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Tags: Director, FBI, I Know Nothing, Investigation, IRS, Mueller, Scandal, video
Tag Archives: FBI
FBI Requests For Records Under Patriot Act Have Increased 1,000% In Just Four Years
12 JunIt’s not just the number of requests, it’s the scope of them. They’re not demanding records related to particular investigations anymore, they’re demanding huge troves of records on random Americans for data-mining purposes, the same thing Patriot Act co-author Jim Sensenbrenner complained about a few days ago but somehow didn’t foresee in 2001.
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Like I said, you might want to re-poll Bush’s numbers.
“That they were using this (provision) to do mass collection of data is definitely the biggest surprise,” said Robert Chesney, a top national security lawyer at the University of Texas Law School. “Most people who followed this closely were not aware they were doing this. We’ve gone from producing records for a particular investigation to the production of all records for a massive pre-collection database. It’s incredibly sweeping.”…
[I]n the years since [2003], the FBI’s use of Section 215 quietly exploded, with virtually no public notice or debate. In 2009, as part of an annual report to Congress, the Justice Department reported there had been 21 applications for business records to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) under Section 215 – all of which were granted, though nine were modified by the court. (The reports do not explain how or why the orders were modified.)
In 2010, the number of requests jumped to 205 (all again granted, with 176 modified.) In the latest report filed on April 30, the department reported there had been 212 such requests in 2012 – all approved by the court, but 200 of them modified.
These sharp increase in the use of Section 215 has drawn little attention until now because the number of national security letters (NSLs) issued by the bureau has been so much greater – 15,229 in 2012. But FBI Director Mueller, in little-noticed written responses to Congress two years ago, explained that the bureau was encountering resistance from telecommunications companies in turning over “electronic communication transaction” records in response to national security letters.
Google, Facebook, and the gang started to resist NSLs on grounds that they were dubious legally, so Mueller shifted to Section 215 and got back to squeezing them for more and more and more data. Hence Google’s new move, announced just this afternoon: To take some of the heat off itself and push it back onto the feds where it belongs, the company’s lawyer is asking the DOJ to let it publish the number – and scope – of FBI requests for records it receives each year. Right now it’s forbidden to say because Section 215 imposes a gag order on the target of the record request. If Google can’t legally resist complying, at least it can soothe its critics by revealing just how much pressure it’s under from the Most Transparent Administration Ever.
Exit question: This WaPo story is nothing more than a textbook pro-Obama leak authorized by the White House to take some heat off of him and maybe show the virtues of aggressive cyberwarfare, right?
Update: What does this mean?
A leading Republican senator on Tuesday described controversial U.S. spy programs as looking far deeper into Americans’ phone records than the Obama administration has been willing to admit, fueling new privacy concerns as Congress sought to defend the surveillance systems.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-SC., says the U.S. intelligence surveillance of phone records allows analysts to monitor U.S. phone records for a pattern of calls, even if those numbers have no known connection to terrorism.
Graham says the National Security Agency then matches phone numbers against known terrorists. Graham helped draft the surveillance law that governs the surveillance program.
In other words, they’re looking for patterns among the general population that match the phone patterns of people they’ve already identified as terrorists? So they’re not limiting themselves to targeting specific terrorist-linked numbers anymore, but suspicious “patterns” too?
Parting thought:
Wow is Lindsey Graham a traitor for revealing this???
http://t.co/Af1eFvevhb
— Andy Levy (@andylevy) June 11, 2013
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Click HERE For Rest Of Story
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FBI: Actress Shannon Richardson Tried To Frame Husband For Ricin Letters To Bloomberg And Obama
9 JunFBI: Wife Tried To Frame Husband For Ricin Letters – ABC News
Shannon Richardson had been married to her husband less than two years when she went to authorities and told them her suspicions: He was the one who had mailed ricin-laced letters to President Barack Obama and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg threatening violence against gun-control advocates.
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When investigators looked closer, they reached a different conclusion: It was the 35-year-old pregnant actress who had sent the letters, and she tried to frame her estranged husband in a bizarre case of marital conflict crossing with bioterrorism.
Those allegations are detailed in court documents filed Friday as Richardson was arrested and charged with mailing a threatening communication to the president. The federal charge carries up to 10 years in prison, U.S. attorney’s office spokeswoman Davilyn Walston said.
Richardson, a mother of five who has played bit roles on television and in movies, is accused of mailing the ricin-laced letters to the White House, to Bloomberg and to the mayor’s Washington gun-control group last month.
