Category Archives: Current News

This is about stuff in the mass media that generally has a short interest life span. Speculation about an election outcome a few days before the election is an example.

Deja vu

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For some reason reading this made me think of present day Bush Derangement Syndrome:

Sara Jane Moore, who took a shot at President Ford in a bizarre assassination attempt just 17 days after a disciple of Charles Manson tried to kill Ford, was paroled Monday after 32 years behind bars.

Moore, 77, was released from the federal prison in Dublin, east of San Francisco, where she had been serving a life sentence, the Bureau of Prisons said.

[…]

In recent interviews, Moore said she regretted her actions, saying she was blinded by her radical political views and convinced that the government had declared war on the left.

“I was functioning, I think, purely on adrenaline and not thinking clearly. I have often said that I had put blinders on and I was only listening to what I wanted to hear,” she said a year ago in an interview with KGO-TV.

[…]

Moore was born Sara Jane Kahn in Charleston, W.Va. She acted in high school plays and dreamed of being a film actress.

In the 1970s, Moore began working for People in Need, a free food program established by millionaire Randolph Hearst in exchange for the return for his daughter Patty, who was kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army in 1974.

Moore soon became involved with radical leftists, ex-convicts and other members of San Francisco’s counterculture.

[…]

“I was going to go down anyway,” she said in a 1982 interview with the San Jose Mercury News. “If the government was going to kill me, I was going to make some kind of statement.”

Thank You and Grow Up

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I sent the following letter to our local (Moscow, Idaho and Pullman, Washington) newspaper, The Daily News and to the University of Idaho newspaper, The Idaho Argonaut.  Some background:  Our Moscow, ID mayor, Nancy Chaney, decided that people should not be allowed to carry pistols in public spaces, worried, as she put it, that people might “swoop in and create confusion” in the event of serious trouble.  She later found our about Idaho‘s preemption law, making it illegal for local governments to limit people’s rights any further than state law.  She couldn’t accept that, and tried to get state legislators to rewrite state law.  Running into a brick wall, Mayor Chaney and her conspirators have decided to table the issue “indefinitely”.  So far so good.  They were held back, but they now need to pay a price for their indiscretions, even if it’s only in the form of a letter from a concerned citizen:

Dear Editors,

“Thank You” to all the brave individuals in Moscow and around the state who fought to protect a human right (the right to self defense in public spaces).  As for Mayor Chaney and the others; you have some growing to do.  You could not be more wrong about self defense, concealed carry, or about the good and responsible citizens of the State of Idaho.

I submit that any holder of public office should be glad for our rights, comfortable with them, unafraid, and should always strive to protect those rights, confident in the knowledge that it is the proper thing to do.  Further, that anyone who is at all suspicious or fearful of the rights of the individual should stay out of public office.

As for the argument that since the feds place restrictions on carrying in certain places, it should be OK for local governments:  It’s not OK for the feds either.  Creating a patchwork of varying 2nd Amendment infringements can do nothing other than ensnare innocent Americans and make the criminals laugh at us.  Who’s going to consult their “rights infringements map” before moving from point A to point B (step in this square and you’re perfectly OK, but step in this other square and presto, you’re a felon)?  You call that law enforcement or public safety?  I call it insane.  It would be laughable if it weren’t so pathological.

Try as you might to conceal it, Mayor Chaney, your distrust for the people of Idaho is obvious and on display.  If you can work past that distrust and begin advocating more, rather than less individual freedom, you may find that you have more friends and more goodwill from Idaho citizens than you can imagine.

I just read another Daily News article, commending 44 people for their brave deeds during a shooting in Moscow last May, for things like “exceptional bravery at immediate risk of serious bodily injury.”  That’s a good thing– people who try to save others at their own personal risk are an inspiration to all of us.  One tiny little gripe here:  The one regular citizen (non cop, non firefighter, non EMT, etc.) who also exhibited “exceptional bravery at immediate risk of serious bodily injury” received no mention whatsoever, in spite of his having been shot and seriously injured in the process.  Blundering oversight or personal disdain on the part of the reporter or editor?  Could be either.  It certainly shows no respect.

 

Study of the TSA confirms their brain cells are lonely

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I’ve been saying this for years, pointed out the TSA is engaged in illegal acts, they know they are illegal, they are stupid, even idiotic, security is a joke, and then I suggested some tests of better security concepts. Now the Harvard School of Public Health says:

Study: Airport Screening Process Pointless

Airport security lines can annoy passengers, but there is no evidence that they make flying any safer, U.S. researchers reported Thursday.

