"A Culture Of Surveillance" by Chuck Baldwin

Source: http://www.chuckbaldwinlive.com/chuckwagon.php

It is truly amazing how much news the American news media chooses to ignore. If one wants to discover what is actually going on in the world, he or she often has to go to the foreign press. This has again been the case with a story that every American should be extremely interested in, but which has been totally ignored by the American news media. I found this story in Russia Today.

According to RussiaToday.com, "The personal computer may soon be not-so-private, with the U.S. and some European nations working on laws allowing them access to search the content held on a person's hard drive.

"President Obama's administration is keeping unusually tight-lipped on the details, which is raising concerns among computer users and liberty activists."
The report also states, "In extreme secrecy from the public, the United States is hammering out an international copyright treaty with several other countries and the European Union. Under the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (or ACTA), governments will get sweeping new powers to search and seize material thought to be in breach of copyright. But why all the secrecy?"

Russia Today quotes Richard Stallman, prominent American software freedom activist, as saying, "Democracy gets bypassed and they can do to us whatever they want. I can only guess that it's going to be nasty, because if it weren't going to be nasty, they wouldn't need to keep it a secret."

The report also said, "Up until now, the breach of copyright has been a civil matter. The Obama administration seems to now want to criminalize it."
The report continued saying, "Some say modern America is being overtaken by a culture of surveillance."

A culture of surveillance indeed. What began in earnest under former President George W. Bush is now sharply escalating under President Barack Obama.
According to Ecommerce Journal, President Obama and his Big Brother fellow travelers in Congress are seeking power to "cut the whole world off the Internet." The report says, "Senators John Rockefeller and Olympia Snowe proposed the Cybersecurity Act that would create the Office of the National Cybersecurity Advisor. Its powers are detailed in the The Cybersecurity Act of 2009.

"If the President so chooses, he can call a 'cybersecurity emergency' and shut down or limit any 'net traffic or a 'critical' network 'in the name of national security,' though the bill fails to provide concrete definitions on what is 'critical' or what constitutes an 'emergency.'"

The report goes on to say, "This new legislation seeks to give even more power to the government to regulate the Internet and, in future, the possibility to regulate content and usage. What begins as a method of defeating terrorism and protecting telecommunications, can quickly become a method to regulate 'hate speech' to assign 'motive' or 'intent' to harm and even to regulate and legislate the flow of information that is deemed by the 'thought police' to be inflammatory or counter-productive to their cause."

The report says that the new cybersecurity legislation can be a "framework for future, more invasive legislation. It is a first step to the loss of internet privacy, free speech and the free flow of information."

So, once again, the passing of a Republican Presidential administration and the advent of a Democratic Presidential administration have resulted in zero change in the overall direction of the ship of state. In the name of "national security," the federal government of this country continues to deepen its commitment to what can only be described as a police-state mentality. And, once again, the national news media in America chooses to ignore the story, and by so doing, shows willful compliance with this disturbing phenomenon.

I wonder how many Obama supporters are paying attention?

During the Bush years, my "conservative" brethren (especially the ones calling themselves Christians) repeatedly turned a blind eye and deaf ear to the myriad foibles and falsehoods, and frequent fraudulence of President Bush because he was a Republican. Now we will see how many Obama supporters will look the other way in order to protect President Obama because he is a Democrat. I suspect most of them will show themselves of no better character than the Bush supporters.

Consider: Obama promised to end the war in Iraq. But what has he done since being elected? He merely moved the major combat theater to Afghanistan. He is even in the process of escalating the war in Afghanistan to possibly include Pakistan. So, where are the "peacenik" liberals who supported Obama? Why do they not loudly proclaim their opposition, as they did when Bush was in office?

Furthermore, Obama criticized Bush's undisciplined deficit spending, but what has he done since becoming President? He has deeply expanded Bush's failed financial policy of excessive deficit spending. Again, where are all the loud voices of protest?
George Bush wanted amnesty for illegal aliens. Barack Obama wants amnesty for illegal aliens. George Bush supported the assault weapons ban. Barack Obama supports the assault weapons ban. George Bush wanted to limit the legal rights of certain people charged with crimes. Well, friends, Barack Obama also wants to limit the rights of people charged with crimes.

Just last week, an Associated Press report stated, "The Obama administration is asking the Supreme Court to overrule long-standing law that stops police from initiating questions unless a defendant's lawyer is present, another stark example of the White House seeking to limit rather than expand rights.
"The administration's action--and several others--have disappointed civil rights and civil liberties groups that expected President Barack Obama to reverse the policies of his Republican predecessor, George W. Bush, after the Democrat's call for change during the 2008 campaign."

