Saturday, August 17, 2013

Independent Counsel Needed: Investigate 'High Crimes & Misdemeanors' in the White House

Independent Counsel Needed: Investigate ‘High Crimes & Misdemeanors’ In The White House…
Commentary By Adina Kutnicki
Posted on August 17, 2013
Whereas this op-ed writer, blogger and investigative journalist holds no claim to being a Constitutional expert (whose expertise lies elsewhere, primarily in geo-politics and the Mid East/Islam), a close associate surely qualifies. Unarguably, he is considered world class.  
Most assuredly, trampling on the Constitution is no small matter, even if one attempts to hide behind the ‘living breathing’ nonsensical mantra, as Obama (a so called Constitutional lawyer…oh please…talk about scraping the bottom of the barrel) and surrogates regularly intone its ‘merits’. And there are so many examples of the administration’s malfeasance it is hard to know where to commence the indictment. Yet, even a few will suffice, starting with their obsessive quest to eviscerate the First Amendment, a hallmark of any free society. Specifically, what more proof is needed than to internalize that the highest law enforcement official in the land, AG Eric Holder, is initiating ‘legal’ actions against Americans who criticize Islam? Are you thinking this blogger has lost it? Think again. Contained within the above link are more than enough exhibits to place Holder, and his boss, in the dock for high crimes and misdemeanors! 
NOT content with violating freedom of religion and speech, the regime in Washington is gunning for the Second Amendment ! How audacious. The right to keep and bear arms, without a scintilla of a doubt, is a bedrock of America’s Constitutional Republic, but not according to Obama’s thugs. Yes, they will grab America’s guns – whatever it takes. And, the UN is their go to address, as they seek to strip Americans of their right to bear arms, yet patriots have other ideas, even as leftists go postal over gun control. It will be out of their cold, dead hands.
EVEN some in Congress are beginning to see that they have Constitutional options to indict this runaway regimeand it is not as if true scholars and patriots aren’t giving them Constitutional legal cover.
Along comes Professor Paul Eidelberg - a true Constitutional scholar and patriot – to America’s rescue, as he gives ‘We the People’ all the Constitutional muster needed to indict the criminals ruling Washington. Get busy. Start your petitions!
‘Needed: An Independent Counsel to Investigate the Obama Administration’
Paul Eidelberg (Ph.D., University of Chicago)
The failure of Barack Hussein Obama, the President of the United States, to protect American citizens abroad indicates that he may have violated Article Two, Section One, Clause Eight, of the U.S. Constitution which sets forth the presidential oath of office in these words:
“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
Accordingly:
Whereas the present writer, a native-born American citizen who served as a Lieutenant in the United States Air Force, and who conducted seminars during the Korean War to inform American soldiers about the totalitarian nature of America’s arch enemy, the Soviet Union;
And whereas this author has written books on the U.S. Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, as well as a book entitled “Beyond Détente: Toward an American Foreign Policy,” a book based on Washington’s “Farewell Address”;
And whereas the principles elaborated in the latter book obliged the present writer to urge President Ronald Reagan to transcend the futile policy of détente with the Soviet Union—indeed, to promote the disintegration of that “Evil Empire”;
And whereas the same author sees that the Barack Administration is pursuing the discredited policy of détente vis-à-vis Islam, an imperialistic ideology which, like that of Communist Russia, does not recognize any international borders or the nation-state system;
And whereas this American, for the previous reasons, is more keenly aware of the perilous course of the United States, as well as more profoundly concerned about the well-being of Americans serving in American embassies and consulates abroad;
Indeed, whereas some of these Americans have perished because of the détente or ideologically neutral mentality of the Obama Administration and its possibly criminal negligence:
I therefore urge Americans to petition the Congress of the United States to reconstitute, in accordance with its Special Prosecutor Act of 1978, an Independent Counsel to investigate and prosecute designated high-ranking Executive Branch officials, including President Barack Obama, who are suspected of possible malfeasance in high office.
For those who are unfamiliar with Professor Paul Eidelberg’s background andgroundbreaking scholarship, see within for his latest scholarly contribution.
IF the master Prof gives the heads up, citing the Constitutional underpinnings for said Independent Counsel, then take it to the bank. To heart. And this blog stands shoulder to shoulder with the recommendations herein. No additional ‘proofs’required (nor footdragging or pussyfooting), other than a basic understanding ofHigh Crimes & Misdemeanors

BREAKING NEWS: SAUDI KING ABDULLAH BACKS EGYPT’S MILITARY

BREAKING NEWS: SAUDI KING ABDULLAH BACKS EGYPT’S MILITARY RULER, WARNS AGAINST OUTSIDE INTERFERENCE

saudi-ishanewsBREAKING NEWS:  Facing condemnation at every hand from the West, Egypt’s military rulers received a powerful shot in the arm from Riyadh Friday, Aug. 16, with an unprecedented public assurance from Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdel Aziz that the kingdom supports Egypt in the fight “against terrorism” – the military rulers’ term for Muslim Brotherhood resistance. In a statement broadcast by official Al-Ekhbariya TV, Abdullah said Egypt’s stability is being targeted by “haters” and warned that anyone that interferes in Egypt’s internal affairs seeks to “waken sedition.” DEBKAfile and DEBKA Weekly have been reporting since last week that Saudi Arabia and the UAR stand firmly behind Egypt’s military strongman Gen. Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi. DEBKAfile reports a weak response to Brotherhood’s call for millions to rally Friday to join in the protest in support of deposed president Mohamed Morsi and against the government crackdown two days ago which left more than 600 dead. No more than tens of thousands of supporters took to the streets across the country Friday. By nightfall, 50 people were reported killed in clashes across the country – in Cairo, Fayoum, Damietta and Ismailia – including 24 security personnel. An officer was killed at one of the checkpoints thrown up to block the demonstrators’ access to Tahrir Square. The relatively low turnout points to the Muslim Brotherhood’s hard core having decided that avoiding further deadly clashes with the Egyptian military is the better part of valor. More