[…]

“Even without clear evidence of the accuracy of testing, the Transportation Security Administration defended its measures by reporting that more than 13 million prohibited items were intercepted in one year,” the researchers added. “Most of these illegal items were lighters.”

This is like the Brady Bunch crowing at how effective NICS is because millions of people have been denied the sale of a firearm. Never mind that some of those people were guilty of “crimes” like being in possession of a deck of cards having naked white women on them (the “criminal” was black) and that the Brady act has never been shown to have made the public safer (Just One Question).

“We’d like airport security screening to be of value. As passengers and members of the public we’d like to know the evidence and the reasoning behind these measures,” Linos said in a telephone interview.

With $5.6 billion spent globally on airport protection each year, the public should be encouraged to query some screening requirements — such as forcing passengers to remove their shoes, the researchers said.

“Can you hide anything in your shoes that you cannot hide in your underwear?” they asked.

A TSA spokesman was not immediately available to comment.

The British Medical Journal contributed:

There is no solid evidence that the huge amounts of money spent on airport security screening measures since September 11th are effective, argue researchers in the Christmas issue of the BMJ.

[…]

Despite worldwide airport protection costing an estimated $5.6 billion every year, they found no comprehensive studies evaluating the effectiveness of passenger or hand luggage x-ray screening, metal detectors or explosive detection devices. There was also no clear evidence of testing accuracy.

The US Transportation Security Administration (TSA) defends its measures by reporting that more than 13 million prohibited items were intercepted in one year. But, argue the authors, there is no way of knowing what proportion of these items would have led to serious harm.

This raises several questions, they say, such as what is the sensitivity of the screening question: ‘Did you pack all your bags yourself?’ and has anyone ever said ‘no’? What are the ethical implications of pre-selecting high risk groups? Are new technologies that ‘see’ through clothes acceptable and what hazards should we screen for?

While there may be other benefits to rigorous airport screening, the absence of publicly available evidence to satisfy even the most basic criteria of a good screening programme concerns us, they write.

Put this another way. If you were selling a product advertised as curing some disease and it, in fact, did no better in scientific tests than a placebo you would be at least fined and probably go to jail. If you sold a product advertised to allow your car to use water as fuel you could be sued when it didn’t work. But the U.S. Government can get away with providing nothing more than comfort to those that want to feel more secure while actually decreasing the security of travelers at great expense.

Can you imagine a snake-oil salesman using the defense, “My customers wanted to feel they were doing something even if their disease was incurable. Therefore I did nothing wrong.” Prosecutors would break out the victory champagne before the defense drew their next breath. And so it should be with the TSA. Either they are incredibly stupid or they are snake-oil salesmen who should go to jail.

Legislating the laws of physics and economics

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Okay, so they aren’t really trying to legislate the laws of physics but the stupid/sloppy/careless/whatever reporter(s) and editor(s) make it sound like they are:

Congress by a wide margin approved the first increase in automobile fuel economy in 32 years Tuesday, and President Bush plans to quickly sign the legislation, accepting the mandates on the auto industry.

The energy bill, boosting mileage by 40 percent to 35 miles per gallon, passed the House 314-100 and now goes to the White House, following the Senate’s approval last week.

Do you see that? All it takes to increase the fuel economy is to pass a law. It’s as if they can’t distinguish between a law of physics and a law of man. They would get my “crap for brains” tag just for that alone. But they continue on, apparently thinking they can somehow change the laws of economics in the same bill:

In a dramatic shift to spur increased demand for nonfossil fuels, the bill also requires a six-fold increase in ethanol use to 36 billion gallons a year by 2022, a boon to farmers. And it requires new energy efficiency standards for an array of appliances, lighting and commercial and government buildings.

“This is a choice between yesterday and tomorrow” on energy policy, declared House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who was closely involved in crafting the legislation. “It’s groundbreaking in what it will do.”

If it changes the laws of physics and economics then Pelosi is correct. If not then she is another fascist. My bet is on a fascism outcome. And, people know it will fail and aren’t being entirely quiet about it:

“What we have here is a mandatory conservation bill,” said Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas. He argued that the auto fuel efficiency requirements and the huge increase in ethanol use may not prove to be technologically or economically possible.

