The 'Just in Case You're a Criminal Someday' Act

 

OPINION by LESLIE HARRIS, Center for Democracy and Technology

Aug. 9, 2011

Imagine a world in which your Internet service provider stores information that would make it trivial for every website you visit, every blog you read and each purchase you make online to be made available to the cops … just in case you commit a crime someday. This is no casual reference to the "Big Brother is Watching You" dystopian world of George Orwell's "1984;" it is the reality of H.R. 1981, a bill in Congress that orders Internet companies to build vast digital warehouses that record and store information that links your online activities to your name and address.

The data retention mandate of the bill is wrapped in the cloak of a politically tough-to-oppose framework: protecting kids from the worst online evils by enhancing law enforcement's investigative powers. The bill would require companies that offer electronic communications services for a fee, including Internet service providers (ISPs), hotels, coffee shops and others, to retain information that could be used to identify their customers when the government comes calling; whether for child protection or for any other investigative purpose.

Although it is always tough to fight a proposal claiming to "protect children," H.R. 1981 has garnered bi-partisan opposition. The Chairman of the House Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security, Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wisc.) said during the hearing he presided over that he will do whatever it takes to "kill the bill." Rep. Zoe Lofgren, (D-Calif.), left no doubt about her opposition when she offered an amendment to name the bill to the "Keep Every American's Digital Data for Submission to the Federal Government Without a Warrant Act." Despite this unusual double-barreled political effort, the bill passed from committee on a 19-10 vote.

H.R. 1981 represents a dangerous expansion of government power, puts Americans' privacy rights at risk, and treats all law-abiding citizens as if they were suspected of committing heinous crimes. Yes, this bill begins to feel like it was pulled from the main plot point of the Tom Cruise movie "Minority Report," in which Cruise works for a special police division called "Precrime" and arrests people based on "evidence" of events that will most likely happen, but actually haven't.

Looking Forward By Looking Across the Pond

There's no need for a crystal ball or conjecture when talking about what the future will look like should this bill become law. All lawmakers have to do is look across the pond to the European Union's contentious history with data retention mandates. The EU's Data Retention Directive mandates that telecommunications service store up to two years worth of customer data. The data collected includes information about phone calls made and emails sent and received (more data than H.R. 1981 would in fact require companies to retain). Europeans have had a visceral reaction to the law; many countries and courts are now backing away from the directive. Three national courts have struck down their versions of the law on constitutional or human rights grounds, putting the directive's future on shaky ground.

Tom Cruise in 'Minority Report' for Real?

As for the claim that this kind of data retention requirement will help law enforcement put more bad guys behind bars? A European group issued a report that claims collecting and storing so much data might actually hamper a law enforcement investigation.

Kate Dean, a representative of the US ISP Association, echoed that stance during congressional testimony. Back in January, Dean told a House Subcommittee that requiring service providers to collect and store large volumes of data might hinder law enforcement's ability to access the information it needs during a time critical investigation.

Here is part of what Dean said:

"Perhaps the biggest concern for both providers and law enforcement may be the risk [of] impairing provider response times for ordinary legal requests and, more importantly, that their ability to respond promptly in true emergencies could suffer. Those who work day-to-day with law enforcement know how important it is that a provider be able to call up data in seconds in cases involving an emergency where time is of the essence. Data from ISPs can be critical in emergencies, such as child abductions, and providers know that in such cases hours, even minutes, could mean the difference between a child returned home safely and one who never makes it home. For this reason, the longer search times that are likely to result from a data retention mandate are a grave concern."

Tap Dancing on our Rights

By mandating the collection and storage of highly personal information and requiring that Internet users' online activities remain associated with their true identities, data retention laws chill the right to anonymous speech and run counter to users' rights to privacy, free expression, and a presumption of innocence.

Law enforcement does have a legitimate need for access to Internet records during actual investigations of criminal acts. The argument against this bill has to be weighed in context with those legitimate law enforcement needs. However, a system that gives law enforcement access to Internet records of the suspects it has identified is already in place. Commonly known as data preservation, this policy permits law enforcement to require ISPs and other entities to collect and retain data for 90 days and to renew the period of preservation indefinitely in 90-day increments.

