Posts Tagged ‘Fourth Amendment’

…a JFK speech very much worth hearing. It is relevant to toady’s scandals and political head fakes.

This story was written by a journalist that was killed in a car accident. Story here. I’m not posting this because of that, just noting his passing and sharing his last story.

The excuse for wiretapping, etc., that it’s to stop terrorism is a bunch of bullshit. All these people in government want is control. 

Control of every aspect of your life and that means that liberty cannot survive if they are to reach their goal.

Why is DHS arming itself to the teeth?

Why are the Dems so hot and bothered on the Second Amendment?

They wiretap millions of people in violation of the Fourth Amendment.

They go after journalists that break stories that are detrimental to them.

They go after conservative groups through the IRS and other agencies to stop any group against the Administration.

Why did Congress draft and the President sign the National Defense Authorization Act with language that summarily removes all of your rights to council and can lock you up without charges indefinitely?

This Administration has done more to curtail our freedom by chipping away at the Constitution than any other, and they do it with a smile on their face, a lie on their lips and and a head fake to keep you guessing.

Up until this point the media has done nothing to stop this man and his allies from running roughshod over this country until they were targeted themselves. But even that hasn’t stopped them from sucking up to this Administration. Obvious lies and obfuscation go unchallenged.

Enough is enough with these people.

Impeach Obama and his cronies.

Why Democrats Love To Spy On Americans

Besides Senators Ron Wyden and Mark Udall, most Democrats abandoned their civil liberty positions during the age of Obama. With a new leak investigation looming, the Democrat leadership are now being forced to confront all the secrets they’ve tried to hide.

By Michael Hastings

For most bigwig Democrats in Washington, D.C., the last 48 hours has delivered news of the worst kind — a flood of new information that has washed away any lingering doubts about where President Obama and his party stand on civil liberties, full stop.

Glenn Greenwald’s exposure of the NSA’s massive domestic spy program has revealed the entire caste of current Democratic leaders as a gang of civil liberty opportunists, whose true passion, it seems, was in trolling George W. Bush for eight years on matters of national security.

“Everyone should just calm down,” Senator Harry Reid said yesterday, inhaling slowly.

That’s right: don’t panic.

The very topic of Democratic two-facedness on civil liberties is one of the most important issues that Greenwald has covered. Many of those Dems — including the sitting President Barack Obama, Senator Carl Levin, and Sec. State John Kerry — have now become the stewards and enhancers of programs that appear to dwarf any of the spying scandals that broke during the Bush years, the very same scandals they used as wedge issues to win elections in the Congressional elections 2006 and the presidential primary of 2007-2008.

via Why Democrats Love To Spy On Americans.

…are we living Orwell, or Kafka? Either way, it’s freedom that is lost.

The Eyes Watching You

1984 and the Surveillance State

by SARAH SKWIRE

George Orwell. 1984. New York: Plume, [1949] 2003. 323 pages.In the kind of horrifying coincidence that surely would have prompted one of his more acerbic essays, the news that various U.S. government surveillance agencies have been gathering data from millions of citizens’ phones, email accounts, and web searches broke during the week of the 64th publication anniversary of George Orwell’s 1984. As the news reports poured in, and as sales of 1984 surged by an astonishing 6,884 percent, a friend asked me whether the PRISM story strikes me as more Orwellian or more Kafkaesque.

My response? We’d better hope it’s Kafkaesque.

No one wants to inhabit a Franz Kafka novel. But the surveillance states he describes do have one thing going for them—incompetence. In Kafka’s stories, important forms get lost, permits are unattainable, and bureaucrats fail to do their jobs. Like the main character in Kafka’s unfinished story, “The Castle,” if you were trapped in Kafka’s world you could live your whole life doing nothing but waiting for a permit. But at least you could live. Incompetence creates a little space.

What is terrifying about Orwell’s 1984 is the complete competence of the surveillance state. Winston Smith begins the novel by believing he is in an awful, but Kafkaesque world where there is still some slippage in the state’s absolute control, and still some room for private action. Winston says that Oceania’s world of telescreens and Thought Police means that there are “always the eyes watching you and the voice enveloping you. Asleep or awake, working or eating, indoors or out of doors, in the bath or in bed—no escape.” But he follows that by saying, “Nothing was your own except the few cubic centimeters inside your skull.” He also believes that while the diary he keeps will inevitably be discovered, the small alcove in his apartment where he writes his diary puts him “out of the range of the telescreen.”

via The Eyes Watching You : The Freeman : Foundation for Economic Education.

