Thoughts From A Conservative Mom

Posts Tagged ‘Abuse of Power’

If this bill was being written to protect the religious rights of Muslims, I guarantee he wouldn’t have a problem with it.

Ken Klukowski reports at Breitbart:

Congress is taking action on religious liberty in the military, a story that was originally reported by Breitbart News. New legal language passed a key committee this week and next goes to the full House and then the Senate; it could become federal law later this year.

[...]  The first amendment was offered by Rep. Walter Jones (R-NC). It protects the rights of chaplains to speak and pray in a manner consistent with their faith, such as ending a prayer in Jesus’ name. This amendment passed by voice vote.

A second amendment was offered to create “atheist chaplains,” as Breitbart News reportedearlier this week. This mockery of the chaplaincy was proposed by Rep. Robert Andrews (D-NJ), pushed by groups often hostile to Christians and observant members of other faiths. The committee rejected this amendment by a vote of 43-18. The military already provides secular counseling to service members, while chaplains are by definition religious and spiritual counselors.

The third amendment is the most consequential. Rep. John Fleming (R-LA) offered an amendment specifying that the religious speech and actions of all service members is a protected right, and that the Department of Defense will enact regulations to allow and accommodate those beliefs in both word and deed.

Read more at Breitbart

Obama was none too happy with these amendments:

The Obama Administration “strongly objects” to a proposed amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act that would have protected the religious rights of soldiers – including evangelical Christian service members who are facing growing hostility towards their religion.

The amendment was authored by Rep. John Fleming, R-La. It would have “required the Armed Forces to accommodate ‘actions and speech’ reflecting the conscience, moral, principles or religious beliefs of the member.”

The Obama Administration said the amendment would have a “significant adverse effect on good order, discipline, morale, and mission accomplishment.”

“With its statement, the White House is now endorsing military reprimands of members who keep a Bible on their desk or express a religious belief,” Fleming told Fox News. “This administration is aggressively hostile towards religious beliefs that it deems to be politically incorrect.”

Read more at Red State

Now the White House is openly threatening to veto the bill altogether if it includes religious protections:

The White House released a Statement of Administration Policy (SAP) on H.R. 1960, the National Defense Authorization Act of 2014.  [...]

The SAP includes a veto threat: “…if the bill is presented to the President for approval in its current form, the President’s senior advisers would recommend that the President veto the bill.”

In other words, Obama says he will veto any bill that forbids his appointees or officers from telling a soldier that he cannot mention Jesus during prayer or have a Bible on his desk, or that keeps those appointees from telling a chaplain (who is an ordained clergyman) what religious teachings he is allowed to give in worship services, or what spiritual counseling he can give to another soldier.

Ambassador Ken Blackwell, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Human Rights Commission, tells Breitbart News:

President Obama is waging a war on religion. He and Chuck Hagel are denying the most basic rights to those who put their lives on the line to protect all of our rights. It is shameful and appalling. I am confident that congressional leadership will show courage to stand up for our troops against this radical assault on religious liberty in the military.

This is the most compelling expression yet of the aggressive approach of the Obama-Hagel Defense Department to soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines who are observant Christians or devout members of other peaceful faiths, as seen in Breitbart News’ previous reportsregarding the unconstitutional infringements of one of America’s most treasured, fundamental rights.

Read more at Breitbart

Military Chaplains To Be Forced To Accept Gay Marriage

Christian chaplains may soon face ultimatum

Military To Court Martial Soldiers Who Share Their Faith

Army Labels Christians as Religious Extremists, Potential Terrorists

Pentagon Recruits Anti-Christian Extremist To Help Craft Tolerance Policy

Religious Groups Fear Christian Purge From Military

Secular Crusader Advises Pentagon: Christians are ‘Monsters.’

Religious Freedom in Our Military: This Is What Intolerance Smells Like

How have we gotten to the point where government can force private companies to pay for controversial services like abortion from another private company?  Whatever happened to the freedom to VOLUNTARILY decide which products and services you want to purchase, and from whom?

Dr. Susan Berry writes at Breitbart:

In a move that sends the message that her role is a powerful one, Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius has required health insurers to include Planned Parenthood as an “essential community provider” along with other doctors and health facilities in their networks.

Paul Bedard at the Washington Examiner (WE) reports that most of Planned Parenthood’s 750 health and abortion clinics in the country will be covered by ObamaCare. Sebelius’ command means that health insurers who wish to participate in the state health care exchanges must cover services by Planned Parenthood, as well as other “essential community providers,” such as AIDS clinics, pain management facilities, and alternative medicine providers.

[...]   Though ObamaCare is not, technically speaking, supposed to cover abortions, the fact that Planned Parenthood has always had significant support from Sebelius, and is already an important player in the “navigator system”–assisting insurance advisers in signing Americans up for the exchanges–is a real concern for Americans seeking limited government and those who are pro-life.

Read more at Breitbart

Tony Perkins observes at Life Site News:

Planned Parenthood, which she deems as an “essential community provider,” is part of the long list of local organizations that insurers are required to partner with. (Others, Bedard says, include lesbian and gay centers, family planning clinics, and “holistic” centers.)

“We’ve never covered these sorts of thing,” a Wisconsin provider told Bedard. He, like most health care representatives, is probably horrified at the prospect of collaborating with an organization which (when it isn’t lobbying for infanticide) is on trial for government fraud and botched abortions. Unfortunately for Americans, Sebelius — not Congress — decides what belongs in state exchanges. And if her past relationships are any indication, taxpayers are in for even more surprises when ObamaCare goes into effect January 1.

Read more at Life Site News

Planned Parenthood is a bully, using the power of the state to force those who disagree with their practices to buy their grisly product, anyway.

We The People have been negligent in allowing government to wield this unconstitutional power and groups like PP to manipulate it.

