Jun 15, 2013 | Constitution, Globalism, Liberty Articles, Take Action
Dr. Harold Pease
Why is the establishment press just now acknowledging the idea that our own government has been spying on us when credible witnesses and whistleblowers have offered documentation on this for years? Everyone is now talking about the huge secret spy NSA facility in Bluffdale, Utah the size of five capital buildings scheduled for completion this September, as though this is something new. I had myself photographed in front of the site last September. The networks and Congress seemed shocked at the revelation but Congress had to authorize the $2 billion facility expenditure for Bluffdale and a similar amount for a sister NSA facility in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. All of this is simply old news.
What follows is what we knew more than a year ago. Wired magazine front-paged this story a year ago last April when it wrote: “Deep in the Utah desert, the National Security Agency is building the country’s biggest spy center. It’s the final piece of a secret surveillance network that will intercept and store your phone calls, emails, Google searches… (Watch what you say).”
Noted author James Banford, one of America’s leading authorities on the National Security Agency, then wrote, “ Under construction by contractors with top-secret clearances, the blandly named Utah Data Center is being built for the National Security Agency. A project of immense secrecy, it 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 is code named “Stellar Wind.”
In the scheme of things, launched in 2004 under the George W. Bush Administration, but vastly expanded under Barack Obama, the NSA Bluffdale facility will house all electronic information in the world. That is why it is being equipped to hold a Yottabyte of information. A Yottabyte is 1,000 Zettabytes (the number 1 followed by 24 zeros — 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000). So Bluffdale is primarily a storage facility. The philosophy is that the “more data, the more telephone calls, the more email, the more encrypted data that you have—the more patterns that you’re likely to discover.”
The NSA Oak Ridge facility houses the super computer, installed in 2006, capable of finding patterns and printing them out in milliseconds in a process code named “brute force.” The “goal was to advance computer speed a thousand fold, creating a machine that could execute a quadrillion (1015) operations a second, known as a petaflop—the computer equivalent of breaking the land speed record.” With upgrades the computer, called “jaguar for its speed, it clocked in at 1.75 petaflops, officially becoming the world’s fastest computer in 2009,” is housed in Building 5300. There “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”).
NSA Whistleblower William Binney said, “Domestically, they’re pulling together all the data about virtually every U.S. citizen in the country and assembling that information, building communities that you have relationships with, and knowledge about you; what your activities are; what you’re doing. So the government is accumulating that kind of information about every individual person and it’s a very dangerous process.” He estimated that one telecom alone was sending the government an “average of 320 million logs every day since 2001.”
So, when the Los Angeles Times reported on June 6, 2013 that “Government is tracking all U.S. phone calls,” that “The National Security Agency has stored data on calls to and from nearly every American for 7 years in search of patterns suggesting terrorist activity,” and that officials still say that they are not eavesdropping, it is still a lie, a matter of public record, and thus old news. It is great to see the establishment press catch up. Now who authorized these millions of unconstitutional warrant-less wire tapes on you and your friends and who signed off on funding the billions of dollars for these facilities? Will the Congress catch-up too, investigating what should have been looked into years ago? Not unless you push them.
Pease visits spy facility Sept. 20, 2012 months before establishment news finally broke the story.
Jun 4, 2013 | Constitution, Healthcare, Liberty Articles, Take Action, Taxes
By Dr. Harold Pease
The Constitution is exceptionally clear on the origin of all taxes. “All bills for raising revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives,” not the Senate (Article I, Sec. 7). When is the House going to protect its powers from the Senate’s intrusive attempts to steal its power? Recently the Senate passed the “Marketplace Fairness Act” by a vote of 69-27, an Internet sales tax, giving states the authority to require on-line retailers, with no physical presence in those states, to collect sales taxes. Americans will pay more taxes with this bill than without. It is a bill for raising revenue and it did not originate in the House as mandated by the Constitution.
To put the Senate in its constitutional place the House should never take this bill up. Instead, if they feel such legislation is needful, they should originate their own bill after which invite the Senate to take a new bill through the committee process and to the floor once again. I might also suggest not doing so for a year or two just to make the message stronger. “You are infringing on our constitutional jurisdiction.” If the Senate will not do so, the House should consider the bill non-existent. Under no circumstances should they accept this bill as appropriate action on the part of their sister law-making body. Retailers, on the other hand, should refuse to pay this tax and challenge it in the courts on the constitutional grounds cited above.
Unfortunately, this is becoming a practice on the part of the U.S. Senate. Yet another infringing piece of legislation has also just passed the Senate Judiciary Committee in a 13-5 vote, the so-called “Gang of Eight” immigration bill, S.744, obviously originating therein. The Heritage Foundation estimates that this bill will cost taxpayers a net $6.3 trillion above what illegals contribute through taxes over the next 50 years providing benefits for millions now living in the United States. There may be debate over the numbers but what is clear is that the bill did not originate in the House of Representatives as constitutionally required and that Americans will pay more taxes with this bill than without it. Therefore it constitutes an unconstitutional tax.
