conservative Paul Craig Roberts predicts police state, failing impeachment

[LeftDemocrat]

From the libertarian antiwar.com, fair-minded criticism of both Bush and Obama presidencies, the one creating the Patriot Act and the other failing to repeal it.

USA PATRIOT Act Turns 10

James Bovard on our post-constitutional police state

Scott Horton Interviews James Bovard
October 27, 2011

James Bovard, author of Attention Deficit Democracy, discusses the PATRIOT Act’s ten year anniversary and its legacy of unlimited government power; why there’s nothing more permanent than a temporary government program; the silence of Democrats who stopped protesting the PATRIOT Act’s provisions once Obama took office; why a large majority of Americans have no problem with their government assassinating “bad guys” deemed too inconvenient or difficult to prosecute; and why the MSM thinks Ron Paul is crazy for challenging unlimited police powers, even while the TSA turns Tennessee into East Germany.

MP3 here. (20:07)
http://dissentradio.com/radio/11_10_26_bovard.mp3

James Bovard is a contributor to The American Conservative magazine and policy advisor at The Future of Freedom Foundation. He is also the author of The Bush Betrayal and many other books

http://antiwar.com/radio/2011/10/27/james-bovard-18/

More on that comparison of Tennessee with East Germany:

TSA Releases VIPR Venom on Tennessee Highways
by Rep. Ron Paul,
October 25, 2011

Listen to Rep. Ron Paul deliver this address: http://antiwar.com/radio/2011/10/27/james-bovard-18/

If you thought the Transportation Security Administration would limit itself to conducting unconstitutional searches at airports, think again. The agency intends to assert jurisdiction over our nation’s highways, waterways, and railroads as well. TSA launched a new campaign of random checkpoints on Tennessee highways last week, complete with a sinister military-style acronym — VIPR — as a name for the program.

As with TSA’s random searches at airports, these roadside searches are not based on any actual suspicion of criminal activity or any factual evidence of wrongdoing whatsoever by those detained. They are, in effect, completely random. So first we are told by the U.S. Supreme Court that American citizens have no 4th Amendment protections at border crossings, even when standing on U.S. soil. Now TSA takes the next logical step and simply detains and searches U.S. citizens at wholly internal checkpoints.

The slippery slope is here. When does it end? How many more infringements on our liberties, our property, and our basic human rights to travel freely will it take before people become fed up enough to demand respect from their government? When will we demand that the government heed obvious constitutional limitations and stop treating ordinary Americans as criminal suspects in the absence of probable cause?

http://original.antiwar.com/paul/2011/10/24/tsa-releases-vipr-venom-on-tennessee-highways/

Not everything Ron Paul says makes good sense, but the younger generation should sit up straight when a member of a previous freedom-loving generation says your rights are being eroded by these arbitrary searches.

[LeftDemocrat]

As predicted, the failure of Americans to stand up for their rights, in the face of the onslaught from the Bush-Cheney administration, and then the Obama administration that has proved equally right-wing in its disregard for civil liberties, without any impeachment for failures to defend the U.S. Constitution, is leading to an increasingly militarized state, with Nazi-style repression (use of force) against political dissent.

Well, whadya 'xpect, peeps?  You didn't do anything to stop it then, didya now?

Did Feds Coordinate Occupy Wall Street Crackdowns?
From Oakland to NYC, Is the DHS Behind the Crackdown?
by Jason Ditz, November 15, 2011

Heavily armed police, many of them in riot gear, marched on the Zuccotti Park in New York City today, arresting 200 people and clearing the park of Occupy Wall Street protesters.

It was the latest in a number of increasingly violent crackdowns nationwide, with a particularly ugly incident in Oakland leaving a former US Marine seriously wounded. From Atlantic to Pacific, aggressive crackdowns are becoming the rule, rather than the exception.

Indications are growing, fueled by comments from Oakland Mayor Jean Quan, that the crackdowns came in a consultation with other mayors [as many as 18 mayors banding together, including Tulsa's reactionary mayor Bartlett]. This fueled speculation that the federal government might have been involved, which grew after a report that an unnamed federal official confirmed the Department of Homeland Security’s involvement.

