American Unemployed File Suit Against DHS Over Job Killing H1-B Visa Program

Displaced American Workers Sue DHS Over Work Permit Expansion

 

 

 

 

 

 

” American workers who lost their jobs to foreign replacements are suing the federal government over a new rule that will allow more foreign workers into the job market.

  In a stated effort to encourage guest workers to stick around permanently, the Department of Homeland Security will now grant their spouses work permits in addition to visas. DHS estimates more than 100,000 spouses will be eligible to apply when it begins accepting applications May 26.

  The complaint, filed by the Immigration Reform Law Institute on behalf of the displaced workers, alleges DHS does not have the authority to make the rule, and that the rule violates federal labor protection law. IRLI is asking the judge to halt implementation of the rule until the case is heard.

“ The larger implication is that Obama is arguing he has the executive authority to allow anyone to work in the United States,” John Miano, the attorney for the displaced workers, told The Daily Caller News Foundation. “[He] started with the children, then the parents, and now the spouses of H-1B workers.” “

 

Daily Caller

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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DHS Hassles/Lies To Photographer Outside Albany Federal Building

Department Of Homeland Security Lies And Intimidates Over Filming And Identification Laws

 

 

 

 

 

 

” While I was filming in downtown Albany, at the Federal Building, a DHS officer came out to see what I was doing. This officer had no problem lying about the legality of filming in public. She also had no problem lying about the fact that I do not need to identify myself to a police officer who has no reasonable, articulable reason to think I am about to, have committed, or am in the process of committing a crime (the requirements for a legal detainment).”

 

 

CopBlock has more

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Change: Many Federal Agencies Receive “F”s On Transparency Report Cards

Federal Agencies Get Poor Marks On Sunshine Week Scorecards

 

 

 

 

 

” Despite President Obama’s pledge to run the “most transparent administration in history,” federal agencies are still struggling to meet White House benchmarks, and at least three ignored Freedom of Information Act reporting requirements, according to several recent reports released in conjunction with Sunshine Week.

  The government watchdog group Cause of Action released a Freedom of Information Act report card for 15 federal agencies that receive the bulk of all FOIA requests. Six of the 15 agencies received failing grades. Three agencies—the Departments of Education, Homeland Security and Treasury—earned “F” grades for failing to comply with the law’s annual reporting requirements.

“ Our oversight mission—which focuses on transparency, and accountability in the Federal government—depends upon agency compliance with FOIA,” Cause of Action executive director Dan Epstein said in a statement. “Based on our findings over the past three years, Cause of Action has no reason to believe that agency performance under FOIA has improved, which is simply unacceptable to taxpayers who deserve a government that operates in the open.” 

Besides FOIA compliance, agencies are also lagging in other areas. An audit by the National Security Archive released Friday found that only 40 percent of agencies have followed laws requiring them to post records released through FOIA in their electronic reading rooms.”

 

Read on

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Read The Entire DHS Report On “Sovereign Citizen Threat” That CNN Neglected To Publicize

Exclusive: Here Is The New Homeland Security Report On ‘Sovereign Citizen Extremist’ Violence

” Reason has obtained the federal government’s recent report on the sovereign citizens, a largely unorganized subculture whose elaborate legal theories say they do not have to follow most laws. Members of the movement are infamous for filing nuisance lawsuits, making their own drivers’ licenses and license plates, and sometimes attempting to form their own parallel institutions of government. Some of them are also prone to violence, and it is this hotheaded subgroup that is the subject of the report.

  The intelligence assessment, which the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) prepared in coordination with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, was circulated to law enforcement on February 5 but was not released to the public. (DHS did not respond to repeated requests from Reason for comment.) CNN revealed its existence last Friday, but the network quoted only a couple of lines from it and did not post the full document for everyone to see.

  We’ve posted it here. If you’ve seen the sensationalized coverage the sovereign citizens have been getting in some quarters—CNN announced its find with the front-page headline “Bigger threat than ISIS?”—the report’s rather measured contents might surprise you.

  The document declares on its first page that most sovereign citizens are nonviolent, and that it will focus only on the violent fringe within a fringe—the people it calls “sovereign citizen extremists,” or SCEs. It describes their violence as “sporadic,” and it does not expect its rate to rise, predicting instead that the violence will stay “at the same sporadic level” in 2015. The author or authors add that most of the violence consists of “unplanned, reactive” clashes with police officers, not preplanned attacks.

  When sovereigns do plan an attack in advance, the report suggests that this tends to be “in direct response to an ongoing personal grievance, such as an arrest or court order.” It argues that sovereign citizens are unlikely to pick a symbolic target—like, say, the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City—and that in this way they are distinct from the killers who attacked two randomly selected cops in Las Vegas last year or three TSA officers at an L.A. airport the year before that. While some police assessments of the movement may give officers the impression that anyone asserting their rights or videotaping an encounter might be a sovereign citizen, the DHS report draws its distinctions fairly carefully.”

