The Federal Reserve System Is A Massive Wealth Redistribution Scheme

BlackListedNews

During fiscal year 2012, $359,796,008,919.49 that had been forcibly extracted from American taxpayers was transferred into other hands. Most of it ended up in the pockets of the global elite. So what did the American people get in return for that 359 billion dollars? Nothing at all. No roads were built, no schools were constructed, no teachers were paid and none of it went to national defense. It was simply interest that was owed on the national debt, and most of it just made the ultra-wealthy even wealthier. But this is exactly what the Federal Reserve system was designed to do when it was created back in 1913. It was designed to get the U.S. government trapped in an endless spiral of debt that would systematically drain the wealth of the American people and transfer it to the ultra-wealthy and the international bankers. When most people think of a "wealth redistribution scheme", they think of a government raising taxes in order to give money to poor people. But the Federal Reserve system works in reverse. Money is taken from all of us and it is redistributed to the global elite. That is why a federal income tax was instituted the exact same year that the Federal Reserve was. Money is extracted from all of us through taxation, and then it is transferred from the federal government to the ultra-wealthy through debt payments. [MORE] 

So what role does the Federal Reserve system play in all of this?

Twenty Lies About the Iraq War

BlackListed News

Falsehoods ranging from exaggeration to plain untruth were used to make the case for war. More lies are being used in the aftermath

1 Iraq was responsible for the 11 September attacks

A supposed meeting in Prague between Mohammed Atta, leader of the 11 September hijackers, and an Iraqi intelligence official was the main basis for this claim, but Czech intelligence later conceded that the Iraqi’s contact could not have been Atta. This did not stop the constant stream of assertions that Iraq was involved in 9/11, which was so successful that at one stage opinion polls showed that two-thirds of Americans believed the hand of Saddam Hussein was behind the attacks. Almost as many believed Iraqi hijackers were aboard the crashed airliners; in fact there were none.

2 Iraq and al-Qa’ida were working together

Persistent claims by US and British leaders that Saddam and Osama bin Laden were in league with each other were contradicted by a leaked British Defence Intelligence Staff report, which said there were no current links between them. Mr Bin Laden’s “aims are in ideological conflict with present-day Iraq”, it added.

Another strand to the claims was that al-Qa’ida members were being sheltered in Iraq, and had set up a poisons training camp. When US troops reached the camp, they found no chemical or biological traces.

3 Iraq was seeking uranium from Africa for a “reconstituted” nuclear weapons programme

The head of the CIA has now admitted that documents purporting to show that Iraq tried to import uranium from Niger in west Africa were forged, and that the claim should never have been in President Bush’s State of the Union address. Britain sticks by the claim, insisting it has “separate intelligence”. The Foreign Office conceded last week that this information is now “under review”.

4 Iraq was trying to import aluminium tubes to develop nuclear weapons

The US persistently alleged that Baghdad tried to buy high-strength aluminum tubes whose only use could be in gas centrifuges, needed to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons. Equally persistently, the International Atomic Energy Agency said the tubes were being used for artillery rockets. The head of the IAEA, Mohamed El Baradei, told the UN Security Council in January that the tubes were not even suitable for centrifuges.

5 Iraq still had vast stocks of chemical and biological weapons from the first Gulf War

Iraq possessed enough dangerous substances to kill the whole world, it was alleged more than once. It had pilotless aircraft which could be smuggled into the US and used to spray chemical and biological toxins. Experts pointed out that apart from mustard gas, Iraq never had the technology to produce materials with a shelf-life of 12 years, the time between the two wars. All such agents would have deteriorated to the point of uselessness years ago.

6 Iraq retained up to 20 missiles which could carry chemical or biological warheads, with a range which would threaten British forces in Cyprus

Apart from the fact that there has been no sign of these missiles since the invasion, Britain downplayed the risk of there being any such weapons in Iraq once the fighting began. It was also revealed that chemical protection equipment was removed from British bases in Cyprus last year, indicating that the Government did not take its own claims seriously.

7 Saddam Hussein had the wherewithal to develop smallpox

This allegation was made by the Secretary of State, Colin Powell, in his address to the UN Security Council in February. The following month the UN said there was nothing to support it.

