Infowars.com
February 7, 2011
The White House has publicly responded to the controversy surrounding the Obama administration’s agenda to bankrupt the coal industry.
Read more at www.infowars.com
Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
February 7, 2011
Even as Christina Aguilera butchered the words to the American national anthem before the start of last night’s Super Bowl, the hard-fought freedoms recognized in that song were being eviscerated as hired goons conducted 4th Amendment busting pat downs on people entering the stadium.
But if you think that was too invasive, you ain’t seen nothing yet. As part of Homeland Security’s complete takeover of society, at future Super Bowls, TSA agents will get to interrogate you at special checkpoints which will use “physiological” and “behavioral” tests to determine if you’re a terrorist or a criminal.
“Everyone entering the stadium must pass through a magnetometer, such as those used at airports, and get a pat down as part of the screening process. The majority of fans will enter through checkpoints on the east side of Cowboys Stadium,” reported the Dallas Star-Telegram on Friday.
Big Sis seized upon the spectacle of the Super Bowl to saturate the public with the inherently fascist public-private partnership which has given birth to the “See Something, Say Something” monstrosity, the citizen snitch program that has wiped away any doubt that America is now a rotting banana republic.
But this only marks the beginning of the role DHS sees itself in assuming as part of its occupation of the country.
Homeland Security is also developing technology to be used at “security events” which purports to monitor “malintent” on behalf of an individual who passes through a checkpoint. The video below explains how “Future Attribute Screening Technology” (FAST) checkpoints will conduct “physiological” and “behavioral” tests in order to weed out suspected terrorists and criminals.
The clip shows individuals who attend “security events” being led into trailers before they are interrogated as to whether they are terrorists while lie detector-style computer programs analyze their physiological responses. The subjects are asked about their whereabouts, and if they are attempting to smuggle bombs or recording devices into the “expo,” proving that the technology is intended to be used at public events and not just airports. Individuals who do not satisfy the first lie detector-style test are then asked “additional questions”.
The fact that Homeland Security’s own internal reports list supporting political candidates like Ron Paul, flying US flags, owning gold, displaying political bumper stickers, or owning firearms as signs of behavioral malintent that could be linked to terrorism or extremism tells you all you need to know about how FAST checkpoints could be used to snag political dissidents who commit the thought crime of believing they still had any rights under the US Constitution that Janet Napolitano is gleefully ripping to shreds.
In the coming years, staying away from airports won’t be enough to avoid a run-in with TSA goons. Homeland Security has embarked on a massive gestapo-like occupation of America where “security” checkpoints will litter highways and roads, transport hubs, as well as public events and anywhere crowds gather.
This in turn will be reinforced by an army of citizen tattle tales being trained to be the eyes of the state under the See Something, Say Something campaign, which was heavily promoted ahead of the Super Bowl.
Homeland Security has already announced that TSA agents and VIPR teams will be expanding their mobile radiation-scanning checkpoints from rest stops to highways and roads in general, as Big Sis accelerates Soviet-style levels of control over the population.
Only by standing up in unison and sending a forceful and clear message that they will resist the DHS occupation of the country can Americans hope to continue to live in a nation that does not come to be characterized as a decaying militarized police state littered with internal checkpoints manned by state jackboots demanding to see their papers, radiation-scan their bodies and conduct “behavioral tests” to prove they are well-behaved slaves.
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.
Eric Blair
Infowars.com
February 7, 2011
Apparently the Department of Homeland Security is now authorized to rewrite and enforce copyright infringement laws. In a stunning precedent, the recent round of domain seizures to shut down websites that allowed illegal streaming of the Super Bowl, also included a few other websites that were seized simply for linking to infringing content.
Mike Masnick of TechDirt, who received and published a DHS seizure affidavit, had this to say in a must-read article:
…the affidavit itself is chock full of legal and technical errors, compounded by assertions-as-facts that seem to have little basis in reality. This is immensely troubling, especially given that the specific legal issues here are hardly settled law, and Homeland Security seems to be acting as if these cases are no brainers, allowing them to flat out seize domains, even when those websites have been declared perfectly legal in their home countries.
The biggest problem is that Homeland Security seems to suggest — without a hint of doubt — that merely linking to infringing content is criminal copyright infringement. That is a huge stretch. The affidavit appears to make it clear that it believes that these sites are guilty of direct criminal copyright infringement, rather than any sort of contributory copyright infringement.As we’ve discussed in the past, the courts have tended to say that embedding and linking can be contributory infringement, but not direct infringement. Homeland Security and ICE may be in for a bit of legal trouble trying to prove that embedding is direct infringement.
Until these unprecedented seizures, online copyright infringement was dealt with by simply asking infringing websites to remove the material and replace it with a link to the source. Previous cases have normally been battled out in civil court. Alternative news giant, Matt Drudge, is currently fighting a seemingly ridiculous civil lawsuit over linking to news stories.
These new actions by the DHS and the courts seem to be motivated more by private corporate profits than by actual copyright law. Nonetheless, the agenda seems to be to make nearly every website that links to copyrighted material guilty of criminal infringement, thus justifying arbitrarily blacklisting domains deemed to be in violation of such a broad precedent. This is yet another Napoleonic guilty-until-proven-innocent action, apparently displaying the corporate state’s lack of concern for the rights of individuals and small businesses. What’s more, it is also another tyrannical tool being used to control the flow of information.
Additionally, this type of precedent would same to massively change the Internet as we know it. What’s next, seizing websites that link to those affiliate sites, like Facebook, Google, or Twitter? Well, that’s the exact question Masnick investigated in his follow-up article, “Homeland Security Tries And Fails To Explain Why Seized Domains Are Different From Google.” Masnick reports on an interview with a DHS agent in charge of the domain seizures, James Hayes:
In the interview, John Moe asked Agent Hayes a very simple question: given that these domains were all seized based solely on the fact that they link to infringing content hosted elsewhere, and all of the same content is also linked from Google, will the Feds seize Google’s domain name? Well, more specifically, Moe asks if ICE could seize Google’s domain name. Amusingly, right after being asked, Hayes conveniently gets cut off, but he does call back and the question is asked again.
However, once he gets back, he tries to tap dance around this issue. Hayes says “no” that ICE will not seize Google’s domain name and that’s because it’s only targeting sites that “don’t do due diligence” to make sure that the content they’re linking to isn’t infringing. There’s a pretty serious problem with this claim in that it’s wrong on both sides of the equation. First off, Google, as a search engine, does no due diligence to check that links only go to non-infringing content. Second, in at least some of the cases (specifically in the case of dajaz1), we know that it was actually Homeland Security and folks like Special Agent Hayes who “failed to do their due diligence,” so the songs named in the ICE affidavit were, in fact, provided by the labels or representatives of the musicians. In other words, according to Special Agent Hayes’ own criteria, Google is more of a criminal operation that Dajaz1.
Despite the DHS’s obvious distortion of the law, we are rapidly approaching a day where information can no longer flow freely on the Internet. We better wake up and share these stories with everyone we know, because tyranny is fast approaching. These words written above belong to nobody but the open-source, free Internet. Share and re-post at will.
For additional information about online copyright laws and guidelines, please visit the Citizen Media Law Project.
Eric Blair writes for Activist Post.com
FEDERAL REGISTER
COMMENT FILE: 08-004
Comment File for Federal Register Release 73 FR 25669
Concept Release on the Appropriate Regulatory Treatment of Event Contracts
Comments Open Date: 05/07/2008
Comments Closing Date: 07/07/2008
Will paying billions of dollars in carbon taxes to Al Gore and his cronies solve the problem?
Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
Monday, February 7, 2011
According to some experts, the world’s weather is about to get even more chaotic as a result of natural climate change that we can do absolutely nothing to prevent – and even though global warming alarmists may exploit the consequences to advance their own political agenda, paying a carbon tax to Al Gore will not lessen the impact of a potentially catastrophic magnetic polar shift.
In layman’s terms, the most apocalyptic outcome of a polar shift would come as a result of the the poles flipping, with the south pole becoming the north pole and vice versa. The good news is that on average this only happens every half a million years, but the bad news is that it hasn’t happened in roughly 780,000 years, with some experts warning that the planet is overdue. Pole flips have been known to happen only 50,00 years apart.
If it happened, a complete pole shift would cause “superstorms in the future with winds as high as 300 to 400mph…which “would totally destroy anything they came into contact with on land,” writes Terrence Aym for Salem-News.com.
“In between these flips, the magnetic field can become quite weak and chaotic, causing “turbulence” in the field, which can effectively cause weaker gaps in the magnetosphere,” writes Mike Adams.
“These magnetic gaps or weaknesses can allow outside influences that normally would not penetrate the magnetosphere to reach deep into that magnetosphere, theoretically all the way down to where birds fly at very low altitude,” adds Adams, making a case that pole shifts are to blame for recent mass bird die-offs.
However, it’s important to note that the process of reversal in the earth’s magnetic field can take around 5,000 years to be completed. This isn’t going to happen overnight, which is why frenetic claims that it is part of some pre-ordained 2012 Mayan apocalypse are in the same league as hysteria about Planet X.
The more likely scenario is that the ever-changing tug of war between the sun and the earth’s electromagnetic fields will continue to cause significant, but not apocalyptic storms like those recently witnessed in Australia and the United States, and that alarmists will continue to exploit such events to push their completely discredited global warming dogma.
The fact that the planet’s northern magnetic pole is drifting slowly but steadily towards Russia is causing airports to adjust the coordinates of their runways so they match up with sensitive airplane instruments.
The consequences of geomagnetic movement in the poles is undoubtedly an important issue and will have a direct impact on our lives. However, given the level of coverage, and in some quarters outright hysteria, being afforded to a complete pole reversal event that is less probable than a cataclysmic asteroid strike, we’re more worried about the threats to the environment that are already unfolding on the planet, and not by some unknown outside threat that we cannot even do anything to prevent anyway.
The impact of chemtrails, the poisoning of our water supply with sodium fluoride, heavy metals, drugs and other harmful chemicals, along with the threat posed by the industrial rollout of genetically modified crops should be of far greater and more immediate concern.
However, since the planet is so sensitive to the behavior of the sun and how it affects the poles, don’t be surprised when global warming alarmists hastily exploit extreme weather events that are attributable to natural causes and blame them on human CO2 emissions while assuring that the only solution is to pay Al Gore and his globalist cronies billions of dollars in carbon taxes.
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.
Watching the wave of unrest in the Middle East, there are lessons to consider regarding how we view the world and how we manage our lives here at home.
I'd call it getting perspective on what you can control and what you can't.
No one predicted them.
Is this because no one was paying attention? Of course not.
We've got armies of analysts -- "experts" -- who do nothing but study countries. Not just in the government, but also in the private sector -- at consulting firms and investment firms.
Despite the fact that we've got "experts" galore doing nothing but studying particular regions and countries, they rarely, if ever, make a correct prediction if it means that tomorrow will be fundamentally different from yesterday.
We can depend on them for plenty of conventional wisdom drawing on reams of information from what's already happened. But can we turn to them for the entirely new, for the unanticipated, for the inconceivable? Forget it.
It should be obvious that 10 years, 25 years, 50 years from now the world will be as different from today as today is from 10 years, 25 years, or 50 years ago.
And it should be equally obvious that we have no "experts" who know what those great changes will be and what they will mean.
Yet we continue to allow ourselves to be persuaded that we can know what cannot be known and that experts can provide us information to control the world and the future. This delusion is true whether we are talking about managing foreign affairs or domestic affairs.