   Read Reason’s entire analysis here 

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DHS Has Spent $148 Million On Furniture & Decorating Since Obama Took Office

Obama’s DHS Spent Nearly $150M On Office Furniture And Makeovers

 

 

 

 

” Funding for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)—which is due to expire at the end of this week unless an agreement in Washington is reached—has continued to rise under President Barack Obama. His administration claims the agency’s increased funding is necessary to protect the homeland, but records show that the DHS has continued to increase its spending on furniture and office makeovers as its budget has been increased.

  A review of records on the official government spending website by the Washington Free Beacon shows the agency has spent nearly $150 million on office furniture and makeovers since Obama took office. Those fiscal years for which he has been responsible and whose budgets have been enacted are FY2010 through 2014.

“ The FY 2015 Budget reflects the Administration’s strong commitment to protecting the homeland and the American people through the effective and efficient use of DHS resources, continuing the focus on preserving frontline priorities across the Department by cutting costs, sharing resources across Components, and streamlining operations wherever possible,” the administration’s request states.

  Each year under Obama the administration, DHS funding has increased. The FY 2015 budget request is $60.9 billion, compared with FY 2014’s budget of $60.7 billion. In fiscal year 2013, the DHS budget was $59.2 billion. By contrast, President George W. Bush’s last budget for DHS for FY 2009 was $52.5 billion.

  Records show that the DHS spent $147.7 million on furniture for FY 2010 through 2014.”

 

Much more on the obscene spending at DHS from the Free Beacon

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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DHS Orders Border Patrol To Give Illegal DUI’s A Pass

It’s Not Just Measles; DUI’s Ok If You’re An Illegal Too

 

 

 

” Oh c’mon…… America, you will put up with this?

  The Obama administration has ordered federal agents responsible for protecting one of the nation’s busiest and most crime-infested regions near Mexico to stop apprehending drunk drivers, according to an internal government memo that also concedes an officer that elects to detain them is “acting within the course and scope of his employment.”

  Obtained by Judicial Watch this week, the notice is titled “Enforcement Options With Alcohol-Impaired Drivers” and directs the 4,000-plus U.S. Border Patrol agents in the Tucson, Arizona sector to “release” individuals under the influence and “allow them to go on their way.” The document acknowledges that this feels counter-intuitive for Border Patrol agents, but eases concerns by answering a hypothetical question for the officers who have sworn to uphold the law: “If you allow this driver to continue down the road and they kill someone, aren’t you liable?” The answer is no, according to the new Department of Homeland Security (DHS) memo. “There is no legal requirement for a Border Patrol agent to intervene in a state crime, including DUI,” the order says, adding that “therefore there is generally no liability that will attach to the agent or agency for failing to act in this situation.”

Nice. “

 

Karl Denninger has more

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The State Fears Drones

Why The US Government Is Terrified Of Hobbyist Drones

 

 

Photo credit: Daniel Herbert

 

 

” If you want to understand why the government freaked out when a $400 remote-controlled quadcopter landed on the White House grounds last week, you need to look four miles away, to a small briefing room in Arlington, Virginia. There, just 10 days earlier, officials from the US military, the Department of Homeland Security, and the FAA gathered for a DHS “summit” on a danger that had been consuming them privately for years: the potential use of hobbyist drones as weapons of terror or assassination.

  The conference was open to civilians, but explicitly closed to the press. One attendee described it as an eye-opener. The officials played videos of low-cost drones firing semi-automatic weapons, revealed that Syrian rebels are importing consumer-grade drones to launch attacks, and flashed photos from an exercise that pitted $5,000 worth of drones against a convoy of armored vehicles. (The drones won.) But the most striking visual aid was on an exhibit table outside the auditorium, where a buffet of low-cost drones had been converted into simulated flying bombs. One quadcopter, strapped to 3 pounds of inert explosive, was a DJI Phantom 2, a newer version of the very drone that would land at the White House the next week.

  Attendee Daniel Herbert snapped a photo and posted it to his website along with detailed notes from the conference. The day after the White House incident, he says, DHS phoned him and politely asked him to remove the entire post. He complied. “I’m not going to be the one to challenge Homeland Security and cause more contention,” says Herbert, who runs a small drone shop in Delaware called Skygear Solutions. “

 

Wired has the whole scoop

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Obama Is Creating The American Police State With Billions In Free Weapons To Local PDs

How The Obama Administration Gives Away Military-Grade Weapons To Local Police

 

 

 

 

 

” In the weeks after the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., images of officers training rifles on crowds of protesters from the turrets of armored vehicles became a potent symbol of the distrust between law enforcement and citizens in Ferguson — and elsewhere.

