7 Laws To Fix American Justice TODAY

As recent events (George Floyd is just the most recent)  have proven there are bad cops out there.   People keep asking for change, but we are not talking about what kind of change.    There are a lot of fairly well proven changes that need to be made to the US legal system.    So here are the known ways we can fix real systematic problems with the US legal system and how it deals with both cops and civilians.

1. All accusations of criminal conduct by police will be investigated by a state agency whose sole job will be to investigate and prosecute police misconduct.  Said employees will be judged on their conviction rate.  They must begin each case within 3 days of being reported and must provide an initial public report within 1 week, with at a minimum an estimate of when it will be finished.  At that date they must provide another report, and so on until the case is closed.
2. Union or other employment contracts can not limit the state agency investigations in any way.  You are entitle to a contract with your employer, not with other agencies.    Police officers shall receive no rights in this investigation not granted to the general population.
3. Bail will no longer be offered at all.  The judge may decided to release or not to release, and should they not release and the prosecutors asks for a single continuance, then the suspect must be released.  If you do not have enough evidence to charge, do not arrest them.   Prosecutors need to do their job on time and quickly.
4. The state may not sell or take possession of property unless the owner has been notified of the trial and is allowed to present a case against the taking.
5. When a judge declares any taking - whether it be a fine or any other taking of property,  the owner may decide to pay said penalty in community service rather than property.  Said penalty may not exceed 800 hours of community service per year.
6. The refusal to testify, attempt to destroy evidence or prevent evidence from being created or collected (including video evidence created by criminals) shall be grounds for immediate dismissal of any officer of the law, regardless of whether or not any crime occurred.  This specifically includes pleading the Fifth Amendment.  The state may not use that against you in court, but is not required to employ you as an officer of the law.
7. The intentional destruction of evidence or keeping evidence from a defense lawyer by a prosecutor shall be considered felony perjury. 

There are a lot of really bad arguments against these things that have been made.  But harsh experience has demonstrated why these legal changes are necessary.

The police union must stop pretending that police are likely to be unfairly targeted.  The honest truth is that cops give them special, advantageous treatment when investigating other cops, as do prosecutors and as do judges and juries.   Yes, there might be a one in a million cop that is falsely accused and goes to jail, but that happens to innocent civilians every day.   The cops have enough extra protection merely from the respect due the badge.

Bail has been thoroughly and repeatedly proven to not work.   People accused of minor offenses show up.  We have their ID, names, addresses, phone numbers, finger prints, and photos.    They know this.  Most importantly it is EASIER to arrest, charge and convict people for running from the law than it is to arrest them for minor offenses.  Except for major crimes, it saves the state cash, the innocent suspects time and money when they do not have to spend time in jail.   Yes, some times someone will end up on the street and do more crime.  That happens already.   And it will stop horrendous cases where innocent people are blackmailed by bad prosecutors to confessing to crimes they did not commit.  Which currently happens more often than people committing major crimes after they get out of jail.

The state has routinely abused Civil forfeiture laws.  They take money from people without proving their guilt.   This needs to stop.  If people have the right to demand payment in labor, it will end the major abuses WITHOUT causing real criminals to get away with it.   Honestly, anyone willing to trade community service for the money is not a criminal - they make (or think they make) more money doing their crimes than community service would give.

The outright lies and deception used by cops and prosecutors needs to stop.  It is illegal, but we look the other way.  We need to stop doing that and treat it like the serious criminal offense it is.

Algorithm Law

There are lots of laws again many types of discrimination.

In the USA, there are federal laws against discrimination based on:  race, color, religion, sex, and national origin,  pregnancy, childbirth, or a related medical condition, people with disabilities, citizenship, familial status or age—includes families with children under the age of 18

But there is a new type of discrimination being done.   Algorithmic discrimination. 

Whether we are talking about advertisements (including housing and employment), loan applications (including mortgages), employment, or even criminal sentencing, people are very likely to be categorized by some algorithm.  These algorithms often incorporate bias.  Studies have shown that criminal sentencing algorithms are more likely to give white offenders probation.

The problem is that more and more often no one (not even the people that write them) know what data is being used in these algorithmic calculations.   They do not program the algorithm, instead they set it up to learn by itself.   Often they learn by looking at past practices.  If those past practices had any bias in them, the math learns that bias.

In effect, people are illegally discriminating and claiming "oops, I did not know it did that."


We need a law that makes it illegal to create, use, administer, apply, or help others to use an algorithm unless it has been tested and proven not to result in illegal discrimination.   This is SEPARATE from determining if the the algorithm works.

For example it is quite easy to create an algorithm that decides who will default on a mortgage that results is fewer defaults for black people.  All you have to do is to use stricter standards for people whose current address is in certain neighborhood.  Suddenly white people making 70k are given the same mortgages that black people making 80k.  The blacks default less than the whites, and the bank is HAPPY.  Despite the fact that they are illegally  discriminating against all the black people making 70k.

Algorithms need to not just make the people that apply them happy, they must also comply with the law.

Which means they have to be tested and approved by a government agency if they are used for any purpose that is regulated against discrimination by law.

The Democrats Game Plan for Impeachment and 2020 Election

A lot of people are wondering what the Democrats are doing.  The GOP clearly is still supporting President Trump and in order to remove the President, 20, yes, 20, out of 53 Republican Senators (more than one third) have to vote against him.

That is not going to happen.  Not unless a real surprise comes forth.  Maybe if  Rudy or Mulvaney or someone similar turns on Trump, admitting their crimes.

So why are the Democrats doing this?   To take the Senate back.

There is more then enough evidence to convict President Trump of multiple crimes - not just extorting/bribing (a technical legal distinction, and both require what is known as 'quid pro quo') the Ukrainians into an investigation of Biden's son.

Worse, most of the population has already realized this.   Look at polls based on impeachment (https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/impeachment-polls/)

But don't look at the Democrats, they don't matter.  Nor do the Republicans matter.  What matters are the Independents.   Honestly, even they don't matter - not unless they are in the swing states. It doesn't matter what the people in Utah and California think, their states are solidly behind one party.

But there are 18 Senate seats up for election in swing states.(https://www.270towin.com/2020-senate-election/)

Twelve of those seats are currently held by a Republican.  Two of them are not running for re-election.  They are retiring, most probably because they have too much honor and ethics to stay in Donald Trump's Republican party.

If the ten that are running again vote to remove Trump from office, that would piss off their base.   They likely will lose without their base and still not be enough to remove Trump.  If they vote not to remove Trump it will piss of the majority of independents and 'crossover' democrats (People that vote for a Democrat for President but vote Republican in local elections.)   Once forced to vote, they are in a no-win situation.

They will have a much harder time staying in office this November.  If (as I suspect) we do not remove Trump from office, this will create enough outrage to help keep those six Democratic Senators in Swing States in office.  Which will push the independents to vote democratic.  Yes it will enliven both bases, but they cancel each other out.

Which means of the 45 Democrat Senators + 2 Independents vs 53 Republican Senators could become 55 Democrats + 2 Independents vs 43 Republican Senators.

Some people are saying a failed Impeachment helps the President's part, mainly because they looked at Clinton.  But That was a failed impeachment on sex, something most Americans dismissed as purely a partisan attack.  While the GOP has pushed hard on this idea, that does not mean they have convinced the country.  Yes, their base believes it, but that does not matter.  What matters is have they convinced the independents and the crossover Democrats that it was a partisan attack.

Their arguments have been really bad, so I believe they have failed to do this.  They  tried Cohn/Trump's tactics of deny, deny, then ADMIT but claim it is not wrong.   That works with the base, not the country as a whole.  Which means this failed impeachment will help Democrats, not the GOP.