8 US and British claims were supported by the inspectors

According to Jack Straw, chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix “pointed out” that Iraq had 10,000 litres of anthrax. Tony Blair said Iraq’s chemical, biological and “indeed the nuclear weapons programme” had been well documented by the UN. Mr Blix’s reply? “This is not the same as saying there are weapons of mass destruction,” he said last September. “If I had solid evidence that Iraq retained weapons of mass destruction or were constructing such weapons, I would take it to the Security Council.” In May this year he added: “I am obviously very interested in the question of whether or not there were weapons of mass destruction, and I am beginning to suspect there possibly were not.”

9 Previous weapons inspections had failed

Tony Blair told this newspaper in March that the UN had “tried unsuccessfully for 12 years to get Saddam to disarm peacefully”. But in 1999 a Security Council panel concluded: “Although important elements still have to be resolved, the bulk of Iraq’s proscribed weapons programmes has been eliminated.” Mr Blair also claimed UN inspectors “found no trace at all of Saddam’s offensive biological weapons programme” until his son-in-law defected. In fact the UN got the regime to admit to its biological weapons programme more than a month before the defection.

10 Iraq was obstructing the inspectors

Britain’s February “dodgy dossier” claimed inspectors’ escorts were “trained to start long arguments” with other Iraqi officials while evidence was being hidden, and inspectors’ journeys were monitored and notified ahead to remove surprise. Dr Blix said in February that the UN had conducted more than 400 inspections, all without notice, covering more than 300 sites. “We note that access to sites has so far been without problems,” he said. : “In no case have we seen convincing evidence that the Iraqi side knew that the inspectors were coming.”

11 Iraq could deploy its weapons of mass destruction in 45 minutes

This now-notorious claim was based on a single source, said to be a serving Iraqi military officer. This individual has not been produced since the war, but in any case Tony Blair contradicted the claim in April. He said Iraq had begun to conceal its weapons in May 2002, which meant that they could not have been used within 45 minutes.

[MORE] 

Arizona Wants Birth Certificate to Vote, But Not For Weapons Permit

ColorLines

Should you have to show your birth certificate in order to register to vote? Yesterday, the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments over an Arizona state law passed in 2004 that requires proof of citizenship documents to determine voter registration legitimacy. The federal National Voter Registration Act says we only need to swear by affidavit that we are citizens, under penalty of perjury, to register to vote. But Arizona added the birth certificate test, mainly under the belief that unnaturalized immigrants were illegally registering and voting, despite any significant evidence supporting this. Instead, voting rights advocates say the law has made voting tougher for Latino- and Native Americans.

At issue is whether state voting laws can trump federal laws. If Arizona has its way, then copycat "proof of citizenship" laws could surface across the nation, creating unnecessary, additional burdens for voters, specifically people of color.

But on Monday, Justice Antonin Scalia -- who last month pejoratively referred to the Voting Rights Act as a "racial entitlement" -- said he saw nothing wrong with Arizona's law. Ryan Reilly at Huffington Post said Scalia mocked the existing federal perjury penalty saying, "So it's under oath, big deal. I suppose if you're willing to violate the voting laws you're willing to violate the perjury laws."

Despite some waffling on the matter by Justice Anthony Kennedy, many voting rights advocates came out convinced that the Supreme Court would strike down Arizona's law. Constitutional Accountability Center President Doug Kendall said:

"A majority of the Court, including Justice Kennedy, appeared to recognize that the entire point of having a single Federal form was to streamline the voter registration process, and that approving Arizona's law would pave the way for a patchwork of 50 state forms. We are optimistic that that recognition will lead the Court to strike down Arizona's law and respect Congress' power to protect the right to vote in Federal elections."

It should be noted that Arizona is where the extreme nativist Kris Kobach has pushed anti-immigrant laws like SB 1070 making life harder for people of color.

Also note, that while Arizona wants you to show a birth certificate to register vote, they don't care much about if you have one if you want to register for a [concealed weapons permit] (http://www.azdps.gov/Services/Concealed_Weapons/Permits/Obtain/) -- this in the land where former Congress member Gabby Giffords was shot along with thirteen others, six of whom were killed.

