With less than a week until a powerful legislation expires that lets the government eavesdrop on the phone and email conversations of Americans, the Senate has convened in DC to discuss whether or not to renew the FISA Amendment Act. The 2008 FISA Amendment Act, an update to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of the 1970s, allows the government to wiretap any conversation involving US citizens, without obtaining a warrant, as long as investigators "reasonably" suspect those talks to involve at least one party located outside of the United States. Despite demands from members of Washington’s intelligence committee, though, very little information if any has been made available about how the government uses the FISA Amendment Act, or FAA, and whom they target. “Everyone becomes suspect when big brother is listening,” Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) said recently while arguing against renewing the FAA in the House of Representatives. Despite pleas from Rep. Kucinich and others, the House has agreed to support renewing the FAA, a decision that has met the approval of the Obama White House as well.

Google obviously forgot to censor this very powerful sermon by Bishop Richard Williamson about 911 Lies and Truth. (No, we're not finished with 911 and are not going away anytime soon. Far from it.)

Kev Boyle: The Age Of Revelation - Realisation of our seemingly 'hopeless' position does not only drive people to helplessness and despair. We can realise the Satanic/Luciferian nature of the foe, and understand too that it is our source, our very God upon whom we must rely. Christ said it all. Nothing, in essence, has changed since His day. He lived in Love and for Love. But He also condemned the Pharisees (the prototypical Orthodox Jews/Masons). He condemned them for their teachings. "Ye Are Of Satan." His first public act after His entrance into Jerusalem was to drive the moneychangers from the temple. This is the only time He resorted to violence. Christ, the very soul of truth, understood the nature of these people. There were no negotiations. He did not mess around.

The Palestinian Authority is currently looking into the possibility of filing a complaint to the International Criminal Court (ICC) against Israel for arresting 900 Palestinian children in 2012. - In taking such an action, Palestine will be using its newly-acquired rights as an observer state at the United Nations, said Eissa Karakea, Palestinian Minister of Detainees’ Affairs. “We need to use the newly gained state status to take measures against Israel for its crimes especially the arrest, detention, and abuse of Palestinian children, let alone trying them before military courts,” he told Al Arabiya. Karakea added that after being granted observer status, Palestine has the right to join international human rights organizations and through them can file complaints against Israel. “Israel is violating the Child Protection Act and all international laws by subjecting children to such traumatic experiences. The Israeli minister of security had actually said earlier that Palestinian children have no immunity.” According to Karakea, the International Community is already aware of the crimes committed against Palestinian children.

At least 237 Israeli soldiers have committed suicide over the past ten years, a report says. - According to secret data released by the Israeli military, an average of 24 troops decide to take their own lives every year, Israeli daily Haaretz reported on Thursday. According to the report, an annual average of 40 Israeli army forces also killed themselves between 1990 and 2000. The official data regarding the suicide rate had been released for the first time by an unknown Israeli blogger, who was later investigated by Israeli police. The blogger also found out that the real number of suicides in the Israeli army had been much greater than what the official data show. The Israeli newspaper Maariv published an article in 2003, saying that suicide had been the number one cause of death in the Israeli army. The Israeli ministry for military affairs recently reported that the number of Israeli soldiers who committed suicide exceeds that of those killed in battles.

Haaretz: Israel's most sought-after anonymous blogger has won his battle with the IDF

Iran reported a number of new cyberattacks on Tuesday, saying foreign enemy hackers tried in recent months to disrupt computer systems at a power plant and other industries in a strategically important southern coastal province as well as at a Culture Ministry information center. - Accounts of the attacks in the official press did not specify who was responsible, when they were carried out or how they were thwarted. But they strongly suggested that the attacks had originated in the United States and Israel, which have been engaged in a shadowy struggle of computer sabotage with Iran in a broader dispute over whether Iran’s nuclear energy program is for peaceful or military use. Iran has been on heightened alert against such sabotage since a computer worm known as Stuxnet was used to attack its uranium enrichment centrifuges more than two years ago, which American intelligence officials believe caused many of the machines to spin out of control and self-destruct, slowing the Iranian program’s progress.

