A Pandora’s box on speech

By George F. Will Thursday, August 20, 2009

From the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review August 21, 2009

WASHINGTON

It began with the proliferation of campus “speech codes” ostensibly designed to promote civility but frequently used to enforce political conformity. The new censorship accelerated with the McCain-Feingold legislation that licenses government regulation of the quantity, timing and content of speech in political campaigns.

Now the attack on First Amendment speech protections has taken an audacious new turn, illustrated by a case being pondered by a Texas judge. He is being asked to collaborate in the suppression of a book, and even of expressions of approval of the book.

The book arises from an abuse of the power of eminent domain by the city of Freeport, Texas, but the story really begins in Connecticut. There, in 2000, New London’s city government condemned the property of middle-class homeowners in an unblighted neighborhood for the purpose of getting the property into the hands of commercial interests that would pay more taxes. In 2005, in the Kelo case, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld, 5-4, New London’s rapaciousness as a constitutional taking of property for what the Fifth Amendment calls a “public use.”

When Kelo was decided, H. Walker Royall, a Dallas developer, already had designs on some property that for more than a decade has belonged to the Gore family shrimping business in coastal Freeport. In 2003, Royall signed an agreement with that city’s government to build a yacht marina, hotel and condominiums using property the city would seize by eminent domain.

The day after the Supreme Court made its Kelo mistake, Freeport intensified its pressure against the Gores, whose stout resistance caught the gimlet eye of Carla Main. An experienced journalist, Main has recounted the case in her book “Bulldozed: ‘Kelo,’ Eminent Domain and the American Lust for Land.” Her thesis is that many “takings” of property for economic development are taking a terrible toll on the rights of everyday Americans.

In October 2008, Royall sued Main and her publisher (Encounter Books), seeking monetary damages and a ban on further production and distribution of the book. He also sued the Galveston newspaper that reviewed the book and the reviewer. A judge dismissed, on jurisdictional grounds, Royall’s suit against Richard Epstein, professor of law at the University of Chicago and New York University, whose offense was a dust-jacket endorsement of the book as a report on an “unholy alliance” between government and a private interest.

Royall’s suit charging Main with defamation is, her lawyers document, riddled with mischaracterizations of what Main writes and about whom she writes it, and ignores long-established criteria of defamation law, which holds that a statement is not actionable as defamatory if the speaker obviously is expressing a subjective view or an interpretation, theory, conjecture or surmise.

Indeed, so slapdash are Royall’s accusations against Main that his suit seems to reflect nothing more substantial than his dislike of her opinions and those of people she accurately quotes. It seems intended to chill commentary on eminent domain abuse by exposing commentators to the steep costs of deflecting even frivolous litigation.

The Supreme Court is blameworthy for two entangled abuses. It diluted property rights in the Kelo case and it weakened freedom of speech by not overturning McCain-Feingold. Fortunately, in an unusual Sept. 9 session, the court will hear, for a second time, oral arguments in a case arising from that law’s speech restrictions.

The court should be cognizant of the attacks on property rights that its Kelo decision incited. And on Sept. 9 it should remember the increasing resort to restrictions of speech. McCain-Feingold is both a symptom and an encouragement of such restrictions.

Hostile bloggers facing fines, jail?

Posted: May 06, 2009
10:39 pm Eastern

By Bob Unruh
© 2009 WorldNetDaily

1ST AMENDMENT ON TRIAL

Proposal ‘comes close to making it federal offense to log onto Internet’

Jail cell

A new proposal in Congress is threatening fines and jail time for what it calls “cyberbullying” – communications that include e-mails and text messages that “cause substantial emotional distress.”

The vague generalities are included in H.R. 1966 by California Democrat Linda Sanchez and about a dozen co-sponsors.

But it already is being condemned as unconstitutional, unrealistic and probably ineffectual.

At Wired.com, in a report labeled “Threat Level,” writer David Kravets criticized the plan to demand “up to two years in prison for those whose electronic speech is meant to ‘coerce, intimidate, harass, or cause substantial emotional distress.'”

“Instead of prison, perhaps we should say gulag,” he wrote.

(Story continues below)

Such limits never would pass First Amendment muster, “unless the U.S. Constitution was altered without us knowing,” he wrote. “So Sanchez, and the 14 other lawmakers who signed on to the proposal are grandstanding to show the public they care about children and are opposed to cyberbullying.”

The plan is labeled the Megan Meier Cyberbullying Prevention Act, after the 13-year-old Meier, whose suicide last year reportedly was prompted by a woman who utilized the MySpace social networking site to send the teen critical messages.

Speak out now against limits on your speech!

The defendant in the case, Lori Drew, was accused under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.

“Sanchez’s bill goes way beyond cyberbullying and comes close to making it a federal offense to log onto the Internet or use the telephone,” Kravets wrote. “The methods of communication where hostile speech is banned include e-mail, instant messaging, blogs, websites, telephones and text messages.”

“We can’t say what we think of Sanchez’s proposal,” he said. “Doing so would clearly get us two years in solitary confinement.”

Wrote a contributor to the Wired forum page, “If passed, this legislation could be easily abused with the effect of criminalizing all criticism. You probably [couldn’t] even criticize the legislation itself because it would cause Sen. Sanchez emotional distress or possibly be considered a form of intimidation.”

The bill, which has been referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary, states, “Whoever transmits in interstate or foreign commerce any communication, with the intent to coerce, intimidate, harass, or cause substantial emotional distress to a person, using electronic means to support severe, repeated, and hostile behavior, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.”

