Tag: 1984 was a Warning not a Blueprint

This is Why I Don’t Call it a Justice System

Calling the system of laws in this country a justice system is entirely erroneous. What was have is a punishment system, a system that punishes you whether or not you’re guilty or innocent. Things have only been going down hill and now the state is so brazen that they have flat out stated being proven innocent is no longer valid ground for release:

Witnesses have testified that another man confessed to Deputy Hill’s murder. But in a January ruling, U.S. District Court Judge Keith Ellison lamented that even though he was concerned Will could be innocent, he had to deny his motion for a new trial.

“The questions raised during post-judgment factual development about Will’s actual innocence create disturbing uncertainties,” he wrote. “Federal law does not recognize actual innocence as a mechanism to overturn an otherwise valid conviction.”

Emphasis mine. Actual innocent isn’t recognized by federal law as a mechanism to have a conviction overturned? What? Isn’t that the entire fucking point of the “justice” system, determine whether or not somebody is actually guilty of a crime? I know the motto is “innocent until proven guilty” but if a person who was previous ruled guilty is later found to be innocent doesn’t that indicate they’re no longer proven guilty? Isn’t the “justice” system only supposed to punish the guilty?

Let’s face it, we’re in a police state and justice was given the boot ages ago.

Strong Bipartisan Support

We often hear a bill has strong bipartisan support as if that’s a good thing. Truthfully strong bipartisan support is a fancy of way of saying legislation that will fuck us in the ass. Remember the bill I mentioned that would effectively make it illegal to protest anywhere people protected by the Secret Service were speaking? It broke the laws of physics when it passed through the legislature faster than the speed of light. It flew threw the Senate on February 5th, made its way through the House on February 28th, and was finally signed by the emperor president on March 7th. All told the bill went from passing its first part of congress to being signed into law in roughly one month.

The statement released by the White House is laughable:

H.R. 347, the “Federal Restricted Buildings and Grounds Improvement Act of 2011,” which makes it a Federal crime to enter or remain knowingly in any restricted area of the White House, the Vice President’s official residence, or their respective grounds without lawful authority.

No justification, no attempt at bullshitting the public about why this bill is needed, just a short statement that might as well read, “Shut up slaves.” The statement also entirely missed the fact that this bill extends well beyond the White House or the Vice President’s residence:

‘(1) the term ‘restricted buildings or grounds’ means any posted, cordoned off, or otherwise restricted area–

‘(A) of the White House or its grounds, or the Vice President’s official residence or its grounds;

‘(B) of a building or grounds where the President or other person protected by the Secret Service is or will be temporarily visiting; or

‘(C) of a building or grounds so restricted in conjunction with an event designated as a special event of national significance; and

‘(2) the term ‘other person protected by the Secret Service’ means any person whom the United States Secret Service is authorized to protect under section 3056 of this title or by Presidential memorandum, when such person has not declined such protection.’.

The bill applies to any location where persons “protected by the Secret Service” are at. Beautiful isn’t it? That means this bill applies to any location the president or vice president are currently stalking about.

It’s Officially Official, I’m a Domestic Terrorist According to the FBI

No longer relegated to the back corner of the bar of state enemies, I’m not officially an official domestic terrorist according to the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI):

The FBI considers sovereign-citizen extremists as comprising a domestic terrorist movement, which, scattered across the United States, has existed for decades, with well-known members, such as Terry Nichols, who helped plan the Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, bombing. Sovereign citizens do not represent an anarchist group, nor are they a militia, although they sometimes use or buy illegal weapons. Rather, they operate as individuals without established leadership and only come together in loosely affiliated groups to train, help each other with paperwork, or socialize and talk about their ideology.

Holy shit my head hurts after reading that. First I’m going to, again, bring up the fact that sovereign citizen is an oxymoron:

Sovereign citizen is a contradiction of terms. A sovereign is a supreme ruler while a citizen is a subject of a state. You can not be a supreme ruler and a subject at the same time. On the other hand a sovereign individual is a supreme ruler of an individual, him or herself. If you’re going to make us appear as a threat please get the terminology right at the very least.

