Floyd Brown

We Deserve Our Freedoms, Even If We Have Nothing To Hide

June 18, 2013 By Floyd Brown 2 Comments

Ronald Reagan taught us that “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.”

But lately, it seems that many Americans have forgotten this important lesson. And nowhere is the lack of knowledge and common sense of the American populace more apparent than on Twitter.

You see, I’ve been following a feed from @_nothingtohide. And the responses almost bring me to tears.

These fellow citizens of ours don’t care about their constitutionally protected freedoms because they don’t understand them or the consequences of losing them. And if you don’t care about a freedom, you’re sure to lose it.

There’s always a power-hungry person intent on stealing your patrimony.

Here are a few of the samples of tweets that break my heart:

Jason Best tells us, “What do you people think about the whole NSA/phone issue? I honestly don’t care myself. Seems like the only people complaining are people that are either paranoid or criminals.”

Jade Elise says, “I really don’t care if the #NSA keeps tabs on me. Probably because I’m a person who sits naked in their apartment with the curtains open.”

The twitter handle Liberal Phenom adds, “I’m not worried abt NSA. Got nothing to hide & want to stay safe.”

These are just three of thousands of Americans who sincerely believe they have nothing to worry about. They don’t think they’ve committed a crime; and therefore, they’re happy to let the NSA, Barack Obama, the CIA, and the FBI know their whereabouts, personal email, text conversations, and more.

A person with the twitter handle “Ramifications goes farther.” He/she basically calls those of us with privacy concerns nuts by writing, “you fools need to understand the #NSA is doing cyber surveillance for your own good; they don’t care how many times you jack off a day.”

I get it, “Ramifications”. None of us want to be blown up by al Qaeda.

But I also think that the current practices of this administration are far more insidious than these naïve commenters on Twitter understand.

Heck, the actual operational specifics of Prism and other NSA programs are still mostly classified. We have little knowledge of how the government snoop-machine really works. They claim to not listen to cellphone calls, but can we be sure? Are machines listening to the calls and reporting back to humans? They claim to not be reading emails, but is this also a lie? Only the most ignorant believe the government doesn’t lie.

Americans, or citizens of any free society, have a right to know what information their government is collecting about them. And we may simply look at history to understand why.

The Founding Fathers Agree

The Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution reads: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

Today, our email and documents saved in “the cloud” are the modern equivalent of our “papers and effects.” We have the right to expect that they’ll be protected from “unreasonable searches and seizures.”

In fact, this legal precedent is older than even the U.S. Constitution. It goes back to English legal doctrine. Sir Edward Coke, in the Semayne’s case in 1604, argued: “The house of every one is to him as his castle and fortress, as well for his defence against injury and violence as for his repose.”

From the time of this case, even the king recognized that he didn’t possess unchecked authority to invade his subjects’ homes. The case solidified the doctrine that government agents are allowed to conduct searches and seize property only under the particular circumstances when their intentions are lawful and a warrant has been issued.

I’m not happy to let these long-protected and universally-understood civil liberties disappear with nary a whimper. And even if I have nothing to hide, I refuse to sacrifice freedoms for which generations of Americans fought and died just because I’m too lazy to stand up and fight.

Is this a clear example of Orwell’s doublethink/doublespeak (cognitive dissonance)? “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.” -Benjamin Franklin

This article originally appeared at CapitolHillDaily.com and is reprinted here with permission.

Filed Under: Featured Stories, Floyd Reports Tagged With: Barack Obama, Ronald Reagan

Why Do They Spy On Us And Not The Terrorists?

June 15, 2013 By Floyd Brown 9 Comments

In less than a week since it became public, the Obama administration’s NSA spying scandal has progressed far beyond the accumulation of Verizon’s phone records.

We now know that the NSA and its friends at Eric Holder’s Department of Justice are also utilizing Google (GOOG), Facebook (FB), Yahoo! (YHOO), and almost every other large tech firm to spy on us.

Of all the recent scandals, the NSA spying scandal is particularly frightening. Between our phone records, emails, text messages, and our whereabouts – which are provided courtesy of our cellphones – the government has admitted to knowing all our secrets.

Now, the justification for granting the regime this unconstitutional spying power is based on the idea that the snooping makes us safer. But does it really make us more secure? Ben Franklin said that “Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

Broadly speaking, Americans agree that politicos are slippery folk. So why would we trust them with such untold power? The record shows that, up to now, Obama and his team aren’t worthy of unlimited access to our most personal and intimate information.

