A Chilling Thought: Once He Gets In Trump May Never Be Removed Via Elections

Again, on display in the last half hour of 'Morning Joe' , was the incredible human capacity to embrace fancy, groundless hope, and baseless suppositions. This was when host Joe Scarborough was presented with multiple rational ways in which Trump, and his administration, could flout existing laws and the constitution with impunity.  Joe, bless his Repuke heart, simply believes based on history that the constitution and "separation of powers" will protect us against any extreme Trump maneuvers.

But as his guest pointed out, that didn't stop Bush from using the Patriot act in various ways it was never intended (and is still on the books - to arrest protesters as "domestic terrorists") as well as undertaking NSA mass surveillance on scales that flout the 4th amendment of the Bill of Rights, specifically against warrantless searches.

Then we beheld honorary national "historian -in- chief"- actor  Tom Hanks -  at a recent confab at the Museum  of Art in NYC  imploring us all to "Calm down".  Hanks,  the same guy who three years ago wanted to save Americans from being "snookered" (by accepting Lee Oswald was set up as a decoy in the JFK hit),  said we have "nothing to worry about" and "our Constitution will protect us".

For any who really believe that I suggest reading how Germans fared after Hitler got the Enabling Act passed in Germany, e.g.

http://www.dw.com/en/the-law-that-enabled-hitlers-dictatorship/a-16689839

Most true experts, not Hanks, are of the belief that under the right conditions - and especially with ALL branches of government (including Supreme Court) controlled by one party, it can happen here.  Let's also register that millions implored Obama to remove the part of the (2006) Military Commissions Act repealing Habeas Corpus, to no avail.  Obama repeatedly used the bromide that "there is nothing to fear" and no one would ever be locked up for no good reason. More sober minds, however, kept telling him 'yes, that's fine if you're there, but one day you won't be and a strong man type could take your place'.

Now that situation looms over us as a confirmed authoritarian narcissist - in many ways like Adolf Hitler- prepares to assume office on January 20th. This is even as many (even on the media  left) pooh pooh Hitlerian comparisons as:"hysteria". But just yesterday, the bombastic buffoon issued  a warning against those who used the First amendment for flag burning, tweeting:

"Nobody should be allowed to burn the American flag, If they do, there must be consequences - perhaps loss of citizenship or a year in jail"

A year in jail for exercising first amendment rights? As I pointed out in a post from two years ago (July 24):

"in the case Texas v. Johnson (1989) flag burning was upheld as symbolic free speech which could not be curtailed under the 1st amendment. " This was upheld in a 1990 Supreme Court decision (7-3) ( United States v. Eichman, 496 U.S. 310  ) which declared an earlier  opposing law  impermissibly discriminated upon viewpoint .

Now Trump wants to tear that protection down, and I also suspect- inflated ego and thin skin that he has - he will also try to implement the earlier Patriot Act provisions against demonstrations and mass protests. Hell, he could even invoke the "continuity of government" provision introduced under Reagan.

Reagan’s Executive Order 12656, issued in 1988,  stated that Continuity of Government procedures were called for in the event of "any occurrence, including natural disaster, military attack, technological emergency, or other emergency, that seriously degrades or seriously threatens the national security of the United States."   In the 1980s COG planning was being handled by Louis Giuffrida. According to an article by Alfonso Chardy (‘Reagan Aides and the `Secret’ Government’, Miami Herald, July 5, 1987.) the stated plans included "suspension of the Constitution," along with detailed arrangements for the declaration of martial law.

Get that? Suspension of the Constitution. And if you don't believe Trump would resort to any ruse to implement it, to advance his own ends - including perhaps to remain in power (despite the 22nd amendment), you really are a political and historical Pollyanna.

Look, already this overgrown,  authoritarian 'boss' baby is fulminating about the election recounts, and recklessly citing Infowars conspiracy BS that he really won the popular vote. The man is certifiably unstable just as Hitler was (though in the Fuhrer's case it likely was from syphilis).  If he was the least bit rational, as well as temperamentally suited to be a true chief executive, he'd settle down and grasp that if he REALLY won - and didn't have the votes rigged for himself - he has nothing to fear. His outbursts merely show he's terrified of losing those 3 states and having his totalitarian agenda overturned.

His very active paranoia, as well as his carping about "rigging" during the campaign,. indicates to me that once in office he will essentially piss on amendment XXII and remain there using any ruse to justify it. "Terrorist threat?" Insurrection? Need for extended martial law?

Further, the Repukes themselves may well abet him in this, grasping there may be no other Republican who can win the presidency after four horrific years of Trump or worse, eight. In that case, they may wager better to repeal the 22nd amendment  - or Trump does it via a specious executive order. And if you believe the Dems will be our saviors here you're also dreaming, because Trump may find some ruse to lock them up too.

According to the 9/11 Commission Report (p. 326; cf. p. 38), "Contingency plans for the continuity of government" were implemented on September 11, 2001. Those suspicious of what COG means today have pointed to a number of post 9/11 steps to facilitate the implementation of martial law, including the creation of a new military command (NORTHCOM) for the continental United States. They note also Homeland Security’s strategic plan “Endgame”, whose stated goal is the creation of detention camps designed to "remove all removable aliens," including "potential terrorists."
Even worse, later mutations of COG under the Bushites  equated political dissent with treason. In regard to the last, the definition of "terrorist" was expanded to "domestic terrorist" by congress in 2001, to include:

"…activities that involve acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State; appear to be intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping; and occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States"

According to the ACLU, “this definition is broad enough to encompass the activities of…prominent activists, campaigns and organizations.”    It could also include opposition politicians, representatives if their words are interpreted as "sedition" - say under a new GOP-Trump passed law. Again, if this transpires the Constitution will become "just a piece of paper" as John McCloy once described it when he approved internment camps for Japanese Americans.

Clearly most COG plans are shrouded in extreme secrecy, effectively unregulated by Congress or the courts. But what ought to get the hackles of any sentient American up is their potential to be yoked to an overreaching surveillance state.  All this is within Trump's purview, authoritarian that he clearly is.

Those who understand history and especially those who take George Santayana's quote seriously:

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. "

know it is stupid to dismiss Trump as just another clown. No, once he has the power of the office - and allies in his cabinet and congress- he becomes much more. He becomes a massive threat to every principle this nation holds dear.  Those convinced the constitution will protect them may want to do more research into the continuity of government process as well as elimination of habeas corpus via the Military Commissions Act.

Once this narcissist authoritarian assumes office, there is no way his enormous ego will allow him to accept people want him gone, even in an election.  And if (by his own words) he wouldn't accept the results of an election in this cycle, what makes you believe he'd accept them in a future one?  A paranoid who is indispensable in his own mind is a dangerous leader indeed. Ask the Germans!

