Jerome R. Corsi's Blog, page 309

IRS chief unable to defend 'no wrongdoing' claim

The questioning of IRS chief Daniel Werfel by the House Ways and Means Committee today began with fireworks as committee chairman Rep. Dave Camp, R-Mich., pushed back strongly against Werfel’s claim that an internal IRS investigation has found “no wrongdoing” among IRS employees and that progressive as well as conservative groups were targeted for additional scrutiny upon applying for tax-exempt status.

The attempt by Democrats to claim the IRS targeted progressive as well as conservative groups was derailed by the release of a report by the Treasury Department’s inspector general for tax administration.

Werfel’s claim that an IRS internal investigation found no wrongdoing by IRS employees in the handling of applications for tax-exempt status was countered by Camp, who characterized Werfel’s investigation as “incomplete.”

The hearing began with Rep. Sander Levin, D-Mich., the ranking member of the committee, attempting to shift the focus of the investigation to argue the IRS had targeted progressive groups along with conservative groups.

Camp, countering Levin, pointedly read from the report by J. Russell George, the Treasury Department’s inspector general for tax administration. George conclusion that 30 percent of the groups with “progressive” in their title were given extra credit, while 100 percent of groups with “tea party,” “patriot” or “9/12” in their titles were pulled out for strict scrutiny that the IRS has since admitted included invasive and inappropriate questions.

Statistical analysis in the inspector general’s report showed that the so-called “Be on the Lookout,” or BOLO lists, between May 2010 and May 2012, targeted for additional scrutiny only six progressive groups, compared to 292 conservative groups.

Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas, hit Werfel with a series of rapid-fire questions.

Brady demanded to know who within the IRS was responsible for initiating a wide range of “ideologically oriented” activities, including the targeting of conservative groups for additional scrutiny on their tax exempt-applications. He also wanted to know who within the IRS was responsible for targeting the donors of conservative groups and who was responsible for the leaking of information to the media regarding conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.

“I don’t know,” was Werfel’s answer to each question Brady shot at him.

“Your report is a sham,” Brady said pointedly to Werfel, rejecting the IRS chief’s opening statement that his internal investigation had found no wrongdoing among IRS employees.

“You work for the American people and your job is not [to] cover up,” Brady said.

Appearing angered by Werfel’s answers, Brady explained sharply to Werfel that the House Ways and Means Committee intended to get the truth about the BOLO lists and IRS ideological targeting. Brady warned Werfel that he, too, would also be investigated if he attempted to stonewall or misrepresent facts.

Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wisc., grilled Werfel on why the IRS budget request for Fiscal Year 2014 called for $1 billion in additional expenses even though Congress has already identified millions of dollars of questionable IRS expenses, including instances of waste and abuse in spending on training conferences.

“The costs you have identified are excessive and in many cases should not have happened,” Werfel said, attempting to defend the IRS. “But these expenses were from two or three years ago. These expenses are not continuing today.”

Ryan was not impressed.

“Why not make your cuts now and then come back to us for a budget increase?” Ryan asked, reminding Werfel that he worked for the taxpayer and not the other way around.

Charles Boustany Jr. R-La., directly asked Werfel if he was engaged in a cover-up.

“Is there a cover-up?” Werfel replied. “I don’t know the answer to that until we complete the investigation.”

Boustany followed:” “How can you maintain you don’t know if there was a wrong-doing?”

ACLU vows to bring marriage battle to states

“We did it!” declared ACLU President Anthony D. Romero in a fundraising email sent out within an hour of the announcement of the Supreme Court decisions on same-sex marriage Wednesday.

The email featured a photograph of ACLU client Edie Windsor being hugged by her partner, the late Thea Spyer.

Beneath the picture, the ACLU posted a “Donate Now” button, with the following copy: “The ACLU won the fight to overturn DOMA at the Supreme Court. Now we turn to the states to win the freedom to marry for all Americans.”

Windsor and Spyer, residents of New York in 2007, were wed in Ontario, Canada, taking advantage of New York law that recognizes the marriage of same-sex couples wed lawfully outside the state.

Get Jerome Corsi’s “Bad Samaritans: The ACLU’s Relentless Campaign to Erase Faith From the Public Square,” a new and scorching exposé of the group, examining its history, goals, tactics, funding, and the war it daily wages against faith and the legacy of the Founding Fathers.

The case arose when Windsor sought an IRS refund after Spyer died in 2009, leaving Windsor her estate. Windsor was forced to pay $363,053 in estate taxes after the IRS denied her a federal estate tax exemption for surviving spouses under Section 3 of the federal Defense of Marriage Act.

In U.S. v. Windsor, the Supreme Court ruled that same-sex couples married in states that allow same-sex civil marriages must be granted federal privileges available to civil marriages formed between a man and a woman.

Targeting the states

“Donate now to support the ACLU’s work and help spearhead challenges to state marriage bans that still prevent millions of loving same-sex couples from getting married,” Romero, the first openly gay president of the ACLU, wrote in the ACLU fundraising email.

“Thanks to Edie’s victory today, marriages between same-sex couples will now be recognized under federal law,” the ACLU continued. “But state marriage bans are still preventing millions of loving same-sex couples from getting married.”

Romero announced that the ACLU’s “big, multi-year plan” to eliminate state same-sex marriage bans will begin Thursday with a full-page ad in the Wall Street Journal.

“Our goal is simple, win the freedom to marry for same-sex couples all across America,” Romero’s email explained, signaling that the next initiative of the ACLU will be to challenge state law in states where same-sex civil unions are not yet legal.

ACLU posts on Twitter following the Supreme Court decision echoed the ACLU plan to press for legal challenges and ballot initiatives in the 30 states in which same-sex prohibitions remain in state constitutions.

ACLU tweets following Supreme Court decision

How does the ACLU plan to bring the same-sex marriage battle to the states?

“First, we have to secure the freedom to marry in a critical mass of states through litigation, lobbying, and ballot initiatives,” the email continued. “This will bring the freedom to marry to millions of people and set the stage for the strongest solution of all – a Supreme Court ruling that the Constitution requires all states to allow same-sex couples to marry.”

