Protestors Swarm Capitol to Rally Against NSA’s Mass Surveillance

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Photo Credit: Daily Caller Nearly a thousand protestors, sponsored by one hundred public advocacy groups, marched on the Capitol in Washington, D.C. to rally against the National Security Agency’s mass surveillance sweeps on Saturday.

“Why are we here?” former NSA executive and whistleblower Thomas Drake asked the gathered crowd. “We’re against mass surveillance!”

Drake, who was prosecuted by the Department of Justice under the Espionage Act for leaking unclassified information to a Baltimore Sun reporter, declared that the government “tried to bankrupt me, silence me and imprison me,” and that he was fortunate not to end up in prison.

“We cannot let this happen to future whistleblowers,” he said, adding that reform efforts must include whistleblower protection and not rely on an “NSA honor system” that was dependent on the agency admitting to rights violations.

“The NSA does not have an honorable track record of telling the truth when tracking us without our consent,” he said.

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Massive Barge On San Francisco Bay Likely Secret Google Facility (+video)

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Photo Credit: CBSThe U.S. Navy had its share of secrets on Treasure Island, but few were better kept than what’s taking place on a mysterious barge just off the island.

The barge, with a four-story stack of shipping containers, is out in the open for all to see. But the project’s purpose has been kept under wraps, and virtually no one wants to talk about it for the record, from the harbor office at Clipper Cove to the Treasure Island Development Authority to the U.S. Coast Guard.

“I don’t know anything about it, honestly I don’t,” a voice on the intercom at the Clipper Cove told KPIX 5. “It’s a complete mystery to me.”

There has, of course, been speculation about the barge’s purpose, much of it centering on the belief that it’s a water-based data center for Google.

KPIX 5 has learned that Google is actually building a floating marketing center, a kind of giant Apple store, if you will — but for Google Glass, the cutting-edge wearable computer the company has under development.

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Adelson: US Should Drop Atomic Bomb on Iran (+video)

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Photo Credit: ReutersDuring a panel at Yeshiva University on Tuesday evening, Sheldon Adelson, noted businessman and owner of the newspaper Israel Hayom, suggested that the US should use nuclear weapons on Iran to impose its demands from a position of strength.

Asked by moderator Rabbi Shmuley Boteach whether the US should negotiate with Iran if it were to cease its uranium enrichment program, Adelson retorted, “What are we going to negotiate about?”

Adelson then imagined what might happen if an American official were to call up an Iranian official, say “watch this,” and subsequently drop a nuclear bomb in the middle of the Iranian desert.

“Then you say, ‘See! The next one is in the middle of Tehran. So, we mean business. You want to be wiped out? Go ahead and take a tough position and continue with your nuclear development. You want to be peaceful? Just reverse it all, and we will guarantee you that you can have a nuclear power plant for electricity purposes, energy purposes’,” Adelson said.

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Marine Who Emailed Threat Warning Now Getting Bipartisan Hill Support

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Photo Credit: BREZLER FAMILYA Marine facing military discharge for mistakenly sending a threat warning from an unclassified email account is now getting bipartisan support on Capitol Hill from members who say he used the fastest and only method available to respond.

New York Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand is among the most recent congressional lawmakers to support Maj. Jason Brezler, a Marine Corps reservist, who faces a military hearing for his actions.

Gillbrand, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, sent a letter earlier this week to a Marine general arguing Brezler was responding to an “urgent” request from fellow soldiers in Afghanistan concerned about a senior Afghan police official and that he immediately reported the potential security breach.

Brezler told his fellow Marines the official was a security risk, in part because of allegations he sexually abused minors on U.S. bases in Afghanistan.

Days later, one of the official’s assistants and purported victims opened fire and killed three U.S. Marines.

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Germany Outraged Over Bugging of Merkel’s Phone

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Photo Credit: Medienmagazin proThe United States may have bugged Angela Merkel’s phone for more than 10 years, according to a news report on Saturday that also said President Barack Obama told the German leader he would have stopped it happening had he known about it.

Germany’s outrage over reports of bugging of Merkel’s phone by the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) prompted it to summon the U.S. ambassador this week for the first time in living memory, an unprecedented post-war diplomatic rift.

Der Spiegel said Merkel’s mobile telephone had been listed by the NSA’s Special Collection Service (SCS) since 2002 — marked as “GE Chancellor Merkel” — and was still on the list weeks before Obama visited Berlin in June.

