DOJ Regards Criticism of Islam, Obama as Criminal?

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Photo Credit: WND

The U.S. attorney who warned last week that “inflammatory speech” against Islam could violate civil-rights laws was the prosecutor who brought firearms charges against a Navy veteran who challenged the validity of President Obama’s birth certificate.

William Killian, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Tennessee, made the warning in a slide presentation June 4 in Manchester, Tenn.

The Navy veteran, Darren Huff, came on the federal government’s radar in 2010 when he and another Navy veteran living in Tennessee, Walt Fitzpatrick, filed civil actions in court charging President Obama with treason. The veterans claimed Obama assumed the presidency while refusing to prove he was born in Hawaii by presenting to the American public a 1961 original long-form Hawaii birth certificate that could be independently authenticated by court-recognized document experts.

According to the Department of Justice website, Huff, on April 20, 2010, traveled from his home in Dallas, Ga., to Madisonville, Tenn., upset at the refusal of the grand jury in Monroe County, Tenn., to indict Obama for treason. He allegedly carried with him a .45 caliber handgun and an AK-47 with ammunition for both weapons and subsequently was arrested.

“Huff told people that day that he had 300-400 rounds of ammunition with the AK-47,” the DOJ website said. “During a traffic stop by a Tennessee State Trooper on his way to Madisonville, Huff stated, ‘I’ve got my .45 because ain’t no government official gonna go peacefully.’”

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Ted Cruz: Obama Targeting Enemies, Can’t be Trusted

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Photo Credit: Washington Examiner

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz on Tuesday decried the spread of unaccountable federal agencies like the IRS and National Security Agency caught prying into American lives, charging that President Obama’s promise that his administration isn’t snooping on citizens can’t be trusted.

What’s more, Cruz said that by spreading a broad net to include average Americans in its search for terrorists via the NSA, the administration missed catching actual U.S. enemies such as the Boston Marathon bombers and the Fort Hood, Texas killer.

“It may well be that the administration is focusing more energy on casting the net wide and invading the privacy of law abiding-Americans rather than targeting the bad guys, targeting actual terrorists,” Cruz said after addressing a Federalist Society conference focused on the expansion of the executive branch.

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Obama’s Hollywood Supporters Abandoning Him Over NSA’s Unconstitutional Surveillance

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Photo Credit: Reuters

Revelations that the National Security Agency (NSA) has been secretly logging the phone and Internet activity of millions of Americans has caused a rift between President Obama and several of his Hollywood supporters.

Actor and liberal activist John Cusack tweaked the administration, tweeting “Prism the name for electronic prison – all have to wear lojacks,” in reference to the PRISM data mining program revealed in leaks by former NSA employee Edward Snowden last week.

Cusack also re-tweeted “Obama is becoming the next Nixon.”

Prominent writer/director Judd Apatow of “Knocked Up” fame also took to Twitter to blast the administration: “What is this, North Korea? We are so inundated with so much info and so many problems – we have given up caring”…

Liberal filmmaker Michael Moore also hopped on the bandwagon, tweeting “the administration has now lost all credibility” while spotlighting a 2007 Obama quote: “that means no more illegal wiretapping of American citizens. No more (spying) on citizens… No more tracking citizens…”

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The Perfect Leak

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Photo Credit: AP

In his dealings with the media, Edward Snowden played his hand like a pro.

Snowden, 29, was looking to disclose top-secret information about the National Security Agency’s surveillance programs to the world — and to do so he arranged a powerful one-two combination punch with the press that provided both mainstream credibility (Barton Gellman and The Washington Post) and someone who shared his ideological inclinations (Glenn Greenwald), according to media observers and whistleblower experts.

As more and more agenda-driven outlets, reporters and bloggers hit the media scene, leakers such as Snowden find themselves with a wealth of potential options to get their information out. It’s a seismic shift from the old media landscape, when would-be leakers had only one clear path to ensuring widespread attention for their stories: a successful pitch to a handful of national newspapers or TV networks.

But the traditional national security media heavyweights — led by The New York Times and The Washington Post — still have outsize influence on stories about intelligence gathering and potential overreach by the government.

So at the end of the day, experts told POLITICO, Snowden found a way to pull off what was in effect the perfect leak. He established parallel tracks with the MSM — The Washington Post and The Guardian — and also found a member of the media who was sympathetic to his cause. Snowden’s material was given widespread exposure and credibility in the traditional press and at the same time had the hand of a friendly journalist on the wheel for at least part of the ride.

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Putin May Grant Asylum to NSA Leaker Snowden

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Photo Credit: Getty Images

Russia would consider granting asylum to the American who has exposed top-secret U.S. surveillance programs, if he were to ask for it, President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman said on Tuesday.

Spokesman Dmitry Peskov stopped short of saying Moscow would accept Edward Snowden, but pro-Kremlin lawmakers spoke out in favor of the idea, tapping into a lingering Cold War rivalry with the United States and a vein of anti-American sentiment Putin has often encouraged.

“Promising Snowden asylum, Moscow takes upon itself the defense of people persecuted for political reasons,” Alexei Pushkov, chairman of the international affairs committee in the lower house of parliament, said on Twitter.

