Inovio: Where is the beef?

Inovio has a stage II study from which the results are expected to be reported by the end of July.

The current study (ending) has 2 features:
1. The use of electroporation (getting DNA across the cell membrane).
2. The DNA itself. These are circular pieces of DNA that contain the sequence for the E6 and E7 antigens. Preparation is called VGX-3100. The narrowing of the antigens presumably increases the potency of the immune response.

The end point: does the treatment reduce the precancerous lesions? The spontaneous remission rate is estimated from other studies as 25%. The experiment is designed (hoped to?) cause a 53% remission.

The new study. This also has two features.
1. The use of VGX-3100 with electroporation.
2. The use of Interlukin-12 (INO-9012), an immunological activator that increases CD4 and CD8 T cell response.

The end point measures the suppression of cancer.

Comments. An article predicted that the old study failed and that management decided on the reverse stock split to prevent the stock from being delisted when the failure becomes known. This is an entirely logical supposition. The Company responded by refuting this supposition in a press release. In the meantime, a new study was started that I referred to as "The new study."

THE BIQ QUESTION: Would the Company start the new study if they knew the old (current) study failed? My answer is: YES. In the old study, the spontaneous remission is pretty high, so it is difficult to discern a positive response due to treatment. The new study will use subjects with cancer where spontaneous remission is very low and uses the immunological activator IL-12. Then this last Friday, there were 7 million shares traded (out of a total of 30 Million) so somebody either know something or think they know something. As an investor myself, I hope that the old study was successful and that knowledge of that is leaking out.

On the faked climate data.

Monday, June 23, 2014 An editorial in the W Times

Bottom of Form

A fractured Supreme Court on Monday largely upheld the Environmental Protection Agency’s radical rule designed to shut down the power plants that produce the most affordable electricity. The justices continue to accept the EPA’s labeling of carbon dioxide as a “pollutant.” This harmless gas, the agency insists, is melting the planet.

Only the brave deny man’s responsibility for super-heating the globe in precincts where the wise and wonderful (just ask them) gather to reassure each other than they know best. “We know the trends,” President Obama told the graduates at the University of California at Irvine the other day. “The 18 warmest years on record have all happened since you graduates were born.”

The charts and graphs devised by NASA and the government’s other science agencies back up the president’s words. And well they should, because the charts, like the “science,” were faked.

The “Steven Goddard Real Science” blog compares the raw U.S. temperature records from the Energy Department’s United States Historical Climatology Network to the “final” processed figures, to demonstrate how the historical data have been “corrected,” using computer modeling.

The modifications made to the past temperature record had the effect of cooling the 20th century, which makes temperatures over the last 14 years appear much warmer by comparison. Such changes don’t square with history, which shows the decade of the 1930s the hottest on record. The Dust Bowl storms were so severe they sent clouds of debris from Texas and Oklahoma to the East Coast, even darkening the skies over the U.S. Capitol one day in 1934.

In an inconvenient article from 1999, written before the data had been “corrected,” James Hansen, then a NASA scientist, acknowledged that the climate had held steady after the Dust Bowl storms. “In the U.S.,” wrote Mr. Hansen, “there has been little temperature change in the past 50 years, the time of rapidly increasing greenhouse gases — in fact, there was a slight cooling throughout much of the country.” Mr. Hansen, recognized as a godfather of the global warming doomcriers, then predicted that the first decade of the 21st century would be even hotter than the 1930s.

To produce this hotter result, the scientists “adjusted” the temperature records to make it appear so. NASA redrew the temperature chart Mr. Hansen used in 1999, and the new chart shows a dramatically cooled 1930s. The 1990s that Mr. Hansen once said were not so hot became warmer than the 1930s.

With the global warming scam unraveling before his very eyes, President Obama and his administration want action now. “The question is not whether we need to act,” says Mr. Obama. “The overwhelming judgment of science, accumulated and measured and reviewed over decades, has put that question to rest. The question is whether we have the will to act before it’s too late.”