From a privacy and civil liberties perspective, the benefits of the data preservation approach are enormous. Under a data retention mandate, data about all individuals is retained, creating high compliance costs, violating the rights of all Internet users, and making it more difficult for ISPs and law enforcement to identify the data that they actually need. Under a data preservation regime, data about only the tiny fraction of individuals who have fallen under criminal suspicion is subject to a data preservation requirement. Everyone else would continue to enjoy the same level of privacy he or she would otherwise enjoy regardless of the law enforcement investigation. Under a data preservation regime, service providers can focus their attention and scarce resources on competition and innovation, rather than building tracking databases full of customer information.

Antidote for an Antsy Congress

Instead of trying to write a law that would require the collection and retention of more of our personal information, Congress should get busy updating laws to protect the data already stored in the digital landscape. Those laws are woefully inadequate.

The Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) was passed in 1986 to provide more protection for digital data from government access. ECPA was a fine bill—for a digital world circa 1986, when it passed. In 1986 most of the devices we now use to direct our daily lives didn't exist; today the law is outdated, leaving most of our personal data unprotected or protected inadequately. Currently there are no reliable guidelines for how ECPA should be applied to much of the data we generate, such as data stored in the cloud or to mobile location data.

The most immediate "fix" for this problem is reforming ECPA to require law enforcement officials to obtain a warrant based on probable cause before accessing such data.

One of our country's founding principles is that a person is presumed innocent unless a compelling case proves otherwise. The data retention mandates in this bill fly in the face of that presumption and put our cherished privacy and free speech rights at great risk. Let's hope Chairman Sensenbrenner's strong opposition wins the day and data retention disappears into legislative limbo.

New World Order

Government Silently Positions for Martial Law as Financial Collapse Arrives in America

Susanne Posel
August 3, 2012


The US government has been scheming on how to provide for continuity of government for many decades now. According to Peter Santilli, an informant who is an ex-marine and worked on portions of the contingency plans known as Rex 84, civil unrest will come after a financial collapse.

