Tag: San Bernadino

Homeland Security Records Reveal Officials Ordered Terrorist Watch List Scrubbed

Via Judicial Watch

 

FOIA Lawsuit for Terrorist “Hands Off” List Shows Almost 1,000 Individuals Removed from Terror Watch List

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today that it obtained 183 pages of documents from the Department of Homeland Security revealing that the Obama administration scrubbed the law enforcement agency’s “Terrorist Screening Database” in order to protect what it considered the civil rights of suspected Islamic terrorist groups.  The documents appear to confirm charges that Obama administration changes created a massive “hands off” list. Removed data from the terrorist watch list could have helped prevent the San Bernardino terrorist attack.

The new documents were produced in response to a Judicial Watch February 2015 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed on February 13, 2015, (Judicial Watch v U.S. Department of Homeland Security (No. 1:15-cv-00222)) for:

  1. A copy of the [Department of Homeland Security] Office of Inspector General report regarding, concerning, or related to a “hands off list” purportedly maintained by [Department of Homeland Security], US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and/or US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) used to allow certain individuals to enter the United States, who had previously been denied entry to the United States or been made to undergo secondary screening by CBP based on suspicion of terrorism ties.
  1. Any and all records of communication to or from [Department of Homeland Security] Inspector General Charles Edwards from May 31, 2014 regarding the aforementioned OIG report.

On May 6, 2014, Senator Charles Grassley (R-IA) released internal Department of Homeland Security emails revealing an alleged terrorist “hands off” list allowing individuals with potential terrorist ties into the United States.  Allegations by former Customs and Border Patrol Officer Philip Haney spurred Senator Grassley’s and other congressional investigations.

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San Bernardino Attack Eye-Witness: “Three Tall White Men Did It”

Submitted by Shepard Ambellas via Intellihub.com,

A few interesting details have surfaced regarding Wednesday’s mass shooting dubbed ‘terror attack’ which killed 14 and injured 17 others. One of the most interesting comes from an eyewitness.

We now know that ATF investigators recovered police issued firearms from the alleged shooters. This key detail was leaked by 2016 GOP Presidential Candidate Carly Fiorina during a press interview after she had overheard a newsroom report that doesn’t fit the official narrative.

We also know that active shooter drills actually took place near the crime scene just days before and possibly even on the same day of the mass shooting as reported by Mac Slavo.

Additionally details from an eyewitness, who came forth on the day of the shooting, may have been overlooked by investigators and suggest that there were actually ‘three white shooters’ instead of the radicalized husband and wife natural-born killer team portrayed in some mainline reports.

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The San Bernardino Massacre: Perceptions, Propaganda, And Blowback

Submitted by Justin Raimondo via AntiWar.com,

The reaction to the San Bernardino shooting in which 14 people were killed and several more wounded is a textbook case of confirmation bias. The first reactions came from the liberal wing of the Twittersphere, heavily represented by “mainstream” journalists, who immediately took the incident to be a classic “mass shooting” of the Sandy Hook-Columbine variety, and it didn’t take long for the finger-wagging to begin. At once pro-gun control and anti-religious, the meme went out into cyberspace: “thoughts and prayers” aren’t enough, we need to crack down on gun ownership in this country. The front page of the New York Daily News expressed the left-liberal party line: “GOD ISN’T FIXING THIS: As latest batch of innocent Americans are left lying in pools of blood, cowards who could truly end gun scourge continue to hide behind meaningless platitudes.”

As it turned out, however, the guns used by Syed Farook and Tashveen Malik, the two perpetrators, were bought legally – and their weaponry consisted of a lot more than mere guns. The editors of the Daily News didn’t wait for the facts because they didn’t care about the facts. They just wanted to make a point – one which turned out to be not only wrong but also completely beside the point.

