[VIDEO] Riot Control: DHS Spends $500,000 on Fully Automatic Pepper Spray Launchers

The Department of Homeland Security is increasing its preparations for domestic unrest by spending half a million dollars on fully automatic pepper spray launchers and projectiles that are designed to be used during riot control situations.

In an announcement of a no bid contract posted on the Federal Business Opportunities website, the federal agency signals its intention to purchase nearly 240,000 pepper spray projectiles, 100 pepper spray launchers, as well as 36 “riot expansion kits”.

The PepperBall TAC-700 pepper spray launcher “features full auto, semi-auto, or 3 round burst providing up to 700 rounds per minute,”according to the company which will provide the DHS with the weapons. It is also “accurate to 60 feet with area saturation up to 150 feet.” The weapon is routinely used in riot control situations around the world.

According to a video demonstration, the TAC-700 has a “strong psychological influence” on the people it is being used against because it is so loud and sounds like an automatic machine gun.

Although the weapons are being purchased by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the document makes it clear that they will be used to train Federal Protective Service (FPS) agents.

The total cost of the contract amounts to $498,970 dollars and mandates that delivery of the weapons will be made within 60 days of the award.

Via: Info Wars

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Report: U.S. Deported Lowest Number of Illegal Aliens Since 1973

AP

Total deportations of illegal aliens are at their lowest level since 1973, according to a new report released by the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), debunking a claim by the Obama administration that deportations have hit an all-time high.

Jessica Vaughn, director of policy studies at CIS, obtained internal Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) data, for her report, “Deportation Numbers Unwrapped,” which was unveiled at the National Press Club on Wednesday.

“In 2011, the most recent year for which all ICE and CBP totals have been reported, deportations numbered 715,495,” the report states. “This was the lowest year since 1973, when 585,351 deportations were effected.”

Furthermore, total removals, a category of deportation that bars an illegal alien from returning to the United States, will reach 364,700 in 2013, the lowest level since at least 2008.

“This decline has to be of great concern to policymakers, and especially to the public,” Vaughn said. “It’s not as if there is a shortage of illegal aliens living in our country.”

“[The decline] is occurring at a time when ICE has better tools and more resources and more personnel than ever before,” she said. “So the number of removals really should be rising, but instead it’s falling.”

Enforcement activity has also declined in every ICE field office over the last year, with the largest drops occurring in Atlanta (62 percent), Salt Lake City (49 percent), Washington, D.C. (46 percent), and Houston (43 percent).

Interior enforcement is also down by nearly 40 percent since 2010.

Via: WFB

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DHS Approves Over 80% of DREAMers Who Apply for Legal Status

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has approved over 80 percent of young illegal immigrants who have applied for its Deferred Action program, an administrative version of the DREAM Act.

The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services said they have granted legal status to 474,000 of the 580,000 illegal aliens who have applied.

“Last June, DHS announced the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals process, allowing young people who meet the guidelines to seek a two year provisional legal status to remain in the United States,” wrote Maria Odom, the ombudsman for USCIS, on Oct. 24.

“Our office played a key role in this effort by assisting with individual cases, sharing stakeholder feedback with USCIS and suggesting improvements to the application process,” she said.

“Already, more than 580,000 individuals have requested deferred action, and after a thorough review of each of those cases, including a background check, more than 474,000 requests have been approved, allowing these young people to continue to contribute to the country they call home.”

The figures provided show that the agency has approved 81.72 percent of the applications they have received.

Odom said the high approval rate is not enough, and illegal immigrants need a “permanent fix.”

Via: WFB

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Exclusive: Feds confiscate investigative reporter’s confidential files during raid

A veteran Washington D.C. investigative journalist says the Department of Homeland Security confiscated a stack of her confidential files during a raid of her home in August — leading her to fear that a number of her sources inside the federal government have now been exposed.

In an interview with The Daily Caller, journalist Audrey Hudson revealed that the Department of Homeland Security and Maryland State Police were involved in a predawn raid of her Shady Side, Md. home on Aug. 6. Hudson is a former Washington Times reporter and current freelance reporter.

A search warrant obtained by TheDC indicates that the August raid allowed law enforcement to search for firearms inside her home.

The document notes that her husband, Paul Flanagan, was found guilty in 1986 to resisting arrest in Prince George’s County. The warrant called for police to search the residence they share and seize all weapons and ammunition because he is prohibited under the law from possessing firearms.

But without Hudson’s knowledge, the agents also confiscated a batch of documents that contained information about sources inside the Department of Homeland Security and the Transportation Security Administration, she said.