  Now, civil rights and civil liberties advocates are calling on the Obama administration to respond to the events in Ferguson by discouraging police from relying so heavily on military equipment and tactics.

  Several federal programs are helping local law enforcement to acquire heavy weapons, either by making funds available or by providing the equipment directly. One program at the Pentagon transferred surplus military equipment worth nearly half a billion dollars to local police last year. Grants provided by the Department of Homeland Security total another $1 billion, and Holder’s department provides hundreds of millions more.

” We do not condition that money on requiring real change in policing,” said Sherrilynn Ifill of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in a press conference on Tuesday. “Taxpayer money to local police departments should come with the condition that the police take responsibility for improving.” “

 

 

Washington Post has more on the burgeoning American Police State . Read it all .

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Confidence In Statism Is Plummeting Thanks To The Greatest American Statist

Doubts Chip Away At Nation’s Most Trusted Agencies

 

 

 

 

 

” Even as Americans’ trust in government eroded in recent years, people kept faith in a handful of agencies and institutions admired for their steadiness in ensuring the country’s protection.

  To safeguard the president, there was the solidity of the Secret Service. To stand vigil against distant enemies, the U.S. nuclear missile corps was assumed to be on the job. And to ward off threats to public health, the nation counted on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

  Now, in the space of just a few months, the reputations of all those agencies – as well as the Veterans Administration – have been tarred by scandal or tarnished by doubt. Maybe a public buffeted by partisan rhetoric and nonstop news should be used to this by now. But, with the CDC facing tough questions about its response to the Ebola outbreak, something feels different. Government is about doing collectively what citizens can’t do alone, but its effectiveness is premised on trust.

  A year ago, with Washington shut down and trust in government near records lows, the CDC still won a 75 percent approval rating, the highest of any federal agency, a poll by the Pew Research Center found. But when CBS News surveyed Americans in mid-October, just 37 percent said the agency was doing a good or excellent job.”

   There is no mystery to this lack of confidence in the State , When you politicize government agencies you immediately gain a near fifty percent disapproval right at the start . There is nowhere to go but down . 

” The Homeland Security Department won a 66 percent approval rating a year ago. But that was before the Secret Service, which is a part of the agency, was caught in a number of lapses: among them, the agency’s failure to stop a man armed with a knife from scaling the fence and running into White House and the unchecked entry of an armed contractor onto an elevator with the president. In the new CBS news poll, just 38 percent of those questioned rated the Secret Service’s performance as good or excellent and 43 percent did so for its parent department.

  The Veterans Administration was viewed favorably by 68 percent of those polled last year. But it too has since been swept up in a scandal over long wait times for veterans seeking care and records that were falsified to camouflage the problems. In the CBS poll, just 30 percent rated the VA as doing a good job.”

    While the trend is not exactly a new thing there can be no doubt that it has been greatly accelerated over the past six years by the King of Politicization himself .

   The trend away from big government and the subsequent move back towards local government control and  accountability , while certainly unintentional on Obama’s part , will turn out to be his greatest accomplishment .

    It takes a Statist to make people abhor the State .

    The magnitude of the shift is even more impressive when one takes into account the massive effort exerted by the MSM these past six years in carrying “Dear Leader’s” water . Imagine where public sympathies would be if they weren’t bombarded on a daily basis with Statist propaganda and instead were offered the truth .

AP News

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“Dysfunctional Work Environment, Abysmal Morale” Putting DHS Leadership To Flight

Top-Level Turnover Makes It Harder For DHS To Stay On Top Of Evolving Threats

 

 

 

 

” An exodus of top-level officials from the Department of Homeland Security is undercutting the agency’s ability to stay ahead of a range of emerging threats, including potential terrorist strikes and cyberattacks, according to interviews with current and former officials.

  Over the past four years, employees have left DHS at a rate nearly twice as fast as in the federal government overall, and the trend is accelerating, according to a review of a federal database.

  The departures are a result of what employees widely describe as a dysfunctional work environment, abysmal morale, and the lure of private security companies paying top dollar that have proliferated in Washington since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

  The department’s terrorism intelligence arm, for example, has cycled through six directors during the Obama administration, decimating morale and contributing to months-long delays in releasing intelligence reports, according to interviews and government reports.”

 

Washington Post

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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America’s “Most Honest , Open & Transparent” Administration Hiding Illegal Alien Prosecution Data

Feds Mum On Prosecution Of Illegal Border Crossers

 

 

 

 

 

 

” The federal government refuses to say whether prosecutors in Yuma, Arizona, have scaled back a years-old program that guarantees jail time for most immigrants caught crossing the border illegally and which law enforcement officials say is crucial to public safety.

