Many documents produced by the U.S. government are confidential and not released to the public for legitimate reasons of national security. Others, however, are kept secret for more questionable reasons. The fact that presidents and other government officials have the power to deem materials classified provides them with an opportunity to use national security as an excuse to suppress documents and reports that would reveal embarrassing or illegal activities.
I’ve been collecting the stories of unreleased documents for several years. Now I have chosen 11 examples that were created—and buried—by both Democratic and Republican administrations and which cover assassinations, spying, torture, 50-year-old historical events, presidential directives with classified titles and…trade negotiations.
1. Obama Memo Allowing the Assassination of U.S. Citizens
When the administration of George W. Bush was confronted with cases of Americans fighting against their own country, it responded in a variety of ways. John Walker Lindh, captured while fighting with the Taliban in December 2001, was indicted by a federal grand jury and sentenced to 20 years in prison. José Padilla was arrested in Chicago in May 2002 and held as an “enemy combatant” until 2006 when he was transferred to civilian authority and, in August 2007, sentenced to 17 years in prison for conspiring to support terrorism. Adam Gadahn, who has made propaganda videos for al-Qaeda, was indicted for treason in 2006 and remains at large.
After he took over the presidency, Barack Obama did away with such traditional legal niceties and decided to just kill some Americans who would previously have been accused of treason or terrorism. His victims have included three American citizens killed in Yemen in 2011 by missiles fired from drones: U.S.-born anti-American cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, Samir Khan, an al-Qaeda propagandist from North Carolina, and Awlaki’s 16-year-old son, Abdulrahman al-Awlaki.
Obama justified his breach of U.S. and international law with a 50-page memorandum prepared by the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel. Attorney General Eric Holder argued that the killing of Awlaki was legal because he was a wartime enemy and he could not be captured, but the legal justification for this argument is impossible to confirm because the Obama administration has refused to release the memo.
2. The Obama Interpretation of Section 215 of the Patriot Act
Section 215 of the Patriot Act allows the FBI, in pursuit of spies and terrorists, to order any person or entity to turn over “any tangible things” without having to justify its demands by demonstrating probable cause. For example, a library can be forced to reveal who borrowed a book or visited a web site. According to Section 215, the library is prohibited from telling anyone what it has turned over to the FBI.
The Obama administration has created a secret interpretation of Section 215 that goes beyond the direct wording of the law to include other information that can be collected. Democratic Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, who, as a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, was briefed about this secret interpretation, urged the president to make it public. “I want to deliver a warning this afternoon,” he said. “When the American people find out how their government has secretly interpreted the Patriot Act, they will be stunned and they will be angry.”
Wyden and Sen. Mark Udall of Colorado, also a Democrat, have implied that the Obama administration has expanded the use of Section 215 to activities other than espionage and terrorism. In a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder, Wyden and Udall wrote that “there is now a significant gap between what most Americans think the law allows and what the government secretly claims the law allows. This is a problem, because it is impossible to have an informed public debate about what the law should say when the public doesn’t know what its government thinks the law says.” 3. 30-page Summary of 9/11 Commission Interview with Bush and Cheney
You would have thought that, in the interests of the nation, the Bush administration would have demanded a thorough investigation of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the deadliest assault ever on U.S. soil. Instead, they fought tooth and nail against an independent investigation. Public pressure finally forced President George W. Bush to appoint a bipartisan commission that came to be known as the 9/11 Commission. It was eventually given a budget of $15 million…compared to the $39 million spent on the Monica Lewinsky/Bill Clinton investigation. When the commission completed its work in August 2004, the commissioners turned over all their records to the National Archives with the stipulation that the material was to be released to the public starting on January 2, 2009. However, most of the material remains classified. Among the more tantalizing still-secret documents are daily briefings given to President Bush that reportedly described increasingly worried warnings of a possible attack by operatives of Osama bin Laden.
Another secret document that the American people deserve to see is the 30-page summary of the interview of President Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney conducted by all ten commissioners on April 29, 2004. Bush and Cheney refused to be interviewed unless they were together. They would not testify under oath and they refused to allow the interview to be recorded or transcribed. Instead the commission was allowed to bring with them a note taker. It is the summary based on this person’s notes that remains sealed.
