Treeper Admin Stella has really done a remarkable job sharing articles about this entire NSA leaker issue.    Here are some links she shares which are some of the most engaging considerations and help to frame the various aspects for thought.

I’ll be the first to admit I’m just not up to speed on the various nuance surrounding this intelligence story.   I’m not at all OK with the NSA, or anyone else, collecting or storing information on private communication for *possible* use at another, albeit later, time.   It just strikes my gut as Big Brother with an agenda, not to mention a violation of the 4th amendment.

So back to the information articles that Stella is researching/sharing:

From Legal Insurrection: Edward Snowden, the now-former NSA contractor who leaked secret documents to The Washington Post and the Guardian, said he didn’t want to become the story.  “I don’t want public attention because I don’t want the story to be about me. I want it to be about what the US government is doing,” he told The Guardian.

But Edward Snowden dumped a bunch of documents, made a lot of claims, and then fled.  He’s the only one who can clarify or confirm the statements he’s made, or demonstrate his comprehension for what’s in the documents he leaked, and he’s made himself unavailable to do so. The public is trying to collect and digest all the facts, and some still have questions. (more…)

I’ve begun using the term usurpation to describe this administration, and the co-dependents/ willfully blind who support it.  

The NSA intelligence data mining is clearly unconstitutional under the 4th amendment.  The IRS targeting based on political ideology is also illegal and unconstitutional.   The Dept of Justice manipulating warrants (lying to judges) to gather phone records on AP reporters and Fox’s James Rosen is a clear usurpation of the 1st amendment.

Now the latest usurpation can be seen in the Obama administration using an Executive Order to create de-facto amnesty (XO-Dream Act);  And then to make matters worse – they stop the criminal background checks and ID requirements under such a program.  So anyone can enter the U.S. claim to be whoever they want, and no criminal background check will be done.

And the Congresscritters are worried about Terrorists benefitting from the NSA leaker?  How about they apply the same consideration (ie worry) about open borders without checks for those who cross them and then apply for Dream Act protections? (more…)

fyi, an insider detail – We can secondarily confirm the information provided within this Wall Street Journal report. Those of you who have been with the Treehouse community since the beginning may remember a conversation thread about the “new age” credit cards that allow capability of RFID transmission. [symbols: ((( )))  and Ξ ]  One of our close friends actually quit his job in disgust over the use of his computer program -a central component to the RFID system- being used to embed internally into credit cards with the expressed intent on tracking user id, location, history etc.  He knew the potential risk several years ago, and sent a warning – we shared – it appears this is now coming to light.

WASHINGTON (WSJ) —The National Security Agency’s monitoring of Americans includes customer records from the three major phone networks as well as emails and Web searches, and the agency also has cataloged credit-card transactions, said people familiar with the agency’s activities.

The disclosure this week of an order by a secret U.S. court for Verizon Communications Inc.’s phone records set off the latest public discussion of the program. But people familiar with the NSA’s operations said the initiative also encompasses phone-call data from AT&T Inc. and Sprint Nextel Corp., records from Internet-service providers and purchase information from credit-card providers.

(more…)

This one we DID see coming.   Former U.N Ambassador Susan Rice will replace National Security Advisor, Tom Donilon, in the White House.   Susan Rice has been the visible face of controversy within the various Benghazi lies.   But Tom Donilon was as much connected to those lies as Rice. 

Tom Donilon and his pal Denis McDonough, were the actual ones making the decisions on the night of the Benghazi Libya terror attack(s).   Is Donilon leaving because that “stand down” order is about to come out?   [Although, honestly,  the guy does looks like he aged 20 years in the past 12 months]   

WASHINGTON DC – National security adviser Thomas E. Donilon will resign his post, White House officials said Wednesday, and will be replaced by U.N. Ambassador Susan E. Rice, a close confidant of President Obama with deep foreign policy experience who is disliked by Republicans but had been widely expected to move into the job. (more…)

NEW YORK – President Obama made a secret deal to support Hillary Clinton when she runs for president in 2016, campaign sources say, payback for the support her husband gave him in 2012.

Bill Clinton’s animosity toward Obama is legendary.   A year before the last election, he was urging Hillary to challenge the sitting president for the nomination — a move she rejected.

