Rolling Stone journalist Michael Hastings’ body was cremated
against his family’s wishes, destroying potential evidence that could have
contradicted the explanation that he died as a result of an accident, according
to San Diego 6 reporter Kimberly Dvorak.
Hastings
was killed in the early hours of June 18 in the Hancock Park neighborhood of
Los Angeles when his Mercedes crashed into a tree at high speed and exploded
into flames, sparking theories that the journalist, who was working on a major
exposé of the CIA, could have been assassinated.
Stating
that she had spoken with several close friends of the family, including Alex
Jones Show guest Staff Sergeant Joe Biggs, Dvorak said, “A close family friend
did confirm that Michael’s body was sent home in an urn, meaning he was
cremated and it wasn’t the request of the family….in fact the family wanted
Michael’s body to go home.”
Dvorak
said the decision to cremate Hastings against his family’s wishes was
“shocking” because it ensured that evidence of any substance (or indeed the
absence of any substance) inside his body was lost. According to Hastings’
family, the journalist had not drunk alcohol for five years.
Dvorak
added that Hastings had spoken with an attorney before his death who has all
the details about the story Hastings was working on. Hastings refrained from
telling his wife about the story “because he said he wanted to protect her from
knowing anything so if anything were to happen to him nothing could happen to
her,” said Dvorak.
Hastings
wife has now hired a private investigator to look into the writer’s death,
according to Dvorak.
Dvorak also revealed that she had
personally been threatened as a result of her efforts to investigate Hastings’
death on behalf of San Diego 6. Aside from Infowars, the news channel is the
only media organization asking questions about what happened.
“Despite the LAPD’s categorization of the Hasting fatal accident
as a “no (evidence of) foul play,” LAPD continues to ignore FOIA (CPRA in
Calif.) requests made by San Diego 6 News for the police report, 9/11 call,
autopsy, bomb squad and toxicology reports, or make the Mercedes available for
inspection which only fuels conjecture,” writes Dvorak.
As we reported earlier
this month, Dvorak’s investigation also uncovered the fact that police and
firefighters in the area have been given a gag order and told not to talk to
the media about Hastings’ death.
Although the LAPD ruled out foul play
days after the incident, automotive experts questioned why Hastings’ brand new
Mercedes exploded into flames with such ferocity and why the engine was found
150 feet behind the vehicle.
Former counter-terror czar
Richard Clarke reacted to the news by telling the Huffington Post that
the fatal crash was “consistent with a car cyber attack.” Academic studies show that it is
relatively easy to hack and remote control a modern day vehicle.
Hastings sent out an email to
friends and colleagues 15 hours before his car crash stating he was “onto a big
story” and needed “to go off the rada[r] for a bit.”
According
to colleagues, Hastings was “incredibly tense and very worried, and was
concerned that the government was looking in on his material,” and also a
“nervous wreck” in response to the surveillance of journalists revealed by the
AP phone tapping scandal and the NSA PRISM scandal.
After Wikileaks reported that
Hastings had contacted them a few hours before his death complaining that he
was under FBI investigation, other friends confirmed that the journalist was
“very paranoid” about the feds watching him.
Hastings
routinely received death threats as a result of his hard-hitting journalism,
particularly in relation to his 2010 exposé of Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal.
Hastings’ close friend Staff Sergeant Joe Biggs, who told Fox News that
the journalist “drove like a grandma” and was working on “the biggest story
yet” about the CIA before his death, joined Alex Jones yesterday to discuss
latest developments and his plans to personally investigate Hastings’ death on
behalf of Infowars.
Ten items of enslavement
#1 Automated License Plate Scanners
All over the United
States automated license plate scanners are being installed. Sometimes
they are mounted on police vehicles, and other times they are put on stationary
locations like bridges and road signs. These automated license plate scanners
are collecting a staggering amount of information about the travel patterns of
millions of innocent American citizens every single day…Police
are recording and storing information on millions of license plates that aren’t
related to suspected violation of the law or any known activity of interest to
law enforcement, according to data collected by the American Civil Liberties
Union through Freedom of Information requests in 38 states.
According
to the Washington Post, automated license plate scanners recorded the locations
of vehicle plates 85 million
times in the state of Maryland in 2012.
