4th Amendment

Chinese Dissident Ai Weiwei: “The U.S. is Behaving Like China”

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Ai Weiwei is a Chinese artist and political dissident.  Although he collaborated on the construction of Beijing National Stadium for the 2008 Olympics, his criticism of the government later led to his arrest without charges and imprisonment for several months.  I believe there are two main takeaways from the following article he wrote for The Guardian. First, he knows what it is like to live in an authoritarian regime with very little freedom or civil liberties. Thus it would be wise to take his warning to heart. Second, he illustrates a key point I have been trying to make for years. All citizens of the world must refuse to allow their respective governments to drag us into a war started by various oligarchs located in distinct geographic locations.  99.9% of the population must come together and understand that oligarchs within the U.S. and oligarchs within China are united against us all.  We must never forget this.  These guys don’t fight wars.  Rather, they rape, steal and pillage and then send you to do their dirty work.  Don’t fall for it.  From The Guardian:

I lived in the United States for 12 years. This abuse of state power goes totally against my understanding of what it means to be a civilised society, and it will be shocking for me if American citizens allow this to continue. The US has a great tradition of individualism and privacy and has long been a centre for free thinking and creativity as a result.

In our experience in China, basically there is no privacy at all – that is why China is far behind the world in important respects: even though it has become so rich, it trails behind in terms of passion, imagination and creativity.

When human beings are scared and feel everything is exposed to the government, we will censor ourselves from free thinking. That’s dangerous for human development.

In the Soviet Union before, in China today, and even in the US, officials always think what they do is necessary, and firmly believe they do what is best for the state and the people. But the lesson that people should learn from history is the need to limit state power.

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Senator Ron Wyden Calls for Congressional Hearings

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I like Oregon Senator Ron Wyden.  He is one of the few Congressmen who has exhibited strong support in the defense of privacy issues, from his questions around drones, to his concerns with regard to the surveillance state being implemented all around us.  Recall, he was the only Democrat who strongly spoke in support of … Read more

The “Pardon Edward Snowden” Petition is Exploding with Signatures…Sign Here

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Yesterday, someone created a “Pardon Edward Snowden” petition on Whitehouse.gov and I’ve never seen a petition get this many signatures this fast.  Recall, the Administration raised the threshold on these petitions from 25,000 to 100,000 back in January.  This threshold represents the amount needed to garner a White House response.  This petition already has 21,500 … Read more

Video of the Day: Ron Paul Warns of Electronic Surveillance back in…1984

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There are three words that come to mind when I think of Ron Paul; principles, credibility and consistency.  Not only is the video below great because we get to see Dr. Paul speak on the Congressional floor thirty years younger, but also because he was adamantly criticizing civil liberties threats in the context of a … Read more

Meet the Whistleblower: Edward Snowden

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In a courageous and brilliant strategic move, the whistleblower everyone is talking about has come forward and revealed his identity as well as current location.  His name is Edward Snowden, he is 29 years old and has fled to Hong Kong.  He was most recently working with the NSA as a contractor for Booz Allen Hamilton.  If you recall, Booz Allen Hamilton is one of the defense contractors that activist and unofficial Anonymous spokesperson Barrett Brown was investigating when he was arrested and turned into a political prisoner. As might be expected, The Guardian has broken Mr. Snowden’s story.  Some choice excerpts are below:

The individual responsible for one of the most significant leaks in US political history is Edward Snowden, a 29-year-old former technical assistant for the CIA and current employee of the defence contractor Booz Allen Hamilton. Snowden has been working at the National Security Agency for the last four years as an employee of various outside contractors, including Booz Allen and Dell.

The Guardian, after several days of interviews, is revealing his identity at his request. From the moment he decided to disclose numerous top-secret documents to the public, he was determined not to opt for the protection of anonymity. “I have no intention of hiding who I am because I know I have done nothing wrong,” he said.

In a note accompanying the first set of documents he provided, he wrote: “I understand that I will be made to suffer for my actions,” but “I will be satisfied if the federation of secret law, unequal pardon and irresistible executive powers that rule the world that I love are revealed even for an instant.”

He has had “a very comfortable life” that included a salary of roughly $200,000, a girlfriend with whom he shared a home in Hawaii, a stable career, and a family he loves. “I’m willing to sacrifice all of that because I can’t in good conscience allow the US government to destroy privacy, internet freedom and basic liberties for people around the world with this massive surveillance machine they’re secretly building.”

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Picture of the Day: CHANGE

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Actually the image is titled “Stasi USA” and it’s another brilliant gem from William Banzai7. Some things never CHANGE.   Like this post? Donate bitcoins: 35DBUbbAQHTqbDaAc5mAaN6BqwA2AxuE7G Follow me on Twitter.

Phone Companies are Now Selling Your Personal Information

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The Constitution, privacy, civil liberties, that’s all so…20th Century. Who wants privacy when your personal smartphone habits such as location and web-browsing information can be sold by your service provider without offering any compensation to the user. At least Google let’s you use their search engine for free while they spy on you.  The phone companies charge you for that privilege. Now that’s what I call economic progress!

In light of this, let’s not forget what the ACLU recently received from the U.S. government when they filed a Freedom of Information Act request about text message surveillance policy.  They got 15 pages of blacked out, redacted text.  Now, from the Wall Street Journal we discover:

Big phone companies have begun to sell the vast troves of data they gather about their subscribers’ locations, travels and Web-browsing habits.

