Original Post: Weasel Zippers
Product of government school education?
Looks like geography lessons may be in order for the U.S. Senate.
Louisiana Democrat Mary Landrieu made an embarrassing gaffe Thursday during a debate on the Senate Floor, stating that South Dakota borders Canada.
The Southerner seemed to have overlooked the state’s northern neighbor, North Dakota.
The comment came during a floor discussion on an amendment regarding a security fence, presented by South Dakota Republican John Thune.
She was trying to express her opposition to Thune’s proposal about constructing a 350-mile double layered fence along the Mexico border, saying that she places more trust in the opinion of Arizona Sen. John McCain — because McCain’s state borders Mexico.
“A smart fence which is what Senator McCain and I want to build – since he’s from Arizona, I think he knows more about this than the Senator from South Dakota, who only has a border with Canada that is quite different.”
Landrieu, 57, chairs the Senate Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee.
Her office did not respond to a request for comment about the buzz over the mistake.\
This isn't the first time a Democrat lawmaker has made huge blunders in regards to basic geography. Remember how much flak they gave Sarah Palin for her Russian comment? Peggy West doesn't know where Arizona is. Maybe Democrat policy is so screwed up because they don't know where things are. As though they're detached from reality.
Tuesday, June 25, 2013
Wednesday, June 19, 2013
DO DRONES SPY ON U.S. SOIL? FBI DIRECTOR SAYS ‘YES’ BUT IN A ‘VERY, VERY MINIMAL WAY’
Original Post: The Blaze
Liz Klimas
FBI Director Robert Mueller told the Senate Judiciary Committee Wednesday, yes, the government does use drones over U.S. soil for surveillance — but not too much.
When asked by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) about the use of unmanned aircraft, Mueller said “Our footprint is very small. We have very few,” according to Wired.
ederal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director Robert Mueller testifies during a hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee June 19, 2013 on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. Mueller confirmed that the FBI uses drones for domestic surveillance during the hearing on FBI oversight. Grassley pressed, asking about their purpose, to which Mueller said they were for surveillance. Surveillance on U.S. soil?
“Yes, in a very, very minimal way, and seldom,” Mueller said.
The Huffington Post reported Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) expressing privacy concerns over the use of drones and calling them “the greatest threat to the privacy of Americans.”
In terms of privacy protections built into the drone program at the moment, Mueller said the program itself “is very narrowly focused on particularized cases and particularized needs,” which he called “the principal privacy limitation we have.”
He did say the bureau was in the “initial stages” of developing privacy guidelines though.
In May of this year, Attorney General Eric Holder revealed that the Obama administration had killed four Americans using drones in Yemen and Pakistan. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) also showed letters sent by Holder that said “the President has the power to authorize lethal force, such as a drone strike, against a U.S. citizen on U.S. soil, and without trial.”
The FAA was charged with drafting new regulations that would open up the skies of America to more private, commercial and military drone use by 2015.
Liz Klimas
FBI Director Robert Mueller told the Senate Judiciary Committee Wednesday, yes, the government does use drones over U.S. soil for surveillance — but not too much.
When asked by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) about the use of unmanned aircraft, Mueller said “Our footprint is very small. We have very few,” according to Wired.
ederal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director Robert Mueller testifies during a hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee June 19, 2013 on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. Mueller confirmed that the FBI uses drones for domestic surveillance during the hearing on FBI oversight. Grassley pressed, asking about their purpose, to which Mueller said they were for surveillance. Surveillance on U.S. soil?
“Yes, in a very, very minimal way, and seldom,” Mueller said.
The Huffington Post reported Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) expressing privacy concerns over the use of drones and calling them “the greatest threat to the privacy of Americans.”
In terms of privacy protections built into the drone program at the moment, Mueller said the program itself “is very narrowly focused on particularized cases and particularized needs,” which he called “the principal privacy limitation we have.”
He did say the bureau was in the “initial stages” of developing privacy guidelines though.
In May of this year, Attorney General Eric Holder revealed that the Obama administration had killed four Americans using drones in Yemen and Pakistan. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) also showed letters sent by Holder that said “the President has the power to authorize lethal force, such as a drone strike, against a U.S. citizen on U.S. soil, and without trial.”
The FAA was charged with drafting new regulations that would open up the skies of America to more private, commercial and military drone use by 2015.
Homeland Security graduates first Corps of Obama’s Brown Shirts – Homeland Youth
Original Post: From The Trenches World Report
It Makes Sense Blog October 7, 2012. Vicksburg. The federal government calls them FEMA Corps. But they conjure up memories of the Hitler Youth of 1930’s Germany. Regardless of their name, the Dept of Homeland Security has just graduated its first class of 231 Homeland Youth. Kids, aged 18-24 and recruited from the President’s AmeriCorp volunteers, they represent the first wave of DHS’s youth corps, designed specifically to create a full time, paid, standing army of FEMA Youth across the country.
On September 13, 2012, the Department of Homeland Security graduated its first class of FEMA Corps first-responders. While the idea of having a volunteer force of tens of thousands of volunteers scattered across the country to aid in times of natural disasters sounds great, the details and timing of this new government army is somewhat curious, if not disturbing.
The first problem one finds with this ‘new army’ is the fact that they are mere children. Yes, 18 is generally the legal age a person can sign a contract, join the military or be tried as an adult. But ask any parent – an 18, 20 or even a 24 year-old is still a naïve, readily-influenced kid.
The second problem with this announcement and program is its timing. Over the past two years, President Obama has signed a number of Executive Orders suspending all civil and Constitutional rights and turning over management of an America under Martial Law to FEMA. Also in that time, domestic federal agencies under DHS, including FEMA, have ordered billions of rounds of ammunition as well as the corresponding firearms. Admittedly, these new weapons and ammunition aren’t to be used in some far-off war or to fight forest fires in California, but right here on the streets of America.
Individuals around the US have begun reporting the site of strange, new, heavily-armed FEMA fighting vehicles. What would a disaster relief agency like FEMA need with 2,500 brand new GLS armored fighting vehicles? According to the agency’s own mandate, as well as President Obama’s recent Executive Order, the answer is ‘population control’ during a time of Martial Law.
One set of images made available by Rense.com shows trailer after trailer carrying these new DHS and FEMA armored fighting vehicles, complete with machine gun slots. They’re labeled with the usual backward American flag and the title, ‘Homeland Security’. Below that and the DHS logo, it also reads, ‘Immigration & Customs Enforcement’. Joining those markings, the black vehicles with white lettering also display ‘POLICE/RESCUE’ on one side and ‘Special Response Team’ on the other.
FEMA Deputy Administrator Rich Serino gave the keynote address at the ‘Induction Ceremony’ for the inaugural class of FEMA Corps members. According to the DHS website, ‘Corps members assist with disaster preparedness, response, and recovery activities, providing support in areas ranging from working directly with disaster survivors to supporting disaster recovering centers to sharing valuable disaster preparedness and mitigation information with the public.’
Serino describes what the first FEMA Corps class has accomplished so far, as well as where they’ll be going next:
‘Yesterday, we welcomed 231 energetic members into the first ever FEMA Corps class. The members just finished off their first month of training with our partners at the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) and are one step closer to working in the field on disaster response and recovery. They will now head to FEMA’s Center for Domestic Preparedness to spend the next two weeks training in their FEMA position-specific roles. Once they complete both the CNCS and FEMA training, these 231 dedicated FEMA Corps members will be qualified to work in one of a variety of disaster related roles, ranging from Community Relations to Disaster Recovery Center support.’
Unlike most local disaster response teams who are volunteers, training periodically and only showing up when there’s a disaster, the FEMA Corps will be a paid, full time, standing army of government youth. FEMA Deputy Administrator Sarino goes on to explain, ‘The new members, who range in age from 18-24 years old, will contribute to a dedicated, trained, and reliable disaster workforce by working full-time for ten months on federal disaster response and recovery efforts.’
In closing his announcement of the first graduating class of FEMA Corps Youth, Sarino describes his and the agency’s vision of the future, one where ‘FEMA Corps sets the foundation for a new generation of emergency managers’.
As we detailed in the August 28 Whiteout Press article ‘History of DHS Ammunition Purchases’, federal emergency management agencies are looking more and more like a military army every day.
The federal government’s procurement website actually lists DHS’ requests for bids to supply it with ammunition and military weaponry. All of the orders listed in the above article, including the orders for hundreds of millions of rounds of ammunition, are publicly available at http://www.fbo.gov.
One look at a chart of DHS ammunition purchases over the past decade reveals a drastic spike in orders of bullets recently, totaling in the billions of rounds. Other charts available online show a similar drastic spike in the purchases of accompanying weaponry by the Department of Homeland Security.
What is the US federal government preparing for? And why does it feel it needs an army of brainwashed youth, millions of guns, thousands of armored fighting vehicles and literally billions of rounds of ammunition, just to provide relief to the American people during a natural disaster? Any historian will tell you it sounds more like the arming of the Hitler Youth than an army of first responders fighting forest fires and hurricanes.
It Makes Sense Blog October 7, 2012. Vicksburg. The federal government calls them FEMA Corps. But they conjure up memories of the Hitler Youth of 1930’s Germany. Regardless of their name, the Dept of Homeland Security has just graduated its first class of 231 Homeland Youth. Kids, aged 18-24 and recruited from the President’s AmeriCorp volunteers, they represent the first wave of DHS’s youth corps, designed specifically to create a full time, paid, standing army of FEMA Youth across the country.
On September 13, 2012, the Department of Homeland Security graduated its first class of FEMA Corps first-responders. While the idea of having a volunteer force of tens of thousands of volunteers scattered across the country to aid in times of natural disasters sounds great, the details and timing of this new government army is somewhat curious, if not disturbing.
The first problem one finds with this ‘new army’ is the fact that they are mere children. Yes, 18 is generally the legal age a person can sign a contract, join the military or be tried as an adult. But ask any parent – an 18, 20 or even a 24 year-old is still a naïve, readily-influenced kid.
The second problem with this announcement and program is its timing. Over the past two years, President Obama has signed a number of Executive Orders suspending all civil and Constitutional rights and turning over management of an America under Martial Law to FEMA. Also in that time, domestic federal agencies under DHS, including FEMA, have ordered billions of rounds of ammunition as well as the corresponding firearms. Admittedly, these new weapons and ammunition aren’t to be used in some far-off war or to fight forest fires in California, but right here on the streets of America.
Individuals around the US have begun reporting the site of strange, new, heavily-armed FEMA fighting vehicles. What would a disaster relief agency like FEMA need with 2,500 brand new GLS armored fighting vehicles? According to the agency’s own mandate, as well as President Obama’s recent Executive Order, the answer is ‘population control’ during a time of Martial Law.
One set of images made available by Rense.com shows trailer after trailer carrying these new DHS and FEMA armored fighting vehicles, complete with machine gun slots. They’re labeled with the usual backward American flag and the title, ‘Homeland Security’. Below that and the DHS logo, it also reads, ‘Immigration & Customs Enforcement’. Joining those markings, the black vehicles with white lettering also display ‘POLICE/RESCUE’ on one side and ‘Special Response Team’ on the other.
FEMA Deputy Administrator Rich Serino gave the keynote address at the ‘Induction Ceremony’ for the inaugural class of FEMA Corps members. According to the DHS website, ‘Corps members assist with disaster preparedness, response, and recovery activities, providing support in areas ranging from working directly with disaster survivors to supporting disaster recovering centers to sharing valuable disaster preparedness and mitigation information with the public.’
Serino describes what the first FEMA Corps class has accomplished so far, as well as where they’ll be going next:
‘Yesterday, we welcomed 231 energetic members into the first ever FEMA Corps class. The members just finished off their first month of training with our partners at the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) and are one step closer to working in the field on disaster response and recovery. They will now head to FEMA’s Center for Domestic Preparedness to spend the next two weeks training in their FEMA position-specific roles. Once they complete both the CNCS and FEMA training, these 231 dedicated FEMA Corps members will be qualified to work in one of a variety of disaster related roles, ranging from Community Relations to Disaster Recovery Center support.’
