Category Archives: Tyranny

Privacy, Tyranny

Police Conduct Warrantless Searches on All Transit Users

Boston Transit Police Conducts Warrantless Searches on All Bus, Subway Riders

Kit Daniels
Infowars: April 7, 2014

In accordance with the Department of Homeland Security, the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority is now requiring that all Boston bus and subway riders submit to a warrantless search prior to boarding.

The MBTA transit police announced that everyone will be stopped and searched at “Transit Watch” checkpoints and that anyone declining a search will be ordered to leave the station, even though the area is public property.

“All persons choosing to use the MBTA transit system will be subject to security inspections of their handbags, briefcases and/or other carry-on items,” a Transit Watch pamphlet reads. “Any person refusing to allow a security inspection will be either denied entry or requested to leave MBTA property.”

The pamphlet also warns that anyone refusing to leave the station when requested will be subject to arrest “for trespass pursuant to M.G.L. 266, Section 120.”

“It is unclear how the trespassing law would apply given that the area is public property and it is not a crime to exercise your Fourth Amendment rights,” the Bay State Examiner reported on the subject.

The news outlet also pointed out that travelers could not see the signage warning them about the searches until they arrived at a checkpoint.

Last year, the Transportation Security Administration set up similar checkpoints inside the transit stations, making it clear that these new checkpoints are simply a continuation of the same.

And such warrantless searches on public transportation aren’t just limited to Boston. Back in 2012, TSA agents randomly interrogated bus riders in Houston, Texas while digging through their belongings without a warrant.

“I don’t feel like by purchasing a ticket or riding a bus that I have to forfeit my Constitutional rights and my protections and be subject to search or seizure,” passenger Derrick Broze told METRO board members during a heated meeting.

But DHS has every intention to do just that and even worse, governments around the world are pressuring citizens to take public transportation rather than their own vehicles.

The city of Hamburg, Germany is even working to ban cars within its city limits in the coming decades.

It isn’t too far-fetched to envision a future where individuals who want to travel have no choice but to take public transportation which requires invasive, TSA-style screening prior to boarding.

(Read the full article at Infowars)

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Corporate Welfare, Tyranny

Temporary Foreign Workers Taking Jobs From Canadians CONFIRMED: McDonalds franchise caught

McDonald’s accused of favouring foreign workers

By Kathy Tomlinson
CBC News: April 6, 2014

McDonald’s is under federal investigation over possible abuses of the Temporary Foreign Worker program at a franchise outlet in B.C.

“The pattern is that the temporary foreign workers are getting more shifts and that the Canadians are getting less,” said employee Kalen Christ, a McDonald’s “team leader” who has worked at the Victoria location for four years.

As a result of Go Public’s inquiries, the government has suspended all pending foreign worker permits for the three McDonald’s locations owned by franchisee Glen Bishop and has blacklisted his franchise from using the program, pending the outcome of the probe.

“Many, many people have been complaining about it,” said Christ.

Employment Minister Jason Kenney’s office said investigators now want to hear from any other affected employees or job applicants, from any McDonald’s outlets in Canada.

The government probe began after Christ told Go Public the fast food outlet is bringing in Filipino workers while cutting local staffers’ hours and turning away dozens of seemingly qualified Canadians seeking jobs.

“I saw them walk in and apply. I saw the resumés, and there were lots,” said Christ. He said he has seen 50 resumés submitted by local applicants at the Pandora Avenue franchise in recent months.

“It’s sad. Some of them would have university on their resumé, and they weren’t being hired, even at McDonald’s.”

He said a manager told staff the store wasn’t hiring because up to nine new Filipino workers were coming, who still haven’t arrived.

“I don’t understand how they could even use an excuse like that,” said Christ.

Filipinos in, Canadian out

McDonald’s confirmed the three Victoria locations have 26 temporary foreign workers on staff. Christ said that out of 11 of those who work at his store, seven came in recent weeks.

Tim Turcot is a 21-year-old local resident who said he applied to work there during the same period. He wasn’t hired, despite his four years of restaurant experience.

“I don’t know why they didn’t hire me. I told them I am available 24/7 and just never got the job,” said Turcot.

He said he’s dropped off 60-odd resumés at several McDonald’s locations on Vancouver Island in the last two years. He’s since found work at another restaurant.

When asked what it was like being shut out of McDonald’s during a time of 14 per cent youth unemployment, he said, “It’s not fun. Why not give us [Canadian applicants] a chance, instead of people who don’t actually live here yet?”

