Jul 2, 2014 | Constitution, Globalism, Liberty Articles
Harold Pease, Ph. D
I awoke on a Sunday morning where I was visiting, a ray of light coming through the window. The window view showed side-by-side symbols; one of liberty, as represented by a small community of multi-colored and multi-shaped living structures with residents going about their business oblivious to the second symbol, represented by large, grey, ugly, windowless government buildings spying on and recording everyone’s communication. The contrast of liberty and totalitarian intent was startling and breathtaking.
To the far left of the window view was a new housing development intruding into largely undeveloped land, like an extending finger, with brown hills above it and a large hay farm in front and below stretching far forward and to the right of my view. Here residents made choices that enhanced the quality and comfort of their lives largely free from total government spying and restriction—or so they thought.
The number of churches to the population seemed unusually high, five church steeples reaching skyward, as if begging for the influence of God in their community, in what looked to be no more than 300 structures, mostly apartments, as seen from my window—all within a mile of where I was. I attended one of the churches and was greeted with the opening song “America the Beautiful,” the classic patriotic tune words written by Katherine Lee Bates and music by Samuel A. Ward. It housed the favorite words “America! America!” followed by four phrases in four verses “God shed his grace on thee,” and, “God mend thine every flaw,” and, “May God thy gold refine,” and again, “God shed his grace on thee.” Obviously, these Christians loved their liberty. A similar tune representing a relationship between God, country and liberty could have been found throughout most of the country the Sunday before the 4th of July.
In stark contrast off in the distance about two miles, but still clearly visible from the left side of the same window, was the most profound symbol of big government ever—the new NSA spy center, the largest in the world, capable of holding a yottabyte of information collected from every person on earth, some say, for generations to come. These enormous, ugly, grey, windowless, buildings perched on a hill with intimidating guard-houses restricting entrance, represented potential total control of the actions and thoughts of every human. What is different about the Bluffdale, Utah spy center from other such centers in the United States is that the government does not deny that it specifically targets its own citizens.
Much has been published on NSA government spying of its own people and LibertyUnderFire.org has published on this topic two previous articles, so nothing new is found in this one. A project began under George W. Bush and accelerated under Barack Obama, Bluffdale “is the final piece in a complex puzzle assembled over the past decade. Its purpose: to intercept, decipher, analyze, and store vast swaths of the world’s communications as they zap down from satellites and zip through the underground and undersea cables of international, foreign, and domestic networks… Flowing through its servers and routers and stored in near-bottomless databases will be all forms of communication, including the complete contents of private emails, cell phone calls, and Google searches, as well as all sorts of personal data trails—parking receipts, travel itineraries, bookstore purchases, and other digital “pocket litter” (“The NSA Is Building the Country’s Biggest Spy Center. Watch What You Say.”) The project was code named “Stellar Wind.”
Fortunately the secret is out and the public has known about their government spying on them for well over a year, some much longer. Even the ill informed make government surveillance jokes, but still the collection continues. It is as though everyone is in denial. It is as though the revelations of the last two years could not really be real. No one is really being arrested or punished for their thoughts. Yet. The noose is not tight. And what is a yottabyte of information anyway? The size description is incomprehensible adding to brain overload. A yottabyte is 1,000 zettabytes (the number 1 followed by 24 zeros — 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000). That “318 scientists, computer engineers, and other staff work in secret on the cryptanalytic applications of high-speed computing and other classified projects” (Cryptome, March 16, 2012, “NSA Decryption Multipurpose Research Facility”), making what is now happening possible, merely adds to the incomprehensiveness of the subject.
Monday morning the same light flooded the room. The same symbols of liberty and oppression lay in stark contrast below. The same five church steeples reach for the sky as though to appeal to God for His influence. The same residents drive by, perhaps the greatest symbol of totalitarianism of all time, on their way to work, as though it does not exist. Some may even work at this place to help give the government details on their neighbor. Everything about this ugly, windowless, grey structure violates the Constitution. Chances are those of the community next door that sing of freedom will return to office the same Democrats and Republicans that authorized and funded their surveillance. I closed the window. If I too ignore what it shows, it will go away. Right?
May 13, 2014 | Globalism, Liberty Articles, Taxes
By Harold W. Pease Ph. D
G-20 meetings come and go with much fanfare but never with any kind of detail with respect to what these meetings accomplish—at least by the establishment media. The most recent G-20 meetings will affect every person on earth and should be a topic of discussion in every newspaper or network that covers international news. Are we ready for a world tax? Such is being implemented now. Those Americans living overseas are already feeling part of the plan and at least forty governments are committed to implementing it by the end of 2015.
