Justice Department seeks to have all web surfing tracked

Mandatory data retention 'raises serious privacy and free speech concerns'

WASHINGTON — The US Justice Department wants Internet service providers and cell phone companies to be required to hold on to records for longer to help with criminal prosecutions.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/01/justice-department-web-surfing-tracked/

"Data retention is fundamental to the department's work in investigating and prosecuting almost every type of crime," US deputy assistant attorney general Jason Weinstein (JEW) told a congressional subcommittee on Tuesday.

"Some records are kept for weeks or months; others are stored very briefly before being purged," Weinstein said in remarks prepared for delivery to the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security.

He said Internet records are often "the only available evidence that allows us to investigate who committed crimes on the Internet."

Internet and phone records can be "crucial evidence" in a wide array of cases, including child exploitation, violent crime, fraud, terrorism, public corruption, drug trafficking, online piracy and computer hacking, Weinstein said, but only if the data still exists when law enforcement needs it.

"In some ways, the problem of investigations being stymied by a lack of data retention is growing worse," he told lawmakers.

Weinstein noted inconsistencies in data retention, with one mid-sized cell phone company not keeping records, a cable Internet provider not tracking the Internet protocol addresses it assigns to customers and another only keeping them for seven days.

Law enforcement is hampered by a "legal regime that does not require providers to retain non-content data for any period of time" while investigators must request records on a case-by-case basis through the courts, he said.

"The investigator must realize he needs the records before the provider deletes them, but providers are free to delete records after a short period of time, or to destroy them immediately," Weinstein added.

The justice official said greater data retention requirements raise legitimate privacy concerns but "any privacy concerns about data retention should be balanced against the needs of law enforcement to keep the public safe."

John Morris, general counsel at the non-profit Center for Democracy & Technology, said mandatory data retention "raises serious privacy and free speech concerns."

"A key to protecting privacy is to minimize the amount of data collected and held by ISPs and online companies in the first place," he said.

"Mandatory data retention laws would require companies to maintain large databases of subscribers' personal information, which would be vulnerable to hackers, accidental disclosure, and government or other third party access."

Kate Dean, executive director of the Internet Service Provider Association, said broad mandatory data retention requirements would be "fraught with legal, technical and practical challenges."

Dean said they would require "an entire industry to retain billions of discrete electronic records due to the possibility that a tiny percentage of them might contain evidence related to a crime."

"We think that it is important to weigh that potential value against the impact on the millions of innocent Internet users' privacy," she said.

ATC Says - Police state, sacrifice your rights, your privacy , your liberty all for the sake of letting the Government protect you.......Yeah RIGHT! They would rather control us ....they could give a damn about protecting us....and the Guys name "Weinstein".....need I say more? If I need to explain that one to you then you have no business being here in the first place!

CLICK HERE TO GO BACK TO MAIN PAGE................or HERE TO GO HOME

No Obama birth certificate.....swears Hawaii official!

Former Hawaii elections clerk Tim Adams has now signed an affidavit swearing he was told by his supervisors in Hawaii that no long-form, hospital-generated birth certificate existed for Barack Obama Jr. in Hawaii and that neither Queens Medical Center nor Kapi'olani Medical Center in Honolulu had any record of Obama having been born in their medical facilities.

http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=254401#ixzz1C0u5YVQ0



Adams was employed at the City and County of Honolulu Elections Division from May 2008 through September 2008.

His position was senior elections clerk, overseeing a group of 50 to 60 employees responsible for verifying the identity of voters at the Absentee Ballot Office. It was in this capacity that Adams became aware of the search for Obama's birth-certificate records.

"During the course of my employment," Adams swears in the affidavit (viewable in full as part 1 and part 2 ), "I became aware that many requests were being made to the City and County of Honolulu Elections Division, the Hawaii Office of Elections, and the Hawaii Department of Health from around the country to obtain a copy of then-Senator Barack Obama's long-form, hospital-generated birth certificate."

As he inquired about the birth certificate, he says, his supervisors told him that the records were not on file at the Hawaii Department of Health.

"Senior officers in the City and County of Honolulu Elections Division told me on multiple occasions that no Hawaii long-form, hospital-generated birth certificate existed for Senator Obama in the Hawaii Department of Health," Adams' affidavit reads, "and there was no record that any such document had ever been on file in the Hawaii Department of Health or any other branch or department of the Hawaii government."


Tim Adams, former senior elections clerk for Honolulu

In a recorded telephone interview, Adams told WND that it was common knowledge among election officials where he worked that no long-form, hospital-generated birth certificate could be found at the Hawaii Department of Health.

"My supervisor came and told me, 'Of course, there's no birth certificate. What? You stupid,'" Adams said. "She usually spoke well, but in saying this she reverted to a Hawaiian dialect. I really didn't know how to respond to that. She said it and just walked off. She was quite a powerful lady."

Moreover, Adams was told that neither Queens Memorial Hospital nor Kapi'olani Medical Center had any records of Obama's birth at their medical facilities: "Senior officers in the City and County of Honolulu Elections Division further told me on multiple occasions that Hawaii State government officials had made inquires about Sen. Obama's birth records to officials at Queens Medical Center and Kapi'olani Medical Center in Honolulu and that neither hospital had any record of Senator Obama having been born there, even though Governor Abercrombie is now asserting and various Hawaii government officials continue to assert Barack Obama Jr. was born at Kapi'olani Medical Center on Aug. 4, 1961."

"We called the two hospitals in Honolulu: Queens and Kapi'olani," Adams stressed. "Neither of them have any records that Barack Obama was born there."

