The Intel Hub.com
Today, Project Gulf Impact is out on the waters in and around Orange Beach Alabama. What they have found is exactly the opposite of what BP and the federal government have told the American people. Not only did they find oil but they apparently found what looks to be freshly sprayed dispersant, still in powder form.
Why is this toxic dispersant still being sprayed? Warnings from scientists and independent journalists have indicated that Corexit could effect the gulf for at least twenty years.
“Dead fish in Alabama – cells ruptured with lots of corexit and dispersed oil all around….The oil is thick, dispersant already trying to hide it, with dead catfish in plumes.”
As I am writing this article, Project Gulf Impact is still out on the waters. They are documenting the existence of oil and dispersant and will be uploading more videos/pictures. This is absolutely disgusting.
The federal government needs to stand up and tell BP that they will NOT be allowed to continually screw the American people. Why is CNN openly lying and covering up for the very corporations that have financially and chemically attacked the Gulf?
While our Gulf is being chemically raped, CNN has not only kept quiet, they have actually ran stories which indicate that if you aren’t for banksters than you are a domestic terrorist.
As more and more people wake up, the corporate news will continue to change the story, demonizing all movements against the banks, and continually lying about the severity of the Gulf Oil Disaster.
Read Online HERE
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Microwave Weapons: Los Angeles County Jail to Heat Up Misbehaving Inmates with Target Wave Technology
Aug 25, 2010, By Russell Nichols, Staff Writer
Govtech.com
If a fight breaks out at one Los Angeles County jail, inmates might get shot -- not with bullets, but a millimeter wave from a military-based device that penetrates the skin to heat up nerves.
Dubbed the Assault Intervention Device (AID), the 7½-foot-tall nonlethal weapon transmits a focused, invisible beam at a specified target, causing an unbearable burning sensation that forces individuals to recoil. The L.A. County Sheriff's Department unveiled the device this month at the Pitchess Detention Center for the launch of a six-month operational evaluation to see if the tool will help stop or lessen the severity of inmate assaults.
"We believe that technology can help solve problems facing the corrections community, including addressing issues of inmate violence," Sheriff Lee Baca said in a statement. "This device will allow us to quickly intervene without having to enter the area and without incapacitating or injuring either combatant."
The technology, developed by Raytheon Co., stems from a family of bigger, more powerful military solutions created for the battlefield. These larger versions work the same way, but on a grander operational scale, such as creating a protective zone to safeguard aircraft or using lasers to disrupt shoulder-fired missiles from combat helicopters. In L.A. County, the device will be installed near the ceiling in a dormitory that houses about 65 inmates at the Pitchess Detention Center's North County Correctional Facility (NCCF).
Read Full Article
The New Phoenix Program
Govtech.com
If a fight breaks out at one Los Angeles County jail, inmates might get shot -- not with bullets, but a millimeter wave from a military-based device that penetrates the skin to heat up nerves.
Dubbed the Assault Intervention Device (AID), the 7½-foot-tall nonlethal weapon transmits a focused, invisible beam at a specified target, causing an unbearable burning sensation that forces individuals to recoil. The L.A. County Sheriff's Department unveiled the device this month at the Pitchess Detention Center for the launch of a six-month operational evaluation to see if the tool will help stop or lessen the severity of inmate assaults.
"We believe that technology can help solve problems facing the corrections community, including addressing issues of inmate violence," Sheriff Lee Baca said in a statement. "This device will allow us to quickly intervene without having to enter the area and without incapacitating or injuring either combatant."
The technology, developed by Raytheon Co., stems from a family of bigger, more powerful military solutions created for the battlefield. These larger versions work the same way, but on a grander operational scale, such as creating a protective zone to safeguard aircraft or using lasers to disrupt shoulder-fired missiles from combat helicopters. In L.A. County, the device will be installed near the ceiling in a dormitory that houses about 65 inmates at the Pitchess Detention Center's North County Correctional Facility (NCCF).
Read Full Article
The New Phoenix Program
Aerial Surveillance Used To Enforce Laws
FRANK ELTMAN
Huffington Post
RIVERHEAD, N.Y. — On New York's Long Island, it's used to prevent drownings. In Greece, it's a tool to help solve a financial crisis. Municipalities update property assessment rolls and other government data with it. Some in law enforcement use it to supplement reconnaissance of crime suspects.
