Category Archives: U.S. Constitution

Free Speech Punished at Christian University

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TCU student punished for criticizing Islam, Baltimore riots

Todd Starnes FNC: All it took was 140 characters for Texas Christian University to suspend a conservative student who posted a series of social networking posts that insulted the Islamic State, the Baltimore rioters and Mexicans.

TCU banned Harry Vincent from most campus activities, ordered him to perform 60 hours of community service and attend a diversity training class.

The 19-year-old, who is a member of the College Republicans and the Young Americans for Freedom, said he was told by the university that his conservative views were “inappropriate.”

It sounds to me like Harry Vincent is guilty of being a Christian Conservative white guy – and on a university campus that’s a crime worthy of death penalty.

“They’re trying to make me out to be the classic bigoted hateful white male,” Harry told me in a telephone interview from his home in Maryland. “That’s the complete opposite of what I am.”

The university’s only public comment came in a prepared statement noting “When student’s conduct violates the university’s behavioral standards, they are subject to a disciplinary process, and will be held accountable for their actions.”

On April 29 TCU sent Harry a letter accusing him of violating the university’s code of student conduct – specifically he was accused of “infliction of bodily or emotional arm” and “disorderly conduct.”

The charges stemmed from a half dozen tweets he had posted online referencing radical Islam along with a Facebook message about the Baltimore riots.

“These hoodrat criminals in Baltimore need to be shipped off and exiled to the sahara desert,” he wrote. “Maybe then they’ll realize how much we provide for them (welfare, college tuition, Obama phone’s, medicare, etc.”

In regards to Islam he wrote, “This is clearly not a religion of peace.”

He also used the word “beaner” a derogatory term to describe Mexicans.

A former middle school classmate took great offense at Harry’s tweets and launched what became a Twitter lynch mob. The unnamed woman, who has no ties to TCU, urged her followers to contact the university and complain.

“This a**hole has been posting racist and disgusting comments on Twitter/Facebook,” she wrote on Tumblr. “When I confronted him about it, he referred to me as an ‘Islamic s**thead.”

The university took swift action. Associate Dean of Students Glory Robinson ordered Harry to apologize for what he had written on his private social networking pages.

“Dean Robinson said I was going to need to write an apology letter and a letter stating what sort of punishment I thought I deserved,” Harry told me. “She told me not to use Freedom of Speech as a defense – or else I would be more severely punished.”

To make a long story short – Harry hired a lawyer and appealed.

“My appeal board consisted of one very flamboyant male teacher and the head of the inclusiveness and diversity department,” he said. “It wasn’t a very unbiased board at all that heard my case.”

As expected – the university rejected his appeal and sent Harry a certified letter.

“The choices you made caused harm to other individuals,” the university wrote. “These types of comments are not acceptable at TCU and directly contradict our mission of being ‘ethical leaders and responsible citizens in a global community.’”

Harry said he was told that he had to say he was guilty before the university actually found him guilty.

“Dean Robinson believes I am somehow damaged – she thinks there’s something wrong with me because of what I put out there on social media,” he said. “She told me how my conservatives views were inappropriate.”

While he stands by his beliefs about Islamic radicals and the Baltimore rioters, Harry told me he regrets the foul language he used – as well as the unintentional Mexican slur “beaner.”

“I did not know that word was such a hurtful word,” he said. “I do regret that one because I do realize that could have caused harm to some people.”

Harry said he called his online attacker a “s***head” after she bashed the  Armed Forces and wrote that America deserved what happened on 9/11.

“Any red-blooded American’s blood would have boiled at the sight of what she wrote,” he said. “I let my anger get the best of me.”

It sounds to me like Harry Vincent is guilty of being a Christian Conservative white guy – and on a university campus that’s a crime worthy of death penalty.

Harry isn’t sure if he’s going back to TCU. Should he agree to their demands – the 19-year-old would be on disciplinary probation until 2018 – the year he graduates.

“I’m thinking about enlisting in the Marines,” he said.

But one thing is certainly – Harry is not backing down.

“I’m not going to stand down and watch an institution throw away the Constitution and throw away basic God-given rights,” he said.

TCU is a private school and as such they are not bound by the First Amendment. However, as a Christian school they ought to be bound by the Good Book.

Harry Vincent spoke his mind – but instead of honoring his free speech – TCU chose to silence this young man and capitulated to the fury of a Twitter lynch mob.

The irony is that Harry received a stiffer punishment than a lot of the street thugs who terrorized Baltimore.

What About Those Stingrays? You Cool With This?