Specifically, the ACLU has announced targeting with ballot initiatives the 30 states with constitutional amendments in place excluding same-sex couples from marrying.

“With your support, the ACLU is launching an all-out campaign to win the freedom to marry in more states,” the email concluded. “Then we’re putting campaign managers on the ground, setting long-term legislative strategies in motion, cultivating political allies on both sides of the aisle and preparing the ground for winning initiative campaigns.”

VIDEO: Syrian 'rebels' behead man, execute 2 women

Libyan expatriate sources proven to be credible have posted a gruesome video on YouTube showing a group of Syrian “rebels” brutally beheading a man and shooting two women and tossing their bodies down a hole in the ground.

The Libyan expatriates forwarded the video to WND to make bolster their claim that the “rebel forces” about to be armed by the Obama administration are made up of radical Islamic terrorist groups with international ties to al-Qaida.

Viewers are warned that the video is so horrific that it could be psychologically disturbing.

Reliable sources have identified the Syrian Islamic terrorists in the video as members of Syria’s al-Nusra Front, a group of radical Islamic terrorists that are allied with al-Qaida in Iraq. Several of the terrorists in the video have been identified as European and are thought to be recruits to Syria from radical Islamic groups in Kosovo.

These same sources explained to WND the man beheaded in the video and the two women shot were most likely supporters of the Syrian regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and/or secular Muslims who did not embrace the goal of the al-Nursa Front to establish a religious government in Syria after deposing the Assad regime.

In June, Real Clear Politics reported that radical Islamic Jihadists from Europe and across the Middle East have streamed to Syria to obtain valuable battleground experiences.

The report also said the so-called “moderate” Syrian Free Army, composed primarily of defectors from the Syrian army, have decided to cooperate with al-Nursa fighters to destroy the Assad regime.

The incident in the video occurred in Aleppo, Syria’s largest city, near the northern border with Turkey.

In May, the United Nations Security Council voted to blacklist Syria’s al-Nusra front in a decision that subjected the group to sanctions, including an arms embargo and travel bans.

The U.S. State Department designated al-Nusra as a terrorist organization last December.

Reports from Syria http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/05/24... indicate that among the so-called “rebel forces” fighting to topple the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, the al-Nursa Front has been one of the most effective fighting groups, exerting an increasing influence over rebel tactics.

“Jabhat al-Nusra (JN) is a Syrian jihadist group fighting against Bashar Al-Assad’s Ba’athist regime, with the aim of establishing an Islamist state in Syria,” according to a strategic briefing prepared by >a href=”http://www.quilliamfoundation.org/abo... Quilliam Foundation, a London-based thinktank.

“With approximately 5000 members JN is by no means the largest group fighting in the conflict, although it has often been described as the most effective. There are a number of similarities between JN and al-Qaeda In Iraq (AQI), which serves as evidence of their shared history beginning in the early 2000s. The short-term strategy of JN is primarily military focused, although preparations are being made for long-term sustainability of the group, including the organization of a humanitarian support group and the procurement of heavy weaponry.

In May, Al-Jazeera reported that Abu Mohammed al-Jawlani has stated in a YouTube video posted on April 10, that: “The sons of al-Nursa Front pledge allegiance to Sheik Ayman al-Zawahiri, the former right-hand man of Osama bin Laden, currently identified as the acting head of al-Qaida.

Former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in an interview Feb. 26, 2012, with CBS, acknowledged that Zawahiri and al-Qaida were supporting the opposition to Assad in Syria.

The Obama administration has yet to explain how weapons shipped to supply Syrian rebels will be kept out of the hands of al-Nursa and al-Qaida.

A report published by the New York Times in March documented how the CIA was already providing arms to the Syrian rebels by supplying weapons in a secret airlift involving Turkey, Jordan, and Qatar.

According to the New York Times, the secret weapons airlift had by March of this year grown to 160 military cargo flights by Jordanian, Saudi, and Qatari military cargo flights landing at Esenboga Airport near Ankara, Turkey, and to a lesser degree, at other Turkish and Jordanian airports, with the weapons aimed for delivery to the rebels fighting Assad in Syria.

Benghazi descends into chaos under U.S.-backed regime

Benghazi has descended into a state of civil emergency in which lawless militia have begun killing protestors with impunity, in the name of the puppet government the United States has established in Tripoli.

A group of highly credible Libyan expatriates have provided WND with links to television news video clips from Libya dramatically showing armed militia in Benghazi on June 8, firing indiscriminately on civilians attempting to protest the increasing influence of radical Islam thug groups with loose ties to al-Qaida.

A key group promoting the violence is Libyan Shield, a militia originally known as the Free Libya Martyrs. It is commanded by Wesam Bin Hameed, the Islamic extremist who, as WND previously reported, has the personal effects of slain U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens locked in a safe.

The New York Times reported this week that the Libyan government has given Libya Shield under the control of Bin Hameed official status, rather than demanding it disband.

In the war against Gadhafi, Bin Hameed came to prominence commanding Libya Shield, then fighting under the banner of Free Libya Martyrs, in the takeover of Tripoli at the end of the NATO bombing operation.

In October 2012, Bin Hameed’s Libya Shield, a radical group composed primarily of violent Islamic fighters from Libya’s port city of Misrata, encircled and pummeled with mortar and artillery fire ethnic Libyans in Bani Walid, an area some 170 kilometers southeast of Tripoli that had remained loyal to Gadhafi during and after the so-called “Arab Spring.”

Last Sunday, Libya’s army chief, Gen. Yusef al-Mangoush, resigned under criticism for his failure to form a national army by bringing under control the various radical Islamic militia now terrorizing much of the Libyan population.

Jomaa Atiga, the vice president of the General National Congress, announced last week the Libyan government was being given two weeks to submit a planned to disband the armed militia and integrate their members into the regular security forces, an objective few unbiased observers feel will be accomplished any time soon.