And as more of these scanners get installed
around the nation, the amount of information that the government collects about
the movements of our vehicles will continue to increase.
#2 Government Workers Ordered To Spy On The
“Lifestyles, Attitudes And Behaviors” Of Their Fellow Workers
Federal employees and contractors are asked to
pay particular attention to the lifestyles, attitudes and behaviors – like
financial troubles, odd working hours or unexplained travel – of co-workers as
a way to predict whether they might do “harm to the United States.” Managers of
special insider threat offices will have “regular, timely, and, if possible,
electronic, access” to employees’ personnel, payroll, disciplinary and
“personal contact” files, as well as records of their use of classified and
unclassified computer networks, polygraph results, travel reports and financial
disclosure forms.
If you do not spy on your fellow workers and
something goes wrong, you could lose your job or potentially even be prosecuted
yourself.
#3 Eye Scanners In Schools
Iris
scanners are already going into schools all over the country, and soon they
will be used in banks, at airports and at ATM machines. In the next year,
industry insiders say the technology will be available all over– from banks to
airports. That means instead of entering your pin number, you can gain access
to an ATM in a blink. Used in an airport, the system will analyze your iris as
you pass through security, identifying and welcoming you by name.
Will we soon live in a world where we no longer
use passwords and instead use our eyeballs?
“Imagine a world where you’re no longer reliant
on user names and passwords,” Eyelock CMO Anthony Antolino said, “If we’re going through a turnstile and you
have authorization to go beyond that, it’ll open the turnstile for you, if you
embed it into a tablet or PC, it will unlock your phone or your tablet or it
will log you into your email account.”
#4 Biometric Chips In Our Passports
Did
you know that all U.S. passports contain biometric identity chips?
According to CNSNews.com,
the Enhanced Border Security and Visa Entry Reform Act of 2002 required
foreigners participating in the Visa Waiver Program–which permits entry into
the United States without a VISA for a limited period of time–to have these
integrated circuits or chips on their passport.
“As a security
measure, Congress has legislated that all countries participating in the Visa
Waiver Program with the United States must issue passports with integrated
circuits (chips), to permit storage of at least a digital image of the passport
photograph for use with face recognition technology,” the website states.
The website also says that since 2007 the State
Department has been issuing U.S. passports bearing the chips. The department
did this on its own authority, and not in response to any statutory mandate
enacted by Congress.
#5 All Your Financial Transactions Tracked By
The Government?
Most
Americans have never even heard of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau,
but one U.S. Senator is warning that this agency wants to keep a record of all of your financial
transactions. The Consumer
Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is looking to create a “Google Earth” of
every financial transaction of every American, Sen. Mike Enzi (R-WY) warned
today in a Senate speech opposing confirmation of Richard Cordray as CFPB
director.
“This bill (creating the CFPB) was supposed to be about
regulating Wall Street. Instead, it’s
creating a Google Earth on every financial transaction. That’s right: the
government will be able to see every detail of your finances. Your permission –
not needed,” Sen. Enzi said.
#6 Complaining About The Tap Water Makes You A
Terrorist?
Have you ever complained about the water?
If so, you might be a terrorist. The following is
a brief excerpt from a recent article by Anthony Gucciardi…
Concerned about the high levels of arsenic in
your water, or perhaps the known levels of radioactive
contamination? Well you must be a terrorist, according to the Tennessee
Department of Environment and Conservation (TDEC) and Homeland Security, who
consider issuing such complaints to be classified under terrorist
activity.
It all started when Tennessee residents
in Maury County recorded an exchange with the deputy director from the
state’s environmental entity TDEC, who issued a warning that complaining
about low quality tap water could put you in Guantanamo.
#7 DNA Databases
The
United States already has a database that contains the DNA of approximately 11
million criminals. The biggest database
is in the United States — the FBI’s Combined DNA Index System, or CODIS, which
holds information on more than 11 million people suspected of or convicted of
crimes.
It is set to grow
following a May Supreme Court ruling that upheld the right of police forces to
take DNA swabs without a warrant from people who are arrested, not just those
who are convicted. (Policies on DNA collection vary by state; more than half of
the states and the federal government currently take DNA swabs after arrests.)
