“My intention is to ask the courts and people of Hong Kong to decide my fate.
I have been given no reason to doubt your system.”
- Edward Snowden
Meet 3pm, Chater Garden, Central Exit J2 | 本周六下午3點中環地鐵 J2出口
March to the US consulate, then HK SAR HQ in Tamar.
Confirmed Speakers:
Speaking at Chater Garden: Albert Ho, Chairman of HK Alliance & ex-Democratic Party leader: “Why this case is important for HK’s future” Ip lam Chong, In-Media HK: “The implications of Edward Snowden coming to Hong Kong” Claudia Mo, LEGCO member, founding member of Civic Party: “Whistleblowers and free speech in HK”
Speaking at the US Consulate: Charles Mok, LEGCO member: “The right to communicate safely online and freedom of expression”
Speaking at HK Gov’t HQ: Law Yuk Kai, Director, HK Human Rights Monitor: “Hong Kong’s legal system & international legal system” Ronny Tong, Civic Party LEGCO member: ” “
Download press release / organiser contact info (Eng/Chi):
Edward Snowden, the whistleblower behind the NSA internet and phone surveillance program has come to Hong Kong because, he says, we “have a spirited commitment to free speech and the right of political dissent”. Snowden sacrificed his personal safety and freedom to defend our right to free speech and Internet freedom.
We call on Hong Kong to respect international legal standards and procedures relating to the protection of Snowden; we condemn the U.S. government for violating our rights and privacy; and we call on the U.S. not to prosecute Snowden.”
Do you want to stand for freedom and the rule of law? Or should we totally disregard Hong Kong’s legal system? This episode marks a crossroads in Hong Kong’s future. Stand up for the future of Hong Kong.
Time: 3-5:30pm, Saturday June 15, 2013. Please bring a whistle!
Rally route: Starting 3pm at Chater Garden, Central MTR exit J2. Rally to the U.S Consulate and then Tamar SAR government building.
Rally preparation: Please bring your friends, prepare for rain and try to bring water resistant posters. Slogan suggestions: “Defend Free Speech, Protect Snowden”, “No Extradition”, “Respect Hong Kong Law”, “Shame on NSA”, “Stop Internet Surveillance”, “Betray Snowden = Betray Freedom”.
If you know someone that actually believes that the U.S. economy is in good shape, just show them the statistics in this article. When you step back and look at the long-term trends, it is undeniable what is happening to us. We are in the midst of a horrifying economic decline that is the result of decades of very bad decisions. 30 years ago, the U.S. national debt was about one trillion dollars. Today, it is almost 17 trillion dollars. 40 years ago, the total amount of debt in the United States was about 2 trillion dollars. Today, it is more than 56 trillion dollars. At the same time that we have been running up all of this debt, our economic infrastructure and our ability to produce wealth has been absolutely gutted. Since 2001, the United States has lost more than 56,000 manufacturing facilities and millions of good jobs have been shipped overseas. Our share of global GDP declined from 31.8 percent in 2001 to 21.6 percent in 2011. The percentage of Americans that are self-employed is at a record low, and the percentage of Americans that are dependent on the government is at a record high. The U.S. economy is a complete and total mess, and it is time that we faced the truth.
The following are 40 statistics about the fall of the U.S. economy that are almost too crazy to believe…
#1 Back in 1980, the U.S. national debt was less than one trillion dollars. Today, it is rapidly approaching 17 trillion dollars…
#3 The U.S. national debt is now more than 23 times larger than it was when Jimmy Carter became president.
#4 If you started paying off just the new debt that the U.S. has accumulated during the Obama administration at the rate of one dollar per second, it would take more than 184,000 years to pay it off.
#5 The federal government is stealing more than 100 million dollars from our children and our grandchildren every single hour of every single day.
#6 Back in 1970, the total amount of debt in the United States (government debt + business debt + consumer debt, etc.) was less than 2 trillion dollars. Today it is over 56 trillion dollars…
#7 According to the World Bank, U.S. GDP accounted for 31.8 percent of all global economic activity in 2001. That number dropped to 21.6 percent in 2011.
#8 The United States has fallen in the global economic competitiveness rankings compiled by the World Economic Forum for four years in a row.
#9 According to The Economist, the United States was the best place in the world to be born into back in 1988. Today, the United States is only tied for 16th place.
#10 Incredibly, more than 56,000 manufacturing facilities in the United States have been permanently shut down since 2001.
#11 There are less Americans working in manufacturing today than there was in 1950 even though the population of the country has more than doubled since then.
#13 When NAFTA was pushed through Congress in 1993, the United States had a trade surplus with Mexico of 1.6 billion dollars. By 2010, we had a trade deficit with Mexico of 61.6 billion dollars.
#14 Back in 1985, our trade deficit with China was approximately 6 million dollars (million with a little “m”) for the entire year. In 2012, our trade deficit with China was 315 billion dollars. That was the largest trade deficit that one nation has had with another nation in the history of the world.
#15 Overall, the United States has run a trade deficit of more than 8 trillion dollars with the rest of the world since 1975.
#16 According to the Economic Policy Institute, the United States is losing half a million jobs to China every single year.
#18 At this point, an astounding 53 percent of all American workers make less than $30,000 a year.
#19 Small business is rapidly dying in America. At this point, only about 7 percent of all non-farm workers in the United States are self-employed. That is an all-time record low.
#20 Back in 1983, the bottom 95 percent of all income earners in the United States had 62 cents of debt for every dollar that they earned. By 2007, that figure had soared to $1.48.
#25 According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 49 percent of all Americans live in a home that receives direct monetary benefits from the federal government. Back in 1983, less than a third of all Americans lived in a home that received direct monetary benefits from the federal government.
#26 Overall, the federal government runs nearly 80 different “means-tested welfare programs”, and at this point more than 100 million Americans are enrolled in at least one of them.
#27 Back in 1965, only one out of every 50 Americans was on Medicaid. Today, one out of every 6 Americans is on Medicaid, and things are about to get a whole lot worse. It is being projected that Obamacare will add 16 million more Americans to the Medicaid rolls.
#28 As I wrote recently, it is being projected that the number of Americans on Medicare will grow from 50.7 million in 2012 to 73.2 million in 2025.
