Showing posts with label Thomas_L_Knapp. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Thomas_L_Knapp. Show all posts

28 March 2021

Petition calls on Biden to restore Obama-era "We The People" site

A petition launched by American libertarian writer Thomas Knapp calls on the Biden administration to restore (ironically) an Obama-era petition website cancelled by Biden.

Launched at Change.org, the petition argues:

"We The People," while imperfect, served a valuable function. While it could not compel action on an issue, It put the executive branch on the spot, requiring it to explain itself when Americans demanded such action.

We call upon President Joe Biden to restore the "We The People" site, and, in keeping with his inaugural comments lauding "the will of the people," to commit to responding in a timely manner to petitions which gather 100,000 or more signatures.

One signatory had written, "I believe one of the most important things that President Obama did was to actively seek the involvement of his fellow citizens in creating policies and providing the political pressure needed to pass controversial legislation. And the White House's "We The People" web page was probably the best example of that. So I was shocked to discover today that the Biden Administration had pulled the plug on it."

The arrival of signatures has slowed since last month. If you support the restoration of the White House's former petition site, you can take part in the signing at https://www.change.org/p/joseph-r-biden-restore-the-white-house-s-we-the-people-petition-site

- ClubOfInfo

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24 October 2020

The case for voting for a third party


The purpose of voting is to make your view heard. It is not simply about voting for someone who then comes to power. Such a course of action is guaranteed to elect someone who doesn’t represent you, and it is better not to elect anyone at all than someone who doesn’t represent you.

There are many simpletons who fancy themselves as political campaigners, and they get a disproportionate say on social media (especially Twitter). Their message is often to vote for whoever will most likely win. Such sentiments can be dismissed as simple idiocy, but they are in fact more insidious. The vote-grubbing is an attempt to manipulate electors to vote for representatives who don’t represent them; a clear violation of democracy.

Having voted already by mail for the Libertarian Party’s candidate, Garrison Center director Thomas Knapp wrote, “So does it really matter whether I vote or not? Absent some earth-shaking development that I can neither predict nor bring about by force of will, more than nine of every 10 voters will choose “business as usual” by casting their ballots for Donald Trump or Joe Biden. They’ll vote against freedom and for an ever more authoritarian state. And yes, they’ll almost certainly win.”

If asked why voting for a candidate with no chance of success matters, Knapp will respond:

Because it matters to ME, that’s why. I have an opinion, voting is a way of expressing that opinion, and the vote total my preferred candidate gets, however small, will remain a matter of public record long after you’ve forgotten this column.

If one or two of a hundred voters choose freedom, they — WE — light a flame of hope in the deep dark night of fear and loathing that is 21st century American politics. A tiny, guttering flame, perhaps, but a flame I’d not want to see go out entirely.

Your vote is your voice. I won’t join my voice to the voices of the party of hate or the party of fear. Will you?


People whose views aren’t represented by either candidate should be actively encouraged to vote for a candidate who does represent them, even if there is no hope of such a candidate achieving office. If people are bullied into voting for one of two candidates, especially because this is patriotic or ideologically upstanding, it is no different than being forced or shamed into voting for a single dictator “candidate” and offered no alternative. – ClubOfInfo
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1 October 2016

'Oil companies should pay for damage done by fracking'

The Blog


Considering the "firm link" between hydraulic fracturing (fracking) and earthquakes established by scientists, the oil companies responsible ought to pay for the damage.


Garrison Center director Thomas Knapp made this argument in a recent Medium post also found at the Garrison Center website.

Knapp asks "What’s the difference between a drunk driver who totals your car with his reckless, intoxicated driving, and an oil company that damages your house’s foundation with its reckless, earthquake-inducing fracking?" He writes that journalists have unfortunately "prostituted themselves out to the fracking industry, attempting to justify that kind of privilege and favoritism in the name of cheap energy and economic growth".

Hydraulic fracturing, a method of shale oil extraction, is subsidized by some governments as a type of alternative to conventional petroleum and natural gas. As well as causing earthquakes, scientists believe fracking is responsible for poisoning ground water and increasing cancer.

Fracking stands in contrast with cleaner renewable energy such as solar and future "bright green" energy industries that may arise with emerging technologies.

Link: Crony Capitalism and Political Privilege: Earthshaking. Literally.


The clubof.info Blog

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23 September 2016

Criminal US govt should "pardon" themselves, not Snowden

The Blog


Whistleblower Edward Snowden deserves a medal, not a pardon, Garrison Director Thomas Knapp wrote on 16 September.


