Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Our Children Don’t Want to Live Under the New World Order

truther February 26, 2013 0

Dave Hodges -  thecommonsenseshow
Growing up is filled with challenges, disappointments, excitement and anticipation of the future. Growing up should contain some measure of enjoyment and the self-satisfaction that the pride in our own personal growth can bring. However, for too many of our soon-to-be young adults, life is filled with misery, disappointment and a sense of hopelessness. Society is responsible for providing an environment which fosters growth and the freedom to explore one’s limits. And for decades, America produced children which surpassed the accomplishments and life-style of the previous generation. Unfortunately, this is no longer the case.
Our Children Don’t Want to Live Under the New World Order
At one time in this country, parents formed the backbone for child development along with teachers and clergy. Today, the influences on our youth are not what they should be.
Today, where do these influences come from? A Gallup Poll from the late1950′s asked teens to rate their biggest influences on their attitudes and lives and they listed these variables in the following order:
1. Parents       2. Church     3. Teachers                         4. Peers          5. Media
Fifty years later, this same survey produced the following results:
1 & 2. Peers and media were in a virtual tie  
3. Parents   4. Teachers    5. Church
(information derived from a conference presentation on child safety sponsored by Arizona States in 2006).

Something Is Terribly Wrong

Increasingly for our young people, the world is not a safe place. In many areas of the country suicide has replaced car accidents as the leading cause of death.
There are an estimated 8-25 attempted suicides for each suicide death. Therefore, the suicide rate is only small representation of the hopelessness being experienced by the younger generation. The misery index in this country for our young people is off the charts.
teen suicide 2Since 1968, suicides for people aged 15-24 have risen over 300% Suicide in now the second leading cause of death United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and many countries of Western Europe. Russia, Vietnam and India are experiencing similar increases.
What is the number one reason why teens are killing themselves? The straightforward and simple answer is that they have a foreboding sense of hopelessness.  Life is bleak and meaningless and all their cell phones, IPADs and X-Box games can not fill the void of emptiness.Hopelessness is the number one predictor of suicide.

This Is Not the Way It Is Supposed To Be

Traditionally, when teens grow into adulthood, they begin to learn that they have a measure of control over their life. Through trial-and-error, teens gain knowledge and acquire the tools necessary to solve their problems in the best way that they could. In the past, when we felt hopeless, we pulled through our crises with the resources we had at our disposal and with the support from friends and family. Increasingly, that support has all but eroded.
For teenagers, their overwhelming sense of hopelessness is enough to cause them to take their own lives. Most teens who survive suicide attempts say that they tried to kill themselves because they were trying to escape a situation that seemed impossible to deal with, or they were trying to escape overwhelming feelings like rejection, guilt, anger, or sadness in which they lacked any significant degree of control.

Even Our Brave Young Warriors Do Not Want To Live In This World

teen suicide 3 veteransOne cannot watch a sporting event or a newscast without some praise being made in relation to our brave young warriors. Despite the glorification of our troops, a U.S. military veteran commits suicide every 65 minutes, or at the rate of 22 per day. When a young man or woman enlists to defend their country, they are idealistic. However, when serving one of their many tours in Afghanistan, they are ordered to guard the opium fields and to not fire upon the drug lords as they pass through military checkpoints. It is easy to understand that these young people can quickly lose their sense of duty and retreat into a lonely world where they trust nobody and their only goal is to survive.
When they are discharged from the service, they return to a nation which has a destroyed economy along with corrupt leaders who make the veterans question their service to their country. Most veterans, as in past wars, are riddled with guilt for the traumatic acts of survival that they had to engage in. However, unlike most of our past wars. they come to learn that their service is a charade and they do not serve the American people and our national interests. Rather, they come to know that they serve the  stockholders of the oil companies, Goldman Sachs and the corrupt elite that run this planet. This is why Pat Tillman was murdered, because he was going to tell all and the military brass could not allow a person of this standing to reveal the true agenda of the war. Tillman could have become a one man TET offensive, which could have ultimately brought down support for the war in Vietnam.
One could argue that the post-traumatic stress of dealing with combat issues is the major reason why these veterans are killing themselves in record numbers. That might be considered to be true if this was America’s first war. However, compared to all the past wars, both popular and unpopular, our veterans are choosing suicide as a solution for living in a dehumanized world with no hope in record numbers. Children and veterans see through the deceit faster than the rest of us who are blinded by television and new media propaganda.

What Is the Solution?

Teenagers and veterans are the canaries in the mine. By their suicides, children and veterans are telling us how bad our world stinks. The solutions for these mental health issues does not lie within individually treating depression and accompanying suicidal symptoms. The problem I am describing here is systemic and global, not individual in its causation. Our new-found collectivist society is the culprit which is robbing of us our freedom and self-determination.That is the problem. It is inherent for humans to be free and without freedom, life becomes meaningless.
The New World Order controls society with its mindless entertainment with everything from American Idol, to the Oscars, to the NFL, and the propaganda machines of the networks and in our public schools are working overtime in an attempt to get children to accept their place in the NWO with an accompanying loss of freedom in the name of serving the “greater good” of collectivism.
Our children and our veterans are telling us that they do not want to live in this world and neither should you. I am not endorsing suicidal behavior. However, It is only a matter of time until all of us feel the same pervasive sense of hopelessness. IF you do not care about living in the squalor, filth and moral decadence that is the NWO, then maybe the welfare of your children should jolt you into action.

Conclusion

hopeThe hopelessness spreading across the country and planet is approaching epidemic levels. But what would you expect when the Satanists, we call the NWO, are running the planet. The cesspool that is now defines our planet is the result of living in a world with largely no morals and no spirituality.
If you want to see things change, then change yourself by rediscovering your spirituality and living a moral life. For when we all do this, it will not make any sense for us to accept the immorality of those who would be our global masters.
Maybe if our teens saw us standing up to the immorality, they might see a ray of hope in their future. Maybe, if we demanded that our government reach out to our vets instead of incarcerating and drugging them for incorrect political views, maybe they would want to rejoin society upon completion of their service. Maybe if we collectively grew a backbone and took our world back from Satan, we could live out our lives in the manner that our creator intended.
Start now! Pick out one cause that you can get behind and put everything you have into that cause. Whether it is the End the Fed movement, or forcing term limits on Congress, it does not matter. Do something, do it with others so our numbers can grow, before it is too late.