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San Bernardino Mass Shooter Had Islamic State Ties: “She Pledged Allegiance To The ISIS Leader”

Tyler Durden's picture

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 12/04/2015 10:25 -0500

“Crises like these are only ‘useful’ in today’s world if they serve someone’s geopolitical ends so don’t be surprised if the mainstream media soon turns up the San Bernardino equivalent of the forged Syrian passport found in Paris three weeks ago” — Zero Hedge, 12/2

Just moments ago, CNN reported that in a Facebook post, Tashfeen Malik pledged allegiance to ISIS leader Bakr al-Baghdadi.

The posting was apparently made under a different name. Officials have not said how they know it was indeed Malik’s account. From The New York Times:

The woman who helped carry out the shooting in San Bernardino, Calif., on Wednesday had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State in a Facebook posting, according to federal law enforcement officials.

 

There’s no evidence the group directed the woman, Tashfeen Malik, and her husband Syed Rizwan Farook, to launch the attacks, which killed 14 and wounded 21, said the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the investigation is continuing.

 

“At this point we believe they were more self-radicalized and inspired by the group than actually told to do the shooting,” one of the officials said.

 

The posting had been removed from the social media site and it’s not clear when federal authorities obtained it.

 

In the days leading up to the shooting, the couple took several steps to delete their electronic information, in an apparent effort to cover their tracks, officials said. Those efforts have led authorities to believe that the shooting was premeditated.

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Another Day in Paradise

Guest Post by Gayle

I have been reflecting on yesterday’s incident in San Bernardino. I was in a public high school, substitute teaching groups of Advanced Placement math students, mostly seniors who are bright, good kids headed for four-year degrees (it doesn’t get any better for a sub).

Shootings in San Bernardino (not mass shootings) are routine. Many are related to gang violence. When the kids became aware of the shooting, they were not alarmed, just regular life in Berdoo going down. As time passed and the magnitude of the incident became obvious and lockdown was instituted, their interest was piqued, but there was still no alarm or distress evident. I exhibited the same reaction. I believe we have become numbed to these kids of incidents, now unable to register the horror that is an appropriate response. My main discomfort was being locked in a windowless classroom with 35 students and six extra teachers because one of them was doing a model lesson for the others during the lockdown period. After that lesson we still had another hour to go, so we hooked up TV to a projector and watched the news. Periodically someone would come by and try to open the door (probably security checking to see if our door remain locked). I began to feel claustrophobic. It’s OK with me if I am never locked down again.

Thankfully they sent everybody home at regular dismissal time, 2:35. All afterschool activities were cancelled. The atmosphere by now was very tense. As far as we knew the shooters were still unaccounted for. Unknown to us, the shootout was happening or had just happened. If I had taken one of my regular routes home, I would have headed for the street where it took place. I decided the freeway was the quickest way to get home, where I really wanted to be.

Redlands became a target of investigation late in the afternoon. There was still talk of one more suspect to be apprehended, so things became tense again. Friends began to call to see if I was all right. Around 4:30 I took my dog for a walk and observed all the helicopters (many press-related) in the sky. When I returned home around 5:00 the specific house (condo really) on Center St. had been identified and police activity was focused there. About this time the third suspect had been eliminated so worry about another crazy on the loose was no longer an issue.

An indicator of how propagandized we have become is the neighbor who was suspicious of persons and activities going on in the house but was afraid to say anything for fear of being branded racist. Her instincts were right, because the house has now been characterized as a bomb factory. There is only one group now whose behavior can ever be questioned, the dreaded Caucasians.

Noisy helicopters over the neighborhood stayed in business until midnight, keeping me awake. They started up again at 5:30 A.M. and are still going. Hopefully they are about done.

Law enforcement personnel conducted themselves in an exemplary way during this incident. It is too bad the minority of cops who reside on the spectrum at “sadistic” give the rest a bad rep.


The One Record That Was Broken On Black Friday That Mainstream Media Will Not Be Excited About

Happy holidays. Stock up. Obama and Hillary want your guns.

