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Lawyers Eye NSA Data as Treasure Trove for Evidence in Murder, Divorce Cases

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NSAThe National Security Agency has spent years demanding that companies turn over their data. Now, the spy agency finds the shoe is on the other foot. A defendant in a Florida murder trial says telephone records collected by the NSA as part of its surveillance programs hold evidence that would help prove his innocence, and his lawyer has demanded that prosecutors produce those records. On Wednesday, the federal government filed a motion saying it would refuse, citing national security. But experts say the novel legal argument could encourage other lawyers to fight for access to the newly disclosed NSA surveillance database.

“What’s good for the goose is good for the gander, I guess,” said George Washington University privacy law expert Dan Solove. “In a way, it’s kind of ironic.”

Defendant Terrance Brown is accused of participating in the 2010 murder of a Brinks security truck driver. Brown maintains his innocence, and claims cellphone location records would show he wasn’t at the scene of the crime. Brown’s cellphone provider — MetroPCS — couldn’t produce those records during discovery because it had deleted the data already.

On seeing the story in the Guardian indicating that Verizon had been ordered to turn over millions of calling records to the NSA last month, Brown’s lawyer had a novel idea: Make the NSA produce the records…

“Relying on a June 5, 2013, Guardian newspaper article … Defendant Brown now suggests that the Government likely actually does possess the metadata relating to telephone calls made in July 2010 from the two numbers attributed to Defendant Brown,” wrote U.S. District Judge Robin Rosenbaum in an order demanding that the federal government respond to the request on June 10.

Read more from this story HERE.

Ivy League School Department is (Intentionally) Run by Felons

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Photo Credit: Fox News

Photo Credit: Fox News

In the hallowed halls of Columbia University, a nest of ex-cons — who have served time for murder, attempted murder, robbery and assault — hold court on their unique brand of social justice for admiring students enrolled in the school’s social work program, a FoxNews.com investigation has found.

The ex-cons work for or with the Criminal Justice Initiative (CJI), co-founded in 2009 by former Weather Underground operative and Columbia adjunct professor Kathy Boudin, who pleaded guilty to felony murder for her role in an infamous 1981 armed robbery that left two police officers and a security guard dead. And while that case was well-publicized, the group is hardly upfront about the “practical experience” of Boudin and others associated with the CJI.

A description on the program’s website says it is “situated inside” Columbia, and a part of the school’s “Social Intervention Group,” a research center within the Columbia University School of Social Work. It lists among its goals helping to forge a solution for “a central social crisis of our time, mass incarceration.” The program holds events and conducts research as part of “an interdisciplinary project built around a model of community collaboration” that “seeks to increase the number of skilled practitioners, policy-makers and researchers who can advance the fields of re-entry and incarceration across all disciplines.”

But students and parents who shell out more than $43,000 in annual tuition and fees might be hard-pressed to uncover the fact that former inmates are running the CJI. Outside of a vague reference to Boudin and Cheryl Wilkins being “part of a community of people who have returned from prison,” there is no information about their criminal pasts. Boudin’s school directory bio, for example, makes no mention of her time in prison. Several other CJI faculty, program members and associates have similarly disturbing backgrounds.

Read more from this story HERE.

Trial Begins for George Zimmerman, Accused of Murdering Florida Teen Trayvon Martin

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The trial for George Zimmerman, the Florida neighborhood watch captain accused of murdering teen Trayvon Martin while on patrol, begins Monday with jury selection.

The February 12, 2012, incident in central Florida sparked a fierce national debate about such issues as gun control, equal justice and race after Zimmerman, who is Hispanic, fatally shot Martin, a black teenager.

There is no disputing that Zimmerman fired his 9-mm. handgun after calling police, exiting his pickup truck to follow Martin, then getting into a fight with the 17-year-old on a rainy night inside the gated Retreat at Twin Lakes community.

The 29-year-old Zimmerman, who had a concealed weapon permit, has admitted to shooting Martin in the chest.

But Zimmerman says the teen circled back and attacked him as he walked back to his truck – punching him in the face and slamming the back of his head into the sidewalk.

Read more from this story HERE.

Grandfather Shot in his Own Drive by Cops Responding to Neighbor’s Alarm System (+video)

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Photo Credit: Texas Department of Public Safety

A Texas man was gunned down in his own driveway by police officers yesterday morning after he came out of his house to check out a neighbor’s burglar alarm.

