Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) recently proposed various amendments to a proposed transportation bill. Buried inside the amendment language is this little snippet-

"Hatch Amendment #1 : The Chairman’s mark contains new revenue provisions, including a transfer from the Leaking Underground Storage Tank (LUST) Fund, the closing of a black liquor loophole, the dedication of a “gas guzzler” tax, the revocation of passports for individuals owing more than $50,000 in back taxes, an increase of the levy authority on payments to Medicare providers with delinquent tax debt, and a transfer of certain imported tariffs to the Highway Trust Fund.

That's right- if you owe Uncle Sugar more than $ 50,000 in back taxes you are going to have your passport revoked.

Stop and think about this for a second. Remove all thoughts of tax cheats and rich one percenters jetting off to Switzerland to avoid paying up. From 1789 until 1941 passports were not even required (except by executive order during the Civil War and World War One) for U.S. citizens to leave or enter the country and it wasn't until 1978 that it became illegal to enter the U.S. without a passport. As with all aspects of the unimpeded growth of government and bureaucracy, the citizens of this country have slept while government has quietly crept into every facet of their lives, eroding their individual freedoms, restricting their movements and watching over their shoulders.

I can understand how a person accused of a violent crime should be forced to surrender his or her passport while awaiting trial. After all, it makes perfect sense to prevent murderers from fleeing to other countries to escape justice. That being said, owing the government money is a completely different situation. What Hatch is basically attempting to do is hold an American's very rights as a citizen in escrow until they pay what they owe to the government- the same government that then takes their hard earned money and flushes it down a massive budgetary toilet. By legislative fiat he is proposing to effectively strip Americans of their citizenship because a citizen without a passport is a citizen no longer.

I hope the good people of Utah do us all a favor and vote this senile codger into retirement where he belongs.

Spy vs. Spy Inc.

I have to admit, I always enjoy reading about, or watching, Jesse "The Body" Ventura- former Navy SEAL/UDT, Minnesota Governor, Pro Wrestler and Movie Star. I was recently watching his new show "Conspiracy Theory," an amusing hour of paranoia and, well, conspiracy theories which tackles issues like 9/11, the HAARP project and most recently the outsourcing of intelligence work to private contractors. Compared to many of his wilder accusations and theories, this show was pretty well grounded in reality especially regarding a joint private-FBI surveillance program known as InfraGard. I have to admit, as a former Army intelligence analyst I consider myself to be pretty well informed about government programs but this one had eluded me while all the while hiding in plain sight. Much of Jesse's program was built off of an article written about InfraGard by Matthew Rottschild of the Progressive in March 2008 which is a good place to start for background information.

A quick glance at InfraGard's website doesn't reveal anything too frightening and I suppose the entire makes some sense at first glance. The FBI has built a network of over 30,000 private sector individuals in order to provide information regarding threats to critical infrastructure within the U.S. If, for example, an InfraGard member working for a power company became aware of a specific threat which could knock out a power grid, he would have a much easier time passing along the information to the FBI because he was in the InfraGard network and thus had access to communication channels not available to the general public. InfraGard members are vetted through a clearance program (which the FBI stresses does not result in an actual government security clearance) and assigned to local chapters throughout the country.

The worrisome thing about this program is that InfraGard members are provided with information, not available to the general public, in exchange for their assistance. When the relationship changes from one merely scooping up disparate bits of intelligence which require further analysis to a two-way system of sharing and reward the organization has moved closer to an informant based system such as the Stasi in East Germany. The informant is rewarded for his or her cooperation in identifying subversives in their midst which may simply be a co-worker who has different political, cultural or religious views than themselves. Maybe the motive is as simple as jealousy or anger, or a romantic advance that was rebuffed. Think of what could happen to a U.S. citizen who has been identified as a potential threat and had been added to a database. Think no fly list on steroids.

The use of informants to secure totalitarian regimes is as old as history itself. The informant and his or her control officer, enter into a relationship where the informant wants to please his master by providing the information the control officer needs to advance his own needs within the organization in which he works. Information becomes currency in this transaction and favors are granted by the regime in return. Civil liberties are crushed as the informant tries to give the control officer something, anything, to keep the relationship intact.

Another frightening aspect of the InfraGard program is the lack of oversight by Congress. Information which flows through this system is exempt under the Freedom of Information Act, the names of members and their organizations is not publicly available and they meet in secret with their FBI counterparts. Although these people are supposedly cleared by the FBI, where do their true loyalties lie ? This system seems ripe for abuse of civil liberties and it is constantly growing in size and power- a shadow intelligence network without public oversight or control operating within the borders of the United States. Felix Dzherzhinsky would be so proud.

More DUI Checkpoint Silliness

Today's Pittsburgh Post Gazette loudly confirmed my earlier post about the ineffectiveness of DUI checkpoints. Although the article's headline proclaimed "Task force nabs 10 during DUI checkpoint, patrols" the real story was, as usual, buried in the details. The article states that 968 vehicles passed through the checkpoint. Of that number, 17 were given field sobriety tests and 1 arrest was made.

Other charges were made for drug paraphernalia and underage drinking as well as assorted citations for vehicle code violations. I would like to take a moment to thank the Task force for making my point.

Let's run the numbers.

By my math, one arrest for sobriety violations out of 968 vehicles equals a success rate of 0.00103 %. Even the Pirates would be embarrassed by these kind of numbers. If we are a bit charitable and take into account that 10 drivers total were cited, we get a 0.0103 % "success" for a night's work of overtime, taxpayer expense, inconvenience to the public and invasion of their privacy. Keep in mind that the other 9 citations, were probably for such horrific crimes as not having current registrations, a busted headlight or other such transgressions against humanity.

