Utahn arrested by FBI as 14 more indicted for armed standoff over Cliven Bundy’s cattle in 2014

Fox13Now |  MARCH 3, 2016, BY MARK GREEN

LAS VEGAS, Nev. — A federal grand jury in Nevada has charged 14 more people, including a Utah man, with felony crimes related to the armed standoff over removal of Cliven Bundy’s cattle that broke out between the Bureau of Land Management and armed protesters in 2014.

The charges relate to April 12, 2014 and the standoff near Bunkerville, Nevada, where armed protesters prevented BLM agents from enforcing a court order to seize cattle owned by Bundy.

“This investigation began the day after the assault against federal law enforcement officers and continues to this day,” stated U.S. Attorney Bogden in a press release issued Thursday. “We will continue to work to identify the assaulters and their role in the assault and the aftermath, in order to ensure that justice is served.”

The superseding criminal indictment returned Thursday means a total of 19 people have now been charged. Among the 14 newly charged individuals is 39-year-old David H. Bundy of Delta, Utah.

David Bundy was arrested by the FBI in Utah Thursday morning, and he is scheduled to appear in a federal court in Salt Lake City Friday at 2 p.m.

According to the press release, the other 13 newly charged people are: Melvin D. Bundy, 41, of Round Mountain, Nev.; Brian D. Cavalier, 44, of Bunkerville, Nev.; Blaine Cooper, 36, of Humboldt, Ariz.; Gerald A. DeLemus, 61, of Rochester, N.H.; Eric J. Parker, 32, of Hailey, Idaho; O. Scott Drexler, 44, of Challis, Idaho; Richard R. Lovelien, 52, of Westville, Okla.; Steven A. Stewart, 36, of Hailey, Idaho; Todd C. Engel, 48, of Boundary County, Idaho; Gregory P. Burleson, 52, of Phoenix, Ariz.; Joseph D. O’Shaughnessy, 43, of Cottonwood, Ariz.; and Micah L. McGuire, 31, and Jason D. Woods, 30, both of Chandler, Ariz.

Twelve of the defendants were arrested Thursday, while Brian Cavalier and Blaine Cooper were already in federal custody in the District of Oregon.

The fourteen defendants are charged with one count of conspiracy to commit an offense against the United States and conspiracy to impede or injure a federal officer, and at least one count of the following: using and carrying a firearm in relation to a crime of violence, assault on a federal officer, threatening a federal law enforcement officer, obstruction of the due administration of justice, interference with interstate commerce by extortion, and interstate travel in aid of extortion.

The release states, “the indictment also alleges five counts of criminal forfeiture which upon conviction would require forfeiture of property derived from the proceeds of the crimes totaling at least $3 million, as well as the firearms and ammunition possessed and used on April 12, 2014.”

Charges against the five previous defendants remain the same. Those defendants are: Cliven D. Bundy, 69, of Bunkerville, Nev.; Ryan C. Bundy, 43, of Mesquite, Nev.; Ammon E. Bundy, 40, of Emmet, Idaho; Ryan W. Payne, 32, of Anaconda, Mont.; and Peter T. Santilli, Jr., 50, of Cincinnati, Ohio.

The indictment alleges the 19 individuals conspired to create a massive, armed assault against federal law enforcement officers on April 12, 2014 in order to extort those officers into abandoning about 400 head of cattle that, “were in their lawful care and custody.”

They also allegedly encouraged and led hundreds of other followers during that action, and the indictment alleges Cliven Bundy was the main leader, organizer and beneficiary of the conspiracy. The press release states Bundy’s cattle had been grazing on public lands for more than 20 years while he refused to pay the legally required fees or obtain the necessary permits.

The maximum penalties for the charges in the indictment range from 5 to 20 years each, with some of the alleged offenses carrying fines of up to $250,000.

An indictment contains only charges and is not evidence of guilt, according to the release, and all defendants are presumed innocent pending the outcome of a fair trial.

Tea Party Activist, Trump Supporter Jerry DeLemus Arrested

Tony Schinella | Portsmouth Patch - MARCH 3, 2016

IMAGE CREDITS: FACEBOOK, JERRY DELEMUS.

UPDATE: FBI agents took custody of Delemus on 9 charges including conspiracy to commit an offense against the U.S., threatening, obstruction

ROCHESTER, NH - The Federal Bureau of Investigation has taken custody of Jerry DeLemus, a New Hampshire Tea Party activist who previously made trips to Nevada to take part in the Bundy Ranch stand-off and the federal forestry building seizure in Oregon two months ago, according to reports.

DeLemus faces nine federal charges including conspiracy to commit an offense against the United States, threatening a federal law enforcement officer, obstruction of justice, attempting to impede or injure a federal law enforcement officer and several firearms charges, when he was in Nevada to support the Bundy family at the ranch.

According to the indictment, DeLemus was a “mid-level leader and organizer of the conspiracy who, among other things: recruited, organized, trained and provided logistical support to gunmen and other Followers and organized and led armed patrols and security checkpoints.”

According to Jack Kimball, the former chairman of the New Hampshire GOP, state Rep. Susan DeLemus, R-Rochester, Jerry’s wife, called him and said they had taken custody of him today (March 3, 2016).

“She said that the FBI just rolled up with lots of vehicles and Agents who were in tactical gear,” Kimball wrote on Facebook earlier this morning. ”They forced their way into Jerry DeLemus and Sue’s condo with weapons drawn and arrested Jerry and took him away.”

Kimball said he believed the custody was connected to the Bundy Ranch incident and asked “all NH patriots to come together ASAP” to ”protest this tyranny in the most visible way possible.”

Kimball said he would update his friends on Facebook after receiving more information.

“A good and Patriotic Marine is now being prosecuted for standing up for Liberty,” he noted.

A media relations officer at the FBI Boston office referred all questions about the charges to the Department of Justice. The U.S. DOJ has not returned an email request to Patch.

Twitter Shadowbanning ‘Real and Happening Every Day’ Says Inside Source

Breitbart | by MILO YIANNOPOULOS | 16 Feb 2016

AP Photo/Isa Simsek, Zaman

Rumours that Twitter has begun ‘shadowbanning’ politically inconvenient users have been confirmed by a source inside the company, who spoke exclusively to Breitbart Tech. His claim was corroborated by a senior editor at a major publisher.

According to the source, Twitter maintains a ‘whitelist’ of favoured Twitter accounts and a ‘blacklist’ of unfavoured accounts. Accounts on the whitelist are prioritised in search results, even if they’re not the most popular among users. Meanwhile, accounts on the blacklist have their posts hidden from both search results and other users’ timelines.

Our source was backed up by a senior editor at a major digital publisher, who told Breitbart that Twitter told him it deliberately whitelists and blacklists users. He added that he was afraid of the site’s power, noting that his tweets could disappear from users’ timelines if he got on the wrong side of the company.

Shadowbanning, sometimes known as “Stealth Banning” or “Hell Banning,” is commonly used by online community managers to block content posted by spammers. Instead of banning a user directly (which would alert the spammer to their status, prompting them to create a new account), their content is merely hidden from public view.

For site owners, the ideal shadowban is when a user never realizes he’s been shadowbanned.

However, Twitter isn’t merely targeting spammers. For weeks, users have been reporting that tweets from populist conservatives, members of the alternative right, cultural libertarians, and other anti-PC dissidents have disappeared from their timelines.