#29 At this point, Medicare is facing unfunded liabilities of more than 38 trillion dollars over the next 75 years. That comes to approximately $328,404 for every single household in the United States.
#30 Right now, there are approximately 56 million Americans collecting Social Security benefits. By 2035, that number is projected to soar to an astounding 91 million.
#33 According to a report recently issued by the Pew Research Center, on average Americans over the age of 65 have 47 times as much wealth as Americans under the age of 35.
#34 U.S. families that have a head of household that is under the age of 30 have a poverty rate of 37 percent.
#35 As I mentioned recently, the homeownership rate in America is now at its lowest level in nearly 18 years.
#36 There are now 20.2 million Americans that spend more than half of their incomes on housing. That represents a 46 percent increase from 2001.
#3745 percent of all children are living in poverty in Miami, more than 50 percent of all children are living in poverty in Cleveland, and about 60 percent of all children are living in poverty in Detroit.
#38 Today, more than a million public school students in the United States are homeless. This is the first time that has ever happened in our history.
#39 When Barack Obama first entered the White House, about 32 million Americans were on food stamps. Now, more than 47 million Americans are on food stamps.
#40 According to one calculation, the number of Americans on food stamps now exceeds the combined populations of “Alaska, Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Utah, Vermont, West Virginia, and Wyoming.”
Edward Snowden: the NSA Surveillance whistleblower
The individual responsible for one of the most significant leaks in US political history is Edward Snowden, a 29-year-old former technical assistant for the CIA and current employee of the defence contractor Booz Allen Hamilton. Snowden has been working at the National Security Agency for the last four years as an employee of various outside contractors, including Booz Allen and Dell.
Snowden will go down in history as one of America’s most consequential whistleblowers, alongside Daniel Ellsberg and Bradley Manning. He is responsible for handing over material from one of the world’s most secretive organisations – the NSA.
In a note accompanying the first set of documents he provided, he wrote: “I understand that I will be made to suffer for my actions,” but “I will be satisfied if the federation of secret law, unequal pardon and irresistible executive powers that rule the world that I love are revealed even for an instant.”
Despite his determination to be publicly unveiled, he repeatedly insisted that he wants to avoid the media spotlight. “I don’t want public attention because I don’t want the story to be about me. I want it to be about what the US government is doing.”
Despite these fears, he remained hopeful his outing will not divert attention from the substance of his disclosures. “I really want the focus to be on these documents and the debate which I hope this will trigger among citizens around the globe about what kind of world we want to live in.” He added: “My sole motive is to inform the public as to that which is done in their name and that which is done against them.”
He has had “a very comfortable life” that included a salary of roughly $200,000, a girlfriend with whom he shared a home in Hawaii, a stable career, and a family he loves. “I’m willing to sacrifice all of that because I can’t in good conscience allow the US government to destroy privacy, internet freedom and basic liberties for people around the world with this massive surveillance machine they’re secretly building.”
‘I am not afraid, because this is the choice I’ve made’
Three weeks ago, Snowden made final preparations that resulted in last week’s series of blockbuster news stories. At the NSA office in Hawaii where he was working, he copied the last set of documents he intended to disclose.
He then advised his NSA supervisor that he needed to be away from work for “a couple of weeks” in order to receive treatment for epilepsy, a condition he learned he suffers from after a series of seizures last year.
As he packed his bags, he told his girlfriend that he had to be away for a few weeks, though he said he was vague about the reason. “That is not an uncommon occurrence for someone who has spent the last decade working in the intelligence world.”
On May 20, he boarded a flight to Hong Kong, where he has remained ever since. He chose the city because “they have a spirited commitment to free speech and the right of political dissent”, and because he believed that it was one of the few places in the world that both could and would resist the dictates of the US government.
In the three weeks since he arrived, he has been ensconced in a hotel room. “I’ve left the room maybe a total of three times during my entire stay,” he said. It is a plush hotel and, what with eating meals in his room too, he has run up big bills.
He is deeply worried about being spied on. He lines the door of his hotel room with pillows to prevent eavesdropping. He puts a large red hood over his head and laptop when entering his passwords to prevent any hidden cameras from detecting them.
Though that may sound like paranoia to some, Snowden has good reason for such fears. He worked in the US intelligence world for almost a decade. He knows that the biggest and most secretive surveillance organisation in America, the NSA, along with the most powerful government on the planet, is looking for him.
Since the disclosures began to emerge, he has watched television and monitored the internet, hearing all the threats and vows of prosecution emanating from Washington.
And he knows only too well the sophisticated technology available to them and how easy it will be for them to find him. The NSA police and other law enforcement officers have twice visited his home in Hawaii and already contacted his girlfriend, though he believes that may have been prompted by his absence from work, and not because of suspicions of any connection to the leaks.
“All my options are bad,” he said. The US could begin extradition proceedings against him, a potentially problematic, lengthy and unpredictable course for Washington. Or the Chinese government might whisk him away for questioning, viewing him as a useful source of information. Or he might end up being grabbed and bundled into a plane bound for US territory.
“Yes, I could be rendered by the CIA. I could have people come after me. Or any of the third-party partners. They work closely with a number of other nations. Or they could pay off the Triads. Any of their agents or assets,” he said.
“We have got a CIA station just up the road – the consulate here in Hong Kong – and I am sure they are going to be busy for the next week. And that is a concern I will live with for the rest of my life, however long that happens to be.”
Having watched the Obama administration prosecute whistleblowers at a historically unprecedented rate, he fully expects the US government to attempt to use all its weight to punish him. “I am not afraid,” he said calmly, “because this is the choice I’ve made.”
He predicts the government will launch an investigation and “say I have broken the Espionage Act and helped our enemies, but that can be used against anyone who points out how massive and invasive the system has become”.
The only time he became emotional during the many hours of interviews was when he pondered the impact his choices would have on his family, many of whom work for the US government. “The only thing I fear is the harmful effects on my family, who I won’t be able to help any more. That’s what keeps me up at night,” he said, his eyes welling up with tears.
‘You can’t wait around for someone else to act’
Snowden did not always believe the US government posed a threat to his political values. He was brought up originally in Elizabeth City, North Carolina. His family moved later to Maryland, near the NSA headquarters in Fort Meade.
