Support, or at least ignore, tyranny or the corporate media might call you a racist, anti-Semite, a terrorist, or all three epithets. Today, vocal, non-violent, civil disagreement or disobedience can be deemed as terrorist activity.

If the federal government labels you as a racist or anti-Semite, they can, with their new “hate” laws, arrest you. If, however, they label you as an “unlawful enemy combatant,” for your out-spoken, anti-tyranny views, “our” government can “legally” have you picked-up, whisked to anyone of over 170 military bases around the world, held indefinitely, and tortured, all with-out charges, or the benefit of any legal defensive, and without any family or friends ever knowing what happen to you. No peaceful revolution is to be allowed in the land of the once brave and free.

As George Orwell wrote, “In a time of deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”

James Bovard, author of Lost Rights wrote, “Americans have been taught to expect their salvation from government, instead of recognizing government as the most dangerous threat they’ll face in their lives.”

No redress of grievances are are to be allowed in our brave new world: Just take the destruction of our way of life and keep your mouth shut … or else.

What’s the cui bono (who benefits) from this demonization and arrest of those who engage in the honest civic activity of dissent? Tyrants, and those who are paid to support tyrants, is the simple answer to who benefits.

Leading this assault on valid dissent, by concerned Americans, is one of the foremost hate groups in the world: the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). It’s the SPLC that accuses Americans who disagree with the extreme turn toward tyranny our government has taken since the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, as being so filled with hate that they’ve become terrorists. But like all criminals, the SPLC accuses others of what they themselves are guilty: Hate. Hate of the freedoms, for which America was once known.

The Southern Poverty Law Center, truly impoverished with a lack of anything that resembles decency, is far from being poor; it’s a 501(c)3 tax free group of extreme radicals, who are heavily funded from some very mysterious sources.

The International Monetary/Banking Cartel has tasked the SPLC with one overriding goal: “By way of deception, arrest human evolution.” If you love your family, your church, and your nation, please learn how the alien Southern Poverty Law Center is trying to destroy our family values, the connections we have with our creator, and our American way of life.

The SPLC is one of the “think-tanks,” that works with intelligence agencies, to give “talking points” and even scripts to the editorial staffs and talking heads of television, like O’Reilly, Beck, Olbermann, Matthews, Hannity, Cramer, Lauer, and that little Mossad agent, what’s his name.

The SPLC is the hate group that issued a report to the Department of Homeland Security, that was subsequently issued to all of our law enforcement groups in the nation, that stated that supporters of Ron Paul’s presidential candidacy were part of what the SPLC was calling the “Modern Militia Movement,” who were commando renegades anxious to kill cops. The report went on to warn cops to be on the look-out for vehicle bumper stickers supporting Dr. Ron Paul, the Libertarian, Constitutional, and Campaign for Liberty political parties.

Glenn Beck signed a $40 million contract with the Monetary Cartel’s CBS to convincingly read from teleprompters, lies set into motion by the SPLC, linking in the public mind Al Qaeda with American patriots. Something Beck calls an “unholy alliance,” when the real alliance is between Al Qaeda and the US/UK/Israeli intelligence nexus, which will be creating false flag events to blame on American patriots.

FBI Director Robert Mueller has even out done Beck, by saying domestic terrorists (American patriots) are a greater threat to America than Al Qaeda, when Mr. Mueller knows very well Al Qaeda was initiated and is funded with black budgets from the US intelligence community, from the illegal drugs they bring in and sell through authorized outlets, like the Mafia.

The Department of Homeland Security has even issued an unclassified, but official white paper entitled, “Right-wing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment. This document clearly demonstrates how our own government is working to label patriotic Americans as part of a “phenomenon of violent radicalization.” And once intelligence agents launch government sponsored terrorists events, which will be blamed on loyal, but vocal and concerned Americans, our best citizens will begin to disappear.

And soon, there’ll be no one voicing their displeasure of government by calling radio talk shows or at public rallies. No one to tell us of the dangers with chemtrails, mandatory vaccines, open borders, a purposely crashed economy, banker bail-outs, the Fed, confiscatory taxes, soaring public debt, the health care bill, global governance, unjustified wars or unspeakable tortures. And America will become the next Soviet Union or Nazi Germany … unless many more Americans wake-up to what is happening in our own country, where once laws had the consent of the governed.

Additionally, the white supremacist and militia movements are all run and funded by black operatives from the US/UK/Israeli joint intelligence network, in order to provoke, with money and heated rhetoric, mentally deficit ne’er-do-wells into high profile criminal acts. Such a case occurred on an airliner over Detroit on Christmas Day of 2009, to justify forcing Americans to go through dangerous full-body scanners, that alter and destroy human DNA, which the US government had ordered about six months prior to their sponsored terrorist event.

FBI agent provocateur Hal Turner pretended to be a white supremacist, who called for violence on his Hal Turner radio show. The scam is simple: Place enough under-cover agents shouting hate, anti-Semitism, insurrection, and seditious libel over the air waves to justify eliminating our freedom of speech, and other rights guaranteed to us by our Constitution and Bill of Rights.

It’s an artless, but effective machination in a country that is so burden with governmentally created problems that most people form their opinions from mainstream media sound-bytes, a national consequence from so much malicious “noise” in our lives from the corporate media.

The idea is to associate – in the public’s mind – those who expose governmental corruption and crimes as being seditionists, racists, anti-Semitics, insurrectionists, or terrorists. This process is already working well with under-cover operatives in the Tea Party movement, whhold up race inflammatory signs, at the grass roots level, while republican operatives try to co-opt the movement from above, with such shallow front pieces as Ms. Sarah Palin.

A major problem in routing out the den of thieves and murders in our government have been their compliant courts and judges, who issue injunctions against any detailed exposure of governmental criminals and their crimes.

But in spite of all the money, power, and influence held by the dark forces over our entire government and courts of law, there is help coming to freedom loving people from wise and unknown sources.

Currently in Great Britain, there are 300 injunctions (gag orders) that have been issued by courts preventing exposures of governmental and corporate crimes, and probably many more such injunctions in US courts. But WikiLeaks (no relation to the CIA controlled Wikipedia), has come to our rescue. WikiLeaks is an anonymous, whistle-blowing internet site, that has thus far protected all of its whistleblowers, in exposing governmental and corporate crimes. Certainly the fear mongering haters of the SPLC must think that WikiLeaks and their whistleblowers to be the vilest terrorists in existence.

WikiLeaks is on their way to making court injunctions useless, as they have denied all attempts by the CIA/MI-5/MI-6/Mossad intelligence agencies to find out just who these WikiLeaks’ whistleblowers have been. In a mere three years WikiLeaks has published more scoops than the Washington Post has published in thirty years.

WikiLeaks’ latest release is a highly “classified US military video depicting the indiscriminate slaying of over a dozen people in the Iraqi suburb of New Baghdad – including two Reuters news staff. The video shot from an apache helicopter gun-site, clearly shows the unprovoked slaying of a wounded Reuters employee and his rescuers. Two young children involved in the rescue were also seriously wounded. For further information, please visit the special project website www.CollateralMurder.com.”

In the hate filled minds of those at the Southern Poverty Law Center, the terrorists who murdered 12 innocent people are not terrorists; surely, according to SPLC logic, the terrorists are the whistleblowers.

In praise of WikiLeaks, Britain’s The Guardian newspaper wrote “… serves as an uncensorable and untraceable depository for the truth, able to publish documents that the courts may prevent newspapers and broadcaster from being able to touch.”

Is God on our side? If so, remember that God helps those who help themselves (and others). We can only be free if we are vigilant and desire it more than life.

