Police Chiefs Adopt Code of Conduct for Drone Use

From The Washington Times by Stephen Dinan, August 16, 2012

The nation’s police chiefs have adopted a code of conduct for their   use of  drones, including letting any images captured by unmanned aerial   vehicles, or  UAVs, be open to inspection by the public, and that the   images not be stored  unless they are evidence of a crime or part of an   ongoing investigation.

The chiefs also said that if they plan to  fly drones over an area  where  they are likely to spot criminal activity  and where they would be  intruding on  someone’s “reasonable expectations  of privacy,” they  should seek to get a  search warrant first.

In  their three-page document, the chiefs said they are aware of  privacy   issues that have arisen with the prospect of an explosion in  both  governmental  and private use of drone technology.

“Privacy  concerns are an issue that must be dealt with effectively  if a law  enforcement agency expects the public to support the use of  UAV by their   police,” the chiefs said.

The Association for Unmanned Vehicle  Systems  International, the  industry trade group, applauded the new  rules, saying  they struck a  good balance.

Here are the eight operational rules the chiefs recommended:

1. UAV operations require a Certificate of Authorization (CAO) from  the  Federal Aviation  Administration (FAA).  A law enforcement agency   contemplating the use of UAV should contact the FAA early in the   planning  process to determine the requirements for obtaining a COA.

2. UAVs will only be operated by personnel, both pilots and crew   members,  who have been trained and certified in the operation of the   system. All agency  personnel with UAV responsibilities, including   command officers, will be  provided training in the policies and   procedures governing their use.

3. All flights will be approved  by a supervisor and must be for a   legitimate public safety mission,  training, or demonstration purposes.

4. All flights will be  documented on a form designed for that  purpose and  all flight time shall  be accounted for on the form. The  reason for the flight  and name of the  supervisor approving will also be  documented.

5. An authorized  supervisor/administrator will audit flight  documentation  at regular  intervals. The results of the audit will be  documented. Any changes  to  the flight time counter will be documented.

6. Unauthorized use of a UAV will result in strict accountability.

7. Except for those instances where officer safety could be jeopardized, the  agency should consider   using a “Reverse 911” telephone system to alert those  living and   working in the vicinity of aircraft operations (if such a system is   available). If such a system is not available, the use of patrol car   public  address systems should be considered. This will not only provide a   level of  safety should the aircraft make an uncontrolled landing, but   citizens may also  be able to assist with the incident.

8. Where  there are specific and articulable grounds to believe that  the UA  will  collect evidence of criminal wrongdoing and if the UAV will  intrude upon   reasonable expectations of privacy, the agency will  secure a search  warrant  prior to conducting the flight.

 

Find Out How Your Local Police Agency is Using Drones

Parker Higgins and Trevor Timm, EFF, June 12, 2012

Since last month, when EFF released a list of the sixty-odd public agencies that have already received from the FAA approval to fly domestic drones, the issue of drone surveillance has reached front and center in many Americans’ mind. Yet barely any information is known about what law enforcement agencies plan to do with these unmanned flying vehicles. So we want your help to gather this information into one place.

The groups listed by the FAA included about two dozen local police agencies, but we expect this number to grow rapidly in the coming weeks and months. In February Congress passed a bill mandating the FAA authorize drones to public agencies if they can prove they can fly them safely. And recently, the Department of Homeland Security, which was already handing out grants to local police agencies, announced a program to “facilitate and accelerate the adoption” of drones by local police agencies. And last month the FAA announced it had established new (though undisclosed) procedures to allow more law enforcement agencies quicker access to fly drones.

As the Huffington Post reported:

The $4 million Air-based Technologies Program, which will test and evaluate small, unmanned aircraft systems, is designed to be a ‘middleman’ between drone manufacturers and first-responder agencies ‘before they jump into the pool,’ said John Appleby, a manager in the DHS Science and Technology Directorate’s division of borders and maritime security.

This is, or will become, a controversy all over the United States. From Seattle, to Miami, Tennessee to Atlanta, and everywhere in between, local towns will soon grapple over the privacy dangers drones will create.

As we have explained before, the capabilities of drones are almost unimaginable:

Drones are capable of highly advanced and almost constant surveillance, and they can amass large amounts of data. They carry various types of equipment includinglive-feed video cameras, infrared cameras, heat sensors, and radar. Some newer drones carry super high resolution ‘gigapixel’ cameras that can ‘track people and vehicles from altitudes above 20,000 feet[,] . . . [can] monitor up to 65 enemies of the State simultaneously[, and] . . . can see targets from almost 25 miles down range.’ Predator drones can eavesdrop on electronic transmissions, and one drone unveiled at DEFCON last year can crack Wi-Fi networks and intercept text messages and cell phone conversations—without the knowledge or help of either the communications provider or the customer. Drones are also designed to carry weapons, and some have suggested that drones carrying weapons such as tasers and bean bag guns could be used domestically.

