FOURTH TURNING ACCELERATING

“In retrospect, the spark might seem as ominous as a financial crash, as ordinary as a national election, or as trivial as a Tea Party. The catalyst will unfold according to a basic Crisis dynamic that underlies all of these scenarios: An initial spark will trigger a chain reaction of unyielding responses and further emergencies. The core elements of these scenarios (debt, civic decay, global disorder) will matter more than the details, which the catalyst will juxtapose and connect in some unknowable way. If foreign societies are also entering a Fourth Turning, this could accelerate the chain reaction. At home and abroad, these events will reflect the tearing of the civic fabric at points of extreme vulnerability –problem areas where America will have neglected, denied, or delayed needed action.” – The Fourth Turning – Strauss & Howe – 1997

This past week saw an event revealing the cluelessness and ignorance of the linear thinking establishment. They are oblivious to the cyclicality of history and unaware of their precarious situation, as the mood of the country and the world portends their demise. Eric Cantor, the ultimate establishment neo-con Republican House Majority Leader, was crushed in a primary by a completely unknown economics professor, outspent by Cantor $4.9 million to $123,000. Cantor spent more at steakhouses than David Brat spent on his entire campaign. Cantor, a lackey for Blackstone, Goldman Sachs, Israel, and dozens of other mega-corporations, was the first House Majority leader defeated in a primary since the position was created in the 1890s. He won his last primary by 60%.

This was as big a shock to the Republican establishment as it was to the Democratic establishment, the mainstream corporate media establishment, and the Tea Party establishment that didn’t provide David Brat one red cent of their vast horde of contributions. They are now scrambling to generate a storyline explaining this unexplainable development as if it was entirely predictable. These wealthy, myopic, propaganda peddling, purveyors of the status quo just felt the foundation of their world shudder beneath them. Like a volcano, with pressure building within, the world as we know it is about to blow. Who gets devastated by the massive explosion and flow of molten lava is yet to be determined, but there is nothing the establishment can do to stop the eruption. This entire Deep State hierarchy has been developed over decades, as they have flawlessly implemented Edward Bernays teachings from the Propaganda playbook.

“The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. …We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society. …In almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons…who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind.” – Edward Bernays – Propaganda – 1928

The linear thinkers, who constitute the invisible government and unelected true ruling power, are flabbergasted their game plan, which has worked for the last seven decades, is failing to have the usual sway over the normally compliant masses. Lies, misinformation, deception, propaganda, easy debt, cheap oil, endless commercial expansion, relentless marketing, never ending war, politicians selected by bankers and mega-corporations, tax code created to benefit the .01%, and laws written by the lobbyists for the oligarchs designed to control the plebs and enrich the modern aristocracy, made the world go round until 2008. Linear thinkers in government, business, banking and media have been perpetuating the falsehood of a return to normalcy, recovery, and linear progress. They are willfully ignorant of history because acknowledging its cyclicality would be admitting how precarious their positions of power, wealth, and control truly are.

History does not proceed in a straight line of forward advancement. It has a seasonal nature geared to the 80 year life cycle of human beings. The most basic lesson of history is we never seem to learn the lessons of history. A period of Crisis arrives like Winter, approximately 60 years after the resolution of the prior Crisis, with a climax occurring approximately 80 years after the prior Crisis climax. The generational dynamics based upon human life cycles have lined up once again into Crisis mode. Anyone who hasn’t sensed the mood change in the country since 2008, hasn’t been paying attention. The linear thinking establishment refuses to accept the inevitability of their existing paradigm collapsing in a chaotic whirlwind of violence, death on a grand scale and decisive war. The existing social order is always swept away during a Fourth Turning.

Saeculum (climax year) Crisis (Full Era) Time from one Crisis climax to next Crisis climax
Revolutionary (1781) American Revolution(1773–1794)
Civil War (1863) Civil War(1860–1865) 82 years
Great Power (1944) Great Depressionand World War II(1929-1946) 81 years
Millennial (2025?) Global Financial Crisis(2008–2029?) 81 years?

The Global Financial Crisis, which began in September 2008, marked the beginning of a likely two decade long episode of fierce winter-like blizzard conditions that will get progressively worse as this Fourth Turning churns toward its bloody climax. The evil wealthy men and their paid off pawns in politics and the media who constitute the invisible government, governing behind the scenes, molding minds, forming tastes and suggesting ideas to the gullible masses, will not relinquish their wealth and power without a fight. They have been utilizing all emergency monetary and fiscal levers, while conducting a data disinformation campaign and utilizing their control of the dying legacy media to keep the masses distracted, entertained and confused.

The establishment has convinced a vast swath of the public to actually believe 0% interest rates for the last 5 years, adding $1 trillion per year to the already Himalayan national debt, allowing the Federal Reserve buy $3 trillion of toxic debt from their Wall Street banking cabal owners, while creating a high rate of inflation in energy, food, healthcare and tuition costs, and negative growth in real wages, is somehow beneficial to them and reflects a return to normalcy. The current state of our economic, financial, political and judicial systems, along with the fraying social fabric of society reflects EXTREME dysfunction and in no way exhibits anything resembling a normal state of affairs. The government apparatchiks, corporate media talking heads, Wall Street captured economists, and lackeys for billionaire oligarchs are highly paid liars using every Bernaysian trick to manipulate the beliefs, desires, and prejudices of the willfully ignorant masses. They capitalize on the cognitive dissonance and normalcy bias being practiced by the majority of people in the country. Like a dog chasing its tail, they have the public up in arms about meaningless social issues and ignoring the looting of the country by sociopathic bankers.

Those in power need to sell their storyline of advancement, despite the overwhelming evidence of a societal implosion and economic regression for the 99.99%. They need to distract the masses with inconsequential emotional issues like gay marriage, mass murderers, climate change, party politics, racism, and phantom terror threats, so the masses don’t focus on how badly they are being screwed by the One Party invisible government. For those who have been too dumbed down by our government public education system to even comprehend anything beyond a third grade level, we have The Kardashians, Bridezilla, Duck Dynasty, I Didn’t Know I Was Pregnant, iGadgets, Twitter, Facebook, professional sports, Hollywood blockbusters, and toxic fast food paid for with your EBT card. Our world is besieged by triviality, plagued by idiocy, inundated with propaganda, and consumed with consumption.

