Today, it appears the Indiana Supreme Court decided that the militarized police force is no longer bound by the fourth amendment to the Constitution, which states that:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
There are no 'ifs, ands, or buts.' The Police and or witnesses are required to testify to a judge and bare witness, under oath under penalty of purgery, of criminal activity in order to for a warrant to be issued.
Meaning, evidence has to be presented before a court to convince a judge that there is probable cause to issue an arrest warrant. And, if the officer and/or witness lies, (bared false witness), they would be arrested and put in jail pending trial.
It was a BIG DEAL to issue a warrant back in the day. The amendment was designed to avert corruption and tyranny of public servants and prevent the ability of a citizen to simply point a finger and send the cops after anybody, for any reason, and have them arrested.
The apparent despotic criminals running the Indiana supreme court appear to disagree with those legal restraints to their police force. Apparently, protection from government corruption and tyranny and abuses of power against its citizens is no longer necessary. Under this ruling, the police can now simply enter anyone's home, at any time, without a a warrant or justification. They can simply just show up, force their way in, and do whatever they want, and the resident is bound by law to submit like a little lap dog. After all, it's what every despotic, totalitarian society has done since the dawn of civilization. Why should we be any different?
People! This is the very heartbeat of tyranny! If a cop knocks on your door, waking you up in the middle of the night, and they want to search your premise, they MUST either have a warrant or obtain your permission. If you refuse and they enter anyway, they become armed trespassers and you immediately have the RIGHT and the duty as a sovereign person, to physically protect your person, property, papers and effects, even if that requires the use lethal force. Note, that a trespasser does not need to be armed for a person to practice that right -- that duty. The fact that cops are armed with lethal weapons, and by standard issue also carry restraints, batons, tasers, and pepper-spray, makes them walking lethal weapons of the state.
If a complete stranger, not donning a uniform or badge, arrived at your house decked out with guns, a baton, a taser, pepper spray, and physical restraints and demanded entry to your home, what would you do? Well, guess what! Cops are citizens, nothing more. A police officer has NO ADDITIONAL AUTHORITY than you or I.
I know they often refer to YOU as "citizen," and even "civilian," which psychologically puts them in a position of authority, but in absolute fact, they are citizens, just like me who are delegated by you and me, to solve crimes. Nothing else. They aren't hired to seek out and prevent crimes. They are hired and delegated to investigate a crime, identify the perpetrator, obtain a warrant, and arrest their suspect(s) who will be later tried in a court of law. That's it. They do not have one iota of authority that you and I don't have.
I guarantee you that if I lived in Indiana and the cops forced their way in to my residence without a warrant or my permission, they would find themselves in a fight for their very lives. If I survived, I would take it all the way to the United States Supreme Court, and I would win. Then, if not simultaneously, I would pursue those officers, the Sheriff's office, the city, and the state, in both civil and criminal court.
Many of you are probably thinking, 'wow. you'd risk death to prevent them from entering? What are you hiding?' I'm not hiding anything. I'm a law abiding (well, I adhere to the rational and reasonable laws, at least) citizen and, no, I would not risk death to keep them from finding something illegal. I would risk death to stand up for my rights -- to stand up for America -- to assert my authority as a sovereign person, and to stand up against tyranny. And, anyone who would do less for their rights deserves this kind of police-state tyranny!
It doesn't matter that police corruption is rampant in every city and state in America, and examples of police brutality hit the papers every day all over the country. Every cop in America could be the sweet, trustworthy, good-hearted Barny Fife and under the Constitution, they'd still need a warrant to enter your house without your permission.
Indiana Supreme Court Justice Steven David, stated,
We believe ... a right to resist an unlawful police entry into a home is against public policy and is incompatible with modern Fourth Amendment jurisprudence. We also find that allowing resistance unnecessarily escalates the level of violence and therefore the risk of injuries to all parties involved without preventing the arrest.
Even in the Justice's statement he refers to the entry into a home by an officer without warrant as, "unlawful police entry." However, he should have more accurately referred to it as, 'unconstitutional police entry,' because that's exactly what it is.