In May, Muhammad al-Magarief, the chairman of the General National Congress, resigned under a new law banning from public office anyone who had worked for the Gadhafi government.

Directly contradicting the Obama administration narrative, Magaief insisted immediately after the Benghazi attack on Sept. 11, 2012, that the assault was a premeditated terrorist attack carried out by foreigners who had entered Libya a few months earlier.

Missing weapons

Peter Bouckaert, the emergency director at Human Rights Watch, confirmed to WND in an interview an Associated Press report Monday that Russian-made SA-7 portable, shoulder-fired surface-to-air missile systems, known as MANPADS, that likely came from Gadhafi’s arms depots in Libya are now in the possession of Islamic terrorists in Mali who have links to al-Qaida.

“I visited a lot of the weapons storage facilities in Libya after the fall of Gadhafi, and I found that a lot of the MANPADS were missing,” Bouckaert explained. “We also had the shipping documents from Russia. For many years, Russia was one of the main weapons suppliers to Gadhafi. We raised the alarm about the missing weapons back then.”

Bouckaert also confirmed there were Russian SA-7 MANPADS in the three cartons of weapons and ammunition confiscated in April 2012, when Lebanon intercepted the cargo vessel Luftfallah II, registered in Sierra Leone. The ship had departed from Libya bound for the Free Syrian Army, a coalition of rebel fighters seeking to oust Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

In early 2011, when Bouckaert was in Libya making an inventory of weapons then in Libyan government weapons depots, he took photographs of pickup truckloads of SA-7 missiles being carted off and carried away.

“I myself could have removed several hundred [SA-7s] if I wanted to, and people can literally drive up with pickup trucks or even 18 wheelers and take away whatever they want,” Bouckaert told ABC News at the time. “Every time I arrive at one of these weapons facilities, the first thing we notice going missing is the surface-to-air missiles.”

In an interview given one month before the Benghazi attack, former Navy SEAL Glen Doherty, who died in the attack, told ABC News that he personally was going into the field to track down MANPADS and destroy them.

ABC News reported that after the fall of Gadhafi, the State Department launched a mission to find the thousands of MANPADS looted from military installations before the weapons fell in the hands of terrorists, causing a threat particularly to commercial airliners.

Doherty further told ABC News that he traveled throughout Libya chasing reports of the weapons, and once they were found, his team would destroy them on the spot by beating them with hammers or repeatedly running over the weapons with their vehicles.

In September 2011, a year prior to the Benghazi attack, ABC news reported the White House was working with “the rebel Transnational National Council” in Libya to find the looted SA-7 missiles.

U.S. running guns in Libya?

“We expect to deploy additional personnel to assist the TNC as they expand efforts to secure conventional arms storage sites,” White House spokesman Jay Carney said at the time. “We’re obviously at a governmental level – both State Department and at the U.N. and elsewhere – working with the TNC on this.”

Just five days before Ambassador Stevens and Doherty were killed in Benghazi, a Libyan-flagged vessel, the Al-Entisar, which means “The Victory,” was intercepted in the Turkish port of Iskenderun, 35 miles from the Syrian border, carrying weapons en route to rebel groups in Syria fighting Assad.

This discovery caused Fox News at the time to speculate that Ambassador Stevens may have been in Benghazi on Sept. 11, 2012, to negotiate a weapons transfer in an effort to get SA-7 missiles out of the hands of Libya-based Islamic extremists.

Fox News reported that a State Department spokeswoman dismissed the speculation, insisting Stevens had been in Benghazi for diplomatic meetings and to attend the opening of a cultural center.

Last month, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., suggested to CNN that the U.S. State Department facility in Benghazi might have been an outpost for running guns from Libya to Syria.

“I never have quite understood the cover-up – if it was intentional or incompetence,” Sen. Paul explained to CNN. “But something went on. I mean, they had talking points that they were trying to make it about a movie when everybody seemed to be on the ground telling them it had nothing to do with a movie. I don’t know if this was for political reasons.”

Paul raised the issue of why Stevens, when he arrived in Libya in early 2011, was a liaison to Abdul Hakim Belhaj of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, as well as the U.S. deputy chief of mission and a special representative to the National Transition Council.

“I’ve always suspected, although I have no evidence, that maybe we were facilitating arms leaving Libya, going through Turkey into Syria,” Paul told CNN.

By November 2011, Belhaj, then acting as the head of the Tripoli Military Council and a former leader of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, according to the London Telegraph, was holding meetings with officials from the rebel Free Syrian Army officials in Turkey about providing troops and arms to Syria to assist in the fight against the Assad government.

WND previously reported that Abdul Hakim Belhaj is the al-Qaida operative that Libyan expatriates claim was the principal organizer of the Sept. 11, 2012, attack in Benghazi.

NSA chief confirms leaker had access to personal data

WASHINGTON — The NSA director confirmed to Congress today that leaker Edward Snowden had access to a highly sensitive database containing personal information that could be mined to track a target’s thoughts and actions and possibly predict future acts.

U.S. Army General Keith B. Alexander, commander of U.S. Cyber Command and director of the National Security Agency, told the Senate Appropriations Committee that Snowden “had great skills as an IT (Internet Technology) system administrator.”

Alexander’s explanation came in response to a query by Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., about how Snowden had advanced to trusted access to a treasure trove of secret NSA information. The 29-year-old had dropped out of high school and failed in his military experience, only to end up working for three months as a Booz Allen Hamilton employee in Hawaii under a contract with the NSA.

Alexander confirmed that Snowden, as a system administrator for Booz Allen, had access to “a wide range of sensitive NSA information.”

Responding to Snowden’s claim that he could wiretap any phone call in the United States, Alexander said that’s false.

“I know of no way to do it,” the NSA chief said.

In defense of NSA surveillance activities, Alexander claimed the NSA data collection has prevented dozens of “critical” terrorist events.

“We are less secure than we were two weeks ago,” Alexander further claimed, arguing Snowden’s leaks had jeopardized national security.