4. Memos from President George W. Bush to the CIA Authorizing Waterboarding and other Torture Techniques
Four days after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, President George W. Bush signed a “memorandum of notification” (still secret) that authorized the CIA to do what it needed to fight al-Qaeda. However the memo did not address what interrogation and torture techniques could be used on captured suspects. By June 2003, Director George Tenet and others at the CIA were becoming worried that if their seemingly illegal tactics became known to the public, the White House would deny responsibility and hang the CIA out to dry. After much discussion, Bush’s executive office handed over two memos, one in 2003 and another in 2004, confirming White House approval of the CIA interrogation methods, thus giving the CIA “top cover.” It is not known if President Bush himself signed the memos.
5. 1,171 CIA Documents Related to the Assassination of President Kennedy
It’s been 49 years since President John F. Kennedy was shot to death in Dallas, yet the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) insists that more than one thousand documents relating to the case should not be released to the public until NARA is legally required to do so in 2017…unless the president at that time decides to extend the ban. It would appear that some of the blocked material deals with the late CIA agent David Phillips, who is thought to have dealt with Lee Harvey Oswald in Mexico City six weeks before the assassination.
6. Volume 5 of the CIA’s History of the Bay of Pigs Fiasco
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, CIA historian Dr. Jack B. Pfeiffer compiled a multi-volume history of the failed US attempt to invade Cuba in April 1961. In August 2005, the National Security Archive at George Washington University, citing the Freedom of Information Act, requested access to this history. The CIA finally released the information almost six years later, in July 2011. However it refused to release Volume V, which is titled “CIA’s Internal Investigation of the Bay of Pigs Operations.” Although more than 50 years have passed since the invasion, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled that Volume V is exempt from the Freedom of Information Act because it “is covered by the deliberative process privilege” which “covers documents reflecting advisory opinions, recommendations and deliberations comprising part of a process by which governmental decisions and policies are formulated.”
7. National Security Decision Directives with Classified Titles
The day before he left the White House on January 20, 1993, President George H. W. Bush issued National Security Directive (NSD) #79, a document so secret that even its title remains classified almost 20 years later. The same goes for National Security Directive #77, issued a few days earlier, as well as four others issued in 1989 (#11, 13a, 19a and 25a). If the “a”s are any indication of the subjects, it is worth noting that NSD 13 dealt with countering cocaine trafficking in Peru; NSD 19 dealt with Libya and NSD 25 with an election in Nicaragua.
President Ronald Reagan also issued six NSDs with classified titles, and President Bill Clinton issued 29. President George W. Bush issued two such NSDs, presumably shortly after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. President Barack Obama has issued at least seven Presidential Policy Directives with classified titles.
8. Major General Douglas Stone’s 700-Page Report on Prisoners Held in Afghanistan
Marine Corps General Douglas Stone earned positive reviews for his revamping of detention operations in Iraq, where he determined that most of the prisoners held by the United States were not actually militants and could be taught trades and rehabilitated. Based on his success in Iraq, Stone was given the task of making an evaluation of detainee facilities in Afghanistan. His findings, conclusions and recommendations were included in a 700-page report that he submitted to the U.S. Central Command in August 2009. According to some accounts of the report, Stone determined that two-thirds of the Afghan prisoners were not a threat and should be released. However, three years after he completed it, Stone’s report remains classified.
9. Detainee Assessment Briefs for Abdullah Tabarak and Abdurahman Khadr
In 2011, WikiLeaks released U.S. military files known as Detainee Assessment Briefs (DABs), which describe the cases of 765 prisoners held at Guantánamo Bay. However, there were actually 779 prisoners. So what happened to the files for the other fourteen? Andy Worthington, author of The Guantanamo Files, has noted that two of the fourteen missing stories are especially suspicious: those of Abdullah Tabarak and Abdurahman Khadr.
Tabarak, a Moroccan, was allegedly one of Osama bin Laden’s long-time bodyguards, and took over bin Laden’s satellite phone in order to draw U.S. fire to himself instead of to bin Laden when U.S. forces were chasing the al-Qaeda leader in the Tora Bora mountains in December 2001. Captured and sent to Guantánamo, Tabarak was mysteriously released, sent back to Morocco in July 2003, and set free shortly thereafter.