Unlike most local disaster response teams who are volunteers, training periodically and only showing up when there’s a disaster, the FEMA Corps will be a paid, full time, standing army of government youth. FEMA Deputy Administrator Sarino goes on to explain, ‘The new members, who range in age from 18-24 years old, will contribute to a dedicated, trained, and reliable disaster workforce by working full-time for ten months on federal disaster response and recovery efforts.’
In closing his announcement of the first graduating class of FEMA Corps Youth, Sarino describes his and the agency’s vision of the future, one where ‘FEMA Corps sets the foundation for a new generation of emergency managers’.
As we detailed in the August 28 Whiteout Press article ‘History of DHS Ammunition Purchases’, federal emergency management agencies are looking more and more like a military army every day.
The federal government’s procurement website actually lists DHS’ requests for bids to supply it with ammunition and military weaponry. All of the orders listed in the above article, including the orders for hundreds of millions of rounds of ammunition, are publicly available at http://www.fbo.gov.
One look at a chart of DHS ammunition purchases over the past decade reveals a drastic spike in orders of bullets recently, totaling in the billions of rounds. Other charts available online show a similar drastic spike in the purchases of accompanying weaponry by the Department of Homeland Security.
What is the US federal government preparing for? And why does it feel it needs an army of brainwashed youth, millions of guns, thousands of armored fighting vehicles and literally billions of rounds of ammunition, just to provide relief to the American people during a natural disaster? Any historian will tell you it sounds more like the arming of the Hitler Youth than an army of first responders fighting forest fires and hurricanes.
Teen Faces Year in Jail and $500 Fine After Wearing NRA Shirt to School
Original Post: Reason
Zenon Evans
Back in April, Logan Middle School in West Virginia found itself at the center of controversy when it suspended Jared Marcum, called the police, and had the eighth grader arrested. The teen's crime? Wearing a t-shirt that had a picture of a rifle and text that said, “NRA: Protect your right."
The teenager, who has no previous criminal record, went before a judge last week. He was officially charged with obstructing an officer, which carries a potential penalty of a $500 fine and up to one year in jail. WOWKTV reports:
We obtained official court documents from both sides of this case. On one hand, he arresting officer from the Logan City Police Department, James Adkins, claims that when Jared refused to stop talking, that hindered his ability to do his job, hence, the obstruction charge. On the other side, Ben White points out that nowhere in the arresting officer's petition, does it mention Jared ever making any threats or acting in a violent manner.
"Jared didn’t do anything wrong," his lawyer said. "Officer Adkins could have done something differently," he added. The boy's stepfather, Allen Lardieiri, expressed his disbelief that the situation ever progressed this far. He said, "I don't' see how anybody would have an issue with a hunting rifle and NRA put on a t-shirt, especially when policy doesn't forbid it.”
Marcum insists that at the core of his legal trouble is a fight for constitutional rights. "What they're doing is trying to take away my rights, my freedom of speech and my second amendment,” Marcum said after being arrested. Lardieri stood by statement, reiterating that “what happened here in Logan can reverberate outside of Logan. This isn’t over and neither are our rights.”
The Logan County Board of Education's dress code can be found here. Although the school system forbids “clothing and accessories that display profanity, violence, discriminatory messages or sexually suggestive phrases” as well as advertisements for any alcohol, tobacco, or drug product,” there is no mention of firearms of any kind or the NRA.
Zenon Evans
Back in April, Logan Middle School in West Virginia found itself at the center of controversy when it suspended Jared Marcum, called the police, and had the eighth grader arrested. The teen's crime? Wearing a t-shirt that had a picture of a rifle and text that said, “NRA: Protect your right."
The teenager, who has no previous criminal record, went before a judge last week. He was officially charged with obstructing an officer, which carries a potential penalty of a $500 fine and up to one year in jail. WOWKTV reports:
We obtained official court documents from both sides of this case. On one hand, he arresting officer from the Logan City Police Department, James Adkins, claims that when Jared refused to stop talking, that hindered his ability to do his job, hence, the obstruction charge. On the other side, Ben White points out that nowhere in the arresting officer's petition, does it mention Jared ever making any threats or acting in a violent manner.
"Jared didn’t do anything wrong," his lawyer said. "Officer Adkins could have done something differently," he added. The boy's stepfather, Allen Lardieiri, expressed his disbelief that the situation ever progressed this far. He said, "I don't' see how anybody would have an issue with a hunting rifle and NRA put on a t-shirt, especially when policy doesn't forbid it.”
Marcum insists that at the core of his legal trouble is a fight for constitutional rights. "What they're doing is trying to take away my rights, my freedom of speech and my second amendment,” Marcum said after being arrested. Lardieri stood by statement, reiterating that “what happened here in Logan can reverberate outside of Logan. This isn’t over and neither are our rights.”
The Logan County Board of Education's dress code can be found here. Although the school system forbids “clothing and accessories that display profanity, violence, discriminatory messages or sexually suggestive phrases” as well as advertisements for any alcohol, tobacco, or drug product,” there is no mention of firearms of any kind or the NRA.
Thursday, May 23, 2013
Obama administration targets Fox News reporter in 'chilling' echo of AP probe
Original Post: CS Monitor
By Husna Haq
Associated Press reporters are not alone. One week after news broke that the Justice Department secretly obtained phone records from AP, more news has emerged about the Obama administration’s campaign to silence leaks.
Gary Pruitt, CEO of the Associated press, told CBS's "Face the Nation" this weekend that the Justice Department’s investigation is already silencing AP sources. This time, it’s new details about a 2010 Justice Department investigation into a Fox News correspondent who reported government secrets on North Korea. The twist is that in the Fox News case, the government is suggesting that the reporter broke the law and criminal charges could result.
The news points to how the Obama administration is going to unprecedented lengths to defend secrets – prosecuting more government leakers under the 1917 Espionage Act than all prior administrations combined.
Anecdotal evidence suggests the crackdown is having an effect, with AP saying some of its sources are falling silent. But that success could come at the expense of the newsgathering and investigative-reporting process that the Founding Fathers saw as a crucial check on federal power.
The Fox News case, in particular, suggests the “criminalization of investigative journalism,” writes Glenn Greenwald in The Guardian, a British newspaper.
According to a Washington Post report Sunday, Fox News chief Washington correspondent James Rosen reported in June 2009 on a CIA analysis that suggested North Korea may respond to UN sanctions with more nuclear tests. The story was published online the same day that a confidential report on the matter was released to select officials in the intelligence community, including a State Department security adviser, Stephen Jin-Woo Kim.
Detecting a connection, FBI investigators built a case alleging Mr. Kim leaked information to Mr. Rosen. To do so, they used every tool in their arsenal: analyzing security badge access records to track Rosen’s comings and goings from the State Department, tracing the timing of his calls to Kim, even subpoenaing his personal e-mails. Ultimately, FBI agents concluded Kim did, in fact, leak information to Rosen using a complex, if clumsy, system of communication including aliases and coded signals.
In his report, FBI investigator Reginald Reyes said evidence suggested Rosen had broken the law, “at the very least, either as an aider, abettor and/or co-conspirator.”
While details on the case are forthcoming, it is not a crime for journalists to report classified information, except in rare circumstances. Furthermore, government seizure of media records is tightly circumscribed under the government’s Code of Federal Regulations.
The AP and Fox News cases renew concerns about the potential stifling effect government investigations have on reporters and their sources.
“Search warrants like these have a severe chilling effect on the free flow of important information to the public,” said First Amendment lawyer Charles Tobin in the Washington Post report. “That’s a very dangerous road to go down.”
Jane Mayer of The New Yorker goes further: “It's a huge impediment to reporting, and so chilling isn't quite strong enough, it's more like freezing the whole process into a standstill,” she told the New Republic.
As a case in point, Gary Pruitt, CEO of the AP, told CBS’s "Face the Nation" this weekend that the Justice Department’s investigation is already silencing AP sources.
“Already, officials that would normally talk to us and people we talk to in the normal course of news gathering are already saying to us that they're a little reluctant to talk to us,” he said. “They fear that they – they will be monitored by the government.”
Perhaps the most serious implication, however, is that the investigations threaten to jeopardize the very practice of investigative journalism, already endangered by budget cuts and the 24/7 news cycle.
“Under US law, it is not illegal to publish classified information,” writes The Guardian's Mr. Greenwald. “That fact, along with the First Amendment's guarantee of press freedoms, is what has prevented the US government from ever prosecuting journalists for reporting on what the US government does in secret. This newfound theory of the Obama DOJ – that a journalist can be guilty of crimes for 'soliciting' the disclosure of classified information – is a means for circumventing those safeguards and criminalizing the act of investigative journalism itself.”
By Husna Haq
Associated Press reporters are not alone. One week after news broke that the Justice Department secretly obtained phone records from AP, more news has emerged about the Obama administration’s campaign to silence leaks.
Gary Pruitt, CEO of the Associated press, told CBS's "Face the Nation" this weekend that the Justice Department’s investigation is already silencing AP sources. This time, it’s new details about a 2010 Justice Department investigation into a Fox News correspondent who reported government secrets on North Korea. The twist is that in the Fox News case, the government is suggesting that the reporter broke the law and criminal charges could result.
The news points to how the Obama administration is going to unprecedented lengths to defend secrets – prosecuting more government leakers under the 1917 Espionage Act than all prior administrations combined.
Anecdotal evidence suggests the crackdown is having an effect, with AP saying some of its sources are falling silent. But that success could come at the expense of the newsgathering and investigative-reporting process that the Founding Fathers saw as a crucial check on federal power.
The Fox News case, in particular, suggests the “criminalization of investigative journalism,” writes Glenn Greenwald in The Guardian, a British newspaper.
According to a Washington Post report Sunday, Fox News chief Washington correspondent James Rosen reported in June 2009 on a CIA analysis that suggested North Korea may respond to UN sanctions with more nuclear tests. The story was published online the same day that a confidential report on the matter was released to select officials in the intelligence community, including a State Department security adviser, Stephen Jin-Woo Kim.
Detecting a connection, FBI investigators built a case alleging Mr. Kim leaked information to Mr. Rosen. To do so, they used every tool in their arsenal: analyzing security badge access records to track Rosen’s comings and goings from the State Department, tracing the timing of his calls to Kim, even subpoenaing his personal e-mails. Ultimately, FBI agents concluded Kim did, in fact, leak information to Rosen using a complex, if clumsy, system of communication including aliases and coded signals.
In his report, FBI investigator Reginald Reyes said evidence suggested Rosen had broken the law, “at the very least, either as an aider, abettor and/or co-conspirator.”
While details on the case are forthcoming, it is not a crime for journalists to report classified information, except in rare circumstances. Furthermore, government seizure of media records is tightly circumscribed under the government’s Code of Federal Regulations.
The AP and Fox News cases renew concerns about the potential stifling effect government investigations have on reporters and their sources.
“Search warrants like these have a severe chilling effect on the free flow of important information to the public,” said First Amendment lawyer Charles Tobin in the Washington Post report. “That’s a very dangerous road to go down.”
Jane Mayer of The New Yorker goes further: “It's a huge impediment to reporting, and so chilling isn't quite strong enough, it's more like freezing the whole process into a standstill,” she told the New Republic.
As a case in point, Gary Pruitt, CEO of the AP, told CBS’s "Face the Nation" this weekend that the Justice Department’s investigation is already silencing AP sources.
“Already, officials that would normally talk to us and people we talk to in the normal course of news gathering are already saying to us that they're a little reluctant to talk to us,” he said. “They fear that they – they will be monitored by the government.”
