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KKK neighborhood watch proposal makes Pennsylvania townsfolk uneasy

- Thursday, May 08, 2014

When a Missouri-based Ku Klux Klan affiliate dropped leaflets on residents' lawns in a southern Pennsylvania township to announce the start of a neighborhood watch, the idea of a hate group patrolling their neighborhoods made many townspeople uneasy.

But researchers from the Anti-Defamation League and Southern Policy Law Center who study the group contend the Klan's move over the last few weeks may have been more flash than substance, a last-gasp bid for relevancy by the 150-year-old white supremacist group in a nation that is leaving its movement behind.

The type of angry white men who swelled the Klan's ranks after the abolition of slavery and returned during the civil rights era of the 1960s today may instead prefer the paramilitary trappings of newer hate groups to the KKK's infamous white robes and hoods, according to the ADL.

The targeted towns in suburban Pennsylvania south of the capital Harrisburg, are hardly hotbeds of crime. FBI data from 2013 shows 19 homicides reported across the county of 437,000 residents, a rate well below the national average.

But the Klan affiliate Traditionalist American Knights contends it was called in to establish a neighborhood watch after a wave of car break-ins.

"We'll send some of our people out to train them to make sure that they are doing things properly, that they're doing everything in a law-abiding manner, not acting like vigilantes or anything," said Frank Ancona, imperial wizard of the group based in Park Hills, Missouri, some 850 miles west of the Pennsylvania communities.

Ancona said members of the watch do not wear the white robes and hoods that Klan members did in the 19th and 20th centuries when they launched terrifying attacks on black Americans, Jewish Americans and others targeted for ethnic or religious persecution.

"That's part of the strength of the Klan," Ancona said. "Criminals don't know who the people on patrol are or the number of them."

But Mark Pitcavage, who studies the Klan for the Anti-Defamation League, suggested that there may be another factor that could make it hard for criminals to spot the neighborhood watch: It may not exist.

"Frankly, I don't buy it," Pitcavage said. "They have no real presence in the region. They may have a few members; they may have enough members to scrape together a small Klan rally, but not enough to operate a neighborhood watch patrol."

Ancona says the group has 1,000 members in the Pennsylvania area, a number that Pitcavage views as exaggerated: True membership may be less than 50, he estimated based on his years of tracking the activities of the KKK and similar organizations.

While the number of hate groups active in the United States increased to about 1,096 in 2013 from 708 in 2002, according to Mark Potok, senior fellow of the Southern Poverty Law Center, researchers say KKK membership has decreased in recent years.

The ADL estimates that the KKK now has some 3,500 members nationwide, down from about 8,000 members 10 years ago, while the SPLC contends the number of chapters currently stands at about 163, down from 221 in 2009.

LAW ENFORCEMENT CONCERNS

Local law enforcement officials said they had not been contacted about the KKK affiliate's plans. In Camp Hill, where the group also plans to set up a watch, Police Chief Douglas Hockenberry urged residents to call 911 rather than a Missouri-based hotline if they see any criminal activity.

"We do not have a high crime rate," Hockenberry said.

While neighborhood watch groups, civilians who report crimes to police, generally serve a useful purpose and get the community involved, problems can sometimes arise. George Zimmerman, the Florida man who shot and killed unarmed teen Trayvon Martin in 2012, was a neighborhood watch member.

The Klan has long been linked to violent attacks, most recently last month when 73-year-old former KKK leader Frazier Glenn Cross shot dead three people at two Jewish community centers near Kansas City, according to prosecutors.

That image of KKK members as aging may be a factor in the group's decline, said Pitcavage, who added that disaffected white Americans looking to join hate groups have other options, including neo-Nazi groups and militias.

"The Klan is not the only option or the coolest option either," Pitcavage said.

Moves like the Pennsylvania neighborhood watch may be an attempt to recruit new members, Pitcavage said, although Ancona, the KKK leader, denied that was a motivation.

"We don't necessarily need the publicity," Ancona said. "Best recruiting occurs person-to-person. I don't know where they get their numbers from. We have members in every state except Alaska and Hawaii."