Snowden has access to PRISM technologies widely used by the federal government in law enforcement to collect, manage and mine macro-databases to track an individual’s personal information with the goal of profiling potential national security risks.

PRISM is an acronym for Personal Record Information System Methodology. PRISM software integrates Personally Identifiable Information, which includes name and address, with data records accessed from other sources. The sources include emails, text messages and telephone conversations.

PRISM system

A Department of Homeland Security document dated June 4, 2009, devoted to a privacy impact assessment for the DHS PRISM system, makes clear DHS was using a commercial off-the-shelf software program to drive the DHS PRISM system used primarily to administer and monitor DHS procurement contracts.

A similar Federal Aviation Administration PRISM system operates to manage and administer FAA outside contracts. The FAA PRISM system is contracted from Compusearch Software Systems Inc.

Similarly, the Department of Defense PRISM software is provided by Compusearch Software Systems Inc. and appears to be dedicated to managing Department of Defense acquisition and grants program.

The common characteristic is that PRISM software is designed to combine personal information with information obtained in various databases. For the FAA and DOD that includes contracting information, project management reports and financial accounting data.

The focus changes once the PRISM application has a law enforcement application.

Targeting ‘persons of interest’

U.S. Secret Service PRISM-ID targets national security risks to determine who might be a potential risk to a person, place or event the Secret Service is charged to protect.

The U.S. Secret Service PRISM system appears to mirror the NSA PRISM system in its role of collecting personally identifiable information to protect the president and vice president and foreign heads of state visiting the United States.

A DHS document titled “Privacy Impact Assessment Update for PRISM-ID,” dated Nov. 10, 2010, describes in detail the U.S. Secret Service PRISIM-ID computer technology.

The personally identifiable information obtained by the Secret Service PRISM-ID system includes the following collected on persons considered to be a potential threat to persons, events and facilities under Secret Service protection:

Name and/or Alias;
Address;
E-mail Address;
Date and/or Place of Birth;
Social Security Number;
Driver’s License/State ID Number;
Passport Number;
Alien Registration Number;
FBI and/or State Criminal Record Identification Number;
Prisoner Number;
Identification Numbers issued by other foreign or domestic government units; and/or
Case Number.

The purposes for which the Secret Service PRISM-ID system collects the data include:

Develop threat assessments for protected persons by identifying cases of interest;
Identify individuals who have previously come to the attention of the Secret Service;
Identify suspects for investigations in which the subject is unknown;
Report administrative case information to Secret Service management officials; and
Report statistical case information to the Department of Homeland Security, Office of Management and Budget, and the U.S. Congress.

The sources of information include official reports, queries of government and public records systems, emails and telephone calls, in-person meetings and information posted on the Internet or developed through investigative efforts.

An international news source reporting on the U.S. Secret Service PRISM-ID system has produced the following graphic to display the range of websites available for PII data collection:

U.S. Secret Service PRISM-ID collects Personally Identifiable Information

Secret Service access to Internet search engine data permits the creation of subject profiles in which a particular targeted individual expresses interest.

The PRISM system uses sophisticated computer software to combine micro-targeted personally identifiable information with information about the individual obtainable from mining macro-database information. The system can find the activity of a specific individual by scanning macro-databases of all phone calls and Internet postings.

Once the micro-data is mined from the macro-database, a profile can be built of a particular person’s likely attitudes, interests, concerns, goals, ambitions and fears, affording the capability of surmising thoughts and feelings and predicting future actions.

Predictive algorithms are employed to assess whether or not the target is likely to take actions that pose a national security risk.

Troops 'targeted by NSA for anti-Obama views'

The NSA is systematically monitoring the Internet posts and telephone conversations of U.S. military returning from Afghanistan, according to a civil-liberties attorney.

“The FBI and the Secret Service are showing up to request an interview to question specific Internet posts the veteran has placed on websites such as Facebook,” explained attorney John Whitehead, founder of the Rutherford Institute.

Whitehead said the agencies are looking for “anti-Obama views that can be interpreted to reflect psychological problems of sufficient seriousness to disqualify the veteran from ever owning a firearm.”

Whitehead told WND credible sources within the National Security Agency have told him the NSA is downloading 1 trillion communications on the Internet per month, including posts to various websites, emails, instant message communications and texting messages.

As WND reported last week, Whitehead and the Rutherford Institute in a lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court in Richmond, Va., are representing Marine veteran Brandon Raub, 27, who was arrested by FBI and Secret Service agents for comments he made on Facebook expressing dissatisfaction with the present direction of the U.S. government.

Whitehead said his office has received numerous calls from U.S. military returning from Afghanistan with reports they are being visited by the FBI and Secret Service to ask questions about their Internet postings.

“We are advising veterans being visited by the FBI or the Secret Service to take the Fifth Amendment rather than answer questions that might end up with a diagnosis of PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder, which goes into the veteran’s file and can be used in the future to prevent the veteran from purchasing a firearm,” he said.

Whitehead said that in most of the cases, there isn’t enough information to obtain a search warrant from a judge.

But if the veteran answers questions, he said, the Secret Service or the FBI might get a psychiatrist to visit with the vet for 10 or 15 minutes in the jail cell to acquire enough information to certify in front of a judge that the person should be placed in a civil commitment because of a psychological problem.

In February, Investors.com reported a complaint by Michael Connelly, executive director of the United States Justice Foundation, that veterans have been getting letters from the Veterans Administration informing them they have been declared mentally incompetent.

The vet must provide evidence to the contrary within 60 days. If the vet desires a hearing, he or she must inform the Veterans Administration within 30 days.

According to the provisions of the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act any person receiving a determination of incompetency can be prevented from purchasing, receiving, owning, or transporting a firearm or ammunition.

Ronald S. Honberg, director of policy and legal affairs for the National Alliance on Mental Illness, testified before the Domestic Policy Subcommittee of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on May 10, 2007, that the term “adjudicated as a mental defective” is both stigmatizing and incompatible with modern terminology used in the diagnosis and treatment of people with a mental illness.

