Egypt Restores Feared Secret Police Units

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Photo Credit: APEgypt’s interim government was accused of attempting to return the country to the Mubarak era on Monday, after the country’s interior ministry announced the resurrection of several controversial police units that were nominally shut down following the country’s 2011 uprising and the interim prime minister was given the power to place the country in a state of emergency.

Egypt’s state security investigations service, Mabahith Amn ad-Dawla, a wing of the police force under President Mubarak, and a symbol of police oppression, was supposedly closed in March 2011 – along with several units within it that investigated Islamist groups and opposition activists. The new national security service (NSS) was established in its place.

But following Saturday’s massacre of at least 83 Islamists, interior minister Mohamed Ibrahim announced the reinstatement of the units, and referred to the NSS by its old name. He added that experienced police officers sidelined in the aftermath of the 2011 revolution would be brought back into the fold.

Police brutality also went unchecked under Morsi, who regularly failed to condemn police abuses committed during his presidency. But Ibrahim’s move suggests he is using the ousting of Morsi – and a corresponding upsurge in support for Egypt’s police – as a smokescreen for the re-introduction of pre-2011 practices.

Ibrahim’s announcement came hours before Egypt’s interim prime minister was given the power to place the country in a state of emergency – a hallmark of Egypt under Mubarak.

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Unmanned Aerial Drone to Search for Bigfoot

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Photo Credit: ChiceauxThe hunt for Bigfoot is getting serious now.

At the same time a television network is offering a $10 million bounty – guaranteed by British insurance company Lloyd’s of London – for proof of the creature’s existence, a professor in Idaho is preparing to send an unmanned drone to the skies to seek out the elusive legend.

According to an Idaho Mountain Express report and press releases from the university itself, Idaho State University Professor Jeff Meldrum, author of “Sasquatch: Legend Meets Science,” is in the final fundraising stages of what is called “The Falcon Project,” which will use a remote-controlled airship to conduct flyovers in what he calls “Bigfoot territory.”

“These unmanned drones, I believe, are the next step in proving the nature of these creatures,” said Meldrum.

“The aircraft will offer stealth and maneuverability, allowing us to peer directly down through the forest canopy,” Meldrum explained through a university news report. “It is essentially silent and can fly at considerable altitude, surveying the forest floor from the night sky, allowing us to track and photograph a target once it is identified, without disturbing it.

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Man Dragged From Tent and Violently Attacked by Polar Bear Remains in Critical Condition with Broken Jaw and Serious Neck Injuries but Health is Improving

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Photo Credit: Daily MailA Maine man who was terrifyingly dragged from his tent and attacked by a polar bear while camping in Canada has serious injuries but is improving in a Montreal hospital, according to his wife.

Matthew Dyer was attacked by a bear that crossed an electric fence designed to protect members of his group in Torngat Mountains National Park at the northern tip of Labrador on Wednesday.

The mauling ended when members of his group drove the bear away by firing flares. Dyer has a broken jaw and neck injuries.

The group had been advised to hire an armed guard to protect against such attacks but decided against it, a Parks Canada spokesman said.

Officials said they were investigating whether the portable electrified fence was working properly.

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Massive Explosions Rock Propane Plant; Watch Raw Video Here

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Photo Credit: YouTubePropane explosions at the Blue Rhino LP gas plant rocked the Tavares area on Monday night, injuring eight people.

A massive emergency response was called to the plant, which is located at the 300 block of County Road 448, after multiple injuries were reported.

All employees on staff at the time of the explosion were accounted for by 2 a.m., Lake County spokesman John Herrell said.

“Plant management is comfortable saying they are accounted for,” Herrell said.

Eight people were hurt — some of them critically injured, according to Tavares Fire Chief Richard Keith.

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Another Shocking Revelation of NSA Snooping: Powerful Tool Exists to Give Low-Level Analysts Immediate Access to all Your Email, Phone Calls (+video)

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Photo Credit: ABCToday on “This Week,” Glenn Greenwald – the reporter who broke the story about the National Security Agency’s surveillance programs – claimed that those NSA programs allowed even low-level analysts to search the private emails and phone calls of Americans.

