs. Some students were already removed, and are now stuck in India with debt, said a Times of India report. The report said some come from poor farming backgrounds and had to take out loans to support their studies in the U.S.The university charged $11,000 a year for graduate students.
On Thursday, four U.S. House Reps, including U.S. House Rep. Brenda Lawrence (D-Southfield) released a letter they sent to DHS and ICE, expressing “concerns surrounding the recent undercover operation conducted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI).” The Indian government has also expressed its concern in a letter from its Ministry of External Affairs.
The letter from the Congressmen said that Indian-Americans “have expressed concerns regarding the treatment of these detained foreign nationals. We urge DHS and ICE to ensure the detained students are treated properly and afforded all rights provided to them under the law, including access to an attorney and release on bond, if they are eligible.”
In a statement, ICE spokesman Khaalid Walls said: “ICE remains committed to ensuring its facilities adhere to ICE’s detention standards which provide several levels of oversight in order to ensure that residents in ICE custody reside in safe, secure and humane environments.”
Many of the students who were enrolled at the University of Farmington had previously received masters degrees from a different university, like the student that Milani had written to. The name of the student in the email is not being identified at the request of an attorney.
They were generally admitted to the U.S. on non-immigrant F-1 student visas and were allowed to work while enrolled at a university on programs known as OPT (Optional Practical Training) or CPT (Curricular Practical Training), said attorneys in contact with the students. Some were trying to get H1-B visas to stay for a longer time in America, but there is a cap on those, and so they sought other ways to remain working in the U.S.
After their master’s degree programs ended, the students would be ineligible to remain working in the U.S. and so some sought to get a second masters degree at the University of Farmington. In other cases, their previous universities had problems with accreditation, which made them ineligible to work, and so they tried to transfer, said Atlanta-based immigration attorney Ravi Mannam.
Emails from the university to student
In the June 2017 email sent by Milani, the president of the fake university, Milani wrote to the Indian student: “In many instances, your prior Masters Degree’s (MA) credits, combined with CPT, can be applied to a second MA in lieu of a traditional course load.”
Milani wrote to the student about its tuition and accreditation: “The University of Farmington operates on a quarterly academic calendar, each term is generally ten weeks, excluding exams, and the admissions process is on a rolling basis. Terms start every three months, beginning in September, December, March, and June. Sessions begin every month. Graduate programs tuition is $2500 per quarter. Depending on fees, average cost is $1,000 per month.”
“We are accredited by the Accrediting Commission of Career Schools and Colleges (www.accsc.org) and licensed by the Michigan Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs as a private postsecondary college,” he wrote.
The executive director of the Accrediting Commission of Career Schools and Colleges (ACCSC), Michale McComis, told the Free Press that his group worked with federal agents on the sting operation.
“Upon request by the US Department of Homeland Security ACCSC assisted in the operation by listing the school as being accredited by ACCSC,” McComis said.
The same group had accredited a fake University of Northern New Jersey at the request of DHS. In that case, though, ICE didn’t make mass arrests of students like they have of the Farmington students.
Records filed with the state Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs (LARA) show that the University of Farmington was incorporated in January 2016. Prosecutors have said their undercover operation started in 2015.
Ali Milani is listed in the state records as the university’s resident agent. A spokesman for LARA, Jason Moon, refused to comment on the fake university and whether the state had cooperated with federal investigators on their sting investigation.
Many of the students were trying to work while enrolled in a university, which is an accepted practice approved by the U.S. government.
In the June 2017 email to the student, Milani sent the student a 2-page application form that asks applicants to send a $100 application fee.
“If you are interested in having your tomorrow start today, please complete the attached application and submit a copy of your passport and current visa,” Milani wrote.
His email ended with: “Good luck in all your endeavors.”
The student filled out the application and emailed Milani back in a couple of hours. The next day, June 29, Milani said the student was admitted, writing that he was attaching the “admission letter along with the international student checklist and SEVIS transfer form.”
SEVIS is the Student and Exchange Visitor Program that is run by ICE, which oversees the program for students on F-1 visas, like the ones at the University of Farmington.
The next week, the student asked to defer his admission until December. In October, the student then asked Milani to transfer his SEVIS “today” because his OPT expires.
“I have been trying to reach out to you since morning, but couldn’t get hold of it. Please let me know ASAP, its URGENT,” the student wrote.
After enrolling at the university, some of the students discovered there were no classes, said attorneys. But the university kept on telling the students that classes would soon be held.
Students ‘taken advantage of’
“I was told by the students, that the university reassured them that classes would be held and everything would be fine and that they are following the immigration laws,” said Prashanthi Reddy, an attorney in New York City. “The students paid them the tuition fees and were trapped once they realized that classes were not being held, as some didn’t have the money to transfer and pay tuition at another university.”
Reddy said “some did transfer out, some said they called and emailed the university and asked for SEVIS to be transferred but did not get a response, some others said they were reassured by the fact that the University was accredited and listed on the ICE website.”
Adding to the confusion was a website that led viewers to think it was a legitimate place, with photos of students in classrooms and claims that students could work while enrolled.
“The University of Farmington is a nationally accredited business and STEM institution located in Metro Detroit,” read the university website created by DHS that was taken down the day after the indictments were unsealed. “Our innovative curriculum combines traditional instruction and distance learning with fulltime professional experiences. We offer flexible class schedules and a focus on students who do not want to interrupt their careers.”
The university even had a fake backstory, saying that it “traces its lineage back to the early 1950s, when returning soldiers from the Second World War were seeking a quality and marketable education. At the time, Detroit was the center of innovation and manufacturing. … Please explore our academic offerings to see if University of Farmington is the right place to achieve your success.”