It states: “Cyberbullying can cause psychological harm, including depression; negatively impact academic performance, safety, and the well-being of children in school; force children to change schools; and in some cases lead to extreme violent behavior, including murder and suicide.”

Teen homeschooler jailed under Patriot Act

Posted: May 04, 2009
8:31 pm Eastern

© 2009 WorldNetDaily

HOMELAND INSECURITY

FBI holds 10th-grader for months with little contact from family

Ashton Lundeby

A 16-year-old homeschooled boy from North Carolina was taken away from his home in handcuffs two months ago and has been held by the FBI in Indiana ever since, a victim, his mother claims, of the Patriot Act spun out of control.

According to Annette Lundeby of Oxford, N.C., armed FBI agents and local police stormed her home around 10 p.m. on March 5, looking for her son, Ashton. The officers presented a federal search warrant and seized the tenth-grader’s computer, cell phone and bank statements.

Ashton was then taken to a juvenile facility in South Bend, Ind., charged with making a bomb threat in Indiana from his home computer.

His mother, however, told Raleigh’s WRAL-TV that she argued with the authorities, claiming someone must have hacked into her son’s IP address and used it to make crank calls. The agents’ search, she claims, also failed to uncover any trace of bomb-making materials.

“Undoubtedly, they were given false information,” Lundeby told the station, “or they would not have had 12 agents in my house with a widow and two children and three cats.”

Allowed little access to see her son over the last two months, facing a court date that keeps being pushed back and given no information by FBI agents sitting behind a gag order on the case, Lundeby now says the USA Patriot Act has unjustly imprisoned an innocent boy and stripped her son of due process.

“We have no rights under the Patriot Act to even defend them, because the Patriot Act basically supersedes the Constitution,” she told WRAL-TV. “It wasn’t intended to drag your barely 16-year-old, 120-pound son out in the middle of the night on a charge that we can’t even defend.”

Passed after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, the USA Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism – or P.A.T.R.I.O.T. – Act armed law enforcement with new tools to detect and prevent terrorism. Among other measures, it better enables interagency cooperation and allows law enforcement a wider array of technological and surveillance tools to more quickly and stealthily investigate terrorist threats.

Dan Boyse, a former U.S attorney not connected to the case, explained to WRAL-TV how Ashton Lundeby could have been swept up by the Patriot Act.

“They’re saying that ‘we feel this individual is a terrorist or an enemy combatant against the United States, and we’re going to suspend all of those due process rights because this person is an enemy of the United States,'” Boyce told the station.

Boyce theorized that if an FBI agent came to the conclusion that Lundeby was a serious terrorist threat, the usual rules of law enforcement don’t apply.

“There’s nothing a matter of public record,” Boyce said. “All those normal rights are just suspended in the air.”

Ashton’s mother told the television station, “Never in my worst nightmare did I ever think that it would be my own government that I would have to protect my children from. This is the United States, and I feel like I live in a third world country now.”

The WRAL-TV news report, including Annette Lundeby’s comments, can be seen below:

According to the WRAL-TV report, because a federal judge has issued a gag order in the case, the U.S. attorney in Indiana cannot comment on Lundeby, nor can the FBI.

Military Police at the Kentucky Derby

Infowars
May 3, 2009

A Google News search does not produce a story or even a brief mention of the fact military police were on hand at the Kentucky Derby to keep restless plebs in line. However, an Associated Press photograph, posted on the Yahoo! News website, shows two MPs in combat fatigues with side arms restraining a man at the derby.

	Military police detain a fan who ran onto the track following the running of the 135th Kentucky Derby horse race at Churchill Downs Saturday, May 2, 2009, in Louisville, Ky.

“Military police detain a fan who ran onto the track following the running of the 135th Kentucky Derby horse race at Churchill Downs Saturday, May 2, 2009, in Louisville, Ky.,” the photo caption reads.

The photo was also included in a slideshow on the Yahoo! Sports website, although the text of the article does not contain a mention of military police at the event.

“The military has NO BUSINESS policing the citizens except during extraordinarily exceptional times of national emergency by an executive order. This is very disturbing and completely un-American. Maybe even more disturbing is that no one seems to care how quietly and easily we have accepted the burgeoning police state,” an article comment states.

Infowars has reported on numerous instances of military involvement with local law enforcement in violation of Posse Comitatus. In March, we reported on U.S. Army troops dispatched to patrol the streets of Samson, Alabama, after a murder spree.

• A d v e r t i s e m e n t
• 

On April 6, we reported on a DHS, federal, state, Air Force, and local law enforcement checkpoint in Tennessee. On April 3, Infowars was instrumental in the cancellation of a seatbelt checkpoint that was to be conducted in conjunction with the Department of Homeland Security and the 251st Military Police in Bolivar, Tennessee.

Last December, we reported on the Marine Corps Air and Ground Combat Center dispatching troops to work with police on checkpoints in in San Bernardino County, California.

On Aprill 22, we reported the deployment of 400 National Guard Combat Support Battalion troops to “maintain public order” at the Boston Marathon.

Last June, Infowars posted an article by D. H. Williams of the Daily Newscaster reporting the deployment of 2,300 Marines in the city of Indianapolis under the direction of FBI and the Department of Homeland Security.

Prison Planet’s Paul Joseph Watson reported a story on April 22 covering the assault of a local television news team by an irate police officer in El Paso, Texas. A video taken by the news videographer shows uniformed soldiers working with police officers at the scene of a car accident.

