Tuesday 04-30-13

Nothing new here, I guess they will never give up,

Should The FBI Be Able To Monitor Online Communications In Real Time?

As the current ECPA stands, law enforcement has the ability to obtain emails without a warrant. There are some laws currently making their way through Congress to change this, but law enforcement agencies obviously like things as they are. In fact, one agency in particular thinks it needs even more power to spy on your private communications.
Slate reports that FBI general counsel Andrew Weissmann revealed during a talk at the American Bar Association last week that his agency is pushing for the ability to spy on communications in real time. In other words, the FBI wants to install the Internet equivalent of wiretaps on all major email and online chat services, including in-game chats on Facebook, etc, to monitor communications in real time.
Do you think the FBI should be given new spying powers? Let us know in the comments.

Why does the FBI need this new power when it can already obtain emails without a warrant? It’s all about a 1994 surveillance law called the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, or CALEA. The law in its current state allows the FBI and other government agencies to install monitoring equipment on networks run by ISPs and phone companies.
The system used by the FBI is called DCSNet, or Digital Collection System Network. In a report from 2007, Wired dug through documents related to the system to find that the FBI has dramatically increased its online wiretapping operations since 2004. In fact, the numbers show that the FBI increased its wiretapping operations by 62 percent from 2004 to 2007, while the collection of emails grew over 3,000 percent in the same time period.
The last record of DCSNet activity came from 2007 so we can assume that the FBI has upped the ante since then in terms of data collection. All of which begs the question – why does the FBI need new spy powers when it can already siphon off all of our data anyway? If you ask the FBI, it’s quite simple really. The bureau wants real-time monitoring, and it wants it bad.
Weismann says that his ideal world would feature an FBI that would be able to monitor services like Dropbox, Facebook, in-game chats, Gmail, Google Voice and others in real time. This can’t be done under current law as the FBI must essentially acquire permission, or as the law calls it “technical assistance,” under Title III of the Wiretap Act.
The FBI thinks that Title III is so out of vogue, and doesn’t reflect the necessities of modern law enforcement. Slate points out that Weismann’s predecessor, Valerie Caponi, was harping on this back in 2011 when she said that Title III needs to give the bureau the power to essentially force service providers to cooperate with any real-time monitoring requests.
What’s worrisome is that the FBI already has these powers, but it wants more. A Google spokesperson confirmed with Slate that Gmail can’t be intercepted by the CALEA, but a request under the Wiretap Act may do the trick. The thing is – the Wiretap Act, even if Title III were to be reformed, would require the FBI to approach Google and only install wiretapping tools on the necessary accounts.
Under a reformed CALEA, the FBI could essentially watch every piece of email flowing in and out of Gmail without any kind of oversight. It would lead to overly broad surveillance of all communications in the hopes that maybe just one of the emails being sent contains something relevant to a criminal investigation.
Do you think a reformed CALEA could potentially be abused? Would you be concerned for your privacy? Let us know in the comments.
Of course, this isn’t the first time the FBI has wanted to expand its powers in recent memory. In December of last year, law enforcement, including the FBI, passed on a proposal to the Senate that would require wireless carriers to retain all text messages for two years. From there, these text messages could be perused through at their leisure with the sender or receiver of said messages being none the wiser.
Beyond just texting, mobile devices have become a primary target of law enforcement as it attempts to remove any shred of privacy contained in such devices. There are efforts on the state and national levels to require warrants before obtaining this information, but its unlikely to go through. Law enforcement does a good job of spooking congressmen into thinking that the bad guys will win unless every civil liberty enshrined in the Constitution become nothing but pretty words.
All of this is likely to come to a head this year as Weismann says that CALEA reform is a priority for 2013. You can expect to see these other attempts at broadening the powers granted to the FBI and other law enforcement groups to come up as well in these talks.
There is, however, one little sliver of hope. Weismann admits that talk of any new powers should be brought before public debate. By that, we can only hope he means the public at large instead of what public debate usually means in Washington – a couple of congressman that have no idea what they’re doing.

http://www.webpronews.com/fbi-wants-the-power-to-monitor-emails-online-chat-in-real-time-2013-03

Monday 04-29-13

Sad day for us as a country, what has happened to real men as leaders anymore?

Army Removes Bible Reference from Scopes

By Todd Starnes
The U.S. Army is directing troops to remove a Bible inscription that a vendor etched into the serial numbers of weapon scopes, Fox News has learned.
Soldiers at Fort Wainwright in Alaska told Fox News they received a directive to turn in their scopes so the Bible references could be removed.
FOLLOW TODD ON FACEBOOK FOR CULTURE WAR STORIES. CLICK HERE TO JOIN!
The scopes were made by Trijicon and referenced New Testament passages in John 8:12 and Second Corinthians 4:6. The verses appeared at the end of the scope serial numbers – “JN8:12” and “2COR4:6.”
“The biblical verse (JN8:12) must be removed utilizing a Dremel type tool and then painted black,” read instructions on how to remedy the matter.
After the letters and numbers were scraped off, soldiers were directed to use apply black paint to ensure the verses were totally covered.
“The vendor etched those inscriptions on scopes without the Army’s approval,” Army spokesman Matthew Bourke told Fox in a written statement. “Consequently, the modified scopes did not meet the requirement under which the contract was executed.”
Bourke said the vendor agreed to remove all Bible references on future deliveries.
“Some of these scopes had already been fielded,” Bourke explained. “Corrective measures were taken to remove inscriptions during the RESET/PRESET process in order to avoid a disruption in combat operations.”
A similar issue came to light during a 2010 investigation by ABC News. At the time the Army and Marine Corps said they were unaware of the biblical markings.
Trijicon did not return phone calls seeking comment. A company spokesman told ABC News in 2010 that the inscriptions had always been on the sights and there was nothing wrong or illegal with including them.
The company told ABC they believed the issue had been raised by a group that is “not Christian.”
One of the Fort Wainwright soldiers who received the order to remove the inscription told Fox News that hardly anyone was aware of the religious reference.
“It blows my mind,” the solider said. “It doesn’t help the Army do its mission to take off a biblical reference.”
The soldier, who is a Christian, said he had to comply so “someone doesn’t get offended.”
“We have classes on equal opportunity – things that are clearly irrelevant to our mission – which is to kill the enemy.”

http://radio.foxnews.com/toddstarnes/top-stories/army-removes-bible-reference-from-scopes.html

Saturday 04-27-13

American culture at its simpliest

Friday 4-26-13

Sorry for this blog being sporatic, but it is the best I can do for a while, feeding my family takes precedient.  Please bear with me, it the lack of time not the lack of news or articles.

