Author Archives: Darryl W. Perry

Someone once said “When it rains, it pours.” That statement seems to be true in a metaphorical sense, especially given the breadth of major stories coming out of D.C. recently.

On May 13 it was reported, “The Justice Department secretly obtained two months of telephone records of reporters and editors for The Associated Press in what the news cooperative’s top executive called a ‘massive and unprecedented intrusion’ into how news organizations gather the news.” see more…

In February of 2009, President Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) into law. The National Taxpayers Union (NTU) reports, “This large ‘stimulus’ package was the President’s first major legislative victory, and was designed to minimize the negative impact of the Great Recession through a combination of tax credits and new spending initiatives.” Most of the “stimulus” funds came in the form of increased federal spending, with State and local governments receiving $144 billion in transfer payments to help balance their budgets and keep employees on the payroll. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) originally estimated ARRA’s cost at $787 billion, that was later revised to $831 billion. see more…

Allow me to ask a question: “How long will the attacks on September 11, 2001 be used as an excuse for murder and the repression of rights?”

Many people will think such a question is rhetorical and will answer with “never forget” or some other hollow reply aimed at degrading anyone who dares question the Global War on Terror. I ask this question, not only because it’s been 11 ½ years since the attacks on the Twin Towers and Pentagon. I ask because it’s the go-to excuse from the White House. On April 16, Amina Ismail asked White House Press Secretary Jay Carney, “Do you consider the U.S. bombing on civilians in Afghanistan earlier this month that left 11 children and a woman killed a form of terrorism? Why or why not?”

Carney replied, “Well, I would have to know more about the incident and then obviously the Department of Defense would have answers to your questions on this matter. We have more than 60,000 U.S. troops involved in a war in Afghanistan, a war that began when the United States was attacked… and more than 3,000 people were killed in that attack. And it has been the President’s objective once he took office to make clear what our goals are in Afghanistan and that is to disrupt, dismantle and ultimately defeat al Qaeda… we take great care in the prosecution of this war and we are very mindful of what our objectives are.”

The most conservative estimates claim “at least 16,725 Afghan civilians have been killed directly by the war’s violence” since it began in 2001, and those numbers have risen sharply since 2009. Does that sound like the military is taking “great care” and being “very mindful” of the objectives?

The War on Terror is also the excuse given for violating the human rights of the 166 people imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay. Richard A. Serrano of the LA Times reports, “Prison officials said 100 of the 166 detainees left at Guantanamo were engaged in some form in the hunger strike, with two dozen being force-fed. Officials have also acknowledged that much of the detainees’ angst is over their lost hope of the prison ever closing.” It is not known how many of the 100 men taking part in the hunger-strike are among the 86 prisoners who have been designated for release, nor is it known whether or not any of the men who are not allowed to die have been designated for release. I say, “not allowed to die” because the American military is force feeding these men. Can you imagine feeling so hopeless that you want to die, but have no means of killing yourself other than starvation, and then being force-fed to prevent you from dying?

To answer my original question: How long will the attacks on September 11, 2001 be used as an excuse for murder and the repression of rights? If history is any indication, the federal government will use it as an excuse for as long as they can get away with it.

In the weeks since the Boston bombings, there has been increased talk about the need for immigration reform. Some are advocating for a suspension of student visas, others are asking the feds to prevent anyone from what is deemed a “Muslim country” from being able to immigrate to the United States.

Bob Beckel, the “resident liberal” at Fox News said, “I think we really have to consider given the fact that so many people hate us that we’re going to have to cut off Muslim students from coming to this country for some period of time so that we can at least absorb what we’ve got, look at what we’ve got and decide whether some of the people here should be going — be sent back home or sent back to prison.” see more…

On April 18, while the media was following the story of the Boston Bombing, the U.S. House of Representatives passed CISPA, the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act. This is actually the second time that CISPA has passed the House.

Kurt Opsahl, Senior Staff Attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) said, “CISPA is a poorly drafted bill that would provide a gaping exception to bedrock privacy law.” Rainey Reitman, EFF Activism Director said, “This bill undermines the privacy of millions of Internet users. Hundreds of thousands of Internet users opposed this bill, joining the White House and Internet security experts in voicing concerns about the civil liberties ramifications of CISPA. We’re committed to taking this fight to the Senate and fighting to ensure no law which would be so detrimental to online privacy is passed on our watch.”

