We are supposed to believe that abuses of the FISA process uncovered in the House Intelligence Committee memo are something new. As special guest Jim Bovard tells us today, FISA was born from abuses and it has perpetuated abuses. The problem is not bad eggs in government. The problem is a government that spies on its own citizens without warrant or any justification.
By Ron Paul
The release of the House Intelligence Committee’s memo on the FBI’s abuse of the FISA process set off a partisan firestorm. The Democrats warned us beforehand that declassifying the memo would be the end the world as we know it. It was reckless to allow Americans to see this classified material, they said. Agents in the field could be harmed, sources and methods would be compromised, they claimed. Republicans who had seen the memo claimed that it was far worse than Watergate. They said that mass firings would begin immediately after it became public. They said that the criminality of US government agencies exposed by the memo would shock Americans. Then it was released and the world did not end. FBI agents have thus far not been fired. Seeing “classified” material did not terrify us, but rather it demonstrated clearly that information is kept from us by claiming it is “classified.” In the end, both sides got it wrong. Here’s what the memo really shows us: First, the memo demonstrates that there is a “deep state” that does not want things like elections to threaten its existence. Candidate Trump’s repeated promises to get along with Russia and to re-assess NATO so many years after the end of the Cold War were threatening to a Washington that depends on creating enemies to sustain the fear needed to justify a trillion dollar yearly military budget. Imagine if candidate Trump had kept his campaign promises when he became President. Without the “Russia threat” and without the “China threat” and without the need to dump billions into NATO, we might actually have reaped a “peace dividend” more than a quarter century after the end of the Cold War. That would have starved the war-promoting military-industrial complex and its network of pro-war “think tanks” that populate the Washington Beltway area. Second, the memo shows us that neither Republicans nor Democrats really care that much about surveillance abuse when average Americans are the victims. It is clear that the FISA abuse detailed in the memo was well known to Republicans like House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes before the memo was actually released. It was likely also well known by Democrats in the House. But both parties suppressed this evidence of FBI abuse of the FISA process until after the FISA Amendments Act could be re-authorized. They didn’t want Americans to know how corrupt the surveillance system really is and how the US has become far too much like East Germany. That might cause more Americans to call up their Representatives and demand that the FISA mass surveillance amendment be allowed to sunset. Ironically, Chairman Nunes was the biggest cheerleader for the extension of the FISA Amendments even as he knew how terribly the FISA process had been abused! Finally, hawks on both sides of the aisle in Congress used “Russia-gate” as an excuse to build animosity toward Russia among average Americans. They knew from the classified information that there was no basis for their claims that the Trump Administration was put into office with Moscow’s assistance, but they played along because it served their real goal of keeping the US on war footing and keeping the gravy train rolling. But don’t worry: the neocons in both parties will soon find another excuse to keep us terrified and ready to flush away a trillion dollars a year on military spending and continue our arguments and new “Cold War” with Russia. In the meantime, be skeptical of both parties. With few exceptions they are not protecting liberty but promoting its opposite.
Welcome to another episode of #AskRonPaul, where Liberty Report Host Ron Paul answers viewer questions....
By Liberty Report Staff
Daniel McAdams from the Ron Paul Institute joins Jeff Deist of The Mises Institute for an unbridled discussion of the true costs of war. We know the US spends more on "defense" than many big countries combined, but what are the actual numbers? How long can the federal budget sustain empire and entitlements? Will rising interest rates finally force Congress to stop expanding wars, building bases, buying useless weapons systems, and meddling around the world? And is Trump the president far more hawkish than Trump the candidate? This is a great conversation with one of the leading libertarian foreign policy voices:
This interview was originally published at The Mises Institute.
A trillion dollars here…A trillion dollars there... It’s all music to crony corporation ears. Consumers are fickle, always wanting a better deal, and quick to jump to a competitor. The free market is hard, which is why it's so hated by Big Business. It so much easier to milk the taxpayer in lieu of satisfying customers. Ron Paul discusses the marriage of corporation and state, and why there needs to be a divorce.