The worst of all such recent intrusive taxes was “The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act,” known as Obamacare, also originated in the Senate, not in the House as constitutionally required. Weeks ago I wrote of the extensive efforts on the part of the Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid, to cover this up following the judicial decree of Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. proclaiming it a tax when the administration had argued otherwise. The establishment media should have been all over this story and was not. Obamacare may be the only revenue-raising bill in American history originated and processed by the Senate alone. Nothing could be more unconstitutional!!
So why does this matter, a tax is a tax? For thousands of years governments taxed their citizens with no limits. Rulers lived lavishly off the wealth extracted from their poor subjects with little or no mercy toward them—lavish physical structures and frivolous wars of conquest were too often the norm. The Founders wisely took this power from the rich and gave it to the poor by requiring that the poor, then the majority, had to consent to any taxation over them. The power to tax is the only constitutional power exclusively given to the masses. The House of Representatives was the only branch of government designed to actually represent them as it is based upon population. The Senate was to represent the states, the people only indirectly.
As far as I know the United States is the first, possibly the only, country in world history that puts its tax base with the masses who pay the taxes. It is a priceless freedom. If we are over-taxed in the United States we have chosen to be so and one body alone is responsible—The House of Representatives. No tax can constitutionally originate with the President or the Supreme Court, (even if Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. says that it is okay), not even the Senate, although it can modify as on other bills once originated by the House. The House is also in charge of spending. We must not let this freedom dwindle or allow the line between the two legislative branches to be blurred into oblivion.
By letting “origin” slide in these three matters, the House looses its clear distinction on the origin of taxes and the people their right of first approval of taxation for generations yet unborn and probably forever. If left unchallenged these three offending bills, one already implemented, severely damage Article I, Section 7 of the Constitution. All involved are under oath to preserve the Constitution. There is nothing in the Constitution more clear than this. Liberty is lost one piece at a time. It is also restored one piece at a time. Pass this around.
May 27, 2013 | Constitution, Liberty Articles
By Dr. Harold Pease
On May 31,1913, one hundred years ago this month, the U.S. Constitution was changed by the Seventeenth Amendment nullifying the most essential safeguard and ingredient in our remaining a republic. Although our “Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag” still uses the word republic we, on this date, took a giant step into a democracy from a republic and in doing so initiated the era of purchased U.S. Senators, something the Constitution had protected us from heretofore by having senators chosen by the state legislature rather than by the masses.
Some unfamiliar with our history may not know that the Senate was specifically designed to protect state authority from federal government intrusion and to cool the emotional whims of the peoples’ branch—the House of Representatives. To accomplish this, and to keep this body committed to, and aware of state needs, U.S. Senators were to be elected, not by the people at large, as was the House, but by the state legislatures themselves. All prospective law was to be evaluated from two perspectives, the needs of the populace and the needs of the states. Why else would we need two branches of government essentially doing the same thing—making law? The 17th Amendment reduced law making to but one perspective virtually eliminating the perspective of the states.
We live under two political systems: one primarily national in function, the other primarily domestic. It’s called federalism—the two share power and are equal. Neither was to be subservient to the other and each was to have separate duties. Thomas Jefferson explained it best when he said, “The states are not subordinate to the national government but rather the two are coordinate departments of one single and integral whole…. The one is domestic the other the foreign branch of the same government.” Think of this relationship as an ideal marriage, where neither partner is subservient to the other. Neither feels beneath the other, rather they are a team.
The Senate was specifically charged with ensuring federalism but could only do so if they were not subjected to the popular vote. Again, that essentially ended on May 31, 1913, when the 17th Amendment made the senate popularly elected and responsible solely to the emotion of the masses that tend to vote with their stomachs. Prior to this date each state sent the two, usually from their own members, most qualified and able to defend the interests of their state—not who was best funded, best looking, most charismatic, or worse, promised the most handouts to those less productive. These elections cost nothing and no one argued for term limits. It was not needed.
Today, because of this amendment, U.S. Senators must raise between 5 and 10 million for a successful senate campaign thus they are always campaigning and attention to local constituency is the key to their survival—not attention to their state legislature issues. Moreover, the candidate that spends the most money normally wins. The change allowed the moneyed interests to purchase U.S. senators, not the masses. The masses hardly care. “Indeed only about 60 percent of the general public can name one U. S. senator from their state, and only about 40 percent can name both of their U.S. senators” (Politics in America, Thomas R. Dye, Edition 13, p. 379). Some senators receive large sums from contributors outside their states enabling outsiders to help purchase their senator.