Richardson’s court-appointed attorney, Tonda Curry, said there was no intention to harm anyone and noted that it’s common knowledge that mail is checked before it reaches the person to whom these letters were addressed.
“From what I can say, based on what evidence I’ve seen, whoever did this crime never intended for ricin to reach the people to which the letters were addressed,” Curry said.
According to an FBI affidavit, Richardson contacted authorities on May 30 and implicated her husband, Nathaniel Richardson. She described finding small, brown beans with white speckles – a description matching the key ingredient in ricin, castor beans – at the couple’s home in New Boston, Texas. She also told investigators that she had found a sticky note on her husband’s desk with addresses for Bloomberg and Obama, the affidavit said.
But she later failed a polygraph test, the document said, and investigators looking into her story found numerous inconsistencies. Among them: Nathaniel Richardson would have been at work when Internet searches tied to the letters were made on the couple’s laptop and when the envelopes containing the letters were postmarked.
Finally, the affidavit says, in an interview with authorities on Thursday, Shannon Richardson admitted that she had received syringes and lye – a caustic chemical used in making ricin – in the mail; that she had printed the labels for the letters; and that she mailed them. However, she insisted her husband typed them and “made her” print and send them, the affidavit says.
No charges have been filed against her husband. His attorney, John Delk, told The Associated Press on Friday that his client was pleased with his wife’s arrest and was working with authorities to prove his innocence.
Delk previously told the AP that the couple is going through a divorce and that the 33-year-old Army veteran may have been “set up” by his wife. In divorce papers filed Thursday, Nathanial Richardson said the marriage had become “insupportable because of discord or conflict of personalities.”
FBI agents wearing hazardous material suits were seen going in and out of the Richardsons’ house on Wednesday in nearby New Boston, about 150 miles northeast of Dallas near the Arkansas and Oklahoma borders. Authorities conducted a similar search on May 31.
The house is now under quarantine for “environmental or toxic agents,” according to a posting at the residence. Multiple samples taken from the couples’ home tested positive for ricin, according to the affidavit. Federal agents also found castor beans along with syringes and other items that could be used to extract the lethal poison, the affidavit says.
Bloomberg issued a statement Friday thanking local and federal law enforcement agencies “for their outstanding work in apprehending a suspect,” saying they worked collaboratively from the outset “and will continue to do so as the investigation continues.”
Shannon Richardson appears in movies and on TV under the name Shannon Guess. Her resume on the Internet movie database IMDb said she has had small television roles in “The Vampire Diaries” and “The Walking Dead.” She had a minor role in the movie “The Blind Side” and appeared in an Avis commercial, according to the resume.
Delk said the Richardsons were expecting their first child in October. Shannon Richardson also has five children ranging in age from 4 to 19 from other relationships, four of whom had been living with the couple in the New Boston home, the attorney said.
Nathaniel Richardson works as a mechanic at the Red River Army Depot near Texarkana, Texas, a facility that repairs tanks, Humvees and other mobile military equipment. He and Shannon were married in October 2011.
A detention hearing for Shannon Richardson is scheduled for next Friday, court records show, and the government is requesting that she be held without bond.
The FBI is investigating at least three cases over the past two months in which ricin was mailed to Obama and other public figures. Ricin has been sent to officials sporadically over the years, but experts say that there seems to be a recent uptick and that copycat attacks – made possible by the relative ease of extracting the poison – may be the reason.
If inhaled, ricin can cause respiratory failure, among other symptoms. If swallowed, it can shut down the liver and other organs, resulting in death. The amount of ricin that can fit on the head of a pin is said to be enough to kill an adult if properly prepared. No antidote is available, though researchers are trying to develop one.
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FBI Hunting 12-Strong Terrorist Sleeper Cell Linked To Boston Marathon Bombers
22 AprThe FBI was last night hunting a 12-strong terrorist “sleeper cell” linked to the Boston marathon bomb brothers.
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Police believe Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev were specially trained to carry out the devastating attack.
More than 1,000 FBI operatives were last night working to track down the cell and arrested a man and two women 60 miles from Boston in the hours before Dzhokhar’s dramatic capture after a bloody shootout on Friday.
A source close to the investigation said: “We have no doubt the brothers were not acting alone. The devices used to detonate the two bombs were highly sophisticated and not the kind of thing people learn from Google.