Source: War On You

Other stories at We Are Change Colorado Springs

One Day Soon, We’ll All Be ‘Homegrown Terrorists’

MSNBC Continues Propaganda Campaign Against Patriot Groups

Top Obama czar: Infiltrate all ‘conspiracy theorists’

Throughout the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s, independent grassroots movements to keep the Central Intelligence Agency off American university campuses were broadly supported by students, professors and community members. The ethos of this movement was captured in Ami Chen Mills’ 1990 book,C.I.A. Off Campus. Mills’ book gave voice to the multiple reasons why so many academics opposed the presence of the CIA on university campuses: reasons that ranged from the recognition of secrecy’s antithetical relationship to academic freedom, to political objections to the CIA’s use of torture and assassination, to efforts on campuses to recruit professors and students, and the CIA’s longstanding role in undermining democratic movements around the world.

For those who lived through the dramatic revelations of the congressional inquiries in the 1970s, documenting the CIA’s routine involvement in global and domestic atrocities, it made sense to construct institutional firewalls between an agency so deeply linked with these actions and educational institutions dedicated to at least the promise of free inquiry and truth. But the last dozen years have seen retirements and deaths among academics who had lived through this history and had been vigilant about keeping the CIA off campus; furthermore, with the attacks of 9/11 came new campaigns to bring the CIA back onto American campuses.

Henry Giroux’s 2007 book, The University in Chains: Confronting the Military-Industrial Academic Complex, details how two decades of shifts in university funding brought increased intrusions by corporate and military forces onto university. After 9/11, the intelligence agencies pushed campuses to see the CIA and campus secrecy in a new light, and, as traditional funding sources for social science research declined, the intelligence community gained footholds on campuses.

Post-9/11 scholarship programs like the Pat Roberts Intelligence Scholars Program (PRISP) and the Intelligence Community Scholarship Programs today sneak unidentified students with undisclosed links to intelligence agencies into university classrooms (both were first exposed by this author here inCounterPunch in 2005). A new generation of so-called flagship programs have quietly taken root on campuses, and, with each new flagship, our universities are transformed into vessels of the mi tarized state, as academics learn to sub limate unease.

The programs most significantly linking the CIA with university campuses are the “Intelligence Community Centers of Academic Excellence” (ICCAE, pro nounced “Icky”) and the “Intelligence Advance Research Projects Activity”. Both programs use universities to train intelligence personnel by piggybacking onto existing educational programs. Campuses that agree to see these outsourced programs as nonthreatening to their open educational and research missions are rewarded with funds and useful contacts with the intelligence agencies and other less tangible benefits.

Even amid the militarization prevailing in America today, the silence surrounding this quiet installation and spread of programs like ICCAE is extraordinary. In the last four years, ICCAE has gone further in bringing government intelligence organizations openly to American university campuses than any previous intelligence initiative since World War Two. Yet, the program spreads with little public notice, media coverage, or coordinated multi-campus resistance.

When the New Infiltration Began

In 2004, a $250,000 grant was awarded to Trinity Washington University by the Intelligence Community for the establishment of a pilot “Intelligence Community Center of Academic Excellence” program. Trinity was, in many ways, an ideal campus for a pilot program. For a vulnerable, tuition-driven, struggling financial institution in the D.C. area, the promise of desperately needed funds and a regionally assured potential student base, linked with or seeking connections to the D.C. intel ligence world, made the program financially attractive.

In 2005, the first ICCAE centers were installed at ten campuses: California State University San Bernardino, Clark Atlanta University, Florida International University, Norfolk State University, Tennessee State University, Trinity Washington University, University of Texas El Paso, University of Texas-Pan American, University of Washington, and Wayne State University. Between 2008-2010, a second wave of expansion brought ICCAE programs to another twelve campuses: Carnegie Mellon, Clemson, North Carolina A&T State, University of North Carolina-Wilmington, Florida A&M, Miles College, University of Maryland, College Park, University of Nebraska, University of New Mexico, Pennsylvania State University, and Virginia Polytechnic Institute.

But the CIA and FBI aren’t the only agencies from the Intelligence Community that ICCAE brings to American university campuses. ICCAE also quietly imports a smorgasbord of fifteen agencies – including the National Security Agency, Defense Intelligence Agency, and Homeland Security.

ICCAE’s stated goals are to develop a “systematic long-term program at universities and colleges to recruit and hire eligible talent for IC [Intelligence Community] agencies and components,” and to “increase the [intelligence recruit ing] pipeline of students … with emphasis on women and ethnic minorities in critical skill areas.” Specifically, ICCAE seeks to “provide internships, co-ops, graduate fellowships and other related opportunities across IC agencies to eli gible students and faculty for intelligence studies immersion,” and to “support selective international study and regional and overseas travel opportunities to enhance cultural and language immer sion.” ICCAE’s aim is to shower with fellowships, scholarships and grants those universities that are adapting their curricula to align with the political agenda of American intelligence agencies; also to install a portal connecting ICCAE cam puses with intelligence agencies, through which students, faculty, students studying abroad, and unknown others will pass. While ICCAE claims to train analysts, rather than members of the clandestine service, the CIA historically has not observed such boundaries.

ICCAE-funded centers have different names at different universities. For example, at the University of Washington (UW), ICCAE funds established the new Institute for National Security Education and Research (INSER), Wayne State University’s center is called the Center for Academic Excellence in National Security Intelligence Studies, and Clark Atlantic University’s program is the Center for Academic Excellence in National Security Studies.

With the economic downturn, university layoffs became a common ocurrence. Need breeds opportunism, as scarcity of funds leads scholars to shift the academic questions they are willing to pursue and suspend ethical and political concerns about funding sources. Other scholars unwilling to set aside ethical and political concerns are keenly aware of institutional pressures to keep their outrage and protests in-house.

Covering Up Dissent

Despite a lack of critical media cov erage of ICCAE programs, traces of campus dissent can be found online in faculty senate records. When Dean Van Reidhead at the University of Texas-Pan American (UTPA) brought a proposal for ICCAE to establish a center on cam pus, some faculty and graduate students spoke out against the damage to academic freedom that the program would likely bring. Senate minutes record that faculty “representatives spoke against and for UTPA submitting a proposal to compete for federal money to establish an Intelligence Community Center for Academic Excellence.” At this meeting, graduate students “listed the following demands: 1) inform the community via press release about the possible ICCAE proposal, 2) release the proposal draft for public review, 3) establish a commu nity forum on ICCAE, and 4) abolish the process of applying for ICCAE funds.” At Texas-Pan American, as at other ICCAE campuses, administrators noted these concerns but continued with plans to bring the intelligence agencies to campus, as if hearing and ignoring concerns constituted shared governance.

The minutes of the University of Washington’s Faculty Senate and Faculty Council on Research record shadows of dissent that are so vaguely referenced that they are easily missed. The minutes for the December 4, 2008, meeting gloss over the issues raised when the American Association of University Professors, University of Washington chapter, had issued a strongly worded statement by Executive Board representative Christoph Giebel, requesting information concerning UW’s INSER contacts with the Intelligence Community. The minutes simply read: “… both Giebel and Jeffry Kim [INSER director] answered a series of good questions that resulted in a fair, tough and serious conversation.” What these “good questions” were and the nature of this “tough and serious conversation” are not mentioned in the minutes, as if “good questions” were not important enough to enter into a public record. Similarly, the nature of faculty objections to INSER are glossed over in the 1/29/09 UW Senate minutes, which simply listed the findings of the Faculty Council on Research that “a number of email communications have come through the faculty senate that reflect a range in attitude toward the INSER program.”

