Kiss Your Butt (And Freedoms) Goodbye

Below is a link to the absolutely scariest documentary I have ever experienced. Its long (show off your attention span skills here), at 151 minutes, but it covers many subjects that will all heavily impinge on our life in mostly negative ways if we allow them to happen. I personally fear that its past the point where we can do anything about them…the government has too many guns with men trained to use them on their own people, and the constitutional constraints that could have stopped what they plan have been wiped away by the last three presidents and their Presidential Decrees.

Some of the material may seem old because they have been gone over before, but they will be recycled by their proponents.

Trust neither Democrats or Republicans or Tea-Baggers…they are essentially all on the same side; though most don’t realize it.
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.http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1656880303867390173&hl=en#
America: Freedom to Fascism – Director’s Authorized Version
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The Neverending War

Quote of the Day:

“In so far as the structural clue to the power elite today lies in the enlarged and military state, that clue becomes evident in the military ascendancy. The warlords have gained decisive Political relevance, and the military structure of America is now in considerable part a political structure. The seemingly permanent military threat places a premium on the military and upon their control of men, materiel, money, and power; virtually all political and economic actions are now judged in terms of military definitions of reality: the higher warlords have ascended to a firm position within the power elite of the fifth epoch.”  The Power Elite C. Wright Mills, 1956

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Arrest Em’ Before the Crime

A very disturbing story.  Oregon police/swat team arrests man they think would commit crimes

Several Oregon government and law enforcement agencies are patting themselves on the back for preventing a possible mass shooting incident by sending a SWAT team to arrest a recently laid-off employee of the state’s Department of Transportation. A news release from the Medford, Oregon, police department (yes, they put out a news release announcing their good work) says the man purchased three guns after his dismissal, and that former colleagues described him as “very disgruntled.” He was taken to a mental hospital for evaluation. By Radley Balko | March 11, 2010
Reason webmag.  http://reason.com/blog/2010/03/11/oregon-officials-consult-preco

Original story
Oregon’s-Mail Tribune-online newspaper.

I’m really torn about this story. On the one hand…yes the police probably did stop a very bad scenario, if the reported story is true in all the details given.

On the other hand if this pre-emptive strike stands as a legally defensible right of the police forces of our country…we are in serious trouble as a nation of free people.

Can you imagine all the bad that would come from this method of keeping the peace?  Do you think it should be allowed to stand??

1984 wrong date…right story.

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The War on Terror Will be Never-ending

Alongside the willing sacrifice of privacy by a naive and lazy public, is the enforced forfeiture of civil liberties under the guise of the ‘War on Terror’. Government legislation has significantly increased surveillance, data collection, and security measures ‘for your own safety‘. And more sophisticated and intrusive methods are coming soon. England is already 90% of the way to an Orwellian society…we aren’t far behind…America is in the top 5 (or in the bottom 5 depending on your viewpoint) for the most surveillance of it’s own citizens.

We need to talk to all those computer and high technology geeks who keep inventing evil and intrusive technology to crush and take away human freedoms. Tell them to stop it. Buzz it up. Put on peer pressure. Let them know there are really evil people out there that misuse technology they invent and  that they themselves, and their children, will be negatively affected.

Americans need to get off their lazy asses and start talking to their Senators and Congressmen and let them know that we are really sick of what they are doing with our various rights. Are we going to have to fight for them again? I’m not sure that many politicians will actually try to fight the crap going on in Washington…we have to at least try. Talk to your friends and neighbors, your co-workers, your in-laws, anyone you can corner for a casual talk and plant a bug in their brain about how wrong it is.

House of Representatives

Senate

The Whitehouse

Ex-Boss of Englands MI5 service (James Bonds employer :-)) says that “Terrorist threat was ‘exploited to curb civil liberties’
Security measures brought in after September 11 attacks ‘undermined the rule of law’
Go here for full story.

This is something really important for all of us in this country…and the world actually.

They Thought They Were Free

“…What happened here was the gradual habituation of the people, little by little, to being governed by surprise; to receiving decisions deliberated in secret; to believing that the situation was so complicated that the government had to act on information which the people could not understand, or so dangerous that, even if the people could understand it, it could not be released because of national security….”