Meanwhile, Presidents Bush and Obama should face trial, alongside the top "operational ringleaders" in one of the greatest crimes against the American people - the warrantless surveillance program used by the National Security Agency (NSA) to protect the regime.

Edward Snowden "performed a public service of inestimable value by exposing the crimes, the criminals, and the techniques of the largest espionage ring in human history", Knapp wrote. Of the American regime's leaders, he wrote:
If these characters weren’t (with good reason) convinced of their own immunity to justice, they’d be shutting down their unprecedented warrantless search operations and finding ways to preemptively pardon each other ahead of something like a new Nuremburg Tribunal,  instead of continuing to denigrate and persecute the man who exposed their vile deeds.
Knapp recommended Snowden should be selected for a Medal of Honor, Presidential Medal of Freedom, or a Congressional Gold Medal.

Link: @Snowden: Give That Man a Medal, Not a “Pardon”

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9 September 2016

Brain-damaged Hillary Clinton "forgets" the law

The Blog


Either for reasons of brain damage or because she is a liar, Hillary Clinton's memory is too poor for her to remember any rules on guarding sensitive government information.


Garrison Center director Thomas L. Knapp wrote about Clinton's "comedienne" excuse about why she couldn't protect secret data entrusted to her as Secretary of State.

During her time in the job, Clinton "ignored the briefings she received on handling and safeguarding of classified information, choosing to illegally use a private server for transmission and storage of that information instead of following the rules".

Knapp called Clinton's "I forgot" reaction the "Steve Martin defense", in reference to a 1979 standup album. Concluding on Clinton's excuses, Knapp asked readers if they are "a strong advertisement for Hillary Clinton’s credibility and qualifications as a candidate for president of the United States".

Clinton's poor health and possible brain disorder were earlier cited by Knapp as reasons she may have drop out of the presidential race or resign from office if elected.

Garrison Center site: Hillary Clinton, Servergate, and the Steve Martin Defense


The clubof.info Blog

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12 August 2016

GOP elites pretend to oppose Trump?

The Blog


Some in the GOP elite like Mitt Romney seem more determined to see Donald Trump fail than to see Hillary Clinton fail in the presidential race. Apparent competitors to Trump are offered, but are they really what they seem?


One is David Evan McMullin, a longtime Republican now running for president against Trump even after Trump won the Republican nomination. The effort goes under the Romney-funded campaign slogan "Better for America" with the apparent aim to give voters a third alternative.

According to Thomas Knapp at the Garrison Center, "The conventional wisdom says that he’s there to keep Trump out of the White House — even at the cost of a Hillary Clinton presidency —  by giving anti-Trump Republican voters somewhere else to go."

However, Knapp sees Republicans in fact plotting to use Trump to win the White House, no matter how much they actually dislike the man. The goal is "to help Trump get elected, but with plausible deniability so that the GOP wins the White House without #NeverTrump leaders having to lose face" considering their earlier opposition to Trump.

In his commentary addressing this issue, Knapp concludes, "The most likely purpose of the McMullin campaign is to fragment the anti-Trump vote in New Mexico, Utah and perhaps other states, allowing Trump to win those states with smaller pluralities than he’d need in a race with fewer significant opponents — and to contain the threat of a third party breakout that might carry over into, and expand in, future elections."

While it is unlikely that third party candidates will be elected to the White House in the current polarized election, for a candidate like the Green Party's Jill Stein to win widespread support would certainly embolden American voters to consider third parties the next time they vote.


The clubof.info Blog

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2 August 2016

Garrison Center takes WikiLeaks side

The Blog


Director of the Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism Thomas Knapp took the side of WikiLeaks, in a recent small disagreement over Twitter between WikiLeaks and NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.


Penning a tweet on 28 July, Edward Snowden had commented WikiLeaks should be more vigilant at withholding damaging information when leaking sensitive material relating to world events. "Their hostility to even modest curation is a mistake", Snowden wrote.

WikiLeaks editor Julian Assange had in the past talked of WikiLeaks' curation in terms such as his remark "It disturbs me that we are redacting at all" (When Google Met WikiLeaks). Assange has believed control of information, for good or ill, should be completely stripped from states or large publishing houses and restored to the public.

Edward Snowden, by contrast, has tended to rely more on large publishers such as the Guardian and famous journalist Glenn Greenwald to carefully redact anything damaging. Snowden himself was the arbiter of what data would be harmful and what would legitimately benefit the public during his own leak of the NSA's PRISM mass surveillance programs.