Our Fears Are Justified

Based on their statements and actions, America’s leaders believe that we‘re all potential threats to the Federal government. And now Obama is learning that trust (or a lack of trust) is a two-way street.

You see, everything comes down to trust. And the American people have lost theirs in this administration. Following the string of recent scandals, it’s impossible to ignore that there’s a distinct pattern of abuse of power in Obama’s administration. Let’s face it…

It’s abuse of power when the IRS and other federal agencies are used to target political opponents.
It’s abuse of power when the DOJ is digging into the phone records of journalists.
It’s abuse of power when Kathleen Sebelius shakes down the same insurance companies that she regulates to pay for Obamacare.
It’s abuse of power when the government blames a YouTube video for what happened at the Benghazi compound.
It’s abuse of power to order the summary execution of an American citizen without a trial via drone strike… even if the execution takes place in Yemen, or some other far-off land.

So here’s the bottom line… why would we trust the Obama administration to not abuse the NSA’s spying powers, too?

The Sad Truth

All this spying on innocent Americans didn’t collar the Tsarnaev brothers ahead of the Boston Marathon bombing. And it’s clear they made abundant use of smartphones and the internet. Heck, we even had a warning from Russian security officials that the older Tsarnaev brother was a threat, and we couldn’t catch them.

The spying on innocent Americans didn’t collar Major Nidal Hasan before he massacred soldiers at Fort Hood, and he regularly surfed to jihadi websites.

Instead of focusing on the real problem characters, the Obama administration wants to know who you and I talk to. As Senator Dianne Feinstein, who was supposed to be providing congressional oversight, stated this last week, the authorities need this information in case someone might become a terrorist in the future.

But only the most compliant of citizen sheep would believe that Obama and his team won’t abuse this spying power.

Let’s hope that Congress will have the fortitude to put this frightening episode of domestic spying in the history books and make clear that the government only has the power to collect data on suspects of a crime.

This article originally appeared at CapitolHillDaily and is reprinted here with permission.

Photo credit: waif69 (Creative Commons)

Filed Under: Featured Stories, Floyd Reports Tagged With: Eric Holder, Obamacare

Obama Parties On Your Dime

June 11, 2013 By Floyd Brown 4 Comments

Washington, D.C. loves to party. And they especially like to stick you and other taxpayers with the tab when the night is over. It seems like just weeks ago, we were all marveling at the extravagant spending by the General Services Administration in Las Vegas.

It’s a classic example of what we call the “double standard.” Government employees are routinely held to a less rigorous standard of ethics than the one to which the private sector is held.

Here’s a perfect example: The IRS blew an estimated 49 million tax dollars on 225 conferences between 2010 and 2012. The most extravagant was the $4.1 million spent on a single event held near Disneyland for the agency’s Small Business/Self-Employed (SB/SE) Division.

This is the very division that hassles small businessmen all across the country for lost receipts. And guess what? The IRS can’t document how the entire amount was spent…They lost the receipts.

If that were you or me, we’d pay penalties and interest. But don’t hold your breath waiting for these IRS enforcement managers to cough up the money for which they can’t account.

The only reason we even know about theses extravagant parties the IRS held is because of a complaint filed by a whistleblower with the Treasury Department’s Inspector General (IG) for Tax Administration. The dirty details are outlined in a report issued by the IG, which labeled the meeting particulars as “excessive spending” by these tax collectors.

Pleading the Fifth

You may remember Jeffrey Neely – he was the GSA’s public buildings commissioner for the Pacific Rim region, and he was forced out of office after his wife posted pictures of their all-expenses-paid trip to the swanky Las Vegas M Resort Spa & Casino.

Like the IRS’s Lois Lerner, Jeffrey Neely invoked his Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination and refused to answer any questions in congressional hearings after the partying was exposed. Trust me… as someone who has spent hours partying with members of Congress, I find it very amusing to watch them then question the bureaucrats in the administration about partying.

In fact, I’ve often felt that we could greatly improve the governance of our country if we required congressmen to be drug and alcohol tested before casting their votes. If you can’t legally operate a vehicle drunk, why is it you can still vote on the nation’s business in the capitol?

It’s a Capitol Hill ritual to make the rounds of fundraisers around the cocktail hour, and then mosey back to the floor for votes. Congressmen get trashed – and then they trash us.

Partier-in-Chief

Any discussion of partying in D.C. wouldn’t be complete without mentioning the blowouts they have down at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Obama is undoubtedly the Partier-in-Chief.

The same week President Obama’s team declared that, due to sequestration, all White House tours would be called off, they invited megastars Adele and Beyoncé to Michelle’s 50th birthday party bash. I bet that you and I will be paying the lion’s share of the expenses for her over-the-top party.