Too late for what? The planetary thermometer hasn’t budged in 15 years. Wildfires, tornadoes, hurricanes and other “extreme” weather events are at normal or below-normal levels. Pacific islands aren’t submerged. There’s so much ice the polar bears are celebrating.

Opinion polls show the public figured out that global warming was all hype years ago, but the judges still haven’t heard the news. The usually unflappable Justice Antonin Scalia wrote the Monday opinion, joined by the four liberal justices and assorted conservatives who agreed only in part, and disagreed in other parts of the opinion. The high court justices missed an opportunity to reverse the EPA premise that all humans are “polluters” because they exhale. It’s not supposed to be easy to dupe a judge, but the global warming scientists have done it.

AJ adds: Barak Hussein is on his way to transfer the US into a version of Central America. Not content to have electricity costs skyrocket, he wants to flood Texas and Arizona with future Democrats. Nancy Pelosi says we have to do it, because we are all Americans. Not tru. Nancy Pelosi is an idiot, because she says idiotic things. "We have to pass the bill to know what's in it" was just one such thing.

 

War on Wall Street

WAR ON WALL STREET: Obama Appoints Anti-Business Activist Head of DOJ Division

Banks should brace for assault as Arthur Andersen annihilator now controls world’s largest criminal conviction machine

By Sidney Powell | 06/25/14 11:50am

President Obama’s choice to head the DOJ’s criminal division, Leslie Caldwell, was confirmed last month. (Getty Images)

Meet Leslie Caldwell. President Obama has installed Ms. Caldwell, known as a “terror of a prosecutor,” as head of the Criminal Division of the Department of Justice. It has been over a decade since Ms. Caldwell destroyed Arthur Anderson, and with it, 85,000 jobs—only to be reversed by the Supreme Court nine to nothing (well after she went into private practice). Now the president has brought her back—with a big promotion—and the vengeance of DOJ already aimed at Credit Suisse, BNP Paribas and others.

Ms. Caldwell and her then right hand man, Andrew Weissmann, viewed businessmen and bankers as “wise guys on Wall Street,” deserving of brutal prosecutorial tactics. Their prosecutions proceeded on the theory that the “end justifies the means.” Winning was the sole goal. They forgot that the job of a federal prosecutor is to seek justice—not convictions.

Arthur Andersen LLP was Ms. Caldwell’s first target in the wake of the collapse of Enron amid allegations of financial and accounting irregularities and secret-off balance sheet deals and partnerships. Andersen accountants were actually embedded at Enron, and the energy company paid the consulting firm millions in fees every year. Enron changed to mark-to-market accounting, lawful at the time, and was pushing the envelope.

Ms. Caldwell’s task force terrorized Arthur Andersen partner David Duncan with life in prison. Ms. Caldwell would walk into the room, take command and bark at a potential witness: “You’re going to tell us this, this and this (specifying the statements she wanted) or you’re going to be indicted.”

Ms. Caldwell and Mr. Weissmann persuaded Duncan it didn’t matter that he believed his conduct was lawful; it didn’t matter that he was following the policies of corporate counsel, that the accounting rules could be interpreted different ways, or, that Andersen had retained hundreds of thousands of documents—including anything it was supposed to keep. Ms. Caldwell and Mr. Weissmann virtually bludgeoned him into a guilty plea that required his testimony against his firm. Mr. Duncan acquiesced, but all the while maintained that he believed his conduct was lawful.

Ms. Caldwell knew the carnage she would cause. Andersen represented 2,300 publicly traded companies and employed 85,000 people worldwide. So Ms. Caldwell and Mr. Weissmann obtained the indictment, then sealed it for a week while the government worked behind the scenes with the SEC and Andersen’s clients to avoid “upheaval” in the markets from the announcement of the indictment. After all, no publicly traded company could continue doing business with an accounting firm under a criminal indictment.

