An ongoing kerfuffle over alleged Saudi water withdrawals from Arizona to grow alfalfa highlights the complexity of competition for increasingly scarce – and thus valuable – water for crops and residential uses.

Revelations about gargantuan volumes of water withdrawn at little cost by a Saudi company to grow hay for export have sparked a passionate dispute that extends outside America’s third-driest state to California and other water-pressed jurisdictions.

Water for Saudi Arabia

The Saudi connection stems from a company named Fondomonte, which reputedly has been withdrawing unlimited amounts of water from lands it leases for merely $25 per acre: The value of the water extracted far exceeds the rent paid. Fondomonte is allegedly growing alfalfa year-round on its 3,500 Arizona acres to ship off to other countries – like China. Outcries of foul play have resulted in an ongoing effort to limit or ban foreign nationals from owning Arizona water rights or to retroactively impose monetary assessments for the water withdrawn.

The issues of water friction will lead to yet more lines drawn in the Arizona sand. Water rights there are big business, as the state endures a crippling, decades-long megadrought that pits farmers and ranchers against newly arriving residents who seek to limit water usage and development. This in turn drives up the cost of housing, water rights, and farmland, creating a vicious cycle that further escalates prices and speculation.

Water Wars Brewing

Issues over water also exacerbate growing cultural tensions. Brad Fain, a multi-generation Arizona farmer and rancher, observes that newcomers “…see farmers as unsophisticated and maybe greedy. They don’t understand our culture, or the complexity of our business.” This urban-rural division grows more intense as Californians and New Yorkers flee high taxes and COVID chaos for sunny climes and retirement. Fain sees the pressures on both sides and is sympathetic.

Arizona is extracting water faster than aquifers and rivers can replenish their flow. Arizona’s key policy dispute arises over whether all growth should be halted or managed to extract the wealth and policies necessary to implement yet more water efficiencies. Agricultural producers have been watching water use as part of their bottom line for decades, investing in modern irrigation technologies and more regenerative practices to reduce their drawdowns while staying in business.

Mr. Fain points out an interesting opportunity to balance these competing uses: Employ taxes on development to invest in “closed loop” residential water systems that reclaim and recycle residential water usage. Private drilled wells for housing may not be as amenable to such practices as public water systems. Most residential water can be processed and reused, with the exception of swimming pools, lawn watering, and landscaping. Suburban residents seek to restrict new development, sparking cries of elitism. They want to keep their lawns and water them, too.

Arizona’s Efforts

The battle lines were drawn four decades ago, when Arizona’s 1980 Groundwater Management Act created “extinguishment credits” to incentivize farms to sell or convert their water rights for development uses. This shifted resources away from water-intensive food production to water-absorbing residential growth. Farming and ranching have steadily declined, but precious water has been sucked up by the suburban sprawl. Rancher and developer Brad Fain “Tools were put in place to augment our water. We have to be very careful with our water.”

Regardless of climate change, anthropogenic water drawdowns have increased the strain on US aquifers and rivers. The coming water wars pit neighbor against neighbor. Brad Fain is sympathetic: “Where are these people to go? They come from all over the world to America seeking hope, and retire to warm climates from up north seeking their lifelong dream. We must build more hospitals and businesses, and we have a nursing shortage and insufficient housing to meet this surging demand. We can conserve more water while supporting reasonable and smarter development.”

Uniting for Solutions

These pressures are hardly unique to Arizona. As the BBC reported in 2014, California was shipping hay to China during a severe drought there, impacting not only water supplies but the viability of American  farms:

In the dried-up fields of California’s Central Valley, [some] farmers … are selling their cattle. Others have to choose which crops get the scarce irrigation water and which will wither. … The farmers are making hay while the year-round sun shines, and they are exporting cattle-feed to China. … Japan, Korea and the United Arab Emirates all buy Californian hay. The price is now so high that many local dairy farmers and cattle ranchers can’t afford the cost when the rains fail and their usual supplies are insufficient.

California produces roughly half of all American produce. The water troubles in the American West extend far beyond the borders of Arizona and foretells of a wider conflict for precious resources yet to come. Better water management and conservation are necessary from all sides, whether rich or poor, urban or suburban, black or white, red or blue. In a time of rancorous, divisive “identity politics,” all Americans must identify threats of thirst and starvation as common enemies against which we must forge a united policy response.