“It was a very well put together website,” said Russell Abrutyn, an immigration attorney in Berkley, Michigan, who is contact with some of the students. “It looked like a real school.”
“I think a lot of these students … were essentially taken advantage of or taken in by what appeared to be a legitimate school.”
Five million illegal Latino immigrants are planning to migrate to the United States in the next 12 months, and roughly 42 million more say they want to enter the country.
Those shocking statistics were in an official report from Jim Clifton, the chairman and CEO at Gallup:
Forty-two million seekers of citizenship or asylum are watching to determine exactly when and how is the best time to make the move. This suggests that open borders could potentially attract 42 million Latin Americans. A full 5 million who are planning to move in the next 12 months say they are moving to the U.S.
Breitbart.com reports: The poll came as Democrats began using their new political clout to try to widen the catch-and-release loopholes in President Donald Trump’s border defenses.
Democrats say the DHS does not need so many detention beds but instead can release and track migrants or resident illegals by using “Alternatives to Detention,” such as monitors strapped to migrants’ ankles.
Democrats also argue that migrants who bring children should not be detained. If that rule is adopted by Congress, all migrants who bring children to the border would be quickly released into the U.S. jobs market.
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spokeswoman Katie Waldman rejected the Democrats’ proposals, saying in a statement:
Without the necessary detention authority and sufficient funding for family beds to enable ICE to detain family units when they are ordered removed, ICE will still only be able to remove a very small percentage of family units, thereby increasing the pull factors and further contributing to the border crisis. For example last year, only one percent of all removals were on ATD, at a cost of $72,000 per removal.
“Most U.S. citizens like me just want to know the plan,” Clifton concluded. “What is the 10-year plan? How many, exactly whom and what skills will they bring? What do we want? Answer these questions, and the current discussion can be resolved.”
The Republicans on the DHS funding panel include Sens. Richard Shelby (AL), Shelley Moore Capito (WV), John Hoeven (ND), and Roy Blunt (MO), as well as Reps. Kay Granger (TX), Chuck Fleischmann (TN), Tom Graves (GA), and Steven Palazzo (MS).
The Democrats on the panel are Sens. Patrick Leahy (VT), Richard Durbin (IL), and Jon Tester (MT), along with Reps. Nita Lowey (NY), Lucille Roybal-Allard (CA), David Price (NC), Barbara Lee (CA), Henry Cuellar (TX), and Pete Aguilar (CA).
Elon Musk, and specifically SpaceX, has a little known but large stake in the border security battle that’s currently taking place in Congress. One of the company’s launch pads, located on the US–Mexico border, risks being split in two by the proposed future border wall. But of course, Democrats are standing up for SpaceX, trying to stop the Trump administration’s efforts to erect a border barrier that would cut through the company’s facility in Boca Chica, Texas.
Lawmakers commented last week that they were concerned about the impact on SpaceX after seeing a Department of Homeland Security map that shows a barrier running through the 50 acre facility, according to Bloomberg.
Representative Lucille Roybal-Allard, a California Democrat said: “This issue with SpaceX is that the fence cuts right through their property and that’s a problem.” Roybal-Allard is continuing to fight for the area to be exempted in any finalized deal.
Both Democrats and Republicans working on a border security deal are now stating that they are getting closer to an agreement that would likely include funding for some type of barrier. However, the negotiation is yet to work out exactly where the structures are going to be located, what they would look like, or how much would be spent on them. The goal is to work out an agreement for the wall so that it can be voted on before government funding again runs out on February 15.
The company is said to be unhappy about the plans, despite not raising any public objections to them.
Representative Filemon Vela, a Democrat whose district includes the SpaceX facility said: “They are way behind the scenes on this, they are lying pretty low. SpaceX doesn’t want to offend DHS.”
SpaceX has not lobbied Congress regarding the issue and hasn’t asked anyone to do so on its behalf, according to the company. The company declined to provide details to Bloomberg when asked. A SpaceX spokesman said:
“The Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Customs and Border Protection recently requested SpaceX permit access to our South Texas Launch site to conduct a site survey,” he said in a statement.
“At this time, SpaceX is evaluating the request and is in communication with DHS to further understand their plans.”
The 500 jobs that SpaceX planned and promised back during the launchpad’s 2014 opening could be at risk. Vela continued: “This is a real problem. None of it makes any sense.”
This wouldn’t be the first time an Elon Musk company had trouble living up to its job promises that it used to ascertain taxpayer money. Just days ago we reported that State Senator Tim Kennedy of New York was “infuriated” by layoffs that took place at the company’s Buffalo facility.
The site in Texas would play host to SpaceX’s launch of its new Starship Hopper – the very same “starship” that fell over after a gust of wind hit it a couple weeks ago. To insanity and beyond!
When a tweet accused Marriott Hotels of “working with the feds and keeping [an] eye on any women who are traveling alone,” training staff to “spot an escort,” and “not allowing some women [to] drink at the bar alone,” Marriott’s official account proudly confirmed the observation: “You are correct. Marriott employees all over the world are being trained to help spot sex trafficking at our hotels.”
The brief Twitter exchange, which occurred in January, revealed some of the hidden presumptions behind Marriott’s efforts to stop sexual exploitation. Not only did it suggest that the company conflates all sex work with forced or underage prostitution, but it also hinted the world’s largest hotel chain considers all unaccompanied women to be worth monitoring—or, at the very least, that there’s confusion about this among staff.
