Mohamed Osman Mohamud, the Portland, Oregon, teenager was groomed and talked into a plot to detonate what he thought were six 55-gallon drums of explosives in a van, according to friends and the young man’s defense.
Outside the courtroom, a man who has played basketball with Mohamud said the teenager wouldn’t have gotten involved in the plot without encouragement from the FBI, the Associated Press reports. “If you talk with someone enough, they’ll be convinced they need to do something,” said 20-year-old Muhahid El-Naser. Inside the courthouse, public defender Stephen Sady was making similar arguments as he entered a not guilty plea on behalf of Mohamud.
Federal prosecutors, led by Obama’s top cop Eric Holder, insist Mohamud was a willing participant, had dismissed talk of backing out, and reveled in the prospect of killing Portlanders as they gathered to celebrate the lighting of a public Christmas tree. Holder defended the FBI sting, saying that once the undercover operation began, Mohamud “chose at every step to continue” with the plot cooked up by the FBI.
Holder and the Justice Department are pushing the absurd case and defending Mohamud’s entrapment because the government needs a steady stream of homegrown patsies and impressionable teenagers to argue for increasing the size and scope of the homeland police state.
On Sunday, a fire destroyed part of the Salman Alfarisi Islamic Center in Corvallis, Oregon. Mohamed Osman Mohamud had attended the mosque. FBI spokeswoman Beth Anne Steele in Portland said the arson fire seemed to be an attempt “to interfere with the civil rights of the members of the church to freely worship,” according to the UPI.
Anti-Muslim sentiment has increased exponentially since September 11, 2001, when we were told Islamic bad guys in remote caves planned and executed an attack on America.
In a damning new lurch towards web censorship, Google’s news aggregator has blacklisted Prison Planet and Infowars despite the fact that both websites are internationally known and now attract more traffic than many mainstream media websites, while Google-owned You Tube has frozen the Alex Jones Channel based on a spurious complaint about showing Wikileaks footage that has been carried on hundreds of other You Tube channels for months.
After carrying our content for years, Google News last week purged Prison Planet and Infowars from its aggregator system, ensuring that our stories no longer appear alongside the likes of CNN and Fox News in a frightening early salvo in the move towards a tiered Internet that favors large corporations while independent voices are strangled.
Only smaller sites that re-post Prison Planet content have appeared in Google searches since early November, proving that the campaign is a deliberate effort on behalf of Google to restrict traffic to Alex Jones’ websites. Our stories have been linked almost every day on the Drudge Report for the past three weeks, as our readership figures soar past numerous corporate media websites that are carried by Google News. We are clearly a legitimate and internationally recognized news outlet and yet Google has blacklisted us because it disagrees with our political viewpoints.
In addition, Google-owned You Tube yesterday moved to freeze the popular Alex Jones Channel, which has well over 100,000 subscribers and has had over 75 million views. You Tube made a spurious claim that the channel had violated “community guidelines” by posting a segment from the infamous Wikileaks Apache footage, when the footage is in fact posted in greater length on hundreds of other You Tube channels, including Al Jazeera, Russia Today and CBS News.
Double standards: You Tube targets the Alex Jones Channel for showing a brief segment of a video that appears on hundreds of other You Tube channels, including CBS News and Russia Today.
When we responded to You Tube by pointing out that the Wikileaks footage in question appeared in multiple places elsewhere on You Tube in far greater length and detail, and that it was not vulgar or offensive but a real incident that was of clear public concern which was posted under fair use (USC Title 17, Section 106A-117), You Tube reacted by freezing uploading privileges for the account while also threatening to terminate it entirely.
You Tube is essentially sending a message that if you disagree with their decision, your claim won’t be considered, you will simply be punished to an even greater degree.
This is by no means the first time that Google and You Tube have engaged in open blacklisting of Alex Jones’ material.
Once Google’s fiercest critics have been silenced for good the company can then set about implementing its CIA-backed total information awareness program, which will scour Twitter accounts, blogs and websites for all sorts of information left by individual users, aiming to use this data to “predict the future” and completely direct and control people’s lives and behavior.
Google CEO Eric Schmidt has announced that Google, in conjunction with the CIA, is set to become the ultimate Big Brother entity that “will know so much about its users that the search engine will be able to help them plan their lives” by constantly tracking their location via smart phones and telling them where to go and what to do.
There is also no doubt that Google is one of the corporations at the forefront of the government’s drive to use cybersecurity as a pretext for killing the free Internet, having previously worked with the NSA and the CIA.
There can be little doubt that this latest lurch in web censorship is part of the overall agenda to tighten the noose around independent news websites as they continue to outstrip the establishment media in terms of trustworthiness and reach.
Infowars.com alone now gets more traffic than MSNBC.com, a multi-billion dollar news operation funded by General Electric and the military-industrial complex.
The fact that millions are shunning the mainstream media and flocking to independent media outlets undoubtedly has the system running scared, exemplified by the recent rebellion against the TSA which was led by the Drudge Report.
The fact that the status quo is rapidly losing its power to influence the body politic and that this is shifting over to independent media not controlled by giant corporations has the establishment petrified, which is why they are doing everything possible to tighten the screws on websites like Prison Planet, Infowars, and Alex Jones content in general.
