The Depravity of Liberalism, an Ideology of Hate and Violence
Hollywood gives us all the spectrum of a depraved lifestyle as we watch daily on the news the events in the lives of those who have found fame and fortune in a world gone mad. A culture of people who have it all and yet are never satisfied and are always craving more. Alcohol, Drugs, Sex, and sometimes violence seem to fill in the blanks of this Liberal Lifestyle in an endless array of headlines that expose these so called Role Models of our Society. Perhaps this has spilled over into the main stream liberal society as we watch the drama of the Liberal Movement in America.
A true Culture of Hate and Violence is emerging on the American Scene and thanks to Video phones we are seeing first hand the true nature of the Liberal Agenda.
Could this be the Cause?
DRD4 Liberal Genetic Code
Scientists Find ‘Liberal Gene’
Researchers have determined that genetics could matter when it comes to some adults’ political leanings.
According to scientists at UC San Diego and Harvard University, “ideology is affected not just by social factors, but also by a dopamine receptor gene called DRD4.” That and how many friends you had during high school.
The study was led by UCSD’s James Fowler and focused on 2,000 subjects from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. Scientists matched the subjects’ genetic information with “maps” of their social networks. According to researchers, they determined that people “with a specific variant of the DRD4 gene were more likely to be liberal as adults.” However, the, subjects were only more likely to have leanings to the left if they were also socially active during adolescence.
“It is the crucial interaction of two factors — the genetic predisposition and the environmental condition of having many friends in adolescence — that is associated with being more liberal,” according to the study.
New York and California have for generations of Americans been considered destination spots to express personal freedoms — one with a city big enough for anybody with a dream to perhaps become a star and the other a state synonymous with the so-called laid-back lifestyle.
But such attitudes have drastically changed, according to a new study that finds the two states last in individual freedom.
The “Freedom in the 50 States” study published last week by the libertarian-leaning Mercatus Center ranks New York last and California second to last.
The survey is based on fiscal issues such as job prospects and tax rates, regulatory policies that include property rights and personal freedoms such as gun laws.
“When it comes to overall freedom, New York ranks dead last,” the study’s authors said.
They point out that New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has taken away – or at least tried to take away – several personal freedoms, including his failed effort to outlaw the sale of sodas 16 ounces and larger.
“Though the law ran into a judicial buzz saw on the eve of its enactment earlier this month, it demonstrates the attitude city and state legislators have toward their constituents,” the authors noted.
Bloomberg has already imposed a stiff tax on cigarette sales and is a leading advocate for tougher gun laws.
In addition, New Yorkers pay a state income tax of 14 percent.
“Even New Yorkers who don’t care about sweet drinks have to deal with the highest state and local tax burden in the country,” the authors wrote.
The result is New Yorkers are voting with their feet, with roughly 1.7 million leaving between 2000 and 2010, though newborns and new immigrants are keeping the state’s population steady, according to the study.
“We’re not living in a police state,” White Plains attorney John Murtagh told CBS New York. “But the economics of New York clearly don’t work. And then you see things like Mike Bloomberg and his Big Gulp sodas.”
The top five states with the most freedom are North Dakota, South Dakota, Tennessee, New Hampshire and Oklahoma, according to the study from the center, at George Mason University in Virginia.
North Dakota came in first in large part based of its “very low taxes” and government debt, the authors said. “However, its spending is uncharacteristically high.”
The three other lowest ranking states are Rhode Island, Hawaii and New Jersey, in descending order.
The study authors said California’s biggest problem is business regulation, though a recent attempt to impose a higher tax rate on the state’s highest earners has become a major complaint among residents.
“The Golden State, with hundreds of miles of picturesque Pacific coastline, nonetheless managed to drive off a net of 1.5 million residents between 2000 and 2010 — over 4 percent of its 2000 population,” the authors wrote.
They also pointed out Californians‘ personal income contracted by 0.4 percent a year in the seven years before the Great Recession struck, a record worse than any other state besides Michigan.
Obama Surrounds Himself With The Most Extreme Appointees In American History
Much has been written about Obama’s controversial appointments, not only to the federal bench, but to key cabinet positions, as well as to the unaccountable (and probably unconstitutional) “Czar” positions. Much of the criticism has dwelled on the Obama administration’s lack of vetting when filling these rolls—but that’s not the issue.