Although I’m opposed to our lawmakers doing this personally it’s great economic news for our family. The big push and subsidies for ethanol over the last few years has pushed the price of wheat to over $10/bushel in the last few weeks (via Idaho Wheat Commission).

Even this graph doesn’t give the “big picture”. The price of wheat has been in the $3 to $5 range for over 30 years. That’s unadjusted for inflation. A lot of the equipment my family uses on the farm is over 30 years old. The bulldozer I use for making modifications to the Boomershoot site is over 60 years old. I visited the farm last weekend and they were putting new tires on tractor which still had the original rubber on it until a week or so ago–rubber that was over 30 years old. They have been hurting for decades and now they are finally making a profit and are attempting to upgrade their equipment.

You might ask, “Why is the price of wheat, delivered to Portland Oregon doubling and tripling in price (the price for delivery in March of 2008 is over $13/bushel) when all the ethanol is made from corn in the Midwest?” It’s because wheat is a substitute grain for corn in some situations. And because a lot of the Northwest farmers are planting more wheat to take advantage of the higher profits to be made the supply of lentils and peas (also grown on our farm) is going down and the prices are going up on those as well.

So when the bozos in congress attempt to challenge the laws of economics the best they can do is obscure the costs of their meddling. The costs of their actions are spread out in strange places via obscure mechanisms but eventually the consumers will pay the price, one way or another.

A Letter From Israel

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This is from a friend who lives there.  He’s been a long-time marksmanship and sniper instructor for the IDF, and he does seminars in Israel and the U.S. on counterterrorism.

You just can’t make up this stuff:

Friends:

 

Over 20 Kassam rockets rained down on the northern Negev.  We get only partial information.  If we received all the facts and figures, like Kassams landing around Askelon almost every single day, the government would be forced to defend the country or resign.

 

Have a good weekend.

The response from the U.S. has been to supply arms, ammunition, and training to the Palestinian government in Gaza, which ostensibly are for keeping the terrorists in check, but in fact are being promptly used against Israelis.

 

In summary; the situation in Israel is normal.

Quote of the day–“NW”

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Honestly, and as God as my witness, when I saw him shooting and as watched for a few seconds trying to figure out what he was going to do and what I should do, the thought that when through my mind was, “If I had a gun, I have a perfect shot.”

Yes, a perfect shot. I had a full side profile, I was close, and no one was visible behind him execept a wall. I had a clear shot during the second round of fire. I told this to every cop I came in contact with. The interviewer agreed.

When I realized that I had no gun, fear instantly struck me, along with anger, and severe panic.

[…]

I am very angry at the city of Omaha and the mall for their stupid laws that nearly cost me my life. The laws protected no one, and in my opinion, caused people to die.

“NW”
A witness to the Omaha Mall mass shooting
Via Joe’s Crabby Shack, thanks to an email from Rob.
[People died because some anti-gun bigots didn’t even try to answer Just One Question before they passed criminal rules prohibiting firearms in the mall.–Joe]

Quote of the day–Mark Twain

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It is by the fortune of God that, in this country, we have three benefits: freedom of speech, freedom of thought, and the wisdom never to use either.

Mark Twain
[Reading all the editorials about the Omaha mall shooting reminded me of this. They never bother to consider Just One Question.–Joe]

She made it home alive

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This is really good news: 

The grade-school teacher who was jailed in Sudan for allowing her students to name a teddy bear Muhammad was met at London’s Heathrow Airport this morning by her son John and daughter Jessica.

Also good news is who helped her gain her freedom and come home alive:

But she was released a week early thanks to an intense British diplomatic effort led by two Muslim members of Britain’s House of Lords, who met with Sudanese President Omar al Bashir.

That there were Muslims helping to bring some sanity to the situation is very encouraging. I see also there were other Muslims working toward that same goal.

Woopie Goldberg – A Voice Made For Television

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We hear it said of an ugly guy, “He has a face made for radio”.

Woopie Goldberg has performed brilliantly as an actor in television and in movies.  Her personal commentary however, has been nothing you couldn’t hear at the espresso and chi tea bar in any local natural foods store any day of the week.  Hence it is no surprise that her radio show is being axed.  I believe she still has a future in acting.  Therein she has talent.

There remains a significant part of society that can’t seem to understand how radio is a business (the business of selling advertising) and that in business you must have something to offer that people, you know, want.