Perhaps the most serious implication, however, is that the investigations threaten to jeopardize the very practice of investigative journalism, already endangered by budget cuts and the 24/7 news cycle.
“Under US law, it is not illegal to publish classified information,” writes The Guardian's Mr. Greenwald. “That fact, along with the First Amendment's guarantee of press freedoms, is what has prevented the US government from ever prosecuting journalists for reporting on what the US government does in secret. This newfound theory of the Obama DOJ – that a journalist can be guilty of crimes for 'soliciting' the disclosure of classified information – is a means for circumventing those safeguards and criminalizing the act of investigative journalism itself.”
IRS asked pro-life group about 'the content of their prayers'
Original Post:Washington Examiner
During a House Ways and Means Committee hearing today, Rep. Aaron Schock, R-Ill., grilled outgoing IRS commissioner Steven Miller about the IRS targeting a pro-life group in Iowa.
“Their question, specifically asked from the IRS to the Coalition for Life of Iowa: ‘Please detail the content of the members of your organization’s prayers,’" Schock declared.
“Would that be an inappropriate question to a 501 c3 applicant?” asked Schock. “The content of one’s prayers?”
“It pains me to say I can’t speak to that one either,” Miller replied.
After Schock pressed him further, Miller explained that although he couldn't comment on the specific case, it would "surprise him" if that question was asked.
The report comes from the Thomas More Society, a national public interest law firm for religious liberty.
Sign Up for the Politics Digest newsletter! From their report:
Coalition for Life of Iowa found itself in the IRS’s crosshairs when the group applied for tax exempt status in October 2008. Nearly ten months of interrogation about the group’s opposition to Planned Parenthood included a demand by a Ms. Richards from the IRS’ Cincinnati office unlawfully insisted that all board members sign a sworn declaration promising not to picket/protest Planned Parenthood. Further questioning by the IRS requested detailed information about the content of the group’s prayer meetings, educational seminars, and signs their members hold outside Planned Parenthood.
During a House Ways and Means Committee hearing today, Rep. Aaron Schock, R-Ill., grilled outgoing IRS commissioner Steven Miller about the IRS targeting a pro-life group in Iowa.
“Their question, specifically asked from the IRS to the Coalition for Life of Iowa: ‘Please detail the content of the members of your organization’s prayers,’" Schock declared.
“Would that be an inappropriate question to a 501 c3 applicant?” asked Schock. “The content of one’s prayers?”
“It pains me to say I can’t speak to that one either,” Miller replied.
After Schock pressed him further, Miller explained that although he couldn't comment on the specific case, it would "surprise him" if that question was asked.
The report comes from the Thomas More Society, a national public interest law firm for religious liberty.
Sign Up for the Politics Digest newsletter! From their report:
Coalition for Life of Iowa found itself in the IRS’s crosshairs when the group applied for tax exempt status in October 2008. Nearly ten months of interrogation about the group’s opposition to Planned Parenthood included a demand by a Ms. Richards from the IRS’ Cincinnati office unlawfully insisted that all board members sign a sworn declaration promising not to picket/protest Planned Parenthood. Further questioning by the IRS requested detailed information about the content of the group’s prayer meetings, educational seminars, and signs their members hold outside Planned Parenthood.
MPS, Wisconsin rank high in per-pupil spending
Original Post:JS Online
By Erin Richards
Among the country's largest metropolitan districts, Milwaukee Public Schools maintained its status as fourth-highest in per-pupil spending in 2011, while Wisconsin also ranked in the top third of states that spent the most per student that year.
And while per-pupil spending in MPS and in Wisconsin increased between 2010 and 2011, average per-pupil spending nationwide dropped — marking the first decrease in per-student public education spending since 1977, according to a new report from the U.S. Census Bureau.
The national data lags behind the current environment in Wisconsin, where education spending was cut dramatically as part of Gov. Scott Walker's 2011-'13 budget. The effect of those cuts — and whether that brings Wisconsin in line with what other states have done — won't be seen until this time next year, when the Census Bureau releases comparisons for student spending in the 2012 fiscal year.
Essentially, the latest report shows that most other states were cutting education spending before Wisconsin started doing the same.
"From what I can gather here, there was all this uproar after Governor Walker's first budget and all the school cuts, and these data seem to show that in a sense, we were a bit late to the party," Dale Knapp, research director for the Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance, a nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization, said Tuesday.
Backers of public education may argue in favor of Wisconsin holding out on cutting spending on students.
The new figures released Tuesday show MPS spent $14,244 per student in 2011, up from $14,038 in 2010, when the district was also ranked fourth-highest in per-pupil spending among the nation's 100 largest districts by enrollment.
Wisconsin spent $11,774 per student on average in 2011, up 3.6% from $11,364 in 2010, according to the report.
On average nationwide, the 50 states and the District of Columbia spent $10,560 per student in 2011, down half a percent from $10,615 per pupil in the 2009-'10 school year.
The current spending figures place Wisconsin 16th out of 50 states and the District of Columbia in terms of per-pupil spending, up from the previous year's rank of 18th nationwide.
The data used in the report, Public Education Finances: 2011, came from a census of all 15,345 school districts in the country, according to the report.
The report reflects the last year of former Gov. Jim Doyle's state budget, where districts' revenue limit authority — or the total amount districts could boost property taxes and state aid per student — was limited to an increase of $200 per pupil.
Under Walker's 2011-'13 budget, education spending was cut by $834 million. To restrict property taxes from replacing the drop in school aid, the governor's budget reduced districts' revenue limit authority by 5.5%, meaning a drop of about $550 in the per-pupil revenue limit.
MPS officials have taken issue with the census figures, which show a more inflated picture of per-pupil spending because they include many federal dollars that may not be going toward the district's classroom operations.
For example, MPS officials said Tuesday that they believe the census figures include federal dollars that went toward providing services to low-income students in nonpublic schools, such as the private schools participating in the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program, or voucher program.
"This raises questions about whether the number can be used to accurately reflect how much money MPS spends on its own students," MPS spokesman Tony Tagliavia said in a statement.
"In addition, because of the voucher program, we are likely providing services to more nonpublic students than a typical large urban district," he added.
Tagliavia also called the 2010-'11 data "significantly outdated" and not relevant to any current conversations about school funding. He also noted the district made significant changes to its budget after the reduction in state funding.
The census report notes that spending on adult education in Wisconsin cannot be separated in the figures. Other states have other caveats.
MPS prefers to look at per-pupil spending in terms of only state aid and property taxes for each pupil — leaving out the federal dollars. Tagliavia noted that for 2012-'13, that was $6,442 per student in general aid and $3,473 per student in property taxes, adding up to a combined $9,915 per pupil.
Knapp, from the Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance, said the census figures are still the best national figures available to compare school systems to one another.
And he said the 2012 numbers will be even more interesting.
"We know Wisconsin had a big cut then, so we'll be able to see that compared to what other states were doing in 2012," he said. "Were other states cutting some more, or were they leveling off?"
By Erin Richards
Among the country's largest metropolitan districts, Milwaukee Public Schools maintained its status as fourth-highest in per-pupil spending in 2011, while Wisconsin also ranked in the top third of states that spent the most per student that year.
And while per-pupil spending in MPS and in Wisconsin increased between 2010 and 2011, average per-pupil spending nationwide dropped — marking the first decrease in per-student public education spending since 1977, according to a new report from the U.S. Census Bureau.
The national data lags behind the current environment in Wisconsin, where education spending was cut dramatically as part of Gov. Scott Walker's 2011-'13 budget. The effect of those cuts — and whether that brings Wisconsin in line with what other states have done — won't be seen until this time next year, when the Census Bureau releases comparisons for student spending in the 2012 fiscal year.
Essentially, the latest report shows that most other states were cutting education spending before Wisconsin started doing the same.
"From what I can gather here, there was all this uproar after Governor Walker's first budget and all the school cuts, and these data seem to show that in a sense, we were a bit late to the party," Dale Knapp, research director for the Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance, a nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization, said Tuesday.
Backers of public education may argue in favor of Wisconsin holding out on cutting spending on students.
The new figures released Tuesday show MPS spent $14,244 per student in 2011, up from $14,038 in 2010, when the district was also ranked fourth-highest in per-pupil spending among the nation's 100 largest districts by enrollment.
Wisconsin spent $11,774 per student on average in 2011, up 3.6% from $11,364 in 2010, according to the report.
On average nationwide, the 50 states and the District of Columbia spent $10,560 per student in 2011, down half a percent from $10,615 per pupil in the 2009-'10 school year.
The current spending figures place Wisconsin 16th out of 50 states and the District of Columbia in terms of per-pupil spending, up from the previous year's rank of 18th nationwide.
The data used in the report, Public Education Finances: 2011, came from a census of all 15,345 school districts in the country, according to the report.
The report reflects the last year of former Gov. Jim Doyle's state budget, where districts' revenue limit authority — or the total amount districts could boost property taxes and state aid per student — was limited to an increase of $200 per pupil.
Under Walker's 2011-'13 budget, education spending was cut by $834 million. To restrict property taxes from replacing the drop in school aid, the governor's budget reduced districts' revenue limit authority by 5.5%, meaning a drop of about $550 in the per-pupil revenue limit.
MPS officials have taken issue with the census figures, which show a more inflated picture of per-pupil spending because they include many federal dollars that may not be going toward the district's classroom operations.
For example, MPS officials said Tuesday that they believe the census figures include federal dollars that went toward providing services to low-income students in nonpublic schools, such as the private schools participating in the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program, or voucher program.
"This raises questions about whether the number can be used to accurately reflect how much money MPS spends on its own students," MPS spokesman Tony Tagliavia said in a statement.
"In addition, because of the voucher program, we are likely providing services to more nonpublic students than a typical large urban district," he added.
Tagliavia also called the 2010-'11 data "significantly outdated" and not relevant to any current conversations about school funding. He also noted the district made significant changes to its budget after the reduction in state funding.
The census report notes that spending on adult education in Wisconsin cannot be separated in the figures. Other states have other caveats.
MPS prefers to look at per-pupil spending in terms of only state aid and property taxes for each pupil — leaving out the federal dollars. Tagliavia noted that for 2012-'13, that was $6,442 per student in general aid and $3,473 per student in property taxes, adding up to a combined $9,915 per pupil.
Knapp, from the Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance, said the census figures are still the best national figures available to compare school systems to one another.
And he said the 2012 numbers will be even more interesting.
"We know Wisconsin had a big cut then, so we'll be able to see that compared to what other states were doing in 2012," he said. "Were other states cutting some more, or were they leveling off?"
Wednesday, May 15, 2013
The IRS admits to targeting conservative groups but were they also leaking?
Original Post: Daily Caller
A little over a year ago, I reported that, ”It is likely that someone at the Internal Revenue Service illegally leaked confidential donor information showing a contribution from Mitt Romney’s political action committee to the National Organization for Marriage, says the group.”
Now — on the heels of news the IRS’s apology for having targeted conservative groups — NOM is renewing their demand that the Internal Revenue Service reveal the identity of the people responsible.
“There is little question that one or more employees at the IRS stole our confidential tax return and leaked it to our political enemies, in violation of federal law,” said NOM’s president Brian Brow, in a prepared statement. “The only questions are who did it, and whether there was any knowledge or coordination between people in the White House, the Obama reelection campaign and the Human Rights Campaign. We and the American people deserve answers.”
Recent reports indicate the IRS may have begun targeting conservative groups as early as 2010.
In a 2012 speech, Sen. Mitch McConnell noted, “The head of one national advocacy group has released documents which show that his group’s confidential IRS information found its way into the hands of a staunch critic on the Left who also happens to be a co-chairman of President Obama’s re-election committee. The only way this information could have been made public is if someone leaked it from inside the IRS.”
And so, the next question may be this: If the IRS was targeting conservative groups — as they now admit to doing — were they also leaking information?
