Video: What the Government is doing with your internet and phone calls

My friends, I knew this was big, but I had no idea it was this big. 😯

This video comes via Democracy Now:

Also too, unlike the anti-american idiots at WSJ; no, I do not support this one iota. I agree with Michelle Malkin, it is overreach of the highest order and yes, it is dangerous as hell.

I will say this, as someone who is not much of a Democratic Party supporter anymore; my friends, we might just be witnessing what might just be the end or at least the long-term waylaying of the Democratic Party for a long time to come. I can tell you now, that many Americans who voted for President Obama are feeling like suckers who were sold a bag of lemons. Because from what I have seen, Democrats are absolutely furious about this little revelation.

Here is perfect example: (Via)

and another: (via)

Of course, there are stays; my friends, I present to you the biggest damned idiot on television:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=1DePimVb9dY

AllahPundit writes about this moron, and man is he ever right about this guy.

Take it away AP:

Matthews has made this point many times before, usually with references to Horatio Alger, but it feels extra special after a long week of President Perfect completely betraying the Hopenchange ethos of his first presidential campaign. It’s not the cheap racial demagoguery that gets me here; that’s par for the course both for him and his network, where you’ll find far dumber examples of it than this. What gets me is that a guy who’s spent his adult life in politics reacts to the dynamics of ideological differences and partisanship like a college student would. Righties dislike O because he’s a statist liberal, and sometimes an aggressive one; if Hillary wins, she’ll be hated for the same reason. Obama’s personal behavior is better than lots of pols’, but plenty of politicians who are more or less decent people in their personal conduct are roundly hated by the other team. Paul Ryan’s a nice guy with a lovely family whom the lefty commentariat loathes because they think he wants to kill grandma. Marco Rubio also seems like a decent person with a nice family; he’ll be the second coming of Hitler in 2016 to the left if he’s the nominee, his shilling for immigration reform notwithstanding. Many people who know Mitt Romney will tell you he’s a warm, generous guy in person; he’s lived cleanly too, apart from his unforgivable crime of making lots and lots of money in business. (Note Matthews’s reference to “money-grubbing” in the clip. For shame, Mitt.) All of them already are or will be regarded by liberals as monsters, not because they have any deep objection to them as people but because they’re roadblocks on the path to the society liberals want America to be. That’s politics. When you know the way to paradise, everyone in your way is the devil. And every single person reading this grasps that already. So how is it the guy who doesn’t, who shrieks like a five-year-old over political animosities, has his own TV show?

Very well put. Also too, and please know this okay? The only reason I am linking to HotAir.com on this is for following reasons:

  1. Because I happened to see the videos there and I happened to have liked what AllahPundit said. 
  2. It is considered in blogging to be unethical to not cite sources of where you get your videos from. Yes, I know, people have used stuff here and no bothered to cite me as the source. It happens. But, I happen to believe in ethics and integrity. Because of this I cite my sources, all the time. I could care less about the hits or lack of; although, I will confess that the trackback links are nice. But, I really do not get a good deal of traffic from HotAir.com. So, the accusations of my link whoring are baseless.

 

Poop, meet outhouse

I just get done writing one “poop-stinky” hitting the fan blog entry and I stumble upon another one.

Not to get all….um, how do I put it? Oh, scheiß drauf. As the German’s would say — Nicht, um alle jüdischen darüber oder anothing …. ABER!

Oy Vey…..

Go read this one, it’s big. 😯

QOTD: Obama loses the NYT

WOW….just Wow… 😯

Within hours of the disclosure that the federal authorities routinely collect data on phone calls Americans make, regardless of whether they have any bearing on a counterterrorism investigation, the Obama administration issued the same platitude it has offered every time President Obama has been caught overreaching in the use of his powers: Terrorists are a real menace and you should just trust us to deal with them because we have internal mechanisms (that we are not going to tell you about) to make sure we do not violate your rights.

Those reassurances have never been persuasive — whether on secret warrants to scoop up a news agency’s phone records or secret orders to kill an American suspected of terrorism — especially coming from a president who once promised transparency and accountability.

The administration has now lost all credibility on this issue. Mr. Obama is proving the truism that the executive will use any power it is given and very likely abuse it. That is one reason we have long argued that the Patriot Act, enacted in the heat of fear after the 9/11 attacks by members of Congress who mostly had not even read it, was reckless in its assignment of unnecessary and overbroad surveillance powers.