Abdurahman Khadr, the self-described “black sheep” of a militant family from Canada, was 20 years old when he was captured in Afghanistan and turned over to American forces. He has said that he was recruited by the CIA to become an informant at Guantánamo and then in Bosnia. When the CIA tried to send him to Iraq, he refused and returned to Canada. His younger brother, Omar, was 15 years old when he was captured in Afghanistan and accused of killing an American soldier, Sergeant First Class Christopher Speer, during a firefight. He was incarcerated at Guantánamo for almost ten years until he was finally released to Canadian custody on September 29, 2012.
10. FBI Guidelines for Using GPS Devices to Track Suspects
On January 23, 2012, in the case of United States v. Jones, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that attaching a GPS device to a car to track its movements constitutes a “search” and is thus covered by the Fourth Amendment protecting Americans against “unreasonable searches and seizures.” But it did not address the question of whether the FBI and other law enforcement agencies must obtain a warrant to attach a GPS device or whether it is enough for an agent to believe that such a search would turn up evidence of wrongdoing.
A month later, at a symposium at the University of San Francisco, FBI lawyer Andrew Weissman announced that the FBI was issuing two memoranda to its agents to clarify how the agency would interpret the Supreme Court decision. One memo dealt with the use of GPS devices, including whether they could be attached to boats and airplanes and used at international borders. The second addressed how the ruling applied to non-GPS techniques used by the FBI.
The ACLU, citing the Freedom of Information Act, has requested publication of the two memos because they “will shape not only the conduct of its own agents but also the policies, practices and procedures of other law enforcement agencies—and, consequently, the privacy rights of Americans.”
11. U.S. Paper on Negotiating Position on the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas
The subject of international trade negotiations is one that makes most people’s eyes glaze over. So why is the Obama administration fighting so hard to keep secret a one-page document that relates to early negotiations regarding the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas (FTAA), an accord that was proposed 18 years ago and about which public negotiations ended in 2005? All we know is that the document “sets forth the United States’ initial proposed position on the meaning of the phrase ‘in like circumstances.’” This phrase “helps clarify when a country must treat foreign investors as favorably as local or other foreign investors.”
Responding to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by The Center for International Environmental Law, DC District Judge Richard W. Roberts ordered the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) to release the document, but the Obama administration has refused, claiming that disclosure “reasonably could be expected to result in damage to the national security” because all the nations involved in the failed negotiations agreed to keep all documents secret until December 31, 2013…“unless a country were to object to the release of one of its own documents at that time.” Judge Roberts ruled that the USTR has failed to present any evidence that release of the document would damage national security.
Most likely, the Obama administration is afraid that release of the document would set a precedent that could impede another secret trade negotiation, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), also known as the Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership Agreement, which seeks to establish a free trade zone among the U.S., New Zealand, Chile, Singapore, Brunei, Australia, Peru, Vietnam, Malaysia and possibly Canada, Mexico and Japan.
Photographers are still being classified as potential terrorists in a newly released document from the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI.
The “Roll Call Release,” dated November 13, 2012 and titled “Suspicious Activity Reporting: Photography,” gives a vague reference to a single example where a terrorist may have used cameras to plan attacks.
“In late 2000 and early 2001, convicted al-Qaida operative Dhiren Barot took extensive video footage and numerous photographs of sites in downtown New York City and Washington DC in preparation for planned attacks.”
But then it goes on to list three other examples where people were detained for using cameras in airports, parking garages and shopping malls – which the report describes as “consistent with pre-operational activity and attack planning” – that turned out to have nothing to do with terrorist activity.
But the feds still refer to these detainments as a sign of success because they served for “awareness and training purposes” – as if they need any more training to harass innocent photographers.
And although Barot was convicted of planning attacks, authorities could not connect a video he recorded of the World Trade Center to the actual 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Barot undertook reconnaissance missions in the UK and US in 2000 and 2001, during which he filmed buildings including the International Monetary Fund and World Bank headquarters in Washington DC and the Stock Exchange and Citigroup buildings in New York.
