Congressman wants safeguards for privacy; targets NDAA.

The House of Representatives has approved an amendment to the draconian National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that will limit the Department of Defense from using data collected by unmanned spy drones against Americans.

The Amendment, introduced by Congressman Landry (R-LA), will prohibit information collected by DoD drones without a warrant from being used as evidence in court.

The amendment, was approved early Thursday afternoon along with 19 other en bloc amendments, reads:

“Notwithstanding any other provision of law, information acquired by an unmanned aerial vehicle operated by the Department of Defense may not be admitted in a Federal court, State court, or court of a political subdivision of a State as evidence against a United States citizen unless such information was obtained by such unmanned aerial vehicle pursuant to a court order.”

Landry’s amendment is an important one given that a recently uncovered Air Force documentcontends that the Pentagon can use drones to monitor the activities of Americans.

CONTINUED at Prison Planet.

Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., has a status update for Facebook co-founderEduardo Saverin: Stop attempting to dodge your taxes by renouncing your U.S. citizenship or never come to back to the U.S. again.

In September 2011, Saverin relinquished his U.S. citizenship before the company announced its planned initial public offering of stock, which will debut this week. The move was likely a financial one, as he owns an estimated 4 percent of Facebook and stands to make $4 billion when the company goes public. Saverin would reap the benefit of tax savings by becoming a permanent resident of Singapore, which levies no capital gains taxes.

At a news conference this morning, Sens. Schumer and Bob Casey, D-Pa., will unveil the “Ex-PATRIOT” – “Expatriation Prevention by Abolishing Tax-Related Incentives for Offshore Tenancy” – Act to respond directly to Saverin’s move, which they dub a “scheme” that would “help him duck up to $67 million in taxes.”

The senators will call Saverin’s move an “outrage” and will outline their plan to re-impose taxes on expatriates like Saverin even after they flee the United States and take up residence in a foreign country. Their proposal would also impose a mandatory 30 percent tax on the capital gains of anybody who renounces their U.S. citizenship.

The plan would bar individuals like Saverin from ever reentering the United States again.

“Eduardo recently found it more practical to become a resident of Singapore since he plans to live there for an indefinite period of time,” Tom Goodman, Saverin’s spokesman, told Bloomberg News in an email.

Last year 1,700 people renounced their U.S. citizenship.

Source: ABC News.

Opponents of a U.S. law they claim may subject them to indefinite military detention for activities including news reporting and political activism persuaded a federal judge to temporarily block the measure.

U.S. District Judge Katherine Forrest in Manhattan yesterday ruled in favor of a group of writers and activists who sued President Barack Obama, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and the Defense Department, claiming a provision of the National Defense Authorization Act, signed into law Dec. 31, puts them in fear that they could be arrested and held by U.S. armed forces.

The complaint was filed Jan. 13 by a group including former New York Times reporter Christopher Hedges. The plaintiffs contend a section of the law allows for detention of citizens and permanent residents taken into custody in the U.S. on “suspicion of providing substantial support” to people engaged in hostilities against the U.S., such as al-Qaeda.

“The statute at issue places the public at undue risk of having their speech chilled for the purported protection from al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and ‘associated forces’ – i.e., ‘foreign terrorist organizations,’” Forrest said in an opinion yesterday. “The vagueness of Section 1021 does not allow the average citizen, or even the government itself, to understand with the type of definiteness to which our citizens are entitled, or what conduct comes within its scope.”

CONTINUED at Bloomberg.

Fort Leonard Wood Public Affairs director Tiffany Wood has provided the first official response to the shocking U.S. Army document that outlines the implementation of re-education camps, admitting that the manual was “not intended for public release” and claiming that its provisions only apply outside the United States, a contention completely disproved by the language contained in the document itself.

Source: Prison Planet.

Document also describes forced labor.

A shocking U.S. Army manual that describes how “political activists,” including American citizens, are to be indoctrinated in re-education camps also includes rules on forced labor and separating political prisoners by confining them in isolation.

Aside from detailing how PSYOP teams will use “indoctrination programs to reduce or remove antagonistic attitudes,” as well as targeting “political activists” with indoctrination programs to provide “understanding and appreciation of U.S. policies and actions,” the manual directs political prisoners to be separated from the rest of the camp population.

