Why Did the Environmental Protection Agency Spend $1.4 Million on Guns?

[...]
The headline of an op-ed by economist Stephen Moore in Investor’s Business Daily sums it up well: “Why Does the EPA Need Guns, Ammo, and Armor to Protect the Environment?”

And not just a few weapons. Open the Books found that the agency has spent millions of dollars over the last decade on guns, ammo, body armor, camouflage equipment, unmanned aircraft, amphibious assault ships, radar and night-vision gear, and other military-style weaponry and surveillance activities.

“We were shocked ourselves to find these kinds of pervasive expenditures at an agency that is supposed to be involved in clean air and clean water,” said Open the Books founder Adam Andrzejewski. “Some of these weapons are for full-scale military operations.”

[...]
Among the EPA’s purchases:

$1.4 million for “guns up to 300mm.”
$380,000 for “ammunition.”
$210,000 for “camouflage and other deceptive equipment.”
$208,000 for “radar and night-vision equipment.”
$31,000 for “armament training devices.”

http://dailysignal.com/2015/10/30/why-did-the-environmental-protection-agency-spend-1-4-million-on-guns/

It is starting folks, as predicted.

Because there are lots of billions invested in the scarecrow called "global warming".

‘CLOCK BOY’ AHMED NAMED ONE OF TIME’S 30 MOST INFLUENTIAL TEENS OF 2015



“Clock Boy” Ahmed Mohamed landed on TIME Magazine’s 30 Most Influential Teens of 2015. The publication announced this year’s crop of teen wonders with the 14-year-old among sports dynamos, up-and-coming Hollywood stars, kids of the rich and famous, young entrepreneurs, and a Nobel prize winning girls’ education activist who survived being shot by the Taliban.

Mohamed is the Irving, Texas student arrested and suspended from high school on Sept. 14 after bringing a homemade suitcase clock initially seen as a possible hoax bomb.

TIME says they determine their annual lists by considering accolades across numerous fields, global impact through social media and overall ability to drive news.  It appears he made the list for the international noise created by the family claiming Islamophobia and bigotry as behind his highly publicized woes despite “safe school” zero tolerance policies in public schools.

The publication describes Mohamed as making national news by bringing a homemade clock to school that “teachers and authorities mistook said clock for a bomb.” They write: “But the ninth grader’s arrest, after teachers and authorities mistook said clock for a bomb, kicked off a national debate over racial profiling—and an outpouring of support for Mohamed, who was personally invited to the White House by President Obama (who called his clock “cool”). In October, he accepted a full scholarship to a prestigious school in Qatar.”

The Texas teen turned Qatari clock kid did, in fact, turn down the esteemed MIT for the Muslim Brotherhood affiliated Qatar Foundation and their Education City. Although not mentioned in TIME, Mohamed is also known for his Saudi funded Mecca pilgrimage, a visit with genocidal Sudanese Islamic autocrat Bashir, a promo video appearance with Hamas supporter Nihad Awad, also the co-founder of the Council of American Islamic Relations (CAIR), an organization charged as an unindicted co-conspirator in the largest terrorism-financing case in U.S history, the Holy Land Foundation trial. The clockmaker was also honored at CAIR’s Oct. 17 Virginia-held banquet.

Mohamed shares this year’s honors with First Daughter Malia Obama, 17, dubbed a cultural icon; celebrity kids Jaden Smith, Bindi Irwin, Kylie and Kendall Jenner; Vine sensations Lele Pons and Shawn Mendes; 15-year-old transgender Jazz Jennings, who has been living as a girl since age five; and the youngest Nobel Prize winner, Pakistani girls’ education activist Malala Yousafzai, 18, who survived being shot by the Taliban.

A few more among the 30 winners are a bow tie-making entrepreneur , the world’s youngest snowboarder, a teen restauranteur, a few Hollywood actresses, a soccer star, a Brazilian libertarian, a Chinese revolutionary, a rapper, a video game reviewer, a venture capitalist, and a 17-year-old high school student who invented a new way to test for the Ebola vaccine.