Federal rules say employers can’t hire even one temporary foreign worker if there is a qualified Canadian available for the job.

“It feels like laws are being broken here. And the fact they can get away with it — and it takes someone [junior] like me to come out and say something — is kind of horrifying,” said Christ.

(Read the full article at CBC)

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Geopolitics/War, Tyranny

Tony Blair ‘was fully aware’ of CIA kidnap and torture program

RT: April 6, 2014

Former British PM Tony Blair was fully informed “every step of the way” about details of the CIA’s secret interrogation program, developed in the wake of the September 11 attacks, and “knew about everything” including torture, states a new report.

Blair and then-foreign secretary Jack Straw were repeatedly briefed by MI6 and took an ‘active interest’ in the program, according to an anonymous security source who spoke to the Telegraph.

The source said it was laughable to suggest any approval for UK security service cooperation with the CIA program was only approved by Straw.

“The politicians took a very active interest indeed. They wanted to know everything. The Americans passed over the legal opinions saying that this was now ‘legal,’ and our politicians were aware of what was going on at the highest possible level,” the source said.

“The politicians knew in detail about everything – the torture and the rendition. They could have said [to M16] ‘stop it, do not get involved’, but at no time did they,” they added, appearing to contradict numerous previous statements made by UK officials.

After 9/11, the CIA launched its rendition program, involving global kidnap, detention and torture operations. It emerged at the beginning of 2013 that at least 54 countries – many European – had acted in cooperation with the US and several of them were European.

(Read the full article at RT)

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Original, Tyranny

Elections Canada Postpones Election Fraud Report Until After Next Election

AlternativeFreePress.com

An Elections Canada investigation into allegations of election fraud has been ongoing for more than a year. The intention was to finish that investigation by March 31 and then submit a “compliance and enforcement mechanisms” report to Parliament shortly after. However, Elections Canada spokeswoman Diane Benson has now said the agency has decided not to report until after the next election.

“In light of the government’s announcement in the fall that it would introduce comprehensive legislative reform, Elections Canada decided to postpone the general enforcement report until after the next general election,” she said. “This was necessary not only to focus our attention and resources on the announced reform, but also of the difficulty of engaging stakeholders simultaneously on a parallel initiative.”

Last year a federal court judge ruled that electoral fraud occurred during the last federal election. Federal Court Judge Richard Mosley ruled that the fraudulent phone calls “struck at the integrity of the electoral process by attempting to dissuade voters from casting ballots for their preferred candidates.” However Judge Mosley ridiculously did not overturn the election results. He wrote there was “a concerted campaign by persons who had access to a database of voter information maintained by a political party,” but apparently felt that this was acceptable because there was no evidence of direct involvement by a candidate and the outcome of the election could not be definitively proven to have been affected by the fraud.

With confirmation of election fraud, but a lack of action from the courts, Elections Canada’s report is vital information for the voting public to digest before the next election. The courts have failed to correct this assault on democracy, and now Elections Canada seem to be failing too.

Maude Barlow of the Council of Canadians comments: “This is appalling. In a disturbing parallel to the 1972 break-in at the Watergate office complex, Harper is trying to break into our democratic system with this legislation to cover-up the truth about what happened during the 2011 election from ever coming out. And so far it’s working … With this Election Fraud Cover-up Act, this Votergate, Harper has lost the right to govern. This is outrageous and there should be an immediate election over it. Any Conservative MP supporting this bill should take a long look in the mirror.”

Of course, the government’s proposed “Fair Elections Act” is worthy of focus. It is anti-democratic in multiple ways, but for Elections Canada to choose to focus on that instead of the election fraud is unacceptable. The two issues are one in the same, and Elections Canada should release their report before the next election regardless of what new laws are being proposed. The “Fair Elections Act” seeks to limit Elections Canada’s investigative powers and make it accountable to the government rather than Parliament as it is now, it is a direct response to the fraud investigation. The Conservatives have been caught cheating, and now they are changing the rules to ensure they can keep cheating. Canadians deserve to know what Elections Canada has found before they decide their next government.

