Government (134)

Source: George Washington's Blog

If a bully threatens to beat up a skinny kid if he doesn't give him his lunch money, and the bully doesn't have to follow through because the kid does fork it over, does that mean that the aggressive kid isn't a bully?

Of course not. He's a bully because he threatened to beat up the skinny kid and used coercion to get his way.

Well, Congressman Sherman said that congress was threatened with martial law this week. Specifically, he says that Congress was told martial law would be imposed if they didn't pass the Paulson bailout proposal.

Martial law means that the separation of powers which the Founding Fathers enshrined in the Constitution are destroyed, and an all-powerful executive branch calls the shots.

Is the threat of imposing martial law any different than actually imposing it?

No. Congress is just like the skinny kid.

Just because it forked over $700 billion or more in our lunch money based upon coercion by the thugs in the executive branch doesn't mean that the thugs are still following the separation of powers or anything else in the Constitution.

Remember that, for years, Congress has operated under "martial law" provisions which force Congress members to vote on legislation without having time to adequately read and review it.

Remember also that the U.S. has been in a declared state of national emergency for 7 years, and normal constitutional provisions were probably long ago superseded.

As University of California Berkeley Professor Emeritus Peter Dale Scott has warned:

"The systems of checks and balances established by the U.S. Constitution would seem to be failing.

To put it another way, if the White House is successful in frustrating [Congress' requests], then [the declared state of emergency] has arguably already superseded the Constitution as a higher authority."

And remember that U.S. troops are being stationed inside the U.S. to suppress "civil unrest".

Whether or not there is martial law in name, there is martial law in fact.

Source: George Washington's Blog

Democratic and Republican congress members are sounding the alarm: tyranny is here.

For example:

• Rep. Michael Burgess (R-TX) says:

“I have been thrown out of more meetings in this capital in the last 24 hours than I ever thought possible, as a duly elected representative of 825,000 citizens of north Texas.”

Burgess asks the Speaker of the House to post the bailout bill on the internet for at least 24 hours instead of passing the largest piece of legislation in US financial history in the “dark of night.”

Rep. Burgess’ says, “Mr. Speaker I understand we are under martial law as declared by the speaker last night.”

• Congresswoman Kaptur (D-OH) says:

“My message to the American people don’t let Congress seal this deal. High financial crimes have been committed.

The normal legislative process has been shelved. Only a few insiders are doing the dealing, sounds like insider trading to me. These criminals have so much political power than can shut down the normal legislative process of the highest law making body of this land.

We are Constitutionally sworn to protect and defend this Republic against all enemies foreign and domestic. And my friends there are enemies.

The people pushing this deal are the very ones who are responsible for the implosion on Wall Street. They were fraudulent then and they are fraudulent now.”

Of course, there are many other indications that tyranny has already come to Amerca, including the permanent stationing of U.S. troops inside the country to quell "civil unrest" and the probable suspension of normal constitutional government for a state of emergency "continuity of government" operation.

Indeed, many people, including high-level politicians, have been warning of tyranny in the U.S. for some time.

As two of many examples:

• Former prominent republican congressman Bob Barr stated that the U.S. is close to becoming a totalitarian society and that the Bush administration is using fear to try to ensure that this happens.

• Current U.S. Congressman Ron Paul stated, the government "is determined to have martial law", and that the government is hoping to get the people "fearful enough that they will accept the man on the white horse"

Source: Associated Press

The popular video-sharing site YouTube has moved to purge terrorists training films and other videos that extremist groups might use to attract new members, an imperfect process that will rely on users to report objectionable videos.

It's sort of like the post Sept. 11 advice — if you see something, say something. It's nearly impossible to vet every video when 13 hours of new video are uploaded every few minutes.

A quick search on Google-owned YouTube on Friday, one day after the new policies were posted, turned up several videos on how to make bombs using, for instance, such household items as toilet bowl cleaner and tin foil.

In addition to barring terror training videos, the new YouTube community guidelines include bans on videos that incite others to commit violent acts, videos on activities such as how to make bombs and footage of sniper attacks. Previously, it had policies in place against showing people "getting hurt, attacked or humiliated," banning even clips OK for TV news shows.

YouTube has not identified specific videos on its site that led to the change, nor said exactly how it will choose those that are purged. YouTube does not deny that extremist groups could have used the site.

Do you know the real reason that we can't have the Ten Commandments in a Courthouse?

You cannot post "Thou Shalt Not Steal," "Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery" and "Thou Shall Not Lie" in a building full of lawyers, judges and politicians! It creates a hostile work environment.

Source: The International PGP

It's personal. It's private. And it's no one's business but yours. You may be planning a political campaign, discussing your taxes, or something even more sensitive. Or you may be doing something that you feel shouldn't be illegal, but is. Whatever it is, you don't want your private electronic mail (E-mail) or confidential documents read by anyone else. There's nothing wrong with asserting your privacy. Privacy is as apple-pie as the Constitution.

