Category Archives: Indefinite Surveillance
PRICELESS!! A Country Founded by Geniuses but Run by Idiots
If you can get arrested for hunting or fishing without a license, but not for entering and remaining in the country illegally — you might live in a nation that was founded by geniuses but is run by idiots.
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If you have to get your parents’ permission to go on a field trip or to take an aspirin in school, but not to get an abortion — you might live in a nation that was founded by geniuses but is run by idiots.
If you MUST show your identification to board an airplane, cash a check, buy liquor, or check out a library book and rent a video, but not to vote for who runs the government — you might live in a nation that was founded by geniuses but is run by idiots.
If the government wants to prevent stable, law-abiding citizens from owning gun magazines that hold more than ten rounds, but gives twenty F-16 fighter jets to the crazy new leaders in Egypt — you might live in a nation that was founded by geniuses but is run by idiots.
If, in the nation’s largest city, you can buy two 16-ounce sodas, but not one 24-ounce soda, because 24-ounces of a sugary drink might make you fat — you might live in a nation that was founded by geniuses but is run by idiots.
If an 80-year-old woman or a three-year-old girl who is confined to a wheelchair can be strip-searched by the TSA at the airport, but a woman in a burka or a hijab is only subject to having her neck and head searched — you might live in a nation that was founded by geniuses but is run by idiots.
If your government believes that the best way to eradicate trillions of dollars of debt is to spend trillions more — you might live in a nation that was founded by geniuses but is run by idiots.
If a seven-year-old boy can be thrown out of school for saying his teacher is “cute,” but hosting a sexual exploration or diversity class in grade school is perfectly acceptable — you might live in a nation that was founded by geniuses but is run by idiots.
If hard work and success are met with higher taxes and more government regulation and intrusion, while not working is rewarded with Food Stamps, WIC checks, Medicaid benefits, subsidized housing, and free cell phones — you might live in a nation that was founded by geniuses but is run by idiots.
If the government’s plan for getting people back to work is to provide incentives for not working, by granting 99 weeks of unemployment checks, without any requirement to prove that gainful employment was diligently sought, but couldn’t be found — you might live in a nation that was founded by geniuses but is run by idiots.
If you pay your mortgage faithfully, denying yourself the newest big-screen TV, while your neighbor buys iPhones, time shares, a wall-sized do-it-all plasma screen TV and new cars, and the government forgives his debt when he defaults on his mortgage — you might live in a nation that was founded by geniuses but is run by idiots.
If being stripped of your Constitutional right to defend yourself makes you more “safe” according to the government — you might live in a nation that was founded by geniuses but is run by idiots.
What a country!
August In Mid-America”Psst” :: Obama; Come On Out And Bring Pelosi, Schumer And Reid With You
The Secret Service would probably ruin a good time
One afternoon last week, another member of the Limits household and I played hooky and floated a pretty flat five-mile stretch of a river no one outside of Missouri has ever heard of. At one point, as we passed a fairly organized campground, the smell of a wood fire wafted over the river along with eau de old and moldy canvas tent. With that, nostalgia set in. When we were growing up, those were the smells of summer vacation.
Martha’s Vineyard was just out of Mom and Dad’s price range.
To be honest, in this part of the country, from Friday to Sunday (mostly Saturday, but there has to be some travel time) during June, July and the first two weeks of August, every quiet, still. picturesque river teaming with turtles, snakes, trout, tadpoles and the occasional black tailed deer becomes a bank to bank party zone. The working stiffs get out of the city, lose the cell phones and kick back for a couple days. SUVs and pick-ups are traded for canoes, inner tubes and rafts (not necessarily in that order). Every tree hanging over a remotely deep part of the river becomes an opportunity for a swing rope. (Thoughtful floaters have left many in the trees for those who follow, too.) Cliffs over five feet are for jumping – if you dare. Hermetically sealed air-conditioned houses are left behind for all the nylon tents and air mattresses Coleman sells. (Actually saw somebody use a window unit run off a generator to cool off a tent once.) Natural waterways are polluted with sunscreen, among other fluids. And many adult beverages are consumed.