After many on Twitter responded that they didn’t believe the policy would be non-discriminatory or effective at stopping sex trafficking, Marriott deleted the tweet without explanation. A spokesperson for the company later told Reason that the tweet was “inaccurate” and that “there is nothing in the training that advises hotel workers to look for young women traveling alone,” while crediting the company’s training program for removing young people from “dangerous situations.” Rep. Justin Amash (R–Mich.) tweeted that his office would be looking into the incident.
But the deserved dustup points to a much bigger issue than unusually watchful hotel staff. It’s part of a Homeland Security-backed coalition using human-trafficking myths and War on Terror tactics to encourage citizen spying and the development of new digital surveillance tools.
However well-intentioned, the surveillance tactics that have been adopted by hotel chains are part of a disturbing partnership between hospitality businesses, federal law enforcement, and rent-seeking nonprofits that increasingly seeks to track the movements and whereabouts of people, especially women, all over the country. Under pressure from the federal government and driven by persistent myths about the nature and prevalence of sex trafficking, hotel chains like Marriott have become the new frontiers of the surveillance state. Like the indiscriminate spying campaigns that grew out of the 9/11 attacks, it’s an effort based on panic, profiling, and stereotypes, and it is nearly certain to ensnare more innocents than it helps.
Carceral Hospitality
For years, the federal government has funded partnerships with hotels, airlines, truckers, and other public-facing industries under the mantle of stopping human trafficking and sexual exploitation. In theory, this partnership puts the private sector on the frontlines of rooting out abuse.
In practice, however, these efforts have largely wound up as law-enforcement-driven attacks on sex workers and their clients, on immigrants, and on other members of marginalized communities. Along the way, victims of actual trafficking are often swept up in the arrests and incarceration.
Many of these efforts fall under the purview of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) “Blue Campaign,” which has been in place since 2010. Promoted as a way to help hotel and transit staff, hospitality businesses, and travelers “recognize the signs” of human trafficking, the Blue Campaign is best understood as an update to the war-on-terror surveillance systems developed under the George W. Bush administration. It relies on tactics adapted from “If You See Something, Say Something,” or S4, a campaign run by DHS that stems from New York City’s turn-of-last-century subway slogans.
The Big Apple’s push to enlist ordinary citizens in watching out for terrorists was an iconic part of post-9/11 security theater, and it remains a symbolic reminder of the ways that widespread panic about terrorism drove what were effectively campaigns of broad-based racial and ethnic profiling.
In 2010, DHS bought and relaunched the S4 program as part of the Nationwide Suspicious Activity Reporting Initiative at the Department of Justice (DOJ).
Working under this framework, the Blue Campaign seeks “to gather lead-generating intelligence through training sector specific industries,” writes U.S. Navy Lieutenant Commander Brandon R. Winters in “The Hotel Industry’s Role in Combating Sex Trafficking,” his postgraduate thesis for the Navy-run Center for Homeland Defense and Security. The campaign “essentially leverages the U.S. populace to act as [human intelligence] collection sources for suspicious activities throughout the country.”
Marriott International and many other hotel chains have adopted Blue Campaign tactics. In 2017, Marriott made “anti-trafficking” training mandatory for all 750,000 of its employees worldwide. CEO Arne Sorenson described it as “educating and empowering our global workforce to say something if they see something.”
Marriott is also a part of Homeland Security’s Critical Infrastructure Cross Sector Council, which was formed in 2015 to govern “the private sector’s cooperative efforts to advance” DHS priorities. In a 2016 update, Council Chairman Tom Farmer said that “the public has increased its reporting of suspicious activity” thanks to their efforts but “needs additional education on what types of activities should be reported, to whom they should be reported, and how reporting them makes a difference.”
FacebookThe Blue Campaign’s spot-a-trafficker tips include looking for people who appear fatigued or sleep deprived, guests not wanting cleaning staff in their room, a woman “waiting at a table or bar and picked up by a male,” a car parked with its license plate away from the door, a guest with multiple computers or phones, booking multiple rooms under one name, having a lot of condoms or “sex paraphernalia” around, too many men entering one room, and any “unusual behavior.”
It’s exactly the kind of vague invitation for snooping and snitching that will inevitably snare sexual activity between consenting adults, from sex workers and their customers to couples who doesn’t sit right with staff. In several recent high-profile cases, airline staff trained to “spot traffickers” have harassed interracial couples and families. When people are asked to use gut instinct to stop real but rare horrors, relying on racial stereotypes and other biases tends to rule.
Blue Campaign imperatives also invite harassment of people doing nothing sexual at all. Who hasn’t exhibited fatigue or sleep deprivation while traveling? Or backed into a parking spot for reasons other than evading detection?
Dads staying at hotels with teenage or young-adult daughters should probably beware, too.
In another of the many immigration loopholes that liberals in congress continue to support, three MS-13 gang members who were here illegally stabbed a teen last week.
The 16-year-old victim told police he was at Burger King with friends when six of his classmates from Huntington High School entered and began staring at them. The teen, feeling uncomfortable, left with his friend, and three of the gang members followed them.
Officials have admitted that all three of the attackers were in the U.S. illegally, and “two of the suspects entered into the country illegally through the unaccompanied alien child loophole in the Rio Grande Valley.”
Department of Homeland Security Spokeswoman Katie Waldman explained that “one of the loopholes we are imploring Congress to close could have prevented this gruesome attack,” Waldman stated. “Not only are the alleged assailants MS-13 gang members, but they entered the country illegally as unaccompanied alien children from the Northern Triangle.”
“The Trafficking Victims Protections Reauthorization Act incentivizes unaccompanied alien children to entry the country illegally with little to no chance of ever being removed,” she explained. “This loophole is exploited by MS-13 to gain additional recruits.”
So, while democrats party in Puerto Rico, violent, evil gang members continue to roam free and present real threats to the safety of citizens.