Obama Rebuffs Democrats on Drone Kill Memos, Asserts Executive Secrecy Prerogative

CitizensforLegitGov

President Barack Obama rebuffed senators from his own party Tuesday when they sought greater transparency on drone strikes, arguing that the executive branch has the right to keep such information secret from lawmakers, sources said. The assertion by Obama, more typical of his recent predecessors in the White House who wanted to withhold information, came in response to questions from Sens. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) and Pat Leahy (D-Vt.). Both lawmakers are deeply disturbed that the White House has maintained stringent restrictions on information about the nation's war on terror, and has refused to share with Leahy memos from the Office of Legal Counsel justifying the targeted killings of Americans with drones. Sources familiar with Obama's meeting with the senators -- who spoke on condition of anonymity because the meeting was private -- said the discussion was calm, although Rockefeller seemed especially dissatisfied with the stance of Obama and the White House. And Obama did not concede. [Right, Obama *never* concedes to Democrats--only Republicans.]

Maryland legislature votes to end death penalty

CNN

By a 82-56 margin, the Maryland House of Delegates voted Friday to ban the death penalty in that state. The bill now goes to the desk of Gov. Martin O'Malley, who has pledged to sign it.

"To govern is to choose, and at a time where we understand the things that actually work to reduce violent crime, when we understand how lives can be saved, we have a moral responsibility to do more of the things that work to save lives," O'Malley said at a news conference.

"We also have a moral responsibility to stop doing the things that are wasteful, and that are expensive, and do not work, and do not save lives, and that I would argue run contrary to the deeper principles that unite us as Marylanders, as Americans, and as human beings," O'Malley added.

NAACP President Benjamin Jealous called the action "what courageous, principled political leadership looks like," and Archbishop of Maryland William Lori said he applauded the general assembly "for choosing to meet evil not with evil, but with a justice worthy of our best nature."

Baltimore County state attorney Scott Shellenberger, a prominent opponent of the bill, said eliminating capital punishment was unnecessary, since Maryland's current policy is judicious and one of the "most restrictive in the country."

Since a law was passed in 2009, a judge can impose death in Maryland only if one of three factors exists: DNA evidence, a videotaped confession or a videotaped murder.

Maryland has executed only five people since 1976, one of whom Shellenberger prosecuted in the '80s, and has that many inmates currently on death row.

Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown called Friday "a great day for Maryland."

"We saw a death penalty, a long history of racial bias, inaccuracies, injustices, and today, we decided that as a state we could do better. Today is a victory for those who believe that fairness and truth and justice, and not retribution or bias, are fundamental to our core beliefs as Marylanders," Brown said.

Shellenberger said confining the racial argument to the state of Maryland, four studies on the issue have ascertained "no purposeful racial discrimination done on anyone in any of those cases."

And when it comes to the retribution argument, Shellenberger said he believes in "the deterrence of one," when a person is convicted of a heinous murder beyond a shadow of doubt, "Every person will never be subjected to that person killing again."

O'Malley introduced the legislation in January, and has pledged to sign the bill.

The state Senate approved the bill last week.

Maryland will become the sixth state in as many years to replace capital punishment with life in prison without parole. Currently, 33 states, plus the federal government and the U.S. military, have the legal option of imposing the death penalty, while 17 plus District of Columbia do not.

Coin Operated Negro Bobby Jindal Introduces Plan That Would Cut Taxes For The Rich, Raise Them On The Poor

ThinkProgress 

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) introduced a plan today that would axe the state’s corporate and personal income taxes, replacing them instead with an increase in the sales tax. Jindal had promised the total elimination of income taxes during his State of the State address in January, and despite studies showing that it such a change would directly benefit the rich at the expense of the poor, he has followed through on the plan.

Jindal said his tax reform would be revenue neutral, and the sales tax would be increased to 5.88 percent. Louisianans would still pay their local sales taxes as well, meaning some residents would face double-digit sales tax rates after Jindal’s reform, the New Orleans Times-Picayune reports:

The planned increase in the sales tax would raise the current rate by about 47 percent and would come on top of local sales taxes. Residents in New Orleans, for example, would pay a combined rate of about 11 percent under the plan.

Louisiana already has one of the highest combined average state and local sales tax rate in the country and the increase would put the state at the top of that list, according to information from The Tax Foundation.