In a country of 318 million people, the few believe they must mold the minds of the masses in order for society to function smoothly. Of course this is a huge lie. They need to mold those minds in order to retain their power, wealth, control. They are focused on the daily dose of lies, mistruths, disinformation, and distractions required to keep the masses anesthetized. They have ignored the lessons of history and the big picture driving the Crisis events which will change the world over the next fifteen years. Fourth Turnings don’t calm down, fizzle out, or revert to what happened in the prior twenty years, just as the unyielding harsh Winter cannot revert to the glorious days of Fall or the sweltering days of Summer. There is no escaping the dire, deadly and dangerous times directly ahead of us.

“Reflect on what happens when a terrible winter blizzard strikes. You hear the weather warning but probably fail to act on it. The sky darkens. Then the storm hits with full fury, and the air is a howling whiteness. One by one, your links to the machine age break down. Electricity flickers out, cutting off the TV. Batteries fade, cutting off the radio. Phones go dead. Roads become impossible, and cars get stuck. Food supplies dwindle. Day to day vestiges of modern civilization – bank machines, mutual funds, mass retailers, computers, satellites, airplanes, governments – all recede into irrelevance. Picture yourself and your loved ones in the midst of a howling blizzard that lasts several years. Think about what you would need, who could help you, and why your fate might matter to anybody other than yourself. That is how to plan for a saecular winter. Don’t think you can escape the Fourth Turning. History warns that a Crisis will reshape the basic social and economic environment that you now take for granted.” – Strauss & Howe The Fourth Turning

Strauss and Howe wrote their epic historical treatise in 1997 and their predictions, based upon centuries of generational analysis, have been uncannily accurate. The predictions are not event based, but based upon generational mood and core elements of Crisis, which were predictable over a decade before the 2008 start to this Crisis. The core elements of Debt, Civic Decay, and Global Disorder were evident to anyone with a functioning critical thinking brain, not in the employ of the establishment. These core elements are front and center today, as the Fourth Turning gains momentum like a gathering winter storm. The captured mainstream media does their utmost to obscure, downplay, and ignore these issues, but alternative truth telling websites like Zero Hedge, Mike Krieger’s Liberty Blitzkrieg, Mike Shedlock, John Rubino’s Dollar Collapse, Jim Kunstler, John Hussman, Jesse’s Cafe Americain, Charles Hugh Smith, Karl Denninger, and number of other freedom minded websites keep the spark of truth alive for those seeking it. A perusal of headlines from these sites over the last week or so provides the true nature of this worsening Fourth Turning Crisis:

Debt

Mindblowing Fact Of The Day: China Has Over 52 Million Vacant Homes

The Subprime Auto-Lending Credit Bubble Is Bursting

China HSBC PMI Misses; Economy Contracts For 5th Month In A Row

Will Spain Default?

Fed Prepares to Maintain Record Balance Sheet for Years

Steve Forbes Warns Of Economic “Catastrophe” Due To Fed’s Dollar Debasement

Obama Unveils Student Loan Debt Bubble Bailout

America’s Insatiable Demand For More Expensive Cars, Larger Homes And Bigger Debts

China Scrambling After “Discovering” Thousands Of Tons Of Rehypothecated Copper, Aluminum Missing

Western Banks Scramble As China’s “Rehypothecation Evaporation” Goes Global

Consumer Credit Has Fifth Biggest Monthly Jump In History; Revolving Credit Soars By Most Since November 2007

Abenomics’ Legacy: Japan’s Greatest “Misery” In 33 Years

NIRP Has Arrived: Europe Officially Enters The “Monetary Twilight Zone”

EU Warns Greece Is “A Cause Of Serious Concern” As Top Tax-Collector Resigns

Why Central Bank Stimulus Cannot Bring Economic Recovery

Summer Gas Prices Highest Since 2011 As Oil Hits 9-Month Highs

It Was A Reeeeeally Bad Winter: JPM Cuts Q1 GDP From -1.1% To -1.6%

How The Fed Feeds The Sharks, While Shafting Wage Earners And Savers

Fed’s Bubble Finance Is Primary Cause of Massive Wealth Gains At The Top

Former ECB Chief Economist Says Central Bank Run Monetary System Is “Pure Fiction”

More On The China Property Bubble: April New Housing Starts Down 25%; Beijing/Shanghai Sales Down 50%

What Happens After The Bubble Bursts: 85% Of Pension Funds Could Fail Due To An Era Of Niggardly Returns

Civic Decay

Across America, Police Departments Are Quietly Preparing For War

Meet The “Minerva Research Initiative” – The Pentagon’s Preparation For “Mass Civil Breakdown”

The Obama Administration Is Forcing Local Cops To Stay Silent On Surveillance

In 33 U.S. Cities, Feeding The Homeless Has Been Criminalized

Obama Popularity Plunges To New Low: “No Longer Likeable Enough”

Historic Loss: House Majority Leader Cantor Loses Virginia Primary To Tea Party’s Brat

Suspect Yells “Tell The Police, The Revolution Has Started” Before Shooting Spree In Las Vegas WalMart

Two Thirds Of Gen X Households Have Less Wealth Than Their Parents Did At The Same Age

7 In 10 Americans Believe The Crisis Is Not Over Or Worst Is Yet To Come: 52% Can’t Afford Their Homes

1 In 4 Obamacare Signups Are Faulty – But, We Are Sure Obama Never Knew Anything About It Until Now

Fed Warns The Plunge In “Routine” Jobs Won’t Slow Down Anytime Soon

US Finally Recovers All Jobs Lost Since 2007 While People Not In Labor Force Increase By 12.8 Million

Two-Thirds Of Americans Do Not Back Obama’s Decision On Bergdahl

Hiring In The US Remains Far Below Pre-Recession Levels

Half The Country Makes Less Than $27,520 A Year And 15 Other Signs The Middle Class Is Dying

The Rich Get Richest: Household Net Worth Rises To All Time High Courtesy Of $67 Trillion In Financial Assets

Challenger Job Cuts Soar 45%; Most Layoffs Since Feb 2013

It’s Not Just Europe; As Many As 16 California Counties May Seek Secession From The State

America’s Insanely Complex And Endemically Corrupt Tax Code: Mother Lode Of Crony Capitalist Plunder

Global Disorder

Al-Qaeda Jihadis Loot Over $400 Million From Mosul Central Bank, Seize Saddam’s Hometown

Al Qaeda Militants Capture US Black Hawk Helicopters In Iraq

Iraq Update: Kurds Take Kirkuk, Al Qaeda Surges Toward Baghdad

“Well-Armed” Taliban Tried To Hijack Airplane Leading To Pakistan Airport Shootout

Gruesome Footage Of ISIS Atrocities Reveals Al Qaeda Jihadists “Will Stop At Nothing”

Ukraine Military Transport Plane Shot Down, 49 Killed

Marc Faber Blasts “American Military Presence In Asia Is Completely Unacceptable”

B-1 Stealth Bomber “Friendly Fire” Strike Kills 5 US Soldiers In Afghanistan

World Needs Record Saudi Oil Supply as OPEC Convenes

Déjà vu: echoes of pre-crisis world mount

Chinese military spending exceeds $145 billion, drones advanced: U.S.