Andrew Weissmann and Leslie Caldwell are all smiles in June 2002, during the Arthur Andersen criminal trial. The conviction was overturned by the Supreme Court 9-0. (JAMES NIELSEN/AFP/Getty Images)

Ms. Caldwell and Mr. Weissmann’s unprecedented prosecution proceeded on an indictment they had cobbled together from statutes that didn’t apply to Andersen’s conduct—with no “fair warning” to Andersen that its conduct was criminal. They destroyed an entire company when only a few people had any role in the decision-making underlying the problems that could have and should have been dealt with as a civil matter—not criminal. But they made their point: deal with DOJ or die.

Ultimately, the Supreme Court reversed Ms. Caldwell’s well-publicized claim to fame. On behalf of a unanimous court, Chief Justice Rehnquist wrote that it was “shocking how little culpability the jury instructions required.”

Indeed, the charges were so convoluted that the district court was compelled to allow Andersen partner David Duncan to withdraw the plea of guilty Ms. Caldwell had bludgeoned out of him.

The destruction of Andersen was one big task force power-play—to terrorize any individual or any business in their path and force submission from all their targets.

Now, Leslie Caldwell is back—and at it again, as the Department turns its sights to foreign-based banks for the Andersen treatment. And it’s already seeing results.

Within days of Ms. Caldwell’s installation as Assistant Attorney General, Credit Suisse capitulated. The Swiss bank pleaded guilty to a criminal charge and will pay a $2.6 billion fine.

Now BNP Paribas is feeling her wrath. The French bank will not only be forced to pay a fine of $8 billion to $9 billion, but Ms. Caldwell is going to institute a temporary ban on BNP’s ability to conduct transactions in U.S. dollars.

This is likely to have far-reaching consequences for American companies doing business in Europe. They may be targeted by foreign governments in real or perceived retaliation, and their ability to do business with BNP will be impaired.

According to French President Francois Hollande, such demands are “unfair” and “disproportionate” and threaten not only BNP but also the “economic stability of the euro zone.”

The New York Times reported recently that the chief of the Central Service for Corruption Prevention in France warned that “American credibility is at risk.” “Excessive use of [its] power” or exaggeration “will be considered extortion by countries.”

With Ms. Caldwell now in control, it is not just foreign banks and corporations that should fear the Justice Department. Ms. Caldwell, said to be an “art lover” who’s a regular at the Met, has made no secret of her disdain for Wall Street, New York’s largest source of tax dollars. Who’s next?

Americans should brace themselves for an unprecedented assault on businesses, banks and political opponents of this administration—regardless of the law or the facts. Expect increasing use of the Department of Justice as an instrument of “terror” to extort large civil penalties or fines from businesses under the threat of criminal prosecution and the death penalty that Ms. Caldwell and her cronies dealt Arthur Andersen.

.

 

Oil and water

First the bad news. Due to the misguided policies of Barak Hussein, ISIS has captured Iraq's major refinery, after having grabbed 250M dollars of currency. It also threatens to demolish a dam on the Euphrates river, plunging Iraq's agriculture (what there is of it) into ruin. There is a suggestion in DC that Iraq may have to be re-occupied.

Now for the good news. Oil producers are predicting that they will be able to replace Iraqi oil even if ISIS takes over the rest of Iraq. But the real good news is the inventions that allow water to be used in dry areas. The first one of these are nets (polypropylene) that capture water from fog. These devices are now being put to use from India to the Atacama desert of Chile. The second is the so-called "solid rain," a chemical used by a Mexican chemical engineer, Sergio Jesus Valesco, to capture and hold water.

Solid rain is potassium polyacrylate. It can hold 500X its weight of water, Used in agriculture, it has been shown to increase crop yield in an arid area (Hidalgo province of Mexico) between 50-100%. Take note, Ron in Utah.

Don't cry for Argentina's Marxists.

Early in the 20th century, Argentina was the 5th richest nation on earth in terms of per capita GDP. Then several generations of Argentine politicians and the military with a “mixture of statism and inflationism managed to squander so much capital with such unwavering regularity that Argentina eventually became the basket case it remains to this day.” Despite spectacular resources and some of the most fertile farmland on earth, Argentina is currently ranked 60th in per capita GDP.

