We have lived in a surveillance state for years in one way or another. It's just becoming more annoyingly present and intrusive, and I might add, almost entirely without value to anti-terror agencies. Perhaps one way to slow this down, at least on paper, would be to look carefully at the Congressional voting record on security votes on programs, publish a summary from say 2000 through present, and start to call people out on this.

Cell phones don't track people, cops do. Before cell phones, they were tapping land line phones, opening mail, and then they set up UKUSA then Echelon. They skirted US law, in monitoring the citizens in the US, by having their partner countries spy on us and then the partner countries, like the UK, would relay that data to the NSA. Technically, it wasn't "illegal" for another country to spy on us and then exchange that "spy" data with other countries. But it sure convinced some people, in the US, when our politicians said: "The US does not spy on it's own citizens..it's illegal...we have laws that prevent that".

Since 911, nearly any means of spying on US citizens is fair game. The people who wanted to spy on us, manipulated assets, destroyed evidence of decades of illegal financial activity, and now control us in every way, what we think, what we do, how we act, and what we believe has been given a relatively free reign since 911. Why do you think 911 happened? Follow the money and the results of 911...Qui Bene? Who benefits? Who benefited the most from 911...certainly not the people. The few who now have a stranglehold on America benefited greatly.

Sure, you can take your battery(ies) out of your cell phone but that will be, for most people, a very bothersome endeavor and would often forget about doing it. But you just can't trust the on-off switch to really totally turn off your phone. It could look totally dead but be rigged in such a manner as to really be broadcasting your location to the satellites or land based towers. I guess one indication would be less than expected battery drain. Of course, if one had a multimeter and a few jumper wires...they could monitor the battery current (not voltage or resistance) when the phone is off....they would have to put the multimeter in series with the batteries and the circuit...which is what the jumper wires are for...depending on the kind of battery terminals you have.

But, of course, they will still be able to track you and monitor what you say when your phone is on and you are talking to someone...or leaving messages on the internet.

Back in the 40s and 50s the Russians didn't even need a localized power source on the bug they put into the Pentagon and was activated remotely by a certain radio signal. Called the Great Seal Bug.

http://www.spybusters.com/Great_Seal_Bug.html

For many years now, spies can use a laser beam directed at a window and the conversation inside causes the window to act like a microphone and the laser beam is modulated by that window allowing the spies to hear what is said in the room..even from great distances...as long as there is a line-of-sight to the window. RFID chips, like the ones they put in debt cards and in various other products do not have an internal power source but reacts when an outside power source activates it and it has an antennae that picks up the external power which is then modulated by the RFID chip and re-radiated with the useful information. So, really you don't even need batteries in your cell phone..if your phone or even your debt cards have RFID chips then they can locate you.

I believe that the new power company digital meters that broadcasts the digital information about the amount of energy you used can also be used to broadcast anything that you do electrically, including what you do on your computer (even if you're have disconnected) from your router. If you can use your internal house wiring to act as a network then what you do electrically can be transmitted over the digital power meters.

And then there will soon be, if not already, drones flying the skies over our houses, picking up SigInt info on what we do in our houses. They have the ability to see through walls and quite probably roofs. I know this all sounds paranoid but I have read, over the years, about all of these things...and not from what some would question as unreliable sources.

http://money.cnn.com/2012/04/19/technology/xandem/index.htm

http://gigaom.com/mobile/technology-breakthrough-may-let-phones-see-thro...

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/08/120806130848.htm

http://www.networkworld.com/community/blog/stealthy-wifi-spy-sees-you-th...

Romeny would have been better off with Palin. All Ryan brings to the tickets is firing up Obama's base to stop the 3R's - Romney, Ryan, and Rand to keep them from ruining, ransacking, and ravaging the middle class

Public Health Care. I believe that the primary debate on this subject should be about Public Health Care. Since the Virginia Tech shootings, I have wondered if any of these shooters -- who are almost always described as unstable -- had had access to good mental health services, would they have not have committed the murders? It is cruel to the mentally ill, as well as to their victims, that they are not able to easily obtain good mental health care. Oh, yeah, right, ANY health care is about the right of the providers to make as much money as possible; it's not about helping the citizens of this country.

How about creating a humane system for dealing with the criminally mentally ill? An alternative to our current prison system, which "cures" no inmate?

As to the "gun debate," how does a culture which is saturated by the "entertainment" industry's gory, bloody, violent, shallow, & volatile stock of movies, TV and computer games, and which is (apparently) so easily influenced by these media, say "Enough!"? Oh, yeah, right... it's a Free Speech issue AND the entertainment industry should be left alone and allowed to make as much money as possible.

