DoJ

Tuesday, September 14th is primary day here in Maryland. Campaign signs litter roadways and volunteers greet commuters as they idle at traffic lights in Prince George's County. One hot button issue that should be on the mind of Maryland voters is immigration. As the number of illegal immigrants continue to rise in Maryland and the economy further spirals downward, voters in Maryland face tough decisions.

Adding to the immigration debate is an organization that has caused outrage and controversy over its mission and programs. CASA de Maryland, also know as the Central American Solidarity Association deserves national attention for it's programs that target day laborers in Montgomery County, Maryland.

The Background

From Wikipedia (emphasis mine):

“CASA was founded in 1985 in the basement of the Takoma Park Presbyterian Church by concerned U.S. citizens and Central American immigrants. It has since expanded its scope. It is affiliate organization of the National Council of La Raza. It has received funding from a variety of sources, including a two-year grant funding operations in Baltimore from George Soros' Open Society Institute. CASA of Maryland is also a founding member of the National Capital Immigration Coalition ("NCIC") which promotes "comprehensive immigration reform".[5] Other funding sources include the Annie E. Casey Foundation and United Way. They are a member of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network. CASA also has received $1.5 million from CITGO, the state-owned Venezuelan petroleum products corporation.

CASA operates five day labor centers throughout the state, with public and private funding, three in Montgomery County, where its efforts have been the center of controversy. There is both significant support, and significant opposition, to their efforts to provide central sites where contractors can pick up day-laborers…."

Judicial Watch has documents here on the day labor centers.

To be clear, a Soros, and Chavez funded organization with ties to the radical La Raza receives millions in taxpayer dollars while Maryland faces severe budget shortfalls,

“House Minority Leader Anthony J. O'Donnell, R-Calvert/St. Mary's, offered an amendment Wednesday that would strip $200,000 allocated to Casa de Maryland Inc. from the state's capital budget.

The amendment failed, 47-89.”

A Washington Examiner articles notes that Casa de Maryland recently formed a political organization called Casa in Action and currently receives a significant majority of its funding from the state.

“CASA will receive nearly $2.1 million this fiscal year from local governments, including $1.3 million from Montgomery County, and another $32,000 in federal money, according to Kim Propeack, the group's director of community organizing and political action. CASA in Action has raised $45,000 thus far from members paying $9 annual dues, she added.”

While students languish in underfunded schools that are one step above a daycare or prison, Maryland's Democrat Governor Martin O'Malley partnered with the group to open a multicultural center inside of a restored mansion.

“Governor Martin O'Malley recently joined CASA at the launching of a three-year $30 million campaign to restore the George Oakley Totten, Jr. designed historic Langley Park mansion in Langley Park, Maryland, to be converted into a multicultural center. The center will offer English lessons, legal assistance, job placement”

What other programs have suffered while Casa de Maryland enjoys the seemingly endless largess of state lawmakers? According to the Center for Budget and Policy:

In late 2007 and 2008, some ten states enacted tax increases, closed loopholes, restricted tax credits, or implemented other revenue-raising measures. Major packages were enacted in Maryland, Michigan,and New York.

Other states that have capped or reduced funding for programs that serve people who have disabilities or are elderly include California, the District of Columbia, Florida, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Missouri, North Carolina, South Carolina, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, and Virginia

Maryland cut professional development for principals and educators, as well as health clinics, gifted and talented summer centers, and math and science initiatives.

Some states, such as Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Rhode Island, Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming, have implemented cuts to localities, leading to local concerns about reductions in funding for policing, child care assistance, meals for the elderly, hospice care, services for veterans and seniors, and other services.

Other states cutting higher education operating funding and financial aid include Arkansas, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland..

The Immigration debate

Casa de Maryland discourages local police enforcement of immigration laws and advocates for driver's licenses for illegal aliens – contentious issues in the current political climate. Local point to the fact that crimes in Silver Spring, Maryland and gang activity are on the rise.

Wikipedia notes that tensions ran high in 2006 when “Gustavo Torres, the Executive Director of CASA, remarked to a reporter for the local Gazette newspaper that CASA was determined to track the leadership of a local unit of Minuteman Project, and take the following actions: 'We are going to target the Minutemen in a specific way... we are going picket their houses, and the schools of their kids, and go to their work. If they are going to do this to us, we are going to respond in the same way, to let people know their neighbors are extremists, that they are anti-immigrant.”