Fight for the Future reports that CISPA will allow the government to spy on you without a warrant, makes it so you can’t even find out about it after the fact, makes it so companies can’t be sued when they do illegal things with your data, allows corporations to cyber-attack each other and individuals outside of the law, and makes every privacy policy on the web a moot point, and violates the 4th amendment.

The EFF writes, “CISPA’s definition of ‘cyber threat information’ includes information directly pertaining to a threat to ‘confidentiality.’ But what does that mean? The definition encompasses measures designed for preserving ‘authorized restrictions on access,’ including means for protecting ‘proprietary information;’ [which] is not defined, and could be read to include copyrighted information. For example, one type of restriction on access that is designed to protect proprietary information is digital rights management (DRM).” The bill itself states, “Cyber threat information shared in accordance with paragraph (1)… shall be exempt from disclosure under section 552 of title 5, United States Code (commonly known as the `Freedom of Information Act’).”

The actual policies and procedures authorized by the bill are not known, because they will not be written until after the bill becomes law, assuming it passes the Senate and is not vetoed by President Obama. On the bright side, this bill has been killed once before; and according to a White House Statement of Administration Policy, President Obama’s senior advisors would recommend that he veto the bill unless it is amended to include better privacy and civil liberties protections and transparent oversight .

Even with the threat of a veto, the fight against CISPA is not over, we must once again convince the Senate to kill this bill!

Is war with North Korea inevitable? Some people are hinting that it can’t be avoided. CNN asked retired General James Marks to explain the military strategies likely to be used by North Korea and the United States in a conflict. Fox News has reported on the “Foal Eagle” exercises conducted by the American military in South Korea. ABC reported, “It appears North Korea is on the march toward war… [On April 3, North Korea] blocked entrance to an industrial park shared with South Korea, an industrial park that generates about $2 billion worth of revenue every year for North and South Korea.” On the same day, the North Korean government warned nuclear war could begin “today or tomorrow.” These threats by North Korea even have some in China scared.

South Korean Defense Minister Kim Kwan-Jin has confirmed that North Korea has moved a missile with “considerable range” to the east coast. Though Kim explains the missile appears to be a mid-range variety, and is likely meant for a test firing or a drill, not an actual war.

Jason Ditz from Antiwar.com reports, “North Korea doesn’t even have missiles capable of hitting the US coast, and its best functional missiles would make any US territory, even Guam, a long-shot.”

The real question is not: will Kim Jong-un attack South Korea or attempt to attack the United States of America? The real questions is: why is the defense of South Korea the responsibility of the United States military? Pat Buchanan answers the question by saying if the American military weren’t in South Korea, and if the American government weren’t part of an entangling alignment with the South Korean government, “we would not be in the middle of this crisis now… U.S. policy, seemingly frozen in the 1950s, is in need of review. We cannot indefinitely be responsible for the defense of South Korea.”

It is also important to remember that George W. Bush wanted to go to war with North Korea in 2002 saying that North Korea was part of the “axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world.”

Looking at the last ten years, and the number of deaths caused by the militaries of North Korea and the United States of America, which nation has been more of a threat to the peace of the world?

The U.S. Supreme Court has received a lot of coverage regarding the recent hearing related to the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), California’s Prop 8 and the definition of marriage. With much less fanfare the Court has issued several important decisions within the past couple of weeks.

There were three “big” rulings made by the court within the last two weeks. In a unanimous ruling, the Supreme Court ruled the federal government can be sued when a law enforcement officer intentionally injures or harms someone. In another ruling, the Court, in a 5-4 decision, ruled that police cannot bring drug-sniffing police dogs onto a suspect’s property to look for evidence without first getting a warrant for a search. Justice Antonin Scalia said a person has the Fourth Amendment right to be free from the government’s gaze inside their home and in the area surrounding it, which is called the curtilage. Opponents of the decision claim, this ruling may limit how investigators use dogs’ sensitive noses to search out drugs, explosives and other items hidden from human sight, sound and smell.

The other major decision of the Court involved the “first sale doctrine” which states that a copyright holder only has the authority to control the first sale of an item. For example, if you purchase a book at a store, that is the first sale, any transaction you make with the book after that purchase can not be controlled by the copyright holder.