Poop, meet fan.

Others: Alan Colmes’ Liberaland, Politico, BuzzFeed, Yahoo! News, Washington Post, Hit & Run, The Monkey Cage, Washington Wire, The World’s Greatest …, The Daily Caller, Law Blog,VentureBeat, Business Insider, Mediaite, The PJ Tatler, Washington Free Beacon, Hot Air, Weasel Zippers, The Huffington Post, Salon, ComPost, The Week, Guardian, NO QUARTER USA NET, First Read, Mashable, American Spectator, New Republic, msnbc.com, Washington Monthly, Daily Kos,The Atlantic Wire, Firedoglake, TechCrunch, The Maddow Blog and Library of Law & Liberty – Via Memeorandum

The US continues spying on phones under Obama

There are a ton of opinions on this subject and we’ll get to those in a moment.

But first the story:

The National Security Agency is currently collecting the telephone records of millions of US customers of Verizon, one of America’s largest telecoms providers, under a top secret court order issued in April.

The order, a copy of which has been obtained by the Guardian, requires Verizon on an “ongoing, daily basis” to give the NSA information on all telephone calls in its systems, both within the US and between the US and other countries.

The document shows for the first time that under the Obama administration the communication records of millions of US citizens are being collected indiscriminately and in bulk – regardless of whether they are suspected of any wrongdoing.

The secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (Fisa) granted the order to the FBI on April 25, giving the government unlimited authority to obtain the data for a specified three-month period ending on July 19.

Under the terms of the blanket order, the numbers of both parties on a call are handed over, as is location data, call duration, unique identifiers, and the time and duration of all calls. The contents of the conversation itself are not covered.

via NSA collecting phone records of millions of Verizon customers daily | World news | The Guardian.

But, there is a big difference this time:

Under the Bush administration, officials in security agencies had disclosed to reporters the large-scale collection of call records data by the NSA, but this is the first time significant and top-secret documents have revealed the continuation of the practice on a massive scale under President Obama.

The unlimited nature of the records being handed over to the NSA is extremely unusual. Fisa court orders typically direct the production of records pertaining to a specific named target who is suspected of being an agent of a terrorist group or foreign state, or a finite set of individually named targets.

Which sounds about right for the Democrats, because they are perfectly fine with Government of a massive scale.

Now there are two very important opinions on this subject that I want you to see. They are same political slant; however, the opinions are very different. Please go check out Michelle Malkin’s take and Ed Morrissey’s take on this subject. While I agree on Michelle Malkin’s assessment, I really do not agree with her narrative at all. If you are smart and read her a good deal, you will know what I am talking about.

Now there is one thing that Ed Morrissey wrote that I, as an Independent, and someone who believes that the war on terror is a very real thing and that we should at least try to keep America safe, without trampling on our constitutional rights. I believe this to be very true and  very profound statement coming from someone like Mr. Morrissey:

Hypocrisy is an unfortunately ubiquitous condition in politics, but in the case of NSA seizing Verizon’s phone records, it’s particularly widespread.  Some of the people expressing outrage for the Obama administration’s efforts at data mining had a different attitude toward it when Bush was in office.  Conversely, we’ll see some people defending Obama who considered Bush evil incarnate for the same thing.

Either way, we’re left with the situation of having the federal government seizing private records without any meaningful civil due process that engages the citizens affected, whether that includes actual wiretaps or just cataloguing our calls and movements.  Perhaps this will move this issue out of the partisan sphere and into a common ground in which we can all work to define exactly how far we’re willing to go in trading privacy for security.  In order to get there, we’d all better recognize the hypocrisy that has abounded on this issue for far too long, and start thinking about higher principles than party affiliation when it comes to national security and constitutional protections.

Now that last part that I underlined, is something I wholeheartedly agree with. When the story broke about Bush and Co. came about the wiretaps, I remember Keith Olbermann doing a special comment on it and I admired him for standing up. Now, where’s Keith? Where are the liberals who thought that this was much too intrusive? Where are they now? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?

