Infinite Unknown

- Guess What’s Hidden in the Immigration Bill? A National Biometric Database for Citizens (Liberty  Blitzkrieg, May 10, 2013):

Oh just another eight hundred page “bipartisan” bill that nobody will read,  mainstream media will refuse to cover, and that will merely further destroy any remnants of freedom left in these United States.  Never forget the George Carlin quote on bipartisanship:

“Bipartisan usually means that a larger-than-usual deception is being carried out.”

From Wired:

The immigration reform measure the Senate began debating yesterday would create a national biometric database of virtually every adult in the U.S., in what privacy groups fear could be the first step to a ubiquitous national identification system.

Buried in the more than 800 pages of the bipartisan legislation (.pdf) is language mandating the creation of the innocuously-named “photo tool,” a massive federal database administered by the Department of Homeland Security and containing names, ages, Social Security numbers and photographs of everyone in the country with a driver’s license or other state-issued photo ID.

This piece of the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act is aimed at curbing employment of undocumented immigrants. But privacy advocates fear the inevitable mission creep, ending with the proof of self being required at polling places, to rent a house, buy a gun, open a bank account, acquire credit, board a plane or even attend a sporting event or log on the internet. Think of it as a government version of Foursquare, with Big Brother cataloging every check-in.

“It starts to change the relationship between the citizen and state, you do have to get permission to do things,” said Chris Calabrese, a congressional lobbyist with the American Civil Liberties Union. “More fundamentally, it could be the start of keeping a record of all things.”

Continue reading »

Tags: 1984, ACLU, Barack Obama, Big Brother, Biometrics, DHS, Dictatorship, Fascism, George Carlin, George Orwell, Global News, Government, Homeland Security, Immigration, Law, New World Order, Obama administration, Politics, Surveillance, U.S.

- No Joke…This is What the ACLU Received from the Government on Text Surveillance Policy (Liberty Blitzkrieg, May 9, 2013):

Fifteen pages of black squares.  How’s that freedom tasting?  Take that terrorists!

Most. Transparent. Ever.

ACLU

Tags: ACLU, Barack Obama, Dictatorship, Fascism, Global News, Government, New World Order, Obama administration, Politics, Society, Surveillance, U.S.

- IRS: We can read emails without warrant (The Hill, April 10, 2013):

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has claimed that agents do not need warrants to read people’s emails, text messages and other private electronic communications, according to internal agency documents.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which obtained the documents through a Freedom of Information Act request, released the information on Wednesday.

In a 2009 handbook, the IRS said the Fourth Amendment does not protect emails because Internet users “do not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in such communications.” A 2010 presentation by the IRS Office of General Counsel reiterated the policy. Continue reading »

Tags: 1984, ACLU, Barack Obama, Big Brother, Civil liberties, Constitution, Dictatorship, eMails, Fascism, Freedom of Information Act, George Orwell, Global News, Government, Internet, IRS, Law, New World Order, Politics, Privacy, Society, U.S.

- Just Say NO: Seattle Residents Kill the City’s Drone Program (Liberty Blitzkrieg, Feb 19, 2013):

The anti-surveillance state movement is gaining traction and following Charlottesville, Virginia becoming the first city to pass anti-drone legislation, the engaged citizenry of Seattle have now succeeded in killing their city’s own drone program earlier this month.  On the state level, while legislation has been introduced in several places, it appears Florida is closest to enacting domestic surveillance drone regulations into law.  The title of the bill is the “Freedom from Unwarranted Surveillance Act.”

From Forbes: Continue reading »

Tags: ACLU, Drones, Global News, Government, Law, Politics, Seattle, Society, Surveillance, U.S.

- Goodbye Fourth Amendment: Homeland Security Affirms “Suspicionless” Confiscation Of Devices Along Border (ZeroHedge, Feb 9, 2013):

Slowly but surely the administration is making sure that both the US constitution, and its various amendments, become a thing of the past. In the name of national security, of course. And while until now it was the First and Second amendments that were the target of the administration’s ongoing efforts to eavesdrop on anyone, all the time, in order to decide who may be a domestic terrorist and thus fit for ‘droning’, coupled with an aggressive push to disarm and curtail the propagation of weapons in what some perceive is nothing more than an attempt to take away a population’s one recourse to defend itself against a tyrannical government, the time may be coming to say goodbye to the Fourth amendment – the right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures – next. But only in close proximity to the border at first. According to Wired, “the Department of Homeland Security’s civil rights watchdog has concluded that travelers along the nation’s borders may have their electronics seized and the contents of those devices examined for any reason whatsoever — all in the name of national security.”

More on America’s quest, by a very select few, to one by one extinguish its civil liberties from Wired:

The DHS, which secures the nation’s border, in 2009 announced that it would conduct a “Civil Liberties Impact Assessment” of its suspicionless search-and-seizure policy pertaining to electronic devices “within 120 days.” More than three years later, the DHS office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties published a two-page executive summary of its findings.

Continue reading »

Tags: ACLU, Barack Obama, Bush administration, Constitution, DHS, Dictatorship, Fascism, Fourth Amendment, George Bush, Global News, Government, Homeland Security, Law, New World Order, Obama administration, Politics, Society, U.S.

- DHS Watchdog OKs ‘Suspicionless’ Seizure of Electronic Devices Along Border (Wired, Feb 8, 2013):

The Department of Homeland Security’s civil rights watchdog has concluded that travelers along the nation’s borders may have their electronics seized and the contents of those devices examined for any reason whatsoever — all in the name of national security.