Obama Defends Taxpayer Funding Of Abortion At Planned Barrenhood Gala, Tells Them ‘God Bless You’

Obama’s Twisted, Symbiotic Relationship With the Abortion Industry

Obamcare Funding Used To Pay Corrupt ‘ACORN’ Community Organizers

Federal government refers women to Planned Parenthood, sites condemning pregnancy resource centers

Obama Gives Millions In Taxpayer Dollars To Planned Parenthood After States Defund Them For Medicaid Fraud

Exposing the Abortion Agenda: Blood Money

This Won’t Turn Out Well: The IRS prepares to enforce Obamacare’s contraception mandate

Dean Clancy raises some sobering questions about what will happen if the IRS is allowed to enforce Obamacare:

Revelations that the Internal Revenue Service targeted conservative groups for discriminatory treatment, and leaked confidential information about those groups to a left-wing outfit, ProPublica, should make us think twice about the White House’s plans to give the IRS even more authority — over our medicine cabinets.

That’s right. The IRS is being put in charge of enforcing the president’s health care law, Obamacare. The controversial law fills 2,801 pages; its various regulations, another 13,000. This mountain of paper forms a stack seven feet high, or, laid end to end, a paper trail stretching for two and a half miles. And it turns out no federal agency is given a more important role in implementing all that red tape than the IRS, the recipient of no fewer than 47 new duties and enforcement powers under the law.

Those duties include imposing tax penalties on individuals and businesses, and providing tax subsidies to millions of people who buy insurance through government “exchanges.” According to the IRS inspector general, the new health care powers and duties “represent the largest set of tax law changes the IRS has had to implement in more than 20 years.”

Hmm. Are we really prepared to put our health insurance system under the same agency that, as we’ve learned from the targeting scandal, took 1,138 days to approve just one non-exempt group’s tax application?

[...]  If citizens who hold a disfavored political view are already being harassed with excessive paperwork requests and delays, what’s preventing politically motivated IRS bureaucrats from leaking sensitive health information to groups like ProPublica, or subjecting those with disfavored medical conditions to discriminatory audits?

[...]  One of the many troubling facts to emerge from the targeting scandal has been the incredibly personal nature of the questions asked of groups applying for non-profit status. The IRS made some groups disclose all of their employees’ resumes, as well as information about the nature of personal relationships between employees. They even demanded to know the contents of a religious group’s prayers. If this level of detail is required for a rather simple business matter, determining tax-exempt status, imagine what the tax bureaucrats will do with our intimate health-related information.

Read more at the Daily Caller

The IRS, Obamacare, and You: The Government Is Coming for Your Health Insurance Records

An IRS Scandal Inseparable from Obamacare

Who Trusts The Scandal-Ridden IRS To Not Abuse Access To Confidential Patient Health Information?

Big Brother Healthcare: Obamacare Includes Random Health ‘Inspections,’ Mandatory Reporting Of Your Health Stats To Gov’t

IRS Steals Medical Records of 10 Million Americans

Farewell, Personal and Medical Privacy: ObamaTax is Here

No, You Can’t Google My Private Health Records: Obamacare’s Intrusive Data Grab

New HHS Regulation Creates Government Database of Your Private Health Information

IRS Admits To Targeting Conservative Groups For Harassment

What on earth do a bunch of paper pushers need with AR-15′s and shotguns?

Rep. Jeff Duncan, a Republican Congressman from SC, has started a bit of a firestorm on Twitter. Duncan is the Homeland Oversight Chair, and during a recent tour of a DHS facility, the congressman noticed IRS (yes, the Internal Revenue Service) agents training with AR-15 style rifles.

Why you might ask? Well that’s a good question, and the congressman has the same ones. It’s been known that the Department of Homeland Security has been bulking up their guns and ammo reserves for sometime now. However, this is the first report we’ve gotten of IRS agents getting in on the action. Now, the IRS does have armed enforcement agents, and they have for a long time, but why they now need tactical training is a serious question.

Read more at Guns Save Lives

WYFF 4 News reports:

Duncan said he was concerned about what he saw.

“Why do IRS law enforcement agents need standoff capability that you would have with a long rifle or with a weapon similar to an AR-15?  They’re generally investigating tax evasion, fraud and money laundering.  We think of the IRS as an audit agency more than doing the type of law enforcement where they have to use an AR-15.”

Duncan said the IRS has the resources of the federal government, including the FBI, if they come into a situation where they feel like they need a SWAT team.

Read more at WYFF 4 News

IRS Hiring Thousands of Armed Tax Agents to Enforce Obamacare?

Rep. Jeff Duncan looking into IRS agents training with AR-15s

Next stop for IRS: Targeting gun owners

IRS Arms Its Investigators With 60 12-Gauge Pump Action Guns

NJ Mom’s Guns Confiscated After She Testified Against Tax Increases At Town Hall Meeting

IRS Admits To Targeting Conservative Groups For Harassment

Tea Party Launches Group to Combat IRS

Back in 2007, Senator Obama said:

“I will provide our intelligence and law enforcement agencies with the tools they need to track and take out the terrorists without undermining our Constitution and our freedom.

That means no more illegal wire-tapping of American citizens. No more national security letters to spy on citizens who are not suspected of a crime. No more tracking citizens who do nothing more than protest a misguided war. No more ignoring the law when it is inconvenient.”

It would appear that his tune has changed since becoming president:

View on YouTube

Ben Shapiro writes at Breitbart:

During his speech in San Jose, California on Friday, President Obama took one question from the press on national security monitoring of Americans. Without any sense of irony whatsoever in the aftermath of the IRS’ targeting of conservatives, the administration’s stonewalling on Benghazi, the Department of Justice’s targeting of reporters, the Department of Health and Human Services’ leveraging of private organizations for Obamacare public relations cash, and the Environmental Protection Agency’s secret email addresses, Obama unloaded this line:

If people can’t trust not only the executive branch but also don’t trust Congress, and don’t trust federal judges, to make sure that we’re abiding by the Constitution with due process and rule of law, then we’re going to have some problems here.

