Tag: 1984 was a Warning not a Blueprint

Minnesota Police Moving to Legalize Illegal Searches

While the police state is most prominent in states like New York and California it has slowly been making its way to Minnesota since, at least, the Republic National Convention that took place in St. Paul in 2008. Now the enforcement arm of the state is demanding that they be given the authority to perform warrantless searching of Minnesota citizens:

Law enforcement officials plan to ask the Legislature this year for the right to collect intelligence information on citizens without having to publicly disclose who they are monitoring or why.

It’s a proposal that drew sharp warnings and concerns from public records and transparency advocates at a meeting today where a variety of changes to state public data laws were discussed.

The head of the Minnesota Chiefs of Police Association, Dave Pecchia, said the proposal to collect intelligence information on suspected terrorists, gang members or other suspected criminals is essential to ensure public safety to citizens in Minnesota. He said Minnesota is one of two states that doesn’t have that classification of data and it hinders the ability to share information with law enforcement officials in other states.

What’s interesting is the fact the Minnesota Chiefs of Police Association aren’t just demanding this power to spy on “terrorists” but also gang members and “other suspect criminals.” In other words every dissident group is going to find itself subject to Stasi-esque searches. I wonder when they will start asking for the power to indefinitely detain Minnesotans without charges?

You know what? New Hampshire is sounding better every day.

Greatest Campaign Stunt Ever

While I still haven’t made up my mind on Rand Paul he continues to impress me. The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has detained the senator because he refused to be sexually molested by a government thug:

Paul’s office confirmed he set off an airport security full-body scanner “on a glitch,” according to a spokesman.

The Paul staffer said TSA agents would not let Paul walk back through the body scanner and were demanding a full body pat-down.

The Paul spokesman said his office called TSA administrator John Pistole about the incident this morning.
The U.S. Constitution actually protects federal lawmakers from detention while they’re on the way to the capital.

So he setup of the scanner, offered to walk back through the scanner to verify, and then TSA agent who was chomping at the bit to feel somebody up decided that wasn’t good enough. Of course the TSA is claiming they never detained Paul:

“When an irregularity is found during the TSA screening process, it must be resolved prior to allowing a passenger to proceed to the secure area of the airport,” according to an official statement released by TSA. “Passengers who refuse to complete the screening process cannot be granted access to the secure area in order to ensure the safety of others traveling.”

This is also the same agency that lied about the safety of these body scanners so I’m more inclined to believe Paul’s statement about being detained. Either way it does boil down to a he said she said argument.

Let me give Paul some serious points for refusing to be sexual molested. On that note let me also take away points for submitting to the body scanner in the first place. Still refusing the pat down does take some balls, especially in this police state.

Just because it’s predictable can you guess where our Dear Leader stands on this issue? I’m sure you already guessed that the White House sided with the TSA thugs:

White House press secretary Jay Carney said Monday that he didn’t have any reaction to Paul’s “police state” comments.

But Carney sided with the TSA saying, “I think it is absolutely essential that we take necessary actions to ensure that air travel is safe.”

That last comment is some major doublespeak. Those body scanners aren’t necessary for airport security as demonstrated by the fact we haven’t had another terrorist hijacking since 9/11 even though body scanners have only recently been implemented. The TSA will gladly take credit for the lack of hijackings but truth be told hijackings were exceedingly rare before 9/11 when airports handled their own security.

Truthfully the White House doesn’t care about security, they care about control.

The Ultimate Shut Up Slave Legislation

Listen up slaves, you’re government has now decreed that you are to shut up while traveling overseas. HR313, the Drug Trafficking Safe Harbor Elimination Act of 2011, will make it illegal for American citizens to discuss acts that are verboten under the Controlled Substances Act:

The House Judiciary Committee passed a bill yesterday that would make it a federal crime for U.S. residents to discuss or plan activities on foreign soil that, if carried out in the U.S., would violate the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) — even if the planned activities are legal in the countries where they’re carried out. H.R. 313, the “Drug Trafficking Safe Harbor Elimination Act of 2011,” is sponsored by Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), and allows prosecutors to bring conspiracy charges against anyone who discusses, plans or advises someone else to engage in any activity that violates the CSA, the massive federal law that prohibits drugs like marijuana and strictly regulates prescription medication.

