Big Brother's Noose Tightens: Part 1

[Chris]

Big Brother's Noose Tightens: Part 1

Big Brother's Noose Tightens: Part 1
By Terry James

It is always with reticence that I write about government intrusion into our lives. This is because so much wild-eyed speculation is thrown around in cyberspace that one must be alert to what is and is not true in this incendiary area of concern. We get an endless parade of alerts that FEMA camps are almost ready to begin herding Christians, in particular, into the American version of Nazi-style concentration camps. The reports never cease of things such as the claim that gigantic, coffin-like containers are stacked and ready for mass burials at such a time when citizen resistance will be met with deadly force to put down rioting throughout the homeland.

The very term "homeland security" evokes thoughts of 1930s Germany and the rise to power of Adolf Hitler and his genocidal Nazi maniacs. Janet Napolitano, Homeland Security director, is referred to caustically in some circles as "Big Sis," a takeoff on George Orwell's sinister symbol of tyranny, Big Brother. It is a matter concerning which she is said to recently have expressed her considerable irritation.

No matter how one chooses to frame in words the growing hold the federal government progressively exerts on our lives, it is essential that we look seriously at the problem while there remains freedom to do so. I dislike triteness, but the trite is true in this case. Where there is smoke there is fire. There is a lot of smoke clouding our future with regard to whether Americans will remain a free people.

The most immediate news that sparked this writing is the report so close to the doings of Hitler's rise to power as to be chilling. At the same time, the news item seems so low key at first glance as to be innocuous. But, after that first glance, it becomes so blatant that even the strangest of bedfellows are joined in resistance to the intrusion.

Children in the Long Island, New York area have been strapped with monitors to keep a running check on their health. The program is the results of the school administrators' desire to know about the condition of the kids' problems with obesity. The action was apparently taken without the parents' knowledge in many cases.

Reports are that this will soon become a full-scale program to monitor the children's physical activities around the clock. The devices are like wristwatches, and count heartbeats, monitor body movement during daily activities, and even measure sleep habits, according to the story. It is all an attempt to get a handle on what the powers that be consider a growing obesity problem, according to those doing the monitoring.

The information is displayed on a color-coded screen and gets transmitted to a password-protected Web site that students and educators can access…

The monitors are distributed by Polar Electro, of Lake Success, LI, the US division of a Finland firm. (Mary Kay Linge, "Monitors Raise Privacy Fear," NYPOST.com, 1/15/12).

The devices have been put on children in public school systems around the U.S. on a limited basis thus far, without the knowledge of many of the parents whose children are involved. This is apparently being done on a test basis, with the intention of making it a part of monitoring health of students, thus to assess possible future health risks. Considering the government-controlled health system voted in before 2010 by Congress and signed by President Obama, we can only imagine where use of this kind of information might lead.

The matter is of sufficient concern that even an entity traditionally sycophantic toward any liberal government program is expressing concern. Jay Stanley, of the American Civil Liberties Union, said, "When you get into monitoring people's biological vital signs, that's a pretty intrusive measurement. There are key privacy interests at play." Stanley said that at the very least, parents must have a say in how long the data will be stored and who will have access to it and schools must obtain parents' consent. "A program like this should only be voluntary. Nobody should be forced to reveal biological indicators," Stanley added.

The Hitler "Youth Corps" comes to mind when thinking on this and other of today's government power grabs to control the structure of the American family and the day-to-day rearing of our children.

When Congress–and the president—decided in 1963 to try to kick God out of the American public school system, a flood of insanity gushed in to fill the void. It hasn't stopped gushing. We have reared generations of children who are becoming ever farther alienated from the family model the God of Heaven instituted. Government has become the keeper of our children. The results are not greater freedom, but an ever-more restrictive way of life in what was once called "the land of the free." Big Brother's noose of enslavement, like that Hitler perpetrated those many decades ago, might be on America's horizon.

