Unto the Breach: Targeting the TSA

Needless to say, the federal government is increasingly radical and out-of-control, trampling our Constitution, and trampling us.

This is not a partisan issue. Politicians and Presidential Administrations from both sides of the aisle have greatly increased the infringements on our liberties.

It is time to counterattack.

Key features of this counterattack include these:

1) This counterattack must be peaceful and lawful. The time may come when things become violent, but let out-of-control federal authorities begin the violence, and let this happen despite the best, most honest efforts of the American people to fix this country's problems peacefully and lawfully.

2) The counterattack needs to be something Americans can do by themselves and in small groups, especially in informal, ad-hoc groups. Americans are their own leaders, and do not need some big, bureaucratic political party or political action committee to save them from a big, bureaucratic federal government.

Target: The Transportation Security Administration

The TSA presents a clear and present danger to our liberty, so we might as well begin with it.

The TSA is veering farther and farther outside the boundaries of legitimate, Constitutional conduct. Every day we hear new stories of TSA personnel committing crimes and violating our rights under the color of authority. Contrast these daily stories of TSA excesses with our rights under the Fourth Amendment:

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.

Here is a list of specific, actionable things anyone can do to begin this counterattack:


1) Contact President Obama (Note: use of the title "President" with Obama's name does not constitute acknowledgement that Mr. Obama lawfully occupies the office of President of the United States; use of this title merely acknowledges that he is acting in that role, whether Constitutionally or not).

Specifically, feedback to the White House can be made in accordance with guidelines and via addresses accessible from the White House contact page. Let Mr. Obama know that the TSA, which operates under the Department of Homeland Security, is part of the Executive Branch of government, as outlined in Article II of our Constitution and that, ultimately, Mr. Obama will be held legally responsible for the excesses of TSA employees. Point out that these excesses represent a pattern of conduct; they are, specifically, "a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object" and their pattern "evinces a design to reduce [the American people] under absolute Despotism".

We will work to remove Mr. Obama from our White House. What is negotiable at this point is the question of how many crimes he will be prosecuted for. If he will exercise his power to end the TSA's violation of our rights, then we will consider an amnesty regarding crimes in this category.

It is important to keep in mind that an amnesty does not mean Mr. Obama will go free. It means that prosecutors representing the American people will consider any extenuating circumstances while deciding what charges to press and what punishments to seek. The more he does to end the unlawful oppressions of TSA personnel, the more consideration Obama will be given as we consider, in court, Obama's culpability.


2) Contact the Department of Homeland Security and let Secretary Janet Napolitano know that we will work to remove her from office, and we will work to hold her accountable for violations of our rights. Remind her that a defense in court that she was "just following orders" will not be adequate. Point out that if she immediately begins to rein in her TSA personnel, amnesty in her case will be considered, proportional to the extent with which she begins to reverse unconstitutional actions taken by her subordinates.


3) Contact the TSA itself. There is a contact page, which specifically allows for input regarding civil rights violations. Also, familiarize yourself with the TSA's senior management. Together with the routing information on the contact page, you can send letters to specific senior managers in the TSA. Make sure they understand that their organization is committing crimes as part of official policy. Consequently, following the precedents of the SS in the wake of World War II, all TSA personnel can be held to some degree accountable for the actions of what will surely be found to be a criminal organization. Mere membership in the TSA is at least suspicious; as senior management, these people are aware of the crimes. Ask them what they are doing to stop the crimes being committed under color of authority. Make sure they understand that persistence on the TSA's present course of action nearly guarantees them a prison term at some point, whereas efforts to acknowledge and correct the problems they have, efforts made immediately and with great zeal, will mitigate their situation.


The above people can be removed from office by Congress. Congress has the power to impeach not only the President, but other officeholders as well. This is spelled out in Article I of our Constitution.

And this brings us to our Legislative and then Judicial Branches.


4) Contact your Congressional Representatives. It is simple to figure out who your representative is: merely go to the House Website and type in your zip code. Alternatively, if you know what Congressional district you are in, you can go to the list of representatives. Let your representative know that you are unhappy with the TSA. Your representative needs to cut funding for the TSA, and introduce articles of impeachment against Obama, Napolitano and other officeholders. Your representatives need to understand that we will be removing some of them from office, whether or not they fight the TSA. But, what happens afterward is still negotiable. They are going to want their Congressional pensions; they will seek other elected offices; they will work in the business world after they leave Congress. For all these things, they will need the good will of the American people, and without our good will, pensions, votes and clients for their business activities might evaporate; they can become persona non grata to the American people, and any business activity with which they are associated can be boycotted. Warn them to do their job, or they will see how fast they can become so many walking stink magnets.


5) Contact your Senators. You can find out who they are from the Senate Webpage and from the Senate's List of Senators. Let them know they need to cut off funding for these violations of our rights, and that they need to vote in favor of impeaching Obama and his minions. Explain to them how our dissatisfaction with them will manifest itself if they fail to do so (loss of votes, loss of customers for any business with which they are associated once they leave the Senate, etc).


6) Any federal judge who rules that the TSA's activities are Constitutional needs to be removed by impeachment. Get the judge's name and the specifics of the ruling, then advertise the problem. Make sure your Representative knows that articles of impeachment are in order, and that your Senators understand which way they need to vote on the impeachment.


Farther down in the Executive Branch:


7) Consider contacting your FBI Field Office. Point out that, as federal agents, their duty is to protect your rights under the Constitution. Explain how the TSA routinely violates these rights, committing sexual assualt, theft and other crimes under color of federal authority. Keep in mind that, while there is a tremendous amount of corruption among the senior leadership and in the Washington area, the field agents tend to be hard-working and honest, and perhaps even still idealistic. There may not be much that they can do, as any actions they undertake will probably be undercut by higher-ups (such as our Attorney General Eric Holder, who likes to arm Mexican drug cartels), but remind our lower-level FBI agents of their duty. Most of them would risk their lives for America; let's see how many will risk their careers. And, perhaps this investment will pay off as honest agents get promoted in coming years.


Transitioning from federal to state government, we continue:


Contact your governors and state officers. You can find out who they are by visiting Politics 1. Specifically, go to the page for governors and statewide candidates, and from there click on your state. You will see links to official websites of state legislatures and governors' administrations, as well as to the campaign websites for candidates for statewide offices.


8) Contact your governor. Remind the governor that it is the duty of the states and their political subdivisions to provide equal protection under the law to all the states' citizens, per our Fourteenth Amendment:

Section 1.

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Let your governor know that federal authorities, in this case TSA personnel, are out-of-control and are committing crimes under color of federal authority. It is the legal responsibility of state law enforcement authorities to arrest TSA personnel for their thefts, sexual assaults and methodical, warrantless searches and seizures. Your governor needs to understand that state law enforcement personnel should in no way be collaborating with illegitimate activities of TSA personnel, such as establishing checkpoints for systematic and warrantless searches and seizures along roadways.

If the Obama regime wants to play hardball, and threatens to make your state a no-fly zone because the governor refuses to allow TSA personnel to abuse decent, law-abiding citizens, remind the governor that intrastate travel is off-limits to federal authorities, and that federal authorities are Constitutionally prohibited from interfering with interstate travel. Interstate commerce can be regulated in manners other than gate-raping and porno-scanning innocent travelers. If Obama threatens to shoot down passenger aircraft that take off without his FAA's approval, state governors can mobilize Air National Guard fighters to escort those civilian aircraft safely to the border of their individual states, and Army National Guard air defense units on the ground can supplement the state's ability to target any federal fighter aircraft threatening a passenger jet; should that federal fighter open fire on a passenger plane, it, in turn, will be fired upon by aircraft and air defense systems loyal to state authorities and to the US Constitution.

