Category Archives: Civil Liberties

05.02.13
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Andrew Napolitano: More Holes in the Fourth Amendment

Here they go again. The Obama administration has asked its allies in Congress to introduce legislation that would permit the feds to continue their march through the Fourth Amendment when it comes to obtaining private information about all of us.

The Fourth Amendment, which guarantees the right to be left alone, was written largely in response to legislation Parliament enacted in the colonial era that permitted British soldiers to write their own search warrants and then use those warrants as a legal basis to enter private homes. The ostensible purpose of doing that was to search through the colonists’ papers looking for stamps, which the Stamp Act required the colonists to affix to all documents in their possession. The laws that permitted the soldier-written search warrants and the Stamp Act were the British government’s fatal political mistakes, which arguably caused a major shift in colonial opinion toward secession from Britain 10 years before the bloody part of the Revolution began.

After the Founders won the Revolution, the framers wrote the Constitution in large measure to assure that the new government in America would not and could not do to Americans what the king had done to the colonists. Hence the Fourth Amendment’s requirement that only judges issue search warrants and only after the governmental agency seeking the warrants presents evidence under oath of probable cause of crime. Regrettably, that was weakened after 9/11 with the enactment of the Patriot Act.

The Patriot Act – written in defiance of the Constitution and in ignorance of our history – permits federal agents to write their own search warrants, just as the king and Parliament had permitted British soldiers to do. Those agent-written search warrants are intended to be limited to the search for evidence of terror plots and are theoretically limited to the seizure of physical records in the custody of third parties, like lawyers, doctors, hospitals, billing clerks, telephone and Internet carriers, and even the Post Office. (Did you know that federal agents can see your mail and your legal and medical records without permission from a judge?) This abominable piece of legislation sacrificed freedom for safety and enhanced neither.

Now the feds want even more personal liberty sacrificed – this time to make it easier for them to collect digital information.


The Obama administration wants legislation enacted that will punish Internet service providers who fail to cooperate with FBI requests and court orders. The FBI has revealed that its agents often “lack the time” to obtain search warrants, and so they have gotten into the bad habit of asking Internet service providers to let them in without warrants.

This was notoriously done in the Bush-era, during which the feds promised immunity to telephone service providers that enabled the feds to spy on their customers. That spying was criminal and gave rise to civil causes of action for damages, as well, until Congress changed the law retroactively and granted the promised immunity after the Bush administration spying was exposed.

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Click below for the full article.

http://lewrockwell.com/napolitano/napolitano99.1.html

05.02.13
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CBS Seattle: Teachers Shocked, Frightened After School Holds Unplanned Shooting Drill

Teachers were shocked and caught off guard when an Oregon school held a school shooting drill.

The Oregonian reports Pine Eagle Charter School in Halfway held the drill last Friday as children were home for an in-service day. Two masked “gunmen” burst into a meeting room holding 15 teachers firing blanks. Teachers only realized it wasn’t a real shooting when none of them were bleeding.

“There was some commotion,” school principal Cammie DeCastro told The Oregonian.

Teachers were frightened about what happened.

“I’ll tell you, the whole situation was horrible,” Morgan Gover told the paper. “I got a couple in the front and a couple in the back.”

The school held the unplanned drill in hopes to better educate teachers on how to deal with a school shooting. Of the 15 teachers in the room, only two would have survived.

“I’m in charge of a pile of kids,” Gover told The Oregonian. “It made me analyze as a teacher what my role is for these babies.”

The drill has been criticized but the school has dismissed the criticism.

“For us not to know how we were going to respond is leaving us open,” DeCastro told The Oregonian.

DeCastro added that arming teachers or having armed volunteers at the school are possible outcomes for the future.

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Click below for the full article.

http://seattle.cbslocal.com/2013/05/02/teachers-shocked-frightened-after-school-holds-unplanned-shooting-drill/

05.02.13
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Disinfo: Out of All Drugs Legal And Illegal, Which Ones Kill?

drug_overdose

If we were to have a sane and adult conversation about drug use and abuse in America instead of waging a war on drugs the same way we wage a war on terror, we might come to the realization that  we’re letting the bad ones in our homes freely while some of the most helpful to improving the quality of life of the average person carry some of the highest minimum prison sentences of all, while touting an infinitesimal number of related deaths.  Some of you may have read Thad McKracken’s well thought out article on the state of drugs in society today.  The numbers fall in lockstep with his thoughts.