The Garrison Center director, for his part, rejected the idea that any curation is necessary. Siding with WikiLeaks, Knapp pointed out that any type of redaction manifests state-like power to pull the wool over the public's eyes. He wrote on 29 July, "They [Snowden and friends]’re merely parceling out the information THEY’VE decided it’s OK for the public to have. But the the NSA and the US State Department do the same thing. Snowden and friends differ from those organizations merely on content selection criteria, not on the principles involved."

Knapp declared continued support to Edward Snowden as an exile persecuted by the US regime, but concluded, "Wikileaks is right and Snowden is wrong here".


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22 July 2016

28 pages expose "war on terror" lies

The Blog


In response to the previously censored 28 pages of the 9/11 commission report, which explain Saudi Arabia's role in the terror attacks, Garrison Center director Thomas Knapp gave the following commentary.


On the way Afghanistan (not to mention Iraq) were punished by the US military despite no connection to the attacks, while Saudi Arabia was rewarded despite a clear connection to the attacks:

"In response to those attacks, Afghanistan suffered US invasion, the overthrow of its government, and is now in its 15th straight year of war and occupation.

"Saudi Arabia enjoyed not just a 13-year reprieve from the exposure of damning evidence, but seemingly better relations with the US government than ever before. Go figure."

Full commentary

Many Americans were convinced US actions in Iraq and Afghanistan were revenge for the terror attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. However, the censored pages of the report reveal the US leadership knew Saudi Arabia was the real state backer of the attacks and yet they did nothing, due to political considerations.

US leaders therefore deliberately used the American military after 9/11 like dogs to remove regimes they didn't like and prop up the Saudi regime despite its guilt in the terrorist attacks. Does the revelation demonstrate that protecting lives was not the goal of the "War on Terror"? That US leaders ignored the real killers, and instead pursued US geopolitical aims with greater severity?


The clubof.info Blog

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19 July 2016

The West should end its own terrorism

The Blog


Rejecting the notion that the West is simply a helpless victim of murder and mayhem committed by radical (and usually Muslim) groups, Garrison Center director Thomas Knapp gives a useful reminder.


From his article, posted on 15 July in the aftermath of the terrorist attack in Nice, France:

Western (including American and French)  troops have killed hundreds of thousands, possibly millions, in the Middle East and Central Asia just since 1991.  Many (maybe most) have been innocent civilians. Their families, friends, countrymen and co-religionists have, unsurprisingly, responded in kind. We should stop supporting military adventurism not just because it inevitably results in “blowback” and dead bodies back home, but because it’s as wrong when “we” do it as it is when “they” do it.

It is indeed a hard heart that kills. Tools are mere distraction. Hearts — and minds — are where change begins."

With yet another atrocity occurring in the defenseless and open EU (many people forget the dates of individual terrorists acts now, as terrorism becomes a fact of life within the failing EU), Knapp expects more ridiculous measures by states. They may include "no drive lists" to prevent anyone with possibly radical views from driving heavy trucks, the Garrison Center director wrote on Friday.

Indeed, one consistent behavior of Western states seems to be increased monitoring and bans aimed at previously innocuous devices.

Pressure cookers, vehicles, and possibly even metal bars can expect to be deemed "weapons of mass destruction" in future, as politicians want the whole population in padded cells to enjoy "freedom and democracy".


The clubof.info Blog

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15 July 2016

Israel tries to drag Facebook into war?

The Blog


From the Garrison Center on 11 July 2016, reacting to a recent news story from 10 July 2016:


"On July 10, [Shurat HaDin, Israel Law Center] filed a federal lawsuit on alleged behalf of the families of five Americans (one American tourist and four Israeli-American dual citizens) killed in attacks which the suit blames on Hamas, the Islamist organization governing Palestine’s Gaza Strip area. Facebook, the suit alleges, assists Hamas (in violation of the US Anti-Terrorism Act) in “recruiting, radicalizing, and instructing terrorists, raising funds, creating fear and carrying out attacks.”

"The suit seeks to punish Facebook to the tune of $1 billion for failure to censor public communications of which the Israeli government disapproves."

From Garrison Center Director Thomas Knapp's analysis and remarks on the story:


"As I previously mentioned, Shurat Hadin characterizes itself as a non-governmental organization. In reality, it seems to at the very least serve as a front for, and quite possibly to function as a de facto litigation arm of, the Israeli state...

