Federal Fusion Centers are Spying on You - A Search Warrant? What the Hell is That?

Fusion Centers

Big Brother’s Infiltration Into Your Communities

• The Feds give warrantless, illegally-collected information to local law-enforcement agencies.

(Tenth Amendment Center)  -  In the midst of the never-ending NSA spying revelations, it is easy to lose track of all of the unconstitutional acts committed by the so-called intelligence community – and the ways that NSA spying, and mentality behind it, permeates law enforcement at all levels.

One  troubling aspect recently revealed is the fact that the feds give warrantless, illegally-collected information to local law-enforcement agencies for their investigations. This is done through something called “Special Operations Division,” and through Fusion Centers.

The Fusion Centers act as a conduit for Big Brother – they’re a place to simply receive data collected, with or without a warrant, by federal agencies like the NSA.  That information is passed on to local law enforcement and often used in day-to-day criminal investigations.

Fusion Centers were set-up under the "small government" Bush Administration to “help keep America safe” after 9/11. The Patriot Act removed barriers that prevented the feds from sharing intelligence information with local law enforcement. This was meant to facilitate communication between agencies so decisions could be made quickly in order to “prevent another terrorist attack.”  At least that’s how it was sold. Unfortunately, this practice has been abused and focused on the whole American population – not just terror suspects.

Judge Napolitano On NSA Spying:

Most Extraordinarily Broad Search Warrant Ever Issued In US History

Big Brother is Bi-Partisan
Every one of these unconstitutional 1984 Police Surveillance State programs is
eagerly funded by the Democrat Senate and the GOP House.

Given the penchant the feds have for using their power to harass political opponents, these spying programs have a pernicious chilling effect on the First Amendment of the Constitution..
These changes in the law have fostered a predatory atmosphere within the system.  Collusion between the feds, private entities, state and local governments and foreign governments has greatly increased since The Information Sharing Environment (ISE) was established in 2004.

According to its website, the ISE “provides analysts, operators, and investigators with information needed to enhance national security. These analysts, operators, and investigators… have mission needs to collaborate and share information with each other and with private sector partners and our foreign allies.”

The ISE and its members, including the Department of Defense and the Director of National Intelligence (who the NSA reports to), have created a bonanza in unconstitutional behavior with public and private interests invited to run amok on the privacy rights of citizens.

According to ISE, Fusion Centers are responsible for doing the feds’ dirty work at the state and local levels. The NSA and other federal agencies send down “threat assessments” that are analyzed by the Fusion Centers.  Then these are passed on to local and state law enforcement officers and other government officials.

The Fusion Centers play a big role in spreading the NSA’s culture of suspicion into our local communities. Think of them as the hand-off point for the federal spies working with your local police.

FEMA Camps And Fusion Centers: 

Jesse Ventura Demands Answers

Make no mistake about it, these Fusion Centers are openly hostile toward liberty.

A Missouri Fusion Center issued a report classifying “supporters of the Constitution” as potential terrorists and extremists in the same vein as the Ku Klux Klan. They have undoubtedly focused their attention on left-leaning activists as well, particularly the anti-war movement.

In addition to helping the feds demonize their political opposition, Fusion Centers also help them illegally spy on Americans.

The existence of Fusion Centers in virtually every state across the country highlights how deep into our communities Big Brother has infiltrated. The spin insisting that only terrorists and people with something to hide should fear government surveillance is revealed as more blatantly untrue as NSA spying revelations mount. They are prying into the private lives of everyone.

The fusion centers insist that they’re only snooping on people with anti-government beliefs. But with Congress less popular than a root canal and resentment toward public officials at an all-time high among Americans, those comments cannot be seen as anything more than an admission of guilt.



A strategy to take on Big Brother cannot neglect these fusion centers. According to the FAQ section of the Alabama Fusion Center website, they ‘are funded through state or local budgets and federal grants.’ This means it is possible for us to pass bills in state and local governments that make it much more difficult for the Fusion Centers to receive the funding they need to snoop on us and disseminate vile propaganda.

Of course, sycophants are going to whine endlessly about how we desperately need the Fusion Centers to spy on us, and how they’re providing such a crucial function in keeping us safe from the terrorists. However, the evidence suggests otherwise.

