Category Archives: Homeland Security

New York finds new uses for anti-terrorism surveillance

New York’s Big Brother surveillance systems justified through fear-mongering after the 9/11 attacks and funded with federal anti-terrorism dollars is now being used to target ordinary crime.  After the 9/11 attacks, governments at all levels helped fuel the hysteria by pouring fear-mongering fuel on an already chaotic and uncertain situation.  Federal, state, and local officials helped racket up the panic and leverage off of public fear in order to acquire more government police powers.  Almost universally, it was claimed that the new powers would be used to fight terrorism and would not be used to bypass protections that ordinary citizens are guaranteed under the Bill of Rights.  Those promises immediately became more and more watered down to the point where they are now forgotten.

New York City police now have access to some 6000 surveillance cameras and 120 license plate readers with plans to more than double that number.  The courts have declared that attaching a GPS locator to someone’s car without a warrant constitutes a violation of their 4th Amendment rights, being able to track their position using license plate readers essentially guts that ruling.

Now, New York has openly stated that the technology that Americans tolerated as a necessary evil to fight terrorism is being turned on New York residents for purposes having absolutely nothing to do with terrorism.  New York has established a reputation for dragnet style tactics where they simply dispense with 4th Amendment protections conducting wholesale searches of people on the street in hopes of catching them doing something they’re no supposed to be doing.  Imagine an expansion of that strategy to encompass all the new technological tools developed and installed under the excuse that they were needed to fight terrorism.

This reminds me of the trend of local law enforcement agencies to acquire military equipment for ordinary policing.  Even tiny towns now have SWAT teams and armored vehicles.  Once a department has that equipment, they’re going to find a use for it and, as a result, storm trooper style raids are routinely used to serve warrants on non-violent offenders.

Expanding power and surveillance available to police departments notorious for abusing existing powers can only lead to even more abuse.

Am I the only one?

  • Am I the only one who gets a laugh out of TV news anchors asking, with a straight face, current and former government officials whether the NSA is broadly collecting the internet data from U.S. citizens knowing that those officials either don’t know or are bound by oath not to reveal classified information, a category to which electronic data collection obviously belongs?
  • Am I the only one who thinks Obama’s denials are hollow?   I mean, a couple months ago he would probably have claimed no one at the IRS is targeting conservative non-profit groups for extra scrutiny.
  • Am I the only one who finds the denials of outfits like Google and Facebook unconvincing given the fact that they are bound by the law to not divulge the extent to which the government is collecting data from them?   And let’s not forget that the law indemnifies them should they suffer any consequences as a result of their cooperation with the government.  Hell, for all they know, a backdoor could have been installed in their equipment by the manufacturer without their knowledge.
  • Am I the only one who thinks, given the government’s clear lack of regard for the privacy of ordinary citizens, that data encryption is the only recourse left for people who don’t want the government recording everything they say and do?
  • Am I the only one who thinks that, regardless of all the outrage over the NSA data collection, nothing will be done about it and, in fact, it will continue to get even more extensive.
  • Am I the only one who thinks that, instead of urinating on the very Constitutional protections that define the U.S., a more effective way to fight terrorism is for the U.S. government to quit incessantly interfering with the political processes of middle eastern countries, quit supporting Israel’s occupation of Palestine, and quit launching drone strikes targeting people we don’t even know to be enemies.

More evidence that Barack Obama is just George Bush disquised as a black guy

Today the media is all abuzz about a secret court order, requested by the FBI, demanding that Verizon turn over to the NSA all call metadata both international and domestic for its subscribers.  Glenn Greenwald and the New Your Times have amazingly similar articles about it, making one wonder if one copied from the other.watch full movie Star Wars: The Last Jedi 2017 online

Essentially, the stunning lack of regard for privacy under Bush has continued and probably increased under Obama. The only difference is that Obama is using the secret FISA court to rubber stamp its abuse of power and sidestep Constitutional protections.  The Obama administration, like the Bush administration before it, is telling the American public to “Trust us.  While we are secretly collecting information about everything you do, we are also secretly respecting your Constitutional rights.”  Only idiots and mindless loyalists could possibly fall for such a ridiculous line.

There have been never ending attempts by government to leverage off the 9/11 attacks to gain unfettered access to all private information for individuals and businesses. Most well known of these invasions of privacy is the USA Patriot Act.  Another is the Total Information Awareness program advocated by SAIC and Admiral John Poindexter and established under DARPA.  When that drew lots of public and Congressional ire, the government simply disbursed the program’s constituent parts which have continued to be further developed over the years.  Carnivore (FBI) and Echelon (NSA) are among the more well known electronic communications interception programs operated by U.S. government, but it’s safe to assume that the government also has finger-tip access to all electronic medical and financial records of U.S. citizens as well.

