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U.S. Government Catalogue of Cellphone Surveillance Devices Used by The Military and by CIA, NSA, FBI and other Intelligence Agencies

The Truth News — Mon, 27 Jan 2025 23:05:17 +0000

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U.S. Government Catalogue of Cellphone Surveillance Devices
Used by The Military and by CIA, NSA, FBI and other Intelligence Agencies

A fellow leader in the intelligence community new sources as we INTERCEPT them from the INTERCEPT which HAS OBTAINED a secret, internal U.S. government catalogue of dozens of cellphone surveillance devices used by the military and by intelligence agencies. The document, thick with previously undisclosed information, also offers rare insight into the spying capabilities of federal law enforcement and local police inside the United States.

The catalogue includes details on the Stingray, a well-known brand of surveillance gear, as well as Boeing “dirt boxes” and dozens of more obscure devices that can be mounted on vehicles, drones, and piloted aircraft. Some are designed to be used at static locations, while others can be discreetly carried by an individual. They have names like Cyberhawk, Yellowstone, Blackfin, Maximus, Cyclone, and Spartacus. Within the catalogue, the NSA is listed as the vendor of one device, while another was developed for use by the CIA, and another was developed for a special forces requirement. Nearly a third of the entries focus on equipment that seems to have never been described in public before. Click the image below to see what they got.

A Secret Catalogue of Government Gear for Spying on Your Cellphone click yellow image to visit

The Intercept obtained the catalogue from a source within the intelligence community concerned about the militarization of domestic law enforcement. (The original is here.)

A few of the devices can house a “target list” of as many as 10,000 unique phone identifiers. Most can be used to geolocate people, but the documents indicate that some have more advanced capabilities, like eavesdropping on calls and spying on SMS messages. Two systems, apparently designed for use on captured phones, are touted as having the ability to extract media files, address books, and notes, and one can retrieve deleted text messages.

Above all, the catalogue represents a trove of details on surveillance devices developed for military and intelligence purposes but increasingly used by law enforcement agencies to spy on people and convict them of crimes. The mass shooting earlier this month in San Bernardino, California, which President Barack Obama has called “an act of terrorism,” prompted calls for state and local police forces to beef up their counterterrorism capabilities, a process that has historically involved adapting military technologies to civilian use. Meanwhile, civil liberties advocates and others are increasingly alarmed about how cellphone surveillance devices are used domestically and have called for a more open and informed debate about the trade-off between security and privacy — despite a virtual blackout by the federal government on any information about the specific capabilities of the gear.

“We’ve seen a trend in the years since 9/11 to bring sophisticated surveillance technologies that were originally designed for military use — like Stingrays or drones or biometrics — back home to the United States,” said Jennifer Lynch, a senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which has waged a legal battle challenging the use of cellphone surveillance devices domestically. “But using these technologies for domestic law enforcement purposes raises a host of issues that are different from a military context.”

MANY OF THE DEVICES in the catalogue, including the Stingrays and dirt boxes, are cell-site simulators, which operate by mimicking the towers of major telecom companies like Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile. When someone’s phone connects to the spoofed network, it transmits a unique identification code and, through the characteristics of its radio signals when they reach the receiver, information about the phone’s location. There are also indications that cell-site simulators may be able to monitor calls and text messages.

In the catalogue, each device is listed with guidelines about how its use must be approved; the answer is usually via the “Ground Force Commander” or under one of two titles in the U.S. code governing military and intelligence operations, including covert action.

But domestically the devices have been used in a way that violates the constitutional rights of citizens, including the Fourth Amendment prohibition on illegal search and seizure, critics like Lynch say. They have regularly been used without warrants, or with warrants that critics call overly broad. Judges and civil liberties groups alike have complained that the devices are used without full disclosure of how they work, even within court proceedings.

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“Every time police drive the streets with a Stingray, these dragnet devices can identify and locate dozens or hundreds of innocent bystanders’ phones,” said Nathan Wessler, a staff attorney with the Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project of the American Civil Liberties Union.

The controversy around cellphone surveillance illustrates the friction that comes with redeploying military combat gear into civilian life. The U.S. government has been using cell-site simulators for at least 20 years, but their use by local law enforcement is a more recent development.

The archetypical cell-site simulator, the Stingray, was trademarked by Harris Corp. in 2003 and initially used by the military, intelligence agencies, and federal law enforcement. Another company, Digital Receiver Technology, now owned by Boeing, developed dirt boxes — more powerful cell-site simulators — which gained favor among the NSA, CIA, and U.S. military as good tools for hunting down suspected terrorists. The devices can reportedly track more than 200 phones over a wider range than the Stingray.

Amid the war on terror, companies selling cell-site simulators to the federal government thrived. In addition to large corporations like Boeing and Harris, which clocked more than $2.6 billion in federal contracts last year, the catalogue obtained by The Intercept includes products from little-known outfits like Nevada-based Ventis, which appears to have been dissolved, and SR Technologies of Davie, Florida, which has a website that warns: “Due to the sensitive nature of this business, we require that all visitors be registered before accessing further information.” (The catalogue obtained by The Intercept is not dated, but includes information about an event that occurred in 2012.)

The U.S. government eventually used cell-site simulators to target people for assassination in drone strikes, The Intercept has reported. But the CIA helped use the technology at home, too. For more than a decade, the agency worked with the U.S. Marshals Service to deploy planes with dirt boxes attached to track mobile phones across the U.S., the Wall Street Journal revealed.

After being used by federal agencies for years, cellular surveillance devices began to make their way into the arsenals of a small number of local police agencies. By 2007, Harris sought a license from the Federal Communications Commission to widely sell its devices to local law enforcement, and police flooded the FCC with letters of support. “The text of every letter was the same. The only difference was the law enforcement logo at the top,” said Chris Soghoian, the principal technologist at the ACLU, who obtained copies of the letters from the FCC through a Freedom of Information Act request.

The lobbying campaign was a success. Today nearly 60 law enforcement agencies in 23 states are known to possess a Stingray or some form of cell-site simulator, though experts believe that number likely underrepresents the real total. In some jurisdictions, police use cell-site simulators regularly. The Baltimore Police Department, for example, has used Stingrays more than 4,300 times since 2007.

Police often cite the war on terror in acquiring such systems. Michigan State Police claimed their Stingrays would “allow the State to track the physical location of a suspected terrorist,” although the ACLU later found that in 128 uses of the devices last year, none were related to terrorism. In Tacoma, Washington, police claimed Stingrays could prevent attacks using improvised explosive devices — the roadside bombs that plagued soldiers in Iraq. “I am not aware of any case in which a police agency has used a cell-site simulator to find a terrorist,” said Lynch. Instead, “law enforcement agencies have been using cell-site simulators to solve even the most minor domestic crimes.”

The Intercept is not publishing information on devices in the catalogue where the disclosure is not relevant to the debate over the extent of domestic surveillance.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence declined to comment for this article. The FBI, NSA, and U.S. military did not offer any comment after acknowledging The Intercept’s written requests. The Department of Justice “uses technology in a manner that is consistent with the requirements and protections of the Constitution, including the Fourth Amendment, and applicable statutory authorities,” said Marc Raimondi, a Justice Department spokesperson who, for six years prior to working for the DOJ, worked for Harris Corp., the manufacturer of the Stingray.

WHILE INTEREST FROM local cops helped fuel the spread of cell-site simulators, funding from the federal government also played a role, incentivizing municipalities to buy more of the technology. In the years since 9/11, the U.S. has expanded its funding to provide military hardware to state and local law enforcement agencies via grants awarded by the Department of Homeland Security and the Justice Department. There’s been a similar pattern with Stingray-like devices.

“The same grant programs that paid for local law enforcement agencies across the country to buy armored personnel carriers and drones have paid for Stingrays,” said Soghoian. “Like drones, license plate readers, and biometric scanners, the Stingrays are yet another surveillance technology created by defense contractors for the military, and after years of use in war zones, it eventually trickles down to local and state agencies, paid for with DOJ and DHS money.”

In 2013, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement reported the purchase of two HEATR long-range surveillance devices as well as $3 million worth of Stingray devices since 2008. In California, Alameda County and police departments in Oakland and Fremont are using $180,000 in Homeland Security grant money to buy Harris’ Hailstorm cell-site simulator and the hand-held Thoracic surveillance device, made by Maryland security and intelligence company Keyw. As part of Project Archangel, which is described in government contract documents as a “border radio intercept program,” the Drug Enforcement Administration has contracted with Digital Receiver Technology for over $1 million in DRT surveillance box equipment. The Department of the Interior contracted with Keyw for more than half a million dollars of “reduced signature cellular precision geolocation.”

Information on such purchases, like so much about cell-site simulators, has trickled out through freedom of information requests and public records. The capabilities of the devices are kept under lock and key — a secrecy that hearkens back to their military origins. When state or local police purchase the cell-site simulators, they are routinely required to sign non-disclosure agreements with the FBI that they may not reveal the “existence of and the capabilities provided by” the surveillance devices, or share “any information” about the equipment with the public.

Indeed, while several of the devices in the military catalogue obtained by The Intercept are actively deployed by federal and local law enforcement agencies, according to public records, judges have struggled to obtain details of how they work. Other products in the secret catalogue have never been publicly acknowledged and any use by state, local, and federal agencies inside the U.S. is, therefore, difficult to challenge.

“It can take decades for the public to learn what our police departments are doing, by which point constitutional violations may be widespread,” Wessler said. “By showing what new surveillance capabilities are coming down the pike, these documents will help lawmakers, judges, and the public know what to look out for as police departments seek ever-more powerful electronic surveillance tools.”

Sometimes it’s not even clear how much police are spending on Stingray-like devices because they are bought with proceeds from assets seized under federal civil forfeiture law, in drug busts and other operations. Illinois, Michigan, and Maryland police forces have all used asset forfeiture funds to pay for Stingray-type equipment.

“The full extent of the secrecy surrounding cell-site simulators is completely unjustified and unlawful,” said EFF’s Lynch. “No police officer or detective should be allowed to withhold information from a court or criminal defendant about how the officer conducted an investigation.”

JUDGES HAVE BEEN among the foremost advocates for ending the secrecy around cell-site simulators, including by pushing back on warrant requests. At times, police have attempted to hide their use of Stingrays in criminal cases, prompting at least one judge to throw out evidence obtained by the device. In 2012, a U.S. magistrate judge in Texas rejected an application by the Drug Enforcement Administration to use a cell-site simulator in an operation, saying that the agency had failed to explain “what the government would do with” the data collected from innocent people.

Law enforcement has responded with some limited forms of transparency. In September, the Justice Department issued new guidelines for the use of Stingrays and similar devices, including that federal law enforcement agencies using them must obtain a warrant based on probable cause and must delete any data intercepted from individuals not under investigation.

Contained within the guidelines, however, is a clause stipulating vague “exceptional circumstances” under which agents could be exempt from the requirement to get a probable cause warrant.

“Cell-site simulator technology has been instrumental in aiding law enforcement in a broad array of investigations, including kidnappings, fugitive investigations, and complicated narcotics cases,” said Deputy Attorney General Sally Quillian Yates.

Meanwhile, parallel guidelines issued by the Department of Homeland Security in October do not require warrants for operations on the U.S. border, nor do the warrant requirements apply to state and local officials who purchased their Stingrays through grants from the federal government, such as those in Wisconsin, Maryland, and Florida.

The ACLU, EFF, and several prominent members of Congress have said the federal government’s exceptions are too broad and leave the door open for abuses.

