Showing posts with label doj. Show all posts
Showing posts with label doj. Show all posts
Sunday, February 17, 2019
Saturday, August 12, 2017
Court Blocks Federal Prosecution of California Pot Growers
A U.S. District Court this week blocked federal prosecutors from moving forward with their conspiracy case against a pair of Northern California cultivators because the duo was determined to be in compliance with Golden State medical marijuana laws.
Humboldt County growers Anthony Pisarski and Sonny Moore had already pleaded guilty to federal allegations (conspiracy to manufacture and possess with intent to distribute) but sought an evidentiary hearing based on legislation, first enacted in 2014, that prohibits the U.S. Department of Justice from cracking down on cannabis suspects who are otherwise following their state laws. The Rohrabacher-Farr amendment is a budget rider, co-authored by SoCal U.S. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, that prevents enforcement and prosecution in medical marijuana states by stripping funding for such endeavors.
U.S. District Court Judge Richard Seeborg on Tuesday stayed the prosecution, so the case is closed unless the Rohrabacher-Farr amendment expires and fails to be re-enacted and federal prosecutors want to resume their case. The defendants' Beverly Hills attorney, Ronald Richards, says: "This is the first time in my 23-year career I've had a case stopped because of an appropriations rider.
"What the court did in this case may be used as a blueprint for other cases," he says. "It opens the door for people not to get scared."
The judge cited United States v. McIntosh, a United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit decision last year that affirmed a medical marijuana defense for defendants facing federal prosecution in medical states. But experts say that United States v. Pisarski, et al. could help establish such a defense even further.
"It's significant that a federal court ruled that people targeted by feds and in compliance with California's medical marijuana laws ruled in the defendants' favor," says Dale Gieringer, director of California NORML. "This is the first case I'm aware of where McIntosh was cited and used to full effect."
Pisarski and Moore owned a property raided by feds in July 2012. Authorities said they found 327 marijuana plants, $416,125 in cash, and guns. But during the evidentiary process, the duo argued they were abiding by California laws and that federal prosecutors had no right to continue spending cash on their prosecution under Rohrabacher-Farr.
They argued that the weed was being sold to legit collectives. Judge Seeborg agreed, writing: "Their conduct strictly complied with all relevant conditions imposed by California law on the use, distribution, possession and cultivation of medical marijuana."
Tamar Todd, director of the Drug Policy Alliance's office of of legal affairs, said the ruling could have ripple effects throughout the West.
"This shows that you can prevail — defendants in federal court could have their prosecutions halted," she says. "It's enjoining the prosecution from being able to spend any more money on this case. It's very encouraging. It gives a lot of teeth to Rohrabacher-Farr."
Source
Humboldt County growers Anthony Pisarski and Sonny Moore had already pleaded guilty to federal allegations (conspiracy to manufacture and possess with intent to distribute) but sought an evidentiary hearing based on legislation, first enacted in 2014, that prohibits the U.S. Department of Justice from cracking down on cannabis suspects who are otherwise following their state laws. The Rohrabacher-Farr amendment is a budget rider, co-authored by SoCal U.S. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, that prevents enforcement and prosecution in medical marijuana states by stripping funding for such endeavors.
U.S. District Court Judge Richard Seeborg on Tuesday stayed the prosecution, so the case is closed unless the Rohrabacher-Farr amendment expires and fails to be re-enacted and federal prosecutors want to resume their case. The defendants' Beverly Hills attorney, Ronald Richards, says: "This is the first time in my 23-year career I've had a case stopped because of an appropriations rider.
"What the court did in this case may be used as a blueprint for other cases," he says. "It opens the door for people not to get scared."
The judge cited United States v. McIntosh, a United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit decision last year that affirmed a medical marijuana defense for defendants facing federal prosecution in medical states. But experts say that United States v. Pisarski, et al. could help establish such a defense even further.
"It's significant that a federal court ruled that people targeted by feds and in compliance with California's medical marijuana laws ruled in the defendants' favor," says Dale Gieringer, director of California NORML. "This is the first case I'm aware of where McIntosh was cited and used to full effect."
Pisarski and Moore owned a property raided by feds in July 2012. Authorities said they found 327 marijuana plants, $416,125 in cash, and guns. But during the evidentiary process, the duo argued they were abiding by California laws and that federal prosecutors had no right to continue spending cash on their prosecution under Rohrabacher-Farr.
They argued that the weed was being sold to legit collectives. Judge Seeborg agreed, writing: "Their conduct strictly complied with all relevant conditions imposed by California law on the use, distribution, possession and cultivation of medical marijuana."
Tamar Todd, director of the Drug Policy Alliance's office of of legal affairs, said the ruling could have ripple effects throughout the West.
"This shows that you can prevail — defendants in federal court could have their prosecutions halted," she says. "It's enjoining the prosecution from being able to spend any more money on this case. It's very encouraging. It gives a lot of teeth to Rohrabacher-Farr."
Source
Saturday, August 5, 2017
Justice Department Marijuana Task Force fails to come up with new recommendations.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The betting was that law-and-order Attorney General Jeff Sessions would come out against the legalized marijuana industry with guns blazing. But the task force Sessions assembled to find the best legal strategy is giving him no ammunition, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press.
The Task Force on Crime Reduction and Public Safety, a group of prosecutors and federal law enforcement officials, has come up with no new policy recommendations to advance the attorney general’s aggressively anti-marijuana views. The group’s report largely reiterates the current Justice Department policy on marijuana.
It encourages officials to keep studying whether to change or rescind the Obama administration’s more hands-off approach to enforcement — a stance that has allowed the nation’s experiment with legal pot to flourish. The report was not slated to be released publicly, but portions were obtained by the AP.
Sessions, who has assailed marijuana as comparable to heroin and blamed it for spikes in violence, has been promising to reconsider existing pot policy since he took office six months ago. His statements have sparked both support and worry across the political spectrum as a growing number of states have worked to legalize the drug.
Threats of a federal crackdown have united liberals, who object to the human costs of a war on pot, and some conservatives, who see it as a states’ rights issue. Some advocates and members of Congress had feared the task force’s recommendations would give Sessions the green light to begin dismantling what has become a sophisticated, multimillion-dollar pot industry that helps fund schools, educational programs and law enforcement.
But the tepid nature of the recommendations signals just how difficult it would be to change course on pot.
Some in law enforcement support a tougher approach, but a bipartisan group of senators in March urged Sessions to uphold existing marijuana policy. Others in Congress are seeking ways to protect and promote pot businesses.
The vague recommendations may be intentional, reflecting an understanding that shutting down the entire industry is neither palatable nor possible, said John Hudak, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who studies marijuana law and was interviewed by members of the task force.
“If they come out with a more progressive, liberal policy, the attorney general is just going to reject it. They need to convince the attorney general that the recommendations are the best they can do without embarrassing the entire department by implementing a policy that fails,” he said.
The task force suggestions are not final, and Sessions is in no way bound by them. The government still has plenty of ways it can punish weed-tolerant states, including raiding pot businesses and suing states where the drug is legal, a rare but quick path to compliance. The only one who could override a drastic move by Sessions is President Donald Trump, whose personal views on marijuana remain mostly unknown.
The Justice Department declined to comment.
Rather than urging federal agents to shut down dispensaries and make mass arrests, the task force puts forth a more familiar approach.
Its report says officials should continue to oppose rules that block the Justice Department from interfering with medical marijuana programs in states where it is allowed. Sessions wrote to members of Congress in May asking them — unsuccessfully so far — to undo those protections. The Obama administration also unsuccessfully opposed those rules.
The report suggests teaming the Justice Department with Treasury officials to offer guidance to financial institutions, telling them to implement robust anti-money laundering programs and report suspicious transactions involving businesses in states where pot is legal. That is already required by federal law.
And it tells officials to develop “centralized guidance, tools and data related to marijuana enforcement,” two years after the Government Accountability Office told the Justice Department it needs to better document how it’s tracking the effect of marijuana legalization in the states.
Most critically, and without offering direction, it says officials “should evaluate whether to maintain, revise or rescind” a set of Obama-era memos that allowed states to legalize marijuana on the condition that officials act to keep it from migrating to places where it is still outlawed and out of the hands of criminal cartels and children. Any changes to the policy could impact the way pot-legal states operate.
The recommendations are not surprising because “there’s as much evidence that Sessions intends to maintain the system and help improve upon it as there is that he intends to roll it back,” said Mason Tvert, who ran Colorado’s legalization campaign. He pointed to Sessions’ comment during his Senate confirmation hearing that while he opposed legalization, he understood the scarcity of federal resources and “echoed” the position of his Democratic predecessors.
But in July, he sent letters to Colorado and Washington that stirred concern, asking how they would address reports they were not adequately regulating the drug.
It remains unclear how much weight Sessions might give the recommendations. He said he has been relying on them to enact policy in other areas. Apart from pot, the task force is studying a list of criminal justice issues. The overall report’s executive summary says its work continues and its recommendations “do not comprehensively address every effort that the Department is planning or currently undertaking to reduce violent crime.”
Source
The Task Force on Crime Reduction and Public Safety, a group of prosecutors and federal law enforcement officials, has come up with no new policy recommendations to advance the attorney general’s aggressively anti-marijuana views. The group’s report largely reiterates the current Justice Department policy on marijuana.
It encourages officials to keep studying whether to change or rescind the Obama administration’s more hands-off approach to enforcement — a stance that has allowed the nation’s experiment with legal pot to flourish. The report was not slated to be released publicly, but portions were obtained by the AP.
Sessions, who has assailed marijuana as comparable to heroin and blamed it for spikes in violence, has been promising to reconsider existing pot policy since he took office six months ago. His statements have sparked both support and worry across the political spectrum as a growing number of states have worked to legalize the drug.
Threats of a federal crackdown have united liberals, who object to the human costs of a war on pot, and some conservatives, who see it as a states’ rights issue. Some advocates and members of Congress had feared the task force’s recommendations would give Sessions the green light to begin dismantling what has become a sophisticated, multimillion-dollar pot industry that helps fund schools, educational programs and law enforcement.
But the tepid nature of the recommendations signals just how difficult it would be to change course on pot.
Some in law enforcement support a tougher approach, but a bipartisan group of senators in March urged Sessions to uphold existing marijuana policy. Others in Congress are seeking ways to protect and promote pot businesses.
The vague recommendations may be intentional, reflecting an understanding that shutting down the entire industry is neither palatable nor possible, said John Hudak, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who studies marijuana law and was interviewed by members of the task force.
“If they come out with a more progressive, liberal policy, the attorney general is just going to reject it. They need to convince the attorney general that the recommendations are the best they can do without embarrassing the entire department by implementing a policy that fails,” he said.
The task force suggestions are not final, and Sessions is in no way bound by them. The government still has plenty of ways it can punish weed-tolerant states, including raiding pot businesses and suing states where the drug is legal, a rare but quick path to compliance. The only one who could override a drastic move by Sessions is President Donald Trump, whose personal views on marijuana remain mostly unknown.
The Justice Department declined to comment.
Rather than urging federal agents to shut down dispensaries and make mass arrests, the task force puts forth a more familiar approach.
Its report says officials should continue to oppose rules that block the Justice Department from interfering with medical marijuana programs in states where it is allowed. Sessions wrote to members of Congress in May asking them — unsuccessfully so far — to undo those protections. The Obama administration also unsuccessfully opposed those rules.
The report suggests teaming the Justice Department with Treasury officials to offer guidance to financial institutions, telling them to implement robust anti-money laundering programs and report suspicious transactions involving businesses in states where pot is legal. That is already required by federal law.
And it tells officials to develop “centralized guidance, tools and data related to marijuana enforcement,” two years after the Government Accountability Office told the Justice Department it needs to better document how it’s tracking the effect of marijuana legalization in the states.
Most critically, and without offering direction, it says officials “should evaluate whether to maintain, revise or rescind” a set of Obama-era memos that allowed states to legalize marijuana on the condition that officials act to keep it from migrating to places where it is still outlawed and out of the hands of criminal cartels and children. Any changes to the policy could impact the way pot-legal states operate.
The recommendations are not surprising because “there’s as much evidence that Sessions intends to maintain the system and help improve upon it as there is that he intends to roll it back,” said Mason Tvert, who ran Colorado’s legalization campaign. He pointed to Sessions’ comment during his Senate confirmation hearing that while he opposed legalization, he understood the scarcity of federal resources and “echoed” the position of his Democratic predecessors.
But in July, he sent letters to Colorado and Washington that stirred concern, asking how they would address reports they were not adequately regulating the drug.
It remains unclear how much weight Sessions might give the recommendations. He said he has been relying on them to enact policy in other areas. Apart from pot, the task force is studying a list of criminal justice issues. The overall report’s executive summary says its work continues and its recommendations “do not comprehensively address every effort that the Department is planning or currently undertaking to reduce violent crime.”
Source
Thursday, July 27, 2017
Senate committee, rejecting request from Sessions, keeps protection for medical marijuana states
The Senate Appropriations Committee has approved an amendment to protect state medical marijuana programs from federal interference, despite a written request from Attorney General Jeff Sessions earlier this year that they not do so.
The amendment, put forward Thursday by Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont), adds a clause to the Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies (CJS) appropriations bill for Fiscal Year 2018 that prevents the Department of Justice from using funds to prevent any “State or jurisdiction from implementing a law that authorizes the use, distribution, possession, or cultivation of medical marijuana.”
Twenty-nine states, the District of Columbia, and territories Puerto Rico and Guam have passed laws legalizing various forms of medical marijuana.
In May, Sessions sent a letter to Congress asking them not to extend the Rohrabacher-Farr amendment with nearly identical language, which has been added to federal budgets since late 2014.