Given Congress’ inaction on privacy issues, and the fact that the FAA has never regulated privacy issues, we believe activism at the local level is the best way to stop drone surveillance. What you can do

The FAA has so far not released any information on which model of drone or how many drones each public entity flies. We also don’t have much information on the type of data these drones will collect. So we need to find this information out.

We’ve made a simple form for the questions we want these police agencies to answer. We need you to call your local police department and ask them these questions. Check your local police department’s website for the “Public Inquiries” or “Community Relations” contact, and call or e-mail them these questions.

Our list of drone certificates includes police departments that we already know have a drone authorization from the FAA.

This is just the first step. Once we’ve collected the data, we will release it and tell you how you can contact your local municipal government to demand that they ban law enforcement drones or install robust privacy safeguards that will protect citizens from unwanted—and unconstitutional—surveillance.

U.S. Troops To Get New Headgear For “Homeland Security Operations”

Army to develop new helmets to protect against “small arms ammunition”

Paul Joseph Watson Infowars.com, August 17, 2012

The U.S. Army is planning to develop new protective headgear for soldiers that will shield them from ballistic munitions, small arms ammunition and blunt trauma as part of missions that will include “homeland security operations.”

A solicitation on behalf of the Army Contracting Command asks for potential vendors to present proposals for the development and production of new headgear as part of the Soldier Protection System (SPS).

“This head protection ensemble is planned to replace the current helmet system. The SPS will provide the Soldier multiple levels of ballistic protection that can be tailored to select mission profiles and protection against specific threats from conventional fragmenting munitions, small arms ammunition, and blunt impact. Soldiers equipped with the SPS will be able to accomplish a broad range of missions. The SPS will protect Soldiers involved in major combat operations, stability operations, homeland security operations, joint operating concepts, and the joint force functional concept,” states the solicitation.

Developers are asked to present white papers featuring details of the helmet systems by no later than September 4.

The fact that U.S. troops are getting new headgear to protect them from gunfire during “homeland security operations” will once again stoke fears that the government is preparing for violent civil unrest on U.S. soil.

Using the Army to conduct domestic operations is illegal under Posse Comitatus except under extreme circumstances.

Section 1385 of the Posse Comitatus Act states, “Whoever, except in cases and under circumstances expressly authorized by the Constitution or Act of Congress, willfully uses any part of the Army or the Air Force as a posse comitatus or otherwise to execute the laws shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.”

Over the last few years, the transition of U.S. troops from overseas operations to an occupying homeland force has accelerated, precisely in line with Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army, General Raymond T. Odierno’s recent call for the U.S. Army to be re-oriented around carrying out domestic law enforcement operations.

Back in 2008 the Washington Post reported how 20,000 U.S. troops returning from Iraq would be stationed inside America under Northcom for purposes of “domestic security” from September 2011 onwards.

Northcom officials were forced to subsequently issue a denial after the Army Times initially reported that the troops would be used to deal “with civil unrest and crowd control.”

The U.S. Army recently signed a contract with A2Z Supply Corp to supply riot shields, face shields, batons and body protection, increasing concerns that troops are going to play a key role in policing Americans domestically.

The Department of Homeland Security is also making preparations for domestic disorder with its recent order of riot gear. Questions have also been asked about why the DHS is purchasing over a billion rounds of ammunition, enough to wage a 7-year ground war.

Fears that the U.S. Army is being readied to take on disgruntled Americans in the aftermath of a major economic collapse are being stoked by clear preparations based around that very premise.

A recent academic study written by retired Army Colonel Kevin Benson depicts a shocking scenario in which the U.S. Army is used to restore order to a town that has been seized by Tea Party “insurrectionists” in 2016 following a “great recession.”

The paper emphasizes how the U.S. Army’s Operating Concept 2016-2028 dictates that the military’s “full spectrum operations” will include “operations within American borders.”

As Infowars recently reported, a newly leaked US Army Military Police training manual for “Civil Disturbance Operations” outlines how military assets are to be used domestically to quell riots, confiscate firearms and even kill Americans on U.S. soil during mass civil unrest.

A 2008 report produced by the U.S. Army War College’s Strategic Institute warned that the United States may experience massive civil unrest in the wake of a series of crises which it termed “strategic shock.”

“Widespread civil violence inside the United States would force the defense establishment to reorient priorities in extremis to defend basic domestic order and human security,” stated the report, authored by [Ret.] Lt. Col. Nathan Freir, adding that the military may be needed to quell “purposeful domestic resistance”.