High-tech eyes in the sky – from satellite imagery to sophisticated aerial photography that maps entire communities – are being employed in creative new ways by government officials, a trend that civil libertarians and others fear are eroding privacy rights.
"As technology advances, we have to revisit questions about what is and what is not private information," said Gregory Nojeim, senior counsel at the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Democracy and Technology.
Online services like Google and Bing give users very detailed images of practically any location on the planet. Though some images are months old, they make it possible for someone sitting in a living room in Brooklyn to look in on folks in Dublin or Prague, or even down the street in Flatbush.
Sean Walter, an attorney and first-term town supervisor in Riverhead, N.Y., insists he is a staunch defender of privacy rights and the Fourth Amendment, which protects against unreasonable search and seizure.
But Walter supported using Google Earth images to help identify about 250 Riverhead homes where residents failed to get building permits certifying their swimming pools complied with safety regulations. All but about 10 eventually came to town hall.
Walter said the focus was safety, not filling town coffers with permit money, which averaged about $150 depending on the size of the pool. A 4-foot fence is required, gates have to be self-closing and padlocked. All pools must have an alarm that sounds when sensors are activated indicating someone is in the pool.
"We have a town employee who is a personal friend of mine whose son was found face-down in a swimming pool," Walter said. "He's OK, but I don't want to be the supervisor that attends the funeral of a child that drowns in a swimming pool."
Lillie Coney, associate director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington, D.C., fears that while Walter's focus was safety, other municipalities may use the images to check for other transgressions.
Read Full Article
Huffington Post
RIVERHEAD, N.Y. — On New York's Long Island, it's used to prevent drownings. In Greece, it's a tool to help solve a financial crisis. Municipalities update property assessment rolls and other government data with it. Some in law enforcement use it to supplement reconnaissance of crime suspects.
High-tech eyes in the sky – from satellite imagery to sophisticated aerial photography that maps entire communities – are being employed in creative new ways by government officials, a trend that civil libertarians and others fear are eroding privacy rights.
"As technology advances, we have to revisit questions about what is and what is not private information," said Gregory Nojeim, senior counsel at the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Democracy and Technology.
Online services like Google and Bing give users very detailed images of practically any location on the planet. Though some images are months old, they make it possible for someone sitting in a living room in Brooklyn to look in on folks in Dublin or Prague, or even down the street in Flatbush.
Sean Walter, an attorney and first-term town supervisor in Riverhead, N.Y., insists he is a staunch defender of privacy rights and the Fourth Amendment, which protects against unreasonable search and seizure.
But Walter supported using Google Earth images to help identify about 250 Riverhead homes where residents failed to get building permits certifying their swimming pools complied with safety regulations. All but about 10 eventually came to town hall.
Walter said the focus was safety, not filling town coffers with permit money, which averaged about $150 depending on the size of the pool. A 4-foot fence is required, gates have to be self-closing and padlocked. All pools must have an alarm that sounds when sensors are activated indicating someone is in the pool.
"We have a town employee who is a personal friend of mine whose son was found face-down in a swimming pool," Walter said. "He's OK, but I don't want to be the supervisor that attends the funeral of a child that drowns in a swimming pool."
Lillie Coney, associate director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington, D.C., fears that while Walter's focus was safety, other municipalities may use the images to check for other transgressions.
Read Full Article
The ABC’s Of The Great American Housing Crisis
End of The American Dream.com
It doesn't take a genius to realize that a horrific housing crisis in unfolding right in front of our eyes. Yesterday it was announced that existing home sales plummeted 27 percent in the month of July. Today it was announced that new homes sales dropped to the lowest level ever recorded in July. But why is this happening? Why is the American Dream still dying for millions of American families? Wasn't the recession supposed to be over by now? Weren't home prices supposed to be moving back up by this time? Well, in this article we will attempt to succinctly break down the ABC's of the Great American Housing Crisis. Hopefully this will help people understand why all of this is happening.
A - The Gigantic Mountain Of Unsold Homes Combined With Very Few Buyers Is Going To Force Home Prices Down
For decades, Americans could purchase a home and know that it was inevitable that the value of that home would eventually just keep going up and up and up. But those days are over.