Or how about the party President Obama held in the White House’s East Room celebrating Memphis Soul Music. The celebrity-filled private concert and party included superstars such as Justin Timberlake, Queen Latifah, and Cyndi Lauper.

As Obama entered the room, Booker T. Jones of the 1960s R&B funk band “Booker T & the MG’s” played his hit “Green Onions.” This led Obama to declare: “It’s now my second term, so rather than ‘Hail to the Chief,’ we’re going with that from here on out — a little change in tradition.” Laughs rang out from the crowd of revelers. Taxpayers probably wouldn’t laugh if they realized how much these shindigs cost us all.

On any given night, 365 days a year, there’s a party going on in Washington, D.C. If you aren’t paying for it directly, then you’re likely paying for it indirectly.

And I guarantee you, they’ll keep partying until the lights go out and it all comes down around their heads.

This article originally appeared at CapitolHillDaily.com and is reprinted here with permission.

Filed Under: Featured Stories, Floyd Reports Tagged With: Pennsylvania

U.S. Government Collapse Inches Closer

June 8, 2013 By Floyd Brown 11 Comments

Each Friday, I report on the impending and inevitable collapse of the U.S. Federal Government. These columns generate intense response and regular questions. Today, I want to answer a couple of the most frequently asked questions. They may be weighing on your mind.

The most popular question is: “Floyd, how can you make the statement that government collapse is inevitable? You can’t know the future.” My retort is simple. I studied mathematics.

In many fields of knowledge, the answers can get fuzzy. Do we have global warming? Do we have global cooling? Put a group of climatologists in a room and you can find not just two answers, but a multitude of plausible and interesting answers.

However, try the same experiment with mathematicians, and the answers to the problem should be the same. Math doesn’t lie, and the equation doesn’t change. The only change is in the variables, or the inputs.

This is why I can say with total confidence that America is going to collapse. In fact, the collapse of the U.S. government is as inevitable as the collapse of Enron was. Because for the last 40 years, our political leaders have made promises and written checks that they can’t cash.

The Entitlement Equation

This week, I reviewed the 2013 annual reports of the Board of Trustees of the Federal Old-Age and Survivors Insurance and Federal Disability Insurance Trust Funds. And the picture of the future is quite horrendous. In less than a year, the Social Security program’s unfunded financial obligations rocketed up $1 trillion from last year’s devastating projection of $8.6 trillion.

The bottom line is this: The Social Security program over the next 75 years will require 9.6 trillion more dollars than we have. And the ability to collect enough money within the current tax regime just doesn’t exist.

Our leaders on Capitol Hill and in the White House have promised benefits to people, but the current tax system doesn’t have a chance in hell of ever being able to collect the money to fund these benefits.

What’s worse is that the $9.6 trillion is just the unfunded liability for Social Security. If you look around at the host of other programs, they’re all drastically underfunded too. And the sad reality is that if you stripped average Americans of every dollar, I doubt even then that we could pay these bills.

The entire Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the United States in 2011 was under $15 trillion, so why do politicians promise benefits that our economy can’t possibly sustain? The only answer is that they never studied math. Barack Obama clearly can’t do simple math.

So bankruptcy and collapse are inevitable without a drastic change in the variables or inputs. If we woke up tomorrow and started only spending what we took in, the situation would radically change. But to get politicians to cut benefits to the point of a balanced budget is like asking Lindsay Lohan to give up booze – or better yet, asking John Belushi (when he was alive) to give up drugs.

When Will America Collapse?

Above is the second question that I‘m regularly asked. Again I give a simple answer: We’ve already started to collapse.

If you’re under age 30, you know what I mean. Adequate jobs for the under-30 crowd are non-existent. America sticks brilliant minds, holding quality degrees, with jobs like stacking merchandise at Walmart (WMT) or slinging hash at Denny’s (DENN). The young people I know have had great difficulty getting jobs in their chosen field – if they get a job at all. Don’t believe me? Talk to the under-30 crowd near you, and I think you’ll find I’m right.

This is due to our government’s policy of de-industrialization. America has slowly liquidated our manufacturing capabilities, along with our wealth. And now the world’s richest 1% control 39% of all the planetary wealth.

In contrast, the bottom 50% of people controls just 1% of the world’s money in aggregate. The worldwide financial and political system now delivers and funnels the riches to the very pinnacle of the wealthiest people.

How has this happened, you ask? Well, the global elite have amassed tons of wealth by lending money to the U.S. and other governments. Our debt-based monetary and financial system transfers wealth from average citizens and the government into the hands of the worldwide banking organizations.

