Tag Archives: freedom

Self-Defense

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The People’s Republic of China did this to our aircraft in Africa, too.  And, yes, it’s the PRC.  No one else, save us and possibly Russia, have this capability.  Russia isn’t in the East China Sea.

Lasers have targeted pilots of American military aircraft operating over the western Pacific Ocean more than 20 times in recent months….
…
Officials said all of the incidents occurred in and around the East China Sea, typically where the Chinese military or other Chinese civilians operate. The laser signals directed at American aircraft appeared to be coming from fishing boats operating in the area and from shore….

Fishing boats.  Sure.

This is the PLA conducting OT&E against our pilots as it tests a range of laser powers for operational utility.  The laser sites and ships doing the shooting need to be destroyed in prompt self-defense response.  Gussy it up with excuses and denials as the PRC would like to do, these are overt attacks.

The Supremes Get One Right

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The Supreme Court ruled Friday that authorities generally need a search warrant before they can obtain broad access to data that shows the location of cellphone users, a decision that sets privacy boundaries in the digital age.
The court, in a 5-4 opinion by Chief Justice John Roberts, cited the Fourth Amendment’s guarantee to be free from unreasonable government searches.

And

We decline to grant the state unrestricted access to a wireless carrier’s database of physical location information[.]

Yewbetcha.

Privacy!?

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You ain’t got no privacy.  You don’t need any stinking privacy!

Using facial recognition software in combination with image storage houses like drivers license databases can be highly useful in tracking down criminal suspects.

But the combination can be highly dangerous, too, as this attitude by Joseph Michael, Washington County Deputy State’s Attorney in Maryland, demonstrates:

the expectation of privacy ends when you sit down and smile at the government desk.

Pinellas County (FL) Sheriff Bob Gualtieri argued

This is no different than if I laid out all those photos in front of me…and said “No, that doesn’t look like him, that doesn’t look like him, here we go, that’s him[.]”  The only thing is I am doing it in a different way, a more automated way, a more efficient way.

Sometimes that faster, more automated—human-removed—way is less efficient, though, as it removes thought and care and consideration of individual liberty from the process, favoring as it does getting a conviction over getting a just outcome.

Michael’s attitude illustrates the conundrum.  His attitude, the attitude of a Government Man, is precisely why we have a Bill of Rights in our Constitution.  His attitude is just an extension of “If you’ve got nothing to hide, you should let Government snoop if it wants to.”  Folks like Gualtieri can be better trained.  Folks like Michael are unfit for office in a free country.

Norway Gets It

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Norway is asking us to double the number of troops we have stationed there and to move them closer to its border with Russia.  It’s a pittance—700 Marines vs the 330 we have there now—but we need to work with Norway very seriously to figure out how to do this.

Norway said the invitation was about NATO training and improving winter fighting capability.

“Allies get better at training together,” Defense Minister Frank Bakke-Jensen told reporters.

Yewbetcha.  And joint training is especially important in the face of demonstrated Russian aggression and its stationing of nuclear weapons in Kaliningrad.

A Thought on Nationhood

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Germany has one, and it centers on immigrants assimilating into German culture rather than holding themselves apart while taking advantage of the German benefits that drew the immigrants in the first place.  It’s articulated by Joachim Gauck, President of Germany from 2012-2017.  He told Bild

“I find it unacceptable that people who have been living in Germany for decades cannot hold a conversation in German, do not attend parent-teacher conferences or keep their children from going to classes or sports.”

He said people should not shy away from standing up for German values out of fear of being seen as a racist or xenophobe and that there should be “something like binding rules for living together and not several societies alongside one another.”

Absolutely.  A nation’s culture, its ability to rule itself, its very existence are at risk when immigrants as large groups don’t assimilate, and the receiving nation allows that to occur.  The nation ceases to be; it devolves into a collection of disparate groupings who happen to occupy a geographic area.