Judge Orders FBI to Explain Withholding Records of Occupy Houston Assassination Plot

Why Did FBI Monitor Occupy Houston, and Then Hide Sniper Plot Against Protest Leaders?

freespeechtv

Published on Mar 25, 2014

Transparency activist Ryan Shapiro discusses a growing controversy over the FBI's monitoring of Occupy Houston in 2011. The case centers on what the FBI knew about an alleged assassination plot against Occupy leaders and why it failed to share this information. The plot was first revealed in a heavily redacted document obtained by the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund through a FOIA request. The document mentioned an individual "planned to engage in sniper attacks against protesters in Houston, Texas." When Shapiro asked for more details, the FBI said it found 17 pages of pertinent records and gave him five of them, with some information redacted. Shapiro sued, alleging the FBI had improperly invoked FOIA exemptions.

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Transparency activist Ryan Shapiro discusses a growing controversy over the FBI’s monitoring of Occupy Houston in 2011. The case centers on what the FBI knew about an alleged assassination plot against Occupy leaders and why it failed to share this information. The plot was first revealed in a heavily redacted document obtained by the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund through a FOIA request. The document mentioned an individual "planned to engage in sniper attacks against protesters in Houston, Texas." When Shapiro asked for more details, the FBI said it found 17 pages of pertinent records and gave him five of them, with some information redacted. Shapiro sued, alleging the FBI had improperly invoked FOIA exemptions. Last week, Federal District Judge Rosemary Collyer agreed with Shapiro, ruling the FBI had to explain why it withheld the records.

Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to talk about your work around animal rights activism and getting information, but I want to first turn to Occupy Houston. You have been working on getting information from the FBI around Occupy Houston. The particular issue focuses on what the FBI knew about an alleged assassination plot in 2011 against leaders of Occupy Houston and why it failed to share this information. The plot was first revealed in a heavily redacted document obtained by the Partnership for Civil Justice through a FOIA request. It read, quote, "An identified [REDACTED] as of October planned to engage in sniper attacks against protestors in Houston, Texas if deemed necessary," unquote. When our guest, Ryan Shapiro, asked for more details, the FBI said it found 17 pages of pertinent records and gave him five of them with some information redacted. So, Ryan Shapiro, you sued, alleging the FBI had improperly invoked FOIA exemptions.
Last week, Federal District Judge Rosemary Collyer seemed to agree with you, when she ruled the FBI had to explain why it withheld records. She made reference in her ruling to David Hardy, the head of the FBI’s FOIA division, writing, quote, "At no point does Mr. Hardy supply specific facts as to the basis for FBI’s belief that the Occupy protesters might have been engaged in terroristic or other criminal activity. ... Neither the word 'terrorism' nor the phrase 'advocating the overthrow of the government' are talismanic, especially where FBI purports to be investigating individuals who ostensibly are engaged in protected First Amendment activity."
Ryan Shapiro, explain what the judge ruled and what "talismanic" means.

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Judge Orders FBI to Explain Withholding Records of Occupy Houston Assassination Plot

Fri, 3/21/2014 - by Carol Christian

This article originally appeared on Houston Chronicle

A federal judge has ordered the FBI to explain why it withheld some information requested by a graduate student for his research on a plot to assassinate Occupy Houston protest leaders.
Ryan Noah Shapiro, a doctoral student at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Mass., filed a lawsuit April 29, 2013, against the U.S. Department of Justice in the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C.
U.S. District Judge Rosemary M. Collyer issued her order, with an accompanying memo, on March 12.
The FBI, as part of the Department of Justice, controls the records Shapiro wanted for his study of "conflicts at the nexus of American national security, law enforcement and political dissent," the plaintiff's complaint stated.
Houston was among hundreds of U.S. cities where protesters occupied outdoor spaces as part of the Occupy Movement that started in New York's Zucotti Park on Sept. 17, 2011.
"The movement has sought to expose how the wealthiest 1 percent of society promulgates an unfair global economy that harms people and destroys communities worldwide," the complaint stated.
Shapiro said in his complaint that the existence of an assassination plot against Occupy Houston's leaders became known through the FBI's earlier release of information in response to a Freedom of Information Act request.
"According to one of the released records, ... [REDACTED] planned to gather intelligence against the leaders of the protest groups and obtain photographs, then formulate a plan to kill the leadership via suppressed sniper rifles...," Shapiro stated in his complaint.
Shapiro requested additional information from the FBI in January 2013.
"There is presently a vigorous and extraordinarily important debate in the United States about the authority of the government to conduct extrajudicial killings on American soil," the complaint stated.
"The records sought by plaintiff would likely be an invaluable contribution to the public discourse on this issue," Shapiro's complaint said. "It would also be a significant controversy if it was revealed that the FBI deliberately failed to act to prevent a plot to assassinate American protest leaders."


