DHS re-designs Predator drones to spy on Americans
I'm no civil libertarian absolutist, but this disturbing report by Declan McCullagh at C-Net makes the hair on the back of my neck stand on end:
The
U.S. Department of Homeland Security has customized its Predator
drones, originally built for overseas military operations, to carry out
at-home surveillance tasks that have civil libertarians worried:
identifying civilians carrying guns and tracking their cell phones,
government documents show.
The documents provide more details about the surveillance capabilities of the department's unmanned Predator B drones,
which are primarily used to patrol the United States' northern and
southern borders but have been pressed into service on behalf of a
growing number of law enforcement agencies including the FBI, the Secret
Service, the Texas Rangers, and local police.
Homeland Security's specifications for its drones, built by San Diego-based General Atomics Aeronautical Systems,
say they "shall be capable of identifying a standing human being at
night as likely armed or not," meaning carrying a shotgun or rifle. They
also specify "signals interception" technology that can capture
communications in the frequency ranges used by mobile phones, and "direction finding" technology that can identify the locations of mobile devices or two-way radios.
The Electronic Privacy Information Center obtained a partially redacted copy
of Homeland Security's requirements for its drone fleet through the
Freedom of Information Act and published it this week. CNET unearthed an
unredacted copy of the requirements that provides additional information about the aircraft's surveillance capabilities.
Concern about domestic use of drones is growing, with federal legislation introduced last month that would establish legal safeguards, in addition to parallel efforts underway from state and local lawmakers. The Federal Aviation Administration recently said that it will "address privacy-related data collection" by drones.
I
think that sometimes, threats to privacy are overblown by the
absolutists, but not this time. The use of drones with these
capabilities represents a clear and present danger not only to privacy,
but to liberty as well.
As
with any new technology, it will take time to sort out all of the
ramifications to our personal liberties. I trust that at some point, a modus vivendi can be achieved that respects privacy while aiding police in keeping us safe.
It's an issue that certainly bears close watching.
The government watchdog group Judicial Watch is suing the Treasury
Department for records pertaining to the department’s decision to grant a
Chinese government-backed company access to oil deposits in the Gulf of
Mexico, a move that will benefit Obama donors.
The Chinese National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) reached a “definitive agreement”
with Nexen, Inc., a Canadian energy company, announced on July 23,
2012, to buy all of the company’s outstanding public shares. Nexen has
holdings in the Gulf of Mexico and Canada, giving the Chinese government
access to millions of barrels of Keystone XL and Gulf reserve oil.
Nexen’s holdings in the Gulf, coupled with the Chinese government’s ownership
of CNOOC, meant the Treasury Department’s Committee on Foreign
Investment in the United States had to approve the takeover, which it
did on Feb. 12.
The secretaries of several major executive departments—including
treasury, state, defense, and homeland security—sit on the committee.
Judicial Watch filed a Freedom of Information Act request for
information on the deal in November, but the Treasury Department did not
reply within the mandatory 20 days. Judicial Watch then filed suit on
Feb. 14 to get access to the documents.
Judicial Watch noted that several prominent fundraisers and donors to
President Barack Obama’s 2012 campaign stood to make a windfall profit
from the Chinese corporation’s expansion in their press release announcing the suit.
David Shaw founded D.E. Shaw and Co., which massively increased its shares in Nexen in the third quarter of 2012, according to its SEC reports. Nexen’s stock rose almost 50 percent the week of the announcement, which was early in the third quarter.
Shaw bundled
between $200,000 and $500,000 for the Obama campaign in 2012. He also
sits on a presidential advisory council, Judicial Watch noted. D.E. Shaw
and Company did not return a request for comment.
Frank Brosens is another prominent Democratic supporter who stood to
gain significantly from the merger. His firm Taconic Capital bought at
least 6 million shares in Nexen in the third quarter of 2012 but sold all of them by the end of the year. Taconic did not return a request for comment on their investment strategy.
Brosens, like Shaw, has close ties to the current administration. He was reportedly Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner’s first choice to run the bailout program in 2009, and was a major donor to the Democratic National Committee in the 2012 cycle. He also bundled between $200,000 and $500,000 for Obama’s campaign in 2012.
Judicial Watch also pointed out several other organizations with close ties to the administration stood to gain from the merger.
The lawsuit comes as the president’s campaign-apparatus-turned-dark-money-advocacy group has come under scrutiny for providing donors access to the president.