Ukraine Closes 8 Border Crossings On Reports Of Russian Troop Movement

Firefight Underway As Russian “Rebels” Cross Border Into Ukraine

US Begins Delivering F-16s To Iraq This Week, A Decade After It Wiped Out Iraq’s Air Force

Two Ukraine Helicopters Shot Down: Watch As Gunship Engages Eastern Militia In Intense Fighting

Saudi Arabia Reveals Surge In MERS Deaths: One Third Of Infected Patients Die

Japan Base Wages Decline 23 Months In A Row

Obama Calls for $1 Billion Europe Security Fund; Will Increase U.S. Military Presence in Eastern Europe

China Sends 4 More Fighter Jets To Oil Rig Area As Vietnam Threatens Legal Action

“Political Earthquake” – Nigel Farage “Big Winner” In Local Elections

Do these headlines indicate a lessening or deepening of the ongoing Crisis? You won’t see these truthful headlines in the mainstream captured media. You will see feel good headlines touting non-existent economic recoveries, decreasing unemployment rates with record levels of non-working Americans, and storylines of government, corporate and consumer austerity as debt levels reach all-time highs. You will see stories scorning Edward Snowden as a traitor for exposing the highest levels of the United States government as criminals for shredding the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. You will see articles hyping one hundred years of shale oil and gas as energy prices approach record highs and the point of peak cheap oil has been passed. You will see publications owned by billionaires peddling hogwash about fantastic Wall Street profits entirely dependent upon mark to fantasy accounting and accounting journal entries relieving loan loss reserves as loan losses rise. You will see hyperbolic fear mongering dreck about foiled terrorist plots concocted by the FBI and DHS. You will see stories about the evil Russians and evil Chinese as our CIA promotes the overthrow of democratically elected officials in countries around the globe. You will see stories about the dangers of foreign countries conducting cyber-warfare against the U.S. as our government intercepts every electronic communication of our allies and citizens. It’s as if we are lost in a blizzard of lies.

Debt, Civic Decay, Global Disorder

Propaganda and the molding of minds cannot change the course of history. Those in power can ignore the facts, but they can’t change the facts. During the “austere” period from 2009 through until today, total credit market debt in the U.S. has expanded from $53.4 trillion to $59.4 trillion. It now stands at 350% of GDP, even after the government added $500 billion out of thin air to GDP to further their deception of recovery. The U.S. national debt is at a record $17.5 trillion and goes up by $2.0 billion per day. This doesn’t include the $200 trillion of unfunded liabilities politicians have committed taxpayers to pay over the next few decades. Corporate debt is at record highs as CEO’s borrow to buy back their stock at record highs in order to boost EPS and drive their compensation higher.

US total debt 2014

Consumer debt has surged to new highs reaching $3.2 trillion, as government pushed subprime student loan debt and government peddled subprime auto loan lure more math challenged dupes into the banker web of debt. Even credit card debt surged in May as people can no longer make monthly payments for energy, food, rent, and healthcare. Retailers continue to report horrific profits as disposable income has been disposed of by the Federal Reserve’s QE and ZIRP “solutions”. The immense levels of debt plague the entire world as total global debt now surpasses $230 trillion, 313% of world GDP. The 40% surge in global debt since the 2008 debt created collapse is unprecedented in its scope and lunacy. Trying to resolve a debt problem created by criminal Wall Street bankers by allowing Wall Street controlled central bankers, politicians, and government bureaucrats to issue more debt, reduce interest rates to zero, and enrich the oligarchs, will end in catastrophe. The house of cards is teetering as trust dissipates, rehypothecated assets evaporate, the suppression of price discovery fails and the rigged stock market crashes for the third time in fourteen years.

The 2008 global financial crash was the catalyst for this Fourth Turning and the next leg down will unleash the fury of the masses as their remaining wealth, along with their hopes and dreams are obliterated. The civic decay is unmistakably visible, like a fissure in the road after an earthquake, and has left the masses angry, confused, dependent, ignorant, distracted, and suspicious. The extreme and growing wealth inequality driven by Federal Reserve policies, corporate lobbyist written government regulations and tax laws, and bankers controlling the political, economic, financial, and media levers has reached levels previously associated with collapse and revolution. The greed, hubris and arrogance of the .01% will lead to their downfall.

Screen Shot 2014-03-29 at 9.23.25 PM

A country with 102 million of its 247 million working age population not working is a powder-keg and the politicians are acting like slow witted monkeys lighting matches. With 20% of the 145 million jobs part-time, more than half low paying service industry jobs, real wages lower than they were in 1998, and a median salary of $25,000, it’s understandable why 20% of the population relies on food stamps to survive. The discontent is growing. We got a preview of how the establishment will deal with disgruntlement during the 2011 Occupy Wall Street protests. Liberal Democrat mayors aligned with Fox News neo-cons, Wall Street bankers, and police state thugs to eradicate, beat, tear gas, and pepper spray young people exercising their right to free speech protesting the wolves of Wall Street, who had pulled of the largest heist in human history with absolutely no consequences for their criminality. Both OWS and the Tea Party were co-opted by the establishment in short order and have been used by the One Party of oligarchs as a means to divide and conquer, by keeping the masses blaming liberal or conservative phantoms for the state of disunion.

The seemingly never ending revelations from the hero of this Fourth Turning – Edward Snowden – of government surveillance regarding every electronic communication of every American by the NSA is proof of a complete disregard for Constitutionally guaranteed protections by the powers that be. The current administration in conjunction with the hacks from the two headed party ignore, flaunt and show disdain for the Bill of Rights and legal precedent as they run roughshod over the citizens. The transformation of our republic into an authoritarian surveillance police state is almost complete.

The militarization of local police forces by the DHS, military training exercises in major cities, and plans being drawn up by the authorities to confront civil unrest all point towards the coming breakdown of civil society. The complete lockdown of Boston to apprehend two teenage cooking utensil terrorists was a dry run and probably gave the oligarchs confidence in their plan, as Bostonians cowered in their homes as heavily armed police thugs pissed on the Fourth Amendment by conducting door to door searches. If you listen closely, you can hear the fabric of our civilization being torn asunder.

