TPN—Judson Phillips: Defy, disobey

As Obamacare becomes the law of the land, thanks to the gutless Republicans who lack the courage to try to do anything to stop the single worst law the Congress has passed in the last 100 years, Americans are facing a choice.

Do they participate in Obamacare, opt out if they can or do they simply defy the government.

Civil disobedience has a long and honorable tradition here in America and it is now time for some serious civil disobedience when it comes to Obamacare.

Why?

The Department of Health and Human Services is hiring “Navigators” to help people sign up for Obamacare.  To speed the train wreck along, the Obama Regime is eliminating the requirements for fingerprinting these “Navigators,” or for that matter even having a background check.

What are these “Navigators” going to do?  Well, they are supposed to assist people in applying for Obamacare, right?  Anyone remember which agency is in charge of Obamacare?

That’s right, it is the IRS.

In order to enroll in Obamacare, what information has to be provided to these “Navigators?”

How about your tax returns and social security numbers?

If the red alert alarms are not going off now, they should be.

The Obama Regime wants to entrust the most sensitive information we Americans have to people who are not even vetted.  Of course, don’t forget, the Obama Regime has been trying to make it illegal for companies to run criminal background checks on employees before hiring them, so this should come as no great shock.

The potential damage here is mindboggling.

MUST CONTINUE READING:  http://www.teapartynation.com/forum/topics/defy-disobey

Report: US would make Internet wiretaps easier

By LOLITA C. BALDOR (AP) – 19 hours ago


WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is pushing to make it easier for the government to tap into internet and e-mail communications. But the plan has already drawn condemnation from privacy groups and communications firms may be wary of its costs and scope.

Frustrated by sophisticated and often encrypted phone and e-mail technologies, U.S. officials say that law enforcement needs to improve its ability to eavesdrop on conversations involving terrorism, crimes or other public safety issues.

Critics worry the changes are an unnecessary invasion of privacy and would only make citizens and businesses more vulnerable to identity theft and espionage.

The new regulations that would be sent to Congress next year would affect American and foreign companies that provide communications services inside the U.S. It would require service providers to make the plain text of encrypted conversations — over the phone, computer or e-mail — readily available to law enforcement, according to federal officials and analysts.

The mandate would likely require companies to add backdoors or other changes to the systems that would allow a wiretap to capture an unscrambled version of a conversation.

Those affected by the changes would include online services and networking sites such as Facebook and Skype, as well as phone systems that deliver encrypted e-mail such as BlackBerry.

"The way we communicate has changed dramatically since 1994, but telecommunications law has not kept up. This gap between reality and the law has created a significant national security and public safety problem," said Valerie E. Caproni, the FBI's General Counsel.

She said the changes would not expand law enforcement authority and would involve legally authorized intercepts on calls or e-mails sent by terrorists or other criminals. The changes would allow companies to respond quickly to wiretap requests from local, state and federal authorities.

The New York Times first reported Monday about White House plans to submit the new bill next year.

Law enforcement is already able to monitor regular telephone conversations.

"In the old days, the technology was simple to wiretap," said cybersecurity expert James Lewis, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "As technologies have gotten better and faster and bigger, it's harder and harder for law enforcement to intercept communications."

Lewis said law enforcement officials have long been pushing for the expanded access. He said the technology is available to make the changes and allow authorities to tap into conversations encrypted by communications companies as they move from one person to another.

Communications companies, he said, may have concerns about the costs of modifying their systems or software to allow the intercepts. The government may have to provide some funding aid.

Companies may also balk if the government tries to tell them how to alter their systems.

But Lewis said many companies are already providing similar capabilities to law enforcement in other countries in Europe and the Middle East.

Wiretapping is vital for law enforcement agencies, said Lewis, because "it provides crucial evidence that wins a lot of their convictions. As technology changes, as the Internet changes, they have to keep up or they'll lose an important tool in their arsenal."

Civil rights and privacy groups were quick to condemn the plan, warning that the administration faces an uphill battle.

"This is a shortsighted and ill-conceived power grab by some in the administration," said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Washington-based Electronic Privacy Information Center. "The balance has swung radically toward enhanced law enforcement powers. For them to argue that it's still not enough is just unbelievable. It's breathtaking in its hubris."

