The Obama Administration has far surpassed even Bush’s post 9/11 levels of government scrutiny of citizens, business, whistle-blowers the media and the Fed’s own agencies. It seems to me that the Obama regime’s big brother policies have even surpassed that of communist China and Russia during the cold war. I hold that all the below mentioned reports (and more) are all in some respect related and a a part of the development of an increasingly, politically paranoid “Big Brother” mentality withing the Federal government.
DHS No Longer Needs Permission Slips to Monitor Other Agencies’ Networks for Vulnerabilities
The Department of Homeland Security has spelled out its intentions to proactively monitor civilian agency networks for signs of threats, after agencies arguably dropped the ball this spring in detecting federal websites potentially harboring the Heartbleed superbug.
Common sense recognizes that with hacking and attacks from foreign governments and other hackers, it is necessary to guard intrusions into government networks. (Sadly the government seems to continually fail to block such cyber attacks, which would indicate that there is a need for the development of a Cyber-defense project comparable with the Manhattan Project that can not only defend against cyber-attacks, but launch a retaliatory response) The need for protection of our government and civilian networks at is not at question here. The problem is that such monitoring of activity can be instead misused by a “Big Brother” administration into being used to search and find political opposition to it’s agenda. The Obama administration seems more concerned on going after political opposition than securing itself from foreign intrusions.
Appeals court to determine whether FBI’s national security letters violate free speech rights
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is considering whether gag orders that bar recipients from discussing the letters are free speech violations rendering the demands unconstitutional.
The FBI issues thousands of national security letters annually while investigating terrorism and espionage cases. Unlike warrants, the demands for information are made without judicial oversight. A lower court judge ruled the letters unconstitutional because of the gag orders but allowed the FBI to continue sending the letters, also known as NSLs, pending an appeal.
We can also look to our military, where some officers have been essentially given “loyalty tests” on whether they would follow an order by the President to fire on US civilians, and those who considered it wrong were subsequently forced out. This is of course a direct violation of the officer’s oath of office, and the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878.
Then again, if you militarize “law enforcement agents” with military grade weapons and weaponized vehicles and aircraft, courtesy of the Executive branch, does that not in of itself essentially do somewhat the same thing by transforming “law enforcement” into a civilian military force? And what about Obama’s recent aborted attempt to enlist illegal foreign nationals into our military. (Does anyone remember their Revolutionary War history and the “Hessian”?
We are indeed living in “interesting times.” It’s time to seriously consider the “why” of all such actions by this administration.