Beyond that let me focus on the, “Sovereign citizens do not represent an anarchist group… Rather, they operate as individuals without established leadership…” Huh? Sovereign individuals aren’t anarchists but operate as leaderless individuals? I would love to know what the FBI’s definition of anarchist is because there are various forms of individualist anarchist philosophies. If anybody working for the FBI is reading this post (let me use a Department of Homeland Security keyword to ensure you are, drill) please take a few seconds to read my post that explains different schools of anarchism.

A person who considers themselves a sovereign individual very well could be an anarcho-capitalist, voluntaryist, or a mutualist (which can actually be seen as an individualist or collectivist form of anarchism depending on how you look at it). Unless the FBI is using an extremely narrow definition of anarchist the statement on their own page is contradictory. Furthermore they state Terry Nichols as an example of a sovereign individual but fail to mention any others. Murray Rothbard, Walter Block, and Jeffery Tucker would all consider themselves sovereign individuals but, like myself, advocate strict adherence to the non-aggression principle.

Blatant undefined generalizations are one of the biggest problems with the United States government. They will say all sovereign individuals are violent and thus label anybody who consideres themselves a sovereign a domestic terrorist. What this does is group non-violent individuals such as myself with the rare violent individuals, which makes both groups appear the same in the eyes of law enforcement.

I’m sure those reading the FBI’s article are wondering, “How can I identify a sovereign individual?” Easy, the FBI has a list of identifying factors:

Sovereign citizens often produce documents that contain peculiar or out-of-place language. In some cases, they speak their own language or will write only in certain colors, such as in red crayon. Several indicators can help identify these individuals.

  • References to the Bible, The Constitution of the United States, U.S. Supreme Court decisions, or treaties with foreign governments
  • Personal names spelled in all capital letters or interspersed with colons (e.g., JOHN SMITH or Smith: John)
  • Signatures followed by the words “under duress,” “Sovereign Living Soul” (SLS), or a copyright symbol (©)
  • Personal seals, stamps, or thumb prints in red ink
  • The words “accepted for value”

They also carry fraudulent drivers’ licenses to indicate their view that law enforcement does not have the authority to stop their vehicle or may write “No Liability Accepted” above their signature on a driver’s license to signify that they do not accept it as a legitimate identification document.

What? Writes in red crayons? I’m not sure where they came up with that one. Oh, referencing “The Constitution of the United States, U.S. Supreme Court decisions, or treaties with foreign governments” makes one a sovereign individual and thus a terrorist? Damn… that basically covered every lawyer, law professor, and libertarian in the country. I guess I’ve been wondering how long it would take the FBI to label the United States Constitution a terrorist document, now I know.

My Slight Change in Attitude

I strongly opposed the passage of laws that attempted to regulate what consenting adults did in the bedroom but no more! With the recent uprising of anger I’ve witnessed due to proposed laws that would regulate what people did in the bedroom, who would be made to pay for contraceptives, whether or not abortions are legal, and all that jazz I’ve decided I want every one of those laws to pay. Every. Single. One. I also want the state to actually attempt to enforce these laws. I also want these tongue-in-cheek laws to pass:

Delaware: By an 8 to 4 vote, the Wilmington, Delaware, city council recognized the personhood of semen because “each ‘egg person’ and each ‘sperm person’ should be deemed equal in the eyes of the government.”

Virginia: As the state Senate debated requiring transvaginal ultrasounds for women seeking abortions, Sen. Janet Howell proposed mandating rectal exams and cardiac stress tests for men seeking erectile dysfunction meds. Her amendment failed by just two votes.

[…]

Texas: Contesting a bill mandating sonograms before abortions, Rep. Harold Dutton unsuccessfully offered three amendments in a row. The first would have required the state to pay the college tuition of children born to women who decide against an abortion after seeing a required ultrasound image. The second would have subsidized the children’s health care costs until age 18. When that failed, he lowered the age to 6. That didn’t fly, either.