On page 284, the manual (PDF) describes how “Malcontents, rabble-rousers, trained agitators, and political officers who may attempt to organize resistance or create disturbances within the I/R facility,” are to be confined “in isolated enclosures to deny them access to the general population.”

CONTINUED at Prison Planet. Written by Paul Joseph Watson.

A year ago, in Action Comics, Superman declared plans to renounce his U.S. citizenship.

“‘Truth, justice, and the American way’ – it’s not enough anymore,” the comic book superhero said, after both the Iranian and American governments criticized him for joining a peaceful anti-government protest in Tehran.

Last year, almost 1,800 people followed Superman’s lead, renouncing their U.S. citizenship or handing in their Green Cards. That’s a record number since the Internal Revenue Service began publishing a list of those who renounced in 1998. It’s also almost eight times more than the number of citizens who renounced in 2008, and more than the total for 2007, 2008 and 2009 combined.

But not everyone’s motivations are as lofty as Superman’s. Many say they parted ways with America for tax reasons.

The United States is one of the only countries to tax its citizens on income earned while they’re living abroad. And just as Americans stateside must file tax returns each April – this year, the deadline is Tuesday – an estimated 6.3 million U.S. citizens living abroad brace for what they describe as an even tougher process of reporting their income and foreign accounts to the IRS. For them, the deadline is June.

The National Taxpayer Advocate’s Office, part of the IRS, released a report in December that details the difficulties of filing taxes from overseas. It cites heavy paperwork, a lack of online filing options and a dearth of local and foreign-language resources.

For those wishing to legally escape the filing requirements, the only way is to formally renounce their U.S. citizenship. Last year, IRS records show that at least 1,788 people did, and that’s likely an underestimate. The IRS publishes in the Federal Register the names of those who give up their citizenship, and some who renounced say they haven’t seen their name on the list yet.

The State Department said records it keeps differ from those published by the IRS. They indicate that renunciations have remained steady, at about 1,100 each year, said an official.

CONTINUED at Reuters.

Lawmakers slam agency for treating Americans like “prisoners” and “cattle”.

The TSA ensured that a leading security expert, who has been vocally critical of the agency’s screening methods, was barred from speaking before a Congressional hearing yesterday.

The hearing, before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, was held Monday in an effort to evaluate the agency’s performance and address concerns raised by lawmakers, experts in the field, and members of the public.

Bruce Schneier, an internationally renowned security technologist and author, was scheduled to testify regarding the TSA’s security screening initiatives, but was “formally uninvited” at the last minute following a complaint by the agency.

“On Friday, at the request of the TSA, I was removed from the witness list,” Schneier wrote on his blog Monday.

“The excuse was that I am involved in a lawsuit against the TSA, trying to get them to suspend their full-body scanner programme. But it’s pretty clear that the TSA is afraid of public testimony on the topic, and especially of being challenged in front of Congress. They want to control the story, and it’s easier for them to do that if I’m not sitting next to them pointing out all the holes in their position. Unfortunately, the committee went along with them.” he added.

Schneier’s name appears on the official page for the hearing, but it has been crossed out.

CONTINUED at Prison Planet. Written by Steve Watson.

The Burmese government has committed serious abuses and blocked humanitarian aid to tens of thousands of displaced civilians since June 2011, in fighting in Burma’s northern Kachin State, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. Some 75,000 ethnic Kachin displaced persons and refugees are in desperate need of food, medicine, and shelter, Human Rights Watch said.

The 83-page report, “‘Untold Miseries’: Wartime Abuses and Forced Displacement in Burma’s Kachin State,” describes how the Burmese army has attacked Kachin villages, razed homes, pillaged properties, and forced the displacement of tens of thousands of people. Soldiers have threatened and tortured civilians during interrogations and raped women. The army has also used antipersonnel mines and conscripted forced laborers, including children as young as 14, on the front lines.

“The Burmese army is committing unchecked abuses in Kachin State while the government blocks humanitarian aid to those most in need,” said Elaine Pearson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “Both the army and Kachin rebels need to act to prevent a bad situation for civilians from getting even worse.”

CONTINUED at the Huffington Post.

Presidential hopeful Ron Paul has publically attacked the Obama administration’s abolishment of due process in a new editorial, calling the move a turning point in American history.