Note: I discuss America’s growing water crisis at length in my book, Small Farm Republic. Solar panels, EV cars, and synthetic meats do nothing to conserve water or rebuild soils. Cows do this while sequestering carbon dioxide. 

 

John Klar is an Attorney, farmer, and author. Mostly farmer… And Regular Contributor to GraniteGrok and VermontGrok.

The post Night Cap: Saudi Water Battle in Arizona appeared first on Granite Grok.

It’s rumored that some Republican-controlled state governments are considering prohibiting Joe Biden from appearing on the ballot in their states. Of course, Democrats are crying foul:  ‘He isn’t an insurrectionist!’

And yet, both candidates have been convicted of insurrection exactly the same number of times:  Zero.

Apparently, Democrats have proved that you don’t really need a reason to keep someone off a ballot if you have the political will and the numbers to make it happen. (Related: Thanks to Colorado, NH Republicans Can Sweep Every Federal Race in 2024.)

Just like they proved that you don’t really need a reason to impeach a president, if you have the political will and the numbers to make it happen.

I love what RFK Jr. said about the situation in Colorado. Paraphrasing, if this were happening in another country, we’d be saying:  That’s not a real election.

With each week that passes, our chances of having a ‘real election’ seem to decrease significantly.  This could be a good thing if it helps us move, as a country, beyond the farce that majority rule has made of what was supposed to be government by consent.

 

The post Reason? We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Reason appeared first on Granite Grok.

Since writing the first article, Are Convenience Stores Violating Your Privacy, I have been gathering more information and find the Driver License Scanning issue to be quite the bottomless rabbit hole.

Here are some key takeaways:

1. 1. 1. The AG’s office is still trying to get me to go away.
      2. I did have a conversation with the Director of DMV, John Marasco, who says he has concerns.
      3. There is a committee of state legislators that must approve the rules of most departments, but as far as I can tell, the Department of Safety is “exempt” from having its rule-making overseen by the Joint Legislative Committee on Administrative Rules.
      4. It has been reported to me that Macy’s is now scanning driver’s licenses to verify identity during credit card purchases.
      5. (According to another reader) LHS Poll Pad Training in Manchester is instructing people to scan driver’s licenses (must ask first) to verify voter identity:  https://lhsassociates.com/resources/Poll-Pad-Sell-Sheet-(NH)-(1).pdf
      6. We are still not absolutely sure exactly how much information can be scanned off of the license.  One State Representative told me that everything on the front of the license can be scanned.  Others think less information can be scanned.  As taxpayers, I believe we have a right to know.

As noted above, the NH Attorney General’s office isn’t all that interested or concerned. A John R. Davis responded to my RSA 91-A request as follows:

 

“I am an Assistant Attorney General in the Consumer Protection & Antitrust Bureau (“Bureau”) of the New Hampshire Department of Justice, Office of the Attorney General. I am responding on behalf of the Bureau to your 12/04/2023 email to Ms. Jessica Raymond, of the Bureau, which email is attached below.

For your information, I believe that the Bureau previously, timely responded to your right-to-know request. I believe that the Bureau provided all documents that the Bureau had to provide under the applicable statute. Furthermore, I believe that the Bureau, both in referring you to the Department of Safety (“DoS”) and closing your complaint, acted properly.

Relative to your most recent email below, please be advised of the following:”

I asked the AG the following questions.

 

Before closing the case, did you confirm the following:

• Verify the equipment “does not visibly identify any personal information, other than driver license number and name”? If so, how did you do this? Please provide documentation to prove this finding. Driver licenses have other personal information on them, including date of birth, address, etc…
• Verify the equipment “does not retain, store or transfer any personal information, other than driver license number and name, for any period of time.” Please provide proof the equipment that is used to scan licenses by Circle K does not retain unauthorized data.
• Please provide proof that you verified the Circle K equipment “does not store any personal information, other than driver license number and name, in a central repository, disaster recovery central repository, such as a cold site or hot site whether on-site or in a remote location.”

 

The only documentation provided to me was our email exchange and my written complaint. There was no indication that any investigation or equipment testing was or would be done. Should there? Let’s look at the law.

