Category Archives: Citizens Duty

Redacted White House Emails on Net Neutrality

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The internet is not broken, what is there to fix?

In part from Vice.com: Congressman Jason Chaffetz, the chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, will chair a hearing Wednesday about whether the White House improperly influenced the independent agency and pressured its chairman, Tom Wheeler, to develop a net neutrality plan that mirrored recommendations President Barack Obama made last November. Obama had called on the FCC to classify broadband as a public utility and adopt open internet rules that would ensure that “neither the cable company nor the phone company will be able to act as a gatekeeper, restricting what you can do or see online.”

The congressional hearing was initiated after Chaffetz reviewed heavily redacted emails and other documents VICE News obtained from the FCC two weeks ago in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request; the emails show White House officials and Wheeler communicating about net neutrality. VICE News sought comment from Chaffetz’s office about the email exchanges and shared the documents with him.

In a letter dated February 9 included with the batch of White House emails, Kirk Burgee, the chief of staff for the Wireline Competition Bureau, one of seven FCC bureaus that advises the commission on policy related to wireline telecommunications, said the emails were redacted at the behest of the White House.

Although we have not completed the consultation process with the Department of State, we have completed the consultation process with NTIA [National Telecommunications and Information Administration] and the White House. As a result of that consultation, we are releasing an email exchange among Larry Strickling (Associate Administrator of NTIA), Tom Power (Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), White House), Ross David Edelman (OSTP), and Chairman Wheeler. These records have been redacted pursuant to FOIA exemptions 5 and 6 which are consistent with those recommended by NTIA and the White House. We are also releasing an email exchange between Tom Power and Chairman Wheeler (which includes an email exchange among FCC staff and Chairman Wheeler) and an email exchange between John Podesta and Chairman Wheeler (which includes an email exchange among Jeffrey Zients (Executive Office of the President (EOP), White House), Jason Furman (EOP, White House), and Tom Power). These documents also include redactions under Exemptions 5 and 6 consistent with those recommended by the White House.

Burgee’s letter footnoted two documents to justify the redactions: a January 29 email sent by associate White House counsel Nicholas McQuaid to Joanne Wall at the FCC’s office of general counsel; and a December 31, 2014 letter from Kathy D. Smith, chief counsel, NTIA, US Department of Commerce, to Elizabeth Lyle, the FCC’s assistant general counsel.

*** Going deeper and more that the Congressman is stressing:

In a letter to Wheeler Monday (Feb. 23), who last week declined to testify at a Feb. 25 hearing in the committee on the relationship between the White House and the FCC’s Title II based draft order, chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) asked him to reconsider the invitation to testify. Chaffetz also said he was still looking for copies of e-mails the committee had asked for by Feb. 6 as part of its investigation into that relationship.

An FCC spokesperson confirmed it had received the letter and was reviewing it, but a source speaking on background said that the document request was a very large one and that the FCC had asked for more time to produce the documents and was in the process of negotiating wiht the committee for that extra time.

Chaffetz echoed calls earlier in the day by FCC Republicans Ajit Pai and Michael O’Rielly for the chairman to delay the planned Feb. 26 vote on the new rules and publish the language of the draft to give the public more time to weigh in (Wheeler had countered that call by the minority commissioners in a tweet, saying that with 4 million-plus comments on new network neutrality rules, it was time to act).

Chaffetz pointed out that back in 2007, Senator Obama had asked Republican FCC chairman Kevin Martin to hold off on a vote on proposed media ownership rule changes until he had put out any changes in a public notice. Chaffetz noted that in a letter to Martin, Sen. Obama had said that “the commission has the responsibility to defend any new proposal in public discourse and debate.” Chaffetz also pointed out that the senator co-sponsored a bill to block a commission vote on the rulemaking “pursuant to a 90-day comment period.”

Martin responded by releasing the changes and opened a four-week comment period, the congressman pointed out, but only after it had conducted many public hearings and published the changes and provided for comment, he said.

