Freedomshift

Funeral arrangements are underway for a 68-year-old Air Force veteran who was gunned down in his own garage by a young Blount County, Tenn. deputy sheriff.  Henry C. Taylor was inspecting his garage late at night after it had been robbed multiple times in the past week, according to WATE .  Outside, Deputy Ernest Ragland, 22, peeked through the window and spotted Taylor with his handgun.  That’s when Ragland yelled at Taylor before shooting him multiple times, instantly killing the homeowner and veteran. Read more: here

During silver (SLV) and gold's (GLD) terrific move in 2011, very few analysts warned that a correction could come to shakeout all the Johnny come lately's (momentum traders) who were pushing gold and silver to nosebleed levels. I got nervous as hell back in 2011, when the day traders and mass media started picking up the precious metals story and I warned of a correction. In April of 2011 I was interviewed by CBS Marketwatch and was quoted saying, "I am very concerned that silver may be overheating as the herd tries to force their way into this trade." This drastic move higher was to me a warning sign that we may see a significant shakeout. I wrote articles published all throughout the Internet at the end of 2010/2011 warning my readers to protect themselves from a shakeout or correction. See the article entitled, "Is a Healthy Correction Overdue In Gold and Silver?" These same analysts who told you to buy silver in April 2011 or to buy go...

Update: In response to EFF's FOIA lawsuit, the government has released the 2011 FISA court opinion  ruling some NSA surveillance unconstitutional. For over a year, EFF has been fighting the government in federal court to force the public release of an 86-page opinion of the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC). Issued in October 2011, the secret court's opinion found that surveillance conducted by the NSA under the FISA Amendments Act was unconstitutional and violated "the spirit of" federal law. Today, EFF can declare victory: a federal court ordered the government to release records in our litigation, the government has indicated it intends to release the opinion today , and ODNI has called a 3:00 ET press conference to discuss "issues" with FISA Amendments Act surveillance, which we assume will include a discussion of the opinion. Read more: here

LEANDER, TX  — Leander Police went to the home of James and Renata Simmons acting on a warrant for unpaid vehicle registration on June 17, 2013. The warrant, however, was for a completely different town – Cedar Park, TX, and was for a person named Bradly Neal Simpson, someone the Simmons family, who have lived at this address for the past nine years, have never even heard of. Officers walking around the rear of the property saw Vinny, a German Shepherd therapy dog, running free within his fence along with another German Shepherd. Police fired at Vinny, firing 3 times with one bullet hitting him in the back of his neck. Read more: here

Albert Einstein, a man who knew a thing or two about celestial mechanics, supposedly once called compound interest "the most powerful force in the universe." While the remark was likely meant to be funny (astrophysicists can be hilarious), it sheds light on the often overlooked fact that small changes, over time, can yield enormous results. Over eons, small creeks can carve large canyons through solid rock. The same phenomenon may be at work in our economy. A minor, but persistent under-bias in the inflation gauge used in the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) may have created a wildly distorted picture of our economic health. It would be impossible to measure the economy without "backing out," inflation. That is why economists are very careful to separate GDP reports into two categories: "nominal" (which are not adjusted for inflation), and real (which are). Only the real reports matter. The big question then becomes, how do we measure inflation? Just as I rep...

A leader of the US congressional insurrection against the National Security Agency's bulk surveillance programs has accused his colleagues of withholding a key document from the House of Representatives before a critical surveillance vote. Justin Amash, the Michigan Republican whose effort to defund the NSA 's mass phone-records collection exposed deep congressional discomfort with domestic spying, said the House intelligence committee never allowed legislators outside the panel to see a 2011 document that described the surveillance in vague terms. Read more: here

After Lavabit was forced to halt operations or violate their user's trust, Silentmail also chooses to shut down. Lavabit's statement from lavabit.com: "My Fellow Users, I have been forced to make a difficult decision: to become complicit in crimes against the American people or walk away from nearly ten years of hard work by shutting down Lavabit. After significant soul searching, I have decided to suspend operations. I wish that I could legally share with you the events that led to my decision. I cannot. I feel you deserve to know what’s going on--the first amendment is supposed to guarantee me the freedom to speak out in situations like this. Unfortunately, Congress has passed laws that say otherwise. As things currently stand, I cannot share my experiences over the last six weeks, even though I have twice made the appropriate requests. What’s going to happen now? We’ve already started preparing the paperwork needed to continue to fight for the Const...

If you're an air traveler who feels the urge to pull your hair out every time you enter a security line at the airport, you may have considered taking Amtrak or even the bus instead. If so, you may want to scratch that idea. The Transportation Security Administration, you see, is showing up in train terminals. Perhaps you'd rather drive? TSA has not shown itself to be exceptionally useful for thwarting terrorism. It has never caught a terrorist in its airport checkpoints or anywhere else, as far as anyone knows. But the bureaucratic urge to expand cannot be easily suppressed. Lacking evidence of its value in airline terminals, TSA is branching out to other places where it can be equally ineffective. Read more: here

Newly released transcripts of 911 calls made by eyewitnesses to the fatal crash of Rolling Stone journalist Michael Hastings describe the vehicle blowing up, with one noting that a “giant explosion” took place during the incident. Read more: here

The  Free Staters  in New Hampshire are among the express reasons given for why the Concord police department is applying to purchase an armored vehicle.  The Free Staters, who are nonviolent, are  lumped into the category of “domestic terrorism.” For not wanting anyone to use violence.  The relevant portion of the application reads: See it: here

Last week, Justin Amash, the two-term libertarian Republican congressman from Michigan, joined with John Conyers, the 25-term liberal Democratic congressman from the same state, to offer an amendment to legislation funding the National Security Agency (NSA). If enacted, the Amash-Conyers amendment would have forced the government’s domestic spies when seeking search warrants to capture Americans’ phone calls, texts and emails first to identify their targets and produce evidence of their terror-related activities before a judge may issue a warrant. The support they garnered had a surprising result that stunned the Washington establishment. It almost passed. Read more: here