“They were too advanced. Someone gave the brothers the skills and it is now our job to find out just who they were. Agents think the sleeper cell has up to a dozen members and has been waiting several years for their day to come.”
A specialist team of CIA and FBI interrogators was yesterday flown to a Boston hospital to grill wounded Dzhokhar, 19, about the secret group. The University of Massachusetts student was caught on Friday after hiding out in a boat parked in a garden in locked down Watertown the day after a gun battle with police left his 26-year-old brother and a rookie cop dead.
Dzhokhar is said to have run his brother over as he escaped in a stolen car while Tamerlan lay handcuffed on the ground. They were carrying six bombs with them at the time, three of which exploded, as well as a handgun and rifle. The devices were thought to be pipe bombs.
Last night Dzhokhar – badly wounded but alive – lay handcuffed to his hospital bed under armed guard. The other three arrested in the port of New Bedford are also believed to be of college age.
Dzhokhar even went to a college party two days after the bombs wreaked havoc at the finish line. According to fellow students, he “looked relaxed” as he joined in a party at the campus on Wednesday night.
Hours later he was involved in the shootout which saw his brother killed.
Investigators have begun piecing together how the “well-mannered” brothers of Chechen origin were radicalised. Neighbours of the family said older brother Tamerlan had recently become obsessed with Islam. He mysteriously left the US in January last year to spend six months in Russia. Yesterday senior FBI counter-terrorism official Kevin Brock said: “It’s a key thread for investigators.”
It also emerged the Bureau interviewed Tamerlan two years ago, at the request of the Russian government, but could not establish that he had ties to terrorist radicals.
This was despite his worrying Russian-language YouTube page featuring links to extremist Islamic sites and others since taken down by YouTube.
One link showed an hour-long speech by an Islamic teacher called Shaykh Feiz Mohammed, while other videos are labled “Terrorists” and “Islam”.
The radical cleric, with links to extremist British Muslims, encouraged his followers to become martyrs for Islam. He said: “Teach them this: There is nothing more beloved to me than wanting to die as a mujahid.”
Yesterday the brothers’ mother Zubeidat, speaking from her home in Russia, added further intrigue to her sons’ murky past when she claimed the boys had been framed by the FBI over the two bombs last Monday that left three dead and 178 injured.
She claimed the FBI had been keeping watch on her eldest boy for up to five years. She said: “They knew what my son was doing. They knew what sites on the internet he was going to.
“They were telling me that he was really an extremist leader and that they were afraid of him. They told me whatever information he is getting, he gets from these extremist sites. They were controlling him.”
The bombers’ father Anzor wept at news that his youngest son had been captured alive. In a phone interview with a US news channel he told his son: “Tell police everything. Everything. Just be honest.”
US Government officials have said the brothers were not under surveillance as possible militants. And an FBI statement said the matter was closed because interviews with Tamerlan and family members “did not find any terrorism activity, domestic or foreign”. But now they believe the pair, who emigrated to the United States from Dagestan about a decade ago, were part of a terror cell.
College dropout Tamerlan’s American wife Katherine Russell, 24, and their three-year-old daughter Zahara were yesterday thrown into the spotlight. She was a Christian before they married but converted to Islam. Her parents Warren, a doctor, and Judith were said to be “stunned” by their son-in-law’s involvement in the tragedy.
Judith and Warren issued a joint statement saying: “Our daughter has lost her husband today, the father of her child. In the aftermath of the Patriot’s Day horror, we know we never really knew Tamerlan Tsarnaev. Our hearts are sickened by the horror he has inflicted.”
Katherine, wearing a black hijab, was picked up by FBI agents at their home in Cambridge near Boston on Friday. Dope-smoker Dzhokhar was captured after a Watertown resident called police to say the fugitive was hiding in a boat in his back garden.
David Henneberry had gone into his garden for a cigarette after police lifted restrictions on people leaving their homes, believing the bomber had left the area. He noticed that the cover over his boat had blood on it and a strap had been cut. He went back into the house to get a stepladder and looked inside.
His stepson Robert said: “He stuck his head under the tarp and noticed a pool of blood and something crumpled up in a ball. Instead of being a hero of the moment and yelling at what we now know was the suspect, he did the right thing and called 911.”
Police immediately evacuated the family and surrounded the house, using a megaphone to tell Dzhokhar to come out with his hands up.
When he failed to respond they opened fire at the boat’s hull. Robert said: “They wound up shooting a couple of rounds through the boat. He wasn’t going to like that.”
