This move followed similar moves by credit card companies MasterCard and Visa, as well as PayPal and Amazon.com, to no longer process WikiLeaks payments and, in Amazon.com's case, to cease hosting its data.
As I write this, Bank of America has joined the crescendo of corporations taking aim at WikiLeaks, refusing to process payments for it any longer because of "our reasonable belief that WikiLeaks may be engaged in activities that are, among other things, inconsistent with our internal policies for processing payments."
And soon after, none other than Apple joined the chorus, pulling the plug on a WikiLeaks app only days after it went on sale on its iTunes website. Every sector of the corporate economy, it seems, is out to get WikiLeaks.
Zeroing in on "neocorporatism"
Should CIA agents, mafia bosses and other fellow Swiss banking customers who have likely been even less than forthright in their personal representations than Assange is alleged to have been also worry about the loyalty and discretion of their Swiss bankers?
Probably not. And that's because the world's criminals, autocrats and spooks are very much part of the global political economic system, even if sometimes on opposite sides.
But WikiLeaks both operates outside the system, seeking "Matrix"-style, to use technology - the internet - to "destroy" it by prying it open to public scrutiny, exposing the constant conspiracies of the powerful against the rest of society.
This task, Assange argues, is the most important way to help free the system's millions of often complicit - if not quite willing - victims and in so doing, "change or remove... government and neocorporatist behaviour".
As a political theorist, Assange leaves something to be desired. "Neocorporatism" describes a system in which capital and labour are enmeshed in an integrated but ultimately dependent relationship with a powerful and autonomous state apparatus - an update of the triangular relationship that enabled unprecedented economic growth and gains for the working class in the West in the decades after World War II.
Ideologically, this kind of close working relationship between government, big business and organised labour is the antithesis of the neoliberal system WikiLeaks seeks to combat.
But Assange is right that there is something "neo", if not exactly new, in the way the corporate sector is behaving today and its relationship with government. It lies in the embrace - or better, re-embrace - of finance capitalism and militaristic empire and the military industrial complex that sustains it.
Whether preying on unwitting consumers in middle America or preying on suspected insurgents in the Middle East, these are two of the most secretive sectors of the American economy. They depend on the public knowing as little as possible about their inner workings to secure the greatest possible freedom of action, power and profits.
The power of secrecy
Assage's abandonment by the Swiss banking system and its American corporate cousins is thus not surprising. Few industries have used secrecy and lack of disclosure more effectively than the banking, financial services and credit card industries.
Indeed, their secretive business practises are central to their constant ability to rake in enormous profits at the expense of working and middle class Americans through monopolising trading systems, charging morally usurious interest rates and fees, and engaging in other practises that would make even the most cold-hearted lone shark blush.
If the grand bargain between workers, capitalists and governments enabled the first two post-World War II generations to move from high school right into the middle class, this road was irreparably damaged by the 1980s, when the neoliberal Right first came to power.
As the United States entered its long and painful era of deindustrialization American foreign policy became more aggressively militaristic; and so joining the military as opposed to GM or Ford became one of the few routes to secure any kind of stable economic future (as long as you stayed in the military).
Not surprisingly, profits from the financial sector surpassed that of manufacturing in the early 1990s and haven't dropped since. But these profits and the economic growth they generated have relied disproportionately on government and consumer debt and a hollowing out of the manufacturing sector, which together helped make the US the "sick man of the globe", as one senior corporate economist.
For their part, GM, Ford and Chrysler simultaneously focused most of their energies on producing comparatively profitable gas-guzzlers like SUVs while establishing financial services arms that quickly became responsible for a substantial share of their profits (in some years upwards of 90 percent of profits are so derived).
Their lending practises, it's worth noting, included the kinds of "liar" home loans, given out with little concern over the ability of borrowers to pay them, that precipitated the global economic crisis of 2007 till today.
