Spying on Journalists: Department of Justice (DOJ) Sets “Guidelines” Concerning Government Surveillance of Members of the Press

On Friday, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) released a memorandum setting forth new “guidelines” concerning government surveillance of members of the press. “These revised guidelines will help ensure the proper balance is struck when pursuing investigations into unauthorized disclosures,” announced Attorney General Eric Holder.

Billed on the front page of the New York Times as a major reform that “would significantly narrow the circumstances under which journalists’ records could be obtained,” the memorandum actually does nothing of the kind.

The memorandum (available here) resembles Holder’s previous work on the subject of military commissions, incommunicado detention, drones, and assassination. Couched behind weasel-words, vague loopholes, and conciliatory language, the Obama administration always goes out of its way not to concede any limits on its asserted powers.

As an initial matter, the idea that an internal Department of Justice memorandum could constitute a “reform” is a sham. If the Obama administration can “self-restrict” its activities, then it can just as easily “self-expand” them.

The memorandum itself, far from “tightening” restrictions on intelligence activities with respect to the press, actually further codifies a regime for spying on, bullying, and prosecuting members of the press who come into possession of information the executive branch has deemed “classified.”

The memorandum follows revelations that the Obama administration systematically targeted and spied on members of the press. In May, the Associated Press revealed that the Obama administration had secretly wiretapped more than 20 phone lines of its journalists, including home phones and cell phones. (See: “The AP spying scandal and the crisis of American democracy”)

Associated Press president Gary Pruitt, in an open letter, denounced the Obama administration’s wiretaps as a “massive and unprecedented intrusion,” seeking information that “the government has no conceivable right to know.”

The DOJ memorandum has a strong component of damage control in the aftermath of the spying scandal. Under the circumstances, it is remarkable for what it does not say. The memorandum does not indicate that the Obama administration will cease its spying on journalists or its ruthless persecution of government whistle-blowers. In fact, the memorandum expressly reserves the power to continue spying on the press “when the information sought is essential to a successful investigation or prosecution.”

Contrary to the presentation of the memorandum in the corporate media, the memorandum does not even include any actual “guidelines.” The memorandum merely proposes that, at some point in the future, new guidelines and policies will be drafted and implemented (e.g., the “Department’s policies will be revised …;” “the Department would revise current policy …;” “the Department will require ;” etc.).

Among the changes proposed by the memorandum is an expanded mechanism for intimidating and threatening (“negotiating with”) journalists who come into possession of classified information. Pursuant to this regime, the journalist will receive an invitation to “negotiate” with the military-intelligence agencies. It is not that hard to guess at the content of any such negotiations (“hand over the files or else,” “tell us your source or else”). Notwithstanding this mechanism, the memorandum expressly reserves the power to spy on journalists without notice or negotiations.

The memorandum announces that the administration will expand its efforts to prevent leaks internally by withdrawing security clearances and imposing unspecified “other sanctions” against would-be whistle-blowers.

Also included are proposals to set up toothless, token committees and groups to advise the Attorney General with respect to press spying. The advice of these committees and groups will be non-binding, and the Attorney General will be free to disregard it. The memorandum would further require direct authorization from the Attorney General for many kinds of press surveillance.

In one significant passage, the memorandum expressly reserves the power to search and seize journalists’ records where there is “probable cause to believe that the person possessing such materials has committed or is committing a criminal offense to which the materials relate,” including “the receipt, possession, or communication of information relating to national defense, classified information, or restricted data.” This language is from the so-called Privacy Protection Act of 1980.

In the context of this memorandum, the citation of the phrase “committed or is committing a criminal offense,” is a threat not just to spy on journalists who publish classified information, but a threat to prosecute them as well.

The “balancing” of democratic rights against national security—the Obama administration’s standard refrain—features prominently in the memorandum. The memorandum announces that it “strikes the appropriate balance between two vital interests: protecting the American people by pursuing those who violate their oaths through unlawful disclosures of information and safeguarding the essential role of a free press in fostering government accountability and an open society.”

This framework, accepted uncritically by the press and academic commentators, is false and fundamentally undemocratic. Here, the reactionary campaign to kill or capture NSA whistle-blower Edward Snowden is placed on the scales and declared a “vital interest” of equal importance as the Bill of Rights.

In fact, these two supposedly “vital interests” cannot be reconciled. There is not an ounce of legitimacy to the Obama administration’s relentless pursuit and persecution of whistle-blowers such as Snowden, whose conduct has been perfectly legal. Meanwhile, the Bill of Rights expressly guarantees “the freedom … of the press” as well as the “right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects.” These are absolute rights, not suggestions conditioned on other government interests.

