FOUR LIBRARIANS GAGGED AND THREATENED WITH PRISON TIME UNDER THE PATRIOT ACT

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FOUR LIBRARIANS GAGGED AND THREATENED WITH PRISON TIME UNDER THE PATRIOT ACT

July 6, 2014
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SOURCE: POLICE STATE USA



The Connecticut Four, from left to right: Janet Nocek, Peter Chase, George Christian, and Barbara Bailey. (Source: Robert Deutsch / USA Today)

WINDSOR, CT — Using the broad powers granted under the USA PATRIOT Act, the FBI demanded that 4 librarians produce private information about library patrons’ reading habits, then used an endless gag order to force them to remain silent about the request for the rest of their lives under penalty of prison time.

In July 2005, two FBI agents came to the office of the Library Connection, located in Windsor, Connecticut. The Library Connection is a nonprofit co-op of library databases that arranges record-sharing between 27 different libraries. It facilitates book rental tracking and other services.


The National Security Letter delivered to the Library Connection in 2005. (Source: Wikipedia)

The FBI handed Library Connection’s executive director George Christian a document which demanded that he produce “any and all subscriber information, billing information and access logs of any person or entity” that had used library computers between 4:00 p.m. and 4:45 p.m. on February 15, 2005, in any of the 27 libraries whose computer systems were managed by the Library Connection.

The FBI was demanding that the library hand over private data on library patrons en masse “to protect against international terrorism.”

The document that Mr. Christian was given was a so-called National Security Letter (NSL), a type of administrative subpoena for personal information — self-written by the FBI without any probable cause or judicial oversight. The legal framework for these powerful NSLs was established by Section 505 of the USA PATRIOT Act in 2001.

What’s more, Mr. Christian was placed under a perpetual gag order. The NSL prohibited the recipient “from disclosing to any person that the F.B.I. has sought or obtained access to information or records under these provisions.” The gag order was broad enough that it was a crime to discuss the matter to any other person — for life. The USA PATRIOT Act allows for this suppression of speech, and issues a punishment of up to 5 years in prison for anyone caught violating the endless gag order.

When Mr. Christian received the NSL, he was unsure about whether or not he could even consult a lawyer or his board of directors. Technically, the gag order did indeed prevent any such discussion.

The only reason we know about this case today is because Mr. Christian and 3 other library board members fought back in court. The other librarians involved were Barbara Bailey, president of the Library Connection; Peter Chase, vice president of the Library Connection; and Jan Nocek, secretary of the Library Connection.

The ACLU took up their cause and challenged the validity of the gag order in court. The librarians became known as the Connecticut Four, but could not individually identified for many months. In suing U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, they could only be named “John Doe” and were required to remain in silence about the case under threat of prison time. The case was known as Doe v. Gonzales.

The lawsuit stated that the Library Connection “strictly guards the confidentiality and privacy of its library and Internet records, and believes it should not be forced to disclose such records without a showing of compelling need and approval by a judge.”

“I was shocked by the restraints the gag order imposed on me,” Mr. Christian later told the New York Times.

The four librarians under the gag order were not allowed to communicate with each other by phone or email, and were not even allowed to tell their own families about the case.

In fact, the librarians were even barred from attending the court hearings on the very precedent-setting lawsuit with which they were involved. In an interview with Democracy Now, Mr. Christian described the miniscule amount of participation he and the other plaintiffs were allowed in the case:

When we first sued the Attorney General, I told our attorneys I’d like to be in the courtroom. After all, I’m the plaintiff. And they said no. They had talked to the judge. That would not be allowed, because then our identity could be guessed. But the judge did allow us to go to a courtroom in Hartford, sixty miles away, where we were locked in a room with a security guard and able to watch our case on a monitor. But as the plaintiffs, we were not allowed in the courtroom.

…The release of our identity would be considered a national security threat, because, they reasoned then, whoever they were interested in would realize that the FBI was closing in, although, with twenty-six libraries, I doubt they could really make that a case. We did get to attend the appellate court, along with Nick Merrill. We didn’t know at that time whether Nick was a male or a female. We were instructed to enter the courtroom in New York independently, to enter the building independently, not to sit with each other, not to have eye contact, not to have eye contact with our attorneys. But at least we could participate in the audience and watch our case being argued.