As some added thoughts in this category, I should like to point out that the Constitutional crisis is already upon us. The question is, how are we going to respond? Also, during America's first Civil War, President Lincoln was determined to preserve our Union. Slavery was an abomination, and the Republican Party was formed to abolish it, but the war was actually sparked over states' rights issues, with rebel forces firing the first shot at Fort Sumter. To me, another question presents itself: Were Lincoln physically among the American people today, what would be his thoughts? I can't imagine he would be in favor of saving the Union at the cost of our Constitutional form of government. Rather, I think he would be on the side of our Constitution, hoping to preserve it against an out-of-control federal government. I also think he would insist that those Americans who seek to support our Constitution against domestic enemies in the halls of power in Washington move forward with peaceful, legal means, and only resort to armed force in self-defense, leaving it to the federal authorities to fire first. In the winter of 1860-1861, rebel states seceded, then fired the first shot at Fort Sumter. We are neither seceding, nor firing the first shot.


9) Contact your state legislators and candidates for state legislative offices. State legislatures should pass resolutions calling upon the US Representatives and Senators from their states to cut off funding for TSA activities and to impeach federal officers who are violating our laws. Legislatures should also resolve to call upon the governor to stand up to federal authorities who are violating our federal Constitution, and to call upon local law enforcement personnel to arrest TSA personnel who are committing crimes under the color of authority.


10) Contact your local mayor, and have the mayor direct municipal police to take TSA personnel into custody when those TSA personnel violate our rights and commit crimes. Contact your city council, and have them pass resolutions calling upon the mayor to do this. Contact your local sheriff, and have the sheriff arrest TSA personnel who execute unlawful searches and seizures and who otherwise violate our rights. Remind local law enforcement authorities that it is their duty under our Fourteenth Amendment to protect our Constitutional rights.



Other things you can do:

11) If you have to travel by air, get to the airport early. Depending upon your stomach for confrontation and your willingness to be unlawfully detained, you can choose to not cooperate with anything you deem to be excessive or a violation of your rights. While standing in line, talk to the people around you. Find someone you can pair up with, and if TSA personnel want to conduct an intimate search of you, insist that this person witness the activity. Exchange contact information with this person, make some notes about what happened and how, and get the name and identifying data of the TSA personnel who are searching you. File charges against this TSA person, and have your airport companion offer to be a witness in court.


12) Take pictures of your TSA handler. Your TSA handler is an official government employee in a public place performing official duties, so take a photo of that person, and then exercise your First Amendment right to write about the incident at a blog or on Facebook or wherever you hang out online. Let everyone know who this TSA employee was and how this government employee treated you. Have others in line take pictures of this employee for you. If someone who is not traveling with you can accompany you to the airport, have that person film, photograph or otherwise record your experience. Make sure your TSA handler knows that violations of the law will be prosecuted. Sooner or later, justice will be done, and their uniforms and their orders will not protect them from justice any more than uniforms and orders protected Nazi officials and SS men decades ago.



Please keep in mind that most TSA personnel are trying to be decent, law-abiding Americans, and are trying to ensure our safety. Most of them are being misled and victimized by those in power in Washington. When TSA personnel deliberately make an informed decision to abuse their power and violate our rights, that is when they cross a moral line, and deserve far less consideration; until then, help them see the error of their ways, and warn them of what will happen if they insist on conducting themselves in a criminal manner.



Other resources to determine who your government officials are include links at Common Cause and at USA.gov.



From our Declaration of Independence:

That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

License to Intrude, Part 3

In Part 1, we saw how federal agents were taking shortcuts around the Bill of Rights to collect and retain information on innocent, lawful (and legally-protected) activities of American citizens, and share that with other government agencies. The FBI was the subject of much of the discussion - but don't think it ends (or begins) with them. We also examined the connections between Facebook's senior leadership and national Democrats, and asked the question about what would happen if government agents, following orders from unscrupulous superiors, sought information from a social networking corporation whose executives helped put those unscrupulous superiors into power.

In Part 2 we saw how Facebook inadvertently collected large amounts of information from the computers of its users, even after those users had logged out of Facebook. This was significant, because the information deliberately collected was quite extensive:

Thus, in addition to being populated by traditional Facebook activities — "likes," comments, wall posts, picture posts, and so on—Ticker will soon be filled with detailed information about users' media consumption and lifestyle habits—the TV shows they watch, the books they read, the websites they visit, and the routes they jog, most likely without users affirmatively setting their preferences to share such information.

We also saw an example of how the government of Iran was using Facebook information to persecute activists in the United States! And, we heard about Facebook's policy regarding government requests: "32. Facebook currently grants government access to user information on merely a "good faith belief" that the disclosure is required by law[.]"

Well, it is getting better.

An excerpt from Four Unanswered Questions About the Cybersecurity Bills by Eva Galperin, March 27, 2012, gives a little more insight into the questions being considered in legislating current technology:

What does "information sharing" mean?

All of the proposed cybersecurity bills mandate some kind of "information sharing" or "government assistance" between the U.S. government and the private companies that have access to so much of our personal data, including email, web searches, GPS data, and our social graphs. Companies are encouraged to share information about "cyber threats" or incidents with the government, and to that end it provides them with immunity when sharing information about threats.

Some of the proposals balance this information-sharing with privacy oversight, to make sure that shared information does not impinge on individual privacy or civil liberties, but proposals such as the Rogers bill contain no such protective language. The Rogers bill gives companies a free pass to monitor and collect communications and share that data with the government and other companies, so long as they do so for "cybersecurity purposes." Just invoking "cybersecurity threats" is enough to grant companies immunity from nearly all civil and criminal liability, effectively creating an exemption from all existing law. Additionally, the Rogers bill places almost no restrictions on what kinds of information can be collected and how it can be used, so long as the companies can claim it was motivated by "cybersecurity purposes." S. 2105 (Lieberman) and S. 2151 (McCain) contain similarly dangerous provisions.

As if that wasn't bad enough, "information sharing" is often just a euphemism for surveillance and countermeasures, including monitoring email, filtering content, or blocking access to websites.

The link in the above excerpt goes into more detail on the Rogers bill. From Rogers' "Cybersecurity" Bill Is Broad Enough to Use Against WikiLeaks and The Pirate Bay, March 8, 2012, by Rainey Reitman and Lee Tien:

Under the proposed legislation, a company that protects itself or other companies against "cybersecurity threats" can "use cybersecurity systems to identify and obtain cyber threat information to protect the rights and property" of the company under threat. But because "us[ing] cybersecurity systems" is incredibly vague, it could be interpreted to mean monitoring email, filtering content, or even blocking access to sites. A company acting on a "cybersecurity threat" would be able to bypass all existing laws, including laws prohibiting telcos from routinely monitoring communications, so long as it acted in "good faith."

The broad language around what constitutes a cybersecurity threat leaves the door wide open for abuse. For example, the bill defines "cyber threat intelligence" and "cybersecurity purpose" to include "theft or misappropriation of private or government information, intellectual property, or personally identifiable information."

Yes, intellectual property. It's a little piece of SOPA wrapped up in a bill that's supposedly designed to facilitate detection of and defense against cybersecurity threats. The language is so vague that an ISP could use it to monitor communications of subscribers for potential infringement of intellectual property. An ISP could even interpret this bill as allowing them to block accounts believed to be infringing, block access to websites like The Pirate Bay believed to carry infringing content, or take other measures provided they claimed it was motivated by cybersecurity concerns.

