There's a lot to rebel against, to want to throw off. If they want to make a serious economic and political critique, they should make the one Gretchen Morgenson and Joshua Rosner make in "Reckless Endangerment": that real elites in Washington rigged the system for themselves and their friends, became rich and powerful, caused the great catering, and then "slipped quietly from the scene."
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shared by Gary Edwards on 18 Oct 11
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Watch The Ron Paul "Plan To Restore America" Press Conference Live | ZeroHedge - 0 views
www.zerohedge.com/...-america-press-conference-live
Ron-Paul Libertarian Austrian-Economics Ayn-Rand-Libertarian
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shared by Gary Edwards on 28 Oct 11
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The Divider vs. the Thinker - WSJ.com - 0 views
online.wsj.com/...3554104577002262150454258.html
Banksters Paul-Ryan Obammunism Peggy-Noonan WSJ The-American-Idea
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It is a blow-by-blow recounting of how politicians—Democrats and Republicans—passed the laws that encouraged the banks to make the loans that would never be repaid, and that would result in your lost job.
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It began in the early 1990s, in the Clinton administration, and continued under the Bush administration, with the help of an entrenched Congress that wanted only two things: to receive campaign contributions and to be re-elected.
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Specifically it is the story of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the mortgage insurers, and how their politically connected CEOs, especially Fannie's Franklin Raines and James Johnson, took actions that tanked the American economy and walked away rich.
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"the temptation to exploit fear and envy returns." Politicians divide in order to "evade responsibility for their failures" and to advance their interests.
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Which gets us to Rep. Paul Ryan. Mr. Ryan receives much praise, but I don't think his role in the current moment has been fully recognized. He is doing something unique in national politics. He thinks. He studies. He reads. Then he comes forward to speak, calmly and at some length, about what he believes to be true. He defines a problem and offers solutions, often providing the intellectual and philosophical rationale behind them.
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But Republicans, in their desire to defend free economic activity, shouldn't be snookered by unthinking fealty to big business. They should never defend—they should actively oppose—the kind of economic activity that has contributed so heavily to the crisis.
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"Why have we extended an endless supply of taxpayer credit to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, instead of demanding that their government guarantee be wound down and their taxpayer subsidies ended?" Why are tax dollars being wasted on bankrupt, politically connected solar energy firms like Solyndra? "Why is Washington wasting your money on entrenched agribusiness?"
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The "true sources of inequity in this country," he continued, are "corporate welfare that enriches the powerful, and empty promises that betray the powerless."
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The real class warfare that threatens us is "a class of bureaucrats and connected crony capitalists trying to rise above the rest of us, call the shots, rig the rules, and preserve their place atop society."
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Peggy Noonan writes about Paul Ryan's "The American Idea" speech he recently gave at the heritage Foundation. It's a beautifully written summary that goes right to the heart of the matter: the ruling elites have been enriching themselves, feeding at the public trough of corporate welfare and crony capitalism. Washington DC is corrupt and rotten to the core, and the hand maiden of Banksters, Global Corporatist, Big Unions, and Big Bearucracy. One things for sure. Congressman Paul Ryan is a brilliant thinker aho believes in the great promise he calls "The American Idea". Funny how, as the presidential primary race rolls on, my hopeful attention is being drawn towards four men: Herman Cain, Paul Ryan, Ron Paul and Marco Rubio. Herman unfortunately is soft on Banksters, totally unaware and oblivious to the need to take back the currency, and end the Federal Reserve Bankster Cartel. I also have some difficulties with the "revenue neutral" aspects of his 999 plan. We need less government, not more. The private sector needs to keep more money, not less. Too bad because everything else about Herman excites me. Especially his authentic, from the heart love of America, American exceptionalism and opportunity, and the founders truly unique "American Idea". Ron Paul has an awesome "American Recovery" plan. Awesome. But his remarks on terrorism and foreign policy stray far from his usual reliance on the Constitution and the 10th Amendment. He's right about the connection between global corporatism and the never ending militarism they push. But he's dead ass wrong about our enemies and their intentions. And that's scary. If RP had stuck to the Constitution and 10th Amendment, i would fully support him. If it's not an enumerated power, it belongs to the States and individual citizens. End of story. Marco Rubio is awesome in the same way Herman is. He connects with a special authenticity that screams the principles and val
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BBC News - Farage: UKIP has 'momentum' and is targeting more victories - 0 views
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The UK Independence Party is a truly national force and has "momentum" behind it, Nigel Farage has said after its victory in the European elections. Hailing a "breakthrough" in Scotland and a strong showing in Wales, he said UKIP would target its first Westminster seat in next week's Newark by-election. Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg has said he will not resign after his party lost all but one of its 12 MEPs. He said he was not going to "walk away" from the job despite the poor results. Mr Farage has been celebrating his party's triumph in the European polls, the first time a party other than the Conservatives or Labour has won a national election for 100 years.
