Surveillance and the Fourth Amendment

 by

       M. Richard Maxson


      The U.S. considers itself the most democratic country in the world. At the same time, the country is a leader when it comes to surveillance of its own citizens. Recent passage of the government funding bill, the law that authorized the government to spend more than it will collect, was a part about funding for the 16 federal civilian intelligence agencies. Hidden in that was a clause authorizing the National Security Agency to gather and retain nonpublic data for five years and to share it with law enforcement and with foreign governments. "Nonpublic data" is the government's language referring to the content of the emails, text messages, telephone calls, bank statements, utility bills and credit card bills of nearly every innocent person in America -- including members of Congress, federal judges, public officials and law enforcement officials. I say "innocent" because the language of this legislation -- which purports to make lawful the NSA spying we now all know about -- makes clear that those who spy upon us don't need to have any articulable suspicion or probable cause for spying.

      This is a direct violation of the 4th Amendment of the Constitution. It was written to prohibit what Congress just authorized. That amendment was a reaction to the British practice of rummaging through the homes of American colonists, looking for anything that might be illegal. It is also a codification of our natural right to privacy. It requires that if the government wants nonpublic data from our persons, houses, papers or effects, it must first present evidence of probable cause to a judge and then ask the judge for a search warrant. According to Constitutional law professor Judge Andrew Napolitano, "Probable cause is a level of evidence that is sufficient to induce a judge into concluding that it is more likely than not that the place to be examined contains evidence of crimes. In order to seek probable cause, the government must first have an articulable suspicion about the person or place it has targeted. Were this not in the law, then nothing would stop the government from fishing expeditions in pursuit of anyone it wants to pursue." In the past,when the FBI used warrantless surveillance to wiretap and intercept the mail of anti-war radicals, those who did so were charged, tried and convicted.

      So what's going on here? Is our government trading away our freedoms? If you have read our blog then you know that our government is infected with Democratic Corporate Socialism. The Democratic party has a full blown case, which includes the Communists, and the Republican party is about to go critical. The driving forces behind the infection are the Western elite. They are the rich Leftists who set policy.

       So today, we live in a country that is a leader when it comes to surveillance of its own citizens. Every day, hundreds of thousands of surveillance cameras record faces entering the metro and various buildings, as well as license plates of passing cars, and drones with high-definition cameras may appear in the sky. Other aspects of everyday life in Amerika today are:

• Cameras installed at every street corner in the United States scan license plates, and tracking the movement of any car and so-called "smart" lights are being installed that can take pictures of people, record video and listen to their conversations. Typically, they are installed in major U.S. cities.
• The U.S. government is also using microarrays RFID that can independently identify the owner. These chips are integrated into bank cards, so every American who uses a bank card can always be identified. (Have YOU received your "new" charge cards yet?)
• The U.S. is also implementing a system that allows fingerprints scanning at a distance of 20 meters. This is a very convenient system that can identify a person quietly in a public place. A person walks by a camera that reads her fingerprints and runs them through the database.
•  The U.S. company Raytheon created a program used for watching people on social networks. The U.S. authorities have been using it since 2010, tracking information on Twitter, Facebook and Foursquare. The program can also view pictures of the users and identify where they were taken. Each person's location can be followed, including the places they go and even what they eat. This information can help intelligence agencies to predict human behavior.
•  Predator drones , originally intended for military operations and the fight against terrorism, will now track movement of civilians. According to their characteristics, these drones should be able to determine even at night whether a person is armed.Using mobile phones frequency, these devices will be able to clearly identify the location of a person. The U.S. government has legalized the use of drones on its territory, which aroused a storm of outrage from human rights groups.
• The U.S. government is creating a cyber-security center to keep track of all citizens. The center will collect and store information on nearly any person on the territory of the U.S., including phone conversations. The U.S. government intends to spend $2 billion to establish the center. The center will be located in two hangars with a powerful server that can store the volume of data that is two hundred thousand times greater than that of all human knowledge. The above technologies allow figuring out the personality of nearly any person within a few seconds.
  
  
  
     The powers that be have used the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to guarantee any surveillance the government wants without probable cause. When President Nixon’s men illegally wiretapped a few of his political opponents -- and they went to jail for it. This administration spies on millions and gets away with it.
  
      How can Congress defy the Constitution, you might ask? Hasn't every member of the government taken an oath to uphold the Constitution? It seems that this U.S. government is not overly concerned about violation of the rights of its citizens. The belief of most of those in government that they can write any law and regulate any behavior and ignore the Constitution they have sworn to uphold whenever they want and with the help of the media, the populace will follow like sheep.
  