 

From TITLE XXI Chapter 263 – Drivers’ Licenses

 263:12 Prohibitions. –
It shall be a misdemeanor for any person to:

X. Knowingly scan, record, retain, or store, in any electronic form or format, personal information, as defined in RSA 260:14, obtained from any license, unless authorized by the department. Nothing in this paragraph shall prohibit a person from transferring, in non-electronic form or format, personal information contained on the face of a license to another person, provided that the consent of the license holder is obtained if the transfer is not to a law enforcement agency. Notwithstanding any other provision of law, any person selling alcohol or tobacco who uses due diligence in checking identification to prevent unauthorized sales and purchases of alcohol and tobacco shall not be held responsible for the acceptance of fraudulent identification. Where due diligence is exercised on the part of the seller, the unauthorized purchaser shall be liable for any penalty or fine resulting from the unauthorized sale.

 

There is no legal reason or legal exception that justifies Macy’s, a convenience store, or LHS Poll Pad Training in Manchester to gather this data in this way. Scanning your driver’s license in New Hampshire is illegal, with these exceptions (emphasis added).

 

This paragraph shall not prohibit the scanning, recording, retaining, or storing of such information in electronic form collected with the license holder’s consent as part of a sale of merchandise to a pawnbroker, scrap metal dealer, or other secondhand dealer, and submission of such information to law enforcement databases for the sole purpose of identifying sellers of stolen merchandise. The pawnbroker, scrap metal dealer, or secondhand dealer shall not retain the scanned information in electronic form transmitted to a law enforcement database, unless required by local regulation, and shall not furnish the information to anyone except a law enforcement officer. The pawnbroker, scrap metal dealer, or secondhand dealer may maintain in a log or other document the name and address of the person whose license was scanned along with a description of the items the individual sold, pawned, or purchased, and shall allow such log or document to be examined by a law enforcement official upon request.

 

Absent new information, these businesses are committing misdemeanor offenses every time they scan the barcode on the back of your driver’s license, regardless of your having given consent.

But the State Attorney General either doesn’t have the time to provide the legal exception that allows it or to investigate and prosecute violations if that’s what they are.

Are they too busy working on another frivolous case against James O’Keefe?

 

The post Are Driver’s Licenses Being Scanned Illegally in New Hampshire? appeared first on Granite Grok.

To all those who are sending in memes, thank you!  Keep them coming please, as it helps me gather weaponry to fight the Left.  Understand that I do get a fair number of repeats, and some that don’t “grab” me as well.  However, please do share this post, and if you share an individual meme, consider mentioning you saw it on the Grok!

Speaking of, from this week, Monday Edition and Wednesday Edition.

 

*** Warning, a few possibly off-color ones, in case tender eyes are about ***

 

Note: I will be taking the day off on December 25th – Christmas.  OK, I grumble about it, but my (non-Jewish) wife loves it and so do the kids.  And speaking of Christmas, here’s a piece I wrote about my being a Jew in a Christian country:

Merry Christmas! | Forward in Christ Magazine

 

 

So consider this slickly-worded WEF presentation.  Just marvel at how noble and high-sounding a clampdown on the information flow can seem:

 

https://granitegrok.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/wef-cencorship-video.mp4

 

>>>>>=====<<<<<

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

MHO, if the US / NATO go to a hot war with Russia directly, it will turn nuclear.  No question.  And I have ZERO doubts that Putin has plans for that.  While I’m certainly no expert, in many senses the Russian mentality – that I’ve come to know at least – is very simple: “If we’re going down we’ll take you down with us”.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Who the living F voted for this POS to have such control over what we can or can’t do?

 

 

 

 

>>>>>=====<<<<<

 

PSA – PSA – PSA – PSA – PSA

 

 

Any of the above sound familiar?  No, wait… any of the above NOT sound familiar?  Take a look at the tearing down of statues.  This is part of Mao’s “Four Olds” strategy, sweeping away the last vestiges of the old Republic.