Yeah, the GOP will likely win some of the swing seats.  We may not get it all, but I bet the DNC ends up with at least 51 Democrats in the Senate, on top of the two independents.

Giving the Democrat President (whoever he or she is) effective control over the country once again.

Torture, the Weak Willed and Confusion.

First note, that I labelled this Crime, as in it is a crime to torture people.   Too often we forget that, and let the torturers off scott free.

One of the flaws in the US Legal system is that it has done a poor job preventing torture.  Basically we have two amendments, the 8th to stop the cruel and unusual punishments of convicted criminals, and the 5th allows us to refuse to answer questions.

These left a lot of leeway and the Courts had to make some tough decisions, both of which made the situation worse.

First, the Eighth Amendment.  The problem with this was the wording ''and unusual".   Which means things that were usual punishments, even if we later discovered they were particularly cruel, get grandfathered in.

Oh, "Solitary Confinement" drives people mad?  Too bad, it's been going on for so long, it is now considered usual, and not unconstitutional.  Oh, poisoning you with multiple poisons, one to stop the pain and another to kill may result in a painful death, where just filling you with heroin will kill you painlessly?  Too bad, it's been going on for so long, it's usual.  

It took a long time to get the right to be fed according to your beliefs/religions, because of this.  This was a bad wording mistake by either James Madison who wrote the actual amendment, or more accurately, the English Bill of Rights (1689), where Madison took the  words "cruel and unusual punishment" from. 

The Fifth amendment is more problematic.  The problem is that it doesn't outright outlaw behavior, but instead prevents the cops from compelling  you to speak.   The idea was that compelling you to speak implies torture, but the courts had to work with the language, so they set up complex rules defining what was compelling, rather than the behavior that was torture.  So the cops found ways to do things that was not 'them compelling you to speak', that reasonable people would call torture, but that they would not get arrested for. 


It wasn't until 1963 that they established the Miranda Ruling, and over the past 55+ years, the cops have found ways to abide by these rules about 'compelling' speech, but most would consider to be loopholes.  That is, they clearly compelled the speech, but can pretend they did not.


So let's talk about the the things cops do that should be illegal, but are generally still accepted in a court of law as acceptable.


1) Questioning before someone receives medical treatment - often with the implication or outright threat that the treatment depends on answers.  This may be the suspect or someone they care about.

2) Questioning after someone has threatened in a believable manner.  This includes the drawing of a firearm, actual physical assault, etc.  None of this needs to be done by the police, it could also be done by someone associated with them or under their control - including other criminals.

3) Keep questioning for more than 8 hours - upto 16 hours - a day, usually switching off cops (because forcing a single cop to question you for 16 hours a day would be torture to the cop, and they don't want the cop to break.)


4) Delaying, or limiting the quantity or quality of food or water. 

5) Questioning while you are under the influence of drugs, such as alcohol (some states regulate this, but not the federal government).

6) Questioning Children or those with similar mental capabilities.

7) Confessions obtained using a translator - particularly for sign language.  The person interrogating should speak the same language.  

8) Confessions where the police fed the informant ANY accurate details of the crime.  The details exist for one purpose only, to verify if the confession is true or false.  Feeding them the details only makes sense if you are looking to disguise a false confession as true.

These are common issues in many cases that were overturned.  They fall into three categories:

A)  Torture.  First few are examples of actual torture, even if no actual harm is done.   Here, the cops are using sufficient fear and stress that that even normal people become willing to lie to get out of the situation.    Different people have different levels of will power, and a cop that goes anywhere near his own will power will end up sending someone an innocent man with just slightly weaker will power to jail.
 B) Stress on a weak mind   A little less severe than torture, but peoples who minds are not working right - whether they be children the disabled, or the drugged, routinely make false statements that implicate themselves.  Throw in stress and you can get them to do it on command.

C) Confusion about what was actually confessed to.   Here, improper care, whether intentional or accidental is made over what was actually confessed to, and the court is presented false information as if it were true.


None of these should be allowed.  If for some reason they need to be questioned when the prerequisites are there by accident, the cops should get a defense attorney or call it inadmissiable.

Our legal system is one of the best in the world.  It jails a higher percent of our population that most other countries.  It is designed to work on tough, smart criminals.  The weak willed need more protection, and I assure you the legal system is more than tough enough to  convict a criminal kid, even if he has an attorney when questioned.

Moral Atheism vs Religion, and the Prisoner's Dilemma

The Prisoner's Dilemma is a ethical quandary.  In short, two prisoners are arrested with a minor amount of evidence against them.  If neither squeal, they get a light sentence (1 year for example).  If both squeals, they both get medium sentences (2 years) , if only one squeals, the squealer goes free while the upstanding criminal gets a heavy sentence (3 years).

Each individual prisoner is better off if they squeal: if you don't squeal you will either get 1 year or 3 years, if you do squeal you will either get 0 years or 2 years. Yet, people do not squeal.  In real life, many, many criminals are offered something very close to this, yet they do not rat. Most humans understand why this happens, it's a recognition of an unspoken contract and sticking to it because you realize the group as a whole is better off.  (Note, religion has nothing to do with it - these prisoners are not afraid God will punish them for squealing. )

But not everyone does keep silent.  Some people do squeal.   They do so because they think it is better to take advantage of the unspoken social contract, rather than to obey it.

There is a psychological word for these people:  "sociopath".  Sociopaths recognize what they are doing and feel guilt about it, but they do it anyway.  They are not pyschopaths - who feel no guilt and may not even understand why it is wrong.  Sociopath simply thinks that while society benefits from the unspoken social contracts, they personally are better off if they break it - just like the Prisoner's Dilemma.

A friend recently sent me a video from a man named Jordan Preston, claiming that religion was the only reason not to commit a crime (squeal).  Jordan is wrong, and is in fact a sociopath.   He knows about the unspoken social contract, but thinks there is no reason for anyone to follow it.

The reason most people do not commit crimes is not, as Preston thinks, only God.  Instead it is four fold.

First, the unspoken contract - I agree not to murder, steal, cheat, etc. because I want other people not to murder, steal, cheat against me.

Second, even if I am a sociopath, I also understand that the government has created a legal system, complete with cops, judges, lawyers, etc. to enforce the social contract, at least the parts they wrote down.  As such, I must take into account the chance of being caught and punished for my crimes.

Third is the social disproval, should I be found out.   This applies to all of the unspoken contract, even the stuff not written down as law.  I.E.  Should you skip the line, people will get upset and you know it.  If people get too upset, they can even riot and/or lynch you.   See the poor black men that were lynched  for decades (even centuries) after the American civil war - they broke the vile rules white men enforced even if they were not written down as laws.  Or see the parts of Mexico where vigilante citizen groups are in a war against the cartels.

Fourth, one of the advantages of religion is (as Mr. Preston pointed out), to convince people that even if our faulty legal system doesn't catch you and punish you, God will.

For someone to commit a crime, the following has to happen:

1)  They must either be a sociopath, or be pushed out of the social contact by others (i.e.  if no one is willing to sell you food, you will steal it rather than starve).
2)  They must also be willing to risk the legal system - they must believe the  potential gain outweighs the risk of legal punishment.
3)  They must also be willing to risk illegal revenge by a lynch mob.  Generally this risk is relatively small if the legal system is strong, but where the legal system is weak, this risk increases.
4) Finally, they also must believe God will not punish them (or much rarely, that the punishment would be worth it.)