 

Under the Socialism of Argentina's Marxists, Argentina has become a deadbeat nation. Argentina is organized as follows: a small elite at the Universities, in the Media and in politics (based in the urban centers) gets elected by an urban population of dumbed down laborites. The freight of their bungling comes from the productive rural sector. But, that money is never enough, so Argentina is constantly in debt like its West European Socialist cousins. The Argentine govt prints money so its inflation rate is in excess of 25%. The Govt reports it as 10%.

 

As the “fiery red Marxist” of the ruling Peronist Party, Kicillof sought to wash away broad swaths of capitalism in Argentina. His biggest accomplishment was expropriating the 98% of YPF domestic oil company shares held by the Spanish energy giant Repsol in April of 2012.After a favorable arbitration in front of the International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes, Kicillof agreed that Argentina would pay Repsol just $5 billion for the YPF shares that were valued by “Repsol at $7.5 billion.” Kicillof then leveraged the settlement in a deal with the Paris Club, an informal group of government creditors, in May that would have allowed the Argentina to refinance its $100 billion debt and once again raise money selling more money by selling “junk rated” bonds. 

 

But on June 16th, the Supreme Court of the United States allowed NML Capital, a “vulture” fund that bought defaulted bonds for pennies on the dollar after a 2001 default, to start seizing any financial or physical assets in the U.S. owned by Argentina. In an added burden, the U.S. Supreme Court also ruled that creditors can seek information about  Argentina’s hidden non-U.S. assets through subpoenas against Bank of America and Banco de la Nacion Argentina.

 

The day after the U.S. Supreme Court ruling and a 10% crash in the Argentine stock market, Economics Minister Axel Kicillof dismissed the options of full payment or outright default as “unthinkable.”

According to the Economist Magazine, Kicillof’s attitude is not unusual. “The city of Buenos Aires is big and sophisticated and like New York or San Francisco, it has socialist tendencies: the urban intelligentsia provides the ideas; the urban proletariat provides the votes; and farm exports provide the money.”

 

With Argentina’s next interest payment on its exchanged bonds due on June 30th and not enough cash to satisfy a U.S. court order to pay, Argentina will have only a 30-day grace period before it enters into default and creditors can seize any of the nation’s assets they can find as collateral for repayment.

Despite spectacular resources and some of the most fertile farmland on earth, Argentina is currently ranked 60th in per capita GDP.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Why we must send them back!

On a plaque at the Statue of Liberty is chiseled Emma Lazarus's poem:

The New Colossus

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,

With conquering limbs astride from land to land;

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame

Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name

Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand

Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command

The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

"Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she

With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

 

She could have added one more line

And we will still beat you.

 

So, why are we clamoring for the government to send back home the wretched masses? Because they are not people yearning to be free. They are the fodder that the Democrats hope to use to extinguish freedom in this country so we can all become like the wretched masses, living as the chattels of the connected on the crumbs the elite is willing to let us have.

Ukraine's Peace Plan is a sham.

President Poroshenko of Ukraine came up with the following plan:

1. Ukraine's separatists in the East are to lay down their arms;
2.  Those with 'no blood' on their hands will be amnestied. Who decides? The government;
3. There will be a narrow corridor for people to escape into Russia;
4. Hopes of greater autonomy and aid for Eastern Ukraine;
5. A one weak cease fire.

Problems:
1. There is no cease fire as the Ukrainian govt aims to wipe out the separatists.
2. 'Fighting while negotiating' was a strategy invented by the Communists. The Russians still remember.
3. Obama wants an enemy to stand against. Russia fits the bill.

Dangers.
1. Russia will begin attacks on a weakening Dollar;
2. Pushing on Russia will precipitate an attack on the Ukraine. They can not fight off the Russians.

The JFK Currency.