Dzhokhar was wounded by the volley of gunfire and police were able to move in and arrest him. They later released infrared pictures taken from a helicopter showing Dzhokhar hiding in the boat.
Investigators will interrogate the bomber, still seriously ill last night, without reading him his rights – using special “public safety” powers.
The family of eight-year-old bombing victim Martin Richard welcomed the arrest of Tsarnaev. “Our community is once again safe from these men,” the family said in a statement.
Shortly before Dzhokhar’s capture, President Obama spoke by phone to Russian President Vladimir Putin. The White House said Obama “praised the close co-operation the US has received from Russia on counter-terrorism, including in the wake of the Boston attack”.
There were scenes of celebration across Boston as news spread of the capture of the remaining bomber.
Get the latest updates on what happened in Boston.
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Related article:
ICE Arrests Two In MA Town Tied To Bombing Case – Big Government
Two foreign nationals have been arrested on immigration violations in the Massachusetts town where police say the surviving Boston Marathon bombing suspect may have once lived.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement said Saturday that Homeland Security Investigations agents had arrested two people in New Bedford.
An ICE spokesman would not comment on the people who were arrested or if they are connected to bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev (joh-KHAR’ tsahr-NEYE’-ehv). The University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth student remains hospitalized after exchanging gunfire with police Friday.
ICE did not say whether they are suspected in any other crimes. A federal prosecutor’s spokeswoman declined comment.
New Bedford police said federal authorities searched off-campus housing near the school Friday and took three people in for questioning. Police say Tsarnaev may have lived at the complex.
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FBI Raids Florida Eye Clinic Of Donor Linked To Democrat Senator Menendez’s Prostitution Scandal
30 JanFBI agents have raided the West Palm Beach, Fla. eye clinic owned by Dr. Salomon Melgen, the wealthy donor to New Jersey Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez who allegedly procured prostitutes for him – some of them as young as 16 – during trips to the Dominican Republic.
The Miami Herald reported that federal agents lined up vans outside the Melgen Eye Center late Tuesday night to haul away evidence in the case.
A woman answering the phone at Melgen’s home in West Palm Beach would not give her name but said, “Dr. Melgen is asleep.” Asked if he was aware his clinic was being raided by federal law enforcement, she replied, “Oh yes, well, these things happen all the time. They’ve got to do their job.” She declined to comment on Melgen’s relationship with Sen. Menendez.
Melgen, 58, is believed to have flown Menendez in his private jet to the Dominican Republic on several occasions for alcohol-fueled sex parties featuring prostitutes.
According to the Miami Herald, records obtained from the Palm Beach County recorder show Melgen also “has an outstanding IRS lien of $11.1 million for taxes owed from 2006 to 2009.”
It’s unknown whether the FBI is investigating his tax delinquency, his association with Sen. Menendez, or both. A spokesman for the FBI in Miami, Fla. would only say that the Bureau was “conducting law enforcement activity in the general vicinity of 2521 Metrocentre Blvd, West Palm Beach, FL” – the address of Melgen’s flagship clinic.
Menendez is slated to take over as chairman of the powerful Senate foreign affairs committee when Massachusetts Democratic Sen. John Kerry becomes secretary of state. The full Senate confirmed Kerry’s nomination on Tuesday.
But it’s unclear whether Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will hand the committee’s gavel to Menendez without a full investigation into his conduct. Committee chairmen with jurisdiction over international matters typically have high-level security clearances. Menendez’s could be jeopardized if the allegations against him are proven true.
The Daily Caller first reported in November that two prostitutes had accused Menendez of paying them for sex during Easter weekend 2012 at a posh Dominican resort. Prostitution is legal in that country but viewed unfavorably by U.S. voters.
The women appeared in videotaped interviews with the help of a translator. Each said she was promised $500 to sleep with the New Jersey lawmaker, but was ultimately paid only $100.
Additional confirmation came from a Dominican government official who told TheDC that Menendez frequents “sex, hookers and drinking” parties in the Caribbean nation.
On Jan. 25 TheDC followed up that reporting with new allegations contained in documents that a tipster placed online. Those files, published on a makeshift WordPress blog, have attracted nearly 20,000 online readers in the United States.
Among other claims, the documents indicated that the FBI was actively investigating the matter, and that some of the prostitutes Menendez slept with were younger than 18.
