The Curious Case of Ms. Rahinah Ibrahim

The story around the detention of Rahinah Ibrahim is so astounding a person of normal cognitive capacity might be unable to actually comprehend it.    She was stopped, detained, searched, hand-cuffed and then placed on a no-fly list back in 2005.   She sued the U.S. government to find out why:

After seven years of litigation, two trips to a federal appeals court and $3.8 million worth of lawyer time, the public has finally learned why a wheelchair-bound Stanford University scholar was cuffed, detained and denied a flight from San Francisco to Hawaii: FBI human error. (link)

The Error:  An FBI agent/investigator named Kevin Kelly was investigating Muslims in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2004 when he mistakenly checked the wrong box on a terrorism form, erroneously placing Rahinah Ibrahim on the no-fly list.   Kelly simply checked the wrong box on a generic administrative form.

What followed is almost nine years of *EXTREME* governmental denial, by some of the biggest well known names in DOJ, NSA, and Homeland Security.   They, on behalf of the U.S. government, used every national security avoidance argument, all of it, all.of.it, simply to cover-up a simple clerical mistake. (more…)

He’s not even trying to make the audience believe any more. The Lip-Syncing lip movement is 3 or 4 seconds behind the soundtrack being broadcast.

WASHINGTON DC – In a bid to calm growing privacy concerns about the government’s spying powers, President Obama outlined a series of steps Friday aimed at ushering in “concrete and substantial” reforms to the National Security Agency.

“Americans recognized that we had to adapt to a world in which a bomb could be built in a basement and our electric grid could be shut down by operators an ocean away,” the president said during a major policy speech at the Department of Justice.

“And yet,” he added, “in our rush to respond to very real and novel threats, the risks of government overreach—the possibility that we lose some of our core liberties in pursuit of security—became more pronounced.” (more…)

Yesterday we spotlighted a story about a Florida family driving through Maryland and mysteriously being targeted for a police stop.  They were questioned about owning a gun, detained, searched, their car contents emptied – searched, and after approximately 90 minutes to 2 hours of detention during the search they were released.

Obviously for the driver, John Filippidis, and his family, this was alarming.   What would prompt the Maryland Transportation Authority Police (MTAP) to randomly select their vehicle?

Because the first question to Mr. Filippidis was about his gun ownership, and the police search for the gun was based on his gun ownership, the Florida CCW permit that Filippidis holds was identified as the most likely impetus for the stop, questioning and search.   [His firearm was locked in a safe in his Florida home]

This strikes us as highly alarming – so we contacted MTAP and we immediately filed public records requests to research what took place.

However, our interest has also spurred numerous contacts, tips and directions to help understand what’s going on.    We now know where else to look to find out what exactly is going on.   Mr. Filippidis’ experience is merely the tip of the iceberg.

What is written below explains how the family was targeted; why the family was targeted; and what intentions were behind the MTAP engagement. (more…)

(NBC News) U.S. Navy officials have issued an apology for their response to a News4 reporter’s request for materials related to the September 2013 Navy Yard shooting rampage.

In an email to News4’s I-Team reporter Scott MacFarlane, Navy administrator Steve Muck asked MacFarlane to “accept [his] apologies” for an internal memo sent to MacFarlane by a Navy Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) officer.

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In the memo, a Navy FOIA officer details a strategy to reject and stymie MacFarlane’s request for emails, photos and memorandums related to the Navy Yard shooting, in which 12 people died.

Another Navy official acknowledges the memo was sent to MacFarlane by mistake. (more…)