Malkin covers it too.

Hint:  If you have no respect for those who made it big in the business, you just might be on the wrong path.  “I’m gonna be just the opposite of that really, ultra successful guy” might not be the best business plan.  Success, one would think, is the best teacher.

And here’s a hint just especially for those on the Left:  We’ve all heard your message every day for our whole lives, as long as we can remember.  You’ve gotten your message out, and that is your problem.  A lot of people are sick of hearing it because most of it has something to do with how wrong, greedy, stupid, evil, and endangered we are– the air we breathe is killing us, the food we eat is killing us, oil is killing us, a shortage of oil is killing us, farming is killing us, starvation is killing us, fat is killing us, dieting is killing us, carbs are killing us, disease is killing us, antibiotics, vaccines, and the drug companies are killing us, freedom and prosperity are especially killing us, poverty is killing us, the good economy is killing us but really the economy sucks, terrorists are killing us (but it’s our fault) and the war against terrorists is killing us, and everything, absolutely everything, is killing women and children, the elderly and the minorities the hardest– and how some form of socialism (government-enforced coercion) is the answer to absolutely every problem, real or imagined.

Does that about sum it up?  Who needs to tune into a radio show to hear that when we hear it everywhere else every day?

More-of-the-same day in and day out nagging and finger pointing and blaming America and our Liberty for the world’s problems isn’t something a lot of people are going to pay money to have broadcast in their name.  But you don’t, and won’t, get it anyway.

What more do you need to know?

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The teacher who let her students name a Teddy Bear Muhammad was convicted and sentenced to 15 days in jail and will be deported. At least she doesn’t have to endure the whipping that was on the list of possible punishments. I thought this was pretty extreme but figured it would be a good lesson for those that think we need to “reach common ground” or some such thing with the Muslim extremists. I couldn’t have imagined what a lesson this would actually be.

But it turns out the sentence Gillian Gibbons received is considered much too light for the locals. They are demanding her execution:

Thousands of protesters, many brandishing clubs and swords, took to the streets of Sudan’s capital Friday, demanding the execution of a British teacher who let her students name a teddy bear Muhammad.

Gillian Gibbons, 54, was found guilty Thursday of insulting Islam and sentenced to 15 days in jail. She was spared the more serious punishment of 40 lashes.

That angered many in Khartoum, who rallied in Martyrs Square outside the presidential palace. Protesters waved sticks, knives, axes and swords.

“Kill her, kill her by firing squad!” they chanted. “No tolerance, execution!”

Here is a picture of the evil heretic. I hope she gets out alive.

To be fair, there are some Muslims who are responding appropriately:

In Britan — where Muhammad is now the second most popular name for baby boys — the reaction had been shock and disbelief, from both non-Muslims and Muslims.

Muhammad Abdul Bari, secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain, said Sudanese authorities had  “grossly overreacted.”

“Gillian should never have been arrested, let alone charged and convicted of committing a crime,” he said.

But the Sudanese behavior invokes an opposing extreme response in me and others.

This is a fight we must win

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We must win or else life under such a regime will not be worth living:

KHARTOUM, Sudan – A British primary school teacher has been arrested in Sudan, accused of insulting Islam’s Prophet by letting her class of 7-year-olds name a teddy bear Muhammad, her school said on Monday.

Colleagues of Gillian Gibbons told Reuters they feared for her safety after receiving reports that young men had already started gathering outside the Khartoum police station where the Liverpool woman was being held.

Teachers at Unity High School in central Khartoum said Gibbons, 54, made an innocent mistake and simply let her pupils choose their favorite name for the toy as part of a school project.

Police arrested Gibbons on Sunday at her home inside the school premises, said Unity director Robert Boulos, after a number of parents made a complaint to Sudan’s Ministry of Education.

Boulos said she had since been charged with “blasphemy,” an offense he said was punishable with up to three months in prison and a fine.

[…]

Gibbons, who joined Unity in August, asked a girl to bring in her teddy bear to help the second grade class focus, said Boulos.

The teacher then asked the class to name the toy. “They came up with eight names including Abdullah, Hassan and Mohammed. Then she explained what it meant to vote and asked them to choose the name.” Twenty out of the 23 children chose Muhammad.

