The RAnts of RA

If the NSA is  harvesting data 2-3 points from everyone (and yes, they are), they have a map way more intricate that anything we could ever collect on our own. They know everything about everyone who has ever talked to anyone who has ever talked to anyone you have ever talked to. Think about that.

English: Kevin Bacon. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In perspective, 6 Degrees of Kevin Bacon  only requires “a link” at  some point in two people’s lives, nothing more substantial than a name in the credits. Yet, the NSA is collecting data 3 people away from everyone for every communication or other ‘link’. Everyone.

Oh, I’m sure that  many  will interpret the phrase  “terrorist suspects” to mean only the  million or so people  on the public  terrorist watchlist, but that doesn’t actually include the other “suspects” such as those who support the Constitution – you know, like every law enforcement officer, military member and duly elected representative in America is sworn to do.

Do you bank at BofA, where Dzhokhar Tsarnaev of the recent Boston Bombings  also banks? That’s a “link.”

Do you use Facebook, where there are literally dozens of Al Qaeda affiliated groups? That’s a “link.”

Have you visited Twitter or Youtube, where the digital terror group (if you accept the FBI’s terminology)  ‘Anonymous’ shares information about their activities? That’s a “link,” too.

Or, admittedly my favorite example, did you vote for President Barack Obama, who has provided weapons to militant terrorists abroad  and personally signed off on the sale of guns used in well over 200 Mexican murders? That’s a “link.”

Oh, did you think you had to have actual contact with these people in order for it to count? Bah. Clearly you’re not familiar with how the law is abused in America today. Each time someone tells me I’m blowing things out of proportion with my pessimistic view of government, I send them the following links:

• Botched Paramilitary Police Raids: While the data is extensive, the question is really why any paramilitary-style police raids happen in America in the first place. The same government that drones civilians in countries across the globe, and  stores the content  of every phone call we’ve made for the last decade can’t be bothered to pick up a suspect on the street instead of beating in  his neighbors  door for refusing to allow them to occupy his home to spy on the house next door.
• National Police Misconduct Newsfeed: This daily newswire reports on the abuse du jour. Read the last week or two then tell me that the same government that used to help get cats out of trees is still trustworthy enough to be allowed to track your every action, movement and communication.

I read an article yesterday from the NY Daily News that tried so very hard to dispel the theory that the NSA is the American Stasi. His reasoning is perfectly sound, as long as you are willing to bury your head in the ground and believe every lie told to you.

The Stasi only wishes they had the ability to track and record every single movement and communication, along with legal authority to ‘disappear you‘ without judicial oversight. Where the Stasi  failed, our government has not only succeeded, but excelled. Why stop with targeting of those who are actually intending to do ill – heck, even after multiple warnings the Boston Marathon will never be the same. Meanwhile, Shia LeBeouf tells it like it was…OVER FIVE YEARS AGO:

Surely they don’t think the ever-goofy Shia is a terrorist? Must be the hair, right? Are you fed up yet?

Related articles

• The Third Degree: NSA Now Admits Surveillance Extends Three Degrees Away from Actual Suspected Terrorists
• Half A Kevin Bacon
• NSA: The “Half-Bacon Agency”

In with the new and out with the old. Screw the taxpayers in the process. The government continues to have a free-for-all with our money,  expecting our unborn grandchildren to foot the bill.

As an IT content manager, I see government waste first-hand, and to be frank, it pisses me off.   I spend hundreds of wasted hours on my numerous websites,  redirecting links that have been moved or removed  — the vast majority of them are tax-funded government websites.

Have you ever wondered why it is so difficult to find information on government services? I can only hazard to guess that this is done intentionally, but I simply can’t fathom a reason, other than perhaps  to pay back web designers for campaign contributions. In other-words, you work on my campaign  and if I win you can work for the government creating my new identity.

The problem is these wonderful new website guru’s never bother to clean up the mess they have created by actually redirecting former URLs to the proper location. That would be too easy. Many times, they don’t even bother to archive the old information, often the site is simply dumped and they start over from scratch.

Every election there is a new round of candidates, a new set of paybacks and more wasted tax dollars. Data that is created at public expense belongs to us — you and me. Why isn’t that information being archived and preserved for public consumption? If the data is being stored, is it readily and easy obtained by John Q. Public?

I don’t have a problem with a newly elected official creating and maintaining their new online identity for their position, but IT content managers should create a usable archive of data, along with properly executed redirects. It would make my life much nicer, and provide far better usability and public access. I am so sick of hearing about our trillion dollar budget (Budget, now  that is totally laughable.  The  word budget implies  accountability, the numbers are so huge,  they are all but meaningless.).

The only thing that makes sense is that our elected officials don’t believe any of us will live long enough to have to worry about paying back the money. Only time will tell.

