A law enforcement official says US Attorney General Eric Holder personally approved the warrant that gave the Justice Department access to Fox News reporter James Rosen’s private e-mails.

President Barack Obama on Thursday said that Holder would review Justice Department guidelines on dealing with journalism investigations. The government has been accused of violating journalists’ constitutional rights by secretly obtaining Associated Press phone records and Rosen’s personal e-mails to find the sources of information leaks.

“I am troubled by the possibility that leak investigations may chill the investigative journalism that holds government accountable,” Obama said during his speech on counter-terrorism policy on Thursday. “Journalists should not be at legal risk for doing their jobs.”

But while the president announced that Holder would look into the Justice Department’s policies regarding the matter, a law enforcement official told the National Broadcasting Company that Holder was personally responsible for signing off on the 44-page warrant that gave the department access to Rosen’s e-mail account.

This warrant called Rosen a “co-conspirator” in a leak investigation from June 2009, which revealed North Korea’s intention to conduct a nuclear test despite US sanctions. The warrant also allowed the Justice Department to track Rosen’s movements in and out of the State Department and all communications with his source, security adviser Stephen Jin-woo Kim.

Justice Department regulations usually require the attorney general to sign off on subpoenas of journalists’ phone records and warrants for arrests or interrogations, but that rule does not apply to email records.

Last week, Holder told National Public Radio that he is “not sure” how many times he has authorized obtaining journalists’ records, thereby saving himself in the AP case. He also told the House Judiciary Committee that he was not the person involved in the decision to pursue the source of information leaks in the AP investigation. But if the law enforcement official’s claim about Holder signing off on the Fox investigation is true, he may not be able to rescue himself again.


Fox executive vice president of news Michael Clemente called the Justice Department investigation “downright chilling”, and numerous media outlets have published editorials and op-eds condemning the department for criminalizing journalism.

Fox News President Roger Ailes on Thursday responded to the Obama administration’s “attempt to intimidate Fox News”. In a memo that he sent to the network’s employees, he condemned the federal government for violating journalists’ constitutional rights, rejected the characterization of Rosen as a “co-conspirator” in a crime, and expressed the pride he has for his staff.

“The administration’s attempt to intimidate Fox News and its employees will not succeed and their excuses will stand neither the test of law, the test of decency, nor the test of time. We will not allow a climate of press intimidation, unseen since the McCarthy era, to frighten any of us away from the truth,” Ailes wrote. “…To be a Fox journalist is a high honor, not a high crime.”


Fox and RT, as we share a common enemy (the obama administration),  we know your pain.

Source: http://rt.com/usa/holder-warrant-fox-rosen-764/

After a month long ban on the two shows caused by the boston bombings, The Ministry of communications and censorship have lifted the ban on sonic the hedgehog (the darker, shorter-lived 1994 series, not light-hearted, longer lived 1993 version) and Sonic Underground (sometimes known as Sonic 2000).

The two shows were banned because of their freedom fighting theme, and the mainstream media's demonization of freedom fighters following the boston bombings.

The ban was lifted after this picture surfaced: 

All 4 Sonic the hedgehog cartoons (Adventures of sonic the hedgehog, Sonic the hedgehog, sonic underground and sonic X) have taken off the air due to the boston marathon bombings and the fertilizer plant explosion in west, texas

These shows were also banned because of America's perception of the tsarnaev brothers, who, like sonic, manic and sonya from sonic underground, were freedom fighters, although sonic underground were fighting on the fictional planet of mobius, Whereas the tsarnaevs were fighting in chechnya, a real-life territory of russia that borders with Georgia.

Another reason was the episode Mass transit trouble from the first series, which featured villain doctor robotnik trying to blow up a light house, an airport and a train station. this epsode was also banned after the 9/11 attacks.



Edit: Parliament is in debate over the ban:watch it live here: http://www.reddit.com/r/answers/comments/1cqiyf/should_we_keep_watching_sonic_underground_xpost/

A Greek far-right politician who slapped a left-wing politician in the face and threw water at another during a live television talk show has sued his victims for defamation today.

Ilias Kasidiaris, spokesman of the far-right Golden Dawn party, said he would also sue private TV station Antenna for wrongful detention after he was locked in a room in the studio following the attack until he broke down the door and escaped.

