Court OKs Warrantless Use of Hidden Surveillance Cameras on Private Property

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photo credit: fonstokPolice are allowed in some circumstances to install hidden surveillance cameras on private property without obtaining a search warrant, a federal judge said yesterday.

CNET has learned that U.S. District Judge William Griesbach ruled that it was reasonable for Drug Enforcement Administration agents to enter rural property without permission — and without a warrant — to install multiple “covert digital surveillance cameras” in hopes of uncovering evidence that 30 to 40 marijuana plants were being grown.

This is the latest case to highlight how advances in technology are causing the legal system to rethink how Americans’ privacy rights are protected by law. In January, the Supreme Court rejected warrantless GPS tracking after previously rejecting warrantless thermal imaging, but it has not yet ruled on warrantless cell phone tracking or warrantless use of surveillance cameras placed on private property without permission.

Yesterday Griesbach adopted a recommendation by U.S. Magistrate Judge William Callahan dated October 9. That recommendation said that the DEA’s warrantless surveillance did not violate the Fourth Amendment, which prohibits unreasonable searches and requires that warrants describe the place that’s being searched.

“The Supreme Court has upheld the use of technology as a substitute for ordinary police surveillance,” Callahan wrote.

Read more from this story HERE.

Our Future Death Panels: British Hospitals Being Paid to Hasten Death of Terminally Ill Patients

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Almost two thirds of NHS trusts using the Liverpool Care Pathway [a program where doctors withdraw treatments or tests from patients] have received payouts totalling millions of pounds for hitting targets related to its use, research for The Daily Telegraph shows.

The figures, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, reveal the full scale of financial inducements for the first time.

They suggest that about 85 per cent of trusts [NHS hospitals providing secondary care in the UK] have now adopted the regime, which can involve the removal of hydration and nutrition from dying patients.

More than six out of 10 of those trusts – just over half of the total – have received or are due to receive financial rewards for doing so amounting to at least [$19 million].

At many hospitals more than 50 per cent of all patients who died had been placed on the pathway and in one case the proportion of forseeable deaths on the pathway was almost nine out of 10.

Read more from this story HERE.

Islamists Protest in Cairo, Call for Sharia Law

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photo credit: BeBOprincessMore than 1,000 Islamists rallied in Cairo on Friday and called for the implementation of sharia Islamic law, highlighting divisions in society as rival factions jostle to shape the new Egypt.

Liberals have locked horns over the role of Islam with Islamists who dominate a 100-strong assembly that is drawing up a new constitution, which must be approved in a referendum before a new parliamentary election can be held.

“Islamiya, Islamiya,” the protesters chanted in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, the centre of the uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak who spent 30 years keeping a tight lid on Islamists.

The turnout at Friday’s demonstration was smaller than had been expected after some of the main groups that espouse the ultraconservative Salafi school of Islamic thinking backed out. Some groups said they would demonstrate next Friday.

The Muslim Brotherhood, which propelled President Mohamed Mursi to power earlier this year and which takes a less conservative approach, was also not involved in the protest.

Read more from this story HERE.

Northeast: Temperatures Plunging, Gasoline Dwindling, 100 Dead

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Temperatures plummeted and tension soared in the Northeast as gasoline supplies continued to dwindle despite furious efforts to bring in fuel. Sandy’s death toll reached 100, and New York called off its famous marathon, despite the mayor’s protestations that it should have taken place as scheduled, as a symbol of resolve.

Government officials moved aggressively to combat the fuel shortage, a crucial hurdle to recovery and a threat to commuters, generators, trash trucks, taxis and rescue workers alike.

President Obama on Friday ordered the Energy Department to loan diesel oil from government reserves in Connecticut to emergency responders. Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano took the rare step of waiving 92-year-old rules for the delivery of petroleum products to Northeast ports, expediting shipments from the Gulf of Mexico.

In New York, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo waived tax and registration requirements on fuel distribution — and insisted that there was “no reason to panic.”

It was evident that millions did not agree.

Read more from this story HERE.

Culture in Flames: States Allow Men to Expose Themselves to Girls in Public Bathrooms

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I know that many conservatives don’t like talking about the politics of sex and how our country has now normalized perversion. But it’s precisely due to this passivity that we’re now at a point in many states where a man, calling himself “transgendered,” can legally walk into a girls’ locker room, strip down, and lay out spread eagle for everyone to see.

Yes, it really happened in the state of Washington. That state, as well as 15 others plus the District of Columbia, prohibit “discrimination on the basis of gender identity or expression.”

So what exactly does that mean? If the state has a public facility, it can’t prohibit access based upon one’s declaration that he is a “woman trapped in a man’s body” or vice-versa.

The insanity of this is obvious to any common-sensed American. And if you have any doubt, what happened last month in Olympia, Washington, should make that insanity crystal clear.

Evergreen State College has a swimming pool that it shares with several secondary schools in the Olympia area. Of course, in addition to a pool, the college also has a women’s locker room. A man named Colleen Francis (pictured above), who claims he is “transgendered,” stripped naked, laid out in the sauna, and according to Fox News, “exposed his genitals on several occasions.”

After several high school girls in the women’s locker room saw him, they complained.

Nevertheless, given Washington law that “requires equal access to state facilities regardless of gender identity,” it appears that Francis’s naked display to juvenile girls was legally protected.

So what’s the solution? The minor girls are now using a smaller locker room at the pool while Mr. Francis may continue to expose himself to the adult female patrons in the larger facility.

