Tag: 1984 was a Warning not a Blueprint

Exploiting Aaron Swartz’s Memory to Expand State Tyranny

After Aaron Swartz committed suicide several politicians claimed they would make an effort to reduce the penalties of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, which was the law being used to nail Swartz to the wall. I’m not surprised to find out that the politicians are planning on doing the exact opposite of what they promised:

So, you know all that talk about things like Aaron’s Law and how Congress needs to fix the CFAA? Apparently, the House Judiciary Committee has decided to raise a giant middle finger to folks who are concerned about abuses of the CFAA. Over the weekend, they began circulating a “draft” of a “cyber-security” bill that is so bad that it almost feels like the Judiciary Committee is doing it on purpose as a dig at online activists who have fought back against things like SOPA, CISPA and the CFAA. Rather than fix the CFAA, it expands it. Rather than rein in the worst parts of the bill, it makes them worse. And, from what we’ve heard, the goal is to try to push this through quickly, with a big effort underway for a “cyberweek” in the middle of April that will force through a bunch of related bills. You can see the draft of the bill here (or embedded below. Let’s go through some of the pieces.

Exploiting the dead to push an agenda is nothing unusual for statists, in fact it’s their standard mode of operation. It’s unfortunate that this is the outcome of Swartz’s death, but we need not worry for there are solutions to state’s encroachment on the Internet.

State Surveillance is the Problem, Crypto-Anarchism is the Solution

It’s a new day, which means the state must be planning to expand its surveillance system:

The U.S. government is expanding a cybersecurity program that scans Internet traffic headed into and out of defense contractors to include far more of the country’s private, civilian-run infrastructure.

As a result, more private sector employees than ever before, including those at big banks, utilities and key transportation companies, will have their emails and Web surfing scanned as a precaution against cyber attacks.

The state can’t help but expand its automated surveillance capabilities as automated surveillance systems allow the state to keep more of its stolen wealth for itself. Needless to say we’re not going to see a reduction in the amount of spying the state does on us but we can avoid Big Brother’s gaze. It really is time to start participating in crypto-anarchism. Encrypting e-mail, using anonymizers, accessing information through location hidden services, and performing transactions with crypto-currencies should be standard practice. In fact parents should be teaching their children how to use these technologies at an early age (because we know the state’s indoctrination centers won’t). If you don’t know how to use these technologies you should learn.

The Surveillance State

Via Bruce Schneier’s blog I came across an excellent, and short, essay regarding the surveillance state. Ian Welsh, the essay’s author, sufficiently sums up the tense relationship between the rulers and the enforcers:

This is one of the biggest problems the current elites face: they want the smallest enforcer class possible, so as to spend surplus on other things. The enforcer class is also insular, primarily concerned with itself (see Dorner) and is paid in large part by practical immunity to many laws and a license to abuse ordinary people. Not being driven primarily by justice or a desire to serve the public and with a code of honor which appears to largely center around self-protection and fraternity within the enforcer class, the enforcers’ reliability is in question: they are blunt tools and their fear for themselves makes them remarkably inefficient.

It’s easy to see the state’s motivation for implementing comprehensive automated surveillance. Paying enforcers to perform surveillance manually is expensive. Why would the rulers want to spend large amounts of money on manual surveillance when they can automate a great deal of the work and pocket the saved wealth? This is also the reason why the state tries to involve everybody, whether they’re an enforcer or not, into its surveillance system. How many times have we seen the phrase, “If you see something, say something?” Hell the phrase has its own Department of Motherland Fatherland Homeland Security (DHS) webpage. Every tattling neighbor increases the state’s watchful eye without incurring additional costs. Fortunately surveillance has a weakness:

The reliance on surveillance is however a weakness, one of many. One of the simplest ways to reduce the power and reach of the oligarchy is to destroy surveillance equipment, much of which is very easy to reach. I have frequently said that we will know that people are becoming more serious when they start destroying surveillance equipment, when it becomes an ethical imperative to do so; ideally when people believe that blanket surveillance is an ethical wrong.

I, am, thus interested to see that the Barefoot Bandit Brigade destroying surveillance cameras. In the US, those who oppose current elites directly seem strongest around Oakland and in the Pacific Northwest.

I touched on the strategy of destroying the state’s surveillance system when Minnesota politicians proposed reinstall red light cameras. Welsh puts forth an interesting idea: one can judge how serious people are about avoiding the state’s watchful eye when they begin openly advocating and participating in the destruction of surveillance equipment. It will be interesting to see if organizations like Camover and the Barefoot Bandit Brigade become more prevalent in the United States as the state becomes even more intrusive.

The United States is Opening All Financial Data to Spy Agencies

Things are about to get even more Orwellian in this country:

The Obama administration is drawing up plans to give all U.S. spy agencies full access to a massive database that contains financial data on American citizens and others who bank in the country, according to a Treasury Department document seen by Reuters.