…in the United States of America.

What happened to my country?

Since 9-11-01 we have been subjected to more and more loss of freedom through the government’s intrusion into our lives.

These intrusions are done in the name of security. There be terrorists here and there and everywhere.

How many terrorist attacks have occurred in the USA since 9-11?

The number is pretty low. And it has nothing to do with the NSA, or the FBI’s surveillance of Americans.

The scandals that keep coming out of Washington are proof that their agenda is to kill liberty in this country.

Didn’t Obama say that the “war on terrorism is over” in one of his hundreds of speeches? If the war on terrorism is over, then there is absolutely no reason for the government’s overreach into our lives.

Remember candidate Obama in 2007? The then candidate gave a foreign policy speech denouncing exactly what this Administration has done. In fact, they’ve expanded the liberty crushing agenda that Bush pulled with the Patriot Act.  Here’s what he said then:

I guess the joke’s on us.

Power corrupts absolutely.

Under the guise of fighting terrorism, the government has expanded its powers immensely. The TSA is the most overbearing and useless organization ever created in this country. They violate our Fourth Amendment rights every time we get into an airport to board a plane. They search 90 year old ladies in wheelchairs under the guise of not profiling Muslims. Guess what morons? Muslim men and women in the age group of 20-40 are the threat. Not some old lady in a wheelchair.

Now we find the IRS targeting certain groups that call themselves the Tea Party, along with other conservative groups against big government, or just wanting to teach the Constitution. Why is that? What end does this government seek?

Control.

This Administration has gone after the First Amendment by targeting the Tea Party and other Conservative groups through the IRS. They have tapped the phones of Americans violating the Fourth Amendment, and they have been going after guns in a vain attempt at taking away our divine right to life, and liberty, by attacking the Second Amendment.

It’s about controlling the masses so that they can enrich themselves and screw the rest of us.

All under the guise of security, or to “protect the children” from harm. If they really wanted to protect the children, then there would be no more gun free zones, and every school in America would have armed staff to stop any idiot that tried to harm them.

Fighting terrorism in America, what a false flag that is.

They keep the stupid people scared in order to run roughshod over the rest of us that know better.

Here’s an interesting article from the NY Times, the fish wrap of record, but they changed it so it wouldn’t be so damning to their messiah.

Via The Daily Caller:

The editorial originally declared that the Obama “administration has lost all credibility” as a result of the recently revealed news that the National Security Agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation have been secretly collecting call data from American users of Verizon under the authority of the Patriot Act.

The media has been complicit in this whole charade with their idolizing of Obama and their complete lack of integrity. If they had been doing their job from the start, then Obama probably wouldn’t have been elected in the first place, never mind a second time.

I apologize for being all over the map on this, but it really pisses me off.

At any rate, it’s still a decent article for this rag.

President Obama’s Dragnet

By THE EDITORIAL BOARD

Within hours of the disclosure that federal authorities routinely collect data on phone calls Americans make, regardless of whether they have any bearing on a counterterrorism investigation, the Obama administration issued the same platitude it has offered every time President Obama has been caught overreaching in the use of his powers: Terrorists are a real menace and you should just trust us to deal with them because we have internal mechanisms (that we are not going to tell you about) to make sure we do not violate your rights.

Those reassurances have never been persuasive — whether on secret warrants to scoop up a news agency’s phone records or secret orders to kill an American suspected of terrorism — especially coming from a president who once promised transparency and accountability.

The administration has now lost all credibility on this issue. Mr. Obama is proving the truism that the executive branch will use any power it is given and very likely abuse it. That is one reason we have long argued that the Patriot Act, enacted in the heat of fear after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks by members of Congress who mostly had not even read it, was reckless in its assignment of unnecessary and overbroad surveillance powers.

via President Obama’s Dragnet – NYTimes.com.

…you can pretty much give up on having any privacy in the United States. In fact, you can pretty much toss out the Fourth Amendment while you’re at it.
If this shit doesn’t give you chills, nothing will.

First Obama signs the NDAA into law giving the military the power to arrest American citizens without charges, or due process of law, and now the Senate is looking to add to that fiasco by allowing law enforcement to read your email, access your internet accounts and social media without a warrant, without any judicial oversight, and without your knowledge.

