Did Obama break law to win re-election?

The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act 

Former Homeland Security attorney exposes shrewd maneuver

Did Barack Obama win re-election by violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act?

This is the question posed by former Homeland Security attorney Stewart Baker, a blogger for The Volokh Conspiracy, a group blog organized by Eugene Volokh, a professor of American law at the UCLA School of Law.

Baker’s credentials make the question a serious one.

A partner in the Washington office of Steptoe & Johnson LLP, he returned to private law practice after serving for three and a half years as the assistant secretary for policy at the Department of Homeland Security, where he created and managed the 250-person DHS Policy Directorate responsible, among other duties, for relationships with law enforcement and public advisory committees.

The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, enacted by Congress in 1986, is a broadly written law that in practice regulates virtually all computers and cellphones, largely because communications over the Internet tends to have implications for interstate commerce.
Baker argued that the Obama presidential campaign in 2012 possibly violated the act by an arrangement with Obama supporters posting on Facebook. It allowed the Obama campaign to search the person’s Facebook network for likely voters the campaign could identify as unmotivated or unregistered.

The likely voters would then get tailored messages from their Facebook friends urging them to register and turn out.

 Baker’s appreciation for the creativity of the tactic was moderated by his conclusion the tactic might have been a criminal violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.

“It’s clever. It’s the future,” Baker conceded. “And it’s a violation of the CFAA. Facebook doesn’t let users share access to their accounts, and anything Facebook doesn’t authorize is very likely a federal crime.”

Baker explained that Facebook’s customer service agreement was written to limit access to information, not just use of the information.

“Maybe the campaign never thought about the possibility that it was violating federal law,” Baker wrote. “That’s not a scandal, though it strikes me as unlikely that not one of these tech-savvy geeks failed to notice that they were breaching Facebook’s terms of service.”
Given the importance of turnout to the outcome of the 2012 presidential campaign, Baker argued President Obama arguably won re-election by violating federal law or by getting special treatment from Facebook, and maybe from federal prosecutors as well.

“I think this issue will go mainstream,” Baker insisted. “Half the country will want to know exactly how that happened. And I don’t see how the extraordinary discussion conferred by the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act can survive the storm that follows.”

Trolling for voters
WND senior staff reporter Jerome R. Corsi, author of the WND book “What Went Wrong: The Inside Story of the GOP Debacle of 2012 … And How It Can Be Avoided Next Time,” agrees.

“There is no doubt the Obama computer strategies and capabilities gave Obama an advantage in 2012,” Corsi said. “A major goal of the Obama voter intelligence campaign was to network from strong Obama supporters to find likely Obama voters that could be converted into Election Day votes.”

Corsi pointed out that despite Obama winning six of the seven swing states in play in 2012, many of the key states were very close, within reach for Romney had Republican turnout been higher.

In 2012, when all the precincts were counted, Obama won Ohio by only 103,481 votes, approximately 2 percent of all votes cast in the state, and he won Florida by 73,189 votes, approximately 1 percent of all the votes cast.

“Turnout was the key to victory in 2012,” Corsi pointed out. “Approximately 6.7 million fewer white voters voted in 2012 than voted in 2008. Romney got 59 percent of the white vote. The white voters who stayed home were the conservatives. Had Romney gotten the same numbers of white voters to the polls as McCain got in 2008, Romney could well have been president.”

Maximizing turnout in the Democratic Party base was a necessary strategy for Obama to be re-elected, Corsi pointed out, stressing that Obama got 4.5 million fewer votes in 2012 than in 2008.

“The Obama team had the social science studies that showed how you can increase turnout by telling a prospective voter how his or her neighbors plan to vote,” Corsi noted.
He said the Facebook strategy analyzed by Baker is “very powerful, when the Obama campaign accesses your friends to ask if they know you plan to vote for Obama.”

If Baker is correct, Corsi stressed, the Facebook strategy rapidly moves into the liability column if the Obama campaign did not adequately research the information-access restrictions of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.

“The geeks in the ‘cave’ in Obama’s Chicago campaign headquarters were trolling for votes over the Internet wherever and however they could find them,” Corsi said. “It would not surprise me if Obama’s computer geniuses cut legal corners on the Internet, much like hackers couldn’t care less if they violate a few federal laws breaking through firewalls.”