“Because cell-site simulators can collect so much information from innocent people, a simple warrant for their use is not enough,” said Lynch, the EFF attorney. “Police officers should be required to limit their use of the device to a short and defined period of time. Officers also need to be clear in the probable cause affidavit supporting the warrant about the device’s capabilities.”

In November, a federal judge in Illinois published a legal memorandum about the government’s application to use a cell-tower spoofing technology in a drug-trafficking investigation. In his memo, Judge Iain Johnston sharply criticized the secrecy surrounding Stingrays and other surveillance devices, suggesting that it made weighing the constitutional implications of their use extremely difficult. “A cell-site simulator is simply too powerful of a device to be used and the information captured by it too vast to allow its use without specific authorization from a fully informed court,” he wrote.

He added that Harris Corp. “is extremely protective about information regarding its device. In fact, Harris is so protective that it has been widely reported that prosecutors are negotiating plea deals far below what they could obtain so as to not disclose cell-site simulator information. … So where is one, including a federal judge, able to learn about cell-site simulators? A judge can ask a requesting Assistant United States Attorney or a federal agent, but they are tight-lipped about the device, too.”

The ACLU and EFF believe that the public has a right to review the types of devices being used to encourage an informed debate on the potentially far-reaching implications of the technology. The catalogue obtained by The Intercept, said Wessler, “fills an important gap in our knowledge, but it is incumbent on law enforcement agencies to proactively disclose information about what surveillance equipment they use and what steps they take to protect Fourth Amendment privacy rights.”

Written by Jeremy Scahill, Margot Williams Research: Josh Begley source

STINGRAYS

Learn what a Stingray is here

Pegasus spyware: FBI vows not to use after grilling from Capitol Hill

The Truth News — Sun, 26 Jan 2025 20:36:53 +0000

Pegasus spyware: FBI vows not to use after grilling from Capitol Hill

The FBI insisted it never planned to use the program to trhttps://www.foxnews.com/ack Americans

By Anders Hagstrom , Gillian Turner | Fox News

The FBI has come under scrutiny in recent months after it purchased a license to use the highly effective spyware program. FBI officials have insisted they did not end up using the program and had intended to only use it for research. Nevertheless, internal documents suggest they had plans to expand its use–including for tracking Americans. The FBI now tells Fox News it will drop the program.

Director Wray faced a grilling from members of Congress on the issue in hearings earlier this year, when he stated that his organization had never used to program.

FBI director nominee Christopher Wray testifies during his confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee July 12, 2017 on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., a member of the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, speaks with members of the press after a hearing at the Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, June 21, 2022. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)

“The Director’s testimony was accurate when given and remains true today – there has been no operational use of the NSO product to support any FBI investigation,” the FBI told Fox.

Sen. Ron Wyden, D-OR, accused Wray of essentially lying – or at least fudging the truth – in testimony earlier this year. Wray was asked about the FBI’s purchase of the spyware and bureau plans to use it in criminal investigations, including tracking Americans. Wray insisted the FBI would only use Pegasus for “research,” but the New York Times soon obtained internal FBI documents indicating this was not accurate – the FBI had hoped to use Pegasus more broadly.

Pegasus has already proven capable of infiltrating the phones of U.S. officials working overseas, something Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., highlighted in a spyware hearing this summer.

“Late last year, multiple news organizations reported that mobile phones used by U.S. diplomats in Uganda had been compromised by NASA’s Pegasus tool,” Schiff said at the time. “It is my belief that we are very likely looking at the tip of the iceberg and that other U.S. government personnel have had their devices compromised, whether by a nation state using NSA services or tools offered by one of its lesser known but equally potent competitors.”

People hold posters picturing Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi and lightened candles during a gathering outside the Saudi Arabia consulate in Istanbul, on Oct. 25, 2018. Khashoggi, a Washington Post contributor, was killed on Oct. 2, 2018 after a visit to the Saudi consulate in Istanbul to obtain paperwork before marrying his Turkish fiancée. (YASIN AKGUL/AFP via Getty Images)

Experts say the spyware has legitimate uses but is also a powerful tool for authoritarian governments. Mexico used Pegasus in its effort to track down El Chapo, and Saudi Arabia also used it to track journalist Jamal Khashoggi prior to orchestrating his murder, according to cyber defense expert Jason Blessing.

The Spy Factories: NSA’s XKeyscore Isn’t the Only Program Tracking You

BY SPYSCAPE

When whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed his NSA files in 2013, one sneaky program stood out: XKeyscore, a secret system that spies can use to search and analyze nearly everything you do on the internet in real-time.

XKeyscore is still hoovering up your internet searches, passwords, user names, emails, and personal messages a decade later. In fact, it’s not the only tool governments used to spy on your personal data. Here are five ways the US, Britain, Israel, Canada, and others may be spying on you right now.

CIA snooping on Americans‍

The CIA is vacuuming up data in bulk so spies can sift through it, according to two members of the US Senate Intelligence Committee.

If the data collection happens overseas or falls into a statutory black hole, it comes under Executive Order 12333 which means there’s little oversight. “What stops the CIA from poring through the data looking for Americans’ information? Let’s be honest: nothing,” according to the Brennan Center for Justice.

Senator Ron Wyden said he is also concerned the US Defense Intelligence Agency is buying consumer smartphone location data from a third-party broker and the Department of Homeland Security is helping to compile money transfer records.

Pegasus software‍

The Israeli company NSO Group developed Pegasus spyware to target terrorists but governments have used it to track at least 180 journalists, political dissidents, activists, and heads of state including French President Emmanuel Macron.

More than 50,000 phone numbers targeted for surveillance by Pegasus’ customers were leaked to Amnesty International, revealing a massive global privacy breach. Once installed, the software operator can receive text messages, contact lists, and calendar events, and can turn on the phone’s camera and microphone to capture activity in the phone’s vicinity.

Who uses it? The FBI ‘tested’ Pegasus spyware but said they haven’t used it in investigations. Canada’s CitizenLab linked Pegasus to operations in 45 countries including Mexico, Bahrain, Kazakhstan, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE. Israeli police used the spyware to scrutinize citizens’ phones. The son of ex-Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu was one such target. Not all countries have access to Pegasus software. Israel reportedly blocked Ukraine from buying a license, fearing Russia would be angry if Pegasus was sold to a regional foe.

Codename Tempora: Britain’s GCHQ cyberspies ‍

The European Court of Human Rights ruled in 2021 that GCHQ spies were acting unlawfully when they intercepted online communications in bulk. Judges also criticized GCHQ’s regime for sharing sensitive digital intelligence with foreign governments.

The data included information from passports, travel records, financial data, telephone calls, emails, and open or covert sources.

The court case revealed that Britain’s spies had secretly collected bulk personal data since the late 1990s and gathered information on people ‘unlikely to be of intelligence or security interest’. UK lawyers argued that the information was needed for national security.

Vault 7: CIA hacking techniques‍

In 2017, WikiLeaks published what it described as thousands of pages of internal CIA discussions about Agency hacking techniques. CIA spies could apparently access Apple iPhones, Google Android devices, and other gadgets to capture text and voice messages before they were encrypted with software.

By the end of 2016, the CIA’s Center for Cyber Intelligence had more than 5,000 registered users and produced more than 1,000 hacking systems, trojans, viruses, and other ‘weaponized’ malware, creating, in effect, its own NSA with less accountability, according to WikiLeaks.

The House Intelligence committee was ‘looking into the report’ by Yahoo! News in 2021 that claimed the CIA allegedly plotted revenge for the WikiLeaks revelations by targeting founder Julian Assange.

CSIS: Canada’s spies creep forward‍

Canada’s CSE – the signals intelligence group that collects data much like the NSA does in the US – received new powers in 2019 under a law designed to crack down on terrorists. Privacy advocates worry the law is an invitation for mass surveillance and see potential problems.

Critics have long complained about CSE which, in 2012, spied on Canadians using public WiFi networks in Canadian airports. The agency – and its watchdog – argued that they were only collecting metadata (for example, an IP or email address and phone number) rather than the content of messages.

“But we (and they) know that metadata can reveal tons of private information about a person and their life: where they have been, what they believe, who they talk to, etc,” according to Canada’s International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group.

Federal Civil Rights Statutes

The Truth News — Tue, 16 May 2023 07:17:18 +0000

Federal Civil Right$ $tatute$

Title 18, U.S.C., Section 249 – Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr., Hate Crimes Prevention Act

This statute makes it unlawful to willfully cause bodily injury—or attempting to do so with fire, firearm, or other dangerous weapon—when 1) the crime was committed because of the actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin of any person, or 2) the crime was committed because of the actual or perceived religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability of any person and the crime affected interstate or foreign commerce or occurred within federal special maritime and territorial jurisdiction.

The law also provides funding and technical assistance to state, local, and tribal jurisdictions to help them to more effectively investigate, prosecute, and prevent hate crimes.

The law provides for a maximum 10–year prison term, unless death (or attempts to kill) results from the offense, or unless the offense includes kidnapping or attempted kidnapping, or aggravated sexual abuse or attempted aggravated sexual abuse. For offenses not resulting in death, there is a seven–year statute of limitations. For offenses resulting in death, there is no statute of limitations.

Title 18, U.S.C., Section 241 – Conspiracy Against Rights

This statute makes it unlawful for two or more persons to conspire to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any person of any state, territory or district in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him/her by the Constitution or the laws of the United States, (or because of his/her having exercised the same).

It further makes it unlawful for two or more persons to go in disguise on the highway or on the premises of another with the intent to prevent or hinder his/her free exercise or enjoyment of any rights so secured.

Punishment varies from a fine or imprisonment of up to ten years, or both; and if death results, or if such acts include kidnapping or an attempt to kidnap, aggravated sexual abuse or an attempt to commit aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to kill, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for any term of years, or for life, or may be sentenced to death.

Title 18, U.S.C., Section 242 – Deprivation of Rights Under Color of Law

This statute makes it a crime for any person acting under color of law, statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom to willfully deprive or cause to be deprived from any person those rights, privileges, or immunities secured or protected by the Constitution and laws of the U.S.

This law further prohibits a person acting under color of law, statute, ordinance, regulation or custom to willfully subject or cause to be subjected any person to different punishments, pains, or penalties, than those prescribed for punishment of citizens on account of such person being an alien or by reason of his/her color or race.

Acts under “color of any law” include acts not only done by federal, state, or local officials within the bounds or limits of their lawful authority, but also acts done without and beyond the bounds of their lawful authority; provided that, in order for unlawful acts of any official to be done under “color of any law,” the unlawful acts must be done while such official is purporting or pretending to act in the performance of his/her official duties. This definition includes, in addition to law enforcement officials, individuals such as Mayors, Council persons, Judges, Nursing Home Proprietors, Security Guards, etc., persons who are bound by laws, statutes ordinances, or customs.

Punishment varies from a fine or imprisonment of up to one year, or both, and if bodily injury results or if such acts include the use, attempted use, or threatened use of a dangerous weapon, explosives, or fire shall be fined or imprisoned up to ten years or both, and if death results, or if such acts include kidnapping or an attempt to kidnap, aggravated sexual abuse or an attempt to commit aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to kill, shall be fined under this title, or imprisoned for any term of years or for life, or both, or may be sentenced to death.

Title 18, U.S.C., Section 245 – Federally Protected Activities

1) This statute prohibits willful injury, intimidation, or interference, or attempt to do so, by force or threat of force of any person or class of persons because of their activity as:

A voter, or person qualifying to vote…;
a participant in any benefit, service, privilege, program, facility, or activity provided or administered by the United States;
an applicant for federal employment or an employee by the federal government;
a juror or prospective juror in federal court; and
a participant in any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.

