
Since when does the Attorney General of the
United States get involved in child custody cases? Since when are automatic weapons required
to settle such cases?
 In 1949, this definition of "terrorism" could be
found on page 1346 of Funk & Wagnall's Standard Dictionary of the English Language.
 Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary, 1970, page 911.
 Black's Law Dictionary, 1991, page 1473.
This page is written for the benefit of people who have absolute faith
and trust in the government. Perhaps you know people who believe the
government can do no wrong. People who believe that the government
never lies. People who believe that every good and perfect
thing comes from the federal government. One fellow I know
comes to mind. When the government declares it illegal to
inhale, he will be the first person in town to turn blue. And
he will probably be the first person in town with a bar code on his
forehead. He will take the government's side in any argument, because
the government is his god. To him, and others like him,
the situation shown in the photo above is perfectly normal.
Here is some of the evidence that the federal government
and some state governments have too much power and
too little restraint. In fact, much of this web site is
devoted to the never-ending task of spotlighting abusive government
and bad ideas. Tyranny is defined as the cruel and oppressive government,
and that is exactly what is described in some of the news items shown below.
Subsections:
The Road to Tyranny is All Downhill From Here
Snitch on Your Neighbor
The TIPS program
Know Your Customer
Incompetence and Absurd Application of the Law
The Steven Hatfill / Anthrax Investigation
Property Rights and Property Seizures ...
including commentary about the Supreme Court's Kelo decision.
The Bill of Rights is Taking a Beating
Invasion of Privacy (includes numerous subtopics)
The Government's Role as Overprotective Nanny
... including The Smoking Section
... and Governor Perry's Vaccination Mandate
Money Down the Drain
The use of Traffic Signals as Fundraisers
Taxes and The IRS ...
specifically, Cigarette taxes and
The Proposed "Odometer Tax"
The Americans with Disabilities Act
The Endangered Species Act
The USA Patriot Act
Waco
Waco II
Ruby Ridge
Other Items of Interest
Additional pages on similarly irritating subjects:
Zero-Tolerance
The Invasion of the Food Police
The War vs. Liberty and Freedom
Gun Control
Carnivore & Echelon
Hate Crime Laws
The Proposed National ID Card
Featured articles:
A young boy serves a life
sentence. He's just a normal, average, typical 12-year-old boy. If the normal, average,
typical 12-year-old boy has the world's longest-reigning dictator drop by every year for his birthday,
that is. Elian Gonzalez was shipped into the waiting arms of Fidel Castro in 2000. The
delivery man was Bill Clinton, who used a SWAT team armed with submachine guns to assure everyone's compliance.
Update:
Elian Gonzalez joins Cuba's youth
Communists. The Cuban boy at the center of an international custody battle eight years ago has joined Cuba's
Young Communist Union. Elian Gonzalez said he will never let down ex-President Fidel Castro and his brother Raul
Castro, according to the Communist youth newspaper Juventud Rebelde.
Elian
Gonzalez back in news again. Here's a name I didn't think I'd hear again, but remember Elian Gonzalez, whose
story transfixed our nation eight years ago in an international custody fight between the U.S. and Cuba? Now comes the
news that the 14-year-old has joined Cuba's Young Communist Union, according to the Associated Press.
The Lawless
State: Sometimes the deepest changes in a political system sneak in almost unnoticed. So
it has been in the United States, which has quietly shifted from being a decentralized federal republic to
being a centralized democracy. … If the Founding Fathers could see us now, they'd surely ask, "How
on earth did you get yourselves into this mess?" We've managed to do nearly everything the
Constitution was designed to prevent us from doing.
Colorado Governor Signs She-Male Restroom Bill.
This bill makes all public accommodations — including public restrooms and locker rooms in the state —
"gender free." This law now means that anyone who identifies as the opposite sex, can freely access public facilities
formerly reserved for a single sex. Sexual predators can now enter women's restrooms and claim they have a sexual
identity different from their birth sex. It makes it legal for drag queens, cross-dressers and anyone else with a
serious Gender Identity Disorder to use opposite sex restrooms and locker rooms. But it goes further. It defines
"public accommodations" as including malls, restaurants, schools, and small businesses.