UNPRECEDENTED Shortages Of Ammo, Physical Gold And Physical Silver All Over The United States

  

All over the United States we are witnessing unprecedented shortages of ammunition, physical gold and physical silver.  Recent events have helped fuel a “buying frenzy” that threatens to spiral out of control.  Gun shops all over the nation are reporting that they have never seen it this bad, and in many cases any ammo that they are able to get is being sold even before it hits the shelves.  The ammo shortage has already become so severe that police departments all over America are saying that they are being told that it is going to take six months to a year to get their orders.  In fact, many police departments have begun to trade and barter with one another to get the ammo that they need.  Meanwhile, the takedown of paper gold and paper silver has unleashed an avalanche of “panic buying” of physical gold and physical silver all over the planet.  In the United States, some dealers are charging premiums of more than 25 percent over the spot price for gold and silver and they are getting it.  People are paying these prices even though they are being told that delivery will not happen for a month or two in many cases.  Some dealers are feverishly taking as many orders as they can, and they are just hoping that they will be able to get the physical gold and silver to eventually fill those orders.  Personally, I have never seen anything like this.  If things are this tight now, what is going to happen when the next major financial crisis strikes and people really begin to panic?

 

The shortages and rationing of ammunition at gun shops all over America just seem to keep getting worse.  The following is from an article by a gun owner down in Texas named Brad Meyer…

 

If you’d like to see a normally sullen sales clerk chortle with derisive pleasure, just walk into just about any gun range, sporting goods store or mass merchandiser and try and buy a couple boxes of .22 ammunition.

 

Gun enthusiasts are up in arms about a nationwide shortage of ammunition. Handgun ammo in general is particularly difficult to find – and when you do find it, there are restrictions on the amount you can buy and how much you’re going to be paying for it.

 

While the list of hard to find ammo is long, .22 long rifle and 9mm handgun ammunition are particularly difficult to find in quantity. And the few places that have it are charging a premium rate and usually limiting purchases to one box, per person, per day.

Many gun owners try to find ammunition by going on the Internet, but things have gotten so tight that now any ammo that becomes available online is often gone within seconds…

 

There are websites where people across the country post links to where ammunition is available – and it sells out within seconds. Not minutes or hours – seconds.

Unfortunately, all of this demand is also driving up prices.  Just check out what Meyer says is happening to the price of standard .22 ammo…in bulk for around five cents apiece. It is now going for 50 cents or more on some websites – and people are paying it.

 

But this shortage is not just affecting private citizens.  Sheriff Anthony DeMeo of Nye County, Nev., was told his department’s regular order of 50,000 rounds could take up to a year to arrive.

“This is the first time ever I’ve heard that there’s a problem with a law-enforcement agency getting ammo for their agency.”

Law enforcement agencies in Oklahoma, Wisconsin, Arizona, and Georgia are among many that are having to limit how much they give their officers due to the shortage.

Could you imagine waiting for “up to a year” to get more ammunition? LaCross says that manufacturers are so far behind that they won’t even give him a quote for an order. “We have no estimated time on when it will even be available.

 

What in the world could be causing such an ammo crunch?

The demand for guns and ammo has been trending up in recent years – especially since Barack Obama was elected. But that doesn’t fully account for the shortages. So what is going on?

 

Federal government is responsible?.  They have signed contracts to purchase “up to” 1.6 billion rounds of ammunition.  This amount of ammunition would be enough to fight a “hot war” in America for 20 years…

 

Department of Homeland Security has issued an open purchase order for 1.6 billion rounds of ammunition, some of this purchase order is for hollow-point rounds, forbidden by international law for use in war, along with a frightening amount specialized for snipers. At the height of the Iraq War the Army was expending less than 6 million rounds a month.  Therefore 1.6 billion rounds would be enough to sustain a hot war for 20+ years.  In America.

Could this be a way that the Obama administration is trying to restrict the amount of ammo that gets into the hands of private citizens? The ammo contracts that the federal government has signed give them priority over all other purchasers… It’s a way to control the amount of market that’s available on the commercial market at any time.

 

If they go to the ammo manufacturers and say give me 50 million rounds, give me another 30 million rounds… if they periodically do this in increments, they’re going to control how much ammo is available on the commercial market. As part of their contract it stipulates in there that when the government calls and says give us another quantity, that everything they make has to go to the government priority one before any of it goes to the commercial market. So whenever the government wants to tighten the supply of ammunition, all they have to do is invoke their contracts and order more for themselves.

 

Obama administration plans to use executive orders to greatly restrict the importation of ammo from overseas. The shortage of ammunition is only going to get worse, not better.

 

Meanwhile, the “panic buying” of physical gold and physical silver that we have seen lately has really run down inventories. Precious metals dealers all over the country are scrambling to meet the voracious demand that they have been seeing this month. 

 

The physical silver market is, in a word, ugly. Most dealers, at this point, are selling their current customer demand forward, meaning they are selling product they do not presently have, expecting to pull from future mint allocations. Last week, we turned away business in excess of 100,000 ozs of silver because of stock depletion. A similar thing is happening over in Asia. 

 

Hong Kong Gold & Silver Exchange Society, said the exchange had effectively run out of most of its holdings as members looked to meet a shortfall in supply amid rampant retail demand for gold products. The exchange only had around twenty 1kg bars, and 100 five-tael bars left in its inventory. Older members who have been in the business for 50 years haven’t seen such a thing.

 

The gold that people think is stored is not stored, and the inventory of the warehouses for exchanges may not be holding deliverable gold. There has always been speculation about whether or not the physical gold the US claims to store is in fact in those vaults. The greatest train robbery in history might be all of the gold, and it would only be something like we have described above that would happen right before gold makes historic highs.

 

There simply is no gold behind the paper. I repeat, there is no gold. So are we going to see more of this? Will it soon become evident that there is simply not enough physical gold to cover all of the promises that the banks have made?

 

This gets back to the tip of the iceberg when the Dutch Bank ABN AMRO came out and literally said that if you have allocated gold with us, you can’t have it and it will have an enormous impact on future gold and silver prices.

 

All of this is just another example why I encourage people to get prepared while times are still relatively good. Once disaster strikes, it may be too late to get the things that you need. Right now there are a whole lot of people out there wishing that they had stocked up on ammo when it was much cheaper and much more readily available.

