Tag Archive for Domestic Spying

Why are Armored Guard Posts in Target’s Parking Lot?

Today while shopping at Target I noticed something unusual in the parking lot.  Rising above the middle of the parking lot was a large, mobile guard post.  It had many cameras, dark tinted windows, and appeared armored.  Further, there was a police cruiser parked at its base.  Seeing this, I wondered, what could possible justify making the parking lot of Target look like a federal penitentiary.  Perhaps it was just a new “Supermax” Target?  Was there some imminent terrorist threat against Target?  Should I pack my kids up and flee now for safety?  No one in management seemed to have any comment so it must have just materialized out of thin air.

The reality is the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is becoming ever more overt in its actions toward implementing a complete police state.  As the tower attests, DHS has been working overtime to militarize our local police forces.  In fact, DHS has spent billions of taxpayer dollars to provide local police with equipment designed for full scale warfare.  In short, they are using your money to build the infrastructure to totally control you and every aspect of your life.  The DHS provided equipment includes items like Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) armored vehicles, microwave and ultra low frequency emitting “crowd control” devices, high tech intelligence and surveillance equipment to include drones, and mobile guard towers.  Previously these items were only seen on overseas battlefields and used against America’s most unsavory enemies, but now in keeping with the militarization and takeover of local police, DHS has handed these items out like candy to local cops.  The unstated, but nonetheless real effect of the change in police demeanor from peace officers to storm troopers has been to imbalance the delicate Constitutional balance between the power of the State and the collective power of the people to challenge the State effectively in the event the State becomes illegitimate.

There are neither credible threats against Target to justify this militarized checkpoint nor is there any chance this waste of tax payer dollars would prevent an attack should there actually be one.  This ominous icon of a war zone is designed to desensitize the population to the fact they are monitored, spied on, recorded, and no longer free to even shop for socks without the government’s all seeing eye prying upon their every move.  This type of emerging soft tyranny must be identified, highlighted, resisted, and ultimately shut down at every single emergence.

This particular tower in Potomac Yard Shopping Center (Alexandria, Virginia) was procured by wasting taxpayer dollars and put into use by the Alexandria, Virginia Police Department.  After discussing the tower with local law enforcement the consensus seems to be that the tower was emplaced to thwart a rise in thefts during the holidays around store parking lots.  After all, who wouldn’t want better “public safety?”  However, that rationale fails the logic test.  First of all, after follow-on observation it appears the tower is an overpriced scarecrow because it wasn’t manned and perhaps the video monitoring wasn’t even active.  As such, there was no one actually present to “prevent” a crime.  At best this would only support follow-on investigation if the cameras were operational and pointed in the right direct.  Thus, an unmanned tower provides no more security than store cameras already in place.  Second, the policing is being done on commercial property with your tax dollars.  If Target parking lots are not safe, it is incumbent upon Target to bear the burden of the cost of making their premises safe and secure for shoppers and not Alexandria Police Department.  If the threat is really that high to shoppers as the government would like to scare you into believing, then where is the data to support this and why would we dare take our families out Christmas shopping?  Third, the cost of purchasing, maintaining, moving, emplacing, monitoring, and manning these towers must run into the millions of dollars.  This is an extremely high price tag for what the tower provides and approaches a complete waste of tax dollars.  Fourth, to actually make it effective for its purported purpose of preventing thefts in parking lots during the holiday season, it would have to be manned with a minimum of two officers for at least two shifts a day to cover the shopping hours.  This surveillance would effectively remove significant manpower from a police department’s normal shifts and result in a reduced ability to respond to actual calls for help and criminal activity.  Finally, one must ask whether they want this type of life.  People must use their god given mind to envision where this leads in the future.  A life where the pettiest of crimes results in a justification for a police state is abhorrent to a free society.  There is no freedom of anything when on every corner, at every moment of our lives, armed government goons are ready to swoop in and enforce the smallest of infractions with overwhelming violence.