In 2009, WND documented that Obama and his supporters had first claimed he was born at Queens Medical Center in Honolulu, before the story changed to Kapi'olani Medical Center in Honolulu.

After WND's report on the two conflicting hospitals, online news sites including the United Press International and Snopes.com scrubbed their websites to eliminate any reference to Queens Medical Center, substituting instead that Obama was born at Kapi'olani Medical Center without explaining the discrepancy or the correction.

In 2010, then-candidate for governor Neil Abercrombie was involved in an Obama birth controversy when he read a letter at a Kapi'olani Medical Center centennial dinner in Honolulu that supposedly was authored by President Obama, claiming Kapi'olani as his birth hospital.


Hawaii Gov. Neil Abercrombie

As WND reported, the letter read by Abercrombie and initially displayed on the Kapi'olani website turned out to be a computer-created likeness of a letter using HTML code, the building blocks of Internet websites, not an actual paper letter.

The White House has still not confirmed it wrote or sent the letter.

Moreover, Adams claims, the Hawaii government was engaged in a cover-up designed to tell the American public through the Obama-supporting mainstream media that Obama was born in Hawaii, even though no long-form, hospital-generated birth certificate for Obama could be found on record in the Hawaii Department of Health.

In the affidavit Adams swears, "During the course of my employment, I came to understand that for political reasons, various officials in the government of Hawaii, including then-Governor Linda Lingle and various officials of the Hawaii Department of Health, including Dr. Chiyome Fukino, the director of the Hawaii Department of Health, were making representations that Senator Obama was born in Hawaii, even though no government official in Hawaii could find a long-form birth certificate for Senator Obama that had been issued by a Hawaii hospital at the time of his birth."

Adams further swears his supervisors told him to quit asking about Obama's birth records.

"During the course of my employment," Adams states in the affidavit, "I was told by senior officers in the City and County of Honolulu Elections Division to stop inquiring about Senator Obama's Hawaii birth records, even though it was common knowledge among my fellow employees that no Hawaii long-form, hospital-generated birth certificate existed for Senator Obama."

"I can go get my long-form, hospital-generated birth certificate," Adams told WND. "And so I don't understand, this whole controversy should have been settled three or four years ago in about five minutes."

Nor does Adams feel the short-form Certification of Live Birth is authoritative documentation proving that Obama was born in Hawaii.

"My basic assumption is that he wasn't born there," Adams said. "Certifications of Live Birth were given to people who were born at home, or to people who were born overseas and whose parents brought them back to the islands. If his parents were U.S. citizens, or if one parent was a U.S. citizen, as was the case with Obama, the family would apply for a Hawaiian birth certificate when the parents came back from overseas. That's normally how you would have gotten on [a Certification of Live Birth] in the 1960s."

WND has reported that in 1961, Obama's grandparents, Stanley and Madelyn Dunham, could have made an in-person request at the Hawaii Department of Health for a registration of a Hawaii birth, even if the infant Barack Obama Jr. had been foreign-born.

In the past few days, Abercrombie has represented that there is a registration of Obama's birth in the state archives.

But the state registration of birth in 1961 theoretically could prove only that the grandparents had registered Obama's birth, even if Obama was not born in Hawaii.

Similarly, the newspaper announcements of baby Obama's birth do not prove he was born in Hawaii, since the newspaper announcements could have been triggered by the grandparents appearing in-person to register baby Obama as a Hawaiian birth, even if the baby was born elsewhere.

WND has documented that the address reported in the birth announcements published in the Hawaii newspapers at the time, 6085 Kalanianaole Highway, was the address where the grandparents lived.

WND has also reported that Barack Obama Sr. maintained his own separate apartment in Honolulu at an 11th Avenue address, even after he was supposedly married to Ann Dunham, Barack Obama's mother, and that Ann Dunham left Hawaii within three weeks of the baby's birth to attend the University of Washington in Seattle.

Dunham did not return to Hawaii until after Barack Obama Sr. left Hawaii in June 1962 to attend graduate school at Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass.

It's possible the yet-undisclosed birth record in the state archives that Abercrombie has discovered may have come from the grandparents registering baby Obama's birth, an event that would have triggered both the newspaper birth announcements and availability of a Certification of Live Birth, even if no long-form record exists.

WND has confirmed with Glen Takahashi, elections administrator for the city and county of Honolulu, that Adams was indeed working in their elections offices during the last presidential election.

"We hire temporary workers, because we're seasonal," Takahashi told WND.

Adams told WND he supported Hillary Clinton during the 2008 presidential election campaign.

He described himself as a libertarian who wants less government spending, fewer laws that restrict personal freedoms, more adherences to the Constitution and an end to foreign wars.

"I'm interested in individual liberty and upholding the Constitution," he said. "I want to get American troops out from foreign countries, and I want to see the federal budget balanced."

He said he might be inclined to support former-Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee or former-Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney in 2012 to run against President Obama, but he has not yet made up his mind.

"It depends on how fiscally conservative Huckabee and Romney turn out to be on economics," he said. "But from what I know right now, they would probably be better than Obama."


ATC Says - This controversy isn't about to go away anytime soon, and what I love about this issue now more than ever is that the left wing press is now starting to ask "where's the birth certificate" - also of note, good news has it that several states are now pursuing legislation on the Birthright issue for the 2012 presidential elections basically forcing candidates to provide proof of citizenship for the presidential office (as it should have been all along). Here's the sad part....you are required to be a US Citizen born in the United States to run for the office of the President.....PERIOD! No Birth Certificate, not qualified, no need to apply! its not that hard to produce your birth certificate or obtain a copy of it if you want it........unless you are Obama of course who has it and doesn't want to bother because he likes the distraction it provides in the way that the weak sheep who won't call him on it - quarrel with the constitutionalists who demand to see it!



