Fmr Police Chief Gets a Dose of the Police State as He’s Detained at Airport ‘Because of His Name’

New York, NY — (RT) A retired police chief who served in US law enforcement for nearly 30 years says he was detained at JFK airport because his name, Hassan Aden, had reportedly been used as an alias by a person on “some watch list.”

After a joyful weekend celebrating his mother’s 80th birthday in Paris, Aden “happily” boarded his return flight to the US on March 13, a country he has been a citizen of for more than four decades.

When it was his turn to speak to the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officer, Aden says he was asked if he was traveling alone.

“I knew this was a sign of trouble, I answered ‘yes,’ then he said, ‘Let’s take a walk,’” he wrote on Facebook.

That walk led Aden to what he described as a “re-purposed storage facility with three desks.” Signs were posted throughout the room, warning people to stay seated and informing them that using mobile phones was “strictly prohibited.”

Aden says he attempted to explain that he was a retired police chief, but the immigration officer said that he had “no control” and couldn’t release him, despite his long career in law enforcement.

A second officer provided a bit more information, explaining to Aden that his name “was used as an alias by someone on some watch list.” The 52-year-old was told that his information had been sent to another agency to “de-conflict and clear me so I could gain passage into the United States… my own country!!!”

While Aden waited, he noticed that he was being held longer than anyone else, despite having been a US citizen for 42 years. While the citizens of other countries spent five minutes in the room, Aden says he was stuck there for 1.5 hours.

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Despite being trapped with no means of communicating with his wife or family, he was told by the original CBP officer that he was not being detained.

“But I’m not free to leave – how is that not a detention?” he replied.

“My movements were restricted to a chair and they had my passport… and he had the audacity to tell me I was not being detained,” the retired police chief said.

As he waited, Aden said he recalled the “numerous trips abroad” when he had had “no problems” upon returning and was greeted by CBP officers with a “welcome home.”

Thanks for the support I’ve received since detailing my CBP detention.I’m fortunate to be able to give this problem a voice and a platform.

— Hassan Aden (@chiefaden) March 20, 2017

He was eventually cleared and made his connecting flight to Washington DC “by minutes.”

Aden wrote that, despite being cleared, he now feels “vulnerable and unsure of the future of a country that was once great and that I proudly called my own.”

“This experience makes me question if this is indeed home. My freedoms were restricted, and I cannot be sure it won’t happen again, and that it won’t happen to my family, my children, the next time we travel abroad. This country now feels cold, unwelcoming, and in the beginning stages of a country that is isolating itself from the rest of the world – and its own people – in an unprecedented fashion. High levels of hate and injustice have been felt in vulnerable communities for decades – it is now hitting the rest of America,” he wrote.

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Hassan, who worked in law enforcement for 30 years, grew up in France and Italy. He spent 26 years serving on the police force in Alexandria, Virginia, and most recently served as the chief of police in Greenville, North Carolina. The father of two now runs a law enforcement-focused consulting business.

His detention came just two weeks after President Trump rolled out a new travel ban, which has since been blocked by a federal judge in Hawaii. The executive order would bar the citizens of six countries from entering the United States. Trump has described it as a “watered down” version of the first ban, which sparked protests around the globe when the restrictions were chaotically implemented in airports across the US.

The New Trump Travel Ban Explained

(MEE) U.S. President Donald Trump signed a revised ban on travelers from some Muslim-majority nations Monday — one with a reduced scope so Iraqis and permanent U.S. residents are exempt.

After his first wide-ranging and controversial restrictions were slapped down by the federal courts, Trump signed an order freezing new visas for Syrians, Iranians, Libyans, Somalis, Yemenis and Sudanese citizens.

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The order did not affect pre-existing visas, the White House said. The measure is due to come into effect on 16 March.

Jeff Sessions, the attorney general, said the order “responsibly provides a needed pause so we can carefully review how we scrutinize people coming here from these countries of concern.”

“Three of these nations are state sponsors of terrorism,” Sessions added, referring to Iran, Sudan and Syria, adding that others had served as “safe havens” for terror operatives.

The U.S. secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, said the renewed ban on travelers was “a vital measure for strengthening our national security.”

“With this order, president Trump is exercising his rightful authority to keep our people safe,” he said.

However, human rights groups said the order was still a ban on Muslims and would be challenged in court.

Amnesty urges #US Congress to block new #EO, calls it “inhumane, shortsighted;” and will “only intensify human rights crises” around world.

— Rawya Rageh (@RawyaRageh) March 6, 2017

Omar Jadwat, of the American Civil Liberties Union, said:

“The Trump administration has conceded that its original Muslim ban was indefensible. Unfortunately, it has replaced it with a scaled-back version that shares the same fatal flaws.

“The only way to actually fix the Muslim ban is not to have a Muslim ban.

“Instead, President Trump has recommitted himself to religious discrimination, and he can expect continued disapproval from both the courts and the people.

“What’s more, the changes the Trump administration has made, and everything we’ve learned since the original ban rolled out, completely undermine the bogus national security justifications the president has tried to hide behind and only strengthen the case against his unconstitutional executive orders.”

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said the measure should be repealed, adding: “A watered down ban is still a ban.”

However, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham praised the ban and said he expected it would survive scrutiny by the courts.

“I believe the new order will withstand legal challenges as it’s drafted in a fashion as to not be a religious ban, but a ban on individuals coming from compromised governments and failed states. This Executive Order will help achieve President Trump’s goal of making us safer,” Graham, who has criticized some of Trump’s policies, said in a statement.

Iraq was taken off the banned list because the Iraqi government has imposed new vetting procedures, such as heightened visa screening and data sharing, and because of its work with the United States in countering Islamic State militants, a senior White House official said.

Thousands of Iraqis have fought alongside U.S. troops for years or worked as translators since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. Many have resettled in the United States after being threatened for working with U.S. troops.

Trump’s first order was seen by opponents as discrimination against Muslims but the White House official said the new order was based on national security concerns and had nothing to do with religion.

“It is substantially different from the first order yet it will do the same thing in this important way: It will protect the country and keep us safe,” the official said. The administration would reset the clock on the 90-day travel ban.

The White House official said the new executive order also ensures that tens of thousands of legal permanent residents in the United States – or green card holders – from the listed countries would not be affected by the travel ban.

