Link de jour
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/201 ... ps_stories Wednesday, 09.25.13
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http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/09/25/3 ... links.html Graham: FBI held back Fla. 9/11 links
The former Florida senator accused the FBI in court papers of failing to give Congress details about a Saudi family in Sarasota and its possible connection to the attacks.
By Dan Christensen and Anthony Summers
Special to The Miami Herald
Former U.S. Sen. Bob Graham has accused the FBI in court papers of having impeded Congress' Joint Inquiry into 9/11 by withholding information about a Florida connection to the al-Qaida attacks that killed almost 3,000 people.
The information, first reported by BrowardBulldog.org in 2011, includes a recently declassified FBI report that ties a Saudi family who once lived in Sarasota "to individuals associated with the terrorist attacks on 9/11/2001."
"The FBI's failure to call [to the Joint Inquiry's attention] documents finding 'many connections' between Saudis living in the United States and individuals associated with the terrorist attack[s] . . . interfered with the Inquiry's ability to complete its mission, " said Graham, who was co-chairman of the Joint Inquiry.
Graham said the FBI kept the 9/11 Commission in the dark, too. He said co-chairmen Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton and executive director Philip Zelikow all told him they were unaware of the FBI's Sarasota investigation.
Moreover, Graham stated that Deputy FBI Director Sean Joyce, the Bureau's second-in-command, personally intervened to block him from speaking with the special agent-in-charge of the Sarasota investigation.
"I am troubled by what appears to me to be a persistent effort by the FBI to conceal from the American people information concerning possible Saudi support of the Sept. 11 attacks, " said Graham, who is also a former Florida governor.
Graham's remarks are contained in a 14-page sworn declaration made in a Freedom of Information lawsuit brought by BrowardBulldog.org in federal court in Fort Lauderdale.
The suit seeks the records of an FBI investigation into Esam Ghazzawi, a former adviser to a senior Saudi Prince - who, had he lived, was well-placed to become king - as well as Ghazzawi's wife Deborah and son-in-law and daughter Abdulaziz and Anoud al-Hijji.
The Ghazzawis owned the home in the gated-neighborhood of Prestancia, where the al-Hijjis lived until about two weeks before 9/11. Their hurried departure - leaving behind cars, furniture and personal effects - prompted neighbors to call the FBI.
News of the subsequent investigation did not surface until Sept. 8, 2011, when its existence was disclosed in a story published simultaneously by BrowardBulldog.org and The Miami Herald.
The story reported that a counterterrorism officer, as well as Prestancia's former administrator, Larry Berberich, said that gatehouse logs and photographs of license plates showed that vehicles used by the future hijackers had visited the al-Hijji home. Analysis of telephone records also linked the hijackers to their house, the counterterrorism officer said.
Graham told reporters in September 2011 that while Congress had relied on the FBI to provide all of its information about 9/11, he had not been made aware of the Sarasota probe.
After the story broke, the FBI acknowledged its investigation but claimed it found no evidence to connect the Ghazzawis or the al-Hijjis to the hijackers or the 9/11 plot. Agents maintained, too, that the FBI made all of its 9/11 records available to Congress.
The Freedom of Information lawsuit was filed last September, after the FBI declined to release any records on the matter.
In March, as the case moved toward trial this summer, the Bureau unexpectedly released 31 of 35 pages that it said had been located. The partially censored records flatly contradict the FBI's earlier public comments, and state that the Sarasota Saudis had "many connections" to persons allied with the hijackers.
Last month, the Department of Justice asked U.S. District Judge William Zloch to quash the lawsuit, citing national security and saying the FBI had identified and released all documents responsive to its Sarasota probe.
But in his declaration, Graham, a former chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said those few pages "do not appear to be the full record of the FBI investigation." He dismissed the government's assertion that it lacks further documentation as "entirely implausible."
"On a matter of this magnitude and significance, my expectation is that the FBI would have hundreds or even thousands of pages of documents, " Graham stated.
As evidence that records continue to be withheld, Graham cited a Sept. 16, 2002, FBI report about Sarasota that he was allowed to see after making inquiries at the FBI. That report should have been released, he said, but was not.
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http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/09/25/3 ... rylink=cpy CAIR-FL Says FBI Denied Todashev Friend the Right to an Attorney
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http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases ... 31422.html Muslim civil rights group calls on DOJ to probe denial of constitutional rights
TAMPA, Fla., Sept. 25, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Florida chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-FL) today called on the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) to investigate a pattern of "egregious" civil rights violations and abuse by the FBI targeting associates of Ibragim Todashev, who was shot and killed by an FBI agent after hours of interrogation in the Chechen immigrant's home.