According to a study conducted by the the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations from 2009-2010, they “could identify no reporting which uncovered a terrorist threat, nor could it identify a contribution such fusion center reporting made to disrupt an active terrorist plot.” Not one instance of success despite the Department of Homeland Security spending up to $1.4 billion on them. In addition, embarrassing reports such as this instance of Fusion Center personnel spending $75,000 on big screen televisions have surfaced, raising questions about the efficacy of the invasive program.

We need to capitalize on Big Brother’s ineptitude and let people know exactly how their money is being squandered. While we can’t stop the DHS from funding these Fusion Centers, we can stop our state and local governments from supporting these inefficient, ineffective, liberty-destroying menaces! Big Brother has many tentacles, and we must focus on stopping them all if we are to defeat it.

Passage of the 4th Amendment Protection Act in your state would be a huge step towards stopping the effects of NSA spying and the culture of suspicion it has created at every level of government.

By banning your state from cooperating with warrantless snooping, or even accepting “evidence” from federal agencies like the NSA that is collected without a warrant, we can begin the process of healing, and restoring a culture of liberty.

 

California to Outlaw Hunting?

The Socialist are coming for your guns.

12 gun bills await Leftist Governor Jerry Brown’s signature.

 

The People's Republic of California  -  Despite unconstitutional gun-free zone laws that kept navy servicemen from defending themselves last week during the Washington Navy Yard shooting, 12 gun bills await California Governor Jerry Brown’s signature, including one that will eliminate a favorite pastime as American as apple pie and baseball.

The bills, passed by the Democrat-controlled California state legislature, seek to outlaw even more guns and ammunition, and will additionally target hunting, even though according to the Brady Campaign California already has the most restrictive gun laws in the nation.

Senate Bill 374 seeks to ban “all semi-automatic guns with a detachable magazine, including hunting rifles,” according to The Washington Times.

But it is Assembly Bill 711 that has most people worried. It aims to outlaw lead ammunition, which in turn will effectively ban hunting because, as The Times noted, “…about 95 percent of all ammunition sold in California contains lead,” reports Infowars News.

AB-711 attacks hunting in a roundabout way by claiming that prohibiting lead ammo is about preserving the environment and wildlife, not about restricting the sporting activity.

 

The bill, which passed 44-29 in its final Assembly Floor vote, requires non-lead ammo be used when shooting any wildlife with any firearm and will go into effect no later than July 1, 2019, a protracted timeline which critics say negates the very purpose of the bill.

 

“If this is such an urgent threat to human and animal health, there’s no way they would push it back to 2019,” the spokesman for the union group Californians for Conversation, Tim Rosales, says.

 

AB-711 “…basically outlaws hunting,” says Assemblyman Brian Jones. He’s concerned that “If California outlaws lead bullets, the federal government already outlaws everything else, so there’s nothing left for hunters to use.”

 

Union leaders are urging Gov. Brown to veto the lead ban bill, lest he and other gun-grabbing politicians incur the same wrath from voters as two Coloradan Senators faced earlier this month when they were recalled from their positions.

 

Mark Gagliardi, an official with the Office and Professional Employees International Union Local 277 in Contra Costa County, says the bill will eliminate “one of the few things our working families enjoy and can afford.” “Sixty-five percent of all union households hunt, fish or enjoy the outdoors,” he said.

 

Additionally, one attorney says Gov. Brown may be setting himself up for a lawsuit should he approve the anti-hunting bill.

“This bill is proof that the slippery-slope argument is valid,” says Chuck Michel, an attorney for the National Rifle Association’s California chapter. “We hope the governor sees how particularly ill-advised this bill is, but if he signs it, the NRA will have no choice but to challenge the law.”

 

Gov. Brown hasn’t made a decision whether he will sign or veto the bills presented to him, but he has said that the shooting that took place at the Washington Navy Yard last week will not influence his decision. “If he does not act by Oct. 13,” the L.A. Times notes, “it becomes law without his signature.”

 

Below is a list of the bills awaiting the governor’s signature or veto, along with a list of state-wide firearm-related events.

"Arms in the hands of the citizens may be used at
individual discretion for the defense of the country,
the overthrow of tyranny or private self-defense."
John Adams
Federalist Party

Government attacks on media signalling rise of fascism

Liars, Thieves and Whores, Oh My

It is illegal for the Media to tell the truth, but whore politicians are rewarded with money and power for crushing our Liberty.