The presence of uniformed and armed military police at the Kentucky Derby is part of an ongoing campaign to acclimate the populace to the presence of soldiers at public events.

Guess how DHS defines who is a terrorist now

Posted: May 02, 2009
8:35 pm Eastern

HOMELAND INSECURITY

2nd ‘domestic extremism’ report includes ‘alternative media,’ ‘tax resisters’ in lexicon

By Drew Zahn
© 2009 WorldNetDaily

Two weeks before the U.S. Department of Homeland Security penned its controversial report warning against “right-wing extremists” in the United States, it generated a memo defining dozens of additional groups – animal rights activists, black separatists, tax protesters, even worshippers of the Norse god Odin – as potential “threats.”

Though the “Domestic Extremism Lexicon” was reportedly rescinded almost immediately, Benjamin Sarlin of The Daily Beast recently obtained and published online a copy of the unclassified memo, dated March 26, 2009.

While many of the groups listed in the lexicon – such as Aryan prison gangs and neo-Nazis – may indeed be widely considered extremists, others will likely take offense at being described as a potential “threat.”

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For example, the memo defines the “tax resistance movement” – also referred to in the report as the tax protest movement or the tax freedom movement – as “groups or individuals who vehemently believe taxes violate their constitutional rights. Among their beliefs are that wages are not income, that paying income taxes is voluntary, and that the 16th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which allowed Congress to levy taxes on income, was not properly ratified.”

The report, however, continues in its assessment of tax protesters, asserting that members “have been known to advocate or engage in criminal activity and plot acts of violence and terrorism in an attempt to advance their extremist goals.”

Similarly, the lexicon concludes its definition of “black separatists” by asserting, “Such groups or individuals also may embrace radical religious beliefs. Members have been known to advocate or engage in criminal activity and plot acts of violence directed toward local law enforcement in an attempt to advance their extremist goals.”

In his blog piece titled “Who You Calling an Extremist?” Sarlin writes, “Partisans leapt to decry the first DHS memo as part of a Democratic conspiracy to marginalize right wingers. But it became clear that DHS’s broad descriptions of extremists were symptomatic of an ongoing agency problem that crossed ideological lines.”

The lexicon states its purpose is to provide “definitions for key terms and phrases that often appear in DHS analysis that addresses the nature and scope of the threat that domestic, non-Islamic extremism poses to the United States.”

Apparently, the DHS analyzes the “threat” level of Internet news websites like WorldNetDaily, for the lexicon defines “alternative media” as “a term used to describe various information sources that provide a forum for interpretations of events and issues that differ radically from those presented in mass media products and outlets.”

The term “black power,” widely used in a variety of contexts, also merits a definition in the lexicon: “A term used by black separatists to describe their pride in and the perceived superiority of the black race.”

The DHS memo also includes precursors to the ill-fated “Right-wing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment” report, which prompted outrage from legislators and a campaign calling for the resignation of DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano.

For example, the lexicon contains virtually the same broad-stroke language the right-wing extremism report used.

“Rightwing extremism,” the lexicon defines as those “who can be broadly divided into those who are primarily hate-oriented, and those who are mainly antigovernment and reject federal authority in favor of state or local authority. This term also may refer to rightwing extremist movements that are dedicated to a single issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration.”

The lexicon further points to those who oppose driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants.

“Anti-immigration extremism,” the lexicon defines as “a movement of groups or individuals who are vehemently opposed to illegal immigration, particularly along the U.S. southwest border with Mexico, and who have been known to advocate or engage in criminal activity and plot acts of violence and terrorism to advance their extremist goals. They are highly critical of the U.S. Government’s response to illegal immigration and oppose government programs that are designed to extend ‘rights’ to illegal aliens, such as issuing driver’s licenses or national identification cards and providing in-state tuition, medical benefits, or public education.”

Unlike the right-wing extremism report, however, the lexicon includes definitions of extremism across a broad spectrum of issues: anarchy, animal rights extremism, black nationalism, Cuban independence, environmentalism, Jewish extremism, Mexican separatism, right-wing militias, white supremacists, the anti-war movement and more.

Among the more curious groups the DHS appears to be monitoring is the “racial Nordic mysticism” group, defined as “an ideology adopted by many white supremacist prison gangs who embrace a Norse mythological religion, such as Odinism or Asatru.”

Among the more comical definitions is the description given of what “racist skinheads” wear, enabling law officers, it appears, to identify skinheads by their preferred brand of footwear:

“Dress may include a shaved head or very short hair,” the report states, “jeans, thin suspenders, combat boots or Doc Martens, a bomber jacket, and tattoos of Nazi-like emblems.”

Sarlin, who first publicized the memo, reports that a spokesperson for DHS told him the memo was recalled “within minutes” of being issued but declined to offer any details on the reasons for its withdrawal.

Lose your property for growing food?

By Chelsea Schilling
© 2009 WorldNetDaily

GROUND CONTROL
Big Brother legislation could mean prosecution, fines up to $1 million

Some small farms and organic food growers could be placed under direct supervision of the federal government under new legislation making its way through Congress.

Food Safety Modernization Act

House Resolution 875, or the Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009, was introduced by Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., in February. DeLauro’s husband, Stanley Greenburg, works for Monsanto – the world’s leading producer of herbicides and genetically engineered seed.

DeLauro’s act has 39 co-sponsors and was referred to the House Agriculture Committee on Feb. 4. It calls for the creation of a Food Safety Administration to allow the government to regulate food production at all levels – and even mandates property seizure, fines of up to $1 million per offense and criminal prosecution for producers, manufacturers and distributors who fail to comply with regulations.

