False Alarm: Feds Swarm Chicago Metra Train After Detecting Nuclear Risk
March 18, 2013 by Jack Blood
Filed under Americas
(CBS) — It was stunning
for those who watched Thursday night as federal agents investigated a possible nuclear threat at Chicago’s Ogilvie Transportation Center.
CBS 2′s photojournalist Lana Hinshaw-Klann happened to be at the scene and used a cell-phone camera to record agents in action. Reporter Dave Savini looks into what agents were looking for and what they found.
Sources say the agents were members of the elite TSA VIPR team on the 5:04pm Union Pacific
West line. They were carrying hand-held nuclear-detection devices that picked up a reading.
VIPR teams were created after the 2004 bombing of a train in Madrid, Spain, to protect U.S. transportation.
At the Ogilvie station, officers held the train and searched for a person or bag that posed a potential nuclear threat.
Jerry Jones, a Chicago lawyer, was heading home on that train. He says the federal officers narrowed the trouble to the area where he was sitting.
“I had no idea I was the center of the activity,” he says.
The special security team must have picked up on him as he entered the station and walked up the stairs, Jones says. Little did he know a nuclear stress test he had at a hospital earlier in the day had set off silent alarms and sent security scurrying.
The TSA team passed by him several times before ending up on his train car. Finally, he got a clue when an agent questioned the man right next to him and asked, ‘Sir, do you have an explanation as to why I am getting a high isotope reading on your bag?’”
“The fellow’s jaw dropped,” Jones said.
Once the agent said the word “isotope,” Jones says he realized he was the one they were looking for. He raised his hand to say he had a nuclear stress test.
The tests can leave patients emitting radiation for some time. After showing identification and proof of the nuclear test, Jones and the other passengers were allowed to go on their way.
He says he’s satisfied with the way authorities acted, “knowing there are people on the lookout for this type of thing,” and was pleased with the way officers and passengers behaved.
Patients undergoing nuclear testing can request a card they can give to security if they travel afterward. Doctors have done this for air travelers.
Mosquito-Fighting Plan Allows Access To Private Property With No Warrant
February 10, 2013 by Kristen
Filed under Police State
PLANO (CBSDFW.COM) – With West Nile season approaching soon, there’s a controversial bill in the state legislature that would give the government more power to kill mosquitoes.
Texas State Senate Bill 186 would allow authorities to legally trespass on private property without a warrant to treat stagnant water if it “…is reasonably presumed to be abandoned or that is uninhabited.”
State Senator John Carona introduced the bill telling CBS 11, “This is an important health and safety issue.”
Plano health officials believe it will help efforts to combat the West Nile Virus because it will allow for the immediate treatment of problem areas.
Plano resident David Johnson says the plan could have helped his neighborhood had it been in place last summer.
Johnson’s family lives next to a home with a stagnant pool, which is prime breeding ground for mosquitoes. He complained to the City of Plano, which had to get a warrant to finally address the problem since the owner couldn’t be found.
“It took months of notices on the door before any action was taken,” recalls Johnson. “It’s just an absolute nightmare.”
But some legal experts worry that any exception to obtaining warrants will eventually lead to more government access of private property everywhere.
CT shooting– Man in camouflage pants grabbed by police – Was suspected of being second shooter?
December 14, 2012 by Jack Blood
Filed under Featured
We found this earlier and it was SCRUBBED! (who can do that?)
from: http://www.wfsb.com/story/20345707/cbs-27-people-dead-in-newtown-school-shooting
Eyewitness News reporters on the Observed a man in camouflage gear being taken away from the staging area. He screamed to people in the area that he was not involved in the shooting.
12/14/12
By Andrew Steele
A witness to the aftermath of the terrible school shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary in Connecticut on December 14th described police cuffing a man in camouflage pants and a dark jacket who was walked past him, and who looked at gathered parents and told them that he wasn’t responsible for the shooting. At the time the witness was interviewed by CBS News, the man he described was not far away. In fact, he was sitting in the front of a police car that was nearby.
Witness: I saw them walk a guy earlier with handcuffs…he walked by us and said he didn’t do it.
Reporter: It was a grown man?
Witness: A grown man, yeah. He’s sitting in the front of the police car over there now. So, I mean…
Reporter: He didn’t have a gun?
Witness: No, I didn’t see any gun…just had him handcuffed and he walked by us and looked into parents’ eyes and said “I didn’t do it”.
Reporter: How was he dressed?
Witness: Camo pants with a dark jacket.
While it’s not unusual that in the chaos of a mass shooting the wrong person might initially be grabbed by police as a suspect and later released, what is unusual is the fact that the man described by the witness apparently was wearing military style clothes just like those worn by the alleged shooter– Adam Lanza– and described by some accounts as the same clothes of the shooter.