Pass them all! Enforce them all! Make the sex lives of every person in the United States a living hell of regulations, red tape, fines, and court cases. Stop all this political pussyfooting around and get all this idiotic bullshit through the legislative process.

Look at how pissed off people are getting over laws affecting sex. People who sat aside while the PATRIOT Act was passed, who did nothing when the NDAA was passed this year, and didn’t even give a shit that a bill was introduced that would grant the government power to revoke citizenship are outright fuming over the recent slew of sex regulations being presented. Nobody seems to give a shit until they are personally inconvenienced and if that’s what it takes I say do it. Pass every one of these laws and finally get people pissed off enough to give the state the finger. I want to see rampant civil disobedience, I would be overjoyed to witness juries refusing to declare a man guilty because they found the law unjust, nothing would make me happier than seeing everybody in the United States finally standing up and refusing to be oppressed by the state.

Those of you in congresses of the individuals states I urge you to ramrod these bills through as if they were bills that granted you more benefits for being politicians! Treat these bills as if they would grant you even more power to expand the police state! Make passage of these laws top priority! Get everybody good and pissed off so I can finally stop trying to wake people up and get to the part where we actually change things.

Let’s just make everything illegal and get this police state to it’s ultimate conclusion. Nothing will turn liberals (using the modern definition of the word) and conservatives (using the traditional definition of the word) into hardcore libertarians like encroachments into their bedrooms.

Hello Mr. or Mrs. DHS Agent

Hello Mr. or Mrs. Department of Motherland Homeland Security Agent,

I see that you’ve come to my site due to one or more of the keywords I’ve printed in the following list:

Department of Homeland Security (DHS)
Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)
Coast Guard (USCG)
Customs and Border Protection (CBP)
Border Patrol
Secret Service (USSS)
National Operations Center (NOC)
Homeland Defense
Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE)
Agent
Task Force
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)
Fusion Center
Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA)
Secure Border Initiative (SBI)
Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)
Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms (ATF)
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (CIS)
Federal Air Marshal Service (FAMS)
Transportation Security Administration (TSA)
Air Marshal
Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)
National Guard
Red Cross
United Nations (UN)
Assassination
Attack
Domestic security
Drill
Exercise
Cops
Law enforcement
Authorities
Disaster assistance
Disaster management
DNDO (Domestic Nuclear Detection Office)
National preparedness
Mitigation
Prevention
Response
Recovery
Dirty bomb
Domestic nuclear detection
Emergency management
Emergency response
First responder
Homeland security
Maritime domain awareness (MDA)
National preparedness
initiative
Militia
Shooting
Shots fired
Evacuation
Deaths
Hostage
Explosion (explosive)
Police
Disaster medical assistance
team (DMAT)
Organized crime
Gangs
National security
State of emergency
Security
Breach
Threat
Standoff
SWAT
Screening
Lockdown
Bomb (squad or threat)
Crash
Looting
Riot
Emergency Landing
Pipe bomb
Incident
Facility
Hazmat
Nuclear
Chemical spill
Suspicious package/device
Toxic
National laboratory
Nuclear facility
Nuclear threat
Cloud
Plume
Radiation
Radioactive
Leak
Biological infection (or event)
Chemical
Chemical burn
Biological
Epidemic
Hazardous
Hazardous material incident
Industrial spill
Infection
Powder (white)
Gas
Spillover
Anthrax
Blister agent
Chemical agent
Exposure
Burn
Nerve agent
Ricin
Sarin
North Korea
Outbreak
Contamination
Exposure
Virus
Evacuation
Bacteria
Recall
Ebola
Food Poisoning
Foot and Mouth (FMD)
H5N1
Avian
Flu
Salmonella
Small Pox
Plague
Human to human
Human to Animal
Influenza
Center for Disease Control
(CDC)
Drug Administration (FDA)
Public Health
Toxic
Agro Terror
Tuberculosis (TB)
Agriculture
Listeria
Symptoms
Mutation
Resistant
Antiviral
Wave
Pandemic
Infection
Water/air borne
Sick
Swine
Pork
Strain
Quarantine
H1N1
Vaccine
Tamiflu
Norvo Virus
Epidemic
World Health Organization
(WHO) (and components)
Viral Hemorrhagic Fever
E. Coli
Infrastructure security
Airport
Airplane (and derivatives)
Chemical fire
CIKR (Critical Infrastructure & Key Resources)
AMTRAK
Collapse
Computer infrastructure
Communications
infrastructure
Telecommunications
Critical infrastructure
National infrastructure
Metro
WMATA
Subway
BART
MARTA
Port Authority
NBIC (National Biosurveillance Integration Center)
Transportation security
Grid
Power
Smart
Body scanner
Electric
Failure or outage
Black out
Brown out
Port
Dock
Bridge
Cancelled
Delays
Service disruption
Power lines
Drug cartel
Violence
Gang
Drug
Narcotics
Cocaine
Marijuana
Heroin
Border
Mexico
Cartel
Southwest
Juarez
Sinaloa
Tijuana
Torreon
Yuma
Tucson
Decapitated
U.S. Consulate
Consular
El Paso
Fort Hancock
San Diego
Ciudad Juarez
Nogales
Sonora
Colombia
Mara salvatrucha
MS13 or MS-13
Drug war
Mexican army
Methamphetamine
Cartel de Golfo
Gulf Cartel
La Familia
Reynosa
Nuevo Leon
Narcos
Narco banners (Spanish equivalents)
Los Zetas
Shootout
Execution
Gunfight
Trafficking
Kidnap
Calderon
Reyosa
Bust
Tamaulipas
Meth Lab
Drug trade
Illegal immigrants
Smuggling (smugglers)
Matamoros
Michoacana
Guzman
Arellano-Felix
Beltran-Leyva
Barrio Azteca
Artistic Assassins
Mexicles
New Federation
Terrorism
Al Qaeda (all spellings)
Terror
Attack
Iraq
Afghanistan
Iran
Pakistan
Agro
Environmental terrorist
Eco terrorism
Conventional weapon
Target
Weapons grade
Dirty bomb
Enriched
Nuclear
Chemical weapon
Biological weapon
Ammonium nitrate
Improvised explosive device
IED (Improvised Explosive Device)
Abu Sayyaf
Hamas
FARC (Armed Revolutionary Forces Colombia)
IRA (Irish Republican Army)
ETA (Euskadi ta Askatasuna)
Basque Separatists
Hezbollah
Tamil Tigers
PLF (Palestine Liberation Front)
PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization
Car bomb
Jihad
Taliban
Weapons cache
Suicide bomber
Suicide attack
Suspicious substance
AQAP (AL Qaeda Arabian
Peninsula)
AQIM (Al Qaeda in the
Islamic Maghreb)
TTP (Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan)
Yemen
Pirates
Extremism
Somalia
Nigeria
Radicals
Al-Shabaab
Home grown
Plot
Nationalist
Recruitment
Fundamentalism
Islamist
Emergency
Hurricane
Tornado
Twister
Tsunami
Earthquake
Tremor
Flood
Storm
Crest
Temblor
Extreme weather
Forest fire
Brush fire
Ice
Stranded/Stuck
Help
Hail
Wildfire
Tsunami Warning Center
Magnitude
Avalanche
Typhoon
Shelter-in-place
Disaster
Snow
Blizzard
Sleet
Mud slide or Mudslide
Erosion
Power outage
Brown out
Warning
Watch
Lightening
Aid
Relief
Closure
Interstate
Burst
Emergency Broadcast System
Cyber security
Botnet
DDOS (dedicated denial of
service)
Denial of service
Malware
Virus
Trojan
Keylogger
Cyber Command
2600
Spammer
Phishing
Rootkit
Phreaking
Cain and abel
Brute forcing
Mysql injection
Cyber attack
Cyber terror
Hacker
China
Conficker
Worm
Scammers
Social media

Judging by the extremely long list [PDF] of keywords DHS uses to monitor social networking sites you have your work cut out for you. In fact judging by the frequently used words like spammer, China, storm, flood, and pirates you’re forced to scour almost the entire Internet. Hell being the agency you work for is one of the listed keywords you’re likely also forced to scour your entire intranet as well.