In his letter, Sessions argued that the amendment inhibits the Justice Department’s “authority to enforce the Controlled Substances Act. … It would be unwise for Congress to restrict the discretion of the Department to fund particular prosecutions, particularly in the midst of an historic drug epidemic and potentially long-term uptick in violent crime. The Department must be in a position to use all laws available to combat the transnational drug organizations and dangerous drug traffickers who threaten American lives.”
Last August, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously ruled that the language of the Rohrabacher-Farr amendment bars the federal government from taking legal action against any individual involved in medical marijuana-related activity absent evidence that the defendant is in clear violation of state law.
In May, Representatives Dana Rohrabacher (R-California) and Earl Blumenauer (D-Oregon) introduced into the omnibus congressional spending bill a similar amendment that prevents the Justice Department from using funds to interfere with the implementation of medical marijuana laws in U.S. states and territories.
The CJS budget now moves to the full Senate. If approved, the bill and its included amendments will go to a special conference committee to reach a compromise with the House version of the budget. If no budget is approved by Sept. 30, the previous amendment will be automatically renewed for another year.
In response to the vote, Blumenauer tweeted: “No surprise! This effort has overwhelming bipartisan support. Now, it’s time for the House act.”
Follow
Earl Blumenauer ✔ @repblumenauer
No surprise! This effort has overwhelming bipartisan support. Now, it's time for the House act. https://twitter.com/NORML/status/890601987900940288 …
10:25 AM - Jul 27, 2017
47 47 Retweets 128 128 likes
Twitter Ads info and privacy
Here’s a look at some of the reactions from advocacy groups on both sides of the marijuana debate:
Erik Altieri, executive director for the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws said in a statement: “Attorney General Sessions thinks that medical marijuana patients are no better than members of illegal drug cartels. It is imperative that our elected officials remove any potential bite from Sessions’ bark by taking away his ability to use the full force of the federal government to go against the will of over 90 percent of American citizens who support medical marijuana access and, in the process, endangering the well-being of millions of medical marijuana patients.”
Kevin Sabet, president of Smart Approaches to Marijuana, said: “No one wants to deprive chronically ill patients of medication that could be helpful for them, but preventing the Justice Department from enforcing federal law is fueling black market activity and pushing patients toward an unregulated market proven to be hawking contaminated products as medicine.” He said efforts should be directed to fund more research on marijuana compounds that would go through the Food and Drug Administration approval process.
Don Murphy, director of conservative outreach for the Marijuana Policy Project, said in a statement: “More than half the states have taken a stand and said they want their seriously ill residents to have safe and reliable access to medical marijuana, and today the Senate Appropriations Committee listened. We strongly urge the rest of Congress to do the right thing and include this amendment in the final budget.”
Source
The amendment, put forward Thursday by Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont), adds a clause to the Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies (CJS) appropriations bill for Fiscal Year 2018 that prevents the Department of Justice from using funds to prevent any “State or jurisdiction from implementing a law that authorizes the use, distribution, possession, or cultivation of medical marijuana.”
Twenty-nine states, the District of Columbia, and territories Puerto Rico and Guam have passed laws legalizing various forms of medical marijuana.
In May, Sessions sent a letter to Congress asking them not to extend the Rohrabacher-Farr amendment with nearly identical language, which has been added to federal budgets since late 2014.
In his letter, Sessions argued that the amendment inhibits the Justice Department’s “authority to enforce the Controlled Substances Act. … It would be unwise for Congress to restrict the discretion of the Department to fund particular prosecutions, particularly in the midst of an historic drug epidemic and potentially long-term uptick in violent crime. The Department must be in a position to use all laws available to combat the transnational drug organizations and dangerous drug traffickers who threaten American lives.”
Last August, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously ruled that the language of the Rohrabacher-Farr amendment bars the federal government from taking legal action against any individual involved in medical marijuana-related activity absent evidence that the defendant is in clear violation of state law.
In May, Representatives Dana Rohrabacher (R-California) and Earl Blumenauer (D-Oregon) introduced into the omnibus congressional spending bill a similar amendment that prevents the Justice Department from using funds to interfere with the implementation of medical marijuana laws in U.S. states and territories.
The CJS budget now moves to the full Senate. If approved, the bill and its included amendments will go to a special conference committee to reach a compromise with the House version of the budget. If no budget is approved by Sept. 30, the previous amendment will be automatically renewed for another year.
In response to the vote, Blumenauer tweeted: “No surprise! This effort has overwhelming bipartisan support. Now, it’s time for the House act.”
Follow
Earl Blumenauer ✔ @repblumenauer
No surprise! This effort has overwhelming bipartisan support. Now, it's time for the House act. https://twitter.com/NORML/status/890601987900940288 …
10:25 AM - Jul 27, 2017
47 47 Retweets 128 128 likes
Twitter Ads info and privacy
Here’s a look at some of the reactions from advocacy groups on both sides of the marijuana debate:
Erik Altieri, executive director for the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws said in a statement: “Attorney General Sessions thinks that medical marijuana patients are no better than members of illegal drug cartels. It is imperative that our elected officials remove any potential bite from Sessions’ bark by taking away his ability to use the full force of the federal government to go against the will of over 90 percent of American citizens who support medical marijuana access and, in the process, endangering the well-being of millions of medical marijuana patients.”
Kevin Sabet, president of Smart Approaches to Marijuana, said: “No one wants to deprive chronically ill patients of medication that could be helpful for them, but preventing the Justice Department from enforcing federal law is fueling black market activity and pushing patients toward an unregulated market proven to be hawking contaminated products as medicine.” He said efforts should be directed to fund more research on marijuana compounds that would go through the Food and Drug Administration approval process.
Don Murphy, director of conservative outreach for the Marijuana Policy Project, said in a statement: “More than half the states have taken a stand and said they want their seriously ill residents to have safe and reliable access to medical marijuana, and today the Senate Appropriations Committee listened. We strongly urge the rest of Congress to do the right thing and include this amendment in the final budget.”
Source
Republicans Block Congressional Marijuana Votes
House Republican leadership is blocking floor consideration of several marijuana amendments on issues ranging from military veterans’ access to medical cannabis to water rights for cultivators.
Despite passionate pleas and support from members of both parties, particularly on the veterans issue, the House Rules Committee on Tuesday night ruled that the marijuana amendments were not in order and would not receive votes by the full chamber this week.
Earlier in the day, Congressman Earl Blumenauer (D-OR), the veterans amendment’s lead sponsor, testified before the committee that it was “a critical area of literally life and death.”
Many military veterans use cannabis to treat physical pain caused by war wounds or to manage the symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.
But under a current internal U .S. Department of Veterans Affairs (V.A.) administrative directive, government doctors are not allowed to fill out recommendation forms that would let veterans legally receive medical cannabis under state law.
Blumenauer’s measure, which he sought to attach to legislation funding the V.A. and other departments for fiscal year 2018, would simply prevent the government from spending money to enforce the current ban in states where medical cannabis is legal.
Citing statistics showing that an average of 22 military veterans a day commit suicide and that death rate from opioid overdoses among V.A. patients is nearly double the national average, he said, “It’s essential that veterans be allowed to access this as a treatment if it’s legal in their state.”
Republican Congressman Dan Newhouse of Washington State, a Rules Committee member, also voiced his support.
“I’m one of those people that have seen firsthand the benefit that people can derive from medical marijuana. We’re not just talking smoking joints here,” he told his fellow committee members. “There’s a lot of different derivatives that can be used that help people alleviate pain. It seems to me that if that’s available and it works we should make it available to our veterans as well, as long as it’s in accordance with state law.”
But those pleas, and the fact that the amendment was adopted by the House last year by a vote of 233 to 189, or that the Senate Appropriations Committee approved a similar measure this month with a bipartisan margin of 24 to 7, were not enough to convince Rules Committee Chairman Pete Sessions (R-TX), to allow a floor vote.
Eighteen lawmakers — nine Democrats and nine Republicans — cosponsored the veterans cannabis proposal, more than any of the other 333 amendments filed before the committee. A total of 72 of those were approved for floor consideration.
After the news about the amendment being blocked broke late Tuesday night, Blumenauer’s office sent a press release pointing out that the measure had “stronger support in the House and Senate than ever before.”
“All we want is equal treatment for our wounded warriors,” the congressman said in the statement. “This provision overwhelmingly passed on the House floor last year – and bipartisan support has only grown. It’s outrageous that the Rules Committee won’t even allow a vote for our veterans. They deserve better. They deserve compassion.”
Congresswoman Dina Titus (D-NV), one of the cosponsors of the veterans amendment, pledged to “keep fighting.”
Amnd. to remove barriers for #veterans to access med. #marijuana won't get vote after @RulesReps blocks. It would pass. I'll keep fighting.
— Dina Titus (@repdinatitus) July 26, 2017
Blumenauer also took to Twitter to restate his commitment to keep pushing the issue.
Our vets are dying from opiate overdoses at alarming rates. You better believe we're going to keep fighting to get them safer alternatives.
— Earl Blumenauer (@repblumenauer) July 26, 2017
The Rules Committee also did not allow three amendments addressing water rights for marijuana and hemp cultivators to advance to the floor.
Whereas spending bills have in years past been brought to the floor under open rules that allow votes on almost any germane amendment, House Republicans last year began locking down the process after controversy surrounding riders concerning gun policy and the right of transgender people to access public bathrooms threatened the passage of some bills.
As a result, amendments on cannabis businesses’ access to banks and Washington, D.C.’s ability to spend its own money legally regulating marijuana sales were blocked from floor consideration last summer.
The veterans access issue isn’t necessarily dead for the year. Advocates hope that because the provision was inserted into the Senate’s version of V.A. funding legislation with such a strong bipartisan vote that the conference committee that later merges the two chambers’ bills together into a single proposal will adopt the language.
However, a conference committee stripped the veterans cannabis provision out of last year’s bill even though it had been approved by strong bipartisan majorities in both chambers. This time, there won’t even be a House vote on the measure.
The Senate version of the bill that covers the U.S. Department of Energy and water regulations contains an amendment protecting hemp growers’ water rights, a result of a voice vote in the Senate Appropriations Committee last week.
Meanwhile, that panel is expected to consider an amendment to continue blocking the U.S. Department of Justice from interfering with state medical cannabis laws on Thursday.
Source
If you are a constituent of Congressman Pete Sessions and you are less than thrilled with his blocking this amendment perhaps you should let him know. You call him at
Washington, DC Office
2233 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515-4332
Phone: 202.225.2231
Fax: 202.225.5878
Or you can email and let him know your displeasure.
Despite passionate pleas and support from members of both parties, particularly on the veterans issue, the House Rules Committee on Tuesday night ruled that the marijuana amendments were not in order and would not receive votes by the full chamber this week.
Earlier in the day, Congressman Earl Blumenauer (D-OR), the veterans amendment’s lead sponsor, testified before the committee that it was “a critical area of literally life and death.”
Many military veterans use cannabis to treat physical pain caused by war wounds or to manage the symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.
But under a current internal U .S. Department of Veterans Affairs (V.A.) administrative directive, government doctors are not allowed to fill out recommendation forms that would let veterans legally receive medical cannabis under state law.
Blumenauer’s measure, which he sought to attach to legislation funding the V.A. and other departments for fiscal year 2018, would simply prevent the government from spending money to enforce the current ban in states where medical cannabis is legal.
Citing statistics showing that an average of 22 military veterans a day commit suicide and that death rate from opioid overdoses among V.A. patients is nearly double the national average, he said, “It’s essential that veterans be allowed to access this as a treatment if it’s legal in their state.”
Republican Congressman Dan Newhouse of Washington State, a Rules Committee member, also voiced his support.
“I’m one of those people that have seen firsthand the benefit that people can derive from medical marijuana. We’re not just talking smoking joints here,” he told his fellow committee members. “There’s a lot of different derivatives that can be used that help people alleviate pain. It seems to me that if that’s available and it works we should make it available to our veterans as well, as long as it’s in accordance with state law.”
But those pleas, and the fact that the amendment was adopted by the House last year by a vote of 233 to 189, or that the Senate Appropriations Committee approved a similar measure this month with a bipartisan margin of 24 to 7, were not enough to convince Rules Committee Chairman Pete Sessions (R-TX), to allow a floor vote.
Eighteen lawmakers — nine Democrats and nine Republicans — cosponsored the veterans cannabis proposal, more than any of the other 333 amendments filed before the committee. A total of 72 of those were approved for floor consideration.
After the news about the amendment being blocked broke late Tuesday night, Blumenauer’s office sent a press release pointing out that the measure had “stronger support in the House and Senate than ever before.”
“All we want is equal treatment for our wounded warriors,” the congressman said in the statement. “This provision overwhelmingly passed on the House floor last year – and bipartisan support has only grown. It’s outrageous that the Rules Committee won’t even allow a vote for our veterans. They deserve better. They deserve compassion.”
Congresswoman Dina Titus (D-NV), one of the cosponsors of the veterans amendment, pledged to “keep fighting.”
Amnd. to remove barriers for #veterans to access med. #marijuana won't get vote after @RulesReps blocks. It would pass. I'll keep fighting.
— Dina Titus (@repdinatitus) July 26, 2017
Blumenauer also took to Twitter to restate his commitment to keep pushing the issue.
Our vets are dying from opiate overdoses at alarming rates. You better believe we're going to keep fighting to get them safer alternatives.
— Earl Blumenauer (@repblumenauer) July 26, 2017
The Rules Committee also did not allow three amendments addressing water rights for marijuana and hemp cultivators to advance to the floor.
Whereas spending bills have in years past been brought to the floor under open rules that allow votes on almost any germane amendment, House Republicans last year began locking down the process after controversy surrounding riders concerning gun policy and the right of transgender people to access public bathrooms threatened the passage of some bills.
As a result, amendments on cannabis businesses’ access to banks and Washington, D.C.’s ability to spend its own money legally regulating marijuana sales were blocked from floor consideration last summer.