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Cuba arrests four Miami-based exiles suspected of attack plot

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Cuba has arrested four Miami-based exiles suspected of planning attacks on military installations with the goal of promoting anti-government violence on the communist-run island, the Interior Ministry said.

Anti-Castro Cuban exile Luis Posada Carriles attends a ceremony to recognize opponents of the Castro government in Miami, Florida, May 22, 2009.

Labeling the suspects as "terrorists," it said in a statement late on Tuesday they were linked to Luis Posada Carriles, 86, a Cuban exile and former CIA operative living in Miami who for many years sought to overthrow former President Fidel Castro.

The April 26 arrests could antagonize the already poor relations between Washington and Havana, and the case recalled a series of plots from the exile community in Miami against Cuba.

Cuba said it would contact U.S. officials about the investigation and that the four suspects had admitted to planning the attacks. By reaching out to U.S. authorities, Cuba said it hoped to "avoid acts by terrorist organizations or elements located in that country."

The State Department said it had seen the Cuban statement but had no further information.

"The Cuban government has also not been in touch with us yet on these cases," spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters.

The suspects were identified as Jose Ortega Amador, Obdulio Rodriguez Gonzalez, Raibel Pacheco Santos and Felix Monzon Alvarez, relative unknowns among Miami exiles.

Cuba said they were working for three others in Miami, who are well known, and who had close ties to Posada Carriles, a polarizing figure seen as a terrorist in Cuba but a hero to some anti-Castro exiles.

A lawyer for Posada Carriles denied any connection to the allegations. "No basis at all," attorney Arturo Hernandez said.

At least two of the three other so-called masterminds, Santiago Alvarez and Osvaldo Mitat, have been active in the militant, anti-Castro exile movement. Both pleaded guilty in 2006 to criminal conspiracy in a plea deal to avoid more serious charges of possessing machine guns, a grenade launcher and thousands of rounds of ammunition.

Alvarez denied any link, saying he had never heard of the men who were arrested.

"This is just a bunch of lies," Santiago Alvarez said. "They need to shift the blame from the economic situation they are in and entertain people with stories about Miami terrorists."

Another man linked by Cuba to the plot, a well-known Miami area doctor, Manuel Alzugaray, went on Spanish-language TV in Miami on Wednesday night to deny any link to the arrested men. "I don't recognize any of their names," he told the Mega TV show, Ahora Con Oscar Haza.

The president of a local charity, Miami Medical Team Foundation, Alzugaray said he had been dedicated to humanitarian work for three decades, including sending medicines to Cuba.

A man who identified himself as Raibel Pacheco was listed as director of a short-lived and previously unknown Florida non-profit, the Fuerza Cubana de Liberacion Inc, which was created to "help the people of Cuba reconquer their democracy and their lost liberties," according to the Florida state records.

Reuters could not confirm if he was the same Raibel Pacheco named by Cuba as one of the arrested suspects.

Posada Carriles is wanted in Cuba and Venezuela in relation to the bombing of a Cubana Airlines jet in 1976 that killed 73 people. He is also suspected of involvement in hotel bombings in 1997 aimed at destabilizing Cuba and scaring away tourists.

Cuba has recently intensified its criticism of the United States for what it considers efforts to destabilize the country. It has also railed against the State Department for once again naming Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism in an annual report on April 30.

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Syrian TV: 'Huge explosion' levels Aleppo hotel

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A "huge explosion" Thursday in northern Syria leveled a hotel that government troops used as a military base, along with several other buildings in a government-held area, state television and activists reported.




Syrian state television said the explosion struck on the edge of a contested old neighborhood in Aleppo. The television report identified the hotel as the Charlton hotel.

A local activist group called the Sham News Network also reported the blast, saying that President Bashar Assad's troops were based in the hotel.

Another activist group, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said the explosion struck Aleppo's Old City, where rebels have been holed up from months. The Observatory said the rebels belonging to the Islamic Front group planted a huge amount of explosives in a tunnel they dug below the Charlton hotel, detonating it remotely.

It said the hotel was completely destroyed in the blast and that there were casualties among the troops.

Aleppo, the country's largest city and former commercial hub, is carved up into rebel-held and government-held areas since the rebels launched an offensive there in mid-2010, capturing territory along Syria's northern border with Turkey.