2) Prohibits willful injury, intimidation, or interference or attempt to do so, by force or threat of force of any person because of race, color, religion, or national origin and because of his/her activity as:

A student or applicant for admission to any public school or public college;
a participant in any benefit, service, privilege, program, facility, or activity provided or administered by a state or local government;
an applicant for private or state employment, private or state employee; a member or applicant for membership in any labor organization or hiring hall; or an applicant for employment through any employment agency, labor organization or hiring hall;
a juror or prospective juror in state court;
a traveler or user of any facility of interstate commerce or common carrier; or
a patron of any public accommodation, including hotels, motels, restaurants, lunchrooms, bars, gas stations, theaters…or any other establishment which serves the public and which is principally engaged in selling food or beverages for consumption on the premises.

3) Prohibits interference by force or threat of force against any person because he/she is or has been, or in order to intimidate such person or any other person or class of persons from participating or affording others the opportunity or protection to so participate, or lawfully aiding or encouraging other persons to participate in any of the benefits or activities listed in items (1) and (2), above without discrimination as to race, color, religion, or national origin.

Punishment varies from a fine or imprisonment of up to one year, or both, and if bodily injury results or if such acts include the use, attempted use, or threatened use of a dangerous weapon, explosives, or fire shall be fined or imprisoned up to ten years or both, and if death results or if such acts include kidnapping or an attempt to kidnap, aggravated sexual abuse or an attempt to commit aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to kill, shall be subject to imprisonment for any term of years or for life or may be sentenced to death.

Title 18, U.S.C., Section 247 – Church Arson Prevention Act of 1996

Prohibits (1) intentional defacement, damage, or destruction of any religious real property, because of the religious, racial, or ethnic characteristics of that property, or (2) intentional obstruction by force or threat of force, or attempts to obstruct any person in the enjoyment of that person’s free exercise of religious beliefs. If the intent of the crime is motivated for reasons of religious animosity, it must be proven that the religious real property has a sufficient connection with interstate or foreign commerce. However, if the intent of the crime is racially motivated, there is no requirement to satisfy the interstate or foreign commerce clause.

Punishment varies from one year imprisonment and a fine or both, and if bodily injury results to any person, including any public safety officer performing duties as a direct or proximate result of conduct prohibited by this section, and the violation is by means of fire or an explosive, a fine under this title or imprisonment of not more than forty years or both; or if such acts include the use, attempted use, or threatened use of a dangerous weapon, explosives, or fire shall be fined in accordance with this title and imprisonment for up to twenty years, or both, and if death results or if such acts include kidnapping or an attempt to kidnap, aggravated sexual abuse or an attempt to commit aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to kill, shall be fined in accordance with this title and imprisoned for any term of years or for life, or both, or may be sentenced to death.

Title 18, U.S.C., Section 248 – Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act

This statute prohibits (1) the use of force or threat of force or physical obstruction, to intentionally injure, intimidate or interfere with or attempt to injure, intimidate or interfere with any person or any class of persons from obtaining or providing reproductive health services; (2) the use of force or threat of force or physical obstruction to intentionally injure, intimidate, or interfere with or attempt to injure, intimidate, or interfere with any person lawfully exercising or seeking to exercise the First Amendment right of religious freedom at a place of religious worship; or (3) intentionally damages or destroys the property of a facility, or attempts to do so, because such facility provides reproductive health services or intentionally damages or destroys the property of a place of religious worship. This statute does not apply to speech or expressive conduct protected by the First Amendment. Non obstructive demonstrations are legal.

Punishment varies from a fine or imprisonment for an offense involving exclusively a nonviolent physical obstruction, the fine shall be not more than $10,000 and the length of imprisonment shall be up to six months, or both, for the first offense: and the fine shall, notwithstanding section 3571, be up to $25,000 and the length of imprisonment shall be not more than 18 months, or both, for a subsequent offense; and if bodily injury results, the length of imprisonment shall be up to ten years, and if death results, it shall be for any term of years or for life.

Title 18, U.S.C., Section 844(h) – Federal Explosives Control Statute

Whoever (1) uses fire or an explosive to commit any felony which may be prosecuted in a court of the United States, or (2) carries an explosive during the commission of any felony which may be prosecuted in a court of the United States, including a felony which provides for an enhanced punishment if committed by the use of a deadly or dangerous weapon or device shall, in addition to the punishment provided for such felony, be sentenced to imprisonment for five years but not more than 15 years. In the case of a second or subsequent conviction under this subsection, such persons shall be sentenced to imprisonment for ten years but not more than 25 years.

Title 42, U.S.C., Section 3631 – Criminal Interference with Right to Fair Housing

This statute makes it unlawful for any individual(s), by the use of force or threatened use of force, to injure, intimidate, or interfere with (or attempt to injure, intimidate, or interfere with), any person’s housing rights because of that person’s race, color, religion, sex, handicap, familial status or national origin. Among those housing rights enumerated in the statute are:

The sale, purchase, or renting of a dwelling;
the occupation of a dwelling;
the financing of a dwelling;
contracting or negotiating for any of the rights enumerated above;
applying for or participating in any service, organization, or facility relating to the sale or rental of dwellings.

This statute also makes it unlawful by the use of force or threatened use of force, to injure, intimidate, or interfere with any person who is assisting an individual or class of persons in the exercise of their housing rights.

Punishment varies from a fine of up to $1,000 or imprisonment of up to one year, or both, and if bodily injury results, shall be fined up to $10,000 or imprisoned up to ten years, or both, and if death results, shall be subject to imprisonment for any term of years or for life.

Title 42, U.S.C., Section 14141 – Pattern and Practice

This civil statute was a provision within the Crime Control Act of 1994 and makes it unlawful for any governmental authority, or agent thereof, or any person acting on behalf of a governmental authority, to engage in a pattern or practice of conduct by law enforcement officers or by officials or employees of any governmental agency with responsibility for the administration of juvenile justice or the incarceration of juveniles that deprives persons of rights, privileges, or immunities secured or protected by the Constitution or laws of the United States.

Whenever the Attorney General has reasonable cause to believe that a violation has occurred, the Attorney General, for or in the name of the United States, may in a civil action obtain appropriate equitable and declaratory relief to eliminate the pattern or practice.

Types of misconduct covered include, among other things:

Excessive Force
Discriminatory Harassment
False Arrest
Coercive Sexual Conduct
Unlawful Stops, Searches, or Arrests

https://www.fbi.gov/investigate/civil-rights/federal-civil-rights-statutes

Civil Rights

The FBI is the primary federal agency responsible for investigating possible violations of federal civil rights statutes. These laws are designed to protect the civil rights of every person within the United States—citizens and non-citizens alike.

Since its earliest days, the FBI has helped protect the civil rights of the American people, and it remains one of the Bureau’s top priorities.

Using all of its investigative and intelligence capabilities, the Bureau works closely with its partners to prevent and address hate crimes, color of law violations, and Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act violations.

The FBI has also established relationships with state and local law enforcement agencies, prosecutors, non-governmental organizations, and community and minority groups. We work to improve the reporting of civil rights violations, promote the benefits of sharing information and intelligence, and develop proactive strategies for identifying and addressing trends in this field.

Priority Issues

Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act Violations

The Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act makes it a federal crime to injure, intimidate, or interfere with those seeking to obtain or provide health care services—including through assault, murder, burglary, physical blockade, and threats. This law also prohibits damaging or destroying any facility because it provides reproductive health services. The FBI and its local, state, tribal, and federal law enforcement partners aggressively pursue all violations of the statute.

The FACE Act does not criminalize the lawful exercise of constitutional rights. For instance, it is not a violation to protest peacefully outside of a reproductive health care facility–as long as no threats are communicated and facility access is in no way blocked.

Hate Crimes

Investigating hate crimes is the highest priority of the FBI’s civil rights program.

Color of Law Violations

Law enforcement officers and other officials like judges and prosecutors have been given tremendous power by local, state, and federal government agencies—authority they must have to enforce the law and ensure justice in our country. These powers include the authority to detain and arrest suspects, to search and seize property, to bring criminal charges, to make rulings in court, and to use deadly force in certain situations.

Preventing abuse of this authority, however, is equally necessary to the health of our nation’s democracy. That’s why it’s a federal crime for anyone to use their position to willfully deprive or conspire to deprive a person of a right protected by the Constitution or U.S. law.

The FBI is the lead federal agency for investigating color of law violations, which include acts carried out by government officials operating both within and beyond the limits of their lawful authority. Off-duty conduct may be covered if the perpetrator used their official status in some way.

Color of law violations include, but are not limited to:

Sexual assault: Sexual assault by officials acting under color of law can happen in jails, during traffic stops, or in other settings where officials might use their position of authority to coerce an individual.

False arrest and obstruction of justice: The U.S. Constitution guarantees the right against unreasonable searches or seizures and prohibits the use of cruel and unusual punishment. The Fourteenth Amendment secures the right to due process—meaning a person accused of a crime must be allowed the opportunity to have a trial.

Deprivation of medical care: People in custody have a right to medical treatment for serious medical needs. An official acting under color of law who recognizes the serious medical need, but knowingly and willfully denies or prevents access to medical care may have committed a federal violation.

Failure to keep from harm: The public counts on its law enforcement officials to protect local communities. If it’s shown that an official willfully failed to keep an individual from harm, that official could be in violation of the color of law statute.

Filing a Complaint

To file a color of law complaint, contact your local FBI office. You should be prepared to provide as much information and detail as possible.

FBI investigations vary in length. Once our investigation is complete, we forward the findings to the U.S. Attorney’s Office within the local jurisdiction and to the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington, D.C., which decide whether or not to proceed toward prosecution and handle any prosecutions that follow.

The U.S. Department of Justice has additional information on reporting other types of civil rights violations.

Report a Violation

External Resources

https://www.fbi.gov/investigate/civil-rights

Public Corruption

The FBI’s top criminal investigative priority poses a fundamental threat to our national security and way of life.

It can affect how well our borders are secured, how verdicts are handed down in courts, and how public infrastructure like roads and schools are built. It also takes a significant toll on the public’s pocketbooks; it’s estimated that public corruption costs the U.S. government and the public billions of tax dollars each year.

Our public corruption program focuses on:

Investigating violations of federal law by public officials at the federal, state, and local levels of government.
Overseeing the nationwide investigation of allegations of fraud related to federal government procurement, contracts, and federally funded programs.
Combating the threat of public corruption along the nation’s borders and points of entry to decrease the country’s vulnerability to drug and weapons trafficking, alien smuggling, espionage, and terrorism.
Addressing environmental crime, election fraud, and matters concerning the federal government procurement, contracts, and federally funded programs.

Regional Corruption Hotlines

To report public corruption in your area, contact your local FBI public corruption hotline.

The FBI is uniquely situated to combat corruption, with the skills and capabilities to run complex undercover operations and surveillance.

We also work with a number of federal, state, local, and tribal law enforcement agencies to combat public corruption, including:

The Department of Justice
Offices of inspectors general in different agencies
Law enforcement agencies’ internal affairs divisions
Federal, state, and local law enforcement and regulatory investigative agencies
State and county prosecutor’s offices.