By his own admission, he was not a stellar student. In order to get the credits necessary to obtain a high school diploma, he attended a community college in Maryland, studying computing, but never completed the coursework. (He later obtained his GED.)
In 2003, he enlisted in the US army and began a training program to join the Special Forces. Invoking the same principles that he now cites to justify his leaks, he said: “I wanted to fight in the Iraq war because I felt like I had an obligation as a human being to help free people from oppression”.
He recounted how his beliefs about the war’s purpose were quickly dispelled. “Most of the people training us seemed pumped up about killing Arabs, not helping anyone,” he said. After he broke both his legs in a training accident, he was discharged.
After that, he got his first job in an NSA facility, working as a security guard for one of the agency’s covert facilities at the University of Maryland. From there, he went to the CIA, where he worked on IT security. His understanding of the internet and his talent for computer programming enabled him to rise fairly quickly for someone who lacked even a high school diploma.
By 2007, the CIA stationed him with diplomatic cover in Geneva, Switzerland. His responsibility for maintaining computer network security meant he had clearance to access a wide array of classified documents.
That access, along with the almost three years he spent around CIA officers, led him to begin seriously questioning the rightness of what he saw.
He described as formative an incident in which he claimed CIA operatives were attempting to recruit a Swiss banker to obtain secret banking information. Snowden said they achieved this by purposely getting the banker drunk and encouraging him to drive home in his car. When the banker was arrested for drunk driving, the undercover agent seeking to befriend him offered to help, and a bond was formed that led to successful recruitment.
“Much of what I saw in Geneva really disillusioned me about how my government functions and what its impact is in the world,” he says. “I realised that I was part of something that was doing far more harm than good.”
He said it was during his CIA stint in Geneva that he thought for the first time about exposing government secrets. But, at the time, he chose not to for two reasons.
First, he said: “Most of the secrets the CIA has are about people, not machines and systems, so I didn’t feel comfortable with disclosures that I thought could endanger anyone”. Secondly, the election of Barack Obama in 2008 gave him hope that there would be real reforms, rendering disclosures unnecessary.
He left the CIA in 2009 in order to take his first job working for a private contractor that assigned him to a functioning NSA facility, stationed on a military base in Japan. It was then, he said, that he “watched as Obama advanced the very policies that I thought would be reined in”, and as a result, “I got hardened.”
The primary lesson from this experience was that “you can’t wait around for someone else to act. I had been looking for leaders, but I realised that leadership is about being the first to act.”
Over the next three years, he learned just how all-consuming the NSA’s surveillance activities were, claiming “they are intent on making every conversation and every form of behaviour in the world known to them”.
He described how he once viewed the internet as “the most important invention in all of human history”. As an adolescent, he spent days at a time “speaking to people with all sorts of views that I would never have encountered on my own”.
But he believed that the value of the internet, along with basic privacy, is being rapidly destroyed by ubiquitous surveillance. “I don’t see myself as a hero,” he said, “because what I’m doing is self-interested: I don’t want to live in a world where there’s no privacy and therefore no room for intellectual exploration and creativity.”
Once he reached the conclusion that the NSA’s surveillance net would soon be irrevocable, he said it was just a matter of time before he chose to act. “What they’re doing” poses “an existential threat to democracy”, he said.
A matter of principle
As strong as those beliefs are, there still remains the question: why did he do it? Giving up his freedom and a privileged lifestyle? “There are more important things than money. If I were motivated by money, I could have sold these documents to any number of countries and gotten very rich.”
For him, it is a matter of principle. “The government has granted itself power it is not entitled to. There is no public oversight. The result is people like myself have the latitude to go further than they are allowed to,” he said.
His allegiance to internet freedom is reflected in the stickers on his laptop: “I support Online Rights: Electronic Frontier Foundation,” reads one. Another hails the online organisation offering anonymity, the Tor Project.
Asked by reporters to establish his authenticity to ensure he is not some fantasist, he laid bare, without hesitation, his personal details, from his social security number to his CIA ID and his expired diplomatic passport. There is no shiftiness. Ask him about anything in his personal life and he will answer.
He is quiet, smart, easy-going and self-effacing. A master on computers, he seemed happiest when talking about the technical side of surveillance, at a level of detail comprehensible probably only to fellow communication specialists. But he showed intense passion when talking about the value of privacy and how he felt it was being steadily eroded by the behaviour of the intelligence services.
His manner was calm and relaxed but he has been understandably twitchy since he went into hiding, waiting for the knock on the hotel door. A fire alarm goes off. “That has not happened before,” he said, betraying anxiety wondering if was real, a test or a CIA ploy to get him out onto the street.
Strewn about the side of his bed are his suitcase, a plate with the remains of room-service breakfast, and a copy of Angler, the biography of former vice-president Dick Cheney.
Ever since last week’s news stories began to appear in the Guardian, Snowden has vigilantly watched TV and read the internet to see the effects of his choices. He seemed satisfied that the debate he longed to provoke was finally taking place.
He lay, propped up against pillows, watching CNN’s Wolf Blitzer ask a discussion panel about government intrusion if they had any idea who the leaker was. From 8,000 miles away, the leaker looked on impassively, not even indulging in a wry smile.
Snowden said that he admires both Ellsberg and Manning, but argues that there is one important distinction between himself and the army private, whose trial coincidentally began the week Snowden’s leaks began to make news.
“I carefully evaluated every single document I disclosed to ensure that each was legitimately in the public interest,” he said. “There are all sorts of documents that would have made a big impact that I didn’t turn over, because harming people isn’t my goal. Transparency is.”
He purposely chose, he said, to give the documents to journalists whose judgment he trusted about what should be public and what should remain concealed.
As for his future, he is vague. He hoped the publicity the leaks have generated will offer him some protection, making it “harder for them to get dirty”.
He views his best hope as the possibility of asylum, with Iceland – with its reputation of a champion of internet freedom – at the top of his list. He knows that may prove a wish unfulfilled.
But after the intense political controversy he has already created with just the first week’s haul of stories, “I feel satisfied that this was all worth it. I have no regrets.”