Next, we will look at how other signals of impending government control are threatening the American way of life.

The cure for what ails this, or any nation, of course, is found in the most notable of scriptural prescriptions found in God's Holy Word. It is an Rx that speaks directly to all born-again children of God today–the Church.

"If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land." (2 Chronicles 7:14).

Terry

[Kenny64]

Chris and Matt54, This is a very true and valid post. The noose tightens slowly so people are deceived, "Oh, It doesn't hurt much".

[paul&katie]

Homeland Security Is Reading and Recording Every Keystroke

Homeland Security Is Reading and Recording Every Keystroke

With so many of our most essential liberties under attack from the oligarchy on the Potomac, it is little wonder that the freedom of the press and speech are next on the government guillotine.

The Department of Homeland Security’s National Operations Center (NOC) released its Publicly Available Social Media Monitoring and Situational Awareness Initiative last year and in that report the intelligence-gathering arm of the DHS, the Office of Operations Coordination and Planning (OPS) gives itself permission to “gather, store, analyze, and disseminate” data on millions of users of social media (Twitter, Facebook, YouTube) and business networking sites (Linkedin).

Specifically, the Initiative sets out the plan and purpose behind the DHS’s collection of personal information from news anchors, journalists, reporters, or anyone else who posts articles, comments, or other information to many popular web outlets. The report defines the target audience as anyone who may use “traditional and/or social media in real time to keep their audience situationally aware and informed.”

Journalists and bloggers need not worry, however. DHS promises that it will not routinely gather and use Personally Identifiable Information (PII). From the abstract of the Initiative:

While this Initiative is not designed to actively collect Personally Identifiable Information (PII), OPS is conducting this update to the Privacy Impact Assessment (PIA) because this initiative may now collect and disseminate PII for certain narrowly tailored categories. For example, in the event of an in extremis situation involving potential life and death, OPS will share certain PII with the responding authority in order for them to take the necessary actions to save a life, such as name and location of a person calling for help buried under rubble, or hiding in a hotel room when the hotel is under attack by terrorists.

In other words, the government promises that all the personal electronic data that it monitors and records will only be used in “narrowly tailored” circumstances, saving a life, for example. There is no requirement that the data be used only in those instances, but there is a promise that it will be.

This unconstitutional, unwarranted search of private information is designed by DHS “to provide situational awareness and establish a common operating picture” of target audiences.

A story in the New York Times reports on the specific sites that show up on the DHS radar:

Homeland Security seems to have a real affinity for Twitter. It advises its employees to follow not only Twitter itself but also Twitter search sites like Monitter, Tweetzi and Tweefind and more than 10 Twitter trend sites like TweetStats and Trendistic.

It monitors Facebook and, while it also recommends monitoring MySpace, it notes the once-popular social network has “limited search” capabilities. Homeland Security employees also monitor video sites like YouTube, Vimeo and Hulu — “situational awareness” apparently entails full episodes of “The Bachelor.”

Among the blogs the department follows: Wired’s Threat Level and Danger Room, Krebs on Security and, at The New York Times, The Lede blog. The list also includes more controversial sites like JihadWatch, Wikileaks and “Narcotráfico en México.”

Prior to this new initiative, operative guidelines instructed NOC to collect data only “under authorization set forth by the written code,” whereas these new provisions permit agents of the NOC to track the online movements and postings of every level of writer or commentator from Brian Williams to nearly anonymous bloggers.

Writers aren’t the only group to be watched by the never-blinking eye of Homeland Security. According to the report, the following individuals may also be spied on and have their “usernames and passwords” recorded for future reference:

1) U.S. and foreign individuals in extremis situations involving potential life or death circumstances; 2) senior U.S. and foreign government officials who make public statements or provide public updates; 3) U.S. and foreign government spokespersons who make public statements or provide public updates; 4) U.S. and foreign private sector officials and spokespersons who make public statements or provide public updates; 5) names of anchors, newscasters, or on-scene reporters who are known or identified as reporters in their post or article or who use traditional and/or social media in real time to keep their audience situationally aware and informed; 6) current and former public officials who are victims of incidents or activities related to Homeland Security; and 7) terrorists, drug cartel leaders or other persons known to have been involved in major crimes of Homeland Security interest, (e.g., mass shooters such as those at Virginia Tech or Ft. Hood) who are killed or found dead.

