Detroit News – by JOEL KURTH AND LAUREN ABDEL-RAZZAQ

Pontiac— Oakland County commissioners asked no questions last March before unanimously approving a cellphone tracking device so powerful it was used by the military to fight terrorists.

Now, though, some privacy advocates question why one of the safest counties in Michigan needs the super-secretive Hailstorm device that is believed to be able to collect large amounts of cellphone data, including the locations of users, by masquerading as a cell tower.

“I don’t like not knowing what it’s capable of,” said county Commissioner Jim Runestad, R-White Lake Township, who has met in recent weeks with sheriff’s officials about his concerns.   Continue reading “Secret military device lets Oakland deputies track cellphones”

Crop of image by David D/C via FlickrACLU – by Jay Stanley

At a panel in Toronto recently I was asked whether I thought the United States had become a “surveillance state.” How to answer that question? At first glance it’s an impossibly fuzzy question, the answer to which is relative depending on whether one has in mind life in an 18th century American town, or the Stasi. At the same time, if we can impose some structure on how we approach the question, it is an opportunity to take stock of where we stand—probably a healthy exercise.

Thinking it over, I came up with a five-part test by which we can consider the question:   Continue reading “Have We Become a “Surveillance State”? A Five-Part Test”

Pirate Morgan’s Innermost Thoughts

“Whenever the legislators endeavor to take away and destroy the property of the people, or to reduce them to slavery under arbitrary power, they put themselves into a state of war with the people, who are thereupon absolved from any further obedience and are left to the common refuge, which God hath provided for all men, against force and violence.” ~ John Locke, 2nd Treatise on Government.   Continue reading “Dear Connecticut Read This and Take Heart!”

You Can't Spell Progressive without an S.S.Canada Free Press – by Tim Dunkin

Sinclair Lewis was wrong—when fascism came to America, it was actually wrapped in a rainbow flag and wearing an ascot.

How else can one describe the ongoing left-wing commitment to the stamping out of free speech, whenever that speech contradicts the gay agenda, as well as other parts of the “progressive” platform? With the resignation of newly-minted Mozilla CEO Brendan Eich, the “progressive” Left, especially its social wing, has once again shown itself to be the enforcers a political correctness in speech and thought that ought to be chilling to any person who actually cares about individual liberty.   Continue reading “You Can’t Spell “Progressive” without an “S.S.””

companies closing storesOff the Grid News – by Daniel Jennings

The economy appears to be in far worse shape than the major media outlets would have us believe.

In fact, if you want to see how bad the economy really is, simply visit your local shopping center. There you will find that headlines about a retail tsunami – as CNBC put it — are accurate.   Continue reading “Economic Reality: 16 Major Chains Closing More Stores”

The Global Recording Initiative: Yes, Your Grocery Store is Forcing You Into Agenda 21Canada Free Press – by Gretchen Olson

Agenda 21, the United Nation’s open plan for global sustainability, is widely understood to be voluntary. Critics of the scheme, however, insist the UN is engaging in double-speak, and that this so-called “volunteer” status is actually creating a world government through the interlinking of UN bureaucracies and international corporations.

It is appears now they may be right, this time involving a place most households in the Western world cannot avoid, the grocery store.   Continue reading “The Global Recording Initiative: Yes, Your Grocery Store is Forcing You Into Agenda 21”

obama_saudi_01New Eastern Outlook – by Tony Cartalucci

US President Barack Obama’s recent visit to Saudi Arabia confirms what many even causal political observers have begun to suspect regarding recent US political history, that Washington’s values aren’t just nonpartisan, driven entirely by special interests permeating both sides of the political aisle, but are altogether non-existent. To understand why requires an understanding of both US-Saudi relations, not just during the Obama administration, but over the past several decades, as well as a basic understanding of Saudi Arabia itself.   Continue reading “Obama, the Sauds, and Bottomless Hypocrisy”

Zero Hedge – by Tyler Durden

As Daniel Kay Hertz explains, the goal of these maps is not merely to depress you (you’re welcome!), but to suggest just how dramatically the reality of Chicago’s “two cities” has changed over the last few generations, how non-eternal its present state is, and that a happier alternate reality isn’t just possible, but actually existed relatively recently.

Daniel Kay Hertz goes on to note, he feels relatively comfortable telling the story of how Chicago came to be so segregated by race; but is much humbler about his ability to explain this, except inasmuch as the ever-widening ghetto of the affluent could not exist without, yes, radically exclusionary housing laws.   Continue reading “Visualizing The Collapse Of Chicago’s Middle Class”

Image Associated PressThe Wire – by Philip Bump

Democratic Rep. Jim Moran of Virginia wants you to know that, at $174,000 a year,members of Congress are underpaid. Because Jim Moran, like others, doesn’t understand actual economic hardship and, frankly, isn’t that great at politics either.