CHOICE AMERICA NETWORK - 10 YEARS STRONG!

Not Guilty -- Beyond Reasonable Doubt

By Pat Buchanan

That the prosecution in the Zimmerman trial asked the judge to allow a verdict of "third-degree murder" -- i.e., child abuse, since Trayvon Martin was 17 -- testifies to the prosecution's failure and panic. 

For George Zimmerman's defense has proven, beyond a reasonable doubt, that he shot Trayvon Martin not out of malice, rage or hate -- but in a desperate act of self-defense.
Zimmerman was being beaten "ground-and-pound," mixed martial arts style. His head was being banged on the cement. Screaming again and again for help, he pulled out his gun and fired. 

Even the prosecution is now conceding Trayvon might have been on top, and is now scrambling for a compromise verdict on a lesser charge than second-degree murder, a charge that never should have been brought. Indeed, this trial should never have been held.
What we have witnessed in Sanford, Fla., is the prosecution of an innocent man for murder because the politically and socially powerful demanded it. 

That Trayvon is dead is a tragedy, and an avoidable tragedy. But it was not murder. And it does not justify railroading a man who, whatever his mistakes that night -- and George Zimmerman made them -- committed no crime. 

The case comes down to four questions. And the answers, supported by the evidence, testimony and common sense, point straight to an acquittal. 

First, who was the aggressor? 

All agree it would have been better if Zimmerman had never left his car or followed Trayvon that night.

Yet, ask yourself: 

Would a pudgy, out-of-shape 28-year-old with a gun, facing a 17-year-old athletic kid, 4 inches taller, with a longer reach, throw a punch and start a fistfight with him?

If Zimmerman threw the first punch, what would be his motive? If you have a gun and your adversary does not, is not the sensible stance to keep your distance so you can be free to pull the gun? Who armed with a pistol starts a fistfight with a suspicious stranger?
Moreover, Trayvon's body showed no signs of having ever been punched, while George's nose looks like he was sucker-punched. 

Second, who was on top in those final moments of the fight? 

If Zimmerman was on top and Trayvon was on his back, Trayvon would have been found on his back. He was found dead on his stomach.

If Zimmerman was on top and Trayvon was on his stomach, he would have been shot in the back. He was shot in the chest. 

How could Trayvon have been found lying on his face, with a bullet hole in his chest, if Zimmerman was sitting on top of him? Only if George Zimmerman, after shooting Trayvon, would have turned him over as he lay dying. No one has even suggested that.
Why was the back of Zimmerman's jacket soaking wet, and the back of Trayvon's dry, if Trayvon was on the bottom? Why were the knees of Trayvon's pants wet, if he was on the bottom? 

Third, who was screaming for help? 

His mother, brother and father say it was Trayvon. George's mother, father and half a dozen friends say it is George's voice on the tape, screaming for help. 

Trayvon's father and brother apparently told investigators initially that the voice was not Trayvon's, or they did not know. And the eyewitness John Good says the guy on the bottom in the red jacket, George Zimmerman, was the one screaming. 

But, again, let us assume it was Trayvon screaming. 

Why would he be screaming? If he was being beaten up martial arts style on the ground, would Trayvon not have had cuts and bruises? 

What, exactly, was George Zimmerman doing to this 17-year-old football player that he should be screaming for help? 

Where is the physical evidence that Trayvon had been hurt in any way before he was shot? Is screaming how a tough 17-year-old male reacts in a fistfight, even one he is losing?
Trayvon was a stranger in that neighborhood, and George was the neighborhood watch guy. Which of the two is more likely to be yelling for help from the neighbors? 

Fourth, was the use of a firearm justified, even if Zimmerman was losing the fight and being beaten up?

Were his injuries that serious? Was he really is danger of grave bodily harm? 

Experts disagree. But the real question is: What did Zimmerman think at the time? And judging by those piercing screams, was not that screaming man frightened, even terrified? 

Trayvon's parents think these were the desperate cries for help of a son about to be killed. But if they were Zimmerman's cries, could George not have had those same thoughts? 