“With one ill-chosen action, the Obama administration has managed to
undermine our strategic interests and reward its corporate cronies,”
said Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, in the released statement.
The Treasury Department did not return a request for comment.
http://freebeacon.com/china-deal-benefits-obama-donors/#sthash.Xatl8vhO.dpuf
Reich:
Tea Party 'Conspiracy to Undermine the Government of the United States'
Democrats
and the media have accused Tea Party favorite Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) of
"McCarthyism" merely for posing tough questions to and about Chuck
Hagel during the latter's confirmation as Secretary of Defense. Yet a recent
column by former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich reveals who the real
McCarthyites are in U.S. politics today, as Reich likens the Tea Party to a conspiracy
"to undermine the government of the United States."
Reich, who has steadfastly supported
President Barack Obama's big-government, tax-and-spend agenda, wrote that the
Tea Party had "infiltrated" the government at every level, and had
used the budget cuts in the sequester to begin "dismantling pieces of
it." He outlined the rest of his conspiracy theory
at the left-wing Salon.com:
Imagine a plot to undermine the
government of the United States, to destroy much of its capacity to do the
public’s business, and to sow distrust among the population.
Imagine further that the plotters
infiltrate Congress and state governments, reshape their districts to give them
disproportionate influence in Washington, and use the media to spread big lies
about the government.
Finally, imagine they not only
paralyze the government but are on the verge of dismantling pieces of it.
Far-fetched? Perhaps. But take
a look at what’s been happening in Washington and many state capitals since Tea
Party fanatics gained effective control of the Republican Party, and you’d be
forgiven if you see parallels.
Reich downplays the fact that the
sequester was the president's idea--is he, too, some kind of Manchurian Tea
Party candidate designed to demonstrate the failure of liberalism?--and
suggests the Tea Party actually wants unemployment to rise because they
want Americans to be even more fearful and angry."
Of course, it was President Obama
who tried to make Americans "fearful and angry" by describing a
parade of horribles that would ensue as the sequester hit. And perhaps Reich
should be reminded that it was Democrats who consciously chose a strategy of fear
in selling Obamacare to the public.
As key Chicago strategist Robert
Creamer wrote in proposing the
Democrats' future health care strategy--from federal prison--in 2006-7:
"“To win we must not just generate understanding, but emotion--fear,
revulsion, anger, disgust.”
As is nearly always the case, the
left's accusations of conspiracy and sedition are a form of projection,
accusing others of what they themselves are doing. Reich's blunt conspiratorial
fantasy is a useful bookmark to remember the next time Jane Mayer or Chris Matthews targets
Ted Cruz and the Tea Party in Alinskyite fashion.
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/03/03/Reich-Tea-Party-Conspiracy-to-Undermine-the-United-States
Protecting Third-Grader’s Right to Wear a Cross Necklace
We recently assisted a third-grade student at a public school in
California, and his mother, who requested the ACLJ’s assistance to
ensure that the student may continue to express his religious faith by
openly wearing a cross necklace while he is on school grounds.
The student often wears a cross necklace to school to symbolize his
Christian faith, which has grown especially important to him after he
and his siblings survived a dangerous car accident with virtually no
physical injuries. On multiple occasions, however, both his teacher and
the principal have scolded him for wearing his cross necklace so that it
is visible to other students and have required him to hide the necklace
under his shirt because it is a religious symbol.
The student’s mother met with the principal to discuss the matter,
but the principal told her that she requires students of various faiths
to cover up religious symbols, to separate themselves from other
students if they want to pray during a non-instructional time, etc., so
that other students will not be offended by their religious expression.
We sent the school district superintendant a letter explaining that
the school’s actions violated the student’s free speech rights,
protected by First Amendment. The superintendent replied by stating that
she had directed the principal “to allow students to wear religious
symbols, including the cross worn by [the student].”
Since then, the student has continued to wear his cross necklace
without being scolded or disciplined. We are thrilled with this outcome,
but unfortunately, this situation is not unique, and the ACLJ will
continue to defend student free speech rights around the country when
they are threatened.
https://aclj.org/free-speech-2/protecting-third-grader-right-wear-cross-necklace
The U.N.’s Anti-Semitic Alliance
The Turkish prime minister’s recent slander about Zionism occurred at a U.N. organization event.