“No state official charged with carrying out the requirements of the Brady bill could possibly know what this means, as it is a term that has been obsolete for close to 40 years,” Honberg explained to Congress. “We have received emails and other communications in the past few weeks from people who are incredulous that such a term would still be used in federal law.”

Whitehead explained the problem is intensifying as an increasing percentage of the U.S. military serving in Afghanistan have become disillusioned with Obama administration policy toward the war.

“I’ve had veterans returning from Afghanistan tell me that they passed by the opium fields and it shocked me that the U.S. government was helping the Afghans plant that stuff,” Whitehead said.

“There’s a lot of corruption in the Afghanistan government, passing around bags of cash to top officials, and our troops are beginning to ask, ‘Why am I here?’

He said of these veterans “enlisted wanting to be a great soldier, but they are coming back disillusioned.”

“I’m getting a lot of reports that soldiers are getting pronounced PSTD and there’s nothing they can do about it,” he said. “Then they come home and the process continues. The NSA is targeting veterans, there’s no doubt about it.”

Whitehead said “the technology is driving the show now” at the NSA, with computer software identifying “problematic phrases” that target a person as a potential troublemaker.

He said that with the NSA is doing a trillion downloads a month, “the surveillance is pervasive.”

“Anything digital is subject to government investigation, typically without the person having any knowledge it is happening,” he said. “If you want to go on Google and be anti-war, you are going to end up in a file and you are going to be subject to further investigation.”

Whitehead warned that the telephone call interviewing him for this article was almost certainly being recorded by the NSA and that the contents would end up in a file both for him and for WND.

“The United States is already in a police state, such that the only question is how we are going to deal with it,” he stressed. “With Bush, the surveillance state was beginning. Under Obama, the NSA has blossomed to a whole new level unimaginable in an era only a few years ago before this computer technology existed.”

Whitehead told WND he was convinced Operation Vigilant Eagle was still in operation targeting military veterans as potentially dangerous “right-wing extremists,” even though the DHS, the Department of Defense and the FBI have dropped since 2009 any specific reference to the programs.

“When the drones get here, another Obama program, the drones are going to be awesome,” he warned.

“The drones will have scanning devices that can fly over your home and grab all the digital data in the place where you live. The drones are going to up the ante, there’s no doubt about it. The only question is whether this is still the United States of America. There’s nowhere to hide anymore.”

DOJ regards criticism of Islam, Obama as criminal?

The U.S. attorney who warned last week that “inflammatory speech” against Islam could violate civil-rights laws was the prosecutor who brought firearms charges against a Navy veteran who challenged the validity of President Obama’s birth certificate.

William Killian, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Tennessee, made the warning in a slide presentation June 4 in Manchester, Tenn.

The Navy veteran, Darren Huff, came on the federal government’s radar in 2010 when he and another Navy veteran living in Tennessee, Walt Fitzpatrick, filed civil actions in court charging President Obama with treason. The veterans claimed Obama assumed the presidency while refusing to prove he was born in Hawaii by presenting to the American public a 1961 original long-form Hawaii birth certificate that could be independently authenticated by court-recognized document experts.

According to the Department of Justice website, Huff, on April 20, 2010, traveled from his home in Dallas, Ga., to Madisonville, Tenn., upset at the refusal of the grand jury in Monroe County, Tenn., to indict Obama for treason. He allegedly carried with him a .45 caliber handgun and an AK-47 with ammunition for both weapons and subsequently was arrested.

“Huff told people that day that he had 300-400 rounds of ammunition with the AK-47,” the DOJ website said. “During a traffic stop by a Tennessee State Trooper on his way to Madisonville, Huff stated, ‘I’ve got my .45 because ain’t no government official gonna go peacefully.’”

Huff was sentenced in U.S. District court to serve four years in prison following a criminal conviction for transporting firearms across state lines with the intent to cause a civil disorder. He currently has currently some 22 months of his prison sentence.

Sharon Rondeau, editor of The Post and Email, who has reported on the case since 2010, contends Huff was framed.

“Huff was stopped by the Tennessee state police trooper for allegedly running a stop sign on his way to Madisonville on April 20, 2010, and was allowed to continue on his way after locking his legally-owned firearms in his truck toolbox,” Rondeau argued in an email to WND.

“Huff arrived in Madisonville unarmed and had lunch at a restaurant, then returned home uneventfully. No one was arrested or named as having carried a gun into town that day. Surprisingly, he was arrested ten days later on two federal firearms charges. There has been no police footage showing that Huff was doing anything wrong. There were no plots or accomplices. It was all fabricated by the government.”

In a statement on the DOJ website, Killian explained the rationale for Huff’s conviction:

This sentence will send a strong message to those who attempt to take the law into their own hands. Under our federal Constitution and statutes Mr. Huff and others like him can talk or write about their anti-government views. They cannot arm themselves and make threats to arrest public officials and take over government buildings. The core of our democratic system is to allow peaceful protest, but prohibit armed threats to those who serve our government.

In a separate legal case, Fitzpatrick was convicted in a local court of tampering with government evidence by stealing a grand jury member list in December 2011. He was given a suspended sentence of 240 hours community service.

Rondeau asserts the charges against Fitzpatrick also were fabricated.

“Walt has five sworn and 12 total statements from eyewitnesses in Madisonville that day who said that no one was carrying guns, in direct contradiction to the FBI agent’s affidavit,” she said.

Subsequent to being convicted and sentenced, Fitzpatrick was notified he suffered a two-thirds cut in his Navy pension which his military representative claimed resulted from the IRS garnishing his checks, even though he never received an IRS request to pay back taxes.

Obots attack

Radical Obama supporters known by their critics as “Obots,” or “Obama Robots,” bragged that some of their colleagues had worked behind the scene to inflame the Huff case. The operatives fed to law enforcement authorities concerns that Fitzgerald and Huff were not patriotic veterans concerned about the Constitution, but right-wing radicals who aimed to incite armed rebellion or acts of violence against the government.

