FBI Can Remotely Activate Your Android Phone, Laptops to Record Conversations

If you didn’t read our previous post here, about how 1984 is becoming reality, you might want to check it out.

Now evidence that FBI can activate Android phones and some laptops to record conversations.

Breitbart reported: An ex-FBI official reports the agency can remotely activate the microphone in your android phone and record your conversations.  They can also do the same with your laptops.  The claims were made in a Wall Street Journal article publihed yesterday.

With such technology, the bureau can remotely activate the microphones in phones running Google Inc.’s Android software to record conversations, one former U.S. official said. It can do the same to microphones in laptops without the user knowing, the person said. Google declined to comment.

The FBI uses these tools in certain cases, like child pornography, organized crime or counterterrorism, but not in the case of hackers– lest the hackers spill the beans about the spying method.

Invasive methods like these have been used for years. “Since at least 2005, the FBI has been using “web bugs” that can gather a computer’s Internet address, lists of programs running and other data, according to documents disclosed in 2011. The FBI used that type of tool in 2007 to trace a person who was eventually convicted of emailing bomb threats in Washington state, for example.”

A small industry has cropped up to sell hacker-type software to the FBI and the FBI is hiring people with hacking skills.

The FBI “hires people who have hacking skill, and they purchase tools that are capable of doing these things,” said a former official in the agency’s cyber division. The tools are used when other surveillance methods won’t work: “When you do, it’s because you don’t have any other choice,” the official said.

The trend of digital government surveillance is growing and has come under scrutiny as the public learns more about snooping capabilities. Recently, Rep. Justin Amash attempted to defund the NSA, as the agency came underfire when Edward Snowden began leaking information about various domestic surveillance operations.

Austin, Texas Braces for Al-Qaeda Terrorist Attack

Info Wars reported: Law enforcement agencies in Texas have received a special threat advisory based on information provided by the Department of Homeland Security indicating Austin, Texas, has been singled out for a terrorist attack on Friday, August 9. Pasadena, California, is also mentioned in the advisory.

The document was provided to Infowars.com by sources in the Texas State Police on Thursday evening.

“According to anonymous reporting, a group of trained terrorists are planning to conduct attacks in Austin, Texas and Pasadena, California at the conclusion of the Ramadan period,” the document marked for official and law enforcement use states.

The advisory claims unspecified terrorists or a terrorist group will emulate the Boston bombing by using backpack explosives. The target is said to be 6tth Street in Austin, a popular tourist attraction that is crowded on weekends.

“Additionally, the group plans to attack a school and theological seminary in the downtown Austin area and complete the attack with operations at the Austin-Bergstrom International Airport.”

If August 8-9 is not a viable for an attack, the terrorists will carry out their operation on August 29, according to the alert.

Infowars.com reported on Thursday that multi-agency “homeland security” drills will be conducted in the Austin area over the next few weeks. Agencies involved in the joint operation include the FBI, the Austin Police Department, the Travis County Sheriff’s Office, and the University of Texas Police Department.

“The public should not be alarmed if they observe unordinary law enforcement or first responder activity over the next few weeks in the Austin area,” said DPS Director Steven McCraw, who is also the Texas Homeland Security Director.

Drills and exercises have served as cover for real or perceived to be real attacks on numerous occasions.

On Aril 15, the day of the Boston bombing, we noted a drill was in progress during the Boston Marathon. In June, the Boston Globe published a report verifying “Operation Urban Shield,” a drill designed to train dozens of detectives in the Greater Boston area to work together to prevent a terrorist threat.

“The real thing happened before we were able to execute,” a law enforcement official told the newspaper.

The threat assessment will undoubtedly result in stepped up police presence in Austin, including the likelihood of police checkpoints and other increased police state activity.

The Austin warning arrives as homeland security officialdom and the FBI keep up the hype following the reported elimination of an al-Qaeda group in Yemen that was allegedly planning attacks in the United States or against Western interests in the Middle East.

