November 02, 2016
PHILADELPHIA, Pa. —The Rutherford Institute
has asked a federal appeals court to safeguard the right of citizens and
journalists to record police in public without fear of retaliation. In a
friend-of-the-court brief filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the
Third Circuit, Rutherford Institute attorneys argue that the First
Amendment protects the right of citizens to make audio or video
recordings of public law enforcement activities.
The brief was filed in a consolidated appeal of two cases in which a
federal district court ruled that police and the City of Philadelphia
could not be sued by persons who were arrested or physically assaulted
by officers allegedly because they had made video recordings of police
engaged in quelling disturbances.
“Police body cameras will never serve as an effective check on police
misconduct as long the cameras can be turned on and off at will and the
footage remains inaccessible to the public. However, technology makes
it possible for Americans to record their own interactions with police
and they have every right to do so without fear of arrest or physical
assault,” said constitutional attorney John W. Whitehead, president of
The Rutherford Institute and author of Battlefield America: The War on the American People.
“The ability to record police interactions in public provides for
greater accountability when it comes to police interactions with the
citizenry and should be preserved as a necessary right of the people.”
In September 2012, Amanda Geraci, a legal observer who monitors
police interactions with citizens at protests or demonstrations,
attended a protest against fracking at the convention center in
Philadelphia. When police arrested one of the protesters, Geraci moved
to a spot where she could better observe and make a video recording of
the incident. According to Geraci, a city police officer subsequently
attacked her by physically restraining her against a pillar and
preventing her from videotaping the arrest.
In a separate incident, Temple University student Richard Fields was
walking on Broad Street in Philadelphia when he saw about 20 police
officers standing outside a house that was hosting a party. Fields took a
photograph of the scene with his cell phone. An officer then approached
Fields, asked if Fields “likes taking pictures of grown men,” and
ordered him to leave. When Fields refused, the officer handcuffed and
arrested him, searched his belongings, and charged him with obstructing a
public passage. That charge was eventually dropped. Both Geraci and
Fields filed lawsuits asserting that the police retaliated against them
for exercising their First Amendment right to record police activities
in public.
In ruling on the lawsuits, a federal district court declared that
there was no clearly established right under the First Amendment to
record police activities and that a person only has the right to record
police in public if they can assert there was some “expressive” purpose
for the recording. In weighing in on the cases before the Third Circuit
Court of Appeals, Rutherford Institute attorneys point out that the
district court’s decision conflicts with numerous rulings from other
courts that have affirmed a First Amendment right to collect information
about government activities, and specifically to record police carrying
out their duties in public.
In ruling on the lawsuits, a federal district court declared that
there was no clearly established right under the First Amendment to
record police activities and that a person only has the right to record
police in public if they can assert there was some “expressive” purpose
for the recording. In weighing in on the cases before the Third Circuit
Court of Appeals, Rutherford Institute attorneys point out that the
district court’s decision conflicts with numerous rulings from other
courts that have affirmed a First Amendment right to collect information
about government activities, and specifically to record police carrying
out their duties in public.
Affiliate attorneys Jason P. Gosselin and Christopher F. Moriarty
assisted The Rutherford Institute advancing the arguments in the Fields and Geraci brief.
Via The Rutherford Institute here
Showing posts with label civil rights. Show all posts
Showing posts with label civil rights. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 2, 2016
Monday, June 27, 2016
FBI Just Created and Foiled their Own Terrorist Plot to Demonize Those Who Question Government
By William N. Grigg
The FBI once again appears to have averted a terrorist plot of its own manufacture by arresting 57-year-old William Keebler, a man from Stockton, Utah described in press accounts as a militia organizer exhibiting an “extreme hatred” for the federal government. A vociferous critic of the federal Bureau of Land Management who was present during the April 2014 standoff in Bunkerville, Nevada, Keebler was a close friend of the late LaVoy Finicum. FBI agents arrested Keebler in Nephi, Utah Wednesday morning after he allegedly attempted to bomb a vacant cabin owned by the BLM.
According to a federal charging document, for the past several months FBI undercover operatives have been members of Keebler’s militia, the Patriots Defense Force, which met at his home in Stockton, Utah. On many occasions, he expressed the entirely reasonable view that “the BLM was overreaching their authority to implement grazing restrictions on ranchers” and insisted that state and local governments, rather than Washington, should be in charge of public lands in the western States.
Predicting that future confrontations with the Feds might make violent resistance necessary, Keebler reportedly conducted training exercises and “talked about gathering intelligence on potential targets,” such as the BLM office in Salt Lake City. He made it clear, however, that “he didn’t plan on blowing people up for now”; the federal probable cause affidavit characterizes Keebler’s attitude as wanting his group “to be prepared to escalate things, and take people out if necessary.”
Last April, a federal informant “tasked with building Keebler an explosive device” — the charging document, significantly, doesn’t specify by whom the informant had been “tasked” — showed the subject a video of “a 6-inch pipe bomb blowing up some abandoned furniture in the mountains of southern Utah.” That overt act, which was carried out by a federal asset without (as far as the available evidence shows) Keebler’s approval, advance knowledge, or involvement, is described as an act in which he “maliciously damage[d]” and “destroy[ed] … personal or real property.
A few weeks later, Keebler allegedly selected the abandoned BLM cabin in Arizona as a target. The FBI-controlled informant produced what he described as two pipe bombs — one to be placed at the target and detonated via remote control, the other “was to be used against law enforcement” in the event this was necessary. Late Tuesday night (June 21), someone — the document doesn’t specify who it was — placed “an inert explosive device … against the door of one of the BLM cabins in Mount Turnbull. After the device was placed against the door, Keebler was handed a remote detonation device. Keebler then pushed the detonator button multiple times in order to remotely detonate the inert explosive.” He then departed for Utah, where FBI agents arrested him several hours later.
Keebler spent 13 days in Bunkerville and spent time in the company of the late LaVoy Finicum, whose funeral he attended in Kanab, Utah last February. Significantly, Keebler and several members of his militia were in attendance at an April 1 event in Orem, Utah featuring speeches by Finicum’s widow and Shawna Cox, who was an eyewitness to Finicum’s killing. That event was attended by hundreds of people whom the Feds would characterize as “anti-government extremists.”
“Some people who were with [Keebler] were videotaping all of the speakers with very expensive, professional-grade equipment,” a Utah broadcaster who attended the event told The Free Thought Project. “They were walking the room taking note of everybody who was there.”
According to the timeline described sketchily in the federal probable cause affidavit, it was at about this time that the FBI’s Homeland Security Theater Troupe was finishing its scheme to snare Keebler in a bogus bombing plot.
One likely purpose of this FBI-scripted operation is to depict the late LaVoy Finicum — who has emerged as a folk hero for many residents of the rural West — as a would-be terrorist bomber. The arrest affidavit takes great care to accuse Finicum of scouting out the location eventually used in the FBI-controlled false flag attack. That allegation, which Finicum is no longer alive to dispute, is already being retailed by some progressive media outlets.
One’s personal feelings on the unfoldings in Oregon earlier this year are irrelevant when considering the reality of the situation. This attempted ‘bombing,’ like the overwhelming majority of FBI-foiled terror plots, was little more than a staged scene with easily manipulated actors — being entirely scripted, directed, and produced by the federal government. Though this was theater on a virtually fictional scale, the fruits of the federal government’s success in thwarting their own scheme will be the loss of liberty for all — in spite of the current target only being ‘preppers’ and ‘anti-government constitutionalists.’
William N. Grigg writes for TheFreeThoughtProject.com, where this article first appeared.
Tuesday, June 21, 2016
Pro-Clinton College Professor: Repeal Second Amendment
Fairfax, VA -(AmmoLand.com)-
At a time when it’s more important than ever to maintain the right of
the American people to keep and bear arms for self-defense, law
professor David S. Cohen is calling for repeal of the Second Amendment.
“Americans’ rights are in mortal danger,” he says, unless Hillary Clinton is elected president and stacks the Supreme Court with progressive judges.
In the repeatedly discredited rag, Rolling Stone, Cohen writes, “sometimes we just have to acknowledge that the Founders and the Constitution are wrong. This is one of those times. . . . The Second Amendment needs to be repealed because it is outdated, a threat to liberty and a suicide pact.”
By “outdated,” Cohen means that the Framers of the Bill of Rights were unable to conceive of 19th century semi-automatic firearm technology. “When the Second Amendment was adopted in 1791, there were no weapons remotely like the AR-15 assault rifle (sic),” he said.
However, as the late, great Justice Antonin Scalia wrote in the Supreme Court’s decision in District of Columbia v. Heller, “Just as the First Amendment protects modern forms of communications and the Fourth Amendment applies to modern forms of search, the Second Amendment extends, prima facie, to all instruments that constitute bearable arms, even those that were not in existence at the time of the founding.”
And in any case, there is nothing outdated about the underlying principle of the Second Amendment: to prohibit the government from interfering with the ability of people to acquire, possess and develop proficiency with arms they might one day need to defend themselves and their loved ones.
Cohen’s rant is just one example of an astonishing amount of sheer nonsense that has filled the Internet since the terrorist attack in Orlando. Anti-gun politicians, and so-called opinion columnists and TV talking heads – who pretend to be “experts” on every topic under the sun, but who in reality know virtually nothing about even one topic – are confidently calling the AR-15 an “automatic” weapon, a “military” weapon,” and a “weapon of war,” and telling everyone that the most popular rifle in America should be banned.
Of course, the First Amendment protects the right of pundits to demonstrate that the size of their egos are only matched by the depth of their ignorance on firearms and the Second Amendment. And so it should be.
If history repeats itself, the recent slew of half-baked, culture-war-based, ideologically-motivated, attention-seeking statements against guns will only increase support for the right to arms, and additional support may develop as people increasingly realize that President Obama and Hillary Clinton, who are urging gun bans, are the very politicians most responsible for the rise of overseas terrorist groups who inspire and possibly direct evildoers within our midst.
All the more reason for the American people to protect their right to protect themselves.
“Americans’ rights are in mortal danger,” he says, unless Hillary Clinton is elected president and stacks the Supreme Court with progressive judges.
In the repeatedly discredited rag, Rolling Stone, Cohen writes, “sometimes we just have to acknowledge that the Founders and the Constitution are wrong. This is one of those times. . . . The Second Amendment needs to be repealed because it is outdated, a threat to liberty and a suicide pact.”
By “outdated,” Cohen means that the Framers of the Bill of Rights were unable to conceive of 19th century semi-automatic firearm technology. “When the Second Amendment was adopted in 1791, there were no weapons remotely like the AR-15 assault rifle (sic),” he said.
However, as the late, great Justice Antonin Scalia wrote in the Supreme Court’s decision in District of Columbia v. Heller, “Just as the First Amendment protects modern forms of communications and the Fourth Amendment applies to modern forms of search, the Second Amendment extends, prima facie, to all instruments that constitute bearable arms, even those that were not in existence at the time of the founding.”
And in any case, there is nothing outdated about the underlying principle of the Second Amendment: to prohibit the government from interfering with the ability of people to acquire, possess and develop proficiency with arms they might one day need to defend themselves and their loved ones.
