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In this video commentary, I discuss how mosques are off-limits for FBI surveillance.

OAKLAND TWP. (WWJ) - Federal agents searching for the body of former Teamsters chief Jimmy Hoffa believe they are about to crack one of America’s biggest unsolved mysteries. CBS News has confirmed a suspicious concrete slab was retrieved by investigators from the Oakland Township field where they have been digging for any sign of Hoffa. It’s too soon, however, to know whether the slab is anything more than part of an old foundation for a barn. The dig — the latest in what’s been nearly a 40-year search — is reportedly the result of extensive FBI interviews with former mobster...

A former USC professor was named Monday to the FBI's Ten Most Wanted fugitives list after he was indicted for sex crimes against children abroad, FBI officials said. Walter Lee Williams, 64, became the 500th person named to the list, officials said. He faces charges of sexual exploitation of children, traveling with intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct and engaging in illicit sexual conduct in foreign places. Bureau officials said they had identified at least 10 alleged victims between the ages of 9 and 17. Many live in Third World countries, officials said, adding that Williams has traveled extensively...

The Jerk of the Week is a bit late this week as real life intruded. As is usual though, something comes along to grab me by the throat that makes me want to punch my monitor in frustration. Jerks come in various sizes, occupations, and reasons for their jerkiness. With the IRS scandal getting little coverage last week due to the whistleblower case (a situation that the Obama administration must be extremely grateful for), the testimony of FBI Director Robert Mueller was missed by many (and intentionally by the lamestream media). With his testimony, Robert Mueller is this week's Jerk...

You were considered a hoarder and a slacker if you still resisted turning over your gold to the government. ... most of those who voted for FDR never expected him to confiscate private holdings of gold coins, bullion, and certificates. Roosevelt called the measure a temporary one (it wasn’t), and he followed it up by invalidating gold clauses in private contracts that obligated payment in gold dollars, which had the effect of devaluing the assets of bond and contract holders. ... By January 1934, Roosevelt increased the dollar price of gold from $20.67 to $35, thus devaluing the dollar by...

The Obama Internal Revenue Service targeted several Christian groups including a 180 year-old Baptist paper. The Obama IRS targeted Christian groups including Franklin Graham and the 180 year-old Biblical Recorder. The Obama IRS implemented a program to infiltrate and target conservative, evangelical Christian churches. ... The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and Samaritan’s Purse, an international relief organization, were both targeted by the Obama IRS.

Deceased Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev came to the attention of the FBI on at least two occasions prior to a Russian government warning in March 2011 that said he appeared to be radicalizing, FBI Director Robert Mueller said in Congressional testimony this week. The earlier references have led some lawmakers to question whether the FBI acted too quickly in closing an assessment of Tsarnaev's potential ties to terrorism done in response to the Russian request. In a little-noticed exchange before the House Judiciary Committee Thursday, Mueller acknowledged that the Russian alert was not the first time the elder...

On the House floor on Friday, Texas Representative Louie Gohmert accused various federal agencies of aiding Islamic terrorists organizations such as the Council on American Islamic Relations and the Islamic Society of North America in their attempts to enact Sharia Law. “We need to address the political correctness that is blinding our agencies and blinding our military of its ability to see who the enemy is, because it’s getting people killed,” Gohmert said. “When you refuse to acknowledge that the Afghans you’re training, may be willing to turn their guns you’re training them on and kill you…until you recognize that...

Through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Rom. 5:2 The latest revelation of the IRS scandal that it is not even being investigated should terrify everyone. When an FBI official was asked who was leading the investigation and he could not even answer it, you know there is no investigation into this targeting of Americans. You can bet he would know who the lead investigator was if there was any pushback on a liberal protected group, but against the Tea...

On June 18, 1972, the Washington Post reported that the night before, there had been a break-in at the offices of the Democratic National Committee in the Watergate Hotel. Although the break-in story made the Post’s front page, no one could then foresee the consequences that would spin out over the ensuing months. This morning, the Post’s Erik Wemple reported that forensic analysis has confirmed multiple invasions of at least one computer used by CBS reporter Sharyl Attkisson in late 2012. Attkisson has been one of only a handful of reporters who have dared to write critically about the Obama...

Ted Ullyot, Facebook's general counsel, said in a statement Friday that Facebook is only allowed to talk about total numbers and must give no specifics. But he said the permission it has received is still unprecedented, and the company was lobbying to reveal more. "These requests run the gamut – from things like a local sheriff trying to find a missing child, to a federal marshal tracking a fugitive, to a police department investigating an assault, to a national security official investigating a terrorist threat," Ullyot said.