To the contrary, the Obama team did investigate thoroughly and they choose precisely. When an administration repeatedly nominates hard-left individuals, it’s not a vetting error—it’s a pattern. We should not allow the media to portray these appointments as a series of errors; but rather, we need to realize that Team Obama is simply nominating those who share their goal of radically changing America.
Most Americans have a hard time understanding this because they refuse to believe Obama is this extreme. But he is. For a year prior to his election conservatives warned voters that everything we knew about Obama indicated that his views were far from the mainstream. This was obvious when one analyzed his friends, which groups he funded while a “community activist,” his Illinois State Senate record, his United States Senate record and even what he wrote in his own books.
The reality, of course, is that Obama’s views are far from the mainstream and it is embarrassing so many Americans fell for his leftist candy-coated lies. Indeed, it appears that Obama is the most far left President in American history. His appointees only confirm this. These appointees hail from the crowd who regard their pedigree as the 60’s activists who cheered on the Vietcong, while American boys were slaughtered in the jungles of Vietnam. They hate America, or more precisely, they hate America’s heritage; American institutions, and the American Constitution.
Many of these extremists nominated by Obama hail from academia, where they were shielded from outside scrutiny while they quietly indoctrinated our youth. But don’t let the cloak of academia fool you; they are out to change America in ways most Americans oppose. More importantly, Americans need to realize their views are Obama’s views.
The American media is partly responsible for bringing such extremists to power. There is little doubt the media engaged in a massive propaganda effort to convince Americans that Obama was some kind of hip moderate; a breath of fresh air, a reformer, and someone who would fight the corrupt ways of Washington. Until Americans wake up and stop relying on the mainstream media for their source of news, they will continue to pay a heavy price for their ignorance. Unfortunately, this report covers just a few of Obama’s policy-makers, but there are many more such extremists within his administration.
Domestic Policy:
The Regulatory Czar – Cass Sunstein
Sunstein was nominated and approved to be Obama’s “Regulatory Czar.” He supports massive gun control and doesn’t believe the 2nd Amendment is an individual right. He has straight out said, “We ought to ban hunting.” While this fruitcake strips Americans of their Constitutional right to own guns, he wants to give rights to animals and has argued that “Animals should be permitted to bring suit…” Naturally, he also supports the “Fairness Doctrine,” the wrongly-named concept which allows the government to regulate the airwaves.
Climate Czar – Todd Stern
Stern, a veteran of the Clinton administration, was the U.S. negotiator at the Kyoto conference in 1997 (which called for dramatic climate change regulations based on bogus assumptions.) Had the treaty been implemented, it would have plunged the world into economic chaos.
Since then, new evidence has revealed that the major climate models used to justify the Global Warming alarm was, in fact, not accurate. One would think Stern would address this, but chances are he won’t. Climate change seems to be more about giving the government control over our lives, than about phony climate crises. Indeed, Stern has made it clear that he thinks international agencies, such as the United Nations, should take the lead on forcing climate change down the throats of national governments. Stern has even gone as far as to propose that world powers form an “E8” group, who would meet yearly and dictate environmental policy to the rest of the world. What about national sovereignty? Clearly, Stern feels that’s an outdated concept.
Stern is also the nutcase behind the Cap and Trade proposal which, even an analysis by Obama’s own Treasury Department concluded, would cost American taxpayers up to $200 billion dollars—just what we need for today’s economy!
Science Czar – John Holdren
In his book, Holdren advocates some of the most bizarre and horrifying policy stances imaginable. In the event of a “over-population crises,” Holdren supports “laws requiring compulsory abortion,” government confiscation of new born babies, the “development of a long-term sterilizing capsule that could be implanted under the skin,” and, incredibly, “adding a sterilant to drinking water or stable foods….” as long a livestock would not be affected (as experimentally implemented in India). Holdren wants the government to dictate family size and advocate a “planetary regime,” run by the United Nations. This real life Dr. Frankenstein will be deciding science policy for the United States of America.
Chief Diversity Officer, Federal Communications Commission – Mark Lloyd
While Obama is playing coy with his plans to shut down conservative talk radio, we know what his real intentions are, due to his appointment of Mark Lloyd. Lloyd’s view of the 1st Amendment is shocking:
“It should be clear by now that my focus here is not freedom of speech or the press.