The veterans access issue isn’t necessarily dead for the year. Advocates hope that because the provision was inserted into the Senate’s version of V.A. funding legislation with such a strong bipartisan vote that the conference committee that later merges the two chambers’ bills together into a single proposal will adopt the language.
However, a conference committee stripped the veterans cannabis provision out of last year’s bill even though it had been approved by strong bipartisan majorities in both chambers. This time, there won’t even be a House vote on the measure.
The Senate version of the bill that covers the U.S. Department of Energy and water regulations contains an amendment protecting hemp growers’ water rights, a result of a voice vote in the Senate Appropriations Committee last week.
Meanwhile, that panel is expected to consider an amendment to continue blocking the U.S. Department of Justice from interfering with state medical cannabis laws on Thursday.
Source
If you are a constituent of Congressman Pete Sessions and you are less than thrilled with his blocking this amendment perhaps you should let him know. You call him at
2233 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515-4332
Phone: 202.225.2231
Fax: 202.225.5878
Or you can email and let him know your displeasure.
Tuesday, July 25, 2017
Controlled Substances Act may be unconstitutional
As an attorney, I am always disappointed that the courts in this country – both at the state and federal level – have refused to get involved in the efforts to end marijuana prohibition and end the practice of treating responsible marijuana smokers as criminals. But that is the reality.
While the courts in this country have played a leading role in ending racial discrimination, in guaranteeing women the right to obtain a legal abortion, in protecting the rights of the LGBT community, and in many other areas involving the protection of personal freedom, they have consistently rejected attempts to declare state and federal anti-marijuana laws as unconstitutional.
But that does not mean that we should give up the fight in the courts, and rely only on voter initiatives and elected officials to fix this problem. As long as there are new legal arguments to be made, and fresh and hopefully more convincing facts to be argued, we must continue to engage the courts in this struggle for personal freedom.
Washington, et.al v. Sessions, et.al
One such legal challenge, Washington, et.al v. Sessions, et.al, was recently filed in US District Court in the Southern District of New York by lead attorney Michael Hiller, with NORML Legal Committee (NLC) attorneys David Holland and Joseph Bondy serving as co-counsel. The full complaint can be found here.
Individual plaintiffs in the suit were two young children, an American military veteran, and a retired professional football player, all of whom are medical marijuana patients; and a membership organization alleging their minority members have been discriminated against by the federal Controlled Substances Act.
Seeking to overturn the 2005 Supreme Court decision in Gonzales v. Raich, plaintiffs request a declaration that the CSA, as it pertains to the classification of Cannabis as a Schedule I drug, is unconstitutional, because it violates the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment, an assortment of protections guaranteed by the First Amendment, and the fundamental Right to Travel. Further, plaintiffs seek a declaration that Congress, in enacting the CSA as it pertains to marijuana, violated the Commerce Clause, extending the breadth of legislative power well beyond the scope contemplated by Article I of the Constitution.
Named as defendants in the case are Attorney General Jeff Beauregard Sessions, Acting Administrator of the DEA Chuck Rosenberg, the Justice Department, the DEA and the Federal Government.
In their Complaint, plaintiffs allege that the federal government does not, and could not possibly, believe that Cannabis meets the definition of a Schedule I drug, which is reserved for the most dangerous of substances, such as heroin, LSD, and mescaline; and that classifying Cannabis as a “Schedule I drug,” is so irrational that it violates the U.S. Constitution.
Among the other claims in the lawsuit are that the CSA: (i) was enacted and implemented in order to discriminate against African Americans and to suppress people’s First Amendment rights; and (ii) violates plaintiffs’ constitutional Right to Travel.
Joseph Bondy, a federal criminal defense attorney and legalization advocate, explained he felt it was important to “question the agenda of those who continue to push for enforcement of the CSA, given its unlawful and discriminatory impact and that so few in America support such an effort.” Co-counsel David Holland, a litigator and Executive Director of Empire State NORML, noted that “the efforts to criminalize Cannabis are relatively recent and were largely underwritten by racial and ethnic animus,” referring to recent findings that African Americans and other persons of color are four times as likely to be arrested under the CSA than white Americans, even though marijuana is used equally by people of color and Caucasians.
Perhaps the federal courts will surprise us at long last and finally take a critical look at marijuana prohibition, and find the courage to declare the CSA to be unconstitutional. That would be an enormous step forward in ending marijuana prohibition altogether. But regardless of the outcome of this particular suit, it is encouraging to see the criminal defense bar continue to push the legal envelope, and to advance the best and latest legal and factual arguments. At some point, the courts will have no choice but to strike downC1_8734_r_x prohibition as a violation of our personal
Source
While the courts in this country have played a leading role in ending racial discrimination, in guaranteeing women the right to obtain a legal abortion, in protecting the rights of the LGBT community, and in many other areas involving the protection of personal freedom, they have consistently rejected attempts to declare state and federal anti-marijuana laws as unconstitutional.
But that does not mean that we should give up the fight in the courts, and rely only on voter initiatives and elected officials to fix this problem. As long as there are new legal arguments to be made, and fresh and hopefully more convincing facts to be argued, we must continue to engage the courts in this struggle for personal freedom.
Washington, et.al v. Sessions, et.al
One such legal challenge, Washington, et.al v. Sessions, et.al, was recently filed in US District Court in the Southern District of New York by lead attorney Michael Hiller, with NORML Legal Committee (NLC) attorneys David Holland and Joseph Bondy serving as co-counsel. The full complaint can be found here.
Individual plaintiffs in the suit were two young children, an American military veteran, and a retired professional football player, all of whom are medical marijuana patients; and a membership organization alleging their minority members have been discriminated against by the federal Controlled Substances Act.
Seeking to overturn the 2005 Supreme Court decision in Gonzales v. Raich, plaintiffs request a declaration that the CSA, as it pertains to the classification of Cannabis as a Schedule I drug, is unconstitutional, because it violates the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment, an assortment of protections guaranteed by the First Amendment, and the fundamental Right to Travel. Further, plaintiffs seek a declaration that Congress, in enacting the CSA as it pertains to marijuana, violated the Commerce Clause, extending the breadth of legislative power well beyond the scope contemplated by Article I of the Constitution.
Named as defendants in the case are Attorney General Jeff Beauregard Sessions, Acting Administrator of the DEA Chuck Rosenberg, the Justice Department, the DEA and the Federal Government.
In their Complaint, plaintiffs allege that the federal government does not, and could not possibly, believe that Cannabis meets the definition of a Schedule I drug, which is reserved for the most dangerous of substances, such as heroin, LSD, and mescaline; and that classifying Cannabis as a “Schedule I drug,” is so irrational that it violates the U.S. Constitution.
Among the other claims in the lawsuit are that the CSA: (i) was enacted and implemented in order to discriminate against African Americans and to suppress people’s First Amendment rights; and (ii) violates plaintiffs’ constitutional Right to Travel.
Joseph Bondy, a federal criminal defense attorney and legalization advocate, explained he felt it was important to “question the agenda of those who continue to push for enforcement of the CSA, given its unlawful and discriminatory impact and that so few in America support such an effort.” Co-counsel David Holland, a litigator and Executive Director of Empire State NORML, noted that “the efforts to criminalize Cannabis are relatively recent and were largely underwritten by racial and ethnic animus,” referring to recent findings that African Americans and other persons of color are four times as likely to be arrested under the CSA than white Americans, even though marijuana is used equally by people of color and Caucasians.
Perhaps the federal courts will surprise us at long last and finally take a critical look at marijuana prohibition, and find the courage to declare the CSA to be unconstitutional. That would be an enormous step forward in ending marijuana prohibition altogether. But regardless of the outcome of this particular suit, it is encouraging to see the criminal defense bar continue to push the legal envelope, and to advance the best and latest legal and factual arguments. At some point, the courts will have no choice but to strike downC1_8734_r_x prohibition as a violation of our personal
Source
Sunday, May 7, 2017
Donald Trump breaks his silence on medical marijuana
President Donald Trump took on the topic of medical marijuana for the first time since he took office in November, and it appears he's kind of in favor of it.
Along with signing the most recent federal funding bill (the one that always brings the threat of a government shut down if it isn't passed), Trump signed an amendment to the bill Friday that stops the Department of Justice and the Drug Enforcement Agency from using federal funds to arrest people simply for working at a medical marijuana dispensary in a state where it's legal.
Here's Trump's full statement on the amendment:
Division B, section 537 provides that the Department of Justice may not use any funds to prevent implementation of medical marijuana laws by various States and territories. I will treat this provision consistently with my constitutional responsibility to take care that the laws be faithfully executed.
In the United States, marijuana is illegal in all forms at a federal level, but 29 states have legalized the production, sale, and usage of medical marijuana in some form.
Trump's laissez-faire approach isn't exactly an endorsement of medical marijuana, but it's not an active stance against it.
The amendment doesn't include anything about states that have legalized recreational marijuana in any form.
Source
Along with signing the most recent federal funding bill (the one that always brings the threat of a government shut down if it isn't passed), Trump signed an amendment to the bill Friday that stops the Department of Justice and the Drug Enforcement Agency from using federal funds to arrest people simply for working at a medical marijuana dispensary in a state where it's legal.
Here's Trump's full statement on the amendment:
Division B, section 537 provides that the Department of Justice may not use any funds to prevent implementation of medical marijuana laws by various States and territories. I will treat this provision consistently with my constitutional responsibility to take care that the laws be faithfully executed.
In the United States, marijuana is illegal in all forms at a federal level, but 29 states have legalized the production, sale, and usage of medical marijuana in some form.
Trump's laissez-faire approach isn't exactly an endorsement of medical marijuana, but it's not an active stance against it.
The amendment doesn't include anything about states that have legalized recreational marijuana in any form.
Source
Thursday, March 2, 2017
Sessions reassures senators: No pot crackdown imminent
The Trump administration is causing serious paranoia among marijuana advocates with its hints of a federal crackdown on recreational use. But Attorney General Jeff Sessions has privately reassured some Republican senators that he won't deviate from an Obama-era policy of allowing states to implement their own marijuana laws.
Sessions has rattled both libertarians and liberals in ordering a review of the hands-off pot policy under President Barack Obama. But Sessions provided some private assurances to senators before he was confirmed that he was not considering a major shift in enforcement, despite his opposition to the use of marijuana.
“He told me he would have some respect for states' right on these things. And so I’ll be very unhappy if the federal government decides to go into Colorado and Washington and all of these places. And that’s not the [what] my interpretation of my conversation with him was. That this wasn’t his intention," said Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.). in an interview.
And since he was confirmed, Sen. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.) said administration officials have left him with the impression there is no big policy change coming.
"Nothing at this point has changed," Gardner said.
But a large group of bipartisan senators aren't taking any chances. They sent a letter on on Thursday urging Sessions to uphold the Obama-era policy of allowing states to implement their recreational marijuana laws, after the Trump administration has indicated it could crack down on marijuana.
The effort is led by Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), who hail from states that have legalized marijuana. Press secretary Sean Spicer has hinted at "greater enforcement" of federal laws treating marijuana as an illegal drug. Sessions said this week that he is "dubious about marijuana" and is reviewing current policy.
But senators are beginning to push back.
"We respectfully request that you uphold DOJ's existing policy regarding states that have implemented strong and effective regulations for recreational use," the senators wrote to Sessions. "It is critical that states continue to implement these laws."
Eight states and the District of Columbia have legalized marijuana for recreational use. Most of the senators who signed on to the letter hail from those states; Murkowski is the only Republican. The senators who signed the letter in addition to Warren and Murkowski are Democratic Sens. Patty Murray of Washington, Ron Wyden of Oregon, Jeff Merkley of Oregon, Maria Cantwell of Washington, Ed Markey of Massachusetts, Brian Schatz of Hawaii, Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada, Cory Booker of New Jersey and Michael Bennet of Colorado.
"Do they really respect states' rights? Then you should respect all of them, not just pick and choose the ones that you want to support or not. Many states have gone not only the path of Nevada of recreational marijuana but medical marijuana. How can you pick or choose one or another?" Cortez Masto said in an interview.
Cortez Masto's GOP colleage, Sen. Dean Heller, separately disclosed that he discussed his state's marijuana policy with Sessions during the nomination process in a letter to Sessions. Heller also urged Sessions to keep current policy.
"While I maintain that, unlike medical marijuana, I have serious concerns on whether or not the benefits of recreational marijuana outweigh the drawbacks, I recognize and respect the will of Nevadans," Heller wrote on Wednesday.
But a Justice Department spokesman said senators should mellow out. "The department’s current policy is reflected in the 2013 Cole Memo," the DOJ spokesman said, referring to the Obama policy.
The concern, however, isn't just among senators from states that have legalized the drug. It's also an issue for conservatives who are worried about the GOP selectively allowing states' rights to supercede federal law.
"We’re concerned about some of the language that we’re hearing. And I think that conservatives who are for states' rights ought to believe in states' rights. I'm going to continue to advocate that the states should be left alone," Paul said.
Gardner, whose home state was a pioneer in legalizing the drug, was less alarmed by the statements coming from Sessions and Spicer.
“He was talking about if there’s cartels involved in illegal operations, they’re going to crack down on that. That’s what everybody’s saying. I still haven’t heard Jeff Sessions say that" there's a big policy change coming, Gardner said. "We obviously want to make sure we're clear on what they’ve said."
However, Sessions came awfully close earlier this week to suggest sweeping changes are coming, saying that the Obama-era policy is under review.
"I'm definitely not a fan of expanded use of marijuana," Sessions told reporters. "States they can pass the laws they choose. I would just say it does remain a violation of federal law to distribute marijuana throughout any place in the United States, whether a state legalizes it or not."
In an interview, Murkowski said she was not yet alarmed, but was monitoring the Justice Department closely.
"It's probably a little premature to try to predict what may or may not be coming out of the administration on this, so I think we just need to sit back and see," she said.
