U.S. Acknowledges Killing of Four U.S. Citizens in Counterterrorism Operations
May 23rd, 2013More transparent and accountable now, promise. *wink*
Via: Washington Post:
The Obama administration acknowledged Wednesday that it has killed four Americans in overseas counterterrorism operations since 2009, the first time it has publicly taken responsibility for the deaths.
Although the acknowledgment, contained in a letter from Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. to Congress, does not say how the four were killed, three are known to have died in CIA drone strikes in Yemen in 2011: Anwar al-Awlaki, his 16-year-old son and Samir Khan.
The fourth — Jude Kennan Mohammad, a Florida native indicted in North Carolina in 2009 — was killed in Pakistan, where the CIA has operated a drone campaign against terrorism suspects for nearly a decade. His death was previously unreported.
Holder’s letter came the day before President Obama is due to deliver a major speech designed to fulfill a promise in his State of the Union address in January to make elements of his controversial counterterrorism policies more transparent and accountable to Congress and the American public.
Court Rules Bin Laden Death Photos Can Stay Secret
May 23rd, 2013Via: Reuters:
A federal appeals court ruled on Tuesday that the U.S. government had properly classified top secret more than 50 images of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden taken after his death, and that the government did not need to release them.
The unanimous ruling by three judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit rejected a request for the images by a conservative nonprofit watchdog group.
Judicial Watch sued for photographs and video from the May 2011 raid in which U.S. special forces killed bin Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan, after more than a decade of searching.
Research Credit: alvinroasting
Portland, Oregon Rejects Adding Fluoride to Drinking Water
May 23rd, 2013Wow, very well done, Portland!
Via: AP:
The mayor of Portland, Ore., has conceded defeat in an effort to add fluoride to the city’s drinking water.
With more than 80 percent of the expected ballots counted late Tuesday night, the Multnomah County election website showed the fluoride proposal failing, 60 percent to 40 percent.
Mayor Charlie Hales supported fluoridation and said “the measure lost despite my own ‘yes’ vote.
“That’s sure disappointing, but I accept the will of the voters,” he said in a statement.
Fluoridation foes were delighted.
“We’re very excited with how the numbers look,” said Kellie Barnes with the anti-fluoride group Clean Water Portland.
If the early returns hold up, “then Portlanders spoke out to value our clean water and ask for better solutions for our kids.”
Voters in Portland twice rejected fluoridation before approving it in 1978. That plan was overturned two years later, before any fluoride was ever added to the water.
The City Council voted last year to add fluoride to the water supply that serves about 900,000 people. But opponents quickly gathered enough signatures to force a vote on the subject.
Rejection of the proposal would keep Portland the largest U.S. city without fluoride in the water or with plans to add it. San Jose, Calif., — which is larger than Portland — has been working to add fluoride to its water supply.
‘Man Killed in Deadly Terror Attack in London Street’
May 23rd, 2013Friend of Adebolajo’s Arrested
Via: AP:
Nusaybah said Adebolajo became withdrawn after returning last year from a visit to Kenya, where he claimed he had been arrested and then abused both physically and sexually while in jail. Nusaybah claimed that Britain’s domestic spy agency, MI5, approached Adebolajo to recruit him upon his return to Britain about six months ago.
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How About This Terror Attack?
There’s no hysterical media coverage to go along with this one.
Via: Guardian:
A 75-year-old man stabbed to death yards from his home may have been targeted in a racially motivated attack, according to police.
Mohammed Saleem, who used a walking stick, was stabbed three times in the back as he returned home from prayers at his local mosque in Small Heath, Birmingham, on Monday night.
The blows were struck with such violence they penetrated to the front of his body.
The father of seven also had no defensive wounds in what has been described as a swift, vicious and cowardly attack by the man leading the murder investigation, Detective Superintendent Mark Payne of West Midlands police.
Officers want to trace a white man, aged 25-32, of medium height and build, spotted on CCTV footage running near the scene of the attack around the time it happened, just before 10.30pm.
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That Was Fast: Lords Call To Revive Internet Monitoring Bill After Woolwich Killing
Via: Tech Week Europe:
Following the murder of a man in Woolwich yesterday, a number of Lords have called for the controversial Communications Data Bill that seeks to impose more Internet monitoring on UK citizens to be put back on the table.
The killing in Woolwich, allegedly carried out by two extremists, which the government said appears to be a terrorist attack, has drawn many extreme reactions. Former government ministers, including former Labour home secretary Lord John Reid, have called for more Internet monitoring in response, angering privacy campaigners.
Deputy prime minister Nick Clegg appeared to have stopped the bill, known to critics as Snoopers’ Charter, going through to Parliament. It proposed getting ISPs to record all customers’ communications data, which includes the who, when and where of interactions over the Internet and telephony, but not the content itself.
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Update: Both Suspects Known to Security Services
Via: Irish Examiner:
The two men shot by police after the terrorist murder of a soldier were both known to security services, it was confirmed today.
While the killers were under armed guard in different London hospitals, it is understood police searched the former home of a man called Michael Adebolajo in Lincolnshire.
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Via: Guardian:
Dramatic footage has emerged of the suspected terrorist attack near the London barracks that left one man dead, showing a suspect with blood-covered hands using jihadist rhetoric to justify the violence.
On Wednesday night the prime minister, David Cameron, vowed that Britain will “never buckle” in the face of terrorist incidents, and condemned the “absolutely sickening” killing in Woolwich.
As the government’s emergency committee Cobra convened in central London to assess the implications of the incident, ITV News broadcast footage of one of the alleged attackers.
Brandishing a cleaver and a knife, and with the body of the victim lying yards away, the man said: “We swear by almighty Allah we will never stop fighting you. The only reason we have done this is because Muslims are dying every day. This British soldier is an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.”