Outraged over the seizure, Hudson is now speaking out. She said no subpoena for the notes was presented during the raid and argues the confiscation was outside of the search warrant’s parameter.

“They took my notes without my knowledge and without legal authority to do so,” Hudson said this week. “The search warrant they presented said nothing about walking out of here with a single sheet of paper.”

She provided TheDC with a photo showing the stack of file folders in a bag marked “evidence/property.”

Via: Daily Caller
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Local cops really excited about their terrifying new tank

The police department in St. Cloud, Minnesota is excited to have a new means of transportation: a menacing, jet-black tank.

The tank will be the official method of transportation for the department’s SWAT team, which was accustomed to driving an old ambulance on “high-risk” missions, according to the St. Cloud Times.

But thanks to Minnesota’s Homeland Security office, the city was able to upgrade to a Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle, or MRAP. The tank is worth $400,000, but St. Cloud only paid a $3,000 transportation fee.

“We got to acquire a very expensive piece of equipment that has everything to do with our ability to do our job in a safe effective way,” said St. Cloud Police Lt. Jeff Oxton in reference to the armored car, which is designed for battlefield combat operations.

The SWAT team will use the tank–which is built to endure grenade explosions–when executing search warrants or responding to disturbances that may involve knives or firearms.

Local police are increasingly utilizing military-style vehicles and equipment–in large part thanks to federal government programs. The federal Department of Homeland Security gives billions of dollars to local law enforcement units for the purposes of procuring armored cars and other army gear.

The Minnesota government doled out $3.5 million worth of military equipment to local cops in the last two months.

Via: Daily Caller

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Immigrant Activists In California Have Standoff With Homeland Security Officials During Protest Over Deportations

Undocumented immigrant activists in San Francisco came face to face with U.S. Homeland Security officials on Thursday night when, as part of a protest against deportations, they blocked a bus that was carrying foreign nationals who were in the custody of immigration officials.

The activists shouted “Undocumented, unafraid!” as they surrounded the bus, keeping it from moving forward, according to the San Francisco Bay Guardian.

They taped a hot pink sign onto the bus that said: “Shut Down ICE,” the acronym for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the division that handles deportations.

Homeland Security officials confronted the activists and threatened to press felony charges against them if they did not move and let the bus could pass. The activists decided to continue their protest, the newspaper said. Several were detained by local police and later released.

We’ll get louder, stronger and more confrontational. That’s what movements have always done.  

- Frank Sharry, head of America's Voice

Dean Santos, a California immigrant who took part in the Thursday protest in San Francisco, defended surrounding the bus to push for an end to the record deportations.

“I’ve been in that bus before, and I remember how powerless I felt,” said Santos, who in the past faced deportation and was held in a detention center in Arizona, according to the website notonemoredeportation.com "Now, I’m coming back with the power of our communities in our effort to stop the separation of families.”

Via: Fox News Latino

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OBAMA NOMINATING JOHNSON TO HEAD HOMELAND SECURITY

President Barack Obama has chosen former Pentagon lawyer Jeh (jay) Johnson as the new secretary of the Homeland Security Department.

Obama plans to announce Johnson's nomination Friday. He must be confirmed by the Senate before taking over the post most recently held by Janet Napolitano (neh-pahl-ih-TAN'-oh). Napolitano stepped down in August to become president of the University of California system.

A senior administration official on Thursday confirmed Johnson's selection, first reported by The Daily Beast. The official said Obama chose Johnson because of his experience as a national security leader.

The official was not authorized to speak about the nomination on the record and spoke on condition of anonymity. 

Via: Breitbart

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Homeland Insecurity Alert: Dry Ice and Dry Runs By Michelle Malkin

Testing, 1, 2, 3, testing. Jihadists never go on furlough. While shutdown theater preoccupies Washington, terror plotters remain on the clock. The question is: Will America keep hitting the post-9/11 snooze button?

At Los Angeles International Airport, two dry ice bombs exploded this week, and two others were found in a restricted area of the airport. According to the Los Angeles Times, the devices "appeared to be outside the terminal near planes where employees such as baggage handlers and others work on the aircraft and its cargo."

That reminds me: It's been more than a year since watchdogs warned Capitol Hill that our massive homeland security bureaucracy was neglecting these very areas of our nation's airports. Grandmas, babies and war heroes are routinely groped, manhandled and humiliated in the name of transportation safety. But untold numbers of ground personnel still have easy, breezy access to airplanes and luggage.