Source
Not from what I've read. Sessions is making it sound like he is starting up the assault vehicles and ready to put them to use. In fact it sounds like he can't wait to bust down the doors of dispensaries with his DEA goon squad. That SOB is saying one thing to the Senators and another to us. Which is true? Are they going to crackdown or not. I hoping for not. We contact our elected leaders and we sign petitions. Making us nervous is not the way to do things because if we do get nervous we get activist and our activism got a lot of Senators to question Sessions. Now we are all questioning him. Who is the real Jeff Sessions? Is he going to raid the dispensaries? Time will tell. Stay tuned.
Sessions has rattled both libertarians and liberals in ordering a review of the hands-off pot policy under President Barack Obama. But Sessions provided some private assurances to senators before he was confirmed that he was not considering a major shift in enforcement, despite his opposition to the use of marijuana.
“He told me he would have some respect for states' right on these things. And so I’ll be very unhappy if the federal government decides to go into Colorado and Washington and all of these places. And that’s not the [what] my interpretation of my conversation with him was. That this wasn’t his intention," said Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.). in an interview.
And since he was confirmed, Sen. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.) said administration officials have left him with the impression there is no big policy change coming.
"Nothing at this point has changed," Gardner said.
But a large group of bipartisan senators aren't taking any chances. They sent a letter on on Thursday urging Sessions to uphold the Obama-era policy of allowing states to implement their recreational marijuana laws, after the Trump administration has indicated it could crack down on marijuana.
The effort is led by Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), who hail from states that have legalized marijuana. Press secretary Sean Spicer has hinted at "greater enforcement" of federal laws treating marijuana as an illegal drug. Sessions said this week that he is "dubious about marijuana" and is reviewing current policy.
But senators are beginning to push back.
"We respectfully request that you uphold DOJ's existing policy regarding states that have implemented strong and effective regulations for recreational use," the senators wrote to Sessions. "It is critical that states continue to implement these laws."
Eight states and the District of Columbia have legalized marijuana for recreational use. Most of the senators who signed on to the letter hail from those states; Murkowski is the only Republican. The senators who signed the letter in addition to Warren and Murkowski are Democratic Sens. Patty Murray of Washington, Ron Wyden of Oregon, Jeff Merkley of Oregon, Maria Cantwell of Washington, Ed Markey of Massachusetts, Brian Schatz of Hawaii, Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada, Cory Booker of New Jersey and Michael Bennet of Colorado.
"Do they really respect states' rights? Then you should respect all of them, not just pick and choose the ones that you want to support or not. Many states have gone not only the path of Nevada of recreational marijuana but medical marijuana. How can you pick or choose one or another?" Cortez Masto said in an interview.
Cortez Masto's GOP colleage, Sen. Dean Heller, separately disclosed that he discussed his state's marijuana policy with Sessions during the nomination process in a letter to Sessions. Heller also urged Sessions to keep current policy.
"While I maintain that, unlike medical marijuana, I have serious concerns on whether or not the benefits of recreational marijuana outweigh the drawbacks, I recognize and respect the will of Nevadans," Heller wrote on Wednesday.
But a Justice Department spokesman said senators should mellow out. "The department’s current policy is reflected in the 2013 Cole Memo," the DOJ spokesman said, referring to the Obama policy.
The concern, however, isn't just among senators from states that have legalized the drug. It's also an issue for conservatives who are worried about the GOP selectively allowing states' rights to supercede federal law.
"We’re concerned about some of the language that we’re hearing. And I think that conservatives who are for states' rights ought to believe in states' rights. I'm going to continue to advocate that the states should be left alone," Paul said.
Gardner, whose home state was a pioneer in legalizing the drug, was less alarmed by the statements coming from Sessions and Spicer.
“He was talking about if there’s cartels involved in illegal operations, they’re going to crack down on that. That’s what everybody’s saying. I still haven’t heard Jeff Sessions say that" there's a big policy change coming, Gardner said. "We obviously want to make sure we're clear on what they’ve said."
However, Sessions came awfully close earlier this week to suggest sweeping changes are coming, saying that the Obama-era policy is under review.
"I'm definitely not a fan of expanded use of marijuana," Sessions told reporters. "States they can pass the laws they choose. I would just say it does remain a violation of federal law to distribute marijuana throughout any place in the United States, whether a state legalizes it or not."
In an interview, Murkowski said she was not yet alarmed, but was monitoring the Justice Department closely.
"It's probably a little premature to try to predict what may or may not be coming out of the administration on this, so I think we just need to sit back and see," she said.
Source
Not from what I've read. Sessions is making it sound like he is starting up the assault vehicles and ready to put them to use. In fact it sounds like he can't wait to bust down the doors of dispensaries with his DEA goon squad. That SOB is saying one thing to the Senators and another to us. Which is true? Are they going to crackdown or not. I hoping for not. We contact our elected leaders and we sign petitions. Making us nervous is not the way to do things because if we do get nervous we get activist and our activism got a lot of Senators to question Sessions. Now we are all questioning him. Who is the real Jeff Sessions? Is he going to raid the dispensaries? Time will tell. Stay tuned.
Wednesday, October 12, 2016
James Comey and Loretta Lynch Should Be Impeached for Whitewashing Clinton’s Crimes
Former federal prosecutor says that Hillary obstructed justice and destroyed evidence—with the support of the president himself
By Sidney Powell • 10/11/16 8:30am
Just when one thinks the cavalier cabal of Clinton and her cronies has exhausted all manner of corruption, yet another outrage surfaces, implicating even more people.
The bombshell this week is that Loretta Lynch and James Comey not only gave immunity to Hillary’s closest co-conspirators Cheryl Mills and Heather Samuelson—who, despite being attorneys, destroyed evidence right and left—but, in a secret side deal, agreed to limit the FBI’s review of the Clinton team laptops to pre-January 2015 and to destroy the laptops when the FBI review was complete.
Congress and every law-abiding citizen in this country should be outraged. This blatant destruction of evidence is obstruction of justice itself.
We no longer have a Department of Justice: We have a Department of Obstructing and Corrupting Justice to protect the power elite of the chosen side.
It’s easy to see now why Lynch secretly met Bill Clinton on an airport tarmac on June 27. Only a few days later, the FBI had its little chat with Hillary—neither under oath nor with a rights warning—in the presence of her coconspirators. Then, Hillary announced she would keep Lynch as Attorney General if she is elected president. Surely by coincidence, the very next day Comey does his song and dance ending the “investigation.”
Comey’s “investigation” was a farce. Any former prosecutor worth a flip would have convened a grand jury, issued subpoenas, gotten search warrants, seized computers, run wire taps, indicted the Clinton cabal, and squeezed the underlings to plead guilty and cooperate. This business of friendly chats, immunity agreements handed out like party favors, and side deals that include the Attorney General approving the destruction of evidence to keep it from Congress doesn’t happen for others targeted by the feds.
Just ask any number of Wall Street executives who for various reasons found themselves on the opposite side of the Department of “Justice.” In fact, my former client, Jim Brown, served a year in prison convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice for testifying about his personal understanding of a telephone call to which he was not even a party. Yes, you read that correctly. Read Licensed to Lie: Exposing Corruption in the Department of Justice. It becomes more relevant every day.
How did we get here?
Thanks to the work of Judicial Watch and others, we learned over a year ago now that Hillary Clinton ran the most important and confidential of world affairs and the United States Department of State through an unsecured computer server assembled by her minions and ensconced in the basement of her New York home. She did so despite repeated warnings of security risks, against protocol, and contrary to her own memo to all of her underlings. That posed no problem simply because the rules don’t apply to Clinton.
Conveniently, her server also handled Clinton Foundation correspondence that facilitated the personal enrichment of Hillary and Bill by hundreds of millions of dollars. That money came from Bill’s remarkable “speaking fees” at hundreds of events around the world—each of which was quickly approved as requested by Clinton crony Cheryl Mills at the State Department—as if there were no conflict of interest. Simultaneously, foreign entities made “donations” of hundreds of millions of dollars to the Clinton Foundation to obtain the immediate attention of and curry favor with the secretary of state—and it worked.
The conflict of interest inherent in that entire scenario is palpable. It’s the Clintonian equivalent of the scheme former Enron CFO Andrew Fastow conceived that destroyed Enron—a large side-slush fund that operated as his own piggy bank. The Clintons boldly went where no one has gone before: They privatized the State Department for their massive personal gain, creating a net worth for each of over $100 million dollars in a few short years. Ironically enough, lead counsel for the Clinton Foundation now was President Obama’s longest-serving White House counsel. A former prosecutor on the Enron Task Force, Kathryn Ruemmler was implicated in various forms of prosecutorial misconduct and its cover-up.
The personal home server allowed Hillary Clinton to send and receive all of her emails and run the State Department free from protected, secure, and required government channels. It was established deliberately to circumvent the Federal Records Act and the Freedom of Information Act—both of which applied to her work-related correspondence.
That was no problem for Clinton however, as she simply “didn’t know how to use a computer,” apparently was incapable of learning to do so (unlike most toddlers in the country), and she liked her Blackberry—which was reason enough for her highness to ignore the national security interests of the entire country.
One of our favorite Clinton lies is: ‘My staff and I will cooperate completely with the investigation.’
Clinton’s insistence on operating outside the government security protocols demonstrated at best deliberate disregard for the law and national security—and, at worst, conduct that was treasonous. That is why 18 USC 793 (d) and (f) make it a crime punishable by imprisonment for 10 years to even move any information relating to the national defense from secure conditions or to fail to return it upon demand. Clinton did both—repeatedly.
The unsecure server also facilitated the clearly conflicting roles of Clinton confidant and protégé Huma Abedin, who was paid simultaneously by the Clinton Foundation and the taxpayers through the State Department. That made it easier for the double-dipping Abedin to schedule meetings quickly for Clinton with those who had paid to play—substantial donors to the Foundation, such as the Crown Prince of Bahrain, who had been denied a face-to-face through those pesky State Department protocols in place for mere mortals. His millions in contributions to the Foundation got him an appointment with Clinton through Abedin in a matter of hours.
We wrote more than a year ago—as soon as we heard one Clinton server was “wiped”—about the Countless Crimes of Hillary Clinton. We foresaw the need for a special prosecutor and predicted that if emails could be found, they would likely implicate high ranking people across the government, including the president.
Lo and behold, President Obama, who told the country he heard of Clinton’s private email from news reports, was in reality emailing her at Clintonemail.com and using an alias. He must have forgotten. But, wait—just this week, we get more emails, and there’s now evidence that the White House and the State Department coordinated an attempt to minimize the problem.
Now we have a candidate for president of the United States who has committed lie after lie, obstructed justice, and destroyed evidence with the support of the president himself—conduct for which many people are in prison. Sometimes it’s called False Statements to federal officials, punishable by up to five years in prison under 18 USC 1001. Under other circumstances, such as in sworn statements to federal judges or testimony to Congress, it can be perjury under 18 USC 1621 or 1623.
And let’s not forget obstruction of justice under 18 USC 1519. That statute was tailor-made to fit the facts of the Clinton cabal’s destruction of evidence. It reads:
Whoever knowingly alters, destroys, mutilates, conceals, covers up, falsifies, or makes a false entry in any record, document, or tangible object with the intent to impede, obstruct, or influence the investigation or proper administration of any matter within the jurisdiction of any department or agency of the United States or any case filed under title 11, or in relation to or contemplation of any such matter or case, shall be fined under this title, imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both.
Remember the man relentlessly prosecuted by the feds for throwing a few fish overboard? That case had to go all the way to the Supreme Court for them to decide that fish weren’t the kind of tangible objects/evidence to which Congress intended the new obstruction statute to apply. But emails, computers, and servers are. Senator Clinton voted for that new statute—but it doesn’t apply to her. Well, it would, but Loretta Lynch and James Comey just agreed to destroy evidence of it themselves.
These false statement and obstruction offenses are so easy to prove that prosecutors often tack them on to already multi-count indictments just for good measure when they want to hammer Wall Street bankers or other citizens and business people who actually work for a living.
How many of these federal criminal offenses are established by the limited evidence that has been pried out of the Clintons’ hands or resurrected from unsuccessful although mighty attempts to destroy it? They are truly countless, as each email would be a separate charge but, for the sake of brevity, we’ll just pick three or four—that don’t even include all the conspiracy charge options routinely used by “reasonable” prosecutors.
First, Clinton testified to Congress that she “turned over all of her work-related emails.” Second, she “only wanted to use one device.” Later, she chose her words carefully, claiming “nothing was marked classified when it was sent or received.” That sounds good to people who are not lawyers, but it’s Clintonese and not the law.
She “turned over all her work emails”?
First, her friend Sidney Blumenthal found a number of emails he exchanged with her about confidential matters of State that she didn’t produce. Next, that pesky Pentagon found over 1,000 emails between Hillary and General Petraeus alone. Most recently, the FBI found roughly 15,000 Clinton thought had been erased completely when she had her servers “wiped” professionally with BleachBit. We’ll never know how many were deliberately destroyed to protect her incompetence and corruption. Mills, Samuelson, and others at Platte River Networks destroyed whatever they wanted.
As both secretary of state and an attorney who had long been paid by the taxpayers, Clinton should know that information “relating to the national defense” is what is protected under 18 USC 793(f). It doesn’t have to be “classified”—marked or unmarked—even though much of it was.
Sure, let’s give her the presidency and the nuclear codes and access to every national secret—ISIS can just hack her and use our own missiles to destroy us. They won’t have to worry about trying to bring nukes into the country.
In any event, according to the FBI’s perfunctory investigation, more than 2,000 of the emails available are classified as Confidential or Secret or higher.
Clinton may have only wanted “one device,” but the truth is that she had 13 “personal mobile devices that were lost, discarded, or destroyed.” Reporter Sharyl Attkisson has an excellent timeline of irrefutable, no-spin facts derived from the part of the FBI’s file that has been made public. The timeline of events alone is damning.