Gaining Momentum: Now 44 Gun Companies Have Stopped Selling to Law Enforcement In Anti-2nd Amendment States

truther February 26, 2013 6

Mike Opelka
The Blaze
The list of companies that have stopped selling firearms and ammunition to law enforcement agencies in states that are restricting the Second Amendment has more than doubled since Wednesday and is more than five times larger than just one week ago. There are 44 companies on our list, with more being added as we receive notification. Here are the additions since Wednesday:
Gaining Momentum Now 44 Gun Companies Have Stopped Selling to Law Enforcement In Anti-2nd Amendment States
Here’s a sample of statements from some of the recent additions to the list as well as the positions of the companies that have reached out to TheBlaze directly to declare their policy shift:
List Gun Companies Not Selling To Law Enforcement Is Growing Faster
Steve Adelmann of Citizen Arms shared the following from his company’s statement, made the day after New York changed its laws:
 ”Due to legal, ethical and moral concerns, Citizen Arms offers only those custom firearms that are legal for all lawful citizens of a given state to possess, regardless of law enforcement status. LE personnel living in states where citizens must have restrictive features will only receive like product support from Citizen Arms. We’re very appreciative of the sacrifices made by the law enforcement community but we’re even more appreciative of the right guaranteed to all law-abiding US citizens by the Second Amendment to the US Constitution: A well regulated militia, necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed”.
List Gun Companies Not Selling To Law Enforcement Is Growing Faster
On February 20th, as our story was hitting the web, Ronnie Barrett, the Chairman and CEO of Barrett Firearms posted his company’s position statement on their Facebook page:
Barrett’s Position Regarding the Assault on Liberty
Barrett opposes those who are illegally disarming the American public from their efficient arms and creating superior armed elitist government agencies.
Elected state officials of New York, having been sworn to protect our Constitution, have instead committed an offense against it and their citizens by stripping inalienable rights duly protected and guaranteed under th…e Second Amendment. By their deliberate and sinister actions, these officials now cause their state and local policing agencies to enforce these unconstitutional and illegal so called “laws”.
By current law, Barrett cannot be an accomplice with any lawbreaker, therefore, cannot and will not service or sell to New York government agencies. Barrett also applies this stance to the individual elected official who, as a matter of public record, has voted for or created regulation that violates the constitutional rights of their citizens. This is an expansion of our 2002 ban against the California government due to their second amendment infringements, and shall apply to any future violators.
In the course of world history there have been officials that strip inalienable rights from the people that were given to all by our Creator. Most of these officials inevitably come to trial, some do not.
Intentionally violating constitutional rights by officials that have sworn to uphold them should have severe prison sentences.
With the clear vision of horrible events in history repeating itself, all manufacturers of firearms or related equipment remaining in partnership with such violators should have a respectable fear of being found with the guilty on their day of trial.
During this era of assault on liberty, Barrett will remain steadfast in our efforts to serve law-abiding citizens of all fifty states, and stands together with you in the struggles we will fight and win.
List Gun Companies Not Selling To Law Enforcement Is Growing Faster
Jeffrey Norton of Norton Firearms not only sends a message about the Second Amendment, but also reminds folks that our rights come to us from “our US Constitution and our Creator.”
Norton Firearms, Inc. is a strong defender of the US Constitution, not only the 2nd amendment. We believe that a government that restricts it Citizens from executing their Constitutional Rights is no longer a government for the people or by the people. It is our policy not to sell our products or services to any organization that tries to diminish the rights given to us by our US Constitution and our Creator. If you are a government agency with a policy of restricting our Constitutional Rights we ask that you take our tax dollars and spend it somewhere else. I am sure there is some profiteering communist foreign company that will be glad to take our dollars for their gain. We will only sell to law abiding, Citizens and those agencies that truly support and will defend The US Constitution.
List Gun Companies Not Selling To Law Enforcement Is Growing Faster
Doug Prince of Evolution Weaponry told TheBlaze, “Evolution Weaponry is proud to say you can add us to that list.”
I am a US Army veteran. I received a medical discharge due to combat related injuries after 6 years of service. I am a strong believer in American veterans, the US Constitution and individual liberty. My service to this country is among my greatest accomplishments in my life to this point and I carry what I have learned from that into every endeavor I undertake.
List Gun Companies Not Selling To Law Enforcement Is Growing Faster
Arizona’s Kiss Tactical’s Facebook page also carries a story about denying a California police officer’s request to purchase an AR-15.
On Saturday I refused to sell a AR-15 rifle to a police officer from California. He came into my shop and wanted to buy his duty gun in AZ because the same gun in his home state would cost him more. I told him that I would not sell him the gun even though he had his department letter saying he was able to buy it. I told him that if the gun was not legal for law abiding men and women in CA, I would not sell it to him. after he told me that “civilians don’t need them type of guns” I asked to leave my shop. as he stomped out mad.
List Gun Companies Not Selling To Law Enforcement Is Growing Faster
Doublestar Corporation (which includes J&T Distributing, DoubleStar Corp., Ace Limited, and the DoubleStar Training Academy) will also be unavailable to law enforcement and government agencies in states suppressing citizen’s rights.
Effective immediately, the J&T Family of Companies will be joining other manufacturers and distributors by ceasing sales of regulated items in states that have altered the rights of citizens to keep and bear arms.
There are also a host of smaller outlets taking a stand.
List Gun Companies Not Selling To Law Enforcement Is Growing Faster
Witness the recent news from Old Grouch’s Military Surplus in North Carolina:
In support of our customers in the state of New York, effective today we are cancelling all orders to any state or municipal government agency customers in the New York and will accept no more. While we can’t stop the trampling of rights that is occurring there, we certainly can make sure we don’t assist in it in any way going forward.

Conn. lawmakers ask Zuckerberg to take down Newtown Facebook pages

truther February 26, 2013
Washington Times
Three lawmakers from Connecticut have written a letter to Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg requesting that pages being used to harass or exploit the families of the victims of the Newtown shootings be taken down.
“It has come to our attention that Facebook has received multiple requests from grieving Newtown families to remove Facebook pages being used to harass them or to exploit their loss,” wrote Sens. Christopher Murphy and Richard Blumenthal, as well as Rep. Elizabeth Esty, whose district includes Newtown. “Many give the appearance they were created by loved ones in the names of the victims. Unfortunately, many of these pages have become vehicles for harassment, intimidation and possibly financial fraud. Pages providing platforms for people to violate the privacy of families as they grieve, or seek financial gain through soliciting donations under false pretenses, or generating Facebook ‘likes’ for marketing purposes, should not be given quarter in the Facebook community.”
Conn lawmakers ask Zuckerberg to take down Newtown Facebook pages
The Greenwich Time reported that dozens of unofficial tribute pages have been created in the name of Victoria Soto, one of the teachers killed in the mass shooting that claimed the lives of 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in December.
On another page dedicated to 29-year-old Kaitlin Roig, who saved 15 of her first-grade students by hiding them in a bathroom, a conspiracy theorist posted a photo of a “crisis actress” bearing a resemblance to Ms. Roig, the paper reported. Ms. Roig was a guest of Jill Biden at this year’s State of the Union address.
The three lawmakers claim that the pages violate the company’s terms of service and request that they be taken down.
“The horrific Newtown tragedy shocked and shook Connecticut and the nation, capturing hearts worldwide,” they wrote. “Unfortunately it also apparently attracted less worthy attention. We recognize that Facebook receives a large volume of reports and requests each day, but this issue deserves and needs priority enforcement of your own well-established policies. We trust you will do the right thing.”
A Facebook spokeswoman said the company has already been on top of the situation — reviewing and taking action where warranted — and that it has had a system in place for months.
Hours after the shootings occurred, Facebook reached out to law enforcement to provide assistance, and on Sunday the company briefed Connecticut Attorney General George Jepsen about its efforts to protect the families.“We continue to work closely with his office, the families, and the foundation representing the victims of Sandy Hook to ensure that we respond as quickly as possible to concerns,” said company spokeswoman Jodi Seth.
“We also created a new, streamlined, customized process with dedicated staff to allow concerns specific to the Sandy Hook tragedy to be addressed directly and immediately, while also recognizing that people across the country want to express grief for a terrible national tragedy. For the past few months, our rapid response team has acted swiftly to remove inappropriate materials flagged by the foundation and the families. We will continue to be vigilant.”