"The US government has no business involving itself in the conflict between Israel and Hamas — nor should the  US courts allow Shurat HaDin to turn Facebook and other US firms into collateral damage in that conflict."


The clubof.info Blog

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5 July 2016

You should have mourned 4th of July

The Blog


The US has fallen short of what its founders fought for and has restored the oppression that was protested in the Declaration of Independence.


Today, Americans are subject to illegal searches of their vehicles and personal mail on an almost constant basis. Email may be read at will by the state. This kind of hostile warrantless surveillance, arguably, is the thing American colonists found most offensive and it encouraged them to take up arms against British colonial authorities.

One might have thought the type of lack of representation in the British Parliament might have been avoided by America's newfound liberty after it achieved independence. As it turned out, Americans got even less representation. At the moment, the narrow US "democratic" system is hardly capable of representation of the vast population at all.

Writing on taxation, Thomas Knapp at the Garrison Center noted that fewer representatives exist for each US taxpayer than exist for each British taxpayer, despite "taxation without representation" being a major point of complaint by Americans against colonial authorities. In the US, there is one representative per 600,000. In the UK, one per 100,000.

On this, Knapp advised ahead of 4th of July celebrations, "America, it seems to me, has fallen far short of what she could have been had we actually secured our rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and jealously guarded them to this day. Between the fireworks and grilling out, take a moment to shed a tear with me for what might have been and isn’t."


The clubof.info Blog

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28 June 2016

Evidence 'US regime is now police state'

The Blog


Aligned with a similar commentary by the Garrison Center director Thomas Knapp, one post argues that a recent US Supreme Court ruling is "admissible evidence of police state".


Addressing the ruling, in which any arbitrary arrest and detention by US police can be later justified by finding any unrelated outstanding warrant, Kelly Vee wrote, "Should we be angry? Absolutely. Should we be shocked? Absolutely not. Americans should not feel reassured or secure by the final arbiter in the U.S. justice system."

Vee's post appeared at the Center for a Stateless Society (C4SS) website on 23 June. Relating the problem to large numbers of the American population, Vee wrote, "The scope of this ruling is not limited to some small subset of violent criminals. Millions of Americans have outstanding arrest warrants. That speeding ticket you forgot to pay is enough to excuse an officer that stops you illegally."

Concluding that US authorities are now privileged to commit any abuse, Vee's conclusion argues that "The Police State, the Prison State, and the Court System are all a part of the same twisted, monopolized justice system run with perverse incentives at the expense of its constituents. Police abuse their power, the Court affirms their mistakes, and people end up behind bars."

Vee also pointed out that the United States imprisons more of its own people than any other regime in the world. Despite this, US shallow propaganda portrays it as the most "free" country in the world.


The clubof.info Blog

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24 June 2016

US police arbitrarily stop, detain anyone

The Blog


US police have been given authority to stop, search, and detain any US citizen without any legitimate suspicion.


As shown in a recent Supreme Court ruling, police can stop a vehicle without cause, as long as they are able to scour it and find something suspicious. The police stop is therefore itself arbitrary and illegal - up until the moment the police find something illegal on the vehicle they have stopped.

In the case in question, US police in Salt Lake City stopped a vehicle illegally - without any explanation - and used an outstanding traffic warrant later discovered in the vehicle as evidence against the driver. The Supreme Court was willing to accept this after-the-fact reason for stopping the vehicle, along with looking for anything else in the vehicle as evidence of some wrongdoing by the driver. The goal of the evidence was to later justify the police's then-unjustified actions.

Anti-state news analyst Thomas Knapp wrote in a post that the Supreme Court ruling is a "clear and present danger to the public", setting the regime on a path to greater hostility against its citizens. The analyst notes that such repressive behavior by the regime can only lead to increasing preparations by the population for violent resistance.

Distrust in the US police state is growing. On 1 June, leading social historian Immanuel Wallerstein noted that the US regime is increasingly unstable, filled with tensions exploding into open violence. This is accompanied by the growing capacity for citizen warfare and resistance against the state, motivated by exactly the criminal rulings described in Knapp's post.


The clubof.info Blog

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7 June 2016

Muhammad Ali's sacred communication

The Blog


Following the iconic African American sportsman's recent passing on 3 June, Garrison Center director Thomas Knapp draws our attention to Muhammad Ali's days as a conscientious objector and anti-war campaigner.


