My Interview Today on the Ron Paul Liberty Report — ‘After PATRIOT Act Reform, Spying Continues’

Today I talked with hosts Ron Paul and Daniel McAdams on the Ron Paul Liberty Report. In the interview, I address how the United States government’s mass surveillance program continues unimpeded despite all the headlines saying that the recent expiration of PATRIOT Act Section 215 has terminated the snooping by the National Security Agency (NSA) and other government entities.

With Paul and McAdams, I explored the fraudulent reform that allows the snooping to continue, as well as the public education and legislative action that can end the mass spying program and other anti-liberty government actions.

Watch the complete interview here:

Judge Andrew Napolitano: A ‘Farce’ to Say Mass Surveillance Ended; ‘Nothing Has Changed’

Judge Andrew Napolitano has followed up on his recent declaration at Fox News that the United States government can continue to conduct mass surveillance despite the expiration this week of PATRIOT Act Section 215 authority. Interview by Kennedy at Fox Business, Napolitano declares that, while “politicians who are in favor of destroying privacy would have you believe” that the mass surveillance program has ended, “the reality is there’s another section of the PATRIOT Act and there’s a President George W. Bush executive order, both still intact, both of which permit the collection of bulk metadata.”

Continue reading at the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity.

Despite What You May Have Heard, Mass Surveillance Continues

Many news reports are heralding that the expiration this week of Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act authority has ended the United States government’s mass surveillance program. Meanwhile, in a Fox News interview, Judge Andrew Napolitano throws cold water on such claims.

Napolitano bluntly declares that the expiration of Section 215 authorization in no way prevents the US government from continuing its mass surveillance program. Napolitano explains that the National Security Agency (NSA) can continue to “gather phone calls, transcripts of phone calls, transcripts of emails, in real time” from all or nearly all Americans irrespective of the expiration of Section 215 authorization.

Watch Napolitano’s complete interview here:

In addition to the President George W. Bush executive order Napolitano mentions in the interview, the US government can also turn to the supposedly anti-mass surveillance USA FREEDOM Act, signed into law in June, for support as it continues the mass surveillance program. The US FREEDOM Act, typical of “reform” in the US government, masquerades as doing one thing when in fact it does the opposite.

Continue reading at the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity.

President Ventura?

May former Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura announce in March his candidacy for president of the United States? According to a new discussion of Ventura and Fox News Senior Judicial Analyst and former New Jersey Judge Andrew Napolitano on Ora TV, Ventura’s decision regarding a presidential run will largely depend on what happens in the early primaries and caucuses of the Republican and Democratic Parties.

Continue reading at the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity.

US Census Bureau Has Your Ticket to Internment Camp

Beware the United States Census Bureau. While it may seem innocuous, this government agency, which asks Americans questions and publishes demographic statistics, can quickly be turned into an instrument for mass rights abuse.

James Bovard warns in his Monday USA Today column that, should the US government pursue a “mass roundup of unpopular minorities,” the Census Bureau will likely “serve up the names and addresses on a silver platter.” After all, that is just what Bovard explains the bureau did in the 1940s to aid the US military in rounding up Japanese Americans for internment camps.

Continue reading at the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity.

The Corporatocracy Behind US Foreign Policy

In a Tuesday interview with Real News Network host Paul Jay, Ron Paul Institute Academic Board Member and former United States Army Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson started off acknowledging that companies’ billions of dollars a year of weapons sales to Saudi Arabia “massively” influence US foreign policy.

Over the remainder of the fascinating eight-minute interview, Wilkerson, who served as chief of staff for former Secretary of State Colin Powell, proceeds to discuss how government policy is fashioned to benefit military-industrial complex companies. Wilkerson provides as an example a tens of billions of dollars air defense system for the Gulf Cooperation Council governments, with Lockheed Martin the top contractor. Wilkerson chillingly concludes:

So, this is crucial to the number one defense contractor on the face of the earth — Lockheed Martin. And, if it’s crucial to Lockheed, it’s crucial to us.

Continue reading at the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity.

Michael Scheuer: US Foreign Policy is Leading ‘Directly to Fascism in America’

Former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Osama bin Laden Unit Chief Michael Scheuer, interviewed by CNN’s Michael Smerconish regarding the path to take after the recent Paris Killings, advises that the current “half-way approach” that rejects both non-intervention and all-out war “leads directly to fascism in this country.”

Fourteen years into the US government’s Global War on Terrorism, Scheuer reminds us that the Founders observed that, “the longer a war goes on, the more power accrues to the central government, and you eventually create a despotism.” This trend toward despotism continues. Indeed, Scheuer notes that “the very first thing that happened after these attacks was a demand,” in both Europe and America, “for more surveillance of the entire population.”

Continue reading at the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity.

Ron Paul: Foreign Intervention Will Motivate ‘A Lot More’ Blowback Like in Paris

Interviewed Thursday on Fox Business, Ron Paul predicted that there will be “a lot more” blowback along the lines of the killings in Paris last week if the US, France, and other nations do not cease their interventionist, militaristic foreign policies. In particular, Paul criticizes the United States government’s “foreign policy of constant occupation, bombing, and killing people, and eliciting this hatred toward us.” Terminating such a foreign policy, Paul explains, is the key to preventing violent retaliation.

Continue reading at the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity.

Do You Owe Taxes? Congress Wants to Take Your Passport!

In July, Ron Paul Institute Executive Director Daniel McAdams warned that “[b]uried inside the US highways funding bill is a provision to revoke or deny issuance of a US passport to anyone who has a large outstanding tax debt to the US Internal Revenue Service.” This provision in the Senate bill, explained McAdams, is “threatening to imprison Americans within (or outside) US borders.”

Today, in the Economic Policy Journal, Robert Wenzel provides an update that a provision much like the one about which McAdams warned appears poised to pass in Congress and then to become enforceable on January 1.

Continue reading at the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity.

US House Resolution Calls For NATO Article 5 in Response to Paris Killings

On Monday, Rep. Ted Poe (R-TX) introduced in the United States House of Representatives a resolution (H.Res. 525) calling on President Barack Obama “to work closely with other North Atlantic Treaty Organization [NATO] members to invoke Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty in response to the Paris attacks.”

Article 5 in the NATO treaty deals with member nations taking action in response to an attack on another NATO member.

Poe is chairman of the Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and Trade in the House Foreign Affairs Committee — the committee to which Poe’s resolution has been referred for consideration.

Continue reading at the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity.