The Jack-Booted Thug of the Week...

... is U.S. Department of Justice attorney Rachel Hranitzky, who apparently showed up at an announced public hearing at the New Iberia, Louisiana City Hall yesterday and immediately proceeded to tell a local reporter there to cover the event that she couldn't be recorded or quoted because, you know, she's more special than the other officials scheduled to speak there:

"She said the Department of Justice has very special rules about how their attorneys can be quoted."

Umm, no they don't, Ms. Hranitzky.  You and your colleagues have to play by the same "rules" as any other person, an important lesson your boss is going to learn the hard way sometime tomorrow.

Things seemingly got worse when the reporter inquired as to exactly what exception to the Constitution allowed her to impose such conditions on a meeting that anyone could walk in and attend:

"Hranitzky grew belligerent and threatening and said if the reporter didn’t follow her directive he would be asked to leave.

'Then (the Department of Justice) can call your editors and publisher at the paper, and trust you don’t want to get on the Department of Justice’s bad side,' Hranitzky said."

Ooh, how scary.  "Play ball or I unleash the Eye of Sauron upon thee."

Take your impotent and empty threats and cram them, ma'am.

(via Jay G.)

We have ways of making you talk

The Department of Justice is arguing that forcing a criminal suspect to give up the password to an encrypted hard drive does not constitute a violation of a person's Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.

"Prosecutors stressed that they don't actually require the passphrase itself, meaning [Ramona] Fricosu would be permitted to type it in and unlock the files without anyone looking over her shoulder."

Oh, come on.
 

Declan McCullagh of CNET makes a good point in his article - if investigators instead had found some sort of journal or diary written in code, would they then be justified in making the suspect provide a translation against his or her will?  Of course not, and if such a key was involuntarily obtained one would also never be sure that what the person provided was indeed accurate.  A mentally-held password should not be handled any differently.  For that matter, what if the defendant really did forget the phrase?  Should someone get jail time for sincerely having a poor memory?

We're not sticking up for the suspects in this particular case, but rather the next law-abiding person who is ordered to turn over their computer for a search (including demanding login details) despite a complete lack of evidence to justify such a fishing expedition, a practice that happens on a daily basis at customs checkpoints both here and abroad.  Here's how to protect your data and private information from such snoops.

Quote of the Day, Social Engineering Edition

Today's (paraphrased) insightful saying comes from a member of an email list to which we subscribe:

"Liberals divide human activities into *two* categories:
Mandatory and Forbidden."

How completely (and unfortunately) accurate that statement is these days.

Officially second-class journalists

The New Jersey Supreme Court has ruled that they do not consider bloggers to be "mainstream journalists", and because of that designation they don't meet the requirements for that state's shield law which protects the identities of confidential sources:

"New Jersey's highest court says online message boards are little more than forums for discussion and don't fit the definition of news media as described by the law."

We will merely point out to those justices that most of the major national stories of the past decade have been broken by bloggers, with the mainstream media either playing belated catch-up (the current "Project Gunwalker" scandal involving the ATF and the Justice Department) or even actively working to prevent the information from becoming public knowledge (Newsweek originally discovering and then spiking the Monica Lewinsky story).  We ourselves have broken important stories on many occasions which made use of confidential sources and will continue to do so despite this asinine decision, which only serves to unfairly benefit large media outlets.

Besides, we have never been informed as to the correct government office to supplicate ourselves in order to apply for our shiny "Authorized Journalist" badge so that we can be all official-like "news media" and get such privileges.  Whoever gave the government the power to decide who is or isn't a journalist, anyway?  Thomas Paine and Ben Franklin were one-man pamphleteers; under this arbitrary ruling they would no doubt be considered merely pests and ordered to immediately give up their anti-Crown sources on pain of imprisonment.

ALL sides want your civil liberties to disappear

Just some of the latest assaults on everyone's basic freedoms from the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government:


1.  Charles Kadlec of Forbes magazine reports that President Obama is apparently about to issue an executive order requiring any company (no matter what size) competing for a government contract, along with its senior officers (such as the owner if the firm is a sole proprietorship) and political action committee (if one exists), to generate a single report listing all contributions these parties may have made to political parties and candidates for the last two years.

"Similar disclosure requirements were in a bill that last year’s Democratic Senate was unwilling to pass. By signing the order, President Obama would override the democratic process and rule, instead, by decree."

Mr. Kadlec is quite correct when he opines that this kind of information in a single easily-accessible government database will almost certainly be misused by Dear Leader to arbitrarily deny contract awards to any firms who happened to contribute to his political opponents. 


2.  In other chilling Dear Leader news, his administration has filed a memo in a criminal case maintaining "the Classified Information Procedures Act (CIPA) gives judges the right to censor and withhold material that is 'unclassified'.'" 

