Police Arrest, Assault Family For Refusing To Open Home for Stakeout

A Nevada family is now suing the police department after they were raided, shot with “Pepperball rounds” and arrested for refusing to allow the police to set up a stake out in their home.

You are 8 times more likely to be killed by a police officer than by a terrorist

By JG Vibes
Intellihub.com
July 5, 2013
According to the family filing the lawsuit the police first called the residence to ask permission to occupy their home to gain a “tactical advantage” in a domestic dispute that occurred at a neighbors house. When the resident refused, the police bashed in the door shot “pepperball rounds” at him and his dog, then later arrested him and his elderly parents for “obstructing justice”.
According to the complaint:
Anthony Mitchell and his parents Michael and Linda Mitchell sued the City of Henderson, its Police Chief Jutta Chambers, Officers Garret Poiner, Ronald Feola, Ramona Walls, Angela Walker, and Christopher Worley, and City of North Las Vegas and its Police Chief Joseph Chronister, in Federal Court.
Henderson, pop. 257,000, is a suburb of Las Vegas.
The Mitchell family’s claim includes Third Amendment violations, a rare claim in the United States. The Third Amendment prohibits quartering soldiers in citizens’ homes in times of peace without the consent of the owner.
“On the morning of July 10th, 2011, officers from the Henderson Police Department responded to a domestic violence call at a neighbor’s residence,” the Mitchells say in the complaint.
It continues: “At 10:45 a.m. defendant Officer Christopher Worley (HPD) contacted plaintiff Anthony Mitchell via his telephone. Worley told plaintiff that police needed to occupy his home in order to gain a ‘tactical advantage’ against the occupant of the neighboring house. Anthony Mitchell told the officer that he did not want to become involved and that he did not want police to enter his residence. Although Worley continued to insist that plaintiff should leave his residence, plaintiff clearly explained that he did not intend to leave his home or to allow police to occupy his home. Worley then ended the phone call.
Mitchell claims that defendant officers, including Cawthorn and Worley and Sgt. Michael Waller then “conspired among themselves to force Anthony Mitchell out of his residence and to occupy his home for their own use.” (Waller is identified as a defendant in the body of the complaint, but not in the heading of it.)
The complaint continues: “Defendant Officer David Cawthorn outlined the defendants’ plan in his official report: ‘It was determined to move to 367 Evening Side and attempt to contact Mitchell. If Mitchell answered the door he would be asked to leave. If he refused to leave he would be arrested for Obstructing a Police Officer. If Mitchell refused to answer the door, force entry would be made and Mitchell would be arrested.’”
At a few minutes before noon, at least five defendant officers “arrayed themselves in front of plaintiff Anthony Mitchell’s house and prepared to execute their plan,” the complaint states.
It continues: “The officers banged forcefully on the door and loudly commanded Anthony Mitchell to open the door to his residence.
“Surprised and perturbed, plaintiff Anthony Mitchell immediately called his mother (plaintiff Linda Mitchell) on the phone, exclaiming to her that the police were beating on his front door.
“Seconds later, officers, including Officer Rockwell, smashed open plaintiff Anthony Mitchell’s front door with a metal ram as plaintiff stood in his living room.
“As plaintiff Anthony Mitchell stood in shock, the officers aimed their weapons at Anthony Mitchell and shouted obscenities at him and ordered him to lie down on the floor.
“Fearing for his life, plaintiff Anthony Mitchell dropped his phone and prostrated himself onto the floor of his living room, covering his face and hands.
“Addressing plaintiff as ‘asshole’, officers, including Officer Snyder, shouted conflicting orders at Anthony Mitchell, commanding him to both shut off his phone, which was on the floor in front of his head, and simultaneously commanding him to ‘crawl’ toward the officers.
“Confused and terrified, plaintiff Anthony Mitchell remained curled on the floor of his living room, with his hands over his face, and made no movement.
“Although plaintiff Anthony Mitchell was lying motionless on the ground and posed no threat, officers, including Officer David Cawthorn, then fired multiple ‘pepperball’ rounds at plaintiff as he lay defenseless on the floor of his living room. Anthony Mitchell was struck at least three times by shots fired from close range, injuring him and causing him severe pain.” (Parentheses in complaint.)
Officers then arrested him for obstructing a police officer, searched the house and moved furniture without his permission and set up a place in his home for a lookout, Mitchell says in the complaint.
He says they also hurt his pet dog for no reason whatsoever: “Plaintiff Anthony Mitchell’s pet, a female dog named ‘Sam,’ was cowering in the corner when officers smashed through the front door. Although the terrified animal posed no threat to officers, they gratuitously shot it with one or more pepperball rounds. The panicked animal howled in fear and pain and fled from the residence.
Sam was subsequently left trapped outside in a fenced alcove without access to water, food, or shelter from the sun for much of the day, while temperatures outside soared to over 100 degrees Fahrenheit.”
Anthony and his parents live in separate houses, close to one another on the same street. He claims that police treated his parents the same way.
“Meanwhile, starting at approximately 10:45 a.m., police officers entered the back yard of plaintiffs Michael Mitchell and Linda Mitchell’s residence at 362 Eveningside Avenue. The officers asked plaintiff Michael Mitchell if he would be willing to vacate his residence and accompany them to their ‘command center’ under the guise that the officers wanted Michael Mitchell’s assistance in negotiating the surrender of the neighboring suspect at 363 Eveningside Avenue. Plaintiff Michael Mitchell reluctantly agreed to follow the officers from his back yard to the HPD command center, which was approximately one quarter mile away,” the complaint states.
“When plaintiff Michael Mitchell arrived at the HPD command center, he was informed that the suspect was ‘not taking any calls’ and that plaintiff Michael Mitchell would not be permitted to call the suspect neighbor from his own phone. At that time, Mr. Mitchell realized that the request to accompany officers to the HPD command center was a tactic to remove him from his house. He waited approximately ten minutes at the HPD command center and was told he could not return to his home.
“Plaintiff Michael Mitchell then left HPD command center and walked down Mauve Street toward the exit of the neighborhood. After walking for less than five minutes, an HPD car pulled up next to him. He was told that his wife, Linda Mitchell, had ‘left the house’ and would meet him at the HPD command center. Michael Mitchell then walked back up Mauve Street to the HPD command center. He called his son, James Mitchell, to pick him up at the HPD command center. When plaintiff Michael Mitchell attempted to leave the HPD command center to meet James, he was arrested, handcuffed and placed in the back of a marked police car.
“Officers had no reasonable grounds to detain plaintiff Michael Mitchell, nor probable
cause to suspect him of committing any crime.
“At approximately 1:45 p.m., a group of officers entered the backyard of plaintiffs Michael Mitchell and Linda Mitchell’s residence at 362 Eveningside Avenue. They banged on the back door of the house and demanded that plaintiff Linda Mitchell open the door.
“Plaintiff Linda Mitchell complied and opened the door to her home. When she told officers that they could not enter her home without a warrant, the officers ignored her. One officer, defendant Doe 1, seized her by the arm, and other officers entered her home without permission.
“Defendant Doe 1 then forcibly pulled plaintiff Linda Mitchell out of her house.
“Another unidentified officer, defendant Doe 2, then seized plaintiff Linda Mitchell’s purse and began rummaging through it, without permission, consent, or a warrant.
“Defendant Doe 1 then escorted Linda Mitchell at a brisk pace through her yard and
up the hill toward the ‘Command Post’ while maintaining a firm grip on her upper arm. Plaintiff Linda Mitchell is physically frail and had difficulty breathing due to the heat and the swift pace.
However, Doe 1 ignored her pleas to be released or to at least slow down, and refused to provide any explanation for why she was being treated in such a manner.
“In the meantime, the officers searched and occupied plaintiffs Michael Mitchell and Linda Mitchell’s house.
When plaintiff Linda Mitchell returned to her home, the cabinets and closet doors throughout the house had been left open and their contents moved about. Water had been consumed from their water dispenser. Even the refrigerator door had been left ajar and mustard and mayonnaise had been left on their kitchen floor.”
Police took Anthony and Michael Mitchell to jail and booked them for obstructing an officer. They were jailed for at least nine hours before they bailed out, they say in the complaint.
All criminal charges were dismissed with prejudice. They claim the defendants filed the baseless criminal charges “to provide cover for defendants’ wrongful actions, to frustrate and impede plaintiffs’ ability to seek relief for those actions, and to further intimidate and retaliate against plaintiffs.”
None of the officers were ever subjected to official discipline or even inquiry, the complaint states.
The Mitchells seek punitive damages for violations of the third, fourth and 14th Amendments, assault and battery, conspiracy, defamation, abuse of process, malicious prosecution, negligence and emotional distress.http://intellihub.com/2013/07/05/police-arrest-assault-family-for-refusing-to-open-home-for-stakeout/

