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Police State • Bye-bye 5th Amendment!
Bye-bye 5th Amendment! Supreme Court Decides: Anything You Don’t Say Can and Will Be Used Against You
Daisy Luther
June 19th, 2013
The Organic Prepper
Everyone knows that when building a police state, it’s vital to strike a few Constitutional rights off the books. Now, we can add the right to remain silent to the graveyard of the American justice system. How can you expect the people to be properly subjugated with all those pesky freedoms that the Bill of Rights blathers on about?
The would-be totalitarians can chalk up another victory, because the Supreme Court has made the decision that if you opt to remain silent, that silence can (and will) be used against you in a court of law.
The Fifth Amendment to the Constitution guarantees our right against self-incrimination.
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
The Supreme Court said that unless a person specifically asks for their Fifth Amendment right to remain silence, that your silence can be used as an indication of guilt. The case was brought to court on the basis of an unconstitutional prosecution against Genovevo Salinas. Justice Alito, who has a history of excusing the most disturbing abuses in favor of the government, said,“[Salinas'] Fifth Amendment claim fails because he did not expressly invoke the privilege against self-incrimination in response to the officer’s question. It has long been settled that the privilege `generally is not self-executing’ and that a witness who desires its protection `must claim it.’”
So, the advice to sit there and keep your mouth shut, should you be unfortunate enough to have been accused of committing a crime, is no longer the best option. If the police fail to read you your Miranda warning, you must explicitly say that you are claiming your Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate yourself. In stating that, aren’t you, in fact, letting the police know that a crime, has indeed been committed by you? The right to remain silent is supposed to mean just that – you can refuse to answer questions and your silence will not be used against you.
Justice Breyer said, in his dissent:
“The need to categorize Salinas’ silence as based on the Fifth Amendment is supported here by the presence, in full force, of the predicament I discussed earlier, namely that of not forcing Salinas to choose between incrimination through speech and incrimination through silence. That need is also supported by the absence of any special reason that the police had to know, with certainty, whether Salinas was, in fact, relying on the Fifth Amendment—such as whether to doubt that there really was a risk of self-incrimination, see Hoffman v. United States, 341 U. S. 479, 486 (1951), or whether to grant immunity, see Kastigar, 406 U. S., at 448. Given these circumstances, Salinas’ silence was “sufficient to put the [government] on notice of an apparent claim of the privilege.” Quinn, supra, at 164. That being so, for reasons similar to those given in Griffin, the Fifth Amendment bars the evidence of silence admitted against Salinas and mentioned by the prosecutor.”
In 2001, Ohio vs. Reiner, the Supreme Court ruled that “a witness may have a reasonable fear of prosecution and yet be innocent of any wrongdoing. The privilege serves to protect the innocent who otherwise might be ensnared by ambiguous circumstances.”
Apparently they have changed their minds.
As Justice Breyer said, you must now choose whether to incriminate yourself through speech and incriminate yourself through silence. I wasn’t there when they wrote it, but I really don’t think that “devil and the deep blue sea” decision is what the authors of the Fifth Amendment had in mind.
The “Supreme Court” is a joke.
Yesterday it was announced that they struck down the need to prove your citizenship in order to vote in the United States – all you have to do is say you’re an American, and then “poof – here’s a ballot!” They have decided again and again in favor of huge, evil corporations like Monsanto. They have decided in favor of Obamacare. The conflicts of interest within the Supreme Court, large corporations, the banking industry, and the government are so blatant that they don’t even bother to defend themselves against accusations of such.
The checks and balances designed to be in place with the three branches of power are all leaning to one side – there is no balance. We are collapsing into a police state, and the Judicial branch has just tipped us even further into that deep hole. It would be difficult to argue that this destruction of our freedom is not deliberate.
The Justices of the highest court in the land don their robes, they hear these cases, and they destroy the Constitution, amendment by amendment.
Please feel free to share any information from this article in part or in full, giving credit to the author and including a link to her website and the following bio.