See also:

http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/stephen-pizzo/70079/time-to-chose-american-or-vichy-american


Excerpt:

"Now, having spent a big chunk of my adult life as a journalist, I am familiar with the sin of hyperbole, so I don’t write this with a careless hand. But everything I have seen and heard to date about Trump and those he is surrounding himself with, I am quite certain we Americans face a choice not entirely dissimilar to what the French faced in 1940. And that the time has arrived for every American to make a choice: America, or Vichy-America?

Whether you make that choice explicitly or by inaction, that choice will be the most important decision you will make as a citizen and person. It will mark, forever, exactly who you are."

And:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/bruce-ticker/70063/that-scary-hidden-agenda

A Ground War - The Only Way To Crush The ISIS Bugs

John Sawer, in his Weekend Financial Times article  on ISIS and the Paris terror attacks,  put it bluntly and best on what ISIS absolutely does not want (among two things):

"First, ISIS does not want a ground intervention by NATO or Russia, as this would quickly cost the militants their base in eastern Syria and western Iraq".

However, he noted they have probably already calculated there is not stomach for such intervention in the NATO nations, despite 12 months of nonstop bombing having little effect. This 'no ground war' sentiment certainly holds in the U.S., despite Jeb Bush's call to "declare war", forgetting the attack was on France not the U.S.. With $18 trillion in debt  (and counting) already,  there is only a limited amount of further  trillions to support more wars, all Marco Rubio's jingoistic bloviations notwithstanding.

The second thing ISIS fears, according to Sawer, is "a peace deal bringing a new government to Syria"  Especially if the new deal accommodated the Syrian Sunnis (remember ISIS is largely comprised of Iraqi Sunnis who were disallowed in the gov't mutation later formed by the U.S. - comprised largely of Shi'ites).  This would "cause ISIS to lose its appeal"

But the probability of getting to that desirable state is a lot less than orchestrating a limited ground war.

Given the U.S. should stay out of such a ground war, for various reasons including we've already started enough of them with zero success, the question emerges as WHO should undertake it. (Note when I say 'stay out' I only mean only in terms of dispatching tens of thousands of ground pounders, but support and logistics advisors are a different matter, and perhaps small strike teams such as recently rescued ISIS prisoners in Iraq who were about to be slaughtered).

But the main thrust must come from: the Muslim nations in the region. They'd be fortified by two legitimate "outsiders",   Russia and France - the most recent ISIS victims. (Also their peoples would be most likely to support a ground invasion after what happened to their fellow citizens.)  Other NATO members from the EU may also join in support by invoking a NATO clause that "an attack on one is an attack on all". But the U.S., for all the reasons Obama laid out in his press conference this morning, has to leave the provision of sufficient ground troops to others. We've had our turn, now it's theirs.

Again, just as ISIS would most fear a peace settlement that includes Sunnis, so also they would most fear a ground war alliance that includes both the Sunnis (in Saudi Arabia) and the Shia (from Iran).  Such an entity would be seen as a "devil's alliance"  (much as Hitler saw the U.S. and U.S.S.R. joining forces in WWII) because two nations representing the antipodes of Islam (mutual enemies) would be seen to be strong -willed enough to band together to remove a scourge. This would send chills through all of the ISIS vermin.

The question is whether the Saudis and Iranians could put aside their differences long enough to bring down these pests.

As I noted in my post yesterday, on the Dem debates:

"as geopolitical expert Hillary Mann Leavitt noted this morning, the ISIS attacks are not intended to "take away our freedoms", but to change our policy. In other words, their desire is to get the West to go off half cocked and unilaterally launch a full scale war without ANY Muslim allies involved - so they can garner recruits and justify full out jihad. This is why it is essential that taking out the ISIS bugs be a full collaborative effort, not just with NATO and Russia involved, but ALL the Muslim nations in the region too. "

Meanwhile, there is the serious matter of ISIS local extremist recruitment and involvement and we now know that the two renegades who killed 89 innocents at the Paris concert hall were French nationals. How did they get recruited? Evidently, the vermin have been using apps like 'What's App' and also game platforms like Playstation which allows players to make contact with any others around the world and also text on the side while gaming.  Everything's hidden from prying eyes so it's the perfect medium with which to sneak plans by the authorities in whatever country.

These are all encrypted apps which have the following features:

- All messages are protected from surveillance

- Communications are set to delete

- It is difficult to break the encryption

Former CIA assistant director Michael Morrell, on CBS this morning, agreed that all of this is a result of the Edward Snowden debate. But why such encryptions should be stronger for games on PlayStation as well as chat apps is puzzling - say compared to internet sites for which more or less full surveillance still applies.

Morrell did go on to state that now, in the wake of the Paris attacks, a "new debate" will unfold on "whether the government should have access to the keys to open this stuff up and the result may be different".

I definitely agree, but the problem is, once the ISIS bugs are exterminated, can we then return to the non-surveilled state before?  The problem, as before, is fighting these vermin, subduing them - but not sacrificing our civil liberties in the process including those of the 4th amendment and "the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects"

Vanity Fair Poll Shows Most Americans Remain Brainwashed Idiots

"America has become amnesiac - a country in which forms of historical, political, and moral forgetting are not only willfully practiced but celebrated. The United States has degenerated into a social order that is awash in public stupidity and views critical thought as both a liability and a threat"- blogger writing on SmirkingChimp last July

"It is a fact that every democracy that's existed  has committed suicide." - John Adams


The recent Vanity Fair poll results on ethics, disclosed this morning on CBS Early Show, is enough to drive the true citizen into permanent depression. In one poll question, to do with Edward Snowden's ethics in disclosing NSA surveillance overreach, 54 percent asserted he was in the wrong, only 27 percent that he was right to do so. Meanwhile, even more atrocious, nearly one fifth of respondents (19%) said they "had never heard of Edward Snowden". That means a total of 54% + 19% = 73% of those polled are either dolts or brainwashed morons. That's essentially three-fourths of all Americans, assuming this sample is in any way representative, which I believe (from past polls) it is.

The VF hack who released the results on the air said it showed "Americans' opinions had evolved from when they first thought he was a hero."

No, that's not it at all. It shows these fools have been brainwashed by the steady,  anti-Snowden media portrayals and drumbeat! And the people were too damned dumb to see through it, and how their minds were being manipulated. Worse, a fifth of the morons were so detached from their responsibilities as citizens - to protect their 4th amendment rights - they didn't even know who Snowden was.  It boggles the rational mind to comprehend how a people who once valued liberty and had enough education to see through vapid media PR, now can't tell their asses from holes in the ground

Sickening! Do the people of this nation even deserve their civil liberties? I doubt it.

