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The Surveillance State goes big in an article from Gizmodo, which describes early testing of a "God's-eye" system that collates information from multiple sources on the ground, giving the authorities what inventor Ross McNutt describes as "a live version of Google Earth, only with TiVo capabilities." What McNutt's system does grows more amazing, and perhaps more chilling, as you read more about how it works: It's sort of similar to what your average satellite can do—except, in this case, you can rewind the video, zoom in, and follow specific people and cars as they move around the grid. It's not...

Robust household spending and rising exports kept the U.S. economy on solid ground in the fourth quarter, but stagnant wages could chip away some of the momentum in early 2014. Gross domestic product grew at a 3.2 percent annual rate, the Commerce Department said on Thursday, in line with expectations. While that was a slowdown from the third-quarter's brisk 4.1 percent pace, it was a far stronger performance than earlier anticipated and was welcome news in light of a 0.3 percentage point drag from October's partial government shutdown and a much smaller contribution to growth from a restocking by businesses....

Today, a judge ruled that the NSA surveillance program that collects millions of American's phone calls is "lawful." The case was brought by the ACLU: American Civil Liberties Union et al v. Clapper et al, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 13-03994 In his ruling, U.S District Judge Willian Pauley described how the government program "vacuums up information about virtually every telephone call to, from, or within the United States." But went on to say that the program's constitutionality "is ultimately a question of reasonableness," and that there was no evidence that the government had used "bulk...

You know things are bad for President Obama when even Warren Buffett has soured on Obamacare and says that "we need something else." Money Morning writes: "Healthcare costs in the United States are like a tapeworm eating at our economic body. "Those words come from famed investor Warren Buffett, who said he would scrap Obamacare and start all over. "'We have a health system that, in terms of costs, is really out of control,' he added. 'And if you take this line and you project what has been happening into the future, we will get less and less competitive. So...

As Americans, our foundings should tug at our very souls and remind us who we are, and better yet, who we should strive to be.

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776. The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that...

The Obama administration, already under fire for the IRS scandal and National Security Agency snooping of the computers and cellphones of Americans, is also spending millions to have private contractors conduct a dragnet for confidential and personal credit and bank transactions without a warrant. Newly obtained documents from the Obama-created Consumer Financial Protection Bureau reveal that the administration has OK'd a project to accumulate the personal financial data of some 5 million and share it with other agencies to build a "nationally representative panel of credit information on consumers for use in a wide range of policy research projects." The...

Call it the vacuum-cleaner approach. It's employed when police have obtained a court order and an Internet service provider can't "isolate the particular person or IP address" because of technical constraints, says Paul Ohm, a former trial attorney at the Justice Department's Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section. (An Internet Protocol address is a series of digits that can identify an individual computer.) That kind of full-pipe surveillance can record all Internet traffic, including Web browsing--or, optionally, only certain subsets such as all e-mail messages flowing through the network. Interception typically takes place inside an Internet provider's network at...

Call it the vacuum-cleaner approach. It's employed when police have obtained a court order and an Internet service provider can't "isolate the particular person or IP address" because of technical constraints, says Paul Ohm, a former trial attorney at the Justice Department's Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section. (An Internet Protocol address is a series of digits that can identify an individual computer.) That kind of full-pipe surveillance can record all Internet traffic, including Web browsing--or, optionally, only certain subsets such as all e-mail messages flowing through the network. Interception typically takes place inside an Internet provider's network at...

New data from law enforcement agencies across the country has confirmed what EFF has long been afraid of: while police are routinely using cell phone location tracking information, only a handful of agencies are bothering to obtain search warrants. Since 2005, we've been beating the drum loudly, warning that the government's attempts to track a person's physical location through their cell phone requires a search warrant. As we've said again and again, because cell phone tracking can give the government a snapshot of a person's life through their movements, a search warrant is necessary to safeguard against privacy intrusions.

EXPLODING THE PHONE The Untold Story of the Teenagers and Outlaws Who Hacked Ma Bell PHIL LAPSLEY Grove Press New York [pp. 92-97] If there were no billing records for fraudulent calls, there was no way to know how many fraudulent calls there were or how long they lasted. And that meant AT&T was gazing into the abyss. Say the phone company catches some college students with electronic boxes. Fantastic! But elation is soon replaced by worry. Is that all of them? Or is that just the tip of the iceberg? Are there another ten college students doing it? A...

So I'm watching the news today and start seeing our illustrious Bureaucrats Out Right Lying about what they collect and what they don't.   They tell us today they don't collect locations of cell phone trawled for in pursuit of a target named in a warrant.   I want you to understand when they issue a warrant, many times, with "Reasonable Cause" They are violating the Constitution by: 1.  Using "Reasonable Cause" as the basis for a warrant.  The Constitution requires no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause.   2.  supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the...

Freepers! Feel free to make the case for why the NSA, DOJ, DEA or FBI have any moral, legitimate, lawful, legal or Constitutional right to your private information for any reason given such Accidental or intentional purpose. Further, make the case when they collect your information why they are entitled to peruse it or store it for (5) five years or even a nanosecond.

Hepting v. AT&T is a United States class action lawsuit filed in January 2006 by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) against the telecommunications company AT&T, in which the EFF alleges that AT&T permitted and assisted the National Security Agency (NSA) in unlawfully monitoring the communications of the United States, including AT&T customers, businesses and third parties whose communications were routed through AT&T's network, as well as Voice over IP telephone calls routed via the Internet.   Quick excerpt: capable of monitoring billions of bits of Internet traffic a second, including the playback of telephone calls routed on the Internet, and...

The government scanning and archiving your personal telephone number and any calls associated with it are privately owned.   READ THIS  CAREFULLY!   The Post Office is a government owned entity.   Your phone number and any phone you use are privately owned.   As are the service providers.   As is the equipment of anyone you call.   Private Property, Ingringement of your 4th amendment and 1st, which will lead to jeopardy of your 5th and 2nd amendment.

So I'm watching the news today and start seeing our illustrious Bureaucrats Out Right Lying about what they collect and what they don't.   They tell us today they don't collect locations of cell phone trawled for in pursuit of a target named in a warrant.   I want you to understand when they issue a warrant, many times, with "Reasonable Cause" They are violating the Constitution by: 1.  Using "Reasonable Cause" as the basis for a warrant.  The Constitution requires no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause.   2.  supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the...

Kibbe: “Respectfully, Senator, we ask you to lead by example and make your email password available to the American people. If you have nothing to hide, then you have nothing to worry about. Right?” Washington, DC- At a press conference today, FreedomWorks President Matt Kibbe addressed the growing list of civil liberties violations that have surfaced in recent weeks, and extended an open invitation to South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham to walk the walk implied by his casual dismissal of the 4th Amendment to the Constitution. If he has "nothing to worry about," he should be willing to publicly release...

"My job this morning is to be so persuasive...that a light will shine through that window, a beam of light will come down upon you, you will experience an epiphany, and you will suddenly realize that you must go to the polls and vote for Barack," he told a crowd of about 300 Ivy Leaguers--and, by the looks of it, a handful of locals who managed to gain access to what was supposed to be a students-only event. For one thing, under an Obama presidency, Americans will be able to leave behind the era of George W. Bush, Dick Cheney...

No, this can’t be indicative of anything material, now can it? At the very least, it’s appropriate. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts arrives for a lecture on the history of the US Supreme Court at the University of Malta today. Last week, Roberts’ cast the key vote to uphold President Obama’s health care law. (AP)

DEFEAT THE STATISTS in 2012! Sweet Liberty forever... ___________________________________________________More at Reaganite Republican Ronald Reagan Independence Day Speech -here-