The Ruthless Truth blog

A bill introduced by two of America’s pre-eminent psychopaths in power – Sens. John McCain and Joseph Lieberman, entitled The "Enemy Belligerent, Interrogation, Detention, and Prosecution Act of 2010," would allow the U.S. military to indefinitely detain U.S. citizens without trial or legal representation on the suspicion that they may pose a threat to the government.
In effect, this bill would mean that ANY public dissent by ANY US citizen could land them in military detention for as long as the government chooses.
This is the legislation that we have been predicting for many years. This is the evidence that a major goal of the phony war on terror has always been to criminalize ordinary US citizens and effectively remove the last vestiges of freedom of speech and even thought. This is the evidence that Americans today are living in a covertly fascist regime.
You see, any totalitarianism worth its jack-booted thugs is implemented by degrees. What self-respecting dictatorship-under-cover-of-democracy would come clean about its intent at the very start? That’s no way to introduce fool-proof fascism. To be successful, by the time the people realise, it must already be too late….
So, job well done, psychopaths in power 1 – American people 0.

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"FAST" Coming to an Airport near YOU! – Future Attribute Screening Technology: The Machine That Reads (Malintent) Minds!

Future Attribute Screening Technology, or "FAST" – designed for the Department of Homeland Security.
Not as invasive as the "X-RAY" machines… but good LAWD can that Sally Smith SWEAT or WHAT!
All this, and I STILL don’t have my Jetson Mobile?!! UUUUGH!

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Soldiers in Alaska getting their concealed weapons right revoked

We need everyone’s support on this. This is what came down the chain for soldiers in Alaska about being able to carry concealed weapons. It’s not just happening to civilians anymore. Please get ACTIVE!
APVR-RUPM
DEPARTMENT THE ARMY
HEADQUARTERS, ARMY ALASKA
724 SERVICE LOOP
FORT RICHARDSON, ALASKA 99505-5000
21 FEB 06
MEMORANDUM FOR SEE DISTRIBUTION
SUBJECT: Concealed Weapons Policy (CG/CofS Policy #0-20)
1. Carrying concealed deadly weapons by USARAK Soldiers represents a significant risk to the
safety and welfare of this command. Accordingly, all Soldiers assigned or attached to USARAK
are prohibited from carrying a concealed deadly weapon in public places off of all USARAK
posts. All persons are prohibited from carrying concealed deadly weapons on USARAK posts
IAW USARAK Regulation 190-1.
2. Definitions:
a. Carry means on or about the person, or uncased within the immediate vicinity of the
person, so as to be available for immediate use, e.g. in the person’s automobile.
b. Deadly weapon means any fiream or anything designed for or capable of causing death or serious physical injury.
c. Concealed means hidden from plain view.
d. Firearm means a weapon, including a pistol, revolver, rifle, or shotgun, whether loaded or
unloaded, operable or inoperable, designed to expel a projectile by the action of an explosive charge or primer.
e. Public place means a place to which the public or a substantial group of persons has access. This includes locations involved in the sale of alcoholic beverages, highways,
transportation facilities, schools, places of business, places of amusement, parks, playgrounds and prisons. It also includes hallways, lobbies, and other portions of apartment houses and hotels
not constituting rooms or appartments designed for actual residence.
3. This policy is punitive. Soldiers who fail to comply with the requirements of this policy are subject to adverse administrative action and/or punishment under the
Uniform Code of Military
Justice.
CHARLES H. ACOBY
Major General, USA
Commanding
DISTRIB UTION:
A
This outrage must be answered immediately!
SUPPORT OUR TROOPS!!!
Please take a moment to send a note to your Representative and Senators,
the Pentagon, and this very confused General.
PLEASE FORWARD this information to everyone on your e-mail list and
especially to other local and national gun groups that should be
responding to this outrage.
Contact info

http://www.usarak.army.mil/main/cg2.htm

WILLIAM J. TROY
MAJOR GENERAL
UNITED STATES ARMY
COMMANDER, U.S. ARMY ALASKA
DEPUTY COMMANDER, ALASKAN
COMMAND
FORT RICHARDSON, ALASKA 99505-5000

http://gov.alaska.gov/parnell/contact/email-the-governor.html

Mr. Chris Cox
Director NRA-ILA
11250 Waples Mill Road
Fairfax, VA 22030

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by Jack Hunter, from The American Conservative

When the City of Chicago banned all handguns recently, countless Americans rightly cried foul. When it looked like the Supreme Court might overturn the ban, gun-rights advocates cheered the decision. But while their heart is in the right place, their enthusiasm is not, as what gun-rights advocates are really cheering is the federal government assuming even more power.