According to two people who attended that meeting in Chappaqua, Bill Clinton then went on a rant against Obama. (more…)

Typical – The Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) demands to know if their brother Islamist had his civil rights violated by the way law enforcement responded to his attack.   Citing the fact Chechen,  Ibragim Todashev, was shot 7 times after he became violent during FBI questioning about his relationship to the Boston bombers.

(Fox 35 Orlando, FL)   An advocacy group is demanding a civil-rights investigation into the death of a Chechen immigrant shot by an FBI agent in Orlando last week during questioning into his ties to one of the Boston Marathon bombing suspects.

During a news conference Wednesday, a Council on American-Islamic Relations spokesman said Ibragim Todashev, 27, was not only unarmed the night he was shot, he was shot seven times. (more…)

On the heels of the recent reports about the Dept. of Justice beginning to crack down on Free Speech, under the auspices of protecting civil rights, we need to focus attention like a laser beam on the potential collapse of freedom.

We are the only site that (I’m aware of) willing to tell people about the Federal Dept Of Justice – Community Relations Service (the CRS).   As is the case with all progressive endeavors, the initial function of the CRS was sold to the politicians who fund it, as an entity organized to insure community racial cohesion.

However, it quickly devolved into an entity whose sole purpose was to use Politically Correct leverage, and cultural Marxism, to protect the image of racial minorities from the public visibility of their own behavior. (more…)

Folks, let me be the first on record associated with this Treehouse. THIS WILL NOT BE ALLOWED TO STAND. We will lead an effort to push back against this ridiculous “UNCONSTITUTIONAL” mandate being put forth by the Holder/Perez Dept. of Justice.

People ask me all the time about the Community Relations Service;  Most have never heard of it.   The CRS is the super-secret and federally protected stealth sect within the DOJ Civil Rights Division.   When I explain the depth of the broad power granted to the CRS – people look at me cross eyed with a stare that says – “no way”!  My response? Yes, way.

Many people cannot wrap their mind around what they hear, it just doesn’t reconcile with everything they have ever thought about freedom.  Even more refuse to consider what is presented to them.  Just like many fine folks in the Treehouse who cannot grasp that there exists a Federal Entity which can, without explanation, force a judge to make a decision or ruling in a way the CRS dictates. It just strikes as unbelievably UNCONSTITUTIONAL.

So this factual example about how the Federal DOJ going to arrest and/or prosecute anyone who defames Islam is aimed more toward those people who refuse to accept the information about the scope of the CRS power: (more…)

Hey, ya gotta give em’ props for honesty.  The Syrian “rebels” admit they are al-Qaeda, and the folks that met John McCain were only pitchmen – not commanders, and not representative of the real ideology behind uprising. 

(Via Time) . . . The reason for this night’s meeting, and indeed for the Libyans’ 10-day trip to southern Turkey and across the border into northern Syria, was to help the Libyans figure out how to get some of Libya’s vast and loose stockpiles of machine guns, artillery, ammunition and antiaircraft systems — leftovers amassed largely by snatching government stockpiles during their own successful military uprising against their late dictator, Muammar Gaddafi, and from supplies donated to the Libyan rebels by the oil-rich Gulf nation of Qatar — to Assad’s opponents. […]

The Syrian men who sat radially around the beige couch in the Turkish hotel were keen to get their hands on some of that batch of weapons. But first, the Libyans wanted to know who the Syrians were exactly and which rebel group each represented. (more…)

Well it appears we now have TWO people in the media asking the “right” question.  Last week Chris Wallace, now Charles Krauthammer:

“I think there is a bigger story here that will in time come out. The biggest scandal of all, the biggest question is what was the president doing in those eight hours. He had a routine meeting at five o’clock. He never after during the eight hours when our guys have their lives in danger, he never called the Secretary of Defense, he never calls the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, he never called the CIA Director, Who does he call? But five hours in he calls the Secretary of State. And after the phone call she releases a statement essentially about the video and how we denounce any intolerance. It looks as if the only phone call is to construct a cover story at a time when the last two Americans who died were still alive and fighting for their lives. There’s the scandal and that has to be uncovered.” (more…)