Tag: USA

Snowden’s plane will pass through US airspace

moscowsnowdenEx-CIA contractor, Edward Snowden’s plane to Cuba will pass through US airspace, an Interfax source reports. Washington has an extradition notice against Snowden on charges of espionage and could intervene if the plane enters US jurisdiction.

Aeroflot flight SU150, leaves Moscow at 14:04 local time (11:04 GMT) and will fly through US airspace a couple of kilometers from the coast of New York on its way to Havana, reported Russian news agency Interfax, citing a source in Sheremetevo airport air traffic control. Snowden is checked into the flight to Havana in seat number 17A, reports the Associated Press, citing Aeroflot.

The source added that US air traffic control can legally ground the plane and take Snowden into custody on charges of espionage, theft and conversion of government property. However, the pilot may change the course of the flight so as not to pass through American airspace.

“The pilot of the plane is within his rights to change the course of the flight and there should be enough fuel to do so,” said the source to Interfax.

The Ecuadorian government has confirmed that Snowden filed for asylum and is processing the request.
WikiLeaks has actively assisted Snowden in eluding the US extradition order, has confirmed the fugitive’s final destination will be Ecuador.

Mr Snowden is “bound for the Republic of Ecuador via a safe route for the purposes of asylum, and is being escorted by diplomats and legal advisers from Wikileaks.”

The news that former CIA contractor Edward Snowden had left Hong Kong emerged on Sunday. The city’s authorities published a statement saying that Snowden had legally and voluntarily left Hong Kong on Sunday on a flight to a “third country” with a stopover in Moscow. The statement also said that the documents for Snowden’s extradition submitted to the Hong Kong authorities by Washington were not sufficient to be able to “process the request.”

The White House said it was “disappointed” with Hong Kong’s move to let Snowden go and has urged Russia to consider every option to expel the fugitive.

“The US is advising these governments that Snowden is wanted on felony charges, and as such should not be allowed to proceed in any further international travel, other than is necessary to return him to the United States,” a state department official said.

Washington has stressed they will seek cooperation from whichever country Snowden arrives in.

Snowden initially fled to Hong Kong after leaking troves of classified data to UK newspaper the Guardian, including information of the US spy program Prism.- RT

‘Criminals are being exposed by Snowden’

gchqlisteningInformation that NSA leaker Edward Snowden is exposing can lead to trials against those involved in war crimes in Afghanistan or Iraq or in money laundering and that is why “the West is so afraid,” investigative journalist Tony Gosling told RT.

The 29-year-old whistleblower – who was charged with espionage in the US for revealing secret surveillance programs – arrived in Moscow from Hong Kong on Sunday. Snowden is on his way to a third country via Russia.

Gosling says Snowden’s got his options rather limited. “The real impact of what he’s done here is only now starting to be realized. Not only is he exposing the criminality of the GCHQ – the signals intelligence part of the British intelligence services – and the NSA, but he is also showing that much of that intelligence contains information which may bring criminal prosecutions. For example, of war crimes, or criminal prosecutions against bankers, people who’ve been doing money laundering, such as Lord Green who was in charge of HSBC. There’s a vast amount of information there.

“There’s one thing I can tell you though, is that he won’t be coming to London. He doesn’t want to end up in the Tower of London like Julian Assange, fugitive, is at the moment. 

“Here in Britain, we have a very poor record. Although the government and many of our media talk about protecting whistleblowers, the fact of the matter is if you blow the whistle on anything really big and important, or, in fact, even some trivial things, you’ll be bullied and you’ll be taken out of your job. And there’s total hypocrisy. One of the reasons for this is the way our entire network of government is paid –tax-payers money that is paying for all this intelligence service stuff. 

“Sir Malcolm Rifkind, for example, who chairs the Intelligence and Security Committee, is supposed to oversee all this secret stuff. He is actually also employed by financial services firm that works for defense contractors. We are losing any kind of proper democratic oversight of these intelligence services. And that’s one of the things that Snowden has started to expose.

“If I were him, I’d actually be thinking about maybe not going to South America but looking at Iceland. It has got a couple of very useful institutions. IMMI, the Iceland’s Modern Media Institute, which has been set up by the parliament to protect whistleblowers and to make sure that Iceland is seen is a safe heaven. There’s also the AWP, the Associated Whistleblowing Press in Iceland. These are really great institutions which have started to emerge now in Europe as a resistance to the intelligence, really, I suppose the military-industrial complex and the financial cults in the European world, taking over so much of our public life, essentially – leaving our democracies in tatters.” 

Gosling thinks Moscow will probably be a transit point, because maybe it would be a little too explosive for him to stay in Moscow for too long.

“I think what’s happening now is that there’s a lack of faith in much of what our intelligence services are up to. When we’ve got no proper democratic oversight of them they are running of on their own.

“The money system as well is involved in it. This is why I point out that much of this intelligence will be to do with economic warfare. We’ve got many new types of warfare in the world – economic is just one of them. Another one is psychological warfare which is using media wars, attacking the reputations of individuals and countries around the world. So, those are the sorts of information that contained in these PRISM leaks that we are now starting to see. 

“There have been serious crimes over the last ten years – particularly since 9/11 when the war on terror started – in Afghanistan, Iraq, in places like Yemen, Pakistan where many people were murdered through the use of drones and hellfire missiles completely illegally by mainly three countries – Israel, the US and the UK. But this is what people don’t necessarily understand: there will be information that Edward Snowden has that can actually bring some of these people to trial. That’s why the West is so afraid. If Britain was serious about any kind of real justice, we would be able invite him to London and say, ‘Yes, you can tell all your secrets or stories to people here in Britain, you’ll be safe here.’”