Among the users complaining of shadowbans are sci-fi author and alt-right figurehead Vox Day, geek culture blogger “Daddy Warpig,” and the popular pro-Trump account Ricky Vaughn. League of Gamers founder and former World of Warcraft team lead Mark Kern, as well as adult actress and anti-censorship activist Mercedes Carrera, have also reported that their tweets are not appearing on the timelines of their followers.

The pattern of shadowban reports, which skews towards the alt-right, the populist right, and cultural libertarians, follows close on the heels of Twitter’s establishment of a “Trust and Safety Council” packed with left-wing advocacy groups, as well as Islamic research centre the Wahid Institute.

It also follows my prediction that Twitter would use its influence to interfere in the 2016 presidential election by muffling conservative voices on the platform.

For close to a year now, Breitbart has covered Twitter’s march towards political censorship. In May 2015 Allum Bokhari reported that the site had begun to experiment with shadowbans, ostensibly to protect users from abuse. Then, as now, it was suspected that “protecting users from abuse” was an excuse to implement a system that would later be used for political censorship.

With shadowbans now confirmed by an inside source, there is little room for doubt that the platform is intent on silencing conservatives. Furthermore, it has demonstrated a complete lack of regard for transparency, concealing its shadowbanning system from users and hiding its political bias behind a veneer of opposition to online abuse. (In reality, the site turns a blind eye to abuse from left-wingers.)

Users in search of a transparent, politically unbiased platform will soon have to find — or build — an alternative.

SYRIAN REFUGEES ADMITTED TO US SINCE PARIS ATTACK: 602 MUSLIMS, 2 CHRISTIANS

Patrick Goodenough | CNS News - FEBRUARY 16, 2016

IMAGE CREDITS: FLICKR, SYRIAFREEDOM.

The government has admitted 605 Syrian refugees for resettlement in the United States since last November’s Paris terrorist attack, two of whom are Christians.

The rest are 589 Sunni Muslims, 10 Shia Muslims, three other Muslims, and one refugee identified in State Department Refugee Processing Center data as “other religion.”

At the same time, the proportion of Christians among the total cohort of Syrian refugees admitted into the U.S. since the conflict began five years ago has now dropped below two percent.

Just 55 Christians (1.9 percent) are among the 2,769 Syrian refugees admitted since March 2011, while a large majority – 2,594 (93.6 percent) – has been Sunni Muslims.

Christians accounted for about 10 percent of Syria’s population when the civil war began and Sunni Muslims for an estimated 74 percent.

Christians and other non-Muslim minorities have been targeted specifically by ISIS and other radical groups, and monitoring group estimate that more than 700,000 Christians have fled Syria since then.

Other non-Muslims among the Syrian refugees admitted to the U.S. since the war began include small numbers of Baha’i (2), Yazidis (1), Jehovah’s Witnesses (8), Zoroastrians (6), atheists (3) and Syrians who have self-identified as having no religion (7).

The administration has rejected calls by some Republican lawmakers, andsome GOP presidential candidates, for Syrian Christians to be prioritized in the refugee admission process.

The ISIS terrorist attack in Paris on November 13 fueled concerns that the terrorist group was exploiting the flow of refugees and migrants as cover to send jihadists into the West to carry out attacks.

French authorities said two of the attackers had been carrying fake Syrian passports and warned European Union partners that “some terrorists are trying to get into our countries and commit criminal acts by mixing in with the flow of migrants and refugees.”

Last Tuesday, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper affirmed during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing that ISIS has done so.

“Isn’t it already proven that Mr. Baghdadi is sending people with this flow of refugees that are terrorists that – in order to inflict further attacks on Europe and the United States?” Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) asked him, referring to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

“That’s correct,” Clapper replied. “That’s one technique they’ve used is taking advantage of the torrent of migrants to insert operatives into that flow.”

In addition, he continued, ISIS has become “pretty skilled at [producing] phony passports, so they can travel ostensibly as legitimate travelers as well.”

In December, House Homeland Security Committee chairman Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas) said the U.S. intelligence community “has identified already individuals tied to terrorist organizations in Syria that want to exploit and get into the United States through the refugee process.”

FEDS PUSH NEW PLAN FOR HOME VISITS TO CHECK ON PARENTS

Paul Joseph Watson | Infowars | FEBRUARY 12, 2016

The federal government is seeking to create a new bureaucracy that would intervene in family life and could even see state-appointed monitors conduct routine home visits to assess a child’s well-being.

The U.S. Department of Education and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has published a draft document which outlines a plan that will treat families as “equal partners” in the raising of children, opening the door for government intrusion at all levels.

The paper describes how government employees will intervene to provide, “monitoring goals for the children at home and the classroom,” and that if parents are failing to meet the standards set, “evidence-based parenting interventions” will be made to, “ensure that children’s social-emotional and behavioral needs are met.”

The document reveals how the state will help oversee, “constant monitoring and communication regarding children’s social-emotional and behavioral health.”

The program bears the hallmarks of a controversial scheme in Scotland, set to take effect later this year, under which a “shadow parent” appointed by the government would monitor the upbringing of every child until the age of 18.

“The document argues that Big Brother needs to know about essentially everything, for the supposed benefit of the child it wants to “partner” in caring for,” writes Alex Newman. “Citing “research,” the policy statement claims that “the institutions where children learn cannot ignore family wellness if they want to … fulfill their mission to prepare children for school and academic success.” In other words, every aspect of family life is now fair game under the pretext of checking “family wellness.”

The document also extends the understanding of the word “family,” to include, “all the people who play a role in the child’s life,” a definition that could include not only teachers but government monitors.

In a related development, the federal government is pushing for a task force to oversee a program under which pediatricians and doctors would, “screen all students over 12 years old regularly for depression and issue prescriptions or treatment as necessary.”

The program would increase the likelihood of teenagers being given dangerous antidepressant drugs such as Prozac and Lexapro.

The idea of children belonging not just to their parents but to a “community” that involves the state is a common theme of collectivist thinking.

That notion was promoted in the video below from 2013 featuring MSNBC host Melissa Harris-Perry, in which she asserted, “We have to break through our private idea that kids belong to their parents or kids belong to their families.”

NYPD TRACKED CITIZENS’ CELLPHONES 1,000 TIMES SINCE 2008 WITHOUT WARRANTS

Ciara McCarthy | The Guardian - FEBRUARY 11, 2016

IMAGE CREDITS: FLICKR, 49770271@N08.

New York City police have tracked citizens’ cellphones over 1,000 times since 2008 without using warrants, according to public records obtained by the New York Civil Liberties Union.

The organization announced on Thursday that the NYPD has typically used “stingrays” after obtaining lower-level court orders, but not warrants, before using the devices. The department also does not have a policy guiding how police can use the controversial devices. This is the first time that the scope of stingray use by the nation’s largest police agency has been confirmed.

The devices, generically known as stingrays, work by mimicking cell towers and tracking a cellphone’s location at a specific time. Law enforcement agencies can use the technology to track people’s movements through their cellphone use. Stingrays can also detect the phone numbers that a person has been communicating with, according to the NYCLU. The devices allow law enforcement to bypass cellphone carriers, who have provided information to police in the past, and can track data about bystanders in close proximity to the intended target.

Mariko Hirose, the NYCLU attorney who filed the records request, said the records reveal knowledge about NYPD’s stingray use that should have been divulged before police decided to start using them.

Read more

Oregon standoff: 4 holdouts all in FBI custody as occupation ends

Oregon Live | February 11, 2016

The four remaining occupiers of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge surrendered Thursday morning, bringing an end to the standoff on its 41st day.