Judge Finds Cop Not Guilty of Assault after Refusing to Watch Video of Assault

folks ,These "people" live in amongst us !!! & what do We The People do when the 'law' ..become the lawless ... Our Forefathers knew what to do ?

The head of the police union, Jeff Roorda, who is also a Missouri state representative, fully agreed with her decision not to view the video because he believes videos should only be used to protect police, not hold them accountable.

By Carlos Miller
PINAC
July 5, 2013
A St. Louis cop is caught on video, slamming his forearm across the face of a handcuffed teenage suspect.
Rory Bruce not only gets fired for the incident that took place last year, but ended up charged with assault - something you rarely see happen.
However, when Bruce stepped in front of the judge to be tried this week, the judge refused to watch the video that came from a surveillance camera from the back of a police transport vehicle.
As a result, Judge Theresa Counts Burke found him not guilty.
Judge Burke refused to tell KMOV-TV why she did not want to watch the strongest piece of evidence in the case against the former cop.
But the head of the police union, Jeff Roorda, who is also a Missouri state representative, fully agreed with her decision not to view the video because he believes videos should only be used to protect police, not hold them accountable.
Roorda is now going to help Bruce get his job back.
According to KMOV-TV:

In an emailed statement, Circuit Attorney Jennifer Joyce said the office was disappointed that the judge didn’t see this video—adding that the video clearly shows Bruce beating a handcuffed teen.
Judge Teresa Counts Burke didn’t return calls for comment.
Roorda says the judge did right—he told News 4, police videos like these should be used to protect police.
Now, it’s become a “gotcha-head hunter” tool that we’ve seen internal affairs go over-board with.
Roorda says—with his name clear in the courts—Bruce should get his job back. We’ll stay on it to see if he does.              http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4HUvXOvgkQ

4th of July “DUI Checkpoint” Illegal Search Caught on Video

4th of July “DUI Checkpoint” Illegal Search Caught on Video

Nikola Tesla: Calling All Freethinkers, Part Three

One thing seeming most reliable for seekers of truth about Nikola Tesla: 90% of available information is disinformation, or misinformation.