 

 

How soon before they get tired of statues and just come straight for anyone to the Right of Stalin?  I’m betting within a year…

People who fled Communist China are sounding the alarm.  People who fled Communist Cuba are as well, as are people who fled Communist Venezuela.  They’ve seen this before.  And despite this living testimony from countless people who have seen their countries fall, most people are TWENTY-NINERS as to the possibility that bad things could happen here.  (A Telegram friend is lamenting their seeming role as a Cassandra – making correct prophecies and attempting to warn people about multiple things, only to be completely ignored if not derided.  I know the feeling.)

Hence my term, “Twenty-Niners”.  People who cannot grasp that anything that could radically change the situation in which they live are actual possibilities, and completely dismiss concerns that others present even when backed by evidence.

They have Stability Privilege.  And reality’s going to come knocking… hard.

 

>>>>>=====<<<<<

 

 

 

 

Ouch.  Where’s Fang Fang when you need her?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Just wait until all those fighting age men are married to all the arms and ammo purchased by Barackus.  What, you thought the forest service and agriculture departments, etc., really needed all that weaponry?  The Left may be missionaries, and insane to boot – but they’re shrewd and cunning…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

>>>>>=====<<<<<

 

Merry Christmas to those who celebrate!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

>>>>>=====<<<<<

 

Pick of the Post:

 

 

>>>>>=====<<<<<

 

Palate Cleansers:

 

—

—

—

 

>>>>>=====<<<<<

 

And don’t forget… come back Monday for another edition.  Same Meme Time.  Same Meme channel.

Please do consider buying me a coffee.

Buy Me a Coffee

 

>>>>>=====<<<<<

 

The post Friday Meme Overflow-Overflow appeared first on Granite Grok.

Londonderry Times publisher Deb Paul stood before a judge on Wednesday to receive her punishment. The crime was failing to include the ‘magic words’ identifying blatantly political ads as…political ads. The judgment hath arrived.

Deb has until early January to pay a $620.00 fine, according to InDepth NH, (124.00 per violation).

 

Prosecutors charged Paul, 64, with six Class A misdemeanors which carry up to a year in jail and $2,000 in fines for the ads she ran in the Londonderry Times and Nutfield News, though Steckowych found her not guilty on one count after November’s bench trial.

Paul did not respond to a request for comment.

According to prosecutors, Paul repeatedly broke the law when publishing ads for local political candidates and warrant articles in the Londonderry Times and the Nutfield News in the run up to the March 2022 municipal elections. The Nutfield News has since ceased publication.

 

As per previous reporting, we find this excessive, given the lack of clarity in the statute. A problem the legislature needs to address. We also made a promise.

 

Regardless of what punishment the judge decides is fair, and we think a warning will do, the free press and independent media are more important to the liberty of the nation, the state, and the town of Londonderry than the “magic words.” We feel obligated to rise in support of Deb Paul and her newspaper. To share more of its content with our audience who, and this may not come as a surprise, agree that the town has become a stink-hole of political insiders. A swamp of its own that needs draining.

 

We intend to keep it.

Investigative material directed at Londonderry’s intractable swamp can look forward to finding a second home here, along with some of our poking and prodding. We know a few folks in Londonderry who wouldn’t mind if that town got a bit more exposure, but if you live in or nearby (Derry’s a bit of a cesspit as well), we hope you’ll send us your inside scoops.

If we get enough material regularly, perhaps we will feature it in Derry/Londonderry MicroGrok. Not to compete for local market share but to use our reach to get more eyeballs looking in that direction. Remember, local stories matter because the nonsense you see in one town is often in many, and until it gets pointed out, folks might not think to look for it in their town.

If you want to be a local hero, make a point of turning yourself into Ed Naile. He left us a few years ago, but he had a very respectable reputation before he passed. If Ed walked into a meeting in any town, people in the know knew to be worried about why he was there. Even if he never said a word.

New Hampshire could use a few more like that who then take their observations to the new media. We can’t cover everything, and we can’t print everything. Some of the work folks do at the local level might not translate to this medium, but a lot of it does, and we’re willing to see what you have to share.

And so is Deb Paul at the Londonderry Times. Don’t be afraid to reach out and support your local muckrakers.

 

Update: The actual total fine may be different than what was reported by InDepthNH. Deb Paul had suggested to me that she was waiting to hear form the Judge. I will update this post when we have clarification.

The post A $620.00 Fine? appeared first on Granite Grok.

