Nom de plume: Rivrdog

The NSA's petard

...and why they will be hoist with that petard.

This one seems very obvious to me. The NSA seizes a collection of data, puts their "top secret" stamp on it, and then says that anyone else accessing that data is a spy and should get the full spy treatment.

Nazzofast, NSA.

There are laws dealing with the ownership of metadata. Generally, those laws say that whoever originally generates the data in their server owns it. Those laws are going to be hard to evade, and if they are evaded by the NSA  in the Snowden affair, it will go wrong for the NSA, not Snowden. The only other possible interpretation of those laws that is possible is to allow that the parties to the metadata to also have an ownership interest.

Here's how that would work. Say I, as a Verizon customer, make a phone call to my son, also a Verizon customer (we both are, BTW). Signals originating in both of our devices are recorded by Verizon, which maintains the servers necessary to operate the network I am using. Verizon stores the data originating as a result of the call. All this is legal.

Now, along comes NSA, and serves a court order on Verizon for the metadata which they possess. ALL the metadata which they possess. I'm guessing here, but I believe that this is ONLY legal due to the power of the FIS Court, that it's not written into law anywhere that NSA, or any arm of the Government, is a co-owner of the metadata. Verizon, of course, gives up the metadata upon verifying the order of the court. The court order also says to keep it's order it a secret, but this is a side-issue not germane to the discussion.

This discussion is NOT about anything but the lawful ownership of the metadata, and whether that lawful ownership, belonging as it does to Verizon, can be converted to the Government by an order of a court that does not bother to use Due Process.

As you can see, the Snowden case isn't really about Snowden, it is about the metadata, and if the Government can't make the case, in open court, why it owns that metadata, it has little jurisdiction over Snowden, either. As I see it, Snowden violated the terms of his employment, and he might have violated the terms of his security clearance, which DOES belong to the Government (although the Government was stupid to give him one in the first place). Above all, Snowden might have stolen the metadata, which belongs to whichever company ran the server it was generated upon. Snowden faces a variety of theft charges, and whatever charge for abuse of his security clearance, but not espionage.

Verizon should fight back, and as a customer, I am going to write them a letter urging them to do so. I think that Verizon and all the other companies holding metadata which the NSA hijacked should charge the Government a fair price for that metadata. Five dollars a byte seems about right, so who has a computer that can tally that tab?

BTW, As a Verizon customer, it has occurred to me that VZW is making money off of ME with the metadata generated by my smartphone use, so why don't I have a case to charge them for that metadata as well? I'll charge the usual "finder's fee" rate, 10%, or fifty cents per byte. Lessee here, at an average of 1.6gb/month which I use, that comes to $800 million per month. I've been a VZW customer since the start of the company, about 12 years ago, wasn't it? Hmmm, $800M times 12 times 12 = $115.2B.

Of course I'm not going to be able to enforce collection on a bill of that size, but if the courts eventually rule that I am part owner of my metadata, and I have made a prior claim for payment, my claim would be valid back to it's original date, wouldn't it?

All things have value, as the Government and the telecomm companies need to realize. Putting a value on metadata ought to shake some apples out of that tree, don't you think?

How serious is this IRS mess?

Just this serious. The IRS positioned itself to act exactly as Hitler's Gestapo did. The IRS demanded such information from those right-wing groups applying for 501(c) status that would have enabled agents to attend and disrupt meetings, or hunt down attendees.

Yes, it's probable that the IRS never acted on the information which they gathered, but, in direct contravention to what Rep. Jim McDermott (D-WA) said, that does not absolve the IRS of the evil of collecting that information in the first place, since doing so was definitely not in their charter, and doing so had only one purpose, to flesh out information in Obama's improper "enemies list".

I'm a hard-hearted s.o.b. most of the time, and if the IRS had simply denied all those applications for 501(c) status of all those right-wing orgs, I would not raise an eyebrow, because that would have been a fair interpretation of their mission under their rules as given by Congress.

Denying the tax-exempt status wasn't enough for the IRS though, they had to gather sufficient information on these groups to be able to later eliminate them. Make no mistake about it, History fans, there is only one purpose of gathering the info that the IRS did in their "questionnaires", and that is to take later direct action against those organizatons. In legal terms, this is the "substantial step" of the completion of any conspiracy that is needed to get an indictment for conspiring to violate whatever law or whoever's rights.

So, don't be taken in by the phony (D)onk claim of  "no harm, no foul". There IS harm every time Government collects detailed information on law-abiding citizens exercising their constitutional Civil Rights. Isn't it time that "constitutional scholar" President Obama came forward and admitted this signal fact? Isn't it time that President Obama joined the vast majority of Americans who demand an end to this IRS abuse, and in his case, that means dismissing every IRS leader who he can dismiss by his own hand, and starting the procedures to have the rest of the leaders of this damaged Government bureau dismissed by Civil Service rules?