Gosling says Snowden is actually exposing criminals “and the criminals are going for him now”. – RT

 

UK tapping EU’s data flows a catastrophe – Germany

Sabine Leuthesser-Scharrenberger
Sabine Leuthesser-Scharrenberger

The German Justice Minister has called the British spy agency’s massive eavesdropping of international fiber-optic cables ‘a catastrophe’. Sabine Leuthesser-Scharrenberger insisted European institutions should seek clarification “straight away”.

The exposure by former US National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden of the global eavesdropping capabilities of the British Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) have sent European capitals into a stupor.

Having revealed the NSA’s PRISM global surveillance program, Snowden told the UK’s Guardian newspaper information about Britain’s top secret Tempora surveillance project under which the UK’s GCHQ spying agency intercepts and stores for 30 days huge volumes of data, like emails, social network posts, phone calls and much more, culled from international fiber-optic cables.

The most vociferous reaction has come from Berlin where politicians have demanded a thorough investigation of the activities of the British intelligence-gathering community.

“If these accusations are correct, this would be a catastrophe,” German Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger said in an email to the Reuters. She compared the news with a “Hollywood nightmare” and called on to the European institutions “to seek straight away to clarify the situation.”

“The accusations make it sound as if George Orwell’s surveillance society has become reality in Great Britain,” Thomas Oppermann, the leader of the opposition Social Democrats in the Bundestag told Reuters. German politicians called the situation ‘unbearable’ and demanded the government “act against a total surveillance of German citizens”.

A report in Britain’s Guardian newspaper has exposed that UK’s GCHQ has been spying on European capitals for at least 18 months intercepting data from over 200 fiber-optic cables.

Begun in 2008, by 2010 the Tempora project made GCHQ a true intelligence superpower, “’the biggest internet access’ of any member of the Five Eyes electronic eavesdropping alliance, comprising the US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand,” The Guardian’s report claims.

By the end of 2012 the GCHQ agency reportedly had enough computational capacity to process information from 46 fibre-optic cables at a time, which amounted to 600 million international phone calls and internet messages daily.

While it was reported earlier that NSA shared classified information obtained through its tapping of the world’s largest internet providers with GCHQ, it became known that these were tit for tat relations and GCHQ shared the info it obtained with the NSA, too. The Guardian believes that the 850,000 NSA employees and US private contractors, like Edward Snowden, had access to GCHQ databases.

“The UK has a huge dog in this fight,” Snowden confirmed to the Guardian. “They [GCHQ] are worse than the US,” he stressed. – RT

US warns countries against Snowden travel

snowdenagentFugitive former U.S. spy agency contractor Edward Snowden was seeking asylum in Ecuador on Sunday after Hong Kong allowed his departure for Russia in a slap to Washington’s efforts to extradite him on espionage charges.

In a major embarrassment for President Barack Obama, an aircraft thought to have carried Snowden landed in Moscow on Sunday, and the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks said he was “bound for the Republic of Ecuador via a safe route for the purposes of asylum.”

Earlier, Ecuadorean Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino, visiting Vietnam, tweeted: “The Government of Ecuador has received an asylum request from Edward J. #Snowden.”

It was a blow to Obama’s foreign policy goals of resetting ties with Russia and building a partnership with China. The leaders of both countries were willing to snub the American president in a month when each had held talks with Obama.

The United States continued efforts to prevent Snowden from gaining asylum. It warned Western Hemisphere nations that Snowden “should not be allowed to proceed in any further international travel, other than is necessary to return him to the United States,” a State Department official said.

U.S. Senator Charles Schumer charged that Russian President Vladimir Putin likely knew and approved of Snowden’s flight to Russia and predicted “serious consequences” for a U.S.-Russian relationship already strained over Syria and human rights.

“Putin always seems almost eager to stick a finger in the eye of the United States – whether it is Syria, Iran and now of course with Snowden,” Schumer, a New York Democrat, told CNN’s “State of the Union” program. He also saw “the hand of Beijing” in Hong Kong’s decision to let Snowden leave the Chinese territory despite the U.S. extradition request.

Ecuador, which has been sheltering WikiLeaks‘ founder Julian Assange at its London embassy for the past year, once again took center stage in an international diplomatic saga over U.S. data secrecy.

Ecuador’s ambassador to Russia, Patricio Alberto Chavez Zavala, told reporters at a Moscow airport hotel he would hold talks with Snowden and Sarah Harrison, a WikiLeaks representative.

Hours later, shortly after midnight (2000 GMT Sunday), the ambassador emerged from a business-class lounge near the hotel and refused to say whether he had met Snowden or make any other comment. Shortly before he appeared, a cart with three plates of salmon and a Starbucks bag were rolled into the lounge.

Snowden, who had worked at a U.S. National Security Agency facility in Hawaii, had been hiding in Hong Kong, the former British colony that returned to China in 1997, since leaking details about secret U.S. surveillance programs to news media.

U.S. authorities had said on Saturday they were optimistic Hong Kong would cooperate over Snowden.

U.S. authorities have charged Snowden with theft of federal government property, unauthorized communication of national defense information and wilful communication of classified communications intelligence to an unauthorized person, with the latter two charges falling under the U.S. Espionage Act.

