Tag: 1984 was a Warning not a Blueprint

Make Way for His Majesty

Hear ye, hear ye, all subjects of the realm. His majesty, our king, Barack Obama will be here in Minnesota for two days. In recognition of his gloriousness both parks that he’s speaking at will be entirely shutdown in addition to the roads he will grace with his presence:

For starters, access to the boat launch was shut down at 10 p.m. Wednesday. And starting early Friday, no boats will be allowed on the lake. That means people who have sailboats there won’t be allowed to access them.

A playground, a beach, the rose garden and trails will be closed, as well as the restaurant next to the Band Shell.

[…]

Obama arrives in the Twin Cities early Thursday afternoon and will take part in an invitation-only town hall about 2 p.m. at Minnehaha Park, which will also be essentially shut down. Several roads near both parks also will be closed.

That was me trying to poke a little fun at the fact that one man has the power to shutdown entire parks and inconvenience the people who are forced to pay for them. It’s annoying but not the end of the world. This part, well, this part crosses the line:

People who live near the Band Shell, where Obama will speak Friday, will have to be escorted to and from their homes that morning.

[…]

On Friday, police will escort homeowners on Queen Avenue S. between 40th Street and 42nd Street to and from their homes from early morning through the end of the event.

Every reader knows how I feel about violence. I abhor it. But if some piece of shit in a cheap suit thinks they are going to escort me to and from my home they’re going to get a rude awakening when my fist makes contact with their face. There are some lines you do not cross. Making me a prisoner in my own home and requiring me to beg for permission to come and go as I please is one of them. I will not tolerate such bullshit. Fortunately for the Secret Service I don’t live there because if I did I would make it a point to walk around my neighborhood without permission or an escort.

Welcome to the freest country on Earth.

No Fly List Process Ruled Unconstitutional for Whatever That’s Worth

For whatever it’s worth a federal judge had determined that the process of adding names to the no fly list is unconstitutional:

PORTLAND, Ore. – In a landmark ruling, a federal judge struck down as unconstitutional the government’s procedures for people on the No Fly List to challenge their inclusion. The decision came in an American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit brought on behalf of 13 Americans who found themselves on the list without any notice, reasons, or meaningful way to get off it.

The judge ordered the government to create a new process that remedies these shortcomings, calling the current process “wholly ineffective” and a violation of the Fifth Amendment’s guarantee of due process. The ruling also granted a key request in the lawsuit, ordering the government to tell the ACLU’s clients why they are on the No Fly List and give them the opportunity to challenge their inclusion on the list before the judge.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is treating this like a major victory. But anybody who pays attention to this sort of thing knows that the government will just find another way to continue doing what it has been doing. Perhaps it will simply appeal the ruling and move it up until the Supreme Court rules it constitutional. Perhaps it will simply create a secret court, similar to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court, to determine who will be on the list. Perhaps the federal government will simply tell the judge to go fuck himself and not change a damn thing. Either way I highly doubt any actual change will come of this. We’re too much of a totalitarian state for pesky judges to make any effective changes.

On the upside this ruling does give a lot of people a warm and fuzzy feeling inside and that’s worth something.

That Whole Fair Trial Thing Was Woefully Out of Date Anyways

Do you remember that whole fair trial thing that people used to talk about? It involved zany things like the defendant being able to review all of the evidence that was going to be used to the prosecution. That mess lead to a lot of undesirable outcomes, namely people the state was targeting being found innocent of wrongdoing by a jury. Thankfully our benevolent overlords have corrected this problem and now allow the prosecution to withhold evidence from the defendant:

The United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit has ruled against terrorism suspect Adel Daoud, saying that he and his attorneys cannot access the evidence gathered against him. The Monday ruling overturns an earlier lower district court ruling that had allowed Daoud and his lawyers to review the legality of digital surveillance warrants used against him.