But the biggest obstacle to retaining our republic, and thus our liberty, is that there now exists no body whose principle duty is to keep the federal government harnessed to the powers listed in Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution and to protect Amendment 10 of the Bill of Rights that makes it clear that all power not listed remains with the people and the states. Without this body a republic deteriorates into a democracy, which deteriorates further into socialism, which goes into extreme debt because it can’t say no to the expensive whims of the masses. Sound familiar? We must rescind the 17 Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
The New American said it best when it noted, “Today the federal government is involved in everything from our farms to our health and education, along with our sex lives (Viagra is covered by the prescription drug benefit for seniors, and contraception coverage is mandated under ObamaCare) and preschool programs for toddlers” (The April 1, 2013, p.39). Constitutionally all of this falls within state prerogative without a constitutional amendment authorizing the federal government to have these specific powers. If senators represented their states, as designed, they would have prevented this federal intrusion and the high taxes that come with it and we would be a much freer people. Moreover, the era of purchased U.S. senators would never have become the practice.
May 13, 2013 | Constitution, Liberty Articles
By Dr. Harold Pease and John Kopp
I have noticed a major difference in the level of performance of our incoming college freshman in the social science area the past ten years. Contributing factors are varied and probably include: the breakdown of the family, parents do not read as much to their children as once they did, illegal immigrants without adequate English skills fill our classrooms and teachers are forced to teach to the lowest common denominator, and etc. Apathy and indifference have replaced drive and incentive. Some students remind me that a letter grade of D in a course still stands for “degree.”
One major influence has been the George W. Bush, “No Child Left Behind” (NCLB) educational program that essentially left all children behind—by two to three years. I am told that about 85% of our students enter college under-prepared. As a college professor I cannot assume that the vast majority of my students know the basics of U.S. History or government and quite frankly the gap to bridge for many may be too much. I asked John Kopp, a high school history instructor, to describe how this government program worked in the trenches.
“When NCLB was released in 2001 it radically changed how we educated our students,” he responded, “but it didn’t happen overnight.” Before NCLB, he added, “high school teachers were expected to follow a general guideline called ‘The Framework.’ This listed the basic topics that should be covered at each grade level in each subject. Teachers were encouraged to use a variety of methods to evaluate learning and achievement—none were required. Each school district was given the freedom to teach their children in a way that worked best for them—with materials and assessments of their own choosing.”
“This all changed after NCLB was released,” he said. If billions of federal dollars were going to be used for education the government wanted to affect that expenditure; this, despite the fact that the Founders left no role for the federal government in education because of its too chummy proximity to propaganda. When does education become propaganda? Constitutionally, education was left entirely to the states and lesser governments as per Amendment 10. Nevertheless, the government’s “pied piper” promise of better schools and more funding was powerful. This would help us catch up to Asian and European students; teachers were told, with the side benefit that “no child would be left behind.”
Very soon the administration, Kopp continued, “recognized the political fallout from low test scores and so pressure was applied to change how we teach. Experts were brought in to transform how we teach so that students could improve their learning and we were told that this would result in higher test scores. We were not being taught—yet—to teach to the test.”
“We were trained to use the STAR test as the starting point for how to prepare lessons for a class. We were to ‘backward-map’ our classes beginning with the test. We were given a list of ‘standards’ that became the Bible in our classes. Students were to be evaluated on how they were progressing on the state standards and we were strongly encouraged to use questions from the state of CA that were on previous STAR tests — these were called released questions. They became the cornerstone of our preparation tool. We drilled students using these questions believing that it would improve their test scores. Textbooks were all written based on these new standards. We only purchased textbooks in the core areas (math, science, English and social science) that were ‘standards-aligned’.” Still, the scores did not rise as promised.
“After a few years of average test scores we were required to create new lesson plans that would culminate in a ‘benchmark test.’ This test—given every few weeks—would be “standards-aligned” and would directly prepare students for the STAR Test. Teachers were then required to ‘scan’ their student responses into a computer program so that the administration could compile data about how students were doing on these benchmark exams so that they could see whether adequate progress was being made in anticipation of the STAR being given.” Those not achieving “a certain level of success on the test would have to go through mandated remediation.” Scores still did not improve. Unfortunately creativity, love of learning, and motivation were early fatalities.
Mr. Kopp continued, “All student field trips were required to be justified using the state standards—we were asked which standards this trip met. Trips that took students out of the classroom were discouraged—kids needed to be in their classes to meet their benchmark scores to prepare for the STAR. Field trips were to be taken after school or weekends if at all possible.”
What was initially not mandated became so. “Teacher evaluations were changed to include a teacher’s compliance with the benchmark process and the data collection requirement. Every teacher would give the district-approved benchmark and agree to meet together to assess the data. Teachers were not assigned to classes by what they taught best or enjoyed teaching, but how they could help the school reach its API (adequate performance index)—this is the score that would be used by the state and federal government to determine whether growth had occurred.”
Despite the government’s much expanded role in the classroom, we still have fantastic and gifted grade and high school teachers, Mr. John Kopp is one of them, but when they are robbed of their incentive and unique creativity in presenting what they know, their motivation wanes and their love of learning is less likely to be passed on to the student. When excitement for learning or teaching is a victim both students and teachers may tend to just put in their time. No wonder incoming college freshmen are so far behind with little motivation to catch up. Administrators and districts that “bought” into this program for the “free” money and false promises get a failing grade for this one.