It turns out that, aside from Alcohol, Big Pharma is the #1 killer  while drugs that have been used traditionally as entheogens hardly appear in the statistics at all.  Drugs like LSD, DMT, Marajuana, Peyote and other psychedelics are used as a religious sacrament in many belief systems around the world, but are vilified because of their tendency to provide people with what Terence McKenna simply called ‘funny ideas’.

Popsci.com reports:

In 2010, there were 80,000 drug and alcohol overdose deaths in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s WONDER database. The database, maintained by the National Center for Health Statistics, keeps a tally of all the deaths listed on certificates nationwide. They’re classified by the ICD-10 medical coding reference system.

Death reporting in the U.S. requires an underlying cause—the event or disease that lead to the death. This chart represents all those listed in the CDC database as “accidental poisoning,” “intentional self-poisoning,” “assault by drugs,” and “poisoning with undetermined intent.” In addition to the underlying cause, a death certificate has space for up to 20 additional causes. That’s where “cocaine” or “antidepressants” would show up. The subcategories are limited in their detail—many drugs are lumped together, like MDMA and caffeine, which are listed together as “psychostimulants.” And about a quarter of all overdose death certificates don’t have the toxicity test results listed at all, landing them in the “unspecified” stripe.

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Click below to access the article on disinformation.

http://disinfo.com/2013/04/out-of-all-drugs-legal-and-illegal-which-ones-kill/#sthash.YcXRCkak.HNN1sB0a.dpbs

05.02.13
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FOX NY: 30 arrested in NY during rally against drones

Thirty people protesting against unmanned aerial drones outside Hancock Field  Air Force National Guard Base have been arrested.

The Post-Standard  reports that the arrests Sunday came after a series of rallies and  workshops held in Syracuse over the weekend by the Upstate Coalition to Ground  the Drones and End the Wars.

A group of people lying on the base’s driveway were arrested. Charges include  disorderly conduct, obstructing governmental administration and loitering. About  250 people had marched to the gates, some pounding drums and chanting.

The base is home to the 174th Attack Wing of the New York Air National Guard,  which operates unmanned, armed drones. They are used for intelligence gathering  and bombing ground targets.

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Click below for the full article.

http://www.myfoxny.com/story/22104555/30-arrested-in-ny-during-rally-against-drones

04.30.13
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The Week: Conservatives must end their incoherence on counter-terrorism

What do we stand for? It’s not easy to pin down, and that’s a major problem.

In politics, effective leadership requires more than passionate words. You also have to strategize toward an achievable end game. And you must communicate that plan and those goals to your constituents.

Nowhere is this disconnect more apparent than with counter-terrorism policy in America today. Nowhere is true leadership more greatly missed.

In the Bush years, America’s counter-terrorism strategy was driven by unapologetic strategic purpose — deterring state adversaries and defeating international terrorists. This was a worldview with a vision — more freedom would equal more peace. Whether you agreed with him or not, we all knew where George W. Bush stood with it came to fighting terrorists.

Today’s conservatives have failed to offer such a compelling and clear vision on counter-terrorism.

We can’t agree on the threat and how to handle it. We can’t agree on our objectives, and how to achieve them. What do we stand for? It’s not easy to pin down, and that’s a major problem.

Listening to some conservative politicians, you’d consider the Islamist terrorist threat as unitary in nature. But this understanding is neglectful of undeniable facts — the fact, for example, that Shia and Sunni extremists hate each other almost as much as they hate us. It’s not simply us vs. them. There are many thems, and sometimes, it’s them vs. them.

We conservatives have also allowed our counter-terrorism discourse to be tarred by sociopaths like Pamela Geller; deluded souls who see all Muslims as a threat. We have to be smarter and better than this.

We also need to get away from the common conservative belief that regards engagement with the Islamic world as unnecessary. The reverse is true. If we conservatives are silent, Muslims around the world hear only one voice from America — that of President Obama. And let’s face it — his message, even if it’s well-intentioned — is essentially one of equivocation. It breeds the false idea of an America without courage of conviction. An America unworthy of friendship and unworthy of respect.

It needn’t be this way.

Many commentators, especially on the left, believe that America is hated abroad because of our supposedly ill-conceived actions. In reality, though, we’re hated based on the false perception of some nefarious motive behind our actions. This is a critical distinction. We’re hated because instead of articulating why we support Israel, we just support Israel. We’re hated because instead of explaining why Guantanamo Bay must remain open, we just keep it open. We’re hated because we wage wars of liberation and then quietly wish for authoritarians. We constantly fail to justify our actions — even when clear justifications exist.

