May the United States rule foreign territories without granting their inhabitants constitutional rights? Yes, according to landmark Supreme Court decisions in the “Insular Cases” more than a century ago. Without those decisions, our overseas territorial empire could not have existed.
The Supreme Court may take territories off the map of the US
Tag: Freedom
America, Meet Your New Dictator-in-Chief: The President’s Secret, Unchecked Powers
by John W. Whitehead & Nisha Whitehead | June 01, 2022
America, meet your new dictator-in-chief.
As the New York Times reports, “Newly disclosed documents have shed a crack of light on secret executive branch plans for apocalyptic scenarios—like the aftermath of a nuclear attack—when the president may activate wartime powers for national security emergencies.”< The problem, of course, is that we have become a nation in a permanent state of emergency. Power-hungry and lawless, the government has weaponized one national crisis after another in order to expand its powers and justify all manner of government tyranny in the so-called name of national security. The seeds of this present madness were sown almost two decades ago when George W. Bush stealthily issued two presidential directives that granted the president the power to unilaterally declare a national emergency, which is loosely defined as “any incident, regardless of location, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the U.S. population, infrastructure, environment, economy, or government functions.”
America, Meet Your New Dictator-in-Chief: The President’s Secret, Unchecked Powers
Missing Links/Links Behind Paywalls:
Secret Emergency Orders May Include Focus on Internet, New Files Show
Report: Military may have to quell domestic violence from economic collapse
Known Unknowns: Unconventional “Strategic Shocks” in Defense Strategy Development (PDF)
End the Imperial Presidency Before It’s Too Late
Too Much Presidential Power — We’ve Got to Address the ‘Unitary Executive’ Question
U.S. empire seeks to use Ukraine to destabilize Eurasia, in the model of how it destroyed Yugoslavia
The U.S. empire has a playbook for balkanizing countries. It inflames ethnic tensions by fabricating atrocity stories, and spreading them around in the areas where it wants conflict to arise. To do this, it singles out an ethnic group (represented by a vilified government) and paints it as a perpetrator of genocide. It backs terrorist groups to fight against the demonized government, or installs leaders that will fulfill Washington’s goals for proxy warfare, or both. It provokes the targeted country into responding, then imposes sanctions on the country. It uses “humanitarian” narratives to give the region’s breakup the illusion of having occurred organically, and of having been done in response to human rights abuses or war crimes supposedly committed by the target.
U.S. empire seeks to use Ukraine to destabilize Eurasia, in the model of how it destroyed Yugoslavia (archived)
No Way Out but War
Permanent war has cannibalized the country. It has created a social, political, and economic morass. Each new military debacle is another nail in the coffin of Pax Americana.
No Way Out but War
H/T: Unorthodox Truth
Netflix Updates Corporate Culture Memo, Adding Anti-Censorship Section and a Vow to ‘Spend Our Members’ Money Wisely’
Netflix loves to tout its culture of avoiding rules and minimizing corporate red tape. But of course, the company does have operating guidelines, famously detailed in the Netflix Culture document posted on its website. Co-founder Reed Hastings even wrote a 2020 book elaborating on the principles, titled “No Rules Rules: Netflix and the Culture of Reinvention.”
Netflix Updates Corporate Culture Memo, Adding Anti-Censorship Section and a Vow to ‘Spend Our Members’ Money Wisely’
H/T: After subscribers quit, Netflix tells activist employees it’s time to support free speech
The Dungeon Master
Peter Thiel is full of contradictions—a libertarian who founded a company that aids government surveillance, a critic of tech who supports Facebook’s mission for world domination, and a defender of free speech who helped to kill a media outlet.
The Dungeon Master
Is the West at war with disinformation or dissent?
By Rachel Marsden | Samizdat | May 5, 2022
When US President Joe Biden announced on April 27 that a new Disinformation Governance Board would serve the Department of Homeland Security, it was just the latest turn of the screw on freedom. This time, it’s an affront to citizens’ right to a diversity of information.
Is the West at war with disinformation or dissent?
CDC Tracked Millions of Phones to See If Americans Followed COVID Lockdown Orders
CDC Tracked Millions of Phones to See If Americans Followed COVID Lockdown Orders
The documents reveal the expansive plan the CDC had last year to use location data from a highly controversial data broker. SafeGraph, the company the CDC paid $420,000 for access to one year of data, includes Peter Thiel and the former head of Saudi intelligence [Turki bin Faisal Al Saud] among its investors. Google banned the company from the Play Store in June.
The CDC used the data for monitoring curfews, with the documents saying that SafeGraph’s data “has been critical for ongoing response efforts, such as hourly monitoring of activity in curfew zones or detailed counts of visits to participating pharmacies for vaccine monitoring.” The documents date from 2021.
Zach Edwards, a cybersecurity researcher who closely follows the data marketplace, told Motherboard in an online chat after reviewing the documents: “The CDC seems to have purposefully created an open-ended list of use cases, which included monitoring curfews, neighbor-to-neighbor visits, visits to churches, schools and pharmacies, and also a variety of analysis with this data specifically focused on ‘violence.’” (The document doesn’t stop at churches; it mentions “places of worship.”)
Related:
Data Broker Is Selling Location Data of People Who Visit Abortion Clinics
Location data broker SafeGraph stops selling information on visits to abortion providers
SafeGraph Provides CDC and 1000+ Organizations With Data to Fight the COVID-19 Crisis
Google Bans Location Data Firm Funded by Former Saudi Intelligence Head:
On its website SafeGraph says “We believe places data should be open for all.” In April 2017, Turki bin Faisal Al Saud, the former head of Saudi Arabia’s intelligence agency, invested in SafeGraph as part of a $16 million Series A funding round. SafeGraph said it had “assembled the deepest policy thinkers.” Beyond Faisal Al Saud, SafeGraph said it had enlisted the help of former U.S. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, author Sam Harris, Meghan O’Sullivan who ran Iraq and Afghanistan policy under President George Bush, former Deputy Chief of Staff to President Obama Mona Sutphen, and former German Minister of Defense Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, among others. Peter Thiel is also an investor in the company.
More investors: SafeGraph Raises $16 Million Series A
I Cannot Live on Tomorrow’s Bread
On April 19, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) released its annual World Economic Outlook, which forecasted a severe slowdown in global growth along with soaring prices.‘For 2022, inflation is projected at 5.7 percent in advanced economies and 8.7 percent in emerging market and developing economies – 1.8 and 2.8 percentage points higher than projected in … January’, the report noted. IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva offered a sobering reflection on the data: ‘Inflation is reaching the highest levels seen in decades. Sharply higher prices for food and fertilizers put pressure on households worldwide – especially for the poorest. And we know that food crises can unleash social unrest’.
I Cannot Live on Tomorrow’s Bread
Related:
H/T: The New Dark Age
Ms. Cat’s Chronicles 
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