REPUBLIC REBORN

Rapidly advancing surveillance technology has allowed law enforcement at every level to conduct continuous, blanket surveillance of innocent American citizens.  We don’t even notice it when they scan our license plate, search biometric databases that contain our image, or make use of the many other spy tools at their disposal.  The fact that we don’t notice it is the insidious aspect of it.  The Electronic Frontier Foundation points to a story of police conducting mass, dragnet-style surveillance of a popular, California gun show.  The cops scanned license plates and ran them through a database, and all without the attendees aware that it was happening.  There’s really no regulation on the books tying the hands of law enforcement in matters of mass surveillance, but there should be.  A massive surveillance infrastructure is being built in the shadows, and it will soon contain the high-resolution images, history, and daily movements of every US citizen.

Defense Tech.  Is an exclusively robot army in our future, complete with the ability to disable the enemy’s robot army?

New frontiers in robotic warfare.

They call Israeli hackers who can.

Antiwar.com.  Bob Waldrop is urging fellow Catholics to boycott the 2016 national collection in Catholic churches for the Archdiocese of Military Services.  He accuses the military bishops of “material cooperation with the objective evil of unjust war” and has prepared a document that can be printed and placed into the offering instead.  The entire, heroic document reads:

“I am not giving to the 2016 Archdiocese for Military Services Collection.

The bishops of the Archdiocese for Military Services, together with nearly all of their brother United States Bishops, are guilty of material cooperation with the objective evil of unjust war. In 2003, both Pope John Paul II and then Cardinal Ratzinger, who later became Benedict XVI, condemned our attack on Iraq as an unjust war. In spite of the Pope’s opposition, the Most Rev. Edwin O’Brien, then Archbishop for the Military Services advised Catholic members of the US Armed Forces: “Given the complexity of factors involved, many of which understandably remain confidential, it is altogether appropriate for members of our armed forces to presume the integrity of our leadership and its judgments and therefore to carry out their military duties in good conscience.”

Subsequent events have sadly proven the truth, wisdom, and prudence of Pope John Paul II’s judgment, and the fallacy and danger of the moral relativism embraced by the Bishops of the Archdiocese for Military Services and most of the other US Catholic Bishops regarding unjust war. The consequences cascading from our invasion brought death and injury and social dislocation to hundreds of thousands and devastated the historic Christian communities of Iraq and subsequently Syria. It may fairly be said that those who enabled and supported the war on the people of Iraq are “secondary terrorists” in that they created the objective conditions on the ground in the Middle East that are driving the extreme forms of terrorism currently prevalent in the region. Actions have consequences and those who propose the actions must own the consequences.

Therefore, because of these issues, I am not giving to the collection for the Archdiocese of Military Services. Instead, I will donate to an organization working to resolve the problems caused by war.

It is a sad and scandalous day when a people’s religious leaders fail them so egregiously. I promise to pray for the conversion of the Military Services hierarchy and clergy, and for the moral and physical protection of the members of our Armed Services, who are our sisters, brothers, fathers, mothers, and children. They deserve religious leaders who will courageously preach and teach all of the Gospel of Christ, not just that which is acceptable to the United States Government.”

Privileged member of the tax-consuming class, in other words, a bum, struts around homeless camp dishing out insults to a man actually helping people. Daily Beast

The Intercept.  In 2014, NYC paid out $215 million in settlements to the victims of the NYPD.  The department is sued around 4,000 times every year.  Open Data Projects are a crucial tool in the fight for accountability, and the information they expose has led to more accountability from the cops.  But police are costing cities millions of dollars in settlements and court costs each year, which means something is lacking.  How about a massive database, searchable by the public, that lists the discipline/employment histories of current and prospective police officers?  The city could then choose a policy of not hiring a cop with a history of beating down innocent citizens, which might save the city money and send a signal to other, short fused cops.

Reason. 83.9% of the 1,488,707 drug-related arrests in 2015 were for simple possession.  “Larceny-theft” came in second place at 1,160,390, followed by drunk driving at 1,089,171.  The lesson is that Prohibition induces a crime wave by introducing the element of violence in a normally peaceful, and profitable, trade.  As law enforcement gains more power and wealth to fight this artificial spike in crime, thousands of jobs are created that now depend on the continuation of that crime wave.  This is why law enforcement supports Prohibition: it’s the excuse for all the cushy, unionized jobs, the warzone goodies, the hi-tech surveillance gear, and the employment of trigger-happy goons.

People are fed up with tough-talking DAs who carve a wide path of abuse and scandal.  Tough-guy types who cozy up to police departments, refuse to prosecute bad cops, put the innocent behind bars, and generally abuse their authority are being voted out of office.

23 secret legal opinions define limits of the power of the Surveillance State.  The ACLU wants them made public.

New report out of Georgetown’s Center on Privacy and Technology shows that 117 million American adults have their image in a law enforcement facial recognition database.

Cop threatens man with arrest for taking video of an arrest. Remember, only bad cops resent being filmed.

The threat of out-of-control facial recognition tech is very real, and very close.

US plunges into war with Yemen

How many unsuspecting US civilians will bleed and die from terrorism fueled by the atrocities committed by the US-backed Saudis in Yemen at this very moment?

The bombs, jets, guidance systems, and strategy are being provided by the US military.  All the hard stuff is taken care of, all the Saudis have to do is pull the trigger.  Which they do, a lot.  This includes the recent attack on a Yemen funeral, where 140 mourners were killed, which has now been dubbed a ‘deliberate error‘, according to the British minister to the Mid East.

The survivors, the families of the victims, know who’s arming their tormentors, and they won’t forget.  Those who arm the Saudi’s, however, will be tucked away, forever safe from retribution.  American civilians, soft targets, have been, and will be again, the human shields of the inveterate interventionists who drag this country into endless war.