 

We are moving into a time when everything that can be shaken will be shaken.  Use the stability provided by the false bubble of economic hope that we are experiencing right now as an opportunity to get prepared.  The next major wave of the economic collapse is rapidly approaching and time is running out.

 

  http://investmentwatchblog.com/unprecedented-shortages-of-ammo-physical-gold-and-physical-silver/

 

Tuesday 4-23-13

China confirms 102 H7N9 cases, 20 deaths

BEIJING, April 21 (Xinhua) -- During the 24-hour period ending at 4 p.m. on Sunday, China confirmed six new cases of human H7N9 avian influenza, including five in Zhejiang and one in Jiangsu.
The National Health and Family Planning Commission said in its daily update on H7N9 cases that a total of 102 H7N9 cases have been reported in China, including 20 that have ended in death.
Of the total, 12 H7N9 patients have been discharged from hospitals after receiving treatment, and the other 70 patients are being treated in designated hospitals, according to the commission.
A total of 33 cases, including 11 that have ended in death, have been reported in Shanghai. Twenty-four cases, including three deaths, have been reported in Jiangsu Province, and 38 cases, including five deaths, in Zhejiang Province. Anhui Province has reported three cases, with one ending in death. Beijing has reported one case and three have been reported in Henan Province.
China officially confirmed the human cases infected with the H7N9 virus late last month.
According to the commission, China's confirmed H7N9 cases are isolated and there has been no sign of human-to-human transmission.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/china/2013-04/21/c_124610132.htm

Monday 4-22-13

And How Many Bullets Do You Need?

Jim Yardley

 Last night, I watched the amateur home video of the shootout between Boston and Watertown police and the person referred to as "Suspect #1."

I learned that there were something on the order of 200 shots fired during that firefight.

Think about that for just a moment.  It took a dozen or more cops, who are trained professionals, who practice on at least a weekly basis with their firearms, to fire 200 rounds before he finally died.

Yet our politicians (at least here in New York, and some in Washington -- as well as other places, I'm sure) are saying that the most anyone needs to have to protect himself from armed intruders is seven rounds in the magazine.

Only seven?!

Of course, it took trained police, who were not dealing with an unexpected attack, who were not roused from a peaceful slumber, who were not worried about their wives and kids, some 200 rounds to kill one dangerous man.

Makes you wonder if those politicians have even the slightest, tiniest hint of anything connected with the real world, doesn't it?

Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2013/04/and_how_many_bullets_do_you_need.html#ixzz2RD7KTRZW