Nicola Tesla

By Rand Clifford/http://intellihub.com/2013/07/05/nikola-tesla-calling-all-freethinkers-part-three/
Intellihub.com
June 5, 2013
What’s more, Tesla’s greatest triumph is not only forbidden information, fully reproducing Aether capture Tesla style can be a PSQ capitol offense. [1]
Tesla could annihilate the stranglehold thrown on humanity by the Power Status Quo (PSQ). He showed humanity how to transcend the PSQ’s paradigm of destructive energy; the PSQ has responded for over a century the only way they know how, more destruction.
Regarding the 90% figure: In 1983, fifty corporations owned 90% of Corporate Mainstream Media (CMM), controlling 90% of virtually every commercial thing Americans watched, heard, or read. By 2011, only six corporations controlled CMM—six monstrosities with a 90% monopoly. Those six corporations (and their primary instruments of brainwashing):
TIME WARNER  (HBO, CNN, Warner Brothers, Time)
DISNEY  (Miramax, ABC, ESPN, Marvel Studios, Pixar)
GE  (NBC, Universal Pictures, Comcast, Focus Features)
VIACOM  (MTV, CMT, Nick Jr., Paramount Pictures)
CBS  (NFL.com, Showtime, Smithsonian Channel, 60 Minutes, Jeopardy)
NEWS-CORP  (Fox, New York Post, Wall Street Journal)
PSQ tendrils wind through television and movies, books, newspapers and magazines, radio, music….
Less than 250 media executives control what is fed to vulnerable American minds. That’s a ratio of about one million minds for every one media executive. Perhaps the scariest aspect of this absolutely dehumanizing concentration of media power: The vulnerable can’t seem to get enough. And the vulnerability…it’s not unusual to see single-family homes with two or even three satellite TV dishes.
So few controlling so many…is humanity really outclassed a million to one? 
A closeup of monopoly control of what Americans see, hear, read and think about is offered in “Put Option on America, Part Three” [2].
Don’t Think, Plug In
The PSQ might say: “Does it really matter where your power comes from? Why waste time thinking about that smart-metered umbilical juicing your home’s breaker box that juices outlets where you plug stuff in. Ignore the distribution lines with their ubiquitous gray transformers riding the forests of treated cedar poles. Pay no attention to those buzzing substations like spiders in their webs, juiced by transmission lines riding high-rise skeletal towers towering as far as the eye…don’t look.
“Juice is juice, power is power, and only fools waste time wondering where the juice comes from. Rest assured that really smart people have figured everything out. Don’t just trust them, thank them that you’re so lucky not only to be able to just plug stuff in—you even have the First Amendment protecting you’re right to grouse about your power bill without being branded a terrorist.
“Thank them for freedom….”
Public Enemy Number One
This W.C. Fields quote fingers a fundamental PSQ directive:
“Never smarten up a chump, and never give a sucker an even break.”
Incredibly, masses of people like to imagine that government is an advocate of the common good. GMOs, vaccines, water fluoridation, food additives, chemtrails, HAARP, fission reactors, maximum surveillance police state, FEMA, “Homeland Security” and more, plus many other kinds of what the PSQ calls “Silent Weapons for Quiet Wars” (SWQW). A document bearing that title has recently surfaced, including the designation: “Operations Research Technical Manual TM-SW7905.1 May 1979#74-1120″. [3] Any questions about the document’s authenticity seem answered by the obvious “Quiet War” being waged on the public—in the last place the public might look, right in their faces.
The PSQ (International Elite) quietly declared the Quiet War on the public at a meeting in 1954. The MASER (“Microwave Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation”) was invented in 1954, threatening the PSQ with the potential for fusion of heavy hydrogen in seawater, and subsequent unlimited public power. Within decades the public could’ve theoretically broken the PSQ’s power monopoly—as they could’ve with Tesla’s Aether breakthrough a century ago.
“Energy is recognized as the key to all activity on Earth,” reads the SWQW document. And, “All science is a means to an end. The means is knowledge. The end is control. Beyond this remains only one issue: Who will be the beneficiary?”
The common good will inevitably be out-thought by the psychopaths, and little if any actual benefits will trickle down. Lacking conscience has its advantages—or disadvantages—depending on the definition of advantage. Conscience is a jewel of humanity, a highest achievement locked in genetically. A minority pollutes the human genome with the lowest ebb of human evolution, psychopathy. Vulgar reptiles in wolves’ clothing with all but the best of humanity. Powers of havoc and exploitation of the psychopathic minority will drag humanity through war after war as long as there are powerful psychopaths.
In 1954 the PSQ agreed that “…a nation or world of people who will not use their intelligence are no better than animals who do not have intelligence. Such people are beasts of burden and steaks on the table by choice and consent.”
Some other telling quotes from the SWQW document:
“…in the interest of future world order, peace, and tranquility, [4] [5] it was decided to privately wage a quiet war against the American public with an ultimate objective of permanently shifting the natural and social energy (wealth) of the undisciplined and irresponsible many into the hands of the self-disciplined, responsible, and worthy few.”
“…the objective of economic research, as conducted by the magnates of capital (banking) and the industries of commodities (goods) and services, is the establishment of an economy which is totally predictable and manipulable.”
“In order to achieve a totally predictable economy, the low-class elements of society must be brought under total control, i.e., must be housebroken, trained, and assigned a yoke and long-term social duties from a very early age, before they have an opportunity to question the propriety of the matter. In order to achieve such conformity, the lower-class family unit must be disintegrated by a process of increasing preoccupation of the parents and the establishment of government-operated day-care centers for the occupationally orphaned children.”
“The quality of education given to the lower class must be of the poorest sort, so that the moat of ignorance isolating the inferior class from the superior class is and remains incomprehensible to the inferior class. With such an initial handicap, even bright lower class individuals have little if any hope of extricating themselves from their assigned lot in life. This form of slavery is essential to maintain some measure of social order, peace, and tranquillity for the ruling upper class.”
“Since energy is the key to all activity on the face of the earth, it follows that in order to attain a monopoly of energy, raw materials, goods, and services and to establish a world system of slave labor, it is necessary to have a first strike capability in the field of economics. In order to maintain our position, it is necessary that we have absolute first knowledge of the science of control over all economic factors and the first experience at engineering the world economy.”
“Experience has proven that the simplest method of securing a silent weapon and gaining control of the public is to keep the public undisciplined and ignorant of the basic system principles on the one hand, while keeping them confused, disorganized, and distracted with matters of no real importance on the other hand.”
“This is achieved by:
—  disengaging their minds; sabotaging their mental activities; providing a low-quality program of public education in mathematics, logic, systems design and economics; and discouraging technical creativity.
—  engaging their emotions, increasing their self-indulgence and their indulgence in emotional and physical activities by: unrelenting emotional affrontations and attacks (mental and emotional rape) by way of constant barrage of sex, violence, and wars in the media – especially the T.V. and the newspapers. Giving them what they desire – in excess – “junk food for thought” – and depriving them of what they really need. Rewriting history and law and subjecting the public to the deviant creation, thus being able to shift their thinking from personal needs to highly fabricated outside priorities. These preclude their interest in and discovery of the silent weapons of social automation technology. The general rule is that there is a profit in confusion; the more confusion, the more profit. Therefore, the best approach is to create problems and then offer solutions.”
“Diversion Summary:
Media: Keep the adult public attention diverted away from the real social issues, and captivated by matters of no real importance.
Schools: Keep the young public ignorant of real mathematics, real economics, real law, and real history.
Entertainment: Keep the public entertainment below a sixth-grade level.
Work: Keep the public busy, busy, busy, with no time to think; back on the farm with the other animals.”
“The next step in the process of designing an economic amplifier is discovering the energy sources. The energy sources which support any primitive economic system are, of course, a supply of raw materials, and the consent of the people to labor and consequently assume a certain rank, position, level, or class in the social structure, i.e., to provide labor at various levels in the pecking order.”
“Each class, in guaranteeing its own level of income, controls the class immediately below it, hence preserves the class structure. This provides stability and security, but also government from the top.”
“As time goes on and communication and education improve, the lower-class elements of the social labor structure become knowledgeable and envious of the good things that the upper-class members have. They also begin to attain a knowledge of energy systems and the ability to enforce their rise through the class structure.
“This threatens the sovereignty of the elite.
“If this rise of the lower classes can be postponed long enough, the elite can achieve energy dominance, and labor by consent no longer will hold a position of an essential energy source.
“Until such energy dominance is absolutely established, the consent of people to labor and let others handle their affairs must be taken into consideration, since failure to do so could cause the people to interfere in the final transfer of energy sources to the control of the elite.”
“The primary reason why the individual citizens of a country create a political structure is a subconscious wish or desire to perpetuate their own dependency relationship of childhood. Simply put, they want a human god to eliminate all risk from their life, pat them on the head, kiss their bruises, put a chicken on every dinner table, clothe their bodies, tuck them into bed at night, and tell them that everything will be alright when they wake up in the morning.
“This public demand is incredible, so the human god, the politician, meets incredibility with incredibility by promising the world and delivering nothing. So who is the bigger liar? the public? or the “godfather”?
“This public behavior is surrender born of fear, laziness, and expediency. It is the basis of the welfare state as a strategic weapon, useful against a disgusting public.”
How interesting, their use of the term, “…a disgusting public.” The entire SWQW document is a blueprint for making the public ever more disgusting. For people inclined to think that anyone not of the PSQ is not an enemy of the PSQ—in other words, that the common good is anything but competition of the PSQ—reading of SWQW document is crucial. As for authenticity…please, simply look around and pay attention; authentication is everywhere.
Anything serving the“Common Good” is something taken away from the PSQ. It’s a zero sum game. If there’s any good going around, and it does not nourish PSQ power, it’s power that got away. Not only is the PSQ public enemy number one, the public is enemy number one of the PSQ. What stacks this situation in PSQ favor is their understanding of the situation, while the public hallucinates about government “…of the People, by the People, for the People.” The public can’t seem to fathom the evil of the PSQ, can’t even imagine having zero conscience. Meanwhile, the PSQ keeps the public so busy with defense that the public can rally no offense. The term, “For the good of humanity” is a joke diseased beyond humor, into the realm of epitaph.
“Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac,” and “The elderly are useless eaters.”
                                —  Henry Kissinger (Nobel Peace Prize, 1973)
Sleep forever, Good of Humanity. We hardly knew you….
Fukushima: Ready to Fire
Right now, thanks to the PSQ, the single greatest non-WWIII threat to humanity is teetering 100 feet above the ground, propped up by jacks in a building crippled by hydrogen explosions. Fukushima Unit 4 is a nightmare so radioactive not even robots can work amid this menace targeting the entire northern hemisphere, and beyond.
1,535 nuclear-fission fuel rods (460 tons) are primed and ready to lose cooling, catch fire and explode with the next big earthquake in one of the world’s most earthquake-prone regions. It’s really not a question of if, but when hundreds of times the radiation unleashed at Chernobyl will be blasted into the environment. And the PSQ is doing nothing but blaring, “Don’t worry, be happy!”
Fukushima Dai-Ichi has some of the largest concentrations of radioactivity on the planet, a radionuclide gumbo spiced with extra cesium-137 and plutonium. Mega-generational mutation and death just waiting for the next big shaker to empty the pot.
The first nuclear power plants were built in the 1950s. As of April 2012, 430 reactors operating in 31 countries generate about 14% of the world’s commercial electricity. Add to that about 420 research and naval reactors, for a total of 850 atom-splitting, future-robbing, totally unnecessary immortal-waste generators. Plus, 60 more are under construction, and 150 more are “firmly planned”, for a total of 1,060 Satanic insults to the future of life on Earth. PSQ long-term planning in purely biocidal form. The PSQ obviously believes that without total control there can be no control. Reckless gambling with the very survival of the human race seems like total control, apparently the ultimate psychopath aphrodisiac. Perhaps rendering the planet uninhabitable is the only way to cleanse humanity of psychopathy? Kill the host, kill the parasite.
The Power of Tesla
Had Nikola Tesla been born a psychopath, there may have been no chance for humanity. Luck might be on our side, though every day, luck seems weaker.
Tesla framed his suppression by tycoons such as J.P. Morgan, Rothschild and Rockefeller with: “I am unwilling to accord to some small-minded and jealous individuals the satisfaction of having thwarted my efforts. These men are to me nothing more than microbes of a nasty disease. My project was retarded by laws of nature. The world was not prepared for it. It was too far ahead of time, but the same laws will prevail in the end and make it a triumphal success.”
Tesla could have saved humanity from the hydrocarbon age of fiendish exploitation and destruction consolidating psychopathic power; he could have saved us from continuous warfare to further that power consolidation. Tesla could have woke us up before the nightmare of nuclear fission for energy. Tesla could have kept us out of the tar pit. Tesla could have energized humanity, and de-energized psychopathy. Tesla could still hook us up to the very wheel-work of nature. But….
If you wonder about Satanic roots of a power great enough to keep Tesla’s gifts to humanity suppressed for so long…you might want to research the “Khazars” while the Internet still has such vital information. Try to stay away from their home base on the Information one-way dirt road, Wikipedia.

