An underreported story today comes amid the resignation of Stacia Hylton, the head of the U.S. Marshals Service.  The timing of the resignation could not be more transparently tied to a growing investigation into domestic surveillance programs operated without oversight, and potentially unconstitutional.

For the past several years stories have been quietly surfacing about the USMS using stealth cell phone captures via drone and fixed unit operations known as “Stingray Devices”.

Stingray technology secretly captures cell phone communication, data, voice and text from users without their knowledge.

In addition the USMS has recently been outlined using Automatic License Plate Reading (ALPR) technology to track movements of people driving. Both programs track every American and are not related specifically to investigative foundations.  (more…)

The debate is being carried on CSPAN2 – CLICK HERE However, Mitch McConnell is doing everything in his power to stop discussion of the matter.

Senate votes to limit debate on Patriot Act extension.

— TheLastRefuge (@TheLastRefuge2) May 31, 2015

Does anyone really believe the programs will cease merely because they are no longer authorized by law?  Really?
WASHINGTON – The Obama administration warned Friday that a bundle of terror-fighting surveillance tools will expire at midnight Sunday unless Congress acts to renew Patriot Act provisions — putting pressure on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to break the impasse over the issue.
The Senate deadlocked last weekend on a string of proposals meant to keep the provisions running past the end-of-the-month deadline. McConnell is calling the Senate back into session on Sunday, “to make every effort to provide the intelligence community with the tools it needs to combat terror,” spokesman Don Stewart said Friday.
But that session leaves just hours until the deadline, and it’s not clear whether any solution is in reach.  (read more)

McConnell (majority leader), and Cornyn (majority whip), lost this one.

(Via The Hill) Mitch McConnell staged an epic gamble over U.S. spying powers — and lost.
The Republican leader pledged to keep senators in Washington through the weekend to finish work on expiring provisions of the Patriot Act, but Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) called his bluff.
Instead, when the smoke cleared in the early hours of Saturday morning, the 2016 presidential contender was the one with bragging rights.
The battle between the two Kentucky Republicans spilled over on the Senate floor, with Paul using procedural tactics to force the chamber into an early Saturday vote. He then used his leverage to kill off McConnell’s repeated attempts to reauthorize the expiring National Security Agency (NSA) programs — first for two months, then for eight days, then for five, then three, then two. (more…)

Bulk data collection too excessive to be legal.

NEW YORK – The National Security Agency’s bulk phone record collection program was dealt a blow Thursday as a federal appeals court said the controversial program exceeds what Congress has allowed and urged lawmakers to step in.
A three-judge panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan permitted the National Security Agency program to continue temporarily as it exists, and all but pleaded for Congress to better define where the boundaries exist.
“In light of the asserted national security interests at stake, we deem it prudent to pause to allow an opportunity for debate in Congress that may (or may not) profoundly alter the legal landscape,” the opinion written by Circuit Judge Gerald Lynch said. (more…)

Developing:

#BREAKINGNEWS officer involved crash/shooting #FortMeade appears at least one fatality #breaking pic.twitter.com/tBqM5ZOZjL

— Brad Freitas (@NewsChopperBrad) March 30, 2015

UPDATE:

FORT MEADE, Md. (WUSA9), March 30th, 2015 at 10:44 am EDT

— We’re learning more about the incident that brought police to the gates of NSA headquarters at Fort Meade in Maryland for an ongoing situation.

Sources tell CBS that the vehicle attempted to ram the gate, and guards there shot at the vehicle. At least one person was shot, according to sources.

A spokesman at Fort Meade says two people are being treated for injuries but doesn’t know how the injuries occurred, reports the Associated Press.

Chopper video showed two damaged vehicles outside of the gates and at least one person in a uniform being wheeled on a stretcher to an ambulance.

One of the vehicles has the word “police” on the side and its hood up. The other vehicle is dark in color and also has some front end damage.

(more…)

The Democrat Senate committee reviewed more than 6 million pages of top-secret CIA documents and found that the architect of the interrogation program was a retired Air Force psychologist named James Mitchell, an agency contractor who — according to news reports — personally waterboarded alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. The Senate report does not identify Mitchell by name.
Mitchell has a signed a non-disclosure agreement with the CIA and was unable to discuss his alleged role in the agency’s enhanced interrogation program, but VICE News met up with him in suburban Florida to discuss the Senate’s report and one of the darkest chapters of the war on terror. This is the first time Mitchell has ever appeared on camera:

Yeah, apparently Congress is well, not too terribly concerned about the missing AUMF.   Either that, or, well, they were quite comfortable relying on Hank “Tippy Guam” Johnson to ask all of the insightful questions….

If you were to review the participation at today’s House Armed Services Committee for the testimony and Q&A of Defense Secretary Hagel or Joint Chief’s Martin Dempsey, you might walk away thinking our military were not in combat in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and dealing with Ebola in West Africa.  Russia invading Ukraine, Iran getting nuclear weapons, Libya in a state of civil war, U.S. Embassy evacuated in Yemen, terrorists on the border…..
…Yeah, three effen’ hours of their time is just too much to ask for.  Oh, but they’ll parade around the military like some kind of optical pawn of patriotism.  And, yet people wonder why events like Benghazi and operation zero footprint are possible.  Seriously.

This has been an interesting story since it first surfaced in May of 2013.  Sharyl has been tight lipped since she announced knowing who had bugged her back in June of 2013.  
The exfiltration and bugging was extensive and highly professional.  Her Skype program was used as a bugging tool for government agencies (NSA, CIA, FBI) to listen in to her conversations, and electronic classified documents were planted in her computer system in case blackmail leverage was needed… This was done while Sharyl was investigating Fast-n-Furious and Benghazi.
(New York Post) A former CBS News reporter who quit the network over claims it kills stories that put President Obama in a bad light says she was spied on by a “government-related entity” that planted classified documents on her computer.
In her new memoir, Sharyl Attkisson says a source who arranged to have her laptop checked for spyware in 2013 was “shocked” and “flabbergasted” at what the analysis revealed.
“This is outrageous. Worse than anything Nixon ever did. I wouldn’t have believed something like this could happen in the United States of America,” Attkisson quotes the source saying.
She speculates that the motive was to lay the groundwork for possible charges against her or her sources. (more…)

Ya don’t say…  It’s as if the Obama cabinet departments have something to hide, or, well, something….

(Via The Blaze) The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services admitted in a Wednesday letter to the National Archives and Records Administration that one its senior executives, Marilyn Tavenner, likely deleted some of the emails subpoenaed by Congress ten months ago regarding the botched Healthcare.gov rollout.

The admission resulted in a scathing response from Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, who called the destroying of government emails a “violation of federal law.”

“Today’s news that a senior HHS executive destroyed emails relevant to a congressional investigation means that the Obama Administration has lost or destroyed emails for more than 20 witnesses, and in each case, the loss wasn’t disclosed to the National Archives or Congress for months or years, in violation of federal law,” Issa said in a statement. “It defies logic that so many senior Administration officials were found to have ignored federal record keeping requirements only after Congress asked to see their emails.”

(more…)