“We must fight them. I apologise that women had to witness this today.
“But in our land our women have to see the same. You people will never be safe. Remove your government, they don’t care about you.”
The man then walks away and talks to another suspected attacker.
Later footage shows the aftermath after the two suspects were shot by police.
It is believed the person died after suffering knife injuries, possibly around the head area.
Two people have been taken to hospital after they were shot by armed police.
Feds Consider RICO Charges Against Hedge Fund
May 22nd, 2013It’s too bad that the Feds gave billions of dollars to AIG, the Squid et al, instead of prosecuting them as criminal enterprises.
Lehman?
Fuggetaboutit.
Via: Wall Street Journal:
Federal prosecutors are considering charging hedge fund SAC Capital Advisors LP as a criminal enterprise through a powerful legal tool used against the Mafia and drug gangs, people familiar with the probe said.
It is rare for investment firms to be charged criminally under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, commonly known as RICO. Such a step would require approval from top Justice Department officials.
The potential RICO strategy comes amid an escalating investigation into whether SAC and its billionaire founder, Steven A. Cohen, traded on inside information. It is now crunchtime for the U.S. as it approaches a five-year legal deadline in July on whether to file securities-fraud charges in the probe.
U.S. Special Forces Getting Constellation of Mini Satellites To ‘Hunt Down People Considered To Be Dangerous To The United States And Its Interests’
May 22nd, 2013Those birds should be busy when they fly over Washington, D.C.
Oh. Wait.
Via: Wired:
In September, the U.S. government will fire into orbit a two-stage rocket from a Virginia launchpad. Officially, the mission is a scientific one, designed to improve America’s ability to send small satellites into space quickly and cheaply. But the launch will also have a second purpose: to help the elite forces of U.S. Special Operations Command hunt down people considered to be dangerous to the United States and its interests.
For years, special operators have used tiny “tags” to clandestinely mark their prey — and satellites to relay information from those beacons. But there are areas of the world where the satellite coverage is thin, and there aren’t enough cell towers to provide an alternative. That’s why SOCOM is putting eight miniature communications satellites, each about the size of a water jug, on top of the Minotaur rocket that’s getting ready to launch from Wallops Island, Virginia. They’ll sit more than 300 miles above the earth and provide a new way for the beacons to call back to their masters.
Florida: Man Under Investigation for Links to Boston Marathon Bomber Killed by FBI
May 22nd, 2013Wife of man killed by FBI agent says he was never questioned about Waltham triple murder
Via: Boston Globe:
The wife and best friend of the Chechen man shot and killed here by an FBI agent on Wednesday insisted today that authorities never questioned him, or them, prior to the fatal confrontation, about an unsolved triple slaying in Waltham, Mass., just outside of Boston.
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Involved in Triple Murder, Drug Ripoff?
Allah. Terrorism. Drugs… Florida.
Is this starting to sound familiar to anyone?
Via: CNN:
Deceased Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev participated in a 2011 gruesome triple homicide outside Boston along with a Chechen killed early Wednesday during a confrontation with the FBI and Massachusetts State Police in Orlando, Florida, a federal law enforcement official told CNN.
Ibragim Todashev, who died during the interview with authorities, not only confessed to his direct role in slashing the throats of three people in Waltham, Massachusetts, but also fingered Tsarnaev in the deaths, the official said Wednesday.
Todashev was being questioned about the slayings and his acquaintance with Tsarnaev.
Todashev attacked an FBI agent, who shot him dead, a federal law enforcement official with direct knowledge of the case told CNN.
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Via: Orlando Sentinel:
A Central Florida man who was shot and killed by an FBI agent early Wednesday morning was being investigated by the FBI and Massachusetts authorities in connection with the Boston Marathon bombings.
The FBI told the Orlando Sentinel that during the early morning hours Wednesday, an FBI agent — along with two Massachusetts State Police troopers and other law enforcement personnel — were interviewing 27-year-old Ibragim Todashev in connection with the Boston Marathon bombing investigation when a violent confrontation was initiated by Todashev.
“During the confrontation, the individual was killed and the agent sustained non-life threatening injuries,” , FBI Special Agent Dave Couvertier, a spokesman for the Orlando region, said in an email statement. “As this incident is under review, we have no further details at this time.”
Florida: Police State Urban Week
May 22nd, 2013Via: CBS:
Cameras, both mobile and stationary, have been installed throughout the city. Ready to be deployed throughout the city of Miami Beach are a total of 62 light towers, twelve visual messaging boards and three watch towers.
Roughly 400 officers per shift from multiple agencies will pack the streets of Miami Beach.
In addition to extra bikes and ATVs, the Police Department has a new vehicle on loan referred to as an LTV.
CBS 4 News had the exclusive first look at this 140-thousand dollar light tactical all-terrain vehicle, similar to the ones used in the military.
“This is the only one of its kind,” an officer explained to CBS 4?s Lauren Pastrana. “There’s no other vehicle like this on the market at this time.”
But instead of war zones overseas, cops will use it to protect the city of Miami Beach, as well as its residents and visitors.
Bill Oddie’s BankWatch
May 22nd, 2013“He’s a Banker, of course he’s gonna charge.” *chortle*
Via: Global Witness:
Research Credit: BJ
Bill Drafted In Secret Would Block Release Of Some Newtown Massacre Records
May 22nd, 2013Via: Hartford Courant:
The staffs of the state’s top prosecutor and the governor’s office have been working in secret with General Assembly leaders on legislation to withhold records related to the police investigation into the Dec. 14 Newtown elementary school massacre — including victims’ photos, tapes of 911 calls, and possibly more.