This freedom is all too often an exaggeration. At the very least, blind references
to freedom of speech or the press serve as a distraction from the critical examination
of other communications policies. “[T]he purpose of free speech is warped to protect
global corporations and block rules that would promote democratic governance.”
Like many of Obama’s appointees, Lloyd worked for George Soros, the foreign billionaire who funds anti-America groups. He seems to be enamored with dictators and has even publicly praised Venezuelan Communist dictator Hugo Chavez’s “incredible…democratic revolution.” He also wants to use the Fairness Doctrine to “balance” talk radio and believes there are too many white people in the media. He has written that unless there are “more people of color, gays and other people…we will not change the problem.” One of his solutions to “balance” the media is to fine conservative radio stations up to $250 million and give the proceeds to National Public Radio. Get ready for censorship like America has never seen before.
Attorney General – Eric Holder
Like most of Obama’s appointees, Holder is a member of the American Constitution Society, a ACLU-type group dedicated to destroying much the Constitution in order to make it “relevant” to the modern world. And as with many Obama’s appointees, he is obsessed with race, even to the point of refusing to pursue the prosecution of two Black Panther thugs who intimidated white voters at a polling place. The thugs were screaming things at the voters such as, “You are about to be ruled by the black man, cracker.” If whites had harassing blacks at a polling place, they would still be sitting in a jail within days. Nevertheless, Holder apparently doesn’t mind undermining the democratic process. He is currently challenging the rights of states to enact citizen verification procedures previously approved by two federal courts. In other words, Holder wants to make it easier for illegal aliens to vote, which also happens to be ACORN’s goal. This comes as no surprise; Holder has been undermining the rule of law for most of his career. While serving as the #2 official in Clinton’s Justice Department, Holder was the driving force behind the effort to pardon members of the notorious Puerto Rican terrorist group, FALN, a group that engaged in over 130 attacks in the USA, killing six people. By refusing to carry out justice against the Black Panthers and the Hispanic FALN terrorists, he was clearly pandering to these two racial groups for political reasons. So this is what Obama’s Justice Department will be all about: racial pandering first and justice last. Speaking at an ACS convention last November, Holder announced that America would soon be “run by progressives.” At least he’s honest.
Deputy Attorney General – David Ogden
This appointment must have been a favor for the porn industry; Ogden has probably done more than anyone in America to defend the “rights” of pornographers. Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., said Ogden “is more than just a lawyer who has had a few unsavory clients. He has devoted a substantial part of his career, case after case, for 20 years, in defense of pornography.” For example, he argued in support of the American Library Association when they went to court to challenge mandatory anti-obscenity internet filters in school libraries. Incredibly, the ALA/Ogden position was that libraries should be free-speech zones in which school children should have the right to access anything they want – even pornography – on school computers. This comes as no surprise, when Ogden was an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union, he argued on constitutional grounds to strike down the conviction of a defendant who received and possessed child pornography. Ogden believes there is a constitutional right to possess child pornography. The appointment of Ogden is apparently what Obama means when he talks about promoting “family values.”
Solicitor General – Elena Kagan
Elena Kagan has also been mentioned by the Obama forces as the next nomination to the Supreme Court. This is ironic considering her complete lack of judicial or appellate experience. She has never even been a judge or argued before the Supreme Court! Kagen has served as the Dean of Harvard Law School, but her job was to fundraise and make the students “comfortable.” As the Boston Globe writes, “Some of her initial acts as dean were small-scale improvements, like offering free coffee in classroom buildings and free tampons in women’s bathrooms.” Isn’t that nice! However, the few legal views she holds are certainly far from the mainstream. She described the “don’t ask, don’t tell” homosexual military policy adopted by President Clinton as “a profound wrong – a moral injustice of the first order,” and favors homosexuals being allowed to openly serve in the military. She argued that it was unconstitutional for Congress to withhold funds from colleges that banned military recruiters and she even took it upon herself to ban military recruiters from Harvard because of their policy regarding homosexuals. Clearly, her lesbianism has clearly created a bias that affects her shallow legal views.
Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel – Dawn Johnson
Johnson is the former legal director for the National Abortion Rights Action League, a group on the extreme left of the abortion debate. They oppose any restrictions on abortion for any reason, at any time of pregnancy—even late term abortions. She has also worked for the ACLU. Johnson has argued that abortion is all about “sexual freedom.” That’s right: have sex with whoever you want and whenever you want and if you get pregnant, get an abortion. This same mentality has led to skyrocketing sexual disease rates, unwanted pregnancies, and untold sorrow. In a brief filed while working with NARAL,Johnson cited a source that said forcing women to bear children was “disturbingly suggestive of involuntary servitude, prohibited by the 13th Amendment, in that forced pregnancy requires a woman to provide continuous physical service to the fetus in order to further the state’s asserted interest.” In other words, being pregnant is comparable to being a slave. Secretary, Department of Education – Arne Duncan. Obama appointed Duncan due to his alleged success as CEO of Chicago’s public schools. However, in 2007, only 10% of black 4thgraders in Chicago reached the proficiency level in reading and for black 8th graders, only 9% reached reading proficiency. In math, only 8% of black students reached proficiency in 4th grade and just 6% reached proficiency in 8th grade. This was the disappointing outcome, despite spending $13-$14,000 per student and is among the highest of any major city.Even worse, a majority of Chicago public school students drop out or fail to graduate with their class. Needless to say, the Duncan era was a disaster. He did, however, pursue an aggressive agenda to promote the homosexual lifestyle in the schools. So Chicago kids can’t read or write, but they all know how to engage in homosexual sex. If anyone tells you Duncan is an “education reformer,” tell them you’re the tooth fairy.
Assistant Deputy Secretary, Department of Education – Kevin Jennings
Jennings is the founder of the Gay Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), a group dedicated to promoting the homosexual agenda to school children as young as five. They’re sick people and even promote books that feature adult-child sex in a favorable way. Regardless, Obama must have been impressed with Jennings, as he appointed him to carry out his perverted mission nationwide in his new role as head of the Department’s “Office of Safe & Drug Free Schools.”
The reality is that homosexuality is not safe; it takes years off the average lifespan of males. But for Obama, is not really about safety; it’s about keeping the homosexual community happy—after all, they helped elect him. Jennings has been in the press lately due to revelations that he gave encouraging advice to a boy who privately confessed to him he was having sex with an older man. And what was Jennings’s advice? Buy a condom. Parents, start monitoring what your schools are teaching your children. It’s going to get ugly.
Foreign PolicyUnited States Ambassador to United Nations – Susan RiceEven though she served on the National Security Council under President Clinton, Rice seems to have slept through the last two decades. She is fanatically pro-UN and wants the United States to work closely with the United Nations in order to carry out all kinds of humanitarian and military actions, seeming unaware that the UN has never been supportive of US interests. They don’t stop wars; they don’t sanction terrorist regimes, and their internal corruption is so pervasive they can’t even carry out humanitarian missions. But rather than hold the UN responsible for its obvious failings over the years, Rice blamed Bush for being “unilateral” and for “stiff-arming our partners.” She even sits on the board of the UN Fund for UNICEF, an agency which has been repeatedly caught giving aid to terrorists, and during the Cold War, assisting communist insurgents.More seriously, she is overly cautious in regard to fighting terrorism. The former Ambassador to Sudan implicated Rice as the person who bungled the opportunity to take out Osama bin Laden when Sudanese officials offered him to the USA on a silver platter during the Clinton years.She rejected their offer. There’s a good chance 9/11 could have been avoided if Rice had accepted the Sudanese offer. Apparently, even though she worked for the NSC, she didn’t regard Al-Qaeda as a threat. No wonder we were hit on 9/11. And now she’s our UN Ambassador? I wonder whose interests she will serve…probably the UNs.
Counsel, State Department – Harold Koh
The man Obama has named as the State Department’s legal advisor is Harold Koh. Koh believes America should defer to the International Court of Justice to determine legal precedents; a totally unconstitutional endeavor. He is a member of the “trans-nationalism” school of legal thought that believes all distinctions between American Constitutional law and international law should vanish. Incredibly, he even believes Muslim law –Sharia law– should be applied to some disputes in US courts. Clearly, his views are in contradiction to the Constitution he swore to uphold, but no matter, he is now in charge of all legal issues for the U.S. State Department.