Cohen’s rant is just one example of an astonishing amount of sheer nonsense that has filled the Internet since the terrorist attack in Orlando. Anti-gun politicians, and so-called opinion columnists and TV talking heads – who pretend to be “experts” on every topic under the sun, but who in reality know virtually nothing about even one topic – are confidently calling the AR-15 an “automatic” weapon, a “military” weapon,” and a “weapon of war,” and telling everyone that the most popular rifle in America should be banned.
Of course, the First Amendment protects the right of pundits to demonstrate that the size of their egos are only matched by the depth of their ignorance on firearms and the Second Amendment. And so it should be.
If history repeats itself, the recent slew of half-baked, culture-war-based, ideologically-motivated, attention-seeking statements against guns will only increase support for the right to arms, and additional support may develop as people increasingly realize that President Obama and Hillary Clinton, who are urging gun bans, are the very politicians most responsible for the rise of overseas terrorist groups who inspire and possibly direct evildoers within our midst.
All the more reason for the American people to protect their right to protect themselves.
Saturday, June 11, 2016
General David Petraeus is forming a gun control group with Gabby Gifford’s husband Mark Kelly.
The goal of the group will be to push national adoption of the same
universal background checks that have failed in California, Colorado,
Washington state, and Paris. In fact, Petraeus will be pushing the same
background checks that Giffords’ attacker passed in order to acquire the
gun he used to wound her on January 8, 2011.
According to The Hill, Kelly announced the launch of the group by talking about military members’ commitment to “protect our constitution and homeland.” He suggested political leaders now need to step up and “do more to protect our rights and save lives.”
Kelly did not mention that more lives are lost in parts of the country where gun control is most stringent–places like Chicago–nor did he explain how passing more laws that interfere with the exercise of Second Amendment rights is somehow akin to protecting those rights.
In addition to Petraeus, former CIA director Michael Hayden and retired Admiral Thad Allen have pledged to push for more gun laws with Mark Kelly.
source
According to The Hill, Kelly announced the launch of the group by talking about military members’ commitment to “protect our constitution and homeland.” He suggested political leaders now need to step up and “do more to protect our rights and save lives.”
Kelly did not mention that more lives are lost in parts of the country where gun control is most stringent–places like Chicago–nor did he explain how passing more laws that interfere with the exercise of Second Amendment rights is somehow akin to protecting those rights.
In addition to Petraeus, former CIA director Michael Hayden and retired Admiral Thad Allen have pledged to push for more gun laws with Mark Kelly.
source
Thursday, April 7, 2016
All Our Children Are Now FBI Terrorism Suspects
By Thomas S. Neuberger
April 7, 2016
In July 2015, I reported on and analyzed the FBI’s Communities Against Terrorism Program
and concluded that it made every adult citizen a terrorism suspect. In
January 2016, the FBI announced that it wants to make every high school
teacher, administrator and student in America a spy to report to it or
local State police suspicious words or activity by any teenager
attending our schools. The FBI was not satisfied with its 2012 Communities Against Terrorism Program which
asks our neighbors to read any of 25 widely circulated posters and then
to report us if we act in certain suspicious ways. Now the FBI has
widened its net to over 15 million teenagers in our high schools.
As I explained previously, the dangerous speech which the FBI wanted our neighbors to report included, for example, (1) posting anti-government or environmental slogans, banners, or signs that imply violence; (2) spraying anti-government graffiti; (3) downloading material of an extreme or radical nature with violent themes, or preoccupation with press coverage of terrorist attacks; (4) making unusual anti‑U.S. comments; or (5) making extreme racist or religious statements coupled with sentiments which appear to condone violence. As can be seen from this list of overbroad, vague and legally protected activities or speech which the FBI claims are red flags for terrorism, the FBI has little concern for our Bill of Rights, such as the right to speak freely or to read what we want.
And now, with a little sugar coating and Orwellian new speak, there is a dire warning that without this new program a student out there may detonate a “weapon of mass destruction” on all of us. So in January the FBI went after all our high school students when it issued its Preventing Violent Extremism In Schools Guidelines. Specifically, the FBI wants its spies to report any “statements or actions” which “cause concern.” “Schools should focus on a student’s behaviors and communications,” such as supporting “domestic extremist movements,” international terrorist organizations or hate crimes.
Within its category of “domestic terrorists,” the FBI identifies several violent extremism movements, “including but not limited to animal rights and eco‑terrorists, and anti‑government or radical separatist groups.” There it is again, “anti-government” speech, just like in the widely circulated FBI posters. The FBI puts such domestic groups right up there with ISIS and Al Qa’ida, as those who “decry western policies” or mistrust the government. Indeed, the FBI also identifies as needing watching teenagers with unacceptable “religious or cultural biases” after being raised in families outside the mainstream of society.
Now to keep a classmate from eventually using that ever useful propaganda tool known as a “weapon of mass destruction,” what will your average non-lawyer teachers do when “anti-government” words come out of the mouth of a student who opposes an oil pipeline or wants to “save the whales”? Call the FBI, of course. Will they err on the side of safety or let youthful exuberance slide?
The core problem here is that “the FBI defines violent extremism as encouraging, condoning, justifying, or supporting the commission of a violent act to achieve political, ideological, religious, social or economic goals.” But its premise is wrong that suspicious comments against government or vague or cryptic warnings that suggest or appear to endorse the use of violence in support of a cause are grounds to consider someone a potential terrorist. Remember Patrick Henry’s Revolutionary War cry – “Give me liberty or give me death.” If ever there was a statement endorsing violence, this is it, but he was a patriot. And I emphasize that the Supreme Court has ruled repeatedly that government, and this includes the FBI, cannot “forbid or prescribe advocacy of the use of force or of law violation except where such advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action.” Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969). So reporting students for “encouraging, supporting or justifying” violence as a means to social goals is clearly illegal. In a classic case, this must lead to the investigation of students reading about or discussing revolution, Marxism, Communism or whatever failed doctrine is still out there, even the radical theories behind the American Revolution in 1776 or the French Revolution a few years later.
Writing for the Rutherford Institute, constitutional attorney John W. Whitehead has pointed out the conflict here with our own early history: “Try suggesting, as Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin did, that Americans should not only take up arms but be prepared to shed blood in order to protect their liberties, and you might find yourself placed on a terrorist watch list and vulnerable to being rounded up by government agents,” he notes. Declared Jefferson, “What country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance. Let them take arms.” Observed Franklin, “Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well‑armed lamb contesting the vote!” So what if a well-read student suggests in class, as Thomas Paine, Marquis de Lafayette, and John Adams did, that Americans should, if necessary, defend themselves against the government if it violates their rights. He or she may be labeled a domestic extremist for such “anti-government” sentiments.
So if our public, private or religious schools anywhere in the United States give in and spy on over 15 million students, do the new Guidelines say anything about protecting the freedoms our fathers in World War II died to preserve? Buried in 28 pages we do find a paragraph containing a long mouthful of legalese which claims to recognize the “difference between protected speech and illegal incitement” and concedes that “espousing anti‑U.S. sentiment or extremist rhetoric is not a crime.” Educators are advised that “the issue is not if the individual voiced his/her support, but rather has advocated imminent violence in support of an extremist organization and that violence is likely to occur as a result.” For example, students consuming “violent propaganda” may result “in a strengthening of beliefs and aid development of radical views or a willingness to use violence in support of an ideology.” Again, what will a non-lawyer administrator do in light of these long equivocating statements and the possible threat of mass destruction? He or she will err on the side of safety which, I expect, is the real purpose behind the FBI’s Guidelines.
And this will take us one step further down the road to a police state with our neighbors, teachers and others monitoring our thoughts, speech and communications for disfavored ideas. And then there will be the knock at the door demanding to question our son or daughter because someone has turned them in to have their thoughts, tweets, Facebook posts, reading material or speech reviewed before federal or local police.
The FBI is making us into a nation of spies and informers at the cost of our heritage and freedoms. It is behaving as the feared Stasi in Communist East Germany, the secret police in Stalin’s Soviet Russia, or Hitler’s dreaded Gestapo, turning every neighbor into a spy on the other. For the FBI most of us incorrectly fit the bill as extremists or terrorists. But again, recall our Colonial ancestor Patrick Henry, who argued about the value of potential violence in 1788, “Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are inevitably ruined.” The FBI wants to question every student voicing similar sentiments.
That is plainly un-American and should not be permitted in any public, private or religious school.
source
April 7, 2016
In July 2015, I reported on and analyzed the FBI’s Communities Against Terrorism Program
and concluded that it made every adult citizen a terrorism suspect. In
January 2016, the FBI announced that it wants to make every high school
teacher, administrator and student in America a spy to report to it or
local State police suspicious words or activity by any teenager
attending our schools. The FBI was not satisfied with its 2012 Communities Against Terrorism Program which
asks our neighbors to read any of 25 widely circulated posters and then
to report us if we act in certain suspicious ways. Now the FBI has
widened its net to over 15 million teenagers in our high schools.As I explained previously, the dangerous speech which the FBI wanted our neighbors to report included, for example, (1) posting anti-government or environmental slogans, banners, or signs that imply violence; (2) spraying anti-government graffiti; (3) downloading material of an extreme or radical nature with violent themes, or preoccupation with press coverage of terrorist attacks; (4) making unusual anti‑U.S. comments; or (5) making extreme racist or religious statements coupled with sentiments which appear to condone violence. As can be seen from this list of overbroad, vague and legally protected activities or speech which the FBI claims are red flags for terrorism, the FBI has little concern for our Bill of Rights, such as the right to speak freely or to read what we want.
And now, with a little sugar coating and Orwellian new speak, there is a dire warning that without this new program a student out there may detonate a “weapon of mass destruction” on all of us. So in January the FBI went after all our high school students when it issued its Preventing Violent Extremism In Schools Guidelines. Specifically, the FBI wants its spies to report any “statements or actions” which “cause concern.” “Schools should focus on a student’s behaviors and communications,” such as supporting “domestic extremist movements,” international terrorist organizations or hate crimes.
Within its category of “domestic terrorists,” the FBI identifies several violent extremism movements, “including but not limited to animal rights and eco‑terrorists, and anti‑government or radical separatist groups.” There it is again, “anti-government” speech, just like in the widely circulated FBI posters. The FBI puts such domestic groups right up there with ISIS and Al Qa’ida, as those who “decry western policies” or mistrust the government. Indeed, the FBI also identifies as needing watching teenagers with unacceptable “religious or cultural biases” after being raised in families outside the mainstream of society.
Now to keep a classmate from eventually using that ever useful propaganda tool known as a “weapon of mass destruction,” what will your average non-lawyer teachers do when “anti-government” words come out of the mouth of a student who opposes an oil pipeline or wants to “save the whales”? Call the FBI, of course. Will they err on the side of safety or let youthful exuberance slide?