Jeff Banta, Sean Anderson, Sandy Anderson and David Fry were taken into FBI custody.

Fry was the last to surrender, finally emerging after an extended phone dialogue with supporters who tried for over an hour after the others left to get him to walk out.

By contrast, the surrender of the others appeared to go off as planned.

FBI agents in armored vehicles had moved in Wednesday night on the four still at the refuge, hemming them into their camp and insisting they put down their guns and surrender.

Also Wednesday night, the FBI arrested Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy at Portland International Airport. He faces federal charges related to the 2014 standoff at his ranch. Bundy, 74, was booked into the downtown Multnomah County jail at 10:54 p.m.

His booking mug shot was released Thursday morning by the Multnomah County Sheriff's Office.

Meanwhile, the surreal scene played out across social media.





With the Bundys and the Malheur National Wildlife occupation, America witnessed its first armed occupation in the kinetic, 140-character social-media age.

Updates:

11:46 a.m.: The Bundy family says on Facebook: "They are safe. Thank you God for watching over us. Keep us in your hand and deliver from this present evil," asreactions begin to come in.

11:41 a.m.: The FBI announces it will hold a news conference at 2 p.m. in Burns to discuss law enforcement's next steps.

11:36 a.m.: Gov. Kate Brown speaks about the end of the occupation:
Gov. Kate Brown on the end of the Malheur occupationGov. Kate Brown on the end of the Malheur occupation

11:21 a.m.: The FBI puts out a statement that includes the following from Billy J. Williams, U.S. Attorney, District of Oregon: "The FBI brought three of the remaining Malheur National Wildlife Refuge occupiers into custody without incident. At approximately 11:00 am, agents brought the fourth into custody without incident ... The occupation of the Malheur Wildlife Refuge has been a long and traumatic episode for the citizens of Harney County and the members of the Burns Paiute tribe. It is a time for healing, reconciliation amongst neighbors and friends, and allowing for life to get back to normal. I want to thank our neighbors in eastern Oregon for their patience, resolve, and their kind and welcoming spirit to the many members of federal, county, state, local, and tribal law enforcement who have worked tirelessly to bring this illegal occupation to a conclusion. The fine work of so many dedicated public servants in a difficult endeavor cannot be understated. I am very proud of them all. ... Much work is left to assess the crime scene and damage to the refuge and tribal artifacts. We are committed to seeing the job done and to pursue justice for the crimes committed during the illegal occupation."

11:15 a.m.: William Fry Jr., David Fry's father, texts to an Oregonian/OregonLive reporter: "We are all relieved our prayers were answered."

11 a.m.: Hall begins sobbing after Fry turns himself in. She and Seim then resume the dialogue surrounding their patriotic movement.

As the Oregon standoff holdouts considered their options Thursday for ending the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge occupation by surrender or death, a prominent member of the Tea Party movement emerged as a leading voice on a live broadcast phone call attempting to talk the occupiers into surrendering. KrisAnne Hall, a prominent Tea Party figure who dubs herself a constitutional...



11 a.m.: Authorities say Fry is in custody. The standoff is over.

Watch as Fry is taken into custody:
David Fry walks into FBI custody after asking everyone to say ‘Hallelujah’A YouTube livesteam capturing phone conversations between last occupier David Fry talking to FBI agents and radio hosts captures the final moments as Fry leaves the refuge.

10:59 a.m.: Seim says it appears the FBI has cut off Fry's phone.

10:57 a.m.: Fry says he is coming out.

10:35 a.m.: Fry says he is speaking with an FBI agent.






Who is Gavin Seim?

Gavin Seim's stream on YouTube broke the news that the FBI had surrounded the four remaining armed occupiers at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, providing a real-time view of the tension at the refuge, where the occupiers joined by phone.



10:27 a.m.: Fry says he doesn't care about the movement anymore. That he's doing this for himself.






Who is David Fry?

The last remaining occupier in a 27-year-old from suburban Cincinnati who drove to Oregon while his parents were on vacation in Hawaii.

10:17 a.m.: Fry says he's pointing a gun at his head.

10:11 a.m.: Fry says his biggest fear is being raped in jail.

9:56 a.m.: Three of the four occupiers are in custody of the FBI. Jeff Banta, Sean Anderson and Sandy Anderson each face a federal conspiracy charge for their role in the occupation, joining 12 others already arraigned on that charge.

9:55 a.m.: Fry says he is declaring a one-man war on the U.S. government, saying he wants "liberty or death."

9:51 a.m.: The moderators continue to try to persuade Fry to leave.

9:48 a.m.: Fry says he is feeling suicidal.

9:45 a.m.: David Fry says unless his grievances are heard, he will not come out. The feed moderators, identified as Gavin Seim, who calls himself a constitutional activist, and KrisAnne Hall, a prominent national face of the so-called patriot movement, are encouraging him to follow through and leave the encampment.

9:43 a.m.: Jeff Banta is heading out, according to the feed.

9:40 a.m.: Sandy and Sean Anderson have been arrested, according to the refuge live feed.

9:38 a.m.: Sean Anderson says the occupiers are walking out.

9:34 a.m.: Sean Anderson says on the refuge's live stream that the FBI is telling the four remaining occupiers to come out one at a time.

9:15 a.m.: Blaine Cooper, a member of the core group that took over the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge on Jan. 2, has been arrested, his wife wrote on Facebook on Thursday morning. Cooper's wife, Melissa Cooper, was also among the group occupying the bird sanctuary over the past month. Cooper said Friday that he had not been home since he left the refuge Jan. 26 after learning that Finicum had been killed at a law-enforcement roadblock. A spokeswoman with the FBI in Portland declined to confirm or deny that Cooper had been arrested Thursday morning.

9:03 a.m.: Bundy will make his first appearance in U.S. District Court in Portland at 1:30 p.m. Thursday. Bundy, 74, will appear on federal charges stemming from the 2014 standoff at his ranch in Nevada.

8:40 a.m.: Nevada Assemblywoman Michele Fiore, a high-profile supporter of the Bundy family, said she and Christian evangelist Franklin Graham are traveling to the refuge. Fiore's trip to Oregon is in apparent response to a call from Ammon Bundy, who asked elected officials from across the West to come to the aid of the occupiers.

On her website, Fiore lists job creation, reducing business regulation and taxation and defending Second Amendment rights as among her priorities. She often displays her support for gun rights on social media. Last November, she promoted a 2016 calendar on Twitter that shows her with a firearm for every month of the year.



Follow the latest on Twitter: Oregonian/OregonLive reporters are tweeting updates from Burns:


Here is an overview of the refuge:





Click for larger image

LONE PROTESTOR THREATENS ON-AIR SUICIDE, REFUSES TO LEAVE OREGON REFUGE

Kit Daniels | Infowars - FEBRUARY 11, 2016

IMAGE CREDITS: PUBLIC DOMAIN.

David Fry, the 27-year-old best known for live streaming the last days of the Oregon standoff, is the last remaining Oregon protestor and refuses to leave the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge.

Fry is defying both the FBI and Nevada lawmaker Michele Fiore, the latter of whom has spent most of the morning attempting to convince him to walk out of the refuge peacefully.

“I’m actually pointing a gun at my head right now,” he said during the livefeed. “I’m tired of living here.”

“I told you exactly what I’d do: I’d hold up a pistol and kill myself.”