Conservatives need to step in and remedy this. Defending America doesn’t just require arms. It also requires explanation.

The urgency is profound. But first, we conservatives must get on the same page. And we must get serious.

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Click below to read Tom Rogan’s article on The Week’s website.

http://theweek.com/article/index/243443/conservatives-must-end-their-incoherence-on-counter-terrorism

04.30.13
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Yahoo News: Lower tuition for immigrants becomes law in Colorado;

A Bill granting in-state tuition for students illegally in the US signed into law in Colorado.

Immigrant students will pay significantly less in tuition at Colorado colleges under legislation signed by Gov. John Hickenlooper on Monday.

Hundreds cheered as the Democratic governor ratified legislation that was first proposed a decade ago but regularly rejected under less favorable circumstances for people in the U.S. illegally.

“Holy smokes, are you guys fired up?” he asked the loud, spirited crowd at the Metropolitan State University of Denver. “Yeah, I thought so.”

Colorado becomes the fourteenth state to allow immigrants who graduate from state high schools to attend colleges at the tuition rate other in-state students pay, rather than a higher rate paid by out-of-state students.

This month, a similar proposal was signed into law in Oregon. Texas was the first pass such a measure in June 2001.

Among those in attendance at the signing ceremony was Val Vigil, a former lawmaker who first introduced the bill in 2003 when only a few states had passed it. At the time, only two people signed up to testify in favor of the bill in committee, he recalled, and more than 20 people showed up to oppose it.

When the plan was discussed in 2008, immigrant students who signed up to testify in favor had their names turned over to federal immigration authorities by opponents of the bill.

When the bill was heard in the House Education Committee in February, no opponents signed up to testify.

“It took 10 years of coalition building,” Vigil said.

The new law grants in-state tuition for Colorado high school graduates regardless of their immigration status. To qualify, students must also sign an affidavit saying they are seeking, or will seek, legal status in the U.S.

The out-of-state rate immigrants in Colorado had been required to pay is sometimes more than three times higher than the in-state rate.

“Every kid matters,” Hickenlooper said. “We need every child that we can get to be as educated as they are capable.”

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Click below for the full article.

http://news.yahoo.com/lower-tuition-immigrants-becomes-law-152911238.html

04.30.13
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The Week: Why Ron Paul is slamming Boston’s response to the bombings

Ron Paul isn't a fan of the "surveillance state."

Criticizing the Boston Police Department, which has been hailed for capturing Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, isn’t exactly a PC move. Here, however, is former Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) on libertarian Lew Rockwell’s site:

These were not the scenes from a military coup in a far off banana republic, but rather the scenes just over a week ago in Boston as the United States got a taste of martial law. The ostensible reason for the military-style takeover of parts of Boston was that the accused perpetrator of a horrific crime was on the loose. The Boston bombing provided the opportunity for the government to turn what should have been a police investigation into a military-style occupation of an American city. This unprecedented move should frighten us as much or more than the attack itself. [LewRockwell.com]

He goes on to criticize our modern “surveillance state,” and argues that “we have been conditioned to believe that the job of the government is to keep us safe, but in reality the job of the government is to protect our liberties.”

While Paul appears to be alone in equating the reaction to the bombings with the bombings themselves, plenty of commentators from across the political spectrum have voiced objections to how law enforcement shut down the city of Boston. Comedian Bill Maher warned of a creeping “police state” on his show a few days ago, according to Politico.

And others have said the government is prone to overreaction any time terrorism is involved. “Whenever the word ‘terrorist’ is mentioned in this country, reason tends to go out the window, and many other things go with it, too, such as intellectual consistency, a respect for civil liberties, and a sense of proportion,” wrote John Cassidy a couple of weeks ago at The New Yorker.

Ross Douthat at The New York Times argues that such reactions could set a worrisome precedent if terrorist attacks become more common:

Because the Marathon bombing was such an unusual event, the city of Boston could muster a sweeping, almost crazy-seeming response without worrying that it would find itself having to do exactly the same thing six months later. But if such attacks started happening more frequently, as they obviously very well could, then last Friday’s precedent would put public officials across the country in an extremely uncomfortable bind: Repeatedly reproducing the lockdown might seem like a non-starter, yet not matching what Boston did would open you up to all kinds of scapegoating if, say, an on-the-loose bomber struck again.