America has lost its way.

Senate bill rewrite lets feds read your e-mail without warrants
by Declan McCullagh

Proposed law scheduled for a vote next week originally increased Americans’ e-mail privacy. Then law enforcement complained. Now it increases government access to e-mail and other digital files.

A Senate proposal touted as protecting Americans’ e-mail privacy has been quietly rewritten, giving government agencies more surveillance power than they possess under current law.

CNET has learned that Patrick Leahy, the influential Democratic chairman of the Senate Judiciary committee, has dramatically reshaped his legislation in response to law enforcement concerns. A vote on his bill, which now authorizes warrantless access to Americans’ e-mail, is scheduled for next week.

Leahy’s rewritten bill would allow more than 22 agencies — including the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Communications Commission — to access Americans’ e-mail, Google Docs files, Facebook wall posts, and Twitter direct messages without a search warrant. It also would give the FBI and Homeland Security more authority, in some circumstances, to gain full access to Internet accounts without notifying either the owner or a judge.

It’s an abrupt departure from Leahy’s earlier approach, which required police to obtain a search warrant backed by probable cause before they could read the contents of e-mail or other communications. The Vermont Democrat boasted last year that his bill “provides enhanced privacy protections for American consumers by… requiring that the government obtain a search warrant.”

More

…this time from a judge that says warrantless use of concealed surveillance cameras on private property is OK.
Just keep ignoring it America.
Your rights keep dwindling away on a daily basis.

Court OKs warrantless use of hidden surveillance cameras
By Declan McCullagh

In latest case to test how technological developments alter Americans’ privacy, federal court sides with Justice Department on police use of concealed surveillance cameras on private property.

Police are allowed in some circumstances to install hidden surveillance cameras on private property without obtaining a search warrant, a federal judge said yesterday.

CNET has learned that U.S. District Judge William Griesbach ruled that it was reasonable for Drug Enforcement Administration agents to enter rural property without permission — and without a warrant — to install multiple “covert digital surveillance cameras” in hopes of uncovering evidence that 30 to 40 marijuana plants were being grown.

This is the latest case to highlight how advances in technology are causing the legal system to rethink how Americans’ privacy rights are protected by law. In January, the Supreme Court rejected warrantless GPS tracking after previously rejecting warrantless thermal imaging, but it has not yet ruled on warrantless cell phone tracking or warrantless use of surveillance cameras placed on private property without permission.

Yesterday Griesbach adopted a recommendation by U.S. Magistrate Judge William Callahan dated October 9. That recommendation said that the DEA’s warrantless surveillance did not violate the Fourth Amendment, which prohibits unreasonable searches and requires that warrants describe the place that’s being searched.

“The Supreme Court has upheld the use of technology as a substitute for ordinary police surveillance,” Callahan wrote.

More

…power.
This time it’s the ATF. They can now seize guns without due process making it so that the defendant must prove their innocence, rather than the government having to prove guilt.

Step by step, inch by inch. The government keeps taking away our rights. More and more Americans think this shit is the norm and nothing is done about it.

It’s time to push back.

First, get rid of Obama and the Democrats in Congress.

Second, get rid of the RINOs in Congress.

Third institute term limits for Congress.

Fourth, force Congress to be subject to the laws they pass on us. That would stop a  lot of the BS they pass as legislation right there.

Fifth, enforce our borders, language and culture. Make English the official language. No official government paperwork in any other language. That would save millions alone.

Obama has expanded civil-forfeiture rules making it permissible for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) to seize weapons from citizens without the hassle of due process.

This effectively gives Attorney General Eric Holder, of Fast and Furious fame, extended power over guns and gun-related property.

The rules were broadened under the guise of giving the ATF authority “to seize and administatively forfeit property involved in controlled substance abuses.” And if that doesn’t strike you as extreme on first glance, consider the fact that this expansion of civil-forfeiture allows the ATF to forego almost all “due process” in making their seizures — in effect, placing the burden of proof on the citizen instead of federal agents.

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This country is turning into the Soviet Union more and more every day. Our freedoms are being continually eroded in the name of ‘security’ and the public safety.

The TSA has moved beyond the airports and are now in bus terminals, train stations, and are now expanding into areas that are not even related to transportation.