Bee's note:
Things in the Middle East and especially, in Egypt, are quickly changing: here is the Saudi King supporting the Egyptian military against terrorism of the Muslim Brotherhood: while America is still waiting for our "president" to condemn the actions, persecutions, and torture of Morsi's gang.  Far be it for me to add salt to the wounds, but isn't this the same Saudi King Obama bowed to in 2009?  

President Obama bowing before Saudi King Abdullah (left) and receiving the Saudi Medal of Honor from King Abdullah (right)

This week, Congress  agreed to allow Obama's administration to arm the rebels/terrorists in Syria. If anyone doubts the rebels are butchers, take a look here.  
And we are all aware of what has happened in Libya since the elimination of Gaddaffi; al Qaeda's black flag flies freely though out Libya, as it did last September 11th, when our diplomats were tortured and murdered.  Need I remind anyone that the attacks in Benghazi are being traced back to Morsi?  Is that why our administration has dragged its feet for the past year in bringing justice for the murders of four Americans?

Let's hope someone in Washington decides to have a real heart-to-heart talk with Obama when he returns from vacation about his foreign policies, before the United States is left without a friend in this entire world!




VIDEO: Police State Too Much? Send in a Marine!


Published on Aug 15, 2013
Concord, NH

This is how the Free State rolls. This is just the kind of active support for limited government, liberty and personal responsibility that's increasingly part of daily life in NH. Thank you FSP. What took you so long to get here...?
http://freestateproject.org/

During testimony at the Concord City Council public hearing regarding the acquisition of a ManBearPig-- er, I mean BearCat, the "Homeland Security" grant-subsidized (so, your money, regardless) armored attack truck (the manufacturer's description, although the cops prefer "rescue vehicle," which isn't exactly prominent in the marketing materials for some reason) by local law enforcement's Special Operations Unit, in Concord, NH, 8/12/2013, there was this little gem from retired Marine Colonel Pete Martino. Complete hearing at http://bikerbillnh.blogspot.com/2013/...

"Peter Martino is a citizen of the State of New Hampshire. Mr. Martino is a Colonel in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve who has been mobilized three times. During his military career, he commanded an infantry platoon, company, and battalion. He was also the senior U.S. adviser to an Iraqi Army brigade. Mr. Martino has had a successful civilian career providing training, consulting, and program management services to private companies and to state and federal agency contractors. Mr. Martino presently holds a top secret security clearance."
2008


Bee's note:
I will share one comment on this video, posted this evening:

You're naive. I was also in the Marine Corp and I'm a lawyer. I been following the militarization of police for a while. It is very disturbing what is going on and how tactical forces are being utilized. You said "when exactly is the domestic Army going to be activated, take away our rights and guns?" In case you haven't noticed, our 4th Amendment rights have been vanishing at an astounding rate. For some good info check out some of Radley Balko's articles on this topic.

Since this video was posted yesterday, there are over 73,000 "views".  Yes, Americans are concerned about "Homeland" Security and like all our federal agencies, Homeland is changing its "Mission" from monitoring terrorists in our "homeland" to monitoring American citizens.

BE AWARE!  BE INFORMED!  and SHARE THE VIDEO.








Friday, August 16, 2013

Edward Snowden Says Media Being Misled 'About My Situation'

Exclusive: Edward Snowden Says Media Being Misled 'About My Situation'



