Rand Paul Promises to Shut Down NSA Data Center if Elected President

Desperately trying to remain relevant as he sinks in the polls, the amazing shrinking candidate Rand Paul has vowed to close down that massive NSA data storage center in Utah if he becomes president. Paul has proven to be an enormous disappointment to many who saw in him someone who would take a stand to restore our lost civil liberties and reign in the American Stasi and the surveillance of millions of law-abiding Americans. At this point it is hard to believe anything that comes out of Senator Paul’s mouth because he has spent all of his once bountiful political capital by flip-flopping, compromising and engaging in acts of Clintonian triangulation to the point where it is hard to tell where he stands on anything anymore.

Paul’s comments were reported by the website The Inquisitr in the story “Rand Paul Promises to Shut Down NSA Data Center if He Becomes President”:

Republican Senator Rand Paul has been one of the few vocal critics of the U.S. government’s spying programs. He’s the only presidential candidate that has made NSA spying a central topic of their campaign.

NSA spying is so important to Rand that he’s promised to shut down the NSA data center if he becomes president. After he stops the indiscriminate collection of Americans’ data, he’ll convert the data center into a “Constitutional Center” where the Fourth Amendment will be studied.

“I’m on my way to the airport, but we decided to stop by the NSA facility in Utah. When I become President, we’ll convert it into a Constitutional Center to study the Fourth Amendment! Bulk data collection must end!”

Questions of whether the spying programs were unconstitutional have been swirling since 2013 when Edward Snowden made details about the programs public. Snowden is the NSA contractor who copied large amounts of classified documents onto a thumbdrive and leaked the information to journalists.

For those that are bothered by the NSA spying programs, Paul seems to be the only candidate that would work to stop it. For the Senator, it’s a major problem that affects virtually all Americans.

Last year, Paul filed a lawsuit against the Obama administration over the bulk collection of Americans’ phone records. Paul hoped that his class-action lawsuit would bring the issue of bulk collection of phone records to the Supreme Court.

Paul also staged a filibuster to delay the renewing of the Patriot Act, which authorizes bulk data collection. He was only partially successful in his efforts. While Congress decided to let the Patriot Act expire, they replaced it will a very similar bill. The new bill, the USA Freedom Act, put a few more restrictions on how the government conducts its spying.

The federal government's snooping on Americans is indeed a travesty and a clear violation of the Fourth Amendment but it isn’t going away – especially after a federal appeals court just put the kibosh on a lawsuit brought against it's illegal spying on a technicality. The game is rigged and when it comes to controlling the NSA the horse has long since run off and it’s too late to close the barn door now. 

Talk is cheap, especially to Rand Paul who continues to be a disappointment to those who supported his father who was a man of deeply held principles unlike his flaky son with the hairdo that resembles Woodstock's nest. You can file this latest one of his promises under the moon is made out of green cheese category.

Big Surprise: Jeb! Wants More Power for NSA Stasi

Now that Rand Paul is imploding there are no prospective Republican nominees who will take his place to defend the Constitution and reign in Emperor Obama’s out of control NSA Stasi. On the contrary, there will be many candidates who will now resort to using the fear of terror to double down on the surveillance state powers that rose from the ruins of the World Trade Center only to be exploited and turned into a highly lucrative boom industry.

While Marco Rubio has already called for making the USA PATRIOT Act permanent – before it was replaced by the tepid crock of piss Freedom Act – and Chris Christie worships the authoritarian powers of the state, it is none other than the chosen one “Jeb!” who has now called for a vast expansion of the NSA. The rogue intelligence agency has long been operating with impunity to spy on, monitor and engage in the data-mining of millions of law-abiding Americans and that is just fine with Mr. Bush who like Obama and his brother before him, wants that power at his own disposal if elected president.

According to the Associated Press via Yahoo News “Jeb Bush: NSA needs broader powers to combat 'evildoers'”:

Republican presidential hopeful Jeb Bush said Tuesday that the government should have broad surveillance powers of Americans and private technology firms should cooperate better with intelligence agencies to help combat "evildoers."

At a national security forum in the early voting state of South Carolina, Bush put himself at odds with Republican congressional leaders who earlier this year voted to end the National Security Agency's bulk collection of phone records.

The former Florida governor said Congress should revisit its changes to the Patriot Act, and he dismissed concerns from civil libertarians who say the program violated citizens' constitutionally protected privacy rights.

"There's a place to find common ground between personal civil liberties and NSA doing its job," Bush said. "I think the balance has actually gone the wrong way."