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The UK Independence Party is a truly national force and has "momentum" behind it, Nigel Farage has said after its victory in the European elections. Hailing a "breakthrough" in Scotland and a strong showing in Wales, he said UKIP would target its first Westminster seat in next week's Newark by-election. Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg has said he will not resign after his party lost all but one of its 12 MEPs.
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The UK Independence Party is a truly national force and has "momentum" behind it, Nigel Farage has said after its victory in the European elections. Hailing a "breakthrough" in Scotland and a strong showing in Wales, he said UKIP would target its first Westminster seat in next week's Newark by-election. Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg has said he will not resign after his party lost all but one of its 12 MEPs. He said he was not going to "walk away" from the job despite the poor results.
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Mr Farage said Labour would come under "enormous pressure" to offer the voters a referendum on Europe, and he said he did not believe Nick Clegg would still be Lib Dem leader at the general election. "The three party leaders are like goldfish that have been tipped out of their bowl onto the floor and are gasping for air," he said.
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The Conservatives have so far secured 24% of the vote nationally and lost seven seats The Lib Dems slumped to fifth place The Green Party came fourth and has got three MEPs - one more than it achieved in 2009. BNP leader Nick Griffin lost his seat as the party was wiped out, the English Democrats also saw their vote share fall
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Mr Farage has said his party intends to build on what he has described as "the most extraordinary result" in British politics in the past century.
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Speaking in London at an election rally, he said his party now appealed to all social classes and had made significant inroads in Wales and Scotland as well as winning the most votes in England.
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He said the party was aiming to win the Newark by-election next week, to try and "turn the heat" up on David Cameron. They would target a dozen or more seats in next year's general election, he added. "Our game is to get this right, to find the right candidates, and focus our resources on getting a good number of seats in Westminster next year. "If UKIP do hold the balance of power, then indeed there will be a (EU) referendum."
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UKIP won 27.5% of the vote and had 24 MEPs elected. Labour, on 25.4%, has narrowly beaten the Tories into third place while the Lib Dems lost all but one of their seats and came sixth behind the Greens. With Northern Ireland yet to declare its results, the election highlights so far have been: Far-right, anti-EU parties, including the Front National in France, made gains across Europe, as did anti-austerity groups from the left Labour has 20 MEPs so far, an increase of seven on 2009, which was a record low point for the party It topped the poll in Wales by a narrow margin from UKIP. The SNP won two seats in Scotland, where UKIP also won its first MEP
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Mr Clegg is facing calls to stand down after Sunday night's results, with MP John Pugh saying the "abysmal" performance meant the Lib Dem leader should make way for Vince Cable. But Mr Clegg said he had no intention of stepping down despite the "gut-wrenching" loss of most of the party's representatives in Brussels. "Of course it's right to have searching questions after such a bad set of results," he said. "But the easiest thing in politics when the going gets really really tough is to wash your hands of it and walk away, but I'm not going to do that and neither is my party."
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Lib Dem Business Secretary Vince Cable added: "These were exceptionally disappointing results for the party. Many hard-working Liberal Democrats, who gave this fight everything they had and then lost their seats, are feeling frustrated and disheartened and we all understand that." Mr Clegg "deserves tremendous credit" for having been bold enough to stand up to "the Eurosceptic wave which has engulfed much of continental Europe", he said. The party had taken a "kicking for being in government with the Conservatives", but must now "hold its nerve", he said.
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Reacting to his third place, David Cameron said the public was "disillusioned" with the EU and their message had been "received and understood", but he rejected calls to bring forward his proposed in/out EU referendum to 2016.
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After UKIP's success, the Tory leadership is facing renewed calls for an electoral pact with their rivals to avoid a split in the right of British politics at next year's general election. Daniel Hannan, who was returned as a Tory MEP in the South East region, said it would be "sad" if the two parties "were not able to find some way, at least in marginal seats, of reaching an accommodation so that anti-referendum candidates don't get in with a minority of votes". But Mr Cameron said it was a "myth" that the two parties had a shared agenda. Labour was looking at one stage as if it might be beaten into third place by the Tories - a potentially disastrous result for Ed Miliband as he seeks to show he can win next year's general election. But the party was rescued by another strong showing in London - and it took heart from local election results in battleground seats, which party spokesmen suggested were a better guide to general election performance.
