50 Years Ago Today: Supreme Court Stops School-Sponsored Religious Activities

◼ Fifty years ago today, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that school-sponsored Bible reading in public schools was unconstitutional. Prior to that decision, it was relatively common for children to begin the school day with a reading of Bible verses, though eleven states already had laws supporting Bible reading or prayer in schools overturned at the state level. - NJToday

In the majority opinion, Justice Thomas Clark wrote, “The place of religion in our society is an exalted one, achieved through a long tradition of reliance on the home, the church and the inviolable citadel of the individual heart and mind. We have come to recognize through bitter experience that it is not within the power of government to invade that citadel, whether its purpose or effect be to aid or oppose, to advance or retard.”

Justice Potter Stewart was the lone dissenting voice, arguing that religion and government must interact in countless ways pointing to an inherent conflict between Constitutional provisions that both prohibit laws “respecting the establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

Obamacare will share personal health info with federal, state agencies...

◼ A new 253-page Obamacare rule issued late Friday requires state, federal and local agencies as well as health insurers to swap the protected personal health information of anybody seeking to join the new health care program that will be enforced by the Internal Revenue Service. - Paul Bedard/Washington Examiner

James O'Keefe Confronts New Hampshire Attorney General "Richard Head" Over Indicting Journalists

O'Keefe says: (Richard Head) TRIED to indict me before a grand jury for releasing a video that exposed voter fraud in the polling booths and therefore largely contributed to a voter ID law passing in the state with a super-majority vote - exactly what Mr. Head did not want.

I was doing my duty as a journalist to educate the public on issues that matter, while he was trying to stifle free speech.

What was particularly unnerving is the New Hampshire state officials knew where to find me before I had even moved. Was another Department of Justice/AP spying scheme happening?? How did they know where I was?

◼ Project Veritas

Whistleblower Edward Snowden's Dad Speaks Out! Preview Eric Bolling's Exclusive Interview

◼ Tune in to 'The Five' tonight for the FULL interview! - FOX

In an exclusive interview with Lonnie Snowden, the father of NSA leaker Edward Snowden, Fox News' Eric Bolling found out what his message would be for his son - wherever in the world he may be. He also got some insight on the background of the 29-year-old Snowden, a man who is now on the run after revealing NSA overreach in which the agency compiled information on the communications of millions of American citizens.

◼ "I'm here because I'm really concerned about the misinformation in the media," Lon Snowden told Bolling.wden-father-edward-snowden-gives-interview-fox-news-eric-bolling-about-medias#ixzz2WV962oV8

When asked what, exactly, he believes has been misconstrued, he said, "Every place you read is 'high school dropout, high school dropout, high school dropout' ... The fact is, is that Ed had an illness at the beginning of his sophomore year when his mother and I were going through a divorce ... they believed that it was mono. I believe it was diagnosed as mono, but he missed approximately four or five months of school. So, he was gonna fall behind. And he asked if he could try to test into a program at the local community college ... And, you know, there was some disagreement on whether he should do that. The bottom line is he did, and he completed his high school equivalency in advance of when he would have graduated from high school, and then continued taking college courses."

◼ SNOWDEN: The Truth Is Coming, And The Government Can't Stop It By Murdering Me - Business Insider

◼ Edward Snowden Q and A: NSA whistleblower answers your questions - The Guardian

Question:

Ryan Latvaitis 17 June 2013 2:34pm
What would you say to others who are in a position to leak classified information that could improve public understanding of the intelligence apparatus of the USA and its effect on civil liberties?

What evidence do you have that refutes the assertion that the NSA is unable to listen to the content of telephone calls without an explicit and defined court order from FISC?

Answer:

This country is worth dying for.

◼ Edward Snowden vows more disclosures about U.S. surveillance - LA Times

Defiant and apparently unbowed by threats of prosecution, former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden vowed Monday to release more secrets about U.S. intelligence surveillance systems that he described as "nakedly, aggressively criminal."

Snowden, who has been hiding in Hong Kong, said NSA analysts routinely obtain emails and other Internet communications of Americans as part of the cyber-spying agency's surveillance of global telecommunications and Web traffic.

