Tag Archives: freedom

Surveillance vs Freedom

Posted on by
Reply

It is an either/or case.  We can’t have our individual freedoms with Government looking over our shoulders all the time.

To be sure, whenever men form a social compact led by a consensual government, we give up a small measure of our freedoms to that government to enable it to help us protect our freedoms.  This protection includes protecting for us that component of our freedom given over to our government for the purpose.  But that’s voluntary at the time of the compact’s formation, and it does not authorize the consensual government to arrogate ever more of our liberties—or of our responsibilities—to itself on its claimed need.

When Government does such usurping, even “for the greater good” (how Benthamite is that?), that can only come at the direct expense of individual liberty.  After a very low threshold, the trade-off becomes a zero-sum game.

“Surveillance” foiled a train plot, says an intel official.  I’ll elide here the questionable circumstances of this claim by a carefully anonymous official.*

Tim Murphy, a former No. 2 official at the FBI, says the programs [emphasis added]

have been successful in connecting the dots [to prevent attacks].  I can positively say, because of programs like this, people were identified in this country with terrorist ties, and we were able to stop possible attacks[.]

(Never mind that this logic is invalid, in the minds of many, when used to argue against gun control laws.)

On the other hand, alert citizens foiled a bomb plot in New York City.  Courageous citizens foiled an airliner-as-bomb attack on the White House.  Incompetence foiled an airliner bomb plot over Detroit.

We’ve also seen, further, that “surveillance” has been used to make direct attacks on individual Americans and groups who disagree with the present administration.  “Surveillance” has been used to directly and overtly attack our free press and individual members of that facility.  “Surveillance” also has been used to turn over personal information of American individuals and groups to foreign countries—even when the citizens or groups are wholly unrelated to the subject of the…investigation…but are simply caught in the Government’s generalized dragnet:

[T]he British government has also been secretly gathering intelligence from US Internet companies via the US National Security Agency data-mining project.

President Barack Obama has insisted this broad surveillance isn’t Big Brother in action, but then he said,

[T]he modest encroachments on privacy that are involved in getting phone numbers and duration without a name attached and not looking at content, that on net it was worth us doing[.]

Phone numbers without names is an utterly disingenuous claim to make.  It’s child’s play to attach a name to a number after the number has been collected.  See White Pages, for instance, and Get Human, and Spokeo.  Those are just some of the publicly available sources.

Next, how do we know Government isn’t “looking at content?”  The process is secret.  Further, we know Government is looking at content through PRISM; that’s the purpose of that blanket surveillance.

As even The New York Times is beginning to figure out,

The administration has now lost all credibility on this issue.

With the demonstrated dishonesty of the present administration (in truth, the dishonesty isn’t unique to this administration—which emphasizes the danger—this one’s transgressions are just the present and most publicized ones), how is it possible to accept Government assurances of “trust us?”

James Clapper, Director of National Intelligence, who declassified information about the programs this past week so he could defend their use, warned: “Discussing programs like this publicly will have an impact on the behavior of our adversaries and make it more difficult for us to understand their intentions.”

That’s certainly a risk we run in an open, and so free, society.  The obverse, however, of keeping such invasive programs secret and away from the public’s discourse is a far more terrible risk to our security.

Again: there is no balancing our individual liberties with our security.  Additionally, the Constitution doesn’t protect our liberties “except when Government asserts a greater need.”  We have no security without our liberties.  There is a need for surveillance, under certain closely specified conditions; however, there cannot be surveillance and freedom under Obama’s cynical “trust us” conditions.

 

* This official is behaving suspiciously along two dimensions: he’s making a “trust government” claim, and he’s saying “trust me” while telling us things he’s not authorized to tell us.  On what basis do we believe him?

The Wall Street Journal’s Embarrassing…Naiveté

Posted on by
Reply

In a Friday op-ed, the editors of the WSJ had this to say, among other things, about the government’s invasion of American privacy in the name of “security.”

The effectiveness of data-mining is proportional to the size of the sample, so the NSA must sweep broadly to learn what is normal and refine the deviations.  A nongovernment analogue might be the credit card flags that freeze payment when, say, a New Yorker goes on a shopping spree in Phoenix.