Watch Alex Jones predict the evisceration of Posse Comitatus five years ago during an interview with CBS San Antonio.

Ogden Police Department Wants Blimp To Spy On “Suspicious Activity”

Dirigible would hover at height of just 400 feet over “high crime areas” of city

Paul Joseph Watson, Infowars.com, August 17, 2012

The Ogden Police Department wants to fly an unmanned surveillance blimp at a height of just 400 feet over high crime areas of the city to watch for “suspicious activity,” but an initial request for approval was rejected by the FAA on the basis that the program would be a safety risk.

Recently released FAA documents obtained by the Electronic Frontier Foundation illustrate how law enforcement bodies across the country are rushing to deploy drones and surveillance blimps with scant regard for the fourth amendment or privacy rights.

In a letter sent to the FAA by Jon J. Greiner, the Ogden Police Chief attempted to assure the federal agency that the UAS surveillance blimp the police department planned to use was air worthy and safe.

In the letter, Greiner describes the blimp as a “nocturnal surveillance airship which will be used for law enforcement surveillance of high crime areas of Ogden City.”

From a height of just 400 feet in the sky, the dirigible would use its camera system to spot “suspicious activity” on city streets and send the footage back to police headquarters.

“The Pilot in Command would also be able to manually operate the UAS so that it could remain on scene waiting for an officer’s arrival,” states the letter.

The FAA responded by refusing to give approval for the police department to deploy the blimp, noting that the operation “presents an unacceptable high risk to the National Airspace System (NAS),” because the blimp would not be under visual observation throughout its use.

“Your Program Executive Summary addresses a Concept of Operation (CONOPS) where the VIPAR UA will be utilized in a patrol capacity for nocturnal surveillance within a high crime area of Ogden, UT. The CONOPS describes the launch and recovery of the UA from a Department of Public Safety Building in Ogden at which time control of the UA would be transferred from the ground control station at the launch site to a control station located in the Police Command Center. The COA application does not address the use of visual observers during the operation and without conforming to policy guidelines regarding the utilization of visual observers, this application cannot be approved,” states the FAA letter.

It is likely that the police department will get permission to use the blimp so long as they give assurances that the dirigible will be under visual observation at all times.

The use of surveillance drones and blimps to carry out sweeping surveillance of the public with total disregard for privacy rights is expected to accelerate in the coming years. The FAA has forecast that 30,000 surveillance drones will be in U.S. skies by the end of the decade.

Last month, Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano told a House Committee on Homeland Security that the federal agency was working on deploying drones for purposes of “public safety.”

As we reported earlier this year, the DHS is already using another type of airborne drone surveillance, also utilized to track insurgents in Afghanistan and Iraq, for the purposes of “emergency and non-emergency incidents” within the United States.

US law enforcement bodies are already using drone technology to spy on Americans. In December last year, a Predator B drone was called in to conduct surveillance over a family farm in North Dakota as part of a SWAT raid on the Brossart family, who were suspects in the egregious crime of stealing six missing cows. Local police in this one area have already used the drone on two dozen occasions since June last year.

The U.S. Army recently tested a football field-sized blimp over the city of New Jersey. The blimp can fly for a period of 21 hours and “is equipped with high-tech sensors that can monitor insurgents from above.”

Recently released FAA documents obtained by the Center for Investigative Reporting revealed that the FAA gave the green light for surveillance drones to be used in U.S. skies despite the fact that during the FAA’s own tests the drones crashed numerous times even in areas of airspace where no other aircraft were flying.

The documents illustrate how the drones pose a huge public safety risk, contradicting a recent coordinated PR campaign on behalf of the drone industry which sought to portray drones as safe, reliable and privacy-friendly.

Alex Jones predicted the use of blimps for invasive surveillance in his 2005 film Martial Law. Watch a clip below during which Alex discusses this and related issues during a CBS San Antonio interview.

Another Afghan Police Attack Kills 2 US Troops

Shooting Took Place Minutes After They Handed him his Official Weapon in an Inauguration Ceremony

From The Associated Press By KAY JOHNSON and AMIR SHAH, August 17, 2012

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — A newly recruited Afghan village policeman opened fire on his American allies on Friday, killing two U.S. service members minutes after they handed him his official weapon in an inauguration ceremony. It was the latest in a disturbing string of attacks by Afghan security forces on the international troops training them.

Later Friday, an Afghan soldier turned his gun on foreign troops in another part of the country and wounded two of them, a spokesman for the NATO coalition said.

The attacks in the country’s far west and south brought to seven the number of times that a member of the Afghan security forces — or someone wearing their uniform — has opened fire on international forces in the past two weeks.