So, where are Obama's supporters who thought they were voting for change? Will they do nothing, as did Bush's supporters, and accept this abridgment of personal liberty, simply because "their man" is in the White House? Probably.

In addition, George Bush created a Big-Government monster known as the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Can there be any doubt that DHS is in the process of manufacturing a ubiquitous surveillance society that eavesdrops, snoops, and monitors virtually our entire lives? And what does Barack Obama do immediately after assuming office? He multiplies and expands the surveillance society to even greater degrees. So again I ask, where are all the Bush critics to denounce Barack Obama's draconian anti-privacy, anti-freedom policies?

The Internet is the last best source of free and independent information left. Think where the liberty movement would be without the Internet. But even as we speak, President Obama and his allies in Congress are attempting to obtain the authority to censor information on--and curtail access to--the Internet. Plus, in the name of "cybersecurity," they are plotting to obtain the authority to monitor and seize anyone's personal computer at will.

The Russia Today report is right: we do have a culture of surveillance. We also have a culture of cowardice by people from both sides of the political aisle who, in the name of partisan politics, are willfully accommodating and facilitating the demise of this constitutional republic.

April 24 - Day of Remembrance of Armenian Genocide

The Armenian Genocide (presentation) from Vartan Simonian on Vimeo.

Stratfor: Red Alert: A Possible Revolution Simmering in Georgia

www.stratfor.com

April 8, 2009 | 1943 GMT

VANO SHLAMOV/AFP/Getty Images
Georgian opposition politicians making a statement in Tbilisi on March 27

Summary
Georgian opposition movements have planned mass protests for April 9, mostly in Tbilisi but also around the country. These protests could spell trouble for President Mikhail Saakashvili. The Western-leaning president has faced protests before, but this time the opposition is more consolidated than in the past. Furthermore, some members of the government are expected to join in the protests, and Russia has stepped up its efforts to oust Saakashvili.

Analysis
Opposition parties inside Georgia are planning mass protests for April 9, mainly in the capital city of Tbilisi but also across the country. The protests are against President Mikhail Saakashvili and are expected to demand his resignation. This is not the first set of rallies against Saakashvili, who has had a rocky presidency since taking power in the pro-Western “Rose Revolution” of 2003. Anti-government protests have been held constantly over the past six years. But the upcoming rally is different: This is the first time all 17 opposition parties have consolidated enough to organize a mass movement in the country. Furthermore, many members of the government are joining the cause, and foreign powers — namely Russia — are known to be encouraging plans to oust Saakashvili.

The planned protests in Georgia have been scheduled to coincide with the 20th anniversary of the Soviet crackdown on independence demonstrators in Tbilisi. The opposition movement claims that more than 100,000 people will take to the streets — an ambitious number, as the protests of the past six years have not drawn more than 15,000 people. But this time around, the Georgian people’s discontent is greatly intensified because of the blame placed on Saakashvili after the Russo-Georgian war in August 2008. Most Georgians believe Saakashvili pushed the country into a war, knowing the repercussions, and into a serious financial crisis in which unemployment has reached nearly 9 percent.

Georgia’s opposition has always been fractured and so has only managed to pull together sporadic rallies rather than a real movement. But the growing discontent in Georgia is allowing the opposition groups to finally overcome their differences and agree that Saakashvili should be removed. Even Saakashvili loyalists like former Parliament Speaker Nino Burjanadze and former Georgian Ambassador to the United Nations Irakli Alasania have joined the opposition’s cause, targeting Saakashvili personally. The problem now is that opposition members still do not agree on how to remove the president; some are calling for referendums on new elections, and some want to install a replacement government to make sure Saakashvili does not have a chance to return to power. But all 17 parties agreed to start with large-scale demonstrations in the streets and go from there.

If the movement does inspire such a large turnout, it would be equivalent to the number of protesters that hit the streets at the height of the Rose Revolution, which toppled the previous government and brought Saakashvili into power in the first place.

Saakashvili and the remainder of his supporters are prepared, however, with the military on standby outside of Tbilisi in order to counter a large movement. During a demonstration in 2007, Saakashvili deployed the military and successfully — though violently — crushed the protests. But that demonstration consisted of 15,000 protesters; it is unclear if Saakashvili and the military could withstand numbers seven times that.