By Liberty Report Staff
Ron Paul joins WeAreChange to discuss the rhetoric that Donald Trump used to get elected versus his actual policies, as well as the bright future of the ideas of Liberty, despite the machinations of the Deep State.
By David Gornoski
Before he was Ron Paul and Rand Paul's head of security, John Baeza was a cop's cop. Coming from a family tradition of public servants, Baeza started his career as a corrections officer in New York's infamous Sing Sing prison. He later became an undercover narcotics detective in Manhattan during the height of the 80s crack craze. It was there that Baeza had a Road to Damascus experience: after almost losing his life in an undercover drug buy, he realized the futility of the drug war and all victimless crime laws. Detective Baeza transferred to the special victims unit to focus on violent sexual crimes against women and children. Finally, he could do what he was born to do: solve real crimes and give some measure of justice and closure to victims of violence. However, he was horrified to see stacks of unsolved cases—including serial rape and child abuse—pile up with just a few detectives assigned while hundreds of officers were diverted towards no-win drug arrests which only protected the monopoly profits of the gangs that benefited from prohibition. This insight began a lifelong transformation towards understanding the principles of liberty that powered his passion to protect innocent life from violence. I recently sat down with Baeza, now retired from law enforcement, and an international private detective, author of multiple scholarly papers on serial crimes and forensic science, and an expert consultant on cases involving police procedure and potential misconduct, for one of the most harrowing stories I have encountered. Watch my interview The John Baeza Files here:
What Baeza shares about the prison system, moments of near death, police militarization, and the evil of victimless crime laws is mind-blowing, haunting, and yet in the darkest moments, still glimmering with hope.
You will learn how the prison system is a law of the jungle order, even for nonviolent offenders. You will discover that nonviolent persons of peace like a raw milk Amish farmer are forced to face violent situations. You will also learn how prisoners tend to run the prisons from within. Baeza's message is about getting the job done right. He is adamant that the prison industrial complex does not rehabilitate people. He also shows how channeling massive amounts of police man hours and resources into victimless crimes only serves to victimize victims of real crimes like rape, murder, and theft. Further, by using the violence of law to solve problems of desire, cartels gain power which increases violence and makes drugs less safe and more addictive. It also unfairly uses a bludgeon to force poor people to pay fines that often lead to cycles of jail time for nonviolent acts like driving with broken tail lights or suspended licenses. In the interview, I explore with Baeza how society clings to victimless crime laws as a dirty habit, an age-old holdover of a social mechanism from ancient times in which communities would accuse an arbitrary misfit and purge them as a safety valve for releasing collective tensions and envy. Interview Conclusions If you want to support the drug, guns, prostitution-financed gangs, keep voting for the prohibition laws of the drug war, gun war, and prostitution war. If you want to support monopolistic corporations, medical cartels, and empower bigotry or discrimination by making it go underground, keep voting for authoritarian criminal regulations that ravage our society's economic fitness and opportunity. If you want a justice system that prevents and solves violent crime, stop voting for the enforcement of victimless crime laws. Detective Baeza's example models a path towards such a system of true justice. Only when we can see the eyes and hear the voices of the victims of our state system—both the ones left without justice for rape, assault, and murder because of victimless crime laws and the ones we violently dehumanize for nonviolent behavior—can we begin to heal the criminal pathology that plagues our society. Only when we see the sacredness of the individual and the barbaric baseness of hitting and stealing from nonviolent persons to get our way, will we be able to claim our birthright of prosperity and order. Only when we sacrifice our fear of our neighbors' freedoms rather than violently sacrifice our neighbors, will we know what it means to be free.
The global reach of the US military is vast, covering most of the globe with a permanent presence. Is this vast empire keeping us safe? Or is it provoking anger against the United States? Are bases resented overseas?
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