In June 2011, WND reported that William L. Bryan, posting under the username “PJ Foggy,” had created the pro-Obama website Fogbow.com. On the site, various Obots bragged that they promoted Obama birth certificate documents known to be fraudulent.

They also boasted they were responsible for having some 100 armed law enforcement officers, including FBI and DHS agents along with state and local police, present in Madisonville, Tenn., on April 20, 2010, prepared to imagine Fitzgerald and Huff were arriving to implement an armed insurrection.

P.J. Foggy posted on the Fogbow.com website a self-introduction in which he claimed, “We’re the ones who got more than 100 cops ready for Cdr. Walt Fitzpatrick, when he showed up on April 20 with a group of armed men who thought they’d take over the Monroe County courthouse.

Rondeau said Huff “was framed by an FBI agent’s affidavit which was based only on hearsay evidence emanating from unnamed Monroe County officials; by members of The Fogbow, who called in false threats to the Madisonville mayor that Huff had planned to ‘take over the courthouse’ on April 20, 2010; and a massive deployment of FBI, local police, sheriffs’ departments, TBI, a SWAT team and snipers present on April 20.”

She claimed a story was created “to justify Huff’s arrest and prosecution ten days after he uneventfully returned to his home following the hearing for Fitzpatrick.”

“Contrary to local and national media reports, no one was seen carrying a gun in Madisonville that day, and no one was approached by law enforcement or arrested,” she said. “While the FBI affidavit claimed that at least ‘a dozen’ people were carrying guns that day, none of them has ever been identified.”

The circumstances of Fitzpatrick’s arrest can be seen in a YouTube video indicating he was unarmed during the incident:

Also on YouTube is a video posted documenting Huff’s trip to Madisonville, Tenn.

‘Right-wing extremism’

The Obama administration has minimized the threat of Islamic terrorism while elevating the threat potential from “right-wing extremism.”

As WND reported in April 2009, a DHS intelligence and analysis assessment classified “right-wing extremists” as a terrorist threat, identifying as especially dangerous military veterans who have fought in foreign wars and are “disgruntled” about the country’s direction.

Also of concern was alternative media that provide “interpretations of events and issues that differ radically from those presented in mass media outlets.”

The the Wall Street Journal reported at that time that the FBI had launched together with the Department of Defense “Operation Vigilant Eagle,” targeting white supremacists and “militia/sovereign-citizen extremist groups.”

Last month, WND reported Marine veteran Brandon Raub, 27, was arrested by a swarm of FBI and Secret Service agents and forcibly detained in a psychiatric ward for comments he had posted on Facebook that expressed dissatisfaction with the U.S. government.

The FBI, the Department of Defense and the DHS did not respond to WND requests asking whether or not Operation Vigilant Eagle was currently in progress.

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'Spock' apologizes for 'embarrassing' IRS video

WASHINGTON — Tax-payer funding of lavish hotel suites along with high-cost dance and “Star Trek” videos with low production values were hard to defend at today’s hearing of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee investigating alleged abused by the Internal Revenue Service.

“It’s embarrassing and I apologize,” said Faris Fink, commissioner of the IRS Small Business and Self-Employed Division.

Committee chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., began the hearing with photographs of several expensive hotel suites rented at the August 2010 conference in Anaheim, Calif., and a clip from the “Star Trek” video.

Fink, who played Mr. Spock in the “Star Trek” sketch, said the videos “at the time they were made were an attempt to use humor in a well-intentioned way to open or close the conference.”

The videos cost a total of $50,000 to make.

“It would not occur today and, frankly, they were not appropriate at that time either,” Fink said.

“In hindsight many of the expenses at the August 2010 conference were unwise,” he acknowledged in his opening statement. “We would not expend this today.”

Democrats on the committee did not try to defend him.

“As a taxpayer, I am appalled,” said ranking member Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, D-Md. “That’s my money, that’s your money, and it was wasted.”

No accounting

J. Russell George, treasury inspector general for tax administration, or TIGTA, reported the results of an internal audit that showed the Anaheim conference was provided to approximately 2,600 IRS employees at an estimated cost of $4.1 million.

In his opening statement, however, George acknowledged that the IRS could not account for all of the conference costs.

The agency, therefore, was in violation of tax accounting rules that it enforces on citizens.

According to the TITGA report released last Friday, the IRS reported spending more than $49 million on more than 200 conferences for employees between 2010 and 2012.

Yet, last year, when Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., asked then-Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner how much the IRS spent on conferences during that time period, Geithner replied the agency had spent only $500,000 on just five conferences.

George told the House panel today that the IRS paid top hotel rates at the Anaheim conference without discounts in order to receive concessions, including daily continental breakfasts for attendees, a welcome reception with two drink coupons and a substantial number of suite upgrades.

The TIGTA report found other questionable expenses, including $44,000 in travel costs for IRS employees who staffed the information booths, and approximately $64,000 in promotional items and gifts.

In a particularly heated exchange, Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, pressed Fink on when he became aware there was a problem with the 2010 Anaheim conference.

The exchange started when Fink indicated that in his more than 30-plus years with the IRS, his hotel suite at the Anaheim conference was one of the largest hotel rooms he ever had at an agency conference. He remembered he got a hotel suite at an IRS conference in Chicago in 2009 that was nearly as large as the one in Anaheim.

Fink declined to acknowledge he got the large suite because of his advancement in the IRS management hierarchy. He recalled that his takeaway gifts included a blue carry bag that held a plastic fish.

“When did you think the expenses for the Anaheim conference were wrong?” Chaffetz pressed Fink.

“I do not think the conference was wrong, because of the needs of our employees at that time,” Fink responded. “In retrospect, I think we should have been more diligent to these expenses in respect of the American taxpayer, but I don’t think the conference was wrong.”

Gregory Kutz, assistant inspector general for audit, testified that IRS records show Fink had signed off on a $3.8 million authorization of the 2010 Anaheim conference in advance.