Nice huh? What’s even better is the fact this has already passed a House vote. This is a wonderfully verbose and yet horrible piece of legislations:

‘(b) Whoever, within the United States, conspires with one or more persons, or aids or abets one or more persons, regardless of where such other persons are located, to engage in conduct at any place outside the United States that would constitute a violation of this title, other than a violation of section 404(a), if committed within the United States, shall be subject to the same penalties that would apply to such conduct if it were to occur within the United States.’.

The government’s fingers spread far and wide in an attempt to control the actions of the people it claims to rule over. Even fleeing to another country is no longer a safe harbor.

NYPD Working on to Further Expand Their Personal Police State

While the police state is expanding throughout the United States it’s expanding at a faster pace in some places. States like New York, Massachusetts, and California are expanding at an incredibly rapid pace as are the cities of Chicago and New York. Not only has New York all but disarmed the law-abiding citizenry they’re working on ensuring those individuals remain disarmed. Because of the recent cases involving law-abiding citizens being dumb enough to attempt compliance with posted “No Guns Allowed” signs the police force in New York is looking for new technology to detect those who are carrying concealed weapons:

The NYPD is stepping up their war against illegal guns, with a new tool that could detect weapons on someone as they walk down the street.

But is it violating your right to privacy?

Police, along with the U.S. Department of Defense, are researching new technology in a scanner placed on police vehicles that can detect concealed weapons.

“You could use it at a specific event. You could use it at a shooting-prone location,” NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly told CBS 2′s Hazel Sanchez on Tuesday.

It’s called Terahertz Imaging Detection. It measures the energy radiating from a body up to 16 feet away, and can detect anything blocking it, like a gun.

With the recent introduction of body scanners at airports I’m sure you’ve heard of terahertz imagine. Most airport body scanners use millimeter waves as terahertz imagine is still a relatively new technology with a rather disturbing side-effect:

Alexandrov and co have created a model to investigate how THz fields interact with double-stranded DNA and what they’ve found is remarkable. They say that although the forces generated are tiny, resonant effects allow THz waves to unzip double-stranded DNA, creating bubbles in the double strand that could significantly interfere with processes such as gene expression and DNA replication. That’s a jaw dropping conclusion.

So the New York Police Department (NYPD) is using a technology that can damage DNA to detect concealed firearms. First of all it’s none of NYPD’s business who is and isn’t carrying a firearm because, regardless of what city officials believe, the right to keep and bear arms is still codified in the Constitution (and even if it wasn’t the right to self-defense is a natural one that can’t be rightfully overridden by some assholes in a government building).

If this technology gets off of the ground the denizens of New York City may find themselves exposed to dangerous terahertz waves just so some piece of shit working in NYPD can get his jollies off disarming a peaceful individual (or outright shooting the poor schmuck because “he had a gun”). I’m still waiting for New York City to setup checkpoints at every point of entry where people and their vehicles are thoroughly searched before being granted entrance into the prison city.

Public Domain is Effectively Dead

We’re all aware of the fact that copyrighted works eventually go into public domain. Well that’s how it used to work, now the Supreme Court has ruled that Congress can re-copyright public domain works:

Congress may take books, musical compositions and other works out of the public domain, where they can be freely used and adapted, and grant them copyright status again, the Supreme Court ruled Wednesday.

In a 6-2 ruling, the court ruled that just because material enters the public domain, it is not “territory that works may never exit.” (PDF)

The top court was ruling on a petition by a group of orchestra conductors, educators, performers, publishers and film archivists who urged the justices to reverse an appellate court that ruled against the group, which has relied on artistic works in the public domain for their livelihoods.

This ruling has farther implications that some may realize. There is a huge amount of public domain works out there, many of which are made freely available by sites like Project Gutenberg. Unfortunately if Congress were to renew the copyright on some of these public domain works these sites would find themselves in violation of copyright law and therefore be subject to arrest.

Another possible problem with this ruling is the fact Congress may have the ability to copyright works that were never copyrighted previously. Many authors put out material as public domain from the start, allowing people to download these works and use them in any way they see fit.

