Aug 12, 2013 | Constitution, Liberty Articles
By Harold Pease
Fifty-five of 64 Colorado county elected sheriffs, together with a sizable coalition of grassroots groups, are plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the state of Colorado and until resolved by the courts will not participate in the enforcement of what they consider a violation of the Bill of Rights, notably the Second Amendment, which they have sworn under oath to preserve. The elected sheriffs, consisting of both democrats and republicans, not only believe the laws to be unconstitutional but also unenforceable.
Wordage in the suit cited public safety and the 2nd and 14th Amendments of the Constitution of the United States as major concerns. Sheriffs were especially angered by a tweet from the Colorado Senate Democrats referring to them as criminals, which read: “2day co sheriffs stood in opposition of co’s new gun laws, but not w/law-abiding citizens, but with criminals.” A sheriff of each county is the only elected law enforcement agent in the nation and as such has more constitutional authority than the FBI or ATF. Their election to stand by their oath to protect and defend the Constitution is serious and a big deal. Unfortunately the national media is largely silent on this story.
The same situation exists in the state of New York where 52 of 58 elected county sheriffs signed a letter asking for changes to the New York gun control laws, known as the SAFE Act, shoved through the legislature “just hours after the text became public.” The sheriffs were invited to a meeting where they expected to be able to share their reasons for opposition but instead were threatened by Governor Andrew Cuomo with removal from office. Who would he use to enforce removal, the six sheriffs of the 58 who had not signed? Numerous New York counties have passed non-binding resolutions to these laws in open support for the Second Amendment and those defending it. Schoharie County even going so far as to deny funding for enforcement.
Opponents claim that the SAFE Act is also unenforceable and criminalizes law-abiding citizens. This law is headed for the courts as well. New York sheriffs argue in their friend of the court brief. “Law enforcement’s work is made more difficult attempting to enforce unclear laws that harm, rather than promote, public safety. The laws appear willfully blind to legitimate safety interests, and instead are tailored to impact, and negatively impact, law-abiding firearm owners…. The Supreme Court has confirmed that the Second Amendment protects arms typically possessed by law-abiding citizens, and identified that the right of self-defense is ‘core’ protected conduct that is at its zenith in the home.”
Similar opposition by elected county sheriffs is rising in Maryland to a new law scheduled to go into effect this October 1st. Ten such have already voiced opposition to enforcing it. Other sheriffs “won’t use county resources to enforce the laws’ restrictions” (“Battleground Colorado: Sheriffs Resist,” by Frank Miniter, America’s 1st Freedom, Aug. 2013).
Fortunately such strong support of the Constitution by the law enforcement community is nothing new although the establishment press has been slow to cover these stories. In January and February 2013, angry sheriffs rose up putting the federal government on notice vowing to defend their citizens from the federal government if federal agents began enforcing gun laws outside the limits of the 2nd Amendment to the Constitution. Those states refusing to comply were, as they came on board: Utah, Florida, Georgia, Colorado, New Mexico, Nebraska, Wyoming, Indiana, and Illinois.
With respect to the Second Amendment, Utah’s Sheriffs’ Association went as far as to say, “We are prepared to trade our lives for the preservation of its traditional interpretation.” Wyoming’s new “Firearm Protection Act,” threatens federal officials with up to five years in prison and $5,000 in fines if convicted of attempting to enforce unconstitutional statutes or decrees infringing on the gun rights of Wyoming citizens. Reportedly, Missouri and Texas have similar legislation pending.
Even the California State Sheriffs’ Association’s letter to Vice President Joe Biden, signed by seventeen elected county sheriffs, was stronger than had been expected, putting him, and the federal government, on notice. “It is the position of CSSA, in accordance with the Constitution of the United States and the statutes of the State of California, that law-abiding persons who meet the established requirements have the right to acquire, own, possess, use, keep and bear firearms. This right shall not be infringed.”
What makes the efforts of Colorado, New York, and Maryland different this time from earlier this year is that previous resistance was aimed at the federal government taking their 2nd Amendment rights from them. This time it is their own state governments attempting to do the same thing in clear violation of the 2nd and 14th Amendments. The sheriff’s, and the populace that keeps them in power, says no when it violates their Constitution that they have sworn to uphold. Those who understand history and freedom know that an armed populace is critical to liberty. Thank goodness our sheriffs understand this and honor their sacred oath. If only our legislators and governors would as well.