Many young people have been effectively groomed to believe in American Exceptionalism and that violence is the ONLY course to resolving conflict. Could that grooming have been engineered by the Military Industrial Complex for its own profitable ends? Oh, yeah, right... who are we taxpayers to dare debate which wars and violence and abberant behavior our tax dollars are used for? Is it always all about making as much money as possible?

in a historical debate with a tea partier after posting this story on FB. His reply...

Context is an integral to understanding. For example, Thomas Hartman is an ultra-liberal talk radio host and writer who has penned a number of books arguing alternate views of various historical events. So, clearly historical accuracy is ...not his primary agenda.

Another example might be viewing the Boston Tea Party as an isolated incident or as some turning point where Americans finally pushed backs against corporate greed, rather than looking at it in the larger context of events prior to and afterward.

The Boston Tea Party was undertaken by a group called the Sons of Liberty who formed in opposition to British taxation without representation, initially in the form of the 1765 Stamp Act; Then against the Townshend Acts; This group's actual motto was, "no taxation without representation.". The Tea Act came in 1773 (which both removed duties from East India co. Tea and imposed a small tax on colonists) and after the Boston Tea Party, Britain responded with the Coercive Acts/ Intolerable Acts which effectively eroded colonial self-rule and imposed what was essentially British martial law.

While the Boston Tea Party, while very much lashing out at a multinational monopoly, it was also one more example in a long list of British infractions against colonial liberty. The East India Co. Was suffering some fiscal problems and facing probable bankruptcy at the time. The Tea Act was a government bailout of the corporation much more akin to the TARP bailout or the "Cash for Clunkers" bailout. All ate equally deplorable actions in which the government legislates to directly enrich large corporations.

Hartman's essay isolates the incident from its historical context only to further his political agenda.

(p.s. Lexington and concord had nothing to do with the East India Co. And everything to do with escalation of militia activity in response to the large increase of British forces placed in and around the Boston Area to enforce the intolerable acts.)

I agree with you, Todd regarding greed and corporate corruption. I'd like to add to the list partisan ism and governmental corruption.

I just chimed in to clarify a slanted history lesson. Then again, maybe ignorance is bliss I dont think he read the entire story from Thom. I dont have time right now to retort; anyon ecare to have fun with this?

Guns are dangerous, so are ideas, kinda depends on one's point of view. Gun control laws much more restrictive than USA's don't prevent massacres (Norway, Australia, et al). Guns do protect the weak against victimization by the strong and/or numerous. Rwanda genocide was carried out with machetes, a kind of assault that firearms in the hands of the victims could have prevented, or at least reduced
.

Instead of railing on and on about restricting access to a very dangerous, very useful tool, let's redirect the discussion to mental health care, and how to make it available to everybody.

"The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed". Let's start infringing on the right of The People to be oppressed by employers, underserved by health care providers (including mental health care providers), and the right of the people to be miserable as they try to build the best lives for themselves that they can in a society that only values monetary wealth and the power that wealth can buy.

Suicide by police!

Funny how there were Dems praisong Ryan before he got named the next VP.

Check out the following link to see 8 Dems that have praised Ryan in the past:

http://freebeacon.com/eight-dems-who-have-praised-paul-rya/

Deaths and Mortality

(Data are for the U.S. and are final 2009 data; For the most recent preliminary data see Deaths: Preliminary Data for 2010 [PDF - 724 KB])

Number of deaths: 2,437,163
Death rate: 793.8 deaths per 100,000 population
Life expectancy: 78.5 years
Infant Mortality rate: 6.39 deaths per 1,000 live births

Number of deaths for leading causes of death:

Heart disease: 599,413
Cancer: 567,628
Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 137,353
Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases): 128,842
Accidents (unintentional injuries): 118,021
Alzheimer's disease: 79,003
Diabetes: 68,705
Influenza and Pneumonia: 53,692
Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, and nephrosis: 48,935
Intentional self-harm (suicide): 36,909

http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/deaths.htm/

Number of traffic deaths in 2009: 33,808 in 2010: 32885

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_in_U.S._by_year

The actual statistics depends upon what you consider what age is still considered "Child". Gun control supporters try to use the age of 24 as the upper age of a child in order to make the numbers seem more. Let's see, at what age does the military accept the children to go and play with guns and train them to kill? A much younger age..for sure. They don't consider them children then do they? How many people, when they hear the numbers, think little 10 year old Bobby or 12 year old Jimmy...innocent little school kids who are not into selling drugs?