Kasidiaris shocked viewers last week with the attack on Rena Dourou, a deputy in the radical leftist Syrizia party and Liana Kanelli, a veteran communist deputy, during a heated debate ahead of national elections on June 17.

The 31 year-old former army commando went into hiding after the assault but issued a statement at the weekend blaming the two middle-aged women for deliberately provoking him into the attack.

'I have come to the prosecutor today to file a lawsuit against Mrs Kanelli and Mrs Dourou for unprovoked defamation, and against TV station Antenna for my illegal detention,' Kasidiaris, dressed in a white shirt and dark sunglasses, said outside court.

Golden Dawn denies being a neo-Nazi party, but its image has been severely dented by continuously replayed footage of the incident as well as a variety of other pictures showing party members splashed with fake blood, making Nazi-style salutes or grinning next to an oven at the Nazi death camp Auschwitz.

Speaking at the opening of the party’s offices in an Athens suburb on Sunday, Kasidiaris said he had been set up and was acting in self-defence after Kanelli threw a newspaper at him.

'I never expected that I would be hit in the face on live TV,' he said.

'I did what millions of Greeks would have done - when you get hit in the face you have to defend yourself.' 


Kasidiaris was already due to stand trial on Monday on separate charges - which he denies - of helping assailants attack an assistant university professor in 2007 but that trial was postponed to September.

Golden Dawn, which uses an ancient Greek symbol resembling the swastika as its logo, won 7 percent in the inconclusive May 6 election, promising to rid Greece of illegal immigrants and seal its borders with landmines.

Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2157770/Ilias-Kasidiaris-Greek-MP-punched-woman-face-live-TV-sues-victims.html#ixzz2a9U20zLm

An argument on live Greek TV turned violent after an extreme far-right Holocaust denier assaulted two left-wing deputies during a morning political show.

Ilias Kasidiaris, spokesman for Golden Dawn, threw a glass of water at Rena Dorou, a member of the radical left Syriza party, when she made a reference to a court case pending against him.

He then turned on Liana Kanelli, a prominent Communist party member, and punched her several times about the head.

The fracas broke out on the private Antenna TV station during a political discussion ahead of Greece's repeat elections on June 17.

Kasidiaris, 31, bounded out of his seat and hurled a glass of water across the table over Ms Dorou when she said there was a 'crisis of democracy when people who will take the country back 500 years have got into the Greek parliament'.

He then turned on prominent Communist Party member Liana Kanelli, who had got out of her chair with a newspaper in hand and appeared to throw it at the Golden Dawn member.

Talk show host Giorgos Papadakis ran over to Kasidiaris to attempt to calm him, shouting 'no, no, no', but Kasidiaris, who served in the Greek military's special forces, hit Ms Kanelli around the face three times.

Kasidiaris was elected to parliament in the country's recent inconclusive polls. Deputies from all seven parties that won parliament seats in the May 6 polls had been invited on the show.

A public prosecutor ordered his immediate arrest for the attacks.

Government spokesman Dimitris Tsiodras said: 'The government condemns in the most categorical way the attack by Golden Dawn spokesman Ilias Kasidiaris against Liana Kanelli and Rena Dourou. This attack is an attack against every democratic citizen.'

Mr Tsiodras called on Golden Dawn to condemn its member's actions.

Golden Dawn, which vehemently denies the neo-Nazi label, has been accused of being behind violent attacks against immigrants.

The party won nearly 7 per cent of the vote on May 6, giving it 21 seats in the 300-member parliament. It was a radical increase from its showing in the previous elections in 2009, when the party won just 0.31 per cent of the vote.

Greeks reeling from two years of austerity amid their country's vicious financial crisis punished the two formerly main parties, the conservative New Democracy and socialist PASOK at the polls, turning instead to radical smaller parties to the right and left of the political spectrum.

The 300 deputies took up their seats for a day last month before parliament was dissolved and new elections called as no party had won enough votes to form a government on its own, and negotiations for a coalition government collapsed after 10 days.

Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2155804/Neo-Nazi-politician-punches-rival-throws-water-live-TV-debate-ahead-Greek-elections.html#ixzz2a9W8g3Av