statism

‘Most members of Congress have not even seen the secret legal interpretations’ behind FISA

"President Obama’s stated desire for an 'open debate and democratic process' about the U.S. government’s surveillance activities met with open disbelief by a prominent former congressional staffer — Jennifer Hoelzer, who recently left service as deputy chief of staff to Senator Ron Wyden (D-Oregon). Hoelzer noted that she had been explicitly barred earlier this year from publicly discussing her senator’s reasons for opposing a bill that contained a loophole giving the NSA the apparent authority to run searches on Americans without any kind of warrant. Supporters of the legislation, however, were free to issue press releases touting its value to the public." Continue reading →

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Treating Surveillance as Damage and Routing Around It

"Even as the U.S. security state becomes more closed, centralized and brittle in the face of NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden’s leaks, civil society and the public are responding to the post-Snowden repression by becoming more dispersed and resilient. That’s how networks always respond to censorship and surveillance. Each new attempt at a file-sharing service, after Napster was shut down — Kazaa, Kazaa lite, eDonkey, eMule, The Pirate Bay — was less dependent on central servers and other vulnerable nodes than the one before it. Wikileaks responded the same way to U.S. government attempts to shut it down." Continue reading →

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Ted Koppel: ‘Can You Imagine A Day When We’ll Be Without The TSA?’

"'The terrorists have achieved more with one phone call than we have achieved with all our response,' Koppel said. 'Terrorism is imply the weapon by which the weak engage the strong,' Koppel said. 'They cause the strong—in this case us—to overreact. We are the ones who went into Iraq and spent about a trillion and a half dollars doing it, losing 4,500 men and women, god knows how many tens of thousands injured. We are the ones who created a bureaucracy. The TSA has what—57,000 people operating within the TSA? Can you imagine a day when we will ever be without that bureaucracy? All imposed upon ourselves.'" Continue reading →

Continue ReadingTed Koppel: ‘Can You Imagine A Day When We’ll Be Without The TSA?’

Scholarly book presents ‘hidden history’ of Nazi ‘gun control’

"'A skeptic could surmise that a better-armed populace might have made no difference,' the overview for 'Gun Control in the Third Reich: Disarming the Jews and ‘Enemies of the State’' observes, 'but the National Socialist regime certainly did not think so -- it ruthlessly suppressed firearm ownership by disfavored groups.' The book, 'based on newly-discovered, secret documents from German archives, diaries and newspapers of the time … presents the definitive, yet hidden history of how the Nazi regime made use of gun control to disarm and repress its enemies and consolidate power.'" Continue reading →

Continue ReadingScholarly book presents ‘hidden history’ of Nazi ‘gun control’

IRS Needs AR-15′s For “Standoff Capabilities”?

"The IRS, which primarily acts as an audit agency, refuses to answer why its agents need AR-15s for 'standoff capability.' The IRS is not the only federal agency stocking up tactical weapons and training for paramilitary raids. Agencies like the Department of Education, the Social Security Administration, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Internal Revenue Service continue to purchase large amounts of tactical weapons and ammunition to build up their law enforcement divisions." Continue reading →

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Bitcoin: Tax haven of the future

"Tomorrow’s tax havens could be fueled by new technology like Bitcoin and Litecoin — online currencies that can be used to purchase everything from coffee to illegal drugs. The problem for government coffers: There’s no mechanism to ensure that people who make money through such digital currency report the income to the IRS. In its fight against tax evasion, the U.S. is largely focused on shining a light into bank accounts held by Americans in other countries. But experts say the rise of Bitcoin, which doesn’t require a bank account, could force the U.S. to rethink its approach." Continue reading →

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New York Banking Regulator Subpoenas Two Dozen Bitcoin Companies

"New York's top banking regulator has issued subpoenas to roughly two dozen companies associated with bitcoin as part of a wide-ranging inquiry into the business practices of the fledgling virtual-currency industry. The department also plans on Monday to issue a memo expressing concern that virtual-currency companies aren't complying with the state's money-transmission laws. As a result, the state is considering setting new guidelines that are specifically aimed at virtual currencies. Companies that received subpoenas include some of the best-known names in the nascent industry, including Coinbase Inc., BitInstant and Coinsetter." Continue reading →

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James Bovard: Obama, NSA, Gulf of Tonkin, & Governing as Lying

"This is the 49th anniversary of Congress’s passage of the Gulf of Tonkin resolution, by which the Lyndon Johnson administration lied the nation into the Vietnam War. Last night, President Obama appeared on the Jay Leno show and declared: 'We don’t have a domestic spying program.' He explained: 'What we do have are some mechanisms where we can track a phone number or an email address that we know is connected to some sort of terrorist threat.' Why would Obama continue to shovel such bilge? Does he assume that no one has read a newspaper for the past 2 months, or what?" Continue reading →

Continue ReadingJames Bovard: Obama, NSA, Gulf of Tonkin, & Governing as Lying