National-Security State Toadies are Guilty of Hypocrisy on Snowden

by Jacob G. Hornberger

One of the most amusing aspects of the NSA scandal has been watching national-security state toadies berate Edward Snowden, the man who blew the whistle on the NSA's longtime secret surveillance system, for being a "coward."

Their rationale?

They say that Snowden should have stayed here in the United States instead of fleeing to Hong Kong. They say that if he were a genuine hero, as his supporters say he is, he would have remained in the United States, where the national-security state would have incarcerated him, tortured him, and executed him.

Oh?

Well, pray tell, national-security state toadies: Where were you all when those CIA agents skedaddled out of Italy after committing felonious offenses in that country?

Well, I don't know where you all were but I can tell you what you were doing. You toadies were keeping your lips sealed. Unlike what you're saying about Snowden, you all have never issued a peep of protest about the refusal of those CIA agents to face the music in Italy, stand before the accusers, and defend themselves against the charges.

Let's review that case. CIA agents go into Italy and ensconce themselves in luxurious hotels at U.S. taxpayer expense. Then they proceed to kidnap a man on the streets of Milan and forcibly transport him out of the country. They ?take him to Egypt--yes, the same Egypt that was then headed by military strongman and brutal pro-U.S. dictator Hosni Mubarak. Why Egypt? Because Egypt's military dictatorship was great at torturing people. And the U.S. national-security state wanted the man to be tortured.

What's the problem with kidnapping and torture? Well, only that they're criminal offenses under Italian law, which is precisely why those CIA agents got criminally indicted and later convicted and sentenced to serve time by an Italian court.

By the time charges were brought, however, the CIA agents had fled the country, determined never to return to Italy to face justice.

Why not?

Equally important, why didn't the national-security state toadies who are now calling Edward Snowden a coward say the same thing about those CIA felons?

After all, couldn't those CIA agents have returned to Italy and proudly puffed out their heroic chests and proclaimed,

We are here in Italy to defend ourselves. We are proud members of the U.S. national-security state, the most powerful branch of the U.S. government. In our country, national-security state agents are immune from prosecution for murder, assassination, torture, kidnapping, perjury, or any other felony so long as we are operating to protect "national security." And we, not you or anyone else, decides what that term means. Therefore, you have to dismiss the charges against us or find us innocent because when we kidnapped, renditioned, and tortured that guy, we were doing so to protect "national security."

Alas, they didn't do that. They rushed back to the United States, never to return to Italy.

And the national-security state toadies don't dare say a word.

Moreover, let's not forget the unnamed CIA agents who participated in the execution of the young American journalist Charles Horman during the Pinochet military coup in Chile, which the U.S. national-security state helped to bring about. Those CIA killers of an innocent American citizen certainly have never returned to Chile to face justice. Long ago, they decided that discretion was the better part of valor.

What do the national-security state toadies say about those murderers? Nothing. Nothing at all. While they're screaming like banshees about how Snowden is a coward for refusing to voluntarily return to America to be brutalized, tortured, incarcerated, and executed, their lips are sealed with respect to the CIA agents who murdered American citizen Charles Horman in Chile.

On a related note, what about the Chilean criminal indictment of former national-security state official Navy Capt. Ray E. Davis for purportedly participating in Horman's murder.

Did Davis, who was indicted in 2011, rush back to Chile to face justice? Of course not.

Have the national-security state toadies criticized Davis for "cowardice." Of course not. Their lips have remained sealed about the matter.

What about CIA operative Jose Posada Carriles, who was indicted by the Venezuelan government for the bombing of a Cuban civilian airliner, a terrorist act that killed everyone on board, including the young members of Cuba's fencing team? We don't see him rushing back to Venezuela to face his accusers. Instead, this accused terrorist chooses to remain right here in the United States, where the national-security state continues to harbor and protect him, notwithstanding the existence of an extradition agreement between the United States and Venezuela.

And what about the national-security state toadies regarding Posada Carriles? You guessed it! Sealed lips and silence.

So, why the difference? Why do national-security state toadies call Snowden a coward while maintaining strict silence, or even support, for the national-security state agents who steadfastly refuse to face justice in Italy, Chile, and Venezuela?