Financialisation and history
None of these practises would have withstood the light of public scrutiny, and it was only the corporatisation - in good measure, financialization - of American politics that allowed them to flourish in the last thirty years. Few enterprises threaten that secrecy as much as WikiLeaks and its laser-like focus on openness, which is why its actions are viewed in Washington as "striking at the very heart of the global economy".
The "financialisation" of the economy represents the increasing dominance of the financial industries in the overall economy, taking over "the dominant economic, cultural, and political role in a national economy".
Crucially, this process isn't unique to the United States; it also happened to previous empires, like the Hapsburg's, Dutch and British empires, at precisely the eras they lost their dominant global position. In all cases, financialism and militarism went hand in hand, as first pointed out by the British historian John Hobson's famous 1902 book Imperialism: A Study.
In it, Hobson argued that the monopolisation of the financial sector created a new oligarchy that linked together the large banks and industrial firms together with "war mongers and speculators" which encouraged imperialism to secure markets for the surplus products produced by corporations.
America's rise to global dominance came after the end of the imperial era and so it couldn't blatantly conquer territory to create new markets. But at the moment of its rise policy makers called on the government to use high military spending to ensure overall robust economic growth.
This coincided with rapid expansion of easily obtainable credit, creating two "giant black holes" (in the words of Israeli economists Shimshon Bichler and Jonathan Nitzan) whose potential for expansion was limited only by the willingness of citizens to support the policies that enabled them, despite the long term harm to the economic and political well-being of their societies.
During the first thirty years of the Cold War era, the propensity towards militarism was balanced by the robust manufacturing economy and the tripartite business-labour-government relationship that secured it.
This began to change in the 1970s, when the hugely expensive, and profitable, Vietnam War began to wind own.
At this moment, as Nitzan and Bichler describe in their hugely important book, The Global Political Economy of Israel, beginning in this period "there was a growing convergence of interests between the world's leading petroleum and armament corporations. The politicisation of oil, together with the parallel commercialisation of arms exports, helped shape an uneasy weapondollar-petrodollar coalition between these companies."
What is most crucial about Nitzan and Bichler's analysis is that one of the most important ways that the arms and oil industries were able to earn a disproportionate (as they describe it, "differential") level of profits was through the regular eruption of Middle Eastern energy conflicts, which ensured both relative high oil prices and arms purchases.
McDonald's and McDonnell Douglas
As this process developed, the authors explain that "the lines separating state from capital, foreign policy from corporate strategy, and territorial conquest from differential profit, no longer seem very solid."
New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman puts it more colourfully: "The hidden hand of the market will never work without the hidden fist. McDonald's cannot flourish without McDonnell Douglas - and the hidden fist that keeps the world safe for Silicon Valley's technologies to flourish is called the US Army, Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps."
This is the "neocorporatism" that Assange and his WikiLeaks comrades have zeroed in on, although today, more than a decade after Friedman wrote the above words, Master Card is more relevant than McDonald's.
The problem is that WikiLeaks alone cannot turn the tide in this conflict.
Assange might well be a "high tech terrorist," as US Vice President Joseph Biden recently called him, given how much terror his actions have struck in the heart of the American political system.
But the US is ultimately only one of a group of powerful countries and corporations whose leaders all share a fundamental commitment to securing as much profit and power as possible for themselves, however much their methods and politics differ.
Indeed, a sober look at the relevant data reveals that the profit share of the financial sectors outside the US has almost always been significantly higher than in the US, meaning that the rest of the world has long been more "financialised" than has the US economy.
As always, capitalism and power have never been as conveniently centred in one country or region as people imagine.
To really have an impact, WikiLeaks needs to inspire a whole generation of leakers in other countries and cultures, who are as willing to risk their freedom as Assange and the other people behind WikiLeaks. The leak culture has started to take root, however only time will tell is it resists the forces working against it's development.
If this doesn't happen - if Assange and his comrades are successfully made into examples by their corporate and political enemies that scare off those who might be inspired by their example - Capital will likely win the world's first "cyber-war", much as it's won most every war before it during modernity's long, bloody and unimaginably profitable history.