The Department of Homeland Security has been at the center of a series of policies since its creation that have left local police departments the nation over armed to the teeth and trained to adopt military tactics. The reaction to the Occupy protests sees these new military-style police forces taking their heavy-handed approach in response to rallies.

http://news.antiwar.com/2011/11/15/did-feds-coordinate-occupy-wall-street-crackdowns/

The recent repression puts the laugh to any claim by the 99-percenters that "the police are the 99% too."  Face it, the popo works for the Man (meaning, slaveowner, in the American context, with its repressive history).  For example, there are increasing signs that the NY popo is working exclusively for the 1%, including Mayor Bloomberg's friends on the stock exchange.

The article above doesn't detail the increasingly violent measures used by the fascist police, including tear gas canisters shot in the faces of protesters (as happened at Oakland), rubber bullets, truncheons (billy clubs, on video at NYC occupation), and pepper spray (mace) at point blank range in the eyes (as happened in Tulsa), to name a few.  A now common tactic used by the police-stormtroopers is to "kettle" the demonstrators, meaning to corral them into a place where they can all be placed under mass arrest, such as happened on the Brooklyn Bridge, when 700 demonstrators were arrested for marching in protest against Wall Street greed.   

[LeftDemocrat]

A police state means the further militarization of your city

The NDAA and the Militarization of America
by Carl Mirra, February 16, 2012

[T]he NDAA will only provide more legal cover for the executive branch to further undermine habeas corpus.

Citizens Exempted?

Proponents of the NDAA argue that section 1021 (e) exempts U.S. citizens from indefinite detention. The relevant text reads:

    "Nothing in this section shall be construed to affect the existing law or authorities relating to the detention of United States citizens, lawful resident aliens of the United States, or any other persons who are captured or arrested in the United States".

But critics, including former federal judges Abner Mikva, William Sessions, and John Gibbons, are equally vigorous in their disagreement. The NDAA, they write, “codifies methods such as indefinite detention without charge and mandatory military detention and make them applicable to virtually anyone … including U.S. citizens.”

Sen. Lindsey Graham (Republican, representing South Carolina) is one of the few supporters of the NDAA to plainly admit that “the statement of authority to detain does apply to American citizens, and it designates the world as the battlefield, including the homeland.”

Indeed, section 1021 (e) was added after the voting down of an amendment by Sen. Mark Udall (D-N.M.), which would have made it clear that Americans were not subject to detention. As many critics noted, Congress could have stated something to the effect that, “Nothing in this act shall be construed as authorizing the indefinite detention of U.S. citizens.” It did not. That a clear statement to protect U.S. citizens was defeated in favor of a contested one strongly suggests that the NDAA does not offer safeguards for citizens.

There was, in other words, an opportunity to clear up this mess, but instead Congress left the door open for the indefinite detention of citizens.

Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), who drafted the NDAA, disclosed in a floor statement that the “existing law” clause in section 1021 (e) fails to insulate citizens from detention without charge. “It makes clear what we have been saying,” he said, that the bill does “not affect existing law relative to the right of the executive branch to capture and detain a citizen. … We think the law is clear in Hamdi that there is no bar to this nation holding one of its own citizens as an enemy combatant.”

Levin is referring to Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, a 2004 Supreme Court ruling that found there is “no bar” to indefinite detention of U.S. citizens as long as they are granted some limited habeas rights. Levin is arguing that it is the Supreme Court’s interpretation of “existing law,” not the NDAA’s, that permits indefinite detention.

It would be more accurate to say that although the Supreme Court has yet to fully resolve this issue, the NDAA ensures that future detentions will face fewer obstacles in the Court.


http://original.antiwar.com/mirra/2012/02/15/the-ndaa-and-the-militarization-of-america/

And yet, John Birchers will continue to maintain, fools that they are, that there is "nothing to be worried" about with the NDAA, that it's a "perfectly harmless piece of legislation."  I swear, I've heard them say it, here in Tulsa.  Really, we're accused of being misinformed about the NDAA, even when former federal judges tells us we do indeed have very good reason to be worried about the actions of this Congress.