The language of "theft or misappropriation of private or government information" is equally concerning. Regardless of the intent of this language, the end result is that the government and Internet companies could use this language to block sites like WikiLeaks and NewYorkTimes.com, both of which have published classified information. Online publishers like WikiLeaks are currently afforded protection under the First Amendment; receiving and publishing classified documents from a whistleblower is a common journalistic practice. While there's uncertainty about whether the Espionage Act could be brought to bear against WikiLeaks, it is difficult to imagine a situation where the Espionage Act would apply to WikiLeaks without equally applying to the New York Times, the Washington Post, and in fact everyone who reads about the cablegate releases. But under Rogers' cybersecurity proposal, the government would have new, powerful tools to go after WikiLeaks. By claiming that WikiLeaks constituted "cyber threat intelligence" (aka "theft or misappropriation of private or government information"), the government may be empowering itself and other companies to monitor and block the site. This means that the previous tactics used to silence WikiLeaks—including a financial blockade and shutting down their accounts with online service providers—could be supplemented by very direct means. The government could proclaim that WikiLeaks constitutes a cybersecurity threat and have new, broad powers to filter and block communication with the journalistic website.

I am wondering if it doesn't go far beyond that. What about if someone had serious concerns that a social networking company were spying on its customers and passing that information to someone else in deliberate violation of the law? If that someone tried to collect evidence to determine if this was indeed happening, could that attempt be construed as a cybersecurity threat? Of course criminals will cover their tracks by breaking more laws, but this could make it perfectly legal for criminals to cover up criminal activities.

Read some of the rest of the posts at my blog, and tell me if that is not a serious concern.

Facebook's "Timeline" feature has been alleged to go out of bounds. From a December 27, 2011, EPIC letter to the FTC we learn about the threats posed by "Timeline":

Dear Mr. Chairman and Members of the Commission:

Recently, the Federal Trade Commission announced a landmark settlement with the social network company, Facebook. According to the Commission, "The social networking service Facebook has agreed to settle Federal Trade Commission charges that it deceived consumers by telling them they could keep their information on Facebook private, and then repeatedly allowing it to be shared and made public."¹ We write now to urge the Commission to determine whether Facebook's deployment of "Timeline" complies with the Commission's recent order In the Matter of Facebook, Inc. (Nov 29, 2011).

Having just reached a settlement with the Commission in which the company is required "to take several steps to make sure it lives up to its promises in the future, including giving consumers clear and prominent notice and obtaining consumers' express consent before their information is shared beyond the privacy settings they have established,"² Facebook is changing the privacy settings of its users in a way that gives the company far greater ability to disclose their personal information than in the past. With Timeline, Facebook has once again taken control over the user's data from the user and has now made information that was essentially archived and inaccessible widely available without the consent of the user.

[snip]

Timeline acts as a user's profile page and automatically summarizes the user's life, from birth to the present day.⁸ Facebook selectively takes user information to display the Timeline summaries from every piece of information that has ever been shared with Facebook.

[snip]

This level of exposure is vastly different from the old Facebook Profile.

[snip]

Nor is Timeline limited to the types of information shared in the past. As users connect to social apps, Timeline will contain new categories of information regarding media consumption and lifestyle habits. Timeline's new "Health and Wellness" item, for example, encourages users to disclose medical data, turning Facebook into "an actuarial goldmine."¹¹

In fact, Facebook is already used by the leading pharmaceutical companies to market drugs and medical treatments.¹² The use of Facebook by health advertising companies led the Center for Digital Democracy to file a complaint with the Commission last year.¹³ The complain discussed Facebook applications such as Healthseeker, which was designed to help people with diabetes make informed lifestyle choices, but which neglected to mention "how users are tracked and monitored or what kinds of data are collected."¹⁴

[snip]

One government has already warned consumers about the dangers presented by Timeline. Australia's Privacy Commission warned consumers to be careful what information they share with Facebook, stating that the company is "trying to change how people think and encourage them to normalize over-sharing and abandon any restraing on storage and use and exposure of private information."²⁰

Wow!

What kind of data is at stake, though? You might be surprised. From COMMENTS OF THE ELECTRONIC PRIVACY INFORMATION CENTER To THE FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION / Face Facts: A Forum on Facial Recognition / Project Number P115406, January 31, 2012:

At a minimum, EPIC recommends that the Commission enforce Fair Information Practices ("FIP") against commercial actors when collecting, using, or storing facial recognition data. We further believe that businesses should never use facial recognitions techniques to obtain the actual identity of consumers without the consumer's actual knowledge and informed consent. Consumers today enjoy enormous freedom and personal safety because they are able to interact with so many merchants, who are essentially strangers, without concern that they will be secretly tracked and profiled. It is critical that the Federal Trade Commission take affirmative steps to ensure the protection of the consumers' right to safeguard their identity. In the absence of guidelines and legal standards, EPIC recommends a moratorium on the commercial deployment of facial recognition techniques.

[snip]

EPIC's 2010 complaint concerning Google Buzz provided the basis for the Commission's investigation and subsequent settlement concerning the social networking service.² In that case, the Commission found that Google "used deceptive tactics and violated its own privacy promises to consumers when it launched [Buzz]."³ The Commission's recent settlement with Facebook was based on complaints filed by EPIC and other privacy and civil liberties organizations.⁴ The Commission found that Facebook had "deceived consumers by telling them they could keep their information on Facebook private, and then repeatedly allowing it to be shared and made public."⁵ EPIC has also worked to bring the Commission's attention to the issues raised by facial recognition technology. In 2011, EPIC Senior Counsel John Verdi spoke at the Face Facts Workshop,⁶ and EPIC filed a complaint with the Commission regarding Facebook's use of facial recognition technology.⁷

But, wait! There's more!

Did you notice how Facebook now tells everyone where you are when you post a status update? Facebook is not just tracking your location; it is making your location public knowledge. To be sure, this is only an approximate location, but do you really want the world to know when you are hundreds of miles from home, away on a vacation or a business trip?

And, it does not stop with location. The potential is for far, far more.

From Are you ready for a 'quantified life'?, by Mike Elgan, April 14, 2012:

Computerworld - That smartphone you carry around is a box full of sensors.

Those sensors are just sitting there doing nothing, or performing mundane tasks like giving you turn-by-turn directions or turning off your screen when you're yakking on the phone.

But what if you could use phone sensors to their full potential?

[snip]

Smart software with access to all the data gathered by these sensors, combined with an Internet full of information, could figure out all kinds of things about you.

Everybody knows that big companies like Google, Apple and Facebook want to harvest cellphone-generated data and use it to serve up virtual personal assistants with a side order of contextual advertising.

This vision of the future puts your phone's sensor data in the hands of megacorporations.

[snip]

Alohar's Mobile Behavior Analytics Engine squeezes meaning out of user sensor data and offers libraries of data analysis to developers.

For example, based on the speed at which you're moving and the pattern of your phone's motion sensor, Alohar's software can tell if you're walking, skateboarding, biking, driving or flying. The GPS can tell where this is taking place. The clock tells when.

It can also auto-categorize locations as "home," "work," "restaurant," "gym" and other groupings, and provide you with statistics about, for example, how many hours you spend at work each month.

By combining GPS, light sensor and temperature data, the software can tell if you're inside or outside.

Some people with brains are rightly concerned about having chips implanted in them, without their knowledge or consent.

But, how many of us have already bought such an item, and carry it with us everywhere we go?

1984 is here, and we're paying top dollar to have the latest upgrades to the surveillance system.

And, at least one social networking company whose executives supported Obama's and Clinton's candidacies in 2008 is collecting that information, giving it away to the government and selling it to the highest bidders.