[…]

When Daoud’s lawyers discovered that this case involved secret evidence that they had not been privy to, they eventually asked the court to notify them if any evidence gathered had been done so under a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) order. Under the normal procedures of American jurisprudence, a defendant has the right to see the evidence against him or her and can challenge the basis on which such a warrant was authorized.

The government responded with its own affidavit from Attorney General Eric Holder, who told the court that disclosing such material would harm national security.

Now if we can just get rid of those inconvenient juries we will finally have a system that can throw anybody in prison for any reason whatsoever. I’m sure a convincing argument can be made for why juries are a threat to national security. After all a jury trial would involve 12 regular Americans hearing all of the evidence, which certainly qualifies as a threat to national security.

Shit like this is why I don’t take arguments claiming we need a government to administer justice seriously.

Schools Reflect Prisons More and More Everyday

American schools and prisons become more of a mirror image every day. Prisons now contain classrooms, art centers, computer labs, libraries, and other things we would expect to find in a school. Schools are now surrounded by chain link fencing, guards and metal detectors are posted at entrances, and students are prohibited from having mechanisms that could conceal anything that they’re carrying:

A New York high school is the latest in the nation to ban backpacks following several bomb threats, and has even taken extra steps, including sealing up students’ lockers.

For the last two weeks of the school year, students at Wantagh High School — located about 34 miles east of New York City — are being forced to carry their books and belongings in plastic bags, sign in and out to use the bathroom and submit to searches when entering the building. But the sealing up of lockers took school security to a new level.

When I was in high school there were whispers of backpack bans but they were similar to the whispers about instating school uniforms: they are brought up every now and then only to be shot down by people who aren’t completely stupid. But now, from my understanding, backpack bans aren’t unheard of but the sealing up of lockers is new to me. Depending on the school an average student may have anywhere from four to eight classes. Trying to lug around everything you need for those classes all day is annoying to say the least. But schools are often spend a great deal of time making students’ lives miserable while paying lip service to making a safe learning environment.

At this rate they might as well just house students in prisons.

After Having Over a Year to Scrub Its Records the NSA Claims Snowden Never Raised Concerns

After Edward Snowden released his treasure trove of leaked data from the National Security Agency (NSA) many statists asked why he didn’t go through “proper” channels. Snowden said that he did raise concerns numerous times to no avail. It has been over a year since Snowden let us in on the NSA’s surveillance game and now the agency is claiming that Snowden never filed a complaint:

In response to claims by Edward Snowden that he raised concerns about NSA spying in emails sent to the spy agency’s legal office, the NSA released a statement and a copy of the only email it says it found from Snowden.

That email, the agency says, asked a question about legal authority and hierarchy but did not raise any concerns.

“NSA has now explained that they have found one e-mail inquiry by Edward Snowden to the Office of General Counsel asking for an explanation of some material that was in a training course he had just completed,” the NSA said in a statement. “The e-mail did not raise allegations or concerns about wrongdoing or abuse, but posed a legal question that the Office of General Counsel addressed. There was not additional follow-up noted.

“There are numerous avenues that Mr. Snowden could have used to raise other concerns or whistleblower allegations,” the statement continued. “We have searched for additional indications of outreach from him in those areas and to date have not discovered any engagements related to his claims.”

Let me get this straight. The NSA, one of the most unscrupulous agencies of the United States government (and that’s saying a lot, expects us it when it says Snowden never filed a complaint? I’m guessing that the NSA has been busy scrubbing all records of Snowden’s filed complaints just so it could claim that he never filed any.

But let’s assume he didn’t file any complaints, why does it matter? Anybody who has dealt with government bureaucracy knows that “proper channels” is synonymous with memory hole. It’s impossible to get anything done within a government agency by using the agency approved channels. The only way to get a government agency to change its ways is to create public outrage and even that isn’t a guarantee that anything will improve.