JFK issued Executive Order 1111o to allow the Treasury to print currency backed by silver. The plan was to replace the Federal Reserve and stop it from controlling currency and our economy. Some believe that this was the reason Kennedy was assassinated. After JFK's death, the so-called JFK currency was withdrawn and the US Dollar was debased until it lost 85% of its value  Here is a copy of Executive order 11110:

"Executive Order 11110

AMENDMENT OF EXECUTIVE ORDER NO. 10289 AS AMENDED, RELATING TO THE PERFORMANCE OF CERTAIN FUNCTIONS AFFECTING THE DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY. By virtue of the authority vested in me by section 301 of title 3 of the United States Code, it is ordered as follows:

SECTION 1. Executive Order No. 10289 of September 19, 1951, as amended, is hereby further amended - (a) By adding at the end of paragraph 1 thereof the following subparagraph (j): "(j) The authority vested in the President by paragraph (b) of section 43 of the Act of May 12, 1933, as amended (31 U.S.C. 821 (b)), to issue silver certificates against any silver bullion, silver, or standard silver dollars in the Treasury not then held for redemption of any outstanding silver certificates, to prescribe the denominations of such silver certificates, and to coin standard silver dollars and subsidiary silver currency for their redemption," and (b) By revoking subparagraphs (b) and (c) of paragraph 2 thereof. SECTION 2. The amendment made by this Order shall not affect any act done, or any right accruing or accrued or any suit or proceeding had or commenced in any civil or criminal cause prior to the date of this Order but all such liabilities shall continue and may be enforced as if said amendments had not been made.

JOHN F. KENNEDY THE WHITE HOUSE, June 4, 1963 "


Once again, Executive Order 11110 is still valid. According to Title 3, United States Code, Section 301 dated January 26, 1998. As a result, 3 states now use the JFK currency as legal tender and several more are considering its use:

As Bloomberg reports, “ Distrust of the Federal Reserve and concern that U.S. dollars may become worthless are fueling a push in more than a dozen states to recognize [JFK’s Secret Currency]…”

Inflation is taking off.

Government statistics are rigged. But they can no longer deny that inflation is ramping up. Here is the latest report on the CPI and its details:

"
Just look at the details of this morning's Consumer Price Index report ...

 Food prices alone jumped 0.5 percent, the most in 34 months! Eggs are up by more than 10 percent ... bacon will cost you 15.3 percent more than last year ... and oranges and tangerines? They've jumped more than 17 percent in price. Hope you're not at risk of scurvy!

 Prescription drug costs have jumped 3.6 percent from a year ago, while the cost of a hotel room has risen more than 5 percent.

Airfares are up a staggering 5.8 percent from April, the biggest monthly jump since July 1999.

 Car insurance will cost you 4.8 percent more than it did in May 2013.

 And airfares? Fasten your seatbelt! They surged by a whopping 5.8 percent just from April, the biggest monthly rise since July 1999.

 The "core" CPI that excludes food and energy prices jumped 0.3 percent. Not only was that up from a 0.2 percent increase in April, it was the single biggest monthly increase going all the way back to August 2011!

Core inflation is now running as hot now as the Fed originally forecast it to be in 2016. Just like they've gotten everything from the housing bubble to the Internet boom wrong, it looks like they're whiffing badly on yet another forecast here.

The War on America: Krugman is right.

In his latest column for the New York Times, celebrated economist and pundit Paul Krugman pushes against the conventional wisdom and argues that President Obama is actually having a really good year.

“The truth is that these days much of the commentary you see on the Obama administration … emphasizes the negative,” Krugman writes. “But this is all wrong. You should judge leaders by their achievements, not their press, and in terms of policy substance Mr. Obama is having a seriously good year.”

 

Yes he is. He has perfected a method of destroying America, while escaping responsibility for the damage. Here are examples:

 

1. He used the IRS to suppress political activity against him. How does he evade responsibility? He pretends not to know about it. Then the people directly responsible refuse to testify, lose emails and come down with the Hillary syndrome (I do not specifically recall...etc.). After a while the Media refuses to cover "old news."

