Al Sharpton backed out of the Oxford racism debate versus black conservative personality David Webb, who will now defend the U.S. alone. The move to make himself scarce comes just a day after Justice Department officials leaked the decision not to charge Officer Darren Wilson in the shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, in August, 2014.
Race hustler Rev. Al Sharpton backed out
US President Barack Obama with King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud of Saudi Arabia during meetings at the White House in Washington in 2010. AFP PHOTO/Saul LOEB Source: AFP
Saudi state TV reported Thursday that King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, a powerful and key U.S. ally against al Qaeda and Iran, died at age 90. King Abdullah attempted to modernize the ultraconservative Muslim kingdom, but now his 79-year-old half-brother has been named his successor.
The announcement came in statement read by a presenter on Saudi state TV, which aired video of worshippers at the Kaaba in Mecca and claimed he died after midnight Friday.
“I always valued King Abdullah’s perspective and appreciated our genuine and warm friendship. As a leader, he was always candid and had the courage of his convictions,” President Obama, who visited the king back in March, said in a statement. “One of those convictions was his steadfast and passionate belief in the importance of the U.S.-Saudi relationship as a force for stability and security in the Middle East and beyond.”
With the collapse of the pro-West government in Yemen this week, which fell to Iran-backed Houthi rebels, one former diplomat close to the Saudi royal family told Fox News the death of King Abdullah is a “worst case scenario” for the U.S. and the West because Iran is able to extend its reach and influence in the region.
He said Teheran’s influence is now seen in at least four Middle Eastern capitals – Sana’a in Yemen, Baghdad in Iraq, Damascus in Syria, and to a lesser extent in Beirut, Lebanon.
“I am deeply saddened to learn of the passing of my dear friend and partner King Abdullah,” former President George H.W. Bush said in a statement. “As President, I found His Majesty always to be a wise and reliable ally, helping our nations build on a strategic relationship and enduring friendship dating back to World War II.”
Despite the close alliance with the king, the friction between Washington and Abdullah regarding Israel and state-sponsoring terrorism was a very real challenge. The kingdom was home to not only Usama bin Laden, but also 15 of the 19 hijackers from the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks.
In 2000, Abdullah convinced the Arab League to approve a proposal calling on all Arab states to agree to peace with Israel if it withdrew from lands it captured in 1967. Just one month before 9/11, he sent the Saudi ambassador in Washington to tell the Bush administration that it was too biased in favor of Israel, and as a result, the kingdom would from now on pursue its own interests.
It had an impact. For the first time, President Bush advocated for the creation of a Palestinian state so long as it was a two-state solution with Israel.
Though Saudi Arabia proved to be a staunch U.S. ally in the global war on terror, it wasn’t until 2003, when al Qaeda militants began a push in the kingdom to overthrow the monarchy, did King Abdullah really crack down on the organization hard. As a result of a three-year effort, Saudi Arabia’s security forces pushed al Qaeda militants into neighboring Yemen.
Without a doubt, Abdullah’s biggest priority was to confront Shiite Iran across the Gulf. The king was extremely concerned regarding Iran’s nuclear program, leading him to push the United States in 2008 to take military action to “cut off the head of the snake,” preventing them from obtaining a nuclear weapon. The information was revealed in a leaked U.S. diplomatic memo. Long-frustrated by Washington’s inaction, he pushed the Obama administration to take a stand against Iran and to back the majority Sunni rebels fighting to overthrow Syrian President Bashar Assad.
Abdullah was born in Riyadh in 1924, one of the dozens of sons of Saudi Arabia’s founder, King Abdul-Aziz Al Saud. He became crown prince in 1982 on the same day his half-brother Fahd, who suffered a debilitating stroke, ascended to the throne. When Fahd died in 2005, Abdullah officially rose to the throne.
He pushed to modernize Saudi Arabia, a nation of immense wealth, by being a strong supporter of education, building universities at home and increasing scholarships abroad for Saudi students. A Western-style university even bears his name — the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology. When it opened in 2009, both men and women shared classrooms and studied together inside the campus, marking the first time in a nation that still fears the morality police.