Rep. Gowdy questions FBI Director Mueller about investigation of Fox News reporter James Rosen, and the progress of the Benghazi investigation.

For computer users, a few mouse clicks could mean the difference between staying online and losing Internet connections this summer. Unknown to most of them, their problem began when international hackers ran an online advertising scam to take control of infected computers around the world. In a highly unusual response, the FBI set up a safety net months ago using government computers to prevent Internet disruptions for those infected users. But that system is to be shut down. The FBI is encouraging users to visit a website run by its security partner, http://www.dcwg.org , that will inform them whether they're...

The rabbit hole just got deeper. A whole lot deeper. On Sunday we predicated that "there's one reason why the administration, James Clapper and the NSA should just keep their mouths shut as the PRISM-gate fallout escalates: with every incremental attempt to refute some previously unknown facet of the US Big Brother state, a new piece of previously unleaked information from the same intelligence organization now scrambling for damage control, emerges and exposes the brand new narrative as yet another lie, forcing even more lies, more retribution against sources, more journalist persecution and so on." And like a hole that...

Homeland Insecurity: The White House assures that tracking our every phone call and keystroke is to stop terrorists, and yet it won't snoop in mosques, where the terrorists are. That's right, the government's sweeping surveillance of our most private communications excludes the jihad factories where homegrown terrorists are radicalized. Since October 2011, mosques have been off-limits to FBI agents. No more surveillance or undercover string operations without high-level approval from a special oversight body at the Justice Department dubbed the Sensitive Operations Review Committee. Who makes up this body, and how do they decide requests? Nobody knows; the names of...

A tense exchange erupted on Thursday between Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) and FBI Director Robert Mueller on Thursday during a House Judiciary Committee hearing. Gohmert suggested that the FBI was negligent in its responsibilities prior to the April attack on the Boston Marathon because they neglected to investigate local Muslim institutions and leaders. Mueller and Gohmert traded barbs after the FBI director insisted that the GOP representative had his facts wrong. Gohmert insisted that a review committee report shows that the FBI never canvased the mosques around the Boston area

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) destroyed FBI Director Robert Mueller on the IRS targeting scandal and investigation today. FBI Director Mueller has no idea who’s running the program, how many people are assigned to the investigation, where the investigation stands, and if any Tea Party groups have been interviewed. He was clueless. This was another embarrassment for the Obama Administration. They’re obviously in no hurry to dig into this massive scandal. Via America Live http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Br_sGQICz8Y#!

How many of you viewed this when it aired on PBS? Apparently, not too many. I missed it as well. For some strange reason, it is still up on YouTube. In 52 minutes, it explains that our hundreds of "security" agencies are collections of turf-defending bureaucrats who don't talk to one another and probably can't find their asses with both hands -- but they can find YOUR emails and phone contacts! If this -- especially the PRE-911 section -- doesn't make you furious, you're either not paying attention, don't give a s**t or are a low-information "voter" -- or worse....

Members of the House Judiciary Committee on Thursday will question outgoing FBI Director Robert Mueller on investigations of the attacks in Benghazi, Libya, that killed four Americans, the Boston Marathon bombings, and recent leaks of classified government information. Mueller was to undergo questioning by the committee on these and other issues in what will be his final appearance before the panel. His last day on the job is Sept. 4. The Justice Department revealed last month that it had secretly gathered emails of Fox News correspondent James Rosen and phone records of The Associated Press in an effort to crack...

Monitoring hundreds of millions of phone records is an extraordinary invasion of privacy. When Americans expressed outrage last week over the seizure and surveillance of Verizon's client data by the National Security Agency, President Obama responded: "In the abstract, you can complain about Big Brother . . . but when you actually look at the details, I think we've struck the right balance." How many records did the NSA seize from Verizon? Hundreds of millions. We are now learning about more potential mass data collections by the government from other communications and online companies. These are the "details," and few...

Not surprising given recent revelations about the NSA, but as Michael Isikoff points out, the massive increase in requests for business records by the FBI under a provision in the Patriot Act, represents a sea change in the government's attitude toward privacy. The FBI has dramatically increased its use of a controversial provision of the Patriot Act to secretly obtain a vast store of business records of U.S. citizens under President Barack Obama, according to recent Justice Department reports to Congress. The bureau filed 212 requests for such data to a national security court last year - a 1,000-percent...

