Just a few recent articles regarding the crazy hijinks at the TSA: TSA proud of confiscating non-dangerous items Commentor Hans: TSA: “What is that, electronics” Traveler: “Yep, it holds batteries” TSA: “You know what else is made of electronics? The TIMING DEVICE of a BOMB!” Traveler: “Huh?” TSA Supervisor: “That’s some good work, Lou.” TSA [...]
READ MORE »Posts in category POLITICS
Corporate media starting to get a clue about the police state.
It’s old news here, old news for most independent news sources, civil liberty organizations, and bloggers who care–but corporate news (or at least some individuals within them) are finally getting around to noticing that the Department of Homeland Security has been thumbing their nose at the 4th Amendment by searching and seizing without oversight, standards, [...]
READ MORE »I believe in change.
Two days ago I stood in a line for an hour and a half, in the heat, surrounded by everyone from 50-year-old liberal arts professors to 20-year-old white kids with dreadlocks. And it was pretty cool. We were in line to see (presumptive) Democratic Presidential nominee Barack Obama in a “town hall” rally to discuss [...]
READ MORE »Don’t get noticed is always the way to avoid thugs and muggers.
I posted earlier on the TSA’s thuggery, prompted by an article on BoingBoing–now another blogger I frequent discusses the power mad abuses by the TSA including his own harassment: Public abuse and x-rated searches now common. In the last 16 months I’ve flown six times, but each time was from the same small midwestern airport [...]
READ MORE »What would Jesus do as CEO?
A few days ago, in the post “The right to persecute” I made a follow-up comment regarding how at a Promise Keeper’s rally nearly every speaker (and comedian even…everyone except the musicians) exclaimed to enthusiastic approval that atheists are ruining the country and must be eradicated, likewise feminists and socialists. And, being a somewhat newly [...]
READ MORE »“CNN reporter says bad things about the TSA, gets hassled every time he flies”
BoingBoing has posted an article on an example of how the government uses the tools of “security” as political vindictiveness: CNN reporter says bad things about the TSA, gets hassled every time he flies What? No, they don’t do that kind of thing! (Ruining CIA agent Valery Plame’s cover and her years of covert work [...]
READ MORE »War against the middle class continues.
The middle class is getting squeezed: CNN Money: Middle class: ‘On the edge’ I don’t know here the “more conservative Heritage Foundation” gets their numbers from. They’re the “think-tank” that put out the white paper immediately after Bush was elected in 2000 advising him in order to forward his conservative agendas throughout the government, to [...]
READ MORE »Viva la hypocrisy!
Glenn Beck is a tool. He recently wrote an op-ed printed on CNN.com: Commentary: T-shirt depicts ‘pathetic and brutal legacy’ He seems to find much humor in the idea that, supposedly, part of the reason the people who portrayed a terrorist group was able to deceive the FARC group that they were “bad guys” (and [...]
READ MORE »Airline pilots are a security risk; ban ‘em!
BoingBoing has an article today that is just filled with absurd terrifying/funniness that’s right out of the movie Brazil: Quintessential TSA stupidity: taking airline cutlery away from a pilot The entire Salon article is filled with sad and hilarious humor (really, “surreal absurdity” is just the best phrase for it), but the snippet provided is [...]
READ MORE »Papers please…laptop please….
Quickie; not much needs be said by me: NY Times editorial on laptop seizures by Homeland Security
READ MORE »“The Eternal Value of Privacy”
I’ve recently been making a lot of posts regarding privacy and civil liberties. I’ve been putting a lot of reasons out there regarding why it’s so important and how it’s being threatened everyday. After I finish this post, I’ll be submitting one regarding developments in Homeland Security’s seizing, without warrant or court order people’s laptops [...]
READ MORE »Timeline to Tyranny.
There’s a reprinted article on Visibility 9-11 from Prison Planet by Paul Joseph Watson that details the steps the Bush crime family has taken to setting up a dictatorship. It’s right on the money and deals with the facts of what King George and his lackeys have done…except the last step: “10) Amnesty & The [...]
READ MORE »The 4th Branch of government gains equal power.
Usually when people talk about “the 4th Branch,” or “the 4th Estate,” they mean the press. Traditionally the press has been seen as a check and balance on the government. But what I mean, is the Corporate Branch. Looked at cnn.com, and super big main news with quarter screen photo and largest font headline, was [...]
READ MORE »Five Signs the United States Is Withering Away
io9 has an interesting article today speculating on the probable causes for the end of the United States: Five Signs the United States Is Withering Away I wholeheartedly agree with all except “2. A decadent culture.” At least the way they’re describing it. The essayist is stating that because our formerly impressive, original, massive Hollywood [...]
READ MORE »Nearly every part of US gov is “involved in monitoring or surveillance.”
Interesting post on BoingBoing: Nearly every part of US gov is “involved in monitoring or surveillance.” Commentor on the thread, DANEGELD, describes how this kind of environment has gone in the U.K.: You only have to look at England to see how this is going to turn out. Investigative powers justified as being “anti-terrorist” are [...]
READ MORE »FBI Headquarters Can’t Handle ‘Sensitive Info’
Last week, after writing about why protecting one’s privacy and civil liberties is necessary, and to willingly hand over your privacy to the state assumes the state will act in the mosy honorable way and without error–it didn’t take long for me to find many examples of where the state is neither honorable nor perfect: [...]
READ MORE »Declaration of Independence–good against Kings and Presidents named George.
Ever read the Declaration of Independence? I read the first couple of paragraphs at least twice a year. I’ve read the grievances against King George only a couple of times, and then not lately. In honor of the coming Independence Day I reread the usual again and then went on to read the rest. I [...]
READ MORE »Welcome to Amerika, please give us all your most private information.
More justification as to why foreign travel agents are advertising as a feature trips that don’t touch U.S. soil: Welcome back to the United States. Now let’s see what’s on your laptop U.S. Courts have ruled, as recently as this spring in a case stemming from a search at LAX, that there’s no need for [...]
READ MORE »Trusting those with power; police state.
As an update to my recent post, On the issue of privacy and protecting civil liberties, I added a story about Local councils in the UK use CCTVs to spy on dog owners’ cute butts; here’s another couple of examples of how reasonable and proper the idea of giving our privacy and liberty over to [...]
READ MORE »Is the beginning of the end in progress?
I didn’t think they would be crazy enough to do it, but they just may be. When the National Intelligence Estimate came out last December, where a dozen U.S. intelligence agencies agreed that the Iranian nuclear development program has been shut down since 2003, it put a pretty massive roadblock in Bush/Cheney’s increasingly fired-up anti-Iranian [...]
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