UPDATE: In December of 2012, ProPublica wrote that they had obtained the application for recognition of tax-exempt status for Crossroads GPS, filed in September of 2010.
As the ProPublica story noted:
“‘As far as we know, the Crossroads application is still pending, in which case it seems that either you obtained whatever document you have illegally, or that it has been approved,’ Jonathan Collegio, the group’s spokesman, said in an email.
“The IRS sent Crossroads’ application to ProPublica in response to a public-records request. The document sent to ProPublica didn’t include an official IRS recognition letter, which is typically attached to applications of nonprofits that have been recognized. The IRS is only required to give out applications of groups recognized as tax-exempt.
“In an email Thursday, an IRS spokeswoman said the agency had no record of an approved application for Crossroads GPS, meaning that the group’s application was still in limbo.
A little over a year ago, I reported that, ”It is likely that someone at the Internal Revenue Service illegally leaked confidential donor information showing a contribution from Mitt Romney’s political action committee to the National Organization for Marriage, says the group.”
Now — on the heels of news the IRS’s apology for having targeted conservative groups — NOM is renewing their demand that the Internal Revenue Service reveal the identity of the people responsible.
“There is little question that one or more employees at the IRS stole our confidential tax return and leaked it to our political enemies, in violation of federal law,” said NOM’s president Brian Brow, in a prepared statement. “The only questions are who did it, and whether there was any knowledge or coordination between people in the White House, the Obama reelection campaign and the Human Rights Campaign. We and the American people deserve answers.”
Recent reports indicate the IRS may have begun targeting conservative groups as early as 2010.
In a 2012 speech, Sen. Mitch McConnell noted, “The head of one national advocacy group has released documents which show that his group’s confidential IRS information found its way into the hands of a staunch critic on the Left who also happens to be a co-chairman of President Obama’s re-election committee. The only way this information could have been made public is if someone leaked it from inside the IRS.”
And so, the next question may be this: If the IRS was targeting conservative groups — as they now admit to doing — were they also leaking information?
UPDATE: In December of 2012, ProPublica wrote that they had obtained the application for recognition of tax-exempt status for Crossroads GPS, filed in September of 2010.
As the ProPublica story noted:
“‘As far as we know, the Crossroads application is still pending, in which case it seems that either you obtained whatever document you have illegally, or that it has been approved,’ Jonathan Collegio, the group’s spokesman, said in an email.
“The IRS sent Crossroads’ application to ProPublica in response to a public-records request. The document sent to ProPublica didn’t include an official IRS recognition letter, which is typically attached to applications of nonprofits that have been recognized. The IRS is only required to give out applications of groups recognized as tax-exempt.
“In an email Thursday, an IRS spokeswoman said the agency had no record of an approved application for Crossroads GPS, meaning that the group’s application was still in limbo.
Monday, May 13, 2013
After Benghazi, IRS tea party probe: Govt seized AP phone records
Original Post: Yahoo
By Olivier Knox
Exactly ten days ago, President Barack Obama was piously telling reporters who cover him that free speech and an independent press are “essential pillars of our democracy.” On Monday, the Associated Press accused his administration of undermining that very pillar by secretly obtaining two months’ worth of telephone records of AP reporters and editors.
“We regard this action by the Department of Justice as a serious interference with AP’s constitutional rights to gather and report the news,” AP President and Chief Executive Officer Gary Pruitt wrote in a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder.
The latest revelations are sure to pour fuel on the fire of Richard Nixon comparisons in the wake of revelations that the IRS may have improperly scrutinized the tax-exempt status of conservative, tea party-linked groups. This might, in order words, not be a great time to announce a groundbreaking trip to China.
And the news threatens to pile fresh political woes on a second term already burdened by a painful gun control defeat, a seemingly stalled economic agenda, and Republican rage at the botched response to the Sept. 12, 2012 terrorist attack that killed four Americans in Benghazi, Libya.
The revelations that the Justice Department may have sought AP phone records drew an angry response from Republican House Speaker John Boehner's office. “The First Amendment is first for a reason. If the Obama Administration is going after reporters’ phone records, they better have a damned good explanation," said Boehner spokesman Michael Steel.
And Laura Murphy, a top American Civil Liberties Union official in Washington, D.C., condemned "unwarranted surveillance" of the press and urged Holder to explain what transpired "so that we can make sure this kind of press intimidation does not happen again.”
Holder was expected to face questions on the issue when he appears Wednesday before the House Judiciary Committee.
A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia did not answer a question from Yahoo News on whether other news outlets had been targeted. The spokesman, Bill Miller, did not confirm the AP allegations, but insisted in a statement that "we take seriously our obligations to follow all applicable laws, federal regulations, and Department of Justice policies when issuing subpoenas for phone records of media organizations."
Pruitt, in his letter to Holder, fiercely disagreed. He said that the Justice Department had obtained telephone records for more than 20 separate phone lines assigned to the AP -- the world's largest wire service -- and its journalists. The records cover a two-month span in early 2012 and cover phones lines for AP in New York City, Washington D.C., Hartford, Conn., and one line at the AP workspace in the House of Representatives.
"This action was taken without advance notice to AP or to any of the affected journalists, and even after the fact no notice has been sent to individual journalists whose home phones and cell phone records were seized by the Department," Pruitt wrote. "There can be no possible justification for such an overbroad collection of the telephone communications of The Associated Press and its reporters," Pruitt wrote. "These records potentially reveal communications with confidential sources across all of the newsgathering activities undertaken by the AP during a two-month period, provide a road map to AP’s newsgathering operations, and disclose information about AP’s activities and operations that the government has no conceivable right to know." Pruitt called it "particularly troubling" that the Justice Department "undertook this unprecedented step without providing any notice to the AP, and without taking any steps to narrow the scope of its subpoenas to matters actually relevant to an ongoing investigation."
In his statement, Miller said DoJ regulations "require us to make every reasonable effort to obtain information through alternative means before even considering a subpoena for the phone records of a member of the media."
And "we must notify the media organization in advance unless doing so would pose a substantial threat to the integrity of the investigation," he said. "Because we value the freedom of the press, we are always careful and deliberative in seeking to strike the right balance between the public interest in the free flow of information and the public interest in the fair and effective administration of our criminal laws."
An Associated Press news story on the Justice Department's actions noted: The government would not say why it sought the records. U.S. officials have previously said in public testimony that the U.S. attorney in Washington is conducting a criminal investigation into who may have leaked information contained in a May 7, 2012, AP story about a foiled terror plot. The story disclosed details of a CIA operation in Yemen that stopped an al-Qaida plot in the spring of 2012 to detonate a bomb on an airplane bound for the United States.
Ever since the days of his history-making 2008 presidential campaign, Obama has repeatedly cast himself as a champion of open government and reform. Aides are fond of praising "the most transparent administration in history" -- a moniker that might be accurate, but mostly because of poor standards set by his predecessors. It's like being the most powerful cricket team in Alaska.
And the Obama administration has not been shy about taking steps to deny Freedom of Information Act requests on national security grounds.
Just ten days ago, on May 3, Obama noted during a visit to Costa Rica that it was "World Press Freedom Day."
"So everybody from the American press corps, you should thank the people of Costa Rica for celebrating free speech and an independent press as essential pillars of our democracy," he said.
On Monday, Obama was scooping up cash for Democrats in New York City. His spokesman, Jay Carney, referred questions about the AP letter to the Justice Department.
By Olivier Knox
Exactly ten days ago, President Barack Obama was piously telling reporters who cover him that free speech and an independent press are “essential pillars of our democracy.” On Monday, the Associated Press accused his administration of undermining that very pillar by secretly obtaining two months’ worth of telephone records of AP reporters and editors.
“We regard this action by the Department of Justice as a serious interference with AP’s constitutional rights to gather and report the news,” AP President and Chief Executive Officer Gary Pruitt wrote in a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder.
The latest revelations are sure to pour fuel on the fire of Richard Nixon comparisons in the wake of revelations that the IRS may have improperly scrutinized the tax-exempt status of conservative, tea party-linked groups. This might, in order words, not be a great time to announce a groundbreaking trip to China.
And the news threatens to pile fresh political woes on a second term already burdened by a painful gun control defeat, a seemingly stalled economic agenda, and Republican rage at the botched response to the Sept. 12, 2012 terrorist attack that killed four Americans in Benghazi, Libya.
The revelations that the Justice Department may have sought AP phone records drew an angry response from Republican House Speaker John Boehner's office. “The First Amendment is first for a reason. If the Obama Administration is going after reporters’ phone records, they better have a damned good explanation," said Boehner spokesman Michael Steel.
And Laura Murphy, a top American Civil Liberties Union official in Washington, D.C., condemned "unwarranted surveillance" of the press and urged Holder to explain what transpired "so that we can make sure this kind of press intimidation does not happen again.”
Holder was expected to face questions on the issue when he appears Wednesday before the House Judiciary Committee.
A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia did not answer a question from Yahoo News on whether other news outlets had been targeted. The spokesman, Bill Miller, did not confirm the AP allegations, but insisted in a statement that "we take seriously our obligations to follow all applicable laws, federal regulations, and Department of Justice policies when issuing subpoenas for phone records of media organizations."
Pruitt, in his letter to Holder, fiercely disagreed. He said that the Justice Department had obtained telephone records for more than 20 separate phone lines assigned to the AP -- the world's largest wire service -- and its journalists. The records cover a two-month span in early 2012 and cover phones lines for AP in New York City, Washington D.C., Hartford, Conn., and one line at the AP workspace in the House of Representatives.
"This action was taken without advance notice to AP or to any of the affected journalists, and even after the fact no notice has been sent to individual journalists whose home phones and cell phone records were seized by the Department," Pruitt wrote. "There can be no possible justification for such an overbroad collection of the telephone communications of The Associated Press and its reporters," Pruitt wrote. "These records potentially reveal communications with confidential sources across all of the newsgathering activities undertaken by the AP during a two-month period, provide a road map to AP’s newsgathering operations, and disclose information about AP’s activities and operations that the government has no conceivable right to know." Pruitt called it "particularly troubling" that the Justice Department "undertook this unprecedented step without providing any notice to the AP, and without taking any steps to narrow the scope of its subpoenas to matters actually relevant to an ongoing investigation."
In his statement, Miller said DoJ regulations "require us to make every reasonable effort to obtain information through alternative means before even considering a subpoena for the phone records of a member of the media."
And "we must notify the media organization in advance unless doing so would pose a substantial threat to the integrity of the investigation," he said. "Because we value the freedom of the press, we are always careful and deliberative in seeking to strike the right balance between the public interest in the free flow of information and the public interest in the fair and effective administration of our criminal laws."
An Associated Press news story on the Justice Department's actions noted: The government would not say why it sought the records. U.S. officials have previously said in public testimony that the U.S. attorney in Washington is conducting a criminal investigation into who may have leaked information contained in a May 7, 2012, AP story about a foiled terror plot. The story disclosed details of a CIA operation in Yemen that stopped an al-Qaida plot in the spring of 2012 to detonate a bomb on an airplane bound for the United States.
Ever since the days of his history-making 2008 presidential campaign, Obama has repeatedly cast himself as a champion of open government and reform. Aides are fond of praising "the most transparent administration in history" -- a moniker that might be accurate, but mostly because of poor standards set by his predecessors. It's like being the most powerful cricket team in Alaska.
And the Obama administration has not been shy about taking steps to deny Freedom of Information Act requests on national security grounds.
Just ten days ago, on May 3, Obama noted during a visit to Costa Rica that it was "World Press Freedom Day."
"So everybody from the American press corps, you should thank the people of Costa Rica for celebrating free speech and an independent press as essential pillars of our democracy," he said.
On Monday, Obama was scooping up cash for Democrats in New York City. His spokesman, Jay Carney, referred questions about the AP letter to the Justice Department.