“…To live in this process is absolutely not to be able to notice it – please try to believe me – unless one has a much greater degree of political awareness, acuity, than most of us had ever had occasion to develop. Each step was so small, so inconsequential, so well explained or, on occasion, “regretted,” that, unless one were detached from the whole process from the beginning, unless one understood what the whole thing was in principle, what all these “little measures” that no “patriotic (insert country)” could resent must someday lead to, one no more saw it developing from day to day than a farmer in his field sees the corn growing. One day it is over his head…”

“You see,” my colleague went on, “one doesn’t see exactly where or how to move. Believe me, this is true. Each act, each occasion, is worse than the last, but only a little worse. You wait for the next and the next. You wait for the one great shocking occasion, thinking that others, when such a shock comes, will join with you in resisting somehow. You don’t want to act, or even to talk, alone; you don’t want to ‘go out of your way to make trouble.’ Why not? – Well, you are not in the habit of doing it. And it is not just fear, fear of standing alone, that restrains you; it is also genuine uncertainty…”
-Milton Mayer, “They Thought They Were Free”  UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS (1955)

President Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney knowingly lied to start a preemptive and illegal war against Iraq and admit they (along with Donald Rumsfeld) sanctioned torture. Congress passes the ‘Patriot Act’ without reading it. Bush admits he ordered the spying on of ALL emails and other electronic communications (landline phones and cells) of ALL Americans. Bush orders the repeal of habeas corpus (they don’t have to bring you in front of a judge and can keep you incommunicado), and search warrants are a thing of the past.

Feds can break into your house, without warrant, when you are gone, download your computer and search your papers…when you are gone…without warrant. They can threaten anyone who sees them…with warrantless arrest if they tell you what they saw. These laws will remain on the books, and they have already been used in non-terrorist related cases.

“You have nothing to fear unless you break the law…ever heard of mistakes made by police, ever heard of government authorities going after someone with a dissenting viewpoint, or payback to whistle-blowers? The side effect of what’s going on is a slow introduction of the tightening of freedom of speech and civil liberties of all Americans.

We must, it seems, come to terms with the fact that the government actually thinks they own us, they can financially mortgage our futures (and our children’s children’s, childrin’s) and to a very large degree decide what our future will be by manipulation of laws.

What recourse does the common person have when government goes amuck, “for our own protection’, and there is no more “free press” or ability to publicly dissent?

Laptops at the Border…Who do they belong to?

Recently I have been excoriated for writing about the bad behavior of border patrol and customs agents. For some reason the federal government is concerned that American and world citizens, that cross our borders, who have computers, Blackberry’s, cell phones, on their person are stealing state nuclear secrets or, worse; they are thinking bad thoughts.

The federal government thinks that they have the right to read our most intimate thoughts or to go through our list of friends from our cell phones and such. Does this strike anyone out there as Orwellian?

Does our government really think they need to read our minds, so to speak?

Do we really want to let them?

Do we even have a choice?

Apparently not.

The Feds (read Bush/Cheney) have decided they need to read or listen to everything our citizens think, write, and talk about.

They also think it’s so important to have freedom to spy on us when we travel that they took the matter to court. Read this excerpt from the Association of Corporate Travel Executives:

” According to an ACTE survey of its international membership, eighty six percent of business travel executives indicated that court decisions allowing U.S. Customs Agents and Border Patrol officers to examine and download the contents of travelers’ laptops — or to even confiscate them — are ample cause to limit the kind of proprietary information typically carried in an executive’s computer.” See their website to read rest of article:

http://www.acte.org/resources/press_release.php?id=91

I was also accused of raising false alarm about the matter because customs agents have always been allowed to search travelers. Have they always been able to read diaries of our own citizens without cause or warrant? Fourth amendment: probable cause; warrantless searches, come to mind.

“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

Oh, forgive me, I forgot, presidents Bush/Cheney suspended that for everyone. Everyone in our country (and the whole world) is a suspect. The whole world is a battlefield, and since he is commander in chief he has total control over the whole world. He has accumulated unprecedented powers and I think he intends to pass them on and allow the permanent usurpation of the constitution. Of course he can’t physically pass them on, just allow his present upside down worldview to continue.