These situations are rare. Less than 1 in 20 people decide to commit a crime, at least in America.  But Religion is the last and weakest of the stopgaps.

Usually if you are capable of believing in God, you are also capable of believe in the social contract.  It takes a lot of education to convince a sociopath that God is real and that they will punish you for evil you do. It's not impossible, but it does happen.  Many sociopaths become atheists, but that does NOT mean that many atheists are sociopaths.  All lions are cats does not mean all cats are lions - most cats are house pets.

When you fail to understand that atheists have lots of very good reasons not to commit crimes, you are not being 'rational', as Mr. Preston claims, instead you are being sociopathic.  Failing to understand the basic unspoken social contract.

This is all made worse by one simple factor: Religion does control people's behavior, but there is nothing stopping Religion from being used to make people do evil rather than good.  And throughout history, every single major religion has been used to do evil. Every religion has a Spanish Inquisition, jihadists, or similar fanatical extremists that break the law in the name of God.  Mormons - some of the least criminal people in the world - have a history of murdering people and blaming Indians.  Even Buddhists attack Muslims in Myanmar.  Religion's ability to control people is not always good.

Many atheists believe that the good religion has done is outweighed by the bad.  There is no way to actually tell if this is true, but crime statistics in atheist countries support this belief.  (https://www.quora.com/Are-atheists-more-or-less-likely-to-be-criminals-than-theists)

3 new laws America needs

1)  All money confiscated by the police must fund Legal Aid Society.   There is nothing wrong with police confiscating money from criminals, the problems is letting them spend it on themselves.  They want to take the jewelry off of little girls, then they have to spend it to defend accused criminals.

2)  No political district may touch one that is more than 10% different percent of the top party, nor can it be entirely surrounded by another district.  That is, if a district is 80% democrat, then it can not touch another district that is less than 70% democrat, and must touch at least two such districts.  This rule makes gerrymandering much much more difficult.

3) No jail for failure to pay.  Any fine, bail, or other payment less than $3,000, may be fulfilled by community service, at the request of the person required to pay.  Said service will be paid back at the federal minimum wage, so if the federal minimum wage was $8/hour, then a fine of $800 could be paid with 100 hours of community service.

Tragedy in Dallas the start of a Race War.

The only question is will it continue, or will calmer heads prevail.

After a week of multiple unwarranted attacks on unarmed black men by police, two or more deranged criminals went on a killing spree and shot and killed 5 police men, wounding others. In the end, one of the criminals was blown up by a bomb that the police delivered via a robot.  Another was arrested.

The question is, is it a terrorist attack?  It was a horrendous mass shooting, a crime, a tragedy, might be considered an act of war, but it is in a gray area when it comes terrorism.

To be a terrorist attack, it requires three separate factors:

• Attempting to kill or harm people
• that are not combatants
•  for political goals.

Obviously if you don't have political goals, then you are a criminal, not a terrorist.  Shooting your spouse (and her parents ) so you don't have to pay her alimony (and to get ride of witnesses)  is a horrible crime, but not an act of terror.

Merely having political goals is not enough.  If I have political goals and hold a sit in, that doesn't make me a terrorist, or if neo-nazis steal every yard sign for a black politician, that doesn't make them terrorists.  Even if some people are scared.

You have to actually try to kill or harm people, or at least threaten them.

Moreover you can't attack their their military.  Attacking a US Navy Ship (USS Cole), or bombing the Pentagon is not a terrorist attack, as you are attacking combatants.  That is called an Act of War, not an act of terrorism.

That is a very important detail, not an insignificant factor.  We WANT our enemies to attack our armed combatants, rather than attacking our children and grandparents.   Terrorists get treated with little respect, soldiers get treated with much greater respect because they play by the rules.

The question is, do policemen count as armed combatants?  They are not soldiers, so calling attacking them an Act of War may be extreme.  But this killing was also done in revenge for police killing multiple unarmed black men.  Let's face it here, our police are armed.  And not just with guns, the officers in Dallas used a drone to deliver a bomb to kill their opponent.

If this happened in England, with unarmed bobbies, that would be an act of terror.

But here on American soil where cops use drones to bomb you?  Where it is in retaliation for police killing black man?  That's an act of war.   Specifically a Race War - one the criminals did not start.

It's wrong and we need to stop it here and now in it's tracks.   We need real control of the police, real punishment for killing unarmed civilians, we can no longer look the other way, not with cameras catching the crimes and mistakes of police left and right.

We need real reform, so that police are judged by people that actually WANT to arrest police men, just as civilians are judged by prosecutors that actually want to arrest them.

As for the criminals that shot at police?  They deserve to go to jail, but have their legal rights respected, because they did not attack school civilians.
 
Should the cops be protected?  Yes.  But let's not dishonor them by pretending they are victims. They are defenders shot down protecting us from revenge against their own failings. 

How to Beat the NRA and Get Real Gun Control

In the aftermath of the horrible, bigoted mass murder in Orlando, a lot of us have been thinking about gun control. This is demonstrated Connecticut Senator's Chris Murphy successful filibuster that forced a gun control vote, and by the House Democrat's sit-in - without CSPAN cameras - protesting the GOP's inaction.

But these are mainly symbolic, and frankly it wasn't enough.  All the gun control votes done after the filibuster have failed, and predictions are just for further failures.

The thing is the majority of Americans are in favor of gun control.  The majority of Republicans are in favor of stricter gun control, and even the majority of NRA members are in favor of stricter gun control.   (source)

So why can't we get any gun control, if so many of us want it?

Representative Democracy is not about what's right, nor is it even always about what most people want.  It's also about how much we want it.

And while most NRA members, Republicans, and Americans all want stricter gun control, it's a weak and disorganized desire while the Pro-Gun forces are FANATICAL and strongly organized.

They have so much power they passed a law called the Dickey Amendment that prevents the collection of gun data (for use in lobbying - but the definition of Lobbying is so poor that it basically prevents the collection of any data).

How do we fight this insidious, fanatical, well funded, and well organized threat?

By being better organized and better funded.  We need an organization that is the polar opposite of NRA

Note, this will take money.  Pro gun forces spend about $30 million in an election year.  We will need to spend at least $3 million to fight them - and honestly I would prefer to outspend them.  If you can't out spend them, that means you don't care as much as they do.

When senators and congressman vote on gun control, they get calls.  And they get about 20 calls for gun control and 200 calls against.

Those numbers are relatively small.  We can beat them.

We need a list of every single person killed by or wounded by a gun.  If they survived, recruit them.  If someone passed, recruit every single person that loved them.

This is our potential army.

Get our army to agree to push three SIMPLE and easily explainable goals:

1. Remove the Dickey amendment.
2. Create a new license from the federal government that you are required to have in order to buy, sell, carry, or own any hand gun .    This license will also allow concealed carry - in all US territory.  Failure to have that license is a felony.
3. Create a single, downloadable and freely available online list of all people that are legally forbidden from buying, selling, or owning any gun, according to existing laws.   It is now a felony, punishable by a minimum of 1 year in jail to sell a gun without getting their ID and checking that list.

Now give our army of gun victims four phone numbers and have them spend 10 minutes every single week.   The first week of the month they call their state Representative.  The second week, their Senator, the third week their Congressman, and the fourth week they call their Governor.  Have them do that every week without fail for a year.

At the end of that year, we will have gun control.


Note, I have avoided the various stupidity traps that the anti-gun control lobby has fallen into.   No talk about 'assault weapons ' (a made up term that just confuses the issue.)  No talk about clips, silencers, or rifles at all.    We concentrate on the real problems - the horrible Dickey Amendment,  the ease of getting dangerous hand guns (ignoring the far safer long guns), and finally the systematic problem we have in enforcing our current laws.