Idaho Murders: FBI Denies Directing Indiana Police to Pull Over Bryan Kohberger

The Truth News — Thu, 05 Jan 2023 13:29:07 +0000

Idaho Murders: FBI Denies Directing Indiana Police to Pull Over Bryan Kohberger

A law enforcement task force asked Indiana police to make the traffic stops

By Dan Springer , Adam Sabes | Fox News

MOSCOW, Idaho – A Federal Bureau of Investigation surveillance team tracked Idaho quadruple murder suspect Bryan Kohberger and his father on a cross-country road trip from Washington State to Pennsylvania and members of a law enforcement coalition investigating the allged killer asked Indiana police to pull him over, according to a law enforcement source.

The source tells Fox News that members of the task force investigating the murders in Idaho – a group which includes the FBI — had Kohberger under surveillance as he and his father drove from Washington State to Pennsylvania. Members of that task force, the source noted, asked authorities in Indiana to pull the pair over to get a closer look at Bryan Kohberger’s hands.

The FBI denies it had any involvement in requesting the Hyundai Elantra be pulled over, telling Fox News Digital in a statement that “the December 15th traffic stops conducted on the vehicle being driven by Bryan Kohberger in Indiana were not requested or directed by the FBI.”

Bryan Kohberger is being charged in connection to the fatal Nov. 13 stabbings of University of Idaho students Kaylee Goncalves, Ethan Chapin, Xana Kernodle and Madison Mogen during the early morning hours in Moscow, Idaho.

During a traffic stop by the Hancock County Police Department, the Kohbergers discussed an incident near Washington State University where a SWAT team killed an armed man amid a standoff.

“Well, we’re coming from WSU,” Kohberger’s father, Michael Kohberger says.

“What’s WSU?” the deputy says.

(Indiana State Police)

Both men replied at the same time, and the deputy had a hard time hearing them over the vehicles passing by.

“We’re going to Pennsylvania,” Kohberger’s father responded.

Bryan Kohberger was stopped by Indiana police Dec 15, 2022 before he was identified as a suspect in the murder of 4 University of Idaho students. (Hancock County Police Department)

Kohberger signed an extradition document during a court hearing on Tuesday afternoon and waived his right to challenge the arrest on four counts of first-degree murder.

“Yes,” Kohberger said when Judge Margherita Worthington asked if he wishes to “waive the rights that I have just explained to you and return to the state of Idaho?”

Kohberger, a teaching assistant and Ph.D. student at Washington State University’s Department of Criminal Justice, was arrested on Dec. 30 by local police and agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation at his parents’ home in Albrightsville.

The suspect lives in student housing located in Pullman, Washington, around 10 minutes from where the crime happened.

Idaho Murders Timeline: What We Know About the Slayings of Four Students Story Update 1/3/2023 with a Timeline located here

Idaho Murders: New Details Emerge from Exclusive Surveillance Video read here

Idaho Murders: FBI Denies Directing Indiana Police to Pull Over Bryan Kohberger read here

The Twitter Files: Part 12 – FBI ‘Belly Button’ Feeds Flood of Govt Influence

The Truth News — Wed, 04 Jan 2023 07:50:59 +0000

The Twitter Files: Part 12 – FBI ‘Belly Button’ Feeds Flood of Govt Influence

First Twitter Files Drop of 2023

While conservatives still await the so-called “Fauci Files,” the 12th edition of the Twitter Files released Tuesday night continued to detail how the FBI became the “conduits” to amass censorship requests to feed through the “belly button” of the social media company.

The past Twitter Files have already called the FBI the “doorman” for myriad government agencies seeking to influence Twitter, but independent journalist Matt Taibbi’s latest edition details how a media pressure campaign caused frustration at Twitter, inundated it with government censorship orders, and forced it to request the FBI to feed requests through a single cord attached at the company “belly button.”

“By 2020, Twitter was struggling with the problem of public and private agencies bypassing them and going straight to the media with lists of suspect accounts,” Taibbi wrote to start his 40-post thread, which started to delve into the COVID-19 pandemic era of Twitter’s release of internal communications.

Former President Donald Trump administration’s State Department started an intelligence group called the Global Engagement Center (GEC) that did not sit well with anti-Trump Trust and Safety chief Yoel Roth, who was also growing frustrated with media reports attacking Twitter for not monitoring COVID-19 narratives.

“Twitter was also trying to reduce the number of agencies with access to Roth,” Taibbi wrote. “‘If these folks are like House Homeland Committee and DHS, once we give them a direct contact with Yoel, they will want to come back to him again and again,’ said policy director Carlos Monje.”

The frustration boiled over at Twitter when the Trump administration sought to decouple social media from accounts tied to the China amid the breakout of COVID-19, which included Canada and CNN accounts.

“When the State Department/GEC – remember this was 2020, during the Trump administration — wanted to publicize a list of 5,500 accounts it claimed would ‘amplify Chinese propaganda and disinformation’ about COVID, Twitter analysts were beside themselves,” according to Taibbi.

“Roth saw GEC’s move as an attempt by the GEC to use intel from other agencies to ‘insert themselves’ into the content moderation club that included Twitter, Facebook, the FBI, DHS, and others,” he continued.

Problems continued when Roth’s hesitancy to accept GEC’s recommendations versus others led to the GEC to further leverage the media to force Twitter’s hand.

But the anti-Trump Roth did not like working with the Trump State Department, effectively choose to cut the GEC out of influencing Twitter’s censorship regime.

“A deeper reason was a perception that unlike the DHS and FBI, which were ‘apolitical,’ as Roth put it, the GEC was ‘political,’ which in Twitter-ese appeared to be partisan code,” Taibbi wrote. “‘I think they thought the FBI was less Trumpy,’ is how one former DOD official put it.”

“After spending years rolling over for Democratic Party requests for ‘action’ on ‘Russia-linked’ accounts, Twitter was suddenly playing tough,” Taibbi continued. “Why? Because, as Roth put it, it would pose ‘major risks’ to bring the GEC in, ‘especially as the election heats up.'”

Amid the fight between government and Twitter, the Roth-comfortable FBI proposed to be the “conduits” to feed the requests through the “belly button” of the private Big Tech company, because Roth wanted a small “circle of trust.”

Once the FBI spigot was fully connected, Twitter became bloated with censorship requests.

“Requests arrived and were escalated from all over: from Treasury, the NSA, virtually every state, the HHS, from the FBI and DHS, and more,” according to Taibbi.

It even ventured into the absurd, as anti-Trump Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., sought to have a journalist he did not like to be banned, Paul Sperry. Twitter responded “we don’t do this,” but ultimately it would relent and ban Sperry anyway.

Eventually, the FBI umbilical cord was fully effective in receiving bans, according to Taibbi.

“They were even warned about publicity surrounding a book by former Ukraine prosecutor Viktor Shokhin, who alleged ‘corruption by the U.S. government’ – specifically by Joe Biden,” Taibbi continued.

Twitter was inundated, and confused, leaving the FBI frustrated it would not get immediate results on censorship requests.

“It all led to the situation described by @ShellenbergerMD two weeks ago, in which Twitter was paid $3,415,323, essentially for being an overwhelmed subcontractor,” Taibbi concluded. “Twitter wasn’t just paid. For the amount of work they did for government, they were underpaid.” source

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) reportedly promised Twitter it would be “the belly button” for requests from intelligence agencies to the tech industry, newly released documents show.

“Will the industry partners rely on the FBI to be the belly button for the USG? We can do that as well,” FBI Agent Elvis Chan reportedly asked former Twitter Head of Trust and Safety Yoel Roth in an email, according to the latest “Twitter Files” installment reported by journalist Matt Taibbi.

Chan was reportedly asking Roth about monthly calls between intelligence agencies and the tech industry led by the FBI, Taibbi said. Chan was reportedly pushing for the State Department’s Global Engagement Center to be included in the weekly call, according to emails shared by Taibbi.

Twitter reportedly pushed back against including the GEC in the meetings because it was “political” unlike the “apolitical” intelligence agencies. Roth expressed concerns about the GEC being “press happy” and said it would be a “major risk” to bring it into the weekly call, Taibbi reported.

Chan proposed a compromise to Twitter and Facebook where the FBI and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) would serve as “conduits in and out from the USG,” Taibbi continued.

Chan reportedly told Roth, “State/GEC, NSA, and CIA have expressed interest in being allowed on in listen mode only,” on a “one-way” channel with the FBI, DHS, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), Taibbi’s thread showed.

Roth and Chan reportedly ended up agreeing to an industry call on Signal, an encrypted text messaging app, Taibbi added. Twitter reportedly frequently received requests from the FBI, DHS and other intelligence agencies, Taibbi found. The Treasury Department, Health and Human Services, National Security Agency and the State Department were reportedly among the government agencies sending requests to Twitter, according to Taibbi.

The latest installment of the Twitter Files revealed the FBI’s desire for Twitter to rely on it to be the belly button of the U.S. government (USG). The first Twitter Files installment of 2023 revealed shared the events that led up to the intelligence community’s influence on Twitter. Following that installment, journalist Matt Taibbi released another, which revealed the Global Engagement Center’s (GEC) role.

Taibbi described the GEC as “a fledgling analytic/intelligence arms of the State Department,” and screenshots revealed how this new entity would go directly to the media. In one such instance, a report titled, Russian Disinformation Apparatus Taking Advantage of Coronavirus Concerns, was released, which wrecked a bit of havoc for Twitter.

Twitter’s then Trust and Safety head, Yoel Roth, pointed out the motives of Clemson’s Media Forensic Hub when it complained that Twitter hadn’t “made a Russia attribution” in some time.

Credit: Matt Taibbi

Roth told researchers like Clemson that Twitter would be happy to work directly with them instead of the media. He was unsuccessful. Simultaneously, Twitter was trying to reduce the number of agencies that had access to Roth. Twitter’s then-policy director, Carlos Monje, pointed out that once Twitter gave these agencies, such as the Department of Homeland Security, access to Roth.

“If these folks are like House Homeland Committee and DHS, once we give them direct contact with Yoel, they will want to come back to him again and again,” Monje said.

Taibbi noted that the GEC report appeared to be based on DHS data that was circulated earlier that week. The data included accounts that followed two or more Chinese diplomatic accounts and ended up with a list “nearly 250,000” names long. The list included Canadian officials and a CNN account.

Credit: Matt Taibbi

In an email, Roth said that the GEC attempted to insert itself into conversations Twitter had with several government agencies, including the FBI and DHS. The GEC began to agree to loop Twitter in before going public; however, the agency used a technique that trapped Twitter previously.

“The delta between when they share material and when they go to the press continues to be problematic,” a comms official wrote, adding that they primed the media to be “curios and inquisitive of this dynamic, too.”

Credit: Matt Taibbi

This led to Twitter’s disputing a State Department claim that China coordinated coronavirus disinformation accounts. The FBI then informed Twitter that the GEC wanted to be included in their regular “industry call” between companies like Twitter and Facebook and the DHS and FBI. At first, Twitter didn’t want to go this route. Executives at Facebook and Google were united with Twitter in its opposition to the GEC’s inclusion.

“The GEC’s mandate for offensive IO to promote American interests. The relative lack of discretion and caution from senior GEC leadership in sharing reports/analysis based on shaky methodology. A limited track record of successful collaboration with industry.”

Roth noted that an actor such as GEC being introduced to a stable and trusted group of practitioners and experts, especially with the election heating up, posed major risks.

Credit: Matt Taibbi

Roth added that another reason was that the DHS and FBI were “apolitical,” whereas the GEC was “political.”

“GEC has a track record of actively advancing specific ideological agendas (e.g., their work w/r/t Iran). We should not lose sight of this distinction,” Roth wrote.

