German President says whistleblowers like Snowden merit respect

"We Germans have had to experience the
abuse of state power with secret services
twice in our history."

President Joachim Gauck

Germany's President, who helped expose the workings of East Germany's dreaded Stasi secret police, said whistleblowers like U.S. fugitive Edward Snowden deserved respect for defending freedom.

Weighing in on a debate that could influence September's federal election, President Joachim Gauck struck a very different tone from that of Chancellor Angela Merkel, who has assured Washington that Berlin would not shelter Snowden.

Gauck, who has little power but great moral authority, said people who work for the state were entitled to act according to their conscience, as institutions sometimes depart from the law reports Reuters News.

"This will normally only be put right if information is made public. Whoever draws the public's attention to it and acts out of conscience deserves respect," he told Friday's Passauer Neue Presse newspaper.

After the fall of communism, Gauck, a dissident Lutheran pastor, headed a commission in charge of the Stasi's vast archive of files on people it had spied on, using them to root out former Stasi members and collaborators.

"The fear that our telephones or mails are recorded and stored by foreign intelligence services is a constraint on the feeling of freedom and then the danger grows that freedom itself is damaged," he said.

"We are a democratic state with the rule of law with basic rights. Freedom is one of these basic rights."

Referring to communism and Nazism, Gauck said Germany had painful experiences of living in a security state where no one was safe to speak out:

"We Germans have had to experience the abuse of state power with secret services twice in our history. And therefore we are sensitive (to this) and our American friends must accept that."

The NSA's New Spy Facilities are
7 Times Bigger Than the Pentagon.
.
Move along.  Nothing to see here.
.
The $1.2 billion surveillance data center in Utah that is 15 times the size of MetLife Stadium, home to the New York Giants and Jets.  In May, crews broke ground on a $792 million computing center at the agency’s headquarters near Baltimore that will complement the Utah site. Together the Utah center and Maryland’s 28-acre computer farm span 228 acres—more than seven times the size of the Pentagon.
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Four years ago, the stated purpose of the megaplex near Salt Lake City was to amass foreign intelligence and warnings about hackers. Officials described it as an extension of President George W. Bush’s 2008 Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative, a largely classified, cross-agency program to protect U.S. computer networks against adversaries.
.
Today, it is evident the data plantation will not be linked to any one program. Instead, the systems inside will warehouse counterterrorism information collected in aggregate, including millions of Americans’ phone logs for five years and certain foreigners’ online messages, NSA officials confirm.
.
See more at:  Defense One.com

 

The Utah Data Mining Center.

Associated Press Seeks Full List Of Concealed Weapons Permit Holders

Associated Press Refuses to Comment on Demand for Concealed Weapon Permit Lists

You can almost guarantee if the AP is looking for a list of all concealed carry permits

in Montana they are seeking the same info from other states.

The Associated Press is refusing to comment on why it requested that the Montana Department of Justice (MDOJ) give it a list of the names and personal information of every concealed weapons permit (CWP) holder in the state.

“We do not comment on ongoing reporting efforts.” Those were the words of Jim Clarke, the regional bureau chief for the Associated Press in Denver, when asked about the attempt by the AP in Montana to gain access to the full list of concealed weapons permit holders in Montana.

Other questions, including a simple confirmation that the AP in Montana did indeed make the request, were met with the same “we do not comment on ongoing reporting efforts” response from a clearly agitated Clarke.

Earlier this week, I first broke the news that the Associated Press in Montana had asked Attorney General Tim Fox for a complete list of concealed weapons permit holders in the state.

Montana Media Trackers also dug into the story, uncovering emails showing that the request came from Montana AP reporter Matt Gouras. Media Tracker’s' Ron Catlett reached out to the AP for comment and was met with the same no comment response that I got.

Here’s more from Catlett’s report:    

According to e-mails from MDOJ obtained by Media Trackers Montana, Montana AP reporter Matt Gouras formally requested the information on March 18.

“We’d like all public information included on each permit holder, including, but not limited to: last name, first name, middle, street address, city, employer, age or DOB, driver’s license number, date of application,” Gouras wrote in his request.

Media Trackers Montana reached out to Gouras, who said he “could not speak for the AP.” Gouras directed any inquiries to the head of the Montana Associated Press, Matt Volz, who, in-turn, directed Media Trackers to regional bureau chief Jim Clarke.