 

2. He advocated that US Armed Forces veterans provide their own insurance, since they volunteered for combat. The VA started refusing to provide medical care for the veterans and prepared phony reports on what they had done. Obama? He is shocked and will investigate (meaning he will wait until the hubbub dies down).

 

3. He refuses to enforce the laws on immigration or even defend the border. Anyone can enter the country from Mexico; criminals, terrorists, whoever. The invaders are transported across state lines in violation of specific laws.

 

4. He has bugged out of Iraq and as a result Al Qaeda has established an Islamic Caliphate in Iraq and Syria. Islamists promise to come to New York and carry the fight directly to us.

 

5. Iran is not only allowed to continue with developing an atom bomb, but is now openly sending arms and soldiers to South Iraq.

 

6. The federal tax take has reached 1.9T, but the economy flounders because of Obama policies.

7. He has released 5 of the most senior Taliban commanders in violation of the laws that required him to consult with Congress.

8. His EPA henchmen declared that power plants must decrease carbon emission by 30% over time. This will skyrocket electricity prices, as he promised before his first campaign.

 

I say he is having a good year.

DHS: the American police state

   

WHITEHEAD: Has the Dept. of Homeland Security become America’s standing army?

 

Posted: Monday, June 16, 2014 11:36 am

WHITEHEAD: Has the Dept. of Homeland Security become America’s standing army? By John W. Whitehead
The Rutherford Institute Houston Community Newspapers

“A standing military force, with an overgrown Executive will not long be safe companions to liberty.”—James Madison

“Here [in New Mexico], we are moving more toward a national police force. Homeland Security is involved with a lot of little things around town. Somebody in Washington needs to call a timeout.”—Dan Klein, retired Albuquerque Police Department sergeant

If the United States is a police state, then the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is its national police force, with all the brutality, ineptitude and corruption such a role implies. In fact, although the DHS’ governmental bureaucracy may at times appear to be inept and bungling, it is ruthlessly efficient when it comes to building what the Founders feared most—a standing army on American soil.

 

The third largest federal agency behind the Departments of Veterans Affairs and Defense, the DHS—with its 240,000 full-time workers, $61 billion budget and sub-agencies that include the Coast Guard, Customs and Border Protection, Secret Service, Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)—has been aptly dubbed a “runaway train.”

 

In the 12 years since it was established to “prevent terrorist attacks within the United States,” the DHS has grown from a post-9/11 knee-jerk reaction to a leviathan with tentacles in every aspect of American life. With good reason, a bipartisan bill to provide greater oversight and accountability into the DHS’ purchasing process has been making its way through Congress.

 

A better plan would be to abolish the DHS altogether. In making the case for shutting down the de facto national police agency, analyst Charles Kenny offers the following six reasons: one, the agency lacks leadership; two, terrorism is far less of a threat than it is made out to be; three, the FBI has actually stopped more alleged terrorist attacks than DHS; four, the agency wastes exorbitant amounts of money with little to show for it; five, “An overweight DHS gets a free pass to infringe civil liberties without a shred of economic justification”; and six, the agency is just plain bloated.

To Kenny’s list, I will add the following: The menace of a national police force, a.k.a. a standing army, vested with so much power cannot be overstated, nor can its danger be ignored. Indeed, as the following list shows, just about every nefarious deed, tactic or thuggish policy advanced by the government today can be traced back to the DHS, its police state mindset, and the billions of dollars it distributes to police agencies in the form of grants.

 

Militarizing police and SWAT teams. The DHS routinely hands out six-figure grants to enable local municipalities to purchase military-style vehicles, as well as a veritable war chest of weaponry, ranging from tactical vests, bomb-disarming robots, assault weapons and combat uniforms. This rise in military equipment purchases funded by the DHS has, according to analysts Andrew Becker and G.W. Schulz, “paralleled an apparent increase in local SWAT teams.” The end result? An explosive growth in the use of SWAT teams for otherwise routine police matters, an increased tendency on the part of police to shoot first and ask questions later, and an overall mindset within police forces that they are at war—and the citizenry are the enemy combatants.