Sources:

^[1]  http://rense.com/general72/oinvent.htm
^[2]  http://rense.com/general79/putop.htm
^[3]  http://www.lawfulpath.com/ref/sw4qw/
^[4]  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Bhueml6MqI
^[5]  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pt5iP0G1VbA
*****
Rand Clifford lives in Spokane, Washington. His novels, CASTLING, TIMING, Priest Lake Cathedral, and many earlier essays are published by StarChief Press. Contact for Rand Clifford:  randoc@live.com

Jay Z’s ‘Exclusive’ Album Release Triggers a Piracy Bonanza

Jay Z’s ‘Exclusive’ Album Release Triggers a Piracy Bonanza

• Ernesto
• July 5, 2013
• music,
  piracy

Jay-Z’s new album, Magna Carta Holy Grail, has been making headlines all over the world since its exclusive pre-release yesterday, but not for all the right reasons. The album was made available for free to one million Samsung smartphone and tablet users but crashed servers and privacy concerns are making pirated alternatives more appealing to some. The result after one day is more than 200,000 pirated downloads via torrent sites alone, and this number is increasing at a rapid pace.
Thursday night Jay-Z’s new studio album, Magna Carta Holy Grail, was made available for free to a million Samsung smartphone and tablet owners, through an app.
Great promotion for Samsung perhaps, but not for the fans who have to wait three extra days for the “official release.”
This lack of legal availability prompted many Jay Z fans, who otherwise might have paid, to turn to unauthorized sites where the album dropped around the same time. Why torture yourself for 72 more hours if copies are available over the Internet, some must have thought.
But lack of availability is not the only reason why some people may fancy a pirated copy, there appears to be other factors as well.
Due to high demand and crashed servers many people with a Samsung device couldn’t download the album app. Others were concerned about the rather broad permissions the app requires.
Rapper Killer Mike was one of many unhappy to share their GPS location, and as a result kindly declined to download the app. “I read this and……..’Naw I’m cool’,” he tweeted.
Considering the above, the pirated alternatives may actually be more appealing than the free legal offering, a situation not unlike those experienced with DRM-laced products.
And indeed, the app problems – but most of all the limited availability – resulted in a true piracy bonanza.
Within hours of appearing on torrent sites 100,000 people had grabbed a copy of the album. And, according to fresh data gathered by TorrentFreak, the counter has now passed 200,000. For the record, that’s from torrent sites alone.
Magna Carta Holy Grail is currently the most-shared album on The Pirate Bay and will probably remain in the lead for a while and at least until the album hits the stores on Monday.
While the Samsung deal with a million sold copies will propel Jay Z to the top of the charts, it is questionable whether the music industry should see it as an experiment worth repeating.
Aside from the server glitches and privacy concerns, making something available to a limited crowd hardly seems ‘current’ in the Internet age. In any case, it’s not the best strategy to keep people away from pirate sites.

'Nobody ran': Heartbreaking details of the final moments of 19 firefighters who died in Arizona as colleagues describe how leader was the 'calmest they've ever heard him'

Special Men,Heroes !

• Granite Mountain Hotshots team leader Eric Marsh radioed through to let his commanders know the group had a predetermined safety zone and then again to say they were deploying their emergency shelters
• Fire department officials said, despite the frightening situation, Marsh was 'calm, cool, and collected'
• The men were fighting to save a subdivision outside Yarnell when the winds changed, encircling them in a cloud of smoke and flames

By Helen Pow
PUBLISHED: 23:49 EST, 4 July 2013 | UPDATED: 07:48 EST, 5 July 2013

The 19 brave Arizona firefighters killed in a fierce wildfire last weekend were 'calm, cool and collected' even in their final moments, it has emerged.
Granite Mountain Hotshots team leader Eric Marsh radioed through to let his commanders know the group had a predetermined safety zone. Moments later, he radioed back with a more serious message: He and his colleagues - many of whom were barely more than boys - would be deploying their emergency shelters, their last resort against the advancing blaze.
'From what I've heard, it was the calmest they've ever heard Eric,' fire department spokesman Wade Ward said. 'They were in a tight spot and everyone knew this was going to be a b****. But his voice was very calm: "We're deploying."'
Scroll down for videohttp://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2356611/Heartbreaking-details-final-moments-19-firefighters-died-Arizona.html

Calm: Eric Marsh, left, superintendent of the Granite Mountain Hotshots, was calm and collected even when he and his men knew things had taken a turn for the worse

Ward added: 'They all stayed together. Nobody ran.'
The inspirational account comes as new details of the Hotshots' final task emerge.

