World leaders in ‘secret society Bilderberg meeting’

A person uses a copy of the Daily Mail newspaper to shield their identity from the demonstrators and the media as they arrive at The Grove hotel, which is hosting the annual Bilderberg conference.

AP | Jun 7, 2013

IT’S a busy weekend at the luxury Grove Hotel, favoured haunt of British soccer players and their glitz-loving spouses.

More than 100 of the world’s most powerful people are at the former manor house near London for a secretive annual gathering that has attained legendary status in the eyes of anti-capitalist protesters and conspiracy theorists.

The guest list for the Bilderberg meeting includes Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde and former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. British Prime Minister David Cameron is due to drop by Friday.

The Bilderberg Group was set up in 1954 to support military and economic co-operation between Europe and North America during the Cold War.

Named for the site of its first meeting – the Bilderberg Hotel in Oosterbeek, Holland – the forum for prominent politicians, thinkers and business leaders has been held annually at a series of secluded venues in Europe and North America.

What happens at Bilderberg, stays at Bilderberg. There is no media access and the public is kept away by a large security operation. The group says that “there is no detailed agenda, no resolutions are proposed, no votes are taken, and no policy statements are issued.”

But in a move toward slightly more openness, the group now has a website, which lists attendees and key topics for discussion, including the economy, US foreign policy, “cyber warfare and the proliferation of asymmetric threats” and “major trends in medical research.”

Invitees include British Treasury chief George Osborne, Goldman Sachs chairman Peter Sutherland and Thomas Enders, CEO of aerospace company EADS.

Publication of these details has done little to ease the concerns of protesters, who sense a shadowy global elite at work in the secretive meeting.

“When 130 of the leaders from all across the West get together, and many of these are billionaires, they are people who are immensely wealthy and immensely powerful,” said Michael Meacher, a lawmaker from Britain’s Labour Party.

“And when they all get together, it’s not just to have a chat about the latest problem, it is to concert plans for the future of capitalism in the West. That is on a very different scale.”

Others go even further, putting Bilderberg at the heart of a global web of conspiracy. The protesters in Watford include US talk-radio host and September 11 “truther” Alex Jones, and former professional soccer player David Icke, who believes the world is run by a race of reptiles in human form.

Demonstrators plan to hold a “Bilderberg fringe” festival outside the hotel until the conference ends on Sunday.

A Bilderberg spokesman – reached by email since no phone number is listed – said there is nothing sinister about the gathering.

“We disclose the date, the location, the participants and the key topics of the conference,” Xander Heijnen said. “Many groups of people meet without announcing it publicly at all, without disclosing who is taking part and without giving any key topics.

“The meetings broaden the participants’ range of viewpoints, help them to gain insights and exchange views,” he said. “It seems illogical to argue that a meeting of individuals designed to give and obtain fresh insights, somehow ‘undermines democracy.'”

That message has not swayed protesters like Judd Charlton, a ventriloquist from London who showed up on Thursday to jeer at cars with blacked-out windows entering the hotel compound.

“We are basically here to bring down the parasites who are drug dealers and bank collapsers who seem to want to destroy this world,” he said.

NSA Prism program taps in to user data of Apple, Google and others

A slide depicting the top-secret PRISM program.

• Top-secret Prism program claims direct access to servers of firms including Google, Apple and Facebook

• Companies deny any knowledge of program in operation since 2007

Guardian | Jun 6, 2013    

by Glenn Greenwald and Ewen MacAskill

The National Security Agency has obtained direct access to the systems of Google, Facebook, Apple and other US internet giants, according to a top secret document obtained by the Guardian.

The NSA access is part of a previously undisclosed program called Prism, which allows officials to collect material including search history, the content of emails, file transfers and live chats, the document says.

The Guardian has verified the authenticity of the document, a 41-slide PowerPoint presentation – classified as top secret with no distribution to foreign allies – which was apparently used to train intelligence operatives on the capabilities of the program. The document claims “collection directly from the servers” of major US service providers.

Although the presentation claims the program is run with the assistance of the companies, all those who responded to a Guardian request for comment on Thursday denied knowledge of any such program.

In a statement, Google said: “Google cares deeply about the security of our users’ data. We disclose user data to government in accordance with the law, and we review all such requests carefully. From time to time, people allege that we have created a government ‘back door’ into our systems, but Google does not have a back door for the government to access private user data.”

Several senior tech executives insisted that they had no knowledge of Prism or of any similar scheme. They said they would never have been involved in such a program. “If they are doing this, they are doing it without our knowledge,” one said.

An Apple spokesman said it had “never heard” of Prism.

The NSA access was enabled by changes to US surveillance law introduced under President Bush and renewed under Obama in December 2012.

The program facilitates extensive, in-depth surveillance on live communications and stored information. The law allows for the targeting of any customers of participating firms who live outside the US, or those Americans whose communications include people outside the US.

It also opens the possibility of communications made entirely within the US being collected without warrants.

Disclosure of the Prism program follows a leak to the Guardian on Wednesday of a top-secret court order compelling telecoms provider Verizon to turn over the telephone records of millions of US customers.

The participation of the internet companies in Prism will add to the debate, ignited by the Verizon revelation, about the scale of surveillance by the intelligence services. Unlike the collection of those call records, this surveillance can include the content of communications and not just the metadata.

