Tag: crime

We Don’t Need Terrorism Laws When Murder Is Already Illegal

New York state prosecutors announced on Tuesday that they were charging Luigi Mangione, the alleged killer of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson, with murder “in furtherance of terrorism.” The law that they are citing, which was passed a week after the attacks of September 11, 2001, increases penalties for violent crimes meant to “intimidate or coerce a civilian population,” “influence the policy of a unit of government by intimidation or coercion,” or “affect the conduct of a unit of government by murder, assassination or kidnapping.”

Killing and kidnapping, of course, are already illegal. Thompson’s murderer would have gone to prison for a very long time, with or without terrorism laws. A few decades ago, authorities had all the power they needed to investigate and prosecute violent crimes. But the wave of counterterrorism laws, which began in the 1990s and ramped up after 9/11, has allowed the government to create a new realm of special crimes.

Terrorism enhancements, like hate crime enhancements, increase the penalties for certain crimes simply because the motive is politically controversial. Other counterterrorism laws allow the government to treat unpopular First Amendment activities—like talking to unsavory foreign rebel groups, or animal rights activism—as if they were associated with heinous crimes.

The first counterterrorism laws in the United States were concerned with foreign policy and immigration. The Export Administration Act of 1979 allowed the U.S. State Department to designate certain countries as “state sponsors of terrorism,” which subjected them to certain kinds of economic sanctions. The 1990 amendments to the Immigration and Nationality Act allowed authorities to ban any foreigner who “has engaged in a terrorist activity” or “is likely to engage after entry in any terrorist activity” in the United States.

But criminal law continued to treat terrorist crimes like regular crimes. Ramzi Yousef, who killed six people at the World Trade Center in 1993 and plotted to blow up several airliners, was thrown into solitary confinement for life. Timothy McVeigh, who killed 168 people at the Oklahoma City federal building in 1995, was executed. There didn’t have to be any special laws for political violence, because the normal laws against murder and explosives use were enough.

After the Oklahoma City bombing, however, Congress passed the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996. The Clinton administration and its supporters, including the Anti-Defamation League, originally wanted a broad law to crack down on both foreign and domestic terrorism, but Republicans pushed back due to worries about expanding the power of federal law enforcement. As a compromise, the final law banned “material support” for foreign terrorist organizations, meaning that there would be no legal definition of “domestic terrorism.”

But even the ban on supporting foreign terrorists encroached on “activities that would ordinarily be considered constitutionally protected,” according to a February 2024 study by the Center for Constitutional Rights. The definition of “material support” is vague, and the definition of a “foreign terrorist organization” is completely up to the discretion of the U.S. State Department.

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Mayor Adams Drops Truth Bomb About How Luigi Mangione Was Radicalized, and Dems Won’t Like It

It’s been nearly two weeks since UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was shot and killed in midtown Manhattan. Thankfully, his alleged killer, Luigi Mangione, 26, was captured after someone recognized him at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pa.

While the evidence all appears to confirm Mangione is the killer, in a lot of ways, it just doesn’t make sense why this kid, who grew up privileged and went to an Ivy League school and everything, would be driven to murder.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams has something to say on that issue that the Democrats won’t be happy about. Adams bluntly described a disturbing trend he’s witnessed among young people in America. Speaking candidly about the radicalization of youth, he addressed the troubling case of Mangione, drawing a direct line between the shooter’s upbringing and the toxic influence of the education system that led to his violent actions.

Adams was quick to point out that Mangione’s background doesn’t fit the typical profile of someone prone to radicalization. “Ivy League, grew up in an affluent household,” he said, emphasizing the disconnect between the shooter’s privileged life and his eventual descent into hatred. 

“His manifesto clearly is showing some signs of hating,” Adams continued, underscoring that even those with seemingly ideal circumstances can be consumed by a dangerous ideology.

The mayor then turned his focus to the broader problem at hand: the radicalization of America’s youth. “Our children are being radicalized,” Adams stated, “I said this over and over again, and everybody’s like, you know, ‘What are you talking about, Eric?’” His frustration with the lack of attention to the issue was clear, but his message was undeniable. This isn’t just a fringe problem; it’s becoming a mainstream crisis.

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UN General Assembly to Adopt Controversial Cybercrime Treaty, Ignoring Privacy and Free Speech Concerns

The United Nations General Assembly will this week adopt the UN Cybercrime Treaty, with the US expected to be among the countries that support the controversial document.