The FBI has dramatically increased its use of a controversial provision of the Patriot Act to secretly obtain a vast store of business records of U.S. citizens under President Barack Obama, according to recent Justice Department reports to Congress. The bureau filed 212 requests for such data to a national security court last year – a 1,000-percent increase from the number of such requests four years earlier, the reports show. The FBI’s increased use of the Patriot Act’s “business records” provision — and the wide ranging scope of its requests -- is getting new

Two prominent civil rights groups have filed a lawsuit against the National Security Agency over its program that reportedly collects the telephone records of millions of American customers of Verizon. The American Civil Liberties Union and the New York Civil Liberties Union say in a lawsuit filed in federal court Tuesday that the program violates First Amendment rights of free speech and association. It also alleges the program violates Fourth Amendment rights to privacy. The lawsuit additionally alleges the government's program exceeds Congress' authority.

Washington is preoccupied with the political decisions surrounding last year’s attack in Benghazi, but nine months later the who and why of the terrorist assault that left four Americans dead remains shrouded in mystery. Some analysts say Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens was the target, while others believe he may have been an opportunistic way to smoke out the location of a CIA compound in the eastern Libyan city. It’s not even clear whether the attack was long premeditated or whether it was a last-minute strike organized after Stevens was seen in town the afternoon of Sept. 11. The FBI is...

Snip: U.S. Attorney Bill Killian gave a PowerPoint presentation on hate crimes and hate speech. From beginning to end, it was full of condescension, smears, charges that the crowd was racist and thinly veiled threats that truthful speech about Islam could be prosecuted. Never once did he address the fact that people aren’t concerned about Muslims because of racism and xenophobia, but because of the reality of jihad terror and the uniform denial and obfuscation, and victimhood posturing that follows from Muslim communities after every jihad attack. Killian even stooped so low as to claim a sharp rise in “religiously...

The key question that needs to be answered now is...WHY WAS CATHERINE TARGETED PERSONALLY? Bell asked: "Was there anything in particular that you think may have triggered that special attention?" Catherine answered: "We believe that much of it had ultimately had to do with True the Vote activities involving our 'Verify the Recall' project to ensure that petition-gathering connected with actions in Wisconsin to remove Governor Scott Walker were following the rules. This was obviously seen as a threat by liberal organizations and unions bent upon recalling him. "It's important to understand that our purpose and actions in this project...

The current chief of security of Verizon, a company embroiled in controversy over the recent revelation of a secret government domestic spy program, is a former high level official in the FBI.

Credits: (Photo courtesy of ATF via Getty Images) On October 27th, in a townhall meeting in Yuma, Arizona, before his election as senator, Jeff Flake promised to hold those who had allowed and covered up the Fast and Furious scandal accountable. The time has come for Senator Flake to start making good on his promise. On June 11th, the Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to begin hearings on the confirmation of B.Todd Jones as the Director of the BATFE. Senator Flake is a member of that committee. B. Todd Jones was present at a key meeting that occurred just...

(CNN) -- A Texas actress in a troubled marriage was arrested and charged Friday in connection with ricin-tainted letters that were mailed last month to President Barack Obama and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, authorities said. Shannon Richardson, 35, also known as Shannon Rogers and Shannon Guess, initially told the FBI that her husband, Nathaniel, sent the ricin-laced letters, but a polygraph exam found her to be "deceptive" on the matter, court papers said. Investigators found that her computer storage devices contained the text of threatening letters sent to the president, but the couple's computer records show her husband...

A stunning report by the Guardian newspaper published late Wednesday evening reveals that the National Security Agency (NSA) has been collecting the phone records of millions of Americans who are customers of Verizon, one of the nation’s largest telecom companies. The top-secret order, obtained by the paper, requires Verizon to submit to the NSA, “on an ongoing daily basis…all call details or ‘telephony metadata’ created by Verizon for communications (i) between the United States and abroad; or (ii) wholly within the United States, including local telephone calls.” Moreover, the paper reports that Americans’ communication records “are being collected indiscriminately...

THE TRUTH ABOUT NSA SPYING: They Still Have Your Internet Data And Tech Giants Know It Michael Kelley Jun. 7, 2013, 9:00 AM The Washington Post has backtracked on its claim that nine major tech firms 'participate knowingly' in the National Security Agency's domestic surveillance program, Jon Russell of The Next Web reports. But that doesn't mean that the dragnet snooping didn't happen, or that the tech heavyweights didn't know about it. On Thursday The Post and The Guardian reported on leaked NSA powerpoint slides that detail an eavesdropping program — dubbed PRISM — based on "legally-compelled collection" of extracting...