Posted:   |  Updated: 08/16/2013 12:33 pm EDT
NOTE: GO TO LINK TO WATCH VIDEO 

NEW YORK –- National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden wants to set the record straight after individuals associated with his father have, in his words, "misled" journalists into “printing false claims about my situation.”
In an emailed statement to The Huffington Post, Snowden said that neither his father Lon Snowden, his father’s lawyer Bruce Fein, nor Fein's wife and spokeswoman Mattie Fein “represent me in any way.”
“None of them have been or are involved in my current situation, and this will not change in the future,” Snowden said of his father and the Feins. “I ask journalists to understand that they do not possess any special knowledge regarding my situation or future plans, and not to exploit the tragic vacuum of my father's emotional compromise for the sake of tabloid news.”
Mattie Fein told The Wall Street Journal on Thursday that Lon Snowden’s legal team doesn’t trust Guardian columnist Glenn Greenwald, the journalist at the center of the NSA story, or WikiLeaks, the anti-secrecy organization that has advised Snowden in Russia. Fein also claimed Greenwald was trying to shop around an exclusive interview with Snowden for seven figures. Greenwald told the Journal Fein's claim was "defamatory."
Snowden said he'd like to correct the record regarding legal advice he’s received.
“I've been fortunate to have legal advice from an international team of some of the finest lawyers in the world, and to work with journalists whose integrity and courage are beyond question,” Snowden said. “There is no conflict amongst myself and any of the individuals or organizations with whom I have been involved.”
Ben Wizner, director of the Speech, Privacy and Technology Project for the American Civil Liberties Union, confirmed that the email received by The Huffington Post was from Snowden, who remains a fugitive in Russia after being granted temporary asylum.
In a later statement, The ACLU said the organization has been in contact with Snowden for several weeks, and at his request, is “playing a coordinating role to ensure that he receives appropriate legal advice and representation.”
“As we have said before, we believe that the information Mr. Snowden has disclosed about the nature, scope, and putative legal authorization of the NSA’s surveillance operations has generated a remarkable and long-overdue public debate about the legality and propriety of the government’s surveillance activities,” the ACLU statement read. “The ACLU has long held the view that leaks to the press in the public interest should not be prosecutable under the nation’s espionage laws.”
Snowden’s full statement to The Huffington Post is below:
It has come to my attention that news organizations seeking information regarding my current situation have, due to the difficulty in contacting me directly, been misled by individuals associated with my father into printing false claims about my situation.
I would like to correct the record: I've been fortunate to have legal advice from an international team of some of the finest lawyers in the world, and to work with journalists whose integrity and courage are beyond question. There is no conflict amongst myself and any of the individuals or organizations with whom I have been involved.
Neither my father, his lawyer Bruce Fein, nor his wife Mattie Fein represent me in any way. None of them have been or are involved in my current situation, and this will not change in the future. I ask journalists to understand that they do not possess any special knowledge regarding my situation or future plans, and not to exploit the tragic vacuum of my father's emotional compromise for the sake of tabloid news.
Thank you.
This article was updated with a statement from the ACLU.

Bee's note:
Read: 

NSA Revelations Stir Congressional Concern

WASHINGTON — New revelations from leaker Edward Snowden that the National Security Agency has overstepped its authority thousands of times since 2008 are stirring renewed calls on Capitol Hill for serious changes to NSA spy programs, undermining White House hopes that President Barack Obama had quieted the controversy with his assurances of oversight.
 Obama has repeatedly said that Congress was thoroughly briefed on the programs revealed by Snowden in June, but some senior lawmakers said they had been unaware of the NSA audit until they read the news on Friday.Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy announced he would hold hearings into the new disclosures.  "I remain concerned that we are still not getting straightforward answers from the NSA," the Vermont Democrat said in a statement." .... CONTINUE