The core problem here is that “the FBI defines violent extremism as encouraging, condoning, justifying, or supporting the commission of a violent act to achieve political, ideological, religious, social or economic goals.” But its premise is wrong that suspicious comments against government or vague or cryptic warnings that suggest or appear to endorse the use of violence in support of a cause are grounds to consider someone a potential terrorist. Remember Patrick Henry’s Revolutionary War cry – “Give me liberty or give me death.” If ever there was a statement endorsing violence, this is it, but he was a patriot. And I emphasize that the Supreme Court has ruled repeatedly that government, and this includes the FBI, cannot “forbid or prescribe advocacy of the use of force or of law violation except where such advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action.” Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969). So reporting students for “encouraging, supporting or justifying” violence as a means to social goals is clearly illegal. In a classic case, this must lead to the investigation of students reading about or discussing revolution, Marxism, Communism or whatever failed doctrine is still out there, even the radical theories behind the American Revolution in 1776 or the French Revolution a few years later.
Writing for the Rutherford Institute, constitutional attorney John W. Whitehead has pointed out the conflict here with our own early history: “Try suggesting, as Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin did, that Americans should not only take up arms but be prepared to shed blood in order to protect their liberties, and you might find yourself placed on a terrorist watch list and vulnerable to being rounded up by government agents,” he notes. Declared Jefferson, “What country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance. Let them take arms.” Observed Franklin, “Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well‑armed lamb contesting the vote!” So what if a well-read student suggests in class, as Thomas Paine, Marquis de Lafayette, and John Adams did, that Americans should, if necessary, defend themselves against the government if it violates their rights. He or she may be labeled a domestic extremist for such “anti-government” sentiments.
So if our public, private or religious schools anywhere in the United States give in and spy on over 15 million students, do the new Guidelines say anything about protecting the freedoms our fathers in World War II died to preserve? Buried in 28 pages we do find a paragraph containing a long mouthful of legalese which claims to recognize the “difference between protected speech and illegal incitement” and concedes that “espousing anti‑U.S. sentiment or extremist rhetoric is not a crime.” Educators are advised that “the issue is not if the individual voiced his/her support, but rather has advocated imminent violence in support of an extremist organization and that violence is likely to occur as a result.” For example, students consuming “violent propaganda” may result “in a strengthening of beliefs and aid development of radical views or a willingness to use violence in support of an ideology.” Again, what will a non-lawyer administrator do in light of these long equivocating statements and the possible threat of mass destruction? He or she will err on the side of safety which, I expect, is the real purpose behind the FBI’s Guidelines.
And this will take us one step further down the road to a police state with our neighbors, teachers and others monitoring our thoughts, speech and communications for disfavored ideas. And then there will be the knock at the door demanding to question our son or daughter because someone has turned them in to have their thoughts, tweets, Facebook posts, reading material or speech reviewed before federal or local police.
The FBI is making us into a nation of spies and informers at the cost of our heritage and freedoms. It is behaving as the feared Stasi in Communist East Germany, the secret police in Stalin’s Soviet Russia, or Hitler’s dreaded Gestapo, turning every neighbor into a spy on the other. For the FBI most of us incorrectly fit the bill as extremists or terrorists. But again, recall our Colonial ancestor Patrick Henry, who argued about the value of potential violence in 1788, “Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are inevitably ruined.” The FBI wants to question every student voicing similar sentiments.
That is plainly un-American and should not be permitted in any public, private or religious school.
source
Wednesday, March 16, 2016
Elites Link Anti-Government Thought to Mental Illness, Lay Groundwork for Incarceration
Conclusion: This attack on dissent is serious. Educate your family and friends about what’s going on. Do not be fooled by their propaganda, but beware of the risks of speaking out too freely.
Believe in conspiracy theories? You’re probably a narcissist: People who doubt the moon landings are more likely to be selfish and attention-seeking … Psychologists from the University of Kent carried out three online studies … -UK Daily Mail
We are seeing an increasing number of academic studies analyzing the psychology behind “conspiracy theorists” and those who question government propaganda. The idea being that people who don’t trust government may be mentally ill.
These analyses are published in prominent publications in the UK and are building a “scientific” literature revolving psychological dysfunction and “conspiracy theory.”
More:
Do you think the moon-landings were faked, vaccines are a plot for mind control, or that shadowy government agencies are keeping alien technology locked up in hidden bunkers?The article goes on to explain that researchers at the University of Kent have used online studies from hundreds of people to generate the study’s conclusions.
If so, chances are you’re a narcissist with low self-esteem, according to psychologists. In the internet age conspiracy theories can incubate in quiet corners of the web, but it may be psychological predispositions of believers which keep them alive, rather than cold hard facts.
The findings appeared in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science with the suggestion that those who adopt conspiracy theories have “outwardly inflated self-confidence” but may be “overcompensating for a lack of belief in themselves.”
The article mentions a previous study conducted by Oxford’s Dr. David Robert Grimes.
From what we’ve written on this study:
Grimes had the idea that mathematics could prove or disprove certain conspiracy theories. A physicist, he “developed a mathematical equation to derive the truth of conspiracy theories,” according to the Christian Science Monitor …At the time, we commented on Grimes’s apparent “earnestness” in struggling to “understand how people can even engage in conspiratorial thinking to begin with.” We made this comment in relationship to yet a third article on the psychology of conspiracy.
Grimes calculated that the moon landing and climate change conspiracies “would require about 400,000 secret-keepers each, the unsafe vaccination conspiracy would involve 22,000 people, and the cancer cure conspiracy would involve over 710,000 people.” Even with the utmost secrecy, Grimes reports, his equations show within four years the conspiracies would be exposed nonetheless.
This commentary appeared in the Guardian and, as we pointed out, “argued against conspiratorial thinking based on a new book, Suspicious Minds … written by Rob Brotherton.”
Basically, the idea is that people are naturally prone to conspiracy theories because of the way their brains have evolved. “Identifying patterns and being sensitive to possible threats,” the article explains, “is what has helped us survive in a world where nature often is out to get you.”So here we have three explanations of conspiracy theories presented by major publications in less than three month’s time. And, who knows, perhaps there were more.
Brotherton explains in the article that he decided that the best way to present his thesis was to avoid confronting conspiracy theories head on. Instead, he wanted to explain how people adopted such theories for psychological reasons.
“I wanted to take a different approach, to sidestep the whole issue of whether the theories are true or false and come at it from the perspective of psychology. The intentionality bias, the proportionality bias, confirmation bias. We have these quirks built into our minds that can lead us to believe weird things without realising that’s why we believe them.”
In the conclusion to our Grimes’ analysis, we noted that: “It looks as if a more powerful and disciplined program may be underway. Something to ponder along with a further moderation of certain public declarations.”
By “public declarations” we meant those of individuals prone to mentioning conspiracy theories in non-appropriate contexts. As it turns out, we anticipated the current news cycle only by a couple of months.
Just this week, in fact, Attorney General Loretta Lynch attended a Senate Judiciary Hearing and acknowledged discussions at the Department of Justice of taking civil action against “climate change deniers.”
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) questioned her on the issue and drew comparisons between such deniers and the tobacco industry that claimed for decades that the tobacco was not proven to cause ill health.
The Clinton administration eventually brought a successful civil suit against Big Tobacco. And Whitehouse suggested that civil or criminal charges might be brought against “anti-warmists.”
The forces of intolerance are gathering in the US, just as overseas.
We have urged in the past that people pay close attention to these growing trends. By turning statements of opinion into a psychological condition they are trying to discredit anyone who speaks out against the government.
In the Soviet Union, people who spoke out against government policies were often placed in mental asylums. At the time, concerned citizens in the West protested such incarcerations as barbaric abuses. Yet now, if our supposition is correct, these practices are about to expand in the West as well.
Conclusion: This attack on dissent is serious. Educate your family and friends about what’s going on. Do not be fooled by their propaganda, but beware of the risks of speaking out too freely.
source
Monday, March 14, 2016
America’s Gestapo: The FBI’s Reign of Terror
Via John Whitehead @ The Rutherford Institute
As part of the government’s so-called ongoing war on terror, the nation’s de facto secret police force is now recruiting students and teachers to spy on each other and report anyone who appears to have the potential to be “anti-government” or “extremist.”
Using the terms “anti-government,” “extremist” and “terrorist” interchangeably, the government continues to add to its growing list of characteristics that could distinguish an individual as a potential domestic terrorist.
For instance, you might be a domestic terrorist in the eyes of the FBI (and its network of snitches) if you:
There’s no need.
The nation’s largest law enforcement agency rivals the NSA in resources, technology, intelligence, and power. Yet while the NSA has repeatedly come under fire for its domestic spying programs, the FBI has continued to operate its subversive and clearly unconstitutional programs with little significant oversight or push-back from the public, Congress or the courts. Just recently, for example, a secret court gave the agency the green light to quietly change its privacy rules for accessing NSA data on Americans’ international communications.
Indeed, as I point out in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, the FBI has become the embodiment of how power, once acquired, can be easily corrupted and abused.
When and if a true history of the FBI is ever written, it will not only track the rise of the American police state but it will also chart the decline of freedom in America.
Owing largely to the influence and power of the FBI, the United States—once a nation that abided by the rule of law and held the government accountable for its actions—has steadily devolved into a police state where justice is one-sided, a corporate elite runs the show, representative government is a mockery, police are extensions of the military, surveillance is rampant, privacy is extinct, and the law is little more than a tool for the government to browbeat the people into compliance.
The FBI’s laundry list of crimes against the American people includes surveillance, disinformation, blackmail, entrapment, intimidation tactics, harassment and indoctrination, governmental overreach, abuse, misconduct, trespassing, enabling criminal activity, and damaging private property.
And that’s just based on what we know.
Whether the FBI is planting undercover agents in churches, synagogues and mosques; issuing fake emergency letters to gain access to Americans’ phone records; using intimidation tactics to silence Americans who are critical of the government; recruiting high school students to spy on and report fellow students who show signs of being future terrorists; or persuading impressionable individuals to plot acts of terror and then entrapping them, the overall impression of the nation’s secret police force is that of a well-dressed thug, flexing its muscles and doing the boss’ dirty work of ensuring compliance, keeping tabs on potential dissidents, and punishing those who dare to challenge the status quo.
The FBI was established in 1908 as a small task force assigned to deal with specific domestic crimes. Initially quite limited in its abilities to investigate so-called domestic crimes, the FBI has been transformed into a mammoth federal policing and surveillance agency. Unfortunately, whatever minimal restrictions kept the FBI’s surveillance activities within the bounds of the law all but disappeared in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. The USA Patriot Act gave the FBI and other intelligence agencies carte blanche authority in investigating Americans suspected of being anti-government.
As the FBI’s powers have grown, its abuses have mounted.
The FBI continues to monitor Americans engaged in lawful First Amendment activities.
COINTELPRO, the FBI program created to “disrupt, misdirect, discredit, and neutralize” groups and individuals the government considers politically objectionable, was aimed not so much at the criminal element but at those who challenged the status quo—namely, those expressing anti-government sentiments such as Martin Luther King Jr. and John Lennon. It continues to this day, albeit in other guises.
The FBI has become a master in the art of entrapment.
In the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks the FBI has not only targeted vulnerable individuals but has also lured them into fake terror plots while actually equipping them with the organization, money, weapons and motivation to carry out the plots—entrapment—and then jailing them for their so-called terrorist plotting. This is what the FBI characterizes as “forward leaning—preventative—prosecutions.”