Within hours of the disclosure that federal authorities routinely collect data on phone calls Americans make, regardless of whether they have any bearing on a counterterrorism investigation, the Obama administration issued the same platitude it has offered every time President Obama has been caught overreaching in the use of his powers: Terrorists are a real menace and you should just trust us to deal with them because we have internal mechanisms (that we are not going to tell you about) to make sure we do not violate your rights. Those reassurances have never been persuasive — whether on secret warrants...

The Guardian's Bombshell Revelation About NSA Domestic Spying Is Only The Tip Of The Iceberg Michael KelleyJune 6, 2013, 12:08 PM Last night Glenn Greenwald published a bombshell report revealing that the National Security Agency (NSA) is using the so-called "business records" provision of the Patriot Act to secretly collect telephone records of millions of Americans. Although the revelation doesn't surprise privacy advocates, the fact that Greenwald obtained a top secret court order compelling Verizon to give the NSA information on all telephone calls in its systems is the first concrete piece of evidence exposing dragnet domestic surveillance. But, unfortunately...

President Barack Obama has continued to pursue some of the same anti-terrorism policies as the Bush administration, and, in at least one instance, expanded upon them. In the clearest example, Obama has authorized more than 300 overseas drone strikes against suspected terrorists as president – that’s compared to an estimate of roughly 50 such strikes under President George W. Bush – even as Obama has proposed new restrictions governing the policy. And on Wednesday, it was revealed that the Obama administration has requested wholesale collection of data from Verizon related to routine phone calls many Americans make, a continuation of...

Analysts at the National Security Agency can now secretly access real-time user data provided by as many as 50 American companies, ranging from credit rating agencies to internet service providers, two government officials familiar with the arrangements said. Several of the companies have provided records continuously since 2006, while others have given the agency sporadic access, these officials said. These officials disclosed the number of participating companies in order to provide context for a series of disclosures about the NSA's domestic collection policies. The officials, contacted independently, repeatedly said that "domestic collection" does not mean that the target is based...

A secret National Security Agency program to collect vast amounts of phone records has foiled multiple attempted terrorist attacks inside the United States, the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee told reporters on Thursday. Sen. Dianne Feinstein did not specify how many attempted attacks had been prevented, or the nature of the threats, but the California Democrat said there had been more than one. The remarks were made to reporters following a meeting with senators who were concerned over a report in a British newspaper that the NSA had requested phone records from a division of telecommunications giant Verizon. According...

From the movie "True Stories." Apologies for the forced commercial at the beginning of this YouTube excerpt.

The National Security Agency and the FBI are tapping directly into the central servers of nine leading U.S. Internet companies, extracting audio and video chats, photographs, e-mails, documents, and connection logs that enable analysts to track one target or trace a whole network of associates, according to a top-secret document obtained by The Washington Post. The program, code-named PRISM, has not been made public until now. It may be the first of its kind. The NSA prides itself on stealing secrets and breaking codes, and it is accustomed to corporate partnerships that help it divert data traffic or sidestep barriers....

• Top secret PRISM program claims direct access to servers of firms including Google, Facebook and Apple • Companies deny any knowledge of program in operation since 2007 The National Security Agency has obtained direct access to the systems of Google, Facebook, Apple and other US internet giants, according to a top secret document obtained by the Guardian. The NSA access is part of a previously undisclosed program called PRISM, which allows officials to collect material including search history, the content of emails, file transfers and live chats, the document says. The Guardian has verified the authenticity of the document,...

UPDATE: Why Govt. Source leaked PRISMAdditional information is being reported that confirms what most of us have always suspected. NSA is collecting all our email data, tracking our movements, our photographs, our documents, etc. Also factor in the fact that a court recently ruled that Obama is free to collect our DNA without being found guilty of any crime. National Security Agency (NSA) building designed for massive data collection in Utah:WaPo reports the following:The National Security Agency and the FBI are tapping directly into the central servers of nine leading U.S. Internet companies, extracting audio, video, photographs, e-mails, documents and connection...

The National Security Agency's monitoring of Americans includes customer records from the three major phone networks as well as emails and Web searches, and the agency also has cataloged credit-card transactions, said people familiar with the agency's activities. The disclosure this week of an order by a secret U.S. court for Verizon Communications Inc.'s phone records set off the latest public discussion of the program. But people familiar with the NSA's operations said the initiative also encompasses phone-call data from AT&T Inc. and Sprint Nextel Corp., records from Internet-service providers and purchase information from credit-card providers. The agency is using...