Michael Olson, host of the Food Chain radio show and author of “Metro Farm,” told WND the government should focus on regulating food production in countries such as China and Mexico rather than burdening small and organic farmers in the U.S. with overreaching regulations.

“We need somebody to watch over us when we’re eating food that comes from thousands and thousands of miles away. We need some help there,” he said. “But when food comes from our neighbors or from farmers who we know, we don’t need all of those rules. If your neighbor sells you something that is bad and you get sick, you are going to get your hands on that farmer, and that will be the end of it. It regulates itself.”

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The legislation would establish the Food Safety Administration within the Department of Health and Human Services “to protect the public health by preventing food-borne illness, ensuring the safety of food, improving research on contaminants leading to food-borne illness, and improving security of food from intentional contamination, and for other purposes.”

Federal regulators will be tasked with ensuring that food producers, processors and distributors – both large and small – prevent and minimize food safety hazards such as food-borne illnesses and contaminants such as bacteria, chemicals, natural toxins or manufactured toxicants, viruses, parasites, prions, physical hazards or other human pathogens.

Under the legislation’s broad wording, slaughterhouses, seafood processing plants, establishments that process, store, hold or transport all categories of food products prior to delivery for retail sale, farms, ranches, orchards, vineyards, aquaculture facilities and confined animal-feeding operations would be subject to strict government regulation.

Government inspectors would be required to visit and examine food production facilities, including small farms, to ensure compliance. They would review food safety records and conduct surveillance of animals, plants, products or the environment.

“What the government will do is bring in industry experts to tell them how to manage all this stuff,” Olson said. “It’s industry that’s telling government how to set these things up. What it always boils down to is who can afford to have the most influence over the government. It would be those companies that have sufficient economies of scale to be able to afford the influence – which is, of course, industrial agriculture.”

Farms and food producers would be forced to submit copies of all records to federal inspectors upon request to determine whether food is contaminated, to ensure they are in compliance with food safety laws and to maintain government tracking records. Refusal to register, permit inspector access or testing of food or equipment would be prohibited.

“What is going to happen is that local agriculture will end up suffering through some onerous protocols designed for international agriculture that they simply don’t need,” Olson said. “Thus, it will be a way for industrial agriculture to manage local agriculture.”

Under the act, every food producer must have a written food safety plan describing likely hazards and preventative controls they have implemented and must abide by “minimum standards related to fertilizer use, nutrients, hygiene, packaging, temperature controls, animal encroachment, and water.”

“That opens a whole can of worms,” Olson said. “I think that’s where people are starting to freak out about losing organic agriculture. Who is going to decide what the minimum standards are for fertilization or anything else? The government is going to bring in big industry and say we are setting up these protocols, so what do you think we should do? Who is it going to bring in to ask? The government will bring in people who have economies of scale who have that kind of influence.”

DeLauro’s act calls for the Food Safety Administration to create a “national traceability system” to retrieve history, use and location of each food product through all stages of production, processing and distribution.

Olson believes the regulations could create unjustifiable financial hardships for small farmers and run them out of business.

“That is often the purpose of rules and regulations: to get rid of your competition,” he said. “Only people who are very, very large can afford to comply. They can hire one person to do paperwork. There’s a specialization of labor there, and when you are very small, you can’t afford to do all of these things.”

Olson said despite good intentions behind the legislation, this act could devastate small U.S. farms.

“Every time we pass a rule or a law or a regulation to make the world a better place, it seems like what we do is subsidize production offshore,” he said. “We tell farmers they can no longer drive diesel tractors because they make bad smoke. Well, essentially what we’re doing is giving China a subsidy to grow our crops for us, or Mexico or anyone else.”

Section 304 of the Food Safety Modernization Act establishes a group of “experts and stakeholders from Federal, State, and local food safety and health agencies, the food industry, consumer organizations, and academia” to make recommendations for improving food-borne illness surveillance.

According to the act, “Any person that commits an act that violates the food safety law … may be assessed a civil penalty by the Administrator of not more than $1,000,000 for each such act.”

Each violation and each separate day the producer is in defiance of the law would be considered a separate offense and an additional penalty. The act suggests federal administrators consider the gravity of the violation, the degree of responsibility and the size and type of business when determining penalties.

Criminal sanctions may be imposed if contaminated food causes serious illness or death, and offenders may face fines and imprisonment of up to 10 years.

“It’s just frightening what can happen with good intentions,” Olson said. “It’s probably the most radical notions on the face of this Earth, but local agriculture doesn’t need government because it takes care of itself.”

Food Safety and Tracking Improvement Act

Another “food safety” bill that has organic and small farmers worried is Senate Bill 425, or the Food Safety and Tracking Improvement Act, sponsored by Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio.

Brown’s bill is backed by lobbyists for Monsanto, Archer Daniels Midland and Tyson. It was introduced in September and has been referred to the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee. Some say the legislation could also put small farmers out of business.

Like HR 875, the measure establishes a nationwide “traceability system” monitored by the Food and Drug Administration for all stages of manufacturing, processing, packaging and distribution of food. It would cost $40 million over three years.

“We must ensure that the federal government has the ability and authority to protect the public, given the global nature of the food supply,” Brown said when he introduced the bill. He suggested the FDA and USDA have power to declare mandatory recalls.

The government would track food shipped in interstate commerce through a recordkeeping and audit system, a secure, online database or registered identification. Each farmer or producer would be required to maintain records regarding the purchase, sale and identification of their products.