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Surveillance Nation is here today and are you good with this?

Is Microsoft reading YOUR emails? Windows 10 may threaten your privacy, watchdogs warn

Windows 10:  DailyMailUK

Within 45 pages of terms and conditions, the privacy information suggests Microsoft begins watching from when an account is created, saving customer’s basic information, passwords and credit card details, Newsweek reported.

The tech giant is also said to save Bing search queries and conversations with Cortana, as well as lists of which websites and apps users visit and the contents of private emails and files, as well as their handwriting.   The privacy statement says: ‘your typed and handwritten words are collected.’

The policy adds that Microsoft collects information about a user’s speech and handwriting to ‘help improve and personalise our ability to correctly recognise your input,’ while information from their contacts book is used, such as names and calendar events ‘to better recognise people and events when you dictate messages or documents’.

Cortana, for example, makes use of information about who a user calls on their phone, plus data from their emails and texts, calendar and contacts, as well as their web history and location.  Microsoft says that data is collected to provide users with a more personalised service and better character recognition, for example, but may also be used for targeted adverting, meaning it may share information with third parties.

The company assigns each of its users a unique advertising ID so it does not reveal what they ‘say in email, chat, video calls or voice mail, or your documents, photos or other personal files to target ads to you.’

But it has still come under fire from privacy campaigners.

Online privacy pressure group, European Digital Rights (EDRi) told The Times that Microsoft’s policy was ‘not only bad news for privacy. Your free speech rights can also be violated on an ad hoc basis.’

Microsoft ‘basically grants itself very broad rights to collect everything you do, say and write with on your devices in order to sell more targeted advertising or to sell your data to third parties.’

Kirsten Fiedler, EDRi’s Managing Director told MailOnline: ‘Unlike Microsoft’s promise, the company’s new 45 page-long terms of service are not straightforward at all.

‘Online companies should finally start explaining their terms in an understandable manner so that we can make informed choices about the services we want to use.

 

Stingray surveillance sparks privacy concerns in Congress

USAToday: WASHINGTON — Members of Congress are increasingly trying to rein in a secretive federal law enforcement program that uses devices known as Stingrays to capture cellphone data from unsuspecting Americans.

“They are spying on law-abiding citizens as we speak,” said Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., who recently won House approval of a measure to end the program.

The box-shaped Stingray devices are the size of small suitcases, cost about $400,000 to buy and operate, and are usually attached to the cars of federal, state or local law enforcement agents. They mimic cellphone towers, tricking phones within a certain radius to connect to and feed data to police about users’ locations, text messages, calls and emails.

At least a half-dozen federal agencies — including the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement — use the technology, which can penetrate the walls of a home, apartment complex or office.

Police say the technology — which can also be attached to planes — helps them catch criminals by tracking their movements and actions. But critics complain that it violates the constitutional rights of innocent citizens whose cellphone data is also seized, often without a warrant.

At least 53 law enforcement agencies in 21 states also use Stingrays or similar devices, according to research by the American Civil Liberties Union. Local police typically buy the devices with grants from the federal government and sign agreements with the FBI not to disclose their use, said ACLU attorney Nathan Wessler.

A June 2014 investigation by USA TODAY and Gannett newspapers found that an increasing number of local and state police agencies were deploying Stingrays and other technology to secretly collect cellphone data from suspected criminals and law-abiding Americans not suspected of any wrongdoing.

“It’s become clear how staggeringly widespread the use of this technology is,” Wessler said. “We’ve been heartened to see that some members of Congress are taking the privacy concerns quite seriously.”

The House this summer passed, by voice vote, a Justice Department spending bill that included Issa’s amendment to bar funding for the use of Stingrays without a warrant. Issa said he won’t stop there, in part because the Senate is unlikely to pass that measure .

“I will use additional opportunities to get it done,” Issa told USA TODAY. “Right now, law enforcement won’t even tell us how many Stingrays they have. The only way to protect the American people is to change the law.”

Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, also are targeting the Stingray program in a broader bill called the GPS Act. The legislation would require law enforcement agents to obtain warrants before tracking Americans’ locations by using Stingray-type devices or tapping into cellphones, laptops, or GPS navigation systems.

“I don’t see how you can use a Stingray without it raising very substantial privacy issues,” Wyden told USA TODAY. “I want police to be able to track dangerous individuals and their locations, but it ought to be done with court oversight under the Fourth Amendment.”

The FBI has said it has a policy of obtaining warrants before using Stingray devices, although it has broad exceptions, including one that allows the technology to be used in public places where the agency believes people shouldn’t have an expectation of privacy.