Opponents will then have to hope that various UN member-states would eventually opt not to sign and ratify the treaty, which has variously been described as “flawed” and all the way to being “a threat to free speech and privacy” and a tool for “transnational oppression.”

Among those opponents are human rights and media organizations, as well as tech companies, while doubts have been expressed even by the UN High Commissioner for human rights, among others.

Yet governments and law enforcement agencies are among the Cybercrime Treaty’s supporters since it opens up the possibility of more effective cross-border cooperation and evidence (including personal data) gathering and sharing.

But, the final text that is about to be adopted, in many parts falls short of what are considered international human rights standards, allowing UN members who sign the document to then choose whether to build a number of these standards into their own implementation.

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Federal agents in Utah under investigation after FBI raid: Sources

Federal special agents in Utah are under investigation after the FBI reportedly raided the Utah Department of Homeland Security in recent days, according to sources.

Sources close to federal law enforcement told ABC4.com that the FBI raided the DHS office in West Valley City within the last several days, and at least one agent was under arrest as of Dec. 9.

Sources said several agents were being investigated for a drug trafficking conspiracy, and at least two agents are suspected to be involved in the incident.

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‘Fabrications’: FBI informant who lied about Biden family Ukraine bribery scheme takes plea deal for false records and tax evasion, faces up to 35 years in federal prison

A longtime FBI informant will soon be an admitted federal criminal.

Nearly 10 months passed between the first and second time Alexander Smirnov was indicted by special counsel David Weiss — for two different suites of federal crimes. Just over two weeks passed between the second indictment and the agreed upon plea deal.

The storyline here implicates a yearslong narrative about the alleged perfidy of President Joe Biden and his adult son Hunter Biden — as well as several million dollars hidden from the government.

In a 24-page Thursday filing, the defendant and the government made short work of those two cases. In sum, Smirnov was charged with 12 federal counts for a combination of misleading investigators and tax-related crimes. To cap things off, Smirnov will accept legal culpability for one count of causing the creation of a false and fictitious record in a federal investigation and three counts of tax evasion.

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Murdoch Outlets and Bezos’ WaPo Demand More Sympathy for Health Insurance Execs

The early morning murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was met on social media with a “torrent of hate” for health insurance executives (New York Times, 12/5/24). Memes mocking the insurance companies and their callous disregard for human life abound on various platforms (AFP, 12/6/24).

Internet users are declaring that the man police believe to be the shooter, 26-year-old Luigi Mangione, is certifiably hot (Rolling Stone, 12/9/24; KFOX, 12/10/24). A lookalike contest for the shooter was held in lower Manhattan (New York Times, 12/7/24).

If so many people are unsympathetic at best in response to such a killing, that might be a reason to revisit why health insurance companies are so loathed. The rage “was shocking to many, but it crossed communities all along the political spectrum, and took hold in countless divergent cultural clusters,” the New York Times (12/6/24) noted. Mangione was reportedly found with an anti-insurance manifesto that stated “these parasites had it coming” (Newsweek, 12/9/24), echoing a resentment largely felt by a lot of Americans, and targeted fury at UnitedHealthcare specifically.

UnitedHealthcare has always stood out for exceptionally high rate of claims denial generally in the industry (Boston Globe, 12/5/24; Forbes, 12/5/24). For example, a Senate committee found that “UnitedHealthcare’s prior authorization denial rate for post-acute care jumped from 10.9% in 2020 to 22.7% in 2022” (WNYW, 12/7/24).

The Times (12/5/24) reported that the Senate committee found that “three major companies—UnitedHealthcare, Humana and CVS, which owns Aetna—were intentionally denying claims” related to falls and strokes in order to boost profits. UnitedHealthcare “denied requests for such nursing stays three times more often than it did for other services.”

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Is this the real reason Luigi Mangione gunned down UnitedHealthcare CEO?

Luigi Mangione executed UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in cold blood as an ‘act of war’ after the company ‘violated’ its contract with his mother who suffered years of excruciating pain and expense following a diagnosis of severe neuropathy.

This is the claim made in a document purporting to be Mangione’s full manifesto, obtained and shared at length by true crime podcast Hidden True Crime.

Producer Lauren Matthias who runs the popular podcast and YouTube channel with her psychologist husband, Dr. John Matthias, shared the unverified document Tuesday afternoon on YouTube. 

Lauren told DailyMail.com: ‘It seems to have originated on a Substack and we put it out there because people like hearing things in real time.

‘We also thought that if it is a fake somebody would quickly tell us. But nobody has come forward to do that.’