Not surprisingly, Attkisson reports that “[a]fter the State Dept. notified Hillary Clinton her records would be sought by the House Benghazi Committee, copies of her email on the laptops of her attorneys Cheryl Mills and Heather Samuelson were wiped with Bleachbit, and the FBI couldn’t review them. After her emails were subpoenaed, Hillary Clinton’s email archive was also permanently deleted from her then-server ‘PRN’ with BleachBit, and the FBI couldn’t review it.”
One of our favorite Clinton lies is: “My staff and I will cooperate completely with the investigation.”
I guess that’s why they invoked their Fifth Amendment privileges against self-incrimination, had hard-drives wiped, destroyed devices with hammers, put the selected emails in the hands of her attorney and refused to produce them for weeks, while her staff all refused to speak without grants of immunity or took the Fifth. I guess it just depends on how you define “cooperation.”
Enter stage left James Comey, Director of the FBI, who fills himself with righteous indignation to tell Congress what a great job the FBI did in this “investigation.” As Congressman Trey Gowdy said, and I concur, “This isn’t the FBI I used to work with.”
Clinton ran her shenanigans without an Inspector General in the State Department. An Inspector General is appointed by the President, but his or her job is to serve as a watchdog on behalf of the taxpayers. As The Wall Street Journal reported, Clinton declined to allow an Inspector General at the State Department during her entire tenure—so there was no internal oversight, and President Obama allowed that. More than a year ago, the Inspector Generals for State and for the Intelligence Community conducted a limited review of only 40 of Clinton’s emails. They quickly found several containing classified information which they immediately reported to the executive branch and advised Congress. They wrote: “This classified information should never have been transmitted via an unclassified personal system.”
Remember Richard Nixon? Remember Attorney General John Mitchell? Remember White House Counsel John Dean? Nixon White House cronies Haldeman and Erlichman? They all went to prison.
It’s not just the private server. It’s not about personal emails or even a few business emails sent from a personal account.
It is about the fair administration of justice and trust in our justice system. It is about the accountability of our highest officials. It is about destroying evidence in the face of a serious investigation. It is about national security breaches of the highest order, and it’s about the privatization and sale of our State Department for personal enrichment. The conduct of the Clintons, their cronies, their Foundation, and now our highest law enforcement officials make the entire Watergate scandal look like an insignificant computer hack.
Where is the Congress? Where are what used to be our great newspapers? The sounds of silence are terrifying indicators of how government-controlled our mainstream media has become. I guess that’s why Reporters Without Borders has dropped our Freedom of Press rank to 46th world-wide.
FBI Director James Comey and Attorney General Loretta Lynch should be impeached for their roles in whitewashing Clinton’s crimes and their own participation in the destruction of evidence. They facilitated and participated in the obstruction of justice—spitting in the face of the Congressional investigation. Congress should be able to name a special prosecutor when the Attorney General has a clear conflict—such as meeting secretly with Bill Clinton during the “investigation” and receiving a promise of continuing as Attorney General if Hillary is elected President. The timeline of events and their conduct reek of corruption.
Stay tuned. Clinton’s answers under oath to D.C. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan are due October 13. Remember, he’s the judge who appointed a special prosecutor to investigate the Department of Justice following the Bush administration’s corrupted prosecution of former Alaska Senator Ted Stevens. And it was Judge John Sirica—combined with what was then the great Washington Post—who exposed the Nixon corruption.
With more and more government intrusion in every aspect of our individual businesses and lives, we are quickly losing the land of the free, and we now must wonder if any of the brave are home. Who has the chutzpah to stand up to the Clintons? Where are the real Americans? Hopefully, on election day, they will pour out in droves and resoundingly demand real change. The election and Judge Sullivan are our only chances for justice at all.
Source
By Sidney Powell • 10/11/16 8:30am
Just when one thinks the cavalier cabal of Clinton and her cronies has exhausted all manner of corruption, yet another outrage surfaces, implicating even more people.
The bombshell this week is that Loretta Lynch and James Comey not only gave immunity to Hillary’s closest co-conspirators Cheryl Mills and Heather Samuelson—who, despite being attorneys, destroyed evidence right and left—but, in a secret side deal, agreed to limit the FBI’s review of the Clinton team laptops to pre-January 2015 and to destroy the laptops when the FBI review was complete.
Congress and every law-abiding citizen in this country should be outraged. This blatant destruction of evidence is obstruction of justice itself.
We no longer have a Department of Justice: We have a Department of Obstructing and Corrupting Justice to protect the power elite of the chosen side.
It’s easy to see now why Lynch secretly met Bill Clinton on an airport tarmac on June 27. Only a few days later, the FBI had its little chat with Hillary—neither under oath nor with a rights warning—in the presence of her coconspirators. Then, Hillary announced she would keep Lynch as Attorney General if she is elected president. Surely by coincidence, the very next day Comey does his song and dance ending the “investigation.”
Comey’s “investigation” was a farce. Any former prosecutor worth a flip would have convened a grand jury, issued subpoenas, gotten search warrants, seized computers, run wire taps, indicted the Clinton cabal, and squeezed the underlings to plead guilty and cooperate. This business of friendly chats, immunity agreements handed out like party favors, and side deals that include the Attorney General approving the destruction of evidence to keep it from Congress doesn’t happen for others targeted by the feds.
Just ask any number of Wall Street executives who for various reasons found themselves on the opposite side of the Department of “Justice.” In fact, my former client, Jim Brown, served a year in prison convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice for testifying about his personal understanding of a telephone call to which he was not even a party. Yes, you read that correctly. Read Licensed to Lie: Exposing Corruption in the Department of Justice. It becomes more relevant every day.
How did we get here?
Thanks to the work of Judicial Watch and others, we learned over a year ago now that Hillary Clinton ran the most important and confidential of world affairs and the United States Department of State through an unsecured computer server assembled by her minions and ensconced in the basement of her New York home. She did so despite repeated warnings of security risks, against protocol, and contrary to her own memo to all of her underlings. That posed no problem simply because the rules don’t apply to Clinton.
Conveniently, her server also handled Clinton Foundation correspondence that facilitated the personal enrichment of Hillary and Bill by hundreds of millions of dollars. That money came from Bill’s remarkable “speaking fees” at hundreds of events around the world—each of which was quickly approved as requested by Clinton crony Cheryl Mills at the State Department—as if there were no conflict of interest. Simultaneously, foreign entities made “donations” of hundreds of millions of dollars to the Clinton Foundation to obtain the immediate attention of and curry favor with the secretary of state—and it worked.
The conflict of interest inherent in that entire scenario is palpable. It’s the Clintonian equivalent of the scheme former Enron CFO Andrew Fastow conceived that destroyed Enron—a large side-slush fund that operated as his own piggy bank. The Clintons boldly went where no one has gone before: They privatized the State Department for their massive personal gain, creating a net worth for each of over $100 million dollars in a few short years. Ironically enough, lead counsel for the Clinton Foundation now was President Obama’s longest-serving White House counsel. A former prosecutor on the Enron Task Force, Kathryn Ruemmler was implicated in various forms of prosecutorial misconduct and its cover-up.
The personal home server allowed Hillary Clinton to send and receive all of her emails and run the State Department free from protected, secure, and required government channels. It was established deliberately to circumvent the Federal Records Act and the Freedom of Information Act—both of which applied to her work-related correspondence.
That was no problem for Clinton however, as she simply “didn’t know how to use a computer,” apparently was incapable of learning to do so (unlike most toddlers in the country), and she liked her Blackberry—which was reason enough for her highness to ignore the national security interests of the entire country.
One of our favorite Clinton lies is: ‘My staff and I will cooperate completely with the investigation.’
Clinton’s insistence on operating outside the government security protocols demonstrated at best deliberate disregard for the law and national security—and, at worst, conduct that was treasonous. That is why 18 USC 793 (d) and (f) make it a crime punishable by imprisonment for 10 years to even move any information relating to the national defense from secure conditions or to fail to return it upon demand. Clinton did both—repeatedly.
The unsecure server also facilitated the clearly conflicting roles of Clinton confidant and protégé Huma Abedin, who was paid simultaneously by the Clinton Foundation and the taxpayers through the State Department. That made it easier for the double-dipping Abedin to schedule meetings quickly for Clinton with those who had paid to play—substantial donors to the Foundation, such as the Crown Prince of Bahrain, who had been denied a face-to-face through those pesky State Department protocols in place for mere mortals. His millions in contributions to the Foundation got him an appointment with Clinton through Abedin in a matter of hours.
We wrote more than a year ago—as soon as we heard one Clinton server was “wiped”—about the Countless Crimes of Hillary Clinton. We foresaw the need for a special prosecutor and predicted that if emails could be found, they would likely implicate high ranking people across the government, including the president.
Lo and behold, President Obama, who told the country he heard of Clinton’s private email from news reports, was in reality emailing her at Clintonemail.com and using an alias. He must have forgotten. But, wait—just this week, we get more emails, and there’s now evidence that the White House and the State Department coordinated an attempt to minimize the problem.
Now we have a candidate for president of the United States who has committed lie after lie, obstructed justice, and destroyed evidence with the support of the president himself—conduct for which many people are in prison. Sometimes it’s called False Statements to federal officials, punishable by up to five years in prison under 18 USC 1001. Under other circumstances, such as in sworn statements to federal judges or testimony to Congress, it can be perjury under 18 USC 1621 or 1623.
And let’s not forget obstruction of justice under 18 USC 1519. That statute was tailor-made to fit the facts of the Clinton cabal’s destruction of evidence. It reads:
Whoever knowingly alters, destroys, mutilates, conceals, covers up, falsifies, or makes a false entry in any record, document, or tangible object with the intent to impede, obstruct, or influence the investigation or proper administration of any matter within the jurisdiction of any department or agency of the United States or any case filed under title 11, or in relation to or contemplation of any such matter or case, shall be fined under this title, imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both.
Remember the man relentlessly prosecuted by the feds for throwing a few fish overboard? That case had to go all the way to the Supreme Court for them to decide that fish weren’t the kind of tangible objects/evidence to which Congress intended the new obstruction statute to apply. But emails, computers, and servers are. Senator Clinton voted for that new statute—but it doesn’t apply to her. Well, it would, but Loretta Lynch and James Comey just agreed to destroy evidence of it themselves.
These false statement and obstruction offenses are so easy to prove that prosecutors often tack them on to already multi-count indictments just for good measure when they want to hammer Wall Street bankers or other citizens and business people who actually work for a living.
How many of these federal criminal offenses are established by the limited evidence that has been pried out of the Clintons’ hands or resurrected from unsuccessful although mighty attempts to destroy it? They are truly countless, as each email would be a separate charge but, for the sake of brevity, we’ll just pick three or four—that don’t even include all the conspiracy charge options routinely used by “reasonable” prosecutors.
First, Clinton testified to Congress that she “turned over all of her work-related emails.” Second, she “only wanted to use one device.” Later, she chose her words carefully, claiming “nothing was marked classified when it was sent or received.” That sounds good to people who are not lawyers, but it’s Clintonese and not the law.
She “turned over all her work emails”?
First, her friend Sidney Blumenthal found a number of emails he exchanged with her about confidential matters of State that she didn’t produce. Next, that pesky Pentagon found over 1,000 emails between Hillary and General Petraeus alone. Most recently, the FBI found roughly 15,000 Clinton thought had been erased completely when she had her servers “wiped” professionally with BleachBit. We’ll never know how many were deliberately destroyed to protect her incompetence and corruption. Mills, Samuelson, and others at Platte River Networks destroyed whatever they wanted.
As both secretary of state and an attorney who had long been paid by the taxpayers, Clinton should know that information “relating to the national defense” is what is protected under 18 USC 793(f). It doesn’t have to be “classified”—marked or unmarked—even though much of it was.
Sure, let’s give her the presidency and the nuclear codes and access to every national secret—ISIS can just hack her and use our own missiles to destroy us. They won’t have to worry about trying to bring nukes into the country.
In any event, according to the FBI’s perfunctory investigation, more than 2,000 of the emails available are classified as Confidential or Secret or higher.
Clinton may have only wanted “one device,” but the truth is that she had 13 “personal mobile devices that were lost, discarded, or destroyed.” Reporter Sharyl Attkisson has an excellent timeline of irrefutable, no-spin facts derived from the part of the FBI’s file that has been made public. The timeline of events alone is damning.
Not surprisingly, Attkisson reports that “[a]fter the State Dept. notified Hillary Clinton her records would be sought by the House Benghazi Committee, copies of her email on the laptops of her attorneys Cheryl Mills and Heather Samuelson were wiped with Bleachbit, and the FBI couldn’t review them. After her emails were subpoenaed, Hillary Clinton’s email archive was also permanently deleted from her then-server ‘PRN’ with BleachBit, and the FBI couldn’t review it.”
One of our favorite Clinton lies is: “My staff and I will cooperate completely with the investigation.”
I guess that’s why they invoked their Fifth Amendment privileges against self-incrimination, had hard-drives wiped, destroyed devices with hammers, put the selected emails in the hands of her attorney and refused to produce them for weeks, while her staff all refused to speak without grants of immunity or took the Fifth. I guess it just depends on how you define “cooperation.”
Enter stage left James Comey, Director of the FBI, who fills himself with righteous indignation to tell Congress what a great job the FBI did in this “investigation.” As Congressman Trey Gowdy said, and I concur, “This isn’t the FBI I used to work with.”
Clinton ran her shenanigans without an Inspector General in the State Department. An Inspector General is appointed by the President, but his or her job is to serve as a watchdog on behalf of the taxpayers. As The Wall Street Journal reported, Clinton declined to allow an Inspector General at the State Department during her entire tenure—so there was no internal oversight, and President Obama allowed that. More than a year ago, the Inspector Generals for State and for the Intelligence Community conducted a limited review of only 40 of Clinton’s emails. They quickly found several containing classified information which they immediately reported to the executive branch and advised Congress. They wrote: “This classified information should never have been transmitted via an unclassified personal system.”
