Filed under:Bill of Rights — posted by 3wire on 6/29/2009 @ 11:15 pm
The fact that 4 Justices on the current Supreme Court can put the issue of “historical context” over the lives and livelihood of actual living citizens, is something I simply can not get my mind around. Racism is wrong no mater which way the tide is flowing.
In the blockbuster decision we’d been awaiting all term, the Court reached the correct result: The government can’t make employment decisions based on race. While the city’s desire to get more blacks into leadership positions at the fire department is commendable, it cannot pursue this goal by denying promotions simply because those who earned them happen to have an inconvenient skin color.
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Is hacking a real threat to the United States or is it just the latest overblown threat to national security, whose magnitude is being exaggerated to expand government budgets and power?
That’s the question asked by Threat Level editor Kevin Poulsen at a panel in Computers, Freedom and Privacy in Washington, D.C., Wednesday. And it’s important because the government is spending billions of dollars on computer security, and President Obama is elevating cybersecurity to a national priority, using language that makes even security experts wince.
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Reason.tv: Red Eye’s Greg Gutfeld on Media Bias, Intolerant Liberals, The Stupidity of Bill Maher, And Why Drugs Really, Really, Really Need to Be Legal
Approximately 30 minutes. Warning for viewers prone to high-blood pressure, heart palpitations, and sour-puss syndrome: Gutfeld mixes humor, outrage and language salty enough to cure a side of bacon. Proceed at your own caution.
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You may not know it, but if you have a wireless router, a cordless phone, remote car-door opener, baby monitor or cellphone in your house, the FCC claims the right to enter your home without a warrant at any time of the day or night in order to inspect it.
(a) Whoever transmits in interstate or foreign commerce any communication, with the intent to coerce, intimidate, harass or cause substantial emotional distress to a person, using electronic means to support severe, repeated and hostile behavior, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.
(b) As used in this section —
(1) the term ‘communication’ means the electronic transmission, between or among points specified by the user, of information of the user’s choosing, without change in the form or content of the information as sent and received; and
(2) the term ‘electronic means’ means any equipment dependent on electrical power to access an information service, including e-mail, instant messaging, blogs, websites, telephones and text messages.
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A BOSTON COLLEGE STUDENT’S COMPUTER, CELL PHONE, AND OTHER PROPERTY WERE SEIZED as part of an investigation into who sent an e-mail to a school mailing list identifying another student as gay. Not only is there no indication that any crime was committed, the support for the search warrant is at times laughable. Some of the supposedly suspicious activities listed include: the student being seen with “unknown laptop computers,” which he “says” he was fixing for other students; the student uses multiple names to log on to his computer; and the student uses two different operating systems, including one that is not the “regular B.C. operating system” but instead has “a black screen with white font which he uses prompt commands on.”
The recent DHS (Department of Homeland Security) report, issued April 7th, is the latest in a very disturbing trend by the left and in the media to characterize political dissenters as dangerous right-wing extremists. When I first saw the report I, like others, was almost certain that it was a fake created by anti-Obama nut jobs. I could not belive it was an actual government document. The DHS report, which seems uncharacteristically vague for a law enforcement assessment, goes so far as to link these “Right-Wing Extremists” to hate organizations and white supremacists. The three major news network websites ran the story pretty much as I’m sure the Obama administration intended, a chilling warning about returning veterans, guns, and hate. Only Fox News reported the story with any integrity. The idea that the traditional press is still “The Fourth Estate“ and represents the people, is pretty much dead. Michele Malkin and others have weighed in on the DHS report but it is the way that the newspapers and networks are using this story that really concerns me. There is little doubt that a de-facto coalition exists between the Obama administration and the traditional press. God help anyone who disagrees with them.
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Aided by social networking tools like Twitter, LiveJournal and Facebook, demonstrators in the former-Soviet republic of Moldova are gearing for another round of protests. Just yesterday, activists seized the president’s office and the country’s parliament — only to have the government take the buildings back. More crowds, however, are converging on the main square. And they are Tweeting, posting, and uploading.
While 90 percent of the guns traced to the U.S. actually originated in the United States, the percent traced to the U.S. is only about 17 percent of the total number of guns reaching Mexico.
You’ve heard this shocking “fact” before — on TV and radio, in newspapers, on the Internet and from the highest politicians in the land: 90 percent of the weapons used to commit crimes in Mexico come from the United States.
— Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said it to reporters on a flight to Mexico City.
— CBS newsman Bob Schieffer referred to it while interviewing President Obama.
