Two former intelligence officials have made some pretty stunning allegations: that Federal agents sent to quell protests in Portland Oregon also engaged in a classified cell phone cloning operation that aimed to lift information off of protesters phones.
According to @thenation, the DHS has not come clean about this.
Details of the operation are still classified, but @kenklippenstein reports that it included interceptions of protesters phone calls by either the DHS or other federal agencies involved, like the DOJ.
While this would be a shocking weaponization of unwarranted surveillance against citizens exercising first amendment rights, it’s not exactly hard to believe.
The Washington Post previously reported that the DHS’s intelligence division was building out dossiers on prominent journalists covering the protests in Portland, and then refused to answer congressional inquiries about them.
Additionally, one of the anonymous former officials said DHS’s intelligence wing asked for volunteers to go to Portland, and very few hands raised.
The former official said “...you only do that if you don’t have the ability to order someone to go, probably because it’s illegal.”
It’s unclear when, or if we’ll get an understanding of the full scope of the federal government’s actions in Portland.
It’s even more unclear whether there will be any consequences for the people responsible.
After a blitzkreig confirmation process and a hasty swearing-in ceremony, Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump successfully installed Amy Coney Barrett on the Supreme Court on Monday night.
The Senate voted 52-48. Every Democrat, Independent, + Susan Collins voted against Barrett, but it did nothing to McConnell’s ironclad majority.
After the vote, Trump put together a slapdash swearing-in ceremony on the South Lawn to get Barrett on the bench as fast as possible.
It’s hard to fully grasp what this news means.
Some of the first cases Barrett sees will be related to elections in North Carolina and Pennsylvania, and she could also be part of a ruling if election results next week get challenged.
A new report shows that Donald Trump used Facebook for a massive voter deterrence operation in 2016, targeting up to 3.5 million black voters in swing states with negative ads about Hillary Clinton in an attempt to suppress votes and “cultivate hopelessness" » »
The report by UK's Channel 4 is based on a massive data leak of Trump campaign advertising data that shows the campaign compiled files on 198 million US voters and then used an algorithm to sort them into categories based on their economic and domestic statuses and other data »
One of these categories was called “deterrence,” which effectively meant voters who could be persuaded to stay at home if hit with the right ads. 3.5 million of those voters were black, and many of them lived in swing states like Florida »
A major investigation finds it’s not just bad for the environment – it’s produced in conditions tantamount to slavery »»
A new @AP investigation offers the most comprehensive look yet at labor abuses in the palm oil industry.
The AP interviewed more than 130 workers from palm companies who labored on plantations in Malaysia and Indonesia.
Those two countries produce most of the world’s palm oil
Workers spoke of child labor, outright slavery and rape. Fishermen who escaped years of slavery on boats described coming ashore in search of help, but instead being trafficked onto plantations -- sometimes with police involvement » »
Protests that have been ongoing in Louisville picked up again after yesterday’s announcement that no officers would be charged directly with killing Taylor, despite a preemptive declaration of emergency by the mayor.
Online video showed white men carrying guns and wearing military-style uniforms patrolling the streets.
The vigilantes moved apparently unimpeded by police.
Many businesses and government offices were boarded up and a twenty-five block perimeter of the city was closed to traffic.
Before night fell, police deployed a chemical agent into a crowd of protesters and made several arrests.
Another woman has come forward with an allegation of sexual assault by Donald Trump.
Amy Dorris told the Guardian that Trump assaulted her when she was twenty four years old and he fifty one, and married to his second wife, Marla Maples.
The assault allegedly took place outside the bathroom in Trump’s VIP box at the US Open tournament in New York. It was September 5th, 1997.
Dorris had been invited there by her boyfriend at the time, who was in real estate and friendly with Trump. » »
When she went to the bathroom to adjust her contact lenses, Trump followed her and waited outside.
She told the Guardian that Trump "shoved his tongue down my throat and I was pushing him off." » »