The globalist world tax plan is pushed under the guise of catching the “tax cheats” that invest over seas—mostly the rich it is argued—so the rest of us naively assume that it will not impact us. We are told that tax evasion is a global problem so we need an IRS-type world organization to catch the “cheats” but to do this we first need the sharing of the financial records of all people with participating governments. The plan, called the Global Account Tax Compliance Act, or GATCA, requires all governments to collect and pool all personal banking or financial institutions’ information on all their people. G-20 leaders infer that the global tax authority will be the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the financial arm of the United Nations.
In the most recent G-20 meeting held last February in Australia, proponents were falling all over themselves with excitement over the plan. In a joint communiqué they wrote: “We endorse the Common Reporting Standard for automatic exchange of tax information on a reciprocal basis and will work with all relevant parties, including our financial institutions, to detail our implementation plan at our September meeting” (“A New World Tax Regime,” New American, April 21, 2014, p. 20). They continued with an appeal to all nations “that have not yet complied with the existing standard for exchange of information on request to do so and sign the Multilateral Convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters without further delay.”
The plan is most highly promoted by a group referred to as the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa)—all highly socialist countries. Their enthusiasm is understandable. They oppose, and demand an end to, the free market principle of maximizing “value for customers and shareholders by keeping profits and economic activity in lower-tax jurisdictions as much as possible.”
Congress and the Obama administration have already implemented the sharing part of the program for Americans living abroad and it has been functioning since 2010. Buried deep within the “HIRE Act,” endorsed by the President and the then democratically controlled Congress, was the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) which “imposed huge penalties—30-percent ‘withholding tax’ on all U.S. transactions, including sales of securities—on firms that do not hand over all information they have on ‘U.S. persons’ to the IRS” (“Dark Road: The Worst Tax Law You’ve Never Heard About,” New American, p. 11). For the 7.5 million Americans living in other countries it has been disastrous sometimes resulting in their having to renounce their citizenship rather than to be double taxed and have their hosting country know their personal and private information. To accomplish the above requires an uncomfortable closeness between the NSA, IRS and their new government. Foreign governments that do not comply are threatened.
The second part of the plan, after the universal sharing of all our financial records, is to establish a base for a world tax authority. Catching “tax cheats” was never the “real” reason for all the effort but instead the rational for the implementation of a planetary tax with the IMF becoming the world IRS. So far Congress has not implemented this part and is not likely to do so unless hidden in another bill, as was the sharing of private financial records. Consequently, we have some time to get public awareness of the deception and of the intended objective.
The mission of the globalists, and seemingly a majority of the G-20 participants, is an independent financial stream for the United Nations, free from its present dependence on the United States wherein it resides and from which it receives a third of its funding. The globalists’ ploy to make the U N a world government could be ended should Americans decide such was not in their best interests and cut their funding. This could not be allowed to happen, thus the need for alternative funding. The GATCA plan is the most dangerous world government-funding plan presently proposed because the sharing of confidential records is already partially in place, at least for Americans living abroad.
Apr 15, 2014 | Constitution, Globalism
By Harold Pease, Ph. D
The Washington Post reported in late March 2014, “a sharp increase in U.S. Special forces deployed to Uganda.” President Barack Obama “sent U.S. military aircraft there for the first time in the ongoing effort to hunt down warlord Joseph Kony across a broad swath of central Africa. At least four CV-22 Osprey aircraft will arrive in Uganda by midweek, along with refueling aircraft and about 150 Special Operations airmen to fly and maintain the planes.” Such is by no means new.
Three and a half years ago, I wrote of President Barack Obama’s clandestine operation in central Africa called Operation Lightning Thunder, involving 100 U.S. military “advisers,” sent by the President to help capture the allusive child abuser Joseph Kony and his Lord’s Resistance Army. Congress was informed of the engagement by letter October 14, 2011, but reportedly troops were already on site two days before, so the letter was decidedly not asking for permission to use armed forces in a foreign country, as is required by the Constitution.
Of course, nothing more was said of Kony who was never found, making it now appear that he was but an excuse for our penetration of the continent with forces from Afghanistan as we wound down our involvement there. An expanded military presence in Africa started with George W. Bush his last two years in office, as “about a dozen air bases have been established in Africa since 2007” (“US expands secret intelligence operations is Africa” Washington Post, June 13, 2007). Although Kony is still cited as the reason for our military incursion in Uganda now, there remains no actual evidence that he is even alive.