From Are you ready for a 'quantified life'?:

There's another "ambient awareness" app called Highlight that tells you when someone you know -- or someone who knows someone you know -- is nearby.

A combination of a system like Alohar's and an app like Highlight could tell you how you're connected to the strangers around you (those who also use the same app). Here's a guy who goes to the same gym you do. There's a woman whose kids go to the same school as your kids. One of your neighbors works in a building next to your workplace -- maybe you should carpool.

It's impossible to predict what creative developers could do with this service.

I wonder just how seamlessly that might connect with Facebook? :)

Got No Heart, Part 4

I wasn't sure if there was going to be a Part 4 to this series. I should have known to just give them time.

In Part 1 we saw how the UK government was intervening early on in the lives of children that government bureaucrats decided might become problems for society at some point in the future, with a goal of preventing those problems from ever cropping up. How early?

Predictably, by one year later, the situation was out of control with secret government courts to decide who was a fit parent. From The unnatural justice of secret family courts, August 27, 2007:

The Sunday Telegraph highlights today yet another case in which a mother has been threatened with losing her baby to local authority care. The mother had not shown any sign at all of harming her child, for her baby has not yet been born.

Understand, the child is not yet born.

Insofar as abortion rights are concerned, this is not a child, but a fetus, and may be destroyed.

But, insofar as the government being able to intervene, this is not just a child, but one that will turn out bad unless the government does something.

We also speculated whether government bureaucrats might not be getting into the baby business under cover of the public interest.

Well, in Part 2 we saw this was indeed the case:

So, local government entities were promised more money from London if they increased the number of adoptions. In turn, using excuses like "a chance [the parent] might shout at [the baby] when he was older", they started taking babies from innocent families, because babies are easier to adopt out.

In Part 3, we stopped short of actually saying that the UK government was involved in human trafficking of the babies of UK citizens, only because I produced no evidence documenting a money trail of kickbacks to government officials.

However, you can argue that it is human trafficking nonetheless.

Now, this: I reproduce in its entirety from March 19, 2012:

Instead, the primary pupils are being encouraged to play in large groups.

Educational psychologist Gaynor Sbuttoni said the policy has been used at schools in Kingston, South West London, and Surrey.

She added: "I have noticed that teachers tell children they shouldn't have a best friend and that everyone should play together.

"They are doing it because they want to save the child the pain of splitting up from their best friend. But it is natural for some children to want a best friend. If they break up, they have to feel the pain because they're learning to deal with it."

Russell Hobby, of the National Association of Head Teachers, confirmed some schools were adopting best-friend bans.

He said: "I don't think it is widespread but it is clearly happening. It seems bizarre.

I don't see how you can stop people from forming close friendships. We make and lose friends throughout our lives." The Campaign for Real Education, which wants more parental choice in state education, said the "ridiculous" policy was robbing children of their childhood.

Spokesman Chris McGovern added: "Children take things very seriously and if you tell them they can't have a best friend it can be seriously damaging to them. They need to learn about relationships."

I'm not making this up.

(See also UK Schools Ban Children From Making Best Friends, March 22, 2012.)

First, take a moment and research the UK's gun laws. Basically, you aren't supposed to have them - except certain kinds under very limited conditions.

Now, step back and put this all together.

The British people, who more than seven decades ago basically stood alone in the West to stop Hitler, were first disarmed by their own government late in the last century.

Next, secret government courts make the most important decisions about who will raise your children, and if you speak out about it, you go to prison. People no longer have a right to have families, and they do not have a right to complain about this fact or protest it.

Finally, schools are beginning to prevent children from having best friends.

The direction this is moving in is that people will be in trouble if they have close associates; relationships are intended to be casual.

This is important, because a very close friend will risk his life for you, and will help you when you are in trouble. But, when a casual acquaintance sees government goons coming after you, he will step back and let them take you. And, since your "friendships" are all shallow, you won't know whom to trust, so you can't make any effective plans to retake Britain from those who now control it.

Understand, this banning of best friends is in its infancy, but make no mistake about what will happen when this policy grows up.

The people of the United Kingdom fought off the Nazis, they were integral in winning the Cold War and defeating communism... but, the bad guys won. Children in the UK are growing up in a world every bit as bad as Hitler or Stalin ever sought to create.

And, my fellow Americans, don't think this won't happen on our side of the Atlantic.

The US government is already building its database of who your friends are...

Director of National Intelligence Gains New Powers, Expands Datamining of US Citizens

Under revised guidelines for the National Counterterrorism Center, the intelligence agency officials will be able to profile and track American citizens, suspected of no crime, for up to five years. The change represents a dramatic expansion of government surveillance and appears to violate the Privacy Act of 1974, which limits data exchanges across federal agencies and establishes legal rights for US citizens. In 2003, Congress put an end to a similar program. For more information, see EPIC - Total Information Awareness.

License to Intrude, Part 2

There is a great deal going on in the world, and keeping up with things can be challenging. So, as I was reviewing news from the Caucasus region, I was surprised when I came across an article addressing a situation related to a topic I had previously written about. At this point, I suggest you read Part 1.

And now, we begin by reviewing an excerpt from Facebook privacy row: Social network giant admits to 'bugs', dated September 28, 2011 (boldface in original):

In its latest privacy blunder, the social networking site was forced to confirm that it has been constantly tracking its 750 million users, even when they are using other sites.

The social networking giant says the huge privacy breach was simply a mistake - that software automatically downloaded to users' computers when they logged in to Facebook 'inadvertently' sent information to the company, whether or not they were logged in at the time.

Most would assume that Facebook stops monitoring them after they leave its site, but technology bloggers discovered this was not the case.

In fact, data has been regularly sent back to the social network's servers - data that could be worth billions when creating 'targeted' advertising based on the sites users visit.

The website's practices were exposed by Australian technology blogger Nik Cubrilovic and have provoked a furious response across the internet.

In a post entitled Logging out of Facebook is not enough, from September 25, 2011, Cubrilovic begins to provide an explanation as to how Facebook monitors the online activity of its users, even after they log out of Facebook. At the end of this post, he summarizes:

Specifically the datr and lu cookies are retained after logout and on subsequent requests, and the a_user cookie, which contains your userid, is only cleared once the session is restarted. Most importantly, connection state is retained through these HTTP connections. There is never a clean break between a logged in session and a logged out session - but I will have more on that in a follow-up post.

Interestingly, Facebook - until only a few days ago - was placing cookies on computers that identified the Facebook account associated with the computer, and what other websites the computer accessed, even after the Facebook user was logged out.

This information was being sent back to Facebook.

The most important of these cookies contained the user's ID. Reportedly, this cookie is now deleted on logout. But, there were other cookies. From Facebook Fixes Logout Issue, Explains Cookies, September 27th, 2011:

The Other Cookies

This leaves a number of other cookies, and I will be explaining the purpose of each one as per information from Facebook.

The datr cookie is set when a browser first visits facebook.com. The purpose of it, as per Facebook, is:

We set the 'datr' cookie when a web browser accesses facebook.com (except social plugin iframes), and the cookie helps us identify suspicious login activity and keep users safe. For instance, we use it to flag questionable activity like failed login attempts and attempts to create multiple spam accounts.

The lu cookie is also set the first time a browser visits facebook.com and is used to identify the browser pre-fill the users email address in the login form. The purpose of it, as per Facebook again, is:

the 'lu' cookie helps protect people using public computers. The data it contains is used to make subtle changes to the login form, such as prefilling your email address and unchecking the "Keep me logged in" option if we detect multiple users signing in with the same browser. If you log out, this cookie does not contain your user id and Facebook will not prefill the email field.