The information provides a powerful tool for marketers but raises new privacy concerns. Even as Americans browsing the Internet grow more accustomed to having every move tracked, combining that information with a detailed accounting of their movements in the real world has long been considered particularly sensitive.

The new offerings are also evidence of a shift in the relationship between carriers and their subscribers. Instead of merely offering customers a trusted conduit for communication, carriers are coming to see subscribers as sources of data that can be mined for profit, a practice more common among providers of free online services like Google Inc. and Facebook Inc.

When a Verizon Wireless customer navigates to a website on her smartphone today, information about that website, her location and her demographic background may end up as a data point in a product called Precision Market Insights. The product, which Verizon launched in October 2012 after trial runs, offers businesses like malls, stadiums and billboard owners statistics about the activities and backgrounds of cellphone users in particular locations.

Carriers acknowledge the sensitivity of the data. But as advertisers and marketers seek more detailed information about potential customers and the telecom industry seeks new streams of revenue amid a maturing cellphone market, big phone companies have started to tiptoe in.

So they clearly understand the negative privacy implications, but after careful consideration (of the bottom line) they decided to sell the information anyway.  How thoughtful.

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How the FBI Wants to Penalize Internet Companies for Providing “Too Much” Security

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Remember my recent post titled: Former FBI Agent: All Phone Conversations are Recorded and Stored?  Well now they now want to ensure doing the same on the internet is as easy as possible.  The latest proposal by the FBI, which would require companies to provide a backdoor for the feds to spy on American citizens on the internet, has been covered extensively in the mainstream media over the past couple of weeks, first in the Washington Post and then later in the New York Times.  It centers around this push to make communications on the internet “wiretap capable” and would impose fines of $25,000 per day for companies that do not comply with Big Brother.  Julian Sanchez of Wired has written and excellent article explaining how this proposal would not only crush privacy rights of law abiding citizens, but would also help cyber criminals, enable totalitarian governments, make the internet less secure and stifle the remnants of innovation that remain in the economy.  Oh, and unsurprisingly, Obama backs the proposal.  My favorite excerpts:

The FBI has some strange ideas about how to “update” federal surveillance laws: They’re calling for legislation to penalize online services that provide users with too much security.

I’m not kidding. The proposal was revealed in The Washington Post last week — and a couple days ago, a front-page story in The New York Times reported the Obama administration is preparing to back it.

While it’s not yet clear how dire the going-dark scenario really is, the statutory “cure” proposed by the FBI — with fines starting at $25,000 a day for companies that aren’t wiretap capable — would surely be worse than the disease.

The FBI’s misguided proposal would impose costly burdens on thousands of companies (and threaten to entirely kill those whose business model centers on providing highly secure encrypted communications), while making cloud solutions less attractive to businesses and users. It would aid totalitarian governments eager to spy on their citizens while distorting business decisions about software design. Perhaps worst of all, it would treat millions of law-abiding users with legitimate security needs as presumed criminals — while doing little to hamper actual criminals.

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The IRS Claims it Can Read Your Email…Without a Warrant

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Truly remarkable how the establishment views the citizenry.  They quite clearly and openly view themselves as having full ownership of our lives, our work and our privacy.  Actually, they do not think we deserve to have privacy at all.  This is the exact mindset of all tyrannical regimes throughout human history, which is precisely why the founders made sure to include the 4th Amendment in the Constitution of these United States.  For those of you that need a reminder.

The 4th Amendment:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

So with that in mind, this is what the IRS thinks.  From the Huffington Post:

NEW YORK — IRS documents released Wednesday suggest that the tax collection agency believes it can read American citizens’ emails without a warrant.

The files were released to the American Civil Liberties Union under a Freedom of Information Act request. The organization is working to determine just how broadly federal law enforcement agencies like the FBI or the IRS’ Criminal Tax Division interpret their authority to snoop through inboxes.

The idea of IRS agents poking through your email account might sound at the very least creepy, and maybe unconstitutional. But the IRS does have a legal leg to stand on: the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 allows government agencies to in many cases obtain emails older than 180 days without a warrant.

In 1986 they decided this?  Who used email in 1986?

That’s why an internal 2009 IRS document claimed that “the government may obtain the contents of electronic communication that has been in storage for more than 180 days” without a warrant.

Another 2009 file, the IRS Criminal Tax Division’s “Search Warrant Handbook,” showed that the division’s general counsel believed “the Fourth Amendment does not protect communications held in electronic storage, such as email messages stored on a server, because internet users do not have a reasonable expectation of privacy.”

What kind of crazy logic is that.  Says who?

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Missouri High School to Collect Students’ Hair for Mandatory Drug Tests

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One word: creepy.  This is a private school so they can do what they want, but to me it is representative of a very troubling trend in America where privacy rights are being eroded more and more.  Let’s not forget the recent case in which a federal judge affirmed that a Texas public school could force its students to wear RFID chips.  I covered that in my post Federal Judge: Texas School Can Force Teenager to Wear Locator Chip.

Now from CBS News in St. Louis:

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (CBS St. Louis) — A Kansas City high school will begin collecting hair from students to conduct mandatory drug tests.

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