When the firefighters were killed, they were battling to save a small housing division on the outskirts of Yarnell. But they were suddenly caught in a dense cloud of smoke and flames.

'The only thing standing between those folks and those homes were these 19 guys up on that ridge,' Jeff Knotek, who retired as Prescott Fire Department Captain on Sunday, said, according to the Los Angeles Times. 

Town remembers lost firefights on 4th of July

Before the end: Firefighter Andrew Ashcraft send this picture of members of the Granite Mountain Hotshots to his wife, Juliann, shortly before all 19 men were killed

'Unfortunately, the conditions they were in were not survivable.'

Knotek said the team had rushed to the defense of Glen Ilah, which was located about a quarter of a mile southwest of Yarnell. They were on a ridge above the houses, armed with chain saws and axes, trying to build a line of defense between the fire and the homes and tearing down scrub as quickly as possible.

They had made a lot of progress in forging a fire line and had also created a safe zone and an escape route for themselves if the fire intensified.

Brave: A plaque with the victims' names hangs on the fence outside the Granite Mountain Interagency Hotshot Crew fire station in Prescott, Arizona

Fourth of July: Two women visit a make-shift memorial outside Fire Station 7 in Prescott, Arizona on July 4th for the 19 firefighter victims of the Yarnell Hill Fire

Heroes: Flowers, pictures, messages and the number 19 is displayed at a makeshift memorial outside the Granite Mountain Interagency Hot Shot Crew fire house in Prescott, Arizona July 4, 2013

But a thunderstorm destroyed their efforts and put them suddenly in the center of a cloud of smoke and flames.

'It was a zero-visibility situation,' Knotek said. 'They couldn't see where or what was bottom. They met a wall of flames It came around and hooked them.'

Wade described the thunderstorm as creating 'the perfect storm.'

Emergency crews desperately tried to save the men after the winds changed.

'They had deployed their emergency shelters, and helicopter crews were trying desperately to spot them through dense smoke,' Danny Parker, the firefighter father of one of the victims, Wade Parker, told the Times, wiping away tears.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2356611/Heartbreaking-details-final-moments-19-firefighters-died-Arizona.html#ixzz2YEFJPUDm

STOP using Google and Facebook if you fear US spying, says Germany

• Stay off US websites if you don't want to be spied on, says German minister
• Spoke in the wake of revelations the NSA have been 'spying' on US citizens

By Sara Malm
PUBLISHED: 07:11 EST, 3 July 2013 | UPDATED: 08:43 EST, 3 July 2013

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2354651/STOP-using-Google-Facebook-fear-US-spying-says-Germany.html
If you are worried about the US spying on you, you need to stop using Google and Facebook, Germany's top security official has warned.
Internet users who fear their data is being intercepted by U.S. intelligence agencies such as the National Security Agency's should stay away from American websites run through American servers, Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich said.
Leaked revelations about the NSA’s wholesale information on foreign web users has prompted outrage in Europe and calls for tighter international rules on data protection.

Don't Google me: Those afraid of being spied on online should stay away from US websites, German Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich says

Leaks by Edward Snowden, a former NSA systems analyst, have revealed the NSA's sweeping data collection of U.S. phone records and some Internet traffic.
According to U.S. intelligence officials, the programs target foreigners and terrorist suspects mostly overseas.

 

Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich told reporters in Berlin on Wednesday that ‘whoever fears their communication is being intercepted in any way should use services that don't go through American servers.’
Friedrich says German officials are in touch with their U.S. counterparts ‘on all levels’ and a delegation is scheduled to fly to Washington next week to discuss the claims that ordinary citizens and even European diplomats were being spied upon.

Leak: Whistleblower Edward Snowden, revealed that the US National Security Agency collected date of phone records and some Internet traffic of average citizens

In the wake of the NSA scandal, Friedrich defended the intelligence unit's methods against German criticism.
In an interview with Welt am Sontag the Interior minister said that that turning against the US is 'not how you deal with friends who are in the fight against terrorism, our most important partners'
Meanwhile, Snowden is now running out of countries that will take him in - a growing list have either denied his request for asylum or insisted that he make an application on their soil.
Earlier today Bolivia's president Evo Morales attacked US 'aggression' after his plane was rerouted last night amid suspicions that NSA leaker Edward Snowden was on board.
Morales's officials claim that his plane was forced to land in Austria because France and other European governments countries refused to let it cross their airspace.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2354651/STOP-using-Google-Facebook-fear-US-spying-says-Germany.html#ixzz2YECyI6T3

SigInt: Types of electronic eavesdropping devices

Source: GulfNews
Listening devices can help evaluate threats and safety levels of people in many situations. A wireless microphone or wireless listening device broadcasts surveillance conversations to a radio receiver or communications receiver. These are the most common:

Concealable transmitters

These can monitor conversations in a room if gaining access is difficult, by using room transmitters, body wires, wireless microphones or similar. These listening devices are self contained, free-standing, and can be placed in a room where discovery would be unlikely yet close to where conversations take place.

Disguised transmitters

These are covert transmitters are used for covert surveillance by placing audio transmitters into everyday objects such as a clock, belt, calculator, ashtray, the user conducts undercover operations, with customised housings for the transmitter.

Digital surveillance transmitters

These are listening devices with features such as remote controlled activation, audio surveillance recorder features, encrypted surveillance transmitters, and data monitoring transmitters.

Listening devices

Listening devices that transmit audio surveillance over long distance while drawing very low power output are known as lithium transmitters. These listening devices are very small and can be placed in hard to view areas.

Telephone transmitters

These are listening devices used for phone tapping in order to obtain both sides of a phone conversation. These listening devices are telephone wiretaps that live off the energy of the phone line, prolonging their operation life indefinitely.

Mains powered transmitters

These are listening devices and broadcast audio surveillance for extended use where continuous power exists, and audio surveillance access is difficult to get. These listening devices can operate indefinitely due to the AC power line that provides continuous power to the listening device.

ShotSpotter: Cracking down on deadly Fourth of July celebrations with audio tech

Source: Extreme Tech

 It may sound like an urban legend, but every year people are killed by stray bullets falling from the sky — usually from celebratory shots fired into the air on New Years or the 4th of July. A series of well-publicized deaths has led many states to toughen the penalties for such antics, but until the advent of the clever ShotSpotter system they had few tools for enforcement. ShotSpotter works by deploying an array of listening devices around a city. Loud noises are recorded, analyzed and triangulated by computer, with help from humans. Police can then quickly respond, continuing to get updates on any additional shots from a graphical interface in their patrol cars.

