WARNING: Graphically Violent Images

Parental Discretion Advised

The Obama Administration refuses to hold accountable those in the Bush Administration who publicly (no less) cozied up to torture and resorted to extraordinary rendition when they didn’t want to be seen getting their own hands dirty–farming out the torture often conducted in secret (CIA) U.S. prisons abroad to regimes infamous for their handiwork in this regard. Ironically, among the most notorious was the Assad Regime in Syria, the very government U.S. politicians now publicly condemn while our security apparatus secretly confers with Syrian government officials on containing the rebel forces–particularly those with links to Al Qaida factions who now appear to be the strongest contenders among those who would overthrown the vicious Assad government, substituting their own brand of religious oppression and violence toward women or any others who offend/oppose them.

The not so secret dirty truth is President George W. Bush, in some respects, out did Hitler as not even the Fuhrer publicly condoned and cozied up to torture despite a litany of hushed atrocities and crimes against humanity. But, Cheny and Bush are themselves war criminals who authorized untold numbers of crimes against humanity. Those who exposed these crimes, like Manning and Snowden, were pursued and persecuted for it. They were condemned by the U.S. government (and Obama himself) for doing what we properly condemned and executed Nazi war criminals at Nuremberg for NOT doing! Like the German Jews who refused to believe their fellow citizens were capable of such vicious sadistic wholesale murders, many Americans are loathe to think of their elected leaders as torturers and war criminals. Like Hitler, they remain popular among their constituents.

Starved, tortured then throttled: The true horror of how Assad’s soldiers execute rebel prisoners is revealed in new images

• WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT
• A second cache of photos of victims of torture has been released
• Taken by man tasked with ‘recording deaths in custody’ by Syrian regime
  
• Total of 55,000 photos which lawyers say are evidence of extreme torture
• Could be used to bring charges of war crimes against Bashar al-Assad

The Agony of being Syrian

by Sara Malm

More photographs showing the maimed bodies of alleged victims of ‘systematic killings’ in Syrian prisons have been released today.

The second cache of photos paints an even clearer image of the horrendous conditions and gruesome torture in government-run jails in Syria.

The images, some of the 55,000 leaked by a witness ‘tasked with recording deaths in custody’, were taken between 2011 and 2013.

The Meek Inheriting the Earth

The second release echoes warnings from human right’s experts earlier this week that the first set of images only showed the tip of the iceberg.

The pictures were smuggled out of Syria by a military police photographer, who has been saving the files over two years, and handed to the opposition.

When the first photographs were released earlier this week, they were described as ‘clear evidence’ of crimes against humanity by a team of war crimes prosecutors.

They show emaciated corpses with strangulation marks, cuts, bruising and signs of electrocution – evidence of extreme torture, claim investigators. Some victims are shown to have had their eyes removed.

The photographer served as a military police officer for 13 years, and was assigned the duty of documenting the dead bodies brought to the military hospitals controlled by the Syrian regime during the civil war.

Faces of Death

The Anonymity of being Tortured to Death

Sun Bathing

Torture: When Death Proves Inadequate — “We had to know what they were thinking!” -G. W. Bush-

The bodies depicted in the photographs are all said to be members of rebel groups killed in detention under torture and starvation.

They show handwritten notes by officials on the faces and the bodies of the corpses, and allegedly used by the Syrian army as the records of death sentence enforcement, carried out systematically in government-run prisons.

On Tuesday Foreign Secretary William Hague, as well as the U.S. government, condemned the crimes shown in the photographs, and demanded that the perpetrators be brought to justice.

Mr Hague described the images as ‘compelling and horrific’, and said: ‘It is important those who have perpetrated these crimes are one day held to account.’

A spokesman from the U.S. State Department said: ‘These reports suggest widespread and apparently systematic violations by the regime. These most recent images … are extremely disturbing. They’re horrible to look at.’

The initial 31-page report was commissioned by Carter-Ruck solicitors in London on behalf of the Qatari government, which supports the Syrian uprising.

It was released as peace talks began in Switzerland on Wednesday to try to end the three-year conflict.

The Swells Dither

Like their American cousins, Syrian supporters give their President a pass.

The Devil Wears Prada

Sir Desmond de Silva, one of the Carter-Ruck lawyers who compiled a report on the credibility of the images, said that the evidence ‘documented industrial-scale killing.’ He pointed out that because the images purport to come from just one part of Syria, the human rights abuses could be much more widespread.

‘This is a smoking gun of a kind we didn’t have before. It makes a very strong case indeed,’ he said.

‘It is the tip of the iceberg because this is 11,000 in just one area.’

About 130,000 people have been killed and a quarter of Syrians driven from their homes in the civil war, which began with peaceful protests against 40 years of Assad family rule and has descended into a sectarian conflict, with the opposing sides armed and funded by Sunni Arab states and Shi’ite Iran.

High-level mediating has yielded little so far, but Lakhdar Brahimi, the UN mediator who is meeting separately today with each Syrian delegation, said there are signs they might be willing to bend on humanitarian aid, ceasefires and prisoner exchanges.

Amid hostile exchanges at the peace talks in Switzerland, Syria’s government ridiculed demands by opposition leaders and their Western backers including Britain for Assad to stand down, saying it would never happen.

Equal Opportunity

The rent thin veil of civilization

When Death Comes as a Blessing

Gravel: New Synthetic Drug

by Monica Davis

A new synthetic drug named  “Gravel”. is sweeping the nation. And ER doctors are scared.

It’s highly addictive and makes users dangerously paranoid, to the point of suicide.  It also causes paranoia, kidney failure, and hallucinations.

These synthetic drugs are changing so fast, that the feds can’t keep up.