Now they are moving into the streets of America.
When will it end?
When will the assholes in Congress step in and stop the DHS’ takeover of America?

This is starting to look more and more like a Soviet style police state.
I’m fucking tired of it and our douche bags in Congress need to be tossed out on their collective asses if they don’t stop this in its tracks. Defund TSA, fire Napolitano’s ass. fire Obama, fire them all.

TSA Rifles Through Bags, Conducts Pat Downs At Paul Ryan Event

Government agents moving out of airports and into the streets
Steve Watson

For some time we have been warning that the TSA is systematically moving beyond the nation’s airports and conducting operations on the streets of America.

The latest example of this kind of activity occurred at an event organized by Mitt Romney’s GOP running mate Paul Ryan this past weekend in The Villages, Florida.

The Shark Tank blog reports that TSA officers showed up alongside Secret Service and the local Sumter County Sheriff’s Office, and proceeded to do what they do like no one else does.

“A big WTF is in order here.” the blog notes, adding “We heard that the TSA was going to expand its ummm, ‘reach,’ but to assist in political campaigns is quite the jump in broadening their ‘transportation security horizons.’”

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This is travesty. A nation that treats it’s Soldiers in this manner doesn’t deserve to be a nation. There are a couple things wrong with this in regards to the Constitution alone, never mind simple common sense.

First there’s the issue of the Second Amendment. It is constantly being violated by the District of Columbia, in that they do everything in their illegal power to confiscate, or prevent gun ownership. And I thought California was bad.

Then there’s the issue of the Fourth Amendment. Yeah, the one that states: “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.”

The MPD violated this one straight up.

If it were me they did this to, they’d put my name over the MPD HQ when I was done with them.

This is a series of articles on this by Emily Miller, here’s the first:

MILLER: Iraq vet brutalized over guns in D.C.

The Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) seems to have it out for our military. The department is using the city’s pointless firearm registration mandate to harass, arrest and jail servicemen.

Army 1st Sergeant Matthew Corrigan was woken in the middle of the night, forced out of his home, arrested, had his home ransacked, had his guns seized and was thrown in jail — where he was lost in the prison system for two weeks — all because the District refuses to recognize the meaning of the Second Amendment. This week, the city dropped all charges against Sgt. Corrigan, but the damage done to this reservist cannot be so easily erased.

This story will describe how Sgt. Corrigan went from sleeping at home at night to arrested. Subsequent installments of the series will cover the home raid without a warrant, the long-term imprisonment and the coverup by MPD.

More

There’s a link to the next one in the series. There are three at the moment.

MILLER: SWAT rampage destroys Iraq vet’s home over guns

MILLER: Iraq vet jailed two weeks for guns

The government is spying on you and violating your rights. It will only get worse.

NAPOLITANO: Big Brother’s all-seeing eye

By Andrew P. Napolitano

Use of military surveillance drones overhead would be un-American

For the past few weeks, I have been writing in this column about the government’s use of drones and challenging their constitutionality on Fox News Channel, where I work. I once asked on air what Thomas Jefferson would have done if – had they existed at the time – King George III had sent drones to peer inside the bedroom windows of Monticello. I suspect Jefferson and his household would have trained their muskets on the drones and taken them down. I offer this historical anachronism as a hypothetical only, not as someone who is urging the use of violence against the government.

Nevertheless, what Jeffersonians are among us today? When drones take pictures of us on our private property and in our homes and the government uses the photos as it wishes, what will we do about it? Jefferson understood that when the government assaults our privacy and dignity, it is the moral equivalent of violence against us. Folks who hear about this, who either laugh or groan, cannot find it humorous or boring that their every move will be monitored and photographed by the government.

Don’t believe me that this is coming? The photos that the drones will take may be retained and used or even distributed to others in the government so long as the “recipient is reasonably perceived to have a specific, lawful governmental function” in requiring them. And for the first time since the Civil War, the federal government will deploy military personnel insidetheUnitedStates and publicly acknowledge that it is deploying them “to collect information about U.S. persons.”

It gets worse. If the military personnel see something of interest from a drone, they may apply to a military judge or “military commander” for permission to conduct a physical search of the private property that intrigues them. Any “incidentally acquired information” can be retained or turned over to local law enforcement. What’s next? Prosecutions before military tribunals in the United States?

via NAPOLITANO: Big Brother’s all-seeing eye – Washington Times.