Jul 22, 2013 | Liberty Articles
By Dr. Harold Pease
I am disturbed by a news report this week that shows one out of every three persons in the United States is fed by the other two. This means that in the grocery line before I get to the checkout I pick up the bill of either the person in front of me or the one behind. Since I live in California where we are told a third of all welfare recipients in the nation reside, and assuming that the vast majority receive food stamps, it is more likely that I pay for the one in front and the one behind. The vast majority of whom look to be more able bodied than I.
This news brings to mind a script “Take Down the Bird Feeder,” source unknown, that I read some time ago. Most have shared this same experience sometime in their life. It goes like this: “I bought a bird feeder. I hung it on my back porch and filled it with seed. What a beauty of a bird feeder it was, as I filled it, lovingly with seed. Within a week we had hundreds of birds taking advantage of the continuous flow of free and easily accessible food. But then the birds started building nests in the boards of the patio, above the table, and next to the barbecue. Then came the poop. It was everywhere: on the patio tile, the chairs, the table… Everywhere! Then some of the birds turned mean. They would dive bomb me and try to peck me even though I had fed them out of my own pocket. And others birds were boisterous and loud. They sat on the feeder and squawked and screamed at all hours of the day and night and demanded that I fill it when it got low on food. After a while, I couldn’t even sit on my own back porch anymore. So I took down the bird feeder and in three days the birds were gone. I cleaned up their mess and took down the many nests they had built all over the patio. Soon, the back yard was like it used to be… quiet, serene…. And no one demands rights to a free meal.
Our free enterprise system, vastly stimulated by our Constitution, which limited the government’s power over us so enterprise could blossom, has made it possible to eradicated poverty from this nation for anyone who really wanted to work. I know because I was once poor. I have 14 brothers and sisters and my father, the only breadwinner in the family had severe heart problems from which he died leaving most under 18. About not having enough, I experienced more than I wished; a snack was a raw potato. I watched those who had some measure of wealth (I knew no one wealthy) and I learned early that education and industry could save anyone who wished to use them. Others took the course that led to dependency. Every person in America has the same choice. It has always been so. How, like the birds depicted above, have so many of our people become.
One of the poorest men I ever knew refused the dole and worked till the day he died. His legs were virtually useless. Vastly overweight he could only get off the couch or a chair by first rocking until he had momentum to shift the weight to his legs. A fall drastically limited any meaningful use of his arms. He made no excuses for his situation. He found a job with a moving company answering the telephone where he scheduled help for the “real” disadvantaged, those broken down on the highway.
I tell my students of the folk tale of the old man who came to the Florida everglades to catch some wild hogs reputed to be uncatchable. No one took him seriously, only chuckled, when he inquired where they might be. You see no one had ever been successful in capturing these hogs and those would be catchers were much stronger and faster then he. “Never mind, just point me in the right direction,” he responded. They did. He placed in his old-battered pickup truck a few ears of corn, found a clearing, and left them before driving away. Day after day he did the same thing. No hog ever came forth to partake. They were way too smart. Nor did the younger hogs for they revered the wisdom of the old sages who were quick to remind them that humans were to be avoided at all costs. Day after day the old man did the same thing.
Ultimately the younger hogs began to question the wasteful practice of not partaking of the free corn and in time began to nibble, ever so watchful. There were no negatives, no consequences, only fools would reject this heaven sent meal. The old hogs would still occasionally remind them that there is no free lunch. “If it is free to you someone else is always picking up the tab,” they said. But, obviously, the old hogs were wrong. The little nibbles turned in to feasts and the old man left even more corn. With time, and feeling foolish, the older hogs joined in one by one. The old man did not go so far away. In fact, eventually he did not leave at all and enjoyed watching all feast without concern. After several months of this they, not even the wiser hogs, noticed the old man dig a hole and insert a single pole; eventually another, than another, and the chicken wire in between. Nor did they notice when he attached the only gate. He had captured them all.