“The evolution of these drugs is providing a challenge for toxicology screens,” said Terrence Boos, a chemist in the DEA’s Drug and Chemical Evaluation Section. “When someone is presenting at an emergency department, they are presenting with an unknown drug in their system.”

Synthetic drugs multiplying faster than they can be tracked

By Patricia Kime

Keeping up with the latest formulations of synthetic drugs like spice or bath salts is similar to a game of Whac-A-Mole — as soon as the Drug Enforcement Administration identifies and bans a compound, another replaces it.

In the past four years, 200 different versions of synthetic or designer drugs have appeared in the U.S., including 80 since July, according to DEA data.

“We have a treasure trove of chemists out there scouring the scientific literature, and the only real research they are doing is what compounds can get people high … the pace is unprecedented,” said Al Santos, the DEA’s associate deputy administrator.

The Defense Department began realizing the scope of its synthetic drug problem in 2010, when service members were found using synthetic cannabinoids, which simulate the effect of marijuana and often are sold over the counter.

DoD quickly moved to ban these products and develop tests to screen for them. In 2012, the Navy also issued a public service announcement titled, “Bath Salts: It’s Not a Fad, It’s a Nightmare,” to teach sailors and others about the dangers of these drugs, which usually are synthesized from substances that have not been tested on humans.

The education effort — as well as limited improved testing — may be having an effect. In the past year, the Navy and Marine Corps have seen a 45 percent drop in the monthly average of members found to have used spice, and a 60 percent drop in those caught using bath salts.

According to data provided by the Navy Department, 1,064 sailors and Marines used spice in 2012 and 67 abused bath salts. From January 2013 to October, the figures fell to 491 spice users and 22 bath salts users.

Data provided by the Army showed that in fiscal 2012, that service’s Criminal Investigative Command conducted 1,657 investigations of soldiers suspected of using a synthetic drug.

After the Army signed a memorandum of agreement with the Air Force Drug Testing Laboratory to expand its commander-requested and probable cause programs, Army commanders requested testing for synthetic drugs of 323 samples submitted to the lab from May through November, resulting in 99 confirmed positives, Army spokeswoman Lt. Col. Alayne Conway said.

The Air Force has not provided data in response to a Military Times request.

DEA officials warned that the scope of the problem is hard to nail down because of ever-changing formulations.

“The evolution of these drugs is providing a challenge for toxicology screens,” said Terrence Boos, a chemist in the DEA’s Drug and Chemical Evaluation Section. “When someone is presenting at an emergency department, they are presenting with an unknown drug in their system.”

Constantly trying to keep up with new formulations, Boos said, puts “a strain on resources.”

Along with the shifting formulas comes a kaleidoscope of name changes. In addition to spice and bath salts, there is AM-2201, a cannabinoid that became the first synthetic drug to enter the top 10 most frequently identified drugs in U.S. labs, and gravel, a combination of bath salts and anti-seizure medications or methamphetamine that recently surfaced in Tennessee.

The synthetic drug industry has emerged as a multibillion-dollar force — one that is stretching the DEA’s focus, officials said. In two operations in the past year, the agency seized $93 million worth of equipment, product and cash from major synthetic drug manufacturers.

The services have banned synthetic drugs, and troops can be prosecuted for using them. But if risking your life or your career isn’t enough deterrent, the DEA gave one more reason to stay away from synthetic drugs: terrorism.

Officials said the agency has tracked money flowing from convenience stores owned by foreigners in the U.S., and found that some profits are going overseas — and mainly to the Middle East.

So using them may well constitute aiding and abetting the enemy.

The Crucible is a riveting play written by Arthur Miller about the Salem witch trials. While fictional, it is based on historical fact. Sadly, throughout history, man’s inhumanity to man has been reflected in his zeal to find scape goats, witches, communists, anarchists, traitors, pedophiles, blasphemers, and all manner of social undesirables according to the fashions of the day. For the most part, the ‘crimes’ can be categorized as malum prohibita rather than malum in se.  e.g. It’s interesting to note how Lewis Carol not only courted and pursued the real 11 year old girl (Alice) for her hand in marriage (she turned him down), but was an avid photographer who took full frontal nudes of young girls (including Alice’s younger sister) with their parents’ consent. Although Carol was never accused of molesting any of his young models and the Englishman’s countrymen presumably thought little of it or his bid for matrimony to a prepubescent child at the time, he would doubtless be incarcerated for the same activities, were he alive, in the U.S. today.

Modern Witch Hunts

Many Americans have read of or recall the Senator McCarthy hearings that savaged so many lives of those falsely accused of Communist sympathies or affiliation before the Congressional House of Unamerican Activities committee. In the midst of the Cold War, many lives were ruined and reputations destroyed by a self serving political opportunist and demagogue.

Similarly, lifestyle (A)narchists in the U.S. and Pacific NW are not only given to labeling others, but obsessed with snitch hunting.

Although Senator McCarthy and his memory have largely been discredited, the American impulse to find witches/boogie men seems unabated in the U.S. and with our British Cousins in the UK as well.

Brian Davies

by Cora Van Olson

Brian Davies had moved to Accrington in the U.K. in June 2009 and was befriended by two local girls, who asked if they could walk his dog. The disabled man and his wife Debbie, 44, accepted the offer and the visits from the girls that followed, but when one of the girls asked to sleep over, Davies said no. He was soon accused by the girls of exposing himself to them and sexually touching them. Police investigated the allegations against Davies informally and questioned his accusers. Davies willingly let authorities examine his computers. Davies was clean and the girls’ stories didn’t add up. Finally, one of them confessed that they had made the whole thing up. Some in the community, however, would not accept Davies’ exoneration, even after police circulated a pamphlet explaining that the accusations were false, “without any foundation whatsoever.” Even so, Davies’ property was repeatedly vandalized, haters hurled insults and threats at him and his wife in public. By August Davies had suffered a stroke over the stress, claimed his doctor, and was ready to file suit against his accusers, but died of a massive coronary before he could clear his name. The heart attack, his widow claims, was brought on by the stress of wrongful persecution by members of the public.