When you combine this ruling with legislation like SOPA or PROTECT-IP things get very frightening indeed. For example we will take a hypothetical piece of dissenting literature made freely available under public domain. For the sake of this discussion let’s say somebody within Congress finds this piece of literature extremely unsavory and wants it removed. In order to get it removed he works with other members of Congress to re-copyright the work. Shortly after the work is re-copyrighted the domains of every provider are seized in an effort to enact censorship of the work.

While some will claim such thing couldn’t happen in the United States the truth is it can. We live in a police state where our government is working around the clock to eliminate the rights of free speech, trial by jury, and to be secure in our belongings. Legislation like the PATRIOT Act and the new section in the National Defense Authorization Act have ensured the latter two are entirely gone but the government still has work to do on eliminating the freedom of speech. This ruling combined with legislation like SOPA and PROTECT-IP are the endgame.

Investigation into Google’s Relationship with the NSA Requested

Some people are finally finding Google’s relationship with the United States government a bit creepy and have asked “representative” Issa (the man who’s investigating Fast and Furious)to perform an investigation:

Consumer Watchdog, an advocacy group largely focused in recent years on Google’s privacy practices, has called on a congressional investigation into the Internet giant’s “cozy” relationship with U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration.

In a letter sent Monday, Consumer Watchdog asked Representative Darrell Issa, the new chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, to investigate the relationship between Google and several government agencies.

The group asked Issa to investigate contracts at several U.S. agencies for Google technology and services, the “secretive” relationship between Google and the U.S. National Security Agency, and the company’s use of a U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration airfield in California.

While such an investigation may be interesting it really won’t help people learn the lesson that your data is never private if it’s on a server you don’t entirely control. If the likes of Facebook, Google, and Yahoo don’t have your personal information they can’t give it away to anybody. With Facebook receiving money from the CIA’s venture capitalist fund and Google’s CEO being so tightly tied to the Obama administration there should be no belief any information stored with either service will not fall into the hands of Big Brother.

I really do hope Issa starts an investigation because I want to know how deep the rabbit hole goes. More importantly I want to see what maneuvers will be used to keep information about the rabbit hole away from the prying eyes of concerned citizens.

My First TSA Opt-Out

Unfortunately my record of bypassing the Transportation Security Administration’s (TSA) has been nullified. Last night flying out of Dayton, Ohio there were no scanner-free lines so I had to go through the sexual molestation instead.

Without any doubt I have learned that the pat downs performed by the TSA are done exclusively to humiliate flyers into submitting to those forsaken body scanners. How did I come to this conclusion? Besides my famous cynicism I paid careful attention to where the bad man was touching me and I can tell you taping something to your body and smuggling it in won’t present much trouble.

While the bad man felt around the collar of my shirt, my torso, arms, and legs he didn’t actually touch my groin or ass. Likewise I stashed a set of earbuds in the breast pocket of my shirt and the bad man failed to find them. Each time I’m submitted this this I’m going to try smuggling in larger items and see what I can get away with (do note that none of the items will actually be verboten, I do actually want to get on my plane). Honestly though if you stick the contraband down the front or back of your pants I doubt it will be discovered. If the item you’re smuggling is sufficiently small you could put it in your socks because they don’t pat down the bottoms of your feet.

I also noticed that no additional search is done of your belongings. My computer bag, laptop, carry-on bag, and coat went through the regular scanner but no additional search was done. Items that don’t show up on their scanners can be easily smuggled in by slipping them into a computer bag or coat.

Another thing I confirmed is that you aren’t required to buy the bad man dinner afterwards. Upon concluding his molestation I asked the bad man, “This is complimentary right? I’m not expected to buy you dinner or anything?” He chuckled and said no (I’m glad that the agent at least had a sense of humor, if he was a prude I’d have kept egging him on). After being given the all clear I walked forward, clicked my boots together, and raise my hand in the classic heil Hitler position, and said, “I have diligently followed the commands of the states.” Why did I do that last part? Because I’m an asshole and have to make at least some kind of scene.