Credit: Matt Taibbi

The FBI argued for a compromise solution that would allow other U.S. government (USG) agencies to participate in the industry calls, with the FBI and DHS acting as sole conduits. When Roth reached out to FBI agent Elvis Chan with concerns, Chan reassured the Twitter executive that it would be a “one-way” channel and “State/GEC, NSA, and CIA have expressed interest in being allowed on in listen mode only.”

“We can give you everything we’re seeing from the FBI and USIC agencies,” Chan told Roth, adding that the DHS agency Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) “will know what’s going on in each state.” Chan then asked if the industry could “rely on the FBI to be the belly button of the USG.”

Credit: Matt Taibbi

The group eventually chose Signal due to its operational security. Following that, Twitter began taking requests from various government bodies starting with the Senate Intel Committee (SSCI), which needed reassurance that Twitter was taking FBI direction.

Twitter also received various requests from officials wanting individuals they didn’t like to be banned from the platform. In the screenshot below, the office for Democrat and House Intel Committee chief Adam Schiff asked Twitter to ban journalist Paul Sperry.

Credit: Matt Taibbi

At the time, Twitter refused. However, Sperry was later suspended. “No, this isn’t feasible/we don’t do this,” Twitter replied.

Twitter honored many of the requests, including those from the GEC, to ban accounts the GEC identified as “GRU-controlled” and linked “to the Russian government.”

A former CIA staffer working at Twitter called the GEC requests “Our window on that is closing,” which meant that the days Twitter could say no to serious requests were over. In the Twitter Files that were released earlier today, Taibbi noted that in public, Twitter would remove content at its “sole discretion.”

Privately, the platform would “off-board” anything that was “identified by the U.S. intelligence community as state-sponsored entity conducting cyber-operations.” That was in 2017. By 2020, agencies were flooding Twitter with “identifications” or users that it wanted Twitter to remove.

Credit: Matt Taibbi

Taibbi pointed out that some reports were only a paragraph long and that Twitter would be forwarded an Excel document without further explanation. Twitter was also warned about the publicity surrounding a book written by former Ukraine prosecutor Viktor Shokhin, who alleged “corruption by the U.S. government” – specifically by Joe Biden.

Screenshots reveal that by mere weeks before the 2020 election, Twitter was so confused by the multiple streams of incoming requests that staffers had to ask the FBI which was which.

Credit: Matt Taibbi

Taibbi noted that this led to the situation described in an earlier Twitter Files release by Michael Shellenberger on December 19, 2022.

In that release, it was revealed that Twitter was paid $3,415,323. Taibbi noted that Twitter wasn’t just paid but underpaid for the amount of work it did for the government. source

The Twitter Files: Part 9 – CIA, State Department, other Agencies Coordinated

The Truth News — Mon, 26 Dec 2022 11:21:46 +0000

The Twitter Files: Part 9 – CIA, State Department, other Agencies Coordinated

Twitter Files part 9: Vast web of coordination between tech giant and CIA, State Department, other agencies

Latest batch of documents claim that the FBI was simply the ‘doorman to a vast program of social media surveillance and censorship’ across multiple agencies

Twitter Files Supplemental • Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi)

By Scott Whitlock | Fox News

Substack writer Matt Taibbi released the latest installment of the “Twitter Files” on Christmas Eve, detailing that coordination between the tech giant and government agencies went way beyond the FBI. In a massive series of tweets, Taibbi insisted that the FBI was simply the “doorman to a vast program of social media surveillance and censorship, encompassing agencies across the federal government – from the State Department to the Pentagon to the CIA.”

The journalist explained that Twitter had so many interactions with OGAs (or “other government agencies” as they are called in the tweets), the company couldn’t keep them all straight: He explained, “Twitter had so much contact with so many agencies that executives lost track. Is today the DOD, and tomorrow the FBI? Is it the weekly call, or the monthly meeting? It was dizzying.”

Many on the left are sounding the alarm about Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover. (FOX)

He explained how some of the coordination developed, specifically growing out of FBI connections: “On June 29th, 2020, San Francisco FBI agent Elvis Chan wrote to [a] pair of Twitter execs asking if he could invite an “OGA” to an upcoming conference:”

Taibbi noted that it was an “open secret at Twitter that one of its executives was ex-CIA, which is why Chan referred to that executive’s ‘former employer.’” He added that “one of the most common forums was a regular meeting of the multi-agency Foreign Influence Task Force (FITF), attended by spates of executives, FBI personnel, and – nearly always – one or two attendees marked ‘OGA.’”

Twitter owner Elon Musk conducted a Twitter poll on whether Congress should approve a $1.7 trillion government spending bill. (Getty Images)

What was discussed in these meetings? Usually “foreign matters.”

But Taibbi added, “Despite its official remit being ‘Foreign Influence,’ the FITF and the SF FBI office became conduit for mountains of domestic moderation requests, from state governments, even local police:”

Just as Twitter was having so many meetings with governmental agencies that it couldn’t keep them straight, the company was also inundated with FBI requests on “problem accounts.”

Less than six weeks before the 2020 election, FBI agent Chan contacted Twitter exec Stacia Cardille about having identified more “Twitter handles which appear to provide misleading information” in them.

Noting how unusual it all seemed, Taibbi remarked of what the latest batch of Twitter files uncovered: “It seemed to strike no one as strange that a ‘Foreign Influence’ task force was forwarding thousands of mostly domestic reports, along with the DHS, about the fringiest material.”

Taibbi revealed an October 1, 2020, e-mail, just over a month before the presidential election, an unnamed Twitter exec described being left “waiting for more evidence” when it came to Russian influence claims from the State Department. This person admitted, “Our window on that is closing, given that government partners are becoming more aggressive on attribution.

Taibbi offered his own paraphrase of what this could mean: “Translation: ‘more aggressive’ ‘government partners’ had closed Twitter’s ‘window’ of independence.”

The journalist concluded the latest edition of the Twitter Files by noting, “The CIA has yet to comment on the nature of its relationship to tech companies like Twitter. Twitter had no input into anything I did or wrote. The searches were carried out by third parties, so what I saw could be limited.”

Part eight of the Twitter Files showed how the platform “directly assisted the U.S. military’s influence operations. Part seven showcased the FBI’s attempts to discredit information about Hunter Biden and his foreign business dealings.

FBI blasted for dismissing Twitter Files as misinformation: ‘Chilling’

‘If the FBI was smart they wouldn’t have said anything about the Twitter Files,’ one user wrote

By Jeffrey Clark | Fox News

The FBI’s claim that the Twitter Files were the work of “conspiracy theorists” set off a firestorm online this week.

The FBI issued its controversial response after an installment of the Twitter Files found the agency regularly contacted employees at Twitter to flag accounts that were deemed as spreading “misinformation.”

It wasn’t long before the agency labeled the Twitter Files themselves as “misinformation.”

A split image of an FBI agent in an official windbreaker and the Twitter logo on a blue screen. (iStock and AP Photo/Gregory Bull, respectively)

A split image of an FBI agent in an official windbreaker and the Twitter logo on a blue screen. (iStock and AP Photo/Gregory Bull, respectively)

“It is unfortunate that conspiracy theorists and others are feeding the public misinformation with the sole purpose of attempting to discredit the agency,” the FBI wrote.

George Washington University Law Professor Jonathan Turley said the FBI’s response was “chilling.”

“It is not clear what is more chilling: the menacing role played by the FBI in Twitter’s censorship program or its mendacious response to the disclosure of that role. This week saw another FBI ‘nothing-to-see-here’ statement to the Twitter files,” Turley wrote.

Journalist Glenn Greenwald summed up the FBI’s apparent position on the Twitter Files.

“Anyone who questions the FBI — or finds it disturbing that they’re ‘partnering’ with Big Tech on what should and should not be permitted to be said on the internet — is a hateful, crazy, unhinged anti-American conspiracy theorist,” he wrote.

“Un-freaking-real,” one user wrote in a mega-viral post with over 78,000 likes on Twitter.

“If the FBI was smart they wouldn’t have said anything about the Twitter Files,” human trafficking advocate Eliza Bleu wrote.

Another user reacted to the news: “When you thought the world couldn’t get any crazier, the FBI now claims that the words of its own agents in tons of emails revealed by #TwitterFiles are conspiracy theories and misinformation.”

Former Rolling Stone journalist and Substack writer Matt Taibbi shared hidden communications between Twitter and FBI employees in the days surrounding the contentious 2020 presidential election. The viral Twitter thread revealed several posts that the FBI flagged as concerning for Twitter employees.

Major media networks largely skipped coverage of the Twitter Files from Dec. 9-12, 2022. (Getty Images)

Taibbi related a tweet from one of the accounts on Nov. 8: “I want to remind republicans to vote tomorrow, Wednesday November 9.”

Another tweet flagged by the FBI was an apparent joke about voting times: “Americans, Vote today. Democrats you vote Wednesday 9th.”

Taibbi argued that a third tweet, referenced in an email by an FBI employee, was satirical: “For every negative comment on this post, I’m adding another vote for the democrats” and “If you’re not wearing a mask, I’m not counting your vote.”

Three of the four accounts were suspended, according to the email chain, and the fourth account was subject to review by another Twitter employee, according to the email chain.

Fox News’ Jake Gibson and Adam Sabes contributed to this report.

FBI notified Twitter about users ‘potentially’ violating terms: Twitter Files

The FBI reportedly flagged accounts to Twitter that could ‘potentially’ violate the company’s terms

By Adam Sabes | Fox News

YOUR TAX DOLLARS PAID GOVERNMENT TO GO OVER YOUR POST ON TWITTER THEN CONTACT TWITTER FOR POSSIBLE TWITTER VIOLATIONS!

Billionaire industrialist Elon Musk took over Twitter in late October. (Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto, Carina Johansen/NTB/AFP via Getty Images )

Employees at the Federal Bureau of Investigation regularly contacted workers at Twitter to notify them of accounts that “may” constitute violations of the company’s terms of service, new Twitter Files released Friday reveal.

Substack writer and journalist Matt Taibbi tweeted several internal emails between Twitter workers and FBI employees as part of the sixth installment of the Twitter Files.

“Hello Twitter contacts, FBI San Francisco is notifying you of the below accounts which may potentially constitute violations of Twitter’s Terms of Service for any action or inaction deemed appropriate within Twitter policy,” one email FBI employee wrote in an email on Nov. 10, 2022.

The email would go on to list several Twitter accounts that might violate the social media company’s terms of service.

In response, a Twitter employee said that three of the four accounts were suspended.

“I’ve reviewed this already from the TD perspective and suspended three of the accounts for multi-account abuse and ban evasion violations,” the Twitter employee wrote.

The Twitter employee asked someone else at the company to review the fourth account flagged by the FBI for “possible civic misinformation.”

Taibbi said that one of the accounts tweeted on Nov. 8 “I want to remind republicans to vote tomorrow, Wednesday November 9.”

One tweet flagged by the FBI states “Americans, Vote today. Democrats you vote Wednesday 9th.”

Another tweet flagged by the FBI in the email states that one user “claimed in her posts that she is a ballot counter in her state and, in additional posts, states ‘For every negative comment on this post, I’m adding another vote for the democrats’ and ‘If you’re not wearing a mask, I’m not counting your vote.'”

The Twitter Files revealed communications between Twitter employees and FBI agents. (Beata Zawrzel/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

Taibbi said that the tweet from the user claiming to be a ballot counter was satirical.

Additionally, Stacia Cardille, a former attorney for Twitter, appeared to suggest in a summary of her meeting with government law enforcement agencies to Twitter’s former Deputy General Counsel Jim Baker on Sept. 16, 2021, that the FBI could share classified information with the social media giant.