Crush the Muslim Brotherhood - by Daniel Greenfield


FRONT PAGE MAGAZINE
August 16, 2013 By  

Like all terrorist organizations, the Muslim Brotherhood has only one commodity to trade in. Blood.
In the war of ideas for the future of Egypt, the Brotherhood had nothing to offer but the blood of its followers and victims. It has no new ideas. It has no record of accomplishments. It has no vision for the future except the same old corruption and authoritarianism cloaked in a deceptive Islamist garb.
The outcome of any interaction with the Brotherhood could have been predicted from its motto; “Allah is our objective. The Prophet is our leader. The Qur’an is our law. Jihad is our way. Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope.”
In the streets of Egyptian cities, Muslim Brotherhood activists achieved their highest hope. They died in their Jihad against the liberal opposition and the military, fighting against human rights for women and Christians, against multi-party rule, freedom of speech, museums, libraries and the future in the way that the armies of Allah have died for over a thousand years.
Some died trying to kill Egyptian soldiers and police officers. Others were killed by their own people in order to maximize the death toll and spread shock and horror through the international community.
Like their Hamas outlet in Gaza, like their Syrian brigades who have wrecked entire cities and filled them with corpses, and like Al Qaeda, whose leaders have always been Muslim Brotherhood members; the Brotherhood does not care whose blood it spills.
When your highest hope is dying for Allah, then everything else is a detail. The Muslim Brotherhood’s leaders, men like Morsi and Khairat el-Shater, are far less eager to die for Allah. Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the Brotherhood’s mad genocidal preacher, is still hiding out in Qatar and spewing calls for violence from under the skirts of the equally cowardly Qatari Emir, who finances the Brotherhood’s wave of death and terror in the region while living it up in his palaces.
In his final speech, Morsi boasted of his willingness to sacrifice his blood for power. The Brotherhood’s preacher of hate, Qaradawi, urged Jihadists from around the world to come and be martyred in Egypt.
For the wealthy titans of the Brotherhood, their followers are pawns to be disposed of, human shields for their political ambitions. The Muslim Brotherhood spent their blood generously during the clashes with Egyptian police the same way that Hamas and Hezbollah spill the blood of their own people.
What it bought with their blood is the outrage of the world. Terrorist organizations are one-trick ponies. They unleash horrifying violence, blame it on the brutality of the authorities and wait for the world to step in and apply pressure on whatever government they are trying to overthrow.
The Brotherhood’s leaders knew that. Their speeches amping up their followers for a deadly struggle created the tension that exploded into brutal violence.
The Muslim Brotherhood’s leaders followed the oldest traditions of Islam by offering their followers paradise and atonement in exchange for unleashing their darkest passions. That the unleashing should have ended in hundreds of deaths is not at all unprecedented in the many wars and conflicts of Islam.
What any normal person would consider a massacre, the Muslim Brotherhood considers an opportunity.
The Muslim Brotherhood used the blood of its followers as currency to buy international outrage that will be used to pressure Egypt into releasing Brotherhood leaders like Morsi and and Khairat el-Shater. It wanted the clashes to be as ugly and bloody as possible. It wanted to outrage the world because it knew that was the speediest way of getting its leaders out of their prison cells and back into power.
These murderous tactics would be useless if the United States and Europe weren’t full of useful idiots and fellow travelers, in and out of the media, gasping at the carnage and demanding an immediate halt to the violence. There is only one way to halt the violence and that is to crush the Muslim Brotherhood.
Egypt has only had peace by suppressing the Muslim Brotherhood. It will only have peace when the Muslim Brotherhood is suppressed once again. The last two years have shown that there can be no peace with the Muslim Brotherhood.
In or out of power, the Brotherhood is murderous, intolerant and ruthlessly bent on absolute power.
Responding to the carnage with new calls for an end to foreign aid is an explicit form of collaboration in the Muslim Brotherhood’s atrocities and the surest way to ensure that they will be repeated. Egypt may deserve to lose its foreign aid, but issuing such calls now is handing a victory to the world’s worst terrorist organization and giving it every incentive to up the body count next time around.
The calls for Brotherhood participation in an Egyptian government are senseless insanity. Is there room for a movement that seeks nothing but death in the ranks of any government? Should murderous madness on such a scale really be the currency that purchases power? Should the burners of churches and the torturers of peaceful protesters be rewarded with power a second time?
Western governments fear escalation in Egypt. And that fear is the secret weapon of every terrorist group. The terrorist groups always escalate, spending their currency of blood cheaply to break the will of their enemies. The only way to break that cycle is to out-escalate them by showing that their currency of blood is worthless because the people and governments they are terrorizing will not be bent under its terrible weight.
Wars aren’t won through de-escalation, but through escalation. America lost in Afghanistan because it wasn’t willing to fight harder and bloodier than the Taliban. The Egyptian government has shown that it is willing to match the Muslim Brotherhood’s ruthlessness without backing down.
To reward the courage of the Egyptian soldiers and police who fought the Muslim Brotherhood in the streets by forcing their government to stand down and surrender to the terrorists who nearly turned Egypt into a second Iran is an unmitigated crime. It is a crime whose consequences will not only be felt by the women and Christians of Egypt, but by all of us.
About 
Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is a New York writer focusing on radical Islam. He is completing a book on the international challenges America faces in the 21st century.

NSA Broke Privacy Rules Thousands of Times per Year: Report

Bee's note:  This "Breaking" news was reported late last night on Fox News.  Americans should be very concerned that this "new" culture of the Obama administration began in 2008 - the year Obama was elected and is on-going to-date.  Snowden was right, and while I disagree with all his actions, he was the whistleblower that revealed the suspicions of many American citizens.  I say "many" because those who are aware that something is rotten in Washington, from the head on down, and who are following the investigations into the IRS, NSA, Benghazi, and more, understand that Americans are witnessing a government gone rogue.  The un-Constitutional, Executive Orders, and by-passing of Congress are all unacceptable by "we the people".  I'm not sure anymore if Congress is willing to stop this insanity(?).  If they were, actions would have taken place long before this latest revelation about NSA.


WASHINGTON BEACON
BY: 
WASHINGTON (Reuters)The National Security Agency has broken privacy rules or overstepped its legal authority thousands of times each year since 2008, the Washington Post reported on Thursday, citing an internal audit and other top-secret documents.
Most of the infractions involved unauthorized surveillance of Americans or foreign intelligence targets in the United States, both of which are restricted by law and executive order, the paper said.
They ranged from significant violations of law to typographical errors that resulted in unintended interception of U.S. emails and telephone calls, it said.
The Post said the documents it obtained were part of a trove of materials provided to the paper by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, who has been charged by the United States with espionage. He was granted asylum in Russia earlier this month.
The documents included a level of detail and analysis that is not routinely shared with Congress or the special court that oversees surveillance, the paper said. In one of the documents, agency personnel are instructed to remove details and substitute more generic language in reports to the Justice Department and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
In one instance, the NSA decided it need not report the unintended surveillance of Americans, the Post said. A notable example in 2008 was the interception of a “large number” of calls placed from Washington when a programming error confused U.S. area code 202 for 20, the international dialing code for Egypt.
The Post said the NSA audit, dated May 2012, counted 2,776 incidents in the preceding 12 months of unauthorized collection, storage, access to or distribution of legally protected communications.
The paper said most were unintended. Many involved failures of due diligence or violations of standard operating procedure. It said the most serious incidents included a violation of a court order and unauthorized use of data about more than 3,000 Americans and green-card holders.
In 2008, the FISA Amendments Act granted NSA broad new powers in exchange for regular audits from the Justice Department and the office of the Director of National Intelligence and periodic reports to Congress and the surveillance court, the Post said.
“We’re a human-run agency operating in a complex environment with a number of different regulatory regimes, so at times we find ourselves on the wrong side of the line,” a senior NSA official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told the Post.
“You can look at it as a percentage of our total activity that occurs each day,” he said. “You look at a number in absolute terms that looks big, and when you look at it in relative terms, it looks a little different.”
In what the Post said appeared to be one of the most serious violations, the NSA diverted large volumes of international data passing through fiber-optic cables in the United States into a repository where the material could be stored temporarily for processing and selection.
The operation collected and commingled U.S. and foreign emails, the Post said, citing a top-secret internal NSA newsletter. NSA lawyers told the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court that the agency could not practicably filter out the communications of Americans.
In October 2011, months after the program got underway, the court ruled that the collection effort was unconstitutional.
Some members of the Senate Intelligence Committee, including Democrat Ron Wyden of Oregon, have been trying for some time to get the NSA to give some kind of accounting of how much data it collects “incidentally” on Americans through various electronic dragnets. The Obama administration has strongly resisted such disclosures.