King Abdullah also gave women seats on the Shura Council, an unelected body that advises the king and government, for the first time ever. He appointed the first female deputy minister in a 2009, and two Saudi female athletes competed in the Olympics for the first time in 2012. A few women were even granted licenses to work as lawyers during his rule.
However, it is unclear whether some of his promises and reforms will have staying power over the ultraconservative Wahhabi clerics, who give the royal family legitimacy. Abdullah promised women would be able to vote and run in 2015 elections for municipal councils, which are the only elections held in the country. He and other Sunni Arab monarchs are staunchly opposed to the Middle East’s wave of pro-democracy uprisings, which they see as a threat to stability and their own rule.
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., called Abdullah “an important voice for reform in Saudi Arabia. He pushed for the modernization of the education system, curbed the authority of the religious police, and extended women the right to vote and run in municipal elections.”
More than his guarded and hidebound predecessors, Abdullah assertively threw his oil-rich nation’s weight behind trying to shape the Middle East. His priority was to counter the influence of rival, mainly Shiite Iran wherever it tried to make advances.
Abdullah had more than 30 children from around a dozen wives.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Saudi state TV reported Thursday that King
A Houthi fighter fires at forces guarding the Presidential Palace during clashes in Sanaa January 19, 2015. (REUTERS/KHALED ABDULLAH)
Yemen President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi has resigned amid pressure from Shiite rebels confined the former leader to his home for the past two days. The development comes less than a year after President Obama cited the country as a model for how his administration plans “to degrade and ultimately” the Islamic State (ISIS).
The Iran-backed Houthi rebels seized the capital in September in an effort to push out the Western-backed government, despite what the president called good faith negotiations to halt Iran’s nuclear program.
Yemeni officials said Hadi resigned because he was being pressured to make concessions to the rebels, and to give a televised speech to calm the people in the streets. Prior, Hadi pledged political concessions in return for the rebels withdrawing from his house, which they have been shelling for at least two days, and the nearby presidential palace. However, sensing the government on the ropes, the rebels refused to take the deal.
Twenty-four hours after signing the deal, heavily armed Shiite rebels remained stationed outside Hadi’s house and the presidential palace.
Meanwhile, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said Thursday that the U.S. is still “assessing the situation and working to confirm” the developments.
“We are seeking a peaceful transition,” Psaki said.
It was unclear what information the administration was still seeking, as the Yemeni government also confirmed it had submitted its resignation Thursday.
Prime Minister Khaled Bahah’s resignation came as the U.N. envoy to the Arab world’s poorest country met with representatives from the Houthis and other factions to try to implement a prior deal allegedly reached Wednesday. Yet, that deal failed to end the crisis and violence.
Under the agreement, the group’s militias were to withdraw from the presidential palace and key areas of the capital they have overrun in recent days in return for political concessions.
At this point, it also remains unclear what faction or how many currently control the country or specific territories. The wildcard remains al Qaeda in Yemen, or al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), whose leader last week claimed responsibility for the attack on French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo in Paris. While the Shiite rebels, whose official slogan is “Death to Israel. Death to America,” have pledged to dismantle the terror network, they are obviously strongly anti-West and anti-Israel.
Bahah, a political independent, saw his technocratic government established as a result of a November United Nations-brokered peace deal implemented after the Houthis overran the capital in September. Posting to his official Facebook page, he said his tenure in office began during “very complicated circumstances,” and that he resigned in order to “avoid being dragged into an abyss of unconstructive policies based on no law.”
“We don’t want to be a party to what is happening or will happen,” he added.
Judging by the response from Psaki, neither does the Obama administration.