The Taxpayer Frog In the
IRS Pot: In 1900 federal spending was $0.5 billion. In 2000 it was $1,789 billion.
Those amounts translated to 2.5% of GDP in 1900 and 21% in 2000. Government spending at all levels in the
U.S. was 36.5% of GDP in 2006. That 2.5% of GDP that could sustain the entire federal government in 1900
is not even enough to cover the Medicare program today. The Medicare program, by the way, did not exist
in 1900; it was established in 1965.
Nearly eight years in prison
without a trial. Whatever happened to the right of an accused to have a speedy trial? Once
a successful dentist in St. Louis County who treated many indigent patients, Charles Thomas Sell was accused of
Medicaid fraud in 1997. Although he has never hurt anyone, and a federal court held that he poses no
danger to those around him, prison officials frequently placed him in solitary confinement for periods that
totaled nearly two years.
Woman jailed for refusing
court-required psych exam. An Iowa grandmother has been banished to jail, including a night
in isolation, after refusing to give in to a judge's demand that she submit to a psychiatric exam and take
psychotropic drugs if prescribed to mitigate her opposition to abortion, her husband has confirmed.
Would Your Beliefs Brand You A
'Homegrown' Terrorist? H.R. 1955, titled the Violent Radicalization and
Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007 allows the government to target Americans and
actually calls "thought" crimes "homegrown terrorism". Part of the bill (Section 899A)
employs extremely vague terminology ("violent radicalization") to describe the promoting of
any belief system that the government considers "extremist".
The Editor says...
Under H.R. 1955 it is a crime to "intimidate or coerce the United States government, the civilian
population of the United States, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social
objectives". Such a crime is depicted in the photo at the top of this page.
'Thought Crimes,' HR 1955 Passed.
The U.S. House of Representatives recently passed HR 1955, titled the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown
Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007. It was passed with 404 votes in favor. ... This is a "Thought Crime"
bill of the type so often discussed in an Orwellian context. It specifically targets the civilian
population of the United States. It defines "Violent Radicalization" as promoting any belief system that
the government considers to be extremist. "Homegrown Terrorism" and "Violent Radicalization" are defined
as thought crimes. Since the bill does not provide a specific definition of extremist belief system, it
will be whatever the government at any given time deems it to be.
The Senate Could Vote on the "Thought Crimes" Bill Soon!
It should be remembered that following the Oklahoma City Bombing, the Clinton administration blamed not just
the indicted perpetrators, Timothy McVeigh, Terry Nichols and Michael Fortier, but also all those who had like
McVeigh, Nichols and Fortier protested against the government's deadly actions at Waco and Ruby Ridge.
Time magazine and other media organs joined the administration in charging that these "anti-government"
protesters were actually "ideational co-conspirators" with the OKC bombers. Like President Clinton,
President Bush now equates opposition to his policies, especially concerning the War in Iraq and the "War on
Terror," as unpatriotic, or even treasonable.
Bullies,
Muggers, Sneak Thieves, and Con Men. The beginning of political wisdom is the realization
that despite everything you've always been taught, the government is not really on your side; indeed, it is
out to get you. Sometimes government functionaries and their private-sector supporters want simply to
bully you, to dictate what you must do and what you must not do, regardless of whether anybody benefits from
your compliance with these senseless, malicious directives. The drug laws are the best current
example, among many others, of the government as bully.
America's Injustice System Is
Criminal. In the US the wrongful conviction rate is extremely high. One reason is that
hardly any of the convicted have had a jury trial. No peers have heard the evidence against them and
found them guilty. In the US criminal justice (sic) system, more than 95% of all felony cases are
settled with a plea bargain.