Developed to fight crime

ShotSpotter’s main target is criminal violence. It can report the street address, as well as number of shots, type of weapon used, and even the speed and direction the shooter is moving. All this happens even if no one has called 911 — allowing police to more effectively respond to both reported and unreported incidents. This is more important than you might think, since less than 20% of all gunshots in cities are reported. Even when shots are reported, the caller is often uncertain of exactly where or when they occurred. SST — the venture-backed company that sells ShotSpotter — reports crime decreases of up to 40% in cities where its system is in use.
ShotSpotter is particularly useful on holidays, both because of the increased incidence of gunfire and the use of illegal fireworks. The hundreds of shots of celebratory gunfire are far out numbered by the thousands of incidents of illegal fireworks use.

The technology behind ShotSpotter

SST keeps many of the details of its system proprietary, but some of the basics are known. The ShotSpotter system uses 10 to 12 audio sensors per square mile, with each being able to detect gunshots as far as two miles away. That means over a dozen sensors will have some reading from each gunshot. GPS units built into the sensors are also a critical part of the process. The system relies on the highly accurate GPS-provided clock signal to synchronize the gunshot reports from multiple sensors. From there, triangulation narrows down the possible origin of the shot to a circle about 25 meters in diameter — close enough to indicate a street address in most cases. Noise signatures are compared against a database of known weapons, often allowing the specific model firearm to be identified.
This video provides a glimpse of the ShotSpotter system in action (demo of the user interface starts about 40 seconds in).                

Costing from hundreds of thousands for a small city or town, up to millions for a large city, ShotSpotter adoption is continuing at a rapid rate. It is now being used in dozens of municipalities across the US.

France also scoops up phone, Internet metadata on its citizens

"Perfectly illegal," says newspaper.

by Nate Anderson - July 5 2013, 1:18pm EST

• National Security

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/07/france-also-scoops-up-phone-internet-metadata-on-its-citizens/

DGSE headquarters, blurrily hiding near the Parisian Périphérique

Google Maps

While Americans were celebrating the July Fourth holiday, French newspaper Le Monde was busy stirring up controversy across the Atlantic with news that the French security services are involved in NSA-style tapping of Internet and phone communications, text messages, and faxes. They have been successful enough that most electronic communications in France are now vacuumed up by the direction générale de la sécurité extérieure (DGSE), which warehouses them in servers occupying three floors of the DGSE's Parisian headquarters.
The focus is on metadata, not content, and as with the NSA, is apparently used to graph webs of connection between groups and individuals. Should useful patterns emerge, intelligence operatives can seek "more intrusive techniques, like wire-tapping or police tails."
Le Monde argues that the system is "perfectly illegal"—or at least extra-legal in the sense that nothing like it had ever been anticipated under intelligence laws passed in the early 1990s. The DGSE data is also not tightly compartmentalized—six other French intelligence agencies can make requests for database searches, used for everything from customs to money-laundering. But the stated goal of the system is—surprise!—terrorism. From Le Monde:

This system is obviously of great value in the fight against terrorism. But it allows spying on anyone, any time. The DGSE collects billions of billions of units of data, which are compressed and stored on three floors in the basement of the DGSE headquarters on Boulevard Mortier in Paris...
France is said to be among the Top 5 in computing capacity, after the United States, Britain, Israel and China. [DGSE technical director] Mr. [Bernard] Barbier estimated the number of connections picked up by the system at 4 billion in 2013, with a flow of about 1 billion simultaneous communications. "Today, our targets are the networks of the public at large," the director said at the time, "because they are used by terrorists."

Surveillance in France is supposed to be narrowly targeted, but just as in the US, the security services argue that "metadata" doesn't actually amount to personal surveillance and that it can be conducted with far less oversight. As a former intelligence agency head told the newspaper, "We've been operating in a zone of virtual authorization for years, and each agency is quite content with this freedom, which is possible thanks to the legal vagueness surrounding metadata."
Today, Le Monde followed up with responses from government officials. Jean-Jacques Urvoas, the MP who heads the Judiciary Committee in the French National Assembly, criticized the paper's reporting as not corresponding "to reality." But he offered few details, saying only that French citizens are "not subject to a massive and permanent espionage regime that is out of control."

Texas troopers under fire for yet another roadside strip-search

Friday, July 5, 2013 12:28

Outrage Over Highway Body Cavity Search - Video

(Before It's News)

Reuters / Andy Newman

Two Houston women have filed a lawsuit against the Texas Department of Public Safety claiming they were subjected to a humiliating roadside body cavity search that left them violated and traumatized.

“I was embarrassed, in a bikini, on the side of the freeway. And it hurts so bad to even go through something like that,” 27-year-old Brandy Hamilton told KTRK News.          

Hamilton and 26-year-old Alexandria Randle were driving home to Houston after spending last year’s Memorial Day at a nearby beach with family and friends when Texas Trooper Nathaniel Turner pulled them over for speeding on the side of Highway 288 and ordered them to exit their vehicle. The women were still wearing their bathing suits and were not permitted to put clothes on or cover up before exiting the car.
The trooper claimed to smell marijuana in the car and called a female trooper to search the women’s body parts for drugs, despite numerous pleas from the ladies.
“The male officer, his words verbatim were, ‘We’re gonna get familiar with your womanly parts,” Hamilton told KXAN.
“You’re going to go up my private parts?” a surprised Hamilton asked trooper Jennie Bui, who responded with “Yes, ma’am.”
The trooper’s dash camera recorded the roadside cavity search and depicts Hamilton’s alarmed expression as the female trooper touched her ‘private parts’ and inserted a finger into her genitalia. The trooper used the same pair of gloves to search the genital regions of both women. Randle can be heard crying uncontrollably as she is probed.
“She just came right over and there was no switch out of anything, which is disgusting,” Randle told KTRK, noting that she considers this a case of molestation.
“Do you know how violated I feel?” Hamilton told the female officer during the 40-minute traffic stop. No drugs were found, but the women were given a ticket for possession of drug paraphernalia. Turner claims he found a piece of a smoked blunt in the car.
“Don’t smoke weed in your car and you won’t have to go through this,” Turner told the women at one point during the search.
The women claim to be traumatized by the incident, especially since it took place in broad daylight, on the side of a highway, in full view of three sheriff’s deputies.
The Texas Department of Public Safety suspended Turner on June 10 and terminated Bui on June 29.
But the incident is not an isolated case: two other Texas state troopers were recently indicted on charges of sexual assault and oppression for a roadside cavity search conducted last year.  Angel Dobbs, 38, and her niece Ashley Dobbs, 24, were subjected to a similar genital search in which the trooper used the same pair of gloves on both women. The case was settled for $185,000 in late June.
And Texas Attorney Allie R. Booker told the Daily Mail that there is a third such case that has not yet become public, but closely resembles the other two.
“How are these people behaving in the same manner, hundreds of miles away from each other?” she said. “There’s got to be some factor at the DPS that makes these officers think they can do this.”
Source: RT

Fear Spreads Over ‘Militarization’ Of Police In U.S.

folks! calm down these 'police'  don't live behind enemy lines..'they' live amongst U.S.  &  ...there ARE MILLIONS of U.S. !!!     We The People know who 'they'   are   & When the American People get feed up ...WELL !!!  nobody likes nazi's   any ways

Fear Spreads Over ‘Militarization’ Of Police In U.S.