Out here in this part of flyover country, this is standard summer unwinding procedure. In other states, there are methods of R & R in the great outdoors that are more of the hiking and cycling variety. It’s not for everybody, but, hey, neither is lobster and cosmos. To each his or her own.
Working people everywhere need a chance to shut down for so many reasons. Take a break from all the stress, the angst, the constant bombardment of information, etc. We all do. Rest is essential for not just health, but effectiveness. That is why in United States we call time away to recharge “vacation” as in “vacate” or leave.
The problem we are having this August in the United States is that our vaunted government – at least the top of the food chain – is bound to the beach, vineyards, lakes, and spas without having really done any work.
Somehow, we all doubt that they are headed to the party zones for less than the cost of one of Nancy Pelosi’s broomsticks to spend an afternoon doing jello shots in their bikinis and cut-offs.
But that did start me thinking:
- What would San Fran Nan look like wearing one of those old-fashioned orange life jackets that are basically nylon over squared off foam three inches thick with a hole for the head? And does she have earrings to match in her collection?
- Does Chuck Schumer know what to do with a canoe paddle or would he bring a driver from the New York State motor pool to steer?
- Once Dingy Harry got a bath in the river and settled in his inner tube, would he get stuck there? And would he remember to bring a lanyard for his glasses?
- Would any of them drink Busch Light from a can and then actually put the can in the trash bags provided by the canoe rental companies? Conservation, recycling and all that jazz since no glass is allowed on the rivers.
- How about drinking wine from a box? There’s a Chardonnay that’s actually not bad, but somehow it’s doubtful that after refining an international palate, Inside the Beltway types would appreciate the finish. Especially when river water mingles with it.
- Joe Biden, please keep your swim trunks on. One should not skinny dip in the rivers. Scares the fish.
- Michelle in a bikini… [shudder] or eating s’mores with marshmallows roasted over an improvised beach fire…she probably wouldn’t even be able to fathom packing lunch in a cooler.
- And, of course, there’s Sheila Jackson Lee, Eleanor Holmes Norton, and Maxine Waters. They’d be forced to talk to each other which would echo off of every flat surface for miles and they might get their hair wet or break a nail…on second thought, leave them behind. After all, their shoes would definitely get wet and that might start a riot.
Was that racist?
Now that it’s August and the city here has pretty much emptied out, as it always does for the first two weeks of August (seriously, no meetings happen because there’s so many people vacating), and Congress has decided to recess with all sorts of national and international fires that need tending (not that Congress can do much about it by themselves), how’s about Obama and the gang come out here to flyover country and find out how we bourgeoisie vacate in a hurry. No oysters, caviar or Dom, but we can offer fresh fruits and veggies, summer sausage, brats, hot dogs, hamburgers and cereal. Anything more than that is a little fancy for the camp-site. (Okay, if one brings along a sterno or camp stove, eggs and bacon for breakfast can happen.)
Think we’d get any takers?
Yeah, me neither.
Note to the White House: Vacations are possible without involving the swanky shores of Martha’s Vineyard. At least the Reagans and Bushes vacayed at their own property and the Clintons used the Presidential Retreat House on St. John in the USVIs that’s already secure. They didn’t inconvenience regular people and they were able to unwind just fine.
Meet Directive 3025.18 Granting Obama Authority To Use Military Force Against Civilians
While the “use of armed [unmanned aircraft systems] is not authorized,” The Washington Times uncovering of a 2010 Pentagon directive on military support to civilian authorities details what critics say is a troubling policy that envisions the Obama administration’s potential use of military force against Americans. As one defense official proclaimed, “this appears to be the latest step in the administration’s decision to use force within the United States against its citizens.” Meet Directive 3025.18 and all its “quelling civil disturbances” totalitarianism…
As The Washington Times reports,
Directive No. 3025.18, “Defense Support of Civil Authorities,” was issued Dec. 29, 2010, and states that U.S. commanders “are provided emergency authority under this directive.”