Although there was no evidence that he had foreknowledge of the September 11 attacks on the US, one clip, played in court, showed the World Trade Centre with someone imitating the noise of an explosion in the background.
Barot was also known to visit public libraries to plan possible attacks, so perhaps visiting your local library will soon be regarded as suspicious.
Labeling photographers as potential terrorists has been rampant since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, but in 2010, after forcing a man to the ground for video recording a federal courthouse in New York City, the Department of Homeland Security agreed to a settlement, acknowledging that photographing federal buildings is not a crime.
But that still didn’t stop the feds for spreading the message that photographers should be deemed suspicious, including funding municipalities to produce propaganda videos.
Two months ago, it began encouraging citizens to photograph other citizens who take suspicious photographs in order to report them to Homeland Security.
In October, the FBI visited a Houston man at home after he had been seen taking photos near a refinery. He had only been taking pictures of a brewing storm for the National Weather Service.
In 2008, security expert Bruce Schneier wrote his famous “War on Photography” article, in which he stated the following:
Since 9/11, there has been an increasing war on photography. Photographers have been harassed, questioned, detained, arrested or worse, and declared to be unwelcome. We’ve been repeatedly told to watch out for photographers, especially suspicious ones. Clearly any terrorist is going to first photograph his target, so vigilance is required.
Except that it’s nonsense. The 9/11 terrorists didn’t photograph anything. Nor did the London transport bombers, the Madrid subway bombers, or the liquid bombers arrested in 2006. Timothy McVeigh didn’t photograph the Oklahoma City Federal Building. The Unabomber didn’t photograph anything; neither did shoe-bomber Richard Reid. Photographs aren’t being found amongst the papers of Palestinian suicide bombers. The IRA wasn’t known for its photography. Even those manufactured terrorist plots that the US government likes to talk about — the Ft. Dix terrorists, the JFK airport bombers, the Miami 7, the Lackawanna 6 — no photography.
Interest in digital coin system spikes dramatically after banking crisis in Cyprus, nearly tripling in value since last month
The value of individual Bitcoins has hit a record high of almost $147 as interest in the cryptographic currency, which has no central issuing bank, has exploded.
Though the value fell back later on Wednesday to $117, the value of all Bitcoins in circulation is approaching $1.4bn.
Both the volume being traded and the amounts being paid have suddenly risen, apparently as interest in the system has been spiked by the banking crisis in Cyprus – which had the spillover effect of making people in some southern European countries worry that their banking deposits might not be safe.
Some are thought to have converted that money into Bitcoins, driving a rapid rise in the apparent value of the “coins” – actually cryptographic solutions to complex equations.
As a result, the value of a Bitcoin has risen from just $13.50 in January, and around $30 a month ago, to more than $140 – though the price is fluctuating rapidly. The total value of the Bitcoins in circulation only broken through the $250m mark in January. Last November, each Bitcoin was worth $10.83.
Bitcoin’s market price since last month Photograph: blockchain.infoThe maximum possible number of Bitcoins that can exist is 21m, meaning that at present prices the currency would be worth just over $3bn. Trades can be made with fractions of Bitcoins, providing flexibility that enables transactions.
The price of each Bitcoin began rising abruptly on Tuesday 19 March, going from $47 then to $72 by 23 March. That matches the period of the Cyprus bailout almost exactly: its banks shut on Friday 15 March – and then the Cypriot government announced over the next two days that they required a bailout and that all savers’ deposits would be tapped. Though that was later revoked, with only larger deposits being subject to a 10% requisition, savers in other countries with troubled finances had already acted.
Bitcoin’s usefulness is its lack of the need for a central bank – and that the peer-to-peer network backing it allows transactions to continue as long as there are people willing to exchange the coins for something of value (or to donate them). For Europeans worried about the possibility that their banks might shut, trapping their savings inside, and not open until some amount had been skimmed from them, that makes Bitcoins suddenly attractive.
A growing number of sites online accept Bitcoins as payments for items – including some electronics sites and other less legal sites, including Silk Road, which offer drugs.
