Category Archives: whistleblowers

The right to privacy

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…is slowly being eroded, we know, but then there are among us the rebels who won’t go quietly.

Oh, the imagination is running into overdrive with all the fun I could have of this…but I want to keep this blog, um, family friendly. haha.

From Cornell Law:

Amendment IV

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.

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I have a Paralegal Certificate and my professor told me that this means that if a police officer pulls you over, you have the right to refuse to give your name or any information unless you are put under arrest.  And with my experience with this, you don’t even have to be in suspicion of a crime–you just have to be in the area–doing your job–to be treated like you were a criminal.

Inquiry into Swartz case

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Two members of Congress have asked what reasons the DOJ had for so zealously going after Aaron Swartz.  (Be sure to click on the link to Wired).  I hope this isn’t just a we’ll pretend to be interested in fairness and justice...

I checked at Marcy Wheeler’s site, but nothing up about this.

Aaron Swartz

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I found this interesting post on Aaron Swartz, which raises more questions than it answers…

I found another post on this site Saturday, but couldn’t find it again looking today.  It mentioned a post by Marcy Wheeler on what was going on with Aaron Swartz and his suicide after being hounded by authorities.  (Be sure to click on the NY Times link, which explains a little better.)  More here.

This chills one to the bone.  And what exactly was he downloading that caused such concern?  The articles dance around it. Anyway, Aaron Swartz believed that the information out there that was paid for by taxpayers deserved to be easily accessed–that is, without paying high $$ to join JSTOR or any other program to gain access.  It was noted that many documents are being electronically copied with limited access to the public.  This is incredibly disturbing, as everyone knows that Information is Power. And knowledge can inform the American citizen what their government is doing. (This is why stuff like Kindle worry me–taking information off of physical books and putting them in electronic gadgets that require a battery and software to view is dangerous in that if either of those fail to work, the information is inaccessible.  One can easily see how this can turn into denial of information–book burning a la the information age.)

The thing is…Swartz had legal access to the information, via Harvard!  He had the legal right to access. He was trying to make a point that the copyright laws protected electronic information that the taxpayers paid for, but were denied access to.  Now, think of the library books one checks out…they are copyrighted materials, but one can still access the information via a library card.  I think Swartz was applying those same principles to his providing this information.  Note that JSTOR refused to prosecute him once they learned he had legal access.

 

Martin Luther King, Jr. and Beyond Vietnam

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Susie Madrak has a post up on MLK’s birthday celebration.  This is my view, too, on how everybody brings up “I Have a Dream” speech, and then fail to acknowledge his “Beyond Vietnam” speech (which he gave a year to the day before his murder).

He was expanding from the Civil Rights protests towards protesting the condition of the poor and of the terrible consequences of war.  This was more of a threat to the status quo than anything he had done prior.  Indeed, even his friends that had supported him during the Civil Rights era were abandoning him when he started advocating for the poor and protesting against war.  According to those that knew him, he never felt so alone.

He knew that advocating those positions was dangerous.

And he did it anyway….

 

More compelling evidence…

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Good Grief, how many children/adults have to suffer?

Why isn’t the evidence is for public viewing.?  Pretty evident that Big Pharma is culpable, and getting away with it because if you can keep the information from being in the public sphere, more folks will be unaware and less likely to realize their child or their selves have symptoms caused by vaccination.  And as this story illustrates, the court cases can have motion after motion filed and be dragged on for years, and only someone of means could afford to pay an attorney to fight their case.  In other words, more profits for Big Pharma…

She’s just a whore…

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…she probably deserved it…we can’t be arresting our star football players…/snark (be sure to click on the Prinniefied.com link–good coverage of the case there.

More here.  

It’s unbelievable that the dude in the video was saying that it should go through the courts…um, yeah, that’s kinda what they’re protesting about–that it wasn’t being forcefully dealt with because of the town’s football worship….

…and attitudes towards women in general and rape specifically…

You know, the arguments are as old as the hills:  the victim brought it on by herself by drinking/partying/wearing skimpy clothes, and on.  What other crime would they ever make that kind of accusation? Rape is the only crime where the victim has to prove they didn’t want the crime to happen.

Case in point (from the NY Times article):

He said that online photographs and posts could ultimately be “a gift” for his client’s case because the girl, before that night in August, had posted provocative comments and photographs on her Twitter page over time. He added that those online posts demonstrated that she was sexually active and showed that she was “clearly engaged in at-risk behavior.”

So….because she was sexually active and wearing skimpy clothes…God, this gets soooo old.…she couldn’t possibly have been raped, because everybody knows that sluts don’t get raped.  They *always* want it and if they don’t put out, well, then one just has to take it. /said with cynicism and dripping sarcasm.

Also telling is the statement “..some people deserve to be peed on…”  In other words, she’s not a human being— she’s an object to be peed on.

The coaching staff’s statement that she “made it up” to cover for her bad behavior is so out of line, but not surprising, given the mindset.  And the coach himself, well, what can one say to “you’ll get yours!” ??

Sadly, the mindset is not just in Steubenville or the U.S. or India, but all over the world. such as this group in Australia.

More blame the victim here.

More here on the politics of rape… note the conservative viewpoint to deny that rapes occur.  As this article illustrates, even women  attack other women about whether they were raped or not.  I seriously wonder if Katie Roiphe wasn’t raped and is in serious denial?

PR Watch

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(I’m sooo far behind, I think I’m ahead…)

Trying to play catch up–here are some highlights of issues sent out by Center for Media and Democracy–

I love that he is holding Whole Foods accountable for the food they are saying is organic….but not quite telling all of the possible ingredients (heavy metals and other contaminants)…

The “Don’t ask, don’t tell” I-see-no-evil, I-hear-no-evil is pretty standard.  They aren’t counting on folks like Mario asking questions, either.  The more people ask questions, the harder it is to come up with evasive answers.