Globe & Mail: U.S. and Israel allegedly launch cyberoffensive at Iran

Seattle residents Matt Duran and Katherine Olejnik have been imprisoned in the SeaTac Federal Detention Center for weeks. Neither of them has been indicted, arraigned, or even arrested for a crime. They have been imprisoned for civil contempt by a federal prosecutor for refusing to answer personal questions during a secretive grand jury investigation of other people in the Occupy movement. During her examination by the prosecutor, Olejnik was asked about incidents of vandalism that took place in Seattle last May Day. She wasn’t even in the city on that date. When the prosecutor began showing her photographs of people and inquiring about her political beliefs, Olejnik exercised her constitutionally protected right to remain silent. That is why she was sent to prison on the orders of U.S. District Judge Richard A. Jones. Duran’s case is nearly identical. They may remain in prison until the grand jury’s term expires in January 2014. Duran and Olejnik are political prisoners in every sense of the expression. However, they are not the only Americans who are current being indefinitely detained without criminal charges. Let us take back the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free.

Russia Today: Third anarchist jailed for refusing to testify before secret grand jury
Room 101 Radio: FBI releases documents that confirm they spy on anarchists
Stephen Lendman: OWS Activists Called Domestic Terrorists

The Defence Department has quietly removed from the Internet a report into the killing of a Canadian military officer by Israeli forces, a move the soldier’s widow says is linked to the Conservative government’s reluctance to criticize Israel for any wrongdoing. - Maj. Paeta Hess-von Kruedener and three other United Nations observers were killed in 2006 when the Israeli military targeted their small outpost with repeated artillery barrages as well as an attack by a fighter aircraft. IN early 2008, the Defence Department posted on its website a 67-page report from the Canadian Forces board of inquiry into the killing. The board found Hess-von Kruedener’s death was preventable and caused by the Israeli military. But less than a year later, the report was quietly removed from the DND website and has since remained off-limits to the public through official channels.

A rickety Toyota truck packed with 14 people rumbled down a desert road from the town of Radda, which al-Qaeda militants once controlled. Suddenly a missile hurtled from the sky and flipped the vehicle over. Chaos. Flames. Corpses. Then, a second missile struck. Within seconds, 11 of the passengers were dead, including a woman and her 7-year-old daughter. A 12-year-old boy also perished that day, and another man later died from his wounds. The Yemeni government initially said that those killed were al-Qaeda militants and that its Soviet-era jets had carried out the Sept. 2 attack. But tribal leaders and Yemeni officials would later say that it was an American assault and that all the victims were civilians who lived in a village near Radda, in central Yemen. U.S. officials last week acknowledged for the first time that it was an American strike.

Russia Today: War on own goals: US drone offensive in Yemen bolsters Al-Qaeda

Northland gun dealers are reporting a spike in military-style gun sales. - Pat Kukull, owner of Superior Shooters Supply, says they are out of semi-automatic rifles due to people “panic buying.” Some buyers are afraid of possible changes the federal government could make to gun laws. She says other guns are selling fast as well and she’s never seen anything like it in her 35 years in business.

The federal government will continue to access Americans’ emails without a warrant, after the U.S. Senate dropped a key amendment to legislation now headed to the White House for approval. - Last month, the Senate Judiciary Committee approved an amendment attached to the Video Privacy Protection Act Amendments Act (which deals with publishing users’ Netflix information on Facebook pages) that would have required federal law enforcement to obtain a warrant before monitoring email or other data stored remotely (i.e., the cloud). The Senate was set to approve the video privacy bill along with the email amendment, which would have applied to a different law, the 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act. But then senators decided for reasons unknown to drop the amendment.

The Israeli Interior Ministry has given the green light to 1,200 more homes in the occupied Eastern Jerusalem. The internationally-criticized expansion comes as retaliation for Palestinian Authority’s statehood bid.

The approval of the plan for expansion of the Gilo suburb in the south of East Jerusalem near the Palestinian city of Bethlehem came on Monday night. The 1,200 are to cover 66 acres in the area allocated for the purpose by the Jerusalem zoning commission. The expansion of Gilo was among the priorities for Prime Minister Netanyahu, who mentioned the neighborhood in recent speeches, as he insisted that Israel has the right to build in the occupied West Bank regardless of the international criticism. The latest in a string of moves by Israel pushes the pace at which it is approving the construction of new homes to long-unseen level, an Israeli watchdog said. “In the past seven days alone, Israel has approved 5,350 new settler units in East Jerusalem, a pace unprecedented since 1967,” Daniel Seidemann of the Terrestrial Jerusalem settlement watchdog group said.