Some of the world’s largest internet brands are claimed to be part of the information-sharing program since its introduction in 2007. Microsoft – which is currently running an advertising campaign with the slogan “Your privacy is our priority” – was the first, with collection beginning in December 2007.

It was followed by Yahoo in 2008; Google, Facebook and PalTalk in 2009; YouTube in 2010; Skype and AOL in 2011; and finally Apple, which joined the program in 2012. The program is continuing to expand, with other providers due to come online.

Collectively, the companies cover the vast majority of online email, search, video and communications networks.

 

The extent and nature of the data collected from each company varies.

Companies are legally obliged to comply with requests for users’ communications under US law, but the Prism program allows the intelligence services direct access to the companies’ servers. The NSA document notes the operations have “assistance of communications providers in the US”.

The revelation also supports concerns raised by several US senators during the renewal of the Fisa Amendments Act in December 2012, who warned about the scale of surveillance the law might enable, and shortcomings in the safeguards it introduces.

When the FAA was first enacted, defenders of the statute argued that a significant check on abuse would be the NSA’s inability to obtain electronic communications without the consent of the telecom and internet companies that control the data. But the Prism program renders that consent unnecessary, as it allows the agency to directly and unilaterally seize the communications off the companies’ servers.

A chart prepared by the NSA, contained within the top-secret document obtained by the Guardian, underscores the breadth of the data it is able to obtain: email, video and voice chat, videos, photos, voice-over-IP (Skype, for example) chats, file transfers, social networking details, and more.

The document is recent, dating to April 2013. Such a leak is extremely rare in the history of the NSA, which prides itself on maintaining a high level of secrecy.

The Prism program allows the NSA, the world’s largest surveillance organisation, to obtain targeted communications without having to request them from the service providers and without having to obtain individual court orders.

With this program, the NSA is able to reach directly into the servers of the participating companies and obtain both stored communications as well as perform real-time collection on targeted users.

The presentation claims Prism was introduced to overcome what the NSA regarded as shortcomings of Fisa warrants in tracking suspected foreign terrorists. It noted that the US has a “home-field advantage” due to housing much of the internet’s architecture. But the presentation claimed “Fisa constraints restricted our home-field advantage” because Fisa required individual warrants and confirmations that both the sender and receiver of a communication were outside the US.

“Fisa was broken because it provided privacy protections to people who were not entitled to them,” the presentation claimed. “It took a Fisa court order to collect on foreigners overseas who were communicating with other foreigners overseas simply because the government was collecting off a wire in the United States. There were too many email accounts to be practical to seek Fisas for all.”

The new measures introduced in the FAA redefines “electronic surveillance” to exclude anyone “reasonably believed” to be outside the USA – a technical change which reduces the bar to initiating surveillance.

The act also gives the director of national intelligence and the attorney general power to permit obtaining intelligence information, and indemnifies internet companies against any actions arising as a result of co-operating with authorities’ requests.

In short, where previously the NSA needed individual authorisations, and confirmation that all parties were outside the USA, they now need only reasonable suspicion that one of the parties was outside the country at the time of the records were collected by the NSA.

The document also shows the FBI acts as an intermediary between other agencies and the tech companies, and stresses its reliance on the participation of US internet firms, claiming “access is 100% dependent on ISP provisioning”.

In the document, the NSA hails the Prism program as “one of the most valuable, unique and productive accesses for NSA”.

It boasts of what it calls “strong growth” in its use of the Prism program to obtain communications. The document highlights the number of obtained communications increased in 2012 by 248% for Skype – leading the notes to remark there was “exponential growth in Skype reporting; looks like the word is getting out about our capability against Skype”. There was also a 131% increase in requests for Facebook data, and 63% for Google.

The NSA document indicates that it is planning to add Dropbox as a PRISM provider. The agency also seeks, in its words, to “expand collection services from existing providers”.

The revelations echo fears raised on the Senate floor last year during the expedited debate on the renewal of the FAA powers which underpin the PRISM program, which occurred just days before the act expired.

Senator Christopher Coons of Delaware specifically warned that the secrecy surrounding the various surveillance programs meant there was no way to know if safeguards within the act were working.

“The problem is: we here in the Senate and the citizens we represent don’t know how well any of these safeguards actually work,” he said.

“The law doesn’t forbid purely domestic information from being collected. We know that at least one Fisa court has ruled that the surveillance program violated the law. Why? Those who know can’t say and average Americans can’t know.”

Other senators also raised concerns. Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon attempted, without success, to find out any information on how many phone calls or emails had been intercepted under the program.

When the law was enacted, defenders of the FAA argued that a significant check on abuse would be the NSA’s inability to obtain electronic communications without the consent of the telecom and internet companies that control the data. But the Prism program renders that consent unnecessary, as it allows the agency to directly and unilaterally seize the communications off the companies’ servers.

When the NSA reviews a communication it believes merits further investigation, it issues what it calls a “report”. According to the NSA, “over 2,000 Prism-based reports” are now issued every month. There were 24,005 in 2012, a 27% increase on the previous year.

In total, more than 77,000 intelligence reports have cited the PRISM program.

Jameel Jaffer, director of the ACLU’s Center for Democracy, that it was astonishing the NSA would even ask technology companies to grant direct access to user data.

“It’s shocking enough just that the NSA is asking companies to do this,” he said. “The NSA is part of the military. The military has been granted unprecedented access to civilian communications.