We're waiting, President Obama, and every day that goes by without your strong action to restore our good faith in this powerful arm of your Government is another day which indicates that you support and even encourage their abuses. 

The Newest Gauleiter

On this blog, we've talked about Gauleiter Janet Napolitano for several years, at least since she issued her famous directive listing all those who offer dissent to the President as potential terrorists.

The Gauleiter List has grown to at least two Gauleiters now.

We may now add to this list of Obama's Nazis the IRS Executive Lois Lerner, a civil servant who has forgotten her role and turned that powerful Government agency against, once again, those who would dissent from the Democratic Party line, and have the chutzpah to ask for the same tax-exempt treatment that Democratic Party political orgs routinely get, selection as a 501(c)(4) organization.

She was sub-poenaed to appear before the House Government Operations Oversight Committee to explain why and how her unit, the"tax-exempt 'Determinations Unit' " (THAT sounds Orwellian, doesn't it?) went all political for Obama and entered the IRS into the 2012 election as a Democratic Party operational organization.

Two days before the hearing date of this morning, she announced through her attorney that she would invoke her Fifth Amendment right to refuse to testify on the grounds that her answers might incriminate her. Fine, she has that right as does any person appearing before any body with judicial or quasi-judical power. The only problem with that, of course, is that, rightly or wrongly, such a declaration colors her entire career up until then with the stain of criminal activity. One has to ask, if she committed no crime, and if her attorneys believe she committed no crime, why she would declare her 5th Amendment right?

Yesterday, she demanded (I could say sniveled, but she's a Gauleiter, and all Gauleiters do is demand) to be excused from appearing at the hearing, because she was going to refuse to answer any questions, so there was no point, etc (like a true Gauleiter, supposing she runs everything, even another powerful Government operation such as Rep. Issa's Committee).

Issa didn't let her off the hook, so she appeared, and made an opening statement to the Committee she wasn't going to talk to. Gave her Talking Points, denied any wrongdoing, all that. Then, as Chairman Issa got ready to ask her his first question, she petulantly dictatorially replied "I am not going to answer." She never used the words "I assert my Fith Amendment right", "I plead the Fifth" or anything like that, she refused to answer, then said she was leaving the Committee room. Issa denied her leaving, and asked her again to answer. She again said she would not, again never using any words to indicate she was demanding her Fifth Amendment right. She got up, and Rep. Gowdy (R-SC) stated to the Chair words to the effect that since she had made an opening statement, she had, in fact, just de facto waived her Fifth Amendment right and testified, and the Committee was entitled to question her testimony, but she left and ended the drama for that moment.

Exciting moment, that.

It's all up to Issa now, but ultimately, it's up to President Obama. If he is not, at this moment, less than an hour after that disgraceful act of the IRS executive, having his people draw up a letter of outright dismissal from Federal Service for this woman, he will AGAIN have stained his own hands with this burgeoning scandal.

Issa can bring this point of a runaway, dictatorial IRS home to Nos Populi very forcefully now by having the Congressional Counsel draw up papers for Indictment of Lois Lerner for Contempt of Congress.

Oh, and lest we forget, President Obama has announced that this woman, Lois Lerner, is his choice to run the IRS' new Enforcement Arm of Obamacare. He has never rescinded that announcement, remember that. It will be VERY instructive to see just how long it takes him now to throw her under the bus. If he refuses to either dismiss her or demote her, and actually carries out his intent to promote her, just how are we supposed to view Obama?

I believe that we can then strike his sworn title of President of the United States and simply refer to him as Der Fuhrer from that point on. 

This avalanche of dirty tricks IS corruption

Now, it seems that Eric Holder's USDOJ targeted a Fox News journalist, James Rosen, for the "treatment" that AssPress journalists got, only Holder went farther, and named Rosen as a criminal conspirator in an affadavit.

Add to that, this story of the targeting of a Tea Party-afilliated group, "True the Vote", and add the Benghazi cover-up, the IRS scandal. the "green" energy cash, and what do we have?

We have Coordinated Corruption in our Executive Branch, with some slopping over into the Senate for good measure.

Now let's look at how coordinated attacks are done. There's ZERO doubt in MY military mind that the Democratic party leadership in the Senate and Executive Branch has been mounting coordinated attacks on their oposition, and there is some evidence to suggest that the past Presidential election might have actually been stolen by this strategy of suppression of the opposition and these attacks.

