Federal Government

It’s ok, the pres told me to do it.

This entry was posted in Constitution Federal Government Privacy US Politics War on Terrorism on by

The dems do more for bush and the police state than the repubs:

I’d like to underscore the fact that in 2006, when the Congress was controlled by Bill Frist and Denny Hastert, the administration tried to get a bill passed legalizing warrantless eavesdropping and telecom amnesty, but was unable. They had to wait until the Congress was controlled by Steny Hoyer, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid to accomplish that.

In short form, the house just passed legislation (to call it law completely demeans the concept of law) that says that even if it is illegal if the president says it was ok it’s, well, not illegal. So why do we have a congress and judicial system….?
Unfortunately, the legislation is even worse…read the above link and, heck, even the Washington Post for more nauseous details.
Blue Girl suggests that there was some big lever used on the dems:

But there is one thing no one knows–and that is, how bad was the thing that was used to threaten the Democratic Party to roll over on this issue? How bad was the thing they were threatening to use against anyone who opposed them? Was it the fact that there are archives on every Democratic politician kept sealed away–archives of their personal conversations, archives of their monetary dealings, details of their sex lives?

Nah, this is just the way these folks are. dems and repubs alike continue to cravenly build executive power, line the wallets of their corporate masters and shred the constitution.

Some day all you folks that wear your donkey and elephant pins will realize that these parties and their hacks are not interested in you but only in the power that they wield.

Hat tip to Steve for the original abomination sighting.

Just Say No to Real ID

This entry was posted in Federal Government War on Terrorism on by

The other 49 governors need to follow Montana governor brian schweitzer’s lead:

Schweitzer emphasized that his state’s licenses already contain holograms, secure digital photographs and a magnetic stripe on the back. But says he has no intention of sharing his state’s residents’ data with the federal government, as required by Real ID.
The information the government wants the states to keep and share in Real ID is ripe for abuse, despite the government’s privacy and security promises, he said.
“They tell us our data is safe,” Schweitzer said. “You tell that to the passport people,” he said, referring to news that State Department employees snooped in all three major presidential candidates’ passport files.
“Do you want your government to have the ability to track where you went, how you got there and when you got home?” Schweitzer asked. “It would be naïve for someone to think this information will not be abused in the future. Virtually every decade these kinds of files have been used to violate people’s privacy.”

schweitzer and the rest of our government servants would do well to apply this kind of thinking and action to any other program that invades our privacy or compromises our personal information with particular emphasis on banking institutions and telecommunications companies that apparently routinely violate our rights.

Via The Technology Liberation Front.

All You Need is Change

This entry was posted in Election 2008 Federal Government Government on by

Change, we are going to change things! This idea has been the recent mantra of the 2008 election.
Mark Morford nails the truth of this:

No, not the bland politicalspeak Barack Obama/Hillary Clinton brand of broad sloganeering bumper-sticker change, the kind where part of your naive perky innocent unicorns-in-the-sky self really wants to believe it’s all going to be hopeful and good and radically different, but yet you kind of know, deep down, when you peel back the masks and the rhetoric and the spin, that when all is said and done, pretty much the exact same jackals and demons and CEOs will run the bleak global circus, same as it ever was.

The only change we will get from clinton, obama or mccain is in the details of how the voters are bribed.
None of them will do anything to change the fundamental system of privilege and corporate welfare that creates the conditions for massive income disparity and corporate rapaciousness in the first place.

Don’t get me wrong. There will always be income disparity in a healthy economy but in a healthy economy it will truly be the result of individual capabilities, effort and creativity not earmarks, subsidies or direct and indirect wealth transfers.