What is sauce for the senator is sauce for the President, Chaffetz suggested. “The current drafting and scheduled vote on net neutrality rules has afforded none of these opportunities for public airing and only raised concerns regarding the process,” Chaffetz said

Mall of America Under Terror Threat

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A new video from Al Shabaab purportedly shows the terror group calling for an attack on Mall of America, in Bloomington, Minn.

According to Fox 9, the mall is one of three similar targets the terror group specifically names, including West Edmonton Mall in Canada and the Oxford Street shopping area in London.

The video purportedly shows 6 minutes of graphic images and the terrorists celebrating the 2013 Westgate Mall attack in Nairobi, Kenya, that killed more than 60 people.

The narrator, his face wrapped in a black-and-white kaffiyeh-type scarf and wearing a camouflage jacket, spoke with a British accent and appeared to be of Somali origin. He accused Kenyan troops in Somalia of committing abuses against Somali Muslims.

He ended the video by calling on Muslim men to attack other shopping malls in Western countries. ***

To be an armed shopper or no? The Mall has signs that say NO.

Minnesota state Rep. Tony Cornish says the al-Shabaab threat against the Mall of America should be enough to motivate mall owners to drop their “no guns” policy so citizens can protect themselves.

Mr. Cornish, a Republican who also chairs the House Public Safety Committee, said the Mall of America has interpreted state concealed carry laws incorrectly, and he’s intent on challenging them for it, a local CBS affiliate reported.

“This is completely ridiculous. The complete opposite of what they should be doing,” he said. “If we’re threatened with an attack, the last thing you want to do is disarm citizens.”

The Republican’s comments come after a tweet sent from the Mall of America’s Twitter account said, “The mall bans all guns from the premises, you’ll note this clearly at each entrance door.” *** So how did we get to this condition in Minnesota? ***

(CNSNews.com) – The sheriff of Hennepin County, Minn., told the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security on Wednesday about the threat of Somali gangs in his jurisdiction.

“I have been asked to testify today about the specific emergence of Somali gang-related issues we are having in my county,” Rich Stanek said in his prepared testimony.

Stanek represented the National Sheriffs’ Association at the hearing on “America’s Evolving Gang Threat.” He also serves on the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s inter-agency Threat Assessment and Coordination Group and is president of the Major County Sheriffs’ Association.

Stanek said Minnesota is a “designated U.S. Refugee Resettlement Area,” with a Somali population ranging from 80,000 to 125,000 in the state. As a result, Stanek said, while the African population in the U.S. as a whole is about four percent, 18 percent of the Minnesota population is African because of the large Somali presence.

Stanek said he wanted to “state for the record” that most Somalis are “law-abiding citizens” who contribute to the community, but those who have joined gangs are committing crimes across the state.

“Somali gangs are unique in that they are not necessarily based on the narcotics trade as are other traditional gangs,” Stanek said, adding that “turf” is also not a motivating factor in Somali gang criminal activities.

“Gang members will often congregate in certain areas, but commit their criminal acts elsewhere,” Stanek said. “Criminal acts are often done in a wide geographic area that stretches outside of the Twin Cities seven county metro area.

“Their mobility has made them difficult to track,” Stanek said.

Stanek listed five “typical crimes” committed by Somali gang members, including credit card fraud, cell phone and gun store burglaries, and witness intimidation. The fifth type of criminal activity is tied to international terrorism, Stanek said.

“In 2007, the local Somali community started to report that some of the youth in the area had essentially disappeared without warning,” Stanek said. “It was later learned that 20 young men had left Minneapolis to travel to Somalia to receive training and fight as members of al- Shabaab.  “One individual had moved to Minneapolis as a teenager in 1993,” Stanek said. Following a shoplifting arrest, he fell into the violent street gang called the ‘Somali Hot Boyz.’ After a short period of time, he emerged as a recruiter for al-Shabaab, which eventually led him to leave Minneapolis for the Horn of Africa in 2008.

