Civil Liberties

Britain’s “War on Terror” Insanity Continues – David Cameron Declares War on Encryption

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Screen Shot 2015-01-12 at 4.41.03 PM“Are we going to allow a means of communications which it simply isn’t possible to read? My answer to that question is: No, we must not.”

– UK Prime Minister David Cameron

I’m not interested in this civil liberties stuff. If they’re a threat, I want their emails and calls listened to.”

– London Mayor Boris Johnson

When it comes to the “war on terror,” the United Kingdom embraces a unique form of paranoia and hatred for civil liberties that leaves pretty much all other Western nations in the dust. Although it isn’t the country in which I reside, the extraordinarily close diplomatic ties between the U.S. and the UK results in my paying particular attention to what transpires over in Albion. I highlighted Britain’s most recent example of terror fear-mongering in the post, The War on Toddler Terrorists – Britain Wants to Force Nursery School Teachers to Identify “Extremist” Children. Yes, it’s exactly as absurd as it sounds. Here’s an excerpt:

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This is Why Rand Paul is Hillary Clinton’s Worst Nightmare

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Screen Shot 2014-11-18 at 11.44.02 AMAs Hillary Clinton starts to ponder the curtains she wants to hang in the Oval Office, there is only one person who can realistically stand in her way: Rand Paul.

Readers of this site will be well aware that I spend very little time focusing on Presidential politics. There are many reasons for this, but more than anything else, I believe there are two key components to genuine cultural change, and none of them have to do with electing a savior. These are:

1) Knowledge – Ignorance is not bliss. Particularly when it comes to the advance or decline of a civilization. Thomas Jefferson said it best:

Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day. 

I am trying to do my own little part in that regard here at Liberty Blitzkrieg.

2) Internal Change – It is much easier to complain about others and the world at large than it is to improve oneself. I’m as guilty of this as anyone, but I am cognizant that you can’t change the outside world unless you have changed what’s inside. Gandhi said it best:

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My First Interaction with Texas Police

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Screen Shot 2014-10-08 at 12.46.10 PMMy children’s first interaction with the police was witnessing two officers get verbally upset at my refusal to provide them with my name while standing on my own property. Overall, it was a tough day for the kids.

The story begins innocuously enough. We rented a bounce house to have some fun, but the winds were too strong that day and the bounce house started floating away until it was ultimately stopped by our fence. When I called to get a refund, the company who rented it to us was not only unwilling to help out, but arrived upset that the bounce house had been ripped on my fence. Wanting to make a record of it, they called the local police.

Upon the arrival of the first county Sheriff, he kindly asked me what had happened. I told him that it blew away and that it was ridiculous that the police would even respond to such a situation. He agreed, but said that the bounce house company was alleging that I ripped it because I couldn’t get a refund. At that point, I told the officer this is a civil matter and I don’t want you or anyone else on my property. The officer complied and then asked for my name, my response was “no thanks.”

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Department of Homeland Security – A 240,000 Person Cancer on the American Soul

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Screen Shot 2014-09-02 at 4.27.17 PMRegular readers will be intimately familiar with my feelings on the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Long before it became obvious to millions of people, I wrote about how the DHS was never intended to prevent terrorist attacks, rather it had always been intended to suppress the American citizenry. Over the past decade, it has become a dangerous behemoth of fascism under the guise of the fraudulent “war on terror.”

Going back to 2010, I wrote a piece titled: The Dangers of a Failed Presidency, in which I wrote:

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Video of the Day – Man Easily Crosses U.S.-Mexico Border Dressed as Osama bin Laden

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Screen Shot 2014-08-12 at 12.26.52 PMI’m not posting this video to drum up fear of terrorism or anything like that. Regular readers know that I think the “war on terror” is a total sham and fraud. I believe the power structure has been intentionally using fear of terrorism to eliminate the civil liberties and freedom of the American public. Washington D.C.’s apathy at the porousness of the U.S.-Mexican border serves as further proof that the entire surveillance state that has been put in place to supposedly stop terrorist attacks has an ulterior motive.

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Meet CISA – Dianne Feinstein’s Latest Attack on Privacy, Civil Liberties and the Internet

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Screen Shot 2014-07-15 at 1.16.27 PMThere’s not much good you can count on Congress to accomplish, but when it comes to introducing and passing oligarch protecting, civil liberties destroying legislation, our “representatives” are absolutely relentless in their determination. Unsurprisingly, the only “distinctly native American criminal class,” as Mark Twain described Congress, is at it again when it comes to institutionalizing spying and attempting a legal run around the Bill of Rights.

One thing that has become crystal clear since the Edward Snowden revelations, is that much of Congress has no problem at all with unconstitutional spying. Rather, they are primarily upset it was exposed and are dead set on making sure no other whistleblower can ever do the same. Enter CISA, or The Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act.

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Eric Holder Announces Task Force to Focus on “Domestic Terrorists”

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Screen Shot 2014-06-03 at 11.06.29 AMIt’s been obvious for quite some time that the so-called “war on terror” is nothing more than a fear-mongering induced power grab; a convenient excuse to strip the citizenry of its civil liberties and humanity. Many commentators, including myself, have predicted for years that the entire counter-terror juggernaut that has been constructed post-9/11 would be ultimately redirected upon the domestic population.

Snowden’s heroic whistleblowing has already proven without a doubt that the government spy apparatus (along with tech company complicity) has been zeroed in on the domestic population for quite some time, but is the situation about to escalate? Are the feds so fearful of their own people, they are about to focus all their counter-terror energy on U.S. citizens? It appears so.