In recent months, government aircraft relentlessly has bombed rebel-held areas of the city and the opposition fighters have hit back, firing mortars into government-held areas. The rebels also have detonated car bombs in residential areas, killing dozens of people.

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At U.S. college, Irish militant archive becomes diplomatic time bomb

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The arrest of Irish politician Gerry Adams may have its roots in a closed archive of taped interviews with former paramilitaries in Northern Ireland that researchers now fear could be used to charge others over sectarian violence from decades ago.

Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams looks down during a meeting in Dublin, January 28, 2007, to vote on whether to support policing arrangements in Northern Ireland.

U.S. and British authorities last year won a court battle against Boston College in Massachusetts to obtain interviews from the oral history archive. They said the records were needed to investigate the 1972 killing of a widowed mother by the IRA, a notorious incident from the period known as "The Troubles."

The legal victory created a diplomatic time bomb. Material previously made public from the archive has linked Adams to the death of the woman, Jean McConville. Adams has always denied membership of the IRA and involvement in the murder.

The success of police from Northern Ireland in gaining access to the material now means that other interviews could in theory also be obtained from the archive and form the basis of new prosecutions, said Ed Moloney, an Irish journalist now living in New York who helped oversee the oral history project that ran from 2001 to 2006.

The interview subjects included 26 IRA members and 20 members of the opposing Ulster Volunteer Force. All were promised confidentiality until their deaths.

"The American government has to make it clear this is not a repository of evidence the PSNI can come raid at will," Moloney said, referring to Northern Ireland's police force.

Moloney and another researcher, former-IRA-member-turned-historian Anthony McIntyre, say the U.S. government offered too much help to Northern Ireland's authorities without regard to the impact that it could have on peace agreements that were negotiated to end the decades long sectarian violence.

Adams' arrest has led to threats against McIntyre, his wife, said. He had been labeled an informer on Twitter, Carrie Twomey said in a telephone interview. McIntyre lives in the Republic of Ireland, in the district that Adams represents as a member of Ireland's parliament.

Boston College declined on Thursday to discuss the archive, a collection of digital and analog recordings and printed transcripts still kept by the institution, whose leafy campus sits just outside the city.

Moloney said some interviewees have sought to have their material from the archive returned. A college representative said he could not immediately comment on that point. Government officials had not sought more archive material, he added.

EARLIER THAN EXPECTED

The archive was begun just after the 1998 Good Friday peace agreement ended fighting in Northern Ireland. Its academic sponsors envisioned it being opened to the public decades later as an academic resource on the conflict that killed thousands.

Two events thrust the material onto the public stage sooner. First was a 2010 book by Moloney, "Voices from the Grave," that drew on interviews given for the archive by IRA commander Brendan Hughes and David Ervine, a UVF militant and later a political figure. Both had died, allowing their stories to be told under the terms of their agreements with the project.

In the book Moloney quotes Hughes connecting Adams to McConville's death and ordering her burial as an informer. Adams has always vigorously denied being involved in her death.

Separately, Irish newspapers in 2010 published reports about Dolours Price, an IRA member imprisoned for a 1973 London bombing, that tied Adams to McConville's death and other incidents.

The publications drew new police attention and led to the subpoenas, which Boston College sought to limit in what became a test of academic freedom.

Whatever confidentiality the interviewees expected, the researchers "made promises they could not keep: that they would conceal evidence of murder and other crimes until the perpetrators were in their graves," U.S. prosecutors said in a 2011 court filing.

They called the Belfast project "laudable" but added that "the promise of absolute confidentiality was flawed."

In 2012 a federal appeals court in Boston upheld the subpoenas, citing a 1972 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that journalists have no privilege against being forced to testify in a criminal proceeding.

The court later cut from 85 to 11 the number of interviews the college had to turn over. The interviews were given by seven individuals whose identities were kept secret and were referred to by a single letter.

ACADEMIC SPLIT

The legal battle by the researchers and Boston College drew support from some academics who worried the process could have a chilling effect on how historians study conflicts.

Without more protection, researchers face "potentially crippling uncertainty for those who gather information from confidential sources, including academic researchers," stated one amicus brief filed by a group of social scientists.