“So you personally signed the routing slip approving the expense?” Chaffetz pressed Fink.

“I signed the routing slip,” Fink admitted.

“And this raised no warning signal?” Chaffetz continued.

“We were experiencing a whole new taxpayer base … ” Fink attempted to explain.

Chaffetz interrupted: “You signed off on the routing slip, you participated in the meetings planning for the Anaheim conference, and now you want to tell us you didn’t fully appreciate the costs?”

The exchange prompted Issa to caution Fink that he was testifying under oath. The chairman reminded Fink that he faced perjury charges if he attempted to convey to the committee that he did not understand he had approved the costs of the Anaheim conference in advance.

Ranking member Cummings intervened, asking Fink to testify in detail what he saw before the conference.

Following Cummings’ leading questions, Fink admitted on the record he signed the routing slip, approving the costs of the Anaheim conference in advance.

“What was the purpose of handing out these items at the Anaheim conference,” Rep. Michael Turner, R-Ohio, asked Fink, holding up an example of the $60,000 worth of “swag-bags” handed out at the Anaheim conference that include plastic squirting fish. “Was this a reflection of the party atmosphere of the IRS conference?”

Fink replied, “This is an expense that would not be made today.”

Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., got Fink to admit he played the role of Spock in the IRS video.

“That video was an insult to the memory of Star Trek,” she said.

Just one of hundreds

Under questioning by Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, Kutz admitted the Anaheim conference was the only conference TIGTA examined, leaving 224 IRS conferences held between 2010 and 2012 unexamined.

Kutz also admitted that senior officers from the IRS tax-exempt section could have attended the Anaheim conference or one or more of the 224 conferences, although he did not know whether on not that was the case.

“We need to know many of these IRS conferences were attended by the IRS tax-exempt division,” Jordan said. “This is the IRS section that was targeting conservatives and will be implementing Obamacare.

“We looked at one conference and discovered these improprieties,” he continued, “yet we know nothing of the other 224 conferences held in the time period 2010 to 2012.”

As the hearing proceeded, Republican committee members expressed their discomfort with the testimony given by the IRS officials and the inspector general.

“There is only one recommendation here, Mr. inspector general, and that is, ‘Start over!’” Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., angrily rebuked George.

“The IRS has had 100 years to figure out that when the American people – the ones who pay your salaries – are losing their jobs and their homes, this is not a ‘training issue.’ Not only does the IRS have access to our financial information, it will soon have control over our health issues. Training isn’t going to fix it.”

Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., was equally unwilling to accept an apology from Fink.

“Could the cost of the Anaheim conference have been $5 million, or $6 million?” Meadows asked, reminding Fink that he was a witness testifying under oath.

“Yes, it could have been $5 million,” Fink admitted. “In 2010, the IRS did not have in place the cost-accounting measures to make an accurate statement of costs.”

‘I understand the enormity of the moment’

Cummings questioned Danny Werfel, the IRS acting commissioner, about the charge by National Organization for Marriage chairman John Eastman that the IRS violated the law by leaking the organization’s private donor list to the Human Rights Campaign, a “gay rights” advocacy group.

“I’ve been a government employee for 16 years,” Werfel said, while declining to comment on any specific taxpayer issue. “I understand the enormity of the moment.”

Joe Solmonese, the president of HRC at the time the group published the list of NOM donors on its website, had just recently become a national co-chairman of the Obama re-election campaign, according to Breitbart.com.

Solmonese, a left-wing activist and a Huffington Post contributor, used the leak, described as coming from a “whistleblower” in a Huffington Post story, to question why Republican Party presidential nominee Mitt Romney had donated $10,000 to NOM.

Subsequently, an HRC press release used the information to accuse Romney of using “racially divisive tactics.” Solmonese, then still the HRC’s president, was quoted in the press release as saying he believed Romney’s “funding of a hate-filled campaign designed to drive a wedge between Americans is beyond despicable,” Breitbart.com reported.

Werfel volunteered to the committee that since assuming his position as IRS acting commissioner, he has not been to the White House for a single meeting.

In response to questioning by Ohio Rep. Jordan, Werfel cautiously said he would encourage Lois Lerner, who managed the IRS tax-exempt division, to appear before the committee and answer questions. Lerner invoked the Fifth Amendment, refusing to answer questions before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee at a May 22 hearing

Lerner is currently on paid administrative leave from the IRS.

Bombshell: 'Proof' IRS committed felony

WASHINGTON — A witness at a congressional hearing today on IRS targeting of conservative organizations claims he has proof the agency illegally leaked confidential information.

“I would call the disclosure of our donor lists by the IRS a felony,” charged John Eastman, chairman of the National Organization for Marriage, or NOM, in Washington, D.C., in emotionally charged testimony Tuesday before the House Ways and Means Committee .

Eastman testified that the organization’s IRS Form 990 tax return, which lists its donors, was published on the website of the Human Rights Campaign, a “gay-rights” advocacy group.

He claimed to have proof the IRS leaked his organization’s confidential donor list under questioning by Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis.

Eastman said “forensic” specialists within his organization had stripped layers from the document posted on the HRC website to identify “meta-data,” or unseen embedded code, that identified the document as having originated from within the IRS.

Eastman testified the “internal IRS stamps” in the meta-data of the NOM donor list provide  “proof” the document originated from within the IRS and was leaked to HRC to embarrass and “chill” NOM donors opposed to same-sex marriage.

“You can imagine our shock and disgust over this disclosure,” Eastman told the panel. “We jealously guard our donors.”

Eastman alleged the IRS leak of his organization’s non-public donor list was “a deliberate act” undertaken in a manner to avoid detection, a charge he said he was prepared to substantiate with evidence.

“This just smells and I hope this committee gets to the bottom of it,” he concluded.

According to the Daily Caller, NOM has forwarded allegations to the Treasury inspector general for tax administration, demanding to know whether or not the IRS was responsible for leaking to the HRC confidential donor information regarding a $10,000 contribution Mitt Romney made to NOM in 2008.