The site Help Save Maryland warns citizens that Casa de Maryland encourages illegal immigration and provides links to a case study on the Langley Park mansion project and a disturbing pamphlet that instructs immigrants in what to do in case of immigration raids.

Did tax dollars pay for this document? The Department of Labor's website shows that OSHA gave a grant of $200,000 to Casa de Maryland, and $225,000 to an affiliate group. The money was described as being for:

The grantee will provide training for high-risk Latino workers in the construction, building and grounds maintenance, agricultural, and warehouse industries in Maryland. Training will be offered through local community colleges and employment centers. Training will include a train-the-trainer module. The training and/or materials will be offered in English and Spanish. Click pictures to enlarge.

The Obligatory ACORN Connection

Politics as Usual

Major players behind Casa de Maryland include Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas E. Perez. Perez, a former member of Casa de Maryland's board, worked on O’Malley’s 2006 campaign, Obama's presidential campaign, and was a member of Obama's transition team. Byron York describes Perez's work with the DOJ:

"Of all the transformations that have taken place in the Obama administration, perhaps none is so radical as that within the Civil Rights Division. Under Perez, it is bigger, richer and more aggressive than ever, with a far more expansive view of its authority than at any time in recent history.

Perez is playing a leading role in the Justice Department's lawsuit against Arizona's new immigration law. He is promising a huge increase in prosecution of alleged hate crimes."

Readers may remember that Perez was also actively involved in the dismissal of charges in the DOJ case again the New Black Panther Party and has been accused of lying under oath about the case.

It appears that Casa de Maryland has friends in high places.

As Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley prepares to face off with former Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. in the general election, one has to wonder what win for either side would mean for Casa de Maryland. If O'Malley is elected, the group should anticipate more funding but with two of Ehrlich's former staff members on record supporting the group, one has to wonder if this will be yet another case of different party-same political corruption.

Cross-posted at Emerging Corruption.com.

by Lance Thompson

Day after tax day: taxed at every level, privacy at no level. 

The Obama Administration has taken steps to secure access to both our public and private communications. If you're a citizen and a target of Obama's DOJ, you're emails are fair game, sans search warrant and just cause. 

I've been on the internet since '91 and have internet email accounts that date back to 1997. Although I had never seriously considered the ramifications of a 3rd party reading my emails before the 2008 elections, I felt measurably secure with Yahoo storing my info. Pre-2008, I wrote to my friends and family and talked about the weather. I also never expressed my political opinion. Back then, politics and religion were taboo. 

Now, I am concerned on at least 2 levels: using the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) of 1986, the Obama Administration has now gone through legal channels to access emails older than 180 days without cause, thereby superceding the privacy rights guaranteed to us by the Constitution. 

Then there's the hook of incitement: if we are tied in some way to a hate crime that may have culminated through a flash mob we inadvertently instigated through a "Let's get together!" tweet, for example, we may face the same ramifications for inciting hate crimes -- a method for quelling free speech that's all the rave in socialist European countries where citizens don't enjoy the same Constitutional freedoms we have here in the states. 

With the passage of socialized healthcare, European-style socialism is here, now. 

Accessing our private communication is one example. 

First H/T to John M. Rogitz from the Rogue Report who writes via RedCounty:  

Relying on a 1986 pre-internet law dealing with electronic data storage, the Obama Administration has been arguing that emails opened and kept in your account for over 180 days are not subject to Fourth Amendment warrant requirements. Even the liberal 9thCircuit Court of Appeals, which has the highest Supreme Court turn-over rate of any of the circuits, agrees that the Constitution is more important than some law Congress enacted before Al Gore created the internet.Still, somehow a piss-ant magistrate judge in Colorado found solid ground to grant Obama’s request to snoop through our emails. In his decision, the judge held that there is “no reasonable expectation of privacy” in emails that are over 180 days old. ... 

Thus, because the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) of 1986 apparently overrules the U.S. Constitution, we no longer enjoy the same privacy in our emails that we do with snail mail. Until the Supreme Court steps in, it’s quite possible that your emails are fair game depending on the jurisdiction in which you live. 

CNET tracked the backstory here. Quoted paragraphs flipped for chronology:

On December 3, 2009, U.S. Magistrate Judge Craig Shaffer ordered Yahoo to hand to prosecutors certain records including the contents of e-mail messages. Yahoo divulged some of the data but refused to turn over e-mail that had been previously viewed, accessed, or downloaded and was less than 181 days old.

..