CLICK HERE TO GO BACK TO MAIN PAGE................or HERE TO GO HOME

The Investigations Begin: Holder on the Hot Seat in Black Panther Case

Congressmen open investigation into anti-white Attorney General, possibly - heaven forbid - president.

http://floydreports.com/the-investigations-begin-holder-on-the-hot-seat-in-black-panther-case/?utm_source=Expose+Obama&utm_campaign=c251d2a20d-EO_01_07_20111_7_2011&utm_medium=email

New Congressional leaders have begun their investigations into the most potent scandal facing the Obama administration, one that seems destined to expose injustice at the highest levels of government. Rep. Lamar Smith, R-TX, the new chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, has opened a probe into the Justice Department’s handling of the Black Panther case in a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder. Smith is looking into whether the case’s dismissal, and the underlying culture of the department’s Voting Rights division, show a decision to deny justice to a broad category of Americans based on race. In the five-page letter, Smith writes, “Allegations that the Civil Rights Division has engaged in a practice of race-biased enforcement of voting rights law must be investigated by the Committee.”

In his sworn testimony before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, whistleblower Christopher Coates — who then headed the Voting Rights division — testified to a “deep-seated opposition to the equal enforcement of the” law “for the protection of white voters.” J. Christian Adams agreed that the department indicated it would not prosecute cases against a minority defendant on behalf of a white plaintiff. Coates remembered Julie Fernandes, Obama’s Deputy Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, telling DoJ employees “the Obama administration was only interested in bringing…cases that would provide political equality for racial and language minority voters.”

Four other employees have spoken of the department’s hostility to enforcing the law against minorities, two having sworn affidavits to that effect.

Smith singled out the another reported refusal by Fernandes in his letter: an alleged determination not to enforce a provision of the National Voter Registration Act (known as the “Motor Voter Law”) requiring localities to purge the voting rolls of dead and ineligible voters. Smith asked if Fernandes opted to “explicitly or implicitly direct Voting Section staff not to enforce any section of any federal rights statute.”

Fernandes seems to have admitted as much in public. Discussing that specific section, she publicly stated, “We have no interest in enforcing this provision of the law. It has nothing to do with increasing turnout, and we are just not going to do it.”

(Story continues following the video.)

The refusal to enforce any law is troubling in itself. The well-grounded possibility that the federal government is denying justice on racial grounds is a fundamental perversion of government that strikes at the very heart of our national principles. In endorsing an investigation, National Review‘s Andrew McCarthy wrote, “It is a grave violation of law for the Justice Department to practice racial discrimination in deciding which cases it will bring, to determine that Americans of one race or class are not entitled to the same protection as all Americans…Under the Constitution, it is Congress’s obligation to stop it.”

Congress similarly has the duty to determine where this policy originated, and whether officials who publicly deny its existence are guilty of perjury or obstruction of justice. Thomas Perez, the Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division, testified on May 14 that the decision to drop the case was simply “a case of career people disagreeing with career people,” and that no “political leadership involved in the decision not to pursue this particular case.” However, the watchdog group Judicial Watch has uncovered proof of significant political involvement in lobbying on behalf of the Panthers. Did Perez commit perjury? If so, how high did the political pressure go? Who handed down the decision to dispense race-based “justice”? How high does the cover-up of this decision reach? Namely, did the attorney general or the president of the United States himself suborn perjury?

Answering these questions will require vigilance and indefatigable tenacity. Their answers threaten to blow apart the Justice Department and possibly uncover an ugly core of racial discrimination at the heart of the Obama administration.





ATC Says - We can only hope!



CLICK HERE TO GO BACK TO MAIN PAGE................or HERE TO GO HOME

U.S. Supreme Court Issues Landmark Decision: Constitution is Void!

ATLANTA, Jan. 18, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The U.S. Supreme Court issued a landmark decision that serves to allow judges to void the Constitution in their courtrooms. The decision was issued on January 18, 2011, and the Court did not even explain the decision (Docket No. 10-632, 10-633, and 10-690). One word decisions: DENIED.

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=xprnw.20110118.CL31921&show_article=1



Presented with this information and massive proof that was not contested in any manner by the accused judges, at least six of the justices voted to deny the petitions:

"There is no legal or factual basis whatsoever for the decisions of the lower courts in this matter. These rulings were issued for corrupt reasons. Many of the judges in the Northern District of Georgia and the Eleventh Circuit are corrupt and violate laws and rules, as they have done in this case. The Supreme Court must recognize this Petition as one of the most serious matters ever presented to this Court."

The key questions answered negatively by the U.S. Supreme Court was:

"Whether federal courts must be stopped from operating corruptly and ignoring all laws, rules, and facts."

By denying the petitions, SCOTUS has chosen to sanction corruption by federal judges and to allow federal judges to void sections of the Constitutional at will.

William M. Windsor has been involved in legal action in the federal courts in Atlanta since 2006. Windsor was named a defendant in a civil lawsuit (1:06-CV-0714-ODE) in which Christopher Glynn of Maid of the Mist in Niagara Falls, swore under oath that Windsor did a variety of things including the crimes of theft and bribery. Windsor stated under oath that Christopher Glynn made it up and lied about absolutely everything that he swore. Windsor then obtained deposition testimony from Glynn and the other managers of the Maid of the Mist boat ride, and they admitted, under oath, that charges against Windsor were not true.

