Clamping Down On New Technologies

[Confederate Kahanist]

http://www.personalliberty.com/conservative-politics/privacy/clamping-down-on-new-technologies/?eiid=&rmid=2010_10_08_PLA&rrid=306930734

October 8, 2010 by Bob Livingston
Clamping Down On New Technologies

With the advent of new communications technologies like voice-over-Internet and text messaging, the Feds are having a tough time monitoring our conversations. And they aren’t particularly happy about it.

So to better monitor domestic “terrorists” like returning veterans, Ron Paul supporters, small government advocates and Tea Party members — according to the Department of Homeland Security — President Barack Obama will soon propose new legislation to mandate that the U.S. government have access to all forms of communications, “including encrypted email, transmitters like BlackBerry, social networking  Web sites like Facebook and software that allows ‘peer-to-peer’ messaging like Skype,” writes Salon.com’s Glenn Greenwald.

What Obama and his Justice Department goons are looking for is complete and instant access to all communications. Or, as Greenwald writes, “…every communication and all other human transactions must be subject to government surveillance. Nothing may be beyond the reach of spying agencies. There must be no such thing as true privacy from government authorities.”

And don’t think a compliant Congress — even if Republicans gain the majority in one or both Houses — won’t go along. Richard Falkenrath, a top-level Homeland Security official in the George W. Bush administration and now a principal in the private security firm Chertoff Group — led by the serpent-headed former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff — thinks such monitoring is a great idea.

In an op-ed piece that ran in The New York Times Aug. 9, just after media reports came out that United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia were banning the use of BlackBerrys within their borders, Falkenrath wrote, “Among law enforcement investigators and intelligence officers [in the U.S.] the Emirates’ decision met with approval, admiration and perhaps even a touch of envy.”

The last administration drove a stake through the heart of privacy with the passage of the completely unpatriotic USA PATRIOT Act. There were a few howls about the loss of liberty from some Democrats, but Republicans quickly jumped on board.

But this intrusive legislation — coupled with the recently announced intention to require U.S. banks to report all electronic money transfers into and out of the country (as opposed to just those exceeding $10,000) — will end any vestiges of freedom.

And for those of you who spout the pabulum, “I don’t break any laws so I don’t care if they monitor me,” consider this. Greenwald reminds us that Senator Frank Church (D-Idaho), after leading the investigation into the spying abuses of the decades prior to the 1970s and the growing surveillance technologies of the National Security Administration had this to say:

    “That capability at any time could be turned on the American people and no American would have any privacy left, such is the capability to monitor everything: telephone conversations, telegrams, it doesn’t matter. There would be no place to hide.”

He added that if a dictator ever took over, the NSA “could enable it to impose tyranny, and there would be no way to fight back.”

Obama was hypocritical when he criticized UAE and Saudi Arabia for their actions regarding BlackBerry and then turned around and advocated for the same thing. Couple this with his Internet Kill Switch Bill proposal — supported by Senators Joe Lieberman and Jay Rockefeller (who want to give the President the power to turn off the Internet in order to be more like China) — and you see we have a totalitarian regime just one step away from a dictatorship.