 

Spying on activists, dissidents and veterans. In 2009, DHS released three infamous reports on Rightwing and Leftwing “Extremism,” and another entitled Operation Vigilant Eagle, outlining a surveillance program targeting veterans. The reports collectively and broadly define extremists as individuals and groups “that are mainly antigovernment, rejecting federal authority in favor of state or local authority, or rejecting government authority entirely.” In 2013, it was revealed that DHS, the FBI, state and local law enforcement agencies, and the private sector were working together to conduct nationwide surveillance on protesters’ First Amendment activities.

 

Stockpiling ammunition. DHS, along with other government agencies, has been stockpiling an alarming amount of ammunition in recent years, which only adds to the discomfort of those already leery of the government. As of 2013, DHS had 260 million rounds of ammo in stock, which averages out to between 1,300 to 1,600 rounds per officer. The US Army, in contrast, has roughly 350 rounds per soldier. DHS has since requisitioned more than 1.6 billion rounds of ammo, “enough,” concludes Forbes magazine, “to sustain a hot war for 20+ years.”

 

Distributing license plate readers. DHS has already distributed more than $50 million in grants to enable local police agencies to acquire license plate readers, which rely on mobile cameras to photograph and identify cars, match them against a national database, and track their movements. Relying on private contractors to maintain a license plate database allows the DHS and its affiliates to access millions of records without much in the way of oversight.

 

Contracting to build detention camps. In 2006, DHS awarded a $385 million contract to a Halliburton subsidiary to build detention centers on American soil. Although the government and Halliburton were not forthcoming about where or when these domestic detention centers would be built, they rationalized the need for them in case of “an emergency influx of immigrants, or to support the rapid development of new programs” in the event of other emergencies such as “natural disasters.” Viewed in conjunction with the NDAA provision allowing the military to arrest and indefinitely detain anyone, including American citizens, it would seem the building blocks are already in place for such an eventuality.

 

Tracking cell-phones with Stingray devices. Distributed to local police agencies as a result of grants from the DHS, these Stingray devices enable police to track individuals’ cell phones—and their owners—without a court warrant or court order. The amount of information conveyed by these devices about one’s activities, whereabouts and interactions is considerable. As one attorney explained: “Because we carry our cellphones with us virtually everywhere we go, stingrays can paint a precise picture of where we are and who we spend time with, including our location in a lover’s house, in a psychologist’s office or at a political protest.”

 

Carrying out military drills and lockdowns in American cities. Each year, DHS funds military-style training drills in cities across the country. These Urban Shield exercises, elaborately staged with their own set of professionally trained Crisis Actors playing the parts of shooters, bystanders and victims, fool law enforcement officials, students, teachers, bystanders and the media into thinking it’s a real crisis.

 

Using the TSA as an advance guard. The TSA now searches a variety of government and private databases, including things like car registrations and employment information, in order to track travelers’ before they ever get near an airport. Other information collected includes “tax identification number, past travel itineraries, property records, physical characteristics, and law enforcement or intelligence information.”

 

Conducting virtual strip searches with full-body scanners. Under the direction of the TSA, American travelers have been subjected to all manner of searches ranging from whole-body scanners and enhanced patdowns at airports to bag searches in train stations. In response to public outrage over what amounted to a virtual strip search, the TSA has begun replacing the scanners with equally costly yet less detailed models. The old scanners will be used by prisons for now.

 

Carrying out soft target checkpoints. VIPR task forces, comprised of federal air marshals, surface transportation security inspectors, transportation security officers, behavior detection officers and explosive detection canine teams have laid the groundwork for the government’s effort to secure so-called “soft” targets such as malls, stadiums, bridges, etc. Some security experts predict that checkpoints and screening stations will eventually be established at all soft targets, such as department stores, restaurants, and schools. DHS’ Operation Shield, a program which seeks to check up on security protocols around the country with unannounced visits, conducted a surprise security exercise at the Social Security Administration building in Leesburg, Fla., when they subjected people who went to pick up their checks to random ID checks by federal agents armed with semi-automatic weapons.