These cookies, by the very purpose they serve, uniquely identify the browser being used - even after logout. As a user, you have to take Facebook at their word that the purpose of these cookies is only for what is being described. The previous a_user cookie that was fixed identified your user account and has been fixed, these cookies identify the browser and are not re-associated with your logged in account.

Nik Cubrilovic compiled a table showing how cookies with particular identifying data were preserved on and even added to a computer after logout from Facebook. This includes information categorized as "act". Continuing with Facebook Fixes Logout Issue, Explains Cookies:

Most of the remaining cookies are not very interesting - they set things like the language of your browser and device dimensions. The most interesting cookie, for me (after the userid, obviously), was act. The values for this cookie for the requests I logged were 1316962370811/2;, 1316972790935/11; and 1317032073811/0;. It is a timestamp for each request, in milliseconds since UNIX epoch (1st January 1970). What interested me was that not only was the timestamp accurate to milliseconds (ie. thousandths of a second) but that an additional number was being added to it. My gut instinct was that the additional number (ie. the /11, /0 and /2 in those exaples) was being added to make the timestamp unique for each and every request. Facebook confirmed this:

It is a monotonically increasing counter of actions since the start of logging. As we shared, this is for the collection of performance data -- nothing else.

I understand the technical reason for that - they can store the timestamp as a primary key in their logging backend and not have to associate benchmarking of each request back to a user. I believe Facebook here when they say that although this is a unique identifier it isn't used to link back to a user id - but it is definitely being logged and it can be linked to a user.

A lawsuit has now been filed against Facebook regarding this matter.

For further background on the situation and the lawsuit, you can review: Lawmakers seek FTC probe of Facebook post-log out tracking by Elinor Mills, September 28, 2011; Facebook sued over tracking users after logout by Elinor Mills, September 30, 2011; and Facebook Sued for Tracking Users After Log-Off; Class-Action Status Sought by Joel Rosenblatt and Sara Forden, September 30, 2011.

The judge presiding over the case is Magistrate Judge Paul Singh Grewal, who was appointed in 2010. In addition to legal experience in a wide range of subject areas, including civil rights and contract matters, Judge Grewal has his Bachelor of Science degree from MIT, and has particular experience regarding technology-related issues. Judge Grewal recently had the Google/Oracle mediation referred to him. Judging by his background, Judge Grewal would seem like an excellent presiding judge for a case of this kind.

This case is of interest. As the Electronic Privacy Information Center points out (pgs 5-6 of 14) in a September 29, 2011, letter submitted to the Federal Communications Commission regarding a Facebook feature called "Ticker" (superscripts refer to footnotes in original):

Ticker allows a user to see the Facebook posts of complete strangers — or even Facebook interactions between complete strangers — to which a friend of the user has connected. Facebook users were initially surprised by this phenomenon, prompting a host of negative comments on Facebook's blog,²¹ blog posts criticizing Facebook,²² advice on how to ensure the privacy of a user's post,²³ advice on removing Ticker entirely,²⁴ and even a petition to Facebook to remove Ticker.²⁵ Frictionless sharing will amplify Ticker's problems because under the frictionless sharing model social apps will automatically post the user's activity to the ticker feeds of anyone to which the user is connected. Thus, in addition to being populated by traditional Facebook activities — "likes," comments, wall posts, picture posts, and so on—Ticker will soon be filled with detailed information about users' media consumption and lifestyle habits—the TV shows they watch, the books they read, the websites they visit, and the routes they jog, most likely without users affirmatively setting their preferences to share such information.

Users have already reported problems caused by the new availability of personal information on Ticker.²⁶ And once social apps enter the picture, Facebook users could unknowingly share information about nearly every aspect of their lives, ranging from the embarrassing but otherwise innocuous revelation of questionable music taste ("[u]sers unaware of their Ticker broadcasts will be upset, for some time, that Ticketmaster told the world they'll be attending Boyz II Men's reunion show")²⁷ to the potentially dangerous revelation that one is consuming the "wrong" political or religious content ("Once you are on the WP Social Reader app, everything you read within the app will automatically be shared in the following ways....").²⁸ Indeed, the Iranian government has a history of retaliating against those who engage in politicized Facebook activity. For example, one Iranian-American graduate student who was politically active on Facebook received a threatening email that read "we know your home address in Los Angeles," and directed the user to "stop spreading lies about Iran on Facebook."²⁹

Wow! The government of Iran is using Facebook information to target political dissidents. Aren't they one of the founding members of the "Axis of Evil"?

More background can be found in another Electronic Privacy Information Center document, entitled Complaint, Request for Investigation, Injunction, and Other Relief In the Matter of Facebook, Inc. and the Facial Identification of Users from June 10, 2011 (pgs 5-7 of 34):

21. Facial recognition systems include computer-based biometric techniques that detect and
identify human faces.¹⁸

[snip]

25. The Chinese government is currently building an elaborate network infrastructure to enable the identification of people in public spaces. The "All-Seeing Eye" relies on the massive deployment of facial recognition technology.²¹

26. According to documents obtained by EPIC under the Freedom of Information Act, the US Department of Homeland Security is pursuing a far-reaching program to automate the identification and tagging of individuals, both citizens and non-citizens, based upon their facial images.²²

27. Among other programs, DHS is promoting face recognition technology so that federal marshals can surreptitiously photograph people in airports, bus and train stations, and elsewhere leading to the creation of new capabilities for government monitoring of individuals in public spaces.²³

28. Facial recognition technology and its application for mass surveillance was described by Adm. John Poindexter, the architect of "Total Information Awareness."²⁴

[snip]

30. Social networking services have played a transformative role in several regions of the world, but governments also seek access to images of political organizers to obtain actual identities and to enable investigation and prosecution.

31. In Iran, government agents have posted pictures of political activists online and used "crowd-sourcing" to identify individuals.²⁵ There is also evidence that Iranian researchers are working on developing and improving facial recognition technology to identify political dissidents.²⁶

32. Facebook currently grants government access to user information on merely a "good faith belief" that the disclosure is required by law or when it is necessary to protect Facebook from people it believes are violating its "Statement of Rights of Responsibilities."²⁹

[In the original, footnotes numbered 27 and 28 are not found.]

So, it is not only the government of Iran. Information that is publicly available is being used by Communist China. And, assuming neither misconduct nor mistake on the part of Facebook executives and employees, the US government can arrive with a national security letter and have access to all this information about US citizens.

Of course, at the other end of the spectrum, a situation could develop where corruptible Facebook employees or executives might come to be working with rogue government agents, foreign powers and transnational organized crime. Possibilities include:

1) Your personal information, including biometric data, gets passed to cartels specializing in identity theft.

2) Foreign intelligence services target you for an espionage operation, because you work in a place of interest. For example, a job as mundane as that of a Facebook employee could be interesting, because of the information you can pass them on other people that they might recruit as spies.

3) Political leaders establish an "enemies" list; speak out against the policies of an administration, and you find yourself subject to enhanced searches at airports, you get an audit by the IRS, and your bank accounts get frozen because of some "mistake" that connects you to terrorism.

This is everything the Gestapo or the KGB ever wish they could have had, and more.

And, we haven't even looked at the extremely unlikely worst case scenario: where Facebook executives/employees are collaborating in activities they know to be illegal with politicians whose corruption they share.

When Dovrefjell Crumbled, Part 2

We continue from Part 1 with our analysis of the "terrorist" incident in Norway and its political fallout.