Thursday, February 7, 2013
Memo spells out when it's OK to kill Al Qaeda-linked Americans without trial
Original Post: The Star
WASHINGTON—The White House and its critics faced off Tuesday over the legality of drone strikes to kill U.S. citizens abroad, in a likely preview of arguments that will be raised during this week’s confirmation hearing for President Barack Obama’s choice to head the CIA.
The disclosure of an unclassified Justice Department memo laying out the legal framework for the U.S. government’s ability to attack its own citizens drew criticism from civil liberties groups. But the White House strongly defended the controversial policy as legal and ethical.
The memo, first obtained by NBC News, argues that drone strikes are justified under American law if a targeted U.S. citizen had “recently” been involved in “activities” posing a possible threat and provided there is no evidence suggesting the individual “renounced or abandoned” such activities. A top U.S. official must determine that the targeted person “poses an imminent threat of violent attack against the United States,” cannot be captured, and that the strike “would be conducted in a manner consistent with applicable law of war principles.”
White House spokesman Jay Carney defended current U.S. drone policy, saying they are used to mitigate threats, stop plots, prevent future attacks and save American lives. “These strikes are legal, they are ethical and they are wise,” he said. Civil liberties groups expressed concerns, while lawmakers called on the White House to release more of its legal underpinning for the assertion that the president has the power to kill U.S. citizens abroad without trial.
“My initial reaction is that the paper only underscores the irresponsible extravagance of the government’s central claim,” Jameel Jaffer of the American Civil Liberties Union wrote on the ACLU’s blog. “Even if the Obama administration is convinced of its own fundamental trustworthiness, the power this white paper sets out will be available to every future president.”
The use of drones figures to be a prime topic for White House counterterrorism chief John Brennan when he faces the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday in a confirmation hearing on his nomination to become CIA director.
The U.S. government has dramatically increased its use of drones abroad in recent years to target Al Qaeda figures in far-flung places from Pakistan to Yemen.
The document was disclosed as a bipartisan group of U.S. senators called on the Obama administration to release to Congress “any and all” legal opinions laying out the government’s understanding of what legal powers the president has to authorize the killing of American citizens.
The senators who signed the letter, including members of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said the administration’s co-operation would “help avoid an unnecessary confrontation that could affect the Senate’s consideration of nominees for national security purposes.”
One national security official said the leak of the Justice Department memo may have been timed to blunt such congressional demands for the release of additional documents. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the Democrat who chairs the Intelligence Committee, said in a statement on Tuesday that she had been calling on the administration to release legal analyses related to the use of drones for more than a year. Feinstein said the document obtained by NBC had been given to congressional committees last June on a confidential basis, and that her committee is seeking additional documents, which are believed to remain classified.
Attorney General Eric Holder on Tuesday said he was concerned that the release of more documents could put sources and operations at risk.
There is “a real concern to reveal sources, to potentially reveal sources and methods and put at risk the very mechanisms that we use to try to keep people safe, which is our primary responsibility,” he said at a news conference.
The memo is drawing new attention to the 2011 strike that killed U.S.-born Anwar al Awlaki, who U.S. investigators say was a major player with Al Qaeda’s Yemen-based affiliate and linked to a botched plot to blow up a U.S. airliner with a bomb hidden in a man’s underwear on Christmas Day 2009. His teenage son was also killed in a drone strike.
Targeted killings carried out by remotely piloted unmanned aircraft are controversial because of the risks to nearby civilians and because of their increasing frequency. The United Nations recently launched an investigation into their use.
Most such attacks have been carried out by the United States, but Britain and Israel have also used drones.
Hina Shamsi of the ACLU, which has sued for more information on the drone program, called the memo “profoundly disturbing” and “a stunning overreach of executive authority.”
Shamsi, head of the ACLU’s National Security Project, in a statement called on the Obama administration to release what she said was a 50-page classified legal document on which the 16-page summary is based.
“Among other things, we need to know if the limits the executive purports to impose on its killing authority are as loosely defined as in this summary, because if they are, they ultimately mean little,” she said late Monday.
WASHINGTON—The White House and its critics faced off Tuesday over the legality of drone strikes to kill U.S. citizens abroad, in a likely preview of arguments that will be raised during this week’s confirmation hearing for President Barack Obama’s choice to head the CIA.
The disclosure of an unclassified Justice Department memo laying out the legal framework for the U.S. government’s ability to attack its own citizens drew criticism from civil liberties groups. But the White House strongly defended the controversial policy as legal and ethical.
The memo, first obtained by NBC News, argues that drone strikes are justified under American law if a targeted U.S. citizen had “recently” been involved in “activities” posing a possible threat and provided there is no evidence suggesting the individual “renounced or abandoned” such activities. A top U.S. official must determine that the targeted person “poses an imminent threat of violent attack against the United States,” cannot be captured, and that the strike “would be conducted in a manner consistent with applicable law of war principles.”
White House spokesman Jay Carney defended current U.S. drone policy, saying they are used to mitigate threats, stop plots, prevent future attacks and save American lives. “These strikes are legal, they are ethical and they are wise,” he said. Civil liberties groups expressed concerns, while lawmakers called on the White House to release more of its legal underpinning for the assertion that the president has the power to kill U.S. citizens abroad without trial.
“My initial reaction is that the paper only underscores the irresponsible extravagance of the government’s central claim,” Jameel Jaffer of the American Civil Liberties Union wrote on the ACLU’s blog. “Even if the Obama administration is convinced of its own fundamental trustworthiness, the power this white paper sets out will be available to every future president.”
The use of drones figures to be a prime topic for White House counterterrorism chief John Brennan when he faces the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday in a confirmation hearing on his nomination to become CIA director.
The U.S. government has dramatically increased its use of drones abroad in recent years to target Al Qaeda figures in far-flung places from Pakistan to Yemen.
The document was disclosed as a bipartisan group of U.S. senators called on the Obama administration to release to Congress “any and all” legal opinions laying out the government’s understanding of what legal powers the president has to authorize the killing of American citizens.
The senators who signed the letter, including members of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said the administration’s co-operation would “help avoid an unnecessary confrontation that could affect the Senate’s consideration of nominees for national security purposes.”
One national security official said the leak of the Justice Department memo may have been timed to blunt such congressional demands for the release of additional documents. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the Democrat who chairs the Intelligence Committee, said in a statement on Tuesday that she had been calling on the administration to release legal analyses related to the use of drones for more than a year. Feinstein said the document obtained by NBC had been given to congressional committees last June on a confidential basis, and that her committee is seeking additional documents, which are believed to remain classified.
Attorney General Eric Holder on Tuesday said he was concerned that the release of more documents could put sources and operations at risk.
There is “a real concern to reveal sources, to potentially reveal sources and methods and put at risk the very mechanisms that we use to try to keep people safe, which is our primary responsibility,” he said at a news conference.
The memo is drawing new attention to the 2011 strike that killed U.S.-born Anwar al Awlaki, who U.S. investigators say was a major player with Al Qaeda’s Yemen-based affiliate and linked to a botched plot to blow up a U.S. airliner with a bomb hidden in a man’s underwear on Christmas Day 2009. His teenage son was also killed in a drone strike.
Targeted killings carried out by remotely piloted unmanned aircraft are controversial because of the risks to nearby civilians and because of their increasing frequency. The United Nations recently launched an investigation into their use.
Most such attacks have been carried out by the United States, but Britain and Israel have also used drones.
Hina Shamsi of the ACLU, which has sued for more information on the drone program, called the memo “profoundly disturbing” and “a stunning overreach of executive authority.”
Shamsi, head of the ACLU’s National Security Project, in a statement called on the Obama administration to release what she said was a 50-page classified legal document on which the 16-page summary is based.
“Among other things, we need to know if the limits the executive purports to impose on its killing authority are as loosely defined as in this summary, because if they are, they ultimately mean little,” she said late Monday.
IRS: ObamaCare plans to cost families at least $20,000 per year
Original Post: United LIberty
During the debate over his health care reform proposal, President Barack Obama and his apologists in Congress insisted that it would hold down insurance premiums for American families. But despite these promises, Jonathan Gruber, the architect of the plan, acknowledged that insurance premiums would still rise under ObamaCare.
So it comes as no surprise to see read an IRS report released last week showing that the cheapest health insurance plan under ObamaCare will cost a family $20,000 in 2016:
In a final regulation issued Wednesday, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) assumed that under Obamacare the cheapest health insurance plan available in 2016 for a family will cost $20,000 for the year.
The IRS’s assumption that the cheapest plan for a family will cost $20,000 per year is found in examples the IRS gives to help people understand how to calculate the penalty they will need to pay the government if they do not buy a mandated health plan.
The examples point to families of four and families of five, both of which the IRS expects in its assumptions to pay a minimum of $20,000 per year for a bronze plan.
“The annual national average bronze plan premium for a family of 5 (2 adults, 3 children) is $20,000,” the regulation says.
While the individual mandate is supposed to ensure that Americans purchase health insurance coverage, a nearly $1,700 per month premium is going to be too much for many families to afford. CNS News notes that the failure to purchase health insurance coverage would result in a $2,085 penalty per family (or 2.5% of taxable income) in 2016.
Like businesses who are dropping coverage to avoid heavy costs, it’s cheaper for Americans to remain uninsured, especially now that ObamaCare has further driven up costs, rather than purchase health insurance coverage.
During the debate over his health care reform proposal, President Barack Obama and his apologists in Congress insisted that it would hold down insurance premiums for American families. But despite these promises, Jonathan Gruber, the architect of the plan, acknowledged that insurance premiums would still rise under ObamaCare.
So it comes as no surprise to see read an IRS report released last week showing that the cheapest health insurance plan under ObamaCare will cost a family $20,000 in 2016:
In a final regulation issued Wednesday, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) assumed that under Obamacare the cheapest health insurance plan available in 2016 for a family will cost $20,000 for the year.
The IRS’s assumption that the cheapest plan for a family will cost $20,000 per year is found in examples the IRS gives to help people understand how to calculate the penalty they will need to pay the government if they do not buy a mandated health plan.
The examples point to families of four and families of five, both of which the IRS expects in its assumptions to pay a minimum of $20,000 per year for a bronze plan.
“The annual national average bronze plan premium for a family of 5 (2 adults, 3 children) is $20,000,” the regulation says.
While the individual mandate is supposed to ensure that Americans purchase health insurance coverage, a nearly $1,700 per month premium is going to be too much for many families to afford. CNS News notes that the failure to purchase health insurance coverage would result in a $2,085 penalty per family (or 2.5% of taxable income) in 2016.
Like businesses who are dropping coverage to avoid heavy costs, it’s cheaper for Americans to remain uninsured, especially now that ObamaCare has further driven up costs, rather than purchase health insurance coverage.
Tuesday, February 5, 2013
ATF's Milwaukee sting operation marred by mistakes, failures
Original Post: JS Online
A store calling itself Fearless Distributing opened early last year on an out-of-the-way street in Milwaukee's Riverwest neighborhood, offering designer clothes, athletic shoes, jewelry and drug paraphernalia.
Those working behind the counter, however, weren't interested in selling anything.
They were undercover agents from the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives running a storefront sting aimed at busting criminal operations in the city by purchasing drugs and guns from felons.
But the effort to date has not snared any major dealers or taken down a gang. Instead, it resulted in a string of mistakes and failures, including an ATF military-style machine gun landing on the streets of Milwaukee and the agency having $35,000 in merchandise stolen from its store, a Journal Sentinel investigation has found.
When the 10-month operation was shut down after the burglary, agents and Milwaukee police officers who participated in the sting cleared out the store but left behind a sensitive document that listed names, vehicles and phone numbers of undercover agents.
And the agency remains locked in a battle with the building's owner, who says he is owed about $15,000 because of utility bills, holes in the walls, broken doors and damage from an overflowing toilet.