“The NSA has trillions of telephone calls and emails in their databases that they’ve collected over the last several years,” Greenwald told ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos. “And what these programs are, are very simple screens, like the ones that supermarket clerks or shipping and receiving clerks use, where all an analyst has to do is enter an email address or an IP address, and it does two things. It searches that database and lets them listen to the calls or read the emails of everything that the NSA has stored, or look at the browsing histories or Google search terms that you’ve entered, and it also alerts them to any further activity that people connected to that email address or that IP address do in the future.”

Greenwald explained that while there are “legal constraints” on surveillance that require approval by the FISA court, these programs still allow analysts to search through data with little court approval or supervision.

“There are legal constraints for how you can spy on Americans,” Greenwald said. “You can’t target them without going to the FISA court. But these systems allow analysts to listen to whatever emails they want, whatever telephone calls, browsing histories, Microsoft Word documents.”

“And it’s all done with no need to go to a court, with no need to even get supervisor approval on the part of the analyst,” he added.

Read more from this story HERE.

Iconic Ground Zero Photo was Nearly Excluded from Museum for Being Too ‘Rah-Rah’ American

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Photo Credit: NY PostThis iconic picture of firefighters raising the stars and stripes in the rubble of Ground Zero was nearly excluded from the 9/11 Memorial Museum — because it was “rah-rah” American, a new book says.

Michael Shulan, the museum’s creative director, was among staffers who considered the Tom Franklin photograph too kitschy and “rah-rah America,” according to “Battle for Ground Zero” (St. Martin’s Press) by Elizabeth Greenspan, out next month.

“I really believe that the way America will look best, the way we can really do best, is to not be Americans so vigilantly and so vehemently,” Shulan said.

Shulan had worked on a popular post-9/11 photography exhibit called “Here is New York” in Soho when he was hired by Alice Greenwald, director of the museum, for his “unique approach.”

Eventually, chief curator Jan Ramirez proposed a compromise, Greenspan writes. The Franklin shot was minimized in favor of three different photos via three different angles of the flag-raising scene.

Read more from this story HERE.

Senators, Representatives Moving Closer to Reigning in Unconstitutional NSA

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Photo Credit: Jim Lo Scalzo/EPAUdall: NSA close to unconstitutional

By Hadas Gold. Sen. Mark Udall said on Sunday the NSA program that monitors Americans’ phone calls is close to being “unconstitutional.”

“I would argue that it comes close to being unconstitutional, and there’s a better way to do this,” Colorado Democrat said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”

Udall said a new bill he recently introduced with Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) protects not just Americans, but the “biggest, baddest weapon we have,” the Bill of Rights.

“My bill, which I want to push as hard as I possibly can, would limit the ways in which the intelligence community accesses average Americans’, innocent Americans’, phone records. That’s the way to go forward,” Udall said. “That’s the way in which to protect not just our people but the Bill of Rights. The Bill of Rights is the biggest, baddest weapon we have.” Read more from this story HERE.

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Opponents of NSA surveillance emboldened by close House vote

By Brendan Sasso and Jennifer Martinez. A close vote in the House on National Security Agency surveillance has given privacy advocates new momentum in their quest to curtail the agency’s power.

Critics of the agency are reviewing their options and plotting their next move in an attempt to build on their surprisingly strong showing.

“The House took a shot across NSA’s bow, and the NSA noticed,” said Gregory Nojeim, a senior counsel for the Center for Democracy and Technology.

It’s a heady time for privacy advocates, who for years have been on the defensive against claims that tougher privacy standards would endanger national security and help terrorists.

“This was the closest vote I’ve ever seen post-9/11 in regard to reeling in the NSA apparatus,” said Amie Stepanovich, director of the Domestic Surveillance Project at the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC). “The numbers on this vote show there’s incredible interest in reforming these programs. I don’t think it matters that it didn’t pass.” Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: Getty ImagesWyden calls Fisa court ‘anachronistic’ as pressure builds on Senate to act

By Ed Pilkington. Pressure is building within the US Senate for an overhaul of the secret court that is supposed to act as a check on the National Security Agency’s executive power, with one prominent senator describing the judicial panel as “anachronistic” and outdated.

