CERDAFIED - A proposed plan by the Obama administration will give all US spy agencies full access to a massive financial database that contains information on American citizens as well as non-Americans who bank in the US According to a Treasury Department document seen by Reuters, US intelligence agencies shall use a combination of financial databanks, criminal records and military intelligence to track suspected crime syndicates and terrorists networks.
Privacy advocates are of the opinion that this access will be abused. The government simply cloaks every grab at our civil liberties and privacy rights with the all encompassing fear of terrorism.
Meanwhile they infringe on your privacy, make a mockery of “freedom” and dream up new ways to have full access to your personal records and make you pay for it, figuratively and literally.
What a wonderful hamster wheel of an argument they have provided American citizens and the world at large.
The government claims a need for more privacy while claiming you need less!
● While the U.S. tortured and abused detainees at both Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay,
● While the U.S. keeps a secret kill list with its equally secret legal justification for murder.
● While the U.S. use drones to spy on and kill citizens in several countries.
● While the US has indefinite detention, without charges, trial, jury or defense.
● While the US allows the Federal Reserve to give away trillions without oversight. It has unchecked power to create endless amounts of money out of thin air.
After the terrorist attack on September 11, 2001, President Bush declared, “Freedom has been attacked, but freedom will be defended.” Who attacked our freedom? Certainly not the terrorist. The government has certainly been legislating away your freedoms and turning a blind eye to attacks on the constitution. Who has been defending our freedom? Certainly not our government! Certainly not corporate America! Certainly not main stream media! It’s the ordinary citizens who are the watch dogs for our American freedoms.
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Deception-What happens when the government has the power to access your private accounts while their private accounts are safe in offshore banks? Perhaps we should look to Cyprus as their banking financial melt down looks to resolve their problems by taking a direct appropriation of their citizen’s savings to cure its failed financial system. Who knows what the final outcome will be for Cyprus, but citizens are eager to remove their money from the reach of the banks.
Can it happen in America? The Department of Justice has told the Supreme Court that it is perfectly legal for the government to take property away from a citizen who has done absolutely nothing wrong. (See Brief for the United States, Bennis v. Michigan, 516 U.S. 442 (1996)
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Whose big money secrets impact you the most, a terrorist, organized crime, the Federal Reserve, or your government?
Let’s look at the Bush administration and its invasion of Iraq in 2003. The Bush administration estimated the cost of the Iraq war at $50-60 billion to overthrow Saddam Hussein. The harsh reality is that it cost $823.2 billion between 2003 and 2011. \Recovery will push that number closer to $3.7 trillion. Where was the uproar?
The duped Americans had no idea of the actual cost, because the US government funded 70% of the cost of two wars with supplemental or emergency appropriations. These appropriations were approved outside the Pentagon's annual budget between the years 2003-2008.
Safe from budget cuts, this war was substantially funded “off the books”. This allowed other pentagon pet projects to get the “go ahead” while the Bush administration did not face the heat for the cost of the war and borrowing money from China for it.
Subsequently, the fraud, waste and abuse of our American dollars spent in this war were overlooked. Iraqi officials can not account for a single completed reconstruction project yet the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction estimates that the U.S. lost $8 billion devoted to rebuilding Iraq.
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Lost Privacy-As the Obama administration seeks to rob you of your privacy in the name of protecting you from terrorism, you should be asking yourself, who has the most to hide? Who should be transparent? How has your freedom been defended by the Bush and Obama administrations?
Terrorism will not go away as long as we victimize people around the world by our global policies. The President and Congress simply cannot prevent terrorist attacks when they are creating widespread anxiety, loss, abuse and destruction that will be felt for generations to come. We can not ignore basic human rights in the name of preventing terrorism.
Domestically the price we are being asked to pay is too high as well. A free society that treats all mankind with dignity and respect has no one to fear and no one to subjugate. That is the America we demand for our future.
(Lisa Cerda is a contributor to CityWatch, a community activist, Chair of Tarzana Residents Against Poorly Planned Development, VP of Community Rights Foundation of LA, Tarzana Property Owners Association board member, and former Tarzana Neighborhood Council board member.)
–cw
CityWatch
Vol 11 Issue 25
Pub: Mar 26, 2013