[caption id="attachment_21677" align="aligncenter" width="630"] A Houthi fighter
Jan. 7, 2015: Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, D-Manhattan, walks on the floor in the Assembly Chamber at the start of the 2015 legislative session at the state Capitol in Albany, N.Y. (AP Photo/Mike Groll)
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) confirmed Thursday that NY Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver (D-Manhattan) was arrested on public corruption charges. Silver, 70, is accused of using his position as one of the most powerful men in Albany to obtain millions of dollars in bribes and kickbacks masked as legitimate income.
The speaker of the New York Assembly was taken into custody around 8 a.m. at the FBI’s New York City office, FBI spokesman Peter Donald confirmed. Silver faces five counts, including conspiracy and bribery charges. He is expected to make a court appearance later Thursday to answer the charges, which came just a day after Silver shared the stage with Gov. Andrew Cuomo during his State of the State address.
“There is probable cause to believe Silver obtained about $4 million in payments characterized as attorney referral fees solely through the corrupt use of his official position,” the criminal complaint said. “Silver took legal action and other steps to prevent the disclosure of such information,” when the now-boarded anti-corruption commission began to investigate public corruption in 2013, the complaint said.
The charges came only after U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara took over the case files of New York’s Moreland anti-corruption commission, which Cuomo suspiciously closed in April. Bharara vowed further investigations into Albany’s “pay-to-play politics.”
In a defiant response, Joel Cohen, Speaker Silver’s attorney, said the charges “meritless.”
“Mr. Silver looks forward to responding to them — in court — and ultimately his full exoneration,” Cohen said in a statement to media.
The commission, and subsequently Mr. Bharara, were investigating lawmakers’ earnings outside their state salaries, a topic Silver knows well. His large outside income has long been a subject of suspicion and controversy. Last year, he reported making up to $750,000 for legal work, the vast majority of which he claimed working with the trial firm of Weitz & Luxenberg.
In fact, Silver is no stranger to corruption and scandal, overall. In 2003, his then-counsel, Michael Boxley, was convicted of sexual misconduct. Then, in 2012, Silver arraigned a confidential settlement of $103,000 in public funds for two women who had alleged they were sexually harassed by then-Assemblyman Vito Lopez, a Democrat from Brooklyn and their boss. Only after the settlement came into public light did the Assembly speaker come under fire by New York’s liberally-bias media, prompting Silver to later admit the case should have been handled by the ethics committee.
Silver was first elected to the Assembly in 1976, representing a district on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, where he was born and still lives with his wife, Rosa.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) confirmed
ECB President Mario Draghi (seen in photo) resists argument from Sabine Lautenschlaeger, Germany’s appointee to the ECB’s Executive Board, said now was not the time for state bond buying. (Photo: REUTERS)
European Central Bank President Mario Draghi said at a press conference Thursday that the ECB will launch a historic quantitative easing (QE) program. The asset purchase program will include asset-backed securities and covered bonds that total 60 billion euros per month through at least September 2016.
Draghi’s announcement, which came just hours after the ECB said it will keep its benchmark refinancing rate unchanged at 0.05 percent, as expected, reflects an effort to jumpstart the eurozone economy and address growing deflation fears. The purchases are set to start in March and will include investment-grade euro area government debt, among other instruments.
“The combined monthly purchases of public and private sector securities will amount to 60 billion euros,” Draghi told a news conference. “They are intended to be carried out until end-September 2016 and will in any case be conducted until we see a sustained adjustment in the path of inflation.”
Because bonds will be purchased on the secondary market in proportion to the ECB’s capital key, the largest economies from Germany on down will have their debt purchased by the ECB more than smaller economies
“The ECB should have already embarked on QE,” said former ECB policymaker Athanasios Orphanides, a longtime proponent of the plan. “Now that the situation has deteriorated, the ECB will have to do much more.”
The euro (EURUSD) fell on the heels of the news, as did bond yields in Italy, Spain and Portugal. But European shares increased.
Germany, who has been carrying the eurozone nearly single-handily, remains in the dissent. French Finance Minister Michel Sapin, while in Berlin, shot back at German criticisms over the loose and easy money policy.