Like I’ve said before, know where your food is from–buy locally if at all possible, because the gossip is at least one other national organic food store is selling conventionally grown (using chemical fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides) food is being marketed as organic.

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Addressing the gun violence issue.  Like in my previous post, you can use other weapons for violence instead of guns–it’s the acceptance of violence in our society (and others) that encourages this.  It’s so much easier to throw a rock than to try to reason with someone and to compromise and to recognize one’s own responsibility towards making peace.  A gun is a  quick way to end whatever problem there is…

And the argument that everyone carrying a gun would stop violence…oy vey…

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ALEC member Scott nominated to fill Demint vacancy.

IRS audit for ALEC?  The question becomes “are you a charity if you have a political action committee and go from state to state trying to heavily influence legislation?”

Michigan and ALEC’s right to work law.   This is part of the religious right’s assault on fairness, which I’m finding out in the book Holy Terror.  (I’m slowly getting through it, a better report later.)

 

No way…

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…that 90% of the Democrats endorse and support Hillary Clinton for president in 2016. (Of all the times to forget my earphones–so I can’t watch this, but I have heard parts of it.)

She actually thinks Henry Kissinger, Tony Blair and Benjamin Netanyahu are upstanding people that speak well of her integrity and leadership skills?

Kissinger quotes that are alarming:

“Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac.”

“Intelligence is not all that important in the exercise of power, and is often, in point of fact, useless.”

“Who controls the food supply controls the people; who controls the energy can control whole continents; who controls money can control the world.”

In other words, power turns him on–ego, ego, ego.  Intelligence is not needed when you’re trying to bomb the hell out of another country–you only need bigger bombs than they have.  And lastly, starving people will do wonders at gaining their compliance to do things they would not normally do.  And he who has the gold makes the rules….

Tony Blair and his compliance with invading Iraq.

And, of course, we know of Netanyahu’s connections to Romney and his exaggerating the Iran threat….for twenty years…

Clinton is a war hawk who would love to push that fabled “red button” at the slightest provocation….or none at all.

One of the employees bought a converter for our TV in the main room for the residents, so I get whatever our antenna picks up.  I watched ABC This Week on Sunday morning and was stunned at Carville’s statement that 90% of Dems have already decided that Clinton will be the nominee.

First of all, how dare you make such an assumption of what the voters are thinking??  I am so sick and tired of politicians and pundits using the phrase “the American people believe/want/need…” when they can only speak for themselves.

…and from where this writer sits, I’d vote for Romney before I’d vote for another Clinton in the White House.  I’m sick of Bushes and Clintons in the White House.  We can thank Clinton for NAFTA, and Bush II for No Child Left a Mind, and for getting us into two wars on false claims of weapons of mass destruction…between all of them, they’ve done a bang up job of ruining this country.  And let’s not leave out the Godfather of it all, Ronald Reagan.  I’m ashamed to say that I voted for him the first four years, but thankfully, not the second four…

Chemtrails and asthma and globs of gelatin…

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They had stopped spraying so much of the chemtrails here.  At least, during the day…but then for two weeks, you couldn’t see the sunrise…there was a solid “cloud” blanket over the sky.  I also noticed that I was having a more difficult time breathing.  I passed it off to all the cigarette smoke I’m exposed to in the building, or the deodorants they use in cleaning, or paint fumes…but then another resident complained to me that she was also having trouble breathing.  It’s a more serious event for her because she has severe asthma.  I’ve also noticed that I am really tired after jogging in the morning, instead of feeling the “runner’s high”, I feel wiped out–and if the skies are clear?  I feel that runner’s high and energized.  The conclusion points towards them spraying at night…

Now, it could be all of the above…but consider this:  my car’s protective coat, which was intact before I moved here, began peeling away this past year, only one year after moving here.  I went out to it the other day, and saw this horrible “alligator” patch about twelve inches in diameter.  I was driving in town, so my speed wasn’t that fast, when the protective film just started flying off in bits–some of sticking in the windshield wiper.  Another resident’s car, which is also massively peeling, had the same phenomenon–pieces of protective film lay on the ground near the car.  It’s important to note that this happened the same time mine happened. And this car was not as old as mine, so you can take the age factor out.

I searched “chemtrails and asthma” and found this at natural news.  This link is particularly good, with a physician explaining how devastating they are.

This link is also good–be sure to look at the video of the gelatinous material falling over Oakville Washington.

Human white blood cells….?? And a bacteria that makes its home in the human digestive tract…holy crap…tell me that isn’t causing digestive distress and issues with the gut? And one can’t argue against the pets dying–a red flag that something is terribly wrong.  Where are the samples?

I found this after searching “chemtrails and meteorologists”.  Since it’s so long, I can’t watch it entirely, but he is a meteorologist that is debunking chemtrails as non-existent.  He said that most meteorologists are either stupid or know of them and going along with it.  I know the local weather kid actually pointed at a chemtrails photo recently, saying they were cirrus clouds.  He named them in a meteorological term that I can’t remember.  I was just stunned.

Arafat’s exhumation

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It was described as painful, but necessary.

One of the commenters said that Polonium-210 was a favorite of the KGB. Interesting.  It jogged my memory of another involved with the Russians who also suddenly became ill.  Be sure to click on the link for Anna Politakovskaya, whom was also poisoned, albeit unsuccessfully.  When poison doesn’t work, a bullet will do the trick…

Here’s another article on Arafat on the daily beast: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/07/12/the-ghost-of-yasser-arafat.html

Here’s an interesting side article on radiation’s effects.  And one here on radiation testing in the U.S. and its consequences: http://historytogo.utah.gov/utah_chapters/utah_today/radiationdeathanddeception.html