In fact, a significant portion of this faculty “range in attitudes toward the INSER program” is most accurately characterized as outraged. I have heard from faculty at other ICCAE flagship campuses that some form of internal dissent has occurred on each of their campuses, and professors at UW have sent me documents, quoted below, clarifying the extent of the campus’s disquiet over the intelligence agencies insertion into their campus; an insertion whose success should be described as a silent coup.

Faculty and students’ public silence at ICCAE universities over these developments needs some comment. The post-9/11 political climate casts a pall of orthodoxy over critical discussions of militarization and national security, and the rise of anti-intellectual media pundits attacking those who question increasing American militarization adds pressure to muzzle dissent. Faculty at public universities often feel these pressures more than their colleagues at private institutions. There are also natural inclinations to try and keep elements of workplace dissent internal, but two factors argue against this public silence. First, most of the ICCAE institutions are publicly funded universities drawing state taxes; the state citizens funding these universities deserve to be alerted to concerns over the ways these programs can damage public institutions. Second, university administrators have been free to ignore faculty’s harsh, publicly silent, internal dissent. Keeping dissent internal has not been an effective resistance tactic.

Inaudible Uproar at UW

In a step moving beyond internal private critiques of ICCAE programs, multiple professors at the University of Washington have provided me internal memos sent by professors to administrators. These memos document the breadth of internal faculty dissent over administrators’ October 2006 decisions to bring the CIA and other intelligence  agencies to the UW campus.

Initially, the UW administration appeared to appreciate faculty concerns. In October 2005, David Hodge, UW dean of Arts and Sciences, met with School of International Studies faculty to discuss proposals to establish affiliations with U.S. intelligence agencies, after International Studies faculty wrote the administration, expressing opposition to any affiliation linking them with the CIA and other intelligence agencies. This group of faculty wrote that such developments would “jeopardize the abilities of faculty and students to gain and maintain foreign research and study permits, visas, and open access to and unfettered interaction with international research hosts, partners, and counterpart institutions,” and they worried that any such relation ships would “endanger the safety and security of faculty and students studying and conducting research abroad as well as their foreign hosts.” One participant in these meetings told me that the administration initially acknowledged that there were serious risks that students and faculty working abroad could lose research opportunities because of the CIA-linked program on campus, and that these concerns led the administration initially to decline any affiliation with these intelligence agency-linked programs.

But these concerns did not derail the administration’s interest in bringing the Intelligence Community on campus, and the following year the administration of UW decided to establish the ICCAE-funded Institute for National Security Education and Research. But after INSER’s launch, concerned internal memos continued to come from faculty across the campus. In the past year and a half, letters voicing strong protest from at least five academic units have been sent by groups of faculty to deans.

In October 2008, anthropology professors Bettina Shell-Duncan and Janelle Taylor drafted a critical memo that was voted on and approved by the anthropology faculty and then sent to Dean Howard, Dean Cauce, and Provost Wise, raising fears about the damage INSER could bring to the University:

“As anthropologists, we also have more specific concerns relating to the nature of our research, which involves long-term in-depth studies of communities, the majority of which are located outside the United States. Some of these communi ties are very poor, some face repressive governments, and some are on the receiving end of U.S. projections of military power … our profession’s Code of Ethics requires first and foremost that we cause no harm to the people among whom we conduct research.”

Shell-Duncan and Taylor tied disc plinary concerns to anthropology’s core ethical principles and raised apprehen sions that INSER funding could convert the university into a hosting facil ity for “military intelligence-gathering efforts.”

They pointed to:

“1) the reports that students are required to submit to INSER at the end of their studies, and 2) the debriefing that they are required to undergo upon their return. Although our faculty have already been asked [to be] academic advisors for students with INSER funding, we have never been given any information on the guidelines for the reports, or the nature, scope or purpose of the debriefing process. This is of particular concern given that National Security is not an academic field of study but a military and government effort. Unless and until we are provided with clear and compelling information that proves otherwise, we must infer that these reports and debriefings are, in fact, military intelligence-gathering efforts.”

They cited a 2007 report (of which I am a co-author) written by an American Anthropological Association (AAA) commission, evaluating a variety of engagements between anthropologists and the military and intelligence agencies. The anthropologists argued that this AAA report found that while,
“…some forms of engagement with these agencies might be laudable, the Commission also issued cautions about situations likely to entail violations of the ethical principles of our profession. In particular, the members of the Commission expressed serious concern about ‘a situation in which anthropologists would be performing fieldwork on behalf of a military or intelligence program, among a local population, for the purpose of supporting operations on the ground.’”

Other academic departments wrote the UW administration expressing concerns. In November 2008, members of the Latin American Studies division in the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies complained to the administration in a memo that

“in light of the U.S. Intelligence Community’s extensive track-record of undermining democracies and involvement in human rights violations in Latin America and elsewhere, we find it unconscionable that the UW would have formal ties with the newly created Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), let alone involve our students in an exercise of gathering intelligence information and assist it with its public relations campaign among children in our local schools. The most recent examples of the U.S. Intelligence Community’s inexcusable behavior in Latin America are torture at Guantanamo detention centers, collaboration with the infamous School of the Americas, the backing of paramilitary forces as part of the ‘drug war,’ … and support for the failed coup in Venezuela…

“…Some would argue that UW should engage the Intelligence Community as a method of constructively influencing or reforming it. To our mind, this argument is naïve and misguided at best. The training we provide is unlikely to change the deeply entrenched institutional cultures among the various entities, such as the CIA, which form a part of ODNI. In effect, then, we would be enabling the Intelligence Community to be more effective at carrying out their indefensible activities … We realize that the UW faces a number of financial constraints, perhaps now more than ever, but the needs for monies can never justify collaboration with an Intelligence Community, which is responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths and immeasurable human suffering throughout the world.”

Also at UW a group of Southeast Asian Studies Center faculty and members of the History Department questioned whether the administration had considered how the presence of INSER on campus would taint professors and students because, in the words of the group in the History Department, “The professional bodies of many disciplines and professional programs have barred members from participating in programs funded by groups like the CIA due to the ethical conflicts such a relationship would involve. Did the administration take this into account in the process of creating INSER? Are there steps taken in the administration of funds from INSER to prevent faculty from unknowingly compromising their professional and ethical obligations?”

Among the problems facing the UW administration in creating INSER was finding an academic structure to administer such a stigmatized program. Because the social sciences represented hostile territory, administrators looked to the Information School. But many Information School faculty weren’t happy about having to house INSER. A letter signed by a dozen faculty from the International Studies Fund Group Librarians expressed deep concerns that that housing “a CIA Officer in Residence” would pollute perceptions of them in ways that could “damage our ability to serve the [other campus constituencies],” arguing that their long standing “strategy of impartial professionalism” across the campus “has enabled us to create collections of such depth over the years. It is also this professional indepen dence that has in the past protected us from undue scrutiny by the governments of the countries that we visit and from which we solicit information sources – sometimes of the most sensitive nature – for our scholarly collections.”

While it is encouraging to find UW faculty raising ethical, historical, and political objections, it’s far from clear that these private critiques had any measurable effect, precisely because they remained private.

Today, INSER hosts at least one CIA funded post-doc on the UW campus. It is unknown how many CIA-linked employees or CIA-linked students are now on the UW’s campus. We don’t know what all members of the intelligence agencies on campus are doing, but scholars who study the history of the agency know that in the past CIA campus operatives have performed a range of activities that included using funding fronts to get unwitting social scientists to conduct pieces of research that were used to construct an interrogation and torture manual; to establish contacts used to recruit for eign students to collect intelligence for the CIA; and debriefing of graduate students upon return from foreign travel of research. We know historically that the CIA has cultivated relationships with professors in order to recruit students. When universities import ICCAE programs, they bring this history with them, and, as students from ICCAE universities travel abroad, suspicions of CIA activity will travel with them and undermine the safety and opportunities to work and study abroad for all.