If we take common sense for granted in this sampled population (and that is not a foregone conclusion by any means) then one would expect people who are reasonably educated to be aware that their privacy rights are bound up intimately with their 4th amendment rights - to be free of lawless search and seizure. As I noted in previous blogs to do with this issue, while the specific right to privacy isn’t specifically listed in the Constitution,  the Founders understood that as time went on new rights would emerge which they might not be able to think of (e.g. to health care), hence bundled these into the unenumerated rights under the 9th amendment..

We also expect them to be informed enough to grasp the extent of NSA's unconstitutional mass data collection. And hence to realize that if NSA can snatch their email address books, Google searches and content, web browsing histories, Twitter messages, and cell phone calls as well as all telephone call logs, they are in the condition described by Kenneth Roth of Human Rights Watch, who described the NSA programs to the Guardian thusly:

"The Snowden revelations have made clear that there has been an intrusion on our right to privacy of unprecedented scope, yet the government is dismissing any complaints about our right to privacy as irrelevant."

Roth said: "I used to be a prosecutor – I used to put pen registers on people's phones, collecting the numbers that you dial – but I had to manually compile the numbers. It was very labor intensive, and hence self-limiting. Today, the computer can piece together your entire personal life in a matter of seconds."

These damned "Americans" who polled against Snowden make me want to puke. I also know they'd make my Revolutionary War ancestor Conrad Brumbaugh puke, and believe he'd wasted his blood fighting for independence and liberty. Why do it for a bunch of ninnies, sissies and parasites who'd give their freedom away for a song, just to feel "safe"?  They are a waste of space and remind me of the "good Germans" who looked the other way as their friends and neighbors were trotted into camps for criticizing Hitler, the Third Reich or harboring Jews. Those "good Germans", after WWII. had to be dragged into the concentration camps to be shown first hand what their passive compliance engendered during Hitler's reign.

So really, Americans ought to be getting on their damned knees and THANKING Snowden for revealing what he has about the disgusting trampling of their 4th amendment rights.

Sadly, this farce shows how easily people in this country can be led by the nose, and I warrant it's mainly because they don't read enough. They don't read history, don't read economics or politics, or even the news. They certainly don't go to the next level in separating what's sold them via PR, from facts. No, it's easier to stay mired in the vapid, solipsistic virtual "friend" world of Facebook, or Twitter.

They remind me of the same buffoons and passive nincompoops who willingly allowed their polling to be gamed and "moved" via media propaganda back in 2003 - ultimately allowing Bush Jr. to launch the Iraq War, and our congress critters to meekly agree (so terrified were they of the polling).

These "Americans" are a disgrace, and don't warrant the appellation of citizen!

See also:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/tom-engelhardt/57357/the-fourth-branch-the-rise-to-power-of-the-national-security-state

A Day for All Americans to Be More Aware of Their 4th Amendment Rights- And How They've Been Eroded

Above, Edward Snowden receives his ACLU membership card from Anthony Romero, head of the ACLU

As Americans fire up their grills and barbecue pits today, and quaff gallons of beer, one hopes they also give a thought to what the day is really about. Hint: It's not just about entertainment and eats, but also about history.  What was the War of Independence fought over anyway? Do most people today even know? Did they ever study it or track relatives who participated in it?

Fortunately, I hail from a family that's documented much of the associated history. (Which my wife has excavated via ancestry.com and discussions with cousins, other relatives discovered in her genealogical searches)  My great grandmother, Eliza Brumbaugh Stahl,  also had many occasions to regale grandson, Curtis Jr. (my dad), regarding the exploits of ancestor Conrad Brumbaugh - who fought with the Pennsylvania Regiment in the War of Independence. Like many of the colonists, Conrad was enraged by the Stamp Act of 1765 (which imposed stamp taxes on all publications originating in the colonies) but his greatest ire was reserved for the Writs of Assistance. This was one of the outrages in the 1770s that led directly to the Revolutionary War and involved the use of indiscriminate mass warrants.  The British used the Writs to defy and besmirch any concept of the "personal" and smashed into colonists' homes on any pretext- tearing them apart.

By the 1770s the British use of the Writs of Assistance had become widespread and enraged all those affected. As one academic site explained:

"Most notably, the writs allowed officials to enter and ransack private homes without proving probable cause for suspicion, a traditional prerequisite to a search."

The Writs then provided the 'fuel' for the Revolution but the pamphlet 'Common Sense' -  by Thomas Paine, provided the spark to ignite it.  Make no mistake the pamphlet is an unapologetic polemic and I would recommend that readers unfamiliar with it at least read this key chapter:
http://www.bartleby.com/133/3.html

Try to put yourself back in the shoes of the colonists at the time, and imagine how Paine's words would spur them to action.

Now come forward 238 years and look at today's situation. What do you see? How would Conrad Brumbaugh react if informed of the changes in 4th amendment rights since he shed blood for those rights?  In writing the 4th amendment, the framers were motivated more than anything by the excesses of the Writs of Assistance.  This is why they deliberately singled out the need for authorities to obtain specific or individual warrants - mass warrants were anathema. The framers wanted no repeat of the outrages that launched the Revolution.

Yet that is exactly what's transpired! The Writs of Assistance bear perfect analogy to what the NSA is getting away with today using the mass warrants and its PRISM, Xkeyscore and MUSCULAR programs. And who today would be the new Thomas Paine? None other than Edward Snowden! In his recent interview (ACLU Stand, Summer 2014) with Anthony Romero of the ACLU (after being presented with his new ACLU membership card) Snowden was asked what he wanted to come out of all the turmoil and disruption to his life.  Also what he aspired to. He responded:

"My main purpose was simply to allow the average American to understand the policies of his government, that he wasn't asked about. And to allow us, as a civil body, to decide if this was the right thing and the direction we want to continue in.....there's a danger when the government is drafting and implementing policies in the dark, without the input of the voting public. Even the full body of congress wasn't aware of these programs"

Asked then about the relevance of the Fourth amendment today in relation to the past, Snowden answered:

"I think the 21st century Fourth Amendment can actually be the same as the 20th century version, and the 19th century version and the 18th century version because it's written in such clear terms that it doesn't need to be rewritten. It's couched in language like "unreasonable search and seizure", right?  If we have a specific reason - if we have an oath or affirmation that there is probable cause to peel back and intrude upon the civil rights of a target individual. That's the traditional purpose of investigative authorities, whether it's a law enforcement or intelligence investigation.

But the two parts of which we have to keep in the 21st century are not only that unreasonable searches are prohibited - where the NSA can't go in and look at someone's information in the first place unless they have a suspicion for doing so.

It's not reasonable for the NSA to collect every phone call of every American...without  suspicion justifying it."