Jerusalem Post: Netanyahu: I'll strengthen settlements during next 4 years
PressTV: Increase the pressure on Israel, Richard Falk says

The administration of US President Barack Obama has notified the Congress of a possible sale of advanced spy drones to South Korea. - The Pentagon's Defense Security Cooperation Agency said in a statement dated Monday and distributed on Tuesday that the South Korean government had requested a $1.2-billion sale of four RQ-4 Global Hawks. "The proposed sale of the RQ-4 will maintain adequate intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities and will ensure the alliance is able to monitor and deter regional threats," the statement said. The White House is required by law to notify the Congress about the possible sale of the aircraft, but the notification does not mean that the sale has been determined. Some experts believe that if the sale takes place, it will incite regional arms race dynamics.

Reuters: U.S. moves to sell advanced spy drones to South Korea

Mexico Bishop Inspires, Infuriates by Telling 1,000s Gathered in Stadium That Politicians are Tied to Organized Crime, Lawmakers' Attempts to Curb Money Laundering are Intentionally Weak, & New Labor Reforms are a Way to Enslave Mexican Workers.

How, Vera asked, can Mexicans follow leaders "who are the ones who have let organized crime grow, who have let criminals do what they do unpunished, because there's no justice in this country!"

In a nation where some clergy have been cowed into silence by drug cartels and official power, Bishop Raul Vera is clearly unafraid to speak. That makes him an important voice of dissent in a country where the Roman Catholic Church often works hand-in-hand with the powerful, and where cynicism about politics is widespread and corrosive.

Growing numbers of elderly and sick Germans are being sent overseas for long-term care in retirement and rehabilitation centres because of rising costs and falling standards in Germany. - The move, which has seen thousands of retired Germans rehoused in homes in eastern Europe and Asia, has been severely criticised by social welfare organisations who have called it "inhumane deportation". But with increasing numbers of Germans unable to afford the growing costs of retirement homes, and an ageing and shrinking population, the number expected to be sent abroad in the next few years is only likely to rise. Experts describe it as a "time bomb".

Will Washington's Pharisees get their man? - This is the Great Divide, and it is this great yawning chasm that has given the neocons their power: for while a malignant dwarf like Bill Kristol, the little Lenin of the neocons, may inspire revulsion in the average American, in Washington he’s a respected and powerful figure, one whose lust for combat — albeit from a safe distance — counts for much in determining what course our foreign policy will take. In such a town, David “Axis of Evil” Frum, who has “spent his career,” as conservative columnist Timothy Carney put it, “singing odes to war and purging those who wanted peace,” is considered a “moderate” — because he’s calling for tax hikes in order to pay for his favorite pastime. If we allowed the soldiers in the field to vote on who should be the next Secretary of Defense, President Obama’s first choice, former Republican senator Chuck Hagel — a Vietnam veteran and the recipient of two Purple Hearts, whose work at the Veterans Administration during the Reagan years endeared him to vets — would win hands down. [...] It’s sickening to watch, this crucifixion of a man of integrity and honesty, at the hands of Washington’s Pharisees. But this isn’t about Hagel anymore: it isn’t even completely about foreign policy, although that’s the core of my own motivation in supporting him. It’s about how Washington embodies all that is evil, degenerate, and poisonous in our culture: it’s about the herd mentality that sniffs out anyone considered an “outsider” — i.e. anyone of independent mind — and seeks to destroy him. Outside the Beltway, Hagel is a logical choice for SecDef: inside that bubble of evil, he’s a candidate for demonization — and that should tell us everything that’s wrong with our degenerate political class. [...] That’s why I’m urging you to please sign — and circulate — the White House petition in support of Chuck Hagel — because it’s high time we sent the neocons packing.