Moran is not the only public official to make a dubious claim about salary hardship in the past 24 hours. Larry Schwartz is secretary to New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a position that’s a sort of like chief of staff in the state. Schwartz was discussing a proposal backed by Cuomo that would freeze property taxes on people at certain income levels. After all, middle class folks like those making $500,000 shouldn’t pay exorbitant taxes. Yes, that’s right. Middle class. “I would consider someone making up to $500,000 as upper middle-class,” Schwarz said, according to The Journal-News. “I wouldn’t classify them as rich.” OK.   Continue reading “Your Political Leaders Are Unsurprisingly Terrible at Empathizing with Your Salary”

cerealThe Daily Sheeple – by Lily Dane

If you needed another reason to avoid taking your children down the cereal aisle at the grocery store, here it is: insidious cereal box characters seem to be trying to make eye contact with your kiddos.

While it’s no surprise that marketing techniques like product package design and placement in stores are used to attract buyers, some methods are more exploitative than others. Directing advertising to adults who understand marketing tactics and have the ability to make informed decisions is quite different than employing psychology-based tricks designed to lure innocent kids into brand loyalty.   Continue reading “Creepy! Are Cereal Box Characters Designed to Make Eye Contact With Your Children?”

kipp acadamen lockdownThe Daily Sheeple – by Daisy Luther

What is the best way to ensure that gun control takes place within a generation?

Forget trying to change the minds of those who already have guns.  The best way to do this is to encourage a culture of fear among young people.

And the public school system, with all of its zero tolerance lunacy, is doing just that. They are setting the stage for tyranny.    Continue reading “Setting the Stage for Tyranny: Public Schools Deliberately Create a Culture of Fear”

fort hood guns galoreThe Guardian

Guns are wall-to-wall at the Guns Galore shop near Fort Hood, and so are posters: No Idiots Allowed. This Isn’t a Place for Children to Play. Firearm Trafficking is Illegal.

But now that a second mass shooting at the Texas military base has been linked to guns bought at the squat brick store, which promises “3,000 Guns In Stock,” the message Guns Galore clerks are emphasizing is don’t blame them.   Continue reading “Fort Hood: Guns Galore reportedly sold guns to both shooters”

Information Liberation – by Chris

In Lake Central High School in St. John, Indiana students staged a sit-in over the school’s failure to acknowledge a student’s suicide. Of note is the fact the principle responds to their protest by saying he’s “in charge” and ordering everyone to get out their IDs, basically acting like a two-bit thug cop. After one student makes a snarky comment that he’s “disappointed” in the principle, he then orders the student be arrested, to which the lackey cops present immediately oblige.    Continue reading “High School Student Arrested For Telling Principal He’s “Disappointed” In Him”

TLAXCALA

Considering the relative lull which seems to be taking place in the Ukraine, this might be a good time to look at the impact which the dramatic developments in the Ukraine have had upon the internal political scene in Russia and what that, in turn, could mean for the international (dis)order.  In order to do that, I would like to begin by a short summary of a thesis which I have already mentioned in the past (for a discussion please see here, here,here and here):   Continue reading “A new Cold War has begun – let us embrace it with relief!”

People hold a banner reading "Barack Obama, Chief of the Permanent War" as they protest against the visit of US President Barack Obama near the US Embassy in Rome on March 27, 2014.Press TV – by Finian Cunningham

A first step for world peace is for the American people to rein in their reckless government from the international stage and to stop it making misery for so many.

Americans need democratic government like the rest of the world needs rid of Washington’s thuggish global policeman.   Continue reading “How Americans can help world peace”

Vietnam corruption executionGlobal Post – by Patrick Winn

BANGKOK — For the most part, American bankers whose rash pursuit of profit brought on the 2008 global financial collapse didn’t get indicted. They got bonuses.

Odds are that scandal would have played out differently in Vietnam, another nation struggling with misbehaving bankers.

The authoritarian Southeast Asian state doesn’t just send unscrupulous financiers to jail. Sometimes, it sends them to death row.   Continue reading “Vietnam is sentencing corrupt bankers to death, by firing squad”

Press TV

It is high time that the American people learnt about CIA’s torture methods under former President George W. Bush, an analyst tells Press TV in an interview.

Mike Gravel was talking to Press TV after US Senators Susan Collins and Angus King pushed for the release of crimes committed under Bush.   Continue reading “Time ripe for Bush crimes revelation: Analyst”

A law enforcement officer enters a drug tunnel found in a warehouse in Otay Mesa, California April 3, 2014, in this handout photo released to Reuters April 4, 2014. REUTERS-Immigration and Customs Enforcement-HandoutReuters – by DAN WHITCOMB

U.S. federal agents have uncovered two drug-smuggling tunnels underneath the U.S.-Mexico border, both surfacing in San Diego-area warehouses and equipped with rail systems for moving contraband, officials said on Friday.

The discovery led to the arrest of a 73-year-old woman accused of running one of the warehouses connected to a drug smuggling operation, according to a joint news release by four federal agencies.   Continue reading “Two drug tunnels, with rail systems, found at U.S.-Mexico border”