Over the past two decades, we experienced a huge bubble in the housing market. As prices skyrocketed, home builders built homes like crazy and it seemed like virtually everyone in the world was getting a home loan.
But then a funny thing happened.
The bubble popped.
It turns out that millions and millions and millions of Americans could not afford all of those crazy mortgages that were being passed out, and foreclosures have set record after record after record over the last couple of years.
This has resulted in a gigantic mountain of foreclosed homes being forced back on to the market. As of this March, U.S. banks had an inventory of 1.1 million foreclosed homes, which was a new all-time record and which was up 20 percent from one year ago.
Meanwhile, banks and lending institutions have learned their lessons and now it is much, much tougher to get a home loan. Therefore, there are a whole lot less qualified buyers in the marketplace.
So with a ton of homes on the market and very few buyers, it is going to take a long, long time to get all of those homes sold. In fact, there is now over a year's worth of unsold homes sitting on the market in the United States.
And do you realize what happens when supply is very high and demand is very low?
Prices go down.
Right now home owners are very hesitant to lower the prices of their homes much further, but if they want to sell their homes, that is what has got to happen.
B - Without Good Jobs The American People Cannot Buy Homes
Read Full Article HERE
It doesn't take a genius to realize that a horrific housing crisis in unfolding right in front of our eyes. Yesterday it was announced that existing home sales plummeted 27 percent in the month of July. Today it was announced that new homes sales dropped to the lowest level ever recorded in July. But why is this happening? Why is the American Dream still dying for millions of American families? Wasn't the recession supposed to be over by now? Weren't home prices supposed to be moving back up by this time? Well, in this article we will attempt to succinctly break down the ABC's of the Great American Housing Crisis. Hopefully this will help people understand why all of this is happening.
A - The Gigantic Mountain Of Unsold Homes Combined With Very Few Buyers Is Going To Force Home Prices Down
For decades, Americans could purchase a home and know that it was inevitable that the value of that home would eventually just keep going up and up and up. But those days are over.
Over the past two decades, we experienced a huge bubble in the housing market. As prices skyrocketed, home builders built homes like crazy and it seemed like virtually everyone in the world was getting a home loan.
But then a funny thing happened.
The bubble popped.
It turns out that millions and millions and millions of Americans could not afford all of those crazy mortgages that were being passed out, and foreclosures have set record after record after record over the last couple of years.
This has resulted in a gigantic mountain of foreclosed homes being forced back on to the market. As of this March, U.S. banks had an inventory of 1.1 million foreclosed homes, which was a new all-time record and which was up 20 percent from one year ago.
Meanwhile, banks and lending institutions have learned their lessons and now it is much, much tougher to get a home loan. Therefore, there are a whole lot less qualified buyers in the marketplace.
So with a ton of homes on the market and very few buyers, it is going to take a long, long time to get all of those homes sold. In fact, there is now over a year's worth of unsold homes sitting on the market in the United States.
And do you realize what happens when supply is very high and demand is very low?
Prices go down.
Right now home owners are very hesitant to lower the prices of their homes much further, but if they want to sell their homes, that is what has got to happen.
B - Without Good Jobs The American People Cannot Buy Homes
Read Full Article HERE
ALERT: 13.3 ppm of COREXIT found INLAND, near Florida border — Chemist says tests show “toxic solvent” 2-butoxyethanol that “RUPTURES red blood cells” (VIDEO & PHOTOS)
Florida Oil Spill Law.com
Corexit found in Orange Beach Waters, WKRG Channel 5, August 19, 2010:
[Cotton Bayou, Ala. resident] Margaret Long… first got suspicious when she saw something in the water she had never seen before. She even took photographs, “Some times it’s about the size of a half dollar. Some times it streams along and its like floating sand.”
She got samples and sent them to chemist Bob Naman in Mobile whose tests results show 13.3 ppm of the chemical dispersant corexit. …
“It concerns me,” says Orange Beach Mayor Tony Kennon.
http://www.wkrg.com/gulf_oil_spill/article/corexit-found-in-orange-beach-waters/916773/Aug-19-2010_11-31-pm/
Bob Naman is the analytical chemist who performed the tests featured in WKRG’s broadcast. He was interviewed by Washington’s Blog for an August 24 report. Highlights include:
Naman found 2-butoxyethanol in the Cotton Bayou sample. [Ingredient in 'discontinued' Corexit 9527.]