Daisy Luther is a freelance writer and editor. Her website, The Organic Prepper, offers information on healthy prepping, including premium nutritional choices, general wellness and non-tech solutions. You can follow Daisy on Facebook and Twitter, and you can email her at daisy@theorganicprepper.ca
http://www.shtfplan.com/headline-news/b … u_06192013
Statistics: Posted by yoda — Wed Jun 19, 2013 12:33 am
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Police State • Obamas Secret Police Know You Are Reading This
http://personalliberty.com/2013/06/12/w … ding-this/
Statistics: Posted by singular — Sat Jun 15, 2013 5:24 am
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Censorship in the National Security State
Tim Lynch
Today the Washington Post says the federal government “should allow” Google and other business firms “to say a little more about their relationship with the government.” It is a telling indication of our “relationship with the government” that we are now pleading for freedom of speech.
Quick story to illustrate this point. Nick Merill is a business person in the telecommunications and web services field and one day federal agents brought him a “national security letter.” Astonished by what the “letter” demanded of him, Merill sought legal advice even though the government threatened him with jail if he told anyone else about his “letter.” I invited Merill to a Cato event on Capitol Hill. Listen to his story and then forward it across the internet so others will have a better idea of what the government is doing.
It seems to me that Edward Snowden has put his liberty on the line to sound the alarm about the national security state. I agree with what security expert, Bruce Schneier, wrote the other day in the New York Times, “I believe that history will hail Snowden as a hero – his whistle-blowing exposed a surveillance state and a secrecy machine run amok. I’m less optimistic of how the present day will treat him, and hope that the debate right now is less about the man and more about the government he exposed.”
More Cato work here, here, and here.
View full post on Cato @ Liberty
Police State • High Profiling Doug Hagmann against NSA
Insider Reports, Benghazi
High Profiling Doug Hagmann against NSA
By Judi McLeod
Wednesday, June 12, 2013
His name is Doug. Douglas J. Hagmann. That’s the name his Mama entered on his American birth certificate. That’s the name that will someday go on his gravestone.
More than half a million readers learned Doug Hagmann’s name last Friday after he wrote a column trying to warn Americans, “It’s about to get very ugly” and millions more have read his Insider Reports published on Canada Free Press (CFP).
Detractors will swim in like sharks begging to differ, but Hagmann was among the first, if not the first to spread the truth about Benghazi; that four courageous Americans lost their lives most tragically there not because of an anti-Muslim video but because the American administration they worked for was running guns into Syria through Turkey.
Hagmann’s growing appeal to mega readers comes from the 30-plus years he has under his belt working in the field as a seasoned private investigator and the contacts with law-and-order types made and still being made during a career in which he is still active. People thirsting for the truth in government-issued propaganda in the confusing White Noise of the day are more likely to believe someone with that kind of track record in hard core investigation.
Add to Hagmann’s own ability that his articles for the past eight years have been posted on a private, independent news site with a reputation of credibility; that he now has a popular, three-hour weeknight and Sunday Internet radio show, the Hagmann-Hagmann Report with his son Joe, and you can see Hagmann’s plight more clearly.
The powers that be in the scandal-ridden government are on an unholy tear to suppress and silence anyone not swallowing the Marxist line, including most shamefully, patriotic, elderly, law-abiding citizens. The IRS that can make or break you, is making and breaking you. Rather than being pushed back from power, their bureaucrats will go on to administer Obama’s ominous health care—an IRS-run ObamaCare!
During the ongoing IRS scandal, Americans found out almost overnight that for almost the past 12 years, Big Brother has not just been watching them, but capturing every aspect of their private citizen lives. The Hollywood movie nightmares about someone watching you while you sleep, are now chilling real-life reality.
Hagmann’s “It’s about to get very ugly” piece preceded—by a single day—the ‘NSA is watching you’ revelations of former CIA operative/NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.
This is how Snowden described the dangers of massive NSA data mining of the civilian population:
“…even if you’re not doing anything wrong you’re being watched and recorded. And the storage capability of these systems increases every year consistently by orders of magnitude to where it’s getting to the point where you don’t have to have done anything wrong. You simply have to eventually fall under suspicion from somebody even by a wrong call. And then they can use this system to go back in time and scrutinize every decision you’ve ever made, every friend you’ve ever discussed something with. And attack you on that basis to sort to derive suspicion from an innocent life and paint anyone in the context of a wrongdoer.” (Fox News, June 11, 2013).