The past few weeks have seen global disorder reach new heights, as Iraq has become Mission Un-Accomplished, the Ukraine explodes into civil war as Russia cuts off their natural gas, violent protests continue to rock Brazil, Egypt, Spain, Greece, France, Turkey and a myriad of other hotspots around the world. The very same forces Obama, McCain and the military industrial complex have been arming in Syria to fight a dictator who was our ally, are now ransacking Iraq, murdering the people we put into power when we deposed another dictator who had been our ally when he was fighting our sworn enemy – Iran. It seems Iran is now helping Iraq fight these jihadists, as they slowly but surely gain control over Iraq. The EU has papered over their national insolvency problems with more debt, while imposing austerity measures on the peasants. See French Revolution for the ultimate resolution of this banker-centric solution. The endemic fraud in China, along with an imploding real estate market, and corruption on an epic scale are creating a perfect storm which will derail the China miracle meme.

Meanwhile, the new dictator in Egypt who overthrew the democratically elected government, after our former dictator ally was deposed when Obama refused to support him, has clamped down on the citizens with his military force. The Ukraine is being torn apart after the CIA and their counterparts in the EU undermined the democratically elected government and started a civil war to undermine Russian influence in that country. To an impartial observer, you might think the American Empire is purposely sowing seeds of discontent, war, and disorder around the globe. Never ending war benefits the military industrial complex, as tremendous profits are generated from the sale of arms to all parties involved. Iraq and Syria are good for the bottom line of the U.S. Defense Industry. War and global disorder also benefit the worldwide banking cabal, as the only way to fund these misadventures is through debt. As we all know, debt is what makes this world go round – until it doesn’t.

There has been a virtual mainstream media blackout regarding the Ukraine as government forces bomb and murder civilians. The billionaires running America need to support the billionaire president of the Ukraine because he is one of them. Truth has no place in modern governmental affairs. The mainstream media ignores the fact the United States has armed Sunni terrorists in Syria who are now on the verge of overrunning Baghdad, as they slaughter Iraqi Shiites by the thousands. They ignore the fact that Iraq was a modern, stable, non-religious, oil producing nation under Hussein, with no Al Qaeda or sectarian violence. The United States invaded a sovereign country under false pretenses, wasted over $1 trillion of precious national wealth, killed over 100,000 Iraqis, sustained over 37,000 physical casualties, untold numbers of mental casualties, and now Iraq is dissolving into a quagmire of religious violence threatening oil supplies and driving prices higher. After 13 years and 21,000 casualties in Afghanistan, the Taliban are stronger than ever as we declare victory and slink away. Libya has been another feather in the cap of American foreign policy as we deposed another former ally dictator and have left the country in disarray and civil war. Just because the American corporate media doesn’t report these facts, doesn’t make them not so.

It should be clear to anyone willing to open their eyes and not be influenced by the establishment propaganda that this Fourth Turning is entering a new ominous phase, as the 2008 Global Financial Crisis catalyst has ignited a volcanic eruption which has put tremendous strain on the areas of extreme vulnerability – debt, civic decay, global disorder. The few aware Americans who frequent truth telling websites are frustrated and impatient, waiting for the tsunami of change to sweep over the world. History operates at its own cyclical pace. An accelerated Fourth Turning would likely not be a positive development. The Civil War Crisis was accelerated, resulting in 700,000 deaths in four years. With the worldwide proliferation of nuclear missiles, this Fourth Turning could be over with the push of a button. I don’t think anyone is rooting for that outcome.

You can easily be distracted by the day to day machinations of evil men, relentless propaganda, meaningless distractions, and various forms of bread and circuses. But history is unforgiving. The details and events will be different, but the path of this Crisis will follow past Crisis periods. The worldwide debt bubble will burst. The resulting loss of wealth, jobs, entitlements and trust will ignite mass civil disorder as years of civic decay lead to a swift societal collapse. With China also entering a Fourth Turning, a global debt implosion, resource wars breaking out, religious extremism, and nationalistic drums beating, the likelihood of global war is high.

For some perspective, six years into the last Fourth Turning in 1935, GDP had risen by 30% from its 1933 low and FDR’s New Deal was supposedly lifting the country from its depths. In reality, the population was experiencing a worsening depression and a few years later a world war killed 65 million people. After six years the Civil War Crisis was resolved with 5% of the nation’s male population killed, a president assassinated, and the South left in ruins. This Fourth Turning will proceed along its destined path at its own pace. The molten ingredients of debt, civic decay and global disorder are conjoining in an explosive concoction leading to a conflagration which will flow across the globe on a scale not seen since the Second World War. There is no escaping the trials and tribulations awaiting us. The outcome is uncertain. It could end in glory or destruction. Individual sacrifice, shared burdens, courageous stands and inspired leadership will be required to survive the perilous trials ahead.

I see the bad moon arising

I see trouble on the way

I see earthquakes and lightnin’

I see bad times today

Creedence Clearwater Revival

“Imagine some national (and probably global) volcanic eruption, initially flowing along channels of distress that were created during the Unraveling era and further widened by the catalyst. Trying to foresee where the eruption will go once it bursts free of the channels is like trying to predict the exact fault line of an earthquake. All you know in advance is something about the molten ingredients of the climax, which could include the following:

  • Economic distress, with public debt in default, entitlement trust funds in bankruptcy, mounting poverty and unemployment, trade wars, collapsing financial markets, and hyperinflation (or deflation)
  • Social distress, with violence fueled by class, race, nativism, or religion and abetted by armed gangs, underground militias, and mercenaries hired by walled communities
  • Political distress, with institutional collapse, open tax revolts, one-party hegemony, major constitutional change, secessionism, authoritarianism, and altered national borders
  • Military distress, with war against terrorists or foreign regimes equipped with weapons of mass destruction” –  The Fourth Turning – Strauss & Howe – 1997

GOOGLE – MOST RACIST, SEXIST SURVEILLANCE COMPANY ON EARTH

Only 1% black employees?????

OMG. Where is Al Sharpton? Shouldn’t he be leading a march on Google headquarters?

How come our Teleprompter in Chief isn’t holding a press conference to decry this outrage?

Is Google under the control of the racist Tea Party?

The MSNBC dykes and fairies must be sputtering mad. Last time I checked, women made up about 50% of the population. How can Google explain only 30% women? Moochelle must be outraged.

NO. The sounds of silence coming from the liberal MSM and our progressive Democratic leadership?

Maybe Google is getting a pass because they pay off these politicians and cooperate with the NSA in tracking our every move. Maybe the advertising money generated from Google ads on the MSNBC and other MSM websites is more important than reporting the truth.