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Mr Miliband said the party was "making progress" but had "further to go" if it was to prevail in next year's general election. He said the outcome of the elections was about more than Europe and his party must respond to a "desire for change" over a wide range of issues. BNP leader Nick Griffin lost his seat and saw his party's vote collapse by 6% in the North West of England. Anti-EU parties from the left and right have gained significant numbers of MEPs across all 28 member states in the wake of the eurozone crisis and severe financial squeeze. However, pro-EU parties will still hold the majority in parliament. Turnout across the EU is up slightly at 43.1%, according to estimates. Turnout in the UK was 33.8%, down slightly on last time.
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In the European elections five years ago, the Conservatives got 27.7% of the total vote, ahead of UKIP on 16.5%, Labour on 15.7%, the Lib Dems on 13.7%, the Green Party on 8.6% and the BNP on 6.2%.
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Eurosceptic 'earthquake' rocks EU Under pressure Clegg: I won't quit Miliband: Labour 'making progress' Cameron: We can still win in 2015 BNP wiped out in Euro elections UKIP looks to Westminster after win Calls for Clegg to quit 'ridiculous' Immigration target
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UKIP sets the wheels to rocking on apple carts in the UK and EU, winning 24 of UK's 73 seats in the European Parliament and hundreds of seats in UK community governments, all at the expense of the front-running three parties in the UK's 2009 election. Wikipedia: The UK Independence Party (UKIP) is a [hard] Eurosceptic, right-wing populist political party in the United Kingdom, founded in 1993. The party describes itself in its constitution as a "democratic, libertarian party." Now if we could just begin to see a NATO-sceptic party emerging across Europe ...
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shared by Paul Merrell on 07 Jun 14
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Vodafone reveals existence of secret wires that allow state surveillance | Business | T... - 0 views
www.theguardian.com/...es-allowing-state-surveillance
surveillance state non-U.S.-spy-agencies Vodafone
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Vodafone, one of the world's largest mobile phone groups, has revealed the existence of secret wires that allow government agencies to listen to all conversations on its networks, saying they are widely used in some of the 29 countries in which it operates in Europe and beyond.The company has broken its silence on government surveillance in order to push back against the increasingly widespread use of phone and broadband networks to spy on citizens, and will publish its first Law Enforcement Disclosure Report on Friday. At 40,000 words, it is the most comprehensive survey yet of how governments monitor the conversations and whereabouts of their people.The company said wires had been connected directly to its network and those of other telecoms groups, allowing agencies to listen to or record live conversations and, in certain cases, track the whereabouts of a customer. Privacy campaigners said the revelations were a "nightmare scenario" that confirmed their worst fears on the extent of snooping.
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Vodafone's group privacy officer, Stephen Deadman, said: "These pipes exist, the direct access model exists."We are making a call to end direct access as a means of government agencies obtaining people's communication data. Without an official warrant, there is no external visibility. If we receive a demand we can push back against the agency. The fact that a government has to issue a piece of paper is an important constraint on how powers are used."Vodafone is calling for all direct-access pipes to be disconnected, and for the laws that make them legal to be amended. It says governments should "discourage agencies and authorities from seeking direct access to an operator's communications infrastructure without a lawful mandate".
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Peter Micek, policy counsel at the campaign group Access, said: "In a sector that has historically been quiet about how it facilitates government access to user data, Vodafone has for the first time shone a bright light on the challenges of a global telecom giant, giving users a greater understanding of the demands governments make of telcos. Vodafone's report also highlights how few governments issue any transparency reports, with little to no information about the number of wiretaps, cell site tower dumps, and other invasive surveillance practices."
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In America, Verizon and AT&T have published data, but only on their domestic operations. Deutsche Telekom in Germany and Telstra in Australia have also broken ground at home. Vodafone is the first to produce a global survey.
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Snowden, the National Security Agency whistleblower, joined Google, Reddit, Mozilla and other tech firms and privacy groups on Thursday to call for a strengthening of privacy rights online in a "Reset the net" campaign.Twelve months after revelations about the scale of the US government's surveillance programs were first published in the Guardian and the Washington Post, Snowden said: "One year ago, we learned that the internet is under surveillance, and our activities are being monitored to create permanent records of our private lives – no matter how innocent or ordinary those lives might be. Today, we can begin the work of effectively shutting down the collection of our online communications, even if the US Congress fails to do the same."
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The Vodafone disclosures will undoubtedly have a very large ripple effect. Note carefully that this is the first major telephone service in the world to break ranks with the others and come out swinging at secret government voyeur agencies. Will others follow. If you follow the links to the Vodafone report, you'll find a very handy big PDF providing an overview of the relevant laws in each of the customer nations. There's a cute Guardian table that shows the aggregate number of warrants for interception of content via Vodafone for each of those nations, broken down by content type. That table has white-on-black cells noting where disclosure of those types of surveillance statistics are prohibited by law. So it is far from a complete picture, but it's a heck of a good start. But several of those customer nations are members of the E.U., where digital privacy rights are enshrined as human rights under an EU-wide treaty. So expect some heat to roll downhill on those nations from the European treaty organizations, particularly the European Court of Human Rights, staffed with civil libertarian judges, from which there is no appeal.