Despite this undeniable proof, 32-year federal Judge Orinda D. Evans declared that the grandfather of three should not have fought the lawsuit, and she forced him to pay a fortune in legal fees of Maid of the Mist. Windsor appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, but federal judges Dubina, Hull, and Fay rubber-stamped Judge Evans' ruling. Windsor then took his appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court where the justices said the appeal was not worthy of their consideration (cert denied).

After attempting to get the case reopened with new evidence that proved fraud upon the courts and obstruction of justice, Judge Evans and Judge William S. Duffey committed a variety of crimes and violations of Constitutional rights, as did judges with the Eleventh Circuit. All of this was detailed for the Supreme Court.

Windsor says: "I have discovered that the federal judges in Atlanta, Georgia, Washington, DC, and the justices of the United States Supreme Court function like common criminals intentionally making bogus rulings against honest people while covering up the crimes of their fellow judges. I have been contacted by people from all over the country and around the world with their stories of judicial corruption with judges all over the U.S.

"My charges have been totally ignored by the United States Attorney's Office, the FBI, and Congress. I do not believe there is a shred of decency, honesty, or Constitutional rights in our federal courts. In my opinion, we now live in a police state. Judges are free to do absolutely anything they want. Our laws are meaningless. Your life savings can be stolen by a federal judge, and they have no risk in violating every law in the books.

"In my opinion, this is the most serious issue that our country has ever faced. Our rights have been stolen. And the mainstream media refuses to cover this story because they are afraid of the judges. Heaven help us.

"I believe our only hope in America is if the masses become aware of what is taking place. I am writing an expose, and my book will be available at Borders, Barnes & Noble, and on amazon.com soon. The publisher will decide if the title is Lawless America or Screwed, Glued, and Tattooed."

For more information, see www.LawlessAmerica.com.

Contact: William Windsor, +1-770-578-1094, bill@lawlessamerica.com

SOURCE William M. Windsor

ATC Says - The Constitution CREATED the Judicial Branch, the Executive Branch, and the Legislative Branch. Therefore the Constitution must be ABOVE all these. It's just how like an employee cannot fire the owner of a business. All three Branches, and everyone in them, are inferior, and subservient to the Constitution. And what is it that empowers the constitution......."We The People!" It's high time we remembered that!



CLICK HERE TO GO BACK TO MAIN PAGE................or HERE TO GO HOME

Attempt by Obama Operatives to Turn Memorial Into Political Rally Backfires

On Wednesday night in Tucson, Arizona, Obama and the Democrats disrespected the dead and turned a memorial into a cheap and tawdry political rally for the re-election campaign of Barry Obama.

http://www.infowars.com/attempt-by-obama-operatives-to-turn-memorial-into-political-rally-backfires/

A few of the usual pundits and observers noticed the obvious attempt to gain political mileage out of the dead and wounded by the Obama machine.

“Never before in the annals of national moments of mourning have the words spoken been so wildly mismatched by the spirit in which they were received,” writes John Podhoretz. “There was something about the choice of place, a college arena with the appropriate name of the McKale Memorial Center, that made the event turn literally sophomoric.”

The Washington Post said it is not “offering a judgment on whether or not it was an appropriate tone for a memorial service, but rather that it made for at-times incongruous sounds and images on television.”

The New York Times skirted the truth when Michael Shear wrote: “Mr. Obama’s speech, delivered amid sorrow, offered a fresh glimpse of the candidate who used hope as the tool to inspire his [supporters].”

“This was more like an Arsenio Hall show than a memorial service,” Doug Lucas, writing for American Thinker, complains today. “Catcalls, standing ovations, whistling and the whoop, whoop, whoop of the crowd dominated the night. What should have been a somber occasion for reflection turned into another Obama pep rally. It was as if these students had their guy up on stage and by God they weren’t about to let a national tragedy get in the way of them having a good time and cheering on their messiah.”

From the moment a politically correct Indian invoked ancestral spirits it was obvious the event was designed to be a political rally for Obama.

The creepy zombie-like Obama supporters we endured during the election returned in force and completely overshadowed any solemnity intended for the dead.

Another indication Democrats planned to exploit the dead came when operatives placed “Together We Thrive: Tucson & America” t-shirts on seats in the lower sections of the arena prior to the arrival of participants.

On January 10, the University of Arizona announced that Team Obama had accepted an invitation to visit Tucson in response to the shooting on Saturday. “President Obama will speak at a memorial event at 6 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 12 to support and remember victims of the mass shooting in Tucson, and to lift the spirits of those who have been personally affected by this tragedy,” UANews reported.

It takes time to design and manufacture thousands of t-shirts, a fact that leads one to conclude that Obama’s handlers had planned to exploit the tragedy soon after it occurred last weekend.

Rahm Emanuel, Obama chief of staff, once averred “never let a good crisis go to waste.” Soon after the shooting, however, Emanuel was quick to declare his political maxim “is not not intended for this moment, it doesn’t apply to this moment.”

The reaction of the Barry Obama faithful last night indicates otherwise. The corporate media is now predictably praiseful of the scriptwriter eloquence of Obama’s teleprompter speech. But with a few notable exceptions they have ignored the obvious fact that Barry Obama operatives decided before the smoke cleared in Tucson to exploit the memorial for political gain.

It is not an exaggeration to say that Obama has kicked off his re-election campaign on the bodies of Jared Lee Loughner’s victims, including the body of a nine year old child.

Even with the stench and pallor of the dead, politics never seem to change in the district of criminals.