The Readiness Exercise 1984, a.k.a. Rex 84, outlines continuity of government wherein the US Constitution is suspended, martial law is declared and the US military command take over state and local governments in order to ensure stabilization of our nation at any cost. Any American who is deemed a “national security threat” would be detained in an interment or FEMA camp.
The author of Rex 84 was Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North, National Security Council (NSC) White House aids and NSC liaison to FEMA.
Rex 84 is the plan; the triggers are a series of executive orders . It is the continuity of government under specific contingency strategies that are laid out in various operations guide manuals. Operation Garden Plot is a subprogram of Rex 84.
Twice before, Rex 84 was implemented – during the LA riots and on 9/11. In these scenarios, only small portions of the entire set of documents were used. Within the series of contingency plans, implementation of them depends on the severity of the situation.
Some of the plans include internment camps where all or portions of the active or inactive military bases would be transformed into work camps where all considered to be dissonant would be held. The NORTHCOM army manuals clearly state that NATO forces will be used in every phase of the operation.
According to Santilli, procedures to move conventional, chemical and nuclear bombs across the nation without detection have been facilitated without notice by the US military.
Back in 1986, during his military service where he was involved with weapons transportation, Santilli describes how an unmarked refrigerated trailer driven by a civilian driver was used to transport chemical or conventional weapons to various strategic bases both above and underground.
Santilli was a specialist in aviation deployed weapons, which made him the perfect candidate to the assignment of weapons transportation.
The refrigerated truck, allocated by the administration department on base, was directed to the commissary, where the unsuspecting driver believed that he was transporting food. The weapon was placed at the head of the trailer, and covered up with either food stores (like cans of soup) or body bags. In the event that the truck is stopped en route, the weapon would be well hidden and go undetected by inspectors on the public highways.
A US Marine Corp bill of lading was the paperwork necessary to move the commercial refrigerated truck through weigh stations on public highways without any question. Santilli remembers that there was not one incident where he had to enact any security measures to ensure the delivery was made.
Santilli, who was assigned to ride in the cab of the truck with the driver, says that his orders were to make sure the truck arrived at its destination. He was informed by his superiors that if there were problems concerning potential civil unrest, he was to radio into his superiors for aid by either air or ground support.
Should the situation warrant serious attention; crowd control methods would be implemented.
One possible scenario was the use of cluster bomb units (CBUs) that will emit upon detonation, a “sleep and kill” chemical weapon that will not disturb infrastructure, but is lethal to all living things within the effected zone. Santilli describes these particular 3 unit CBUs as shaped like water-heaters with a coned top and plunger-like device. Once deployed in the air, a parachute assists these CBUs to the targeted area. And when detonated, a deadly chemical gas will kill every human and animal in the specified cordoned area.
This is just one example, says Santilli, as to the lengths the US armed forces are trained to make sure continuity of government is preserved.
Santilli explained that the use of foreign troops on US soil, as described in Rex 84 and other subsequent manuals, would have a two-fold purpose.
Firstly, to provide extra security in designated areas, cities or highways; and secondly, as scapegoats were violent action used against American citizens should the US military be directed to attack civilians.
The refrigerated truck, carrying the chemical or conventional weapon with Santilli riding shotgun travelled to underground bases like the one at Yuma Proving Ground which is a ammunitions testing range for pilots. Nestled underneath the ground is a secret military base.
Santilli explains that his knowledge of Rex 84 provides that within the document, one of the scenarios that would cause a complete suspension of the US Constitution, Bill of Rights and implement martial law would be a financial collapse. He says once the collapse occurs, the US government and defense agencies estimate they have a 72 hour window to activate all procedures to ensure continuity of government as well as a lockdown of the general population as civilian unrest, riots and outbreaks of violence are anticipated.
A source in the Deutsche Bank claims that in 2008 our financial and monetary system completely collapsed and since that time the banking cartels have been “propping up the system” to make it appear as if everything was fine. In reality our stock market and monetary systems are fake; meaning that there is nothing holding them in place except the illusion that they have stabilized since the Stock Market Crash nearly 5 years ago.
Since this time, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in conjunction with FEMA and other federal agencies have been quickly working to set in place their directives of control under a silent martial law.
The Deutsche Bank informant says that the cause for the bailout of the banks was a large sum of cash needed quickly to repay China who had purchased large quantities of mortgage-backed securities that went belly-up when the global scam was realized. When China realized that they had been duped into buying worthless securitized loans which would never be repaid, they demanded the actual property instead. The Chinese were prepared to send their “people” to American shores to seize property as allocated to them through the securitized loan contracts.
To stave this off, the American taxpayers were coerced by former President Bush and former US Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson. During that incident, the US Senate was told emphatically that they had to approve a $700 million bailout or else martial law would be implemented immediately. That money was funneled through the Federal Reserve Bank and wired to China, as well as other countries that were demanding repayment for the fraudulent securitizations.
To further avert financial catastrophe, as well as more debt or property seizure threats by the Chinese, the Euro was imploded there by plunging most of the European countries into an insurmountable free-fall for which they were never intended to recover.
All the money that those banks claimed they needed to avert collapse was also sent to the Chinese to add to the trillions of dollars lost during the burst of the housing bubble on the global market.
The only saving grace has been the US dollar being the global reserve currency. However, now this prop is showing signs of wear as foreign nations like China, Russia, India and Iran are dealing in gold as currency and purchasing gold on the market at an exponential rate.
In 1970, Henry Kissinger made a deal with the Saudi Arabian government that American debt would be purchased in exchange for cheap oil. Since then Iran has taken control over the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) by their use of gold as currency which has threatened the direct value of the US dollar as the global reserve currency.
This scenario with Iran coupled with the massive leaps forward in US military presence on American streets and the emergence of FEMA camps across the nation pose an obvious turn of events and explains exactly why we are witnessing the silent implementation of martial law.
The war with Iran has to do with gold, its use as currency and its exposure of the central banking cartel’s lack of gold which defines a fiat currency’s worth. And right now, the US dollar is absolutely worthless.
The Deutsche Bank informant says that the financial collapse that happened in 2008 will be realized here in America very soon. Once that happens, there must be full implementation of marital law to control the potential riots and control over citizens that will be desperate to feed their families.
The attacks of recent on the 2nd Amendment play a significant role in attempting “amicably” to remove the possibility of civilian retaliation against the US military’s presence throughout the nation. However, if they cannot remove the guns from our hands in time, they will continue on with the guidelines set out in Rex 84 with directives to kill any dissenters that refuse to obey.

New World Order