Read more at Breitbart

Fox News reports:

Obama acknowledged that the U.S. government is collecting reams of phone records, including phone numbers and the duration of calls, but said this does not include listening to calls or gathering the names of callers.

“Nobody’s listening to the content of people’s phone calls,” Obama said.

Read more at Fox News

The Investors Business Daily editorial board opines:

Barack Obama is now not only following George Orwell’s model in his newly uncovered domestic spying practices; he’s copying one of the most shocking aspects of the dystopian society Orwell conjured: telling people the exact opposite of the truth with a straight face.

[...]  When a president who promised “the most open and transparent administration in history” must now scramble and assure the country that “nobody is listening to your telephone calls,” it exposes a grave breach of trust.

Read more at IBD

What’s to worry about?   It’s not like they’d abuse this information to target political dissidents or anything.

We already know who Obama & Co. define as “terrorists,” and they don’t include the Boston Bombers or Ft. Hood Shooter.

NSA Seizing Phone Records, Collecting Data On Innocent Citizens Without Warrants

Poll: Majority Of American Sheeple Support Government Violating Their 4th Amendment Rights

DHS Invests In Armored Tanks, Surveillance Drones That Can Detect Armed Citizens

Obama Defends Mass Surveillance; Internet Firms Deny Playing Part

Obama: If you can’t trust government to follow the Constitution while spying, we’re going to have some problems

Obama’s Intrusive Snooping Dragnet Excludes Mosques, Missed Boston Bombers

Why Collect So Much Information if Obama Refuses to Use It Against Terror?

Why was the NSA/PRISM snooping kept secret?

Here’s Why the Obama Administration Wanted the NSA Data-Mining Program Kept Secret

We Should Have Listened to the Libertarians

The Totalitarianism at the Heart of the Obama Scandals

Sometimes it seems the only people the Obama administration doesn’t spy on are themselves

FISA Court Approves 99.97% Of Government Requests For Warrants

Author of Patriot Act: This abuse of the Patriot Act must end

The ability to know everything, except right from wrong

Somebody’s been drinking too much Kool-Aid:

A poll released Monday shows that despite the uproar over the National Security Agency’s newly leaked surveillance programs, a majority of Americans are fine with the agency’s pervasive reach. Still, a sizable majority is opposed to the vast NSA surveillance net.

The snap poll comes courtesy of the Pew Research Center and the Washington Post. After asking 1,004 American adults for their opinions on NSA surveillance programs like the newly revealed tech-spying program PRISM, pollsters found that 56 percent of Americans have no objection.

International Business Times

Conor Friedersdorf at the Atlantic wants to know:

How is it tolerated by the American people?

That’s the most pressing question. The civic negligence required to reach this point is the thing that most disappoints me about my fellow citizens, who ought to throw out every last member of Congress complicit in the metastasizing surveillance state. I am serious. Look up your representative. In a letter or phone call, demand they take a stand against this, on penalty of you voting against them in a primary or general.

That’s how change happens when the president who promised it turns out to have lied.

We don’t know if the federal government has a similar order for AT&T or any other carrier. Or if they’re spying on Americans’ emails as well. Why? That isn’t the sort of thing President Obama thinks he needs to tell us, and Congress persists in giving him that latitude. Americans, who haven’t been objecting to any of this in large numbers, aren’t even demanding to know whether or not their government is assembling the most sophisticated surveillance state in human history.

Has fear of terrorism done this to us?

Apathy?

Denial?

Whatever the cause, the current behavior of the American electorate does not befit a free people.

Read more at the Atlantic

NSA Seizing Phone Records, Collecting Data On Innocent Citizens Without Warrants

Pew poll: 56% support NSA tracking phone calls to hunt for terrorists, near-majority support tracking e-mails

A Shocking 4 in 10 Americans Want to Sacrifice Their Personal Liberty to Fight Terrorism

Obama’s Intrusive Snooping Dragnet Excludes Mosques, Missed Boston Bombers

Why Collect So Much Information if Obama Refuses to Use It Against Terror?

We Should Have Listened to the Libertarians

NSA: It Would Violate Your Privacy to Say if We Spied on You

In its pursuit of ‘safety,’ the government is sacrificing freedom

Soldier Punished For Beliefs? In Hot Water For Reading Books By Conservatives

View on YouTube

I bet if he had been reading the Koran nobody would dare tell him to stop.

Four days ago, Todd Starnes reported:

A veteran member of the U.S. Army Band said he is facing retribution and punishment from the military for having anti-Obama bumper stickers on his car, reading books written by conservative authors like Mark Levin and David Limbaugh, and serving Chick-fil-A sandwiches at his promotion party.

Master Sgt. Nathan Sommers, a 25-year Army veteran and conservative Christian based at Fort Myer in Washington, believes his outspoken opposition to gay marriage prompted higher-ups to take a closer look at his beliefs. The recipient of an Army Commendation Medal and a soloist at the funeral of former First Lady Betty Ford, Sommers said his core beliefs are enough to mark a soldier for persecution in today’s military.

[...]  Sommers’ troubles began last April when he was told to remove pro-Republican, anti-Obama bumper stickers that were on his privately owned car.

The stickers read: “Political Dissent is NOT Racism,” “NOBAMA,” NOPE2012” and “The Road to Bankruptcy is Paved with Ass-Fault.” That sticker included the image of a donkey.

His superior officer told the solider that the bumper stickers were creating “unnecessary workplace tension.”