So what happens to the “birds” and the “hogs?” If the practice goes on long enough they no longer know how to do things necessary to preserve themselves. They vote for the politicians that continue the practice and begin to believe that the freebies—food stamps, subsidized housing, socialized medicine, and etc., were actually owed them. They eventually lose their freedom—all of it. When the economy collapses, because the freebies cannot be sustained, the new rulers end all welfare practices as happened in every communist county in the 1900’s and starvation followed. For those who are healthy enough to take care of themselves let’s take down the bird feeder before it comes down on its own.
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.
Jul 1, 2013 | Constitution, Liberty Articles, Take Action, Taxes
By Dr. Harold Pease
Should the patriots once again have ability to rewrite the Declaration of Independence what would they say? How might it be different? Many have asked, “Is it time to restate the obvious? We have lost much of our liberty, as they had, from their elected government.”
There is no reason to believe that the committee, headed by Thomas Jefferson, would retract the base for the right of revolution from “the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God”—definitely a higher level than mere man. Nor is there any reason to believe that they would retract “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Nor the right of revolution when all other means are exhausted, as they had, which is so eloquently stated in the remainder of the second paragraph. So we would expect them to retain the means of making revolution—the right to bear arms. The general theme of the last three paragraphs, that “in every stage of these Oppressions we have Petitioned for Redress” and “with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor,” would be retained as well.
What is, however, perplexing is how many of the listed oppressions—the causes of the American Revolution—have returned in our day. Jefferson targeted the King for the oppressions but Parliament, an elected body, was actually responsible for most of them as is Congress in our day. These include: “He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.” This would be our unelected federal bureaucracy today, 2.8 million strong. The $50 million for IRS parties and $70 million for IRS bonuses in 2013 come to mind. We have yet to hire the 16,000 new folks to administer our socialized medicine (Obamacare) programs, yet another enormous swarm “to eat out our substance.” These officers live off the wealth produced by others.
“He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.” Bradley tanks were used against the Branch Davidian Church during the Clinton Administration, and FEMA and the federalized National Guard were used in New Orleans during the hurricane Katrina under George W. Bush. The recently passed National Defense Authorization Act legalizes military kidnapping of American citizens thought by the President and military to be “terrorist” and shipped to Guantanamo Bay and detained without trial indefinitely. Civil power was/is told to be secondary or non-existent in these examples.
“He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Act of pretended Legislation:” The United Nations was created by treaty. It’s law, often “foreign to our constitution” is becoming recognized universal law with authority to supersede national law. The Supreme Court often references UN law to establish constitutionality of U.S. law. A pending case is the UN Small Arms Treaty which opponents of gun control fear will be used to nullify our Second Amendment.
“For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent.” Anytime a president offers money to a foreign country by way of treaty, as did President Jimmy Carter in the Panama Canal Treaty, he is taxing us without our consent. Only the House of Representatives, which is excluded from treaty making, can raise a bill of revenue. When the Senate, which is supposed to approve all treaties, and the President offer money in a treaty it “imposes taxes on us without our consent.” Today presidents offer reams of money to foreign countries without a thought to asking the people first, as required by the Constitution.
“For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury.” The National Defense Authorization Act, signed into law on New Years Eve 2011 by President Barack Obama, potentially removes trial by jury altogether for citizens thought by the president to be terrorists. A term never defined. If a trial is held at all it will be out of the country and in a military court—without the benefit of the Bill of Rights.
“For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences.” Once again the NDAA transports us secretly, unbeknown to our friends and family and potentially without notice to civil authorities, to Cuba for indefinite detention. Nothing that the British did to us in 1776 was more drastic than this.
“For…altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments.” Our government has been moving from a republic to a democracy and now into socialism for many decades led by both major political parties. At least Barack Obama was honest with us when he promised to “fundamentally change” our government if elected.
“For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.” Our legislatures have been suspended when five things, now very common, happen: 1) when Congress usurps the powers of state governments to themselves, 2) when Congress allows an unelected bureaucracy to add sometimes thousands, of new regulations to a new law, 3) when the President makes law by executive order, 4) when the President appoints so-called Czars to administer programs and write new law for areas where the Constitution never gave the federal government any jurisdiction, 5) and when the Supreme Court rules in such a way as to create new law as in Obamacare.