There are many good reasons to keep the CIA off campus, the most obvious ones stress the reprehensible deeds of the agency’s past (and present). For me one good reason is that this Intelligence Community invasion diminishes America’s intelligence capacity while damaging academia. As the Intelligence Community’s “institutional culture” seeps into ICCAE universities, we can foresee a deadening of intellect, weakening American universities and intelligence capacities as scholars learn to think in increasingly narrow ways, described by President Eisenhower half a century ago in his farewell address’s warning that “a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity.”

If the United States wants intelligence reform, it needs to fund independent scholarship, not narrow the range of discourse on our campuses by paying cash-strapped universities to house revolving doors between the academy and the CIA.

Universities need to be places where people can freely explore ideas, but ICCAE inevitably brings chills to open classrooms. How long will it take until students at ICCAE universities start to wonder about who’s reporting on free-flowing discussions in classes? With cadres of future FBI and CIA employees on campus, those who develop dissident political critiques will find themselves opting for a choice between speaking their mind, or keeping silent, or softening harsh honest critiques. As ICCAE students graduate and begin careers requiring security clearances, accounts of academic discussions stand to make their way into intelligence files, as clearance background checks ask for accounts of known “subversive” acquaintances encountered during university years.

These are foreseeable consequences. Now, that the Patriot Act removed legal firewalls prohibiting these forms of political surveillance, the stage has been set for a dark renaissance of the fifties to begin.

Ending the Silence

If students, faculty and citizens are concerned about ICCAE’s impact on our universities, then breaking the silence is the most effective opposition tactic available. Anyone who wants specific information on contacts between university administrators and ICCAE officials and the intelligence community can use state public records laws and federal Freedom of Information laws to request records. Given university administrators’ claims that everything is above board, these records should not be blocked by national security exemptions; if they are, this would be useful to know. Concerned members of individual campuses can use these tools to access correspondence and verify claims by university administrators about the nature of their contact with ICCAE.

Faculty, staff, students, alumni and community members concerned about ICCAE’s presence on university campuses should form consortia online to share information from various campuses and make common cause. ICCAE has made rapid headway because of the internal campus-specific, isolated nature of resistance to ICCAE. Something like an “ICCAE Watch” or “CIA Campus Watch” website could be started by a faculty member or grad student on an ICCAE campus, providing forums to collect documents, stories and resistance tactics from across the country.

Finally, tenured professors on ICCAE campuses, or on campuses contemplating ICCAE programs, need to use their tenure and speak out, on the record, in public: the threats presented by these developments are exactly why tenure exists. If professors like the idea of bringing the CIA on campus, they can publicly express these views, but the split between the public and private reactions to ICCAE helped usher the CIA silently back onto American university campuses. The intelligence agencies thrive on silence. If this move is to be countered, academic voices must publicly demand that the CIA and the Intelligence Community explain themselves and their history in public.

Source: RBN

Other stories at We Are Change Colorado Springs

One Day Soon, We’ll All Be ‘Homegrown Terrorists’

Anti-Hate Group Finds Yet Another Group It Hates

20 Ways ObamaCare Will Take Away Our Freedoms

The word “terrorist” has assumed numerous presumptive connotations over the decades, and this trend of “redefining” the vicious label to suit certain governmental needs has only intensified in recent years, especially since 9/11. Its graduation as widely used political terminology gives it an almost archetypal quality, because it has the ability to trigger abundant and subconscious emotional reactions in the populace. However, these reactions are usually based on mass delusions: false ideas of what terrorism is, what it is not, and who is actually guilty of these loosely classified crimes. It is a weighted word, filled with projections, biases, and faulty perceptions.

Governments across the world, and organizations such as the UN, have considered “officially” categorizing what a terrorist actually is, but claim that they have been unable to reach an accord that satisfies everyone. I feel it is much more likely that ruling bodies, most especially the UN, would like nothing better than to keep the specifics of the term as hazy as possible for as long as possible. The more elusive it is, the more powerful it becomes to those elite minorities who wish to retain and centralize political control.  While we tend to associate terrorism with Muslim extremism, because this is the image we have been force-fed for the past ten years, that association can just as easily be swayed or redirected to someone else depending on which person or people become most obstructive to the government’s immediate desires. At bottom, under the current cultural climate, anyone can be labeled a terrorist for any reason, even American Citizens liable for nothing more than exercising their Constitutional rights.

As our country spirals towards certain monetary derailment, scathing discontentment with the establishment is sure to arise. When trusted leadership betrays, when criminality becomes a political guideline, when the corrupt loot the world, burning the people alive in their ever expanding grip, invariably, defiance is born. The Globalists know this well. They have seen it time and again, and have learned from past mistakes. Instead of immediately attempting to crush this opposition of individualists, the Elites now preempt violence with “false cultural identification”; the public demonization of those who would inevitably rebel BEFORE they even do so, much like a murderer who admonishes his future victims for wanting to defend themselves. The wise man would find this tactic absurd, or insane, but wisdom is in short supply these days.

In this article, we will explore the steps that the Elites are taking to prime the masses for the label we will soon be hearing daily; “Homegrown Terrorist”. We will also take a look at the organizations and think tanks that manufacture this propaganda and mold it for public consumption…

Hutaree and Pavlov’s Dog

Though the “Hutaree Militia” and their arrest have been widely publicized in the media, and the MSM has all but sentenced them as guilty in the eyes of the nation before a trial has even begun, I will retain judgment until all the facts are in. The incident has all the characteristics of a “Trojan Horse” disinformation maneuver, in which groups who oppose the government are infiltrated by men posing as members. A common occurrence in the 60’s and 70’s during the anti-Vietnam War movement, these federal moles would then purposely lure groups into illegal acts, or frame them outright. The main goal of this tactic is to topple the moral high ground that the challenging movement stands on, making them appear as corrupt as the governments they defend against. However, the manipulation goes much further.

Whether or not the Hutaree are actually guilty of the crimes they have been accused is really not the most relevant issue. What is relevant, are the false associations and connections made by the MSM in an attempt to not only demonize the Hutaree, but the entire Liberty Movement along with them.

While it is not uncommon for the globalist-controlled media to attack the Liberty Movement, the widespread anger over the recent passing of Obama’s unconstitutional health care bill and the Hutaree incident have opened certain doors for exploitation. The news is now awash in anti-patriot misinformation. Here are a few of the most prominent falsehoods being presented:

1) The Liberty Movement Is an Extremist Right Wing Element: It may be a bit cliché to say, but people really do fear what they don’t understand. Half of the American populace have absolutely no clue what the “Right Wing” is, let alone what a “Right Wing Extremist” is. During the presidency of George W. Bush, the Liberty Movement railed against the Republican Party for tripling the size of federal government, for going to war in Iraq on false pretenses, for refusing to allow a truly independent investigation of 9/11 despite numerous inconsistencies and scientifically erroneous evidence in the official reports, and for illegal expansion of domestic wire tapping and spy programs against American citizens, including FISA, not to mention the Patriot Act and PDD 51, which give the executive branch legal authority to assume full control over the functions of government without checks and balances under any circumstance they see fit. In response, the MSM and others called us “liberal fanatics” and “communists”. Only a few years later, they now have the audacity to label us “right wing extremists”, as we call out the Obama Administration for supporting the exact same policies as Bush. The Time Magazine article below illustrates this well:

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1976308,00.html?xid=rss-fullnation-yahoo

Many Americans do not comprehend the position of the Liberty Movement because they are still trapped in the fabricated world of the false “left / right” paradigm. The leadership of both parties, Democrat and Republican, are under the influence of the same corporate globalist interests, and this is evident in the fact they support nearly identical executive legislative actions that erode civil liberties and U.S. sovereignty. The illusion of the Left and Right is not substantiated by fact, but by the theater of media. Barack Obama’s rhetoric, for instance, has never matched his actions, and few if any of his campaign promises to end Bush-era injustices have been fulfilled.

