Police State

While we focus on the NSA, local police are compiling huge databases on drivers with license plates readers.

"In San Diego, 13 federal and local law enforcement agencies have compiled more than 36 million license-plate scans in a regional database since 2010 with the help of federal homeland security grants. The San Diego Association of Governments maintains the database. Unlike the Northern California database, which retains the data for between one and two years, the San Diego system retains license-plate information indefinitely."

It just keeps getting worse.

The British government is collecting social media data.

The NSA holds the largest blackmail archive ever imagined.

"These abusers -  who are building the largest blackmail archive in all of human history – keep coming back with the same old hateful slogan:

If you don’t do anything wrong, you have nothing to fear.

Understand this clearly: these are the words of a predator speaking to his hostages."

Exactly.

I challenge anybody to reconcile the NSA's gathering, or is it collecting, of all electronic communication with the Fourth Amendment.

Here's the question we need to ask about NSA whistleblower Snowden and the NSA.

"Which is more dangerous to personal liberty in a free society: a renegade who tells an inconvenient truth about government law-breaking, or government officials who lie about what the renegade revealed?"

That's a pretty easy question.

How Catherine the Great of Russia aided the American revolutionaries and why it's appropriate for Russia to aid Snowden now.

"In his book The Great Upheaval: America and the Birth of the Modern World 1788-1800, historian Jay Winik describes Empress Catherine – the authoritarian ruler of a Russian police state – as the "midwife" of American independence. The American revolt quite likely would not have succeeded if Britain hadn’t been "neutralized and isolated by Catherine’s Armed League"; by denying King George’s request for military aid, and using her influence to curtail Britain’s naval advantage, the Russian tyrant "helped bolster the hopes of beleaguered American rebels fighting for their lives…."
The Russian government of Vladimir Putin has rendered similar aid to an American whistle-blower who is fighting for his life – much to the dismay and outrage of people who are Americans by birth, rather than conviction, and who mistakenly believe that patriotism is measured by one’s willingness to abide the institutional criminality of the government that insolently presumes to rule us."

And Putin is loving every minute of it. The longer he protects Snowden, the more this NSA story dominates the news.

"In any case, if Putin consciously aided Snowden, that choice – like those made by the Empress Catherine – was based on calculations of political advantage, rather than a principled devotion to individual liberty. And Edward Snowden’s willingness to accept help from Russia is akin to the entreaties made on behalf of the American rebels by Francis Dana."

Exactly.

"Mishin observes that under the administration of former President Medvedev (a protégé of Putin), Russia had a flat income tax – "and not the 30% or so suggested by those American conservatives but at 13" – and a top corporate tax rate of 24% "compared to the American Federal rate of 36% and additional state rates." There is also a far greater diversity of opinion in the Russian media than one finds in the American "free" press – a fact underscored quite memorably by the way the American media eagerly joined in the Orwellian Two-Minutes Hate of Edward Snowden."

I doubt most Americans realize our government is more oppressive than Russia's.

Obama says he won't scramble jets to shoot down an airliner carrying Snowden. This means the White House is entertaining ideas about how to assassinate him, and I bet a plan is already in place just waiting for an opportunity.

The government is presenting its case against Boston Marathon suspect 2 to the public in order to bias all prospective jurors to insure a conviction.

The red light camera saga in Elmwood Place continues as judge orders the cameras seized because and holds the village government in contempt of court.

"The village had tried unsuccessfully to have Ruehlman removed from the case. The Ohio Supreme Court rejected arguments that the judge showed he was biased with his sharp wording, such as calling the camera use a “scam” and “sham” and comparing it to a con artist’s card game."

It's always fun to watch government agents fight each other, especially when the result benefits government's victims.

ATF entrapment scheme on video. Why is ATF setting up robbers for stealing drugs. What does any of that have to do with alcohol, tobacco or firearms? This is a generic, corrupt, police action. Similar entrapment scheme in Chicago. This doesn't protect us. It steals our money and enriches government predators. Entrapment used to be illegal. Courts would throw out cases of entrapment. Since the police state explosion after 9/11, entrapment is now business as usual.

Ways to identify a dictatorship.

"Note that there is no practical distinction between a decision by the Supreme Court, a regulation made by an executive bureaucracy, and a practice quietly adopted by the intelligence agencies and federal police. None of these requires public approval.
For that matter, consider the militarization of the police, the creation of Homeland Security’s Viper teams that randomly search cars, the vast and growing spying on Americans by government, and the genital gropings by TSA. Consider the endless undeclared wars that one finds out often only after the troops have been sent. All simply imposed from above.
In principle, elected officials represent the desires of their electorates. In practice Congress barely touches on most issues of concern to the public. Overturning any of the aforementioned types of laws is virtually impossible."
"Another measure of dictatorship is the extent to which the people fear the government. A time was when governmental official in general, and the police in particular, had to be cautious in pushing the citizenry around. A justified complaint to the chief of police brought consequences. Today the police can do as they please, and you have no recourse. The new aggressiveness applies especially to federal police. If you object to excessive intrusion by agents of TSA, they will make sure you miss your flight. In principle you can complain, but in practice the effect is zero."
"Dictatorships characteristically watch the citizenry very carefully, using the secret police and encouraging people to inform on each other. Both are now routine. Did you vote to have your email read, your telephone calls recorded, your browsing habits on the web turned over to the NSA or the FBI? No. And you have no recourse."

"The IRS gains its punitive leverage from the fact that it is impossible to know what taxes you owe and simply pay them. Years back, Money magazine sent a “moderately complex” tax return to fifty tax preparers, from big-league to small potatoes. They produced widely varying results, with only two in Money’s opinion getting the right answer. If tax specialists can’t tell how much you owe, neither can you. This means that in practice you are always vulnerable."
"Lack of constitutional government. This is not the same as lack of a constitution. The Soviet Union had an admirable constitution. It just paid no attention to it."

All commonplace. No recourse.