The poorest Louisianans already pay more of their income in taxes than the richest, according to a study from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy that shows the bottom 20 percent of the state’s residents pay 10.6 percent of their income in taxes compared to just 4.6 percent for the top 1 percent of residents. Jindal’s plan would only skew the tax code further against the poor and middle class, since it would grant tax cuts to the rich while raising taxes on 80 percent of the state’s residents, according to ITEP.

Jindal said today that he would offset the increases some residents would face by providing rebates, but when ITEP conducted its preliminary study of his plan in January, it found that “any low income tax relief will likely be insufficient to offset the impact of the large sales tax hike necessary to make this tax swap revenue neutral.” Jindal isn’t the only Republican governor pushing such a plan. Republican governors in Nebraska and Kansas and the state legislature in North Carolina are also considering replacing income taxes with increased sales taxes.

Coin Operated Negro Jennifer Carroll resigns amid gambling probe

USAToday

Florida's lieutenant governor resigned and nearly 60 other people were charged in a widening scandal of a purported veterans charity that authorities said Wednesday was a $300 million front for illegal gambling.

Lt. Gov. Jennifer Carroll's resignation came a day after she was questioned in the investigation. Her public relations firm did work for the St. Augustine, Fla.-based charity Allied Veterans of the World, but she has not been accused of wrongdoing.

Authorities said the probe involved 57 arrest warrants and 54 search warrants issued at gambling operations in 23 Florida counties and five other states: Alabama, Georgia, Nevada, Pennsylvania and South Carolina.

Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi said charges, which will be formally filed next week, include racketeering, conspiracy, money laundering and possession of slot machines.

"It's callous and it's despicable," Bondi said of the alleged scam, which she said "insults every American who ever wore a military uniform."

Authorities refused to discuss any ties between Carroll, a 53-year-old Republican, and the investigation. Her aides had no immediate comment.

"You have the right to counsel, or do you?"

USAToday

The first face visitors see when they walk into the public defender's office here is a photo of Clarence Gideon, the drifter, drinker, gambler and thief who became a hero of American jurisprudence.

It was in his case, Gideon v. Wainwright, that the Supreme Court ruled 50 years ago this month that everyone accused of a serious crime has a constitutional right to a lawyer, whether they can afford it or not.

When he was charged with breaking into a pool hall outside Panama City, Fla., Gideon asked for a court-appointed lawyer. After the judge said no, he represented himself, was found guilty and sentenced to five years. From prison, he appealed to the Supreme Court, which took his case and ordered a new trial.

If he came back today, Clarence Gideon might rue the quality of legal representation he'd receive. He might not get any at all.

Such was the fate last year of some indigent criminal defendants who walked in the public defender's door here and past Gideon's gaze. They were told that, because of a shortage of staff lawyers, the office was turning down all but the most serious new cases. They were given a letter to show the judge.

Al Flora, Luzerne County chief public defender, says that ethically and legally he had no choice: His overburdened lawyers couldn't take on new clients and do justice to those they already had. He sued county officials — his bosses — to let him hire more lawyers and to stop them from retaliating against him.

The situation in Luzerne County reflects what experts say is a national crisis in indigent legal defense that has thwarted Gideon's promise of legal equality.

Many public defenders are overwhelmed by caseloads, and financially pressed states and counties are levying fees and applying means tests for granting counsel. "We're not calling the anniversary a celebration," says Edwin Burnette of the National Legal Aid and Defender Association. "There's nothing to celebrate."

A Goal of White Supremacy is the Greater Confinement of Non-Whites: Jury Finds District of Columbia Not Liable for Overdetentions at D.C. Jail

TheBLT

A Washington federal jury this week found that inmates were unconstitutionally overdetained at the D.C. Jail between 2007 and 2008, but that the District of Columbia government wasn't liable because they didn't find evidence of "deliberate indifference" to the inmates' rights.

In a class action first brought against the city in 2006, inmates at the D.C. Jail claimed officials had a practice of failing to release individuals on the date that their prison time expired and also of conducting blanket strip or visual cavity searches of inmates who were supposed to be released but were returned to the jail for processing.

Despite this week's loss, the plaintiffs had already won on some of their claims in the years leading up to trial. U.S. District Chief Judge Royce Lamberth granted the plaintiffs summary judgment on claims related to the strip searches and on the city's liability for overdetentions from 2005 to 2006. Lamberth granted the city summary judgment on claims of overdetentions from 2008 to the present.

