Category: Politics

So Much for Texas

Texas always tries to make themselves sound like total bad asses. Thus when the federal government threatened to turn Texas into a no-fly zone over their bill that would allow people to charge members of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) for their rampant sexual assaults I figured a big middle finger would be sent from the state to Washington D.C. Instead Texas folded like a piece of paper:

The legislation, which would have made it illegal for Transportation Security Administration agents to perform hand searches at airport security checkpoints unless there was probable cause, was approved by the Texas House.

But the U.S. attorney general’s office threatened to cancel flights to Texas if the bill passed, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported this week, and that was enough to give Texas senators cold feet.

So much for Texas being a shining example of a state willing to fight the federal government.

A Secret PATRIOT Act

We all know and loathe the PATRIOT Act (unless you’re a statist in which case feel free to sodomize yourself with a retractable baton) but it seems things may be even worse than we realized. Senator Wyden or Oregon is claiming that a secret PATRIOT Act exists:

Congress is set to reauthorize three controversial provisions of the surveillance law as early as Thursday. But Wyden says that what Congress will renew is a mere fig leaf for a far broader legal interpretation of the Patriot Act that the government keeps to itself — entirely in secret. Worse, there are hints that the government uses this secret interpretation to gather what one Patriot-watcher calls a “dragnet” for massive amounts of information on private citizens; the government portrays its data-collection efforts much differently.

“We’re getting to a gap between what the public thinks the law says and what the American government secretly thinks the law says,” Wyden tells Danger Room in an interview in his Senate office. “When you’ve got that kind of a gap, you’re going to have a problem on your hands.”

I think this news should put to bed any concept of the United States being a government of the people, by the people, for the people. It appears as though our “representatives” are just fine making up secret laws now.

Rand Paul Proposed an Amendment to The PATRIOT Act Exempting Firearm Records

Even though our “representatives” are trying to ram the PATRIOT Act renewal through so they don’t actually have to have a debate on aggression against the American people I would like to point out that not everybody on Capitol Hill is on board. Senator Rand Paul proposed eight amendments to the PATRIOT Act which would have at least added some semblance of improvement to the horrible law (granted anything beyond complete abolition of the PATRIOT Act is unacceptable in my book). One of the amendments I found interesting was an exception of government access to firearm records:

Firearm Records Amendment: Clarifies that the authority to obtain info under the USA PATRIOT Act does not include authority to obtain certain firearm records. Supported by Gun Owners of America.

The law is still a horrible piece of shit but at least a few “representatives” aren’t willing to just ram the damned renewal through.

Mixed Messages

I think part of the reason politicians anger me so greatly is the simple fact that they’re not consistent (well maybe one or two are consistent). Take for example Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont. Leahy has introduced, S. 1011, the Electronic Communications Privacy Act Amendments Act of 2011 which in part would require the government to obtain a search warrant before going to online data service to acquire information on customers. Oh wait I understand why somebody who voted in favor of the PATRIOT Act renewal would introduce this bill, it also expands government power:

The bill isn’t absolutely free of problems: although it clearly would require a warrant for ongoing tracking of your cell phone, it would also and unfortunately preserve the current statutory rule allowing the government to get historical records of your location without probable cause. It also expands the government’s authority to use National Security Letters to obtain rich transactional data about who you communicate with online and when, without probable cause or court oversight. You can count on EFF to press for these problems to be fixed, and for all of the DDP principles to be addressed, as the bill proceeds through Congress.

I was wrong as there are no mixed messages only one consistent message about authoritarianism.

Congress Voting to Extend the PATRIOT Act

As it’s not getting much play in the news I thought I’d let everybody know that the PATRIOT Act is up for renewal. I can already tell you that the renewal will go through and we’ll be subjected for several more years of government tyranny in the name of fighting a tactic which is impossible.

There isn’t much left to say on the PATRIOT Act other than it remains a great litmus test to show us which of our “representatives” are against our rights and which are completely against our rights (OK there is also Ron Paul who has proven he’s for our rights but he’s a very rare individuals indeed).

Cubans To Be Allowed to Travel Abroad

There comes a point in most communist countries where conditions become so poor that those living there try to flee. Right around this time it’s common for the rulers of these countries to implement prohibitions against traveling abroad and Cuba has had such a restriction for a very long time. It seems that Raul Castro, unlike his brother Fidel, has at least some common sense is planning to reverse this and a handful of other problems that have been harming Cuba since communism came into power:

Cubans will be allowed to travel abroad as tourists for the first time in more than 50 years, Raul Castro’s government has announced.

