Through the Beyond the Border agreement released in December 2011, the U.S. and Canada are implementing initiatives that are working towards establishing a North American security perimeter. This includes expanding trusted traveler programs, as well as enhancing integrated law enforcement and information sharing cooperation which has raised many privacy concerns that have yet to be properly addressed.

There are questions surrounding the Conservative government’s Bill C-38, the Budget Implementation Act that also contains changes related to the U.S.-Canada Beyond the Borderaction plan. This includes ratifying and making the Shiprider a legal and permanent program which will require amending the Criminal Code, along with the RCMP and Customs Act.

The joint initiative officially known as the Integrated Cross-Border Maritime Law Enforcement Operations first began as a pilot project. It allows RCMP and U.S. Coast Guard officers to operate vessels together and pursue criminals in the waters of both countries.

The Council of Canadians reported that the NDP is demanding that the Shiprider policing program be taken out of budget implementation bill. Brian Masse, the NDP border critic is pushing for separate legislation and pointed out that, “it’s totally irresponsible to have it as part of the Budget Implementation Act.” He added, “There’s significant policing issues that really warrant a standalone bill. If it was so important that they did all the fanfare for it, why doesn’t it warrant its own process?” The proposed changes could have serious sovereignty implications with regards to accountability, due process and civil rights and therefore, need to be fully scrutinized.

CONTINUED at Activist Post.

Nato’s plans to upgrade the US’s estimated 180 tactical nuclear weapons in western Europe are unnecessary, expensive and likely to exacerbate already difficult relations with Russia, according to a report.

The alliance is preparing to replace “dumb” free-fall nuclear bombs and ageing delivery aircraft with precision-guided weapons that would be carried by US F35 strike aircraft, according to a report from the European Leadership Network (ELN), a thinktank supported by former UK defence ministers including Lord Des Browne and Sir Malcolm Rifkind.

The report, Escalation by Default?: the Future of Nato Nuclear Weapons In Europe, is by Ted Seay, who until last year was arms control adviser to the US mission at Nato headquarters in Brussels.

CONTINUED at The Raw Story.

Fort Leonard Wood Public Affairs director Tiffany Wood has provided the first official response to the shocking U.S. Army document that outlines the implementation of re-education camps, admitting that the manual was “not intended for public release” and claiming that its provisions only apply outside the United States, a contention completely disproved by the language contained in the document itself.

Source: Prison Planet.

*Written by Rob Rimes.

I barely have time to write this essay or whatever you want to officially call it, just as I haven’t had much time to write anything lately. Right now I am trying to finish up a few projects for work while packing and prepping for my long weekend trip to Gainesville. I’m going up there to visit my cousin and his college aged friends – some in school, some not. The booze will be aplenty and the party atmosphere should be monolithic, as that wild college town never fails to disappoint in the realm of pure debauchery and substance-enchanced frenzies. Between the usually free-spirited and good-hearted college kids encompassing downtown and the campus areas to the good ol’ boys on the outskirts of the concentrated action, trouble is something hard for one to avoid when the ante is upped and the whiskey is flowing. The only thing that can stop such fun-filled insanity is one of those damned Sunday nights when you are ill-prepared and find yourself out of alcohol in a county that decides to go dry for twenty-four hours during the Deep South’s weekly church day. Last trip, I found myself and a few of my cousin’s friends driving frantically through the dark North Central Florida wilderness in an effort to cross the county line and find anywhere that might have any sort of alcohol available for purchase. It was also a race against the clock as it was about closing time for most liquor stores in the state. Luckily, the mission was accomplished and we left with some fanciful artistic vanity beers, some PBR and a couple bottles of various 80 proof (or higher) swill.

This is probably what awaits me over the course of the next few days and I do need to get my shit together for the small vacation. However, I couldn’t resist sitting down at my temperamental Apple computer to type up my thoughts on the events of today. Hell, it isn’t even noon yet but the news is full of stories about the Paul Family. It’s a good day to be a Ron and Rand Paul supporter, as things are seemingly looking up in a few different ways.

To start, the Paul Revolution v2.0 is underway! Sure, I am really looking way ahead here but the younger Dr. Paul is doing all the right things and going against the grain so successfully that the media cannot ignore him. He is sticking out like a sore thumb against a backdrop of middle fingers. He isn’t playing the party politics game and isn’t succumbing to the Beltway bullshit while the vast majority of all the other Tea Party darlings have auctioned off their souls. In fact, Rand Paul probably pisses the Tea Party people off as they are really just grassroots establishment stooges at this point in the game. He is the antithesis to their heroes Marco Rubio, Michele Bachmann, Col. Allen West, Herman Cain, Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich and now Mitt Romney. Rand Paul recognizes the tyranny that is running rampant due to the PATRIOT Act and NDAA. He knows that the Department of Homeland Security is an over-inflated branch of the government that assaults our constitutional rights. He doesn’t try to convince himself that he must surrender his principles to fear and embrace the ever-expanding police state. As a senator and a direct victim of the TSA’s special brand of tyranny, he knows all too well how far their big brother fingers reach into the heart of liberty.

