Tag: 1984 was a Warning not a Blueprint

I Think the Obama Reelection Headquarters in Minneapolis Looks Much Nicer Now

There seems to be almost universal hatred of the Occupy movement within the gun blogging community. I still maintain a fairly neutral stance as for every anti-capitalist mouth breather that gets air time on the major media news shows there are protests like this that I fully support:

Think bad thoughts about the government and you could go to jail…forever. That may sound like a Soviet-era law, but civil libertarians say it’s possible under the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) which is awaiting President Obama’s promised signature.

The NDAA, was passed by the US Senate 86 to 13. Minnesota senators split on the act, Franken opposing and Klobuchar voting for it.

OccupyMN organized a pre-Christmas protest at the Minneapolis Obama Reelection Headquarters.

Part of their protest involved taping signs to the front window of the headquarters. My favorite sign is the one that reads, “POLICE STATE WE CAN BELIEVE IN.” The Occupy movement still seems to be a bring your own grievance movement and there are times when the grievances brought are ones I entirely agree with. The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) should never have been voted for or signed into law. Its passage demonstrates the fact our “representatives” don’t care about defending the values this nation was founded on but prefer to strangle the populace with ever more draconian laws.

Kudos to OccupyMN for protesting this legislation and making a little trouble for the local Obama reelection robots. If you still believe Obama deserves to be reelected then I can honestly say you’re not paying attention to his actions. Granted most of the alternatives don’t look to be any better but if we start voting out bad politicians perhaps we can send a message and they’ll keep their tyrannical desires a bit more in check (by a bit more I simply mean they’ll be less blatant, there is no way to stop them from attempt to increase their power over us).

Everybody’s a Terrorist

You’re a terrorist, I’m a terrorist, we’re all terrorists! Hell, 16 year-old girls are terrorists:

An Ottumwa High School student has been charged with conspiracy to commit terrorism.

Police arrested Emily Kay Six, 16, Ottumwa, on Thursday. Officials said they began investigating after Six allegedly began trying to recruit students for what police called “a plan to harm a number of students.”

The charge is a Class D felony. Six was taken to a juvenile detention facility following her arrest.

Things certainly have changed in the decade since I graduated high school. Back in my day this would be called trying to start a fight. Nowadays is known as conspiracy to commit terrorism. As is common with cases involving children or teenagers the accusations are being vehemently denied by the parents. Ultimately it matters not until the police release their evidence but no matter how you swing it, short of plotting to detonate a bomb in the school, there is no grounds for accusing the girl of terrorism.

Terrorists are the new communists. What I mean by that is we use the label terrorist on anybody who disagrees with us instead of a specific group of people, much like people would accuse somebody they hated of being a communist during the Cold War. The shooters at Columbine would fit the definition of terrorists but a 16 year-old girl trying to get a gang together to beat the snot out of a fellow student is far from being a terrorist.

Papers Please

Remember when our “representatives” established the Transportation Sexual Assaulter Security Administration (TSA) and claimed they would only be used for airports? Remember when TSA agents were caught harassing Amtrak passengers and later truck drivers in Tennessee? That’s what we call mission creep and anytime the government establishes a new agency with limited powers you can guarantee mission creep will follow. In fact I would say this law of mission creep is more stable and provable than the law of gravity. Well fellows denizens of the United States, the TSA’s mission creep shows no signs of stopping:

Rick Vetter was rushing to board the Amtrak train in Charlotte, N.C., on a recent Sunday afternoon when a canine officer suddenly blocked the way.

Three federal air marshals in bulletproof vests and two officers trained to spot suspicious behavior watched closely as Seiko, a German shepherd, nosed Vetter’s trousers for chemical traces of a bomb. Radiation detectors carried by the marshals scanned the 57-year-old lawyer for concealed nuclear materials.

When Seiko indicated a scent, his handler, Julian Swaringen, asked Vetter whether he had pets at home in Garner, N.C. Two mutts, Vetter replied. “You can go ahead,” Swaringen said.

