Another Reason Florida’s Ban on Doctors Talking About Guns is Stupid

I’ve already stated that I think Florida’s law banning doctors from talking about guns is stupid. Not only does such a law crap all over the first amendment right to free speech but it also gags doctors who are gunnies like us. How are you and your doctor supposed to talk about last week’s shooting match you both attended if doing so will cause said doctor to lose his license to practice medicine?

Any law that prohibits free speech in any way is a bad law. The practice of speech goes both ways as you always have people both against and in favor of various things. By discriminating against a group of people two things have been accomplished; we have potentially alienated that group for supporting our side and we’ve made hypocrites of ourselves by claiming we support rights but then turning around and working against them. Florida’s law does nothing to help us (as no evidence was ever brought forth that doctors were conspiring to create a backdoor gun registry) and does a lot of make our movement look bad by making us appear as hypocrites.

Doctors Suing Over Florida Law Against Them Asking About Firearms

A short while back a Florida law was passed that barred doctors from asking patients whether or not they owned firearms. I posted about disagreement with this law on the grounds that it prohibits free speech. It appears as through some Florida doctors agree with me and are now suing on grounds that the law violates their right to free speech:

Physicians and the Florida Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics sued Florida Gov. Rick Scott, claiming the “Physician Gag Law” he signed last week unconstitutionally bars doctors from asking patients simple questions about guns and gun safety, and threatens them with loss of their medical licenses if they do so. More than 170 Florida children die each year from gunshots.

Three Florida doctors sued the governor and four other top Florida officials in Miami Federal Court. The plaintiff doctors are joined by the Florida Chapters of the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Academy of Family Physicians and the American College of Physicians.

Unfortunately I find myself in agreement with these doctors. Prohibiting somebody from asking another questions is a form of censorship. If a doctor wishes to ask me if I own firearms that’s their right and it’s my right to tell them where to stick their question. Should the doctor continue with his inquiry I can find another doctor to provide my medical needs. What I don’t agree with are some of the claims being made by the doctors:

The physicians say the dangers are elevated in Florida, which has a higher level of gun ownership than the national average: “Firearms pose particular risks in households with children. Every day in America 65 children and teens are shot with firearms, and eight of them die. One third of U.S. homes with children younger than eighteen have a firearm. More than 40 percent of gun-owning households with children store their guns unlocked and one quarter of those homes store them loaded.

Anti-gunners spout statistics like this often and then you find out that their definition of a child is a person between 0 and 25 years of age or some other absurd stretch. There is no justifiable reason why a physician needs to know whether or not I own firearms and they shouldn’t be making claims that such information is important to them. I will agree that they have the freedom to ask whether or not I own firearms but they certainly have no reason to know such information.

The Senate Votes to Renew PATRIOT Act Provision for Four More Years

Although I never doubted this would happen the Senate has officially voted to extend the expiring PATRIOT Act provisions for another four years:

The four-year extension was approved in the Senate just hours before the deadline at midnight (0400 GMT).

The bill was then sent to the House of Representatives, where it passed by a 250-153 vote.

That’s 250 “representatives” that are perfectly OK with shitting all over your rights.

A Secret PATRIOT Act

We all know and loathe the PATRIOT Act (unless you’re a statist in which case feel free to sodomize yourself with a retractable baton) but it seems things may be even worse than we realized. Senator Wyden or Oregon is claiming that a secret PATRIOT Act exists:

Congress is set to reauthorize three controversial provisions of the surveillance law as early as Thursday. But Wyden says that what Congress will renew is a mere fig leaf for a far broader legal interpretation of the Patriot Act that the government keeps to itself — entirely in secret. Worse, there are hints that the government uses this secret interpretation to gather what one Patriot-watcher calls a “dragnet” for massive amounts of information on private citizens; the government portrays its data-collection efforts much differently.

“We’re getting to a gap between what the public thinks the law says and what the American government secretly thinks the law says,” Wyden tells Danger Room in an interview in his Senate office. “When you’ve got that kind of a gap, you’re going to have a problem on your hands.”

I think this news should put to bed any concept of the United States being a government of the people, by the people, for the people. It appears as though our “representatives” are just fine making up secret laws now.