Last week, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick (D) defended the city’s response, telling The Boston Globe, “I think we did what we should have done and were supposed to do with the always-imperfect information that you have at the time.”

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Click below to read the article on The Week’s website.

http://theweek.com/article/index/243435/why-ron-paul-is-slamming-bostons-response-to-the-bombings

 

04.29.13
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The Week: Is the government stockpiling ammo to thwart gun owners?

A huge purchase of bullets by the Department of Homeland Security is giving conspiracy theorists fresh ammunition.
In February, the Associated Press reported that DHS wanted to buy some 1.6 billion rounds of ammunition over the next few years. While the department contends the purchase and other similar buys are standard procedure, the timing of that report, coming amid a then-raging gun debate in Washington, led some to fret that the government was stockpiling ammo for possibly nefarious purposes.

Conspiracy theorists questioned why the government would ever need so much ammo. Were the feds simply wasting taxpayer funds? Or, perhaps, amassing a secret army? Alex Jones’ InfoWars led the charge on this front, running articles with headlines like the not-so-subtle “Homeland Security Buys Enough Ammo for a 7-Year War Against the American People.”

“This ammunition is purchased for the sole purpose of being used in active fighting. At the same time, it is a violation of the Geneva Convention to use hollow point ammunition on the battle field,” that post read. “This is crucial to understand. It means the occupying federal government is acquiring this ammunition to be used against the American people.”

Yet what began as a fringe conspiracy theory has gained momentum over the past two months, finally making it all the way to Congress.

The conspiracies popped up on more mainstream Republican-leaning outlets like Fox News and the Daily Caller, albeit typically in a less alarmist vein. Then last week, two Republican lawmakers, Reps. Jim Jordan (Ohio) and Jason Chaffetz (Utah), lent the conspiracies more credibility, holding a joint hearing to demand answers. And though he stopped short of fully embracing the “secret army” theory, Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-S.C.) said in a separate hearing that the rampant theorizing had reached a point where “the numbers cease to become Internet rumors and they start having some credibility.”

Other lawmakers posited a slightly different theory: The government, uncertain whether new gun laws would prevail in Congress, had authorized the purchases to remove ammo from shelves. If the government couldn’t take away guns, it would just take away ammo instead, the theory went.

In response, Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) and Rep. Frank Lucas (R-Okla.) introduced legislation in both chambers of Congress last week that would place limits on DHS’ ammo-buying capacity.

“President Obama has been adamant about curbing law-abiding Americans’ access and opportunities to exercise their Second Amendment rights,” said Inhofe. “One way the Obama administration is able to do this is by limiting what’s available in the market with federal agencies purchasing unnecessary stockpiles of ammunition.”

Called the Ammunition Management for More Obtainability Act of 2013 (AMMO), the legislation would require the government to report on its ammo reserves, and prevent it from making additional purchases past a certain threshold.

On Monday, Inhofe reiterated his concern in a radio interview with Laura Ingraham.

“We just denied everything that this president and the vice president are trying to do,” he said. “So what are they going to do if they want to, if they want to violate our Second Amendment rights? Do it with ammo.”

Homeland Security has more or less laughed off the suggestions. Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano said the department “found it so inherently unbelievable that those statements would be made it was hard to ascribe credibility to them.”

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Click below for the full article.

http://theweek.com/article/index/243436/is-the-government-stockpiling-ammo-to-thwart-gun-owners#

04.29.13
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The Week: Senate Democrats are still clueless on gun control

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.V.) is still pushing for expanded background checks. That's not enough for some Democrats.

Apparently, a group of senators is “quietly seeking a new path on gun control.” Or at least, they were quietly doing so until The New York Times wrote about the once-covert effort. Now, of course, the efforts are less quiet.

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) is reportedly back talking to Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) about how they might attract more support for a bill expanding the current background check system. The two senators, it seems, are focused on background checks and background checks alone, a move I think wise given the widespread view that such a measure is entirely appropriate.

Unfortunately, the Times also detailed a push being lead by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) to revise or expand penalties for firearms trafficking offenses. Now, federal prosecutors really do not need more tools to prosecute individuals they catch trafficking in illegal weapons, but of course, no United States senator has ever gone hungry by being “tough on crime.” And yet… the mere fact that Gillibrand is pushing for more gun regulations at the same time Toomey and Manchin are trying to revive background checks shows that Senate Democrats learned little from their last gun-control fiasco. Furthermore, Gillibrand’s stated reason for pursuing the new law might well be the poster child for the sort of reasoning that keeps gun rights enthusiasts paranoid and the NRA fully funded.