The state's Supreme Court did have dissenting voices, however. Justice Robert Rucker, a Gary native, and Justice Brent Dickson, a Hobart native, rightfully stated that the court's decision runs afoul of the Fourth Amendment.
In my view the majority sweeps with far too broad a brush by essentially telling Indiana citizens that government agents may now enter their homes illegally -- that is, without the necessity of a warrant, consent or exigent circumstances," Rucker said. "I disagree.
Rucker and Dickson suggested if the court had limited its permission for police entry to domestic violence situations they would have supported the ruling.
Again, if we scroll back up and read the fourth amendment, there are NO EXCEPTIONS! Of course, if an officer witnesses a crime and in the act of pursuing an arrest has to enter a private residence, then no warrant is needed. Witnessing an actual crime in progress constitutes 'baring witness,' and the police, as well as you or I, have every right to pursue the perpetrator anywhere that person may lead them. In that case, hell...
Nineteen Eighty-Four: ANovel, Not an Instruction Manual
Eric Blair, an author who published under the pen name, George Orwell authored one of the most famous, classic novels of the twentieth century, ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four.’ Around the world, this novel has been required reading in almost every ‘western’ educational program. The story takes place within a themed collectivist oligarchical society that lived in perpetual war, pervasive government surveillance, and incessant public mind control.
Since its publication in 1949, most of the terms and concepts have become everyday vernacular, such as Big Brother, doublethink, thoughtcrime, Newspeak, and Memory hole. This novel is what is referred to when the adjective ‘Orwellian,’ is used and encompasses surveillance, censorship, fear, sexual repression, and mind control to serve a despotic, totalitarian agenda.
The parallels between the themes of Nineteen Eighty-four and life in Amerika (and Great Britain) are so unquestionably similar, that I dare now call Eric Blair a prophet. In this post, I will explore those similarities and explain why I now struggle to spell Amerika with a ‘c.’
[shameless plug] Throughout this post, you will find links to Amazon to purchase Nineteen Eighty-four in paperback, hardback collectors edition, as well as the movie. If you have not read it, or have and just don't have a copy any more, or haven't seen the movie yet, I recommend getting a copy. And yes, you will also be supporting this blog and my efforts by as well. :) [/shameless plug]
Surveillance
Orwell, unfortunately was not a scientific or technological futurist like H.G. Wells or Orson Welles, so his novel portrayed the government’s, Big Brother, method of spying using only cameras and microphones placed both in all public areas and private residences to maintain the sense of constant paranoia; an effective tool for controlling the masses, which is only rivaled by omnipresent based religions. Written correspondence was also routinely opened and read before delivery. Children were ruthlessly encouraged to report suspicious persons and even turn-in their own parents. This added to the extremely effective control.
DARPA's Information Awareness Office
Today, we have the information and communication two-way superhighway and advanced media of all types that serve as a conduit for government spying. Everything you watch on television becomes part of your ‘profile.’
Every web page you visit, online video you watch, phone number you dial, call you receive, text message you send or receive, every bit of information you post on social media sites, every term you enter in to a search engine, every picture or video you upload online, and every link you click is collected and can all be obtained by the government without a warrant.
Virtually every square mile of every big city is surveilled by government cameras and microphones. And indeed, with GPS enabled cell phones and millions of license plate aware cameras deployed throughout the country, every time you leave your house Ingsoc the government can know where you are and predict where you’re going. Have a credit card? Your purchases are tracked. Receive cash from an ATM or directly from a bank withdraw? Your purchases can be tracked.
Another well known, well published, and well understood tool of totalitarianism is to recruit children to spy on their parents. Thanks to bill 2068, children in California are now required to answer such personal question as whether their parents spank them, keep guns in the house, or watch violent television programs.
This is not just a California measure, but part of a national agenda to turn children in to family rats.