Mohamed recently reunited with his confusing-looking metal suitcase timepiece, a 110 volt mass of circuitry and wires from a commercially dissembled clock. It sat at the Irving Police Department for over a month because no one in the Mohamed family picked it up, despite officer requests. On Oct. 23, Mohamed family attorney Reggie London came and got it, Irving PD spokesman James McLellan told Breitbart Texas. The “influential” teen and his 9/11 “Truther” Sudanese father, however, still have not signed a release waiver to allow the school district to tell their side of the “clock boy” story.


http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/10/28/clock-boy-ahmed-named-one-times-30-influential-teens-2015/

NOAA withholds climate documents from Congress


The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has refused to answer an Oct. 13 subpoena from by Rep. Lamar Smith (R) of Texas, chairman of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology. Rep. Smith, a prominent climate change denier, demanded that internal communications surrounding a recent climate change study by NOAA scientists be turned over to his committee for examination.

Thomas Karl, the director of NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information, published the paper in question in a June issue of the peer-reviewed journal Science. By explaining relevant data trends, Karl and his colleagues dispute “the notion of a ‘slowdown’ in the increase of global surface temperature” and argue climate change is as prevalent as ever.

Smith, who regularly tries to disprove climate change, insists the NOAA scientists manipulated data to get the “results they needed to advance this administration’s extreme climate change agenda.”

[...]
The agency says it has given the committee all data and information available to the public, as well as explanatory briefings on the research. And the agency says their obligations to the committee end there.

“Because the confidentiality of these communications among scientists is essential to frank discourse among scientists, those documents were not provided to the Committee,” the agency told Nature. “It is a long-standing practice in the scientific community to protect the confidentiality of deliberative scientific discussions.”


http://hotair.com/archives/2015/10/29/noaa-withholds-climate-documents-from-congress/

Yep.

Trump: ‘In About Two Minutes’ I Re-Negotiated Debate So We Could ‘Get The Hell Out Of Here’ [VIDEO]


Donald Trump: Our country doesn’t win anymore. We have used to win, we don’t win anymore. We lose on trade. We lose with ISIS. We lost with one of the worst deals I have ever seen negotiated of any kind. That’s our recent catastrophe with Iran. We don’t win. Let me give you a terrific example. These folks at CNBC, they had it down to three and a half hours. I just read in “The New York Times,” $250,000 for a third-second ad. I went out and said that’s ridiculous. I could stand up here all night. Nobody wants to watch three and a half or three hours. It was a big sacrifice. And I have to hand it to Ben, we called Ben, he was with me 100 percent. We called in, we said, “That’s it, we’re not doing it.” They lost a lot of money, everybody said it couldn’t be done. Everybody said it would be three hours, three and a half, including them. And in about two minutes I re-negotiated it down to two hours so we can get the hell out of here. Not bad. And I’ll do that with the country. We will make, we will make America great again, and thank you everybody.

John Harwood: Just for the record, the debate was always going to be two hours.

Trump: That was not right. That is absolutely not right. You know that, that is not right.


http://dailycaller.com/2015/10/28/trump-in-about-two-minutes-i-re-negotiated-debate-so-we-could-get-the-hell-out-of-here-video/


FLASHBACK:
http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/257119-trump-claims-cnbc-caves-on-debate

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-gets-his-way_56210ecbe4b06462a13bb2ca

Google wants to monitor your mental health. You should welcome it into your mind

The use of technology to track and treat mental illness is deeply worrying but sadly necessary


Next week, Dr Tom Insel leaves his post as head of the US National Institute of Mental Health, a job that made him America’s top mental health doctor. Dr Insel is a neuroscientist and a psychiatrist and a leading authority on both the medicine and public policies needed to deal with problems of the mind. He’s 64 but he’s not retiring. He’s going to work for Google.

More precisely, he’s going to work for Google Life Sciences, one of the more exotic provinces of the online empire. He’s going to investigate how technology can help diagnose and treat mental health conditions. Google doesn’t just want to read your mind, it wants to fix it too.

It’s not alone. Apple, IBM and Intel are among technology companies exploring the same field. IBM this year carried out research with Columbia University that suggested computer analysis of speech patterns can more accurately predict the onset of psychosis than conventional tests involving blood samples or brain scans. Other researchers theorise that a person’s internet search history or even shopping habits (so handily recorded by your innocuous loyalty card) can identify the first signs of mental illness. Computers can now tell when something is about to go terribly wrong in someone’s mind.

That development is striking enough in itself, but the way in which researchers like Dr Insel want to use this new technological power raises even more questions.

Wearable technology has been a hot topic in medical innovation for several years now. A growing number of people choose to track their own physical condition using FitBits, Jawbones and other activity trackers, tiny wearable devices that monitor your movements, pulse rate, sleep patterns and more. Once the preserve of obsessive fitness fanatics, “self-monitoring” has the scope to transform healthcare. The ever-increasing number of people with chronic conditions can track and electronically report their symptoms, reducing the number of routine (and expensive) consultations they need with medical staff and ensuring a quicker response to changes that do require direct professional attention.

Self-monitoring will also surely play a bigger role in preventive public health. Wearing a pedometer that counts the number of steps you take in a day has been shown to spur people to walk more. What would happen to your consumption of alcohol and sugar if a device strapped to your wrist displayed a continuous count of your calorie and unit intake for the week?

Dr Insel is part of a school of thought that suggests this technology is even better suited to mental health. The symptoms of depression, for instance, are inconstant, ebbing and rising without obvious pattern. A short consultation with a doctor once every few weeks is thus a poor means of diagnosis. But wearable technology allows continuous monitoring. A small portable device might monitor your tone of voice, speech patterns and physical movements, picking up the early signs of trouble. A device such as a mobile telephone.

Yes, we now live in a world where your phone might observe you to help assess your mental health. If you don’t find that prospect disturbing, you’re either fantastically trusting of companies and governments or you haven’t thought about it enough.

But that feeling of unease should not determine our response to technology in mental health. In fact, we should embrace and encourage the tech giants as they seek to chart the mind and its frailties, albeit on the condition that we can overcome the enormous challenge of devising rules and regulations protecting privacy and consent.

Because, simply, existing healthcare systems are failing and will continue to fail on mental health. Even if the current model of funding the NHS was sustainable, the stigma that prevents us discussing mental health problems would ensure their prevention and treatment got a disproportionately small slice of the pie.

We pour ever more billions into dealing with the worst problems of physical health, and with considerable success. Death rates from cancer and heart disease have fallen markedly over the last 40 years. Over the same period, suicide rates have gone up.

Even as the NHS budget grows, NHS trusts’ spending on mental health is falling. If someone with cancer went untreated, we’d say it was a scandal. Some estimates suggest one in five people who need “talking therapies” don’t get them. In a rare bit of enlightened thinking, some NHS trusts are supporting Big White Wall, an online service where people can anonymously report stress, anxiety and depression, take simple clinical tests and talk to therapists.

Technology will never be a panacea for mental illnesses, or our social failure to face up to them. But anything that makes them cheaper and easier and more mundane to deal with should be encouraged.

If you think the idea of Google assessing your state of mind and your phone monitoring you for depression is worrying, you’re right. But what’s more worrying is that allowing these things is the least bad option on mental health.


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/11961415/Google-wants-to-monitor-your-mental-health.-You-should-welcome-it-into-your-mind.html

I am concerned about who is doing the coding for the AI. Updating my google evil thread now...

Energy Department smashes pumpkins for causing climate change






How scary are your jack-o’-lanterns? Scarier than you think, according to the Energy Department, which claims the holiday squash is responsible for unleashing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

Most of the 1.3 billion pounds of pumpkins produced in the U.S. end up in the trash, says the Energy Department’s website, becoming part of the “more than 254 million tons of municipal solid waste (MSW) produced in the United States every year.”

Municipal solid waste decomposes into methane, “a harmful greenhouse gas that plays a part in climate change, with more than 20 times the warming effect of carbon dioxide,” Energy says.

What’s a Halloween-loving pumpkin carver to do?

Turn that pumpkin in to … energy?

Municipal solid waste can be used to harness bioenergy, the Energy Department says, which can help the U.S. become less dependent on carbon-based fuels while limiting stress on landfills by reducing waste. The agency has partnered with industry to develop and test two integrated biorefineries — “facilities capable of efficiently converting plant and waste material into affordable biofuels, biopower and other products.”

Neither of these proposed facilities is operational yet, but someday, all that squishy, orange squash could become clean, green energy.

Until then, happy carving!

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/oct/28/pumpkins-cause-climate-change-energy-department/

The most amazing thing is to listen to the media. They talk as if everybody still wants a jeb/hillary match. That tells you how deep everyone is in someone else's pocket...

Media: Hillary Clinton Just Had the Best. Ten. Days. Ever


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nNgMIMK8-Q


-------------------------
Media bias? What do you mean?

EXCLUSIVE — DONALD TRUMP TO BREITBART TECH: ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE CREATORS, USERS SHOULD ‘CONSIDER ETHICAL AND MORAL CONSEQUENCES’


With the exception of Mrs. Clinton and her email scandal, few presidential candidates of either party have been moved during their campaigns to discuss technology at length. That changes today, as Donald Trump gives an exclusive interview to Breitbart Tech about hacking, cyber-warfare and artificial intelligence.

BREITBART TECH: What’s your position on the NSA? Has it overreached in recent years, or is it an essential line of defense in the fight against terrorism?

TRUMP: The National Security Agency (NSA) is charged with collecting electronic intelligence from a host of sources around the world and from those who live in America who might wish ill on our country and its people. To accomplish that mission, the NSA has been given great latitude in how it conducts itself, especially after the events of 9/11.

To the extent that the agency can accomplish its mission without violating the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution, it should be given as much leeway as possible. However, American citizens are guaranteed certain protections. There must be a balance between those Constitutional protections and the role of the government in protecting its citizens. Congress should continue to be the arbiter of that balance.

BREITBART TECH: What is the current state of America’s cyber defenses? How should the Federal Government protect American businesses from cyber warfare? How would you defeat Chinese hackers?

TRUMP: Understanding the technical aspects of how the Internet works is important to understanding how difficult it is to defend access to American government and private enterprises. To that end, the American government has a responsibility to defend the nation from all attacks, kinetic, cyber or otherwise.

As has been the case since immediately after 9/11, the Department of Homeland Security, through its various departments and agencies, have been working with the private sector to cooperate on securing our electronic communications. It is a constant battle, but we have done a fairly good job.

However, we continue to have persistent, intentional and deliberate attacks on American cyberspace by agents from, or acting on behalf of, China. These actions border on being acts of war. America should counter attack and make public every action taken by China to steal or disrupt our operations, whether they be private or governmental.

BREITBART TECH: How do you plan to use the internet to reach out to young people and minorities?

TRUMP: The Internet is a tool. Sometimes it is a scalpel. Sometimes it is a chainsaw. It has proven to be a great new messaging tool for any number of causes, including getting people elected to office. Access to the Internet is critical if is to be used to reach young people or minorities. Young people, generally, can be reached through social media.

As for reaching minorities, the next President must go beyond using the Internet and must go into neighborhoods, churches, community centers and schools to make that personal contact. Frank dialogue and personal commitment is by far the best approach.

BREITBART TECH: What effect will a Donald Trump presidency have on the tech industry and internet culture?