Sorry, White House sycophants who are nominally all for "transparency".  Either material is classified or it isn't.  If the latter, common peasants (and especially criminal defendants, as in the case in which the memo was submitted) have every right to request and look at it.  We paid for it, after all.  The defendant's attorneys certainly agree:

"CIPA authorizes substitutions only for 'classified information,' not unclassified information."

Indeed, the CIPA makes no mention of "unclassified" materials being protected, nor does the word "unclassified" even appear in its text." 

Having something be that legally crystal clear doesn't mean the judiciary will pay the slightest bit of attention, as the next story shows us.


3.  The Indiana Supreme Court has overturned a cornerstone of American and English common law that has been in place as far back as 1215 by ruling that residents of that state have no right to resist an unlawful police entry into their home:

"In a 3-2 decision, Justice Steven David writing for the court said if a police officer wants to enter a home for any reason or no reason at all, a homeowner cannot do anything to block the officer's entry.

'We believe ... a right to resist an unlawful police entry into a home is against public policy and is incompatible with modern Fourth Amendment jurisprudence,' David said."

And hence the problem with viewing the Constitution as a "living, breathing document" that only means whatever those currently wearing the black robes thinks it means through their ideological prisms, rather than their strictly interpreting the plain text of the document.

We wonder what "modern" opinions Justice David holds on the other absolute liberties enshrined in the Bill of Rights such as freedom of speech and the right to a speedy trial, but fear those pronouncements would prove just as ludicrous. 


4.  We have just noticed that U.S. Senator John McCain (R-AZ) last year introduced S. 3081, legislation that would permit the President to imprison anyone, even U.S. citizens, without charge or trial indefinitely merely by designating those people "enemy belligerents".

This proposed law almost certainly would not pass judicial review on Fifth Amendment grounds (except if Indiana Supreme Court Justice Steven David were to rule on the issue, no doubt), but the fact that someone who was held captive without trial for five and a half years in an undeclared war would think this legislation is a good idea simply boggles the mind.

The Jack-Booted Thug(s) of the Week...

... are unfortunately too numerous this time around to name just one winner.

1.  A person was arrested at Denver International Airport on Saturday morning after "authorities" noticed he was videotaping the security lines. He was taken into custody "on suspicion of interfering with a transportation facility" along with three people in the security line.

We're not sure how openly photographing a security checkpoint counts as "interfering", especially when the TSA itself admits that doing so is perfectly legal and acceptable behavior.  Those cops had better have another, much better reason for arresting this person or they could find themselves in serious legal trouble.

Apparently the folks in line the person was filming didn't possess IDs or boarding passes.  That's certainly anomalous (but also not illegal) behavior but again, the cops wouldn't have found this out unless they wrongly detained the photographer in the first place, which will probably result in the suppression of any evidence of wrongdoing gained from their arrest (of which there have been no reports to date).

We certainly don't wish to be the victims of terrorist acts, but government officials have to follow the rules they themselves put into place or else we're no better than any other tin-pot Third World dictatorship. 


2.  17-year-old high-school student and anti-police corruption activist Robert Wanek was unlawfully arrested last Friday by "Officer" Dustin Hill of the Wahpeton, North Dakota Police Department for daring to film the cop on a public street as part of Wanek's independent investigation into alleged unwarranted raids taking place in the town.  Hill is ironically one of the officers accused of abusing his police powers, and in this incident he pretty much proves Wanek's allegations for him:



According to Wanek he was held in handcuffs and questioned by another officer for approximately one hour without being read his rights or his parents being notified (he is a minor after all), and upon his release was informed that he had been unlawfully detained solely because he "had pissed Dustin Hill off".  Apparently that's some sort of crime in that podunk burg. 

Wanek is asking all concerned individuals to call the Wahpeton Police Chief at 701-642-7722 to politely inquire whether an investigation into "Officer" Hill's clearly unlawful and bullying behavior has been opened, and if not why not.

(via CopBlock)   


3.  Chattanooga (Tennessee) Times Free Press reporter Kate Harrison last Thursday was interviewing volunteers cleaning up the damage from massive flooding in the area while also taking pictures when she was ordered by Hamilton County Sheriff Jim Hammond, Chattanooga Police Chief Bobby Dodd and Hamilton County Director of Emergency Services Don Allen (way too many chiefs there, it seems) to stop taking photographs, a clear violation of her Constitutional rights as both a private citizen and a working journalist covering a legitimate news story in public.

"Harrison also was commanded by emergency services spokeswoman Amy Maxwell not to publish any of the photographs she had taken, and later was threatened with arrest. (We published one of Harrison’s photos.)"