The sting resulted in charges being filed against about 30 people, most for low-level drug sales and gun possession counts. But agents had the wrong person in at least three cases. In one, they charged a man who was in prison - as a result of an earlier ATF case - at the time agents said he was selling drugs to them.
Other cases reveal that the agency's operation was paying such high prices that some defendants bought guns from stores such as Gander Mountain and sold them to the agents for a quick profit. The mistakes by agents are troubling and suggest a lack of planning and oversight, according to veterans of the ATF, who learned about the operation from the Journal Sentinel. The newspaper combed through police reports, court documents, social media and materials left behind by the ATF, all of which provide a rare view inside an undercover federal operation.
"I have never heard of those kinds of problems in an operation," said Michael Bouchard, who retired five years ago as assistant director for field operations for the agency. "Sure, small bits and pieces, but that many in one case? I have never heard of anything like that."
The agency has been on the defensive in recent years following the ill-fated Fast and Furious operation, run out of Arizona, where agents allowed sales of more than 2,000 guns to gun traffickers but then failed to keep track of most of them. Many turned up at crime scenes in Mexico, including two at the site where a U.S. border guard was killed.
And now, in the wake of the school shooting in Connecticut, as President Barack Obama considers new restrictions on guns, the agency is poised to take on additional responsibilities.
The ATF has run storefront stings in other cities, holding news conferences trumpeting results and showing off the guns and drugs seized. In Milwaukee, the operation has been kept quiet.
Residents of the area, tucked between N. Humboldt Blvd. and the Milwaukee River, are angry the ATF secretly drew drug dealers and gun-toting felons to their neighborhood, which is rallying to improve.
Federal authorities said they could not say much about the Milwaukee operation because court cases have not been resolved and the ATF is still seeking suspects.
U.S. Attorney James Santelle, whose office was briefed on plans for the sting, declined to comment on problems in the operation, focusing instead on the number of defendants charged and the 145 guns seized, including three sawed-off shotguns, 10 stolen guns and eight guns with obliterated serial numbers.
Santelle said all federal investigations are not the same and noted in this case four of the defendants are facing long prison terms for being career armed criminals.
"They are plainly a threat to the community," he said.
ATF spokesman Special Agent Robert Schmidt said he is convinced the operation didn't bring crime to the neighborhood and instead made the streets of Milwaukee safer.
Schmidt declined to say how much the sting operation cost.
"Our number one responsibility is denying criminal access to firearms and that is what we are trying to do," Schmidt said. "It is our duty to purchase these firearms to protect the American public and citizens of Milwaukee."
Suspicious operation
When David Salkin put his single-story building on E. Meinecke Ave. up for rent on Craigslist, he had a choice: Lease to a church or Fearless Distributing.
He went with the upstart Fearless operation because they were willing to take all 8,000 square feet of the building and pay the $3,200 in monthly rent in cash.
The agent who signed the lease gave Salkin a fake name and home address. Fearless was not registered with the state. The agents told Salkin their operation was new and they would get to that.
The agents, wearing shirts that said "Brew City Hustle," carved out a part of the warehouse for a showroom of jeans, coats, shoes and purses along with bongs and fake urine, for those trying to beat a drug test. They also set up an office with a cash-counting machine.
They installed secret cameras and a command center where the sting would be run.
The operation created a Facebook page and chose a striking logo - a skull with a slew of guns and knives fanned out behind - ripped off from a recent Sylvester Stallone movie, "The Expendables." The store didn't say it was in the gun business but the logo suggested that.
Agents "let it be known" they were willing to buy guns and drugs, according to documents from the circuit court charges. The records don't say how they did that, but agents had business cards with the Fearless logo and the words "Buy, sell, or trade." The cards were found by the landlord after agents left.
Salkin, who previously ran his sign business from the building, was a first-time landlord. He said he saw little of the Fearless operation because they mostly kept him out. What he saw gave him suspicions. It looked to him like they were selling counterfeit goods. But the rent was coming in - a relief after months without a tenant.
As secretive as the ATF was with Salkin, there were hints of what was going on. Workers at the tannery across the street noticed people going into the store carrying packages and guns, then coming out empty-handed. Odd for a place that was supposed to be selling things, they thought.
Mike Zielinski, a UPS driver in the area, said he asked the people running the operation if they needed to get an account for deliveries. What they said puzzled him.
"They said they wouldn't be sending or getting anything. I thought that was odd because 'distributing' is in their name. Fearless Distributing," he said. "I was wondering, what kind of business is that."
They never sent or received anything via UPS in 10 months, Zielinski said.
Targeting 'hot spots'
Milwaukee is among 31 cities where the ATF has dedicated a Violent Crime Impact Team. The teams are supposed to target "hot spots" - small, high-crime areas - and go after the "worst of the worst" violent criminals, according to the agency's Best Practices report.
The agency launched the initiative in 2004 and quickly reported "enormous" success. Agency officials touted a drop in firearm-related homicides in pilot cities and credited the $35 million effort with helping local police departments solve other crimes.
But a U.S. Department of Justice Inspector General's report two years later found no evidence that the teams reduced firearm crimes in the targeted areas. Authors of the report cited "inadequate direction" and "ineffective oversight" by the agency.
"We found that ATF based its analysis on insufficient data and faulty comparisons," the report stated.
In some cases agents located their operations in areas where violent firearm crimes had already been declining, according to the report.
In more than half the cases studied, the ATF used citywide data rather than numbers from the target areas, favorably skewing their analyses when reporting on homicides committed with firearms, the report found. And, teams in several of the cities failed to implement key strategies, such as compiling "worst of the worst" lists, engaging in community outreach or utilizing tracing and other technological resources.
Still, the initiative expanded in 2006 with the addition of Birmingham, Ala.; Baton Rouge, La.; Milwaukee and other cities.
In Milwaukee, agents located Fearless Distributing in a neighborhood where aggravated assaults had been declining since at least 2008, according to an analysis by the Journal Sentinel relying on Milwaukee Police Department numbers.
Aggravated assaults within a mile radius of the storefront dropped to 109 last year from 193 in 2008. Homicides in the area ranged from zero to three per year during the last five years, far fewer than other crime-laden areas in the city.
ATF spokesman Schmidt would not say why the agency chose that location for a storefront sting.
"We pick a neighborhood if there is a property appropriate for what our needs are," Schmidt said. "You look for pockets in the city . . . and you look for a number of other mechanisms that go into it in order to make a decision."
Schmidt said he did not know of any recent evaluation, local or regional, examining the effectiveness of their operations.
"Look at how many cases have gone to the U.S. attorney," he said.
Nationally, the agency's website touts numbers showing teams referred an average of 671 cases per year for criminal charges from 2006-'09, with 14-year average prison sentences for those convicted. The Department of Justice issued news releases in Baltimore, Atlanta and elsewhere in the last couple of years praising the successes of individual operations.
In March, an undercover ATF sting made news in Richmond, Calif., for other reasons: when a gun-buying deal went bad and agents shot a suspect in the parking lot of a restaurant, sending customers diving for cover.
ATF officials defended the operation and agents' actions.
Schmidt said funding for Violent Crime Impact Teams is being reduced in the agency's $1.2 billion budget and that the ATF is launching a new, improved initiative in coming months called Frontline.
Top dollar paid for guns
Fearless Distributing was buying guns and drugs by March of last year. The sellers came from outside the Riverwest neighborhood, mostly from the near north side of Milwaukee, according to court documents.
The amount of drugs involved ranged from a gram of cocaine or an ounce of marijuana to an ounce of cocaine and seven grams of heroin on the high end. One charge is for selling fake drugs.
Gun charges also varied.
The ATF generally targets gun sellers using statutes that prohibit felons from having guns. The number of guns seized ranged from a single firearm to 25 to 30 guns.
ATF agents were paying top dollar for the guns, court documents show. For instance, Vance Fields sold a Smith & Wesson .40 caliber handgun to agents at Fearless in September for $1,250, according the criminal complaint. That model has sold for roughly $400 to $700 in online auctions recently.
In one case, Brandon Gladney sold more than 30 guns to ATF agents, including some that he and Courvoisie Bryant bought at Gander Mountain, according to court documents. Bryant is charged in federal court with being a straw buyer - someone who purchases firearms for another person who is prohibited from having them.
Daniel Stiller, head of the federal defender's service in Milwaukee, said such undercover operations are rare. The case involving Gladney and Bryant suggested to him that those defendants weren't major criminals given they got guns from a store, not the street.
"I have to guess a true criminal on the streets of Milwaukee has the ability to obtain a firearm when needed from something other than a store," Stiller said.
Guns stolen from ATF SUV
As the gun and drug buys continued, the operation went awry. In September, an agent parked his Ford Explorer at the Alterra on N. Humboldt Blvd., about a half mile away, with three ATF guns stored in a metal box in the back.
About 3 p.m. Sept. 13, an Alterra employee spotted three men breaking into the Explorer. They stole three guns: a Smith & Wesson 9mm handgun, a Sig Sauer .40-caliber pistol and an M-4 .223-caliber fully automatic rifle. They also made off with ammunition and an ATF radio, according to a police report. It does not appear from the reports that the agent was at Alterra at the time of the break-in.
A major push began to find the weapons and the men who stole them, police records show. Two men were quickly arrested. An informant told police one of the suspects was showing off the guns and eight magazines of ammunition shortly after the vehicle burglary, according to police records.
One of the suspects hid the machine gun under a bed and took the handguns with him. He was questioned by police and refused to talk. He was released. No one has been charged in the burglary of the ATF guns, according to Milwaukee County Assistant District Attorney Karen Loebel. She declined to say if charges would be coming.
The ATF soon had one of its stolen guns back, however.
The very next day, according to court documents, 19-year-old Marquise Jones contacted agents at Fearless Distributing and sold the Sig Sauer - and another unrelated handgun - back to agents.
The price: $1,400.
But Jones would not be arrested for two months. And when he was, it was not for the theft. His name does not appear on the police reports related to the vehicle break-in. He was charged with having a stolen gun.
Meanwhile, the hunt for the machine gun and the other stolen handgun continues.
"We are actively looking for any missing firearms that might be out there right now," the ATF's Schmidt said.
Gerald Nunziato, a retired ATF agent who supervised undercover operations, said he was shocked at the number of mistakes made during the operation. He questioned the decision to leave the agent's truck at the coffee shop with guns inside.
"That bothers me the most," Nunziato said. "The last thing you want to have is a gun stolen. If that gun is used to shoot someone, that is so personal."
ATF operation ripped off
The operation ran into more trouble in October, when burglars broke into the building housing Fearless and cleaned out the ATF operation.
Late on Oct. 9, a resident, who didn't want to be identified, spotted four men in the area in a car and a U-Haul truck who looked suspicious. He called police, but when they didn't come quickly enough he went to the district station and reported what he saw in person. Police reports show officers came to investigate the next day. A Milwaukee police spokesman did not return a call for comment Tuesday.
The burglars made off with jewelry, clothing, auto parts, purses, Nike shoes and more, according to police reports. No one has been charged in the burglary.
The lease states that the alarm is included in the rent. But shortly after Fearless moved in, Salkin said he told the people running the store he was cutting the phone line, which connected the alarm. He said he assumed they would hook up their own alarm. They did not.
"You would think the ATF would know that," Salkin said.
The day after the burglary, Salkin and his wife met with an ATF supervisor, who assured them that they would take care of everything.
Salkin said by going over on the $800 a month utility allotment and damage to walls, doors and carpeting, the ATF owes him about $15,000, which includes a month of lost rent.
The ATF has balked, saying there was less than $3,200 in damage and telling Salkin to return the security deposit. They told him to file a claim with the federal government and warned him to stop contacting them.