During the first three months of Fiscal Year 2019, more than 19,000 children crossed the border without parents, DHS officials told Breitbart News.
“This humanitarian crisis is driven by court rulings and poorly written laws that incentivize the smuggling of illegal immigrants under the age of 18. Funding the border wall, amending the TVPRA, and ending the Flores Settlement Agreement will put smugglers and traffickers out of business and protect vulnerable populations,” DHS Spokeswoman Katie Waldman said in a written statement earlier this month.
“As a result, in just a few years, CBP has seen a sizeable increase in the number of UACs illegally entering the country,” DHS officials reported. “In 2010, Border Patrol apprehended 18,622 UACs. In 2018, Border Patrol apprehended 50,036 UACs—i.e. an increase of 169% in just 8 years.”
“This loophole encourages parents to send their children alone on a dangerous journey to the United States, often at the hands of unscrupulous human traffickers,” officials explained.
In December, DHS SecretaryKirstjen Nielsen said, “Our system has been pushed to a breaking point by those who seek open borders.”
“Smugglers, traffickers, and their own parents put these minors at risk by embarking on the dangerous and arduous journey north,” she explained.
“As a result of bad judicial rulings from activist judges and inaction by Congress, we are seeing a flood of family units and unaccompanied alien children,” Nielsen concluded. “The unprecedented number of families and unaccompanied children at the border must not be ignored. I once again ask – beg – parents to not place their children at risk by taking a dangerous journey north. Vulnerable populations – including family units and unaccompanied alien children should seek asylum at the first possible opportunity, including Mexico.”
“To those in Congress who continue to refuse to take action to address the loopholes that cause a flood of humanity to travel north and place children at risk, I once again call on you to do your job, protect vulnerable populations, secure our borders, and provide the men and women of DHS the authorities and resources we need to address this crisis,” the secretary said.
Lopez and two other suspects, 20-year-old Nobeli Montes Zuniga and 17-year-old Oscar Canales Molina, were charged with second-degree assault, after police arrested them.
Authorities reported the gang members had blood on their clothing and hands, and Molina was found with two knives, one in each of his socks.
According to police, Lopez entered the United States illegally on December 8, 2016, and was picked up by the Department of Homeland Security in October 2017. However, a federal judge released him from custody in June.
Molina was also picked up by DHS in July 2017, but released by a federal district judge in November 2017.
So, these vile, animals were allowed to attend school with other normal people, and free to attack whoever they wanted.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is requesting that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) investigate the cause of the growing number of sick migrants illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexico border, officials revealed to reporters Wednesday morning.
A DHS official told reporters that “literally dozens” of sick migrants are being transported to hospitals across the border each day and that growing numbers of children showing illness are present in border patrol custody.
“We’re doing dozens of hospital trips every single day with children that have fevers or manifest other medical conditions,” CBP Commissioner Kevin McAleenan told CBSNews Wednesday morning.
An official also told reporters that DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen is requesting that Mexican authorities also investigate the living conditions of migrant holding camps across the border to see if that is the source of illness.
The children’s deaths have brought intense scrutiny on the holding conditions and procedures of DHS, which says they are simply overburdened by thousands of daily illegal border crossings. A DHS official noted that, prior to these two incidents, border patrol had not lost a child in custody in over a decade. This was remarkable, they claimed, given the hundreds of thousands who have passed through its holding facilities in the interim period.
The feds have threatened to criminally prosecute a novelty store owner who sells products—such as “Department of Homeland Stupidity” coffee mugs—making fun of the U.S. government. Could this be a matter of national security, or that Uncle Sam simply lacks a sense of humor?
To poke fun at the National Security Administration (NSA) the merchant, Dan McCall, sells T-shirts with the agency’s official seal that read: “The NSA: The only part of government that actually listens.” Other parodies say “spying on you since 1952” and “peeping while you’re sleeping.” The designs may seem funny—and possibly represent reality—but to the government it’s no laughing matter. In fact, it’s a serious issue worthy of an investigation and legal action.
The NSA and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) quickly fired off “cease and desist” letters to the website that sold the products, threatening litigation and criminal prosecution if the parody designs weren’t immediately removed. The agencies claim the parody images violate laws against the misuse, mutilation, alteration or impersonation of government seals. The intimidating communication scared the website enough to remove the items, but McCall isn’t going down without a fight.
In a federal complaint filed this week he claims the government is violating his First Amendment right because the special statutes protecting the NSA and DHS seals from misuse can’t properly be applied to forbid parodies. McCall says his images make fair use of the NSA and DHS seals to “identify federal government agencies as the subject of criticism.” Therefore it’s unconstitutional for the government to forbid him from displaying and selling his parodies to “customers who want to display the items to express their own criticism of NSA and DHS,” according to his complaint.
Furthermore, McCall is not mutilating or altering the agency seals, but rather using them in a parodic form that doesn’t create any likelihood of confusion about the source or sponsorship of the material. No reasonable viewer is likely to believe that any of the materials is affiliated with or sponsored by the DHS or the NSA, the complaint says. “Nor were the seals affixed to the items to be sold with any fraudulent intent.”
In short, the merchant claims that the First Amendment protects his use of the NSA and DHS seals to identify truthfully the agencies that he is criticizing. The two agencies at the center of this brouhaha most certainly have bigger fish to fry. So does the Department of Justice (DOJ), the agency that has threatened to prosecute the mug and T-shirt creator.
In the last year or so, my wife and I have moved a bit beyond just investigating the common geopolitical turmoil many sites like ours cover. Potential war with countries like Syria plague the mainstream feeds and alternative news alike but as I have come to know, it’s whats not being talked about and kept in the dark that one needs to worry about.