“Our presence in the courtroom was declared a threat to national security,” Mr. Chase related.

The gag served to legally prevent Mr. Christian from personally testifying before Congress about the effects of the USA PATRIOT Act before the law’s reauthorization in March of 2006. It passed through Congress easily and was signed once again by President George W. Bush.

Appellate judges were clearly disturbed by the breadth of the NSL gag provisions. One appellate judge wrote, “A ban on speech and a shroud of secrecy in perpetuity are antithetical to democratic concepts and do not fit comfortably with the fundamental rights guaranteed American citizens… Unending secrecy of actions taken by government officials may also serve as a cover for possible official misconduct and/or incompetence.”

Sensing a potential legal defeat, the government took the steps necessary to preserve its powers. Only a few weeks after the USA PATRIOT Act was renewed, the FBI abandoned the Library Connection case and voluntarily lifted the librarians’ gag order. This eliminated the possibility that the NSL provisions could be struck down in court, protecting the USA PATRIOT Act from further judicial scrutiny. In May 2006, the four librarians broke their silence at last.

“As a librarian, I believe it is my duty and responsibility to speak out about any infringement to the intellectual freedom of library patrons,” said Mr. Chase. “But until today, my own government prevented me from fulfilling that duty.”

“By withdrawing the gag order before the court had made a decision, they withdrew the case from scrutiny,” Mr. Chase said.

Ms. Nocek described the dilemma to a reporter: “Imagine the government came to you with an order demanding that you compromise your professional and personal principles. Imagine then being permanently gagged from speaking to your friends, your family or your colleagues about this wrenching experience… Under the Patriot Act, the FBI demanded internet and library records without showing any evidence or suspicion of wrongdoing to a court of law. We were barred from speaking to anyone about the matter and we were even taking a risk by consulting with lawyers.”

“The fact that the government can and is eavesdropping on patrons in libraries has a chilling effect,” said Mr. Christian, “because they really don’t know if Big Brother is looking over their shoulder.”

“While the government’s real motives in this case have been questionable from the beginning,” said Ann Beeson, Associate Legal Director of the ACLU, “their decision to back down is a victory not just for librarians but for all Americans who value their privacy.”

The result could only be considered a partial victory, however. While the librarians had regained their freedom to speak, they no longer had legal standing to challenge the NSL provisions, meaning that the sweeping power to subpoena and gag American citizens would remain unchecked in the hands of the government — and continue to be used at an alarming rate; tens of thousands of NSLs and gag orders are issued per year in the name of fighting the so-called War on Terror.

http://www.thecommonsenseshow.com/2014/07/07/who-really-killed-ambassador-stevens-and-what-it-has-to-do-with-the-un-takeover-of-the-us/

WHO REALLY KILLED AMBASSADOR STEVENS AND WHAT IT HAS TO DO WITH THE UN TAKEOVER OF THE US

07
Jul, 2014
by Dave Hodges

The Benghazi scandal will eventually find the light of day. It is the story that will not die because some very powerful people are determined that the truth be brought out in order to promote regime change related to the Obama administration.

Cries for Help Ignored

Three times Ambassador Chris Stevens begged for more military protection and three times, then Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, denied Stevens cries for help. Clinton did not respond to requests for help by saying no, she responded by not responding to the pleas through official channels.

Stevens had long been a CIA asset who had run guns to al-Qaeda for the purposes of gaining assistance for the CIA inspired led regime changes in Libya and then in Syria. This is nothing new and has been widely reported.

It is not a secret that the CIA’s propensity to use rogue forces to accomplish a foreign policy objective (i.e., regime change) is not new. The fact that the CIA engages in drug trafficking to fund such an operation is also not new as the American public was introduced to the existence of Air America, Iran-Contra and the nefarious actions of Lt. Colonel Oliver North in televised congressional hearings during the Reagan administration.