Before the Court issued their ruling, some people were saying that Kirtsaeng v John Wiley & Sons could set a precedent to shut-down yard sales. That claim was not based on the facts of the case. John Wiley & Sons had sued Supap Kirtsaeng because Kirtsaeng had purchased cheaper text books overseas and was selling them on his college campus. Wiley claimed this, and not the original purchase overseas, was the “first sale.”

The Supreme Court issued a 6-3 ruling that Kirtsaeng had not violated any law, and reversed a lower court order that Kirtsaeng pay John Wiley & Sons statutory damages of $600,000. The majority opinion written by Justice Breyer reads, in part, “we ask whether the ‘first sale’ doctrine applies to protect a buyer or other lawful owner of a copy (of a copyrighted work) lawfully manufactured abroad. Can that buyer bring that copy into the United States (and sell it or give it away) without obtaining permission to do so from the copyright owner? Can, for example, someone who purchases, say at a used bookstore, a book printed abroad subsequently resell it without the copyright owner’s permission?
In our view, the answers to these questions are, yes. We hold that the ‘first sale’ doctrine applies to copies of a copyrighted work lawfully made abroad.”

What does this mean? It means the next time you go on vacation to a foreign country and purchase something, you can then sale it at a yard sale, or on eBay without worrying whether you have “permission” to do so. It also means that libraries and second-hand stores will not be burdened with requirements to prove the items on their shelves were not purchased in a foreign market before entering the United States.

For the first time in 4 years, the U.S. Senate has passed a budget, as opposed to a continuing appropriations resolution which authorizes government agencies to fund their agencies at the current level until either the resolution expires, or an appropriations bill is passed. Reuters reports, “The budget plan passed 50-49 at about 5 a.m. [on March 23] after a marathon voting session in the Democratic-controlled chamber. Four Democratic senators facing tough re-election campaigns in 2014 joined all the Senate Republicans in opposing the measure, which seeks to raise nearly $1 trillion in new tax revenues…”

The budget that passed through the Senate also includes a proposal, the so-called Marketplace Fairness Act, that would give States the ability to require businesses to collect sales tax on products imported into the State. This proposal, if it actually becomes part of the law, would obliterate the physical presence standard which has been upheld by the Supreme Court “to protect businesses and their customers from predatory tax administrators.”

The Senate version of the budget includes a dozen other amendments, many of which are not part of the budget passed by the House of Representatives. Among the more interesting proposal that were adopted, are a pair of amendments from the Senators from Oklahoma, James Inhofe & Tom Coburn. The purpose of the Inhofe amendment is “to uphold Second Amendment rights and prevent the United States from entering into the United Nations Arms Trade Treaty” while the purpose of the Coburn amendment is unknown, even after it was adopted by a vote of 62-37.

The Senate also rejected 33 amendments via roll-call vote, including two amendments from Sen. David Vitter “to end the mobile phone welfare program” and “to ensure election integrity by requiring a valid government-issued photographic ID for voting in federal elections.” A third amendment proposal from Sen. Vitter was passed and would “end ‘Too Big To Fail’ subsidies or funding advantage for Wall Street mega-banks (over $500 billion in total assets).”

Reuters reports the White House welcomed the Senate move, with White House spokesman Jay Carney stating, “Today, the Senate passed a budget plan that will create jobs and cut the deficit in a balanced way. Now it is time for our leaders to come together to find common ground. The president has put a plan on the table that reflects compromise, and he will continue to work with both sides to see if there is an opportunity to reach a solution to our budget challenges.”

Not only is the budget a challenge, finding compromise between the two House & Senate budget will be a challenge, as well. The Senate budget would “reduce deficits by $1.85 trillion over 10 years through an equal mix of tax increases and spending cuts.” While the House budget “seeks $4.6 trillion in savings over the same period without raising new taxes.”

Whether a compromise can be reached is yet to be seen, and once again there is a threat of “government shut down” with the Treasury expected to exhaust its borrowing capacity around late July or early August. I don’t really expect a budget to be passed, and can safely predict that the House and Senate will pass a continuing resolution at the last minute to continue funding the wars, theft and oppression committed by the federal government.

