Now Thought Crime Is Terror In U.S. by Greg Corombos | WND | June 9, 2014
'There's an attempt to marginalize people who hold views that are sharply different' The Justice Department is resurrecting a program designed to thwart domestic threats to the United States, and Attorney General Eric Holder says those threats include individuals the government deems anti-government or racially prejudiced. The Domestic Terrorism Executive Committee was created in the wake of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing but was scrapped soon after the 2001 terrorist attacks as intelligence and law enforcement officials shifted their focus to threats from outside the country. The committee will be comprised of figures from the FBI, the National Security Division of the Justice Department and the Attorney General’s Advisory Committee. In his statement announcing the return of the committee, Holder said he remains concerned about the specter of attacks prompted by Islamic extremists, but he said this committee will be tasked with identifying other threats. “We must also concern ourselves with the continued danger we face from individuals within our own borders who may be motivated by a variety of other causes from anti-government animus to racial prejudice,� Holder said.
According to reporting from Reuters, the American Civil Liberties Union is pushing back against the DOJ plan, fearing “it could be a sweeping mandate to monitor and collect controversial speech.” Conservative groups are alarmed on multiple levels. First, they see themselves once again the target of an administration that disagrees with them philosophically. “It appears there’s an attempt to marginalize people who hold views that are sharply different from those of the administration and much of the establishment, said Horace Cooper, co-chairman of the Project 21 National Advisory Board. Project 21 is a network of black conservatives. Cooper said plenty of presidents dealt with critical speech, particularly in opposition to the Vietnam War and even the Iraq War. He said no president ever responded like this. “We didn’t arrest them (due to their speech). We didn’t try to prevent them from being able to express themselves on campuses, and we didn’t try to prevent them from trying to enter into the public square,” he said. “This administration appears not to appreciate that lesson and says that the groups of people that are not within their particular perspective ought to be considered the very threat … that the real terrorist threat that comes internationally [presents].” Project 21 is a very vocal critic of what it considers administration efforts to cloak liberal policies in the guise of racial equality. Cooper said devoting resources to stop threats based on racial prejudice is a solution in search of a problem. “We’re particularly bothered by mixing together so-called domestic insurrectionists and racists. There is simply no anti-black or anti-minority underground movement in America that is threatening in any way the stability of our government or the stability of local governments. There is just nothing like that. That’s just a complete and total boogeyman,” said Cooper, who believes the Justice Department is fully aware of the reality. “When we see this administration talking as if the real threat is that if you’re a young black male, you’re going to be shot, you’re going to be kidnapped or you’re going to be forced to prison without actually having any charges against you, there’s simply no evidence to show that,” he said. Cooper said Holder could solve this debate by compiling a report showing the real number of racially motivated murders, kidnappings and bombings. He said that report will never come because he believes the real motivation for this committee and this policy is entirely political. “In our organization’s view, this is done, particularly the racial component, to create the false impression to minority communities that it is the Obama administration that is here to help them and another reason why, with all of the economic failings that they have provided to Americans generally and minorities in particular, they should continue to consider giving away their vote to that particular administration,” Cooper said.
In addition to the political maneuvering he alleges is behind this committee, Cooper is also deeply frustrated that this effort diverts resources from what he considers more severe and realistic threats. “We are still under a threat watch. We still have all of the security measures that we put in place after 2001. The period of 2001-2008 was a period in which we thwarted more than a few. Some of those have been made public. But many of those still have not made public. But what we’ve seen since the beginning of the Obama administration is that many of these attacks, whether they’re increasing or not, are being more effective. They’re actually happening,” Cooper said. “To shift more resources away from the threat that’s real to this theoretical problem is harmful to the safety of Americans and is more about a political agenda than it is in protecting Americans.” Now thought crime is terror in U.S. VIDEO BELOW http://www.wnd.com/2014/06/now-thought-crime-is-terror-in-u-s/
Judge Orders NSA To Stop Destroying Evidence For The Third Time by Giuseppe Macri | June 6, 2014
Spy agency disrespects rule of law A federal judge has ordered the government to stop destroying National Security Agency surveillance records that could be used to challenge the legality of its spying programs in court. U.S. District Court Judge Jeffrey White’s ruling came at the request of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which is in the midst of a case challenging NSA’s ability to surveil foreign citizen’s U.S.based email and social media accounts. According to the EFF, the signals intelligence agency and the Department of Justice were knowingly destroying key evidence in the case by purposefully misinterpreting earlier preservation orders by multiple courts, multiple times. In February, the DOJ asked the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to keep metadata beyond the five-year retention limit to address pending lawsuits from organizations like EFF and the American Civil Liberties Union, which alleged NSA illegally surveilled their clients. According to multiple accounts, the DOJ made a purposefully flawed case for keeping such records, fully expecting FISA Court Judge Reggie Walton to forbid such retention. He did, which allowed the DOJ to tell plaintiffs that the evidence of their surveillance had to be destroyed. A California district court trying EFF’s case then asked the DOJ in March to inform the FISA Court about its case, and preserve surveillance data collected under both White House and FISA authority as evidence. That order was ignored, forcing the EFF to file a temporary restraining order to halt the data’s destruction, and appeal the case to the FISA Court. Justice Department attorneys subsequently told FISA Court Judge Reggie Walton that they did not receive a request to keep metadata collected under FISA authority as well as executive authority (despite documents proving otherwise). After reviewing the case and correspondence between EFF, the California court and DOJ, Walton ruled against the department, accused it of attempting to deliberately mislead the court, and ordered a stay on the records’ destruction. Earlier this week Justice Department lawyers informed organizations pursuing cases against NSA that metadata gathered under FISA authority was still being destroyed, despite the March order. The Electronic Frontier Foundation immediately filed an emergency temporary restraining order with Judge
White, who moments later issued an order telling the government, again, to stop. “Defendants are ordered not to destroy any documents that may be relevant to the claims at issue in this action, including the [FISA] Section 702 materials,” White wrote. The DOJ was furthered ordered to file an immediate response justifying its actions. It responded with a statement claiming it did not interpret the prior restraining order to include Internet content interceptions, and that the department was under the impression the court was still trying to determine if the order applied to such evidence. The DOJ further requested that the judge issue a temporary stay on his order, and that failing to do so would ”cause severe operational consequences.” “It is not credible that, as the government contends, simply refusing to destroy during the next 18 hours the communications it has intercepted will cause ‘the possible suspension of the Section 702 program,’” the EFF said in a statement late Thursday. “How can the preservation of these intercepted communications cause a ‘loss of access to lawfully collected signals intelligence information’? That information will remain accessible even though it is being preserved.” The EFF alleged the government’s claim that it “never understood before this afternoon” the court’s intention to preserve all data was difficult to believe. “This, too, lacks any credibility, especially in light of the extensive discussions between Court and counsel at the March 19, 2014 hearing on the evidence preservation dispute,” the statement reads. “The government’s disregard for the past three months of its obligations under the court’s [temporary restraining order] should not be retroactively blessed by granting a stay that permits the government to continue destroying evidence.”
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