  Reports that federal prosecutors have stopped some prosecutions under Operation Streamline surfaced nearly two weeks ago when Arizona Sens. John McCain and Jeff Flake wrote a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder seeking information on the status of the zero-tolerance program that circumvents the civil immigration system and lumps together months’ worth of criminal proceedings into one day for immigrants caught crossing the border illegally.

  Yuma County Sheriff Leon Wilmot said in a letter to the senators that he had been informed that federal prosecutors in Yuma are no longer going after first offenders.

  But the government has been completely silent on the issue. Public affairs officials from the Department of Homeland Security, Justice Department and the U.S. Customs and Border Protection have all refused to answer questions about whether the program has been scaled back.

  Brett Worsencroft, president of the Border Patrol union for Yuma Sector border agents, said the U.S. Attorney’s Office has in fact ended prosecutions of first-time offenders. “

Read more

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Under Congressional Pressure DHS Admits 4 Terrorists Were Caught At Border On Sept 10th

DHS Forced To Admit To Terrorists Caught At Texas Border

 

 

 

 

 

 

” During the House Homeland Security Committee hearing yesterday, Congressman Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) caught Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Jeh Johnson off-guard when he began questioning Johnson about the situation at our southern border.

  That’s when Congressman Chaffetz dropped the bomb.  Not only did he explain to the Secretary of DHS that there were in fact reports of FOUR individuals with ties to terrorist organizations that were apprehended at two separate locations on the Texas border, but he also had information from an internal DHS document containing statistics on immigration activities.

  According to that document, during the 351 days of fiscal year 2014, there were 466,000 apprehensions of illegals, also 157,012 illegals that “got away,” and 142,630 individuals that were reported “turn backs”. The compilation of apprehensions represented people from 143 different countries. Additionally, the sensors that are placed in locations primarily in the southwest, recorded a jump of over 1,000,000 hits from fiscal year 2013 until now.”

 

Read on

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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DHS Has Lost Track Of Over 6,000 Foreign Students

Report: DHS Lost Track Of Thousands Of Foreign Students Of

“Heightened Concern”

 

 

 

” ABC News reports that the Department of Homeland Security lost track of, and is now pursuing, over 6,000 foreign students who are deemed to be of “heightened concern.” DHS told ABC that about 58,000 foreign students had overstayed their visa but the vast majority are not being sought.

  The student visa program has been plagued with problems for years. Congress targeted the program for reform after the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks. The hijacker who flew a plane into the Pentagon had entered the country on a student visa but did not attend school.

  Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., told ABC, “They just disappear…They get the visas and they disappear.” He said 26 student visa holders were arrested on terror-related charges since Sept. 11, 2001.

  ABC reports that more than 9,000 schools are on the government-approved list for hosting foreign students. Schools are supposed to track the whereabouts of visa holders, and report to DHS if they repeatedly miss class, but not all do. “We know we have a lot of non-accredited universities that are using this system to bring people in, collect money, and not educate them at all,” said Sen. Coburn. “To me, it’s a mess.”

  ABC notes one school — MicroPower Career Institute – that has four campuses on the approved list, even though five of the school’s top officials were indicted on visa fraud charges.”

 

Read more

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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As Many As 25K DHS Workers Private Data Compromised By Hackers

Hackers Hit 25,000 Homeland Security Workers

 

 

 

 

 

 

” The internal records of as many as 25,000 Homeland Security Department employees were exposed during a recent computer break-in at a federal contractor that handles security clearances, an agency official said Friday.

  The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss details of an incident that is under active federal criminal investigation, said the number of victims could be greater. The department was informing employees whose files were exposed in the hacking against contractor USIS and warning them to monitor their financial accounts.

  Earlier this month, USIS acknowledged the break-in, saying its internal cybersecurity team had detected what appeared to be an intrusion with “all the markings of a state-sponsored attack.” Neither USIS nor government officials have speculated on the identity of the foreign government. A USIS spokeswoman reached Friday declined to comment on the DHS notifications. “

 

” We’re in the best of hands ” … read more

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Saturday Steyn

The Home Front

 

 

 

 

” On Friday, writing about the four-hour detention by US Customs & Border Protection of a troop of Iowa boy scouts, I put it this way:

  American life is bifurcating into the undocumented and the overdocumented. On the southern border, the bazillions of US laws are meaningless – proof of identity, medical tests, none of it matters. And the less it matters on the Rio Grande the more the zealots on the 49th Parallel will take apart your car if they think you’ve got a Kinder egg in there. Anyone who thinks that attitude can be confined to the border and not work its way deep into the rest of American life is deluded.

