Tag: Law and Disorder

Hope and Change Baby

It’s so good we rid ourselves of that evil and tyrannical Bush administration and replaced it with the good civil rights aware Obama administration:

The Obama administration is developing plans that would require all Internet-based communication services — such as encrypted BlackBerry e-mail, Facebook, and Skype — to be capable of complying with federal wiretap orders, according to a report published Monday.

Oh… wait.

Citing People for Being Self-Sufficient

How’s this for fucked up? A man was cited for growing too many vegetables on his own land:

The county says Miller grows more crops on his land than allowed under zoning regulations. Code enforcement officers began ticketing him in January for the zoning violation and for allegedly having unpermitted employees on the property.

Please try to remember that you may have paid for the land but the government actually owns it.

NRA Challenging Ban on 18-20 Year Olds Buying Handguns

The National Rifle Association (NRA) are challenging the ban on 18-20 year olds being prohibited from purchasing handguns from a federally licensed dealer:

The NRA is challenging federal laws that prohibit law-abiding Americans eighteen through twenty years of age from legally purchasing a handgun through a federally licensed firearm dealer. The case was filed Tuesday evening in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas Lubbock Division. James D’Cruz of Lubbock, TX is the plaintiff in this case.

Good on them. I’ve always found some things odd in this country. Take for example being an adult, in this country you are legally considered an adult at 18 years of age. Alas being an adult doesn’t mean you’re quite ready to be treated as such. In most states you can’t legally purchase or consume alcohol until you’re 21 and you are prohibited from purchasing a handgun from a federally licensed dealer until you reach the same age.

Strangely enough when you turn 18 you’re old enough to join the military where they often issue you handguns. Hell, at 18 you’re old enough to join the civilian police force who are issued handguns as well. Yet, even if you join military or a police force, you still can not legally go to a gun shop and purchase a handgun until you reached 21 years of age. Doesn’t make much sense does it?

I’m glad to see the NRA challenging this one.

Another Crazy Greenie

Another crazy save the planet crusader bites the dust. This crazy fellow decided to walk into the headquarters for the Discovery Channel with metal cylinder strapped to his chest and a handgun. After entering the building he decided to take hostages and made some demands:

A man called James Lee of San Diego, California, was arrested outside Discovery’s headquarters in 2008 after throwing thousands of dollars into the air in protest against the network, according to The Gazette, a local newspaper.

Where was I when he did this? Shit I’d have taken that money. Oh yeah his demands sorry:

Mr Lee said he threw the money because Discovery’s programming had little to do with saving the planet.

He reportedly was also the author of the website savetheplanetprotest.com, where he demanded that the Discovery Channel broadcast programmes that would help “to save the planet”.

Well Mr. Insano met the Washington D.C. hostage negotiation team whom promptly shot the dumbass dead. Case closed.

Assange Shouldn’t Fly

A short while back I mentioned there was in interesting situation involving Julian Assange the founder of WikiLeaks. Rape charges were brought against him and then dropped almost as suddenly. It appears that the rape charges have been reinstated as well as the charges of molestation. Mr. Assange has stated the previous time these charges came up that he believed this to be a smear campaign and I actually find myself believing him.

It seems awfully convenient that these charges materialized so shortly after WikiLeaks posted confidential documents related to the war in Afghanistan. Fuel has just been added to the fire with the whole dropping of the charges due to lack of evidence only to have the charges brought back on the table. In my last post on this subject I mentioned the book Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA. One thing that book brings up is that a favorite way for the CIA to assassinate somebody is by sabotaging small personal aircraft. I’m just going to state that Mr. Assange would be wise not to get onto any small personal aircraft in the near future.

Playing Dirty

I’m generally the last person to buy into a conspiracy theory but sometimes there is enough evidence that I’m willing to acknowledge there is some merit. You’ve most likely heard an arrest warrant was released for Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, on charges of rape. Shortly afterward the warrant was redacted.

According to Assange Australian intelligence warned him up an upcoming smear campaign aimed at discrediting him and WikiLeaks. Normally this is where I just scoff and figured the theory of conspiracy going on is due to paranoid delusions. Alas given the current atmosphere surrounding Assange and his organization I’m actually willing to nod my head and say there most likely is a smear campaign being performed against him. The timing seemed awfully convenient that these charges would surface so shortly after our administration urged other countries to open criminal investigations against Assange and then shortly be dropped.