“I participated in our monthly (soon to be weekly) 90-minute meeting with FBI, DOJ, DHS, ODNI, and industry peers on election threats. A few items to note:,” Cardille wrote. “I explicitly asked if there were any impediments with the ability of the government to share classified information or other relevant information with industry. FBI was adamant that no impediments to information sharing exist.”

The Twitter logo is seen on a phone in this photo illustration in Washington, DC, on July 10, 2019. (Alastair Pike/AFP via Getty Images)

In a statement to Fox News Digital, a spokesperson for the FBI said “The FBI regularly engages with private sector entities to provide information specific to identified foreign malign influence actors’ subversive, undeclared, covert, or criminal activities. Private sector entities independently make decisions about what, if any, action they take on their platforms and for their customers after the FBI has notified them.”

Download PDF Twitter Files Part 9 Summary PDF and here is the PDF source

JFK Assassination – Files Released 2022

The Truth News — Mon, 19 Dec 2022 00:32:03 +0000

JFK Assassination Records – 2022 Additional Documents Release

The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is processing previously withheld John F. Kennedy assassination-related records to comply with President Joe Biden’s Memorandum for the Heads of Executive Departments and Agencies on the Temporary Certification Regarding Disclosure of Information in Certain Records Related to the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy, requiring disclosure of releasable records by December 15, 2022. The National Archives has posted records online to comply with these requirements.

Accessing the Release Files

The table below displays metadata about all the released documents. You can also DOWNLOAD PDF that has LIVE LINKS to EVERY DOCUMENT RELEASED download the spreadsheet as an Excel file cited https://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/release2022?page=36

The assassination of John F. Kennedy

For Americans of a certain age, Nov. 22, 1963, the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, joined Dec. 7, 1941, and Sept. 11, 2001, as dates that “live in infamy,” never to be forgotten.

President Kennedy’s death, shot from the Texas schoolbook depository by Marxist sharp-shooter Lee Harvey Oswald during a Dallas motorcade, stunned the nation and the world.

In Greenville, which had voted overwhelmingly for Richard Nixon three years earlier (the state went Democratic), the news brought flags lowered to half-mast across the city, tolling bells from St. Mary’s, and sobbing mourners in offices, schools, and factories.

During the weekend that followed, people picked up special editions of The Greenville News and sat glued to their television sets as the drama continued to unfold. They saw strip club owner Jack Ruby’s murder of Oswald on live television. They watched film of Kennedy’s flag-draped coffin being carried into the Rotunda of the Capitol and mourned with thousands of visitors from around the world.

On Monday, when newly sworn in President Lyndon Johnson declared a day of national mourning, they watched, many with tears in their eyes, the almost 19th century pageantry of Kennedy’s funeral procession and his burial at Arlington National Cemetery. cited

Background

On November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. He was shot twice while riding in a motorcade on the way to give a speech. His alleged killer, Lee Harvey Oswald, was arrested that same day but was shot to death a few days later while in police custody.

The Assassination

Kennedy and his wife, Jacqueline, were in Texas on a fundraising trip. After visiting San Antonio, Houston, and Fort Worth, the couple traveled to Dallas. Riding in an open car in the presidential motorcade, the Kennedys were accompanied by Texas governor John Connally and his wife. Vice president Lyndon B. Johnson was in a separate car.

As the president’s car passed through Dealey Plaza around 12:30 p.m., he was shot first in the neck and then in the head by bullets that appeared to be fired from the Texas School Book Depository. Connally was injured by the same bullet that passed through Kennedy’s neck. The motorcade rushed to the hospital, where Kennedy was declared dead at 1 p.m. Vice President Johnson was sworn into office as president at 2:38 p.m. on board Air Force One.

Lee Harvey Oswald

A little over an hour after the shooting, Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested by police as the main suspect. In between Kennedy’s assassination and the arrest, Oswald had also allegedly shot and killed Dallas policeman J.D. Tippit.

Oswald, a Marxist and former Marine, proclaimed his innocence, but two days later (November 24), he was shot by nightclub owner Jack Ruby on live television as he was being transferred to the county jail.

Committee Investigations

Kennedy’s funeral was held on November 25. Almost immediately after Kennedy’s death, conspiracy theories began circulating. Johnson created the Warren Commission on November 29, 1963, to investigate the shooting. After 10 months, the commission determined that Oswald had acted alone.

In 1976, the House Select Committee on Assassinations was created to reevaluate Kennedy’s death (as well as that of Martin Luther King Jr.). In 1979, this committee reported that there was likely more than one shooter. However, afterward, the reliability of the evidence, and thus the committee’s conclusions, were questioned.

Learn more about the Assassination of John F. Kennedy through historical newspapers from our archives. Explore newspaper articles, headlines, images, and other primary sources below. cited

JFK assassination: Thousands of records of President Kennedy’s killing in 1963 made public

The US National Archives has released more than 13,000 documents related to the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

But the White House, citing national security concerns, has blocked the release of thousands more. A batch of archives on the case had already been declassified in December 2021.

According to the National Archives, 97% of the approximately five million pages of the file are now available to the public.

The release of the latest documents was not expected to include any new bombshells or change the official conclusion that Lee Harvey Oswald, a former Marine and communist activist who had lived in the Soviet Union, acted alone.

However, the latest cache will be useful for historians focusing on the events around the assassination.

Kennedy was shot and killed while riding in his motorcade through Dallas on November 22, 1963, at the age of 46.

Thousands of books, articles, TV shows and films have explored the idea that Kennedy’s assassination was the result of an elaborate conspiracy. None have produced conclusive proof that Oswald worked with anyone else.

Many of the released documents belonged to the CIA, including several that focused on Oswald’s movements and his contacts. Other documents focus on requests from the Warren Commission investigating the assassination.

The documents show that the US government opened a file on Oswald in December 1960, nearly three years before Kennedy’s murder and after Oswald’s failed defection to the Soviet Union in 1959.

In Mexico City, they “intercepted” a phone call Oswald made from the Mexican capital to the Soviet Embassy “using his own name” and speaking “broken Russian”. The documents show that Oswald was hoping to travel through Cuba on his way to Russia and was seeking a visa.

There were initial concerns that Jack Ruby — a nightclub owner who fatally shot Oswald two days after the assassination — might have had some connection to Kennedy’s killer. But a memo to the presidential commission investigating the assassination in September 1964, newly released, said the CIA had “no indication” that they had ever been “connected in any manner”.

In 1992 the US Congress ordered that all remaining sealed files on the investigation should be made public by October 2017, except for those the president authorised for further withholding.

In 2017, then-President Donald Trump released some, but decided to release the remaining documents on a rolling basis.

All remaining JFK files were originally supposed to have been released in October 2021, but President Biden postponed the move, citing delays caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.They were then meant to be disclosed in two batches: in December 2021 and another by December 15, 2022, after undergoing an intensive one-year review.

The CIA said that with Thursday’s release, 95% of the documents in its JFK assassination records collection have been released in their entirety. No documents will remain redacted or withheld in full after an “intensive one-year review” of all previously unreleased information, the intelligence agency said.

Biden said a review of still undisclosed documents would continue until 1 May 2023, after which date any withheld information would be released by 30 June — unless agencies recommended continued postponement cited

JFK assassination: National Archives releases nearly 1,500 confidential documents

Many of the documents relate to Kennedy’s assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald

By Timothy H.J. Nerozzi | Fox News

The National Archives and Records Administration on Wednesday released nearly 1,500 confidential documents related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

The government agency released the files via their website. Historians, political scholars and believers in a wide range of theories about Kennedy’s assassination immediately began poring over the documents.

The rotunda at the National Archives (AP Photo/Ron Edmonds)

Many of the documents relate to Kennedy’s assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald. Many files also reference tensions between the United States and Cuba, evaluating statements from leader Fidel Castro that allude to the possibility of Kennedy being in danger due to escalating aggression between the two nations.

NARA explained in a brief statement on their site that the institution was “processing previously withheld John F. Kennedy assassination-related records to comply with President Joe Biden’s Memorandum for the Heads of Executive Departments and Agencies on the Temporary Certification Regarding Disclosure of Information in Certain Records Related to the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy, requiring disclosure of releasable records by December 15, 2021.”

The records are scanned and available individually as PDF files. The site also offers a text search for readers looking for key subjects or phrases.

“The National Archives has posted records online to comply with these requirements,” the site explains.

Many unanswered questions remain about the Kennedy assassination which took place on Nov. 22, 1963. In the decades since, conspiracy theories and speculation of all kinds have surfaced, adding to the swell of allure surrounding the single event that changed – and continues to mystify – the country.

Fox News legal analyst and host of ‘JFK: The Conspiracy Continues’ Gregg Jarrett joined ‘Fox & Friends’ in August, telling co-host Will Cain that the government is to blame for the skepticism — asserting that most Americans don’t believe the beloved 35th U.S. president was shot and killed by a lone gunman.

“The government, to this day, continues to hide thousands of assassination records,” said Jarrett.

US unseals thousands of classified JFK assassination documents

The documents cover a CIA surveillance operation against Lee Harvey Oswald before JFK’s assassination

By Anders Hagstrom , Adam Sabes | Fox News

President John F. Kennedy (1917-1963), the 35th president of the United States, relaxes in his trademark rocking chair in the Oval Office. (Getty Images)

The National Archives unsealed thousands of formerly classified documents relating to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

President Biden ordered the release of 12,879 documents relating to the attack, including many from the CIA’s personality file on Lee Harvey Oswald that it maintained both before and after JFK’s killing.

Conspiracies surrounding JFK’s killing have piqued the curiosity — and sometimes obsession — of Americans for decades. Nevertheless, White House officials have reportedly indicated that nothing in the documents will support the two most popular conspiracies: That Oswald was not the shooter and that JFK’s killing was a government conspiracy.

The release is the largest since December of last year when the Biden administration released 1,500 documents, most of them related to Oswald; 12,879 documents were released on Thursday. Fox News is reviewing the files.

In ordering the release of the documents, Biden said that some documents are being withheld “to protect against an identifiable harm to the military defense, intelligence operations, law enforcement, or the conduct of foreign relations that is of such gravity that it outweighs the public interest in disclosure.”

Texas Rangers escort accused Kennedy assassin Lee Harvey Oswald into a Dallas police facility. (Getty Images)

The president said he directed government agencies to review “the full set of almost 16,000 records that had previously been released in redacted form” and added that they “determined that more than 70 percent of those records may now be released in full.”

“This significant disclosure reflects my Administration’s commitment to transparency and will provide the American public with greater insight and understanding of the Government’s investigation into this tragic event in American history,” Biden said in the order.

Last year’s release was disappointing for many interested in the issue, with Fox News legal analyst Gregg Jarrett stating at the time that the government had much more to release.

“There are some surprising results and information in those documents,” Jarrett said. “But, thousands more are yet to be released.”

“The government, to this day, continues to hide thousands of assassination records,” he added.

Jarrett went on to assert that most Americans do not believe the official story that Oswald operated as a lone gunman in the attack, as was found in the 1964 Warren Commission.

Adding fuel to the fire was Oswald’s own assassination in 1963 at the hands of a Texas nightclub owner.

The chief topic in Thursday’s release is Oswald’s 80-volume “personality file,” a document containing essentially everything the CIA knew about Oswald both before and after the attack, according to Politico.

The documents also offer insight into the CIA’s surveillance operation against Oswald in Mexico City just weeks before the assassination.