For its part, the Justice Department has taken a legalistic approach: a 17-page brief it filed last month acknowledges that federal law requires search warrants for messages in "electronic storage" that are less than 181 days old. But, Assistant U.S. Attorney Pegeen Rhyne writes in a government brief, the Yahoo Mail messages don't meet that definition.

Google and Yahoo are fighting this now, along with a coalition of supporters that include the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Center for Democracy and Technology, the Progress and Freedom Foundation, the Computer and Communications Industry Association, and TRUSTe.

They're zeroing in and the noose is tightening. 

Napalitano's Rightwing Extremism Report was just the beginning. The DOJ anticipating Flash Mobs as they watch Twitter and Facebook is hardly the midpoint, and the Obama Administration's eagerness to give credibility to anyone who assists in the function of government informant to any of the federal government's 72 fusion centers and "Information Sharing Environment" (ISE) gives you an idea of where we're headed. 

And how far we'll have to go to reclaim our personal freedoms and right to privacy.

Amid Rasmussen polls telling us what middle America already knows and CNN playing "nice", it behooves every freedom-minded individual to forget that we are a breath shy of being called "terrorists."

There are the various, sundry people, who - either because of ignorance or willful blindness to fairness -- will claim Timony McVeigh would have been "one of us" and that political terrorism begins before the act:

Would Timothy McVeigh be part of the Tea Party movement if he was still here today and had not been caught?  My guess is he would, and he would be welcomed with open arms.   That being said, I believe he was at one time a patriot---but the real question is; when does the delusional view of patriotism morph into terrorism---it starts long before the act of terrorism---I believe there are some loud voices out there that would view terrorism as patriotic to support their Ideology.

Then there are others will mindlessly repeatlefty organizations as they attempt to discredit you and I by labeling the conservative movement "political terrorism," as in exhibited politicalarticles.net's "Political Terrorism: We are Witnessing a Total Nervous Breakdown of Right-Wing America"

Erick Boehlert of Media Matters For America Writes.. Honestly, unless you’ve been monitoring the ticking time bomb that is the far-right media in recent days, you probably don’t appreciate how frighteningly possible that cultish scenario has become, as the GOP Noise Machine, led by Fox News, publicly suffers a nervous breakdown. It’s a mental and emotional collapse that’s been advertised in recent days as cablers, radio talkers, and right-wing bloggers have reached for increasingly hysterical, often blood-curdling rhetoric..

Regardless of the fickle leftist tide and whether or not we are blatantly called "political terrorists" in the media, we can well depend on the culling, categorizing and cataloging of our information “in case” the state decides we are a risk to the state.

On July 2009, Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism John O. Brennan released a memo to heads of departments and agencies asking for their "dedicated commitment and senior-level attention" to "information sharing and access throughout the government."

Brennan described the Obama Administration's objective as well-pronounced and centered beyond fighting terrorism:

"This priority extends beyond terroris-related issues, to the sharing of information more broadly to enhance the national security of the United States and the safety of the American people."

Brennan sent that memo to the Secretaries of State, Treasury, Defense, Interior, Agriculture, Commerce, Labor, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, Transportation, Energy, Education, Veterans Affairs, Homeland Security; the Directors of the Office of Management and Budget, National Intelligence and the FBI; the Administrator for the EPA, and the Attorney General.

This information sharing is replicated at 72 fusion centers across the nation as they themselves harvest citizen-intelligence and funnel that information to the an Information Sharing Environment --an ISE. The ISE has no Congressional oversight, and sits directly under the auspices of the Executive Office:

In response to the 9/11 Commission’s Recommendations, the Congress passed and the President signed the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004.. the law required the President to designate a Program Manager for the ISE and establish an Information Sharing Council to advise the President and the Program Manager on the development of ISE policies, procedures, guidelines, and standards, and to ensure proper coordination among Federal departments and agencies participating in the ISE.   

Under the Obama Administration, the Information Sharing Council has been integrated into the White House policy process through the Information Sharing and Access Interagency Policy Committee (IPC), so that the important work of the ISC will move forward under the auspices of the Executive Office of the President. 