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Why Corporate Capital and Finance Are Waging an All-Out Cyberwar Against Wikileaks | | AlterNet
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
OAG Potential adverse health effects from phones using Digital Enhanced Telecommunications
OAG Potential adverse health effects from phones using Digital Enhanced Telecommunications: "What Figure 2 shows is that at a distance just beyond 3 meters from my DECT phone base unit (according to studies of RF radiation) EEG brain waves are altered. At 2.8 meters motor function, memory and attention of children are affected. At 1.7 meters sleep is disturbed. How many people have DECT phones near their bed? At 30 cm memory is impaired and at closer distances the immune system is affected, REM sleep is reduced, insulin levels drop, and there are pathological changes in the blood brain barrier. Studies also show that there is 100% increase in adult leukemia between 45 and 130 cm from the phone and a similar increase in childhood leukemia between 35 and 260 cm.
Symptoms of 356 people under long time home exposure to high frequency pulsed electromagnetic fields associated with DECT phones and/or mobile phone base stations were evaluated (Appendix A). At levels well below those in Figure 1, the following symptoms increased with increasing power density: sleep disturbance, fatigue, depression, headaches, restlessness, dazed state, irritability, difficulty concentrating, forgetfulness, learning difficulties, difficulty finding words, frequent infections, Frequent infections, sinusitis, lymph node swellings, joint and limb pains, nerve and soft tissue pains, numbness or tingling, allergies, tinnitus, hearing loss, sudden hearing loss, giddiness, impaired balance, visual disturbances, eye inflammation, dry eyes, tachycardia, episodic hypertension, collapse, hormonal disturbances, thyroid disease, night sweats, frequent urge to urinate, weight increase, nausea, loss of appetite, nose bleeds, skin complaints, tumours, and diabetes. Many of these are the symptoms now associated with electrohypersensitivity (EHS).
Based on these studies DECT phones should not be in bedrooms or near children, who are likely to be more sensitive to this form of radiation.
Because DECT phones are so powerful and because the radiation can penetrate through walls people can be exposed to this radiation even if they do not own a DECT phone. If their neighbours have one they can also be exposed.
I have neighbours who have DECT phones and I can measure radiation from their phones coming into my home in the rooms nearest their phone. Homes in my neighbourhood are approximately 10 meters apart. Imagine living in an apartment building with a DECT phone on the other side of an adjacent wall.
Indeed a few years ago I visited a person in Toronto who was electrically sensitive. I measured the radiation in her home and found high readings in her bedroom. We traced the source to a DECT phone in her neighbour’s apartment. Without knowing it and without having any control over her own exposure, this person was exposed to microwave radiation while sleeping. Indeed she complained of sleep difficulties and often slept on the couch in the living room where levels of radiation were much lower. It is possible that her exposure to the DECT phone contributed to her electrical sensitivity.
OAG Follow-up petition on the health risks posed by electromagnetic radiation: "Summary: In this follow-up petition, the petitioner alleges that the guidelines outlined in Safety Code 6 are outdated and are based on incorrect assumptions. The petitioner questions the objectivity of studies that were cited by the government and that, he claims, were funded by the cell phone industry or were from individuals with vested interests. The petitioner asks Health Canada to consider studies with other points of view and to consider implementing a precautionary approach to the electromagnetic radiation exposure of Canadians.
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RevolutionaryAct.com | Being Healthy Is a Revolutionary Act
by Pilar Gerasimo
Read the manifesto that started it all. This 16-page handbook lays out 10 Revolutionary Truths — the basis for a healthy revolution. Introduced as part of Gerasimo's six-page feature article in the January 2011 issue of Experience Life magazine, it calls for a movement of health-motivated individuals to reclaim their well-being, and in the process, change the world for the better.
Download the PDF
Read the Feature Article
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Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Unilever stalks its customers with GPS trackers secretly placed in laundry detergent boxes (opinion)
The household cleaning product giant Unilever has secretly placed GPS tracker transmitters in laundry detergent boxes to track consumers to their homes. With an array of electronic sensors, team of Unilever agents can now pinpoint the exact location of the GPS trackers and walk right up to your front door. They can even remotely set off a beeper inside the box using radio electronics.