That day may already have come for Doug Hagmann, who, because he’s a husband, father, and a proud American citizen, does not have the option of going on the lam.
Like many other reporters and whistleblowers Hagmann is much more a sitting duck than a moving target.
And he’s been told by a credible security source that an active investigation file has been opened against him by NSA.
Hagmann’s CFP colleague, Whistleblower author Marinka Peschmann has filled out a FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) request to NSA on Hagmann.
While there are those will say “fat chance” of them ever getting back to her, rather than just sitting there waiting for the knock on the door from visiting feds, you’ve got to start somewhere.
As someone who has been a lifelong journalist, I know that the higher a person’s profile, the safer they usually are, and even though television and radio hosts are not exactly beating down his door to get him airtime, this is why I cling to the faint hope that anyone who picks up on Hagmann’s work will specifically identify him by name.
More worried about his family than himself, Hagmann, a God-fearing man, insists his faith will see him through.
If CFP readers continue to get his name out there the way they have been doing the last five days, Hagmann may be all the more safe from harm because of the high profile it affords him.
That’s why I find myself repeating to myself these turbulent days: “His name is Doug Hagmann”.
http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/55844
Statistics: Posted by yoda — Wed Jun 12, 2013 10:20 am
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Police State • Re: Why The Surveillance State Must Be Erased
Here it is, the reason the system gets away with "murder".
Note the underlined area. Things will not happen unless everyone gets the message embodied in the animated movie, "Its a Bugs Life" and realize that the people are being victimized by system "grasshoppers".
Mr Snowden is a brave man, and if we all had the same attitude, things would and could change real fast. Yet the problem is nobody wants to sacrifice in any way to put the ship back on course. This is the way it is with most organizations, you have a few people willing to do what it takes and others who just get in the way, typical nay sayers who are part of the problem and who shold get the boot as they are a hindrance to rectifying the situation.
———————-
Whatever Snowden’s original intentions, I find his admitted reasons inspiring. When asked why he forced the truth of PRISM into the mainstream, Snowden replied:
"I don’t want to live in a society that does these sort of things … I do not want to live in a world where everything I do and say is recorded. That is not something I am willing to support or live under…"
"I’m willing to sacrifice all of that [career and former life] because I can’t in good conscience allow the U.S. government to destroy privacy, Internet freedom and basic liberties for people around the world with this massive surveillance machine they’re secretly building."
"My sole motive is to inform the public as to that which was done in their name and that which is done against them…I understand that I will be made to suffer for my actions. I will be satisfied if the federation of secret law, unequal pardon and irresistible executive powers that rule the world that I love are revealed even for an instant."
The surveillance machine is the key to control. When each person feels the eyes of the state constantly upon them, dissent and rebellion becomes unthinkable. At the very least, those of us who are aware of the great Orwellian shift before us must take an immovable stand.
The right to privacy is an inherent right of natural law. No individual or government system should be allowed legal precedence to invade my privacy, and all people have the right to be treated as innocent until proven guilty rather than guilty until proven innocent. As an individual, I do not owe the collective, or the government, a constant update on whether or not I am a "threat". In fact, I don’t owe anyone anything.
If someone continues to treat me as an enemy and constantly tramples my natural right to privacy, I am going to fight them, and I am going to hurt them, perhaps mortally. This is what people who support surveillance society need to understand; there will be consequences for their trespasses against the natural rights of others.
There can be no negotiation. There can be no compromise. The surveillance state must be erased.
Statistics: Posted by singular — Wed Jun 12, 2013 6:09 am
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Police State • FBI sharply increases use of Patriot Act provision to collec
FBI sharply increases use of Patriot Act provision to collect US citizens’ records
By Michael Isikoff
National Investigative Correspondent, NBC News
The FBI has dramatically increased its use of a controversial provision of the Patriot Act to secretly obtain a vast store of business records of U.S. citizens under President Barack Obama, according to recent Justice Department reports to Congress. The bureau filed 212 requests for such data to a national security court last year – a 1,000-percent increase from the number of such requests four years earlier, the reports show.
The FBI’s increased use of the Patriot Act’s “business records” provision — and the wide ranging scope of its requests — is getting new scrutiny in light of last week’s disclosure that that the provision was used to obtain a top-secret national security order requiring telecommunications companies to turn over records of millions of telephone calls.