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Hillary Clinton Interview On German US Ties and Presidential Plans - SPIEGEL ONLINE - 0 views
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In an interview, Hillary Clinton discusses the growing gap between the rich and poor that threatens democracy, Americans' discontent with politics, her regrets over NSA spying on Chancellor Merkel's mobile phone and her potential presidential candidacy.
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Clinton: You know, I think he is a poor messenger for the message that he's trying to take credit for. He came into the National Security Agency apparently with the purpose of trying to gather a lot of information, and most of what he gathered had nothing to do with surveillance in the United States, but obviously around the world. And I think he could have provoked the debate in our country without stealing and distributing material that was government property and was of some consequence. And then for him to go first to China and then to Russia raises a lot of questions, but he is going to have to make his own choices. If he returns to the United States, he will certainly stand trial, but he will have an opportunity to speak out and to make his case in both a legal way and a public fashion.
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shared by Paul Merrell on 14 Nov 14
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U.S. Changes Position on Torture Convention-Accepts Ban on Cruelty Applies Abroad | Jus... - 0 views
justsecurity.org/...re-convention-extraterritorial
war & peace torture Obama-Administration CAT-territorial-reach
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At a session before the UN Committee Against Torture in Geneva this morning, the Obama administration made a significant shift away from the Bush-era interpretation of the Convention Against Torture. The U.S. delegation stated that the government had “carefully reviewed” the legal issues and “is prepared to clarify its views.” The U.S. affirmed that the obligations in the Convention applying to a State Party in “any territory under its jurisdiction” — including those in Articles 2 and 16 to prevent cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment — apply outside US borders. The government stated that it accepts that these obligations:
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“extend to certain areas beyond the sovereign territory of the State Party, and more specifically to ‘all places that the State Party controls as a governmental authority.’” The administration also explicitly affirmed that these provisions apply at Guantanamo Bay and to activity on U.S. registered ships and aircraft, on the basis of U.S. governmental control. Moreover, the obligations under the Convention “continue[] to apply even when a State is engaged in armed conflict” notwithstanding the concurrent obligations and prohibitions imposed by the law of armed conflict with respect to the conduct of hostilities and protection of war victims.
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The government stated: “Although the law of armed conflict is the controlling body of law with regard to the conduct of hostilities and the protection of war victims, a time of war does not suspend operation of the Convention Against Torture, which continues to apply even when a State is engaged in armed conflict. The obligations to prevent torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment and punishment in the Convention remain applicable in times of armed conflict and are reinforced by complementary prohibitions in the law of armed conflict.”
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check out earlier coverage of these issues at Just Security. You can read a statement on the US change in position by Amnesty International USA here, and by the ACLU here.
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NSA Reform Bill Dies As Republicans Hype Threats From Islamic State - The Intercept - 0 views
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Senate Republicans, ratcheting up their rhetoric about the threat posed by the Islamic State, on Tuesday night sank the only significant legislative attempt to rein in the National Security Agency in the nearly year and a half since American citizens first learned they were being spied on by their own government. The procedural vote to move forward on the USA Freedom Act required 60 votes. It received 58. All but one Democrat and four libertarian-leaning Republicans voted in favor of the bill. The rest of the Republicans — including libertarian firebrand Rand Paul (R-Ky.) — voted against, along with Florida Democrat Bill Nelson. (Here’s the rollcall of the vote.)
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During a brief debate before the vote, Georgia Republican Saxby Chambliss warned that members of the Islamic State “want people to walk the streets of New York… and start killing people.” And, displaying either a real or feigned ignorance of the extraordinary latitude the NSA will continue to enjoy when it comes to spying on international communications, he suggested that the bulk collection of domestic phone records was necessary to ferret out such plans. (Watch video of the debate.)
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Why Progressives Don't Understand And Are Enemies Of Liberty | Western Free Press - 0 views
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For a classical liberal, freedom means that each individual possesses as a human being certain inviolable rights, those being rights to his life, liberty and honestly acquired property. And that human relationships should be based on voluntary consent and mutual agreement. For my interlocutor, freedom means “empowerment” or the ability to do or achieve certain things, without which “freedom” is not complete. These include a minimum or “decent” standard of living and the ability to attain certain potentials in life, which are everyone’s “right” as a member of society.