Read More Here

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Climate Science Exploited for Political Agenda, According to Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons

August 28, 2013

TUCSON, Ariz., Aug. 28, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Climatism or global warming alarmism is the most prominent recent example of science being coopted to serve a political agenda, writes Richard Lindzen of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the in the fall 2013 issue of the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons. He compares it to past examples: Lysenkoism in the Soviet Union, and the eugenics movement.
Lindzen describes the Iron Triangle and the Iron Rice Bowl, in which ambiguous statements by scientists are translated into alarmist statements by media and advocacy groups, influencing politicians to feed more money to the acquiescent scientists.
In consequence, he writes, "A profound dumbing down of the discussion…interacts with the ascendancy of incompetents." Prizes and accolades are awarded for politically correct statements, even if they defy logic. "Unfortunately, this also often induces better scientists to join the pack in order to preserve their status," Lindzen adds.
Lindzen discusses key aspects of the global warming models, including their dependence on the "globally averaged mean temperature anomaly"—that is the average of the differences between the average temperature for the year at each weather station and the 1961-1990 average for that station. This metric is used to create an influential graph that resembles the daily chart of stock indices, but is of dubious significance. The change in the anomaly is tiny against the perspective of the temperature variations we experience daily, Lindzen demonstrates.
In normal science, models are judged by how well they agree with nature, Lindzen explains. In the climate "debate," however, the models are given a claim to validity independent of agreement with real observations.
The highly oversimplified terms of the discussion in the policy arena "largely exclude the most interesting examples of historical climate change. The heavy intellectual price of the politicization of science is rarely addressed," writes Lindzen.
Lindzen writes: "Global climate alarmism has been costly to society, and it has the potential to be vastly more costly. It has also been damaging to science, as scientists adjust both data and even theory to accommodate politically correct positions. How can one escape from the Iron Triangle when it produces flawed science that is immensely influential and is forcing catastrophic public policy?"
Escape from climate alarmism will be more difficult than from Lysenkoism, in Lindzen's view, because Global Warming has become a religion. It has a global constituency and has coopted almost all institutional science. Nevertheless, he believes "the cracks in the scientific claims for catastrophic warming are…becoming much harder for the supporters to defend."

The Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons is published by the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) is a national organization representing physicians in all specialties, founded in 1943.

www.aapsonline.org

SOURCE Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS)
PDF

Science in the Public Square: Global

Climate Alarmism and Historical Precedents

Richard S. Lindzen, Ph.D

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Google’s Moto X Cell Phone is First Gen Listening Device

Susanne Posel
Occupy Corporatism
August 18, 2013
Motorola Mobility, owned by Google, have announced their new phone, Moto X that is a pioneer in surveillance technology.
Without draining the cell phone battery, Moto X can listen to everything within its vicinity.
Cell phones that monitor auditory environments can also discern between the phone owner’s voice and what room the phone is in by utilizing ambient noise analysis.
The software can decipher the mood of those speaking, access when to disturb the owner and record all conversations in the near future.
Pattie Maes, professor for the Media Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) explained : “Devices of the future will be increasingly aware of the user’s current context, goals, and needs, will become proactive—taking initiative to present relevant information. Their use will become more integrated in our daily behaviors, becoming almost an extension of ourselves. The Moto X is definitely a step in that direction.”
Carrier IQ has been installed in many cell phones which would mean that cell phone owners (CPOs) are transmitting user location, web searches and text messages that can be intercepted by any hacker or government agency.
Senator Al Franken pointed out that Carrier IQ violates the 4th Amendment and federal wiretap statues.
Google’s Android OS is vulnerable to such manipulation ; even to the extent of having all customer conversations recorded by the FBI or other surveillance agencies.
With Android being the most popular cell phone, the focus of attention by the FBI for surveillance operations is quite impressive.
This leaves millions and millions of Americans at the mercy of agencies that seek to illegally spy on them.
The Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) is inserting spyware into cell phones through links and email attachments to circumvent wiretapping court orders.
Read More Here

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Massachusetts Supreme Court Says Wiretap Statute Applies To Cell Phones

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court held that the state's wiretap statute allows for monitoring of cellular phone calls and text messages, despite not mentioning either in the text of the statute. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts recently ruled that a judge possesses the authority under the Massachusetts wiretap statute to issue warrants permitting the interception of cell phone calls and text messages, despite the fact that both forms of communication are not mentioned in the Massachusetts wiretap statute.

The defendant, Cory Moody and another defendant David Newman were separately indicted for violations of the Controlled Substances Act.  They were allegedly involved in an organized drug trafficking ring.  During the investigation, law enforcement procured warrants under the Massachusetts wiretap statute authorizing the interception of calls and text messages sent over the defendant’s cell phones. The defendants sought to suppress the evidence derived from the wiretaps on the grounds that the state wiretap statute, which was written before cell phones were invented, makes no mention of cell phones or text messages.  The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers filed an amicus brief in the case arguing “cellular phone communications and text messages are not ‘wire communications’” under the statute, and even if they are “Massachusetts state courts have no authority to issue wiretap warrants for such communications because the legislature did not update the statute as mandated by Congress.”

Read More Here

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