He said that over the past 15 years — particularly since the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks — the standards for warrants have been lowered. And he said law enforcement has many new technologies, ranging from biometric tracking to DNA databases, to enhance its information gathering.

Christopher Calabrese, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union, said that mandating that all communications software be accessible to the government is a "huge privacy invasion."

"Under the guise of a technical fix, the government looks to be taking one more step toward conducting easy dragnet collection of Americans' most private communications," Calabrese said. "This proposal will create even more security risks by mandating that our communications have a 'backdoor' for government use and will make our online interactions even more vulnerable."

Associated Press writer Sagar Meghani contributed to this report.


Copyright © 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

The Death of Medical Privacy

The Death of Medical Privacy

Many doctors are already making the substantial investment in systems to comply with this!

Liberty in Action: First Private Lawsuit Challenging ObamaCare Filed in Mississippi

Liberty in Action: First Private Lawsuit Challenging ObamaCare Filed in Mississippi
Posted By K. Douglas Lee On April 2, 2010

Mississippi State Senator Chris McDaniel and I have filed a class action lawsuit today, Good Friday 2010, challenging the constitutionality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, also known as “ObamaCare” and a variety of other less polite euphemisms.

We believe that the PPACA is DOA for several equally important reasons, but only one of which has received much attention. Most folks know by now that Congress has invoked the Commerce Clause to justify this massive expansion of governmental power. Our “Good Friday” Complaint spends many pages discussing how Congress has clearly exceeded the limits of its power under the Commerce Clause. I strongly urge you to read the entire Complaint. What I really want to point out, though, are some things you probably don’t know, and definitely will not like — even if you consider yourself a “Liberal.”


Consider for a moment that you have now been commanded to enter into a contract with an insurance corporation, whether you want to or not, whether you need to or not. Yes, there are many who actually choose to be uninsured. For most, it is simply an economic decision that often works out to the uninsured’s economic advantage. Not always, of course, but that’s the beauty of liberty — you get to make the decisions, and live with the good or bad that comes of them.

Now that you realize that a dictate has been handed down, compelling you to contract with an insurance corporation or else, consider what you have to do. It’s not like you can go to a vending machine, swipe your debit card and pull out a policy. You still have to apply. True, they cannot turn you down, but so what? You still have to give a big, scary, mean corporation a lot of private medical and psychological information about yourself and your family. Then, forever after, the insurance corporation’s bureaucrats will gather this private information without even bothering to let you know. As our Complaint states:

Moreover, compelling Plaintiffs to enter into a private contract to purchase insurance from another entity will legally require them to share private and personal information with the contracting party. Specifically, by requiring Plaintiffs to abide by the Act’s individual mandate, Congress is also compelling Plaintiffs to fully disclose past medical conditions, habits and behaviors. Not only will the insurer be privy to all past medical information, Congress’s individual mandate will, by necessity, allow the compelled insurer access to Plaintiffs’ present and future medical information of a confidential nature. If judicially enforceable privacy rights mean anything, then private and confidential medical details certainly merit Constitutional protection. Plaintiffs should not be forced to disclose the most intimate details of their past, present and future medical information.

Do you have an STD? How many abortions have you had? How about a sexual dysfunction? Did your father or mother have cancer? Do you have a birth defect? Have you ever been prescribed drugs for a mental condition, such as anxiety or depression? There are many reasons people have concerns over their medical privacy. The desire to keep one’s medical history private is universal.

Privacy, choice, and Roe v. Wade
Medical privacy is so important that we have enshrined it as fundamental right in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution — just ask the Supreme Court, which even allows women to kill unborn children in order to protect their constitutional right to medical privacy.

If you want health insurance badly enough, you’ll probably choose to give up your medical privacy rights to an insurance corporation. But perhaps you are indifferent to buying health insurance in the first place, and really, you don’t want it in writing anywhere that you’ve had two abortions, or eat Viagra like popcorn. You’ve decided that it would just be better to pay for your healthcare directly and avoid the entire insurance hassle. What’s wrong with this choice? Nothing, if you believe in the concept of liberty.