Folks love to dismiss stories of giants in the bible as just myth or fantasy. Plenty of lip service is given to the plight of Native Americas yet many completely ignore the oral traditions of these same people. Previously, filmmaker and host of “The Global Reality”, Josh Reeves completed a 3 hour investigative journey on just this topic. What he found was nothing short of disturbing.
Mr. Reeves findings implicate the Department of Homeland Security, Smithsonian and even some beloved politicians of old. If people want to sit around arguing over details of 9/11, that’s fine. But a much larger archaeological lie was thrust upon early Americans and humanity in general. Smoking gun evidence regarding multiple races of giants gets covered up to keep us from really finding out the nitty gritty details about the human race and yet it saddens me that the relatively small budget for such a brilliant film has not yet been raised.
Yes, I am asking for donations and oddly enough it’s not even for my own film. If the topics mentioned above are of any interest for you whatsoever and you really want to try to get as much of the bigger picture as possible (however uncomfortable), I urge you to donate towards part 2 of The Lost Secrets of Ancient America.
It has been quite easy for skeptics and shills alike to try and deflect this issue as not having any merit at all, unfortunately the evidence just isn’t favoring them. Someone has already gone and done the investigative research for us. Several bigger budget films of far later importance will be made this year and having the best interest of free humanity in mind, I just had try one final attempt to get this issue a little more exposure. This subject has the potential of shedding much understanding on our world and how and why we are where we are. Won’t you help us all get just a bit more of the picture?
theintelhub.com | Surveillance drones have a new mission. According to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) they will be used for “public safety”.
Kelly Keisling, Tennessee state Representative, is concerned that the Obama administration and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) are planning events that will lead to “martial law”.
The DHS are seeking to hire “role players” for TSA and Air Marshall programs beginning in December 2012.
The use of role players facilitates training exercises for the US armed forces. Those same training exercises that were conducted during the 9/11 attacks which caused confusion and may have been the catalyst to allowing for the globalist-controlled destruction the Twin Towers to go through without disruption.
Private sector persons provided by the DHS could and probably would be used to create a false flag attack by their mere presence.
The solicitation and culmination of this possible coming false flag may be on or around the time of December 2012. With the assistance of Obama, as Commander-in-Chief, the suspension of the 2012 elections could be declared with an executive order for preservation of continuity of government.
The planned false flag attack, according to a DHS whistleblower , will be a staged assignation attempt on Obama that will be linked to a white supremacist group that will be used to incite black and Hispanic Americans into starting riots all across the nation.
This race war will be the situation needed to implement martial law effectively locking down the US, US Army control of the urban cities, erecting DHS checkpoints on all major points of travel, severe restrictions on travel for all citizens and the suspension of elections to ensure that Obama remain seated as the President of the US.
The DHS informant stated: “The DHS is actively preparing for massive social unrest inside the United States. He then corrected himself, stating that ‘a civil war’ is the more appropriate term. Certain elements of the government are not only expecting and preparing for it, they are actually facilitating it.”
The DHS informant stressed that by using the Arab Spring as a model, riots would be staged in a “controlled chaos” as was “envisioned by these conspirators are riots starting in urban areas such as New York, followed by a disruption of business and commerce. They want to restrict travel, if not through high energy prices, then by checkpoints and curfews mandated by the rioting and unrest…The whole purpose is to keep Obama in office for another term, no matter how unpopular he is, as he is not finished changing our country from a Constitutional Republic.”
Once riots begin, DHS will be deploying US armed forces into urban cities to take control. After a planned disruption of commerce, the manufactured problem will be complete. Full-blown marital law will be in place.
The latest false flag attack involving a firearm was supposedly committed by Wade Michael Page who just happens to be an alleged white supremacist who is attacking a Sikh Temple.
Page, being a US Army veteran was a psychological operations specialist from Fort Bragg, North Carolina. His duties would have been to analyze, develop and distribute intelligence used to coerce the general population for a specific and desired psychological effect.
Surprisingly, Joseph Crowley of the House of Representatives wrote a letter in April to Attorney General Eric Holder and FBI Director Robert Muller, warning about this exact type of incident and requesting that the FBI monitor Sikh temples.
We should be vigilantly watching the mainstream media and pay close attention to the next false flag involving a gun, possibly more ties to white supremacy groups and attacks on constitutionalist movements that support the fight for our Constitutional Republic.
The mainstream media are pushing Page’s “neo-Nazi” ties and covering white supremacist connections that fall right in line with the narrative proposed by the DHS informant. By setting the stage now, the global Elite are paving the way for the false flag attack on Obama in the future – just in time for election season.
With the 2011 attack on the White House meant to become a full-blown incident that did not manifest, the DHS was poised to take over should their plans go off without a hitch. However, the accused that fired a rifle shot at the White House did not create a stir large enough in the American social meme as to create the uncontrollable riots the global Elite are manufacturing so that martial law can be instilled.
If the attempt on Obama’s life could not be enacted, a second assassination scenario may be brought to fruition involving the First Family. This would be the global Elite’s Plan B.
In the mainstream media , a story about a Washington, DC police officer that made a threat against the First Lady to fellow officers surfaced, yet just as quickly disappeared. Over breakfast, the officer allegedly said he would shoot Michelle Obama, the showed a picture of a gun he’d use on his cellular phone. Although the officer was not identified the idea was placed into the social meme. And it follows the plans cited by the DHS informant and lends credibility to his story.
Obama, as far as the globalists are concerned, must remain in office because he “has unfinished business and must be re-elected; even if this means creating a reason for Obama to declare the 2012 elections indefinitely postponed. The end-game plan for America is its destruction as a Constitutional Republic, with the assistance of the agencies under the umbrella of the DHS.”