ATC Says - Obama politicized the Wednesday event and turned what should have been a solemn memorial service into a political pep-rally, in essence shamelessly launching his re-election campaign for 2012 on the bodies of Jared Lee Loughner’s victims, which of course includes the corpse of a 9yr old girl........

The left wing propaganda machine can spin this event all they want and try to make it work to Obongo's favor, heck even the locals in Pima County who are being over run by drug cartels and see 1,000s of illegals cross the border everyday may even believe it, but over-all, with the exception of a few religious zealots, the majority of the country, I believe, will see this for the sham that it is not that it'll matter much. No matter how you vote the election is predetermined by the rich elite backer$ the special interests (Mostly Jews and minority pressure groups), and the electoral college! Our votes never really matter all that much but exist to give the sheeple a sense of a participatory Democracy!



CLICK HERE TO GO BACK TO MAIN PAGE................or HERE TO GO HOME

Here They Come For Your Money – Dozens Of States Are Raising Taxes In 2011

You didn't think that state governments would rack up all of this debt without eventually coming after your money, did you? In 2011, dozens of U.S. states are either implementing tax increases that have already been passed or are debating new tax increases that have recently been proposed. In most states, the actual state income tax is not being raised.

http://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/here-they-come-for-your-money-dozens-of-states-are-raising-taxes-in-2011



State politicians have learned that voters really tend to get angry when that happens. Rather, our politicians on the state level are looking for taxes and fees that won't be "noticed" that they can raise. For example, cigarette taxes, alcohol taxes, gas taxes, carbonated beverage taxes and phone taxes get raised a lot because the voters do not pay them directly to the government and typically they do not get noticed as much. Another huge area where state politicians love to raise money is through various "fees". For instance, millions of Americans have noticed that car registration fees and license fees have absolutely soared in recent years. Instead of our politicians coming at us with one big, huge tax increase that we would surely notice, they are hitting us with dozens of smaller tax hikes and fee increases that they are hoping we will not get upset about. The truth is that the average American pays literally dozens of different kinds of taxes each year, and it still isn't nearly enough to cover the horrific debts that our politicians have piled up.

Today, state and local government debt has reached at an all-time high of 22 percent of U.S. GDP. http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/municipal-bond-market-crash-2011-are-dozens-of-state-and-local-governments-about-to-default-on-their-debts

Just think about that.

Government debt is not just a federal problem. Most of our state governments are absolutely drowning in red ink.

Have you been watching the headlines lately?

California is broke.

Illinois is broke.

Texas is broke.

New Jersey is broke.

New York is broke.

In fact, there are very few states that are not on the verge of a financial meltdown.

So what is the solution?

Well, our state governments are going to come and take even more of our money away.

What did you think was going to happen?

According to the National Association of State Budget Officers, over the past couple of years a total of 36 out of the 50 U.S. states have raised taxes or fees of some sort. Other organizations put that number even higher.

And more tax increases are on the way. The following are just a few of the states that are talking about even more tax increases in 2011....

Illinois - In the state of Illinois, lawmakers are attempting to push through a 66 percent increase in the personal income tax rate. There is also a proposal to more than double the tax on cigarettes.

Connecticut - Dan Malloy is asking state legislators to approve the biggest tax increase that the state has seen in two decades.

California - California Governor Jerry Brown has unveiled a "draconian" budget plan for 2011 that includes 12 billion dollars in spending cuts and that maintains 12 billion dollars in tax increases.

Maryland - Lawmakers in Maryland are looking at raising taxes on gasoline and alcohol, among other things.

Georgia - Residents of Georgia will soon see a substantial increase in sales taxes on everything from groceries to water, higher cigarette taxes and possibly even higher phone taxes.

Washington State - Lawmakers in the state of Washington are proposing higher taxes on cigarettes, carbonated beverages and "hazardous substances".

Sadly, there are many more examples which could be mentioned. Tax increases are being proposed so rapidly all over the nation that it is incredibly difficult to keep up with them all.

So have your taxes been raised lately?

Many of you probably have already noticed that more money is being taken out of your paychecks now than compared to just a few years ago.

In most U.S. states, unemployment insurance payroll taxes have been raised substantially.

But what did you think was going to happen when so many people lost their jobs?

We all have to support all of those unemployed American workers one way or another. We didn't say anything when they shipped millions of middle class jobs overseas, so now we have to pay higher taxes to support the millions of workers that have lost their jobs.

According to the National Employment Law Project, 41 U.S. states increased unemployment insurance payroll taxes in 2010. The average unemployment insurance payroll tax increase was nearly 33.9%.

Does that make you mad?

Well, perhaps you should have bought more products that had "made in the U.S.A." on them and less products that had "made in China" stamped on them.

But we didn't provide U.S. workers with good jobs and so now we have to pay higher taxes to keep them from starving.

Meanwhile, our local "law enforcement authorities" are being turned into revenue raising agents.

In many areas of the country it is now difficult to get the police to come out even if someone has stolen your car or broken into your home.

Why?

Well, because they are all out writing tickets and raising money for the government.

And some of the fines being slapped on people in some areas of the country are absolutely outrageous. For example, from now on if you are caught jaywalking in the city of Los Angeles you will be slapped with a $191 fine.

Speeding tickets in many areas are becoming horribly expensive as well, and even the police realize what is going on. For example, just consider what Sgt. Richard Lyons says is going on in his community....

"They’re trying to use police officers to balance the budget on the backs of drivers, and it’s too bad. The people we count on to support us and help us when we’re on the road are the ones who end up paying the bills, and they’re ticked off about it. We might as well just go door to door and tell people, ‘Slide us $100 now since your 16-year-old is going to end up paying us anyway when he starts driving.’ You can’t blame people for getting upset."