The Washington Post reported in June 2012, “The U.S. military is expanding its secret intelligence operations across Africa, establishing a network of small air bases to spy on terrorists hideouts from the fringes of the Sahara to jungle terrain along the equator, according to documents and people involved in the project.” Presently they use small private planes equipped “with hidden sensors that can record full motion video, track infrared heat patterns, and vacuum up radio and cellphone signals, the planes refuel on isolated airstrips … extending their effective flight range by thousands of miles.” The operations have intensified in recent months under Obama, the Post revealed, and include commando units who “train foreign security forces and perform aid missions, but they also include teams dedicated to tracking and killing suspected terrorists.”
Four months later in an article, “White House widening covert war in North Africa,” the Associated Press reported that an expanded U. S. role is anticipated and that Delta Force units eventually “will form the backbone of a military task force responsible for combating al-Qaida and other terrorist groups across the region with an arsenal that includes drones.” Col. Tim Nye, Special Operations Command spokesman “would not discuss the missions and or locations of its counterterrorist forces’ except to say that special operations troops are in 75 countries daily conducting missions” (October 2, 2012, by Kimberly Dozier). Conducting daily missions in 75 countries!?!
Global Research was even more explicit. In an article “America’s Shadow Wars in Africa” it went into greater detail (Nick Turse, July 13, 2012). Although Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti, with “more than 2,000 U.S. personnel stationed there” is the “Pentagon’s showpiece African base,” there are many “nodes” of U.S. military presence elsewhere: three in Kenya, two in Uganda, two in Central African Republic, one in South Sudan, and one in Ethiopia. They specifically named the places. “Outposts of all sorts are sprouting continent-wide, connected by a sprawling shadow logistics network. Most American bases in Africa are still small and austere, but growing ever larger and more permanent in appearance,” they wrote. Add to this the extensive counter-terrorism training provided by the United States in Algeria, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Gabon, Lesotho, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, and Tunisia.
With respect to the size of U.S. forces on the continent at any one given time, they added, “On an average basis, there are approximately 5,000 U.S. Military and DoD [Department of Defense] personnel working across the continent.” With respect to just why we need a military presence in every country in Africa, AFRICOM Commander General Carter Ham said, “The absolute imperative for the United States military [is] to protect America, Americans, and American interests … [to] protect us from threats that may emerge from the African continent.”
Something does not pass the smell test. U. S. Special Forces have been hunting Joseph Kony in a foreign country for 3 ½ years with the most sophisticated technology on the planet, without success, and we need to send more? Is it possible that while our eyes are focused on Kony as the excuse for intervention, American imperialism in Africa is the real news?
Dec 23, 2013 | Constitution, Economy, Globalism, Tea Party
By Harold Pease, Ph. D
The Washington Post recently disclosed the coming to fruition, after nearly a decade and 19 secret meetings, of a huge trade agreement known as the Trans Pacific Partnership or TPP, “which when finished, will govern 40 percent of U.S. imports and exports” and “26 percent of the world’s trade.” It will be the law of the land for the United States and 11 other countries in the Asia-Pacific region without the input of a single U.S. member of Congress. This in violation of Article I, Section I of the U.S. Constitution that mandates that all legislative powers reside in the House and Senate and in no other body. In fact, members of Congress have not been allowed to even see the treaty whereas privileged corporations have no problem with access.
Critics, mostly Democrats and Tea Party proponents, resent the secretive nature of the agreement’s origin. Those feeling especially threatened include: global health advocates, environmentalists, Internet activists and trade unions. “The treaty has 29 chapters, dealing with everything from financial services to telecommunications to sanitary standards for food” demonstrating the wide variety of areas believed to be affected by it, but again, it is the secretive nature of it that is most offensive. Apparently TPP participants signed “a confidentiality agreement requiring them to share proposals only with ‘government officials and individuals who are part of the government’s domestic trade advisory process’.” That excludes you, me, the media, and Congress.
The Post acknowledges that the agreement “encompass a broad range of regulatory and legal issues, making them a much more central part of foreign policy and even domestic lawmaking.” Such is curious. The Constitution requires the approval of your two U. S. Senators and your House member for every regulation upon you. There exists no language that any other individual or body—especially an international body—can perform this function. And, international law should not affect “domestic lawmaking.” You have the right to know that these three have read every rule emanating from the federal government upon you. The admission that the TPP will influence foreign policy is interesting as only the U.S. Senate may influence foreign policy as per Article II, Section II. Giving a “more central part of foreign policy” to an international agency virtually voids the Constitution in this area and would have been thought treasonous by our Founders.
