Filed under: 1984, 2-party system, 4th amendment, ACLU, amnesty, AT&T, Barack Obama, Big Brother, bush = obama, CIA, civil liberties, civil rights, Congress, DHS, domeestic terrorism, domestic terror, EFF, FBI, federal crimes, FOIA, George Bush, government bureaucrat, government control, government takeover, Homeland Security, immunity, left right paradigm, Military, neocons, Neolibs, NSA, obama, obama = bush, obama deception, orwell, Patriot Act, privacy rights, roving wiretaps, Russ Feingold, Senate, Sprint, Spy, Surveillance, telecoms, us constituion, US Constitution, verison, War On Terror, warrantless search, warrantless wiretap, White House
Dem-controlled Senate Judiciary Committee extends PATRIOT Act provisions
Capitol Hill Blue
October 9, 2009
Key US lawmakers passed legislation Thursday extending three key provisions of the PATRIOT Act, the sweeping intelligence bill enacted after the September 11, 2001 attacks.
Backing a White House request, the Senate Judiciary Committee passed the measure 11 votes to 8 to extend until 2013 three clauses that would have expired by 31 December. The bill now heads to the full Senate for a vote.
The provisions include the “roving wiretap” clause, used to monitor mobile communications of individuals using multiple telephone lines, and the “lone-wolf” provision, which enables spying on individuals suspected of terrorist activity but with no obvious connection to extremist groups.
Lawmakers also extended the life of controversial section 215, known as the “library records provision” that allows government agencies to access individual’s library history.
The committee had earlier met in a closed-door meeting with members of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the intelligence community on ensuring their actions would not impede investigations already underway.
The senators also debated freeing up law enforcement actions that have been hampered by legislation and court rulings since the first program was launched by former president George W. Bush in the wake of 9/11, which enabled collecting sensitive information for years without a court order.
Republicans senators have remained critical of placing restrictions on the intelligence community, saying they should more of a free hand in the early stages of investigations.
But their Democratic counterparts have decried the fact that the provisions still do not in their view adequately respect the privacy of ordinary Americans.
Democratic Senator Russ Feingold said he feared handing a “blank check” to law enforcement agencies and criticized the Democrat-controlled committee for not passing safeguards that even Republicans supported during the Bush administration.
“Among the most significant problems is the failure to include an improved standard for Section 215 orders, even though a Republican controlled Judiciary Committee unanimously supported including the same standard in 2005,” he said in a media advisory.
“But what was most upsetting was the apparent willingness of too many members to defer completely to behind the scenes complaints from the FBI and the Justice Department, even though the administration has yet to take a public position on any of the improvements that I and other senators have proposed. … [While] I am left scratching my head trying to understand how a committee controlled by a wide Democratic margin could support the bill it approved today, I will continue to work with my colleagues to try to make improvements to this bill.”
Michael Macleod-Ball, acting director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Washington legislative office said the rights group was “disappointed” that further moves were not made to protect civil liberties.
“This truly was a missed opportunity for the Senate Judiciary Committee to right the wrongs of the PATRIOT Act,” he said.
“We urge the Senate to adopt amendments on the floor that will bring this bill in line with the Constitution.”
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Telephone Companies Are An Arm Of Government Admits DOJ
Wired News
October 9, 2009
 AT&T was the first of many telcos sued for helping the NSA spy on Americans without warrants |
The Department of Justice has finally admitted it in court papers: the nation’s telecom companies are an arm of the government — at least when it comes to secret spying.
Fortunately, a judge says that relationship isn’t enough to squash a rights group’s open records request for communications between the nation’s telecoms and the feds.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation wanted to see what role telecom lobbying of Justice Department played when the government began its year-long, and ultimately successful, push to win retroactive immunity for AT&T and others being sued for unlawfully spying on American citizens.