When I saw Right wing blogger reveals identity yesterday in Norway Post, I knew my analysis from Part 1 was substantially correct. In Right wing blogger reveals identity:

The ultra right-wing blogger "Fjordman", much quoted by Andreas Behring Breivik who is charged with the July 22nd terrorist acts, is revealing his identity in the Friday issue of the newspaper VG.

"Fjordman" has been quoted a number of times in Breivik's "Manifest" which he published just hours before he carried out his terrorist acts on July 22nd. He said "Fjordman" was "a source of inspiration".

Notice how they refer to Fjordman as an "ultra right-wing blogger".

Now, consider this from Breivik's political idol «Fjordman» emerges from anonymity August 5, 2011 (boldface is in the original):

(VG Nett) In an exclusive interview with VG, Peder Jensen (36) sheds his alias as the right wing blogger «Fjordman», and talks about his shock at being cited as an influence by terrorist Anders Behring Breivik.

Thursday he was questioned for several hours by Norwegian police about his supposed interaction with Breivik (32).

Under the alias «Fjordman», he has been a prolific blogger on different far-right websites, and was cited extensively in Breivik's rambling manifesto.

Again, "right wing" and "far-right".

They can't just call Fjordman a blogger or a citizen-journalist; our "free press" (the propaganda arm of those in power) has to tell the reader what to think of this guy: he's "right wing". Previous conditioning lets you realize that "right wing" is bad.

Skipping down:

Police sources confirm that Jensen has been questioned as the blogger «Fjordman», and that they are certain of his identity.

- I feel it's my duty to give a statement to the police, and I wanted to do this interview because my name eventually would have emerged anyway, resulting in a media frenzy. It is also a way for me to clear my name, says Jensen.

Norwegian police confiscated his computer Thursday, and even though he was questioned as a witness, he feels that the police are looking to implicate him.

Fjordman made a big mistake.

As an anonymous blogger and citizen-journalist, he made an extremely valuable contribution in getting the truth about what was happening in Norway, Scandinavia and Europe out to the world, doing so in impeccable English to ensure the widest possible readership.

Because he was anonymous, people had to focus on what he was saying; once someone's identity is known, the focus shifts from what is being said to who is saying it, and the smears and persecution begin.

Man is least himself when he talks in his own person.
Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.

~Oscar Wilde

But, for the same reason he wrote, he felt compelled to come forth and talk to the police; not because he had any information to add (he could have sent that anonymously), but to help his community and the cause of decency.

The result was predictable: he feels investigators are now trying to implicate him.

There is nothing Fjordman or anyone else can say or do that will clear his name; the neocommies are convinced he is guilty (guilty of opposing them!) and will do anything they can, legal or not, moral or not, to crucify him.

And for the rest of us, we already knew Fjordman was completely innocent; his denunciation of the terrorist attack was unnecessary, too, because we already knew he didn't approve of it. Read his writings, and you will know he is a decent person.

But, he has now thrown himself at the mercy of those who have no decency; of those for whom another man's decency is merely vulnerability to be exploited.

I now reproduce in its entirety a post from Gates of Vienna entitled Fjordman: My Afternoon With The Police :

The following message just came in from Fjordman, who adds that he intends to keep a low profile in the near future.

____________________

I am shocked by the hostile treatment I received at the hands of the police.

Lars Hedegaard heard my story and commented that he had never known of any witness who has been treated in this manner in any Western country, except for totalitarian societies such as the Third Reich.

My lawyer, who is experienced and has seen many tough cases before, did not expect anything like this to happen. He assumed this would be relatively easy, and even suggested that I might get by without a lawyer. I insisted on having one present just in case, which most likely helped a little bit. Things would have been even worse had that not been the case. My lawyer later said that in my case they operated at best at the very fringes of what could be considered legal.

I was never accused of doing anything criminal, obviously because I had nothing to do with the terror attacks and they know this. Yet without the slightest hint of proof of any lawbreaking, I was treated as a murder suspect.

To my total surprise I had to go to my flat, where for several hours half a dozen police officers went through all of my DVDs, searched through my old printed travel photographs from years back, searched through all of my (many) books, checked my kitchen equipment, went through all of my clothes, and confiscated a suitcase that contained nothing more than clothes and some books. They also confiscated several digital devices, including my camera and my laptop. It is quite clear that they wanted information about non-violent Islam-critical networks in Europe that they suspected might be contained in my PC, even though they denied this to me.

Please remember that the police and the Police Security Service (PST) apparently had no clue who I was until I literally knocked on their door of my own free will, even though I knew full well that I would have to give up my anonymity after doing so. I had very little information about Breivik since I have never met him, something which he himself has admitted, yet I still handed over what little information I had. I also answered their questions honestly, even though, technically speaking, I did not have to do so.

If you believe the mass media, the police were still not sure that I really was Fjordman until a couple of hours after I had turned up at the police station. As soon as they understood that this was indeed the case, they rushed through a quick decision to search my flat and confiscate my computer equipment immediately. They must have realized at this point that I had nothing at all to do with the terror attacks.

I personally suspect that this was mainly a political decision.

Fjordman, you are a good man, but you should have remained anonymous. You should have made the neocommie-controlled police develop some kind of probable cause or get some kind of warrant. Let them do an investigation. If they do an honest one, they might actually find out who really helped and motivated this guy, whether this guy was aware of any help or not.

By the way, I reproduce the above post in its entirety, not to steal any thunder from GOV, but to make sure Fjordman's story gets out.

Fjordman was acquainted with the bloggers from GOV, which was also named in the terrorist's manifesto. I believe it is just a matter of time before someone "outs" the GOV bloggers and shuts them up, whether because of this incident or for some other reason. If nothing else, the GOV bloggers must have accumulated quite a few fatwas by now for pointing out aspects of Islam that certain adherents of the Religion of Peace and their allies would wish to keep in obscurity.

The clear intent of the politically-motivated police operation in Norway is to identify and silence opponents of the ruling Labor Party and of its allies around the world.

We now consider excertps from Hatred, smears and the liberals hell-bent on bullying millions of us into silence by Melanie Phillips, August 1, 2011:

The baleful effects of the recent attacks in Norway, where Anders Breivik bombed Oslo's government district and then gunned down teenagers at a Labour party camp, murdering at least 77 people, have not been limited to that horrific carnage.

For the atrocity has produced a reaction among people on the political Left in Britain, Europe and the U.S. that is in itself shocking and terrifying.

Former Norwegian prime minister and current chairman of the Nobel Peace Prize committee Thorbjorn Jagland has said that, in response to the violent attacks, David Cameron and other European leaders should use a more 'cautious' approach when talking about multiculturalism.

Cameron has said multiculturalism (the doctrine that gives the values of minorities equal status to those of the majority) has failed, and has also talked about 'Islamist extremism' as a cause of terrorism.

Jagland, however, said leaders would be 'playing with fire' if they continued to use rhetoric that could be exploited by extremists such as Breivik.

This is similar to the aftermath of the OKBOMB. Bill Clinton immediately gave the cue, signalling that he hoped there was no Middle East connection; the FBI did not officially find one, but investigative reporter Jayna Davis did in her well-researched and well-documented New York Times best-seller The Third Terrorist. But, President Clinton and his neocommie Clintonites played the aftermath for political purposes.

This is also eerily similar to the aftermath of the shooting in Tucson in January, 2011, in which Judge John Roll was killed and Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was very seriously wounded, along with a list of other victims killed and wounded. After this incident, there was again a push by the neocommies to limit the freedom of speech of those who would defend traditional American values by saying that such rhetoric incited violence.

