By Joe Strupp

Published: June 25, 2008 11:15 AM ET

NEW YORK News outlets seeking inspection and safety data on local dams, in light off the recent string of floods in the Midwest, have been stonewalled by government officials who have withheld such data as part of the Patriot Act, according to Investigative Reporters and Editors.

IRE Data Base Library Director Jeremy Milarsky, who oversees the group's handling of data requests from news organizations, said at least a dozen news outlets requested such background data on dam inspections from IRE in the last week. He said that is up from the usual three or four in any given year.

Such information, however, has been unavailable since 2002, when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers began rejecting such requests as part of a U.S. Patriot Act stipulation.

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June 11, 2008

Artist Cleared of All Charges in Precedent-Setting Case

Department of Justice Fails to Appeal Dismissal

Kurtz Speaks about Four-Year Ordeal

Buffalo, NY -- Dr. Steven Kurtz, a Professor of Visual Studies at SUNY at Buffalo and cofounder of the award-winning art and theater group Critical Art Ensemble, has been cleared of all charges of mail and wire fraud.  On April 21, Federal Judge Richard J. Arcara dismissed the government's entire indictment against Dr. Kurtz as "insufficient on its face."  This means that even if the actions alleged in the indictment (which the judge must accept as "fact") were true, they would not constitute a crime.  The US Department of Justice had thirty days from the date of the ruling to appeal.  No action has been taken in this time period, thus stopping any appeal of the dismissal.  According to Margaret McFarland, a spokeswoman for US Attorney Terrance P. Flynn, the DoJ will not appeal Arcara's ruling and will not seek any new charges against Kurtz.

For over a decade, cultural institutions worldwide have hosted Kurtz and Critical Art Ensemble's educational art projects, which use common science materials to examine issues surrounding the new biotechnologies.  In 2004 the Department of Justice alleged that Dr. Kurtz had schemed with colleague Dr. Robert Ferrell of the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health to illegally acquire two harmless bacteria cultures for use in one of those projects.  The Justice Department further alleged that the transfer of the material from Ferrell to Kurtz broke a material transfer agreement, thus constituting mail fraud.

Under the USA PATRIOT Act, the maximum sentence for these charges was increased from five years to twenty years in prison.

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Related
For Joe Lieberman, Only Brown Terrorists Matter
Police State 2.0 is Here: Are YOU One of the 8 Million Targeted for Roundup by US Government?


A reader responds to,"Google tells DHS chairman to piss off, sort of",

careandwashingofthebrain.blogspot.com wrote:

May. 20th, 2008

Joe boy is just priming the pump in order to get his and Jane Harman's "Thought Crime Act" passed into law and into our homes.

By appearing to be rational and "giving" Google a chance to help Joe and Jane shred the Bill of Rights and by Google declining to help, now Joe and Jane can put the passage of the "Thought Crime Act" on high speed, all the while wringing their hands and maybe even getting misty-eyed, as they say the refusal of the private sector to help fight never ending wars for Israel shows absolutely that censorship and policing of the Internet is needed and needed right now, unless you want another 9/11.

Yes, we're forcing Joe and Jane to take away what's left of the Bill of Rights.

And when they say we are in danger of another 9/11 attack, you'd better believe Joe boy, since it was his buddies that helped plan and carry out that attack.


P.S. Hey Joe, if Google had taken your advice, do you realize how many MOSSAD computer whizz kids, who specialize in creating PhotoShop altered images, would be out of work?

Link

The Google bastards can now maintain the illusion that they are for free speech while currently cleansing their archives of information openly pro-Palestinian(hence, in their zionist founders opinion, critical of Israel . Google investors should note that as word of this spreads their their stock value will deteriorate).

Related
Google hands over user information in India
Google Helps Police Internet in India
The Enemy Is Always the State
Why do laws tend to have consequences that are the opposite of what was intended?


Senator Lieberman stated his belief, in a letter, that all videos mentioning or featuring these groups should be removed from YouTube -- even legal nonviolent or non-hate speech videos.

Related story links

Lieberman Letter

YouTube Response

Committee Report

YouTube refuses Lieberman request

Published on May 19, 2008

The chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee today asked Google, the parent company of the popular online video-sharing site, YouTube, to “immediately remove content produced by Islamist terrorist organizations” from YouTube and prevent similar content from reappearing. However, the company immediately refused to comply with his request.

Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.) made the request in a letter to Eric Schmidt, the chairman of the board and chief executive officer at Google, in which he said that YouTube “unwittingly, permits Islamist terrorist groups to maintain an active, pervasive and amplified voice despite military setbacks or successful operations by the law enforcement and intelligence communities.”

Lieberman asked the company not only to remove existing content but also identify changes that Google plans to make to YouTube’s community guidelines and explain how it plans to enforce the guidelines. Lieberman said removing such content should be “a straightforward task since so many of the Islamist terrorist organizations brand their material with logos or icons identifying their provenance.”

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Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Programs Which the Government Claims Are Aimed At Foreign Enemies are being Used Against American Citizens within the United States

The U.S. government has repeatedly claimed that it was launching aggressive programs solely at foreign enemies, and then launched them at American citizens. For example:

• In 2002, the Pentagon announced that it was considering spreading false propaganda in the foreign press. However, the military has spread propaganda within the U.S. in an operation so aggressive that one participant, a military analyst, called it "psyops on steroids"

• For many years, the government has claimed that it was only spying on foreigners. But it is now clear that the government is massively spying on American citizen's home and cellphone calls, email and internet usage, credit card and other financial transactions, and just about every other facet of our personal lives

• The Patriot Act is supposed to be aimed at stopping America-hating terrorists. Instead, it is being used to prosecute acts having nothing to do with terrorism, and to harass normal, law-abiding Americans

Can anyone see a pattern here?

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Related
Judge Napolitano on Unconstitutional Patriot Act and Loss of Freedoms

Thursday, May 8, 2008

UC Berkeley Professor Emeritus Peter Dale Scott has warned:

"If members of the Homeland Security Committee cannot enforce their right to read secret plans of the Executive Branch, then the systems of checks and balances established by the U.S. Constitution would seem to be failing.

To put it another way, if the White House is successful in frustrating DeFazio, then Continuity of Government planning has arguably already superseded the Constitution as a higher authority."

What's he talking about?

Well, in the summer 2007, Congressman Peter DeFazio, on the Homeland Security Committee (and so with proper security access to be briefed on COG issues), inquired about continuity of government plans, and was refused access. Indeed, DeFazio told Congress that the entire Homeland Security Committee of the U.S. Congress has been denied access to the plans by the White House (video; or here is the transcript). The Homeland Security Committee has full clearance to view all information about COG plans. DeFazio concluded: "Maybe the people who think there’s a conspiracy out there are right”.

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