In addition to the advisory for Austin, another “bulletin shifts specific concerns to American soil, with an array of potential targets from buildings and infrastructure to tourist attractions,” WLS-TV in Chicago reports this evening.

“On Thursday night, federal counter-terror officials have sent a warning to local police to be on guard for pre-operational surveillance and attack planning by terror cells here in the U.S.,” the news station warns.

Officials warn citizens to be on the outlook for the now standard array of terror indicators, including: attempts to gain sensitive information about security measures of personnel, entry points, peak days, access controls, alarms or locks; unusual interest in speaking with building maintenance personnel; and discreet use of cameras or video recorders sketching, or note-taking, especially at building barriers, restricted areas, cameras and intrusion detection systems, according to WLS-TV.

As usual, the feds state “there are no specific known plots against American targets.”

Despite the lack of a credible threat, Homeland Security and the police state apparatus now well entrenched in a highly militarized American law enforcement infrastructure are determined to keep the illusory al-Qaeda threat alive, especially following the Snowden revelations and renewed focus on the NSA and its pervasive surveillance grid.

Predictably, the establishment media exaggerated illusion of an al-Qaeda threat is now being used as an excuse for NSA surveillance and wanton and persistent violation of the Fourth Amendment. The objective is to normalize these sort of violations and acclimate the American people to the presence of militarized police and perpetual surveillance.

Update: Texas Military Forces told KXAN in Austin on Friday that the above force protection alert “was sent out by mistake” and the above memo was rescinded. “It was sent out last week before all the details could be verified. The memo was later rescinded, but copies of the memo are now circulating on social media,” an indirect reference to Infowars.com.

[Watch] Barack Obama: The Gaffe Hall of Fame

Enjoy select Barack Obama gaffes as Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh on Thursday said President Barack Obama “makes more gaffes than George Bush and Sarah Palin combined.”

Obama: The “Core” of Al Qaeda was on its Heels Has “Metastasized” Into a Different Sort of Threat’

Translation: My BS did not work,  Al Qaeda is much more of a threat since I have become President.

In a press conference at the White House East Room on Friday, President Obama said that the “core” of Al Qaeda was on its heels but that the terrorist group had “metastasized” into a different sort of threat.

“They have the capacity,” he said, “to go after our embassies… to go after our businesses… to be destabilizing and disruptive in countries where the security apparatus is weak.”

Obama said that it was consistent to believe that this “tightly organized” Al Qaeda that attacked us on 9/11 has been “broken apart” and is “very weak,” while simultaneously claiming that the Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula could still pose a serious threat.

Obama stated, “We’ve got to continue to be vigilant and to go after known terrorists…This is an ongoing process. We are not going to completely eliminate terrorism. What we can do is to weaken it and strengthen our partnerships” so that there is not another 9/11.

Obama: ‘No, I don’t Think Mr. Snowden is a Patriot’

NSA leaker Edward Snowden is no “patriot,” according to President Barack Obama.

Speaking at a Friday press conference, the president argued that he was already in the process of reviewing his administration’s surveillance programs when the leaked classified information sparked an intense privacy debate.

“No, I don’t think Mr. Snowden is a patriot,” Obama said. “I called for a thorough review of our surveillance operations before Mr. Snowden made these leaks. My preference, and I think the American people’s preference, would have been for a lawful, orderly examination of these laws.”

And while he made it clear the NSA’s surveillance efforts will continue, the president promised to push for greater oversight relating to the programs.

Obama said information about the NSA’s surveillance programs has come out in “dribs and drabs” because of Snowden’s leaks. Some of the information has been inaccurate, he claimed.

“The fact is, that Mr. Snowden has been charged with three felonies. If, in fact, he believes that what he did was right, then like every American citizen, he can come here, appear before a court with a lawyer and make his case,” Obama added. “If the concern was that somehow this was the only way to get this information out to the public, I signed an executive order well before Mr. Snowden leaked this information that provide whistleblower protection to the intelligence community for the first time.”