I ask all of you to contact Target and demand these icons of our emerging police state be immediately removed from their premises or we will boycott their store.  We have already begun a local campaign and to date, Target management has only officially responded by email with a generic “sorry for the inconvenience.”  This is unacceptable and we must make our voices the loudest in the room.  Further, we need to educate the management of Target and other retail stores on what is unacceptable to us as their customers in respect to further police state actions.  By combining our efforts and getting the word out to other internet outlets, talk radio, TV, and our friends and family about these excesses we can expose these tyrannical actions and stop them.  Please take action today and use all your personal clout to impress others to action.

Target’s contact information is as follows:

Potomac Yard Shopping Center

Target

3101 Jefferson Davis Hwy

Alexandria, VA 22305-3042

(703) 706-3840

https://www-secure.target.com/HelpFormLinkPageView?catalogId=10051&langId=-1&storeId=10151&krypto=cQcHDksCxhgmutHxyjlq48%2BIHqzAFPvRjj%2BCK5QVyor4h0nGk1rMzeFOGnDn4aO%2FNM%2F4KjfHQ4%2BK%0AdgJRkZ2wBjKToFcNk5ho24f6ObC44dg%3D&ddkey=http:HelpFormLinkPageView

 

By Guiles Hendrik

December 15, 2013

All rights reserved.

Domestic Spying and the Descent to Tyranny

New government scandals have come rapidly in the last couple months.  The scandals are very serious and a direct danger to any nation of free people with liberty.  George Orwell’s “Big Brother” police state has arrived.  The only difference today is that our government possesses even more ambitious powers than Orwell ever imagined.  Every citizen, irrespective of political affiliation must demand justice and accountability from those in power.  Every citizen must demand the permanent end to secret courts, domestic spying, financially terrorizing citizens, targeting of political opponents, partisan politics, bottomless corporate campaign donations, faux money, financial manipulation, and endless imperial wars overseas to name just a few of the more egregious problems facing the US.  Failure to hold those responsible for their actions criminally liable will mark a dark day for America where historians will note the rule of law died and tyranny breathed life.

Thanks to brave patriots that have been demonized, seized, tortured, fired, harassed, and imprisoned by the government, American citizens are now aware of some of the egregious illegal government operations ranging from “Fast and Furious” to the latest revelations about the National Security Agency (NSA) unconstitutionally spying on all Americans.  The data NSA is storing are broad and range from phone records, text messages, and conversations to emails and financial data.  The revealing of this highly classified domestic spy program contradicted the Obama Administration’s previous claims that there was no such program.  It also proved that General Clapper committed perjury when he emphatically denied under oath to Congress such a program existed when directly asked if NSA was conducting “any” type of domestic surveillance program.  The NSA domestic surveillance program is a direct violation of the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition against conducting unlawful searches and seizures.  The Bill of Rights and the Fourth Amendment are unique in that they specifically direct what the government “cannot” do and were without doubt, intended to be a legal check against just this type of power grab by the federal government.  They are the supreme guiding legal framework under which the US government must operate.  However, as all governments inevitably do, the US government began creating bodies with false powers to provide the false illusion of justification for its actions.  The creation of artificial secret “government” bodies to rubber stamp illegal government actions make these acts no more “legal” or “just” than the Nazis justifying wanton extermination of people because the “government” ordered it.  In spite of this prohibition, the government still broke the law, ignored our Constitution, lied about the programs, and continues to operate the illegal programs.

Perhaps even scarier, the same gang of government thugs in power has been openly conducting state terrorism against its own citizens via its political officers at the Internal Revenue Service, Justice Department, and Environmental Protection Agency.  What caused the government to target and terrorize its own citizens one may ask?  The answer is clear; peaceful and law abiding citizens were targeted for nothing more than having a differing political ideology than the leftist thugs now in power.  No longer will the naïve position of “I don’t have anything to hide so I am not worried” suffice to keep one safe from this growing government threat to a free people.  In spite of the government’s growing list of transgressions and crimes against its own citizens, no one has been held accountable even after months of scandals.  In fact, it appears the culprits have been rewarded.  The day has arrived in the United States when the government has effectively become a separate entity acting for the interests of a small number of elites and beyond the rule of law.