In 2009, originally introduced as a ‘Green’ measure, a massive program with its tentacles embedded into almost every corner of education and popular culture is underway to brainwash children and turn them against their own parents, as the state moves towards the creation of a Stasi-style informant society using methods that have been repeated in every totalitarian state throughout history. “Eco-kids,’ a term coined in a New York Times article entitled, Pint-Sized Eco-Police, Making Parents Proud and Sometimes Crazy’ where a “growing army of “eco-kids” — steeped in environmentalism at school, in houses of worship, through scouting and even via popular culture…. Try to hold their parents accountable at home.”
Energy giant Npower is investing huge sums in advertising expenses to drive its “Climate Cops” campaign, where children are encouraged to sign up as “climate cops” and keep “climate crime case files” on their families, friends and neighbors. "Report back to your family to make sure they don’t commit those crimes again (or else)!” one section states before reminding recruits to keep a watchful eye on parents. The campaign attempts to extend the rat web further by stating, “What about the homes of aunts and uncles, or friends from school?”
In the UK, we find that, “Children are being offered money by councils to spy on neighbors and report petty offences such as ‘bin crimes’ and dog-fouling.” 5,000 children labeled “Junior Streetwatchers” have been bribed with payments of up to £500 to provide names, license plate numbers and photographs of their neighbors engaged in “environmental crimes”.
Right here in my home state of Texas, today, we find a story about how video cameras are being installed in schools in, "poor, minority campuses," to record and track the eating habits of students. The program, of course, is funded by the federal government and more specifically, DARPA -- home of the total Information Awareness Office.
Fear and Endless War
Fear and war were used to keep the masses obedient, subservient and servile to Big Brother. Every day in Nineteen Eighty-four, the citizenry are subjected to ‘Two Minutes of Hate;’ an image on telescreens everywhere, of their boogyman Emmanuel Goldstein, the mortal enemy of the state.
Goldstein was a complete fabrication and led the non-existent organization, “The Brotherhood,” which was the constant terror threat to Oceania. The Brotherhood’s threat justified the “Homeland Security” measures that violated all known Rights and kept Oceania safe.
For the past fifteen years our government has cast the roll of Goldstein with the likes of Sheik Mohammed, Mohammad Atta, and of course the real leading man up until May 1st, ‘Osama bin Laden,’ who motivate Amerika’s mortal terrorist threat, Al Qaeda. Al Qaeda, by name is fictitious, but refers to the Afghan Mujahideen, which was created by the CIA to fight a proxy war against the Russians after they invaded Afghanistan.
Though the current accepted spelling has changed by a vowel, “Al-Qaida,” literally translated, “the database,” was originally the CIA’s computer file containing the names of the thousands of mujahideen who were recruited and trained to defeat the Russians. Al Qaida, or Al Qaeda (aka Al-CIAda) is currently being fought at great expense by the U.S. in Afghanistan and Pakistan as part of the war on terror. Ironically, the U.S. is also currently supporting Al Qaida, both militarily and financially, as part of the rebel uprising in Libya. Go figure.
This modern-day version of ‘The Brotherhood,’ whose threat justifies Amerika’s objective-less, endless wars, recently suffered a great blow delivered by Amerika’s fearless leader when they killed Emmanuel Goldstein Osama bin Laden. This can only mean one thing; Oceania Amerika needs to create a new boogyman and give a fresh dose of fear to the Amerikan people in order to feed the ongoing despotic, totalitarian agenda of its leaders. What will that be? More false flag attacks against the U.S. or U.K. that will again kill thousands of citizens in order to galvanize the citizenry through a patriotic frenzy to support the megalomaniacal agendas? Will the government start propaganda campaigns to enlist support for war with Pakistan, Syria, or Iran? Will the U.S. continue to wage economic warfare against China and continue provoking them?
The US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, was busy with that task over this past week as she recently, publicly insulted Eastasia China, Oceania’s Amerika’s largest creditor in front of high-ranking Chinese officials and denounced them for the absence of democracy and, quite hypocritically, human rights violations. Other Ingsoc government officials have been busy rattling their sabers and pointing fingers at southern Eurasia Pakistan, Syria, and Iran in an ongoing effort to completely destabilize the region.