My hat tip goes to Glenn Greenwald for putting principles over partisanship and getting this story to the masses. Glenn has been about the only liberal who has stood up and pointed out that Obama Administration has continued the policies of the George W. Bush Administration and in some cases; like this one here — has expanded them to an alarming degree. Yes, this is overreach and it is alarming and I do hope the Congress does something about it.

Others: Hullabaloo, Yahoo! News, Washington Wire, Washington Monthly, New York Times,ThinkProgress, Politico, Firedoglake, BuzzFeed, CNN, Forbes, Joshua Foust, The World’s Greatest …, msnbc.com, The Atlantic Wire, JustOneMinute, American Spectator, Democracy in America,WorldViews, TIME, Business Insider, Examiner, The Fix, News Desk, Associated Press, New Republic, Daily Kos, The Maddow Blog, Mashable, Wake up America, Wonkblog, The Huffington Post, Taylor Marsh, The Volokh Conspiracy, Mediaite, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Library of Law & Liberty, Moon of Alabama, The Daily Caller, TechCrunch, Wall Street Journal, Engadget, Betsy’s Page, Patterico’s Pontifications, AllThingsD, Outside the Beltway, Post Politics, Informed Comment,Nice Deb, Real Clear Politics, Wired, The Gateway Pundit, The Week, Illinois Review,AMERICAblog, Pirate’s Cove, CANNONFIRE, VentureBeat, No More Mister Nice Blog, First Read,Prairie Weather, The PJ Tatler, Telegraph, The Hinterland Gazette, Alan Colmes’ Liberaland, Weasel Zippers, Jammie Wearing Fools, GigaOM, Corrente, The Spectacle Blog, Gawker, Boing Boing, The Raw Story, Shakesville, Secrecy News, The Verge, Conservatives4Palin, susiemadrak.com, Sense of Events, Taegan Goddard’s …, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion, The BLT, emptywheel and Overlawyered  Via Memeorandum 

I am all for children being protected at school…. But…..

I do believe that this is just a wee bit overboard. 😯

The story:

OWINGS, MD — The father of a middle schooler in Calvert County, Md. says his 11-year-old son was suspended for 10 days for merely talking about guns on the bus ride home.

Bruce Henkelman of Huntingtown says his son, a sixth grader at Northern Middle School in Owings, was talking with friends about the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre when the bus driver hauled him back to school to be questioned by the principal, Darrel Prioleau.

“The principal told me that with what happened at Sandy Hook if you say the word ‘gun’ in my school you are going to get suspended for 10 days,” Henkelman said in an interview with WMAL.com.

So what did the boy say?  According to his father, he neither threatened nor bullied anyone.

“He said, I wish I had a gun to protect everyone. He wanted to defeat the bad guys. That’s the context of what he said,” Henkelman said. “He wanted to be the hero.”

The boy was questioned by the principal and a sheriff’s deputy, who also wanted to search the family home without a warrant, Henkelman said. “He started asking me questions about if I have firearms, and [the deputy said] he’s going to have to search my house.  Search my house?  I just wanted to know what happened.”

No search was performed, and the deputy left Henkelman’s home after the father answered questions in a four-page questionnaire issued by the Sheriff’s Office.

via WMAL : Where Washington Comes to Talk – WMAL EXCLUSIVE: 11-Yr-Old Suspended From School For Merely TALKING About Guns.

Look, nobody likes the idea of any kids being shot or guns being brought to school by kids, — period, end of story. But, merely talking about guns?!?! I tend to think that is just a little over the top. This is not nazi Germany or the communist soviet empire. We do have a right to freedom of speech.

Second of all, now don’t think that I am going to drone on like some Alex Jones reject about how this is some sort of conspiracy by the Obama Administration to take all of our guns or something silly like that, sorry, I don’t play that game here.  If anything at all, it is overly cautious school board, who is reacting to the recent shootings that have taken place over the past few months. I can see why they did it; but, I think the principal and teachers went a bit overboard.

There is nothing wrong with trying to be safe, but being paranoid can be very dangerous itself. Plus too, censoring kids speech just makes you look like fascists.