Trump’s original travel ban resulted in more than two dozen lawsuits in U.S. courts. The state of Washington succeeded in having it suspended by the 9th Circuit court of Appeals by arguing that it violated constitutional protections against religious discrimination.

The original order barred travelers from the seven nations from entering for 90 days and all refugees for 120 days. Refugees from Syria were to be banned indefinitely but under the new order they are not given separate treatment.

Trump publicly criticized judges who ruled against him and vowed to fight the case in the Supreme Court, but then decided to draw up a new order with changes aimed at making it easier to defend in the courts.

Refugees who are “in transit” and already have been approved would be able to travel to the United States.

“There’s going to be a very orderly process,” a senior official from the Department of Homeland Security said. “You should not see any chaos so to speak, or alleged chaos at airports. There aren’t going to be folks stopped tonight from coming into the country because of this executive order.”

The FBI is investigating 300 people admitted into the United States as refugees as part of 1,000 counter-terrorism probes involving Islamic State or individuals inspired by the militant group, congressional sources told Reuters on Monday, citing senior administration officials.

An FBI spokeswoman said the agency was consulting its data to confirm the information.

The White House official said U.S. government agencies would determine whether Syria or other nations had made sufficient security improvements to be taken back into the refugee admissions program.

The new order launches a 90-day period for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to define a new series of requirements for countries to have full participation in U.S. entry programs.

For countries that do not comply, the U.S. State Department, the DHS and intelligence agencies can make recommendations on what, if any, restrictions should be imposed.

“It’s not an all-or-nothing scenario,” the official said.

The new order spells out detailed categories of people eligible to enter the United States, such as for business or medical travel, or people with family connections or who support the United States.

“There are a lot of explicit carve-outs for waivers and given on a case-by-case basis,” the official said.

By MEE and agencies / Republished with permission / Middle East Eye / Report a typo

Entire Domestic Flight Detained, Forced to ‘Show Papers’ as ICE Looked for Non-Existent Immigrant

New York, NY — (RT) Travelers entering New York City after a cross-country flight were met by border agents who insisted everyone show them official identification. They were seeking to serve a deportation order on an illegal immigrant.

On Wednesday, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) alerted Customs and Border Protection (CBP) at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City that an undocumented immigrant was suspected to be arriving on Delta flight 1583 from San Francisco.

CBP officers were at the gate to check every deplaning passenger’s ID, until they identified the person ordered to be deported by an immigration judge.

Officials say the suspect, who was convicted for domestic assault, driving while impaired, and violating an order of protection, was not found on the plane.

In a Thursday statement from CBP, they said that the agency “often receives requests from our law enforcement partners to assist in various ways, including identifying a person of interest. CBP will assist when able to.”

Jordan Wells, a staff attorney with the New York Civil Liberties Union, said that this is not an ordinary occurrence.

“They’ll occasionally pull someone off of a flight, or officers will come on and make an arrest,” Wells told the Independent. “It’s a much more surgical thing than setting up a dragnet. That’s what is so alarming about the way that this played out.”

Matt O’Rourke, a passenger who was asked to show his ID, said that a flight attendant repeatedly told the plane full of passengers to have their identification.

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“I flew almost 200,000 miles last year,” O’Rouke told the Gothamist. “I’ve never had my ID checked getting off a domestic flight.”

CBP* says in a statement that the two agents were working on behalf of ICE to assist with a removal order from an immigration judge pic.twitter.com/q0yh6x90hU

— eli m. rosenberg (@emrosenberg) February 23, 2017

Another passenger on the flight, also named Matt, said that agents did not seem to be looking for anyone in particular.

“There was an older couple behind me, probably in their 70s. They gave my ID and theirs the same amount of scrutiny,” Matt, who did not give his full name for fear of retribution, told the New York Daily News.

“I want everyone to be safe, but I also want to protect everyone’s civil liberties,” he said.

The search prompted two passengers to post pictures of the event on Twitter, which quickly went viral, with everyone from Chelsea Clinton to Edward Snowden retweeting the images.

These are customs agents forcibly checking the ID of every passenger deplaning from Delta flight 1583 tonight at JFK. A domestic flight. pic.twitter.com/fHMgyzCjo5

— Britton Taylor (@brittontaylor) February 23, 2017

@CustomsBorder I was on that flight too. Adding #s to “often” would ease concern. Even the flight attendants had never heard of that.

— Amy Lanigan (@lanigan) February 24, 2017

America. 2017. Now we have to show IDs to board and get off? To gate agents then ICE officers? Just want to be clear (at least for today). https://t.co/QTxpFTNGlT

— Chelsea Clinton (@ChelseaClinton) February 23, 2017

On Friday, a CBP spokesperson told Rolling Stone that the ID check was “consensual” and that officials “did not compel” anyone to show their ID.

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However, the CBP’s search authority rules do not mention passengers traveling on domestic flights are subject to searches.

“CBP has the authority to collect passenger name record information on all travelers entering or leaving the United States,” the CBP website says.

Under the Trump administration, the Department of Homeland Security has issued new guidelines that empower customs agents to have “full authority to arrest or apprehend an alien whom an immigration officer has probable cause to believe is in violation of the immigration laws.”

Two memos from DHS outlined new “expedited removal” rules in accordance with Trump’s executive orders on immigration that would allow any illegal alien to be deported at any time.

FBI Data Shows Terrorism in US, Serious Threat, But Not from Muslim Immigrants

As President Trump and supporters continue the push to levy an arbitrary travel ban from a smattering of predominantly Muslim countries, a debate rages in the United States about the validity — and effectiveness — of preventing terrorism by strangling immigration.

Now, simple data can put that debate to rest.

“Since January 2015, the FBI has also arrested more anti-immigrant American citizens plotting violent attacks on Muslims within the U.S. than it has refugees, or former refugees, from any banned country,” writes Nora Ellingsen for Lawfare.

Ellingsen would know, too, after having worked for the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Counterterrorism Division for five years, she left for Harvard Law School — but has tracked statistics closely for Lawfare since. And Ellingsen remains cagey to unreported information — she knows what is likely taking place behind the scenes, even when it either isn’t or hasn’t been disclosed to the public.

