Common Dreams – by Jon Queally

In the latest revelation made possible by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, theWashington Post on Thursday published an investigative analysis and interactive map of America’s so-called “Black Budget” which details the $52.6 billion allotment of taxpayer money that funds the government’s “intelligence-gathering colossus” that has previously remained insulated from the eyes of the American public.   Continue reading “‘Black Budget’ Revealed: A Detailed Look at US ‘Espionage Empire’”

Breitbart – by MATTHEW BOYLE

SPARTANBURG — South Carolina Tea Party groups have drafted a resolution containing a 29-point case to replace Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) with a Senator who is more conservative, Breitbart News has learned.

Local Tea Party leaders provided the document, a resolution that can be passed by local and state GOP committees, to Breitbart News. It argues that Graham’s activities in the U.S. Senate are a violation of the principles of the South Carolina Republican Party platform. Graham is up for reelection next year.    Continue reading “South Carolina Tea Partiers Draft Resolution to Replace Lindsey Graham”

Corp Watch – by Pratap Chatterjee

Glimmerglass, a northern California company that sells optical fiber technology, offers government agencies a software product called “CyberSweep” to intercept signals on undersea cables. The company says their technology can analyze Gmail and Yahoo! Mail as well as social media like Facebook and Twitter to discover “actionable intelligence.”

Could this be the technology that the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) is using to tap global communications? The company says it counts several intelligence agencies among its customers but refuses to divulge details. One thing is certain – it is not the only company to offer such capabilities – so if such data mining is not already taking place, that day is not far off.   Continue reading “Glimmerglass Intercepts Undersea Cable Traffic for Spy Agencies”

Aletho News

“The objectives should be … to ensure that Assad’s chemical weapons no longer threaten … our allies in the region”

The names of the “experts” seeking a “decisive response” against Syria:   Continue reading “America’s Israel Lobby Demands “Direct Military Strikes” Against Syria”

French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, right, reacts as he arrives at the French Prime Minister in Paris, Monday Sept. 2, 2013. French Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault will meet with the leaders of Parliament's defense and foreign affairs committees. The prime minister's office said Ayrault will give the lawmakers an update on Syria and show them a declassified report on Syria's chemical weapons to back up France's claim that the Assad regime was responsible for the attack. (AP Photo/Michel Euler)Yahoo News – AP

PARIS (AP) — A French intelligence report on Monday alleged that the Syrian regime launched an attack on Aug. 21 that involved a “massive use of chemical agents” and could carry out similar strikes in the future.

The government, on its Web site, published a 9-page intelligence synopsis about Syria’s chemical weapons program that found that at least 281 deaths could be attributed to the attack in rebel-held areas outside Damascus. The analysis based that count in part on dozens of videos culled by French intelligence services.   Continue reading “French intel: Syrian regime led chemical attack”

Obama, in a surprising, or maybe not so surprising development, has backed away from his absolutism in his posing as a dictator, saying he will now seek congressional approval for the proposed illegal attack on Syria.  Of course the mainstream propagandists are putting forth the notion that the reason Obama backed off was because of a few “good guys” in the US House and Senate and concern for his legacy.

Obama backed off because the American people once again got right up in his face and let him know that we, as the only true power in this sovereign country, do not give him the authority to act unilaterally as the dictator he would like to be.    Continue reading “Does Obama Fear for his Legacy or his Neck?”

Zero Hedge -by Tyler Durden

Following President Obama’s decision to pass the blame buck to Congress (and its oh-so-great track record of making decisions), the Syrian Electronic Army has struck again. This time right at the heart of the matter – defacing the “Marines.com” website. As The Independent reports, the US Marines received a message calling for support from their “brothers, the Syrian army soldiers” – in the form of a web attack changing the homepage of the official Marines recruitment site to a page entitled ““Hacked by SEA.” The message also stated,“Obama is a traitor who wants to put your lives in danger to rescue al-Qaida insurgents,” which seems to fit with many of their perspectives as we have noted previously. Full text and screenshot below…   Continue reading “Syrian Electronic Army Hacks “Marines.com”; Calls Them “Brothers” In Arms”

A Free Syrian Army fighter runs for cover during clashes with forces loyal to Syria's President Bashar Al-Assad beside the Canadian Hospital in Aleppo, August 31, 2013. REUTERS/Molhem BarakatReuters – by Oliver Holmes

Syria has asked the United Nations to prevent “any aggression” against Syria following a call over the weekend by U.S. President Barack Obama for punitive strikes against the Syrian military for last month’s chemical weapons attack.