Keep reading…

Chris Christie: 'Rand Paul is dangerous’

Chris Christie

'Believing in the Bill of Rights is dangerous.'

The 2016 election is here.  Chris Christie has hoisted the flag of Big Government-Big Brother Police State Republicanism for all to see in an aggressive assault against Rand Paul, the 4th Amendment and the Bill of Rights.

Remember Christie thinks,  'A Police State is a safe and happy State.'

Leftist GOP New Jersey Governor Chris Christie is ripping libertarians — including Sen. Rand Paul (Constitutional Federalist - Ky.) — for challenging government surveillance programs and failing to understand the dangers of terrorism.

“This strain of libertarianism that’s going through parties right now and making big headlines I think is a very dangerous thought,” the New Jersey GOP governor said on Thursday at a Republican governors forum in Aspen, Colo. “You can name any number of people and (Paul is) one of them.”

Wow.  Believing in the Bill of Rights is "dangerous thought."  What an asshole.

“These esoteric, intellectual debates — I want them to come to New Jersey and sit across from the widows and the orphans (of 9-11) and have that conversation. And they won’t, because that’s a much tougher conversation to have,” Christie said.

What a fat fucking pig to toss out the "widows and orphans" card. 

Two can play that game Governor.  What about the widows and orphans of our soldiers who have needlessly died in useless wars in Afghanistan and Iraq?  Speak to that tubby.
.
Paul’s office shot back on Friday, saying Christie may need a “new dictionary.”

“If Gov. Christie believes the constitutional rights and the privacy of all Americans is ‘esoteric’, he either needs a new dictionary, or he needs to talk to more Americans, because a great number of them are concerned about the dramatic overreach of our government in recent years,” Doug Stafford, a senior adviser to Paul, said in a statement to Politico.

“Defending America and fighting terrorism is the concern of all Americans, especially Sen. Paul. But it can and must be done in keeping with our Constitution and while protecting the freedoms that make America exceptional.”


Video - Surviving The Surveillance State

The Evil Honey Bee.
FBI statistics show the honey bee kills more Americans than terrorists. But Big Brother government allows the evil honey bee to keep on killing while they tell us we must give up our Constitutional rights in order to "fight" domestic terrorism.
.
Since 9/11 over 500 Americans have died because of allergic reactions to stings by bees, wasps and hornets.  But only a tiny handful of Americans have been killed by domestic terrorism.
.
  Fear and panic. The best friends of political hacks and media alike.
...
According to the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the average American is as likely to be crushed to death by televisions or furniture as they are to be killed by a terrorist. In fact, between 2000 and 2010, 293 Americans died because a television, furniture piece or appliance fell on them, 55 more than died of terrorism between 2001 and 2011.
.
See our article:  Honey Bees kill more Americans than terrorism.

 

.
Big Government "Conservative" Republicans like Chris Christie live for pissing on the Bill of Rights and growing an unconstitutional 1984 Surveillance Police State.

 

A Massive Theft of Cambodian land by Europe

Cornering the European sugar market by "accidentally" buying 99% of Cambodia's
crop produced from lands where farmers are tossed into the streets to starve with
the help of a corrupt Cambodian government.

 

The Road to Serfdom

Nearly three-quarters of Cambodia's farmland has been taken
from farmers and "given" to foreign companies.

Vanishing Property Rights  -  The right to legally hold and own private property is under attack by corrupt governments and businesses from the U.S. to the EU to Cambodia.  Laws are "legally" written forcing owners off their lands and often turning over the property to rival businesses that are totally in bed with corrupt government officials.

The latest case involves the confiscation of private property  from Cambodian farmers and the re-distribution of that wealth to Europeans.

Backed by British law firm Jones Day, villagers have filed a lawsuit against the Tate & Lyle sugar conglomerate, claiming that KSL were complicit in government moves to evict them to make way for the plantations. They also say they were insufficiently compensated for the land they lost, and faced "multiple instances of battery and criminal violence" during which villagers were shot at and wounded, with one activist murdered.

The UK Guardian reports of one farmer standing by her rickety wooden fence that separates her clapboard home from the giant Plantation in front of her, Yoen Sarin, 29, waves her hand in an arc. "My land extended from there to just over there." She narrows her eyes. "The company tried to bulldoze their way closer but I built this fence, and even though they've already knocked it down twice, I'm not moving. I keep rebuilding it."