Given most Washington State judges have never met a cop they didn’t like and appear indifferent to lies under oath emanating from a uniformed officer on the stand or in their sworn written reports, legislators are considering reining in the ubiquitous abuse from a different angle.

Sides [] off on police accountability

Thin Blue Line or Misprision?

by Mike Baker

Seattle — Law enforcement leaders in Washington state want more stringent laws to purge officers who lie or commit crimes.

Lawmakers began considering a bill Friday that would give a state commission more power to decertify officers.

Washougal Police Chief Ron Mitchell testified in favor of the proposal, describing how one of his officers was fired and then convicted of assaulting a man who was restrained in the back of his patrol car. That officer later was reinstated by an arbitrator.

“It gave us the appearance in the public that our officers are above the law,” Mitchell said.

Under the proposed changes, the Criminal Justice Training Commission could revoke officers’ certification if they’re convicted of some felony and gross misdemeanor crimes, or if they’re untruthful about a material fact. The proposal is from the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs.

Organizations that represent rank-and-file law enforcement officers testified against the bill, saying the new rules could circumvent the existing arbitration process. Some emphasized that officers don’t want to work with those who lack integrity or commit crimes but that existing statutes deal with officer misconduct.

Geoff Simpson, representing the Washington State Council of Fire Fighters, said a delicate balance exists between management and labor rights. He argued the proposed law would unnecessarily tip the scales toward management power.

“I don’t believe this bill is necessary,” said Simpson, whose organization also represents some commissioned officers. “The system is not broken.”

The measure is sponsored by two Republicans and two Democrats on the Senate Committee on Law & Justice. The panel did not vote on the measure Friday.

Robert Glenn Ford

Robert Glenn Ford (pictured), 56, was a controversial homicide investigator with the Norfolk Police Department of Norfolk, Va., who had helped arrest and convict over 180 murderers before retiring in 2007. He was known as a tough interrogator, sometimes perhaps too tough, who had solved Norfolk’s most difficult murder case in 25 years. In May 2010, Ford was indicted on charges of accepting money from suspects in criminal cases in exchange for obtaining favorable treatment for them within the court system. He is accused of taking money from eight such individuals between 2003 and 2007. According to the indictment, Ford allegedly testified under oath that a defendant had helped solve a homicide when in fact the defendant provided no such information. In other instances he is accused of talking to or testifying before prosecutors and judges on behalf of those who paid him to have their sentences reduced. If convicted Ford faces up to 20 years in prison for extortion. The trial began in October 2010.

Jim Masters, 15

Fort Collins, Colo. police lieutenant Jim Broderick suspected Jim Masters (pictured) 15, in the 1987 murder of Peggy Hettrick. Hettrick’s body had been found by a cyclist in a field not far from Masters’ home. She had been sexually mutilated in a surgical manner. Masters’ father reported seeing his son in the field on his way to school. The boy told police he had thought it was a mannequin and did not report it. They took him in for questioning. Police tried to build a case against him, but were unable to find any solid evidence. Finally they were able to convict him, arguing that he was a fan of horror movies and had made some disturbing drawings earlier in life. In order to secure the conviction, Broderick testified that he had had nothing to do with the case after 1987, but allegedly omitted mention of various failed attempts to catch Masters acting suspiciously from his testimony and the destruction of evidence connecting Dr. Richard Hammond, an eye surgeon and sex offender, to the crime. In 1999, Masters was convicted. It was not until 2008 that DNA evidence exonerated him and instead implicated one of Hettrick’s ex-boyfriends, Matthew Zoellner, who had been eliminated as a suspect early on. The city and the county paid $10 million to settle civil lawsuits by Masters, and the prosecuting attorneys were censured. On June 30, 2010, a grand jury indicted James Broderick on eight counts of felony first degree perjury for false material statements he made related to the arrest and conviction of Jim Masters. He is scheduled to appear in court on December 1, 2010.

by Carlos Miller

A New Haven cop who claimed he was in fear for his life when he arrested a priest for video recording him as he bullied an Ecuadorian immigrant in a convenience store was sentenced to 30 months in prison Tuesday, indicating that justice prevails every once in a while.

Even if the cop was allowed to retire with a full pension.

The 2009 incident, which went viral, opened a federal investigation against David Cari and several other officers, revealing that they were engaging in an ongoing harassment campaign against the immigrants living in that community.

But it was only because Father James Manship filed a federal complaint after his charges were dropped two weeks after his arrest.

And it was only because it was all caught on video.

According to a 2009 New York Times article:

Latino merchants in this New Haven suburb have been complaining for months that they get a disproportionately large share of attention from the local police. Officers, they say, have harassed them and their customers by lingering outside shops, stopping cars and demanding to see driver’s licenses.

But their complaints were largely confined to grumbling among themselves and at a local church until Feb. 19, when a white American priest was arrested.

The priest, the Rev. James Manship, who was videotaping a police visit to an Ecuadorean-owned grocery store on Main Street when he was led off in handcuffs, has become an unlikely symbol of racial profiling, charged with disorderly conduct and interfering with the police.

On Thursday, more than a dozen East Haven residents joined the priest at a news conference in New Haven to release the brief tape he made of the encounter.

Father Manship, who had been advising the merchants, was in My Country Store taping two police officers as they confiscated the owner’s collection of license plates. In the arrest report, Officer David Cari said he grew concerned when the priest approached the officers and failed to identify an object cupped in his hands. Officer Cari wrote in the report that he felt “unsafe.”