Fry decided to remain at the refuge as the other three protestors, Sean Anderson, Sandy Anderson and Jeff Banta, walked unarmed and one at a time to meet Fiore, the Rev. Franklin Graham and at least three FBI agents near the entrance to the refuge.

“There’s a lot going through my mind right now,” he added later.

This story is developing.

You can listen here:

Ammon Bundy Speaks to Elected Representatives

YouTube | February 11, 2016



Ammon Bundy speaks to elected Representatives to investigate land rights issues.

Maine Makes Welfare Recipients Work for it. Guess What Happens Next…

Louder With Crowder | Steven Crowder | February 9, 2016

Welfare is the left’s favorite entitlement.

Because if they keep you dependent on the government, you’ll have to vote for them over and over again. It’s brilliant really. In Maine, they tried something different. Sometimes families need help, but if you’re single, able-bodied and want to live on the taxpayer’s dime… they’re going to make you work for it. Uh oh…

The results are…not at all shocking if you have any common sense.

Job openings for lower-skill workers are abundant in Maine, and for those ABAWD recipients who cannot find immediate employment, Maine offers both training and community service slots. But despite vigorous outreach efforts by the government to encourage participation, most childless adult recipients in Maine refused to participate in training or even to perform community service for six hours per week. When ABAWD recipients refused to participate, their food stamp benefits ceased. 

In the first three months after Maine’s work policy went into effect, its caseload of able-bodied adults without dependents plummeted by 80 percent, falling from 13,332 recipients in Dec. 2014 to 2,678 in March 2015.

So let me get this straight:

Able-bodied young men (or women) have been receiving a free ride from the government in Maine for a long time now.

Conservatives often bemoan the leftist welfare state.

In turn, leftists state that Conservatives are just mean who want to kick people who are down on their luck and keep all of the monies for all of themselves.

Conservatives respond with the novel concept that they believe people should earn their living, and that many welfare recipients are perfectly capable of doing so.

Leftists respond with “Nuh-uh. TOP 1%!!!!”

When put directly into practice in Maine, Conservatives are proven to be entirely correct, as able-bodied adults refuse to perform even a minimal amount of work to receive their once-free welfare checks. It’s almost like… these people deserve to be unemployed.

Now compare this whole experiment to Europe where welfare recipients are encouraged to have more sex, and others complain that the welfare isn’t enough. Also, Europe is riddled with rape, crime and financial ruin.

Hmmmmm… maybe Maine is on to something.

US intelligence chief: we might use the internet of things to spy on you

The Guardian | Spencer Ackerman and Sam Thielman | 9 February 2016 16.51 EST

The US intelligence chief has acknowledged for the first time that agencies might use a new generation of smart household devices to increase their surveillance capabilities.

As increasing numbers of devices connect to the internet and to one another, the so-called internet of things promises consumers increased convenience – the remotely operated thermostat from Google-owned Nest is a leading example. But as home computing migrates away from the laptop, the tablet and the smartphone, experts warn that the security features on the coming wave of automobiles, dishwashers and alarm systems lag far behind.

The government just admitted it will use smart home devices for spying.

In an appearance at a Washington thinktank last month, the director of the National Security Agency, Adm Michael Rogers, said that it was time to consider making the home devices “more defensible”, but did not address the opportunities that increased numbers and even categories of connected devices provide to his surveillance agency.

However, James Clapper, the US director of national intelligence, was more direct in testimony submitted to the Senate on Tuesday as part of an assessment of threats facing the United States.

“In the future, intelligence services might use the [internet of things] for identification, surveillance, monitoring, location tracking, and targeting for recruitment, or to gain access to networks or user credentials,” Clapper said.

Clapper did not specifically name any intelligence agency as involved in household-device surveillance. But security experts examining the internet of things take as a given that the US and other surveillance services will intercept the signals the newly networked devices emit, much as they do with those from cellphones. Amateurs are already interested in easily compromised hardware; computer programmer John Matherly’s search engine Shodan indexes thousands of completely unsecured web-connected devices.

Online threats again topped the intelligence chief’s list of “worldwide threats” the US faces, with the mutating threat of low-intensity terrorism quickly following. While Clapper has for years used the equivocal term “evolving” when asked about the scope of the threat, he said Tuesday that Sunni violent extremism “has more groups, members, and safe havens than at any other point in history”.


The Islamic State topped the threat index, but Clapper also warned that the US-backed Saudi war in Yemen was redounding to the benefit of al-Qaida’s local affiliate.

Domestically, “homegrown extremists” are the greatest terrorist threat, rather than Islamic State or al-Qaida attacks planned from overseas. Clapper cited the San Bernardino and Chattanooga shootings as examples of lethal operations emanating from self-starting extremists “without direct guidance from [Isis] leadership”.

US intelligence officials did not foresee Isis suffering significant setbacks in 2016 despite a war in Syria and Iraq that the Pentagon has pledged to escalate. The chief of defense intelligence, Marine Lt Gen Vincent Stewart, said the jihadist army would “probably retain Sunni Arab urban centers” in 2016, even as military leaders pledged to wrest the key cities of Raqqa and Mosul from it.

Contradicting the US defense secretary, Ashton Carter, Stewart said he was “less optimistic in the near term about Mosul”, saying the US and Iraqi government would “certainly not” retake it in 2016.

The negative outlook comes as Carter traveled on Tuesday to meet with his fellow defense chiefs in Brussels for a discussion on increasing their contributions against Isis.

On the Iran nuclear deal, Clapper said intelligence agencies were in a “distrust and verify mode”, but added: “We have no evidence thus far that they’re moving toward violation.”

Clapper’s admission about the surveillance potential for networked home devices is rare for a US official. But in an overlooked 2012 speech, the then CIA director David Petraeus called the surveillance implications of the internet of things “transformational … particularly to their effect on clandestine tradecraft”.

During testimony to both the Senate armed services committee and the intelligence panel, Clapper cited Russia, China, Iran, North Korea and the Islamic State as bolstering their online espionage, disinformation, theft, propaganda and data-destruction capabilities. He warned that the US’s ability to correctly attribute the culprits of those actions would probably diminish with “improving offensive tradecraft, the use of proxies, and the creation of cover organizations”.

Clapper suggested that US adversaries had overtaken its online capabilities: “Russia and China continue to have the most sophisticated cyber programs.”

The White House’s new cybersecurity initiative, unveiled on Tuesday, pledged increased security for nontraditional networked home devices. It tasked the Department of Homeland Security to “test and certify networked devices within the ‘Internet of Things’.” It did not discuss any tension between the US’s twin cybersecurity and surveillance priorities.

Connected household devices are a potential treasure trove to intelligence agencies seeking unobtrusive ways to listen and watch a target, according to a study that Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society released last week. The study found that the signals explosion represented by the internet of things would overwhelm any privacy benefits by users of commercial encryption – even as Clapper in his testimony again alleged that the growth of encryption was having a “negative effect on intelligence gathering”.

The report’s authors cited a 2001 case in which the FBI had sought to compel a company that makes emergency communications hardware for automobiles – similar by description to OnStar, though the company was not named – to assist agents in Nevada in listening in on conversations in a client’s car.

In February 2015, news reports revealed that microphones on Samsung “smart” televisions were “always on” so as to receive any audio that it could interpret as an instruction.

“Law enforcement or intelligence agencies may start to seek orders compelling Samsung, Google, Mattel, Nest or vendors of other networked devices to push an update or flip a digital switch to intercept the ambient communications of a target,” the authors wrote.