National Security Council – Samantha Power
Power is an anti-Israel pseudo intellectual, a strange position given that Israel is our top ally in the Middle East. She holds the view that until Israel allows Palestine to set up a separate state, all the other problems in the Middle East will remain. This, of course, ignores the 1,300 year old war of conquest waged by Islam against the West, most of it occurring long before the modern day Israel/Palestine conflict. She also holds to the conspiratorial view that everything America does in the Middle East – like the Iraq war – is due to Israeli influence.Finally, she pooh-poohs the idea that Iran is developing nuclear weapons, a thoroughly discredited view in light of recent events. While she opposed sending troops to Iraq – she called it an “occupation”—she favored sending US troops to Israel to forcibly impose a Palestinian state. Power’s writing grossly exaggerates “war crimes” committed by Israel and never condemns terrorist activity by the Palestinians. The last thing we need in the midst of war between the West and Islamic terrorism is a nut on the NSC giving the President advice favoring our enemies.
Advisor, Under-Secretary of Defense for Policy – Rosa Brooks
This genius wrote that Al-Qaeda was just an “obscure group” until America began the war on terrorism, ignoring all the documentation that Al-Qaeda was making plans for rapid growth long before 9/11. Apparently, it’s America’s fault that terrorist groups exist today! She called President Bush “our torturer in chief” and compared Bush’s anti-terrorist policies to Hitler’s policies. Clearly, she ignored the fact that Bush’s policies were responsible for stopping over 17 different terrorist plots against the United States. She also called the successful surge in Iraq a “feckless plan” and seems completely blind to the successes we have had in the war on terrorism. But we shouldn’t be surprised; she used to work for a foundation funded by the foreign America-hater George Soros. It’s hard to believe Brooks is now deciding defense policy.
White House Staff Senior Advisor and Assistant to the President for Public Engagement and Intergovernmental Affairs – Valerie Jarrett. Jarrett is involved with vetting all the extremists Obama has appointed and thus, has to be an extremist as well. For example, she was aware that former Green Czar Van Jones (who withdrew) had a long history of involvement in Communist Party causes, but still said she was “delighted to be able to recruit him into the White House.” She had to have known, because she married into a family with a pedigree of Communist Party involvement. Her father-in-law, Vernon Jarrett, worked closely with Obama mentor and Communist Party leader Frank Marshall Davis in a number of Communist Party front groups during the Cold War years. Valerie married Vernon’s son in 1983 and later became chief of staff for Mayor Richard Daley, where she was a key player in perhaps America’s most corrupt big city political machine. Obama does not go forward with anything without her counsel.
Political advisor – David Axelrod
For those who think Axelrod is just a good campaign consultant, you couldn’t be more wrong. Axelrod has a long history of working for obscure socialist candidates and Obama was no different, politically, from his other clients. In fact, promoting socialist causes was a family tradition. His mother wrote for a New York City tabloid called PM Magazine, which often promoted the Communist Party line. Indeed, author IF Stone, later revealed to be working for the KGB, was PM’s DC correspondent. Much of the tabloid’s funding came from Marshall Field, a hard left millionaire who also funded Saul Alinsky’s training school. Axelrod has spent his entire life promoting extremist candidates, but no one bothered to look into his background. Today, he advises Obama on all things political.
Director of the White House Office of Energy and Climate Change – Carol Browner
Browner previously served as head of the EPA during the Clinton regime where she advocated incredibly stupid environmental regulations that destroyed entire industries. At a time when America is losing jobs in record numbers, she is precisely the right person for the Obama job-killing machine. Browner is a socialist and was picked by Socialist International to be one of 14 leaders of a group it created called the Commission for a Sustainable World Society. SI believes in massive wealth redistribution from the West to the Third World, choosing to ignore the evidence that Third World countries are poor due to their socialist policies.
Moreover, SI constantly attacks the free market in general and the United States in particular. The fact that Obama has chosen both Browner and Todd Stern (Climate Czar) does not bode well for the American economy. The recent disclosure that the climate models used by Browner and Stern to justify draconian new regulations – such as Cap and Trade – are based on inaccurate data, has not fazed the Obama administration one bit. For Obama, environmentalism is a tool for increasing government control and nothing else.
General Counsel and Senior Policy Advisor, Office of Management & Budget – Preeta Bansal
Bansal is very close to Obama; she acts behind the scenes advising him regarding the selection of federal judges. She is on the far left side of the judicial spectrum and is a leader of the misnamed American Constitutional Society, a group that believes in a “living Constitution” and works to “debunk” the “original intent” concept. Indeed, ACS’s view that the Constitution should constantly change undermines the very purpose for having a constitution. Needless to say, the ACS is obsessed with criminal rights, illegal alien rights, terrorist rights, and other phony rights. ACS is America’s main networking group for far-left attorneys and is where Bansal is recruiting many of Obama’s judicial nominees.
