Homeland Stupidity

Wary eyes shift to the skies as unmanned aircraft are tested in Oklahoma

"The simulated chase this month was among the first test flights in a U.S. Department of Homeland Security program designed to evaluate the possible civilian use of 'Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems.' In coming months, dozens of companies will come to Oklahoma to put their state-of-the-art aerial vehicles through a series of scenarios designed to test their capabilities in situations that police and firefighters might encounter. Many of the drones being tested come with very advanced surveillance technology, including radar, video cameras, infrared thermal imagers and wireless network detectors that can collect sensitive information." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingWary eyes shift to the skies as unmanned aircraft are tested in Oklahoma

Senate Votes Against Fourth Amendment Protection Act

"Yesterday evening, the U.S. Senate voted on amendments to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Amendments Act Reauthorization Act of 2012, H.R.5949, including one introduced by Sens. Rand Paul and Mike Lee. The amendment, known as the Fourth Amendment Protection Act extends Fourth Amendment guarantees to electronic communications and requires specific warrants granted through FISA courts in order to obtain this information. The amendment failed, 79-12." Continue reading →

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Senate votes to extend warrantless wiretapping powers

"The law was set to expire at midnight on Friday, but the Senate’s vote means it will almost certainly be extended through December 2017. The extension continues warrantless wiretapping powers that apply even in the event that one person participating in the communication is an American citizen, despite the Fourth Amendment’s requirement for court oversight. It was originally passed in 2008 as a means of granting top Bush administration officials and the telecommunications companies legal immunity against suits over wiretaps that even the former president once claimed to be illegal." Continue reading →

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High School Student Arrested for Doodling?

"A 16-year-old high schooler in Egg Harbor City, NJ, was arrested after doodling in his notebook what may have been either weapons or a magic hand with flames coming off it, or perhaps something else. Concerned by the boy’s notebook, a Cedar Creek High School staff member called the local police, who searched the school and the teen’s home with sniffer dogs. The boy was charged with possession of a weapon, an explosive device, and was placed in Harborfields Detention Center. The boy’s mother explained that her son, who had no history of violence or threat-making, regularly assembled and dissambled electronics as a hobby." Continue reading →

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How Much TSA Abuse Is Enough?

"What on Earth does the TSA have to do to bump up against some serious resistance? If you feel like you've been sexually molested, you can go and cry on YouTube, like Miss USA did, but that's about as much sympathy as you're gonna get. You were molested for everyone's protection. And let's not forget the recent firing of 400 TSA agents for massive theft. If Americans are OK with a genital grab here and there, why not expand it to other places besides the airport? The longer that this goes on, the more emboldened the state will get, and that's exactly what they'll (slowly, of course) start to do." Continue reading →

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Privacy and the Government’s Dossier on You

"The bureaucracy is inscrutable and powerful. Its resources dwarf each person's. The purposes of this spy-bureaucratic machine are unknown to the individual. It is making decisions over lives but people are not privy to them and can't affect them. The power relationship between you and government is altered drastically when the government creates a dossier on you. You are in the dark. You are helpless and powerless. You feel that way, and you are. You are placed on the defensive. You no longer can act freely. Your freedom and your privacy both vaporize. You become fearful of speaking to others and expressing yourself because this is going into your dossier." Continue reading →

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Glenn Greenwald: New York’s top court highlights the meaninglessness and menace of the term ‘terrorism’

"What the court is admitting here is amazing. It is saying that when someone is accused of terrorism, the rules governing trials and law completely change. All sorts of things that the state is normally barred from doing on the grounds that it is unjust suddenly become permissible when someone faces terrorism charges. Indeed, so 'prejudicial' are these special rules of 'justice' for terrorism cases that anyone convicted under these rules is, by definition, treated unfairly if terrorism is inapplicable. That's what has happened in the post-9/11 era: a whole new system of 'justice', with all new rules designed to ensure convictions and long prison terms." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingGlenn Greenwald: New York’s top court highlights the meaninglessness and menace of the term ‘terrorism’

An American Stasi

"America is building its American Stasi openly. Some parts of its operations will be open, and critical parts will be secret. Many Americans will support it. No matter whether the American Stasi is open or secret, each isolated American will face a powerful foe, even more powerful than the Stasi, in a one-sided contest whose outcome is predetermined. The captured Stasi files on East Germans are 65 miles long, excluding 16,000 sacks of shredded documents that are being reconstructed. The American Stasi's files will be, for all practical purposes, infinite, because of the advances in technology and information storage." Continue reading →

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NYPD to Start Searching Internet for Pre-Crime Shooters

"Big brother just gets bigger and bigger. They take advantage of any event to grow. The NYPD intends to create algorithms that scan the text of conversations in chat rooms, social media and emails for clues on potential ‘apolitical or deranged killers’. NYPD Police Chief Raymond Kelly said in a statement: 'The goal would be to identify the shooter in cyberspace, engage him there and intervene, possibly using an undercover to get close, and take him into custody or otherwise disrupt his plans.' This is particularly bizarre since it appears that Adam Lanza, the shooter at the Sandy Hook Elementary School, didn't leave any kind of Facebook or Twitter clues." Continue reading →

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Indefinite Detention Without Trial: Completely Unconstitutional, Yet Routine

"Seattle residents Matt Duran and Katherine Olejnik have been imprisoned in the SeaTac Federal Detention Center for weeks. Neither of them has been indicted, arraigned, or even arrested for a crime. They have been imprisoned for civil contempt by a federal prosecutor for refusing to answer personal questions during a secretive grand jury investigation of other people in the Occupy movement. Olejnik exercised her constitutionally protected right to remain silent. That is why she was sent to prison on the orders of U.S. District Judge Richard A. Jones. Duran’s case is nearly identical. They may remain in prison until 2014." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingIndefinite Detention Without Trial: Completely Unconstitutional, Yet Routine