The DHS, which secures the nation’s border, in 2009 announced that it would conduct a “Civil Liberties Impact Assessment” of its suspicionless search-and-seizure policy pertaining to electronic devices “within 120 days.” More than three years later, the DHS office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties published a two-page executive summary of its findings.

“We also conclude that imposing a requirement that officers have reasonable suspicion in order to conduct a border search of an electronic device would be operationally harmful without concomitant civil rights/civil liberties benefits,” the executive summary said.

The memo highlights the friction between today’s reality that electronic devices have become virtual extensions of ourselves housing everything from e-mail to instant-message chats to photos and our papers and effects — juxtaposed against the government’s stated quest for national security.

The President George W. Bush administration first announced the suspicionless, electronics search rules in 2008. The President Barack Obama administration followed up with virtually the same rules a year later. Between 2008 and 2010, 6,500 persons had their electronic devices searched along the U.S. border, according to DHS data.

According to legal precedent, the Fourth Amendment — the right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures — does not apply along the border. By the way, the government contends the Fourth-Amendment-Free Zone stretches 100 miles inland from the nation’s actual border.

Continue reading »

Tags: ACLU, Barack Obama, Bill of Rights, Bush administration, Civil liberties, Civil rights, Constitution, DHS, Dictatorship, Fascism, Fourth Amendment, George Bush, Global News, Government, Homeland Security, Law, New World Order, Obama administration, Politics, Society, U.S.

- Justice Department ‘Complies’ With FOIA Request For GPS Tracking Memos; Hands ACLU 111 Fully Redacted Pages (TechDirt, Jan 17,2013)

Tags: 1984, ACLU, Barack Obama, Big Brother, Dictatorship, Fascism, Freedom of Information Act, George Orwell, Global News, Government, GPS, Justice Department, New World Order, NSA, Obama administration, Politics, Surveillance, U.S.

From the article:

‘The public has a right to know more about the circumstances in which the government believes it can lawfully kill people, including US citizens, who are far from any battlefield and have never been charged with a crime.’

- White House wins fight to keep drone killings of Americans secret (RT, Jan 2, 2013):

A federal judge issued a 75-page ruling on Wednesday that declares that the US Justice Department does not have a legal obligation to explain the rationale behind killing Americans with targeted drone strikes.

United States District Court Judge Colleen McMahon wrote in her finding this week that the Obama administration was largely in the right by rejecting Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and The New York Times for materials pertaining to the use of unmanned aerial vehicles to execute three US citizens abroad in late 2011 [pdf].

Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Khan, both US nationals with alleged ties to al-Qaeda, were killed on September 30 of that year using drone aircraft; days later, al-Awlaki’s teenage son, Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, was executed in the same manner. Although the Obama administration has remained largely quiet about the killings in the year since, a handful of statements made from senior White House officials, including Pres. Barack Obama himself, have provided some but little insight into the Executive Branch’s insistence that the killings were all justified and constitutionally-sound. Attempts from the ACLU and the Times via FOIA requests to find out more have been unfruitful, though, which spawned a federal lawsuit that has only now been decided in court.

Continue reading »

Tags: ACLU, Al-Qaeda, Al-Qaida, Assassination, Barack Obama, Constitution, Dictatorship, Drones, Eric Holder, Fascism, Freedom of Information Act, Global News, Government, Law, Military, New World Order, Obama administration, Politics, Terrorism, Terrorists, U.S.

- Supreme Court rejects plea to ban taping of police in Illinois (Chicago Tribune, Nov 26, 2012):

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear an appeal of a controversial Illinois law prohibiting people from recording police officers on the job.

By passing on the issue, the justices left in place a federal appeals court ruling that found that the state’s anti-eavesdropping law violates free-speech rights when used against people who audiotape police officers.
Continue reading »

Tags: ACLU, Global News, Government, Law, Police, Politics, Society, Supreme Court, U.S.

- All Your Private Data Are Belong To Obama (ZeroHedge, Sep 28, 2012):

When it comes to spying, eavesdropping on its citizens as well as the complete invasion of American privacy, the first thing that comes to mind is the Patriot ACT and Dubya. And with good reason: because while the rest of the world may “hate us for our freedoms”, they certainly love us for the fact that the NSA usually can autocomplete sentences before they are written in any electronic medium (recall: NSA Whistleblower Speaks Live: “The Government Is Lying To You“). However, as it turns out that the first thing that should be coming to mind is none other than the current administration and Barack Obama. Here are the facts: as the ACLU reveals using documents released by the Justice Department following months of litigation, “federal law enforcement agencies are increasingly monitoring Americans’ electronic communications, and doing so without warrants, sufficient oversight, or meaningful accountability.” How “increasingly”? Look at the chart below and decide.

From the ACLU: Between 20909 and 2011 “the number of people whose telephones were the subject of pen register and trap and trace surveillance more than tripled. In fact, more people were subjected to pen register and trap and trace surveillance in the past two years than in the entire previous decade.”

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

This is how Uncle Sam spies on you: Continue reading »

Tags: 1984, ACLU, Barack Obama, Big Brother, Dictatorship, Fascism, George Orwell, Global News, Government, Justice Department, New World Order, NSA, Obama administration, Politics, Surveillance, U.S.