Federal Government’s ADMITTED Metadata Gathering Program Reveals EVERYTHING about Your Life (+video)

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New research published by Stanford Univeristy Wednesday reveal phone and Internet metadata collected by the NSA can expose far more information about an individual than the agency admits, including, “medical conditions, financial and legal connections, and even whether they own a gun.”

Two of the school’s computer science graduate students were able to uncover the sensitive personal details of individuals from phone data details, like the numbers of callers and recipients, the location of callers, phone serial numbers and the length of conversations — all of which are data the signals intelligence agency collects in bulk both domestically and internationally.

Of the 33,688 unique numbers called by the study’s 546 study volunteers, students were able to positively identify a specific individual in 18 percent of those calls. They were also able to discern 57 percent made at least one medical call and 40 percent made a financial services call.

Computer scientists Jonathan Mayer and Patrick Mutchler, the doctoral students that authored the study, say metadata are “extremely sensitive and revealing,” and “can yield a wealth of detail about family, political, professional, religious and sexual associations.”

“It would be no technical challenge to scale these identifications to a larger population,” Mayer told Stanford News, referencing similar metadata analysis the NSA is almost certainly already engaged in.

Read more about the NSA’s metadata gathering program HERE.

Obama’s Military Cuts Could Cost Army Half of its Combat Brigades, Destroying Readiness

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Photo Credit: opposingviews.comThe Army could need to cut brigade combat teams — the Army’s self-sustainable deploying units — nearly in half to accommodate the Pentagon’s plans to slice the Army’s size to below 450,000 soldiers after 2017.

Gen. John Campbell, the Army’s vice chief of staff and second-highest ranking member, in an exclusive interview with The Hill said the service was already planning to reduce its combat brigades, basic Army units of 5,000 soldiers that can be deployed and sustain themselves overseas.

The brigades were scheduled to reduce from 45 in 2013 to 32 by 2015, but now the number will shrink further. “That 32 is tied to 490,000, not 450,000. … At 450,000 or 420,000 we can’t keep the same amount,” Campbell said…

Cutting active-duty brigades by that much could dramatically alter U.S. capabilities overseas…

It would leave the Pentagon with fewer brigades to deploy around the world for military and humanitarian work. It would also reduce opportunities for training, and could limit U.S. support for some international missions.

Read more about Obama’s military cuts HERE.

Over 50,000,000 Working Age Americans Out of Work

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The number of native-born, working-age Americans who aren’t working has shot up by almost 9 million since 2007, and by almost 15 million since 2000, according to a new report by the Center for Immigration Studies, an anti-immigration group.

By late 2012, roughly 50 million native-born working-age Americans weren’t working, up from 40 million in 2000, according to the March 13 report, titled “Still No Evidence of a Labor Shortage.”

The army of idle Americans is important for the immigration debate, because advocates for greater immigration say foreign workers are needed to fill slots that can’t be taken by Americans.

The 50 million idle Americans include many who are studying, have chosen not to work or have retired early.

But the government data shows that 16.7 million native-born Americans wanted — but did not have — full-time work in 2013, up from 10.5 million in late 2007, and 7.8 million in 2000.

Read more from this story about working age Americans out of work HERE.

Student Suspended by Upstate New York School for Wearing NRA Shirt

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A high school student in upstate New York was suspended for wearing an NRA T-shirt that touted the second amendment after he refused to turn it inside out or cover the words with duct tape.

Shane Kinney, a 16-year-old sophomore from Grand Island, located between Niagara Falls and Buffalo, said he served a one-day, in-school suspension Monday after he refused last Friday to turn his T-shirt inside out at the request of the vice principal at Grand Island High School. The shirt was emblazoned with the NRA logo and the words, “2nd Amendment Shall not be Infringed” across the back.

“Mr. Lauria [the vice principal] told me I had to either turn the shirt inside out or put duct tape over the words,” Shane Kinney told FoxNews.com. “I told them that I wasn’t going to do it. I had to sit in the suspension room and eat lunch alone until my father brought me a new shirt to school.”

Kinney, a card-carrying member of the NRA along with his parents, said he had worn the shirt to school before, along with others that were similar, and had been asked to put duct tape over the writing. He said he complied because he didn’t want to make waves.

“I would never complain. I just wanted to get through the school year,” Kinney said. Officials at the school cited the dress code which prohibits any clothing that might incite or encourage “violent activities.”

Read more about the student wearing NRA shirt HERE.

New Gallup Poll: Americans Not Worried About Global Warming

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A new Gallup poll shows the American people say climate change is one of the problems they worry about the least.