Washington is filled with "experts" who are more than ready to tell us the future and how to control it, whether we are talking about healthcare, retirement, energy, environment, or what have you. The fact that they are wrong 100 percent of the time never seems to discourage us from going down the same path again and again.
On the other hand, there are things we can do that are far more useful ways to use our brains.
We can identify the correct principles by which to live and allow those to guide how we conduct our affairs.
Getting back to the Middle East, the most effective thing we could have been doing, and can do now, is set an example.
If we want to promote freedom, how about starting at home?
The Heritage Foundation and the Wall Street Journal publish annually an Index of Economic Freedom in which they rank 179 nations by economic freedom -- size of government, regulations, tax and trade policy, monetary policy, etc.
The Index rankings correlate almost perfect with prosperity. The more a nation is economically free, the more prosperous it is likely to be.
When the Index was published in 2010, it showed that the nation with the biggest drop in economic freedom among the world's 20 largest economies was none other than the United States.
The drop was so large that the U.S. was re-categorized from the top tier of "free" economies and dropped to the second tier of "mostly free."
It turns out that the most important thing we could have been doing -- staying free ourselves -- we haven't been doing.
If we'd been doing what we should have, we'd set an example for others, we'd have better judgment regarding what is wrong with them, and we'd be more prosperous and therefore stronger and more influential.
If we can't solve our own problems, how can we solve those of others? If we don't know what freedom is here, how can we know what it is elsewhere?
It's time to get perspective about what we can do, what we can't do, and get our own house in order.
DURHAM, NC - Duke University has opened its first prayer room for Hindus and Buddhists.
The North Carolina school has historic ties to the United Methodist Church. But Christy Lohr Sapp, associate dean of religious life at Duke Chapel, says the student body now includes 263 Hindus and 91 Buddhists.
A Hindu Student Association faculty adviser says Duke has around 100 Hindu faculty as well.
Sumi Kim, the chaplain for the Buddhist Community at Duke, says the two faiths have similar values and both meditate, although Hindus spend more time in prayer.
The Hindu and Buddhist prayer and meditation space was previously a Muslim prayer room, which moved down the hall when another room became available.
Other Stories in Education
Education reform's 'Rosa Parks moment' DC school vouchers resurrected 'Bullying' just a front for pushing agenda Sex ed in Calif. displays solid pro-abortion push Education taking anti-family route Education system not deserving of investment Classroom discomfort with evolution More choice, more motivation, better education Pastor: Commandments part of U.S. history Students vouch for Bible course's benefits ROTC making a comeback? Prayer, student speakers unwelcome Planned Parenthood's troubling 'philosophy' 'Assembly line' education not working More states consider parents' rights Detroit's educational cuts precede others' Advice to school district: Don't be bullied Money can't buy smarts Researcher: School choice should be open to all Campaign regards students' religious rights
An Israeli author and expert on the Middle East is warning Americans that Islamic immigrants could possibly flood the U.S. as a result of the events taking place in Egypt.
Israel National News recently reported that the Obama administration has decided to allow Islamic professor Tariq Ramadan to enter the United States. Ramadan, an Egyptian who currently lives in Switzerland, is a leading member of Europe's Muslim Brotherhood branch and is the grandson of the movement's founder. He was invited to teach at the University of Notre Dame in 2004, but the Bush administration revoked his visa because of donations he made to a blacklisted charity.
However, the Obama administration has now decided to lift the ban and possibly allow Ramadan and Adam Habib, another Muslim professor, onto U.S. soil."I'm sure you've heard many times that Washington, DC, is now flooded with Muslims in very high positions in the U.S. administration, and these Muslims already control the gates," notes Avi Lipkin, an Israeli scholar and author who has traveled throughout the U.S. to warn Americans about the threat of Islam. "The floodgates are open. The Muslims are coming in in tremendous numbers into the U.S."
But he warns that the floodgates will only get worse when illegal aliens gain their amnesty.