Saturday 04-20-13

The Goal Is To Destroy All Constitutional Culture

Thursday, 18 April 2013 04:45 Brandon Smith

In America, our cultural method of debate tends to divide individual issues into carefully separated spheres of discussion. This hyperfocus on single issues, from gun rights to illegal wars to invasion of privacy, draws us away from looking at the bigger interconnected picture, otherwise known as the “macro.” Each social or political conflict is compartmentalized by the mainstream, the dots are left isolated and the overwhelming overall threat to our foundational principles is marginalized.
The problem with this civic philosophy is that the general public is left without peripheral vision and unequipped to comprehend that there is a process in motion, an overarching plan that is eating away at the edges of our liberty from every angle, one small piece at a time. That is to say, we have been conditioned to obsess over the pieces and ignore the plan.
I want you to imagine the globalist establishment and the useful socialist idiots it employs as a hive of ants lurking in the grass around a bountiful picnic basket you (or your forefathers) worked very hard to procure. Now, one ant snatches a single crumb and races away, and you think to yourself that losing that one crumb is not such a sacrifice. A few more ants pilfer crumbs, and you shrug it off. A dozen more arrive, and you start to worry a little but are still too lazy to pull out the Raid. The rest of the hive sees your apathy and attacks, gobbling everything in a swarm of single-minded destruction. Left with nothing, you sit dumbfounded and hungry, wondering where you went wrong. The truth is, you went wrong with the first ant.
Not only are personal wealth and property ransacked by the collective in this way, but also personal freedom.
Every time a smaller attack on liberty is exposed or openly announced by the cult of statism, elitists invariably respond with a false face of rationality and common sense. They claim that they respect the line. They claim that they will take only the minimum. They claim that they are pursuing only a reasonable compromise. They expound on the “virtues” of their motives. They sing songs of unity, brotherhood and the greater good. They appeal to our diplomatic side; and if that doesn’t work, they try to shame us instead for being “selfish” or “ignorant” of so-called “social progress.” But this never has been and never will be about social progress.
Their goal is not to introduce greater understanding or awareness. It is not about public good or public safety. And at the very core, it is not about truth. If they cared about truth or principle and if their objectives were honorable, they would not feel the need to constantly lie, cheat, steal, manipulate and threaten in an effort to impose their own worldview on the rest of us. If their purpose was as righteous as they pretend, then deceit and subversion should be beneath them. Their philosophy should be able to carry itself, without their convoluted efforts.
The power elites and the people who blindly follow them are not interested in being on the right side. They are interested only in being on the winning side, and the two are certainly not the same. In the end, the result they covet most is not to achieve compromise on Constitutional ideals, but to achieve total and unequivocal destruction of those ideals. They seek to erase our heritage from history, along with those of us who value it. They want to annihilate Constitutional culture.
Through the efforts of the liberty movement, many Americans are now at least loosely aware of such issues as the National Defense Authorization Act, which allows the designation of anyone — including American citizens — as enemy combatants subject to the laws of war, thus destroying the Constitutional right to due process and trial by jury. They have witnessed the vicious trampling of the 4^th Amendment and our right to privacy through legislation like the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. They have been confronted with the gross tyranny of Barack Obama’s executive assassination lists and predator drone fetish. They are aware of the existence of Department of Defense efforts to remove all vestiges of Posse Comitatus and allow standing military authority in the United States through the U.S. Northern Command (Northcom).
All of these things are clearly part of a violent war on our Constitutional rights, but what about the more subtle poison being introduced under the surface? The first place to look is always in your child’s school.
In Duvall County, Fla., the father of a 10-year-old boy discovered his son had been asked by a teacher to write and sign this statement as part of a school project:
“I am willing to give up some of my constitutional rights in order to be safer or more secure.”
When questioned on the purpose of directing fourth-graders to sign such a statement, the school district argued that the students participated in the activity of their own free will and that the lesson was designed to “create an awareness of the five rights contained in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution” and help students “determine their opinions on which rights they value most and least.”
First of all, let’s be honest; I went through public schooling, and anyone else who went through it knows as well as I do that almost nothing within the public school system is treated as voluntary. Threats, fearmongering and mob mentality are all used by State teachers all across the country daily to manipulate and terrorize children into submitting to the program. As a nostalgic refresher, re-examine the incident in a North Carolina school in which a teacher screamed down a student who criticized Obama, claiming that people “could be arrested” for speaking ill of the President.
Secondly, if the teacher in Duvall County was looking to encourage students to “think critically” about their Constitutional rights, then perhaps it would have been helpful to educate them on what those rights are. Unfortunately, the children had not been given practical lessons on their rights before being asked to abandon them for “safety.”
This is a perfect example of the indoctrination process in action. While the gun rights issue has brought the politicization of public schools out in the open, with federalized education centers punishing children across the Nation for merely playing with imaginary guns or talking about toy guns, the real target is not the gun issue for the establishment.  The real target is all Constitutional thought.
Perhaps this is why the methodology of home-schooling has been so demonized by the mainstream, and why Ron Paul’s latest home-schooling initiative is already being attacked as “Christian fundamentalism.” The real reason the establishment’s panties are in a twist is simple; they do not like the idea of parents being able to compose their child’s own curriculum and, thus, remove anti-Constitutional conditioning from their daily lives.
The erasure of Constitutional culture has spread far beyond schooling, however.
The city of New Rochelle, N.Y., has demanded a local veterans’ post take down its Gadsden flag, a flag in existence since the Revolutionary War, because it has been adopted as a symbol of the Tea Party. The city council, led by Democratic Mayor Noam Bramson, voted to remove the flag after voicing concerns about the flag’s message.
Obama sycophant and hardcore big-government mouthpiece Bill Maher this week stated that the left (neo-liberals) needs to stop being afraid of its true goal in the gun debate — to dissolve the 2^nd Amendment — rather than play at compromise.
“I’m so sorry, but this is the problem with the gun debate — it is that it’s a constant center-right debate,” Maher said. “There’s no left in this debate. Everyone on the left is so afraid to say what should be said, which is the Second Amendment is bullshit. Why doesn’t anyone go at the core of it?”
My response would be: “Yes, please do admit your true goals, gun grabbers and opponents of civil liberties. At least be honest about your fascist intentions so that we can stop playing games and have a real eye to eye debate (or fight) on the subject.:
And finally, NASCAR has come under siege by anti-2^nd Amendment legislators as well as the media in general for allowing the National Rifle Association to endorse races. Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) called on broadcasters to block transmissions of the NRA 500 because it would bring national attention to gun rights while the Senate is legislating for gun control (which, in his opinion, is bad).
Perhaps this is purely coincidental, but the timing of this stance against NASCAR’s support of gun culture has arisen right as Oath Keepers, a Constitutional organization dedicated to teaching current serving military, veterans and law enforcement about civil liberties and the affirmation of their oath, announced it is working with racecar driver Jeffrey Earnhardt to bring an Oath Keepers-sponsored vehicle to the NASCAR track.
While some people may not care less about NASCAR or even the 2^nd Amendment, I would point out that through the gun issue, the establishment is ultimately undermining the holy grail of the 1^st Amendment. If gun rights speech and culture can be silenced in the name of “safety” or “compassion,” then why not any other belief?
This problem of selective free-speech has now been exacerbated by the Boston Marathon Bombings.  Oath Keepers had planned and already received a permit for a high profile rally at Lexington Green in Massachusetts (a public venue where one should not need a permit to rally anyway), but the bombings opened the door for the Lexington Board (one member had been trying to undermine the rally from it's inception) to revoke the event.  The excuse given was, of course, that it was for everyone's "safety", and that not enough police were available to secure it.  Though, a secondary event in a nearby town remains approved with little to no trouble.  The right to free speech is NOT subject to the intensity of the times, it is sacrosanct.  Period.  However, many in government today believe that they can rescind our Constitutional liberties whenever the public is distracted enough by disaster.
Incidents like these by themselves do not necessarily seem like an imminent threat to the freedoms of average citizens; but, taken together as a flurry of strategic movements, they represent a full spectrum attack on the very pillars of our founding structure. Throughout history, when conquerors wished to fully dominate a population, they would seek to slowly subsume the people’s mythology and principles. They would attempt to co-opt cultural ideas and values, twisting them into something completely different or wiping them from memory altogether. When the people lose their traditions and heritage, they become easier to mold and rule. This is exactly what is happening in the United States today: an ideological colonization that views Constitutional life as a mortal enemy and hopes to obliterate it from the pages of time.

http://www.alt-market.com/articles/1450-the-goal-is-to-destroy-all-constitutional-culture

Friday 04-19-13

USDA Implements New Program to Track Livestock

MILWAUKEE (TheBlaze/AP) — The federal government has launched a mandatory livestock identification program that officials say will help them quickly track livestock in cases of disease.
The federal government has been trying for nearly a decade to establish an animal identification system. It introduced a voluntary program in 2006 but scrapped it several years later amid widespread complaints from farmers about the expense and red tape. Some also worried about possible privacy violations with the collection of information about their properties. The program ultimately failed because relatively few participated.
The new program is mandatory but supposedly limited in scope. It applies only to animals being shipped across state lines, and it gives states flexibility in deciding how animals will be identified.
The rules that went into effect March 11 require dairy cows and sexually intact beef cattle over 18 months of age to be registered when they are shipped over state lines and outline acceptable forms of identification. In most cases, farmers and ranchers are likely to use ear tags that assign a number to each animal.
There has been talk for years among consumer advocates about establishing a program that would trace food from farm to plate. The livestock identification system doesn’t go that far. Its stated goal is to track animals’ movements so agriculture and health officials can quickly establish quarantines and take other steps to prevent the spread of disease.
While the program covers a range of livestock, much of the focus has been on cattle. That’s partly because aggressive programs to fight diseases such as sheep scabies have already resulted in widespread identification of those animals, said Neil Hammerschmidt, APHIS’ animal disease traceability program manager.

Tracking cows has been less of a concern over the past decade because earlier programs targeting diseases that affect them have been successful.
Still, tracebacks — in which a sick animal’s movements are reviewed as part of the effort to control the spread of a disease — aren’t unusual.
In Wisconsin, many of the larger dairy farms have already switched to ear tags that can be scanned electronically, said Mark Diederichs, president of the Board of Directors of the Professional Dairy Producers of Wisconsin. The tags meet federal standards but aren’t required because of the cost.
Diederichs and his partners, who have about 5,400 cows split between farms in Malone and Poy Sippi, began using them eight years ago in part because they save time. Workers with hand-held devices can scan the tags and immediately pull up animals’ birth, medical and other records.
The tags also are important as companies like McDonald’s want to know where their food came from and be able to trace it back, Diederichs said, adding, “I think that’s going to be the bigger push” for others to switch.
The federal rules allow two states to agree on alternative forms of identification, such as brands, for use with animals shipped between them.