The Post identified “60 senators (who) have asked for the final agreement to address currency manipulation.” Senators Elizabeth Warren and Ron Wyden, both Democrats, have been especially vocal about the Obama “Administration’s refusal to make draft text available.” Were it not for unintended leaks, notably that of Wikileaks in early November, who published the chapter on intellectual property, this and so much more would still be off limits to the media and everyone else. This chapter alone raised many questions about copyright protections and obviously this treaty, while billed as just a trade agreement, included music, film, books, the Internet and appeared to be potentially, as one critic called it, the treaty to “restrict access to knowledge.” And this is but one of 29 chapters.
The implementation procedure of the internationalists was to gain consensus among the countries signing it, then present it to both branches of Congress for a simple, without debate, up or down vote. Again, this procedure flies in the face of the Constitution. Treaty making, an agreement between two or more countries, is a shared power with the Executive Branch. The President “shall have power, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate to make treaties, provided two-thirds of the Senators present concur.” President Barack Obama has not sought advice, indeed he has not even allowed the Senate to read his treaty until finished, even then he will accept no changes in it. Then he will present it to both houses for a simple majority instead of only to the Senate for a two-thirds vote as constitutionally mandated. All this blatant deception was to wrap up in Singapore in early December to be presented “fast tract” to Congress before Christmas as a done deal.
Law by a single man excluding Congress nullifies the latter and should be an impeachable offense. International law imposed by an army of unelected bureaucrats is not freedom. The Trans Pacific Partnership siphons decision-making power from the elected to the non-elected in a foreign land and will affect every American. Any Congressman who supports such violates his oath of office “to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States” as has the President.
Sep 24, 2013 | Globalism, Liberty Articles
By Dr. Harold Pease
With the Russians coming forth with a possible brokered agreement with President Bashar al-Assad of Syria for him to give up his chemical weapons in exchange for America not attacking him, America’s military threat has dissipated for the moment. But issues still need discussed. Is an attack warranted under international law and, if not, would we not be viewed by the world as an aggressor nation? A giant irony is that we would have punished Syria for violating international law by our also violating international law. Who says two wrongs do not make a right?
Consider the following United Nations Charter violations of the United States had we attacked Syria: Article 2, Sec. 4, “All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state….” Even our threat of the use of force is a violation. The only exception to the use of force is self-defense as stipulated in Art. 51. “Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security.”
Obama has yet to make a case to the United Nations for wanting to attack the sovereign country of Syria. He has not, and will not, because he would have to justify such action on the basis that Syria had first shown actual aggression toward us necessitating our responding in self-defense. This he cannot do. Were U. S. citizens gassed we could respond in self-defense but we were not. Such acts of aggression justifying self defense must immediately be provided to the UN Security Council who then decide “such action as it deems necessary in order to maintain or restore international peace and security.”
Other United Nation Charter rules also would have had to be satisfied. Article 39 stipulates that “the Security Council shall determine the existence of any threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression and shall make recommendations, or decide what measures shall be taken in accordance with Articles 41 and 42, to maintain or restore international peace and security.” Even before this takes place Article 40 must be satisfied which reads: “In order to prevent an aggravation of the situation, the Security Council may, before making the recommendations or deciding upon the measures provided for in Article 39, call upon the parties concerned to comply with such provisional measures as it deems necessary or desirable. Such provisional measures shall be without prejudice to the rights, claims, or position of the parties concerned. The Security Council shall duly take account of failure to comply with such provisional measures.” So we see that in order for a state to use force in self-defense, it or some other state must have suffered an armed attack. Such has not been demonstrated.
There exists other complications; even had the UN ruled Syria an aggressor nation, which it has not, and sanctioned a coalition force against Syria, the President was unsuccessful in getting any other country to bomb with him. Nobody agrees with him enough to commit armed forces. The Syrian offense had already occurred so the mission was to punish the perpetrator, clearly not self-defense. Syria had signed only one of two treaties prohibiting the use of gas and it contained no enforcement provisions and no one made the United States the policeman of the world. Finally, although there is no doubt that chemical weapons were used on Syrians, the source of such, although presumed, has not been definitively proved. Everyone remembers the “proof” presented to the United Nations by Colin Powel, that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction when it did not. Assad maintains that his own men were gassed as well.
The Assad regime may well have gassed her own people, which Assad aggressively denies, but she has not attacked another country. We, on the other hand, would have done just that, had we bombed Syria. I think it likely that had the U.S. attacked, Russia, China or even Syria would have ask the United Nations to define the United States as the aggressor nation and Obama as a war criminal. That could have been followed by a “call upon the parities concerned,” the United States especially, “to comply with such provisional measures as it deems necessary or desirable,” which could include economic sanctions as has been used on other nations. Did we think when we signed the Charter, creating the “world government,” that the rules did not apply to us, that we could just bomb whomever, whenever, and wherever we wished as with our drone strikes. Unfortunately for President Obama, but fortunately for us, the U N Charter does not allow a military attack on a sovereign nation for punishment.
