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Was Atlanta serial killer Wayne Williams trained by CIA?

Sophisticated Network Helps AWOL Afghans Make Trip to Canada

By Jana Winter
Published July 29, 2010
| FoxNews.com

For the Afghan soldiers who have gone AWOL from an Air Force base in Texas, there's no place like Canada.

Since 2002, 46 Afghans have deserted their armed forces while in the U.S. for language and military training. Of those 46, roughly half--at least 22--have found their way north of the border.

They made the trip with the help of a network of people, including Afghans who left Lackland Air Force Base before them; a group of naturalized and undocumented Mexican women in Texas; relatives of current and former Afghan military students living in the West; and at least one Iranian taxi driver who runs a human smuggling business at the Canadian border.

The Afghans who have made it to Canada appear to be living comfortably there -- and many have put themselves on Facebook, where they connect with other Afghan dissenters and active U.S. and Afghan military personnel, including members of the Afghan military currently attending the Defense Language Institute at Lackland or receiving training at other military bases in the U.S.

Based on interviews with U.S. and Afghan military personnel, civilian and military sources at the Defense Language Institute, interviews with some of the AWOL Afghans and information gleaned from their online profiles, FoxNews.com has exclusively uncovered details of a pipeline that runs from San Antonio to Toronto.

The first leg of the pipeline involves a group of women, some of whom are believed to be Mexicans illegally in the U.S., who pick up the men outside Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio and drive them to their next stop. Often, that’s a bus station or airport, but sometimes the women drive them farther. In at least two instances, they accompanied the Afghans all the way to Canada...

�Top Secret America�: The Rest Of The Story

by Chuck Baldwin
July 27, 2010

The Monday, July 19, 2010, edition of The Washington Post featured an investigative report entitled “Top Secret America,” with the subtitle, “A hidden world, growing beyond control.” The report begins, “The top-secret world the government created in response to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, has become so large, so unwieldy and so secretive that no one knows how much money it costs, how many people it employs, how many programs exist within it or exactly how many agencies do the same work.

“These are some of the findings of a two-year investigation by The Washington Post that discovered what amounts to an alternative geography of the United States, a Top Secret America hidden from public view and lacking in thorough oversight. After nine years of unprecedented spending and growth, the result is that the system put in place to keep the United States safe is so massive that its effectiveness is impossible to determine.

“The investigation’s other findings include:

*Some 1,271 government organizations and 1,931 private companies work on programs related to counterterrorism, homeland security and intelligence in about 10,000 locations across the United States.

*An estimated 854,000 people, nearly 1.5 times as many people as live in Washington, D.C., hold top-secret security clearances.

*In Washington and the surrounding area, 33 building complexes for top-secret intelligence work are under construction or have been built since September 2001. Together they occupy the equivalent of almost three Pentagons or 22 U.S. Capitol buildings–about 17 million square feet of space.

*Many security and intelligence agencies do the same work, creating redundancy and waste. For example, 51 federal organizations and military commands, operating in 15 U.S. cities, track the flow of money to and from terrorist networks.

*Analysts who make sense of documents and conversations obtained by foreign and domestic spying share their judgment by publishing 50,000 intelligence reports each year–a volume so large that many are routinely ignored.”

On the surface, the Post report appears to be a valiant effort by a major mainstream newspaper (second in influence to only the New York Times) to expose widespread government abuse and chicanery. But don’t get too excited yet.

In Joel Skousen’s World Affairs Brief (July 23, 2010), Skousen writes, “The [Post] series has just enough tantalizing information to sell a lot of papers, but almost nothing that exposes the illicit side of US operations–a large portion of which is involved in recruiting, training, and running covert agents–only a small portion of which are spying on real enemies. A lot of spying targets our allies and patriotic Americans who the government worries could someday provide a source of rebellion against the growing totalitarian state.”

Skousen further charges that there is a “dark side” to “each agency of [federal] law enforcement.” This “dark side” involves “a lot of compartmentalization, front activities, hidden budgets and false stories in order to keep honest government employees and agents from knowing what’s going on behind their backs.”

Skousen continues: “What few do get a glimpse into government’s dark side are warned off with threats, some subtle and some lethal–threats which send a chilling message to others to not ‘ask too many questions.’” Skousen then quotes the Post report as saying that since 9/11, the NSA (National Security Agency) has grown to where it now consumes “1.7 billion pieces of intercepted communications every 24 hours: emails, bulletin board postings, instant messages, IP addresses, phone numbers, telephone calls and cellular conversations.”