Co-author of the Patriot Act, Jim Sensenbrenner, supports Snowden's take, pertaining to Sec. 215 enfolded into the "FISA Amendments Act of 2008"  which ratified and expanded the warrantless surveillance program originating under Bush Jr. Sensenbrenner, in the same issue (op. cit. 'I Wrote the Patriot Act - Now Let's Fix It', p. 10) writes:

"Section 215 was intended to give the government the ability to secure "any tangible thing" connected to specific terrorism investigations. As is now common knowledge, the Bush and Obama administrations took the limited power Congress intended and went rogue. If we had known during any subsequent re-authorizations what we now know about Section 215's blatant misinterpretation, Congress would have allowed it to sunset.  And if it's not fixed by the 2015 re-authorization, Congress will.

The basic idea behind the American search and seizure law is that you can't investigate unless you can first provide at least some articulable reason to do so. Investigations just can't be arbitrary. The government's definition, on the other hand, is the very definition of arbitrary. "

Indeed, Snowden's revelations have shown us the extent of the NSA mass surveillance,  the arbitrary use of mass warrants and  discloses a rejection not only of citizens’ fundamental right to privacy but any right to be secure in one’s person, papers, effects.  Conrad Brumbaugh and all of his cohort would be outraged and want to take up arms again if presented with Snowden's findings.  He would assert there's little difference between the current excesses and the British Writs of Assistance.

Incredibly, despite this, the most recent insult is the finding by a recent report — produced by a five-person panel picked by the president  that the Section 702 program was important and "narrowly legal".  This, after the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board had more than 100 facts declassified, whereupon board chairman David Medine boasted at a press conference, for its report on NSA’s Internet surveillance program and how it used Section 702 of the "FISA Amendments Act". (Again, which validated the illegal warrantless surveillance of the Bushies)

Before anyone congratulates Medine, let's bear in mind that the PCLOB relied heavily on a report written by NSA’s privacy officer that purported to provide new information; even when NSA released the report in April, however, that report stopped short of reporting all the known details about the 702 program and as such read like a press release. Compounding this 'fox helping the henhouse' meme is the fact that Medine did not say what those newly declassified facts included, but there are a number of footnotes that refer to and describe still-redacted parts of at least one previously released report.   In addition, in recent days, the government has released a transparency report admitting that the government collected 89,138 targets under the Section 702 program, and released a report to Sen. Ron Wyden providing the numbers of “back door searches” various agencies conducted last year.

Anyone paying attention? Americans should be, especially now as the hysteria over the ISIS punks and wannabe jihadists ramps up, and which will likely be used for even more warrantless searches. All done to keep us "safe" of course.

But let's recognize that PCLOB's finding has been limited by the government’s own desire to pretend nothing Snowden released has been released. (Got that?) Given that there’s a copy in the public domain, there’s really little excuse for the government to hide the most current procedures (except, perhaps, to make court challenges to the program more difficult).

"NSA programs narrowly legal?' ROTFL! What discredits the PCLOB report are its claims that both Americans and non-Americans will be protected by a requirement the government tell criminal defendants if it uses Section 702-derived information against them. In fact, the government had never complied with this requirement until last year, simply ignoring that requirement of the law for five years. Worse still, when the ACLU tried to challenge Section 702, DOJ falsely told the Supreme Court it had been "complying with that requirement".  But it still hasn’t corrected that false claim. While true,  the government has started giving a few defendants the required notice, it has not given notice to all known defendants caught using Section 702. In fact, the two people named in its report (and one named in their earlier report) as having been identified using Section 702 never got such notice.

It is public and unclassified information that the government has not complied with a crucial aspect of the law. Not only did PCLOB not consider that non-compliance in its assessment of the program’s legality and constitutionality. But it claimed it had found no instance of deliberate non-compliance. 1984 anyone?  Where is Emmanuel Goldstein and his Newspeak expose when we need him?

It is long past time, given Snowden's revelations, Americans sit up and take notice on how their precious 4th amendment rights have been eaten away, especially on a day dedicated to American Independence.

Are Americans truly independent? Or are they ever more dependent on a metastasizing, national security "Pappy" state to keep them out of harm's way from them nasty jihadists....while their most basic rights become redundant?

Supreme Court's Decision on Cell Phone Searches Also Has Implications for NSA Mass Surveillance

"The fundamental reason for the conversion of the state into a gigantic spy apparatus is the nature of deeply destructive domestic and foreign policies which the government has so forcefully pursued. The vast expansion of the police state apparatus is not a response to the terror attack of 9/11. The geometrical growth of spies, secret police budgets, and the vast intrusion into all citizen communications coincides with the wars across the globe. The decisions to militarize US global policy requires vast budgetary re-allocation , slashing social spending to fund empire-building. 

Mass spying is designed to identify all citizens who oppose both imperial wars and destruction of domestic welfare." -  James Petras, in an August, 2012 article on American loss of civil liberties.


The Supreme Court's 9-0 decision yesterday,  declaring that any cell phone searches by cops (who stop motor vehicles)  requires individual warrants  should not have been any surprise to defenders of the Constitution and specifically 4th amendment rights.  That it was a victory for citizen privacy rights embodied in the 4th amendment is an understatement. Let us reprise and re-read that amendment again, which forms the cornerstone of what makes this nation different from all others:

“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

The Justices' unanimous, broadly written and emphatic decision vindicated this amendment and also laid waste to the Obama administration's ludicrous analogy that cell phones were "like wallets". Such constitutional deafness may also explain why the Obama-ites see no problem in NSA mass surveillance and why they regard Edward Snowden as a criminal instead of a whistleblowing patriot as most of us who respect the Constitution do.

I mean think about it,  for god's sake! Cell phones  - LIKE one's home computer - carry everything about a person' identity, life and transactions,, including: photographs, email, banking records, medical records. Why would grabbing a person's cell not be a violation of the 4th? Only a person or group blind to the amendment and what it states would be oblivious to that and regard it only like a "wallet" which has a few credit cards perhaps and an ID, but not the contents of one's personal life.

As Justice Roberts declared as part of his opinion:

"Sensitive personal information can form a revealing montage of a user's life and the same cannot be said of a photograph or two tucked inside a wallet"

Surely now, it can't be only me that sees ramifications to NSA mass surveillance on the indiscriminate scope revealed by Snowden. Specifically, in the same way cops can no longer  rummage through your cell phone on a de facto fishing expedition the NSA shouldn't be able to do the same with your computer (laptop, etc.) files...OR your cell phone.

In other words, if the Justices' ruling applies to over eager cops, it also needs to apply to an over eager NSA. They also need to obtain specific warrants as opposed to the 4th amendment violation mass warrants issued under a revised 2011 FISA law that debased and undermined the original.

The same arguments that apply with such force to cell phones, must also apply to any other devices that hold one's personal life profiles, including desktops, laptops, notebooks, smart phones etc.  Note, “secure in one’s person, house, papers, effects” implies PRIVACY! And it applies not only to your home but everything in it containing sensitive personal information. These are after all MY private papers, my private effects, my house, etc. If an inherent right to privacy under the 4th was a myth then being secure in one’s person, papers, effects wouldn’t matter.