The Pentagon Has Lost Its Leverage with Egypt. Now What?

August 15, 2013
by Stephanie Gaskel
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel has been on the phone with his Egyptian counterpart, Gen. Abdul Fattah al-Sissi, almost every day since the July 3 military ouster of President Mohamed Morsi. And every day he has urged the Egyptian defense minister to find a peaceful resolution to the political turmoil. He’s called al-Sissi at least 15 times since the military booted Morsi from power, a Pentagon official told Defense One.
By all accounts, al-Sissi had agreed. Just last week, Hagel hung up the phone with Cairo and was reassured that the Egyptian military wanted a peaceful transition. "Minister Al-Sisi underscored his commitment to peaceful resolution of the ongoing protests, and thanked Secretary Hagel for U.S. support,” the Pentagon said, in a description of the Aug. 5 phone call.

After yesterday’s bloody crackdown in the streets of Egypt that left more than 500 dead, including women and children, and scores more injured, it’s clear that Hagel’s pleas have gone unheard or ignored. With world leaders, including President Barack Obama, decrying the massacre, and ice bags and desk fans futilely cooling the overflowing bodies in Cairo’s morgues, Hagel called al-Sissi again on Thursday. According to a Pentagon statement, Hagel “reiterated that the United States remains ready to work with all parties to help achieve a peaceful, inclusive way forward. The Department of Defense will continue to maintain a military relationship with Egypt,” Hagel said, “but I made it clear that the violence and inadequate steps towards reconciliation are putting important elements of our longstanding defense cooperation at risk.”

Hagel’s tepid response falls in line with the commander-in-chief’s own wait-and-see reaction to the deepening Egyptian crisis. President Barack Obama has refused to call the military takedown of Morsi’s elected government a coup, and will continue to send the $1.3 billion in military aid that the U.S. gives to Egypt each year. And Obama is insisting that this is Egypt’s problem -- not America’s.
“America cannot determine the future of Egypt. That's a task for the Egyptian people,” Obama said in a statement from his Martha’s Vineyard vacation on Thursday morning. “We don't take sides with any particular party or political figure. I know it's tempting inside of Egypt to blame the United States or the West or some other outside actor for what's gone wrong.”
Obama announced he was canceling “Bright Star,” a joint military exercise with Egypt and several other nations that dates back to 1980 and the Camp David peace accord. The exercise hasn’t been held since 2009, however, and the Egyptian military is clearly too busy to participate anyway.
When asked whether canceling the exercise would even be a motivating factor for al-Sissi to end the bloodshed, Pentagon Press Secretary George Little argued it sent “a clear signal, we believe, to Egyptian authorities that we are deeply concerned about recent events in the country.”
But deep concern, after more than a dozen phone calls from Hagel and several more from other members of the Obama administration, including Secretary of State John Kerry, doesn’t seem to have influenced al-Sissi’s decision making on the other end of the line.
With the Obama administration clearly still willing to write a $1.3 billion check, the Pentagon seems to have had little influence in prevention the Aug. 14 massacre. And Hagel’s telephone diplomacy may have even less influence on directing whatever steps al-Sissi may yet take.
“We’re watching to see what happens next in the country,” said Little.

Author:
Stephanie Gaskell is associate editor and senior reporter for Defense One. She previously covered the Pentagon for Politico. Gaskell has covered war, politics and breaking news for nearly 20 years, including at the Associated Press, the New York Post and the New York Daily News. She has reported ..Full Bio