The trial began on March 1 and the jury began deliberations on the afternoon of March 8. According to the verdict formverdict form entered on March 11, the jury found that from 2007 to 2008, the city did have a practice of overdetaining prisoners and also that actions taken by city officials were the "proximate cause" of those overdetentions.

However, the jurors didn't find evidence that officials were deliberately indifferent to the inmates' constitutional rights. Without that third element, the jury had to find in the city's favor.

Thomas Faust, the director of the city's Department of Corrections, said in a statement today that the department "is very gratified with the outcome of this case which acknowledges the progress made by the Department in eliminating the historical over-detention of inmates.”

A lead counsel for the plaintiffs, Williams Claiborne III of the Law Office of William Claiborne III in Washington, could not immediately be reached for comment today.

The case, Barnes v. D.C., wasn't the first time that the city faced litigation over overdetentions. In early 2006, Lamberth approved a $12 million settlement in a class action over overdetentions and strip searches between 2002 and 2005.

In Canada the Aboriginal prison population has increased 43 per cent in the past five years

Sentencing Project

In an editorial, writer Lisa Kerr called it a “scandal (that) the aboriginal incarceration in Canada is getting worse.”

“The Correctional Investigator has advised that the aboriginal prison population has increased 43 per cent in the past five years. Métis, Inuit and First Nations people make up 23 per cent of the prison population, although they comprise just 4 per cent of the population of the country.

“Levels of imprisonment in Canada’s aboriginal communities are higher than the overall incarceration rate in the United States — a nation that famously has the highest rate of imprisonment in the world and probably in history.

“The United States has also had to grapple with the concentration of imprisonment on racial minorities, particularly young black men. Recent evidence indicates that this may not be an intractable problem. On March 1 a rare piece of good news came from a report by Marc Mauer, executive director of The Sentencing Project.  Incarceration rates for black Americans dropped sharply from 2000 to 2009, especially for women. This improvement is attributed to drug law reforms and the restoration of some judicial discretion in sentencing.

“In Canada, we are moving backward: judicial discretion is on the chopping block and the Harper government has recently added mandatory drug sentences. These are not the reforms needed to address our aboriginal prison system.”

Polygraph Tests Contribute to False Confessions in Chicago

Innocence Blog

A recent Chicago Tribune investigation discovered that Chicago police have long been conducting polygraph exams, or “lie detector tests,” without adherence to standards, though the tests have contributed to wrongful convictions that have cost Chicago millions in damages.

Chicago Police polygraph examiners do not have their work reviewed by anyone else, and only a small percentage of the tests are recorded. Further, the examiners do not follow the nationally established protocols for conducting the tests. 

Juan Rivera, Kevin Fox, Nicole Harris and Gary Gauger were all wrongfully convicted based, in part, on the false confessions they gave after officials misled them into believing that they had failed their polygraphs. Donny McGee faced a trial for murder after a member of the Chicago polygraph unit falsely testified that McGee confessed in the polygraph room, before he could even take the test. McGee was found not guilty and DNA evidence later excluded him. 

Polygraphs have been implicated in multiple other cases of wrongful convictions nationwide. The Chicago Tribune reports:

But in the cases in which Chicago murder suspects went on to be cleared — some after spending years locked up — police polygraph examiners were accused of making up a confession, using “trickery” to get an admission and telling a suspect he failed a polygraph that an outside expert would later deem too poorly administered to determine its result.

In five of the six cases, suspects were taken to [polygraph examiner Robert] Bartik. Suspects said they were drawn in by the promise of the polygraph — which they believed was a scientific test that would prove their protestations of innocence were true. Instead, they allege in court documents and interviews, Bartik obtained confessions from them by berating them, threatening them and lying to them.

(no need to confront the drug chemist?) Crime Lab Scandal Leaves Mass. Legal System In Turmoil

NPR

A scandal in a Massachusetts crime lab continues to reverberate throughout the state's legal system. Several months ago, Annie Dookhan, a former chemist in a state crime lab, told police that she messed up big time. Dookhan now stands accused of falsifying test results in as many as 34,000 cases.

As a result, lawyers, prosecutors and judges used to operating in a world of "beyond a reasonable doubt" now have nothing but doubt.