Even more, just within the last few weeks we’ve seen the Justice Department confiscating news reporter phone records… the IRS caught bullying political opposition groups… and now this.
Most other cultures get it. If you go to Argentina, Vietnam, Italy, or China, people there have absolutely no trust or confidence in their governments.
It’s something that’s -almost- uniquely American– a lifetime of steady, bombastic propaganda that inculcates a deep belief that our system is the ‘best’.
And, even in the face of such overwhelming evidence, it’s still hard for people to break from this programming and acknowledge that their government is just as corrupt as Mexico’s… albeit slightly more sophisticated.
Yet politicians get away with it. They even have prominent members of the press championing their criminality, like this quote from Forbes today:
“this is in fact what governments are supposed to do so I’m at something of a loss in understanding why people seem to be getting so outraged about it.”
The simple reason is because the system is a total failure.
In the ‘free world’, society is based on a principle that a tiny elite should have the power to kill. To steal. To wage war. To debase the currency. To deprive certain people of freedom. All in their sole discretion. And for the good of everyone else.
We’re just supposed to trust them to be good guys and be proficient at their jobs. And in case they happen to completely screw it up and wreck the nation, they get a pass.
It’s a completely absurd. We’re ruled by criminals, plain and simple.
This is a hard lesson for an entire society to learn, but perhaps the most important.
Unfortunately, the second lesson is even harder: that there’s absolutely nothing we can do about it.
We’ve also been led to believe that direct democracy and grassroots movements can be a force for change. Yet it rarely, if ever, happens.
Short of outright revolution, the system isn’t going to change. It has to completely crash… and hit rock bottom… before it can be rebuilt. And we’re still a loooong way off from that.
Like ancient Rome before, the Land of the Free can look forward to being governed by a long series of criminals in the foreseeable future, notwithstanding the occasional sage.
Nations rise and fall. This cycle is inevitable. And history shows that the world’s most dominant nation typically has a long, grinding decline. It’s going to take a while.
That’s why, instead of trying to change the system, it’s so important to invest time, energy, and capital in the things that set up you and your family for maximum freedom and prosperity.
You can’t stop a speeding train by standing in front of it. You just want to make sure you’re not on it as it heads towards the cliff.
Former U.S. President George W. Bush recently dedicated his Presidential Library in Dallas. The ceremony included speeches by President Obama, ex-President Bush, and every other living ex-president. But none of the speeches so much as mentioned to Iraq war — the undertaking that dominated George W. Bush’s presidency, and will define his historic legacy.
This omission might be due, at least in part, to the fact that Mr. Bush is now a convicted war criminal who dares not travel abroad out of fear of being arrested.
In February 2011, Bush was forced to cancel a scheduled appearance in Geneva, Switzerland after human rights groups filed a criminal complaint charging him with violating international treaties against torture.
His trouble increased dramatically a year ago when Bush — along with former Vice President Dick Cheney, former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and several other top Bush administration officials — were convicted of war crimes in absentia by a special war crimes tribunal in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
The Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission was convened and conducted according to internationally recognized procedures and rules of evidence, and the week-long hearing ended with the five-member panel unanimously delivering guilty verdicts.
What is the significance of that tribunal? Is its verdict legally binding? Are there troublesome aspects to the idea that a foreign tribunal can sit in judgment of a U.S. President — whatever we may think of his actions? We will discuss these vitally important questions with Dr. Francis Boyle, a professor of international law at the University of Illinois College of Law. He served as a prosecutor at the tribunal.
Obliviously, the BORG courts do not want to interfere with the BORG’s ability to gain access to all private and personal communications. Now that the BORG can take your property, your DNA, the court has made it possible for the BORG to continue to destroy every other right to our own personal property. What could be more personal that your own DNA?
Majority Opinion for the BORG is “Justice” Anthony Kennedy wrote that DNA sampling was merely a means of identifying a suspect, in the way that fingerprinting and photographing does, and claimed that when an officer makes an arrest supported by probable cause, taking a DNA swab was a “legitimate police booking procedure that is reasonable under the fourth amendment.”
In a carefully rehearsed “scathing dissent”, “Justice” Antonin Scalia removed the notion that DNA sampling was nothing more than an identification tool, saying it “taxes the credulity of the credulous” to suggest that it was not going to be used to attempt to solve other crimes.
While DNA samples are a useful tool for solving cold cases or exonerating the wrongfully accused, the concern shared by the minority dissent and civil liberties advocates is that using an individual’s DNA to investigate a crime when the state has no incriminating evidence against that individual represents a drastic overextension of the POLICE STATE. As the ACLU’s national legal director Stephen R Shapiro, said in a statement:
“The fourth amendment has long been understood to mean that the police cannot search for evidence of a crime – and all nine justices agreed that DNA testing is a search – without individualized suspicion. Today’s decision eliminates that crucial safeguard.”
As regards the future of our genetic privacy, it’s important to note that the law upheld by the US supreme court ruling in the Maryland v King case only allows for DNA to be taken from people who have been arrested and charged with a serious crime, and that this DNA can only be tested after a judge has found there to be probable cause that the person has committed a crime. The attorney Michael Risher who authored the ACLU’s amicus brief in that case points out, however, that other states’ laws and the federal government allow the police to take DNA from people arrested for much less serious crimes, such as drug possession or intentionally bouncing a check. These laws also allow the BORG to have that sample analyzed even if the person is never charged and when there is no incriminating evidence.
Genetic Privacy is Destroyed
The fear is that this recent decision has paved the way for these much broader laws that allow the violation of our fundamental rights to (genetic) privacy to be upheld also. As Scalia wrote in his dissent:
“Make no mistake about it: as an entirely predictable consequence of today’s decision, your DNA can be taken and entered into a national DNA database if you are ever arrested, rightly or wrongly, and for whatever reason.”
So much for the fourth amendment and the supposedly un-a-lienable right it memorializes to be secure in our “persons, houses, papers, and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures”?
Previous BORG supreme court rulings, say we can be stopped in the street and frisked by BORG agents without probable cause for arrest. Our international phone calls and emails (and possibly our domestic ones) can be captured and recorded by the state. And now the BORG court has paved the way for our genetic blueprint to be made available to the government as well.
