The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Next Generation Identification System, a biometric database reliant on tens of millions of facial-recognition records, is now fully operational, the agency announced Monday. ● The NGI system, after three years of development, is billed by the FBI as a new breakthrough for criminal identification and data-sharing between law enforcement agencies. "This effort is a significant step forward for the criminal justice community in utilizing biometrics as an investigative enabler," the FBI said in a statement. Additionally, the Interstate Photo System (IPS) facial recognition service “will provide the nation’s law enforcement community with an investigative tool that provides an image-searching capability of photographs associated with criminal identities.” But Americans not suspected of any criminal activity could easily be swept up into the NGI, according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), in any number of ways. An individual who goes through a fingerprint background check for an employment opportunity, for instance, could soon be required to submit a picture of herself as well.

Professor Graeme MacQueen has written a must-read book on the anthrax attacks on America: The 2001 Anthrax Deception. Even those of us who have paid close attention to – and written broadly on – the 2001 anthrax attacks will learn stunning new information. For example, we learned the following eye-opening facts from the book:

◾ There was a set of 3 letters sent around the same time as the initial anthrax mailings, which attempted to frame the Russians for the anthrax attacks, and which warned of further attacks. These letters could not have been sent by Dr. Bruce Ivins (the scientist the FBI blamed for the attacks), nor could they have been “copycat” letters
◾ Less than 3 months before the anthrax attack, the government carried out a simulated exercise called “Dark Winter”, where: a lethal germ had been aerosolized then released; anonymous letters threatened anthrax attacks; Iraq and Al Qaeda are blamed for the attacks; and preparations are made for the drastic reduction of civil liberties in the United States, including martial Law [...]
◾ There is reason to suspect that the same people who carried out 9/11 also carried out the anthrax attacks

Justin Raimondo ■ The Patsy
xymphora ■ "Who Was Behind the Anthrax Attacks?" (Back to the Camel Club)

Patrick Henningsen ■ Obama’s public agenda is the one you can see on the table, one where the US officials promise to “degrade and destroy ISIS”. Sounds great. Who can disagree with that? Then there’s the hidden agenda, somewhere under the table, and not really up for rational debate. That’s probably because it’s highly illegal and has something to do with what started the ISIS crisis to begin with. This is how Obama plans to sneak back in and re-ignite with last year’s failed bombing campaign that never was in Syria. He explains, “I have made it clear that we will hunt down terrorists who threaten our country, wherever they are. That means I will not hesitate to take action against ISIL in Syria.” ■ Put aside for a minute that any US airstrikes conducted inside Syria without consultation from the Syrian government would be classed by international law and perhaps even by the UN as an act of war against Syria. Why are US politicians, bureaucrats and paid media pundits all guarding their Syrian option so closely? I thought this was an ISIS crisis, not a Bashar al Assad crisis? The central flaw in all of this is that Washington has no real policy on Syria other than hyperbole. Any policies it does have are centered around clandestine and illegal operations there. US officials will spout now and again how, “we do not recognize Syria as a sovereign state”, even though the US has no legal basis on which to maintain such a position. They simply announce in 2011 that, “Assad must go”, ala regime change per usual. ■ Here’s the real kicker: Even today, as the FSA/Moderate Rebels being backed by the US – they are also working together in joint operations with ISIS. [...] Obama wants to fund and arm rebels working with ISIS(L) in Syria. His plan will give aid and comfort to ISIS. On this basis alone, the Obama ‘strategy’ should be disqualified and the president should be dragged in front of a hearing to explain himself.

Robert Fisk ■ Bingo! Here’s another force of evil to be ‘vanquished’
Peter Symonds ■ Obama’s “coalition of the willing” against Syria, Iran
PressTV: US should work with Iran and Syria to slay ISIL monster: Michael Maloof
The Guardian: Isis: leaders gather in Paris as UK edges towards military action
The Telegraph: Demands for immediate military action against Isil as another volunteer is threatened

When the blame game turns into sanctions wars. With no the political crisis in Ukraine far from over, the West and Russia trade sanctions against the other. Which side is more vulnerable? Which side can endure the most pain? CrossTalking with Liam Halligan, Art Franczek and Mitch Feierstein.