But in the 14-second video, which can be seen on the Web site newhavenindependent.org, the officer can be heard asking the priest: “Sir what are you doing? Is there a reason that you have a camera on me?” Father Manship replies, “I’m taking a video of what’s going on here.”

The federal investigation led to the arrest and conviction of four officers.

The sentencing for Cari’s fellow convicted ex-cop, Dennis Spaulding, was postponed until Thursday due to snow.

The other two former cops — John Miller and Jason Zullo — reached an agreement with federal prosecutors in which they pled guilty to crimes unrelated to racial profiling, according to The New Haven Register. Zullo received a jail sentence of two years, while Miller faces sentencing in February.

Ex-East Haven Cop David Cari: 30 months in Prison

Former East Haven police Officer Dennis Spaulding, right

by Evan Lips

HARTFORD — A federal judge Tuesday sentenced convicted former East Haven police Officer David Cari to serve 30 months in federal prison, but an afternoon snowstorm prompted him to postpone sentencing of fellow convicted former Officer Dennis Spaulding until Thursday.

Both were convicted in October for multiple civil rights abuses after a lengthy Department of Justice investigation into allegations of racial profiling. Both are retired from the force.

U.S. District Judge Alvin Thompson’s courtroom was packed at 11 a.m., as Cari’s family, friends and fellow officers sat on one side of the aisle to await sentencing.

David Cari

On the other side of the aisle sat Ecuadorean residents of East Haven, several who had testified as prosecution witnesses to the allegations lobbed at the two officers.

Seated among them was the Rev. James Manship, pastor of St. Rose of Lima Church in Fair Haven and the man whose 26-second video shotwhile inside an East Haven general store proved to be the most crucial piece of evidence in the government’s case against Cari.

“Never did I think that video would get us to where we are today,” he said outside the courthouse, after Thompson handed down Cari’s 30-month sentence.

But it was precisely the audio of Manship’s February 2009 video that proved to discredit the arrest report Cari filed when he slapped handcuffs on the priest for filming him and Spaulding in the process of ordering employees at the Hispanic-owned My Country Store to remove more than 70 license plates mounted on the back wall during an investigation.

Cari charged Manship with interfering with police and disorderly conduct. It took less than a month for attorneys representing Manship to persuade a Superior Court judge to dismiss the charges. In the meantime, Cari scripted an arrest report frequently described by Richard J. Schechter, the government’s senior litigation counsel, as a “work of fiction.”

Evidence introduced to the jury showed that Cari altered Manship’s arrest report 27 times, a revelation Manship said Tuesday was “astonishing.”

“He lied, he perjured and it was not a simple mistake,” Manship said to Thompson during his statements to the court. “This was not a simple mistake. He did not abuse me but he tried to harm my reputation as a priest.”

The altering of Manship’s arrest report resulted in a federal charge of falsifying a police report, a penalty that carries up to 20 years in prison. Cari’s two other charges included conspiracy to violate civil rights and deprivation of rights by making a false arrest.

Spaulding was convicted on identical charges, including an unreasonable-force charge.

Before Manship spoke, Thompson allowed several of Cari’s family members, friends, colleagues and an East Haven priest to speak in behalf of his character.

Retired state Trooper Dan Sivori spoke about March 14, 2006, the day he said Cari saved another officer’s life during a shootout on the Pearl Harbor Memorial Bridge in New Haven.

Reports from that incident indicate Cari and other East Haven officers were pursuing a car allegedly involved in an armed robbery. Police caught up with the car on the bridge and managed to handcuff the driver. It was then that Cari spotted another passenger, later identified as Christopher Morro, with his finger on the trigger of a Walther P38.

Cari hollered “gun!” and dove onto Morro. Officers reported hearing three or four shots. Morro had shot Cari in the lower back. Sivori was shot in the chest but the bullet did not pierce his body armor.

Sivori talked about that day and the four years that followed. He spoke about his battles with post-traumatic stress disorder and about Cari’s own struggle with PTSD. Sivori described the symptoms of PTSD as having a profound effect on his temper, which he said “can go zero to 60 mph.”

“I was fortunate,” he said. “I retired after four years.”

Others who spoke on behalf of Cari included his sister, Suzanne Monaco. She said her brother at first did not want to return as a police officer. Monaco described how Cari later eased back into his work, this time as a K9 officer. She talked about how her brother’s PTSD affected his mood, but added that he was helped by the presence of his police dog, Daro.

Cari’s attorney, Alex V. Hernandez, said his client “rallied” to work despite his PTSD. He pointed out that one symptom is the tendency to become “hyper-aware” of potential threats. Last year, Thompson heard from Dr. Linda Berger, who treated Cari. She did not testify during the trial but said there was a “90 percent chance” Cari experienced a detachment from reality on the day he arrested Manship.

But, Schechter, addressing requests from Hernandez for a lenient sentence, argued that PTSD did not play a role in Cari’s falsified arrest report.

“PTSD allows him (Cari) to use it as a crutch to explain away his criminal conduct,” Schechter said.

Before delivering the sentence, Thompson said it would be “inappropriate” to weigh any tales of Cari’s heroism as a police officer when determining punishment. He added that Cari “at the same time tried to destroy the career of a victim (Manship) whose mission is also about public service.”

“He (Manship) could well have gone to jail had it not been for the audio portion of that recording,” Thompson added.

Thompson also noted the dozens of letters sent to his office from supporters of Cari. He referred to one particular letter sent by another East Haven police officer. The letter, he said, tried to shift blame away from Cari and Spaulding and onto the policies and procedures that were in place in the department at the time.

“It raises questions, but, in the end, the line between what is wrong and what is right are so clear it’s unmistakable,” Thompson said.

Cari, addressing the court, thanked federal lawmen and prison officials for their “professional treatment” of him over the last three months. Immediately after his October conviction he was willingly incarcerated.