In a recent article titled, “It’s Not Foreigners Who are Plotting Here: What the Data Really Show,” Ellingsen explains,

“The Program on Extremism at George Washington University has routinely published statistics indicating that the ‘vast majority’ of individuals charged in the U.S. with offenses related to ISIL are U.S. citizens. When considering all terrorism offenses, that claim holds up—80 of the 97 suspects arrested in the past two years, or more than 82 percent, are American citizens.

“Most of those, notably, are not naturalized citizens. Of the U.S. citizens, only six were naturalized. In other words, more than 76 percent of individuals arrested by the FBI over the past two years for terrorism-related offenses were U.S. citizens as a result of having been born in the United States.”

Americans present a far greater threat to Americans than immigrants from Iran, Iraq, Syria, Sudan, Libya, Yemen, or Somalia — the named countries in Trump’s disputatious ban.

But even naturalized U.S. citizens haven’t committed or plotted to commit acts of terrorism on American soil. According to the aforementioned statistics, two of six naturalized citizens emigrated from Bosnia, which didn’t make the list — nor did Israel, staunch U.S. government policy driver, and original home of the third naturalized citizen, who had been convicted on charges of terrorism previously.

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“Nihad Rosic and Mediha Medy Salkicevic,” Ellingsen continues, “emigrated to the U.S. from Bosnia, a country not on Trump’s list. While in the United States, the government alleges that Rosic and Salkicevic raised and sent money to individuals fighting with ISIL in Syria and Iraq. Both men contributed money from their personal savings, while other members of the conspiracy sent supplies including tactical gear. At one point, Rosic attempted to leave the country to join ISIL as a fighter overseas. Neither subject plotted an attack in the United States.

“Another naturalized citizen, Rasmieh Yousef Odeh came to the United States from Israel—a country that’s really not on Trump’s list. Odeh’s case is unique; she was charged with immigration violations for failing to disclose a previous terrorism conviction in Israel. Now 68 years old, Odeh was convicted in Israel for her role in the 1969 bombings of a supermarket and the British Consulate in Jerusalem, which were carried out on behalf of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP.) In the past two years, Odeh is the only convicted terrorist to slip through the cracks and immigrate to the United States. However, the indictment makes no charges that she was engaged in any sort of terrorist activity while living in the Chicago area.”

Here’s where the statistics get really interesting. While the remaining three naturalized citizens did, indeed, emigrate from nations Trump takes issue with, but not for anything pertaining to his ostensible terrorism concerns.

Two men — one from Iraq, the other, Syria — “were not charged with material support to terrorism, but with making false statements to law enforcement,” and “nothing in the public court documents suggests that either subject engaged in attack plotting in the United States.”

Exactly one naturalized citizen from the travel blacklist engaged in activity related to terrorism, as Ellingsen explains,

“Of the six naturalized citizens on our list, there is exactly one from a newly banned country who was charged with material support to terrorism. Abdirahman Sheik Mohamud emigrated to the U.S. from Somalia. In April 2014, Mohamud traveled from Ohio to Istanbul and onward to Syria, where he received weapons and explosives training. In June 2014, Mohamud returned to the U.S., where he told an acquaintance that he wanted to attack a military facility or a prison, killing U.S. military members.”

So, if perpetually-paranoid Americans aren’t threatened by immigrants from the apparently Sinful Seven countries, who should they fear?

Techdirt turned to an article from Slate, which explains the ‘real terrorists’ truly are closer to home than nervous, law-abiding Americans might think.

“Our politicians say they’ll stop these killers. They talk about building walls and vetting refugees. If we were serious, we would do it. We would seal our borders against North Carolina,” Slate’s William Saletan implored.

“North Carolina? It sounds absurd. When we think about immigration and terrorism, we think of Syria. But that’s not where our casualties are coming from. On Friday, a gunman killed three people and wounded nine more at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado. The suspect is white American Robert Lewis Dear. When police apprehended Dear, he uttered one telltale phrase: ‘no more baby parts.’ People who have known or met Dear say he wasn’t a regular churchgoer. But they also report that he believed devoutly in the Bible and that he claimed to have read it ‘cover to cover.’ In an online forum, Dear apparently spoke of Jesus and the ‘end times.’ He painted or posted crosses on at least three of his homes.

“Dear moved to Colorado last year from North Carolina, where he had been living. For two decades, the Tar Heel State has been a hotbed of religious extremism, fueled by clerics who preach holy war. The result is a stream of interstate terrorism.”

Saletan, of course, speaks tongue-in-cheek, yet keenly encapsulates — through a list of domestic terror attacks carried out by North and South Carolinians — how immigration restrictions of any variety serve only to placate xenophobes.

After all, Saudi Arabia didn’t make the list; Israel didn’t make the list; Afghanistan didn’t make the list.

Terrorism doesn’t practice one religion, or have a single nationality. It doesn’t have a specific appearance, gender, motivation, cause, or mindset.

You can’t fight terrorism by ignoring facts — and the fact is, we have our own terrorists. No matter how constrictive the restrictions on our borders get — even if Trump shut down immigration, entirely — the United States creates terrorists at home and abroad at an alarming rate.

A closed border won’t change that. Indeed, the only way to lessen the chances a terrorist will attack on U.S. soil is for the U.S. to rein in belligerent, imperialist foreign policy, bring the military home, and use its bloated budget to begin patching the physical and emotional holes in this country.

Banning legal immigrants only deepens those wounds.

US-Born NASA Scientist Detained at Border, Forced to Unlock Phone for Freedom

Sidd Bikkannavar should not have raised any red flags with Customs and Border Patrol, much less should the U.S.-born scientist with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab have been forced to fork over phone and social media passwords in order to return to the country after a trip to Chile.

But thanks to an abrupt, uncoordinated, and overly-broad travel ban implemented with an executive order from President Donald Trump, that’s exactly what happened — and Bikkannavar feels unsettled by the incident.

“I don’t know what to think about this,” the scientist with 10 years at JPL told The Verge by phone. “…  I was caught a little off-guard by the whole thing.”

Bikkannavar traveled to South America on a multi-week vacation to pursue a personal hobby of racing solar-powered cars, and attended a race in Patagonia with a Chilean team he’d recently joined.

Departing under the Obama administration, the scientist faced a strikingly different atmosphere upon return to the administration of Trump and the chaos unfolding in the wake of tight restrictions on travel from certain predominantly Muslim nations.