“This is unprecedented militarisation of domestic communications infrastructure. That’s profoundly troubling to anyone who is concerned about that separation.”

A senior administration official said in a statement: “The Guardian and Washington Post articles refer to collection of communications pursuant to Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. This law does not allow the targeting of any US citizen or of any person located within the United States.

“The program is subject to oversight by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, the Executive Branch, and Congress. It involves extensive procedures, specifically approved by the court, to ensure that only non-US persons outside the US are targeted, and that minimize the acquisition, retention and dissemination of incidentally acquired information about US persons.

“This program was recently reauthorized by Congress after extensive hearings and debate.

“Information collected under this program is among the most important and valuable intelligence information we collect, and is used to protect our nation from a wide variety of threats.

“The Government may only use Section 702 to acquire foreign intelligence information, which is specifically, and narrowly, defined in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. This requirement applies across the board, regardless of the nationality of the target.”

PRISM scandal: tech giants flatly deny allowing NSA direct access to servers

Silicon Valley executives insist they did not know of secret PRISM program that grants access to emails and search history

guardian.co.uk | Jun 6, 2013

by Dominic Rushe and James Ball in New York

Executives at several of the tech firms said they had never heard of PRISM until they were contacted by the Guardian

Two different versions of the PRISM scandal were emerging on Thursday with Silicon Valley executives denying all knowledge of the top secret program that gives the National Security Agency direct access to the internet giants’ servers.

The eavesdropping program is detailed in the form of PowerPoint slides in a leaked NSA document, seen and authenticated by the Guardian, which states that it is based on “legally-compelled collection” but operates with the “assistance of communications providers in the US.”

Each of the 41 slides in the document displays prominently the corporate logos of the tech companies claimed to be taking part in PRISM.

However, senior executives from the internet companies expressed surprise and shock and insisted that no direct access to servers had been offered to any government agency.

The top-secret NSA briefing presentation set out details of the PRISM program, which it said granted access to records such as emails, chat conversations, voice calls, documents and more. The presentation the listed dates when document collection began for each company, and said PRISM enabled “direct access from the servers of these US service providers: Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, Paltalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube, Apple“.

Senior officials with knowledge of the situation within the tech giants admitted to being confused by the NSA revelations, and said if such data collection was taking place, it was without companies’ knowledge.

An Apple spokesman said: “We have never heard of PRISM. We do not provide any government agency with direct access to our servers and any agency requesting customer data must get a court order,” he said.

Joe Sullivan, Facebook’s chief security officer, said it did not provide government organisation with direct access to Facebook servers. “When Facebook is asked for data or information about specific individuals, we carefully scrutinise any such request for compliance with all applicable laws, and provide information only to the extent required by law.”

A Google spokesman also said it did not provide officials with access to its servers. “Google cares deeply about the security of our users’ data. We disclose user data to government in accordance with the law, and we review all such requests carefully. From time to time, people allege that we have created a government ‘backdoor’ into our systems, but Google does not have a ‘back door’ for the government to access private user data.”

Microsoft said it only turned over data when served with a court order: “We provide customer data only when we receive a legally binding order or subpoena to do so, and never on a voluntary basis. In addition we only ever comply with orders for requests about specific accounts or identifiers. If the government has a broader voluntary national security program to gather customer data we don’t participate in it.”

A Yahoo spokesman said: “Yahoo! takes users’ privacy very seriously. We do not provide the government with direct access to our servers, systems, or network.

Within the tech companies, and talking on off the record, executives said they had never even heard of PRISM until contacted by the Guardian. Executives said that they were regularly contacted by law officials and responded to all subpoenas but they denied ever having heard of a scheme like PRISM, an information programme internal the documents state has been running since 2007.

Executives said they were “confused” by the claims in the NSA document. “We operate under what we are required to do by law,” said one. “We receive requests for information all the time. Say about a potential terrorist threat or after the Boston bombing. But we have systems in place for that.” The executive claimed, as did others, that the most senior figures in their organisation had never heard of PRISM or any scheme like it.

The chief executive of transparency NGO Index on Censorship, Kirsty Hughes, remarked on Twitter that the contradiction seemed to leave two options: “Back door or front?” she posted.

Bilderberg 2013: Secret Summit for World Domination…Live

(Clockwise from left) Christine Lagarde, a protester from the 2012 meeting in Virginia, Henry Kissinger, George Osborne and David Petraeus Photo: AP/Reuters

telegraph.co.uk | Jun 6. 2013

By Josie Ensor, and Matthew Holehouse

Bilderberg: The Secret Summit for World Domination

Four-day conference at Watford’s The Grove hotel begins
Millions spent on security as protesters demonstrate outside
Lord Healey: ‘the most useful of all the meetings I attend’

Latest

16.53 Well, as to be expected from the world’s most secretive conference, we have learnt nothing from today. The closest we managed to get was half-a-mile from the Watford hotel where the rich and powerful are gathered. We’ll therefore be wrapping it up here, but we leave you with this thought from Lord Healey:

“Lots of the stuff written about Bilderberg is a load of crap. Some people described it as a secret Communist organisation. Others said it was a secret American organisation. But it was balls.”

16.44 A great video from Alex Jones’s Youtube page of him being “provoked” by a BBC presenter.

15.45 Martin Taylor, a former secretary general of the Bilderbergs and businessman, who has been going on and off for the last 20 years, and is attending this year, spoke to the Telegraph’s Tom Rowley about the history of the conference.