Some areas of the country have found that it is even more efficient to automate the process of sucking the revenue out of us.

For example, revenue from red-light cameras doubled from $200,000 a month in 2007 to $400,000 a month at the end of 2009 in the city of Los Angeles.

In America today, drivers are not citizens to be served - they are revenue sources to be tapped.

Have you been tapped lately?

But even with all of the tax hikes, fee increases and "revenue raising", our state and local governments are still drowning in debt.

So where does all of this end?

What is America eventually going to look like if all of this continues?

Those are some hard questions. Please feel free to leave a comment if you think that you have some answers....

ATC Says - If you want to know what America is going to look like just look at what's happening in Tunisia, Tunisia has been rocked by riots recently over unemployment and corruption, the recent student riots in England over tuition hikes, or in Greece after lawmakers approved drastic austerity cuts, and lets not forget about France where they just raised the retirement age. Take your pick, it's a lot like looking at America's news from the future if we continue much further along the path of raising taxes and higher spending. Take a good look at the pictures on those adjoining pages, that could very well be coming to a town near you or perhaps even your town!



CLICK HERE TO GO BACK TO MAIN PAGE................or HERE TO GO HOME

In wake of Giffords shooting, the mere act of questioning the government now being demonized

(NaturalNews) In the aftermath of the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords in Tucson yesterday, the mainstream media is now desperately trying to blame the attack on "anti-government" sentiment. USA Today ran a tabloid journalism piece that selectively cherry-picked certain phrases used by Jared Lee Loughner in order to create the impression that he was some sort of anti-government nut. Loughner was actually a mentally deranged individual who ranted about everything from "grammar" to imaginary birds ( http://www.naturalnews.com/030953_Gabrielle_Giffords_shooting.html ). His state of mind, as evidenced from his YouTube posts, seems incapable of holding any traditionally-recognized political philosophy.

http://www.naturalnews.com/030954_Giffords_anti-government.html#ixzz1Ae8DfcaF



The Associated Press, meanwhile, actually blamed the "political climate" for the shooting, saying, "The nation's caustic political climate has become a suspect of sorts in the rampage that left six dead and a lawmaker critically injured in Arizona." The implication from these kinds of stories is that if you criticize the government, you therefore promote violence.

That is, of course, a silly idea, especially considering the fact that the government nearly always uses the threat of violence against its own citizens to get what it wants. To use the example of Obamacare, the law itself says that if citizens don't buy health insurance, the U.S. government will essentially extract a large sum of money from you by force through the use of IRS agents and, if necessary, the government seizure of your assets.

On the health care front, remember it was the U.S. government that committed medical violence against children by forcing teens with cancer to undergo chemotherapy against their will (http://www.naturalnews.com/019617.html). Various local governments also routinely threaten vegan parents with having their children taken away by Child Protective Services if they don't start feeding their children processed factory foods such as hamburgers.

The FDA, for its part, routinely sends extremely threatening letters to natural product companies (cherry growers, walnut growers, green tea importers, etc.) that contain extremely threatening language that imply company executives will be "criminally prosecuted" by the FDA, or have their assets seized, or even have their businesses shut down if they don't agree to admit to crimes they never even committed (selling "unapproved drugs" which are really just cherries). (http://www.naturalnews.com/019366.html)

No one is surprised when the government uses the threat of violence to get what it wants these days. Today, the government actually commits felony crimes against the American people on a daily basis! It's called the "enhanced pat-down" by the TSA. If you did the exact same thing to another person at your office, you would be arrested as a "violent criminal" and charged with sexual assault.

The FDA, too, has a long history of armed raids against innocents (http://www.naturalnews.com/021791.html) who were merely trying to help others improve their health with the power of nutritional supplements. These raids are always conducted with the use of firearms.

The FDA even sent agents into Ecuador last year to illegally kidnap Greg Caton (http://www.naturalnews.com/027750_Greg_Caton_FDA.html...) and fly him out of the country, in complete violation of international law. This, too, was conducted with the use of multiple armed agents wielding firearms.

More recently, the U.S. government led an armed raid on a Venice, California food cooperative selling raw milk (http://www.naturalnews.com/030136_Rawesome_foods_raid.html...).

When the government commits acts of violence, it's okay?

There are many other examples of similar acts of violence by the government committed against the People of America, but it all brings me to this important question: Why are people so outraged when citizens commit acts of violence against a government official while relatively few people seem to care when the government commits acts of violence against the People?

The outrage expressed in the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords is entirely justified, as violence is never the answer to disputes. Yet shouldn't we all be similarly outraged when the government uses violence or the threat of violence to achieve its own political aims with the People?

The mainstream media is dedicating a tremendous amount of coverage to this story on Giffords, and that is certainly appropriate for its own reasons. But did that same media cover the armed raid of a raw milk food store in California? Of course not.

Or how about the story that the U.S. government is conspiring with the GMO industry to threaten "a list of retaliatory targets" in Europe who resist the introduction of GMOs there? (http://www.naturalnews.com/030828_GMOs_Wikileaks.html...) You won't find that story in the New York Times, USA Today, LA Times or any other U.S. newspaper that I'm aware of.