JFK assassination files:
Gregg Jarrett breaks down public skepticism over document reveal

Fox Nation’s ‘JFK: The Conspiracy Continues’ breaks down the wider story and offers proper context to the conspiracy theories and speculation fueled by the assassination

By Yael Halon | Fox News

The National Archives and Records Administration on Wednesday released nearly 1,500 confidential documents related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

The tranche of documents comes amid public demands for transparency about the November 22nd, 1963 assassination, which has fueled conspiracy theories and speculation of all kinds in the decades since.

Los Angeles, CA- Sen. John F. Kennedy, 1960 Democratic Presidential nomninee, thanks the Democratic National Convention for selecting him here, July 13. (Getty)

Fox Nation revisited that tragic day in Dallas in a special titled, ‘JFK: The Conspiracy Continues,” which outlined some unanswered questions and public skepticism historians hope to finally clarify in light of Wednesday’s document release, with thousands more yet to be disclosed.

Fox News legal analyst and host of the Fox Nation show Greg Jarrett said in August that the government is to blame for the skepticism — asserting that most Americans don’t believe the beloved 35th U.S. president was shot and killed by a lone gunman.

“There are some surprising results and information in those documents,” Jarrett said. “But, thousands more are yet to be released.” “The government, to this day, continues to hide thousands of assassination records.”

President Biden in October delayed their release until this month, giving federal agencies more time to review the documents and make the necessary redactions.

Many of the newly released documents relate to Kennedy’s assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald. Many files also reference tensions between the United States and Cuba, evaluating statements from leader Fidel Castro that allude to the possibility of Kennedy being in danger due to escalating aggression between the two nations.

“He denied killing the president, was paraded before reporters and told them he was a patsy,” Jarrett said.

Almost immediately after the Warren Commission in 1964 ruled that Oswald had been the lone gunman, conspiracy theories began to circulate over whether he had been the only shooter and if the CIA had been involved in the Kennedy assassination.

“For some Americans,” the Warren Commission was part of the conspiracy, drawn in by Johnson and FBI director Jay Edgar Hoover days after Kennedy was shot,” Jarrett explained.

But before authorities were able to fully question Oswald, the former U.S. Marine was shot and killed on Nov. 24, 1963, by Texas nightclub owner Jack Ruby – adding more fuel to the speculative fire that the U.S. government was hiding what it knew about the assassination.

“The questions were swirling about Lee Harvey Oswald, why he did it, who motivated him to do it, was he alone or was there some shadowy conspiracy involved?” Fox News correspondent Geraldo Rivera says in the Fox Nation show. “What the hell happened that day in Dallas Texas?”

Now, with the help of award-winning director Oliver Stone, Jarrett’s four-part deep-dive takes on the issue, striving to give the American people the whole story and offer proper context as historians and political scholars analyze the latest trove of documents. Fox News’ Laura Carrione contributed to this report.

Thousands of JFK assassination files finally released – will bombshells emerge?

Material not expected to rebut Warren commission conclusion that president was killed by Lee Harvey Oswald acting alone

President Kennedy and the first lady ride through Dallas moments before the president was shot by Lee Harvey Oswald, 22 November, 1963. Photograph: Reuters File Photo/Reuters

Historians and conspiracy theorists have been given an early Christmas present: the release from US National Archives of 13,173 documents relating to the official investigation into the 1963 assassination of President John F Kennedy.

From barely legible memos filled with the crabby handwriting of CIA agents, through reports on secret meetings with Russian diplomats, to painstaking detective work on the movements of Lee Harvey Oswald, the trove of documents will keep JFK assassination obsessives busy for months. Few expect bombshells among the pile, however.

The newly declassified materials are unlikely to disturb the conclusion of the 1964 Warren commission charged with getting to the bottom of the outrage. It found that Oswald, a former Marine and communist who defected to the Soviet Union, had killed Kennedy, acting alone, by firing three shots as the 46-year-old Democratic US president rode in an open-top limousine through Dealey Plaza in Dallas on 22 November 1963.

One of the newly released documents, dating from September 1964, underlines that point. At the request of the commission, the CIA had searched its own files for any connection between Oswald and Jack Ruby, the local nightclub owner who shot and killed Oswald on live television in the basement of Dallas police headquarters two days after the Kennedy assassination.

“Examination of Central Intelligence Agency files has produced no information on Jack RUBY or his activities,” the document states. “The Central Intelligence Agency has no indication that RUBY and Lee Harvey OSWALD ever knew each other, were associated, or might have been connected in any manner.”

Thursday’s release of thousands of documents means that 95% of the CIA’s records on the assassination are now available to the public. As a final step there will be an “intensive one-year review” of any remaining closed files before a complete opening of the books by 30 June 2023.

The unveiling of the CIA documents has been delayed for years. In 1992, Congress ordered their full release by October 2017, but the deadline was pushed back by presidential decrees from both Donald Trump and Joe Biden.

Such postponements have allowed conspiracy theories to flourish. Some of the most instantly intriguing material in the newly-released stash concerns the proliferation of conspiracy theories and misinformation around the assassination. Over the years there have been umpteen lurid suggestions of who was responsible, ranging from the Cubans, the Soviet Union and the Mafia to the Teamsters union boss Jimmy Hoffa – and the CIA itself.

A file marked “secret” from September 1964 gives clues as to how lurid stories spread quickly in the months after Kennedy died. CIA agents in Stockholm reported back to HQ on their quizzing of an unnamed subject who had been reported in the Swedish newspapers to have said that he had lived in Cuba for many years and had advance knowledge of the assassination.

Lee Harvey Oswald, who the Warren commission said acted alone in killing President Kennedy. Photograph: Reuters

The agents wrote: “When asked whether he had foretold assassination of Kennedy, he denied quote ascribed to him and said could not recall any similar statements. Said he knew nothing of assassination before it happened … Appeared slightly embarrassed as if ashamed of statements he made while drunk.”

A separate document also from September 1964 described a meeting between a Soviet diplomat in Helsinki, Felix Karasev, and US officials. The encounter began with the US-Soviet officials waging a couple of bets on the Olympics which were to be held the following month in Tokyo.

“Will necessitate two drinking parties,” the official memo drily noted.

Talk then turned to the Oswald case. The US officials suggested to Karasev that maybe there was Soviet involvement behind Oswald’s actions, and he replied: “This would have been possible if Oswald had been in China, but not in the Soviet Union.”

Karasev then counter-attacked that “he could not help but believe that Ruby was tool of ‘reactionary forces’”, and that it would have been impossible for him to shoot Oswald “without assistance of some US officials”. The Americans “tried debunk this impression, but Karasev held to his views”.

The new files also record conspiracy theories swirling years after the Warren commission. A secret document from March 1978 refers to an article in the Guardian reporting on a BBC documentary.

The film explored the possibility that the assassination was a spinoff from a CIA/mafia plot to murder Cuba’s Fidel Castro. It claimed links between Oswald, the CIA and the Soviet KGB.

The US officials who wrote the memo warned that the documentary had been “presented in prestigious [BBC current affairs program] ‘Panorama’ slot which has wide and large audience. Will have considerable impact on viewers.”

Fast forward to today, and the “who killed JFK?” industry remains in robust health. Hours after Biden released the new files, Tucker Carlson, Fox News’s conspiracy theorist-in-chief, began his primetime show by telling his 3 million viewers that the CIA did it.

Carlson had talked to an “unnamed source” with direct knowledge of the JFK files the CIA was still hiding. The informed view of the “source” was that “the CIA was involved in the Kennedy assassination. It’s a whole different country from what we thought it was. It’s all fake.”

Lest anyone had any doubts, Carlson emphasised the credibility of the “source”. “This is not a ‘conspiracy theorist’ we spoke to. Not even close,” he said. cited

More than 13,000 new JFK files released; hundreds more held back

Record release not expected to give major revelations about the assassination of US President John F Kennedy nearly 60 years ago.

Thousands of documents related to the 1963 assassination of US President John F Kennedy were released but many other sensitive records on the killing were kept secret for another year for “national security” reasons.

The release of 13,173 documents on Thursday was not expected to include any new bombshells or change the conclusion reached by the commission led by Chief Justice Earl Warren that Lee Harvey Oswald, a former Marine and communist activist who had lived in the erstwhile Soviet Union, acted alone.

However, the latest cache will be useful for historians focusing on the events around the assassination.

Kennedy was shot dead while riding in his motorcade through Dallas on November 22, 1963, at the age of 46. Thousands of books, articles, TV shows and films have explored the idea that Kennedy’s assassination was the result of an elaborate conspiracy.

None has produced conclusive proof that Oswald – who was fatally shot by nightclub owner Jack Ruby two days after Kennedy’s killing – worked with anyone else, although they retain a powerful cultural currency.

CIA

Many of the documents released on Thursday belonged to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), including several that focused on Oswald’s movements and his contacts.

Other documents focus on requests from the Warren Commission investigating the assassination. The documents show the US government opened a so-called 201 file on Oswald in December 1960, nearly three years before Kennedy’s murder and after Oswald’s failed defection to the Soviet Union in 1959.

Some 515 documents remained withheld in full and another 2,545 withheld in part, said the National Archives.

Jefferson Morley, vice president of the Mary Ferrell Foundation that sued the Biden administration in October over the delay of the document drop, questioned why decades later there are still redactions and blocked information on Kennedy’s murder.

“What the CIA has hidden,” is whether the CIA had “operational interest in Oswald” at the time of the assassination, Morley told the Washington Post.

A December 1963 document described how CIA officials in Mexico City “intercepted a telephone call” Oswald made in October from that city to the Soviet embassy there “using his own name” and speaking “broken Russian”.

Oswald was hoping to travel through Cuba on his way to Russia and was seeking a visa, documents show. There were initial concerns that Ruby, Oswald’s killer, might have had some connection to Oswald.

But a newly released September 1964 memo to the presidential commission investigating the assassination said “the Central Intelligence Agency has no indication that Ruby and Lee Harvey Oswald ever knew each other, were associated, or might have been connected in any manner”.

Congress in 1992 had ordered that all remaining sealed files pertaining to the investigation into Kennedy’s death should be fully opened to the public through the National Archives in 25 years, by October 26, 2017, except for those the president authorised for further withholding. In 2017, then-President Donald Trump released a cache of records, but decided to release the remaining documents on a rolling basis.

95 percent of documents

All of the remaining JFK files were originally supposed to have been released in October 2021. Biden postponed that planned release, citing delays caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, and announced they would be instead disclosed in two batches: one on December 15, 2021, and another by December 15, 2022, after undergoing an intensive one-year review.

With Thursday’s release, 95 percent of the documents in the CIA’s JFK assassination records collection will have been released in their entirety, a CIA spokesperson said in a statement, and no documents will remain redacted or withheld in full after an “intensive one-year review” of all previously unreleased information.

In a memorandum, Biden said until May 1, 2023, the National Archives and relevant agencies “shall jointly review the remaining redactions in the records that had not been publicly disclosed”.After that review, “any information withheld from public disclosure that agencies do not recommend for continued postponement” will be released by June 30, 2023. cited

The Secret Service may have been ‘impaired’ the day JFK was assassinated

Some of the Secret Service members in charge of protecting President John F. Kennedy might have been impaired the day he was killed. That’s what author Susan Cheever says in her new book “Drinking in America: Our Secret History.” Following is a transcript of the video.