“It’s how we find killers, it’s how we find kidnappers, it’s how we find drug dealers, it’s how we find missing children, it’s how we find pedophiles,” FBI Director James Comey told reporters in Charlotte. last fall. “It’s work you want us to be able to do.”

Chaffetz is also using his position as chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee to gather information as part of an investigation into the use of stingrays, said his spokesman, M.J. Henshaw.

At the same time, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, and Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the senior Democrat on the panel, have been pressing the Department of Justice for answers about Stingray practices and policies. Sen. Bill Nelson, R-Fla., has also called on the Federal Communications Commission to review how the devices are used.

A spokesman for the Department of Justice said the agency is reviewing its policies for the use of Stingray devices. He said he didn’t know when the review would be done.

“With regards to this technology, the Department of Justice is in the process of examining its policies to ensure they reflect our continued commitment to conducting our vital missions while according appropriate respect for privacy and civil liberties,” said spokesman Patrick Rodenbush.

While the Justice Department reviews its policies, states have begun passing their own laws to ban state and local police from using Stingrays without a warrant.

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee signed a ban in May after legislation was passed with overwhelming bipartisan support in the state Legislature. In addition to requiring police to obtain a warrant before using Stingray devices, the law says police must quickly delete any data collected on people who were not targets of a criminal investigation.

Similar laws have been passed in Virginia and Utah and are being considered in California, New York and Texas.

“The American people are looking for a balance between security and liberty,” Issa said. “After 9/11, we moved too far towards security. We need to move back toward liberty.”

Details on Obama Closing Gitmo

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In the matter of closing Guantanamo and normalizing relations, 18 months of covert meetings and confabs took place and the White House even included the Vatican.

FSM: There are currently 116 detainees at the facility, and under the new plan some of them would be moved to the U.S.

Monaco said the plan was to transport the 52 detainees deemed eligible for transfer to countries with appropriate security arrangements.

According to Monaco, those who are deemed “too dangerous to release” would be subject to periodic review boards for transfer eligibility. In 10 instances, 13 review boards have already resulted in individuals being moved to the so-called “transfer bucket.”

“So we are going to whittle down this group to what I refer to as the ‘irreducible minimum’ who would have to be brought here,” Monaco said.

“That group, who either can’t be prosecuted, or are too dangerous to release, we are going to continue to evaluate their status.”

Under the law of war, Monaco said, those remaining after review would be transferred to U.S. military prisons or supermax security prisons, and be subjected either to prosecution in military commissions or Article III courts.

Given that Obama and the Department of Justice can exploit law and influence judges, the White House has discretion on who gets released…..

In part from DefenseOne: Standing before a Cuban flag newly returned to official Washington, Rodriguez thanked the Obama administration but repeated the Cuban government’s list of unresolved grievances. “The lifting of the blockade, return of the illegally occupied territory of Guantanamo, full respect for Cuban sovereignty and compensation of our people … are crucial to being able to move forward,” he said.

But Kerry said later, “At this time there is no discussion and intention on our part at this moment to alter the existing lease treaty or other arrangements with respect to the naval station in Cuba.”

“We understand Cuba has strong feelings about it,” he said, continuing, “I can’t tell you what the future will bring.”

Cuban President Raul Castro has demanded the U.S. return Guantanamo Naval Station, a sparse strip of land that the U.S. has held since 1903. Since 2002, the base has also housed prisoners seized during American global counterterrorism operations. In January, a few weeks after Castro and President Obama announced that they’d work to restore ties, the Cuban leader argued that relations cannot be normalized until U.S. officials “give back the territory illegally occupied by the Guantanamo naval base…If these problems aren’t resolved, this diplomatic rapprochement wouldn’t make any sense.”

What Obama doesn’t want us to know on Gitmo closure

By J.D. Gordon
The Hill:

President Obama’s top counter-terrorism aide, Deputy National Security Advisor Lisa Monaca, said this past weekend at the Aspen Security Conference that the White House is preparing for another push to close Guantanamo, including a plan to move detainees into the U.S. mainland.

While she cited grossly exaggerated costs per detainee, here’s an actual fact that Team Obama isn’t telling us, far more important than just dollars and cents:

If and when the detainees are stateside, judges could release them onto Main Street, USA.

Our courts will have the final say on whether they remain locked up, not the administration.  And if other countries won’t take them, they could just walk out of jail.  Detainees don’t have to escape from Supermax if judges let them out.

And since nearly half of the current 116 detainees have been held under indefinite detention status, activist judges would line up for jurisdiction.