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/04/17/usda-implements-new-program-to-track-livestock/

Thursday 04-18-13

DHS Suggests Christians, Constitutionalists Should Get Extra Surveillance From LEOs

April 10, 2013 by Bob Livingston 

PHOTOS.COM

Big government progressives and collectivists love labels. They seem to come up with a new one almost daily, as they seek to isolate and demonize one small segment of the population at a time that they can identify as “extremist” and then dismiss from any discussion about the country’s direction.
The Department of Homeland Security and the military have, in reports published over the past several years, equated a large segment of the U.S. population with terrorists for simply expressing displeasure of the nation’s course, preparing for disaster or even paying in cash. DHS and the Barack Obama regime are aided in this endeavor by government propaganda arm mainstream media and organizations like the Southern Preposterous Lie Center (aka Southern Poverty Law Center), see here, here and here.
Now, true to its communistic-sounding roots, DHS is becoming exceedingly fearful of Christians who believe the Bible is God’s word, Christian “fundamentalists” (whatever those are), Americans who believe the country was founded on Godly principles and those who believe the Constitution stands as the law of the land. In training materials, DHS has lumped Christians and Constitutionalists in with a group it calls the sovereign citizen movement and identified them as requiring special surveillance by law enforcement.
In a letter to a conservative blogger, Prowers County (Colo.) Undersheriff Ron Trowbridge revealed what he learned during a recent training course conducted by Colorado State Patrol (CSP) Trooper Joe Kluczynski, a CSP analyst for the Colorado Information Analysis Center, (CIAC). CIAC is funded by DHS and run by the CSP, and the training materials Kluczynski used came from DHS.
Here is the letter, unedited and in its entirety:

On April 1, 2013 I attended training in La Junta, Colorado hosted by the Colorado State Patrol (CSP).  The training was from 12:00 pm to 4:00 pm and covered two topics, Sovereign Citizens, and Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs.  I was pretty familiar with motorcycle gangs but since we often deal with the so-called sovereign citizen groups I was interested to see what they had to say.  The group consisted of police officers, deputies, and CSP troopers.  There were about 20 people in attendance.
Trooper Joe Kluczynski taught a 2-hour section on sovereign citizens.  Kluczynski spent most of his two hours focusing on how, in his view and apparently the view of Homeland Security, people turn to the sovereign citizen movement.  Kluczynski started off by saying there are probably some sovereign citizens in this room and gave a generalized list of those groups that have sovereign citizen views.  Among those groups, Kluczynski had listed, were those who believe America was founded on godly principles, Christians who take the Bible literally, and “fundamentalists”.  Kluczynski did not explain what he meant by “fundamentalists” but from the context it was clear he was referring again to those who took the Bible literally or “too seriously.”
While Kluczynski emphasized that sovereign citizens have a right to their beliefs, he was clearly teaching that the groups he had listed should be watched by law enforcement and should be treated with caution because of their potential to assault law enforcement.  Kluczynski explained why he believed these groups were dangerous saying they were angry over the election of a black president.  When someone in the group suggested the failing economy was probably much more to blame, Kluczynski intimated that those who are not going along with the changes in America will need to be controlled by law enforcement.  Kluczynski even later questioned some of the troopers present if they were willing and prepared to confiscate “illegal” weapons if ordered to.
Kluczynski’s assignment with the CSP was an Analyst for the Colorado Information Analysis Center, (CIAC).  CIAC is funded by Homeland Security funds and run by the CSP.  Kluczynski said he gets his information from the Department of Homeland Security.  Kluczynski said he was leaving the CSP at the end of that week (March 29, 2013) to begin his new career with Homeland Security.  I thought he was perfect for the job.
Ron Trowbridge
Undersheriff
Prowers County Sheriff’s Office
April 5, 2013

Trowbridge’s boss, Sheriff Jim Faull, issued a news release Monday suggesting CSP suspend and re-evaluate the training program, because: “When an instructor with a state law enforcement agency is teaching their (sic) own employees and other law enforcement agencies that bible (sic) believing citizens and those that do not agree with current political trends are dangerous and should be under the scrutiny of law enforcement, then that agency needs to make some fundamental changes with that particular course.”
Trowbridge said he was surprised and frightened by the amount of attention his letter received, but he stood by it. He issued another letter on Monday responding to those seeking to verify his initial claims.

Understand what is at work here is a concerted effort by the regime to marginalize and demonize Americans, “those who are not going along with the changes” the Marxist Obama regime is making to the country. Demonizing and ultimately dehumanizing the “enemy” is a tried and true propaganda tactic. You will also see this tactic demonstrated in the comments posted to Personal Liberty articles by the regime’s messengers, who have taken to equating the Tea Party with the Taliban and calling them extremists and terrorists. It is a designed strategy based on the Saul Alinsky model.

http://personalliberty.com/2013/04/10/dhs-suggests-christians-constitutionalists-should-get-extra-surveillance-from-leos/

Wednesday 04-17-13

Bird Flu Fears Mount in China as Herbal Remedies Run Out

A popular herb called ban lan gen, or blue root, has been flying off pharmacy shelves across China as local governments encourage people to consider traditional remedies to ward off the latest bird flu virus.

With scientists so far unable to pinpoint the H7N9 influenza virus’ animal host, locals are preparing for a possible pandemic by stocking up on popular plant remedies as well as face masks and hand sanitizers and other over-the- counter remedies.

Enlarge image

China Bird Flu Concerns Rise as Herbal Remedies Sell Out

 

 

Enlarge image

China Bird Flu Concerns Rise as Herbal Remedies Sell Out

Stephen Chernin/Getty Images

A herbalist prepares a concoction of herbs known as ban lan gen. Ban lan gen is the root of a flowering plant known as dyer’s woad or indigo woad, and found in southeastern Europe, central Asia and eastern Siberia.

A herbalist prepares a concoction of herbs known as ban lan gen. Ban lan gen is the root of a flowering plant known as dyer’s woad or indigo woad, and found in southeastern Europe, central Asia and eastern Siberia. Photographer: Stephen Chernin/Getty Images

“Chinese people associate ban lan gen with anti-virus,” said Shen Jiangang, assistant director for research at the University of Hong Kong’s school of Chinese medicine. “So when they hear about bird flu, they immediately think it might be effective to protect themselves although there is no experimental evidence.”