“Bilderberg grew up in the early Fifties out of a feeling that if European leaders in all fields had been closer to their American counterparts before the Second World War, some trouble might have been avoided.

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“That was at a time when people didn’t cross the Atlantic very often. It was a kind of Cold War council. People got together once a year, sometimes twice, but it was usually once. The numbers originally were about 60 or 70, it is now about 120. You got people from Europe and the US. It has now been rather enlarged.”

15.37 Security is tight, people are being checked in a field, hundreds of yards away from the hotel:

15.32 Speaking to the Telegraph earlier this week, Lord Healey of Riddleden, who attended the first Bilderberg meeting in 1954 and sat on the steering committee for 40 years, said:

“Lots of the stuff written about it is a load of crap. Those who weren’t invited were very jealous. Some people described it as a secret Communist organisation. Others said it was a secret American organisation. But it was balls.”

Lord Healey, who served as chancellor to Harold Wilson and James Callaghan, added: “I found it the most useful of all the meetings I attended regularly. The Bilderberg was the best because the level of the people attending regularly was so much higher.”

15.15 American news channel CNBC is reporting that police have anti-terrorism traffic regulations and a no-fly zone in place, so worried are they that Henry Kissinger and his pals with be the subject of attacks.

14.43 More on Alex Jones, who has been the centre of many controversies. He has previously accused the US government of being involved in the Oklahoma City bombing, the September 11 attacks, and the filming of fake Moon landings to hide NASA’s secret technology.

The outspoken Texan locked horns with Piers Morgan earlier this year after arguing on his show that taking away people’s guns would lead to government tyranny.

He has told an ever-growing group of conspirists gathered today that the Bilderberg Group wants to exterminate 80 per cent of the world population and replace them with robots who will be their slaves.

14.11 That’s nice, a Bilderberg welcoming committee:

14.01 Our reporter, Matthew Holehouse, who is as close to the hotel as press are allowed to get, has said a well-known pastor-like US conspiracy theoriest has arrived on the scene. Alex Jones told the crowd of Americans gathered that he is there to “expose the puppet-masters for what they are to the world”.

He said he wanted the attendees to be put on trial for crimes against humanity. We’re not entirely convinced The Hague would find in his favour.

“It is very, very sinister,” warns Jones.

“Not everybody who goes to Bilderberg, from my research, is a scoundrel or a villain. But there are definitely villains who are there who are basically trying to organise government and business.”

^{Alex Jones and the scrum}

14.00 Bilderberg, which formed in 1954, is making an attempt to change its reputation as one of the most clandestine and controversial meetings in the world; it is the first time the guest list and its limited agenda have been publicly released and journalists are allowed near the grounds.

13.00 David Icke, the world’s most famous conspiracy theorist, is set to come on Saturday – the third day of the conference and we hear he’s expected to bring a big crowd. He has written on his blog about the “proof” that the annual meetings dictate government policy.

12.36 Our reporter Matthew Holehouse is half a mile away from the hotel in a pen with other 50 other reporters. He says it is they are surrounded by a high steel fence that looks like the edge of a prison.

About 40 cars have gone in so far. Every time someone drives in with their luxury car, the crowds shout and heckle.

There are lots of elderly Americans, people wandering around with cameras and a man dressed up as a CCTV camera.

12.23 The cloak of secrecy surrounding the meetings, which ban journalists from attending, has fuelled conspiracy theories that so-called Bilderbergers are planning global domination and world unification.

People have been banned for booking into the hotel this week and reporters are being kept in a pen a long distance away from the entrance to the hotel.

12.14 Michael Meacher, Labour’s former Environment Minister, told our reporter Matthew Holehouse that the institution is shadowy and the public needs to know what is going on.

^{Michael Meacher addresses reporter in a field in Watford}

When asked if it was a shadow government, Meacher replied, “You’re putting it into rather colourful language. I wouldn’t go that far but a gathering like this has that aura about it. It is a shadow organisation that the rest of us do not have access to.

“Most of them are multi-millionaires and billionaires. The idea they have a charity is a distortion.

“The people here are the leaders of the biggest banks, multi-nationals, EU commissioners, and a smattering of politicians from Europe and America. If you wanted to find a group which represented the western governance structure you would come up with a list like this.They are meeting here in secrecy with no transparency or accountability.

12.07 Delegates for the private conference of top politicians and businesspeople from around the world have started to arrive at the hotel in cars with blacked-out windows. Doesn’t look much like they’re up for a stop and chat.

We have a handy agenda and guest list. Some of the country’s politicians have managed to clear four days out of their busy schedules for the event, including:

George Osborne, Chancellor of the Exchequer
Ed Balls, Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer
Kenneth Clarke, Cabinet Minister
John Kerr, Independent Member, House of Lords

^{Ed Balls is a confirmed guest of the Bilderberg Group}

12:04 Good afternoon and welcome to our liveblog. We will be covering the mysterious goings-on of the annual Bilderberg Group meeting which starts today and is being held in the UK for the first time … in a hotel in Watford.

900th anniversary exhibition on the Sovereign Military Order of Malta

gozonews.com | Jun 6, 2013

The Minister for Education, Evarist Bartolo, will on Friday morning, be officially inaugurating the exhibition ‘TUITIO FIDEI ET OBSEQUIUM PAUPERUM – the Sovereign Military Order of Malta 1113-2013,’ that has been mounted by the National Library of Malta, under the auspices of Malta Libraries, to commemorate the 900th anniversary from the foundation of the Order of St John.