A source at Russian airline Aeroflot said on Sunday that Snowden was booked on a flight scheduled to depart for Havana on Monday at 2:05 p.m. (1005 GMT) from the same Moscow airport where the flight from Hong Kong arrived, Sheremetyevo.

The chief of Cuba’s International Press Center, Gustavo Machin, said he had no such information though pro-government bloggers heaped praise on Snowden and condemned U.S. spying activity.

Venezuela, Cuba and Ecuador are all members of the ALBA bloc, an alliance of leftist governments in Latin America that pride themselves on their “anti-imperialist” credentials.

In their statement announcing Snowden’s departure, the Hong Kong authorities said they were seeking clarification from Washington about reports of U.S. spying on government computers in the territory.

The Obama administration has previously painted the United States as a victim of Chinese government computer hacking.

At a summit this month, Obama called on his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping to acknowledge the threat posed by “cyber-enabled espionage” against the United States and to investigate the problem. Obama also met Putin in Northern Ireland last week.

A spokesman for the Hong Kong government said it had allowed the departure of Snowden – considered a whistleblower by his supporters and a criminal or even a traitor by his critics – as the U.S. request for his arrest did not comply with the law.

However, a U.S. Justice Department official said at no point in discussions through Friday did Hong Kong raise issues about the sufficiency of the U.S. arrest request.

“In light of this, we find their decision to be particularly troubling,” the official said.

U.S. sources familiar with the issue said Washington had revoked Snowden’s U.S. passport. State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said revoking the passport of someone under a felony arrest warrant was routine and does not affect citizenship status.

“It’s a shocker,” Simon Young, a law professor with Hong Kong University said. “I thought he was going to stay and fight it out. The U.S. government will be irate.”

The issue has been a major problem for Obama, who has found his domestic and international policy agenda sidelined as he has scrambled to deflect accusations that U.S. surveillance practices violate privacy protections and civil rights. The president has maintained that the measures have been necessary to thwart attacks on the United States.

The White House had no comment on Sunday’s developments. – Reuters

Germany most-spied-on EU country by US

Germany appears to be the most snooped on EU country by the US, the map of secret surveillance activities by the National Security Agency shows. ‘Boundless Informant’ is among the data disclosed by former CIA contractor and NSA consultant Edward Snowden.

The color-coded map of secret surveillance activities by the NSA ranks countries according to how much surveillance they are currently undergoing – green for the least and red for the most watched.

While all EU member states boast variant shades of green, Germany stands out color-coded orange.

The source behind the revelation of the top-secret NSA surveillance program, already referred to as one of the most significant intelligence leaks in US history, was uncovered late last week. 29-year-old Snowden asked The Guardian to reveal his identity, having fled to Hong Kong to escape retaliation by the US authorities.

“The NSA has built an infrastructure that allows it to intercept almost everything. With this capability, the vast majority of human communications are automatically ingested without targeting,” he told The Guardian.

“I, sitting at my desk, certainly had the authority to wire-tap anyone … even if you are not doing anything wrong, you are being watched and recorded,” he added.

The Boundless Informant documents show NSA collecting up to 3 billion pieces of intelligence from US computer networks over a 30-day period ending in March 2013, according to The Guardian. The tool reportedly allows users to select a country on a map, view the metadata volume and select details about the collections against this or that state.

Germany’s Interior Ministry had already been in contact with US officials to find out whether there had been any infringement of German citizens’ privacy lately. Chancellor Angela Merkel is due to raise the issue of the NSA’s eavesdropping on Germany with President Barack Obama, who said the monitoring program is a means of defense against terrorism.

Iran is on top of the surveillance list, with more than 14 billion data reports in March, while Pakistan came in a close second at 13.5 billion reports. Jordan, a close US ally, as well as Egypt and India are also near the top, according to the data.

Senior European Union officials are also expected to discuss the impact of NSA’s programs on the privacy of EU citizens during a trans-Atlantic ministerial meeting in Dublin on Thursday.

“This case shows that a clear legal framework for the protection of personal data is not a luxury or constraint, but a fundamental right,” European Commissioner for Justice Viviane Reding said.

The European Parliament said it is always firm on data protection within the EU, as well as when negotiating with third countries, including the US.

“It would be unacceptable and would need swift action from the EU if indeed the US National Security Agency were processing European data without permission,” Guy Verhofstadt of the parliament’s liberal bloc said.

NSA’s tradition to survey international communities reportedly goes back to the Cold War era, when the agency used monitoring sites in Germany, Britain and other countries to spy on communications within the Soviet Union and its East European allies.

UK Foreign Secretary William Hague has meanwhile cancelled his trip to Washington to speak about The Guardian’s latest NSA report.

He assured parliament that accusations that the UK government allegedly used information provided by the Americans to circumvent laws were “baseless.”

“Our agencies practice and uphold UK law at all times,” he stated, “even when dealing with information from outside the UK.”

In an interview with the British newspaper, successful NSA consultant Snowden leaked top-secret documents that revealed the existence of the US National Security Agency’s extensive internet spying program PRISM, which records digital communications and allows for real-time online surveillance of US citizens. PRISM gives US intelligence agencies direct access to files stored on the servers of major internet companies, including Google and Facebook, to identify and target potential terror suspects. – RT

Republicans are throwing their conservative white base under the bus

Ted Kennedy masterminded America's ethnic transformation

by Georgina Lee

Propaganda is only effective if it tells people what they want to believe, or what they know to be true from their lives’ experiences.