“There will be hysteria in the United States. They recognize this as their right alone,” he said.

Putin and other Russian officials have often accused the United States of hypocrisy, saying it tries to impose standards of human rights, freedom, and democracy on other nations while falling far short of them itself.

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Director of National Intelligence James Clapper Lied to Congress about NSA Surveillance in March

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Photo Credit: AP

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper is under fire for statements he made before Congress that suggested he had no knowledge about federal government programs that collected data on millions of Americans’ phone calls and Internet activities.

In March, Clapper said at a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing that he was not aware that the National Security Agency was involved in such large-scale efforts.

The questioning of Clapper’s statements follow blockbuster news last week that the federal government has since 9/11 been logging millions, perhaps billions, of calls and Internet activities and as the NSA’s top official goes before the same Senate committee for a closed-door briefing on the issue.

“Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?” Oregon Republican Sen. Ron Wyden asked Clapper at the March 12 hearing.
“No, sir,” Clapper responded.

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Mako Jumps in Boat, Stuns Anglers (+video)

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Photo Credit: Tom Rostron Jr.

Two anglers shark fishing east of Manasquan Inlet got a surprise when a 303-pound, 8-foot, 4-inch mako shark leapt into the bow of their 31-foot boat. Then [it] proceeded to eat the boat.

“It was epic. He back flipped right in,” said Clint Simek, of Brielle, who still sounded stunned by the shark’s theatrics as he retold the story Wednesday, a day after the wild encounter…

“At first we were in shock when he was in the boat. Then he started thrashing and we were like ‘Oh My God, we have a big problem, this thing is going to eat us,’ ” Rostron said.

The shark was way too green. From the time it was hooked to the time it jumped in the boat was only 25 seconds, Rostron said.

Once in, it took over the nine-foot wide bow eating anything in its path including two broom sticks, cushions, and speakers. It stayed alive for two hours.

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Aspiring New York Actress Turned Amateur Detective Tracks Down Her Father’s Killer

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Photo Credit: Fox News

While she may aspire to play a detective on the big screen, Joselyn Martinez could have a career as a real life gumshoe.

The 36-year old Dominican actress from The Bronx showed her sleuthing skills by helping track down the man who killed her father in a dispute in front of the family’s Dominican restaurant nearly three decades ago.

It took her eight years and about $280 paid to Internet-background check sites, but Martinez sniffed out confessed killer Justo Santos in Miami.

“Knowing the person my father was, I couldn’t live with myself if (Santos) stayed free,” Martinez told the New York Daily News Monday. “I need to see him in New York to know this has really happened.”

Santos remained on the lam for 26 years after shooting Martinez’s father, José, in cold blood after an argument. José Martinez had booted the then 16-year old Santos and two other goons from Martinez’s Dominican Express restaurant after the boys made disparaging and sexual remarks to his wife, Idalia.

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Boehner Calls NSA Leaker a “Traitor” (+video)

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House Speaker John Boehner today called NSA leaker Edward Snowden a “traitor” who put Americans at risk by releasing classified information to the media.

“He’s a traitor,” the highest ranking Republican in the House of Representatives said in an extensive interview with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos. “The disclosure of this information puts Americans at risk. It shows our adversaries what our capabilities are. And it’s a giant violation of the law.”

Boehner endorsed President Obama’s characterization of two programs, which allow the NSA to gather information about phone calls made in the U.S. as well as information on foreign suspects collected from major internet companies, as critical to the government’s ability to fight terrorism. He said that there are “clear safeguards” built into the programs to protect Americans.

“The president outlined last week that these were important national security programs to help keep Americans safe, and give us tools to fight the terrorist threat that we face,” Boehner said. “The president also outlined that there are appropriate safeguards in place to make sure that there’s no snooping, if you will, on Americans here at home.”

Snowden, a 29-year-old contractor with the National Security Agency, admitted that he was the source of several leaks of top secret NSA documents to the British paper, The Guardian, and the Washington Post.

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Belgium Poised to Legalize Euthanasia of Children

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Photo Credit: REUTERS/Yves Herman

The Belgian Federal Parliament is reportedly about to expand its controversial “right to die” policies to include access to euthanasia for some gravely ill children.

A consensus among members of the legislative body has reportedly formed in support of legislation to allow children to choose to undergo euthanasia in certain dire cases, according to a report in the Belgian daily newspaper Der Morgen, as translated by the Paris-based news agency Presseurop.

If child euthanasia is legalized in Belgium, the country would become the first in the developed world to have a law on the books allowing the practice, although the Netherlands has since 2005 not prosecuted doctors who perform euthanasia on some minors as long as the doctors act in accordance with a set of medical guidelines dubbed the Groningen Protocol.

Belgium became the second country in the world after the Netherlands to legalize euthanasia in 2002, but the statute currently extends only to people 18 or older.

The bill, introduced by the Socialist party in December, would lay out guidelines for doctors to decide on a case-by-case basis whether or not a child is mature enough to make the decision to end his or her own life, as well as whether a child’s health is grave and hopeless enough to warrant euthanasia.

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