The exhibition, which will be opened at 10.00am, will showcase a number of manuscripts taken from the Order’s Archives, some of which date back to just under a thousand years. The exhibition will shed light on the three phases of the Order – the epoch prior to the Knights’ arrival on the Maltese Islands, their time here, and the period after their departure, coming up to the present day. Some items of clothing directly relating to the Order will also form part of the exhibition.

To commemorate this anniversary, the National Library of Malta will also be launching two new publications.

The first of these will be a booklet relating to the Archives of the Order, in both Maltese and English, which will provide information on the Archives from its origin to the present day. It should be noted that the greater part of this Archive is in fact preserved at the National Library.

The other publication, also in Maltese and English, will offer photographs and informational snippets about each of the 28 Grand Masters who ruled Malta between 1530 and 1798. This publication should prove useful to students of Maltese history, providing an introductory guide to these historical figures which will surely serve to whet the appetite for more detailed knowledge about the lives and achievements of our islands’ rulers.

These publications will also be available from the National Library.

The exhibition will be open to the public, free of charge, from Monday to Friday during the National Library’s opening hours, until the 2nd of August.

Santa Monica shooting: At least six killed, three injured, minutes after President Obama’s motorcade passed by

A gunman may have set this house on fire on Friday before heading to Santa Monica College, where he continued his shooting rampage.

The shootings took place just before noon, approximately half an hour after President Obama’s motorcade passed through the area.

A second man described by police as a “person of interest” was taken in for questioning, but no further details were released.

The California college has been placed on lockdown, and the reportedly wounded suspect was found in the school’s library and is now in custody. The Secret Service said that the shooting did not impact the President’s travel schedule.

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS | Jun 7, 2013

By David Knowles

Nine people have been shot, at least six fatally, near Santa Monica College on Friday.

According to unconfirmed reports, the shootings began during a domestic dispute at a home at 2036 Yorkshire Ave. Neighbors described hearing multiple gunshots coming from the home and saw smoke pouring from windows.

A man dressed in all black and carrying an AR-15 semi-automatic weapon left the home where neighbors said a Lebanese family lived, shot a woman in a black Infinity, and got into the passenger side of a purple Mazda and ordered the driver to head in the direction of the Santa Monica College campus.

Related

Santa Monica College shooting prompts Obama motorcade rerouting

The gunman, who witnesses said was dressed in “swat gear,” including a ballistic vest, and was carrying multiple rounds of ammunition, then got out of the car and began firing at passing vehicles, including a city bus and a police car.

The suspect then fled police and ran onto the Santa Monica College campus where he shot one woman, and fired at several students at the school’s library.

“Everyone threw themselves on the floor, screams,” student Marta Fagerstroem, who was on the bus, told NBC4. “The bus driver, she panicked. She couldn’t drive away. She was able to, after a while.”

The college was quickly put on lockdown, and the suspect was shot and killed by police at the library.

Students at the college were in the midst of taking their final exams when shots rang out at the library.

“We didn’t know what was happening until all the students at the entrance of the library started running down towards the bottom of the library,” Santa Monica College student Sam Luster told KABC-TV.

After police entered the building, students were told to crawl on their hands and knees out of the library and several people reported seeing the body of a man dressed in all black lying on the ground. Multiple sources reported that police shot and killed the gunman.

A second man described by police as a “person of interest” was taken in for questioning, but no further details were released.

UCLA Medical Center said that one shooting vicitim died Friday afternoon. One more person was listed in serious condition, and four others had been hospitalized. All of the victims admitted to the hospital were women.

A young mother who was riding on the bus was grazed in the temple by one of the gunman’s bullets, but was alert and responsive as she was taken to a nearby hospital in an ambulance.

Responding to a fire at the home where the incident began, fire officials said they discovered two dead bodies and that both victims had apparently been shot inside the burning house.

Neighbors said that the Lebanese family who lived at the address had recently gone through a bitter divorce and the mother had moved out and assumed custody of at least one of her two sons.

According to witnesses, the shootings took place just before noon, approximately half an hour after President Obama’s motorcade passed through the area. The Secret Service said the incident did not affect the President’s fundraising visit to Los Angeles, but his limousine was re-routed.

Several schools in the area were put on lockdown for several hours, and Santa Monica College cancelled final exams.

7 dead in Santa Monica College shooting, gunman may have had help

SWAT team: Sheriff’s deputies gather near Santa Monica College. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times /June 7, 2013)

latimes.com | Jun 7, 2013

By Rosanna Xia, Kate Mather and Andrew Blankstein

Seven people — including the gunman — are dead after a shooting rampage that ended at Santa Monica College, police said.

Santa Monica Police Chief Jacqueline Seabrooks described a violent shooting rampage that appears to have begun in the 2000 block of Yorkshire Avenue just before noon.

Two people were found dead on Yorkshire Avenue and a home was on fire, authorities said.

Santa Monica shooting: At least six killed, three injured, minutes after President Obama’s motorcade passed by

The gunman then moved west along Pico Boulevard, firing at cars, including a bus and a police vehicle.

One person died at Cloverfield and Pico boulevards; two died at 19th Street and Pico Boulevard. Another woman died at the hospital.

Seabrooks said the gunman may not have acted alone.  A second “person of interest” is in custody.