There is also concern that protests are planned in the Georgian secessionist region of Adjara, which rose up against and rejected Saakashvili’s government in 2004 after the Rose Revolution. This region was suppressed by Saakashvili once and has held a grudge ever since, looking for the perfect time to rise up again. Tbilisi especially wants to keep Adjara under its control because it is home to the large port of Batumi, and many of Georgia’s transport routes to Turkey run through it. If Adjara rises up, there are rumors in the region that its neighboring secessionist region, Samtskhe-Javakheti, will join in to help destabilize Saakashvili and the government. Georgia already officially lost its two northern secessionist regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia to Russian occupation during the August 2008 war and is highly concerned with its southern regions trying to break away.

These southern regions, like the northern ones, have strong support from Russia; thus, Moscow is square in the middle of tomorrow’s activities. Russia has long backed all of Georgia’s secessionist regions, but has had difficulty penetrating the Georgian opposition groups in order to organize them against Saakashvili. Though none of the 17 opposition groups are pro-Russian, STRATFOR sources in Georgia say Russian money has been flowing into the groups in order to nudge them along in organizing the impending protests.

Russia has a vested interest in breaking the Georgian government. Russia and the West have been locked in a struggle over the small Caucasus state. That struggle led to the August 2008 Russo-Georgian war, after which Moscow felt secure in its control over Georgia. Since Russian President Dmitri Medvedev and U.S. President Barack Obama met April 1 and disagreed over a slew of issues, including U.S. ballistic missile defense installations in Poland and NATO expansion to Ukraine and Georgia, Russia is not as secure and is seeking to consolidate its power in Georgia. This means first breaking the still vehemently pro-Western Saakashvili. This does not mean Russia thinks it can get a pro-Russian leader in power in Georgia; it just wants one who is not so outspoken against Moscow and so determined to invite Western influence.

The April 9 protests are the point at which all sides will try to gain — and maintain — momentum. The 2003 Rose Revolution took months to build up to, but the upcoming protests are the starting point for both the opposition and Russia — and opposition movements in Georgia have not seen this much support and organization since the 2003 revolution. April 9 will reveal whether or not things are about to get shaken up, if not completely transformed, in Georgia.

Happy New Year!

Georgia's Former Ambassador to Russia Says Georgia Started the War

November 26, 2008, 4:29
Georgia started war in South Ossetia – Georgian diplomat

Georgia's former ambassador to Russia Erosi Kitsmarishvili has accused his own country of starting the war in South Ossetia. His comments almost led to a fistfight between politicians.

"It was the Georgian government that launched the military action. It doesn’t matter whether it was provoked or not," he told the Georgian parliamentary commission analysing the August events. "As for the fact that Russia was prepared for it, Moscow was ready to perform the actions it did, because they were part of Russia’s overall plan. I am not saying Georgia is to blame for everything, because Russia was not an innocent lamb either."

Erosi Kitsmarishvili was one of the founders of the ‘Rose Revolution’ and the former head of Georgia's Rustavi-2 TV station. This, however, didn't prevent the anger of one member of the commission on hearing his statement. He threw a pen at the former ambassador and seemed ready to fight.

"Today's session is a vivid example of how the Saakashvili regime is collapsing," commented Pikriya Chikhradze, a leader of the Georgian opposition party, New Rightists. "The behaviour of the commission members who assaulted Erosi Kitsmarishvili, shows that they are interested not in listening to a person who possesses really important information, but in publicly denying it."

Kitsmarishvili had more revelations about his conversations with President Saakashvili.

"The President told me he wanted to relocate the Georgian capital to Sukhum in Abkhazia in August," he said. "I told him there wasn't any peaceful way to reach this goal in four months and asked how we could develop relations with such plans in mind?"

Kitsmarishvili's controversial comments are seen by some as evidence of a growing battle in Georgian politics.

"A tough political fight is developing in Georgia between Saakashvili's team and the opposition. And the Georgian opposition consists of former allies of the incumbent president," said Vladimir Zharikhin, Deputy Head of the Institute of CIS countries. "The West knew that Saakashvili started the war. Yet there was an attempt to tell this story differently. But such distortion of the picture is possible only for a short term."

South Ossetia and Abkhazia were part of Georgia during the Soviet era. After the breakup of the USSR, the two republics pushed for independence resulting in an armed conflict with Tbilisi.

After several years of fighting a Russia- UN peacekeeping force was deployed in the two conflict zones. The growing tensions erupted into a war between Georgia and South Ossetia in August 2008.