It is evident that the system revels in any chance to dampen the loud voice that Alex Jones, Infowars.com/PrisonPlanet.com and its supporters have raised on the Internet, effectively challenging the status quo and mainstream media spin on major news and events. With the easy passage of the web censorship bill, it is clear that what is happening now to Infowars.com and Alex Jones will soon happen to anyone without a politically-correct message, particularly when that message is capable of resonating throughout large parts of the globe.
With Homeland Security now openly seizing websites with no due course or opportunity for redress, the age of Internet censorship has now begun, with an iron curtain beginning to descend over free speech as the United States enacts policies more draconian than those of communist China.
If independent news websites and their readers don’t stand together in unison to decry Google’s efforts to kill free speech on the Internet, the web as a last outpost for the tattered and torn First Amendment will be lost forever.
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 fill-in host for The Alex Jones Show. Watson has been interviewed by many publications and radio shows, including Vanity Fair and Coast to Coast AM, America’s most listened to late night talk show.
The Homeland Security Department’s customs enforcement division has gone on a Web site shutdown spree, closing down at least 76 domains this week, according to online reports.
While many of the web domains were sites that trafficked in counterfeit brand name goods, and some others linked to copyright-infringing file-sharing materials, at least one site was a Google-like search engine, causing alarm among web freedom advocates who worry the move steps over the line into censorship.
All the shut sites are now displaying a Homeland Security warning that copyright infringers can face up to five years in prison.
According to a report at TorrentFreak, the search engine that was shut down — Torrent-Finder.com — neither hosted copyrighted material nor directly linked to places where it could be found. Instead, the site opened new windows to sites that did link to file-sharing materials.
“When a site has no tracker, carries no torrents, lists no copyright works unless someone searches for them and responds just like Google, accusing it of infringement becomes somewhat of a minefield,” writes Torrentfreak, “Unless you’re ICE Homeland Security Investigations that is.”
As of its last update, Torrentfreak counted 76 domains shut down this week.
Homeland Security’s ability to shut down sites without a court order evidently comes from the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, a Clinton-era law that allows Web sites to be closed on the basis of a copyright complaint. Critics have long assailed the DMCA for being too broad, as complainants don’t need to prove copyright infringement before a site can be taken down.
News of the shutdowns has some observers wondering whether the US really needs COICA, the anti-counterfeiting bill that passed through a Senate committee with unanimous approval last week. That bill would allow the federal government to block access to Web sites that attorneys general deem to have infringed on copyright.
“Domain seizures coming under the much debated ‘censorship bill’ COICA? Who needs it?” quips Torrentfreak.
However, COICA would allow the government to block access to Web sites located anywhere in the world, while Homeland Security’s take-downs are limited to servers inside the United States. Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon said he would place a hold on COICA, effectively killing the bill at least until the new congressional session next year.
The owner of Torrent-Finder.net complained that his search engine was shut down without so much as a court order or prior complaint.
“My domain has been seized without any previous complaint or notice from any court!” the owner said, without being identified in the Torrentfreak article.
Earlier this week, Homeland Security shut down a popular hip-hop music site, RapGodfathers.com, which had nearly 150,000 members. The site claims it is compliant with copyright laws, as it doesn’t host copyrighted materials. However, its users posted links to file-hosting services such as Rapidshare and Megaupload, where copyrighted material may have been shared.
These domains are now “the property of Homeland Security,” writes Gareth Halfacree at Thinq.co.uk, “And there’s no indication that their original owners will ever be able to get them back.”
No one could have predicted when it would happen, but it happened: the 9/11 Truth movement has hit the mainstream.
The question of what exactly happened to the much-ignored Building 7, the third tower that collapsed on 9/11 – but which was not hit by any of the planes – is now out in the open. And the American people want answers.
GCN’s investigative news program INN World Report has taken a keen interest in this topic, along with other GCN stalwarts such as The Secret Truth and The Alex Jones Show. INN’s Tom Kiely interviewed ‘Building What’ organizer Bob McIlvaine just before Thanksgiving to gain perspective on the issue and to find out just what drove the founding of the ‘Building What?’ project.
‘Building What?’ is an effort to bring awareness about the strange collapse of Building 7, which many think was a controlled demolition. ‘Building What?’ has gone so far as to create a television commercial that ran in New York City during sweeps. Fox News Anchor Geraldo Rivera then saw the commercial and had McIlvaine and engineer Tony Szamboti on his program in an absolutely amazing interview. So, the mystery surrounding Building 7 has gone viral. But what does all this mean? It means that the 9/11 truth movement – and a serious discussion of Building 7 – has found its way onto the alphabet channels, and thus, will now be filtered through the false left/right paradigm. The question is, does this mainstream nod legitimize the 9/11 Truth movement, or has it been co-opted?
Judge Andrew Napolitano and Geraldo Rivera discuss Building 7
According to the ‘Building What?’ website, the campaign is cosponsored by several groups, led by the NYC Coalition for Accountability Now (NYC CAN) (an organization of 9/11 family members, first responders and survivors), and by Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth, an organization of 1,347 verified architectural and engineering professionals who have put their professional reputations on the line to publicly challenge the official report on Building 7’s destruction.
