MCViewPoint

Opinion from a Libertarian ViewPoint

Posts Tagged ‘weaponization’

Weaponization of Politics, an American Tradition

Posted by M. C. on June 27, 2023

Since then, the growth of government has led to the growth of an unelected and unaccountable bureaucracy that plays an important role for the deep state. The deep state pursues its own agenda regardless of the wishes of the people. The deep state works to subvert those who oppose its agenda, using tactics up to and including assassination in the case of President Kennedy.

https://libertarianinstitute.org/articles/weaponization-of-politics-an-american-tradition/

by Ron Paul

eugene v debs 5 times socialist candidate for president set free from prison 640

Library of Congress via Picryl.com

President Donald Trump is hardly the first political figure who has had the legal and policy processes weaponized against him. In fact, there is a long and shameful history of U.S. politicians and bureaucrats weaponizing governmental powers against their political opponents.

The First Amendment was not even a decade old when fear of influence on America by French agents was used to support the passage of the Alien and Sedition Acts. This outlawed “false, scandalous, and malicious writing” against the US government, Congress, or the president and made it illegal to conspire “to oppose any measure or measures of the government of the United States.”

The weaponization of politics is another example of how hysteria over alleged foreign threats leads to less liberty. The claim that opponents of U.S. government policy were serving interests of France is an early example. Sadly, critics of U.S. government policy have been smeared for spreading disinformation to benefit hostile foreign powers many times since.

During the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln oversaw the shutting down of newspapers and even the arresting of state legislators. After the U.S. became involved in World War I, Congress passed a new Sedition Act banning “disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language” toward the military or U.S. government. This act was used to imprison Eugene Debs, who then ran for president as the Socialist Party nominee while in prison.

See the rest here

Be seeing you

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , | Leave a Comment »

WaPo Stealth-Edits Their Story: The Dishonest Weaponization of Political Labels, w/ Stephen Miller | SYSTEM UPDATE — Ep. 2

Posted by M. C. on December 14, 2022

Starts at 24:30!

Censorship keeps you safe…because you are too dumb to do it yourself

Glenn Greenwald

https://rumble.com/v20i1ok-system-update-live-on-rumble-ep.-2.html

Be seeing you

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: , , | Leave a Comment »

Republicans Demand Answers from FBI on Surveillance of 3.3 Million Americans

Posted by M. C. on June 6, 2022

Conservatives have long decried the partisan weaponization of federal law enforcement.

It is more like Conservates

By Calvin Freiburger
Lifesite News

House Republicans are seeking answers from FBI director Christopher Wray as to why the federal law enforcement agency spied on more than 3.3 million Americans without a warrant from December 2020 through November 2021.

The May 25 letter, from House Judiciary Committee ranking member Jim Jordan and House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence ranking member Michael Turner, cites the Office of the Director of National Intelligence’s (ODNI’s) April 2022 Annual Statistical Transparency Report for the startling conclusion that “from December 2020 through November 2021 the FBI conducted over 3.3 million U.S. person queries against its Section 702 holdings.”

Section 702, the letter explains, is a provision of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) that allows the Attorney General and Director of National Intelligence to “jointly authorize the targeting of (i) non-U.S. persons (ii) who are reasonably believed to be outside of the United States (iii) to acquire foreign intelligence information.”

While FISA ostensibly requires “targeting, minimization, and querying procedures that meet the requirements of Section 702 and are consistent with the Fourth Amendment,” the letter argues that questions about the reliability of the system are raised by the “dramatic” rise in such queries in 2021 per the ODNI report, “at least four occasions” in which “the FBI failed to obtain an order from the FISC [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court] before accessing the contents of Section 702-acquired information,” and 40 queries for investigations “unrelated to foreign surveillance,” including “healthcare fraud, transnational organized crime, violent gangs, domestic terrorism involving racially motivated violent extremists, as well as investigations relating to public corruption and bribery.”

Read the Whole Article

Be seeing you

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , | Leave a Comment »