Meanwhile, back in Amerika, Homeland Security, no, wait, that’s correct, Homeland Security brought out the big guns and deployed crowd suppression and control measures using sound cannons, tear gas, and mass arrests against a peaceful assembly of college student who were doing nothing more than having a good time during their annual Western Illinois University ‘wheeler block party.’ It was a peaceful event where there was no rioting, no destruction of property, fights, weapons, vandalism, or violence of any kind until the RIOT squads moved in, for no apparent reason.
The ongoing and ever-present threat of our militarized police is just another example of Ingsoc the government flexing its assumed authority over us. Countless times the under-cover cops have been caught red handed at intentionally inciting riots. Their M.O.D. is to dress up like anarchists in all black with ski-masks or bandanas covering their face, and combat boots then try to blend in to the crowd. They then wait until the RIOT Squads show up with their tear gas grenades, sound cannons, tasers, batons, rubber bullet rifles and bean-bag shotguns. Once the crowd is properly surrounded, the provocateurs swing in to action and begin breaking windows, throwing rocks at the police, and any other tactic they can think of to provoke the Riot Police to attack the crowd.
The police used to be public servants tasked with the mandate to Protect and Serve. Now, they are ‘authority figures,’ complete with jackboots, guns, potentially lethal tazers, pepper spray, nightsticks, shotguns, assault rifles, and snipers.
Illegal, unconstitutional check points have become common-place and are dubbed by the media as, ‘No Refusal’ weekends as they are deployed enforce during national holidays and will forcibly draw blood from your arm, right there on the side of the road, using unconstitutional 'rubber-stamped' warrants, with or without your consent. Probable cause has become nothing more than the act of driving your car.
Censorship
Censorship in Nineteen Eight-Four is rampant much like it is in today’s everyday life. The Ministry of Truth, in the novel, engages in propaganda by both staging and releasing doctored photos. On the ‘telescreens,’ news productions are grossly exaggerated or simply invented to paint the picture of an ever-growing economy, when in reality there is utter stagnation or severe recession. Ingsoc, who can do no wrong, loves you and wants to keep you safe. Does that sound familiar?
Daily, the talking-heads on the "news" read their talking points from The ministry of Truth the White House, denying recessions, declaring upward momentum of the economy, and singing the praises of the federal government and Federal Reserve for saving us from utter disaster all while trillions of dollars are being transferred from Amerikan citizens over to foreign and international banking institutions. The very people who control the economy are the same ones censoring and scripting the news.
The value of the dollar, under the control of the privately owned and foreign Federal Reserve bank has decreased by 97%. Meaning, if a person with a $100 bill in 1911 were to magically be transported to 2011, their $100 bill would have $3 of purchasing power today. In most places, that couldn’t buy a cheeseburger and fries.
Today, we are stifled with censorship on every level imaginable. Censorship has become so sophisticated, a person has to consciously focus and pay close attention or they won’t realize they’re receiving highly controlled, censored information at every turn. And even then, a vast amount of critical information would still never reach their ears or eyes. This is a key element in a despotic, totalitarian agenda.
The “news” we receive about the war is incredibly CENSORED! Now that the main-stream media are compliant servants of the state, The Ministry of Truth the government is desperately trying to gain control over what is published and who is able to publish on the internet. Sites like Youtube and Google video, powerhouses and in many ways the last bastion of free speech, are removing controversial videos against the will of the publisher when those messages don’t align with government narratives. They also commonly falsify the number of views a video has by dramatically reducing the number, to keep controversial videos being listed on their top ten most viewed videos listings.
Websites that present nothing more than opinions have been blacklisted from major search engines. Political censorship over every medium is rampant and the last vestige of free speech, the internet, is quickly falling under the iron rule of total government control.