Hell, the SC Justices could have ruled to let the whole freakin’ world see ‘em on anyone's cell! They didn't because they understood the language of the 4th is ironclad.  This is why in a fascist dictatorship “personal effects” don’t exist. “Personal papers” has no meaning. The state has full monopoly, de facto ownership on whatever the person has, even his own body. Hence, in fascist dictatorships, such as existed in Nazi Germany, all personal effects, papers could be seized by the Nazis on a whim or remote suspicion - under the Reich Laws. A fundamental right to privacy, meanwhile, insists there exist bona fide entities that one can uniquely own, e.g. papers, effects – including photos or what not- that are private. Without this fundamental right, then, “personal papers, effects” has no meaning hence the 4th amendment is meaningless.

Readers also might wish to recall or reference that one of the key outrages in the 1770s that led to the Revolutionary War (which my ancestor Conrad Brumbaugh fought in) was the British use of mass warrants.  They defied any concepts of "personal" and smashed into colonists' homes on any pretext- tearing it apart.   This applied to the infamous Writs of Assistance which was the vehicle used to justify smashing into homes to find smuggled goods. By the 1770s the use of the Writs of Assistance had become totally indiscriminate. As one academic site explained:

"Most notably, the writs allowed officials to enter and ransack private homes without proving probable cause for suspicion, a traditional prerequisite to a search."

This bears perfect analogy to what the NSA is getting away with today using the mass warrants and its PRISM, Xkeyscore and MUSCULAR programs.  Notes and letters gleaned from colonists of the time revealed total outrage and it is no exaggeration to say that it sparked the first shots of the Revolutionary War.

In writing the 4th amendment, the framers were motivated more than anything by the excesses of the Writs of Assistance.  This is why they deliberately singled out the need for authorities to obtain specific or individual warrants - mass warrants were anathema. The framers wanted no repeat of the outrages that launched the Revolution.

While no specific "right" to privacy is listed in the Bill of Rights,  it is clear the language of the 4th amendment shows that privacy is presumed hence the Founders saw no need to elaborate it as a separate right. Hence, use of the descriptor “personal” applied to papers, effects etc. and naturally meant private! Even if one for some reason disputed the argument, he’d still be left with the fact of the unenumerated rights under the Ninth amendment.  The Ninth Amendment states that “the people retain unenumerated rights” "The people:" here refers to flesh and blood citizens, not to a bunch of contractual abstractions (states), or to corporations. .As Prof. Garry Wills emphasizes and underscores (A Necessary Evil: A History Of American Distrust of Government’, Simon & Schuster, 1999, p. 108):

“The states have no natural rights. Their powers are artificial, not natural – they are things made by contract.”

What we conclude then is the NSA mass surveillance,  and use of mass warrants,  discloses a rejection not only of citizens’ fundamental right to privacy but any right to be secure in one’s person, papers, effects.

The Justices' ruling on restricting seizure and grabbing of cell phones must therefore apply with equal force to personal information on any and all computers!   Justice Roberts, in a footnote, seemed to take issue with that, observing that “these  (cell phone) cases do not implicate the question whether the collection or inspection of aggregated digital information amounts to a search under other circumstances.”  However, it is clear that rigorous adherence to the language of the 4th shows that it does. So that "aggregated accumulation and inspection of digital information" is really no different from the indiscriminate searches done under the British Writs of Assistance that led directly to the Revolutionary War!

Let us hope that the Right wing court soon gets on the same page, and its cell phone ruling is  formalized to another more sweeping judgment very soon!

See also:
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/tom-engelhardt/56598/tomgram-peter-van-buren-what-weve-lost-since-9-11-part-2

and:

http://www.salon.com/2014/06/26/john_roberts_channels_aclu_why_right_wing_court_saved_cellphone_privacy/

NSA Troll Clapper Now Admits 4th Amendment Was Violated (Though He Doesn't Put It So!)

"Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for the purpose of a temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Benjamin Franklin

"In every government on earth is some trace of human weakness, some germ of corruption and degeneracy, which cunning will discover and wickedness insensibly open." - Thomas Jefferson, in 'Notes on Virginia'.

"Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves therefore are its only safe depositories. AND TO RENDER THEM SAFE, THEIR MINDS MUST BE IMPROVED." - Thomas Jefferson, 'Notes on Virginia'.

Less than a year ago on this blog I pointed out there were likely "thousands of 4th amendment violations"  thanks to the scurrilous NSA programs PRISM, MUSCULAR, XKeyscore.  See e,g,
http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2013/08/thousands-of-4th-amendment-violations.html

Now, we know there were millions, thanks to NSA troglodyte James Clapper's recent admissions of warrantless wiretaps.  Before examining Clapper's admission (which was cloaked in a pseudo-legalese cover) let us note the 4th amendment is very clear on the limits of warrants and how they are issued. The specific wording is:

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

Note, “secure in one’s person, house, papers, effects” implies PRIVACY! These are after all MY private papers, my private effects, my house, etc. If an inherent right to privacy was a myth then by all accounts being secure in one’s person, papers, effects wouldn’t matter. Hell, let the whole freakin’ world see ‘em! This is why in a fascist dictatorship “personal effects” don’t exist. “Personal papers” has no meaning. The state has full monopoly, de facto ownership on whatever the person has, even his own body. Hence, in fascist dictatorships, such as existed in Nazi Germany, all personal effects, papers could be seized by the Nazis on a whim or remote suspicion - under the Reich Laws. (The Reich laws, as Konrad Heiden notes, altered Weimar laws to render what had been originally illegal, legal.)

Clapper has finally admitted that the National Security Agency had a secret backdoor into its vast databases under a "legal authority"  enabling it to search for US citizens' email and phone calls without a warrant. This was revealed in top-secret NSA documents provided to the Guardian by Edward Snowden.

The previously undisclosed rule change allows NSA operatives to hunt for individual Americans' communications using their name or other identifying information. Senator Ron Wyden told the Guardian that the law provided the NSA with a "loophole"  potentially allowing "warrantless searches for the phone calls or emails of law-abiding Americans".

Now, we know - thanks to Clapper's admissions in his letter, the searches were indeed warrantless - and hence in violation of the 4th amendment.  This is according to the most recent Guardian report,
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/01/nsa-surveillance-loophole-americans-data

According to Clapper, quoted above, NSA "performed warrantless searches on Americans' emails and phone calls."

We must not only thank Edward Snowden for the original revelations, but also Sen. Ron Wyden for keeping after Clapper to respond to his letters and 'fess up.  (After all, Wyden already knew the little rat lied before a Senate Intelligence Committee last March when asked directly if the NSA conducted mass surveillance of Americans.)