Such assaults by allies, virtually unheard of just a few years ago, have recently escalated, killing at least 36 foreign troops so far this year. They also raise questions about the strategy to train Afghan national police and soldiers to take over security and fight insurgents after most foreign troops leave the country by the end of 2014.

The NATO-led coalition has said such attacks are anomalies stemming from personal disputes, but the supreme leader of the Taliban boasted on Thursday night that the insurgents are infiltrating the quickly expanding Afghan forces.

Friday’s deadly attacker in the far western province of Farah was identified as Mohammad Ismail, a man in his 30s who had joined the Afghan Local Police just five days ago.

He opened fire during an inauguration ceremony attended by American and Afghan forces in the Kinisk village, the Farah provincial police chief Agha Noor Kemtoz said.

“As soon as they gave the weapon to Ismail to begin training, suddenly he took the gun and opened fire toward the U.S. soldiers,” Kemtoz said.

Ismail was shot and killed as the coalition and Afghan forces returned fire, the police chief said.

A spokesman for the international coalition force, Jamie Graybeal, confirmed that two American service members were killed Friday by a member of the Afghan Local Police.

The ALP is different from the national police and represents a village defense force under the Ministry of Interior that is being trained by international forces, including U.S. special forces.

Graybeal gave no other details on the Farah attack other than confirming the shooter had been killed.

Kemtoz, the police chief, said the attack took place about 8 a.m., after the U.S. forces arrived in the village to train the local police. He said one Afghan National Police officer was also seriously wounded in the shooting.

Later Friday, an Afghan army soldier fired on coalition troops in the southern province of Kandahar. Two of the international troops were wounded but none was killed in that shooting, Graybeal said. He added that the soldier was shot and died later Friday of his wounds.

So far in 2012, there have been 29 attacks reported on foreign troops by Afghans they are training, compared to 11 attacks in 2011, according to an Associated Press count, and five attacks in each of the previous two years.

Seven such attacks have come in the past two weeks alone, with six American troops killed last Friday in two separate shootings in Helmand province in the south and another American killed a few days previously on a U.S. base in Paktia province in the east.

The trend raises questions about potential resentment by Afghans after more than a decade of international presence since the American-led intervention to oust the Taliban regime from power for harboring the al-Qaida terrorist leadership after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks in the U.S. The insider attacks also renew concern that insurgents may be infiltrating the Afghan army and police, despite intensified screening.

Insurgent infiltration or recruitment was behind only about 10 percent of this year’s reported attacks on coalition forces by Afghan allies, Graybeal said earlier this week, citing investigations into attacks before those of the past week.

Graybeal insisted the deadly violence is relatively small scale compared to the nearly 340,000 Afghan security forces now being trained.

The international coalition has said that Afghan forces are increasingly able to lead operations and already have started to assume responsibility for security in areas of the country that are home to 75 percent of the Afghan population.

However, the Taliban have been quick to seize on the increasing number of attacks as a sign of Afghan rejection of foreign forces and the insurgents’ own successful recruitment.

The group’s supreme leader Mullah Mohammad Omar said Thursday night that the insurgents “have cleverly infiltrated in the ranks of the enemy” and were successfully killing a rising number of U.S.-led coalition forces.

In an email to media organizations, Omar said the plan to transfer responsibility to Afghan forces by the end of 2014 is a “deceiving drama” that the international community has orchestrated to hide its defeat.

The Taliban leader’s message came on the same day that a U.S. military helicopter crashed during a firefight with insurgents in a remote area of southern Afghanistan, killing seven Americans and four Afghans in one of the deadliest air disasters of a war now into its second decade.

The Taliban claimed they gunned down the Black Hawk.

Sheriff: Teen Coerced Boys to Perform Sex Acts on Her

From http://www.wbtv.com by Jeremy Turnage, August 15, 2012

LEXINGTON COUNTY, SC – An 18-year-old Lexington County woman has been accused of coercing three young boys to perform sex acts on her in woods near her home.

Kayla Renee Walters-Merrian has been charged with three counts of third-degree criminal sexual conduct with a minor.

Arrest warrants say Walters-Merrian engaged the three boys, an 11-year-old and two 12-year-olds, in sexual relationships on an old red couch in the woods.

The mother of one of the boys reported the incidents to the sheriff’s department on Tuesday after the sister of one of the three boys told the mother about what happened.

Walters-Merrian is being held at the Lexington County Detention Center on $15,000 bail.

Former S.C. Trooper Convicted of Sharing Child Pornography

From http://www.wbtv.com by Chris Dyches, August 17, 2012

GREENVILLE, SC – A former South Carolina Highway Patrol Trooper is headed to prison after he was found with child porn and took pictures of young girls during Bike Week.

