Infinite Unknown

- 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.

- Bush Was a Total Disaster … Obama Is WORSE (ZeroHedge, Feb 14, 2013):

More Redistribution of Wealth to the Richest

Sure, Bush made the rich richer.

But Obama has actually redistributed wealth from the middle class to the very richest more than Bush.

Specifically, income inequality has increased more under Obama than under Bush.

Indeed, inequality in America today is worse than it was in Gilded Age America, modern Egypt, Tunisia or Yemen, many banana republics in Latin America, twice as bad as in ancient Rome  – which was built on slave labor – and worse than experienced by slaves in 1774 colonial America.

A new study shows that the richest Americans captured more than 100% of all recent income gains.  As Huffington Post notes: Continue reading »

Tags: Barack Obama, Bush administration, Civil liberties, Constitution, Dictatorship, Economy, Fascism, George Bush, Global News, Government, Law, Military, 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.

- Congratulations Charlottesville, Virginia! The First City to Pass Anti-Drone Legislation (Liberty Blitzkrieg, Feb 5, 2013):

This simple piece of legislation proves that you can make a difference at the local level.  We need a lot more of this type of thing all over these United States.  As I have said many times, it’s not that I am against drones in all capacities; however, we must be vigilant about how these things are used and must have serious safeguards in place to protect civil liberties.  Kudos to the Rutherford Institute for leading the charge here.

From US News:

Charlottesville, Va., has become the first city in the United States to formally pass an anti-drone resolution.

Continue reading »

Tags: Civil liberties, Civil rights, Constitution, Drones, Government, Law, Politics, Privacy, Society, U.S.

- Pentagon Says Protests Are Acts of “Low Level Terrorism” (Zen Gardner, Jan 21, 2013)

Tags: Barack Obama, Civil liberties, Civil rights, Constitution, Dictatorship, Fascism, Government, New World Order, Obama administration, Politics, Protesters, Society, Terrorism, Terrorists, U.S.

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Tags: AIPAC, Assassination, Bailout, Banking, Barack Obama, Civil liberties, Congress, Constitution, Dollar, Drugs, Economy, Fed, Federal Reserve, Germany, Global News, Gold, Government, Law, Mexico, Middle Class, Military, Obama administration, Politics, Quantitative Easing, Ron Paul, Silver, Society, TSA, U.S., War

- Judge Napolitano: ‘What Were FBI Agents Doing Monitoring Petraeus’ Private Emails?’ (FOX News, Nov 12, 2012):

Fox News Senior Judicial Analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano joined Studio B to discuss Gen. David Petraeus’ resignation as CIA Director and pointedly asked, “What were FBI agents doing monitoring the secret emails of the director of the CIA? And, how is it the CIA didn’t know about it?”

According to Napolitano, in order for the FBI to be reading Petraeus’ emails, they would either need a search warrant from a federal judge or they’d have to write their own search warrant under the Patriot Act providing sufficient reason to believe the general was involved in terrorist activities. The only other way that they could have been monitoring his emails is by hacking into his computer, which would be a crime.

Napolitano argued, “General Petraeus just because he’s an adulterer doesn’t lose his constitutional rights. And he has the right to be protected from an unwarranted, unjustified investigation by the FBI or anyone.”

Tags: Andrew Napolitano, Barack Obama, CIA, Civil liberties, Civil rights, Constitution, Crime, David Petraeus, eMails, FBI, Global News, Government, Law, Military, Obama administration, Politics, Privacy, Surveillance, U.S.

- Torture Continues to be Legitimized by U.S. Legal System (Activist Post, Nov 9, 2012):

In another blow to human rights, freedom, the law, and morality, the 7th Circuit Court has exonerated Donald Rumsfeld from prosecution for allegations of being a primary architect of U.S. torture policy.

At issue are two Americans, Donald Vance and Nathan Ertel, who worked for a private Iraqi security firm named Shield Group Security. Courthouse News reports the harrowing experience the two men encountered after attempting to blow the whistle to the U.S. government about their employer potentially being involved in illegal arms trades and bribery: Continue reading »

Tags: Civil liberties, Constitution, Donald Rumsfeld, Global News, Government, Human Rights, Law, Politics, Society, Torture, U.S.