The Federal Government Threatens to Turn Texas Into a No-Fly Zone

Texas has been getting sick of the legal sexual assault performed by agents of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) which lead to legislation being put forth that banned such acts by those federal thugs. As the federal government has a long history of threatening any state that dares disobey their demands it’s no surprise to learn threats are being made against Texas:

Yesterday, the U.S. Department of Justice upped the ante in a high-stakes political game of chicken. Lobbying against pending legislation in the Texas legislature which would criminalize any searches conducted without probable cause, U.S. Attorney John E. Murphy sent a letter to a few high-ranking members of Texas’ government warning against promoting the bill and threatening a complete closure of all flights to and from the state.

The following is the threat made against Texas by the federal government:

“If HR [sic] 1937 were enacted, the federal government would likely seek an emergency stay of the statute,” Murphy wrote. “Unless or until such a stay were granted, TSA would likely be required to cancel any flight or series of flights for which it could not ensure the safety of passengers and crew.”

Basically the federal government would enact a form of sanctions that would bar all air travel into and out of Texas. This is what happens when a state abides by the 10th Amendment of the United States Constitution, threats of violence are brought against the legally acting state. The government of Texas has seen fit to prevent federal authorities from sexually assaulting its citizens which is a good thing and should be applauded. Other states should follow the example being put forth by Texas and if need be they should band together and resist the tyranny of the federal government.

Rand Paul Proposed an Amendment to The PATRIOT Act Exempting Firearm Records

Even though our “representatives” are trying to ram the PATRIOT Act renewal through so they don’t actually have to have a debate on aggression against the American people I would like to point out that not everybody on Capitol Hill is on board. Senator Rand Paul proposed eight amendments to the PATRIOT Act which would have at least added some semblance of improvement to the horrible law (granted anything beyond complete abolition of the PATRIOT Act is unacceptable in my book). One of the amendments I found interesting was an exception of government access to firearm records:

Firearm Records Amendment: Clarifies that the authority to obtain info under the USA PATRIOT Act does not include authority to obtain certain firearm records. Supported by Gun Owners of America.

The law is still a horrible piece of shit but at least a few “representatives” aren’t willing to just ram the damned renewal through.

They’re Not Even Trying to Hide the Police State Anymore

Thor in fucking Valhalla… the government isn’t even attempting to hide the fact that this entire country has turned into a damned police state. First an Indiana court ruled that peasents have no right to resist unlawful police entry and now the Supreme Court has ruled that police may use any noise inside a home as probably cause that evidence is being destroy:

The justices in an 8-1 decision said officers who loudly knock on a door and then hear sounds suggesting evidence is being destroyed may break down the door and enter without a search warrant.

Residents who “attempt to destroy evidence have only themselves to blame” when police burst in, said Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr.

So what kinds of sounds could suggest evidence is being destroy? Well if an officer can articulate his reasoning why the sound of that vacuum cleaner made him believe evidence was being destroyed a door breaking they may go. At least there was one dissenter in the Supreme Court:

In a lone dissent, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said she feared the ruling in a Kentucky case will give police an easy way to ignore the 4th Amendment. “Police officers may not knock, listen and then break the door down,” she said, without violating the 4th Amendment.

I’m not sure if you’ve been alerted to this face Justice Ginsburg but the 4th Amendment is dead and buried. The police no longer need a warrant to enter your home, they simply need to hear noises that may possibly mean evidence of some sort is being destroyed. Basically this ruling is the government giving a huge middle finger and telling you to bend over and get ready for a collapsible baton up the ass.

Welcome to the United Police State of America. Feel free to do whatever you want since everything is illegal. Seriously though fuck the state.

Your Government and Free Speech

I’m sure it’s apparent to anybody who has been reading this site for any extent of time that I’m not a fan of the state. The reason for this is because they managed to find new ways of fucking over the citizenry ever day. Take for example the Bill of Rights which guarantees certain protections against the government; that bill means nothing as the government has basically chosen to ignore those pesky little attempts at protecting the citizenry from tyranny. This time I’m not talking about the second amendment but the first. Behold the next wave of censoring free speech, the PROTECT IP Act:

Surprise! After months in the oven, the soon-to-be-released new version of a major US Internet censorship bill didn’t shrink in scope—it got much broader. Under the new proposal, search engines, Internet providers, credit card companies, and ad networks would all have cut off access to foreign “rogue sites”—and such court orders would not be limited to the government. Private rightsholders could go to court and target foreign domains, too.