During the 1960s liberal Democrats told white blue-collar workers that the real problem was not crime in the streets but white racism. White blue-collar workers were often the victims of black crime, as were their friends and relatives. They knew what the problem was. They rejected the liberal message, and began voting Republican.

In the 60’s when America was still 90% white and crime was almost non-existent, we were told not to have too many kids that we could not afford. To thinking whites, this made perfect sense as we are an independent lot.

Shortly after that the drunken, belligerent, loudmouth Ted Kennedy told us our demographics would not be affected by immigration.

Now, American politics sits at the side of the cliff with Republicans scrambling and scrounging for any colored vote they can get… all the while throwing their conservative white base under the bus over and over again. Makes no sense to me because to pander to the Latino vote (which they will never get) is political suicide. I see America being run under a Democrat dictatorship for decades to come with only small pockets of Republican rule in the “white flight” areas. I have lived in Southern California my whole life and have seen city after city get taken to ruins by mass influxes of immigrants from third-world cesspools.

Others can have Chinatown and Little Saigon and other sef- imposed “Apartheids” but Damn to Hell the Blue-Eyed Devil for wanting to live among his own kind! Humans are tribal creatures. Perceived “racism” is only a matter of self-preservation – something even animals have a right to.

So yes, to make a long story short – there is massive, massive anger out there, world-wide, at the third-world colonization of Western countries. At first I thought, it was just my being more aware, but there is too much proof that this is real and growing. There is a trends forecaster by the name of Gerald Celente. Back in about 2007, he predicted the riots and anti-immigrant sentiment the world over that is now happening. He ties it in to global financial meltdown (creating more poverty) and the obvious mass influx of immigrants who are a blight to civilized society. This was obviously planned!

Free shotguns in major US cities?

In an experimental bid to determine whether wider gun ownership could lead to a decline in crime, a University of Houston graduate student and the Armed Citizens Project is looking to give away shotguns to residents of fifteen cities.

Kyle Coplen, 29, is the founder of the Armed Citizens Project, a group which announced that it will seek to expand its program into the Chicago Metropolitan Area at a recent National Rifle Association convention in Houston, Texas.

According to Coplen, the idea is to give out free, 20-gauge single-barrel shotguns to residents living in mid- to high-crime neighborhoods to see whether the presence of armed homes would cause a drop in crime.

“Gun-control advocates often argue that an increase in guns in an area will lead to an increase in crime, while gun-rights advocates often believe that fewer guns result in more crime. While both sides often argue that their opponents’ policies will result in more crime, gun-control proponents have largely been the victors when it comes to policy implementation,” explains the Armed Citizens Project’s website.

New measures in Congress to enact federal background checks for gun owners and the defeat of various other gun control measures indicate that in reality, gun control supporters do not have the upper hand in policy implementation.

While states such such as Connecticut and Colorado have recently passed new controls on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, elsewhere, such as in Texas and South Carolina, state legislatures are lobbying to attract gun industry investment and working on legislation to further bolster access to guns.

One Texas bill that would ban state and local police from working with federal authorities on new gun control regulations was recently passed by the state House.

As for the Armed Citizens Project, according to Coplen the group intends to both screen participants for its shotgun give-away project and provide training for those selected.

“We’re not just tossing a bunch of shotguns into a community and walking away,” Coplen told Fox 26.

“What we’re doing is finding residents who are interested in protecting themselves. we’re not forcing guns on anyone,” he added.

In addition to offering free guns, the Armed Citizens Project is setting its sights on local gun buyback programs. The group hopes to dissuade those looking to hand over their guns with training sessions, or even have those weapons traded in for 20-gauge shotguns.

City and county-sponsored gun buybacks have recently become a point of contention for gun rights advocates. In Arizona, for example, Governor Jan Brewer recently signed a bill prohibiting cities and counties in that state from destroying guns collected through such programs, instead mandating that they be sold to licensed dealers.

The Armed Citizens Project hopes to distribute guns to hundreds of people living in major American cities by the end of the year. The program is already active in Houston and Tucson, Arizona, and in addition to Chicago they are also setting their sights on New York and Detroit. In Houston, local news channel WGN reports that 100 people have already signed up for the project.

Despite early success, Copley anticipates that getting his project started in a city such as New York, where Mayor Michael Bloomberg is a staunch proponent of gun regulation, will be a hurdle.

“I really don’t care what [Bloomberg] thinks. I can’t think of one thing he’s ever done besides being a successful businessman that I can agree with,” said Coplen to the NY Daily News.

New York Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly has already shown skepticism of Copley’s project.

“You need a permit … so obviously you won’t be able to do it here,” Kelly told the Daily News on Monday.

In addition to broad discretion over gun permits, the New York Police Department requires a $140.00 shotgun permit fee, in addition to a fingerprinting charge of $91.50.

Coplen intends to request donations to help low-income city applicants secure the necessary permits.

“I guess the Bloomberg administration doesn’t want poor people to be able to defend themselves. I guess that right is left to the elites,” Coplen told Daily News.

Let’s hope the Boston Marathon bomber is a white American

As we now move into the official Political Aftermath period of the Boston bombing — the period that will determine the long-term legislative fallout of the atrocity — the dynamics of privilege will undoubtedly influence the nation’s collective reaction to the attacks. That’s because privilege tends to determine: 1) which groups are — and are not — collectively denigrated or targeted for the unlawful actions of individuals; and 2) how big and politically game-changing the overall reaction ends up being.