Judge Napolitano: U.S. Government Orchestrating ‘End Run’ Around Fourth Amendment

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Breitbart reported: Judge Andrew Napolitano on “The O’Reilly Factor” discusses the ongoing controversy over the NSA’s surveillance of U.S. citizens’ private communications.

Obama: Claims About Keystone XL Jobs Are False

Breitbart reported: Both Glenn Kessler at the Washington Post and Politifact have fact-checked Obama’s claim about the number of jobs produced by the Keystone XL pipeline and found his claims false.

Obama told the New York Times “this might create maybe 2,000 jobs during the construction of the pipeline — which might take a year or two…” But Glenn Kessler at the Washington Post says this is less than half the estimate issued by Obama’s own State Department. In fact, it appears to be an estimate made by opponents of the pipeline:

because part of the pipeline is complete, the State Department has revised downward its estimate of the construction jobs to 3,900 jobs per year over a one-to-two-year period. That’s still a higher figure than the one generated by opponents.

Incredibly, as Politifact points out, even the anti-oil and gas Sierra Club uses the State Department estimate rather than the one the President cited on their website. Let that sink in a bit. The Sierra Club–which wants an end to all use of coal, oil and natural gas for energy production–is being more honest with the American people than the President.

Back to Kessler, he helpfully notes that the President counted jobs differently when it came to hyping his stimulus spending:

the White House routinely claimed the job gains created by the stimulus by adding up the number of “person-years” — in other words, one person employed per year. That’s how the White House could claim 3 million jobs were saved or created by the stimulus through 2012…Thus, using the White House’s stimulus math, the president should be saying Keystone XL would create as many as 7,800 construction jobs.

The White House refused to justify their low-ball estimates to either Kessler or Politifact. The result was two Pinocchios from the former and a “False” rating from the latter. Between things like this and all the claims made about sequestration, you get the impression this administration is pretty comfortable lying to people.

Gulfport Florida Bus Beating: Critics Blast Sharpton, Jackson Over Silence of Brutal Beating

As CA indicated last Saturday, the horrendous beating of a 13-year old [white] boy by three [black] teens has conveniently slipped under the radar of hideous race baiting mongers Al Sharpton and Jessee Jackson.  Now, other critics are putting the heat on them, including  Allen West (R-FL).

So I ask Sharpton, Jackson,Eric Holder and the rest of the race-baiters?  Where is the outctry for this 13-year old white boy?

Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, both of whom immediately polarized the tragic death of Trayvon Martin, are being criticized for their silence about a vicious school bus beating in which three black teens mercilessly brutalized a white classmate last month.

According to police, on July 9, in the St. Petersburg, Florida community of Gulfport, three youths, all black, attacked a white boy “after he told officials at their dropout prevention school that one of them had tried to sell him marijuana. The unidentified boy was left with a broken arm and two black eyes.”

It took nearly a month for the cell phone and surveillance video to emerge, instantly going viral. Unlike with Trayvon Martin’s death, where the mainstream media at first said George Zimmerman was “white” before calling him a “white Hispanic,” the media largely did not mention the race of the white victim.

But the silence of such so-called black “civil rights” leaders that former Rep. Allen West (R-FL) has called “race-baiters” has troubled some black Americans, like West, even more.

“Three 15-yr-old black teens beat up a 13-yr-old white kid because he told school officials they tried to sell him drugs,” West (R-FL) wrote on his Facebook page. “Do you hear anything from Sharpton, Jackson, NAACP, Stevie Wonder, Jay-Z, liberal media, or Hollywood? Cat got your tongues or is it that pathetic hypocrisy revealing itself once again? Y’all just make me sick.”

Robert Zimmerman, the brother of George Zimmerman “who vociferously defended his brother against charges the shooting of Martin was racially motivated,” said it was time to “unplug” their mic in response to a tweet that said, “apparently racism only works one way?

The attackers–Joshua Reddin, Julian McKnight, and Lloyd Khemradj, all 15 years old–were arrested and “charged with aggravated battery and have since been released. Reddin is also charged with unarmed robbery.”