As a country, we must stop living in the fantasy world of celebrity politics, a world in which what people say is more important than what they really do. This is where the Liberty Movement exists; in the plane between the phony realities of Left and Right, where “taking sides” is meaningless, where the only thing that is important is what is TRUE, and what is dishonest.

The attempt by the media today to brand us as “Right Wing” is merely a ruse to associate us with the much hated Neo-Con ideology (which is really socialist), and to continue perpetuating the lie of the current two party apparatus. In this way, they can marginalize us as a fringe element of a fake party, an element that people can be made to dread, instead of the birth of a new third party, which is what we really are.

2) The Liberty Movement’s Anger over the Health Care Debate Makes Us “Dangerous”: Last year, Neithercorp reported on the developments surrounding Obamacare and our personal belief that not only was the bill not practical, but that it was not meant to work at all:

http://neithercorp.us/npress/?p=92

‘ObamaCare’ will not come to fruition, for many reasons, but most of all because the U.S. is beyond indebted. The costs involved in nationalizing health care are enormous. The sales of U.S. treasury debt to foreign banks have plummeted over the past year, and they will continue to do so. Like Greece to the tenth power, America is on the verge of sovereign debt default. The government and the private Federal Reserve’s only recourse has been to create massive amounts of currency out of thin air to cover the mushrooming expense of keeping the economy afloat. Without the constant injections of liquidity into treasuries, our government would no longer be able to operate. Very soon, these injections will inflate the money supply to levels which will destroy our currency, throwing the financial system into chaos. And, in the midst of all this, the Obama administration decides to increase our budget deficit to record levels and introduce socialized health care? Of course people are angry! It is my suspicion, however, that this was the goal all along.

ObamaCare can be used to create intense divisions in the citizenry, as well as distract us from the economy. It can also be used to redirect the debate over expansion of government power. By introducing ObamaCare, the elites change the dynamic of the argument. Before, the contention was that the government’s size was unsustainable and would bankrupt the nation. Now, the argument is over the ethics of leaving people without healthcare, and the “necessity” of large government in supplying that care. The debate morphed from a clean cut examination of what we could afford, into a foggy morality play in which those who oppose government expansion are “uncaring”, “greedy”, or perhaps “evil”. The article below alludes to such accusations:

http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2010/04/01/americas-season-of-rage-and-fear/

The message here is that proponents of private healthcare are “overreacting” to the legislation. Arguments that Obamacare is no more insidious than Medicare are highly disingenuous. Medicare is government ASSISTED health care, not government CONTROLLED health care. There is a very big difference, one which we refuse to ignore.

The Liberty Movement’s position on any issue has always been; do we have the money, and does the Constitution allow it? While it is unfortunate that the poor (I have been one of them) cannot afford health insurance, the cold hard reality is that we do not have the savings to fund collectivist healthcare, nor does the Constitution allow for government to dominate the healthcare industry, or force people to buy insurance they don’t want. This is not about little orphan Annie who needs a kidney transplant. Obama couldn’t care less. This is about putting those who call for smaller government in the position of being the “bad guy”, as well as making Federal influence over our private lives that much easier. The goal is to paint the movement as unfeeling, and without compassion, thus making it easier for the average American to see us as “terrorists” in the near future.

3) The Liberty Movement Is Driven by Racism: This has to be my favorite disinfo talking point, mainly because of its blatancy. There was a time when all propaganda was so straight forward, simple, and shameless. Below is a Time Magazine article which is obviously trying to connect Constitutionalists and militias with racism and white power organizations:

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1198895,00.html?iid=sphere-inline-sidebar

This tactic does not need much explaining. First, I’ve been going to the Tea Parties for years, long before they were co-opted by Fox News, and I can say from firsthand experience that the Liberty Movement is composed of people from all racial, religious and political backgrounds. Many militias are also organized the same way.

The fact that the movement is fully opposed to illegal immigration is often used by the establishment to draw more false associations. The connection to which they allude is that since we are against illegal immigration, we are against all immigrants, especially Hispanic immigrants. This is nonsensical. We are against illegal immigration, for one, because it is ILLEGAL. I am not sure what is so complicated about this concept, but for some people, especially those who place themselves on the left end of our fake political spectrum, it is difficult to comprehend.

There are in fact legal channels one can take to immigrate to the U.S., as there are for any other country. If an American wishes to immigrate to Canada, he does not simply skip across the border and declare it so. He must follow legal guidelines, or be deported. This does not make Canadians biased against Americans, it makes them rational. If millions of us decided to lumber into Quebec and begin collecting on government programs that we never paid into, it would throw their entire economy into disarray. If we all offered our services to employers there at discount prices under the table, it would destroy their jobs market. It has nothing to do with race and everything to do with what makes sense.

This is why polls show that a large percentage of minorities in the U.S. are also against illegal immigration, not just whites:

http://www.examiner.com/x-35821-Immigration-Reform-Examiner~y2010m3d2-New-poll-shows-that-minorities-want-tougher-enforcement-against-illegal-aliens

The purpose behind the racist label is evident. No one likes a racist, especially not a militant racist. The tactic is designed to plant assumptions in the minds of those unaware of the facts, especially Democrats, so that when a Liberty Movement representative engages them in discussion, they will automatically refuse to listen, regardless of how reasonable that representative may be. The blunt nature of the method reveals how desperate globalists are to keep as many Democrats as possible from joining the movement.

4) People Who Spread Liberty Movement Information Are as Threatening as Those in Militias:The sudden push on the part of the current administration for the institution of the Fairness Doctrine is no fluke. It is also even less of a fluke that they are attempting to apply the Fairness Doctrine to the internet.

The Fairness Doctrine accomplishes two things for the establishment: First, it forces all media to define themselves as either Left, or Right, and then balances them accordingly, meaning all media would be strong armed into playing out the false paradigm forever, neither side ever changing or gaining an advantage. Second, it allows government to dictate what acceptable political discussion is and shut down those that stray from their guidelines. If the Fairness Doctrine were to be applied, it would not affect those gatekeeper news outlets that play the paradigm game; Fox, MSNBC, CNN, etc. In reality, the only news sources that would be dealt a drastic blow would be those that straddle the line between left and right [like COTO Report -Ed.], or that deny the paradigm altogether: Liberty Movement sources.

I have noticed that this development has occurred in tandem with another more subtle strategy. While government moves to gain more influence over what news providers are allowed to operate, the MSM has moved to infer that Liberty Movement news sources are “instigating” violence, simply because they exist. While most of us are aware of the attempts to connect Alex Jones and his Infowars radio show with any violent gunman that happens to stumble out of the woodwork, there has also been an endeavor to link all Constitutionally based websites and radio with “extremist behavior”, as the below article shows:

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,982895,00.html

All societies that are advancing towards fascism begin by singling out certain ideas as “dangerous” to the greater good. The very fabric of American life is centered on the protection of ideas, regardless of their origin. We do not prosecute people for their beliefs, no matter how much we might disagree. This is beginning to change though, and one can feel it in the air. The MSM is now producing a low droning hum of propaganda aimed at accusing liberty based news as accomplices in “extremist crime”. As if the general disenchantment and opposition to collectivist government would somehow disappear if we were not here to write our views and report on the facts.