Naman said found no propylene glycol, the main ingredient of Corexit 9500.
Naman said he went to Dauphin Island, Alabama last night and while there observed many 250-500 gallon barrels which were labeled Corexit 9527. Naman took pictures that he will soon be sharing.
Naman said he saw men applying the Corexit 9527 while he was in Dauphin Island and also in Bayou La Batre, Alabama.
Naman said the Corexit 9527 is being haphazardly sprayed at night and is impacting beach sands in a highly concentrated form.
Scientists oppose the use of dispersant chemicals in the Gulf of Mexico, MSNBC, July 16, 2010:
Corexit 9527A contains 2-BTE (2-butoxyethanol), a toxic solvent that ruptures red blood cells, causing hemolysis (bleeding) and liver and kidney damage (Johanson and Bowman, 1991, Nalco, 2010). Both Corexit dispersants contain petroleum solvents that mix with the crude oil mass and move through it, thus increasing the uptake of oil by organisms (NRC, 2005, Nalco, 2010). Signed by:
Read Full Article HERE
Corexit found in Orange Beach Waters, WKRG Channel 5, August 19, 2010:
[Cotton Bayou, Ala. resident] Margaret Long… first got suspicious when she saw something in the water she had never seen before. She even took photographs, “Some times it’s about the size of a half dollar. Some times it streams along and its like floating sand.”
She got samples and sent them to chemist Bob Naman in Mobile whose tests results show 13.3 ppm of the chemical dispersant corexit. …
“It concerns me,” says Orange Beach Mayor Tony Kennon.
http://www.wkrg.com/gulf_oil_spill/article/corexit-found-in-orange-beach-waters/916773/Aug-19-2010_11-31-pm/
Bob Naman is the analytical chemist who performed the tests featured in WKRG’s broadcast. He was interviewed by Washington’s Blog for an August 24 report. Highlights include:
Naman found 2-butoxyethanol in the Cotton Bayou sample. [Ingredient in 'discontinued' Corexit 9527.]
Naman said found no propylene glycol, the main ingredient of Corexit 9500.
Naman said he went to Dauphin Island, Alabama last night and while there observed many 250-500 gallon barrels which were labeled Corexit 9527. Naman took pictures that he will soon be sharing.
Naman said he saw men applying the Corexit 9527 while he was in Dauphin Island and also in Bayou La Batre, Alabama.
Naman said the Corexit 9527 is being haphazardly sprayed at night and is impacting beach sands in a highly concentrated form.
Scientists oppose the use of dispersant chemicals in the Gulf of Mexico, MSNBC, July 16, 2010:
Corexit 9527A contains 2-BTE (2-butoxyethanol), a toxic solvent that ruptures red blood cells, causing hemolysis (bleeding) and liver and kidney damage (Johanson and Bowman, 1991, Nalco, 2010). Both Corexit dispersants contain petroleum solvents that mix with the crude oil mass and move through it, thus increasing the uptake of oil by organisms (NRC, 2005, Nalco, 2010). Signed by:
Read Full Article HERE
The Government Can Use GPS to Track Your Moves
Time.com
Government agents can sneak onto your property in the middle of the night, put a GPS device on the bottom of your car and keep track of everywhere you go. This doesn't violate your Fourth Amendment rights, because you do not have any reasonable expectation of privacy in your own driveway — and no reasonable expectation that the government isn't tracking your movements.
That is the bizarre — and scary — rule that now applies in California and eight other Western states. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which covers this vast jurisdiction, recently decided the government can monitor you in this way virtually anytime it wants — with no need for a search warrant.
(See a TIME photoessay on Cannabis Culture.)
It is a dangerous decision — one that, as the dissenting judges warned, could turn America into the sort of totalitarian state imagined by George Orwell. It is particularly offensive because the judges added insult to injury with some shocking class bias: the little personal privacy that still exists, the court suggested, should belong mainly to the rich.
This case began in 2007, when Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agents decided to monitor Juan Pineda-Moreno, an Oregon resident who they suspected was growing marijuana. They snuck onto his property in the middle of the night and found his Jeep in his driveway, a few feet from his trailer home. Then they attached a GPS tracking device to the vehicle's underside.