California grants driver's licenses to 605,000 undocumented

Yahoo News | February 9, 2016

(AFP Photo/David McNew)

Los Angeles (AFP) - Some 605,000 undocumented immigrants who live in California were granted driver's licenses in 2015, the first year they have been able to enjoy that benefit, officials said Monday.

The law known as AB60 took effect on January 2, 2015. The California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) expects a total of about 1.4 million people will get their license under the law by late 2017.

Governor Jerry Brown, a Democrat, signed the law in October 2013 to give a legal document to the 2.5 million undocumented immigrants in California alone -- most from Latin America and particularly neighboring Mexico.

California officials believe the program -- which does not give license holders any US federal benefits -- does make roads in the most populous US state safer, several state sources said.

It does not allow license holders, for example, the right to fly on airplanes inside the United States, nor does it give anyone legal residency status, the right to work or to seek a US passport.

But among the upsides are that California drivers with the document can drive legally across the entire vast United States, without being fined or facing fear of having their vehicle impounded.

"If you can approve policies that integrate immigrants, I think it's a win-win for all people in a big state like California," said Luis Alejo, a California Assembly Member and author of the bill.

A total of 12 of the 50 US states plus the federal capital Washington have similar driver's license laws for undocumented immigrants.

Obama Urges Congress to Approve TPP ‘This Year’; Leading Presidential Candidates Oppose It

CNS News | By Patrick Goodenough | February 4, 2016 | 4:17 AM EST

After trade ministers from the U.S. and 11 other countries on either side of the Pacific on Thursday signed one of the biggest trade deals in history, President Obama called on Republicans and Democrats to approve it “this year.”

Obama said in a statement he would “continue working with Democrats and Republicans in Congress to enact it [the Trans-Pacific Partnership] into law as soon as possible so our economy can immediately start benefiting from the tens of billions of dollars in new export opportunities.”

“We should get TPP done this year and give more American workers the shot at success they deserve and help more American businesses compete and win around the world,” he said.

Obama clearly has the November election in mind: Leading candidates in both parties oppose the TPP while the deal has supporters and critics on both sides of the aisle in Congress.

America’s 11 partners in the TPP, which has been under negotiation for five years, are Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, and Vietnam. All 12 countries must now ratify it.

At the signing ceremony in Auckland, New Zealand, U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman expressed confidence that Congress would approve the deal.

“We are working with members of Congress, working with the leadership of Congress, educating everybody as to what’s in the agreement, addressing their questions and concerns,” he said.

“And I’m confident that at the end of the day, because of the strong benefits to the U.S. economy – which have been estimated to be over $130 billion a year in GDP growth, as well as more than $350 billion in additional exports – that members of Congress will see the benefits for their constituents and we’ll have the necessary bipartisan support to be approved,” Froman said.


Democratic primary frontrunner Hillary Clinton moved from backing the TPP while secretary of state – saying in 2012 that it set “the gold standard in trade agreements” – to rejecting it last July.

Her socialist opponent, Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, pledged last October to “lead the effort to defeat” the TPP.

Republican frontrunner Donald Trump has called the TPP “a horrible deal,”charging during a Fox Business Network debate last November that it was “designed for China to come in, as they always do, through the back door and totally take advantage of everyone.”

(Sen. Rand Paul accused Trump of mistakenly saying China was a TPP member although Trump did not exactly do so; TPP critics have warned that China may later join the original 12 members. Nonetheless, Politifact ratedTrump’s statement untrue.)

Among the other GOP candidates, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush has been most supportive of the trade deal.

Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida voted last June in favor of Trade Promotion Authority (TPA), giving the president “fast track” authority to negotiate agreements like the TPP. Later in the year he declared himself “generally very much in favor of free trade” but said he would need to understand the details of the TPP “before we can commit to voting for something. But generally, it’s very positive.”

Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas voted against the TPA. After not taking a position in favor or against the TPP for months, he said in Iowa in November that he would vote against the trade pact.

Among others in the GOP pack, the TPP has the support of neurosurgeonBen Carson (“with reservations”) and of Ohio Gov. John Kasich, who has called it “critical.”

Former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina last June voiced skepticism about the TPP, and also cited concerns that China could join later.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is on the record as saying he generally believes in free trade but that he has “real concerns about this president’s ability to negotiate anything that represents a great deal for America.”

$19 Trillion and Counting: The Dangers of Unlimited Debt

Veronique de Rugy | Reason - FEBRUARY 4, 2016

The statutory limit on how much debt the federal government can accumulate is back in the news, but this time it's not because Washington is close to breaching it. That's not a present concern thanks to the year-end bipartisan spending spree that included a suspension of the debt limit until March 2017. The news is that a report from the House Financial Services Committee found that the Obama administration's Treasury Department has been repeatedly misleading the American public on the matter.

Treasury has routinely rejected the idea that once the government reaches the debt limit, federal spending could be prioritized to avoid a default. During a previous debate over the debt limit in 2011, my colleague Jason Fichtner and I wrote a paper explaining that even if Treasury is unable to issue more debt, it can still avoid a default and thus give policymakers more time to implement reforms that would put the government on a more sustainable fiscal path.

Contrary to Treasury's claims, we argued that it has several financial management options to continue paying the government's primary obligations. Specifically, Treasury could use incoming tax receipts to cover high priority claims including the interest on existing debt, the principal on that debt, Social Security benefits, and more. Government assets could also be liquidated to pay bills.

Treasury claimed that such options were neither acceptable nor feasible, and thus the only choice was for Congress to promptly agree to increase the debt limit. Then-Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner claimed that prioritizing was out of the question and that failing to pay any of the government's bills would be the equivalent of defaulting on the debt. The same thing happened again during the administration's 2013 showdown with Congress over lifting the debt limit. This time it was Geithner's replacement, Jacob Lew, claiming that prioritization was not an option.

We now know that the administration's claims were untrue. As it turns out, documents subpoenaed by the House Financial Services Committee reveal that during the 2013 debt ceiling debate the Obama administration knew it was actually capable of prioritizing payments. Indeed, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York was conducting "tabletop exercises" in preparation for what the administration was publicly stating couldn't be done. The documents show that while Treasury was helping the administration scare the public, its behind-the-scenes actions proved otherwise.

While Treasury and the administration's deceptive behavior is disturbing, it's good news for the next battle over lifting the debt limit early next year. I have repeatedly made it clear in the past that I believe defaulting on the debt is not an acceptable option. However, continuing to raise the debt limit without making any substantive changes to the unsustainable financial path we are on is just as irresponsible. Under the watch of both Republicans and Democrats, the debt limit has been raised 20 times since 1993. The result is that the federal debt has ballooned from less than $5 trillion in 1993 to $19 trillion and counting today.

Deficits are also going back up thanks to a bipartisan inability to get spending under control. According to the Congressional Budget Office's latest projections, cumulative annual budget deficits will add another $9.4 trillion in debt to the federal government's mountain of red ink. That figure is $1.5 trillion higher than the CBO projected less than six months ago.

Will Rogers once said, "If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging." Policymakers need to stop digging and instead implement institutional reforms that constrain government spending, which is the underlying cause of the mounting debt. Indeed, that should be a precondition to raising the debt limit next year. And this time we will know that Treasury has the means to give Congress the time to finally get it done.