As for sites which simply change their domain name slightly after being targeted, the new bill will let the government and private parties bring quick action against each new variation.

As the bill hasn’t be placed onto government websites yet a leaked copy of the text can be found here. The bottom line is this bill isn’t good. So long as somebody can claim a website violates their copyright they can have the site shutdown. This wouldn’t be so bad if the copyright laws in the United States weren’t so fucked up but I’m sure we all remember the Righthaven fiasco.

And the bill doesn’t stop at simply censoring “rouge” domains:

But what the PROTECT IP Act gives with one hand, it takes away with the other. While the definition of targeted sites is tighter, the remedies against such sites get broader. COICA would have forced credit card companies like MasterCard and Visa to stop doing business with targeted sites, and it would have prevented ad networks from working with such sites. It also suggested a system of DNS blocking to make site nominally more difficult to access.

This is nothing more than a thinly veiled attempt to censorship. It’s trivial to claim a site violates somebody’s copyright under current United States law so it would be trivial to shut down somebody whom you disagree with. Likewise it would take little effort for the government to shutdown a website critical of itself by simply finding a copyright holder who’s material was quoted at some point on that website.

The debate over this bill will be entertaining to watch.

Documents Released Showing 150 Gitmo Detainees Are Believed to be Innocent

What happens when a government is granted the ability to hold prisoners indefinably without charges or trial? You get innocent people held in a prison, that’s what. Documents uncovered by Wikileaks have revealed the United States government believes many prisoners held in Gitmo are actually innocent:

Files obtained by the website Wikileaks have revealed that the US believed many of those held at Guantanamo Bay were innocent or only low-level operatives.

The files, published in US and European newspapers, are assessments of all 780 people ever held at the facility.

They show that about 220 were classed as dangerous terrorists, but 150 were innocent Afghans and Pakistanis.

You got that? 150 people people held in Gitmo are presumed to be innocent bystanders by the government of the United States. Oh and this is just a classy line by our benevolent Lords:

The Pentagon said the files’ release could damage anti-terrorism efforts.

By “damage anti-terrorism efforts” they really mean embarrass the Hell out of us. This also makes an excellent case for working hard to protect our rights from government intrusion.

White House Attempting to Bar Communications Privacy Act Reform

For those of you who believe the government requires a warrant in order to obtain your e-mails from an ISP’s server you would be partially correct. As the law sits now any e-mail left on a server for more than six months is considered abandoned and thus can be obtained without the hassle of a search warrant. The Electronic Frontier Foundation has been trying to change this law for a while now but the current critters in the White House are urging Congress to prevent such measures from being adopted. James A. Baker, the associated deputy attorney general, stated the following in relation to the subject:

Congress should recognize the collateral consequences to criminal law enforcement and the national security of the United States if ECPA were to provide only one means — a probable cause warrant — for compelling disclosure of all stored content. For example, in order to obtain a search warrant for a particular e-mail account, law enforcement has to establish probable cause to believe that evidence will be found in that particular account. In some cases, this link can be hard to establish. In one recent case, for example, law enforcement officers knew that a child exploitation subject had used one account to send and receive child pornography, and officers discovered that he had another email account, but they lacked evidence about his use of the second account.

First let’s hand Mr. Baker bonus points for using child pornography since we know anything to “protect the children” is good. Second don’t we see having to provide evidence in order to obtain a warrant just gets in the way? Hell we should all support legislation that would allow the government to just walk into our homes whenever the fuck they want. Not supporting such legislation simply means you have something to hide and thus are likely a terrorist.

I also love how law enforcement officers know a target was sending and receiving child pornography via one e-mail account but were upset that they couldn’t access the other e-mail account which they had no evidence against. Guess what? That’s what we call due process and at one time was believed to be the basis of our legal system.

This is probably the best reason to have your own mail server. If you own the mail server it doesn’t matter how old any e-mail stored on the system is as the government requires one of those pesky warrants in order to sieze it.