Obviously, Chile didn’t make Trump’s ban list — but confusion among alphabet agencies suddenly tasked with interpreting the new law led to questionable detainments, the revocation of some 60,000 visas, and tragic splitting apart of families — even in cases where the long and complex visa screening procedure had been approved.

Enrolled in Global Entry, Bikkannavar — having undergone extensive background checks — should have been given expedited entry upon return from Santiago.

“He hasn’t visited the countries listed in the immigration ban and he has worked at JPL — a major center at a US federal agency — for 10 years,” reports the Verge. “There, he works on ‘wavefront sensing and control,’ a type of optics technology that will be used on the upcoming James Webb Space Telescope.”

Even credentials from the federal government weren’t enough to prevent harassment by border patrol, however, and after his passport was scanned, Bikkannavar was ushered into a back room where five others seemingly affected by the ban slept on cots. Forty minutes elapsed before an officer came to speak with the NASA scientist, and as he explained,

“He takes me into an interview room and sort of explains that I’m entering the country and they need to search my possessions to make sure I’m not bringing in anything dangerous.”

Answers to the questions asked by the officer would have been readily available via Bikkannavar’s Global Entry information — job title, place of residence, where he’d traveled — but no further explanation was provided for the detainment.

“I asked a question, ‘Why was I chosen?’ And he wouldn’t tell me,” Bikkannavar explained.

A document titled Inspection of Electronic Devices was the only justification proffered for the search of the scientist’s phone and accounts, and when Bikkannavar tried to politely explain his device was considered property of NASA and should not be searched, his words fell on deaf ears.

According to the Verge, Bikkannavar showed the officer the phone’s JPL barcode — but that wasn’t sufficient and authorities insisted he give them the phone with its PIN code.

“I was cautiously telling him I wasn’t allowed to give it out, because I didn’t want to seem like I was not cooperating,” Bikkannavar told the Verge. “I told him I’m not really allowed to give the passcode; I have to protect access. But he insisted they had the authority to search it.”

In actuality, however, CBP agents don’t retain that broad an authority — and can only detain individuals who refuse for albeit lengthy periods — though it appears officers have been using a bit of hollow trickery to obtain international travelers’ electronic devices and passwords.

“In each incident that I’ve seen, the subjects have been shown a Blue Paper that says CBP has legal authority to search phones at the border, which gives them the impression that they’re obligated to unlock the phone, which isn’t true,” Hassan Shibly, chief executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) told the Verge. “They’re not obligated to unlock the phone.”

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Nonetheless, Bikkannavar says the officer — who brought out a document naming potential consequences for refusal — simply would not allow him to leave without giving the PIN and handing over the phone.

So he caved, and the CBP officer vanished for over half an hour with the NASA phone.

Bikkannavar has no idea what information officers might have kept or what was done with the phone during the inspection, but immediately shut it off, and — upon his eventual release — brought the device straight to JPL’s IT department.

Without going into detail about whether or not sensitive information could have been divulged to officers, Bikkannavar explained the cybersecurity team at JPL was none-too pleased about the incident, as ‘NASA employees are obligated to protect work-related information, no matter how minuscule.’

Beyond concerns about having his work information surveilled, Bikkannavar told the Verge he worries for the privacy of friends, family, and coworkers listed in the phone’s contact section. He has since procured a new phone and number for his work with NASA.

Incidentally, CBP agents altogether failed to inspect the scientist’s bags — bringing into question the true motive for detaining a NASA employee and U.S. citizen with the foreign-sounding name and holding his PIN as the ransom for freedom to return home.

“It was not that they were concerned with me bringing something dangerous in, because they didn’t even touch the bags,” Bikkannavar explained. “They had no way of knowing I could have had something in there.

“You can say, ‘Okay well maybe it’s about making sure I’m not a dangerous person,’ but they have all the information to verify that.”

Supporters of travel restrictions insist they don’t intentionally target Muslims; however, anecdotal tales following its implementation evince nefarious underpinnings with far worse implications.

Authorities rushing to comply with the strict yet vague executive order proved, in the case of Bikkannavar and others, that fear of misunderstanding the letter of the law — and repercussions for not acting strictly enough — leads to overcompensation in the detention of scores of wholly innocent, legal travelers due to their ethnicity or religion.

It’s profiling at its worst — and that makes the semantic argument the order somehow wasn’t a ban, utterly moot.

Watch Ret. U.S. Marine ask single most important question ever

(INTELLIHUB) — What if you knew for a fact that foreigners from a random country listed in President Donald Trump’s temporary travel ban would capture, torture, and possibly kill you for illegal entry into their country?

Would you still feel good about letting those very same people, in turn, enter our country, the United States of America just because liberals say sanctuary cities are good?

One retired U.S. Marine Steve Gerns, who is also a private security contractor (PSC), asked a similar question in a YouTube video and the response was colossal.

In fact, the video garnered over 44 million views in one day and all of the unexpected exposure from it forced Gerns’ employer, as a precaution, to ship Gerns out of Iraq where he was undergoing an assignment.

In his video Gerns talked about asking local Iraqis the following question:

As an American, if I went out of town right now would I be welcome?

According to the man, without skipping a beat the Iraqis immediately responded, ‘You would not be welcome.’

The locals then let Gerns know that he would not only be unwelcome but that he would likely be tortured and beheaded if he was inside the country without papers.

“This is the local populace that would do this,” the man said.

“If this is the way some of these cultures feel […] why would you be so nieve to believe that if they came to the United States that they would do anything different then they would do right here in their own country?”

Gerns appeared on Sean Hannity’s show to give the details.

Gerns told Hannity that the culture is “good at manipulation.”

©2017. INTELLIHUB.COM. All Rights Reserved.

Featured Image: Brooke Binkowski/Flickr

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The Other, Less Reported Travel Ban – For U.S. Citizens: “Due Process Undermined Significantly”

This article was written by Shaun Bradley and originally published at The Anti-Media.org.

Editor’s Comment: These days, it might not take as much as you think to rack up $50k in back taxes. If you do, forget about legally traveling anywhere outside the country. With a barrage of headlines about the travel ban against Muslims, the IRS has motioned the new administration to quietly give teeth to its travel ban as well. The IRS ban, however, is targeted against American citizens – and with a determination by the agency that you are liable for a large tax debt, your rights to travel can be revoked without due process, official charge or even consideration by a judge.

