CMoore.com

Or, it’s not a lie when Duhbya and John “death squad” Negroponte say you don’t have to tell the truth.

Ordinarily, a company that conceals their transactions and activities from the public would violate securities law. But an presidential memorandum signed by the President on May 5 allows the Director of National Intelligence, John Negroponte, to authorize a company to conceal activities related to national security. (See 15 U.S.C. 78m(b)(3)(A))

Though it’s not considered one of the signs of fascism, an obsession with secrecy is certainly a hallmark of a despotic government.

If the Executive issues an ad hoc presidential memorandum that authorizes corporations to violate laws passed by the Legislative, how are we not in the middle of Constitutional crisis right now?

I asked them if they had complied with NSA requests to allow access to their phone records. This is there response.

Dear M. Moore:

Thank you for your email concerning your interest in the subject of warrantless monitoring of American citizens’ communications by the National Security Agency.

Working Assets has taken the following position on this subject:

Working Assets believes that the warrantless monitoring of phone conversations ordered by the Bush administration is both illegal and alarming.

We will pursue this issue through our citizen action program, and by supporting organizations committed to preserving civil liberties in America.

Working Assets has never been approached by any government agency seeking our help in illegally accessing the content of conversations by our customers, and we would refuse any such request.

We have information regarding the conduct of our underlying carrier (Sprint). For more information, please visit: http://www.workingforchange.com/webgraphics/nsa.html#blog

They can’t control Sprint, but WA will not release your records. Using the theory of doing what one can, a) use encryption (because this is email as well as phone), b) use a traffic obfuscator like Tor, and c) switch providers to one who will not comply with illegal Executive requests.

Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile say they did not share information. Verizon, the land line company, did. Cingular and Sprint declined to comment, which you can probably read as they have shared their information with the NSA.

Known involved companies at this point are entirely land line. VOIP, particularly encrypted VOIP, looks to be a great option. Not that it really matters, but you may want to avoid Skype, since I’m sure the NSA is applying the “they’re a European company, therefore every Skype packet is international and we can intercept it” card.

Welcome to your new police state, you know, the one without the free press. Who needs that First Amendment anyway? It just gets in the way of catching terrrrrrists.

A senior federal law enforcement official tells ABC News the government is tracking the phone numbers we (Brian Ross and Richard Esposito) call in an effort to root out confidential sources.

“It’s time for you to get some new cell phones, quick,” the source told us in an in-person conversation.

ABC News does not know how the government determined who we are calling, or whether our phone records were provided to the government as part of the recently-disclosed NSA collection of domestic phone calls.

Other sources have told us that phone calls and contacts by reporters for ABC News, along with the New York Times and the Washington Post, are being examined as part of a widespread CIA leak investigation.

Looks like time to add another notch to points 3 and 6 of the defining steps of fascism to me. Probably 13 as well.

What do you do if you’re a part of a secret police force outside the law when the Law comes a knockin’? Why, you deny them the security clearance the need to investigate your actions, of course!

What would you say about a country with an unaccountable, secret police force? A secret police force that spies on its own citizens – all of them – under the guise of “searching for terrorists”? A police force unburdened by the Rule of Law in its own country. A police force that uses financial coercion and physical intimidation in order to bully non-State actors into complying with their (illegal, if the Rule of Law is in effect) activities. A police force that is answerable only to the Executive, and an Executive who does not feel the Rule of Law applies to him at that? Is it the KGB? Is it the Gestapo? The whatever it is the Chinese are using these days?

Possibly. But it’s also certainly our own NSA.

In addition, the agency suggested that Qwest’s foot-dragging might affect its ability to get future classified work with the government. Like other big telecommunications companies, Qwest already had classified contracts and hoped to get more.

Unable to get comfortable with what NSA was proposing, Qwest’s lawyers asked NSA to take its proposal to the FISA court. According to the sources, the agency refused.

The NSA’s explanation did little to satisfy Qwest’s lawyers. “They told (Qwest) they didn’t want to do that because FISA might not agree with them,” one person recalled. For similar reasons, this person said, NSA rejected Qwest’s suggestion of getting a letter of authorization from the U.S. attorney general’s office. A second person confirmed this version of events.

So, kudos to Qwest, for being the only telecomm to refuse to comply with the NSA’s illegal requests absent a court order. If you can switch, by all means do so. Or better still, Working Assets, the only telecommunications company to sign on with the ACLU to stop the illegal wiretapping of US Citizens.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but what the NSA is doing is collecting an immense database of the behaviors and activities of American citizens. Without a warrant. Without probable cause. Outside of the law. This is a shadowy group that even the CIA lifers think are right wing. A group completely amoral, devoted to black ops, and in favor of authoritarianism at every step of the way.