While it is not clear whether such orders have been served on other U.S. telecom companies, I think it is fair to assume that to be the case.  Given the adversarial stance that the federal government has taken with respect to ordinary citizens and given their aggressive attempts to access and gain gain control over all personal information of U.S. citizens, the only conclusion one can come to is that this is probably only the tip of the iceberg rather than some anomaly.

I think this establishes beyond any doubt that both democrats and republicans will continue to advance the American surveillance state regardless of lip service to the contrary.  But that’s okay, folks.  Later on you can still play dumb and claim you never saw it coming as is always the case when people suddenly open their eyes and find themselves living under the thumb of a totalitarian government.

Moyers interviews Greenwald

In an interview with Bill Moyers that is scheduled to air on PBS this evening, Glenn Greenwald explains what motivates terrorist attacks against the U.S. (and it’s not because “they hate us for our freedom”).  He discusses reactions to the Boston bombings.

With regard to privacy, Greenwald says that citizens are supposed to know almost everything about their government, which is why it’s called the “public sector”, and government should know very little about citizens (unless they commit a crime), which is why it’s called the private sector.  Instead this has been turned on its head.  Government has become exceedingly secretive and it tries to know everything about citizens.

The belief that the more the government knows about us, the safer we’ll be is false.  The fact is that, the more the government knows about us, the more likely they will be to abuse their powers.  As I have said numerous times before, the biggest threat to liberty almost invariably  comes from our own government.

If Boston bombers had WMDs, then so did Saddam Hussein

Reason.com, quoting 18 USC § 921, explains what constitutes a weapon of mass destruction (WMD) these days.  The term “weapon of mass destruction” means destructive device.

The term “destructive device” means—

(A) any explosive, incendiary, or poison gas—

(i) bomb,

(ii) grenade,

(iii) rocket having a propellant charge of more than four ounces,

(iv) missile having an explosive or incendiary charge of more than one-quarter ounce,

(v) mine, or

(vi) device similar to any of the devices described in the preceding clauses;

So, anything that you can throw that contains more than a quarter ounce of explosive is a WMD.  Eventually, the terrorism label will be so over-used as to be essentially meaningless.  This is a common form of categorical inflation.  If you have laws that criminalize everyone, the concept of crime becomes meaningless.  If everyone is declared a hero, then the concept of heroism is meaningless.

Defining a quarter ounce of explosive as a WMD makes the concept of WMDs into a joke.  I mean, even a bigger joke than what Bush made out of it when he used it to fabricate an excuse to start a war with Iraq.

Boston: Five observations from Greenwald

Glenn Greenwald makes some astute observations about the public, governmental, and media reaction to yesterday’s Boston bombings.  I summarize below and add a little of my own flavoring.

  • How unfortunate that Americans are horrified when innocent civilians are killed by bombs, but take no notice of when teh U.S. routinely does the same to innocent people in other countries.  Who could be so “evil” as to detonate a second bomb targeting rescuers responding to the first bomb?  Well, the U.S. government, for one.   Americans seem to think bombs that fall from the sky are more moral than bombs planted on the ground.
  • Everyone seems to be eager to suspect militant Muslims without a shred of evidence.  Is that because the U.S. has already been targeted by Muslim extremists before or do we automatically suspect them because we know our constant attacks on them in their own countries probably gives them plenty of incentive for retaliation?
  • Arabs and Muslims around the world have been openly expressing hope that the attackers will not turn out to be Arabs or Muslims.  Maybe this is how the black community used to feel when a local white woman was raped.
  • How quick the media is to pronounce this event terrorism, reacting with dismay that Obama didn’t immediately recognize it as a terrorist attack.  Fox News quoted a “senior  administration official” as saying, “When multiple (explosive) devices go off that’s an act of terrorism” without noting the irony of such a statement coming from a government hat routinely bombs people in other countries.
  • And, above all, this bombing, while bad for the victims, represents yet a fresh opportunity for the government to claim more power for itself and whittle down even further what few liberties remain with citizens.  The attacks of 9/11 have taught us that, as gruesome and destructive as these attacks are, the real lasting damage to the nation comes afterwards at the hands of a fear mongering government with an insatiable thirst for control over everyone and everything.