The BORG is a Parasite
We are facing a continuous attack by members of the BORG. They will ALWAYS be justified, because the BORG courts are rubber stamping the actions of the BORG agents. The BORG will continue to take more and more of your freedoms, until there is nothing left to take. The BORG is a PARASITE and the parasite eventually kills the host.
This information is provided by Eddie Craig (a former deputy sheriff, and due process expert)
TO BE PRACTICED AND MEMORIZED!
If necessary, print this out and keep it in your car for easy reference, but it will more effective if you practice it and memorize it like you would for a part in a play. The more you practice the material the more easily it will come to mind when needed and the more effectively you can assert your rights and protect them.
ALWAYS carry one or more audio/video recording devices with you into the public world. Anytime you go out make sure you have them.Always make sure that they are always charged or have good batteries as necessary. The moment you suspect that you are going to have an encounter with some public servant/official, then, TURN THEM ON AND START RECORDING!
Having a pen and notepad of some kind readily available for taking notes is also recommended. Write down any names and badge numbers you receive and use them accordingly. It is also recommended that if you have a cell phone in addition to other recording devices, then, you ALSO call someone that can act as an audible witness to what is said during the encounter and possibly also record the conversation from their end as well. No matter what the officer says, DO NOT hang up the phone. If necessary, LIE about who you have on the phone!! Tell the officer that it is your legal counsel on the line and you will not comply with any of his/her demands without proper legal advice from your counsel.
There is no law against being on the phone during such an encounter, nor is there any legal basis for an officer to threaten you or demand that you disconnect your call during the encounter. The idiotic claim that such a demand is related to “officer safety” is not a plausible basis for such demand.
YOU must control the information exchange and your own emotional state. Stay calm, cool and collected. I find talking slower works great for this type of situation.
Maintain your composure and speak in a calm and collected voice and manner at all times. Treat the officer with respect. You want the video evidence to show that if anyone lost self-control during the encounter it was the officer(s) and not you. It is also important that you ask anyone else that may be with you to remain silent and to say and do nothing except as described herein. If they are unfamiliar with these concepts and procedures then it would be a good idea for you to either educate them on these concepts and procedures or simply don’t have them with you. Someone else can get you into just as many problems as you can yourself if they say or do things other than as described herein.
While I am aware that there is the ability to say less just as effectively, I believe that we should be working toward ending these abuses and behavior by our public servants by making a record that would allow us to take action against those of them that refuse to honor and obey our rights, their oath of office, and the limits of their power and authority. This script is intended to assist you in making a viable record that can be used in a lawsuit against these public servants in state and federal court. If you can get THEM talking about the violations they are perpetrating and their knowing and willful intent to commit those violations, then, a jury is much more likely to find in your favor when the officer(s) stand condemned from their own mouths and recordings.
Dos and Don’ts:
Do remember that an officer is REQUIRED to read you your rights before questioning or searching you if they have placed you in a custodial arrest. In Texas you ARE ALWAYS in a custodial arrest when stopped for an alleged “traffic offense” (see Secs. 543.001-.009, Texas Transp. Code). The reading of your rights is a mandatory requirement that works in your favor unless/until you behave stupidly by talking voluntarily (sees Art. 38.22, Texas Code of Crim. Proc.). Be aware, however, they almost NEVER do this, meaning that anything incriminating that you may say or that they may find can be suppressed as an involuntary or coerced statement or illegal warrantless search and seizure. You should also be aware that the officer(s) is/are trained to lie about you being in a custodial arrest and will most likely say instead that you are in an “investigative detention.” If you are in Texas (and most other “states”), then understand that this is a TOTAL LIE! You almost always ARE in a full-blown custodial arrest (see Legal Equation illustration below).
Don’t EVER answer an officer’s questions. You have the right to remain “silent,” so USE IT!
However, being “silent” DOES NOT mean to suddenly become a DEAF MUTE! It simply means that you are NOT to provide ANY information or documents in response to the officer’s demands or questions.
Invoke your fundamentally protected right to remain “silent” and to assistance of counsel, and then simply refuse to waive them, which you will do if you comply with the officer’s demands.
The foremost thing to remember in these situations is to NOT engage the officer(s) in idle conversation, dialog, or chitchat. It is important that the ONLY things you say to the officer(s) are specifically directed at the reservation and protection of your fundamentally protected rights, and nothing else. This is known as my self-imposed rule of “invoke, demand, protect.” Once you have invoked these rights NEVER waive or abandon them by ignoring these recommended procedures.
Questions like “Where are you coming from?”, “Where are you going?”, “Who are you meeting?” have NOTHING to do with a “transportation stop.” They are used simply to get additional information that may allow the officer to continue his witch hunt and escalate the severity of the charge(s) he might make against you. Also, NEVER answer questions like “Do you know why I pulled you over?” or “Are you aware that you?”
STOP HELPING HIM SCREW YOU OVER! DON’T ANSWER THESE QUESTIONS! Remember the cardinal rule about talking freely, DON”T TALK, BE QUIET and when you have done that, SHUT UP SOME MORE!
Whatever you say CAN and WILL be used against you in a court of law, so SHUT UP unless you are doing or saying something specified in this script!
Do remember to roll up ALL of your windows and to lock your doors whenever you get pulled over, and don’t ever open them or get out. That being said, MY personal habit, on warm and sunny days, has always been to carefully but quickly exit the car (keeping my hands in plain view) BEFORE the officer can prevent me from doing so, while simultaneously locking my doors, throwing the keys into the front seat, and closing the door. Doing this removes the possibility of you having access to any form of weapon that may be inside the car and could be used to injure the officer(s). In this way the officer no longer has the legal ability or excuse to conduct a warrantless search of your car, even if they tow it. Remember to keep a spare door key in your wallet, pocket, or purse if you do this. However, if it is freezing cold and/or pouring down rain, remain in your car and let the officer stand outside for as long as he likes in order to conduct his unlawful and illegal witch hunt while you take your time in following this script.
Don’t EVER roll down more than one (1) window at a time if you remain in your car during the stop, no matter what the officer(s) tell you to do. This eliminates the possibility of an officer fabricating an opportunity to escalate the stop by saying that the resulting cross-breeze allowed him/her to smell something. If you must open a different window then is certain that you have closed all other windows before doing so.