Those three months will count as time served, meaning he will serve a maximum of 27 more months.

Cari also admitted he erred when he decided to go hunting in January 2013, violating the terms of his bond. His arrest by Regional Water Authority officials led to a judge ordering his home confinement.

On Tuesday, Cari asked Thompson if he could spend several weeks before beginning his sentence, citing the need to take care of personal business, including caring for Daro.

Schechter openly wondered, upon hearing Cari’s request, as to whether the “Bureau of Prisons is now a hotel, where he can check in and out at his convenience.”

“Can his dog visit him in prison?” Schechter said. “We don’t oppose that.”

But Thompson granted Cari’s request and said he did not view Cari as a danger. He referred to the time Cari spent under house arrest, which he pointed out was free of incidents.

Thompson noted Cari’s decision to subject himself to prison life immediately after his conviction. He also noted that Spaulding had three months free of incarceration before his Thursday sentencing date.

The victory is a modest one for Cari, as he will not be forced to report to the Federal Bureau of Prisons until Feb. 25. After the end of his term, Cari will serve 30 months of supervised release.

Cari is the second of four officers named in the Department of Justice’s 2012 federal indictment to be sentenced. Last month, Thompson sentenced retired Officer Jason Zullo to serve two years, the maximum time allowed under the agreement Zullo made with federal prosecutors after pleading guilty to charges unrelated to racial profiling.

Retired Sgt. John Miller, one of the supervisors for the three officers, will be sentenced in February. Like Zullo, Miller pleaded guilty to a charge unrelated to racial profiling.

Manship, speaking outside court after Cari’s sentencing, said Tuesday was not a day to celebrate. When asked if he’s observed improvements in the department’s relations with minorities, Manship said he wasn’t sure.

“I’ll know the next time one of my parishioners is stopped; only time will tell,” he said. “And then we’ll see how they’re treated.”

Ever felt like having the last word with a particularly obtuse cop on steroids? Now you can! by Neil MacDonald

Increasingly, and openly, ordinary Americans are committing a legal act that some police nonetheless regard as among the most heinous of all offenses:

It’s called Contempt of Cop.

It’s otherwise known as asserting your constitutional rights. Citizens, feeling empowered, are pointing smartphones, rather than just an accusing finger, at abusive authorities.

Civil libertarians with hidden cameras are challenging the so-called “suspicion-less” roadblocks that police set up to catch lawbreakers. Motorists and others are fighting back in the courts and online against police shakedown rackets on U.S. highways and elsewhere. Everywhere, it seems, Americans are openly challenging arbitrary behavior by those in authority. Furthermore, they are winning. Not since the late 1960’s have those in authority, from heavy-handed cops to the federal operatives sifting metadata in super-secret intelligence installations, been exposed to so much disinfecting sunlight.

It’s marvelous to see such courage, and further proof that whatever the world might say about America, no other democracy takes the rule of law more seriously. And while it is difficult to tell what’s driving this new assertiveness, you have to feel it’s part of a recovery from the almost supine attitude that most people here adopted in the years after 9/11.

During those years, in response to demands for security from a terrified public, the American “deep state” grew almost exponentially, at a cost so staggering no one seems able to produce a reliable estimate, the Washington Post reported following a two-year investigation.

Checkpoint refusals

Today, though, Americans seem to be rediscovering their sense of independence, and technology is the heavy weapon in their push-back. Just as their government has used it to obliterate the notion of privacy, resourceful citizens have turned the electronic eye back on agents of the state.

The biggest and most successful crusader of all, of course, is Edward Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor whose unprecedented revelations forced a White House-ordered review of intelligence gathering. On Friday, President Barack Obama is expected to announce changes at the NSA, the largest, most powerful and most intrusive secret agency in history.

These changes clearly would not be happening were it not for Snowden, who said he acted to protect the U.S. Constitution. He’s a fugitive now, in Moscow, but back here in America, other Americans are acting, too, and citing the same motive. These activists range from hard-conservative gun rights types, who carry copies of the Constitution in their pockets, to left-leaning civil liberties advocates. They triumphantly upload video trophies of their confrontations to the internet. You could spend an entire day just watching all this recorded disobedience on YouTube, and only view a fraction of it. Quite a few show “checkpoint refusals” at roadblocks erected by police looking for drunken drivers, or by federal agents hunting illegal aliens.

Courts here have held that police have the right to operate such stops. But the courts have also ruled that citizens are free to remain silent, and can refuse to allow searches and ignore orders to submit to “secondary inspections” unless police detain them — which requires the higher hurdle of reasonable suspicion or probable cause to believe an offense has been committed.

Police not happy

In these videos, it’s clear that what is really at issue for police is the challenge to their authority. Contempt of Cop, as the practice is known in libertarian circles, provokes the same rage at checkpoints that Snowden’s media interviews arouse in national security officials. And the reason for it is clearly the same: defiance, to authorities, sets an intolerable precedent.

In several of these videos, some of which have made television newscasts, police can barely contain their anger, voices rising as they yell orders at stubborn motorists who exercise their right to remain silent.

Like NSA leaker Edward Snowden, regular Americans are pushing back against authority.

Americans are developing a new backbone.

“It’s a right to privacy, it’s a right to simply refuse to co-operate and answer questions,” explained David Loy of the San Diego branch of the American Civil Liberties Union to a television interviewer there.

“We think that checkpoints, suspicion-less checkpoints, are the hallmark of a police state, not a free society.”

Russell & Patricia Caswell

Much worse are the “forfeiture” rackets that have been used by some police here to separate people from their money and property, even if no offence is charged.

It’s called civil forfeiture, a federal law from the mid-1980s, and in some states police salaries have been directly tied to how much loot they can grab, according to investigations by such diverse groups as the New Yorker magazine and the libertarian Institute for Justice (founded by a former Ronald Reagan administration official).