In an email to Salkin, ATF attorney Patricia Cangemi wrote, "If you continue to contact the Agents after being so advised your contacts may be construed as harassment under the law. Threats or harassment of a Federal Agent is of grave concern. Utilizing the telephone or a computer to perpetrate threats or harassment is also a serious matter."
Nunziato said he worked in undercover ATF storefront operations in the 1980s near Detroit. He said they too didn't tell the landlord, but when they left, they fixed the property to make it as good or better than when they moved in. Nunziato said he could not fathom the Milwaukee agents just walking away from a damaged building.
"To back up a toilet? Not paying bills? And then damaging the building?" he said. "It seems like the planning of this case was not done very well. Looks like it was done as they went along."
The Riverwest neighborhood where ATF ran its operation is a mix of Milwaukee bungalows, flats and duplexes, with many longtime homeowners mingled with renters. A few bars are sprinkled in the area along with the tannery and Salkin's former sign company.
The area has rallied against crime, lobbying to get a drug house closed. Neighbors developed a tight bond with their beat cop after a homicide occurred several blocks to the north.
"It's a whole mix of people here and that is what I really love," said Lorraine Jacobs, a resident for 27 years. "I wouldn't want to live anywhere else."
Jacobs and others feel betrayed by the ATF operation bringing drug dealers and gun sellers to their area.
"I feel like we were fooled, taken advantage of," she said. "It is unfortunate for our neighborhood. We are trying to bring it up and we are close to that. We just didn't need this."
Jason Reichel, who lives near Jacobs, said he would have preferred the operation wasn't in his neighborhood, but wouldn't want to push it off on another area. He said he is concerned ATF did not have control over the operation, given the store was ripped off.
"I would expect that the ATF wouldn't get robbed, that they would have security measures," he said. "Maybe I watch too many movies. You would think it would be hard to rob an ATF operation."
Turns out, the ATF has weapons stolen or loses them more frequently than the public might think, according to a 2008 report from the Office of the Inspector General with the U.S. Department of Justice.
In a five-year span from 2002-'07, for example, 76 ATF weapons were stolen, lost or missing, according to the report. That's nearly double the number compared with the FBI and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, when considering rates per 1,000 agents.
Todd Roehl, a resident for five years, wonders if the ATF operation explains two unusual crimes in the neighborhood. Over the summer, the wheels were stolen off his wife's SUV, which was left up on rocks. A couple of months later, thieves attempted to break in to his shed. The ATF operation was buying stolen goods, but he is unsure if his wife's wheels ended up there.
He said the ATF should have chosen a less residential area, perhaps an industrial park or retail area.
"I have two small children and this is going on while they are playing outside?" he said. "The stigma is damaging. Every neighborhood tries to make things better. It does not help to have your own government planting crime here, which takes down, destroys and damages that. It's like, 'Thanks.' "
Botched arrests
After the burglary, agents wound down the operation and prepared to make arrests in November. The defendants charged with drug crimes generally went to state court while defendants facing gun cases, which also may include drug charges, went to federal court.
But during the roundup, ATF arrested and sought charges against three defendants who proved to be the wrong people, even though they had video of the defendants.
One of those was Adrienne Jones. ATF agents said Jones sold them six grams of marijuana on March 7. Problem was, Jones reported to a federal prison in Pennsylvania to start a sentence on March 1, according to Chris Burke, spokesman for the federal Bureau of Prisons - on an ATF case.
"He was definitely in our custody," Burke said. "He never left."
Loebel, the prosecutor, dismissed the charges against Jones and the other two. She said agents told her that they could not prove elements of the charge.
"Under those circumstances, we want to make sure we get the right one," she said. "You don't want to charge the wrong person. You certainly don't want to prosecute the wrong person. That is not something you strive for."
Asked about the quality of the remaining 15 cases, Loebel would only say she is proceeding with the prosecution of them and that all are important.
"It is really a gamut of individuals and offenses," she said. "My position is any amount of drugs, they have bad effects on people and on the community."
ATF's Schmidt said the agency always strives to identify the correct person before seeking charges against them.
"Certainly it is a concern," he said. "I think they put their best effort forward and it was their belief and information that these were the correct people."
I've come to a conclusion. If you want to get illegal guns off the streets the first step is to get rid of the ATF. Apparently that can't not sell guns to Mexican drug lords. Apparently they can't not get guns stolen from Milwaukee and apparently they can't not accuse innocent people of crimes (even ones that the ATF already has in jail). I used to look up to those sorts of agencies. I used to think they were the creme of the crop, now I'm just disgusted as I laugh at them. It's truly pathetic.
A store calling itself Fearless Distributing opened early last year on an out-of-the-way street in Milwaukee's Riverwest neighborhood, offering designer clothes, athletic shoes, jewelry and drug paraphernalia.
Those working behind the counter, however, weren't interested in selling anything.
They were undercover agents from the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives running a storefront sting aimed at busting criminal operations in the city by purchasing drugs and guns from felons.
But the effort to date has not snared any major dealers or taken down a gang. Instead, it resulted in a string of mistakes and failures, including an ATF military-style machine gun landing on the streets of Milwaukee and the agency having $35,000 in merchandise stolen from its store, a Journal Sentinel investigation has found.
When the 10-month operation was shut down after the burglary, agents and Milwaukee police officers who participated in the sting cleared out the store but left behind a sensitive document that listed names, vehicles and phone numbers of undercover agents.
And the agency remains locked in a battle with the building's owner, who says he is owed about $15,000 because of utility bills, holes in the walls, broken doors and damage from an overflowing toilet.
The sting resulted in charges being filed against about 30 people, most for low-level drug sales and gun possession counts. But agents had the wrong person in at least three cases. In one, they charged a man who was in prison - as a result of an earlier ATF case - at the time agents said he was selling drugs to them.
Other cases reveal that the agency's operation was paying such high prices that some defendants bought guns from stores such as Gander Mountain and sold them to the agents for a quick profit. The mistakes by agents are troubling and suggest a lack of planning and oversight, according to veterans of the ATF, who learned about the operation from the Journal Sentinel. The newspaper combed through police reports, court documents, social media and materials left behind by the ATF, all of which provide a rare view inside an undercover federal operation.
"I have never heard of those kinds of problems in an operation," said Michael Bouchard, who retired five years ago as assistant director for field operations for the agency. "Sure, small bits and pieces, but that many in one case? I have never heard of anything like that."
The agency has been on the defensive in recent years following the ill-fated Fast and Furious operation, run out of Arizona, where agents allowed sales of more than 2,000 guns to gun traffickers but then failed to keep track of most of them. Many turned up at crime scenes in Mexico, including two at the site where a U.S. border guard was killed.
And now, in the wake of the school shooting in Connecticut, as President Barack Obama considers new restrictions on guns, the agency is poised to take on additional responsibilities.
The ATF has run storefront stings in other cities, holding news conferences trumpeting results and showing off the guns and drugs seized. In Milwaukee, the operation has been kept quiet.
Residents of the area, tucked between N. Humboldt Blvd. and the Milwaukee River, are angry the ATF secretly drew drug dealers and gun-toting felons to their neighborhood, which is rallying to improve.
Federal authorities said they could not say much about the Milwaukee operation because court cases have not been resolved and the ATF is still seeking suspects.
U.S. Attorney James Santelle, whose office was briefed on plans for the sting, declined to comment on problems in the operation, focusing instead on the number of defendants charged and the 145 guns seized, including three sawed-off shotguns, 10 stolen guns and eight guns with obliterated serial numbers.
Santelle said all federal investigations are not the same and noted in this case four of the defendants are facing long prison terms for being career armed criminals.
"They are plainly a threat to the community," he said.
ATF spokesman Special Agent Robert Schmidt said he is convinced the operation didn't bring crime to the neighborhood and instead made the streets of Milwaukee safer.
Schmidt declined to say how much the sting operation cost.
"Our number one responsibility is denying criminal access to firearms and that is what we are trying to do," Schmidt said. "It is our duty to purchase these firearms to protect the American public and citizens of Milwaukee."
Suspicious operation
When David Salkin put his single-story building on E. Meinecke Ave. up for rent on Craigslist, he had a choice: Lease to a church or Fearless Distributing.
He went with the upstart Fearless operation because they were willing to take all 8,000 square feet of the building and pay the $3,200 in monthly rent in cash.
The agent who signed the lease gave Salkin a fake name and home address. Fearless was not registered with the state. The agents told Salkin their operation was new and they would get to that.
The agents, wearing shirts that said "Brew City Hustle," carved out a part of the warehouse for a showroom of jeans, coats, shoes and purses along with bongs and fake urine, for those trying to beat a drug test. They also set up an office with a cash-counting machine.
They installed secret cameras and a command center where the sting would be run.
The operation created a Facebook page and chose a striking logo - a skull with a slew of guns and knives fanned out behind - ripped off from a recent Sylvester Stallone movie, "The Expendables." The store didn't say it was in the gun business but the logo suggested that.
Agents "let it be known" they were willing to buy guns and drugs, according to documents from the circuit court charges. The records don't say how they did that, but agents had business cards with the Fearless logo and the words "Buy, sell, or trade." The cards were found by the landlord after agents left.
Salkin, who previously ran his sign business from the building, was a first-time landlord. He said he saw little of the Fearless operation because they mostly kept him out. What he saw gave him suspicions. It looked to him like they were selling counterfeit goods. But the rent was coming in - a relief after months without a tenant.
As secretive as the ATF was with Salkin, there were hints of what was going on. Workers at the tannery across the street noticed people going into the store carrying packages and guns, then coming out empty-handed. Odd for a place that was supposed to be selling things, they thought.
Mike Zielinski, a UPS driver in the area, said he asked the people running the operation if they needed to get an account for deliveries. What they said puzzled him.
"They said they wouldn't be sending or getting anything. I thought that was odd because 'distributing' is in their name. Fearless Distributing," he said. "I was wondering, what kind of business is that."
They never sent or received anything via UPS in 10 months, Zielinski said.
Targeting 'hot spots'
Milwaukee is among 31 cities where the ATF has dedicated a Violent Crime Impact Team. The teams are supposed to target "hot spots" - small, high-crime areas - and go after the "worst of the worst" violent criminals, according to the agency's Best Practices report.
The agency launched the initiative in 2004 and quickly reported "enormous" success. Agency officials touted a drop in firearm-related homicides in pilot cities and credited the $35 million effort with helping local police departments solve other crimes.
But a U.S. Department of Justice Inspector General's report two years later found no evidence that the teams reduced firearm crimes in the targeted areas. Authors of the report cited "inadequate direction" and "ineffective oversight" by the agency.
"We found that ATF based its analysis on insufficient data and faulty comparisons," the report stated.
In some cases agents located their operations in areas where violent firearm crimes had already been declining, according to the report.
In more than half the cases studied, the ATF used citywide data rather than numbers from the target areas, favorably skewing their analyses when reporting on homicides committed with firearms, the report found. And, teams in several of the cities failed to implement key strategies, such as compiling "worst of the worst" lists, engaging in community outreach or utilizing tracing and other technological resources.
Still, the initiative expanded in 2006 with the addition of Birmingham, Ala.; Baton Rouge, La.; Milwaukee and other cities.
In Milwaukee, agents located Fearless Distributing in a neighborhood where aggravated assaults had been declining since at least 2008, according to an analysis by the Journal Sentinel relying on Milwaukee Police Department numbers.
Aggravated assaults within a mile radius of the storefront dropped to 109 last year from 193 in 2008. Homicides in the area ranged from zero to three per year during the last five years, far fewer than other crime-laden areas in the city.
ATF spokesman Schmidt would not say why the agency chose that location for a storefront sting.
"We pick a neighborhood if there is a property appropriate for what our needs are," Schmidt said. "You look for pockets in the city . . . and you look for a number of other mechanisms that go into it in order to make a decision."