We no longer have a government of the people and for the people, but a government for the elites and of the elites acting to enslave and use its subjects for its benefit at their expense.  In short, the government has lost its legitimacy to govern.  This government is no longer made up of the citizens that granted it (not vice-versa) the power to govern and is certainly not answering to the demands of the public.  Rather, the government is now, an alien group of political radicals and their zombie appointees effectively executing an internal overthrow of this once free republic.  There are only two ways to obtain wealth.  One is to create it and the other is to steal it by force.  Government is decidedly party to the latter category making it the US Government the largest, most powerful organized crime cartel in the history of man.  As such, an illegitimate government is nothing more than an organized crime racket used to extort wealth by force from its victims…also known as citizens.  These corrupt leaders, elected and appointed, must be completely removed from office, tried, and held responsible for what amounts to treason and violations of our Constitution and civil rights.  Until these tyrants and their political henchmen are run out and the rule of law is equally applied and re-instituted from the highest office down to the most common citizen, tyranny will rule.

At the most basic level, government can be defined as an organization that has a monopoly of force over a specific area and its respective population.  In the best of cases, this organization theoretically would represent the will of the people and operate to protect their freedom, liberty, and collective security.  The idea of a “good” government may only exist in theory, but the United States initially set out to achieve just this unprecedented balance between the governed and the governors through a system of checks and balances designed to weaken and restrain the government while vesting the real power in responsible citizens.  However, over the last two hundred plus years, this system has evolved through court rulings, legislation, and policies.  This evolution was heavily influenced by nefarious designs, subterfuge, and lobbying interests, which perverted the original Republic’s architecture.  The result has been the establishment of what amounts to a police state that is no longer accountable to the citizens it was designed to serve.  Further, this parallel government arose when the interests of political parties, banks, and corporations began merging and superseding the interests of the nation.  This faux representative body then began to create, staff, and empower organizations with no actual legal authority to provide legitimacy to the government’s self-serving actions.  The now nullified system of checks and balances has been so perverted that any notion that the government is somehow restrained in its power and still serves the will of the people has been utterly destroyed.

As such, when the government no longer is comprised of the governed people, no longer operates for the good of the citizens, no longer is answerable to the rule of law, and no longer provides effective governance, it is a burden and illegitimate.  The government of the US is now almost indistinguishable from the decadent last years of Rome before it fell under the overt rule of dictators.  Today, just as it was in Rome, our government is run by elites that maintain power though dynastic succession.  The handpicked successors pretend to provide a “choice” to the voters while maintaining power within a handful of families.  To illustrate this, just last week, the Hillary for President Campaign began kicking into high gear as talk of another Bush run for president also began to circulate.  Family names like Clinton, Bush, Rockefeller, and Kennedy are repetitively recycled in the political circles just as surely as kings and emperors retained familial control of power.  Although billion dollar faux elections are held, the winners and losers are hand-picked by the elite establishment and in practice offer no difference in policies.  Parties only serve to distract the uniformed voter, which falsely believes that by voting “D” or “R” really makes a difference when in practice the policies of both parties are nearly indistinguishable.

Again, just as in Rome, our government allows an impotent senate to exist only to maintain the illusion of representation and to provide legitimacy to its illegal acts.  Congress has record low approval ratings and is totally impotent to solve any of the major problems facing the US.  This too echoes of the last years of the Roman Republic when their Senate was also totally inept, corrupt, and serving the interests of elites behind the scenes instead of the people.  Congress as the representative arm of government (the legislative branch) has totally failed to check the power of the Executive as it was designed in the Constitution.  Congress not only fails to counterbalance the actions of the Executive, but has sold out to party interests and acts blindly in their interests jointly with the Executive.  For example, Democrats, including then Senator Obama, which once rightly criticized then President George Bush for using the “Patriot Act” to garner greater surveillance powers have been completely mute when it comes to denouncing the far greater abuses committed in this regard by President Obama.  This illustrates how party loyalties have obliterated the system of checks and balances.  Today, laws are enacted by Congress not to protect, help, and promote the freedoms and liberty of the people, but to control them, tax them, and restrict their liberty and freedom while enriching the elite.