“The types of stickers on your car were creating an atmosphere detrimental to morale and were creating unnecessary workplace tension,” the officer wrote in an Army document obtained by Fox News. “A Soldier must balance their personal feelings with the mission of the U.S. Army. Even the slightest inference of disrespect towards superiors can have a demoralizing effect on the unit.”

Attorney Wells said once he got involved, the military backed off of filing a formal reprimand.

“He’s allowed to have those bumper stickers on his car,” he said. “The DoD regulation allows it. There was nothing obscene about it.”

During the summer months, Sommers came under fire for reading the works of Mark Levin, Sean Hannity and David Limbaugh.

Sommers was reading Limbaugh’s “The Great Destroyer” backstage at a U.S. Army Band concert at the U.S. Capitol. A superior officer told him that he was causing “unit disruption” and was offending other soldiers.

“I wasn’t reading aloud,” he said. “I was just reading privately to myself. I was told they were frowning on that and they warned me that I should not be reading literature like that backstage because it was offensive.”

In another episode, he had been caught backstage reading a copy of Levin’s “Ameritopia: The Unmaking of America.”

Sommers said he was told to refrain from reading the book “while in uniform or within sight of anyone from the band.”

“This is the first time since (my superior officer) indicated I had offended others with my choice of reading material, that I was officially counseled about it,” he said. “The statement took my breath away. I was speechless.”

In spite of those incidents, the Army promoted the soldier in September to the rank of master sergeant. But the promotion would also mark the launch of an effort by the military to punish the soldier.

His promotion coincided with a controversy surrounding Chick-fil-A. The company’s president told a reporter that he was “guilty as charged” when it came to supporting traditional marriage. Gay rights activists pounced- calling for a boycott of the Christian-owned company. And some Democratic officials vowed to block Chick-fil-A from opening restaurants in their cities.

In response to that, Fox News Channel host Mike Huckabee launched a national Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day to rally support for the restaurant chain.

“I was inspired by Gov. Huckabee’s appreciation day,” Sommers told Fox News. “And since I wasn’t able to participate in the event, I decided to serve Chick-fil-A at my promotion party.”

It’s a long-standing tradition within the U.S. Army Band for promoted soldiers to host a party for their fellow troops. So the soldier decided to have Chick-fil-A cater the meal.

“My family likes Chick-fil-A and we like what they stand for,” he said. “I can make a statement and at least express a religious point of view at my promotion party – theoretically without any fear of reprisal.”

The soldier also tweeted about the party: “In honor of DADT repeal, and Obama/Holder’s refusal to enforce DOMA act, I’m serving Chick-fil-A at my MSG promo reception for Army today.”

He also tweeted to radio host Mark Levin: “@Marklevinshow ‘luv ya, Mark! Fellow Virginian & MSG, Army. Being promoted today, serving Chick-fil-A @ reception in honor of DADT repeal.”

Both tweets were cited in an official military document.

“As a Soldier you must be cognizant of the fact that your statements can be perceived by the general public and other service members to be of a nature bordering on disrespect to the President of the United States,” the document stated.

Sommers said he paid for the party with personal money, not government funds.

“I had no idea a Chick-fil-A sandwich would get me in trouble,” he said.

He was later summoned by a superior officer, who the soldier said is openly gay, and was told that unidentified individuals were offended by the tweets and some considered them to be racist.

Sommers was reprimanded, threatened with judicial action and given a bad efficiency report. An investigation was also launched.

“It’s an obvious attempt to set him up and force him out of the military,” Wells said. “They recently did an NCO evaluation that effectively torpedoed his chance at promotion and he could be forced out of the Army.”

Read more at Fox News

As a show of support, Sarah Palin encouraged troops to post pictures of themselves with books by conservative authors:

On Saturday, former Alaska governor Sarah Palin urged soldiers to post pictures of themselves reading books written by conservatives like Mark Levin, Sean Hannity, and David Limbaugh. Palin did so after an “outrageous” report surfaced that revealed the U.S. Army was punishing a soldier for reading books written by conservative authors.

“Whether you agree or disagree with this soldier’s opinions, I think we can all agree that the apparent retribution he faced for proudly reading certain authors is outrageous,” Palin wrote.

Read more at Breitbart

Sommers’ Army superiors were not amused.  He has now been brought up on trumped-up charges in retaliation:

A member of the U.S. Army Band who said he was reprimanded for having anti-Obama bumper stickers on his personal car, serving Chick-fil-A sandwiches at a party and reading books written by conservative authors like Sean Hannity is now facing Article 15 charges – which cropped up shortly after he went public with his complaints.

Master Sgt. Nathan Sommers, a decorated soloist with the Army Band, is being charged under a federal law that permits commanding officers to conduct non-judicial proceedings for minor offenses.

Sommers is accused of giving a superior officer the wrong date for a doctor’s appointment. He’s also accused of failing to carry out an order. In order to comply with that order, Sommers would have had to disclose private information about his autistic son’s medical records.

The charges were handed down one day after Sommers told Fox News that he was facing discrimination and persecution because of his conservative political and religious beliefs.

“The timing does seem strange,” retired Navy Commander John Bennett Wells told Fox News. “It’s suspicious. No matter what’s happening it looks like a graduated attempt to build a case against him on some really ridiculous charges.

Wells is representing the 25-year veteran who, until last summer, had a spotless record.

Read more at Fox News

Congressman: Troops Being Punished For Expressing Religious Faith

Congressman: Christian Soldiers Being Singled out for Punishment

Military To Court Martial Soldiers Who Share Their Faith

Army Labels Christians as Religious Extremists, Potential Terrorists

Pentagon Recruits Anti-Christian Extremist To Help Craft Tolerance Policy

Religious Groups Fear Christian Purge From Military

Secular Crusader Advises Pentagon: Christians are ‘Monsters.’