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For my fellow conversationalist, society is a shared “community” of human beings each of whom owes certain things to the others, just as the others owe certain things to us. Society might be viewed as an extended family, from this perspective, all the members of which have certain required obligations to support and give assistance to their social “relatives.” I suggested that society is a network of human relationships formed between individuals based upon opportunities for mutual betterment, including both the economic and the cultural in the widest sense, the fundamental foundation of which derives from those essential individual rights.
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French eighteenth century philosopher, Jean-Jacque Rousseau, who reasoned that man began as savages in the wild threatened by both beast and other men. Everyone entered into a social contract and formed society for mutual safety and betterment by giving up a portion of their complete and unrestrained “freedom” in that earlier setting of savagery for the order and security of shared community. The freedom given up is compensated by safety and the security of mutual aid, including the modern welfare state.
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British philosopher, John Locke, who argued that rights are not bestowed upon man by government or the community but belong to him by his nature as a human being. Government, in Locke’s social contract, is to provide individuals with a tool for the common defense against the violence of some of their fellow men. The role of government is the securer of liberty by protecting each individual’s rights to his life, liberty and property, and not as a guarantor of a certain standard of living or desired access to various material things.
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The reason, I said, was that if the government undertook this latter responsibility of “social safety nets” and “positive” access to various other desired states of affairs, it can do so only by imposing through police power an obligation on others to provide the material means that some others are to be guaranteed. By doing so, government would be violating its original purpose for being brought into existence: the protecting of liberty (including people’s property rights to their own honestly earned income and wealth) rather than a violator that takes from some without their consent for the asserted benefits of others.
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The world is to be reduced to and confined within a narrow corridor of forms of “good behavior” that people will be either penalized for violating or subsidized for doing through government regulation and spending.
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Progressives Cling to Collectivism Here, in my opinion, are some of the essential issues and dilemmas facing the advocate of individual liberty, free markets, and constitutionally limited government. Too many of our fellow citizens do not believe that individuals have a right to live for themselves. They truly and honestly believe that “society,” “community,” the collective, is something independent of the distinct individuals who comprise it, and for which the individual is morally, politically and legally obligated to serve and sacrifice for. Police power is a legitimate and appropriate tool of enforcing these obligations and duties, if resistance or indifference is experienced among the citizens in the undertaking of these activities.
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For the “progressive,” government is “society’s” agent to undertake the tasks of “social justice” and “entitlement” that are owed to each member and to which everyone is required to provide their contribution. Police power is the means by which everyone is made to contribute their “social dues” in the form of either obedience to government regulations or payment of taxes for redistributive purposes.
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Liberty and the Meaning of Society and the “Social” For the classical liberal or libertarian, on the other hand, government is considered an agency for the protection of each individual’s rights. “Society” is comprised of the networks of relationships and associations formed by individuals and in which they interact for various fulfillments of human happiness and well-being.
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The purpose of government in the classical liberal or libertarian perspective is to assure the security and protection from private plunder and violence that would disrupt or disturb the peaceful pursuits that individuals find it useful and enjoyable and fulfilling to follow through various and diverse associations of civil society.
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Furthermore, the interventionist-welfare state undermines people’s personal and financial ability to participate in those acts and associations of benevolence towards others that they are called by their conscience to pursue in the ways they consider best and most likely of success. The redistributive state arrogantly replaces each person’s personal judgment and decision with that of the self-appointing “experts” who claim to speak and know best for society through the coercive arm of government.
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Matching these ethical issues of the rights of the individual to live and act peacefully for himself as he sees best, the “progressive” often demonstrates a blinding degree of ignorance and misinformation about the workings of a competitive market economy, the nature of the profit and loss system, and the “invisible hand” of competitive cooperation through the peaceful and the voluntarist pursuit of self-interest. He suffers from a confused, garbled, and contradictory grab bag of ideas derived from Marxism, Fabian socialism, nationalism, fascism, and, though it would be radically and vehemently denied, often-subtle forms of racism, as well.
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Through all the progressive’s rhetoric about “democracy” and “equality” and “social justice” and “diversity,” theirs is a political philosophy and public policy ideology of elitism, hubris, and authoritarianism dominated by the idea and ideal of remaking human beings, human relationships and the structure and order of society into redesigned patterns and shapes that reflect their notion of how people should live, work, associate and earn a living.