Taken together, experts say, those revelations show the government has broadly interpreted the Patriot Act provision as enabling it to collect data not just on specific individuals, but on millions of Americans with no suspected terrorist connections. And it shows that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court accepted that broad interpretation of the law.
——————————————————————————–
“That they were using this (provision) to do mass collection of data is definitely the biggest surprise,” said Robert Chesney, a top national security lawyer at the University of Texas Law School. “Most people who followed this closely were not aware they were doing this. We’ve gone from producing records for a particular investigation to the production of all records for a massive pre-collection database. It’s incredibly sweeping.”
The Justice Department and FBI did not respond to requests for comment. But in a recent interview with NBC News, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper dismissed the idea that the records were being used to spy on innocent Americans. “The notion that we’re trolling through everyone’s emails and voyeuristically reading them, or listening to everyone’s phone calls is, on its face, absurd,” he said. “We couldn’t do that even if we wanted to.”
But little-noticed statements by FBI Director Robert Mueller in recent years – as well as interviews with former senior law enforcement officials – hint at what Chesney calls a largely unnoticed “sea change” in the way the U.S. government collects data for terrorism and other national security investigations.
Edward Snowden, the man who revealed details of the NSA’s surveillance program, will be making more sensitive information public, according to The Guardian. Meanwhile, the intelligence community is assessing the damage of the information Snowden has leaked. NBC’s Andrea Mitchell reports.
The Patriot Act provision, known as Section 215, allows the FBI to require the production of business records and any other “tangible things” — including “books, records, papers, documents and other items,” for an authorized terrorism or foreign intelligence investigation. The Patriot Act was a broad expansion of law enforcement powers enacted by Congress with overwhelming bipartisan support in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. In addition to Section 215, other provisions expanded the FBI’s power to issue so-called “national security letters,” requiring individuals and business to turn over a more limited set of records without any court order at all.
In contrast to standard grand jury subpoenas, material obtained under both Section 215 orders and national security letters must be turned over under so-called “gag orders” that forbid the business or institution that receives the order from notifying its customers or publicly referring to the matter.
From the earliest days of the Patriot Act, Section 215 was among the most hotly disputed of its provisions. Critics charged the language – “tangible things” — was so broad that it would even permit the FBI to obtain library and bookstore records to inspect what citizens were reading.
Ashcroft confronted criticism
Largely to tamp down those concerns, then-Attorney General John Ashcroft declassified information about the FBI’s use of the provision in September 2003, saying in a statement that “the number of times Section 215 has been used to date is zero.” Ashcroft added that he was releasing the information “to counter the troubling amount of public distortion and misinformation” about Section 215.
But in the years since, the FBI’s use of Section 215 quietly exploded, with virtually no public notice or debate. In 2009, as part of an annual report to Congress, the Justice Department reported there had been 21 applications for business records to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) under Section 215 – all of which were granted, though nine were modified by the court. (The reports do not explain how or why the orders were modified.)
Advertise | AdChoicesIn 2010, the number of requests jumped to 205 (all again granted, with 176 modified.) In the latest report filed on April 30, the department reported there had been 212 such requests in 2012 – all approved by the court, but 200 of them modified.
These sharp increase in the use of Section 215 has drawn little attention until now because the number of national security letters (NSLs) issued by the bureau has been so much greater — 15,229 in 2012. But FBI Director Mueller, in little-noticed written responses to Congress two years ago, explained that the bureau was encountering resistance from telecommunications companies in turning over “electronic communication transaction” records in response to national security letters.
“Beginning in late 2009, certain electronic communications service providers no longer honored NSLs to obtain” records because of what their lawyers cited as “an ambiguity” in the law. (What Mueller didn’t say was this came at a time when all the major telecommunications companies were still facing lawsuits over their cooperation with the government on surveillance programs.) As a result, Mueller said, the FBI had switched over to demanding the same data under Section 215. “This change accounts for a significant increase in the volume of business records requests,” Mueller wrote.