Heavyweight boxing champion Muhammad Ali refused the draft three times in 1967, and is known to have declared his sympathy with the victims of the US state's war crimes in Vietnam, saying "I ain’t got no quarrel with them Viet Cong — no Viet Cong ever called me nigger".

Without the stand Ali took against the Vietnam War, Martin Luther King Jr. would probably not have come out with the same view, inspired by the former's courage. And without that, the superpower might not have been so pressured to withdraw from its misguided wars.

Ali's legacy has already reached far beyond his own time and beyond America itself. Admired by many people across the globe, Ali's international popularity will still symbolize what Frantz Fanon meant when he mentioned an "illuminating and sacred communication" between all oppressed and colonized people. Here we see how virtue can transcend one's time and one's country. Ali's life offers a certain story of resistance and victory that will continue to inspire all people - but perhaps Muslims most of all - against imperialism, hegemony and injustice.


The clubof.info Blog

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27 May 2016

Memorial Day for the military's victims

The Blog


Writing ahead of Memorial Day in the US, Garrison Center director Thomas Knapp asked Americans to think about the victims of the US government's violence too.


Noting that modern states "murdered more than 260 million human beings in the 20th century alone", the author reminds us to remember not only people who died for governments but the far vaster number killed by them for dumb reasons.

Noting the terror inspired by the US military around the world now, Knapp concluded in his post:
We occasionally see a flag-draped coffin, or encounter an amputee on the street, but our concerns with, for example, terrorism, simply aren’t in the same league as the reasonable fears of those around the world living with American planes and drones constantly overhead or American troops on their streetcorners
This Memorial Day, let’s set aside a moment to think about them.
The 260 million figure offered by Knapp excludes soldiers killed in action in the wars of the 20th Century, and is six times greater than the number of dead troops in those wars. It includes victims of genocides committed around the world by untenable regimes.

In the current century, the greatest civilian losses in wars are caused directly by the US government and its allies in the Middle East and other poor regions. The greatest example now is the war in Syria, waged by the US government as part of its strategy to overthrow foreign governments and replace them with "friendly" regimes.


The clubof.info Blog

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17 May 2016

GOP's stupid "third party" backup plan

The Blog


Authored on May 14, a short analysis at the Garrison Center responds to the US Republican Party elite's last-ditch effort to escape Donald Trump's triumph over them by funding a new independent candidate.


The short article questions, ostensibly from the GOP's point of view, whether such a move would suit their goals. "The draft effort’s reputed short list includes Ohio governor John Kasich and US Senator Ben Sasse (R-NE)", the piece notes.

Such a plan is a "very bad idea" if the Republicans want any chance of winning the actual election, author Thomas Knapp states. To put it shortly, "Two well-funded, ably promoted Republican candidates on the same ballots means a Democratic win". GOP elites, meanwhile, are so concerned with their own infighting that they may be unable to focus on actually winning the White House. They are worried to see Trump "displacing them in their role as Pied Pipers", Knapp writes.

Another possible reason for a Republican "third party" backup plan stated by Knapp might be to avoid real third parties such as the Libertarians or constitutionalists experiencing a boom in membership, in the wake of alienation of GOP supporters caused by Trump.

In conclusion, the post points out how artificial such a third candidate would be if the GOP elite chooses to back him as an alternative to Trump, and "A fake third party campaign won’t save the GOP".


The clubof.info Blog

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6 May 2016

Govt can make you unlock your phone

The Blog


Noting the arrival of "biometric" authentication methods on smartphones, Garrison Center Director Thomas L. Knapp argues it "comes with a cost".


The focus here is on using one's fingerprint to unlock one's phone. Considering rulings in Virginia and California that you can be "forced to put your finger on the phone to unlock it", the technology is being used as an excuse for US authorities to violate the Constitution in new ways.

As explained by Knapp, "Giving the police access to your phone is no different than telling them about every call you made". This goes against the strong components of the law that prevent you from "testifying against yourself, which you cannot constitutionally be required to do."

The state is normally limited in when and how it can coerce individuals to incriminate themselves. For example, "If the door is locked, they can break it down, but you don’t have to unlock it for them. If they find your hidden compartment full of evidence, they find it. But you don’t have to show them where it is, or even tell them that it exists."

What will you do about the increasing use of biometric data, when you know you can be coerced to unlock your property using it? For now, Knapp advises you need to "secure your phone with a long and complex pass code, not with your fingerprint."