The language used by the U.S. ambassador to France -- the "list of retaliatory targets" -- is precisely the kind of language that Sarah Palin is now accused of using against her political opponents in America. Sarah is being called out as an instigator of this shooting, yet I'm not aware of a single mainstream news outlet in America that bothered to cover this story of the U.S. government's GMO conspiracy to push toxic crops into Europe. By the way, I'm not a Sarah Palin supporter, so that's not where this is coming from. I'm a Ron Paul supporter, but now it seems that even supporting something like a desire to audit the Fed or honor the Constitution is going to be characterized as "radical" speech that will somehow be blamed for these acts of violence carried out by the mentally deranged.

Non-violence must be a two-way street

This is not meant in any way to excuse this act of violence against Giffords and those who attended her meeting. I'm already on the record condemning this act, and in every case that I have pushed for grassroots advocacy on this website, it has been done with the strict urging of non-violent action.

Yet, unlike so many in the mainstream media, I believe non-violence should work both ways. I believe the United States government should stop using violence and the threat of violence against its own People in its efforts to oppress food freedom, to vaccinate children against their parents' will, and to force people to buy into a health care plan they do not wish to purchase or use.

If you do not yet understand that the government uses violence as a matter of course to get its way, then I challenge you to stop paying your property taxes for a few years and see what happens. Before long, your property will be taken from you (seized) and then sold in order to pay your "liability" to the government. And when they come to remove you from your property, will they bring happy people bearing flowers? Nope. They bring men with guns. The guns, of course, are at their sides to let you know that your compliance is not voluntary. (I pay my property taxes, by the way, and I'm not opposed to financially supporting local government where it makes sense. I use this as a simple example to point out one way in which the threat of violence is used by government.)

Real peace requires governments to be kept in check

If we truly condemn violence, we must condemn it from all sources, including our own governments which are, strictly speaking, the most violent and murderous organizations in the history of the world. Virtually every mass-murder that has taken place in human history has been carried out by a government claiming to be working for "a better world." (Hitler, Stalin, Mao, you name it...)

This is why the most peaceful society is one in which the government's power is not absolute, and where the government is held in check by the citizenry who watch over the actions of government. This is also precisely why the founding fathers of the United States of America specifically created a limited federal government structure while guaranteeing certain freedoms and rights to the People as enumerated in the Bill of Rights. When Bush was in office, the government took huge steps to weaken that Bill of Rights with the setting up of secret military prisons and the Patriot Act which allows the government to arrest and detain you indefinitely, without being charged, with no attorney, for any reason they claim is related to terrorism.

The Patriot Act, of course, exists in complete violation of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. President Obama actually ran on the platform that he would shut down Guantanamo Bay and end the secret military prisons. (There's another broken campaign promise, eh?)

Statistically speaking, the risk of violent acts occurring in any given country is far, far greater when governments rule over their people with absolute tyranny (Mussolini, Hitler, Pol Pot, etc.) than in a more balanced scale of power where governments must answer to the People. The most important way to prevent violence over the long term is to keep government in check and make sure that its power never nullifies the rights of the People.

This is not a conservative nor liberal point of view. This is a practical peace philosophy that recognizes this simple inescapable fact: Most of the violence committed in our world has been committed by governments against their own people (or against the people of other nations).

As someone who finds the application of violence to resolve problems deeply offensive, I am appalled by the mainstream media's "selective" outcry of violent acts in certain selected situations while they ignore the threat of violence used every day by the government itself. The violent resolution of disagreements is unacceptable in a civilized society, yet the media apparently has no problem whatsoever covering their eyes and allowing violence to be committed against the People by the government.

Stop government violence against innocents

That is the real tragedy here. How many more innocents must be killed by acts of violence committed by the government before we will wake up and realize that peace is a two-way street?

When the government stops allowing the poisoning our water supply (fluoride), poisoning our food (GMOs), and the mass poisoning of our children (vaccines and psychiatric medication), the anti-government rhetoric will quickly reflect such changes and naturally morph into something far less confrontational. There is a sensible reason why the anti-government rhetoric of today is so strong: Because government is not listening to the People.

When the federal government bails out rich Wall Street banksters to the tune of trillions of dollars while everyday people are losing their jobs and homes, people tend to get irritated (to say the least). When people are treated like cattle by the TSA and sexually molested for merely trying to travel on an airplane, they tend to not like that very much. When farmers are arrested for selling raw cow's milk to their neighbors, and people who carry homemade chocolate are arrested and treated like drug smugglers, it tends to tee off more than a few citizens.

And when the Obama administration forces us all into buying an insurance police for a sick-care system that we neither use, nor support, nor believe in, people can get downright angry about it. This is not irrational; it is entirely understandable. And it deserves open debate which must include people being able to stand up and point out what's wrong with various government laws, or policies, or regulatory agencies. This is part of the Democratic process.

Maybe instead of asking why so many people are speaking out against the government, the media should be asking why the government has so little respect for the rights and freedoms of the People in the first place.

And perhaps instead of condemning the People so often, the government should spend a little time trying to figure out how to serve the People. That is, of course, what government was supposed to do in the first place: Serve the interests of the People.

Questioning your government is necessary in any functioning democracy

To the extent that government continues to betray the People (FDA, TSA, CDC, etc.), it should surprise no one that the People aren't happy about it. Questioning government is one of the most patriotic acts in which an American citizen can engage, because it is that questioning -- and a demand for accountability -- that forces bureaucrats to answer to the People in some small way.

It is shameful and inexcusable that the mainstream media would now exploit this act of extreme violence committed in Arizona and use it as a condemnation of those who seek to keep their government in check by asking intelligent questions. It's almost as if the media now wants to order Americans to "shut up and do what you're told" because Big Government has all the answers for you. Just take your vaccine shots, buy your rip-off sick-care insurance and keep sweating away to earn a few dollars while the Federal Reserve effectively steals your money by creating trillions of dollars that are used to bail out the world's wealthy elite.

