Chuck Baldwin
Illegal government surveillance of American citizens continues
By Chuck Baldwin
Ever since President George W. Bush created the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the American people have become the most surveilled citizenry in the entire world. U.S. surveillance of its own citizens makes the surveillance societies of Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Soviet Union look amateurish in comparison. Our government tells us they are surveilling terrorists. But they are mostly surveilling US.
I have already reported how the majority of so-called terror groups that the FBI claims to have broken up due to its elaborate spying programs were actually false flag operations that were in fact created by...THE FBI.
See the report:
What Would Patrick Henry Say Today?
And, sadly, hardly ever is the unconstitutional spying of the American people by its own government exposed by the mainstream media – or even by the so-called conservative media for that matter. An exception is a recent report in the Miami Herald:
"U.S. intelligence agencies conducted illegal surveillance on American citizens over a five-year period, a practice that earned them a sharp rebuke from a secret court that called the matter a 'very serious' constitutional issue.
"The criticism is in a lengthy secret ruling that lays bare some of the frictions between the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court and U.S. intelligence agencies obligated to obtain the court's approval for surveillance activities."
"It is rare that such rulings see the light of day, and the lengthy unraveling of issues in the 99-page document opens a window on how the secret federal court oversees surveillance activities and seeks to curtail those that it deems overstep legal authority.
"The document, signed by Judge Rosemary M. Collyer, said the court had learned in a notice filed Oct. 26, 2016, that National Security Agency analysts had been conducting prohibited queries of databases 'with much greater frequency than had previously been disclosed to the court.'
"It said a judge chastised the NSA's inspector general and Office of Compliance for Operations for an 'institutional "lack of candor"' for failing to inform the court. It described the matter as 'a very serious Fourth Amendment issue.'"
But then the Herald calmed everyone's nerves (and covered for the government) by concluding that "the bureau discontinued the practice on April 18, 2016."
See the report here:
Secret Court Rebukes NSA For 5-Year Illegal Surveillance Of U.S. Citizens
YEAH! RIGHT! If you believe the FBI (or the CIA, NSA, DHS and every other alphabet agency in the federal government) has discontinued its illegal spying on the American people, you are the sucker of the century.
The fact is, the federal government's (and more and more often, even State, county, and municipal government's) illegal surveillance of the American people will NEVER stop. And do you want to know why not? I'll tell you why not: the American people just don't give a flip. And on this specific subject, it's generally true that Republicans, conservatives, and Christians are WORSE than Democrats, liberals, and unbelievers.
If you don't believe me, just go to almost ANY Republican meeting, conservative meeting, or Christian gathering, and bring up the subject of the government's repeated violations of the Fourth Amendment, and see what kind of reaction you get. I will tell you what kind of reaction you will get: complete and utter indifference. They just don't care.
I mean, just look at the kind of private information that a majority of the American people (including Christians and conservatives) post on their personal social media pages. Are you kidding me? All the feds (or non-government criminals) need to do is monitor people's Facebook pages – which they DO, by the way. It's unbelievable!
And speaking of Christians and conservatives particularly, a majority of them see themselves as being so rabidly "law and order" that they are more than willing to eviscerate the Fourth Amendment under its rubric. They scream support for the First Amendment's freedom of religion clause and for the Second Amendment's protection of the right to keep and bear arms, but for the most part, they couldn't care less about the Fourth Amendment. It is one of the most frustrating realities of the twenty-first century! There is a huge difference in being pro-law and order (which I AM) and being pro-Police State (which I'm NOT). However, pro-Police State is what most Christians and conservatives seem to be. But remember, government employees are supposed to obey the law too.
I have probably written on the subject of government's usurpation of the Fourth Amendment as much or more than any national columnist. And the typical response to these columns is...NO RESPONSE. Either that or criticisms that I am not being fair to government; that government needs to violate the Fourth Amendment in order to protect us; and garbage like that.
I tell you the truth: a majority of Christians and conservatives have no more understanding and respect for liberty than the squirrel in the backyard who can't remember where he buried his nuts. They go to patriotic rallies and church services, sing patriotic songs, wave the flag, and get goose bumps all over while, at the same time, they can't remember that there even is such a thing as the Fourth Amendment (or Fifth Amendment or Sixth Amendment or Seventh Amendment or Eighth Amendment or Ninth Amendment or Tenth Amendment) – much less have the resolve and stamina to protect it. In fact, about the only amendments in the Bill of Rights that most Christians and conservatives care anything about are the First and Second Amendments. The rest of the Bill of Rights are invisible to them.