“Federal military forces shall not be used to quell civil disturbances unless specifically authorized by the president in accordance with applicable law or permitted under emergency authority,” the directive states.
“In these circumstances, those federal military commanders have the authority, in extraordinary emergency circumstances where prior authorization by the president is impossible and duly constituted local authorities are unable to control the situation, to engage temporarily in activities that are necessary to quell large-scale, unexpected civil disturbances” under two conditions.
The conditions include military support needed “to prevent significant loss of life or wanton destruction of property and are necessary to restore governmental function and public order.” A second use is when federal, state and local authorities “are unable or decline to provide adequate protection for federal property or federal governmental functions.”
A U.S. official said the Obama administration considered but rejected deploying military force under the directive during the recent standoff with Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy and his armed supporters.
“Federal action, including the use of federal military forces, is authorized when necessary to protect the federal property or functions,” the directive states.
Military assistance can include loans of arms, ammunition, vessels and aircraft. The directive states clearly that it is for engaging civilians during times of unrest.
There is one silver lining (for now)…
“Use of armed [unmanned aircraft systems] is not authorized,” the directive says.
And the full Directive is below…
A Small President on the World Stage
At the U.N., leaders hope for a return of American greatness.
By PEGGY NOONANThe world misses the old America, the one before the crash—the crashes—of the past dozen years.
That is the takeaway from conversations the past week in New York, where world leaders gathered for the annual U.N. General Assembly session. Our friends, and we have many, speak almost poignantly of the dynamism, excellence, exuberance and leadership of the nation they had, for so many years, judged themselves against, been inspired by, attempted to emulate, resented.
As for those who are not America’s friends, some seem still confused, even concussed, by the new power shift. What is their exact place in it? Will it last? Will America come roaring back? Can she? Does she have the political will, the human capital, the old capability?
It is a world in a new kind of flux, one that doesn’t know what to make of America anymore. In part because of our president.
“We want American leadership,” said a member of a diplomatic delegation of a major U.S. ally. He said it softly, as if confiding he missed an old friend.
“In the past we have seen some America overreach,” said the prime minister of a Western democracy, in a conversation. “Now I think we are seeing America underreach.” He was referring not only to foreign policy but to economic policies, to the limits America has imposed on itself. He missed its old economic dynamism, its crazy, pioneering spirit toward wealth creation—the old belief that every American could invent something, get it to market, make a bundle, rise.
The prime minister spoke of a great anxiety and his particular hope. The anxiety: “The biggest risk is not political but social. Wealthy societies with people who think wealth is a given, a birthright—they do not understand that we are in the fight of our lives with countries and nations set on displacing us. Wealth is earned. It is far from being a given. It cannot be taken for granted. The recession reminded us how quickly circumstances can change.” His hope? That the things that made America a giant—”so much entrepreneurialism and vision”—will, in time, fully re-emerge and jolt the country from the doldrums.
The second takeaway of the week has to do with a continued decline in admiration for the American president. Barack Obama‘s reputation among his fellow international players has deflated, his stature almost collapsed. In diplomatic circles, attitudes toward his leadership have been declining for some time, but this week you could hear the disappointment, and something more dangerous: the sense that he is no longer, perhaps, all that relevant. Part of this is due, obviously, to his handling of the Syria crisis. If you draw a line and it is crossed and then you dodge, deflect, disappear and call it diplomacy, the world will notice, and not think better of you. Some of it is connected to the historical moment America is in.
But some of it, surely, is just five years of Mr. Obama. World leaders do not understand what his higher strategic aims are, have doubts about his seriousness and judgment, and read him as unsure and covering up his unsureness with ringing words.