Rep. Dave Camp, R-Mich., chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, called the hearing to have six conservative groups detail the IRS bias they allegedly experienced in their application for tax-exempt status.

“They are Americans who did what we ask people to do every day, add their voice to the dialogue that defines our country,” Camp said.

“And for pursuing that passion, for simply exercising their First Amendment rights , the freedoms of association, expression and religion , the IRS singled them out,” he added.

Ryan added to his earlier fireworks when he objected to a statement by Rep. Jim McDermott, D–Wash., that the IRS delays could be explained by administrative errors and that there would have been no allegations that First Amendment rights had been compromised by the IRS had the groups not chosen to apply for tax-exempt status.

“The charge here is that these groups were targeted for the political beliefs,” Ryan stated for the record, directly countering McDermott’s statement.

Witnesses vividly described abuse at the hands of their own government.

“It was frightening to have the IRS inquire about the details of our protests in front of Planned Parenthood offices,” testified Sue Martinek of the Coalition for Life of Iowa of Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

“As Christians, we know we needed to pray for better solutions for unplanned pregnancies,” she said.

A particularly poignant moment came when Becky Gerritson, president of the Wetumpka Tea Party in Alabama, was unable to hold back tears and told lawmakers, “I’m a born-free American woman.”

Her voice cracking but firm, she continued, “I’m telling my government, you’ve forgotten your place.”

Dianne Belsom, president of the Laurens County Tea Party in South Carolina described the long delays her group endured.

“Nearly three years in waiting for an answer is totally unacceptable,” she said.

“I’d like to note that our group is a small-time operation with very little money and this represents a complete waste of time by the IRS in terms of any money they would collect if we were not tax-exempt,” said Belsom.

Among the other allegations made by the witnesses in their opening statements were that IRS questionnaires asked to self-report details of prayer meetings, required them to disclose the political activities of family members of the group founders, probed the political beliefs of the organizations’ founders, requested membership and donor lists, asked to see copies of internal communications and demanded detailed statements of the groups’ advocacy goals and political objectives.

“We have found a cancer in the office of the IRS in Cincinnati,” admitted Charles Rangel, D–N.Y., noting the investigation could lead to a grand jury examining criminal charges.

“What is intolerable is to have one set of rules for one political organization and another set of rules for another,” Eastman responded, rejecting the suggestion by Democrats on the committee that release of the NOM donor list could be explained by the inadvertent acts of a few rogue agents in the IRS Cincinnati office.

“We must protect the confidentiality that the law provides donors in order to prevent a chilling effect to their political participation,” he said.

The committee’s top Democrat, Rep. Sander Levin, said it was time to correct the IRS’s problems.

“You are owed an apology,” he told the witnesses in his opening statement.

“We say to you that each of us is committed to doing our part to ensure this does not happen again,” Levin promised.

However, he went on to advance a common Democratic Party theme, insisting the IRS scandal was being resolved now that acting IRS commissioner Steve Miller has been replaced by Obama administration appointee Dan Werfel and Treasury Secretary Lew has ordered a 30-day review to implement the recommendations in the inspector general’s report.

Counting the suggestion the IRS scandal would be resolved by these measures, several Republican members of the committee asked witnesses for the names of IRS agents who handled their applications for tax-exempt status. The intent is to call the IRS agents to Washington to testify before the committee.

House Ways and Means is one of three congressional committees investigating the IRS targeting of conservative groups. The Justice Department has begun a criminal investigation.

An audit by the inspector general of the Treasury Department found IRS agents in Cincinnati improperly targeted and gave extra scrutiny to conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status between 2010 and 2012.

As WND has reported, the targeting actually happened at IRS offices in a number of cities with guidance coming from Washington. And National Review has reported the IRS is still targeting conservative groups.

New IRS boss, same stonewall

WASHINGTON — It’s the question everyone wants answered.

Rep. Tom Graves R-Ga., asked, “Has anyone asked who ordered” the targeting of conservative groups by the IRS?

Treasury Department Inspector Gen. J. Russell George replied, “No one would acknowledge who gave the orders.”

The non-answer hung in the air until Graves then asked new Acting IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel if he would find out.

“We will uncover every fact.” Werfel replied.

“No matter how far up the chain?”

“Yes,” Werfel said.

Appearing before a House Appropriations subcommittee Monday, George stopped short of categorically denying the political review of tax-exempt applications was limited to career appointees within IRS, suggesting the inspector general’s investigation was not yet complete and political influence exerted by the White House could not be ruled out.

Although he stopped short of placing specific blame for the IRS targeting of conservative groups, George admitted the IRS abuses as resulting from “gross mismanagement.”

In a tense hearings with Republican members expressing outrage over IRS targeting conservatives, Committee Chairman Harold Rogers, R-Ky., began a late afternoon hearing on the IRS abuses targeting conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status by suggesting the committee that controls federal agencies’ budgets might crack down on the IRS budget, especially given new evidence the IRS has spent millions on lavish conferences.

“Do you feel the IRS has betrayed the trust of the American people?” Rep. Ander Crenshaw, R-Fl., subcommittee chairman, asked Werfel.

“I do,” Werfel admitted, claiming restoring the trust will involve a multi-step process that must begin by attributing responsibility to those within the IRS that committed the abuses. “There was a fundamental failure and the solution here is not more money, but understanding what controls, what oversight needs to be put in place.”

Crenshaw suggested Congress will have to think carefully “about the amount of money we provide the IRS,” suggesting the agency’s request for $12.9 billion for fiscal year 2014 – $1 billion more than was appropriated in 2013 – might be cut, indicating Congress might possibly consider imposing “conditions” on the agency’s budget allowing Congress to monitor IRS spending in the future.

Werfel balked under questioning to acknowledge IRS career employees would be terminated for malfeasance, even though he admitted the IRS had fundamentally violated the public trust.

Rescued by sympathetic questioning from Rep. Mike Quigley, D-Ill., Werfel suggested finding culprits within the IRS responsible for the political profiling would take time to conduct a careful examination.