Religious Freedom in Our Military: This Is What Intolerance Smells Like

Last month, it came out that the IRS had demanded that an Iowa pro-life group seeking tax exempt status provide details about “the content of the members of your organization’s prayers,” and warned them not to protest Planned Parenthood if they wanted their non-profit status approved.

Now, an audio recording reveals that an IRS agent in Texas actually warned a pro-life group not to share their faith with their clients:

The IRS scandal is deepening as a new tape has been released today showing a disturbing phone call the Internal Revenue Service placed to a non-profit organization.

Alliance Defending Freedom, a pro-life legal group, made the audio available today of IRS officials telling a group that provides support to women in abusive pregnancy situations to keep its faith to itself. In the recorded phone conversation, an IRS agent lectures the president of the organization about forcing its religion and beliefs on others and inaccurately explains that the group must remain neutral on issues such as abortion.

ADF is providing legal representation for the group — which did not receive its tax-exempt status until last week after waiting nearly two and a half years after applying for it.

“The IRS is a tax collector; it shouldn’t be allowed to be the speech and belief police,” said Senior Legal Counsel Erik Stanley. “The current scandal isn’t new but has merely exposed the abuse of power that characterizes this agency and threatens our fundamental freedoms.”

Read more at Life News

IRS Agent Who Told Group to Keep Faith Private Opposed Pro-Life Position

IRS Warned Pro-Life Group Seeking Tax-Exempt Status Not to Protest Planned Parenthood

IRS Admits To Targeting Conservative Groups For Harassment

Why is the IRS Regulating Speech In The First Place?

IRS Targeted Billy Graham, James Dobson, Christian and Pro-Life Groups

Targeting of Faith Groups Raises Concerns about Who Fostered IRS Culture of Abuse

Keepin’ the Faith, Behind Closed Doors Only

Pastors, not the government, should decide when they can speak about candidates from the pulpit

‘Political’ pastor challenges IRS censorship: ‘Sue me’

Mark Levin: “We have the elements of a Police State here…our government’s collecting way too much data on ‘we the private citizen’!”

View on YouTube 

What’s to worry about?   It’s not like they’d abuse this information to target political dissidents or anything.

Brett LoGiurato reports at Business Insider:

The National Security Agency and FBI have been engaging in a highly classified program that mines data from leading U.S. internet companies, according to a bombshell report in The Washington Post Thursday night.

The program is code-named PRISM, and the Post reports that it was established in 2007. According to the report, the nine companies that “participate knowingly” in the program are Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube, Apple.

The NSA and FBI tap directly into the central servers of the companies, obtaining audio, video, photographs, emails, documents and connection logs that “enable analysts to track a person’s movements and contacts over time,” according to the Post.

[...]  The program was not disclosed publicly, and is only being disclosed now after a whistleblower revealed the program to the Post because of “horror” at its capabilities.

“They quite literally can watch your ideas form as you type,” said the whistleblower, described as a career intelligence officer, in a truly harrowing quote.

Read more at Business Insider

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

NSA seizes phone records of Verizon customers

History lesson: The crucial differences between Bush and Obama’s NSA phone surveillance programs

Obama White House spying on half of America

Why Collect So Much Information if Obama Refuses to Use It Against Terror?

Former NSA Head Defends Blanket Spying on Millions of Americans

‘You can’t have 100% security and 100% privacy’: Obama defends NSA’s secret ‘data-mining’ and tries to dismiss it as ‘a modest encroachment’

Verizon Scandal: Intel Director Testified in March that Gov. Does Not Collect Data on Americans

GOP should lead fight against the Patriot Act

Remember when President Obama publicly demonized Fox News as “destructive” to the nation because they wouldn’t play lapdog like the other networks?  Turns out he was just laying the groundwork to isolate them from public sympathy so his vendetta against them could be justified.

Charles Krauthammer, Tucker Carlson, Kirsten Powers, Bret Baier discuss DOJ targeting Fox reporter and his parents:

View on YouTube

Fox News reports:

Newly uncovered court documents reveal the Justice Department seized records of several Fox News phone lines as part of a leak investigation — even listing a number that, according to one source, matches the home phone number of a reporter’s parents.

The seizure was ordered in addition to a court-approved search warrant for Fox News correspondent James Rosen’s personal emails. In the affidavit seeking that warrant, an FBI agent called Rosen a likely criminal “co-conspirator,” citing a wartime law called the Espionage Act.

Rosen was not charged, but his movements and conversations were tracked. A source close to the leak investigation confirmed to Fox News that the government obtained phone records for several numbers that match Fox News numbers out of the Washington bureau.

Further, the source confirmed to Fox News that one number listed matched the number for Rosen’s parents in Staten Island.

Rosen’s father, attorney Myron Rosen, told FoxNews.com he found the records seizure to be “downright ludicrous.”

“My son and his wife call us all the time, and we talk about grandchildren,” he said. “We don’t talk about nuclear proliferation.”

He continued: “The fact that they had our phone records, it shows how crazy they are, how desperate.”

Read more at Fox News

The revelation has had a chilling effect on reporters’ ability to gather the information and sources they need:

Anchor Greta Van Susteran took to Twitter to express her frustration with the secret monitoring, saying friends and family won’t call or email anymore out a of a fear of being watched.

“Now that the word is out that Obama Admin seizes Fox phone records, my friends won’t call me at work and since the Obama admin also seizes personal cell and email, my friends wont’ call or email,” Van Susteran tweeted.

The news of more Fox News’ monitoring comes weeks after the Associated Press revealed the Justice Department had secretly monitored 20 personal and private phone lines used by AP reporters and editors. In addition, CBS News Investigative Reporter Sharyl Attkisson said yesterday that her work and personal computers had been compromised.