Concerning all those government organizations and private companies working on counterterrorism projects that the Post report refers to, Skousen writes, “Once again, the series tells us nothing about the substance of what they do, much of which is unsavory and illegal.”

Skousen goes on to say, “What [the Post report] won’t tell you is that almost a third of these [NSA] operations are dedicated to black operations against Americans and other Western governments who need to be surveilled in order to control them and keep them from resisting the agenda of the New World Order. Much expense is allocated to spying on the unsavory private behavior of Congressmen, and even State officials–building compromising dossiers on people who influence the political process so they can be coerced into compliance when necessary.”

Skousen also chides the Post report for failing “to show how connected certain companies are to the mercenary contractor explosion that is growing into a force that will eventually be used to threaten individual liberties at home. The Powers That Be don’t need to hire foreign armies to clamp down on American dissidents. They are training hundreds of thousands of mercenary Americans to do it and using foreign wars to sort out who is ruthless enough or unprincipled enough to take orders without questions–similar to the way the Nazis sorted and selected those who would form the Brownshirt and SS brigades.”

See Joel Skousen’s World Affairs Brief at:

http://www.worldaffairsbrief.com/

See The Washington Post report at:

http://tinyurl.com/washpost-hidden-world

In short, while claiming to expose the federal government’s “hidden world,” the Post report actually does little to uncover the illegal and dark activities that Washington employs against the US citizenry, and by so doing serves more to cover up this sinister activity. Even so, do you not find it more than a little interesting just how few media sources did anything to pick up the Post report? Did you read any of this in your local paper? Did you see anything of this on CNN or Fox News? Come on, folks! You are aware that most of the media outlets (including network television) in this country obtain the vast majority of their “news” from The New York Times and The Washington Post, are you not? So, how convenient is it that this report (such as it is) was virtually ignored?

As I’ve said in speaking engagements–both large and small–all over America, We have more to fear from Washington, D.C., than from Tehran or Baghdad, or from any other foreign entity. America’s founders understood this and tried to warn the American people accordingly. For example, Daniel Webster warned, “There is no nation on earth powerful enough to accomplish our overthrow. Our destruction, should it come at all, will be from another quarter. From the inattention of the people to the concerns of their government, from their carelessness and negligence. I must confess that I do apprehend some danger. I fear that they may place too implicit a confidence in their public servants and fail properly to scrutinize their conduct; that in this way they may be made the dupes of designing men and become the instruments of their own undoing.”

The protection of the people from the totalitarian tendencies of their own central government in Washington, D.C., is why the framers of the Constitution included the Second Amendment in the Bill of Rights. The Second Amendment was never about duck hunting or target shooting; it was all about the American citizenry being prepared to defend itself against its own federal government. The founders’ distrust of the central government is why they attempted to divide the power and authority of government into three separate branches. They expected the three branches to compete against each other and to hold each other in check and balance against governmental abuse. And this is also why the individual states each maintained their own sovereignty and independence when creating the central government in 1787, because, at the end of the day, it is going to be the states that form the final fortress for freedom.

For all intents and purposes, the three branches of the federal government have done nothing to prevent the massive expansion of unconstitutional governance by Washington, D.C. The passage of the Seventeenth Amendment was the beginning of the end, as far as separated power was concerned. Neither has it made much difference which political party was in power in DC. The unlawful expansion of federal power has continued under both. This means that there are only two remaining protections against absolute federal tyranny: 1) strong, independent, and defiant State governments, and, 2) a determined and fully armed citizenry...

Jailbreaking iPhone apps is now legal

By David Goldman, staff writer
July 26, 2010: 7:14 PM ET

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- IPhone users can now legally hack their phones to download applications that aren't in Apple's App Store.

The U.S. Copyright Office, a division of the Library of Congress, has authorized several new exemptions to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), one of which will allow mobile phone users to "jailbreak" -- or hack into -- their devices to use apps not authorized by the phone's manufacturer. The new rules will be published on Tuesday in the Federal Register.

Jailbreaking iPhones in order to download apps that are unavailable in Apple's App Store had been a legal gray area: Apple technically had the right to request a $2,500 government fine for damages every time a user violated the law that bans "circumvention of technological measures" controlling access to copyrighted works -- in this case, the iPhone's iOS software.

