it can’t happen here

How Bad Is The Surveillance State?

"Even more baffling to me is the reaction of some 'conservatives' who deny the scope of spying activities and, at once, minimizing the civil-liberties threat and justifying the activities as absolutely necessary and vital for the protection of the country. The truth is that the network television show 'Person of Interest' is much closer to reality than most people think – except for the fact that no one is actually using the mining of data to protect the lives of innocent American citizens caught in the crossfire. Let’s look at some of the hard, cold facts of today’s surveillance state." Continue reading →

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Where Immigration Policy Intersects with Government Surveillance

"The drones are already there, though they aren’t continuously in the air; some are Predator B and Guardian drones — unarmed versions of the fighter jet-shaped aircraft commonly used in the Middle East. Also in the sky are large blimps loaded with high-tech cameras, on loan from the Justice Department — like the one I saw resting here outside of Valentine, Texas, roughly 20 miles from the border. Called 'the floating eye,' these building-sized balloons were formerly used to spot insurgents in Afghanistan. Now, they have become so common in the area that one was included in an artist’s rendering of a soon-to-be-built drive-in movie theater in Marfa, Texas." Continue reading →

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What the NSA Revelations Tell Us about America’s Police State

"Ongoing revelations by The Guardian and The Washington Post of massive, illegal secret state surveillance of the American people along with advanced plans for waging offensive cyberwarfare on a global scale, including inside the US, underscores what Antifascist Calling has reported throughout the five years of our existence: that democracy and democratic institutions in the United States are dead letters. If what the Bush and now, Obama regimes are doing is not Orwellian blanket surveillance of the American people, then words fail." Continue reading →

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A Social Phenomenon: Protests Erupt in Brazil

"A girl organized a protest, expecting a few hundred people to attend. Instead, there were tens of thousands, and then a million. It was like throwing a seed crystal into a super-saturated solution and causing crystallization throughout the whole body of liquid. It was like a wildfire spreading. This is what we so far have NOT seen occur in America. This is, however, what the authorities are preparing for. They know that the array of grievances of Americans is growing by the day, week, month and year. They know that they have not addressed these grievances, and they know that when the promises of government cannot be kept, these grievances are going to spill into the streets." Continue reading →

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U.S. Flag Recalled After Causing 143 Million Deaths

"Millions of U.S. flag–related injuries and fatalities have been reported over a 230-year period in locations as far flung as Europe, Cuba, Korea, Gettysburg, PA, the Philippines, and Iraq. In addition, the company found that U.S. flag exports to Vietnam during the late 1960s and early 1970s resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths, a clear sign that there was something seriously wrong with its product. Despite fears about the flag's safety—especially when improperly used or manipulated in ways not originally intended—sales continued unabated over the years, potentially putting billions of unsuspecting people in danger." Continue reading →

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Former East German secret police captain says NSA spying ‘a dream come true’

"A former agent of the Stasi, the much-feared East German communist secret police, has said that the recently revealed NSA spying program would have been his agency’s 'dream come true' because it has collected 'so much information, on so many people.' Wolfgang Schmidt, 78, said in an interview that it is 'the height of naivete' to think that the information will never be used against U.S. citizens. As a lieutenant colonel in the Stasi, he said that technology limited the secret police’s ability to satisfy its voracious appetite for information. Their listening devices, he said, could only spy on 40 telephone lines at once. Targets had to be prioritized." Continue reading →

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How to Survive When Prices Double Every Day and a Half

"At a 2011 Casey Research Summit, I met and heard the firsthand accounts of three gentlemen from Zimbabwe, Argentina, and Yugoslavia, who had survived hyperinflation in their home countries. Although these may sound like exotic locales with foreign problems, their terrifying histories have a lesson to teach us. Hyperinflation is like fire. We all install smoke alarms, keep fire extinguishers handy, and buy insurance to protect our homes, but most of us will never fall victim to an unplanned fire. However, when a fire does ignite, it can be catastrophic – which is why prudent people simply plan ahead." Continue reading →

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Donald Trump: Extradition Process Is Too Slow; Just Kill Edward Snowden

"You know, spies in the old days used to be executed. This guy is becoming a hero in some circles. Now, I will say, with the passage of time, even people that were sort of liking him and were trying to go on his side are maybe dropping out… We have to get him back and we have to get him back fast. It could take months or it could take years, and that would be pathetic. This guy’s a bad guy and, you know, there’s still a thing called execution. You really have to take a strong… You have thousands of people with access to material like this. We’re not going to have a country any longer." Continue reading →

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McCain: We’ll make border with Mexico look like ‘the Berlin Wall’

"Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) said Tuesday that the Senate should include an amendment for increased border security in its new bipartisan immigration reform bill. In video featured by Talking Points Memo, McCain said that the amendment, proposed by Sens. Bob Corker (R-TN) and John Hoeven (R-ND) would make the border between Mexico and the U.S. into 'most militarized border since the fall of the Berlin Wall.'" Continue reading →

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The Trick is to Suspend the Constitution Without Admitting It

"The executive branch has routinely invoked the so-called PATRIOT act, and the Authorization for Use of Military Force to supposedly permit the President and his subordinates to wage war anywhere on the face of the earth, carry out all-encompassing electronic surveillance of the entire population, and even carry out summary executions of anyone – including U.S. citizens – deemed to be enemies of the state. Pakistan endured a similar period of executive rule under the reign of military dictator Pervez Musharraf between 1999 and 2008. The Pakistani government is preparing to put Musharraf on trial for treason for suspending that country’s constitution." Continue reading →

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