TRUMP: I am a big believer in technology and will be a strong supporter of expanding tech capabilities in the United States. As President, my goal would be to ensure that the intellectual property produced in America remains the property of those who produce it. Letting other countries steal our property will not happen on my watch.

BREITBART TECH: Stephen Hawking recently speculated that artificial intelligence will pose an existential threat to humanity. How do you see artificial intelligence being used for good, and for bad? What is your take on where we are heading?

TRUMP: I have always been concerned about the social breakdown of our culture caused by technology. I think the increased dependence and addiction to electronic devices is unhealthy. Of course, these trends tend to swing like a pendulum, so I am confident we will find a balance along the way.

As for artificial intelligence, again it can either be a scalpel or a chainsaw. Creators and users alike should always consider the ethical and moral consequences of all activities. If we lose our way morally, we are doomed as a society.


http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2015/10/27/exclusive-donald-trump-to-breitbart-tech-artificial-intelligence-creators-users-should-consider-ethical-and-moral-consequences/

Planned Parenthood TX Abortion Apprentice Taught Partial-Birth Abortion to "Strive For" Intact Heads



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tgez97aG74


Published on Oct 27, 2015
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

#PPSellsBabyParts PLANNED PARENTHOOD TX DOC: HARVESTING INTACT FETAL HEADS “WILL GIVE ME SOMETHING TO STRIVE FOR”
Dr. Amna Dermish, Planned Parenthood Late-Term Abortion Doctor in Austin, TX, Taught by PPFA Senior Director of Medical Services Dr. Deborah Nucatola to Use Partial-Birth Abortions For Intact Fetuses

Contact: Peter Robbio, probbio@crcpublicrelations.com, 703.683.5004

AUSTIN, Oct. 27--The eleventh video release from The Center for Medical Progress in the ongoing Planned Parenthood baby parts scandal shows the abortion doctor for Planned Parenthood in Austin, TX, Dr. Amna Dermish, describing a partial-birth abortion procedure to terminate living, late-term fetuses which she hopes will yield intact fetal heads for brain harvesting.

Dr. Dermish admits she was trained by the Senior Director of Medical Services at Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Dr. Deborah Nucatola. Nucatola described a partial-birth abortion technique to harvest fetal organs in the first Planned Parenthood video released July 14 by CMP.

“My aim is usually to get the specimens out pretty intact,” says Dermish, speaking to actors posing as a fetal tissue procurement company. Dermish admits that she will sometimes use ultrasound guidance to convert a 2nd-trimester fetus to a feet-first breech presentation: “Especially the 20-weekers are a lot harder versus the 18-weekers, so at that point I’ll switch to breech.”

“That’s what Deb [Nucatola] was telling us, was it really makes a difference for tissue collection at PPLA,” says one of the actors, referencing Nucatola’s technique for organ harvesting. “It’s really nice when it’s, yeah--I trained with her,” replies Dermish.

In reply to a question about harvesting fetal brain, Dermish notes, “I haven’t been able to do that yet,” but exclaims with laughter, “This will give me something to strive for!”

Dermish does not use the chemical digoxin to kill the fetus before 20 weeks, so her feet-first, intact extraction abortions are done on living fetuses. Using ultrasound guidance to manipulate the fetus from vertex to breech orientation before extracting the yet-living fetus is a hallmark of the illegal partial-birth abortion procedure (18 U.S.C. 1531).

Dermish also affirms a fetal body part price of $50 or $60 per specimen. The sale or purchase of human fetal tissue is a federal felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $500,000 (42 U.S.C. 289g-2).

The state of Texas recently moved to disbar Planned Parenthood from taxpayer funding on account of Medicaid fraud and abortion-related crimes. Governor Greg Abbott recently said in an interview that the state of Texas is now in possession of “hard evidence” that Planned Parenthood is engaged in “violations of federal and state law concerning abortion procedures.”