What was not known at the time of Iran-Contra, was that the CIA was convicted, through its paramilitary assets and civilian contractor liaisons (e.g. Blackwater, DynCorp, Wachovia Wells Fargo and Halliburton), not only with drug trafficking but sex trafficking to raise the money to arm al-Qaeda in the attack upon Libya and then Syria. Part Three reveal that every major bank is involved all the way up to the Federal Reserve.

On May 1, 2014, Tosh Plumlee told Alex Jones and his audience that he has firsthand knowledge of US gun running and ancillary drug running to support Black Ops operations in the Middle East. This is the same exact pattern which was utilized to fuel the Iran-Contra Affair in which the Russian backed Sandinistas would be opposed by the Contra using funds derived from CIA basked drug operations which led to the rise of drug-related street gangs in South Central LA in which cocaine became the main commodity. The implication is that the same thing was going on at the time of Ambassador Stevens death in that Stevens was running guns to al-Qaeda. However, there was one more key element of CIA funding which would be used to fund the of proxy forces for the purpose or regime change and that would child sex trafficking.



Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney Was the First Notable to Expose These Crimes of the Century

Former Representative Cynthia McKinney was told in 2006 by then Defense Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, that it was not President Bush’s policy of the Bush administration to award companies, with a track record of human trafficking with government contracts. Yet, the practice continues, government contracts are still awarded even as innocent children sex trafficked. are sold into a life of slavery at the behest of Halliburton, Dyncorp, Wachovia Wells Fargo and other multinational corporations with close ties to the political and corporate elite.

In 2006, McKinney grilled the Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, with the following question: “Well how do you explain the fact that DynCorp and its successor companies have received and continue to receive government contracts?” This question was posed to Rumsfeld AFTER McKinney had pointed out that several multinational corporations, with close ties to the elite, had already been busted for selling innocent children into a life of child sex slavery. The heated exchange takes place here.

Drug running and child sex trafficking are big business. As the reader will discover, later in this article, the money is skimmed, laundered and used to promote regime change through the use of proxy forces such as al-Qaeda. If one can be made to understand this process, then one can understand the power of the shadow government and how it effectively operates as the supreme fourth branch of government.

US Military Leadership Is In Survival Mode

As Ambassador Chris Stevens was begging for help after the attack had begun, AFRICOM commander, General Hamm, had activated a special forces team within minutes of learning that the embassy, which was really a CIA safe house, in charge of facilitating an arms transfer between the CIA and its proxy representatives (e.g. Chris Stevens) was under attack.

The military does not give a damn about drug running and child sex trafficking. However, they do care about their careers and the preservation of the military as an independent and viable entity. The firing of 260+ senior command officers by Obama, serves to threaten this viability. The presence of UN vehicles and troops also threaten the viability of the US military.

From the perspective of the military, the Obama administration is the mortal enemy of the viability and independence of the American military.



According to the same sources who accurately told me that Admiral Gayoutte and General Hamm were launching a rescue mission designed to save Chris Stevens when they were arrested by CIA personnel serving in their ranks, these men wanted to save Stevens to expose Obama’s betrayal of this country and it ideals, namely, to bring to light drug running, child sex trafficking in order to fund the purchase of arms to be used by proxy forces in promoting regime change.. This was an old-fashioned coup attempt. By saving Stevens, Hamm could have leveraged this information to obtain an American regime change based on these explosive revelations. We know that much of the former military leadership in this country favors a regime change which would remove Obama from power.



If one cares to do the research, I was reporting on these facts that Obama had survived a coup attempt at this time. A few months later, people like Glenn Beck decided they would publish similar information after criticizing me a few months earlier for printing what they would eventually publish. These same insider sources are telling me that child sex trafficking was helping to support the arming of the rebels in Libya and Syria. Yes, I am saying that General Hamm was part of plot which would have brought down Obama and Clinton in one fell swoop. This was an attempted military coup just as I had previously reported.



When General Ham received his “stand down” orders from Obama, he made plans to commit mutiny and go ahead with the rescue of Stevens, as he did, he was arrested within minutes of contravening he order by his second in command, General Rodriquez. Admiral Gayouette, the commander of Carrier Strike Group Three, was preparing to provide intelligence and air cover for General Hamm’s rescue team in violation of his standing orders and he was promptly relieved of command for allegations of inappropriate leadership judgment.”



