Mass Graves and More – Designed for You

By Shepard Ambellas
theintelhub.com

After discovering that the military industrial complex was preparing mass graves for US citizens in 2009, it took me on a path of deep research.

Down the rabbit hole I went, from pandemic preparedness plans, World Health Organization documents and white papers, to anything and everything I could find on this subject.

Photo Credit: Shepard Ambellas theintelhub.com

Were the powers-that-be and their no bid privatized contracts just profiteering or was another sinister agenda at hand?

In a nut shell what I discovered was startling to say the least.

I came to the conclusion that something is coming, some type of major planned or known future event might devastate the population or portions of the world and the elites know it.

The new film SHADE the Motion Picture (Premiers this winter) will cover this and more.  A full-scale world depopulation agenda is in effect.

Please check out and support this important film.

Rutherford Institute Asks Congress to Protect Americans from Weaponized and Police Spy Drones

Rutherford Institute

John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute, is calling on the United States Senate Judiciary Committee to protect the privacy and civil liberties of American citizens from police use of unmanned aerial vehicles, commonly known as drones. In the wake of the passage of the FAA Reauthorization Act, it is expected that at least 30,000 drones will occupy U.S. airspace by 2020. In alerting the Senate Judiciary Committee to the dangers posed by drones to citizens’ privacy and civil liberties, The Rutherford Institute has made model legislation available, titled “Freedom from Drone Surveillance Act,” that would not only prohibit the federal government from using data recorded via police spy drones in criminal prosecutions but would also prevent police agencies from utilizing drones outfitted with anti-personnel devices such as tasers and tear gas.

The Rutherford Institute’s letter to the Committee on the Judiciary, model drone legislation and companion fact sheet are available at www.rutherford.org.

“These drones—aerial, robotic threats to privacy and security—are being unleashed on the American populace before any real protocols to protect our privacy rights have been put in place and in such a way as to completely alter the landscape of our lives and our freedoms,” said Whitehead. “It is critical that Congress not only give serious consideration to the dangers posed to our freedoms by these aerial devices but ensure that the American people are protected against any resulting incursions on their rights as provided for by the U.S. Constitution.”

As The Rutherford Institute’s fact sheet on drones details, the FAA Reauthorization Act, signed into law by President Obama in early 2012, has opened the door for drones, once confined to the battlefields over Iraq and Afghanistan, to be used domestically for a wide range of functions, both public and private, governmental and corporate. Yet without proper safeguards, these devices, some of which are deceptively small and capable of videotaping the facial expressions of people on the ground from hundreds of feet in the air, will usher in a new age of surveillance in American society. Not even those indoors, in the privacy of their homes, will be safe from these aerial spies, which can be equipped with technology capable of peering through walls. In addition to their surveillance capabilities, drone manufacturers have confirmed that drones can also be equipped with automatic weapons, grenade launchers, tear gas, and tasers. Aside from the very serious and grave implications for privacy and civil liberties raised by Whitehead, there are also a number of safety issues involved with drone technology, with the paramount concern being that drones have a history of malfunctioning mid-air. Drones are also vulnerable to hackers, allowing unauthorized persons to access information gathered via drone, or to take control of the drone’s flight path. Noting that the safety and privacy issues posed by the implementation of drone technology are a bi-partisan concern, Whitehead concludes by calling on the Senate Judiciary Committee to ensure that drone technology is fully vetted by a commission charged with studying its impact on the safety and privacy of Americans. “In the meantime, however,” states Whitehead, “it is imperative that Congress assures the citizens of this country that their privacy, safety, and civil liberties will not be jeopardized for the sake of expedience, economy and security.

House Approves Sweeping, Warrantless Electronic Spy Powers

(WIRED)   The House on Wednesday reauthorized for five years broad electronic eavesdropping powers that legalized and expanded the George W. Bush administration’s warrantless wiretapping program.

The FISA Amendments Act, (.pdf) which is expiring at year’s end, allows the government to electronically eavesdrop on Americans’ phone calls and e-mails without a probable-cause warrant so long as one of the parties to the communication is believed outside the United States. The communications may be intercepted “to acquire foreign intelligence information.”

The government has also interpreted the law to mean that as long as the real target is al-Qaida, the government can wiretap purely domestic e-mails and phone calls without getting a warrant from a judge. That’s according to David Kris, a former top anti-terrorism attorney at the Justice Department.

The measure is sponsored by Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) and the Obama administration has called its passage a top intelligence priority. (.pdf) The bill generally requires the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Court to rubber-stamp terror-related electronic surveillance requests that ensnare Americans’ communications.

The government does not have to identify the target or facility to be monitored. It can begin surveillance a week before making the request, and the surveillance can continue during the appeals process if, in a rare case, the secret FISA court rejects the surveillance application. The court’s rulings are not public.

The vote was 301-118 in favor of passage, with 111 Democrats and seven Republicans voting no.

Smith, while imploring the House to pass the measure, said the FISA Amendments Act “is one of the most important votes we cast in this Congress.” Terrorists, he added, “are committed to the destruction of our country.”

Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-California) countered during a more than hour debate on the floor, urging the House to defeat the measure. “I think the government needs to comply with the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution all the time,” she said. “We can be safe while still complying with the Constitution of the United States.”

Rep. Dan Lungren (R-California) demanded that his colleagues support the bill. “This is critical to the protection of the American people,” he said.

Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-South Carolina), in a passionate plea, sided with Lungren.  ”Intelligence is the lifeblood of our ability to defend ourselves,” he said. Moments later, he added: “Are we to believe that the Fourth Amendment applies to the entire world?”