This is beyond naïve, it’s disingenuous.  The “analogue” has nothing to do with what the government is doing.  The credit card company that does such flagging—data mining—is a private enterprise away from which any and all customers easily can walk should they disagree with the data mining.  Americans can’t walk away from our government without emigrating.  And waiting for the next election lets the government’s damaging invasion continue apace in the interim.

Moreover, that credit card company is data mining a single customer, albeit it’s likely doing this for each of its customers.  It’s not routinely aggregating, by…credit card number…those data with every other customer’s data.  But wait—the government, in its Verizon data mining isn’t collecting personally identifiable data—only phone numbers called and called from.  Please.  The point of the government’s data mining is to find out who and to whom—phone numbers aren’t the terrorists.  It’s breathtakingly easy to attach a name to a phone number.

Then they write this:

The Washington Post also revealed Thursday that NSA has a parallel metadata program for Internet address packets called Blarney.

If the NSA’s version of a computer science department operates like the rest of FISA, the government is cautious to ensure that its searches are narrowly tailored and specific protocols are reviewed by FISA judges.

On what basis does the WSJ make their assumption of that monumental “if?”  Do they really think a government (not just Obama’s administration) that has the present IRS, the present DoJ, the present HHS, the present EPA, etc can be trusted to honor secret limits?

Further, the Washington Post led their article with this:

The National Security Agency and the FBI are tapping directly into the central servers of nine leading U.S. Internet companies, extracting audio and video chats, photographs, e-mails, documents, and connection logs….

That’s content, not just address packets (the Internet’s analogue to phone numbers).

Given all of this, and the associated secrecy, I have to wonder who else is being investigated.  Conservative Americans, perhaps?  Americans who disagree with this government’s policies?

Finally, and this can’t be emphasized enough: we have no security without our individual liberties.  Ben Franklin understood this; it’s unfortunate that this conservative newspaper has made this mistake.

Government’s Commerce Power Grab

Posted on by
Reply

The Federal government wants to nationalize another American private industry, this one nascent rather than burgeoning.  The State Department wants to classify privately owned and operated manned space vehicles as weapons and then to control these as such.

In a proposed Amendment to the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (recall that Secretary of State John Kerry says in all seriousness that the US will sign the just concluded international arms control “treaty”), State insists pretty much that anything that flies into space must be a weapon, and so cannot be allowed to leave the United States government’s control.  The immediate effect will be to hinder, if not destroy, a budding space tourism industry, an industry that has such serious enterprises as Virgin Space, Xcor, and SpaceX, as major players.

Here’s the money part of the proposed amendment:

§ 121.1 General. The United States Munitions List.
* * * * *
Category XV—Spacecraft Systems and Related Articles
(a) Spacecraft, including satellites, manned or unmanned space vehicles, whether designated developmental, experimental, research or scientific, or having a commercial, civil, or military end-use, that

…
(4) Provide space-based logistics, assembly or servicing of any spacecraft (e.g., refueling);
…
*(7) Have any of the following electrooptical remote sensing capabilities or characteristics:
(i) Electro-optical visible and near infrared (VNIR) (i.e., 400nm to 1,000nm) or infrared (i.e., greater than 1,000nm to 30,000nm) with less than 40 spectral bands having an aperture greater than 0.35 meters;
(ii) Electro-optical hyperspectral with 40 spectral bands or more in the VNIR, short-wavelength infrared (SWIR) (i.e., greater than 1,000nm to 2,500nm) or any combination of the aforementioned and having a Ground Sample Distance (GSD) less than 30 meters;
(iii) Electro-optical hyperspectral with 40 spectral bands or more in the midwavelength infrared (MWIR) (i.e., greater than 2,500nm to 5,500nm) having a narrow spectral bandwidth of Dl less than or equal to 20nm full width at half maximum (FWHM) or having a wide spectral bandwidth with Dl greater than 20nm FWHM and a GSD less than 200 meters; or
(iv) Electro-optical hyperspectral with 40 spectral bands or more in the longwavelength infrared (LWIR) (i.e., greater than 5,500nm to 30,000nm) having a narrow spectral bandwidth of Dl less than or equal to 50nm FWHM or having a wide spectral bandwidth with Dl greater than 50nm FWHM and a GSD less than 500 meters;
*(8) Have radar remote sensing capabilities or characteristics (e.g., active electronically scanned array (AESA), synthetic aperture radar (SAR), inverse synthetic aperture radar (ISAR), ultra-wideband SAR) except those having a center frequency equal to or greater than 1 GHz but less than or equal to 10 GHz AND having a bandwidth less than 300 MHz;
(9) Provide Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (PNT);
…
(7) Non-communications space qualified directed energy (e.g., lasers or RF) systems
…
(9)  “Space-qualified’” cesium, rubidium, hydrogen maser, or quantum
(e.g., based upon Al, Hg, Yb, Sr, Be Ions) atomic clocks, and specially designed parts and components therefor….