Frozen, denied, unauthorized and grounded from whatever plane you thought you might catch. The fact is, that while attempts to control immigration are sorely needed, the heavy police state approach is likely to have some severe blowback – starting with even tighter security at airports and transportation centers. Biometrics and fingerprints are being implemented now, and may soon require all persons – including American citizens – exiting or entering the country to submit fingerprint, all ten digits even. This is a drastic violation of civil liberties, and a dangerous atmosphere to take hold. While many cheered on a reform of the system, and a tough approach to the country’s biggest problems, no one wanted a return to the George W. Bush era of security and brainwashing every time 9/11 is mentioned… no one wants anything close to that. People must demand their freedom, and make wise avoidance of the system of monitoring, tracking and enslavement.

The New Travel Ban You Didn’t Hear About Is Against U.S. Citizens

by Shaun Bradley

As emotions intensify over Trump’s recent immigration ban, the State Department and IRS have quietly used it as a smokescreen to roll out a new policy that targets U.S. citizens for unpaid taxes.

The passports of these individuals can now be revoked and their citizenship status undermined at the behest of one of the government’s most corrupt agencies. By granting the Internal Revenue Service control over passports, due process has been significantly undermined. The shield of protection that U.S. citizenship used to represent has transformed into an inescapable brand of ownership. The desperate financial condition of the federal government will only worsen in the future, forcing it to further consume its own people’s wealth in order to survive.

The new program is set to be implemented over the next few months, and currently only those with ‘seriously delinquent tax debt’ are in the crosshairs. An individual must have $50,000 worth of tax debt to be subject to revocation, but that number can easily be adjusted downward in the future. Once identified by the IRS, a certification is sent to the State Department to begin the process. The taxpayer is then informed of the action taken against them, but any recourse from there is extremely limited. This policy blatantly targets citizens living outside of the country who may not have filed with the IRS while earning an income abroad.

The United States is one of only two countries in the world that entitles itself to tax citizens while they work in other countries. These regulations were bolstered by FACTA legislation, which requires all foreign financial institutions to report account information on Americans. The additional risks that come with having to deal directly with the U.S. government have led many foreign banks to deny American clients altogether.

As society progresses into the next age of authoritarianism, it’s clear that control over travel is going to play a key role in the power structure. The National ID is just one sign of the changing tide and will require federal identification instead of a state driver’s license to travel. These new cards would establish a kind of ‘domestic passport’ system that would open the door to serious abuses against law-abiding citizens. The consolidation of authority into agencies like the TSA and IRS should act as a canary in the coal mine to those worried about the suppression of their freedom of movement.

The ACLU has come out strongly against this kind of control grid being established:

“Americans have long had a visceral aversion to building a society in which the authorities could act like totalitarian sentries and demand ‘your papers please!’ And that everyday intrusiveness would be conjoined with the full power of modern computer and database technology. When a police officer or security guard scans your ID card with his pocket bar-code reader, for example, will a permanent record be created of that check, including the time and your location? How long before office buildings, doctors’ offices, gas stations, highway tolls, subways and buses incorporate the ID card into their security or payment systems for greater efficiency? The end result could be a nation where citizens’ movements inside their own country are monitored and recorded through these ‘internal passports.’”

Considering all of this, the implications of Trump’s border wall should start to appear more sinister than ever to individual freedom. In the years to come, the wall could just as easily be used to keep people in rather than out.

When a country is no longer able to say who can, and who cannot , come in & out, especially for reasons of safety &.security – big trouble!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 4, 2017

The pride that used to be associated with American citizenship created a country of opportunity for those willing to work hard, but now that pride has been replaced with a ball and chain that drags down the prosperity of those hindered by it. Tax evasion is seen by many as a crime deserving of severe punishment, but the hypocrisy of a nation like the United States claiming the moral high ground is laughable. Those who can distance themselves from the jurisdiction of bureaucrats in Washington should do so as soon as possible. America is starting to resemble the Titanic, and there aren’t enough lifeboats for the passengers. The objective now should be to avoid being pulled under the water when the $20 trillion debt bubble implodes.

This article was written by Shaun Bradley and originally published at The Anti-Media.org.

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Author: Shaun Bradley
Views: Read by 180 people
Date: February 7th, 2017
Website: http://theantimedia.org/irs-travel-ban-us-citizens/

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The New Travel Ban You Didn’t Hear About Is Against U.S. Citizens

February 6, 2017   |   Shaun Bradley

(ANTIMEDIA) As emotions intensify over Trump’s recent immigration ban, the State Department and IRS have quietly used it as a smokescreen to roll out a new policy that targets U.S. citizens for unpaid taxes.

The passports of these individuals can now be revoked and their citizenship status undermined at the behest of one of the government’s most corrupt agencies. By granting the Internal Revenue Service control over passports, due process has been significantly undermined. The shield of protection that U.S. citizenship used to represent has transformed into an inescapable brand of ownership. The desperate financial condition of the federal government will only worsen in the future, forcing it to further consume its own people’s wealth in order to survive.

The new program is set to be implemented over the next few months, and currently only those with ‘seriously delinquent tax debt’ are in the crosshairs. An individual must have $50,000 worth of tax debt to be subject to revocation, but that number can easily be adjusted downward in the future. Once identified by the IRS, a certification is sent to the State Department to begin the process. The taxpayer is then informed of the action taken against them, but any recourse from there is extremely limited. This policy blatantly targets citizens living outside of the country who may not have filed with the IRS while earning an income abroad.

The United States is one of only two countries in the world that entitles itself to tax citizens while they work in other countries. These regulations were bolstered by FACTA legislation, which requires all foreign financial institutions to report account information on Americans. The additional risks that come with having to deal directly with the U.S. government have led many foreign banks to deny American clients altogether.

As society progresses into the next age of authoritarianism, it’s clear that control over travel is going to play a key role in the power structure. The National ID is just one sign of the changing tide and will require federal identification instead of a state driver’s license to travel. These new cards would establish a kind of ‘domestic passport’ system that would open the door to serious abuses against law-abiding citizens. The consolidation of authority into agencies like the TSA and IRS should act as a canary in the coal mine to those worried about the suppression of their freedom of movement.