Randy L. Quinn, Jr., 34, of Seneca, South Carolina, was sentenced Thursday in federal court in Greenville, South Carolina, for possession of child pornography.

Photo source: WSPA.com

United States District Judge J. Michelle Childs of Greenville sentenced Quinn to three years imprisonment.

Evidence presented at the change of plea hearing showed in May 2011 agents with the Department of Homeland Security, Office of Investigations were conducting an on-line Internet investigation to identify individuals possessing and sharing child pornography.

Agents located a computer on the network sharing approximately 49 files, and of those files, several had file names that indicated they may contain child pornography.

Agents initiated a download from the files listed for sharing and discovered that the files were indeed child pornography. ‘

Based on the IP address of the computer, agents traced the computer to Quinn’s home.

On June 7, 2011, agents executed the warrant at the house.  They seized a laptop computer and found thousands of images of child pornography.

Agents also discovered that Quinn, while on duty at Bike Week in Myrtle Beach photographed unsuspecting minor girls in swimsuits as they played on the beach.

The case was investigated by agents of the Department of Homeland Security, Office of Investigations. Assistant United States Attorney Bill Watkins of the Greenville office handled the case.

South African Police Fire on Crowd After Two Officers Hacked to Death by Striking Miners

Mine “bloodbath” shocks post-apartheid South Africa

From Reuters News Service by Jon Herskovitz, August 17, 2012

MARIKANA, South Africa (Reuters) – The police killing of 34 striking platinum miners in the bloodiest security operation since the end of white rule cut to the quick of South Africa’s psyche on Friday, with searching questions asked of its post-apartheid soul.

Newspaper headlines screamed “Bloodbath”, “Killing Field” and “Mine Slaughter”, with graphic photographs of heavily armed white and black police officers walking casually past the bloodied corpses of black men lying crumpled in the dust.

The images, along with Reuters television footage of a phalanx of officers opening up with automatic weapons on a small group of men in blankets and t-shirts, rekindled uncomfortable memories of South Africa’s racist past.

Police Chief Riah Phiyega confirmed 34 dead and 78 injured after officers moved in against 3,000 striking drill operators armed with machetes and sticks and massed on a rocky outcrop at the mine, 100 km (60 miles) northwest of Johannesburg.

Phiyega, a former banking executive who was only appointed to lead the police force in June, said officers had acted in self-defense against charging, armed assailants at Lonmin’s Marikana platinum plant.

“The police members had to employ force to protect themselves from the charging group,” she told a news conference, noting that two policemen had been hacked to death by a mob at the mine on Tuesday.

However, the South African Institute of Race relations likened the incident to the 1960 Sharpeville Township massacre near Johannesburg, when apartheid police opened fire on a crowd of black protesters, killing more than 50.

“Obviously the issues that have led to this are not the same as the past, but the response and the outcome is very similar,” research manager Lucy Holborn told Reuters.

In a front page editorial, the Sowetan newspaper questioned what had changed since 1994, when Nelson Mandela overturned three centuries of white domination to become South Africa’s first black president.

“It has happened in this country before where the apartheid regime treated black people like objects,” the paper, named after South Africa’s biggest black township, said. “It is continuing in a different guise now.”

President Jacob Zuma cut short a visit to a regional summit in neighboring Mozambique to head to the mine. Zuma, who faces an internal leadership election in his ruling African National Congress (ANC) in December, said he was “shocked and dismayed” at the violence, but made no comment on the police behavior.

“We believe there is enough space in our democratic order for any dispute to be resolved through dialogue without any breaches of the law or violence,” he said in a statement.

Despite promises of a better life for all South Africa’s 50 million people, the ANC has struggled to provide basic services to millions in poor black townships.

Efforts to redress the economic inequalities of apartheid have had mixed results, and the mining sector comes in for particular criticism from radical ANC factions as a bastion of “white monopoly capital”.

POLICE PRESENCE

As dawn broke, hundreds of police patrolled the dusty plains around the Marikana mine, which was forced to shut down this week because of a rumbling union turf war that has hit the platinum sector this year.

“There were no problems overnight. The problem is the hill over there where the shooting took place. I am not sure what will happen today,” said Patience, a woman who lives in a nearby shanty town. She declined to give her full name.

Crime scene investigators combed the site of the shooting, which was cordoned off with yellow tape, collecting spent cartridges and the slain miners’ bloodstained traditional weapons – machetes and spears.

Six firearms were recovered, including a service revolver from one of the police officers killed earlier in the week.

Prior to Thursday, 10 people had died in nearly a week of conflict between rival unions at what is Lonmin’s flagship plant. The London-headquartered company has been forced to shut down all its South African platinum operations, which account for 12 percent of global output.