For the most part, federal and local police agencies are allowed to violate the Constitution and Bill of Rights with impunity. Overall, judges do a LOUSY job of holding police officers and prosecutors accountable to the Constitution. It is no hyperbole to say that most judges are involved in a deliberate collusion with police agencies to ensure convictions (and thus financial gain for the court system) and cover up police wrongdoing. I speak the TRUTH.
Citizens themselves seem to revel in a growing police presence. Churches often have "Police Appreciation Day," but have you ever heard of a church having a "Public Defenders Appreciation Day"? Yet the right of a defense attorney is enshrined in our Sixth Amendment. And the defense attorney (and jury) is literally the last line of defense against tyranny. The only thing left after that is the Second Amendment. But if people have no regard for the Fourth and Sixth Amendments, they are just blowing smoke and beating their chest when they shout support for the Second Amendment. If they won't defend the Fourth and Sixth Amendments NOW, do you really think they will defend the Second Amendment when it comes down to that? Baloney!
The conviction rate of most prosecutors is up in the ninety percent bracket. And that's not because police are THAT good at catching the real bad guys or prosecutors are THAT good at proving guilt. It's because most of the accused cannot afford private attorneys with top-notch private investigators at their disposal. Another reason is that they are pressured by the entire judicial system – including a certain percentage of public defenders who care more about getting along with the system than they do protecting the rights of their clients – to accept a plea deal. Hopefully, the vast majority of public defenders are not like this, but, sadly, some are.
Public defenders are under intense pressure to settle cases quickly so as not to clog up the court schedule. Plus, the public defender's office is usually one of the least budgeted offices in the State. Goody-goody "law and order" Republican legislators make a habit of not providing adequate funding for the public defender's office. Of course, the prosecutor's office has virtually unlimited funds to prove someone's guilt. Add to that the fact that most jurors seem to put policemen and prosecutors on a pedestal that almost reaches god-like status while viewing defense attorneys as being servants of Satan. Our constitutional system of government is supposed to be stacked in favor of the accused, but that's not the reality these days; the reality is, the system is stacked in favor of the prosecution in a HUGE way.
I STRONGLY urge readers to take a few minutes to review two of my past columns in which I go into some length to try and shed the light of truth on this very real problem in America today. Here is the first:
Responding To Police
Here is the second:
Police Killings At An All-Time High
We can thank America's pastors and their perverted, pernicious, and pathetic misinterpretation of Romans 13 for this unintelligent, unconstitutional, yet ubiquitous attitude that most people have that tends to deify civil government and make slaves out of citizens. If the American people could see the abuse of justice by police and prosecutors every day as defense attorneys do, their perspective about our so-called system of justice would change dramatically. And if that happened, my writing this column would not even be necessary, because they would not be putting up with these abuses of power by the representatives of government.
But our entire form of government – not to mention judicial system – is supposed to be biased in FAVOR of the accused. Both Biblical and Natural Law regard the protection of individual rights and liberties against government abuse to be sacrosanct. Where did this worship of government come from? Again, it came from the pulpits of America's churches – and, with the advent of socialist government in America, also from university classrooms and media newsrooms.
And lest you think the election of Donald Trump has changed anything pertaining to the unlawful spying of the American people by the federal government, it hasn't. Trump repeatedly extols unconstitutional (except in the dark mind of Rudy Giuliani) "stop and frisk" laws; he fancies himself the big "law and order" man who often talks about protecting policemen from the American people. But have you ever heard him say a word about protecting the American people from the policeman? NO! Why not? Because he doesn't believe the American people need any such protection, which means he doesn't give a rat's hind end about the Fourth Amendment any more than Barack Obama or G.W. Bush did.
As with every President of recent memory before him, Donald Trump is not about protecting the American people; he is all about protecting government, his campaign rhetoric notwithstanding. That's what most politicians are all about. Therefore, illegal government surveillance on the American people continues, regardless of who occupies the White House.
P.S. I have a brand new DVD message series available that is entitled "Hell's Greatest Hoaxes On America." This DVD contains three messages, with each message containing three lies (or hoaxes) that have enveloped the United States – lies that were hatched in the pit of Hell. The nine lies covered are:
Message One:
The Lie Of Evolution
The Lie Of Emasculating Men
The Lie Of The Erroneous Separation Of Church And State
Message Two:
The Lie Of American Exceptionalism
The Lie Of The Existence Of The Nation Of Israel
The Lie Of Evil False Religion
Message Three:
The Lie That Abraham Lincoln Ended Slavery
The Lie Of Debt-Based Economics
The Lie Of The Excellence Of Socialism
A person could attend the vast majority of the churches in America all year long and never hear a single message on any ONE of these subjects, much less all nine.