COPYRIGHT 2016 CREATORS.COM

THE MEN BEHIND TED CRUZ: NEOCONS AND A CIA PROPAGANDIST

Kurt Nimmo | Infowars - FEBRUARY 4, 2016

Ted Cruz, the junior Senator from Texas and presumptive Republican presidential nominee, is routinely billed by the mainstream media as a Tea Party outsider who is reviled by fellow Republicans as a “wacko bird” along with Kentucky Senator Rand Paul and GOP Rep. Justin Amash of Michigan.

It is not simply his wife’s connection to Goldman Sachs and investment banking or his unreported loan from the multinational investment banking firm, however, that betrays this image.

A closer look at Cruz reveals he is a neocon insider, not a renegade outsider.

His campaign manager, Chad C. Sweet, co-founded the Chertoff Group with former Bush and Obama administration Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff. Sweet, as a leader of the Chertoff Group, “advocated for expanding NSA metadata collection,” according to his bioon the risk-management and security consulting company’s webpage.

“Mr. Sweet formerly served as the Chief of Staff of the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Prior to becoming Chief of Staff of DHS, Mr. Sweet worked as an investment banker at the firms of Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs as well as served in the CIA’s National Clandestine Service,” the bio continues.

Cruz’s foreign policy advisor is the notorious neocon James Woolsey, the former director of the CIA during the Clinton administration. Woolsey is connected to the now largely defunct Project for the New American Century (PNAC), a think tank with an agenda formulated by top neocons William Kristol and Robert Kagan. PNAC was at the forefront of the Bush administration push to invade Iraq. He is a former vice president of the defense contractor Booz Allen Hamilton and an advocate of the neocon hardline on Iran.

Ted’s foreign policy team includes Elliot Abrams, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and the son-in-law of Norman Podhoretz, a trailblazing neoconservative ideologue. Abrams was a key adviser on Mideast policy at the National Security Council (NSC) during the George W. Bush presidency and also a staunch advocate of the Iraq invasion, the hardline on Iran and military strikes against the government of Bashar al-Assad in Syria.

Finally, the man in charge of public relations for the Cruz campaign is Dan P. Gabriel, a former CIA covert action officer and a founding partner of Applied Memetics, a company “focused solely on developing engineered influence for clients seeking to alter their tactical or strategic operational environments,”according to its webpage. The company specializes in propagating memes that ”can move through the cultural sociosphere in a manner similar to the contagious behavior of a virus,” in other words Applied Memetics specializes in propaganda.

The latest Cruz meme is working hard to convince followers of Rand Paul, who dropped out of the race in the wake of the Iowa caucus, that Cruz “is the natural inheritor of the modern libertarian movement built by Ron Paul, which was especially resonant here in New Hampshire, where the elder Paul won second place four years ago,” CNN reports.

“Cruz’s entreaties appear to be paying off. A number of state legislators—in places ranging from here in New Hampshire to the Paul family’s Texas—signed onto the Cruz team.”

Ted Cruz is not even remotely a libertarian. He is a neocon masquerading as a champion of liberty. If nominated and elected he will continue the forever war agenda initiated by the Bush regime and further expand the high-tech surveillance police state.

Unfortunately many Republicans, desperate to beat Hillary Clinton and the Democrats in November, are buying into the illusion.

LAVOY FINNICUM: THE FBI’S DROP GUN

Infowars - FEBRUARY 3, 2016

The spokesman for the occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon was shot nine times by the FBI.

It should be no surprise the FBI would shoot an unarmed man nine times.This is often their modus operandi, especially with individuals the national police state agency considers political enemies—and the band of constitutionalists at Malheur, no matter how misdirected or naive, were certainly considered enemies of the state.

Now it comes out that the gun the FBI said they retrieved from Finnicum’s body—a body so bullet-riddled it necessitated a closed coffin—was in fact stolen.

The Pacific Patriots Network did a search of the weapon’s serial number and discovered it was stolen, although this crucial fact is not being reported by an establishment media that has consistently portrayed Finnicum and the other activists at the refuge as dangerous terrorists.

The over the top murder of Finnicum and a subsequent video released by the FBI are intended to send a message to the patriot movement and constitutionalists.

The message: if you go up against the federal government, if you question its dictatorial and unconstitutional policies and if you actively resist or engage in behavior to draw attention to its pathological criminality, you will be executed, particularly if you provide the FBI with an opportunity, as Finnicum did when he traveled to a meeting unarmed to resolve the standoff.

THE TRUTH BEHIND FEDERAL LAND GRABS

David Knight & Kit Daniels | Infowars - FEBRUARY 3, 2016

IMAGE CREDIT: PUBLIC DOMAIN

Is the federal government so desperate to monopolize land that it’s literally burning down the forests they are supposed to manage?

Infowars interviewed Oregon logger Tad Houpt, with the Grant Co. Forest Commission, who had organized the meeting where Ammon Bundy, LaVoy Finicum and others were going to speak to 400 people and the Grant Co. Sheriff before Finicum was killed by the FBI and the other speakers were arrested.

“This last summer we had the biggest fire we’ve ever had here, 110,000 acres,” Houpt said. “I was one of the people who got burned out; close to 50 homes burnt.”

He believes this happened because the forests managed by the U.S. Forest Service are “a disaster.”

Houpt also mentioned there were “about 2 tons [per acre] of light fuels [dead trees & other organic matter] on the ground are known to be acceptable and the live trees will withstand the fire,” but he added that “some areas of the federally managed lands exceed 500 tons per acre of fuel on the ground,” i.e. 250 times the safe limit.

“I’m telling you this is intentional,” he said. “If a jet liner crashes there’s an immediate investigation into what caused that jet liner’s crash.”

“These fires are happening all over the western U.S. and there’s no investigation, they don’t even want to talk about what’s causing them and it’s their policies [that] are 100% causing these fires.”

And perpetuating the fire dangers and the resulting economic hardships are the BLM’s arbitrary rules, such as the ban on cutting trees greater than 21 inches in diameter — even if a tree is burned and dead.

Instead of providing lumber and livelihood for loggers, dead trees greater than 21 inches in diameter will be allowed to remain, increasing the fuel on the ground and the danger and intensity of future fires.

This is all part of Agenda 21, which is intended to force people out of rural areas and into large cities where they can be easily taxed and controlled.

Signed in 1992 by President George H.W. Bush and later phased in by President Bill Clinton, the United Nations Agenda 21 Sustainable Development program is based on communitarianism, which calls for government to eventually take control of all land use without leaving any decision making in the hands of private property owners.

“It is assumed that people are not good stewards of their land and the government will do a better job if they are in control,” Agenda 21 expert Rosa Koire wrote, who is a Californian Democrat and the author of Behind The Green Mask: U.N. Agenda 21. “Individual rights in general are to give way to the needs of communities as determined by the governing body.”

And if you already live in an urban area, you may already be familiar with some key aspects of Agenda 21:

– The accelerated implementation of toll roads, especially toll roads that discourage driving by increasing prices for traveling alone or for driving in “congested” areas

– The development of expensive and inefficient public rail systems in cities in order to increase centralized government control while also reducing the use of private transportation

– Utilities monitored by “Smart Meters” which can be controlled remotely by public utility companies

– The purposeful lack of easy freeway access in cities so residents remain close to their neighborhoods

Another good example of how Agenda 21 is currently being implemented is to look at the mass construction of “mixed use” condos which feature retail stores on the ground floor with several residential floors above.

These buildings are designed to restrict people from traveling by placing businesses within walking distance – and, interestingly, medieval serfs were likewise not able to travel long distances.

And, despite being fiction, the megacities in the comic series Judge Dredd feature many planned aspects of Agenda 21, a scary scenario even if real cities never completely match these fictional counterparts.