In an SCS document cited by the magazine, the agency said it had a “not legally registered spying branch” in the U.S. embassy in Berlin, the exposure of which would lead to “grave damage for the relations of the United States to another government”.

From there, NSA and CIA staff were tapping communication in the Berlin’s government district with high-tech surveillance.

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Fifth Grader Who is Just 12-Years-Old Admits to Charges of Major Computer Hacking Targeting Government Websites

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Photo Credit: Alamy A 12-year-old Canadian boy has pleaded guilty to three charges of hacking government websites under the affiliation of ‘hacktavist’ initiative Anonymous.

A court heard on Thursday how the fifth grader – from the Montreal suburb of Notre-Dame-de-Grâce – wreaked computer havoc during the Quebec student uprising in 2012, with some sites out of service for two days.

He has pleaded guilty to three charges related to hacking websites that included those of Montreal police, the Quebec Institute of Public Health, the Chilean government and some non-public sites.

The attacks took some of the sites offline for up to two days, at what police estimated as a cost of $60,000 in damages…

Even though most of the attacks took place during the Quebec student protests in 2012 – sparked by an outrage at proposed tuition hikes that eventually escalated into a riot – the boy’s lawyers maintained he was not politically motivated.

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Air Force Makes ‘God’ Reference Optional in Oath

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Photo Credit: Fox News The Air Force Academy has decided to make the phrase “so help me God” optional in its honor code in what it called an effort to “build a culture of dignity and respect.”

The decision to make the reference optional came after the Academy’s Honor Review Committee met to consider a complaint filed by the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF).

“Here at the Academy, we work to build a culture of dignity and respect, and that respect includes the ability of our cadets, Airmen and civilian Airmen to freely practice and exercise their religious preference – or not,” Lt. Gen. Michelle Johnson said in a prepared statement.

The current version of the Academy’s oath reads: “We will not lie, steal or cheat nor tolerate among us anyone who does. Furthermore, I resolve to do my duty and live honorably, so help me God.”

“In the spirit of respect, cadets may or may not choose to finish the Honor Oath with ‘So help me God,’” said Johnson, the superintendent of the Academy.

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U.N. Benghazi Report an Inconvenient Truth for Obama?

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Photo Credit: WND Is the State Department hiding the involvement in the Sept. 11, 2012, Benghazi attack of an Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood-linked terrorist group?

A new United Nations report ties perpetrators of the Benghazi attack to the Muhammad Jamal Network, or MJN.

The network and its founder, Egyptian Muhammad Jamal, were designated by Obama’s State Department this month as “specially designated global terrorists” affiliated with al-Qaida.

The designation not only sanctions MJN’s assets but now allows President Obama to use a Bush-era military doctrine to capture Jamal terrorists overseas.

The State Department document designating MJN as terrorists does not mention the Benghazi attack.

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Al Sharpton Threatens Barneys Boycott Over Racial Profiling Allegations

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Photo Credit: Carolyn KasterThe Rev. Al Sharpton threatened Saturday to boycott luxury retailer Barneys if the department store doesn’t respond adequately to allegations by black shoppers that they were racially profiled there.

“We’ve gone from stop and frisk to shop and frisk, and we are not going to take it,” the black civil rights leader said. “We are not going to live in a town where our money is considered suspect and everyone else’s money is respected.”

Two black Barneys New York customers, Trayon Christian and Kayla Phillips, said this week they were detained by police after making expensive purchases.

Christian sued Barneys, saying he was accused of fraud after using his debit card to buy a $349 Ferragamo belt in April.

Barneys said Thursday that it had retained a civil rights expert to help review its procedures. The CEO of Barneys, Mark Lee, offered his “sincere regret and deepest apologies.”

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Fort Hood Soldiers say Army Warned them Off Tea Party, Christian Groups

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Photo Credit: AP/Jack PlunkettDon’t donate to the tea party or to evangelical Christian groups — that was the message soldiers at a pre-deployment briefing at Fort Hood said they received from a counter-intelligence agent who headed up the meeting.

If you do, you could face punishment — that was the other half of the message, as reported by Fox News.

The briefing was Oct. 17, and about a half-hour of it was devoted to discussion about how perceived radical groups — like tea party organizations and the Christian-based American Family Association — were “tearing the country apart,” one unnamed soldier said, to Fox News.

Among the remarks the agent allegedly made: Military members who donate to these groups would be subject to discipline under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, the soldier reported.

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