Three Surpreme Court Decisions.

There are three interesting Supreme Court decisions I want to talk about.  Two of which I agree with and one is clearly a bad decision by 5 out of 9 judges.


First the bad decision.  SCOTUS had no business tearing apart the Voting Rights Act.  (Huffington Post News story)


They specifically declared the formula in Section 4 unconstitutional. "The formula in that section can no longer be used as a basis for subjecting jurisdictions to preclearance.”

Specifically they said that our country has changed and they the formula must be updated.

This is a bad decision because they admitted that at one time the formula was good.   Roberts said  "Congress must ensure that the legislation it passes to remedy that problem speaks to current conditions"

But you see, that is CONGRESS's decision, not the Courts.  The court is there to determine if the Congress overstepped it's bounds, NOT to determine if they did a good job or a bad job.  If Congress has the power to  make that determination, they have the right to do so poorly.

Honestly, I believe that Congress should simply say, screw it, EVERYONE has to be subject to jurisdiction for preclearance.   That is, every single state and every single county should be forced to ask the DOJ if their voting procedures are racist.


It would end a lot of vile and corrupt practices, such as gerrymandering.

Second, the good news.  SCOTUS said that the Federal Government must recognize the Marriage of Gays, done by states.  Gays are people too, and as such have the rights to obtain the legal status of married, with all the tax, medical, etc. benefits. (CBS news story)

This is fairly obvious and not that surprising.  Scalia himself predicted it would happen 10 years ago  - although he was too preejudiced to understand it is a good thing.  He was kind of like an old racist from the 1860's saying "Why if we free the slaves, they might marry our white people."  Yes, his prediction was true but he was too prejudiced, and frankly, illogical to see that it was not a bad thing.


Thirdly, the Supreme Court also confirmed a lower courts decision that said being homeless does not mean you are not allowed to own anything.  Specifically they stated that the state of California could not take the possessions of homeless people and destroy them simply because they were on 'public grounds' and the homeless people had stepped away from them (to go to the bathroom or get on a food line.)  (Death and Taxes Blog)

Note, California had previously stolen and destroyed such possessions including identification (such as driver licenses, social security cards, etc.) and cellphones (if you don't have an address, a cellphone is vitally important to stay in touch with people.)

Frankly it was a rather evil attempt by the state of California and not that surprising that the Supreme Court sided with the homeless people.

Why Obama Should Pardon Edward Snowden

First, for purposes of this article (and only this article), I am going to make a false assumption.

We will presume that the NSA's actions are entirely legal, appropriate and in no way an invasion of privacy or an abridgement of American rights. Edward Snowden has clearly committed a crime of treason and by all rights should go to prison.


Now, given that 'fact', I still say President Obama should pardon Edward Snowden, with certain conditions (specifically he must return to the US to answer questions in front of a closed session of congress and no longer talk tot he press about anything that happened prior to his pardon, and agree to never again reveal any information whatsoever about his work for the US government).

Why should we do this?

First, given the situation with Julian Assange, we already know the likely outcome for Snowden.  Most likely he will remain outside of US clutches, in the worst case locked up in an embassy of a foreign country. If we offer a pardon, we can at least avoid the embarrassment of having another Assange case out there.  Ending bad publicity is itself worth it.

Second, obtaining him will not end the issue, it will instead make it worse.  If we get him back it will look like we are holding a political prisoner, even if (as we presumed in this article) he is a traitor to this country and deserves no less than life in prison.

Third, capturing him will in not way discourage others from following in his footsteps.  Instead it will do the opposite.  Look, this is no man selling secrets to obtain a better life.  He had a better life and gave it up for principle.  He (and many others in this country) considers himself a patriot willing to give a six-figure job, a model girlfriend, and a home in Hawaii, all to fight the nasty evil dictatorship.  It doesn't matter that he is wrong and the US is a benevolent democracy.  He (and those that agree with him) considers himself to be Nathan Hale.  He regrets that he has but one life of pleasure to give up for his country.

You do not discourage heroes by imprisoning them.  That ENCOURAGES them to fight on.     The people that think we need to discourage copy cats are right - but trying to put Snowden in prison will not in any way discourage them. 

Fourth, the way you convince honest, honorable men to lay down arms is to offer them trust and forgiveness, not jail.  It discourages others by making them look stupid, not heroic.  What, the hero is bravely standing up to fight against the injustice of being told he is pardoned and can go on his way????

Fifth, it would stand as a beacon to other countries showing them the fair, democratic way to handle dissent.  By pursuing Snowden we give China, Iran, and other countries moral standing. See, the US is no better than they are, we have our own 'political prisoners'.   By pardoning Snowden, we show them that a truely powerful country can handle a bit of dissent - as opposed to dissenters as criminals, we forgive and forget.

Sixth, we get control of the situation back. He will have to agree to certain conditions, we get to question him and we can stop further leaks of information other countries may want.



I see little if any upside from pursuing a criminal case against Snowden.  I see huge international political capital to be generated if we pardon him.

On Snowden Leaks

First let me discuss the facts about the Snowden leaks.

1. Snowden was an employee of a private contractor.  He did not work directly for the government.
2. Snowden had access to top secret information.  Specifically he ran computer programs that had the ability to obtain certain specific information about people's electronic communications, including american citizens.
3. He leaked the existence of those programs to the press.
4. He fled to Hong Kong
5. He then publicly admitted what he had done.
6. He claimed he did it because he had moral objections to the existence of that tracking abilitiy, believing it to be an immoral and unethical invasion of american citizen's privacy, that should be illegal.
7. Some members of the government want him arrested for treason
8. Some members of the government want to arrest the press for releasing that information.

I have not talked about this for a while because it is a complex issue.

First, let me talk about crime in general.   Intent, or the mental state of the criminal, is key to most crimes.

If you go to a car that looks like yours, put the key in, it works, and you drive off, then most people don't think you have committed a crime - even if it turns out to be someone else's car (car manufacturers re-use keys, so this can happen - it used to be common).

Similarly, the difference between:  Murder (tried to kill), manslaughter (tried to hurt, but killed), gross negligence (didn't care if he got hurt/died so did not take precautions), and an accident (took reasonable precautions but he died anyway)  are all about intent.

Mr. Snowden's actions clearly indicate he was attempting to be a whistleblower, not a traitor.

1. He leaked to the press, not to a foregin nation or terrorist organization
2. He publicly admitted responsibility, risking jail time
3. He only released the information about what the government was doing.  He with-held sensitive specific information, instead of releasing everything he had access to.

This brings us to the first question:

Should it matter what he was trying to be?  That is, should we judge him by the results alone, or take into account his intent/motive?

Yes it does matter.   By giving a reduced/no punishment for whistle-blowers as opposed to traitors, we as a government and a culture gain the following:

• Incentive for whistleblowers as opposed to simply spying for foreign powers.  (leaking to the press rather than a foreign organization, admitting your actions)  We as a nation are much better off if we know what they know, rather than being left in the dark about them knowing our secrets.   It also saves us money in the investigation, prevents innocent people from being targeted, and allows us to fire him immediately (which we did), as opposed to leaving a spy in our midst.
• Incentives for whistle-blowers to report actual crimes (even if you don't think Snowden was a whistle-blower.   By treating people trying to be whilstle-blowers better than traitors, we encourage people to be whistle-blowers, as opposed to terrifying them into submission with possible false claims of treason.  
• The knowledge that whistlblowing is legal/punished less than treason also encourages us to TRUST the government.