Skipping down in Hatred, smears and the liberals hell-bent on bullying millions of us into silence:

Jagland seems to be cynically exploiting the murder of more than 70 innocents to make a connection which is as obnoxious as it is opportunistic in order to bully into silence those who express such legitimate democratic concerns.

Shockingly, he is merely one of many who are doing so.

As soon as the atrocity happened, people on the Left saw a heaven-sent opportunity to smear mainstream conservative thinkers and writers by making a grossly distorted association between Breivik's attack and their ideas.

They claimed that anyone on 'the Right' who had spoken out against multiculturalism or Islamic extremism was complicit in the atrocity and therefore had a moral duty to stop writing about such things.

A moral duty to stop speaking the truth about Islam, and how Islam lends itself to the persecution of non-Muslims, of Muslims whose views differ from the views of those in authority, of women, of other minorities...

What you see here is the neocommies trying to play the victim card to silence their opponents and the opponents of their allies.

Skipping down:

Moreover, he also mentioned dozens of other conservative or liberal writers and thinkers. Among others, he quoted: Winston Churchill, George Orwell, Mahatma Gandhi, the Labour MP Frank Field, Tory Nicholas Soames, philosopher Roger Scruton, Top Gear presenter Jeremy Clarkson and Swedish thriller writer Lars Hedegaard.

Why don't the headlines read that the murderer took his inspiration from Mahatma Gandhi? It would be just as true, but far less politically useful.

Continuing:

Oh, and William Shakespeare, as well as the fathers of English liberalism John Stuart Mill and John Locke.

So the fact that Hundal singled me out like this while failing to mention these others (apart from a brief reference to Mr Clarkson) was an egregious smear — which was soon circulating and building up hatred on Twitter and the internet.

Soon, others joined in the hate-fest — even across the Atlantic. In the Toronto Star, columnist Heather Mallick wrote that unlike 'almost everyone else praised by the killer', I had not said I was horrified by the atrocity in Norway. Not only that, but whereas everyone else had wept at the murder of schoolchildren, 'she [Phillips] spits'.

[snip]

As one Guardian reader commented following Milne's contemptible attack, the fact that he had deliberately blurred the distinction between reasonable political opinions with which one might disagree and the actions of a terrorist meant he was creating hysteria and polarisation.

Indeed, the result of such incitement has been a veritable tsunami of electronically-generated mob hatred.

That was the goal.

No, it is those who under the cover of accusing me of incendiary writing are themselves inciting hatred.

The claim that 'blood is on my hands' can so easily translate into someone seeking my own blood. Heaven forbid that should happen — but if it did, there would be a direct causal link with those who have whipped up this wicked firestorm.

Indeed, those who have exploited the killing of innocents in Norway to provoke such an eruption of distortion, demonisation and irrationality should disgust and alarm all decent people everywhere.

(For more background on the reactions to this incident, see The Oslo Fallout: A Review of Views Unfit to Print by Srdja Trifkovic, August 1, 2011. For more thoughts on Fjordman, see The Forced Resignation of Fjordman from August 5, 2011, written by GOV blogger Baron Bodissey, who actually knew Fjordman.)

So, the "terrorist" attack in Norway... Cui bono?

In its entirety, Labour climbs on latest poll from August 6, 2011:

Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg's Labour Party (AP) climbs 11.7 percentage points on Norfakta's latest poll, and now has the support of 40.4 per cent of the electorate.

The poll was made for the newspapers Nationen and Klassekampen, and was taken after the terrorist attacks on July 22nd.

The poll also shows a marked drop for the Conservatives (Høyre) and the right wing Progress Party (FrP).

Høyre is supported by 21.4 per cent of the voters, and FrP 16.2 per cent.

For the other parties the changes are minimal.

(NRK)

In Part 1 I explained how I thought the neocommies of Norway's Labor Party were working together with Islamists to pull this off. I further explained how I thought the Islamists got a neo-Nazi to actually do the work. My summary:

Better to grease 'em now for a political and propaganda victory. ;)

It may very well be the exact mechanics of the behind-the-scenes work is different from what I suspect, but these are the players behind this, of that I am sure.

Why? Well, answer me this:

Cui bono?

License to Intrude, Part 1

We begin with the first part of a report entitled Domestic Intelligence: New Powers, New Risks by Emily Berman. I don't see a date for the report anywhere, but some of the footnotes reference sources from 2010, so the report is reasonably recent. This is a long excerpt, but please read the whole thing.

Executive Summary

Successful domestic counterterrorism policy is vital to keep the homeland safe. In this effort, policymakers must resist the oft-exhibited tendency to overreact to the threats we face. This overreaction, time and again,¹ takes a similar form: In the face of a perceived existential threat, we expand the scope of the government's powers while simultaneously diminishing oversight of and accountability for the use of those powers. We fail to ensure that these powers will be employed in a manner consistent with our fundamental values. Civil liberties — such as privacy and freedom of expression, association, and religion — are often curtailed. In the wake of 9/11, government action exhibited this tendency across a wide range of counterterrorism policies.

To his credit, President Obama acknowledged this overreaction in several areas, implementing much-needed modifications to inherited policies, which improved procedural protections, guarded against civil liberties violations, and increased transparency. But in many respects, the Obama Administration's counterterror efforts resemble those of the Bush Administration's second term. This is especially true in the context of countering domestic terrorism threats.

One key example: The Obama Administration's choice to rely upon rules drafted by its predecessor to increase the FBI's authority for domestic investigations, including probes into terrorist threats. We believe these rules, known as the Attorney General's Guidelines for Domestic FBI Operations ("Attorney General's Guidelines" or "Guidelines"), tip the scales too far in favor of relatively unchecked government power, allowing the FBI to sweep too much information about too many innocent people into the government's view. In so doing, they pose significant threats to Americans' civil liberties and risk undermining the very counterterrorism efforts they are meant to further.

And while some may doubt the severity of these threats, nobody can argue that such broad powers in the hands of government officials should not be monitored regularly to ensure that they are not being abused.

The Guidelines, implemented by Attorney General Michael Mukasey in December 2008, are considerably more permissive than earlier versions implemented by previous Attorneys General. This permissiveness raises two concerns. First, the Guidelines expand the FBI's discretion to investigate individuals and groups while simultaneously limiting oversight requirements and thereby risk opening the door to invasions of privacy and the use of profiling on the basis of race, ethnicity, religion, national origin, or political ideology. In so doing they also risk chilling constitutionally protected activities. Second, the Guidelines could render the FBI's counterterrorism efforts less effective. Some perceive investigations under these Guidelines to impact disproportionately the freedom of expression and association of law-abiding members of certain groups. This perception risks undermining any otherwise beneficial aspects of the Guidelines by alienating the very communities whose cooperation is most essential. Moreover, the sheer volume of information collected raises the concern that it will elude meaningful analysis.

The Mukasey Guidelines significantly loosen the restrictions on the FBI's investigative powers that had been in place for decades - restrictions that remained even in the Guidelines implemented by Attorney General John Ashcroft in the wake of 9/11 - in the following ways:

1. They authorize "non-predicated" investigations — substantive investigative activity in circumstances in which there is no "information or . . . allegation indicating" wrongdoing or a threat to national security.²
2. They permit intrusive investigative techniques — such as using informants, conducting interviews under false pretenses, and engaging in unlimited physical surveillance — during non-predicated investigations.
3. They encourage the government to collect, retain, and disseminate vast amounts of information about law-abiding individuals.
4. They weaken procedural safeguards — eliminating or reducing many of the requirements for supervisory approval of particular investigative techniques and temporal limits on investigative activity — that have been integral to the Guidelines' regime since it was first implemented in 1976.