On
Wednesday, under the crystal chandeliers of Vienna’s ornate Hofberg
Palace, the prime minister of Turkey delivered a speech in which he
called Zionism “a crime against humanity” — equating it with fascism,
and, for good measure, Islamophobia and anti-Semitism. Following his
remarks, Erdogan was thanked, and applauded.
The occasion was a February 27–28 meeting of an outfit called the
United Nations Alliance of Civilizations, launched in 2005 by former
secretary general Kofi Annan for the purpose of “bridging divides.”
Among those attending this latest conclave of the Alliance were U.N.
secretary general Ban Ki-moon; director general Irina Bokova of the U.N.
Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO); and such
celebrities of the diplomatic circuit as Iranian foreign minister Ali
Akbar Salehi.
No surprise, then, that it was left to a private monitoring group,
Geneva-based U.N. Watch, to blow the whistle on Erdogan’s remarks. U.N.
Watch, noting that Zionism is a movement founded in 1897 for Jewish
self-determination, called on Ban and other prominent participants in
this U.N. Alliance to repudiate Erdogan’s slander.
American secretary of state John Kerry, arriving Friday on a
previously scheduled trip to Turkey, called Erdogan’s comments
“objectionable.” It would be good to hear a more full-throated
condemnation from a great many world leaders, as well as an apology from
the Austrian authorities who hosted and helped subsidize this
gathering. Austrians, more than most, ought to be acutely aware that
Erdogan’s speech was dripping with the same prejudice that produced the
U.N. General Assembly’s 1975 resolution declaring that “Zionism is a
form of racism.” That noxious resolution was approved during the tenure
of former U.N. secretary general Kurt Waldheim, an Austrian, who was
later exposed — to his country’s shame — as having been complicit in
Nazi war crimes.
In 1991, under pressure from the U.S., the U.N. finally repealed that
resolution. Now, the noble-sounding Alliance of Civilizations,
serviced, sheltered, and praised by the U.N., is providing a platform
for similar bigotry.
So, what exactly is this U.N. Alliance of Civilizations?
Headquartered in midtown Manhattan, with a lineage that tracks back
to the government of Iran, the Alliance can best be understood as a
glorified slush fund, run chiefly by a number of Muslim-majority
countries — Turkey and Qatar in particular — busy leveraging the U.N.
label. Officially, the Alliance advertises itself as promoting global
“respect and tolerance.” In practice, it functions more as a matchmaking
service between the left wing of Western politics and the anti-Western
actors and agenda of a dominant lobbying bloc in the U.N. General
Assembly, the 57-member Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC).
The Alliance of Civilizations was grandfathered by former secretary
general Kofi Annan out of a previous project, the U.N.’s Dialogue of
Civilizations, proposed in 1998 by Iran’s then-president Mohammad
Khatami. Annan jumped at the idea, and the U.N. General Assembly decided
that 2001 would be the Year of the Dialogue of Civilizations. To run
this enterprise, Annan picked a veteran Italian U.N. official named
Giandomenico Picco. Picco had served previously as a U.N. negotiator for
the release of Western hostages held in Beirut, which involved bringing
what were effectively U.S. ransom offers to the mullahs in Tehran. The
Dialogue was introduced as a one-year project but then dragged on for
years, producing a jargon-filled report in 2001, logging a lot of air
miles, and holding a meeting in Tehran in 2004, before finally fading
out.
In 2005, Annan revived the project as the Alliance of Civilizations.
He announced that it had two new sponsors: Turkey, under Erdogan; and
Spain, which in the aftermath of the 2004 terrorist bombings in Madrid
had just voted into power the Socialist party. This new Alliance had
plenty in common with the old Khatami-inspired Dialogue. For one, Annan
appointed Khatami himself to a “high-level group of eminent persons to
guide the initiative.” To this day, Khatami remains one of the 20
members of the Alliance’s advisory board, which includes representatives
from around the globe but is dominated by nine members from
Muslim-majority states — among them, Egypt, Pakistan, Turkey, and Iran.
In 2006, the Alliance served as a vehicle for Khatami to visit the U.S.
at a useful juncture for Iran. In the summer of that year, the U.N.
Security Council produced the first of what is by now a series of
resolutions meant to stop Iran’s uranium-enrichment program, and gave
Iran an August 31 deadline – which Iran ignored. About that same time,
Khatami, as one of the Alliance’s guiding experts, got a visa to enter
the U.S. to attend an Alliance meeting held September 5–6 in New York.