The “balancing” formula, pursuant to which the president asserts the unilateral power to ignore the Bill of Rights in the name of national security, is a recipe for dictatorship.

In the final analysis, there is no reason even to accept the memorandum released Friday at face value. The Obama administration has repeatedly lied through its teeth as to the extent of its spying activities.

Absolutely no confidence can be placed in the promises of Obama, Holder, and the rest of the political establishment to “self-reform,” “self-regulate,” or otherwise impose “guidelines” on themselves. The Obama administration’s persecution of journalists and whistle-blowers does not need “guidelines.” It is illegal, it must be stopped, and the perpetrators must be held accountable.

The Obama administration has deliberately and repeatedly violated the Constitution, along with the basic rights of hundreds of millions of people in the United States and internationally.  

All of the top military, intelligence, and civilian officials in the American government, including Obama and Holder, deserve to be impeached, arrested, and prosecuted.

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The Unspoken Truth: Coup d’etat in America

The American people have suffered a coup d’etat, but they are hesitant to acknowledge  it. The regime ruling in Washington today lacks constitutional and legal legitimacy.  

Americans are ruled by usurpers who claim that the executive branch is above the law and that the US Constitution is a mere “scrap of paper.”

An unconstitutional government is an illegitimate government. The oath of allegiance requires defense of the Constitution “against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” As the Founding Fathers made clear, the main enemy of the Constitution is the government itself.  Power does not like to be bound and tied down and constantly works to free itself from constraints.

The basis of the regime in Washington is nothing but usurped power. The Obama Regime, like the Bush/Cheney Regime, has no legitimacy.  Americans are oppressed by an illegitimate government ruling, not by law and the Constitution, but by lies and naked force. Those in government see the US Constitution as a “chain that binds our hands.”

The South African apartheid regime was more legitimate than the regime in Washington. The apartheid Israeli regime in Palestine is more legitimate.  The Taliban are more legitimate. Muammar Gaddafi and Saddam Hussein were more legitimate.

The only constitutional protection that the Bush/Obama regime has left standing is the Second Amendment, a meaningless amendment considering the disparity in arms between Washington and what is permitted to the citizenry. No citizen standing with a rifle can protect himself and his family from one of the Department of Homeland Security’s 2,700 tanks, or from a drone, or from a heavily armed SWAT force in body armor.

Like serfs in the dark ages, American citizens can be picked up on the authority of some unknown person in the executive branch and thrown in a dungeon, subject to torture, without any evidence ever being presented to a court or any information to the person’s relatives of his/her whereabouts.  Or they can be placed on a list without explanation that curtails their right to travel by air.  Every communication of every American, except  face-to-face conversation in non-bugged environments, is intercepted and recorded by the National Stasi Agency from which phrases can be strung together to produce a “domestic extremist.”

If throwing an American citizen in a dungeon is too much trouble, the citizen can simply be blown up with a hellfire missile launched from a drone.  No explanation is necessary. For the Obama tyrant, the exterminated human being was just a name on a list.

The president of the united states has declared that he possesses these constitutionally forbidden rights, and his regime has used them to oppress and murder US citizens. The president’s claim that his will is higher than law and the Constitution is public knowledge.  Yet, there is no demand for the usurper’s impeachment. Congress is supine. The serfs are obedient. 

The people who helped transform a democratically accountable president into a Caesar include John Yoo, who was rewarded for his treason by being accepted as a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley, Boalt school of law.  Yoo’s colleague in treason, Jay Scott Bybee was rewarded by being appointed a federal judge on the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. We now have a Berkeley law professor teaching, and a federal circuit judge ruling, that the executive branch is above the law.

The executive branch coup against America has succeeded. The question is: will it stand? Today, the executive branch consists of liars, criminals, and traitors. The evil on earth seems concentrated in Washington.

Washington’s response to Edward Snowden’s evidence that Washington, in total contravention of law both domestic and international, is spying on the entire world has demonstrated to every country that Washington places the pleasure of revenge above law and human rights.

On Washington’s orders, its European puppet states refused overflight permission to the Bolivian presidential airliner carrying President Morales and forced the airliner to land in Austria and be searched. Washington thought that Edward Snowden might be aboard the airliner.  Capturing Snowden was more important to Washington than respect for international law and diplomatic immunity.

How long before Washington orders its UK puppet to send in a SWAT team to drag Julian Asange from the Ecuadoran embassy in London and hand him over to the CIA for waterboarding?

On July 12 Snowden met in the Moscow airport with human rights organizations from around the world. He stated that the illegal exercise of power by Washington prevents him from traveling to any of the three Latin American countries who have offered him asylum. Therefore, Snowden said that he accepted Russian President Putin’s conditions and requested asylum in Russia.