Gulfport Police Chief Robert Vincent has indicated the attack did not “appear to be racially motivated” and was simply “due to the younger boy” snitching on one of his attackers.

Obama: The ‘Phony’ Scandal Line Isn’t Going to Cut it with the American People, Come Clean Mr. President

The people are not buying it Mr. President.  Your ‘phony’ narrative doesn’t cut it anymore, you need to tell the truth about how you are using and abusing our Constitution to retrofit your agenda.

You need to come clean Mr. President, we got your number.

Breitbart reported: Whether it be Benghazi, snooping on reporters, or the IRS and NSA scandals, the White House has dismissed them as “phony scandals”. According to a new Fox poll, Americans do not.

Remarkably, even most Democrats know better than to believe the president and his toadies when they characterize the many scandals plaguing the nation as “phony” “fake” or “pretend”. They may look the other way or try to rationalize it by saying all administrations lie – but the majority sure ain’t buying it.

A Fox News national poll released Thursday finds that 78 percent of voters think the questions over the administration’s handling of the terrorist attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi should be taken seriously. Just 17 percent call it a phony scandal.

 The attack, on the anniversary of September 11, killed four Americans — including the U.S. ambassador.

Meanwhile, 69 percent of voters say the National Security Agency’s electronic surveillance of everyday Americans is serious, while 26 percent call that a fake scandal.

By a margin of 59-31 percent, voters are also more likely to view the seizure of reporters’ phone records by the Justice Department as serious rather than phony.

And while the White House sees a Congressional investigation of the IRS targeting of conservative groups as a “distraction,” 59 percent of voters take it seriously. Some 33 percent agree with the administration that it’s fake.

In each of the four situations, voters across the partisan spectrum — Republicans, independents and Democrats — are more likely to say the situation should be taken seriously.

I’m not sure Washington Republicans fully grasp how badly these scandals and the Regime’s reactions to them have eroded the trust of the American people in this president. Yesterday, as was reported at Breitbart TV, Shep Smith (no conservative he) quipped  that Honey Boo Boo is more honest than Obama.

Not a day goes by anymore that I don’t hear someone expressing their abject distrust in this administration.

Bill Gertz reported over at the Washington Free Beacon that the timing of the regime’s announced closure of the  U.S. embassies in the Middle East was raising concerns among some U.S. officials that the Obama administration was politicizing intelligence to distract attention from the scandals.

“Why is this coming out now?” asked one official with access to terrorist threat data. “Is the administration trying to suck up news coverage with the embassy threats to distract attention from what the CIA was doing in Benghazi?”

We are living at a time when we can’t trust our government to tell us the truth about anything – even national security and terror alerts.

Former House Intelligence Committee Chairman Pete Hoekstra said he is concerned that the administration may be politicizing intelligence because “they have politicized everything.” “If there is any hint at all that this [latest terror threat] was politicized, it would be absolutely outrageous,” Hoekstra said in an interview.

A former White House intelligence official noted, “They have debased the coinage of the realm: trust.”

He said the administration’s response to the Benghazi attack of Sept. 11 was a case in point. “If you would lie about Benghazi and make up the story about the cause being a YouTube video, what else wouldn’t you do?” he asked.

Exactly.

Republicans need to be on the offensive,  fighting the Regime’s agenda on every front – not working with Democrats to help prop Obama up. This should be a profoundly weakened presidency.

MAD Magazine Uses Iconic Characters to Hit Obama Over Gov’t Surveillance

The Blaze reported: Now they’ve gone and done it.

MAD Magazine has finally decided to weigh in the Obama administration’s multiple government surveillance programs with a cover featuring the president and – you guessed it – the spies from the classic Spy Vs. Spy comics:

MAD Magazine. Cover Artist: Mark Fredrickson.

MAD’s “War on Privacy” issue goes on sale on Aug. 27. All you get for now is a sneak peek (their joke, not ours).