The positions held by Hamm and Gayouette are so powerful and so sensitive, their replacements required approval from the Senate. Also, at that time, the Middle East was considered to be a war zone in which it was believed that the US was trying to provoke Syria and/or Iran into attacking the US so we could have the pretext for invasion.

Key questions about the mutiny on Benghazi:

1. Did Hamm and Gayouette commit mutiny in a war zone?

Answer: Without question!

2. Where did Hamm and Gayouette fit into the power structure of the military?

Answer: In a war zone, these two men represented two of the top four commanders in the region. Hamm would have overseen any military incursion into Syria or Iran. When Obama fired the two leaders, he effectively gutted his military command structure in the region.

3.. Did Hamm and Gayouette’s conspiracy to commit mutiny in the face standing presidential orders occur in isolation?

Answer: Only a person with absolutely no knowledge of military command structure would be so naive to believe this assertion. The military builds in redundant chains of command which overlap. There is no way that Hamm and Gayouette’s mutiny was occurring without the knowledge of their superiors as well as the NSA, which explains how the Obama administration learned of this betrayal and moved to arrest both men before any rescue effort could have been launched.

4. Why were key leaders in the military willing to risk their careers in this mutiny?

Answer: Because every senior command military officer was being faced with the continual acquisition and control of our military by outside forces, this threatened the upward mobility of the more aggressive commanders and it threatened the very viability of the military itself.

Hillary Clinton

When Hillary “What does it matter?” Clinton was unable to contain the fall out, and subsequent cover up from Ambassador Stevens death, she was out as Secretary of State and John “Ketchup” Kerry was in. The appointment of Kerry was a brilliant move by an otherwise bumbling set of attempts to cover up the murder of Stevens. During the Reagan administration, Kerry led a congressional investigation which ultimately led to the conviction and exposure of Air America and the nefarious Iran-Contra Affair which was led by the CIA in violation against the laws of this nation. Kerry’s appointment to the Secretary of State position would ease the fears of a cover up because he had previously blown the lid off of a similar Benghazi operation over 25 years ago. On the surface, Kerry was the perfect choice if the administration wanted to avoid allegations of any further allegations of a Benghazi cover up. Unfortunately, for the Obama administration, the seemingly brilliant appointment of Kerry did not throw the investigative dogs off of the Benghazi trail and it is the scandal, along with the IRS scandal, that will just not go away. This undying attention on this story happened thanks to tips provided to journalists such as myself by disenfranchised and former US military,

If there is ever a revolution in this country involving elements of the US military vs. the blue helmeted foreign (i.e. Russian, Chinese, et al.) assets, these disenfranchised elements of the military, will need the popular support of the people to win.

Conclusion

There are two more important questions to ask:

1. Why did Stevens have to die?

Answer: The administration discovered that the military was providing back-channel information to journalists in order to expose that this administration was doing business with al-Qaeda for the purposes of regime change. Steven was killed less than two months before the election of Obama to a second term. Can one only imagine what the public backlash would have been if Stevens had been rescued, stayed angry and told all in retaliation?

2. Ultimately, why would the military want to save a CIA drug runner and sex trafficker?

Answer: Stevens could have been leveraged to bring down the present administration which poses such a dire threat to the careers of the military’s leadership. FOR THE MILITARY, THE LAST STRAW CONSISTS OF THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION RELEASING MILLIONS OF ILLEGAL ALIENS AS PRETEXT TO THE UN GAINING POLICE POWERS WITHIN THE US UNDER THE GUISE OF PROVIDING HUMANITARIAN ASSISTANCE.

In Part Three, I will expose the irrefutable and publicly available proof that Stevens was sex-trafficking for the CIA in order to promote regime change.

The sources supporting the allegations of drug-running and child sex trafficking in order to raise and launder the money associated with promoting regime change in continue to be former representative, Cynthia McKinney, a quiet but damning Senate Subcommittee Report, a senior banking official from one of the major banks and your common sense.

If you want one more reason as to why there are so many dead banksters, you may get your wish in Part Three.