CNN poll confirms: Most Americans believe their government is a threat to their welfare

A majority of Americans think the federal government poses a threat to rights of Americans, according to a new national poll.

Fifty-six percent of people questioned in a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Friday say they think the federal government’s become so large and powerful that it poses an immediate threat to the rights and freedoms of ordinary citizens. Forty-four percent of those polled disagree.

The survey indicates a partisan divide on the question: only 37 percent of Democrats, 63 percent of Independents and nearly 7 in 10 Republicans say the federal government poses a threat to the rights of Americans.

According to CNN poll numbers released Sunday, Americans overwhelmingly think that the U.S. government is broken – though the public overwhelmingly holds out hope that what’s broken can be fixed.

The CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll was conducted February 12-15, with 1,023 adult Americans questioned by telephone. The survey’s sampling error is plus or minus 3 percentage points for the overall survey.

Hey Kids, Wanna Play Security Checkpoint: The Terrifying Marketing Of Police State Normalacy To Children

When I flew home from Washington, DC after a business trip last week, the TSA agent asked to test my laptop.  I politely asked what they were testing for.  It was just routine she told me.  And she’s right, it has become routine, a much too routine standard operating procedure designed to make us believe that the usurping of our privacy and human rights is normal and necessary if we are to be secure and free.

The obvious irony  is that we are not secure and  free if government agents have a right to violate our privacy and deny our rights without cause.  I considered protesting but I figured that the best outcome of that would be missing my flight, the worst case  being detained incommunicado in an undisclosed location.  The likelihood of a plausible explanation for this sudden interest in my laptop was undoubtedly nil. In other words, whatcha gonna do and TSA knows that.

My youngest son barely has a memory of when you could get on a plane without having to take off your shoes first.  He was in 4th grade on Sept. 11, 2001 and within  days his school was decked out in American flags and “I Support President Bush” signs appeared everywhere.  For him this is normal, the way things are supposed to be.  And that is no accident.

What is particularly disturbing about the normalizing of this notion that it is unpatriotic to question measures that supposedly defend us from acts of terror is the use of entertainment to hawk the message. In addition to the  Disney-owned ABC’s Homeland Security reality show, there is now a Homeland Security television channel on the internet that bills itself as,

(T)he world’s first online, on-demand television network dedicated to homeland security and global development. HSTV is a 24/7 interactive television channel dedicated to producing broadcast-quality video programs on all aspects of homeland security and the role of global development in fighting terrorism.

HSTV is also dedicated to facilitating rapid awareness of new technologies and services, and assisting in the transfer of those technology solutions to the government and critical infrastructure marketplace.

Former Border Patrol agent describes ‘quota pressure’

MURRIETA, Calif. — A former Border Patrol officer said Thursday that constant demands to meet monthly arrest quotas led agents in the Inland Empire to cruise streets, bus stops and even medical clinics looking for illegal immigrants.

“We had to make eight apprehensions a day and if we didn’t meet that goal we were pressured to get more the next day,” said Tony Plattel, who was fired last month for driving what he said were six dehydrated illegal immigrants back to headquarters despite orders to wait until his van was full. “I interfered with the quota, that’s why I was fired,” he said.

(Riverside) Justice for Annette García: Community responds to police murder of activist mother

RIVERSIDE, California – January 29, 2009 The Brown Berets of Aztlán led a march from the César Chávez Community Center at the Bobby Bonds Park to the Riverside Sheriff’s Department, where they held a candlelight vigil and demonstration.

They convoked the assembly to build momentum for the movement for justice for Annette García, a Perris resident, Brown Beret member, and mother of six, who was shot in the back on January 23 by a Riverside sheriff’s deputy.

The Brown Berets were joined by mourners, anti-police brutality activists, community members, and immigrant rights activists, many of also protested today’s simultaneous immigration raids in many communities across the Inland Empire.

See also:

cbs2.com – Brown Berets De Aztlan Hold Protest Over Shooting

Brown Berets de Aztlan are recruiting and forming new chapters

Brown Berets de Aztlan protest the police murder of one of their own

ALIPAC – Brown Berets De Aztlan Hold Protest Over Shooting

I am a Terrorist

See also:

Domestic Militarization Comes to San Bernardino County

Patriot Act – The War on Civil Liberties

The Second Amendment Versus The Police State?

Veterans for Peace (VFP) Opposes Combat Brigade’s Permanent U.S. Assignment

Assignment America: Keep juries dumb

Excellent Article on the Corrupt Prison-Industrial Complex

Court Rules Patriot Act’s “National Security Letter” Gag Provisions Unconstitutional

SoCal Martial Law Alerts’ Checkpoint Response Team

How you became the enemy

ACLU Challenges Border Patrol’s Searches

SEATTLE — The note from U.S. Attorney Jeff Sullivan to the U.S. Border Patrol was short and to the point: Stop sending petty marijuana cases to his office.”