The point of all this? It's part of Unilever's new marketing campaign to convince consumers in Brazil to purchase more boxes of Omo laundry detergent.
The GPS trackers, you see, are only embedded in "prize winning" boxes of Omo detergent. If you happen to buy one of these GPS tracked boxes, you're a "winner" and Unilever agents then show up at your door with a video camera crew and a prize.
I'm a winner? Really? Who are you people, anyway?
Unilever stalks its own customers
This new detergent marketing contest was detailed in an Ad Age article called Is Your Detergent Stalking You? (http://adage.com/globalnews/article...)That article explains that Unilever "...has teams in 35 Brazilian cities ready to leap into action when a box is activated. The nearest team can reach the shopper's home 'within hours or days,' and if they're really close by, 'they may get to your house as soon as you do.'"
This creepy "Big Brother" marketing idea is apparently exactly the kind of thing the Unilever company approves of: Spying on your customers. Unilever, by the way, is the parent company that brings you brands like Lipton tea, Skippy peanut butter, Axe cologne, and the infamous Slim-Fast sugar drink that's somehow positioned as a "weight loss" product.
Mysteriously, during the marketing brainstorm sessions on these marketing plans, nobody at Unilever thought to mention that following people to their homes is considered stalking. And this whole idea of conducting covert surveillance on your own customers is kinda creepy. In a Big Brother kind of way. Hey, maybe they should partner with Facebook and release your private details on the internet, too!
But what's a little stalking compared to boosting the commercial sales of a high-profit brand? I bet they don't run this promo in Texas, or Unilever's agents are likely to get their heads shot off before they even make it to the front porch of some security-minded farm customer who doesn't let a team of strangers run up on his front porch without unloading a few cartridges from Mr. Remington.
Corporations can track what you buy and where you take it
The really important part about all this, by the way, is the realization that just about any consumer product company could be inserting tracking devices in their products right now while using surveillance analysis to determine exactly which brands you have in your home. This information could, in turn, be used to target you for further marketing or surveillance. But why would consumer product companies want to spy on you? To gather information that they can use to more effectively market products to you, of course.If you value your privacy, all this should make you think twice about purchasing big-name products. Just to be fair, I'm not aware of any Unilever surveillance efforts directed towards customers in North America, but it is being reported through several reliable sources that Unilever is surveilling its customers in Brazil, and if the company thinks it's okay there, it is conceivable they might want to eventually expand this Big Brother marketing campaign to other countries.
Note that this is not merely an RFID tracking tag. This is something far more technically advanced: Unilever is inserting GPS tracking transmitters (basically a transponder) into these boxes of Omo detergent, and additional circuitry allows two-way communication so that Unilever agents can remotely set off a beeper in the detergent box.
Unilever isn't currently doing this, but it is technologically possible that the company could insert a listening device in your laundry products, too, and listen in as your family talks about cleaning products. (Market research surveillance!)
Some company could even conceivably insert a remote video camera and spy on your in your home by transmitting a video feed that they might later use for marketing purposes. The truth is, when you buy big-name corporate brands, you really don't know what you're bringing home. Beyond the toxic chemicals in many consumer products, you could also be bringing home a GPS transponder, a listening device or some other not-yet-revealed spy technology that arrogant corporations slip into their products as part of some hare-brained marketing gimmick.
You see, to some powerful corporations, you're just another useless eater, and your privacy means nothing to them. They just want to maximize their profits even it is means spying on you and tracking you to your home where a team of corporate agents knocks on your door. And if a corporation can justify all that, what else might they be willing to do?
Corporations have no values, you see, other than greed. And they will do just about anything to satisfy their craving for more profit, including violating your privacy. That's why we as consumers have to stop purchasing products from these big-name companies -- because we simply can't trust them! Who knows what they're slipping into those product boxes? Are they tracking us to our homes? Are they remotely activating other electronics in those boxes? Are they listening in on our private conversations?