From the Sky Valley Chronicle:
“Broadcast reports from the scene say the gunman reportedly walked into the school wearing camouflage pants and opened fire in one room killing the principal and an unknown number of other adults and then moved into to classrooms shooting at students and teachers in those rooms.”
The Telegraph described the man in the camouflage pants and Adam Lanza– (who was wearing black “fatigues”) as being two separate people. This, of course, makes sense since Adam Lanza died in the school, and therefore couldn’t have been the man described in the video above.
“The gunman, wearing black fatigues and a military-style vest, was found dead in a classroom, but it was not clear whether he took his own life or was shot by police.
A second man wearing camouflage trousers was seen being handcuffed. One witness described him shouting: “I didn’t do it.”
“Another person was being held in police custody after he was detained in the woods near the school wearing camouflage pants, CBS reported”.
AL.com, citing Fox News, claimed the man was the shooting suspect’s younger brother, as did other sources.
“2:25 p.m. CST — A FoxNews report said
witnesses said a handcuffed man, dressed in camouflage was led out of a nearby woods by officers who reported to the shooting. The individual is Lanza’s younger brother, according to the Associated Press.”
The link back to the Fox News story, as of this writing, is dead. Most likely this is because at the time the information was posted, Adam Lanza’s older brother Ryan was mistakenly being named as the suspect.
“2:15 p.m. CST — The Associated Press reports: A law enforcement official says the suspect in the Connecticut school shootings is 24-year-old Ryan Lanza and that his younger brother is being held for questioning as a possible second shooter. The law enforcement official said the boys’ mother, Nancy Lanza, works at the school as a teacher. The official also said Ryan Lanza’s girlfriend and another friend are missing in New Jersey.”
Ryan Lanza, who lives in Hoboken NJ, was at work during the shooting. He couldn’t have been the man grabbed from the woods. Adam and Ryan were the only two sons in the family, so the man in the woods couldn’t have been a third “younger brother” either.
The man in the camouflage pants at one point was suspected by police of being a second shooter.
“CBS News reports that a potential second shooter is in custody and that SWAT is now investigating the home of the suspect. Miller reports that authorities have gone into a home connected with the individual in custody after seeing what appeared to be a body inside.
A witness tells WFSB-TV that a second man was taken out of the woods in handcuffs wearing a black jacket and camouflage pants and telling parents on the scene, “I did not do it.”
GE Boss, Obama Job Tsar Immelt: Communist China ‘Works’
December 11, 2012 by Jack Blood
Filed under Media
The chairman of the President Barack Obama’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, Jeffrey Immelt, the CEO of GE, praised China this morning on CBS:
“China is changing,” said CBS host Charlie Rose (CFR). “It may be being stabilized as we speak. What does that mean for China and what does it mean for the United States? Should it change expectations?”
“It is good for China,” said Immelt. “To a certain extent, Charlie, 11 percent is unsustainable. You end up getting too much stimulus or a misallocation of resources. They are much better off working on a more consumer-based economy, less dependent on exports. The one thing that actually works, state run communism a bit– may not be your cup of tea, but their government works.”
Via the Washington Free Beacon.
Motorists File Class-Action Lawsuit Against NYC Over Red-Light Cameras
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) – Red-light cameras are gaining popularity across the country. Now, New York City is being sued after it was accused of rigging the lights to catch more drivers and write more tickets.
They’re “gotcha” cameras, mounted at intersections. Their photos catch and fine drivers running red lights. New York City first had them in 1998.
“Red-light cameras are to prevent the very dangerous, so called ‘T-bone’ crashes, where you have the front of vehicle running into the side of another. We are in favor, in concept, of the red-light cameras, but they have to be done to certain engineering criteria,” AAA New York spokesperson Robert Sinclair told CBS 2′s Rob Morrison on Tuesday.
By federal law, drivers have to have enough time to get through a yellow light — three seconds at the typical 30 mph intersection. Back in October, engineers at AAA New York discovered a problem. At some intersections with the cameras, the yellow lights were almost a half-second too fast.
Pakistani doctor who helped find Bin Laden gets 33 years in prison
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — A Pakistani doctor who led a phony vaccination campaign aimed at helping the CIA pinpoint Osama bin Laden’s whereabouts was convicted of treason Wednesday and sentenced to 33 years in prison, a decision that is likely to further erode Washington’s fragile relations with Islamabad.