A scorching assessment of the president as foreign-policy actor came from a former senior U.S. diplomat, a low-key and sophisticated man who spent the week at many U.N.-related functions. “World leaders are very negative about Obama,” he said. They are “disappointed, feeling he’s not really in charge. . . . The Western Europeans don’t pay that much attention to him anymore.”
The diplomat was one of more than a dozen U.S. foreign-policy hands who met this week with the new president of Iran, Hasan Rouhani. What did he think of the American president? “He didn’t mention Obama, not once,” said the former envoy, who added: “We have to accept the fact that the president is rather insignificant at the moment, and rely on our diplomats.” John Kerry, he said, is doing a good job.
Had he ever seen an American president treated as if he were so insignificant? “I really never have. It’s unusual.” What does he make of the president’s strategy: “He doesn’t know what to do so he stays out of it [and] hopes for the best.” The diplomat added: “Slim hope.”
This reminded me of a talk a few weeks ago, with another veteran diplomat who often confers with leaders with whom Mr. Obama meets. I had asked: When Obama enters a room with other leaders, is there a sense that America has entered the room? I mentioned de Gaulle—when he was there, France was there. When Reagan came into a room, people stood: America just walked in. Does Mr. Obama bring that kind of mystique?
“No,” he said. “It’s not like that.”
When the president spoke to the General Assembly, his speech was dignified and had, at certain points, a certain sternness of tone. But after a while, as he spoke, it took on the flavor of re-enactment. He had impressed these men and women once. In the cutaways on C-Span, some delegates in attendance seemed distracted, not alert, not sitting as if they were witnessing something important. One delegate seemed to be scrolling down on a BlackBerry, one rifled through notes. Two officials seated behind the president as he spoke seemed engaged in humorous banter. At the end, the applause was polite, appropriate and brief.
The president spoke of Iran and nuclear weapons—”we should be able to achieve a resolution” of the question. “We are encouraged” by signs of a more moderate course. “I am directing John Kerry to pursue this effort.”
But his spokesmen had suggested the possibility of a brief meeting or handshake between Messrs. Obama and Rouhani. When that didn’t happen there was a sense the American president had been snubbed. For all the world to see.
Which, if you are an American, is embarrassing.
While Mr. Rouhani could not meet with the American president, he did make time for journalists, diplomats and businessmen brought together by the Asia Society and the Council on Foreign Relations. Early Thursday evening in a hotel ballroom, Mr. Rouhani spoke about U.S.-Iranian relations.
He appears to be intelligent, smooth, and he said all the right things—”moderation and wisdom” will guide his government, “global challenges require collective responses.” He will likely prove a tough negotiator, perhaps a particularly wily one. He is eloquent when speaking of the “haunted” nature of some of his countrymen’s memories when they consider the past 60 years of U.S.-Iranian relations.
Well, we have that in common.
He seemed to use his eloquence to bring a certain freshness, and therefore force, to perceived grievances. That’s one negotiating tactic. He added that we must “rise above petty politics,” and focus on our nations’ common interests and concerns. He called it “counterproductive” to view Iran as a threat; this charge is whipped up by “alarmists.” He vowed again that Iran will not develop a nuclear bomb, saying this would be “contrary to Islamic norms.”
I wondered, as he spoke, how he sized up our president. In roughly 90 minutes of a speech followed by questions, he didn’t say, and nobody thought to ask him.
Skepticism required in the face of Obama’s terror warnings
As new information surfaces about last year’s attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, and as the National Security Agency scandal continues to swirl throughout the media, the Obama administration has come out with a worldwide warning about the possibility of serious terrorist attacks.
Please forgive my skepticism. The news media need to dig into the timing and motivation of these warnings, coming as they do against the backdrop of scandals, particularly when the administration has created what it thinks is a win-win situation. Simply put, if the attacks fail to occur, President Obama’s team can claim that they thwarted them. If the attacks do occur, the administration can say it provided fair warning. But that’s a fool’s bargain when dealing with terrorists who can simply strike another day.