I suppose the “Tories” in our day would argue, as they did then, “But our elected government gave us all these laws” (oppressions), thus it is okay because “we did it to ourselves.” That argument was made then as well but fortunately it did not keep the rest of us, the Patriots, from revolting nonetheless. Let us revolt by our vote to once again remove the returning offending tyranny and oppressions. Please share.
Jun 28, 2013 | Constitution, Liberty Articles, Take Action
By Dr. Harold Pease
Recent revelations on either the National Securities Administration’s seven-year accumulation of your phone calls and email massages, or, the 35 years of FISA court’s special surveillance requests on 34,000 citizens, has caused many to look to the Constitution for protection from their own government. Is government spying on its own citizens constitutional?
In the Constitution the words national security are not used but common defense is mentioned twice, first in the Preamble, which is but a statement of intent and is not generally seen as usable for codification of law. Article I, Section 8 houses the four powers of congress: to tax, to pay the debts, to provide for the general welfare and to provide for the common defense. Sections 2-9 are the qualifiers on what is meant by common defense so as to limit government’s inclination to define everything as common defense, as it now has national security. All the war powers belong to congress alone. Only after a war is declared does the president have commander and chief responsibilities over the military. Unfortunately for big government advocates, collecting and storing data on its citizens is not cited or even alluded to.
Fortunately for us this behavior is specifically forbidden in the Fourth Amendment which reads: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” The amendment was specifically designed to prevent government spying.
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers against unreasonable searches and seizures shall not be violated is the strongest possible language conceivable. In their day the British government used what was called “a general search warrant” which allowed their agents to harass the people thought to be doing, or saying, something disapproved by the government. No such flexible interpretation was allowed in our government. In our day, computers are your papers. Simply confiscating them and storing them, perhaps indefinitely, should be no different than the police walking into your home and taking any letters, or messages, that you have received, or are about to send, from you and housing them in police headquarters in case they should need them in a later day. Moreover, unreasonable was not to be decided by the police.
As a first principle your house and papers are off-limits to the government. All searches are unreasonable without probable cause that you are doing something harmful to others. Probable cause must be decided independently from the police unless you are in the act of doing something unlawful and immediate police response is necessary. Elected judges exist for assessing probable cause. Should they get too cozy with the police there exist other checks to keep them restrained as, for example, their defeat in the next election. As initially interpreted there were to be few federal laws hence few unelected federal justices. This was to be a state, county, or city matter. Rousted out of a good sleep in the middle of the night, judges were not likely to be too happy having to assess frivolous charges.
There exists no constitutional authority for a blanket extraction of all your electronic data. Judges swear an oath to preserve the Constitution. They are not to perform with a private view outside that document. Notice also the specific restrictive phraseology with respect to this power; they are to particularly describe “the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized”—evidence that something unlawful happened. There is no authority for a “fishing expedition.” NSA spying on its own citizens without a search warrant is clearly unconstitutional.
So what of the government’s secret FISA court where over the last 35 years special federal (unelected) judges have only turned down 11 spying requests out of 34,000 made. Isn’t that based upon probable cause? Not necessarily! The request is more likely made because they lack probable cause and wish to find it by accessing your private records or conversations. We might think more positively toward the existence of the secret FISA court were it not for three big negatives: judges are not elected and accountable to the people, the court operates behind an impenetrable double-door in a vault-like room in total secrecy, and the rules empowering the spying activities are different than those allowed other judges in other federal courts. In any other court, for an ordinary surveillance warrant, a judge must find that a suspect “is” involved in a crime. Under FISA the standard is lowered to “may be involved.” An ordinary wiretap runs 90 days. FISA taps can last a year. A suspect under ordinary criminal surveillance “must be told” about it eventually but not under FISA. And finally, if prosecuted, a defendant is never allowed to see the top-secret warrant applications used against him, which is a probable violation of the Six Amendment as well.
Moreover, the FISA court violates the Fifth Amendment in that the accused is, in a very real sense, forced to be a witness against himself—perhaps the only witness. It is his papers, emails, and phone conversations that convict him.
