Imagine a world in which
illogical statements would be automatically nullified and prosecuted. A
government would legislate a law saying that an organization – call it
corporation, company or municipality – enjoys in the eye of the law the
status of a person and … swishhhhh, the Logical Police would appear like
Rambo in Vietnam and take the president to jail. What would happen to the American Administration in such a world?
Soviet Surveillance
By now, most people would have heard the headlines. Let me summarize them in a few words. On June 6, 2013, the Washington Post* and the Guardian**
disclosed details about PRISM, an NSA surveillance program authorized
by a court order. PRISM conducts overwhelming surveillance on
Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, Paltalk, YouTube, AOL , Skype, and
Apple. Already in November 2009, I reported on scary Skype surveillance
(and stopped using it, see On Iran, Skype and a Fallen Prince) while Facebook connection with Mossad is quite obvious.
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PRISM Slide 2
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The slide presentation states that much of the
world's electronic communications pass through the United States because
electronic communications data tend to follow the least expensive route
rather than the physically most direct route and since the bulk of the
world's internet infrastructure is based in the U.S., then this country
works as an electronic hub for most communications. The presentation
claims that these facts provide U.S. intelligence analysts with
opportunities for intercepting the communications of foreign targets.
A top secret court order issued in April gave the
NSA the power to demand that Verizon, which with more than 100 million
subscribers is one of America's largest phone companies, hand over on an
"ongoing, daily basis" information relating to phone calls made by all
of its customers. The order includes information on calls made within
the US and to parties outside its borders. The massive surveillance
project was uncovered when the court order, made by the secret Foreign
Intelligence Service Court (Fisa), was obtained by the Guardian. In
2006, a USA Today report claimed that the NSA was secretly collecting
phone records of millions of customers of AT&T, Verizon and
BellSouth.
The Obtuse (T)Reasoning of Civil Servants
"It is legal, I obtained a Court order,"
summarizes the core statement made by Under Secretary of Defense for
Intelligence James Clapper.
I must give some credit to Mr. Clapper. As the
picture below shows, he wasn't laughing while he uttered this lie.
Certain laws and court rulings are illegitimate. A law may pass through
all the tedious processes of legislation; still it can be illegitimate,
demanding automatic disobedience by the public. No government can pass a
law violating Human Rights, which are International Law since 1994. No government operating under the Criminal Law system can legislate laws claiming to prevent a future crime.***
The real crime is accusing someone of "membership in an unidentified organization" and "being a security threat." I read that time and again in the claims made by the State of Israel in Court, and can understand only one thing: "This man is innocent." He committed no crime. He is illegitimately persecuted by the authorities.
Oppressive laws designed to benefit the few while
violating the many cannot be accepted as legitimate. They are legal in
the same way that the Nazi laws were legal, but they are not legitimate.
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In the current case, the USA Government is
violating three main principles. First, it is violating the Right to
Privacy, protected by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which has become international law in 1994.
Second, it assumes the violated people were about
to commit a crime. Under the Criminal Law ruling the American legal
system, it is the absolute right of any person to commit a crime (though
he would be punished if caught). Then there is the extra-territorial
issue; would you accept a Laotian law sentencing Americans chewing
bubble-gum in Honduras to death?
The USA Government actions are illegitimate.
"You fool!" would Mr. Clapper utter under his
withered moustache if he cared about reading me. "We do not violate
privacy because we do not disseminate the material," would be his next
thought.
Wrong again. The mere observation is the crime. The secrecy afterwards is intended to defend the surveillance criminals.
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Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence James Clapper—Tales of Soviet Surveillance in America
Related: Obama's Presidential Tears
Did you know? Obama Codex is State Terror
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Systemic Evil
A closely related fact is that governments often
rely on the ignorance of their citizens; this ignorance is easily
supported by an irrelevant educational system controlled by the same
governments. How can they expect the People to obey laws that are not
taught? Are we still living in the days of the Roman Empire and its
obsolete legal principles? I refer to ignorantia iuris non excusat (a.k.a. ignorantia legis non excusat and ignorantia legis neminem excusat)
a legal principle whereby ignorance of a law does not allow one to
escape liability. It sounds like the ultimate state-entrapment technique
("I legislated that two minutes ago! You are guilty!" The government
said to the citizen who stepped on a cockroach).
The USA Government assumes that it can safely fool the People.
President Obama cannot claim that this is an
isolated case perpetrated by an ill-prepared civil servant that stepped
out of his legal boundaries. The
Obama Codex was disclosed on the evening of February 4, 2013, by Michael Isikoff of NBC News. Issued
by the USA Department of Justice, it deals with policies related to the
USA drone war, including the government’s justification for killing American citizens.
The 16-page memo was given to Congress in June, but is not the final
Office of Legal Counsel memo that news organizations have sued to
obtain. The Codex claims that high-level administration officials may
order the killing of senior operational leaders of al-Qaida or an
associated force even without evidence they are actively plotting
against the U.S. In order to approve the assassination, the civil
servant must determine that the target is an imminent threat, that
capture is infeasible and that the operation is "conducted consistent
with applicable law of war principles." In order to undermine the
propagandistic definition, let me remind the reader that a
third-generation, 16-year-old American citizen was assassinated in such a fashion while sitting in a coffee shop. There is no proof that he was even remotely linked to any wrongdoing.
The Drones Terror is as illegitimate as the
current affair. Both are chilling testimonies of the USA Government
disregard for all the values presented in its Declaration od
Independence. Is the USA a democracy? Is it peaceful? Is it honest and
just? Is it better than the Soviets were?
President Obama, you are too busy reading my
emails; thus I don't want to still more from your time with my articles
except for reminding you a few words: "We hold these truths to be
self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by
their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness....But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government..." (from the Preamble to the United States Declaration of Independence).
That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness....But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government..." (from the Preamble to the United States Declaration of Independence).
"It's called protecting America," reacted to the
publication Dianne Feinstein, the Democratic Chair of the Senate
Intelligence Committee.
"It is called violating the People," a boy answered while pointing at the naked king.
"And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light" (2 Corinthians 11: 14)
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* "NSA slides explain the
PRISM data-collection program." The Washington Post. June 6, 2013.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/politics/prism-collection-documents/
** "NSA collecting phone records of millions of Verizon customers daily." The Guardian. June 5, 2013.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/06/nsa-phone-records-verizon-court-order
*** Criminal Law, also
known as Penal Law, the law pertaining to crimes and punishment. The
laws comprising this topic regulate the definition of offences found to
have a sufficiently deleterious social impact and impose punishments on
them. However, the law does not impose restrictions on society that physically prevents people from committing a crime in the first place.
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