The feds argued that the documents showing consultation over the controversial telecom immunity proposal weren’t subject to the Freedom of Information Act since they were protected as “intra-agency” records:
“The communications between the agencies and telecommunications companies regarding the immunity provisions of the proposed legislation have been regarded as intra-agency because the government and the companies have a common interest in the defense of the pending litigation and the communications regarding the immunity provisions concerned that common interest.”
U.S. District Court Judge Jeffery White disagreed and ruled on September 24 that the feds had to release the names of the telecom employees that contacted the Justice Department and the White House to lobby for a get-out-of-court-free card.
“Here, the telecommunications companies communicated with the government to ensure that Congress would pass legislation to grant them immunity from legal liability for their participation in the surveillance,” White wrote. “Those documents are not protected from disclosure because the companies communicated with the government agencies “with their own … interests in mind,” rather than the agency’s interests.”
The feds were supposed to make the documents available Friday, but in a motion late Thursday, the Obama administration is asking for a 30-day emergency stay (.pdf) so it can file a further appeal.
Filed under: adjuvant, Airport Security, autism, autoimmune disease, big pharma, Bio Weapons, biological warfare, brain damage, California, cancer, CDC, deadly vaccinations, deadly vaccines, doctors, Eugenics, federal crimes, flu shot, flu vaccine, forced vaccinations, Genocide, GlaxoSmithKline, GSK, Guillain-Barré syndrome, Gulf War Syndrome, h1n1, h1n1 clinic, h1n1 vaccine, h5n1, health and environment, hospitals, Human Experiments, human rights, immune system, immunity, influenza, innoculation, mandatory vaccinations, medical Experiments, medical industrial complex, Mercury, mf59, Novartis, parental rights, patients, poll, polysortbate 80, Population Control, sacramento, squalene, squaline, super weapons, swine flu, swine flu pandemic, swine flu vaccine, Thimerosal, toxicity, vaccinations, Vaccine
Harvard Survey: Only 1/3 Of Americans Believe Swine Flu Vaccines Are Safe
Steve Watson
Infowars.net
October 2, 2009
A survey conducted by Harvard University has found that only one third of adults trust the safety of the imminently available H1N1 vaccine.
Just 40% of respondents said they would take the swine flu shot in the poll carried out by Harvard Opinion Research Program at Harvard School of Public Health.
The study, funded under a cooperative agreement with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, also found that respondents were worried about side effects or not concerned about catching the flu at all.
44% of respondents who were parents said they were unsure over getting their children vaccinated against H1N1, with 21% of those parents saying they absolutely will not allow their kids to be vaccinated.
Parents said that they were concerned about their children getting other illnesses from the vaccine and that they do not trust public health officials to tell them about vaccine safety.
The results show a great public distrust in the vaccine with just one third (33%) of the public viewing the H1N1 vaccine as very safe “generally for most people to take”. Even less (18%) believe it is safe for children aged 6 months to 2 years, and only 13% feel it is safe for pregnant women.
Almost one third (31%) of respondents think that public health officials’ concerns over H1N1 flu have been overblown.
Of the 40% of adults who said they would not take the shot, the majority said they may reconsider if people begin dying from the virus en mass.
The survey was conducted with a broad representative national sample of 1042 adults aged 18 and over.
The survey dovetails with a similar poll from Consumer Reports, one of the top-ten-circulation magazines in the country, that found almost two thirds of Americans would either refuse the vaccine outright or wait for more information before considering vaccinating their children.
As we have previously reported, both the GlaxoSmithKilne and the Novartis H1N1 vaccines contain both the novel adjuvant squalene, which has been linked to Gulf War Syndrome, and thimerosal, the mercury based preservative that some scientists have testified can cause brain disorders.
The vaccines have been rushed through safety procedures while the government has provided pharmaceutical companies with blanket immunity from lawsuits arriving out of the vaccine causing deaths and injuries.
In related news, more hospitals are demanding that workers be mandated to take the H1N1 shot, while Sacramento International Airport is to offer vaccinations in its terminals in a precedent setting move that critics have described as concerning.
noworldsystem.com 