Bansal is also a member of the “critical race theory (CRT)” school of legal thought that boils all legal concepts down to racist conspiracies and that racism permeates all aspects of American society. Indeed, she even co-authored a paper claiming that republicanism is based upon racist consensus. In other words, she believes the entire concept of representative democracy is based upon racist assumptions. Indeed, CRT advocates even believe the founding of America was primarily due to racial motivations.
Judge Richard Posner of the United States Court of Appeals called CRT supporters the “lunatic core” of “radical legal egalitarianism.” Bansal is a lunatic and her appointment will ensure that Obama’s judicial appointments will be far more about “diversity” than they will be about competence.
Director of Intergovernmental Affairs, Executive office of the President — Cecilia Munoz
Munoz is a hard-core open borders advocate who served recently as the Vice President for the National Council of La Raza (NCLR), where she supervised all legislative activities. La Raza is the nation’s foremost supporter of “rights” for illegal aliens and the granting of amnesty to the millions of illegals here in America. She does not care that illegal aliens are costing America billions of dollars; she believes they should enjoy the same rights as citizens. Not surprisingly, she served on the U.S. Programs board of the
Open Society Institute, a George Soros-funded group. You can expect Munoz to quietly push for a massive transfer of benefits and welfare to illegal aliens and for legislation granting amnesty to all those here illegally.
Director, Domestic Policy Council – Melody Barnes
Barnes is a certified wacko. She was previously Vice President of the far-left Center for American Progress and also served as Chief Counsel for Senator Ted Kennedy on the Senate Judiciary Committee. Her view on abortion is so extreme, she served on the boards of both Emily’s List and the Planned Parenthood Action Fund. She favors unrestricted abortions for any reason at any time of pregnancy.
Incredibly, some naïve pro-life leaders supported Obama, believing he was pro-life because he supposedly wanted to find ways to reduce abortions. Barnes has put that myth to rest. In a meeting with key pro-family leaders, Barnes made it clear that “It is not our goal to reduce the number of abortions.” As reported, the room went silent. Barnes glorifies abortion as being a “concept of liberty that includes women as equal.” She has written that “reproductive rights are human rights.” My guess is that the baby being aborted doesn’t quite feel the same way. Needless to say, there will NOT be any pro-life measures supported by this administration. The Nation magazine praised Barnes as a “dyed-in-the-wool progressive,” a nice term for a socialist. She is also a former staff member for the American Constitutional Society, the far-left legal group mentioned elsewhere.
After all the Hype and Fear Mongering by this White House it appears the Sun has risen yet another day in America. The world did not come to an end and sadly we are still being lorded over by the same corrupt regime in DC
Perhaps now we can move “Forward” and deal with the real Crisis here in America!
Big Brother? US linked to new wave of Censorship, Surveillance on Web
Even the most open, democratic governments have sought laws and new forms of surveillance that many see as a new wave of censorship — and that includes the United States.
The U.S. government asked Google for data on its users more than 31,000 times in 2012 alone, for example. And the government rarely obtained a search warrant first, Google recently revealed; in nearly all cases, the company ended up turning over at least some data.
Some argue that heightened surveillance, restrictions on Internet freedom and even censorship are necessary to protect intellectual property rights, prevent cyber-espionage, fight child pornography, and protect national interests such as nuclear power plants from hackers. And here the U.S. is far from alone.
“A number of democratic states have considered or implemented various restrictions in response to the potential legal, economic, and security challenges raised by new media,” notes the Freedom House report “Freedom on the Net 2012.”
Anxiety over online theft and cyber-attacks is not unwarranted. Virtually every major U.S. company and media outlet has been a victim. Google was attacked back in 2009. Facebook, Apple and Microsoft revealed this month that hackers had breached their defenses. And The New York Times and Wall Street Journal have fought off Chinese hackers for months. Indeed, dozens of countries have their own online hacking groups — so-called cyber or asymmetrical warfare divisions.
“It’s been going on in China since at least at least May 2002,” said Alan Paller, founder of the SANS Institute, an information security and training firm.
Consequently, lawmakers — even President Obama in his State of the Union speech — have been motivated to take steps to stem the hacking tide. However, the road to better security could also stifle free speech.