The interest, and the exponential rise in value, means that it is now worthwhile for people to devote computing power to try to “mine” Bitcoins by finding the solutions to the cryptographic challenges that underlie each coin. As Bitcoins become more valuable, the return on computing power should grow – except that Bitcoins are designed so that as more come into circulation, it becomes harder to “mine” new ones. A distributed algorithm ensures that about 1 Bitcoin is created every 10 minutes – but not more.
That is reflected in the chart from blockchain.info, showing that the growth in total number of Bitcoins in circulation has actually slowed since December 2012.
Some suggest that the rapid rise in Bitcoins’ value may mean that it will become less useful as a currency, because it becomes more attractive to hoard it than to spend it – because exchanging it for any other item or service risks losing out on the rising value. That is “hyperdeflation”, argues Joe Wiesenthal of Business Insider. It is the opposite of “hyperinflation”, like that which hit the Weimar Republic in Germany after the first world war, or Zimbabwe more recently, where the currency becomes less and less valuable for transactions. By contrast, Bitcoin is experiencing a period when it is becoming less attractive to spend it – which will make it less useful as a currency for trading.
Now that the prospects of a second Obama administration are hitting home, the pace of a rapid deterioration are confronting all thinking Americans. The radical transformation that is centrally planned for the economy and authoritarianism administrated by the statists that are part of the most tyrannical regime in memory, is taking place before our eyes. Falling off the cliff is more like descending into the abyss of martial law contrived to eliminate the last remnants of independent citizens. Advocating for civil liberties is treated as a criminal act and the gun culture is looked upon as the preview of a terrorist cell.
Several decades ago, the label of being a survivalist painted a prepared person as odd if not deranged. Today the “prepper” is demeaned as an enemy of the state. The Obama dependency society demands that government is the dispenser of all wants and needs. The threat to the state from a prepared population has become a primary target of the New World Order minions.
So what is so perilous about the Prepper Nation? The overt resistance to arbitrary authority is a fear that any beholden bureaucrat abhors. Combating the grievous culture, which is the federal ruthless and tyrannical government, is a crucial concern of the beltway elitists. Thus, the prepared individual is a dangerous agonist that ignores, if not resists, the best-laid plans for a controlled society.
“In fact, it has been estimated that there are now approximately 3 million preppers in the United States alone. So now the mainstream media has decided that mocking the movement is the best strategy, and lots of “critics” and “skeptics” out there have picked up on this trend. Instead of addressing the very real issues that have caused millions of Americans to prepare for the worst, those criticizing the prepper movement attempt to put the focus on individual personalities. They try to find the strangest nutjobs they possibly can and then hold them up as “typical preppers”. The goal is to portray preppers as tinfoil hat wearing freaks that need to be locked up in the loony bin for their own personal safety and for the good of society.”
The mainstream mass media is a state endorsed first account of history writing and propaganda machine. Entertainment is now defined as a process to marginalize any movement that seeks to deal with fundamental problems in a common sense response.
“The National Geographic program Doomsday Preppers also has had a lot to do with the demonization of preppers – it’s a full-court press propaganda attack against preppers. The program finds the most outrageous examples of preparedness possible and edits to make them look foolish. An article on the American Preppers Network explains the modus operandi:
The show severely skews Preppers in an effort that can be summed up as “making good television”. This is evident not only through viewing the show itself, but through the format they have built the show around.”
Again in decades past the “Patriotic Cause” was smeared for its emphasis upon advocating a constitutional law application to the ills of excessive government. The current “Liberty Movement” need not require being a card carrying Libertarian to advance the natural rights of individuals. Such protagonists risk the wrath of Obama mania in the era of dictatorial edicts. No more grievous offense can be registered against the establishment than to champion the wisdom of the Founding Fathers.
John Adams wrote in a letter to H. Niles, February 13, 1818.
“But what do we mean by the American Revolution? Do we mean the American war? The Revolution was affected before the war commenced. The Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people; a change in their religious sentiments, of their duties and obligations…This radical change in the principles, opinions, sentiments, and affections of the people was the real American Revolution.”
Those changes in principles are a foremost hazard in an age of international globalism. Patriots originally defended the spirit of the American Revolution. The meaning of limited government was understood in the hearts and minds of the ordinary populace. Now despotic technocrats act with impunity and violate the most basic precepts of common law.