- Election 2012: How The Winner Will Destroy America (ZeroHedge, Nov 6, 2012):

Of all the hollow and uninspired elections that this country has suffered through over the past several decades, one might think that at some point long ago the American public would have finally struck a plateau of disenfranchisement; that we could sink no further into despondency, that there is a saturation limit to the corruption of our voting process. Unfortunately, there has been no such luck.  I have to say that in all honesty I have never seen more people gut jumbled and disgusted with our electoral system than I have in 2012.  Sure, there is still a hyper-gullible segment of the populous that continues to play the game, but even those idiots are beginning to admit that the choices offered are dismal at best, catastrophic at worst.  The fog of the false Left/Right paradigm is starting to lift, and all that lay in its wake is a hoard of lost wide-eyed flabbergasted followers without a coattail or a talking point to cling to.  Sudanese refugees have a better chance of survival than these people do…

Even in the more obvious of fraudulent past elections there was at least an attempt by the establishment to present a pageant of conflicting ideologies (George W. Bush vs. John Kerry comes to mind).  There has always been the Democrat who pretends to be anti-war, or the Republican who pretends to be small government, or the Democrat who pretends to defend our right to privacy, and the Republican who pretends to be pro-2nd Amendment.  But in 2012, even the theater of rhetoric has disappeared.  Both primary party candidates seem to be sharing the same intestinal tract and the same teleprompter, and now, the average American is asking a new set of questions. They do not wonder how these men will change things for the better.  Not at all.  Instead, they wonder which one will do LESS DAMAGE while in office.  This is the terrible reality we have come to understand in our society today.  It is a sad awakening, but a necessary one.

As you read this now, the new President of the United States is being “chosen” or has been chosen.  Whoever the “winner” happens to be is ultimately irrelevant. They do not count.  They are mascots.  Middle management cronies running through the motions to distract the masses while enacting the policies of their superiors.  They are fry cooks serving greasy overpriced democracy with no real sustenance.  What does matter, though, is what comes next.  I’m sorry to say that the idea that one man will do less damage than the other is a naïve sentiment.  Democrat?  Republican?  Obama?  Romney?  The crimes and calamities wrought will be exactly the same.  Take a look into my crystal ball and see the future.  Here is how the winner will destroy America… Continue reading »

Tags: Barack Obama, Ben Bernanke, Bonds, China, Civil liberties, Debt, Dictatorship, Dollar, Economy, Fed, Federal Reserve, Global News, Government, IMF, Iran, Israel, Middle East, Mitt Romney, New World Order, Politics, Quantitative Easing, Society, U.S., Unemployment

Don’t miss:

- Pulitzer Prize Journalist Chris Hedges Warns of Physical Roundups Under Obama (Video)

- Secret, Beyond Facial Recognition Surveillance Technology ALREADY INSTALLED Across the US

- FBI begins installation of $1 billion face recognition system across America (RT, Sep 8, 2012):

Birthmarks, be damned: the FBI has officially started rolling out a state-of-the-art face recognition project that will assist in their effort to accumulate and archive information about each and every American at a cost of a billion dollars.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has reached a milestone in the development of their Next Generation Identification (NGI) program and is now implementing the intelligence database in unidentified locales across the country, New Scientist reports in an article this week. The FBI first outlined the project back in 2005, explaining to the Justice Department in an August 2006 document (.pdf) that their new system will eventually serve as an upgrade to the current Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System (IAFIS) that keeps track of citizens with criminal records across America .

“The NGI Program is a compilation of initiatives that will either improve or expand existing biometric identification services,” its administrator explained to the Department of Justice at the time, adding that  the project, “will accommodate increased information processing and sharing demands in support of anti-terrorism.”

“The NGI Program Office mission is to reduce terrorist and criminal activities by improving and expanding biometric identification and criminal history information services through research, evaluation and implementation of advanced technology within the IAFIS environment.”

The agency insists, “As a result of the NGI initiatives, the FBI will be able to provide services to enhance interoperability between stakeholders at all levels of government, including local, state, federal, and international partners.” In doing as such, though, the government is now going ahead with linking a database of images and personally identifiable information of anyone in their records with departments around the world thanks to technology that makes fingerprint tracking seem like kids’ stuff.

Continue reading »

Tags: 1984, Barack Obama, Civil liberties, Civil rights, Constitution, Dictatorship, Fascism, FBI, George Orwell, Global News, Government, New World Order, Obama administration, Police State, Politics, Privacy, Society, Surveillance, Terrorism, U.S.