If we were once concerned about the invasion of privacy through, say, nationaled healthcare,and our personal information going live online, consider how else our data is being collected:

The federal Fusion Center Guidelines recommend that state fusion centers collect information on myriad issues: “Agriculture, Food, Water and the Environment, Banking and Finance, Chemical Industry and Hazardous Materials, Criminal Justice, Retail, Real Estate, Education, Emergency Services (Non-Law Enforcement), Energy, Government, Health and Public Health Services, Hospitality and Lodging, Information & Telecommunications, Military Facilities and Defense Industrial Base, Postal and Shipping, Private Security, Public Works, Social Services, [and] Transportation”[22] State fusion centers can find this data by accessing a variety of systems, such as:

1. “Driver’s license,

2. Motor vehicle registration,

3. Location information (411, addresses, and phone numbers),

4. Law enforcement databases,

5. National Crime Information Center (NCIC),

6. Nlets — The International Justice and Public Safety Information Sharing Network, and the Terrorist Screening Center (TSC),

7. Criminal justice agencies,

8. Public and private sources (Security Industry databases, Identity Theft databases, Gaming Industry databases),

9. Regional Information Sharing Systems (RISS)/Law Enforcement Online (LEO), U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Homeland Security Information Network (HSIN), including the United States Private-Public Partnership (USP3) – formerly HSIN-CI. (Note: RISS, LEO, and DHS’s HSIN are currently collaborating on a network capability.),

10. Organizational and association resources (InfraGard, The Infrastructure Security Partnership),

11. Corrections,

12. Sex offender registries,

13. Violent Criminal Apprehension Program (VICAP),

1***4. Health- and Public Health-Related Databases (Public Health Information Network, Health Alert Network).”[23] ***

The actual 2007 fusion center guidelines cited are here.

Coupled with DHS's Right-wing Extremism report from last spring, and the fusion centers through which “behavioral” incidents are collected at the local level, this information gathering mandate from high-up guarantees conservatives who exercise their right to free speech no longer have measurable freedoms as private citizens.

Bsaedon the fact that the ISE, via the fusion centers, sit under the auspices of the Executive Office, we can rest assured the President knows everything, considering his "highest priority is to keep the American people safe."

No news yet on efforts by the DHS to establish a National Fusion Center Program Office for the purpose of Congressional oversight, despite a March 19 report by the Congressional Research Service (CRS) saying: 

"The establishment and operation of these offices will be of interest to Congress." 

According to the Information Sharing Environment (ISE), a purveyor of the President's Information Sharing Council  through which all 72 fusion centers in the nation are integrated, the Obama Administration moved the auspices of the ISE under Executive Office Control: 

In response to the 9/11 Commission's Recommendations, the Congress passed and the President signed the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004.. the law required the President to designate a Program Manager for the ISE and establish an Information Sharing Council to advise the President and the Program Manager on the development of ISE policies, procedures, guidelines, and standards, and to ensure proper coordination among Federal departments and agencies participating in the ISE.   

Under the Obama Administration, the Information Sharing Council has been integrated into the White House policy process through the Information Sharing and Access Interagency Policy Committee (IPC), so that the important work of the ISC will move forward under the auspices of the Executive Office of the President. 

One way to lure the program back under Congressional oversight: "sustainment funding": 

Currently, funds from the State Homeland Security Grant Program (SHSGP) and Urban Area Security Initiative (UASI) are used to support state and local fusion centers. These grant programs are managed within DHS by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Grant Programs Directorate (GPD). 

Apparantly, the $250 million allocated to fusion centers via Stimulus I won't last long.  

You can receive a chunk of that stimulus money, while the fusion centers are still officially off the Congressoinal Books and in the Executive Office pocket, by applying for a Category 8 "Fusion Center support" competitive National Information Sharing Initiative grant through the DOJ's Bureau of Justice.  

Call yourself a "local public and private entity, for-profit/commercial [sorry, no interns] org, nonprofit org, faith-based and community organization, institution of higher education, federally-recognized Indian tribal government, or a unit of local government that support national initiatives to improve the functioning of the criminal justice system,"  with the desire to "improve the functioning of the criminal justice system," through an "all crimes" approach and you're in.  

Your focus should be on developing a program: 

to enable fusion centers to improve support to smaller cities, towns, tribes, and rural counties in identifying public safety issues and providing information and analytical assistance to help the local law enforcement agencies more effectively prevent crime both within their community and across juridictional boundaries. 

[You] will support the development of a nationwide strategy for implementation and support for intelligence-led policing methods to enable collaboration between fusion centers and local, state, and tribal partners. Preference will be given to applicants that target and address the needs of smaller departments and those with limited resources. 

[Your]  program will focus on identification of fusion center and local law enforcement partnerships that will implement collaborative technology solutions, evaluate results, and then promote business practices and technology solutions that can be replicated by other fusion centers across the country.

In other words, if you're a fan of Law and Order and watch 24, well-connected, are a people-person who can talk with small-town folk and you've a pre-crime idea that can go national, you, too, can receive up to $750,000! 