After Pineda-Moreno challenged the DEA's actions, a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit ruled in January that it was all perfectly legal. More disturbingly, a larger group of judges on the circuit, who were subsequently asked to reconsider the ruling, decided this month to let it stand. (Pineda-Moreno has pleaded guilty conditionally to conspiracy to manufacture marijuana and manufacturing marijuana while appealing the denial of his motion to suppress evidence obtained with the help of GPS.)
In fact, the government violated Pineda-Moreno's privacy rights in two different ways. For starters, the invasion of his driveway was wrong. The courts have long held that people have a reasonable expectation of privacy in their homes and in the "curtilage," a fancy legal term for the area around the home. The government's intrusion on property just a few feet away was clearly in this zone of privacy.
The judges veered into offensiveness when they explained why Pineda-Moreno's driveway was not private. It was open to strangers, they said, such as delivery people and neighborhood children, who could wander across it uninvited.
(See the misadventures of the CIA.)
Chief Judge Alex Kozinski, who dissented from this month's decision refusing to reconsider the case, pointed out whose homes are not open to strangers: rich people's. The court's ruling, he said, means that people who protect their homes with electric gates, fences and security booths have a large protected zone of privacy around their homes. People who cannot afford such barriers have to put up with the government sneaking around at night.
Read Full Article With Links HERE
Government agents can sneak onto your property in the middle of the night, put a GPS device on the bottom of your car and keep track of everywhere you go. This doesn't violate your Fourth Amendment rights, because you do not have any reasonable expectation of privacy in your own driveway — and no reasonable expectation that the government isn't tracking your movements.
That is the bizarre — and scary — rule that now applies in California and eight other Western states. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which covers this vast jurisdiction, recently decided the government can monitor you in this way virtually anytime it wants — with no need for a search warrant.
(See a TIME photoessay on Cannabis Culture.)
It is a dangerous decision — one that, as the dissenting judges warned, could turn America into the sort of totalitarian state imagined by George Orwell. It is particularly offensive because the judges added insult to injury with some shocking class bias: the little personal privacy that still exists, the court suggested, should belong mainly to the rich.
This case began in 2007, when Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agents decided to monitor Juan Pineda-Moreno, an Oregon resident who they suspected was growing marijuana. They snuck onto his property in the middle of the night and found his Jeep in his driveway, a few feet from his trailer home. Then they attached a GPS tracking device to the vehicle's underside.
After Pineda-Moreno challenged the DEA's actions, a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit ruled in January that it was all perfectly legal. More disturbingly, a larger group of judges on the circuit, who were subsequently asked to reconsider the ruling, decided this month to let it stand. (Pineda-Moreno has pleaded guilty conditionally to conspiracy to manufacture marijuana and manufacturing marijuana while appealing the denial of his motion to suppress evidence obtained with the help of GPS.)
In fact, the government violated Pineda-Moreno's privacy rights in two different ways. For starters, the invasion of his driveway was wrong. The courts have long held that people have a reasonable expectation of privacy in their homes and in the "curtilage," a fancy legal term for the area around the home. The government's intrusion on property just a few feet away was clearly in this zone of privacy.
The judges veered into offensiveness when they explained why Pineda-Moreno's driveway was not private. It was open to strangers, they said, such as delivery people and neighborhood children, who could wander across it uninvited.
(See the misadventures of the CIA.)
Chief Judge Alex Kozinski, who dissented from this month's decision refusing to reconsider the case, pointed out whose homes are not open to strangers: rich people's. The court's ruling, he said, means that people who protect their homes with electric gates, fences and security booths have a large protected zone of privacy around their homes. People who cannot afford such barriers have to put up with the government sneaking around at night.
Read Full Article With Links HERE
Home Sales Drop 27 Percent In July And Things Are Only Going To Get Worse For The U.S. Housing Industry
The Economic Collapse
On Tuesday the National Association of Realtors announced that existing home sales in the United States dropped a whopping 27.2% in the month of July. The consensus among analysts was that we would see a drop of around 13 percent, so when the 27 percent figure was announced it sent a shock through world financial markets. To say that the real estate industry is alarmed by these numbers would be a tremendous understatement. What we are seeing unfold is essentially "Armageddon" for those involved in the housing and real estate industries. The real estate market is grinding to a standstill and a shockingly low number of people are actually in the market to buy a home right now. In the months ahead home sales may pick up a little bit, but only if housing prices start to fall. Why? Because right now there are tons of houses on the market and there are very few qualified buyers available to purchase them and potential buyers are starting to realize this. Buyers are beginning to understand that they have all the leverage now and they are waiting for prices to fall.