FBI agents are among the nation’s most notorious lawbreakers.
In addition to creating certain crimes in order to then “solve” them, the FBI also gives certain informants permission to break the law, “including everything from buying and selling illegal drugs to bribing government officials and plotting robberies,” in exchange for their cooperation on other fronts. USA Today estimates that agents have authorized criminals to engage in as many as 15 crimes a day. Some of these informants are getting paid astronomical sums: one particularly unsavory fellow, later arrested for attempting to run over a police officer, was actually paid $85,000 for his help laying the trap for an entrapment scheme.
The FBI’s powers, expanded after 9/11, have given its agents carte blanche access to Americans’ most personal information.
The agency’s National Security Letters, one of the many illicit powers authorized by the USA Patriot Act, allows the FBI to secretly demand that banks, phone companies, and other businesses provide them with customer information and not disclose the demands. An internal audit of the agency found that the FBI practice of issuing tens of thousands of NSLs every year for sensitive information such as phone and financial records, often in non-emergency cases, is riddled with widespread violations.
The FBI’s spying capabilities are on a par with the NSA.
The FBI’s surveillance technology boasts an invasive collection of spy tools ranging from Stingray devices that can track the location of cell phones to Triggerfish devices which allow agents to eavesdrop on phone calls. In one case, the FBI actually managed to remotely reprogram a “suspect’s” wireless internet card so that it would send “real-time cell-site location data to Verizon, which forwarded the data to the FBI.”
The FBI’s hacking powers have gotten downright devious.
FBI agents not only have the ability to hack into any computer, anywhere in the world, but they can also control that computer and all its stored information, download its digital contents, switch its camera or microphone on or off and even control other computers in its network. Given the breadth of the agency’s powers, the showdown between Apple and the FBI over customer privacy appears to be more spectacle than substance.
James Comey, current director of the FBI, knows enough to say all the right things about the need to abide by the Constitution, all the while his agency routinely discards it. Comey argues that the government’s powers shouldn’t be limited, especially when it comes to carrying out surveillance on American citizens. Comey continues to lobby Congress and the White House to force technology companies such as Apple and Google to keep providing the government with backdoor access to Americans’ cell phones.
The FBI’s reach is more invasive than ever.
This is largely due to the agency’s nearly unlimited resources (its minimum budget alone in fiscal year 2015 was $8.3 billion), the government's vast arsenal of technology, the interconnectedness of government intelligence agencies, and information sharing through fusion centers—data collecting intelligence agencies spread throughout the country that constantly monitor communications (including those of American citizens), everything from internet activity and web searches to text messages, phone calls and emails.
Today, the FBI employs more than 35,000 individuals and operates more than 56 field offices in major cities across the U.S., as well as 400 resident agencies in smaller towns, and more than 50 international offices. In addition to their “data campus,” which houses more than 96 million sets of fingerprints from across the United States and elsewhere, the FBI is also, according to The Washington Post, “building a vast repository controlled by people who work in a top-secret vault on the fourth floor of the J. Edgar Hoover FBI Building in Washington. This one stores the profiles of tens of thousands of Americans and legal residents who are not accused of any crime. What they have done is appear to be acting suspiciously to a town sheriff, a traffic cop or even a neighbor.”
If there’s one word to describe the FBI’s covert tactics, it’s creepy.
The agency’s biometric database has grown to massive proportions, the largest in the world, encompassing everything from fingerprints, palm, face and iris scans to DNA, and is being increasingly shared between federal, state and local law enforcement agencies in an effort to target potential criminals long before they ever commit a crime.
This is what’s known as pre-crime.
If it were just about fighting the “bad guys,” that would be one thing. But as countless documents make clear, the FBI has no qualms about using its extensive powers in order to blackmail politicians, spy on celebrities and high-ranking government officials, and intimidate dissidents of all stripes.
It’s an old tactic, used effectively by former authoritarian regimes.
In fact, as historian Robert Gellately documents, the Nazi police state was repeatedly touted as a model for other nations to follow, so much so that Hoover actually sent one of his right-hand men, Edmund Patrick Coffey, to Berlin in January 1938 at the invitation of Germany’s secret police. As Gellately noted, “[A]fter five years of Hitler’s dictatorship, the Nazi police had won the FBI’s seal of approval.”
Indeed, so impressed was the FBI with the Nazi order that, as the New York Times revealed, in the decades after World War II, the FBI, along with other government agencies, aggressively recruited at least a thousand Nazis, including some of Hitler’s highest henchmen, brought them to America, hired them on as spies and informants, and then carried out a massive cover-up campaign to ensure that their true identities and ties to Hitler’s holocaust machine would remain unknown. Moreover, anyone who dared to blow the whistle on the FBI’s illicit Nazi ties found himself spied upon, intimidated, harassed and labeled a threat to national security.
So not only have American taxpayers been paying to keep ex-Nazis on the government payroll for decades but we’ve been subjected to the very same tactics used by the Third Reich: surveillance, militarized police, overcriminalization, and a government mindset that views itself as operating outside the bounds of the law.
This is how freedom falls, and tyrants come to power.
The similarities between the American police state and past totalitarian regimes such as Nazi Germany grow more pronounced with each passing day.
Secret police. Secret courts. Secret government agencies. Surveillance. Intimidation. Harassment. Torture. Brutality. Widespread corruption. Entrapment. Indoctrination. These are the hallmarks of every authoritarian regime from the Roman Empire to modern-day America.
Yet it’s the secret police—tasked with silencing dissidents, ensuring compliance, and maintaining a climate of fear—who sound the death knell for freedom in every age.
source
“We want no Gestapo or secret police. The FBI is tending in that direction. They are dabbling in sex-life scandals and plain blackmail. J. Edgar Hoover would give his right eye to take over, and all congressmen and senators are afraid of him.”—President Harry S. Truman“Don’t Be a Puppet” is the message the FBI is sending young Americans.
As part of the government’s so-called ongoing war on terror, the nation’s de facto secret police force is now recruiting students and teachers to spy on each other and report anyone who appears to have the potential to be “anti-government” or “extremist.”
Using the terms “anti-government,” “extremist” and “terrorist” interchangeably, the government continues to add to its growing list of characteristics that could distinguish an individual as a potential domestic terrorist.
For instance, you might be a domestic terrorist in the eyes of the FBI (and its network of snitches) if you:
- express libertarian philosophies (statements, bumper stickers)
- exhibit Second Amendment-oriented views (NRA or gun club membership)
- read survivalist literature, including apocalyptic fictional books
- show signs of self-sufficiency (stockpiling food, ammo, hand tools, medical supplies)
- fear an economic collapse
- buy gold and barter items
- subscribe to religious views concerning the book of Revelation
- voice fears about Big Brother or big government
- expound about constitutional rights and civil liberties
- believe in a New World Order conspiracy
There’s no need.
The nation’s largest law enforcement agency rivals the NSA in resources, technology, intelligence, and power. Yet while the NSA has repeatedly come under fire for its domestic spying programs, the FBI has continued to operate its subversive and clearly unconstitutional programs with little significant oversight or push-back from the public, Congress or the courts. Just recently, for example, a secret court gave the agency the green light to quietly change its privacy rules for accessing NSA data on Americans’ international communications.
Indeed, as I point out in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, the FBI has become the embodiment of how power, once acquired, can be easily corrupted and abused.
When and if a true history of the FBI is ever written, it will not only track the rise of the American police state but it will also chart the decline of freedom in America.
Owing largely to the influence and power of the FBI, the United States—once a nation that abided by the rule of law and held the government accountable for its actions—has steadily devolved into a police state where justice is one-sided, a corporate elite runs the show, representative government is a mockery, police are extensions of the military, surveillance is rampant, privacy is extinct, and the law is little more than a tool for the government to browbeat the people into compliance.
The FBI’s laundry list of crimes against the American people includes surveillance, disinformation, blackmail, entrapment, intimidation tactics, harassment and indoctrination, governmental overreach, abuse, misconduct, trespassing, enabling criminal activity, and damaging private property.
And that’s just based on what we know.
Whether the FBI is planting undercover agents in churches, synagogues and mosques; issuing fake emergency letters to gain access to Americans’ phone records; using intimidation tactics to silence Americans who are critical of the government; recruiting high school students to spy on and report fellow students who show signs of being future terrorists; or persuading impressionable individuals to plot acts of terror and then entrapping them, the overall impression of the nation’s secret police force is that of a well-dressed thug, flexing its muscles and doing the boss’ dirty work of ensuring compliance, keeping tabs on potential dissidents, and punishing those who dare to challenge the status quo.
The FBI was established in 1908 as a small task force assigned to deal with specific domestic crimes. Initially quite limited in its abilities to investigate so-called domestic crimes, the FBI has been transformed into a mammoth federal policing and surveillance agency. Unfortunately, whatever minimal restrictions kept the FBI’s surveillance activities within the bounds of the law all but disappeared in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. The USA Patriot Act gave the FBI and other intelligence agencies carte blanche authority in investigating Americans suspected of being anti-government.
As the FBI’s powers have grown, its abuses have mounted.
The FBI continues to monitor Americans engaged in lawful First Amendment activities.
COINTELPRO, the FBI program created to “disrupt, misdirect, discredit, and neutralize” groups and individuals the government considers politically objectionable, was aimed not so much at the criminal element but at those who challenged the status quo—namely, those expressing anti-government sentiments such as Martin Luther King Jr. and John Lennon. It continues to this day, albeit in other guises.
The FBI has become a master in the art of entrapment.
In the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks the FBI has not only targeted vulnerable individuals but has also lured them into fake terror plots while actually equipping them with the organization, money, weapons and motivation to carry out the plots—entrapment—and then jailing them for their so-called terrorist plotting. This is what the FBI characterizes as “forward leaning—preventative—prosecutions.”
FBI agents are among the nation’s most notorious lawbreakers.
In addition to creating certain crimes in order to then “solve” them, the FBI also gives certain informants permission to break the law, “including everything from buying and selling illegal drugs to bribing government officials and plotting robberies,” in exchange for their cooperation on other fronts. USA Today estimates that agents have authorized criminals to engage in as many as 15 crimes a day. Some of these informants are getting paid astronomical sums: one particularly unsavory fellow, later arrested for attempting to run over a police officer, was actually paid $85,000 for his help laying the trap for an entrapment scheme.
The FBI’s powers, expanded after 9/11, have given its agents carte blanche access to Americans’ most personal information.
The agency’s National Security Letters, one of the many illicit powers authorized by the USA Patriot Act, allows the FBI to secretly demand that banks, phone companies, and other businesses provide them with customer information and not disclose the demands. An internal audit of the agency found that the FBI practice of issuing tens of thousands of NSLs every year for sensitive information such as phone and financial records, often in non-emergency cases, is riddled with widespread violations.
The FBI’s spying capabilities are on a par with the NSA.
The FBI’s surveillance technology boasts an invasive collection of spy tools ranging from Stingray devices that can track the location of cell phones to Triggerfish devices which allow agents to eavesdrop on phone calls. In one case, the FBI actually managed to remotely reprogram a “suspect’s” wireless internet card so that it would send “real-time cell-site location data to Verizon, which forwarded the data to the FBI.”