A 13-member advisory committee of food safety and tracking technology experts, representatives of the food industry, consumer advocates and government officials would assist in implementing the traceability system.

The bill calls for the committee to establish a national database or registry operated by the Food and Drug Administration. It also proposes a electronic records database to identify sales of food and its ingredients “establishing that the food and its ingredients were grown, prepared, handled, manufactured, processed, distributed, shipped, warehoused, imported, and conveyed under conditions that ensure the safety of the food.”

It states, “The records should include an electronic statement with the date of, and the names and addresses of all parties to, each prior sale, purchase, or trade, and any other information as appropriate.”

If government inspectors find that a food item is not in compliance, they may force producers to cease distribution, recall the item or confiscate it.

“If the postal service can track a package from my office in Washington to my office in Cincinnati, we should be able to do the same for food products,” Sen. Brown said in a Sept. 4, 2008, statement. “Families that are struggling with the high cost of groceries should not also have to worry about the safety of their food. This legislation gives the government the resources it needs to protect the public.”

Recalls of contaminated food are usually voluntary; however, in his weekly radio address on March 15, President Obama announced he’s forming a Food Safety Working Group to propose new laws and stop corruption of the nation’s food.

The group will review, update and enforce food safety laws, which Obama said “have not been updated since they were written in the time of Teddy Roosevelt.”

The president said outbreaks from contaminated foods, such as a recent salmonella outbreak among consumers of peanut products, have occurred more frequently in recent years due to outdated regulations, fewer inspectors, scaled back inspections and a lack of information sharing between government agencies.

“In the end, food safety is something I take seriously, not just as your president but as a parent,” Obama said. “No parent should have to worry that their child is going to get sick from their lunch just as no family should have to worry that the medicines they buy will cause them harm.”

The blogosphere is buzzing with comments on the legislation, including the following:

• Obama and his cronies or his puppetmasters are trying to take total control – nationalize everything, disarm the populace, control food, etc. We are seeing the formation of a total police state.

• Well … that’s not very ” green ” of Obama. What’s his real agenda?

• This is getting way out of hand! Isn’t it enough the FDA already allows poisons in our foods?

• If you’re starving, no number of guns will enable you to stay free. That’s the whole idea behind this legislation. He who controls the food really makes the rules.

• The government is terrified of the tax loss. Imagine all the tax dollars lost if people actually grew their own vegetables! Imagine if people actually coordinated their efforts with family, friends and neighbors. People could be in no time eating for the price of their own effort. … Oh the horror of it all! The last thing the government wants is for us to be self-sufficient.

• They want to make you dependent upon government. I say no way! already the government is giving away taxes from my great great grandchildren and now they want to take away my food, my semi-auto rifles, my right to alternative holistic medicine? We need a revolution, sheeple! Wake up! They want fascism … can you not see that?

•  The screening processes will make it very expensive for smaller farmers, where bigger agriculture corporations can foot the bill.

• If anything it just increases accountability, which is arguably a good thing. It pretty much says they’ll only confiscate your property if there are questions of contamination and you don’t comply with their inspections. I think the severity of this has been blown out of proportion by a lot of conjecture.

• Don’t waste your time calling the criminals in D.C. and begging them to act like humans. This will end with a bloody revolt.

• The more I examine this (on the surface) seemingly innocuous bill the more I hate it. It is a coward’s ploy to push out of business small farms and farmers markets without actually making them illegal because many will choose not to operate due to the compliance issue.

Hospitals tagging babies with electronic chips

Posted: January 15, 2008
1:00 am Eastern

By Jerome R. Corsi
© 2009 WorldNetDaily.com

LIFE WITH BIG BROTHER

Privacy advocates protest as half of Ohio birthing centers turn to tracking technology

Over half the birthing facilities in Ohio are being equipped with an RFID infant protection system placed on infants at birth to prevent them from being abducted from the hospital or from being given to the wrong mother.

“Standard protocol in the hospitals using the VeriChip system is that the baby receives an RFID anklet at birth and the mother receives a matching wristband,” VeriChip spokeswoman Allison Tomek told WND. “The mothers are not asked.”

VeriChip Corp., a publicly listed company headquartered in Delray Beach, Fla., is marketing though its wholly-owned subsidiary, Xmark, a HUGS brand tag-and-bracelet infant security system. The RFID tag is attached to an infant at birth by an ankle bracelet that is detected by monitors positioned throughout the hospital.

Critics charge the VeriChip system is an intrusive technology solution to a problem that is rare.

“The VeriChip infant security system is a technology looking for a solution,” said Katherine Albrecht, founder and director of CASPIAN, Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering.

“Baby snatching from hospital facilities is a diaper full of nonsense,” Albrecht told WND.

She cited a January 2003 report from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children concluding that of approximately 4.2 million births per year at 3,500 birthing centers in the U.S., abductions by non-family members are estimated at between zero and 12 per year. Of those, the mother is re-united with the child 95 percent of the time.

“Ironically, relying on RFID technology could end up making a rare occurrence more likely,” Albrecht said. “Once hospital staffers rely on computer systems to track the human inventory in their care, they become less vigilant.”

Albrecht is co-author along with Liz McIntyre of “Spychips: How Major Corporations and Government Plan to Track Your Every Purchase and Watch Your Every Move.”

The HUGS system can detect if the RFID tag is lifted from the baby’s skin, if the ankle strap broken or if the baby’s RFID tag and the mother’s don’t match.