Read more at Townhall

That, of course, was the intended purpose all along:

For awhile, it looked like the White House wanted just to control “the narrative.” But its seizure of AP phone records and surveillance of Fox employees now show its real aim: to control the news.

[...]   The latest news that the Justice Department investigated Fox News reporter James Rosen and two other newsmen in the normal course of their investigative reporting on a national security matter — coming on the heels of their seizure of Associated Press phone records — suggests an administration obsessed with controlling the news itself with a heavy hand reminiscent of totalitarian regimes.

The AP flap has drawn a properly outraged response from the news agency, because the White House’s obsessive efforts to find leaks cast such a broad, indiscriminate net against reporters just doing their jobs.

Read more at IBD

Even the liberal “Daily Beast” wants to know “How Hope and Change Gave Way to Spying on the Press“:

First they came for Fox News, and they did not speak out—because they were not Fox News. Then they came for government whistleblowers, and they did not speak out—because they were not government whistleblowers. Then they came for the maker of a YouTube video, and—okay, we know how this story ends. But how did we get here?

Turns out it’s a fairly swift sojourn from a president pushing to “delegitimize” a news organization to threatening criminal prosecution for journalistic activity by a Fox News reporter, James Rosen, to spying on Associated Press reporters. In between, the Obama administration found time to relentlessly persecute government whistleblowers and publicly harass and condemn a private American citizen for expressing his constitutionally protected speech in the form of an anti-Islam YouTube video.

Where were the media when all this began happening? With a few exceptions, they were acting as quiet enablers.

[...]  It’s instructive to go back to the dawn of Hope and Change. It was 2009, and the new administration decided it was appropriate to use the prestige of the White House to viciously attack a news organization—Fox News—and the journalists who work there. Remember, President Obama had barely been in office and had enjoyed the most laudatory press of any new president in modern history. Yet even one outlet that allowed dissent or criticism of the president was one too many. This should have been a red flag to everyone, regardless of what they thought of Fox News. The math was simple: if the administration would abuse its power to try and intimidate one media outlet, what made anyone think they weren’t next?

Read more at the Daily Beast

DOJ invoked Espionage Act in calling Fox News reporter criminal ‘co-conspirator’

Obama’s War on Fox News Reporters

New York Times: Obama Leak Investigations Against Reporters ‘Chilling,’ Threatening

Even New Yorker Sides With Fox on DOJ Attack on James Rosen

EXPOSED: Obama Justice Dept. Secretly Obtained Reporters’ Phone Records

Explosive: DOJ Illegally Accessed Phone Records From Congress Cloak Room

Attorney General Eric Holder Investigated For Lying to Congress Under Oath About Targeting Reporters

Holder Personally Authorized Fox News Surveillance

Exposed: White House Threatens Reporters Who Dare To Challenge Him

White House Tries To Ban Fox News From Press Pool

White House notches up war on ‘unfavorable press’

Obama Attacks Fox News, Limbaugh For Holding Republicans Accountable When They Cave To Leftist Agenda

Meet some of the everyday Americans who decided to organize groups to fight for their liberties, and found themselves the targets of an abusive, politicized IRS:

Becky Gerritson, Founder and President of Wetumpka TEA Party, Alabama:

View on YouTube

Karen Kenney of the San Fernando Valley Patriots:

View on YouTube

John Hayward reports:

Dr. Karen Kenney of the San Fernando Valley Tea Party Patriots, related the madness of an intrusive questionnaire with 35 topics and 80 sub-topics, which she was expected to complete in just 20 days, under penalty of perjury.  One of the questions asked her to list the ways her organization was condoning or promoting illegal activities.  ”I think the IRS needs to fix its labeling machine,” Kenney said sarcastically.  ”We’re the San Fernando Valley Patriots, not Occupy Oakland.”

She eventually gave up on the “costly and exhausting IRS process,” but kept her organization going with her own money and a few modest donations kept n a cake tin.  ”Like patriots before us, we persevere,” she declared.  ”The voice of this Republic resides in our citizens, not in the tongue of government.  More must grasp that self-evident truth.  This dialogue is about the jackboot of tyranny upon the field of our founding documents.  To whisper the letters ‘IRS’ strikes a shrill note on Main Street, USA, but when this behemoth tramples upon America’s grassroots, few hear the snapping sounds.”

[...]  Susan Martinek, president of the Coalition for Life of Iowa, talked about the IRS inquisition into the conduct of her group’s prayer meetings, and the “educational” content of their protest signs.  She was eventually instructed by the IRS not to protest outside Planned Parenthood offices.

[...]  Becky Gerritson of the Alabama Tea Party was one of several who testified that they received intimidating letters personally signed by the infamous Lois Lerner, the IRS official currently on paid administrative leave.  ”This is a willful act of intimidation to discourage a point of view,” charged Gerritson.  ”What the government did to our little group in Wetumpka, Alabama is un-American.”

“I’m not interested in scoring political points.  I want to protect and preserve the America that I grew up in, the America that people cross oceans and risk their lives to become a part of, and I’m terrified that it is slipping away,” Gerritson testified.

Read more at Human Events

Who do Democrats blame?  First, low-level IRS employees who can be easily thrown under the bus.  Next, they blame the victims:

Early Tuesday during a House Ways and Means Committee, Democrat Jim McDermott blamed tea party groups for IRS targeting. McDermott essentially said that because conservative groups dared to apply for tax exempt status, they deserved to be targeted.

[...]  Luckily, Republican Rep. Paul Ryan was there to shut down his nonsense and received roaring applause in the hearing room for doing so.

Read more at Townhall

The liberal media is dutifully echoing their spin:

During Tuesday’s testimony, Congressional Democrats attacked the private citizens brought before them to tell their individual horror stories. The witnesses were Tea Party groups and other conservative groups put through months of paralyzing harassment by an IRS that had intentionally singled them out based on their political beliefs.