“Try them or release them,” has been the rallying cry for Al Qaeda’s defense lawyers for over a dozen years.  Makes sense, right?  Maybe so during peacetime, before mass casualty terrorist attacks like those on 9/11.

But America remains at war.  Since there weren’t battlefield detectives collecting evidence from global jihadists in Afghanistan and Pakistan, military or civilian trials might not obtain convictions.  Which doesn’t make those men any less dangerous, just less prosecutable.

Obama and his legal advisers know the courts routinely pummeled the Bush administration on detainee cases, including multiple losses at the Supreme Court.  They ought to know, since 9 lawyers who represented Al Qaeda were rewarded with senior political posts in the Obama administration.

When I served as a Pentagon spokesman from 2005-2009, our DoD General Counsel’s office, working in tandem with the Justice Department, reminded me of a piñata.  But instead of kids bashing away to free candy, it was judges hammering to free detainees.

One case that has direct applications to today’s prospect of Gitmo closure is Al Marri v. Bush.

Ali Al Marri was a Qatari national with a U.S. green card, believed to be an Al Qaeda sleeper cell agent, trained in advanced poisons for use against water reservoirs.  Captured in Peoria, Illinois, and then held indefinitely at the Naval Brig in Charleston, South Carolina, Al Marri assembled a team of lawyers who argued that President Bush didn’t have the authority to hold him without trial.

Well, Al Marri won.  While terrorism charges didn’t stand up in court, he was convicted of credit card fraud and served a short sentence in a civilian prison.  It was like busting Al Capone for tax evasion.  Al Marri is now a free man in Qatar.

If Al Marri could beat the federal government in court, dozens of Gitmo terrorists with less evidence against them will too.  But what if other countries won’t take them?  Then what?

The White House is also misleading about Gitmo’s cost, claiming $3 million per detainee, per year.  Yet they don’t mention the primary expense is 2,000 troops guarding them, providing legal services and medical care.  That’s the same number deployed to handle the total of 780 detainees, so it’s deliberate overkill.  Taken together with 4 catered halal meals a day, Ramadan feasts with roasted meats and imported dates, expensive exercise equipment, Wii-fits, satellite TV, etc. Obama deliberately keeps that cost high to score political talking points.

Shouldn’t Americans ask Obama why he would risk freeing them into our country, when nearly 1/3 are already confirmed or suspected of returning to terrorism?

In my view, he sees Guantanamo as a symbol of the America he’s determined to transform.  To him, Gitmo equals U.S. overreach, the “empire” acting through brute force.  Above the law, as they say. And that’s not just holding radical Islam-inspired terrorists.  That also extends to “occupying” 45-square miles of Cuba against the will of Havana’s leaders.

Obama is desperate to empty Gitmo, let the chips fall where they may, because he wants to return the Naval Base to Cuba.  Even though it’s been a strategically important military base for Americans, leased since 1903, complete with a deep water port and airfield, he views it as the left in Latin America does – a sign of Yankee imperialism.

Though the White House says they won’t cave to Raul Castro’s demands for the base, they have zero credibility on the issue.  That’s because Ben Rhodes of the National Security Council went behind the backs of Congress and the American people to conduct the normalization of relations agreement last year in secret, in Canada.  Rhodes and this same NSC also blamed the Benghazi terrorist attack on a video.  Can we trust anything they say?

Bottom line, closing Gitmo and giving it back to Cuba is all part of Obama’s legacy.  He extends olive branches to terrorists and appeases dictators for little to nothing in return, designed to usher in a new, post-U.S. superpower status era.  As America gets weaker with $1 trillion in defense cuts, our enemies get stronger.  Is that what he meant by hope and change?

Gordon is a retired Navy commander and former Pentagon spokesman who served in the Office of the Secretary of Defense from 2005-2009, during which time he visited Guantanamo Bay Naval Base over 30 times.

Microsoft and Their $100 BILLION Offshore

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While some domestic corporations do maintain headquarter offices in the United States, their money is often elsewhere to avoid the destructive tax code. But does Microsoft get an official pass or waiver from the Obama administration?

In September of 2014, Obama and Jack Lew at Treasury took decisive action.

Washington Post: The Obama administration took action Monday to discourage corporations from moving their headquarters abroad to avoid U.S. taxes, announcing new rules designed to make such transactions significantly less profitable.

The rules, which take effect immediately, will not block the practice, and Treasury Secretary Jack Lew again called on Congress to enact more far-reaching reforms. But in the meantime, he said, federal officials “cannot wait to address this problem,” which threatens to rob the U.S. Treasury of tens of billions of dollars.