Already, hundreds of convicts and defendants have been released because of the scandal. Now, the state's highest court may weigh in on how these cases should be handled.

"I don't think anyone ever perceived that one person was capable of causing this much chaos," says Norfolk County District Attorney Michael Morrisey, one of many DAs now digging through old drug cases, trying to sort out how many should now be considered tainted.

"You can see the entire walls full of boxes," Morrissey says, gesturing at dusty files piled six feet high in a conference room near his office. "In one of these cardboard boxes, there could be hundreds of cases ... in each box."

The cases represent nearly a decade's worth of work that could take years and tens of millions of dollars to review.

For Prosecutors, 'Unsettling And Maddening'

In Massachusetts, special courts have already heard hundreds of cases of convicts and defendants arguing they were denied due process. Their evidence, they argue, was handled — or mishandled — by Annie Dookhan.

In a recent hearing, public defender Julieann Hernon is arguing for release of a man charged with selling cocaine and heroin in a school-zone to an undercover officer. Hernon recites a list of alleged misconduct by Dookhan.

"It was, we now know, mistesting evidence, drylabbing evidence, saying she had conducted tests when she had not, deliberately tainting drugs," she says.

Hernon's client had pleaded guilty, but now, Hernon says, he should be allowed to take it back.

"Certainly, I think, we have to presume a taint here when Annie Dookhan was the chemist in the case," Hernon tells the judge.

The whole dynamic in court has now flipped in Massachusetts. Defendants tend to smile while prosecutors watch their cases crumble. Today, Norfolk County Assistant District Attorney Tom Finigan tells the court that the Commonwealth will not oppose Hernon's motion.

"It's unsettling and maddening, because you're now going to have a lot of people get released to the street prematurely," says Middlesex County District attorney Gerry Leone, one of many hoping the state supreme court will curb the releases.

While some defendants could still be on the hook for gun or assault charges, for example, he says most drug cases where Dookhan was the primary chemist will be impossible to re-prove beyond a reasonable doubt.

But Leone says it's unclear where to draw the line. Some offenders, he says, are just trying to jump on the bandwagon, arguing that every test from that lab should be considered tainted.

"If someone's in jail, they're doing downtime," Leone says. "So there's no reason to try to file something that gets you back before the court."

In another recent case, defense attorney William Sullivan successfully argued to withdraw a client's guilty plea in a case where Dookhan was a secondary chemist.

"This is a lab that was pretty much wholly and fully contaminated by Ms. Annie Dookhan," Sullivan told the judge. "She had full access to everyone's drugs."

While the judge decided in his client's favor, Sullivan is quick to add that clients like his also have plenty of reason to be bitter.

"The tragedy is that he's already did four years on this," Sullivan says. "I mean, that is disturbing in itself."

Other defendants have lost jobs, driver's licenses, kids and marriages, and many have been deported. And in federal court, many defendants received stiffer sentences, because of prior state convictions based on evidence from Annie Dookhan.

Thousands of drug cases may be overturned because DPS lab worker allegedly faked results

GritsforBreakfast

Grits has already expressed amazement that a scandal involving a fired DPS crime lab worker who allegedly fabricated test results - and who performed controlled substances testing in nearly 5,000 drug cases - has received so little press attention, suggesting that the episode may result in the courts overturning hundreds of cases with sentences collectively totaling more than 10,000 years. As it turns out, I may have underestimated the scope of this fiasco.

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals recently began overturning old convictions based on this episode, starting with instances where evidence was destroyed post-conviction, making retesting impossible. The general counsel at the Texas Forensic Science Commission has estimated that evidence was destroyed in 25-50% of cases where Jonathan Salvador performed testing. In several cases, however, including, e.g., one styled Ex Parte Patrick Lynn Hobbs, the high court ruled that, "While there is evidence remaining that is available to retest in this case, that evidence was in the custody of the lab technician in question. This Court believes his actions are not reliable; therefore custody was compromised, resulting in a due process violation. Applicant is therefore entitled to relief." In other words, it may not matter whether evidence is available for retesting or not.