This has been most obvious in the context of recent mass shootings. In those awful episodes, a religious or ethnic minority group lacking such privilege would likely be collectively slandered and/or targeted with surveillance or profiling (or worse) if some of its individuals comprised most of the mass shooters. However, white male privilege means white men are not collectively denigrated/targeted for those shootings — even though most come at the hands of white dudes.

Likewise, in the context of terrorist attacks, such privilege means white non-Islamic terrorists are typically portrayed not as representative of whole groups or ideologies, but as “lone wolf” threats to be dealt with as isolated law enforcement matters. Meanwhile, non-white or developing-world terrorism suspects are often reflexively portrayed as representative of larger conspiracies, ideologies and religions that must be dealt with as systemic threats — the kind potentially requiring everything from law enforcement action to military operations to civil liberties legislation to foreign policy shifts.

“White privilege is knowing that even if the bomber turns out to be white, no one will call for your group to be profiled as terrorists as a result, subjected to special screening or threatened with deportation,” writes author Tim Wise. “White privilege is knowing that if this bomber turns out to be white, the United States government will not bomb whatever corn field or mountain town or stale suburb from which said bomber came, just to ensure that others like him or her don’t get any ideas. And if he turns out to be a member of the Irish Republican Army we won’t bomb Dublin. And if he’s an Italian-American Catholic we won’t bomb the Vatican.”

Because of these undeniable and pervasive double standards, the specific identity of the Boston Marathon bomber (or bombers) is not some minor detail — it will almost certainly dictate what kind of governmental, political and societal response we see in the coming weeks. That means regardless of your particular party affiliation, if you care about everything from stopping war to reducing the defense budget to protecting civil liberties to passing immigration reform, you should hope the bomber was a white domestic terrorist. Why? Because only in that case will privilege work to prevent the Boston attack from potentially undermining progress on those other issues.

To know that’s true is to simply consider how America reacts to different kinds of terrorism.

Though FBI data show fewer terrorist plots involving Muslims than terrorist plots involving non-Muslims, America has mobilized a full-on war effort exclusively against the prospect of Islamic terrorism. Indeed, the moniker “War on Terrorism” has come to specifically mean “War on Islamic Terrorism,” involving everything from new laws like the Patriot Act, to a new torture regime, to new federal agencies like the Transportation Security Administration and Department of Homeland Security, to wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to mass surveillance of Muslim communities.

By contrast, even though America has seen a consistent barrage of attacks from domestic non-Islamic terrorists, the privilege and double standards baked into our national security ideologies means those attacks have resulted in no systemic action of the scope marshaled against foreign terrorists. In fact, it has been quite the opposite — according to Darryl Johnson, the senior domestic terrorism analyst at the Department of Homeland Security, the conservative movement backlash to merely reporting the rising threat of such domestic terrorism resulted in DHS seriously curtailing its initiatives against that particular threat. (Irony alert: When it comes specifically to fighting white non-Muslim domestic terrorists, the right seems to now support the very doctrine it criticized Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry for articulating — the doctrine that sees fighting terrorism as primarily “an intelligence-gathering, law-enforcement, public-diplomacy effort” and not something more systemic.)

If recent history is any guide, if the bomber ends up being a white anti-government extremist, white privilege will likely mean the attack is portrayed as just an isolated incident — one that has no bearing on any larger policy debates. Put another way, white privilege will work to not only insulate whites from collective blame, but also to insulate the political debate from any fallout from the attack.

It will probably be much different if the bomber ends up being a Muslim and/or a foreigner from the developing world. As we know from our own history, when those kind of individuals break laws in such a high-profile way, America often cites them as both proof that entire demographic groups must be targeted, and that therefore a more systemic response is warranted. At that point, it’s easy to imagine conservatives citing Boston as a reason to block immigration reform defense spending cuts and the Afghan War withdrawal and to further expand surveillance and other encroachments on civil liberties.

If that sounds hard to believe, just look at yesterday’s comments by right-wing radio host Laura Ingraham, whose talking points often become Republican Party doctrine. Though authorities haven’t even identified a suspect in the Boston attack, she (like other conservatives) seems to already assume the assailant is foreign, and is consequently citing the attack as rationale to slam the immigration reform bill.

The same Laura Ingraham, of course, was one of the leading voices criticizing the Department of Homeland Security for daring to even report on right-wing domestic terrorism. In that sense, she perfectly embodies the double standard that, more than anything, will determine the long-term political impact of the Boston bombing.

David Sirota is a nationally syndicated newspaper columnist, magazine journalist and the best-selling author of the books “Hostile Takeover,” “The Uprising” and “Back to Our Future.”  He describes himself as “a Jew”

Boston blank: No suspects, no motives

The FBI says they have no suspects nor anyone in custody over the deadly Boston blasts. Police are calling on witnesses to assist the investigation which has been called “the most complex crime scene” in the history of the Boston PD.

While the investigation has yielded no results, with no one claiming responsibility, more details have emerged on the nature of the explosives.

According to a person close to the Boston Marathon investigation, the explosives were in 6-liter pressure cookers and placed in black duffel bags. The person, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said investigators have some of the bomb components but did not yet know what was used to set off the explosives.

The statement echoes the Massachusetts General surgeon’s words that given the injuries they treated, “most of [the metallic fragments in the patients] were in the bomb.”

The General surgeon addressed the media Tuesday. He said that the shrapnel was consistent in size, and included nail-like fragments.

“There were people who had 10, 20, 30 of them in their body,” he said.

Earlier, FBI and Boston city authorities declined to comment on the nature of the explosives that were triggered 12 seconds apart in the late hours of the race, when most of the top runners had finished and ordinary participants were completing the event.

Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick stressed that “only two explosive devices were found yesterday”, rejecting reports that earlier suggested five explosives were found.

Addressing the public the morning after the tragedy, FBI, Boston city authorities and police said that they are still seeking public assistance, calling for witnesses to come forward.

“We are processing the most complex crime scene in the history of our department,” Police Commissioner Edward Davis said.

People who captured amateur photos and videos are being asked to submit their footage as it might help with the investigation into the double blasts which have killed three and left more than 170 people injured.

“We have received voluminous tips over the last 18 hours since the incident,” FBI special agent in charge, Rick DesLauriers said.

The police gave no details on the going investigation.

Police called on citizens to be patient as they will see a “continued, heightened police presence”.

Police are searching the 26.2 mile route of the race. Currently the crime scene has been scaled down to12 blocks. FBI special agent in charge, Rick DesLauriers, said that there is currently “no known physical threat.”

US Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said Tuesday there was no indication that the bomb blasts in Boston were part of a broader plot.

“While there is no current indication to suggest that the events in Boston are indicative of a broader plot,” she said in a written statement. “Out of an abundance of caution, DHS continues to keep in place enhanced security measures at transportation hubs, utilizing measures both seen and unseen.”

The FBI special agent DesLauriers also declined to comment saying he is “not going to say who might or might not be in custody right now.”

Earlier on Tuesday reports said police are seeking a suspect in the deadly Boston blasts described as a “darker-skinned or black male” with a backpack, media reports. They are also looking for a yellow van.

The suspect, who is said to possibly have a foreign accent, was seen trying to enter a restricted area five minutes before the first explosion, CNN reported.

As he was not allowed to do so, the man reportedly walked away and pulled his sweatshirt hood over his head.

When asked about a bomb placed in a trash can, Police commissioner Ed Davis said there was no evidence of that. – RT

Bird flu or the American flu? Chinese allege ‘biological warfare attack’

A Chinese Air Force officer on Saturday accused the U.S. government of creating the new strain of bird flu now afflicting parts of China as a biological warfare attack.

People’s Liberation Army Sr. Col. Dai Xu said the United States released the H7N9 bird flu virus into China in an act of biological warfare, according to a posting on his blog on Saturday.

The charge was first reported in the state-run Guangzhou newspaper Southern Metropolis Daily and then picked up by several news outlets in Asia.

State Department spokesman Jason Rebholz dismissed the claim. “There is absolutely no truth to these allegations,” he told the Washington Free Beacon.

Seven deaths from the bird flu outbreak were reported as of Tuesday in state-run Chinese media. As many as 24 people reportedly were infected by the disease in Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Anhui.

Chinese authorities are trying to calm public fears of a major epidemic, claiming there is no evidence the virus can be transmitted between humans.

The government also is claiming that the outbreak is not related to the recent discovery of thousands of dead pigs floating in a river in China.

The accusation of U.S. biological warfare against China comes as the Pentagon is seeking closer military relations with China. Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is set to travel to China for talks with Chinese military leaders later this month.

Dai is a military strategist who in the past has been outspoken in seeking to foment conflict between China and the United States. He told the Global Times in August that China should go to war over U.S. support for Japan’s claims to the disputed Senkaku Islands.

Writing on Sina Weibo, a Chinese microblogging site akin to Twitter, Dai stated that the new bird flu strain was designed as a biological weapon similar to severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), which he also claimed was developed as a U.S. bio-weapon, that affected the country in 2003.

According to Dai’s posting, the new flu outbreak should not be a cause for concern. “The national leadership should not pay too much attention to it,” the PLA lecturer at the National Defense University wrote. “Or else, it’ll be like in 2003 with SARS!”

“At that time, America was fighting in Iraq and feared that China would take advantage of the opportunity to take other actions,” he said. “This is why they used bio-psychological weapons against China. All of China fell into turmoil and that was exactly what the United States wanted. Now, the United States is using the same old trick. China should have learned its lesson and should calmly deal with the problem.”

Dai said that even if “a few may die” from the flu outbreak, it will not equal one-thousandth of the deaths caused by vehicle accidents in China.

Dai in the past has called for China to punish the United States for U.S. arms sales to rival Taiwan, by selling arms to U.S. enemies. “China recognizes that a few perfunctory protests will not have any effect,” Dai said in 2010. “China can’t directly sanction American arms companies since they did not do business with China … but China can sanction companies that are doing business with China directly, like Boeing or General Electric.”

Dai also has said the United States has used crises with North Korea and offers of cooperation on the issue as a plot to drive a wedge between Beijing and its fraternal communist ally.

Dai also has said U.S. efforts to counter Chinese espionage and intelligence-gathering were part of a U.S. “plot theory” of “western countries threatening others by [releasing] information gained through spying in order to damage the reputations of other countries.”

A State Department official said China notified the World Health Organization (WHO) on March 31 about its first detected human cases of H7N9 infection. Fourteen cases were confirmed by the WHO by April 5, of which six were fatal. The organization said there is no evidence of human-to-human transmission.

“U.S. Embassy Beijing and U.S. Consulate Shanghai are monitoring the situation, working closely with counterparts at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, and the Beijing and Shanghai municipal governments,” the official said.

The colonel’s accusation provoked a widespread response on Chinese websites. One post in reaction joked that Dai’s comment about auto deaths must mean that the United States and Germany are responsible for a conspiracy to produce cars, according to a report in Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post.