The mainly Russian peacekeeping mission in the region deployed troops to push Georgian forces out of South Ossetia.

The republic's authorities claim Georgia’s actions caused the death of more than one and a half thousand civilians.

Despite criticism from the West, on August 26 Russia recognised the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

The Georgian parliamentary commission investigating the conflict in South Ossetia is expected to announce its conclusion on what happened and who is to blame in mid- December.

Some findings are already known and according to the head of the commission, a criminal case could be opened against Georgia's former ambassador to Russia for alleged negligence during his work.

Source: RussiaToday

Pat Buchanan on Medvedev and Obama

PJB: Meeting Medvedev Halfway
By Patrick J. Buchanan
November 25, 2008

"The morning after Barack Obama’s election, the congratulatory message from Moscow was in the chilliest tradition of the Cold War.

“I hope for constructive dialogue with you,” said Russia’s president, “based on trust and considering each other’s interests.”

Dmitry Medvedev went on that day, in his first State of the Union, to charge America with fomenting the Russia-Georgia war and said he has been “forced” to put Iskander missiles in Kaliningrad to counter the U.S. missile shield President Bush pledged to Poland.

Medvedev had painted Obama into a corner. No new American president can be seen as backing down from a Russian challenge.

Three days later, Polish President Lech Kaczynski tried to box Barack in. His office declared that, during a phone conversation with Kaczynski, Obama had promised to deploy the anti-missile missiles.

Obama foreign policy adviser Denis McDonough denied it.

One week later, however, Medvedev wisely walked the cat back.

During the G-20 summit in Washington, he told the Council on Foreign Relations the issue of Russian missiles in Kaliningrad “is not closed. I am personally ready to discuss it, and I hope that the new president and the new administration will have the will to discuss it.”

President-elect Obama should not let this opportunity slip by, for a second signal came last week that Russia does not want the Cold War II that the departing neocons wish to leave on his plate.

Moscow offered Spain and Germany use of Russian territory to supply NATO troops in Afghanistan. As our supply line from the Pakistani port of Karachi through the Khyber Pass to Kabul grows perilous, this has to be seen as a gesture of friendship by a Russia that shares, as a fellow victim of Islamic terror, the U.S. detestation of al-Qaida.

Opportunity also presents itself with the official report of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe on the August war. According to The New York Times, the OSCE found, consistent with Moscow’s claims, that Georgia “attacked the isolated separatist capital of Tskhinvali on Aug. 7 with indiscriminate artillery and rocket fire, exposing civilians, Russian peacekeepers and unarmed monitors to harm.”

Russia’s response — running the Georgian Army out of South Ossetia, occupying Abkhazia and recognizing both as independent nations — may seem disproportionate and excessive. But, contrary to John (”We are all Georgians now!”) McCain, Moscow has a compelling case that Georgia’s Mikhail Saakashvili started the fire.

Medvedev is now on a four-nation Latin tour with stops in Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela and Fidel Castro’s Cuba. But this seems more like diplomatic tit-for-tat for high-profile U.S. visits to Tbilisi and other ex-Soviet republics than laying the groundwork for some anti-American alliance.

For, just as for Washington the relationship with Moscow is far more crucial than any tie to Tbilisi, so Moscow’s tie to Washington is surely far more crucial to Russia than any tie to Caracas or Havana.

With these opening moves, how might Obama test the water for a better relationship with the Russia of Medvedev and Vladimir Putin?

First, Obama should restate his campaign position that no anti-missile system will be deployed in Poland until fully tested.

Second, he should declare that, as this system is designed to defend against an Iranian ICBM with a nuclear warhead, it will not be deployed until Iran has tested an ICBM and an atomic device.

So long as the Iranian threat remains potential, not actual, there is no need to deploy a U.S. missile defense in Poland against it.

Third, he should invite Medvedev to Camp David to discuss what more they might do together to ensure that no such Iranian threat, to either nation, ever materializes. For if Iran does not test an ICBM or atomic device, what is the need for a missile defense in East Europe?

Fourth, invoking the principle of self-determination, Obama might propose a plebiscite in Georgia and Abkhazia to determine if these people wish to return to Tbilisi’s rule.

The second bone of contention between us is prospective NATO membership for Georgia and Ukraine.

As NATO is a military alliance, at the heart of which is Article V, which obligates every ally to come to the defense of a member who is attacked, to bring Georgia in would be madness.

To cede to Saakashvili power to bring us into confrontation with Russia would be to rival British stupidity in giving Polish colonels power to drag the empire into war with Germany over Danzig, which is exactly what the Polish colonels proceeded to do in 1939.