Finally, in Rome, perpetual wars were fought for elite interests while the games were held to distract the people from the broken system exacting an ever greater toll to pay for their mismanagement and excesses.  Today wars are not fought for national defense, but are imperial expeditions designed to handsomely profit the captains of the military-industrial complex.  What national interests were served in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and now Syria?  The US lied to the public to enter these wars, failed to win any of these wars, and spread death, destruction, and further instability throughout the world, but Lockheed Martin, Boeing, KBR, Halliburton, Booz Allen Hamilton, and other similar firms handsomely profited from the blank checks written by Congress.  Perhaps the failing petro-dollar was propped up for a short time longer, but Americans on Main Street realized no long term benefit as the price of gasoline skyrocketed nearly fourfold.  In the end, America’s wars only created more Islamic extremists, “terrorists,” and other assorted enemies that have been used to justify even more war.  What Americans got through these wars were tens of thousands of dead and wounded, un-repayable debt, higher taxes, a devalued dollar, destruction of civil liberties and privacy, and the animosity of the world. Not to worry though because ESPN, MTV, and the rest of the media (including the falsely labeled “news” networks) are doing a great job of pumping round the clock mindless entertainment to effectively distract, deceive, manipulate, and lie to the masses.

The enemies of this illegitimate power have always been the educated free thinkers that dare to speak out and call the emperor naked.  These righteous patriots are vilified as the most heinous of criminals by the state even though their high treason was merely telling the truth and exposing the government for the criminal enterprise it is.  The government hates nothing more than being exposed because it undermines their power.  The banks, media monopolies, mega corporations, and politicians are now connected as one entity and using their power to collectively serve their like interests at the expense of the citizens and are determined to maintain their grip on power.  However a tipping point is approaching.  Although possessing seemingly endless power and resources the government has reached a high water mark where it can no longer continue the lies.  Its policies have failed and it can no longer maintain the illusion of good governance.  Literally the foundations of this country are cracked and the system is collapsing.  People are waking up to this fact and recognizing who is responsible.  This growing patriotic movement has been inoculated against the old tricks of control such as race baiting, games, propaganda, fear mongering, and intimidation.  The elites know this and are afraid.  They know that it is not necessary for more than 10% of the population to become aware to sway the masses and this key threshold is about to be reached.  Historically, at this point, in a desperate bid to hold on to power, governments have nearly always turned to more draconian and brutal tactics.  This has always polarized the population and led to even greater and more rapid disintegration and even civil war and revolution.  As such, heed this article as a warning of things to come.

As our nation moves forward do not expect to see reform, accountability, and justice.  Expect to see more brutality, intimidation, chaos, violence, and thinly veiled attempts to divide the public along lines of race, religion, class, and gender in order to maintain control.  Things will deteriorate further, but in this is the silver lining.  As things get worse, more and more people will wake up, organize, resist, and ultimately take back our nation.  Further, as things get worse there will be less money available to fund the financial needs of the government leviathan and its imperial interests.  The day is not lost and has only begun.  However, we sit at a critical juncture in history.  The path of inaction and apathy leads to tyranny and slavery for generations.  It is up to every freeman to dispense with fear and apathy and take action.  Take care of yourself, your family, and your like-minded neighbors.  Prepare for hard times.  At the ballot box refuse to vote for any Democrat or Republican and instead run your own local independent candidates.  Educate and organize your family and friends beginning at the local level.  Stage non-violent protests, marches, and demonstrations.  Demand the attention of the media and highlight every government indiscretion, illegal act, lie, and abuse.  Train your mind, body, and soul to a level that your presence alone demands respect and your moral character is beyond reproach.  Do not give your enemies ammunition to attack you, but expect it and prepare for it.  These are but a few things one can do to turn the tide on the usurpers within our county.  In time this will lay the foundation for victory, but this war cannot be one if the battle is not joined.  Today is the day to begin taking back your liberty and freedom!

 

By Guiles Hendrik