“Less than 4 miles away from the Texas state capitol, Planned Parenthood routinely practices barbaric partial-birth abortions on living, late-term fetuses,” notes CMP Project Lead David Daleiden. “Planned Parenthood’s crimes are not just the result of local bad actors, but are tolerated and even encouraged at the highest levels of the national organization. State-level criminal investigations must press charges, and Congress’ new select committee must pursue a deep and comprehensive accounting of Planned Parenthood’s atrocities against humanity.”

####

See the video at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tgez...

Tweet: #PPSellsBabyParts

For more information on the Human Capital project, visit centerformedicalprogress.org.
The Center for Medical Progress is a 501(c)3 non-profit dedicated to monitoring and reporting on medical ethics and advances.

The Term ‘Politically Correct’ Is Now ‘Politically Incorrect’ And A ‘Microaggression’


The phrase “politically correct” is now a microaggression according to the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

The university’s “Just Words” campaign is the work of UWM’s “Inclusive Excellence Center” and aims to “raise awareness of microaggressions and their impact”—microaggressions like “politically correct” or “PC.”

Merriam-Webster defines “politically correct” as “conforming to a belief that language and practices which could offend political sensibilities (as in matters of sex or race) should be eliminated.” The university, however, claims that calling something “politically correct” “has become a way to deflect, [and say] that people are being too ‘sensitive’ and police language.” “Politically correct,” moreover, is just one of a whole host of words and phrases the university has denounced as micro aggressions.

The university also claims the word “lame” is a microaggression that somehow both “ridicules and ignores the lives of amputees” and therefore shouldn’t be used.

UWM also claims that using the phrase “third world” to describe third world countries is a microaggression because it “reinforces heirarchical [sic] attitudes towards nations around the world, [and] establishes Westernized (industrialized) countries and cultures as the ‘standard’ upon which to measure national well-being or economic status.”


http://www.campusreform.org/?ID=6907

... Like your argument?

 

IRS possessed Stingray cellphone surveillance gear, documents reveal


Exclusive: Invoices reveal tax service, 13th federal agency to use secretive dragnet, upgraded device that pretends to be cellphone tower to gather metadata


The Internal Revenue Service is the latest in a growing list of US federal agencies known to have possessed the sophisticated cellphone dragnet equipment known as Stingray, according to documents obtained by the Guardian.

Invoices obtained following a request under the Freedom of Information Act show purchases made in 2009 and 2012 by the federal tax agency with Harris Corporation, one of a number of companies that manufacture the devices. Privacy advocates said the revelation “shows the wide proliferation of this very invasive surveillance technology”.

The 2009 IRS/Harris Corp invoice is mostly redacted under section B(4) of the Freedom of Information Act, which is intended to protect trade secrets and privileged information. However, an invoice from 2012, which is also partially redacted, reports that the agency spent $65,652 on upgrading a Stingray II to a HailStorm, a more powerful version of the same device, as well as $6,000 on training from Harris Corporation.

Stingrays are the best-known example of a type of device called an IMSI-catcher, also known as “cell-site simulators”. About the size of a briefcase, they work by pretending to be cellphone towers in order to strip metadata and in some cases even content from phones which connect to them.

Despite their extensive capabilities, they require only a low-level court order called a PEN register, also known as a “trap and trace”, to grant permission for their use.

Immense secrecy has so far surrounded these devices, but a picture is slowly emerging which shows widespread use. Various revelations by the American Civil Liberties Union and news outlets including the Guardian had shown that at least 12 federal agencies are already known to have these devices, including the National Security Agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The IRS makes 13.

In November 2014, the Wall Street Journal uncovered an operation run by the US Marshals Service using a Boeing-made IMSI-catcher known as “dirtbox”. This is the first time that the IRS has been found to own the device.

The devices are also used by local and in some cases state police departments, across at least 20 states, though a culture of secrecy which surrounds Stingray devices has meant that the full scale of their use remains unknown.