Armed and dangerous: Federal agencies expanding
the use of firepower. During the late morning of January 14, 1997, 20 heavily armed federal
agents and local sheriff's deputies descended from a military helicopter onto rocky Santa Cruz Island off the
California coast. As snipers moved into position along the ridge tops to secure the perimeter of the
attack area, other agents staged dynamic entries into the buildings — rousting 15-year-old Crystal
Graybeel who was sleeping late in her cabin. The agency responsible for all this was not the BATF, nor
the FBI, nor any other agency typically associated with such "dynamic entries." This raid was the work of
the National Park Service. At a time when elected legislative bodies from city councils to Congress have
been passing laws that restrict the rights of law-abiding citizens to keep and bear arms, federal agencies
within the executive branch have been quietly authorizing dramatically increased numbers of armed
personnel — often heavily armed with military-style assault weapons. Today, there are nearly
60,000 federal agents trained and authorized to enforce the over 3,000 criminal laws Congress has passed over
the years, plus the hundreds of thousands of regulations which now carry criminal penalties.
The Secret National Cops: Who
are federal inspectors general, and why are they pointing guns at us? U.S. Rep. Helen Chenoweth, R-Idaho,
questions the use of "traditional tools" as they were wielded in her own bailiwick. Chenoweth, whose
congressional district includes Clearwater County, blasted the FEMA agents for behaving "like a bull in a china
shop." "I understand that FEMA has an important responsibility to ensure that federal funds are handled
consistent with law, but … FEMA has proceeded against a local government and private citizens in a
threatening manner," she wrote to Attorney General Janet Reno. "It is exactly this type of unnecessary,
heavy-handed show of force that feeds the distrust of the federal government."
The EPA's Swat Team: Hubert Vidrine, a
manager at a refinery plant, was at work when FBI and EPA Criminal Division Agents stormed into his place of
business using M-16s and police dogs. His alleged crime was storing waste covered by the Resource
Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) without obtaining a permit. Just wait, it gets better...
Prince George's raid prompts
call for probe. When the shooting stopped, two dogs lay dead. A mayor sat in his boxers,
hands bound behind his back. His handcuffed mother-in-law was sprawled on the kitchen floor, lying
beside the body of one of the family pets that police had killed before her eyes.
What police left
behind was a house stained with blood and a trail of questions about their conduct.
Police raid Maryland
mayor's home and kill his dogs. Mayor Cheye Calvo got home from work, saw a package addressed
to his wife on the front porch and brought it inside, putting it on a table. Suddenly, police with guns
drawn kicked in the door and stormed in, shooting to death the couple's two dogs and seizing the unopened
package.
Mayor Cleared In Raid
That Killed Dogs. A small-town mayor whose dogs were killed in a drug raid was cleared of
any wrongdoing after police had been reluctant to rule out his involvement in drug smuggling or apologize
for the violent incident.
D.C.
family wins suit over raid on home. A Capitol Hill family won a lawsuit against the D.C.
government after their row house was raided in a search for evidence that their renovation plans violated the
city's historic preservation laws. About a dozen police officers and D.C. Consumer and Regulatory
Affairs inspectors searched the home of Laura Elkins and John Robbins four years ago, entering the bedrooms of
their teenage children who were home sick from school, and searching through drawers, behind furniture and
under carpets.
Available in the airport gift shop.
Big Brother endorses
these playthings. Two years ago in this column, I lamented the fact that toy manufacturers were
cashing in on society's headlong rush toward constant and ubiquitous surveillance. I highlighted a Lego
construction set that included, as part of a police 18-wheeler, a surveillance and monitoring unit. I
also noted a plastic "play set," manufactured and marketed by Playmobil, depicting a police officer wanding a
civilian figure as pretend belongings go through a pretend X-ray machine. This trend toward "play"
search and surveillance has continued, and now includes a functioning toy metal detector.
The Gangster State:
A recent incident in San Diego illustrates that there isn't nearly enough distance separating the federal government
from the criminal underworld. According to the local NBC television affiliate, four gunmen disguised as federal
agents conducting a drug raid "invaded a home near the San Ysidro border crossing…. Investigators
say the gunmen were dressed as agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms." What is surprising
is not that the criminals chose to disguise their home invasion as a federal raid, but rather that this sort of
thing hasn't happened more often.