We live in an upside down world.  Whistleblowers who dare speak the truth are chased around the world by the Secret Police of Big Brother government and condemned by the government-media complex that is allied to the liar politicians.

The truth is being told almost exclusively by the new Internet Media.

The latest scandal with the Guardian is an escalation against the freedom of the press that WikiLeaks predicted years ago, but it won't stop whistleblowers and journalists from fighting for freedom of speech.

It was revealed by Alan Rusbringer, editor of the Guardian, that the British government threatened them with legal action unless they handed back or destroyed material given to them by former NSA agent Edward Snowden.

The revelation comes after David Miranda, Glen Greenwald’s partner, the Guardian journalist who published Snowden’s material, was detained and questioned for nine hours at London’s Heathrow airport under anti-terrorism laws.

Wikileaks’ Kristinn Hrafnsson talks to RT News.


RT News: Was Wikileaks surprised by the Guardian editors revelations about the British government pressuring them to give up or destroy the data related to Snowden’s leaks?

Kristinn Hrafnsson: I was not surprised at all and actually, we have been warning about this for years. Let me remind you that three years ago when Wikileaks was under a massive attack even under death threats and journalists in the main stream media did not come to our defense or even were directly against us. We said you should think twice because you are next. That is exactly what has happened on [in] the escalation on war on journalism. We see phone records of AP journalists in the states being seized, we see an attempt to prevent journalists in the US who are working with whistleblowers and are called co-conspirators and could be prosecuted and now we see this recent development in the UK. This is a part of the escalation against the freedom of the press and we warned about this years ago.


Wikileaks Kristinn Hrafnsson

RT News: The Guardian was one of the first papers to publish Wikileaks documents when they emerged. Have you heard about any similar tactics carried out by the government before to pressure the Guardian or any other paper from publishing them?

KH: We know of course about both the direct intimidations and acts of self-censorships even by media that we’ve been working with, even The New York Times and that has been reported on and admitted by the former editor of The New York Times, Bill Keller. This is a concentrated attack on the media, not just the media that we have been working with but to [on] all media and it is a very serious issue that people have to think carefully about because in essence this is a signal of a rise of fascism in the UK, in the US and western countries. I even see traces of that in my own country, Iceland, under the new conservative government.

RT News: Also we know that a few years ago, Wikileaks posted a mass of so-called insurance data which could be decrypted should something happen to Julian Assange or Edward Snowden. Would you add journalists working with whistleblowers to that list?

KH: Journalists that are working with whistleblowers are under attack. Whistleblowers have been under attack for years, now it’s journalists that are under attack. Every journalist should stand up in defense of journalism. Unfortunately we are seeing some journalist cowards who are not doing that and even calling for an attack on Julian Assange, which is appalling. This is a very serious issue; we are seeing a trend here as I said earlier that people have to respond to very urgently and with strong measures.

RT News: In light of what is happening many seem to feel that the UK government’s actions are aimed at warning journalists against working with whistleblowers and releasing sensitive data. What effect do you think it will really have?

KH: It is not going to stop whistleblowers, more and more will come forth because people are appalled by the situation and the crackdown on journalism and the attempt to silence everybody who is exposing the wrongdoings of governments. There are people out there with enough bravery to take decisive steps and let’s hope that there are enough journalists out there brave enough to respond to that. Of course we have Wikileaks and the ideals we stand for and all the organizations that hopefully will come forth endorsing the same idea. This is a part of a big picture - a fight for the basic principles of freedom of speech and privacy. We have to fight against all attempts to suppress that.

From RT News.

 

Court says no warrant needed to track you through your cellphone

 The three member Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.

We are ruled by the insane

Court says no search warrant is needed to track your every movement by GPS through your cellphone.

Warrants are not required by the U.S. government to access historical cell site information, a Federal appeals court ruled in an order.

The Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution protects only reasonable expectations of privacy, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit wrote in a 2-1 ruling.

“Because a cell phone user makes a choice to get a phone, to select a particular service provider, and to make a call, and because he knows that the call conveys cell site information, the provider retains this information, and the provider will turn it over to the police if they have a court order, he voluntarily conveys his cell site data each time he makes a call,” the court added.

