CelticBear’s Musings

Last month I posted a few scary tidbits in a post:

♦ “In the name of security” update.

Here’s some more recent developments in our great, declining empire.

♦ US freezing Danes’ money

A dress maker, in Denmark, had a couple hundred in US dollars frozen by the US government because it was going to a suspicious Pakistan dress shop. A transfer that had nothing to do with the US, except it was made in US dollars. Evidently money exchanges in USDs have to be processed through US Correspondent banks which gives the government the ability to seize funds on non-US citizens if they think something’s funny.

Not surprising many countries are wanting to move to doing business in Euros, just as foreign travel agents are advertising as a feature flights that never touch US soil. We’re so loved! The bright, shining beacon of freedom in the world!

Oh, here’s a good one:

♦ Philly cops raids activists who circulated anti-CCTV petition

Harmless protestors, whose “bunker” they’re building on the top of thier building is an organic food greenhouse and “gray water” recycler for gardening, was passing around a petition speaking out against the city installing closed-circuit TV cameras around the city. Commenting on the raid, warrant-less by the way, the police captain said:

“They’re a hate group. We’re trying to drum up charges against them, but unfortunately we’ll probably have to let them go.”

Get that? Protesting police power makes you a hate group, and police have no qualms about manufacturing invalid charges in order to shut you up. Just so you know how things stand in Empire.

♦ TSA Announces Enhancements to Airport ID Requirements to Increase Safety

If you don’t show federally accepted ID, you don’t fly…period. (And that’s probably the least of your punishment for not cooperating.) Computer security and cryptography guru Bruce Schneier has a great comment on the subject:

That’s right; people who refuse to show ID on principle will not be allowed to fly, but people who claim to have lost their ID will. I feel well-protected against terrorists who can’t lie.

I don’t think any further proof is needed that the ID requirement has nothing to do with security, and everything to do with control.

UPDATE to add this thought:

All isn’t horrible, though. Just last week the Supreme Court voted 5 to 4 that “enemy combatants” do in fact have the right to challenge their detainment and have access to legal advice in US civilian court. They’ve in fact restored Bush’s removal of habeas corpus (which has been a human right since the Magna Carta until Bush).

But just think about this…save for one judge, we would have had a legal approval for the Administration to be able to label anyone they want as an “enemy combatant” in this War Against a Tactic and put them in a hole indefinitely. It very easily could have gone the other way. In fact, this is the third time the Supreme Court has voted 5 to 4 reverse a Bush act of power grabbing and consolidation, including illegal domestic wiretapping.

That single judge save is the scary thought. The bad news is that each of the previous times the Bush Administration has just gone and changed the law they were violating to make what they were doing legal (and there’s all indication that Bush is going to do it again with this finding)–and it looks like with the Kucinich/Waxman bill for impeachment sent indefinitely to congressional review due to purely political reasons, no one is going to be held accountable for these actions. Likewise, all future presidents, better and worse than Bush, will see that there’s nothing to stop them from similar acts of empirical violations of civil liberties.