Insouciant Americans, and the young, unaware of the past, don’t know what this means. During my professional life it was Soviet Russia that persecuted truth tellers, while America gave them asylum and tried to protect them.  Today it is Washington that persecutes those who speak the truth, and it is Russia that protects them.

The American public has not, this time, fallen for Washington’s lie that Snowden is a traitor.  The polls show that a majority of Americans see Snowden as a whistleblower.

It is not the US that is damaged by Snowden’s revelations.  It is the criminal elements in the US government that have pulled off a coup against democracy, the Constitution, and the American people who are damaged. It is the criminals who have seized power, not the American people, who are demanding Snowden’s scalp.

The Obama Regime, like the Bush/Cheney Regime, has no legitimacy.  Americans are oppressed by an illegitimate government ruling, not by law and the Constitution, but by lies and naked force.

Under the Obama tyranny, it is not merely Snowden who is targeted for extermination, but every truth-telling American in the country.  It was Department of Homeland Security boss Janet Napolitano, recently rewarded for her service to tyranny by being appointed Chancellor of the of the University of California system, who said that Homeland Security had shifted its focus from Muslim terrorists to “domestic extremists,” an elastic and undefined term that easily includes truth-tellers like Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden who embarrass the government by revealing its crimes.  The criminals who have seized illegitimate power in Washington cannot survive unless truth can be suppressed or redefined as treason.

If Americans acquiesce to the coup d’etat, they will have placed themselves firmly in the grip of tyranny.

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VERY Disturbing Videos Showing American People Signing Petitions to End America as We Know it!

Two VERY troubling videos show Mark Dice campaigning people for their signatures to help the Obama administration to repeal the 1st amendment, as well as the Bill of Rights.  

He is VERY clear about what these petitions are about; mentioning the New World Order, and REPEALING the 1st Amendment, Stripping us of Free Speech, etc., and they just go on ahead and sign away, agreeing with him!!!? 

Without these rights, there IS NO America!  Is this what we have come to?  A nation of no-minds?  It appears that these people have no clue what it is that they are signing.

Without the Bill of Rights, OUR RIGHTS to free speech, a fair, public, and speedy trial, and protection from warrant-less searches and seizures, ARE FOREVER GONE.

We will no longer be protected from quartering of troops and cruel and unusual punishment, our right to petition, bear arms, have a trial by jury and more, WILL BE FOREVER GONE.

If these people that are signing these mock petitions, had their way, the first ten amendments to the Constitution would be repealed!!! America as we know it would cease to exist.

These 2 videos, below are not only frightening, but are proof that the "Dumbing Down of America" has succeeded.

Obama Supporters Sign Petition to Repeal the BILL OF RIGHTS to Support the President:

Obama Supporters Petition to Repeal the FIRST AMENDMENT. Seriously!

“Bankers Caught on Tape, Joking About Bailout- [Picked The Bailout Number] “Out My Ass”

Photo:dailyalternative.co.uk

Caught on tape, executives at the Anglo-Irish bank were joking about how they convinced lawmakers to pay the bank with figures he “picked out of his arse”, with no plans to pay them back.  

Finally, a very embarrassing leaked conversation reveals perhaps the true mind and personality characteristics of a banker. Pulling money “out of ass”‘s , getting money for nothing. Be it fractional reserve banking, charging interest on money that doesn’t exist, or bailouts, these bankers surely all laugh at the ease at which they get free money. While these bankers laugh, homes are foreclosed upon, people starve and die all over the world, and poverty penetrates the core of humanity. Meanwhile, bankers pull “money out [their] ass”.

The clip where the bankers say these selfish things can be listened to below. If you want someone else to finally understand the deceptive nature of the establishment and the fractional reserve banking / bailout / banking cartel paradigm, don’t forget to share this article with someone who doesn’t fully understand this reality.

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These Criminal Banksters have us; the whole world, in the palm of their hands.  It's time to put a STOP to their rape of us and our neighbors!  We can NO LONGER be their serfs!  THIS HAS TO STOP!  Please, read the story on how Iceland got their country back from the criminal Banking cabal, here.  We MUST follow suit if we are to have anything left to rebuild our nations with.  These people: the Elites, are sociopaths, and must pay for their crimes against us, along with all their country leader puppets.  

They work to keep us separated with racism, gun control, wars over THEIR oil, and through their puppet mainstream media hubs that fill our lives with their propaganda, like CNN, MSNBC, BBC, FOX, CBS; all of the mainstreams...

If ever there was a time that we needed to come together; and drop all our differences as prejudices, and knock all these criminals down, it is NOW!