Wednesday Afternoon links

  • Two Texas cops indicted for illegally initiating a roadside body cavity search of two women stopped for littering.  The male officer who initiated the stop was charged with theft and the female officer who conducted the cavity search was charged with two counts of sexual assault and two counts of official oppression.
  • The FBI is pursuing real time Gmail spying power as top priority for 2013.  Because, if you have nothing to hide, why do you need privacy anyway?
  • Two years after being ordered to by the the DC Circuit Court of Appeals, the TSA is finally initiating the public comment period required before they can set up the full body scanners they’ve already been using since 2007.
  • Cost for a one-night stay in Paris for the Vice President?  $585,000.50   More than $100,000 more than his stay in London which only cost a measly $459,338.65  So, how many federal jobs could be saved from sequester if Biden were to do what VPs are supposed to do: nothing.

If you want government to intervene domestically, you’re a liberal.
If you want government to intervene overseas, you’re a conservative.
If you want government to intervene everywhere, you’re a moderate.
If you don’t want government to intervene anywhere, you’re an extremist.

“Need” now means wanting someone else’s money.
“Greed” now means wanting to keep your own.
“Compassion” is when a politician arranges the transfer.

Morning Links

Obama is worse for press freedom than Nixon says Pentagon Papers lawyer James Goodale.

The next country on the NATO target list is apparently Syria.  Pretty soon it will be easier to count the middle east countries that the west hasn’t attacked than the ones they have.

And if Syria weren’t enough to keep the war industry going, Obama is also going to be discussing the fate of Iran on his visit to Israel, where some officials in the U.S protectorate believe Obama has been dragging his feet on attacking Iran.  While Obama has clearly been pursuing a strategy to justify a war with Iran nearly identical to the Bush administration’s lead-up to the Iraq invasion, it has not yet culminated in an actual war as powerful Israeli political powers have wanted.

Mainstream press outlet, UPI, reports that  : The Iraq War killed 190,000 people, 70 percent civilians and 4,488 U.S. service members and will cost the U.S. taxpayer $2.2 trillion, U.S. researchers say.  But, a respectable 2006 study claimed death toll of 650,000 and there have been many more since then.  And this article says the dollar cost could total $6T.

Maryland Senate votes to decriminalize small amounts of pot and the House is also expected to pass it.  The federal government, corrupt as ever, remains under the control of the beneficiaries of the drug war.

Fifteen benefits of the drug war.  Not for you.  For the government.

Transportation Security Administration inspectors forced a wounded [active duty] Marine who lost both of his legs in an IED blast and who was in a wheelchair to remove his prosthetic legs at one point, and at another point to stand painfully on his legs while his wheelchair was examined, according to a complaint a congressman has registered with the TSA.  Nice work, TSA.

Know your rights at increasingly common U.S. police state checkpoints.

Tell your dog, Rover, to start saving more for his health care.  Obama care is expected to hit veterinarians by forcing them to pay an excise tax on any equipment that can also be used for human care.

Federal Reserve Hacked by Anonymous

From RT:

Days after the personal information of over 4,000 banking executives was leaked to the Web by a group affiliated with the hacktivist movement Anonymous, the Federal Reserve admits to having suffered an online security breach.

Spokespeople for the Fed alerted customers on Tuesday that private information stored online was compromised during a weekend hack, all but confirming the source for a trove of data published two days earlier by the loose-knit Anonymous collective.

Yeah, well I guess it perfect makes sense that DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano wants control over the internet so they can bring this robust sense of “Security” to the entire “Homeland”.  Perhaps they should just concentrate on getting their own house in order.

Morning Links

You can have all the free speech you want as long as it doesn’t paint Israel in an unfavorable light.

The UK uses the identities of dead children for undercover cops.

Having trouble attracting babes?  Become a serial killer.  Maggie McNeill explains why many  women are attracted to “Bad Boys“.

In the Your-Tax-Dollars-At-Work category, a 50 year old Canadian Super Bowl contest winner denied entry to go see the game because of a pot conviction back in 1981.

Thousands of hookers flocked to New Orleans for the Super Bowl, right?  Wrong.  And the myth is repeated every year for every major sporting event.

U.S. ramping up military drug war tactics in Latin America because, according to drug czar Gil Kerlikowske, the strategy has been working so well.

Massachusetts Dept of Transportation removes violent video games from rest stops and one mayor launches a campaign to get parents to remove them from their homes.  Because, while the government can’t really protect us from actual violence, they certainly can take action against harmless portrayals of violence.