Let me just say I’m getting sick of state agents using dogs to do whatever the fuck they want. The only person who knows if a dog “alerts” or “indicates a scent” is the handler and they can claim any reaction made by the dog is an “alert” or “indicator.” Thus dogs are incredibly brought in to create phony probably cause as nobody can really argue against the handler’s word, especially since dogs can’t speak. I would bet money the case mentioned above was merely a case of profiling, put the target in a situation where he would feel nervous and watch for his physical reactions. If the target doesn’t break out into a sweat or studded his speech you let him go, otherwise you harass him without cause some more.

The Transportation Security Administration isn’t just in airports anymore. TSA teams are increasingly conducting searches and screenings at train stations, subways, ferry terminals and other mass transit locations around the country.

“We are not the Airport Security Administration,” said Ray Dineen, the air marshal in charge of the TSA office in Charlotte. “We take that transportation part seriously.”

The TSA’s 25 “viper” teams — for Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response — have run more than 9,300 unannounced checkpoints and other search operations in the last year. Department of Homeland Security officials have asked Congress for funding to add 12 more teams next year.

How much money to you think somebody got paid to come up with the tacticool acronym VIPR? Still this excuse by the TSA to expand its powers shows why you need to give agencies very narrow names. Instead of calling the agency the Transportation Security Administration they should have been given the name Airport Restricted Security Agency Guarding the Gateway Between the Secure Area of the Airport and the Insecure Area of the Airport using Metal Detectors (ARSAGGBSAAIAAMD). Sure it’s a mouthful but they at least have to perform an agency name change before expanding their powers a terrible amount.

Let the TSA be a lesson to you, if the government asks for powers in one market they will always use that new power to justify the expansion of their power. At the rate we’re going there will be TSA checkpoints on the border of individual states and we’ll be required to provide our papers in order to traverse from one state to another.

The Censorship War Against Terror

I’m getting very sick of this fear mongering performed by our government. United States authorities decided two papers published about bird flu were in need of revision, and when the government says revision they mean censorship:

US authorities have asked the authors of two controversial bird flu studies to redact key details after a government advisory panel suggested the data could be used by terrorists.

The papers show how a bird flu variant can pass easily between ferrets.

Holy shit, the terrorists may learn that bird flu can be used against ferrets! Not ferrets! We love those mischievous cute little critters! Quick demand the report be censored!

Let’s look at this under a more serious light. The United States government must believe Al Qaeda has a team of crack biologists who specialized in virology. That’s the only possible way that they could be in the least bit worried about this information spreading. Were I to read the report my brain would probably collapse in on itself due to complete stupidity regarding viruses. You can just read a research paper and gain a complete understanding of the material unless you also have the requisite prior knowledge on which the paper is based. Does the United States government believe real life is like Fallout where you can pick up a book, use it, and gain an instant +2% to a related stat? If Al Qaeda, the Taliban, or any other such entity had leading virologists I would think we’d have been attacked by some kind of super plague by now. Unfortunately for Al Qaeda and fortunately for us extremely intelligent researchers usually aren’t violent psychopaths.

You can just ignore everything I’ve said though because the government has a solution:

Editors at the journals Science and Nature say they will not agree to the redactions until they are assured the data will be accessible to researchers.

A spokesman for US health authorities said such a system was being prepared.

I’m sure anybody who passes a government background check, meets the government mandated qualifications to be a researcher, and pays an exorbitant licensing fee will have access to this new database system. On the other hand top level researchers in other countries (especially terrorist countries like not American) can just go fuck themselves along with the amateurs. We can completely ignore the fact that some of the world’s greatest scientific breakthroughs were done by amateur researchers who would likely not meed the government’s requirement of the title.

What this censorship will do is make finding a cure or vaccine much more difficult because only those blessed by the divinity of government will be allowed to participate in such research. In other words the potential number of researchers trying to find a cure or create a vaccine will be greatly reduced.

Mission Accomplished… Again

Have you heard? We’ve declared victory in Iraq… again! I guess we had so much time winning last time we’ve decided to relive the glory and declare our victory a second time:

The US Defence Secretary, Leon Panetta, told troops the mission had been worth the cost in blood and dollars.

