Paul Joseph Watson
GCN Live.com
Friday, February 3, 2012

VIPR search teams to be out in force before Sunday’s big game.

Despite acknowledging there are “no credible or specific threats” to the safety of the 2012 Super Bowl in Indianapolis on Sunday, the TSA is training thousands of fast food sellers and other vendors to spot terrorists under the “First Observer” program.

“TSA said over 8,000 stadium vendors, parking lot attendants, shuttle bus drivers, and other transportation professionals received the agency’s First Observer training for detecting and assessing indicators and planning tactics of potential terrorist activities,” reports Government Security News.

As we have previously reported, many of the behaviors characterized as potential signs of terrorism by the TSA in its training procedures are mundane activities performed by a majority of people, including using a video camera, talking to police officers, wearing hoodies, driving vans, writing on a piece of paper, and using a cell phone recording application.

The First Observer program has previously been used by the TSA on America’s highways, most recently in Tennessee for the purpose of “bothering truck drivers and passengers by subjecting their cargoes to exhaustive searches,” as former Congressman Bob Barr wrote back in November.

Drivers were also recruited to become snitches under the auspices of “See Something, Say Something,” as VIPR teams (Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response) worked with the Tennessee Highway Patrol to oversee a process that has been criticized as an alarming sign of internal checkpoints becoming commonplace in America.

With Congress having recently given the green light to increase their funding, VIPR teams, who conducted over 9300 unannounced checkpoints last year alone, will also be very much in evidence at the Super Bowl this weekend.

“According to TSA, Super Bowl fans may encounter TSA Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response (VIPR) teams at local transportation venues, including commercial and general aviation facilities and mass transit,” reports GSN.

VIPR’s presence at the big game again illustrates the expanding scope of the deployment, under which TSA agents have been tasked with shaking down Americans at everywhere from bus depots, to ferry terminals, to train stations, in one instance conducting pat downs of passengers, including children, who had already completed their journey when arriving in Savannah.

The TSA yesterday denied a report out of WPRI that full body scanners would be used on fans entering the stadium, but reiterated that they would be in use at the nearby airport and also made reference to other “security issues” being coordinated with stadium venue security and local law enforcement.

Fans attending the game will be subject to a full body pat down and have been warned that most items being brought into the Lucas Oil Stadium will be confiscated.

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Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a regular fill-in host for The Alex Jones Show and Infowars Nightly News.

Steve Watson
GCN Live.com
February 3, 2012

ACLU demands information relating to CIA “kill list” and drone strikes on Americans.

The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit this week against the Department of Justice, the Department of Defense, and the CIA, demanding the release of any information pertaining to the deaths of three American citizens resulting directly from drone missile strikes in 2011.

Details regarding the deaths of accused Al Qaeda leaders Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Kahn, both American citizens, have been kept under wraps. Both men were reportedly killed in targeted drone attacks last year in Yemen.

The third US citizen to be killed was Awlaki’s 16-year-old son, Abdulrahman, who was killed in a drone attack two weeks after al-Awlaki and Kahn.

At the time Obama described the death of Awlaki as a “significant milestone” in the war on terror.

“Our government’s deliberate and premeditated killing of American terrorism suspects raises profound questions that ought to be the subject of public debate,” Nathan Freed Wessler of the ACLU writes.

“Unfortunately the Obama administration has released very little information about the practice — its official position is that the targeted killing program is a state secret — and some of the information it has released has been misleading.” Wessler adds.

Also in question is a CIA “kill list” that Awlaki is said to have been added to more than a year before he was killed. The ACLU is demanding information on the process by which Americans have been added to the secret list. A previous Freedom of Information Act request for the material was ignored by the government.

The CIA and the DOJ refuse to confirm or deny the existence or nonexistence of records relating to a targeted killing program.

The ACLU says the response is incredible given that details have been published in the media and spoken of by government officials.

“Some officials, including President Obama, have spoken on the record about the program. They have publicly claimed responsibility for killing al-Awlaki, and they have more generally defended the government’s right to kill citizens after a secret non-judicial process.” The ACLU statment reads.

Last week Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta acknowledged that the U.S. has assumed the authority to conduct targeted assassinations of U.S. citizens on the recommendations of the CIA Director and the Secretary of Defense and pursuant to the President’s authorization:

This week, President Obama followed up those sentiments by publicly defending the secret drone killing program:

“The public has a right to know the evidence and legal basis for the deliberate targeted killing of U.S. citizens,” the ACLU’s Wessler said. “So chilling a power must be opened to public scrutiny and debate.”

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Steve Watson is the London based writer and editor for Alex Jones’ Infowars.net, and Prisonplanet.com. He has a Masters Degree in International Relations from the School of Politics at The University of Nottingham in England.