skullduggery…

Yesterday, I was in a brief conversation about the U.S. Department of Justice dropping their electronic witch hunt of Apple computers cell phone safeguards. Efforts to bypass the iPhone’s pass code without Apple’s intervention proved successful, the Department of Justice reported Monday. The iPhone’s operating system is designed to prevent such attempts, but security researchers have identified some weaknesses in that software.

The Department of Justice announced last week that it had obtained technical help from an unnamed party, prompting it to ask a federal court in Riverside, California to postpone a hearing originally scheduled for last Tuesday on an order the government was seeking to compel Apple’s assistance.

The brief conversation happened because once again the person I was talking with did not want to hear about any Fourth Amendment slippery slopes that go with hacking an iPhone. Of course, the whole “terrorist” argument was front and center in the conversation and while I acknowledged the presumed terrorist gave up his rights when he allegedly began shooting and wound up dead, I had argued that we are giving law enforcement too much power because we are afraid of terrorism.

I said that it seems we are giving terrorists exactly what they want – and that is making knee jerk changes that destroy freedoms and abrogate human rights. I told him that we apparently no longer need a Constitution because any argument that is made to uphold it is shot down because of terrorism.

Terrorism is a magic word that sticks when it is committed by radical Islam, but is immediately sequestered when domestic terror is carried out. Islam and terror has now been made synonymous. Otherwise we are dealing with organized crime and random kills.

If we take “terrorism” and remove it from the description of what is happening then we hear the outcry that it isn’t used enough. When someone says that the encroachment of the police state is out of hand, there are always a few vocal individuals that express their disdain and claim that we can’t be too soft of terrorism.

It appears that you are committing a treasonous act when you point out that there is an imbalance of philosophy when it comes to defeating or preventing random or planned killing, politically motivated or not.

However, the truth is that any police force can be armed to the teeth, they can have all sorts of armored vehicles, you can propose the idea of building a wall or tell people that ride the transit to report suspicious activity to the police, you can crack codes on cell phones, spy on metadata, psychologically target, or induce mass paranoia with the media and still any bomber or gunman will slip through the cracks and kill huge amounts of people.

People are not expecting law enforcement to stop doing their jobs, but we have been warned and over warned, been held in our homes with “shelter in place” orders, been stopped at checkpoints, profiled, shot at, pepper sprayed and tased, unlawfully searched and yet people are ridiculed for asking if all of this necessary or if it violates the Constitution.

In their mental haze of fear and paranoia, the American public has paid little attention to what is being done inside the United States in the name of anti-terrorism. One of the most deceitful actions being carried out by our leaders is something called “mission creep”. The simple definition of mission creep is the process by which a mission’s methods and goals change gradually over time.

To keep the fear factor in play, we are told horror stories about threats that may or may not be true and we see many acts of violence that we are told after the fact happened because authorities simply looked the other way or were assuming that a drill was happening that need not be taken seriously.

It appears that people have become desensitized to the jackbooted forces, who now are not necessarily police officers that team with alleged military squads to show they are on the ready to restore order.

Propaganda has successfully reinforced negative public opinion about those who question why this is happening in the United States.

The FBI wants to search through your electronic life. You may think it’s a given that the government is in the business of collecting everyone’s personal data — Big Brother run amok in defiance of the Constitution.

But under the limits of the Fourth Amendment, nothing it finds can be used to prosecute its targets. Now the FBI is taking steps to carry out broad searches and data collection under the color of authority, making all of us more vulnerable to electronic ‘witch hunts’ and skullduggery.

Anyone who objects is always told the same old axiom “If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear” – every time I hear that statement I laugh inside because I am sure those who say it are unaware of its origins.

The origin of the phrase is unclear but it is most famously associated with Nazi Propaganda Minister, Joseph Goebbels. I figure that maybe if more people were to realize this, they wouldn’t be so quick in using it to defend their right to relinquish their rights.

How ironic that people forget history and quote dystopian phrases to defend the police state.

I remember as a child how every American would condemn the extensive use of TV cameras in communist Russia and East Germany to keep an eye on the local population. I remember my German aunt telling me the horror stories of East Germans attempting to climb over the Berlin wall to get to the west. Now we are talking about building walls. My aunt told me that the wall was built for not only keeping people out but keeping people in.

We are being told that the erosion of our freedoms by our government is the only way to stop the terrorists from taking those freedoms from us. There is a Latin phrase that applies here and that is “Praeclarum Custodem Ovium Lupum” which means “An excellent protector of sheep, the wolf.” Many people have wondered what this phrase means.

It is quite simply a sad irony that reminds us that many times, as in politics, the people who are supposed to save us are the people who actually destroy us.

Simple truths no longer hold any water to the lambs that willingly walk to the slaughter.

In the rhetoric provided by the presidential hopefuls, we are encouraged to think well of ourselves and our way of life. We are told that the way we live in this country is superior to other countries, even though this ideal life is quickly fading into history; even though other countries, which live differently, seem to have lasted a lot longer than we have.

That too I’m afraid is changing – the world’s sacred institutions are now falling prey to the dark phantom of terrorism. It is breeding the same ideologies that have been seen as self-defeating in history.

Terrorism is an effective tool for the empowerment of governments to have more controls over what is being reported in communications centers, media outlets, newspapers, entertainment companies.

With the consent of the people the government has now had a hand in controlling food and drug distributors, regulating their expansion and, once again, eventually terminating any exchange with anyone who decides to expose their malfeasance.