The FBI’s hacking powers have gotten downright devious.
FBI agents not only have the ability to hack into any computer, anywhere in the world, but they can also control that computer and all its stored information, download its digital contents, switch its camera or microphone on or off and even control other computers in its network. Given the breadth of the agency’s powers, the showdown between Apple and the FBI over customer privacy appears to be more spectacle than substance.
James Comey, current director of the FBI, knows enough to say all the right things about the need to abide by the Constitution, all the while his agency routinely discards it. Comey argues that the government’s powers shouldn’t be limited, especially when it comes to carrying out surveillance on American citizens. Comey continues to lobby Congress and the White House to force technology companies such as Apple and Google to keep providing the government with backdoor access to Americans’ cell phones.
The FBI’s reach is more invasive than ever.
This is largely due to the agency’s nearly unlimited resources (its minimum budget alone in fiscal year 2015 was $8.3 billion), the government's vast arsenal of technology, the interconnectedness of government intelligence agencies, and information sharing through fusion centers—data collecting intelligence agencies spread throughout the country that constantly monitor communications (including those of American citizens), everything from internet activity and web searches to text messages, phone calls and emails.
Today, the FBI employs more than 35,000 individuals and operates more than 56 field offices in major cities across the U.S., as well as 400 resident agencies in smaller towns, and more than 50 international offices. In addition to their “data campus,” which houses more than 96 million sets of fingerprints from across the United States and elsewhere, the FBI is also, according to The Washington Post, “building a vast repository controlled by people who work in a top-secret vault on the fourth floor of the J. Edgar Hoover FBI Building in Washington. This one stores the profiles of tens of thousands of Americans and legal residents who are not accused of any crime. What they have done is appear to be acting suspiciously to a town sheriff, a traffic cop or even a neighbor.”
If there’s one word to describe the FBI’s covert tactics, it’s creepy.
The agency’s biometric database has grown to massive proportions, the largest in the world, encompassing everything from fingerprints, palm, face and iris scans to DNA, and is being increasingly shared between federal, state and local law enforcement agencies in an effort to target potential criminals long before they ever commit a crime.
This is what’s known as pre-crime.
If it were just about fighting the “bad guys,” that would be one thing. But as countless documents make clear, the FBI has no qualms about using its extensive powers in order to blackmail politicians, spy on celebrities and high-ranking government officials, and intimidate dissidents of all stripes.
It’s an old tactic, used effectively by former authoritarian regimes.
In fact, as historian Robert Gellately documents, the Nazi police state was repeatedly touted as a model for other nations to follow, so much so that Hoover actually sent one of his right-hand men, Edmund Patrick Coffey, to Berlin in January 1938 at the invitation of Germany’s secret police. As Gellately noted, “[A]fter five years of Hitler’s dictatorship, the Nazi police had won the FBI’s seal of approval.”
Indeed, so impressed was the FBI with the Nazi order that, as the New York Times revealed, in the decades after World War II, the FBI, along with other government agencies, aggressively recruited at least a thousand Nazis, including some of Hitler’s highest henchmen, brought them to America, hired them on as spies and informants, and then carried out a massive cover-up campaign to ensure that their true identities and ties to Hitler’s holocaust machine would remain unknown. Moreover, anyone who dared to blow the whistle on the FBI’s illicit Nazi ties found himself spied upon, intimidated, harassed and labeled a threat to national security.
So not only have American taxpayers been paying to keep ex-Nazis on the government payroll for decades but we’ve been subjected to the very same tactics used by the Third Reich: surveillance, militarized police, overcriminalization, and a government mindset that views itself as operating outside the bounds of the law.
This is how freedom falls, and tyrants come to power.
The similarities between the American police state and past totalitarian regimes such as Nazi Germany grow more pronounced with each passing day.
Secret police. Secret courts. Secret government agencies. Surveillance. Intimidation. Harassment. Torture. Brutality. Widespread corruption. Entrapment. Indoctrination. These are the hallmarks of every authoritarian regime from the Roman Empire to modern-day America.
Yet it’s the secret police—tasked with silencing dissidents, ensuring compliance, and maintaining a climate of fear—who sound the death knell for freedom in every age.
source
Monday, February 8, 2016
Another Cook County attack on gun rights
Via Chicago Sun-Times
A letter to the editor...
The Cook County Board has a proposed ordinance before it which will attempt to restrict the 2nd Amendment rights of all law-abiding citizens in Cook County. The ordinance calls for the “prohibitions on the sale of firearm to, and purchase of firearm by, a person not covered by appropriate liability insurance.”
This means Cook County residents would not be able to purchase and own a firearm without first acquiring firearm liability insurance.
The sponsor and others would like to compare firearm
liability insurance to having car insurance, which is like comparing
apples to oranges. A right granted by the 2nd
Amendment allows United States citizens to possess and own a firearm.
Driving a motor vehicle is a privilege granted by state law, not a right
covered under the United States Constitution.
The intention of the ordinance’s sponsor is to have a major
impact on gun violence. An admirable thought, however you must ask how
will this ordinance have any impact on gun-wielding criminals? The
truthful answer is it won’t. It’s a false notion to think that violent
criminals who are already breaking the law will stop and contemplate the
purchase of firearm liability insurance before committing their next
crime. Moreover, nearly all insurance policy coverage excludes criminal
acts from their coverage obligation.
If this ordinance were passed, litigation would certainly
follow in opposition to its constitutionality, which would mean a long
and costly legal defense for Cook County taxpayers. There is a reason
why this type of legislation has failed nearly everywhere it has been
introduced across the country.
This ordinance would not address violent criminal behavior,
but would instead restrict the constitutional rights of law-abiding
citizens. I believe this is an unconstitutional overreach by government
which I strongly oppose.
We need to focus our efforts on preventative measures that
are truly substantive in nature and that will deter individuals away
from crime. We can do so by beginning to promote strong family
structure, by supporting the concept of community members turning in
known criminals and through increasing educational and employment
opportunities. Preventing criminal behavior must be the driving force to
addressing violent crime, rather than ineffective legislation placed
upon the citizen taxpayer without regard to consequence.
Sean M. Morrison
Cook County Commissioner
17th District
Cook County Commissioner
17th District
Tuesday, January 5, 2016
NRA Statement on President Obama’s Proposed Executive Actions on Gun Control
Fairfax, Va. – The executive director of
the National Rifle Association’s Institute for Legislative Action, Chris
W. Cox, released the following statement on Tuesday regarding President
Barack Obama’s Executive Gun Control Order:
Once again, President Obama has chosen to engage in
political rhetoric, instead of offering meaningful solutions to our
nation’s pressing problems. Today’s
event also represents an ongoing attempt to distract attention away
from his lack of a coherent strategy to keep the American people safe
from terrorist attack.
The American people do not need more emotional, condescending lectures that are completely devoid of facts. The men and women of the National Rifle Association take a back seat to no one when it comes to keeping our communities safe. But the fact is that President Obama’s proposals would not have prevented any of the horrific events he mentioned. The
timing of this announcement, in the eighth and final year of his
presidency, demonstrates not only political exploitation but a
fundamental lack of
seriousness.
The proposed executive actions are ripe for abuse by the
Obama Administration, which has made no secret of its contempt for the
Second Amendment. The NRA will continue to fight to protect the
fundamental, individual Right to Keep and Bear Arms as guaranteed under
our Constitution. We will
not allow law-abiding gun owners to be harassed or intimidated for
engaging in lawful, constitutionally-protected activity – nor will we
allow them to become scapegoats for President Obama’s failed policies.
Monday, December 28, 2015
Right to Bear Arms: Limited or Not?
The fascinating part about this argument is that it is true, and the founders themselves would be absolutely horrified by the level of restriction we have placed on arms. A common Progressive argument is that the right to bear arms only applied to an “organized militia.” This is made without the understanding that every able-bodied man of military age was considered, de facto, a part of the militia. Another common argument is that the right only applied to “muskets” or other period firearms. Semi-automatics, revolvers, repeaters, etc… were not envisioned, they say.
Read the rest @ Declination here
Sunday, December 27, 2015
The loose use of government lists Unreliable databases can punish more law-abiding citizens than terrorists
Federal government lists are vulnerable to inaccuracy, and misuse by
politicians to push political agendas. The proposal to use the no-fly
list as the basis for stripping U.S. citizens of constitutional rights
is a case in point. Regardless of one’s position on gun control, using a
secret government process to tinker with the Bill of Rights is wrong,
and very dangerous.
“What could possibly be the argument for allowing a terrorist suspect to buy a semi-automatic weapon?” President Obama recently asked, suggesting falsely the no-fly list is a list of known terrorists, inferring that using it would have made a difference in San Bernardino, although the names of neither of the San Bernardino terrorists appeared on it. In his exploitation of yet another terrible gun tragedy, the president has created a false argument, politician-speak, internally consistent, but based on untruths. Who indeed would argue for allowing terrorists to buy semi-automatic weapons?
The problem is not people the president would have you believe want terrorists to have guns, but politicians, lacking imagination, who want to use a flawed, unreliable, secret government process to brand U.S. citizens as terrorists, without a court hearing, and then deny them their constitutional rights.
The no-fly list is demonstrably inaccurate, a product of subjective decision-making, using the lowest possible legal standard of proof, to identify people “reasonably suspected to have engaged in terrorism or related activities.” The courts recognize the standard, but it is not enough to arrest or indict anyone, or even get a search warrant, much less a criminal conviction. It’s best described as gut instinct, the kind that allows a police officer who sees something not quite right to stop people briefly, and question them about what’s going on. The president would use gut instinct to tinker with fundamental freedoms.
There is no shortage of stories about Americans wronged by the no-fly list: children under 5, a Marine returning from Iraq, a brigadier general, Sen. Ted Kennedy, Rep. John Lewis, Rep. John Young, reputable journalists, outspoken political figures, the list goes on and on. In some cases, the mistake is so egregious that it helps the victim to muscle their way through an opaque bureaucracy to get off the list, but that is not true for most folks. For them, redress is virtually nonexistent, a fact recognized as a violation of the Constitution by at least two federal courts. A classified government document, leaked in 2014, showed that about 40 percent of people on the watch list had “no recognized terrorist group affiliation.” This is the president’s list of “terrorist suspects.”
Read more @ The Washington Times here
“What could possibly be the argument for allowing a terrorist suspect to buy a semi-automatic weapon?” President Obama recently asked, suggesting falsely the no-fly list is a list of known terrorists, inferring that using it would have made a difference in San Bernardino, although the names of neither of the San Bernardino terrorists appeared on it. In his exploitation of yet another terrible gun tragedy, the president has created a false argument, politician-speak, internally consistent, but based on untruths. Who indeed would argue for allowing terrorists to buy semi-automatic weapons?
The problem is not people the president would have you believe want terrorists to have guns, but politicians, lacking imagination, who want to use a flawed, unreliable, secret government process to brand U.S. citizens as terrorists, without a court hearing, and then deny them their constitutional rights.