If the court continues to apply that standard then virtually every case in which Mr. Salvador performed testing - some 4,944 cases in all from 36 counties - will be overturned because the evidence was tainted just by being in his custody! Truly, this is a mind boggling development, rivaling a similar episode in Massachusetts which has received much more publicity. The average sentence of defendants among the first 12 writs approved was eight years. If that average holds, nearly 40,000 years worth of drug sentences may eventually be overturned. Can you even imagine? How is it that Grits is the only media outlet covering this?

Reuters journalist indicted over Anonymous hack

Rt.com

The deputy social media editor for Reuters has been indicted by the US Justice Department for allegedly conspiring with members of the hacktivist movement Anonymous.

According to a Justice Department statement released on Thursday, 26-year-old Matthew Keys of Secaucus, New Jersey was charged in the Eastern District of California with a number of counts involving his alleged cooperation with the international hacking group while employed as the web producer of Sacramento-based television station KTXL FOX 40.

Keys, confirms the DoJ, has been charged “with one count each of conspiracy to transmit information to damage a protected computer, transmitting information to damage a protected computer and attempted transmission of information to damage a protected computer.”

The Justice Department believes that Keys assisted members of Anonymous with hacking into the Los Angeles Times website by providing them with log-in credentials for a computer server belonging to KTXL’s corporate parents, the Tribune Company, after he was terminated from his role at the television station in October 2010. Two months later, claims the indictment, Keys helped members of Anonymous gain access to the master network.

In January 2012, Keys was hired by Reuters as deputy social media editor. In an article announcing the appointment last year, Reuters contributor Anthony DeRosa wrote that Keys will "play a key role in helping to train Reuters journalists on best practices in social media."

“According to the indictment, Keys identified himself on an Internet chat forum as a former Tribune Company employee and provided members of Anonymous with a login and password to the Tribune Company server,” the Justice Department claims in an official statement issued Thursday. “After providing log-in credentials, Keys allegedly encouraged the Anonymous members to disrupt the website.  According to the indictment, at least one of the computer hackers used the credentials provided by Keys to log into the Tribune Company server, and ultimately that hacker made changes to the web version of a Los Angeles Times news feature.”

Blackwater was CIA's extension, founder Erik Prince admits

Rt.com

Erik Prince, founder of Blackwater - now known as Academi - claims his firm “became a virtual extension of the CIA,” taking orders from the agency.

In an interview published Thursday by the Daily Beast, Prince revealed how deeply connected Blackwater was to the Central Intelligence Agency, especially in the early 2000s. Last month, federal prosecutors dropped felony charges against Blackwater personnel after it was revealed that the employees had been acting under the orders of the US government. After a three-year-long prosecution, most of the company’s executives walked free and two men received nothing more than probation, house arrest and $5,000 fines.

But the tens of thousands of pages of court documents from the case shed light on an argument the company made throughout those three years – that Blackwater itself was an extension of the CIA.

“Blackwater’s work with the CIA began when we provided specialized instructors and facilities that the Agency lacked,” Prince told the Daily Beast.“In the years that followed, the company became a virtual extension of the CIA because we were asked time and again to carry out dangerous missions, which the agency either could not or would not do in-house.”

Initially, lawmakers believed the CIA was “looking for skills and capabilities, and they had to go to outside contractors like Blackwater to make sure they could accomplish their mission,” said retired Congressman Pete Hoekstra. But the relationship was in fact much closer than believed.

US war in Iraq costs over $2 trillion, 189,000 lives: Study

Citizensfor LegitGov

A new study has shown that the US war on Iraq has cost more than USD two trillion, including USD 490 billion in benefits owed to war veterans. The report released by the US-based Watson Institute for International Studies at Brown University stated that the amount owed to veterans may rise to USD six trillion over the next four decades if interest is included. The report, drawn up by about 30 academics, also said at least 189,000 people have been killed since the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.

"This War is Continuing": As U.S. Prepares 2014 Pullout, No End in Sight to Afghan Occupation

DemocracyNow

Monday marked the deadliest day for U.S. troops this year in Afghanistan after seven soldiers perished in two separate incidents. Five U.S. servicemembers were killed in a helicopter crash outside Kandahar city. Hours earlier, two U.S. soldiers were shot dead in a so-called insider attack at a special operations site in Wardak province when a person in an Afghan military uniform turned his gun on U.S. and Afghan forces. Three Afghan police officers and two army officers were also killed in the attack, according to a senior police official. The attack took place as a deadline expired for U.S. special forces to leave Wardak. Afghan President Hamid Karzai ordered their departure over accusations of the torture and killing of innocent people by Afghan forces under U.S. command. We’re joined by Heather Barr, the Kabul-based Afghanistan researcher for Human Rights Watch.