Anybody who has read Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA [not an affiliate link] knows that the CIA has a long history of dirty tricks, smear campaigns, and various other misdeeds.

Viktor Bout to be Extradited

A little over a year ago I made a post stating that accused weapons dealer, Viktor Bout, was not being extradited to the United States. For those of you who haven’t been paying attention to the story I’ll recap quickly.

Viktor Bout is a man accused of selling weapons to people our government doesn’t like. These sales take place outside of our borders but of course we like to have our noses in the business of everybody else. The Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) setup a sting operation in Thailand to catch this man and catch them they did. The DEA posed as members of the Farc group of Columbia. The sting operation was a success but that’s when everything stated to go wrong for the DEA. Thailand was not willing to extradite Mr. Bout because their country sees the Farc as a political group not a criminal gang. Due to this Thailand fought extradition and won last year. The United States appealed and won this year.

I mentioned two reasons in my previous post why I don’t believe the charges against Mr. Bout are valid. Go read that to find my opinion. Either way I think Mr. Bout is completely boned now since the following charges are being aimed against him:

Mr Bout, a former Soviet air force officer, faces US charges of conspiring to kill Americans, conspiring to provide material support to terrorists and conspiring to acquire and use an anti-aircraft missile.

Yes the terrorist word was rolled out. This means one of two things; he’s guilty until proven innocent (that’s how our courts seem to run the second terrorism is one of the accusation) or he’s going to be sent to Gitmo without trail. Russia is trying to get him back and maybe we can trade him for a few more of our spies, but I’m doubting that will happen.

Of course if we lost this appeal we found a way to appeal again by simply adding more charges to the list:

American authorities lodged two further charges of money-laundering and electronic fraud against Mr Bout before Friday’s hearing – if their appeal had been rejected, he would have had to remain in jail pending another decision.

Basically we were going to get this man on our soil regardless of what we needed to do.

Punishment is Overrated Anyways

I’ve mentioned a little laptop spying case that had come down upon a now infamous school district. In case you haven’t been reading that long I’ll recap.

The Lower Merion school district gave out laptops to each of their students. On every laptop was software that granted the ability for certain school officials to turn on the built-in web cam and see what was going on in front of the laptop. One of these school officials turned the camera on and saw what he or she thought was a kid doing drugs and tried bringing down the ban hammer. Bringing said hammer down revealed the fact that these laptops were being used to spy on kids. This feature was never actually mentioned to the students or parents whom received these laptops. This is where the shit storm started.

So what horrible punishment awaits the school officials whom were using these laptops to secretly spy on unsuspecting high school students? Absolutely nothing! It’s nice to see the justice system still works as it always has, in the benefit of the government.

I know what you’re thinking, at least the school will remove the said spying software from the kids’ laptops. Well that isn’t happening either. The school is going to openly admit they have the ability to spy on kids and their Scouts’ Honors they’ll only use it when absolutely necessary. You have to love this quote:

The measures require students and their parents to acknowledge the policies and consent in writing to any tracking, or give them an option to not participate in the laptop program. They also mandate expanded training about privacy and technology for teachers and staff, and will include information sessions for parents.

So you either put up with Big Brother or go without a laptop. That seems fair… so long as you get a tax refund for the percentage most likely being used to fund this program. The damnedest thing here is these spy programs don’t actually accomplish much as any thief with two brain cells to spare will just reformat any stolen computer to begin with. Logic of course has no place in our modern education system hence the promise from proven corrupt school officials is enough to shut the huddled masses up. Oh you also have to love this:

The district has already spent nearly $1 million in legal fees and expenses on the case.

Yes that’s right the school district has spent almost $1 million of tax payer money defending itself against tax payers. Government is the only entity where you sue them and have to pay for both your legal fees and the legal fees of those you are suing. Brilliant little scam right there! And just because it disgusts me here is another quote:

The meeting, at Penn Valley Elementary School, drew barely a dozen community members, and none who asked to speak about the policy.

Every fucking parent with a child in that school district should have been there and raising all levels of Hell. Fire and brimstone should have rained upon the school officials for spying on children. In any other capacity what those school officials did would have been labeled voyeurism and at the very least a massive invasion of privacy. Fuck that single sentence pisses me off to no end!

Let this story be a lesson, if a school gives your child a laptop tape over any built-in web cam and reformat the entire thing before your child uses it.

Edit 2010-08-18 11:16: Spelling and grammar, I don’t haz it. But I believe I’ve corrected the more glaring problems in the post.