Paula had her day in court this afternoon and I thought a summary of observation would be of interest. Many witnesses were in court this morning in Concord as plaintiffs against Chris Ager, which I’m sure someone else will report on as I wasn’t there.

Tom Murray was out of town and, therefore, unfortunately unavailable, but the show went on.

First, I will point out that Judge Temple did not get this one. We got Judge English, who Temple told us yesterday upon adjournment of Laurie Ortolano’s case, would be filling in for the absent Judge Colburn. English was patient, friendly, and pleasant, but I thought a little research was in order, not that it necessarily predicted the outcome. According to Marylyn Todd’s Nosey Neighbor App, which uses 2020 voter data, English is a Democrat, and she was appointed by the Damn Emperor on 6/29/22. She had a hearing at the executive council on Nurse Terese’s milestone birthday, 7/6/22, and an email has been sent to their secretary, Meagan, to ask who voted for her and who didn’t. We will use that info accordingly at primary time.

Attorney Bolton and Clerk Healey were there at the enemy table for the City. Paula had constitutional scholar Daniel Richard at hers to serve as an “assistant.” Attendees in support of Paula included Lynn Diane Briggs, Wayne Saya, Dan LaPointe, Joan Donahue, Lily Tang Williams, Donna Judge, Niko, former Alderman Teeboom, Alderman-elect Chis Thibodeau, Al Brandano, and yours truly. The enemy camp fans included Ms. Gloria, Sonia Prince, and late arrivals Mr. & Mrs. Newman.

I sat in the front row and was later told that Mrs. Newman, seated in the back, took a lot of notes. I did not speak to them, nor was I even interested in a Seinfeld-style “hello, Newman” greeting.

Before going any further, I will share the link to my previous piece on the case. My article outlines the four complaints against the City. In short, it wasn’t about proving that fraud occurred. Rather, it’s about the procedure not being followed.

Paula made her opening statement, which Attorney Bolton made many objections to that were procedural in nature, but Judge English kindly redirected Paula as needed. Like myself, or Laurie Ortolano, Paula is not a lawyer, and this judge pointed out that it is not uncommon for plaintiffs to represent themselves. As expected of nonlawyers, there were some “holes,” so to speak, in the presentation, and Daniel Richard did an excellent job “spackling” them when he was on the witness stand.

Paula took to the stand first, followed by Daniel Richard, who recognized windows of opportunity to elaborate on things and even make reference to his pro se Supreme Court case, which can be found here.

Other witnesses called by Paula were Lynn Diane Briggs, Wayne Saya and Al Brandano. All of them did an excellent job responding to Paula’s questions, which often included excellent inviting words like “can you describe what you saw…”

Attorney Bolton’s only witness was Clerk Healey and their dialogue was mostly predictable, but as Altschiller would say to the rest of the senate regarding a bill banning woke investments, “the CRUX of the matter,” was that the school board is “styled” autonomously from the city itself with regard to all its operations and there are only two exceptions. Paula explained, both as a school incumbent and as a former alderman, that those exceptions are that the city controls the budget and there’s a joint (JSSB) committee that oversees the construction of new schools. I believe that Alderman Dowd is the chair of that body.

Let me take a quick sidestep to point out that the school board is a common portal in which tyrants develop their political resumes. Mrs. Newman, my two time opponent, is a former member, and my most recent opponent, Alderman Dowd is the former chair. School elections matter. Now back to the case.

All four complaints in Paula’s petition were ultimately acknowledged, some in greater detail than others; procedure not followed, chain of custody for ballot storage breached, equal protection clause violated, and incorrect handling/processing of absentee ballots. Near the end, a lot of verbal dispute was about the school board’s separate status from city hall as its own entity. Attorney Bolton started thumbing through some book while Paula was speaking and it reminded me of Annie Kuster (another lawyer worse than Lionel Hutz) seen on TV dressed in white and reading her pocket constitution during Trump’s speech that Queen Nancy ripped up moments later.

When it was his turn to speak, he started citing several local litigations that occurred in the 50s, 60s and early 70s. Then he cited a recent federal court case of a disenfranchised blind woman. I was later told that when counsel starts digging for cases from several decades ago, it’s a sign of desperation. Attorney Bolton has until December 29 to submit his final statement and Judge English knows the swearing in is to take place in a matter of days later, so we won’t be waiting long for her ruling.

