The DNC Sends Email Defending Obama From Impeachment Possibility Patrick Howley December 29, 2013
The Democratic National Committee (DNC) sent out a paranoid email Saturday evening urging supporters to vote for Democrats so that Republicans can’t impeach President Obama. The email, subject line “Impeachment,” was sent to Obama for America supporters, imploring them to contribute to the DNC’s 2014 efforts. “What do these people all have in common?,” the email asked, featuring quotes from Republican Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma, Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, Rep. Kerry Bentivolio of Michigan, and Rep. Blake Farenthold of Texas discussing the possibility of impeaching Obama for one of his numerous instances of presidential misconduct. The DNC email discussed the “I-Word” and said that “Republicans are actually excited about the idea.” “Show these Republicans that they are way, way off-base, and give President Obama a Congress that has his back,” according to the DNC email, noting that Democrats need to win 17 GOP House seats to reclaim a majority. The DNC, which recently expanded its political tactics to include boycotting independent news outlets, previously supported the last president to be impeached: Bill Clinton. Obama’s staff changed key talking points on the 2012 Benghazi terrorist attack; his Internal Revenue Service targeted conservative groups during the 2012 election cycle; and Obama personally lied to the American people when he told them that they could keep their existing doctors and health insurance plans under Obamacare. Obama’s expansion of executive branch authority is “setting the stage for something very dangerous in the future” according to Republican Rep. Justin Amash.
NSA Ruling: Judge’s Decision Counter-Punches Constitution David Knight Infowars.com December 28, 2013
Judge’s opinion was not a legal argument The startling thing about Judge Pauley’s opinion is that it reads like an NSA press release or a Tom Clancy script. It begins: “The September 11th terrorist attacks revealed, in the starkest terms, just how dangerous and interconnected the world is. While Americans depended on technology for the conveniences of modernity, al-Qaeda plotted in a seventh-century milieu to use that technology against us. It was a bold jujitsu…The bulk telephony metadata collection program represents the Government’s counter-punch…” Leaving aside the absurdity that cave-dwelling terrorists operating in a “seventh-century milieu” were able to pull off a highly coordinated and sophisticated attack — even if the government’s narrative could pass the sniff test – it is not a legal argument. Judge Pauley’s role is to decide whether or not the government’s actions are legal. Whether they are effective or not, it is the role of various federal organizations to protect the country (which is not necessarily the same as protecting the government). Those organizations will come up with strategies, tactics and policies to protect the country. The judicial system’s role is to ensure that those strategies, tactics and policies don’t violate the law or violate the rights of the people — the purpose for which the government was created. Yesterday I interviewed NSA whistleblower William Binney who as Technical Director of the World
Geopolitical and Military Analysis Reporting Group was the person who really WAS tasked with judging the efficacy of the surveillance programs. He became a whistleblower because the NSA was clearly violating both the Constitution and their statutory mandate to keep the surveillance foreign. He also pointed out how ineffective the program was. But what really troubles Binney is how the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) was and is being used for domestic law enforcement. Data collected under the rationale of protecting the American public from foreign terrorists is being used by domestic law enforcement to prosecute individuals for crimes that have nothing to do with terrorism or national security. Judge Pauley is aware of the distinction between foreign surveillance and criminal surveillance as he says in his opinion: “In 1972, the Supreme Court recognized that ‘criminal surveillances and those involving domestic security’ are distinct…” But Judge Pauley ignores the distinction he points out and he ignores the abuses. He lays out an historical narrative that pretends there is pragmatic justification and appeals to statutory law like the FISA. But statutory law doesn’t trump the Constitution. It is subordinate to the Constitution. Judge Leon who ruled two weeks ago in Klayman v. Obama that the NSA actions are unconstitutional also looked at statutory law but said this: “Where, as here, core individual constitutional rights are implicated by Government action, Congress should not be able to cut off a citizen’s right to judicial review of that Government action simply because it intended for the conduct to remain secret by operation of the design of its statutory scheme. While Congress has great latitude to create statutory schemes like FISA, it may not hang a cloak of secrecy over the Constitution.” Neither should judicial review be allowed to cut off citizens’ rights explicitly recognized in the Constitution or cover violations of statutory law with a “cloak of secrecy.” But that is what Pauley and others claim a 1979 Supreme Court decision, Smith v. Maryland, allows them to do. Interestingly, this case was a domestic criminal case and as Pauley pointed out, criminal cases are distinct from domestic security. But he ignores the distinction when it suits his purpose. In one flawed decision (Smith), the government maintains that it gave itself the right to collect any and all information about you from a third party that they could bribe, cajole or blackmail. This decision is the basis of turning America not just into a surveillance police state but a society of government informants and snitches. Corporations become the willing informants and government becomes the muscle as America sinks into a technological despotism far worse than anything the Stasi could
imagine. And it gets even worse. As William Binney pointed out, the NSA plays semantic games about even what constitutes “collection.” If the NSA captures and stores information and even turns that information on over to the FBI, DEA, or DHS, it is not considered “collected” unless and until an NSA employee looks at it. The government lies to our faces. That’s what is so infuriating and perverse about the actions of our government and the judges that cover up their crimes with a cloak of secrecy and a phony appeal to security.
