The Main Idea of the Founding Fathers . . .
Posted by Thomas DiLorenzo on March 26, 2012 12:58 PM
. . . was that after a long and bloody revolution fought in the name of freedom and against tyranny, they would place everyone' s freedom, and life itself, in the hands of five government lawyers with lifetime tenure. Or in some cases just one government lawyer with lifetime tenure if the nine-person Supreme Court happens to have a 4–4 ideological split on most issues.
That's what I've learned from the nonstop gabfest in the media over the past week about the impending decision by the black-robed deities of the Supreme Court on whether or not the Obammunists' Soviet-style healthcare nationalization scheme is "constitutional."
from LRC blog.
28 March 2012
Former FBI special agent takes aim at the TSA
While I have written on this before, and the TSA is one of my favorite federal punching bags, I thought the level of expertise that former FBI SA Steve Moore brings to the discussion is well worth re-posting:
The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) was formed to ensure America’s freedom to travel. Instead, they have made air travel the most difficult means of mass transit in the United States, at the same time failing to make air travel any more secure.
TSA has never, (and I invite them to prove me wrong), foiled a terrorist plot or stopped an attack on an airliner. Ever. They crow about weapons found and insinuate that this means they stopped terrorism. They claim that they can’t comment due to “national security” implications. In fact, if they had foiled a plot, criminal charges would have to be filed. Ever hear of terrorism charges being filed because of something found during a TSA screening? No, because it’s never happened. Trust me, if TSA had ever foiled a terrorist plot, they would buy full-page ads in every newspaper in the United States to prove their importance and increase their budget.
I have a unique position from which to make these statements. For 25 years, as many of readers know, I was an FBI Special Agent, and for many of those years, I was a counter-terrorism specialist. I ran the Los Angeles Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) Al Qaeda squad. I ran the JTTF’s Extra-territorial squad, which responded to terrorism against the United States or its interests throughout the world. I have investigated Al Qaeda cell operations in the United States, Pakistan, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Thailand, just to name a few. The FBI and the CIA provides the lion’s share of actionable intelligence on threats to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) (the mother organization of TSA), so that they can tailor security screening to the actual threat.
I am, as I have said before, a political conservative, a law and order kind of guy and I get misty when the national anthem is played at a football game and jets fly over in salute. If anything, I am pre-disposed to support the United States government.
I have been a pilot for more than 35 years. In the early years of my career, I flew aircraft for the FBI and I amassed 6,500 hours of flight time. I worked my way through college with United Airlines and was cockpit qualified to move the airliners around the ramp, fuel them and service them. I know aircraft. My father, a former FBI Agent, worked for United from the time I was 12. We used our flight benefits to travel more than anybody I know, taking round-the-world vacations nearly every year and jumping airliners like hobos jump freight trains. During my FBI counter-terrorism years, I traveled 100,000 to 200,000 miles per year. I am intimately familiar with airline travel.
My father's position at United Airlines was Manager of Security. He had this job in the 70’s when airline security was in its infancy and he helped pioneered security procedures including the first magnetometers. He has written two textbooks on airport, aircraft, and airline security, and sat on FAA sponsored committees on airline security.
As a SWAT Agent, I was fully trained to interdict hijackings. I have trained countless hours on actual airliners, learned to shoot surgically inside the airliner “tube,” silently approach the aircraft and breach exterior doors quickly. I was also trained to shoot from airline seats in case I was aboard a hijacked flight, and for 25 years I traveled armed on airliners, meeting with Air Marshals prior to each flight.
...I sometimes ruminate while standing in line waiting to take off my shoes, remove my belt, laptop, iPad, etc., etc., about the improvised weapons I saw in prisons and how hard they were to find. It’s fascinating what weapons prisoners can make out of plastic forks, newspapers and toothbrushes. Ask any prison guard if an inmate can make a weapon out of an everyday item, and how long it would take them. Approximately 99% of what the average traveler carries on a plane would be considered contraband in a maximum security prison, due to the fact that it can easily be converted into a weapon. Toothbrushes, Popsicle sticks, pens, pencils, anything with wire (iPod headset), any metal object which can be sharpened, etc., etc. is a potential weapon. Carried to its logical end, TSA policy would have to require passengers to travel naked or handcuffed. (Handcuffing is the required procedure for U.S. Marshalls transporting prisoners in government aircraft.)
TSA’s de facto policy to this point has been to react to the latest thing tried by a terrorist, which is invariably something that Al Qaeda identified as a technique not addressed by current screening. While this narrows Al Qaeda’s options, their list of attack ideas remains long and they are imaginative. Therefore, if TSA continues to react to each and every new thing tried, three things are certain:
1. Nothing Al Qaeda tries will be caught the first time because it was designed around gaps in TSA security.
2. It is impossible to eliminate all gaps in airline security.
3. Airline security screening based on eliminating every vulnerability will therefore fail because it is impossible. But it will by necessity become increasingly onerous and invasive on the travelers.
This is classic:
...Frankly, the professional experience I have had with TSA has frightened me. Once, when approaching screening for a flight on official FBI business, I showed my badge as I had done for decades in order to bypass screening. (You can be envious, but remember, I was one less person in line.) I was asked for my form which showed that I was armed. I was unarmed on this flight because my ultimate destination was a foreign country. I was told, "Then you have to be screened." This logic startled me, so I asked, "If I tell you I have a high-powered weapon, you will let me bypass screening, but if I tell you I'm unarmed, then I have to be screened?" The answer? "Yes. Exactly." Another time, I was bypassing screening (again on official FBI business) with my .40 caliber semi-automatic pistol, and a TSA officer noticed the clip of my pocket knife. "You can't bring a knife on board," he said. I looked at him incredulously and asked, "The semi-automatic pistol is okay, but you don't trust me with a knife?" His response was equal parts predictable and frightening, "But knives are not allowed on the planes."
http://homelandsecuritytheater.com
Link to the rest of Special Agent Moore's article at Gmancasefile blog.
The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) was formed to ensure America’s freedom to travel. Instead, they have made air travel the most difficult means of mass transit in the United States, at the same time failing to make air travel any more secure.
TSA has never, (and I invite them to prove me wrong), foiled a terrorist plot or stopped an attack on an airliner. Ever. They crow about weapons found and insinuate that this means they stopped terrorism. They claim that they can’t comment due to “national security” implications. In fact, if they had foiled a plot, criminal charges would have to be filed. Ever hear of terrorism charges being filed because of something found during a TSA screening? No, because it’s never happened. Trust me, if TSA had ever foiled a terrorist plot, they would buy full-page ads in every newspaper in the United States to prove their importance and increase their budget.
I have a unique position from which to make these statements. For 25 years, as many of readers know, I was an FBI Special Agent, and for many of those years, I was a counter-terrorism specialist. I ran the Los Angeles Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) Al Qaeda squad. I ran the JTTF’s Extra-territorial squad, which responded to terrorism against the United States or its interests throughout the world. I have investigated Al Qaeda cell operations in the United States, Pakistan, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Thailand, just to name a few. The FBI and the CIA provides the lion’s share of actionable intelligence on threats to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) (the mother organization of TSA), so that they can tailor security screening to the actual threat.
I am, as I have said before, a political conservative, a law and order kind of guy and I get misty when the national anthem is played at a football game and jets fly over in salute. If anything, I am pre-disposed to support the United States government.
I have been a pilot for more than 35 years. In the early years of my career, I flew aircraft for the FBI and I amassed 6,500 hours of flight time. I worked my way through college with United Airlines and was cockpit qualified to move the airliners around the ramp, fuel them and service them. I know aircraft. My father, a former FBI Agent, worked for United from the time I was 12. We used our flight benefits to travel more than anybody I know, taking round-the-world vacations nearly every year and jumping airliners like hobos jump freight trains. During my FBI counter-terrorism years, I traveled 100,000 to 200,000 miles per year. I am intimately familiar with airline travel.
My father's position at United Airlines was Manager of Security. He had this job in the 70’s when airline security was in its infancy and he helped pioneered security procedures including the first magnetometers. He has written two textbooks on airport, aircraft, and airline security, and sat on FAA sponsored committees on airline security.
As a SWAT Agent, I was fully trained to interdict hijackings. I have trained countless hours on actual airliners, learned to shoot surgically inside the airliner “tube,” silently approach the aircraft and breach exterior doors quickly. I was also trained to shoot from airline seats in case I was aboard a hijacked flight, and for 25 years I traveled armed on airliners, meeting with Air Marshals prior to each flight.