If anyone imagines for even one second that the data the NSA is collecting here is not going to be used or already used for such things as domestic spying, intimidation of protest groups, disruption of reporters who may be investigating actions embarassing to the administration, exposing whistleblowers and the like, then I’ve got a bridge to sell you.

Remember, at first they said they didn’t spy. Then they said they spied only with court approval. Then they said they spied only on international calls, not your calls to your girlfriend or your parents or your fellow little league coaches. And now, they’re spying on we domestic citizens. Outside of the Rule of Law, with no legal authority outside of an authoritarian state.

At each new revelation, the 101st Fighting Keyboarders said if you didn’t like what was happening, you loved the terrorists. At each step, they gave tortured justifications or credulously believed the administrations patently absurd legal justifications. At each step, these cowardly bedwetters begged for the paternalistic administration to come tuck them in and save them from the bad people. Well, now they’ve met the bad people, and the bad people wear US Government ID cards.

See also, Greenwald, Glenn. Side note: I can see Glenn’s point that the Constitutional and legal issues aren’t exactly bright lines here (primarily resting on privacy grounds, as in lack thereof in PEN registers), but I think the burden is upon the administration to prove the legality of monitoring citizen activities, using coercion against businesses, and essentialing Taking corporate assets for government use. I should point out that, legally speaking, I think the Constitutional issues are probably non-starters, but that statutory issues are almost ironclad in prohibiting the NSA’s actions here. I’ll try to remember to look up the USC sections later.

Further questions I have:
1) internet – are they tracking our browsing/usage behavior? Are they capturing emails? For those of you not already using encryption such as PGP or GnuPG, ferchrissake, what the hell are you waiting for? For those of you not using Tor, what are you waiting for?

2) VOIP too? If yes to internet, then yes to VOIP.

This may not be the America that I knew, but going forward anyone who contacts me should be under the assumption that the communication is monitored and possibly able to be read if in text format.

… Unless you use encryption. Which is both useful and necessary for our privacy. It’s also super easy to use and install. I’m tired of trying to get people to use encryption. You may be forcing my hand here, but by FSM, I’m going to start encrypting everything I send and if the recipients can’t figure it out… tough. My public key is linked to at the bottom of every page on this site. GnuPG + enigmail (two plugins for Thunderbird). All of this is Open and Free. Learn it, live it, love it.

Tor is the other leg to the encryption side. If your packets aren’t encrypted, they can read them. If they are, they can still do packet analysis to see where you are going. Tor eliminates the packet analysis leg. Use it. If you have spare bandwidth, please donate that as well.

Remember the right wing saying how if guns are outlawed, then only outlaws will have guns? Well, if my government suspects me of being a criminal, then only my government is suspect.

Update: the telcos could be liable for many billions in damages (see also: ACSBlog). Now, who wants to be the first attorney to form a class for a Class Action?

Who’s Crazy Now?

But now those harsh critics have been vindicated. And it turns out that many of the administration supporters can’t handle the truth. They won’t admit that they built a personality cult around a man who has proved almost pathetically unequal to the job. Nor will they admit that opponents of the Iraq war, whom they called traitors for warning that invading Iraq was a mistake, have been proved right. So they have taken refuge in the belief that a vast conspiracy of America-haters in the media is hiding the good news from the public.

Unlike the crazy conspiracy theories of the left — which do exist, but are supported only by a tiny fringe — the crazy conspiracy theories of the right are supported by important people: powerful politicians, television personalities with large audiences. And we can safely predict that these people will never concede that they were wrong. When the Iraq venture comes to a bad end, they won’t blame those who led us into the quagmire; they’ll claim that it was all the fault of the liberal media, which stabbed our troops in the back.

If someone dictates the terms of something, say a contract, they are deciding the framework of that contract. Thus, the dictator is also the decider.

Dictator. Decider.

“I hear the voices and I read the front page and I know the speculation,” the president told reporters in the Rose Garden. “But I’m the decider and I decide what’s best. And what’s best is for Don Rumsfeld to remain as the secretary of defense.”

Decider. Dictator.

and why you should support it, presented in a in a two minute clip.

My position on open standards, neutrality, and fairness have been discussed here quite a bit, and this is no different. The internet has been one of the greatest forces for change and democracy in a long time; at the very least, it has been a catalyst for the explosive growth of knowledge and information sharing (not to mention giving The People a voice that they haven’t had – ever. A necessary voice that is the only thing currently safeguarding our democracy on the popular front). There is a slight argument toward a capitalist solution (i.e. neutral providers will attract more customers), but in a monopolistic situation (at best, most people in America effectively only have a duopoly of ISPs from which to choose), I do not think this applies. See also, Wal-Mart).