Want to know how your tax dollars are being spent for IT projects? Visit the IT Dashboard.

Schwarzenegger Sells California Out to Gambling Casinos

by Kathryn Bowen

Whoever coined the phrase “Ignorance is bliss” must have been talking about the 35 million Californians trusting that their governor and their elected officials are actually doing their job with respect to gambling casinos run by Indian tribes in our state.

“Bliss” is what Governor Schwarzenegger has been selling the public while he sells the State down the river by granting the largest expansion of gambling in history to 5 casino tribes.

In the wake of Californian’s support of Prop 1A, former Governor, Gray Davis, negotiated gambling compacts with Indian Tribes. Millions of voters succumbed to a brilliant marketing campaign that casino tribes invested nearly $100 Million into, equal to a presidential election, to persuade voters to change our State constitution and direct gambling monopolies to Indian tribes. I was one of those voters.

Here’s the bad news.

At this moment, your elected representatives in California are just about to vote on whether to grant 5 casino tribes, consisting of just 1,876 people, the ability to expand willy-nilly despite the impact on our communities, families, children and ultimately the financial future of California.

This is just the beginning; 67 additional tribes with gaming compacts are waiting in the wings and the Governor may not inform the public when renegotiations commence with these tribes.

The reality is the revenue promised for the state through gambling expansion will not materialize. The Governor and his advisors know this and should probably buy a new calculator because they know the expected income is neither measurable or enforceable!

Thousands of emails, letters, phone calls and exhaustive testimony attempting to alert our elected officials of endless issues regarding jurisdiction, regulation, accounting and disastrous social costs have fallen on deaf ears.

Hearing Loss

The reason for the hearing loss? Could it be the massive unregulated tribal contributions flowing into political campaigns of the majority of our elected officials in our State Capitol?

In fact, tribes poured $429,600 into the campaigns of just fifteen assembly members who held an “impartial” hearing on problematic regulatory issues with the compacts and will be key in deciding their fate. How impartial can they really be when taking money from the same tribes that will benefit from their vote? By any definition, this is a profound conflict of interest.

Making matters worse, the Minimum Internal Control Standards (MICS), the only federal regulatory leg left to oversee the integrity of the games and to collect the money, has been eliminated from the compacts.

What does this mean? These so-called compacts are really contracts that will cement a permanent partnership between the State of California and loosely regulated gambling casino tribes for the next 25-years, without the ability of the state to audit and collect the money or to ensure fair gaming for the patrons.

Casino tribes have kicked federal regulators off their land claiming sovereignty. What makes the state think its going to be any more successful especially given the fact there are simply not enough enforcement resources?

Moreover, Schwarzenegger privately brokered 25-year, multibillion dollar deals without so much as an economic study to show how expanded gambling will impact the people of California.

Given the fact that 80% percent of gambling revenue comes from households with incomes of less than $50,000 a year, don’t you think you need a study to show what this spread of gambling is going to do to the state?

What kind of representative government balances its budget on the backs of its poorest and most vulnerable citizens? Even Russia and other countries around the world who believed that gambling actually produced economic vitality have come to their senses and banned or closed most of their casinos due to the economic strain caused their economies.

Once again, our elected officials are going for the quick fix approach to fixing the state’s budget problems instead of assessing the long-term effects of really bad policy.

What does California get? We all get to sit by and watch our regional economy redirect billions in disposable income (taxable sales) into “sovereign tribal governments” who are not bound by the U.S. Constitution, remain outside regulatory laws and pay no taxes on their $23 Billion profits.

This massive federal scandal’s tentacles have found their way into every corner of our government through corrupt campaign finance loopholes. From the White House on down to local county governments who are faced with the dilemma of how to stand up to tribes who exploit their ancestral suffering to bully local governments into giving them what they want.

Wake up California! The gaming tribes’ plight no longer has anything to do with civil rights, justice or historical reparations, but rather with self-indulgent gambling expansion under the guise of self-determination.

About the author:

Kathryn Bowen is an expert and activist on government regarding gambling across the country.

Issues include: tribal expansion, tribal sovereignty, tribal sovereign immunity, political corruption due to unlimited funds from casino tribes both in local and state government, civil rights, equal protection issues communities struggle with due to representative government becoming too reliant on big gambling dollars. Member of the legal subcommittee team involving a lawsuit filed by Preservation of Los Olivos (POLO) and Preservation of Santa Ynez (POSY) against the federal government in 2005. This suit was filed as an appeal to the Bureau of Indian Affairs decision to accept privately purchased land by the Santa Ynez Band into federal trust status without proper representation of community interests. Writer/Producer of documentary “Big Gambling Dollars and Politics at Work”