...I sometimes ruminate while standing in line waiting to take off my shoes, remove my belt, laptop, iPad, etc., etc., about the improvised weapons I saw in prisons and how hard they were to find. It’s fascinating what weapons prisoners can make out of plastic forks, newspapers and toothbrushes. Ask any prison guard if an inmate can make a weapon out of an everyday item, and how long it would take them. Approximately 99% of what the average traveler carries on a plane would be considered contraband in a maximum security prison, due to the fact that it can easily be converted into a weapon. Toothbrushes, Popsicle sticks, pens, pencils, anything with wire (iPod headset), any metal object which can be sharpened, etc., etc. is a potential weapon. Carried to its logical end, TSA policy would have to require passengers to travel naked or handcuffed. (Handcuffing is the required procedure for U.S. Marshalls transporting prisoners in government aircraft.)
TSA’s de facto policy to this point has been to react to the latest thing tried by a terrorist, which is invariably something that Al Qaeda identified as a technique not addressed by current screening. While this narrows Al Qaeda’s options, their list of attack ideas remains long and they are imaginative. Therefore, if TSA continues to react to each and every new thing tried, three things are certain:
1. Nothing Al Qaeda tries will be caught the first time because it was designed around gaps in TSA security.
2. It is impossible to eliminate all gaps in airline security.
3. Airline security screening based on eliminating every vulnerability will therefore fail because it is impossible. But it will by necessity become increasingly onerous and invasive on the travelers.
This is classic:
...Frankly, the professional experience I have had with TSA has frightened me. Once, when approaching screening for a flight on official FBI business, I showed my badge as I had done for decades in order to bypass screening. (You can be envious, but remember, I was one less person in line.) I was asked for my form which showed that I was armed. I was unarmed on this flight because my ultimate destination was a foreign country. I was told, "Then you have to be screened." This logic startled me, so I asked, "If I tell you I have a high-powered weapon, you will let me bypass screening, but if I tell you I'm unarmed, then I have to be screened?" The answer? "Yes. Exactly." Another time, I was bypassing screening (again on official FBI business) with my .40 caliber semi-automatic pistol, and a TSA officer noticed the clip of my pocket knife. "You can't bring a knife on board," he said. I looked at him incredulously and asked, "The semi-automatic pistol is okay, but you don't trust me with a knife?" His response was equal parts predictable and frightening, "But knives are not allowed on the planes."
 |
| cartoons via former TSA employee and cartoonist Bill Forster @ |
Link to the rest of Special Agent Moore's article at Gmancasefile blog.
23 March 2012
I am proud of my Southron heritage
"To you, Sons of Confederate Veterans, we will submit the vindication of the cause for which we fought; To your strength will be given the defense of the Confederate soldier's good name, the guardianship of his history, the emulation of his virtues, and the perpetuation of those principles he loved and which made him glorious and which you also cherish. Remember: It is your duty to see that the true history of the South is presented to future generations." --S.D. Lee, 1906
I became a life member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans this week.
Deo Vindice!
I became a life member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans this week.
Deo Vindice!
20 March 2012
Plea deal on felony NYC gun arrest of Tennessean
Link to article
No Justice in NYC:
A Tennessee woman arrested for trying to check her loaded gun at the 9/11 Memorial during a visit to the city has pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor weapons charge.
Meredith Graves, a 39-year-old a registered nurse from Knoxville, was spared jail time under the plea deal.
Her lawyer, Daniel Horwitz, said bringing the weapon to New York was "inadvertent," and that her actions did not constitute a crime in her home state.
Graves has a legal permit to carry a weapon in Tennessee, but New York's gun laws are among the strictest in the nation. It's illegal to carry a concealed weapon that is not licensed in New York even if it's licensed in another state.
The incident happened when Graves and her husband drove to the Big Apple for a job interview at a Long Island hospital last year. While in town Dec. 22, she decided to visit the 9/11 memorial and noticed a sign that said "No guns allowed," so she tried to check the loaded gun with security officials at the site. She was promptly arrested and hit with a felony weapons charge.
After court Monday, Horwitz said he engineered the plea deal in hopes the misdemeanor would not impact his client's ability to practice medicine in the field of her choice. She's due to graduate from a Tennessee medical school in May, Horwitz told The New York Post.
This was another perfect case for jury nullification--a victimless "crime" by a law abiding woman who sought security officials to secure her firearm. The law is immoral and unjust. The jurors would have had a chance to send a message to Mayor Bloomberg and the socialist city council in the People's Collectivist Progressive Republic of New York...
Pete Puma vs. Bugs Bunny = Americans vs. their government?
In my silly and overreaching attempt at an analogy, (used as an excuse to post a cartoon I've been quoting since I was a kid):
Americans are kind of like Pete Puma, and Bugs represents the IRS, regulatory agencies, and law enforcement arms of the Federal Leviathan.
Americans are used to living a certain way, earning, saving, and spending a certain way, but the government finds a way of delivering a bunch of lumps with that (taxes, regulations, minimum wage laws, Federal Reserve credit bubbles, planned inflation with fiat currency, eminent domain abuses, and the like).
So put upon Americans, if they are able, switch where they live, maybe careers, and the .gov finds a way to deliver a bunch more lumps...
Ultimately, and certainly of late, Americans, lulled into docility by nanny government and mainstream media visual opiates, decide they love big brother, and help themselves to a whole lotta lumps...
--------------------------
But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother [and gave himself a WHOLE LOTTA LUMPS-HM]. --George Orwell, 1984
19 March 2012
Why Yankees and Southerners will never (ever) agree on the history of the War Between the States
...and why we should care about it.
The American Revolution never ended.
The War Between the States was a true extension of the American Revolution, not a second revolution, and certainly not a Civil War.
Most do not think this way. Most will not either read written history, or write history this way.
Yankees and Southerners, for instance, will take the same historical event, or different sources about a specific event, and spin very different conclusions in their honest (speaking for myself, at least) pursuit of an objective truth.
What someone considers to be true is based, and can only ever be based, on the sum total of his/her life experiences. This is individual by definition. I thought otherwise when I decided to major in History at 18 or 19 years old, oh, it seems about a hundred years ago now. I thought with enough research, I could come to a more complete understanding of an issue of dispute in History, and help to convince others to think another way (i.e. the way I thought about a subject). Now, almost 30 years later, I know that historical study and publishing is only ever a polemic exercise. It just seems extreme or reasonable by how the author presents the material. The end result is bias.
The historian is never able to be truly objective, only objective insofar as his/her individual life experience will dictate--they are being "true" and seeking "truth", but only within their own mind. Each historian brings a specific agenda and perspective when they open up the first source to research a topic. The volume of information on certain subjects is too vast or sometimes too sparse to form a clear sense of the events as a whole, or the thought processes of the participants.
As Mises states below, the historian does not report facts, only facts that that historian considers relevant. One might argue that the most reasonable historians start a project with no preconceived notions, brings as much balance to the subject as his time dictates, and something approaching "truth" of an historical event will be the result. I would argue that if you analyze that historian's life experiences and know his basic beliefs before the project begins, you might be able to predict how that one person will conclude his research--even if that person is convinced that they had no preconceived notions at the outset.
Human Action, Ludwig Von Mises, 1949
Part I., Chap. 2, Sect. 7:
History is not an intellectual reproduction, but a condensed representation of the past in conceptual terms. The historian does not simply let the events speak for themselves. He arranges them from the aspect of the ideas underlying the formation of the general notions he uses in their presentation. He does not report facts as they happened, but only relevant facts. He does not approach the documents without presuppositions, but equipped with the whole apparatus of his age's scientific knowledge, that is, with all the teachings of contemporary logic, mathematics, praxeology, and natural science.
It is obvious that the historian must not be biased by any prejudices and party tenets. Those writers who consider historical events as an arsenal of weapons for the conduct of their party feuds are not historians but propagandists and apologists. They are not eager to acquire knowledge but to justify the program of their parties. [Mea culpa!] They are fighting for the dogmas of a metaphysical, religious, national, political, or social doctrine. They usurp the name of history for their writings as a blind in order to deceive the credulous. A historian must first of all aim at cognition. He must free himself from any partiality. He must in this sense be neutral with regard to any value judgments.