Citizen complaints and media exposure, however, are spoiling the fun, and federal authorities have begun crackdowns.

Canadian Visitors Take Note

Public rebelliousness has surged here in the past, of course.

Police overreach and abuse has been an issue in American life going back to the Vietnam War demonstrations and beyond.

In New York City, for example, the municipal government is still paying out tens of millions of dollars to hundreds of people who were unjustly arrested for demonstrating during the Republican National Convention in 2004.

In that case, too, private citizens recorded the action. In fact, evidence is emerging that undercover agents actually provoked some of the violence that served as a pretext for arrests.

The ACLU says police are increasingly aware, and angry, about people attempting to capture abuse on video. (In Nebraska, only a third party’s pictures from a neighbour across the street helped convict police who seized and destroyed video taken of their warrantless actions at a private residence.)

However, for all its encouragement of citizens to assert their rights, the ACLU warns that it can come with a price.

While disrespect for law enforcement is no crime here (that was settled by the courts decades ago), challenges to authority are still often answered with a disorderly conduct or obstruction of justice citation.

And while the U.S. Constitution applies to everyone on U.S. soil, Canadian visitors might want to take a more defensive approach (like don’t drive your own car in certain southern states, don’t carry a lot of valuables, and if you run into a checkpoint, be nice and obedient).

Unlike U.S. citizens, visitors are here by permission, and that can be revoked for any reason, or none at all.

Also, carrying a smartphone can’t hurt.

Olympia, WA (1-19-14) — It was a cool grey Sunday typical of Western Washington’s winters, but it didn’t rain on the parade festooned crowd of 400-500 supporting Constitutional guarantees to bear arms or their WSP onlookers. The 2-hour rally was entirely civil, which might be expected from a crowd armed with every description and variety of open carry firearms. Some speakers were naturally more articulate than others. Despite all the firepower present, one couldn’t have found a calmer more secure atmosphere to air differences over an ongoing hotly debated topic: The 2nd Amendment guarantee for a free citizenry to bear arms to defend against ALL enemies, both foreign and domestic–not a collective right, mind you, but an individual right as enunciated not so long ago by our own U.S. Supreme Court when asked to consider the issue.

Perhaps the most articulate speaker pleaded with attendees to take the time to educate their neighbors, children, friends, and legislators in order to preserve a fundamental liberty interest held by all truly free people. The crowd was composed mostly of whites with a sprinkling of Hispanics and brown skinned people, but no blacks. Despite this disparity, there were babies, toddlers, children, teens, women, mothers, parents, grand-parents, senior citizens (a few in wheel chairs), bikers, veterans, the good, the bad, and the ugly–all passionately American willing to stand up and be counted for our inalienable rights even in the face of the most extreme hopliphobes. Yes, King Leonidas was there–at least in spirit.

The following photos speak louder than this keyboard. They have a story to tell. Are you listening?

KIRO News showed up with a pretty large video camera and tripod. The Honda pictured above had a young white male driver shouting profanities at the rally participants as he drove by with his window down. He didn’t pause/park as it appeared he didn’t want a dialog, but only to vent. The crowd remained unflapped and determined.

Vietnamese Malware Gets Very Personal

The Anatomy of Government Duplicity

Though NSA targeting of 100’s of thousands of off-line computers through surreptitious micro-circuitry has been exposed, and its retention of phone conversations, not simply meta-data of those calls has yet to be revealed, the unsung other shoe has dropped. The NSA is not the only government agency to spy on citizens, treating them as the ‘enemy’–not by a long shot. Viet Nam’s government isn’t willing to take a back seat to anyone when it comes to surveillance, oppression, intrigue, and targeting dissidents.

Life of the Party

As encryption has become more prevalent in online communications as a countermeasure against surveillance, attackers have sought to circumvent these measures by covertly installing malware on targeted computers that can log keystrokes, remotely spy on users with their own webcams, record Skype calls, and listen in on the computer’s built-in microphone. Sometimes the attacker is a criminal, such as the hacker who used a remote access tool (RAT) to take blackmail photos of Miss Teen USA. Sometimes the attacker is acting in support of a state, like the pro-Assad hackers whose malware campaigns against opposition supporters; EFF [Electronic Frontier Foundation]  has been tracking this for the last two years. Sometimes the attacker is the government or a law enforcement agency. For example, the NSA’s Tailored Access Operations unit uses covertly-installed malware to spy on targets.

Malware is a tool that most states have in their toolbox, and Vietnam is no exception. For the last several years, the communist government of Vietnam has used malware and RATs to spy on journalists, activists, dissidents, and bloggers, while it cracks down on dissent. Vietnam’s Internet spying campaign dates back to at least March 2010, when engineers at Google discovered malware broadly targeting Vietnamese computer users. The infected machines were used to spy on their owners as well as participating in DDoS attacks against dissident websites. The Vietnamese government has cracked down sharply on anti-government bloggers, who represent the country’s only independent press. It is currently holding 18 bloggers and journalists, 14 from a year earlier, according to a report issued by the Committee to Protect Journalists in 2013.

EFF has written extensively about the worsening situation for bloggers in Vietnam, supporting campaigns to free high-profile bloggers such as Le Quoc Quan and Dieu Cay, and criticizing Vietnam’s Internet censorship bill. This report will analyze malware targeting EFF’s own staff, as well as a well-known Vietnamese mathematician, a Vietnamese pro-democracy activist, and a Vietnam-based journalist at the Associated Press.

A Campaign Targeting EFF and Associated Press

Let’s begin with the attack targeting EFF staffers. This marks the first time EFF detected a targeted malware attack against the organization by what appear to be state-aligned actors.