Situation Normal – Muslims Burning France

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Since things are “stable” (no change in the situation) this is not news (but the second year of on-going coverage of the Aruba rape case got tons of play last night and this morning, and the History Channel has been busy talking about Sasquatch and the Bermuda Triangle).  Why report that Muslims are burning and looting in response to an accident?

Malkin has some details.

Le Parisien reports that they burned down a Peugeot dealership, sacked a train station and shops, tore up a McDonald’s, stole the day’s receipts and attacked customers, smashed and burned cars, and are still going strong.

Don’t they have a protection of gun rights in France? (I’m trying to imagine something like this happening in Idaho, going on for over a year, and I just can’t do it)

Yup.  Things are normal in France, so we can concentrate on important stuff like space-alien abductions, haunted houses, Princess Diana, and the Loch Ness monster.

Anti-gun reactions

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In response to the U.S. Supreme Court agreeing to hear D.C. v. Heller The Brady Bunch said:

The Supreme Court’s decision in this case will be extremely significant – the most important decision on guns in nearly 70 years and maybe the most important ever regarding the Second Amendment.

On that point I think they are right. If we win we will be on the offense in a much bigger way than ever before. If we lose we will be on the defense with a handicap we have never before experienced.

The Gun Guys said:

Clearly, if laser guns that could kill someone from a thousand yards away were to come on the market (and they will), it would not be in the interest of protecting our law enforcement officials and citizens to allow such firearms to be sold to civilians. So, there is no absolute right to manufacture, sell and own any type of gun that the NRA and the gun industry claims to be a firearm protected under the Second Amendment. That is a dangerous and legally unsound notion, given that the courts have allowed gun control in the United States for as long as the laws have been in existence.

Perhaps he isn’t aware of my Spud Gun which “could kill someone from a thousand yards away” and that it is nothing more than a finely tuned hunting rifle (Remington 700).

He goes on to say:

It should be noted that within the gun control movement there was vigorous debate about whether or not to appeal the D.C. ruling. This is because, as it stands now, the striking down of the D.C. law is only applicable within the D.C. circuit.

The decision that the Supreme Court will render will affect the entire country – and it may be that there is a desire to stir up a political hornet’s nest on the issue during an election year, hoping that it will favor the Republicans.

I said back in March that if they were smart they would not appeal. But the roller coaster has just left the loading area and we are all going on an exciting ride with a good probability that someone is going to get thrown out before it stops next spring. The election year angle just adds more twists and turns (opportunities and risks).

Then the VPC says the D.C. ban is saving lives because D.C. has fewer suicides. It could be the numbers are bogus. For example if someone wanted to commit suicide they might just find a drug dealer and try to take his product from him. It would be ruled a murder and not a suicide. Still, I find this amusing. The VPC wants to protect us from ourselves but we are not allowed to protect ourselves from others. The first thing that comes to mind is–I wonder if they practice what they preach. If someone were in the middle of trying to commit suicide would they insist they stop then offer to do it for them because that would be more consistent with their philosophy?

And second, does this relate in some way to the apparent celebration of victim-hood by many liberals? They would rather have victims who have no control over their lives than people that take (the ultimate) control over their lives?

NRA news release on D.C. v. Heller

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Find it here. The email I received from Ashley Varner (NRA public affairs) seemed to be shouting (yes, this was the font size in the original email):

U.S. Supreme Court to Hear First

Second Amendment Case Since 1939

I interpret this to mean she was happy about it. 🙂

The right question

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The U.S. Supreme Court just announced their decision to take the D.C. v. Heller case. The question they will be answering is:

Whether the following provisions — D.C. Code secs. 7-2502.02(a)(4), 22-4504(a), and 7-2507.02 — violate the Second Amendment rights of individuals who are not affiliated with any state-regulated militia, but who wish to keep handguns and other firearms for private use in their homes?

This is the most fundamental difference we have over the Second Amendment with the anti-gun bigots. They claim the Second Amendment guarantees state governments the “right” (governments don’t have rights, they have enumerated powers) to possess arms. Assuming any significant attention is given to original intent (this may be a big assumption) then it is difficult for me to imagine this will go against us.