  Thirteen years ago, I opposed the creation of the “Department of Homeland Security” – on the classic Thatcherite ground that if you create a bureaucracy to deal with a problem you’ll never be rid of it. I had expected the usual “mission creep” but that term barely covers what’s happened in the last decade. There is no “homeland security”: At the southern border, the homeland is wide open, and ICE and the Border Patrol, which (like CBP) are both part of DHS, are actively colluding in homeland insecurity.

  Meanwhile, Homeland Security “agents” busy themselves raiding the Foxy Lady strip club in Brockton, Massachusetts, because the foxy ladies were giving away knock-off Red Sox or Patriots merchandise with every two lap dances, and dispatching six vehicles to a home in Statesville, North Carolina to seize an imported Land Rover that doesn’t meet EPA emissions standards.”

 

 

As usual Mr Steyn is the day’s must read 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Diseases Run Rampant Among Illegal Hordes As Fed Facility Goes Into Lockdown Over Chicken Pox Epidemic

Chicken Pox Outbreak Puts Illegal Immigrant Facility On Lockdown

 

 

 

” The federal government’s new facility ,  to house illegal immigrant families surging across the border has been put on lockdown because of chicken pox, with no immigrants allowed to be transferred in or out, a congressman said this week.

  Hundreds of illegal immigrants being kept at the campus of the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Artesia, New Mexico, are being treated for and vaccinated against chicken pox after an outbreak, said Rep. Steve Pearce, the Republican congressman whose district includes Artesia.

“ As the FLETC facility reaches maximum capacity, I am increasingly concerned for the health and safety of the women and children at FLETC and for the local community. The virus, that has caused two residents to be put in isolation, has halted all departures,” Mr. Pearce said.

  He said he’s asked the Homeland Security Department, which runs the facility, to be available to handle calls from the community.

  The chicken pox outbreak is the latest hiccup for federal officials struggling to gain a handle on the surge of illegal immigrants from Central America this year.” 

 

Washington Times

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Are You On A Government Watchlist?

New Details On Government Watchlists And The No-Fly List Are Cause For Concern

 

 

 

 

” The prospect of being on a government watchlist is one that both tantalizes and strikes fear into the minds of most Americans. Sure, you may read articles on websites that are critical of U.S. policy, participate in protests with community members, post rants on social media, and have an extreme dislike for politicians – but is that really enough to warrant being placed on a list of potential threats?

  More Americans may find themselves asking this question now that new details on the government’s terrorism watchlists and no-fly list have emerged.

  Last Wednesday The Intercept released a 2013 document from the National Counterterrorism Center which details the rules for placing individuals on terrorism watchlists, including the no fly list. The 166-page document details what the government defines as terrorism, which includes everything from assassination and hostage-taking to destruction of government property or computers, and any act that is “dangerous” to property or intended to influence government through intimidation.”

 

 

  If you are not part of the ruling “elite” it is only a matter of time before you become an “Enemy Of The State” . Remember the progression …

 

 

“First They Came for the Jews“
By Pastor Niemoller

 

 

” First they came for the Jews and I did not speak out because I was not a jew .

Then they came for the Communists and I did not speak out because I was not a Communist.

Then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me.” 

 

 

 

   Today’s version varies only slightly from the previous century’s … They start with the educated and move on to the dissenters , who during a previous administration , were the height of patriotism , but now are seen as potential terrorists worthy of being placed on the State “watchlists” .

 

 

 

 

 

IT IS HAPPENING AGAIN.
IN FACT, IT NEVER STOPPED.

v.2000
” First they came for the hackers.
But I never did anything illegal with my computer,
so I didn’t speak up.

Then they came for the pornographers.
But I thought there was too much smut on the Internet anyway,
so I didn’t speak up

Then they came for the anonymous remailers.
But a lot of nasty stuff gets sent from anon.penet.fi,
so I didn’t speak up.

Then they came for the encryption users.
But I could never figure out how to work PGP anyway,
so I didn’t speak up.

Then they came for me.

And by that time there was no one left to speak up.

– Alara Rogers www.alara.net “

 

 

 

 

Read more from Ben Swann

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Feds Using Unmarked Vans To Smuggle Illegals Into Unsuspecting Cities

Vans May Be New Form Of Transportation For Illegals, As Feds Attempts To Avoid Scrutiny

 

 

 

 

 

” It appears that many illegal immigrants in California are being transported by federal agents via van caravans instead of large Department of Homeland Security (DHS) buses. Dropping off illegal immigrants from vans, rather than buses, may serve to draw less attention and scrutiny from local residents, many of whom remain resistant to the dumping of foreigners in their communities. “

 

 

Breitbart

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Small Illinois Town Inexplicably Invaded By Federal “Homeland Security” Force

Federal Agents Swarm Livingston, Ill.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

” Homeland security, the US Customs and Border Patrol and other police agencies swarmed Livingston, Illinois.

  They all parked in the field of a grade school.The peacefulness of the town of 850 was broken by all the excitement.