Let me ask you this: when the Tsarnaevs attacked the Boston Marathon, was there ANY doubt that their attack was a coordinated one? Nope. Two bombs, close to each other, at the finish line where all the TV cameras were, timed to go off 14 seconds apart. Yep, that was a coordinated attack.

I assume you read of the attack on Ms. Englebrecht in the linked article above. All those major harassments by the Feds just as she was bringing a poll-watching outfit on line to keep an eye on the usually-crooked Democratic Party voting in Houston, TX? That's the classic definition of "coordinated".

The "Dept of Dirty Tricks", aka "the Plumbers" were well established in Tricky Dick Nixon's Administration, and he was hounded from office because of it.

Let the hounding begin again, because if we as a Nation, roll over for this style of governance, we slip into not just decline as a democracy, but free-fall. While we're trying to pretend that we're cats and can land on our feet, the scum who pushed us off that cliff have just shredded the Constitution.

Speaker Boehner, you're the Equalizer. If you do the right thing and end this corruption, you've just saved the Nation. If you fail, some other equalizers will have to be used.

The Benghazi Boogaloo

Yep, it's dancing time again for the Democrats, so they trot out the Boogaloo, and we have been treated to a full day of it on the telly.

I don't want to burst any bubbles here, but if there is a single conservative who doesn't know the truth about Benghazi by now, it's because that right-thinking person just got off the slow intergalactic shuttle from Planet Zargon.

It boils down to this: Since this Administration began, "sensitivity" has taken precedence over Security at every US embassy around the world, and that is obviously by order of President Obama. We pretty much had this embassy security thing covered for the first 225 years of our Nation's existence: put Marines at the embassies, and leave them in charge of Security.

Along comes the "apologize to everyone" crowd, and their first take on it was to end visible security. The USMC is nothing if not visible, so away they go. They were "replaced" (not really) with a bunch of ex-spooks (contractors of the State Department) in plain clothes, with various levels of armaments, usually little to none, plus totally untrustworthy locals hired for the job. This was done in the name of not "offending" anyone in the host nations of our embassies.

Consider the case of Libya: a nation without an effective government, one which had just gone through a violent revolution to depose a dictator. Armed militias roamed the streets, and Jihadi militants were everywhere. Our embassy in Benghazi, Libya last September was a pool of gasoline waiting for someone with a match to come along. And they did. And there was no security. And our people died.

Almost immediately after the 9-11-12 attack on the embassy (interesting, predictable date, yes?), the Administration went into full cover-up mode and has been there ever since. Lie after lie. "Talking Points" ad infinitum. New faces to lie for old faces, but lie, lie, lie.

Today, at the latest Congressional hearings, some of the lies were exposed. 

Huzzah, they exposed some lies. Give Rep. Issa a kewpie doll.

B.F.D.

Is anyone at risk of being indicted for lying to Congress at the earlier hearings?

Doesn't sound that way.

Here's the Rivrdog Solution, take it or leave it. Quit farting around, Issa. You're not going to indict anyone for lying to Congress and you know it, so put the other side on the spot by introducing and passing a Bill that denies funding for all embassy protection EXCEPT a reinforced rifle company of the USMC placed at every embassy in Harm's way.

In other words, put embassy protection back on the footing the previous Administration had it.

Bring real guns and real gunners to the next gun fight at any US Embassy. Bringing Talking Points to a gunfight is fatal, as we know now.

End of discussion.

Punditry

Word from the Hill is that Manchin-Toomey is a done deal, there will be 60 votes with enough Rs crossing over to guarantee the Waiting Period Bill gets passed.

Now, Bill Wilson of Americans for Limited Government, which represents only solid conservative political thought and action, says that it could pass the House as well, guaranteeing that the House changes hands next November as enough conservatives "throw the bums out" who attacked the Second Amendment.

The problem here is that no one will report the facts, except a few righty bloggers such as myself.

Political Correctness has come to the Second Amendment. It's now PeeCee to be intolerant of sections of the formerly-sacrosanct Bill of Rights, so naturally, the (D)emocrats got their intolerance for the 2A on first, it being the thin steel line against the Left becoming all-powerful and having a de-facto dictatorship of the Left, and this Nation becoming a de-facto Socialist Dictatorship.

The simple fact is that so-called "moderate" (R)epublicans have bought into PeeCee, and are just as susceptible to it as (D)emocrats, maybe more so, since (R)epublicans have to try harder as "Change" wasn't in their vocabulary before now.

Send all the communications to your congress-critters you want, but they will do no good, since the dampfwalser is fully steamed up, and it's driver Herr Boehner just opened the throttle.