Don’t EVER roll down your one open window more than two and a-half (2.5) inches, no matter what the officer(s) tell you to do, and for the same reasons as stated above. Just say “I can hear you fine officer and I am most comfortable with the window at its current level, thank you.”
Don’t EVER provide an officer with any documents or other information that they demand. The legal ramifications to your fundamentally protected rights are devastating.
Don’t EVER give your consent to an officer to search your car for any reason. You are just asking to have incriminating evidence planted or discovered that could be used to criminally charge you, and it won’t matter if you knew it was there or not, YOU CONSENTED TO THE WARRANLTESS SEARCH!!
DON’T BE AN IDIOT! Don’t let them threaten or coerce you into waiving this right because it also attaches to the waiver of other important fundamental rights that are essential to your legal wellbeing.
Even if they threaten to have a canine unit report to the scene you must not waive this right. Tell the officer “I do not consent to being detained by you for any additional time or other purposes. Am I free to go or are you going to continue to illegally falsely imprison me beyond the time needed to conclude this stop?”
JUST SAY NO TO WARRANTLESS SEARCHES!
Officers will almost always insist that you are NOT under custodial arrest, but rather are simply being “detained” or are part of an “investigative detention.” This is a blatant lie most of the time. No officer has the authority to simply walk up and demand that you answer questions, produce ID, or provide them with your private information, verbally or otherwise. Be aware, however, that when you won’t submit and give them your information, their favorite tactic is to threaten to charge you with “Failure to Identify.” However, in Texas law (Sec. 38.02, Penal Code) you can be charged with “Failure to Identify”
ONLY if you have ALREADY been lawfully arrested for some other offense, or, you are being lawfully detained for questioning in a criminal investigation, and then ONLY under the following conditions and circumstances; in either case you are required to give ONLY your name, address, and DOB, nothing more; in the case of already being lawfully arrested for some other offense, you cannot refuse to provide these three things; in the case of being lawfully detained, you cannot provide false responses for these three things, but you CAN refuse to provide them at all. You can provide this information verbally (Texas). There is no law in Texas that requires that it be presented on some form of physical ID or document, nor could there be (anywhere USA) because there is not and cannot be a valid law that requires and compels a private individual to obtain and carry a state or federally issued form of ID.
WARNING! It is of the utmost importance that you understand the true nature and purpose of a “transportation” stop.The goal of every enforcement officer nationwide is to create a situation that culminates in one of two scenarios:
This is ALWAYS the goal. It is NEVER about “public safety.”
It is always about maximizing the potential charges against an individual and the revenue that a conviction on those charges generates. STOP HELPING “THEM” SET YOU UP FOR A FALL!
Also, DO NOT attempt to “educate” the officer(s) about what they can and cannot do or the law associated with “transportation” or the Code of Criminal Procedure. Register your verbal objection to their actions for the record by following the procedures below. Napoleon had it right when he said “Never interrupt your enemy while he is busy making mistakes.” Learn from this wisdom or you WILL make your own “fatal mistakes.”
Once you know the officer(s) name(s) and badge number(s) use them both together as often as practicable as shown in these procedures. Make him/them aware that they are being directly associated with any unlawful and illegal acts or violations of your fundamentally protected rights in which they might otherwise engage during this encounter. While it is not fatal to the situation if you fail to do so, it is relatively important that you try to do things in the order and verbiage presented below.
REMINDER: It is important that the only things you say to the officer(s) are specifically directed at the reservation and protection of your fundamentally protected rights and nothing else. Once you have invoked your rights NEVER waive or abandon them by ignoring the recommended procedures listed above and below.
Simply repeat the verbiage in items 1 & 2 as necessary for each new officer you speak with.
NOTE: Sub-items 2(a)-(c) are optional, but are also potentially useful during the discovery process if the claim is made later that the officer’s equipment was “malfunctioning” during the encounter. Bear in mind that these questions and statements by you are VERY important to the record you are trying to build, try to remember this and use them accordingly.
1) For the record, may I get your name and badge number please?
2) Officer _____________ Badge/ID # ________, is there a recording being made of this encounter?
a. Is that recording comprised of both audio and video?
b. Are you relatively certain that your recording equipment is functioning properly for the purposes of making this recording?
c. Is your body microphone and camera, if any, turned on and functioning properly to the best of your knowledge?
3) Officer _____________ Badge/ID # ________, what is the emergency and how can I help?
4) Officer _____________ Badge/ID # ________, what facts or information are you alleging gave you probable cause to stop and accost me?
5) Officer _____________ Badge/ID # ________, do you have a properly signed and issued warrant authorizing you to search me or my property?
a. (IF YES) Officer _____________ Badge/ID # ________, do you currently have that alleged warrant in your possession, if so I would like to see it please?
6) Officer _____________ Badge/ID # ________, do you have a properly signed and issued warrant of arrest that accurately describes or names me as the person to be arrested?
a. (IF YES) Officer _____________ Badge/ID # ________, do you currently have that alleged warrant in your possession, if so I would like to see it please?
7) For the record, I am not “operating” in a “for hire” capacity by engaging in any form of “transportation” or other commercial use of the highways. Officer _____________ Badge/ID # ________, please acknowledge that you have been so informed.
8) Officer _____________ Badge/ID # ________, am I under custodial arrest?
9) If I am not under custodial arrest then am I free to go?
10) Officer _____________ Badge/ID # ________, what is the articulable probable cause that leads you to believe that I have committed or am about to commit a crime that authorizes you to stop and detain or arrest me?
11) For the record Officer _____________ Badge/ID # ________, in order to protect my rights and not waive any by error or accident, I wish to clarify my legal understanding of the situation:
a. You said that I am not free to go, so I must conclude that I am in a custodial arrest and not simply an investigative detention.
b. Therefore, I am invoking all of my fundamentally protected rights, including my right to remain silent and my right to assistance of counsel.
c. From this point forward I do not consent to providing you with any information or documents that could or will be used against me in a court of law or to possibly incriminate me, so please do not ask me to produce anything and give it to you.
d. From this point forward please do not ask me to answer any questions or to perform any form of test relating to any matter whatsoever without my attorney present.
e. Officer _____________ Badge/ID # ________, do you intend to harm, injure, or punish me by any method of assault, arrest and/or incarceration because I have invoked these fundamentally protected rights?