The post Paula Johnson vs. City of Nashua (The Sequel) appeared first on Granite Grok.

If you are not familiar with Konstantin Kisin make it a goal to do that. This Russian-British comedian, podcaster, writer, and social commentator (he’s politically non-binary) is brilliant, in my opinion, at not just on subject matter but delivery.

He’s smart and funny. Thoughtful and sarcastic. He understands the world and can articulate its problems in contrast to the self-created mental-health crisis of modernity referred to as wokeness.

Yesterday I shared a speech by Jordan Peterson speaking at the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship. That was brilliant and worth your time if you missed it. Today, along the same vein – as it is the same conference – Kisin has a much shorter speech but one that is as critical to understanding the problems and likley solutions to the work we are in and the direction it has taken.

Not so much the problem but a means by which we work toward solutions and where Peterson unraveled the foundational challenge of how individualism properly developed build the best communities, Kisin confronts the question of individual direction for the positive benefit of civilization, with a good bit of snarky humor.

Like, “Say what you want about Hamas supporters. At least they know what a woman is.”

He’s got wife jokes, Greta jokes, makes fun of Americans and, Brits, and his family while delving deeply into the question of the future of civilization and offering his thoughts about the problem and the solution.

Just under thirteen minutes and IMO worth every second.

 

 

The post Audacity and the Future of Western Civilization appeared first on Granite Grok.

“We are rapidly entering the age of no privacy, where everyone is open to surveillance at all times; where there are no secrets from government.” — William O. Douglas, dissenting in Osborn v. United States (1966)

The government wants us to believe that we have nothing to fear from its mass spying programs as long as we’ve done nothing wrong.

Don’t believe it.

It doesn’t matter whether you obey every law. The government’s definition of a “bad” guy is extraordinarily broad, and it results in the warrantless surveillance of innocent, law-abiding Americans on a staggering scale.

For instance, it was recently revealed that the White House, relying on a set of privacy loopholes, has been sidestepping the Fourth Amendment by paying AT&T to allow federal, state, and local law enforcement to access—without a warrant—the phone records of Americans who are not suspected of a crime.

This goes way beyond the NSA’s metadata collection program.

Operated during the Obama, Trump and now the Biden presidencies, this secret dragnet surveillance program (formerly known as Hemisphere and now dubbed Data Analytical Services) uses its association with the White House to sidestep a vast array of privacy and transparency laws.

According to Senator Ron Wyden, Hemisphere has been operating without any oversight for more than a decade under the guise of cracking down on drug traffickers.

This is how the government routinely breaks the law and gets away with it: in the so-called name of national security.

More than a trillion domestic phone records are mined through this mass surveillance program every year, warrantlessly targeting not only those suspected of criminal activity but anyone with whom they might have contact, including spouses, children, parents, and friends.

It’s not just law enforcement agencies investigating drug crimes who are using Hemisphere to sidestep the Fourth Amendment, either. Those who have received training on the program reportedly include postal workers, prison officials, highway patrol officers, border cops, and the National Guard.

It’s a program ripe for abuse, and you can bet it’s getting abused.

Surveillance, digital stalking and the data mining of the American people—weapons of compliance and control in the government’s hands—haven’t made America any safer, and they certainly aren’t helping to preserve our freedoms.

Indeed, America will never be safe as long as the U.S. government is allowed to shred the Constitution.

The Fourth Amendment was intended to serve as a protective forcefield around our persons, our property, our activities, our communications and our movements. It keeps the government out of our private business except in certain, extenuating circumstances.

Those extenuating circumstances are spelled out clearly: government officials must have probable cause that criminal activity is afoot (a higher legal standard than “reasonable suspicion”), which is required by the Constitution before any government official can search an individual or his property.

Unfortunately, all three branches of government—the legislatures, courts and executive offices—have given the police state all kinds of leeway when it comes to sidestepping the Fourth Amendment.

As a result, on a daily basis, Americans are already being made to relinquish the most intimate details of who we are—our biological makeup, our genetic blueprints, and our biometrics (facial characteristics and structure, fingerprints, iris scans, etc.)—in order to clear the nearly insurmountable hurdle that increasingly defines life in the United States: we are now guilty until proven innocent.