Ayurvedic and Chinese medicines have used the remedy for centuries. Scientists have proved it can relieve bacterial conjunctivitis in eye drops and found it has an antiviral effect in test tubes. There is no test to show it works against influenza.

That hasn’t stopped buyers. Chinese consumers, especially older ones, tend to believe in traditional formulations especially when it comes to cold and flu remedies, said Iwona Mamczur, an analyst at Mintel International Group Ltd. The market for over-the-counter medicines was worth 77.5 billion yuan ($12.5 billion) in 2011, according to a report from the London-based researcher.

Warm Drink

Ban lan gen is the root of a flowering plant known as dyer’s woad or indigo woad, and found in southeastern Europe, central Asia and eastern Siberia. The roots are dried and often processed into granules, which consumers ingest dissolved in hot water or tea. According to traditional Chinese medicine, which seeks to balance heat and cold in the body, the root can help clear the heat triggered by a viral attack, Shen said.

Huashi Pharmacy, located in Shanghai near the eastern bank of the Huangpu river, has started replenishing supplies of ban lan gen daily instead of weekly and still struggles to meet demand, according to pharmacy worker Zhang Zhijin.

Sales of facial masks have also gone up 10 times from before the H7N9 infections announcements, hand sanitizer has sold out, and companies have been bulk-ordering alcohol wipes for their employees, Zhang said.

Face Masks

Beijing Tongrentang (600085), which makes a product extracted from ban lan gen, said in an e-mail that the outbreak of H7N9 has boosted sales, but didn’t provide numbers.

Francis Chu, the Singapore-based inventor of the totobobo face mask, said he’s fielded more than 20 inquiries about the pollution-filtering equipment’s effectiveness against bird flu since the start of April. Sales are up eight-fold from the same period last year.

“Earlier in the year, most of the increased orders from China were because of the air pollution,” Chu said in a telephone interview. “Sales are still increasing, but now it’s because of worries about bird flu.”

Beyond anecdotal evidence, the surge is hard to quantify. Pharmaceutical companies reaped at least $10 billion in sales of vaccines and antivirals globally as a result of the 2009 swine flu outbreak, according to data compiled by Bloomberg at the time. It’s too early to tell whether H7N9 will touch off another pandemic.

No Immunity

Chinese authorities are struggling to identify the source and mode of transmission of the virus, which has sickened 77 people and killed 16 so far, most of them in China’s eastern provinces. While there is no evidence that H7N9 is spreading easily among people, it hasn’t been detected in humans before, so they have no natural immunity. That raises public health concerns, researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta said last week.

Sinovac Biotech Ltd. (SVA), the first company to win regulatory approval for a swine flu shot in 2009, is preparing to make immunizations against the new virus, Chief Executive Officer Yin Weidong said in an interview Monday. The Nasdaq-traded company could have a first batch of the vaccine ready for commercial use by late July in the event of a pandemic, according to Yin.

Until such a vaccine is found, the race is on for Chinese citizens to track down the ban lan gen herb.

Zheng Bing, who works as an assistant at a local private equity firm, recently walked away empty-handed from three separate pharmacies in Beijing’s financial district. Zheng was told by his boss to stock up on the herb for the entire office. But he found that other anxious residents had beat him to the punch.

“I’m going to try a few more shops,” he said. “Otherwise I can’t answer my boss.”


http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-16/bird-flu-fears-mount-in-china-as-herbal-remedies-run-out.html

Tuesday 04-16-13

 

Gun Control Bill: Secret FBI Checks on Job Applicants

 

  The gun control legislation proposed by Senators Charles Schumer (D-NY), Pat Toomey (R-PA), and Joe Manchin (D-WV) lets firearms dealers secretly run government background checks on job applicants—a gross violation of privacy. Private-sector employers should not be able to use non-public government databases like the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) to check up on job applicants, unless the job applicants first consent to the intrusion into their privacy. And the job applicants have every reason to consent—they want the job.

 

The Schumer-Toomey-Manchin (STM) bill provides that, 90 days after enactment of the STM bill, “the Attorney General shall promulgate regulations allowing licensees to use the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) established under this section for purposes of conducting voluntary preemployment background checks on prospective employees.”

 

It is all well and good that the word “voluntary” leaves licensed firearm importers, manufacturers, or dealers free to use the NICS or not to screen job applicants, but the provision does not protect the privacy of a job applicant. The provision should require—not simply leave to the discretion of Attorney General Eric Holder to decide in his regulations whether to require—the employer to get the job applicant’s consent to the NICS background check.

 

 

Read more: http://conservativebyte.com/2013/04/gun-control-bill-secret-fbi-checks-on-job-applicants/#ixzz2QYMLS6QU

 

VA Shrink Admits He Gets $3K Bonus Per Vet For Seizing Their Guns - :

 

  In an hour long interview with George Hemminger, and a NY psychiatrist reveals shocking and detailed information of a seemingly insidious, deliberate and concerted effort by governmental auspices to confiscate firearms from veterans via psychiatric evaluations. The psychiatrist’s voice has been altered to protect his anonymity. We apologize if you experience any difficulties hearing individual words or understanding all context.

 It is up to each individual to listen carefully, believe or not believe and to draw their own conclusions.

 

http://govtslaves.info/va-shrink-admits-he-gets-3k-bonus-per-vet-for-seizing-their-guns/

Monday 4-15-13

Banished! Historic Don’t Tread on Me Flag Taken Down: “Too Partisan”

The city of New Rochelle, N.Y., has removed the historic Gadsden “Don’t Tread On Me” flag from a military armory, deeming the flag “too partisan” because it often is used by the tea party movement.