The overall intent of Agenda 21 is to expand government power at the expense of individual liberties by moving the population out of rural areas and packing them into major cities where they are more dependent on city infrastructure controlled by the government.

While Agenda 21 proponents constantly harp that the program is “voluntary,” it is a moot point when so many cities are already implementing Agenda 21 which clearly benefits the government at the expense of its citizens.

“The plan is to restrict your choices, limit your funds, narrow your freedoms and take away your voice,” Koire added.

U.S. eyes ways to toughen fight against domestic extremists

Reuters | By Julia Harte, Julia Edwards and Andy Sullivan | February 4, 2016

Department of Justice

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Justice Department is considering legal changes to combat what it sees as a rising threat from domestic anti-government extremists, senior officials told Reuters, even as it steps up efforts to stop Islamic State-inspired attacks at home.

Extremist groups motivated by a range of U.S.-born philosophies present a "clear and present danger," John Carlin, the Justice Department's chief of national security, told Reuters in an interview. “Based on recent reports and the cases we are seeing, it seems like we’re in a heightened environment.”

Over the past year, the Justice Department has brought charges against domestic extremist suspects accused of attempting to bomb U.S. military bases, kill police officers and fire bomb a school and other buildings in a predominantly Muslim town in New York state.

But federal prosecutors tackling domestic extremists still lack an important legal tool they have used extensively in dozens of prosecutions against Islamic State-inspired suspects: a law that prohibits supporting designated terrorist groups.

Carlin and other Justice Department officials declined to say if they would ask Congress for a comparable domestic extremist statute, or comment on what other changes they might pursue to toughen the fight against anti-government extremists.

The U.S. State Department designates international terrorist organizations to which it is illegal to provide "material support." No domestic groups have that designation, helping to create a disparity in charges faced by international extremist suspects compared to domestic ones.

A Reuters analysis of more than 100 federal cases found that domestic terrorism suspects collectively have faced less severe charges than those accused of acting on behalf of Islamic State since prosecutors began targeting that group in early 2014.

Over the past two years, 27 defendants have been charged with plotting or inciting attacks within the United States in the name of Islamic State. They have faced charges that carried a median prison sentence of 53 years - half of the defendants faced more, and half faced less.

In the same period, 27 adherents of U.S.-based anti-government ideologies have been charged with similar activity. They faced charges that carried a median prison sentence of 20 years.

Carlin said his counter-terrorism team, including a recently hired counsel, is taking a “thoughtful look at the nature and scope of the domestic terrorism threat” and helping to analyze “potential legal improvements and enhancements to better combat those threats.”

The counsel, who was appointed last October and has not been named publicly, will identify cases being prosecuted at the state level that “could arguably meet the federal definition of domestic terrorism," a Justice Department official said.

That would give the department a direct role in more domestic extremism cases.

Recognizing that domestic threats were “rapidly evolving, and had the potential to grow,” the department in March 2015 rated disrupting such terrorists as a key component of its broader counter-terrorism efforts, officials said.

THE THREAT PENDULUM

The Justice Department aggressively pursued domestic extremists after Timothy McVeigh bombed a federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995, killing 168 people.

The government shifted its focus to international terrorism after al Qaeda killed nearly 3,000 Americans on Sept. 11, 2001.

But in recent years anti-government activists, like those who occupied a wildlife preserve in eastern Oregon last month, have regained prominence.

As law enforcement experts confront domestic militia groups, "sovereign citizens" who do not recognize government authority, and other anti-government extremists, they also face a heightened threat from Islamic extremists like the couple who carried out the Dec. 2 shootings in San Bernardino, California.

"A new development we're seeing is that when it comes to ISIL investigations, the flash-to-bang time from radicalization to action appears to be happening faster than with other types of terrorists," said Michael Steinbach, the head of the FBI’s Counterterrorism Division.

As a result, government agents are quick to investigate people who appear sympathetic toward Islamic State, current and former officials say. But some say the government has been overzealous in its pursuit of Islamic State suspects.

Similar actions by extremist suspects have yielded sharply disparate sentences.

Eight Islamic State-related defendants have been sentenced so far, to prison terms that range from three to 20 years, the Reuters review found. Over the same period, 18 domestic extremists have been sentenced to terms from one day to 12 years.

Prosecutors say Harlem Suarez, 23, of Key West, Florida, tried to buy a bomb last year from an undercover FBI agent as he plotted attacks on behalf of Islamic State. He faces a possible sentence of life in prison and has pleaded not guilty.

Michael Sibley, 67, left two unexploded pipe bombs and a Koran in a park in Roswell, Georgia in 2014 in what he later told police was an attempt to highlight the danger of Islamic terrorism. He pleaded guilty and faces a maximum of five years in prison.

"A different standard is being applied to Muslims than to other people," said Daryl Johnson, a former counterterrorism expert at the Department of Homeland Security who now works as a law enforcement consultant.

"SPRING-LOADED"

Steinbach said that the FBI can never open up any type of investigation “just on the basis of race, creed, or religion,”

But he added that federal agents are "spring-loaded" to open investigations into Americans who support groups on the State Department list of designated terrorist organizations.

The maximum penalty for supporting one of these groups has been raised from 10 years to 20 years in prison since 2001.

It has been applied in 58 of the government's 79 Islamic State cases since 2014 against defendants who engaged in a wide range of activity, from traveling to Syria to fight alongside Islamic State to raising money for a friend who wished to do so.

Judges usually issue sentences below the maximum, but some charges trigger sentencing "enhancements" that raise the baseline sentence a judge can issue – and the material support charge raises it more than most.

Domestic groups enjoy greater constitutional protections because being a member of those groups, no matter how extreme their rhetoric, is not a crime.

Prosecutors can bring “material support” terrorism charges against defendants who aren't linked to groups on the State Department's list, but they have only done so twice against non-jihadist suspects since the law was enacted in 1994. The law, which prohibits supporting people who have been deemed to be terrorists by their actions, carries a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison.

Current and former federal prosecutors say they rarely consider that statute in domestic terrorism cases because it is often hard to convince a jury that someone who is not affiliated with a foreign group can be guilty of terrorism.

William Wilmoth, a former federal prosecutor who invoked that law in a 1996 case against a West Virginia militia member, said he was surprised to hear that it isn't used more often.

"These guys have every right to have off-center political views," he said. "But when they made affirmative steps to blow up an actual federal facility... we thought it was an important place for us to go and prosecute."



(Reporting by Julia Harte, Julia Edwards and Andy Sullivan; editing by Stuart Grudgings)

So it begins here: U.S. city 'overrun' with criminal refugees

WND News | LEO HOHMANN | FEBRUARY 3, 2016

IMAGE CREDITS: FLICKR, SYRIAFREEDOM.

More than 120 people braved the snow and ice Monday to rally in front of the Missoula County Courthouse, protesting an effort by the Obama administration and its army of community organizers to plant foreign “refugees” into small cities in western Montana.

One of the speakers was a woman who moved recently to Montana from Amarillo, Texas, which has been inundated with thousands of refugees over the past 15 years.

“Amarillo is overrun with refugees,” said Karen Sherman, who stood and spoke to the crowd amid blowing wind and falling snowflakes. Sherman just moved to Missoula, a college town that serves as home to the University of Montana.

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It’s a far cry from Amarillo, which she described as a city of rampant crime and cracking social fabric, thanks to the heavy influx of refugees sent there by the U.S. State Department in cooperation with the United Nations.