These are all valuable qualities that governments can not buy except by treating people trying to be whistleblowers different than regular traitors that do it for money.

The technical definition of treason says either "wages war against the US, adheres to enemy, giving them aid or comfort".  Snowden clearly did not intend to do any of those things.  He should not be treated as a traitor, if for no other reason than to encourage other people considering revealing top secret information to leak it to the press and publicly admit their guilt as opposed to leaking to China and keeping their identity secret.

Next up, did he do it by mistake?

Second question:

Was he really a whistle-blower, or just a traitor?


Polls show that Americans have mixed views on Snowden.  The numbers are all between 40% and 60% approval dissaproval.

It doesn't matter.  You see, you don't convict someone of a crime if 40% of people think he's innocent.

This is America.  If there is reasonable doubt, you go free.   40% thinking he is a patriot is reasonable doubt.

It's too close a call to send a guy to jail for something many of us consider to be a patriotic act. 

We don't even need to know if he actually was a whistle-blower.  We just need to ask does a reasonable person have reasonable doubts about his actions?   At least forty percent of our population does.   Therefore he is innocent.

More about this later (see the last issue).

This brings us to the third question:

Should the NSA be contracting our 'suspect' work to private industry, as opposed to doing it in hourse?

This answer is a clear NO.  This is a horrendous mistake on the part of our government.  Even assuming the electronic surveillaince in question is legal and appropriate, it should in NO way be done by private industry.

We don't let military contractors operate nuclear weapons.  The weapons in question are too powerful and too dangerous.  They may build them and even maintain them, but we insist they hand them over to the US government and we guard and operate them.

You don't let private contractors do the work that has extreme issues.   We don't let them control our nuclear issues and we certainly should not let private contractors spy on American citizens. 

What's appropriate for the US government to do is not always appropriate for contractors to do.

Even assuming the espionage in question is appropriate for the US to do, it can not in any way be appropriate for us to pay private contractors to do.


Should the electronic surveillance in question be legal?

To answer this question, lets start out discussing what should be happening.

I expect our government agencies to be MORE concerned about security than our privacy.  They should be trying to push up as close as possible to the wall of what is legal.  It is not their job to safeguard our privacy, it is their job to safeguard our country.

If they are not taking risks and getting close to the edge of what is legal, then they are failing.

Traditionally the 'movie' traitors do something like the following:

• Reveal technical secrets on how to make top secret devices
• Reveal top secret names of people who operate in secret and  would be at risk if their identities become known.
• Reveal top secret locations that cold be targeted by enemies.
• Reveal specific military plans currently being executed, allowing the enemy to counter-act them.

He did none of these things.  Instead he revealed the current practices of the USA, not it's current plans, nor even the possible capabilities (just because Snowden couldn't listen to your phone calls doesn't mean no one else working for the US government can't)

They claim that by maintaining secrecy of our current practices, they can make it harder for the bad guys to counter them.  Note, our capabilities keep increasing, so the bad guys still have to take more precautions than just avoid what they know we used to do.

There is a technical term for this type of secrecy:  "Security through Obscurity"  If your opponent does not know how you do things, it makes it harder for them to defeat your efforts.   But if you check the wikipedia page I linked to you can instantly see what a bad reputation Security through Obscurity has.

Honestly, the food industry wanted to do a similar thing.  We laughed and told them NO.  We required them to list all the ingredients, if not the proportions.    They clearly have an interest in preventing their competitors from knowing what they put into their food.   Why didn't we let them keep their ingredients simple?   Because our personal interest in knowing what we are consuming is more important.

Similarly, our personal interest in knowing what information the government is gathering on us FAR exceeds any minor increased efficiency the government gains by having the terrorists not know for certain some of the things the government is doing.

Especially when a large portion (over 40%) consider the government's actions to be questionable, if not innapropriate.

If your actions are close to the wall between ethical spying and unethical spying, then you have to accept the fact that the public will get to examine at least the actions that are closest to the wall, if not the ones far from it.

You want security through obscurity?  Then do your stuff away from the wall.  Not right up next to it.

The NSA leak did damage security, the same way requiring food companies to list their ingredients damaged their profits.   That is, it damaged security a tiny, insignificant amount, and gave the country a massive amount of information that we desperately needed.

It is our job to determine whether your security measures are worth the effort.   Therefore you must reveal the most questionable security methods you use to the public.  If you want to keep something secret, then you create a public, more invasive 'throw away'  method and see how the public responds to you admitting you do that.  If they object, then you cancel the 'throw away' method and then reveal the one you wish you could keep secret and hope they accept it.

You definitely should not under any circumstances, keep your most invasive privacy violating security methods secret.  

Because the damage that your most privacy violating methods do the country will always be greater than the damage you are protecting.   If only in  destroying the people's trust in the government and creating a climate of distrust.


Conclusions:

Snowden may not be a hero, but he is definitely NOT a traitor.  The NSA has clearly made some bad decisions - having private contractors spy on American Citizens???? Shame on you for stupidity, let alone privacy violations

We need to slap the NSA down and have them re-think their strategies. 

A Victory for the Cowardly Idiots

The TSA, an agency known for spending excessive amounts of energy and money to avoid miniscule risks, declared that it was safe to take Swiss army knives and similar sports equipment onto planes.

Then a bunch of scared fools complained.   They complained so loudly that the TSA had to back down.

This is how the terrorists win - when we become so scared of them that we give up minor liberties in exchange for ZERO increased safety.

The TSA does not say that the weapons and sports equipment (golf clubs for example) are dangerous.  Instead the TSA continues to insist that they pose no danger to the aircraft.

But do admit that they can be used to harm individual passengers.    Big deal. So can eyeglasses.  I'm not talking about eyeglass ground into a shiv.  I mean regular normal, unaltered eyeglasses.

Not to mention what you can do with an ordinary, non-sharp piece of alkali metal and the water they give you on the plane.

The devices they are preventing are NOT in any way a danger to the plane, nor are they any more dangerous to airline passengers, air-marshals, or stewards than everything else they let passengers take on a plane.

They are being outlawed because of stupidity, not logic.

The TSA has no business attempting to control people and protect people.   It's their job to prevent terrorist related crime, not all crime. Attempting to prevent all crime is way too expensive and a massive invasion of our civil rights.

The cowardly morons that are too stupid to realize how deadly your belt, crutches, eyeglasses,rings, etc are helping the terrorists to win.  They are wasting our money, our time, and slowly eroding our personal rights.

The search and removal of such items - which is NOT done in other countries - takes up time and effort of the TSA.

More importantly, it lets the terrorists perform simple blocking maneuvers without any risk.  I.E.  they send a shill with a simple Swiss army knife who complains loudly when they take it away, distracting the TSA and taking their attention while the real terrorists breezes through the checkpoint with a perfunctory check.

This is a sad day in American History.  Logic and wisdom has lost to fear and stupidity.

Why We Should be Good

At a very basic level, being good means exercising self-control.  Ignoring your base "I want" because you realize the potential consequences and don't think they are worth the cost.That cost might be direct punishment, or merely ethical, i.e. the cost of living in a world where bad things happen.

You see a pretty woman and want to have sex with her.  But you don't knock her out and rape her because you recognize that it is bad and don't want to live in a world where that happens.  Or if you are a little bit less philosophical, don't want to risk going to jail for your crime.

Now people with power, particularly politicians, tend to have ways to get out of punishments.  As such, the philosophical reasons tend to become more important.   The more power you have, the less fear you have of punishment and the more important the philosophical issues become - as if you have such power you recognize that your actions have a much greater affect on the world.

