Free Republic

This is Secretary of State John Kerry’s answer.... “He should man up, come back to the United States. If he has a complaint about what’s wrong with American surveillance, come back here and stand in our system of justice and make his case....” The argument has a specious attractiveness; however, its premises are arbitrary, its logic shaky, and its implications pernicious. ...It is true that some disobedients, such as Henry David Thoreau, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and Rosa Parks, did not seek to evade punishment. It is also true, however, that they could not possibly have done so, for...

It hardly gets more Orwellian than this. New technology would allow cable companies to peer directly into television watchers’ homes and monitor viewing habits and reactions to product advertisements. The technology would come via the cable box, and at least one lawmaker on Capitol Hill is standing in opposition.

This is why I hate Obamacare. I knew this was coming. This is why I railed against using the IRS to enforce Obamacare. I knew insinuating the IRS into your health care was just the beginning. I knew going to electronic health records was going to send this country down the rabbit hole. And here it is. The federal government is piecing together a sweeping national “biosurveillance” system that will give bureaucrats near real-time access to Americans’ private medical information in the name of national security, according to Twila Brase, a public health nurse and co-founder of the Citizens Council...

Full Title: The slightly disturbing ‘joke’ made by Valerie Jarrett on online privacy in a college commencement speech During her commencement speech at Pomona College, a leading liberal arts institution located in Claremont, California, President Obama’s senior advisor Valerie Jarrett made remarks about the president’s focus on the so-called “pay gap” between men and women (repeating the dubious claim that women make 77% of what men make), Obamacare and other administration agenda items. But it was when Jarrett deviated to talking more generally about political service that she let loose a joke that some might find a bit unsettling (though...

Swear in downtown Brighton near the Imagination Station playground, and there’s a good chance you’ll be getting a ticket. Colin Andersen learned this lesson the hard way. Upset that his friend had been ticketed for skateboarding in downtown Brighton and told to leave, Andersen said he was simply venting when he said, “This is f------ bull----.” The 19-year-old Brighton resident was hanging out with his friends on a sunny April day in a parking lot next to the pavilion and Imagination Station; Andersen said he swore under his breath and no children heard him. However, a Brighton Police Department officer...

First lady Michelle Obama is encouraging students to monitor their older relatives, friends and co-workers for any racially insensitive comments they might make, and to challenge those comments whenever they’re made. The first lady spoke on Friday to graduating high school students in Topeka, Kansas, and in remarks released over the weekend, Obama said students need to police family and friends because federal laws can only go so far in stopping racism. -SNIP- [O]ur laws may no longer separate us based on our skin color, but nothing in the Constitution says we have to eat together in the lunchroom, or...

The touch screens will only accept debit or credit cards, adding to the slow death knell of cash and coins. This all goes along with an overall revamp of McDonald's restaurants worldwide aimed at projecting a modern image as opposed to the old-fashioned golden arches with a slightly creepy (to my taste anyway) clown guy hanging around the french fries.

The U.S. Department of Justice wants new authority to hack and search remote computers during investigations, saying the new rules are needed because of complex criminal schemes sometimes using millions of machines spread across the country. Digital rights groups say the request from the DOJ for authority to search computers outside the district where an investigation is based raises concerns about Internet security and Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches and seizures. “By expanding federal law enforcement’s power to secretly exploit ‘zero-day’ vulnerabilities in software and Internet platforms, the proposal threatens to weaken Internet security for all of us,” Nathan...

The California Legislature is looking at a voluntary program that would tax motorists for every mile they drive. KCAL9’s Bobby Kaple reports that Sen. Mark DeSaulnier, D-Concord, introduced a bill to test out the vehicle miles traveled (VMT) tax because the state’s gas tax was no longer bringing in the revenue it used to due to people driving more fuel efficient vehicles.

In December, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, which oversees how investments are sold, proposed what it calls Cards, an electronic system that would regularly collect data on balances and transactions in brokerage accounts. But some critics think it could endanger the privacy and security of investors’ confidential data. Under Cards (which stands for Comprehensive Automated Risk Data System), Finra would collect—probably weekly—a record of activity at all of the more than 4,100 brokerage firms nationwide.

The White House has asked legislators crafting competing reforms of the National Security Agency to provide legal immunity for telecommunications firms that provide the government with customer data, the Guardian has learned. In a statement of principles privately delivered to lawmakers some weeks ago to guide surveillance reforms, the White House said it wanted legislation protecting “any person who complies in good faith with an order to produce records” from legal liability for complying with court orders for phone records to the government once the NSA no longer collects the data in bulk. The brief request, contained in a four-page...