The no-fly list is demonstrably inaccurate, a product of subjective decision-making, using the lowest possible legal standard of proof, to identify people “reasonably suspected to have engaged in terrorism or related activities.” The courts recognize the standard, but it is not enough to arrest or indict anyone, or even get a search warrant, much less a criminal conviction. It’s best described as gut instinct, the kind that allows a police officer who sees something not quite right to stop people briefly, and question them about what’s going on. The president would use gut instinct to tinker with fundamental freedoms.
There is no shortage of stories about Americans wronged by the no-fly list: children under 5, a Marine returning from Iraq, a brigadier general, Sen. Ted Kennedy, Rep. John Lewis, Rep. John Young, reputable journalists, outspoken political figures, the list goes on and on. In some cases, the mistake is so egregious that it helps the victim to muscle their way through an opaque bureaucracy to get off the list, but that is not true for most folks. For them, redress is virtually nonexistent, a fact recognized as a violation of the Constitution by at least two federal courts. A classified government document, leaked in 2014, showed that about 40 percent of people on the watch list had “no recognized terrorist group affiliation.” This is the president’s list of “terrorist suspects.”
Read more @ The Washington Times here
New York: Legislators Propose Outrageous Ammunition Restriction Legislation
Via NRA-ILA
Two New York legislators have announced that they are introducing legislation in 2016 that would severely limit ammunition purchases. State Senator Roxanne Persaud (D-19) and Assemblywoman Jo Anne Simon (D-52) want to pass a law that would limit ammo purchases to twice the capacity of the firearm during a 90-day period (3 months)!
Undeterred by the failed SAFE Act, anti-gun lawmakers in Albany seem determined to pursue the same failed policies and will not stop until the Second Amendment is completely dismantled. The SAFE Act has done nothing to lower crime in New York and has turned law-abiding citizens into criminals. The SAFE Act had its own ammunition restrictions and required ammunition background checks which were suspended after Governor Cuomo embarrassingly realized that such a system was impractical. In addition, the last attempt to regulate how many rounds a person could load into a gun was overturned by a Federal District Court in New York and ruled unconstitutional. Persaud and Simon are justifying this bill by pointing to terrorism, as if terrorists are going to voluntarily ration ammunition. There are so many problems with this legislation that it would be impossible to highlight them all herein. Again, for the sake of New York citizens, we would hope legislators start focusing on the serious issues facing the state and stop introducing these embarrassing ideas.
It’s readily evident that the two lawmakers know next to nothing about the subject of firearms and ammunition. Manufacturers don’t even package ammunition with such a random number of cartridges in many cases. This is one of the most absurd bills being introduced in the entire country. However, because anti-gun legislators in New York have a history of defying logic, we will treat this legislation as another serious attempt to infringe on your constitutional right to self-defense.
Two New York legislators have announced that they are introducing legislation in 2016 that would severely limit ammunition purchases. State Senator Roxanne Persaud (D-19) and Assemblywoman Jo Anne Simon (D-52) want to pass a law that would limit ammo purchases to twice the capacity of the firearm during a 90-day period (3 months)!
Undeterred by the failed SAFE Act, anti-gun lawmakers in Albany seem determined to pursue the same failed policies and will not stop until the Second Amendment is completely dismantled. The SAFE Act has done nothing to lower crime in New York and has turned law-abiding citizens into criminals. The SAFE Act had its own ammunition restrictions and required ammunition background checks which were suspended after Governor Cuomo embarrassingly realized that such a system was impractical. In addition, the last attempt to regulate how many rounds a person could load into a gun was overturned by a Federal District Court in New York and ruled unconstitutional. Persaud and Simon are justifying this bill by pointing to terrorism, as if terrorists are going to voluntarily ration ammunition. There are so many problems with this legislation that it would be impossible to highlight them all herein. Again, for the sake of New York citizens, we would hope legislators start focusing on the serious issues facing the state and stop introducing these embarrassing ideas.
It’s readily evident that the two lawmakers know next to nothing about the subject of firearms and ammunition. Manufacturers don’t even package ammunition with such a random number of cartridges in many cases. This is one of the most absurd bills being introduced in the entire country. However, because anti-gun legislators in New York have a history of defying logic, we will treat this legislation as another serious attempt to infringe on your constitutional right to self-defense.
A year of reckoning: Police fatally shoot nearly 1,000
Nearly a thousand times this year, an American police officer has shot and killed a civilian.
When the people hired to protect their
communities end up killing someone, they can be called heroes or
criminals — a judgment that has never come more quickly or searingly
than in this era of viral video, body cameras and dash cams. A single
bullet fired at the adrenaline-charged apex of a chase can end a life,
wreck a career, spark a riot, spike racial tensions and alter the
politics of the nation.
In a year-long study, The Washington Post found that the kind of
incidents that have ignited protests in many U.S. communities — most
often, white police officers killing unarmed black men — represent less
than 4 percent of fatal police shootings. Meanwhile, The Post found that
the great majority of people who died at the hands of the police fit at
least one of three categories: they were wielding weapons, they were
suicidal or mentally troubled, or they ran when officers told them to
halt.The Post sought to compile a record of every fatal police shooting in the nation in 2015, something no government agency had done. The project began after a police officer shot and killed Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., in August 2014, provoking several nights of fiery riots, weeks of protests and a national reckoning with the nexus of race, crime and police use of force.
Race remains the most volatile flash point in any accounting of police shootings. Although black men make up only 6 percent of the U.S. population, they account for 40 percent of the unarmed men shot to death by police this year, The Post’s database shows. In the majority of cases in which police shot and killed a person who had attacked someone with a weapon or brandished a gun, the person who was shot was white. But a hugely disproportionate number — 3 in 5 — of those killed after exhibiting less threatening behavior were black or Hispanic.
Regardless of race, in more than a quarter of cases, the fatal
encounter involved officers pursuing someone on foot or by car — making
chases one of the most common scenarios in the data. Some police chiefs
and training experts say more restrictive rules on when to give chase
could prevent unnecessary shootings.
Like a growing number of police shootings, the death of David Kassick
on a snow-covered field near his sister’s house in Hummelstown, Pa.,
was captured on video — a technological shift that has dramatically
altered how Americans perceive officers’ use of deadly force.
In two minutes and 10 seconds of harrowing footage, the Kassick video serves as an almost perfect Rorschach test in the national debate over when it is justifiable for an officer to take a life.
Lots more @ WaPo here
In two minutes and 10 seconds of harrowing footage, the Kassick video serves as an almost perfect Rorschach test in the national debate over when it is justifiable for an officer to take a life.
Lots more @ WaPo here
Lawsuits seek to abolish country’s bail bond system
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Crystal
Patterson didn’t have the cash or assets to post $150,000 bail and get
out of jail after her arrest for assault in October.
So Patterson, 39, promised to
pay a bail bonds company $15,000 plus interest to put up the $150,000
bail for her, allowing to go home and care for her invalid grandmother.
The day after her release, the
district attorney decided not to pursue charges. But Patterson still
owes the bail bonds company. Criminal justice reformers and lawyers at a
nonprofit Washington, D.C., legal clinic say that is unconstitutionally
unfair.
The lawyers have filed a class
action lawsuit on behalf of Patterson, Rianna Buffin and other jail
inmates who argue that San Francisco and California’s bail system
unconstitutionally treats poor and wealthy suspects differently.
Wealthy suspects can put up their
houses or other valuable assets — or simply write a check — to post
bail and stay out of jail until their cases are resolved. Poorer
suspects aren’t so lucky. Many remain behind bars or pay nonrefundable
fees to bail bonds companies.
San Francisco public defender
Chesa Boudin says some of his clients who can’t afford to post bail
plead guilty to minor charges for crimes they didn’t commit so they can
leave jail.
Boudin represented Buffin, 19,
after her arrest for grand theft in October. Buffin couldn’t afford to
post the $30,000 bail or pay a bond company a $3,000 fee and so
contemplated pleading guilty in exchange for a quick release from jail
even though she says her only crime was being with the “wrong people at
the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Fortunately, the district attorney declined to charge Buffin and she was released after being held for three days.
“My family was worried,” said
Ruffin, who lost her $10.50 an hour baggage handler job at the Oakland
International Airport after her arrest.
The lawsuit filed by the Equal
Justice Under Law in San Francisco federal court in October seeks to
abolish the cash bail system in the city, state — and the country. It’s
the ninth lawsuit the center has filed in seven states.
“The bail system in most states
is a two-tiered system,” said center founder Phil Telfeyan. “One for the
wealthy and one for everyone else.”
Telfeyan said a win in
California could add momentum to the center’s goal to rid the country of
the cash bail system, which the lawyers say is used by most county
jails in all 50 states. The federal system usually allows non-violent
suspects free without bail pending trial and denies bail to serious and
violent suspects.
“The country watches what
happens in California,” said Telfeyan, a former Department of Justice
attorney who founded the Washington organization in 2013 with a partner
and the first-ever grant from the Harvard Law School Public Service
Venture Fund in 2013.
Telfeyan said it’s not his goal
to put out of business the classic neon-advertising bail bonding
industry, but conceded the business model would become obsolete if he
convinces courts that the cash bail system is unconstitutional.
The industry didn’t acknowledge Telfeyan’s first lawsuits filed earlier this year.
But on Monday, lawyers for the
California Bail Agents Association filed court papers seeking to
formally oppose the San Francisco lawsuit. The association argues that
government lawyers for San Francisco and the state are offering only
“tepid” opposition to the California lawsuit.
San Francisco Sheriff Ross
Mirkarimi argues that most jail inmates are awaiting resolution of
minor, non-violent crimes and that letting them free while awaiting
court hearings will save the city millions of dollars. Mirkarimi said
non-violent suspects can be monitored electronically and with frequent
visits from law enforcement officials to ensure they don’t flee the area
and attend all their court hearings.
In January, Telfeyan and his
colleagues from Equal Justice Under Law will ask a judge to temporarily
suspend San Francisco’s cash bail system until the lawsuit is resolved.
Telfeyan said a victory in San Francisco and the elimination of cash
bail in the city will most likely lead to the abolition of cash bail in
all of the state’s 58 counties.
Maggie Kreins, who is president
of bail agents group, the says the longtime system of putting up money
or an insurance-backed bail bond is better at getting people to show up
in court and it saves the public costs of monitoring defendants or
hunting down bail jumpers.
Kreins said that California’s
“bail schedule” could be reformed to lower bail amounts for minor
crimes, but that scrapping the system completely would be a mistake.
“What is the incentive to go to court if you don’t lose anything for failing to appear?” Kreins said.
Friday, December 25, 2015
Merry Christmas from the Police State – Cops Have Now Killed Someone In All 50 States
On Tuesday, December 22nd, 56-year-old
Kenneth Stephens was gunned down by law enforcement officers executing a
no-knock raid at his Burlington, Vermont apartment.
Federal, State, and local authorities executed the warrant, reportedly looking for evidence of drug trafficking. “Officers executing the search warrant confronted a male subject inside the residence,” according to a statement from State Police official Major Glenn Hall. He continued, “Officers discharged multiple rounds at the subject, resulting in his death. None of the officers involved were injured.” According to the initial DEA complaint written by Agent Robert Estes, Stephens was suspected of having a gun in his home. Due to this information, police no doubt conducted this raid with the pretext of encountering an armed suspect.