In an hour-long broadcast Tuesday, “The Truth About Benghazi,” CNN reported that dozens of CIA operatives were on the ground in Benghazi on Sept. 11 — something the agency has apparently tried to cover up. That’s the night Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans were killed.
CNN reported the CIA may have been moving surface-to-air missiles out of Libya and into the hands of Syrian rebels. The CIA declined to comment on the claim.
Such information brings the Benghazi issue — one the administration thought had lost significant traction — back into public view. If the CIA had people on the ground, why were Stevens and the three others essentially left to die?
The Department of Justice filed a sealed indictment against a Libyan militia leader on the same day CNN broadcast its report on the Benghazi attack. Amazing coincidence? Please forgive my skepticism again.
By promoting its efficiency in picking up the chatter about possible terrorist attacks, the intelligence community may believe it can quiet critics outraged by the revelations of the NSA’s widespread domestic surveillance programs — information leaked by onetime NSA contractor Edward Snowden to Glenn Greenwald of The Guardian.
Once again, pardon my skepticism. The NSA scandal is unlikely to die down anytime soon, despite the terrorist threat taking over the news for this week. And think about it for a moment. Do you honestly believe that the leader of al Qaeda communicates with his right-hand man in Yemen without considering how many other sets of ears may be listening? I strongly doubt it.
Now is the time for reporters to look to their confidential sources about the nature of the terrorist threats. One problem exists — one you might have missed last week. The Justice Department won a key victory in the U.S. Court of Appeals to force a reporter for The New York Times to reveal his confidential sources about information he published in a book on the Iranian nuclear program. That decision creates a significant chill among sources who might want to talk about severity of the current threat.
I spent a decade reporting about Middle East terrorism for Newsweek and ABC News. Terrorists typically have several objectives. One is to inflict death and destruction. Another is to create fear among the civilian population of a stronger adversary, such as the United States, and its allies.
By closing 22 embassies and consulates throughout the Middle East and North Africa and keeping 19 of them shut for the rest of the week, the Obama administration has already given the terrorists a major public relations victory.
Remember during the campaign when Mr. Obama constantly said al Qaeda was on the run? Maybe he wanted to use intelligence information back then to get re-elected. Now maybe he and his administration want intelligence information to provide cover for a variety of scandals. The dots really don’t need to be connected; the connections are all too obvious.
• Christopher Harper is a professor at Temple University. He worked for more than 20 years at the Associated Press, Newsweek, ABC News and “20/20.” He can be contacted at charper@washingtontimes.com. Twitter: @charper51.
In Secret, Court Vastly Broadens Powers of N.S.A.
WASHINGTON — In more than a dozen classified rulings, the nation’s surveillance court has created a secret body of law giving the National Security Agency the power to amass vast collections of data on Americans while pursuing not only terrorism suspects, but also people possibly involved in nuclear proliferation, espionage and cyber attacks, officials say.
The rulings, some nearly 100 pages long, reveal that the court has taken on a much more expansive role by regularly assessing broad constitutional questions and establishing important judicial precedents, with almost no public scrutiny, according to current and former officials familiar with the court’s classified decisions.
The 11-member Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, known as the FISA court, was once mostly focused on approving case-by-case wiretapping orders. But since major changes in legislation and greater judicial oversight of intelligence operations were instituted six years ago, it has quietly become almost a parallel Supreme Court, serving as the ultimate arbiter on surveillance issues and delivering opinions that will most likely shape intelligence practices for years to come, the officials said.
Last month, a former National Security Agency contractor, Edward J. Snowden, leaked a classified order from the FISA court, which authorized the collection of all phone-tracing data from Verizon business customers. But the court’s still-secret decisions go far beyond any single surveillance order, the officials said.
“We’ve seen a growing body of law from the court,” a former intelligence official said. “What you have is a common law that develops where the court is issuing orders involving particular types of surveillance, particular types of targets.”