The Greenwald Orbital Ion Cannon

Depending on how comprehensive this list is this latest release by Gleen Greenwald could effectively be the orbital ion cannon strike in the war against the National Security Agency (NSA):

Glenn Greenwald, one of the reporters who chronicled the document dump by National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden via the U.K. press, now said he’s set to publish his most dramatic piece yet: The names of those in the United States targeted by the NSA.

“One of the big questions when is comes to domestic spying is, ‘Who have been the NSA’s specific targets?’ Are they political critics and dissidents and activists? Are they genuinely people we’d regard as terrorists? What are the metrics and calculations that go into choosing those targets and what is done with the surveillance that is conducted? Those are the kinds of questions that I want to still answer,” Mr. Greenwald told The Sunday Times of London.

I’m imagining a list a million names long and am really hoping my name appears somewhere in it. But the list will likely be much shorter than that and may just contain the names of the “important” people the NSA is spying on. Either way it will be interesting to see who’s one it and, hopefully, determine some of the criteria the NSA uses to select targets for espionage.

Now I Don’t Want the Ability to Remotely Disable My Phone

I live in Minnesota, the state partially made famous for its oddball political atmosphere. This state is both the source of some pretty decent legislation (the legislation regulating our ability to carry a firearm is surprisingly good) and some absolutely atrocious legislation. This is an example of the latter:

A first-in-the nation measure would require smartphone manufacturers to install mandatory “kill switch” technology to deter thefts became law with Gov. Mark Dayton’s signature Wednesday.

“This is a very important step forward for protecting young people and protecting people of all ages,” Dayton said.

The law mandates that smartphone manufacturers equip their phones with the technology by July 1, 2015. The “kill switch” enables a smartphone owner to remotely disable a smartphone or tablet if it is lost or stolen, rendering the devices useless.

I carry an iPhone, which has the ability to be remotely disabled via my provisioning server. For me it’s a desired feature because I would like to render the device unusable should somebody steal it and, due to the fact that I have the feature tied to my provisioning server, the feature is entirely within my control. With that said, I do not want the inclusion of such a capability to be mandatory. There are a lot of legitimate reasons why an individual wouldn’t want such a capability.

First and foremost is that the capability will most commonly be in the hands of the phone manufacturer. Having somebody’s finger on your phone’s kill switch is generally a bad idea. Second if the ability to remotely kill a device exists in any form it’s possible that an unauthorized third-party will find a way to gain access to that feature. Political dissidents performing a protest probably don’t want devices that can be remotely disabled since there is always the possibility that the state they’re protesting against will pressure the manufacturer into disabling the dissidents’ devices.

And because this is a Minnesota bill it had to include an extra heap of stupidity:

The law also prohibits retailers from paying cash for used phones, rather than electronic transfer or check.

In other words if you sell your phone the government wants to know about it. This is just another step in the state’s desire to track all financial transactions. Like every previous step this one is being marketed as a method of help the people. But the first part of this legislation, the mandatory kill switch, renders the second part irrelevant because no retailer is going to buy a useless phone. So this part is entirely unnecessary in regards to protecting people against cell phone thefts.

John McCain Opens His Mouth and Reaffirms That He’s an A-Hole

One good thing I can say about Barack Obama winning the 2008 presidential election is that John McCain has basically faded into irrelevancy. But every so often McCain feels the need to remind America that he’s still alive (which is kind of shocking when you look at him) and to reaffirm the fact that he is still a total asshole. During one of his recent interviews McCain decided to give us his opinion on the surveillance state:

“It’s the world we’re living in. You don’t like it, but everything I say I expect to be recorded,” McCain told Patrick. He went on to defend its place in the lives of American citizens:

“It’s just the way we live. It is something you’ve got to accept. I don’t particularly like it, but it is what it is.”

McCain dismissed a poll that showed 53% of Americans believe that their phone calls are being recorded. When asked by Patrick if they are, McCain laughed, “no, no.”