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"Conflicting Meanings of Freedom For a classical liberal, freedom means that each individual possesses as a human being certain inviolable rights, those being rights to his life, liberty and honestly acquired property. And that human relationships should be based on voluntary consent and mutual agreement. For my interlocutor, freedom means "empowerment" or the ability to do or achieve certain things, without which "freedom" is not complete. These include a minimum or "decent" standard of living and the ability to attain certain potentials in life, which are everyone's "right" as a member of society. For my fellow conversationalist, society is a shared "community" of human beings each of whom owes certain things to the others, just as the others owe certain things to us. Society might be viewed as an extended family, from this perspective, all the members of which have certain required obligations to support and give assistance to their social "relatives." I suggested that society is a network of human relationships formed between individuals based upon opportunities for mutual betterment, including both the economic and the cultural in the widest sense, the fundamental foundation of which derives from those essential individual rights. The "Social Contract": Individualist or Collectivist? My dinner companion raised the issue of "the social contract," to which we are all participants and benefactors, he said. He referenced the famous French eighteenth century philosopher, Jean-Jacque Rousseau, who reasoned that man began as savages in the wild threatened by both beast and other men. Everyone entered into a social contract and formed society for mutual safety and betterment by giving up a portion of their complete and unrestrained "freedom" in that earlier setting of savagery for the order and security of shared community. The freedom given up is compensated by safety and the security of mutual aid, including the modern welf
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10 Things Americans Underestimate About Our Massive Surveillance State | Alternet - 0 views
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Americans may be upset about the latest revelations in the government’s ability to spy on citizens via their online lives, but no one should be surprised. We've underestimated and overlooked many key aspects of the government’s ability to track our lives for years. The bottom line, which resonates most strongly among civil liberties advocates on the left and conservative libertarians on the right, is not just the loss of privacy but also the growing power of the state to target and oppress people who it judges to be critics and enemies. That list doesn’t just include foreign terrorists of the al-Qaeda mold, or even the Chinese government that has stolen the most advanced U.S. weapon plans; it also includes domestic whistleblowers, protesters and journalists—all of whom have been targeted by the Obama administration Justice Department. Let’s go through 10 points about these latest revelations of domestic spying to better understand what Americans have underestimated and overlooked about electronic eavesdropping.
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shared by Gary Edwards on 10 Jun 13
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Edward Snowden: the whistleblower behind the NSA surveillance revelations | World news ... - 0 views
www.guardian.co.uk/...nsa-whistleblower-surveillance
Edward-Snowden NSA Prism Patriot Libertarian NSA-Whistleblower
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Having watched the Obama administration prosecute whistleblowers at a historically unprecedented rate, he fully expects the US government to attempt to use all its weight to punish him. "I am not afraid," he said calmly, "because this is the choice I've made."He predicts the government will launch an investigation and "say I have broken the Espionage Act and helped our enemies, but that can be used against anyone who points out how massive and invasive the system has become".
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Over the next three years, he learned just how all-consuming the NSA's surveillance activities were, claiming "they are intent on making every conversation and every form of behaviour in the world known to them".
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he believed that the value of the internet, along with basic privacy, is being rapidly destroyed by ubiquitous surveillance. "I don't see myself as a hero," he said, "because what I'm doing is self-interested: I don't want to live in a world where there's no privacy and therefore no room for intellectual exploration and creativity."
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I carefully evaluated every single document I disclosed to ensure that each was legitimately in the public interest," he said. "There are all sorts of documents that would have made a big impact that I didn't turn over, because harming people isn't my goal. Transparency is."
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shared by Paul Merrell on 15 Jun 13
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Indefinite Detention Of Americans Survives House Vote - 0 views
www.informationclearinghouse.info/article35289.htm
politics of fear indefinite detention constitutional law trial by jury
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The U.S. House of Representatives voted again Thursday to allow the indefinite military detention of Americans, blocking an amendment that would have barred the possibility. Congress wrote that authority into law in the National Defense Authorization Act two years ago, prompting outrage from civil libertarians on the left and right. President Barack Obama signed the measure, but insisted his administration would never use it. Supporters of detention argue that the nation needs to be able to arrest and jail suspected terrorists without trial, including Americans on U.S. soil, for as long as there is a war on terror. Their argument won, and the measure was defeated by a vote of 200 to 226.