If a newborn is removed from the ward without authorization or a baby is placed with the wrong mother, the system triggers an alarm that can cause hospital entrances and exits to lock shut.

“The infant abductions that do occur tend to happen in larger, more impersonal hospitals,” Albrecht emphasized.

“We actually investigated an abduction that involved a baby who was wearing an RFID ankle bracelet at the time of the abduction,” Albrecht said. “What happened was a woman dressed up in hospital scrubs. Even though the other staffers in the maternity ward did not recognize this woman, nobody reported her, because they thought the RFID system would take care of any problem.”

The woman figured out how to turn the RFID system off, Albrecht said, ‘and she just walked right out of the hospital carrying the baby, without anybody stopping her.”

VeriChip objects, claiming its RFID anklet-and-bracelet infant security system has prevented baby abductions. Spokeswoman Tomek, however, declined to cite specific proof, claiming privacy issues and the need to keep hospital security procedures confidential.

The VeriChip RFID anklets and bracelets are removed by the birthing facility when the mothers and babies are released.

HUGS system RFID anklets and bracelets are not equipped with GPS technology.

VeriChip also produces a human implantable RFID chip that is marketed in the health care area for chronic diseases, including diabetes or stroke, or memory impairment illnesses such as Alzheimer’s disease.

“The only viable part of the VeriChip market right now is this infant security system,” Albrecht told WND. “People in the United States don’t want the human implantable RFID chips VeriChip thought was going to be the core of their business.”

Albrecht said VeriChip hopes eventually there will be a mandatory program such as the UK has for implanting RFID chips in prisoners.”

The VeriChip human implantable RFID chip was cleared for medical use in the U.S. by the Food and Drug Administration in October 2004.

VeriChip currently has a market capitalization of about $20 million and 2006 sales of more than $27 million.

VeriChip stock closed yesterday at $2.02 a share.

Radio chip coming soon to your driver’s license?

Posted: February 28, 2009
12:25 am Eastern

By Bob Unruh
© 2009 WorldNetDaily

LIFE WITH BIG BROTHER
Homeland Security seeks next-generation REAL ID

Privacy advocates are issuing warnings about a new radio chip plan that ultimately could provide electronic identification for every adult in the U.S. and allow agents to compile attendance lists at anti-government rallies simply by walking through the assembly.

The proposal, which has earned the support of Janet Napolitano, the newly chosen chief of the Department of Homeland Security, would embed radio chips in driver’s licenses, or “enhanced driver’s licenses.”

“Enhanced driver’s licenses give confidence that the person holding the card is the person who is supposed to be holding the card, and it’s less elaborate than REAL ID,” Napolitano said in a Washington Times report.

REAL ID is a plan for a federal identification system standardized across the nation that so alarmed governors many states have adopted formal plans to oppose it. However, a privacy advocate today told WND that the EDLs are many times worse.

Radio talk show host and identity chip expert Katherine Albrecht said REAL ID earned the opposition of Christians because of its resemblance to the biblical “mark of the beast,” civil libertarians opposed it for its “big brother” connotations and others worried about identity theft issues with the proposed databases.

“We got rid of the REAL ID program, but [this one] is way more insidious,” she said.

Enhanced driver’s licenses have built-in radio chips providing an identifying number or information that can be accessed by a remote reading unit while the license is inside a wallet or purse.

The technology already had been implemented in Washington state, where it is promoted as an alternative to a passport for traveling to Canada. So far, the program is optional.

But there are other agreements already approved with Michigan, Vermont, New York and Arizona, and plans are under way in other states, including Texas, she said.

Napolitano, as Arizona’s governor, was against the REAL ID, Albrecht said. Now, as chief of Homeland Security, she is suggesting the more aggressive electronic ID of Americans.

“She’s coming out and saying, ‘OK, OK, OK, you win. We won’t do REAL ID. But what we probably ought to do is nationwide enhanced driver’s licenses,'” Albrecht told WND.

“They’re actually talking about issuing every person a spychip driver’s license,” she said. “That is the potential problem.”

Imagine, she said, going to a First Amendment-protected event, a church or a mosque, or even a gun show or a peace rally.

“What happens to all those people when a government operator carrying a reading device makes a circuit of the event?” she asked. “They could download all those unique ID numbers and link them.”

Participants could find themselves on “watch” lists or their attendance at protests or rallies added to their government “dossier.”

She said even if such license programs are run by states, there’s virtually no way that the databases would not be linked and accessible to the federal government.

Albrecht said a hint of what is on the agenda was provided recently by California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. The state’s legislature approved a plan banning the government from using any radio chips in any ID documentation.

 

Schwarzenegger’s veto noted he did not want to interfere with any coming or future federal programs for identifying people.

Albrecht’s recent guest on her radio program was Michigan State Rep. Paul Opsommer, who said the government appears to be using a national anti-terrorism plan requiring people to document their identities as they enter the United States to promote the technology.

“The Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative was … just about proving you were a citizen, not that you had to do it by any specific kind of technology,” Opsommer said.

But he said, “We are close to the point now that if you don’t want RFID in any of your documents that you can’t leave the country or get back into it.”

Opsommer said his own state sought an exception to the growing federal move toward driver’s licenses with an electronic ID chip, and he was told that was “unlikely.”

He was told, “They were trying to harmonize these standards with Canada and Mexico [so] it had to apply to everybody. I was absolutely dumbfounded.”

WND previously has reported on such chips when hospitals used them to identify newborns, a company desired to embed immigrants with the electronic devices, a government health event showcased them and when Wal-Mart used microchips to track customers.