The signing of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) into law gave Obama the means by which the US government could remove “suspected terrorists” from the general population, detain them indefinitely without right to trial and subjugate them to Guantanamo Bay-style treatment.
One snag in that strategy came last May when Federal Court Judge Katherine Forrest, in Manhattan, New York, stated that Obama failed to “pass constitutional muster” and ordered that the US military could not arbitrarily imprison Americans based on alleged terrorist activity in regard to the indefinite detention clause in the NDAA.
Lawyers for Obama and Leon Panetta, US Defense Secretary, have filed an appeal to reverse Forrest’s ruling in the 2nd US Circuit Court. Obama wants to be able to claim anyone a terrorist and have the right to imprison them without charge.
Forest wrote in the 68 page ruling: “There is a strong public interest in protecting rights guaranteed by the First Amendment. There is also a strong public interest in ensuring that due process rights guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment are protected by ensuring that ordinary citizens are able to understand the scope of conduct that could subject them to indefinite military detention.”
The justification for this reversal is that since that no citizen has been indefinitely detained yet, the clause should be open as an option. Legal representatives for the US government says that the ability to detain belligerent citizens must be allowed because of the threat of militants aligned against the government are deserving of such punishment.
Section 1021 of the NDAA, which was upheld by Congress, gives the US President the authority to hold a citizen for terrorist suspicions without just cause or proof “until the end of the hostilities” which is an indefinable amount of time.
In April, Virginia has passed a law that essentially refuses to comply with the indefinite detention provisions in the NDAA.
Complete cooperation in this false flag event would surely assist in the march toward a full globalist takeover of our Constitutional Republic, however it is not necessary. With the work of the corporate-controlled mainstream media, the masses are expected to fall in line and preform their function in this ultimate Hegelian Dialectic.
DHS Analyst’s Desktop Binder –Department of Homeland Security National Operations Center Media Monitoring Capability Desktop Reference Binder – 2011 Posted by www.legitgov.org 31 May 2012
Heads up! USociopaths are attacking themselves again so they can blame Anonymous and/or Iran and pass psycho CISPA: Alerts say major cyber attack aimed at gas pipeline industry –Intrusions aimed at control systems, agency of Homeland Security warns 06 May 2012 A major cyber attack is currently under way aimed squarely at computer networks belonging to US natural gas pipeline companies, according to alerts issued to the industry by the US Department of Homeland Security. At least three confidential “amber” alerts – the second most sensitive next to “red” – were issued by DHS beginning March 29, all warning of a “gas pipeline sector cyber intrusion campaign” against multiple pipeline companies. But the wave of cyber attacks, which apparently began four months ago – and may also affect Canadian natural gas pipeline companies [Yeah, right!] – is continuing. That fact was reaffirmed late Friday in a public, albeit less detailed, “incident response” report from the Industrial Control Systems Cyber Emergency Response Team (ICS-CERT), an arm of DHS based in Idaho Falls.
Documents obtained as the result of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit prove Janet Napolitano’s Department of Homeland Security has invented a fantastic cover story for its agenda of spying on Americans who are unwilling to relinquish their rights and liberty to the Obama Regime.
In April of 2011, the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) filed a Freedom of Information Act request seeking from the DHS all records pertaining to the Department’s “Media Monitoring Initiative.”
Started 2 years ago, DHS claimed the purpose of the Initiative was “…to assist DHS and its components involved in the security, safety, and border control associated with the 2010 Winter Olympics as well as the response, recovery, and rebuilding effort resulting from the earthquake and after-effects in Haiti.”
And how did Homeland Security intend to accomplish this noble, dual purpose of controlling the border and assisting in Haiti? Naturally, by “… [monitoring] publicly available online forums, blogs, public websites, and message boards to collect information used in providing situational awareness and establishing a common operating picture.”
The Homeland Security Act, passed by Congress after the 9/11 attacks, mandates Department action on the bureaucratic jibber-jabber quoted above in order to make certain that “…critical disaster-related information reaches government decision makers.”
As if we didn’t know that this was already under way, it’s being reported that the Department of Homeland Security has mo…, particularly those who use “traditional and/or social media in real time to keep their audience situationally aware and informed.” Congratulations! This blog is being monitored. The monitoring will be under the auspices of the Nation Operations Center’s Media Monitoring Initiative, defined last November at DHS. For those who aren’t worried, you should consider that it will collect personal identifiable information, permitting DHS to directly or indirectly learn about individuals. This is another example of government gone wild, and while I can understand the security imperatives with which that agency must contend, I also know that this will wind up being used as a tool of political oppression.
Of course, we learned last month that DHS would be monitoring Twitter and Face… like “collapse,” “drill,” “recovery,” “trojan,” and “illegal immigrant,” among others, so to now learn that “Big Sis” will be watching those in the blogosphere and social media is really not a surprise. The more ridiculous aspect of all of this is how it will be used, and one can only imagine what will happen to a hypothetical blogger who might write something like this:
“DHS is conducting a drill to practice for the collapse of the Euro, and while they’re using the pretense that we’re in an economic recovery, they’re using an outbreak of crime by illegal immigrants to bolster security measures by DHS, which is serving as the Trojan horse for stricter measures against the people.”
A line like that would probably set off every warning bell in Washington DC, and the fact that it appeared on a blog or in social media that is used to keep readers up to date with real-time information would make it especially noteworthy to security monitors at DHS. Apparently, this will be the new wave of the future, in which government monitors everything for our safety and security. What this means for Americans is that we’re lurching ever more rapidly toward some form of police state in which nobody is free from government snooping under any circumstances.