It almost sounds paranoid to even discuss this, except for the fact that Unilever has publicly announced it is spying on its customers starting these week; tracking them to their homes and remotely activating electronics secretly hidden inside boxes of Omo.
You see, it's not paranoia if they really are tracking you. And if you live in Brazil, they could be tracking you right now.
Predictions for Brazil
Here's my prediction of what's going to happen in Brazil this week thanks to this Unilever promotion: There could be alarmingly high numbers of home robberies due to clever thieves posing as Unilever agents. They simply watch people buying Omo at the grocery store, then follow them to their homes, and a few minutes later knock on their door, announcing, "You've won the prize!"When the homeowner opens their door, they get a gun shoved in their face and are directed to hand over all their cash and jewelry. I'll be curious to watch the Brazilian newspapers to see if anything like this happens during the week. If so, the robbers may be dubbed the "Unilever bandits."
Other sources for this story include:
CNET
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-2...
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Difficulty in Recognizing One’s Ignorance and Incompetence
David Dunning, a Cornell professor of social psychology, became fascinated by the true story of McArthur Wheeler, an incompetent bank robber who believed that rubbing your face with lemon juice rendered you invisible to video cameras.
Dunning wondered whether, since Wheeler was too stupid to be a bank robber, he might also be too stupid to know that he was too stupid to be a bank robber. In other words, his stupidity protected him from an awareness of his own stupidity.
Dunning wondered if the principle could be applied to more people than just Wheeler, and along with graduate student Justin Kruger, he wrote the paper, "Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties of Recognizing One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-assessments."
According to the New York Times:
"Dunning and Kruger argued ... 'When people are incompetent in the strategies they adopt to achieve success and satisfaction, they suffer a dual burden: Not only do they reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the ability to realize it.
Instead, like Mr. Wheeler, they are left with the erroneous impression they are doing just fine.'"
Sources:
Thursday, July 15, 2010
Raids are increasing on farms and private food-supply clubs—here are 5 tips for surviving one | Grist
When the 20 agents arrived bearing a search warrant at her Ventura County farmhouse door at 7 a.m. on a Wednesday a couple weeks back, Sharon Palmer didn't know what to say. This was the third time she was being raided in 18 months, and she had thought she was on her way to resolving the problem over labeling of her goat cheese that prompted the other two raids. (In addition to producing goat's milk, she raises cattle, pigs, and chickens, and makes the meat available via a CSA.)
But her 12-year-old daughter, Jasmine, wasn't the least bit tongue-tied. "She started back-talking to them," recalls Palmer. "She said, 'If you take my computer again, I can't do my homework.' This would be the third computer we will have lost. I still haven't gotten the computers back that they took in the previous two raids."
As part of a five-hour-plus search of her barn and home, the agents -- from the Los Angeles County District Attorney's office, Los Angeles County Sheriff, Ventura County Sheriff, and the California Department of Food and Agriculture -- took the replacement computer, along with milk she feeds her chickens and pigs.
While no one will say officially what the purpose of this latest raid was, aside from being part of an investigation in progress, what is very clear is that government raids of producers, distributors, and even consumers of nutritionally dense foods appear to be happening ever more frequently. Sometimes they are meant to counter raw dairy production, other times to challenge private food organizations over whether they should be licensed as food retailers.
The same day Sharon Palmer's farm was raided, there was a raid on Rawesome Foods, a Venice, Calif., private food club run by nutritionist and raw-food advocate Aajonus Vonderplanitz. For a membership fee of $25, consumers can purchase unpasteurized dairy products, eggs that are not only organic but unwashed, and a wide assortment of fermented vegetables and other products.
The main difference in the two raids seems to be that Palmer's raiding party was actually much smaller, about half the size of the Venice contingent: Vonderplanitz was also visited by the FBI and the FDA.
In the Rawesome raid, agents made off with several thousand dollars worth of raw honey and raw dairy products. They also shut Rawesome for failure to have a public health permit, though the size and scope of the raid suggests the government officials might have more in mind. Regardless, within hours the outlet reopened in defiance of the shutdown order.