IT Firms Lose Billions After NSA Scandal Exposed By Whistleblower Edward Snowden Mikkel Stern-Peltz & Jim Armitage London Independent December 29, 2013
The National Security Agency scandal exposed by whistleblower Edward Snowden has cost American technology companies billions of dollars in lost revenue as governments and companies in its important export markets of Asia refuse to entrust the handling of sensitive data to US companies. An analysis of financial filings from technology giants IBM and Cisco by The Independent on Sunday reveals the two businesses have seen sales slump by more than $1.7bn (£1.03bn) year-on-year in the important Asia-Pacific region since Mr Snowden revealed in June that US companies had been compromised by the NSA's intelligence-gathering in the clandestine Prism programme. "US companies have seen some of their business put at risk because of the NSA revelations," said James Kelleher of equity research firm Argus Research. China is high on the list of those countries now shunning US companies. Mr Kelleher said this may be payback for the US government saying it did not trust China-based Huawei to be independent from Chinese military and intelligence agencies. Despite operating in every other major country, Huawei, the
world's biggest manufacturer of telecommunications equipment and a privately owned Chinese company, has been prevented from winning major communications contracts in the US. IBM, one of the world's largest information technology suppliers, saw sales in its Asia-Pacific region drop 15 per cent from mid-August to mid-October, compared with the same period in 2012. That was twice as severe as the decline in "pre-Snowden" quarters. Revenue declines at Cisco, the San Francisco-based communications manufacturer, were even more pronounced, with sales down 8.75 per cent in the quarter after the Snowden allegations, compared with just 2.84 per cent in the three months before. Cisco warned in November that its sales could fall as much as 10 per cent this current quarter, as new orders in emerging markets declined. Chief financial officer Frank Calderone said that the NSA spying had been cause for a "level of uncertainty or concern" with Cisco's international customers, and part of the reason for weakening demand. IBM declined to comment but stressed that it was not one of the companies named as having provided customer data to the NSA. Mr Kelleher said that the effects of the NSA allegations added to tougher sales conditions in China, whose economic growth rate has slowed during the year. However, the American firms' revenue losses may not be confined to Asia. The German government has called for home-grown email and internet providers and there have been talks between several countries of creating network infrastructures that bypass the US. A survey by the Cloud Security Alliance, an industry standards organisation in the US, predicted the Prism programme could cost cloud computing firms between $35bn and $45bn in lost orders over the next three years. It said that Canada, Germany, France and other European countries have rules requiring companies to guarantee data privacy. Jean-François Audenard, the cloud security adviser to France Telecom, has said: "It's extremely important to have the governments of Europe take care of this issue.... If all the data of enterprises is going to be under the control of the US, it's not really good for the future of the European people." France has already invested ¤135m (£113m) in cloud technology with French businesses. Earlier this month, technology company executives from America's biggest firms, including Apple, Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Twitter and Facebook, had a meeting with President Barack Obama to rein in the electronic spying campaign amid concerns about its impact on their reputations. Apple, which is among the companies asked by security services to hand over personal data, has been particularly insistent, recently demanding the right at least to explain how it co-operates with US intelligence. Currently, it is effectively gagged by them from explaining how much information on its customers it hands over to the NSA. The reason behind Apple's concerns became clear last week when it emerged just how huge was the deal it was negotiating with China Mobile. The partnership it announced on Monday with the largest mobile phone carrier in the world will be worth billions of dollars of extra sales of the iPhone 5 and 5c. Views are split among investors, but some analysts suggest that the deal could boost annual revenues by as much as $10bn.