48 Alarming Facts That Tell Us America Has Become a Gigantic Prison


July 28th, 2013 | Author: Posted by Ben Hart
ESCAPE TYRANNY
by Ben Hart

Edward Snowden is important because he added some detail and put a spotlight on a truth this blog has been documenting for some time. That truth is this . . .
The U.S. government today is in possession of technology that tyrants of yesteryear would have salivated over.
This technology is quickly turning America into an electronic prison from which escape to freedom is nearly impossible (because the alternatives to America aren’t so good either).
Here’s what’s happening . . .
The U.S. government now tracks, monitors, records, and stores most of your activities and communications. You have no privacy anymore.   This means you must be very careful what you say, even what to think . . . because whatever you say, write, or even think can (and probably will) be used against you.
In his great book 1984George Orwell wrote this:
There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time. But at any rate they could plug in your wire whenever they wanted to. You had to live — did live, from habit that became instinct — in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized.”
This is the society in which we now live. We are no longer a free people.
Yes, we can live a comfortable life. We can go to work everyday and collect our paychecks. We can watch our TV shows at night and attend sporting events.
The government will even allow a certain amount of criticism of the government.
But that doesn’t mean you are free.
Information is power. Information is the most powerful weapon on the planet.
That’s why blackmail is so effective. Now your government knows everything there is to know about you — or can instantly access this information, as needed to serve its purposes.
The government can use this information to destroy you at any moment, whenever it pleases.
Because there are so many laws and regulations on the books, I have been told by federal prosecutors that the government can convict anyone of a crime if it focuses on someone long enough, searches hard enough through all your records and communications. Now we have computers that can conduct investigations of all of us at lightening speed, with sophisticated algorithms.
Experts say Google is rapidly approaching the point when it will be able to predict whether you are about to commit a crime (just like in the Spielberg movie Minority Report – which had people arrested and convicted before they actually commit the crime).
All this data collection on law-abiding American citizens by the government is, of course, unconstitutional under the Fourth Amendment, which states:
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.”
The Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled throughout America’s history that police cannot conduct dragnets that sweep up innocent citizens in an effort to find criminals. Nor can police or the government rummage through your garbage or personal correspondence to find evidence of a crime without “probable cause” and without a warrant from a court. Warrants can only be issued if there’s evidence that the specific person in question has committed a specific crime. The argument for a warrant must include specific items and evidence police are searching for.
In other words, the bar is supposed to be high for the government to be able to rummage through our lives and things. Clearly, there’s no bar at all anymore.  The government now treats the Constitution and Supreme Court rulings as advisory, at best.
The government can (and is pretty much is) doing whatever it wants to us.
We once thought the Internet and all this technology would be a force for liberation across the globe. But instead, this technology is quickly turning into a weapon to make our enslavement by government (in cohoots with mega multinational corporations such as Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, etc)  easier and more efficient than ever.
So Here are 48 facts that tell us America has become a gigantic prison:
FACT #1: Everything Edward Snowden has told us about NSA’s spy program on Americans has proven to be accurate. Actually, the situation is substantially more alarming than what Snowden told us. We now know the NSA is collecting and storing pretty much . . .
  • all of our cell phone calls
  • all of our emails
  • all of our Internet searches
  • all of our credit card and financial records
  • even our passwords
FACT #2: Edward Snowden reports that the NSA has the ability to track what we are thinking in real time as we are typing on our computer keyboards.
FACT #3: We now know the NSA has the authority to access any of this information on any individual it chooses without a court order “simply based on an analyst deciding that,” according Rep Jerrold Nadler’s (D-NY) account of an intelligence briefing he received. “I was rather startled” to learn this, Nadler said.
FACT #4: There is no time-limit for how long the NSA can keep all this information on law-abiding American citizens. NSA readily admits it plans to keep all this data on every law-abiding American forever.
FACT #5: The NSA is collecting 2.1 million gigabytes of data on all of us every hour.
FACT #6: Overall, Republicans are worse than Democrats on this issue. In a vote in the U.S. House of Representatives, 134 Republicans and 83 Democrats voted against putting even modest limits on the NSA’s spying activities on law-abiding Americans.
FACT #7: Republican leaders such as Sen John McCain, Gov Chris Christie, and Congressman Peter King are calling other Republicans, such as Sens Rand Paul and Ted Cruz, “crazy” and “dangerous” for raising concerns about the NSA’s comprehensive spying on the daily activities of every American.
FACT #8: According to NSA whistleblower William Binney, the NSA has a “target list” of somewhere between “500,000 to a million people“.
FACT #9: The NSA is just one of 17 U.S. spy agencies, each with similar data collection programs, all operating in a shroud of secrecy with secret budgets that together total about $80 billion annually.
FACT #10: America is supposed to be a government “of the people, by the people, and for the people ” — but there is no way for voters to hold these spy agencies accountable because we have almost no idea what they are really doing.
FACT #11: But even if most of America’s “low information” voters knew what was happening, it’s unlikely anything would change. Surveys show most Americans support the NSA’s comprehensive spying on every aspect of our lives. In other words, most Americans today have no problem with putting themselves in this electronic prison and throwing away the key.

Obamacare is a Surveillance State Horror

If you thought the NSA’s spying was invasive, understand that Obamacare will completely wipe out the last vestiges of privacy in America.
FACT #12: ObamaCare will be collecting the complete medical records of every American, thereby wiping out the last vestige of privacy in America. Until now, medical record privacy was considered sacrosanct in America.
FACT #13: Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told Congress in testimony that the massive ObamaCare “data hub” as it’s called, will interact with the IRS, the Department of Homeland Security, the Veterans Administration, Office of Personnel Management, the Department of Defense, and (for some reason) even the Peace Corps. Plus the Hub will plug into state Medicaid databases.
FACT #14: Sebelius also informs us that the ObamaCare “data hub” will also know your income, Social Security number, size of your family, immigration status, whether or not you’ve even been incarcerated, and your enrollment status in other health plans, among other things. So this will be an identify thief’s dream.
FACT #15: Since the IRS is the enforcer of ObamaCare, the ObamaCare “data hub” will also include all your financial records. Basically, all these government “data hubs” — NSA, Homeland Security, IRS, ObamaCare, FBI, state and local law enforcement (you name it, apparently even including the Peace Corps) — will be linked and talking with each other, constantly sorting and sifting through all your personal data with sophisticated algorithms to keep tabs on you.
FACT #16: Sebelius also notes that ObamaCare’s “data hub” will store data from businesses — to make sure they are complying with ObamaCare mandates.