George Zimmerman should have informed Trayvon he was the neighborhood watch. Trayvon should not have pummeled him. Both made mistakes. One is dead. To send the other to prison for what happened that night would be an act of vengeance, not justice, an invocation of the old lex talionis -- an eye for an eye.

That's not what America is supposed to be about. 

 

IRS Sent $46,378,040 in Refunds to 23,994 ‘Unauthorized’ Aliens at 1 Atlanta Address

 By Terence P. Jeffrey

(CNSNews.com) - The Internal Revenue Service sent 23,994 tax refunds worth a combined $46,378,040 to “unauthorized” alien workers who all used the same address in Atlanta, Ga., in 2011, according to the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA).

That was not the only Atlanta address theoretically used by thousands of “unauthorized” alien workers receiving millions in federal tax refunds in 2011. In fact, according to a TIGTA audit report published last year, four of the top ten addresses to which the IRS sent thousands of tax refunds to “unauthorized” aliens were in Atlanta.

The IRS sent 11,284 refunds worth a combined $2,164,976 to unauthorized alien workers at a second Atlanta address; 3,608 worth $2,691,448 to a third; and 2,386 worth $1,232,943 to a fourth.

Other locations on the IG’s Top Ten list for singular addresses that were theoretically used simultaneously by thousands of unauthorized alien workers, included an address in Oxnard, Calif, where the IRS sent 2,507 refunds worth $10,395,874; an address in Raleigh, North Carolina, where the IRS sent 2,408 refunds worth $7,284,212; an address in Phoenix, Ariz., where the IRS sent 2,047 refunds worth $5,558,608; an address in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., where the IRS sent 1,972 refunds worth $2,256,302; an address in San Jose, Calif., where the IRS sent 1,942 refunds worth $5,091,027; and an address in Arvin, Calif., where the IRS sent 1,846 refunds worth $3,298,877.

Since 1996, the IRS has issued what it calls Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers (ITINs) to two classes of persons: 1) non-resident aliens who have a tax liability in the United States, and 2) aliens living in the United States who are “not authorized to work in the United States.”

The IRS has long known it was giving these numbers to illegal aliens, and thus facilitating their ability to work illegally in the United States. For example, the Treasury Inspector General’s Semiannual Report to Congress published on Oct. 29, 1999—nearly fourteen years ago—specifically drew attention to this problem.

“The IRS issues Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers (ITINs) to undocumented aliens to improve nonresident alien compliance with tax laws. This IRS practice seems counter-productive to the Immigration and Naturalization Service’s (INS) mission to identify undocumented aliens and prevent unlawful alien entry,” TIGTA warned in that long-ago report.

The inspector general’s 2012 audit report on the IRS’s handling of ITINs was spurred by two IRS employees who went to members of Congress "alleging that IRS management was requiring employees to assign Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers (ITIN) even when the applications were fraudulent.”

In an August 2012 press release accompanying the audit report, TIGTA said the report “validated” the complaints of the IRS employees.

“TIGTA’s audit found that IRS management has not established adequate internal controls to detect and prevent the assignment of an ITIN to individuals submitting questionable applications,” said Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration J. Russell George. “Even more troubling, TIGTA found an environment which discourages employees from detecting fraudulent applications.”

In addition to the 23,994 tax refunds worth a combined $46,378,040 that the IRS sent to a single address in Atlanta, the IG also discovered that the IRS had assigned 15,796 ITINs to unauthorized aliens who presumably used a single Atlanta address.

The IRS, according to TIGTA, also assigned ITINs to 15,028 unauthorized aliens presumably using a single address in Dallas, Texas, and 10,356 to unauthorized aliens presumably living at a single address in Atlantic City, N.J.

Perhaps the most remarkable act of the IRS was this: It assigned 6,411 ITINs to unauthorized aliens presumably using a single address in Morganton, North Carolina. According to the 2010 Census, there were only 16,681 people in Morganton. So, for the IRS to have been correct in issuing 6,411 ITINS to unauthorized aliens at a single address in Morganton it would have meant that 38 percent of the town’s total population were unauthorized alien workers using a single address.

