Tag: Patriot Act

Let’s Pray for Their Success

photog Current Events, Trump , , ,

What to write about tonight?  Well, how about thinking about, “How did we get here?”

I know all about the deep dives where everything traces back to the Enlightenment and the loss of faith.  Or there’s the Abolitionists and the Civil War enshrining social justice in our government.  But I don’t want to go back that far.  I’ll settle for Woodrow Wilson and FDR as the source of the runaway bureaucracy that Washington DC has become.  Sure, in between, there were others but I think Wilson set the stage with the WW I expansion and FDR metastasized the problem with the New Deal and the WW II expansions.

Now, I’m not denying that by creating the Leviathan FDR assured the defeat of Hitler and Japan.  He did.  And by funding the Manhattan Project he created the American Empire and eventually destroyed the Soviet Union.  But at what cost?  As one of his successors (Eisenhower) warned, the melding of the US war machine with corporate interests fueled by almost limitless investment from the Federal Reserve has swallowed up our democracy.  And with it, has enveloped us in a police state that dictates to us in a way that is in line with what the Stasi did in East Germany and what China does with its people today.

The final nail in the coffin was 9/11/2001.  The reaction to that attack assured that the Patriot Act and the FISA Courts could treat American citizens like Stalin’s victims that we read about in the Gulag Archipelago.  You can be arrested, convicted, sentenced and buried in the gulag for annoying the bureaucrats or just for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.  Freedom of speech, unreasonable search and seizure and the right to an open and fair trial are all stripped away with the wave of a magic wand when the FISA Court and the Patriot Act declare that national security is threatened.  And all kinds of other atrocities are possible when the intelligence agencies can convince banks, airlines and social media companies that you are a dangerous person because you don’t agree with the bureaucracy’s priorities.

And all of this is because a bunch of rag tag Islamic extremists hijacked four airliners.  Well, as I’ve confessed innumerable times, I was one of the fools who agreed to this nonsense back in 2001.  I allowed myself to be swayed by anger to allow George W Bush and his geniuses to put in place the very laws that would plague Americans ever since.  All of us who agreed with these measures put on our chains voluntarily.  More the fool me.

Well now it’s time to start undoing all of this.  And I mean all of it.  First to go must be the FISA Courts and the Patriot Act.  Ending the ability of the CIA and FBI to target American citizens and sweep away their constitutional rights is the primary goal.  That must go.

But after that, the military industrial complex must be examined and the practices that allow it to bribe elected officials and collude with contractors to bleed the American taxpayers must be changed.  Sure, we need up to date weapons to assure the security of this country.  But we’re not even getting that anymore.  We have bloated weapons programs that produce expensive but unimpressive results.  Our state-of-the-art Abrams tanks are being decimated on the battlefields of Ukraine by $500 drones.  Our next-up super-fighter jet is a vaporware project that is so poorly defined that despite a price tag rumored to be close to a trillion dollars we don’t know why we should build it, other than it will enrich the contractors beyond their wildest dreams.

Getting this done will be a battle royale.  Both Democrats and Republicans will defend the military industrial complex with every fiber of their beings.  People like Lindsey Graham and Mitch McConnell have amassed huge fortunes and incredible influence by serving the interests of the defense contractors in everything they do in the Congress.  It’s not too much to say that Donald Trump and his cabinet appointees in the Department of Defense will be risking their lives when they defy the vested interests there.  There is probably no limit to what they might do to prevent reform of the present situation.

Let’s pray for their success.  Nothing less than the freedom and prosperity of our children hangs in the balance over the next few years.

H/T to Sundance at the Conservative Treehouse on FISA Renewal Issue

photog Current Events , ,

So apparently FISA needs to be renewed by the end of the year.  Here is Sundance’s take on this renewal effort:

“I will openly campaign against any politician or candidate who does not fully endorse the elimination of FISA 702 Authorization in sum and total.  I don’t care who the candidate is, or what his/her political affiliation might be.