“Later, it was learned this individual was killed in fighting between al-Shabaab and Somali government forces,” Stanek said.

“We are clearly faced with a challenge that requires an innovative approach including new investigative tools and focused resources,” Stanek said.

According to the Health and Human Services’ Administration for Children and Families’ Office of Refugee and Resettlement, refugee programs and resettlement sites exist in 49 states and the District of Columbia and are operated through partnerships between the federal government and faith-based and other non-governmental refugee support organizations in those states and the District.

A spokesperson for the office told CNSNews.com that the United States admits on average about 70,000 refugees a year, with each required to be designated as individuals who face danger in their homeland. Every refugee has to be cleared by the Department of Homeland Security before being allowed to resettle in the United States, the spokesperson said.

A wide range of considerations about where to relocate individuals is considered, including family ties, language and available resources, the spokesperson said. But once they are living in the United States, refugees are free to live anywhere in the country.

Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.), chairman of the subcommittee, opened the hearing with statistics on the gang threat in the United States.

“According to the 2011 National Gang Threat Assessment there are approximately 1.4 million gang members belonging to more than 33,000 gangs in the United States,” Sensenbrenner said. “It has been reported that the number of gang members in the U.S. has increased by 40 percent since 2009.”

 

Tucson Military Recruiters Ran Cocaine

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Back in 2002 there was an FBI sting mission called Operation Lively Green. There are some real additional questions that need to be asked given the sentencing imposed below. Here is a condition that goes unknown or forgotten.

A small number of undocumented immigrants in the U.S. will have an opportunity to join the military for the first time in decades under a new Department of Defense policy unveiled Thursday.

The new rules will expand an existing program allowing recruiters to target foreign nationals with high-demand skills, mostly rare foreign language expertise or specialized health care training.

For the first time, the program — known as Military Accessions in the National Interest, or MAVNI — will be open to immigrants without a proper visa if they came to the U.S. with their parents before age 16. More specifically, they must be approved under a 2012 Obama administration policy known as Deferred Action for Child Arrivals, or DACA.

The new Pentagon policy may be the first phase of a broader government-wide effort to ease pressure on immigrants and create new paths to citizenship. President Barack Obama, frustrated with the failure of Congress to pass any substantial immigration reform, has vowed to aggressively use his presidential authority to change the way immigration policies are carried out.

The Pentagon program is capped at 1,500 recruits per year. Officials say it’s unclear how many of those might be unlawful DACA status immigrants as opposed to others who are also eligible for military service under MAVNI, including those with legal, nonpermanent visas such as students or tourists.

WASHINGTON—A former member of the Arizona Army National Guard was sentenced today to 52 months in prison for his role in a scheme to accept bribes from purported drug traffickers in exchange for using his military position to protect shipments of cocaine during transportation, announced Assistant Attorney General Leslie R. Caldwell of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division.

Raul Portillo, 42, of Phoenix, Arizona, pleaded guilty on Nov. 21, 2014, to one count of conspiracy to commit bribery and interfere with commerce by attempted extortion. U.S. District Judge James A. Soto of the District of Arizona imposed the sentence.

According to admissions made in connection with his guilty plea, Portillo, a sergeant in the Arizona Army National Guard, conspired with others from the Arizona Army National Guard to accept cash bribes to protect narcotics traffickers who were purportedly transporting and distributing cocaine from Arizona to other locations in the southwestern United States. Unbeknownst to Portillo and the other co-conspirators, however, the supposed narcotics traffickers were actually undercover FBI agents.

Specifically, Portillo admitted that he wore his official uniform, carried official forms of identification, used official vehicles and used his official authority, where necessary, to prevent police stops and searches as he drove cocaine shipments through checkpoints manned by the U.S. Border Patrol, the Arizona Department of Public Safety, and Nevada law enforcement officers. Portillo admitted that he took bribe payments totaling $12,000 for transporting cocaine on two separate occasions. Portillo also admitted that he accepted a $2,000 cash payment in exchange for recruiting an Immigration and Customs Enforcement inspector into the conspiracy.