The ACLU has come out strongly against this kind of control grid being established:

“Americans have long had a visceral aversion to building a society in which the authorities could act like totalitarian sentries and demand ‘your papers please!’ And that everyday intrusiveness would be conjoined with the full power of modern computer and database technology. When a police officer or security guard scans your ID card with his pocket bar-code reader, for example, will a permanent record be created of that check, including the time and your location? How long before office buildings, doctors’ offices, gas stations, highway tolls, subways and buses incorporate the ID card into their security or payment systems for greater efficiency? The end result could be a nation where citizens’ movements inside their own country are monitored and recorded through these ‘internal passports.’”

Considering all of this, the implications of Trump’s border wall should start to appear more sinister than ever to individual freedom. In the years to come, the wall could just as easily be used to keep people in rather than out.

When a country is no longer able to say who can, and who cannot , come in & out, especially for reasons of safety &.security – big trouble!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 4, 2017

The pride that used to be associated with American citizenship created a country of opportunity for those willing to work hard, but now that pride has been replaced with a ball and chain that drags down the prosperity of those hindered by it. Tax evasion is seen by many as a crime deserving of severe punishment, but the hypocrisy of a nation like the United States claiming the moral high ground is laughable. Those who can distance themselves from the jurisdiction of bureaucrats in Washington should do so as soon as possible. America is starting to resemble the Titanic, and there aren’t enough lifeboats for the passengers. The objective now should be to avoid being pulled under the water when the $20 trillion debt bubble implodes.

This article (The New Travel Ban You Didn’t Hear About Is Against U.S. Citizens) by Shaun Bradley is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Shaun Bradley and theAntiMedia.org. Anti-Media Radio airs weeknights at 11 pm Eastern/8 pm Pacific. Image credit: seantoyler. If you spot a typo, please email the error and name of the article to edits@theantimedia.org.

America’s Delusional — Lightning Far More Likely to Kill You Than Foreign Terrorists

Among the actions Trump has taken since inauguration day, nothing has stirred more controversy than the travel ban. This executive order, titled ‘Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States,’ blocked entry of citizens from seven Muslim-majority nations, suspended the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program, and indefinitely suspended the entry of Syrian refugees.

As we reported earlier, the order excluded the countries responsible for 93 percent of terrorist attacks on U.S. soil – including Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Egypt – which also happen to be countries where Trump has business ties.

From the start it appears that the travel ban – poorly written and wide open to legal challenge – was based not on actual data but ideology and emotion. Indeed, Trump’s rise to power was fueled by aggression toward ‘outgroups’ such as immigrants, minorities or certain religious types, which is a pillar of authoritarianism.

Even though there is no rational basis for Trump’s travel ban, it is red meat for his followers and serves to increase division and hatred, while throwing federal and state governments into chaos. It’s also allowing Trump to dangerously lash out at the “so-called judge” – a Republican appointed by Bush – who temporarily lifted the travel ban, whipping up anger against a fundamental check against executive overreach.

The Trump team understands how easy it is to play on fears about foreign terrorist attacks, and seem to be immersed in it themselves (Flynn, Bannon, etc.). However, like the baseless travel ban, Islamophobia is not grounded in reality.

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In fact, an American is more likely to be killed by a U.S.-born attacker such as Dylann Roof, who murdered nine people in an African-American church, or Robert Dear, who killed three people at a Planned Parenthood clinic, then they are to be killed by a foreign-born Jihadist-inspired attacker.

Of course, none of these people, including U.S.-born Omar Mateen who killed 49 people at an Orlando nightclub, would have been affected by the travel ban.

The irrational fear over foreign terrorists killing Americans is even more absurd when we consider five seemingly rare types of accidents that are far more likely to kill — Parachuting accidents, being buried alive, lightning strikes, drowning while taking a bath, and choking on food.

The enormous cost of enacting a travel ban – in terms of the treasury, the plight of travelers, and the increased hatred toward ‘others’ – is clearly not remotely worth the purported safety it provides.

Despite the facts, “terrorist attack on nation” and “victim of terrorism” are among the top five of Americans’ greatest fears. How did it come to this?

Quite simply, the media-political discourse is so skewed from reality that it has managed to replace fact-based interpretations of the world for most people. Emotion drives the narrative and the profits of mainstream media such as CNN and Fox News, which both benefit from Islamophobia.

It goes back to a phenomenon called the availability heuristic, first uncovered by psychologists in 1973, which states: “[A] person evaluates the frequency of classes or the probability of events by availability, i.e., by the ease with which relevant instances come to mind. In general, availability is correlated with ecological frequency.”

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This matters because more and more, people construct their view of the world through the media they consume, which constantly pushes fear about Muslims.

“This is why Americans have also, since the early 2000s, thought that the crime rate was increasing, when in reality it was decreasing — until violence in Chicago and a handful of other cities started pushing it up.

Scholars call the product of it-bleeds-it-leads news cycles and violent entertainment Mean World Theory. Since the average kid sees 8,000 dramatized murders by the time they turn 12, they take the world to be more violent than it actually is.

It’s the same case with Muslims, terrorism, and the consequent Islamophobia. In an analysis of network and cable news shows from 2008 and 2012, communications scholars Travis Dixon and Charlotte Williams found that Muslims were greatly overrepresented as terrorists; they cite FBI stats finding that just 6 percent of terrorist acts in a separate four-year period were committed by Muslims, while 81 percent of terrorists on TV news were portrayed as Muslim.”

Interfaith strife and interethnic conflict are far more profitable than a real analysis showing that Muslims and foreign terrorists actually pose an extremely small threat to Americans. This not only benefits mainstream media but also the military-industrial complex, which always needs a bogeyman to justify outrageous levels of military spending and interventions in the Middle East.

The Trump administration appears to be doubling down on this dangerous, false narrative. Recent reports are that team Trump intends to “revamp and rename a U.S. government program designed to counter all violent ideologies so that it focuses solely on Islamist extremism.”

Iraq War Hero Who Saved 30 Lives, Detained, ‘Humiliated’ by Authorities Over Travel Ban

Johnson Beharry was on his way to a veterans’ event in New York when he was detained by authorities at JFK airport. Thanks to the nature of the travel ban in the United States, Beharry would miss that event — where he was the guest of honor.

In 2004, Beharry was awarded the Victoria Cross, the highest award of the United Kingdom honors system. Only 15 medals, 11 to members of the British Army, and four to the Australian Army have been awarded since the Second World War. Beharry was one of those.

In 2004, Beharry was seriously injured while saving the lives of 30 of his fellow soldiers.