But the future of the spy powers remains murky, despite the rhetoric on both sides of the political aisle in the House.

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) has put a hold on the matching bill in the Senate. Among other reasons, he said the government should disclose how many Americans’ communications have been intercepted under the law, which was adopted in 2008 as a way to legalize the Bush administration’s warrantless wiretapping program that was initiated in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks.

The intelligence services say such an accounting is not possible and may not even be legal. Though even broad outlines of the NSA’s collection program are classified, presumably the NSA is collecting a staggering amount of Americans’ conversations, but only examining a small slice of them.

The House version extends the spy powers until Dec. 31, 2017. The similar bill in the Senate, which in May passed the Senate Intelligence Committee and the Senate Judiciary Committee last month, extends the powers for three years.

According to one former Justice Department official, the FISA Amendments Act gives the government nearly carte blanche spying powers.

Kris, who headed the Justice Department’s National Security Division between 2009 and 20011, writes in the revised 2012 edition of National Security Investigations and Prosecutions:

For example, an authorization targeting ‘al Qaeda’ — which is a non-U.S. person located abroad—could allow the government to wiretap any telephone that it believes will yield information from or about al Qaeda, either because the telephone is registered to a person whom the government believes is affiliated with al Qaeda, or because the government believes that the person communicates with others who are affiliated with al Qaeda, regardless of the location of the telephone.

The American Civil Liberties Union, in a letter (.pdf) signed by 20 rights groups, urged the House to oppose the measure. The groups echoed Wyden, saying if the measure is passed, lawmakers should require the Obama administration to publicize how often the act vacuums Americans’ communications and to ensure that “information collected under the FAA is not repurposed for government uses unrelated to national security.”

Many Democratic lawmakers, including Rep. John Conyers (D-Michigan), were willing to extend the spy powers for three years, while adding in the safeguards that Wyden and the ACLU noted. “That’s a compromise you can’t turn from,” Conyers said.

For his part, Wyden has barred the Senate from a routine vote on the bill by invoking a little-used legislative power — called a hold — to block lawmakers from taking a procedural consent vote. Instead, he demands a floor debate that can draw out the approval process indefinitely via the filibuster. Still, Wyden said he would be willing to agree to a short-term extension, instead of seeing the spy powers lapse December 31, as a way to give lawmakers more time to reach a deal.

The National Security Agency told lawmakers that it would be a violation of Americans’ privacy to disclose how the measure is being used in practice. The NSA said the “NSA leadership agreed that an IG (Inspector General) review of the sort suggested would further violate the privacy of U.S. persons.”

The Federal Reserve Has Been Given Police Powers, Glock 22s and Patrol Cars

Pam Martens
Alternet.org

By mid morning on Monday, September 17, as Occupy Wall Street protesters marched around the perimeter of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, all signs that an FRPD (Federal Reserve Police Department) existed had disappeared. The FRPD patrol cars and law enforcement officers had been replaced by NYPD patrol cars and officers. That decision may have been made to keep from drawing attention to a mushrooming new domestic police force that most Americans do not know exists.

Quietly, without fanfare or Congressional hearings, the USA Patriot Act in 2001 bestowed on the 12 privately owned Federal Reserve Banks, domestic policing powers.

Section 364 of the Act, “Uniform Protection Authority for Federal Reserve,” reads: “Law enforcement officers designated or authorized by the Board or a reserve bank under paragraph (1) or (2) are authorized while on duty to carry firearms and make arrests without warrants for any offense against the United States committed in their presence…Such officers shall have access to law enforcement information that may be necessary for the protection of the property or personnel of the Board or a reserve bank.”

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GAO: Agencies Should Address Drone Security and Privacy Concerns

Matthew Harwood
securitymanagement.com

There is a growing chorus of concern regarding the privacy and security implications of integrating unmanned aircraft systems (UASs) that federal agencies should address or risk delaying the technology’s integration into the national airspace over the next five years, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) said in a report (.pdf) released Friday.

More popularly known as drones, some critics argue UAVs threaten American civil liberties and privacy rights. “Concerns include the potential for increased amounts of government surveillance using technologies placed on UAS, the collection and use of such data, and potential violations of constitutional Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable search and seizure,” the GAO reported.

Citing a June poll conducted by Monmouth University, the GAO highlighted the American public’s comfort level with drones. The poll found that 42 percent of those surveyed were very concerned about their own privacy if U.S. law enforcement began to use drones in their operations. Only 15 percent said they had no concerns. The poll also discovered that support for drones hinges on what they’re used for. Eighty percent were in favor of using drones for search and rescue operations while 67 percent opposed police using drones to issue speeding tickets.

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Domestic Drones Contribute to Governmental Oversight

Howard Altman
Tampa Tribune

To the agents of Customs and Border Protection, the future of the United States’ war on smugglers looks like this: a 36-foot-long, flat-gray flying machine with a 400-pound radar array under its belly. It has no windshield and no pilot on board.

The aircraft, housed in Hangar F, is an unmanned aerial vehicle, more commonly known as a drone. This particular one is a Guardian, an unarmed, maritime version of the Predator B drones the U.S. military has been using for years to spy on — and kill — enemies in places like Afghanistan, Iraq and Yemen.

[...] The agency’s drone program is not without critics. The program includes the Guardian system, which costs $18 million with the radar and ground station, another like it in Corpus Christi, Texas, and seven Predator Bs spread across three other bases.

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