The difference lies in the mindset that the toadies have toward the national-security state itself. The national-security state is their everything. It's their god. It's their idol. It's their daddy. It's their Big Brother. So, whatever happens to be the position of the national-security state, that's what the position of the national-security state toadies will be. Since the national-security state wants Snowden to return to the United States to be jailed, tortured, and executed, that's what the national-security state toadies want. Since the national-security state wants to harbor and protect its kidnappers, torturers, and murderers from crimes they've purportedly committed, that too is the position of the toadies.
_
Jacob G. Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation. He was born and raised in Laredo, Texas, and received his B.A. in economics from Virginia Military Institute and his law degree from the University of Texas. He was a trial attorney for twelve years in Texas. He also was an adjunct professor at the University of Dallas, where he taught law and economics. In 1987, Mr. Hornberger left the practice of law to become director of programs at the Foundation for Economic Education. He has advanced freedom and free markets on talk-radio stations all across the country as well as on Fox News' Neil Cavuto and Greta van Susteren shows and he appeared as a regular commentator on Judge Andrew Napolitano's show Freedom Watch. View these interviews at LewRockwell.com and from Full Context. Send him email.

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- How Thieves and Terrorists "Apologize" to their Victims
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How Thieves and Terrorists "Apologize" to their Victims

by Will Grigg

Friedrich Nietzsche famously said, ?Everything the State says is a lie, and everything it has is stolen.? The truth of Nietzsche?s axiom is embodied by the band of thieves and terrorists called the Internal Revenue Service.

Public outrage over recent revelations of IRS corruption and abuse has prompted Nina Olson, who is employed by the agency as its ?National Taxpayer Advocate,? to suggest that the agency should make ?apology payments? of $1,000 to taxpayers who have been mistreated.? If adopted on, Olson?s plan would cap payments at a total of $1 million a year. This would mean that 1,000 of the tens of millions of people abused by the IRS would receive an insultingly trivial sum as compensation for their mistreatment.

To understand the magnitude of the insult offered by Olson?s proposal, consider a recently publicized IRS conference that took place in Atlanta in 2008. The cost of that single event was $2.4 million ? more than twice the amount proposed by the IRS to buy off public outrage over their profligacy, corruption, and state-sponsored terrorism.? The IRS whistleblowers who reported that event to The Hill Newspaper, who remain anonymous out of fear of retaliation, describe the event as an example of the agency?s ?culture of excess.?

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Although admitting they are a harmful and criminal influence on society, if a program does not achieve its stated goal, but still continues, then it is meeting its unstated goal.

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The Land of the Blind: The Illusion of Freedom in America

by John W. Whitehead

In the Wachowskis? iconic 1999 film, The Matrix, the protagonist Neo is wakened from a lifelong slumber by Morpheus, a freedom fighter seeking to liberate humans from virtual slavery ? a lifelong hibernation state ? imposed by hyper-advanced artificial intelligence machines. With their minds plugged into a perfectly crafted virtual reality, few humans ever realize they are living in a dream world to such an extent that most are willing to give their lives in order to preserve the system that enslaves them.

Sound familiar? It should, because as I make clear in my new book, A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State (available on Amazon.com and in stores), we too are living in a fantasy world carefully crafted to resemble a representative democracy, while in reality we are little more than slaves in thrall to an authoritarian regime, with its constant surveillance, manufactured media spectacles, secret courts, inverted justice, and violent repression of dissent. And for the few who dare to challenge the status quo such as Edward Snowden, they are assured of being branded either as conspiratorialists, alarmists, lunatics or outright traitors.

So well-oiled and interconnected are the cogs, wheels and gear shifts in our government machinery that it can be near to impossible to decipher where the fault lies when something goes awry. What some are slowly coming to realize, however, is that the mechanism itself has changed. Its purpose is no longer to keep our republic running smoothly. To the contrary, this particular contraption?s purpose is to keep the corporate police state in power.

Just consider how insidious and incestuous the various ?parts? of the mechanism have become.

Congress. Perhaps the most notorious offenders and most obvious culprits in the creation of the corporate-state, Congress has proven itself to be both inept and avaricious, oblivious champions of an authoritarian system that is systematically dismantling their constituents? fundamental rights. Congress? most grievous behavior, however, is its failure to bring the president to task, who for all intents and purposes now operates above the law. The precedent set during the Bush administration of Congressmen going along with senseless and illegal White House policies has turned the office of the president into an untouchable, unstoppable force.

The President. Despite having ridden into office on a wave of optimism and the promise of a new America free of civil liberties abuses, President Obama has proven to be a more effective manipulator of the American people than his predecessors. His presidency has been defined by ?kill lists,? the murder of civilians in secret drone strikes, the assassination of American citizens, the continued operation of Guantanamo Bay, the championing of warrantless surveillance of American citizens, and most recently, the funneling of arms to al-Qaeda backed rebels in Syria.