But the stupider you are, the less likely you are to care about the philosophical issues, no matter how important they are.

The fact that in the modern world we have so many ethical rulers is actually fairly surprising.   So many people recognize, either consiciously or unconcisouly the importance of their actions.

That also means we should not trust the unethical rulers, even if they are good at what they do.  Drug using mayors, child raping Italian leaders, etc.  all fail to either recognize the affect their particular actions have on others around them, or fail to care.

Government's snooping on reporters.

First a little background.   The right to privacy in the US  has steadily been eroded over the past ten years.  Partly by the internet, partly by the fear of terrorism.

There are all sorts of new privacy laws we need:

• Right to photograph cops, because after all, they are photographing us all the time.
• The right to end a corporate online relationship(and kill their tracking of you-  and their data)
• The right to SEE all the data they have collected on you 
• Require a warrant to search emails (everyone expects them to be private despite the court ruling that they are not - look at how often people send incriminating evidence through them).
• The right to have online photos of your removed or have the face distorted. - unless the poster has a signed permissions to use said photo.

These are just a few things that could and in my opinion should be set up.   Clearly privacy is under attack and we need to fight back.

Now lets talk about the federal warranted search of reporter's communications.  Th FBI was trying to identify the source of leaked information, particularly about a foiled terror plot involving the CIA operating in Yemen.

Originally it was clearly reporters should be given more respect when the government tries to snoop on them.  No longer.   The line between reporter and blogger and random citizen has begun to blur significantly.

The actual scandal is relatively small.  No reporters charged or even brought in for questioning.  No emails read or telephone calls listened to.   Just reporters telephone records obtained.  So they know who spoke to who, but not what they said.

It is a scandal and it is at the very least questionable behavior by the FBI.  But compared to what happens in Russia and China, it is not a huge deal.  There reporters get jailed or killed.

In my mind, the AP should in fact use government snooping.  Specifically, they should point out that they now have proof that the US government is snooping on them and try to kill the FISA Amendments Act.

They, unlike Amnesty International, can now claim that they have been concretely injured by the existing, known snooping, and therefore can sue to stop the FISA warrant-less wiretapping that Amnesty International failed to stop (in Clapper vs. Amnesty International) because Amnesty International could not prove they were being snooped on.

The AP can prove that the government was snooping on them and they can therefore claim the burden of proof has shifted to the government.

Why Conspiracy theories are always wrong.

Conspiracy theorists make a lot of rather simple mistakes.

Here are a set list of the mistakes common to almost all conspiracy theories

1. They fail to take into account that in a free country, their are always intelligent, ethical people in government, the press, and most importantly the political party out of power.  They have huge motivations to expose the conspiracy.  And by intelligent, I mean more so than the conspiracy theorist.
2. They fail to take into account that conspiracies break down over time.  The longer the claimed conspiracy, the more likely someone will have discovered it and proven it to the public.   
3. They fail to understand that the more people in on the conspiracy, the more likely it will get exposed.
4. Bosses usually have motivations to expose conspiracies done by their subordinates, but hiding one from your boss is MUCH harder than it is to hide it from random people not in the organization.
5. They fail to realize that the conspirators know all of facts 1-4.

Lets start with some basic facts.  Few people will meet more than 100,000 in their entire lifetime.  One of those 100,000 people will be smarter than all the rest.

But the USA has over 300,000,000 people.  That means the smartest person you know, most likely has about 3,000 people smarter than them, in this country alone.   Quiet a few of them go into politics and some go into the press.

I guarantee you that there are people working for the government and for the press that are smarter than EVERYONE you have ever met.   That means if you can figure it out, they did before you did, and they probably predicted that you would.

Conspiracies break down over time.  First your opponent figures it out, and then they tell the world and the world believes them, because they get real, solid evidence (not bad video, not clearly faked documents, etc.)

In World War II there were several conspiracies.  The NAZI's tried to hide the fact that they were murdering Jews.  Hitler came into power on January 30, 1933, and the Soviets first started hearing about the Holocaust in June, 1941.   Eight years is all it took.   Yes, that's how long you can keep a major secret.   Note the Nazis were winning in June 1941.  The US did not enter World War II until Japan bombed Pearl Harbor in December of 1941, up until December of 1941, the Germans were crushing the Russians.  (source).    Multiple first person accounts were received describing exactly what happened

Similarly, the US began the Manhattan Project was first conceived in 1939.   The Soviets learned about it by December of 1944, eight months before the US drops the first A Bomb on Hiroshima.   They ended up with actual plans for the weapons, before the weapons were used.  Five years  is the max you can keep such a secret.

So, during wartime - when you can find patriots willing to die for their country by simply walking up to random people on the street corner - two of the most powerful countries in the world could not keep a secret for even a decade.

I absolutely assure you, that NO important secret that requires many people can be kept quiet for more than 20 years.  It will get out - and with solid irrefutable evidence.

So lets talk about bosses.  They have the ability to ask questions and fire the conspirators even without proof.  So if your boss (president, head of the IRS, whoever) doesn't know, you have to be so far above suspicion that there is ZERO chance that someone who is not your boss will suspect you.  That means the President of the USA must be in on any government conspiracy.  But he changes party.  Which means eventually he will not join it and expose it.  Then hold you up as the villain, blaming the entire other political party.

Lets talk about a non-government conspiracy.  Say for example Mrs. Obama decided that for some godforsaken reason, she wants her son to be President of the USA, even if failure means he gets thrown in prison for the rest of his life.   Keep in mind that being the son of an American, the ONLY benefit he gets is the right to be President - he would have been able to immigrate anyway and become a governor - just like Arnold Schwarnnegger.

At the very least, his mother must have been in on it.   Let's assume she also easily convinces Obamas father to be in on the secret (or maybe he wasn't present and she just tells him this.  So 42 years before I wrote this post, she falsely publishes a birth announcement in two Hawaii newspapers.  At some point, she also finds a way to add that info this Obama's father's immigration file.

She also gets one of her deer friends to confirm her lie.  She does all of this without telling Obama (why risk it?)   She then pays someone else to forge a fake short form birth certificate  (birthers claim this was a forgery).

But that isn't enough for her.  She must think so far ahead that she sees the birth certificate will be challenged.  So she pays off someone in the Hawaii's Health department to put in a real record of his birth in the records.   Then the Hawai Director of Health will confirm it as being real.

Somehow, this conspiracy genius, who has managed to get an old friend to lie about his birth, paid for a forged berth certificate, and also paid off the Hawaii government to get a real one, then FORGETS TO DESTROY THE FAKE BIRTH CERTIFICATE.   After all, if she has the real one, she doesn't need the forged one.

That is the minimum number of people.   It requires one friend, one criminal, and one member of the government to assist Mrs. Obama in the conspiracy.  And they all keep their mouths shut for decades.

All of this also requires that she gives birth alone, without anyone noticing it, Otherwise she has to hunt down the real birth certificate and destroy.

Also, there has to be some stupid reason preventing her from actually giving birth in the US.  It's not that hard to do it - illegal immigrants sneak into the USA every year to do it.  Not to mention wealthy Chinese people.

All for the minimal gain of having a black baby have the right to TRY to be president - back in the 60's when most black men have problem trying to vote.  She has no real motive to commit these major crimes.  The idea of her doing it is incredibly stupid.