Will Italy Be The Spark That Sets Off Financial Armageddon In Europe?

Will Italy Be The Spark That Sets Off Financial Armageddon In EuropeIs the financial collapse of Italy going to be the final blow that breaks the back of Europe financially?  Most people don't realize this, but Italy is actually the third largest debtor in the entire world after the United States and Japan.  Italy currently has a debt to GDP ratio of more than 120 percent, and Italy has a bigger national debt than anyone else in Europe does.  That is why it is such a big deal that Italian voters have just overwhelmingly rejected austerity.  The political parties led by anti-austerity candidates Silvio Berlusconi and Beppe Grillo did far better than anticipated.  When you combine their totals, they got more than 50 percent of the vote.  Italian voters have seen what austerity has done to Greece and Spain and they want no part of it.  Unfortunately for Italian voters, it has been the promise of austerity that has kept the Italian financial system stable in recent months.  Now that Italian voters have clearly rejected austerity, investors are fearing that austerity programs all over Europe may start falling apart.  This is creating quite a bit of panic in European financial markets right now.  On Tuesday, Italian stocks had their worst day in 10 months, Italian bond yields rose by the most that we have seen in 19 months, and the stocks of the two largest banks in Italy both fell by more than 8 percent.  Italy is already experiencing its fourth recession since 2001, and unemployment has been steadily rising.  If Italy is now "ungovernable", as many are saying, then what does that mean for the future of Italy?  Will Italy be the spark that sets off financial armageddon in Europe?
All of Europe was totally shocked by the election results in Italy.  As you can see from the following excerpt from a Bloomberg article, the vote was very divided and the anti-austerity parties did much better than had been projected...
The results showed pre-election favorite Pier Luigi Bersani won the lower house with 29.5 percent, less than a half a percentage point ahead of Silvio Berlusconi, the ex-premier fighting a tax-fraud conviction. Beppe Grillo, a former comedian, got 25.6 percent, while Monti scored 10.6 percent. Bersani and his allies got 31.6 percent of votes in the Senate, compared with 30.7 percent for Berlusconi and 23.79 percent for Grillo, according to final figures from the Interior Ministry.
So what do those election results mean for Italy and for the rest of Europe?
Right now, there is a lot of panic about those results.  There is fear that what just happened in Italy could result in a rejection of austerity all over Europe...
"I think the election results (or lack thereof) are a negative for the euro, which will likely keep the currency pressured for some time," Omer Esiner, chief market analyst for Commonwealth Foreign Exchange, told me. But it's not just the political uncertainty in Italy, he adds. "The shocking gains made by anti-establishment parties in Italy signal a broad-based frustration with austerity among voters and a decisive rejection of the policies pushed by Germany in nations across the euro zone's periphery. That theme revives unresolved debt crisis issues and could threaten the continuity of reforms across other countries in the euro zone."
And the financial markets have clearly interpreted the election results in Europe as a very bad sign.  Zero Hedge summarized some of the bad news out of Europe that we saw on Tuesday...
Swiss 2Y rates turned negative once again for the first time in a month; EURUSD relatively flatlined around 1.3050 (250 pips lower than pre-Italy); Europe's VIX exploded to almost 26% (from under 19% yesterday); and 3-month EUR-USD basis swaps plunged to their most liquidity-demanding level since 12/28. Spain and Italy (and Portugal) were the most hurt in bonds today as 2Y Italian spreads broke back above 200bps (surging over 50bps casting doubt on OMT support) and 3Y Spain yields broke above 3% once again. The Italian equity market suffered its equal biggest drop in 6 months falling back to 10 week lows (and down 14% from its end-Jan highs). Italian bond yields (and spreads) smashed higher - the biggest jump in 19 months as BTP futures volume exploded in the last two days.
Not that things in Europe were going well before all this.
In fact, the UK was just stripped of its prized AAA credit rating.  That was huge news.
And check out some of the other things that have been going on in the rest of Europe...
In Spain, a major real estate company, Reyal Urbis, collapsed last week, leaving already battered banks on the hook for millions of euros in losses. Meanwhile, the government faces a corruption scandal and a steady stream of anti-austerity demonstrations. Thousands of people took to the streets again on Saturday, protesting deep cuts to health and other services, as well as hefty bank bailouts.
Life is no better in a large swath of the broader EU. In Britain, Moody’s cited the continuing economic weakness and the resulting risks to the government’s tight fiscal policy for its rating cut. In Bulgaria, where the government fell last week and the economy is in a shambles, rightists who joined mass demonstrations across the country burned a European Union flag and waved anti-EU banners. Other austerity-minded governments in the EU face similar murky political futures.
At this point, Europe is a complete and total economic mess and things are rapidly getting worse.
And that is really bad news because Europe is already in the midst of a recession.  In fact, according to the BBC, the recession in the eurozone got even deeper during the fourth quarter of 2012...
The eurozone recession deepened in the final three months of 2012, official figures show.
The economy of the 17 nations in the euro shrank by 0.6% in the fourth quarter, which was worse than forecast.
It is the sharpest contraction since the beginning of 2009 and marks the first time the region failed to grow in any quarter during a calendar year.
But this is just the beginning.
The truth is that government debt is not even the greatest danger that Europe is facing.  In reality, a collapse of the European banking system is of much greater concern.
Why is that?
Well, how would you feel if you woke up someday and every penny that you had in the bank was gone?
In the U.S. we don't have to worry about that so much because all deposits are insured by the FDIC, but in many European countries things work much differently.
For example, just check out what Graham Summers recently had to say about the banking system in Spain...
It’s a little known fact about the Spanish crisis is that when the Spanish Government merges troubled banks, it typically swaps out depositors’ savings for shares in the new bank.
So… when the newly formed bank goes bust, “poof” your savings are GONE. Not gone as in some Spanish version of the FDIC will eventually get you your money, but gone as in gone forever (see the above article for proof).
This is why Bankia’s collapse is so significant: in one move, former depositors at seven banks just lost virtually everything.
And this in a nutshell is Europe’s financial system today: a totally insolvent sewer of garbage debt, run by corrupt career politicians who have no clue how to fix it or their economies… and which results in a big fat ZERO for those who are nuts enough to invest in it.
Be warned. There are many many more Bankias coming to light in the coming months. So if you have not already taken steps to prepare for systemic failure, you NEED to do so NOW. We’re literally at most a few months, and very likely just a few weeks from Europe’s banks imploding, potentially taking down the financial system with them. Think I’m joking? The Fed is pumping hundreds of BILLIONS of dollars into EU banks right now trying to stop this from happening.
Like Graham Summers, I am extremely concerned about the European banking system.  Europe actually has a much larger banking system than the U.S. does, and if the European banking system implodes that is going to send huge shockwaves to the farthest corners of the globe.
But if you want to believe that the "experts" in Europe and in the United States have "everything under control", then you might as well stop reading now.
After all, they are very highly educated and they know what they are doing, right?
But if you want to listen to some common sense, you might want to check out this very ominous warning from Karl Denninger...
I hope you're ready.
Congress has wasted the time it was given by the Europeans getting things "temporarily" under control.  But they didn't actually get anything under control, as the Italian elections just showed.
Now, with the budget over there at risk of being abandoned, and fiscal restraint being abandoned (note: exactly what the US has been doing) the markets are recognizing exactly the risk that never in fact went away over the last couple of years.
It was hidden by lies, just as it has been hidden by lies here.
Bernanke's machinations and other games "gave" the Congress four years to do the right thing.  They didn't, because that same "gift" also destroyed all market signals of urgency.
As such you have people like Krugman and others claiming that it's all ok and that we can spend with wild abandon, taking our fiscal medicine never.
They were wrong.  Congress was wrong.  The Republicans were wrong, the Democrats were wrong, and the Administration was wrong.
Congress is out of time; as I noted the deficit spending must stop now, irrespective of the fact that it will cause significant economic damage.
For the past couple of years, authorities in the U.S. and in Europe have been trying to delay the coming crisis by kicking the can down the road.
By doing so, they have been making the eventual collapse even worse.
And now time is running out.
I hope that you are ready.
Armageddon
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Historic 911 Court Case: Through Media Disinformation, BBC Supports “The Practice of Terrorism”