European "Food Colonies" in Asia.
Working through 3rd parties and "private" companies, the
European Union is stealing Asian farmlands and
turning them into food colonies for the EU.

Yoen Sarin is just one of thousands of Cambodian farmers who claim they are losing their land and livelihoods to big sugar plantations, some of which are directly supplying the EU through companies such as Tate & Lyle Sugars.

Nearly 100,000 hectares (250,000 acres) have been cleared in three provinces to make way for sugar plantations since 2006, activists allege – and most of that land, they argue, has been stolen from subsistence farmers.

Sugar is big business in Cambodia, thanks to a preferential European Union trade scheme called Everything But Arms (EBA), which allows Cambodian sugar to be sold duty-free on the European market at a minimum price per tonne. Official figures show that 97% of Cambodia's €10m (£8.5m) sugar exports went to the EU last year, and Tate & Lyle bought 99% of them reports the UK Guardian.

Although the initiative is intended to bolster the world's least-developed countries, the villagers say they have not profited from the deal at all.

"When the company came in May 2006, they bulldozed without consultation or any environmental impact assessment," said Teng Kao, 52, a village representative from Koh Kong province who lost nearly 10 hectares to the plantations. "They bulldozed the fields and streams. They shot our animals. After about 100 families' land was taken away, we started taking pictures."

__________________________________

Working as Serfs
Cambodian farmers have had their land effectively confiscated by the
all-powerful State and given away to multi-national foreign corporations. 
The now landless farmers work as poverty level wage-slaves, as Serfs,
on the land owned by their foreign Lords and Masters in Europe. 

Cambodia opposition taps Into 'land grab' anger
Opposition leader Sam Rainsy is shown speaking to supporters.  "Land grabs are wrong. They are cruel and they must end," Rainsy told supporters this week on campaign stops across the country. "We will rescue Cambodia's forests and natural resources."

Already, the government has transferred control of 2.6 million hectares of land to private business from mostly subsistence farmers, according to rights groups, affecting 700,000 people and 73% of the country's arable land in the past decade. The problem is partly a legacy of Cambodia's genocidal Khmer Rouge regime,which outlawed private-property ownership during its radical Marxist rule from 1975 to 1979, leaving many people without land titles. 
.
  "Land grabs pose the single biggest challenge to social stability in Cambodia," said Megan MacInnes, senior land campaigner at Global Witness, a London-based human-rights group. "More and more ordinary Cambodians are being pushed into poverty from losing their land and forests, yet the government continues to lease out land to any investor who'll take it."
(farmlandgrab.org)

__________________________________

The "company" Teng Kao refers to is one of two Cambodian entities owned by the Thai group KSL. For the past two years, these companies have sold all of their sugar cane to Tate & Lyle. Now, Teng Kao and some 200 other villagers are taking their fight to the high court in London.

Private deeds were abolished under the Communist Khmer Rouge, leaving subsistence farmers vulnerable to recent surges in land-grabs and mining and property developments. Campaigners estimate that nearly three-quarters of the country's arable farmland has been granted to private companies as economic land concessions, resulting in the displacement of more than 400,000 people since 2003.

Under Cambodian law, land possession can be established using various legal documents, not just land deeds. As many of the villagers in Koh Kong claim to have such papers, they say their land was stolen from beneath their feet. "I've been living here since I was born – this is my ancestral land," said Teng Kao

Since they lost their farmland to the plantations, many villagers say they have been forced to seek work from the very company they are now suing. "I had to pull my kids out of school and send them to work on the plantation after they took our land away because we couldn't afford to eat," said Chea Sok, 38, a claimant in the lawsuit.

"We work together in the plantation now cutting 1,000 stems of sugar cane a day [for 79p]. It's exhausting and hot and the bundles are so heavy for [my children], they get fever working in the field. They've hardly grown at all – sometimes we don't even have enough rice to eat."

While visiting one of the KSL plantations in January the Guardian saw at least a dozen underage children cutting sugar cane, including some as young as nine years old.

The Guardian also filmed children receiving payment for their work on the plantation, and interviewed parents who confirmed that their children worked in the fields and received payment for their labour.

While it is difficult to establish just how many children may be working in the fields at any given time, campaigners say that hundreds may cut sugar cane on the KSL plantations during harvest, based on their interviews with families affected by the concessions.

Tate & Lyle Sugars "claims" it does not condone or authorize child labor and that all land was "legally" obtained.