Albrecht, who has worked on issues involving radio chip implants, REAL-ID, “Spychips” and other devices, provided a platform for Opsommer to talk about drivers licenses that include radio transmitters that provide identity information about the carrier. She is active with the AntiChips.com and SpyChips.com websites.

Opsommer said he’s been trying for several years to gain permission for his state to develop its own secure license without a radio chip.

“They have flat out refused, and their reasoning is all about the need for what they call ‘facilitative technology,’ which they then determined was RFID,” he said during the recent interview.

According to the U.S. State Department, which regulates international travel requirements, U.S. citizens now “must show proof of identity and proof of U.S. citizenship when entering the United States from Canada, Mexico, Bermuda and the countries of the Caribbean by land or seas.”

Documentation could be a U.S. passport or other paperwork such as birth certificates or drivers’ licenses. But as of this summer, one of the options for returning residents will be an “Enhanced Driver’s License.”

The rules are being promulgated under the outline of the WHTI, a result of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004, which requires travelers to present a passport or other identity documents on entry into the U.S.

While the government has expressed confidence that no personal or critical information will be revealed through the system, it also says drivers will need special information on how to use, carry and protect the radio-embedded licenses as well as “a shielded container that will prevent anyone from reading your license.”

But Albrecht, the author or co-author of six books and videos, including the award-winning “Spychips: How major corporations and government plan to track your every move with RFID,” warns it goes much further.

“This must be nipped in the bud. Enhanced DL’s make REAL ID look like a walk in the park,” Albrecht said.

“Look, I am all in favor of only giving drivers licenses to U.S. citizens or people that are otherwise here in this country legally,” Opsommer said, “But we are already doing that in Michigan. We accomplished that without an EDL, as has virtually every other state via their own state laws.

“But just because we choose to only issue our license to U.S. citizens does not mean that our licenses should somehow then fall under federal control. It’s still a state document, we are just controlling who we issue them to. But under the EDL program, the Department of Homeland Security is saying that making sure illegals don’t get these is not enough. Now you need the chip to prove your citizenship,” he continued.

Opsommer further warned the electronic chips embedded in licenses to confirm identity are just the first step.

“Canadians are also more connected to what is going on in Britain with the expansion of the national ID program there, and have seen the mission creep that occurs with things like gun control first hand … Whatever the reason, as an example, just last week the Canadian government repatriated a database from the U.S. that contained the driver’s license data of their citizens,” he said.

“Someone finally woke up and realized it would not be a good idea for that to be on American soil … I think it is only logical that we as state legislators really understand how the governments of Mexico and Canada will have access to our own citizen’s data. Right now it is very ambiguous and even difficult for me to get answers on as a state representative.”

But Opsommer said Big Brother concerns certainly have some foundation.

“So if EDLs are the new direction for secure licenses in all states, it just reinforces what many have been telling me that DHS wants to expand this program and turn it into a wireless national ID with a different name,” he said. “We’ll wake up one day and without a vote in Congress DHS will just pass a rule and say something like ‘starting next month you will need an EDL to fly on a plane, or to buy a gun, or whatever.'”

Detention Camps? In America?

Posted: February 05, 2009                                      
1:00 am Eastern by Joseph Farah, WorldNetDaily

© 2009 

 

What goes on here?

Jerome Corsi’s breathtaking story in WND earlier this week is giving me heart palpitations.

In case you missed it, Rep. Alcee Hastings, D-Fla., a former judge impeached in 1981 by a Democratic House of Representatives and only the sixth federal judge ever to be removed by the U.S. Senate, has introduced a bill to establish at least six emergency centers for U.S. civilians in the event of some future, unspecified crisis.

“The bill also appears to expand the president’s emergency power, much as the executive order signed by President Bush on May 9, 2007, that, as WND reported, gave the president the authority to declare an emergency and take over the direction of all federal, state, local, territorial and tribal governments without even consulting Congress,” the story continues.

And here’s some further context: “As WND also reported, DHS has awarded a $385 million contract to Houston-based KBR, Halliburton’s former engineering and construction subsidiary, to build temporary detention centers on an ‘as-needed’ basis in national emergency situations.”

I don’t like it.

I don’t trust Washington.

And I sure don’t trust Alcee Hastings.

In 1981, the former judge, appointed by Jimmy Carter, was charged with accepting a $150,000 bribe in exchange for a lenient sentence and a return of seized assets for 21 counts of racketeering by Frank and Thomas Romano, and of perjury in his testimony about the case. He was acquitted by a jury after his alleged co-conspirator, William Borders, refused to testify. Borders went to jail.

In 1988, the Democratic-controlled U.S. House of Representatives took up the case, and Hastings was impeached for bribery and perjury by a vote of 413-3. Even Nancy Pelosi and John Conyers and Charlie Rangel voted to impeach Hastings. He was then easily convicted by the U.S. Senate and removed from office.

The Senate had the option to forbid Hastings from ever seeking federal office again, but – unwisely – did not do so.

So Hastings came back in 1993 to win his House seat.

Now he is promoting the building of “camps” for U.S. civilians.

It is Hastings who clearly belongs behind bars, not in the House of Representatives sponsoring draconian legislation.

The biggest “emergency” this nation faces is the overreaching of our federal government and its lack of concern over constitutional limits on its power.

Maybe we need detention facilities for out-of-control Washington powerbrokers.

I don’t know what’s behind this move.

Maybe it’s no more than a distraction to make us nervous and persuade Americans to keep their big mouths shut and follow orders.