What was not explained at the time, Chesney notes, is that the FBI was using the Section 215 requests to obtain a broad array of records. For example, a top-secret FISC order disclosed last week by the Guardian showed that the FBI had used a single Section 215 request to direct Verizon to turn over “all call detail records or telephony metadata’’ of its customers for a three month period, literally millions of records.
Saying they wanted to put an end to “secret law, eight U.S. senators — led by Sens. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., and Mike Lee, R-Utah — on Tuesday introduced a bill to require the Justice Department to declassify national security court decisions that have permitted the use of the “business records” provision for such purposes.
That followed a court filing Monday by the American Civil Liberties Union and allied groups asking the surveillance court to release its classified legal opinions question that have allowed the expanded use of Section 215.
The motion, filed “pursuant to the First Amendment,” the ACLU states, and under rules that, in some circumstances, permit petitions to the FISC, also cites statements by two Democratic U.S. senators, Ron Wyden of Oregon and Mark Udall of Colorado, and Obama to justify public disclosure.
“When the American people find out how their government has secretly interpreted the Patriot Act, they will be stunned and they will be angry,” it quoted Wyden as saying in 2011.
It also cited Obama words after last week’s disclosure of the Verizon order: “I welcome this debate.”
The motion also asks the court to consider the constitutionality of the “gag order” written into Section 215.
“There should be no room for secret law,” said Jameel Jaffer, the ACLU’s deputy legal director, adding that disclosure of the FISC rulings is essential if the debate Obama called for is to take place. “The public has a right to know what limits apply to the government’s surveillance authority, and what safeguards are in place to protect individual privacy.”
http://openchannel.nbcnews.com/_news/20 … ns-records
Statistics: Posted by yoda — Tue Jun 11, 2013 7:29 pm
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Police State • Why The Surveillance State Must Be Erased
Why The Surveillance State Must Be Erased
Brandon Smith
June 11th, 2013
Alt Market
In America today there is a great rushing storm, a swirling hurricane of clashing opinions and ideologies that defy coherent organization and classification. This social tempest has been triggered by certain revelations among the general public on issues which we in the Liberty Movement have long been aware. The fact that our government is bought and paid for by international corporate interests, the fact that our government has positioned itself to spy on ALL Americans without warrant and without probable cause, the fact that our government is instituting policy initiatives that target common citizens as enemy combatants, the fact that every one of our Constitutional rights is being deliberately torn away; these things are not news to us, but to many once ignorant people, they are a shock to the system.
Open corruption on the part of a criminal establishment has a funny way of politicizing everyone, even those people who go out of their way to avoid the bigger picture. In the end, no man or woman gets a pass. Whether you like it or not, one day soon, you will have to choose a side; freedom or tyranny. There is no middle ground. There is no Switzerland.
With all the rationalizations and counter-rationalizations flying around concerning the current avalanche of admissions and data leaks, it is easy to lose track of the root of the overall conflict. It’s as if we have been dropped into the heart of an Amazonian swamp, our feet encased in a thick sludge of social inaction as a dark cloud of mindless mosquito-people buzz about us, pecking hungrily at our veins with their warped and uneducated world views. The deafening chorus distracts us from what is truly important.
Here is the reality of our situation:
1) Both the Bush Administration and the Obama Administration supported FISA domestic surveillance legislation. FISA is the legal tool which the federal government now uses to justify the monitoring of journalists and recently exposed mass surveillance programs such as PRISM. Politicians from both the Republican and the Democratic parties have defended the use of FISA and PRISM. Both parties support the destruction of your 4th Amendment rights.
2) The Obama Administration openly admits to the monitoring of journalists phone and email records in an attempt to thwart whistleblowers that might actually bring the truth of what the government is doing into the light of day. Obama of course defends this position by claiming that “national security” is at stake.
3) Part of the motivation for surveillance measures against journalists has clearly been the Benghazi conspiracy, which is a thorn in the side of the establishment that refuses to go away. Like Watergate, or Iran-Contra, the White House has been caught with its pants down and instead of admitting its guilt, has decided to attack the messengers instead.
4) Another motivation was certainly the exposure of the ATF’s “Fast And Furious” program, which funneled U.S. firearms into the hands of Mexican drug cartels so that American firearms dealers and owners could be blamed for the escalation of deadly violence south of the border. Again, Obama and his handlers seek to use a suffocating surveillance grid in order to thwart whistleblowers and prevent federal crimes from being aired in public.