________________________________

A Serf bows to his Lord.
Free men own private property. Serfs own nothing and serve as tax slaves,
working the land and forced to turn over the wealth they produced to
their Lords and Masters in Government in return for "protection".

The Road to Serfdom Series
.
The world is moving toward a modern form of Neo-Serfdom where everyone works for the all-powerful State or businesses controlled by the State.  A world where individual property rights and freedom do not exist.

Freedom is slowly vanishing.  What happens when the major employers are owned by government backed investment groups, or your food comes from government owned farms, or your news is delivered by so-called "private" corporations that are in reality connected and interconnected to governments?

George Orwell had a name for it:  Big Brother.  Benito Mussolini had a name too: Corporatism or Fascism.

Please check out other stories in our Serfdom series.


THE FEDERALIST - "Private property confiscated in Ethiopia & sold to multi-national corporations."

THE FEDERALIST - "Tax Slavery American Style - Feds Profit off Student Debt."

THE FEDERALIST - "Slavery returns to Europe"
.
THE FEDERALIST - "China to buy up the Australian dairy industry."

THE FEDERALIST - "China Buys Up the United States."

THE FEDERALIST - "750,000 Chinese have Colonized Africa"

THE FEDERALIST - "Korea secretly buys Australia."

THE FEDERALIST - "Australia and Africa become Arab Food Colonies."

THE FEDERALIST - "China buys Australia (For Cheap Too)"

THE FEDERALIST - "The Chinese conquest of Africa"

THE FEDERALIST - "China buys New Zealand - The Road to Serfdom, Part XVII"

THE FEDERALIST - "Arab Food Colonies in Black Africa."

THE FEDERALIST - "Chinese colonization of New Zealand blocked."

THE FEDERALIST - "Chinese "Slavery" in Africa - The Road to Serfdom, Part XIV."

THE FEDERALIST - "Argentina fights Saudi Land Grab."

THE FEDERALIST - "LAND GRAB: 160,000 people thrown off their land."

THE FEDERALIST - "China is buying up Argentina."

Big Brother Wants Your Internet Passwords

“War is peace.
Freedom is slavery.
Ignorance is strength.”
― George Orwell, 1984

Big Brother is Watching You

A 1984 Orwellian State that is fully funded by

a Democrat Senate and a GOP House.

A search warrant?  How quaint.  So 18th century.  But the Constitution never stopped either party before in building a centralized Surveillance State.

What does a voter do when both parties are out to fuck you over?

Now it comes out that the U.S. government has demanded that major Internet companies divulge users' stored passwords, according to two industry sources familiar with these orders, which represent an escalation in surveillance techniques that has not previously been disclosed.

If the government is able to determine a person's password, which is typically stored in encrypted form, the credential could be used to log in to an account to peruse confidential correspondence or even impersonate the user. Obtaining it also would aid in deciphering encrypted devices in situations where passwords are reused.

"I've certainly seen them ask for passwords," said one Internet industry source who spoke on condition of anonymity. "We push back," reports Cnet News.

A second person who has worked at a large Silicon Valley company confirmed that it received legal requests from the federal government for stored passwords. Companies "really heavily scrutinize" these requests, the person said. "There's a lot of 'over my dead body.'"

Some of the government orders demand not only a user's password but also the encryption algorithm and the so-called salt, according to a person familiar with the requests. A salt is a random string of letters or numbers used to make it more difficult to reverse the encryption process and determine the original password. Other orders demand the secret question codes often associated with user accounts.

• A Microsoft spokesperson would not say whether the company has received such requests from the government. 
• Google also declined to disclose whether it had received requests for those types of data. 
• A Yahoo spokeswoman would not say whether the company had received such requests.

The FBI declined to comment.


Judge Napolitano On NSA Spying:
Most Extraordinarily Broad Search Warrant Ever Issued In US History.

House Votes For NSA Tyranny

SHOCK - Military spy blimps over Washington D.C.

Military prototype of new spy blimp over Washington. 

 

Military Spy Blimps Over D.C.

Military surveillance powers that spans hundreds of millions of acres from North Carolina to Niagara Falls, Canada.

What the Fuck???  -  The military is ready to station 1984 Big Brother spy blimps over Washington D.C. to "protect" us and watch our every move.  Fuck that. 

Keep in mind that every dime spent on this Orwellian nightmare project was passed by a Democrat Senate and a GOP House.  This is a Bipartisan Butt Fucking.