The people now believe that it is useless to resist. So they are left to jeer and attack anyone who wants to put up a fight or any resistance. Oh, but we are told there will be an organized resistance and it will send a message that the elite will no longer select candidates to rule. Organizers of Democracy Spring claim that they are tired of the billionaires running the show, but it is the bankers and the billionaires that are creating this controlled chaos. While they do not see that what they are doing will appear to be criminal aggression and totalitarian impulse – all the better to demonstrate the need for a tighter and more corporal police state.

If you think that this is “the revolution,” keep in mind that it has been set up in order to pull the sheep closer to entrapment. Everything and every new policy, law and abridgment of constitutional rights has a planned outcome where the average citizen does not win.

These plans and policies will continue until every major institution, every piece of literature, every news outlet, every food source, every religion, every aspect of our lives will be controlled by a few people in positions of power, all seeking the same result.

This has been a gradual process. Every year, we are told that our votes will change the way things are going. We have not seen any evidence of this statement being true. The country seems to be spiraling closer and closer to its own death. The United States has developed an attitude of “suicidal adolescence”, and continues to feel invincible to a takeover from any nefarious force hell-bent on rendering its people into slaves.

Americans are used to being told how to think and what to think. They are told by their clergy how to think religiously, then, the government steps in and makes everything political. People are ten pushed into thinking that there are only two ways to think – liberal or conservative. It appears the religious tell their flocks that God blesses and has anointed conservative thought – and that liberalism is a cult that is guided by Lucifer.

It is conservatism and liberalism controlled by the rich – and it is now breeding militant behaviors that are now turning violent. The violence takes us full circle into the skullduggery of a well funded police state that is a force that lacks sufficient oversight, where acts of interrogation, violence and torture are used unnecessarily.

Leaving the police state unchecked has led to blanket punishment with lack of due process.

Once again the vocal are shouting their support for cruel and unusual punishment because they have been convinced that the bad stuff is set aside only for accused terrorists.

However, something as simple as tasing someone has been considered cruel and unusual punishment. The United Nations Committee Against Torture and Amnesty International have now called for restrictions on taser use in the United States. The argument is that while the police state considers the taser weapon as non lethal , they have been known to cause cardiac arrhythmia in susceptible subjects, possibly leading to heart attack or death in minutes by ventricular fibrillation, which leads to cardiac arrest and if not treated immediately, sudden death.

Although the medical conditions or use of illegal drugs among some of the casualties may have been the cause of death, the electric shock of the taser can significantly heighten such risk for subjects in an at-risk category.

In some cases, however, death occurred after taser use coupled with the use of force, even with no evidence of underlying medical condition and no use of drugs.

Just because it is non- lethal does not mean it won’t kill you.

According to recent studies it appears that young people, particularly from larger cities and deprived areas, have a troubled relationship with the police, Young people say that they are fear for their lives and that they worry they will be accidently killed during routine traffic stops or from profiling.

You seldom hear of anger towards the power itself but the way in which it is applied by officers.

When young people ask for explanations as to why they are being targeted but do not get them, and are fed lies and misinterpretations of the law, and are harassed by the same officers day in day out and any efforts to exercise their rights are read as cockiness, it is no wonder they wind up feeling like the powerless victims of unstoppable bullies.

Young people are considered “unpersons” because they do not vote. Many young people in the school system that have had problems become pipelined into the juvenile prison system and are given a threat assessment that is carried with them throughout their lives.

The United States has about five percent of the world’s population and houses around 25 percent of its prisoners. In large part, that’s the result of the “war on drugs” and long mandatory minimum sentences, but it also reflects America’s tendency to criminalize acts that other countries view as civil violations.

In a Ground Zero show called, “Guantanamo for All,” we cited a Guardian newspaper report revealing that Chicago Police are operating a secret detention facility that mirrors the CIA’s “black sites,” secret torture facilities that were originally created for political prisoners.

It is terrifying to hear there is a facility being operated in the United States for use on American citizens. From violations of due process to torture, the revelations raise serious concerns about the deteriorating state of freedom and justice in the United States.

However, it is now being reported that even though Black Sites like the one in Chicago, human rights violations are happening in the United States prison system.

International treaties, conventions, and declarations provide basic guidelines for the treatment of prisoners. These guidelines are often ignored by the U.S. criminal justice system. Meanwhile, the United States continues to criticize other countries for violations of prisoners’ human rights.

There have been cases of long-term isolation, withholding of health and medical services and conditions, the use of force and devices of torture, racism, and violence against women in prison.

News outlets seldom report this and the cover-up expresses the fact that, for the ruling class, such practices are considered routine and necessary.

From New York’s Rikers Island, to Florida’s state prisons, to the overcrowded penitentiaries of Southern California, beatings by prison guards take place every day.

Karl Marx wrote in 1859 that the “legal and political superstructure” arises out of the economic structure of society. The increasing prevalence of torture, arbitrary imprisonment, the denial of habeas corpus, and rampant police brutality in the legal field expresses the brutal and exploitative character of social relations in the United States.

The United States, moreover, has been continuously at war for at least two and a half decades. Torture has become an instrument of foreign policy abroad, in CIA detention centers and at Guantanamo Bay, and those who implemented this illegal policy have gone unpunished.

It is no surprise that the so-called peace president and great uniter, Barack Obama, who boasts about his role in assassinating people, including US citizens, abroad, presides over a police force armed with armored personnel carriers and machine guns.

Or that the gulags run by the military and intelligence apparatus around the world have their parallel in a giant prison complex that contains more individuals than any other country in the world?

Obama recently went to Argentina to ask for forgiveness because of the CIA’s role in helping create death squads and black sites during their Dirty War. However, it is now become frighteningly apparent that the same tactics and actions used in South America in the 1970’s are now being used here in the United States.

Text – Check out Ground Zero Radio with Clyde Lewis Live Nightly @ http://www.groundzeromedia.org