Maybe it’s no more than an effort to create more make-work jobs for the constituents of Alcee Hastings and his colleagues.

Maybe it’s all just a big misunderstanding.

But, whatever it is, I don’t like the way it smells.

I don’t like the way it tastes.

And I know it is spawned in this the-Constitution-be-damned mentality that pervades Washington.

So let’s expose it.

Let’s kill it.

Let’s lock it up and throw away the key.

And let’s declare a real emergency – one that has already hit us like a smack in the face with a baseball bat: The Constitution is daily being breached by the very people sworn to uphold and defend it. If anyone in America deserved to be rounded up and detained for the good of the country, it is those who are blatantly exceeding the strict limits on their authority and remaking our nation in their own corrupt and power-hungry image.

United Nations Treaty Would Squash U.S. Parental Rights If Adopted

Expert: Pact would ban spankings, homeschooling if children object

Posted: February 05, 2009
12:00 am Eastern

 

By Chelsea Schilling
© 2009 WorldNetDaily

 

A United Nations human rights treaty that could prohibit children from being spanked or homeschooled, ban youngsters from facing the death penalty and forbid parents from deciding their families’ religion is on America’s doorstep, a legal expert warns.

Michael Farris of Purcellville, Va., is president of ParentalRights.org, chairman of the Home School Legal Defense Association and chancellor of Patrick Henry College. He told WND that under the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child, or CRC, every decision a parent makes can be reviewed by the government to determine whether it is in the child’s best interest.

“It’s definitely on our doorstep,” he said. “The left wants to make the Obama-Clinton era permanent. Treaties are a way to make it as permanent as stuff gets. It is very difficult to extract yourself from a treaty once you begin it. If they can put all of their left-wing socialist policies into treaty form, we’re stuck with it even if they lose the next election.”

The 1990s-era document was ratified quickly by 193 nations worldwide, but not the United States or Somalia. In Somalia, there was then no recognized government to do the formal recognition, and in the United States there’s been opposition to its power. Countries that ratify the treaty are bound to it by international law.

Although signed by Madeleine Albright, U.S. ambassador to the U.N., on Feb. 16, 1995, the U.S. Senate never ratified the treaty, largely because of conservatives’ efforts to point out it would create that list of rights which primarily would be enforced against parents.

The international treaty creates specific civil, economic, social, cultural and even economic rights for every child and states that “the best interests of the child shall be a primary consideration.” It is monitored by the CRC, which conceivably has enforcement powers.

According to the Parental Rights website, the substance of the CRC dictates the following:

• Parents would no longer be able to administer reasonable spankings to their children.

• A murderer aged 17 years, 11 months and 29 days at the time of his crime could no longer be sentenced to life in prison.

• Children would have the ability to choose their own religion while parents would only have the authority to give their children advice about religion.

• The best interest of the child principle would give the government the ability to override every decision made by every parent if a government worker disagreed with the parent’s decision.

• A child’s “right to be heard” would allow him (or her) to seek governmental review of every parental decision with which the child disagreed.

• According to existing interpretation, it would be illegal for a nation to spend more on national defense than it does on children’s welfare.

• Children would acquire a legally enforceable right to leisure.

• Teaching children about Christianity in schools has been held to be out of compliance with the CRC.

• Allowing parents to opt their children out of sex education has been held to be out of compliance with the CRC.

• Children would have the right to reproductive health information and services, including abortions, without parental knowledge or consent.

“Where the child has a right fulfilled by the government, the responsibilities shift from parents to the government,” Farris said. “The implications of all this shifting of responsibilities is that parents no longer have the traditional roles of either being responsible for their children or having the right to direct their children.”

The government would decide what is in the best interest of a children in every case, and the CRC would be considered superior to state laws, Farris said. Parents could be treated like criminals for making every-day decisions about their children’s lives.

“If you think your child shouldn’t go to the prom because their grades were low, the U.N. Convention gives that power to the government to review your decision and decide if it thinks that’s what’s best for your child,” he said. “If you think that your children are too young to have a Facebook account, which interferes with the right of communication, the U.N. gets to determine whether or not your decision is in the best interest of the child.”

He continued, “If you think your child should go to church three times a week, but the child wants to go to church once a week, the government gets to decide what it thinks is in the best interest of the children on the frequency of church attendance.”

He said American social workers would be the ones responsible for implementation of the policies.

Farris said it could be easier for President Obama to push for ratification of the treaty than it was for the Clinton administration because “the political world has changed.”

At a Walden University presidential debate last October, Obama indicated he may take action.

“It’s embarrassing to find ourselves in the company of Somalia, a lawless land,” Obama said. “I will review this and other treaties to ensure the United States resumes its global leadership in human rights.”

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has been a strong supporter of the CRC, and she now has direct control over the treaty’s submission to the Senate for ratification. The process requires a two-thirds vote.

Farris said Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., claimed in a private meeting just before Christmas that the treaty would be ratified within two years.

In November, a group of three dozen senior foreign policy figures urged Obama to strengthen U.S. relations with the U.N. Among other things, they asked the president to push for Senate approval of treaties that have been signed by the U.S. but not ratified.

Partnership for a Secure America Director Matthew Rojansky helped draft the statement. He said the treaty commands strong support and is likely to be acted on quickly, according to an Inter Press Service report.

While he said ratification is certain to come up, Farris said advocates of the treaty will face fierce opposition.

“I think it is going to be the battle of their lifetime,” he said. “There’s not enough political capital in Washington, D.C., to pass this treaty. We will defeat it.”