Gillibrand’s quote in the Times is simple, and its logic is straightforward. Asked why she we need stricter trafficking laws, the junior senator from New York explained that “I think trafficking can be the base of the bill, the rock on which everything else stands. I also think it’s complementary to background checks because, let’s be honest, criminals aren’t going to buy a gun and go through a background check. So if you really want to go after criminals, you have to have to do both.”

The most ardent gun rights advocates literally stay up at night worrying that each gun regulation they allow to pass could be the one that sets off the avalanche that turns this nation into some sort of gun-outlawing regulatory hell. This group of people is naturally suspicious of arguments for “commonsense” gun control, not so much because they really think that their gun rights would be in any sense compromised by the recently defeated revisions to the existing background check regime, but rather because they do not think that the advocates for the aforementioned regime will be content to stop once background checks are in place.

Many of these pro-gun individuals would be fine with background checks. But they fear, with some reason, that if they concede on background checks today, then the next time some madman gets a firearm and kills 30 people, the same proponents of background checks will be harnessing public outrage by turning the families of the victims into lobbyists for what they will undoubtedly label “commonsense” reform that decent American couldn’t possibly oppose. For that reason, the position of many gun rights advocates is that they prefer to defend their right to “keep and bear arms” from the Rhine so they will never be forced to do so from the Rubicon.

Even crazy-sounding theories occasionally appear to have at least a tiny basis in reality. Indeed, from time to time, gun regulation proponents appear to push for stricter gun laws irrespective of whether or not particular proposals actually make anyone safer. The fact that President Obama allowed Sen. Dianne Feinstein to push him into calling for a renewal of the assault weapons ban — despite the fact that virtually every non-partisan group that has studied the AWB found that it had virtually no impact on violent crime rates — suggests that at least a few powerful people are more interested in restricting gun rights than they are in actually curbing violent crime. Indeed, the president dramatically weakened the chances of getting background checks approved by attaching it to a push for the AWB, thereby allowing groups like the NRA to, I think unfairly, imply that the president’s motive for pushing reform was more anti-gun than anti-violence.

Which brings us back to Gillibrand and the renewed push for reform. Consider the New Yorker’s stated logic for pursuing tighter gun trafficking laws: Criminals will not buy guns through a complete background check regime, so if we manage to pass that, we also need to pass a another criminal statute relating to the possession, movement, and distribution of firearms. Here’s what every gun person wonders when they read Gillibrand’s statement: “Wait, I thought the whole point of background checks is to keep guns away from criminals… Is she saying that if it works, then we need another law?”

I want background checks to pass, but I hold out little hope that they will. And if they have any chance at all, it will be as a standalone measure not packaged with any other proposals. Senate Democrats need to wake up and stop making the perfect the enemy of the good.

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Click below to read the article on The Week website.

http://theweek.com/article/index/243396/senate-democrats-are-still-clueless-on-gun-control

04.28.13
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Huffington Post: TSA Delaying Knives On Planes Policy

Tsa Knives Planes

Airline passengers will have to leave their knives at home after all. And their bats and golf clubs.A policy change scheduled to go into effect this week that would have allowed passengers to carry small knives, bats and other sports equipment onto airliners will be delayed, federal officials said Monday.The delay is necessary to accommodate feedback from an advisory committee made up of aviation industry, consumer, and law enforcement officials, the Transportation Security Administration said in a brief statement. The statement said the delay is temporary, but gave no indication how long it might be.

TSA Administrator John Pistole proposed the policy change last month, saying it would free up the agency to concentrate on protecting against greater threats. TSA screeners confiscate about 2,000 small folding knives from passengers every day.

The proposal immediately drew fierce opposition from flight attendant unions and federal air marshals, who said the knives can be dangerous in the hands of the wrong passengers. Some airlines and members of Congress also urged TSA to reconsider its position.

The delay announced by TSA doesn’t go far enough, a coalition of unions representing 90,000 flight attendants nationwide said Monday.

“All knives should be banned from planes permanently,” the group said in a statement.

Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., who opposed the policy, said TSA’s decision is an admission “that permitting knives on planes is a bad idea.” He also called for a permanent ban.

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Click below for the full article.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/22/tsa-knives-planes-_n_3135491.html?utm_hp_ref=tsa