We, as a country, have fought wars before where some rights were suspended for a time, but never has the federal power grab been so extensive or long lasting and never has it been so intrusive, or coldhearted.

I think we citizens have a right and responsibility to speak up when things are not right, and these matters are a clear-cut case, in my humble estimation, of not being right. I’m just afraid that the way things are going, we won’t be able too (speak up) for much longer.

I’ve been accused of being an alarmist, separatist, un-American, even saints forbid, a traitor. I think I am none of those. In matters like this I think you have to engage the opponent early on, or matters get worse, fast. I think America should stand strong, as we always have, but not give up the things that make us great. I am really afraid of the path we are now following.

In my mind (however bad it is) the problem of border patrol and customs agents confiscating and breaking into and downloading personal electronics is part of a very large problem that our country faces. The problem is…the government running roughshod over it’s citizens and their probable desire to continue doing this.

Our government under presidents Bush/Cheney has broken more international treaties than any other in history. We also withdrew or broke the Geneva Convention…I thought we were supposed to be the ‘good’ guys

Our present administration is the first in history to have the United Nations remove us from the Human Rights Commission.

Our present administration withdrew us from the World Court of Law.

These are all very bad signs for a government that is supposedly free, open, and caring.

I’ll repeat the entrée to all of this…the government does not have the right, I think, or the need, to download or confiscate personal electronics, except on probable cause, with warrant. Even though they have appropriated it, it’s not right. Its part of a much larger scenario, where the feds are scrapping the founders ideals, and the very concept of this country.

I only have words to protest, and I may not be very good at it, but I will continue to write my protest as long as my government continues to pass bad laws and mistreat it’s own citizen’s. And, I might add….as long as I’m allowed.

Call your senator or Congressperson. Let them know what you think.

http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

https://forms.house.gov/wyr/welcome.shtml

The FBI wants YOU

The FBI wants your data...all of it…fingerprints, iris prints, tattoos, scars, palm prints, facial shape, the way you walk, etc.

Kimberly Del Greco, the FBI’s Biometric Services section chief, said it is “important to protect the borders to keep the terrorists out, protect our citizens, our neighbors, our children so they can have good jobs, and have a safe country to live in.”
Full story is at CNN below:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/02/04/fbi.biometrics/

The ACLU’s Barry Steinhardt doesn’t believe it will stop there with criminals or terrorists. “This had started out being a program to track or identify criminals,” he said. “Now we’re talking about large swaths of the population — workers, volunteers in youth programs. Eventually, it’s going to be everybody.”

They seem to keep adding to the data they want from us. Does anyone out there think this is a bad thing?

Surveillance in America…it’s Really Bad

Hey America, wake up. We are so smug about America being the land of freedom. Well, we’re not even close…in fact we are at the bottom of the barrel

See this site: http://www.privacyinternational.org/article.shtml?cmd%5B347%5D=x-347-559597

1. Border Issues

1. Communications intercepted
2. Financial Surveillance
3. Legal protections withdrawn
4. Medical surveillance
5. Movement Surveillance
6. Privacy gone
7. Use of biometrics in Federally required ID cards

The list above are the points where we at the bottom of the heap. America has been downgraded from “Extensive Surveillance Society” to “Endemic Surveillance Society,” according to Privacy International’s 2007 International Privacy Ranking released on (12-28-07) last Friday. We are right in there with communist China, Malaysia, Myanmar, Russia, and Singapore. Greece, India, The Philippines, Canada, and Romania, rate much better then the ‘US of A’ in freedoms.

I wonder if this has anything to do with Bush’s illegal contravention of 5 of the 10 freedoms guaranteed in the Bill of Rights in our constitution? Dispensing with Habeas Corpus perhaps? Allowing total surveillance on ALL American citizens maybe. Perhaps it’s Bush’s changing laws by himself, his declaring himself ‘Commander in Chief ‘ and the whole world is his battlefield. Of course there are no human rights on the battlefield. Maybe it’s his telling his Storm Troopers that we have the inherent right (as the strongest power in the world) to go into any country and kidnap anyone we want for any reason.