In August, seven baggage handlers at Kennedy Airport were arrested after being videotaped stealing jewelry, cash, watches and computers from passenger luggage. In June, a baggage handler at Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport was arrested after using his credentials to bypass airport security and carry backpacks containing what he believed were drugs and guns onto commercial flights. It's almost as if any bumbling bimbo can connive his or her way into supposedly secure territory.

Via: Townhall

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Some Fed Agencies Should Shut Down Permanently

The government shutdown has provided a great opportunity to examine some of the more obscure agencies that most Americans have probably never even heard of and that the country could likely do without. Think of all the money we could save as a nation. 

Besides brining attention to these largely unheard of agencies, the shutdown—caused by Congress’s inability to agree on a funding bill—is also shedding light on just how bloated the federal government is, with an astounding workforce that’s seen nearly 800,000 furloughed this week. Some media outlets report the shutdown could cost the already frail U.S. economy about $1 billion a week in pay lost by the government workers.

Of course, this doesn’t apply to members of Congress. They will continue getting their checks and so will the president because his annual salary—$400,000—is considered mandatory spending. There are other exceptions like active duty military, all of 1.4 million of which will remain on the job and receive paychecks.

Well-known agencies such as the departments of Commerce and Homeland Security, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), which is part of Treasury, and Housing and Urban Development are also mostly shut down. So is the Department of Education, that useless 4,195-employee monster created by Jimmy Carter. Public education is a state duty yet the agency, which has grown immensely under President Obama, is bulldozing its way towards a takeover by, among other things, issuing federal standards known as Common Core.

We can’t move on to the less-known agencies that shouldn’t even exist before mentioning that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has six separate divisions that are closing during the impasse. The Food Safety and Inspection Service has the largest payroll (9,633), but there’s a Rural Development division with nearly 5,000 employees that provides consultations, assistance and funding opportunities for rural communities. The USDA’s 1,363-employee food stamp division will scale down but still operate to assure a record 46 million people keep getting their free groceries from Uncle Sam.

Here are some of the closures that are likely to go completely unnoticed. The Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, with 39 employees, advises the president and Congress on national historic preservation policy. The Corporation for National and Community Service will have 538 of its 610 employees stay home. We can’t really say what they do because the agency’s website is “currently not available” due to a “lapse in government funding.”

Here are a few other good ones; the Institute of Museum and Library Services, with 69 employees, will close, but not the Inter-American Foundation, which assists with development projects in Latin America and the Caribbean. The National Capital Planning Commission, which provides long-range planning guidance for Washington and nearby areas, will only keep five of its 35 employees and the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board will still function. A mainstream media outlet has provided a list of all the agencies and the number of workers they employ.    

Via: Judicial Watch

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12 Years after 9/11 Weak Oversight of DHS Keeps U.S. Vulnerable

Weak congressional oversight over the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) keeps the United States vulnerable to terrorist threats posed by small aircraft and boats, cyber attacks and biological weapons, according to a diverse panel of lawmakers and security officials.

This may be difficult to swallow twelve years after the worst terrorist attack in U.S. history but it’s the conclusion of a task force of Homeland Security officials and experts as well as current and former members of Congress from both political parties. The task force found that one of the key recommendations made by the 9/11 Commission, the special panel that Congress created to investigate the terrorist attacks and prevent them in the future, has not been fulfilled.

After all these years one of the commission’s most significant recommendations to guard against future attacks has not been implemented.  It’s the call for consolidated Congressional oversight of DHS, the monstrous agency created after 9/11. Jurisdiction over DHS is fragmented and that impedes the agency’s ability to deal with the three major vulnerabilities mentioned above, the experts found.

DHS has no oversight structure like other crucial agencies such as the Department of Defense (DOD) and the Department of Justice (DOJ), the panel of intelligence experts and lawmakers reveal. Instead, more than 100 Congressional committees and subcommittees claim jurisdiction over it creating a seriously disintegrated oversight system and massive bureaucracy.

The new report indicates that, as a nation, we’ve learned little from the 2001 terrorist attacks that killed thousands of innocent Americans. Here are some of the experts who helped put the report together; former Florida Governor Bob Graham, former Bush DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff, Obama DHS Undersecretary of Intelligence Caryn Wagner and California Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez, the second-highest ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee.

“The recommendations of the 9/11 Commission addressed problems that contributed to the United States’ vulnerability to attack” in 2001, the report says. Graham, who was co-chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee on 9/11 offers an example: “We found among other things that there had been inadequate communication among the agencies with a responsibility to alert us to a security threat. The FBI and the CIA had information which, had it been brought together, might well have allowed us to have avoided 9/11.”

Via: Judicial Watch

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