The death of 72-year-old Jerry Waller, shocked the quiet Fort Worth community, where six shots rang out just before 1am.

Mr Waller was reportedly awoke after a burglar alarm had gone off at a home across the street. He grabbed his .38 caliber handgun and went outside to investigate.

Police responding to the alarm instead went to Mr Waller’s home, where they encountered him in his driveway and near the garage.

Fort Worth Police Cpl Tracey Knight told reporters that the officers – both rookies who have been with the department for less than a year – ‘felt threatened’ by the elderly grandfather – and shot him.

Read more from this story HERE.

Gosnell Sister-in-Law Gets Probation for Holding Down Unwilling Abortion Victims, Grinding Up Babies in Garbage Disposal

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Photo Credit: Life NewsAbortion practitioner Kermit Gosnell’s sister-in-law was sentenced in court today for her role in the House of Horrors abortion clinic that eventually resulted in Gosnell’s conviction on multiple murder counts.

The gruesomeness of what happened at the clinic was not limited to Gosnell, but extended to his staff — some of whom were family members.

Elizabeth Hampton testified that it was it was part of her cleaning duties to dispose of the large bottle on the suction machine that would fill with blood and fetal remains. She would pour the blood and baby parts into the sink and grind them up using the garbage disposal.

Hampton was intimately involved the night Gosnell killed Karnamaya Mongar in a botched abortion. But, as Philadelphia Inquirer courts reporter Joseph Slobodzian reports today, she merely received probation for perjury and was praised by the judge in the case for testifying against Gosnell himself.

Like other Gosnell staffers and family members, Hampton agreed to cooperate with prosecutors to testify against Gosnell in exchange for a significantly lighter sentence.

Read more from this story HERE.

Alaska’s Revolving Door Justice at Work: Convict Charged in Elderly Couple’s Murder, Infant’s Rape

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Photo Credit: AP/ADNIn 2009, Jerry Andrew Active was charged with multiple felony counts surrounding a sexual assault on an eleven year old girl. With the blessing of Judge Vanessa White, a Murkowski appointee, he pled out his case and received three years to serve for attempted felony sexual abuse of a child. Additionally, he was convicted of felony assault on a child as well as criminal trespass.

Judge White also imposed four years of suspended time on the condition of Active’s compliance with all probation terms, including good behavior.

In Alaska, a defendant is only required to serve two-thirds of his sentence as long as he doesn’t get in trouble while incarcerated. After Active was released in 2012, he managed to violate his probation on multiple occasions. The State of Alaska filed petitions to revoke his probation and a new judge, Gregory Miller, required Active to serve 120 days of his suspended sentence in January. When he violated conditions again, Judge Miller required Active to serve an additional 150 days in March.

Because Active received credit for time served, he was out of jail again this month. And here’s what allegedly happened:

A man who has been charged with killing an elderly Alaska couple and raping their 2-year-old great-granddaughter is a registered sex offender convicted of breaking into a home and assaulting an 11-year-old girl four years ago.

Jerry Andrew Active, 24, was convicted in 2010 of assaulting the girl near Dillingham, Alaska, while her family slept.

Authorities say that on Saturday, Active broke into the apartment home of Touch Chea, 71, and his wife Sorn Sreap, 73, and beat the couple to death. He also raped Sreap, police said.

He was still inside the residence when their grandson, his pregnant wife and son arrived. The grandson, Von Seng, fought Active, but the assailant managed to flee. He was arrested nearby only wearing boxer shorts, authorities said.

“He took the old, the innocent,” Seng told the Anchorage Daily News. “Come face me.”

The Daily Mail reported that the injuries sustained were gruesome:

The two-year-old was taken to hospital for a forensic physical examination, and it was discovered that she had also been physically assaulted.

She was taken to a hospital where she underwent surgery for her injuries.

Investigators were affected by the brutality and the ages of the victims, police department spokeswoman Anita Shell said.

‘They said this was the worst thing they had ever seen in their lives, and these are seasoned detectives,’ Shell said.

Russell Brand: Blame Madness, Not Islam, for Woolwich Attack

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Photo Credit: Breitbart Nutty British star Russell Brand took to the pages of The Sun today to pretend that there is no relationship between radical Islam and the murder of British soldier Lee Rigby by Islamists in Woolwich. Brand tweeted within hours of the murder, “That bloke is a nut. A nut who happens to be Muslim. Blaming Muslims for this is like blaming Hitler’s moustache for the Holocaust.”