This postulate of Wertfreiheit [value or bias free] can easily be satisfied in the field of the aprioristic science—logic, mathematics, and praxeology—and in the field of the experimental natural sciences. It is logically not difficult to draw a sharp line between a scientific, unbiased treatment of these disciplines and a treatment distorted by superstition, preconceived ideas, and passion. It is much more difficult to comply with the requirement of valuational neutrality in history. For the subject matter of history, the concrete accidental and environmental content of human action, is value judgments and their projection into the reality of change. At every step of his activities the historian is concerned with value judgments. The value judgments of the men whose actions he reports are the substratum of his investigations.
The import of this subject in our day is clear to me:
We are in an ongoing Constitutional (and possibly existential) crisis in this country that parallels, or is identical to, the fight between the Hamiltonians and Jeffersonians.
This is the same Constitutional fight (morality of slavery arguments set aside as given) as between the Confederacy and the Union,
The same fight as the New England States and the governments of Jefferson and Madison in the years of the War of 1812,
The same fight as the collectivists/socialists and the laissez faire classical Liberals of the 19th Century,
The same fight as the Statists/Progressives and the Old Right of the Republican Party (which includes to some extent, the supporters of Goldwater, Reagan, the Congressional elections of 1994, the Tea Party, and supporters of Ron Paul),
and our fight--the Constitutional Conservatives against the end game of Crony Capitalist Statist Power--a moribund but huge Empire.
Ours is the fight to free the small units of government--State, town, family, and self, from the large far-away faceless power who has no connection or interest to local events or to you.
It is the fight between the producer of wealth and the confiscator of wealth.
It is a fight between the thief and the owner of private property.
It is a fight between those that say I own my own life, and those that say the purpose of your life is to serve others.
It is ultimately the fight to be left alone to literally mind one's own business.
The American Revolution never ended; it's just had a few cease fires...
The American Revolution never ended.
The War Between the States was a true extension of the American Revolution, not a second revolution, and certainly not a Civil War.
Most do not think this way. Most will not either read written history, or write history this way.
Yankees and Southerners, for instance, will take the same historical event, or different sources about a specific event, and spin very different conclusions in their honest (speaking for myself, at least) pursuit of an objective truth.
What someone considers to be true is based, and can only ever be based, on the sum total of his/her life experiences. This is individual by definition. I thought otherwise when I decided to major in History at 18 or 19 years old, oh, it seems about a hundred years ago now. I thought with enough research, I could come to a more complete understanding of an issue of dispute in History, and help to convince others to think another way (i.e. the way I thought about a subject). Now, almost 30 years later, I know that historical study and publishing is only ever a polemic exercise. It just seems extreme or reasonable by how the author presents the material. The end result is bias.
The historian is never able to be truly objective, only objective insofar as his/her individual life experience will dictate--they are being "true" and seeking "truth", but only within their own mind. Each historian brings a specific agenda and perspective when they open up the first source to research a topic. The volume of information on certain subjects is too vast or sometimes too sparse to form a clear sense of the events as a whole, or the thought processes of the participants.
As Mises states below, the historian does not report facts, only facts that that historian considers relevant. One might argue that the most reasonable historians start a project with no preconceived notions, brings as much balance to the subject as his time dictates, and something approaching "truth" of an historical event will be the result. I would argue that if you analyze that historian's life experiences and know his basic beliefs before the project begins, you might be able to predict how that one person will conclude his research--even if that person is convinced that they had no preconceived notions at the outset.
 |
| My bias: Original intent favors the Confederate stance on secession and the role of the Federal government as very limited in our lives. |
People who favor the Union perspectives, and version of the events of the War Between the States will therefore never find much, if any, common ground with the likes of Thomas DiLorenzo or other historians who shine favorable light upon the Confederacy. I think people who respond to anti Confederate rants on other blogs and newspaper articles have experienced the reality of this, but may be didn't think of it in these particular terms:
Human Action, Ludwig Von Mises, 1949
Part I., Chap. 2, Sect. 7:
History is not an intellectual reproduction, but a condensed representation of the past in conceptual terms. The historian does not simply let the events speak for themselves. He arranges them from the aspect of the ideas underlying the formation of the general notions he uses in their presentation. He does not report facts as they happened, but only relevant facts. He does not approach the documents without presuppositions, but equipped with the whole apparatus of his age's scientific knowledge, that is, with all the teachings of contemporary logic, mathematics, praxeology, and natural science.
It is obvious that the historian must not be biased by any prejudices and party tenets. Those writers who consider historical events as an arsenal of weapons for the conduct of their party feuds are not historians but propagandists and apologists. They are not eager to acquire knowledge but to justify the program of their parties. [Mea culpa!] They are fighting for the dogmas of a metaphysical, religious, national, political, or social doctrine. They usurp the name of history for their writings as a blind in order to deceive the credulous. A historian must first of all aim at cognition. He must free himself from any partiality. He must in this sense be neutral with regard to any value judgments.
This postulate of Wertfreiheit [value or bias free] can easily be satisfied in the field of the aprioristic science—logic, mathematics, and praxeology—and in the field of the experimental natural sciences. It is logically not difficult to draw a sharp line between a scientific, unbiased treatment of these disciplines and a treatment distorted by superstition, preconceived ideas, and passion. It is much more difficult to comply with the requirement of valuational neutrality in history. For the subject matter of history, the concrete accidental and environmental content of human action, is value judgments and their projection into the reality of change. At every step of his activities the historian is concerned with value judgments. The value judgments of the men whose actions he reports are the substratum of his investigations.
The import of this subject in our day is clear to me:
We are in an ongoing Constitutional (and possibly existential) crisis in this country that parallels, or is identical to, the fight between the Hamiltonians and Jeffersonians.
This is the same Constitutional fight (morality of slavery arguments set aside as given) as between the Confederacy and the Union,
The same fight as the New England States and the governments of Jefferson and Madison in the years of the War of 1812,
The same fight as the collectivists/socialists and the laissez faire classical Liberals of the 19th Century,
The same fight as the Statists/Progressives and the Old Right of the Republican Party (which includes to some extent, the supporters of Goldwater, Reagan, the Congressional elections of 1994, the Tea Party, and supporters of Ron Paul),
and our fight--the Constitutional Conservatives against the end game of Crony Capitalist Statist Power--a moribund but huge Empire.
Ours is the fight to free the small units of government--State, town, family, and self, from the large far-away faceless power who has no connection or interest to local events or to you.
It is the fight between the producer of wealth and the confiscator of wealth.
It is a fight between the thief and the owner of private property.
It is a fight between those that say I own my own life, and those that say the purpose of your life is to serve others.
It is ultimately the fight to be left alone to literally mind one's own business.
The American Revolution never ended; it's just had a few cease fires...
TSA molests wheelchair bound 3 year old
I don't know about you, but I feel safer now. Better swab that cast for explosives...
Little kid on his way to Disney from Chicago Ohare.
17 March 2012
NSA Operation Stellar Wind--Big Brother goes live in 2013
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.
--George Orwell
If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face, forever.
--George Orwell
It was terribly dangerous to let your thoughts wander when you were in any public place or within range of a telescreen. The smallest thing could give you away. A nervous tic, an unconscious look of anxiety, a habit of muttering to yourself—anything that carried with it the suggestion of abnormality, of having something to hide. In any case, to wear an improper expression on your face ... was itself a punishable offense. There was even a word for it in Newspeak: facecrime ...
--George Orwell
Thought you were communicating in privacy with PGP or hushmail? Nope.
Become familiar with the NSA's Utah Data Center and Operation Stellar Wind:
------------------------------
Under construction by contractors with top-secret clearances, the blandly named Utah Data Center is being built for the National Security Agency. A project of immense secrecy, it is the final piece in a complex puzzle assembled over the past decade. Its purpose: to intercept, decipher, analyze, and store vast swaths of the world’s communications as they zap down from satellites and zip through the underground and undersea cables of international, foreign, and domestic networks. The heavily fortified $2 billion center should be up and running in September 2013. Flowing through its servers and routers and stored in near-bottomless databases will be all forms of communication, including the complete contents of private emails, cell phone calls, and Google searches, as well as all sorts of personal data trails—parking receipts, travel itineraries, bookstore purchases, and other digital “pocket litter.” It is, in some measure, the realization of the “total information awareness” program created during the first term of the Bush administration—an effort that was killed by Congress in 2003 after it caused an outcry over its potential for invading Americans’ privacy.
But “this is more than just a data center,” says one senior intelligence official who until recently was involved with the program. The mammoth Bluffdale center will have another important and far more secret role that until now has gone unrevealed. It is also critical, he says, for breaking codes. And code-breaking is crucial, because much of the data that the center will handle—financial information, stock transactions, business deals, foreign military and diplomatic secrets, legal documents, confidential personal communications—will be heavily encrypted. According to another top official also involved with the program, the NSA made an enormous breakthrough several years ago in its ability to cryptanalyze, or break, unfathomably complex encryption systems employed by not only governments around the world but also many average computer users in the US.
The upshot, according to this official: “Everybody’s a target; everybody with communication is a target.”
NSA super-plans include:
-Computing power developed to break PGP and other strong privately utilized encryption. This apparently is close to being achieved, despite the fact that it takes 340 undecillion (10 to the 36th power) combinations to crack 128 bit.
-Most powerful computer in the world built in utmost secrecy in Tennessee. (The computing power achieved: Multiple petaflops, i.e. one quadrillion operations per second, with the goal of exoflop [one quintillion operations per second] speeds by 2018).
-The NSA also has the ability to eavesdrop on phone calls directly and in real time. 10-20 internal US wiretapping stations exist throughout the country. International cable landing points are tapped. -NSA/Pentagon Global Information Grid, global communications web, expanding to handle Yottabytes of data: one septillion bytes = one yottabyte = 500 quintillion pages of text.
[Whistleblower] Binney left the NSA in late 2001, shortly after the agency launched its warrantless-wiretapping program. “They violated the Constitution setting it up,” he says bluntly. “But they didn’t care. They were going to do it anyway, and they were going to crucify anyone who stood in the way. When they started violating the Constitution, I couldn’t stay.” According to Binney, one of the deepest secrets of the Stellar Wind program—again, never confirmed until now—was that the NSA gained warrantless access to AT&T’s vast trove of domestic and international billing records, detailed information about who called whom in the US and around the world. As of 2007, AT&T had more than 2.8 trillion records housed in a database at its Florham Park, New Jersey, complex. [Verizon also participates]
Sitting in a restaurant not far from NSA headquarters, the place where he spent nearly 40 years of his life, Binney held his thumb and forefinger close together. “We are, like, that far from a turnkey totalitarian state,” he says.
What's that awful smell? Oh, the government just passed some Stellar Wind...
---------------------------
From Wired magazine, via zerohedge.com
--George Orwell
If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face, forever.
--George Orwell
It was terribly dangerous to let your thoughts wander when you were in any public place or within range of a telescreen. The smallest thing could give you away. A nervous tic, an unconscious look of anxiety, a habit of muttering to yourself—anything that carried with it the suggestion of abnormality, of having something to hide. In any case, to wear an improper expression on your face ... was itself a punishable offense. There was even a word for it in Newspeak: facecrime ...
--George Orwell
Thought you were communicating in privacy with PGP or hushmail? Nope.
Become familiar with the NSA's Utah Data Center and Operation Stellar Wind:
------------------------------
Under construction by contractors with top-secret clearances, the blandly named Utah Data Center is being built for the National Security Agency. A project of immense secrecy, it is the final piece in a complex puzzle assembled over the past decade. Its purpose: to intercept, decipher, analyze, and store vast swaths of the world’s communications as they zap down from satellites and zip through the underground and undersea cables of international, foreign, and domestic networks. The heavily fortified $2 billion center should be up and running in September 2013. Flowing through its servers and routers and stored in near-bottomless databases will be all forms of communication, including the complete contents of private emails, cell phone calls, and Google searches, as well as all sorts of personal data trails—parking receipts, travel itineraries, bookstore purchases, and other digital “pocket litter.” It is, in some measure, the realization of the “total information awareness” program created during the first term of the Bush administration—an effort that was killed by Congress in 2003 after it caused an outcry over its potential for invading Americans’ privacy.
But “this is more than just a data center,” says one senior intelligence official who until recently was involved with the program. The mammoth Bluffdale center will have another important and far more secret role that until now has gone unrevealed. It is also critical, he says, for breaking codes. And code-breaking is crucial, because much of the data that the center will handle—financial information, stock transactions, business deals, foreign military and diplomatic secrets, legal documents, confidential personal communications—will be heavily encrypted. According to another top official also involved with the program, the NSA made an enormous breakthrough several years ago in its ability to cryptanalyze, or break, unfathomably complex encryption systems employed by not only governments around the world but also many average computer users in the US.
The upshot, according to this official: “Everybody’s a target; everybody with communication is a target.”
NSA super-plans include:
-Computing power developed to break PGP and other strong privately utilized encryption. This apparently is close to being achieved, despite the fact that it takes 340 undecillion (10 to the 36th power) combinations to crack 128 bit.
-Most powerful computer in the world built in utmost secrecy in Tennessee. (The computing power achieved: Multiple petaflops, i.e. one quadrillion operations per second, with the goal of exoflop [one quintillion operations per second] speeds by 2018).
-The NSA also has the ability to eavesdrop on phone calls directly and in real time. 10-20 internal US wiretapping stations exist throughout the country. International cable landing points are tapped. -NSA/Pentagon Global Information Grid, global communications web, expanding to handle Yottabytes of data: one septillion bytes = one yottabyte = 500 quintillion pages of text.
[Whistleblower] Binney left the NSA in late 2001, shortly after the agency launched its warrantless-wiretapping program. “They violated the Constitution setting it up,” he says bluntly. “But they didn’t care. They were going to do it anyway, and they were going to crucify anyone who stood in the way. When they started violating the Constitution, I couldn’t stay.” According to Binney, one of the deepest secrets of the Stellar Wind program—again, never confirmed until now—was that the NSA gained warrantless access to AT&T’s vast trove of domestic and international billing records, detailed information about who called whom in the US and around the world. As of 2007, AT&T had more than 2.8 trillion records housed in a database at its Florham Park, New Jersey, complex. [Verizon also participates]
Sitting in a restaurant not far from NSA headquarters, the place where he spent nearly 40 years of his life, Binney held his thumb and forefinger close together. “We are, like, that far from a turnkey totalitarian state,” he says.
What's that awful smell? Oh, the government just passed some Stellar Wind...
---------------------------
From Wired magazine, via zerohedge.com
16 March 2012
No more plea bargains: Demand your right to trial by jury, and crash the [unconstitutional] system
Via Fight the Power blog, from the New York Times:
AFTER years as a civil rights lawyer, I rarely find myself speechless. But some questions a woman I know posed during a phone conversation one recent evening gave me pause: “What would happen if we organized thousands, even hundreds of thousands, of people charged with crimes to refuse to play the game, to refuse to plea out? What if they all insisted on their Sixth Amendment right to trial? Couldn’t we bring the whole system to a halt just like that?” ...“The truth is that government officials have deliberately engineered the system to assure that the jury trial system established by the Constitution is seldom used,” said Timothy Lynch, director of the criminal justice project at the libertarian Cato Institute.
In other words: the system is rigged. In the race to incarcerate, politicians champion stiff sentences for nearly all crimes, including harsh mandatory minimum sentences and three-strikes laws; the result is a dramatic power shift, from judges to prosecutors. The Supreme Court ruled in 1978 that threatening someone with life imprisonment for a minor crime in an effort to induce him to forfeit a jury trial did not violate his Sixth Amendment right to trial. Thirteen years later, in Harmelin v. Michigan, the court ruled that life imprisonment for a first-time drug offense did not violate the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
...I launched, predictably, into a lecture about what prosecutors would do to people if they actually tried to stand up for their rights. The Bill of Rights guarantees the accused basic safeguards, including the right to be informed of charges against them, to an impartial, fair and speedy jury trial, to cross-examine witnesses and to the assistance of counsel. But in this era of mass incarceration — when our nation’s prison population has quintupled in a few decades partly as a result of the war on drugs and the “get tough” movement — these rights are, for the overwhelming majority of people hauled into courtrooms across America, theoretical.
More than 90 percent of criminal cases are never tried before a jury. Most people charged with crimes forfeit their constitutional rights and plead guilty.
AFTER years as a civil rights lawyer, I rarely find myself speechless. But some questions a woman I know posed during a phone conversation one recent evening gave me pause: “What would happen if we organized thousands, even hundreds of thousands, of people charged with crimes to refuse to play the game, to refuse to plea out? What if they all insisted on their Sixth Amendment right to trial? Couldn’t we bring the whole system to a halt just like that?” ...“The truth is that government officials have deliberately engineered the system to assure that the jury trial system established by the Constitution is seldom used,” said Timothy Lynch, director of the criminal justice project at the libertarian Cato Institute.
In other words: the system is rigged. In the race to incarcerate, politicians champion stiff sentences for nearly all crimes, including harsh mandatory minimum sentences and three-strikes laws; the result is a dramatic power shift, from judges to prosecutors. The Supreme Court ruled in 1978 that threatening someone with life imprisonment for a minor crime in an effort to induce him to forfeit a jury trial did not violate his Sixth Amendment right to trial. Thirteen years later, in Harmelin v. Michigan, the court ruled that life imprisonment for a first-time drug offense did not violate the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
...I launched, predictably, into a lecture about what prosecutors would do to people if they actually tried to stand up for their rights. The Bill of Rights guarantees the accused basic safeguards, including the right to be informed of charges against them, to an impartial, fair and speedy jury trial, to cross-examine witnesses and to the assistance of counsel. But in this era of mass incarceration — when our nation’s prison population has quintupled in a few decades partly as a result of the war on drugs and the “get tough” movement — these rights are, for the overwhelming majority of people hauled into courtrooms across America, theoretical.
More than 90 percent of criminal cases are never tried before a jury. Most people charged with crimes forfeit their constitutional rights and plead guilty.
14 March 2012
12 March 2012
MICROCHIP IMPLANT ALLOWS ENEMIES OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE TO SPEAK TO GOD
The implant is specifically designed to be injected in the forehead.
When properly installed, it will allow the foreign and/or domestic enemies of the Constitution to speak to God.
Modified from a mass email I received...
The implant is specifically designed to be injected in the forehead.
When properly installed, it will allow the foreign and/or domestic enemies of the Constitution to speak to God.
 |
| Microchips come in a wide variety of sizes (and insertion devices). |
11 March 2012
HR 347
The President has signed the bill, H.R. 347 into Law on March 9, 2012.
Here's what you need to know about it:
Text of First Amendment to the Constitution:
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.
Reality check of the implications of the new law from a local news station in Ohio:
Interesting side notes from the ACLU blog on H.R. 347:
It's important to note — contrary to some reports — that H.R. 347 doesn't create any new crimes, or directly apply to the Occupy protests.
The bill slightly rewrites a short trespass law, originally passed in 1971 and amended a couple of times since, that covers areas subject to heightened Secret Service security measures. These restricted areas include locations where individuals under Secret Service protection are temporarily located, and certain large special events like a presidential inauguration. They can also include large public events like the Super Bowl and the presidential nominating conventions (troublingly, the Department of Homeland Security has significant discretion in designating what qualifies as one of these special events). The original statute, unchanged by H.R. 347,made certain conduct with respect to these restricted areas a crime, including simple trespass, actions in or near the restricted area that would "disrupt the orderly conduct of Government," and blocking the entrance or exit to the restricted area. H.R. 347 did make one noteworthy change, which may make it easier for the Secret Service to overuse or misuse the statute to arrest lawful protesters. Without getting too much into the weeds, most crimes require the government to prove a certain state of mind. Under the original language of the law, you had to act "willfully and knowingly" when committing the crime. In short, you had to know your conduct was illegal. Under H.R. 347, you will simply need to act "knowingly," which here would mean that you know you're in a restricted area, but not necessarily that you're committing a crime.
As I have said before, in other polemics about the evil of big Government, they .gov opens the door with a (legislative) toe, then a foot, then a leg, then a (literal) SWAT team.
The individuals who willfully and knowingly participated in this criminal violation of the constitution broke their oath:
I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.
Oathbreakers:
-Members of Congress who voted for the bill.
-The President of the United States.
-Any federal or local law enforcement that will enforce it.
-Anyone who ever took the oath who votes for an oathbreaker.
Here's what you need to know about it:
Text of First Amendment to the Constitution:
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.
Reality check of the implications of the new law from a local news station in Ohio:
Interesting side notes from the ACLU blog on H.R. 347:
It's important to note — contrary to some reports — that H.R. 347 doesn't create any new crimes, or directly apply to the Occupy protests.
The bill slightly rewrites a short trespass law, originally passed in 1971 and amended a couple of times since, that covers areas subject to heightened Secret Service security measures. These restricted areas include locations where individuals under Secret Service protection are temporarily located, and certain large special events like a presidential inauguration. They can also include large public events like the Super Bowl and the presidential nominating conventions (troublingly, the Department of Homeland Security has significant discretion in designating what qualifies as one of these special events). The original statute, unchanged by H.R. 347,made certain conduct with respect to these restricted areas a crime, including simple trespass, actions in or near the restricted area that would "disrupt the orderly conduct of Government," and blocking the entrance or exit to the restricted area. H.R. 347 did make one noteworthy change, which may make it easier for the Secret Service to overuse or misuse the statute to arrest lawful protesters. Without getting too much into the weeds, most crimes require the government to prove a certain state of mind. Under the original language of the law, you had to act "willfully and knowingly" when committing the crime. In short, you had to know your conduct was illegal. Under H.R. 347, you will simply need to act "knowingly," which here would mean that you know you're in a restricted area, but not necessarily that you're committing a crime.
As I have said before, in other polemics about the evil of big Government, they .gov opens the door with a (legislative) toe, then a foot, then a leg, then a (literal) SWAT team.
The individuals who willfully and knowingly participated in this criminal violation of the constitution broke their oath:
I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.
Oathbreakers:
-Members of Congress who voted for the bill.
-The President of the United States.
-Any federal or local law enforcement that will enforce it.
-Anyone who ever took the oath who votes for an oathbreaker.
10 March 2012
Shame on the leadership of the United Daughters of the Confederacy
Hell has finally froze over!
From: georgiaflagger@joimail.com
Well y'all,
Today, March 10th, 2012, glaciers have officially replaced flames in Hell.
The United Daughters of the Confederacy National Headquarters in Richmond have become ALLIED with the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in their OPPOSITION to the RESTORATION of the BATTLEFLAGS on the CONFEDERATE WAR MEMORIAL CHAPEL.
FIRST the UDC HQ has said to USE A BATTLEFLAG is POLITICAL and they would not SUPPORT any efforts that included using a BATTLEFLAG to help the CHAPEL issue because the 501c3 tax status is MORE IMPORTANT than our ANCESTORS!
TODAY the UDC HQ called the Richmond Police to REMOVE the VIRGINIA FLAGGERS who have been successfully Flagging the VMFA to restore the BATTLEFLAGS for the past 6 months AND LIED TO THE OFFICERS to get them to respond!
I was present at the scene as it happened. The GUILTY are UDC President Martha Van Schaick and UDC Secretary of the Board of Trustees Mrs. Lucy Steele.
TOGETHER, the UDC and the VMFA stand PROUD against the CHAPEL, and against our ANCESTORS!
The battle flag is the military banner of an independent Confederacy of independent sovereign States, that has become more politicized over time. The formation of the Confederate States over 150 years ago, was, by definition, political.
To these two ladies I would say: Heritage is heritage. You must remember and honour your ancestry in it's own context. You should not think of the battle flag in the context of the collectivist multicultural empire in which you live today. I believe your mothers and grandmothers would ask you: Why support (i.e. lend vocal and financial support to preservation of heritage) the flag yesterday but not today?
Perhaps these two ladies should consider resigning from the UDC leadership. If what georgiaflagger says is true, Mrs. Van Shaick and Mrs. Steele appear to have deviated from the UDC mission.
From the UDC headquarters homepage:
If I'm not mistaken, the First National Flag is also "political".
via Chuck Demastus' Southern Heritage News and Views facebook feed and email newsletter.
From: georgiaflagger@joimail.com
Well y'all,
Today, March 10th, 2012, glaciers have officially replaced flames in Hell.
The United Daughters of the Confederacy National Headquarters in Richmond have become ALLIED with the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in their OPPOSITION to the RESTORATION of the BATTLEFLAGS on the CONFEDERATE WAR MEMORIAL CHAPEL.
FIRST the UDC HQ has said to USE A BATTLEFLAG is POLITICAL and they would not SUPPORT any efforts that included using a BATTLEFLAG to help the CHAPEL issue because the 501c3 tax status is MORE IMPORTANT than our ANCESTORS!
TODAY the UDC HQ called the Richmond Police to REMOVE the VIRGINIA FLAGGERS who have been successfully Flagging the VMFA to restore the BATTLEFLAGS for the past 6 months AND LIED TO THE OFFICERS to get them to respond!
I was present at the scene as it happened. The GUILTY are UDC President Martha Van Schaick and UDC Secretary of the Board of Trustees Mrs. Lucy Steele.