Apple (AAPL, Fortune 500) never actually requested that a fine be levied on an iPhone customer. But it fought to preserve its right to: Apple filed an objection last year to the rule the Copyright Office has now adopted.

The Copyright Office's decision means that jailbreakers will not face legal sanctions, but phone makers are still free to fight back technologically against the practice. Apple typically voids the warranty on iPhones that owners have hacked. The company maintains that tampering with the iPhone can introduce bugs and glitches.

"Apple's goal has always been to insure that our customers have a great experience with their iPhone, and we know that jailbreaking can severely degrade the experience," a company spokeswoman said in response to the Copyright Office ruling. "The vast majority of customers do not jailbreak their iPhones."

The Copyright Office also renewed and expanded its 2006 decision allowing mobile phone users to jailbreak their phones in order to switch carriers. Previously, the office allowed firmware updates to enable network-switching; this week, it added a provision allowing software hacks as well. In other words, iPhone users can now legally download software that will enable their phones to join a non-AT&T (T, Fortune 500) network...

Is National Security Behind Google's Wi-Fi Spying?

By John R. Quain
Published July 22, 2010
FoxNews.com

Has search and advertising giant Google been tracking you just to sell you stuff -- or is it because the U.S. government asked it to? A congressional hearing later today may raise more questions than answers.

Since May, Google has been in hot water worldwide over the information it collected during its street-mapping projects. European regulators have been pressing the company since it was revealed that Google collected information from Wi-Fi networks as its street-view vans cruised neighborhoods around the globe. The information Google gathered included e-mail fragments and passwords, alarming politicians and privacy and security advocates in Germany, France, and Spain.

Recently, the Washington Post noted as part of a two-year investigation into America's intelligence community that Google supplies special mapping and search products to the U.S. military and intelligence community, with some Google employees enjoying top secret clearance to work with the government. That news has consumer advocates and politicians asking exactly what information Google has collected -- and why.

"Is there some relationship between Google and the NSA (National Security Agency)?" asked Jamie Court, president of Consumer Watchdog, a nonprofit consumer advocacy group. "Was this data shared with intelligence agencies in America? It's a question. We just want a straight answer." The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) civil-liberties organization has also weighed in, demanding that Google "grow up."

If there is such a connection, it would explain why there has been little federal government reaction. Representatives would be extremely reluctant to call for an investigation if they felt it might compromise national security, Court noted.

Still, there has been pressure from state governments. A group of 38 state attorneys general led by Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal has asked Google for detailed information on what it gathered, how the software was tested (if it was inadvertent), and who at the company was responsible for the Wi-Fi spying. The state AGs have also asked the Energy and Commerce Committee to hold hearings on the issue and said they could take legal action if it doesn't get answers.

For Google's part, a company spokesperson reiterated the search engine giant's official position to FoxNews.com in an e-mail:

"As we’ve said before, it was a mistake for us to include code in our software that collected payload data, but we believe we did nothing illegal. We’re continuing to work with the relevant authorities to answer their questions and concerns."...

Bingo Night for Detained Illegal Immigrants

July 15, 2010 - 4:49 PM | by: Jamie Colby

Last August, the Obama administration pledged to overhaul how those entering the U.S. illegally would be held and treated at detention centers across the country. Many who enter illegally but have not committed other crimes, are housed at Level 1 facilities run by Immigration and Customs Enforcement or ICE while those here illegally who have committed crimes are at more secure ICE detention centers classified as Level 2 or 3.

According to ICE, sometimes facilities provide housing for both but these populations are never mixed. The non-criminal, lower risk detainees could soon see the biggest changes in living conditions– 28 changes proposed in total – while even those at more secure detention facilities could see some, like improved access to legal libraries and other changes that will not however, according to ICE, put the public at risk.

Watch the latest video at <a href="http://video.foxnews.com/">FoxNews.com</a>

News of the proposed changes came when The Houston Chronicle published a leaked, internal email from Corrections Corporation of America or CCA, a private contractor working for ICE. Check out the email below that lists the changes proposed. ICE confirms to Fox these are the improvements proposed by CCA that it is now considering.

The ACLU and other immigrant activist groups say upgrading conditions for detainees is a start, but most working on behalf of illegal immigrants want more sweeping reform. ACLU staff attorney Vanita Gupta tells Fox “some of them actually will make a difference in the living conditions of detainees, who I have to remind everyone, are not criminals."