Another type of censorship I will cover under the next section, Mind Control. Arguably the worst, most devious type of mind control is self-censorship, which infests today's society. It is the act of censoring or classifying one’s own thoughts, words, or other means of expression out of various types of fear without any direct or overt pressure from any specific authority.
Mind Control
The largest weapon used to control the masses in use today is self censorship. In Nineteen Eighty-four, this was demonstrated through Newspeak, which is a vastly reduced vocabulary approved by The Party. ‘The Principles of Newspeak,’ an appended essay to the novel, outlines the principles of the language. Quite basic in the tenants of sociology and psychology, Newspeak ideologically aligned thought and action with predefined principles and made alternative thinking, 'thoughtcrimes' and 'crimespeak.'
In 1947, the German book, The Third Reich: LTI: Lingua Tertii Imperii, authored by Jewish professor of French Literature (1881-1960) published in 1947 detailed how the Nazis controlled society by controlling the language.
Today, Newspeak is known as Political Correctness. The term was coined by the Bolshevik revolutionary and Marxist, Leon Trotsky to refer favorably to those whose views remained in sync with the ever-shifting Bolshevik Party line. This was important, as "not PC" people risked prison or death. Today we only risk social consequences, which is just as influential to our behavior as fear of authority and punishment, because it is effective where one would otherwise 'feel safe' from government ears.
Political Correctness has softened our language through euphemisms and terms and phrases have been castrated to obscure the truth in an ongoing experiment in group think and social conditioning.
There are thousands of examples, but my favorite example is the term being used for the tragic disorder inflicted on many who suffered through extended and/or highly intense combat and on the verge or actively experiencing a complete and extended nervous breakdown. It used to be called, Shell Shock. Then the condition progressed to ‘Battle Fatigue.’ They’re not traumatized, they’re just tired. Shortly thereafter, the same condition was referred to as ‘Operational Exhaustion,’ again, they’re just really tired. Now, it’s Post Traumatic Stress-Disorder.
There is little where else to go on this topic than to simply quote George Carlin’s rant on Euphemistic Language, which I paraphrased in the Shell Shock part above.
R.I.P. The great George Carlin (May 12, 1937 – June 22, 2008)
Toilet paper became bathroom tissue. Sneakers became running shoes. False teeth became dental appliances. Medicine turned in to medication. Information became directory assistance. The dump became the landfill. Motels turned in to motor lodges. House trailers in to motor homes. Used cars turned in to previously owned vehicles. Room service became guest room dining. Riots became civil disobedience. A strike became a job action. A zoo turned in to a wild life park. The jungle became a rainforest. The swamp became a wetlands. Glasses became prescription eye ware. A garage became parking structures. Drug addiction became substance abuse. Soap Operas turned in to daytime dramas. A gambling joint became a gaming resort. A prostitute became a sex worker. Theaters became performance centers. Wife beating became domestic violence, and constipation became occasionally irregularity. When I was a little boy, when I was sick I went to a doctor who sent me to a hospital to be treated by other doctors. Now, I go to a family practitioner who belong to a health maintenance organization which sends me to a wellness center to be treated by healthcare delivery professionals.
Poor people used to live in slums, now the economically disadvantaged who occupy substandard housing in inner-cities. And, a lot of them are broke. They don’t have negative cash flow; they’re broke because many of them were fired. In other words, management wanted to curtail redundancies in the human resources area. And, so, many workers are no longer viable members of the work force.
Smug, greedy, well fed white people have invented a language to conceal their sins. It’s as simple as that. The CIA doesn’t kill anybody, the neutralize people or they depopulate an area. The government doesn’t lie, it engages in disinformation. The pentagon actually measures nuclear radiation in something called, ‘Sunshine Units.’ Israeli murderers are called commandos. Arab commandos are called terrorists. The contra killers were known as freedom fighters. Well, if crime fighters fight crime and fire-fighters fight fire, what do freedom fighters fight?