I would like to thank Bruce Schneier for bringing this list to my attention so that I could get your attention. Now that I have your attention I have a message for you and your fellow government agents: fuck you. Feel free to forward my message to your boss.

Even though your list is quite extensive I’ve noticed several words missing that you may wish to add: sovereign, anarchist, freedom, liberty, founding fathers, rights, and ponies. Why ponies? Because of this guy.

Anyways you should get back to work. Feel free to nose around my sight for a bit, I’m sure you’ll find something in need of additional DHS attention. If you have any questions feel free to submit them to the e-mail address listed on the right-hand side of this page, I’ll get back to you at my earliest convenience (do be warned though that any reply sent from my will contain an attached image of some pornographic image so vulgar that the strongest eye bleach won’t be capable of removing it).

Sincerely,

Christopher Burg

The State’s Citizen Hit List

Attorney General Eric “Arm the Mexican Drug Cartels to Make an Excuse for Gun Control” Holder has finally let us mere peasants in on the criteria used by the United States government to decide when it will kill its own citizens:

Much has been made of the distinction between our federal civilian courts and revised military commissions. The reality is that both incorporate fundamental due process and other protections that are essential to the effective administration of justice – and we should not deprive ourselves of any tool in our fight against al Qaeda.

[…]

I have faith in the framework and promise of our military commissions, which is why I’ve sent several cases to the reformed commissions for prosecution. There is, quite simply, no inherent contradiction between using military commissions in appropriate cases while still prosecuting other terrorists in civilian courts. Without question, there are differences between these systems that must be – and will continue to be – weighed carefully. Such decisions about how to prosecute suspected terrorists are core Executive Branch functions. In each case, prosecutors and counterterrorism professionals across the government conduct an intensive review of case-specific facts designed to determine which avenue of prosecution to pursue.

Several practical considerations affect the choice of forum.

First of all, the commissions only have jurisdiction to prosecute individuals who are a part of al Qaeda, have engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners, or who have purposefully and materially supported such hostilities. This means that there may be members of certain terrorist groups who fall outside the jurisdiction of military commissions because, for example, they lack ties to al Qaeda and their conduct does not otherwise make them subject to prosecution in this forum. Additionally, by statute, military commissions cannot be used to try U.S. citizens.

Second, our civilian courts cover a much broader set of offenses than the military commissions, which can only prosecute specified offenses, including violations of the laws of war and other offenses traditionally triable by military commission. This means federal prosecutors have a wider range of tools that can be used to incapacitate suspected terrorists. Those charges, and the sentences they carry upon successful conviction, can provide important incentives to reach plea agreements and convince defendants to cooperate with federal authorities.

Third, there is the issue of international cooperation. A number of countries have indicated that they will not cooperate with the United States in certain counterterrorism efforts — for instance, in providing evidence or extraditing suspects – if we intend to use that cooperation in pursuit of a military commission prosecution. Although the use of military commissions in the United States can be traced back to the early days of our nation, in their present form they are less familiar to the international community than our time-tested criminal justice system and Article III courts. However, it is my hope that, with time and experience, the reformed commissions will attain similar respect in the eyes of the world.

Basically whenever a military commission decides that you’re a member of Al Qaeda and it is otherwise inconvenient to deal with you that commission can order your executed. Reading through the speech I’m convinced that Holder gets off on his power to kill American people, the speech is him basically masturbating to how awesome he believes the state to be. What a power hungry prick.

I wonder why this justification will start being applied to other supposed terrorists? Perhaps the state will justify murdering sovereign individuals. Who knows? The state isn’t accountable to anybody and that’s what the founders of this country warned us about. It’s too bad we didn’t listen to them.