See the full article for evidence provided by The Congressional Research Service (CRS), a non-partisan branch of government, of how the government employs “existing law” to uphold the detention of U.S. citizens without charge.

[LeftDemocrat]

How police state in America is present being funded

Weaponizing the Body Politic
by Stephan Salisbury and Nick Turse, March 05, 2012

excerpt only:

The chances of an American dying in a terrorist incident in a given year are 1 in 3.5 million. To reduce that risk, to make something minuscule even more minuscule, what has the nation spent? What has it cost us? Instead of rebuilding a ravaged American city in a timely fashion or making Americans more secure in their “underwater” homes and their disappearing jobs, we have created militarized police forces, visible evidence of police-state-style funding.

As Tampa, New York City, and other urban areas bulk up with high-tech anti-terrorism equipment and fusion centers have proliferated, the number of even remotely “terror-related” incidents has declined. The equipment acquired and projects inaugurated to fend off largely imaginary threats is instead increasingly deployed to address ordinary criminal activity, perceived political disruptions, and the tracking and surveillance of American Muslims. The Transportation Safety Administration is now even patrolling highways. It could be called a case of mission creep, but the more accurate description might be: bait-and-switch.

http://original.antiwar.com/engelhardt/2012/03/04/weaponizing-the-body-politic/

Go to original to find links to the online sources used to make the above case.

[LeftDemocrat]

Like the Stasi in Eastern Europe, behind the Iron Curtain, now the U.S. "internal forces of order" are infiltrating and spying on everybody, sowing seeds of suspicion in every group working for positive change.  The FBI clearly working for the 1%, a thin blue line to hold the disgruntled masses back.

Infiltration of Political Movements is the Norm, Not the Exception in the United States

By Kevin Zeese - Posted on 13 March 2012


excerpt only:

In a recent report the ACLU writes: “Today the government is spying on Americans in ways the founders of our country never could have imagined. The FBI, federal intelligence agencies, the military, state and local police, private companies, and even firemen and emergency medical technicians are gathering incredible amounts of personal information about ordinary Americans that can be used to construct vast dossiers that can be widely shared with a simple mouse-click through new institutions like Joint Terrorism Task Forces, fusion centers, and public-private partnerships. The fear of terrorism has led to a new era of overzealous police intelligence activity directed, as in the past, against political activists, racial and religious minorities, and immigrants.” There have also multiple reports of the CIA working with New York City police for years, an activity that is almost certainly illegal.

Not only have budgets increased in the post-911 world, but restrictions on spying have been weakened and court review has become rarer.  The government, often with corporate interests, are gathering huge amounts of data on Americans and targeting a wide range of groups and individuals for intelligence gathering and infiltration. The extent of spying is so widespread that it is more than this brief article can examine, but the ACLU provides a state-by-state review.

http://october2011.org/blogs/kevin-zeese/part-ii-infiltration-political-movements-norm-not-exception-united-states

For the state-by-state review of police infiltration, go to ACLU website: http://www.aclu.org/maps/spying-first-amendment-activity-state-state

[LeftDemocrat]

More bad news, police state has been active under the radar for years, with a data center storing your every bit of electronic transactions, in a building 5 times the size of the U.S. capitol.

From a piece on Democracy Now, interviewing investigative reporter James Bamford, who says the NSA has established listening posts throughout the nation to collect and sift through billions of email messages and phone calls, whether they originate within the country or overseas.

Exposed: Inside the NSA’s Largest and Most Expansive Secret Domestic Spy Center in Bluffdale, Utah

Guest:

James Bamford, investigative reporter who has covered the National Security Agency for the last three decades. His latest article for Wired Magazine is titled "The NSA Is Building the Country’s Biggest Spy Center (Watch What You Say)." Since his reporting helped expose the NSA’s existence in the 1980s, he has authored of a series of books on the agency including, most recently, The Shadow Factory: The Ultra-Secret NSA from 9/11 to the Eavesdropping on America


excerpt from rush transcript:

JAMES BAMFORD: "You know, all this eavesdropping we’re doing and all this money we’re spending, I don’t see an awful lot of value coming out of that. But I do hear tremendous amounts of fear mongering, that sort of nonstop fear mongering from the people that are pushing this agenda."