Order the DVD "Hell's Greatest Hoaxes On America" here:
Hell's Greatest Hoaxes On America
© Chuck Baldwin
June 2, 2017
Ever since President George W. Bush created the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the American people have become the most surveilled citizenry in the entire world. U.S. surveillance of its own citizens makes the surveillance societies of Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Soviet Union look amateurish in comparison. Our government tells us they are surveilling terrorists. But they are mostly surveilling US.
I have already reported how the majority of so-called terror groups that the FBI claims to have broken up due to its elaborate spying programs were actually false flag operations that were in fact created by...THE FBI.
See the report:
What Would Patrick Henry Say Today?
And, sadly, hardly ever is the unconstitutional spying of the American people by its own government exposed by the mainstream media – or even by the so-called conservative media for that matter. An exception is a recent report in the Miami Herald:
"U.S. intelligence agencies conducted illegal surveillance on American citizens over a five-year period, a practice that earned them a sharp rebuke from a secret court that called the matter a 'very serious' constitutional issue.
"The criticism is in a lengthy secret ruling that lays bare some of the frictions between the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court and U.S. intelligence agencies obligated to obtain the court's approval for surveillance activities."
"It is rare that such rulings see the light of day, and the lengthy unraveling of issues in the 99-page document opens a window on how the secret federal court oversees surveillance activities and seeks to curtail those that it deems overstep legal authority.
"The document, signed by Judge Rosemary M. Collyer, said the court had learned in a notice filed Oct. 26, 2016, that National Security Agency analysts had been conducting prohibited queries of databases 'with much greater frequency than had previously been disclosed to the court.'
"It said a judge chastised the NSA's inspector general and Office of Compliance for Operations for an 'institutional "lack of candor"' for failing to inform the court. It described the matter as 'a very serious Fourth Amendment issue.'"
But then the Herald calmed everyone's nerves (and covered for the government) by concluding that "the bureau discontinued the practice on April 18, 2016."
See the report here:
Secret Court Rebukes NSA For 5-Year Illegal Surveillance Of U.S. Citizens
YEAH! RIGHT! If you believe the FBI (or the CIA, NSA, DHS and every other alphabet agency in the federal government) has discontinued its illegal spying on the American people, you are the sucker of the century.
The fact is, the federal government's (and more and more often, even State, county, and municipal government's) illegal surveillance of the American people will NEVER stop. And do you want to know why not? I'll tell you why not: the American people just don't give a flip. And on this specific subject, it's generally true that Republicans, conservatives, and Christians are WORSE than Democrats, liberals, and unbelievers.
If you don't believe me, just go to almost ANY Republican meeting, conservative meeting, or Christian gathering, and bring up the subject of the government's repeated violations of the Fourth Amendment, and see what kind of reaction you get. I will tell you what kind of reaction you will get: complete and utter indifference. They just don't care.
I mean, just look at the kind of private information that a majority of the American people (including Christians and conservatives) post on their personal social media pages. Are you kidding me? All the feds (or non-government criminals) need to do is monitor people's Facebook pages – which they DO, by the way. It's unbelievable!
And speaking of Christians and conservatives particularly, a majority of them see themselves as being so rabidly "law and order" that they are more than willing to eviscerate the Fourth Amendment under its rubric. They scream support for the First Amendment's freedom of religion clause and for the Second Amendment's protection of the right to keep and bear arms, but for the most part, they couldn't care less about the Fourth Amendment. It is one of the most frustrating realities of the twenty-first century! There is a huge difference in being pro-law and order (which I AM) and being pro-Police State (which I'm NOT). However, pro-Police State is what most Christians and conservatives seem to be. But remember, government employees are supposed to obey the law too.
I have probably written on the subject of government's usurpation of the Fourth Amendment as much or more than any national columnist. And the typical response to these columns is...NO RESPONSE. Either that or criticisms that I am not being fair to government; that government needs to violate the Fourth Amendment in order to protect us; and garbage like that.
I tell you the truth: a majority of Christians and conservatives have no more understanding and respect for liberty than the squirrel in the backyard who can't remember where he buried his nuts. They go to patriotic rallies and church services, sing patriotic songs, wave the flag, and get goose bumps all over while, at the same time, they can't remember that there even is such a thing as the Fourth Amendment (or Fifth Amendment or Sixth Amendment or Seventh Amendment or Eighth Amendment or Ninth Amendment or Tenth Amendment) – much less have the resolve and stamina to protect it. In fact, about the only amendments in the Bill of Rights that most Christians and conservatives care anything about are the First and Second Amendments. The rest of the Bill of Rights are invisible to them.
For the most part, federal and local police agencies are allowed to violate the Constitution and Bill of Rights with impunity. Overall, judges do a LOUSY job of holding police officers and prosecutors accountable to the Constitution. It is no hyperbole to say that most judges are involved in a deliberate collusion with police agencies to ensure convictions (and thus financial gain for the court system) and cover up police wrongdoing. I speak the TRUTH.