Written by Alternative Free Press
Creative Commons License
Elections Canada Postpones Election Fraud Report Until After Next Election by AlternativeFreePress.com is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Sources for this article:

1. Former campaign worker granted immunity after he gives evidence in ‘Pierre Poutine’ robocalls case http://news.nationalpost.com/2014/04/03/former-campaign-worker-granted-immunity-after-he-gives-evidence-in-pierre-poutine-robocalls-case/

2. Andrew Coyne: What problems are the Conservatives really trying to solve with bizarre Fair Elections Act? http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2014/02/07/andrew-coyne-what-problems-are-the-conservatives-really-trying-to-solve-with-bizarre-fair-elections-act/

3. Elections Canada may never release fraud report because of “Unfair” Elections Act http://www.canadians.org/media/elections-canada-may-never-release-fraud-report-because-unfair-elections-act

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Original, Privacy, Tyranny

The NSA Documents Database: All Snowden leaks sorted & searchable

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has launched a user-friendly online database which contains all of the documents leaked by Edward Snowden which have been made public so far. Of course there is still more to come as well, Mr Snowden has said “Some of the most important reporting is yet to come.”. As the rest of the documents are released, the ACLU will add them to the database.

Emily Weinrebe of the ACLU’s National Security writes: “These documents stand as primary source evidence of our government’s interpretation of its authority to engage in sweeping surveillance activities at home and abroad, and how it carries out that surveillance. The ACLU hopes to facilitate this debate by making these documents more easily accessible and understandable.”

With full search and filtering functions finding the documents most relevant to any specific topic should be easy.

Weinrebe concludes, “The fact is that most of the documents contained in this database should have never been secret in the first place. Now, with newfound access to these records, we can educate ourselves about the true nature and scope of government surveillance in its many forms. This database will serve as a critical tool with which we will hold our government accountable.”

The NSA Documents Database: https://www.aclu.org/nsa-documents-search

Written by Alternative Free Press
Creative Commons License
The NSA Documents Database: All Snowden leaks sorted & searchable by AlternativeFreePress.com is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Tyranny

Canadian couple detained in hospital against will

Douglas and Pamela Allen are asking a court to order their release from Victoria General Hospital

Elderly couple demand hospital end ‘illegal detention’

CBC: April 3, 2014

An elderly Victoria couple has gone to B.C. Supreme Court to try to take back control of their lives, after they were committed and held in hospital after going there for care.

In court documents, the Vancouver Island Health Authority claims Pamela and Douglas Allen were suffering from neglect and poor nutrition because of a range of complex health conditions when they attended Victoria’s Royal Jubilee Hospital looking for care in January.

According to court documents, several doctors diagnosed both with dementia, and each was committed under the Mental Health Act. They are now residing at Victoria General Hospital.

The doctors found both incapable of caring for themselves or each other at their suite in an independent living home for seniors, which they recently bought.

They also had their bank accounts frozen and placed under the control of the Public Guardian.

But the 84-year-olds claim they are capable of looking after themselves with the aid of a nurse, and recorded a video statement from the hospital ward that is now their home and what they describe as their prison.

In the video, Pamela is in a wheelchair and Douglas is confined to a bed by a restraining vest.

“I want to go to my home,” says Pamela in the video. “They won’t let us go to our own home and we haven’t done anything.”
Lawyer seeks release

Their lawyer, Jonathan Aiyadurai, said they should be released from the hospital ward where they’re being kept.

“They’re bored – my clients have not had a breath of fresh air since they went into the general hospital. No windows have been opened for them,” he said.

“They haven’t been allowed outside. The husband has been put in a straitjacket — very draconian and Kafkaesque if I may say, and this is all at the taxpayers’ expense.”

Aiyadurai said the Allens are willing to pay for a nurse to visit them daily at their independent living unit, which they bought before being committed.

“Perhaps if my clients need some care – why can’t they get that out in the community?”

He said his clients want the public to hear their story, and that’s why they recorded the video.

“Wouldn’t people like to know that that can happen?”

The couple’s legal action also claims they were poorly fed and bathed at the James Bay Care Centre, that Pamela is being treated with insulin against her will, that they have not been allowed to attend their church, and that they have no access to their personal belongings, including Douglas’s confiscated wallet.

(Read the full article at CBC)

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Health/Environment, Tyranny

EPA tested deadly pollutants on humans

Report: EPA tested deadly pollutants on humans to push Obama admin’s agenda

By Michael Bastasch
The Daily Caller: April 2, 2014

The Environmental Protection Agency has been conducting dangerous experiments on humans over the past few years in order to justify more onerous clean air regulations.