And yes, we are talking REAL kidnapping here. Bag over the head at night, whisking away to waiting transportation, and flying out of the country. No interface with the locals or the countries leaders. We are Supreme.

Do we want to be associated with this as a nation? We already have the reputation as ‘The Ugly American.”

Goodwill to all.

Government Censorship, Free Speach, Bill of Rights

• First Amendment – Establishment clause, freedom of religion, speech, and press, and peaceable assembly as well as the right to petition the government.
• Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

“Censorship is the suppression of ideas and information that certain persons—individuals, groups or government officials—find objectionable or dangerous. It is no more complicated than someone saying, “Don’t let anyone read this book, or buy that magazine, or view that film, because I object to it! ”
Censors try to use the power of the state to impose their view of what is truthful and appropriate, or offensive and objectionable, on everyone else. Censors pressure public institutions, like libraries, to suppress and remove from public access information they judge inappropriate or dangerous, so that no one else has the chance to read or view the material and make up their own minds about it.
The censor wants to prejudge materials for everyone.” From the American Library Association Website

Institutions and private business (Such as the American Library Association and local library’s, bookstores, Amazon, etc.) receiving National Security Letters (NSL’s) are forbidden to inform anyone about the search. Without a warrant they can research your records of checked out book’s from libraries, books, and magazines you purchase. These libraries and business who receive the NSL’s are forbidden to talk about it to anyone, let alone tell the suspect.

• Fourth Amendment – Protection from unreasonable search and seizure.
• The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Upon the issue of a National Security Letter against a individual, government agents are allowed (Warrantless search) to enter their home on the sly, search the house, search all papers and download all contents of computers on the premises. They leave and the suspect is not notified that a search took place. They may search all records, public and private, wiretap and record phone calls about a person and forbid anyone who knows whats going on from talking to anyone about the search.

See:

NSA warrantless surveillance controversy

USA PATRIOT Act

National ID Cards are Coming

Happened to surf to a Scottish newspaper today for a article on government issued ID cards and ran in to a real cornucopia of proof that England and associated countries are now officially controlled by Big Brother.

They will deny it, but the proof is in the newspapers and online copies thereof.

Some random examples follow:

The “Scotsman” newspaper-main page-for stories on Big Brother. It’s really started in
Scotland, UK, and Ireland
http://news.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?tid=428

Power of police to take DNA samples, and keep on file forever, for any arrests, even
littering, and even if no charges brought
http://news.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?tid=428&id=756092006

Authorities in UK and Europe will take fingerprints or iris scans of all air travelers.
http://news.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?tid=428&id=1202152006

Move to take and keep ID info on millions of children and make info publicly available….Law did pass.
http://news.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?tid=428&id=589352006

Real life British spy heroine says ID cards are a present to terrorists and criminals. Law finally passed anyway.
http://news.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?tid=428&id=441172006

Te UK will sell private information from the National ID card to private businesses to help defray costs that are now expected to be much more than estimated. BIG surprise, eh.

Did you ever notice that the actual end cost of government projects ALWAYS, at the very least, doubles if not quintuples. And the politicians are ALWAYS surprised. And politicians and their friends ALWAYS grow richer. And yet we victims/taxpayers never catch on. Wonder why that is?

I have heard that people in the ID card business are saying it won’t be long before these cards will contain your complete DNA profile. Authorities will be able to download your complete history, including where you ate breakfast that morning, what tattoos you have, what scars or birthmarks are etched on your body. Before too long a scan of your National ID card will reveal all….and you have no say about it, sucker.

All of this technical prowess and ability would not be possible, of course, without the computer and internet. Makes one wonder about how good this e Revolution is.

Oh, by the way, America rolls out National ID in 2008

From Cnet:
“Paul warned that the legislation, called the Real ID Act, gives unfettered authority to the Department of Homeland Security to design State ID cards and driver’s licenses. Among the possibilities: biometric information such as retinal scans, fingerprints, DNA data and RFID tracking technology.”

“Show me your papers citizen. Why are you loitering here?” He says, as he scans your ID card through the WiFi scanner mounted on his arm.