"What we will be seeing, I'm afraid, will be an amnesty for the illegal immigrants in America," Lipkin laments. "Once the amnesty takes place for the Latin Americans, then they will get ready for the next wave of illegals, which will be the tens of millions of Muslims who are going to be flooding into the U.S., especially Egyptians and Palestinians."
Meanwhile, the State Department has declared that it no longer considers Ramadan or Habib to be a threat to the United States.
What's the primary reason for the increasing influence
and influx of radical Muslims in the U.S.?
Other Stories in Culture
Big population gains for U.S. minorities PC-induced blindness War survivor, new creation tells his story Congressman still confident in creation Bible verse not OK, says Fox Chili's in cahoots with 'gay' task force Overdue inspections reveal abortuary deficiencies Mosque's relocation not to be believed Schools unite for nationwide prayer meeting Teen patriots convene under tea party banner Battle against Illinois' civil unions bill Planned Parenthood funding - drop it! Egypt = glimpse into U.S. future with net neutrality Packers' WR: 'God is the right way' High-speed rail quota overly ambitious Voight hopes daughter Jolie will visit Israel Latest film now in test screenings France free of euthanasia Video sting nets another abortion clinic Schlafly: People should challenge aggressive judges
ALEXANDRIA, LA—United States Attorney Stephanie A. Finley announced today that Roy E. Hebron, former mayor of the town of Ball, Louisiana entered a guilty plea today to a charge of conspiracy to defraud the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) following Hurricane Gustav. The government's plea agreement with Hebron required him to resign from his office as mayor. The resignation is effective immediately. Pleading to the same charge was Brenda Kimball, the clerk of the town of Ball.
Jay L. Barber, former chief of police for the town of Ball; Anthony Akins; Judy Crowe; and Laverne James previously pled guilty to related charges and were cooperating with the government.
Hebron, 56, and Kimball, 54, admitted at guilty plea hearings today before U.S. District Judge Dee D. Drell that they conspired to submit false statements to FEMA in an application for benefits to be paid in connection with the Presidential Disaster Declaration for the state of Louisiana in September 2008 for Hurricane Gustav. Hebron and Kimball admitted to lying to the government by overstating the use of town vehicles and
equipment and hours worked by town employees to receive government funds to which they individually and the town of Ball were not entitled. Hebron served as mayor of Ball, Louisiana from 1988 until 2011.
Hebron and Kimball face a maximum penalty of five years in prison, a $250,000 fine, or both. Hebron and Kimball remain free on bond pending their sentencing hearing which is set for May 6, 2011.
This case was investigated by Special Agent Randolph J. Deaton, IV of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Special Agents Rick Perry and Steven Monachello of the United States Department of Homeland Security - Office of Inspector General. The case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Cytheria D. Jernigan and First Assistant United States Attorney Alexander C. Van Hook.
A 41-year-old Stillwater man was sentenced earlier today in federal court in St. Paul for
taking illicit photographs of a girl with his cell phone. United States District Court Judge
Donovan W. Frank sentenced Shane Allen Werlein to 360 months in prison on one count of
production of child pornography. Werlein was indicted on March 9, 2010, and pleaded guilty on
September 27, 2010.
In his plea agreement, Werlein admitted that between November of 2009 and February 26,
2010, he used multiple fictitious Facebook profiles to befriend at least two minor females. Those
profiles were created as part of a scheme to persuade the girls to engage in sexually explicit acts
and provide Werlein with photos of those acts. Werlein also admitted having sexual contact with
the girls and using his cell phone to take photos of them. He then downloaded the photos to his
computer.
This case was the result of an investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the
Stillwater Police Department, the Washington County Sheriff's Office, and the Minneapolis
Police Department. All four agencies are affiliates of the Minnesota Internet Crimes Against
Children Task Force. The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney LeeAnn K. Bell.
The U.S. Department of Justice is committed to combating the sexual exploitation of
children. For more information about these efforts, visit the Department's Project Safe
Childhood website at www.projectsafechildhood.gov.