The agency conducted tests on people with health issues and the elderly, exposing them to high levels of potentially lethal pollutants, without disclosing the risks of cancer and death, according to a newly released government report.

These experiments exposed people, including those with asthma and heart problems, to dangerously high levels of toxic pollutants, including diesel fumes, reads a EPA inspector general report obtained by The Daily Caller News Foundation. The EPA also exposed people with health issues to levels of pollutants up to 50 times greater than the agency says is safe for humans.

The EPA conducted five experiments in 2010 and 2011 to look at the health effects of particulate matter, or PM, and diesel exhaust on humans. The IG’s report found that the EPA did get consent forms from 81 people in five studies. But the IG also found that “exposure risks were not always consistently represented.”

“Further, the EPA did not include information on long-term cancer risks in its diesel exhaust studies’ consent forms,” the IG’s report noted. “An EPA manager considered these long-term risks minimal for short-term study exposures” but “human subjects were not informed of this risk in the consent form.”

According to the IG’s report, “only one of five studies’ consent forms provided the subject with information on the upper range of the pollutant” they would be exposed to, but even more alarming is that only “two of five alerted study subjects to the risk of death for older individuals with cardiovascular disease.”

Three of the studies exposed people to high levels of PM and two of the studies exposed people to high levels of diesel exhaust and ozone. Diesel exhaust contains 40 toxic air contaminants, including 19 that are known carcinogens and PM. The EPA has publicly warned of the dangers of PM, but seemed to downplay them in their scientific studies on humans.

“This lack of warning about PM,” the IG’s report notes, “is also different from the EPA’s public image about PM.”

The EPA has been operating under the assumption that PM is deadly for years now. The IG’s report points to a 2003 EPA document that says short-term exposure to PM can result in heart attacks and arrhythmias for people with heart disease — and long-term exposure can result in reduced lung function and even death. A 2006 review by the EPA presents even further links between short-term PM exposure and “mortality and morbidity.”

“Particulate matter causes premature death. It doesn’t make you sick. It’s directly causal to dying sooner than you should,” former EPA administrator Lisa Jackson told Congress on Sept. 22, 2011.

“If we could reduce particulate matter to healthy levels it would have the same impact as finding a cure for cancer in our country,” Jackson added.

PM is a “mixture of harmful solid and liquid particles” that the EPA regulates. PM that is 2.5 microns or less is known as PM2.5, which is about “1/30th the thickness of a human hair.” These small particles can get into people’s respiratory system and can harm human health and even lead to death after just short-term exposure.

The EPA set PM2.5 primary standards at 15 micrograms per cubic meter of air on an annual average basis, but the agency exposed test subjects to PM levels of 600 micrograms per cubic meter — 40 times what the EPA sets as an acceptable outdoor air standard.

But in five of the studies, people were subject to levels higher than what they signed on for. The EPA IG found that one person was hit with “pollutant concentrations that reached 751 [micrograms per cubic meter], which exceeded the IRB-approved concentration target of 600 [micrograms per cubic meter].”

(Read the full article at The Daily Caller

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Alternative Free Press

Tyranny

Police “modify search warrant law” to aggressively raid homes

Police Housing Enforcement Unit will “modify search warrant law to eliminate prior notice, aggressively use warrants and housing sweeps on a regular basis.”

Cops to Inspect Homes Without Notice For Illegal Rentals

Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars: March 30, 2014

Authorities in Long Island have launched a crackdown on homeowners who rent their house out to tenants who have not been registered under a “zero tolerance” program that will see police conduct home inspections without notice.

Landlords in the Long Island community of Westbury will be targeted by a newly created police “Housing Enforcement Unit” that will “modify search warrant law to eliminate prior notice, aggressively use warrants and housing sweeps on a regular basis.”

Residents are being encouraged to report their neighbors to authorities if they suspect they are housing tenants who have not been registered with the government. Local station News 12 also gave out an email address and phone number encouraging viewers to, “report a suspected illegal rental.”

Maintenance rules and violation fines will also be raised under the new program.

Mayor Peter Cavallaro told News 12 that permitting property owners to call the shots on rentals “victimizes the community as a whole.”

Although the crackdown was launched after complaints by residents, its primary purpose appears to be a way to target landlords and homeowners who rent out rooms in order to help pay the cost of exorbitant property taxes.

Respondents to the News 12 report decried the move as a selfish attempt to prop up house prices at the expense of property rights and personal freedom.