This is good, this is very good. Now to answer Uncle and Pro-Gun Progress’s question. If we get the answer we want we start attacking the next most egregious laws such as those in Chicago, New York City, and New Jersey. We must be careful to attack them in the proper order to make sure we have a solid foundation to build upon as we get to questions like, “Does the individual have a right to carry a weapon on school grounds?” If we attack the “grey area” questions first they might be decided against us and the foundation gets built on the wrong side of freedom. Ultimately I want to see the DOJ prosecuting anti-gun politicians and organizations under 18 USC 241 and 18 USC 242. But that, if it ever happens, will be a long time from now. But still, it should be our goal.

National Ammo Day in the news

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Today is the day (happy birthday to Kim du Toit) to buy some ammo and I just heard it on the radio news because the Seattle PI mentioned it:

Seattle resident Chris Pierce had left Butch’s Gun Shop on Sunday and was heading for the countryside in North Bend to fire rounds when he heard about National Ammo Day.

“I think it’s a great idea. It sends the message that firearms aren’t going away,” he said. “You can’t take out one part of the Constitution without ruining all of it.”

The thought of Monday as National Ammo Day, a period dedicated to buying bullets to support the Second Amendment, might send shivers down the backs of some Seattle residents.

But they are careful to get other opinions on the topic:

While many gun owners are preparing to part with their cash, a Washington CeaseFire spokeswoman said the day should have a different emphasis.

“As we approach Thanksgiving, we would better benefit from responsible firearms owners reminding the public of the importance of safe firearm storage,” group executive director Kristen Comer said.

“The safest place for firearms … is locked and out of reach of children and others who might otherwise place themselves in danger.”

She said she believes responsible gun owners are not in jeopardy of losing access to firearms and bullets.

A spokesman for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in Seattle said his agency has no position on National Ammo Day.

And you just know what question was asked and the mindset behind it that prompted this response:

To mark it, Taff plans to buy 100 rounds and fire them at a Bellevue range.

While Monday marks the sixth annual National Ammo Day, Taff heard about it only recently.

He was not concerned that criminals would use the day to clear ammunition shelves and then commit robberies.

Kip Hawley slap down

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Nice. The TSA is a joke. Kip Hawley is the head of the TSA. He says airport security is good. Investigators do what I have been saying could be done. Hawley tries to put a spin on it in front of congress and gets slapped down:

Investigators used public information to make a liquid bomb consisting of a detonator and a liquid explosive. They made a firebomb using two common products.

To absolute silence in the hearing room, the investigators screened video footage showing tests of their homemade bombs. One clip showed the device exploding inside a car — metal flying, glass shattering, car doors buckling open and a voice, off camera, saying, “Oh!”

The investigators then designed ways to sneak the components past screeners.

The airports tested were kept classified.

The GAO recommended improvements in personnel, processes and technology; more aggressive pat-downs; and possible restrictions on carry-on luggage.

“Current policies allowing substantial carry-on luggage and related items through TSA checkpoints” increase the risk of a terrorist bringing an improvised explosive device or improvised incendiary device onto a plane, the report said.

Hawley downplayed the tests, arguing first that the components did not get on the plane. “It did get on the plane,” countered Gregory Kutz of the GAO.

Hawley then contended that the components the GAO smuggled were not the ones used in the video footage. The GAO’s Cooney corrected him.

Hawley also noted that GAO investigators did not smuggle a complete bomb past the checkpoint. Cooney, seated beside him, said: “We could simply have gone into the lavatory and constructed it there.”

They don’t arrive at the proper conclusion but they are getting the proper data–which is a start.

Quote of the day–STI International

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While we truly feel badly for the law abiding citizens of California, we feel it is necessary to take a stand against irresponsible legislation designed solely to inhibit the American citizen’s right to keep arms. We are fierce proponents of the Second Amendment, and it is our hope that other manufacturers will follow our lead. It is time for the gun industry as a whole to take a stand against the insanity of the antigunners. We simply believe that some things are more important than profit.

STI International
Cessation of California Firearm Sales
[Via Uncle, Bitter, Sebastian, and Ninth Stage. It makes me proud that I own an STI gun. It’s on my hip, as is normal when I’m allowed to carry, as I write this. It is my carry gun and it is my competition gun. Thank you STI.–Joe]

Redefining privacy

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Uncle points us to this article:

Privacy no longer can mean anonymity, says Donald Kerr, the principal deputy director of national intelligence. Instead, it should mean that government and businesses properly safeguard people’s private communications and financial information.

[…]

Mark Klein, a retired AT&T technician, helped connect a device in 2003 that he says diverted and copied onto a government supercomputer every call, e-mail, and Internet site access on AT&T lines.