This is flat out CRAZY. And frankly, it hits close to home. I fly through the Seattle Airport, not infrequently, with my beautiful daughters and wife. They use the women’s public restroom that the State of Washington says Mr. Francis must have equal access to. So now, I get to cross my fingers hoping that some “transgendered” man won’t be lurking in the female restroom, waiting to (legally) expose himself to my young girls.

But why should I be surprised at this world-upside-down? My GOP-led state just allowed Alaskans to choose what sex they are on their driver’s licenses . . .

Bishop Orders Priests to Read anti-Obama Letter at Sunday Sermons

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CHICAGO — Joining the chorus of Roman Catholic clergy in Illinois criticizing President Barack Obama before next week’s election, Peoria Bishop Daniel Jenky ordered priests to read a letter to parishioners on Sunday before the presidential election, explaining that politicians who support abortion rights also reject Jesus.

“By virtue of your vow of obedience to me as your Bishop, I require that this letter be personally read by each celebrating priest at each Weekend Mass,” Jenky wrote in a letter circulated to clergy in the Catholic Diocese of Peoria.

In the letter, Jenky cautions parishioners that Obama and a majority of U.S. senators will not reconsider the mandate that would require employers, including religious groups, to provide free birth control coverage in their health care plans. “This assault upon our religious freedom is simply without precedent in the American political and legal system,” Jenky wrote.

“Today, Catholic politicians, bureaucrats, and their electoral supporters who callously enable the destruction of innocent human life in the womb also thereby reject Jesus as their Lord,” Jenky added. “They are objectively guilty of grave sin.”

Earlier this year, Jenky delivered a controversial homily criticizing the contraception mandate. The bishop included Obama’s policies in a list of historic challenges the Catholic Church has overcome in previous centuries, including Hitler and Stalin’s campaigns.

Read more from this story HERE.

Video: Classified Cable Warned Consulate Couldn’t Withstand ‘Coordinated Attack’

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The U.S. Mission in Benghazi convened an “emergency meeting” less than a month before the assault that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans, because Al Qaeda had training camps in Benghazi and the consulate could not defend against a “coordinated attack,” according to a classified cable reviewed by Fox News.

Summarizing an Aug. 15 emergency meeting convened by the U.S. Mission in Benghazi, the Aug. 16 cable marked “SECRET” said that the State Department’s senior security officer, also known as the RSO, did not believe the consulate could be protected.

“RSO (Regional Security Officer) expressed concerns with the ability to defend Post in the event of a coordinated attack due to limited manpower, security measures, weapons capabilities, host nation support, and the overall size of the compound,” the cable said.

According to a review of the cable addressed to the Office of the Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the Emergency Action Committee was also briefed “on the location of approximately ten Islamist militias and AQ training camps within Benghazi … these groups ran the spectrum from Islamist militias, such as the QRF Brigade and Ansar al-Sharia, to ‘Takfirist thugs.’” Each U.S. mission has a so-called Emergency Action Committee that is responsible for security measures and emergency planning.

The details in the cable seemed to foreshadow the deadly Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. compound, which was a coordinated, commando-style assault using direct and indirect fire. Al Qaeda in North Africa and Ansar al-Sharia, both mentioned in the cable, have since been implicated in the consulate attack.

Read more from this story HERE.

Obama’s Medal of Freedom Awardee: “All White People Are Going to Hell”

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A civil rights icon who gave the benediction at President Obama’s inauguration said that he believed ‘all white people were going to hell’.

The Reverend Joseph Lowery, 91, was speaking at a rally in Georgia.

According to an account in the Monroe County Reporter: ‘Lowery said that when he was a young militant, he used to say all white folks were going to hell.

‘Then he mellowed and just said most of them were. Now, he said, he is back to where he was.’

He was also quoted as telling an audience at the St James Baptist Church in Forsyth, Georgia: ‘I don’t know what kind of a n***er wouldn’t vote with a black man running he also told according to the paper.

Read more from this story HERE.

Obama Admin Ignores Law, Deadline to Disclose Second-Term Regulation Plans

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For the second time this year, the White House failed to follow federal law requiring a report outlining the economic impact of its regulatory plans for the next four years.

Every administration is legally required to publish a report each April and October in the Federal Register to inform Congress and the public of the administration’s regulatory agenda and its potential economic impact. The requirement is part of the Regulatory Flexibility Act of 1980.

Other administrations have been late, but have never failed to issue the legally required report and Pres. Clinton even issued an Executive Order on compliance.

After the administration failed to produce its April 2012 report, Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) wrote to Pres. Obama asking for compliance with the October deadline – to no avail. . .

The last time the Obama administration complied with this law was when it published its fall 2011 report (due in October).

Read more from this story HERE.

Senate Candidate Murphy Endorsed By Communist Party

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Joelle Fishman, who chairs the Connecticut chapter of Communist Party USA, has endorsed Democrat Chris Murphy for the U.S. Senate.

Writing in People’s World, Fishman praised Murphy’s votes in favor of ObamaCare, Planned Parenthood funding, and pro-union issues. Referring to Murphy’s opponent, moderate Linda McMahon, as a “tea party extremist,” Fishman accused McMahon of investing “$77 million of her own money to buy this Senate seat.” She praised Murphy for his stance on higher taxes for the rich.

Apparently threatened by an ad in which McMahon encourages Obama supporters to consider voting for both Obama for president and herself for U.S. Senate, Fishman said, “McMahon’s attempt to con African American and Latino voters who support Obama is a chilling expression of her attitude toward all working people.”

Read more from this story HERE.