When Rand Paul attended secret securiy hearings it revealed some disturbing facts about spying on Americans.
Gazillions. That's the number of times the federal government has spied on Americans since 9/11 through the use of drones, legal search warrants, illegal search warrants, federal agent-written search warrants and just plain government spying. This is according to Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who, when he asked the government to tell him what it was doing to violate our privacy, was given a classified briefing. The senator -- one of just a few in the U.S. Senate who believes that the Constitution means what it says -- was required by federal law to agree not to reveal what spies and bureaucrats told him during the briefing.
The rules for classified briefings of members of Congress on areas of government behavior that the government wants to keep from its employers -- the American people -- are a real Catch-22. Those rules allow representatives and senators to interrogate government officials about government behavior that they are afraid to reveal, and they require those officials to answer honestly and completely. But the rules keep the interrogations secret, and they expressly prohibit members of Congress from telling anyone what they have learned.
So Paul and his colleagues who joined in the secret briefing now know the terrible truth about the government watching us, but they cannot reveal what they know. Paul -- who is the son of Rep. Ron Paul, the greatest congressional defender of limited government in our era -- when asked what he learned at these secret briefings and aware that he could be prosecuted for telling the truth, chose a fictitious word to describe the vast number of violations of privacy at the hands of federal agents: gazillions. Paul's personal courage in using a word like gazillions to convey an oblique message of truth in the face of an unjust law that commanded his silence reminded me of St. Thomas More's silence in the face of an unjust law that commanded his assent to the king's headship of the church.
When the laws the government has written prevent our elected representatives from telling us what it is doing, we are at the doorsteps of tyranny. The government gave Paul the distinct impression that it was afraid of our exercise of our personal freedoms, and thus it needs to watch us as we do so. This is the same government whose stated principal purpose is to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution, and thus personal freedom.
What has become of the Jeffersonian value of the primacy of the individual over the government in a free society? How have we lost the American value that the government works for us, and we don't work for the government? What remains of the constitutionally guaranteed right to be left alone?
The answer to these questions goes to the nature of human freedom and personal courage. Freedom lies in our hearts, but to survive, it must do more than just lie there. Its essence is the exercise of unfettered choices, and the unfettered choices we make address our perpetual yearning for truth. This is a natural process that -- just like the muscles in our bodies -- will atrophy if unused.
So, when the government scares us into the disuse of freedom, we have only ourselves to blame when Big Brother comes calling. And when he does come, on his face there will be no smile.
http://reason.com/archives/2012/08/09/gazillions
Holmes in Aurora, illegal surveillance, more.
by Gordon Duff:
"There is a TV show called “Person of Interest” about a computer system that can predict human behavior based on algorithms that identify people and vehicles and discern patterns of behavioral probability that one of more of the nearly million things any American may do that is technically a “felony” might happen.
The “cover and deception” for illegal and draconian supervision of Americans always involves imaginary terrorism that so often becomes real when individuals tied to Army psychiatric units tend to “go crazy” and kill people.
Each episode, as with Aurora, has witnesses identify multiple shooters, like in the Breivik/Norway incident and most others and, as with Lee Oswald, the one caught is drugged or suffering from what I would diagnose as an induced psychosis. I am not entirely inexperienced at this as some who recently had the chance to go “head to head” with me found.
In fact, this is exactly what I do for a living along with a group of military intelligence, FBI, SAS and other professionals on several continents.
The patterns of domestic surveillance, electoral irregularities in the US, the movement of too many naval resources to the Persian Gulf, these are mistakes and Panetta and Petraeus should see that and discuss with the president how things can go wrong.
There is another brink, one here in America. We have gone too far in splitting our country apart, taking freedoms, impoverishing half our nation, gutting our middle class, it has to stop.
I couldn’t be more disappointed with Washington.
Whether it were Ron Paul or Rittgers or anyone, the task being restoring democracy, getting rid of Homeland Security, erasing unconstitutional laws and making America one nation again is the only task for most Americans.
The electoral process is, as currently functioning, very unAmerican and very destructive. It has placed money and power over truth, honor and justice and has turned America into a place increasingly bleak, increasingly dangerous and increasingly unsurvivable.
No more police pretending to be army, no more cameras, no more tapped phones and internet, no more massive databases that predict the next time we will have to go to the bathroom.
We are surrounded by Orwellian types who are flaming morons and they have the power and are gaining control.
Either we, the people, take our nation back or something bad is going to happen and the Orwellian types and their computers and cameras may not like it."
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2012/08/11/1157pm-saturday-august-11th-2012-notes-on-disinformation/
The sword is turned inward.
"The illegitimate anti-terror apparatus in America that was established after the false flag September 11 events was not intended for Muslim terrorists, but for American patriots and revolutionaries, regardless of their political beliefs.
For over a decade now, the fake leaders of American conservatives scared their flock by raising the alarm of "Islam." They said to their captured audience: Beware of Sharia law, the Muslims are descending on America and they will ravage our country if we are not vigilant.
Anyone with a brain could see this was a lie. For one thing, the number of Muslims in America is miniscule. If extremist Islamic groups raised the flag of Al-Qaeda on any American street for one second they would be crushed on the spot, and no one would complain.
Muslims pose no threat whatsoever to American society and government institutions. The technicians of the police state and the corrupt leaders of two parties know this, but they lied the whole time because they had to misdirect the attention of the American people while they successfully built up a totalitarian police state in America.
Brainwashed American conservatives were fine with new diabolical police state laws because they were under the delusion that such laws would not be applied to them, but only to Muslims.
They were tragically wrong.
Alex Jones, Ron Paul, Webster Tarpley, and others in the pro-liberty coalition warned American conservatives to not join the "Be Afraid of Muslims Campaign" and give up their rights so easily. But they didn't listen, and now the sword of the state is being used against them and their families.
It is the turn of American conservatives to be scapegoated and persecuted under the name of "homeland security." Politicians, policymakers, and police officers label them "right-wing domestic terrorists," and falsely accuse them of being the cause of America's domestic problems."
http://disquietreservations.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/the-sword-is-turned-inward.html