Jul 5, 2013 Jake Hammer Excerpted from TIMES DISPATCH
Elizabeth Daly went to jail over a case of bottled water.
According to the Charlottesville Daily Progress, shortly after 10 p.m. April 11, the University of Virginia student bought ice cream, cookie dough and a carton of LaCroix sparkling water from the Harris Teeter grocery store at the popular Barracks Road Shopping Center. In the parking lot, a half-dozen men and a woman approached her car, flashing some kind of badges. One jumped on the hood. Another drew a gun. Others started trying to break the windows.
Daly understandably panicked. With her roommate in the passenger seat yelling “Go, go, go!” Daly drove off, hoping to reach the nearest police station. The women dialed 911. Then a vehicle with lights and sirens pulled them over, and the situation clarified: The people who had swarmed Daly’s vehicle were plainclothes agents of the Virginia Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control. The agents had thought the sparkling water was a 12-pack of beer.
Did the ABC’s enforcers apologize? Not in the slightest. They charged Daly with three felonies: two for assaulting an officer (her vehicle had grazed two agents; neither was hurt) and one for eluding the police. Last week, the commonwealth’s attorney dropped the charges.
The agents’ excessive display of force is outrageously disproportionate to the offense they mistakenly thought they witnessed: an underage purchase of alcohol. But in a sense, Daly got off easy. A couple of weeks after her ordeal, a 61-year-old man in Tennessee was killed when the police executed a drug raid on the wrong house. A few weeks later, in another wrong-house raid, police officers killed a dog belonging to an Army veteran. These are not isolated incidents; for more information, visit the interactive map at www.cato.org/raidmap.
They are, however, part and parcel of two broader phenomena. One is the militarization of domestic law enforcement. In recent years, police departments have widely adopted military tactics, military equipment (armored personnel carriers, flash-bang grenades) — and, sometimes, the mindset of military conquerors rather than domestic peacekeepers.
The other phenomenon is the increasing degree to which civilians are subject to criminal prosecution for noncriminal acts, including exercising the constitutionally protected right to free speech.
Last week, A.J. Marin was arrested in Harrisburg, Pa., for writing in chalk on the sidewalk. Marin was participating in a health care demonstration outside Gov. Tom Corbett’s residence when he wrote, “Governor Corbett has health insurance, we should too.” Authorities charged Marin with writing “a derogatory remark about the governor on the sidewalk.” The horror.
This follows the case of Jeff Olson, who chalked messages such as “Stop big banks” outside branches of Bank of America last year. Law professor Jonathan Turley reports that prosecutors brought 13 vandalism charges against him. Moreover, the judge in the case recently prohibited Olson’s attorney from “mentioning the First Amendment, free speech,” or anything like them during the trial.
In May, a Texas woman was arrested for asking to see a warrant for the arrest of her 11-year-old son. “She spent the night in jail while her son was left at home,” reports Fox34 News. The son never was arrested. Also in Texas, Justin Carter has spent months in jail — and faces eight years more — for making an admittedly atrocious joke about shooting up a school in an online chat. Though he was plainly kidding, authorities charged him with making a terrorist threat.
Federal prosecutors also recently used an anti-terrorism measure to seize almost $70,000 from the owners of a Maryland dairy. Randy and Karen Sowers had made several bank deposits of just under $10,000 to avoid the headache of filing federal reports required for sums over that amount. The feds charged them with unlawful “structuring.” Last week, they settled the case. Authorities kept half their money to teach them a lesson.
“I broke the law yesterday,” writes George Mason economics professor Alex Tabarrok, “and I probably will break the law tomorrow. Don’t mistake me, I have done nothing wrong. I don’t even know what laws I have broken. … It’s hard for anyone to live today without breaking the law. Doubt me? Have you ever thrown out some junk mail that … was addressed to someone else? That’s a violation of federal law punishable by up to five years in prison.” Tabarrok notes that lawyer Harvey Silverglate thinks the typical American commits “Three Felonies a Day” — the title of Silverglate’s book on the subject.
As The Wall Street Journal has reported, lawmakers in Washington have greatly eroded the notion of mens rea — the principle that you need criminal intent in order to commit a crime. Thanks to a proliferating number of obscure offenses, Americans now resemble the condemned souls in Jonathan Edwards’ “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” — spared from perdition only by the temporary forbearance of those who sit in judgment.
“What once might have been considered simply a mistake,” The Journal explains, is now “punishable by jail time.” And as 20-year-old Elizabeth Daly has now learned, you can go to jail even when the person making the mistake wasn’t you.

U.S. Explodes With 100 Anti-NSA Protes

Thursday, July 4, 2013

(Before It's News)

Americans take to streets, Internet to demand feds stop spying on citizens

Published: 36 mins ago

(Massachusetts protest photo: Dustin M. Slaughter)

 

Americans outraged by the federal government’s spying programs took to the streets on Independence Day for “Restore the Fourth” protests in an estimated 100 American cities, including New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Boston, Seattle, Memphis and Miami, plus international cities such as London and Munich.
The “Restore the Fourth” national protest was named after the Fourth Amendment, which was intended to protect Americans against “unreasonable searches and seizures.”

Iowa “Restore the Fourth” protest (Photo: The Daily Iowan)

 

The NSA’s PRISM online surveillance program was exposed by Edward Snowden only weeks ago. Americans soon learned that at least nine Internet companies reportedly submitted to government surveillance of their servers: Google, Microsoft, Yahoo!, Facebook, PalTalk, YouTube, Skype, AOL and Apple.
“Restore the Fourth,” initially organized on Reddit, describes itself as “a non-partisan, unaffiliated group of concerned citizens who seek to strengthen the Fourth Amendment with respect to digital surveillance by the U.S. government.”

Philadelphia, Pa., “Restore the Fourth” rally (Photo: Jeff Kolakowski)

 

“The July 4th demonstrations seek to demand an end to the unconstitutional surveillance methods employed by the U.S. government and to ensure that all future government surveillance is constitutional, limited, and clearly defined,” the group explained.
“Restore the Fourth aims to ensure that the will of the people is reflected in the government of the United States of America. This movement intends to bring an end to twelve years of Fourth Amendment abuses, and demonstrate the need for a return to the Constitution. All Americans should stand with them in this cause to protect the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution.”