Your Car is No Longer “The Great American Freedom Machine”

Americans have had a love affair with their cars for more than a century because the automobile has been considered “The Great Freedom Machine.”
Not anymore. The automobile today has become your surefire path to interaction with law enforcement. Your car has become the government’s near foolproof way to know where you are and what you are doing on a daily, if not hourly basis.
FACT #17: Many police today are equipped with computerized scanners that automatically scan every license plate of every car that drives by and stores this information in computerized databases that can be accessed at any time. Soon these license plate scanners will be standard issue for cops.
FACT #18: Toll booths are equipped with similar scanners and video surveillance that is also being stored in vast government databases.
FACT #19: Video monitoring and tracking is quickly being added to nearly every street intersection that has a stop light.
FACT #20: There is hardly a place you can go anymore in public without being video taped. We’ll certainly catch many real criminals this way. Nor is this unconstitutional because you have no expectation of privacy when in public. But this also means your nearly every move when in public is being recorded and stored. So don’t think no one is watching when you pick your nose or scratch an itch.
FACT #21: Soon radar detection will be added to video to automatically catch speeders.It won’t be long before we find video and radar surveillance on every inch of highway.  Most police allow you to exceed the speed limit by 8 MPH, especially on interstate highways. But once speed detection on every vehicle on nearly every inch of road is computerized and automated, you’d better be careful to drive a few MPH’s below the speed limit at all times just to be sure not to be flagged.
FACT #22: The Obama Administration is talking openly about requiring so-called “black boxes” in all cars (similar to the black boxes in aircraft) to track such things as: how fast you are going at all times, how much fuel your are consuming, and what you are talking about. The government wants to know exactly what’s going on in your car at all times and where you are at all times.

Prison USA

Less than 200 years ago, the great French writer Alexis de Tocqueville came to America to discover the reasons for America’s stunning success — unparalleled prosperity combined with a level of individual liberty never before seen world history.
Here was one feature of American life that got his attention:
In no country is criminal justice administered with more mildness than in the United States.”
This is no longer the situation:
FACT #23: The United States today has less than 5 percent of the world’s population. But it has almost a quarter of the world’s prisoners.
FACT #24: One out of every 100 adults in America is in prison today.
FACT #25: No country in the world has more prisoners per capita than the United States — not even Cuba. (Caveat: We don’t know what’s happening in North Korea)
FACT #26: America has 2.3 million citizens behind bars. China, which still calls itself a Communist country, has 1.6 million people in prison, even though China has four times the population of the United States.
FACT #27: America is the only advanced country to lock people up for crimes that other Western countries consider relatively minor, such as writing bad checks, smoking weed, driving with a suspended license,  or other non-violent crimes.
FACT #28: Especially harsh sentences have also become a hallmark of the U.S. criminal justice system. Burglars in the United States serve an average of 16 months in prison, compared with 5 months in Canada and 7 months in England.
FACT #29: The United States is the only advanced Western country that still has the death penalty.
(SIDE NOTE: I have become an opponent of the death penalty because too many mistakes are being made and the death penalty is being used for crimes that don’t merit the death penalty. But that’s a topic for another article).
FACT #30: The death penalty is supposed to be reserved for especially sadistic serial killers, such as a John Wayne Gacy, Jeffrey Dahmer, Ted Bundy type of serial killer (who kill just because they enjoy killing). But prosecutors in America are increasingly seeking to use the death penalty for crimes that should have been prosecuted as second or third-degree murder. I.e. prosecutors actually sought the death penalty against Casey Anthony. This reckless mom probably killed her baby by accident and covered up the crime.  Casey Anthony was certainly no gem, but did not merit the death penalty.
FACT #31: Prosecutors in America today routinely engage in the practice of intentionally over-charging suspects in order to terrorize them into pleading guilty to a lesser charge (even if innocent) in order to save the trouble of going through a trial. The usual proposition goes something like this: “If you make us go to trial, you’ll risk spending the rest of your life in jail. But if you plead guilty to this lesser charge, you’ll spend three years in jail.”
FACT #32: Slipped into the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) in 2005 was a little noticed provision that empowers law enforcement to collect and permanently retain DNA samples from anyone arrested or detained for any crime whether or not they are convicted, including if pulled over for routine routine traffic violations. The Supreme Court has ruled this is all okay. So watch soon for police to be collecting fingerprint and DNA samples from you when you are stopped for a broken tail light. It’s just a matter now of the police having the right equipment. But that should not take long. These fingerprint and DNA samples will then be stored forever in a national database.
FACT #33: This DNA database is likely (certain) to be expanded to include all Americans under the ObamaCare law as part of the drive to nationalize health care in America. This will be the ultimate invasion of medical privacy, once thought important in America.
FACT #34: The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878  forbids the use of military force against American citizens. But the police in America today have become increasingly militarized, equipped now with “shock and awe” military-style weapons. For example, modern armored police vehicles are equipped with a sound device that can stop rioters in their tracks. The FBI admits to using drones over America (a military weapon). In a 2010 the Department of Homeland Security announced that it plans to use armed drones inside America’s borders to “immobilize TOIs” (Targets of Interest.
FACT #35: In the 1960′s and 1970′s courts probably tipped too far in giving every advantage to criminals and hampering police. There is an avalanche of evidence that we have moved too far in the other direction, giving near unlimited power to the police. As a consequence, police have become increasingly free with using excessive force on average citizens who are doing little or nothing wrong. I list some examples here:
FACT #36: Videotaping police in action is now illegal in many jurisdictions. But, of course, government is free to videotape us. In Illinois, police and prosecutors charged Michael Allison with five felonies for videotaping police actions from his own front yard. They accused him of violating Illinois’ eavesdropping law — a crime that carries the same penalty as rape in Illinois. Allison faces up to 75 years in prison. The case was dismissed in the first round of court action, by prosecutors have appealed the dismissal.