“Young people aren’t particularly happy. We’ve forgotten a little bit about 9/11, and how if we’d intercepted the right communications we might have prevented 9/11,” McCain continued.

So we just have to accept it? I’ve got news for McCain, we don’t have to accept shit. Thankfully we have the tools to render his beloved surveillance apparatus impotent. And if McCain expects to be recorded I say we give him what he expects. Let’s follow him around 24/7 with cameras, tap his phones, and stream everything he does on the Internet for all to see. I guarantee that he won’t enjoy it and will sick his thugs on us for violating his privacy and harassing him.

Let’s also take a minute to talk about the 9/11 card. It has been pulled out every time the state wanted to implement some new draconian law that infringes on our supposed rights. After 12 years of infringements the card has worn thin. Especially when you consider that the vast surveillance apparatus currently in place hasn’t foiled a single terrorist attack. If the system hasn’t managed to foil a terrorist attack in 12 years it’s pretty hard to claim it could have foiled 9/11.

I can’t imagine what four years of McCain would have been like. OK, I can. It would have been exactly the same as the first four years we suffered under Obama but without Obama’s pretty bitchin’ speech writers (while the man’s policies are crap I must admit that he did hire some excellent speech writers for his first term).

I’ll Scratch Your Back If You Scratch Mine

Fascism is basically circlejerk economics. Government officials are jerking off corporate cronies while corporate cronies are jerking off government officials. This system works very well if you’re at the top but most of us aren’t at the top so we get to suffer protected monopolies, inferior products, and shitty service.

Another side effect of fascism is that government will always swoop in to protect its corporate cronies. Right now the White House is demanding that its corporate partners who hand over customer data to the National Security Agency (NSA) received legal immunity:

The White House has asked legislators crafting competing reforms of the National Security Agency to provide legal immunity for telecommunications firms that provide the government with customer data, the Guardian has learned.

In a statement of principles privately delivered to lawmakers some weeks ago to guide surveillance reforms, the White House said it wanted legislation protecting “any person who complies in good faith with an order to produce records” from legal liability for complying with court orders for phone records to the government once the NSA no longer collects the data in bulk.

In other words the White House doesn’t want any actual reform. Unless entities handing over data to the NSA face consequences there’s no motivation for them to not do so even when they know a request is illegal. This is especially true when you consider how much money many companies make off of government data requests.

As an aside, it’s funny how the White House never demanded whistleblowers like Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden received legal immunity for revealing government corruption. I guess our illegal secrets aren’t the same as the government’s illegal secrets.

Checks and Balances

Back in junior high school we spent a lot of time in civics class discussing the system of checks and balances that exists between the three branches of government. It was a wonderful fairytale about how no single branch of the government could ever attain absolute power because the other two branches would stomp it down. What wasn’t covered was the truth, which is that all three branches are playing on the same team. When the executive branch wants a law the legislative branch writes and passes it. When the legislative branch wants a law enforce the executive branch dutifully enforces it. When either branch want somebody to back their actions up they ask the judicial branch. It’s really just one big government circle jerk.

But the judicial branch has another option available to it. Instead of ruling in favor of the actions of the other two branches it can simple opt to not hear a case:

The Supreme Court declined Monday to resolve the constitutionality of the National Security Agency’s bulk telephone metadata surveillance program, leaving intact what a lower-court judge described as an “almost-Orwellian” surveillance effort in which the metadata from every phone call to and from the United States is catalogued by US spies.

Surveillance state got you down? Are the people unhappy about being spied on? Is the executive branch demanding you rule its actions constitutional? Do you want to avoid a public relations nightmare but are stuck between a rock and a hard place? No problem, simply refuse to hear the case!

With the simple act of refusing to hear the case the Supreme Court managed to make the issue of phone surveillance somebody else’s problem, which likely saved it from the wrath of both the executive branch and the people being spied on. It’s a wonderful way to avoid being a check against abuses of power and tipping the balance of public opinion against you. Good job guys!