The NSA has lost the trust of the American people as a result of the Edward Snowden leaks, and needs to be more transparent to gain it back, the NSA's new director said Wednesday in his first public comments since taking control of the embattled spy agency. "I tell the [NSA] workforce out there as the new guy, let’s be honest with each other, the nation has lost a measure of trust in us," Admiral Michael Rogers told a conference of the Women in Aerospace conference in Crystal City, Va.... Rogers didn't lay complete responsibility at the doorstep of the...

Vocabulary Fraud: Obama denies by redefinition by Daniel Clark While speaking to Al Sharpton’s National Action Network, President Obama stated his opposition to state voter identification laws, a position for which no innocent motive exists. It wouldn’t have sounded good if he’d admitted he was defending voter fraud, so instead he redefined the term, so that he could pretend to oppose it instead. “The real voter fraud is those that try to deny our rights by making arguments about voter fraud,” he said, apparently meaning that those who try to prevent voter fraud by requiring identification are themselves the frauds....

DeKalb County Police say they were caught off-guard Sunday by the unsanctioned party at a public park that ended with two women being shot. “This came really as a surprise to us,” the county’s public safety chief Cedric Alexander told reporters on Monday. But Alexander vowed that they would be prepared in the future. “We’re going to monitor social media going forward so that we can try to get ahead of them as quickly as we can and intervene and try to make sure those illegal crowds do not converge upon a crowd and become a threat to anyone,” he...

Celebrity “reality shows” ordinarily take to controversy like a duck to water. But it was not long after a pregnant….aspiring model…said she would abort to increase her chances of appearing on “Celebrity Big Brother” than the British television program insisted Josie Cunningham would not appear. It all started when Cunningham insisted to the Sunday Mirror that prior to becoming pregnant, she’d been on the short list to appear in the upcoming season’s edition of Celebrity Big Brother (“Big Brother,” for short). Channel 5 were keen to shortlist me, then they found out I was pregnant,” she said. “Then they suddenly...

23-year-old Josie Cunningham said producers of the UK version ‘suddenly turned cold’ when they found out she was pregnant — either by a soccer player or one of her clients, as she works as a call girl. Figuring that was preventing her from becoming famous, the 18-weeks-pregnant Cunningham plans to have an abortion this week before once again trying to get on the show. A wannabe celebrity plans to have an abortion just so she can appear on a reality television program. Josie Cunningham, who got pregnant either working as a prostitute or through having sex with a soccer player,...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)Imagine a world where drones never have to touch the ground after takeoff. That’s what MIT PhD. candidate Joseph Moore did, and now he’s on the cusp of creating a drone that can “perch” on power lines just like birds to recharge its batteries. Mr. Moore gave Business Insider a demonstration of the technology he’s perfecting by using a glider as proof of concept. In short, if a drone is equipped with the a magnetometer it should be possible to make the aircraft capable of identifying magnetic fields given off by power lines, home in on the signal they emit,...

Although it’s been going on for years, it seems lately there is an all-out assault by the nanny government to crack down on our liberties. Nowadays, when the people say no, our rulers just do the old end around, or sleight-of-hand. They cause us to concentrate on one thing while they regulate behind our backs. Lately it seems that even this tactic has changed and the Nanny State has begun to attack us from all sides. Take this global warming nonsense. With every passing year, the people are coming to realize what a hoax it has been. Every poll conducted...

For many of us, enjoying a glass of wine or pint of beer is the perfect way to unwind after a hard day’s work. But it seems having a drink in a pub or restaurant could be about to get a lot less relaxing. Campaigners are calling for lines to be printed on glasses to show drinkers how many units of alcohol they are really consuming—and potentially to shock them into cutting down. The plans, put forward by the Drinkaware charity, would see unit measure lines added to glasses, based on average-strength drinks—a 4 percent beer, 13 percent wine and...

Top 10 States Americans Are Fleeing #1: New York New York has led the nation in domestic out-migration since the late 1990s. The New York Post reported in 2011 that "62 percent of New Yorkers planning to leave cited economic factors — including cost of living (30 percent), taxes (19 percent) and the job environment (10 percent) — as the main reasons." 2012-2013 state-to-state net domestic migration: -104,470 2. Illinois http://www.realclearpolitics.com/lists/out_migration_states/illinois.html 3. California http://www.realclearpolitics.com/lists/out_migration_states/california.html4. New Jersey http://www.realclearpolitics.com/lists/out_migration_states/new_jersey.html 5. Pennsylvania http://www.realclearpolitics.com/lists/out_migration_states/pennsylvania.html 6. Michigan http://www.realclearpolitics.com/lists/out_migration_states/michigan.html 7. Ohio http://www.realclearpolitics.com/lists/out_migration_states/ohio.html8. Connecticut http://www.realclearpolitics.com/lists/out_migration_states/connecticut.html9. Kansas http://www.realclearpolitics.com/lists/out_migration_states/kansas.html10. New Mexico http://www.realclearpolitics.com/lists/out_migration_states/new_mexico.html