Tony Rooke refused to pay TV licence fee because the 'BBC covered up facts about 9/11 and claimed tower fell 20 minutes before it did'

911TRUTH2
With the exception of London’s Daily Mail (see below), the British mainstream media, including The Guardian and the Independent,  chose to abstain from coverage or commentary of this historic court case, which points to a criminal process of media disinformation by the BBC.
The BBC chose to “cover up its own coverup.”  Not a single word from the BBC  to justify or explain or refute their lies, particularly regarding the collapse of WTC building 7 which had been announced by the BBC 20 minutes before the collapse took place, suggesting that the BBC and other media had advanced knowledge of the collapse of a WTC building 7 which was not even struck by an aircraft. 
This is one among a string of BBC media fabrications including fake images and video footage. 
We will recall that in August 2011, the BBC showed fake video footage of Libyans celebrating “Liberation” in Tripoli’s Green square, following NATO’s humanitarian bombings. Oops. They were waving Indian flags.  They are not Libyans but Indians. “We made a mistake”, assuming that the British public would not see the difference.
It is our hope that Tony Brooke’s initiative will encourage people across the United Kingdom to question the legitimacy of the TV Licence fee, which supports an organization involved in outright war propaganda on behalf of the British government. 
Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, February 25, 2013


 Tony Rooke represented himself at Horsham Magistrates’ Court in Sussex   
Told inspector on visit in May 2012 that he would not be paying licence fee Rooke said he was withholding fee under Section 15 of Terrorism Act 2000 
This states it’s an offence for someone to provide funds used for terrorism   He said he didn’t want to give money to an organisation ‘funding terrorism’   
Rooke said BBC claimed World Trade Centre 7 fell 20 minutes before it did 
But judge made Rooke pay £200 costs and gave him conditional discharge
By Mark Duell
Wouldn’t pay: Tony Rooke (pictured at Horsham Magistrates’ Court today), did not want to give money to an organisation ‘funding the practice of terrorism’
Wouldn’t pay: Tony Rooke (pictured at Horsham Magistrates’ Court today), did not want to give money to an organisation ‘funding the practice of terrorism’
A 49-year-old man refused to pay his TV licence because he believed the BBC covered up facts about the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Fan base: Around 100 supporters of Tony Rooke arrived at Horsham Magistrates' Court in West Sussex to watch the court case - although only 40 could pack into the public gallery

Tony Rooke, who represented himself today at Horsham Magistrates’ Court in West Sussex, said he did not want to give money to an organisation ‘funding the practice of terrorism’.
Happy: Speaking outside court, Rooke said he was 'pleased' with the outcome, 'all things considered'Rooke, who admitted owning a TV and watching it without a licence, was found guilty of using an unlicensed set, given a six-month conditional discharge and told to pay £200 costs.
He was visited in May 2012 by an inspector after withdrawing his licence in March, but said he was withholding the funds under the Terrorism Act.
Section 15 of the 2000 Act states that it is an offence for someone to invite another to provide money, intending that it should be used, or having reasonable cause to suspect that it may be used, for terrorism purposes.
‘I am withholding all funds from the BBC, the Government and subsidiaries under Section 15 of the Terrorism Act,’ he told the inspector.
He added that he had already lodged a complaint with the BBC.
Rooke told the court: ‘I believe the BBC, who are directly funded by the licence fee, are furthering the purposes of terrorism and I have incontrovertible evidence to this effect. I do not use this word lightly given where I am.’
He was not allowed to show his pre-prepared video evidence in court because the District Judge said it was not relevant to the trial.
But the major point Rooke said he relied upon was that the BBC allegedly reported that World Trade Centre 7 had fallen 20 minutes before it did.
Fan base: Around 100 supporters of Tony Rooke arrived at Horsham Magistrates’ Court in West Sussex to watch the court case – although only 40 could pack into the public gallery
Fan base: Around 100 supporters of Tony Rooke arrived at Horsham Magistrates’ Court in West Sussex to watch the court case – although only 40 could pack into the public gallery
He also made reference to a theory about the way the skyscraper was said to have fallen in on itself, which some people believe showed signs of a controlled demolition.
Mr Rooke said: ‘The BBC reported it 20 minutes before it fell. They knew about it beforehand. Last time I was here I asked you (the judge): “Were you aware of World Trade Centre 7”?
Happy: Speaking outside court, Rooke said he was ‘pleased’ with the outcome, ‘all things considered’
‘You said you had heard of it. Ten years later you should have more than heard of it. It’s the BBC’s job to inform the public. Especially of miracles of science and when laws of physics become suspended.
‘They have made programmes making fools of and ridiculing those of us who believe in the laws of gravity. American reports have shown that the fall was nothing but a controlled demolition.
‘I am not looking at who demolished it – that is impossible – but the BBC actively tried to hide this from the public.’
Not paying a TV licence under Section 363 of the Communications Act is a strict liability offence, said Garth Hanniford, prosecuting. He asked Rooke why he continued to watch the BBC with no licence.
Rooke said: ‘Ignorance is not an excuse – I need to know what these people are saying.’ He later added: ‘You are asking me to commit a crime if you are asking me to pay.’
Around 100 supporters arrived at Horsham Magistrates’ Court today to watch the court case – although only 40 could pack into the public gallery.
The court called in back-up from Sussex Police with two officers standing at the door to the court and several more outside. There was cheering and applause as Rooke put his case forward in court.
District Judge Stephen Nicholls said: ‘This is not a public inquiry into 9/11. This is an offence under section 363 of the Communications Act.’
He said he had difficulty sitting in the magistrates’ court as he ‘did not believe he had the power to rule under the terrorism act’.
He said: ‘Even if I accept the evidence you say, this court has no power to create a defence in the manner which you put forward.’
Sentencing, Judge Nicholls said: ‘Mr Rooke puts the basis of his defence under Section 15 of the Terrorism Act, effectively asking the court to find the BBC is a terrorist organisation and that if he continues to pay them he himself is committing a criminal offence.
‘I have explained to Mr Rooke even if I were to accept his evidence I would be unable to find a defence.’
Speaking outside court, Rooke said he was ‘pleased’ with the outcome, ‘all things considered’.