Video: CAIR-FL Claims FBI Harassing Friends of Muslim Shot by Agency
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QCdlaQFXQE CAIR-FL reports that the alleged violations of constitutional rights included the denial of the Fifth Amendment right to an attorney.
According to CAIR-FL, a number of friends and associates of Todashev have come forward to complain of frivolous investigations, intimidation and unlawful threats by the FBI.
Most recently, Ashur Miraliev, who assisted Todashev's father, Abdul Baki Todashev, and drove the senior Todashev to all his meetings during his stay in Orlando, was arrested by the FBI on September 18. When informed of the arrest, CAIR-FL attorneys immediately contacted the U.S. attorney's office and the FBI and asked to speak to Miraliev and requested that he not be questioned without his attorney present.
Despite being his legal counsel, CAIR-FL attorneys were not able to meet with Miraliev until yesterday. At that point, CAIR-Florida learned that Miraliev was questioned for more than six hours after his arrest, not about any alleged criminal activity he participated in, but about everything he knew concerning Ibragim Todashev.
Since his arrest, and throughout the interrogation, Miraliev reportedly told the agents that he wanted to speak with his attorneys and that he wanted his attorneys present. The FBI agents allegedly responded: "That is not happening."
The Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution mandates that law enforcement authorities must cease any questioning of individuals in custody once they ask for an attorney and that they must be allowed to contact an attorney. CAIR-FL says FBI reportedly ignored Miraliev's repeated requests for an attorney and continued to question him in violation of the law.
CAIR-Florida Civil Rights Director Thania Diaz Clevenger, Esq., made the following statement:
"This egregious conduct by the FBI shows that some agents have little regard for the fundamental rights protected by the Constitution and are engaging in gross violations of the Bill of Rights. It is simply unacceptable for the FBI to continue to question our client and deny his requests to speak with his legal counsel. It fits the pattern of abuse and troubling behavior by FBI agents beginning in the days prior to the killing of the unarmed Ibragim Todashev. One can only wonder if Mr. Todashev was denied his rights to legal council during the questioning that ultimately resulted in his death."
While conducting its own independent investigation, CAIR-FL has received several corroborating reports from associates of Todashev that FBI agents have threatened to wrongfully arrest them unless they became informants and spied on local mosques, Muslim restaurants and hookah lounges.
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http://www.king5.com/news/cities/seattl ... 60782.html Seattle’s top FBI agent not happy about her record-setting stint
Seattle’s top FBI agent not happy about her record-setting stint
Credit: FBI
Laura Laughlin, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI in Seattle
Posted on September 25, 2013 at 3:44 PM
The woman who heads Seattle’s FBI office has been at the helm longer than any of her counterparts across the country.
Agent Laura Laughlin says that’s because she’s being discriminated against and not getting promotions that are being offered to less qualified males.
Her nine years as Special Agent-in-Charge (SAC) of the Seattle FBI office is longer than any other SAC has served in recent FBI history. Typically, SAC’s hold their jobs for two years or so before moving on.
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http://news-expressky.com/news/article_ ... 963f4.html FBI warns local students about ‘sexting’
Posted: Wednesday, September 25, 2013
Amid an apparent problem with “sexting” at a local high school, the FBI is warning students in Pike County they could face charges and other problems through the sharing of explicit photos and chats.
At an assembly at Pikeville High School on Monday, FBI agent Kimberly Kidd told a group of students from PHS and Shelby Valley High School that there could be severe consequences for sexting — the sharing of sexually-explicit photos by text messaging or other digital communication means — or engaging in sexually-explicit online chats. Kidd told the students they could faces charges, including child pornography charges, and could be charged as an adult even before they turn 18.
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... alers.html February 22, 2013
FBI agents caught sexting and dating drug dealers
Dating drug dealers, harassing ex-boyfriends with naked pictures, and pointing guns at pet dogs: these were just a few of the offences committed recently by serving FBI agents, according to internal documents.
The US provided officers from the Egyptian secret police with training at the FBI, despite allegations that they routinely tortured detainees and suppressed political opposition.
Disciplinary files from the Bureau's Office of Professional Responsibility record an extraordinary range of transgressions that reveal the chaotic personal lives of some of America's top law enforcers.
One male agent was sacked after police were called to his mistress's house following reports of domestic incident. When officers arrived they found the agent "drunk and uncooperative" and eventually had to physically subdue him and wrestle away his loaded gun.