I warned about this development back in 2011 in my post: The War on Freedom. In it I stated:

This whole charade shouldn’t be called “The War on Terror.”  It is actually all about keeping the citizenry terrified.  The government loves keeping you in a state of fear so that then they can do anything they want to the little sheep.  It should be called “The War on Freedom.”  Your freedom.

Before I get to the main topic of this article, I think it’s important to read excerpts from yesterday’s powerful and timely op-ed by Noam Chomsky titled: Edward Snowden, the World’s “Most Wanted Criminal. Discussing the Snowden revelations, he writes:

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Couple Fined $746 for the Crime of Feeding Homeless People in Florida Park

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It is a well known historical trend that as discontent and dissent spread within a society, the power structure will look to demonize unpopular or weak minorities in order to deflect frustrations away from the true culprit, the power structure itself. Many feared in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 that Muslims would serve as such a scapegoat, and indeed in many ways this occurred, although not to the extent that many feared. In my opinion, it is homeless people that are being increasingly demonized and treated as subhuman. I think that if we want to see how the state and crony corporate status quo will treat everyone in the future, all you have to do is look at the current “war on the homeless.”

If you think about, the homeless actually serve as the perfect scapegoat for a former American middle class slowly being driven into serfdom. Still completely mesmerized by the religion of consumerism, how is a population losing its freedom and financial well-being supposed to feel better about itself. The easy answer is to look at an even more destitute class and treat them like the “elites” treat everyone else. Like a superfluous and unfortunate outgrowth of humanity.

I strongly believe that it is just as important to show compassion for the least fortunate within society as it is to fight against the incredibly corrupt establishment. Failing to do so makes you no better than they are.

From ThinkProgress:

After feeding the hungry in a Daytona Beach park every weekend for more than a year, it’s just as easy to imagine Chico and Debbie Jimenez given a ticker-tape parade as what they actually got: a slew of citations and a permanent ban from the park.Chico and Debbie Jimenez, a husband and wife team, aren’t handing out food in the Florida heat every Wednesday because of a court order or for a paycheck. They do it because they believe helping the poor is their religious duty.

Every Wednesday, the Jimenezes feed more than a hundred people a hearty lunch with dishes of chicken patties, macaroni salad, and fresh vegetables, among others. The meals are entirely funded by private donations and staffed with volunteers.

However, Daytona Beach is one of a handful of cities that enacted ordinances barring individuals from serving food in public. Last week, nearly a half-dozen police officers showed up at Manatee Island Park, where a long line of people had queued to get a meal, and served citations to the Jimenezes and volunteers.

According to the group’s Facebook page, Chico and Debbie, along with four volunteers, were each given multiple 2nd degree misdemeanor citations. The fines totaled $373 per person, $2,238 for the group. The police also permanently banned the group from Manatee Island Park. “We both have made a lot of good friends in the park and are devastated that we are banned the Manatee Park forever,” Debbie wrote. “I am heartbroken.”

Can’t arrest a single banker, but police sure are good at stopping citizens from feeding the hungry. Sick.

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Can Police Search Your Cell Phone Without a Warrant? The Supreme Court is About to Decide

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Two very important cases related to the 4th Amendment protection of cellphone data went before the Supreme Court yesterday. At issue here is whether or not police can search someone’s cellphone upon arrest. As usual, the Obama administration’s Justice Department is arguing against the citizenry, and in favor of the (police) state. Let’s not forget that the “Justice” Department also argued in favor of the police being able to place GPS tracking devices on people’s cars without a warrant back in 2011. Fortunately, the Supreme Court ruled against it.

Naturally, the feds in the current case will discuss all of the criminals they were able to bring to justice as a result of these privacy violations, but they will certainly not point out America’s current epidemic of unlawful arrests, as well as arrests for petty non-violent crimes that happen each and every day. For instance, let’s not forget statistics that came out last fall from the FBI that showed police make an arrest every two seconds in the USA. I covered this in detail in my post: Land of the Free: American Police Make an Arrest Every 2 Seconds in 2012.

That translates to 12.2 million arrests in 2012, only 521,196 of which were for violent crimes. So should cops be able to search cellphones of millions of Americans being arrested for non-violent crimes such as drug possession? Or what about the street artist in NYC who was unlawfully arrested for putting on a puppet show? Or the guy who’s house was raided by police for a parody Twitter account. Allowing cops to search cellphones upon arrest in a trigger happy police state seems barbaric, immoral and downright stupid to me.

Furthermore, isn’t it interesting that the feds appear so obsessed with taking away your civil liberties to catch petty criminals, yet they couldn’t put a single banker behind bars for the far more egregious crime of destroying the U.S. economy and ruining millions of lives?

Here are some excerpts from a The New York Times article to help you get up to speed on what’s at stake:

WASHINGTON — In a major test of how to interpret the Fourth Amendment in the digital age, the Supreme Court on Tuesday will consider two cases about whether the police need warrants to search the cellphones of the people they arrest.

“The implications of these cases are huge,” said Orin S. Kerr, a law professor at George Washington University, noting that about 12 million people are arrested every year, often for minor offenses, and that about 90 percent of Americans have cellphones.

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My Latest Interview with “Wall Street for Main Street” – Technology, Bitcoin and the U.S. Economy

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Yesterday, I had the pleasure to record another podcast with Jason Burack of Wall Street for Main Street. This is the first interview I’ve done in a little while, and it went quite a bit longer than either of us expected. I always enjoy doing these podcasts, as it allows me to express myself in … Read more