Apparently the Russians will be brokering, at least with Assad, the mess that we created for ourselves by not using the United Nations. The “slouch, looking kid in the back of the classroom,” as Obama recently referred to Vladimir Putin, has ironically saved the president from his own ignorance of international law.
Jul 15, 2013 | Globalism, Liberty Articles
By Dr. Harold Pease
The world’s billionaires met again, as they have sixty times before in their annual assemblages. This time in the luxury 227 room Grove Hotel, near Watford, in Hertfordshire; overflow guests were accommodated in London nearly 30 minutes away. This is the most exclusive group in the world said to be the power brokers of the West.
Attendees in this year’s 4-day Bilderberg conference included: Google executive chairman Eric Schmit, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde, former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, General David Petraeus, and British Prime Minister David Cameron. Past attendees included politicians, top business executives, bankers and often some academics, royalty and, more recently, technology gurus. This year the invited guest list was 140 of these people. Security costs alone, for what is dubbed “Operation Discuss,” covered by the British government, are thought to approach $2 million. Security costs excluded costs incurred by their having enacted a no-fly zone over the high profile event.
Local presses attempted the best coverage they could give but the assemblage kept them some distance away. This year was the first year the organization had a press office so some coverage is hopeful for the future, but reporters are never allowed in the meetings or even on the grounds. They are given the names of attendees and the proposed topics of discussion. Coverage is very managed.
All local news coverage of the Jun 6-9 event documented that it happened, has been an annual event, used the word “secretive,” spoke of the huge “police operation,” and saw attendees as the “power brokers” of Europe and North America. Even Wikipedia had these elements in its coverage. Noticeably absent was the establishment press in the United States with the exception of the Associated Press, but they were also absent last year when the annual event was held in Chantilly, Virginia, just 30 miles south of Washington D C.
What do they do there? Michael Meacher, a lawmaker from Britain’s Labour Party, reasoned: “When 130 of the leaders from all across the West get together, and many of these are billionaires, they are people who are immensely wealthy and immensely powerful. And when they all get together, it’s not just to have a chat about the latest problem; it is a concert plans for the future of capitalism in the West. That is on a very different scale” (see “Bilderberg 2013: Secretive Meeting of Western Power Brokers Begins Near London,” Jill Lawless, 06/07/13, Huff Post).
The emphasis of this year’s meeting was technology. Consider attendee Google executive chairman Eric Schmit’s, previous quotes with respect to Google’s ability to spy on users. “We don’t need you to type at all. We know where you are. We know where you’ve been. We can more or less know what you’re thinking about.” And, “We will know your position down to the foot and down to the inch over time… Your car will drive itself, …you’re never lonely…you’re never bored…you’re never out of ideas.”
Some of the suggested Bilderberg topics, wherein surely Schmit added input, included: “cyber resilience,” basically more government control over the Internet; implementing a “Ministry of Truth for the Internet,” a place to screen what can be placed on the Internet; and establishing “smart cities” that “record street conversations.” Another topic of interest for this 2013 meeting was controlling “3D printing” so as to restrict its use to approved users (See “Google-Berg: Global Elite Transforms Itself for Technocratic Revolution,” Paul Joseph Watson, Alex Jones, Info wars.com).
Older topics were also said to be issues of importance. The destruction of Iran’s nuclear processing facilities within three years should she not forsake it herself, more bailouts for the euro, dealing with a potential global pandemic, and increasing tax collection powers. These are topics that governments consider, not normally non-governmental organizations.
No wonder critics see the billionaire Bilderberg meetings as a shadow world government and a bid for total control of everyone on earth. World leaders attend and they talk about government issues. The organization establishes the issues and builds consensus toward their conclusion and they do all this in secret.
So why did 28 prominent high profile U. S. citizens like General David Petraeus and Henry Kissinger attend (see Bilderberg website for list of participants)? Last year the number was 100 and included, in addition to Henry Kissinger, Bill Gates, John Kerry, White House National Security Advisor Thomas E. Donilon, past presidential hopeful and former Utah governor Jon Huntsman, Governor Mitchell E. Daniels, Jr. of Indiana, and Vin Weber, a two-time Bilderberg presenter and campaign advisor to Mitt Romney. And why, if some event is important enough to have a no-fly zone overhead, and has these kinds of people attending, does the vast majority of the establishment press ignore it, more especially when last year it was only 30 miles away? It is way past time that they answer these questions.