The hypocrisy of the liberal media and the political left is breathtaking to behold.

chart-tech-e.svg

Google workforce data show company is predominantly white and predominantly male

Google published data detailing the diversity of its workforce, becoming one of the first large tech firms to do so. The data confirm a widely held belief: The company is predominantly male and white.

The numbers are stark: 70% of Google employees are men, and 61% are white. The company,  in a blog post published Wednesday, concedes it still has a ways to go to meet its diversity goals: “Put simply, Google is not where we want to be when it comes to diversity, and it’s hard to address these kinds of challenges if you’re not prepared to discuss them openly, and with the facts.”

The issue of diversity in the tech industry has gained prominence during the past year, as social activists, including the Rev. Jesse Jackson, has called out Silicon Valley for its lack of racial and gender diversity and has begun pressing companies to release data about their workforce compositions.

Last week, Jackson appeared at Facebook’s annual shareholder meeting in Redwood City, Calif., to press the company to release data about its workforce, lamenting the scarcity of women and minorities in tech, especially at the executive level.

There are reasons, Google says, for its diversity deficit: Women earn roughly 18% of all computer-science degrees in the U.S., and blacks and Hispanics earn fewer than 5% of those degrees.

Little White Boxes

This is another piece of the puzzle. Mass surveillance, tracking our every movement, cell phone kill switches, militarization of local police forces, military exercises in cities, and blatant disregard for the 4th Amendment are there for all to see. The sheep are being penned in and they don’t even realize it or care. They’ll care when they are herded towards the slaughterhouse. But, then it will be too late.

Submitted by RideTwoHorses

“Little White Boxes”

OR: How the USDOT (US Department of Transportation) and their partners know more about you than most other agencies combined.

RideTwoHorses  April 18th, 2014

(Part 1 of 3)

When you drive to work today or your friend’s house or your family’s house for Easter, open your eyes a little bit wider as you pan the side of the road and your surroundings.

On the side of the road, or above you on the overhead sign you’ll notice harmless looking devices appearing like a “Little White Box” with an antenna maybe with or without a solar panel.  They are attached to signs and permanent fixtures like this highway traffic board pictured below. They are on tens of thousands of DPW highway trailers. It doesn’t look scary; it has no camera on some do, but we’ll discuss that later.  Most of you don’t know what it is, or what it does, or have never even noticed them before.

They are part of the world’s largest violation of privacy network ever assembled and what it knows about you and its potential are beyond Orwellian comprehension.

 They are on overhead signs, overpasses and also just entirely stand alone setups with no traffic timing information.   You’ll see them every few miles, before and after bridges and major interchanges. What that little white box is doing is collecting all the Bluetooth radio identifiers from your vehicle assigned to a time stamp.  All of them.  Anything within 330 feet of that “Little White Box” is being cataloged every time you pass.

There are literally 10’s, 100’s of thousands of these deployed globally.

This means it can collect information from both sides of the highway provided that the two directions are within the listening radius.

In some cases, the boxes are deployed in conjunction with cameras, meaning that the state is collecting a picture of you, your car, it’s occupants and an association to all the electronics in your car including your car.  All programmatically.

In this photo above, it’s obvious what’s happening, as it’s part of a test that is already in progress to monitor the residency status of the citizens driving below.  Experiment is one thing, but the entire network to do this nationally an internationally is already built and running today.

The small antenna is a cell phone antenna on the above examples used to relay the information back to the regional centers, and ultimately national centers as is illustrated here in this diagram on the DOT’s own website from section 5.1 shown below in the diagram.   Don’t let the technological speak fool you, it’s really just a bunch of jargon outlining a language by which all of this information moves around, from collection to aggregation to hand off to governments and private partners:

Diagram:

An example communications framework diagram showing the interrelationship of the key communications standards that would be used in a deployment is shown below.

In simple terms, the collection devices sit at the very bottom, connected to the “plant” the “center-to-center” or “C2C” connections and information sharing with other government entities and private companies occurs at the top of the structure.

Your babies iPad 1.0 that doesn’t have a cell radio in it that is entertaining them in the back seat.  Your new Fitbit which is monitoring your heartrate or step count.  If you have a vehicle with built in Bluetooth cell phone, that too has an ID.  Your old Apple iTouch, it too although not on the cellular network is also cataloged.  Yes, all your phones are cataloged too, but since you already willingly give up that telemetry information to authorities in meta-data we’ll avoid that topic for now.

Everything with a Bluetooth radio in your vehicle has been identified as you pass the “Little White Box”.  You, your kids, your passengers, all of them.   That identifier is unique, globally.   Let me repeat that.

Every device you have with Bluetooth, has a globally unique identifier that is being collected every time you pass one of these “Little White Boxes”.

This is a means of identifying who you are uniquely on a global scale.   If you wondered why Osama Bin Laden only communicated by human messenger? this is a very good example of why.  Any globally unique ID can be used to track your whereabouts as you pass these LWB’s (Little White Boxes).

 

Origins of abuse

Under the guise of highway safety, and a bill passed back in 2010, the Department of Transportation has mandated that all of it’s highways have these devices as part of it’s “Intelligent Transport System, or ITS, and also tied to RITA (Research and Innovative Technology Administration).  If you’re in Eurpoe, you should start looking into “Little White Boxes” managed by this agency: TISPOL.  Which motto is “Crossing Boarders to Save Lives”

In the US – Every state is mandated to deploy this system by 2016, and many have already, ironically all paid for by you the taxpayer.  It’s long term aims are even more egregious, including leveraging “in-vehicle” systems to automatically ticket you when you do something wrong or take control of your vehicle and correct your driving.  At first, and it’s even spelled out in their own internal documents, they will approach the concerned public with “safety fixtures” and things that serve “the public good”, something easy for the public to latch on to, “ticketing people who overtake school buses”. 

How about private companies?  Let’s have a look at INRIX and their data publically available here.

 We’ll leave the grander capabilities of INRIX the ITS and RITA programs alone today and remain focused on the “Little White Boxes”, as this alone should be enough to scare you of what’s possible.  INRIX’s role in life is to “catch people wasting time and negatively impacting the economy” as their own public website states.  Nothing against INRIX  it just happens to be one of the directly connected partners to the whole system that anyone can identify with some simple Googling.

The governments stated purpose is that these signs are there to assemble a system of information meant to monitor the speeds of highway links as can be seen here in these puff pieces – which it does quite well.  We have grossly traded our privacy in doing so based on how the system accomplishes this.