The United State’s Censorship Powers Extend Beyond Its Borders

After the failures of SOPA and PIPA I brought up the fact that both pieces of legislation were irrelevant because the government would just act as if the laws were passed. Merely taking down MegaUpload wasn’t enough to satisfy the United State government’s appetite for censorship and now they’ve started enlisting the help of private domain registrars to take down more “undesirable” websites:

Yesterday Forbes broke the news that Canadian Calvin Ayre and partners who operate the Bodog online gambling empire have been indicted in the U.S., and in a blog post Calvin Ayre confirmed that their bodog.com domain had been seized by homeland security.

[…]

But now, none of that matters, because in this case the State of Maryland simply issued a warrant to .com operator Verisign, (who is headquartered in California) who then duly updated the rootzone for .com with two new NS records for bodog.com which now redirect the domain to the takedown page.

Verisign is the ultimate authority in all .com domains. When you register a .com domain through other sites such as GoDaddy, eNom, or Hover they’re merely acting as resellers, middlemen, between you and Verisign. What this means is that Verisign can technically take down any .com domain, and the United States government used their authority to make Verisign take down a .com website even though the site was hosted outside of the government’s official reach.

This demonstrates quite succinctly that the government doesn’t actually need to pass any Internet censorship bills, such legislation would serve as a simple formality. What the government wants to do they do and anybody who attempts to stand in their way will find themselves crushed under the weight of the leviathan.

Does this mean everybody should rush out and register their sites with top-level domains controlled by organizations residing in foreign lands? You could attempt to do that although I highly doubt it would accomplish much. The United State’s government has a lot of pull and can likely get any domain they wish seized. It’s certainly a decent backup plan though, even if it is likely a temporary one. What we really need is a decentralized Dynamic Name System (DNS) that not central authority holds control over.

Protesting at Presidential Events Soon to be Illegal

Remember all the gun we’ve had protesting at places where Obama made appearances? Those were the days and sadly those days are fast approaching a permanent end:

The US House of Representatives voted 388-to-3 in favor of H.R. 347 late Monday, a bill which is being dubbed the Federal Restricted Buildings and Grounds Improvement Act of 2011. In the bill, Congress officially makes it illegal to trespass on the grounds of the White House, which, on the surface, seems not just harmless and necessary, but somewhat shocking that such a rule isn’t already on the books. The wording in the bill, however, extends to allow the government to go after much more than tourists that transverse the wrought iron White House fence.

Before I start on my little adventure of looking at the bill let me first give some major kudos to Russia Today. Not only did they give the bill number but they also tried to link to the bill itself (unfortunately they linked to temporary results from the Thomas Library of Congress, but they at least tried). Now let’s take a look at the bill’s text:

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

This Act may be cited as the ‘Federal Restricted Buildings and Grounds Improvement Act of 2011’.

SEC. 2. RESTRICTED BUILDING OR GROUNDS.

Section 1752 of title 18, United States Code, is amended to read as follows:

‘Sec. 1752. Restricted building or grounds

‘(a) Whoever–

‘(1) knowingly enters or remains in any restricted building or grounds without lawful authority to do so;

‘(2) knowingly, and with intent to impede or disrupt the orderly conduct of Government business or official functions, engages in disorderly or disruptive conduct in, or within such proximity to, any restricted building or grounds when, or so that, such conduct, in fact, impedes or disrupts the orderly conduct of Government business or official functions;

‘(3) knowingly, and with the intent to impede or disrupt the orderly conduct of Government business or official functions, obstructs or impedes ingress or egress to or from any restricted building or grounds; or

‘(4) knowingly engages in any act of physical violence against any person or property in any restricted building or grounds;

or attempts or conspires to do so, shall be punished as provided in subsection (b).

‘(b) The punishment for a violation of subsection (a) is–

‘(1) a fine under this title or imprisonment for not more than 10 years, or both, if–

‘(A) the person, during and in relation to the offense, uses or carries a deadly or dangerous weapon or firearm; or

‘(B) the offense results in significant bodily injury as defined by section 2118(e)(3); and

‘(2) a fine under this title or imprisonment for not more than one year, or both, in any other case.