TIGTA said there were 154 addresses around the country that appeared on 1,000 or more ITIN applications made to the IRS.

WHEN WILL THE WEST WAKE-UP?

By Pat Buchanan

After a British soldier wearing a Help for Heroes charity T-shirt was run over, stabbed and slashed with machetes and a meat cleaver, and beheaded, the Tory government advised its soldiers that it is probably best not to appear in uniform on the streets of their capital.

Both murderers were wounded by police. One was photographed and recorded. 
His message:

"There are many, many (verses) throughout the Quran that says we must fight them as they fight us. An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. I apologize that women had to witness this today, but in our land women have to see the same. Your people will never be safe."

According to ITV, one murderer, hands dripping blood, ranted, "We swear by almighty Allah we will never stop fighting you."

Both killers are Muslim converts of African descent, and both are British born.

Wednesday also, Stockholm and its suburbs ended a fourth night of riots, vandalism and arson by immigrant mobs protesting the police shooting of a machete-wielding 69-year-old.

"We have institutional racism," says Rami Al-khamisi, founder of a group for "social change."

Sweden, racist?

Among advanced nations, Sweden ranks fourth in the number of asylum seekers it has admitted and second relative to its population.

Are the Swedes really the problem in Sweden?

The same day these stories ran, The Washington Post carried a front-page photo of Ibrahim Todashev, martial arts professional and friend of Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who, with brother Dzhokhar, set off the bombs at the Boston Marathon massacre.

Todashev, another Chechen, had been shot to death by FBI agents, reportedly after he confessed to his and Tamerlan's role in a triple murder in Waltham, Mass.

Though Tamerlan had been radicalized and Moscow had made inquiries about him, he had escaped the notice of U.S. authorities. Even after he returned to the Caucasus for six months, sought to contact extremists, then returned to the U.S.A., Tamerlan still was not on Homeland Security's radar.

His father, granted political asylum, went back to the same region he had fled in fear. His mother had been arrested for shoplifting. Yet none of this caused U.S. officials to pick up Tamerlan, a welfare freeloader, and throw the lot of them out of the country.

One wonders if the West is going to wake up to the new world we have entere
d, or adhere to immigration policies dating to a liberal era long since dead.

It was in 1965, halcyon hour of the Great Society, that Ted Kennedy led Congress into abolishing a policy that had restricted immigration for 40 years, while we absorbed and Americanized the millions who had come over between 1890 and 1920.

The "national origins" feature of that 1924 law mandated that ships arriving at U.S. ports carry immigrants from countries that had provided our immigrants in the past. We liked who we were.

Immigration policy was written to reinforce the Western orientation and roots of America, 90 percent of whose population could by 1960 trace its ancestry to the Old Continent.

But since 1965, immigration policy has been run by people who detest that America and wanted a new nation that looked less like Europe and more like a continental replica of the U.N. General Assembly.

They wanted to end America's history as the largest and greatest of Western nations and make her a nation of nations, a new society and a new people, more racially, ethnically, religiously and culturally diverse than any nation on the face of the earth.

Behind this vision lies an ideology, an idee fixe, that America is not a normal nation of blood and soil, history and heroes, but a nation erected upon an idea, the idea that anyone and everyone who comes here, raises his hand, and swears allegiance to the Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights becomes, de facto, not just a legal citizen but an American.

But that is no more true than to say that someone who arrives in Paris from Africa or the Middle East and raises his hand to declare allegiance to the Rights of Man thereby becomes a Frenchman.

What is the peril into which America and the West are drifting?

Ties of race, religion, ethnicity and culture are the prevailing winds among mankind and are tearing apart countries and continents. And as we bring in people from all over the world, they are not leaving all of their old allegiances and animosities behind.

Many carry them, if at times dormant, within their hearts.

And if we bring into America -- afflicted by her polarized politics, hateful rhetoric and culture wars -- peoples on all sides of every conflict roiling mankind, how do we think this experiment is going to end?

The immigration bill moving through the Senate, with an amnesty for 11 to 12 million illegals already here, and millions of their relatives back home, may write an end to more than just the Republican Party.