I am sick and tired of having to construct communication systems, to engage in ordinary conversation and/or communication, knowing the biggest challenge is to construct the system to defend ordinary people against unconstitutional searches and seizures.  Ironically, this includes the very commenting system you are using to share any opinion of this outline.  This domestic surveillance system just needs to be stopped.”

He’s right.  It should be instructive to see which “conservatives” in Congress go along with the people intent on renewing FISA.  FISA has been used to spy on and persecute anyone the Left doesn’t like.  Those supporting this aren’t patriots.  They’re Stalinists.  Judge them by their actions.

BEWARE, Here Comes the Intel Community Laying Groundwork for FISA 702 Renewal

 

Another Anniversary of a Very Sad Day

photog Current Events , ,

Time passes and perspective changes.  The horror of that day fades and what remains is the damage that was done in the name of protecting the country from danger.  The overarching result was the surveillance state which as we’ve seen doesn’t protect us from foreign threats but instead is a weapon against Americans.  The Patriot Act and all the other measures that have been put in place to monitor our every word, action and even thought is a monstrous law that has changed the very nature of our relationship to our government.  It is literally 1984’s Ministry of Love.  It combines complete surveillance of the citizenry with unlimited power to punish of anyone who objects to it.  And now with the capture of the internet through proxies like Google and Facebook we have the Ministry of Truth instituted too.  Free speech is seen to be non-existent as any attempts to contradict the Ministry of Truth’s pronouncements are erased from the network.

Looking back to where we were twenty-one years ago, we can see that we have lost our freedoms and gained nothing of security.  It was all a lie.  The only question is can we undo what has been done.  There are two mechanisms.  If we had a majority in Congress and a President who both wanted to repeal the Patriot Act it could be done.  Currently even if the Republicans controlled the Congress there are too many Senators who work for the military industrial complex and would never dream of curtailing its power.  The other way it could be done would be to have the Supreme Court find the Patriot Act unconstitutional.  That would work.  I wonder if the Justice Department and the other parts of the Security State would just ignore the Supreme Court and just continue on with their abuses of power.  It might only serve to prove that we are no longer living under a constitutional government but under a junta instead.

September Eleventh highlights that our government relies on the good will of the people running it to keep it honest.  What is plain to see is that Obama and his regime completely corrupted the security apparatus and now that they’ve gotten a taste for unlimited power, they have no intention of backing away from it.

It will take a concerted effort by all branches of the government; President, Congress and Supreme Court to undo the damage that has been inflicted on our freedoms by the Patriot Act and the other surveillance and control methods.  The problem is how do we reach a national consensus to build up that concerted effort?  So many Americans benefit from the current regime.  They’ve been bought off with money and programs that allow them to coast along.

So that brings us to the possibility that it’s already too late to undo the harm.  If that’s the case then the present regime will have to go through the evolution that all diseased states experience.  The discrepancies between reality and the narrative that the government enforces will eventually lead to massive dysfunction.  And without a feedback mechanism to correct these problems the whole titanic structure of the bureaucracy will crumble under its own weight.  It took seventy years for the Soviet Empire to suffer this kind of catastrophic failure.  Maybe the American Empire will take another hundred years.  Or maybe it’s already starting to tear itself apart.  A case could be made for either scenario.

But what I’ve decided is that the 2022 election is the test case for me.  The disastrous consequences of the Left’s agenda are on full display.  If this does not provide enough impetus to the American electorate to throw out the Democrats, en masse, then nothing ever will.  What we’ll end up with is the situation in Massachusetts where the excesses of the hyper-progressive left are balanced off every eight or twelve years with some squishy Republican who pumps out the water from the sinking ship of state and restores some semblance of sanity until the next spasm of progressive insanity sweeps in another madman who proceeds to sink the ship again.

So, I’m looking for signs that people have had enough.  I can see some hope in places like Florida and Texas where Democrat voters are switching sides.  But so far these are isolated cases.  We’ll need to see it spreading to places like Wisconsin, Nevada and Pennsylvania.  So far, the polls are inconclusive.    But it’s less than two months until we’ll know.