Stingray spying: FBI's secret deal with police hides phone dragnet from courts
 Read more
A Guardian report in April revealed a non-disclosure agreement that local police and prosecutors were forced to sign with the FBI before using Stingrays, which mandated them to withdraw or even drop cases rather than risk revealing their use, and in September it emerged that this withholding of “discovery” evidence by police in Baltimore could lead to as many as 2,000 cases being overturned.

It remains unclear how the IRS used the Stingray devices. A spokesman for the agency did not respond to a request for comment.

Mark Matthews, a former deputy commissioner for services and enforcement at the agency who now works for the law firm Caplin and Drysdale, said that while he attends many conferences on IRS and tax law enforcement, he had not heard any “scuttlebutt” about the agency’s use of Stingray.

Matthews said there are currently between 2,000 and 3,000 “special agents” in the IRS who form the criminal investigation division (CID). They have the ability to get PEN register orders – the only authority needed to use Stingray devices.

He said the IRS on its own usually uses gentler investigation tactics. But increasingly, investigating agents from the agency are brought on board for joint operations with the FBI and other agencies when the latter need financial expertise to look at, for example, money laundering from drug organisations.

From these joint operations, he said, “the IRS had moved to drug work and had learned a lot of aggressive techniques in the money laundering and drug world, and these bad habits were leaking over into the tax world, which was supposed to be their real mission”.

Federal agencies using surveillance technology that far outstripped the limits of what a PEN register was designed to do is not new. “That used to be a worry at the FBI with their PEN register [devices],” Matthews said. “There was always a little slot where you could put in a headphone jack” – which could turn the device into a full wiretap, for which they did not have warrant clearance – “and they said, ‘Trust us.’ Not very convincing for civil liberties groups.”

Nate Wessler, a staff attorney with the speech, privacy and technology project at the ACLU, told the Guardian: “The info showing that they are using Stingrays is generally consistent with the kinds of investigative tactics that they are engaging in, and it shows the wide proliferation of this very invasive surveillance technology.”

“It’s used by dozens, perhaps hundreds, of local law enforcement, used by the usual suspects at the federal level, and if the IRS is using it, it shows just how far these devices have spread,” Wessler said.

Matthews said that he had not heard anything about Stingrays despite speaking to his contacts in the tax industry. “So this either hasn’t ripened yet in a tax case, 95% of which [end in a plea deal] so there would be no such disclosures, or this is saved more for money laundering/drug/terrorist-financing-like investigations.”

“[It] could be as silly as [they] got to the end of the year, had some extra funds, and somebody said, ‘We need some more of these devices,’” Matthews said. “It could literally be that silly. But it could be something different; it could be that they’ve decided to use them in cases where they’re the primary detective agency, and we haven’t seen it yet in the private sector.”


http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/26/stingray-surveillance-technology-irs-cellphone-tower

Swedish Migration Board Protects Refugee, Conceals Identity After Rape of 3 Year-Old



A male refugee in an asylum center in Tingsryd municipality in Sweden, on Tuesday raped a three-year-old child.

Responsible of the asylum center learned about the rape during the day, and in collaboration with the Swedish Migration Board had decided to move the man from the accommodation to protect him.

They had also chosen not to contact the police in order to conceal this incident.

However it was revealed when friends of the girl's mother contacted the police. Eight hours later.

But at the asylum center, the police could not get hold of the man, as he had been moved to another place, and employees at the asylum center were reluctant to tell the police of the man's new location, who he was, or any information at all.

According to a radio clip from Swedish Radio, the police had to contact a responsible in the Migration Board and force the truth from those in charge of the accommodation.

When such a serious crime, a rape of a three-year-old child, is being tried concealed by employees working with refugees, can you imagine how many less serious crimes they never report?


http://speisa.com/modules/articles/index.php/item.2121/a-refugee-raped-a-three-year-old-child-the-migration-board-tried-to-conceal-the-incident.html


-----------------------------------------
What about the rights of the child? Pure madness