He said the years of war in Iraq had yielded to an era of opportunity in which the US was a committed partner.

Only about 4,000 US soldiers now remain in Iraq, but they are due to leave in the next two weeks.

All the troops are finally coming home, except for the paltry 15,000 that will be in our Vatican City sized Iraq embassy of course. I’m also betting that many of our troops in Iraq aren’t coming home but instead being redeployed to Afghanistan to prepare for our eventual invasion of Iran.

Seriously there’s so much damned doublespeak involved with our “exiting” Iraq that I can’t keep the meaning of some basic words straight anymore.

Obama Was Just Kidding About Vetoing the National Defense Authorization Act

Remember when Obama said he was going to veto the National Defense Authorization Act? Well he was just kidding:

President Obama has dropped his threat to veto the 2012 defense authorization bill after his advisers concluded that revised provisions about detainees would not harm national security.

The new “language does not challenge or constrain the president’s ability to collect intelligence, incapacitate dangerous terrorists, and protect the American people,” Press Secretary Jay Carney said in a statement.

Emphasis mine. I wanted to bring emphasis to his reasoning for threatening a veto. Yesterday I said he had less than noble intentions when he threatened to veto but now we see what those intentions are. Obama was simply pissed because he thought the new language was going to strip him of some precious tyrannical power. Now that he’s sure his ability do whatever the fuck he wants to American citizens is secured he’s more than happy to pass the bill.

More Fear Mongering by the Department of Homeland Security

The federal government never stops with the fear mongering. They likely realize that if those of us residing in the United States don’t remain fearful we’ll be less likely to surrender our civil liberties and money peacefully. This time the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is claiming Al Qaeda is planning to sew bombs into people:

That’s right: Al-Qaida wants to surgically implant bombs into people. Or so the government claims.

Not that there’s an imminent threat, says the Department of Homeland Security. Or a surgery bomb plot that’s been foiled at the last stitch. No, this was just an “aspirational” terror plan – one that the government is now ever-so-conveniently leaking.

[…]

Supposedly, this fantastical story is based on “new intelligence,” Reuters reports. And we’ve been told by people in position to see such information — who wouldn’t talk on the record — that this is more than just a page from the last Batman script.

What was the source of this “new intelligence?” Bruce Schneier explains:

Actually, not really. This is an “aspirational” terrorist threat, which basically means that someone mentioned it while drunk in a bar somewhere.

What’s next? Perhaps DHS can pilfer the Moonraker script for their next round of fear mongering, then they could have Al Qaeda in space!

The Real Reason Obama is Threatening to Veto the National Defense Authorization Act

Obama has been threatening to veto the National Defense Authorization Act, which includes a section that will authorize indefinite detention of anybody accused of being linked to terrorism in any way. His supporters are pointing to this threat as proof of Obama’s willingness to defend the rights of American citizens. Unfortunately, for all of us, that’s not true. How can I make this claim? Easy, his administration were the ones that asked language in section 1031, the section authorizing indefinite detention, exempting American citizens be removed. Don’t take my word for it, let Senator Carl Levin explain [MP3].

If Obama gave a crap about civil rights he would have been demanding the language remain in the bill. Knowing he demanded the language be removed it’s obvious there is an ulterior motive for threatening a veto and it most likely isn’t benevolent.

Even though there were videos of this speech floating around they have apparently been removed from YouTube (I found four instances of the video, all were said to be removed by the user when I tried to view them). Thankfully I was able to find a copy of the speech on No Agenda Show Notes. The copy I linked to is from there but uploaded to my server so as not to waster their bandwidth unnecessarily.

FBI Collecting Carrier IQ Data

Every since the news about Carrier IQ broke the metaphorical shit has been hitting the metaphorical fan. People are understandably upset about the type of information carriers are collecting using the, until recently, little known software. In my original post related to Carrier IQ I stated:

Carrier iQ is likely one of the most dangerous pieces of software in common use today. I do understand the great amount of benefit it gives to cellular providers but we all know anything accessible by said providers can also be access by the government, often without so much as a court order.