 

Directing government workers to spy on Americans. Terrorism Liaison Officers are firefighters, police officers, and even corporate employees who have received training to spy on and report back to government entities on the day-to-day activities of their fellow citizens. These individuals are authorized to report “suspicious activity” which can include such innocuous activities as taking pictures with no apparent aesthetic value, making measurements and drawings, taking notes, conversing in code, espousing radical beliefs, and buying items in bulk.

 

Conducting widespread spying networks using fusion centers. Data collecting agencies spread throughout the country, aided by the National Security Agency, fusions centers—of which there are at least 78 scattered around the U.S.— constantly monitor our communications, collecting and cataloguing everything from our internet activity and web searches to text messages, phone calls and emails. This data is then fed to government agencies, which are now interconnected: the CIA to the FBI, the FBI to local police. Despite a budget estimated to be somewhere between $289 million and $1.4 billion, these fusion centers have proven to be exercises in incompetence, often producing irrelevant, useless or inappropriate intelligence, while spending millions of dollars on “flat-screen televisions, sport utility vehicles, hidden cameras and other gadgets.”

 

Carrying out Constitution-free border control searches. On orders from the DHS, the government’s efforts along the border have become little more than an exercise in police state power, ranging from aggressive checkpoints to the widespread use of drone technology, often used against American citizens traveling within the country. Border patrol operations occur within 100 miles of an international crossing, putting some 200 million Americans within the bounds of aggressive border patrol searches and seizures, as well as increasingly expansive drone surveillance. With 71 checkpoints found along the southwest border of the United States alone, suspicionless search and seizures on the border are rampant. Border patrol agents also search the personal electronic devices of people crossing the border without a warrant.

 

Funding city-wide surveillance cameras. As Charlie Savage reports for the Boston Globe, the DHS has funneled “millions of dollars to local governments nationwide for purchasing high-tech video camera networks, accelerating the rise of a ‘surveillance society’ in which the sense of freedom that stems from being anonymous in public will be lost.” These camera systems, installed on city streets, in parks and transit systems, operating in conjunction with sophisticated computer systems that boast intelligent video analytics, digital biometric identification, military-pedigree software for analyzing and predicting crime and facial recognition software, create a vast surveillance network that can target millions of innocent individuals.

 

Utilizing drones and other spybots. The DHS has been at the forefront of funding and deploying surveillance robots and drones for land, sea and air, including robots that resemble fish and tunnel-bots that can travel underground. Despite repeated concerns over the danger surveillance drones used domestically pose to Americans’ privacy rights, the DHS has continued to expand its fleet of Predator drones, which come equipped with video cameras, infrared cameras, heat sensors, and radar. DHS also loans its drones out to local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies for a variety of tasks, although the agency refuses to divulge any details as to how, why and in what capacity these drones are being used by police. Incredibly, the DHS has also been handing out millions of dollars in grants to local police agencies to “accelerate the adoption” of drones in their localities.

 

It’s not difficult to see why the DHS has been described as a “wasteful, growing, fear-mongering beast.” If it is a beast, however, it is a beast that is accelerating our nation’s transformation into a police state through its establishment of a standing army, a.k.a. national police force.

This, too, is nothing new. Historically, as I show in my book A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State, the establishment of a national police force has served as a fundamental and final building block for every totalitarian regime that has ever wreaked havoc on humanity, from Hitler’s all-too-real Nazi Germany to George Orwell’s fictional Oceania. Whether fictional or historical, however, the calling cards of these national police agencies remain the same: brutality, inhumanity, corruption, intolerance, rigidity, and bureaucracy—in other words, evil.

Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. His latest book A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State (SelectBooks) is available online at www.amazon.com. He can be contacted at johnw@rutherford.org.