  The law officers would not comment about their operation, even to the school superintendent and they were using the school district’s land.”

 

 

More here and see Alex Jones for much more on the latest demonstration of State power …

 

 

 

” Residents of Livingston, IL., population 850, were shocked to see agents from Homeland Security, the US Customs and Border Patrol and local police agencies swarm a field belonging to a grade school yesterday, with one local telling news channel KTVI, “When all the armored trucks started showing up and everything it made me kind of nervous.”

  One child said he thought the spectacle was “pretty cool” and that agents invited the local children to check out the choppers up close, despite the presence of weapons inside the helicopters.

  The school superintendent said he was not given any information about the operation beforehand, despite authorities using school land as a staging ground. The U.S. Attorney’s Office refused to release any information on the purpose behind the operation.

  KTVI labeled the presence of the feds a “mystery,” although it subsequently emerged that the school was being used as a staging ground for a raid on a house three miles away. Authorities refused to divulge the purpose behind the raid or if anyone was taken into custody. “

 

 

   Statism on the march , the conditioning of the people continues with the goal of making declarations of martial law commonplace and ordinary . Witness the testimony regarding the people thinking the massive display of State firepower as being “pretty cool” . 

    Yes folks , it’s all “pretty cool” … until it’s your door the kick in in the middle of the night … How cool is that ?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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DHS SWAT Team Trashes Home , Strips Woman , Leaves With No Arrests , No Evidence

DHS Ransacks Florida Couple’s Home Without Explanation, Strips Woman Naked

 

 

 

 

” A Florida couple was traumatized after a dozen heavily armed SWAT agents crashed through their front door, flash-banged their cat, aimed rifles at them and searched their home without explanation.

  The raid took place in the pre-dawn hours of June 10th, 2014. At approximately 6:16 a.m., Kari Edwards and her live-in boyfriend were intruded upon by men dressed in full SWAT gear and wielding rifles. After smashing down the couple’s front door, agents tossed concussion grenades and proceeded into the home.

“ They busted in like I was a terrorist or something,” said Ms. Edwards.

“ [An officer] demanded that I drop the towel I was covering my naked body with,” Ms. Edwards said, “before snatching it off me physically and throwing me to the ground.”

“ While I lay naked, I was cuffed so tightly I could not feel my hands. For no reason, at gunpoint,” Edwards said. “[Agents] refused to cover me, no matter how many times I asked.”

  Ms. Edwards said her boyfriend told her that an agent holding an assault rifle to her back was gawking at her exposed body. “Eying me up and down like I was eye candy,” she said.

  The house was equipped with a surveillance system, which captured video of the agents from a couple different angles. “

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ms Edwards describes the assault this way …

 

 

 

” At 6:16 am on Tuesday June 10, 2014 a team of over a dozen heavily armed men in full swat gear smashed my front door, threw flash bang grenades at my cat (a normally friendly cat who greets everyone is now fearful and hard of hearing), demanded that I drop the towel I was covering my naked body with before snatching it off of me physically and throwing me to the ground.

  According to my boyfriend, the agent with his assault rifle to my back kept eying me up & down like I was eye candy. I requested to see ID and the agent pointed at his uniform that read POLICE and said “Isn’t this ID enough for you?” When I told him I could buy that up in Miami he called me retarded and said I was fucking stupid. They spent bout 2 hours trashing my house, even smashing clear glass shower doors and a vintage statue.

  My boyfriend, who is asthmatic, started having trouble breathing due to the lingering smoke created by the flash bang grenade and asked for his inhaler. The agent said “do I need to call paramedics? My boyfriend said no, I just need my inhaler can someone get it for me?, Again he was answered with a paramedic offer. Finally another agent asked where it was and brought it out then helped him use it. The video is short because they ripped out my surveillance DVR stating they “can’t be recorded”.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

” After about 2 hours of pure hell, a female agent asked if there were any laptops in the house. They left us thinking that they were here for child pornography but the more I thin about it, I don’t think they would have come in full force, shields, helicopter, etc for kiddie porn.

  I’m still scratching my head but have made complains to the ACLU, DHS OIG and the White House but I don’t want to just sit there waiting so decided to spread the word and increase awareness.

PLEASE UNDERSTAND THAT EVEN ENCRYPTED WIFI IS NOT SAFE. SOMEONE CAN HACK IT, FORGET YOUR PERSONAL INFO, THEY CAN HAVE YOUR HOME RAIDED… I’M NOT THE FIRST OF THESE VICTIMS,”

 

 

   PoliceStateUSA has more original reporting including pictures of the trashed house provided by Ms Edwards here .