McIlvaine’s story to Kiely was one that ultimately, was the heart of a parent trying to bring justice to the memory of a fallen child. McIlvaine told Kiely, “from the very beginning, I just didn’t believe what was happening. It’s a simple case: my son was murdered. Of course, for the first six months, it’s too difficult to deal with what was happening. You know, you’re grieving, you have no clue what you’re doing. So it wasn’t like I was out there hitting the road, hitting the pavement, and saying ‘well geez, I don’t believe the government story and I’m going to find the truth’. But I went to all the 9-11 Commission hearings, and…I thought maybe at the beginning that some people knew what was happening. I remember talking to my wife about it and saying ‘I think someone really knew that this was going to happen’. And I think if she had a gun, she would have shot me, because she was so upset that I would think that way.”
Bob McIlvaine, co-founder of the Building What campaign. (Photo: 911 Truth)
“I made 90% of the 9-11 Commission hearings. And I came out of there and I said ‘This is just such a horrible cover-up’. The commissioners only had 5 minutes to speak, and it was specifically Condoleezza Rice was the straw that broke my back. I heard her interview that day, and I just lost it. I’m right in the back of the hearing, because I just couldn’t believe the way she was acting, it was like a filibuster. Each commissioner only had a couple of minutes to interrogate her, and it was ‘who’s been warned about Bin Laden to strike in the United States.’
“So after that, I traveled around the world, and I was really against the war more than anything. I did a lot of speaking for Peaceful Tomorrows.”
The “Building What?” TV ad began airing on November 2 and ran through the week of November 15. It aired 350+ times, estimated to have been seen by millions of viewers in the New York Metropolitan Area, reaching core target audiences multiple times. The ad appeared on thirteen cable channels, cutting through all age, race, and gender demographics.
And for a refresher course on what happened to Building 7, join the nearly one million vigilant minds who’ve watched this video:
North Korea upped the ante on Sunday as South Korea and the United States conduct military exercises described as a show of force in response to North Korea’s artillery bombing of South Korea’s Yeonpyeong Island last week.
North Korea’s missiles “appear to be targeting our fighter jets that fly near the Northern Limit Line (NLL),” a source told the Yonhap New Agency. The Soviet-designed SA-2 missile has a range of between 13 and 30 kilometers. “The military is preparing for the possibility of further provocations as the North Korean military has deployed firepower near the NLL and is preparing to fire,” the source said.
Other missiles on the North Korean west coast, such as the Samlet and Silkworm with ranges of up to 95km, have also been put onto launch pads, the source said.
The Hoguk series of exercises that began earlier this month in South Korea include 70,000 South Korean troops. Exercises built around the USS George Washington carrier battle group in the Yellow Sea began Sunday. The Pentagon claims both sets of exercises are built around deterrence and are in response to the sinking of the Cheonan.
In August, the Obama administration used the Cheonan incident as a pretext to impose additional economic sanctions on North Korea. On May 20, South Korea officially blamed North Korea for the sinking of its warship in March. Investigators from Australia, Britain, Sweden and the United States arrived at the conclusion that North Korea sunk the vessel with a torpedo. Investigators said the torpedo was likely of German manufacture.
“There are suspicions that the US Navy SEALS maintains a sampling of European torpedoes for sake of plausible deniability for false flag attacks,” investigative journalist Wayne Madsen wrote in May. “Also, Berlin does not sell torpedoes to North Korea, however, Germany does maintain a close joint submarine and submarine weapons development program with Israel.”
China has called for emergency talks between North and South Korea in a bid to avoid a possible military conflict. China is North Korea’s most important ally, primary trading partner, and main source of food, arms, and fuel.
Special envoy for Korea Wu Dawei told journalists that Beijing was proposing that chief negotiators from North and South Korea, the US, China, Japan and Russia should meet early December in Beijing. Wu Dawei said the talks would not be a resumption of the six-party dialogue, focussed on the dismantling of North Korea’s nuclear program, which came to a halt last April. South Korea responded skeptically to China’s call for negotiations.
Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told CNN over the weekend that North Korea’s dictator Kim Jung-il “is consistently destabilizing and is only predictable in his unpredictability. He galvanizes everyone around with the potential that they could go to war with South Korea,” the American Forces Press Service reports.
On Sunday, Arizona senator and former presidential candidate John McCain said the situation between North and South Korea presents an opportunity to take down the regime in North Korea. “I think it’s time we talked about regime change in North Korea,” he said, adding that he did not mean “military action.” McCain did not speculate how regime change would occur in North Korea without military involvement.
North Korea is the most militarized country in the world and has the fourth largest army in the world consisting of around 1,106,000 armed personnel, with about 20% of men ages 17-54 in the regular armed forces.
Also on Sunday, leaders in the U.S. Senate supported the military exercises with South Korea. “You don’t flinch,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, South Carolina Republican, said on Fox News Sunday about the response of the United States to North Korea. Graham is a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
