More “War on Terror” Abuses – Spying Powers Are Used for Terrorism Only 0.5% of the Time

Screen Shot 2014-10-27 at 2.12.13 PMThe Patriot Act continues to wreak its havoc on civil liberties. Section 213 was included in the Patriot Act over the protests of privacy advocates and granted law enforcement the power to conduct a search while delaying notice to the suspect of the search. Known as a “sneak and peek” warrant, law enforcement was adamant Section 213 was needed to protect against terrorism. But the latest government report detailing the numbers of “sneak and peek” warrants reveals that out of a total of over 11,000 sneak and peek requests, only 51 were used for terrorism. Yet again, terrorism concerns appear to be trampling our civil liberties.

– From the EFF’s excellent piece: Government Authority Intended for Terrorism is Used for Other Purposes

The last week or so has provided several examples of how Western governments aren’t using their increased spy powers for terrorism at all, but rather, are abusing them in almost every other manner imaginable. From tax collection and raiding manufacturers of female undergarments, to confiscating counterfeit goods.

While powerful, all of that is just anecdotal evidence. What we really need to see are some hard numbers to prove that the “war on terror” is a gigantic fraud simply used to strip citizens’ of their civil liberties. Well, thanks to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), we now have such numbers.

Read it and weep serfs:

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“Stop Thanking Me for My Service” – Former U.S. Army Ranger Blasts American Foreign Policy and The Corporate State

Screen Shot 2014-10-28 at 11.15.28 AMStarbucks Chairman Howard Schultz has said of the upcoming Concert for Valor:

“The post-9/11 years have brought us the longest period of sustained warfare in our nation’s history. The less than one percent of Americans who volunteered to serve during this time have afforded the rest of us remarkable freedoms — but that freedom comes with a responsibility to understand their sacrifice, to honor them, and to appreciate the skills and experience they offer when they return home.”

It was crafty of Schultz to redirect that famed 1% label from the ultra rich, represented by CEOs like him, onto our “heroes.” At the concert, I hope Schultz has a chance to get more specific about those “remarkable freedoms.” Will he mention that the U.S. has the highest per capita prison population on the planet?  Does he include among those remarkable freedoms the guarantee that dogs, Tasers, tear gas, and riot police will be sent after you if you stay out past dark protesting the killing of an unarmed Black teenager by a representative of this country’s increasingly militarized police? Will the freedom to be too big to fail and so to have the right to melt down the economy and walk away without going to prison — as Jamie Dimon, the CEO of Chase, did – be mentioned? Do these remarkable freedoms include having every American phone call and email recorded and stored away by the NSA?

– From the incredible letter by Former U.S. Army Ranger Rory Fanning: Stop Thanking Me for My Service

I have to admit, whenever I find myself in the midst of a large public gathering (which fortunately isn’t that often), and the token veteran or two is called out in front of the masses to “honor” I immediately begin to cringe as a result of a massive internal conflict. On the one hand, I recognize that the veteran(s) being honored is most likely a decent human being. Either poor or extraordinarily brainwashed, the man or woman paraded in front of the crowd is nothing more than a pawn. Even if their spouse hasn’t left them; even if whatever conflict they were involved in didn’t result in a permanent disability or post traumatic stress disorder, this person has been used and abused, and thirty seconds of cheering in between ravenous bites out of a footlong hotdog from a drunk and apathetic crowd isn’t going to change that. I don’t harbor negative sentiments toward the veteran.

On the other hand, the entire spectacle makes me sick. I refuse to participate in the superficial charade for many reasons, but the primary one is that I don’t want to play any part in the crowd’s insatiable imbecility. It’s the stupidity and ignorance of the masses that the corporate-state preys upon, and that’s precisely what’s on full display at these tired and phony imperialist celebrations.

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Saudi Arabia Sentences 3 Lawyers to Jail for Tweets

Screen Shot 2014-10-27 at 6.06.00 PMSaudi Arabia’s fear of the viral free-speech platform Twitter has been well documented as of late. I first highlighted it last year in the post, Saudi Religious Police Chief Goes on the Attack…Against Twitter, in which I noted:

You know something isn’t right in your country when you have a “religious police force.”  You know something is really, really not right in your country when the head of that religious police force starts condemning twitter and saying its users will go to hell as a consequence.  Talk about pathetic.  Just more strange and panicked behavior from the Saudi government.  From the BBC:

The head of Saudi Arabia’s religious police has warned citizens against using Twitter, which is rising in popularity among Saudis.

Sheikh Abdul Latif Abdul Aziz al-Sheikh said anyone using social media sites – and especially Twitter – “has lost this world and his afterlife”.

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FBI Raids Federal Contractor’s Home – Has the Government Identified the “Second Leaker”?

Anyone who has been following Edward Snowden’s heroic whistleblowing, and the reporting of Glenn Greenwald on the classified documents that prove egregious violations of the United States Constitution by the NSA, will also be aware of speculation that a “second leaker” had emerged earlier this year. It appears this person may have been identified by the FBI.

Yahoo News’ Michael Isikoff reports that:

The FBI has identified an employee of a federal contracting firm suspected of being the so-called “second leaker” who turned over sensitive documents about the U.S. government’s terrorist watch list to a journalist closely associated with ex-NSA contractor Edward Snowden, according to law enforcement and intelligence sources who have been briefed on the case.

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Former CBS Reporter Accuses Government of Secretly Planting Classified Docs on Her Computer

Screen Shot 2014-10-27 at 2.12.13 PMAttkisson speculated on how the Nixon controversy would have been handled in a world filled with today’s television and social media obsessions.