In one of the court’s most important decisions, the judges have expanded the use in terrorism cases of a legal principle known as the “special needs” doctrine and carved out an exception to the Fourth Amendment’s requirement of a warrant for searches and seizures, the officials said.
The special needs doctrine was originally established in 1989 by the Supreme Court in a ruling allowing the drug testing of railway workers, finding that a minimal intrusion on privacy was justified by the government’s need to combat an overriding public danger. Applying that concept more broadly, the FISA judges have ruled that the N.S.A.’s collection and examination of Americans’ communications data to track possible terrorists does not run afoul of the Fourth Amendment, the officials said.
That legal interpretation is significant, several outside legal experts said, because it uses a relatively narrow area of the law — used to justify airport screenings, for instance, or drunken-driving checkpoints — and applies it much more broadly, in secret, to the wholesale collection of communications in pursuit of terrorism suspects. “It seems like a legal stretch,” William C. Banks, a national security law expert at Syracuse University, said in response to a description of the decision. “It’s another way of tilting the scales toward the government in its access to all this data.”
Read More: Here
Indefinite Surveillance: Say Hello to the National Defense Authorization Act of 2014
June 18, 2013 by Stephen Benavides
Passed in 1978, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) set the groundwork for surveillance, collection, and analysis of intelligence gathered from foreign powers and agents of foreign powers, up to and including any individual residing within the U.S., who were suspected of involvement in potential terrorist activity. On October 26, 2001, a little over a month after 9/11, President George W. Bush signed the USA Patriot Act into law. Two provisions, Sec. 206, permitting government to obtain secret court orders allowing roving wiretaps without requiring identification of the person, organization, or facility to be surveyed, and Sec. 215 authorizing government to access and obtain “any tangible thing” relevant to a terrorist investigation, transformed foreign intelligence into domestic intelligence.
NDAA 2014 builds on the powers granted by both the Patriot Act and FISA by allowing unrestricted analysis and research of captured records pertaining to any organization or individual “now or once hostile to the United States”. Under the Patriot Act, the ability to obtain “any tangible thing” eliminated any expectation of privacy. Under NDAA 2014 Sec. 1061(g)(1), an overly vague definition of captured records enhances government power and guarantees indefinite surveillance.
On May 22, 2013 the Subcommittee on Intelligence, Emerging Threats and Capabilities, one of several Armed Services Committees, met to discuss the National Defense Authorization Act(NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2014. The main subject of the hearing was Sec. 1061, otherwise known as Enhancement of Capacity of the United States Government to Analyze Captured Records. This enhancement provision of NDAA 2014 would effectively create a new intelligence agency, one with the authority to analyze information gained under the Patriot Act, FISA, and known spying programs such as PRISM.
Sec. 1061(a) authorizes the Secretary of Defense to “establish a center to be known as the ‘Conflict Records Research Center’” (Center). The main purpose of the center, according to the bill text, is to create a “digital research database,” one with the capability to “translate” and facilitate research on “records captured from countries, organizations and individuals, now or once hostile to the United States.” The authorization also says the Center will conduct research and analysis to “increase the understanding of factors related to international relations, counterterrorism and conventional and unconventional warfare, and ultimately, enhance national security.”
In order to make the Center run, and to accomplish such an incredibly broad scope of “research and analysis,” the Secretary of Defense needs the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) to cooperate in coordinating “information exchanges important to the leadership of the United States Government”. That coordination would require participation of all 16 member agencies and departments of the U.S. Intelligence Community. This would leave James Clapper, the man accused of lying to Congress about the National Security Agency’s domestic spying program known as PRISM, in de facto direction of another federal surveillance and data analysis agency. And while the Center would be officially directed and overseen by the Secretary of Defense, without unfettered access to secret and top secret information, the Center would be completely ineffective. These information exchanges would most likely include data and records generated by the mass surveillance of everyday people under PRISM, as well as surveillance of those identified as “potential terrorists” or “high value targets” by any one of those 16 intelligence agencies now in operation.