Many civil rights advocates have long-known that the federal government had a secret spy program in place. Matt Sledge from HuffingtonPost reports, “Journalists and human rights advocates worried they are being swept up in an electronic dragnet cannot challenge the U.S. government’s secretive warrantless wiretapping program.” On March 12, the US Supreme Court issued a 5-4 ruling in the case of Clapper v. Amnesty International USA that the plaintiffs lacked legal standing.

Justice Samuel Alito wrote in his opinion, the plaintiffs’ argument that they have the standing to challenge the program was based on a “highly speculative fear.” He also wrote they “have no actual knowledge of the Government’s … targeting practices,” and “can only speculate as to how the Attorney General and the Director of National Intelligence will exercise their discretion in determining which communications to target.”

Jim Babka & Perry Willis from DownsizeDC explain that the Court made it’s decision “[b]ecause there is no evidence that the federal ‘government’ has directed such spying at the plaintiffs.” However, “The State asked for the power to do this kind of spying and to be allowed to keep it secret, therefore… we can assume that The State is doing this kind of spying, but… because the spying is a secret, the Court feels the plaintiffs lack specific cause or evidence for complaint.”

This is just one more case in which the government has given itself immunity from accountability. Babka & Willis conclude, “The State has just taken another step to establish its own illegitimacy. The Court here adds to the evidence that new forms of government should be erected. We continue to prefer reform, but we will add this latest abuse and usurpation to a case for the institution of new government.”

I don’t necessarily agree that there should be a new government instituted, at least not at the federal level. I would much prefer the federal government to simply vanish; then the people of each of the 50 States, 4 organized territories, 2 inhabited unorganized territories, and the Native Americans living in the 310 reservations would be able to decide for themselves what form of government they wish to have. I would further like to see jurisdictions that are no longer tied to geography, whereby each individual or family would be able to grant or withdraw consent from a particular “government” while not affecting the governmental choice of their neighbors. Such systems have existed in the past. In Medina during the time of the Muslim Prophet Muhammad, “Pagans, Jews, and Muslims shared the same roads, traded in the same markets, and drank from the same wells. They were part of different social spheres, sharing no obligations to each other except those they contracted. Legal systems were not separated by territorial boundaries, as States are today. They existed right on top of one another, shifting according to consent, not jurisdiction.” Similar overlapping governments existed in Gaelic areas during the middle ages, and to a lesser extent in the United States before the New Deal when most people received social services from fraternal organizations or mutual aid societies. I believe these systems of overlapping governments could flourish in the near future due primarily to the advances in technology over the last 500 years.

The Marketplace Fairness Act is being bounced around once again, this is the proposal to allow States to require businesses to collect sales tax on all items sold via internet and catalog. The National Taxpayers Union reports several myths have cropped up about the bill and what it would do.

Some people claim that allowing States to require businesses from outside its jurisdiction to pay taxes for anything shipped into the jurisdiction is a “State’s Rights” issue. That is 100% false. The NTU reports “[g]iving states the power to collect sales taxes across their borders isn’t about states’ rights, it’s about state coercion. Governments would have fewer incentives to keep their own tax rates low, eroding the important federalist principle of tax competition.” Allowing States to tax items shipped into it could theoretically allow the States to tax those items at higher rates than items purchased within the State. Thus, harming any business that relies on online or catalog sales.

Other myths claim online stores receive a special tax loophole and that such a tax would “level the playing field.” Again, both are false. NTU reports the so-called loophole “is actually the physical presence standard, a firmly grounded constitutional doctrine the Supreme Court has upheld for decades to protect businesses and their customers from predatory tax administrators.” The bill would also “require remote sellers to collect sales tax on every item, it would force them to do so by a completely different and harsher set of rules than currently exist for brick-and-mortar sales… forcing online retailers to quiz each and every customer about their residency” in order to comply with more than 9,600 separate sales tax jurisdictions across the country. Does that sound like “fairness” to you?

The Marketplace Fairness Act is NOT fair and if enacted, there will be winners and losers. Among the losers are those customers who prefer to shop online where their purchases are mostly free from sales tax and those smaller companies who will find it difficult and/or expensive to comply. The winners will be the governments that will see an increase in tax revenue and the bigger online companies that will be able to fill the void left when the smaller companies either refuse to sale online or go out of business.

The Postmaster General recently announced that the United States Postal Service will be ending Saturday delivery of first-class mail by August of 2013. Many people are upset at this cut in service. But few people are asking the real question: why does the United States Postal Service have a monopoly on delivery of first-class mail?