Anyone who articulates the fundamental separation of powers that curtails outright totalitarian collectivism is no longer heralded as patriotic, but is viewed as a menace to the ruling cabal. The uniqueness of defiance from the “shot heard ’round the world” is captured in the Ralph Waldo Emerson poem, Concord Hymn.
By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled,
Here once the embattled farmers stood,
And fired the shot heard round the world.
The foe long since in silence slept;
Alike the conqueror silent sleeps;
And Time the ruined bridge has swept
Down the dark stream which seaward creeps.
On this green bank, by this soft stream,
We set to-day a votive stone;
That memory may their deed redeem,
When, like our sires, our sons are gone.
Spirit, that made those heroes dare
To die, and leave their children free,
Bid Time and Nature gently spare
The shaft we raise to them and thee.
Emerson appreciated individualism, self-reliance and intuition. Under the Obama dictatorship, patriots like Emerson, would be degraded into submission as treacherous antagonists to the sociopaths that wear a state tiara. The British Crown is not embodied in a King. The Crown is a system of financial and servitude dominance.
In order to understand the nature of this enslavement scheme, the piracy of individual independence is a crucial element necessary to maintain state supremacy.
When buccaneer Henry Morgan was the scourge of the Spanish Main, he was a successful privateer for the British Empire. His appointment to admiral and then to the title of Sir was a reward for his pillaging and plunder. His eventual fall from grace brought down the anger of the English lords. The mechanism used by the ruling class to establish and maintain their power was based upon looting and force.
While initiative demonstrated by pirates that seized ships of treasure was protected as long as the spoils were shared with the Crown, the practice of keeping individual booty risked a hanging offense. The state is always the master robber.
Piracy is the largest business on the planet. Governments routinely make up the rules as it serves the interests of those who wage war to hold onto their power. Legitimacy of any regime is suspect at best and most governments act as criminal syndicates.
The Prepper intuitively comprehends this reality. The need to discredit the preparer of survival subsistence becomes a priority to the thieves that run the social plantation. Preppers are threats because many are practicing patriots. The establishment breeds compliant fools that eagerly support state tyranny as the price of being a ward of the dependency and entitlement society.
The purging of the essence of the American Revolution in the hearts and minds of the population is a betrayal of the John Adams legacy. As the federal behemoth, governance continues to destroy any lawful authority; the pirates of subversion destroy any legality remaining.
“When ‘Truth’ is abandoned, ‘Justice’ is denied. Civilization is created and maintained through an arbitration of disputes that respects the ‘Rights’ of ALL Individuals. The ‘Law’ is the guide to settle and judge adherence to criterion of conduct. But it is left to the realm of morals, ethics and values to establish those principles. ‘Equity’ suffers not a right without a remedy, is based upon moral standards of conduct and ethical codes. The ‘Law’ is NOT meant to make those mores, but to apply them. Judges are the umpires of the rules. Lawyers are the presenters of the evidence. And the Jury is the determiner of guilt.”
Those remaining Patriots need to practice the Bill of Rights. Preppers need to share their personal preparation planning with open-minded neighbors. Both must defend the inalienable right of self-defense, especially against the pirate bandits that are planning military force to coerce you to walk the plank.
“The State is an entity that results from the organization of society among varied interests, to rule the public. Your natural rights are never transferred to a non living creation of those who have achieved power over others. Citizens cannot negate their own rights, through a process of delegation and consent to any State. But what we have is a chronicle throughout all history of governments telling citizens that their rights are a result of government authority. If you accept this fraud, you can and mostly likely will, gladly accept the pronouncement of civic administration that restrict your ability to preserve your own existence.
Gun ownership is a sideshow to the real struggle. But guns represent a real threat to corrupt masters and their institutions. You already know the terminal consequences that happen to any population that surrenders the means to protect themselves. The record is clear – the society is at a greater risk to their own government, than domination.
At approximately 9:25 p.m. on Sunday night, December 16, just two days after the horrific shootings in Newtown, Connecticut, Jesus Manuel Garcia, age 19, entered the China Garden restaurant across the mall from the Santikos Mayan Palace 14 theater complex in San Antonio, Texas, looking for his ex-girlfriend.