The proposed plan represents a major step by U.S. intelligence agencies to spot and track down terrorist networks and crime syndicates by bringing together financial databanks, criminal records and military intelligence. The plan, which legal experts say is permissible under U.S. law, is nonetheless likely to trigger intense criticism from privacy advocates.

Welcome to the United States where your every move is watched by the state. News like this is the reason I laugh whenever I hear somebody say that the United States is the freest country in the world. The United States is a police state and like most police states most of the people living here don’t realize it’s a police state. Oh well, this is another reason to start looking into Bitcoin. There’s no reason the United States spy agencies need to know what you’re buying and selling and Bitcoin is an means of keeping those transactions private.

Don’t Fall for the False Dichotomy

It’s inevitable that a person involved in the political realm will eventually be forced to make a decision between standing up for their principles or maintaining their political alliances. Gun owners who also oppose furthering the police state now have to make that decision. Between the two primary factions two options have emerged: HF237, which attempts to prohibit private sales, or HF1323, which will advance the police state.

Both sides in this debate have adopted an “us” versus “them” methodology. In face the Minnesota Gun Owners Civil Rights Alliance (GOCRA) has the following to say:

Some anti-gun activists have been working to create a split among gun owners, hoping to weaken our position by making us fight among ourselves. They are trying to portray the Criminal Control bill, HF1325, as a gun control bill.

As I mentioned in my coverage of HF1323 (HF1325 is a clone of HF1323 for those who are curious) the bill contains several points that I would qualify as gun control, specifically Section 12, which would make it a felony to falsely report your firearms as lost or stolen. I consider that section a method of gun control because in the event of an “assault weapon” ban it would prohibit you from reporting your “assault weapons” as lost. With the passage of HF1323 the police would have reason to kidnap you if you reported your firearms as lost during an attempted confiscation. This, in addition with the mess of data that the bill would mandate to be entered into state or federally managed databases, makes for a frightening proposition. Things get a bit more ridiculous when the GOCRA page presents only two two options:

Don’t let the gun grabbers divide and conquer us. Call and email your Minnesota senator and representative today:

  • Ask them to support Rep. Hilstrom and Sen. Ortman’s criminal control bill.
  • Ask them to oppose Rep. Paymar’ss [sic] bill.

That’s a false dichotomy because there is a third option, oppose both bills. There is no need to pass more legislation. What’s broken in regards to gun control isn’t the absence of restrictions, it’s the number of restrictions. Gun-free zones have greatly reduced the cost of performing violence. No amount of background checks, data in police databases, or new laws will correct that problem.

What surprises me isn’t GOCRA’s advocacy of HF1323, it’s their tenacity in supporting it. I haven’t seen any suggestion that people oppose both bills. In fact, based on what I’ve seen written on their website, they seem to imply that you’re either with gun owners by supporting HF1323 or you’re against them by opposing it. It’s a ridiculous attitude to hold and it saddens me to see it posted on their website.

As I said at the beginning of this post, eventually politics will lead you to make a decision between your principles or your political alliances. My principles won’t allow me to support any legislation that creates new gun control measures or grants more power to the police state. Fortunately I’ve escaped the political realm and am now working on solutions outside of the state’s ability to control. My solution relies on mutual cooperation instead of “us” versus “them” strategies. It’s also something different, which is desperately needed since the political means has lead to a continuous erosion of gun rights. I urge everybody to oppose both bills being presented and find alternative means of advancing gun rights. The time of passively begging politicians to give us a few scraps from the table is over. We don’t need their blessing, permission, or acknowledgement and it’s time we started realizing that.

Orwellian Interrogation

It appears that the suspect in the Aurora, Colorado shooting it going to be drugged up in order to determine whether or not he’s sane:

The defendant in the deadly Colorado theater shooting could be given “truth serum” under a court order issued Monday to help determine whether he is insane if he pleads not guilty by reason of insanity.

Suspect James Holmes could be required to submit to a “narcoanalytic interview” as part of an evaluation to determine if he was legally insane at the time of the July 20 shootings, Arpahoe County District Judge William Sylvester said.

A narcoanalylitic interview is a decades-old process in which patients are given drugs to lower their inhibition. Academic studies have shown that the technique has involved the use of sodium amytal and pentothal, sometimes called truth serum.

If administering the drug will lower the suspect’s inhibitions wouldn’t it put any statements made by the suspect into question? Have we really reached a point in our society where people are willing to accept statements from a drugged up suspect? What’s to stop interrogators from telling the suspect what to say and record those statements as evidence? I don’t like where this is going, I don’t like it at all.