Cell site information is clearly a business record, collected by the service provider for its own business purposes, and without being asked to so by the government, the court said in the order reports PC World.

TRANSLATION  -  Basically.  You are fucked.  The nimrods on the court said without a search warrant the Big Brother 1984 Surveillance State can track your every movement through a private property phone that you pay for.  And without a search warrant the State can force the phone companies to turn over that data to the All-Powerful-State security services.



“I do not want to live in a world where everything I do and say is recorded.
That is not something I am willing to support or live under.”
Edward Snowden
Declared an "Enemy of the State"

The dispute hinged around whether law enforcement agents can access cell site data with a relatively easy-to-obtain order under section 2703 (d) of the Stored Communications Act, which is based on a showing of “specific and articulable facts,” instead of using a search warrant after showing probable cause.

Rights groups American Civil Liberties Union and Electronic Frontier Foundation and others have argued that the government should be required to seek a warrant to access the location information, because it is sensitive and can reveal a great deal about a person. The groups argued in court that SCA grants courts the discretion to require the government to obtain a warrant based upon probable cause before accessing historical cell phone location data.

Ruling that compelled warrantless disclosure of cell site data violates the Fourth Amendment, a magistrate judge earlier denied a government request for the historical cell site data in three applications filed in October, 2010 under the SCA for seeking evidence relevant to three separate criminal investigations. The judge, however, allowed for providing subscriber information.

Following an appeal by the government, a district court held that data “disclosing the location of the telephone at the time of particular calls may be acquired only by a warrant issued on probable cause,” as the records would show the date, time called, number, and location of the telephone when the call was made, which is constitutionally protected.

The Fifth Circuit court clarified that its ruling only covered section 2703(d) orders to obtain historical cell site information, and did not address, for example, orders requesting data from all phones that use a tower during a particular interval or “situations where the Government surreptitiously installs spyware on a target’s phone or otherwise hijacks the phone’s GPS, with or without the service provider’s help.”

The Supreme Court of New Jersey ruled earlier this month that cellphone users have a reasonable expectation of privacy of their cellphone location information, and police are required to get a search warrant before accessing the information. People are not promoting the release of personal information to others when making disclosures to phone companies, the court said in an unanimous ruling.

Peter King rips Rand Paul as "mad"

“I thought it was absolutely disgraceful that

so many Republicans voted to defund

the NSA program."

Congressman Peter King

Police State Republicans on the Attack  -  The Big Government-Big Brother Police State Republicans are scared shitless that they are losing their grip on the public.  First Governor Chris Christie attacked pro-Constitution libertarians and Rand Paul for having "dangerous thought."

Now Peter King, the former Chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, viciously attacked Rand Paul and other pro-Constitution Republicans for "madness."

Big Brother loving GOP Rep. Peter King on Sunday continued his criticism of fellow Republican Rand Paul, blasting the Kentucky senator’s praise of National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden as “madness.”

“When you have Rand Paul actually comparing Snowden to Martin Luther King or Henry David Thoreau, this is madness, this is the anti-war left-wing Democrats of the 1960s that nominated George McGovern and destroyed their party for almost 20 years,” the New York congressman said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “I don’t want that happening to our party.”

 

King said it was “disgraceful” that 94 GOP representatives voted unsuccessfully to defund the NSA’s data collection program last week reports The Blaze.

 

“I thought it was absolutely disgraceful that so many Republicans voted to defund the NSA program, which has done so much to protect our country,” he said. “This is an isolation streak that’s in our party. It goes totally against the party of Eisenhower and Reagan, Bush. I mean we are a party of national defense. We’re a party who did so much to protect the country over the last 12 years.”

 

Bullshit alert - How is doing unconstitutional Orwellian spying on every American citizen helping to defend the nation and liberty?

 

King said earlier this month he was considering a 2016 presidential bid to try to block GOP “isolationists” Rand Paul and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz.

Maybe Peter King should try reading the Constitution.

“Don't interfere with anything in the Constitution.
That must be maintained, for it is the only
safeguard of our liberties.”
― Abraham Lincoln

 

“I believe there are more instances of the abridgment
of the freedom of the people by gradual and
silent encroachments of those in power than by
violent and sudden usurpations.”
― James Madison

"But a Constitution of Government once changed
from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty, once
lost, is lost forever."
John Adams