Then the “too-big-to-fail” banks use leverage to gobble up everything of value – they want the world’s natural resources, profitable businesses, and real estate. Because they don’t rely on the safety net and social services the politicians have promised the rest of us, they really don’t care if a government collapses.

In the end, it’s this unchecked greed that‘ll end up pushing the government past its tipping point.

This article originally appeared at CapitolHillDaily.com and is reprinted with permission.

Filed Under: Featured Stories, Floyd Reports Tagged With: Barack Obama, Global Warming

Breaking: Some Positive News From Capitol Hill

June 6, 2013 By Floyd Brown 2 Comments

Recently, I was emailed this challenge: “Floyd, can’t you find any good news coming from Capitol Hill?”

I must admit, I’m pretty jaded about what’s happening in America’s capitol building. And lately, there’s been a relentless stream of negativity from D.C.

But because I enjoy a good challenge, I’ve searched far and wide for some legislation that might actually help. And this is what I found… three bills that merit attention and support.

Putting an End to Government Abuse

In response to the IRS scandal, Rep. Diane Black of Tennessee introduced a very worthwhile bill. It’s appropriately named the Stopping Government Abuse of Taxpayer Information Act.

This bill forbids every last federal agency with access to taxpayer information from carrying out or enforcing Obamacare until that agency can attest, under penalty of perjury, that no abuse of taxpayer information has occurred.

It also requires agencies to certify that they’ve terminated any employee discovered to have violated the constitutional rights of any taxpayer.

Congresswoman Black explained her proposal this way: “The IRS targeting scandal exposes the serious potential for widespread abuse of taxpayer information at all government agencies involved with implementing the President’s healthcare law.”

And Americans have reason to fear that the political targeting is just beginning. The same IRS official in charge during the IRS scandal is now being given control of the IRS Obamacare office. Scary thought indeed.

And that’s not all. You see, stopping the IRS alone doesn’t provide adequate protection. Obamacare gives a bevy of bureaucrats at the Health and Human Services, Department of Justice, Department of Homeland Security, and the Social Security Administration unlimited access to your most sensitive health and financial information. Congresswoman Black’s bill will help guarantee that any federal agency with access to Obamacare’s Federal Data Services Hub is not targeting, nor will it ever target, Americans based on their politics.

Filling in the Internet’s Privacy Holes

Another important pending bill is the Email Privacy Act. This bill guarantees that e-mail has the same privacy rights as physical mail. Currently, a host of government agencies scan and read your email almost at will. Not surprisingly, the IRS is again the biggest offender in this gross invasion of privacy.

The pending legislation extends the protections to privacy found in the Constitutional Fourth Amendment to electronic correspondence and other content stored in “the cloud.”

“Government agencies should never be able to read our private emails without a warrant,” said Congressman Graves when he explained his reasons for sponsoring the bill. “It is ridiculous for the IRS or any other federal agency to believe it is above our fundamental right to privacy, but it’s important that we update the law to keep up with modern communication and protect against government intrusion.”

Oh, SNAP!

The final bill I want to share today is the Safety Net Abuse Prevention (SNAP) Act of 2013. Currently, the Department of Agriculture works in partnership with Mexico to promote the Food Stamp Program. But the SNAP Act seeks to end these promotion campaigns abroad.

Normally, Mexican immigrants take time to learn about the welfare benefits afforded residents of the United States. The Obama administration justifies these programs by getting as many people as possible on the government dole. And by promoting the benefits in Mexico, the government can speed up applications and participation in the giveaways.

But if you’re like me, and you think that begging people to get on the welfare plantation is a bad way to introduce immigrants to America, then this bill’s for you.

The only problem with all three of these bills?

They’re all likely dead on arrival if they make it to Barack Obama’s desk.

Despite their good intentions, I predict he would veto all three of these common sense ideas for reform.

This article originally appeared at CapitolHillDaily.com and is reprinted here with permission.

Photo credit: Jessie Owen (Creative Commons)

Filed Under: Featured Stories, Floyd Reports Tagged With: Barack Obama, Department of Homeland Security, Obamacare

We Deserve Our Freedoms, Even If We Have Nothing To Hide

Why Do They Spy On Us And Not The Terrorists?

Obama Parties On Your Dime

U.S. Government Collapse Inches Closer

Breaking: Some Positive News From Capitol Hill

Help the Cause!

Stay Updated with Impeach Obama

Recent Posts

Impeach Obama Archives

Blogroll

Contributors