Susan Cheever: The Secret Service men who were guarding the presidential motorcade, who are in the follow-up car to JFK and Jacqueline Kennedy during the Dallas motorcade in 1963, had been out drinking until 2, 3, 4, 5 in the morning. So those guys who were responsible for saving the lives of JFK and Jacqueline were clearly impaired.

What happened was the night before they were all in Fort Worth with the president. They hadn’t gotten anything to eat all day. So after the president and first lady went to bed seven of the Secret Service men went out looking for food. And first they went to the Fort Worth Press Club where they had heard there would be some food, but there wasn’t any. So they had a beer, a couple scotches. whatever, and then some of them went back to the hotel and a few of them went on to another club called the Cellar Coffee House.

Which Chief Justice Earl Warren was furious about this when he found out. And in the Warren Commission report there is Chief Justice Earl Warren exploding about this and he calls the Cellar Coffee House some hippie joint, right.

So some of them stayed at the Cellar Coffee House until 5 in the morning for a 8:48 call. So you know, if you’re up until 5 in the morning, if you’ve had anything to drink, you’re not your best self at noon or 1230 the next day. cited

Newspaper coverage of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy (Terre Haute Tribune, via Newspapers.com)

The interior of the Presidential limousine after the Kennedy assassination. Included as an exhibit for the Warren Commission. Ca. November, 1963. (Photo by © CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images)

The exterior of the National Archives Building in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 16, 2022. (Sarah Silbiger for The Washington Post via Getty Images)

Lee Harvey Oswald, who the Warren commission said acted alone in killing President Kennedy. Photograph: Reuters

The latest release is the largest since December of last year when the Biden administration released 1,500 documents, most of them related to Oswald. (Reuters/Joshua Roberts)

President Kennedy and the first lady ride through Dallas moments before the president was shot by Lee Harvey Oswald, 22 November, 1963. Photograph: Reuters File Photo/Reuters

FBI Secretly Abused Powers Stripped Americans of Their Gun Rights

The Truth News — Fri, 09 Dec 2022 07:59:11 +0000

FBI used secret powers to strip more Americans of their gun rights, documents reveal

EXCLUSIVE — The FBI has secretly stripped eight more people of their rights to own, use, or purchase firearms , according to internal FBI documents obtained by the Washington Examiner.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and over a dozen GOP members of Congress in October demanded that the FBI and Justice Department hand over proof that the FBI is no longer waiving people’s gun rights with internal forms, which the Daily Caller uncovered in September had been signed by 15 people. Now, the Washington Examiner has obtained eight heavily redacted signed forms — indicating a more widespread bureau effort than previously known to target the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens.

“Americans can’t simply sign their constitutional rights away, even to the FBI,” Rep. Michael Cloud (R-TX), who signed the October letter, told the Washington Examiner. “As Republicans enter a House majority, we must use our investigative power to put a check on federal agencies who have proven to be eager and willing to crack down on Americans’ right to keep and bear arms.”

Screenshot/one FBI form obtained by the Washington Examiner

Through the forms, the FBI asked signatories to identify as a “danger” to themselves or others or lacking the “mental capacity adequately to contract or manage” their lives. The forms were presented by the FBI to people at their homes and in other undisclosed locations beginning in at least 2016 and until December 2019, when the FBI claims it was discontinued.

While two of the new eight forms have redacted dates for when they were signed, the other six are dated between March 2018 and April 2019.

The signed forms were obtained by Gun Owners of America, a firearms rights group, as part of its Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the bureau to compel the disclosure of records. They were then shared with the Washington Examiner.

Second Amendment attorneys, as well as GOA, said the existence of the forms, which register signatories into the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System, leaves unanswered legal questions.

This includes the question of whether the form is legal in the first place — given that it did not move through the process mandated under federal law for government agencies to receive approval from the Office of Management and Budget before obtaining information from the public.

It also remains unclear how the FBI’s usage of the NICS forms aligns with the Gun Control Act of 1968, which outlines how someone may be barred from owning guns if he or she is “adjudicated as a mental defective or has been committed to a mental institution.”

But the act does not say people can rule themselves unfit to own firearms.

“The act is clear, and it says ‘adjudicated,'” John Harris, a lawyer who directs the Tennessee Firearms Association, told the Washington Examiner.

Like the NICS forms previously reported on, the latest batch obtained by the Washington Examiner does not list the names of signatories. The prior forms were accompanied by documents showing that the FBI used them in Massachusetts , Michigan, and Maine.

But it is unclear where the eight new forms were signed.

It is also unclear what sort of background the people who signed the eight forms had. The forms reported on prior included records showing that signatories were those who allegedly made violent threats in person, in online chat rooms, and on social media.

“While the initial reports were alarming enough, as GOA dug deeper, things just kept getting worse,” Erich Pratt, senior vice president of GOA, told the Washington Examiner. “We thank Ms. Greene and all the members who joined her in demanding answers for this damning breach of the public trust, and we look forward to assisting in any possible way as investigations into this matter develop in Congress.”

The existence of more signed forms could further compel House Republicans, who will have a chamber majority, to investigate the FBI’s usage of them in the next Congress. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), who is poised to become chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said in September that he was planning oversight in connection to the forms and other alleged bureau issues.

“This is part of the political nature of the Justice Department,” Jordan said at the time. “Next Congress, we are definitely looking into the whole political nature.”

Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-GA) sponsored a resolution in November that would demand that Attorney General Merrick Garland provide records on the FBI forms. However, Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee rejected that measure on Wednesday, the Washington Examiner reported.

The vote occurred during a hearing in which committee members debated a bill sponsored by Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) called the Preventing Suicide Through Voluntary Firearm Purchase Delay Act.

Jayapal’s bill, which is co-sponsored by Reps. Ken Buck (R-CO), John Curtis (R-UT), and Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL), would legally permit people to add themselves to the NICS database — thereby forfeiting their rights to own, use, or buy firearms.

The bill demonstrates the glaring problem with the FBI previously obtaining signatures on its forms since lawmakers are essentially recognizing there needs to be congressional approval to engage in what the FBI already did, according to Aidan Johnston, director of federal affairs at GOA.

“The FBI just made something up and began implementing it,” Johnston said. “It has deprived these people of their rights by some made-up unconstitutional process.”

The FBI declined a request for comment. cited https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/restoring-america/fairness-justice/fbi-used-secret-powers-to-strip-more-americans-of-their-gun-rights-documents-reveal

‘Deep State mentality’: Secret Service, ICE secretly coordinated with FBI to strip gun rights, emails show

EXCLUSIVE — The Secret Service and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement secretly coordinated with the FBI to strip U.S. citizens of their rights to own, use, or even buy firearms, according to internal emails obtained by the Washington Examiner.

Behind closed doors and without congressional approval, the FBI has stripped gun rights from at least 23 people with internal forms, the Washington Examiner reported. However, Secret Service and ICE, two agencies under the Department of Homeland Security, have also quietly used these same forms, emails show.

The emails were first obtained by the firearms rights group Gun Owners of America amid its Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the FBI and shared with the Washington Examiner. They demonstrate a more widespread effort than was previously known by the federal government to use the forms, which the Daily Caller revealed in September had been presented between 2016 and 2019 by FBI agents to people at their homes in Maine, Michigan, and Massachusetts, as well as in other undisclosed locations.Signatories were registered with the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System and asked to declare that they were a “danger” to themselves or other people or lacking the “mental capacity adequately to contract” their lives. Many of the people targeted by the FBI in the past had reportedly made violent threats on social media, in chat rooms, and in person, internal records show.

“Good evening [redacted],” a Secret Service employee wrote to an FBI employee on March 30, 2018. “Attached is a NICS self-submission form for [redacted] (DOB: [redacted].”

“His USSS case number is 127-679-0044105,” the email continued, noting it was sent from a supervisory protective intelligence research specialist. “If you have any questions, please let me know. Thank you.”

The email was attached with a form intended to waive the gun rights of the signatory, records show. The Washington Examiner was unable to verify the date that the form was signed.

Separately, an email from June 4, 2018, also sheds light on the Secret Service’s usage of the form. A Secret Service employee wrote to an FBI employee: “Can you please enter [redacted] into NICS and advise me when it has been entered. Thank you.”

Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-GA) told the Washington Examiner he wants to know if more federal agencies have used the NICS forms. The congressman put forth a resolution in November, which Democrats rejected on Wednesday, that would request Attorney General Merrick Garland turn over documents in connection to the forms.

“It’s just really, really concerning,” said Clyde.

“Is Veterans Affairs using this form to try and get veterans to self-report and deny themselves their Second Amendment right?” he asked. “That needs to be discovered. We need to investigate that. In the majority, I think it becomes a valid question and a valid investigation, and I think we need to spotlight that.”

The other set of emails obtained by the Washington Examiner pertains to ICE, an agency tasked with protecting the border and stopping illegal immigration.

On March 26, 2019, an undisclosed ICE employee wrote to a NICS liaison specialist, “Please see attached signed form.”

In response, the specialist wrote back 10 minutes later, “Entered,” to which the ICE employee said, “Awesome!”

Ken Cuccinelli, who was a top DHS official under former President Donald Trump, told the Washington Examiner he finds it “shocking” that ICE appears to have used the FBI forms. This is because ICE and the FBI have different areas of focus, he said.

“It certainly suggests to me that a certain type of agent is talking across the federal spectrum,” said Cuccinelli, the former attorney general of Virginia. “They were doing it when they had to know their leadership would have opposed it. It really speaks to the rogue nature of the ‘Deep State’ mentality.”

The revelation that more agencies had involvement with the NICS forms comes after the Washington Examiner reported that the FBI stripped eight more people of their gun rights between March 2018 and April 2019. There has never been any indication that ICE used the forms. However, prior emails obtained by the Daily Caller indicated that the Secret Service obtained NICS forms from an FBI employee.

Those emails also indicated that the Social Security Administration had obtained NICS forms from an FBI employee.

It is unclear how the FBI identified all of the signatories, though some forms include investigative records detailing federal investigations. The FBI has claimed usage of the form was discontinued in 2019.

“It might not be surprising in the Biden administration, but it’s pretty obviously shocking under a Trump administration,” Cuccinelli said.

The existence of the signed forms leaves a variety of unanswered legal questions, according to Second Amendment attorneys. Notably, the document itself did not move through a process required under federal law for government agencies to receive approval from the Office of Management and Budget before obtaining information from the public.

House Republicans have told the Washington Examiner they will investigate the FBI over the NICS forms next Congress. In October, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and over a dozen members urged FBI Director Christopher Wray and Garland to provide evidence that the FBI is no longer using the forms.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), who is poised to become chairman of the influential House Judiciary Committee, said on Saturday that “nothing is off the table,” including subpoenas, in terms of investigating the FBI over the forms.

“We may need to figure out who OK’d this program,” Jordan told the Washington Examiner. “Who, in fact, were the agents going out actually implementing this program? Because we may need to talk to them to figure out how this all got started.”

“How did they decide which people to go after?” Jordan asked.

The FBI’s secret usage of the NICS forms has grown increasingly relevant in the halls of Congress. Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) and other members are looking to pass legislation granting a pathway for people to waive their gun rights and add themselves to the NICS database.

Jordan and other members, including Reps. Dan Bishop of North Carolina and Thomas Massie of Kentucky, have said the legislative push is evidence that the FBI acted inappropriately. This is because it shows the bureau actually needed congressional approval to strip people’s gun rights with the forms, they say.

“What we’re looking at is evidence that the FBI went off on their own and wrote the bill and implemented the bill that you are trying to pass here today, or did pass, and will try to pass on the floor,” said Massie on Wednesday.

Story by Gabe Kaminsky

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