However, his valor and gallantry in the face of the enemy meant nothing to the modern police state who detained him for hours because he had brown skin and a stamp in his passport from Iraq.

“I think they held me because my passport showed I had been to Iraq,” Beharry told ITV. “Maybe I am a bit Asian-looking but that doesn’t mean I should be treated with the same suspicion as a terrorist.”

Beharry noted that officials were unapologetic about their newly defined duty to detain anyone coming from one of the seven countries on the ban. “I explained that I had been in Iraq fighting for the British Army but they didn’t seem to care.”

“The officials only let me in after I kicked up a fuss. It was the worst travel experience of my life,” explained Beharry — who’d flown all over the Middle East.

“It’s how his (Trump’s) orders were implemented,” explained Beharry as he noted that there is still a need for security. And this is the problem with such a sweeping ban. There is no absolute way to enforce it.

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This travel ban is being enforced by other human beings. Because they have a badge and a gun does not mean that they will all of the sudden be able to carry out this order flawlessly and without mistakes, like some computer program.

Beharry’s case shows exactly what this kind of ridiculous order causes — a bunch of airport security and police on power trips stopping every brown person they see and demanding they prove they are not a terrorist. It is despotism.

“I’m not political so don’t want to get into an argument with Donald Trump,” Beharry recalled. “I understand the need for security but it’s how his orders were implemented.”

“I feel for the other people being held with me,” Beharry said, noting that he witnessed lots of “Middle Eastern-looking passengers” being pulled aside by officials and given the same degree of harassment.

“The experience has made me think twice about going to New York again, that’s for sure.”

When war heroes, who fought alongside US troops, for the same cause, fear coming to the ostensible Land of the Free because there is a real chance they might be detained, harassed, or worse — something is seriously wrong.

Also, as the Free Thought Project has reported, out of the 43 people who carried out terrorist attacks on US soil, only three of them came from the seven countries on this ban list — the other 40 terrorists came from countries who were not banned.

This handful of attacks on American soil hardly justifies restricting the travel from these countries once we look at the countries Trump did not ban — who are responsible for 93% of all terrorism in the United States causing death on a massive scale.

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During the same period those three terrorists mentioned above attempted to cause harm to Americans, 40 terrorists from Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Kyrgyzstan, Kuwait, Nigeria, Afghanistan, Lebanon, and Guinea wreaked havoc in America.

However, people from those countries are still welcome to apply for U.S. visas and travel permits.

So why is it that all these other countries were left off the ban list when it is common knowledge that they are responsible for the overwhelming majority of the terrorism within the United States?

Well, if we zoom out again, we can a propose a potential reason for Trump conveniently leaving these known producers of terrorism off the list.

Trump, being the international businessman that he is, has business holdings worldwide. None of those holdings are in those seven banned countries. On the other hand, however, Trump holds major business stakes in several of the countries absent from this list. 

To read that full report, click here.

Matt Agorist is an honorably discharged veteran of the USMC and former intelligence operator directly tasked by the NSA. This prior experience gives him unique insight into the world of government corruption and the American police state. Agorist has been an independent journalist for over a decade and has been featured on mainstream networks around the world. Follow @MattAgorist on Twitter and now on Steemit

Iran Just Officially Ditched the Dollar in Major Blow to US: Here’s Why It Matters

February 1, 2017   |   Alice Salles

(ANTIMEDIA) Following President Donald Trump’s ban on travelers from seven predominantly Muslim countries, the Iranian government announced it would stop using the U.S. dollar “as its currency of choice in its financial and foreign exchange reports,” the local Financial Tribune reported.

Iran governor Valiollah Seif’s central bank announced the decision in a television interview on January 29. The change will take effect on March 21, and it will impact all official financial and foreign exchange reports.

“Iran’s difficulties [in dealing] with the dollar,” Seif said, “were in place from the time of the primary sanctions and this trend is continuing,” but when it comes to other currencies, he added, “we face no limitations.”

In a piece published by Forbes, Dominic Dudley contends that this move is significant “in the light of the recent ‘Muslim ban‘” announced by Trump. Iran nationals were added to the order issued by the current U.S. administration, which prompted the Iranian government to vow to stop issuing visas to U.S. citizens.

Dudley notes that since 1975, “no Americans have been killed in terrorist attacks in the US by the citizens of the countries included in the ban,” while countries such as Saudi Arabia — “home of 15 of the 19 terrorists involved in the 9/11 attacks” — were left out of the list of prohibited countries.

Despite the country’s decision to halt the use of the U.S. dollar as its base currency for exchange with other nations, Iran’s top export is oil. In the global markets, oil is mainly purchased and sold in U.S. dollars. This fiscal year, Iran is expected to earn  $41 billion from oil sales, with countries like the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and China as their top clients. It’s still uncertain how the country will manage to switch currencies without relying on the American currency. The shift, Dudley notes, “will add a degree of currency risk and volatility and is likely to complicate matters for the authorities.”

This matters because predominantly Muslim countries left out of the “Muslim ban” include Saudi Arabia, one of the world’s top oil exporters.

In the 1970s, the Arab nation struck a deal with U.S. President Richard Nixon establishing an alliance that would maintain the dollar as the standard oil exchange currency in exchange for military support from America. The use of the dollar as a standard currency for oil exchange was accepted by Saudi Arabia and the remaining block of Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), which include Iran and 11 other Middle Eastern, African, and South American countries.

OPEC countries account for 42 percent of global oil production, holding 73 percent of the world’s oil reserves. Due to its influence, the use of the U.S. dollar as its standard currency helps to keep demand for the U.S. dollar high, giving the currency the support it requires to remain “the world’s reserve currency” and preventing the effects of inflation from hitting the U.S. consumer.

Iran’s decision to exit this deal might impact the U.S. economy and threaten the dollar, prompting the U.S. government to take stern measures to combat Iran’s actions. After all, Iran holds 13 percent of OPEC’s oil reserves.

This article (Iran Just Officially Ditched the Dollar in Major Blow to US: Here’s Why It Matters) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Alice Salles and theAntiMedia.org. Anti-Media Radio airs weeknights at 11 pm Eastern/8 pm Pacific. If you spot a typo, please email the error and name of the article to edits@theantimedia.org.