The above list of establishment talking points demonstrates a discernable pattern. This pattern is engineered around the concept of “conditioning”. Like Pavlov’s dog, Americans are being prepared mentally to react to certain bells and whistles in a way that serves Elitist interests. In this case, instead of salivating every time they hear the words “militia”, “truth movement”, “patriot”, “Liberty Movement”, “Constitutionalism”, etc, they are meant to think “Hutaree”, they are meant to think “homegrown terrorist”. Of course, unlike Pavlov’s dog, human beings cannot be conditioned if they are aware, and they can even break their own conditioning if given the opportunity. This is why we are pummeled daily with a constant barrage of misinformation, so that we never get a chance to open our eyes and see who is hitting us. So, who is hitting us…?

The ADL And SPLC: Propaganda Machines Extraordinaire

Whenever you see a news story on almost any mainstream news channel, or read one in almost any newspaper dealing with the Liberty Movement and parallel movements, the chances are very high that the ADL (Anti Defamation League) or the SPLC (Southern Poverty Law Center) had a hand in it.

The ADL was founded in 1913 (coincidentally, the same year as the private Federal Reserve), and poses as a sort of civil rights group and non-profit corporation. In truth, it is a multifaceted propaganda arm for globalists, much like the Council on Foreign Relations, which has been involved in, and implicated in, domestic spying as well as other illegal activities.

In 1993, the ADL was caught red handed employing spies like Roy Bullock, who infiltrated organizations ranging from the White Aryan Resistance, to the NAACP and Greenpeace. Interestingly, they were also caught spying on other anti-discrimination groups, such as the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee:

http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1993-04-09/news/1993099283_1_anti-defamation-league-adl-san-francisco

These spies compiled dossiers on thousands of American citizens and hundreds of non-violent groups. In the mid-80’s, they also terrorized certain peaceful assemblies for nothing more than free-speech. A method they are now applying to us.

Because the ADL is organized around the Jewish fraternal order of B’nai B’rith, some people make the mistake of assuming that they are a purely Israeli construct, however, they are actually a tool for Elitist activities, not just Israeli, and alphabet agencies such as the FBI and the CIA collude with them constantly. In fact, the government has only supported the ADL more since they were exposed in 1993, and the MSM reports their skewed statistics and baseless opinions as undeniable fact.

http://www.adl.org/learn/adl_law_enforcement/default.htm

When interviewed by the MSM, ADL and SPLC representatives are rarely challenged by their interviewers on any issue, and an interviewee with an opposing viewpoint is almost never present. When they are present, the “journalist” and the SPLC/ADL representative attack them maliciously, using dishonest Alinsky Tactics, such as attempting to keep the person from speaking, or attacking the person’s character instead of addressing the information he presents. A good example is this interview on MSNBC with Chris Mathews and director of the SPLC, Mark Potok against Stewart Rhodes of Oath Keepers:

Oath Keepers is an organization of military and police members who are openly re-stating their support for the Constitution, over the shifting of government mandates, as all people in the armed forces are supposed to do. Yes, they must truly be a menace…

Notice that Potok and Matthews immediately generalize and dismiss every one of the Oath Keeper concerns on government as “dark conspiracy theory” without actually providing any tangible reasoning to support their claims, nor providing Rhodes any real opportunity to counter their accusations.The “conspiracy theory” redirection relies on an ignorant public, unaware of the numerous facts and evidence that support the Liberty Movement view. The ADL and SPLC hope that you and your family will take them at their word, instead of investigating the truth for yourself. That the term “conspiracy theory” will trigger a Pavlov’s dog reaction, a knee-jerk response that causes your mind to immediately close. They also commonly use terms like “white supremacist”, “Oklahoma City”, or names like “Timothy McVeigh” in the same breath as “Oath Keepers” and “Patriot Movement”. This is done deliberately, and if you watch a number of interviews involving the ADL/SPLC, you will notice that they do it as a rule. Again, the attempt is to link the unseemly actions of one man, or one small group, to the whole of the movement, and to the ideology of liberty.

When reason is applied, and research is undertaken, Mark Potok’s arguments appear juvenile and lazy. The government’s own legislation is what created the Liberty Movement’s concern over martial law and loss of Constitutional freedoms. This legislation includes those mentioned above, like the Patriot Act and PDD 51, along with the Civilian Inmate Labor Program, and new legislation drafted by Republican, John McCain, and Democrat, Joe Lieberman (another example of the fake left/right working together), called the “Enemy Belligerents Act”:

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=s111-3081

This new act allows, among other things, for the treatment of U.S. citizens who dissent as enemy combatants, for the indefinite detention of these citizens without trial, and to be held under military jurisdiction. It also allows for “enhanced interrogation techniques”, i.e. torture.

Bills like this are introduced to Congress yearly, and yet I have to watch Mark Potok on MSNBC call my concerns and the Liberty Movement’s concerns “conspiracy theory”?

When We Are All Homegrown Terrorists…

Anyone who can’t see where all this is leading would have to be cognitively impaired. I, for example, am just a writer, but under the broad definitions laid out in government legislation, I could easily be considered a threat to national security. Could my articles not inspire resentment in someone? Could the facts I present not instill a need for “dissent”, or even self defense in the event that the establishment does institute martial law? What about people who aren’t writers, but regular Americans who happen to speak openly about their suspicions of where the country is heading? Are they “enemy belligerents” and combatants?

If the ADL and the SPLC had existed in the early days of the American Independence Movement, before a shot was ever fired, they would have called men like John Adams and Thomas Jefferson “terrorists”, good men, who only wanted to be free. There is little difference between our situation then, and our situation now, except that the terminology has changed, and indeed, we know even more about who we are fighting.

While being categorized as a homegrown terrorist may be a frightening prospect, what other people are led to believe about us is not so important. What is important is that we do not start to believe it ourselves. That we are not made to feel guilty for wanting to determine our own destinies, for wanting to keep government out of our lives and our children’s lives. We are not the instigators of this conflict, we are not the antagonists of this story. In the end, we are the deciders of this conflict. We are the authors of this story.

It is possible we will soon see an acceleration of our own malignment over the coming year. We will be ridiculed, condemned, and perhaps some of us even incarcerated. Violent attacks against innocent Americans will likely be carried out, some by real and misguided people, some engineered by government. We cannot allow these acts to be forced upon us as implied persona. We cannot allow others to speak for us, because others are unlikely to speak the truth. And most crucial of all, we cannot ever be afraid to speak for ourselves. The ultimate triumph for the Elites would be our silence.

Affirm your freedoms as an unbound man, cut the air, forceful and clear, let the world listen, and never stop.

Source: War On You

Other stories at We Are Change Colorado Springs

The Southern Poverty Law Center bunches in WeAreChange with “Hate” groups

MSNBC Continues Propaganda Campaign Against Patriot Groups

One Day We’ll All be Terrorists

So much for the spectacle of Democrats and Republicans fighting their way through Congress over the future of Cap and Trade energy legislation. Thanks to EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson in little noticed press releases from March 29 and April 1, the “final decision” that “greenhouse gases (GHGs)” and “carbon pollution” will be regulated (taxed) by the federal government is complete and the imposition of “construction and operating permit requirements for the largest emitting facilities will begin.”