But
of course authorities will never be satisfied until they have all of
our DNA. And we are definitely moving in that direction. A national
DNA database is coming. Barack Obama has already said that he wants one. A major
Supreme Court decision last month paved the way
for one. The DNA of those that commit “serious crimes” is already being routinely
collected all over the nation. Some states, such as New Jersey, are
now passing laws that will require DNA collection from those charged with
committing “low level crimes”. And a law that was passed under George W.
Bush allows the federal government to screen the DNA of all newborn babies in
the United States. So how long will it be before we are all required to
give DNA samples to the authorities?
#8 Copying Your Hard Drive At The Border
How would you feel if you went to cross the U.S.
border and officials grabbed your computer and made a copy of the hard drive?
As
incredible as that sounds, it is happening all the time. As I wrote about recently, if they do take your
computer, you might not get it back for an extended period of time…
Two years ago The
Constitution Project issued a report on the issue, “Suspicionless Border
Searches of Electronic Devices: Legal and Privacy Concerns with the Department
of Homeland Security’s Policy.”
The group explained:
Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement “officers
may detain electronic devices for significant periods of time. For CBP,
detentions can be extended well beyond the minimum five-day guideline with
supervisory approval. If the device is detained by ICE, the detention can last
for ‘a reasonable time,’ which according to its Directive can last 30 days or
more.” Neither agency sets any firm time limit.
#9 NSA Snooping
Thanks to Edward Snowden, we now know much more
about NSA snooping. Sadly, the NSA seems to want to collect every piece
of data about everyone in the world that they possibly can.
And
right now the NSA is building a place to store all of that data. It is
being constructed out in Utah, and it will be the largest data center in the
history of the world. It is going to have approximately a million square
feet of storage space, it is going to cost nearly 2 billion dollars to build,
and it is going to take about 40 million dollars a year just
to pay for the energy needed to run it.
#10 Obama Now Has The Power To Seize Control Of
The Internet?
Why does Barack Obama keep releasing very
important executive orders very late on Friday afternoons?
Is he trying to sneak things through that nobody
will notice?
For
example, Obama signed an executive order that will allow him to seize
control of the Internet during a national emergency. Another late-Friday
afternoon release from the White House, this one on how agencies should communicate
with the public in emergencies, has Internet privacy advocates crying foul over
a possible power grab.
The executive order —
“Assignment of National Security and Emergency Preparedness Communications
Functions” — was released last Friday in the late afternoon.
This executive order is apparently worded so
vaguely that it would allow Obama to do just about anything he wanted to as far
as the Internet is concerned.
Essentially, it says
the government can take control of private telecommunications technology,
presumably including those used for the Internet, for government communications
in an emergency.
“Under the Executive
Order the White House has granted the Department of Homeland Security the
authority to seize private facilities when necessary, effectively shutting down
or limiting civilian communications.”
Congress
has finally decided that massive, unprecedented and unwarranted surveillance of
the American people conducted by the National Security Agency is against the
law.
Members
of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which has broad jurisdiction over matters related
to federal criminal law, arrived at the conclusion months after the American
people reached a similar conclusion.
“We never, at any point in this debate, have approved the type of
unchecked, sweeping surveillance of United States citizens employed by our
government,” said House fixture John Conyers, a Michigan
Democrat, during a hearing on the NSA. “If the government cannot provide a
clear, public explanation for how its program is consistent with the statute,
it must stop collecting this information immediately.”
Other
committee members have promised to amend the unconstitutional PATRIOT Act and
force the NSA to stop its surveillance. Representative Jim Sensenbrenner, a
Wisconsin Republican and author of the original PATRIOT Act, said it is not
likely Congress will reauthorize the business-records collection provision of
the act when the law expires in 2015.
Fourth
Amendment, What Fourth Amendment?
James
Cole, deputy attorney general at the Department of Justice, insists the NSA’s
vacuum cleaner approach to electronic surveillance does not violate the Fourth
Amendment.
How
so? Well, in 1979, Cole argues, the Supreme Court ruled that telephone records
are not private information covered by the Fourth Amendment.
Besides,
there is a special court for this sort of thing – the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Court. It was approved by Congress, so bureaucrats believe it is
legal.
Back
in the day, Congress created the FISA and a secret court in response to
embarrassing revelations uncovered by the Church Committee investigating
intelligence abuses.