Articles by: Daily Mail

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The 1993 World Trade Center Bombing: Decoys, Aliases and NeoConspiracy Theories

RamziYousef
Like so many major terrorist attacks, the World Trade Center (WTC) bombing of February 1993 occurred shortly after the US presidential election.  The incoming Bill Clinton was confronted with a new menace: Islamic terror had for the first time carried out a major strike on US soil.  The first new president after the end of the Cold War and the previous president’s announcement of a ‘new world order’ was within weeks given a stark reminder that with the Soviet Union out of the way the US still faced a clear and present danger. 
Of course, I speak rhetorically.  Six people died in the blast, and while it was tragic for their bereaved families and painful for the over 1000 people injured, the bark was worse than the bite in this attack.  The bomb built by Ramzi Yousef shocked many, and managed to destroy a surprisingly large amount of the underground parking garage at the WTC, but given that the idea was to topple one tower into the other potentially killing 250,000 people, it was a miserable failure. Nonetheless, the bombing remains the subject of much conjecture, some well evidenced and some not, and served to implant the idea in the American and Western consciousness of Islamic terrorists attacking the WTC.
The Blind Sheikh
The first major port of call in any investigation of the bombing, or telling of the story, is the Blind Sheikh, Omar Abdel Rahman. He was the leader of the Egyptian Islamic Group (IG, or al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya), at the time perhaps the largest overtly militant Islamic group in the country. The crackdown following the assassination of Anwar Sadat had produced in typically polarising fashion a backlash in favour of Islamic radicalism. That this happened at the same time as the extremely well-funded NATO effort to use radical Islam as a weapon against the Soviet Union is no coincidence. 
Towards the end of the 1980s, as the Soviet-Afghan war was coming to its inevitable conclusion, the Blind Sheikh escaped from house arrest in Egypt and paid several visits to the US.  Specifically, he fostered a following at the Al-Kifah Refugee Centre at the Al Farooq moseque in New York.  Al-Kifah was the local branch of the Maktab Al-Khidamat or Services Office for the Mujahideen in Afghanistan, and was central to the process by which young men were recruited, moved around the world for training and ultimately deployed against the Soviets. 
The CIA has remained tight-lipped about their involvement in Al-Kifah but given the timing of its development, its location and the fact that their agents posing as consular officials arranged the visas that allowed the Blind Sheikh to enter the US, it is obvious that they were at the least happy about Rahman’s growing influence there.  In April and May 1989 US officials secretly met with followers of the Blind Sheikh in Egypt, including a lawyer representing the group.  The cables recording these meetings were signed by Frank Wisner — the US ambassador to Egypt and the son of the veteran of CIA black ops.  A year later the Blind Sheikh moved to New York permanently.
Six months after that El Sayyid Nosair, a follower of Rahman, assassinated prominent rabbi Meir Kahane, founder of the Jewish Defence League and a former FBI informant.  A few weeks later the State Department revoked all of the Blind Sheikh’s visas, but nothing else happened to him.  Nosair was arrested but the investigation didn’t reach into the question of what was going on at the Al-Kifah.  Rahman was never arrested or deported.
A couple of months later the Emir of the Farooq mosque Mustafa Shalabi was murdered, almost 2 years to the day prior to the WTC bombing.  Rahman effectively took over the mosque and the Al-Kifah center at that point.  Meanwhile, notorious triple agent Ali Mohamed had been providing training sessions in intelligence and paramilitary operations to those who frequented the mosque, including Nosair.  He also trained virtually the entire group involved in and ultimately convicted for the WTC bombing.
The Decoy
It is at this point in the story that the alternative explanations of the bombing focus on one Emad Salem — a former Egyptian army officer recruited as an informant by the FBI.  He had infiltrated the Al-Kifah and the circle around the Blind Sheikh and was provided regular intelligence on what they were doing.  However, what almost every alternative theory about WTC93 gets wrong is that they claim Salem built the bomb that was used, usually based on a few seconds of audio of Salem talking to one of his FBI handlers, John Anticev.
In reality, Salem was fired by the FBI in bizarre circumstances in the summer of 1992.  He didn’t build the bomb – terrorists do not build a bomb and then wait around for six months before using it.  Exactly why Salem was fired is not clear, but when his original handler Nancy Floyd started asking questions the FBI leaked stories to the press that she was sleeping with Salem and ultimately subjected her to a career-damaging internal affairs investigation.  As a result, six months before the bombing the FBI lost their eyes and ears inside the Blind Sheikh’s group.
After the bombing, Salem was re-recruited by the FBI to infiltrate the Al-Kifah once more, which he did.  At that point he was paid a large sum of money to act as a sting operator, encouraging the Blind Sheikh to make incriminating statements that Salem secretly recorded, and encouraging Rahman’s followers to develop plans for terrorists attacks that they were then arrested for, and prosecuted and convicted.  The recordings of Salem talking with Anticev come from this period, spring-summer 1993.  When the FBI swooped in the summer of ’93, they arrested the Blind Sheikh and most of the group around him, and Salem’s evidence became the basis of the prosecution case.
At this point the State Department, having revoked the Blind Sheikh’s visas 2 1/2 years earlier in late 1990 but done nothing to him in the meantime, carried out a Office of the Inspector General (OIG) investigation of the decision to grant him the visas in the first place.  This involved trying to see the files in Cairo from the period when CIA agents were granting the visas, but the papertrail from the State Department is heavily redacted and it appears the 1993 OIG investigation never actually got to see the Cairo files.  Ultimately the OIG concluded that they didn’t know whether the decisions to grant the visas was correct because they couldn’t definitely say what was known at the time.  No one got blamed, everyone kept their jobs, it was business as usual.
With Salem functioning as something of a decoy in this story, the question remains: who did build the bomb used in the WTC?
A.K.A.
According to the official story, and his own extended confession, and much of the evidence, the real bomb-maker was Ramzi Yousef, born Abdul Basit but also known as Dr Paul Vijay, Dr Adel Sabah, Muhammud Azan, Rashid Rashid, Kamal Ibraham among many other pseudonyms.  Ramzi arrived in New York in September 1992, following six months training in Afghanistan in explosives.  He conveniently turned up just after Emad Salem had been removed from watching the Al-Kifah.  Trained in Britain in electrical engineering, Yousef was smart and capable and found in the Al-Kifah a willing reception committee for his plan to blow up something in New York.
Ramzi Yousef