Of course, gravity rules on this slippery-slope we're on now, because failing to maintain position on any Enumerated Right means that any of the rest of them can be beaten down also, and will be. It might take a generation, but by the time my kids are in their rocking chairs, this Nation will never have seen any conservative ideals maintained, and perhaps the Lefty Prexy of that future People's Democratische Republik of Amerika will finally just give a speech and declare the original Constitution over and done with. By then, all those who still give a shit will be too old and weak to pull the trigger on whatever guns might have escaped the foregoing gun grabs.

I'm sorry I bothered to project the fantasy that this was still a Free Nation of Citizens.

It is now a pre-dictatorship of the Left, with it's citizens now Subjects, but you CAN hold your breath on the "pre", it will be very fleeting.

I'm not King Canute: I know when the tide is mightier than a "mere scrap of paper" that was entitled the Constitution of the United States of America.

When this Gun Control passes, and Obama thunders from his Socialist pulpit that he has brought us to a New Age of Enlightenment, I'll close this blog. I'm getting too old and stove-up to take the field, anyway, so going out in a blaze of Glory is not in order, either. I'll just dodder off into the sunset as is the fate of all old fools.

Event horizon change

The Event Horizon for efforts to retain the Second Amendment against the relentless efforts of the political left to emasculate or remove it has changed.

I know of no better example than brilliant gun writer Oleg Volk's blog.

Read the last (summary) paragraph in this post (the final sentence will suffice):

"The opium pipe dreams of the “restoration of the Republic” through another revolution are best left for those who don’t much value a connection to reality."

Now, fast forward almost 6 months to just a few days ago:

"We are at war with those who would disarm us. (Snip) Our chances of fighting back effectively diminish with every concession we make."

Yep, getting into a fight for your survival changes your event horizon. We're not in a shooting war just yet, but the chance that somewhere in the USA, a shooting war will soon break out is getting better by the day. I'm fairly sure that every day, POTUS Obama calmly re-evaluates his chances of removing the threat to his agenda that is the Second Amendment, and so far, he has doubled down against his Constitution at every evaluation of this fight's worth to him and the Left. I analyze the fight he's bringing to eliminate the Second Amendment as an indication of his plans, and the fight that defenders of the Constitution such as myself are bringing every day as an indication of our countervailing resolve. In no previous attack on the Second Amendment has the Left stayed in the fight this long, nor have they previously coalesced around the fierce determination they now demonstrate to end our enumerated freedoms and give their Leftist President a carte-blanche to convert the USA to a dictatorship of the Left.

The Left hasn't blinked, and it doesn't look likely that they will, because the attack is being carried not only by the Feds, but also by every Democratic Party operative in every Statehouse across the land. The particular objective common to the fight is to gut the Second by restricting the right to own and carry militia-capable weapons. That is the common thread of the Federal and State/local efforts by the Left.

What is the next "double-down tactic" when the Left gets stalled in the Congress? I have no doubt in my mind that some sort of event will "happen" that POTUS Obama will use as a lever to grant himself extraordinary, un-Constitutional power, and suspend the Bill of Rights, in total, or maybe just the First and Second Amendments during the "emergency".

My best guess for this "triggering event"? The North Koreans will shoot some missiles next week, and our forces will say that they appeared to be not tests, but hostile shots, and we will fire on their missiles, killing at least one of them. We will then be in a shooting war with the Norks, and the POTUS will declare himself a wartime prexy and present "evidence" of Nork "infiltration" of the USA, and list his suspension of the Bill of Rights. The aggression of the Norks will never affect the mainland USA, but the suspension of the Bill of Rights will happen anyway.

The Pelosi School of Legislation

...sems to be the way the entire Democratic Party operates.

Pelosi, of course, got notorious for replying to a GOP legislator about the contents of the ObamaCare legislation, "You have to pass the bill to know what's in it", she said.

This has become the mantra again for gun control legislation, as JPFO notes.

I'll wager that the NRA knows what's in Senator Reid's Bill though. They have to have schmoozed the bones of the law out of Reid, but they aren't telling us, because they again believe that their schmoozing is more important than a few extra days to get opposition rolling against "the Bill that 90% of gun owners agree with" (if you believe this, I can sell you any one or several bridges in Portland).

Senator Mitch McConnell isn't fooled, though, and says he will force a cloture roll-call vote unless Reid lets the world see what is most likely his National Gun Registration Bill, laughingly called a "Background Check" Bill.

