-How and Why Hitler, Nazis and the Third Reich came to Power
-Border Patrol Says No to Militias, Yes to Surveillance Blimps
13 Sept 2014 by Wynton Hall
The New York Times is going after the Koch Brothers once again. No news there, of course. But it’s worth noting that the Times has found a new angle to pursue—or should we say, a new club with which to cudgel the Kochs—namely, the legal curlicues of campaign finance. Liberals, no doubt, will be cheering for the Times, but they ought to be careful, because two can play at this game.
Conservatives have long decried the left’s drive to “criminalize” politics as a means to achieve ideological ends. Last month’s politically-motivated grand jury indictment of Texas Republican Governor Rick Perry even drew the ire of some on the left, such as President Barack Obama’s chief political strategist David Axelrod, who dismissed the charges as being “pretty sketchy.”
Still, some progressives seem intent on pushing the criminalization of political differences to score short-term political advantage without considering long-term consequences. Indeed, the left’s rush to deem corporate money in political thought as legally actionable is one progressives would do well to quash.
Case in point: progressive New York Times op-ed writer Thomas B. Edsall’s banal and one-sided screed against Karl Rove and the Koch Brothers, those reliable boogeymen of liberal nightmares. In a breathless Wednesday piece titled “Karl Rove, the Koch Brothers and the End of Political Transparency,” Edsall served up heaping doses of phony outrage over the perfectly legal practice of conservative 501 (c)(4) social welfare organizations receiving anonymous donations.
“The financial resources of the anonymous donors to Crossroads are striking, according to the organization’s 990 filing,” wrote Edsall. “Among the donors were 53 who contributed at least $1 million. Even more generously, one donor gave $22.5 million, another gave $18 million, and two gave $10 million each.”
After dragging readers through a tedious gauntlet of 501 (c)(4) regulatory compliance verbiage, replete with percentages of allowable political activity, Edsall excitedly raises the specter that groups like Americans for Tax Reform may have engaged in two percent more political spending than is permissible before begrudgingly conceding: “I asked a number of experts in money and elections about the discrepancy and got conflicting answers.”
Furthermore, Edsall asserts that the “labyrinthine secrecy characteristic of the $400 million network of 17 interlocking advocacy groups that coexist under the aegis of the Koch brothers” has created a climate wherein “a kind of lawlessness prevails that is incompatible with the goals of democracy.”
Wowzers.
Yet nowhere in Edsall’s 2,300-word diatribe does he mention any of the myriad progressive 501 (c)(4) groups, such as Center for American Progress, or the “labyrinthine secrecy” that shrouded Big Labor’s $4.4 billion in political spending between 2005 and 2011.
Moreover, as Edsall himself noted in March, the 1958 N.A.A.C.P. v. Alabama and the 1995 McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Commission rulings upheld anonymity as a legitimate means of political activism.
The 1958 case was profoundly important, because in the era of lynch mobs and church-bombings, to give money to the Alabama chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People was to put one’s life at risk. In a unanimous decision, Justice John Marshall Harlan II wrote, “This Court has recognized the vital relationship between freedom to associate and privacy in one’s associations…”
Similarly, the 1995 ruling recognized that anonymity protects the rights of those whose views the government or other powerful interests may seek to retaliate against.
“Under our Constitution, anonymous pamphleteering is not a pernicious, fraudulent practice, but an honorable tradition of advocacy and of dissent, wrote Justice John Paul Stevens in the majority’s 7-2 decision. “Anonymity is a shield from the tyranny of the majority. It thus exemplifies the purpose behind the Bill of Rights, and of the First Amendment in particular: to protect unpopular individuals from retaliation—and their ideas from suppression—at the hand of an intolerant society.”
Right-leaning individuals expressing their political views in today’s post-IRS conservative targeting scandal have just cause to use anonymity as “a shield from the tyranny” of the Obama administration and as a means to protect themselves from “retaliation… at the hand of an intolerant” Internal Revenue Service.
But one day, under a different administration, so, too, might liberal activists.
And that’s the point: the road to political criminalization is fraught with endless recriminations, each eroding individual freedom and silencing legitimate political expression. As Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) pointed out during a speech this week on the Senate floor, Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) and Democrats’ move to rewrite the First Amendment in an effort to limit or restrict spending by outside groups could have the unintended and absurd consequence of potentially banning such things as Saturday Night Liive.
In the classic film A Man for All Seasons, Sir Thomas More argues with another character about the rule of law. The other character says he would cut down every law in England to go after the Devil. And More answers, explaining that the law exists for others, as well as oneself: “This country’s planted thick with laws from coast to coast—man’s laws, not God’s—and if you cut them down…do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake.”
Progressives like Thomas B. Edsall would do well to check their penchant for criminalizing politics at the door. Their own self-interest would seem to require it. Indeed, if opinion polls are any indication, the political winds may soon shift the balance of power, forcing liberals to “stand upright in the winds that would blow then.”
COMMENT
I have not seen anyone raise the issue of Obama illegal raising money for his elections through his websites.