No federal government! You must tear down your $2 billion NSA Bluffdale, Utah spy facility capable of storing a Yottabyte of our private information against our will. You must do likewise to your Oak Ridge plant that houses the fastest computer in the world designed to analyze our private data for your own purposes; and the latest revelation—to share that information with seven sister federal agencies. Spying on your own people is a blatant violation of the Constitution. You may argue that you are only protecting us from bad people out there but who protects us from you? Fortunately the Constitution does if only enough will begin to use it in their voting practices and those we elect will honor their pledge to protect it, and us, from you.
Dr. Harold Pease is an expert on the United States Constitution. He has dedicated his career to studying the writings of the Founding Fathers and applying that knowledge to current events. He has taught history and political science from this perspective for over 25 years at Taft College. To read more of his weekly articles, please visit www.LibertyUnderFire.org.
Jun 25, 2013 | Constitution, Liberty Articles, Take Action
By Dr. Harold Pease
With the recent outbreak of establishment media coverage of the National Security Administration’s, NSA, spying on over 100 million Americans, recording their telephone conversations, emails, and other electronic messages for the last seven years, the attention has turned to whatever happened to congressional or judicial oversight. Defenders of the spying are assuring us that such is in place and we should not worry. The government’s surveillance of its own citizens is old news dating back to at least 35 years as is the government’s secret court, the FISA court, authorizing them to do so. I have told my students about this court for at least 25 years.
This secret court began during the Jimmy Carter Administration with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, in 1978. Initiated by Ted Kennedy it had strong bipartisan support. It was created as a response to President Richard Nixon’s usage of federal resources to spy on political activist groups during his tenure as president, which likely violated the Fourth Amendment. Ironically, the solution, legalized spying on our own citizens, was a greater violation of the Amendment than before. Few voices opposed giving the government extra spy power during the “Cold War” when it seemed that the whole planet was falling under the totalitarian influence of communism but, once legalized, the surveillance moved to other groups notably the socialists who opposed the Vietnamese War.
CBS News commentator Dan Rather, in his program, Eye on America, was one of the first to speak out on the intricacies of this secret court and he did so in 1994–nineteen years ago. He correctly spoke to the issue that all federal courts are supposed to be open, that the Constitution has no place for secret courts. His program opened, “Chances are you have never heard of this court because it does operate in secret.” The FISA court “holds no public hearings, classifies its rulings top secret and has wide freedom to order domestic spying in the name of national security.” Alan Deshowitz, a defense attorney at the time, was cited as having said, “The idea of there being a secret court in America is so UN-American and the end result is that the rights of American citizens are being violated by this court. What is at stake here is the liberty of the American people. Secrecy and liberty are incompatible.”
The 1994 program continued, “Behind the stone walls of the Justice Department’s sixth floor the court sits in an ultra-high security vault, guarded by impenetrable double doors. There, seven federal judges hear surveillance requests from the FBI, the CIA, and the Department of Defense. And it appears the court has never heard a request it didn’t like. Over the years the government has asked for 7,500 surveillance warrants. The number refused by the court is zero. The government has never been denied.” In 1994 this amounted to two surveillance approvals on U. S. citizens a day. There was no follow up on how the information obtained was used in the defense of freedom.
It gets worse, “The questions “under FISA aren’t quite as tough as they are in even an ordinary criminal case. In any other court for an ordinary surveillance warrant a judge must find that a suspect is involved in a crime. Under FISA the standard is lowered to ‘may be involved.’ An ordinary wiretap runs 90 days. FISA taps can last a year. A suspect under ordinary criminal surveillance ‘must be told’ about it eventually but not under FISA. And finally, if prosecuted, a defendant is never allowed to see the top-secret warrant applications used against him.” Ironically, all this is happening “in a windowless vault just beyond Constitution Avenue,” the program concluded.
To date the secret court has reviewed 33,900 requests denying, in its 35-year history, only eleven—so much for oversight. This means that 968 Americans are approved for secret spying, through wiretapping and other surveillance techniques, each year with only one rejection. This number is not to be confused with the 100 million Americans subjected to secret blanket extraction of their electronic data for the last seven years for some future purpose by the NSA. These are they where your Congress, through FISA, authorized actual study of your private information without your permission or knowledge. I guess that is okay as long as it is on someone else. The problem is, it may be on you for the last anti government thing you said or wrote. How Orwellian is this? Tell your congressman to end the FISA secret court. Secrecy and liberty are incompatible.