Of course, to Clapper 'fessing up isn't the same as it is for the rest of us. NO, it means delivering a mealy-mouthed wad of euphemistic babble which - for the weaker minded- is designed to assuage any doubts that it was legal by baffling with bullshit. Clapper's exact words as reported by The Guardian:

"There have been queries, using US person identifiers, of communications lawfully acquired to obtain foreign intelligence targeting non-US persons reasonably believed to be located outside the United States.

These queries were performed pursuant to minimization procedures approved by the Fisa court and consistent with the statute and the fourth amendment.”


Pay attention to the last sentence in particular, because this is where the attempted exculpation of his misbegotten agency resides.  He claims the "queries were performed pursuant to minimization procedures approved by the FISA court" but what were these anyway?  In fact, nothing more than the merest fig leaf. The merest cover to defend the searches (i.e. one "end" of a phone call is in a foreign country, say Barbados).

Most of these came under Section 702  of the misnamed "Patriot Act" - which the traitors in congress also helped approve. As Clapper pointed out:

“As you know, when Congress reauthorized Section 702, the proposal to restrict such queries was specifically raised and ultimately not adopted,”

So congress punked out, When the opportunity arose to protect citizens' rights under the 4th amendment, congress shat on it, and refused to adopt the protections. Traitors!  Let us also recall congress - instead of prosecuting the Bushites for their warrantless wiretapping - made those illegal searches LEGAL!  Thus, they perverted the existing 1978 FISA law as fully as Hitler and the Nazis perverted the original Weimar laws into "Reich laws". The point is that using such a nefarious tactic any act which was once condemned as illegal can be made "legal" - all that's needed is the political will and power to do so.   This is why Clapper insists in his letter that the procedures were "consistent with the statutes and the 4th amendment".

In fact they were not! The 4th amendment is clear in its wording - as I showed above. Individual warrants must be issued for individual acts. And no amount of perturbing the language or making laws that were once illegal, legal can alter that. In this sense, the laws that legalized the original warrantless wiretaps of the Bushites are themselves baseless and LAWLESS.  They overturned the real laws that afforded genuine protections in return for mock laws.

Senators Wyden and  (Mark) Udall,  in their response to the Clapper bafflegab, were blunt:

“This is unacceptable. It raises serious constitutional questions, and poses a real threat to the privacy rights of law-abiding Americans. If a government agency thinks that a particular American is engaged in terrorism or espionage, the fourth amendment requires that the government secure a warrant or emergency authorization before monitoring his or her communications. This fact should be beyond dispute,”

If congress really had the interests of Americans at heart, and the protection of their 4th amendment rights, they'd have prosecuted the Bushite criminals, as they ought to have for their torture and rendition exercises - and illegal wars.  But they punked out! They refused to exercise their authority to uphold the actual laws, much as the Nazis - once in power- overturned the existing Weimar legal infrastructure in the Enabling Act. 

The tragedy is that by legalizing lawlessness - as regards the Constitution and citizen rights - the country has proceeded down the path of a "gangster state"- to use the words of deep politics authors Michael Parenti, as well as Chris Hedges, see e.g. http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/bradley_manning_and_the_gangster_state_20130821

The Senators final comment is one which to which we all need to pay heed:

“Today’s admission by the Director of National Intelligence is further proof that meaningful surveillance reform must include closing the back-door searches loophole and requiring the intelligence community to show probable cause before deliberately searching through data collected under section 702 to find the communications of individual Americans."

NSA Gnome James Clapper: A Dope or a Nut?

It appears the liar and 4th amendment traitor James Clapper went on a tirade yesterday, demanding whistleblower Edward Snowden "return all the stolen documents" and calling the surveillance disclosures published by the Guardian, Washington Post, NY Times and other news outlets a “perfect storm” that would endanger American lives."  Of course, this is a pile of horse manure, as ripe as Clapper's LIES before the Senate Intelligence Committee in March of last year. So bad, that Patriot Act co-author James Sensenbrenner was led to assert in October(to the Guardian):

"Oversight only works when the agency that oversight is directed at tells the truth, and having Mr Clapper say he gave the least untruthful answer should, in my opinion, have resulted in a firing and a prosecution,"

And as for endangering American lives let's be mindful of Bruce Schneier, a security specialist, who wrote in The New York Times last July 3rd:

"The argument that exposing these documents helps the terrorists doesn't even pass the laugh test; there's nothing here that changes anything any potential terrorist would do or not do."

Evidently also, Clapper and his other NSA troglodytes never received the 'memo' that Snowden's documents are already electronically 'out there'  - in the proper hands of media sites that have agreed to disclose the content in quantized measures - as opposed to giant dumps. Even if Snowden were to agree to give back what he actually took, the copies of the documents would remain in cyberspace. Making one wonder if Clapper is a dope or a nut.

Reinforcing this, is that Clapper - arrogant ass that he is - offers nothing in compensation to Snowden - other than a "trial" (read kangaroo court mock trial) if he returns with what he has.  Is he joking or what? Why on earth should Snowden come back with his material to face a jury-rigged trial, likely from a military court, and a judge as biased as the one that sabotaged the Garrison case against CIA contract agent Clay Shaw?

Again, the sign of un unbalanced dope whose hubris and power have clearly gone to his head. Even more laughable, according to the Guardian account:

"Testifying before a rare and unusually raucous public session of the Senate intelligence committee that saw yet another evolution in the Obama administration’s defense of bulk domestic phone records collection, Clapper called on “Snowden and his accomplices” to return the documents the former National Security Agency contractor took, in order to minimize what he called the “profound damage that his disclosures have caused and continued to cause”.

Again, this is bollocks. The damage amounts to nothing, not one thing. The REAL damage is to these disgusting spooks whose act has finally been exposed for the world to see and who believe they have a license to gobble up everything about people in their metadata grabs. (And again, Obama is just as wrong to defend them- though as I've written before, he's likely coerced by their threats to do so.)

Clapper's "accomplices" bunkum is also choice, and an apparent imitation of the idiot Mike Rogers' recent rants about Snowden having "allies" in the FSB or Russian Intelligence. This despite the fact that Snowden has repeatedly said he acted alone in assembling and leaking a vast trove of information on the scope of US surveillance efforts.

Clapper also appears ignorant of the fact this was a conclusion  reportedly reached by the NSA’s official investigation into the Snowden leaks. SO again, he's either a dope or totally incompetent - if he isn't even aware of the conclusions reached by his own NSA.


 At the hearing, senator Ron Wyden, the Oregon Democrat whose questioning last March ended with Clapper lying to the panel about the deliberate collection of Americans’ data, pressed Clapper to give public answers on surveillance activities on American information “sent over the web or stored in the cloud” – references to NSA’s so-called “upstream” collection capabilities, which allow the agency to harvest data in transit. He also questioned Clapper on whether the NSA had conducted “warrantless searches” for “specific” Americans’ identifying information in its vast databases of foreigners’ internet content, an authority first reported by the Guardian.