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shared by Gary Edwards on 04 Jan 13
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Harry Binswanger - Market Justice & The Second Amendment - Forbes - 0 views
blogs.forbes.com/harrybinswanger
Harry-Binswanger Ayn-Rand-Libertarian Principles-and-Specifics 2012-elections
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One of the best arguments for protecting individual liberty through the Constitution and Bill of Rights; including the 2nd Amendment. excerpt: Junking the collectivist approach, ridding myself of the idea that the lives of the few can be sacrificed to the lives of the many, I found the issue almost settled itself. Taking the individualist approach, I asked myself: what laws should the individual be subject to? What is the principle governing the individual's relation to the state? The principle is "individual rights"-your rights and mine. Rights define the proper limits of state action. They recognize the areas within which the individual is sovereign, entitled to act on his own judgment, free from interference by his fellow man and by the state. The fundamental right is the right to life. Its expressions are the right to liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness. As the Declaration states, government is established "to secure these rights." To secure them against what? There is only one thing that can deprive a man of his life, liberty, or property: physical force. Only guns, clubs, chains, jails, or some form of nonconsensual physical contact can kill you, injure you, or negate your ability to act on your own judgment. The proper job of government is to protect the individual's rights by wielding retaliatory force against the force initiated by criminals or foreign aggressors. The issue with guns is the threat of force. But the threat of force is force. Orders issued at gunpoint are as coercive-as rights-violating-as laying on hands and overpowering you. (All this is explained in more detail in Ayn Rand's articles "Man's Rights" and "The Nature of Government.") The government may use force only against an objective threat of force. Only that constitutes retaliation. In particular, the government may not descend to the evil of preventive law. The government cannot treat men as guilty until they have proven th
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shared by Gary Edwards on 04 Jan 13
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HBL - The Harry Binswanger List - 0 views
www.hblist.com/specifics.htm
Harry-Binswanger Ayn-Rand-Libertarian Principles-and-Specifics 2012-elections
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WOW! Renown Ayn Rand expert, Harry Binswanger, discusses the 2012 election big media accusation that Romney is "short on specifics". (Not that Obama ever provided anything close to a specific explanation, but there it is.) In his discussion, Harry describes exactly how to present "principles" that then can be easily connected to "specifics". Incredible read. excerpt: "Here's a sample of what an ideal candidate would say, first in terms of principles: "The only proper function of government is to protect individual rights, and the only way rights can be violated is by the initiation of physical force. Under my administration, we will return to the original American system in which the government uses its physical force only in retaliation against those who initiate its use in violation of individual rights. The fundamental right is the right to life, and its corollaries include the right to private property, without which no other rights are possible." He could then go on to name policy goals that represent mid-level abstractions: "Entitlement programs are the initiation of force; they seize the property of some to provide unearned benefits to others. This is immoral; it is a legalized equivalent of theft. Thus, I will drastically cut entitlement spending-whether "discretionary" or not. Another area of initiated government force is regulation. Regulation by its nature is preventive law, interfering with the lives of the innocent in order to (supposedly) prevent the guilty from acting. This is force initiated against the innocent, so I will drastically cut the number and scope of regulations over the same 4 years." Now the real fun comes when, having established this context, he gets to specifics: "My first budget will cut funds for all departments, except Defense, to 15% below what they received the previous year. This is an across-the-board cut, not something to become the subject of infighting among departments. Then in my next budget I will cut 15%
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Why I Oppose the Internet Tax Bill | Senator Ted Cruz - 0 views
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Rand Paul's Tea Party Response: Full Text - 0 views
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With my five-year budget, millions of jobs would be created by cutting the corporate income tax in half, by creating a flat personal income tax of 17%, and by cutting the regulations that are strangling American businesses.
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America has much greatness left in her. We will begin to thrive again when we begin to believe in ourselves again, when we regain our respect for our founding documents, when we balance our budget, when we understand that capitalism and free markets and free individuals are what creates our nation’s prosperity.
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Outstanding statement about what made America great, an dhow are government is destroying that greatness. This is the full Text of Sen. Rand Paul's Tea Party Response to Obama's State of the Union Address: I speak to you tonight from Washington, D.C. The state of our economy is tenuous but our people remain the greatest example of freedom and prosperity the world has ever known. People say America is exceptional. I agree, but it's not the complexion of our skin or the twists in our DNA that make us unique. America is exceptional because we were founded upon the notion that everyone should be free to pursue life, liberty, and happiness. For the first time in history, men and women were guaranteed a chance to succeed based NOT on who your parents were but on your own initiative and desire to work. We are in danger, though, of forgetting what made us great. The President seems to think the country can continue to borrow $50,000 per second. The President believes that we should just squeeze more money out of those who are working. The path we are on is not sustainable, but few in Congress or in this Administration seem to recognize that their actions are endangering the prosperity of this great nation. Ronald Reagan said, government is not the answer to the problem, government is the problem. Tonight, the President told the nation he disagrees. President Obama believes government is the solution: More government, more taxes, more debt. What the President fails to grasp is that the American system that rewards hard work is what made America so prosperous. What America needs is not Robin Hood but Adam Smith. In the year we won our independence, Adam Smith described what creates the Wealth of Nations. He described a limited government that largely did not interfere with individuals and their pursuit of happiness. All that we are, all that we wish to be is now threatened by the notion that you can have something for nothing, that you can have your cake and ea
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shared by Paul Merrell on 23 Jun 13
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Let's check James Comey's Bush years record before he becomes FBI director | Laura Murp... - 0 views
www.guardian.co.uk/...omey-fbi-director-bush-history
surveillance state war & peace Obama Comey FBI confirmation-hearing torture indefinite detention
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Comey is lionised in DC for one challenge over liberties. Yet he backed waterboarding, wire-tapping and indefinite detention
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It had the air of Hollywood. On the night of 10 March 2004, James Comey, the nominee to lead the FBI for the next ten years, rushed to the hospital bedside of his terribly ill boss, Attorney General John Ashcroft.There, he eventually confronted White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card and White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales, who were trying to get the pancreatitis-stricken Ashcroft to renew a still secret and illegal surveillance program on Americans' electronic communications. Neither Ashcroft nor Comey, then acting attorney general because of Ashcroft's condition, would reauthorize the program. When Gonzales authorized the program to go forward without a Justice Department certification, Comey threatened to resign, along with his staff and FBI Director Robert Mueller.The threats worked: President Bush blinked, and Comey won modifications to the secret surveillance program that he felt brought it into compliance with the law. This event, now the stuff of DC legend, has solidified Comey's reputation as a "civil liberties superhero", in the words of CNN's Jake Tapper, and may be one of the reasons President Obama nominated him Friday to be the next director of the FBI.