Kathryn Johnston: A Year Later.
When police forced their way into Johnston's home, she met them holding a rusty old revolver, fearing she
was about to be robbed. The police opened fire, and killed her. Shortly after the shooting, the
police alleged that they had paid an informant to buy drugs from Ms. Johnston's home. They said she
fired at them first, and wounded two officers. And they alleged they found marijuana in her
home. We now know that these were all lies. In fact, everything about the Kathryn Johnston
murder was corrupt.
Sometimes 'sorry' doesn't cut
it. A SWAT team from the Milwaukee Police Department burst into Denise Berndsen's
apartment and turned the place upside down looking for evidence of child porn. Oops. The
man they were targeting had moved out five weeks earlier. Instead they roughed up Berndsen,
who had returned home from back surgery that day, her 74-year-old father, and a man she had just
started dating and who for a few terrifying minutes wondered what he got himself into.
The Rise of a Judicial
Dictatorship: The Warren Court launched a social, cultural and moral revolution and began openly
to dictate to what had been a self-governing people. Under this dictatorship, radically secularist and
egalitarian, America's public schools were as de-Christianized as thoroughly as in the Soviet Union.
None Dare Call It
Fascism. Fascism operates under the principle of "might makes right," through the exercise of raw,
naked governmental police power. In America today, the increasingly rough-shod violation of constitutional
rights by government agents in the name of "protecting the environment" or the "war on drugs" is an indication
of how far we are proceeding in this direction.
Editor's Note:
The article above is excellent, and it is very timely even though it was
originally published in July 1997, long before the "War on Terrorism".
There
is No War on Drugs! Why does the War on Some Drugs and Users continue despite the obvious
failure of every tactic tried by prohibitionists? Could it be that the illegal drug trade engenders
such massive untraceable black market profits and forms of social control that the Warriors really do not
want the War to end? When one takes the endless tales of corruption, greed and lies on the part of
so many Drug Warriors into consideration, it isn't such a stretch of the imagination.
Powder and crack
cocaine: Recently, the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments about a case in which the judge
refused to impose the notoriously high sentence required for crack cocaine, Kimbrough v. U.S. While the
case doesn't challenge the sentencing disparity directly, it calls attention to the statute that punishes
crack cocaine with sentences 100 times greater than for powder cocaine, despite the fact that there is no
difference in the chemical makeup of the two forms of cocaine.
Drug
Laws' Absence of Justice. You've probably read about the disparity in federal mandatory minimum
sentences before. The Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 mandated a five-year minimum sentence for possession
of 5 grams of crack cocaine or 500 grams of powdered cocaine. Civil rights groups have attacked
the 100-1 volume disparity on racial grounds. The U.S. Sentencing Commission found that more than
80 percent of crack offenders are black, while some 80 percent of powdered cocaine offenders
are white.
This could happen here, too ...
Couple
plan to sue RCMP over 911 reaction. A North Vancouver couple has complained to District of North
Vancouver council and said they will sue the North Vancouver RCMP after officers responded to their hang-up
911 call by breaking down their door, making a forceful arrest and jailing them overnight when the couple
refused to allow a house-search. ... North Vancouver resident Marget Lieder said that in the early
evening of Oct. 25 she was having wine with her partner and a guest when she misdialed the
emergency number, meaning to call 411 instead. … "I don't want my privacy to be invaded just
because I misdial a number," she said.
Incidentally, there could be at least 100 Ways to Mis-Dial 911.
Pentagon wants new spying powers
in the US. The Pentagon says it won't spy on "innocent" Americans, but critics say
past record shows this is false.