Overall the pat down is a joke that doesn’t make passengers anymore secure. In fact the pat down shares that trait with the body scanners without actually having the potential to cause cancer.

Let me also close by encouraging all flyers to opt out of those body scanners. You may think the pat downs are humiliating or embarrassing but truthfully they’re only embarrassing for the bad man tasked with touching your naughty bits. As he’s patting you down he has to deal with the shame of being a jack booted government thug who is paid only to harass the flying public. When you see one of those body scanners be firm and say, “You’ll have to get a thug over here to pat me down because I won’t go through that scanner.”

There’s No Such Thing as Private Data

I hope most people have learned this lesson but I’m sure some have not: there’s no such thing as private data if you don’t entirely control the server that data resides on. This lesson should hold especially true for those who use Facebook as it appears that company is more than willing to throw privacy to the wind in the name of making a buck (and don’t get me wrong I have no issue with that, it’s a service that is free to me and I decide how much personal information to give them). Facebook is now giving Politico access to a lot of previously private data:

A partnership between Facebook and Politico announced today is one of the more far-reaching efforts. It will consist of sentiment analysis reports and voting-age user surveys, accompanied by stories by Politico reporters.

Most notably, the Facebook-Politico data set will include Facebook users’ private status messages and comments.

Politico is going to have a field day with the politically oriented posts I throw up on Facebook.

The Rumors of SOPA’s Death Have Been Greatly Exaggerated

Everybody is cheering about the death of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA):

In a surprise move today, Representative Eric Cantor(R-VA) announced that he will stop all action on SOPA, effectively killing the bill.

Huzzah! Hurray! Let’s all go out for drinks and celebrate!

Before we do there is one minor detail that needs to be brought up, SOPA isn’t dead. While the house version, H.R.3261 is effectively dead, it’s sister bill in the Senate, S.968 the PROTECT-IP Act, is still alive and well:

PIPA is less well known than SOPA, but the provisions are basicly the same. It still includes the same DNS blocking and censoring system that the original SOPA did, just without the SOPA name. There are around 40 co-sponsors of the bill in the Senate so far, with no word on how many senators support the bill in addition to that. There will most likely need to be 60 votes in the Senate in order to invoke cloture and end an almost guaranteed filibuster.

Much like the need to remove every head of a hyra, both bills in our legislative body must be killed before this erroneous legislation is truly dead. Hell I’m pretty sure our “representatives” purposely gave the bills two different names in the hope one’s death would lull people into a false sense of security while the other bill was ramrodded through both houses and signed by the president.

The EFF Files Suite Against FAA Regarding Drone Flights

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has filed a suit against the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) regarding drone flights in the United States:

Today, EFF filed suit against the Federal Aviation Administration seeking information on drone flights in the United States. The FAA is the sole entity within the federal government capable of authorizing domestic drone flights, and for too long now, it has failed to release specific and detailed information on who is authorized to fly drones within US borders.

Up until a few years ago, most Americans didn’t know much about drones or unmanned aircraft. However, the U.S. military has been using drones in its various wars and conflicts around the world for more than 15 years, using the Predator drone for the first time in Bosnia in 1995, and the Global Hawk drone in Afghanistan in 2001.

[…]

Now drones are also being used domestically for non-military purposes, raising significant privacy concerns. For example, this past December, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) purchased its ninth drone. It uses these drones inside the United States to patrol the U.S. borders—which most would argue is within its agency mandate—but it also uses them to aid state and local police for routine law enforcement purposes. In fact, the Los Angeles Times reported in December that CBP used one of its Predators to roust out cattle rustlers in North Dakota. The Times quoted local police as saying they “have used two unarmed Predators based at Grand Forks Air Force Base to fly at least two dozen surveillance flights since June.” State and local police are also using their own drones for routine law enforcement activities from catching drug dealers to finding missing persons. Some within law enforcement have even proposed using drones to record traffic violations.

The FAA, having total control over all aerial flights in the United States, are the only entity who is likely to both know where drones are flying and be unable to hide behind various military classifications. Obtaining this information would be of great value because it would allow us peasants to know if the government is using drones to spy domestically as well as abroad.