It is our long-standing policy to use limited federal resources to pursue the sophisticated criminal organizations who smuggle millions of dollars of drugs, guns and other contraband across our borders,” Sullivan wrote in November.

Prohibition and the Rise of Crime

On January 17, 1920, The 18th Amendment went into effect and what is known as Prohibition became reality. What did not become reality were the predictions of the benefits it would have vis-a-vis Organized Crime.

US Police Train Mexican Police to Torture

La Jornada has revealed that some of the trainers responsible for the torture classes given to Leon, Guanajuato, Special Tactics police are San Diego, California, police officers from that city’s SWAT team. Other trainers came from the private Mexican company Sniper, according to the Mexican government. The government released the names of the following trainers: Carlos Guillermo Martinez Acuña, Gerardo Ramon Arrechea de la Vega (the Cuban-Mexican trainer whom Narco News revealed is a high-ranking member of the anti-Castro Cuban paramilitary organization Comandos F4), Francisco Javier Jaramillo Barrios, Alfredo Torres Solano, and Martin Gonzalez Cabrera. La Jornada reports that the government did not disclose the trainers’ nationalities nor their respective employers. Also see: Arrest of Mexican Interpol official US Releases $90 million in Plan Mexico ‘Predator,’ reflects what US has become 500 police officers replaced in Tijuana In Cold Blood: Border Agent Commits Murder Drug Czar Backs Decriminalization

March base Predator unit to train next generation of pilots

The 163rd Air National Guard at March Air Reserve Base is beginning a new mission. After two years of being the only National Guard unit to fly unmanned Predator drones in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, it will begin training the next crop of Predator pilots. The goal is to increase the military’s capacity for observing and targeting enemies during wartime. Menace of US drones Spy drone ‘Predator,’ reflects what US has become Homeland Security Now Spying on Americans

Poll: Less than half say US offers liberty and justice for all

A new poll from Rasmussen Reports indicates that although Americans strongly support the saying of the Pledge of Allegience, less than half of them believe that “the United States is truly the land of liberty and justice for all.”

Eisenhower on the MID

Menace of US drones

USA has no remorse over its brazen acts of aggression and rationalizes its invasion and destruction of Afghanistan and Iraq as compulsory acts to ensure security of its homeland. It justifies its offensive actions under Article 51 of UN charter. It is now trying to justify its intended offensive against Pakistan under the same Act on the plea that Pakistan is allowing its soil for breeding terrorism and exporting terrorism into Afghanistan to cause harm to US-NATO troops. If so, why it remains tight-lipped on misuse of Afghan soil by several spy agencies working against the interests of Pakistan?

The Militarization of our Local Police

The military industrial complex has absorbed a huge amount of our economy and the military has transformed local law enforcement by giving them billions of dollars in military equipment. We are rapidly being reduced to a nation whose economy primarily employs industry that supports the military, government, policing and prison systems.

If we don’t slam the breaks on this insanity and fast, our nation is going to become a total fascist police state. It’s perched right on our doorstep.

Rising for the Judge, Bowing to the State

When one walks into a business, most often you are greeted. As part of treating customers as their very livelihood, companies usually enact policies that make it a requirement for employees to acknowledge the arrival of a client or customer. Imagine, however, if instead of getting a “hello” or “good morning,” the manager of the store asks you to greet him. Further, imagine if the manager holds you at gunpoint and threatens you with imprisonment. Assuming you could escape, chances are that you’d never go back to that store. Yet this is what happens in the courts.

No one claiming crashed drone in the desert

One of the many flying contraptions that buzz above the desert crashed Monday morning near El Mirage Dry Lake. But details about the crash remain a mystery. No one will claim responsibility for what local officials said was an ultralight drone. It’s not clear why the device crashed or what purpose it served before its demise.

Spy drone ‘Predator,’ reflects what US has become

TUCSON — The bad news is that the US Border Patrol has four drones flying out of Fort Huachuca over the US/Mexico border for surveillance. One drone has already crashed near Nogales and these unmanned aerial planes, provided first by Israel’s Apartheid spy technology maker, Elbit Systems, are a risk to the lives of those on the ground in Arizona.

500 police officers replaced in Tijuana

Mexican federal agents and army troops are dispatched in a bid to rid the Tijuana police department of cops suspected of having links to drug traffickers.

In Cold Blood, US Border Patrol Agent On Trial for Murder

UPDATE: Tuesday, November 4, 2008. A mistrial was declared today after a jury deadlocked in the case of a Border Patrol agent accused of murdering Francisco Javier Dominguez Rivera without provocation. U.S Border Patrol Agent Nicholas Corbett faced charges of second-degree murder, manslaughter and negligent homicide. Three eyewitnesses testified the 22-year-old was shot as he was kneeling to surrender for Corbett to arrest him and the three others. It was the second mistrial in the case.