South Africa is home to 80 percent of the world’s known reserves of platinum, a precious metal used in vehicle catalytic converters. Rising power and labor costs and a steep decline this year in the price have left many mines struggling to stay afloat.

Although the striking Marikana miners were demanding huge pay hikes, the roots of the trouble lie in a challenge by the upstart Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU) to the 25-year dominance of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), a close ANC ally.

“There is clearly an element in this that a key supporter of the ANC – the NUM – has come under threat from these protesting workers,” said Nic Borain, an independent political analyst.

AMCU leaders have been criticized for telling the striking miners – many of whom are barely literate – that they were “prepared to die” rather than move from their protest hill.

Pre-crackdown footage of dancing miners waving machetes and licking the blades of home-made spears raised questions about the habitual use of violence in industrial action 18 years after the end of apartheid.

“This culture of violence and protest, it must somehow be changed,” said John Robbie, a prominent Johannesburg radio host. “You can’t act like a Zulu impi in an industrial dispute in this day and age,” he said, using the Zulu word for armed units.

World platinum prices spiked nearly 3 percent on Thursday as the full extent of the violence became clear, and rose again on Friday to a 5-week high above $1,450 an ounce.

Lonmin shares in London and Johannesburg fell more than 5 percent to 4-year lows at Friday’s market open, although later trimmed their losses. Overall, they have shed nearly 15 percent since the violence began a week ago.

(Writing by Ed Cropley; Editing by Pascal Fletcher and Peter Graff)

Global Governors Falsely Tell Americans They Have Nothing to Fear From U.N. Treaty

CFR Tells Americans “UN Doesn’t Want Your Guns”

From The New American by Thomas R. Eddlem, July 25, 2012

Stewart M. Patrick of the New York-based Council on Foreign Relations says that gun owners’ concerns about a United Nations small arms treaty, the so-called Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) being drafted in New York this month, “are not only inflammatory, they are completely unfounded.” The CFR pronounces that “Your Guns Are in Safe Hands” with the United Nations.

Stewart, a senior fellow and director at the establishment organization’s Program on International Institutions and Global Governance, wrote on the CFR website July 20:

The treaty is limited to the international trade of conventional arms, which pertains to the buying, selling, transshipping, transferring, or loaning across borders. The draft text of the treaty explicitly recognizes “the exclusive right of States to regulate internal transfers of arms and national ownership, including through the constitutional protections on private ownership.”

In reality, the actual United Nations Programme of Action adopted in 1999 requires gun control in every nation, despite paper promises today. The Programme of Action requires nations:

To put in place, where they do not exist, adequate laws, regulations and administrative procedures to exercise effective control over the production of small arms and light weapons within their areas of jurisdiction and over the export, import, transit or retransfer of such weapons. [Emphasis added.]

And:

To ensure that comprehensive and accurate records are kept for as long as possible on the manufacture, holding and transfer of small arms and light weapons under their jurisdiction. These records should be organized and maintained in such a way as to ensure that accurate information can be promptly retrieved and collated by competent national authorities. [Emphasis added.]

Not surprisingly, the non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that dominate UN conferences on small arms have uniformly backed the outlawing of privately held firearms and repeal of the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment. So it should also not be surprising that the United Nations, regarding an armed citizenry, takes a view opposite that of the Second Amendment. The UN Small Arms website claims: “A build-up of small arms alone may not create the conflicts in which they are used, but their excessive accumulation and wide availability aggravates the tension. The violence becomes more lethal and lasts longer, and a sense of insecurity grows, which in turn lead to a greater demand for weapons.” Of course, historically, the reverse has been true. Armed citizens are far more secure. Meanwhile, unarmed populations have often proven to be victims of their murderous governments, even fairly poorly armed governments such as Rwanda’s in the 1990s. In the case of Rwanda, the UN helped the genocidal government secure an arms deal to accomplish the slaughter of minority Tutsis.

Stewart claims that international gun control under the UN is a moral necessity for the United States:

As the top global supplier of major conventional weapons, accounting for 30 percent of all exports (Russia is a close second with 24 percent), the United States has the special responsibility to marshal its diplomatic energy toward crafting a robust, enforceable, and sustainable treaty that will raise global standards and ultimately save lives. Given the divergent and often competing interests at stake, appeasing domestic constituencies is just one of the many hurdles to overcome in order to reach a consensus on a “bulletproof” treaty.

Stewart is not alone in providing reassurances. Retired Maj. Gen. Roger R. Blunt wrote a similar whitewash of the UN gun-ban agenda in The Hill July 12, claiming, “This treaty would have little to no impact on international weapons transfers by the United States and no impact on Second Amendment freedoms. It would also in no way establish a supranational regulatory agency that could in any way violate U.S. sovereignty.”