Side note: I heard of such a device from a friend in 2000.

I’ve gotten into debates with people that insisted we just needed “appropriate regulations with regards to the collection and use of personal information”. I expect Kerr, at best, would claim regulation should be in place and would protect us from the harm that might come from government abuse. That people can believe such outrageous fantasies is so mind boggling to me that I have difficulty articulating my case through my anger.

Let me put this as simply and calmly as I can. If the government has access to information that can be abused, no matter what “regulations” are in place, it will be abused. Just two quick examples; 1) Census data, supposedly “sealed” for 72 years was used by the FBI to track down “enemy aliens and foreign nationals who might be dangerous”. People of Japanese, Italian, and German descent were put in internment camps based on “sealed” information. 2) Brady records were required to be destroyed if the gun buyer passed the NCIS check. They weren’t. They were kept for at least a year “for audit purposes”. I told one gun rights leader that I thought the gun rights community should make it an issue to make sure these records were destroyed. He told me that it wasn’t that important because even if they existed they couldn’t be used in a court of law because they were “legally destroyed” even if they weren’t physically destroyed. After 9-11 those records were used to find “terrorist suspects” that might own guns. People who bought guns were found and their homes searched because those records existed. Gun owners screamed bloody-murder and the gun grabbers insisted it was entirely appropriate that the law be ignored.

A few days ago I finished listening to the book IBM and the Holocaust. Read that book and you’ll give strong consideration to being on a back-packing trip deep in the woods when the next census is done. Information is power, tremendous power. When the German “Police Battalions” moved in behind the army to “maintain order” they had lists of every Jew in the area. You couldn’t say you didn’t have any children because they knew from the census a few months or years before that you did have them. They had birth and death records, they knew who lived in which house in which town. And they were able to murder “vermin” by the millions because they had those lists.

For Kerr to say we should “redefine privacy” is an even more inflammatory statement to me than some gun grabbing politician saying they want all the guns turned in. Even if I don’t have my guns I have a chance of hiding my “Jews in the Attic“. But if I can’t buy them food or obtain medical care for them anonymously they are toast (sick pun intended).

I have yet to hear someone give me, despite my insistence they “put something on the table” to discuss, concrete examples of regulations they think would protect people from government abuse of such data. No one has ever done so. It’s always been, “those are details that need to be worked out”. I suspect Mr. Kerr is no different. In practical terms there are no regulations that will ever exist that would be adequate.

From a purely hypothetical view point I would be willing to compromise on a set of regulations that probably would be adequate but would violate several articles of the Bill of Rights and probably inspire new rights to be articulated in further amendments to our constitution. I’d explain here but you really don’t want to know how creative I am in defending this essential piece of liberty.

Hence, since there will be no practical regulations that will protect such data collections we must not allow such data to be gathered in the first place. And the data that is gathered must be of suspect quality. You and I, as liberty and freedom loving people, have a duty to withhold and corrupt as much of this data as we can. And Mr. Kerr should get a one-way ticket on a fence rail, naked, tarred, and feathered, to North Korea, Cuba, or some other police state. [See my follow up post.]

Update: I forgot to mention another important (because I was there and heard it with my own ears) example. While working for the government laboratory PNNL I had fellow “scientist” (he had a degree in computer science and was working in “cyber security” but was unable to write a computer program) Newton Brown tell another co-worker and I, “See this badge?  This means the law doesn’t apply to us.” That is the mindset of some of those in government. And for all practical purposes Newton is correct.

I wonder if this means anything

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The Seattle Times has an almost unbiased article on the Heller case and the U.S. Supreme Court. What’s really interesting to me is they didn’t get any comment from the local anti-gun organization Washington Ceasefire. I haven’t paid that much attention to local politics for several years but I remember several years ago when Washington Ceasefire had the local media eating out of their hand. It seemed like it was several times a month when the media would, essentially, print their news releases. And now with big news happening on the gun rights issue the local bigots are not to be heard. Their website shows no real activity since April of this year.

I looked at Ceasefire Foundation of Washington (non-profit branch of Washington Ceasefire) finances and updated my spreadsheet of anti-gun finances but didn’t learn a whole lot. Their pattern correlates closely with that of other anti-gun owner organizations. But it hasn’t, as of late 2005, gotten into what would appear to be a desperate situation.