NERMEEN SHAIKH: One of the things that you’ve raised in the past has to do with the way in which the NSA worked with the telecommunications industry here in the U.S. to eavesdrop on American citizens. But they apparently outsourced the eavesdropping—I mean, the relationship between the NSA and the telecommunications companies, to a third party. Can you say a little bit about who that third party was, who those companies were, and where they were based?

JAMES BAMFORD: Yeah, the—two of the companies that were heavily involved, one of them was Narus. It was a company that has been since bought by Boeing. It was a company formed in Israel by Israelis, and then it ran its company from California. But the NSA—or, I guess it was AT&T that basically hired them. And they—or NSA, maybe the two of them working together. But the bottom line was, Narus provided the equipment that NSA was using in the AT&T facilities. AT&T had this big switch in San Francisco. And it would be using this Narus equipment that would take the information from the wires coming in, the cables coming in, and then route it to NSA, the information that NSA wanted. So it used this company called Narus. And again, it’s a company that had been formed overseas, and you really have to start wondering when you have companies that were formed in foreign countries, and they’re giving such intimate access to U.S. telecommunications, especially very secret U.S. work.

The other company was Verint, and they do a lot of the monitoring for Verizon. And Verint also was formed in Israel by Israelis.


http://www.democracynow.org/2012/3/21/exposed_inside_the_nsas_largest_and

Meanwhile, you can switch, vote with your pocket book, and sign up with a different kind of telecom, namely CREDO.  Visit http://credomobile.com  They're motto is "phone-powered progressive change."

(No, impeachOK1 is not taking any funds to promote CREDO mobile.)

[LeftDemocrat]

Part of Orwell's dystopia is a permanent war-based economy, with war toys being produced as a priority over domestic needs.  Are we there yet?

Obama’s Creepy Executive Order: Permanent War Economy
By Matthew Rothschild,
March 20, 2012

Last Friday, March 16, President Obama issued a creepy Executive Order.

Entitled “National Defense Resources Preparedness,” it authorizes the President and cabinet officials to take over crucial aspects of the national economy not only during emergencies but also in peacetime.

For instance, the Executive Order talks of the need for the economic base “to satisfy [defense] requirements in peacetime and times of national emergency.” And cabinet officials are authorized to “issue regulations to prioritize and allocate resources . . . to promote the national defense, under both emergency and non-emergency conditions.”

It amounts to a sweeping assertion of Presidential authority. It asserts the President’s authority “to require acceptance and priority performance of contracts or orders . . . to promote the national defense over performance of any other contracts or orders.”

And it then delegates this extraordinary power to cabinet heads.

The Secretary of Agriculture has this authority “with respect to food resources, food resource facilities, livestock resources, veterinary resources, plant health resources, and the domestic distribution of farm equipment and fertilizer.”

The Secretary of Energy has this authority “with respect to all forms of energy.”

The Secretary of Defense has this authority “with respect to water resources.”

The Secretary of Health and Human Services has this authority “with respect to health resources.”

The Secretary of Transportation has it “with respect to all civil transportation.”

And the Secretary of Commerce has it “with respect to all other materials, services, and facilities.”

http://www.progressive.org/permanent_war_economy.html

George Owell is saying 'I told you so.'  But the sheeple cannot be moved.  Baaah!  Baaa-a-a-h!