I hate having my suspicions confirmed:

Michael Morisy, a journalist who founded an organization called MuckRock to ease the process of filing FOIA requests, wrote the FBI on Dec. 1 asking for “any manuals, documents or other written guidance used to access or analyze data gathered by programs developed or deployed by Carrier IQ…. In addition, I ask for expedited processing as this is a matter of immediate news interest: The existence of Carrier IQ’s software was recently disclosed and has immediate ramifications on constitutionally protected privacy rights.”

The FBI acknowledged receiving his request within a few days, and then issued a blanket denial, which cites a law exempting records from disclosure if releasing them could interfere with law enforcement proceedings. “In applying this exemption, I have determined that the records responsive to your request are law enforcement records; that there is a pending or prospective law enforcement proceeding relevant to these responsive records; and that release of the information contained in these responsive records could reasonably be expected to interfere with the enforcement proceedings,” an FBI records management official named David Hardy wrote to Morisy.

Notice that the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) filed for an exemption, they didn’t claim to have no such data available. The only logical conclusion one can draw from this fact is that the FBI has data collected by Carrier IQ on hand but doesn’t want to disclose how much. I wouldn’t be surprised if the FBI has issued blanket requests for this data from carriers using National Security Letters (NSL). As targets of NSLs are legally prohibited from disclosing the mere fact that they received the letter we have no idea how much of this data has been collected by the FBI, they could have issued a demand that all data collected using the Carrier IQ software be turned over.

Paranoids are just people with all the facts.

More Militarization of Police Through Drone Usage

Militarization of the civilian police force is a continuing concern for many of us. What was supposedly a peace keeping force to ensure the protection of the populace has been twisted into a force to fight various domestic wars. Right now our civilian police force is fighting a war on drugs and domestic terrorism while ramping up for a war on counterfeit goods. As more of these domestic wars are declared by Congress the militarization of our civilian police force advances. Now along with armored personell carriers, SWAT teams, and machine guns the police are starting to openly use military drones:

Armed with a search warrant, Nelson County Sheriff Kelly Janke went looking for six missing cows on the Brossart family farm on June 23. Three men brandishing rifles chased him off, he said.

Janke knew the gunmen could be anywhere on the 3,000-acre spread in eastern North Dakota. Fearful of an armed standoff, he called in reinforcements from the Highway Patrol, a regional SWAT team, a bomb squad, ambulances and deputy sheriffs from three counties. He also called in a Predator B drone.

As the unmanned aircraft circled 2 miles overhead, its sensors helped pinpoint the suspects, showing they were unarmed. Police rushed in and made the first known arrests of U.S. citizens with help from a Predator, the spy drone that has helped revolutionize modern warfare.

Let’s look at the threat versus the level of force used by the police. Three individuals brandishing rifles chased off a Sheriff looking for six cattle. In response to this the Sheriff called in a SWAT team, a bomb squad, deputies from three counties, and a military drone. Since when have three men with rifles required the use of a practical army? Let’s do a cost to benefits ratio on this. Deploying a massive force costs a lot of money whereas six cattle aren’t worth a dreadful amount. It would have been far more economical had the Sheriff’s department simply paid the farmer the value of his six cattle and called it a day.

Economics aside we also have the frightening reality of the police moving in with military equipment to deal with three lightly armed individuals. But the part that scares me the most is the deployment of a Predator drone. Why? Militarization of our police force seems to only creep in the direction of more. When the idea of SWAT teams were first conceived they were used only for the most dire circumstances and only a few forces maintained these teams. Eventually more departments started maintaining SWAT teams and their usage moved from dealing with heavily armed situations involving hostages to mere drug raids against unarmed individuals. Following historical models the deployment of this Predator drone likely means there will be a continuing increase of drone usage by civilian police forces.

What could this lead to? Possible an eventual continuous surveillance of major cities or, a far scarier possibility, the use of armed drones. We already have sheriffs jacking themselves off over the possibility of using armed drones. Now that one public case has been solved using a Predator drone I only see the usage of such hardware increasing. Eventually I see the use of armed drones becoming as common as the usage of SWAT teams today.

Welcome to the United Police State of America.