The PROTECT Act of 2003 made it a federal crime to pay for sex with anyone that young, regardless of the age of consent in the country where the illicit transaction occurs.
TheDC’s most recent reporting also raised the question of whether Menendez broke Senate Ethics committee rules by accepting free travel from Melgen without seeking the committee’s approval or disclosing the value of the perks.
On Monday afternoon, Menendez refused to address the substance of the allegations against him, telling TheDC only that he was “not going to respond to the fallacious allegations of your story.”
One day later, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid took a swing at The Daily Caller for its reporting, telling assembled journalists Tuesday that “I always consider the source” of allegations, “and all anyone here has to look at is the source where this comes from. It’s – it’s a source that has brought up a lot of non-issues.”
Spokespersons for Sens. Reid and Menendez did not immediately respond to late-night emailed requests for comment.
FBI And Andrew Breitbart Vindicated By New ‘Occupy’ Explosives Arrests
2 JanFBI And Andrew Breitbart Vindicated By New ‘Occupy’ Explosives Arrests – Big Government
Two prominent Occupy Wall Street movement activists have been arrested by the New York Police Department for allegedly possessing a cache of weapons and explosive material in New York City’s Greenwich Village.
The Occupiers, Morgan Gliedman, 27, and Aaron Greene, 31, were visited by New York City police due to a warrant for Gliedman’s arrest relating to alleged credit card theft. Once in the couple’s apartment, police claim they found the explosive materials and how-to manuals on terrorism.
According to the New York Post:
A detective discovered a plastic container with seven grams of a white chemical powder called HMTD, which is so powerful, cops evacuated several nearby buildings.
Police also found a flare launcher, which is a commercial replica of a grenade launcher; a modified 12 gauge Mossberg 500 shotgun; ammo; and nine high-capacity rifle magazines, the sources said.
Cops also allegedly uncovered papers about creating homemade booby traps, improvised submachine guns, and various handwritten notebooks containing chemical formulas.
The arrests come at a critical time due to recent allegations by the left against the FBI for having apparently infiltrated the revolutionary Occupy movement. A recent document release from the FBI revealed multiple large scale investigations into the movement had occurred, prompting a revival of the left’s decades-long attack on the FBI for having investigated radical movements.
Supporters of the FBI’s efforts have pointed out that the Occupy movement, though many participants may be well-intentioned, involved some individuals and groups with checkered histories and revolutionary aims.
The Occupy movement was heralded by mainstream media outlets as heroic and altruistic, but right-of-center critics, such as Andrew Breitbart, began to point out the movement was little more than a rebranded gathering of extremist far-left groups.
Breitbart released a series of internal Occupy emails that revealed the “new movement” was months in the making, with professional organizers such as Lisa Fithian behind the coordination. Breitbart also pointed out the similarities between Communist doctrine of the “bourgeoisie vs the proletariat” and the Occupy movement’s “1% vs the 99%” argument. Breitbart’s efforts eventually culminated in one of his final projects before his passing, the Citizens United documentary Occupy Unmasked.
One major thesis of the film was that the Occupy movement was created to move the national discussion off of deficits and debt, and onto the false dichotomy of the “rich vs the poor,” so that the Democratic Party could win in the coming 2012 presidential election and other left-of-center groups could retain power in the US political process.
As a result of Breitbart’s efforts, right-of-center grassroots media began investigating and infiltrating the Occupy movement’s camps and researching their organizers and backers. As rapes, other crimes, terrorist ties, and involvement with hostile foreign nations were discovered by independent grassroots efforts, law enforcement began to take justifiable interest in the self-proclaimed “revolutionary movement.”
Recent document releases from the FBI reveal they did indeed take interest and infiltrate the Occupy movement. Left-of-center media outlets and activists have begun to complain and claim the FBI either violated civil rights by infiltrating them or otherwise wasted resources by having done so. Some, such as the UK Guardian, have gone as far as claiming “the FBI dismantled a political movement.”
Clearly, the FBI acted on its responsibility to protect the constitutionally guaranteed rights of Americans by monitoring the Occupy movement, as evidenced by the recent arrests and previous thwarted bomb plots.
The Occupy movement was not dismantled by the FBI or other law enforcement agencies. Rather, the Occupy movement was exposed by right-of-center grassroots citizen journalists exposing the dark secrets US mainstream media refused to share with the public.
Media outlets like Andrew Breitbart’s magnified the voices of the grassroots, and law enforcement appropriately acted on the data that had been presented to the public.