Democrats, however, did not care about the fact that these groups had been targeted, and they kept insinuating that these groups deserved the IRS scrutiny due to their political activity.

Well, that is not the point and everyone knows it. Had the IRS put the same number of left-leaning groups through the same hyper-scrutiny as they did right-leaning groups, none of this would be happening. There would be no scandal.

But the idea here is to change the subject from the fact that the IRS singled out Obama’s political foes for paralyzing scrutiny in the run-up to Obama’s re-election campaign, to the supposed abuse of a tax exempt status by conservative political groups.

The thinking goes that if Democrats can make the Tea Party look like tax cheats it will take the heat off of Obama and further damage his opponents.

Well, right on cue, Politico arrives this morning like the cavalry with an appallingly dishonest (but expected) piece of reporting that falls right in line with what Congressional Democrats did yesterday. It is as pure a piece of coordination and left-wing propaganda as you will ever read.

And this is the only kind of investigative reporting Politico ever does. Imagine if Politico poured these same resources into investigating the IRS’s connections to the White House or the shaping of the IRS talking points by the State Department.

Read more at Breitbart

Got that, boys and girls? If you dare to exercise your constitutional rights, liberals believe you deserve a target on your backs.

Congress Hears From Tea Party And Conservative Groups Targeted In IRS Scandal

Watch: Gallery Erupts During IRS Hearing After Paul Ryan Calls out a Dem Rep

Video: NOM chair unloads on Democrats blaming victims for IRS intimidation

IRS Admits To Targeting Conservative Groups For Harassment

IRS Tried to Swing 2012 Election Towards Obama

Donors to conservative causes.  Conservative activists and businesses.   Pro-military donors.    Christian, pro-life and pro-marriage groups.  Adoptive families.    Pro-Israel groups.   The list of IRS victims grows by the day.

What is the administration’s response?   Blame the little people, of course!

But the truth is, the little people were following orders from D.C., according to the testimony of a former IRS employee:

Q: In early 2010, was there a time when you became aware of applications that referenced Tea Party or other conservative groups?

A: In March of 2010, I was made aware.

******

Q: Okay.  Now, was there a point around this time period when [your supervisor] asked you to do a search for similar applications? 

A: Yes.

Q: To the best of your recollection, when was this request made?

A: Sometime in early March of 2010.

******

Q: Did [your supervisor] give you any indication of the need for the search, any more context? 

A: He told me that Washington, D.C., wanted some cases.

*****

Q: Did anyone else ever make a request that you send any cases to Washington?

A:  [Different IRS employee] wanted to have two cases that she couldn’t — Washington, D.C. wanted them, but she couldn’t find the paper.  So she requested me, through an email, to find these cases for her and to send them to Washington, D.C.

Q: When was this, what time frame?

A: I don’t recall the time frame, maybe May of 2010.

******

Q: But just to be clear, she told you the specific names of these applicants. 

A: Yes.

Q: And she told you that Washington, D.C. had requested these two specific applications be sent to D.C. 

A: Yes, or parts of them. 

******

Q: Okay.  So she asked you to send particular parts of these applications. 

A: Mm-hmm.

Q: And that was unusual.  Did you say that? 

A: Yes.

Q: And she indicated that Washington had requested these specific parts of these specific applications; is that right?

A: Correct. 

Read more at Breitbart

The Cincinnati employee was clearly perturbed that the administration is making low-level employees the fall guys:

“It’s impossible,” an IRS employee responded to an investigator’s question about the allegations that the targeting of conservative groups was due to “two ‘rogue agents.” “As an agent we are controlled by many, many people.  We have to submit many, many reports.  So the chance of two agents being rogue and doing things like that could never happen.”

Answering a question about the employee’s reaction to news reports that the targeting was contained in Cincinnati and the fault of the Cincinnati office, the employee said that Washington has been throwing them under the bus.

“Well, it’s hard to answer the question because in my mind I still hear people saying we were low‑level employees, so we were lower than dirt, according to people in D.C.  So, take it for what it is,” a Cincinnati IRS employee said. “They were basically throwing us underneath the bus.”

Read more at the Daily Caller

Criticism of IRS grows amid allegations of targeting beyond Tea Party

McClatchy: IRS targeting of conservatives may go beyond tax-exempt applications

Stop Blaming the ‘Rogue Agents’: The myth is debunked, and key IRS officials in D.C. are quietly retiring just in time

Issa: Cincinnati IRS employees say direction came from Washington

Evidence Suggests Obama Directly Involved In IRS Scandal

Former IRS Commissioner visited White House more than twice as often as Eric Holder

‘Rogue’ IRS agent who wrote threatening letters gets promotion

Documents: IRS letters harassing conservative groups came from Washington, DC headquarters and from California offices, despite Inspector General’s focus on Cincinnati employees

IRS Admits To Targeting Conservative Groups For Harassment

IRS Tried to Swing 2012 Election Towards Obama

Another government agency caught abusing their power against helpless citizens.   These scandals just keep piling up, and ALL involve innocent, average Americans being deliberately targeted and victimized by their own government. Still think this is the land of the free?

The EPA is already accused of targeting conservative groups while showing preferential treatment to left-wing wacko environmentalist groups.

Now, like the IRS, it appears that they have been leaking innocent citizens’ personal information to a radical left-wing groups that specialize in finding people to target and making their lives a living hell:

The Environmental Protection Agency acknowledged Tuesday that it released personal information on potentially thousands of farmers and ranchers to environmental groups, following concerns from congressional Republicans and agriculture groups that the release could endanger their safety.

[...]  The information on livestock and produce farmers was sought through a Freedom of Information Act request by the groups Earth Justice, the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Pew Charitable Trust. They were given information on roughly 80,000 farmers and ranchers.