“Can you tell us today whether any such searches have ever been conducted?” Wyden asked. To which Clapper responded:

“Senator Wyden, I think, at a threat hearing, this would ... I would prefer not to discuss this and have this as a separate subject. There are very complex legal issues here, I just don’t think this is the appropriate time or place,”

In other words, 'we gotta do these mass  metadata grabs but we can't provide you with any evidence to justify them'.  Confirming what many of us in deep politics already suspect, that the "terror" card is being played as an expeditious smokescreen to cover up an all -encompassing industrial -economic espionage program and - as a byproduct -  to monitor the masses. The last thing the security state wants to see, or be caught off guard on, is tens of thousands rioting in the streets and burning cars, etc. - as they are in the Ukraine.  This is irrespective of whether the cause is fouled water, as recently occurred in West Virginia, or because a new Occupy movement takes hold to mobilize against the banksters and Tom Perkins' spoiled rich.

Above all, the masses must be monitored so they can be controlled. Hence, the use of a mass grab spy program to compile lists of "enemies of the state" for Main Core.

Another misbegotten canard is Clapper's insistence that the mass data grabs are allowed under current law. Let me assert if this is the case, that law is an 'ass' and in violation of the 4th amendment. The reason is that even a cursory reading of the 4th amendment shows the wording is predicated on individualized warrants! Hence, you cannot have a collective seizure of data that conforms to the heart of the amendment. What Clapper is really defending is the bastardized version of the FISA law that was created and approved AFTER the Bushies were caught out doing warrantless wiretaps in 2006-08.

Again, for those with short memories, the original (1978) FISA law required individual warrants which had to be sought from a proper FISA court.  After Bush and his thugs were caught breaking it, congress - instead of prosecuting them - took the easy way out and made legal what had been illegal!  In other words, the "law" now on the books is an affront to not only the 1978 law, but the 4th amendment and was composed by traitors!

Perhaps the real reason Clapper and his NSA clones are frothing at the mouth  about Snowden and his disclosures was best expressed by a commenter on the Guardian forum (for the Clapper article):

·        Lightning strikes 300 Americans a year. Huge by comparison to terrorism. Maybe the real reason is the military budget. They cannot live without a threat equal to 20th century warfare. Why don't we let them defend us against space aliens? Terrorism is way down from the 1970s and paradoxically appears to be a receding threat. Ok, the worst months of Vietnam killed 2000 soldiers. It took years running two wars to reach that level. Times change. The real discussion is about making the citizens of America a replacement threat for the Pentagon to keep their budget. They have to do it in secret because the US is a Constitutional state.

The Latest NSA Outrage - And What Snowden Sought to Protect

Even as another militarist (Michael Rogers) is named by Obama to head the NSA, we've learned about the latest NSA outrage: that NSA and its Brit sidekick GCHQ are grabbing up data from smart phone apps, and even games like 'Angry Birds'. Enjoy  'Angry Birds?  Then you're likely now compiled into the NSA's "Main Core" program, along with proven "enemies of the state" and others (e.g. fracking protestors, and OWS folks) deemed such.

We know that with each new generation of mobile phone technology, ever greater amounts of personal data pour onto networks where spies like those ensconced in NSA can pick it up.   According to dozens of previously undisclosed classified documents, as reported by the NY Times yesterday, among the most valuable of those unintended intelligence tools are so-called leaky apps that spew everything from users’ smartphone identification codes to where they have been that day.

As The Times observes:

The N.S.A. and Britain’s Government Communications Headquarters were working together on how to collect and store data from dozens of smartphone apps by 2007, according to the documents, provided by Edward J. Snowden, the former N.S.A. contractor. Since then, the agencies have traded recipes for grabbing location and planning data when a target uses Google Maps, and for vacuuming up address books, buddy lists, phone logs and the geographic data embedded in photos when someone sends a post to the mobile versions of Facebook, Flickr, LinkedIn, Twitter and other services.

Of course, WH tool Jay Carney denied it all, but what would you expect when the snoops probably have all sorts of stuff on him, as well the Obama WH - likely making subtle threats to undermine Obama's legacy and programs (the ACA)  if he doesn't "play ball".  Bear in mind the snoops also had JFK under the gun (literally), as they laid out an assassination program against Fidel (ZR/Rifle) which was then turned on Kennedy. As Peter Dale Scott has reported (Deep Politics Quarterly, Jan. 1994)  this was operated under the NSA and the CIA's  William Harvey with the 'Staff D' connection betrayed on the front cover of Oswald's 201 file. (This indicated a SIGINT or signals intelligence operation run in concert with the National Security Agency or NSA.)

The Times went on to note:

The eavesdroppers’ pursuit of mobile networks has been outlined in earlier reports, but the secret documents, shared by The New York Times, The Guardian and ProPublica, offer far more details of their ambitions for smartphones and the apps that run on them. The efforts were part of an initiative called “the mobile surge,” according to a 2011 British document, an analogy to the troop surges in Iraq and Afghanistan. One N.S.A. analyst’s enthusiasm was evident in the breathless title — “Golden Nugget!” — given to one slide for a top-secret 2010 talk describing iPhones and Android phones as rich resources, one document notes.

Can anyone believe this? And also the arrogance to outright deny it when the evidence is clear?

The Times again:

Two top-secret flow charts produced by the British agency in 2012 show incoming streams of information skimmed from smartphone traffic by the Americans and the British. The streams are divided into “traditional telephony” — metadata — and others marked “social apps,” “geo apps,” “http linking,” webmail, MMS and traffic associated with mobile ads, among others. (MMS refers to the mobile system for sending pictures and other multimedia, and http is the protocol for linking to websites.)

You want to know why the congress can't support food stamps for our millions of hungry kids, or unemployment benefits for  out of luck long term unemployed? Look no further than this nugget from the Times:

As the program accelerated, the N.S.A. nearly quadrupled its budget in a single year, to $767 million in 2007 from $204 million, according to a top-secret Canadian analysis written around the same time.
 

Got that? Over three fourths of a billion for these snoops. For what? Well to keep the national security state expanding! And they know millions are dumb enough to believe the transparent bilge of "protecting us from terrorists" when the real terrorists are the random mass killers that can open up on innocent kids in a school, a mall, or a movie theater. But the NSA doesn't want to face down the likes of the NRA, oh no! Nor does a cowardly congress. It's easier to confect bogeyman terrorists than to challenge the real enablers. As Baltimore Sun columnist Dan Rodricks wrote after the mass shooting in the Columbia Mall:
 

"We have spent billions of dollars in the fight against terrorism — the National Security Agency is maybe 10 miles from the Columbia Mall — when the real terror is right here in our midst, accounting for thousands upon thousands of premature deaths by homicide and suicide, most often impulsive acts made possible by access to guns."