Earlier in June, agents of the Minnesota Department of Agriculture, escorted by police and also bearing search warrants, raided and shut down Traditional Foods Warehouse, a popular food club in Minneapolis specializing in locally-produced foods. They also raided two farms suspected of illegally selling raw milk. And in a national first among such raids, agents searched a private home and made off with computers; the family's offense appears to have been that it allowed one of the raw dairy farmers to park in its driveway to distribute raw milk to area residents who had ordered it.
The Minnesota Department of Agriculture has declined comment on such raids, saying they are part of an ongoing investigation into raw milk distribution in the state in lieu of eight illnesses in May linked to raw milk.
Meanwhile, the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade, and Consumer Protection has launched three raids over the last three months on the dairy farm and farm store of Vernon Hershberger, near Madison. The day after DATCP agents placed seals on his fridges storing raw dairy products in July, Hershberger cut the seals, and announced he was going to challenge the agency's contention he needs a dairy and retail license to sell his products. Obtaining such licenses would be problematic, though, since Wisconsin prohibits sale of raw milk, except "incidental" sales, and defining "incidental" has been a bone of contention for many years. In any event, Hershberger contends he sells only to consumers who contract privately for his food.
What's behind all these raids? They seem to stem from increasing concern at both the state and federal level about the spread of private food groups that have sprung up around the country in recent years -- food clubs and buying groups to provide specialized local products that are generally unavailable in groceries, like grass-fed meats, pastured eggs, fermented foods, and, in some cases, raw dairy products. Because they are private and limited to consumers who sign up for membership, these groups generally avoid obtaining retail and public health licenses required of retailers that sell to the general public.
In late 2008 and early 2009, the representatives of state agriculture agencies in Wisconsin, Indiana, Michigan, and Illinois met via phone conferences with representatives of the FDA to map a plan for targeting raw-milk buying clubs in the Midwest. The meetings came to light after Max Kane, the owner of a Wisconsin buying club who was subpoenaed by Wisconsin authorities for the names of his customers and suppliers, obtained email accounts of the sessions via a Freedom of Information request to Wisconsin's Agriculture, Trade, and Consumer Protection department. (Kane has since been prosecuted by Wisconsin authorities for contempt of court for failing to give up the names; his case is under appeal after he was found guilty last December.)
Now, the Midwest program seems to have gone national, and the recent spate of raids suggests a quickening pace and broadened scope. While most raids before the Midwest government meetings had been related to raw-milk distribution, some, like a December 2008 armed raid of Manna Storehouse, an Ohio food club near Cleveland, have been about licensing issues. In that raid, armed law enforcement officers held a mother and eight young children being home-schooled at gunpoint for several hours while they searched the home and food storage areas. A legal challenge to the raid by the family is still tied up in court.
The current uptick has Pete Kennedy of the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund concerned, not only about the spreading of the raids, but about the seemingly easy willingness of judges to hand out search warrants. While the U.S. Constitution's fourth amendment suggests judges should exercise tight controls over search warrants ("no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause..."), Kennedy observes, "I haven't seen an agency turned down yet" over the last four years in requests for search warrants connected with raw milk and other food production and distribution.
Given that the targets of search warrants don't get a say in court as to whether they should be issued, legal experts and those who have been raided say the most that food producers can do is take steps to prepare themselves to weather the raids as best they can.
- Be wary of strangers who want to join your private buying group or herdshare: Before they seek out a search warrant, regulators invariably nose around and infiltrate private buying groups or raw milk herdshares to gain information on "probable cause." They'll often make up sad stories as to why they should be allowed to join. Gary Cox of the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund recalls how an undercover agent from the New York Department of Agriculture and Markets infiltrated Meadowsweet Dairy LLC, a private organization of 120 Ithaca consumers who bought shares to gain access to raw dairy products, in 2007: "He was insistent. 'I live so far away, and I only come here so very infrequently, so can't I at least have some (milk) today, PLEEEEEEEASE, because otherwise I won't be able to get any for a long time.' Barb Smith felt sorry for him and relented. We know what the consequence was of her kindness." The consequence was an open-ended search warrant that agents used several times in late 2007 and early 2008 to confiscate product, leading up to a legal challenge to the LLC that is currently under appeal following rulings in New York state courts against Meadowsweet.