But Chris Crane the president of AFGE 118 Council, the union representing ICE officers says “we have to take every precaution possible to make sure that they are safe and that our employees and officers inside these facilities are safe". Again, ICE tells Fox it hasn’t decided yet which of the CCA proposals will be approved and any that are, ICE insists will not put the public at risk. How about the cost of making these upgrades to detention? CCA picks up the cost, not taxpayers...

Good riddance to establishment GOP

By RICHARD A. VIGUERIE | 7/16/10 4:26 AM EDT

Richard A. Viguerie says Bob Inglis (above) and like-minded Republicans have passively, and actively, contributed to big government. AP

POLITICO 44 Rep. Bob Inglis (R-S.C.) who just lost by 42 points in his primary, recently said to GreenvilleOnline.com that the “fear-driven conservative movement . . . will ultimately die out and cost the party dearly unless leaders resist the ‘demagoguery’ and ‘misinformation’ of its figureheads.”

According to conservative ratings, Inglis has been good on legislative votes. So you’d think, instead of insulting his base, he’d be saying this White House has raised demagoguery and misinformation to new levels. He’d say the left spews hate.

Legislative vote ratings, however, don’t measure leadership — or humility.

The piece goes on to say that Inglis “believes a majority of Republicans in Congress think similarly . . . but are afraid to speak out because ‘hot’ voices in television and radio talks shows have the microphone and are driving angry voters.”

But it’s Inglis — and like-minded Republicans — who make people angry. They have shown no leadership in attempting to fix what is wrong with Washington. They have passively, and actively, contributed to big government — which accounts for their abysmal approval ratings (Gallup, 20 percent).

Neither the grass-roots outcry nor the 42-point primary defeat registered this for Inglis. Good riddance.

Americans, particularly conservatives, are angry because of the corruption in Washington. When Republicans controlled the White House and both chambers of Congress, there was individual and institutional corruption. But most Republican incumbents have demonstrated no sign they will change what was wrong.

Republicans created the K Street project — forcing lobbyists to pony up money. They use other people’s money through earmarks to get themselves re-elected. They ignore the Constitution. They created big-government programs — like expanding federal control of education through No Child Left Behind, the TARP bailouts and the 2003 prescription drug benefit.

Those are just some of many examples of things that Republicans were supposed to prevent from happening.

Global Sentiment Builds to Attack Iran

Tuesday, 13 Jul 2010 11:04 AM

Article Font Size

By: Arnaud De Borchgrave

There is no better illustration of the futility of the $1 trillion Iraq war than news photos of a long line of gasoline tankers lined up bumper to bumper as they leave Iraq to enter Iran.

The U.N. Security Council’s decision to strengthen economic measures against Iran and President Barack Obama’s signing into law draconian new legislative sanctions against Iran's nuclear weapons ambitions leave Iraq's defeated government unable to act.

The Iraq Study Group, led by Lee Hamilton, the prominent Democrat who heads the Woodrow Wilson International Center, and James Baker, whose Institute for Public Policy is at Houston's Rice University, warned in 2006 that Iran, now rid of erstwhile enemy Saddam Hussein, already was wielding more influence in Iraq than the United States.

The only sanction that would undermine the mullah's military regime seriously is a severe shortage of gasoline. Iran is awash in oil but lacks refining capacity and has to import 60 percent of its gasoline. A lack of governance in Baghdad has allowed Iran to strike a sub-rosa deal for gasoline imports.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's coalition government narrowly lost national elections (89 to 91 seats, both rivals short of the 163 seats needed to govern alone) in March. Endless palavers since then have failed to produce a new coalition. With suicide bombers trying to reignite a bloody trail of sectarian violence, Joe Biden flew into Baghdad over the Fourth of July weekend for his fifth visit since becoming vice president. He urged Iraq's political leaders to form an all-party coalition ASAP.

On his first night there, sirens wailed and a voice shouted over an extensive loudspeaker system: "Duck and cover." Five mortar rounds exploded in the Green Zone, a large maximum-security area in the heart of Baghdad that houses the $700 million, 100-acre U.S. Embassy, now the world's largest.

There was a time when Hussein, the dictator who was executed on Dec. 30, 2006, was the most effective barrier to Iran's regional ambitions. In 1980, he launched an invasion of Iran that led to a Mexican standoff that lasted eight years and caused 1 million deaths on both sides.

Iranian teenagers were pressed into service as "suicide volunteers" with a golden key around their necks — for the gates of paradise that would allow them to meet up with 72 virgins.