Protesters gather in Portland over temporary travel ban

PORTLAND, Ore. (INTELLIHUB) — Hundreds of protesters with the group Unite Oregon and several other groups gathered downtown to speak out against President Trump’s temporary travel ban which bars the arrival of refugees from a few select countries.

Over 900 people RSVPed on a Facebook page for the group and many of them showed up to in support of immigrant and refugee rights.

Protesters gathered at Terry Schrunk Plaza, across from Portland City Hall, and chanted, “Down with Trump! — Boo! Boo! Down with hate! — Boo, Boo.”

Nancy Hawk, co. executive dir. of the group Basic Rights Oregon is, according to her own words, “a queer Muslim [and a] daughter of immigrants.”

Hawk told the crowd, “Every part of my identity feels under attack from this Administration” and said that Trump’s “executive order will not make us safe.”

Hawk also mentioned the Québec attack in which five people were killed and several others were wounded.

“What are we doing as a nation,” Hawk questioned.

“We want the United States to be a place of refuge.”

Hawk compared Trump’s executive order to the “Chinese Exclusion Act” and got cheers from the crowd.

Another protester who identified himself as Kyle said:

“We are in unprecedented times.”

A few protesters held up signs which read:

“No Ban, No Wall.”

©2017. INTELLIHUB.COM. All Rights Reserved.

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Trump’s Travel Ban Plainly Excludes Countries Tied to 93% of All US Terrorism

On Friday, the world erupted in chaos after President Donald Trump signed an Executive Order suspending entry into the United States for people traveling from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.

These seven countries originally came from the Obama administration and were labeled as “countries of concern.”

“There were further travel restrictions already in place from those seven countries,” Sean Spicer said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.” “What the president did was take the first step through this executive order of ensuring that we’re looking at the entire system of who’s coming in, refugees that are coming in, people who are coming in from places that have a history or that our intelligence suggests that we need to have further extreme vetting for.”

Trump is simply building off of restrictions the Obama administration already put in place in 2015 on certain travelers who had visited Iran, Iraq, Sudan, or Syria on or after March 1, 2011. Libya, Somalia, and Yemen were added to the list only months after the original limitations.

So, all Trump did was temporarily ban those countries instead of merely keeping the current restrictions.

Sounds reasonable, right? Well, if we look at the bigger picture, and the history of these seven countries — especially in regards to terrorism — something very fishy appears.

Those seven countries have never produced a terrorist in the United States who has ever caused the death of a single American. Yes, you read that correctly.

Only seven percent of all terrorist-related acts in the United States have originated from people in those countries, and not a single one of them has killed a US citizen. 

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As the Daily Caller reports:

In 2006, Mohammed Reza Taheri-azar, a naturalized American citizen born in Tehran, Iran, plowed a Jeep into a crowd of people on the campus of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill “to punish the government of the United States.” No one died in the attack. Nine people were injured, but none of them seriously. Taheri-azar was arrested and now resides in prison.

In 2016, Somali refugee Abdul Razak Ali Artan injured 13 people — none critically — when he drove a Honda Civic into a group of people on the campus of Ohio State University. Artan then got out of his car and stabbed people with a butcher knife. Police on the scene then shot and killed him.

Also in 2016, Dahir Adan, a Kenya-born Somali immigrant and naturalized U.S. citizen, armed himself with a pair of steak knives and entered the Crossroads Center shopping mall in St. Cloud, Minnesota. Adan then stabbed — and punched — 10 people. Victims who were hospitalized were all released by the next day. An off-duty police officer shot and killed Adan inside a Macy’s store.

Taheri-azar, Artan and Adan are the only three Muslims from the seven nations covered by Trumps’ executive order to commit terrorist acts in the United States since September 2001.

Out of the 43 people who carried out terrorist attacks on US soil, only three of them came from the seven countries on Trump’s list — the other 40 terrorists came from countries who were not banned.

This handful of attacks on American soil hardly justifies restricting the travel from these countries once we look at the countries Trump did not ban — who are responsible for 93% of all terrorism in the United States causing death on a massive scale.

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During the same period those three terrorists mentioned above attempted to cause harm to Americans, 40 terrorists from Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Kyrgyzstan, Kuwait, Nigeria, Afghanistan, Lebanon, and Guinea wreaked havoc in America.

However, people from those countries are still welcome to apply for U.S. visas and travel permits.

So why is it that all these other countries were left off the ban list when it is common knowledge that they are responsible for the overwhelming majority of the terrorism within the United States?

Well, if we zoom out again, we can a propose a potential reason for Trump conveniently leaving these known producers of terrorism off the list.

Trump, being the international businessman that he is, has business holdings worldwide. None of those holdings are in those seven banned countries. On the other hand, however, Trump holds major business stakes in several of the countries absent from this list.

As the Free Thought Project previously reported, during his campaign, Trump registered eight companies tied to hotel interests in Saudi Arabia alone. In case you’ve been under a rock for the last 17 years, the majority of hijackers on 9/11 came from Saudi Arabia. And, last year, the federal government declassified a 28-page report, detailing the fact that they covered up the Saudi Arabian government’s role in the attacks on 9/11.

Saudi Arabia is responsible for the death of 2,369 Americans — they are not on the list.

Trump also has holdings in Egypt, whose citizens killed a total of 162 Americans. Trump Marks Egypt and Trump Marks Egypt LLC are the President’s business dealings in this country, who, conveniently, is also absent from his list.

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Another country, who is also absent from Trump’s list is the United Arab Emirates. Trump’s organization has a plethora of holdings in this country, including a licensing and management deal in Dubai for two golf courses and a whole neighborhood of luxury villas currently under construction.

A total of 314 Americans were killed by UAE citizens between 1975 and 2015, according to CATO.

Trump also does business in Turkey as he currently licenses his name to two luxury towers in Istanbul. As we’ve reported many times in the last year, Turkey has repeatedly been caught aiding the Islamic State through protecting their oil routes as well as providing them sanctuary and even training. 

As the debate of immigration and border walls heats up, it is important for those on both sides to have all the information available to make sound decisions. Please share this article so that those who are ignoring these facts can see the truth.

Matt Agorist is an honorably discharged veteran of the USMC and former intelligence operator directly tasked by the NSA. This prior experience gives him unique insight into the world of government corruption and the American police state. Agorist has been an independent journalist for over a decade and has been featured on mainstream networks around the world. Follow @MattAgorist on Twitter and now on Steemit