Others, however, felt the Boston College project fell outside the bounds of the usual academic practices.

Mary Marshall Clark, director of Columbia University's Center for Oral History Research, said professional oral historians should have strict guidelines to follow and aim to make their interviews public rather than keeping them secret for decades, as the Belfast Project planned.

"We cannot protect people," she said. If controversial subjects come up, she said, "we would tell them in the interview, when they talk about that, they better think about that and call their lawyers."

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Government says no need to park recalled GM cars

- Wednesday, May 07, 2014

There's no need to tell owners of recalled General Motors small cars to stop driving them, according to U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx.

Wendi Kunkel faced ignition switch issues on her 2010 Chevy Cobalt in Rockwall, Texas. Kunkel was instructed to pull everything off her keychain, which GM contends will solve the problem. But she’s still nervous about driving her car on her 30-minute one-way commute.

In a written response to two senators who asked for such an order, Foxx said engineers with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration have determined it's not necessary.

GM is recalling 2.6 million small cars worldwide to replace ignition switches that suddenly can slip out of the run position and shut off the engine. That can knock out power-assisted steering and cause drivers to lose control and crash. It also disables the air bags. GM says at least 13 people have died in crashes linked to the problem. The company has admitted knowing about the problem for at least a decade, yet failing to recall the cars until this year.

The company has told owners to remove everything from their key chains, and the reduced weight will stop the switches from slipping into the "accessory" or "off" positions.

Foxx, responding to a letter from Democratic Sens. Edward Markey of Massachusetts and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, said NHTSA engineers have examined the geometry and physics of the key, ignition switch and steering column of the GM vehicles, and they have reviewed GM's testing data.

The ignition switch of a 2005 Chevrolet Cobalt.

"NHTSA is satisfied that for now, until the permanent remedy is applied, the safety risk posed by the defect in affected vehicles is sufficiently mitigated by GM's recommended action," the letter says.

The safety agency, which is part of Foxx's department, has taken measures above and beyond normal procedures in the GM case, Foxx wrote.

The recalled cars include mainly Chevrolet Cobalts and Saturn Ions that are no longer being made. GM is in the process of shipping parts to dealers but has said it won't be done with that until October. The company is offering loaner cars to any owners with safety concerns and so far has provided about 45,000.

But Blumenthal and Markey disagree and say all the cars should be parked until the switches are replaced.

"We remain extremely concerned that GM and NHTSA are not doing enough to convey the seriousness of this defect to owners of the affected cars, unnecessarily putting more lives at risk," the senators said in a statement Wednesday.

They also questioned why GM's initial recall notice to car owners said the ignition switches could malfunction while driving over rough terrain "regardless of additional weight on the key ring."

Both senators are members of a subcommittee that is looking into GM's actions involving the switches. NHTSA and the Justice Department are also investigating, and criminal charges are possible.

GM has said it has done 80 different tests at high speeds and on rough roads, and that with just the key in the ignition, the switches don't move out of the run position.

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House votes to hold ex-IRS official in contempt

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House Republicans voted Wednesday to hold a former Internal Revenue Service official in contempt of Congress for refusing to testify at a pair of committee hearings about her role in the agency's tea party controversy.

In this May 22, 2013, photo, then-IRS official Lois Lerner is sworn in on Capitol Hill in Washington before the House Oversight Committee hearing to investigate the extra scrutiny the IRS gave to tea party and other conservative groups that applied for tax-exempt status.

The House also passed a nonbinding resolution calling on the Justice Department to appoint a special counsel to investigate the IRS.

Lois Lerner directed the IRS division that processes applications for tax-exempt status. A year ago this week, Lerner publicly disclosed that agents had improperly singled out tea party applications for extra, sometimes burdensome scrutiny.

An inspector general's report blamed poor management but found no evidence of a political conspiracy. Many Republicans in Congress believe otherwise.

"Who's been fired over the targeting of conservative groups by the IRS? No one that I'm aware of," House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said Wednesday. "Who's gone to jail for violating the law? When is the administration going to tell the American people the truth?"

House Democrats said Wednesday's voting was little more than an election-year ploy to fire up the GOP base.