Citizens themselves seem to revel in a growing police presence. Churches often have "Police Appreciation Day," but have you ever heard of a church having a "Public Defenders Appreciation Day"? Yet the right of a defense attorney is enshrined in our Sixth Amendment. And the defense attorney (and jury) is literally the last line of defense against tyranny. The only thing left after that is the Second Amendment. But if people have no regard for the Fourth and Sixth Amendments, they are just blowing smoke and beating their chest when they shout support for the Second Amendment. If they won't defend the Fourth and Sixth Amendments NOW, do you really think they will defend the Second Amendment when it comes down to that? Baloney!
The conviction rate of most prosecutors is up in the ninety percent bracket. And that's not because police are THAT good at catching the real bad guys or prosecutors are THAT good at proving guilt. It's because most of the accused cannot afford private attorneys with top-notch private investigators at their disposal. Another reason is that they are pressured by the entire judicial system – including a certain percentage of public defenders who care more about getting along with the system than they do protecting the rights of their clients – to accept a plea deal. Hopefully, the vast majority of public defenders are not like this, but, sadly, some are.
Public defenders are under intense pressure to settle cases quickly so as not to clog up the court schedule. Plus, the public defender's office is usually one of the least budgeted offices in the State. Goody-goody "law and order" Republican legislators make a habit of not providing adequate funding for the public defender's office. Of course, the prosecutor's office has virtually unlimited funds to prove someone's guilt. Add to that the fact that most jurors seem to put policemen and prosecutors on a pedestal that almost reaches god-like status while viewing defense attorneys as being servants of Satan. Our constitutional system of government is supposed to be stacked in favor of the accused, but that's not the reality these days; the reality is, the system is stacked in favor of the prosecution in a HUGE way.
I STRONGLY urge readers to take a few minutes to review two of my past columns in which I go into some length to try and shed the light of truth on this very real problem in America today. Here is the first:
Responding To Police
Here is the second:
Police Killings At An All-Time High
We can thank America's pastors and their perverted, pernicious, and pathetic misinterpretation of Romans 13 for this unintelligent, unconstitutional, yet ubiquitous attitude that most people have that tends to deify civil government and make slaves out of citizens. If the American people could see the abuse of justice by police and prosecutors every day as defense attorneys do, their perspective about our so-called system of justice would change dramatically. And if that happened, my writing this column would not even be necessary, because they would not be putting up with these abuses of power by the representatives of government.
But our entire form of government – not to mention judicial system – is supposed to be biased in FAVOR of the accused. Both Biblical and Natural Law regard the protection of individual rights and liberties against government abuse to be sacrosanct. Where did this worship of government come from? Again, it came from the pulpits of America's churches – and, with the advent of socialist government in America, also from university classrooms and media newsrooms.
And lest you think the election of Donald Trump has changed anything pertaining to the unlawful spying of the American people by the federal government, it hasn't. Trump repeatedly extols unconstitutional (except in the dark mind of Rudy Giuliani) "stop and frisk" laws; he fancies himself the big "law and order" man who often talks about protecting policemen from the American people. But have you ever heard him say a word about protecting the American people from the policeman? NO! Why not? Because he doesn't believe the American people need any such protection, which means he doesn't give a rat's hind end about the Fourth Amendment any more than Barack Obama or G.W. Bush did.
As with every President of recent memory before him, Donald Trump is not about protecting the American people; he is all about protecting government, his campaign rhetoric notwithstanding. That's what most politicians are all about. Therefore, illegal government surveillance on the American people continues, regardless of who occupies the White House.
P.S. I have a brand new DVD message series available that is entitled "Hell's Greatest Hoaxes On America." This DVD contains three messages, with each message containing three lies (or hoaxes) that have enveloped the United States – lies that were hatched in the pit of Hell. The nine lies covered are:
Message One:
The Lie Of Evolution
The Lie Of Emasculating Men
The Lie Of The Erroneous Separation Of Church And State
Message Two:
The Lie Of American Exceptionalism
The Lie Of The Existence Of The Nation Of Israel
The Lie Of Evil False Religion
Message Three:
The Lie That Abraham Lincoln Ended Slavery
The Lie Of Debt-Based Economics
The Lie Of The Excellence Of Socialism
A person could attend the vast majority of the churches in America all year long and never hear a single message on any ONE of these subjects, much less all nine.
Order the DVD "Hell's Greatest Hoaxes On America" here:
Hell's Greatest Hoaxes On America
© Chuck Baldwin
The views expressed by RenewAmerica columnists are their own and do not necessarily reflect the position of RenewAmerica or its affiliates.
(See RenewAmerica's publishing standards.)