Although police initially refused to say if Stephens was armed or had fired at officers, officials stated the following day that he had pointed a muzzle loading rifle at the band of armed gang members, but did not fire at them when they invaded his home. In response, DEA Special Agent Tim Hoffmann and Trooper Matthew Cannon fired 13 shots at the man, at least one of which missed the suspect and hit a neighbor’s home, nearly striking a resident.
This prompted Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger to request a federal investigation into the shooting. Weinberger, who was elected to a second term earlier this year, said in a statement, “I am very concerned that bullets from the law enforcement operation left Mr. Stephens’ apartment and strayed into another home.”
According to Weinberger, the DEA announced that they will vigorously investigate themselves, telling Burlington Police Chief Brandon del Pozo,
Read more here
Federal, State, and local authorities executed the warrant, reportedly looking for evidence of drug trafficking. “Officers executing the search warrant confronted a male subject inside the residence,” according to a statement from State Police official Major Glenn Hall. He continued, “Officers discharged multiple rounds at the subject, resulting in his death. None of the officers involved were injured.” According to the initial DEA complaint written by Agent Robert Estes, Stephens was suspected of having a gun in his home. Due to this information, police no doubt conducted this raid with the pretext of encountering an armed suspect.
Although police initially refused to say if Stephens was armed or had fired at officers, officials stated the following day that he had pointed a muzzle loading rifle at the band of armed gang members, but did not fire at them when they invaded his home. In response, DEA Special Agent Tim Hoffmann and Trooper Matthew Cannon fired 13 shots at the man, at least one of which missed the suspect and hit a neighbor’s home, nearly striking a resident.
This prompted Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger to request a federal investigation into the shooting. Weinberger, who was elected to a second term earlier this year, said in a statement, “I am very concerned that bullets from the law enforcement operation left Mr. Stephens’ apartment and strayed into another home.”
According to Weinberger, the DEA announced that they will vigorously investigate themselves, telling Burlington Police Chief Brandon del Pozo,
“The DEA’s Office of Inspector General will perform a serious after-action review of this incident so that all agencies involved in protecting the public in this City can benefit from its lessons.”Kenneth Stephens was the 1174th person killed by police in 2015. His tragic death marks the first killing of a citizen, by police, in the state of Vermont this year. One day after Kenneth’s murder, a candlelight vigil was held to commemorate his life and protest the tactics used by police.
Read more here
Wednesday, December 2, 2015
The Volokh Conspiracy-The costs and consequences of gun control
Today the Cato Institute published my monograph “The Costs and Consequences of Gun Control.”
The policy analysis examines several gun control proposals which have
been promoted by the Obama administration and the gun control lobby:
bans on so-called assault weapons; bans on standard magazines;
confiscation; and the prohibition of all private sales, loans and
returns, except when processed by a gun store. After explaining why each
of these proposals is likely to do little good and much harm, the paper
discusses realistic alternatives which really can save lives. The most
important of these is providing a much broader safety net for people
seeking help for severe mental illness. In addition, respecting the
right to bear arms has been demonstrated to be successful in thwarting
would-be mass murderers.
Prohibiting certain guns or magazines will be futile without confiscation of such arms currently owned by citizens; so said a 2013 memo by Greg Ridgeway, acting director of the National Institute of Justice (the research arm of the Justice Department). Likewise, the NIJ memo explained that “universal” background checks are useless without comprehensive registration of all guns and all gun owners. Yet Americans have historically resisted gun registration, precisely because of concerns about confiscation. These concerns are not unfounded; registration lists have been used to enforce confiscation in New York City, in Australia and in Great Britain. In Australia, the confiscation was euphemistically called a “buy back,” although it was in fact involuntary confiscation, with only partial compensation paid for the confiscated items.
Read more @ The Volokh Conspiracy here
Prohibiting certain guns or magazines will be futile without confiscation of such arms currently owned by citizens; so said a 2013 memo by Greg Ridgeway, acting director of the National Institute of Justice (the research arm of the Justice Department). Likewise, the NIJ memo explained that “universal” background checks are useless without comprehensive registration of all guns and all gun owners. Yet Americans have historically resisted gun registration, precisely because of concerns about confiscation. These concerns are not unfounded; registration lists have been used to enforce confiscation in New York City, in Australia and in Great Britain. In Australia, the confiscation was euphemistically called a “buy back,” although it was in fact involuntary confiscation, with only partial compensation paid for the confiscated items.
Read more @ The Volokh Conspiracy here
Monday, August 24, 2015
The Raping of America: Mile Markers on the Road to Fascism
There’s an ill will blowing across the country. The economy is tanking. The people are directionless, and politics provides no answer. And like former regimes, the militarized police have stepped up to provide a façade of law and order manifested by an overt violence against the citizenry.By John W. Whitehead“Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.”—Martin Luther King Jr.
August 24, 2015
Despite the revelations of the past several years, nothing has changed to push back against the American police state. Our freedoms—especially the Fourth Amendment—continue to be choked out by a prevailing view among government bureaucrats that they have the right to search, seize, strip, scan, spy on, probe, pat down, taser, and arrest any individual at any time and for the slightest provocation.
Despite the recent outrage and protests, nothing has changed to restore us to our rightful role as having dominion over our bodies, our lives and our property, especially when it comes to interactions with the government.
Forced cavity searches, forced colonoscopies, forced blood draws, forced breath-alcohol tests, forced DNA extractions, forced eye scans, forced inclusion in biometric databases—these are just a few ways in which Americans continue to be reminded that we have no control over what happens to our bodies during an encounter with government officials. Thus far, the courts have done little to preserve our Fourth Amendment rights, let alone what shreds of bodily integrity remain to us.
Indeed, on a daily basis, Americans are being forced to relinquish the most intimate details of who we are—our biological makeup, our genetic blueprints, and our biometrics (facial characteristics and structure, fingerprints, iris scans, etc.)—in order to clear the nearly insurmountable hurdle that increasingly defines life in the United States.
In other words, we are all guilty until proven innocent.
Worst of all, it seems as if nothing will change as long as the American people remain distracted by politics, divided by their own prejudices, and brainwashed into believing that the Constitution still reigns supreme as the law of the land, when in fact, we have almost completed the shift into fascism.
In other words, despite our occasional bursts of outrage over abusive police practices, sporadic calls for government reform, and periodic bouts of awareness that all is not what it seems, the police state continues to march steadily onward.
Such is life in America today that individuals are being threatened with arrest and carted off to jail for the least hint of noncompliance, homes are being raided by police under the slightest pretext, and roadside police stops have devolved into government-sanctioned exercises in humiliation and degradation with a complete disregard for privacy and human dignity.
Consider, for example, what happened to Charnesia Corley after allegedly being pulled over by Texas police for “rolling” through a stop sign. Claiming they smelled marijuana, police handcuffed Corley, placed her in the back of the police cruiser, and then searched her car for almost an hour. They found nothing in the car.
As the Houston Chronicle reported:
Returning to his car where Corley was held, the deputy again said he smelled marijuana and called in a female deputy to conduct a cavity search. When the female deputy arrived, she told Corley to pull her pants down, but Corley protested because she was cuffed and had no underwear on. The deputy ordered Corley to bend over, pulled down her pants and began to search her. Then…Corley stood up and protested, so the deputy threw her to the ground and restrained her while another female was called in to assist. When backup arrived, each deputy held one of Corley’s legs apart to conduct the probe.As shocking and disturbing as it seems, Corley’s roadside cavity search is becoming par for the course in an age in which police are taught to have no respect for the citizenry’s bodily integrity.
For instance, 38-year-old Angel Dobbs and her 24-year-old niece, Ashley, were pulled over by a Texas state trooper on July 13, 2012, allegedly for flicking cigarette butts out of the car window. Insisting that he smelled marijuana, he proceeded to interrogate them and search the car. Despite the fact that both women denied smoking or possessing any marijuana, the police officer then called in a female trooper, who carried out a roadside cavity search, sticking her fingers into the older woman’s anus and vagina, then performing the same procedure on the younger woman, wearing the same pair of gloves. No marijuana was found.
David Eckert was forced to undergo an anal cavity search, three enemas, and a colonoscopy after allegedly failing to yield to a stop sign at a Wal-Mart parking lot. Cops justified the searches on the grounds that they suspected Eckert was carrying drugs because his “posture [was] erect” and “he kept his legs together.” No drugs were found.
Leila Tarantino was subjected to two roadside strip searches in plain view of passing traffic during a routine traffic stop, while her two children—ages 1 and 4—waited inside her car. During the second strip search, presumably in an effort to ferret out drugs, a female officer “forcibly removed” a tampon from Tarantino. Nothing illegal was found. Nevertheless, such searches have been sanctioned by the courts, especially if accompanied by a search warrant (which is easily procured), as justified in the government’s pursuit of drugs and weapons.
Meanwhile, four Milwaukee police officers were charged with carrying out rectal searches of suspects on the street and in police district stations over the course of several years. One of the officers was accused of conducting searches of men’s anal and scrotal areas, often inserting his fingers into their rectums and leaving some of his victims with bleeding rectums. Halfway across the country, the city of Oakland, California, agreed to pay $4.6 million to 39 men who had their pants pulled down by police on city streets between 2002 and 2009.
It’s gotten so bad that you don’t even have to be suspected of possessing drugs to be subjected to a strip search.
In the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Florence v. Burlison, any person who is arrested and processed at a jail house, regardless of the severity of his or her offense (i.e., they can be guilty of nothing more than a minor traffic offense), can be subjected to a strip search by police or jail officials without reasonable suspicion that the arrestee is carrying a weapon or contraband.
Examples of minor infractions which have resulted in strip searches include: individuals arrested for driving with a noisy muffler, driving with an inoperable headlight, failing to use a turn signal, riding a bicycle without an audible bell, making an improper left turn, engaging in an antiwar demonstration (the individual searched was a nun, a Sister of Divine Providence for 50 years). Police have also carried out strip searches for passing a bad check, dog leash violations, filing a false police report, failing to produce a driver’s license after making an illegal left turn, having outstanding parking tickets, and public intoxication. A failure to pay child support can also result in a strip search.
It must be remembered that the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was intended to prevent government agents from searching an individual’s person or property without a warrant and probable cause (evidence that some kind of criminal activity was afoot). While the literal purpose of the amendment is to protect our property and our bodies from unwarranted government intrusion, the moral intention behind it is to protect our human dignity.
Unfortunately, the indignities being heaped upon us by the architects and agents of the American police state—whether or not we’ve done anything wrong—don’t end with roadside strip searches. They’re just a foretaste of what is to come.
Read the whole thing Here
Thursday, August 6, 2015
Cornyn’s NRA-Backed Mental Health Bill Needs to Address Key Questions
Via David Codrea
“A+”-rated* Sen. John Cornyn has the National Rifle Association’s backing for a “modest” bill “that would reward states for sending more information about residents with serious mental problems to the federal background check system for firearms purchasers,” Fox News is reporting. The legislation is generating no small amount of debate among gun rights advocates, with some supporting it as a pragmatic move designed to thwart more draconian proposals, and others characterizing it as a preemptive surrender (and worse).