Tyler Durden's picture

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 12/02/2015 18:30 -0500

While overall retail sales disappointed following President Obama’s impassioned plea to Americans that the world is in grave danger from terrorists but they should go about their usual business of spend-spend-spend-ing on Black Friday, it appears they did buy one thing. As USA Today reports, more Americans had their backgrounds checked purchasing guns on Black Friday than any day on record, according to data released by the FBI this week.

Friday’s purchases came the same day as the mass shooting incident in Colorado Springs that killed three people and injured nine others.

On Saturday, President Obama called for tighter controls of “weapons of war” in the wake of the Planned Parenthood shooting.

“This is not normal,” Obama said. “We can’t let it become normal. If we truly care about this — if we’re going to offer up our thoughts and prayers again, for God knows how many times, with a truly clean conscience — then we have to do something about the easy accessibility of weapons of war on our streets to people who have no business wielding them. Period. Enough is enough.”

As USA Today reports,


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WHY SAN BERNARDINO IS BANKRUPT

Nothing like spending 99% of your career siting around a firehouse playing cards and eating lobster and steak on the taxpayer, while getting paid $190,000 per year, retiring at 50 years old at full salary, and acting like you deserve it. This is the kind of shit that will not continue. There will be no tears shed when greedy government union drones lose their sweet salaries, benefits and pensions. The unsustainable will not be sustainable.

Via Public Sector Inc.

Firefighter pay shows why San Bernardino is bankrupt

June 24, 2014 Pensions

San Bernardino is a poor city about 50 miles east of Los Angeles in the Inland Empire — a place where a $50,000 salary would be typical and where home prices are nowhere near what they are in fancier areas of coastal Southern California. Yet the bankrupt city is trying desperately to unload some of its outlandish contracts with public employees, especially with the firefighters’ union. “San Bernardino, California, said that to exit bankruptcy it must terminate a union contract that pays an average annual salary of $190,000 to each of its top 40 firefighters,” according to an article in Bloomberg. That’s just salary. Firefighters receive the generous “3 percent at 50″ retirement package that allows them to retire with 90 percent of their final years’ pay at age 50. And there are lots of pension-spiking gimmicks and other benefits on top of that.

As the article notes, because of a voter initiative it may not be legal to dump those contracts. And I’ve looked at a city salary schedule, and the salaries are almost unbelievable throughout the city. City officials blame the economic downturn and the popping real-estate bubble for their financial plight. But that’s like saying that a salary cutback is the cause of an individual’s personal bankruptcy — never mind the Maserati in the garage, the trips to Hawaii, the diamond rings and the $200 nightly bottles of wine.

San Bernardino is in a financial fix that other California cities have mostly avoided, but the level of public-employee enrichment there is typical. These cities are run for the benefit of those who work there. Public services are a side matter at best. Two-thirds of the nation’s firefighters do this job for free, as volunteers. In what world is making them millionaires (when you add in their retirement benefits) a sensible idea? As usual, the city’s residents will pay the price in the form of reduced services. In Stockton and Vallejo, where similar salaries are common, residents also got hit with increased taxes. There’s something vulgar about hitting poor residents with higher taxes to pay for the city’s wealthy elite. And I hear no progressive voices complaining.

Steven Greenhut

About Steven Greenhut

Steven Greenhut is the California columnist for U-T San Diego. Greenhut formerly was vice president of journalism at the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity, where he managed a team of 35 investigative reporters and editors who covered state capitols across the country. He founded CalWatchdog in 2009, which provided Sacramento-based investigative news coverage and he writes regularly for publications including Reason, Human Events, Bloomberg and City Journal. He is author of the 2009 book, “Plunder! How Public Employee Unions Are Raiding Treasuries, Controlling Our Lives And Bankrupting the Nation” and the 2005 book, “Abuse of Power: How the Government Misuses Eminent Domain.” View all posts by Steven Greenhut →