If the mere act of questioning the integrity of the federal government is now going to be blamed for every violent act, then we truly live under a society where the insanity of Jared Loughner has infected the minds of the newsmakers, too. It is a cowardly act to hide behind these deaths in Arizona while shouting out, "The questioners caused this! No more questioning the government!" This is precisely what the government-controlled press announced in the Nazi era. Anyone who dared to ask questions about Hitler's ever-expanding power was arrested and (usually) put to death.

I believe this is a time when, more than ever, we all need to be standing up and asking questions such as: Is the FDA's censorship against healthy nutrition part of the reason we have so much mental illness in America?

There's a question that makes the mainstream media extremely uncomfortable. Pharmaceutical advertising money is at stake, of course, and the last thing the media wants is people asking questions that really threaten to expose the truth behind why so many people in America suffer from mental illness. Hint: It has everything to do with nutrition, which has everything to do with the FDA's tyrannical censorship of free speech about nutritional therapies.

We'll cover more about that in a follow-up story. In the mean time, keep questioning government. It is your duty as a free citizen to do so. It is essential to the health and long-term sustainability of any democracy. It is patriotic and fundamentally necessary for the protection of freedom in a functioning democracy.

Do not let the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords be the beginning of America's jack-booted march down the dark path of stifling Free Speech and demonizing rational dissent.

My heart goes out to Giffords, her staffers and the others who were killed or wounded in this senseless act of violence. I literally pray for a world where all such violence comes to end, including government acts of violence against the People.


Moreover it is being demonstrated how any speech that differs from he status quo is considered hate speech just as anybody who calls the presidets legitimacy into question regarding his citizenship, or speaking out against his policies is considered racist - even if you are not white!



CLICK HERE TO GO BACK TO MAIN PAGE................or HERE TO GO HOME

U.S. proposes to open roads to Mexican trucks once again

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Obama administration on Thursday proposed a new inspection and monitoring regime to permit long-haul trucks from Mexico on U.S. highways after years of delays over safety concerns and political wrangling.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110106/pl_nm/us_usa_mexico_trucks



The Transportation Department's compromise seeks to revive efforts to fulfill a key provision of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which is highly unpopular with labor but supported by many businesses as a cost advantage.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood called the plan by his agency a starting point to renew negotiations with Mexico, which has slapped tariffs on U.S. products over the delay.

The Transportation Department said the plan, which would eventually need congressional and Mexican government approval, would prioritize safety and that a formal proposal is due to be announced in coming months.

The countries would negotiate the number of carriers allowed to participate in a first phase. Applicants would be vetted by U.S. law enforcement agencies. Trucking safety programs would be reviewed and each vehicle would be inspected and certified by highway safety and environmental officials.

Prospects for an agreement are uncertain. The plan has failed to move ahead over the past decade regardless of which party controlled the White House or Congress.

But the Obama administration felt more comfortable issuing a proposal with the program's fiercest critics, labor friendly Democrats in the House of Representatives, voted out of office in November or sidelined to the minority. Republicans took over the chamber on Wednesday.

Mexico said it would review the plan, calling it a positive first step, and said tariffs would be lifted after a trucking agreement is completed.

"In general this is very good news," said Humberto Trevino, Mexico's deputy transport minister.

Currently, big rigs from Mexico must offload their goods near the border so U.S. trucks can haul them the rest of the way.

BUSINESS SEES BENEFITS

Allowing cross-border trucking could increase competition, add capacity in the domestic market, and offer other benefits to business.

"We could see a more open Mexican border actually drive more ... freight activity in general, which would benefit the entire trucking industry," said Todd Fowler of KeyBanc Capital Markets.

Among the potential beneficiaries are farmers and livestock producers affected by the billions of dollars in tariffs on agricultural and other goods shipped to Mexico from the United States.

Mexico is a leading importer of U.S. pork, but currently it has a 5 percent duty on that product. It is widely believed the duty was applied in response to the trucking dispute.

"The pork industry has been eagerly awaiting this moment, which should further facilitate pork trade to Mexico," said Rich Nelson, analyst with agriculture advisory firm Allendale Inc.

Labor and consumer groups and their allies in Congress for years blocked the trucking initiative from progressing beyond small pilot programs. They were concerned about safety and potential job losses.

James Hoffa, president of the Teamsters union, called the new move disappointing and another opportunity to open the border "to unsafe trucks." He stressed the move was ill-timed considering the tough economy.

"Why would DOT propose to threaten U.S. truck drivers' and warehouse workers' jobs when unemployment is so high," Hoffa said.

But Tom Donohue, president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, applauded the move. "If we're going to double exports (globally) within five years, we must hold on to export markets, such as Mexico," Donohue said in a statement.

U.S. companies represented by the National Association of Manufacturers said a swift deal on trucking was necessary to counter gains by competitors in Canada, China and South American nations that have increased market share in Mexico.


ATC Says - Gosh when George Bush first proposed the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico there was a tremendous outcry of resistance and it was stopped?put on hold or at least so we thought...... NAFTA revisited folks only this time it's OK because this president has a (D) in front of his name! Don't worry, I'm sure these trucks won't be loaded with drugs,illegals or drug cartel militia right?

Viva La Reconquista!

Republican, Democrat......... is there really any difference anymore? Are you starting to see now how both parties seem to advance forward the ball of the same agenda in the end?



CLICK HERE TO GO BACK TO MAIN PAGE................or HERE TO GO HOME