Since 2015, there has be a secretive new surveillance tool, commonly referred to as a "Stingray," being used by the FBI in cases around the country.
The device, which acts as a fake cell phone tower, essentially allows the government to electronically search large areas for a particular cell phone's signal—sucking down data on potentially thousands of innocent people along the way. At the same time, law enforcement has attempted use them while avoiding many of the traditional limitations set forth in the Constitution, like individualized warrants.
Our own Homeland Security has given grants to law enforcement to buy them. Of course, “officially” for fighting terrorism.
Ignoring 4th Amendment protections for a moment, the use of the Stingray violates Federal Communications Act provisions also.
Many states have upheld these warrantless searches. Recently the DC Court of Appeals, citing the 4th Amendment ruled that stingray use without a warrant is unconstitutional.
A victory for freedom. …
There was a time in my life where I was very active in Republican party politics. It was fun, eye opening and disgusting, pretty much all at the same time. Learned a lot, made some great friends, and exposed me to the reality that is party politics.
The Mitch McConnell and Steve Bannon arguments are nothing new in politics. I’ve been hearing those arguments for decades. The McConnell types would always argue that “if you don’t win you can’t do anything” and would argue against candidates with principles and ideals. The Bannon types would argue that if candidates with principles don’t win, what have you really won?
Both arguments have merits. The majority party makes the rules. Is a bad Republican better than a good Democrat if it means a Republican Speaker of the House or Senate Majority Leader? Let’s bring it closer to home. Your local Board of Elections is where integrity of the voting process begins. The head of most local Boards of Elections are appointed locally by the party of the Governor.
I personally went with the principles wing of my local party. It helped me sleep at night.…
I am against abortion. I believe that the argument should never been about the “rights” of women versus men and despise those who use abortion as a birth control method.
With that said, it’s terrible that the argument has transitioned into a legal argument versus a medical argument. At the end of the day, the question is “when does human life begin?” Our medical community has let us down in failing to answer this question.
Years ago at a Kiwanis convention, Billy Graham’s sister did a presentation about a children’s hospital that she started. She talked about very premature babies that were born that they treated. She passed about a “training aid” to all of us. It was a diaper for these premature babies. It fit inside our hands!
Answering the “when does human life begin” question gets easier as our medical community saves a baby today almost from conception. Don’t let the liberals convince you otherwise.…
The mother of all conspiracy theories over the years has been the JFK assassination. I’d guess that between Roswell and JFK, it would be a toss up on all of the books, movies, and conspiracy arguments.
Many found the Warren Commission report to be incomplete at best. When a plethora of documents were “sealed” the theories just went viral.
We’re coming up on the end of the waiting. 3000+ never seen documents and over 30,000 partially released documents from the FBI, CIA and Department of Justice are set to be released.
The CIA is calling for delaying the release for another 25 years. The very fact that they want to delay it should be the argument for releasing them.
Gosh, another day and another “Putin is evil" story.
Lots of “information” floating around and not a lot of knowledge. I’ve been watching this story trying to discern knowledge.
Right now I don’t see the “proof” of crimes. Lots of accusations flying and for the liberals they want to protect Hillary and attack Putin. For the right, anything that implicates Hillary in something evil is good news.
This is the most complete information I’ve seen so far.
More is surely to follow.…
This is an amazing three part series. All three parts are linked below.
When the Cold War ended, America stood at a cross roads. Many hailed the resultant “peace dividend”. The notion was that with the end of high defense spending during the Cold War, we could use that money for other internal purposes (of course no politician put forth the notion of giving the money back to the taxpayers).
Aside from economic changes, the US faced no major military threats for the first time in a long time. What an opportunity.
Of course the opportunity was turned into America becoming an empire, just like the old British empire. It’s ending the same way.
We had a long period where we could impose our way pretty much at will. In the absence of an economic or military adversary, we become the bullies of the world. Then Russia and China caught up.
We stood a good chance of becoming one of the three “super powers”, sharing influence with the Russians and the Chinese. Right now we face the very real possibility of falling behind China and Russia.
This is a very sobering series.…
As the US continues is preoccupation with old school wars, the rest of the world embraces economic “war” through the notions of trade and profit.
Enemies don’t become friends, but they learn to get along when they realize that there are profits to be made. For political leaders, profits translate into a happy population, with jobs, healthcare, food and other creature comforts readily available.
Iraq, the Kurds, Turkey and the various factions just negotiated a solution to fighting in Kirkuk. Despite the protestations of the super Neos like John Bolton, and the US military, clever tribal leaders negotiated a peaceful end to what could have been a very bloody battle.
They all decided not to kill each other because Kirkuk is an oil rich area and they all need the money. …
I’m loving watching the NFL disintegrate before my eyes.
Professional sports in my lifetime has followed the same path that teachers, cops and the military have. Once you increase the salaries, you end up getting some employees who are in it for the money, not for the love of the vocation.
Teachers used to be respected. Salaries were low and you really had to want to be a teacher to do it. Now with increased compensation, folks choose the career for the money and benefits.
You see this transition over and over again in many career fields. When I was a kid, NFL players had real jobs in the off-season. People respected their skills on the field, not their social conscience.
The funny thing is that I don’t miss them. …
Google’s larger mission to make the world’s information “universally accessible and useful.
“I want to use the best technology we have at our disposal to begin to take on trolling and other nefarious tactics that give hostile voices disproportionate weight,” says Jigsaw founder and president Jared Cohen. “To do everything we can to level the playing field.”
Google’s effort, Jigsaw is the new name for what used to be called Google Ideas. At first glance, their mission seems all sweet and wonderful. They want to stop the “bad” things in social media. An enlightened censorship for the common good.
It’s scary when the elites come up with a plan to censor speech that they and they alone determine is “harmful”. Let’s remember for a second that they are a for-profit corporation. They don’t do things to be nice. They obviously are creating a product that is for sale, and for sale to the highest bidder.
Even if trolling and other harassment on the internet is harmful, does the prior censorship of it make our country better? Does eliminating this harmful internet speech eliminate the real harmful thoughts? Encouraging discourse of any type is almost always better.
As an aside, this kind of smells of some sort of “new world order” operation. Meddling in foreign affairs by a corporate entity won’t come out well in the end and is against every National and International law that exists. But I guess it’s ok if you are well-intentioned.…
I’ve shared these thoughts with friends and on this blog for a long time. Stop thinking that Facebook, Google, Twitter and all of the other social media outlets are somehow some sort of good guys who exist only for the furthering of an educated and intelligent populous.
They are a business. A business that wants to make a lot of money for it’s stockholders. Whatever they do or don’t do is designed to maximize profits.
It’s kind of like CNN that everyone seems to hate. Well, everyone except the viewers that they have and the advertisers that want to influence the buying decisions of their viewers.
We need to drop the notion that they are something special who somehow ascribe to some sort of code of ethics that makes them do socially responsible things. People are quick to organize to hold other corporations ethically responsible. It’s time to recognize the social media for what it is.…