[LeftDemocrat]

Some discussion, for better or worse, of Obama’s National Defense Resources Preparedness plan, again that's Obama's creepy executive order (doing a run-around of Congress, the Courts, State Governments, any concept of popular sovereignty, etc.) in this radio interview.

antiwar.com/radio

Sheldon Richman, senior fellow at The Future of Freedom Foundation, discusses his article “Is Serfdom an Executive Order Away?” at Reason.com; Obama’s National Defense Resources Preparedness plan that authorizes a government takeover of the economy during a national emergency (whatever that means); the tendency of all presidents to draft Executive Orders that grant themselves dictatorial powers; why limits on government power are now guided by political, not legal, concerns; and why we should end the wars and bring all the troops home – while we can still afford it.

http://antiwar.com/radio/2012/04/11/sheldon-richman-18/

I'm afraid the discussion degenerates into the very important topic of concrete skate parks.  But at least the first half is worth listening to.

[LeftDemocrat]

Here's truth-telling from three people harrassed, detained, persecuted by the increasingly surveillance state, Orwellian-style.  The argument in these interview segemnts is that the NSA (National Security Administration) and other COINTELPRO redux agencies of the federal government are the enemy, whereas whistleblowers and the tools that make whistle blowing possible, such as Wikileaks, twitter, and the TOR Project (a network enabling its users to communicate anonymously on the internet) are our salvation

quotable: "My Pen is a Dangerous Weapon."  full transcripts available.

Exclusive: National Security Agency Whistleblower William Binney on Growing State Surveillance

In his first television interview since he resigned from the National Security Agency over its domestic surveillance program, William Binney discusses the NSA’s massive power to spy on Americans and why the FBI raided his home after he became a whistleblower. Binney was a key source for investigative journalist James Bamford’s recent exposé in Wired Magazine about how the NSA is quietly building the largest spy center in the country in Bluffdale, Utah. The Utah spy center will contain near-bottomless databases to store all forms of communication collected by the agency, including private emails, cell phone calls, Google searches and other personal data.

Binney served in the NSA for over 30 years, including a time as technical director of the NSA’s World Geopolitical and Military Analysis Reporting Group. Since retiring from the NSA in 2001, he has warned that the NSA’s data-mining program has become so vast that it could "create an Orwellian state." Today marks the first time Binney has spoken on national television about NSA surveillance. This interview is part of a 4-part special.

Detained in the U.S.: Filmmaker Laura Poitras Held, Questioned Some 40 Times at U.S. Airports

The Academy Award-nominated filmmaker Laura Poitras discusses how she has been repeatedly detained and questioned by federal agents whenever she enters the United States. Poitras said the interrogations began after she began working on her documentary, "My Country, My Country," about post-invasion Iraq. Her most recent film, "The Oath," was about Yemen and Guantánamo and follows the lives of two past associates of Osama bin Laden. She estimates she has been detained approximately 40 times and has had her laptop, cell phone and personal belongings repeatedly searched. Tonight she is leading a surveillance teach-in at the Whitney Museum in New York City with our other guests, computer security researcher and government target Jacob Appelbaum and National Security Agency whistleblower William Binney. Poiras is currently at work on a film about post-9/11 America. This interview is part of a 4-part special.

"We Don’t Live in a Free Country": Jacob Appelbaum on Being Target of Widespread Gov’t Surveillance

We speak with Jacob Appelbaum, a computer researcher who has faced a stream of interrogations and electronic surveillance since he volunteered with the whistleblowing website, WikiLeaks. He describes being detained more than a dozen times at the airport and interrogated by federal agents who asked about his political views and confiscated his cell phone and laptop. When asked why he cannot talk about what happened after he was questioned, Appelbaum says, "Because we don’t live in a free country. And if I did, I guess I could tell you about it." A federal judge ordered Twitter to hand over information about Appelbaum’s account. Meanwhile, he continues to work on the Tor Project, an anonymity network that ensures every person has the right to browse the internet without restriction and the right to speak freely. This interview is part of a 4-part special.