Until now those advocating military action against Iran's nuclear installations were found mostly in Israel and among the "neocon" lobby in Congress, and its sympathizers in think tanks and the media. In recent weeks, the ranks of those who now concede the inevitability of a military showdown with Iran's theocracy-cum-military regime have widened to include normally less bellicose politicians and their military friends...

List Containing Names of 1,300 Purported Illegals Mailed Around Utah

Published July 13, 2010
Associated Press

SALT LAKE CITY -- A list containing the names and personal information of 1,300 people an anonymous group contends are illegal immigrants has been mailed around Utah, terrifying the state's Hispanic community.

Republican Gov. Gary Herbert wrote in a tweet Tuesday that he has asked state agencies to investigate the list -- sent anonymously to several media outlets, and law enforcement and state agencies. A letter accompanying the list demands that those on it be deported immediately.

Most of the names on the list are of Hispanic origin. The list also contains highly detailed personal information such as Social Security numbers, birth dates, workplaces, addresses and phone numbers. Names of children are included, along with due dates of pregnant women on the list.

"My phone has been ringing nonstop since this morning with people finding out they're on the list," said Tony Yapias, former director of the Utah Office of Hispanic Affairs. "They're feeling terrorized. They're very scared."

The list's release comes as several conservative Utah lawmakers consider sponsoring a tough new illegal immigration law similar to the one passed recently in Arizona.

Arizona's law, which takes effect July 29, directs police enforcing other laws to ask about a suspect's immigration status if there is reason to believe the person is in the United States illegally.

Herbert has said a new immigration law likely will be passed when lawmakers convene in January, although he said it may be different from Arizona's. Herbert spokeswoman Angie Welling was traveling back from Washington, D.C., Tuesday and could not immediately be reached for comment.

The letter included a long recipient list, including newspapers, broadcast outlets, The Associated Press, law enforcement and state agencies, various Utah officials, and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in Salt Lake City. The letters began arriving in mailboxes in recent days.

Dave Lewis, communication director for the state Department of Workforce Services, said his agency didn't receive a copy of the list from the governor's office until late Tuesday.

"We've got some people in our technology department looking at it right now," he said. "It's a high priority. We want to figure out the how's and why's."

He said his agency is one of several with access to the information included in the list.

The letter says some names on the list were sent to the ICE office in Salt Lake City in April. It says the new list includes new names, for a total of more than 1,300.

Included with the new letter is one dated April 4 addressed to "Customs and Immigration" and from "Concerned Citizens of the United States."

In the April letter, the writers say their group "observes these individuals in our neighborhoods, driving on our streets, working in our stores, attending our schools and entering our public welfare buildings."

"We then spend the time and effort needed to gather information along with legal Mexican nationals who infiltrate their social networks and help us obtain the necessary information we need to add them to our list," the letter says.

A phone message left for the on-duty ICE spokesman was not immediately returned.

Administration's 'Silent Raids' Lead to Firings, Not Deportations

Published July 10, 2010
FoxNews.com

The Obama administration’s new approach to dealing with companies that hire illegal immigrants results in firings, not deportations, the New York Times reported Friday.

Instead of immigration sweeps at factories and farms which used to lead to illegal workers being shipped out of the country, the administration’s new policy—government conducted audits labeled “silent raids” by employers—usually only result in the workers losing their jobs, the Times said.

The Times article comes just over a week after the president delivered his highly anticipated speech on immigration reform, which was criticized on both ends of the political spectrum.

In these audits, federal agents examine company records to find illegal workers on the payroll, forcing “businesses to fire every suspected illegal immigrant… not just those who happened to be on duty at the time of a raid,” the Times said. This makes it more difficult for companies to hire undocumented workers to fill these positions in the future, the article explained.

These audits reach more companies than the Bush raids, employers said. This year alone, Immigration and Customs Enforcement have facilitated the firing of thousands of immigrants and “levied a record $3 million in civil fines,” the Times reported.

This current policy is a contrast to the Bush-era work-site roundups where undocumented employees were deported en masse. It also represents the current government opinion that treating the nation’s 11 million illegal immigrants as criminals would overwhelm the system.

This ideology stands at the very center of the current battle between the federal government and the state of Arizona’s new immigration law. Arizona’s law makes not carrying the appropriate immigration documents a criminal offense and gives authorities the power to detain anyone they think is an illegal immigrant. Several lawsuits—including one filed against the state by the federal government— are now pending.

View the original story from The New York Times.