The first misleadingly titled release “EPA Formally Announces Phase-in of Clean Air Act Permitting forGreenhouse Gases/Agency reiterates no stationary source requirements until 2011” makes it clear the EPA absolutely will regulate (tax) stationary sources of greenhouse gases (power plants, factories, farms, homes, etc…) starting Jan 2011.

Administrator Jackson is quoted as saying “This is a common sense plan for phasing in the protections of the Clean Air Act. It gives large facilities the time they need to innovate, (and) governments the time to prepare to cut greenhouse gases”. The amount of time being 10 whole months from now when apparently vast new supplies of energy derived from pixie dust and the tears of clowns will come online to power the U.S. economy.
Not only has the final decision been made to regulate (tax) the release of CO2, but limits for emissions will be set by the government in the near future, presumably without the inconvenience of public hearings: “The agency will make a decision later this spring on the amount of GHGs facilities can emit before having to include limits for these emissions in their permits.”

Interestingly enough the March 29 release does not explicitly state that stationary source CO2 emission standards would go into effect, only that “the rule limiting GHG emissions for cars and light trucks would trigger these requirements in January 2011.”

That’s where the April 1 press release comes in. Titled: “DOT, EPA Set Aggressive National Standards for Fuel Economy and First Ever Greenhouse Gas Emission Levels For Passenger Cars and Light Trucks”. While cloaked in the language of automobilesand trucks, it is the trigger for the direct control of all energy use in the nation by the EPA and their political overloads (President Obama) and by extension the U.S. economy.

The release leaves little room for misinterpretation: “Responding to one of the first major directives of the Obama Administration, the U.S. Department of Transportation(DOT) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) today jointly established historic new federal rules that set the first-ever national greenhouse gas emissions standards.”

The purpose of the new emissions standards is to greatly increase the price of energy in America leading to $8 or more for a gallon of gas and electricity bills which will “necessarily skyrocket” according to Obama. This may lead to increased energy efficiencies, but it will also force businesses to lay off millions of workers during a time of 10% unemployment (and 20% underemployment) to pay for higher energy costs and will ultimately transform what has been a terrible recession into another Great Depression.

The fact that not one shred of evidence proves CO2 is responsible for global warming does not appear to concern the EPA or Obama. On the contrary, even ClimateGate scientists agree that the world has not warmed since 1995. By all accounts the earth is entering a cooling period likely to last 30 or more years due to solar and ocean cycles, which have a far greater effect on global temperatures than CO2.

It is strange to see not one single mention regarding these alarming developments in the main stream media however, given the timing of the April 1 press release, the day before Good Friday, and the avoidance of direct language by the EPA, I suppose it isn’t all that surprising.

But soon enough Americans are going to wake up and realize they’ve been had.

Source: CFP

Other stories at We Are Change Colorado Springs

75 reasons to be skeptical of “global warming”

Turning children into Orwellian eco-spies

United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon Admits That The Climate Change Treaty Will Be Enforced By Global Government

WASHINGTON — A federal appeals court ruled on Tuesday that regulators had limited power over Web traffic under current law. The decision will allow Internet service companies to block or slow specific sites and charge video sites like YouTube to deliver their content faster to users.

The court decision was a setback to efforts by the Federal Communications Commission to require companies to give Web users equal access to all content, even if some of that content is clogging the network.

The court ruling, which came afterComcast asserted that it had the right to slow its cable customers’ access to a file-sharing service called BitTorrent, could prompt efforts in Congress to change the law in order to give the F.C.C. explicit authority to regulate Internet service.

That could prove difficult politically, however, since some conservative Republicans philosophically oppose giving the agency more power, on the grounds that Internet providers should be able to decide what services they offer and at what price.

More broadly, the ruling by the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit could raise obstacles to the Obama administration’s effort to increase Americans’ access to high-speed Internet networks.

For example, the national broadband plan released by the administration last month proposed to shift billions of dollars in money from a fund to provide phone service in rural areas to one that helps pay for Internet access in those areas. Legal observers said the court decision suggested that the F.C.C. did not have the authority to make that switch.

The F.C.C. will now have to reconsider its strategy for mandating “net neutrality,” the principle that all Internet content should be treated equally by network providers. One option would be to reclassify broadband service as a sort of basic utility subject to strict regulation, like telephone service. Telephone companies and broadband providers have already indicated that they would vigorously oppose such a move.

The appeals court’s 3-0 decision, which was written by one of the court’s more liberal members, Judge David S. Tatel, focused on the narrow issue of whether the F.C.C. had authority to regulate Comcast’s network management practices.

But it was a clear victory for those who favor limiting the F.C.C.’s regulation of the Internet, said Phil Kerpen, a vice president at Americans for Prosperity, a group that advocates limited government. “The F.C.C. has no legal basis for imposing its dystopian regulatory vision under the net neutrality banner,” he said.

As a practical matter, the court ruling will not have any immediate impact on Internet users, since Comcast and other large Internet providers are not currently restricting specific types of Web content and have no plans to do so.

Comcast, the nation’s largest cable provider, had a muted reaction to its victory. The company said it was gratified by the court’s decision but added that it had changed the management policies that led it to restrict access to BitTorrent, a service used to exchange a range of large data files, from pirated movies to complex software programs.

“Comcast remains committed to the F.C.C.’s existing open Internet principles, and we will continue to work constructively with this F.C.C. as it determines how best to increase broadband adoption and preserve an open and vibrant Internet,” Comcast said in a statement.

The company is currently seeking federal approval for its proposed acquisition of a majority stake in NBC Universal, the parent of the NBC broadcast network and a cadre of popular cable channels. Some members of Congress and consumer groups have opposed the merger, saying that it would enable Comcast to favor its own cable channels and discriminate against those owned by competitors — something the company has said it does not intend to do.

After the ruling on Tuesday, consumer advocates voiced similar concerns about Comcast’s potential power over the Internet, saying that the company could, for example, give priority to transmission of video services of NBC channels and restrict those owned by a competitor like CBS.

“Internet users now have no cop on the beat,” said Ben Scott, policy director for Free Press, a nonprofit organization that supported the F.C.C. in the case.

Julius Genachowski, the chairman of the F.C.C., had said previously that if the agency lost the Comcast case, he would seek to find other legal authority to implement consumer protections over Internet service. In a statement, the F.C.C. said it remained “firmly committed to promoting an open Internet.”

Continued at NY Times

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Total Internet Takeover: Open Wi-Fi ‘outlawed’ by Digital Economy Bil

FBI wants records kept of Web sites visited

Obama Surrendering Internet to Foreign Powers

Josh Gerstein over at Politico sent Threat Level his piece underscoring once again President Barack Obama is not the civil-liberties knight in shining armor many were expecting.

Gerstein posts a televised interview of Obama and John Walsh of America’s Most Wanted. The nation’s chief executive extols the virtues of mandatory DNA testing of Americans upon arrest, even absent charges or a conviction. Obama said, “It’s the right thing to do” to “tighten the grip around folks” who commit crime.

When it comes to civil liberties, the Obama administration has come under fire for often mirroring his predecessor’s practices surrounding state secrets, the Patriot Act and domestic spying. There’s also Gitmo, Jay Bybee and John Yoo.

Now there’s DNA sampling. Obama told Walsh he supported the federal government, as well as the 18 states that have varying laws requiring compulsory DNA sampling of individuals upon an arrest for crimes ranging from misdemeanors to felonies. The data is lodged in state and federal databases, and has fostered as many as 200 arrests nationwide, Walsh said.

The American Civil Liberties Union claims DNA sampling is different from mandatory, upon-arrest fingerprinting that has been standard practice in the United States for decades.