The Washington Post has published a remarkable report showing that the National Security Agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation have been monitoring the central servers of major Internet companies -- Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube and Apple -- and "extracting audio, video, photographs, e-mails, documents and connection logs that enable analysts to track a person’s movements and contacts over time." Why did a government source leak information of this program, dubbed "PRISM," to the Post? What follows is perhaps the most chilling paragraph I've read to date about U.S. government surveillance: Firsthand experience with these systems,...

A top-secret April PowerPoint slideshow details how the National Security Agency partnered with nine tech companies, including Apple, Microsoft and Google, to monitor users activity. The NSA got direct access to these companies servers´ in order to directly watch user communications, according to the presentation obtained by the Washington Post and the Guardian. The program was nominally aimed at foreign actors, but as the Post reports, purely domestic communications could easily end up in NSA hands, so long as an algorithm estimated at least a 51 percent probability that they were foreign.

A timely video from Reason TV on the surveillance state’s newest venture: Cameras and microphones on city buses, just in case Al Qaeda decides to plan its next attack on municipal transportation within earshot of other passengers. Not every city does this, but the practice is spreading — early adapters include San Francisco, Baltimore, and Hartford with funding from, you guessed it, DHS. It’s darkly amusing to think of someone on the bus in one of those cities, reading the news today about the NSA/Verizon warrant on their cell phone, and worrying that the state has their phone records. Who...

Since the Guardian story about the NSA seizure of the Verizon phone records of millions of Americans dropped last night, the administration and its allies have been asserting that privacy wasn’t invaded because intelligence agencies didn’t listen in on those calls. “The order reprinted overnight does not allow the government to listen in on anyone’s telephone calls. The information acquired does not include the content of any communications or the name of any subscriber. It relates exclusively to call details, such as a telephone number or the length of a telephone call,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters aboard...

The National Security Agency and the FBI are tapping directly into the central servers of nine leading U.S. Internet companies, extracting audio, video, photographs, e-mails, documents and connection logs that enable analysts to track a person’s movements and contacts over time. The highly classified program, code-named PRISM, has not been disclosed publicly before. Its establishment in 2007 and six years of exponential growth took place beneath the surface of a roiling debate over the boundaries of surveillance and privacy. Even late last year, when critics of the foreign intelligence statute argued for changes, the only members of Congress who know...

The National Security Agency's warrant for metadata on every single Verizon call for three months is jaw-dropping in its scope. Except, well, the NSA's surveillance of our communications is most likely much, much bigger than that. Technology has made it possible for the American government to spy on citizens to an extent East Germany could only dream of. Basically everything we say that can be traced digitally is being collected by the NSA. We're supposed to trust that our government will be much better behaved, but they're not, and the White House almost admits it. That doesn't mean they're admitting...

IT GETS WORSE: Google, Microsoft, Apple Allowed Government To 'Watch Your Ideas Form As You Type' Brett LoGiurato Jun. 6, 2013, 6:19 PM The National Security Agency and FBI have been engaging in a highly classified program that mines data from leading U.S. internet companies, according to a bombshell report in The Washington Post Thursday night. The program is code-named PRISMand the Post reports that it was established in 2007. According to the report, the nine companies that "participate knowingly" in the program are Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube, Apple. The program has not been disclosed publicly,...

The National Security Agency and the FBI are tapping directly into the central servers of nine leading U.S. Internet companies, extracting audio, video, photographs, e-mails, documents and connection logs that enable analysts to track a person’s movements and contacts over time. The highly classified program, code-named PRISM, has not been disclosed publicly before. Its establishment in 2007 and six years of exponential growth took place beneath the surface of a roiling debate over the boundaries of surveillance and privacy. Even late last year, when critics of the foreign intelligence statute argued for changes, the only members of Congress who know...

A 542 page Justice Department investigation of FBI tactics at Ruby Ridge concluded that the Bureau Rules of Engagement employed that day in 1992 “…flagrantly violated the US Constitution” as they afforded agents “practically a license to kill.” According to the Report, “…a member of an FBI SWAT team from Denver remembered the Rules of Engagement as ‘if you can see ‘em, shoot ‘em’.” Within one hour of FBI snipers taking up positions around Randy Weaver’s rural home, “…every adult in the cabin was either dead or severely wounded — even though they had not fired a shot at any...