http://www.alternet.org/…

I arrived at JFK Airport two weeks ago after a short vacation to Syria and presented my American passport for re-entry to the United States. After 28 hours of traveling, I had settled into a hazy awareness that this was the last, most familiar leg of a long journey. I exchanged friendly words with the Homeland Security official who was recording my name in his computer. He scrolled through my passport, and when his thumb rested on my Syrian visa, he paused. Jerking toward the door of his glass-enclosed booth, he slid my passport into a dingy green plastic folder and walked down the hallway, motioning for me to follow with a flick of his wrist. Where was he taking me, I asked him. “You’ll find out,” he said.

This story isn’t unique but I found it fairly well written and detailed.

http://www.telegram.com/…

Victor Deeb, the retired chemist who stored hundreds of chemicals in his house, was allowed to return home yesterday after authorities spent three days dismantling his basement laboratory.

None of the materials found at 81 Fremont St. posed a radiological or biological risk, according to the state Department of Environmental Protection. No mercury or poison was found. Some of the compounds are potentially explosive, but no more dangerous than typical household cleaning products.

All potentially hazardous materials were removed from the house, which the Deebs have owned since 1988. A cleanup company, contracted by DEP, is continuing to test the chemicals in a lab.

“Ultimately, they will be disposed of,” said DEP spokesman Joseph M. Ferson, who said the city’s Department of Public Works is making sure nothing seeped into the sewer lines.

Mr. Deeb declined to comment yesterday. Authorities say he has patents pending and had been using his basement as a science lab to conduct experiments, possibly for many years.

Firefighters found more than 1,500 vials, jars, cans, bottles and boxes in the basement Tuesday afternoon, after they responded to an unrelated fire in an air conditioner on the second floor of the home.

Vessels of chemicals were all over the furniture and the floor, authorities said. The ensuing investigation involved a state hazardous materials team, fire and police officials, health officials, environmental officials and code enforcement officials. The Deebs were told to stay in a hotel while the slew of officials investigated and emptied the basement.

Pamela A. Wilderman, Marlboro’s code enforcement officer, said Mr. Deeb was doing scientific research and development in a residential area, which is a violation of zoning laws.

“It is a residential home in a residential neighborhood,” she said. “This is Mr. Deeb’s hobby. He’s still got bunches of ideas. I think Mr. Deeb has crossed a line somewhere. This is not what we would consider to be a customary home occupation. … There are regulations about how much you’re supposed to have, how it’s detained, how it’s disposed of.”

Mr. Deeb’s home lab likely violated the regulations of many state and local departments, although officials have not yet announced any penalties.

“He’s been very cooperative,” Ms. Wilderman said. “I won’t be citing him for anything right at this moment.”

I like the frankness of Robert Bruce Thompson over at MAKE blog on this: “Allow me to translate Ms. Wilderman’s words into plain English: ‘Mr. Deeb hasn’t actually violated any law or regulation that I can find, but I don’t like what he’s doing because I’m ignorant and irrationally afraid of chemicals, so I’ll abuse my power to steal his property and shut him down.’” and “There’s a word for what just happened in Massachusetts. Tyranny. And it’s something none of us should tolerate.”

Hear, hear.

Perhaps we should show US 8-15 y/o’s videos like this so they know who they will be shooting at in 10 years.

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/…

Morgan Jones once built a tank out of scrap metal and drove it to church.

During annual potluck parties at his backwoods Clarion County home, he often wowed guests with his homemade flamethrower.

And sometimes, just for fun, he’d entertain friends by shooting an electrical charge through his body to light a bulb.

His wife, Donna, says he’s a little eccentric.

“I never thought it was illegal to be eccentric,” she said. “He’s a good man. He’s not a terrorist or a domestic threat.”

Agents from the federal Joint Terrorism Task Force thought otherwise when they arrested Jones last month as he left Sunday Mass in the sleepy hamlet of Lucinda.

Jones, 64, was charged with selling a Romanian AK-47 assault rifle to an undercover agent posing as an Ohio resident.

Later, when agents headed down a bumpy, macadam road to Jones’ modular home, they found an array of homemade weapons, a cannon, drums of explosive chemicals and a depleted uranium shell. The military often uses uranium shells because they penetrate tank armor.

Officials allege Jones is a major player in a militia movement whose shadowy members have a “propensity toward violence” against the government, elected officials, judges and law enforcement.

“Propensity toward violence?! That’s our job!!” “Militia? That’s something the government is supposed to handle subject citizen! Ignore the ‘bad eggs’ tazing people, the check points, the NAU, the creeping police state. We will protect you.”

Read More…

http://www.cbsnews.com/…

Calling it “one of the worst decisions in the history of this country,” John McCain ripped into the Supreme Court’s decision to allow Guantanamo detainees access to civilian trials for the second day in a row. “We’re now going to have the courts flooded with so-called “habeas corpus suits” against the government, whether it be about the diet, whether it be about the reading material,” McCain said. “Our first obligation is the safety and security of this nation and the men and women who defend it. This decision will harm our ability to do that.”

The Supreme Court ruled 5 to 4 yesterday that enemy combatants can challenge their detention at Guantanamo Bay in U.S. courts, instead of military tribunals. It was a decision welcomed by McCain’s rival. “The Court’s decision is a rejection of the Bush Administration’s attempt to create a legal black hole at Guantanamo - yet another failed policy supported by John McCain,” Barack Obama said. “This is an important step toward reestablishing our credibility as a nation committed to the rule of law, and rejecting a false choice between fighting terrorism and respecting habeas corpus.”

At a town hall meeting here today, McCain sought to use Obama’s embrace of the decision against him. “Sen. Obama applauds this decision and he supports it,” McCain said. “I argue against it and will do what I can to at least narrow down some of the wide open aspects of this Supreme Court decision.”

He shows how much of a warmonger he is yet again. He doesn’t want to give these individuals one of the most fundamental rights in western and common law, habeas corpus. He wants the government to be able to just lock people up indefiently with no charges brought up in front of their peers. Why? Likely because he knows it will show that this war on terror is a farse and that many of these men held have done nothing to harm US subjects. This and the last warmonger info to come out should be more than enough to discredit this man and keep him from being dog catcher let alone president.

http://wnd.com/…

Two new directives signed by President Bush establish sweeping authority for federal executive departments and agencies to establish a coordinated “framework” to collect and retain biometric data on U.S. citizens identified as “known and suspected terrorists,” without requiring public or congressional disclosure of the procedures.

Although the directives run over 1,700 words in length, Congress is not mentioned once, nor is there any specification of how the coordinated “framework” will be disclosed to the public.

WND contacted the White House press office for comment but received no return call.

The directives also do not specify any procedures for citizens to challenge their inclusion in the biometric database or any resulting consequences, such as restricted travel or additional government surveillance.

How is it that something so large can be put into place without the say of Congress? Obviously while the executive branch is given funds by the legislative and not all ways in which the money will be spent can be tagged by them you would think something this intensive would get some nod from those who hold the purse and pass law. But no. As we have seen time and time again from Lincoln to G.W. Bush the executive branch thinks itself supreme and obviously above the law.

I suspect that this will be challenged right quick by the EFF and/or ACLU and if we’re lucky it’d be shot down.