Michigan Nullifies NDAA’s Indefinite Detention Michael Lotfi Washington Times December 28, 2013
Governor Rick Snyder of Michigan signed Senate Bill No. 94 into law yesterday. The bill seeks to nullify section 1021 of the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). “It is important to recall that indefinite detention first appeared in section 1021 of the 2012 NDAA, which provided warrant for indefinite detention of U.S. citizens,” said Snyder. Michigan State Senator Rick Jones says that no American citizen should fear being thrown in jail or prison without charges. “Historically Michigan first asserted Tenth Amendment rights in 1855 when we passed a law to block the fugitive slave act,” says Jones. “I thought of this great history when I drafted and pushed this bill to nullify section 1021 of the NDAA within the state of Michigan.” Jones says that he was able to gather support from both sides of the political aisle for the bill. Tenth Amendment Center’s Mike Maharrey said, “This is a great step forward in protecting the basic due process rights of people in Michigan and gives activists there something to build upon. Moving forward, I would love to see the Michigan legislature expand the policy in two ways.” Maharrey suggests that the legislation should be expanded to include all people, not just U.S. citizens. “After all, every person has a right to basic due process, no matter who they are or where they are from,” says Maharrey.
His final recommendation is that the bill be expanded to ban any future law or regulation that warrants indefinite detention, as the current bill is specific only to section 1021 of the 2012 NDAA. Maharrey points out that the bill is a great first step. “By including a caveat — if such aid would place that state agency, political subdivision, employee, or member of the Michigan national guard in violation of the United States constitution, the state constitution of 1963, or any law of this state — the bill is not an express prohibition. Rather, since no official determination has been made on such constitutionality as of yet, it leaves the decision of constitutionality to discretion. But, the new law does provide legal backing for those sheriffs, law enforcement officers, and other agencies and employees, who refuse to assist the federal government in such activities based on their own constitutional determination.” Senate Bill No. 94 is rooted in anti-commandeering doctrine, which has been well established by the Supreme Court, which has refused to force states to enact federal legislation. In Printz v. United States, for example, the Court ruled that the federal government could not force state legislatures to enforce or assist in enforcing federal laws. The Missouri Bill Reads: AN ACT to prohibit any agency of this state, any political subdivision of this state, any employee of any agency of this state or any political subdivision of this state, or any member of the Michigan national guard from assisting an agency of the armed forces of the United States in the investigation, prosecution, or detainment of any citizen of the United States under certain circumstances. The People of the State of Michigan enact: Sec. 1. (1) Subject to subsection (2), notwithstanding any provision of law to the contrary, no agency of this state, no political subdivision of this state, no employee of an agency of this state or a political subdivision of this state acting in his or her official capacity, and no member of the Michigan national guard on active state service shall aid an agency of the armed forces of the United States in any investigation, prosecution, or detention of any person pursuant to section 1021 of the national defense authorization act for fiscal year 2012, if such aid would place that state agency, political subdivision, employee, or member of the Michigan national guard in violation of the United States constitution, the state constitution of 1963, or any law of this state. (2) Subsection (1) does not apply to participation by state or local law enforcement or the Michigan national guard in a joint task force, partnership, or other similar cooperative agreement with federal law enforcement if that joint task force, partnership, or similar cooperative agreement is not for the purpose of investigating, prosecuting, or detaining any person pursuant to section 1021 of the national defense authorization act for fiscal year 2012. Enacting section 1. This act takes effect upon the expiration of 90 days after the date it is enacted into law. This act is ordered to take immediate effect.
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