‘(c) In this section–

‘(1) the term ‘restricted buildings or grounds’ means any posted, cordoned off, or otherwise restricted area–

‘(A) of the White House or its grounds, or the Vice President’s official residence or its grounds;

‘(B) of a building or grounds where the President or other person protected by the Secret Service is or will be temporarily visiting; or

‘(C) of a building or grounds so restricted in conjunction with an event designated as a special event of national significance; and

‘(2) the term ‘other person protected by the Secret Service’ means any person whom the United States Secret Service is authorized to protect under section 3056 of this title or by Presidential memorandum, when such person has not declined such protection.’.

Beautiful huh? This bill is the exact thing I’ve been warning people about whenever a protest in Washington DC takes place. As I’ve said the king doesn’t like it when the peasants gather at the castle and this bill is a result of unruly peasants daring to take their message to the White House. Now going to the White House or any other location where somebody protected by the Secret Service is and “knowingly, and with intent to impede or disrupt the orderly conduct of Government business or official functions” can face up to a year in prison. Our favorite Arizona protester with a gun would not face up to ten years in prison for his exercise of free speech.

I would echo the statement made in the Russia Today article and say that the First Amendment is dead but it died a long time ago. The Bush initiated “free speech zones” were bad but this is even more ridiculous, and it’s already passed the House and Senate so it merely requires a signature from Emperor Obama (who will absolutely love this bill since it will shield him from people with differing opinions to his own).

You Can’t Even Renounce Your Citizen for Free

Everything is getting expensive today, even renouncing your citizenship:

Under new consular fees published Thursday in the Federal Register, the cost of processing a formal renunciation of U.S. citizenship skyrocketed from $0 to $450. The announcement locks in fee hikes that had been proposed in 2010 and instituted on an interim basis.

$450 to say you no longer want part of the so-called “social contract?” That’s a pretty nasty early termination fee, especially when you consider the supposed contract is for the entirely of your life and not the paltry two years cellular providers put you under.

Some may wonder why you wouldn’t just leave the country and “renounce” you citizenship by never coming back. The answer to that is simply: the government will charge you with the crime on not paying your taxes (which, according to them, you still owe since you’re a citizen) and attempt to have you extradited for trial. Until one has filled out the official paperwork the United States government believes they hold ownership over your physical person.

Besides renouncing your citizenship the cost of going to other countries in general has gone up:

It’s also getting more expensive if you want to keep your U.S. citizenship and need a passport to prove it. The application fee for a passport is jumping by 27 percent, from $55 to $70 with a 100 percent increase, from $20 to $40, in the passport security surcharge.

In addition to the increase in the application fee, the department will now charge $82 _ up from nothing _ to add new pages to a U.S. passport.

Perhaps only the wealthy will be allowed to leave the country some day, and only if they give the government some collateral to encourage their return. Preventing citizens from leaving is a common tactic used by tyrannical regimes and I wouldn’t be surprised, with the direction this country has been going, if such tactics are implemented here. Steps like increasing the cost of passports are baby steps in that direction.

FBI Forced to Turn Off 3,000 GPS Tracking Devices

Poor Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI), they were forced to turn off all of the Global Positioning System (GPS) tracking devices they attached to peoples’ cars without so much as a warrant:

The Supreme Court’s recent ruling overturning the warrantless use of GPS tracking devices has caused a “sea change” inside the U.S. Justice Department, according to FBI General Counsel Andrew Weissmann.

Mr. Weissmann, speaking at a University of San Francisco conference called “Big Brother in the 21st Century” on Friday, said that the court ruling prompted the FBI to turn off about 3,000 GPS tracking devices that were in use.

That’s not even the best part though:

After the ruling, the FBI had a problem collecting the devices that it had turned off, Mr. Weissmann said. In some cases, he said, the FBI sought court orders to obtain permission to turn the devices on briefly – only in order to locate and retrieve them.

First they stick these devices on the cars of unsuspecting individuals, then they are forced to turn them off, and now they’re having a hard time recovering them because they can’t track them anymore. Irony is sweet. Since they can’t track these devices anymore I’d say it’s finders keepers.