The polling firm asked Americans how much they worry about 15 separate issues facing the country, with the economy, federal spending, and health care ranking at the top. Fifty-nine percent said the economy and jobs were an issue they worried about “a great deal,” and 58 percent and 57 percent said the same for federal spending and health-care affordability, respectively.

But climate change ranked second-to-last, with just 24 percent saying they worried about it a great deal, 25 percent saying they worried “a fair amount” about it, and 51 percent saying they cared about it “a little” or “not at all.” Gallup has also found that concern for environmental issues over the last decade and a half has reached an all-time low, at 31 percent, compared to a high in 2007 of 43 percent.

Read more about why Americans are not worried about global warming HERE.

Report: Obama Should Allow Transvestites to Serve in US Military, Should Act Without Congressional Approval (+video)

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An independent commission led by a former U.S. surgeon general has concluded there “is no compelling medical reason” for the U.S. armed forces to prohibit transgender Americans from serving and that President Barack Obama could lift the decades-old ban without approval from Congress, according to a report being released Thursday.

The report said Department of Defense regulations designed to keep transgender people from joining or remaining in the military on the grounds of psychological and physical unfitness are based on outdated beliefs that require thousands of current service members either to leave the service or to forego the medical procedures and other changes that could align their bodies and gender identities.

“We determined not only that there is no compelling medical reason for the ban, but also that the ban itself is an expensive, damaging and unfair barrier to health care access for the approximately 15,450 transgender personnel who serve currently in the active, Guard and reserve components,” said the commission led by Dr.
Joycelyn Elders, who served as surgeon general during Bill Clinton’s first term as president, and Rear Adm. Alan Steinman, a former chief health and safety director for the Coast Guard.

Read more about the effort to allow transvestites to serve in US Military HERE.

Early Elections Prove Democrats Have No Answer to Failed Obamacare

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Photo Credit: Alex Wong/Getty ImagesWhat are Democrats going to say about ObamaCare? It seems a little late to be asking that about a law passed four years ago this month, but that’s the central question of the midterm contests now underway.

The tardy talking points are in part a result of a strategy to delay the unpopular parts of the law until after President Obama had been safely re-elected. But it also reflects a major miscalculation among Democrats on the staying power of the law as an issue.

Conservatives and liberals alike are right in saying the election is about more than just ObamaCare. But the troubled law is the major motif of the election, much in the same way that 2006 wasn’t only about the Iraq war, but the conflict was the backdrop for the rest of the conversation.

Representative-elect David Jolly, R-Fla., who will be sworn in this afternoon, played it right. He talked about ObamaCare, but mostly as evidence that the left’s approach to governance was not working. Badly outspent and dealing with intra-party divisions, Jolly won in a district that hadn’t gone for a Republican presidential candidate since 1988. He did it by using ObamaCare to prove his point, not as the point itself.

Read more from this story HERE.

Analysis: Lois Lerner Can Be Held in Contempt for Her Failure to Testify

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While Lois Lerner’s reassertion of the Fifth Amendment, as well as the confrontation between Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R–Calif.) and Rep. Elijah Cummings (D–Md.), soaked up all of the media coverage of the IRS scandal last week, one interesting news item did not get much attention: the revelation by Lerner’s attorney, William Taylor III, that Lerner had given “a lengthy interview to Justice Department prosecutors within the last six months.” Even more surprising was Taylor’s admission that Lerner gave DOJ her testimony without getting any immunity from prosecutors.

If that is true, the former IRS official’s reassertion of the privilege against self-incrimination at the March 5 hearing of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform is problematic. While the prevailing rule in most federal courts is that a waiver of the Fifth Amendment privilege at one proceeding does not carry through to another proceeding, that is not the rule in the District of Columbia.

In Ellis v. U.S. (1969), the D.C. Court of Appeals specifically refused to adopt that rule, saying it was “unsound.” As the court held, “once a witness has voluntarily spoken out, we do not see how his protected interest is jeopardized by testifying in a subsequent proceeding, provided he is not required to disclose matters of substance which are unknown to the Government.” Under those circumstances, the court held, a person can reassert the privilege only if there is a “real danger of further criminalization.”