Politicization of the IRS

FACT #37: The IRS has now admitted that it has been targeting Americans for punishing audits and investigations because of their political views and affiliations. Specifically, the IRS admits it targeted organizations with the words “Tea Party,” “patriot,” “liberty,” “Christian,” and “teach the Constitution” for audits and investigation.
FACT #38: The IRS audited and targeted more than 500 Tea Party, conservative, Christian, and pro-Israel organizations.
FACT #39: Quickly after he endorsed Mitt Romney for President, the IRS audited the ministries of Reverend Billy Graham and his son Reverend Franklin Graham’s. The Graham ministries had never before been audited.
FACT #40: The IRS also targeted many (we don’t yet know how many) conservative churches for punishing audits and investigations. The IRS demanded to read the prayers of conservative churches. The IRS also demanded copies of church membership lists.
FACT #41: The author of The ObamaCare Survival Guide, journalist Wayne Allyn Root, reports that he was audited by the IRS soon after his book became a national bestseller. Mr. Root (a former classmate of Obama’s at Columbia) also reports that he has personally spoken with 15 donors to the Mitt Romney campaign who were audited within 90 days of making their donations.
FACT #42: The IRS audited reporters and news anchors who the Obama campaign did not like.
FACT #43: The IRS targeted conservative and Christian and conservative college-age interns who were taking courses on the Constitution and American history.
FACT #44: Sarah Hall Ingram, the head of the IRS division that was conducting these audits of conservatives and conservative organizations, has been promoted to run the IRS office that charged with enforcing the ObamaCare mandates.
FACT #45: The day after conservative Christian O’Donnell announced she was considering running for U.S. Senate, her federal tax records were accessed by Maryland government officials.
FACT #46: The Obama campaign accused some of the larger donors to Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign of not paying their taxes and accused them of engaging in shady activities — an obvious effort by Team Obama to intimidate Romney’s donors into not donating to Romney, thus illustrating how the government can use the world’s most brutal collection agency as also the world’s most powerful opposition research operation.
America’s Largest Corporations Are Now Partners
with the Government in Setting Up the Surveillance State
FACT #47: GoogleYahooMicrosoftAppleVerizonATTCisco systems, and America’s largest corporations are getting rich, in part, by helping the U.S. government quickly build the surveillance state. We know already that Yahoo! worked closely with China’s regime to help round up China’s anti-government dissidents. China told Yahoo! it would be banned from China if it didn’t provide the identities and locations of critics of the regime in Beijing. Yahoo! was eager to cooperate.
FACT #48: As technology advances, there will be no escaping government’s prying Big Brother eye. The technologies that are coming into play are frightening. Companies are now able to broadcast talking ads that seem to be coming from inside our own brains — ads that are so customized to what we actually think that it’s difficult to distinguish our own thoughts from the ad itself. Here’s a description of how this new kind of advertising works:
Passengers leaning their head against the window will “hear” adverts “coming from inside the user’s head”, urging them to download the Sky Go app. The proposal involves using bone conduction technology, which is used in hearing aids, headphones and Google’s Glass headset, to pass sound to the inner ear via vibrations through the skull.
A video for the Talking Window campaign released by Sky Deutschland and ad agency BBDO Germany states: “Tired commuters often rest their heads against windows. Suddenly a voice inside their head is talking to them. No one else can hear this message.” Passengers leaning their head against the window will “hear” adverts “coming from inside the user’s head”, urging them to download the Sky Go app.
Now imagine the potential for political ads — if people can’t quite tell the difference between our own thoughts and what our President is telling us. Technology like this would have been a dream come true for Adolf Hitler and his master propagandist Joseph Goebbels.
This is the “Brave New World” we’re heading for. It’s the world we’re already living in.
This is what a soft tyranny looks like. We are being controlled by the most sophisticated mass-control tools ever devised — that become more sophisticated everyday. Of course, a “soft tyranny” can quickly become a hard tyranny . . . and usually does.
Can this Pandora’s Box of horrors ever be shut?
Frankly, I don’t see how.
- See more at: http://www.escapetyranny.com/2013/07/28/48-alarming-facts-that-tell-us-america-has-become-a-gigantic-prison/#sthash.BcaNzv4p.dpuf