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Has The Dept. Of Homeland Security Become America’s Standing Army? … In A Word , Yes

Commentary From John Whitehead At The Rutherford Institute

 

 

 

 

 

” By John W. Whitehead 
June 16, 2014

“ A standing military force, with an overgrown Executive will not long be safe companions to liberty.”—James Madison

“ Here [in New Mexico], we are moving more toward a national police force. Homeland Security is involved with a lot of little things around town. Somebody in Washington needs to call a timeout.”—Dan Klein, retired Albuquerque Police Department sergeant.

  If the United States is a police state, then the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is its national police force, with all the brutality, ineptitude and corruption such a role implies. In fact, although the DHS’ governmental bureaucracy may at times appear to be inept and bungling, it is ruthlessly efficient when it comes to building what the Founders feared most—a standing army on American soil.

The third largest federal agency behind the Departments of Veterans Affairs and Defense, the DHS—with its 240,000 full-time workers, $61 billion budget and sub-agencies that include the Coast Guard, Customs and Border Protection, Secret Service, Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)—has been aptly dubbed a “runaway train.”

  In the 12 years since it was established to “prevent terrorist attacks within the United States,” the DHS has grown from a post-9/11 knee-jerk reaction to a leviathan with tentacles in every aspect of American life. With good reason, a bipartisan bill to provide greater oversight and accountability into the DHS’ purchasing process has been making its way through Congress.

  A better plan would be to abolish the DHS altogether. In making the case for shutting down the de facto national police agency, analyst Charles Kenny offers the following six reasons: one, the agency lacks leadership; two, terrorism is far less of a threat than it is made out to be; three, the FBI has actually stopped more alleged terrorist attacks than DHS; four, the agency wastes exorbitant amounts of money with little to show for it; five, “An overweight DHS gets a free pass to infringe civil liberties without a shred of economic justification”; and six, the agency is just plain bloated.

  To Kenny’s list, I will add the following: The menace of a national police force, a.k.a. a standing army, vested with so much power cannot be overstated, nor can its danger be ignored. Indeed, as the following list shows, just about every nefarious deed, tactic or thuggish policy advanced by the government today can be traced back to the DHS, its police state mindset, and the billions of dollars it distributes to police agencies in the form of grants.

  Militarizing police and SWAT teams. The DHS routinely hands out six-figure grants to enable local municipalities to purchase military-style vehicles, as well as a veritable war chest of weaponry, ranging from tactical vests, bomb-disarming robots, assault weapons and combat uniforms. This rise in military equipment purchases funded by the DHS has, according to analysts Andrew Becker and G.W. Schulz, “paralleled an apparent increase in local SWAT teams.” The end result? An explosive growth in the use of SWAT teams for otherwise routine police matters, an increased tendency on the part of police to shoot first and ask questions later, and an overall mindset within police forces that they are at war—and the citizenry are the enemy combatants.”

     Below are a list of other ways in which the State is busy eroding our Constitutional rights , all explored in greater depth at the Rutherford Institute .

” Spying on activists, dissidents and veterans. 

Stockpiling ammunition. 

Distributing license plate readers. 

Contracting to build detention camps. 

Tracking cell-phones with Stingray devices. 

Carrying out military drills and lockdowns in American cities. 

Using the TSA as an advance guard. 

Conducting virtual strip searches with full-body scanners. 

Carrying out soft target checkpoints. 

Directing government workers to spy on Americans.  

Conducting widespread spying networks using fusion centers. 

Carrying out Constitution-free border control searches. 

Funding city-wide surveillance cameras. 

Utilizing drones and other spybots. 

  It’s not difficult to see why the DHS has been described as a “wasteful, growing, fear-mongering beast.” If it is a beast, however, it is a beast that is accelerating our nation’s transformation into a police state through its establishment of a standing army, a.k.a. national police force.

  This, too, is nothing new. Historically, as I show in my book A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State, the establishment of a national police force has served as a fundamental and final building block for every totalitarian regime that has ever wreaked havoc on humanity, from Hitler’s all-too-real Nazi Germany to George Orwell’s fictional Oceania. Whether fictional or historical, however, the calling cards of these national police agencies remain the same: brutality, inhumanity, corruption, intolerance, rigidity, and bureaucracy—in other words, evil. “

Read more here

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DHS Attempts Frameup Of Libertarian Tony Stiles & Friends During “Routine” Traffic Stop

Breaking Exclusive: Radio Host Tony Stiles Arrested And Detained In Texas

 

 

 

 

 

” Tony Stiles, a radio personality and popular figure in the liberty movement, has spoken exclusively with Benswann.com about his encounter with the Department Of Homeland Security in Texas. Stiles and two members of his tour team were arrested and detained for over seven hours on Thursday after he was stopped by DHS. Stiles was able to capture a portion of the incident on video. tony-stiles

  Stiles is currently on a national “Truth, Liberty, & Solutions” speaking tour. On Thursday, he was in California preparing for his next speaking arrangement in Tampa, Florida. Stiles and his accompanying team members, Eric Goodrich and Nathan Styles, had checked out of their hotel. Goodrich and Styles headed to Tampa in Stile’s vehicle, a GMC Yukon, while Stiles stayed behind.