When the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) met in Dubai in December, some 89 member countries including Russia, China, Cuba, and Iran, supported a treaty that would give individual governments more control over the Internet’s infrastructure.
Sensing a thinly veiled attempt to suppress dissent, 55 countries — including Canada and the U.S. — said no.
While the agreement has failed (for the time being), individual governments — including Canada and the U.S. — continue to introduce their own legislation to control what’s online.
North of the border, for example, the Canadian government proposed Bill C-30, known as the Protecting Children from Internet Predators Act. Proponents claimed the measure was designed to combat the exploitation of children, but it required Internet service providers to create monitoring systems that would allow the police to intercept and track all online communications — without a warrant. The public reaction was so fiercely opposed to Bill C-30 that Canadian authorities were forced to withdraw it this month.
Watchdog Agencies
Far from leading to the spread of democracy and freedom online, the events of the 2011 Arab spring led many authoritarian countries to clamp down more tightly, fearful of rebellious citizens inciting and organizing online.
Here’s the latest from three groups monitoring Internet freedom:
Reporters Without Borders A 2012 list of countries that are “Enemies of the Internet” notes that more than ever before, online freedom of expression is now a major foreign and domestic policy issue.
Freedom House According to Freedom on the Net 2012, a survey by the independent watchdog group, of the 47 countries covered “20 have experienced a negative trajectory since January 2011.
Google The Web giant has been using its reach to monitor Internet openness. The Transparency Report visualizes disruptions in the free flow of information, whether it’s a government blocking information or a cable being cut.
On this side of the border, the U.S. government continues to conduct warrant-less online searches. Thanks to outdated laws such as the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 and other regulations protecting copyrighted materials, U.S. authorities are increasingly looking at private online communications, often without any oversight by a judge.
Google says it has seen a 70 percent increase in requests from authorities for information about its users, information which includes private e-mails and search data. The biggest requester? The U.S. government, which sought information 8,438 times in the last six months of 2012. Google complied with those requests in roughly 88 percent of the cases.
While Google states it is against such broad government access to personal information — dealing with such requests costs Google time and money — where it stands on strict Internet freedoms is mutable.
Shortly before his State of the Union speech, President Obama signed an executive order designed to let federal government agencies share critical cyber-threat information with private companies to protect companies involved in supporting the nation’s critical infrastructure.
“We know hackers steal people’s identities and infiltrate private e-mail,” the President said in his speech. “We cannot look back years from now and wonder why we did nothing in the face of real threats to our security and our economy.”
Even though the data shared by the government could include personal information, in this case companies have been in favor of the executive order. The reason: private firms don’t have to in turn share data their data about their users with the government.
However, that may be about to change. As the President implied, Congress is working on reintroducing the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA). It would enable companies to divulge private information to government authorities if the companies perceived some form of “cyber threats.” Any personal information — Facebook jokes, Twitter tussles, errant Web searches — could be handed over to a variety of government agencies if that information has anything to do with the potential vulnerability of a computer network.
“CISPA offers broad immunities to companies who choose to share data with government agencies,” the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Mark M. Jaycox explained in a blog post. “It also creates avenues for companies to share data with any federal agencies, including military intelligence agencies like the National Security Agency.”
While congress has yet to hammer out new, possibly more precise, language for a reintroduced CISPA bill, the powers it grants to both private companies and government authorities could end up making them partners in nationwide surveillance — the same complaint often levied against countries like China.
The discussion of target shooting, hunting, and “sporting purposes” is moot. There is no debate about taking away someone’s single shot trap gun or little double barrel dove gun. Anyone can look at the U.K., where firearms are not an acceptable form of self defense. Yet, they are allowed to break pieces of clay and kill released pheasants despite the lack of a 2nd Amendment. Some of the most oppressive regimes of the world grant scatter-gun privileges.
It is a foolish discussion, as breaking pieces of clay needs no protection. It is the same with the 1st Amendment, for non-controversial speech needs no protection. It is only the controversial, perhaps unsavory, perhaps troubling to some type of speech that needs protection. You may be disgusted with flag-burning, but that is protected free speech.
The way rights are constrained and taken away is not hard to figure out; history shows exactly how it happens over and over again. A classic method is to covert a Right to a Privilege. Once that is accomplished, it opens up the hoary “what do you NEED it for” dialogue. If compelled to show a need, it is no longer a Right. The correct answer to “What Do You Need it For?” is called nobody’s business.