For decades, the mainstream media in the United States was accustomed to being able to tell the American people what to think. Unfortunately for them, a whole lot of Americans are starting to break free from that paradigm and think for themselves. A Gallup survey from earlier this year found that 60 percent of all Americans “have little or no trust” in the mainstream media. More people than ever are realizing that the mainstream media is giving them a very distorted version of “the truth” and they are increasingly seeking out alternative sources of information. In the United States today, just six giant media corporations control the mainstream media. [...] In recent years the “alternative media” has exploded in popularity. People want to hear about the things that the mainstream media doesn’t really want to talk about. They want to hear news that is not filtered by corporate bosses and government censors. They want “the truth” and they know that they are not getting it from the mainstream media. We are watching a media revolution happen, and many in the mainstream media are totally freaking out about it. In fact, some in the mainstream media have even begun publishing articles that mock the American people for not trusting them.

Who Decided That It Would Be A Good Idea...
Agenda 21 Is Being Rammed Down The Throats Of Local Communities All Over America

A woman wearing an Afghan police uniform has killed a US civilian employee of the international "security" forces in the country, Nato says. - It is believed to be the first such insider attack carried out by a woman. In a separate incident, at least six local policemen were killed by another officer in northern Afghanistan. There has been a rise in incidents in which Afghan security forces members have shot dead either foreign personnel or their own colleagues. In Monday's attack in Kabul, Afghan officials say, a female officer at the interior ministry came looking for the police chief at the heavily secured headquarters. The US "adviser" was thought to have been on his way to a canteen when she shot him with her pistol. The attacker has been detained. Officials say they suspect she has links with the Taliban. Initial reports suggested the victim was a military adviser, but Nato's Isaf force later described him as "a civilian employee" of Isaf. The incident is under investigation, the statement added.

The old stone-walled farming terraces of this scenic Palestinian village near Jerusalem stretch along the hillsides, fed by spring water flowing through a network of irrigation channels that dates to Roman times. Perched above a valley on the boundary with Israel, this community of 6,000 has become the focal point of a struggle pitting villagers and environmental advocates against the planners of Israel's separation barrier in the West Bank, a complex of fences and walls built to keep out Palestinian attackers Palestinians.

At Battir, the planned barrier route — including 500 yards of concrete wall — would cut through the valley, scarring a rare surviving landscape of naturally irrigated terrace agriculture dating back thousands of years. It would also separate villagers from about one-third of their cultivated lands, which would fall on the other side of the barrier. This month, in response to petitions by villagers and the environmental group Friends of the Earth Middle East, Israel's Supreme Court gave the Israeli defense ministry 90 days to come up with an alternative to the planned wall that would take into account "the unique character of the area" around Battir. In its ruling — a rare intervention by the Supreme Court in the barrier project — the court urged security officials to reconsider "the nature of the divider and security arrangements" in the sensitive zone, which is a candidate for designation as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The United States government has argued in court that current and former officials of Pakistan’s intelligence service should be immune from prosecution in connection with the 2008 Mumbai attacks. At least 166 people, including 6 Americans, were killed and scores more were injured when members of Pakistan-based militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba stormed downtown Mumbai, India, taking the city hostage between November 26 and 29, 2008. The Indian government has openly accused Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence directorate (ISI) of complicity in the attack, which has been described as the most sophisticated international terrorist strike anywhere in the world during the last decade.

Wayne Madsen: Xe cells conducting false flag terrorist attacks in Pakistan

Armed rebels released a second film on the Internet which shows them testing a poisonous chemical agent on an animal in Western Syria, media reports said. - The footage shows terrorists testing a chemical substance on a rabbit in the coastal city of Latakia, the Lebanese television al-Manar reported. In related development, the armed rebels used chemical weapons in their attacks against the Syrian army in Darya district of Reef (outskirts of) Damascus earlier today. "The terrorists have already thrown three cube-shaped plastic bags towards the (Syrian) army's forces that killed seven forces due to the gases emerging from the bags," a commander of the Syrian Presidential Guard told the Iran-based Arab-language Al-Alam news channel. The commander noted that a yellow button is installed on the bags and by pushing that a yellow gas came out and those who inhaled it died after nearly one hour. Since several weeks ago, different media had reported about the presence of chemical weapons in Syria and the possibility of its use by armed rebels.