Understand this, when you refuse to produce the demanded documents or to answer any questions, the
officer is going to begin to get upset and continuously state that “… the law REQUIRES that you produce a
driver’s license and other information on demand of a law enforcement officer.” They are also prone to
falsely accusing you of obstructing or interfering with a public duty/officer or just outright threatening to
commit acts of violence against you and/or your property. DON’T FALL FOR THIS, IT IS A SCARE
TACTIC! Invoking and refusing to waive your fundamental rights is not and cannot be converted into a crime.
And if they DO arrest and charge you falsely for interfering/obstructing then you get to sue the crap out of
them. Just remember, when the officer(s) continue to demand that you produce a license, registration, proof
of financial responsibility, or any other information or document(s), despite their threats, repeat the following
ad nauseum:
12) For the record Officer _____________ Badge/ID # ________, no law is valid if it requires me in any way to waive any fundamentally protected right in order to exercise any other right or alleged privilege. And no law can convert the free exercise of any right into a crime. I have repeatedly informed you that I choose not to waive any of my fundamentally protected rights.
13) So, I ask you again Officer _____________ Badge/ID # ________, do you intend to harm, injure, steal my property, or otherwise punish me for invoking my fundamentally protected rights?
WARNING: Be prepared for the officer to do or threaten precisely that, and they usually start by threatening you with all manner of unpleasantries, including falsified criminal charges. You only need to use sub-item “a” once on the first officer that threatens you. When s/he/they begin(s) to do so, state the following:
a. Officer _____________ Badge/ID # ________, due to your attitude, demeanor, and your continuous threats to falsify charges and commit acts of violence against me and my property while displaying a deadly weapon, I feel physically threatened and in fear for my life. I demand that you cease and desist and request the immediate presence of a supervisor. I do not consent to any of your actions, the use of force against me or my property, or to being forced to exit my car for any purpose, especially so that you may attempt to steal my property and/or assault, injure or kill me.
14) Officer _____________ Badge/ID # ________, you are fully aware that I have already invoked my fundamentally protected right to remain silent and my right to assistance of counsel. Do you intend to continue in your unlawful efforts to violate my rights?
a. It is my belief that the information you are demanding may possibly be used against me in a court of law or in an attempt to incriminate me.
b. And if that is so, then, upon the advice of legal counsel I must respectfully decline to provide you with any information or evidence that possibly can or would be used against me for those purposes.
15) Officer _____________ Badge/ID # ________, I am asking you again, do you intend to continue to deny me in my rights and to falsely imprison me or am I free to go?
WARNING: Be certain to keep your face as far away from the window opening as possible while sitting normally. Never exhale or speak directly into the opening or toward the officer(s) face(s). Doing so will almost certainly result in the following scenario. Read the Do’s and Don’ts to better understand why.
If the officer makes any statement making a direct accusation against you or directed toward escalating the stop to the status of a DUI or drug bust situation, and they almost certainly will, you MUST be prepared to rebut it INSTANTLY. If any officer makes ANY statement resembling either of the following, BEWARE and immediately respond accordingly!!
OFFICER: “Sir/Ma’am, I smell alcohol/marijuana and I am going to have to ask you to step out of the vehicle.”; or
“Sir/Ma’am, are you aware that you ( allegedly did something ) and I am going to have to ask you to step out of the vehicle.” (Be sure that s/he IS lying in this case.)
16) YOU: Officer _____________ Badge/ID # ________, your statement is patently false and an outright lie. Are you now trying to fabricate probable cause by making false statements into the record and false allegations against me?
a. Even if they threaten to have a canine unit report to the scene or to break out your windows you must not waive your fundamentally protected rights out of fear. Tell the officer “I do not consent to being detained for any additional time or other purposes. Am I free to go or are you going to continue to illegally terrorize, threaten and falsely imprison me beyond the time needed to conclude this alleged “transportation stop?”
b. Repeat steps 12 – 16a as required for each new or continued demand or threat imposed by the officer(s).
This information is brought to you by: Eddie Craig Co-host on Rule of Law Radio (www.ruleoflawradio.com& www.logosradionetwork.com) Eddie Craig will soon be launching a brand new site geared toward publicizing and organizing the efforts of the patriot community groups and organizations. The site will be called www.taooflaw.com. Go on Facebook to learn more. Search for “Tao Law” and make a friend request. You can also go directly to the site launch info page by searching for “Tao of Law” and reading up on what the site will provide as tools, resources, and features to its members and users. Be aware that this information is always evolving out of necessity. Watch the version number in the upper right-hand corner to see which one you are using. Always try to use the latest version. Go to http://www.logosradionetwork.com/tao/ for a preview of what the site will have to offer the American patriot community.
Henry Kissenger to receive award Defending Freedom & Democracy
It sounds like satire, and it would be funny if it weren’t true.
The Intrepid Sea, Air, and Space Museum in New York City is planning to give Henry Kissinger an award on May 23rd for “defending freedom and democracy.”
No living American has done more to subvert both freedom and democracy than Mr. Kissinger.1
Kissinger worked with President Nixon to betray the U.S. Constitution by illegally bombing Cambodia without even informing Congress, and committed countless crimes against humanity through his role in dropping 3.7 million tons of bombs — twice that dropped in all of World War II — on civilian targets in Indochina.2
As someone who lived in Laos during much of the time, I interviewed more than 1,000 refugees from Kissinger’s and Nixon’s bombing in Laos. Every one reported seeing countless loved ones and neighbors being burned and buried alive, and that their village was totally destroyed.
A Laotian farmer on the Plain of Jars wrote: “Every day and every night the planes came to drop bombs on us. We lived in holes to protect our lives. I saw my cousin die in the field of death. My heart was most disturbed and my voice called out loudly as I ran to the houses. Thus, I saw life and death for the people on account of the war of many airplanes in the region of the Plain of Jars. Until there were no houses at all. And the cows and buffalo were dead. Until everything was leveled and you could see only the red, red ground.”3
All told, Kissinger helped murder, maim, or make homeless an officially estimated six million human beings between 1969 and 1972 — a crime against humanity for which he would have been executed had he been subject to the Nuremberg Judgement.