Ron Wyden, a Democratic senator for Oregon, said discussions were under way about how to reform the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance court, the body entrusted with providing oversight on the NSA and its metadata-collecting activities. He told C-Span’s Newsmaker programme on Sunday that the court, which was set up in 1978 under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (Fisa), was ill-equipped to deal with the massive digital dragnet of millions of Americans’ phone records developed by the NSA in recent years.

“In many particulars, the Fisa court is anachronistic – they are using processes that simply don’t fit the times,” Wyden said.

The Oregon senator is at the forefront of a growing chorus of political voices criticising the Fisa court for being biased towards the executive branch to the exclusion of all other positions. “It is the most one-sided legal process in the US, I don’t know of any other legal system or court that doesn’t highlight anything except one point of view – the executive point of view.”

Wyden added: “When that point of view also dominates the thinking of justices, you’ve got a fairly combustible situation on your hands.” Read more from this story HERE.

Rep. King, Gov. Christie Attack Rand Paul’s Opposition to NSA’s Warrantless Surveillance

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Photo Credit: APRep. Peter King on Rand Paul: ‘This is the anti-war, left-wing Democrats of the 1960s’

By Joseph Lawler. New York Rep. Peter King harshly criticized Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul and other fellow Republicans Sunday for failing to stand by America’s anti-terrorist policies, saying that he worried they would ultimately destroy the Republican Party.

Appearing on CNN’s State of the Union, King said that his overriding concern is national defense, and that “when you have Rand Paul actually comparing [fugitive leaker Edward] Snowden to Martin Luther King or Henry David Thoreau, this is madness.”

“This is the anti-war, left-wing Democrats of the 1960s that nominated George McGovern and destroyed their party for almost 20 years,” King said. “I don’t want that happening to our party.” Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: APRand Paul hits back at Chris Christie

By Associated Press. Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul hit back at New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie in the two Republicans’ ongoing spat over national security.

Christie last week criticized Paul’s opposition to warrantless federal surveillance programs, saying it harmed efforts to prevent terrorism. Paul told reporters after speaking at a fundraiser outside Nashville on Sunday that Christie’s position hurts GOP chances in national elections, and that spending priorities of critics like the governor and Rep. Peter King of New York do more to harm national security.

“They’re precisely the same people who are unwilling to cut the spending, and their `Gimme, gimme, gimme – give me all my Sandy money now.’” Paul said, referring to federal funding after the hurricane last year. “Those are the people who are bankrupting the government and not letting enough money be left over for national defense.”

King in a phone interview late Sunday called Paul’s criticism of Sandy aid “indefensible.”

“This was absolutely life or death money that was essential to New York and New Jersey,” King said. Read more from this story HERE.

As Combat Units are Opened to Women, Military Orders New Unisex Fatigues that will Accommodate Larger Buttocks

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Photo Credit: https://www.army.mil/A new combat uniform with special consideration to the female body is now available at Fort Gordon, almost a month after the Army announced plans to open all units and military jobs to women by 2016.

The March debut of the Combat Uniform-Alternate is the first in a series of moves the Army hopes to make in the next three years to help female soldiers feel like more professional members, officials said.

With narrower shoulders, a slightly tapered waist and a more spacious seat, the unisex clothing line has been in the works since 2009 and is being issued to all installations – except Fort Benning in Columbus, Ga. – for men and women with a smaller or more slender body.

Soldiers will soon be able to order the new uniform at the Fort Gordon Military Clothing store, according to Stefan Marks, the post exchange’s general manager.

Read more from this story HERE.

Dishonesty from Obama Admin. Hits New Highs: Lew Denies IRS Targeted Conservatives

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Treasury Secretary Jack Lew said Sunday the Internal Revenue Service exhibited “equal opportunity bad judgment” in the improper targeting of political groups, and there was no evidence of political pressure.

Just days after President Obama accused Washington of focusing attention on “phony scandals,” Lew said on “Fox News Sunday” mistakes were made in the IRS, but there is no evidence the White House or political officials drove the improper targeting.

“There’s no political official who condoned it or authorized it,” he said, adding that the mistakes that were made were “unacceptable” and “unjustifiable.”

The scandal broke when IRS officials apologized for improperly targeting Tea Party groups applying for tax-exempt status, and has led to Republican accusations the White House used the tax collecting agency to intimidate political opponents.

Read more from this story HERE.