How it works is that all of the Bluetooth ID’s are read at checkpoint #1 and then read again at checkpoint #2.   The centralized database then compares the timestamps between the two checkpoints and calculates velocity of the ID’s, this is being done locally,

Note that it has your GPS coordinates AND your globally unique identifier captured and reported back to a central server.

You might think that this database or central server is local only and who cares.  It is not.  There is an entire protocol developed around how these “Little White Boxes” all aggregate up regionally, then nationally called RTSMIP (Real Time System Management Program) and internationally as these systems are being deployed globally.   You can read more about its origins here from 2009. Permitting government agencies to query the databases, and of course “private contractors” are also privy to this database as well.

How does the information move around the network and interconnect with agencies?  Of course, this will be written about in the context of weather, accidents and public safety, and not the fact that its built entirely on your globally unique Bluetooth ID’s.  Note that the data and systems are not just meant for public entities, but also “development contractors”:

Data Exchange Format Specification (DXFS)

In 2011, U.S. DOT began development of the Data Exchange Format Specification (DXFS) to facilitate the development of interoperable real-time traffic and travel information between public agencies, with other public agencies, and with private entities.

A primary objective of the DXFS is to establish a standards-based specification of key RTSMIP interfaces. To align with the objective the scope of the DXFS is the set of interfaces used to send traffic, transit, transportation-related weather, and traveler information from one agency to another. The provision of this data directly to travelers is not part of the scope of the specification. While the DXFS covers all the information defined in Rule 23 CFR 511, the scope of the DXFS has been expanded beyond the information defined in the rule to include transit information and additional traffic information that is relevant to the exchange of data between agencies (and other parties). The DXFS is a specification that can be used to define the information exchanges across a system-to-system interface, thus providing interoperability of systems that implement the DXFS. The DXFS does not specify communication protocols, but it does refer to existing standardized protocols that can be used for transferring the data.

Users of the DXFS

The DXFS has been developed to assist the following groups of users to specify and then develop an RTSMIP implementation:

  • Transportation Agencies. This group includes state DOTs and regional transportation related organizations (e.g., a municipal DOT or Public Works or a transit agency) that are developing systems that implement aspects of the RTSMIP.
  • Public Safety Agencies. This group includes state, county, or local public safety agencies that develop systems that support RTSMIP.
  • Traveler Information Organizations (Public or Private). This group includes providers of traveler information whether public or private that are involved in the development of systems that supportRTSMIP.
  • Development Contractors. This group includes contractors who have been hired by transportation or public safety agencies to develop procurement packages that would specify aspects of RTSMIP, or contractors who have been selected to perform the development of RTSMIP related projects.

Programming junkies can take the protocol apart here, those who are familiar with SNMP and XML will see many similarities and instantly understand how you could query against a specific Bluetooth ID, e.g. MAC address (read individual).

The whole system of managing highway intelligence is predicated on violating your own privacy by collecting all your device ID’s.   The system in place already is massive, covering almost all major highways.

“I’m sure none of this will be used against us.”

It should be noted that the system also has an eloquent method of determining where you get on and where you get off the highway.   Deploy one nowhere near the exit, but deploy it in-between the exits as has been done in existing installations.  If your ID is there at one checkpoint, and gone the next, well, we know you left the highway at approximately this time, calculating the velocity of your vehicle from the former checkpoints and understanding the distance between the checkpoint and the sign.  We’ll know you’re not in traffic either, because your neighbors will still be going “highway speed”.   These systems are deployed now at most state boarders, cities and major interchanges.

Yes, the system knows when YOU get on and off the highway, who you are traveling with, how many times you run this route and even more interesting, when you’re operating outside your “normal behavior”.

The immediate argument that governments already have enough information from you from your cell phones to do this with.  This argument is flawed, because the data around cell phone “meta-data” is predicated on who you call, and maybe when, but does not give the government the rest of the picture. This “LWB” system easily can build social networks of who you travel with, what devices you travel with and the rest of the five W’s about your daily habits, all without your cell phone.

Even if you want to believe that the government has totally usurped your phone, which perhaps it has, then you can just consider this system another vector in how it can triangulate and monitor everything you do.  At the very least, As we know in business, and the management of crowds, “everything that can be measured, will be managed”.  Anyone who works in public relations knows that you must have a solid assessment of who your customers are in order to spark behavior, the more intelligence you have about your customers, the more you can easily manipulate them.

In the management of large crowds of people, or citizenry, the more intelligence vectors you have on them, the easier it is for you to control and manipulate them.

DOT on the initial adaptation of these systems:

When it was first unveiled, the Bluetooth detection system was referred to by some media outlets as a motorist tracking system. This description initially caused some public concern, but these issues were short-lived.

Lets say you usually commute with person A.  The system would see that you always commute with person A, every day, same time in, same time out.  Now you add person B to the carpool.  The system now knows you have a new friend in your social network, a physical friend, with their devices, and all the intel that they already have about both person A and B is now linkable.

“The five W’s: Checkmate”

Simple things that this “Little White Box” network with this data can determine every time you pass a government checkpoint:

·      Who – easily associating Bluetooth ID to people from purchase databases, which companies maintain from point of sale data or manufacturers.

·      What – the devices, including wearable tech, your kids portable tech, without cell radios and of course your newer Bluetooth enabled cars, which have unique identifiers as standard equipment, tied to your purchase of the vehicle.  GM for example has a record of all of its Bluetooth ID’s associated to the purchaser of the vehicle, as does any other auto manufacturer.

·      Where – what routes you take and with what devices.

·      Why – Why are you driving somewhere, or not.   The pattern creation by daily habits is easily used to verify you are doing something normal or abnormal.  Example:  Hmm, this is weird, Citizen A who travels with Citizen B on Thursdays at 8AM and 6PM aren’t doing that today, why are thy going towards another city?  In two separate cars?

·      When – What time you commute, or when you don’t, and when you deviate from your normal behavior pattern.

 

“Putting it to use”

 

 

In Boston, during the recent scare and last years bombing, when you were asked to “shelter in place,” lets say you decided to be a rebel and go out and drive around, this system knows that about you and can be used in the future to understand who was a “well behaved obedient citizen” and who needs to have “extra watching”.

 

Assume during the Occupy Wallstreet movements that “LWB’s” were watching, cataloging your assembly, your associations and your routines.   All it takes to develop these intelligent databases of social behavior is a nefarious deployment of tiny boxes, their GPS coordinates and a cell phone antenna, the size of a shoebox.  They can be powered by solar or regular commercial line power.

If you wanted a government enabled with the power to know where you are, who you are with and when, paid for by your taxes.  You are already there, funneling your data points in real time into private corporations, and the Department of Transportation.   This is not something coming, and this is something established, built and functioning.