Remember Richard Nixon? Remember Attorney General John Mitchell? Remember White House Counsel John Dean? Nixon White House cronies Haldeman and Erlichman? They all went to prison.
It’s not just the private server. It’s not about personal emails or even a few business emails sent from a personal account.
It is about the fair administration of justice and trust in our justice system. It is about the accountability of our highest officials. It is about destroying evidence in the face of a serious investigation. It is about national security breaches of the highest order, and it’s about the privatization and sale of our State Department for personal enrichment. The conduct of the Clintons, their cronies, their Foundation, and now our highest law enforcement officials make the entire Watergate scandal look like an insignificant computer hack.
Where is the Congress? Where are what used to be our great newspapers? The sounds of silence are terrifying indicators of how government-controlled our mainstream media has become. I guess that’s why Reporters Without Borders has dropped our Freedom of Press rank to 46th world-wide.
FBI Director James Comey and Attorney General Loretta Lynch should be impeached for their roles in whitewashing Clinton’s crimes and their own participation in the destruction of evidence. They facilitated and participated in the obstruction of justice—spitting in the face of the Congressional investigation. Congress should be able to name a special prosecutor when the Attorney General has a clear conflict—such as meeting secretly with Bill Clinton during the “investigation” and receiving a promise of continuing as Attorney General if Hillary is elected President. The timeline of events and their conduct reek of corruption.
Stay tuned. Clinton’s answers under oath to D.C. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan are due October 13. Remember, he’s the judge who appointed a special prosecutor to investigate the Department of Justice following the Bush administration’s corrupted prosecution of former Alaska Senator Ted Stevens. And it was Judge John Sirica—combined with what was then the great Washington Post—who exposed the Nixon corruption.
With more and more government intrusion in every aspect of our individual businesses and lives, we are quickly losing the land of the free, and we now must wonder if any of the brave are home. Who has the chutzpah to stand up to the Clintons? Where are the real Americans? Hopefully, on election day, they will pour out in droves and resoundingly demand real change. The election and Judge Sullivan are our only chances for justice at all.
Source
Wednesday, September 7, 2016
Don't let the Feds resume arrests of medical marijuana patients
From Americans For Safe Access:
As a medical cannabis advocate, you are probably aware that the Rohrabacher-Farr amendment to the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) budget has been helping defendants win in federal court. Beginning with the Marin Alliance for Medical Marijuana ruling last October, to dropping the case against Harborside this May, to the McIntosh victory in the 9th Circuit last month, the amendment has been protecting safe and legal access for patients. The amendment was passed in 2014 and 2015 thanks in part to the support and efforts of medical cannabis activists like you!
Earlier this year, the Senate Appropriations Committee voted overwhelming to include it in next DOJ budget. However, the amendment is set to expire at the end of September and the House has yet to vote on it. If the amendment expires, the federal prosecutions against those obeying their state medical cannabis laws could resume once again.
You can help by sending an email to your representative thanking them for voting yes last year or to encourage those who voted no to take another look at the issue. Also contact your Senators and tell them to extend these protections for another year.
As a medical cannabis advocate, you are probably aware that the Rohrabacher-Farr amendment to the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) budget has been helping defendants win in federal court. Beginning with the Marin Alliance for Medical Marijuana ruling last October, to dropping the case against Harborside this May, to the McIntosh victory in the 9th Circuit last month, the amendment has been protecting safe and legal access for patients. The amendment was passed in 2014 and 2015 thanks in part to the support and efforts of medical cannabis activists like you!
Earlier this year, the Senate Appropriations Committee voted overwhelming to include it in next DOJ budget. However, the amendment is set to expire at the end of September and the House has yet to vote on it. If the amendment expires, the federal prosecutions against those obeying their state medical cannabis laws could resume once again.
You can help by sending an email to your representative thanking them for voting yes last year or to encourage those who voted no to take another look at the issue. Also contact your Senators and tell them to extend these protections for another year.
Friday, June 24, 2016
Tell Congress to back the Stop Mass Hacking Act
From Demand Progress:
It's everyone's worst nightmare: Your computer gets hacked. Someone gains access to all your files and can see the details of your entire private life.
There's no greater invasion of digital privacy.
And yet the Department of Justice is pushing a radical rule change to let law enforcement hack into thousands of innocent Americans’ computers at a time.
And because of the secretive process the DOJ used to advance this rule change, it will automatically go into effect unless Congress blocks it.
That’s why we're joining a massive national day of action today to tell Congress to stop this radical power grab by co-sponsoring the bipartisan Stop Mass Hacking Act.
Tell your reps in Congress: Co-sponsor the Stop Mass Hacking Act now!
The DOJ wants to change an obscure federal rule known as “Rule 41” to radically expand its ability to hack into Americans’ computers.
This change would make it easier for the government to break into our computers, take data, and engage in remote surveillance – all with limited oversight by the courts.
Here’s how it works:
The rule change would allow judges to give warrants to search computers outside of their jurisdiction when those computers use common privacy-protecting technology like Tor or VPNs and for computers affected by certain types of malware.
That means law enforcement can shop around for the judge most likely to rubber stamp their request.
From journalists keeping their sources confidential to activists using VPNs to protect themselves from snooping governments, these rule changes would disproportionately target Internet users who actively protect their privacy online.
Tell Congress: Secure our privacy online. Co-sponsor the Stop Mass Hacking Act now!
Here’s the scariest part about this rule change: It could impact you if your computer is infected with malware – even if you don’t know it.
When your computer gets infected with malware, it’s typically just one of thousands, if not millions of computers infected with the same virus.
In a crazy twist, DOJ’s changes to “Rule 41” would let the government hack into computers of malware attacks victims, not just the criminals who carried out the attack.
About 30% of computers worldwide are infected with malware,1 so the government’s authority to secretly hack into our devices would be MASSIVE.
These changes will go through unless Congress takes action. That’s why we need to mobilize massive opposition to these rule changes.
Join us and tell your Representative and Senators: Co-sponsor the Stop Mass Hacking Act and reverse the changes to Rule 41 today!
Thanks for taking action,
Kate Kizer
Campaigner
Demand Progress
It's everyone's worst nightmare: Your computer gets hacked. Someone gains access to all your files and can see the details of your entire private life.
There's no greater invasion of digital privacy.
And yet the Department of Justice is pushing a radical rule change to let law enforcement hack into thousands of innocent Americans’ computers at a time.
And because of the secretive process the DOJ used to advance this rule change, it will automatically go into effect unless Congress blocks it.
That’s why we're joining a massive national day of action today to tell Congress to stop this radical power grab by co-sponsoring the bipartisan Stop Mass Hacking Act.
Tell your reps in Congress: Co-sponsor the Stop Mass Hacking Act now!
The DOJ wants to change an obscure federal rule known as “Rule 41” to radically expand its ability to hack into Americans’ computers.
This change would make it easier for the government to break into our computers, take data, and engage in remote surveillance – all with limited oversight by the courts.
Here’s how it works:
The rule change would allow judges to give warrants to search computers outside of their jurisdiction when those computers use common privacy-protecting technology like Tor or VPNs and for computers affected by certain types of malware.
That means law enforcement can shop around for the judge most likely to rubber stamp their request.
From journalists keeping their sources confidential to activists using VPNs to protect themselves from snooping governments, these rule changes would disproportionately target Internet users who actively protect their privacy online.
Tell Congress: Secure our privacy online. Co-sponsor the Stop Mass Hacking Act now!
Here’s the scariest part about this rule change: It could impact you if your computer is infected with malware – even if you don’t know it.
When your computer gets infected with malware, it’s typically just one of thousands, if not millions of computers infected with the same virus.
In a crazy twist, DOJ’s changes to “Rule 41” would let the government hack into computers of malware attacks victims, not just the criminals who carried out the attack.
About 30% of computers worldwide are infected with malware,1 so the government’s authority to secretly hack into our devices would be MASSIVE.
These changes will go through unless Congress takes action. That’s why we need to mobilize massive opposition to these rule changes.
Join us and tell your Representative and Senators: Co-sponsor the Stop Mass Hacking Act and reverse the changes to Rule 41 today!
Thanks for taking action,
Kate Kizer
Campaigner
Demand Progress
Tuesday, October 20, 2015
Federal judge tell the DOJ to back off raiding medical marijuana dispensaries
Medical Marijuana Dispensaries Win Battle Against Federal Crackdown
"This is a big win for medical marijuana patients and their providers."
Medical marijuana dispensaries scored a major win on Monday when a federal judge ruled that the Department of Justice cannot prosecute legal providers of medical cannabis.
In his ruling, Senior District Judge Charles R. Breyer lifted an injunction against a California dispensary, the Marin Alliance for Medical Marijuana, and its founder, Lynette Shaw, ruling that a budget amendment Congress approved last year requires the federal government to respect state marijuana laws. The DOJ is thus precluded from criminally prosecuting organizations like MAMM that comply with state regulations.
The amendment, sponsored by Reps. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.) and Sam Farr (D-Calif.), was added to last year's federal spending bill. Under the provision, the Justice Department is prohibited from using federal funds to undermine state medical marijuana programs. The Rohrabacher-Farr amendment came in response to a renewed federal crackdown on the medical marijuana industry in California, where medical pot has been legal since 1996. MAMM, located in Fairfax, California, was one of the targeted dispensaries, and shuttered in 2011 under federal pressure.
However, the Justice Department has narrowly interpreted the amendment, telling the Los Angeles Times in April that the new restrictions don't apply to dispensaries or individuals, but instead prevents the feds from "impeding the ability of states to carry out their medical marijuana laws."
The amendment's authors vehemently disagreed, accusing the DOJ of violating the law and calling for an investigation into the department's crackdown on legal businesses.
Monday's ruling struck a blow to the DOJ's interpretation of the law, which Breyer said "tortures the plain meaning of the statute."
"It defies language and logic for the Government to argue that it does not 'prevent' California from 'implementing' its medical marijuana laws by shutting down these same heavily-regulated medical marijuana dispensaries," Breyer wrote. "And contrary to the Government's representation, the record here does support a finding that Californians' access to legal medical marijuana has been substantitively impeded by the closing of dispensaries, and the closing of MAMM in particular."
The decision could have wide-ranging implications, as 23 states plus the District of Columbia have legalized pot for medical use. Another 17 states have allowed the use of non-psychoactive cannabis extract to treat conditions like severe epilepsy in children.
Marijuana advocates applauded Breyer's ruling Tuesday.
"This is a big win for medical marijuana patients and their providers, and a significant victory in our efforts to end the federal government’s war on marijuana. Federal raids of legitimate medical marijuana businesses aren’t just stupid and wasteful, but also illegal," said Dan Riffle, director of federal policies for Marijuana Policy Project, in a statement.
"It's great to see the judicial branch finally starting to hold the Justice Department accountable for its willful violation of Congress's intent to end federal interference with state medical marijuana laws,"said Tom Angell, chairman of the pro-legalization group Marijuana Majority. "I hope the Obama administration takes this ruling to heart and makes sure DEA and federal prosecutors finally stop trying to stand between patients and their medicine."
Shaw, MAMM's founder, also praised the ruling.
"I'm very happy and I’m very relieved that I will get to return to my life’s work,” she told the San Francisco Chronicle.
Source
"This is a big win for medical marijuana patients and their providers."
Medical marijuana dispensaries scored a major win on Monday when a federal judge ruled that the Department of Justice cannot prosecute legal providers of medical cannabis.
In his ruling, Senior District Judge Charles R. Breyer lifted an injunction against a California dispensary, the Marin Alliance for Medical Marijuana, and its founder, Lynette Shaw, ruling that a budget amendment Congress approved last year requires the federal government to respect state marijuana laws. The DOJ is thus precluded from criminally prosecuting organizations like MAMM that comply with state regulations.
The amendment, sponsored by Reps. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.) and Sam Farr (D-Calif.), was added to last year's federal spending bill. Under the provision, the Justice Department is prohibited from using federal funds to undermine state medical marijuana programs. The Rohrabacher-Farr amendment came in response to a renewed federal crackdown on the medical marijuana industry in California, where medical pot has been legal since 1996. MAMM, located in Fairfax, California, was one of the targeted dispensaries, and shuttered in 2011 under federal pressure.
However, the Justice Department has narrowly interpreted the amendment, telling the Los Angeles Times in April that the new restrictions don't apply to dispensaries or individuals, but instead prevents the feds from "impeding the ability of states to carry out their medical marijuana laws."
The amendment's authors vehemently disagreed, accusing the DOJ of violating the law and calling for an investigation into the department's crackdown on legal businesses.
Monday's ruling struck a blow to the DOJ's interpretation of the law, which Breyer said "tortures the plain meaning of the statute."
"It defies language and logic for the Government to argue that it does not 'prevent' California from 'implementing' its medical marijuana laws by shutting down these same heavily-regulated medical marijuana dispensaries," Breyer wrote. "And contrary to the Government's representation, the record here does support a finding that Californians' access to legal medical marijuana has been substantitively impeded by the closing of dispensaries, and the closing of MAMM in particular."
The decision could have wide-ranging implications, as 23 states plus the District of Columbia have legalized pot for medical use. Another 17 states have allowed the use of non-psychoactive cannabis extract to treat conditions like severe epilepsy in children.
Marijuana advocates applauded Breyer's ruling Tuesday.
"This is a big win for medical marijuana patients and their providers, and a significant victory in our efforts to end the federal government’s war on marijuana. Federal raids of legitimate medical marijuana businesses aren’t just stupid and wasteful, but also illegal," said Dan Riffle, director of federal policies for Marijuana Policy Project, in a statement.