Although Portillo was identified by the FBI as a suspect, he mysteriously was never charged and he allegedly fled to Mexico. “In the case of Portillo, as well as other soldiers and sailors involved in criminal enterprises, the Defense Department and law enforcement agencies appear to be complicit in covering up the crime and misconduct cases involving enlisted ‘undocumented immigrants,'” said former NYPD police officer Iris Aquino. “If they’re undocumented, how do you know they’re not criminals or terrorists signing up to serve in the U.S. military?” she asked.

*** Hatip B

Once the November elections were over, President Barack Obama’s program appeared to be replacing American citizens, who are being terminated from their military units with illegal aliens in all branches of the U.S. Armed Forces, and the Pentagon is once again seeking to attract so-called undocumented recruits in the next several weeks, according to Military Times. Yet, neither the White House nor the Justice Department will acknowledge how many of the up to 58 National Guard troops arrested are immigrants.

According to his confession, Portillo admitted that he wore his official uniform, carried official forms of identification and weapons, used official military vehicles, in addition to using his official authority to bypass police stops and searches. He also drove through law enforcement checkpoints manned by agents from U.S. Border Patrol, officers from the Arizona Department of Public Safety, and Nevada law enforcement officers.

Portillo also confessed to taking payments totaling $12,000 for his transport and protection services for two large cocaine shipments. Portillo also shocked those hearing his allocution when he told the sentencing judge that he was paid a bonus of $2,000 by a Mexican drug gang for his success in recruiting an Immigration and Customs Enforcement inspector. To date, 58 defendants have been convicted and sentenced for charges stemming from this investigation and it’s believed they will be more arrests and convictions.

Kamala Harris, Enjoined in Lawsuit

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SACRAMENTO — A Virginia-based conservative group filed a federal First Amendment lawsuit this week accusing California Attorney General Kamala Harris of engaging in the kind of activity that was the subject of the recent scandal involving the Internal Revenue Service. Are state officials trying to chill the speech of conservative nonprofits?

“Not only did IRS employees improperly target groups based on politics, but they also improperly demanded a host of details about the groups’ activities, according to a report on the abuses by a Treasury Department inspector general,” according to a Washington Post report about the federal scandal. The IRS even demanded information about some of these groups’ smallest donors.

Now the Americans for Prosperity Foundation is saying the state of California is improperly demanding information about its donors – and is threatening unusually harsh penalties if the group doesn’t comply. One other conservative group has filed a separate lawsuit against the attorney general, which is now in the Ninth Circuit.

**** Now comes the court’s decision on her collusion.

Court enjoins California AG Kamala Harris on First Amendment grounds

Stopping acts statutorily related to some of Lois Lerner’s abuse of First Amendment rights of nonprofit organizations, a federal judge has enjoined California attorney general and Democrat candidate for U.S. Senate Kamala Harris from obtaining donor records of 501(c)(4) organizations.

Without express state statutory authority, and allegedly in violation of federal law protecting the confidentiality of donors listed in Schedule B, Ms. Harris demanded that organizations that register with her office under California’s charitable solicitation law disclose their largest donors.  She threatened fines against those who did not comply with her lawless, ultra vires demands.

Most states have charitable solicitation statutes requiring nonprofit organizations to pay fees and obtain a license before asking the public for contributions.  These state statutes typically require nonprofits to file their tax return, IRS Form 990, as part of their annual licensing application, but allow Schedule B listing top donors to be redacted.

The Supreme Court has acknowledged that states may require registration of nonprofits before solicitation of contributions so long as their laws do not violate the First Amendment.  The February 17 injunction against Harris noted that she threatened to suspend the solicitation license of plaintiff Americans for Prosperity unless it disclosed its largest donors.  The district court found that she could not assure that donor records would be kept confidential under her policies, which are not based in any concrete state law, and that would have a chilling effect on First Amendment rights.