Monitoring Americans: There is a proper role for
police in a free society. They are needed to protect lives and property, to respond in emergencies, and
investigate crimes — and the NYPD and America's other local police departments have long served admirably
and honorably in this role. But in a militarized society, one in which the police are no longer
accountable to local civil authorities and become instead an instrument of a central government in
Washington, the central government could be expected to abuse its newfound law-enforcement powers.
Cheney won't tell
how much he keeps secret. A standing executive order, strengthened by President Bush in 2003,
requires all agencies and "any other entity within the executive branch" to provide an annual accounting of
their classification of documents … but [Vice President] Cheney insists he is exempt.
I guess the telephone is out of the question...
Passport customers fume over
parking fees. Getting a passport was already starting to get pricey for Mary Simpson. In
March, she paid $97 for the passport application fee, plus another $60 to expedite it. She's expecting
to fork over $80 in gas for the trip from San Antonio to find out in person the status of her application.
Then, the parking sign declares "$10."
City
may banish TV dishes from view. The Boston City Council, citing a proliferation of satellite
television dishes across the city, is considering banning the devices from the front of buildings. Saying
that the dishes are potentially dangerous and increasingly hard to overlook in parts of the city where some
buildings are festooned with them, councilors plan to consider a measure to confine the satellite television
receivers to the back of buildings, out of public view.
[Potentially dangerous? How?]
The
Runaway Train That Hit Scooter Libby. With the sentencing of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby,
[Patrick J.] Fitzgerald has apparently finished his work, which was, not to put too fine a point on it,
to make a mountain out of a molehill.
[This investigation] would not have been conducted if, say, the Iraq
war had ended with 300 deaths and the mission had really been accomplished. An unpopular war produced the
popular cry for scalps and, in Libby's case, the additional demand that he express contrition — a
vestigial Stalinist-era yearning for abasement.
N.J. Governor's SUV Went
91 Mph Before Crash. The SUV carrying Gov. Jon S. Corzine was traveling about
91 mph moments before it crashed, Superintendent of State Police Col. Rick Fuentes said
Tuesday [4/17/2007]. The governor was critically injured when the vehicle crashed into a
guardrail on the Garden State Parkway just north of Atlantic City last week. He apparently
was not wearing his seat belt as he rode in the front passenger's seat.
[The car is going 91 mph, and he's not wearing a seat belt. Oh, but that's
okay because he's the governor after all, and a state trooper was driving. Who's
going to tell him to slow down?]
Frustration over Corzine
not buckling up. Last year, New Jersey law officers ticketed 271,182 people for not wearing seat
belts. This year, one seat-belt violator stands out: Gov. Jon S. Corzine, who was critically
injured in an automobile accident last week. … State police said Trooper Robert Rasinski, Corzine's
driver, was wearing a seat belt and received minor injuries in the wreck, while Corzine aide Samantha Gordon
was riding in the back seat without a seat belt and received minor injuries.
Virginia Introduces $3550 Speeding Ticket.
Virginia legislator introduces new speeding ticket tax that boosts penalties beyond $3550, driving business to
his traffic law firm.
Highway Robbery: One definition
of injustice is grossly disproportionate punishment. You don't put people into prison for a year because
they jaywalked. So what do we make of Virginia's new "civil remedial fines" that slam ordinary motorists
with thousand-dollar fines (payable in "three easy installments") for relatively minor traffic violations? ... We
all know of broad avenues that seem to drop for no apparent reason from 55 to 35 mph -- typically,
with a motorcycle cop hiding behind a bush just beyond where the drop goes into force. It has always been
unfair. Now, it's egregious.
All the material about "Corporate Social Responsibility"
has been moved here.
Shattered Dreams: 100 Stories of
Government Abuse. This publication highlights how regulations that are poorly written and/or
inflexibly enforced can overwhelm, intimidate, bankrupt or otherwise harm average Americans. It features
situations related to the Americans with Disabilities Act, building codes, INS, IRS, the Endangered Species Act,
OSHA, Indian Affairs, zoning, property rights issues, etc.
Shattered Dreams: 100 Stories of
Government Abuse. Download the entire book in PDF format.