TOGETHER, the UDC and the VMFA stand PROUD against the CHAPEL, and against our ANCESTORS!
 |
| After 150 years, the flag has become too political for the UDC leadership?!? Shame on you! |
The battle flag is the military banner of an independent Confederacy of independent sovereign States, that has become more politicized over time. The formation of the Confederate States over 150 years ago, was, by definition, political.
To these two ladies I would say: Heritage is heritage. You must remember and honour your ancestry in it's own context. You should not think of the battle flag in the context of the collectivist multicultural empire in which you live today. I believe your mothers and grandmothers would ask you: Why support (i.e. lend vocal and financial support to preservation of heritage) the flag yesterday but not today?
Perhaps these two ladies should consider resigning from the UDC leadership. If what georgiaflagger says is true, Mrs. Van Shaick and Mrs. Steele appear to have deviated from the UDC mission.
From the UDC headquarters homepage:
 | InsigniaThe insignia of the United Daughters of the Confederacy is the First National Flag (Stars and Bars) of the Confederacy surrounded by a laurel wreath bearing the letters "UDC" under the flag; the whole is tied with a ribbon on which are inscribed the dates "1861-1865." |
If I'm not mistaken, the First National Flag is also "political".
via Chuck Demastus' Southern Heritage News and Views facebook feed and email newsletter.
07 March 2012
Nude body scanners easily defeated--Federal incompetence and crony capitalism.
Another example of the fine crony capitalism (Rapiscan/Chertoff) (Titan Group) brought to you by your federal government with your (yet again wasted) tax money.
This is DHS ignorance or incompetence, either way not good for you.
 |
| It's not just inconvenience, is it? |
4th Amendment thrown in the garbage.
You receive ionizing radiation without the desired benefit--what are they going to do now, have you also turn right and left, and double the radiation dose?
They are idiots, we suffer.
Feel safe yet?
06 March 2012
Enemies, Domestic: De Jure death of Due Process. Executive branch explains why it is your Judge, Jury, and Executioner.
(Often left leaning but consistent) Constitutionalist Glenn Greenwald writing in Salon.com:
In a speech at Northwestern University yesterday, Attorney General Eric Holder provided the most detailed explanation yet for why the Obama administration believes it has the authority to secretly target U.S. citizens for execution by the CIA without even charging them with a crime, notifying them of the accusations, or affording them an opportunity to respond, instead condemning them to death without a shred of transparency or judicial oversight. The administration continues to conceal the legal memorandum it obtained to justify these killings, and, as The New York Times‘ Charlie Savage noted, Holder’s “speech contained no footnotes or specific legal citations, and it fell far short of the level of detail contained in the Office of Legal Counsel memo.” But the crux of Holder’s argument as set forth in yesterday’s speech is this:
Some have argued that the president is required to get permission from a federal court before taking action against a United States citizen who is a senior operational leader of Al Qaeda or associated forces. This is simply not accurate. “Due process” and “judicial process” are not one and the same, particularly when it comes to national security. The Constitution guarantees due process, not judicial process.
Would someone please explain what judicial process is? I think he just made up the term. Very Orwellian, if I do say so:
When Obama officials (like Bush officials before them) refer to someone “who is a senior operational leader of Al Qaeda or associated forces,” what they mean is this: someone the President has accused and then decreed in secret to be a Terrorist without ever proving it with evidence. The “process” used by the Obama administration to target Americans for execution-by-CIA is, as reported last October by Reuters, as follows:
American militants like Anwar al-Awlaki are placed on a kill or capture list by a secretive panel of senior government officials, which then informs the president of its decisions . . . There is no public record of the operations or decisions of the panel, which is a subset of the White House’s National Security Council . . . Neither is there any law establishing its existence or setting out the rules by which it is supposed to operate.
As Leon Panetta recently confirmed, the President makes the ultimate decision as to whether the American will be killed: “[The] President of the United States obviously reviews these cases, reviews the legal justification, and in the end says, go or no go.”
So that is the “process” which Eric Holder yesterday argued constitutes “due process” as required by the Fifth Amendment before the government can deprive of someone of their life: the President and his underlings are your accuser, your judge, your jury and your executioner all wrapped up in one, acting in total secrecy and without your even knowing that he’s accused you and sentenced you to death, and you have no opportunity even to know about, let alone confront and address, his accusations; is that not enough due process for you? At Esquire, Charles Pierce, writing about Holder’s speech, described this best: “a monumental pile of crap that should embarrass every Democrat who ever said an unkind word about John Yoo.”
----------------------------
A little background for the curious:
Clause 39 of the Magna Carta provided:
No free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his rights or possessions, or outlawed or exiled, or deprived of his standing in any other way, nor will we proceed with force against him, or send others to do so, except by the lawful judgment of his equals or by the law of the land
New York was the only state that asked Congress to add "due process" language to the U.S. Constitution. New York ratified the U.S. Constitution and proposed the following amendment in 1788:
"[N]o Person ought to be taken imprisoned or diseased of his freehold, or be exiled or deprived of his Privileges, Franchises, Life, Liberty or Property but by due process of Law."
The Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides:
[N]or shall any person . . . be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law . . . .
Section One of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides:
[N]or shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law . . .
Alexander Hamilton commented on the language of that New York bill of rights: "The words 'due process' have a precise technical import, and are only applicable to the process and proceedings of the courts of justice; they can never be referred to an act of legislature."
[Or act of the Executive, one may presume.-HM]
Hey, Mr. Holder, Oath to preserve, protect, and defend what?
In a speech at Northwestern University yesterday, Attorney General Eric Holder provided the most detailed explanation yet for why the Obama administration believes it has the authority to secretly target U.S. citizens for execution by the CIA without even charging them with a crime, notifying them of the accusations, or affording them an opportunity to respond, instead condemning them to death without a shred of transparency or judicial oversight. The administration continues to conceal the legal memorandum it obtained to justify these killings, and, as The New York Times‘ Charlie Savage noted, Holder’s “speech contained no footnotes or specific legal citations, and it fell far short of the level of detail contained in the Office of Legal Counsel memo.” But the crux of Holder’s argument as set forth in yesterday’s speech is this:
Some have argued that the president is required to get permission from a federal court before taking action against a United States citizen who is a senior operational leader of Al Qaeda or associated forces. This is simply not accurate. “Due process” and “judicial process” are not one and the same, particularly when it comes to national security. The Constitution guarantees due process, not judicial process.
Would someone please explain what judicial process is? I think he just made up the term. Very Orwellian, if I do say so:
 |
| Commandmants of George Orwell's Animal Farm |
When Obama officials (like Bush officials before them) refer to someone “who is a senior operational leader of Al Qaeda or associated forces,” what they mean is this: someone the President has accused and then decreed in secret to be a Terrorist without ever proving it with evidence. The “process” used by the Obama administration to target Americans for execution-by-CIA is, as reported last October by Reuters, as follows:
American militants like Anwar al-Awlaki are placed on a kill or capture list by a secretive panel of senior government officials, which then informs the president of its decisions . . . There is no public record of the operations or decisions of the panel, which is a subset of the White House’s National Security Council . . . Neither is there any law establishing its existence or setting out the rules by which it is supposed to operate.
As Leon Panetta recently confirmed, the President makes the ultimate decision as to whether the American will be killed: “[The] President of the United States obviously reviews these cases, reviews the legal justification, and in the end says, go or no go.”
So that is the “process” which Eric Holder yesterday argued constitutes “due process” as required by the Fifth Amendment before the government can deprive of someone of their life: the President and his underlings are your accuser, your judge, your jury and your executioner all wrapped up in one, acting in total secrecy and without your even knowing that he’s accused you and sentenced you to death, and you have no opportunity even to know about, let alone confront and address, his accusations; is that not enough due process for you? At Esquire, Charles Pierce, writing about Holder’s speech, described this best: “a monumental pile of crap that should embarrass every Democrat who ever said an unkind word about John Yoo.”
----------------------------
A little background for the curious:
Clause 39 of the Magna Carta provided:
No free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his rights or possessions, or outlawed or exiled, or deprived of his standing in any other way, nor will we proceed with force against him, or send others to do so, except by the lawful judgment of his equals or by the law of the land
New York was the only state that asked Congress to add "due process" language to the U.S. Constitution. New York ratified the U.S. Constitution and proposed the following amendment in 1788:
"[N]o Person ought to be taken imprisoned or diseased of his freehold, or be exiled or deprived of his Privileges, Franchises, Life, Liberty or Property but by due process of Law."
The Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides:
[N]or shall any person . . . be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law . . . .
Section One of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides:
[N]or shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law . . .
Alexander Hamilton commented on the language of that New York bill of rights: "The words 'due process' have a precise technical import, and are only applicable to the process and proceedings of the courts of justice; they can never be referred to an act of legislature."
[Or act of the Executive, one may presume.-HM]
Hey, Mr. Holder, Oath to preserve, protect, and defend what?
04 March 2012
On The Articles of Confederation
The Articles of Confederation are one of the pieces of evidence that this country formed by a compact between newly declared independent States, rather than as a creation of some supreme National government, as the proponents of a strong central government (the path which led to Lincoln, the loss of a voluntary Republic in the WBTS, and the current Empire).
This past Wednesday, few commemorated the 231st anniversary of the ratification of the Articles of Confederation, the first Constitution of the United States.
This is unfortunate, because some of the fundamental principles for which Americans have bled for well over 230 years are set down in the Articles.
-------------------------
"There were four main problems with the Articles of Confederation.
First, it gave the new country no authority to establish an army.
Second, it had no power to make treaties with foreign governments.
Third, they were unable to print money.
Finally, they could not raise and collect taxes."
-- Park Ranger at Independence Hall in Philadelphia explaining to visitors why the Articles of Confederation were scrapped
Actually, if 9 of 13 (i.e. Two-thirds majority) States voted yea, the United States could declare war, coin money (not print paper), and make treaties with foreign governments. The States could not individually or in groups do any of these things by themselves, either, for that matter. At its founding, the United States had no designs on conquest, manifest destiny, making the world safe for democracy, striking out at enemies before they could strike first (so called Bush doctrine), or "nation build" elsewhere in the world. The priority was commerce, mutual defense, and preservation of the liberty of all citizens.
Here are some of the elements of the document relevant to our current political situation:
Limited power to the new government of the United States:
Article II. Each state retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence, and every Power, Jurisdiction, and right, which is not by this confederation expressly delegated to the United States, in Congress assembled.
Why join together to be "United"?
Article III. The said States hereby severally enter into a firm league of friendship with each other, for their common defense, the security of their liberties, and their mutual and general welfare, binding themselves to assist each other, against all force offered to, or attacks made upon them, or any of them, on account of religion, sovereignty, trade, or any other pretense whatever.
What does a citizen derive from the Union?
Article IV. The better to secure and perpetuate mutual friendship and intercourse among the people of the different States in this union, the free inhabitants of each of these States, paupers, vagabonds, and fugitives from justice excepted, shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of free citizens in the several States; and the people of each State shall have free ingress and regress to and from any other State, and shall enjoy therein all the privileges of trade and commerce,
Congress' specifically delegated powers:
"The United States in Congress assembled shall also have the sole and exclusive right and power of regulating the alloy and value of coin struck by their own authority, or by that of the respective States — fixing the standards of weights and measures throughout the United States — regulating the trade and managing all affairs with the Indians, not members of any of the States, provided that the legislative right of any State within its own limits be not infringed or violated — establishing or regulating post offices from one State to another, throughout all the United States, and exacting such postage on the papers passing through the same as may be requisite to defray the expenses of the said office — appointing all officers of the land forces, in the service of the United States, excepting regimental officers — appointing all the officers of the naval forces, and commissioning all officers whatever in the service of the United States — making rules for the government and regulation of the said land and naval forces, and directing their operations."
Executive Branch's weak specifically delegated powers:
"The United States in Congress assembled shall have authority to appoint a committee, to sit in the recess of Congress, to be denominated 'A Committee of the States', and to consist of one delegate from each State; and to appoint such other committees and civil officers as may be necessary for managing the general affairs of the United States under their direction — to appoint one of their members to preside, provided that no person be allowed to serve in the office of president more than one year in any term of three years; to ascertain the necessary sums of money to be raised for the service of the United States, and to appropriate and apply the same for defraying the public expenses — to borrow money, or emit bills on the credit of the United States, transmitting every half-year to the respective States an account of the sums of money so borrowed or emitted — to build and equip a navy — to agree upon the number of land forces, and to make requisitions from each State for its quota, in proportion to the number of white inhabitants in such State..."
We see by examination of this document how far we have diverged from the republic of the United States.
Today:
We have Empire--using military force to protect and expand corporate interests abroad. Using military force to change governments in sovereign nations and essentially force people of far flung cultures to accept our "way of life".
We have a non representative Congress that fronts for and legitimizes crony Capitalism.
We have political and oligarchical elites that are above the law applied to mundane citizens (a de facto Aristocracy without official titles).
We have forced confiscation of private property in the form of a personal income tax, planned inflation, and eminent domain.
We have Socialism--a system of legalized plunder--where confiscated private property is given to individuals who have in no way earned a right to this wealth. This system is a well documented disincentivization of working towards one's own betterment through personal effort and innovation. It is what we fought against during the Cold War.
We have an all powerful Executive (Patriot Act and NDAA of 2012) that flouts the checks and balances with barely any opposition from the Legislative or Judicial Branches. The Founders' generation fought the Revolution against a tyranny of lesser but similar power.
We have forced violations of person by Federal "Law enforcement" personnel (ironically and apparently in ignorance) sword to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States. Examples of random traffic stops by VIPR teams on highways, train stations, and of course, the TSA.
We have warrantless searches and SWAT teams bursting into homes, destroying life and property with minimal relative impunity.
When the economic hardships are bad enough, and the oppression of the people is bad enough, the direction of the country will change. It is way too early to tell if the change will be minor backsliding, or a major upheaval.
My hope is that at least a portion of this country, most likely parts of the Old South and Western States, will reestablish principles of liberty and small government that helped make this country the envy and desire of people all over the world, with the kind of true (non-Crony) laissez faire Capitalist market that leads to increasing prosperity for the greatest majority.
I believe that the best government is the one where the people can "access," and when necessary, "lay hands on" their representatives in government. There should be, by law, no such thing as a professional politician. The smaller the government, the less incentive/temptation there is for potential unpatriotic and oligarchical elements to attempt to corrupt that government.
Such was the type of "weak" government that existed at the time of the Articles of Confederation. I do not long for those times, or that particular construct of government. I think we should learn from the mistakes of the past, as the Founders learned from their knowledge of Classical and Medieval civilizations' successes and failures--and tried to create the original Republic with the Constitution and Bill of Rights. The language of any future constitution or Amendment to the current Constitution must be crystal clear. There was far too much room for variable interpretation for a motivated political class to distort original meaning.
The type of Revolution that I hope and work for, is one that must come from below, from the people (Read TH Breen's American Insurgents, American Patriots, about how the people led the political class and forced the war against England, and the secession of the American colonies from the British Empire).
If the people, yearning for real liberty again, lead the way, the political elite and their oligarchical cronies will become irrelevant--it has happened before, and G-d willing, will happen again.
If you fight for these ideas, you fight for these still yet Revolutionary principles: Your life is yours to live; your liberty is a gift from the Creator, and your property is your own. You cannot expect others to fight for you. Never think you fight for your government, the current political leader, the flag, or the "country".
You fight for yourself.
This past Wednesday, few commemorated the 231st anniversary of the ratification of the Articles of Confederation, the first Constitution of the United States.
This is unfortunate, because some of the fundamental principles for which Americans have bled for well over 230 years are set down in the Articles.
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| John Hanson of Maryland, first President of the United States of America under the Articles of Confederation |
"There were four main problems with the Articles of Confederation.
First, it gave the new country no authority to establish an army.
Second, it had no power to make treaties with foreign governments.
Third, they were unable to print money.
Finally, they could not raise and collect taxes."
-- Park Ranger at Independence Hall in Philadelphia explaining to visitors why the Articles of Confederation were scrapped
Actually, if 9 of 13 (i.e. Two-thirds majority) States voted yea, the United States could declare war, coin money (not print paper), and make treaties with foreign governments. The States could not individually or in groups do any of these things by themselves, either, for that matter. At its founding, the United States had no designs on conquest, manifest destiny, making the world safe for democracy, striking out at enemies before they could strike first (so called Bush doctrine), or "nation build" elsewhere in the world. The priority was commerce, mutual defense, and preservation of the liberty of all citizens.