On December 20th, 2013, two EFF staffers received an email from “Andrew Oxfam,” inviting them to an “Asia Conference,” and inviting them to click on a pair of links which were supposed to contain information about the conference and the invitation itself. These links were especially suspicious because they were not hosted on Oxfam’s domain, but instead directed the invitee to a page hosted on Google Drive, seen below. In addition, this email contained two attachments purporting to be invitations to the conference.

This targeting is especially interesting because it demonstrates some understanding of what motivates activists. Just as journalists are tempted to open documents promising tales of scandal, and Syrian opposition supporters are tempted to open documents pertaining to abuses by the Assad regime, human rights activists are interested in invitations to conferences. For greater verisimilitude, the attacker should have included an offer to pay for flights and hotels.

Both attachments are the same:

351813270729b78fb2fe33be9c57fcd6f3828576171c7f404ed53af77cd91206 Invitation.hta
351813270729b78fb2fe33be9c57fcd6f3828576171c7f404ed53af77cd91206 Location.hta

The detection rate for this malware is very low, using VirusTotal, we see only one anti-virus vendor out of a possible 47 detecting this as of 19 January 2014.

The same malware was also sent to an Associated Press reporter, masquerading as a Human Rights Watch paper.

In this attack, clicking the link in the email takes the user to the malicious HTML application (.hta) file.

The file meta-data reveals the following information:

Invitation.hta: Composite Document File V2 Document, Little Endian, Os: Windows, Version 6.1, Code page: 1252, Template: Normal, Revision Number: 2, Name of Creating Application: Microsoft Office Word, Total Editing Time: 01:00, Create Time/Date: Mon Nov 19 05:02:00 2012, Last Saved Time/Date: Mon Nov 19 05:02:00 2012, Number of Pages: 3, Number of Words: 395, Number of Characters: 2258, Security: 0

This HTML application contains an encoded executable and also contains a Microsoft Word document named “baviet.doc”:

When the recipient runs the attachment it drops the following files:

C:UsersadminAppDataLocalTempbaiviet.doc
C:UsersadminAppDataLocalTempxftygv.exe

When “baviet.doc’ is displayed and “xftygv.exe” is run, it causes the following files to be installed:

C:Program FilesCommon Filesmicrosoft sharedinkInkObj.dat
C:UsersadminAppDataLocalTemp1959.tmp
C:UsersadminAppDataLocalTemp19A8.tmp
C:UsersadminAppDataLocalTemp1A65.tmp
C:UsersadminAppDataLocalTemp1D72.tmp
C:UsersadminAppDataRoamingHTML Helphelp.dat
C:UsersadminAppDataRoamingKuGou7status.dat
C:UsersadminAppDataRoamingMicrosoftMedia PlayerPLearnL.DAT
C:UsersadminAppDataRoamingMicrosoftWerfaultWerFault.exe
C:WindowsPerformanceWinSATDataStoreFormal.Assessment.WinSAT.xml
C:WindowsPerformanceWinSATShaderCache.vs_3.0
C:WindowsSystem32api-ms-win-core-xstate-l1-1-0.bin
C:WindowsSystem32odbccr64.dll

Several registry changes are made to enable the malicious implant to persist after reboot and the file api-ms-win-core-xstate-l1-1-0.bin is written into the process space of explorer.exe which then instantiates an outbound connection on port 443 to yelp.webhop.org.

At the time of the report, this domain pointed to 62.75.204.91 which hosted the following domains:

tripadvisor.dyndns.info, neuro.dyndns-at-home.com, foursquare.dyndns.tv, wowwiki.dynalias.net, yelp.webhop.org

This has been used as a command and control server for other Vietnamese-affiliated malware:

82f0db740c1a08c9d63c3bb13ddaf72c5183e9a141d3fbd1ffb9446ce5467113 bai viet.hta
9c07d491e4ddcba98c79556c4cf31d9205a5f55445c1c2da563e80940d949356 Unhotien.doc

Examining this malware reveals a relationship to earlier campaigns targeting Vietnamese activists.

Targeting of Vietnamese Bloggers

In February of 2013, a Vietnamese blogger and mathematics professor, received the following email:

Like the malware targeting the EFF and the Associated Press, the attachment was an HTML Application. In this case, the attachment was compressed with 7zip.

2fa7ad4736e2bb1d50cbaec625c776cdb6fce0b8eb66035df32764d5a2a18013 Thu moi.7z

extracted:

dd100552f256426ce116c0b1155bcf45902d260d12ae080782cdc7b8f824f6e1 Thu moi.hta

The file meta-data reveals the following information:

Thu moi.hta: Composite Document File V2 Document, Little Endian, Os: Windows, Version 6.1, Code page: 1252, Author: pluto, Template: Normal, Last Saved By: pluto, Revision Number: 2, Name of Creating Application: Microsoft Office Word, Total Editing Time: 07:00, Create Time/Date: Thu Mar 1 05:02:00 2012, Last Saved Time/Date: Thu Jan 24 09:28:00 2013, Number of Pages: 3, Number of Words: 277, Number of Characters: 1584, Security: 0

As with the EFF and AP attacks, the HTML application contains an encoded executable ( “zzpauvooos.exe”) and a document (“Doc loi.doc”).