Perhaps you think your E-mail is legitimate enough that encryption is unwarranted. If you really are a law-abiding citizen with nothing to hide, then why don't you always send your paper mail on postcards? Why not submit to drug testing on demand? Why require a warrant for police searches of your house? Are you trying to hide something? You must be a subversive or a drug dealer if you hide your mail inside envelopes. Or maybe a paranoid nut. Do law-abiding citizens have any need to encrypt their E-mail?

What if everyone believed that law-abiding citizens should use postcards for their mail? If some brave soul tried to assert his privacy by using an envelope for his mail, it would draw suspicion. Perhaps the authorities would open his mail to see what he's hiding. Fortunately, we don't live in that kind of world, because everyone protects most of their mail with envelopes. So no one draws suspicion by asserting their privacy with an envelope. There's safety in numbers. Analogously, it would be nice if everyone routinely used encryption for all their E-mail, innocent or not, so that no one drew suspicion by asserting their E-mail privacy with encryption. Think of it as a form of solidarity.

Today, if the Government wants to violate the privacy of ordinary citizens, it has to expend a certain amount of expense and labor to intercept and steam open and read paper mail, and listen to and possibly transcribe spoken telephone conversation. This kind of labor-intensive monitoring is not practical on a large scale. This is only done in important cases when it seems worthwhile.

More and more of our private communications are being routed through electronic channels. Electronic mail is gradually replacing conventional paper mail. E-mail messages are just too easy to intercept and scan for interesting keywords. This can be done easily, routinely, automatically, and undetectably on a grand scale. International cablegrams are already scanned this way on a large scale by the NSA.

Source: Environmental Working Group

A new study by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) reveals that 97% of Americans are contaminated with a widely-used sunscreen ingredient called oxybenzone that has been linked to allergies, hormone disruption, and cell damage.

A companion study published just one day earlier revealed that this chemical is linked to low birth weight in baby girls whose mothers are exposed during pregnancy. Oxybenzone is also a penetration enhancer, a chemical that helps other chemicals penetrate the skin.

Although oxybenzone is most common in sunscreen, companies also use the chemical in at least 567 other personal care products.

Environmental Working Group identified nearly 600 sunscreens sold in the U.S. that contain oxybenzone, including products by Hawaiian Tropic, Coppertone, and Banana Boat (see the full list of 588 sunscreens here) as well as 172 facial moisturizers, 111 lip balms, and 81 different types of lipstick.

The Food and Drug Administration has failed miserably in its duty to protect the public from toxic chemicals like oxybenzone in personal care products. At the request of industry lobbyists, including Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, who represented the Cosmetic Toiletry and Fragrance Association, the agency has delayed final sunscreen safety standards for nearly 30 years. FDA issued a new draft of the standards last October under pressure from EWG, but continues to delay finalizing them at the behest of the regulated industry.

EWG research shows that 84% of 910 name-brand sunscreen products offer inadequate protection from the sun, or contain ingredients, like oxybenzone, with significant safety concerns.

Source: Times Online

Billions of pounds spent on Britain’s 4.2 million closed-circuit television cameras has not had a significant impact on crime, according to the senior police officer piloting a new database.

Detective Chief Inspector Mick Neville said it was a “fiasco” that only 3 per cent of street robberies in London were solved using CCTV.

Mr Neville, who heads the Visual Images, Identifications and Detections Office (Viido) unit, told the Security Document World Conference that the use of CCTV images as evidence in court has been very poor.

Source: Flex Your Rights

In any given police visit to your home, with a few notable exceptions, the below rules will help protect your civil rights and improve your chances of leaving safely—so you don't have to be a legal expert to do the right thing.

1) Keep Your Private Items Out of View
This is common sense: Always keep any private items that you don't want others to see out of sight. Legally speaking, police do not need a search warrant in order to confiscate any illegal items that are in plain view. Bear in mind that, without a search warrant, police cannot enter you home under any circumstances. Still, if they see something suspicious in the proximity of your house, they could arrive with a warrant quickly and unexpectedly.

2) Do Not Let Them Enter
Exit the house and close the door behind you before greeting the officer. Regardless of what the officer says, there is no reason they need to be allowed into your home. Permitting an officer to enter your home is the equivalent of waiving your Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable searches and seizures. Without a warrant, police officers absolutely cannot enter your home without your permission or an emergency circumstance that could justify their entry.

3) Be Courteous & Non-Confrontational
If a police officer contacts you at your home, remain calm. Ask the Officer "How can I help you?" While you may not be pleased to have the police at your door, it is best to treat them as you would any other unexpected visitor. You have nothing to gain -- and everything to lose – by allowing hostilities to emerge.

Even if the officers are being belligerent it's always in your best interest to remain calm, courteous and non-confrontational.