Pew returned the original information, per the agency’s request Thursday, according to documents obtained by Fox.

The agency acknowledged the information included individual names, email addresses, phone numbers and personal addresses.

Read more at Fox News

Since when does the FOIA include people’s home addresses and phone numbers?

Moe Lane observes:

Earth Justice’s basic reason for existence is to try to sue into oblivion any industrial development that they don’t like; and a large part of their strategy is to find someone to target, then find something that they can target them with (like, for example, the Clean Water Act). But you’re saying Moe, the family farmers aren’t subject to the CWA! …And perhaps that is true. But there’s a whole bunch of regulations that those farmers are subject to – and their personal information has just been given to a bunch of hardcore progressive lawyers who capitalize the word ‘people.’ In other words; if you don’t think that the EPA has put small farmers and ranchers at increased risk of punitive lawfare by partisan activists, well. I would almost envy you that private world of yours, except that I suspect that there isn’t quite enough oxygen in it.

Read more at Red State

Report: EPA Also Targets Conservative Groups With Double Standard

EPA waives fee requests for friendly groups, denies conservative groups

Note To Republicans: Don’t Just Rein in the EPA, Abolish It

Eric Holder has a problem:

A law enforcement official has told NBC News that Attorney General Eric Holder is the one who signed the search warrant for the private emails of Fox News reporter James Rosen. The warrant was signed under the guise that Rosen might be a “possible co-consiprator” in violation of the Espionage Act.

Problem is, Holder denied all knowledge – much less involvement – of the DOJ targeting of reporters during sworn testimony before congress.

John Nolte points out:

Last week, and while under oath, Attorney General Eric Holder testified before a House committee that when it comes to “try[ing]  to prosecute the press for the publication of material” he has “never been involved in, heard of” such a thing.

Thursday, however,  we learned that it was Holder who signed off on the application for a warrant to gain access to the private emails and phone records of Fox News reporter James Rosen. In doing so, Holder labeled Rosen a co-conspirator to obtain classified material under the Espionage Act of 1917.

Read more at Breitbart

Congress gave the Attorney General a deadline to clear up the “inconsistencies” in his testimony, but (surprise!), Holder missed it.  He’s practically daring congress to subpoena him, but so far they don’t have the spine:

Republican lawmakers want to haul Attorney General Eric Holder back to the Hill to explain questionable testimony he gave on reporter surveillance — though they are stopping short of issuing a subpoena.

In a letter sent Thursday to the attorney general, Republican leaders of the House Judiciary Committee urged Holder to testify on June 18, or some other date before the end of the month. They say his department’s prior response to date “still fails to fully and adequately answer our questions.”

They want Holder to explain his May 15 testimony.

Read more at Fox News

This guy is so used to getting away with everything, it will take a lot more than “pretty please” to get him to comply.

Holder Personally Authorized Fox News Surveillance

Eric Holder’s Long History Of Lying To Congress

DOJ Responds to Perjury Investigation from Congress: Holder Didn’t Lie

EXPOSED: Obama Justice Dept. Secretly Obtained Reporters’ Phone Records

Holy cow! They illegally got phone records from CONGRESS??

That’s the claim made by Congressman Devin Nunes on the Hugh Hewitt Show:

HH: The idea that this might be a Geithner-Axelrod plan, and by that, the sort of intimation, Henry II style, will no one rid me of this turbulent priest, will no one rid me of these turbulent Tea Parties, that might have just been a hint, a shift of an eyebrow, a change in the tone of voice. That’s going to take a long time to get to. I don’t trust the Department of Justice on this. Do you, Congressman Nunes?

DN: No, I absolutely do not, especially after this wiretapping incident, essentially, of the House of Representative. I don’t think people are focusing on the right thing when they talk about going after the AP reporters. The big problem that I see is that they actually tapped right where I’m sitting right now, the Cloak Room.

HH: Wait a minute, this is news to me.

DN: The Cloak Room in the House of Representatives.

HH: I have no idea what you’re talking about.

DN: So when they went after the AP reporters, right? Went after all of their phone records, they went after the phone records, including right up here in the House Gallery, right up from where I’m sitting right now. So you have a real separation of powers issue that did this really rise to the level that you would have to get phone records that would, that would most likely include members of Congress, because as you know…

HH: Wow.

DN: …members of Congress talk to the press all the time.

HH: I did not know that, and that is a stunner.

DN: Now that is a separation of powers issue here, Hugh.

HH: Sure.

DN: And it’s a freedom of press issue. And now you’ve got the IRS going after people. So these things are starting to cascade one upon the other, and you have the White House pretending like they’re in the clouds like it’s not their issue somehow.

Read more at Hot Air

Nune backtracked the term “tapped” later, confirming that although phone records had been obtained, none of the lines were actually tapped:

The DOJ admitted to obtaining call records from a phone used by the AP in the House press gallery, which is … different from tapping a room used by congressmen to talk shop. How Nunes confused the two, I have no idea.  [...]

So he was sloppy in confusing obtaining phone records for wiretapping, and what he meant by the cloakroom is that, I guess, if a congressman in the room called up to an AP reporter in the press gallery, the DOJ would know about it from the gallery phone’s records.

Read more at Hot Air

The Washington Post confirmed that “The subpoenaed phones records included personal and office lines for several national security reporters and editors as well as “the main number for AP reporters in the House of Representatives press gallery.”

Either way, this is still a monumental abuse of power which serves to chill freedom of the press and intimidate potential sources and whistleblowers who might now think twice about speaking to the press.

Somebody better be going to jail over this.

Congressman: DOJ Seized House Press Gallery Phone Records

EXPOSED: Obama Justice Dept. Secretly Obtained Reporters’ Phone Records