Here are some of the elements of the document relevant to our current political situation:
Limited power to the new government of the United States:
Article II. Each state retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence, and every Power, Jurisdiction, and right, which is not by this confederation expressly delegated to the United States, in Congress assembled.
Why join together to be "United"?
Article III. The said States hereby severally enter into a firm league of friendship with each other, for their common defense, the security of their liberties, and their mutual and general welfare, binding themselves to assist each other, against all force offered to, or attacks made upon them, or any of them, on account of religion, sovereignty, trade, or any other pretense whatever.
What does a citizen derive from the Union?
Article IV. The better to secure and perpetuate mutual friendship and intercourse among the people of the different States in this union, the free inhabitants of each of these States, paupers, vagabonds, and fugitives from justice excepted, shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of free citizens in the several States; and the people of each State shall have free ingress and regress to and from any other State, and shall enjoy therein all the privileges of trade and commerce,
Congress' specifically delegated powers:
"The United States in Congress assembled shall also have the sole and exclusive right and power of regulating the alloy and value of coin struck by their own authority, or by that of the respective States — fixing the standards of weights and measures throughout the United States — regulating the trade and managing all affairs with the Indians, not members of any of the States, provided that the legislative right of any State within its own limits be not infringed or violated — establishing or regulating post offices from one State to another, throughout all the United States, and exacting such postage on the papers passing through the same as may be requisite to defray the expenses of the said office — appointing all officers of the land forces, in the service of the United States, excepting regimental officers — appointing all the officers of the naval forces, and commissioning all officers whatever in the service of the United States — making rules for the government and regulation of the said land and naval forces, and directing their operations."
Executive Branch's weak specifically delegated powers:
"The United States in Congress assembled shall have authority to appoint a committee, to sit in the recess of Congress, to be denominated 'A Committee of the States', and to consist of one delegate from each State; and to appoint such other committees and civil officers as may be necessary for managing the general affairs of the United States under their direction — to appoint one of their members to preside, provided that no person be allowed to serve in the office of president more than one year in any term of three years; to ascertain the necessary sums of money to be raised for the service of the United States, and to appropriate and apply the same for defraying the public expenses — to borrow money, or emit bills on the credit of the United States, transmitting every half-year to the respective States an account of the sums of money so borrowed or emitted — to build and equip a navy — to agree upon the number of land forces, and to make requisitions from each State for its quota, in proportion to the number of white inhabitants in such State..."
We see by examination of this document how far we have diverged from the republic of the United States.
Today:
We have Empire--using military force to protect and expand corporate interests abroad. Using military force to change governments in sovereign nations and essentially force people of far flung cultures to accept our "way of life".
We have a non representative Congress that fronts for and legitimizes crony Capitalism.
We have political and oligarchical elites that are above the law applied to mundane citizens (a de facto Aristocracy without official titles).
We have forced confiscation of private property in the form of a personal income tax, planned inflation, and eminent domain.
We have Socialism--a system of legalized plunder--where confiscated private property is given to individuals who have in no way earned a right to this wealth. This system is a well documented disincentivization of working towards one's own betterment through personal effort and innovation. It is what we fought against during the Cold War.
We have an all powerful Executive (Patriot Act and NDAA of 2012) that flouts the checks and balances with barely any opposition from the Legislative or Judicial Branches. The Founders' generation fought the Revolution against a tyranny of lesser but similar power.
We have forced violations of person by Federal "Law enforcement" personnel (ironically and apparently in ignorance) sword to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States. Examples of random traffic stops by VIPR teams on highways, train stations, and of course, the TSA.
We have warrantless searches and SWAT teams bursting into homes, destroying life and property with minimal relative impunity.
When the economic hardships are bad enough, and the oppression of the people is bad enough, the direction of the country will change. It is way too early to tell if the change will be minor backsliding, or a major upheaval.
My hope is that at least a portion of this country, most likely parts of the Old South and Western States, will reestablish principles of liberty and small government that helped make this country the envy and desire of people all over the world, with the kind of true (non-Crony) laissez faire Capitalist market that leads to increasing prosperity for the greatest majority.
I believe that the best government is the one where the people can "access," and when necessary, "lay hands on" their representatives in government. There should be, by law, no such thing as a professional politician. The smaller the government, the less incentive/temptation there is for potential unpatriotic and oligarchical elements to attempt to corrupt that government.
Such was the type of "weak" government that existed at the time of the Articles of Confederation. I do not long for those times, or that particular construct of government. I think we should learn from the mistakes of the past, as the Founders learned from their knowledge of Classical and Medieval civilizations' successes and failures--and tried to create the original Republic with the Constitution and Bill of Rights. The language of any future constitution or Amendment to the current Constitution must be crystal clear. There was far too much room for variable interpretation for a motivated political class to distort original meaning.
The type of Revolution that I hope and work for, is one that must come from below, from the people (Read TH Breen's American Insurgents, American Patriots, about how the people led the political class and forced the war against England, and the secession of the American colonies from the British Empire).
If the people, yearning for real liberty again, lead the way, the political elite and their oligarchical cronies will become irrelevant--it has happened before, and G-d willing, will happen again.
If you fight for these ideas, you fight for these still yet Revolutionary principles: Your life is yours to live; your liberty is a gift from the Creator, and your property is your own. You cannot expect others to fight for you. Never think you fight for your government, the current political leader, the flag, or the "country".
You fight for yourself.
03 March 2012
To LEO's and current serving military:
To the men and women currently serving as law enforcement and military:
I remind you that your oath is not to your commanding officer or the President, but to the Constitution.
If you act in defense of the political class at the expense of the people in violation of the Constitution, if you conduct warrantless searches, if you confiscate private property, including firearms, of American citizens, help to arrest and imprison American citizens under the NDAA, help to kill an American citizen (i.e. without due process as guaranteed by the Constitution) arbitrarily declared an enemy combatant by the Executive branch, then you have violated your sacred oath, and have become the teeth and claws of the Beast.
You may gain a paycheck for this work, but what will you lose?
What is "fighting for freedom"? It is fighting for freedom from the tyranny of government.
You enforce the law with teamwork and powerful weaponry. You have the thought or motivation that your efforts are on behalf of law and Justice.
What is the law for?
The only mandate for law (in any human society) is to protect and preserve the life and property of individuals. Anything else is a distortion of law, and the concept of Justice.
Ponder this:
"I believe in adequate defense at the coastline and nothing else. If a nation comes over here to fight, then we'll fight. The trouble with America is that when the dollar only earns 6 percent over here, then it gets restless and goes overseas to get 100 percent. Then the flag follows the dollar and the soldiers follow the flag.
I wouldn't go to war again as I have done to protect some lousy investment of the bankers. There are only two things we should fight for. One is the defense of our homes and the other is the Bill of Rights. War for any other reason is simply a racket.
"...It may seem odd for me, a military man to adopt such a comparison. Truthfulness compels me to. I spent thirty- three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country's most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle- man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for [i.e. Crony-HM] capitalism."
-- Smedley Butler, 1933 speech
I remind you that your oath is not to your commanding officer or the President, but to the Constitution.
If you act in defense of the political class at the expense of the people in violation of the Constitution, if you conduct warrantless searches, if you confiscate private property, including firearms, of American citizens, help to arrest and imprison American citizens under the NDAA, help to kill an American citizen (i.e. without due process as guaranteed by the Constitution) arbitrarily declared an enemy combatant by the Executive branch, then you have violated your sacred oath, and have become the teeth and claws of the Beast.
You may gain a paycheck for this work, but what will you lose?
What is "fighting for freedom"? It is fighting for freedom from the tyranny of government.
You enforce the law with teamwork and powerful weaponry. You have the thought or motivation that your efforts are on behalf of law and Justice.
What is the law for?
The only mandate for law (in any human society) is to protect and preserve the life and property of individuals. Anything else is a distortion of law, and the concept of Justice.
Ponder this:
"I believe in adequate defense at the coastline and nothing else. If a nation comes over here to fight, then we'll fight. The trouble with America is that when the dollar only earns 6 percent over here, then it gets restless and goes overseas to get 100 percent. Then the flag follows the dollar and the soldiers follow the flag.
I wouldn't go to war again as I have done to protect some lousy investment of the bankers. There are only two things we should fight for. One is the defense of our homes and the other is the Bill of Rights. War for any other reason is simply a racket.
"...It may seem odd for me, a military man to adopt such a comparison. Truthfulness compels me to. I spent thirty- three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country's most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle- man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for [i.e. Crony-HM] capitalism."
-- Smedley Butler, 1933 speech
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