Of course, if Stewart’s desire for an “enforceable” treaty is realized, how could the UN not establish a supranational regulatory agency?

Blunt also claimed, “Opponents have been trying to muddy the waters by raising unfounded and non-specific Second Amendment concerns to scare their members and raise money. They do this knowing full well that the ATT charter explicitly limits the scope of the ATT to prevent it from having any influence over domestic gun laws or sales within countries.”

But the UN Small Arms conference’s Preparatory Committee (PrepCom), which set up the goals of the treaty negotiation, included national gun registration. And it included not just “imports” and “exports,” but all “transfers” of small arms. While the final ATT treaty text is not yet available, national gun registration is neither an unfounded nor a “non-specific” concern for defenders of the Second Amendment.

A Brief History of False Flag Attacks: Or Why Government Loves State Sponsored Terror

Kurt Nimmo, Infowars.com, August 14, 2012

False flag attacks occur when government engages in covert operations designed to deceive the public in such a way that the operations seem as if they are being carried out by other entities.

False flag terrorism is a favorite political tactic used by governments worldwide. They influence elections, guide national and international policy, and are cynically used to formulate propaganda and shape public opinion as nations go to war.

Nero and the Great Fire of Rome

The Roman consul and historian Cassius Dio, his contemporary Suetonius and others say the Emperor Nero was responsible for the Great Fire of Rome in 64 AD.

Legend claims Nero had one-third of the city torched as an excuse to build Domus Aurea, a 300 acre palatial complex that included a towering statue of himself, the Colossus of Nero.

Prior to the fire, the Roman Senate had rejected the emperor’s bid to level a third of the city to make way for a “Neropolis,” an urban renewal project.

The Roman historian Tacitus wrote that when the population of Rome held Nero responsible for the fire, he shifted blame on the Christians for “hating the human race” and starting the fire.

The Spanish American War: Remember the Maine

By the late 1800s, the United States was looking for an excuse to kick Spain out of Cuba. U.S. business was heavily invested in sugar, tobacco and iron on the Caribbean island.

The U.S.S. Maine was sent to Havana in January of 1898 to protect these business interests after a local insurrection broke out. Three weeks later, early on the morning of February 15, an explosion destroyed the forward third of the ship anchored in Havana’s harbor, killing more than 270 American sailors.

President McKinley blamed Spain after the U.S. Naval Court of Inquiry declared that a naval mine caused the explosion.

American newspapers blamed the Spanish despite a lack of evidence. “You furnish the pictures and I’ll furnish the war,” newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst told Frederic Remington after the illustrator reported that the situation in Cuba did not warrant invasion.

A number of historians and researchers later argued that the ship was blown up by the United States to provide a false flag pretext to invade Cuba and expel Spain.

The United States occupied Cuba from 1898 until 1902, although an amendment to a joint resolution of Congress forbid the U.S. to annex the country.

Wilson’s Pretext for War: The Sinking of the Lusitania

Nearly two thousand travelers, including one hundred Americans, were killed on May 7, 1915, when a German U-boat torpedoed the RMS Lusitania, a luxury Cunard Line British ocean liner.

Prior to the sinking, the German embassy in Washington issued a warning. Newspapers in the United States refused to print the warning or acknowledge the German claim that the ship carried munitions.

Wilson’s government issued a flurry of diplomatic protests after the sinking and exploited the tragedy two years later as a pretext for America to enter the First World War.

Nearly a hundred years later, in 2008, divers discovered the Lusitania carried more than four million rounds of rifle ammunition.

“There were literally tons and tons of stuff stored in unrefrigerated cargo holds that were dubiously marked cheese, butter and oysters,” Gregg Bemis, an American businessman who owns the rights to the wreck and is funding its exploration, told The Daily Mail.

Hitler’s Fascist Dictatorship: The Reichstag Fire

In February of 1933, a month after convincing Germany’s president that parliament must be eliminated, Hitler and the Nazis instigated the Reichstag fire.

Hitler then urged president Hindenburg to issue an emergency decree restricting personal liberty, including the right to free expression and a free press, limitations on the rights of association and assembly, warrantless searches of homes, property confiscation, and violations of postal, telegraphic and telephonic communications “permissible beyond the legal limits otherwise prescribed.”

The Nazis used the decree and cracked down on their political opponents . They worked behind the scenes to force through the Enabling Act, which legally allowed Hitler to obtain plenary powers and establish a dictatorship.

Gestapo Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring would admit that “the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.”

