Archive for May, 2009
Peter Schiff Report, May 12
Posted by Benjamin J. Thompson | Filed under Liberty, Linked Videos, Videos
- Government kangaroo commission about the financial collapse is just a time-wasting and propaganda measure to legitimize the administration’s wrong preconceived notions about the economy.
- Cash for klunkers?
- 2009 Budget heading for a $2 Trillion deficit.
- THERE IS NO SOCIAL SECURITY TRUST FUND.
- Unintended consequences of bailouts: the destruction of 100-year old businesses in order to prop up failures.
- And one last plea for the viewer to realize that it is not CREDIT that drives investment, but SAVINGS.
G20 Police had Agent Provocateurs
Posted by Benjamin J. Thompson | Filed under Liberty, Linked Videos, News, Videos
Police and protesters clash in London on 1 April 2009. Photograph: Chris Ison/PA
Remember the news blitzkrieg about “protesters” at the G20 meeting months ago? Does anyone remember CNN ever mentioning why people were protesting the meeting? I don’t. It looked to me like the news channels wanted us to think they were just a purposeless mob. But given that the G20 meeting involved world leaders deciding, without accountability, to do some very stupid things to the world economy, there was plenty to protest. But one person has spoken up about police provocateurs at the protests.
“When I was in the middle of the crowd, two people came over to me and said, ‘There are people over there who we believe are policemen and who have been encouraging the crowd to throw things at the police,’” Brake said. But when the crowd became suspicious of the men and accused them of being police officers, the pair approached the police line and passed through after showing some form of identification.
As reprehensible as it is, this is actually not unusual. Protest events, especially around very important government meetings, overflow with stories of the enforcers infiltrating the crowd in order to provoke a crowd action which will give the police an excuse to purge the area of protesters. It’s SOP for the police to do this, particularly in the United States.
- Provocateurs Call For Violence To Demonize Legitimate Protesters At DNC
- Bilderberg Provocateurs Tried to Instigate Violence
Why do they do it? Because it’s an easy tactic to remove those scary mobs, and the media never calls them on it. The vast majority of protesters know that instigating violence would be counter-productive to their cause, and these stories usually end with the protesters kicking the poorly-disguised provocateur out of the group. Sometimes, the provocateur maces people indiscriminately, or tries to start something even when in uniform.
GPS bugging is surveillance, plain and simple.
Posted by Benjamin J. Thompson | Filed under Liberty, News
It must never enter the minds of judges that state power could ever be used unjustly. A court in Wisconsin just upheld the power of the police to track someone by bugging their car with a GPS transmitter. There is a glimmer of hope in that “District 4 Court of Appeals said it was “more than a little troubled” by that conclusion and asked Wisconsin lawmakers to regulate GPS use to protect against abuse by police and private individuals.”
The Fourth Amendment states: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
It doesn’t specifically talk about surveillance, but the spirit of this law is self-evident. To clarify how we should understand this Amendment, here’s the Ninth Amendment: The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
In short, the government has no right to invade your life unless they have a specific, rational, and peer-reviewed reason for doing so. I’m not even suggesting GPS bugging shouldn’t be used, but it is an unnecessary tool. Suspects in a violent crime investigation should expect to be followed, and in such cases the use of a tool like this might be understandable.
Where you go and how long you’re there falls into the same category of things as your person, papers and effects. It’s part of you and who you are. You don’t have a right to total privacy in public, but no one has the right to alter or trespass on your property (like your car) in order to track and watch you. If they want to follow you, they should have to do it on their own time.
The biggest danger this police power poses is to innocent people who participate in non-violent, victimless acts which have been criminalized, like the many vices which do not enjoy the same government sanction as tobacco and alcohol. The War on Drugs can only be enforced through the trampling of privacy rights, and this is just one more such step.
The second danger is to innocent people who obey all the laws, even the unjust ones, but happen to find themselves on a police officer’s bad side. It is a wide-open door for endless harassment and abuse of minorities and out-of-favor social groups.
If someone is accused of harming another person, and there is evidence to support this accusation, then maybe GPS bugging with a warrant could be rationalized. There is no rationale for warrantless spying.