A woman e-mailed a "nude photograph of herself to her ex-boyfriend's wife" and then continued to harass the couple despite two warnings from senior officials. The Bureau concluded she was suffering from depression related to the break-up and allowed her to return to work after 10 days.
“They tried to raise the specters of Joe McCarthy and J. Edgar Hoover”
http://www.fightbacknews.org/2013/9/25/ ... gar-hoover Jess Sundin on FBI repression
Statement by Jess Sundin |
September 25, 2013
Read more articles in FBI Repression
Jess Sundin speaking at Sept. 24 protest against FBI repression.
Jess Sundin speaking at Sept. 24 protest against FBI repression. (Fight Back! News/Staff)
Fight Back! is circulating a speech delivered by anti war leader Jess Sundin, at the Sept 24 protest in front of the Federal Building in Minneapolis. About 100 demonstrators demanded an end to the federal investigation of anti war and international solidarity activists.
First, I want to say how much it means to me that you are all here today. It reminds me of the morning my home was raided by the FBI: When Garrett was the first friend to arrive, and then so many of you gathered outside all of our homes. There was the press conference on our lawn that afternoon – Marie, you were there; and the solidarity meeting that same night at the old Walker Church. Thank you all for standing with us that day, and every day, against political repression.
Three years ago, they busted through our front doors, armed with battering rams, search warrants and grand jury subpoenas, and they turned our lives upside-down. They treated us like terrorists, and the entire anti-war movement like some kind of criminal enterprise. The government set out to silence all of us, and to clear the way for war. Thanks to 23 grand jury resisters, and thousands of supporters, they failed. We are walking around free, speaking out against the agenda of war for empire, and standing here united against political repression.
When they raided our homes, they took books, photographs, computers, political papers, sign-up sheets – “evidence” of who we know and what we think. None of us talked to the FBI that day, but we later learned about the McCarthy-era questions they had planned to ask us. They wanted to know about the political groups we’re involved in, and the people we’ve worked with here and abroad. Who are your leaders? When are your meetings? Who takes the notes? How do you indoctrinate people? Are you now, or have you ever been…? Well, I didn’t tell them, but I’m telling you: I am now, and I have been for quite a long time been! Everything they took that day, they kept copies of, no doubt catalogued in some FBI/NSA/fusion center database. In the case of our Chicago friend, Hatem Abudayyeh, much of his property was never returned – held for evidence in this on-going investigation.
Now how many of you share my misfortune, of having met the undercover agent, the spy who called herself Karen Sullivan? I won’t say on this microphone what I call her now, but I think you can imagine. For two years, every word she ever said to me was a lie. Every word she said to you was a lie. She came to our meetings and our protests, our hospital rooms and our birthday parties. For two years, she worked full-time to destroy the Anti-War Committee, Freedom Road, and every organization or community we ever worked with. She sabotaged a solidarity trip to Palestine, and she used her key to let the FBI into the Anti-War Committee office three years ago today. The raids on our homes and office were based on her word. I have no doubt that the only case they could have against me and my friends is one that this professional liar manufactured.
From the outset, U.S. Attorneys said they were pursuing “multiple indictments of multiple people.” When prosecutor Barry Jonas was confronted by protesters in Chicago earlier this year, he said he couldn’t comment on “ongoing investigations” and that he has 8 years to bring charges in our case. Back in 2010, when I refused to testify in secret before the grand jury, I believed I might be jailed for that decision. Thanks to all of you, that didn’t happen.
But, I never imagined that I would live for three years under a cloud of suspicion, as a subject of an endlessly ongoing investigation. In its latest statement, the U.S. attorney’s office says, “there are no public criminal cases stemming from the investigation.” It seems clear enough that criminal indictments might already be there in secret, under seal, just waiting for the right political moment to bring them out. We are here today to show that the right political moment will never come. There will never be an easy time to take us. Our friends in the people’s movements will never stand by quietly while we are locked away like criminals for opposing the crimes of U.S. wars.
We have already proven that we are stronger than them, that we can prevail.
We beat the grand jury, and its McCarthyite witch hunt. Not one of us testified. And not one of us was jailed for refusing. Why? Because we stood together, and you stood behind us. It was solidarity.
And with solidarity, we beat back the attack on Carlos Montes. The FBI agents investigating us cooked up new charges related to an old COINTELPRO case against our friend, a Chicano leader and anti-war activist from Los Angeles. They wanted to put him away for years, but thanks to pressure by people like you and me, he wasn’t sentenced to a single day in prison!