A fingerprint, the group says, reveals nothing more than a person’s identity. But much can be learned from a DNA sample, which codes a person’s family ties, some health risks, and, according to some, can predict a propensity for violence.

The ACLU is suing California to block its voter-approved measure requiring saliva sampling of people picked up on felony charges. Authorities in the Golden State are allowed to conduct so-called “familial searching” — when a genetic sample does not directly match another, authorities start investigating people with closely matched DNA in hopes of finding leads to the perpetrator.

Do you wonder whether DNA sampling is legal?

The courts have already upheld DNA sampling of convicted felons, based on the theory that the convicted have fewer privacy rights. The U.S. Supreme Court has held that when conducting intrusions of the body during an investigation, the police need so-called “exigent circumstances” or a warrant. That alcohol evaporates in the blood stream is the exigent circumstance to draw blood from a suspected drunk driver without a warrant.

Source: Wired

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Suit possible over baby DNA sent to military lab for national database

The government has your baby’s DNA, and you don’t even know it

Tasing to get DNA?

Source: FoxNews

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Operation Health Freedom – Judge Napolitano

Schumer, Graham Use Immigration to Push National Biometric ID Card

FBI wants records kept of Web sites visited

This is a column from Robert Montgomery for ESPN Outdoors. As a Senior Writer for BASS Publications, Montgomery has written about conservation, environment, and access issues for more than two decades. It’s part of a series of articles from Montgomery on the issue. See a response from editor Steve Bowman regarding concerns with this column.

The Obama administration has ended public input for a federal strategy that could prohibit U.S. citizens from fishing some of the nation’s oceans, coastal areas, Great Lakes, and even inland waters.

	One sign at the United We Fish rally at the Capital summed up the feelings of recreational and commercial fishermen.

This announcement comes at the time when the situation supposedly still is “fluid” and the Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force still hasn’t issued its final report on zoning uses of these waters.

Fishing industry insiders, who have negotiated for months with officials at the Council on Environmental Quality and bureaucrats on the task force, had grown concerned that the public input would not be taken into account.

“When the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) completed their successful campaign to convince the Ontario government to end one of the best scientifically managed big-game hunts in North America (spring bear), the results of their agenda had severe economic impacts on small family businesses and the tourism economy of communities across northern and central Ontario,” said Phil Morlock, director of environmental affairs for Shimano.

“Now we see NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) and the administration planning the future of recreational fishing access in America based on a similar agenda of these same groups and other Big Green anti-use organizations, through an Executive Order by the President. The current U.S. direction with fishing is a direct parallel to what happened in Canada with hunting: The negative economic impacts on hard-working American families and small businesses are being ignored.

“In spite of what we hear daily in the press about the President’s concern for jobs and the economy and contrary to what he stated in the June order creating this process, we have seen no evidence from NOAA or the task force that recreational fishing and related jobs are receiving any priority.”

Unless more anglers speak up to their Congressional representatives so their input will be considered, it appears the task force will issue a final report for “marine spatial planning” by late March. President Barack Obama then could possibly issue an Executive Order to implement its recommendations.

Led by NOAA’s Jane Lubchenco, the task force has shown no overt dislike of recreational angling. As ESPN previously reported, WWF, Greenpeace, Defenders of Wildlife, Pew Environment Group and others produced a document entitled “Transition Green” shortly after Obama was elected in 2008.

What has happened since suggests that the task force has been in lockstep with that position paper, according to Morlock.

In late summer, just after the administration created the task force, these groups produced “Recommendations for the Adoption and Implementation of an Oceans, Coasts, and Great Lakes National Policy.” This document makes repeated references to “overfishing,” but doesn’t reference recreational angling, its importance, and its benefits, both to participants and the resource.

Additionally, some of these same organizations have revealed their anti-fishing bias with their attempts to ban tackle containing lead in the United States and Canada.

Also, recreational angling and commercial fishing have been lumped together as harmful to the resource, despite protests by the angling industry.

Morlock’s evidence of collusion — the green groups began clamoring for an Executive Order to implement the task force’s recommendations even before the public comment period ended in February.

On Feb. 12, the New York Times reported on that “President Obama and his team are preparing an array of actions using his executive power to advance energy, environmental, fiscal and other domestic policy priorities.”

Continued at ESPN

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The Colorado Springs Police Department will soon have a new partner in fighting crime–Yellow Cab taxi drivers

The Southern Poverty Law Center bunches in WeAreChange with “Hate” groups

“Coffee Party” Founder Is Obama Campaign Operative

What started as a routine traffic stop ended with a Colorado teen doing hard time. The offense? Not returning a “House of Flying Daggers” DVD to his local library. Come on, Colorado. You’re better than that.

Apparently young Aaron Henson, an impressionable lad all of 19 years old, fell in with the wrong DVD-borrowing crowd sometime last year. Henson packed up the flick for a move, forgot that he had it, and ended up with a warrant for his arrest:

The city said it sent an overdue notice and bill, neither of which were returned.

The city then sent a summons, which was returned.

Then, the city sent a new court date order, it was not returned. And when Aaron failed to appear for the second court date, the city issued a warrant.

Why all the fuss? Because apparently the municipality of Littleton, CO values the DVD of a 2004 release at $31.45, and any “theft” over $30 gets prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Also of note: Littleton, CO has apparently never heard of Amazon.

Anyhow, the whole mess get straightened out after Henson’s family forked over a $200 fine for the DVD, $200 to remove the car from the impound lot, and $60 in court fees. And while Littleton has acknowledged its mistake and the mayor swears it won’t happen again, the arrest is still on Aaron’s record.

Just so long as no one got hurt, I suppose, except for the integrity of our judicial system. [The Denver Channel via Consumerist]

Source: RBN

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Judge sentences man to 6 months in jail for yawning

The Colorado Springs Police Department will soon have a new partner in fighting crime–Yellow Cab taxi drivers

Active ‘Patriot’ Groups in the United States in 2009

COLORADO SPRINGS - The Colorado Springs Police Department will soon have a new partner in fighting crime–Yellow Cab taxi drivers.

Cabs on Patrol officially begins March 23 and comes at a time when Springs Police have gotten rid of their helicopter unit and have left dozens of positions unfilled. Despite the financial difficulty, police say there has been no change in the number of patrol officers–Cabs on Patrol is merely taking a good thing a step further.

“This program is new but really is a formalization of a good relationship we’ve had with Yellow Cab for many years,” says Lt. David Whitlock with CSPD. “Every time we do good police work, you can usually tie it back to somebody picking up the phone and notifying us.”

Drivers for yellow cab have been no strangers to making those calls.

“Our drivers have always reported incidents while they’re out on the road,” says Fred Hair, General Manager at Yellow Cab Company of Colorado Springs.

The big difference between then and now is the police training those drivers will receive.

“It’ll be enough to make them a really good set of eyes and ears for us,” says Whitlock.

Drivers will provide the eyes on the roads and dispatchers will provide the ears in the Yellow Cab dispatch center.

“The Colorado Springs Police Department has a direct line to our dispatcher so that they can relay suspect information or a description of a stolen vehicle,” says Hair.

Similar partnerships have worked in other cities. Springs police say they are excited about the potential here.

“Every place that we’ve talked to that’s had these kinds of common interactions, whether it be Yellow Cab or other community or business groups, have shown a great deal of increase in those kinds of calls and an improvement in the overall public safety,” says Whitlock.

Both the police and Yellow Cab stress that cab drivers are not police officers—just an extra set of eyes to help. The drivers make the call and let the professionals do the work.

Source: KRDO

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