AFP presented evidence that its donors, which include the Koch brothers, have received threats.  The court found that AFP raised “serious questions going to the merits” of the larger case, which was sufficient for the injunction.

Federal law requires that donor information on IRS Form 990 Schedule B be kept confidential, with both civil and criminal penalties for disclosure by government officials.  Last year the IRS was fined $50,000 for unlawfully leaking the names of donors to the National Organization for Marriage.

Judicial Watch uncovered e-mails linking Lois Lerner to the IRS’s inappropriately collecting donor names of conservative organizations filing for tax-exempt status.  E-mails also indicate that Ms. Lerner unlawfully disclosed confidential tax information of Tea Party applicants to the Federal Election Commission.  She was eventually referred for criminal prosecution by the House Ways and Means Committee for, among other things, “exposing, and [potentially disclosing], confidential taxpayer information, in apparent violation of Internal Revenue Code section 6103 by using her personal email to conduct official business.”

Ms. Harris, who has been repeatedly described as the “female Barack Obama,” is running to fill the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Barbara Boxer.  She has taken the side of supporting warrantless searches of cell phones, but a unanimous Supreme Court ruled in Riley v. California that the government needs a warrant.

 

 

 

 

Palestinian authorities to blame for terror attacks

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NEW YORK (AP) — The Palestine Liberation Organization and the Palestinian Authority were the catalysts for a series of terrorist attacks in the early 2000s in Israel that killed or wounded several Americans, a U.S. jury found Monday at a high-stakes civil trial.

In finding the Palestinian authorities liable in the attacks, jurors awarded the victims $218.5 million in damages for the bloodshed. The U.S. Anti-Terrorism Act could allow for that to be tripled.

The case in Manhattan and another in Brooklyn have been viewed as the most notable attempts by American victims of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict to use U.S. courts to seek damages that could reach into the billions of dollars.

The PLO and Palestinian Authority had no immediate comment. None of the victims was in the courtroom Monday for the verdict.

In closing arguments, plaintiff attorney Kent Yalowitz had urged the Manhattan jury to order the PLO and Palestinian Authority to pay $350 million for providing material support to terrorists involved in six bombings and shootings from 2002 to 2004.

No amount could make up for the human toll, he said. “But if the only thing you can give them is money, then money has to stand in as compensation for the unspeakable loss,” he added.

Defense attorney Mark Rochon had argued there was no proof Palestinian authorities sanctioned the attacks as alleged in a 2004 lawsuit brought by 10 American families, even though members of their security forces were convicted in Israeli courts on charges they were involved.

“What they did, they did for their own reasons … not the Palestinian Authority’s,” he said in federal court in Manhattan.

The suit against the PLO and Palestinian Authority and the other against the Jordan-based Arab Bank had languished for years as the defendants challenged the American courts’ jurisdiction. Recent rulings found that they should go forward under the Anti-Terrorism Act, a more than 2-decade-old law that allows victims of U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organizations to seek compensation for pain and suffering, loss of earnings and other hardship.

Jurors heard dramatic testimony from family members of people killed in the attacks and survivors who never fully recovered. One, Rena Sokolov, described how a family vacation to Israel in 2002 turned to tragedy with a bomb blast outside a Jerusalem shoe store.

The Long Island woman testified that she felt like she “was in a washing machine,” and blood flowed so quickly from a broken leg she thought she would die.

“I looked to my right and saw a severed head of a woman about 3 feet from me,” she said.

The plaintiffs also relied on internal records showing the Palestinian Authority continued to pay the salaries of employees who were put behind bars in terror cases and paid benefits to families of suicide bombers and gunmen who died committing the attacks.

“Where are the documents punishing employees for killing people?” Yalowitz asked. “We don’t have anything like that in this case. … They didn’t roll that way.”