Oh and too, searching a house, without a warrant?!?!?  I don’t think so! You have probable cause, and a warrant signed by a judge —- or you take your silly donut eating pig ass back to the station where you belong. 😡

This whole trampling on the rights of the American people for the so-called “greater good”, just pisses me the hell off. 😡

Others: protein wisdom, The Gateway Pundit, The PJ Tatler, Weasel Zippers, National Review,Joanne Jacobs and WJLA-TV

UPDATED – Anyone know what’s going on with Bruce Gerencser?

His blog is down and his e-mail addresses are bouncing.

Update: I just thought I would let everyone know. I did a lookup for Bruce in his hometown of Ohio. I did find a number for him, I called and left a message for what was hopefully Bruce’s number.  I do suspect that one of these happened:

  1. His blog was possibly hacked and his host could not restore it; and he decided to pack it in because of that. 
  2. Bruce does still have family within the IFB or Independent Fundamental Baptist circles. It is totally possibly that Bruce got some negative pushback from family or from someone in the IFB movement and he decided it was not worth going to war with them over it.

Either way, it kind of saddens me that Bruce left again; and I do hope he comes back. If he blog traffic is not terribly heavy, I would be willing to host his site here, as an sub off of my server here. Only thing I would ask for is a little help with the hosting. There would be no interference whatsoever with his blog. I would just help set it back up for him.

If anyone hears anything about Bruce and to what is going on, if you would please, leave me a message in the comments section of my blog.

Thanks!

-Patrick

———————————

MASSIVE HIGH UPDATE AND PLEASE EVERYONE READ THIS! –  I received a phone call from a gentleman down in Ohio, near Columbus. It appears that the number that happens to be listed on the Internet for Bruce, is not Bruce’s at all and has not been his for a very long time. So, please DO NOT CALL THAT NUMBER LOOKING FOR  BRUCE, BECAUSE IT DOES NOT BELONG TO HIM AT ALL! 

That is all…

Quote of the Day

Does America fear facing down China because a political and economic collision with Beijing would entail an admission by the United States that our vision of a world of democratic nations all engaged in peaceful free trade under a rules-based regime was a willful act of self-delusion?

What China is about is as old as the history of man. She is a rising ethno-national state doing what such powers have always done: put their own interests ahead of all others, suppress ethnic minorities like Tibetans and Uighurs, and crush religious dissenters like Christians and Falun Gong.

There is no New World Order. Never was. The old demons—chauvinism and ethno-nationalism—are not ancient history. They are not extinct. They are with us forever. And America is not going to be able to deny reality much longer or put off facing up to what China is all about.

Given her current size and disposition, one day soon we are going to have to stop feeding the tiger. And start sanctioning it.

 

In case anyone has forgotten: Al-Qaeda is still here and they ain’t playing

Ron Paul hardest hit:

AFP – Al-Qaeda’s military chief in Yemen warned Americans in an audio message posted online Sunday that the Boston bombings revealed a fragile security as he urged Muslims to defend their religion.

Qassim al-Rimi, the military chief of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, said making bombs such as the ones used in the twin blasts in Boston in April, is within “everyone’s reach”.

“The Boston events… and the poisoned letters (sent to the White House), regardless of who is behind them, show that your security is no longer under control, and that attacks on you have taken off and cannot be stopped,” he said, in the message entitled: “A letter to the American people.”

“Every day you will be hit by the unexpected and your leaders will not be able to defend you,” warned the man whose organisation is considered by Washington the world’s most dangerous Al-Qaeda branch.

Rimi said the killing of Al-Qaeda’s founder Osama bin Laden in May 2011 and top Yemeni-American cleric Anwar al-Awlaki in September 2011, had not ended the struggle.

“Have you eliminated the jihadist groups that have spread everywhere after they had only been in Afghanistan? Today, they are in your land or close to it,” he warned.

To the Muslims in the United States, he said: “We encourage you to carry on with this way, be steadfast in your religion

via Qaeda chief warns attacks on US in ‘everyone’s reach’ – FRANCE 24.

This is why I could never quite get into the whole idea of Ron Paul dismantling our Military. I want, as anyone else does, a reasonable foreign policy. However, I do want our Government to defend the Republic.

Irregardless of why they hate us; whether it is because of our foreign policy decisions of the past or because we are free or because of capitalistic society — the fact remains — they hate us and they want to kill us and we do have to be able to defend ourselves.

…..and that my friends — is no laughing matter. 😡