  Stiles soon learned that Goodrich and Styles had been pulled over by police in El Paso, Texas. According to Goodrich and Styles, the police told them that Stiles’ vehicle had been reported stolen. Stiles had not reported his car stolen, but the vehicle was impounded anyway and Goodrich and Styles were detained. Stiles immediately left California and drove a rental car to meet Goodrich and Styles in El Paso to straighten out the situation. Stiles’ vehicle was eventually released and the three resumed their trip to Florida.

  Outside of El Paso, Stiles, Goodrich and Styles were pulled over again, this time by DHS. The men were told by the agents that it was a “routine stop” but their K-9 unit smelled something, even though Stiles stated the dog was nowhere near his car. Between 6 and 10 agents surrounded the vehicle with their hands on their sidearms and ordered Stiles, Goodrich and Styles to get out. They all refused. Stiles told Benswann.com that the agents informed him that if they did not get out of the vehicle they would be removed. Stiles, Goodrich and Styles got out of the car after the agents opened the doors.

  One of the agents attempted to take Stiles’ phone from him. The agent claimed that he was unsure if it was a weapon, but Stiles refused to surrender it. Stiles was able to take video of their forced exit from the vehicle and the following search.

  After exiting the vehicle, the three men watched as the DHS agents began searching the vehicle without consent. Stiles said the video shows one of the agents taking his hand out of his pocket suspiciously while a red bag was being searched. After the search, the agents told the men that marijuana had been found in the vehicle. Stiles affirmed to Benswann.com that neither he, Goodrich or Styles had any marijuana in their possession. The three were arrested and brought to the Sierra Blanca holding facility, where they were held in separate cells for over seven hours.”

 

 

Ben Swann

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Why Is ICE Interrogating Movie-Goers ?

MPAA & ICE Confirm They Interrogated A Guy For Wearing Google Glass During A Movie

 

 

 

 

” We wrote earlier about the guy who told the story of being pulled out of a theater in the middle of a movie for wearing Google Glass (turned off), which he wears all the time, because he got prescription lenses installed on the device and uses it as his regular pair of glasses. As we noted, there were some oddities in the original story, including references to the FBI and “The Movie Association,” neither of which made sense. Since then, as we noted in our updated post, AMC confirmed that a customer had been detained, and since then the MPAA as well as Homeland Security have weighed in, confirming the basic story. This is insane on multiple levels, which we’ll get to in a moment. But first, the quotes. “

  Finally, Homeland Security’s ICE division:

  On Jan. 18, special agents with ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations and local authorities briefly interviewed a man suspected of using an electronic recording device to record a film at an AMC theater in Columbus. The man, who voluntarily answered questions, confirmed to authorities that the suspected recording device was also a pair of prescription eye glasses in which the recording function had been inactive. No further action was taken.

  Okay, now onto the point. As we said in the initial post, this certainly fit with the MPAA’s insane “guidelines” to theaters and their “zero tolerance” policies towards anyone possibly recording anything. However, the involvement of ICE is particularly insane. We’ve been particularly critical of ICE and the group’s over-aggressive campaign to seize websites based entirely on Hollywood’s say so. “

 

 

 

   What exactly does wearing Google Glass have to do with homeland security ? Just more cronyism … A perfect example of the well connected (Hollywood) using the power of the State to intimidate it’s “foes” . This is a fruit of an all-powerful government .

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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FBI Is No Longer A Law Enforcement Organization … It’s Primary Job Is Now “National Security”

FBI Drops Law Enforcement As ‘Primary’ Mission

 

” The FBI’s creeping advance into the world of counterterrorism is nothing new. But quietly and without notice, the agency has finally decided to make it official in one of its organizational fact sheets. Instead of declaring “law enforcement” as its “primary function,” as it has for years, the FBI fact sheet now lists “national security” as its chief mission. The changes largely reflect the FBI reforms put in place after September 11, 2001, which some have criticized for de-prioritizing law enforcement activities. Regardless, with the 9/11 attacks more than a decade in the past, the timing of the edits is baffling some FBI-watchers.”

   Just another Statist tool to be used in forcing mass compliance on the citizenry . At least we are now getting truth in labeling . With this self-admission the FBI becomes just another arm of the DHS-TSA police state . Now , instead of upholding the rule of law , the FBI can join the law-breaking ranks of the NSA in spying on Americans and preparing “enemies lists” … something it has long experience with .

Read more at Foreign Policy

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