These changes are not merely cosmetic. They grant the FBI license to employ intrusive techniques to investigate Americans when there is no indication that any wrongdoing has taken place. This means that FBI agents can collect and retain vast amounts of information, much of it about the innocent activities of law-abiding Americans. And it can then retain that information indefinitely and share it with other government agencies. It is thus crucial to ensure that sufficient limits, as well as meaningful internal and external checks, are imposed on this power.

I hope you read that passage carefully, and absorbed its meaning. Please read the entire report: Domestic Intelligence: New Powers, New Risks.

One important means of collecting information on innocent Americans is the use of so-called National Security Letters (NSL's). We review Rise in FBI use of national security letters, dated May 9, 2011:

WASHINGTON — The number of people the FBI targeted with national security letters more than doubled last year to more than 14,000.

The letters enable the bureau to collect a large amount of sensitive information like financial and phone records in terrorism and espionage investigations. In 2007, the Justice Department's inspector general found widespread violations in FBI use of the letters, including demands without proper authorization and information obtained in non-emergency circumstances. The FBI has tightened oversight of the system. The letters are controversial because there is no court scrutiny of the process.

In a summary to Congress, the Justice Department said the FBI made 24,287 national security letter requests last year for information regarding 14,212 people. That's up from 2009 when there were 14,788 requests for information about 6,114 people.

In other words, by taking a short-cut around the Fourth Amendment, government agents can present an NSL, instead of a warrant, to get information they want. And, as we have seen from the report excerpt above, there need be no information or allegation suggesting that wrongdoing has actually occurred or that there is a threat to national security.

If you would like a great deal of reading on this subject, I suggest you review the Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General reports entitled A Review of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Use of National Security Letters, dated March, 2007; A Review of the FBI's Use of National Security Letters: Assessment of Corrective Actions and Examination of NSL Usage in 2006, dated March, 2008; and A Review of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Use of Exigent Letters and Other Informal Requests for Telephone Records, dated January, 2010.

It is interesting to have this background as we consider President Obama's recent visit to Facebook (for example, addressed in Obama jabs Republicans at Facebook town hall dated April 20, 2011).

Facebook is an interesting organization. One of the key people in Facebook's current corporate structure is the COO who had previously worked for Google, Sheryl Sandberg. A recent feature story entitled Why Facebook Needs Sheryl Sandberg, May 12, 2011, gives a great deal of pertinent background.

The article paints a picture of a very well-qualified COO, who is a caring and concerned person, well-liked by associates. From Page 4:

At Harvard, Sandberg organized her dorm into a cohesive social unit and assembled a group to encourage more women to major in economics and government. In 1991 she caught the eye of economics professor Lawrence Summers by scoring the highest on a midterm exam, and he agreed to be the adviser on her thesis—on the correlation of domestic violence against women and socioeconomic status. Sandberg recalls that in completing that project, she ran so much data on the Harvard University Science Center computers that she crashed the system, more than a decade before another student, Mark Zuckerberg, would notch the same achievement. In Sandberg's case, network administrators called Summers to complain, and he in turn hired her after graduation to join him at his new post as chief economist of the World Bank.

Summers says Sandberg proved herself quickly, in part by researching a question that someone had raised idly—whether 70 years of Communism could have been avoided if someone had financed the Russian politician Alexander Kerensky. "She came back six hours later, analyzing the merits of this thesis," says Summers, who calls her "a remarkable person." (Sandberg reports that she simply picked up the phone and asked Harvard professor Richard Pipes.)

After two years at the World Bank, working on poverty-related issues and touring leper colonies in India, Sandberg joined Summers at the Treasury Dept. She later became his chief of staff after he was promoted to Treasury Secretary.

Sandberg's credentials are impressive, indeed (although being a little suspicious of the World Bank and then the Clinton Administration, I wonder if those credentials should count exclusively in the "plus" column).

As an example of Sandberg's efforts to help others, we have, from Page 6:

Beyond Facebook, the other social network that Sheryl Sandberg has been fervently scaling is her own. Every few weeks a few dozen Silicon Valley women—doctors, teachers, and techies—head to the seven-bedroom Atherton (Calif.) mansion Sandberg shares with her husband, Dave Goldberg, chief executive of Web startup SurveyMonkey, and their two kids. The group sits on foldout chairs in the living room and holds plates of catered food on their laps as they listen to a guest speaker.

[snip]

Last year a guest speaker at one of Sandberg's home soirees was Cambodian human trafficking activist Somaly Mam. After she discussed her work and shared her personal history of being sold into slavery at a young age, Sandberg stood up and announced her intention to hold a fundraiser for the Somaly Mam Foundation and asked how many of her friends would join her. Everyone volunteered. The fundraiser, held at the Hiller Aviation Museum in San Carlos, Calif., in November, raised more than a million dollars for the foundation, a third of the organization's annual contributions.

If a fraction of what is in this article about Sandberg is true, then she is one impressive person.

We consider another excerpt from Page 6, right in the part where the snip is in the quote above:

Over the years, Sandberg has lured such luminaries as Geena Davis, Billie Jean King, Rupert Murdoch, Meg Whitman, and Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.). Robert Rubin, the most recent guest, said that 15 years ago when he was Treasury Secretary, it was good for Sheryl Sandberg that she knew him. Now, he quipped, it was good for him that he knows her.

Among those who support "conservative" causes, you will hear disparaging remarks regarding "liberals" and their intelligence or their honesty. I think these remarks are often (though not always) unfair. Politicians in Washington, on both sides of the aisle, sell out their causes and constituencies to the highest bidder; not all of them, but certainly too many.

However, on both sides of the aisle, the people who put them there are often intelligent, hard-working, and kind, legitimately concerned about what is going on in their country and in the world. Certainly, Sandberg seems to fit this description.

Sandberg worked as an appointee in the Clinton Administration, and had a Democrat US Senator (Kirsten Gillibrand) from New York as a speaker at one of her evening events. It is perhaps not surprising she is a big supporter of Democrat causes and candidates, including Senator Gillibrand and Hillary Clinton, when Clinton was running for President.

Her husband is also a big supporter of Democrats.

In light of all of this, it seems to me a big part of the Facebook visit may have been just plain fundraising for Obama's re-election; or, at the very least, maintaining contact with key donors and key organizers. And, though I disagree vehemently with President Obama's politics and question his honesty and his dedication to our country, I must point out that there is nothing wrong with Constitutionally-protected political activity. Indeed, I wish more Americans were more concerned, more informed, and more involved than they are.

However, Constitutionally-protected political activity is exactly my concern here.

Though Facebook appears to take the privacy of its customers very seriously, what would be the response if government agents presented national security letters or other types of exigent letters, seeking personal information about Facebook account holders? With the law and current bureaucratic guidelines on their side - despite the fact that many consider the laws and guidelines to be violations of our Constitutionally-protected rights - who would be able to successfully oppose such intrusive requests from government agents? And then, how hard would executives fight a request coming from the Administration of a President that those executives helped elect, and therefore presumably believe in?

Chicago-style politics could easily overcome honest and perhaps trusting corporate executives, and, in a situation reminiscent of Bill Clinton's FBI Filegate scandal, one could easily imagine national security being the justification offered to compile an "enemies list" going in to the 2012 election season - complete with gag orders, keeping all who know about what is going on under threat of imprisonment without trial if they should discuss the matter.

The change we were promised in 2008 has turned out to be an increased erosion of our rights and liberties, an increased oppression by corrupt government officials, and increased abuse of powers, as federal agents work for corrupt superiors who uphold their license to intrude into our lives.