Turning in your neighbor never looked so good .. in this economy.

Just about now, the spring 2010 Global Justice Information Sharing Initiative (Global) Advisory Committee (GAC) has concluded their bi-annual meeting on global information sharing that begins at the local level.

The GAC met in October of last year.

Some of what was discussed included AG Eric Holder's commitment "in getting the Global message out," DHS's concern in sustaining funding for fusion centers (of which there is currently no Congressional oversight), and of particular note, the Nationwide SAR (Suspicious Activity Report) Intiative:

a historic partnership among local,state, tribal and federal agencies (including BJA, DOJ, DHS, FBI,and the US Department of Defense). The NSI establishesa national capacity to accomplish what law enforcement agencies have been trying have been doing for years --gathering information regarding behaviors and incidents associated with crime to, "connect the dots" -- and establishes a standardized approach to sharing information with the goals of detecting and preventing criminal activity, including terrorism-related activities .. [by] developing relationship among police, fusion centers, and the communities they serve (particularly immigrant and minority communities) to best address the challenges of crime control and prevention of terrorism. 

Additionally, with the same goal of informing and integrating the community in prevention efforts .. a video in support of the iWATCH, a community awareness program created to educate the public about behaviors and activities that may indicate terrorism [was shown].

 

Gathering information regarding behaviors.

Goals of detecting and preventing criminal activity including terrorism-related activites.

In ways to address crime control and prevention of terrorism.

You and I are participating in a massive social experiment at the behest of the Justice Deparment and the Executive Office.

Since the Obama Administration has declared there is no longer a War on Terror and has decided to ban the use of the terms "radical jihadist" and "Islamic extremist", will the newly defined threat to the state be thought of in terms of political and racial ideology? Political terrorism to replace what was once thought of as religious-based terrorism?

Why does the Department of Homeland Security continue to exist if the United States has eliminated the WOT?

And if there is no longer exists a hunt for terrorism, why are there information-gathering mechanisms in place to "control" and "prevent" crime? Is monitoring pre-crime their target? Pre-crime by whom? You and I?

Considering today's political environment, the tea party movement or other "homegrown radicalizations" surely would have been mentioned at today's GAC meeting.

Perhaps they discussed the methods of "new chatter" through social media, and how you and I may have inadvertantly incited a "flash mob" when we retweeted or updated our Facebook pages.

I look forward to reading about this in the New York Times.

Trasparency we can hope for, if Freedom of the Press still exists.

Time to double-check your friends and followers on Facebook and Twitter. 

If you ever RT or "liked" any sort of gathering, in the future, you may be pegged for being part of a flash mob, if that hasn't been done already. 

The DOJ is considering "the development of a flash mob training and technical assistance program" to monitor and investigate "near-spontaneous [gatherings] generated by invitations extended through social-network web sites and text messaging": 

BJA is seeking information from law enforcement agencies that have developed policies and procedures for handling flash mob incidents. For the purpose of this effort, BJA defines a "flash mob" as a sudden, near-spontaneous gathering generated by invitations extended through social-network web sites and text messaging. To date, most flash mobs were more quixotic than criminal, and other than precautions for safety, provided little need for direct law enforcement. More recently, however, some jurisdictions are reporting that thefts, assaults, and property damage have occurred during flash mob events. BJA is considering the development of a flash mob training and technical assistance program and is interested in hearing from law enforcement agencies that have flash mob response experience. 

Agencies are encouraged to contact Michael Medaris, BJA Senior Policy Advisor..

Think twice before you retweet this, lest you be reported for inciting civil unrest or worse.

A number of former DoJ officials have sent a letter to Attorney General Michael Mukasy asking why the DoJ is not enforcing the law and correcting the record regarding a previous letter sent by another set of former attorneys. The key passages seem to be:

As these cases show, in more than four decades of operation, the Civil Rights Division has never hesitated to fulfill its responsibilities by filing lawsuits to enforce federal voting rights laws that govern access to the polls and the administration of elections even on the very eve of Election Day. Against this backdrop, the Division’s recent failure to act in the case filed by a private party against the Ohio Secretary of State in which two federal courts, including the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, have specifically found that the Secretary of State is not complying with the verification requirements of Section 303 of HAVA, is difficult to fathom. Its similar lack of action in Wisconsin, where the state election board has also admitted that it is not complying with this provision of HAVA, is equally perplexing. This appears to be a dereliction of the Department’s obligations to enforce federal law.

Full letter after jump