That said, it wasn’t plain sailing.  In particular, Mohammed Salameh (convicted in the first of the three WTC trials) was a complete moron, managing to crash a car loaded with chemicals for making the bomb which resulted in Yousef ending up in hospital.  He also forgot to give Yousef the planned early morning wake-up call on the day of the bombing.  Nonetheless, this relatively ragtag group who were inspired by CIA asset the Blind Sheikh and trained by triple agent Ali Mohamed managed to pull off the bombing.
However, that is far from the end of the story.  For one thing the damage to the WTC was considerable — several floors were partly destroyed, including a 5000 square foot hole on one floor.  This suggests that the truck bomb may not have been the only explosive used at the WTC, that as in Oklahoma City there is a case for the prosecution case being true but being only part of the story.  What is certain is that there was no trace of the main explosive charge found in the rubble of the WTC explosion, and that the FBI explosives examiner David Williams essentially guessed at what explosive was used, and then modified his guesses to fit the prosecution evidence, and he repeatedly gave untrue testimony against Salameh et al in the 1994 trial.
Due to the whistle blowing efforts of Fred Whitehurst the Department of Justice OIG carried out an investigation into the crime lab, including Williams role in the WTC investigation which concluded that, ‘Williams gave inaccurate and incomplete testimony and testified to invalid opinions that appear tailored to the most incriminating result.’  While not all of Whitehurst’s complaints were upheld, it does put a few cracks in the official WTC bombing story. 
For another, who was Ramzi Yousef?  This international man of mystery was certainly not particularly religious, and enjoyed B-girls and brothels on his travels around the world.  He may well have been trained by Ali Mohamed, who according to multiple testimonies from trainees was in the same area of Afghanistan as Yousef for much of 1992.  When Yousef left New York on the evening of the WTC bombing he spent the next two years on the run from the FBI, travelling all over Asia carrying out various acts of terrorism before being brought to ground in February 1995.  How did he manage this?
It appears he had help from the ISI.  Simon Reeve’s remarkably prescient and accurate book The New Jackals, based on an extraordinary degree of access to the security services around the case only a year or two after Yousef had been convicted, records several instances of this.  When Yousef landed in Pakistan in May 1992 his fake Iraqi passport had the wrong seal on the visa, and yet he was waived through.  Similarly, when he and Ahmed Ajaj first entered the US on badly faked passports, Ajaj was arrested but Yousef was not, despite it being clear they were travelling together.  When Yousef’s Pakistani immigration records were checked as part of the WTC investigation, much of the paperwork had disappeared.  The implication is that someone was clearing a path for him.
NeoConspiracy Theories
Another misdirection in this story is the theory propounded by NeoConservative mouthpiece Laurie Mylroie, who claimed that Yousef was in fact an Iraqi spy.  Prior to the Iraq invasion of Kuwait, Yousef (then known as Abdul Basit) and his family lived in Kuwait, though ethnically they were Baluchi.  This is why another of Yousef’s pseudonyms, given to the FBI when he signed a waiver of his miranda rights, was Adam Baloch.  Due to discrepancies in official records on Yousef/Basit, Mylroie claimed that the invading Iraqi army killed Basit and his family and replaced him with a spy using the Basit/Yousef identity.  Who was between 4 and 6 inches taller and has never mentioned anything about being an Iraqi secret agent even though he’s now languishing in solitary confinment serving prison sentences amounting to hundreds of years and therefore has nothing to lose.
Mylroie has been widely criticised for this rather ridiculous theory, but she was still hired in 2005 to write a History of Al Qaeda for the Pentagon, and paid $75,000 for her trouble.  She once again put forth the theory that Iraq and Al Qaeda were closely related, that Yousef was an Iraqi spy, that Iraq bombed the WTC.  The problem was that following the NATO invasion of Iraq in 2003 a lot of Iraqi government files were seized, and they were published alongside two Pentagon studies in 2006-2008.
One file in particular is an audio recording and a transcript of a meeting between Saddam and his ministers where they discuss the WTC bombing.  There was no mention of Yousef, no hint of Iraqi involvement in the attack, nothing that would substantiate Mylroie’s daft and misguiding allegations, and quite a lot that contradicts her.  For one thing, one of the conspirators named Abdul Yasin fled to Iraq after the bombing but he was arrested by the Iraq authorities in 1994 and held until at least 2002, though he has not been heard from since then.
In the meeting, Saddam expressed how important it was that Yasin remain alive in custody, and not be killed or commit suicide.  Hussein did try to use Yasin as a bargaining chip with the Americans, but this always failed.  Saddam also discussed how it was possible that the American, Israeli or Saudi governments were really behind the WTC blast, and how the Iraq government should find ways to exploit the bombing through propaganda.  It was a remarkably explicit conversation, and yet nothing in any way backed up Mylroie’s contentions.
So what the hell happened?
With this concrete example of the story (or legend) of Ramzi Yousef being used to bolster a politically useful myth we are left to wonder what else in his story is not true.  After his arrest he provided extensive confessions, all of which fits in with most of the prosecution case against the WTC accused.  He even had a proffer session, recorded in an FBI 302, with the State’s Attorney’s office in New York where he outlined how he built and delivered the bomb.  It seems that he did actually bomb the WTC, though exactly why he did that, and why those who helped him did so remains something of a mystery.
That the WTC bombing in 1993 has been used to substantiate the Al Qaeda myth, and in particular the Iraq-Al Qaeda fantasy, does show that there is a degree of spook theatre to all of this.  The FBI were blindsided for reasons that have never been adequately explained, in largely the same way as happened in the run up to 9/11.  Whatismore, the 9/11 Commission’s records at the National Archives are woefully incomplete on the subject of the Blind Sheikh, with over 200 pages of CIA and State Department material withdrawn for National Security reasons.  The 9/11 Commission barely even acknowledged Ali Mohamed’s existence, let alone the importance of a triple agent who was close friends with Ayman Zawahiri and was so trusted by Bin Laden that he trained Osama’s bodyguards.
With a cover-up now lasting 20 years (20 years tomorrow at the time of writing) it is difficult to know exactly what happened and why the WTC was bombed in February 1993.  Nonetheless there is abundant material available on the case, which I have sought to whittle down to the key source material in the WTC93 Document Collection, a free e-book comprising nearly 250 pages of material and featuring an introduction explaining the relevance of each document.  There is no smoking gun, though it is interesting that in recent days a story has hit the headlines that Ramzi Yousef is suing for an explanation of why he is still subject to ‘special administration measures’, such as not being allowed to communicate with other people.  Unsurprisingly the news coverage has portrayed Yousef solely as an inhuman bomber who deserves to be treated inhumanely and has ignored the bigger picture, and maybe that was the point all along.

