Land Of The Flea

Lawyers to challenge U.S. ‘No Fly’ list in federal court in Oregon

"Lawyers for a group of Muslim Americans barred from U.S. air travel will challenge procedures surrounding the secretive 'no fly' list in court on Friday, arguing they are unconstitutional because those on the list have no real way to clear their names. The 13 plaintiffs in the case, who deny any links to terrorism, said they learned of their no-fly status when they were blocked from boarding commercial flights and complain they were denied any effective means of petitioning the government to be removed from the list. As of last year, the list included some 20,000 people." Continue reading →

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Read more about the article Police Taser Gun Rights Advocate at Anti-Gun Violence Rally

Police Taser Gun Rights Advocate at Anti-Gun Violence Rally

"An anti-gun violence rally at the Statehouse plaza on Tuesday turned ugly when gun rights supporters turned out to protest the event and one pro-gun advocate [was] Tasered by Concord Police after resisting their efforts to detain him. Daniel Musso, 52, of Brentwood attempted to interject commentary while John Cantin of Manchester was speaking about his efforts to influence U.S. Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-NH, on the background check issue. Police issued an all-units alert to Main Street, with at least eight or nine cruisers at the scene, and a number of state troopers. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is part of the Mayors Against Illegal Guns effort." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingPolice Taser Gun Rights Advocate at Anti-Gun Violence Rally

Depositing a Little Common Sense into the Law

"Did you know that small business owners can be prosecuted for making repeated cash deposits of under $10,000? Randy and Karen Sowers, owners of a successful Maryland creamery, learned that accounting detail the hard way when the federal government seized $62,936 from their company’s bank account and charged them with violating the Bank Secrecy Act. The Sowers did not intend to violate the law. The couple simply found themselves caught in a net of federal prosecution because their everyday business practices and ignorance of obscure banking laws ran afoul of a federal statute." Continue reading →

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“Stalin Would Love This…”

"There are dark, unspoken consequences of lists and information gathering. We’ve seen this before. While President Obama dismissed concerns about his administration’s domestic spying operations as 'minor intrusions' on our liberties, the truth is quite different if one actually takes the time to think about the potential implications of such massive data gathering. And can we really be accused of overreacting with the IRS abuse of targeted groups and the government leaks of late? No one but the self-deluded thinks that our data is unfailingly safe and in the hands of the most competent and trustworthy among us." Continue reading →

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National-Security State Toadies Are Guilty Of Hypocrisy On Snowden

"They say that Snowden should have stayed here in the United States instead of fleeing to Hong Kong. They say that if he were a genuine hero, as his supporters say he is, he would have remained in the United States, where the national-security state would have incarcerated him, tortured him, and executed him. Oh? Well, pray tell, national-security state toadies: Where were you all when those CIA agents skedaddled out of Italy after committing felonious offenses in that country? The problem with kidnapping and torture is that they’re criminal offenses under Italian law, which is precisely why those CIA agents got criminally indicted and later convicted and sentenced." Continue reading →

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Steve Wozniak Laments Creating The Tools That Government Uses To Spy On Us

"When Morgan suggested the government would not be able to keep such a close eye on citizens without the work of innovators like him, Wozniak acknowledged: 'I actually feel a little guilty about that – but not totally. We created the computers to free the people up, give them instant communication anywhere in the world; any thought you had, you could share freely. That it was going to overcome a lot of the government restrictions. We didn't realise that in the digital world there were a lot of ways to use the digital technology to control us, to snoop on us, to make things possible that weren't.'" Continue reading →

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FBI: We Were Not Investigating Michael Hastings

"'At no time was journalist Michael Hastings ever under investigation by the FBI,' L.A. Field Office spokeswoman Laura Eimiller told the Burlington Free Press on Thursday. The L.A. Police Department said detectives have concluded no foul play was involved in the crash, also according to Burlington. LAPD spokesman Richard French said detectives did not share with his office the reasons behind their conclusion that the crash was an accident." Continue reading →

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Jacob Hornberger: Replacing The Welfare-Warfare State With A Free Society

"We live under a governmental system in which the president, the military, the CIA, and the NSA now wield powers that the greatest dictators in history have wielded. The powers to assassinate people, to indefinitely detain people without due process or trial by jury, to kidnap and rendition people, to torture people, to subject people to LSD experiments, to invade and occupy foreign countries, to support coups in foreign lands, to install, train, maintain, and support brutal dictatorial regimes, to spy on and monitor the activities of people everywhere. In other words, the dark type of things that Americans used to complain that communist or totalitarian regimes were engaged in." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingJacob Hornberger: Replacing The Welfare-Warfare State With A Free Society

Bill Bonner: How to Disappear Without a Trace

"Twelve years ago – when the 'homeland' was first invented (a smooth adaptation of Hitler's 'fatherland') and TSA agents began frisking grandmothers – the whole thing seemed like a joke. It looked as though America's leaders had gotten themselves into a hysterical panic. They thought al-Qaida really existed... that there were terrorist sleeper cells in every hamlet and burg... and that these infiltrators were about to wreak havoc on the nation. It was a preposterous lie, but we figured they'd come to their senses soon. Instead of coming to their senses, America's leaders began to see the advantage of a war that could neither be won nor lost." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingBill Bonner: How to Disappear Without a Trace

Web’s Reach Binds N.S.A. and Silicon Valley Leaders

"Although Silicon Valley has sold equipment to the N.S.A. and other intelligence agencies for a generation, the interests of the two began to converge in new ways in the last few years as advances in computer storage technology drastically reduced the costs of storing enormous amounts of data. The sums the N.S.A. spends in Silicon Valley are classified, as is the agency’s total budget, which independent analysts say is $8 billion to $10 billion a year. Current and former industry officials say the companies sometimes secretly put together teams of in-house experts to find ways to cooperate more completely with the N.S.A." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingWeb’s Reach Binds N.S.A. and Silicon Valley Leaders