Richard Bryan Nutt Jr., 43, pleaded guilty today before United States District Judge Vanessa Gilmore to conspiring with others to use his position as a law enforcement officer to steal drug loads from dealers and split the proceeds with others after the stolen drugs were sold by co-defendants. Judge Gilmore accepted the guilty plea, convicted Nutt of conspiracy to commit extortion, and has set sentencing for June 6, 2011. Nutt has been permitted to remain on bond pending sentencing. He faces a maximum of 20 years in prison without parole for the conviction and a $250,0000 fine.
The charges and today’s conviction is the result of a joint Houston Police Department (HPD) Internal Affairs and Narcotics Division and the FBI of a sting operation initiated after HPD obtained information that members of law enforcement were robbing shipments of narcotics in Houston, Texas.
On Dec. 15, 2010, Deputy Richard Bryan Nutt of the Harris County Sheriff’s Office met with co-defendants Nathaniel House, 37, Richard Jerome Banks, 38, John Edward Scott, 34, and Danny Wayne Bell, 40. House told the group that a vehicle containing narcotics or narcotics proceeds would be driving through Houston. The co-defendants agreed to stop the vehicle, a Chrysler Aspen SUV, with the assistance of Deputy Nutt. Nutt was to conduct a traffic stop of the SUV, which was reportedly to be driven by a drug dealer from Mexico. Nutt was to pretend to arrest the driver then release him while the co-defendants took the vehicle containing the drugs. The conspirators would then split the money from the sale of the drugs. However, the plan did not proceed as intended.
Later that day, Deputy Nutt, in full uniform and driving a silver pickup equipped with red and blue emergency lights, spotted and followed the Chrysler Aspen SUV as it drove into a parking lot of a Houston area shopping center. Once parked, the SUV driver, actually an undercover HPD officer, abandoned the SUV.
House entered the SUV and removed a package he believed contained cocaine and transferred the package to a blue Nissan Altima allegedly driven by Banks. Leaving the silver pickup to other co-defendants, Nutt entered the passenger seat of the blue Nissan Altima and left the parking lot in the vehicle with the package.
As the Nissan Altima left the parking lot it was stopped by HPD officers. The package containing the purported cocaine—it was actually fake—was found and removed from under the passenger seat where Nutt sat. Unlike the plan, Nutt and his co-defendants were arrested by law enforcement officers and subsequently charged federally.
House also pleaded guilty today and is also set to be sentenced in June. The remaining defendants are pending trial in mid-March 2011 and presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty through due process of law.
Assistant U.S. Attorney James McAlister is prosecuting the case.
PHILADELPHIA—Robert Snyder, 30, and James Venziale, 32, both of Philadelphia, pleaded guilty today to a drug conspiracy involving heroin and related offenses, announced United States Attorney Zane David Memeger. At the time of the crimes, both defendants were Philadelphia Police Officers assigned to the 25th and 39th Police Districts, respectively.
Snyder and Venziale were charged in July 2010, along with then-police officer Mark Williams, Zachary Young, Angel Ortiz, Christal Snyder, and Miguel Santiago. Today, the two defendants admitted that they planned and executed a scheme to steal heroin from Santiago and then distribute that heroin to another person whom the defendants believed to be a drug dealer and money launderer, but who was, in reality, an undercover special agent from the Drug Enforcement Administration. Snyder and Venziale abused their authority as police officers and agreed to assist in the scheme to steal heroin from Santiago. On May 14, 2010, immediately after Santiago’s drug courier delivered 300 grams of heroin, Venziale—who was on duty and in uniform at the time—stopped Ortiz’s vehicle and, with Santiago’s drug courier watching nearby, Venziale made it appear as if the heroin was being seized and Ortiz arrested. As a result, the co-conspirators obtained 300 grams of heroin, without payment to Santiago. Venziale was then paid for taking part in the scheme. In addition to the conspiracy count, Venziale pleaded guilty to knowingly and intentionally distributing, and aiding and abetting the distribution of, 100 grams or more, that is, approximately 299 grams, of a mixture and substance containing a detectable amount of heroin; and possession with the intent to distribute 100 grams or more of heroin within 1,000 feet of a school. Snyder also pleaded guilty conspiracy to distribute 100 grams or more of heroin, possession with intent to distribute 100 grams or more of heroin; possession with the intent to distribute 100 grams or more of heroin within 1,000 feet of a school; use of a communication facility in furtherance of drug trafficking; conspiracy to commit robbery which interferes with interstate commerce; attempted robbery which interferes with interstate commerce; and using and carrying a firearm during and in relation to a crime of violence.