 

“Pushing Back”

 

If governments and corporations want to demonstrate to the public that this system is not doing these things, they should start by immediately dismantling the collection of globally unique identifiers and leveraging alternative technologies right at the “LWB’s”.   Bluetooth ID’s shouldn’t be listened for, they shouldn’t be collected or even transmitted to the nearest cell tower, certainly not without your permission at a very minimum.   Even in the purest of intentions and implementations, you have to assume that any entity is going to be at least as sloppy as a big retailer or big bank who has already had it’s entire databases stolen by “bad guys”.   If this system is truly meant to ensure “public safety”, then lets have it start by protecting your privacy at the constitution.  This even in the tamest of interpretations is a violation of the 4th and likely 5th amendments in its implementation already today.

Or, how about we enable them only on vehicles we the public pay for?  All of our public safety vehicles and government officials?  Surely we the citizens should know where they are, how fast they are driving, who they are colluding with, how often, what devices they have with them.   I’m sure they’d be all for that system of transparency.  Right?

 

 In the next segment, we’ll explore the likely use of this system to develop a militia network profile of those who decided to go to the Bundy Ranch.   Because Utah, Arizona and Nevada?  Yes, they too are equipped with “LWB’s”, “Little White Boxes”.

Submitted by:  RideTwoHorses.  How to remain sane leading up to and beyond the collapse of modern government.
4-18-2014

LIGHTS, CAMERA, YOU’RE UNDER ARREST

Guest Post by John W. Whitehead

Lights, Camera, Arrested: Americans Are Being Thrown in Jail for Filming Police

 

“I thought I had freedom of speech here,” the man said to the police officer.
“You don’t. You just lost it,” the officer replied.

Once again, the U.S. government is attempting to police the world when it should be policing its own law enforcement agencies. We’ve got a warship cruising the Black Sea, fighter jets patrolling the Baltic skies, and a guided-missile destroyer searching the South China Sea for the downed Malaysia Airlines flight. All the while, back home in the U.S., our constitutional rights are going to hell in a hand basket, with homeowners being threatened with eviction for attempting to live off the grid, old women jailed for feeding crows, and citizens armed with little more than a cell phone arrested for daring to record police activities.

Robin Speronis now finds herself threatened with eviction from her own Florida home for daring to live off the grid, independent of city utilities such as water and electricity. City officials insist the Cape Coral resident’s chosen way of life violates international property maintenance code and city ordinances. Mary Musselman, also a Florida resident, is being held in jail without bond for “feeding wild animals.” The 81-year-old Musselman, on probation after being charged with feeding bears near her home, was arrested after officers discovered her leaving bread out for crows. Meanwhile, Brandy Berning of Florida was forced to spend a night in jail after recording her conversation with an officer who pulled her over for a routine traffic stop.

Welcome to the farce that passes for law and order in America today, where, as I point out in my book A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State, crime is low, militarized police activity is on the rise, and Americans are being penalized for living off the grid, feeding wild animals, holding Bible studies in their back yard, growing vegetables in their front yard, collecting rainwater, and filming the police.

This latter point should really stick in your craw. Consider the irony: the government insists it can carry out all manner of surveillance on us—listen in on our phone calls, read our emails and text messages, track our movements, photograph our license plates, even enter our biometric information into DNA databases—but if we dare to return the favor, even a little, we get roughed up by the police, arrested, charged with violating various and sundry crimes (often trumped up), and forced to make restitution.

For example, George Thompson of Boston was arrested after he used his cell phone to record a police officer he describes as being “out of control.” University of Texas college student Abie Kyle Ikhinmwi was arrested after recording a police speed trap with her cell phone. Kansas teen Addison Mikkelson was arrested after filming a patrol car allegedly speeding and failing to use a turn signal.

Leon Rosby was filming a police standoff in June 2013, his cellphone in one hand and his dog’s leash in the other, when three officers approached him. Anticipating a problem, Rosby placed his 2-year-old Rottweiler, Max, in his car. The LA Times reports: “As officers cuffed Rosby, the dog escaped through an open window and began to bark and lunge at officers. One officer tried to grab the dog’s leash, then drew his gun and fired four shots, killing Max. Video of the incident went viral on YouTube, prompting a public outcry and drawing protesters to the Police Department headquarters.” Rosby has now filed a civil rights lawsuit against the city and the three police officers.

And then there is the Baltimore man who was threatened by police after they discovered him filming them during an arrest. The local CBS station ran the footage of the ensuing confrontation, which went something like this:

“I’m allowed to do this,” the man told the officer.

“Get it out of my face,” the officer replied.

“I have my rights,” the man said.

“You have no rights,” the officer said.

But the man didn’t stop rolling and was once again aggressively approached.

“Do you see the police presence here? Do you see us all? We’re not [expletive] around. Do you understand? Do not disrespect us and do not not listen to us,” the officer said. “Now walk away and shut your [expletive] mouth or you’re going to jail, do you understand?”

After backing away, the officer came at the man a third time, appearing to grab him.

“I thought I had freedom of speech here,” the man said.

“You don’t. You just lost it,” the officer replied.

And that, in a nutshell, is what happens when law enforcement officials—not just the police, but every agent of the government entrusted with enforcing laws, from the president on down—are allowed to discard the law when convenient. At the point where there’s a double standard at play, where the only ones having to obey the law are the citizenry and not the enforcers, then that vital “social contract” that John Locke envisioned as the basis for society breaks down. The more we allow government officials to operate outside the law, the more we ensure that the law becomes only a tool to punish us, rather than binding and controlling the government, as it was intended.

This brings me back to the problem of Americans getting arrested for filming the police. Until recently, this has primarily been a problem experienced by journalists and photographers attempting to document political protests and other disturbances involving the police. However, with the preponderance of smart phones capable of recording audio and video, individuals who dare to record police engaged in questionable or abusive activities in public are increasingly finding themselves on the receiving end of the harsh treatment they intended to document. These videos, if widely distributed, can be a powerful method of subjecting police to closer scrutiny and holding them accountable to respecting the rights of those they are supposed to serve.

Naturally, police agencies and unions have sought out legal prohibitions on such videos from being created. Massachusetts police, for instance, have invoked a state surveillance law to charge citizen video-makers criminally for their actions. Because the state surveillance law requires “two-party” consent, most kinds of public filming can be construed as illegal. Similar laws exist in California, Florida, Illinois, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. The law was enacted to protect private citizens from invasive surveillance, but the police have exploited it to curtail free speech that tarnishes their public image. Police claim that this regulation gives them legal justification to prohibit filming by citizens such as Jeffrey Manzelli, a journalist who recorded the police intimidating protesters at a rally and was arrested and charged under the law.