Without net neutrality, the inernet as you know it will likely die. Many scenarios have already unfolded, such as Comcast Cable blocking Vonage packets… and then rolling out their own VOIP solution a few months later. As things stand, even with the many to many access model, ISPs are our gateways, and are still subject to control from the anticompetitive, antipeople corporations. If the internet had not been developed the way it had and been nurtured via universities, we would currently have a “net” of walled communities, to which we would have to pay to access. Think this wasn’t what the Suits wanted? Imagine a world where the “internet” are competing AOLs.

That’s the future we are heading toward, and the Suit lobbyists from AT&T, Comcast, and Verizon, in coordination with the corrupt GOP Congress are trying to turn back the clock and destroy the internet as we know it. For the businesses, it makes sense to try and control content. For the government, it makes sense to try and control information, and there has not been a governmental body in history that has not tried to coopt and control any and all technologies that increase the amount of information available to the people.

We must not allow the internet to become a series of walled gardens, run by warlords, robber barons, and tinpot dictators. Let your Congresscritter know how you feel.

If nothing else convinces you, imagine how much the temperature in hell dropped when they realized that Instacracker and MoveOn were on the same side of this issue. And if that inbred, mouthbreathing, genocidal racist twit can come around to the correct viewpoint… hell, everyone should.

not with a bang, but with a whimper. As the media and corporate interests collude to hand over the citizenry’s fundamental rights to the government (even though the media and the corporations are composed of the People, the decisionmakers are not of the People). The latest: AT&T forwards all Internet traffic into NSA

“The evidence that we are filing supports our claim that AT&T is diverting Internet traffic into the hands of the NSA wholesale, in violation of federal wiretapping laws and the Fourth Amendment,” said EFF Staff Attorney Kevin Bankston.

“More than just threatening individuals’ privacy, AT&T’s apparent choice to give the government secret, direct access to millions of ordinary Americans’ Internet communications is a threat to the Constitution itself. We are asking the Court to put a stop to it now,” said Bankston.

Easy Fourth Amendment violation right there. Well, it was a violation until the busheviks took over and smilin Sammy scAlito was mortared into place using the hooves of the traitorous Dem sellouts, that is.

You know, when my back’s against the wall, I’ll think on all of the quislings and cowards that let us inch into this situation. Then I’ll track them down in whatever afterlife they’ve chosen and kick ‘im in the nether regions.

Also, in case it’s not too late, you can still join the EFF and the ACLU (the ACLU has a companion case going against the NSA). Oh, and if you aren’t using Tor, you should be.

Hunter-killer drones and remote CIA assassinations coming to a town near you

Unmanned aerial vehicles have soared the skies of Afghanistan and Iraq for years, spotting enemy encampments, protecting military bases, and even launching missile attacks against suspected terrorists.

Now UAVs may be landing in the United States.

A House of Representatives panel on Wednesday heard testimony from police agencies that envision using UAVs for everything from border security to domestic surveillance high above American cities. Private companies also hope to use UAVs for tasks such as aerial photography and pipeline monitoring.
Click for photos

“We need additional technology to supplement manned aircraft surveillance and current ground assets to ensure more effective monitoring of United States territory,” Michael Kostelnik, assistant commissioner at Homeland Security’s Customs and Border Protection Bureau, told the House Transportation subcommittee.

This is Hoover’s America, not mine.

He flipped the bird – while in church! – to his critics.

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia startled reporters in Boston just minutes after attending a mass, by flipping a middle finger to his critics.

A Boston Herald reporter asked the 70-year-old conservative Roman Catholic if he faces much questioning over impartiality when it comes to issues separating church and state.

“You know what I say to those people?” Scalia replied, making the obscene gesture and explaining “That’s Sicilian.”

The 20-year veteran of the high court was caught making the gesture by a photographer with The Pilot, the Archdiocese of Boston’s newspaper.

This comes on the heels of his speech regarding the rights of prisoners at Guantanimo (for which he must recuse himself from a couple upcoming cases. Think that’s likely?), of course.

Some say Scalia is losing it. I think Scalia’s feeling his oats. He’s created this world with the bullshit Bush v. Gore 2000 decision and now he’s letting his disdain for the people and love of authority show. Wow, what a great time to be an American.

Update: it wasn’t the bird as American’s know it, it was the chin flip while saying “va fangul”. Same diff.