Luo Changping, deputy editor of Caijing, said most PLA soldiers would not support Dai’s comments and he urged the colonel to resign and apologize to those who have died from the current bird flu outbreak.

A defiant Dai then said in a new posting Sunday that “it is common knowledge that a group of people in China have been injected with mental toxin by the United States.”

“Now, a group of fake American devils are attacking me,” he wrote in another post. “I will not retreat even half a step.”

Analysts say the colonel’s remarks are a reflection of the growing xenophobic atmosphere within the Chinese military that views the United States as its main enemy.

Former State Department intelligence analyst John Tkacik said China’s military was largely to blame for mishandling the 2003 outbreak of SARS. Tkacik said there was speculation when the epidemic began that “the PLA suspects SARS had emanated from its own biological laboratories and was all the more eager to keep it secret.” China is known to have a covert biological arms program.

“Col. Dai Xu is a shameless liar when he accuses the United States of using bio weapons,” Tkacik told the Free Beacon. “He’s probably motivated by a desire to exculpate the PLA for their mishandling of the epidemic—no doubt most Chinese have happily forgotten the episode—as much as by a cynical xenophobia. But, that’s what passes for deep strategic thought at China’s National Defense University these days.”

The Pentagon has been trying with varying success to develop closer ties to the Chinese military as part of a strategy aimed at building trust. However, China’s military leaders believe the U.S. offers of closer ties are a ruse designed to contain China’s growing military buildup.

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel spoke by phone with China’s Defense Minister Gen. Chang Wanquan on April 2. Chang is the No. 4 defense official after Chinese President Xi Jinping and two other generals who run the Central Military Commission, the Communist Party’s ultimate power organ.

“The leaders both expressed their intention to work together to continue to build a military-to-military relationship that serves the vision of both President Obama and President Xi,” Pentagon press secretary George Little said in a statement after the call.

“The secretary discussed the importance of focusing on areas of sustained dialogue, practical areas of cooperation, and risk reducing measures,” he said.

U.S. ties with China are strained due to China’s reluctance to rein in neighboring North Korea.

China provides North Korea with large amounts of fuel oil and other goods. However, Beijing has not taken steps to pressure Pyongyang using its economic leverage during the ongoing crisis.

The flu has lit up China’s thriving Internet, according to analysts. Over 945,600 microblog postings addressed the flu between April 8 and 9. Since the outbreak began some seven days ago, between 1.3 million and 3 million postings were put online on outlets including Sina Weibo and QQ Weibo.

Tens of thousands of users expressed doubts about the official Shanghai municipal government’s denial of any link between the dead pigs found floating last month in the region’s Huangpu River.

The proximity to the initial outbreak in Shanghai and the river has led to speculation that the pig deaths may have been linked to the flu virus jumping from animals to humans.

That speculation was fueled by reports that one of the victims of the flu was a pig butcher.

The avian flu strain is similar to an earlier outbreak with a significant difference: The current strain does not kill the birds it infects, making it more difficult to identify infected poultry.

The Shanghai government waited 20 days before announcing the first H7N9 infection on March 31. – The Washington Free Beacon

How $700 million in Katrina relief money went missing

Where did all the money go?

“Your guess is as good as mine,” David Montoya, the inspector general of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, says of $700 million in missing taxpayer money that Louisiana homeowners were given in the wake of Hurricane Katrina to elevate and protect their homes from future storms.

A new report released from the inspector general’s office shows that more than 24,000 homeowners who received grants of up to $30,000 to elevate their homes either misspent or pocketed the money.

“The fact of the matter is that the money they received was for a specific purpose and the specific purpose was to elevate these homes to avoid future catastrophes,” Montoya tells Power Players.

He rates the home elevation program as little more than a complete failure.

“Considering there was just under $1 billion earmarked for this particular program and there’s $700 million that wasn’t used for that, I’d give it a very low D,” he says.

But the lessons learned from the failed home elevation project provides a useful roadmap as Congress moves to offer recovery funds to victims of Hurricane Sandy.

“Clearly, to give money out on the front end right after a disaster, when many of these people lost everything, with a promise to do something down the road, I think is counterproductive to what the program was designed to do,” says Montoya.

Montoya says his office will recommend that, for future disaster relief programs, funds are disbursed to individuals only after the project has been completed.

To hear more of the interview with the inspector general, including his explanation of why the government likely will never get the money back, check out this episode of Power Players. – YahooNews

NY cops frisk minorities to ‘instill fear’

A New York State Senator testified in federal court Monday that New York City Police Commissioner Ray Kelly explained the city’s controversial stop-and-frisk program as a means of instilling fear in young African American and Hispanic men.

Twenty-two year NYPD veteran and State Senator Eric Adams told the court that in 2010 he traveled to Albany to voice his support to a bill that would forbid the NYPD from keeping a database of information pulled from stop-and-frisks that did not lead to an arrest. That bill would ultimately pass, but Adams testified on Monday that, upon telling Kelly the program disproportionately targeted young black and Latino men, the commissioner was far from concerned.

The new testimony follows evidence from more than one New York cop indicating that the department has set, officially or unofficially, quotas for stop-and-frisks. There has also been recent testimony from those officers that the program specifically targets people of color.

Kelly “stated that he targeted and focused on that group because he wanted to instill fear in them that every time they left their homes they could be targeted by police,” Adams said.

He said Kelly justified his reasoning by asking, “How else would we get rid of guns?”

“I was amazed,” Adams said in court. “I told him that was illegal.”