The proposed Center’s information exchanges rely on captured government records. Under the NDAA 2014, Sec. 1061(g)(1), a captured record is defined as “a document, audio file, video file, or other material captured during combat operations from countries, organizations, or individuals, now or once hostile to the United States.” But considering that the 2001 Authorization to Use Military Force (AUMF) allows the “War on Terror” to exist in a perpetual and permanent state of combat operations, and that the American public is already existing under an expansive surveillance state, any record may qualify as a “captured record.” Thus, any captured document, audio file, video file, or other material could potentially be submitted to this new intelligence agency for research and analysis, all in the name of national security and counterterrorism, as deemed appropriate by a swelling government surveillance class.
The NDAA 2014 enhancement provision extends and consolidates the government’s authority to further gather and analyze records and data captured during any national security or terrorist related investigation, not just combat operations. But it does so without creating any explicit restriction from violating an individual’s right to privacy, from being subjected to unwarranted searches and seizures, or due process of individuals guaranteed by the Constitution. That’s eerily similar to the NDAA 2013 Sec. 1021 that codified the indefinite military detention of American citizens without requiring they be charged with a specific crime, or given a trial.
Under NDAA 2013, Sec. 1021 allowed the military detention of civilians without a writ of habeas corpus, when a person “was a part of or substantially supported al-Qaeda, the Taliban, or associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners, including any person who has committed a belligerent act or has directly supported such hostilities in aid of such enemy forces.” Under NDAA 2014, anyone is now subject to surveillance, not based on support of al-Qaeda or its associated forces, but based merely upon whether or not an individual is, or once was hostile to the U.S. The question of what constitutes “hostility”, is left completely unanswered.
The new enhancement provision, as well as the previous NDAA’s indefinite detention mandate, goes to show how far the legislation has strayed from its stated purpose. According to House Armed Services Committee Chairman Buck McKeon (R-CA), the NDAA “authorizes funding for military activities of the Department of Defense, for military construction, for defense activities of the Department of Energy, to prescribe military personnel strengths, and for other purposes.”
Instead, the NDAA has become the vehicle for the Executive Branch and Department of Defense to bypass Congress, and legislate away any perceived right, liberty, or privilege that conflicts with our current state of permanent war and indefinite surveillance.
In 2012, in an attempt to stop that “indefinite detention” provision, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) introduced an amendment that would have prohibited the government from detaining citizens indefinitely using military force. That proposed law, otherwise known as the “Feinstein Amendment” easily passed the Senate floor, but was later removed by Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D-MI). After removal of the only specific language that would guarantee the US Government would be prohibited from interpreting the act illegally; President Obama, also a Democrat, signed NDAA 2013 into law.
If passed in its current state, NDAA 2014 would authorize approximately $552 billion in total defense spending, with $86 billion going directly to war spending. This amount exceeds what is allowed under the automatic austerity measures that went into effect as of March 1, 2013. According to a report released in April 2013 by the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, “[i]f personnel, operation and maintenance costs keep rising, they may consume the “entire defense budget” by 2024, leaving no funding for weapons procurement, military construction or family housing.” Any program created by the Enhancement Provision of NDAA 2014 would necessarily burden an already overwhelmed working class, who are most affected by austerity.
While the National Security Agency swears that no citizen was spied on under PRISM, the very fact that cell phone metadata and online activity was gathered from millions of individuals guarantees that information was taken illegally from innocent people . We’re told that the government is attempting to minimize the amount of information captured from Americans, and that all of that information is being kept in specialized and restricted servers in order to protect our constitutional rights. But that’s difficult to believe when the Department of Justice is currently fighting the release of a secret FISA Court opinion that details unconstitutional government surveillance.