House cybersecurity bill would establish federal overseer 16 Dec 2011 Members of the House Homeland Security Committee introduced a cybersecurity bill on Thursday that would establish a quasi-governmental entity to oversee information-sharing with the private sector. [Oh. I thought the GOPigs detested ‘czars?’ I guess if it’s *their* czar, he’s not!] Like the other [fascist] cybersecurity bills offered by the House GOP, the Promoting and Enhancing Cybersecurity and Information Sharing Effectiveness (PrECISE Act) encourages private firms to share information on cyber threats. By authorizing DHS to oversee civilian cybersecurity, the legislation aligns with proposals from both the Senate and the White House, but it is unclear how much authority DHS would have to enforce its security standards.
The Grid: A Digital Frontier –Repost of loldhs pr0f By A Guest 18 Nov 2011 So, early this morning I was linked to an article about SCADA pumps from someone in IRC… My eyes were drawn, nary, pulled, to a particular quote. ‘In an email sent several hours after this article was first published, DHS spokesman Peter Boogaard wrote: “DHS and the FBI are gathering facts surrounding the report of a water pump failure in Springfield Illinois. At this time there is no credible corroborated data that indicates a risk to critical infrastructure entities or a threat to public safety.”‘ This was stupid. You know. Insanely stupid. I dislike, immensely, how the DHS tend to downplay how absolutely FUCKED the state of national infrastructure is… So, y’know. The city of South Houston has a really insecure system.
The Obama amnesty plan officially begins this week, according to a mainstream newspaper that obtained internal Homeland Security documents outlining “sweeping changes” in immigration enforcement that will halt the deportation of illegal aliens with no criminal records.
Much has been reported about the administration’s intention to implement a stealth amnesty plan if congress doesn’t act to spare the nation’s estimated 12 million illegal aliens, but this is the first confirmation that it’s come to fruition. Beginning this week the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) will review all deportation cases and start a nationwide “training program” to assure that enforcement agents and prosecuting attorneys don’t remove illegal immigrants who haven’t been convicted of crimes.
About 300,000 immigration cases are currently pending before overwhelmed U.S. courts and the goal is to expedite them, according to DHS officials cited in the news report. To accomplish this, the agency will focus on removing only those who committed serious crimes or pose a national security risk. Immigration agents will be instructed to close deportations that “fall outside” these department “priorities,” which means a large class of illegal aliens will be granted de facto amnesty.
This backdoor amnesty plan has been in the works for some time and has actually been implemented unofficially for more than a year. In fact, in 2010 Texas’s largest newspaper published an exposé about a then-secret DHS initiative that systematically cancelled pending deportations. The remarkable program stunned the legal profession and baffled immigration attorneys who say the government bounced their clients’ deportation even when expulsion was virtually guaranteed.
Judicial Watch has been a front runner in investigating the Obama Administration’s stealth amnesty program by pursuing DHS records concerning “deferred action” or “parole” to suspend removal proceedings against a particular group of individuals. Earlier this year JW sued DHS to obtain information because the agency ignored a federal public records request that dates back to July 2010.
Big Brother is on the march in the United States and as I have previously shown, once one delves into the depths of this system it is nothing short of astounding to the point where Orwell wouldn’t even believe it was possible.
Previously my articles have focused mostly on the Department of Homeland Security’s role in this and how their programs are criminalizing Americans who have done absolutely nothing wrong while eroding our freedoms and liberties to a dangerous degree.
However, thanks to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed by the Center for Constitutional Rights along with the National Day Labor Organizing Network and the Benjamin Cardozo Immigrant Justice Clinic, it has now emerged that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is an equally large player in the high-tech police state in which we find ourselves.
An article by Sunita Patel and Scott Paltrowitz on CommonDreams points out, “Big Brother is already upon us.”
This is a point that I attempt to make at every possible juncture as it is crucial for Americans to realize that an Orwellian high-tech police state is not something on the distant horizon but something in which we already live.
The documents obtained reveal that the FBI “views massive biometric information collection as a goal in itself” as a part of the Next Generation Identification (NGI) system.
The NGI system aims to collect fingerprints, palm prints, iris scans, identifying marks, scars, tattoos, facial characteristics and voice recognition.
These are not necessarily collected from arrested suspects but also from mobile biometric scanning devices and fingerprints left anywhere and everywhere.
These drones can then track you, record your movements, who you meet with, and just about anything else. Tie this in with the Future Attribute Screening Technology (FAST) being tested by the Department of Homeland Security and you have a record of not only incredibly detailed biometric information but also social habits, daily schedules, etc.
All of this can be conducted without the subject’s knowledge or consent which makes this technology even more powerful as intelligence agencies can conduct surveillance on many individuals without any need to worry about being detected.
The most important aspect for anyone to grasp about these issues is that all of this technology can easily be tied together and collected in a centralized database in which astounding amounts of information from a variety of sources can be collated and analyzed.
The highly personal information stored in the NGI system is already accessible by the Department of Homeland Security, Department of Justice, Department of Defense, U.S. Coast Guard, and through the FBI’s Criminal Justice Information Services division (CJIS) more than 75 potential foreign nations.
The CJIS has already carried out a test on latent finger and palm prints in which they collected more than one million palm prints from crime scenes or literally any other location in which palm prints could be recovered.
They have also scheduled a pilot program for iris scanning and developed plans for deployment of biometric collection equipment across the nation to collect scars, marks, tattoos and facial measurements for facial recognition.
The NGI program will utilize so-called “FBI Mobile,” a type of technology first deployed by the military in warzones that is used to collect biometric information in the field without even having to arrest the subject.