Note how this number nicely corresponds with the 1 % success rate that most of these checkpoints produce as stated in my earlier post. Nice work fellas, you must be very proud of yourselves.

Utah reverses prior alcohol law.

I've never been to Utah although it's on my list of places that I would like to visit. From what I heard over the years, its a beautiful place to see although it has some quirky laws that are a result of the dominance of the LDS (Mormon) Church in the state. The governor of Utah, Jon Huntsman, has successfully repealed a 40 year old law that required bar patrons to complete a complicated process of membership forms and fees in order to get a drink. Huntsman, himself a Mormon, seems to have been motivated by a desire to increase tourism to the state.

This is a small victory against a theocratic system of government, masquerading as a democracy, which has imposed its religious beliefs upon its citizens (the article reports that 80 % of state lawmakers are LDS members.) It seems incredible that such a law would exist into the 21st century, but the LDS dominance of the Utah government has resulted in laws crafted for the "good" of its members, not the freedom of its citizens.

One troubling aspect of the repeal of the law is that the identification of bar patrons who appear to be under 35 will now be electronically scanned and saved in state databases. Ostensibly, this is being done so that state authorities can examine the records later on to see if any laws have been broken. The purpose of the original law was to shield LDS members from the evil of alcohol. This new scanning of identification could be a simple way for the LDS dominated legislature, working through the LDS dominated state police, to keep an eye on younger LDS members that may dare to venture from the flock.

One for the Road

The rights of citizens are not taken away by governments in one fell swoop. Instead, they are chipped away over time, rationalized as being for the common good and deftly propogandized to sell to the populace. When done correctly, the citizens of a nation should awake one morning to find that their individual liberties, granted not by the state or deity but by nature, have been marginalized, reduced and eliminated. One such assault on our rights as free citizens has been the use of DUI checkpoints by local law enforcement accross the country. It has been rationalized as being for our own good (after all, what idiot could support drunk drivers ?), propgandized by organizations such as MADD received the stamp of approval of the US Supreme Court despite its blatant violation of the 4th Amendment. (If you want the details you can research Michigan Dept. of State Police v. Sitz, 496 U.S. 444 here (1990.))

Put aside the constitutional arguments for a moment. Ask yourself why we supposedly free Americans accept the fact that we can be stopped at a checkpoint, interrogated by the police as to where we have been and what we are doing ? Is this East Germany in the 1970's ? No, we have passively accepted the will of the state, not even with the test of the ballot, to stop us as we go about our legal, personal business. Now that the state has taken this right, it's not going to give it back. In fact, the state will use this entry to further encroach upon our rights as free beings. If you live in Florida, for example, you may even be required to give blood at a checkpoint.

Despite research showing that they are ineffective and cost prohibitive when compared to traditional policing, the DUI checkpoint has now become commonplace in the majority of U.S. states including Pennsylvania. The federal government supports this charade by granting tens of millions of dollars to local law enforcement to pay overtime to their officers and to buy new equipment to perform this heinous task. If you've ever seen your local law enforcement sporting a new trailer or warning lights for DUI enforcement, for example, it's a good bet that it was paid for with your fellow citizens tax dollars. Money too is the prime mover of Mother's Against Drunk Drivers (MADD) an organization with a multi-million dollar budget that supports DUI checkpoints and vilifies any politician brave enough to stand up and complain.

Should driving drunk be a crime ? Yes, of course it should be. Drunk driving endangers all citizens. The necessity of prohibiting drunk driving, however, cannot justify the routine impedance of free citizens going about their business whether in the day or night. It is time for all citizens to demand that this inefficient and expensive fascist attack on our rights be ended.

Oh No Canada- Part Deux

Here is a follow-up opinion piece to the article posted yesterday regarding free speech in Canada. Apparently, governmental entities will now classify such activities as anti-police graffiti as deserving definition as a hate/bias crime and will be investigated as such.

From the article-

• It would seem the police are in the business of monitoring any type of protest, march or activity that could possibility result in a hate crime incident. That means protests about native land claims, environmental protection, poverty, public debt and homelessness; issues that have been raised before during economic summits and Olympics are now fair game to be classified as potential “hate crimes.”

I've long thought it a bad move for Anarchists to align themselves with Leftist and Progressive thinking regarding free speech issues. This is the boomerang that we now face. The State, Left or Right, is the enemy of the people. Anarchists that fought for hate crimes legislation now risk being hoisted by their own petard as the State uses the same laws to target all of us. By the way, what exactly is a bias crime in Canada ? Does professing a love for Molson over Moosehead get you shipped off to the Arctic Circle ?

Oh No Canada !

While I often think of Canada as our friendly, docile neighbors to the north, recent political developments have shown that it is increasingly being run as a semi-Fascist police state which is using "hate" crime and speech codes to crackdown on free speech and dissent. A news article from Hamilton, Ontario said that police were going to monitor a local anarchist book fair for signs of hate crimes. These crimes are defined in Canada (according to the article) as-

• Hate crimes, by definition, are ones committed “against a person or property which is motivated solely, or in part, by the suspect’s hate/bias against a person’s race, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, disability group, age or gender"
  

This small incident is reflective of the wider use of Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act to stifle political debate and free speech by the government. How an anarchist book fair fits into crimes against any of the defined parties above requires an amount of legal gymnastics that is beyond me. The truth is that it has nothing to do with hate crimes against persons or property- the government fears hate directed at itself.