Articles by: Tom Secker

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Polluted America: GMO Manmade Biological Threats, Plant Diseases, Germ Warfare

gmofood
In the United States everything is polluted.
Democracy is polluted with special interests and corrupt politicians.
Accountability is polluted with executive branch exemptions from law and the Constitution  and with special legal privileges for corporations, such as the Supreme Court given right to corporations to purchase American elections.
The Constitution is polluted with corrupt legal interpretations from the Bush and Obama regimes that have turned constitutional prohibitions into executive branch rights, transforming law from a shield of the people into a weapon in the hands of government.
Waters are polluted with toxic waste spills, oil spills, chemical fertilizer run-off with resulting red tides and dead zones, acid discharges from mining with resulting destructive algae such as prymnesium parvum, from toxic chemicals used in fracking and with methane that fracking releases into wells and aquifers, resulting in warnings to homeowners near to fracking operations to open their windows when showering.
The soil’s fertility is damaged, and crops require large quantities of chemical fertilizers. The soil is polluted with an endless array of toxic substances and now with glyphosate, the main element in Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide with which GMO crops are sprayed.
Glyphosate now shows up in wells, streams and in rain.
Air is polluted with a variety of substances, and there are many large cities in which there are days when the young, the elderly, and those suffering with asthma are warned to remain indoors.
All of these costs are costs imposed on society and ordinary people by corporations that banked profits by not having to take the costs into account. This is the way in which unregulated capitalism works.
Our food itself is polluted with antibiotics, growth hormones, pesticides, and glyphosate.
Glyphosate might be the most dangerous development to date. Some scientists believe that glyphosate has the potential to wipe out our main grain crops and now that Obama’s Secretary of Agriculture, Thomas Vilsack, has approved genetically modified Roundup Ready alfalfa, maintaining sustainable animal herds for milk and meat could become impossible.
Alfalfa is the main forage crop for dairy and beef herds. Genetically modified alfalfa could be unsafe for animal feed, and animal products such as milk and meat could become unsafe for human consumption.
On January 17, 2011, Dr. Don Huber outlined the dangers of approving Roundup Ready alfalfa in a letter to Secretary of Agriculture Vilsack. Huber requested that approval be delayed until independent research could evaluate the risks. Vilsack  ignored the letter and accommodated Monsanto’s desire for monopoly profits that come from the company’s drive to control the seed supply of US and world agriculture by approving Roundup Ready alfalfa.
Who is Don Huber, and why is his letter important?
Huber is professor emeritus at Purdue University. He has been a plant pathologist and soil microbiologist for a half century. He has an international reputation as a leading authority. In the US military, he evaluated natural and manmade biological threats, such as germ warfare and disease outbreaks and retired with the rank of Colonel. For the USDA he coordinates the Emergent Diseases and Pathogens Committee. In other words, he is high up in his scientific profession.
You can read online what Huber told the Secretary of Agriculture.  Briefly, the outcome of many years of Roundup Ready GMO corn and soybeans has been a decline in nutritional value, the outbreak of new plant diseases resulting in widespread crop failures, and severe reproductive problems in livestock, with some herds having a spontaneous abortion rate that is too high to maintain a profitable business.
Glyphosate is a powerful biocide. It harms beneficial soil organisms, altering the natural balance in the soil and reducing the disease resistance of crops, thus unleashing diseases that devastate corn, soybean, and wheat crops, and giving rise to a new pathogen associated with premature animal aging and infertility.  These developments, Huber told the Agriculture Secretary, “are threatening the economic viability of both crop and animal producers.”  The evidence seems to be real that genetically modified crops have lost their genetic resistance to diseases that never previously were threats.
There is evidence that the new pathogen is related to a rise in human infertility and is likely having adverse effects on human health of which we are still uninformed. Like fluoride, glyphosate might enter our diet in a variety of ways. For example, the label on a bottle of Vitamin D says, “Other ingredients: soybean oil, corn oil.”
Monsanto disputes Huber’s claims and got support for its position from the agricultural extension services of Iowa State and Ohio State universities. However, the question is whether these are independently funded services or corporate supported, and there is always the element of professional rivalry, especially for funding, which comes mainly from agribusiness.
The Purdue University extension service was more circumspect. On the one hand it admits that there is evidence that supports Huber’s claims:  “The claim that herbicides, such as glyphosate, can make plants more susceptible to disease is not entirely without merit. Research has indicated that plants sprayed with glyphosate or other herbicides are more susceptible to many biological and physiological disorders (Babiker et al., 2011; Descalzo et al., 1996; Johal and Rahe, 1984; Larson et al., 2006; Means and Kremer, 2007; Sanogo et al., 2000; Smiley et al., 1992). . . .  Although some research indicates there is an increase in disease severity on plants in the presence of glyphosate, it does NOT necessarily mean that there is an impact on yield.”
On the other hand, the Purdue extension service maintains its recommendation for “judicious glyphosate use for weed control.”  However, one of Huber’s points is that weeds are developing Roundup resistance. Use has gone beyond the “judicious” level and as glyphosate builds up in soil, its adverse effects increase.
A submission to the Environmental Protection Agency by 26 university entomologists describes the constraints that agribusiness has put on the ability of independent scientists to conduct objective research. The submission, in which the scientists are afraid to reveal their names because of the threat of funding cutoffs, is included as an item in one of the bibliographical references below. Here is the statement:
“The names of the scientists have been withheld from the public docket because virtually all of us require cooperation from industry at some level to conduct our research.  Statement: Technology/stewardship agreements required for the purchase of genetically modified seed explicitly prohibit research. These agreements inhibit public scientists from pursuing their mandated role on behalf of the public good unless the research is approved by industry. As a result of restricted access, no truly independent research can be legally conducted on many critical questions regarding the technology, its performance, its management implications, IRM, and its interactions with insect biology. Consequently, data flowing to an EPA Scientific Advisory Panel from the public sector is unduly limited.”
Monsanto is not only sufficiently powerful to prevent any research other than that which it purchases with its funding, but also Monsanto succeeded last year in blocking with money and propaganda the GMO labeling law in California.  I would tell you to be careful what you eat as it can make you ill and infertile, but you can’t even find out what you are eating.
You live in America, which has “freedom and democracy” and “accountable” government and ”accountable” corporations.  You don’t need to worry. The government and responsible corporations are taking good care of you. Especially Obama, Vilsack, and Monsanto.
Short bibliography:
http://fhr.branditimage.com/hot-topic-letter-to-us-secretary-of-agriculture/
http://www.fooddemocracynow.org/blog/2011/apr/6/don-hubers-cover-letter-euuk-commissions/
http://www.greenpasture.org/utility/showArticle/?objectID=7169
http://ourecovillage.org/2011/04/11/dr-hubers-cover-letter-to-secretary-vilsack/
http://www.gmwatch.org/latest-listing/51-2012/14164-glyphosate-and-gmos-impact-on-crops-soils-animals-and-man-dr-don-huber
http://www.non-gmoreport.com/articles/may10/consequenceso_widespread_glyphosate_use.php
http://www.monsanto.com/newsviews/Pages/huber-pathogen-roundup-ready-crops.aspx
http://southeastfarmpress.com/resistant-pigweed-plagues-central-georgia-cotton
http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/blogs/time-for-usda-to-wake-up-to-weed-resistance-and-ban-agent-orange-corn-once-and-for-all/
http://southeastfarmpress.com/resistant-pigweed-plagues-central-georgia-cotton
http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/blogs/time-for-usda-to-wake-up-to-weed-resistance-and-ban-agent-orange-corn-once-and-for-all/