Mr. Kissinger’s entire “realpolitik” foreign policy was based on supporting brutal and undemocratic regimes that killed and tortured their own citizens. This included overthrowing the democratically elected government of Chile and supporting genocide by Indonesia in East Timor.4
Please forward this email widely to like-minded friends.
– Fred Branfman for RootsAction.org
P.S. RootsAction is an independent online force endorsed by Jim Hightower, Barbara Ehrenreich, Cornel West, Daniel Ellsberg, Glenn Greenwald, Naomi Klein, Bill Fletcher Jr., Laura Flanders, former U.S. Senator James Abourezk, Coleen Rowley, Frances Fox Piven, and many others.
There’s nothing quite so funny as the sight of the authoritarian functionaries of a dying order trying to suppress a revolution they don’t understand — and failing miserably.
The State Department’s attempt to censor 3-D printable gun files from DEFCAD is the latest — and one of the most gut-bustingly hilarious — attempts by the Lords of Scarcity to wrap their minds around the revolution of Abundance that threatens their power. Less than a day after DEFCAD was forced to remove them, the files appeared on The Pirate Bay and Mega. The latter is especially funny; Kim Dotcom is probably laughing himself silly over it.
Anyone who’s ever heard of the Streisand Effect could have told you this would happen. Attempting to suppress information on the Internet just draws more attention to the original information — which remains readily available — as well as embarrassing the would-be suppressor as the attempt at suppression becomes a story in its own right. I lost count of the number of people yesterday who said they’d never heard of Cody Wilson or 3-D printable guns until the story of the State Department’s action came out, but intended to go to TPB and check it out. Thanks to the U.S. government’s inadvertent promotional efforts, probably a hundred or a thousand times more people know where to get Cody Wilson’s printable gun files than did before.
But the clowns who congratulated themselves a couple days ago over shutting down those printable gun files aren’t exactly the sort of people you’d expect to have heard of the Streisand Effect — obviously. They’re the straight men in this piece, just performing for our amusement. They’re like the Society Matron who walks into the dining hall in a Three Stooges short and demands “What is the meaning of this?!!” To them the Internet is just a big Series of Tubes, and all they have to do is shut off a valve somewhere to control the flow of information. Only the Internet doesn’t work that way. In the memorable phrasing of John Gilmore, it treats censorship as damage and routes around it.
Remember Joe Biden’s quip about “theft” of “intellectual property” being no different from a “smash-and-grab at Macy’s”? The U.S. government’s approach to DEFCAD illustrates the same fundamental misconception. It treats infinitely replicable digital information as if it were a finite, excludable good existing in one physical location, that one can exert physical control or possession over just like a shoe or a chair.
Their legal rationale — export control legislation — displays the same conceptual failure. They couldn’t quite grasp that the “goods” that DEFCAD was “exporting” arrived in their destination ports around the world the second the files were uploaded to the website.
A digital file can be replicated infinitely at near-zero marginal cost; the same pattern of information can exist in an unlimited number of places simultaneously. A digital file can be replicated infinitely at near-zero marginal cost; the same pattern of information can exist in an unlimited number of places simultaneously. See? I just did that with the copy-and-paste function of my browser. Try doing that with jewelry from Macy’s. You can’t “steal” a digital song or movie — the act of replication doesn’t affect the copies already in others’ possession, but only increases the number of copies in the world. That’s why copying is not theft. Likewise, you can’t deny the world access to information by removing the copy from one website.
Watching these people try to use scarcity-age conceptual tools to combat abundance is like watching Napoleon try to defeat Heinz Guderian or Erwin Rommel with hub-to-hub artillery and massed infantry in line-and-column formations. They lack the conceptual tools to understand, let alone fight, the new society they’re attempting to prevent the birth of.
This is why the government’s attempts to impose artificial scarcity fail every time, no matter how many times they change the name — ACTA, CISPA, etc. — and try again. You can’t fix stupid.
So to you Lords of Scarcity — represented this time around by your flunkies in the U.S. Departments of State and “Defense,” I have a message: You have no authority that we are bound to respect.
An 83-year-old nun who broke into a Tennessee depleted uranium storage facility in 2012 and splashed human blood on several surfaces, exposing a massive security hole at the nation’s only facility used to store radioactive conventional munitions, was convicted Wednesday and faces a term of up to 20 years in prison.
The only regret Sister Megan Rice shared with members of her jury on Wednesday was that she wished 70 years hadn’t passed before she took direct action, according to the BBC. She and two other peace activists, 64-year-old Michael Walli and 56-year-old Greg Boertje-Obed, were convicted of “invasion of a nuclear facility” in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, even though investigators admitted they did not get close to any actual nuclear material.
The three activists are part of a group called “Transform Now Plowshares,” a reference to the book of Isaiah, which says, “They shall beat their swords into plowshares. They shall learn war no more.” All three face individual sentences of up to 20 years, along with a litany of fines.
As they invaded the Y-12 National Security Complex at Oak Ridge, a perimeter fence was cut, several surfaces were spray-painted, banners were hung and activists read from the Bible. They also spread human blood on several surfaces, saying its use was symbolic, meant to remind people “of the horrific spilling of blood by nuclear weapons.”
“The shortcomings in security at one of the most dangerous places on the planet have embarrassed a lot of people,” the activists’ attorney, Francis Lloyd, told members of the jury according to the BBC. “You’re looking at three scapegoats behind me.”
Sister Rice has been arrested between 40 or 50 times committing acts of civil disobedience, according to The New York Times, including once in Nevada after she physically blocked a truck at a nuclear test site.
Depleted uranium munitions like the kind stored at the facility Sister Rice targeted are blamed for some of the worst birth defects and soaring cancer rates seen in post-war Iraq, particularly in the city of Fallujah following the siege of 2004, in which U.S. soldiers killed thousands of civilians.
“I believe we are all equally responsible to stop a known crime,” Sister Rice said from the witness stand, according to quotes published by her group. She called herself a “citizen of the world” and reportedly smiled as the verdict was read.
This video is from ABC News, aired August 2, 2012.