Angered that she had just broken up with him, he sent her a text message saying that he planned to go to the restaurant where she worked and “shoot somebody.”
Before she could warn patrons at the restaurant Garcia entered and started shooting.
One bullet slightly wounded one patron while others scattered out the exit doors and headed for the safety of the theater lobby across the mall. Garcia chased them and continued shooting.
This got the attention of an armed off-duty law-enforcement officer who was working at the theater, Bexar County sheriff’s Sgt. Lisa Castellano, who chased Garcia to the back of the theater where he ducked into the men’s room.
When he emerged, Castellano shot him four times which immediately and effectively ended the threat. Garcia was handcuffed with the help of another off-duty officer and taken to the hospital where he was listed in stable condition.
He was charged with attempted capital murder of a police officer and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, and his bail was set at $1 million.
In reporting the incident, local news recalled the Aurora, Colorado, theater attack last July. Hollie O’Connor, who covered the story for mysanantonio.com, said:
“The shooting immediately sparked fears of a mass slaying like the one in July that killed 12 people and injured 58 at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado.” She included a quote from one Cassandra Castillo, the mother of the theater’s projectionist, who was worried about her son’s safety in the incident. Said Castillo, “It brings back memories of the other theater shooting and the elementary school shooting. You think only the worst.”
But the national media ignored this story, even though the shooting occurred just two days after the Newtown shooting. It wasn’t just a case that (thankfully) no one was killed in the San Antonio incident.
Very likely, no one was killed because of the timely intervention of the armed off-duty officer. If the media were honestly looking for solutions to gun violence, they should have jumped on the San Antonio to show the difference a good person with a gun can make.
But they didn’t, apparently because it does not fit the narrative that the mainstream media promote — that is, that guns cause violence rather than prevent it.
In their coverage of the Aurora theater tragedy, the media made much of the weaponry used by James Holmes and his ability to purchase his weapons and his body armor and ammunition online without difficulty. The coverage pointed to the horrors of Holmes’ “assault” weapons as the cause of the tragedy while ignoring that the theater was a “gun-free zone.”
No suggestion was ever made that the gun-free zone mandated by the theater made it an attractive target for Holmes because he knew he would meet no resistance.
Though they gave the Aurora theater shooting mega-publicity and spun it in a way that meshed with their anti-gun agenda, the major media almost completely ignored another Aurora shooting that occurred last April.
In the little-reported shooting, 29-year-old Kiarron Parker, after killing his first victim outside an Aurora church, immediately encountered armed resistance from a churchgoer who killed him before he could take any more innocent lives.
The San Antonio theater shooting was neutralized by armed resistance before anyone was killed. The off-duty officer recognized the threat and was trained to meet it and she did — so successfully in fact that the city gave her a medal for her actions.
When Wayne LaPierre, executive director of the National Rifle Association, suggested that potential threats be met with armed resistance in schools so that future massacres can be avoided, the media just scoffed, quoting various gun-control advocates that the last thing needed in schools is more guns.
It widely disseminated President Obama’s comment that he is “skeptical that the only answer is putting more guns in schools … that that somehow is going to solve our problem.”
The April Aurora church shooting and the recent San Antonio theater shooting should be more than enough to persuade all but the most hardened and determined enemies of the Second Amendment that the best thing is for more people to be armed and enabled to resist threats like these, rather than fewer. But the media aren’t listening.
An Interview with Police Militarization Expert Radley Balko:How Cops Became Soldiers
Non-Violent Marijuana Arrests surpass Violent Crime Arrests- Prison Industry Profits Running Wild! GMO’s making it into ‘Natural’ vitamins & supplements
Monsanto (the Fox) buys Beelogics (The Henhouse). Nature in jeopardy of getting Hi-jacked!
Dick Cheney finally admits he lied on 9/11… kind of.
Bitcoin’s market price since last month Photograph: blockchain.infoThe maximum possible number of Bitcoins that can exist is 21m, meaning that at present prices the currency would be worth just over $3bn. Trades can be made with fractions of Bitcoins, providing flexibility that enables transactions.