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There's one very big problem with describing Comey as some sort of civil libertarian: some facts suggest otherwise. While Comey deserves credit for stopping an illegal spying program in dramatic fashion, he also approved or defended some of the worst abuses of the Bush administration during his time as deputy attorney general. Those included torture, warrantless wiretapping, and indefinite detention.On 30 December 2004, a memo addressed to James Comey was issued that superseded the infamous memo that defined torture as pain "equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure". The memo to Comey seemed to renounce torture but did nothing of the sort. The key sentence in the opinion is tucked away in footnote 8. It concludes that the new Comey memo did not change the authorizations of interrogation tactics in any earlier memos.In short, the memo Comey that approved gave a thumbs-up on waterboarding, wall slams, and other forms of torture – all violations of domestic and international law.
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Then, there's warrantless wiretapping. Many media reports describe that Comey's defiant stand at Ashcroft's bedside was in opposition to the warrantless wiretapping of Americans international communications. But we simply do not know exactly what Comey opposed, or why or what reforms he believed brought the secret program within the rule of law. We do, however, know that Comey was read into the program in January 2004.While, to his credit, he immediately began raising concerns, the program was still in existence when the New York Times exposed it in December 2005. This was a year and a half after Comey's hospital showdown with Gonzales and Card. In fact, the warrantless wiretapping program was supported by a May 2004 legal opinion (pdf) produced by the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel and signed off by Comey, which replaced the 2001 legal opinion Comey had problems with.This, of course, raises the question: just what illegal surveillance program did Comey oppose so much he would resign over it? Last weekend, the Washington Post provided a new theory: the Marina program, which collects internet metadata. Now, the Senate has an opportunity to end the theorizing and find out what exactly Comey objected to. It's a line of questioning that senators should focus doggedly on, in light of the recent revelations in the Post and the Guardian.
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The final stain on Comey's record was his full-throated defense of the indefinite military detention of an American citizen arrested on American soil. In a June 2004 press conference, Comey told of Jose Padilla, an alleged al-Qaida member accused of plotting to detonate a dirty bomb as well as blow up apartment buildings in an American city. By working for al-Qaida, Padilla, Comey argued, could be deprived of a lawyer and indefinitely detained as an enemy combatant on a military brig off the South Carolina coast for the purpose of extracting intelligence out of him. It turned out that Padilla was never charged with the list of crimes and criminal associations pinned on him by Comey that day. When Padilla was finally convicted – in a federal court – in August 2007, it wasn't for plotting dirty bomb attacks or blowing up apartment buildings. Rather, he was convicted of material support of terrorism overseas. During his indefinite military detention, Padilla was tortured.
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Everyone has a backstory, and the confirmation process should ensure the American public hears all relevant background information, both good and bad, when Comey appears before the Senate. Senators should insist that Comey explain his role during the Bush era and repudiate policies he endorsed on torture, indefinite detention, and illegal surveillance.The new FBI director will be around for the next decade. We need one who will respect the constitution and the rule of law; not one who will use discredited and illegal activities in the name of justice and safety.
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Comey's not right for the FBI directorship this time around. The nation needs an FBI Director and Comey's role in government surveillance, torture, warrantless wiretapping, extraordinary rendition, and indefinite detention of a U.S. citizen. That's too much to get sorted out any time soon given the government shroud of secrecy on those topics.