The Bill of Rights was never intended to be a list of individual rights, but a list of things the federal government could not do. Patrick Henry and his anti-federalist friends did not want an all-powerful “national” government and insisted the Bill of Rights be added to the Constitution in order to make crystal clear that the federal government’s powers were few, limited, and only those delegated to it by the states.

The rights to free speech, freedom of religion, and to keep and bear arms were rights the federal government could never take away from the states, allowing states to regulate speech, religion — and yes, firearms — as each saw fit. Today, the Founders would declare federal gun legislation like the Brady Bill to be unconstitutional, pointing to the 2nd, 9th, and 10th amendments. The Founders also would have declared Chicago’s gun ban constitutional (albeit stupid), also pointing to the 9th and 10th amendments. The 2nd amendment does not apply to the Chicago gun ban because the federal government is not involved — nor should it be.

Constitutional historian Kevin Gutzman put the Founders intentions into perspective during an interview with radio host Mike Church: “when we have a Second Amendment, essentially what that means is that the federal government is to have nothing to do with your ownership and use of weapons. But that doesn’t mean that nobody is able to regulate your ownership and use of weapons. If neither the federal government nor the states can regulate ownership of weapons, are we saying that retarded people and insane people and felons and children can all own weapons? Clearly some level of government has to be able to regulate the use and possession of firearms.”

So how can the Supreme Court overturn Chicago’s ridiculous, yet constitutional law using the 2nd amendment? Also, why should conservatives — typically champions for gun rights — be opposed to this court decision? Because this decision would trample the most important right of all — that of the states to limit the power of the federal government.

Reporting on the Chicago controversy, a Washington Times headline this week read, “Gun rights lawyer gives hope to liberal causes: 14th Amendment argument opens to gay rights, abortion.” Using what’s called the “incorporation doctrine,” the Supreme Court has argued that the 14th Amendment, which was meant to protect the basic rights of former slaves after the War for Southern Independence, magically turned the Bill of Rights into a list of individual rights.

If this is true, as the Supreme Court is about to declare once again in the Chicago case, then federal law trumps state law anytime the court sees fit, completely ignoring the Bill of Rights’ intended purpose of limiting federal authority. What some consider a small victory for gun rights is actually a grand defeat for limited government. If Patrick Henry were alive, he would likely be reaching for his musket.

What happens when the court decides that gay marriage is a “right,” or that healthcare is a “right,” two concepts many liberal Democrats already subscribe to? States will be powerless to stop the invention of these and other new “rights” and completely at the mercy of federal judges. Reported the Washington Post: “Justice Stephen Breyer needled the majority about its rather situational view of federalism when it comes to ‘incorporating’ the Second Amendment to make it binding on states rather than just the federal government. ‘Without incorporation, it’s decided by state legislatures,’ he said. ‘With, it’s decided by federal judges.”

In his book Original Intentions: On the Making and Ratification of the United States Constitution, conservative author Mel Bradford warned against embracing unconstitutional court decisions based on situational whims: “Legitimate change in the Constitution can only be made by amendment-not by the will of the High Court, its well-meaning, teleocratic misuse of its originally narrow and specific role within the law. For if it does not keep the law, who will? And if the law itself is personalized or politicized at its source, who among us is secure?”

I’m not a constitutional scholar. In fact, I’m not a scholar of any kind.
My observations, whether on talk radio or in my columns, are the thoughts of an average American with an average education attempting to deduce simple truths about our nation and its government.

But one need not be an expert of any sort to recognize that our federal government has long trended toward increased centralization, sometimes in the name of the Constitution itself.

As Bradford noted, if the federal government is to be the sole arbiter of its own power then there really are no limits to that power, and those who still believe in the Founders’ constitution should not cheer its destruction by championing increased centralization over local control, federal dictates over states’ rights and “conservative” victories that are not.

The “Southern Avenger” Jack Hunter is a conservative commentator (WTMA 1250 AM talk radio) and columnist (Charleston City Paper) living in Charleston, South Carolina. See his blog.

Copyright 2010, The American Conservative

http://www.tenthamendmentcenter.com/2010/03/05/gunning-down-the-constitution/

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Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, who said that Einstein 3 could only be discussed in a classified setting, speaks at the RSA conference on Wednesday.

(Credit: James Martin/CNET)

SAN FRANCISCO–Homeland Security and the National Security Agency may be taking a closer look at Internet communications in the future.

The Department of Homeland Security’s top cybersecurity official told CNET on Wednesday that the department may eventually extend its Einstein technology, which is designed to detect and prevent electronic attacks, to networks operated by the private sector. The technology was created for federal networks.