The Supreme Court. The U.S. Supreme Court ? once the last refuge of justice, the one governmental body really capable of rolling back the slowly emerging tyranny enveloping America ? has instead become the champion of the American police state, absolving government and corporate officials of their crimes while relentlessly punishing the average American for exercising his or her rights. Consider that in the past month alone, the justices have determined that criminal suspects, who are supposed to be treated as innocent until proven guilty, may have their DNA forcibly extracted from them by police. They have decided that staying silent while the police question you may be considered evidence of guilt, despite the Fifth Amendment?s protection against self-incrimination and the well-established ?right to remain silent.? These are just two examples of a Court that, like the rest of the government, places profit, security, and convenience above our basic rights.

The Media. Of course, this triumvirate of total control would be completely ineffective without a propaganda machine provided by the world?s largest corporations. Besides shoving drivel down our throats at every possible moment, the so-called news agencies which are supposed to act as bulwarks against government propaganda have instead become the mouthpieces of the state. From championing the invasion of Iraq based upon absolute fabrications, to the fanatic support of all surveillance state policies and the demonization of whistle blowers like Edward Snowden and Bradley Manning, the pundits which pollute our airwaves are at best court jesters and at worst propagandists for the false reality created by the American government.

The American People. Of course, the most superior engine in the world still requires some form of energy to bring it to life and maintain it, and in this particular mechanism, ?we the people? serve that vital function. We are the petrol that powers the motor, for good or bad. We now belong to a permanent underclass in America. It doesn?t matter what you call us ? chattel, slaves, worker bees, drones, it?s all the same ? what matters is that we are expected to march in lockstep with and submit to the will of the state in all matters, public and private.

Through our complicity in matters large and small, we have allowed an out-of-control corporate-state apparatus to take over every element of American society. Our failure to remain informed about what is taking place in our government, to know and exercise our rights, to vocally protest, to demand accountability on the part of our government representatives, and at a minimum to care about the plight of our fellow Americans has been our downfall. Having allowed ourselves to descend into darkness, refusing to see what is really happening, happily trading the truth for false promises of security and freedom, we have allowed the police state to emerge and to flourish.
_
Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. He is the author of A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State and The Change Manifesto (Sourcebooks).

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Latest Commentary
- How Thieves and Terrorists "Apologize" to their Victims
- The True Cycle of Violence
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- The State Doesn't Define What is True or Right
- The Trick is to Suspend the Constitution Without Admitting It
- Snowden's Flight to Freedom
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- Why People Tolerate a Total State

If a handful of unelected (by the people) judges can override a vote of the majority of the people, that should shatter any illusion that we are living in a democracy, or that your vote means anything. America is full of grossly deluded people who think they're free. Americans are just one step away from being manacled and chained to work benches in concentration camps We are all bullied into surrendering our children to the hostile, uncaring, unloving, soul-less, indoctrination camps.
We are broken people. A country of people who never truly own their own homes. They pay perpetual rent to the bankers and the puppet politicians that the bankers own.

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Chicago Policeman Richard Rizzo

by Tim Lynch

From the Crime Report:

Over seven years, Chicago police officer Richard Rizzo has been arrested four times by fellow officers on charges including domestic battery, child endangerment, and aggravated assault with a gun. Each time, says the Chicago Sun-Times, prosecutors dropped charges against the 15-year police veteran. Rizzo, 44, is still a member of the department, making $80,724 a year. Now comes news that Rizzo was relieved of his police powers on June 13 ? six days after the Sun-Times asked about his status.

The newspaper says Rizzo is among the fraternity of Chicago cops who, despite repeated run-ins with the law, have continued working for the department. In a three-year stint as police superintendent, Jody Weis tried to get 66 employees fired. Of those, 19 ended up fired by the Chicago Police Board, a nine-member panel of mayoral appointees. ?It was frustrating,? Weis says. ?Oftentimes, these guys are recidivists, where they?ll go out and embarrass the department again.?

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Federal Judge None Too Impressed With Government's Defense Of Its 'No Fly' List

by Tim Cushing

The top secret "No-Fly" list has been problematic since day one. The DHS and FBI apparently believe over 20,000 people are too dangerous to allow to board a plane but not dangerous enough to arrest.

This is the process the government follows to place would-be travelers on the no-fly list.