“The Germans have taught us to respect the independence of the European Central Bank,” he told France Info radio. “They must remember that themselves.”
While Draghi said 20 percent of the asset purchases would be subject to risk-sharing, which indicated the majority of potential losses will hit national central banks, critics say the eurozone’s risk-sharing philosophy has been a failure.
And that isn’t just coming from Germany.
“It is a mistake to suppose that QE is a panacea in Europe or that it will be sufficient,” former U.S. Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, who resigned from the Obama administration amid loose money policy, said at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Thursday.
Summers has since written reviews at Princeton researching why the stimulus plan passed by the Democratic Congress in 2009 did not work.
European Central Bank President Mario Draghi said
The Labor Department said Tuesday that weekly jobless claims fell last week from a 7-month high, but still missed economists’ expectations and remain above 300,000.
Initial claims for state unemployment benefits fell by 10,000 to a seasonally adjusted 307,000 for the week ended Jan. 17, which many economists on the difficulty adjusting for seasonal variations around the Christmas and New Year holidays.
Economists polled by Reuters had forecast claims falling to 300,000 last week. The prior week’s data was revised to show 1,000 more claims received than previously reported.
The four-week moving average of claims — which considered a better measure of labor market trends as it irons out week-to-week volatility — still increased by 6,500 last week to 306,500. That marks the first time first-time unemployment applications are above the 300,000 mark since September 2014.
The claims data covered the week during which the government surveyed employers for January’s nonfarm payrolls.
The four-week average rising 7,750 between the December and January payroll survey periods, and the report showed the number of people still receiving benefits after an initial week of aid increased 15,000 to 2.44 million in the week ended Jan. 10.
The Labor Department said Tuesday that weekly
A video caught from the dashboard camera in a Bridgeton Police Department cruiser appears to show a NJ cop shooting a black man with his hands up. The media, of course, quickly pounded on the incident that actually occurred on Dec. 30, 2014, during a traffic stop in Bridgeton, NJ, located just south of Philadelphia.
Officer Braheme Days, a black cop, and his white partner, Roger Worley, pulled over a Jaguar that did not stop at a stop sign. In the passenger seat was Jerame Reid, 36, a known quantity to police who spent roughly 13 years in prison for shooting at three state troopers when he was a teenager. Officer Days was also present last year when Reid was charged with several crimes, including drug possession and obstruction. Days is listed as one of the arresting officers.
The driver, Leroy Tutt, who was compliant, went to retrieve his license for the police officer and Officer Days can be heard warning his partner that he could see a gun in the glove compartment.
That’s when things went bad.
“The video speaks for itself – that at no point was Jerame Reid a threat and he possessed no weapon on his person,” Walter Hudson, chairman and founder of the civil rights group the National Awareness Alliance, said Wednesday. “He complied with the officer and the officer shot him.”
But, despite Mr. Hudson’s claims, Reid did not comply.
In the video, you can hear the officer screaming over and over “Don’t you f—ing move!” and “Show me your hands!” The driver, Tutt, raises his hands immediately, but Reid didn’t have the same reaction. In fact, Officer Days repeated the command to Reid 17 times and, on at least five different occasions, told Reid that he would be shot if he did not comply.
“I’m going to shoot you,” Days shouted during one of those five times, even calling Reid by his first name. “You’re going to be f—ing dead. If you reach for something, you’re going to be f—ing dead.”
When Reid swung the door open proclaiming, “I’m getting out” — while Officer Days was still standing in front of it — the officers opened fire, killing him on the spot. According to one officer who spoke on the condition of anonymity, media outlets are seemingly unable to put themselves in the shoes of police officers.
“We risk our lives everyday doing a job few have the courage to do, then they judge us from a distance, from a video,” the individual said. “He is a known, violent criminal we know can’t be trusted. He could have had a gun or some other weapon on him Days didn’t see. That’s why when an officer tells you to do something, you do it. You don’t get to set the rules for encounters with the police.”