Supreme Court kills activists’ challenge to FISA spying law

5-4 decision holds groups can't sue unless they can prove they were spied on.

In 2008, Congress passed the "FISA Amendments Act," or FAA. This expanded the government's ability to use electronic surveillance on people located abroad—and, apparently, any Americans they're speaking to. A lawsuit was quickly filed by an array of civil rights groups, labor unions, and media organizations, including Amnesty International, the American Civil Liberties Union, The Nation magazine, the Service Employees International Union, and an international group of criminal defense lawyers.
The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, was originally designed to allow spying on the communications of foreign powers. But after the September 11 attacks, FISA courts were authorized to target a wide array of international communications, including communications between Americans and foreigners. While it's tough to know exactly what kinds of communications are being picked up under the FAA rules (because it's all been kept secret), the evidence suggests there has been widespread dragnet-style surveillance of phone calls originating in the US.
In this case, the plaintiffs' groups said their communications were likely being scooped up by the government's expanded spying powers in violation of their constitutional rights. Today's decision, a 5-4 vote along ideological lines by the nation's highest court, definitively ends their case. In an opinion [PDF] by Justice Samuel Alito, the court ruled that these groups don't have the right to sue at all, because they can't prove they were being spied on.
One by one, the legal challenges to expanded government spying in the post-9/11 era are failing in court. In another case—in which an organization did have concrete evidence of spying—the government came up with another legal theory to make the lawsuit go away. In a third case being litigated in a San Francisco federal court, government lawyers are trying to shut down a lawsuit brought by EFF lawyers by asserting the state secrets privilege.

Clapper v. Amnesty International: The case below

Even though they couldn't prove they were being surveilled, all of the plaintiffs argued that they were likely interacting with persons and groups outside the country who were being wiretapped—foreign sources for reporters, activists, and defendants in court cases. They argued they were getting wrapped up in an expanding government initiative of foreign and domestic data collection, and their due-process rights were being violated.
They lost their case in New York district court when a federal judge said they didn't have standing to sue because they couldn't prove they were personally being surveilled. They had nothing more than an "abstract fear that their communications will be monitored" under the new law, wrote the judge.
That order was overturned by a New York federal appeals court, which held that the groups were indeed being injured and should be allowed to sue. They had to take (costly) extra steps to avoid surveillance, and their fear that government agents were listening to them was not "fanciful, paranoid or otherwise unreasonable." It was "extremely likely" that the government would indeed "undertake broad-based surveillance" under the new law, and the advocacy and media groups had "good reason to believe that their communications" would be intercepted, said the appeals panel. The government didn't dispute the fact that those groups were communicating with "likely targets" of surveillance under the new law.

Justices say spying fears of journalists and lawyers are “speculative”

Justice Alito's opinion attacks the group's two main theories supporting their right to sue.
First, he says, there's doubt about whether any surveillance of these groups will take place at all. "It is speculative whether the Government will imminently target communications to which respondents are parties," he states.
Accordingly, it is no surprise that respondents fail to offer any evidence that their communications
have been monitored under §1881a, a failure that substantially undermines their standing theory.
The groups believe the government will target "their foreign contacts," but even that belief is speculative, he notes. "Respondents have no actual knowledge of the Government's... targeting practices." The opinion quotes statements from journalist Christopher Hedges, Scott McKay (an Idaho lawyer who successfully defended a Saudi national against terrorism charges), and previously represented Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the highest-profile detainee at Guantanamo. The journalist and lawyer state that because of the FISA Amendments Act, they have been forced to operate under the assumption that their communications are being monitored.
But because the plaintiffs "have set forth no specific facts demonstrating" their foreign contacts will be monitored, their argument fails. Even if the government did try to get their communications, they have no idea whether the FISA court would authorize that surveillance, the opinion states. Thus, the plaintiffs' theory rests of a "speculative chain of possibilities" that don't establish any impending injury.
As to the costs and burdens of avoiding potential surveillance, Alito is dismissive. "Respondents cannot manufacture standing merely by inflicting harm on themselves based on their fears of hypothetical future harm that is not certainly impending," Alito writes.
The majority opinion was joined by Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, and Anthony Kennedy, as well as Chief Justice John Roberts.
Four justices disagreed with today's ruling. Journalists, lawyers, and human rights researchers who collect information from foreigners "with knowledge of circumstances related to terrorist activities" are going to be a tempting target for the government's expanded powers, writes Justice Stephen Breyer. He is joined in a dissent by Justices Ruth Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan. 
"The Government, after all, seeks to learn as much as it can reasonably learn about suspected terrorists (such as those detained at Guantanamo), as well as about their contacts and activities, along with those of friends and family members," Breyer writes.
The government's future spying targets can also be reasonably guessed at based on past behavior, the dissenters suggest. Scott McKay notes that the US government already "intercepted some 10,000 telephone calls and 20,000 e-mail communications involving [his client] Mr. Al-Hussayen." McKay often has to travel abroad to avoid telephonic communication with foreign clients, which might be intercepted.
While the dissent doesn't express any opinion about the actual merits of the case, it argues that the plaintiffs should have been allowed to move forward with their case. The Supreme Court has found standing to sue in other cases, "where the occurrence of the relevant injury was far less certain than here," Breyer notes.
Further reading: documents from this case are available from privacy-rights group EPIC.