“Our city is failing because of the refugees. We have 22 different languages spoken in our schools. We’ve got 42 languages being fielded by our 9-1-1 call centers, and crime is just through the roof. We need to exercise caution, especially for the sake of our children,” she said.

The protesters carried signs that read, “Christian Refugees 2 Christian Nations, Muslim Refugees 2 Muslim Nations, That’s Only Fair,” and “Refugee Resettlement Means Big $$$ – No Accountability.”

Sherman said Amarillo, a city of just more than 200,000 people, has gang violence that has surpassed that of much larger Texas cities such as Fort Worth. She fears U.S. cities like Amarillo and Minneapolis, Minnesota, could be in line to become the next Rotherham, England, or Cologne, Germany, or Stockholm, Sweden, where mass rapes by Muslim men have gained much attention in Europe.

Touching off a rape epidemic

Amarillo was recently named the fifth most dangerous city in Texas, according to FBI crime statistics, up from sixth last year. And it has been nationally recognized as having one of the highest rates of rape in the nation.

That’s a dubious distinction that Sherman believes is tied to the high number of Muslim refugees shipped there by the U.S. government.

“The rape epidemic in this world is becoming pandemic. It’s not confined to one location. Fifteen years ago in Norway, rape was unheard of. Now it’s an epidemic,” Sherman said. “The perpetrators are 100 percent Muslim males. In Sweden, rape has gone up by 500 percent. Stockholm recently had the dubious honor of opening their very first rape center for men and boys.”

In the northern U.K. city of Rotherham, more than 1,400 children have been beaten, raped and trafficked in a well-documented turn of events that has gone largely unreported in the U.S.

“It was covered up by the local government for fear of being viewed as racist. This only came to light because a journalist decided we needed to know about that, not the government,” she said, referring to the rape scandal that unraveled in England in 2014, when it was revealed by media that gangs of mostly Pakistani men had been sexually assaulting English girls for years while police covered it up for fear of being perceived as “anti-Muslim.”

“You can have female equality, or you can have refugees. You cannot have both,” Sherman said.

Pamela Geller wrote the field manual for activists seeking to protect their community from Islamic supremacy encroachment in “Stop the Islamization of America: A Practical Guide to the Resistance.”

Too late to save Texas?

Texas Gov. Greg Abbot has called for a stop to the influx of refugees, but it’s too late, she said. The program continues unabated because, if even one refugee is present in the U.S., he is entitled under current law to bring in his entire extended family.

“It’s called family reunification,” Sherman said.

Texas’ GOP Gov. Greg Abbott has tried to turn off the refugee spigot but it may be too late.

She said America, founded on Judeo-Christian principles of tolerance and respect for one’s fellow man, should not expect people from Third World cultures to share those values.

“If people don’t choose to follow the law, you cannot hire enough police officers,” she said.

“Whether you believe (in the Judeo-Christian God) or not, your values and your principles were influenced by that. Now we’re asking that these people come here, who have been taught for thousands of years of violence and hatred, and we’re expecting them to come here and assimilate to our way of life,” Sherman told the crowd gathered in Missoula. “This is a dangerous and foolish expectation.”

Watch video of Karen Sherman describing the life she left behind in Amarillo, Texas.

Amarillo has received 5,251 foreign refugees since January 2002, according to the federal refugee database. That's more than half of the nearly 8,000 refugees sent to Texas during that period.

President Obama has increased the number of foreign refugees bound for American soil in fiscal 2016 to 85,000. That's a 20 percent increase over the previous year, and 10,000 will come from the jihadist hotbed of Syria.

WND reported last week that two groups are working to resettle Syrian refugees in Montana. One group, WorldMontana, is working in Helena and the other, Soft Landing Missoula, is working in Missoula.

Caroline Solomon drove more than 100 miles to Missoula Monday from her home in Big Fork, Montana, to participate in the rally.

"About four people (from her group) didn't make it because of weather, but we think there were about 125 people on our side and about six with signs calling us 'racists,'" she said.

Softening up the soil

Soft Landing Missoula is working with city and county officials to bring Third World refugees to Montana while the state's Act For America chapter and other activists are trying to stop that from happening. Soft Landing, like most of the non-governmental organizations working with the government to plant refugees into U.S. cities, is working with churches and faith-based groups behind the scenes to create an atmosphere that is more "welcoming" of refugees.

David Lubell of Welcoming America works closely with the White House to soften up the soil in cities targeted to receive an influx Muslim refugees.

Many of the community organizers have received training or consultation from David Lubell's Welcoming America organization, which was started with seed money from billionaire George Soros. Lubell is a close adviser to President Obama's "New Americans" initiative, which seeks to convert millions of refugees and recent immigrants into U.S. citizens with full voting privileges.

The modus operandi used by resettlement agencies usually involves sending a handful of refugees at first and then gradually increasing the influx to hundreds per year.

Mary Poole, who represents Soft Landing, Missoula, told KGVO News Radio that many immigrants have settled in Missoula over the past 30 years. She compared the mostly Middle Eastern migrants from Muslim countries like Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq to the Hmong refugees fleeing communist Vietnam in the late 1970s and early '80s.

"We’ve successfully resettled a Hmong community, as well as Belorussians and Ukrainians, who are now members of our community and part of the fabric of Missoula," Poole told KGVO. "We’re just working on revamping the infrastructure that has already existed here."

But according to the federal database, the state of Montana has not received any refugees since 2008, and only 61 have been sent there since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Montana resistance follows backlash in Idaho

Other small towns in the West have similarly struggled to oppose the plans of urban elites to import what they see as the problems of the Third World into their communities.

In Sandpoint, Idaho, City Council members voted last Wednesday to withdraw a resolution supporting refugee resettlement, bringing an end to a heated, month-long debate over whether that was a wise move. It had the full backing of Sandpoint Mayor Shelby Rognstad.

Cheers erupted from the audience when the newly elected Sandpoint mayor capitulated, asking the council to withdraw his resolution from consideration. His resolution was meant to counter statements from county commissioners and the local sheriff opposing the refugees. Rognstad said his resolution was intended to restate Sandpoint's commitments to "human rights."

"This resolution has only served to divide us and this community,” said Rognstad, as he requested the withdrawal. "That saddens me."

But others see the situation in reverse. They see nonprofits and NGOs, often flush with government grant money, coming in and stirring up controversy within their once-peaceful communities.

In Twin Falls, Idaho, Chobani opened the world's largest yogurt factory and gave 30 percent of the 600 jobs to foreign refugees, and the federal government has plans to send 300 more refugees, this time from Syria, to the Twin Falls area. That touched off a backlash from a group called 3 Percent of Idaho, which organized a protest at the Idaho Statehouse in late November that attracted more than 1,000 people from both sides of the issue.

If the past record is any indication, the groups seeking to bring Third World refugees to small town America will not be easily chased off by people with signs.

In fact, the pro-refugee Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, put together a field manual in 2013 on how to deal with "pockets of resistance" in the American heartland. One of the strategies in that manual is to research the backgrounds of resistors and identify them as "anti-Muslim" racists.

A WND report from May 2015 exposed the HIAS strategy to deride and intimidate any politician or activist who opposes the refuge industry's agenda to change the demographics of a town.

The HIAS report, titled “Resettlement at Risk: Meeting Emerging Challenges to Refugee Resettlement in Local Communities," calls for "new tools to fight back against a determined legislator or governor who has decided to challenge resettlement for political or other reasons."