And, some of this softened language is just silly and embarrassing. On airlines they say that they’re going to pre-board passengers in need of special assistance. 'Cripples!' Simple, honest, direct language. There’s no shame attached to the word, ‘cripple.’ No shame! It’s a word used in bible translations, ‘Jesus healed the crippled.’ It doesn’t take six words to describe that condition. But we don’t have cripples anymore. Instead, we have the physically challenged. Is that a grotesque enough evasion for you? How about, differently abled? I’ve actually heard cripples referred to as, differently abled. You can’t even call them handicapped anymore. They’ll say, ‘we’re not handicapped, we’re handi-capable. These poor suckers have been bullshitted by the system in to believing that if you change the name of the condition, somehow, you’ll change the condition. Well, it doesn’t work that way.
I’m sure you’ve noticed we have no deaf people in this country… hearing impaired. And no one is blind; they’re partially sighted or visually impaired. And thank God we no longer have stupid children. Today’s kids all have learning disabilities. Or, they’re minimally exceptional. How’d you like be told that about your child? Actually, it sounds faintly positive; “Your son is minimally exceptional.” Oh, thank God for that... I guess. Best of all psychologists now call ugly people, ‘those with severe appearance deficits.’ Things are so bad that any day I expect to hear a rape referred to as an ‘unwilling sperm recipient.’
I think that point is made, but you can listen to the remainder of his brilliant rant, here.
Doublethink
The power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them....To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies — all this is indispensably necessary.
All forms of main-stream media march in lockstep with government propaganda by using language exactly as Orwell brilliantly predicted. Words and phrases are used to conceal and confuse, not clarify, and are twisted to suggest the opposite of their true meaning.
War is Peace: In Nineteen Eighty-Four, one might read in the morning paper about a military action against an enemy, with no mention that in yesterday's edition, the very same enemy was a faithful ally.
In much the same way we are fighting against "Al Qaeda" on several fronts all while financially and militarily backing the same group in Libya in an effort to overthrow the existing government, kill the current leader, Muammar Gaddafi and to impose sharia law.
And of course, in true doublethink fashion, our bombs, missiles, and covert operations is not called war and are not killing people in foreign nations. They're bringing peace and delivering democracy and freedom to nations who just happen to have oil and/or are economically or militarily of strategic importance. To put it in a non-politically correct way, international bankers make demands on sovereign nations and if they do not comply they send their bought and paid for intelligence apparatuses (CIA, MI-5/6, ISI, Mossad, Al Qaeda, INTERPOL, NCIE, NSA, NRO, DIA, FBI...etc). If that doesn't work, then they send their military via covert and/or black-ops. When that fails, it's time for some good ole' fashioned strategic bombings followed by ground troops.
Like the adage describes; if you kill one person, you're a murderer. If you kill a hundred, you're a serial killer. If you kill a million or more, you're a leader.
Freedom is Slavery: More and more our rights are being downgraded to mere privileges which can be revoked without reason, justification, or even notification. The Right to peaceably assemble and protest is a perfect example. Protesters are now required to request permission from local governments to assemble a peaceful protest. Additionally, the government tells them exactly where they can protest by cordoning off areas called "Free Speech Zones," which commonly are at such a huge distance from the intended audience as to render the message silent, benign, and/or completely ineffectual.
Air Travel: We must now agree to forfeit our most basic human rights in order to board a plane. Everyone is assumed guilty until they are xrayed by dangerous body scanners and/or subjected to illegal and humiliating breaches of privacy. Even the police aren't allowed to conduct the kind of enhanced pat-downs that the TSA claim the authority to practice. And it's all in the name of keeping us safe from The Brotherhood Al Qaeda, who, if you recall, was created by our intelligence agency and is currently both being fought and supported at the same time by our government. Just remember that the next time the deaths of American citizens is blamed on that group, or when they use the name 'Al Qaeda' to manipulate you through fear.
Free Speech: Aside from 'free speech zones,' and the requirement to request permission by obtaining a permit to peaceably assemble, the internet is also under constant threat of official censorship. Even blogging is now the target of taxation and licensing fees. The government wants complete and utter control over the information we receive. It is entirely possible one day in the near future, publishing this blog could get me detained as 'domestic terrorist.'