 The Times went on to point out:

Smartphones almost seem to make things too easy. Functioning as phones — making calls and sending texts — and as computers — surfing the web and sending emails — they generate and also rely on data. One secret report shows that just by updating Android software, a user sent nearly 500 lines of data about the phone’s history and use onto the network.
 

Meanwhile, there remain millions of pretend Americans - those who don't deserve liberty because they overvalue a phony security - who will blow these revelations off and still call for Edward Snowden's head. (That he be "brought to trial" - when the format would not even allow him to call public witnesses on his behalf).  I have nothing but contempt for these Americans when my own ancestor, Conrad Brumbaugh, fought in the Revolutionary War for the liberties now being trampled under.

So what did Snowden seek to protect by his disclosures? None other than privacy! As I noted in my June 8 blog post from 2013, secure in one’s person, house, papers, effects” the Fourth amendment implies PRIVACY! These are after all MY private papers, my private effects, my house, etc. If an inherent right to privacy was a myth then by all accounts being secure in one’s person, papers, effects wouldn’t matter.  Beyond that, privacy encapsulate an affirmation of our worth as autonomous humans as opposed to being slaves and pawns of the state.

The cornerstones can be said to be:

-  Personal autonomy (the ability to make personal decisions)

- Individuality  
-  Respect
- Dignity

 -Worth as human beings
 

As one privacy source puts it:

Privacy allows us to make our own decisions free from coercion, to totally be oneself and potentially engage in behavior that might deviate from social norms. It allows us the time and space for self-evaluation. Informational privacy is seen as enhancing individual autonomy by allowing individuals control over who may access different parts of their personal information. It also allows people to maintain their dignity, to keep some aspect of their life or behavior to themselves simply because it would be embarrassing for other people to know about it.

Privacy also allows people to protect their assets or to avoid sharing information with others who would use it against them, such as discrimination by employers, educators, or insurers. The ability to control one’s information has value even in the absence of any shameful or embarrassing or other tangibly harmful circumstances.

Privacy is also required for developing interpersonal relationships with others. While some emphasize the need for privacy to establish intimate relationships, others take a broader view of privacy as being necessary to maintain a variety of social relationships.

By giving us the ability to control who knows what about us and who has access to us, privacy allows us to alter our behavior with different people so that we may maintain and control our various social relationships. For example, people may share different information with their boss than they would with their doctor, as appropriate with their different relationships.

Most discussions on the value of privacy focus on its importance to the individual. Privacy can be seen, however, as also having value to society as a whole. Privacy furthers the existence of a free society. Large databases, potential national identifiers and wide-scale surveillance, can be seen as threatening not only individual rights or interests but also the nature of our society. For example, preserving privacy from wide-spread surveillance can be seen as protecting not only the individual’s private sphere, but also society as a whole: privacy contributes to the maintenance of the type of society in which we want to live.

------

Minus privacy and its inherent defense via the 4th amendment, we thereby become like  "Winston" the pathetic character from Orwell's '1984' whose flat is riddled with two-way monitors with the image of 'Big Brother'. Winston can't even take a crap without Big Brother's beady, baleful eyes staring down at him. THINK about THAT! When he has sex Big Brother is in the room, and the first thing in the morning Winston's ordered by the Oceania Officer on the screen to do his calisthenics and if he loses tempo for an instant he must repeat them.

This is the world we effectively have now via NSA mass snoop technology, and the only reason over three fifths of my countrymen want Snowden taken to a trial is they can't see the value of what he's done. They can't see that had he not done it there'd have been NO scrutiny at all on this secretive agency which Sen. Frank Church once warned us about in frightening terms:

 "I know the capacity that is there to make tyranny total in America. And we must see to it that this agency and all agencies that possess this technology operate within the law and under proper supervision so that we never cross that abyss. That is the abyss from which there is no return"- 

 

To me, this makes the mock Americans who want Snowden tried no better than the good Germans of the Nazi era.  Those degenerates sided with Hitler, praised him and embraced his ideology while turning a blind eye to the multifold wrongs. The last straw was the Enabling Act (1933) which essentially obliterated the last vestiges of the Weimar Republic. These "good Germans" - state loyalists to a fault-  lost the last vestiges of their democracy from right under their miserable noses because they were too dismissive of the clear warning signs all around them. They had it nice and comfy thanks to Herr Hitler, so why rock the boat?

After our military dragged these “good Germans”  into the remnant concentration camps-  to see first hand what their Fuhrer and his minions did- they wished to hell they had rocked the boat. They were marched in and forced to look at the naked, gassed bodies stacked like cordwood until they puked.

Meanwhile, our then military leaders rounded up the remaining high profile Nazis, including Hermann Goering (see photo below) ,


 and dragged them before a Tribunal to be accountable for their actions. "Following orders" was not an acceptable defense! Under the Nuremberg laws and specifically its Principle IV,  the defendants had to have operated under a higher moral order or conscience, damned the "orders", "oaths" or any other contrived legalistic mumbo-jumbo designed to maintain silence in the face of atrocity.

If a person dismisses the NSA's latest outrages, namely the smart phone metadata seizures, or doesn't believe privacy ought to exist anymore anyway because "someone can always find out about you" then whether they know it or not they're like the good Germans. I'd even go further, and say they're no different from Martin Borman or Hermann Goering.
 

What would my Revolutionary War ancestor  think about these "Americans" now,  nearly 240 years after the War of Independence? He’d likely barf nonstop at the spectacle of what too many of the current crop have devolved to: arrant, ignorant, whiny, weak, sissy consumers,  who’d rather calumniate someone trying to preserve their liberties than recognize the real threat to their existence. He’d then likely crawl back into his grave shaking his head but echoing Benjamin Franklin’s famous quote:

"Those who would sacrifice liberty for a temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety"

 Am I a civil liberties “extremist”? Damned right if that means a citizen who understands that the Constitution is not just “a piece of paper” (as Bush once called it) and that the rights inherent in the Bill of Rights are real, apply to individuals, and not mere “compromise abstractions” but rather hold the key to American identity – what truly sets us apart. And once those rights are gone, believe me they won’t be coming back!

Those quaking in their boots at Snowden's continued disclosures would do well to bear in mind the words of Bruce Schneier, a security specialist, who wrote in The New York Times last July 3rd:


"The argument that exposing these documents helps the terrorists doesn't even pass the laugh test; there's nothing here that changes anything any potential terrorist would do or not do."

BINGO!

See also:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/robert-scheer/53895/who-needs-the-gestapo-when-you-have-angry-birds