OK, let's try this again - now, Obama himself decided to do it.  He has no motive until he becomes a senator.  Then, at that point, he finds that his mother, for no known reason happens to have given him a birth announcement in two newspaper that make it look like he is an American.  WHAT A LUCKY BREAK!  So Obama himself, a Senator who could easily and legally become Governor of a major state, decides to do the following:

1. First find someone to forge a birth certificate
2. Find an old teacher/family friend and convince them to lie about his birth.  
3. Pay someone to break into old immigration files and change his father's record to say Obama is an American born citizen
4. When the truth still comes out, he has to pay someone to alter the Hawaii records.  Let's assume this is the same guy for #1 and #3
5. He also has to hunt down and destroy any real birth record, not to mention pay off the doctor that delivered him..

As opposed to accepting a position as Hilary Clinton's Secretary of State, or some other similar position.

All of this has to be done by someone he trusts enough to commit multiple major felonies in his name. To be President of the USA, instead of the Secretary of State?  Worse, to be the first BLACK president of the USA?   The first one elected has to commit crimes to do it?  No way.   NO freaking way.   He would get caught, go to jail, and put back civil rights for decades.  No reasonable person that cares about this country would do it, and no one that doesn't care about this country would risk it.

Why not?  Because the person he pays to commit all these crimes will betray him..   In the first minute. Because the guy paid to do the crimes is either doing it for money or for political reasons.  If he is doing it for money, someone else (Trump) will offer more money.  If he is doing it for political reasons, the second he realizes Obama is willing to lie like that means he no longer believes in Obama - and betrays him.

The cost of the rime is all born by other people and it is physically IMPOSSIBLE for Obama to pay other people enough money to do the crime.

More importantly, he risks not just his career, but the future of the Democratic Party.   Hell, it makes more sense for a false-flag GOP non-citizen candidate to run for the Democratic primary than a real one.  

But it all comes down to risk vs reward.   For any small reward, usually the risk is worth it.  But the larger rewards always have risks that exceed them.   For a small reward, you can depend on anonymity, but not for the big ones.  You can easily still someone's wallet, but don't even think about breaking into the Federal Gold Reserve.  Why?  Because the security on your wallet would cost more than the wallet, but security for the Federal Reserve costs far less than it holds.

More importantly, Senators are smart enough to know that being the President's right hand man is almost as powerful.   Obama would have seen all the risks involved in this incredibly STUPID plan and instantly seen that being the President's Chief of Staff us far better,

But most importantly - all of this is done by the FIRST serious Black candidate for President.  No.   That title is too big for someone to try this stupid plan to get it.  The second black president, maybe.  But not the first.

And I assure the GOP would pay far more to uncover the issue than the DNC paid to cover it up.   Look at what they did in Benghazi when there was no cover-up.

Same thing for pretty much every other conspiracy theory.  People hiding aliens?  Not enough motive to do it.  Poisoning our water with fluoride?  Not enough reward for the risk.

President Bush causing 9/11?  Bullshit.   To much risk of impeachment for the relatively minor benefit.

Compare this with real scandals - the Fast and Furious gun running, the IRS scandal.  All of those are caused by INCOMPETENCE, with incompetent attempts to cover it up.

Never underestimate incompetence - and never think that your so called conspirators aren't just as incompetent.  

No, you CAN do these kinds of things in non-'free' countries.  China has no free press to investigate, nor any 'loyal opposition' party to complain and demand justice.  So who knows what goes on there.

But in the USA?  Not possible.  The Democrats or the Republicans would squeal on each other in an instant.

Yes the Boston Bombers were Terorist.

In a previous post, I asked Are The Boston Bombers Terrorists.   The answer is yes.  Not because they bombed, but because they wrote a note and confessed to the government that they were doing it as retaliation against the US government, not because of hatred for the American People.


Once again, terrorism is not the use of bombs, or taking prisoners which others called "Hostages".

It is the:

1. use of violence 
2. against non-combatants 
3. for political purposes.   

 This note confirms the political requirement, making it terrorism.  Without it, we just had a criminal.

Not that it matters, he is still going to be tried and convicted by a civilian court, because that is a right everyone in America gets.  (Unless Martial Law gets declared).

The IRS scandal - T-Party/Patriots tax audits

The IRS illegally concentrated on conservative groups trying to declare themselves as tax free groups.  They looked for groups with the words "Tea Party", and "Patriots" in their name, as well as for any group that objected to government' taxation. They did so at low level management and below.  High level managers were apparently kept in the dark about this program.

They claim it was not for partisan reasons., but instead was because they had these new political organizations popping up, and they wanted a way to find those that objected to taxes and therefore should have their taxes double checked to make sure they were obeying the law that they themselves objected to.   

Perhaps the IRS is lying and it was really done for partisan reasons.   I don't know.

But you should in fact consider the following.

Under US federal law, followed by the IRS law, all political action groups HAVE TO PAY TAXES.  There is NO legal way for political organization to avoid paying taxes.  

What certain groups do is get around this by claiming they are social welfare groups.  For example, you could claim to be teaching people about guns, rather than a gun lobbying group.

So before you get all upset about the IRS targeting conservative political groups, the real problem is that they didn't target liberal political groups.

If you have ANY stated political claims, you should get extra IRS scrutiny when trying to claim you are a social welfare group as opposed to a political group.


The problem is not the auditing, but the apparent partisanship.   They could and should have done everything they actually did - and also target with the words "Occupy" in their names and with stated goals of overturning our banking system.

If they had done that, this entire fiasco would never have happened.  We would have said "Look, they went after both conservative and liberal groups, equally, it wasn't partisan."

Why didn't they do it?

The IRS was too politically naive to understand how it would look. They were too stupid to realize they were only going after conservative groups.  They were honestly trying to go after tax cheats by looking at people that said they objected to taxes.

Their main problem was that they did not think about appearances, not that they had evil goals.  In fact, if they actually were evil, all they had to do to cover their tracks was add the word "Occupy" to their memo about Tea-Party/Patriot, do a couple of half-hearted investigations of a few liberals groups as cover, and they would have been safe from the charges currently being bandied about.

Or better yet, actually do a full investigation of the Occupy groups along with the T-Party groups and they would not only be without sin, but wearing the white hats in reality.

This is a scandal.   But just a tiny one.  Whether it was done intentionally or accidentally, it was done by incompetent people.

I am not afraid of incompetent people.  Over time, they will always be discovered and fail.

Compare this with the Bush partisan hiring scandal in the Justice Department.  The DOJ scandal was done by much more competent people.  Worse, they took steps to cover their tail - but in the end were caught.   Eventually some admitted that they were hiring and firing people based on political reasons.  They refused to hire/promote liberals and intentionally fired people because they were liberals.    You can read the official report (investigate and written up by a Republican) here.

But I digress. The DOJ is not the IRS.  It's not as if the IRS targeted liberal groups under George Bush.

Oh wait, they did:  They targeted liberal churches for being political, while at the same time ignoring conservative churches for doing practically the same thing.  Not to mention targeting the NAACP


This is a scandal, but a minor one, that has happened before and will happen again.  The people involved should be yelled at and reminded that appearances matter.

In addition, any settlements, fines, and/or punishments given out to those groups should be double-checked and reversed if they were found to be more severe than warranted.  As for reparations for legal fees and efforts, I think the free publicity for anti-government groups should be considered sufficient compensation.  Any organization worth their tin foil hats should be able to come out far ahead from this event.

It is not surprising that the GOP is trying to turn this relatively minor scandal into a big thing.  Particularly as the conservatives groups were already upset about taxes (which is why of course the IRS targeted them in the first place).


Did the IRS screw up?

Yes.

It is a bid deal?

No. 

Printable Guns

The age of the printable gun has arrived.   For now, printable guns aren't that big a deal.

The machines to print them are still relatively expensive (over a grand), and therefore uncommon.