“Are we allowed to go home to our families?” the individual asked.
A video caught from the dashboard camera
Jan. 21, 2015: Anti-abortion rights activists are connected with a red piece of cloth as they stage a ‘die-in’ in front of the White House in Washington. (Photo: AP)
House Republicans Wednesday folded on a bill that would have banned late-term abortions after 20 weeks amid party disagreements over alienating women voters. The failure of a bill once thought to be sure to pass comes just one day after Sen. Joni Ernst claimed the new Congress would “defend life, because protecting our most vulnerable is an important measure of any society.”
Rather than vote on this bill, the House will vote Thursday — which is the 42nd anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision — on a bill that would ban the use of tax dollars for abortions. It is the same law that was passed by the House nearly one year ago but died in the Senate, which was then controlled by Harry Reid (D-NV) and the Democrats. It will make permanent the so-called Hyde amendment, which bans all federal money for abortion services.
As of now, Congress simply renews the amendment each year, which it has done since the mid-1970s. However, through ObamaCare funding Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers, the administration has been circumventing the law for years already.
The move is a clear act of symbolism over substance, as the vote Thursday will come on the same day that the anti-abortion March for Life is scheduled to begin in Washington.
The failed bill was a reflection of the scientific evidence presented in recent years that suggests that a fetus can feel pain at 20 weeks and offered certain exceptions, including for victims of rape that reported the crime to authorities.
Yet, some Republicans, including female members of Congress, said many women do not report rapes and, thus, should not be subject to such a law, citing a 2013 Justice Department report that claimed only 35 percent of rapes and sexual assaults were reported to police.
“The issue becomes, we’re questioning the woman’s word,” Rep. Renee Ellmers, R-N.C., said earlier Wednesday. “We have to be compassionate to women when they’re in a crisis situation.”
And that wasn’t the only sticking point.
“So the exception would apply to a 16-year-old but not a 19-year-old?” said Rep. Charles Dent, R-Pa, who objected to the bill’s exemption for minors who are victims of incest and have reported the incident. “I mean, incest is incest.”
While party leadership was concerned that the bill would have negative political consequences for a Republican Party that seeks to attract female voters in the 2016 elections, public opinion among women and all voters is overwhelmingly against late-term abortion.
“PPD has spent a great deal of time analyzing the support for abortion, and Americans have favored a late-term abortion ban for years,” said PPD’s senior political analyst Richard D. Baris. “And that includes a majority of young and women voters.”
A recent WaPo/ABC news poll found that by a 56 percent – 27 percent margin, more Americans say they’d prefer to impose limits on abortions after the first 20 weeks of pregnancy rather than the 24-week mark established under current law in some states. Gallup, who has been tracking the issue since the 1970s, has found even greater support for late-term abortion.
“Since 1995, when Gallup measured a 23 percent advantage for the pro-choice designation, support for abortion has steadily ceded ground to the pro-life designation,” Baris said. “And the reason is simple. Most Americans, particularly younger Americans, find it harder to see a 20-week-old baby as a fetus.”
Only 26 percent of Americans say abortion should legal in all circumstances, while 20 say it should be illegal in all circumstances and 52 percent say only in certain circumstances should it be allowed. When together, 72 percent supported a ban on late-term abortion.
Even a July 2013 Huffington Post poll found that by a two-to-one margin, respondents said they would favor a federal law banning abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy.
Nevertheless, party leadership contends they wants to show they can focus on issues that matter to voters without any gridlock. However, members who backed the 20-week bill say 1) leadership is scared of media treatment on the issue, not the voters and, 2) they didn’t raise their objections until the last-minute, claiming they used the issue to win their election and are now breaking their promises.
“This isn’t something new,” a congressional aide said. “We’ve been working on this for two years, since July 2013. Where were they?”
Another source told FOX News that it was known the abortion bill would be one of the new Congress’s first votes of the session, and that any members suggesting otherwise were “being dishonest.”
