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WOW!!! Incredible presentation concerning the history of Freedom vs. Tyranny. WOW!! If ever there's a MUST Watch, this is it. Very impressive and sweeping comparison of how authoritarian collectivist seize power in a free society and establish their tyrannies. My notes are listed below: How to recognize potential tyrants and keep them from seizing power. The urge to save humanity is always used to justify those who want to rule humanity. - ML Menken Daniel Webster on the Constitution Obstacles to Tyranny : Limited powers of government .... Due Process .... Presumption of Innocence .... Freedom to Dissent .... Armed Populace: The right to be Armed! Due Process .... 5th Amendment .... Emergency powers. there is no authorization in the US Constitution to suspend Due Process or any aspect of the Bill of Rights .... Asset Seizure Laws for criminal activities (alleged - without warrant or court order) .... Eminent Domain: seizure of private property for government uses: 2005 Kelo vs New London seizure based on jobs (economy) and tax revenue possibilities. .... 6th Amendment - right to trial by jury : plea bargaining admonition based on facing the awesome power of the government to prosecute no matter what - intimidation and threat of personal destruction. .... Forced confessions through plea bargaining. .... Indefinite detention without trial or charges: President has power to kill or issue orders without warrant, charges or trial .... Presumption of Innocence: Probable Cause .... Random stops at Border check points. 5th Amendment protections violated .... Sobriety Check Points: 4th and 5th Amendments violated - no presumption of innocence .... Random detention and questioning: airport security pat downs, housing projects, bus transportation .... The Right to Privacy: financial transactions and the IRS audit (without warrant or accusation) .... Warrant-less Spying .... Agents writing their own search warrants .... Snatch and Peek Freedom to Disse

The ongoing federalization of state and local law enforcement continues unabated. Today's "fusion centers" have antecedents in the regional "intelligence centers" begun under the guise of Reagan's War on Drugs™, but shifted into a much higher gear under the guise of Bush II's War on Terror™.

A policy is not a law. DoJ is trying to spread some tanglefoot for civil liberties organizations that are prepping litigation over unfettered abuse of Stingray devices by federal, state, and local officials. Warrantless use of Stingrays has been severely undermined by recent Supreme Court rulings, notably U.S. v. Jones and Riley v. California.

President Obama is returning to Jimmy Carter's higher taxes and Mr. Clinton's draconian defense drawdown. Mr. Obama's $3.6 trillion budget blueprint, by his own admission, redefines the role of government in our economy and society. The budget more than doubles the national debt held by the public, adding more to the debt than all previous presidents -- from George Washington to George W. Bush -- combined. It reduces defense spending to a level not sustained since the dangerous days before World War II, while increasing nondefense spending (relative to GDP) to the highest level in U.S. history. And it would raise taxes to historically high levels (again, relative to GDP). And all of this before addressing the impending explosion in Social Security and Medicare costs.

$1 Trillion in Spending Cuts!  Ron Paul has announced his financial and budgetary plan.  The details have yet to be released, but the summary came out today an dimmediately got the full support of ruxh Limbaugh! summary:  He'll propose immediately freezing spending by numerous government agencies at 2006 levels, the last time Republicans had complete control of the federal budget, and drastically reducing spending elsewhere. The EPA would see a 30 percent cut, the Food and Drug Administration would see one of 40 percent and foreign aid would be zeroed out immediately. He'd also take an ax to Pentagon funding for wars. Medicaid, the children's health insurance program, food stamps, family support programs and the children's nutrition program would all be block-granted to the states and removed from the mandatory spending column of the federal budget. Some functions of eliminated departments, such as Pell Grants, would be continued elsewhere in the federal bureaucracy. And in a noticeable nod to seniors during an election year when Social Security's become an issue within the Republican primary, the campaign says that plan "honors our promise to our seniors and veterans, while allowing young workers to opt out." The federal workforce would be reduced by 10 percent, and the president's pay would be cut to $39,336 - a level that the Paul document notes is "approximately equal to the median personal income of the American worker."

Audio of one very incredible moment.  On the Monday Oct 17th, 2011 show, Rush Limbaugh declared his full support of the Ron Paul Fiscal Plan that includes $1 Trillion in budgetary spending cuts, bringing home the troops, and the full neutering of the EPA.

I looked at Barbara Lee's bill. It requires a report from the Executive on all actions currently undertaken pursuant to the AUMF and requires that each action identified be terminated 60 days after the report unless Congress reauthorizes the action. It also repeals the AUMF. It's a good approach, but should require a sunset provision for each re-authorization so the Executive is blocked from maintaining us in a perpetual state of war as it has done with the AUMF itself. We're a long way from 9/11 and we are now fighting multiple wars in multiple nations against organizations that had nothing to do with 9/112, ostensibly to retaliate against those responsible for 9/11. No more open ended authorizations for war. 