The clubof.info Blog

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29 April 2016

Veterans' political views aren't special

The Blog


Discussing the undue favor shown to veterans in US political discourse, Garrison Center Director Thomas Knapp noted in a recent article that they shouldn't be excluded from having to back up their arguments with evidence.


Often, supposed military heroes like Arizona Senator John McCain (also current Chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee) see their opinions being revered for no reason other than that they "once wore a uniform and collected a government paycheck".

Knapp rejects this type of thinking in his April 26 Garrison Center post, instead saying "If you really want to honor veterans, treat us like you treat everyone else. That means requiring us to prove, rather than merely assert, our political arguments."

It is worth considering that John McCain, although a veteran, is far from a hero. Much of his notability in Vietnam came from killing his own fellow servicemen during the USS Forrestal Fire. The bombs McCain dropped on US forces in the deadly incident killed 134 Americans, yet many people still consider him a war hero due to his disastrous part in killing hundreds of thousands of foreign civilians in a pointless war.


The clubof.info Blog

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26 April 2016

Hillary Clinton's four paths to defeat

The Blog


Mont Order brother and Garrison Center director Thomas L. Knapp recently plotted out four paths for defeat for Hillary Clinton, highlighting how unstable her prospects are as a US presidential candidate.


Whether Hillary Clinton falls prey to illness or her shady criminal dealings with the Saudi regime and major arms dealers, there are a number of ways her rival Bernie Sanders could pass her to claim the Democratic Party nomination.

Knapp explains these four possible Hillary Clinton defeats in the following commentary at the Garrison Center website:
Path #1: (HEALTH PROBLEMS) "Clinton’s health fails"- "multiple public fainting spells since 2005" - "cerebral venous thrombosis, a life-threatening blood clot condition" - "hypothyroidism"
Path #2: (SERVERGATE) "Clinton is indicted in, or otherwise dragged down over, the “Servergate” affair, in which she appears to have illegally mishandled classified information while Secretary of State."
Path #3: (CORRUPTION) "Clinton comes to big legal or political grief over apparent connections between large donations to her family’s foundation on one hand and her actions as Secretary of State on the other. For example, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia donated $10 million to the Clinton Foundation and Boeing donated $900,000. Later, Secretary Clinton cleared a $29 billion arms deal involving the two parties...
Path #4: (LEAKED SPEECHES) "The texts of Clinton’s Wall Street speeches, for which she received millions of dollars in honoraria, are leaked"... "Everything comes to light sooner or later. If it’s sooner — that is, before July —  we may find out how just how damaging"...
Hillary Clinton's supporters tend to ignore her history of lying and all her vices, to believe she is the default candidate to keep the much-loathed Republican (almost-certain) nominee Donald Trump out of power. A sense of inevitability plagues their narrow vision of what may happen, unaware of all that may go wrong with Clinton's faltering campaign.


The clubof.info Blog

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15 April 2016

Anti-encryption to destroy Silicon Valley

The Blog


What will happen if a recent draft anti-encryption bill gets passed in the US? No less than the evisceration of America's tech industry.


Prepared by US Senators Richard Burr and Dianne Feinstein, the "bill to require the provision of data in an intelligible format..." demands US tech companies create vulnerabilities to allow encryption to be easily broken. Commenting that the idea seems to work off delusions that only law-abiding American companies could possibly encrypt anything, Garrison Center Director Thomas L. Knapp believes "this bill is custom-made to destroy the US tech industry".

According to the Garrison Center analysis of April 12, such efforts are doomed to relocate all credible companies specializing in encryption offshore. The law will stimulate foreign developers to race ahead in providing encryption services in other countries where they are safe from the authoritarian meddling of the US regime. Not only would this improve the standing of other countries and diminish the US regime in terms of liberty, but it would likely cause the US economy to tank.

It will get a lot worse for the US if this bill becomes a reality. As well as undermining the faith of US consumers in their own tech industry and forcing them to look to foreign companies for privacy protections, the bill is utterly useless as kind of defense against terrorism. Effective encryption is simply a mathematical certainty at this point, and will continue to be abundantly available to everyone from terrorists to essentially any regular citizen trying to avoid surveillance.

However, the US regime will never accept the reality that there is anything it can't control, the analysis continues. According to Knapp, "Nothing’s more important to a politician than believing he or she is in control".

The US regime is so infatuated with the idea of full-spectrum dominance over its own people that it will be unable to resist meddling in the tech industry. It will happen even if this bad course causes the US economy to tank, as industry flees abroad.


The clubof.info Blog

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