Before the NATO summit next week, Obama should signal to NATO, and the Bush administration, that nothing irreversible should be done to put Ukraine or Georgia on a path to membership.

First, because the president-elect will decide himself about new war guarantees in Eastern Europe or the Caucasus. Second, because these are matters to be taken up at a Medvedev-Obama summit, not foreclosed for him by neocons now trooping home to their think tanks."

See the article on Pat's official blog site.

Georgians Protest Against Saakashvili

The New York Times (Times Topics)

NOVEMBER 7, 2008, 4:38 PM

By PAUL A. GOBLE

"A year to the day since President Mikhail Saakashvili used force to disperse a demonstration in Tbilisi, an action for which he has now apologized, more than 10,000 Georgians staged a demonstration there to demand “an independent investigation” of the August war and “the peaceful change of government” in their country.

Organized by both five opposition parties and various groups not represented in the parliament, the demonstration marks the first step in a five-month action plan designed to culminate in the replacement of Saakashvili and the restoration of media and other freedoms in Georgia.

The immediate goal of the opposition is the “return of Imedi television back to its legal owner before Nov. 23 – the fifth anniversary of the Rose Revolution – and the opening up of the country’s electronic media to all parties, something that revolution was carried out in the first place to ensure.

Then, the opposition figures say, they will form “a united political organization” at an assembly to be held sometime between December 10 and 20. Some of them are looking forward to the creation of a single Democratic Party while others appear to be in favor of a looser confederation of groups.

(Among those pushing for a single party are Gia Tortladze and Georgy Tsagareishvili, two former activists of the United Opposition. They declared yesterday that they are even now working to establish a new political organization, the Democratic Party of Georgia, which they said would have a center-right orientation.)

That group whether tightly organized or not, the opposition figures now say, will organize demonstrations on Jan. 25 to demand that the results of the January 2008 presidential and the May 2008 parliamentary elections null and void because of what they say were massive violations by government officials of the country’s election laws.

And if after these actions, “the authorities do not take into consideration the demands of the Georgian people,” then, “on April 9, 2009, a national disobedience campaign and continuous round-the-clock protest rallies will be staged outside the parliament building [in Tbilisi] and in other cities and regions of the country.

That campaign, the opposition figures said today in a broadside, “will last until President Saakashvili and his government resign.”

During today’s demonstrations, opposition leaders explained why they feel compelled to launch what would be in fact a peaceful revolution but a revolution nonetheless. Levan Gachechiladze, who lost to Saakashvili in the presidential race, said that the Georgian president’s actions in August and at other times left the people no other choice.

“This country belongs to us,” he said, and we will not allow anyone to harm it. We must remember that in the regions of Georgia conditions are extremely bad. Together we will save Georgia” from the errors of its leadership during the war with Russia and from their increasingly repressive regime.

Meanwhile, other opposition figures created the Path of Ilya Union of Social-Political Organizations and Parties. Named in honor of Ilya Chavchavadze, that group has as its immediate goal the restoration of relations with and the normalization of ties to the Russian Federation.

Other opposition figures are discussing what they should do, with personal ambitions and hostilities often preventing them from coming together in any concerted effort for long. That has long been a Georgian problem where some people say “with two Georgians, you will have at least three political parties.”

And there are two other reasons why the opposition may not succeed: On the one hand, many Georgians and their friends as well are fearful about the consequences of yet another extra-constitutional resolution of Georgia’s problems. And on the other, Saakashvili himself appears to be listening to the opposition and at least in some ways meeting its demands.

Today, the Georgian government website posted a declaration by President Saakashvili and a list of steps he said his government has taken or will take to respond to the opposition. Most important, the Georgian leader said that it is “our duty” to remember what happened last Nov. 7 and not repeat “the mistakes made by the Georgian authorities.” Those events, he added, show “how important it is for the government and the president to listen to the people and to maintain dialogue even with minor groups.”

Saakashvili has made similar declarations in the past, and many Georgians will not be inclined to believe him this time around, especially as international coverage of the events leading up to the war, as in today’s New York Times, tilts away from the version of events he has insisted on.

But unless the opposition really can unite, Saakashvili is likely to be able to play one group off against the other, even as his authority declines and the temptation grows for him to use repressive rather than democratic measures to resolve the current crisis within Georgia and between Georgia and its northern neighbor."

Paul A. Goble writes regularly at Window on Eurasia.

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

See the original story here.