And in response, veterans groups have tapped the Thomas More Law Center to take up the fight.
It was after an official ceremony on March 21 at the New Rochelle Armory that a new American flag was unfurled to replace the previous weathered flag that flew at the location. Beneath the new American flag, the yellow Gadsden Flag was flown, as is common tradition on many military sites.
However, within a week of the ceremony, City Manager Chuck Strome ordered the Gadsden flag be taken down because of “unidentified complaints” that the flag was a symbol of the tea party movement.
Peter Parente, president of the United Veterans Memorial and Patriotic Association of New Rochelle, sent Strome links to the history of the flag so he decided to allow it to remain.
But the city council then stepped in, voting 5-2 to order the flag to be removed.
The five members who voted to uphold its removal were Democrats, while the two voting to reinstate the flag were Republicans.
That same day, the public works department removed the flag.
Now the flag fight is headed to court.

http://www.thedailysheeple.com/banished-historic-dont-tread-on-me-flag-taken-down-too-partisan_042013   Secrets of FBI Smartphone Surveillance Tool Revealed in Court Fight    A legal fight over the government’s use of a secret surveillance tool has provided new insight into how the controversial tool works and the extent to which Verizon Wireless aided federal agents in using it to track a suspect.Court documents in a case involving accused identity thief Daniel David Rigmaiden describe how the wireless provider reached out remotely to reprogram an air card the suspect was using in order to make it communicate with the government’s surveillance tool so that he could be located.
Rigmaiden, who is accused of being the ringleader of a $4 million tax fraud operation, asserts in court documents that in July 2008 Verizon surreptitiously reprogrammed his air card to make it respond to incoming voice calls from the FBI and also reconfigured it so that it would connect to a fake cell site, or stingray, that the FBI was using to track his location.
Air cards are devices that plug into a computer and use the wireless cellular networks of phone providers to connect the computer to the internet. The devices are not phones and therefore don’t have the ability to receive incoming calls, but in this case Rigmaiden asserts that Verizon reconfigured his air card to respond to surreptitious voice calls from a landline controlled by the FBI.
The FBI calls, which contacted the air card silently in the background, operated as pings to force the air card into revealing its location.
In order to do this, Verizon reprogrammed the device so that when an incoming voice call arrived, the card would disconnect from any legitimate cell tower to which it was already connected, and send real-time cell-site location data to Verizon, which forwarded the data to the FBI. This allowed the FBI to position its stingray in the neighborhood where Rigmaiden resided. The stingray then “broadcast a very strong signal” to force the air card into connecting to it, instead of reconnecting to a legitimate cell tower, so that agents could then triangulate signals coming from the air card and zoom-in on Rigmaiden’s location.
To make sure the air card connected to the FBI’s simulator, Rigmaiden says that Verizon altered his air card’s Preferred Roaming List so that it would accept the FBI’s stingray as a legitimate cell site and not a rogue site, and also changed a data table on the air card designating the priority of cell sites so that the FBI’s fake site was at the top of the list.
Rigmaiden makes the assertions in a 369-page document he filed in support of a motion to suppress evidence gathered through the stingray. Rigmaiden collected information about how the stingray worked from documents obtained from the government, as well as from records obtained through FOIA requests filed by civil liberties groups and from open-source literature.
During a hearing in a U.S. District Court in Arizona on March 28 to discuss the motion, the government did not dispute Rigmaiden’s assertions about Verizon’s activities.
The actions described by Rigmaiden are much more intrusive than previously known information about how the government uses stingrays, which are generally employed for tracking cell phones and are widely used in drug and other criminal investigations.
The government has long asserted that it doesn’t need to obtain a probable-cause warrant to use the devices because they don’t collect the content of phone calls and text messages and operate like pen-registers and trap-and-traces, collecting the equivalent of header information.
The government has conceded, however, that it needed a warrant in his case alone — because the stingray reached into his apartment remotely to locate the air card — and that the activities performed by Verizon and the FBI to locate Rigmaiden were all authorized by a court order signed by a magistrate.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation and the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California, who have filed an amicus brief in support of Rigmaiden’s motion, maintain that the order does not qualify as a warrant and that the government withheld crucial information from the magistrate — such as identifying that the tracking device they planned to use was a stingray and that its use involved intrusive measures — thus preventing the court from properly fulfilling its oversight function.
“It shows you just how crazy the technology is, and [supports] all the more the need to explain to the court what they are doing,” says EFF Staff Attorney Hanni Fakhoury. “This is more than just [saying to Verizon] give us some records that you have sitting on your server. This is reconfiguring and changing the characteristics of the [suspect's] property, without informing the judge what’s going on.”
The secretive technology, generically known as a stingray or IMSI catcher, allows law enforcement agents to spoof a legitimate cell tower in order to trick nearby mobile phones and other wireless communication devices like air cards into connecting to the stingray instead of a phone carrier’s legitimate tower.
When devices connect, stingrays can see and record their unique ID numbers and traffic data, as well as information that points to the device’s location.
By moving the stingray around and gathering the wireless device’s signal strength from various locations in a neighborhood, authorities can pinpoint where the device is being used with much more precision than they can get through data obtained from a mobile network provider’s fixed tower location.
Use of the spy technology goes back at least 20 years. In a 2009 Utah case, an FBI agent described using a cell site emulator more than 300 times over a decade and indicated that they were used on a daily basis by U.S, Marshals, the Secret Service and other federal agencies.
The FBI used a similar device to track former hacker Kevin Mitnick in 1994, though the version used in that case was much more primitive and passive.
A 1996 Wired story about the Mitnick case called the device a Triggerfish and described it as “a technician’s device normally used for testing cell phones.” According to the story, the Triggerfish was “a rectangular box of electronics about a half a meter high controlled by a PowerBook” that was essentially “a five-channel receiver, able to monitor both sides of a conversation simultaneously.” The crude technology was hauled around in a station wagon and van. A black coaxial cable was strung out of the vehicle’s window to connect the Triggerfish to a direction-finding antenna on the vehicle’s roof, which had four antenna prongs that reached 30 centimeters into the sky.
The technology has become much sleeker and less obtrusive since then, but still operates under the same principles.
In Rigmaiden’s case, agents apparently used two devices made by a Florida-based company called Harris. One was the company’s StingRay system, which is designed to work from a vehicle driven around a neighborhood to narrow a suspect’s location to a building. Once agents tracked the signals from Rigmaiden’s air card to the Domicilio Apartments complex in Santa Clara, California, they apparently used another device made by Harris called the KingFish — a handheld system that allowed them to walk through the complex and zero-in on Rigmaiden’s air card in apartment 1122.
Although a number of companies make stingrays, including Verint, View Systems, Altron, NeoSoft, MMI, Ability, and Meganet, the Harris line of cell site emulators are the only ones that are compatible with CDMA2000-based devices. Others can track GSM/UMTS-based communications, but the Harris emulators can track CDMA2000, GSM and iDEN devices, as well as UMTS. The Harris StingRay and KingFish devices can also support three different communication standards simultaneously, without having to be reconfigured.
Rigmaiden was arrested in 2008 on charges that he was the mastermind behind an operation that involved stealing more than $4 million in refunds from the IRS by filing fraudulent tax returns. He and others are accused of using numerous fake IDs to open internet and phone accounts and using more than 175 different IP addresses around the United States to file the fake returns, which were often filed in bulk as if through an automated process. Rigmaiden has been charged with 35 counts of wire fraud, 35 counts of identify theft, one count of unauthorized computer access and two counts of mail fraud.
A PC5740 Air Card.