Anyone who has taken Economics 101 in college knows that when supply is high and demand is low prices will fall, and that is exactly the situation we have in the U.S. housing market right now.
At the moment, most home sellers in the United States are very hesitant to lower the prices on their homes too much. Many have no intention of selling their homes below what they originally paid for them, and many others truly believe that the housing market will eventually rebound.
But the truth is that housing prices are simply not going to rebound to 2006 levels. If anything, they are going to continue to fall.
The following are the three basic points that every American needs to understand about the U.S. housing market right now....
1) There Is A Gigantic Mountain Of Unsold Homes On The Market
There are a staggering number of unsold homes on the market right now. As you can see from the chart from the Calculated Risk blog below, there is now over a year's worth of unsold homes flooding the marketplace....
So who is going to buy all of those unsold homes with so few qualified purchasers in the marketplace?
That is a very good question.
Unfortunately, all the signs indicate that the glut of unsold homes is going to get even worse.
As of this March, U.S. banks had an inventory of 1.1 million foreclosed homes, which was a new all-time record and which was up 20 percent from one year ago.
And the tsunami of foreclosures and repossessions just keeps growing....
Read Full Article HERE
On Tuesday the National Association of Realtors announced that existing home sales in the United States dropped a whopping 27.2% in the month of July. The consensus among analysts was that we would see a drop of around 13 percent, so when the 27 percent figure was announced it sent a shock through world financial markets. To say that the real estate industry is alarmed by these numbers would be a tremendous understatement. What we are seeing unfold is essentially "Armageddon" for those involved in the housing and real estate industries. The real estate market is grinding to a standstill and a shockingly low number of people are actually in the market to buy a home right now. In the months ahead home sales may pick up a little bit, but only if housing prices start to fall. Why? Because right now there are tons of houses on the market and there are very few qualified buyers available to purchase them and potential buyers are starting to realize this. Buyers are beginning to understand that they have all the leverage now and they are waiting for prices to fall.
Anyone who has taken Economics 101 in college knows that when supply is high and demand is low prices will fall, and that is exactly the situation we have in the U.S. housing market right now.
At the moment, most home sellers in the United States are very hesitant to lower the prices on their homes too much. Many have no intention of selling their homes below what they originally paid for them, and many others truly believe that the housing market will eventually rebound.
But the truth is that housing prices are simply not going to rebound to 2006 levels. If anything, they are going to continue to fall.
The following are the three basic points that every American needs to understand about the U.S. housing market right now....
1) There Is A Gigantic Mountain Of Unsold Homes On The Market
There are a staggering number of unsold homes on the market right now. As you can see from the chart from the Calculated Risk blog below, there is now over a year's worth of unsold homes flooding the marketplace....
So who is going to buy all of those unsold homes with so few qualified purchasers in the marketplace?
That is a very good question.
Unfortunately, all the signs indicate that the glut of unsold homes is going to get even worse.
As of this March, U.S. banks had an inventory of 1.1 million foreclosed homes, which was a new all-time record and which was up 20 percent from one year ago.
And the tsunami of foreclosures and repossessions just keeps growing....
Read Full Article HERE
Evangelist Denied Entry to U.S. All Meetings Cancelled
John The Baptist.com
ENTRY DENIED. All MEETINGS CANCELED -Andrew Strom
I am very sorry to announce to those of you who were planning on attending some of our meetings over the next month that we have been denied entry to the USA and sadly will have to cancel all the meetings.
My whole family were detained for over 6 hours at the US border
yesterday (the USA side), questioned, photographed, fingerprinted
like criminals – and sent back to Canada. We were told we could
not come in to preach to a series of Christian groups like this –
even though their website clearly says we CAN – and I have already
been in TWICE THIS YEAR doing exactly the same thing. They let
me in then – but no more. They even fingerprinted my 15-year-old
daughter. None of us (except our 9 and 11-year olds) can even set
foot in the USA again without going to the US Consulate and getting
special permission. We literally are now in the “criminal” class
according to US Immigration.