Yes, Obama did know about Patraeus affair in the Summer
12 NovIt wasn’t just the FBI that was aware of Petraeus’s affair last summer, but top officials in the administration. The Wall Street Journal reports, “FBI Scrutinized on Petraeus: Complaints by Female Social Planner Led to Email Trail That Undid CIA Chief“:
A social planner’s complaints about email stalking launched the monthslong criminal inquiry that led to a woman romantically linked to former Gen. David Petraeus and to his abrupt resignation Friday as Central Intelligence Agency chief.
The emails began arriving in Jill Kelley’s inbox in May, U.S. officials familiar with the probe said. Ms. Kelley, who helped organize social events at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Fla., told the Federal Bureau of Investigation about the emails, which she viewed as harassing, the U.S. officials said.
That FBI investigation into who sent the emails led over a period of months to Paula Broadwell, Mr. Petraeus’s biographer, with whom he was having an extramarital affair, according to the U.S. officials.
FBI agents were pursuing what they thought was a potential cybercrime, or a breach of classified information.
Instead, the trail led to what officials said were sexually explicit emails between two lovers, from an account Mr. Petraeus used a pseudonym to establish, and to the destruction of Mr. Petraeus’s painstakingly crafted image as a storied Army general.
Mr. Petraeus admitted to an affair in a letter to CIA employees announcing his resignation.
In the aftermath of the investigation, some lawmakers are aiming criticism at the FBI and the Obama administration, including Attorney General Eric Holder, who knew about the email link to Mr. Petraeus as far back as late summer. A House Republican leader also learned of the matter in October. Some argue that Mr. Petraeus shouldn’t have resigned; others said that the FBI should have formally notified Congress earlier.
The top Senate Democrat on intelligence issues said Sunday she would investigate the FBI’s handling of the inquiry, and why the matter wasn’t shared earlier with Congress.
“It was like a lightning bolt,” said Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D., Calif.) on “Fox News Sunday.” “This is something that could have had an effect on national security. I think we should have been told.”
Well, even Feinstein sees the problems here. For me, the biggest question is why does the White House NOT want Patraeus to testify about Benghazi?
If this is true………..
3 MarThen the top of my head will come off. If this is true then sanity has completely left America!
(AZ Daily Star)- Border Patrol agents shot beanbags at a group of suspected bandits before the men returned fire during a confrontation in a remote canyon, killing agent Brian Terry with a single gunshot, records show.
And an illegal immigrant wounded in the gunbattle who is now the only person in custody linked to the slaying contends he never fired a shot, according to FBI search warrant requests filed in the U.S. District Court in Tucson.
The documents provide the most detailed version yet of what happened in the deadly gunbattle Dec. 14 in Peck Canyon, northwest of Nogales.
The documents say the group of illegal border entrants refused commands to drop their weapons after agents confronted them at about 11:15 p.m. Two agents fired beanbags at the migrants, who responded with gunfire. Two agents returned fire, one with a long gun and one with a pistol, but Terry was mortally wounded in the gunfight.
Border Patrol officials declined to answer questions about protocol for use of force, citing the ongoing investigation.
But Terry’s brother, Kent Terry, said the other agents who were there that night told him that they were instructed to use the non-lethal beanbags first. It’s a policy that doesn’t make sense to Kent Terry.
“You go up against a bandit crew that is carrying AKs, and you walk out there with guns loaded with beanbags – I don’t get it,” Terry said in a phone interview from Michigan. “It’s like going to the Iraqi war with one knife. It boggles my mind. … These guys (Border Patrol agents) are professionals; they should be able to use their judgment call on their own.”
As I said IF this is accurate then every American should be beyond irate frankly. If this is true there is but one thing to blame, and that one thing is political correctness! Yes, it has been said and still rings true PC can and DOES KILL! A sane policy would dictate that our law enforcement officers would be fully able to defend our laws, our borders, and their lives without any considerations of who might be offended by it!
Daily Benefactor News – Thousands Evacuated As Typhoon Megi Nears China – More Articles
21 Oct
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Thousands Evacuated As Typhoon Megi Nears China – NewsMeat
More than 150,000 people were evacuated in Fujian province in China’s southeast and tens of thousands of fishing boats were called back to port, the official Xinhua news agency quoted flood control authorities as saying.