Whistleblower: The NSA is Lying–U.S. Government Has Copies of Most of Your Emails

National Security Agency whistleblower William Binney reveals he believes domestic surveillance has become more expansive under President Obama than President George W. Bush. He estimates the NSA has assembled 20 trillion "transactions" — phone calls, emails and other forms of data — from Americans. This likely includes copies of almost all of the emails sent and received from most people living in the United States. Binney talks about Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act and challenges NSA Director Keith Alexander’s assertion that the NSA is not intercepting information about U.S. citizens. This interview is part of a 4-part special.

http://www.democracynow.org/2012/4/20/exclusive_national_security_agency_whistleblower_william

http://www.democracynow.org/2012/4/20/detained_in_the_us_filmmaker_laura

http://www.democracynow.org/2012/4/20/we_do_not_live_in_a

http://www.democracynow.org/2012/4/20/whistleblower_the_nsa_is_lying_us

Filed under  Domestic Spying, Domestic Surveillance, Wiretapping, Wikileaks, Hacking

[LeftDemocrat]

Election season and especially national convention carnivals will likely prove to be very poor times for the exercise of the right to free speech. Nat Hentoff explains how the burgeoning police state is making it increasingly difficult to stand up for the First Amendment right, part of the hallowed Bill of Rights, just when public participation in a media circus might make a difference.

It seems the powers that be don't want the general public influencing public opinion.  Not anymore.

Sweet land of liberty?

    By Nat Hentoff
    www.cato.org
    Posted: 07/25/12

Under the NDAA, candidate Michael Opitz (Georgia’s 11th congressional district) told The Marietta Daily Journal, the president alone can decide who is a terrorist, allowing indefinite military detention of American citizens (“Opitz objects to Gingrey’s vote for Defense Authorization Act,” July 1).
“And,” said Opitz, “this applies to American citizens, so you give up habeas corpus. And that’s a suspension of our individual rights.”
How many campaigns this year have made habeas corpus an issue? Or the president’s [alleged] sole authority to assassinate an American citizen alleged to be associated with terrorism — as Obama has done?
But opposition goes on.
However, in joining other constitutionalists who encourage protestors to have more of a “street presence” against the Bush-Obama legacy, I have underestimated how presidents and aspirants to that office can create powerfully imposing obstacles to organized, visible displays of our First Amendment freedom of association to assemble and petition the government.

John Whitehead, president of the Constitution-defending Rutherford Institute, foresees what to look for at this summer’s Republican and Democratic National Conventions in Tampa, Fla., and Charlotte, N.C., and what is already happening around the country:

“Government agencies in conjunction with the militarized police are already preparing to head off any protests, refusing to issue permits, cordoning off city blocks, creating ‘free speech’ zones and passing a litany of laws banning everything from protestors wearing masks to carrying string. And the few protestors who manage to take to the streets will be faced with an array of non-lethal weapons meant to incapacitate them.

“Originally designed to help restrain violent individuals, so-called ‘non-lethal’ weapons such as tasers, sound cannons and tear gas were first introduced with a government guarantee of safety for the citizens. However, the ‘non-lethal’ label seems to have caused police to feel justified in using these dangerous weapons much more often and with less restraint — with some even causing death.”

What follows from Whitehead on taser use has a touch — not an equivalency, just a chilling touch — of Iran or Zimbabwe:
“For instance, a 9-year-old Arizona run-away was tasered as she sat in the back seat of a police car with her hands cuffed behind her back. In Texas, a 72-year-old great-grandmother was tasered after refusing to sign a speeding ticket.”

Meanwhile, continuous advances in crowd-menacing digital technology are, says Whitehead — a ceaseless, careful researcher in these fearful controls that George Orwell could not have possibly imagined — “providing police with ever-greater weapons of compliance.

We don’t know which, if any, of these First Amendment traumatizers will be used at the Democratic and Republican National Conventions this year but, as Whitehead notes, they have been used -- or are in the planning stages -- against protesters around the nation.

byline: Nat Hentoff is a nationally renowned authority on the First Amendment and the Bill of Rights. He is a member of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, and the Cato Institute, where he is a senior fellow.

http://www.timesherald.com/article/20120725/OPINION03/120729703/hentoff-sweet-land-of-liberty&pager=full_story

Cruel and unusual punishments, without trial or conviction, simply for participating in a lawful assembly.  Sounds like the police state is here.

[LeftDemocrat]

Methinks I saw this scene in The Bourne Identity.