Under Kelly and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg the NYPD has stopped an estimated 4.4 million people, most of whom have been in the demographic Kelly allegedly described to Adams. The policy allows officers to stop pedestrians on the street if they perceive that person is on the way to committing a crime, is in the process of committing a crime, or leaving the scene of a crime. Roughly 94 per cent of the stops result in no charges.

The program has come under attack in recent months as civil rights lawyers try to prove stop-and-frisk is a violation of the 4th and 14th amendments. Adams’ testimony comes after previous witnesses told the court that NYPD officers have acted with impunity since the program began in 2002.

Adams said stop-and-frisk is a “great tool” to stopping crime but mentioned that “nowhere” does it empower the NYPD to “use the tool to instill fear. Nowhere.”

City attorney Heidi Grossman questioned Adams’ recollection of the conversation while claiming Kelly meant officers should “instill belief” in young men of minority backgrounds, not “instill fear,” though she did not specify what such a belief would be in.

“I don’t think anyone in their right mind would believe the police commissioner would say the police department is targeting, just for targeting, blacks and Hispanics,” Grossman said.

She also tried to read from a written statement from Kelly denying the claim before being stopped by Manhattan Federal Judge Shira Scheindlin.

“If he’d like to come here, he’s welcome in this courtroom,” Scheindlin said, regarding Grossman’s attempted “backdoor” testimony from Kelly.

Outside the courthouse Adams told reporters that because his Brooklyn district has one of the highest crime rates in the city, it is also heavily policed. He said his constituents find themselves trying to stay away from crime as well as overbearing law enforcement.

“They feel trapped,” he said, adding that “Cops don’t want to do this. Cops are so frustrated they are wearing wires to roll call.” – RT

Students to wear ‘White Privilege’ wristbands

The Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction runs several programs that emphasize racial issues.

One of those programs – an Americorps operation called VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America) –   encourages white students to wear white wristbands that serve “as a reminder about your (white) privilege?”
The program for high school students “seeks to build capacity in schools and districts serving low-income families to develop an effective, sustainable, research-based program of family-school-community partnerships,”according to its Facebook page.
That sounds reasonable enough. However, the program becomes a bit suspect when one notices the Gloria Steinem quote on the top of their webpage: “The first problem for all of us, men and women, is not to learn, but to unlearn.”
The webpage list a series of suggestions for high schools students to become more racially sensitive. The suggestions include:
• Wear a white wristband as a reminder about your privilege, and as a personal commitment to explain why you wear the wristband.
• Set aside sections of the day to critically examine how privilege is working.
• Put a note on your mirror or computer screen as a reminder to think about privilege.
The Wisconsin DPI also sponsors  CREATE Wisconsin, an on-going “cultural sensitivity” teacher-training program that focuses largely on “whiteness” and “white privilege.” – WTMJ

China’s drone fleets

China is building one of the world’s largest drone fleets aimed at expanding its military reach in the Pacific and swarming U.S. Navy carriers in the unlikely event of a war, according to a new report.

The Chinese military — known as the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) — envisions its drone swarms scouting out battlefields, guiding missile strikes and overwhelming opponents through sheer numbers. China’s military-industrial complex has created a wide array of homegrown drones to accomplish those goals over the past decade, according to the report released by the Project 2049 Institute on March 11.

“The PLA now fields one of the world’s most expansive UAV [unmanned aerial vehicle] fleets,” said Ian Easton and L.C. Russell Hsiao, researchers at the Project 2049 Institute and authors of the new report.

U.S. military forces still operate the largest drone fleet, with at least 679 drones in 2012, according to data from the International Institute for Strategic Studies reported by the Guardian. But the new Project 2049 Institute report estimates that China had 280 military drones as of mid-2011 — a number that has likely grown since then.

Chinese military drones have already entered the frontlines of China’s territorial disputes with neighboring countries such as Japan by flying maritime patrols over disputed areas. The Project 2049 Institute report warned that China could be tempted to use drones more aggressively without risking human lives, or even consider “plausibly deniable” drone attacks blamed upon mechanical failure or cyberhackers.

Chinese strategists have also discussed using swarms of drones to overwhelm the U.S. Navy’s carrier groups in the unlikely possibility of a shooting war. The drones could act as decoys, use electronic warfare to jam communications and radar, guide missile strikes on carriers, fire missiles at U.S. Navy ships or dive into ships like kamikaze robots.

“In particular, numerous authoritative studies indicate a strong emphasis on developing UAVs for locating, tracking and targeting U.S. aircraft carriers in support of long range anti-ship cruise and ballistic missile strikes,” the Project 2049 Institute report says.

All the main branches of the Chinese military field operational drone units. The new report identifies those military units along with major academic, industry and military organizations involved in building Chinese drones.

The report goes on to examine the state of Chinese drone technology. China is developing drones such as the rumored “Dark Sword” stealth drone that have low radar profiles to escape radar detection. It also wants to build “space” drones that could loiter at heights of 31 miles (50 kilometers) above the Earth to provide constant surveillance. (Scientists typically consider 62 miles (100 km) to mark the boundary for the edge of space.)

Chinese engineers have even begun working on drones that have the software brains to fly in formation, do aerial refueling and takeoff and land autonomously — capabilities that the U.S. military has also developed or begun testing for its own drones.

The risk of war between the U.S. and China remains low. But the report cautions that the U.S. military could prepare for the worst-case scenario by hardening its existing air bases in Asia and developing energy weapons (such as lasers) for better air and missile defense. – TechNewsDaily