PressTV: Syria militants film new chemical test, threaten to poison water supply - Video

Fighters from as many as 29 countries have filtered into Syria to join a civil war that has split along sectarian lines, increasingly pitting the ruling Alawite community against the majority Sunni Muslims, UN human rights investigators said today.

The deepened sectarian divisions in Syria may diminish prospects for post-conflict reconciliation even if President Bashar al-Assad is toppled. And the influx of foreign fighters raises the risk of the war spilling into neighbouring countries. Most of the foreign fighters slipping into Syria to join rebel groups, or fight alongside them, are Sunnis from other countries in the Middle East and North Africa, the UN investigators found. “They come from all over, Europe and America, and especially the neighbouring countries,” said Ms Abuzayd.

Stephen Lendman: Piling on Syria
Tony Cartalucci: UN Defends NATO's Premeditated Genocide in Syria
PressTV: Pakistan Taliban members killed near Syrian capital
Voice of Russia: Western backed Free Syrian Army Threatens to Kill Russians and Ukrainians in Syria

NATO has reportedly agreed to increase Israel’s participation in its activities in 2013 after Ankara eased its opposition to the move following the alliance’s approval of the deployment of Patriot missiles to Turkey. - Citing Israeli officials, Jerusalem Post reported on Sunday that “the approval had come as Turkey’s request that NATO station Patriot missile batteries along its border with Syria was granted, leading them to assess that NATO was using the deployment as leverage to induce Ankara to thaw its relations with Israel.” Israel, a NATO partner participating in seminars, exercises and training courses, has been requesting to increase its role in the military alliance but it was met with an objection from Turkey, a full NATO member.

Please sign the White House petition, and – just as importantly – post the link everywhere. It’s time to man the barricades, and fight the good fight. As the wizard Gandalf said to Galadriel and Saruman in The Hobbit movie: there is a Dark Power stealthily invading the Western lands, unwilling to show its full face just yet, waiting for the right moment to strike. The Hagel confirmation battle is an alarming sign that the enemy is about to show himself. So get over to that White House petition, and bring your friends – because we can’t let those neoconservative Orcs have to the field all to themselves. To heck with the "Emergency Committee for Israel." What we need – and must have – is an Emergency Committee for America.

Doug Bandow: Neocons Against Chuck Hagel: The Independent Senator Who Wouldn't Genuflect

As long-planned sectarian bloodbath unfolds, UN deceitfully labels atrocities as "reprisals." - As early as 2007, it was reported that the US, Israel, and Saudi Arabia, together were not only organizing, funding, training, and arming militants directly linked to Al Qaeda to be used against Syria and Iran, but knew well in advance that by doing so, they would trigger an unprecedented "cataclysmic conflict" driven by sectarian extremism. Not only was such sectarian violence expected, it was desired ahead of redrawing a new map for the Middle East - one that favored Western corporate-financier and geopolitical interests, while keeping the region weak, divided, and infighting. Now, the UN is feigning indignation over the inevitable, increasingly overt sectarian nature of the so-called "Free Syrian Army" and its so-called "rebellion." Entire communities of minorities face extermination. [...] The sectarian genocide in Syria was purposefully engineered by Western policy makers, and now is willfully covered up, spun, and excused by the UN and the Western mass media alike.

Canadian activists and protesters have held demonstrations in Ottawa, and several other cities to call for the protection of First Nations' rights.

On Friday, First Nations people held peaceful gatherings as part of the Canada-wide ‘Idle No More’ movement in Winnipeg, Edmonton, Ottawa, Saskatoon, Toronto, and Nova Scotia. Protesting against the federal government's omnibus budget Bill C-45, First Nations leaders denounced the policies of the Canadian government vis-à-vis First Nations as oppressive. They argued that by offering major changes to the federal Indian Act, including changes to land management on reserves, the bill will cut the number of federally-protected waterways and put the lands they depend on at risk. “We’re not just speaking up for ourselves, we’re speaking up for the rest of Canada,” Nova Scotia aboriginal activist Shelley Young said at a panel discussion on Friday.

AWIP: Rising anger of Canada's First Nations over living conditions
Arctic Compass: Canada - First Nations are Victims of the Government! (Part 1)(Part 2)