Warrantless, dragnet surveillance is the manifestation of a lawless government that has gone rogue in its determination to do whatever it wants, whenever it wants, the Constitution be damned.

Dragnet surveillance. Geofencing. Fusion centers. Smart devices. Behavioral threat assessments. Terror watch lists. Facial recognition. Snitch tip lines. Biometric scanners. Pre-crime. DNA databases. Data mining. Precognitive technology. Contact tracing apps.

What these add up to is a world in which, on any given day, the average person is now monitored, surveilled, spied on and tracked in more than 20 different ways by both government and corporate eyes and ears.

This creepy new era of government/corporate spying—in which we’re being listened to, watched, tracked, followed, mapped, bought, sold and targeted every second of every day—has been made possible by a global army of techno-tyrants, electronic eavesdroppers, robotic snoops and digital Peeping Toms.

The government has a veritable arsenal of surveillance tools to track our movements, monitor our spending, and sniff out all the ways in which our thoughts, actions and social circles might land us on the government’s naughty list, whether or not you’ve done anything wrong.

Rounding out the list of ways in which the Techno-Corporate State and the U.S. government are colluding to nullify the privacy rights of the individual is the Biden Administration’s latest drive to harness the power of artificial intelligence technologies while claiming to protect the citizenry from harm.

In his executive order on artificial intelligence, President Biden is calling for guidelines on how the government will use AI while simultaneously insisting that corporations protect consumer privacy.

Talk about ironic that the very government that has been covertly invading our privacy rights wants to appoint itself the guardian of those rights.

Tell me this: how do you trust a government that continuously sidesteps the Constitution and undermines our rights? You can’t.

A government that repeatedly lies, cheats, steals, spies, kills, maims, enslaves, breaks the laws, overreaches its authority, and abuses its power at almost every turn can’t be trusted.

At a minimum, you shouldn’t trust the government with your privacy, property or freedoms.

Whatever else it may be—a danger, a menace, a threat—the U.S. government is certainly not looking out for our best interests.

Remember the purpose of a good government is to protect the lives and liberties of its people.

Unfortunately, what we have been saddled with is, in almost every regard, the exact opposite of an institution dedicated to protecting the lives and liberties of its people.

Indeed, the government has a history of shamelessly exploiting national emergencies for its own nefarious purposes.

Terrorist attacks, mass shootings, civil unrest, economic instability, pandemics, natural disasters: the government has been taking advantage of such crises for years now in order to gain greater power over an unsuspecting and largely gullible populace.

That’s exactly where we find ourselves now: caught in the crosshairs of a showdown between the rights of the individual and the so-called “emergency” state.

All of those freedoms we cherish—the ones enshrined in the Constitution, the ones that affirm our right to free speech and assembly, due process, privacy, bodily integrity, the right to not have police seize our property without a warrant, or search and detain us without probable cause—amount to nothing when the government and its agents are allowed to disregard those prohibitions on government overreach at will.

This is the grim reality of life in the American police state: our so-called rights have been reduced to technicalities in the face of the government’s ongoing power grabs.

While surveillance may span a broad spectrum of methods and scenarios, the common denominator remains the same: a complete disregard for the rights of the citizenry.

With every court ruling that allows the government to operate above the rule of law, every piece of legislation that limits our freedoms, and every act of government wrongdoing that goes unpunished, we’re slowly being conditioned to a society in which the Constitution means nothing.

Any attempt by the government to encroach upon the citizenry’s privacy rights or establish a system by which the populace can be targeted, tracked, monitored and singled out must be met with extreme caution.

Dragnet surveillance in an age of pre-crime policing and overcriminalization is basically a fishing expedition carried out without a warrant, a blatant attempt to circumvent the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement and prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizures.

What we need is a digital “No Trespassing” sign that protects our privacy rights and affirms our right to be left alone.

Then again, as I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, what we really need is a government that respects the rights of the citizenry and obeys the law.

 

| The Rutherford Institute

The post The White House Goes Rogue: Secret Surveillance Program Breaks All the Laws appeared first on Granite Grok.