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journalism/2014/09/12/Latest-NYT-Koch-Brothers-Screed-Places-Progressives-in-Perilous-Position
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How and Why Hitler, Nazis and the Third Reich came to Power
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Border Patrol Says No to Militias, Yes to Surveillance Blimps
Contrived border crisis creates opportunity to expand surveillance state
September 12, 2014 by Adan Salazar
Law enforcement agencies recently expressed disapproval of armed militia groups helping police the southern border, but one thing they do want is invasive surveillance blimp technology.
Militias assemble on the Texas-Mexico Border
Picking up the federal government’s slack, various militia groups have assembled along the banks of the Rio Bravo River in deep south Texas in an effort to supplement border security.
Prompted to action by reports that illegals are overrunning the country, and by fears that the influx in its current form will further destroy the country’s infrastructure and, indeed, aid in the dismantling of national sovereignty, militia groups ultimately desire people entering the country illegally to follow the proper channels to gain citizenship.
To this end, they have lent their assistance, free of charge, to federal and state agencies that evidently have their hands full.
But those supposedly in charge of securing the border say militia members, who lack the traditional law enforcement attire, are confusing police officers and border agents.
“Sometimes it can be dangerous, because you have all these (non-law enforcement) people out there running around the border,” said Kevin Oaks, the Border Patrol’s chief in the Rio Grande Valley in an Associated Press report entitled, “Border Patrol: Leave law enforcement to the pros.” “There are cartel members that carry assault weapons and camouflage, and then there’s others that may be under the auspices of whatever group, may look very similar, and we have no idea who those people are. My fear is that these things clash and eventually there will be a very bad outcome.”
One such “bad outcome” manifested last month when a border agent accidentally opened fire on a man who later turned out to be a militia member.
“We really don’t need the militia here,” Cameron County Sheriff Omar Lucio said following the shooting. “It just creates a problem from my point of view, because we don’t know who they are.”
“How do they identify themselves? Do they have badges? How do we know who they are?” Hidalgo County Sheriff’s Deputy J.P. Rodriguez also questioned in August. “If they’re all just dressed in camos, it’s kind of hard to distinguish whether they’re law enforcement or not… There’s a lot of potential for stuff to go wrong.”
We need blimps, not boots
While making it clear that additional help is not needed, law enforcement is nevertheless enthusiastic over the launch of surveillance balloons over several cities in South Texas.
The tethered blimps, known as aerostats, were transferred to the Border Patrol from the Defense Department after being used by the military in Iraq and Afghanistan. They hover around 3,500 feet in the air, and come equipped with military-grade radar and 360-degree camera equipment which can zoom in on license plates from miles away, enabling agents to keep a close eye on border activity 24 hours a day. There are currently eight aerostats floating in Texas, with five of them surveilling the Rio Grande Valley, up from three initial trial balloons.
“They have been extremely successful,” Border Patrol agent Joe Gutierrez Jr. told The Monitor. “It’s opened our eyes to the amount of traffic. As soon as the aerostat went up, we saw more apprehensions.”
Justifying their need for the spy apparatuses, law enforcement agents claim smugglers often take advantage of the few times in the day the aerostats are pulled for maintenance.
“They probably do monitor the aerostat, smugglers do,” stated Penitas Police Chief Roel Bermea. “When they put it down for any reason, I’m pretty sure they take the risk in crossing as many illegals as they can.”
“The more eyes we have on what’s going on around us the better,” Rio Grande City Assistant Police Chief Noe Castillo told CBS affiliate ValleyCentral.com in May after Starr County received a blimp. “I think any jurisdiction would love to have that in their area.”
But privacy concerns have arisen over the undisclosed scope of the aerostats’ surveillance capabilities. Tom Hargis, the Director of Communications for the ACLU of Texas, for one, believes the balloons could potentially infringe on American citizens’ privacy rights.
“For border residents, more mass surveillance gadgets in the sky simply add to the sense of being under siege,” Hargis told The Monitor.
“The extraordinary authority that government possesses on this border continues to spill over the lives of regular Americans. Instead of a targeted effort to stop crime, what we’ve been seeing is an approach such as dragnet surveillance that turns us all into suspects,” Hargis stated.
The Border Patrol insists it would never use the blimps to spy on citizens, however, it is reluctant to disclose details about the blimps’ capabilities “so smugglers would not learn of any limitations,” writes The Monitor’s Fernando Del Valle.
“The specific purpose is not to infringe on people’s privacy,” said Border Patrol agent Shevannah Wray. “We use it to secure the border.”
The agency’s reassurances are lukewarm, given that the federal government considers areas up to 100 miles inland from the border “Constitution-free zones.”
In his 2005 documentary film, Martial Law 9-11: The Rise of the Police State, Alex Jones predicted that blimps, such as the aerostats patrolling the border, would soon be surveilling major cities.
“This is only the beginning. In the future, every major city will have a high-altitude blimp tethered to a cable with ground-penetrating radar that looks right through your walls and gives the government a black and white image of the inside of your home,” Jones predicted.
In the film, Jones captured a blimp spying on American citizens ahead of the high-security 2005 Republican National Convention in New York City, loaned out to the NYPD by Fuji Film.