Without getting into that debate, because there will be plenty of others weighing in on both sides, I’d instead like to just ask a few questions that all who are interested in due process ought to be interested in seeing answered. By way of disclosure, my longstanding contention is that anyone who can’t be trusted with a gun can’t be trusted without a custodian, but that’s not likely to be reflected in social policy anytime soon, so it’s not the focus here.
Backers of the bill tell us “due process” protections will be increased for veterans and others under Cornyn’s bill. Per his spokesman, “This bill codifies into law that individuals must get their day in court they’re entitled to, and no agency or state can make their own determination without that.”
It would help if we knew what protections equivalent to those provided in a jury trial that will provide. Specifically, will decisions rely on those who may have biases of their own, as can currently be the case, with ATF’s “clarifying the term ‘adjudicated as a mental defective’ to mean a determination by a court, board, commission or other lawful authority,” and with some states applying even broader “standards”?
What protections will exist to offset politically-connected anti-gun judges, politically-appointed boards, and “expert” adherents of the American Psychiatric Association’s “Position Statement on Firearm Access, Acts of Violence and the Relationship to Mental Illness and Mental Health Services.” It’s fair to ask, because APA includes in its advocacy platform registration-enabling, background checks, “smart” guns, storage requirements, “gun-free” zones, doctor-patient boundary violations, tax-funded anti-gun “studies,” all outside the scope of the training and credentialing of those making these proposals.
Significantly though, even APA admits:
Also of interest – or it should be – how will rights be restored when there is no longer a compelling mental health prescription to deny them? What universal appeal mechanism – affordable to all, not just to elites for whom money is no object – will exist to declare a person is once more “eligible” to keep and bear arms? What guarantees are there that the same biases that colored the disability ruling in the first place won’t reassert themselves in the “parole” process? And have we identified psychiatric evaluators, risk management administrators and insurers who will be willing to subject themselves to malpractice liabilities should a person deemed “fit” be misdiagnosed? Or will the pressure be to “err on the side of caution”?
Read the whole thing Here
“A+”-rated* Sen. John Cornyn has the National Rifle Association’s backing for a “modest” bill “that would reward states for sending more information about residents with serious mental problems to the federal background check system for firearms purchasers,” Fox News is reporting. The legislation is generating no small amount of debate among gun rights advocates, with some supporting it as a pragmatic move designed to thwart more draconian proposals, and others characterizing it as a preemptive surrender (and worse).
Without getting into that debate, because there will be plenty of others weighing in on both sides, I’d instead like to just ask a few questions that all who are interested in due process ought to be interested in seeing answered. By way of disclosure, my longstanding contention is that anyone who can’t be trusted with a gun can’t be trusted without a custodian, but that’s not likely to be reflected in social policy anytime soon, so it’s not the focus here.
Backers of the bill tell us “due process” protections will be increased for veterans and others under Cornyn’s bill. Per his spokesman, “This bill codifies into law that individuals must get their day in court they’re entitled to, and no agency or state can make their own determination without that.”
It would help if we knew what protections equivalent to those provided in a jury trial that will provide. Specifically, will decisions rely on those who may have biases of their own, as can currently be the case, with ATF’s “clarifying the term ‘adjudicated as a mental defective’ to mean a determination by a court, board, commission or other lawful authority,” and with some states applying even broader “standards”?
What protections will exist to offset politically-connected anti-gun judges, politically-appointed boards, and “expert” adherents of the American Psychiatric Association’s “Position Statement on Firearm Access, Acts of Violence and the Relationship to Mental Illness and Mental Health Services.” It’s fair to ask, because APA includes in its advocacy platform registration-enabling, background checks, “smart” guns, storage requirements, “gun-free” zones, doctor-patient boundary violations, tax-funded anti-gun “studies,” all outside the scope of the training and credentialing of those making these proposals.
Significantly though, even APA admits:
Only a small proportion of individuals with a mental disorder pose a risk of harm to themselves or others.Casting a wide net and leaving the shot-calling up to those with subjective political motivations has historical precedence – predominantly in “gun control” havens.
Also of interest – or it should be – how will rights be restored when there is no longer a compelling mental health prescription to deny them? What universal appeal mechanism – affordable to all, not just to elites for whom money is no object – will exist to declare a person is once more “eligible” to keep and bear arms? What guarantees are there that the same biases that colored the disability ruling in the first place won’t reassert themselves in the “parole” process? And have we identified psychiatric evaluators, risk management administrators and insurers who will be willing to subject themselves to malpractice liabilities should a person deemed “fit” be misdiagnosed? Or will the pressure be to “err on the side of caution”?
Read the whole thing Here
Friday, July 3, 2015
David Codrea: Case SCOTUS Didn’t Hear Points to Larger Concern for Gun Owners
Via David Codrea
The fallout from two recent Supreme Court rulings is receiving needed attention, as it’s up to activist gun owners to keep apprised of looming threats and opportunities, and to minimize damage/maximize gains of case outcomes. For one decision, Gun Owners of America has been at the forefront of warning against the anti-gun dangers hidden in Obamacare. On the flip side, some are looking at the same sex marriage ruling to prompt states to recognize concealed carry permits. But as important as those concerns are, they may ultimately become moot points if a case SCOTUS declined to hear is an indicator of things to come . . .
“The Supreme Court … refused to accept a case which sought to allow states to supplement a federal voter registration form so as to require proof of citizenship to vote,” Legal Insurrection reported Monday. “This is not just a battle of forms. It’s a battle for preventing theft of elections.”
“A new study … indicated that 6.4 percent of all non-citizens voted illegally in the 2008 presidential election, and 2.2 percent in the 2010 midterm,” National Review reported in November. “Given that 80 percent of non-citizens lean Democratic … Al Franken’s 312-vote win in the 2008 Minnesota U.S. Senate race [is] one likely tipped by non-citizen voting.”
While Obamacare is cited as a law that was passed by adding Franken’s 60th vote to the total, his hostility to gun rights and his affirmation of anti-gun nominees to administration and federal court positions were also enabled by his questionable win. A co-sponsor of the “Large Capacity Ammunition Feeding Device Act,” which called for up to a 10-year prison sentence for violations, Franken is rated “F” by both the National Rifle Association and Gun Owners of America.
Still, the High Court’s deliberate indifference may have been based on recognizing that ascertaining proof of citizenship may itself soon be a moot point if establishment Democrats and Republicans have their way. That’s because the Obama administration is paving a “pathway to citizenship” for foreign nationals illegally residing in the U.S. Likely Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has pledged that as a priority. And GOP leadership and current flip-flopping frontrunner Jeb Bush are servicing their Chamber of Commerce patrons to ensure a continued source of “cheap” (meaning paid for by everyone else) labor.
Add to that an overlooked but undeniable danger identified by activist and journalist Rick Oltman in an exclusive report the media and political establishments have ignored, but that merits widespread attention: Expect a “massive naturalization of legal permanent residents [LPRs] before the 2016 election,” a move that will overwhelmingly favor Democrats.
That’s especially dangerous, because the Democrat Party includes “gun control” as a central part of its national platform:
Read the rest @ http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2015/07/david-codrea/case-scotus-didnt-hear-points-to-larger-concern-for-gun-owners/
The fallout from two recent Supreme Court rulings is receiving needed attention, as it’s up to activist gun owners to keep apprised of looming threats and opportunities, and to minimize damage/maximize gains of case outcomes. For one decision, Gun Owners of America has been at the forefront of warning against the anti-gun dangers hidden in Obamacare. On the flip side, some are looking at the same sex marriage ruling to prompt states to recognize concealed carry permits. But as important as those concerns are, they may ultimately become moot points if a case SCOTUS declined to hear is an indicator of things to come . . .
“The Supreme Court … refused to accept a case which sought to allow states to supplement a federal voter registration form so as to require proof of citizenship to vote,” Legal Insurrection reported Monday. “This is not just a battle of forms. It’s a battle for preventing theft of elections.”
“A new study … indicated that 6.4 percent of all non-citizens voted illegally in the 2008 presidential election, and 2.2 percent in the 2010 midterm,” National Review reported in November. “Given that 80 percent of non-citizens lean Democratic … Al Franken’s 312-vote win in the 2008 Minnesota U.S. Senate race [is] one likely tipped by non-citizen voting.”
While Obamacare is cited as a law that was passed by adding Franken’s 60th vote to the total, his hostility to gun rights and his affirmation of anti-gun nominees to administration and federal court positions were also enabled by his questionable win. A co-sponsor of the “Large Capacity Ammunition Feeding Device Act,” which called for up to a 10-year prison sentence for violations, Franken is rated “F” by both the National Rifle Association and Gun Owners of America.
Still, the High Court’s deliberate indifference may have been based on recognizing that ascertaining proof of citizenship may itself soon be a moot point if establishment Democrats and Republicans have their way. That’s because the Obama administration is paving a “pathway to citizenship” for foreign nationals illegally residing in the U.S. Likely Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has pledged that as a priority. And GOP leadership and current flip-flopping frontrunner Jeb Bush are servicing their Chamber of Commerce patrons to ensure a continued source of “cheap” (meaning paid for by everyone else) labor.
Add to that an overlooked but undeniable danger identified by activist and journalist Rick Oltman in an exclusive report the media and political establishments have ignored, but that merits widespread attention: Expect a “massive naturalization of legal permanent residents [LPRs] before the 2016 election,” a move that will overwhelmingly favor Democrats.
That’s especially dangerous, because the Democrat Party includes “gun control” as a central part of its national platform:
Read the rest @ http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2015/07/david-codrea/case-scotus-didnt-hear-points-to-larger-concern-for-gun-owners/
Friday, June 26, 2015
Gun blogger, others sue ATF over records request
Via David Codrea
Three gun rights advocates sued the ATF on Tuesday after
filing a records request they say wasn’t fulfilled by the federal
agency.
David Codrea, a pro-gun blogger, Len Savage, a
federally-licensed gun dealer and the FFL Defense Research Center, a
not-for-profit corporation that defends federal firearms license
holders, claim the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives
failed to fulfill a Freedom of Information Act request filed in March.
The FOIA request asked for clarification on how the ATF
classifies firearms receivers, specifically how complete the component
must be to be considered a firearm.
“Phrased otherwise, the point when a ‘receiver blank’
becomes a ‘receiver.’ … We have heard reference to ’80% complete’ as the
standard, but whether this is correct, and if so, what features make it
so complete, we cannot find,” the complaint read.
Codrea called the ATF’s determination process contradictory.
“The information requested is critical to ensure that
citizens don’t suffer penalties due to conflicting rulings. Without
clear policies, enforcing compliance and demanding accountability can
become inconsistent and arbitrary,” Codrea wrote on Thursday.
According to the complaint, the plaintiffs filed the request March 12 and the federal agency failed to provide the documentation within the mandatory 20-day period, which expired April 13.
The ATF declined to comment citing the lawsuit and the federal agency’s policy against commenting on litigation.
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