Actually, Russell, it isn’t. Blaming Islamism for what happened to Lee Rigby is sort of like blaming Nazism for the Holocaust. In other words, it’s accurate. But Brand believes that only the insane take murderous action. “In spite of his dispassionate intoning the subject is not rational,” licensed psychiatrist Brand wrote in The Sun. “Of course he’s not rational, he’s just murdered a stranger in the street, he says, because of a book. In my view that man’s severely mentally ill and has found a convenient conduit for his insanity – in this case the Koran.”

Brand actually compared the Islamist murderers to John Lennon’s murderer, Mark Chapman, who said he was inspired by The Catcher in the Rye. Neither book, said Brand, could be linked with murder. “I’ve read that book and I’ve read some of the Koran, and nothing in either of them has compelled me to do violence,” wrote Brand.

Except, of course, that there isn’t an entire movement of would-be murderers and murder-sympathizers who claim their authority from Salinger. There are millions of such would-be murderers and murder supporters around the globe who claim authority from the Koran.

Read more from this story HERE.

Murdered U.S. Ambassador Stevens a Muslim?

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Photo Credit: WNDMurdered U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens had a “very romantic relationship” with Islam, according to a Libyan official who was a personal friend to the late American representative to Benghazi.

“What I am saying is that his Excellency, the late ambassador, had a very personal private matter, a very romantic relationship with the mystical side of Islam,” stated Sabri Malek, the spokesman for the Democratic Party in Libya, in an interview today.

Malek was speaking on “Aaron Klein Investigative Radio” on New York’s WABC Radio.

Continued Malek: “Many Westerners find themselves converging on a romantic relationship with the mystical side of Islam. Sufism, it’s a very unique corridor. It allows you to find out more beyond your ego fears. So that kind of mysticism was very attractive to the ambassador.

“And he indulged through various Sufi channels,” said Malek. “Because Libya is one of the richest North African states in the source of such schools.”

Read more from this story HERE.

French Police Search for Man Who Stabbed Soldier

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Photo Credit: APFrench anti-terrorism investigators were searching Sunday for a man who stabbed a soldier in the throat in the commercial district of La Defense outside Paris.

The 23-year-old soldier, Cedric Cordier, was in uniform patrolling the busy underground corridors where shops and crowded public transport lines converge beneath the famous Arch of La Defense.

Saturday’s stabbing came days after a British soldier was hacked to death on a London street in broad daylight in a suspected terrorist attack that has raised fears of potential copycat strikes. However, there was no immediate confirmation of any link between the two attacks.

Read more from this story HERE.

A Tale of Two Cities: Named Philadelphia

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Photo Credit: Town HallCharles Dickens’ novel called A Tale of Two Cities (1859) depicted the plight of French peasants’ civil conflict with its aristocracy in the years leading up to the French Revolution. Despite their linguistic differences, Dickens showed many parallels with the social atmosphere of London and Paris during that time period.

In contrast to Dickens’ work, my commentary today explores the dramatic difference in the value of human life (versus the value of animal life) in privileged versus impoverished communities in the same city – Philadelphia. I am concerned that Philadelphians seem more committed to protecting the lives of animals than they seem to be committed to saving the innocent lives of unborn children and their young mothers. Let me explain.

Last month, Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Michael Vick was forced to cancel a planned book tour because of credible threats on his life. According to his publisher, “protests escalated into threats of violence.” Threats were made to harm Vick himself and the employees of bookstores and other venues planning to host the athlete as he promoted his new book, Finally Free. Everyone concerned decided it was safer to keep the athlete out of the public eye for the off season. The anger against Vick stems no doubt from his role in the death of between six and eight dogs in a dog fighting and gambling operation he owned. Vick pled guilty to felony charges in 2007 and has since been released from prison.

In contrast; two years ago, another Philadelphia man was indicted for the murder of seven human babies and one adult woman. Kermit Gosnell ran a late term abortion facility in Philadelphia and had been sued at least 15 times for malpractice before the FBI discovered the squalid conditions in his clinic during a prescription drug raid in February of 2010. Yet the same media that excoriated Vick— has been eerily silent on the murder of poor mothers and the murder of fetuses.

Read more from this story HERE.