A pair of high-tech Army blimps is coming to the greater Washington, DC area, and soon they will be able to provide the military with surveillance powers that spans hundreds of millions of acres from North Carolina to Niagara Falls, Canada.

The airships are part of Raytheon’s Joint Land Attack Cruise Missile Defense Elevated Netted Sensor System, or JLENS, and when all is said and done they’ll offer the United States military what the defense contractor calls “an affordable elevated, persistent over-the-horizon sensor system” that relies on “a powerful integrated radar system to detect, track and target a variety of threats.”

Raytheon has just wrapped up a six-week testing period in the state of Utah and is now sending its JLENS fleet to the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland. Once there, the Army intends to get some hands-on experience that will eventually culminate in launching the pair of airships over Washington, DC reports RT News.

Big Brother Is Watching.
Raytheon’s Joint Land Attack Cruise Missile Defense Elevated
Netted Sensor System, or JLENS.  Raytheon said the JLENS surveillance
radar can “simultaneously track hundreds of threats.”  One has to
wonder about these "hundreds" of threats Big Brother government
is worried about for a blimp placed over Washington D.C.

A Prototype Blimp Rejected by the Military. 

“JLENS uses advanced sensor and networking technologies to provide 360-degree, wide-area surveillance and precision target tracking,” the Defense Department found in an unclassified audit of the system conducted in late 2011.

But while that tracking is designed to go after enemy drones and spot other suspicious activity, it is also touted as being able to provide a good enough image of moving land targets — or essentially anything. In a press release from February, Raytheon said the JLENS surveillance radar can “simultaneously track hundreds of threats.” 

Of course, the surveillance ship is only half of the JLENS program. That aircraft, one of the two tethered blimp-like vessles, is equipped with the appropriate lenses to wage sophisticated surveillance missions. Also included in the package is a separate ship equal in size that contains fire control radar that picks up data about incoming threats and then communicates with separate missile systems that can then wage attacks, or counter-attacks.

"We're proving blimps can see more than just the 50-yard line," JLENS program director Doug Burgess told Popular Science this week. "We really feel like we're at the point now — development is complete — and the system is ready to be deployed wherever it's needed."

"When the government is conducting real-time aerial surveillance within the United States," Marc Rotenberg of the Electronic Privacy Information Center told The Huffington Post, "there are privacy issues that need to be addressed."

Volunteers line up to help man the
new military spy blimps.

Lindsey Graham Wants War With Iran by September

The Mad Man of Washington

War in Iraq. War in Afghanistan.  War in Pakistan.  War in Libya.  War in Yemen.  War in Syria.  And now war in Iran.

GOP Senator Lindsey Graham has vowed to introduce legislation in September or October to authorize a military attack on Iran.

 

“If nothing changes in Iran, come September, October, I will present a resolution that will authorize the use of military force to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear bomb,” Graham told a “cheering” audience at a meeting of the Christians United for Israel organization.

 

“The only way to convince Iran to halt their nuclear program is to make it clear that we will take it out,” he added.

 

Graham made the threat despite the fact that Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will be replaced by Hasan Rouhani on August 4th, who is seen by many as a more moderate leader.

War, War and More War.

“The U.S. is no position to further extend its presence overseas, especially since Congress approved Obama’s initiative to support Syrian rebels by sending arms, ammunition, and perhaps anti-tank weaponry,” reports PolicyMic.

 

“The U.S. is already indirectly dedicating resources to opposing Iran since they are supporting al-Assad’s forces, along with aid from Hezbollah.

Potentially, if Graham’s initiative passes through Congress, both nations could end up preemptively clashing on Syria’s battleground. This would be a terrible outcome for the U.S., considering the significant amount of manpower and resources already allocated abroad and pressing economic issues at home.”

the U.S. is no position to further extend its presence overseas, especially since Congress approved Obama's initiative to support Syrian rebels by sending arms, ammunition, and perhaps anti-tank weaponry. The U.S. is already indirectly dedicating resources to opposing Iran since they are supporting al-Assad's forces, along with aid from Hezbollah.

Potentially, if Graham's initiative passes through Congress, both nations could end up preemptively clashing on Syria's battleground. This would be a terrible outcome for the U.S., considering the significant amount of manpower and resources already allocated abroad and pressing economic issues at home.

"We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations.
.
This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society. .
.
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. .
.
We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together."
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General Dwight Eisenhower