Notice that: any commercial enterprise that looks to maintain its commercial systems in space (e.g., repair or refuel a satellite, an orbiting space station, or later a mining station) can’t do so—the maintenance support vehicles would be weapons.

Any commercial enterprise that wants to equip its space vehicles, satellites, orbiting space station(s), or those future mining station(s) with sensing equipment so as to have advanced warning of approaching debris can’t have those sensors—they’re weapons.

Any commercial enterprise that wants to equip its space vehicles, satellites, orbiting space station(s), or those future mining station(s) with navigation equipment or clocks so those systems can know where they are and where they are going can’t have those nav systems—they’re weapons.

Any commercial enterprise that wants to mine the solar system (asteroids, comets, planetary moons, what-have-you) or destroy any approaching debris before collision can’t have the lasers with which to do so—mining and colliding debris destruction are weapons-centered efforts.

This overreach by this administration has to be stopped.  The power grab, even in the age of nationalized health industry and government diktats for the financial industry, is atrocious.

The proposed amendment can be read here and here.

 

h/t Spirit of Enterprise

It Doesn’t Get Much More Naked Than This

Posted on by
Reply

Recall Connecticut’s recently passed extensive gun ban law, a bill passed in the emotional aftermath of the Newtown shootings.  Essentially, it banned firearms the State’s government has defined as “assault” weapons.

Last Monday, the legislature “tweaked” that bill to “clear up confusion;” Governor Dannel Malloy (D) is expected to sign it.  One of the tweaks cleared up confusion surrounding the legal possession of these weapons that had been on order before the original legislation was signed into law but not received until after enactment.  Such firearms can now be legally possessed.

It’s another tweak that’s of interest here, though: this one expanded the list of those who can legally acquire these “assault” weapons, now that the gun ban law has been enacted:

  • sworn and certified officers at the department of motor vehicles
  • the chief state’s attorney office
  • the department of energy and environmental protection
  • some constables with police certification

Additionally, the tweak

  • exempts [the above] officers from the certificate requirement for long gun ownership
  • allows them to [retain their “assault”] weapons and large capacity magazines after their service ends by registering them.

Notice that: the citizenry are being denied the ability to possess weapons adequate for their own purposes (an inalienable right and a right acknowledged by the 2nd Amendment), but a broadened list of government officials is granted the ability to possess “assault” weapons.

State Senator Joe Markley (R) is on the right track, but he was a lone voice in the Connecticut wilderness:

I think if we acknowledge that we are putting law enforcement officers at risk by limiting their ability to defend themselves [thus, the allowed expansion of weapons possessions], I think we have to acknowledge that we’re putting homeowners at risk by limiting their ability to defend themselves.

Now why would a government seek to disarm the citizenry while expanding its own arsenal?

Hmm….

It’s Time

Posted on by
Reply

…to fire some school “leadership.”

Just a few short weeks ago the Kountze High School Cheerleaders and all of America celebrated when Liberty Institute secured a victory in the famous Bible Banner Case.

But now, joining a host of radical left groups like the ACLU and the extremist Freedom from Religion Foundation, the Kountze ISD wants to eliminate the free speech rights of its students.

Faith.  Jesus Christ.  Hope.  Love—these are dirty words for students in Kountze, Texas.

Maybe not for the students, but certainly for the Kountze ISD School Board.  Or maybe not even for them, maybe joining the appeal is a measure of their timidity in the face of FFRF or ACLU pressure.

In the end, though, this assault on our religious freedom—which includes both clauses [emphasis added]

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof….

—must be stopped.  Groups like FFRF actively wish to deny us that second freedom—to freely exercise our religion, demanding that the only religion to be allowed to be freely exercised is the religion of atheism.

And a primary way of stopping the attack must include firing leadership that is too timid to defend the freedom or that actually agrees with the FFRFs of the country that such a freedom cannot be had.

The Kountze ISD school board must be replaced.  En masse.  Right away.