But that will change, their price is coming down.   While we have some time, within 5-10 years, that time may run out.

So let's assume a thriving community of millions rep-rap devices easily and cheaply available for less than $500.


Right now the Government is trying to block the downloading.  I don't think that's a good idea.

So, there are the following issues:

1. First amendment (on top of the 2nd)
2. The infeasibility of blocking the information because it is now also available in servers outside of the USA
3. The fact that the new plastic guns often look like toys.  (Resulting in cops shooting kids with actual toys because they thought they were printed guns)

Now let's talk about possible real solutions to prevent widespread possession of downloaded guns by criminals, depressed people, the mentally unstable and children.

Note that last category.  Children, even  pre-teens , will be perfectally capable of building a gun in this situation.  While you may want adults to be able to print one out, as well as your own possible kids, what about others?

Very few people will be willing to let EVERY SINGLE kid in junior high school have access to a gun printing device.

Especially as they may leave them around for their younger kids to play with.





So here are some reasonable legal solutions to this coming problem.

1. Make it a new federal offense to print, paint or even posses a real working gun that is not painted/printed in a dark color.  Sorry, we need to protect the kids, you give up certain colors to be used solely by children.   This would be an add-on offense, counting as a separate felony for making it and for possessing it.  Similarly, they should continue to, by law, require a metal implant to aid metal detectors.  Printing, selling, or even possessing one without  such an insert would be an add-on felony., 10 years, no parole.   Why?  Because you do this only to hide a crime.
2. Pass a law that states while you can legally download gun plans, the government has the legal right to track your IP address, and doing so is considered sufficient evidence for a federal warrant if that IP address is associated with anyone that is on the government's "can not legally buy a gun".  (Note, it's already legal for the government to track your IP address, this just makes it clear that a warrant is justified.)
3. When such a blueprint is downloaded, the government has the right to send a message to the IP address daily for 3 weeks notifying the IP address that a gun has been downloaded.  This is to let parents know that their children may have done so. 
4. Any commercial business that lets customers rent their 3D printers should legally be required to prevent people from printing guns without first undergoing a background check.  
5. If you print a gun and then sell it, you need a license - even for a single gun.  Otherwise people could claim they only sold 1, when in fact they sold 1,0000.   This rule would only apply to selling printed guns, not to selling regular guns.

Note that this won't stop terrorists from printing guns and bring them onto aircraft.  Expect that to happen relatively soon.   We will need better weapon detection devices - I say devices that can smell gunpowder.

A new solution to the NRA's 'gun registration fear"

The NRA has completely changed it's opinion on gun control.

At first they clearly stated background checks are acceptable.

That's OK, I myself have posted multiple times about guns (offering a couple of different solutions)

Now that has changed - they say it is unacceptable out of paranoid fear that the government will keep track of who has and who doesn't have guns.

The thing is that is not unconstitutional.  It is totally legal for the government to track who owns guns.

The 2nd amendment merely states we can't take AWAY the guns, not track who has them.

The NRA gun right morons claim that tracking guns is the first step in taking them away.

Nope.  We've seen it happen many times before - Japan, Germany, Russia,

The steps go this way:

1. Get into power
2. Change the rules to make it harder to remove you from power  (i.e. gerrymandering)
3. Start abusing the rules you changed in step 2 to stay in power.
4. Create a cadre of armed people willing to obey your command despite the abuses you did in step
5. THEN start tracking the people you don't trust
6. Then start creating laws to let you imprison the people you don't trust.

Tracking the people is not an early step.   It is a rather late stage.

It's kind of like saying you don't want to let doctors check your blood type out of fear that they will harvest your organs.

Any reasonable person puts the major limit much closer to the real problem, not so early in the game.


But too late, the NRA has control over enough votes to stop reasonable background checks.

So let's offer them some unreasonable ones.

I have previously talked about several ways to do background checks (private organizations approved by the states to check against a list maintained by the federal government, no checks for long guns, but substantial ones for hand guns, etc).

But how about if we let the NRA do the checking?  Will the NRA trust itself not to maintain a list of those people that checked?

If the NRA refuses to do the checking, how about the ACLU?  Or better yet, let EITHER of them check.

Have the federal government maintain the list of people forbidden from getting guns and each week on Wednesday send a copy of the list to the ACLU and the NRA.  

Let them charge whatever they want to check if you are on the list or not.  They must maintain an encrypted record of each check they do - using a public/private key system.   The private key is held by the store that does the request.
 
Of course, we would have to put in some penalties.   Specifically, have some random testing by the federal government and if they fail to reject appropriate people, the NRA or the ACLU gets fined.

Also throw in the right sue if someone forbidden from buying a gun uses one to kill or damage someone, then:

The person that was shot (or the heirs) may:

1. Sue the store that sold the gun for $20,000 if they did not do a background check.
2. Sue the NRA/ACLU for $20,000 if they did the background check but the NRA/ACLU failed to update their list within the last 13 days of the back ground check.
3. Sue the US government for $20,000 if they failed to include someone on the list within 13 days days of being informed they belonged on the list
4. Sue the responsible organization for $20,000 if they failed to report to the US government that someone was no longer eligible to purchase a gun - and why.

In addition, let's throw in some reverse checks - specifically make it clear that any federal judge can restore your right to own a gun, as long as they are proven sane and have no un-pardoned felonies.

Are the Boston Marathon Bombers Terrorists?

People have talked about them as terrorists.

Frankly, I am not sure.    Merely using a bomb to kill people as opposed to using bullets does not make you a terrorist (or every combat pilot would be a terrorist).  What makes these bombers different from the criminals that shoot up schools?

Terrorists kill non-combatants for political reasons.   Soldiers kill combatants for political reasons, criminals kill all for money or hate and crazy people kill for non-sane reasons.   Idiots do it by accident.

They definitely targeted non-combatants, which means they are not soldiers.

It was not negligence, they did it on purpose.

They did not do it for money.

They appear to be sane, but that has not been determined.   They very well could count as psychotic.  Some kill for the fame, others kill just to kill (anarchists).  An argument could be made that they are anarchists.

If their only reason was hatred for Americans (as opposed to hatred of America), that makes them criminals.  This is a rather subtle point and quite frankly no one cares.

(You see, there is no real difference between a terrorist and a criminal when it comes to the law.   It only matters to our government if you committed your deed outside of the country.  We don't like to arrest criminals outside of the country, but we do hunt down and kill terrorists outside of the country).


To truly be a terrorist they need to have some kind of political agenda.

They have not made that clear.  Yes, there is some indication of political agenda - letting a non-american car-jack victim live, talking about politics, etc.  Talking about 'radicalization'  But that is rather indistinct evidence.


To me, I want a lot more.  I want an explicit admission of political motivation.

What, you are are thinking - you want an admission - don't I know criminals lie?

Yes I do know that criminals lie - but you are claiming he is NOT a criminal.  Terroirsts are not criminals, that's why they go to Guantanamo not jail.

Terrorist organizations don't lie about being terrorists.  They proudly proclaim it.  Why?  Because that is the whole point of terrorism.  Oh sometimes they claim to be "freedom fighters", but they don't deny their goal is political.   Terrorists want people to know who they are and what they did.  That is why they do the crime - to get in the news and make trouble.

If you don't proclaim your cause, then no one knows what you want them to be in terror of.

Real terrorists proclaim their terrorism, and he is the only one left to proclaim.

I don't know yet if the bombers were terrorists.  We won't know that fact till the survivor speaks on the subject

But honestly, it doesn't really matter.  It won't really affect his punishment anyway.