1. The government places a person on the no-fly list.

That's all there is to it. The list is too "sensitive" to publish and exposing its methodology would apparently result in airliners raining down around us.

If you're a lucky recipient of the "no-fly" designation, here's how you're informed of your new status.

1. Purchase a ticket and attempt to travel. 2. Be rebuffed by TSA personnel.

This process can sometimes be applied with more flexibility.

1. Purchase a roundtrip ticket and fly to a foreign destination. 2. Attempt to return home. 3. Be rebuffed by local customs/security officials.

You won't know you're on The List until the list is triggered, which could happen when you're a few thousand miles from home. And if you think you're boarding the next boat back to the US, think again. The list is also "no-sail," meaning passenger ships are out of the question.

Now, if you're on the list and wish to be removed or, at the very least, informed of why you've been banned from commercial airline travel, there's no reason to panic. The DHS has a resolution process that relies very heavily on "process" and skips the "resolution" completely.

Their only recourse is to file a request with the Department of Homeland Security's "Traveler Redress Inquiry Program," after which DHS responds with a letter that does not explain why they were denied boarding. The letter does not confirm or deny whether their names remain on the No Fly List, and does not indicate whether they can fly. The only way for a person to find out if his or her name was removed from the No Fly List is to buy a plane ticket, go to the airport, see if he or she can get on the flight ? taking the risk of being denied boarding and marked as a suspected terrorist, and losing the cost of the airline ticket.

One wonders what a letter that answers no questions and explains nothing is supposed to "redress."

Dear Sir/Madam No Fly,

Thank you for expressing an interest in our Traveler Redress Inquiry Program. The Department of Homeland Security works in conjunction with all domestic airports, as well as those in 22 other nations worldwide, in order to provide you with a safe traveling experience. We hope that you will continue to make use of our products and services.

Thank you again for your support.

If you have additional comments or questions, please dial (202) 282-8495.

Sincerely, The Department of Homeland Security

This decade-long lack of specifics or actual redress has led to the ACLU suing the federal government on the behalf of thirteen no-fly list members.

Thirteen people on the no-fly list have sued the U.S. government, arguing that their placement deprives them of due process and smears their reputation by branding them as terrorists. Several of the men who filed suit have been surrounded at airport security areas, detained and interrogated.

The suit seeks to either remove the plaintiffs from the no-fly list or tell them why they are on it.

Government attorney Scott Risner addressed these complaints by arguing that air travel is not a "right" but a "convenience."

Risner said placement on the list doesn't stop people from traveling, and stopping people from using one mode of travel doesn't deprive them of their liberty. That's a key question in determining whether the government must ensure due process and one that's at the heart of the constitutionality of being placed on the list.

"We're not suggesting that there's not a convenience in air travel," Risner said. "(But) there's no right to travel without impediments. That's what's happening here.

Risner went so far as to point out that those stranded by sudden inclusion on the no fly list had made it back to the US via alternate forms of travel, thus "proving" a lack of air travel isn't preventing traveling.

Unfortunately for Risner, Judge Anna J. Brown wasn't buying it.

"To call it 'convenience' is marginalizing their argument," Brown said. [She] said alternatives to flying are significantly more expensive. "It's hugely time-consuming, and who knows what impediments there are between the Port of Portland and other countries."

She also pointed out that sea and land travel options aren't suitable replacements for flying, especially when time is of the essence and that the government's argument "fails to take into account the realities of modern life."

The DHS and FBI would obviously like everything to proceed the way it has for years, which means convincing the judge that flying isn't a fundamental right. This removes the question of constitutionality, as least as far as flight restrictions go.

The ACLU has gone further, though, declaring the entire system to be screwed up.

"We're asking the court to finally put a check on the government's use of a blacklist that denies Americans the ability to fly without giving them the explanation or fair hearing that the Constitution requires. It's a question of basic fairness," said ACLU Staff Attorney Nusrat Choudhury, one of the ACLU attorneys who will argue the case Friday in Portland. "It does not make our country safer to ban people from flying without giving them an after-the-fact redress process that allows them to correct the errors that led to their mistaken inclusion on the list."

It also points out that issuance of notice and due process are required for much less far-reaching actions.

The ACLU argues that this system violates the Fifth Amendment's command that the government cannot deprive a person of liberty "without due process of law." Courts have ruled that the Constitution requires some kind of notice and hearing for far less severe actions, such as losing state assistance for utility bills or being suspended from school for 10 days.