— California Sen. Dianne Feinstein said at a Senate hearing: “It is unacceptable to have 90 percent of the guns that are picked up in Mexico and used to shoot judges, police officers and mayors … come from the United States.”
There’s just one problem with the 90 percent “statistic” and it’s a big one:
It’s just not true.
In fact, it’s not even close. By all accounts, it’s probably around 17 percent.
This is a few days old now but this is the kind of proactive effort we need if we are going to be successful in defending the constitution. We should all contact these 65 representatives and thank them for their leadership in putting principal above party.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Sixty-five House Democrats said Wednesday that they would oppose any attempt by the Obama administration to revive a ban on military-style weapons that President Bill Clinton signed into law in 1994 and President George W. Bush let expire.
The pro-gun Democrats, led by Rep. Mike Ross, D-Ark., wrote Attorney General Eric Holder that they would “actively oppose any effort to reinstate the 1994 ban, or to pass any similar law.”
…three Washington, D.C. residents today filed a lawsuit challenging a regulation by District of Columbia city government that arbitrarily bans handguns based on a roster of “acceptable†handguns approved by the State of California.
…Attorney Alan Gura, representing the plaintiffs in this case, noted that District bureaucrats “told Tracy Ambeau Hanson her gun was the wrong color.†Americans are not limited to a government list of approved books, or approved religions, he said. A handgun protected by the Second Amendment doesn’t need to appear on any government-approved list either.
What do you call it when the government controls the banks and the newspapers? Let’s see, its right on the tip of my tongue … I know it ends in “ism”. I think China’s government is similar. Oh well, it will come to me I’m sure.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – With many U.S. newspapers struggling to survive, a Democratic senator on Tuesday introduced a bill to help them by allowing newspaper companies to restructure as nonprofits with a variety of tax breaks.
A military commander at Fort Campbell in Kentucky demanded his soldiers give him the registration numbers of any guns they own privately and then reveal where they are stored.
The order was stopped, according to base officials, when it was discovered the commander was not “acting within his authority.”
The original order was issued on the letterhead of Charlie Company, 3rd Battalion, 187th Infantry Regiment and said effective March 11, any soldier with a “privately owned weapon” was required to submit the information, along with any information about any concealed carry permit the soldier may have, and what state issued the permit.
THE Home Office has quietly adopted a new plan to allow police across Britain routinely to hack into people’s personal computers without a warrant.
The move, which follows a decision by the European Union’s council of ministers in Brussels, has angered civil liberties groups and opposition MPs. They described it as a sinister extension of the surveillance state which drives “a coach and horses†through privacy laws.
The hacking is known as “remote searchingâ€. It allows police or MI5 officers who may be hundreds of miles away to examine covertly the hard drive of someone’s PC at his home, office or hotel room.
Material gathered in this way includes the content of all e-mails, web-browsing habits and instant messaging.
Until now, Minnesota was always famous for its clean elections. Indeed, Democratic consultant Bob Beckel recently attested to the honesty of Minnesota’s elections, joking: “Believe me. I’ve tried. I’ve tried every way around the system out there, and it doesn’t work.”
But that was before Minnesota encountered the pushiest, most aggressive, most unscrupulous person who has ever sought public office, Al Franken.
One of Obama’s 63 questions for applicants who wish to work for the federal government is:
Do you or any members of your immediate family own a gun? If so, provide complete ownership and registration information. Has the registration ever lapsed? Please also describe how and by whom it is used and whether it has been the cause of any personal injuries or property damage.
The only discernable reason this question about handgun, rifle or shotgun ownership would be asked is the same reason employers used to ask job seekers about their race, gender, age or ethnic background – that is, solely for the purpose of discriminating against the applicant. Indeed, this marks the first time a president has ever asked potential administration employees if they are exercising one of their constitutional rights as part of the weeding-out process.
“It may sound a bit crazy and off base, but the thing is, he’s the one who proposed this national security force,” Rep. Paul Broun said of Obama in an interview Monday with The Associated Press. “I’m just trying to bring attention to the fact that we may—may not, I hope not—but we may have a problem with that type of philosophy of radical socialism or Marxism.”
Broun cited a July speech by Obama that has circulated on the Internet in which the then-Democratic presidential candidate called for a civilian force to take some of the national security burden off the military.
“That’s exactly what Hitler did in Nazi Germany and it’s exactly what the Soviet Union did,” Broun said. “When he’s proposing to have a national security force that’s answering to him, that is as strong as the U.S. military, he’s showing me signs of being Marxist.”