Forcing citizens to enter into a contract to buy insurance is a bit different than requiring them to buy a loaf of bread. Congress cannot conceivably be said to have the power to force you to buy a loaf of bread, even though that would indeed have some effect on interstate commerce. Think about how much more egregious a denial of liberty it is to force people to contract with an insurance corporation. Those contracts create rights and obligations for both parties, but guess who gets to write the contract? Hint: insurance corporation lawyers. It’s an actual contract that you will actually be forced to sign by your government. You will not have any bargaining power to alter the contract; it’s not even a “take it or leave it” situation, it’s “take it or face the legal consequences.”

Which brings us to another important but poorly understood issue: Just what are the consequences? Exactly how will the mandate will be enforced? Unfortunately, this is something that none of us really know. Congress states outright that there will be a “penalty” assessed for citizens who disobey their command. These lawbreakers will have to pay an amount that will be assessed as a tax. Yes, we all know Congress has the power to tax, but remember, Congress itself has called this tax a “penalty.” As we explain in our Complaint,

Central to the definition of penalty is the “idea of punishment” – “[p]unishment imposed on a wrongdoer . . . in the form of imprisonment or fine. Though usually for crimes, penalties are also sometimes imposed for civil wrongs.” Black’s Law Dictionary 1153 (7th ed. 1999).

Yes, you wrongdoers who decide to go without insurance will be punished by the federal government. You will have to pay a special tax that applies only to wrongdoers like you. The Complaint points out that this “constitutes a capitation and a direct tax that is not apportioned among the states according to census data,” which is unconstitutional in itself. But this does not make great bedtime reading, so I’ll let you in on a secret: It’s a tax that they cannot make you pay.

A plain reading of the individual mandate shows that Congress first sets forth a penalty for failure to buy insurance, then says that regardless of anything written anywhere else in any other law, there can be no criminal penalty:

‘‘(A) WAIVER OF CRIMINAL PENALTIES.—In the case of


any failure by a taxpayer to timely pay any penalty imposed


by this section, such taxpayer shall not be subject to any


criminal prosecution or penalty with respect to such failure.

Then, to make it even very difficult (perhaps impossible) to civilly enforce the penalty/tax, Congress denied the government any power to file liens or levy any wrongdoer’s property:

‘‘(B) LIMITATIONS ON LIENS AND LEVIES.—The Secretary

shall not—

‘‘(i) file notice of lien with respect to any property

of a taxpayer by reason of any failure to pay the

penalty imposed by this section, or

‘‘(ii) levy on any such property with respect to

such failure.’’.

If the feds cannot levy or lien you, then what can they do to get your money? Write scary letters to you? Just what happens to the authority of the federal government when people laugh at these scary letters?

What indeed. We have demanded in our Complaint that if the government has some trick up its sleeve, that we be told what it is. If we are to be punished for not buying something, we deserve to know ahead of time what that punishment might be. That’s not just an old American tradition, it’s a constitutional principle.

The alternative, of course, is for the feds to admit that there is no enforcement mechanism. Consider what that means for a minute: the pièce de résistance of the PPACA is the individual mandate. Without an enforcement mechanism, the individual mandate fails; without the mandate, the entire legislative act fails utterly.


If the government admits, or the federal judiciary declares, that there is no enforcement mechanism for the individual mandate, millions will be free to ignore it. We believe, though, that the lack of an enforcement mechanism makes the individual mandate unconstitutional for reasons that we will discuss further with the federal court for the Southern District of Mississippi.

A call to service

We’ve got Mississippi covered. Now we need for you to do your part to take back your liberty. This lawsuit can be filed in every state in the greatest nation on earth, and it should be. Wherever this abomination applies, there is at least one federal court, often many. Find them, take our lawsuit, change the names and file it. Add to it if you have more arguments. If you are serious about doing so and need information, we are easy to find.

We have much more to say about the unconstitutionality of this abominable act of Congress, and we’re looking forward to your comments. God bless America!

Full Complaint:  http://biggovernment.com/kdlee/2010/04/02/liberty-in-action-first-private-lawsuit-challenging-obamacare-filed-in-mississippi/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+BigGovernment+%28Big+Government%29&utm_content=My+Yahoo