How many people might be shoe-horned into one of those categories if the federal government decided it wanted to put them under online surveillance?

An article published by RT.com asked a very relevant question: "Why [is] the government ... going out of their way to spend time, money and resources on watching over those that helped bring news to the masses?"

The specific procedure followed by NOC agents is described in the initiative, as well:

To monitor social media, NOC Media Monitoring analysts only use publicly available search engines, content aggregators, and site-specific search tools to find items of potential interest to DHS. Once the analysts determine an item or event is of sufficient value to DHS to be reported, they extract only the pertinent, authorized information and put it into a specific web application (MMC application) to build and format their reports.

Once the raw data is collected and collated and a picture of the person’s behavior is compiled, DHS will “disseminate relevant and appropriate information to federal, state, local, and foreign governments, and private sector partners.”

The piece in RT.com reports some of the partners to have availed themselves of the critical online information secretly amassed by the DHS.

The development out of the DHS comes at the same time that U.S. District Judge Liam O’Grady denied pleas from supporters of WikiLeaks who had tried to prevent account information pertaining to their Twitter accounts from being provided to federal prosecutors. Jacob Applebaum and others advocates of Julian Assange’s whistleblower site were fighting to keep the government from subpoenaing information on their personal accounts that were collected from Twitter.

Last month the Boston Police Department and the Suffolk Massachusetts District Attorney subpoenaed Twitter over details pertaining to recent tweets involving the Occupy Boston protests.

Fast Company reports that in addition to federal, state, and local government agencies, DHS is sharing with “international partners” the information gathered under the new guidelines.

Nowhere in the 23-page document does the DHS make clear what it takes to make an “item or event” of “sufficient value,” and that’s how the government wants to keep it. What the report does make very clear, however, is that every keystroke, whether it be Google searches or Facebook status updates, will be recorded and cataloged by DHS snoops who will then rifle through it and see if there is anything that might someday be useful in compiling a profile of activity of a target individual. Then, that profile may reveal activities, interests, or posts that can be presented to another nameless bureaucrat who can authorize a more thorough investigation into that person’s private life.

Another gap in the report on this initiative is precisely what means were employed by the federal government to bypass the Fourth Amendment's guarantee of "the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures."

The official responsible for implementing the directives contained in the “Publicly Available Social Media Monitoring and Situational Awareness Initiative Update” is the Acting Director of the National Operations Center Office of Operations Coordination and Planning, Donald Triner. His phone number is (202) 282-8611.

[YeuEmMaiMai]

Been pointing this out since long before I joined the forums..... WWII Hitler is going to look like child's play compared to what is coming..... anyone remember carnivore?

[readyforhome]

No one seems to be all that concerned about the ramifications of this. We may wake up soon and have no rights at all. I don't want this to happen, but it seems like it is almost inevitable. God help us all.

[Kenny64]

In the last 3 years the noose has tighten ever so much, but American's in general
are very appathetic towards this apostacy.

Luke 21:36 is my prayer.

Along with Philippians 4:6-7

[Lujack Skylark]

Big Brother's Noose Tightens: Part 1

Big Brother's Noose Tightens: Part 1
By Terry James

It is always with reticence that I write about government intrusion into our lives. This is because so much wild-eyed speculation is thrown around in cyberspace that one must be alert to what is and is not true in this incendiary area of concern. We get an endless parade of alerts that FEMA camps are almost ready to begin herding Christians, in particular, into the American version of Nazi-style concentration camps. The reports never cease of things such as the claim that gigantic, coffin-like containers are stacked and ready for mass burials at such a time when citizen resistance will be met with deadly force to put down rioting throughout the homeland.