Responding to Attorney General Eric Holder’s recent justification for the extrajudicial killings of three American citizens on foreign soil, Republican Party candidate Ron Paul has penned a scathing op-ed condemning the White House for circumventing the US Constitution. Earlier this month Holder spoke at Chicago’s Northwestern Law School to discuss last year’s execution of alleged terrorist Anwar al-Awlaki and two other US-born clerics in Yemen, a decision he says the White House still defends despite criticism from citizens and lawmakers alike.

Although both US President Barack Obama and the CIA signed off on the airstrike that killed the American citizens, Washington has been relatively quiet on the matter until Holder spoke earlier this month.

After Attorney General Holder justified the assassination of Americans, a congressional inquiry revealed that Robert Mueller, director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, wasn’t certain that the same laws could be applied to killing Americans on US soil. With the FBI and Oval Office both hiding behind vague verbiage to allow the assassination of their own citizens, Ron Paul is critiquing what he calls a complete disregard of the Constitution.

“It is particularly bizarre to hear the logic of the administration claiming the right to target its citizens according to some secret selection process, when we justified our attacks against Iraq and Libya because their leaders supposedly were targeting their own citizens,” writes Rep. Paul. “We also now plan a covert war against Syria for the same reason.”

The congressman adds in his explanation that he is all for justice brought on those that threaten America or its people, but that the US Department of Justice has — and should continue — to view these issues on a case-by-case basis. On the contrary, argues Paul, it seems as if the president puts himself above all other branches of the federal government, essentially eliminating the system of checks and balances constructed by America’s forefathers.

Holder, says Paul, “tells us that this is not a violation of the due process requirements of our Constitution because the President himself embodies ‘due process’ as he unilaterally determines who is to be targeted. As Holder said, ‘a careful and thorough executive branch review of the facts in a case amounts to “due process.”’ That means that the administration believes it is the President himself who is to be the judge, jury and executioner.”

“Our civilian court system, with the guarantee of real due process, judicial review, and a fair trial, is our strength, not a weakness,”writes Rep. Paul. “It is not an impediment to be sidestepped in the push for convictions or assassinations, but rather a process that guarantees that fundamental right to be considered innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.”

After the CIA ordered and executed a “targeted kill” on Awlaki and alleged al-Qaeda operative Samir Khan last year, Ron Paul responded the same day to condemn the assassinations. “Nobody knows if he ever killed anybody,” Paul said at time. “If the American people accept this blindly and casually…I think that’s sad.”

Now that the US has formally acknowledged that it stands by the killing months later, the congressman seems to be even more concerned with the turn America is taking, describing Holder’s explanation as something “history likely will record as a turning point.”

Source: RT.

‘Council of Governors’ member McDonnell could try to sabotage anti-NDAA law.

The Virginia Senate has passed a law that forbids authorities in the state from using the ‘indefinite detention’ provisions of the National Defense Authorization Act against Americans, but whether or not Governor Bob McDonnell will sign it remains to be seen given the fact that he is a member of Barack Obama’s infamous ‘Council of Governors’, whose role it is to increase military involvement in domestic affairs.

“Today, the Virginia State Senate nearly unanimously passed my bill, HB 1160, to prevent Virginia’s state and local government agencies from cooperating with the federal government in the indefinite detention of Virginians under the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012 (“NDAA”). I am grateful that the vote in the Senate to accede to the bill as passed by the House of Delegates was 37-1,” said a statement by Delegate Bob Marshall, who was the driving force behind the bill.

“Congress, by including this provision in a must pass bill affecting our Armed Forces, made a terrible mistake in empowering this or any future President and the military to arrest and detain American citizens indefinitely, without charges, without the chance to confront their accusers, without legal counsel, and without a trial.”

Having already passed the Virginia House by a vote of 96-4 last month, the final bill will be sent to Governor Bob McDonnell. However, McDonnell has already attempted to sabotage the legislation using “secretive, backdoor” tactics, according to Marshall, so whether he agrees to sign the bill without trying to weaken its language remains to be seen.

The fact that McDonnell was included on President Obama’s infamous ‘Council of Governors’ probably explains why he has been so reticent to support the bill.

The executive order which established the Council of Governors (PDF), created a body of ten state governors directly appointed by Obama to work with the federal government to help advance the “synchronization and integration of State and Federal military activities in the United States”.

CONTINUED at Prison Planet. Written by Paul Joseph Watson.