- Have a video camera at the ready: Since search warrants are usually specific as to what can be searched and/or seized, a video recording of events inhibits abuses by regulators and other law enforcement personnel. Regulators and law enforcement officials definitely don't appreciate being videotaped, and sometimes will simply disconnect videos or order targeted individuals to put the videos away. According to Aajonus Vonderpanitz, in the June raid of his Rawesome Foods outlet, "They unplugged our surveillance camera to hide their actions. They threateningly refused video capture of their raid when members commenced filming."
- Have a plan of action: Much like planning how your family might escape a fire, decide in advance who will handle the video camera, who will collect business cards or take down the names of all agents, and who will interact with the regulators. The regulators and police count on the element of surprise to sow confusion, and keep the targets from responding intelligently.
- Read the search warrant fine print: Sometimes there are limitations on the search warrants that targets can exploit. Vernon Hershberger, the Wisconsin dairy farmer, was able to slow the regulators down because he knew the search warrant in his case likely wouldn't allow forcible entry, so when agents returned a second time, after he cut the seals on his fridges, he locked his farm store doors and they were forced to leave. They eventually returned with an amended warrant that specifically allowed them to take his computer.
- Keep computer backups: In nearly all such raids, the authorities confiscate computers so they can document transactions and customer interactions. If you don't have a backup of what's on your disk, you can literally be put out of business. Moreover, it's advisable to monitor what information you keep on the computer in the farmhouse or in your food club. There's something to be said for backing up every few days onto another computer kept off-site.
Thursday, July 8, 2010
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Why All the Angst Over Nullification? Just Do It! by Gary D. Barnett
Why All the Angst Over Nullification? Just Do It!
Posted: March 27th, 2010 by Militant Libertarian
Recent talk of state nullification of unconstitutional federal laws has been rampant, and now that “Obamacare” has been passed, I’m sure many more nullification resolutions and bills will be forthcoming. Already, many state attorneys general have filed suit against the federal government’s plan to force the purchase of “health insurance.” But as Judge Andrew Napolitano recently pointed out in this interview, these efforts are little more than governors attempting to make a splash in order to gain favor with voters. These efforts, whether legitimate or not, will do little or nothing to actually void the fed’s new law. But this seems to be the case with most all empty nullification resolutions and bills; they go nowhere because no other action is taken by the states or by the sovereign individuals residing in those states. This in my opinion is a major problem.
Recently, Michael Boldin, founder of the Tenth Amendment Center, penned an article about nullification and the Tenth Amendment movement. It is informative because he lists all the different nullification efforts currently in place, and they are numerous. In fact, there are so many it is virtually impossible to keep up with all of them. In addition, more are evident all the time. I think this process more politically motivated than anything else, and of little use in the real world. According to his article, there are now nullification efforts concerning:
- 10th Amendment Resolutions
- 10th Amendment Bills
- Firearms Freedom Act
- Medical Marijuana Laws
- REAL ID
- Health Care
- Bring the Guard Home
- Constitutional Tender
- Cap and Trade
- Federal Tax Funds Act
- Sheriffs First Legislation
- Federal Gun Laws
- Regulation of Intrastate Commerce
Besides all of these, several more are in the pipeline. Why?
Considering the way the current nullification process is handled, some believe that if enough states get on board, some federal legislation can be delayed, and others think that if there is massive state resistance, this legislation can be in practice rendered null and void. Considering the long term, I completely disagree. As far as I can tell, liberty, freedom and civil rights have deteriorated constantly and consistently regardless of any makeshift efforts to stop it by the false state nullification process, or as I see it: nullification in name only. This deterioration has been going on for decades, and currently the total annihilation of our rights is in high gear. Real nullification requires action, not words, and the teeth behind current and past nullifications have been missing.