WikiLeaks Email: US Spying on ‘Everyone’ Using Cameras
'TrapWire' Software Links Civilian Cameras
by Jason Ditz, August 14, 2012


The US surveillance state is big enough that most Americans are already well aware that they are being watched. A new revelation from WikiLeaks’ Stratfor Emails leak suggests it is even bigger than we thought.

According to those leaked emails, civilian CCTV cameras are being used by the Department of Homeland Security through a system called TrapWire, to spy on the whereabouts of everybody, all the time.

http://news.antiwar.com/2012/08/14/wikileaks-email-us-spying-on-everyone-using-cameras/

More coverage, from the foreign press:

U.S. government is secretly spying on EVERYONE using civilian security cameras, say Wikileaks

    Cameras use facial recognition to log people's activity
    Details released by Wikileaks which has now been hacked in cyber attack

Anyone who takes a photograph at high-risk locations is logged as a suspected terrorist on a vast network of secret spy cameras linked to the U.S. Government, according to leaked emails.

People pointing cameras in New York are regarded as suspicious and the facial recognition images of them from the civilian CCTV are fed into a data centre run by U.S. firm Abraxas.

More than 500 cameras using the technology have been installed on the New York subway. There are estimated to be thousands more around various U.S. cities and in London at potential terrorist targets such as Downing Street. The firm also operates in several other U.S. states, and in Canada.

The emails have caused uproar among activists who believe that the use of the cameras is an infringement on people's freedom.

After the emails were released, WikiLeaks said it has been the victim of a sustained denial-of-service attack which has left its website sluggish or inaccessible for more than a week.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2187602/U-S-Government-secretly-spying-using-civilian-security-cameras-say-Wikileaks.html

[LeftDemocrat]

With the recent ruling in court, citizens sustaining a vigilant watch over the watchers have been vindicated.  Videotaping of police conduct is part of your First Amendment rights!

Supreme Court rejects plea to ban taping of police in Illinois


By Jason Meisner, Tribune reporter

November 26, 2012

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear an appeal of a controversial Illinois law prohibiting people from recording police officers on the job.

By passing on the issue, the justices left in place a federal appeals court ruling that found that the state's anti-eavesdropping law violates free-speech rights when used against people who audiotape police officers.

A temporary injunction issued after that June ruling effectively bars Cook County State's Attorney Anita Alvarez from prosecuting anyone under the current statute. On Monday, the American Civil Liberties Union, which brought the lawsuit against Alvarez, asked a federal judge hearing the case to make the injunction permanent, said Harvey Grossman, legal director of the ACLU of Illinois.

Illinois' eavesdropping law is one of the harshest in the country, making audio recording of a law enforcement officer — even while on duty and in public — a felony punishable by up to 15 years in prison.

Public debate over the law had been simmering since last year. In August 2011, a Cook County jury acquitted a woman who had been charged with recording Chicago police internal affairs investigators she believed were trying to dissuade her from filing a sexual harassment complaint against a patrol officer.

Judges in Cook and Crawford counties later declared the law unconstitutional, and in February, the McLean County state's attorney cited flaws in the law when he dropped charges against a man accused of recording an officer during a traffic stop.

Alvarez argued that allowing the recording of police would discourage civilians from speaking candidly to officers and could cause problems securing crime scenes or conducting sensitive investigations.

But a federal appeals panel ruled that the law "restricts far more speech than necessary to protect legitimate privacy interests."

Chicago police Superintendent Garry McCarthy has said he would favor a change allowing citizens to tape the police and vice versa.

Meanwhile, several efforts to amend the statute in Springfield have stalled in committee amid heavy lobbying from law enforcement groups in favor of the current law.

Tribune reporter Liam Ford contributed.

jmeisner@tribune.com

Copyright © 2012, Chicago Tribune

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/chi-supreme-court-rejects-plea-to-prohibit-taping-of-police

Ominous, how the police are seeking a blanket protection to videotape the citizenry, at the same time as they're lobbying for a law that says we can't videotape them!  Just another power grab from the boys in blue of Chicago, fair city.