Greg Schaffer, assistant secretary for cybersecurity and communications, said in an interview that the department is evaluating whether Einstein "makes sense for expansion to critical infrastructure spaces" over time.

Not much is known about how Einstein works, and the House Intelligence Committee once charged that descriptions were overly "vague" because of "excessive classification." The White House did confirm this week that the latest version, called Einstein 3, involves attempting to thwart in-progress cyberattacks by sharing information with the National Security Agency.

Greater federal involvement in privately operated networks may spark privacy or surveillance concerns, not least because of the NSA’s central involvement in the Bush administration’s warrantless wiretapping scandal. Earlier reports have said that Einstein 3 has the ability to read the content of emails and other messages, and that AT&T has been asked to test the system. (The Obama administration says the "contents" of communications are not shared with the NSA.)

"I don’t think you have to be Big Brother in order to provide a level of protection either for federal government systems or otherwise," Schaffer said. "As a practical matter, you’re looking at data that’s relevant to malicious activity, and that’s the data that you’re focused on. It’s not necessary to go into a space where someone will say you’re acting like Big Brother. It can be done without crossing over into a space that’s problematic from a privacy perspective."

If Einstein 3 does perform as well as Homeland Security hopes, it could help less-prepared companies fend off cyberattacks, including worms sent through e-mail, phishing attempts, and even denial of service attacks.

On the other hand, civil libertarians are sure to raise questions about privacy, access, and how Einstein could be used in the future. If it can perform deep packet inspection to prevent botnets from accessing certain Web pages, for instance, could it also be used to prevent a human from accessing illegal pornography, copyright-infringing music, or offshore gambling sites?

"It’s one thing for the government to monitor its own systems for malicious code and intrusions," said Greg Nojeim, senior counsel at the Center for Democracy and Technology. "It’s quite another for the government to monitor private networks for those intrusions. We’d be concerned about any notion that a governmental monitoring system like Einstein would be extended to private networks."

AT&T did not respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.

Cooperation, or a loss of control?
At the RSA Conference here on Wednesday, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano stressed the need for more cooperation between the government and the private sector on cybersecurity, saying that "we need to have a system that works together."

During a House appropriations hearing on February 26, Napolitano refused to discuss Einstein 3 unless the hearing were closed to the public. "I don’t want to comment publicly on Einstein 3, per se, here in an unclassified setting," she said. "What I would suggest, perhaps, is a classified briefing for members of the subcommittee who are interested."

Some privacy concerns about Einstein have popped up before. An American Bar Association panel said this about Einstein 3 in a September 2009 report: "Because government communications are commingled with the private communications of non-governmental actors who use the same system, great caution will be necessary to insure that privacy and civil liberties concerns are adequately considered."

Jacob Appelbaum, a security researcher and programmer for the Tor anonymity project, said that expanding Einstein 3 to the private sector would amount to a partial outsourcing of security. "It’s clearly a win for people without the security know-how to protect their own networks," Appelbaum said. "It’s also a clear loss of control. And anyone with access to that monitoring system, legitimate or otherwise, would be able to monitor amazing amounts of traffic."

Einstein grew out of a still-classified executive order, called National Security Presidential Directive 54, that President Bush signed in 2008.

While little information is available, former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff once likened it to a new "Manhattan Project," and the Washington Post reported that the accompanying cybersecurity initiative represented the "single largest request for funds" in last year’s classified intelligence budget. The Electronic Privacy Information Center has filed a lawsuit (PDF) to obtain the text of the order.

Homeland Security has published (PDF) a privacy impact assessment for a less capable system called Einstein 2–which aimed to do intrusion detection and not prevention–but has not done so for Einstein 3.

The department did, however, prepare a general set of guidelines (PDF) for privacy and civil liberties in June 2009. In addition, the Bush Justice Department wrote a memo (PDF) saying Einstein 2 "complies with" the U.S. Constitution and federal wiretap laws.

That justification for Einstein 2 "turned on the consent of employees in the government that are being communicated with, and on the notion that a person who communicates with the government can’t then complain that the government read the communication," said CDT’s Nojeim. "How does that legal justification work should Einstein be extended to the private sector?"

Declan McCullagh is a contributor to CNET News and a correspondent for CBSNews.com who has covered the intersection of politics and technology for over a decade. Declan writes a regular feature called Taking Liberties, focused on individual and economic rights; you can bookmark his CBS News Taking Liberties site, or subscribe to the RSS feed. You can e-mail Declan at declan@cbsnews.com.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10463665-38.html

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