The very term "homeland security" evokes thoughts of 1930s Germany and the rise to power of Adolf Hitler and his genocidal Nazi maniacs. Janet Napolitano, Homeland Security director, is referred to caustically in some circles as "Big Sis," a takeoff on George Orwell's sinister symbol of tyranny, Big Brother. It is a matter concerning which she is said to recently have expressed her considerable irritation.

No matter how one chooses to frame in words the growing hold the federal government progressively exerts on our lives, it is essential that we look seriously at the problem while there remains freedom to do so. I dislike triteness, but the trite is true in this case. Where there is smoke there is fire. There is a lot of smoke clouding our future with regard to whether Americans will remain a free people.

The most immediate news that sparked this writing is the report so close to the doings of Hitler's rise to power as to be chilling. At the same time, the news item seems so low key at first glance as to be innocuous. But, after that first glance, it becomes so blatant that even the strangest of bedfellows are joined in resistance to the intrusion.

Children in the Long Island, New York area have been strapped with monitors to keep a running check on their health. The program is the results of the school administrators' desire to know about the condition of the kids' problems with obesity. The action was apparently taken without the parents' knowledge in many cases.

Reports are that this will soon become a full-scale program to monitor the children's physical activities around the clock. The devices are like wristwatches, and count heartbeats, monitor body movement during daily activities, and even measure sleep habits, according to the story. It is all an attempt to get a handle on what the powers that be consider a growing obesity problem, according to those doing the monitoring.

The information is displayed on a color-coded screen and gets transmitted to a password-protected Web site that students and educators can access…

The monitors are distributed by Polar Electro, of Lake Success, LI, the US division of a Finland firm. (Mary Kay Linge, "Monitors Raise Privacy Fear," NYPOST.com, 1/15/12).

The devices have been put on children in public school systems around the U.S. on a limited basis thus far, without the knowledge of many of the parents whose children are involved. This is apparently being done on a test basis, with the intention of making it a part of monitoring health of students, thus to assess possible future health risks. Considering the government-controlled health system voted in before 2010 by Congress and signed by President Obama, we can only imagine where use of this kind of information might lead.

The matter is of sufficient concern that even an entity traditionally sycophantic toward any liberal government program is expressing concern. Jay Stanley, of the American Civil Liberties Union, said, "When you get into monitoring people's biological vital signs, that's a pretty intrusive measurement. There are key privacy interests at play." Stanley said that at the very least, parents must have a say in how long the data will be stored and who will have access to it and schools must obtain parents' consent. "A program like this should only be voluntary. Nobody should be forced to reveal biological indicators," Stanley added.

The Hitler "Youth Corps" comes to mind when thinking on this and other of today's government power grabs to control the structure of the American family and the day-to-day rearing of our children.

When Congress–and the president—decided in 1963 to try to kick God out of the American public school system, a flood of insanity gushed in to fill the void. It hasn't stopped gushing. We have reared generations of children who are becoming ever farther alienated from the family model the God of Heaven instituted. Government has become the keeper of our children. The results are not greater freedom, but an ever-more restrictive way of life in what was once called "the land of the free." Big Brother's noose of enslavement, like that Hitler perpetrated those many decades ago, might be on America's horizon.

Next, we will look at how other signals of impending government control are threatening the American way of life.

The cure for what ails this, or any nation, of course, is found in the most notable of scriptural prescriptions found in God's Holy Word. It is an Rx that speaks directly to all born-again children of God today–the Church.

"If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land." (2 Chronicles 7:14).

Terry

Talk about Big Brother. Lt. Gen. (Ret) W.G. Boykin on "Marxism in America" which is obtained on Google You Tube pretty much outlines the Marxist course Obama is taking our nation.