At least another 10,000 were evacuated in neighbouring Guangdong province, authorities there said, with forecasters predicting the storm would hit somewhere along China’s southern coastline late Friday or early Saturday.
The State Oceanic Administration issued a yellow storm surge warning, saying that Megi could cause a “50-year storm surge” if it landed as a severe typhoon.
“The storm surge could be so devastating that buildings, docks, villages and cities could be destroyed by it,” said Bai Yiping, director of South China Sea Forecasting Centre of the State Oceanic Administration.
Hong Kong shuttered oil terminals as the monster storm bore down.
Megi, which has already killed at least 27 people in the Philippines, was showing “signs of intensification”, the Hong Kong Observatory said Thursday.
“At present we estimate its intensity at around 175 kilometres per hour (110 miles per hour),” said forecaster Lee Tsz-cheung.
“We still cannot rule out the possibility of Megi intensifying further.”
Chinese authorities have issued a red alert, the highest of a four-step warning system, saying the typhoon could cause huge waves that could devastate coastal sea areas, including Guangdong, Fujian and the Taiwan Strait.
Xinhua, citing the State Oceanic Administration, said that Guangdong could see storm-triggered waves of up to seven metres (21 feet).
The red alert gives local authorities six hours to evacuate residents at risk and implement storm precautions, order schools, shops and airports to close and all vessels to return to port.
Torrential rains sparked by the typhoon killed at least two people and left one missing on one of Japan’s southern islands, media reports said.
As of 3 pm (0700 GMT) Thursday, Megi was estimated to be 430 kilometres southeast of Hong Kong as it moved slowly across the South China Sea.
Five oil terminals on Tsing Yi island off Hong Kong’s Kowloon peninsula were shut down, forcing tankers to anchor offshore and suspending marine fuel deliveries.
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Obama’s Approval Rating At New Low In Most Recent Quarter – Gallup
Barack Obama averaged 44.7% job approval during the seventh quarter of his presidency. His average approval rating has declined each quarter since he took office, falling by more than two percentage points in the most recent quarter to establish a new low.
These results are based on Gallup Daily tracking surveys conducted from July 20-Oct. 19, including interviews with more than 90,000 Americans.
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Democrat Mayor Resigns After Being Arrested For Purse-Snatching, Assault – Justice News Flash
The mayor of San Gabriel has stepped down following his arrest for a purse-snatching incident where he took off in his SUV, with a woman clinging to the side of his vehicle.
The arrest occurred on Friday, October 15, 2010 at around 1:15 a.m., after someone reported a heated fight between the mayor and a woman over money. Albert Y.M. Huang announced his resignation on Tuesday.
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A cafe owner has been ordered to tear down an extractor fan because the smell of her frying bacon ‘offends’ Muslims. Planning bosses acted against Beverley Akciecek after being told her neighbour’s Muslim friends had felt ‘physically sick’ due to the ‘foul odour’.
Councillors at Stockport Council in Greater Manchester say the smell from the fan is ‘unacceptable on the grounds of residential amenity’.
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Obama Administration Takes Credit For Bush Era Wind Farm Jobs – Gateway Pundit
The Obama administration is crediting its stimulus plan with creating up to 50,000 jobs on dozens of wind farms, even though many of them were built before Obama was inaugurated.
Out of 70 major wind farms that received federal energy grants through the stimulus program, public records show that 11, which received a total of $600M, erected their wind towers during the Bush administration.
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After years of costly delays, a long-awaited computerized system for managing the FBI’s caseload remains far from completion and risks coming so late that it will be obsolete on arrival, a Justice Department report warned Wednesday.
The Sentinel system was designed as a user-friendly paperless way to manage cases that would be ready in December 2009 at a cost $425M.
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Leftist Dullards Mock Palin For Correctly Referencing Boston Tea Party – Hot Air
Yesterday, at a Tea Party Express event in Nevada, Sarah Palin warned the crowd not to get overconfident, saying they won’t be able to “party like it’s 1773″ until a bunch of tea-party candidates are elected.
Lefty insta-meme: Idiot Sarah Palin doesn’t know that the Declaration of Independence was signed in 1776! Because, after all, nothing happened in 1773 that could possibly be worth referencing at a tea-party rally, right?
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Today federal authorities arrested four people associated with American Therapeutic Corporation and charged the Miami-based company with fleecing $200 million from Medicare.
The company is accused of praying on patients with severe dementia, and forcing them to go through treatment they did not need in order to inflate the amount of money it received from the government program.