If the document is proved to be genuine, it raises the question of why Mangione, who comes from a wealthy Maryland family, thought his parents would not be able to afford the procedures.  

In the episode, reviewed by DailyMail.com, Matthias reads from the document at length. In it Mangione, 26, compares himself to Gladiator’s Maximus Decimus Meridius as he reveals how his rage ‘surged’ as he witnessed his mother’s suffering in the face of UnitedHealthcare’s repeated delays and denials.

According to the alleged manifesto, Kathleen Mangione, 60, was diagnosed with neuropathy – a nerve condition that causes a range of symptoms from tingling, numbness, burning sensations to pain – when she was just 41 years old, a diagnosis that came after a decade of pain and discomfort.

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Luigi’s Manifesto

I’ve obtained a copy of suspected killer Luigi Mangione’s manifesto — the real one, not the forgery circulating online. Major media outlets are also in possession of the document but have refused to publish it and not even articulated a reason why. My queries to The New York Times, CNN and ABC to explain their rationale for withholding the manifesto, while gladly quoting from it selectively, have not been answered.

I’ll have more to say on this later — on how unhealthy the media’s drift away from public disclosure is — but for now, here’s the manifesto:

“To the Feds, I’ll keep this short, because I do respect what you do for our country. To save you a lengthy investigation, I state plainly that I wasn’t working with anyone. This was fairly trivial: some elementary social engineering, basic CAD, a lot of patience. The spiral notebook, if present, has some straggling notes and To Do lists that illuminate the gist of it. My tech is pretty locked down because I work in engineering so probably not much info there. I do apologize for any strife of traumas but it had to be done. Frankly, these parasites simply had it coming. A reminder: the US has the #1 most expensive healthcare system in the world, yet we rank roughly #42 in life expectancy. United is the [indecipherable] largest company in the US by market cap, behind only Apple, Google, Walmart. It has grown and grown, but as our life expectancy? No the reality is, these [indecipherable] have simply gotten too powerful, and they continue to abuse our country for immense profit because the American public has allwed them to get away with it. Obviously the problem is more complex, but I do not have space, and frankly I do not pretend to be the most qualified person to lay out the full argument. But many have illuminated the corruption and greed (e.g.: Rosenthal, Moore), decades ago and the problems simply remain. It is not an issue of awareness at this point, but clearly power games at play. Evidently I am the first to face it with such brutal honesty.”

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Russian Security Service Busts Ukrainian-Linked Criminal Scam Network

Russia has repeatedly warned Western countries that Ukraine’s US-backed so-called “IT army” would become a huge problem for Europeans, as more than 1,000 “call centers” in Ukraine are engaged in the extortion of money under fraudulent pretenses.

A sprawling criminal call center network linked to Ukraine has been busted by Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB).

Here’s What’s Known So Far:

The global criminal group operated call centers where, under the guise of making investment deals, perpetrators defrauded unwitting victims, according to the FSB statement.

Eleven individuals, including leaders and employees of the network’s Russia-based offices, have been detained by security forces.

The network was led by Israeli/Ukrainian citizen Yakov Keselman, who has been detained, and Israeli/Georgian citizen David Todva, who is on the run.

Around 100,000 people across more than 50 countries, including the EU, UK, Canada, Brazil, India, and Japan fell victim to the scammers, who raked in close to a million US dollars a day, according to an FSB statement.

The fraudulent scheme “operated in Russia on behalf of former Georgian Defense Minister and Milton Group founder David Kezerashvili, who is currently hiding in London.”

Kezerashvili is wanted on charges of disseminating anonymous messages upon instructions from the Ukrainian Security Service in 2022 about alleged impending attacks in Russia supposedly being planned, per the FSB.

An investigation into the criminal operation is ongoing.

Anglo-Saxon curators of the Kiev regime have sent their special services’ cyber units to Ukraine to train their hackers engaged in activities against Russia, Artur Lyukmanov, the director of the Department of International Information Security of the Russian Foreign Ministry, told Sputnik this January. He said that Ukraine has de facto become a NATO ground for testing methods of fighting Russia in the digital space.

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BLM Agitators Screech Into The Ether Following Daniel Penny Acquittal 

Daniel Penny, the former US Marine charged with manslaughter, and subsequently criminally negligent homicide for subduing Jordan Neely in a chokehold, which ultimately led to his death, has been found not guilty on all charges by a New York City jury.

BLM agitators in the court immediately began screeching.

The meltdown continued online, with Bluecry users losing their shit.

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