Washington says more than 1,400 people, many of them children, were killed in the world’s worst use of chemical arms since Iraq’s Saddam Hussein gassed thousands of Kurds in 1988.   Continue reading “Syria asks the United Nations to stop U.S. strike”

TransCanada wins Texas court battle over Keystone XL pipelineLauren Krugel, Canadian Press I will continue to proudly stand up for my own personal rights, the property rights of my family, and those of other Texans fighting to protect their landCALGARY — A Texas judge has ruled against a landowner who wants to prevent TransCanada Corp. from building an oil pipeline across her land.Julia Trigg Crawford was trying to challenge TransCanada’s status as a common carrier — a label that would give the Calgary-based pipeline company the right to eminent domain, enabling it to seize private property for the project.In a decision late Wednesday, Lamar County Court-at-law judge Bill Harris ruled that TransCanada is a common carrier.In a statement, Crawford vowed to keep fighting.“I will continue to proudly stand up for my own personal rights, the property rights of my family, and those of other Texans fighting to protect their land,” she said.The company welcomed the ruling.RelatedTransCanada gets permit for Keystone pipeline’s southern leg as profit fallsWarren Buffett backs Keystone XL pipeline“This ruling reaffirms that TransCanada has — and continues — to follow all state and federal laws and regulations as we move forward with the construction of the Gulf Coast Project,” company spokesman James Millar said in an email.Jane Kleeb of the group Bold Nebraska, which has been fighting TransCanada’s pipeline plans, calls the ruling an “affront to landowners’ liberties.”“TransCanada has used its financial and legal resources to bully landowners like Julia Trigg Crawford in order to clear the way for their multibillion-dollar tar sands pipeline,” Kleeb said in a release.“Throughout the process, landowners have been cast aside and their concerns about land and water ignored.”The US$2.3-billion pipeline between Oklahoma and refineries on the Texas Coast had been part of TransCanada’s Keystone XL proposal to ship Alberta oilsands crude to the Gulf Coast.But the company decided earlier this year to break that project into two parts after the Obama administration rejected it in its entirety — not based on the merits of the pipeline itself, but because Republican manoeuvring to speed up the process would not have allowed sufficient time to address ecological concerns in Nebraska.TransCanada aims to have the Gulf Coast Project, which does not need a federal permit to proceed as it doesn’t cross an international border, up and running by mid- to late-2013. It has all the approvals it needs from the Army Corps of Engineers.Meanwhile, it has submitted a new application for permit to build the northern portion of the pipeline, which would run from the Canada-U.S. border in Montana to Nebraska. TransCanada expects that segment to be in service in late 2014 or early 2015.The OGM – by Lauren Krugel, Canadian Press

CALGARY — A Texas judge has ruled against a landowner who wants to prevent TransCanada Corp. from building an oil pipeline across her land.

Julia Trigg Crawford was trying to challenge TransCanada’s status as a common carrier — a label that would give the Calgary-based pipeline company the right to eminent domain, enabling it to seize private property for the project.   Continue reading “TransCanada wins Texas court battle over Keystone XL pipeline”

TransCanada worker welds section of Keystone XL pipeline near Winnsboro.Texas Observer – Priscila Mosqueda

On a Wednesday in late June, Evan Vokes packed his only pair of shorts in a suitcase and boarded a plane to Dallas, happy to trade the chill of Calgary, Canada, for a Texas summer. Over the next four days, he’d travel by car and a low-flying Cessna from Paris south to Beaumont, following the route of the Keystone XL pipeline, slated to bring oil from the Canadian tar sands to refineries on the Gulf Coast. Armed with an encyclopedic knowledge of arcane pipeline regulations, Vokes came to check out claims from landowners that his former employer—Canadian company TransCanada—was botching the job on the pipeline.   Continue reading “Whistleblower, Landowners: TransCanada is Botching the Job on Keystone XL Pipeline”

March brings together gun rights proponents News Journal – by Angela Ward

Carrying rifles and shotguns, proponents of open carry laws marched through downtown Longview on Saturday morning.

