thefreelioness:

A California cop who was being video recorded by a smartphone said she was in fear for her life because the phone could have possibly been a gun, marking at least the fourth time this year a cop in this country has uttered those nonsensical words.

After all, if Detective Shannon Todd of the Newark Police Gang Unit was really so stupid to believe that the phone could have been a gun, then why did she first order the citizen to place it back into his pocket?

The truth is, she feared being the victim of a viral Youtube video instead of a fatal bullet, which is why she ordered the citizen to place his hands behind his back.

The trend of insinuating cell phones can be guns began earlier this year when Juan “Biggie” Santana had his Sony Bloggie confiscated by Hialeah police officer  Antonio Sentmanat in South Florida.

It continued when San Diego police officer Martin Reinhold slapped a phone out of Adam Pringle’s hands and arrested him while writing him a citation for smoking a cigarette on a beach boardwalk.

Then again in Arkansas when a cop ripped an iPhone out of a man’s hands who had been trying to document the Exxon oil spill outside Little Rock.

Reinhold told Pringle that he had specifically been trained to assume cell phones could be guns, which is apparently a training lesson being taught at police departments throughout the country.

As mentioned in the full article, this is a tactic to make it legal for cops to keep their victims from filming them.

thefreelioness:

Last week, Utah Senator Mike Lee wrote an article for National Review titled Washington vs. the People. It’s well written and brings to the reader’s attention some very important truths- things that critics of government have known for centuries and many Americans are learning first-hand today.  I wanted to elaborate on Senator Lee’s message from my own perspective as a citizen, or as he so accurately renamed us, as a subject.

The people warning of tyranny were right.  As Senator Lee said, our worst fears have come true.  The government is lying to, spying on, and harassing the people it is supposed to be representing.  Even Piers Morgan, generally known as a supporter of government, has admitted publicly that the recent scandals have shown the government is behaving “vaguely tyrannical.”   A good week for the truth is inherently a bad week for the government.  So we have seen.

The American government has its hands in almost every manner of daily life.  The steady increases in surveillance and control have enabled the government to take what it sees as the next step: utilizing its power to not just “keep an eye on things” but to promote what they like and suppress what they don’t.  We are free as long as we stay within the boundaries of what the government finds appropriate; a selection of options that continues to decrease in size.  The slightest infringement on such unspoken controls could have you targeted by the IRS, harassed by the police and slapped with unfounded charges, or get you involuntarily detained based on a government employees analysis of your mental health.  Anti-government movements have even been infiltrated with the intention to spark violence and arrests.  

It’s not a free country if we’re not free to challenge our government.  We are beginning to see routine targeting and suppression of people and movements that challenge the status quo of big government.  It is a tyrannical environment when otherwise “regular” people are being treated like criminals and stripped of their rights for simply standing up for what they believe in.

This isn’t about right versus left.  Senator Lee accurately highlights the fact that none of these scandals should be seen as a direct attack on democrats or a reason to support republicans- the abuse of government is inherent to government itself.The interest of government is to sustain itself.  Resistance and criticism of the government has grown in recent years because as government expands in size, so does its abuses.  The government’s natural response is not to reduce itself; but to reduce the knowledge available to a critical public and reduce the ability of the public to challenge them.

It is no coincidence Obama has charged more people with whistleblowing than any other President’s combined- his tactics are those that aim to make examples of truth-tellers.  It is no coincidence that the employees of the government whose mis-deeds are brought to light are not held to justice, but protected- the government takes care of its own.  The citizens who threaten its existence?  Those are the enemies and those are the dispensable.  Neither party is going to protect you when you are threatening their size and scope of power.  Neither party is going to be immune to the corruption that is inherent to such unchecked power.  It’s refreshing to hear even politicians admit that the problem cannot be solved by new laws or different parties- the problem itself is the government.

Senator Lee ends his article reminding the reader that “it’s not that we don’t like government…” but that we don’t like big, corrupt government.  I personally am not hesitant to say that I do not like government one bit, no matter the size or scope of it.  Government is inherently violent and oppressive.   Government’s existence depends on systematic exploitation of the people to fund itself.  Once I discovered that a peaceful and voluntary world full of the provisions needed for safety and prosperity in our communities was possible, I no longer saw the need to justify even a limited amount of corruption or violence.

Senator Lee is right in his analysis that government is inherently corrupt.  He is right in his analysis that our government in particular has become devastatingly and thoroughly awful.  Self-interest to its preservation leads to increased violation of the rights of its populace.  My question to those who simply preach for smaller government is this: when was government not violating its own laws in some way at some point?  When was a government not oppressing some group of people; whether it be slaves, women, minorities, gays, immigrants, journalists, or tea-partiers?

You recognize, like Senator Lee, that the problem is not a lack of laws or regulation, but in government itself.  Why are you promoting an idealistic version of a smaller government?  What real life example can you provide of this ever being successful?  Many conservatives idolize the beginning of America or the Constitution as a means to providing this Utopian world of small and benevolent government.  But even in America’s roots we had slaves, deprived women of their rights, and dutifully abused the rights of the natives.  All of this was sustained and promoted, even by the founders of American government.  Even at such a “small and limited” point in our government’s history.  If we accept the rule that government itself is bad, we must also acknowledge that size may lower the amount of abuse, but won’t remove it.  And we must also recognize that our romanticized notion of the Founding Fathers and their Constitution has not prevented our government from growing to its tyrannical state now.

For those who are beginning to see the true face of government and its natural tyranny- it is time to question whether there has ever been a good, small government and if there ever can be.  Perhaps freedom, truth, and justice for the people lies in a future that does not include Washington at all.

thought-provoking-url:

The Obama administration sent a letter to Congress describing counterterrorism operations one day before President Obama was due to deliver a major speech on national security legal policy.

In a letter to Congressional leadersobtained by The New York Times, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. disclosed that the administration had deliberately killed Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical Muslim cleric who was killed in a drone strike in September 2011 in Yemen.

The American responsibility for Mr. Awlaki’s death has been widely reported, but the administration had until now refused to confirm or deny it.

The letter also said that the United States had killed three other Americans: Samir Khan, who was killed in the same strike; Mr. Awlaki’s son Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, who was also killed in Yemen; and Jude Mohammed, who was killed in a strike in Pakistan.

“These individuals were not specifically targeted by the United States,” Mr. Holder wrote.

(via thefreelioness)

A healthcare provider has sued the Internal Revenue Service and 15 of its agents, claiming that they seized 60 million medical records from 10 million Americans under the pretext of investigating one of its employees.

The Washington Times has not found out the name of the insurance company but the Courthouse News Service said the suit claims the agency violated the Fourth Amendment.

(via thefreelioness)

letterstomycountry:

Every time I look at this young man’s photo, my heart breaks apart for him and his family:

Cameron D’Ambrosio should not be in handcuffs. He should not be in a court room. He should not have been arrested, and he damn well sure should not have been accused of…

Seen these yet?

Judge Andrew Napolitano weighed in this morning on the investigation of Fox News reporter James Rosen by the Justice Department, calling it an unprecedented action by federal authorities against a reporter. “This is the first time that the federal government has moved to this level of taking ordinary, reasonable, traditional, lawful reporter skills and claiming they constitute criminal behavior,” said Napolitano.

A recent Department of Defense instruction alters the US code applying to the military’s involvement in domestic law enforcement by allowing US troops to quell “civil disturbances” domestically without any Presidential authorization, greasing the skids for a de facto military coup in America along with the wholesale abolition of Posse Comitatus.