If indefinite detention became the primary reason for opposing NDAA 2013, then the enhance provision authorizing unlimited indefinite surveillance, may become the same issue for NDAA 2014. If passed in its current state, NDAA 2014 will further guarantee that people exist not only under indefinite detention and permanent war, but also under indefinite surveillance by its government.
BIG BROTHER? IRS and HHS Building Largest Personal Information Database Govt. EVER Attempted
Thursday, May 16, 2013
If this story came from a different source it would immediately be dismissed as a crazy conspiracy theory like birtherism, truthers, or the missing egg salad recipe discussed in Woody Allen’s What’s Up Tiger Lilly? But this story came from the Wall Street Journal and comes on top of the growing IRS scandal and should raise fear in the hearts of most freedom loving Americans. The Internal Revenue Service is working with the Department of Heath and Human Services to great the largest database of the personal information of American citizens ever created by this Government.
This March the IRS Inspector General reiterated that ObamaCare’s 47 major changes to the revenue code “represent the largest set of tax law changes the IRS has had to implement in more than 20 years.” Thus the IRS is playing Thelma to the Health and Human Service Department’s Louise. The tax agency has requested funding for 1,954 full-time equivalent employees for its Affordable Care Act office in 2014.
Instead of going after tax cheats, these bureaucrats will write and enforce tax regulations for parts of the economy in which they have no core competence. For example, do ski instructors or public school teachers count as seasonal workers? How long is a “full time” work week? Is it 40 hours, or 30?
The IRS will also dispense ObamaCare’s insurance subsidies since technically they’re “advanceable” tax credits, i.e., transfer payments made prior to filing a tax return. The IRS will also police the individual mandate-tax to buy health insurance, as well as the business penalties for not offering Washington-approved coverage to employees.
To monitor compliance with these rules, the IRS and HHS are now building the largest personal information database the government has ever attempted. Known as the Federal Data Services Hub, the project is taking the IRS’s own records (for income and employment status) and centralizing them with information from Social Security (identity), Homeland Security (citizenship), Justice (criminal history), HHS (enrollment in entitlement programs and certain medical claims data) and state governments (residency).
The data hub will be used as the verification system for ObamaCare’s complex subsidy formula. All insurers, self-insured businesses and government health programs must submit reports to the IRS about the individuals they cover, which the IRS will cross-check against tax returns.
Even without the IRS news of the past few days this database of personal information was a frightening thought. When you include this IRS scandal, and the long history of politicians of both parties using the IRS to go after their political opponents, it is clear that the Internal Revenue Service has too much power.
The IRS is a legal governmental bully. This government agency is not much different than the loan shark’s enforcer going from “client to client” threatening broken limbs (or worse). The Internal Revenue’s major method of enforcement is intimidation.
Now with the extra responsibility of enforcing Obamacare, and its new growing database of American’s personal information the IRS will grow in power and weapons for intimidation. Their growing power goes against everything for which this country stands. As Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence:
That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security
There is no suggestion here that there should be an uprising to overthrow the government of the United States, but perhaps it’s time to “overthrow” the Internal Revenue Service for their long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism.
The IRS was formed by an act of congress, it was given awesome powers by acts of congress, it can be tamed by an act of congress. I call for congress to act immediately to enact legislation to cut the power of the IRS making strict rules about what they can and cannot do (under penalty of law). Further more I call on the House of Representatives to stop funding any IRS expansion due to Obamacare. The House has the power of the purse.. so why are they waiting?
Related articles
- SCAM ALERT: IRS Warns Of Pervasive Telephone Scam (wctv.tv)
- IRS’s Lerner illegally sent conservative group data to FEC: Watchdogs (canadafreepress.com)
- Small Business Partnerships to Be Priority of IRS Exams: Taxes – Bloomberg (bloomberg.com)
- Powhatan man warns of elaborate IRS phone scam (wtvr.com)
- Shh! Lame St. Media Sleeping Over New IRS Scandal Findings (deadcitizensrightssociety.wordpress.com)
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