Anyone want to bet me that there is no provision in that Bill requiring the Feds to destroy records of background checks? That would be Registration, and while this Bill probably won't mandate Registration of previously-owned guns, you can bet that AFTER passing it, the Feds will say, "Oops, we goofed, we meant to say that ALL guns have to be Registered." Obama might even do that by Executive order. A companion Bill to do that will then be produced if Obama doesn't jump that shark, and the claim made that that was what Reid and his steamrolled Senators intended all along, so THAT Bill will have to be passed, too.

Australia, anyone?

The Government can't confiscate what it can't identify, so as long as Registration is defeated in ALL of it's forms, the Second Amendment lives on. The minute any form of Registration becomes the law of the land on the Federal books, though, you can stick a fork in the 2A, it's done. The only thing that could save the Second and the entire Constitution after that would be to actually USE the Second Amendment for it's intended purpose.

It's really this simple, folks: Reid's Bill is defeated or modified to preclude ANY form of retaining background check info (with jail time for any Government official violating the don't-keep-data provision), or we have to use the Second Amendment.

Take your choice. Do you want to let your Senators know of your opposition to Reid's Bill, or do you want to join a militia to remove the Government? For a few days, you have that choice.

For just a few days.

A dilemma inside a conundrum

Nothing like a little brainwork to start your day, so I present this little teaser.

I can hear that monkey wrench clanking around in the various chambers of the SCOTUS like a ships reduction gears about to come to a grinding halt.

My position on this subject remains the same: "marriage" IS a religious concept, one which should never have been allowed to creep into civil law. It belongs in Canon law, and canon law only. Civil Unions? Sure, the State might have reasons to define those, and this loose-definition-of-marriage is one of those reasons.

Just don't call Civil Unions "marriage".

The SCOTUS courld make that important distinction now, but it'll be a cold day in Hell before they find the balls OR the Reason to do so.

Immigration, again

...and again, nothing has changed. There are at least twelve million illegal aliens in this Nation, and it appears that they are going to be allowed to stay. Allowed by any politico who has had a voice on the subject, because all the plans of both parties include a "path to citizenship", i.e., Amnesty for their crimes of illegally entering and remaining in this Nation.

My position has not changed. My position says that US law has defined them as criminals, no matter what public policy might be in ignoring that law or that status of those people. In this Nation, you follow the law, or you are an outlaw, and immigration law is perfectly clear: as an alien, you may not remain in this country if you have committed crimes, particularly felony crimes.

We all know why the Demoncrats and Rethuglicans both want to give the illegals amnesty: they want to buy their votes. That's the 900# gorilla in the room, but it's also the way out of this mess.

The way out is to make it desireable for the aliens to leave. They have to WANT to leave. We make them WANT to leave by making it economically unfeasible for them to live here. Here's how I would do that:

• Throw the switch. End the transfer of dinero back to their home countries. Pass a law requiring that all persons wanting to transfer money to a foreign address prove their citizenship and if not a citizen of the US, show their US entry visa. I traveled extensively in Europe as a kid, some ten years after WW2, and my parents and I had to show our "papers" to everyone, even to hotel clerks to get a room. If you have "papers", you're not afraid to show them. When the illegals can't transfer their money, a black market for doing so will spring up, and when it does, our efficient Federal agants can seize ALL that money, probably enough to pay their way. For those who DO have visas, tax their dinero 15%. That will go some distance towards paying for the horrible bill that this immigration mess has caused. In my State of Oregon, it is well over 30% of the social welfare budget and the education budget.
• We have a "path to citizenship" already. It's called Naturalization, and it works. My paternal grandfather was naturalized, along with his wife. Let's enforce the Naturalization process, maybe streamline it some (although it's pretty easy already), and all those industrious individuals wishing to become US citizens can do so.
• Give out more work visas, but have a vigorous program of checking up on the workers. The FIRST time they switch jobs without reporting it, they are gone. No exceptions.
• End the "born in the USA" birthright, aka "anchor babies". End tuition assistance for illegals and their children. End the free rides wherever they exist. We save billions of bucks, and the illegals will want to get legal faster.
• Allow and even encourage local and State law enforcement to help enforce Federal Immigration law instead of discouraging them from doing so as now happens. That quintuples the enforcement resources immediately, and furthermore, puts those resources out of the political control of DeeCee, from which all this corruption in border control comes.
• Fence? We don't need no steenking fences, we need the Army. End of discussion.

All nations are entitled to secure their borders for the purposes of internal security. Some do a better job than others. All of them do a better job than we're doing, because of our politically corrupt idea of allowing illegal immigration for the purposes of packing voter rolls and buying cheap labor. Until that corruption stops, and I don't see that happening anytime soon, because both parties want to pack their voter rolls with hispanics, the problem can't be solved.

Isn't there something more important to be discussed, such as our impending collapse of the economy?