"It's great to see the judicial branch finally starting to hold the Justice Department accountable for its willful violation of Congress's intent to end federal interference with state medical marijuana laws,"said Tom Angell, chairman of the pro-legalization group Marijuana Majority. "I hope the Obama administration takes this ruling to heart and makes sure DEA and federal prosecutors finally stop trying to stand between patients and their medicine."
Shaw, MAMM's founder, also praised the ruling.
"I'm very happy and I’m very relieved that I will get to return to my life’s work,” she told the San Francisco Chronicle.
Source
Thursday, August 13, 2015
Hillary Clinton tells the DOJ to eat her shit
Hillary Rodham Clinton complied with Justice Department requests for her server — by turning over a hunk of junk.
The much-sought-after home server “was blank,” said Barbara Wells, a lawyer representing the Denver-based computer firm Platte River Networks, which managed the server for Clinton.
“The information had been migrated over to a different server for purposes of transition,” Wells told The Washington Post. “To my knowledge, the data on the old server is not available now on any servers or devices in Platte River Networks’ control.”
Computer experts told The Post that by deleting content, Clinton has made it difficult, but not impossible, to recover her messages.
“If you delete a large file and then write over it with a smaller file, then you may be able to retrieve the data that was not written over,” a federal law-enforcement source told The Post.
“If somebody uses a software program to scrub the hard drive clean, that’s problematic.”
But another expert said the FBI has been able to capture data even in cases where “subjects” thought it was irretrievable.
Clinton said she turned over all her official e-mails to the State Department in December and then wiped clean her server.
Clinton deleted some 30,000 personal e-mails but backed up work ones on thumb drives that were also turned over to federal authorities.
In compliance with a federal court order, lawyers for two top Clinton aides, Huma Abedin and Cheryl Mills, assured a judge Wednesday the aides won’t delete any of their official e-mails.
The Clinton campaign said Thursday there is nothing on her server left to retrieve. “As David Kendall [Clinton’s lawyer] said in March, we do not believe any e-mails from her time as secretary exist on the server,” the campaign said in a statement.
Platte River says it began work for Clinton in June 2013, after she left office, to upgrade, secure and manage her e-mail server.
The company retrieved the server from her New York home and housed it at a data center in New Jersey, said company spokesman Andy Boian.
Wells did not return phones for comment on whether the content can still be retrieved.
It’s unclear when the server was wiped clean when “migrated” to a different server, as Wells said, and where that information was transferred.
Clinton’s campaign did not say.
One security expert said many questions remain. “They are saying they migrated that data somewhere. Where is the somewhere?” asked the security expert, who asked not be identified for fear of legal ramifications from his employer. “What happened to the data that was transferred, and is the new server following any of the regulations it’s supposed to?”
Source
This little bitch and her husband are pissing me off. If I were running things I would park her ass in the pokey and see if that sobers her up. She and her husband think they are above the law and they have a lot of accomplices that will help them and it is those accomplices that shield the Clintons from the law. The same law we are accountable to they get a free ride. Just more Clinton bullshit. Watch she'll be the Democratic nominee.
Thursday, July 30, 2015
5 reasons Hillary can be beat in the 2016 election
From Stop Hillary PAC:
Hillary is in trouble.
The American people are finally waking up.
Beating Hillary Clinton will not be easy -- but it can be done.
Top 5 reasons Hillary can be beat
With your support Stop Hillary PAC has been pounding away at Hillary for over a year -- spending almost 2 million dollars directly targeting Hillary to defeat her 2016 run for president.
And now it's finally paying off.
You and I both know there are hundreds of reasons why Hillary can be beat -- but here are the top:
Reason #5:
A majority of the American people now have a negative view of Hillary Clinton.
You need to look no further than the latest swing state polls in Ohio, Florida and Pennsylvania to see that a clear Majority of Americans now have a negative view of Hillary Clinton.
Thanks to Stop Hillary PAC -- and your continued support -- our non-stop digital media campaign has taken a huge toll on Hillary -- and the poll numbers now confirm it.
Reason #4:
Hillary is a liar and the American people know it.
Rarely does a front running, major party presidential candidate have such a huge public problem with telling the truth. According to poll after poll, the American people by a solid majority now believe Hillary Clinton cannot be trusted. And it's getting worse for her.
Thanks to Stop Hillary PAC's public information campaign, we have contacted over 10 million Americans with the truth about Hillary's lies. Your continued support for Stop Hillary is making a huge difference.
Reason #3:
Pending Federal Investigation into Hillary's illegal acts.
According to the New York Times, (not exactly a mainstream publication) no less than two federal agencies have referred Hillary's actions to the Department of Justice. In fact, Hillary's own Department of State has now turned against her and is referring her actions to the Justice Department. Hillary is in trouble.
Thanks to Stop Hillary PAC's Citizens Subpoena campaign, you have helped lay the groundwork that has activated and mobilized the American people. Even Hillary's Democratic supporters in Congress have recognized that Stop Hillary PAC is making a difference.
Reason #2:
Benghazi, Benghazi, Benghazi.
"What difference does it make?" A big difference! Four Americans died in the attacks on Benghazi. The American people are going to hold Hillary Clinton ultimately responsible. Hillary's excuses have turned to lies and the American people will hold her responsible.
Stop Hillary PAC is the only organization that continues to work pressure Congress AND the administration to hold Hillary accountable. With almost 1 million petitions delivered to Congress, Stop Hillary's efforts have made sure -- that even the many who would have forgotten the Benghazi tragedy -- we remember the need for justice.
Reason #1:
Congressman Trey Gowdy
Nobody is more focused on Hillary Clinton than Congressman Trey Gowdy and his House Committee on Benghazi. Time after time, Congressman Gowdy has outmaneuvered Hillary's attorneys, and he refuses to allow Hillary's lies and misdeeds to go away.
AND no other organization has provided more grassroots support, public backing, and raw political muscle to keep the pressure on Hillary.
If you are still committed to defeating Hillary -- will you make a sustaining contribution to ensure Stop Hillary PAC has the resources to continue to hammer Hillary Clinton every day until she is defeated?
Hillary is in trouble.
The American people are finally waking up.
Beating Hillary Clinton will not be easy -- but it can be done.
Top 5 reasons Hillary can be beat
With your support Stop Hillary PAC has been pounding away at Hillary for over a year -- spending almost 2 million dollars directly targeting Hillary to defeat her 2016 run for president.
And now it's finally paying off.
You and I both know there are hundreds of reasons why Hillary can be beat -- but here are the top:
Reason #5:
A majority of the American people now have a negative view of Hillary Clinton.
You need to look no further than the latest swing state polls in Ohio, Florida and Pennsylvania to see that a clear Majority of Americans now have a negative view of Hillary Clinton.
Thanks to Stop Hillary PAC -- and your continued support -- our non-stop digital media campaign has taken a huge toll on Hillary -- and the poll numbers now confirm it.
Reason #4:
Hillary is a liar and the American people know it.
Rarely does a front running, major party presidential candidate have such a huge public problem with telling the truth. According to poll after poll, the American people by a solid majority now believe Hillary Clinton cannot be trusted. And it's getting worse for her.
Thanks to Stop Hillary PAC's public information campaign, we have contacted over 10 million Americans with the truth about Hillary's lies. Your continued support for Stop Hillary is making a huge difference.
Reason #3:
Pending Federal Investigation into Hillary's illegal acts.
According to the New York Times, (not exactly a mainstream publication) no less than two federal agencies have referred Hillary's actions to the Department of Justice. In fact, Hillary's own Department of State has now turned against her and is referring her actions to the Justice Department. Hillary is in trouble.
Thanks to Stop Hillary PAC's Citizens Subpoena campaign, you have helped lay the groundwork that has activated and mobilized the American people. Even Hillary's Democratic supporters in Congress have recognized that Stop Hillary PAC is making a difference.
Reason #2:
Benghazi, Benghazi, Benghazi.
"What difference does it make?" A big difference! Four Americans died in the attacks on Benghazi. The American people are going to hold Hillary Clinton ultimately responsible. Hillary's excuses have turned to lies and the American people will hold her responsible.
Stop Hillary PAC is the only organization that continues to work pressure Congress AND the administration to hold Hillary accountable. With almost 1 million petitions delivered to Congress, Stop Hillary's efforts have made sure -- that even the many who would have forgotten the Benghazi tragedy -- we remember the need for justice.
Reason #1:
Congressman Trey Gowdy
Nobody is more focused on Hillary Clinton than Congressman Trey Gowdy and his House Committee on Benghazi. Time after time, Congressman Gowdy has outmaneuvered Hillary's attorneys, and he refuses to allow Hillary's lies and misdeeds to go away.
AND no other organization has provided more grassroots support, public backing, and raw political muscle to keep the pressure on Hillary.
If you are still committed to defeating Hillary -- will you make a sustaining contribution to ensure Stop Hillary PAC has the resources to continue to hammer Hillary Clinton every day until she is defeated?
Saturday, July 25, 2015
On Hillary and Iran
This is a sad time for America. The White House,FBI,NSA,IRS and State Department are controlled by the Democratic National Committee. The White House is politicalized,that is to be expected but the others are supposed to be neutral. These are the governmental organizations that Obama controls. The government bodies that he can't control,The House Of Representatives and The Senate,he does an end run around. Obama said he got the United Nations to ratify his bullshit deal with Iran. The United Nations?!! THE UNITED NATIONS !!! I fucking hate the United Nations. All the United Nations wants to do is take your dick or your gun away. Those are there only agendas they have: outlaw men and outlaw guns. Why the fuck would I want to help the UN? Congress is bullshit too,approving the Corker bill that severely handicaps their ability to add libertarian amendments to otherwise draconian bills so instead it's a up and down,approve all or none vote that the People don't want. The Iran deal is bullshit. Tell the Senate not to ratify this bullshit. The only ones celebrating this deal are the mullahs. Everyone else hates it. If you hate it too let your Senator know too. As far as Hillary is concerned,two inspector generals have submitted forms to Department Of Justice Criminal Investigations Department calling for them to investigate Hillary and her emails. Will the DOJ pick this up and run with it? Who knows. The only thing I can say is stay tuned.
Sunday, February 16, 2014
Comcast + Time Warner Cable = Disaster for the rest of us
From Free Press Action Fund:
Comcast just announced that it’s buying Time Warner Cable. If approved, this outrageous deal would create a television and Internet colossus like no other. The fight to stop this merger begins today.
Comcast is the country's #1 cable and Internet company and Time Warner Cable is #2. Put them together and you get a single giant controlling a massive share of our nation’s TV and Internet-access markets.
Fight to Stop the Comcast/Time Warner Cable Merger.
No one woke up this morning wishing their cable company was bigger or had more control over what they watch and how they get online. But that's the reality we’ll face unless the Justice Department and the Federal Communications Commission do their jobs and block this merger.
Stopping this kind of deal is exactly why we have antitrust laws. After a year of sustained organizing, we convinced the DoJ and the FCC to stop AT&T from gobbling up T-Mobile. With your help we can stop this deal too.
Take Action: Say No to Comcast/Time Warner Cable
This merger would put more than a third of all cable-TV subscribers in Comcast’s hands and give it control over more than half of the “triple-play” services that combine TV, phone and Internet service. Don’t forget, Comcast already owns NBC, MSNBC, Universal Studios and tons of cable networks. That means that for most of America, Comcast could control even more of what you see and how you see it.
Putting this much power in the hands of one company is dangerous. This deal would lead to less consumer choice, less diversity and much higher cable bills.
Send a message to the DoJ and the FCC today. This is a fight we can win. Take action and we’ll be back in touch soon with next steps.
Thanks for all that you do—
Craig, Josh, Amy and the rest of the Free Press team
freepress.net
P.S. Comcast is spending $44 billion to buy Time Warner Cable. Could you donate $44 today and fund the fight to stop this merger? We don't take money from business, government or political parties and rely on the generosity of people like you to fuel our work. Please donate $44 (or whatever amount you can give) today. Thank you!
Comcast just announced that it’s buying Time Warner Cable. If approved, this outrageous deal would create a television and Internet colossus like no other. The fight to stop this merger begins today.
Comcast is the country's #1 cable and Internet company and Time Warner Cable is #2. Put them together and you get a single giant controlling a massive share of our nation’s TV and Internet-access markets.
Fight to Stop the Comcast/Time Warner Cable Merger.
No one woke up this morning wishing their cable company was bigger or had more control over what they watch and how they get online. But that's the reality we’ll face unless the Justice Department and the Federal Communications Commission do their jobs and block this merger.
Stopping this kind of deal is exactly why we have antitrust laws. After a year of sustained organizing, we convinced the DoJ and the FCC to stop AT&T from gobbling up T-Mobile. With your help we can stop this deal too.
Take Action: Say No to Comcast/Time Warner Cable
This merger would put more than a third of all cable-TV subscribers in Comcast’s hands and give it control over more than half of the “triple-play” services that combine TV, phone and Internet service. Don’t forget, Comcast already owns NBC, MSNBC, Universal Studios and tons of cable networks. That means that for most of America, Comcast could control even more of what you see and how you see it.
Putting this much power in the hands of one company is dangerous. This deal would lead to less consumer choice, less diversity and much higher cable bills.
Send a message to the DoJ and the FCC today. This is a fight we can win. Take action and we’ll be back in touch soon with next steps.
Thanks for all that you do—
Craig, Josh, Amy and the rest of the Free Press team
freepress.net
P.S. Comcast is spending $44 billion to buy Time Warner Cable. Could you donate $44 today and fund the fight to stop this merger? We don't take money from business, government or political parties and rely on the generosity of people like you to fuel our work. Please donate $44 (or whatever amount you can give) today. Thank you!
Friday, April 26, 2013
CNET gets ahold of CISPA documents
U.S. gives big, secret push to Internet surveillance
Justice Department agreed to issue "2511 letters" immunizing AT&T and other companies participating in a cybersecurity program from criminal prosecution under the Wiretap Act, according to new documents obtained by the Electronic Privacy Information Center.
by Declan McCullagh | April 24, 2013 8:59 AM PDT
NSA director Keith Alexander, shown here in a file photo, who's also the commander of the U.S. Cyber Command.