Cuba is also move more towards a free market as they have found out that a planned economy is impossible:

Since taking over from brother Fidel Castro in 2008, Raul Castro has championed a limited but significant shift to the free market. Last year, he announced that Cubans would be allowed to go into business for themselves in 178 approved enterprises, hire employees and rent out cars and homes.

Castro has also pledged to cut up to 500,000 state jobs and has warned his countrymen that the government can no longer afford the deep subsidies it gives workers.

No it won’t be a free-market but at least it’s a move in the right direction. Cuba will also be reducing the number of employees hired by the state which should free up labor for endeavors that can actually make money. Sure, these policies aren’t going to turn Cuba into a bastion of freedom but I think the people there will see as government interference in their lives lessens the quality of their lives will increase.

It’s not perfect, Hell it’s not even much of a change at all, but it’s a start and every journey needs to begin somewhere.

Your Government and Free Speech

I’m sure it’s apparent to anybody who has been reading this site for any extent of time that I’m not a fan of the state. The reason for this is because they managed to find new ways of fucking over the citizenry ever day. Take for example the Bill of Rights which guarantees certain protections against the government; that bill means nothing as the government has basically chosen to ignore those pesky little attempts at protecting the citizenry from tyranny. This time I’m not talking about the second amendment but the first. Behold the next wave of censoring free speech, the PROTECT IP Act:

Surprise! After months in the oven, the soon-to-be-released new version of a major US Internet censorship bill didn’t shrink in scope—it got much broader. Under the new proposal, search engines, Internet providers, credit card companies, and ad networks would all have cut off access to foreign “rogue sites”—and such court orders would not be limited to the government. Private rightsholders could go to court and target foreign domains, too.

As for sites which simply change their domain name slightly after being targeted, the new bill will let the government and private parties bring quick action against each new variation.

As the bill hasn’t be placed onto government websites yet a leaked copy of the text can be found here. The bottom line is this bill isn’t good. So long as somebody can claim a website violates their copyright they can have the site shutdown. This wouldn’t be so bad if the copyright laws in the United States weren’t so fucked up but I’m sure we all remember the Righthaven fiasco.

And the bill doesn’t stop at simply censoring “rouge” domains:

But what the PROTECT IP Act gives with one hand, it takes away with the other. While the definition of targeted sites is tighter, the remedies against such sites get broader. COICA would have forced credit card companies like MasterCard and Visa to stop doing business with targeted sites, and it would have prevented ad networks from working with such sites. It also suggested a system of DNS blocking to make site nominally more difficult to access.

This is nothing more than a thinly veiled attempt to censorship. It’s trivial to claim a site violates somebody’s copyright under current United States law so it would be trivial to shut down somebody whom you disagree with. Likewise it would take little effort for the government to shutdown a website critical of itself by simply finding a copyright holder who’s material was quoted at some point on that website.

The debate over this bill will be entertaining to watch.

Can We Drop This Now

The White House has released Obama’s birth certificate so can we drop this now? If we’re going to criticize the Obamessiah let’s actually point out legitimate failures on his behalf such as not closing Gitmo as promised, not getting us out of Iraq as promises, renewing FISA against his promise, and basically everything else he’s done since taking office.

So How’s That Budget Going

Remember all those Minnesota “representatives” who were going on about how they were going to fix the budget lickety-split? That and promoting job creation was going to be job one. I’m glad to see those guys are moving to make both of these promises come true working to push a consittutional amendment banning gay marriage… wait what?

Republicans in the Minnesota House and Senate announced a bill Tuesday that would put the issue on the statewide ballot in 2012 as a proposed constitutional amendment.

The proposed amendment would define marriage as between one man and one woman. Republicans have tried unsuccessfully in the past to get a similar measure on the ballot, but now they have majorities in the House and Senate. Sen. Warren Limmer, R-Maple Grove, said a constitutional amendment will let voters decide the issue.

Three questions come to mind. First, how is this going to fix the budget? Second, how is this going to promote job creation? Third, why the fuck is government still involved in the concept of marriage? I think the third question is the one of most importance. As the debate about allowing gay marriage rages across the country I’ve been listening to both sides and have come to the conclusion that the only proper action that can be taken is to get government out of the whole institution of marriage. Marriage is really a religious and contractual issue and should be dealt with between the two individuals who wish to join together.

Government should have no more say in marriage than they have in what socks I wear… I take that back they shouldn’t have any say in marriage and through cotton regulations I’m sure they have some say in what socks I wear.

Voter ID

Voter ID has been a debate making it’s away through Minnesota for a while now. For those of you unaware Voter ID would require each person have a government issued photo identification card on them when they went to the polls. I’m against this and as I’ve found in several discussions about this topic my reasoning appears to be relatively unique. As I’ve written about this before I’m just going to be lazy and link to my previous post.