"Instead of passing bipartisan legislation to create more jobs, reform immigration, raise the minimum wage or address any number of issues that affect our constituents every single day, House Republicans are spending this entire week trying to manufacture scandals for political purposes," said Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee.

"Welcome to witch hunt week," said Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass.

The vote to hold Lerner in contempt of Congress was 231 to 187, with all Republicans voting in favor and all but a few Democrats voting against.

Lerner invoked her Fifth Amendment right not to answer questions at a pair of hearings by the Oversight Committee. House Republicans say she waived her constitutional right by making an opening statement in which she proclaimed her innocence.

The matter now goes to Ronald Machen, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia. Federal law says Machen has a "duty" to bring the matter before a grand jury. But a report by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service said it was unclear whether the duty is mandatory or discretionary. Machen was appointed to his job by President Barack Obama.

"We will carefully review the report from the speaker of the House and take whatever action is appropriate," Machen's office said in a statement.

The vote calling on the Justice Department to appoint a special counsel was 250 to 168, with all Republicans voting in favor and most Democrats voting against.

Attorney General Eric Holder has denied previous requests to appoint a special counsel, saying it was unwarranted.

Three congressional committees and the Justice Department have spent much of the past year investigating the IRS over its handling of applications for tax-exempt status.

So far, the congressional investigations have revealed that IRS officials in Washington were more involved in handling the applications than the agency initially acknowledged.

However, the investigations have not publicly established that anyone outside the IRS knew about the targeting or directed it.

Cummings released a report this week saying House Oversight Committee investigators have interviewed 39 witnesses, and found no involvement by the White House and no political conspiracy by IRS officials. Instead, many IRS witnesses said they lacked clear guidance from management on how to handle tea party applications, the report said.

"Who told Lois Lerner to target conservative Americans?" Rep. Michelle Bachmann, R-Minn., said at a news conference sponsored by several tea party groups. "That's what we don't know. That's what we need to know."

Lerner sat for a lengthy interview with Justice Department investigators, said her lawyer, William W. Taylor III. The interview was done "without conditions," he said.

Lerner wouldn't answer questions before the Oversight Committee because, Taylor said, committee Republicans were only looking to vilify her in front of TV cameras.

"It was clear that the majority would conduct the hearing without any sense of decorum or fairness," Taylor told reporters in March.

On Wednesday, Taylor said in a statement: "Today's vote has nothing to do with the facts or the law. Its only purpose is to keep the baseless IRS `conspiracy' alive through the midterm elections."

"Ms. Lerner has not committed contempt of Congress. She did not waive her Fifth Amendment rights by proclaiming her innocence," Taylor added.

On May 10, 2013, Lerner was speaking at a Washington law conference when she made the agency's first public acknowledgment of the tea party controversy. At the time, Lerner publicly apologized on behalf of the agency.

Most of the groups were applying for tax-exempt status as social welfare organizations. Agents were scrutinizing the applications to measure how much the groups were involved in politics.

IRS regulations say social welfare groups may engage in electoral politics, but it may not be their primary mission.

About two weeks after Lerner's public revelation, she was subpoenaed to appear at a House Oversight Committee hearing. Lerner read an opening statement, saying she did nothing wrong, broke no laws and never lied to Congress. Then she refused to answer lawmakers' further questions, citing her Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate herself.


The next day Lerner was placed on paid leave. She retired from the IRS last fall, ending a 34-year career in the federal government, including work at the Justice Department and Federal Election Commission.

The Oversight Committee later ruled in a party-line vote that Lerner forfeited her constitutional right not to testify by making an opening statement. All Republicans voted in favor while all Democrats voted against.

Committee Democrats have compiled a list of constitutional experts who say the contempt case is weak. Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., countered with a memo from the House general counsel's office saying there is a legal foundation for holding Lerner in contempt.

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This Email Shows Google And NSA's Close Working Relationship

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If Google wasn't cooperating with the National Security Agency's spying program, as the company has vehemently claimed again and again, why were the guys in charge of each organization emailing so much in 2011 and 2012?