Both defendants are scheduled to be sentenced May 10, 2011. Snyder faces a mandatory minimum term of ten years in prison; Venziale faces a mandatory minimum of five years in prison. The remaining co-defendants are awaiting trial.
The case was investigated by The Drug Enforcement Administration and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, with the cooperation and assistance of the Philadelphia Police Department. The case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorneys Maureen McCartney and Anthony Wzorek.
PREET BHARARA, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and JANICE FEDARCYK, the Assistant Director in Charge of the New York Field Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation ("FBI"), announced today the arrest of SAMUEL J. FANELLI on charges of possessing, receiving, and distributing child pornography. FANELLI, 22, was arrested Friday, January 28, 2011 by FBI agents. He was presented on Saturday, January 29, 2011, in White Plains federal court before U.S. Magistrate Judge PAUL E. DAVISON.
U.S. Attorney BHARARA stated: "Individuals who receive and distribute child pornography prey on the most vulnerable members of our society, our children. As technology advances and facilitates the spread of child pornography, our office and the FBI continue to work tirelessly to combat this scourge on our community and to protect the innocent from harm."
FBI Assistant Director in Charge FEDARCYK stated: "The FBI remains committed to vigorous enforcement of child pornography laws. The market for child pornography creates demand for images, and the production of those images means the victimization and exploitation of children. Child pornography is not a victimless crime, it is a grave assault on the most innocent of victims."
According to the criminal complaint unsealed earlier today:
FANELLI, possessed child pornography that had been downloaded from the Internet. During a search of FANELLI's residence prior to his arrest, FANELLI's computer was seized and was found to have more than 10,000 images and videos of child pornography.
FANELLI is charged with one count of possessing child pornography and one count of receiving and distributing child pornography. Upon conviction, the first count carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison and a maximum fine of $250,000 or twice the gross gain or loss from the offense. The second count carries a mandatory minimum sentence of five years, a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, and a maximum fine of $250,000 or twice the gross gain or loss from the offense.
Mr. BHARARA praised the outstanding investigative work of the FBI and thanked the Westchester County District Attorney's Office and the New Rochelle and Larchmont Police Departments for their efforts. He added that the investigation is continuing.
Mr BHARARA requests that any individuals with relevant information contact the Federal Bureau of Investigation in White Plains, New York at (914) 989-6000.
The prosecution is being handled by the Office's White Plains Division. Assistant United States Attorney REBECCA MERMELSTEIN is in charge of the prosecution.
The charges contained in the complaint are merely accusations, and the defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.
Maureen O'Connor —
A lady in New Mexico received a yogurt sample from her local grocer. She recognized the flavor: semen. She spat the yogurt out and called the cops. Forensic evidence later revealed sperm cells in the lady's yogurt.
This has been your daily reminder that human sexuality is occasionally vile. May "semen-tainted yogurt sample" go down in history as the grossest phrase to grace a headline on February 7, 2010. [TSG, image of non-tainted yogurt via Flickr]
Catholic bishops have approved an iPhone app that walks the faithful through the confession process (though they must consult a priest for absolution). The app is called "Confession," an improvement on the original name, "A Priest in Your Pocket."