“We are not convinced 100% that the suspect who was killed operated in solo or a lone capacity,” Seabrooks said.

The suspect fled onto Santa Monica College, where he was pursued by police. He shot a woman on campus and ran into the library, where he continued to fire rounds from an assault rifle.

Authorities shot and killed the gunman on campus. He has not yet been identified, but police described him as being 25 to 30 years old.

They have detained a second man, who has not been identified. He is considered a person of interest.

Santa Monica College and all schools in the city were placed on lockdown.

The shooting rampage sent Santa Monica into chaos — just as President Obama was attending a fundraiser a few miles away.

Many college students were on campus studying — or taking finals.

Stephen Bell and his classmates were preparing for the final tap performance when two women ran into their Santa Monica College classroom, next to the campus library.

They just saw a woman get shot in the library, they said.

“When she said that word — shot! — we immediately shut the door, laid down on the floor and shut the lights,” Bell said.

“I was thinking, ‘Oh my god, Columbine High School,” he said. “First thing that crossed my mind.”

Joey Letteri, the tap instructor, was running a few minutes late and was walking to class from his office upstairs. When he got to class, the door was shut and the lights were off.

“I thought it was a surprise and that the class got a cake for me or something,” he said, shaking his head at the innocent thought that had crossed his mind at the time.

Letteri led the class through a meditation and told them to stay quiet. They tried to calm the two female students down. One couldn’t stop throwing up, Letteri said, and the other was crying and shaking.

Finally, a SWAT team arrived. Letteri told them to slide their badges under the door. Each person in the classroom had to come out individually with their hands up, he said, and they were searched before they were all escorted off campus. Officers took the two witnesses from the library aside.

NSA secretly collecting phone records, locations of millions of Verizon customers daily

Under the terms of the order, the numbers of both parties on a call are handed over, as is location data and the time and duration of all calls.

NSA collecting phone records of millions of Verizon customers daily

Exclusive: Top secret court order requiring Verizon to hand over all call data shows scale of domestic surveillance under Obama

Guardian | Jun 5, 2013

by Glenn Greenwald

• Read the Verizon court order in full here
• Obama administration justifies surveillance

The National Security Agency is currently collecting the telephone records of millions of US customers of Verizon, one of America’s largest telecoms providers, under a top secret court order issued in April.

The order, a copy of which has been obtained by the Guardian, requires Verizon on an “ongoing, daily basis” to give the NSA information on all telephone calls in its systems, both within the US and between the US and other countries.

The document shows for the first time that under the Obama administration the communication records of millions of US citizens are being collected indiscriminately and in bulk – regardless of whether they are suspected of any wrongdoing.

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NSA collection of Verizon phone records sparks angry reaction

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Also Revealed by Verizon Leak: How the NSA and FBI Lie With Numbers

The secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (Fisa) granted the order to the FBI on April 25, giving the government unlimited authority to obtain the data for a specified three-month period ending on July 19.

Under the terms of the blanket order, the numbers of both parties on a call are handed over, as is location data, call duration, unique identifiers, and the time and duration of all calls. The contents of the conversation itself are not covered.

The disclosure is likely to reignite longstanding debates in the US over the proper extent of the government’s domestic spying powers.

Under the Bush administration, officials in security agencies had disclosed to reporters the large-scale collection of call records data by the NSA, but this is the first time significant and top-secret documents have revealed the continuation of the practice on a massive scale under President Obama.

The unlimited nature of the records being handed over to the NSA is extremely unusual. Fisa court orders typically direct the production of records pertaining to a specific named target who is suspected of being an agent of a terrorist group or foreign state, or a finite set of individually named targets.

The Guardian approached the National Security Agency, the White House and the Department of Justice for comment in advance of publication on Wednesday. All declined. The agencies were also offered the opportunity to raise specific security concerns regarding the publication of the court order.

The court order expressly bars Verizon from disclosing to the public either the existence of the FBI’s request for its customers’ records, or the court order itself.

“We decline comment,” said Ed McFadden, a Washington-based Verizon spokesman.

The order, signed by Judge Roger Vinson, compels Verizon to produce to the NSA electronic copies of “all call detail records or ‘telephony metadata’ created by Verizon for communications between the United States and abroad” or “wholly within the United States, including local telephone calls”.

The order directs Verizon to “continue production on an ongoing daily basis thereafter for the duration of this order”. It specifies that the records to be produced include “session identifying information”, such as “originating and terminating number”, the duration of each call, telephone calling card numbers, trunk identifiers, International Mobile Subscriber Identity (IMSI) number, and “comprehensive communication routing information”.

The information is classed as “metadata”, or transactional information, rather than communications, and so does not require individual warrants to access. The document also specifies that such “metadata” is not limited to the aforementioned items. A 2005 court ruling judged that cell site location data – the nearest cell tower a phone was connected to – was also transactional data, and so could potentially fall under the scope of the order.

While the order itself does not include either the contents of messages or the personal information of the subscriber of any particular cell number, its collection would allow the NSA to build easily a comprehensive picture of who any individual contacted, how and when, and possibly from where, retrospectively.

It is not known whether Verizon is the only cell-phone provider to be targeted with such an order, although previous reporting has suggested the NSA has collected cell records from all major mobile networks. It is also unclear from the leaked document whether the three-month order was a one-off, or the latest in a series of similar orders.