"In 2007 there were 1520 gun deaths in the 0 through 17 age group (out of 74,340,127 children) and 3067 gun deaths in the 0 through 19 age group. By subtraction we find that there were a whopping 1547 gun deaths in just the 18 through 19 age group. In other words, in 2007 most "child gun death victims" were actually adults. Historically the 18 through 24 age group is the highest crime-committing group. At age 18 part-time drug dealers leave school and become full-time drug dealers. Despite the propaganda from the gun control lobby, criminals in general and drug dealers in particular are the group of so-called children most likely to be shot by their fellow criminals. You can verify this by reading the local gun death news stories in any city newspaper. School shootings are so rare that every one gets national television coverage, but drug dealers are shot so often that they are barely mentioned in their local newspaper."

http://www.tincher.to/deaths.htm

And yes, of course, you are right if you say that even 1 "child" (no matter what age) is too many. But I wonder how many of those people so concerned about gun deaths even care that hundreds of thousands of children died by American firepower in the Middle East...or that 500,000 children died in Iraq due to the sanctions the US put on Iraq. Was it really "worth it"? Odd how the American mind believes these 18 year old "children" are "children" when it comes to gun related "child" deaths yet they are considered adults when they go off to kill other children in other countries. Then these "children" who killed other "children" become "heroes".

"You see a conspiracy behind every corner! Who the hell said they want too take away your guns."

Well, for one thing the world IS full of conspiracies and that word, contrary to what some would have us believe, does not automatically discredit it's reality or truthfulness. Yes, there are some "conspiracies" that I believe are worthy of denigration and ridicule...like the "official 911 government conspiracy"...that is so full of holes and lies that it would take some pretty ignorant and/or "lacking of facts" people to believe in.

As for my "guns"...I do not love my guns nor do I even fondle them. I have no gun fetish. And they are not high tech weapons...and I don't collect them. But some people do. And they should have the ability to do so. If I feel a little bit safer because I own a gun then..that is enough for me to be a gun advocate...not a member of NRA by any means.....although mostly...I hardly ever even think of them.

I don't hunt and I no longer go to the firing range.. ammo is too expensive and I really hate the loud sounds, even with ear protection, and the smell of burned powder. But it sure makes a heck of a lot of sense to have some means of protection should someone break in to my house.

There is just no way the police can protect you in time to save your life or that of your loved ones. They usually pick up the pieces later after your dead. It is certainly not a sure thing protection for sure but just the fact that so many people do own guns, I believe, has a tendency to scare off potential attackers..if it was well known that most citizens had their guns taken away then there would be little risk for an attacker...and more attacks would occur.

" Maybe if we were not pushed into these situations by a society that has almost broken down due to our corrupt politicians on both the left and the right, this type of event would not be so common in our nation."

I'd certainly agree with you there. But maybe that is the problem with too many people who believe themselves to be liberal or progressive...they try too hard to appear cool, calm, and collected. While the damn conservatives are ranting and raving on Fox Snooze and everywhere else and threatening to start an armed insurrection if Obama is re-elected...there are an awful lot of people who go for all this.

Democrats need to stop being such tight-A$$eS and being so politically correct and meet these clowns head on with their own threatening gestures...ie: go down to their level. After all it worked to scare the crap out of the Soviet Union..we did all we could to out-crazy, and out-spend the Soviet Union and just how heartless and cruel we could be.

If the majority of Americans did not watch Fox Snooze and were not so enamored by all of that kind of nonsense and their obvious willingness to be the ruling elite's useful idiots then it might make sense to be level headed. But nobody that is smart enough to see how the system has been rigged will vote for Tweedle dee or Tweedle dum anyway...and I think we are in the minority. But the ruling elite knows that they appeal to this kind of emotional histrionics. After all, if you expect people to vote for you, you have to appeal to their baser, reactionary, lizard-brain.

Assault weapons must be banned!! Ammo that we call "cop killers" must be banned!! Handguns must require safety classes and permits along with rifles. Some equipment should be controlled. The Stand your Ground law must require full investigation, if used in self-defense. We are sick and tired of reading about children dying from gunshots. We are sick and tired of risking our lives just to walk to our car in the morning to go to work. Just back from WY and SD and they are totally against ANY control and believe the lies that Obama wants to destroy the 2nd amendment. He hasn't done Anything but allow us to travel between states with our guns. Are people crazy? They cannot see what life in Detroit, Chicago, Cleveland is like? They can shoot on their property and play "annie oakley" all they want; but our children are dying in the cities. What's wrong with people??