The U.S. has been seeking the release of Shakeel Afridi ever since his arrest by Pakistani authorities after the secret U.S. commando raid that killed the Al Qaeda leader in his compound in the military city of Abbottabad a year ago. In January, Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta told CBS’ “60 Minutes” that Afridi had provided intelligence that assisted the raid and criticized Pakistan’s arrest of someone involved in helping track down the world’s most wanted man.
From the start, however, Pakistani authorities have regarded Afridi as a traitor and have ignored Washington’s calls for his release. He was tried in a tribal court in the Khyber region along the Afghan border, where he once was designated the chief surgeon.
Under Pakistani law, he could have been given the death penalty. In addition to the 33-year term, Afridi was also fined about $3,500.
Surfer sets World record by Riding 70 foot wave (Video)
May 10, 2012 by Jack Blood
Filed under World
The indomitable Human Spirit is an amazing thing to behold!
Garrett McNamara now has the Guinness World Record for the largest wave ever surfed after riding a 78-footer in November off the coast of Nazare, Portugal.
Mike Parson had the previous mark, riding a 77-footer off the Southern California coast in 2008.
McNamara told Petethomasoutdoors.com, “It’s amazing we get to do what we do, I am so grateful. The world record doesn’t mean as much to me, this is for the town of Nazaré and Portugal and for all my family and friends there.
“To be able to give them something to be proud of and inspire them… I didn’t want to get caught up in it all, but I have to tell you the truth, when they announced my name I got a bigger rush than probably on all the waves I rode this year.”
Chicago Police State for NATO “Summit” – Airport-style security screenings on Trains etc
May 4, 2012 by Jack Blood
Filed under Police State
This will be added to a total citywide lock-down, complete with Military Choppers, snipers, biometric face scanning technology, and checkpoints. Welcome Oceania Army?
CHICAGO (CBS) – Some stations on the Metra Electric Line and South Shore Line could be shut down during the upcoming NATO summit, and passengers at other stations could face airport-style security screenings, due to the Secret Service security plan that could be released as soon as Friday afternoon.
CBS 2 Chief Correspondent Jay Levine has exclusive details on those security measures, which the Secret Service is expected to officially unveil on Friday, or at the very latest, on Monday. Federal officials have promised the announcement will include a “comprehensive list of street closures and parking restrictions surrounding the NATO summit.”
The Secret Service has been battling with Metra and the Northern Indiana Commuter Transportation District over the security measures that will be needed on the Electric and South Shore lines, which both run directly under McCormick Place.
Metra and NICTD won round one of that battle, as trains on those two lines will continue to operate during the summit, although there will be significant delays at times, with trains possibly being stopped for security screening before passing McCormick Place.
The commuter rail agencies are still in talks with the Secret Service over major security measures for passengers, including airport-style screening of all riders during the summit. That would mean commuters on those lines would face patdowns, X-ray screenings, and long security lines at their stations before boarding trains.
The Secret Service initially wanted all trains to stop short of McCormick Place, with shuttle buses taking passengers around the summit site.
Then they talked about canine units conducting searches on trains, which would be halted before reaching McCormick Place.
Now, the Secret Service is planning for airport-style security screening at a limited number of stations on those two train lines. Many other stations on the Electric and South Shore lines – serving the South Side, southern suburbs and northwest Indiana – would be shut down during the summit.
Neither Metra nor the Secret Service will talk about the security measures yet. But sources said, with just over two weeks until the summit, nothing has been decided.
Earlier this week, Chicago police handled hundreds of May Day demonstrators marching from the West Side into the Loop, successfully containing the crowd with no arrests or injuries.
Many called it a trial run or dress rehearsal for NATO – for both police and protesters.
What most people didn’t see were all the CTA buses quietly re-routed around the demonstrations and marches, which will also be part of a CTA strategy to be announced after the Secret Service restrictions released.
The CTA plan will encourage commuters to use its rail lines, all of which will operate with full service. Many of its buses will not.
There will be what the CTA calls “hard closures” of bus routes affected by the security perimeter; and “soft rolling closures,” or temporary delays on other bus lines – like there were during Tuesday’s protest march – to wait for passing motorcades, parades, or demonstrations.
The CTA said bus managers and volunteers will be on the street at bus stops to help riders cope with the three-day detours.
What we’re hearing is that the CTA, RTA, and most other local agencies have been told to wait for the Secret Service announcement, before revealing their own plans.
That hints at an avalanche of information coming out about summit plans right after the feds break their silence and post all the security restrictions on various websites.
The tentative plan had that happening at around 6 p.m. Friday, but that could change.
Veteran CBS journalist Mike Wallace dead at 93: CBS
(Reuters) – CBS journalist Mike Wallace, who earned a reputation as a tough interviewer on the network’s “60 Minutes” show, died at the age of 93, the network said on Sunday.