Nobody has to my knowledge ever said that the feds shouldn’t go after those who are truly trying to plot to attack or harm Americans but the illegal practice of stockpiling telephone metadata (an indexing system), all internet activity including emails, social media activity, reading lists, personal and financial data and everything else that the NSA can scoop up without bothering to get a warrant takes a dump on everything that we are supposed to stand for. This is the type of raw power that Hitler or Stalin had at their command only without state of the art technology and it is what is going to put the final stake into the heart of what was once a free country - and guys like Jeb Bush will be pounding it in.

The establishment is desperate right now to fight off a mass uprising that could shake them to their roots and break up their corrupt political rackets. It is evident in the reaction to the rise of Donald Trump and to a lesser degree, Bernie Sanders that millions of folks have had enough of the lies, graft and bullshit. It is imperative to prevent the people from ever wresting control of the political system back from those who have hijacked it and like any totalitarian would, the key for it is the ability to spy on and target political dissenters. That’s what all of this is about, not about fighting “terrorism”, that is just something to sell to the suckers and the easily scared, there will always be a bogeymen that can be whipped out by the politicians.

If the establishment is really so concerned about the “terrorists” then why in the hell has the southern border been left wide open since September 11, 2001? That is the dead giveaway that the phony war on terror has been a crock of horseshit since day one. 

Secret Court Reinstates Obama’s NSA Stasi Domestic Phone Spying Program

Just in time for Independence Day the Obama occupying government provided another example of just how “free” that we really are. In a ruling on Monday the ultra-secret surveillance court "temporarily" reinstated those “illegal” domestic phone data collection programs what were allegedly reformed by the USA Freedom Act last month. So much for that happy horseshit about surveillance reform bandied about by all of the political phonies and liberal elitists with their premature victory lap. It is easy to trump the courts and silly privacy advocates when the government has their own secret courts to fall back on.

Emperor Obama never wanted to do anything about his rogue NSA Stasi and now they are right back in business under the pretense of winding down the spying on everyone. This is of course another big lie straight out of Hitler 101 because in another few months the programs will simply be extended again after more anonymous government sources leak rumors about alleged terrorist plots to the corrupt and compliant media.

The website the Intercept is reporting that "Bulk Phone Surveillance Lives Again, To Die In a More Orderly Fashion in Five Months” from which I excerpt the following:

A federal judge with the top-secret surveillance court on Monday breezily reinstated the NSA bulk domestic surveillance program that was temporarily halted a month ago, allowing the agency to go back to hoovering up telephone metadata for five months while it unwinds the program for good.

“Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose,” Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court Judge Michael W. Mosman wrote in his ruling, using the French phrase that means “the more things change, the more they stay the same” to summarize the legislative and judicial back-and-forth that led to the temporary reinstatement.

In his decision, Mosman also flippantly dismissed a major appellate court ruling in May that the program was illegal. The Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Section 215 of the Patriot Act, which was the government’s legal cover for bulk collection, didn’t authorize any such thing. The decision hinged on the common-sense conclusion that when the Patriot Act gave the government power to obtain phone records “relevant to an authorized investigation,” that wasn’t power to collect all phone records everywhere.

“Second Circuit rulings are not binding on the FISC, and this Court respectfully disagrees with that Court’s analysis, especially in view of the intervening enactment of the USA FREEDOM Act,” Mosman wrote. “To a considerable extent, the Second Circuit’s analysis rests on mischaracterizations of how this program works and on understandings that, if they had once been correct, have been superseded by the USA FREEDOM Act.”

The truth is that the Orwellian surveillance/police state that was put into place after the September 11, 2001 attacks is NEVER going to end. There is too just much damned money in the business of fear and the political elite need these programs to target domestic dissenters who choose to work outside of the official scam that passes for a political system. The mass surveillance is also needed for the day that the Federal Reserve built economic house of cards finally collapses and troublemakers can be quickly identified and if need be rounded up before they can organize for change and demand that the criminals responsible be held accountable.

Who are they targeting now? Right Wing “hate groups” including those planning civil disobedience after the Supreme Court turned every opponent of gay marriage into a bigot and potential enemy of the state. The recent moves to eradicate the Confederate flag, a political agenda cynically exploited after nine worshippers were slaughtered by a lone gunman in a Charleston church two weeks ago has allowed the government to identify more potential enemies as well. These are the people who will bear the most watching by Obama’s Stasi. The New York Times ran two editorials in the space of a week lumping in domestic “extremists” with the likes of ISIS and al Qaeda so the propaganda is already being laid down.

If that takes a bit of luster off of those Fourth of July celebrations this weekend it should because we have now come full circle and are right back under the yoke of a tyrannical government just like the one that the Founding Fathers broke away from.