5) The use of the IRS as a weapon against the political enemies of the establishment (namely Tea Party groups) verifies that government surveillance without oversight can indeed lead to political profiling and unjustified punishment.
6) The PRISM scandal, leaked by former CIA operative and NSA contractor Edward Snowden, has given the general public a raw naked look at the reality of the FISA spy initiative. In the past, Liberty Movement champions have been derided as “paranoid” for pointing out that there were no limitations to FISA, and that the entire nation might one day be monitored and catalogued like animals in a great technological cage. Today, the public now knows that this concern is concrete and undeniable. EVERYONE is being watched. Reports now estimate that NSA hackers harvest over 2.1 million gigabytes of data on American citizens per hour.
7) Privacy rights have been so debased that the invasion of our electronic communications is the least of our worries. The Supreme Court has ruled in Maryland v. King that police now have the authority to extract DNA samples from any person placed under arrest, without a warrant, and without due process. This means that the second a law enforcement officer places you in cuffs, your genetic materials are no longer your property, even if the charges against you are erroneous, if charges are ever filed at all. The government admits to having at least 10 million people catalogued in their genetic database already.
Since 9/11, U.S. cities have added approximately 30 million new CCTV cameras on top of those already in operation. After the Boston Bombing, even more are expected to be installed. There are few places in most major cities where you are not being watched, and even smaller municipalities with miniscule crime rates are beginning to follow suit.
It would seem that our government has somehow overlooked the 4th Amendment of our Constitution, and statist rationalists would do well to study it before defending their actions. Let’s read it, shall we?
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.
Now let’s examine the arguments of the establishment in favor of the Surveillance State:
Argument #1: Mass Surveillance Has Been Going On For A Long Time And Is Nothing New
Dianne Feinstein and Lindsey Graham, perhaps the most evil political duo since McCain and Lieberman, have both used the above talking point in order to rationalize the mass surveillance of FISA and PRISM. But let’s put this in perspective…
Feinstein and Graham are essentially saying that because the government has criminally trespassed on our privacy for years, we should not complain when we discover that the invasion was a bit more elaborate than we had originally suspected. They are saying that because we allowed them to get away with taking an inch, we might as well allow them to get away with taking a mile. This is the logical fallacy of incrementalism, and tyrants use it in their arguments all the time.
Despotism rarely establishes itself overnight. Rather, it slithers slowly into the midst of a society like a parasite, and carefully entrenches itself under our skin bit-by-bit so that we do not notice until it is buried so deep we fear removing it at all. A line must be drawn in the sand eventually. Past mistakes are not a license for future failures and future regrets, and anyone who claims otherwise is trying to take something away from you.
Argument #2: If You’re Not Talking To Terrorists, Then You Have Nothing To Worry About
Another debate point from the bottom feeding Lindsey Graham. First off, our Constitutional rights are not predicated on whether or not we are guilty of “terrorism”. Even a so-called terrorist is supposed to be protected under the Bill of Rights. The law is very clear, and this is not a negotiable position. Every American, regardless of government suspicion, has a right to privacy, and is protected from unreasonable search and seizure without probable cause. Period. Graham’s argument perpetuates the fallacy that the word “terrorism” is somehow a magical password that allows the federal government to bypass Constitutional barriers. I’m sorry to tell Lindsey that he is greatly mistaken.
Secondly, the very foundation of a free society requires that every person be treated as INNOCENT until proven guilty. Mass surveillance twists this principle, so that all people are treated by the state as guilty until proven innocent. Such a system will inevitably generate a vast rift between the populace and the government because it designates the political elite as the “watchers” and the public as the “watched”. As history has shown us, the “watchers” always become the enslavers, and the “watched” always become the enslaved.
I’m not sure why so many people, including U.S. senators, do not seem to grasp this concept.
Argument #3: We Must Trust That The Government Is Using The Surveillance Apparatus For Good
Barack Obama in defense of the leaked PRISM initiative and all encompassing NSA surveillance stated that Americans must simply “trust” that the federal system is using the data they have criminally harvested for the good of the country. That is to say, we should have “faith” in the White House.