Judge Brown hasn't said when she'll issue a ruling, but so far she seems less than impressed with the government's arguments. In the meantime, 20,000 people, including the 13 US citizens represented here (four of which are military veterans), are still stuck in War on Terror limbo -- unofficially "detained" in the US by secretive travel restrictions.

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Cleveland Police Run Fake Drug Checkpoints on Interstate, Arrest People Who Seek to Evade

From Cleveland.com:

MAYFIELD HEIGHTS, Ohio -- Police are not allowed to use checkpoints to search motorists and their vehicles for drugs. So, in Mayfield Heights, officers are trying the next-best thing -- fake drug checkpoints.

Police gathered in the express lanes of Interstate 271 on Monday after placing signs along the freeway warning motorists that a drug checkpoint lay ahead.

There was no checkpoint, only police waiting for motorists to react suspiciously after seeing the signs. A Mayfield Heights assistant prosecutor says it's a lawful and legitimate tactic in his city's war on drugs.

"We should be applauded for doing this," Dominic Vitantonio said. "It's a good thing."

Civil libertarians and one of the people who was stopped and searched are skeptical. They wonder if officers were profiling motorists and whether anyone's Fourth Amendment right against unlawful searches and seizures was violated.

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Wasn't there a court decision (last year, I think, in Oklahoma) that said that avoiding a checkpoint is not justification for a traffic stop? That may not apply to Ohio, but I think it would make a compelling case.

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Friend: Michael Hastings Was Working on "Biggest Story Yet" About CIA

Sgt. Joe Biggs says journalist would never have driven at high speed
Paul Joseph Watson

A friend of Michael Hastings told Fox News today that the Rolling Stone journalist was working on the ?the biggest story yet? about the CIA before his suspicious death and that Hastings drove ?like a grandma,? making it extremely out of character for him to be speeding in the early hours of the morning.

Sgt. Joe Biggs told Fox News? Megyn Kelly that ?something didn?t feel right? after Hastings sent a panicked email saying the authorities were on his tail, adding that the story of him driving at high speed in the early hours of the morning was completely out of character.

?His friends and family that know him, everyone says he drives like a grandma, so that right there doesn?t seem like something he?d be doing, there?s no way that he?d be acting erratic like that and driving out of control,? said Biggs, adding that ?things don?t add up, there?s a lot of questions that need to be answered.?

Biggs said he had contacted Mercedes asking them if it was normal for their cars to ?blow up to that extent? and for the engine to fly out 100 feet from the site of the crash.

Biggs also confirmed that Hastings was working on a story about the CIA and that it was ?going to be the biggest story yet.?

As we reported yesterday, questions surrounding the death of Hastings are not only the domain of conspiracy theorists. Former counter-terror czar under two different presidents Richard Clarke told the Huffington Post that the fatal crash of Hastings? Mercedes C250 Coupe was "consistent with a car cyber attack."

"So if there were a cyber attack on the car -- and I'm not saying there was," he said, adding "I think whoever did it would probably get away with it," and that ?intelligence agencies for major powers? have such capabilities.

Clarke?s speculation that Hastings? vehicle could have been remotely hijacked is echoed by Salon.com?s Andrew Leonard, who cites two studies by researchers at the University of Washington and the University of California, San Diego, "Experimental Security Analysis of a Modern Vehicle," and ?Comprehensive Experimental Analyses of Automotive Attack Surfaces.?

The studies detail how ?it is a relatively trivial exercise to access the computer systems of a modern car and take control away from the driver.?

Questions about the circumstances behind Hastings? death have persisted because he made a number of enemies in positions of power.

After Wikileaks reported that Hastings had contacted them in the hours before his death complaining about being under investigation by the FBI, the federal agency denied the claim.

According to Hastings' colleague Cenk Uygur, the writer was, "incredibly tense and very worried, and was concerned that the government was looking in on his material," and also a "nervous wreck" in response to the surveillance of journalists revealed by the AP phone tapping scandal and the NSA PRISM scandal.

BuzzFeed editor Ben Smith added that Hastings had told friends and family "he was concerned that he was under investigation."

Another close friend who wishes to remain anonymous said that Hastings was "very paranoid that he was being watched by the FBI."

It subsequently emerged that Hastings had written a panicked email shortly before his death telling his friends and colleagues that he was going into hiding to escape the attention of the authorities.

?Hey -- the feds are interviewing my "close friends and associates,? the message said. ?Also: I'm onto a big story, and need to go off the [radar] for a bit.?
_
Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Infowars.com and Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a host for Infowars Nightly News.

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