Given the GOP’s nationalist, jingoist, reactionary, racist proposed bill this week that would make helping an 80 year old across the street illegal if she were an undocumented alien. This unamerican, unchristian, inhuman bill is one of the biggest disgraces of our recent congressional history.

Well, the immigrants and libs heard about it too.

Joining what some are calling the nation’s largest mobilization of immigrants ever, hundreds of thousands of people boisterously marched in downtown Los Angeles Saturday to protest federal legislation that would crack down on undocumented immigrants, penalize those who help them and build a security wall on the U.S. southern border. Spirited crowds representing labor, religious groups, civil-rights advocates and ordinary immigrants stretched over 26 blocks of downtown Los Angeles from Adams Blvd. along Spring Street and Broadway to City Hall, tooting kazoos, waving American flags and chanting “Si se puede!” (Yes we can!). The crowd, estimated by police at more than 500.000, represented one of the largest protest marches in Los Angeles history, surpassing Vietnam War demonstrations and the 70,000 who rallied downtown against Proposition 187, a 1994 state initiative that denied public benefits to undocumented migrants.

Given our gilded age, I’m sure this will have as much effect as the worldwide demonstrations against the Iraq invasion. Don’t these GOoPers know who provides all the essential services they rely upon? They cook their meals, they drive the ambulances. They connect our calls. They guard us while we sleep. Do not… fuck with them.

and the further destruction of privacy.

The NYPD is installing 505 surveillance cameras around the city – and pushing to safeguard lower Manhattan with a “ring of steel” that could track hundreds of thousands of people and cars a day, authorities revealed yesterday.

The police cameras will constantly keep watch over neighborhoods plagued by crime and monitor potential terror targets as the city moves to put another 1,200 cops on the street, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said.

I know practices such as these have been going on in Europe for years, but watching as our country becomes increasingly totalitarian and fascist is depressing. The State always couches new information/tracking mechanisms in the cloth of “safety,” and given the current bedwetting climate seeking a Big Brother to watch over them, I don’t think they’ll meet any resistance. Next will be the RFID trackers with the lights to correllate citizen movement with permitted and proscribed activities. Show us your papers!

Wolcott has more.

200 years as a nation, and it only took the Busheviks 5 years to destroy our Constitution. Aided and abetted by a complacent Congress and a sycophantic, approving media.

Bush has been illegally adding caveats to Congressional laws – and we know it’s illegal because the Supreme Court has already ruled on the line-item veto, and adding a rider that “the preznit will not pay attention to this” is no different. The Bush administration has decided that the Executive has all the powers of the Legislative and Judicial. If this isn’t precisely what Madison warned against in the Federalist paper 47, then I’m a monkey’s uncle.

The reality is that the Administration has been making clear for quite some time that they have unlimited power and that nothing — not even the law — can restrict it. But here, they are specifically telling Congress that even if Congress amends FISA and the President agrees to abide by those amendments, they still have the power to break the law whenever they want. As I have documented more times than I can count, we have a President who has seized unlimited power, including the power to break the law, and the Administration — somewhat commendably — is quite candid and straightforward about that fact.

Greenwald’s noting this again is nothing new, of course. In some ways we have the frog boiling problem (where the actions are too slow to realize the danger until it’s too late). In others we have people who are unable to comprehend just how audacious and authoritarian this government is; I think Krugman was the first to mainstream the radical nature of this government. Maybe it was Alterman. In any event, absent a real opposition party, the reemergence of an independent media, the spontaneous development of a spine, moral compass, and integrity in the GOP Congress, our country as we once knew (and mythologized) it is dead.

A new study just came out that revealed just how mightily open minded the ignorant mythology-obsessed monkeys of this country are.

American’s increasing acceptance of religious diversity doesn’t extend to those who don’t believe in a god, according to a national survey by researchers in the University of Minnesota’s department of sociology.

From a telephone sampling of more than 2,000 households, university researchers found that Americans rate atheists below Muslims, recent immigrants, gays and lesbians and other minority groups in “sharing their vision of American society.” Atheists are also the minority group most Americans are least willing to allow their children to marry.

I think at least part of the problem here is the lack of human understanding for nothingness. Sure, nothing is just the flip side of something, but absence? void? vacuum? Inconceivable! Much more is fueled by religion’s innate need to control and eliminate opposing viewpoints, human insecurity, and basic tribal behavior, but I still think that null fuels much of this enmity.

Famous American atheists? Mark Twain, Isaac Asimov, Ernest Hemmingway, Arthur C. Clarke… and so on.

This addiction to the opiate of the masses is disturbing to rationalists such as myself. Quick! Where’s our next fear hit! Commies, fags, and atheists, oh my!