The court order appears to explain the numerous cryptic public warnings by two US senators, Ron Wyden and Mark Udall, about the scope of the Obama administration’s surveillance activities.

For roughly two years, the two Democrats have been stridently advising the public that the US government is relying on “secret legal interpretations” to claim surveillance powers so broad that the American public would be “stunned” to learn of the kind of domestic spying being conducted.

Because those activities are classified, the senators, both members of the Senate intelligence committee, have been prevented from specifying which domestic surveillance programs they find so alarming. But the information they have been able to disclose in their public warnings perfectly tracks both the specific law cited by the April 25 court order as well as the vast scope of record-gathering it authorized.

Julian Sanchez, a surveillance expert with the Cato Institute, explained: “We’ve certainly seen the government increasingly strain the bounds of ‘relevance’ to collect large numbers of records at once — everyone at one or two degrees of separation from a target — but vacuuming all metadata up indiscriminately would be an extraordinary repudiation of any pretence of constraint or particularized suspicion.” The April order requested by the FBI and NSA does precisely that.

The law on which the order explicitly relies is the so-called “business records” provision of the Patriot Act, 50 USC section 1861. That is the provision which Wyden and Udall have repeatedly cited when warning the public of what they believe is the Obama administration’s extreme interpretation of the law to engage in excessive domestic surveillance.

In a letter to attorney general Eric Holder last year, they argued that “there is now a significant gap between what most Americans think the law allows and what the government secretly claims the law allows.”

“We believe,” they wrote, “that most Americans would be stunned to learn the details of how these secret court opinions have interpreted” the “business records” provision of the Patriot Act.

Privacy advocates have long warned that allowing the government to collect and store unlimited “metadata” is a highly invasive form of surveillance of citizens’ communications activities. Those records enable the government to know the identity of every person with whom an individual communicates electronically, how long they spoke, and their location at the time of the communication.

Such metadata is what the US government has long attempted to obtain in order to discover an individual’s network of associations and communication patterns. The request for the bulk collection of all Verizon domestic telephone records indicates that the agency is continuing some version of the data-mining program begun by the Bush administration in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attack.

The NSA, as part of a program secretly authorized by President Bush on 4 October 2001, implemented a bulk collection program of domestic telephone, internet and email records. A furore erupted in 2006 when USA Today reported that the NSA had “been secretly collecting the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans, using data provided by AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth” and was “using the data to analyze calling patterns in an effort to detect terrorist activity.” Until now, there has been no indication that the Obama administration implemented a similar program.

These recent events reflect how profoundly the NSA’s mission has transformed from an agency exclusively devoted to foreign intelligence gathering, into one that focuses increasingly on domestic communications. A 30-year employee of the NSA, William Binney, resigned from the agency shortly after 9/11 in protest at the agency’s focus on domestic activities.

In the mid-1970s, Congress, for the first time, investigated the surveillance activities of the US government. Back then, the mandate of the NSA was that it would never direct its surveillance apparatus domestically.

At the conclusion of that investigation, Frank Church, the Democratic senator from Idaho who chaired the investigative committee, warned: “The NSA’s capability at any time could be turned around on the American people, and no American would have any privacy left, such is the capability to monitor everything: telephone conversations, telegrams, it doesn’t matter.”

Additional reporting by Ewen MacAskill and Spencer Ackerman

Militarized police assault weapons and grenades terrorize residents during urban warfare training

A photo shared on Facebook of police involved in a hostage training scenario at buildings that are scheduled to be demolished at Ida Yarbourgh Apartments in Albany March 21, 2013. Albany police said they’re reviewing training procedures after complaints about the proximity of tear gas and the release of fake ammunition to apartments that are still occupied.

Police training exercise draws criticism

Residents of Ida Yarbrough describe explosions and gunfire; chief apologizes

timesunion.com | Mar 25, 2013

By Lauren Stanforth

Albany

Police Chief Steven Krokoff says his department was “insensitive” when it conducted a training exercise that involved police firing blank ammunition and using flash grenades near occupied apartments at the Ida J. Yarbrough Homes.

The chief said the department will review how it conducts “neighborhood-based training” after Thursday’s operation drew criticism from residents who said they were frightened by a chaotic scene that seemed real to them.

Krokoff released a statement as photos of the incident spread on Facebook. The pictures showed armed officers in tactical gear as well as fake blood and spent shell casings that were left behind at part of the public housing complex that is now deserted and slated for demolition.

Police said they went door-to-door before the training to notify residents, but many were caught off guard when the teams descended Thursday morning reportedly shooting fake bullets and throwing flash grenades and tear gas into the vacant building during the exercise.

“We wake up to the sound the next morning of literally small bombs,” said an Ida Yarbrough resident and state worker, who spoke only on condition she not be identified. “All you could hear was ‘pop, pop, pop’ of an assault rifle, police screaming ‘clear!’ I really thought I was in the middle of a war zone — and I have a four-year-old.”

The empty apartments used for the training are in front of a parking lot and steps away from two other buildings that are still filled with tenants.

Bernie Bryan, president of the Albany chapter of the NAACP, visited the complex Sunday afternoon and found that the door at one of the units — No. 165 — was still open, with spent shell casings still littering the floor inside. A gooey substance that appeared to be fake blood stained the sidewalk outside.

A resident also approached a reporter Sunday and opened his hand to show two shell casings he said he found lying outside one of the apartments that morning.