A sad day.

Recommended On-Line Article – “Abolish CIA & FISA” by Angelo Codevilla

photog Current Events, On-Line Article Reviews, Reviews , , ,

Claremont Institute’s on-line magazine American Mind has had several good articles in the last few months.  I am always interested in Angelo Codevilla’s thoughts.  In this article he argues that the dangers we face from the unfettered power that the spymasters wield is already destroying the integrity of our government.  For generations the FBI and CIA have used their power to topple foreign governments and in two cases have aimed at overthrowing a United States president, once successfully and once unsuccessfully.

This mirrors my thoughts in the recent post I wrote.  It really needs to be the Supreme Court that strikes down the FISA Courts and the President must remove the most dangerous individuals in these agencies and replace them with law abiding civil servants.  And, as I stressed before, the worst offenders need to be prosecuted and punished severely.

Counting My Chickens Before They’re Hatched

photog Current Events , , , , ,

An enormous amount of digital ink has been spilled in the last week or so about the coming Supreme Court vacancy and who might fill it and how that will play out.  And these are truly momentous questions involving nuances of political strategy that could change the balance of the Senate political make-up.  In other words, really hot stuff and absolutely chock full of fat-soluble vitamins.

But let’s jump the gun and talk about some really exciting things.  Let’s assume for the sake of argument that the Senate manages to keep their act together and approve an actual conservative replacement for Anthony Kennedy.  And let’s further assume for the sake of argument that John Roberts isn’t the Manchurian Justice that he seemed to be during the Obamacare deliberation.  Then, what are the possible constitutional questions that could allow the new conservative majority to show its quality?  Let’s make a list.

  • I think the least likely early result of the new majority would be a test of Roe v. Wade. This is the thermonuclear case and I believe it will be a while before SCOTUS tackles something so controversial.  After all, energizing the female vote against Republicans during the beginning of a conservative court majority would threaten the ability of a very narrow Senate majority right before the mid-terms.  So I think this will wait at least a year or more.
  • I think the most likely early test of this new majority will be a revisiting of the gay marriage vs. religious freedom question. And here is where I think that the Court will score an easy victory.  I would be shocked if the Court does not hand a complete victory to religious tradespeople who object to being forced to participate in homosexual weddings.  In my estimation this will be a great morale booster for conservatives and a well-deserved rebuke for the brown shirts in the LGBTQ
  • Removing the Constitutional mandate for gay marriage would be a very bold move. Seeing that this would directly attack the precedent set by Anthony Kennedy just a few years ago it would represent a refutation of the narrative that has been developing in the Courts for the last twenty five years.  But I think it would be the smart thing to do.  Unlike Roe v. Wade, the shortness of time that has passed since the precedent was set limits the disruption caused by allowing the individual states to pass their own laws on either side of this issue.  The Federal government could even restore the Defense of Marriage Act if it was politically expedient.  And there is a real grass roots appeal to allow states that don’t favor the homosexual life style to have their say.
  • Questions about the Constitutionality of Affirmative Action should be front and center in this Court. Even past verdicts by the Supreme Court when more liberal justices were represented recognized the contradictory nature of a clearly discriminatory practice sanctioned by the United States Government.  It is long past the point where reverse discrimination makes even bad sense.  And the way the Left has used it to weaponize identity politics against the white population needs to be shut down before it does anymore harm to the unity of the country.
  • The constitutionality of the Patriot Act and other post 9-11 security over-reaches need to be reconsidered. The recent actions by the FBI and the other intelligence gathering agencies highlights the runaway nature of these intrusions on privacy and an originalist interpretation will go a long way toward re-evaluating the current imbalance favoring law enforcement over due process.
  • And a final major item that could be adjudicated is the Constitutional protection for homosexuality. That was another constitutional protection discovered by Justice Kennedy.  Here is another social question that used to be a state matter until the Supreme Court overstepped.

So, this merely my speculation.  What do you think?  What’s your logic?  Leave a vote.

 

[socialpoll id=”2510623″]