I’m sorry, but the Constitution was written exactly because governments are run by men, NOT benevolent gods, and men are notorious for abusing power. The Constitution exists because NO government can be trusted to act in a principled manner. We do not have to “trust” them because tight constitutional restrictions are in place to ensure that they aren’t given enough slack to become dangerous. When those restrictions are diminished, we get programs like PRISM…
The checks and balances of due process and warrants are supposed to be absolutely public and transparent so that we can see, with our own eyes, that all is being handled justly and honorably. Mass surveillance in particular is an affront to the 4th Amendment because there is no conceivable way that warrants could ever be issued for the incredible volume of materials gathered, and therefore, there is no conceivable way that any legitimate judicial oversight is being enforced. Secret courts, secret charges, secret programs targeting entire subsections of the population, were expressly forbidden by the Founding Fathers as totalitarian in nature.
In February of this year, Obama boasted during a Google Plus “Fireside Chat” that his was “the most transparent administration in history”. The ability of politicians to lie with sociopathic expertise is well documented, hence, my lack of faith.
The government and the Obama White House in particular do not deserve our trust. Trust has to be earned…
Argument #4: Surveillance Programs Are Essential To The Safety Of The Public
At this point I find that anyone who still uses the “safety” position to justify the trampling of our freedoms is a lost cause. Years ago, when the surveillance grid was being put into place through legal chicanery, the common skeptic would insist that such subversive laws had not yet hurt anyone, and that the concerns of the Liberty Movement were “overblown”. Today, it’s no longer about theory. Our cultural pain is real, people are being targeted, people are suffering, and it’s only going to get worse from here on. And, as we warned a long time ago, the concept of “collective safety” would be the primary persuasion technique used to lead America further into oblivion.
In a race to spin the leak of PRISM, lawmakers and establishment shills have come out in droves to suggest that the secret surveillance state has “stopped terrorist attacks” and “saved lives”. Of course, because all the details of the program are classified, we’ll never see any proof that such claims are true. What a conundrum. Frankly, I know enough about government sponsored terrorism to understand that even if PRISM thwarted an attack, our clandestine alphabet bureaucracy has created far more death and destruction than they have ever prevented.
In the end, I couldn’t care less if PRISM stopped a terrorist act. The point is irrelevant. Our civil liberties are not subject to the supposed success of an unconstitutional government action. The promise of safety does not nullify our rights, nor does it give government capital to do whatever it pleases.
Comfort Means Death
I believe the establishment has moved away from the denial of so many abuses because it hopes to convince us that this is the “new normal” of our society. They want us to embrace the surveillance state and become comfortable in its cradling arms. I do not plan to get “comfortable”. When political villains no longer fear the exposure of their villainy, it is time to start worrying.
There has been a lot of unrestrained conjecture on the motivations of the suddenly world-famous Edward Snowden. The fact is we still know very little about him, and for now I will reserve judgment; partially because I know that one day people like myself could be accused of “fomenting controlled opposition” or “working for the enemy”. Our culture has become so cynical that we refuse to believe that anyone does anything anymore out of a sense of principle.
Whatever Snowden’s original intentions, I find his admitted reasons inspiring. When asked why he forced the truth of PRISM into the mainstream, Snowden replied:
“I don’t want to live in a society that does these sort of things … I do not want to live in a world where everything I do and say is recorded. That is not something I am willing to support or live under…”
“I’m willing to sacrifice all of that [career and former life] because I can’t in good conscience allow the U.S. government to destroy privacy, Internet freedom and basic liberties for people around the world with this massive surveillance machine they’re secretly building.”
“My sole motive is to inform the public as to that which was done in their name and that which is done against them…I understand that I will be made to suffer for my actions. I will be satisfied if the federation of secret law, unequal pardon and irresistible executive powers that rule the world that I love are revealed even for an instant.”
The surveillance machine is the key to control. When each person feels the eyes of the state constantly upon them, dissent and rebellion becomes unthinkable. At the very least, those of us who are aware of the great Orwellian shift before us must take an immovable stand.