At least 10 people have been killed during fresh clashes in war-torn eastern Ukraine over the last 48-hours. ● According to Donetsk city officials, four people were killed on Monday when a car repair shop was hit by an artillery shell and six civilians were killed in separate shelling incidents on Sunday. The officials also said that 15 people were wounded by artillery shell shrapnel. According to reports, the northern districts of Donetsk have been under artillery fire since Sunday which has severely damaged residential and administrative buildings. The recent shelling marked the bloodiest day since a ceasefire agreement was reached between Kiev and the pro-Russians on September 5, after Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko hammered out a compromise deal aimed at ending the heavy fighting.

Patrick Martin ■ White House officials have insisted that no new resolution is required to authorize air strikes against ISIS targets in Iraq or Syria, claiming that two previous congressional resolutions, passed in 2001 to authorize military action against Al Qaeda and in 2002 to authorize the invasion of Iraq, still hold sway. This argument is remarkable from a legal standpoint, since the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) is limited to groups that carried out the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and the 2002 AUMF targets the Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein. ISIS was not formed until 2012, and even its predecessor, Al Qaeda in Iraq, was established only in 2004, after the US invasion and occupation of Iraq provoked widespread opposition in Iraq’s Sunni Muslim minority. In order to invoke the authority of the 2002 resolution backing the attack on Iraq, Obama would have to declare his own war against ISIS, in alliance with a US puppet regime in Baghdad, to be the continuation of Bush’s war against Iraq, which formally ended with the final US withdrawal at the end of 2011. Any congressional resolution to authorize funding the Syrian opposition—let alone a broader resolution on US military operations against ISIS—would provide a legislative fig leaf for a direct attack by the US military on the government of Assad in Syria, which is the real goal of the Obama administration’s latest intervention in the region.

Daniele Watts, an African-American actress who has starred in Hollywood films such as Django Unchained, has claimed she was "handcuffed and detained" by Los Angeles police officers after being mistaken for a prostitute. ● Two police officers approached Watts and her white husband Brian James Lucas when they were seen showing affection in public, the actress said in a Facebook post. She claims she refused to produce her photo ID when asked by police, and was then handcuffed and held in a police car as the officers tried to figure out who she was. She reportedly cut her wrist as she was handled roughly by the LAPD officers. Watts also posted pictures to Facebook, in which she is handcuffed and crying. She was released shortly afterwards.

John W. Whitehead ■ The Cost of Challenging the American Police State

In 1923 Vladimir Jabotinsky, leading intellectual of the Zionist movement and father of the right wing of that movement, wrote:

“Zionist colonization must either stop, or else proceed regardless of the native population. Which means that it can proceed and develop only under the protection of a power that is independent of the native population – behind an The Iron Wall , which the native population cannot breach.”

First published in Russian under the title O Zheleznoi Stene in Rassvyet, 4 November 1923. From that day these words became the official and unspoken policy of the Zionist movement and later the state of Israel. Settlements were used from the beginning to create a Zionist foothold in Palestine. The Iron Wall documentary exposes this phenomenon and follows the timeline, size, population of the settlements, and its impact on the peace process. This film also touches on the latest project to make the settlements a permanent fact on the ground; the wall that Israel is building in the West Bank and its impact on the Palestinian people. Settlements and related infrastructures are impacting every aspect of life for all Palestinians from land confiscation, theft of natural resources, confiscation of the basic human rights, creation of an apartheid-like system, to the devastating impact in regards to the future of the region and the prospect of the peace process. Palestinians and Israelis began the peace process based on a very simple principle: land for peace. Settlements destroy that principle and create a land with no peace.