Gutting the 2nd Amendment takes time, the most crazed anti-gunners know this. Unable to directly void the 2nd Amendment, they are clever enough to chip away at it, gobble up the perimeters, and divide the U.S. gun-owner. Knowing that Americans are a selfish lot and largely care only about the rights that they choose to personally exercise, it is throw bones and false assurances to hunters and target shooters so they are sheeped into inaction, feeling good that their little part of the firearm world is not imperiled.
Now, the standard fare is to relabel, mislabel, and recast that which they wish to ban. Self-loading rifles are now “assault weapons” as are some pistols, weapons of war, weapons of mass destruction, the scourge of Mankind. Sheep a mindless population into believing repeating rifles and pistols are the same as Armed Predator Drones, landmines, booby traps, and rocket-propelled grenades and you are well on your way.
Also, soft pedal and dumb down the actual facts: gun crime has declined in the United States by over 50% in the last twenty years. Gun crime declines year after year, according to the FBI, but the facts don’t mess with the emotional “we have to do something” shrill mantra of the uninformed. Standard technique: over-report gun crime, sensationalize it, don’t mention that gun control was a massive failure in Canada and that Mexico has some of the most radical gun laws in the world– but extremely high crime. Also, never report that over 2,000,000 times every year, crimes are thwarted by U.S. private citizens with guns. That needs to be kept hush-hush, for it doesn’t not work with the gun-grabster dialogue.
Beyond that, lie. Lie like crazy, lie on Capitol Hill. Sit there with a straight face and tell people that 40% of the nasty crime guns come from gun shows. Lie, lie, lie. Don’t let the sheep of America ever know that according to the FBI data from 1997, 2% of the firearms acquired by Federal inmates came from gun shows.
We know that Federal inmates, those convicted of crime, get 2% of their firearms from gun shows. 2%, yet recently in the Senate hearings 40% was stated as fact. It is a factual lie, but that doesn’t matter . . . for the gunshow has been re-branded as a “loophole” and if you cry “loophole” loud and long enough, some people will actually start to believe it. Overstating gun shows as a source of firearms for criminals by TWENTY TIMES is no accounting error: it is an amazingly bold, easily discernible lie.
One can only hope that the American public will grow weary of being lied to and treated like sea-slug stupid sheep, not constituents. We should vote for candidates to actually protect rights, not steal them away.
Attorney General – Eric Holder
Assistant Deputy Secretary, Department of Education – Kevin Jennings
to carry out all kinds of humanitarian and military actions, seeming unaware that the UN has never been supportive of US interests. They don’t stop wars; they don’t sanction terrorist regimes, and their internal corruption is so pervasive they can’t even carry out humanitarian missions. But rather than hold the UN responsible for its obvious failings over the years, Rice blamed Bush for being “unilateral” and for “stiff-arming our partners.” She even sits on the board of the UN Fund for UNICEF, an agency which has been repeatedly caught giving aid to terrorists, and during the Cold War, assisting communist insurgents.More seriously, she is overly cautious in regard to fighting terrorism. The former Ambassador to Sudan implicated Rice as the person who bungled the opportunity to take out Osama bin Laden when Sudanese officials offered him to the USA on a silver platter during the Clinton years.She rejected their offer. There’s a good chance 9/11 could have been avoided if Rice had accepted the Sudanese offer. Apparently, even though she worked for the NSC, she didn’t regard Al-Qaeda as a threat. No wonder we were hit on 9/11. And now she’s our UN Ambassador? I wonder whose interests she will serve…probably the UNs.
Counsel, State Department – Harold Koh 
Advisor, Under-Secretary of Defense for Policy – Rosa Brooks
Political advisor – David Axelrod
Bansal is very close to Obama; she acts behind the scenes advising him regarding the selection of federal judges. She is on the far left side of the judicial spectrum and is a leader of the misnamed American Constitutional Society, a group that believes in a “living Constitution” and works to “debunk” the “original intent” concept. Indeed, ACS’s view that the Constitution should constantly change undermines the very purpose for having a constitution. Needless to say, the ACS is obsessed with criminal rights, illegal alien rights, terrorist rights, and other phony rights. ACS is America’s main networking group for far-left attorneys and is where Bansal is recruiting many of Obama’s judicial nominees.
Director, Domestic Policy Council – Melody Barnes