He also put up a photo of Yasser Arafat on a video screen, telling the jury that the Palestinian leader had approved martyrdom payments and incited the violence with anti-Israeli propaganda.

“The big dog was Yasser Arafat,” he said. “Yasser Arafat was in charge.”

Rochon argued that it was illogical to conclude that payments made after the attacks motivated the attackers in the first place.

“You know a lot about prisoner payments and martyr payments,” he said. “Do you have any evidence that they caused these attacks? No.”

Last year, a Brooklyn jury decided that Arab Bank should be held responsible for a wave of Hamas-orchestrated suicide bombings that left Americans dead or wounded based on claims the financial institution knowingly did business with the terror group.

A separate phase of the Brooklyn trial dealing with damages, set to begin in May, will feature testimony from victims.

***

From the New York Times:

The Palestinian Authority and the Palestine Liberation Organization were found liable on Monday by a jury in Manhattan for their role in knowingly supporting six terrorist attacks in Israel between 2002 and 2004 in which Americans were killed and injured.

The jury in Federal District Court in Manhattan awarded $218.5 million in damages, a number that is automatically tripled to $655.5 million under the special terrorism law under which the case was brought.

The verdict ended a decade-long legal battle to hold the Palestinian organizations responsible for the terrorist acts. And while the decision was a huge victory for the dozens of plaintiffs, it also could serve to strengthen the Israeli claim that the supposedly more moderate Palestinian forces are directly tied to terrorism.

The financial implications of the verdict for the defendants were not immediately clear. The Palestinian Authority, led by Mahmoud Abbas, had serious financial troubles even before Israel, as punishment for the Palestinians’ move in December to join the International Criminal Court, began withholding more than $100 million a month in tax revenue it collects on the Palestinians’ behalf.

The verdict came in the seventh week of a civil trial in which the jury had heard emotional testimony from survivors of suicide bombings and other attacks in Jerusalem, in which a total of 33 people were killed and more than 450 were injured.

“Money is oxygen for terrorism,” Kent A. Yalowitz, a lawyer for the families, said in a closing argument on Thursday, noting that the antiterrorism law “hits those who send terrorists where it hurts them most: in the wallet.”

The case was brought under the Anti-Terrorism Act, which allows American nationals who are victims of international terrorism to sue in the United States courts. The law was used last September by a Brooklyn jury to find Arab Bank liable for supporting terrorism by Hamas. Damages in that case, filed by about 300 victims of 24 terrorist attacks, are to be decided in a second trial, which has not yet been held.

In the Palestinian case, the plaintiffs included 10 families, comprising about three dozen members, eight of whom had been physically injured in the attacks while the others had been left with deep psychological scars, testimony showed.

The plaintiffs also included the estates of four victims who had been killed in the attacks, which occurred on the street and at a crowded bus stop, inside a bus, and in a cafeteria on the campus of Hebrew University.

“It was a terrible thing to see,” one plaintiff, Robert Coulter Sr., 78, testified as he described watching a Fox TV news report about the cafeteria bombing and realizing his 36-year-old daughter, a New Yorker on a business trip, was one of the victims.

“They brought a body bag out on the TV station, right on it, and went right down to where she was laying and I knew it was a girl, had blond hair,” Mr. Coulter recalled. “I said, ‘Oh, my goodness, that’s Janis.’”

The defense had argued that their clients had nothing to do with the attacks. Mark J. Rochon, a defense lawyer, told the jury on Thursday that he did not want “the bad guys, the killers, the people who did this, to get away while the Palestinian Authority or the P.L.O. pay for something they did not do.”

Hanan Ashrawi, a member of the P.L.O.’s executive committee who testified for the defense, told the jury, “We tried to prevent violence from all sides.”

But citing testimony, payroll records and other documents, the plaintiffs showed that many of those involved in the planning and carrying out of the attacks had been employees of the Palestinian Authority, and that the authority had paid salaries to terrorists imprisoned in Israel and made martyr payments to the families of suicide bombers.