About 130 people participated in the march, which ended on the Gregg County Courthouse lawn.

“Our rights have been respected, and we’re going to exercise them as free men,” said organizer Stephen Lee.

While middle-aged men made up the bulk of the group, there also were young families with small children, as well as women and elderly residents.   Continue reading “Longview, Texas march brings together gun rights proponents”

Anti-War – by Rep. Ron Paul

President Obama announced this weekend that he has decided to use military force against Syria and would seek authorization from Congress when it returned from its August break. Every Member ought to vote against this reckless and immoral use of the US military. But even if every single Member and Senator votes for another war, it will not make this terrible idea any better because some sort of nod is given to the Constitution along the way.   Continue reading “Will Congress Endorse Obama’s War Plans? Does it Matter?”

Lew Rockwell – by Laurence M. Vance

If and when the United States government intervenes militarily in some way in Syria, there is no question that U.S. military personnel will take the lives and destroy the property of people that had never harmed an American or threatened the United States in any way.

And most Americans won’t even care.   Continue reading “Hands off Syria – An Asinine Proposition”

The Independent – by Rob Williams

Six British soldiers have been arrested in New York after an off-duty police officer was allegedly beaten up and robbed outside a bar.

A court in Manhattan heard that the Royal Regiment of Scotland soldiers allegedly punched an NYPD officer to the floor and continued hitting him as a friend attempted to stop them.   Continue reading “British soldiers held for ‘attack’ on New York police officer after alleged racial slur”

The Daily Beast – by Abby Haglage

In the wake of 9/11, the NYPD launched a huge surveillance program. In the new book Enemies Within, Matt Apuzzo and Adam Goldman detail the radical counterterrorism plan that destroyed the city’s privacy.

While peering out onto the burning rubble at Ground Zero in the days after September 11, Ray Kelly (then an executive at Bear Stearns) had an epiphany: “The NYPD needs its own intelligence unit.” If the federal government continued to hold a monopoly on nationwide intelligence information, he theorized, the NYPD would simply be “waiting to respond to the next [terrorist] attack” and “helpless to prevent it.” Sworn in as New York City police commissioner just four months later in January 2002, the former Wall Streeter made it his mission to ensure that the NYPD would have the power—and intelligence—to stop something like this from happening on NYC soil again.   Continue reading “9 Secrets of the NYPD’s Spy Unit Revealed in ‘Enemies Within’”

MassPrivateI

For at least six years, law enforcement officials working on a counternarcotics program have had routine access, using subpoenas, to an enormous AT&T database that contains the records of decades of Americans’ phone calls — parallel to but covering a far longer time than the National Security Agency’s hotly disputed collection of phone call logs.    Continue reading “DEA circumvents the Fourth Amendment by spying on Americans phone calls without a warrant”

The Kansas City Star – by Karen Dillon

A vast underground lake beneath western Kansas and parts of seven other states could be mostly depleted by 2060, turning productive farmland back to semi-arid ground, a new study says.

The life of the Ogallala Aquifer could be extended several decades, but only if water usage is reduced, a four-year study by researchers from Kansas State University found.

“There is going to be agriculture production in Kansas and corn production and cattle production really for the foreseeable future,” David Steward, lead author of the study, said in an interview last week.  Continue reading “The Ogallala Aquifer, an important water resource, is in trouble”

Mahdi TrojanTech 2 – by Anujeet Majumdar

Anew surveillance progamme has now come to light that is far greater in size than NSA’s PRISM programme, according to the New York Times. Law enforcement officers, as part of a counter-narcotics programme, have routinely been able to access a huge AT&T database containing decades of American phone calls records for the past six years.   Continue reading “US drug agent-run surveillance programme surfaces, reportedly bigger than PRISM”