Farming:Senate bill S.510 tried to make having a backyard vegetable garden illegal in a relentless effort to govern Amerika's food. Even rainwater is now illegal to collect and use in many states. The government is spending billions to subsidize farms in order to keep tight control over the price of (supply and demand) food artificially high.
The Right to Bare Arms: Gun ownership is now a privilege, of course. Not only do you have to ask for government permission to legally purchase a firearm by applying for a license, but you are also subjected to a full back ground check and psychological screening. Provided you are permitted to purchase a firearm, your name, address, and psychological profile are put in a database; a perfect tool to have if/when they decide that it's in our best interest to confiscate all guns. Anyone can be put on a 'no buy' list without their knowledge, and without justification or court order.
Property Rights: Thanks to laws surrounding property taxes, a person no longer owns their property or anything on it (including their house). Even if you pay cash for a house in full, the IRS can seize and auction it off if you don't pay your property or income taxes. If the IRS (The collection agency for the Federal Reserve Bank) is able to legally take away and sell your house, then you obviously never owned it. You simply paid them through property taxes to manage their property for them.
In summary, it is universally accepted that the collectivist society within Nineteen Eight-Four suffered greatly and was controlled by a ruthless and cunning totalitarian form of governance. Yet, we here in the 'land of the free and home of the brave' live in willing ignorance and utter denial of the clear and vivid parallels to Orwell's nightmarish society, all while wrapping ourselves in nationalist pride and believing we still live in a free Republic governed by the people--for the people.
With the goal and ongoing effort to end my posts with a message of hope, I say that all is not lost. We can, indeed, peaceably take this country back. Though Thomas Jefferson wasn't wrong when he wrote, "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is it’s natural manure," I believe we can still reverse the current course toward complete despotic rule under the thinly veiled guise of freedom.
But, it will not be easy. It will require courage, bravery, independent thought, self-education, and the motivation to weed out the corruption in Washington D.C., and replace those criminals with honorable people.
We cannot continue to simply vote for whom we are presented by the media as 'real candidates.' Don't let the government's mouth pieces convince you that voting your conscience is throwing your vote away!
TSA: Touching Sensitive Areas Coming to an Airport, Train Station, Bus Stop, and Shopping Mall Near You.
Where do we begin with this potentially serious health risk, and complete invasion of our liberty and privacy? This is obviously a large topic that dovetails in many different directions. I'll focus on two main points, which are the Backscatter scanners (aka, Naked Body Scanners) and the 'enhanced pat down' methods (aka Gate Rape) employed by the TSA.
Let's begin with the scanners. First, the TSA claimed they were perfectly safe. Well, anyone with two functional brain cells refused to buy that lie. It wasn't long before they had to admit, "“It would appear that the [radiation] emissions are 10 times higher. We understand it as a calculation error,” TSA spokesman Sarah Horowitz said in a telephone interview. The government, however, maintains that they are perfectly safe. Of course, maybe that's because one of the owners of the company that produces these machines, Rapiscan, is none other than our very own George Soros. Michael Chertoff, the former head of Homeland Security was also a highly paid lobbyist and part owner who made millions off the deployment of these constitutionally nonviable and unlawful full body scanners.
Two people in this photo: One, getting a one-time scan. The other being exposed
over and over, day in and day out, to dangerous levels of radiation.
Unsuspecting TSA agents across the country continue to be irresponsibly exposed to enough DNA destroying radiation over and over, day in and day out, week after week, that their futures will likely be fraught with battles against various types of deadly cancer. Unlike the Fukushima workers who have been bravely fighting to minimize the nuclear catastrophe in Japan, these agents will not go down in history as heroes, but rather victims of lies and propaganda.
There are those who carry the, 'a little extra radiation can't hurt you,' banner. I recommend those people read the 2005 News Release by Stanford University that, after a five year study, concluded, "Exposure to X-rays and gamma rays, even at low-dose levels, increases risk of cancer."