Schmidt said he did not know of any recent evaluation, local or regional, examining the effectiveness of their operations.
"Look at how many cases have gone to the U.S. attorney," he said.
Nationally, the agency's website touts numbers showing teams referred an average of 671 cases per year for criminal charges from 2006-'09, with 14-year average prison sentences for those convicted. The Department of Justice issued news releases in Baltimore, Atlanta and elsewhere in the last couple of years praising the successes of individual operations.
In March, an undercover ATF sting made news in Richmond, Calif., for other reasons: when a gun-buying deal went bad and agents shot a suspect in the parking lot of a restaurant, sending customers diving for cover.
ATF officials defended the operation and agents' actions.
Schmidt said funding for Violent Crime Impact Teams is being reduced in the agency's $1.2 billion budget and that the ATF is launching a new, improved initiative in coming months called Frontline.
Top dollar paid for guns
Fearless Distributing was buying guns and drugs by March of last year. The sellers came from outside the Riverwest neighborhood, mostly from the near north side of Milwaukee, according to court documents.
The amount of drugs involved ranged from a gram of cocaine or an ounce of marijuana to an ounce of cocaine and seven grams of heroin on the high end. One charge is for selling fake drugs.
Gun charges also varied.
The ATF generally targets gun sellers using statutes that prohibit felons from having guns. The number of guns seized ranged from a single firearm to 25 to 30 guns.
ATF agents were paying top dollar for the guns, court documents show. For instance, Vance Fields sold a Smith & Wesson .40 caliber handgun to agents at Fearless in September for $1,250, according the criminal complaint. That model has sold for roughly $400 to $700 in online auctions recently.
In one case, Brandon Gladney sold more than 30 guns to ATF agents, including some that he and Courvoisie Bryant bought at Gander Mountain, according to court documents. Bryant is charged in federal court with being a straw buyer - someone who purchases firearms for another person who is prohibited from having them.
Daniel Stiller, head of the federal defender's service in Milwaukee, said such undercover operations are rare. The case involving Gladney and Bryant suggested to him that those defendants weren't major criminals given they got guns from a store, not the street.
"I have to guess a true criminal on the streets of Milwaukee has the ability to obtain a firearm when needed from something other than a store," Stiller said.
Guns stolen from ATF SUV
As the gun and drug buys continued, the operation went awry. In September, an agent parked his Ford Explorer at the Alterra on N. Humboldt Blvd., about a half mile away, with three ATF guns stored in a metal box in the back.
About 3 p.m. Sept. 13, an Alterra employee spotted three men breaking into the Explorer. They stole three guns: a Smith & Wesson 9mm handgun, a Sig Sauer .40-caliber pistol and an M-4 .223-caliber fully automatic rifle. They also made off with ammunition and an ATF radio, according to a police report. It does not appear from the reports that the agent was at Alterra at the time of the break-in.
A major push began to find the weapons and the men who stole them, police records show. Two men were quickly arrested. An informant told police one of the suspects was showing off the guns and eight magazines of ammunition shortly after the vehicle burglary, according to police records.
One of the suspects hid the machine gun under a bed and took the handguns with him. He was questioned by police and refused to talk. He was released. No one has been charged in the burglary of the ATF guns, according to Milwaukee County Assistant District Attorney Karen Loebel. She declined to say if charges would be coming.
The ATF soon had one of its stolen guns back, however.
The very next day, according to court documents, 19-year-old Marquise Jones contacted agents at Fearless Distributing and sold the Sig Sauer - and another unrelated handgun - back to agents.
The price: $1,400.
But Jones would not be arrested for two months. And when he was, it was not for the theft. His name does not appear on the police reports related to the vehicle break-in. He was charged with having a stolen gun.
Meanwhile, the hunt for the machine gun and the other stolen handgun continues.
"We are actively looking for any missing firearms that might be out there right now," the ATF's Schmidt said.
Gerald Nunziato, a retired ATF agent who supervised undercover operations, said he was shocked at the number of mistakes made during the operation. He questioned the decision to leave the agent's truck at the coffee shop with guns inside.
"That bothers me the most," Nunziato said. "The last thing you want to have is a gun stolen. If that gun is used to shoot someone, that is so personal."
ATF operation ripped off
The operation ran into more trouble in October, when burglars broke into the building housing Fearless and cleaned out the ATF operation.
Late on Oct. 9, a resident, who didn't want to be identified, spotted four men in the area in a car and a U-Haul truck who looked suspicious. He called police, but when they didn't come quickly enough he went to the district station and reported what he saw in person. Police reports show officers came to investigate the next day. A Milwaukee police spokesman did not return a call for comment Tuesday.
The burglars made off with jewelry, clothing, auto parts, purses, Nike shoes and more, according to police reports. No one has been charged in the burglary.
The lease states that the alarm is included in the rent. But shortly after Fearless moved in, Salkin said he told the people running the store he was cutting the phone line, which connected the alarm. He said he assumed they would hook up their own alarm. They did not.
"You would think the ATF would know that," Salkin said.
The day after the burglary, Salkin and his wife met with an ATF supervisor, who assured them that they would take care of everything.
Salkin said by going over on the $800 a month utility allotment and damage to walls, doors and carpeting, the ATF owes him about $15,000, which includes a month of lost rent.
The ATF has balked, saying there was less than $3,200 in damage and telling Salkin to return the security deposit. They told him to file a claim with the federal government and warned him to stop contacting them.
In an email to Salkin, ATF attorney Patricia Cangemi wrote, "If you continue to contact the Agents after being so advised your contacts may be construed as harassment under the law. Threats or harassment of a Federal Agent is of grave concern. Utilizing the telephone or a computer to perpetrate threats or harassment is also a serious matter."
Nunziato said he worked in undercover ATF storefront operations in the 1980s near Detroit. He said they too didn't tell the landlord, but when they left, they fixed the property to make it as good or better than when they moved in. Nunziato said he could not fathom the Milwaukee agents just walking away from a damaged building.
"To back up a toilet? Not paying bills? And then damaging the building?" he said. "It seems like the planning of this case was not done very well. Looks like it was done as they went along."
The Riverwest neighborhood where ATF ran its operation is a mix of Milwaukee bungalows, flats and duplexes, with many longtime homeowners mingled with renters. A few bars are sprinkled in the area along with the tannery and Salkin's former sign company.
The area has rallied against crime, lobbying to get a drug house closed. Neighbors developed a tight bond with their beat cop after a homicide occurred several blocks to the north.
"It's a whole mix of people here and that is what I really love," said Lorraine Jacobs, a resident for 27 years. "I wouldn't want to live anywhere else."
Jacobs and others feel betrayed by the ATF operation bringing drug dealers and gun sellers to their area.
"I feel like we were fooled, taken advantage of," she said. "It is unfortunate for our neighborhood. We are trying to bring it up and we are close to that. We just didn't need this."
Jason Reichel, who lives near Jacobs, said he would have preferred the operation wasn't in his neighborhood, but wouldn't want to push it off on another area. He said he is concerned ATF did not have control over the operation, given the store was ripped off.
"I would expect that the ATF wouldn't get robbed, that they would have security measures," he said. "Maybe I watch too many movies. You would think it would be hard to rob an ATF operation."
Turns out, the ATF has weapons stolen or loses them more frequently than the public might think, according to a 2008 report from the Office of the Inspector General with the U.S. Department of Justice.
In a five-year span from 2002-'07, for example, 76 ATF weapons were stolen, lost or missing, according to the report. That's nearly double the number compared with the FBI and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, when considering rates per 1,000 agents.
Todd Roehl, a resident for five years, wonders if the ATF operation explains two unusual crimes in the neighborhood. Over the summer, the wheels were stolen off his wife's SUV, which was left up on rocks. A couple of months later, thieves attempted to break in to his shed. The ATF operation was buying stolen goods, but he is unsure if his wife's wheels ended up there.
He said the ATF should have chosen a less residential area, perhaps an industrial park or retail area.
"I have two small children and this is going on while they are playing outside?" he said. "The stigma is damaging. Every neighborhood tries to make things better. It does not help to have your own government planting crime here, which takes down, destroys and damages that. It's like, 'Thanks.' "
Botched arrests
After the burglary, agents wound down the operation and prepared to make arrests in November. The defendants charged with drug crimes generally went to state court while defendants facing gun cases, which also may include drug charges, went to federal court.
But during the roundup, ATF arrested and sought charges against three defendants who proved to be the wrong people, even though they had video of the defendants.
One of those was Adrienne Jones. ATF agents said Jones sold them six grams of marijuana on March 7. Problem was, Jones reported to a federal prison in Pennsylvania to start a sentence on March 1, according to Chris Burke, spokesman for the federal Bureau of Prisons - on an ATF case.
"He was definitely in our custody," Burke said. "He never left."
Loebel, the prosecutor, dismissed the charges against Jones and the other two. She said agents told her that they could not prove elements of the charge.
"Under those circumstances, we want to make sure we get the right one," she said. "You don't want to charge the wrong person. You certainly don't want to prosecute the wrong person. That is not something you strive for."
Asked about the quality of the remaining 15 cases, Loebel would only say she is proceeding with the prosecution of them and that all are important.
"It is really a gamut of individuals and offenses," she said. "My position is any amount of drugs, they have bad effects on people and on the community."
ATF's Schmidt said the agency always strives to identify the correct person before seeking charges against them.
"Certainly it is a concern," he said. "I think they put their best effort forward and it was their belief and information that these were the correct people."
I've come to a conclusion. If you want to get illegal guns off the streets the first step is to get rid of the ATF. Apparently that can't not sell guns to Mexican drug lords. Apparently they can't not get guns stolen from Milwaukee and apparently they can't not accuse innocent people of crimes (even ones that the ATF already has in jail). I used to look up to those sorts of agencies. I used to think they were the creme of the crop, now I'm just disgusted as I laugh at them. It's truly pathetic.
Thursday, January 17, 2013
N.Y. Times Op-Ed bashes Obama on drone strikes for assassination
Original Post:Yahoo
By Rachel Rose Hartman
"Who Says You Can Kill Americans, Mr. President?" a scathing New York Times op-ed asked Thursday.
The opinion piece, written by Vicki Divoll, former general counsel to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and former deputy legal adviser to the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center, heaps criticism on the administration for the practice of using drone strikes for assassination and calls for greater transparency. Divoll writes:
Mr. Obama should declassify and release, to Congress, the press and the public, documents that set forth the detailed constitutional and statutory analysis he relies on for targeting and killing American citizens. Perhaps Mr. Obama still believes that, in a democracy, the people have a right to know the legal theories upon which the president executes his great powers. Certainly, we can hope so. After all, his interpretation might be wrong.
Divoll notes the known killings of three American citizens who were suspected terrorists: Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical American-born Muslim cleric; Samir Khan, a naturalized American citizen who edited an English-language magazine and was with Awlaki at the time of his death; and Awlaki’s 16-year-old son, Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, who were all killed overseas.
By Rachel Rose Hartman
"Who Says You Can Kill Americans, Mr. President?" a scathing New York Times op-ed asked Thursday.
The opinion piece, written by Vicki Divoll, former general counsel to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and former deputy legal adviser to the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center, heaps criticism on the administration for the practice of using drone strikes for assassination and calls for greater transparency. Divoll writes:
Mr. Obama should declassify and release, to Congress, the press and the public, documents that set forth the detailed constitutional and statutory analysis he relies on for targeting and killing American citizens. Perhaps Mr. Obama still believes that, in a democracy, the people have a right to know the legal theories upon which the president executes his great powers. Certainly, we can hope so. After all, his interpretation might be wrong.
Divoll notes the known killings of three American citizens who were suspected terrorists: Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical American-born Muslim cleric; Samir Khan, a naturalized American citizen who edited an English-language magazine and was with Awlaki at the time of his death; and Awlaki’s 16-year-old son, Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, who were all killed overseas.
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