"If Americans were honest with themselves they would acknowledge that the Republic is no more. We now live in a police state. If we do not recognize and resist this development, freedom and prosperity for all Americans will continue to deteriorate. All liberties in America today are under siege. It didn't happen overnight. It took many years of neglect for our liberties to be given away so casually for a promise of security from the politicians. The tragic part is that the more security was promised - physical and economic - the less liberty was protected. With cradle-to-grave welfare protecting all citizens from any mistakes and a perpetual global war on terrorism, which a majority of Americans were convinced was absolutely necessary for our survival, our security and prosperity has been sacrificed. It was all based on lies and ignorance. Many came to believe that their best interests were served by giving up a little freedom now and then to gain a better life. The trap was set. At the beginning of a cycle that systematically undermines liberty with delusions of easy prosperity, the change may actually seem to be beneficial to a few. But to me that's like excusing embezzlement as a road to leisure and wealth - eventually payment and punishment always come due. One cannot escape the fact that a society's wealth cannot be sustained or increased without work and productive effort. Yes, some criminal elements can benefit for a while, but reality always sets in. Reality is now setting in for America and for that matter for most of the world. The piper will get his due even if "the children" have to suffer. The deception of promising "success" has lasted for quite a while. It was accomplished by ever-increasing taxes, deficits, borrowing, and printing press money. In the meantime the policing powers of the federal government were systematically and significantly expanded. No one cared much, as there seemed to be enough "gravy" for the rich, th

"Federal civil forfeiture laws give the Internal Revenue Service the power to clean out bank accounts without charging their owners with any crime. Making matters worse, the IRS considers a series of cash deposits or withdrawals below $10,000 enough evidence of "structuring" to take the money, without any other evidence of wrongdoing. Structuring-depositing or withdrawing smaller amounts to evade a federal law that requires banks to report transactions larger than $10,000 to the federal government-is illegal, but more importantly, structured funds are also subject to civil forfeiture. Civil forfeiture is the government's power to take property suspected of involvement in a crime. Unlike criminal forfeiture, no one needs to be convicted of-or even a charged with-a crime for the government to take the property. Lax civil forfeiture standards enable the IRS to "seize first and ask questions later," taking money without serious investigation and forcing owners into a long and difficult legal battle to try to stop the forfeiture. Any money forfeited is then used to fund further law enforcement efforts, giving agencies like the IRS an incentive to seize. Data provided by the IRS indicate that its civil forfeiture activities for suspected structuring are large and growing…"

"'Failing Expectations: Fourth Amendment Doctrine in the Era of Total Surveillance' is a thought-provoking essay written by a Fordham University law professor about how the reasonable expectation test for privacy is failing to protect us. Add into our networked world the third-party doctrine and we have little protection against unreasonable searches and seizures."

It doesn't detract substantially from the essay's central thesis, but an important part of the learned professor's heartfelt desires were delivered in a Supreme Court decision just decided, after the essay was published, Reilly v. California, http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/13pdf/13-132_8l9c.pdf The Court held in relevant part: "We also reject the United States' final suggestion that officers should always be able to search a phone's call log, as they did in Wurie's case. The Government relies on Smithv. Maryland, 442 U. S. 735 (1979), which held that no warrant was required to use a pen register at telephone company premises to identify numbers dialed by a particular caller. The Court in that case, however, concluded that the use of a pen register was not a "search" at all under the Fourth Amendment. See id., at 745-746. There is no dispute here that the officers engaged in a search of Wurie's cell phone. Moreover, call logs typically contain more than just phone numbers; they include any identifying information that an individual might add, such as the label "my house" in Wurie's case." The effect there was to confine Smith v. Maryland, the foundation of the third-party doctrine, to its particular facts. In other words, the third-party doctrine is now confined to connected telephone numbers, the connect time, and the duration of the call. If any other metadata is gathered, such as location data, the third-party doctrine no longer applies. When you read the rest of the Reilly decision, you see a unanimous Supreme Court shooting down one government defense after another that have been used in the NSA's defense to mass telecommunications surveillance. But most interestingly, the Court unmistakably has laid the groundwork for a later decision drastically cutting back on digital surveillance without a search warrant based on particularized probable cause to believe that evidence of a specific crime has occurred and that the requested sear

A must-read. Ben Wizner discusses the current climate in the courts in government surveillance cases and how Edward Snowden's disclosures have affected that, and much more. Wizner is not only Edward Snowden's lawyer, he is also the coordinator of all ACLU litigation on electronic surveillance matters.

Claiming trade secrecy for the software's selection criteria for threat ranking actually constitutes policy policy, the trade secrecy claim would probably not survive judical review. It's at least arguably an unconstitutional delegation of a government function (ranking citizens as threats) to a private company. Police departments in Florida were sued to produce records of how a related surveillance device, the Stingray IMSI device that intercepts cell phone calls by mimicking a cell-phone tower, and only averted court-ordered disclosure of its trade secret workings by the FBI swooping in just before decision to remove all the software documentation from local police possession, custody, and control.    There is a long chain of case law holding that information that is legitimately trade secret and proprietary loses that protection if adopted by local or federal government as law. With a software program that classifies citizens as threats for governmental purposes if they meet the program's selection criteria, the software is performing a strictly governmental function that is in reality law. 

Yes. We have an empire in decline. Isn't it about time that our politicians address that reality rather than exchanging barbs about "making America great again" or "America is still great?" The western economic system needs a rework to accommodate the reality that western economies will not continually expand and will instead contract. We need to address the reality that there are no longer enough living wage jobs; is it time to recognize that we don't need for everyone to work and flip to an economic model where the rich subsidize the poor instead of vice versa? And it's past time to recognize that the Cold War is over, downsize the military drastically, and refocus our military on defense rather than projection of power. We have enough nukes to melt down the entire planet; why do we need a large military force to defend the Homeland? No conventional force would dare invade while we still have the nukes. Defense could probably be handled with two ground divisions, one for the continental U.S. and the other dispersed among Hawaii, Alaska, and U.S. territories. Get rid of the aircraft carrier groups; they've been obsoleted by Russia's advanced hypersonic carrier killer missiles, which it has shared with China and looks to be soon sharing with India. Maybe it's time for a new Diigo group, "The Empire in Decline?"