This wasn't the only run-in the paper's reporters had with overreaching officials that day, by the way:

"In a similar incident on the same day, another member of our news staff — photographer Allison Carter — was threatened with arrest by a Catoosa County deputy sheriff if she did not cease photographing tornado damage at a Food Lion shopping center, and if she did not delete the pictures she had taken from her camera."

These incidents are completely unacceptable behavior on the part of those public "servants", and we hope the paper pursues all legal remedies available to it to have those bullies severely punished for their attempt at official intimidation.

(Jack Lail via Unc)

That's gotta sting

Outstanding.  Simply brilliant.

We won't be silenced

We received our first anonymous death threat the other day, courtesy of a cowardly supporter of Dear Leader:

"I like our president. I used to like you for good commentary on firearms rights. You do understand firearms rights, but you understand nothing else. I hope that ALL conservatives get killed soon. I have tried to reason with you before, and you were even open to discussion once, but now you are a pure, utter, nasty, cruel liar for the wingnuts who want to destroy the Constitution and American freedom.

I live in MN. Stay in AZ. If I find that you have come back up here, watch out; I have firearms too, I know how to use them, and you will not see me coming."

This rant is par for the course for the sorts of leftist thugs and bullies who loudly professed a desire for "civility" and "reasoned discourse" in the wake of the Tucson tragedy, at least until one politely disagrees with their views as well as their idol's political agenda.  Then, as we see here, the gloves come off and their true tendencies in favor of censorship and intimidation once again bubble to the surface.

(By the way, thanks for ironically helping to make one of the anti-gun lobby's main arguments for them, numbnuts.)

This troll actually isn't as anonymous as he thinks he is.  An alert friend of ours who works in IT has traced the IP address of the commenter, and it appears that our would-be silencer is a Minnesota state government worker (no big surprise there).  Our attempt to further ID the person is ongoing.

We decided to do the responsible and prudent thing and report this matter to the Scottsdale Police Department, although we didn't think that action would do much good.  Sure enough, Officer Johnson of that agency informs us that Zippy's rantings don't rise to the level of a "direct threat" (although it certainly seems that way to us), happens to be just "Internet talk" and thus we are completely on our own unless further specific statements or actions are made. 

We do disagree with Officer Johnson's conclusion and will soon be escalating our criminal complaint to a higher pay grade at SPD, but in the meantime we are perfectly capable of self-protection and refuse to be cowed by this cheap threat.  This behavior in our experience is typical of most Obama supporters, as they are intellectually incapable of defending their hero's socialist policies and so must resort to these types of thuggish behaviors out of infantile frustration.

Bullies such as this Obamanoid clown are the reason we fight so hard for the right of everyone in America to be able to lawfully carry firearms for self-defense purposes.

A win for the Constitution

"Supreme Court: anti-gay funeral picketers allowed"

The right decision, of course.  Even homophobic jackasses enjoy the right of free speech in America.  First Amendment protections generally aren't needed for polite talk that everyone loves listening to.

Here's an idea - maybe some of the many people on whom this bully church enjoys picking should go picket them for a change.

Someone get him his blanky

U.S. Attorney General Eric "Neutral, leaning towards favorable" Holder got his panties in a bunch yesterday while being grilled by Congress as to just why his Justice Department saw fit to dismiss slam-dunk cases against the New Black Panthers who were found to have engaged in blatant voter intimidation on Election Day 2008 at a polling place in Philadelphia: 

"The Attorney General seemed to take personal offense at a comment [Texas Rep. John] Culberson read in which former Democratic activist Bartle Bull called the incident the most serious act of voter intimidation he had witnessed in his career.

'Think about that,' Holder said. 'When you compare what people endured in the South in the 60s to try to get the right to vote for African Americans, and to compare what people were subjected to there to what happened in Philadelphia—which was inappropriate, certainly that…to describe it in those terms I think does a great disservice to people who put their lives on the line, who risked all, for my people,' said Holder, who is black."  (emphasis ours)

Mr. Holder, to be perfectly frank, is an idiot.  Here's just some of the considerable civil-rights bonafides of Mr. Bull, the eyewitness (he was a poll watcher at that very precinct on the day in question) to the Panther incident and the man whose opinion our oh-so-competent A.G. so cavalierly pooh-poohs:

"Bartle Bull was born in 1940 and graduated Harvard College in 1963, attended Oxford 1963-1964, and graduated Harvard Law School in 1967. He was admitted to practice in New York in 1967. In the 1960s Bull worked for the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law seeking to enforce the Voting Rights Act of 1965 in Mississippi protecting both black voters and black political candidates from voter intimidation."