Bryan wondered why the police couldn’t have chosen one of the vacant buildings that sits farther away across a muddy courtyard where heavy equipment is stationed awaiting the demolition project.

“The folks in this neighborhood might not have the financial means, but are entitled to the same respect,” Bryan said, adding, “Whoever made the decision to do this was asleep at the switch.”

Contacted Sunday about the incident, Albany Mayor Jerry Jennings said “I don’t think it was necessary to do it the way it was done. The training is necessary, but obviously there should be information that should be shared.” When told about the open apartment with shell casings inside, Jennings said he would send someone over immediately to clean up the apartment and lock the door.

Police said the training consisted of hostage rescues and involved simulated ammunition and injuries. Similar training has been done before in other unoccupied facilities in the city, the chief said.

“I certainly did not mean to offend the very people that we are training to protect,” Krokoff said in a statement issued Saturday. “In retrospect, it was insensitive to conduct this type of training in the vicinity of occupied residences. We will review how we conduct our neighborhood-based training in the future and include the community in evaluating its appropriateness.” The chief couldn’t be reached for further comment Sunday.

Albany Common Council member Barbara Smith, who represents Ida Yarbrough in the Fourth Ward, said that she’s never heard of training occurring so close to a residential area. “What I have been made aware of I find disturbing,” said Smith. She said she will raise the matter for further discussion among the entire council.

The apartments are vacant because they are slated to be demolished as part of a $11.8 million project that will replace 129 low-rise units with 80 newer, more efficient apartments. The project is being paid for through the sale of federal low-income housing tax credits and the state’s Low-Income Housing Trust Fund.

A protest of the police’s training has been scheduled for 6 p.m. Tuesday at the corner of Livingston Avenue and North Pearl Street.

“You can’t just take poor people and say ‘You’re going to do this and do that with them,’ ” said Ira McKinley, a local documentary film maker who is orchestrating the event. “We’re organizing to formulate our own citizen action group. We’re going to educate our communities.”

TSA chief: ‘Small knives can’t bring down a plane’ […of course]

“A small pocket knife is simply not going to result in the catastrophic failure of an aircraft…”

Knives on planes controversy: John Pistole, TSA chief, defended decision Thursday on Capitol Hill

wptv.com | Mar 14, 2012

By Thom Patterson CNN

(CNN) — As the airline industry piles on against him, the man who ordered knives to be allowed on U.S. commercial airliners defended his decision Thursday on Capitol Hill.

“It is the judgment of many security experts worldwide, which I agree with, that a small pocket knife is simply not going to result in the catastrophic failure of an aircraft, and an improvised explosive device will,” Transportation Security Administration director John Pistole told lawmakers. “And we know, from internal covert testing, searching for these items which will not blow up an aircraft can distract our officers from focusing on the components of an improvised explosive device.”

After his testimony at the Homeland Security subcommittee hearing, Pistole was expected to face questions from lawmakers who are concerned about traveler safety in a post-9/11 era.

Supporters believe the rules should be more passenger-friendly and focus on larger threats. Critics believe even small knives pose too much of a risk for airline crews, arguing that box-cutter knives were used in the 9/11 attacks.

In the nine days since the TSA opened a can of worms by announcing it would ease the ban on small knives in airline cabins, the list of groups concerned or opposed to the idea has grown to include airlines, airport screeners, federal air marshals, flight attendants and pilots.

Committee member Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-California, is expected to join critics during the hearing. Swalwell co-authored a letter to Pistole saying he was “mystified” by the move, calling Pistole’s decision “another example of a questionable TSA policy.”

“We’re unaware of a single incident involving these knives”

Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, supports the rules change. Commercial aviation must be secure from threats as the highest priority, but Pistole also has a priority to make the TSA both “more passenger-friendly and threat-focused,” McCaul said in a recent statement.

Former TSA head Kip Hawley — who agrees with the change — said sharp objects can no longer bring down aircraft.

The TSA made its decision after a threat assessment determined that allowing small knives in cabins would not result in catastrophic damage to aircraft. But after consulting with Federal Air Marshal Service leaders, the agency opted to continue excluding knives that most closely resemble weapons, specifically knives with blades that lock in place, or have molded hand grips. Box cutters and razor blades also would remain on the prohibited items list. The rules are to go into effect on April 25.

The agency is aligning its knife policy with the International Civil Aviation Organization, which includes the United States and 190 other member nations. The group says each member exercises its own discretion about how to deal with the issue of knives in the cabins.

Under the new rules, knives with blades that are 2.36 inches (6 centimeters) or shorter and less than a half-inch wide will be allowed in airline cabins so long as the blade is not fixed or does not lock into place.

The rules also allow passengers to carry up to two golf clubs, certain toy bats or other sports sticks — such as ski poles, hockey sticks, lacrosse sticks and pool cues — aboard in carry-on luggage.

Airlines for America, the airline trade association, said Monday that “additional discussion is warranted” before small knives are allowed on planes.

Many critics of the new rules contend that in addition to adding an unnecessary threat to the safety of airline crews and passengers, the changes won’t make a difference in the TSA’s ability to concentrate on other threats.

Knives are probably the most common items surrendered by passengers at screening points, aside from liquids. Travelers surrender about 35 knives at Baltimore-Washington International Airport on an average day and about 47 per day at Los Angeles International Airport, officials say.

CNN’s Catherine E. Shoichet contributed to this report.