“Nixon would basically refuse to turn over tapes to Congress, his aides would refuse to testify to Congress or would take the Fifth or would lie to Congress with fair amount of impunity,” she said. “Woodward and Bernstein would be controversialized on social media by special and political interests. … Then at the end Nixon would go on a popular late-night comedy show, during which time he would humorously refer to his attackers as people who were political witch-hunters who believed in Area 51-type conspiracy theories.”

– From the Huffington Post article: Sharyl Attkisson Says Journalists Have ‘Gone Backwards’ Since Watergate Scandal

In case you forgot, Sharyl Attkisson is the former CBS News reporter who resigned from the network in March after expressing frustration that her stories covering the Obama Administration’s role in the Benghazi and Fast and Furious scandals were being spiked due to a desire to protect the President.

In 2013, Attkisson also expressed her belief that her computer had been hacked, which CBS News subsequently confirmed. CBS reported at the time:

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To Protect and Perve – California Cops Share Nude Photos Stolen from Citizens’ Cellphones

Screen Shot 2014-10-27 at 11.40.06 AMThe new court documents describe a second incident involving a 19-year-old woman who was in a DUI crash in Livermore on Aug. 7. On Harrington’s phone, Holcombe located two photos of that DUI suspect in a bikini accompanied by a text message from the day of the arrest from Harrington to Hazelwood: “Taken from the phone of my 10-15x while she’s in X-rays. Enjoy buddy!!!”

A “10-15x” is CHP code for a woman in custody. The woman may have been at a hospital to have X-rays taken after the crash.

Hazelwood replies: “No f—— nudes?”

– From the San Jose Mercury News article: CHP officer says stealing nude photos from female arrestees ‘game’ for cops

The worst thing about the government’s reckless response to the financial crisis of 2008, even worse than the trillions in taxpayer bailouts and backstops granted to the financial criminals that created the disaster, is the primary lesson that it sent to American society as a whole. Some people like to call it “moral hazard,” but in more pedestrian terms it really just boils down to: The Bad Guys Got Away with It.

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Pensions and Private Equity – A Letter to the New York Times Editor

Screen Shot 2014-10-26 at 5.23.56 PMThe ongoing racket between private equity firms and public pension funds in which they work together to earn billions of dollars in excessive fees at the expense of retirees across the country has been a key theme at Liberty Blitzkrieg this year. My most recent piece on the topic was published last week and titled, Another Pension Scandal – The Crony Love Affair Between North Carolina, Credit Suisse and Erskine Bowles.

Here’s an excerpt:

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Goldman and Blackstone Enter Spanish Real Estate – Pain and Suffering for Poor People Immediately Ensues

Screen Shot 2014-10-24 at 11.47.54 AMLast year Madrid’s city and regional governments sold almost 5,000 rent-controlled flats to private equity investors including Goldman Sachs and Blackstone. At the time, the tenants were told their rental conditions would remain the same.

But as old contracts expire, dozens of people have received demands for higher rent, been told their rents will increase dramatically, been threatened with eviction or moved out to escape the insecurity. Thousands of Spain’s poor now depend for their homes on the generosity of private equity.

– From today’s Reuters article: Why Madrid’s Poor Fear Goldman Sachs and Blackstone

Less than a month ago, I warned the people of Spain that U.S. financial oligarchs had their sights set on the nation. The post was titled, Your Wall Street Slumlord Arrives in Europe – Goldman and Other Financial Firms Launch “Buy to Rent” in Spain, and in it I wrote:

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“War on Terror” Targets Underwear – Department of Homeland Security Raids Maker of Unlicensed World Series Panties

Screen Shot 2014-10-23 at 12.06.05 PM“They came in and there were two guys” Honig said. “I asked one of them what size he needed and he showed me a badge and took me outside. They told me they were from Homeland Security and we were violating copyright laws.”

They placed the underwear in an official Homeland Security bag and had Honig sign a statement saying she wouldn’t use the logo. 

– From the Kansas City Star article: Homeland Security Confiscates Royals Underwear in Kansas City 

It was just yesterday that I highlighted the dangers of granting government excessive powers under the guise of fighting terrorism in the piece: The BBC is Using Anti-Terror Surveillance to Find Tax Dodgers. Here’ an excerpt:

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The Challenges of Defending Your Child’s Mind from Propaganda

Screen Shot 2014-10-23 at 11.13.40 AMIn great empires the people who live in the capital, and in the provinces remote from the scene of action, feel, many of them, scarce any inconveniency from the war; but enjoy, at their ease, the amusement of reading in the newspapers the exploits of their own fleets and armies. To them this amusement compensates the small difference between the taxes which they pay on account of the war, and those which they had been accustomed to pay in time of peace.They are commonly dissatisfied with the return of peace, which puts an end to their amusement, and to a thousand visionary hopes of conquest and national glory from a longer continuance of the war. 

– Adam Smith in The Wealth of Nations

Let’s face it, your child’s mind is fertile ground for oligarchs, corrupt politicians and any other thieving member of the so-called “ruling elite” who aim to enslave the masses both mentally and monetarily. Unfortunately, the propaganda that comes from the government and our largest corporations is perceived as being absolute truth by most people. If you’re like me, at one point in time you had to wake up to it all and accept that you had been completely brainwashed for the first few decades for your life.

On a parental level, defending my child’s mind against blatant lies and deceit from the media, military industrial complex and corporatism is really not that difficult. But what about their grandparents, cousins or the kids next door?

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