Where a Right-Wing Extremist speaks his mind.
Politics, morality, constitutional issues, pop culture, spirituality, theology, philosophy anything goes.
The Florida Sun-Sentinel just reported that the TSA is refusing to back down on their unconstitutional infringment of 4th amendment rights of passengers that decide to fly the "friendly skies."
The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is warning that any would-be commercial airline passenger who enters an airport checkpoint and then refuses to undergo the method of inspection designated by TSA will not be allowed to fly and also will not be permitted to simply leave the airport.
That person will have to remain on the premises to be questioned by the TSA and possibly by local law enforcement. Anyone refusing faces fines up to $11,000 and possible arrest.
Did Aguilar [,chief of the San Diego TSA office,] feel the TSA was set up?
"I don’t know that it was an actual set up," said Aguilar, "but we are concerned that this passenger did have his recording prior to entering the checkpoint so there is some concern that it was an intentional behavior on his part." READ MORE
First of all, this is a dangerous trend that is becoming more and more common. The trend is that the government, and agencies working directly for the government, feel that a citizen is not ALLOWED to make recordings of events that transpire involving them.
Recordings are one of the few ways we can obtain an unbiased view of events that transpire involving the government, and it's a primary means to hold the government accountable.
Next, we should see this event for what it is: a show of force by the government, in many ways it's like the government picking out the one tough guy in the prison yard and beating the snot out of him to send a message, but also it sends a big message to all of the other travelers, don't you dare OPT-OUT or we'll make an example of you too.
In a ruling that added one more nail to the coffin of personal liberty, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that government agencies can place GPS tracking devices on your vehicle to surveil your movements without a warrant.
According to the 9th Circuit and Time Magazine:
This doesn't violate your Fourth Amendment rights, because you do not have any reasonable expectation of privacy in your own driveway — and no reasonable expectation that the government isn't tracking your movements. Read MORE>>>
However, this ruling becomes a little more disgusting after hearing this opinion from the courts. "...the little personal privacy that still exists... should belong mainly to the rich."
Chief Justice Alex Kozinski in a dissenting opinion stated:
"There's been much talk about diversity on the bench, but there's one kind of diversity that doesn't exist," he wrote. "No truly poor people are appointed as federal judges, or as state judges for that matter." The judges in the majority, he charged, were guilty of "cultural elitism."
and later added: "1984 may have come a bit later than predicted, but it's here at last. . . Some day, soon, we may wake up and find we're living in Oceania."
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has jurisdiction in California, Nevada, Alaska, Arizona, Montana, Hawaii, Idaho, Oregon, and the Eastern & Western District of Washington state.
On the bright side, DC's US District Court of Appeals has had a contrary ruling regarding the use of GPS devices. It ruled "that tracking for an extended period of time with GPS is an invasion of privacy that requires a warrant." Experts believe the issue will resurface in the Supreme Court.
The House of Representatives passed (by a 357 to 32 vote) a bill which would give funding to state governments to keep a database of all persons arrested (not convicted mind you) under the usual excuse... for your safety.
. . . "We should allow law enforcement to use all the technology available to them...to reduce expensive and unjust false convictions, bring closure to victims by solving cold cases, better identify criminals, and keep those who commit violent crime from walking the streets," said Rep. Harry Teague [(D-NM)]
. . . civil libertarians say DNA samples should be required only from people who have been convicted of crimes . . . if there is probable cause to believe that someone is involved in a crime, a judge can sign a warrant allowing a blood sample or cheek swab to be forcibly extracted.
"It's wrong to treat someone as guilty before they're convicted," says Jim Harper, director of information policy studies at the Cato Institute. "It inverts the concept of innocent until proven guilty." READ MORE>>>
This is troubling news.
Interestingly enough, only Republicans (a small minority of them at that) opposed this bill. Of the two main parties, only Republicans care about your freedom and your privacy.
To read the text of the bill (if you really hate yourself) and to see how your representative voted visit Govtrack's page for the bill.