The precursor to the NGI program was called Secure Communities (S-Comm) which was launched in 2008.
S-Comm links the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) databases with the FBI’s criminal database.
With this system, any time a local, state, or tribal law enforcement officer carries out a routine criminal background check, the subject of the background check’s information is transferred to the DHS database.
S-Comm was implemented in a highly deceptive manner, at first offering an opt out policy which would allow local agencies to opt out of receiving information while still requiring to send all information. Later, the FBI decided that S-Comm participation was mandatory, while waiting to disclose this fact to states and the public.
Furthermore, the FBI and DHS have both prevented states and local agencies from imposing limits on how the FBI uses the data they gather.
In a somewhat disturbing statement, senior ICE official Gary Mead told local advocates at a New York debate that governors did not have the right to restrict information sharing because letting the FBI share the information is the “price of admission” for joining “the FBI club.”
In a fact sheet published on the NGI and S-Comm, the following disturbing fact is highlighted: “Many details about the scope, impact and process of the NGI and the legal basis for the FBI’s policies are still unknown and have not been scrutinized by the media or the public.”
It also reveals that one of the major driving forces, like most of the government’s actions, is profit. Specifically, a billion dollar contract with Lockheed Martin issued in 2008 to work on the NGI with the FBI.
It might seem alarmist or sensationalist, but when the authors of the CommonDreams piece say, “This ubiquitous world-wide surveillance of anyone and everyone should serve as a wake up call (sic) for what the future may hold” they are simply reflecting reality.
They point out that we are being brought “closer to an extensive and inescapable surveillance state, where we blindly place our hands on electronic devices that capture our digital prints, stare into iris scanning devices that record the details of our eyes, and have pictures taken of different angles of our faces so that the FBI and other federal agencies can store and use such information.”
There is another major consideration ignored by the FBI and DHS: the fact that major mistakes are made by federal agencies.
One apt example is American citizen Mark Lyttle, a man who was deported and transferred to five different countries in four months when an administrator incorrectly typed “Mexico” as Lyttle’s place of birth.
Lyttle, who suffers from mental disabilities which made him unable to understand the criminal proceedings and following deportation, spent months living on the streets, in shelters, and in prisons in Mexico, Honduras, Nicaragua and Guatemala, all because an administrator typed the wrong birthplace.
Or there is the case of American born lawyer and former Army lieutenant Brandon Mayfield who was erroneously accused of the 2004 train bombing in Madrid after which he was held by police for two weeks.
All of this was based on a supposed match between Mayfield’s fingerprints and latent prints found at the scene, of course this match was later found to be inaccurate.
The entire fiasco lasted two and a half years and in 2006 the Oregon lawyer was awarded $ 2 million by the U.S. government along with a formal apology to him and his family.
Then there is the case of a Massachusetts man, John Gass, who had his driver’s license revoked because a facial recognition system found that his authentic license was fraudulent.
These types of egregious and hardly negligible mistakes are only going to become more prevalent as the FBI employs new facial recognition and biometric technology.
This was shown by a study published by the Center for Catastrophe Preparedness and Response at New York University entitled, “Facial Recognition Technology: A Survey of Policy and Implementation Issues” by Lucas D. Introna and Helen Nissenbaum.
The study found that when facial recognition technology is used among large populations, like the massive federal database, incorrect identifications will indeed occur due to the lack of variation among faces.
The Gass case proves that this is already a problem and the database is in a relatively infant stage compared to how massive the NGI collection of data will be once information on every American has been gathered.
This is especially true when one considers that since sharing information is “the price of admission” into the “FBI club” many foreign governments and federal agencies will be handing over sensitive personal information of their citizens.
George Orwell couldn’t have possibly imagined the scope and pervasiveness of the invisible surveillance state we currently find ourselves in, though his infamous 1984 gives a glimpse of what a much more low-tech version of today’s world would look like.
The technology is growing to the point where many people do not even know it exists or how they are being tracked and monitored.
Hopefully by spreading information like this far and wide we can actively combat the Big Brother surveillance state before it grows to the point that there is no possible way to turn back.
If you care about the future of America and the world, I beg of you, spread this information far and wide as bringing massive awareness to this subject is the only way to halt the growth and hopefully reverse the trend.
Only by bringing this real Big Brother technology out into the mainstream can we wake up the majority of the populace to the fact that these are not silly conspiracy theories but indeed heavily documented and irrefutable facts.
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said Matt Drudge is “just wrong” for dubbing her “Big Sis” on his Drudge Report website, and defended DHS’s efforts to respect people’s civil liberties while protecting against terrorist attacks.
“I don’t think he means it kindly,” Napolitano said, when asked about the nickname today during an event sponsored by Politico. “I think that what he means is that we are watching too much; kind of an Orwellian view. And he’s just wrong.”
Although Homeland Security does have a vast intelligence architecture at Customs and Border Protection, TSA, Immigration Customs Enforcement, the Coast Guard and Secret Service, Napolitano dismissed any privacy concerns.
“We’re always striking that balance,” between security and liberty, Napolitano said.
While programs such as US-VISIT collect biometric fingerprint information and pictures of certain international travelers and DHS runs airline passenger name and booking information (Passenger name Records) through watch lists and other databases, Napolitano said, “We don’t do anything without running it through our own civil rights and privacy office.”
(RTR) In this report Gary Franchi delivers the breaking story about FEMA doing a Katrina repeat by blocking volunteers and letting towns burn. He also looks at the new Ron Paul Campaign ad, tracks down some explosives that DHS lost and looks at a sterilized grade school curriculum for students in the UK leaving out […] Federal Jack