For the average traveler, the risk of getting fatal cancer from a single screening is minuscule, but as stated above, does increase the risk. It's about equal to the probability of dying aboard an airplane due to a terrorist attack, claimed Peter Rez, a physics professor at Arizona State University in Tempe who did his own calculations. He found the exposure to be about one-fiftieth to one-hundredth the amount of a standard chest X-ray. He calculated the risk of getting cancer from a single scan at about 1 in 30 million, "which puts it somewhat less than being killed by being struck by lightning in any one year," he told MSNBC.
Wired recently ran an article that argues for a safer xray technology than the Backscatter machines. In it, John Sedat, a biochemistry and biophysics professor, says he’s not going to get on an airplane again — at least not until the TSA rethinks its deployment of hundreds of body scanners that hit travelers with a tiny amount of radiation. He added,
I’m not going to go through these machines. And I’m not going to be groped either,” the 68-year-old University of California, San Francisco, scientist said in a recent telephone interview. “Us older people are probably only one mutation away from melanoma. I’m not going to go through these machines and basically ask for the problem. We all know the older you get the more sensitive you are to sunlight and X-rays.
Dr Michael Love, who runs an X-ray lab at the department of biophysics and biophysical chemistry at the Johns Hopkins school of medicine recently told AFP that “statistically someone is going to get skin cancer from these X-rays”.
“…we have a situation at the airports where people are so eager to fly that they will risk their lives in this manner,” he added.
Dr. Otis Brawley, chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society, takes a pat-down instead of going through a scanner when he travels. Brawley's deputy, Dr. Len Lichtenfeld, has the same opinion. Dr. Brawley told CNN, "I do whatever I can to avoid the scanner."
John Sedat, a University of California at San Francisco professor of biochemistry and biophysics and member of the National Academy of Sciences tells CNet that the machines have “mutagenic effects” and will increase the risk of cancer. Sedat previously sent a letter to the White House science Czar John P. Holdren, identifying the specific risk the machines pose to children and the elderly.
Despite all these, and hundreds more warnings, the Department of Homeland Security maintains that these scanners are perfectly safe. If you ask me, since the odds of getting cancer from these machines are equal to the odds of dying on an airplane from a terrorist action, I'll take my chances with the latter. Do we really need to expose high risk individuals such as the elderly and children to 'DNA unzipping' ionic radiation to keep our airports safe?
Let's move on from the potentially hazardous effects these scanners have and move on to the contriversial images they produce, and how those images are handled.
TSA: Membership Has Its Privileges
Scan of random hot chick
First and foremost, let's put to bed the claim by TSA that their system cannot save, store, or transmit images. This is completely and totally false. In fact, that ability is required by the government.
TSA requires AIT machines to have the capability to retain and export imagines (sic) only for testing, training, and evaluation purposes,” states a TSA letter dated February 24, 2010 and signed by Gale D. Rossides, Acting Administrator.
Just last year naked images of Indian film star Shahrukh Khan were printed out and circulated by airport staff at Heathrow in London, proof that these machines can even print images. Additionally, Federal Marshalls were caught with tens of thousands of stored images from a courthouse scanner in Florida. That example may not have happened at an airport, but it is the exact same technology used at almost every airport in the country, which tells your humble author that it's only a matter of time before it does.
The TSA states on their website that, "The machines have zero storage capability" to store, transmit, or print images. However, the TSA specified in 2008 documents that the machines must have image storage and sending abilities, the Washington-based Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) said. In the documents, obtained by the privacy group and provided to CNN, the TSA specifies that the body scanners it purchases must have the ability to store and send images when in "test mode."
Despite the official mantra being touted by the TSA that the xray machines can do nothing with the images except display them on the screen, it only takes a few seconds on google to find examples of images taken by these machines that have been printed out.
Laminated print out of TSA xray.
Now that we know these xray images can be stored, transmitted, and printed, let's take a good look at the people who are viewing and handling these images, and being tasked with the 'enhanced pat-downs' of you, our nation's women, and our children.