Prelude to World War: The Gleiwitz Incident

Six years after the Reichstag Fire, the Nazis staged the Gleiwitz incident. Nazi commandos raided a German radio station in Gleiwitz, Upper Silesia, Germany. The raid was part of Operation Himmler, a series of operations undertaken by the SS as Hitler set the stage for the invasion of Poland and the start of the Second World War.

SS operatives dressed in Polish uniforms attacked the radio station, broadcast an anti-German message in Polish, and left behind the body of a German Silesian known for sympathizing with the Poles. The corpse was then offered to the press as evidence that the Poles had attacked the radio station.

Israeli False Flag Terror: The Lavon Affair

In 1954, the Israelis activated a terrorist cell in response to the United States making friends with the Egyptian government and its pan-Arab leader, Gamal Abdel Nasser. The Israelis were worried Nasser would nationalize the Suez Canal and continue Egypt’s blockade of Israeli shipping through the canal.

Israeli Prime Minister David Ben Gurion decided a false flag terrorist attack on American interests in Egypt would sour the new relationship. He recruited and dispatched a terror cell that pretended to be Egyptian terrorists.

The plan, however, contained a fatal flaw. Israel’s top secret cell, Unit 131, was infiltrated by Egyptian intelligence. After a member of the cell was arrested and interrogated, he revealed the plot and this led to more arrests. Israeli agents were subjected to a public trial revealing details of the plan to firebomb the U.S. Information Agency’s libraries, a British-owned Metro-Goldwyn Mayer theatre, a railway terminal, the central post office, and other targets.

In order to deflect blame, the Israeli government tried to frame its own Defense Minister, Pinhas Lavon, but the true nature of the plot was eventually made public.

Operation Northwoods: Targeting American Citizens

In the covert war against the communist regime in Cuba under the CIA’s Operation Mongoose, the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff unanimously proposed state-sponsored acts of terrorism in side the United States.

The plan included shooting down hijacked American airplanes, the sinking of U.S. ships, and the shooting of Americans on the streets of Washington, D.C. The outrageous plan even included a staged NASA disaster that would claim the life of astronaut John Glenn.

Reeling under the embarrassing failure of the CIA’s botched Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, president Kennedy rejected the plan in March of 1962. A few months later, Kennedy denied the plan’s author, General Lyman Lemnitzer, a second term as the nation’s highest ranking military officer.

In November of 1963, Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas.

Gulf of Tonkin: Phantom Attack on the U.S. Military

On August 4, 1964, President Lyndon Johnson went on national television and told the nation that North Vietnam had attacked U.S. ships.

“Repeated acts of violence against the armed forces of the United States must be met not only with alert defense, but with a positive reply. That reply is being given as I speak tonight,” Johnson declared.

Congress soon passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which provided Johnson with pre-approved authority to conduct military operations against North Vietnam. By 1969, over 500,000 troops were fighting in Southeast Asia.

Johnson and his Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara, had bamboozled Congress and the American people. In fact, North Vietnam had not attacked the USS Maddox, as the Pentagon claimed, and the “unequivocal proof” of an “unprovoked” second attack against the U.S. warship was a ruse.

Operation Gladio: State Sponsored Terror Blamed on the Left

Following the Second World War, the CIA and Britain’s MI6 collaborated through NATO on Operation Gladio, an effort to create a “stay behind army” to fight communism in the event of a Soviet invasion of Western Europe.

Gladio quickly transcended its original mission and became a covert terror network consisting of rightwing militias, organized crime elements, agents provocateurs and secret military units. The so-called stay behind armies were active in France, Belgium, Denmark, The Netherlands, Norway, Germany, and Switzerland.

Gladio’s “Strategy of Tension” was designed to portray leftist political groups in Europe as terrorists and frighten the populace into voting for authoritarian governments. In order to carry out this goal, Gladio operatives conducted a number of deadly terrorists attacks that were blamed on leftists and Marxists.

In August of 1980, Gladio operatives bombed a train station in Bologna, killing 85 people. Initially blamed on the Red Brigades, it was later discovered that fascist elements within the Italian secret police and Licio Gelli, the head of the P2 Masonic Lodge, were responsible for the terror attack. Other fascist groups, including Avanguardia Nazionale and Ordine Nuovo, were mobilized and engaged in terror.

Operation Gladio ultimately claimed the lives of hundreds of people across Europe.

According to Vincenzo Vinciguerra, a Gladio terrorist serving a life-sentence for murdering policemen, the reason for Gladio was simple. It was designed “to force these people, the Italian public, to turn to the state to ask for greater security. This is the political logic that lies behind all the massacres and the bombings which remain unpunished, because the state cannot convict itself or declare itself responsible for what happened.”