In a statement, Family Research Council President Tony Perkins said he was disappointed by the failure of the 20-week measure, but said he was encouraged that Congress would vote on banning taxpayer funding of abortions.
“Americans have been forced to violate their conscience and religious convictions long enough by being made to fund President Obama’s massive abortion scheme,” Perkins said.
Rep. Trent Franks, R-Ariz., a chief sponsor of the 20-week bill, called it “a sincere effort” to protect women and “their unborn, pain-capable child from the atrocity of late-term abortion.” Franks added that leadership members “want to try to create as much unity as we can.”
The White House had threatened to veto the legislation, calling it “an assault on a woman’s right to choose.”
In the 42 years since the Supreme Court’s ruling in Roe v. Wade, there have been 57 million unborn babies aborted in the United States.
House Republicans Wednesday folded on a bill
US national debt piles up next to the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C., where no one has the political courage to rise to the challenge of staving off the coming crisis.
Obama, and the Congress for the most part, are not telling us the whole truth about the state of the economy.
Despite the fact that 45 million or more people are on bread lines (SNAP), the president extolled the virtue of an essentially flat-lined economy. Talk all the numbers you want, but any observant American will tell you people are just not spending money. Stores on every street corner sit vacant, lots for commercial development still sit idle and business “ain’t what it used to be.” The evidence of this is shown statistically in the labor force participation rate — fewer people than ever are bringing home a regular paycheck that is sufficient for the typical American way of life.
Furthermore, the president called upon the people of this nation to increase taxation by over $380 billion to fund programs. This necessitates the logical questions we should all be asking. If the economy is so good, why does it need fixing, and where is it going to come from?
$380 billion is nearly half the money the government paid out in the TARP program just 6 years ago. What kind of effect is that going to have; assuming you bought into the ideology that money from the government will help stimulate the economy? $380 billion to the government certainly will have the opposite effect.
Our government is out of money and has no way of paying it back.
What they aren’t talking about is the elephant in the room — the national debt. At $18 plus trillion it is gobbling a larger portion of our money every day and we’re out of credit. They are lying to us and telling us that more taxes, more loopholes or some minor fix is in order.
Essentially, what the President is saying is “we’re broke and we have no way of paying it back.” The government spending these past years has vastly exceeded our ability to pay it back under our current tax code.
What makes me sure of it, is the GOP in its rebuttal failed to discuss the heart of the matter, and instead talked about singular issues such as the Keystone Pipeline. The GOP wants those tax revenues, too. They just are trying to figure out how to structure it with loopholes and tax breaks so their crumb donors will sign off on it.
The wild card in the deck is the conservatives in the Tea Party, which explains why they are trying to destroy them. These guys won’t sign off on anything. They are talking about program cuts and eliminations. That’s heresy inside the beltway.
The bottom line is that government probably will limp along for two more years until the next election and run up more debt, interest and bills, and kick the can down the road. We have to dramatically change the way we think about government and the role in society it should have.
Sooner or later this problem will come to a head; right about the time the real problem we all should be talking about comes to call and chops it off with a scimitar.
Thomas Purcell is nationally syndicated columnist, author of the book “Shotgun Republic” and is host of the Liberty Never Sleeps podcast. More of his work can be found at LibertyNeverSleeps.com.
[mybooktable book=”shotgun-republic” display=”summary”]
Forget about the State of the Union,
Activists on both sides of the political spectrum protest the surveillance of U.S. citizens by the NSA outside the Justice Department where U.S. President Barack Obama gave a major speech on reforming the NSA on January 17, 2014. On May 22, 2014, the Republican-controlled House voted to curb spying on American citizens. (Photo: Win McNamee/Getty)
While the Western world was watching and grieving over the slaughter in Paris last week, and my colleagues in the media were fomenting a meaningless debate about whether President Obama should have gone to Paris to participate in a televised parade, the feds took advantage of that diversion to reveal even more incursions into our liberties than we had known about.