IRS Misses Filing Deadline: Fails to Comply With Congressional Demand for All Communications With WH About Targeting Conservatives

By Terence P. Jeffrey

(CNSNews.com) - What did the White House know about the IRS targeting conservative groups and when did it know it?

Crucial evidence needed to develop an accurate answer to that question would include the records of any communications that went back and forth between the IRS and the White House on the topic.

In a May 14 letter signed by Chairman Dave Camp and Ranking Member Sander Levin, the House Ways and Means Committee demanded precisely those records from the IRS. In the same letter, the committee also demanded the records of any communications between IRS and the Treasury on the matter, plus other information and records that would help the committee understand the facts about IRS actions that subjected to heightened scrutiny conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.

Chairman Camp and Ranking Member Levin gave the IRS a deadline of Tuesday, May 21 to comply with their committee’s demand for the information and records.

The IRS--which requires working Americans to file their tax returns by an April 15 deadline each year or else face penalties--did not comply with this deadline imposed by the congressional committee that has oversight over its activities.

“The Committee has not received a response to the Camp-Levin letter,” House Ways and Means Spokeswoman Sarah Swinehart told CNSNews.com late Tuesday after the IRS had closed for business for the day.

“Chairman Camp expects the IRS to comply and provide full and complete responses to the letter since many of these questions were asked, but went unanswered, in Friday’s hearing,” said Swinehart.

The letter that Camp and Levin sent to the IRS a week ago Tuesday asked the agency to answer thirteen questions about its targeting of conservative groups and, where relevant, provide all internal agency documents and communications substantiating its answers.
Two of the committee’s questions sought records of any communications between the IRS and the Treasury and the IRS and the White House about the targeting of conservatives groups.

“As the Committee on Ways and Means continues its investigation into these IRS practices,” Camp and Levin wrote the IRS, “we request that the IRS provide the following information by May 21, 2013: …”

“Did the IRS at any time notify the Treasury Department of the targeting of conservative or any other groups?” Camp and Levin asked. “Provide all documents and communications between the IRS and Treasury on this matter.”

“Did the IRS at any time notify the White House of the targeting of conservative or any other groups?” asked Camp and Levin. “Provide all documents and communications between the IRS and the White House on this matter.”

In their letter, Camp and Levin said the IRS had not been “completely truthful” with the committee in the past on this matter.

“We are deeply troubled by the recent admission of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) that the agency has been singling out organizations for additional review based on their political beliefs,” Camp and Levin said in their letter to the agency. “Despite repeated calls for cooperation, the agency failed to be completely truthful in its responses to the committee during its nearly two-year long investigation of this matter, and in testimony before the committee.”

On Monday through Tuesday morning, CNSNews.com made multiple phone and email inquiries to the IRS press office asking if the agency intended to comply with this request for information and records from the House Ways and Means Committee. The IRS did not respond.

BENGHAZIGATE: oBAMA'S SECRET GUN-RUNNING PROGRAM

By Katie Kieffer

Liberals don’t want honest Americans like you to have guns. Liberals just want to arm foreign rebels in crapshoot attempts to “end global violence.” But liberals feign ignorance when the rebels they arm end up being criminals who kill innocent Americans like the late U.S. Ambassador to Libya, Christopher Stevens.

Why did Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans die in Benghazi, Libya on September 11, 2012? We now know that President Obama, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and then-CIA Director David Petraeus were likely behind a mishandled gun-trafficking program that ended up arming the radical jihadist rebels who stormed the U.S. consulate and CIA annex in Benghazi, Libya on that fateful day.

Our CIA is still playing the role of vetting which Syrian rebel groups will obtain arms including machine guns, ammunition, and rocket-propelled grenades. While Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey are directly purchasing the weaponry, the Obama administration is aiding the Arab governments in shopping for these arms and transferring them from Libya, to Turkey, and finally into Syria.

Unfortunately the CIA has “vetted” shady intermediaries (including Syria’s Muslim Brotherhood) and shady recipients of thousands of tons worth of military equipment and millions of rounds of ammo. Consequently, weapons have fallen into the wrong hands. In the case of Benghazi, anti-tank weapons appear to have landed in the hands of terrorists.