Senior Obama administration officials have secretly authorized the interception of communications carried on portions of networks operated by AT&T and other Internet service providers, a practice that might otherwise be illegal under federal wiretapping laws.
The secret legal authorization from the Justice Department originally applied to a cybersecurity pilot project in which the military monitored defense contractors' Internet links. Since then, however, the program has been expanded by President Obama to cover all critical infrastructure sectors including energy, healthcare, and finance starting June 12.
"The Justice Department is helping private companies evade federal wiretap laws," said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, which obtained over 1,000 pages of internal government documents and provided them to CNET this week. "Alarm bells should be going off."
Those documents show the National Security Agency and the Defense Department were deeply involved in pressing for the secret legal authorization, with NSA director Keith Alexander participating in some of the discussions personally. Despite initial reservations, including from industry participants, Justice Department attorneys eventually signed off on the project.
The Justice Department agreed to grant legal immunity to the participating network providers in the form of what participants in the confidential discussions refer to as "2511 letters," a reference to the Wiretap Act codified at 18 USC 2511 in the federal statute books.
The Wiretap Act limits the ability of Internet providers to eavesdrop on network traffic except when monitoring is a "necessary incident" to providing the service or it takes place with a user's "lawful consent." An industry representative told CNET the 2511 letters provided legal immunity to the providers by agreeing not to prosecute for criminal violations of the Wiretap Act. It's not clear how many 2511 letters were issued by the Justice Department.
In 2011, Deputy Secretary of Defense William Lynn publicly disclosed the existence of the original project, called the DIB Cyber Pilot, which used login banners to inform network users that monitoring was taking place. In May 2012, the pilot was turned into an ongoing program -- broader but still voluntary -- by the name of Joint Cybersecurity Services Pilot, with the Department of Homeland Security becoming involved for the first time. It was renamed again to Enhanced Cybersecurity Services program in January, and is currently being expanded to all types of companies operating critical infrastructure.
The NSA and DOJ declined to comment. Homeland Security spokesman Sy Lee sent CNET a statement saying:
DHS is committed to supporting the public's privacy, civil rights, and civil liberties. Accordingly, the department has implemented strong privacy and civil rights and civil liberties standards into all its cybersecurity programs and initiatives from the outset, including the Enhanced Cybersecurity Services program. In order to protect privacy while safeguarding and securing cyberspace, DHS institutes layered privacy responsibilities throughout the department, embeds fair practice principles into cybersecurity programs and privacy compliance efforts, and fosters collaboration with cybersecurity partners.
Paul Rosenzweig, a former Homeland Security official and founder of Red Branch Consulting, compared the NSA and DOD asking the Justice Department for 2511 letters to the CIA asking the Justice Department for the so-called torture memos a decade ago. (They were written by Justice Department official John Yoo, who reached the controversial conclusion that waterboarding was not torture.)
"If you think of it poorly, it's a CYA function," Rosenzweig says. "If you think well of it, it's an effort to secure advance authorization for an action that may not be clearly legal."
A report (PDF) published last month by the Congressional Research Service, a non-partisan arm of Congress, says the executive branch likely does not have the legal authority to authorize more widespread monitoring of communications unless Congress rewrites the law. "Such an executive action would contravene current federal laws protecting electronic communications," the report says.
Because it overrides all federal and state privacy laws, including the Wiretap Act, legislation called CISPA would formally authorize the program without the government resorting to 2511 letters. In other words, if CISPA, which the U.S. House of Representatives approved last week, becomes law, any data-sharing program would be placed on a solid legal footing. AT&T, Verizon, and wireless and cable providers have all written letters endorsing CISPA.
Around the time that CISPA was originally introduced in late 2011, NSA, DOD, and DHS officials were actively meeting with the aides on the House Intelligence committee who drafted the legislation, the internal documents show. The purpose of the meeting, one e-mail shows, was to brief committee aides on "cyber defense efforts." In addition, Ryan Gillis, a director in DHS's Office of Legislative Affairs, sent an e-mail to Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), chairman of the Senate Intelligence committee, discussing the pilot program around the same time.
AT&T and CenturyLink are currently the only two providers that have been publicly announced as participating in the program. Other companies have signed a memorandum of agreement with DHS to join, and are currently in the process of obtaining security certification, said a government official, who declined to name those companies or be identified by name.
Approval of the 2511 letters came after concerns from within the Justice Department and from industry. An internal e-mail thread among senior Defense Department, Homeland Security, and Justice Department officials in 2011, including associate deputy attorney general James Baker, outlines some of the obstacles:
[The program] has two key barriers to a start. First, the ISPs will likely request 2511 letters, so DoJ's provision of 3 2511 letters (and the review of DIB company banners as part of that) is one time requirement. DoJ will provide a timeline for that. Second, all participating DIB companies would be required to change their banners to reference government monitoring. All have expressed serious reservations with doing so, including the three CEOs [the deputy secretary of defense] discussed this with. The companies have informally told us that changing the banners in this manner could take months.
Another e-mail message from a Justice Department attorney wondered: "Will the program cover all parts of the company network -- including say day care centers (as mentioned as a question in a [deputies committee meeting]) and what are the policy implications of this?" The deputies committee includes the deputy secretary of defense, the deputy director of national intelligence, the deputy attorney general, and the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
"These agencies are clearly seeking authority to receive a large amount of information, including personal information, from private Internet networks," says EPIC staff attorney Amie Stepanovich, who filed a lawsuit against Homeland Security in March 2012 seeking documents relating to the program under the Freedom of Information Act. "If this program was broadly deployed, it would raise serious questions about government cybersecurity practices."
In January, the Department of Homeland Security's privacy office published a privacy analysis (PDF) of the program saying that users of the networks of companies participating in the program will see "an electronic login banner [saying] information and data on the network may be monitored or disclosed to third parties, and/or that the network users' communications on the network are not private."
An internal Defense Department presentation cites as possible legal authority a classified presidential directive called NSPD 54 that President Bush signed in January 2008. Obama's own executive order, signed in February 2013, says Homeland Security must establish procedures to expand the data-sharing program "to all critical infrastructure sectors" by mid-June. Those are defined as any companies providing services that, if disrupted, would harm national economic security or "national public health or safety."
Those could be very broad categories, says Rosenzweig, author of a new book called "Cyber War," which discusses the legality of more widespread monitoring of Internet communications.
"I think there's a great deal of discretion," Rosenzweig says. "I could make a case for the criticality of several meat packing plants in Kansas. The disruption of the meat rendering facilities in Kansas would be very disruptive to the meat-eating habits of Americans."
Source:click here
I didn't think Obama was against CISPA and I was right. I figured he approved of all the other assaults upon our civil liberties why would he be opposed to CISPA? Now we know truth.
Justice Department agreed to issue "2511 letters" immunizing AT&T and other companies participating in a cybersecurity program from criminal prosecution under the Wiretap Act, according to new documents obtained by the Electronic Privacy Information Center.
by Declan McCullagh | April 24, 2013 8:59 AM PDT
NSA director Keith Alexander, shown here in a file photo, who's also the commander of the U.S. Cyber Command.
Senior Obama administration officials have secretly authorized the interception of communications carried on portions of networks operated by AT&T and other Internet service providers, a practice that might otherwise be illegal under federal wiretapping laws.
The secret legal authorization from the Justice Department originally applied to a cybersecurity pilot project in which the military monitored defense contractors' Internet links. Since then, however, the program has been expanded by President Obama to cover all critical infrastructure sectors including energy, healthcare, and finance starting June 12.
"The Justice Department is helping private companies evade federal wiretap laws," said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, which obtained over 1,000 pages of internal government documents and provided them to CNET this week. "Alarm bells should be going off."
Those documents show the National Security Agency and the Defense Department were deeply involved in pressing for the secret legal authorization, with NSA director Keith Alexander participating in some of the discussions personally. Despite initial reservations, including from industry participants, Justice Department attorneys eventually signed off on the project.
The Justice Department agreed to grant legal immunity to the participating network providers in the form of what participants in the confidential discussions refer to as "2511 letters," a reference to the Wiretap Act codified at 18 USC 2511 in the federal statute books.
The Wiretap Act limits the ability of Internet providers to eavesdrop on network traffic except when monitoring is a "necessary incident" to providing the service or it takes place with a user's "lawful consent." An industry representative told CNET the 2511 letters provided legal immunity to the providers by agreeing not to prosecute for criminal violations of the Wiretap Act. It's not clear how many 2511 letters were issued by the Justice Department.
In 2011, Deputy Secretary of Defense William Lynn publicly disclosed the existence of the original project, called the DIB Cyber Pilot, which used login banners to inform network users that monitoring was taking place. In May 2012, the pilot was turned into an ongoing program -- broader but still voluntary -- by the name of Joint Cybersecurity Services Pilot, with the Department of Homeland Security becoming involved for the first time. It was renamed again to Enhanced Cybersecurity Services program in January, and is currently being expanded to all types of companies operating critical infrastructure.
The NSA and DOJ declined to comment. Homeland Security spokesman Sy Lee sent CNET a statement saying:
DHS is committed to supporting the public's privacy, civil rights, and civil liberties. Accordingly, the department has implemented strong privacy and civil rights and civil liberties standards into all its cybersecurity programs and initiatives from the outset, including the Enhanced Cybersecurity Services program. In order to protect privacy while safeguarding and securing cyberspace, DHS institutes layered privacy responsibilities throughout the department, embeds fair practice principles into cybersecurity programs and privacy compliance efforts, and fosters collaboration with cybersecurity partners.
Paul Rosenzweig, a former Homeland Security official and founder of Red Branch Consulting, compared the NSA and DOD asking the Justice Department for 2511 letters to the CIA asking the Justice Department for the so-called torture memos a decade ago. (They were written by Justice Department official John Yoo, who reached the controversial conclusion that waterboarding was not torture.)
"If you think of it poorly, it's a CYA function," Rosenzweig says. "If you think well of it, it's an effort to secure advance authorization for an action that may not be clearly legal."
A report (PDF) published last month by the Congressional Research Service, a non-partisan arm of Congress, says the executive branch likely does not have the legal authority to authorize more widespread monitoring of communications unless Congress rewrites the law. "Such an executive action would contravene current federal laws protecting electronic communications," the report says.
Because it overrides all federal and state privacy laws, including the Wiretap Act, legislation called CISPA would formally authorize the program without the government resorting to 2511 letters. In other words, if CISPA, which the U.S. House of Representatives approved last week, becomes law, any data-sharing program would be placed on a solid legal footing. AT&T, Verizon, and wireless and cable providers have all written letters endorsing CISPA.
Around the time that CISPA was originally introduced in late 2011, NSA, DOD, and DHS officials were actively meeting with the aides on the House Intelligence committee who drafted the legislation, the internal documents show. The purpose of the meeting, one e-mail shows, was to brief committee aides on "cyber defense efforts." In addition, Ryan Gillis, a director in DHS's Office of Legislative Affairs, sent an e-mail to Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), chairman of the Senate Intelligence committee, discussing the pilot program around the same time.
AT&T and CenturyLink are currently the only two providers that have been publicly announced as participating in the program. Other companies have signed a memorandum of agreement with DHS to join, and are currently in the process of obtaining security certification, said a government official, who declined to name those companies or be identified by name.
Approval of the 2511 letters came after concerns from within the Justice Department and from industry. An internal e-mail thread among senior Defense Department, Homeland Security, and Justice Department officials in 2011, including associate deputy attorney general James Baker, outlines some of the obstacles:
[The program] has two key barriers to a start. First, the ISPs will likely request 2511 letters, so DoJ's provision of 3 2511 letters (and the review of DIB company banners as part of that) is one time requirement. DoJ will provide a timeline for that. Second, all participating DIB companies would be required to change their banners to reference government monitoring. All have expressed serious reservations with doing so, including the three CEOs [the deputy secretary of defense] discussed this with. The companies have informally told us that changing the banners in this manner could take months.
Another e-mail message from a Justice Department attorney wondered: "Will the program cover all parts of the company network -- including say day care centers (as mentioned as a question in a [deputies committee meeting]) and what are the policy implications of this?" The deputies committee includes the deputy secretary of defense, the deputy director of national intelligence, the deputy attorney general, and the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
"These agencies are clearly seeking authority to receive a large amount of information, including personal information, from private Internet networks," says EPIC staff attorney Amie Stepanovich, who filed a lawsuit against Homeland Security in March 2012 seeking documents relating to the program under the Freedom of Information Act. "If this program was broadly deployed, it would raise serious questions about government cybersecurity practices."
In January, the Department of Homeland Security's privacy office published a privacy analysis (PDF) of the program saying that users of the networks of companies participating in the program will see "an electronic login banner [saying] information and data on the network may be monitored or disclosed to third parties, and/or that the network users' communications on the network are not private."
An internal Defense Department presentation cites as possible legal authority a classified presidential directive called NSPD 54 that President Bush signed in January 2008. Obama's own executive order, signed in February 2013, says Homeland Security must establish procedures to expand the data-sharing program "to all critical infrastructure sectors" by mid-June. Those are defined as any companies providing services that, if disrupted, would harm national economic security or "national public health or safety."
Those could be very broad categories, says Rosenzweig, author of a new book called "Cyber War," which discusses the legality of more widespread monitoring of Internet communications.
"I think there's a great deal of discretion," Rosenzweig says. "I could make a case for the criticality of several meat packing plants in Kansas. The disruption of the meat rendering facilities in Kansas would be very disruptive to the meat-eating habits of Americans."
Source:click here
I didn't think Obama was against CISPA and I was right. I figured he approved of all the other assaults upon our civil liberties why would he be opposed to CISPA? Now we know truth.
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