Saddled with costly lawsuits brought by individuals allegedly brutalized by police who didn’t appreciate their actions being filmed, a few cities across the country are attempting to adopt policies to protect citizens who film the police. In Troy, N.Y., for example, city police officers would face a fine and jail time if they stop people from legally photographing or filming them. If adopted, the Troy ordinance, which would carry a maximum $5,000 fine and a jail term of up to 15 days for an officer found guilty of violating it, would be the first of its kind in the country.

As part of a $200,000 legal settlement, Indianapolis police will soon be required to remind its officers that citizens have a legal right to videotape on-duty police officers. The case arose after a 66-year-old Indianapolis resident was tackled to the ground, arrested and charged with resisting arrest, disorderly conduct and public intoxication (he was found not guilty of the charges) after he used his cellphone to record police arresting a young man in his neighbor’s driveway. There is also a movement afoot to equip police with on-officer cameras that would provide footage of what an officer sees.

The courts, thus far, have favored the First Amendment rights of eyewitness filmmakers, even in the face of state efforts to outlaw such activities. In 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal of an Illinois eavesdropping law that makes recording law enforcement officers a first-class felony punishable by up to 15 years in prison. In 2013, the U.S. Department of Justice issued a statement of interest in the case of Mannie Garcia v. Montgomery County, Md., declaring that not only do individuals have a First Amendment right to record officers publicly doing their duties, they also have Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights protecting them from having those recordings seized without a warrant or due process.

The Garcia case involves a journalist who was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct for filming police as they detained two men. According to the lawsuit, police “dragged Garcia to the police car, put him in handcuffs, threw him to the ground by kicking his feet out from under him, taunted him, threatened to arrest his wife if she came too close and took his camera, and seized the memory card, which was never returned.”

The problem, as the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit recognized in Payne v. Pauley, is that “[p]olice officers must be more thick skinned than the ordinary citizen and must exercise restraint in dealing with the public” and “must not conceive that every threatening or insulting word, gesture, or motion amounts to disorderly conduct.”

The difficulty we face is that police officers are becoming increasingly thin skinned, less restrained in dealing with the public, and more inclined to conceive every word, gesture, or motion as a threat. In an ideal world, police would recognize that, as public servants, they are rightfully subject to recording and surveillance when carrying out their public duties. Unfortunately, this is far from an ideal world.

So what are we to do?

We must continue to stand up for our rights, record police when the opportunity presents itself, and politely remind any offended officers that they are, in fact, our public servants and, as such, their behavior is subject to public scrutiny. If they disagree and attempt to stop us from recording, we can refer them to the U.S. Constitution, which they have sworn to uphold, which protects our right to record matters of public interest. And if they continue to insist on hauling people to jail because they don’t like the idea of transparency and accountability, they can take it up with the courts. The goal is to eventually arrive at a point where we can keep a watchful eye on our government officials, instead of the other way around. As Justice Louis D. Brandeis once observed, “Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants; electric light the most efficient policeman.”

QUOTES OF THE DAY

“The National Security Agency’s capability at any time could be turned around on the American people, and no American would have any privacy left, such is the capability to monitor everything: telephone conversations, telegrams, it doesn’t matter. There would be no place to hide. If a dictator ever took over, the N.S.A. could enable it to impose total tyranny, and there would be no way to fight back.”
Frank Church

“The way things are supposed to work is that we’re supposed to know virtually everything about what they [the government] do: that’s why they’re called public servants. They’re supposed to know virtually nothing about what we do: that’s why we’re called private individuals.”
Glenn Greenwald

“These examples and many others demonstrate an alarming trend whereby the privacy and dignity of our citizens is being whittled away by sometimes imperceptible steps. Taken individually, each step may be of little consequence. But when viewed as a whole, there begins to emerge a society quite unlike any we have seen — a society in which government may intrude into the secret regions of man’s life at will.”

[Osborn v. United States, 385 U.S. 323, 343 (1966) (dissenting)]”
William O. Douglas

“Big Brother in the form of an increasingly powerful government and in an increasingly powerful private sector will pile the records high with reasons why privacy should give way to national security, to law and order […] and the like.”
William O. Douglas, Points of Rebellion

 

“We are rapidly entering the age of no privacy, where everyone is open to surveillance at all times; where there are no secrets from government.”

[Osborn v. United States, 385 U.S. 323, 341 (1966) (dissenting)]”
William O. Douglas

“Every time I do an interview people ask similar questions, such as “What is the most significant story that you have revealed?” […] There really is only one overarching point that all of these stories have revealed, and that is–and I say this without the slightest bit of hyperbole or melodrama; it’s not metaphorical and it’s not figurative; it is literally true–that the goal of the NSA and it’s five eyes partners in the English speaking world–Canada, New Zealand, Australia and especially the UK–is to eliminate privacy globally, to ensure that there could be no human communications that occur electronically, that evades their surveillance net; they want to make sure that all forms of human communications by telephone or by Internet, and all online activities are collected, monitored, stored and analyzed by that agency and by their allies.

That means, to describe that is to describe a ubiquitous surveillance state; you don’t need hyperbole to make that claim, and you do not need to believe me when I say that that’s their goal. Document after document within the archive that Edward Snowden provided us declare that to be their goal. They are obsessed with searching out any small little premise of the planet where some form of communications might take place without they being able to invade it.”
Glenn Greenwald

“Once the government can demand of a publisher the names of the purchasers of his publications, the free press as we know it disappears. Then the spectre of a government agent will look over the shoulder of everyone who reads. The purchase of a book or pamphlet today may result in a subpoena tomorrow. Fear of criticism goes with every person into the bookstall. The subtle, imponderable pressures of the orthodox lay hold. Some will fear to read what is unpopular, what the powers-that-be dislike. When the light of publicity may reach any student, any teacher, inquiry will be discouraged. The books and pamphlets that are critical of the administration, that preach an unpopular policy in domestic or foreign affairs, that are in disrepute in the orthodox school of thought will be suspect and subject to investigation. The press and its readers will pay a heavy price in harassment. But that will be minor in comparison with the menace of the shadow which government will cast over literature that does not follow the dominant party line. If the lady from Toledo can be required to disclose what she read yesterday and what she will read tomorrow, fear will take the place of freedom in the libraries, book stores, and homes of the land. Through the harassment of hearings, investigations, reports, and subpoenas government will hold a club over speech and over the press.”

[United States v. Rumely, 345 U.S. 41 (1953)]”
William O. Douglas