DRUDGE:
GOOGLE, FACEBOOK 'misleading' users...
Says he's no Chinese spy...
Blames 'gang of 8?'
Father Urges Son Not to Commit 'Treason,' to Return Home...
Thunderous Applause: Oliver Stone Calls 'Hero'...

Attack on Prop. 13, ACA 8, passes the Assembly with unanimous support from Democrats.

◼ ACA 8: A Direct Assault on Prop. 13 - Jon Coupal/Howard Jarvis Taxpayer's Association

For millions of California homeowners, Saturday was a day that will live in infamy. Without a single public hearing, the California Assembly passed Assembly Constitutional Amendment No. 8 (ACA 8), the most egregious attack on Prop. 13 ever to come out of the Legislature.

ACA 8 would repeal Prop. 13’s requirement that local “special taxes” (taxes intended for a specific purpose or purposes) be approved by a two-thirds vote. Instead, special taxes imposed for the repayment of local bonded indebtedness would be reduced to 55%. The ostensible justification for ACA 8 is to make it easier to finance local “infrastructure.”

There are several reasons why ACA 8 will inevitably inflict severe harm on California homeowners. First, while state bonds are repaid out of the state’s general fund -- into which most Californians contribute through income or sales taxes -- the same is not true for local bonds. Local bonds, usually referred to as “general obligation” bonds, are repaid exclusively by property owners. That means that voters who do not own property can vote to raise taxes on those who do.

Second, making it easier to pass local bonds will only add to California’s debt crisis. A recent study from the California Public Policy Center calculated total government debt in California as being $1.1 trillion. This figure dwarfs the $27.8 billion “wall of debt” Governor Brown himself has acknowledged as part of budgetary borrowing. Making it easier to incur local debt for “infrastructure financing” raises the obvious question: Does any sane person believe that California needs even more debt?

Third, while building local roads and libraries may be a worthy cause, the interests backing ACA 8 are hardly motivated by the goodness of their hearts. The usual cabal of unions, construction interests and the Wall Street bond industry all are chasing more tax dollars. The amount of money at stake -- your money -- is staggering. They care not a whit for the broader interests of California’s fiscal health or the interests of citizen taxpayers.

Is there any good news here? Yes. First, the passage of ACA 8 occurred in just one house of the Legislature. It must also pass in the Senate. There are a lot of reasons to believe that passage in the Senate is anything but automatic. The details of the politics here are too complex to go into at this time. But suffice it to say that liberal members of the California Senate might not be so quick to drink the anti-Prop. 13 KoolAid as did their colleagues in the Assembly.

Second, we are heartened by the fact that all Republican members of the California Assembly voted against repealing one of Prop. 13's most important protections. We say this as non-partisans as more than a third of HJTA’s members are registered Democrats. However, it has usually been the Republicans who have stood up to defend Prop. 13.

Just three weeks ago, my weekly column was entitled “Will Republican Legislators Betray Taxpayers?” While Republican support for homeowners can’t be taken for granted, on Saturday the Republicans in the Assembly forcefully defended Prop. 13 on the floor of that chamber. We couldn’t be more pleased for their courage for standing up to the special interests.... MORE, at the link.

Facebook received 9,000-10,000 requests for user data from US government entities in the second half of 2012.

◼ NSA snooping: Facebook reveals details of data requests - BBC

The social-networking site said the requests, relating to between 18,000 and 19,000 accounts, covered issues from local crime to national security.

Microsoft meanwhile said it received 6,000 and 7,000 requests for data from between 31,000 and 32,000 accounts.

Leaks by a former computer technician suggest the US electronic surveillance programme is far larger than was known.

Internet companies - including Facebook, Google, Yahoo, Apple and Microsoft - were reported last week to have granted the National Security Agency (NSA) "direct access" to their servers under a data collection programme called Prism.

The firms denied the accusations, saying they gave no such access but did comply with lawful requests....

In an effort to reassure its users, Facebook lawyer Ted Ullyot wrote on the company's blog that following discussions with the relevant authorities it could for the first time report all US national security-related requests for data.

"As of today, the government will only authorise us to communicate about these numbers in aggregate, and as a range," he said.