Time and again, they tried to raise the specters of Joe McCarthy and J. Edgar Hoover, but we refused to be haunted by those old ghosts. Instead, through solidarity, we set an example of how to respond in the face of attacks: No one betrays their friends and political colleagues by testifying at a grand jury. And rather than hide in the shadows, we took the streets to say no to the attacks on us, and no to every attack on the people’s movements.
We’ve spent the last three years building unity with others fighting against repression, from anarchists, occupiers and environmentalists, to those facing terrorism charges like ours. We were here at this very courthouse when Amina Ali and Hawo Hassan were shamefully sentenced to years for sending charity home to war-torn Somalia. We rallied right here on this sidewalk for the Holy Land Five, who seek freedom from long sentences won by the same prosecutor we’re up against in our case. And we’re standing by Lynne Stewart, in her just demand for compassionate release, so that she won’t die of cancer in prison for her work defending another target of the bogus war on terror.
None of these people have done anything wrong, and neither have any of us. Was it wrong to march on the RNC against war and occupation? No! Was it wrong to travel to warzones like Palestine and Colombia, befriending those most-impacted by US policies of war? No! And to this day, is it wrong to believe in a better world – where there is no war and no want, but lasting peace built on a foundation of justice? No!
The FBI raids three years ago and the grand jury, in some ways, they changed everything. But in the ways that matter, they changed nothing. Every one of us who was targeted on September 24 has remained committed to building the people’s movements. We have not been silenced, but instead, we have used our defense campaign as a platform for speaking out against empire and all the wrong it does in this world.
All of us know more today than we did when the FBI arrived on our doorsteps. Of course, some of us learned that they’re watching us, personally. But now we also understand that the government has come to view every American as a suspect, and every activist or community leader as a target. While the government operates behind a shroud of secrecy, our right to privacy is gone. Grand juries, spying and warrantless phone and email monitoring have become standard operating procedure for the government. And the whistleblowers – from Chelsea Manning to Edward Snowden – are putting their freedom on the line, so that we can know the truth. We are witnessing a broad attack on democratic rights in this country today, and our case is part of that.
Freedom fighters are called terrorists, and war criminals receive Nobel peace prizes. We say enough is enough. We don’t want to live one more day in this upside-down Bizarro World.
For three years, we’ve stood by our activism, and insisted we’ve done nothing wrong. Today, on the three-year anniversary, and on the eve of a new war, we recommit ourselves to building the people’s movements. We defeated the grand jury, we defeated the attack on Carlos Montes, and now, we must demonstrate their complete failure in silencing activism, opposition to war, and international solidarity.
Solidarity is under attack! What do we do? Stand up, fight back!
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http://www.chattanoogan.com/2013/9/25/2 ... n-Who.aspx Deputy Who Stopped Car Of Woman Who Says She Spurned Magistrate's Sexual Advances Must Serve 10 Months In Federal Prison
Wednesday, September 25, 2013
Josh Greeson
Josh Greeson
A Murray County deputy who stopped a car driven by a woman who said she had spurned the sexual advances of the Murray County chief magistrate has been sentenced to 10 months in federal prison. Authorities said then-Magistrate Bryant Cochran called Greeson and told him he could find drugs on the woman's car. Authorities said those drugs were planted.
Joshua Lamar Greeson, who earlier pleaded guilty to obstructing a public corruption investigation, appeared before Federal Judge Harold Murphy in Rome, Ga. He also must perform 100 hours of public service.
Judge Murphy said he had been prepared to impose a harsher sentence, but Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Herskowitz recommended that he get the low end of the 10-16 months sentencing range.
Judge Murphy rejected an idea by attorney Ed Marger of Jasper, Ga., that Greeson do five months in prison and five months on home detention.
The attorney said Greeson, "Other than his family, loves hunting and being a police officer. Those are both gone."
Greeson, 26, made a tearful statement in which he said, "I apologize for my part in this whole mess. From the bottom of my heart, I'm sorry for what I done."
His grandfather, who was with the state patrol for over 20 years, said when he talked with Greeson about the case, "I told him to tell the truth."
Greeson's wife of two years, Adrian, called him a good husband who is a faithful churchgoer.
Judge Murphy said it was a "most serious offense" and "reprehensible conduct on the part of a police officer." He added, "It's a most sad occasion."
Prosecutor Herskowitz said Greeson "violated the oath he took. For our system to work, police officers have to be someone the public can trust."
by fruhmenschen » Wed Sep 18, 2013 6:30 pm 