Non-white Guantanamo Bay prisoners on hunger strike over seizure of Qur'ans

CitizensforLegitGov

Detainees at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp are staging a hunger strike to protest the confiscation of personal items, including Korans, in early February, their lawyers and prison officials say. "My client and other men have reported that most of the detainees in Camp 6 are on strike, except for a small few who are elderly or sick," said Pardiss Kebriaei, a New York lawyer representing Ghaleb Al-Bihani, a detainee from Yemen. Interviewed by AFP, Robert Durand, director of public affairs for the Joint Task Force Guantanamo, said nine detainees were engaged in hunger strikes, five of whom were being [force-] fed through tubes inserted into their stomachs.

North Carolina's Voter ID Bill Has Finally Arrived

ColorLines

The voter ID bill we reported was heading for North Carolina has finally arrived. State Republicans, who hold a super-majority in the state's general assembly, announced last week they would move on the legislation they campaigned on to win that majority: Mandating photo ID for voters to cast ballots. Rep. David Lewis, who serves on the Republican National Committee, said they were going to "slow-walk" the legislation to make sure citizens adequately voice their concerns.

That stroll begins today with a public forum on voter ID legislation that starts this afternoon and is expected to go until late in the evening. Civil rights advocates argue that upwards of 500,000 of active North Carolinian voters -- a third of whom are African Americans, and two-thirds of whom are women -- lack a photo ID.

Rev. William J. Barber, who leads the state NAACP, has been working with a widespread grassroots coalition to organize voters in opposition to the pending law. Today, he said:

"We find ourselves at another Edmund Pettus Bridge today in North Carolina," said Rev. Barber. "This time, on our long march to a more democratic, more diverse, more humane society, those of us who picked up the baton from Viola Liuzzo, Jimmie Lee Jackson, Andrew Goodman, James Chaney, Mickey Schwerner and the hundreds who died to win the vote and the Voting Rights Act, are facing new barricades trying to block the way to a more perfect union through poll taxes disguised as voter ID, race-based gerrymandering, plans to roll back early voting, same-say registration and Sunday voting and attacks on the Voting Rights Act. This is what hypocrisy looks like. The multi-racial, re-emerging Southern Freedom Movement in North Carolina is what democracy looks like."

The civil rights coalition says they'll be pushing for legislation that expands ballot access, making voting an official constitutionally protected right, and making it more difficult for legislation that restricts ballot access to pass.

Michael Vick cancels book tour after death threats from white people

TheGrio

Michael Vick’s book-signing tour has been canceled because of threats against him for running a dogfighting ring.

The Philadelphia Eagles’ quarterback was scheduled to sign copies of his autobiography “Finally Free,” at Barnes & Noble stores in Atlanta, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. The March 26 appearance set for Exton, Pa., was listed as canceled on the company’s website.

A person with knowledge of the situation, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation, told The Associated Press the signings were scrapped because of threats against Vick and store employees. Vick served 18 months in federal prison for his role in running the dogfighting ring. According to court papers in the cases of Vick and his codefendants, Vick bankrolled the operation and joined others in killing dogs that didn’t perform well.

Byron Williamson, president of Worthy Publishing, tells Phillymag.com that “we cannot knowingly put anyone in harm’s way, and therefore we must announce the cancellation of Mr. Vick’s book-signing appearances.” Williamson says the threats of violence have been reported to the police.

The four-time Pro Bowl quarterback agreed last month to a restructured three-deal with the Eagles to remain with the team. A former No. 1 overall pick by Atlanta, Vick was signed by Philadelphia in 2009 after missing two season while in federal prison.

While there will always be staunch animal lovers who will never forgive Vick’s role in running a dogfighting ring, he has been largely embraced in Philadelphia. He revived his career and rehabbed his image without the protests and anger that followed immediately following his release from prison.

Since his release from prison in 2009, Vick has worked with The Humane Society of the United States to speak out against animal cruelty. He had made appearances at schools and spoken to students about the dangers of being involved in dogfighting.