FISA’s special court is “almost a parallel Supreme Court,”
according to David B. Wells and John Wilson
Wells, authors of American
National Security and Civil Liberties ion an Era of Terrorism.
Former President Jimmy Carter has
come out against NSA surveillance. He characterized Edward Snowden’s leak as
“beneficial” for the country.
“I
think that the secrecy that has been surrounding this invasion of privacy has
been excessive, so I think that the bringing of it to the public notice has
probably been, in the long term, beneficial,” Carter said.
“America
has no functioning democracy at this moment,” the former president also said,
according to Der Spiegel.
Indeed,
the United States does not have a functioning democracy. There is plenty of
evidence that national elections are rigged and the two-party system – actually
a one party system lorded over by a cabal of globalist banksters and fascist
corporatists – has a monopoly on political power. NSA surveillance is merely
another tool designed to guarantee they stay in power.
But
then the United States is not supposed to be a democracy. It was intended to be
a constitutional republic.
Glenn Greenwald, a reporter working in the United States for
British newspaper The Guardian, said the reports from the cache of information
Snowden took about the National Security Agency cellphone and
Internet surveillance programs would be “more explosive in Germany” than
previous reports about cooperation between the NSA and German intelligence.
During an interview with German public radio, Greenwald said
Germany wasn’t working with the United States on the same level as Britain,
Australia, Canada or New Zealand, but it was “sort of in the next tier where
they exchange information all the time.”
German Chancellor Angela Merkel defended her stance on
the U.S. spying affair, saying Washington needs more time to address the
situation and that she can’t force the United States to change its laws.
Faced with growing criticism that puts her popularity at risk
ahead of her re-election bid Sept. 22, Merkel said “German law needs to be
respected on German soil.”
The United States “asked for more time to look at all the
questions we sent them. In this case, I think it’s better to wait than to get a
declaration which turns out to be void,” she said.
She also said she can only demand that the United States respect
German law while on German soil.
“I cannot tell them to adapt their laws to the German ones,” she
said. “We are finding it difficult even in the EU to agree on data protection
standards.”
Since The Guardian broke the story, additional reporting on the
documents by Der Spiegel revealed how U.S. intelligence agencies spied on the
European Union and a half-billion communications connections in Germany each
month. Der Spiegel said the reports led to a political debate over how much the
German government knew about the surveillance and whether it was cooperating
with the United States.
Greenwald said he is in regular contact with Snowden using
encrypted chat technologies.
Snowden, facing charges in the United States, “knew that the
choice he was making … would submit him to serious risks and would make him the
most wanted man in the world,” the reporter said.
But he said the fugitive former NSA contractor, holed up in
Moscow’s Sheremetyevo International Airport’s transit zone, was convinced “it
was the right choice.”
Snowden is awaiting a decision on his application for temporary
asylum in Russia.
Meanwhile, Spanish newspaper ABC said the United States has warned
Venezuelan officials of dire consequences — including being barred from
entering any NATO airspace — if it flies Snowden to the South American country.
The newspaper said U.S. Secretary of State John
Kerry warned Venezuelan Foreign Minister Elias Jaua that Washington would
end all sales of gasoline and other refined-oil products to Venezuela if
Snowden is given refuge in that country.
Kerry made the statements during a phone call a week ago when he
told Jaua that Washington revoked U.S. visas of Venezuelan government officials
and business leaders in retaliation for President Nicolas Maduro‘s
asylum offer to Snowden last month, the Spanish report said, citing sources
familiar with the conversation.
The State Department and the Venezuelan Foreign Ministry had no
immediate comment on the Spanish report.
Kerry’s threat to suspend gasoline shipments could cripple
Venezuela’s daily activities, the newspaper said.
Venezuela, despite being the world’s No. 5 oil-exporting country,
with the world’s largest heavy, crude oil reserve, does not have the capability
to refine oil into gasoline and other fuels.
It sells crude at about $5 a barrel to U.S. companies that refine
it and sell it back gasoline at the going rate of more than $100 a barrel.
Venezuela imports about 500,000 barrels of gasoline from the
United States a month, along with 350,000 barrels of MTBE octane-boosting
gasoline additives and other petroleum products, the Spanish newspaper said.
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