Marco Rubio Calls for Permanent USA PATRIOT Act

The ambitious and cunning Florida Senator Marco Rubio is going to hang his 2016 long shot presidential hopes on the National Security State. When you have nothing to sell in post 9/11 America you can always peddle fear and it always works. Rubio came out in favor of making the USA PATRIOT Act permanent in a FOX News oped piece last month but is being challenged by those who are concerned over our ongoing loss of civil liberties. One prominent critic of Rubio's terrorism gambit is the conservative organization Freedom Works that was a big backer of the Tea Party movement.

While Freedom Works did give Little Ricky credit for some of his more positive attributes they drew a line at the young stud's support for a permanent surveillance state. According to the organization's website:

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) is one of the best in the upper chamber when it comes to budget and spending issues, earning high marks in 2013 and 2014 on FreedomWorks' congressional scorecard. He's also expanding the reach of the Republican Party with his youthfulness and pop culture savvy.

The Florida Republican has, however, been among the most vocal defenders of the National Security Agency and the surveillance state. In an op-ed published on Wednesday at FoxNews.com, Rubio, invoking 9/11 and recent activities of the Islamic State, called on his colleagues on Capitol Hill to permanently extend Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act, one of the law's most controversial provisions.

"This year, a new Republican majority in both houses of Congress will have to extend current authorities under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, and I urge my colleagues to consider a permanent extension of the counterterrorism tools our intelligence community relies on to keep the American people safe."

Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act amended the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to make it easier for intelligence and federal law enforcement agencies to access third-party records related to investigations in suspected terrorist activity. This provision, though, has been used by the NSA as the legal justification to spy on Americans through the bulk collection of phone metadata. In the NSA's view, or so it seems, every American is a suspected terrorist.

Freedom Works has been vilified by Democrats as just another front for the evil Koch Brothers who have effectively become bogeymen as well as drivers of liberal fundraising campaigns. The Koch connection to Freedom Works has always been nebulous at best but any organization that is calling out supporters of the PATRIOT Act is working in the best interests of America. This abomination was rammed through Congress in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks and despite the original sunset provisions continues to be renewed. Rubio, like the others who have suckled high off the teat of the bloated Global War on Terror money machine never hesitate to launch into demagoguery of the worst type to serve their own self-interests rather than honor the U.S. Constitution.

Senator Rubio is a desperate man so expect to see more of this type of crap coming out of his campaign media operation going forward. He also has close ties to the McCain-Graham-Ayotte Axis of fascist big government and his Hispanic identity makes him a potential vice presidential pick. While there are really are truly very bad people out there who really do hate us all,  guys like Rubio are acting as their defacto agents when it comes to destroying this once great country from within. I can't believe that anyone would have a problem with the feds conducting their surveillance of the "bad guys" but there needs to be necessary protections for law-abiding Americans and they really do not exist at this point.

It is also good to see that at least a few principled members of Congress are calling out Rubio over his obviously politically motivated support of domestic repression. Michigan Congressman Justin Amash has also blasted Florida's junior Senator as reported by the libertarian website Reason online:

Rep. Justin Amash (R–Mich.) threw some shade at Sen. Marco Rubio (R–Fla.) today over the latter's support for permanently reauthorizing the PATRIOT Act.

The congressman was asked during a panel at the 2015 International Students for Liberty Conference, happening now in Washington, D.C., how he felt about the idea that Congress should "rubberstamp" reauthorization of the controversial law. Amash responded: "I think it's embarrassing to say things like that. It reflects a lack of awareness of what the American people think and what the Constitution says. And if [Rubio] thinks that that is the future of the Republican Party, he is very wrong."

Amash said the GOP's job is to stand for liberty, protect people's rights, and curb corporate welfare, adding, "I think we have a great group of people who are pushing the country in the right direction. And we've got some people like Sen. Rubio who want to take us backward, and move the party in the wrong direction, and make it into a very small party."

You have to hand it to guys like Justin Amash and organizations like Freedom Works, at least they are trying to do something about our increasingly dwindling freedoms unlike the Democrat and Republican establishments. To this day there has NEVER been a serious debate about how exactly to balance off the trading of liberty for security in the new American century and the technological age. As long as there are charlatans like Marco Rubio trafficking in the politics of fear there never will be one either.

Not that I am throwing in with the Koch Brothers who are doing their damned level best to buy the entire system but were the system not so completely corrupted already it would not be up for sale. 

Obama Signs "Advisory" Executive Order On Cybersecurity

The push for the total surveillance society continues with El Presidente just signing another one of his decrees Friday to push for corporations to “share” data with the federal government. Obama paid a visit to Silicon Valley for a public relations exercise called the “White House summit on Cybersecurity and Consumer Protection” at Stanford University to sell the latest attack on civil liberties. This has been coming ever since the alleged North Korean involvement in the Sony hack that to this day has never been backed up by evidence. The allegations accompanied the holiday media frenzy over the movie The Interview. The whole thing smacked of a false flag operation from the beginning with the end result being the imposition of the latest version of CISPA (The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act) on the American public.