Kill ‘Em All

Poor Obama, it seems that he’s killed so many people with his beloved drones that he’s running out of people to kill. But worry not! He’s found a way to create new targets:

According to The Washington Post, the Obama administration is reconsidering its opposition to a new Authorization to Use Military Force, or AUMF, the foundational legal basis of the so-called war on terrorism. That short document, passed overwhelmingly by Congress days after the 9/11 attacks, tethered a U.S. military response to anyone who “planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons.” Nearly all of those people are dead or detained.

There are two ways to view that circumstance. One is to say the United States won the war on terrorism. The other is to expand the definition of the adversary to what an ex-official quoted by the Post called “associates of associates” of al-Qaida.

And that’s the one the administration is mooting. “Administration officials acknowledged that they could be forced to seek new legal cover if the president decides that strikes are necessary against nascent groups that don’t have direct al-Qaeda links,” the Post reports. Examples of the targets under consideration include the extreme Islamist faction of the Syrian rebellion; the Ansar al-Sharia organization suspected of involvement in September’s Benghazi assault; and Mokhtar Belmokhtar, the one-eyed terrorist who broke with al-Qaida but is believed to be behind the January seizure of an Algerian oil field.

Remember the halcyon days when Obama and his supporters spoke in opposition to Bush’s wars? I miss those days. Even though I knew Obama would turn out to be a war monger I had some hope that his supporters would continue to carry the anti-war flag after the election. Here was are four years later and Obama’s supporters are mostly quite when it comes to war. As it turns out the war protests were never about oppose war, they were just demonstrations made by people who were angry that their guy wasn’t the one ordering the slaughter.

The Ministry of Peace

It seems that the Ministry of Peace may become a real thing:

House Democrats led by Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) have introduced legislation that would create a federal Department of Peacebuilding, which would be tasked with everything from finding ways to scale back U.S. military actions to ending bullying at schools.

Under her bill, H.R. 808, the new department would be led by a Cabinet-level Secretary of Peacebuilding, who would have a seat on the National Security Council. The department would be “dedicated to peacebuilding, peacemaking, and the study and promotion of conditions conducive to both domestic and international peace and a culture of peace.”

I find it ironic that an entity that accomplishes everything it does with the threat or use of violence is going to pursue peace building. I’m sure it will be just as successful at building peace as is has been in balancing its budget.

Eric Holder Says It’s Legal to Murder Americans in the United States with Drones

The day I’ve been expecting has finally arrive, the United States Attorney General, Eric Holder, has openly stated that he believes it is legal to use drones to murder United States citizens in the United State:

Holder’s March 4 letter was disclosed by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who had asked whether the Justice Department believed President Barack Obama had the legal authority to order a targeted strike against an American citizen located within the United States.

The Obama administration, Holder said, rejected the use of military force where “well-established law enforcement authorities in this country provide the best means for incapacitating a terrorist threat.” But in theory, it’d be legal for the president to order such an attack under certain circumstances, Holder said.

“The question you have posed is therefore entirely hypothetical, unlikely to occur, and one we hope no president will ever have to confront. It is possible, I suppose, to imagine an extraordinary circumstance in which it would be necessary and appropriate under the Constitution and applicable laws of the United States for the President to authorize the military to use lethal force within the territory of the United States,” Holder wrote.

In other words, “Shut the fuck up slave or we’re going to kill you.”

This statement doesn’t surprise me as the current administration has already set a precedence for murdering United States citizens when it used a drone strike to kill Anwar al-Awalki and his 16 year-old son. After those murders the only question remaining is whether or not the current administration believed it was legal to murder United States citizens if they were currently in the United States.

With all of that said, it’s nice to hear a state agent say something honest for a change. Honesty from a state agent is rarer that Pope resignations and we’ve experienced both this year. Two extremely rare occurrences happening in the same year must be a sign but I’m not sure if it’s a good sign or a bad sign. What I do know is that things will continue to deteriorate in the United States.

Dissents Will not be Tolerated

A tyrannical regime has a vested interest in ensuring the general populace remain ignorant of its atrocities. This is likely why the United States government has been pursuing Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, so veraciously and why they have been making the life of Bradly Manning a living hell. Manning has plead guilty to “aiding the enemy” (I’m guessing his other option was to face execution) but releasing information about atrocities being committed to the United States government. When you read Manning’s justification for leaking the information it makes you wonder who the United States government considers to be an enemy:

Manning said: “We were obsessed with capturing and killing human targets on lists and ignoring goals and missions. I believed if the public, particularly the American public, could see this it could spark a debate on the military and our foreign policy in general [that] might cause society to reconsider the need to engage in counter-terrorism while ignoring the human situation of the people we engaged with every day.”

It appears as though the United States government considers the people living in the United States to be enemies as they have been fighting the release of any information that makes their actions look less than honorable. I believe it’s important for the people living under a war happy state to understand the true costs of war, which involves death and destruction on both sides of a conflict. When people are punished for revealing atrocities committed by a government you know that government is worried about the ramifications of its actions.