Ellis involved a defendant who voluntarily testified before a grand jury but then refused to testify at trial, asserting his Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination. Similarly, if Lerner—without receiving a grant of immunity—voluntarily spoke to Justice Department prosecutors and/or FBI agents involved in investigating IRS targeting of conservative groups, she cannot now invoke the privilege to avoid answering congressional questions that would require her to give the same information she has already provided to criminal investigators.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Taylor said he allowed his client to talk to DOJ because he had “every confidence” that prosecutors are fair-minded and haven’t prejudged the facts. In contrast, Taylor claimed that GOP committee members only want to “vilify” Lerner. But as any competent criminal defense lawyer can attest, you can’t assert the Fifth Amendment to avoid being “vilified”; you can assert it in a congressional setting only to prevent your hearing testimony being used against you in a criminal prosecution by the government. And in the D.C. Circuit, unlike every other circuit, you cannot assert the Fifth Amendment to avoid giving the same testimony that you have already provided to the government.

Read more from this story HERE.

Another ObamaCare Fiasco: Pastor On Hook for $100,000 Medical Bills, Could Have Kept Health Insurance

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Photo Credit: Matthew MorganMatthew Morgan was crumpled on the pavement lying in a pool of blood. Bones had torn through his flesh. His left foot was nearly severed. As he lapsed into and out of consciousness, a jarring thought crossed the Baptist preacher’s mind: he no longer had health insurance.

“That was one of the first thoughts I had after I got hit,” Matthew told me in a telephone interview from his home in Indianola, Miss.

Matthew is a bi-vocational pastor. He ministers to two congregations and works a full-time job at the Indianola Pecan House. The 27-year-old is married and has four children. His oldest is five, the youngest is one. And on Feb. 17th he became a victim of ObamaCare.

Matthew Morgan was a creature of habit. Every morning before the sun rose over the Mississippi Delta, he would lace up his running shoes, and pound the pavement with three other runners. Twelve mile runs were the norm but on the 17th – they decided on a lighter run. The nine-mile run that day would take them deep into the countryside.

It was Monday. 5:45 a.m. The runners had just reached the turn-around point. Two were setting the pace. Matthew and another runner trailed behind. He saw a car approaching and Matthew crossed over to the other side. It was a move that would soon have life-altering implications.

Read more from this story HERE.

Miller on Club for Growth Endorsement: ‘I Never Expected to be K Street’s Candidate’

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Photo Credit: Breitbart Fairbanks, Alaska. March 12, 2014 – Joe Miller expressed disbelief at the Washington-based Club for Growth’s endorsement of Dan Sullivan in the Alaska senate race earlier today.

“It is unfortunate that Club for Growth would insert themselves into a contested primary to work against advocates of the free market,” Miller said. “But I never expected to be K Street’s candidate. We won the 2010 primary without their help, and we expect to do it again.”

National media has been quick to point out the group’s support of Joe Miller’s candidacy in 2010, but Club for Growth declined to endorse Miller against the most liberal Republican Senator seeking re-election that year. Only after Miller’s stunning primary victory did he receive an endorsement for his run against Democrat Scott McAdams.

Miller continued, “We are undeterred. This is not a time for fair weather friends and sunshine patriots. I am not surprised that an organization thousands of miles from Alaska, inside the Washington DC bubble, may see things differently than the folks on the ground.”

The Miller campaign would like to offer a constructive piece of advice. It may be a good idea to vet candidates before throwing one’s reputation away. It is regretable that Club for Growth would cast their vote for the status quo. Dan Sullivan is just another big government crony capitalist.

Had they done their homework they would have known that Dan Sullivan’s campaign is funded by international finance – to include former President of the World Bank Robert Zoellick; President and CEO of the International Institute of Finance Timothy Adams; former Chairman of the Board of the New York Federal Reserve Stephan Friedman; the wife of former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson; Jeffery Reuben III, CEO of Rockefeller and Company; numerous Goldman Sachs executives; George W. Bush’s Chief of Staff Josh Bolton, etc. In other words, many of the architects of the Big Bank and Wall Street Bailouts that Club for Growth claims to oppose.

In addition to his ties to corporate welfare, Sullivan has clearly supported international welfare and the international community’s shakedown of American taxpayers for billions for the “climate change” scam, and more . . .

“I know my candidacy will not have the backing of Wall Street or K Street. It will also not have the support of the party elite in Washington or in Alaska. To curry favor with the Establishment is not why I am running for U.S. Senate,” said Miller. “I am running because I believe our nation has reached a critical juncture. As I travel the state, I am stirred with hope, because people throughout Alaska get it. They know the path we are on leads to the downfall of our nation, and they want real change, real reform. With their support on Election Day, I will bring their voice and their vote to our nation’s capital.”

Joe Miller is a husband, father, combat veteran, businessman, and advocate for constitutional liberty, who believes in limited government, individual rights, private property, free markets, and the Right to life.