     At question is the democracy in the USA, which allows intelligence agencies to check all electronic communications of people located in the country without a court order. The U.S. government continues to violate the rights of their citizens. In the U.S., there is no anonymity, the last remnants of private life gradually dissolve in the ocean of high-tech devices. These systems are controlled by people who want to control the society and establish a form of Socialist dictatorship, slightly covered with a thin veil of democracy.
  
  
  
  
  
  

The Lie That Helps the Rich Stay in Control

by

       M. Richard Maxson

      Looking across the political landscape in 2014 we see that we have an extremely wealthy Democrat President who lives a more opulent lifestyle than the Queen of England when he's not golfing with rich celebrities and attending $30,000 a plate fundraisers, or vacationing in Hawaii for 17 days at taxpayer expense. His supporters, people like Michael Moore and Noam Chomsky are getting filthy rich in a capitalist country by selling really dumb people on how awful capitalism and rich people are for the country and lecturing everyone who will listen how their opponents are the party of the rich who take advantage of the poor. The demographic reality is that, today, in America, the Democratic party is the new "party of the rich".

      The mantra that the Republicans are the party of the rich is a label that has stuck for decades, and you're hearing it again as Democrats complain about GOP opposition to raising the minimum wage and extending unemployment benefits. But in Congress, the wealthiest among us are more likely to be represented by a Democrat than a Republican. Of the 10 richest House districts, only two have Republican congressmen. Democrats claim the top six, sprinkled along the East and West coasts. Most are in overwhelmingly Democratic states like New York and California. Four of five of the richest presidents are Democrats. The Democratic Party is the actual party of the rich. Democrats represent the richest districts in the country with a highest concentration of wealthy households and the richest Americans. There are 269 millionaires among Congress' 535 members and most of them are Democrats led by their leader Harry Reid who has resided in a suite at the Ritz Carlton since his election to the Senate in 1986.

      In the last two presidential elections, of those worth more than $30 million, two-thirds supported the Democrats. The reason - taxes. Democrats have

constantly lowered taxes on the rich by way of loopholes. Among the two-thirds that supported the Democrats, 88% cited tax policies as being “important” in making their decision. One only has to look at today's stock market to see how the super-rich are getting richer under Democratic rule.  By President Obama's own admission, his party's control of Congress and the White House has led to 95% of all income gains going to the top 1% in income.

      Another report at OpenSecrets.org, states that from 1989 to 2014 rich donors gave Democrats $1.15 billion — $416 million more than the $736 million given to the GOP. Among the top 10 donors to both parties, Democrat supporters outspent Republican supporters 2-to-1. Indeed, a recent book, "The New Leviathan," says donations to Democrats outstrip those to Republicans 7-to-1. How can this be? Democrat support soars when you include unions, universities, superPACs, nonprofits, left-wing interest groups, and — ready for this? — Wall Street (which overwhelmingly favors Democrats) Wall Street favored Obama and the Democrats by a margin of 2 to 1 during the 2008 elections. Goldman Sachs has been giving four times more to Democrats than Republicans since 2006, according to Jonah Goldberg of The National Review. Now we’re hearing a lot about how well Goldman Sacs has been doing.

       Of course, in today’s populist politics, the only thing worse than being the candidate of the wealthy is being the candidate of the super-wealthy. This truism is obscured by the perpetual lie, backed by the media, that it is the

Republicans who are at the command of the richest Americans. They fool the poorest Americans into supporting them when it is the worst thing the underclass should do. The Democrats represent the very rich and the very poor . . . those needing or wanting the benefits procured by a big, active, high-taxing government, and those who can pay those high taxes without even noticing (or find creative ways to prevent them from biting). They are also rich, powerful and connected enough to influence government policy in their favor, and often stand to benefit from government regulation that serves to stifle competition.

    

  It is the Democrats who are the party of the rich.  They are also the party of the poor.  Republicans are the party of the middle. Republicans are the party of the working and middle class, small business and of all those who have aspirations to prosperity. They are the only ones who are serious about protecting what used to be universally known and embraced as "the American Dream.  As Mitt Romney said, "We are the party of those who want to get rich." Under this Democratic administration, just since 2008, the number of people who call themselves middle class has plunged from 53% to 44%, according to a new survey by the Pew Research Center. Yes, there are rich Republicans but the Corporate Socialism that has taken over the Democratic party has only partially infected the Republicans. Any chance to return to the days of Constitutional Law rides with the remnants of that party. We want lower taxes for everyone’s prosperity and freedom.  The Tea Party makes this clear; the establishment does not.  So enough of this about Democrats being the party of the little guy. Voters need to stop listening to the lies and accept the truth.