“This action will significantly diminish the ability of inverted companies to escape U.S. taxation,” Lew told reporters. “For some companies considering deals, today’s action will mean that inversions no longer make economic sense.

“These transactions may be legal, but they’re wrong,” he added. “And the law should change.”

Tax analysts praised the new regulations, saying they will make it much harder for U.S. firms to bring cash earned abroad back to the United States tax-free — a major incentive in the relocations known as tax “inversions.” It was not immediately clear, however, whether the new rules would be sufficient to head off a wave of inversions expected to cascade over the American landscape in the weeks before the Nov. 4 midterm congressional elections.

Microsoft’s Offshore Profit Pile Surges Past $100 Billion Mark

Microsoft Corp.’s stockpile of offshore profits rose to $108 billion, with a 17 percent increase over the past year as the company continues reaping profits in low-tax foreign jurisdictions.

The company crossed the $100 billion mark, making it just the second U.S. corporation — after General Electric Co. — to do so, according to a securities filing July 31. Apple Inc. has more cash abroad than Microsoft, but it already has assumed for accounting purposes that it will pay tax on some of the stockpile and thus has less than $70 billion offshore that would affect earnings directly if repatriated.

What’s keeping Microsoft’s cash abroad is the U.S. tax code. The company would be required to pay the difference between its foreign taxes and the 35 percent U.S. corporate tax rate if it brought the money home.

To get its $108.3 billion back, Microsoft would have to pay the U.S. $34.5 billion in taxes. That equals a 31.9 percent rate, which suggests that the company has paid as little as 3.1 percent in taxes on its foreign income, because of operations in low-tax Ireland, Singapore and Puerto Rico.

The Internal Revenue Service and Microsoft are in the midst of an intense legal battle over the company’s transfer pricing, or intracompany transactions. The federal government is auditing the company’s returns as far back as 2004, and Microsoft has challenged the government’s hiring of outside lawyers.

Peter Wootton, a spokesman for Microsoft, declined to comment.

Repatriating Profits

Under current law, U.S. companies owe the full 35 percent rate on profits they earn around the world, but they don’t have to pay the U.S. until they repatriate the profits. That gives companies an incentive to book profits overseas and leave them there, and that’s just what they’ve done.

U.S. companies have more than $2 trillion amassed outside the U.S., according to a Bloomberg News review earlier this year of the securities filings of 304 companies.

Apple has more than $200 billion in cash stockpiled, with almost 90 percent of it overseas. As of its most recent annual report, Apple had $69.7 billion in profits on which it hasn’t assumed taxes.

U.S. lawmakers are looking for ways to get some of that cash back in the U.S. President Barack Obama supports a one-time 14 percent tax on stockpiled profits, with the proceeds going to highways and other infrastructure programs. Some Republicans favor a similar approach and are working on a detailed plan.

FBI Alert: Middle-Eastern Males Approaching Family Members of US #Military

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The instruction ebook for the hijrah.

(U//FOUO) FBI Alert: Middle-Eastern Males Approaching Family Members of US Military Personnel

The following alert related to “Middle-Eastern males” approaching military family members was obtained from the website of a veterans advocacy organization.  A force protection advisory that was released by the Washington National Guard & Military Department days later describes a similar incident that occurred in Washington.

(U//FOUO) In May 2015, the wife of a US military member was approached in front of her home by two Middle-Eastern males. The men stated that she was the wife of a US interrogator. When she denied their claims, the men laughed. The two men left the area in a dark-colored, four-door sedan with two other Middle-Eastern males in the vehicle. The woman had observed the vehicle in the neighborhood on previous occasions.

(U//FOUO) Similar incidents in Wyoming have been reported to the FBI throughout June 2015. On numerous occasions, family members of military personnel were confronted by Middle-Eastern males in front of their homes. The males have attempted to obtain personal information about the military member and family members through intimidation. The family members have reported feeling scared.

(U//FOUO) To date, the men have not been identified and it is not known if all the incidents involve the same Middle-Eastern males. If you have any information that may assist the FBI in identifying these individuals, or reporting concerning additional incidents; in Colorado please contact the FBI Fort Collins Resident Agency at 970-663-1028970-663-1028, in Wyoming please contact the FBI Cheyenne Resident Agency at 307-632-6224307-632-6224.

(U) This report has been prepared by the DENVER Division of the FBI. Comments and queries may be addressed to the DENVER Division at 303-629-7171303-629-7171.

The .pdf of the official document is here.