He parlayed that visit into a two-week road show through a number of
American cities, slamming U.S. policy toward Iran as he went, and
appearing as a guest in Washington at a fund-raising dinner for the
Council on American-Islamic Relations.
Until 2009, the U.S. government had steered clear of the Alliance of
Civilizations — mindful, perhaps, of its Iranian roots and other
troubling ties. But when President Obama took office in 2009, his
administration quickly decided to join the Alliance’s “Group of Friends”
— a collection of countries and international organizations, including
the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, that actively support and
promote the Alliance. During Obama’s first presidential trip to the
Middle East, in April 2009, he dropped in on an Alliance forum in
Istanbul.
How is it that the otherwise obscure Alliance seems to attract so
much top brass? The Alliance doesn’t occupy a regular position within
the sprawling U.N. system. Instead, it inhabits the amorphous category
of an “initiative” of the secretary general, managed as a sort of
private club within the U.N. and bankrolled by its own special,
voluntary trust fund. Its declared mission is so diffuse that it could
mean almost anything: bridging divides, with a focus on education,
youth, media and migration. This means that while the Alliance enjoys a
U.N. label and broad access to U.N. services, including diplomatically
privileged procurement and travel arrangements, it is also designed to
operate outside the usual constraints of U.N. policy and budget debates.
Officially, the Alliance runs on a relatively small budget (by U.N.
standards). With a secretariat staff of 14, it spent about $4 million
last year, according to an Alliance spokesman. A list of trust-fund
contributors provided by the Alliance shows that in any given year the
number of countries giving money has never topped 30. The list does not
show anything from the U.S. (The State Department did not respond to a
question about whether the U.S. has donated any money.) The chief donors
since 2005 have been Spain and Turkey, co-sponsors of the Alliance, as
well as Qatar, whose representative is now taking over from Spain’s as
head of the Alliance. Last year, Saudi Arabia — home to the OIC —
chipped in $1 million.
But such sums are merely what’s visible in the highly summarized
public accounts. The Alliance itself notes in its report on “costs and
funding” that the trust fund does not give the full picture. The
Alliance also accepts contributions in kind from countries,
international organizations, foundations, corporations, and so on. That
is how the Alliance is able to convene lavish global forums such as the
jamboree at which Erdogan just spoke in Vienna. It was sponsored by a
substantial list of donors, including, for example, the BMW Group, the
City of Vienna, and the OPEC Fund for International Development.
It’s just possible that for the most active members of the Alliance,
such as Turkey, Qatar, and Iran, the most important assets of this
“initiative” are neither the money in the trust fund nor its actual
products. The real value of this initiative is the license to coopt the
machinery of the U.N. for these actors to stage their own show. U.S.
taxpayers fork over billions every year to sustain the basic institution
of the UN. But for the modest price of $4.08 million, the grand total
of what Turkey has paid in to the Alliance of Civilizations since its
founding in 2005, Erdogan was able to stand on the stage of a palace in
Vienna, godfather of a very special U.N. gathering that was once just a
gleam in Khatami’s eye and, before a world audience, denounce the Jews.
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/342022/un-s-anti-semitic-alliance-claudia-rosett
Rotten to the Core (Part 2): Readin’, Writin’ and Deconstructionism
by Michelle Malkin
(This is the second part of an ongoing series on federal “Common
Core” education standards and the corruption of academic excellence.)
The Washington, D.C., board of education earned widespread mockery
this week when it proposed allowing high school students — in the
nation’s own capital — to skip a basic U.S. government course to graduate.
But this is fiddlesticks compared to what the federal government is
doing to eliminate American children’s core knowledge base in English,
language arts and history.
Thanks to the “Common Core”
regime, funded with President Obama’s stimulus dollars and bolstered by
duped Republican governors and business groups, deconstructionism is
back in style. Traditional literature is under fire. Moral relativism is
increasingly the norm. “Standards” is Orwell-speak for subjectivity and
lowest common denominator pedagogy.
Take the Common Core literacy “standards.” Please. As literature
professors, writers, humanities scholars, secondary educators and
parents have warned over the past three years, the new achievement goals
actually set American students back by de-emphasizing great literary works for “informational texts.” Challenging students to digest and dissect difficult poems and novels is becoming passe. Utilitarianism uber alles.
The Common Core English/language arts criteria call for students to
spend only half of their class time studying literature, and only 30
percent of their class time by their junior and senior years in high
school.