All this because we were invited by church groups and Christian
groups across the USA to come preach a series of meetings.
They told me to do that I have to have an “R” visa. (These take
months and months to get – often never). This is not what their
website says. New Zealand is a “visa-waiver” country and Conference
speakers are specifically allowed into the US under those rules. I
asked them, “How then can a foreign preacher who is invited by a
Christian group to the USA ever get in to preach?” They said maybe
that is OK for one or two meetings, but not for a series. So we
cannot preach in churches across the nation – even though that is
exactly what they have let me in to do before. This is the first time
I have ever been denied entry to do that very thing. And now we are
all – very evidently – “criminals”. Never to darken the door again.
My family and I naturally came home from this pretty distraught
and devastated. My daughter was crying in the car. Six hours is a
long time to be detained like that.
But, you know, at the end of the day, God is in control. I felt sure
then and I feel sure now that even though this was so distressing,
God was still speaking to us through it all. I believe He is the one
who is slamming the door shut on America right now – and doing
so in no uncertain terms. We have been praying and many others
have been praying for too long for this to have just been “man’s”
decision. I accept it as the voice of God. America is over for us.
WHERE to FROM HERE?
The most likely thing is a return “Down-Under” to New Zealand and
Australia. We have been away from home now – traveling and
ministering – for 18 months. Perhaps it is time for a return to what
the explorer Pedro Fernandez de Quiros called the “Great South
Land of the Holy Spirit.”
I just want to apologize again to all those who wanted to attend
our upcoming meetings. I am very sorry, my friends. Our family
is still pretty shaken by all of this, so we would certainly appreciate
your prayers at this time.
-Please comment on this article below.
God bless you all.
Andrew Strom.
View Website HERE
ENTRY DENIED. All MEETINGS CANCELED -Andrew Strom
I am very sorry to announce to those of you who were planning on attending some of our meetings over the next month that we have been denied entry to the USA and sadly will have to cancel all the meetings.
My whole family were detained for over 6 hours at the US border
yesterday (the USA side), questioned, photographed, fingerprinted
like criminals – and sent back to Canada. We were told we could
not come in to preach to a series of Christian groups like this –
even though their website clearly says we CAN – and I have already
been in TWICE THIS YEAR doing exactly the same thing. They let
me in then – but no more. They even fingerprinted my 15-year-old
daughter. None of us (except our 9 and 11-year olds) can even set
foot in the USA again without going to the US Consulate and getting
special permission. We literally are now in the “criminal” class
according to US Immigration.
All this because we were invited by church groups and Christian
groups across the USA to come preach a series of meetings.
They told me to do that I have to have an “R” visa. (These take
months and months to get – often never). This is not what their
website says. New Zealand is a “visa-waiver” country and Conference
speakers are specifically allowed into the US under those rules. I
asked them, “How then can a foreign preacher who is invited by a
Christian group to the USA ever get in to preach?” They said maybe
that is OK for one or two meetings, but not for a series. So we
cannot preach in churches across the nation – even though that is
exactly what they have let me in to do before. This is the first time
I have ever been denied entry to do that very thing. And now we are
all – very evidently – “criminals”. Never to darken the door again.
My family and I naturally came home from this pretty distraught
and devastated. My daughter was crying in the car. Six hours is a
long time to be detained like that.
But, you know, at the end of the day, God is in control. I felt sure
then and I feel sure now that even though this was so distressing,
God was still speaking to us through it all. I believe He is the one
who is slamming the door shut on America right now – and doing
so in no uncertain terms. We have been praying and many others
have been praying for too long for this to have just been “man’s”
decision. I accept it as the voice of God. America is over for us.
WHERE to FROM HERE?
The most likely thing is a return “Down-Under” to New Zealand and
Australia. We have been away from home now – traveling and
ministering – for 18 months. Perhaps it is time for a return to what
the explorer Pedro Fernandez de Quiros called the “Great South
Land of the Holy Spirit.”
I just want to apologize again to all those who wanted to attend
our upcoming meetings. I am very sorry, my friends. Our family
is still pretty shaken by all of this, so we would certainly appreciate
your prayers at this time.
-Please comment on this article below.
God bless you all.
Andrew Strom.
View Website HERE
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