The right to privacy is an inherent right of natural law. No individual or government system should be allowed legal precedence to invade my privacy, and all people have the right to be treated as innocent until proven guilty rather than guilty until proven innocent. As an individual, I do not owe the collective, or the government, a constant update on whether or not I am a “threat”. In fact, I don’t owe anyone anything.
If someone continues to treat me as an enemy and constantly tramples my natural right to privacy, I am going to fight them, and I am going to hurt them, perhaps mortally. This is what people who support surveillance society need to understand; there will be consequences for their trespasses against the natural rights of others.
There can be no negotiation. There can be no compromise. The surveillance state must be erased.
http://www.shtfplan.com/headline-news/w … d_06112013
Statistics: Posted by yoda — Tue Jun 11, 2013 1:42 pm
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Police State • Enforcement Agencies
I have been looking at/investigating enforcement agencies, specifically the OPP as to recent wage demands that would bring mere constables into the six digit figures and sergeants above that. I have always wondered about qualifications and recently monitored a mahdgun accuracy course start to finish of an individual I know who is an excellent shot with target rifle long distance and handguns.
He took this course taught by a competent instructor. Part of the course was an OPP handgun qualifier that they have to pass. The civilian shooter scored only two points from top score in that qualifier.
I am somewhat skeptical of the shooting ability of the police based on a horror show in the recent past where they fudged a clean kill of a black bear.
As to general condition, I have noted that more than a few lack the strength and agility of males the same comparable age and in my personal experience few police would be a match for convicts I know/have known.
I would expect that ALL enforcement agencies, in order to be able to efficiently and capably perform their duties, especially where they are to provide security for the citizen, to expend effort to be in top physical condition as well as sharpshooters in that capacity.
I am skeptical, very skeptical of many I see in this agency and it is not unreasonable to expect that their pay scale shoudl be based on their capability to serve and protect. This policy would reward the responsible ones and penalize the other end of the scale.
Having said that, their duties I see as having devolved from serving and protecting to being mobile tax collectors, preying on an innocent and unsuspecting public.
Having looked at the evidential reality that a uniform does not necessarily transform anyone into a moral and honest individual, I am becoming more suspicious of such agencies and have become skeptical of their trustworthiness.
Last week I became aware of a policeman who threatened to charge a seasonal trapper with a firearms violation for having a loaded gun in the ditch area of a secondary highway in a rural area. The trapper gave the officer a lesson in his rights and the officer withdrew, giving him a warning to save face instead of admitting his error.
It is interesting the "bully syndrome" and "power play" that occurs to not only some police but also to bureaucratic regulation enforcement people when they don their uniforms.
This problem needs to be addressed by these agencies themselves and the good ones need to expose and get rid of the bad ones. There is corruption in everything and certainly in enforcement agencies.
Due to recent events in the near past, people are becoming cynical and suspicious of police, with many now carrying hidden voice activated tape recorders as protection/proof of abuse of authority on the part of police.
One needs to understand that all enforcement agencies have no morals or minds when it comes to their work, they merely obey the commands of their superiors, be hose commands moral, immoral, or directives to deny the rights of the citizenry.
A growing mistrust and distrust is apparent in the population and there are those who despise the police.
It would be good to remember that rot starts at the head and up the ladder one will smell the stench of decay in many cases concerning the police.
That of course does not excuse the officers on the street from acts that can best be described as criminal in their dealings with some people.
The best course of action when dealing with police is to make an active judgement on each individual and not to stereotype them based on either one good or one bad officer.
There are legal routes to take in filing complaints that cost nothing. If your rights are violated I will not advise anyone to resist, it is the call of every individual who happens to find themselves in such situations. I do know that in the case of criminal conduct such as assault and excessive force applied to anyone I see or in my own personal case, I would have to react as I would in the case of witnessing criminal behavior perpetrated on innocent innocent individuals.
A uniform under NO circumstances gives the police the right to commit criminal, abusive acts against the public.
I am not the only one who thinks this way.
Again I repeat the police are automotons and enforce tyrannical and immoral laws without hesitation. As such they cannot be construed as being your friend. As in the existent bureaucracies, I do see the problem lies in the upper levels more than in the street level worker.
Both cases are unfortunate but a present day reality.
Statistics: Posted by singular — Mon Jun 10, 2013 3:23 pm
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