That's the question raised by a series of emails between then-NSA director Keith Alexander and Google chairman Eric Schmidt and co-founder Sergey Brin starting in late 2011. The emails were published by Al Jazeera America on Tuesday.

The correspondence suggests a close relationship between the NSA and Google before former NSA contractor Edward Snowden ever leaked documents detailing the agency's online spying efforts. One of the two email chains describe a meeting between the NSA director and Google executives near an airport in San Jose, Calif.

"When we reach this point in our projects we schedule a classified briefing for the CEO’s of key companies to provide them a brief on the specific threats we believe can be mitigated and to seek their commitment for their organization to move ahead," Alexander wrote in June 2012 email to Schmidt. "Google’s participation in refinement, engineering and deployment of the solutions will be essential.”

When Schmidt wasn't able to attend, he enthusiastically responded, "Would love to see you another time. Thank you !" See the entire message below:

You can read the full email exchanges over at Al Jazeera

"We work really hard to protect our users from cyber attacks and we talk to outside experts, including occasionally in the US government, to ensure we stay ahead of the game," a Google spokesperson told The Huffington Post. The company provided the same comment to Al Jazeera America.

Google executives have maintained since the Snowden revelations that the search giant does not give the U.S. government access to its servers and the personal information of its users unless it is legally compelled to. If the government does have such access, Google does not know about it, Schmidt publicly stated in November.

These emails don't directly contradict that claim by Google. But they do suggest a cozier relationship between Silicon Valley and the state than the Googling public should be comfortable with.

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Colorado lawmakers approve plan for pot banking

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Colorado lawmakers approved the world's first financial system for the marijuana industry Wednesday, a network of uninsured cooperatives designed to give pot businesses a way to access basic banking services.

The plan seeks to move the marijuana industry away from its cash-only roots. Banks routinely reject pot businesses for even basic services such as checking accounts because they fear running afoul of federal law, which considers marijuana and its proceeds illegal.

The result: Pot shop owners deal in large amounts of cash, which makes them targets for criminals. Or they try to find ways around the problem, like drenching their proceeds in air freshener to remove the stink of marijuana and try to fool traditional banks into accepting their money.

"This is our main problem: Financial services for marijuana businesses," said Sen. David Balmer, R-Centennial. "We are trying to improvise and come up with something in Colorado to give marijuana business some opportunity, so they do not have to store large amounts of cash."

Colorado became the first state to allow recreational pot sales, which started Jan. 1. Washington state will follow suit, with retail sales expect to start in July.

The U.S. Treasury Department said in February that banks could serve the marijuana industry under certain conditions. With the industry emerging from the underground, states want to track marijuana sales and collect taxes. It's a lot easier to do that when the businesses have bank accounts.

But most banks have shrugged at the Treasury guidelines, calling them too onerous to accept marijuana-related clients. The result is a marijuana industry that still relies largely on cash, a safety risk for operators and a concern for Colorado's pot regulators.

"This is not something that we can wait for any further," said another banking sponsor, Rep. Jonathan Singer, D-Longmont.

The bill approved Wednesday would allow marijuana businesses to pool money in cooperative s, but the co-ops would on take effect if the U.S. Federal Reserve agrees to allow them to do things like accept credit cards or checks.

Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper supports the pot bank plan and is expected to sign it into law, though a spokesman said Wednesday the governor had yet to review the final language.


Lawmakers from both parties supported the banking co-ops as a way to properly audit marijuana shops and to make sure they're paying all their taxes. Dispensary owners came to the Capitol this session to tell of their difficulties paying taxes and utilities in cash and the dangers of dealing in cash.

Robin Goldfarb smokes
 marijuana in Denver on April 19, 2014.

"It is very easy to see somebody get killed over this issue," Marijuana Industry Group Director Michael Elliott testified last month.

The plan had bipartisan support, though some Republicans said that the effort won't pass federal muster.

A few banks are accepting marijuana clients in light of the federal regulations.

Numerica Credit Union in eastern Washington state is accepting limited business from marijuana growers and processors, The Spokesman-Review reported Wednesday.

Colorado pot shop owners say a small number of credit unions will do business with them, too, though no banks or credit unions have said so publicly.

Countries that don't ban marijuana don't have banking systems unique to the drug.