In 1844, Lysander Spooner wrote:

“1. …The power of Congress, then, is simply ‘to establish post-offices and post roads,’ of their own-not to interfere with those established by others.
2. The constitution expresses, neither in terms, nor by necessary implication, any prohibition upon the establishment of mails, post-offices and post roads, by the states or individuals.
3. The constitution expresses, neither in terms, nor by necessary implication, any surrender, on the part of the people, of their own natural rights to establish mails, post offices, or post-roads, at pleasure.
4. The simple grant of an authority, whether to an individual or a government, to do a particular act, gives the grantee no authority to forbid others to do acts of the same kind.”

That same year, Spooner opened the American Letter Mail Company to directly challenge the postal monopoly. Spooner’s mail service had post offices in New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Boston, and advertised his service to “transmit letters daily from each city to the others – twice a day between New York and Philadelphia. Postage 6 1/4 cents per each half-ounce, payable in advance always. Stamps 20 for a dollar.”

One year into business, Spooner had forced the Post Office to lower rates for first-class mail and newspapers would “be sent free for any distance up to a 30-mile radius of the place of publication.” Spooner decided to dig in his heels and lowered his own rates to continue competing with the Post Office.

“So the battle of law and loopholes continued,” wrote Lucille J. Goodyear, “In 1851, Congress again lowered rates and simultaneously enacted a law to protect the government’s monopoly on the distribution of mail. Whereas threats of jail had not fazed or dampened Spooner’s zeal in the fight, the latter move by Congress forced him into defeat… his great battle had ended and his company was disbanded.”

I share Spooner’s belief that just because Congress has assumed the right to operate a Postal Service that they are thus granted the authority to forbid others from operating their own private postal service. I say, “good riddance” to Saturday delivery of first-class mail by the United States Postal Service and look forward to the day when private mail services are delivering mail every day of the week, and twice on weekends!

The year began with the collective eyes of the country on Iowa in anticipation of the earliest Presidential caucus ever. The January 3 Caucus saw Rick Santorum win by the narrowest of margins, only to end up without a single delegate from the Hawkeye State. Santorum could not hold onto his momentum and lost in New Hampshire, South Carolina, Florida & Nevada before winning ten more contests only to drop out and endorse the eventual GOP nominee, Mitt Romney who lost the general election to President Barack Obama. The GOP faction of the Republicratic Party maintained control of the US House of Representatives, the Democratic faction of the duopoly maintained control of the US Senate and the two sides continue to give the illusion of disagreement.

However, on the important issues, there is little disagreement, at all. Tougher sanctions against Iran passed with little opposition, there was little opposition to Obama’s expanded use of drone warfare, and both factions of the duopoly tried to push internet censorship bills.

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke announced a third round of Quantitative Easing (QE3), “which came in the form of an open-ended commitment by the Fed to purchase $40 billion of mortgage debt per month until the job market improves.” So, while Bernanke inflates the US Dollar, people are turning to alternative forms of exchange. Bitcoin is one of those alternatives, and is becoming more and more popular everyday. Bitcoin Central, a Bitcoin exchange that is popular in the eurozone, has worked out a deal with Credit Mutuel and Aqoba to allow users in Europe to more easily transfer Bitcoins. This effectively puts Bitcoin Central on par with PayPal as a means of transferring money within the EU.

There were also two stories about very disturbing crimes, which brought the topic of gun-ownership to the public, once again. The first, being a mass shooting at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado in July; the second being a school shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Conecticut. This second event has lead both factions of the duopoly to clamor for more laws, with the NRA even supporting a plan to essentially militarize the school buildings. On the same day as the Sandy Hook shooting, a man in China broke into a school and stabbed over 20 people, yet few people talk about knife control legislation. But I digress.

The year was not a total failure for freedom, as two States “legalized” marijuana for personal consumption. Voters in Colorado and Washington actually passed legislation to regulate and tax marijuana, though in a small way it is a victory for liberty, as fewer people will now be imprisoned for enjoying this herb. The Supreme Court, in a round-about way, ruled that individuals do have the right to film police and in June the court overturned portions of Arizona’s “papers, please” legislation.

All-in-all, 2012 could have been better, and certainly could have been worse. Here’s hoping 2013 sees bigger and better things for me and for liberty!