Running “Thu moi.hta” displays “Doc loi.doc” and also drops the following files:

C:UsersadminAppDataLocalTempDoc loi.doc
C:UsersadminAppDataLocalTempzzpauvooos.exe

When “‘zzpauvooos.exe” is run, it drops the following file:

C:UsersadminAppDataLocalTempC947.tmp

And then following command is run:

“C:UsersadminAppDataLocalTempC947.tmp” –helpC:UsersadminAppDataLocalTempzzpauvooos.exe D1DF15E4D714BFDB764ECF92AE709D14BCA3E0E6C759CF7C675BE26D0296A63C3B147110AC79543CC31527651D66787152102A66C33710233BD64912707D4E60

Then the following files are dropped onto the system and the original executable is deleted:

C:UsersadminAppDataRoamingCommon Filesdefrag.exe
C:UsersadminAppDataRoamingIdentities{116380ff-9f6a-4a90-9319-89ee4f513542}disk1.img
C:WindowsTasksScheduledDefrag.job
C:WindowsTasksScheduledDefrag_admin.job

Values are inserted into the Windows registry for persistence and the main implant, disk1.img, contacts the remote command and control domain, static.jg7.org, on port 443/tcp.

A prominent Vietnamese pro-democracy blogger living in California was successfully targeted by this attack, which led to the compromise of her blog and the invasion of her private life.

The group behind these attacks appears to have been operating since late 2009, and has been very active in the targeting of Vietnamese dissidents, people writing on Vietnam, and the Vietnamese diaspora. This appears to be the work of a group commonly known as “Sinh Tử Lệnh” and while it has been alleged to be the work of Chinese actors, it feels more like the work of Vietnamese targeting Vietnamese.

EFF is greatly disturbed to see targeted malware campaigns hitting so close to home. While it is clear this group has been targeting members of the Vietnamese diaspora for some time, these campaigns indicate journalists and US activists are also under attack. While longtime activists and journalists might expect to be targeted by a state they regularly criticize, it appears a single blog post is enough to make you a target for Vietnamese spying.

A low grade civil war is afoot in America’s streets. While the stock market has reached historical peaks, homelessness, especially among young adults, has never been higher. With a spate of new ‘anti-poverty’ laws by various municipalities, the homeless are virtually now criminals by definition.

Foreclosures in Washington State continue to rise. Unemployment, instead of yielding to reduction, is falling off the radar as benefits are cut/eliminated and the long term unemployed (no longer counted) finally give up hope altogether. Food stamps are being cut and pensions stolen either outright through chapter 11 filings or by the fiat of converting defined benefits to the vagaries of the marketplace. Those who have worked their entire lives to secure some degree of certainty in their old age are witnessing the wholesale decimation of their nest eggs. Geezers don’t riot. Incredibly, the pensions of retired veterans are on the block. Some U.S. legislators propose to dishonor its promises to those who risked their lives to defend it.

Even conservative economists now assert the unprecedented gulf in resources available to the nation’s swells and the poor is crippling recovery. Is this a temporary stumbling block or an ominous failure of the foundation sustaining America as we know it? Will those who anticipated such a calamity simply be dispossessed as were Japanese Americans during WWII and many modern day erstwhile allies (dictators in the service of U.S. interests)? Any number of U.S. citizens have tales to tell of their homes/assets being seized with virtually no due process through kangaroo courts if provided even that fig leaf of legitimacy.

And that’s what’s going down during the ‘good’ times. Yet, America has a deplorable historical record during bad times or when its back is against the wall–especially for a nation which habitually manages by crisis. To paraphrase Lincoln, can a house divided against itself long stand? Will America succumb to temporarily gratify a false sense of entitlement held by the few? Will the man who steals a goose from the commons continue to face jail while those who steal the entire commons are rewarded?

Paper Wealth on the Rocks

by N. Morgan

If an economic collapse occurs, many things in this country and in the world will change and change drastically. There are some primary events, that could determine exactly how these things will happen. They would include major collapses in the bond and stock markets and possible sudden deflation (primarily of assets), followed by dramatic inflation, if not hyperinflation (primarily of commodities), followed by a crash of several major currencies, particularly the euro and the US dollar.

However, secondary events are less certain, but likely to occur, are: increased unemployment, currency controls, protective tariffs, severe depression, etc.

The other factors are how the govt. would handle such events. If they panic, we could be on total lock-down. If they feel they need to put the hammer down, as it were, we could be living in a total police state, prison society. [Some argue this slide is well underway.]

Here’s a list of possible scenarios that I found:

• Travel Restrictions. This will begin with restrictions on foreign travel, including suspension/removal of passports. (This has begun in a small way in both the EU and US.) Later, travel restrictions will be extended within the boundaries of countries (highway checkpoints, etc.)

• Confiscation of wealth. The EU has instituted the confiscation of bank accounts, which can be expected to become an international form of governmental theft. This does not automatically mean that other assets, such as precious metals and real estate will also be confiscated, but it does mean that the barrier for confiscation has been eliminated. There is therefore no reason to assume that any asset is safe from any government that approves theft through bail-ins.

• Food Shortages. The food industry operates on very small profit margins and survives only as a result of quick payment of invoices. With dramatic inflation, marginal businesses (suppliers, wholesalers, and retailers) will fall by the wayside. The percentage of failing businesses will be dependent upon the duration and severity of the inflationary trend.

• Squatters Rebellions. A dramatic increase in the number of home and business foreclosures will result in homelessness for anyone whose debt exceeds his ability to pay—even those who presently appear to be well-off. As numbers rise significantly, a new homeless class will be created amongst the former middle class. As they become more numerous, large scale ownership of property may give way to large scale “possession” of property.

• Riots. These will likely happen spontaneously due to the above conditions, but if not, governments will create them to justify their desire for greater control of the masses.

• Martial Law. The US has already prepared for this, with the passing of the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which many interpret as declaring the US to be a “battlefield.” The NDAA allows the suspension of habeas corpus, indefinite detention, and the assumption that any resident may be considered an enemy combatant. Similar legislation may be expected in other countries that perceive martial law as a solution to civil unrest.

It could turn into chaos and anarchy, giving the authorities reason to implement Martial Law or institute crazy restrictions, such as travel, etc. Taking our bank accounts and assets is yet another awful possibility.

Below is a video with some tips on food storage in preparation for a financial collapse.