The blimps have already been tested in several cities throughout the country, including Washington DC, and one is scheduled to make an appearance in San Diego by the end of the month. Analysts project the Aerostat Systems Market to reach $9.96 billion by 2020.
Orchestrated Border Crisis Used to Give Big Brother Bigger Eyes
Given the Obama administration’s role in facilitating and orchestrating the border crisis, the move to launch more surveillance blimps is likely another classic example of how a manufactured crisis can never go to waste.
Back in June, a McAllen, Texas city official exclusively told Infowars that U.S. Customs and Border Patrol was purchasing bus tickets and vouchers for illegal immigrants in order to ship them deeper into the country at taxpayers’ expense.
Since then it has emerged that the federal government is playing a key role in helping immigrants by stemming deportations, providing lavish accommodations and setting them up with immigration court hearings that rarely get attended.
The practice of catching and releasing illegals into the country has led some agents to label the influx a contrived debacle, which the Obama administration is purposefully neglecting to act on.
“This is not a humanitarian crisis,” National Association of Former Border Patrol Officers Zack Taylor said in a press release earlier this year. “It is a predictable, orchestrated and contrived assault on the compassionate side of Americans by her political leaders that knowingly puts minor Illegal Alien children at risk for purely political purposes. Certainly, we are not gullible enough to believe that thousands of unaccompanied minor Central American children came to America without the encouragement, aid and assistance of the United States Government.”
Taylor has gone further by calling the government’s inaction “asymmetrical warfare” which will work to defeat the nation “from within.”
Moreover, AmericanBorderPatrol.com‘s Glenn Spencer outlined to Infowars in July how he had developed technology which would detect illegal immigrants by counting “everybody who crosses the border and alert where they are, and how many” by utilizing a seismic “sonic barrier,” similar to devices previously used by oil exploration companies.
The fact that the technology was praised by a U.S. Defense Department contractor, but never implemented, illustrates how the federal government is actively ignoring solutions which would stem the tide of illegal immigrants, in favor of surveillance technologies replete with privacy-infringing implications.
http://www.infowars.com/border-patrol-says-no-to-militias-yes-to-surveillance-blimps/
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Related
http://www.redstate.com/2014/09/02/marylands-thought-police-strike/
http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2014/09/10/911-13-years-paul-craig-roberts/
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Related previous posts on this blog
http://reclaimourrepublic.wordpress.com/key-previous-posts/
http://reclaimourrepublic.wordpress.com/2013/09/08/chilling-first-amendment/
http://reclaimourrepublic.wordpress.com/2014/09/10/de-facto-repeal-of-the-first-amendment-trojan-horse-campaign-finance-reform-to-advance-dem-agenda/
http://reclaimourrepublic.wordpress.com/2014/09/11/video-sen-ted-cruz-vs-49-senate-democrats-who-voted-to-repeal-the-first-amendment-list-of-sponsors/
http://reclaimourrepublic.wordpress.com/2014/09/13/silent-coup-harry-reids-plan-to-hand-america-to-liberal-billionaires-sen-cruz-v-49-dem-senators/
http://reclaimourrepublic.wordpress.com/2014/09/08/video-it-didnt-matter-first-they-came-for-the-jews-wealthy-french-jews-flee-anti-semitism/
http://reclaimourrepublic.wordpress.com/2014/09/05/video-for-this-to-happen-all-we-have-to-do-is-nothing-lessons-unlearned-islams-bigotry-against-israel-the-west/
http://reclaimourrepublic.wordpress.com/2012/12/19/nazi-regulations-against-jews-possessing-firearms/
http://reclaimourrepublic.wordpress.com/2014/06/04/video-mb-obama-is-essentially-forming-hitler-youth-under-the-guise-of-common-core/
http://reclaimourrepublic.wordpress.com/2014/06/01/video-a-factual-comparision-similarities-between-mb-obama-and-hitler-real-identity/
http://reclaimourrepublic.wordpress.com/2014/05/01/video-adulation-for-obama-likened-to-earlier-hero-of-the-people-hitler/
http://reclaimourrepublic.wordpress.com/2014/06/08/video-the-business-of-war-money-nazi-muslim-brotherhood/
http://reclaimourrepublic.wordpress.com/2014/08/27/feds-new-twitter-thought-police-everything-you-say-will-be-twisted-against-you/
http://reclaimourrepublic.wordpress.com/2014/09/10/islamic-states-convert-or-die-doctrine-mirrored-by-pc-police-in-america/
http://reclaimourrepublic.wordpress.com/2014/09/04/video-american-delusion-distracted-diverted-and-insulated-from-the-grim-reality-of-the-police-state/
http://reclaimourrepublic.wordpress.com/2014/07/12/the-emperors-new-clothes-the-naked-truth-about-the-american-police-state/
http://reclaimourrepublic.wordpress.com/2014/07/03/video-gungrab-bill-with-twist-would-allow-police-to-confiscate-guns-based-on-accusation-alone/
http://reclaimourrepublic.wordpress.com/2014/06/11/video-left-useful-idiots-lie-purpose-not-to-tell-you-police-chief-goes-over-edge-in-free-speech-fight/
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