Mr. Bull put his life on the line as much as anyone else during that period to ensure the right of blacks to vote.  And the folks he spent years fighting for weren't even "his people", as Mr. Holder so elegantly puts it, as Bull happens to be white.  Yes, Mr. Holder, other racial groups besides blacks fought (and sometimes died) to advance the cause of civil rights in this country.  Maybe you should have paid more attention in history class.

In short, if Bartle Bull (a lifelong liberal Democrat, by the way) says he saw voter intimidation you can take it to the bank.  Yet all Holder can do is "take personal offense" when he's asked legitimate questions about why his department refused to connect with the hanging curveball of a default judgment against these petty thugs.

Well, no one cares about your precious self-esteem, Eric.  Do your job by enforcing the law fairly and without racial bias and you won't have to worry about sniveling in front of Congress about how your feelings are so hurt.

"Rep. Chaka Fattah, a Democrat from Philadelphia, said the Black Panthers 'should not have been there.' But he said the GOP was making too much out of a fleeting incident involving a couple of people."

We wonder if Mr. Fattah would be holding that same milquetoast opinion if those "couple of people" had been white and wearing hoods and sheets instead of being black and wearing paramilitary gear while brandishing nightsticks.

No, we imagine he wouldn't.

Petty payback seems to be an official policy over at the "Justice" Department

It sure looks like Eric Holder's Justice Department is blatantly harassing New York Times reporter James Risen by going all Big Brother on the journalist in retaliation for not revealing his sources for a legitimate news story:

"Federal investigators trying to find out who leaked information about a CIA attempt to disrupt Iran's nuclear program obtained a New York Times reporter’s three private credit reports, examined his personal bank records and obtained information about his phone calls and travel, according to a new court filing."

Risen is not suspected of any criminal wrongdoing, by the way.  So why all the apparently unlawful digging into his personal life?  Well, it appears the Feds are simply just mad at Risen for not telling them what they want to hear, which is that a former CIA worker named Jeffrey Sterling leaked to Risen the material in question.  Sterling has been indicted, but that didn't happen until Risen had successfully quashed several subpoenas seeking to compel him to reveal his sources, which sure makes the criminal charge against Sterling look suspiciously like just one more pressure tactic to convince Risen to give up the goods.

Under current Justice policy the Attorney General must personally approve all third-party subpoenas connected to journalists and their stories.  Risen and his lawyers have repeatedly asked if the rules were followed in his case but have not received an answer to date, according to the story.

Naturally.

We don't need no stinkin' laws

The Federal Bureau of Investigation, frustrated at their inability to execute wiretaps on communications not covered by current laws ("web-based e-mail, social-networking and peer-to-peer services"), is apparently going to "lean" on such online companies, Mob-like, to build in a few special little back doors for the Feds to use in whatever extra-legal fashion they wish:

"But [FBI General Counsel Valerie] Caproni told lawmakers she was not asking for expanded CALEA [Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act] powers. And she stopped short of calling for rules requiring Web-based communication providers to build in so-called back doors allowing law enforcement access to their software, although she said she's optimistic the US government can find incentives for companies to 'have intercept solutions engineered into their systems.'" (emphasis ours)

It will be interesting to learn what sort of "incentives" will be offered to companies who are asked to provide the type of access that Ms. Caproni doesn't want to bother codifying into law.  Maybe something along the lines of "Play ball with us and we won't unlawfully seize your Internet domain and then go on to defame your company by falsely accusing you of harboring child porn", perhaps?

The e-list member who turned us on to this article has a well-placed friend who summed up the situation quite nicely:

"Laws have boundaries and oversight. Incentives don't."

True, which is most likely why Ms. Caproni doesn't appear to be in a rush to request a legislative-based solution to the department's expressed dilemma.

This issue might be something to keep in mind when evaluating your future online software solutions.

The Jack-Booted Thug(s) of the Week...

... are the Wildwood, New Jersey police officers who not only ticketed a man on the boardwalk there for wearing a T-shirt with the word "fuck" on it (crude and offensive to be sure, but which is in fact protected speech; see Cohen v. California, 403 U.S. 15 [1971]) but also assaulted his companion and threatened him with arrest (along with willful destruction of his camera) for filming this farce from a respectful and non-interfering distance:



Too bad the photographer didn't stand his ground more aggressively and refuse to quit filming no matter what kind of illegal badgering he was subjected to from those wrongheaded "authorities", but we've been in that same situation and understand how nerve-racking it really is to stand up to this kind of official bullying.  He actually made it a lot longer than most people would have lasted.

It certainly appears that these cops need some serious refresher training in just what is Constitutionally-protected speech and activities (and thus perfectly legal to do) in this country.