As reported by The Washington Post in a story entitled “Obama signs executive order on sharing cybersecurity threat information”:

President Obama signed an executive order Friday that urges companies to share cybersecurity-threat information with one another and the federal government.

Obama signed the order, which is advisory in nature, at the first White House summit on Cybersecurity and Consumer Protection at Stanford University here. The summit, which focused on public-private partnerships and consumer protection, is part of a recent White House push to focus on cybersecurity.

Obama said the prospect of cyberattacks are one of the nation's most pressing national security, economic and safety issues. The specter of a cyberattack crippling the nation's air traffic control system or a city with a blackout is real, and hacks such as the one on Sony Pictures last year are "hurting America's companies and costing American jobs." He also said they are a threat to the security and well-being of children who are online.

There is a word for the merger of state and corporate power and that word is fascism.  The push to get corporations to effectively meld with a government gone rogue and drunk on accumulating ever more power in the post 9/11 era is exactly that. Despite all of the controversy over the leaks by former government contractor turned NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden there still have been no serious efforts made to slap any oversight on the unconstitutional surveillance programs.

If anything, even more sneaky ways to circumvent accountability have been implemented and Obama’s big cybersecurity drive is one of them. It is not that there isn’t a legitimate need to have intelligence agencies going after real terrorists and they should have the tools to do so. However, the Bush and Obama regimes have gone completely over the line by snooping on millions of law abiding Americans without so much as a warrant and continuing to lie about it all.

While Obama’s executive order is of an “advisory” nature and the real damage needs to be done by the criminals in congress it is a foregone conclusion that a bill will inevitably find its way to Barry’s desk.

Email Giants Unite to Thwart Government Snooping

By now it is painfully apparent that there will be no legitimate government oversight of the NSA Stasi. There are now over a years worth of stories based on the documents procured by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden that show the culture of contempt towards the privacy of law-abiding Americans that exists at the agency. Rather than engage in working  to implement serious reforms that limit NSA programs to their stated purpose of tracking of suspected terrorists, there are only attempts to further erect a firewall around the NSA.  Choosing to engage in demagoguery and obfuscation rather than to correct the problems order to protect privacy rights, the Obama administration has only doubled down. The NSA continues to be allowed to spy on everyone with complete impunity and nothing is going to be done about it by congress outside of cosmetic changes. The corrupt media has already moved on to bigger and better things like the latest Kardashian sighting and the Oscar Pistorius endgame along with shilling for wars while the surveillance machine continues to metastasize like a cancer through what is supposed to be a free society.

Despite the Obama regime's complete disregard towards the long-term interests of U.S. tech businesses - they will be the most affected by NSA spying in terms of lost future revenue - they represent our best hope at fighting back. It is greatly encouraging to see the news that internet giants Google and Yahoo have just announced that they are joining forces to create a secure email system. According to a story in The Wall Street Journal entitled “Yahoo and Google Plot Spy-Free Emails”:

Yahoo Inc. said Thursday it will join an effort by rival Google Inc. to create a secure email system by next year that could make it nearly impossible for hackers or government officials to read users' messages. Even the email providers themselves won't be able to decrypt messages.

If the companies are successful, it would mark a first step in bringing advanced privacy technology to a widely used consumer service. It is also a stark example of how tech giants are rethinking their business plans after Edward Snowden began leaking secrets from the National Security Agency last year. Until February, Yahoo didn't have a C-suite level executive dedicated to information security.

Yahoo's move comes as large technology companies put increased emphasis on warding off government spies and hackers. Google on Thursday announced encrypted websites now will fare better in its search results. Microsoft Corp. recently unsuccessfully fought a U.S. government request for data stored in Ireland.

The WSJ story, by Danny Yadron goes on to quote cyber-security expert Bruce Schneier as saying that such pushback against the government spying will represent a huge blow to Big Brother.  Schneier states that “"What's going to happen when the FBI goes to Google or Yahoo and says, 'I want the email from this guy,' and Google or Yahoo says, 'We can't give it to you?'" I am sure that this is really going to go over well with the NSA Stasi and it’s government enablers.

This is great news for all Americans who have no real elected representation and therefore no voice which becomes as becomes more obvious by the day. The Fourth Amendment is pretty clear when it comes to the power of the government to conduct warrantless surveillance:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects,[a] 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.

That the Founding Fathers could not possibly have envisioned the technologically advanced United States of the 21^ST century is not the point. We still at least in theory have the right to be free of such bulk searches under what amounts to a general warrant – that is unless we are all suspected “terrorists” now.