My attitude is certainly different than that of constitutional scholars, but are most mainstream constitutional scholars correct in their thinking? I don’t really care if a constitutional lawyer says that government-forced health insurance or any other welfare scheme is constitutional or not. In order to believe that, one would have to also believe that theft is then constitutional. I am perfectly competent enough to figure out what is right and what is wrong; constitution or not. But if one is going to refer to the constitution as the basis for dissent, then I think consistency is important. The ultimate nullification language is already in place in the constitution so why then all the angst? The Tenth Amendment states:
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
Why put forth hundreds and hundreds of separate state nullification resolutions, bills and acts, when the preeminent nullification, the Tenth Amendment, already exists? Instead of continuing to draft worthless resolution after resolution, why not just refuse absolutely to comply with any federal law deemed unconstitutional by the state or by the people? Just do it! Simple, to the point, effective and easy!
Gaining agreement from some federal court (notice the term federal) to nullify the federal government is not likely. Why would the feds rule against themselves? It’s up to the states and more importantly to the people to decide what is constitutional or not. How can this decision be left up the very entity that is perpetrating the harm?
While we’re at it, why not nullify all the rest of the unconstitutional and anti-liberty legislation that has been forced upon us over the years? I say let’s nullify Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Prescription Drugs, the USA PATRIOT Act, the Military Commissions Act, mandatory Unemployment Insurance and Workers Comp. And let’s not stop there. How about nullifying the War on Terror, the War on Drugs, the Department of Education, the Department of Energy, The FDA, the Federal Reserve, and most every other unconstitutional government agency that exists today? I think this would be a good start!
If those currently bringing forward nullification efforts were really serious, they would just do it! They would simply tell the feds based upon the Tenth Amendment of the constitution, that they would under no circumstances comply with any federal law deemed by the state to be unconstitutional or against liberty. Then if the feds attempted to force compliance, the state would have every right to defend itself and its people, and would then have a valid right to secede should that extreme measure become necessary.
Neil Siegel, professor of law at Duke University, in this very slanted interview on NPR with the brilliant Tom Woods said: “Any talk of nullification bothers me because it is talk of lawlessness.” This thinking of course is asinine and backwards, because nullification prevents lawlessness, it does not promote it. Siegel’s attitude is one that supports government as master of all things. In his mind, there should be no possibility of dissent where the federal government is concerned. If this was true, we might as well have a sovereign king ruling over us for life.
If we are to ever be a free people again, we will have to act like free people. Being free is not easy. It takes strength, determination, individual responsibility and guts! Standing up to the very powerful federal government is most definitely a challenge, but if we don’t, what will be the final outcome?
Real nullification is a way to guarantee more liberty. It is simply a method to an end, and that end is freedom. It does not have to be violent; quite the contrary. If all the states that are now filing suit and drafting nullification documents against the feds would just stand together, the feds would be overwhelmed. They would have little choice but to acquiesce to our demands. And all that would be required by the states is to actively and physically refuse to obey or enforce any bad federal law inside state borders. Considering the Tenth Amendment, the states have every right to do just that!
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Executive Orders Disposition Tables Index
Barack Obama (2009-Present)
EO's 13489 - 13545 | Subject Index
EO's 13198-13488 | Subject Index
William J. Clinton (1993-2001)
EO's 12834-13197 | Subject Index
George Bush (1989-1993)
EO's 12668-12833
Ronald Reagan (1981-1989)
EO's 12287-12667
Jimmy Carter (1977-1981)
EO's 11967-12286
Gerald R. Ford (1974-1977)
EO's 11798-11966
Richard Nixon (1969-1974)
EO's 11452-11797
Lyndon B. Johnson (1963-1969)
EO's 11128-11451
John F. Kennedy (1961-1963)
EO's 10914-11127
“Known Unknowns” and “Unknown Unknowns”
Can You Harness That Which You Don’t Know?