Under Common Core, classics such as “To Kill a Mockingbird” and “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” are of no more academic value than the pages of the Federal Register or the Federal Reserve archives — or a pro-Obamacare opinion essay in The New Yorker.
Audio and video transcripts, along with “alternative literacies” that
are more “relevant” to today’s students (pop song lyrics, for example),
are on par with Shakespeare.
English professor Mary Grabar
describes Common Core training exercises that tell teachers “to read
Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address without emotion and without providing any
historical context. Common Core reduces all ‘texts’ to one level: the
Gettysburg Address to the EPA’s Recommended Levels of Insulation.”
Indeed, in my own research, I found one Common Core “exemplar” on
teaching the Gettysburg Address that instructs educators to “refrain from giving background context or substantial instructional guidance at the outset.”
Another exercise devised by Common Core promoters features the
Gettysburg Address as a word cloud. Yes, a word cloud. Teachers use the
jumble of letters, devoid of historical context and truths, to help
students chart, decode and “deconstruct” Lincoln’s speech.
Deconstructionism,
of course, is the faddish leftwing school of thought popularized by
French philosopher Jacques Derrida in the 1970s. Writer Robert Locke
described the nihilistic movement best: “It is based on the proposition
that the apparently real world is in fact a vast social construct and
that the way to knowledge lies in taking apart in one’s mind this thing
society has built. Taken to its logical conclusion, it supposes that
there is at the end of the day no actual reality, just a series of
appearances stitched together by social constructs into what we all
agree to call reality.”
Literature and history are all about competing ideological
narratives, in other words. One story or “text” is no better than
another. Common Core’s literature-lite literacy standards are aimed not
at increasing “college readiness” or raising academic expectations. Just
the opposite. They help pave the way for more creeping political
indoctrination under the guise of increasing access to “information.”
As University of Arkansas professor Sandra Stotsky, an unrelenting
whistleblower who witnessed the Common Core sausage-making process
firsthand, concluded: “An English curriculum overloaded with advocacy
journalism or with ‘informational’ articles chosen for their topical
and/or political nature should raise serious concerns among parents,
school leaders, and policymakers. Common Core’s standards not only
present a serious threat to state and local education authority, but
also put academic quality at risk. Pushing fatally flawed education standards into America’s schools is not the way to improve education for America’s students.”
Bipartisan Common Core defenders claim their standards are merely
“recommendations.” But the standards, “rubrics” and “exemplars” are tied
to tests and textbooks. The textbooks and tests are tied to money and
power. Federally funded and federally championed nationalized standards
lead inexorably to de facto mandates. Any way you slice it, dice it or
word-cloud it, Common Core is a mandate for mediocrity.
***
Previous:
Rotten to the Core: Obama’s War on Academic Standards (Part 1)
Fuzzy math: A nationwide epidemic
Everyday Math = junk
Obama’s Sputter-nik moment: Cash for Education Clunkers
January 2005: NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND, ACT II
February 2005: THE REVOLT AGAINST NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND
Stupid education fad of the day: “Mayan Math”
***
More resources/background/links:
Barry Garelick: A New Kind of Problem: The Common Core Math Standards
EmpoweredGA.org – Georgia activists: Here, here, here and here.
Pennsylvania revolt against TERC Investigations math.
http://truthinamericaneducation.com/
http://www.utahnsagainstcommoncore.com/
Indiana: hoosiersagainstcommoncore.com
http://stopcommoncore.com/
“Related Websites” from Truth in American Education has links to all of the following:
Alabamians United for Excellence in Education
Arizonans Against Common Core
Californians United Against Common Core
Closing the Door on Innovation Why One National Curriculum Is Bad for America
Common Core: Education Without Representation
Common Core Facts
Hoosiers Against Common Core
Keep Education Local
Missouri Coalition Against Common Core
Pioneer Institute Public Policy Research: Academic Standards
Stop Common Core: Reclaiming Local Control in Education
Tennessee Against Common Core
United States Coalition for World Class Math: Common Core Standards
Utahns Against Common Core
Utah’s Republic: Common Core Standards
Where’s the Math? Common Core State Standards
Where’s the Math? Standard Algorithms in the Common Core State Standards
http://michellemalkin.com/2013/01/25/rotten-to-the-core-part-2-readin-writin-and-deconstructionism/
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