Communists March in America

by

       George Sontag

      Protesters  have suddenly popped-up simultaneously around the country in city after city to protest against perceived police brutality or have they? A closer look at exactly who is leading these protests reveals a much more ominous reality. These demonstrations have been planned for a long time just waiting for the spark to set them in motion. With the acquiesce of the Leftist media, very little of the "who" has been reported but it is no secret. Within forty-eight hours of the shooting of Michael Brown, buss loads of demonstrators, waving the banner of the Democratic Socialist party, drove into town. They were soon followed by the representatives of the Communist Party of the United States.

     Based in New York City, with it's openly Socialist mayor, the website is full of "the white man is the enemy' mentality that currently is their driving theme for the protesters. The Leftists interpretation of the American revolution is stated as " this country's occupying white patriarchal settler-colonialist independence from British rule." Throughout their publications they make it quite clear that their agenda is fully behind the oppressed people of color in the United States. They have played on liberal white guilt by stating that in the "struggle" to combat racism "...white workers have a particular responsibility in combating it." The bringing down of our Republic is justified by stating that ".... the struggle of people of color in the U.S. is one of "We hold up the fight for national liberation of every single oppressed nation within the U.S." They continue, "Communists of color, which is of belonging to oppressed nations, shouldn't be patriotic for the U.S."

      The media has failed to report that most of the organizers behind these marches are radical groups such as Rev Com, the Revolutionary Communist party, as well as Occupy and Answer Coalition. The Democratic Socialist multi-millionaires, who control the U.S. press, is fully behind this agenda. They make it seem to the

average American that this is a national uprising that has wide-spread popular support however the truth is that most of these groups have very small numbers that travel from city to city to make it appear like there are more. They are supported by leftist labor unions such as the UAW.   In case you make any mistake as to their ideology, the protesters let you know their true purpose, launching into a well-practiced rousing chant of “A, Anti, Anti-capitalista!."

       This country's Communist educated president and his administration is directly responsible for the breakdown of law and order in the United States today. It is not incompetence nor is it obstructionism by the opposition, as his supporters would like you to believe, it is the agenda to 'fundementally change America." The protesters in New York yesterday walked through the Murray Hill area chanting for “What do we want? Dead cops! When do we want it? Now!” Add to that is the unbelievable display of anti-Americanism that is the story that black leaders are forming "their own - all black grand jury" to decide what is "justice" outside the laws of the United States. With this scenario playing out across the nation what we may be witnessing is the beginning of the end of the old United States of America.

Attacks on the Constitution Continue

by

       M. Richard Maxson

     There was a time when American liberals cherished the freedom of speech guaranteed by the First Amendment. It seems that has changed especially in regards to political speech.  Many Democrats have been hopping mad about the exercise of free political speech since the Supreme Court's 2010 Citizens United decision. That's the case President Obama criticized in front of several justices in his 2011 State of the Union address. Currently 43 Democratic senators are so-sponsoring the constitutional amendment introduced by New Mexico's Sen. Tom Udall to amend the First Amendment so that it no longer protects political speech. The Democrats assure us that, "Nothing in this article shall be construed to grant Congress the power to abridge the freedom of the press."

       Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) announced that the House of Representatives has filed a lawsuit

against the Obama administration, over its failure to implement Obamacare based on the law passed by Congress. “Time after time, the president has chosen to ignore the will of the American people and re-write federal law on his own without a vote of Congress,” Boehner said. “That’s not the way our system of government was designed to work. If this president can get away with making his own laws, future presidents will have the ability to as well,” he said. “The House has an obligation to stand up for the Constitution, and that is exactly why we are pursuing this course of action.”

      Many on the left may want to help "the people." But once you start from the premise that you know what is best for the people, better than they know themselves, you have to figure ways around a Constitution. This is what the current administration is doing with the Executive Order on Immigration. Using the, beyond corrupt so-called Justice Department to un-enforce the laws that elected officials are supposedly sworn to constitutionally uphold.

       Mankind tends toward evil. Therefore, power must be separated. James Madison understood this. He noted that since men are not angels, government is necessary. But men are not angels, and since government is run by men, we also need protection from the government (Federalist #51).  Belief in the sinfulness of man can be seen in the Constitution with its strict separation of powers. He echoed this sentiment in Federalist 10, where he suggested we might cure our partisan ills via an engaged electorate who diligently watch their leaders.

       Our Founders charged us, the public, with the responsibility to elect those representatives that will rightfully uphold our Constitution – and reject those who place their own power and parties over the good of the nation. Patriots still stand tall and remain vigilant to defend attacks on the Constitution even with the Socialist leaning media demonizing them at every turn. All acts that contradict or attempt to circumvent the foundations laid down by the Constitution should be investigated to the fullest, not to be ridiculed in public for political gain.