We already knew that the NSA, our 60,000 domestic spies, has captured and retained the contents of nearly all emails, text messages, telephone calls, bank statements, utility bills and credit card bills of all Americans since 2009. We already knew that Obama has used CIA drones to kill Americans overseas and claims that he somehow can do so legally and secretly notwithstanding the express prohibitions in the Constitution.
We already knew that President George W. Bush authorized the illegal torture of a hundred-plus people, about 20 percent by “mistake,” and now we know that because he refuses to prosecute the torturers, Obama is as culpable for the torture as Bush is.
Last week, however, the Department of Justice revealed that since the 1990s, the Drug Enforcement Administration, whose job is to interdict controlled dangerous substances before they enter our borders and to do so consistent with the Constitution, has been monitoring the phone calls of selected Americans. Prior to 2001, the DEA intimidated, coerced and bribed telecom providers into making their telephone lines available to its agents. Since 2001, it has no doubt taken advantage of the provisions of the so-called Patriot Act that permit federal agents to write their own search warrants to custodians of records, in direct contravention of the Constitution, which requires warrants from judges.
Last week, the Government Communications Headquarters, the British equivalent of the NSA, known as GCHQ, acknowledged that it has been reading the domestic emails of U.S. journalists since 2008. This can only be done (a) by stealth illegally, or (b) if the NSA has given this data illegally to the GCHQ, or (c) on the odd chance that an American domestic email or cellphone call has been routed through Canada or Britain. The GCHQ boasted of its ability to download 70,000 American emails in 10 minutes! Did you hear Obama condemn this?
As if all this were not enough to make one ask what is going on with our privacy, also last week, former federal agents revealed that more than 50 American law enforcement agencies, including the FBI and the U.S. Marshals Service, possess a new handheld radar device that sends sound waves through walls and receives back images on a screen of persons on the other side of the walls.
This permits cops on the street to view an image of you in the privacy of your home without your knowledge or consent and without a search warrant. For the past 13 years, the Supreme Court has refused to permit evidence from similar heat-seeking devices to be used in criminal prosecutions, and the cops have reacted by using a more high-tech version, ostensibly to see whether “anyone is home.”
None of these flagrant violations of privacy, dignity and basic American constitutional values was enacted by a majority vote of any representative body of lawmakers — and yet none has been stopped by those lawmakers. That’s because we have a deep state system in American government, whereby certain law enforcement, military, intelligence and diplomatic personnel can do as they wish, no matter which party controls the legislative and executive branches and in hair-splitting defiance of the courts.
That hair-splitting defiance argues that the Fourth Amendment’s guarantee of privacy in the “persons, houses, papers and effects” of all in America only pertains to criminal prosecutions; thus, the government, this argument goes, can invade all the privacy it wants so long as it is for some other — non-criminal — purpose. Supreme Court decisions recognizing privacy as a personal natural right, as well as American constitutional history (the Fourth Amendment was written largely in reaction to British soldiers invading privacy by looking for items in the colonists’ homes to tax), profoundly reject that argument.
How does the government get away with this? If you peered into your neighbor’s bedroom with a high-tech device, you’d be prosecuted or sued. Yet when the government does this, most folks are supine enough to be grateful for the safety it produces. That’s what Big Brother wants you to believe. What safety? Who will keep us safe from the government? Who will keep our personal liberties safe? What representative government splits hairs in order to defy the Constitution, rather than complying with its oath to protect it?
In effect, the government argues that it cannot keep us safe unless it violates the rights of the known innocent. If you buy that argument and surrender your own privacy, good luck — but don’t try to surrender anyone else’s. Freedom is natural and personal and cannot be surrendered by others. If you think the present federal government will keep you safe because you let it take your freedoms, what will protect you from a future federal government when all your freedoms have been surrendered?
Judge Andrew Napolitano has written nine books on the U.S. Constitution. The most recent is Suicide Pact: The Radical Expansion of Presidential Powers and the Lethal Threat to American Liberty.
Judge Napolitano: If you think the present