Now, Clinton is denying even knowing about the program, although the evidence indicates it was largely her idea. Of course everything happened under Obama’s watch and the buck stops with him. The story of Obama’s gun-running program in Benghazi is long and multifarious, so I will break down the timeline for you:

May 26, 2012: Stevens arrives in Tripoli, the capitol city of Libya and sets up camp at the U.S. embassy.

Last summer, Clinton first proposed a plan to then-CIA Director David Petraeus to partner on a gun-trafficking program to arm the Syrian resistance and “vet the rebel groups, and train fighters who would be supplied with weapons,” according to The New York Times.

June of 2012: The New York Times reports that the CIA is operating a secret arms transfer program that sounds exactly like the plan Clinton developed with Petraeus. Suddenly, there is: “…an influx of weapons and ammunition to the rebels.”

September 5, 2012: A Libyan ship called Al Entisar (“The Victory”) docks in the Turkish port of Iskenderun, carrying 400 tons of cargo including many weapons such as rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) and shoulder-launched surface-to-air missiles (MANPADS) destined for Syrian rebels 35 miles away from Iskenderun. The ship’s captain told the Times of London that the Muslim Brotherhood and the free Syrian Army broke into a fight over the arms.

September 10, 2012: Stevens arrives in Benghazi, Libya, the location of the U.S. consulate. About a mile away from the consulate, is the CIA annex. Stevens planned to stay at the consulate for five days. His visit was supposed to be secret, but Libya-based extremists somehow learned of his arrival.

September 11, 2012: Stevens has an unusual meeting with Turkish diplomat Consul General Ali Sait Akin. Fox News reported that the meeting was “…to negotiate a weapons transfer, an effort to get SA-7 missiles out of the hands of Libya-based extremists.”

Sen. Lindsey Graham confirmed on Fox News Channel’s “Special Report with Bret Baier” that Stevens was in Libya to specifically control a situation: “…where the action was regarding the rising Islamic extremists who were trying to get their hands on weapons that were flowing freely in Libya…”

9:40 p.m. (Libya time): Libyan rebels launched and organized an armed attack against the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi.

10:04 p.m. CIA base chief at the nearby CIA annex calls for help including 50-caliber machine guns and vehicles from the Libyan intelligence, the 17 February Brigade and other Libyan militias. After 24 minutes of calls and no response, the CIA base chief takes a small team of seven people to the consulate. They were too late to save Stevens, but were able to save some State Department personnel.

11:56 p.m. CIA officers and the State Department members are seeking safety back at the CIA annex. There, rebels attack them with rocket-propelled grenades. Fighting continues on until 5:26 a.m.

6:00 a.m. Libyan forces suddenly arrive to “aid” the American team with 50 vehicles.

It is odd that the annex was attacked with same sort of weapons on the Libyan ship and that Stevens was reportedly in Benghazi to manage some sort of arms transfer.

Sen. Rand Paul said on Aaron Klein Radio: “First of all with regard to Benghazi, I think it’s important [to determine more about the apparent gun-running program] because it may have something to do with why the compound was attacked. If we were involved with shipping guns to Turkey, there was a report that a ship left from Libya towards Turkey and that there were arms on it in the week preceding this [attack]; there were reports that our ambassador was meeting with the Turkish attaché, so I think with regards to figuring out what happened at Benghazi, it’s very important to know whether or not the CIA annex had anything to do with facilitating guns being sent to Turkey and ultimately to Syria. With regard to arming the rebels, just this week in the armed services committee, General Dempsey, the [Chairman of the] Joint Chiefs of Staff said that we were no longer able to distinguish who the good guys were from the bad guys and that sounds pretty worrisome if we are actually arming people who in the end may be enemies of America…enemies of Israel… enemies maybe of the Christians who live within Syria...sending arms to a rebel force to that may include Al-Nusra and other radical jihadists.”

Here’s my concern: Obama’s gun-running program failed to properly vet the rebels. Clinton most likely launched the gun program, expected Stevens to oversee it and then her weapons likely landed in the hands of al-Qaida affiliates who killed Stevens and three other Americans. This is a tragic failure of foreign policy and diplomacy under Obama’s watch.