“Restore the Fourth” rally locations

 

The group is calling for Congress to:
1) Enact reform this Congress to Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act, the state secrets privilege, and the FISA Amendments Act to make clear that blanket surveillance of the Internet activity and phone records of any person residing in the U.S. is prohibited by law and that violations can be reviewed in adversarial proceedings before a public court;
2) Create a special committee to investigate, report, and reveal to the public the extent of this domestic spying. This committee should create specific recommendations for legal and regulatory reform to end unconstitutional surveillance;
3) Hold accountable those public officials who are found to be responsible for this unconstitutional surveillance.



The Internet Defense League – a coalition of thousands of websites that sound the alarm whenever there is a major threat to the free and open Internet – organized a major online protest to amplify the efforts of the Restore the Fourth protesters.

Americans are being directed to CallForFreedom.org, a web page where they can share Fourth Amendment themed images, call Congress to demand investigations into NSA programs and donate to help fund television ads about NSA surveillance.
“The U.S. Government has been systematically spying on people all over the globe, violating their human rights,” Fight for the Future co-founder Tiffiniy Cheng said in a statement. “The NSA programs that have been exposed are blatantly unconstitutional, and have a detrimental effect on free speech and freedom of press worldwide. … You can’t disregard people’s privacy, invade their personal lives on a daily basis, and not expect them to fight back.”

“Restore the Fourth” rally in New York City (Photo: Nicky Ocean)

 

The groups encourage Americans to call 1-STOP-323-NSA and urge members of Congress to demand a full investigation into NSA spying.
They’re also asking Americans to electronically sign a letter to Congress that states, “Stop watching us. The revelations about the National Security Agency’s surveillance apparatus, if true, represent a stunning abuse of our basic rights. We demand the U.S. Congress reveal the full extent of the NSA’s spying programs.”

Union Square, New York City

 

 

Source

A Message From Egyptian Protesters To The United States Of America

Wednesday, July 3, 2013 12:10

(Before It's News)

 

What more can I add to this except from America to Egypt with Love and solidarity, we support you, we envy you.  We wish you all the best of luck, take what is yours and make it better.  Show your fellow Muslims and Christians that you can get along, you can live in peace side by side, doing what’s best for everyone and violating no one.  Show the world that true democracy reigns in Egypt.  Mohammed Bouazizi lit the flame in Tunisia that set the powder keg off in Egypt and now you keep that flame alive and fight for what you know is just and moral.  SOLIDARITY WITH EGYPT!!  -Mort

Have Central Bankers Lost Control? Could The Bond Bubble Implode Even If There Is No Tapering?

By Michael Snyder, on July 4th, 2013

 

Are the central banks of the world starting to lose control of the financial markets?  Could we be facing a situation where the bond bubble is going to inevitably implode no matter what the central bankers do?  For the past several years, the central bankers of the planet have been able to get markets to do exactly what they want them to do.  Stock markets have soared to record highs, bond yields have plunged to record lows and investors have literally hung on every word uttered by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and other prominent central bankers.  In the United States, it has been remarkable what Bernanke has been able to accomplish.  The U.S. government has been indulging in an unprecedented debt binge, the Fed has been wildly printing money, and the real rate of inflation has been hovering around 8 to 10 percent, and yet Bernanke has somehow convinced investors to lend gigantic piles of money to the U.S. government for next to nothing.  But this irrational state of affairs is not going to last indefinitely.  At some point, investors are going to wake up and start demanding higher returns.  And we are already starting to see this happen in Japan.  Wild money printing has actually caused bond yields to go up.  What a concept!  And that is what should happen - when central banks recklessly print money it should cause investors to demand a higher return.  But if bond investors all over the globe start acting rationally, that is going to cause the largest bond bubble in the history of the planet to burst, and that will create utter devastation in the financial markets.
Central banks can manipulate the financial system in the short-term, but there is usually a tremendous price to pay for the distortions that are caused in the long-term.
In Bernanke's case, all of this quantitative easing seemed to work well for a while.  The first round gave the financial system a nice boost, and so the Fed decided to do another.  The second round had less effect, but it still boosted stocks and caused bond yields to go down.  The third round was supposed to be the biggest of all, but it had even less of an effect than the second round.  If you doubt this, just check out the charts in this article.
Our financial system has become addicted to this financial "smack".  But like any addict, the amount needed to get the same "buzz" just keeps increasing.  Unfortunately, the more money that the Fed prints, the more distorted our financial system becomes.
The only way that this is going to end is with a tremendous amount of pain.  There is no free lunch, and there are already signs that investors are starting to wake up to this fact.
As investors wake up, they are going to realize that this bond bubble is irrational and entirely unsustainable.  Once the race to the exits begins, it is not going to be pretty.  In fact, the are indications that the race to the exits has already begun...

During the month of June, fixed income allocations fell to a four-year low, according to the American Association of Individual Investors, as major bond fund managers like Pimco experienced record withdrawals for the second quarter. That pullback sent places like emerging markets and high-yield bonds reeling—just as the Federal Reserve signaled plans to taper its easy-money policies within the coming years. Benchmark bond yields ticked up on that news, and in an unexpected twist, the stock market nosedived as well.

A lot of people out there have been floating the theory that the Fed will decide not to taper at all and that quantitative easing will continue at the same pace and therefore the markets will settle back down.
But what if they don't settle back down?
Could the bond bubble implode even if there is no tapering?
That is what some are now suggesting.  For example, Detlev Schlichter is pointing to what has been happening in Japan as an indication that the paradigm has changed...

My conclusion is this: if market weakness is the result of concerns over an end to policy accommodation, then I don’t think markets have that much to fear. However, the largest sell-offs occurred in Japan, and in Japan there is not only no risk of policy tightening, there policy-makers are just at the beginning of the largest, most loudly advertised money-printing operation in history. Japanese government bonds and Japanese stocks are hardly nose-diving because they fear an end to QE. Have those who deal in these assets finally realized that they are sitting on gigantic bubbles and are they trying to exit before everybody else does? Have central bankers there lost control over markets?
After all, money printing must lead to higher inflation at some point. The combination in Japan of a gigantic pile of accumulated debt, high running budget deficits, an old and aging population, near-zero interest rates and the prospect of rising inflation (indeed, that is the official goal of Abenomics!) are a toxic mix for the bond market. It is absurd to assume that you can destroy your currency and dispossess your bond investors and at the same time expect them to reward you with low market yields. Rising yields, however, will derail Abenomics and the whole economy, for that matter.

The financial situation in Japan is actually very similar to the financial situation in the United States.  We both have "a gigantic pile of accumulated debt, high running budget deficits, an old and aging population, near-zero interest rates and the prospect of rising inflation".  In both cases, rational investors should demand higher returns when the central bank fires up the printing presses.
And if interest rates on U.S. Treasury bonds start to rise to rational levels, the U.S. government is going to have to pay more to borrow money, state and local governments are going to have to pay more to borrow money, junk bonds will crash, the market for home mortgages will shrivel up and economic activity in this country will slow down substantially.
Plus, as I am fond of reminding everyone, there is a 441 trillion dollar interest rate derivatives time bomb sitting out there that rapidly rising interest rates could set off.
So needless to say, the Federal Reserve is scared to death of what higher interest rates would mean.
But at this point, they may have lost control of the situation.

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