The surveillance of Rigmaiden began in June 2008 when agents served Verizon with a grand jury subpoena asking for data on three IP addresses that were allegedly used to electronically file some of the fraudulent tax returns. Verizon reported back that the three IP addresses were linked to an air card account registered in the name of Travis Rupard — an identity that Rigmaiden allegedly stole. The air card was identified as a UTStarcom PC5740 device that was assigned a San Francisco Bay Area phone number.
A court order was then submitted to Verizon Wireless requiring the company to provide historical cell site data on the account for the previous 30 days to determine what cell towers the air card had contacted and determine its general location. Verizon responded by supplying the government with information that included the latitude and longitude coordinates for five cell sites in San Jose and Santa Clara cities, in the heart of Silicon Valley.
In July, the government served Verizon Wireless with another court order directing the company to assist the FBI in the use and monitoring of a mobile tracking device to locate an unidentified suspect. The order directed Verizon Wireless to provide the FBI with any “technical assistance needed to ascertain the physical location of the [air card]….”
The government has fought hard to suppress information about how it uses stingrays, but in his motion to suppress, Rigmaiden lays out in great detail how the surveillance occurred and the nature of the technical assistance Verizon provided the FBI.
On the morning of July 14, 2008, FBI Agent Killigrew created a cell tower range chart/map consisting of a street map, plotted Verizon Wireless cell site sectors belonging to cell site Nos. 268, 139, and 279, and a triangulated aircard location signature estimate represented by a shaded area. On the chart/map, the total land area collectively covered by cell site Nos. 268, 139, and 279 is approximately 105,789,264 ft2. FBI Agent Killigrew used triangulation techniques and location signature techniques to eliminate 93.9% of that 105,789,264 ft2 area resulting in the location estimate being reduced to 6,412,224 ft2 represented by the shaded area. The shaded area on the cell tower range chart covers the location of apartment No. 1122 at the Domicilio apartment complex.
On July 15, agents with the FBI, IRS and US Postal Service flew to San Jose to triangulate Rigmaiden’s location using the stingray. They worked with technical agents from the San Francisco FBI’s Wireless Intercept and Tracking Team to conduct the real-time tracking,
According to Rigmaiden, the agents drove around the cell site areas gathering information about signal range and radio frequencies for each cell site sector. “The radio frequency information was needed so that the FBI technical agents could properly configure their StingRay and KingFish for use in cell site emulator mode,” Rigmaiden writes. “By referencing a list of all the radio frequencies already in use, the FBI was able to choose an unused frequency for use by its emulated cellular network that would not interfere with the various FCC licensed cellular networks already operating in the noted area.”
The next day, Verizon Wireless surreptitiously reprogrammed Rigmaiden’s air card so that it would recognize the FBI’s stingray as a legitimate cell site and connect to it “prior to attempting connections with actual Verizon Wireless cell sites.” The FBI needed Verizon to reprogram the device because it otherwise was configured to reject rogue, unauthorized cell sites, Rigmaiden notes.
On July 16, the FBI placed 32 voice calls to the air card between 11am and 5pm. Each time the air card was notified that a call was coming in, it dropped its data connection and went into idle mode. At the same time, it sent real-time cell site location information to Verizon, which forwarded the information to the FBI’s DCS-3000 servers, part of the elaborate digital collection system the FBI operates for wiretapping and pen-registers and trap-and-traces. From the FBI’s servers, the location data was transmitted wirelessly through a VPN to the FBI’s technical agents “lurking in the streets of Santa Clara” with the StingRay.
A stingray, made by Harris Corp. Image: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office

At this point, the StingRay took over and began to broadcast its signal to force the air card — and any other wireless devices in the area — to connect to it, so that agents could zoom-in on Rigmaiden’s location.
“Because the defendant attempted to keep his aircard continuously connected to the Internet, the FBI only had a very short window of time to force the aircard to handoff its signal to the StingRay after each surreptitious voice call [and] the FBI needed to repeatedly call the aircard in order to repeatedly boot it offline over the six hours of surreptitious phone calls,” Rigmaiden writes. “Each few minute window of time that followed each denial-of-service attack (i.e., surreptitious phone call) was used by the FBI to move its StingRay, while in cell site emulator mode, to various positions until it was close enough to the aircard to force an Idle State Route Update (i.e., handoff).”
Rigmaiden maintains that once the connection was made, the StingRay wrote data to the air card to extend the connection and also began to “interrogate” the air card to get it to broadcast its location. The FBI used the Harris AmberJack antenna to deliver highly-directional precision signals to the device, and moved the StingRay around to various locations in order to triangulate the precise location of the air card inside the Domicilio Apartments complex.
According to Rigmaiden, agents also transmitted Reverse Power Control bits to his air card to get it to transmit its signals at “a higher power than it would have normally transmitted if it were accessing cellular service through an actual Verizon Wireless cell site.”
Once agents had tracked the device to the Domicilio Apartments complex, they switched out the StingRay for the handheld KingFish device to locate Rigmaiden’s apartment within the complex.
Around 1am on July 17, an FBI agent sent a text message to another FBI agent stating, “[w]e are down to an apt complex….” By 2:42 am, one of the FBI technical agents sent a text message to someone stating that they had “[f]ound the card” and that agents were “working on a plan for arrest.”
Agents still didn’t know who was in the apartment — since Rigmaiden had used an assumed identity to lease the unit — but they were able to stake out the apartment complex and engage in more traditional investigative techniques to gather more intelligence about who lived in unit 1122. On August 3, while the apartment was still under surveillance, Rigmaiden left the unit. Agents followed him a short distance until Rigmaiden caught on that he was being followed. After a brief foot chase, he was arrested.
Rigmaiden and the American Civil Liberties Union and Electronic Frontier Foundation have argued that the government did not obtain a legitimate warrant to conduct the intrusive surveillance through the stingray. They say it’s indicative of how the government has used stingrays in other cases without proper disclosure to judges about how they work, and have asked the court to suppress evidence gathered through the use of the device.
U.S. District Court Judge David Campbell is expected to rule on the motion to suppress within a few weeks.

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/04/verizon-rigmaiden-aircard/all/