Ruled by
scoundrels. The March 10 [2003] issue of Human Events carried a special report on the 10 most
outrageous government programs. … The Legal Services Corp. headed the list, followed closely by
the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform Act and the Davis-Bacon Act of 1931. Rounding out the
list were: Americorps, Endangered Species Act, No Child Left Behind Act, Amtrak, Corporate
Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) Standards, Title X Family Planning Act, and the provision of welfare
payments to non-citizens and illegal aliens.
FCC Compliance
and the Station Engineer. Broadcasting may not be unique in this, but it certainly presents
a severe case of a regulated industry. My view is that at least 13 layers of regulation burden
broadcasting. The layers go by names like FCC, FAA, OSHA, BOCA, DOJ, Copyright Tribunal,
Homeland Security, etc.
Colleges
Protest Call to Upgrade Online Systems. The federal government, vastly extending the
reach of an 11-year-old law, is requiring hundreds of universities, online communications companies
and cities to overhaul their Internet computer networks to make it easier for law enforcement
authorities to monitor e-mail and other online communications.
Excellent:
Let's do some detective
work. Today's White House proposes and Congress taxes and spends for anything they can muster a
majority vote on. My investigative query is: Were the Founders and previous congressmen and
presidents, who could not find constitutional authority for today's bread and circuses, just plain stupid
and ignorant?
Getting back our
liberties: We all have a moral obligation to pay our share for constitutionally mandated
functions of the federal government, but we have no such obligation to have Congress take the earnings of one
American and give them to another American. Forcing one American to serve the purposes of another is one
way slavery can be defined.
City of Seattle
may ban microwave popcorn. First, Washington State banned indoor public smoking. Now, the
City of Seattle may ban employees from making microwave popcorn. No kidding. A memo from the Fleets
and Facilities Department addressed to "Employees at Civic Center Buildings" says there has been several
evacuations in recent years due smoke alarms being tripped by burning popcorn.
Man risks five years jail time for using open WiFi
connection. A Michigan man who was caught using a coffee shop's unsecured WiFi connection while
sitting in the car park was fined $400 and ordered to do 40 hours community service. But he could
have received a 5-year jail term, as the state law which covers this is part of a 1979 anti-hacking bill which
makes this a felony.
Job security: Americans
have suffered decades of nutty decisions from the Supreme Court. At the present time our precious
American values are on the line, as arrogant judges decide for the rest of us how we should live our
lives. Now they purport to tell us how we can worship our God even though the Constitution
clearly forbids their meddling.
Investigate
the CIA. Political correctness reigns in the U.S. government at every level, and the
CIA is no exception. The result is an agency that is conducting a steady leak campaign against
President Bush designed to discredit the Iraq war and undermine the war on terror.
How
someone else's meth habit leaves you with a runny nose: Under the Combat Meth
Act, which Congress is expected to pass soon, you too can be treated like a criminal the next
time you have nasal congestion, thereby doing your part to help achieve a drug-free society.
Hoover wanted to put 12,000 in
jail. A newly declassified document shows that J. Edgar Hoover, who headed the FBI from 1924 to
1972, had a plan to suspend habeas corpus and imprison about 12,000 Americans whom he suspected of disloyalty.
Hoover sent his plan to the White House on July 7, 1950, 12 days after the Korean War began. It
envisioned putting suspect Americans in military prisons.
FBI Examines Pastor's Sermons On
Culture. Nov. 23, 2004, started out like any other normal morning for Randy Steele, senior
pastor at Southwest Christian Church in Mount Vernon, Ill., a town about 80 miles southeast of
St. Louis. … The Pastor was questioned by the FBI over the way he talked about abortion
from a biblical perspective.
The Price of Incremental
Lawlessness: Article X of the Bill of Rights prohibits the federal government from authority to
regulate our lives in any areas other than what is specifically given the federal government by the
Constitution. Where in the Constitution is the federal government given power to regulate education,
medical care, social welfare, or the private ownership of guns?
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