(Read the full article at Infowars)

Tyranny

FBI asked Tsarnaev to work as informant before Boston bombing, defense claims

RT: March 29, 2014

Tamerlan Tsarnaev, one of the suspected bombers behind the Boston Marathon bombing last year, was approached by the FBI because of his extremist views and asked to work as an informant, according to court records filed by Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s defense team.

Attorneys for the younger Tsarnaev are expected to claim that he was under the influence of the dominating Tamerlan, 26, who was killed during a shootout with police days after the bombing killed three people and injured over 260 others on April 15.

In a 23-page court filing Dzhokhar’s defense team asked the court to force the prosecution to hand over more evidence in the case that would be useful to their argument. Included in the document was the assertion that the FBI, aware of Tamerlan’s radical Islamist views, asked him to work as an informant on certain factions in the Boston region.

The court request said “the FBI made more than one visit to talk with Anzor, Zubeidat [Dzhokhar and Tamerlan’s parents] and Tamerlan, question Tamerlan about his internet searches, and asked him to be an informant, reporting on the Chechen and Muslim community,” as quoted by WBUR Boston.

The defense speculated that Tamerlan may have misinterpreted the intention of the conversations, which may have acted as a “stressor that increased his paranoia and distress.” They specifically note that the interviews should not be interpreted as a motivation for the attack, only that they represent “an important part of the story of Tamerlan’s decline.”

“The underlying data concerning the brothers’ activities, state of mind, and respective trajectories is critical,” attorneys wrote, as quoted by the Boston Globe, adding that evidence “shows Tamerlan to have had a substantially longer and deeper engagement than his younger brother with extremist and violent ideology is mitigating for the light that it sheds on their relative culpability.”

(Read the full article at RT)

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Privacy, Tyranny

The TSA PreCheck Extortion Racket

Adam Dick
The Ron Paul Institute For Peace & Prosperity: March 27, 2014

Transportation Security Administration Administrator John Pistole touted on Tuesday the expansion of TSA’s extortion racket-style program known as the PreCheck. Pistole’s comments were part of his testimony at the US House of Representatives before the Homeland Security Subcommittee of the Appropriations Committee.

Under PreCheck, travelers in airports who have taken steps including paying $85, giving over their fingerprints, and obtaining TSA approval of their background checks have a chance — but no guarantee — that TSA employees will, over a five year term, harass them a bit less than other travelers.

Pistole recounts in his prepared statement some of the metrics of PreCheck’s expansion:

To accommodate TSA’s expansion of program eligibility to a greater number of low-risk passengers, TSA has taken the following actions: expanded the number of airports participating in TSA PreCheck from the initial 40 to 117 airports; increased the number of expedited screening lanes from 46 to 600, with each lane providing the capability for doubling hourly throughput; and increased the number of U.S. airlines participating in TSA PreCheck from six to nine in FY 2013, with plans of continued expansion as airlines are ready. Today, TSA provides expedited screening to over 35% of the traveling public.

PreCheck is just like the old extortion rackets of hooligans selling protection from themselves to store owners and raiders from the countryside demanding that residents of a town pay tribute. Dressed up in the language of law, regulation, and formal application procedures this abusive practice develops a veneer of legitimacy. At its heart, though, the practice is the same whether conducted by a street gang or the TSA: pay us money and do as we say so you may avoid being abused. In the case of the TSA, the offered benefit is limiting the extent of invasive frisking and property searches conducted without even the pretense of the probable cause required under the Fourth Amendment of the US Constitution.

While it may sound extreme to call TSA’s regular airport activities criminal, and its PreCheck program thus an extortion racket, the US government recognizes that TSA’s regular activities would be criminal but for the special protection TSA has as part of the national police apparatus. When legislation to remove TSA employees’ protection from prosecution for their routine on-the-job offensive touches passed the Texas House and appeared about to pass the state Senate in 2011, the US Department of Justice responded with a threat to end all commercial passenger flights through Texas airports given that the legislation would make routine TSA activities illegal.

Fingerprinting, background checks, applications, and $85 are a price many people are willing to pay in the hopes of avoiding some of the enhanced harassment that infuriates travelers in American airports. Yet, once enough people have applied to the PreCheck program, we must wonder if the US government then will make PreCheck participation a requirement for all travelers while eliminating every bit of relief from harassment the program may now provide.

(This article originally appeared at The Ron Paul Institute For Peace & Prosperity where you can also find links to sources)

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