Rand Paul has officially made it his mission to end the TSA and to free the heart of liberty from their death grip. Like most Americans, Rand is tired of the harassment and horrible treatment of American citizens at the hands of these tyrannical bottom-feeders. Ultimately, he is sick and tired of the horrendous violations against our constitutional rights. To combat the tyranny, he has come forward with new legislation simply called the ‘END the TSA Bill’. You can actually sign a petition in support of the bill at ChooseLiberty.org.

In a nutshell, this law would forcibly privatize the TSA. What that means is that the government would not be able to put their hands on airport security. By privatizing the TSA, it doesn’t end airport security, it opens up competition from all over to come in and compete for the job. In order for the TSA to survive, it would have to adapt to the will of the people and the business owners (i.e. the airports and airlines) or else it would be swallowed up by a competitor that would. This brings the free market into airport security and therefore allows a company that is willing to find the balance between actually effective security practices and respecting the rights of those who pass through their gates. It is a win/win scenario for the citizens, the airports, the airlines and the company that is able to provide the absolute best service. If this scares you than don’t worry, I’m sure your other war-mongering fear turtle Tea Party darlings will strike it down. Ultimately, that is the real problem here and until we get other men and women in Congress who have the sense of Dr. Paul Sr. and Dr. Paul Jr., championing freedom back into our lives will be futile. However, it’s not all bad as the Paul Family message is growing larger everyday.

The second thing worth mentioning is the fact that even though it is pretty clear that Mitt Romney is going to go head-to-head with Obama in November, Ron Paul is still in this thing – making the GOP side of things very interesting. It is a two-man race between Ron Paul and Mitt Romney as every other candidate in this thing has dropped out to sign book deals and television contracts. The two-man race between Paul and Romney was made official today, as even Fox News couldn’t continue their blackout. Nope, Fox News announced that Ron Paul has officially qualified to be able to be the Republican nominee for president, if they decide to choose him over Romney (they won’t). This pivotal point in the race will take place at the Republican National Convention coming up in a few months in Tampa, FL.

Ron Paul has stayed in through thick and thin and has now met all the requirements for his name to be put up there alongside frontrunner Mitt Romney. I guess his delegate-hunting tactic has worked and paid off. This is great news, not because he has a chance of winning at this point – I firmly believe he doesn’t, but because he will be at the convention – in front of the world and will have the opportunity to spread his message further into the minds of all the Americans preparing for the big race between two big government progressive hyenas laughing at those who believe that there is some sort of difference between the two of them: there isn’t.

This could be Ron Paul’s Reagan moment. Like Ronald Reagan’s speech at the 1964 Republican National Convention, where Barry Goldwater won the nomination, Paul’s speech could unleash a tsunami wave of pro-liberty thinking. Sure, it is too little too late for the elder Dr. Paul, as he is walking away from politics after this election, but his son could be set up to take the reigns from his father and push this message forward with youthful vigor and vigilance for decades to come! One can only hope that generations of Pauls continue to follow the path of Ron and Rand and keep giving us a legacy of liberty that isn’t willing to compromise with the beast to save face and further their careers by sacrificing their principles. This brings me to my next point.

Rand Paul has a serious ball that he can pick up and run with. His father has done a fantastic job of laying the groundwork for the next generation to use to their advantage. Maybe this has been the Paul family agenda all along; who knows? The point is, the foundation has been built and it is pretty fucking strong. Guys like Rand Paul, Justin Amash and Gary Johnson could use this to their advantage and really our advantage as well. I don’t think that this is the year for Gary Johnson but the future could be very bright for him as well as the younger Paul and Congressman Amash. In 2016 or 2020, we could have a real pro-constitutional candidate in the mix who has enough steam and power to bulldoze through the establishment competition. If the momentum of the Paul message continues, the people just may be ready to commit and see this thing through. The numbers could very well be to the advantage of truth and for the first time in a very long time, America could move in the right direction. That is, of course, if the current crop of politicians don’t completely burn DC to the ground.

I know that I have come across as overly pessimistic at times in my writings, especially as of late, but it is hard to not give up hope when the hole you are in is so deep that you can’t even see the surface above you anymore. Maybe everything will crash and burn and at this rate, it is the most likely outcome but even if this does happen, we still need the type of leaders that can get us out of all this. Eventually the damage may be so bad that the only thing we can do is rebuild from the ground up. We will all pay for the crimes committed from those we elected and truthfully, we deserve to pay the price of our own ignorance and blindness. Our complete lack of vigilance and our blind faith in political parties has been our downfall. You can continue to point the finger at Washington DC, the Federal Reserve, Wall Street or whoever else but the truth is, American citizens are the ones who are at fault. The longer we assume that government will take responsibility for our lives and our well-being, the longer we will have to live with our heads in the clouds as shivering weaklings unworthy of walking on the same soil as our Founding Fathers. Until we overcome our own denial we won’t overcome our own self-perpetuating tragedy. The bull is staring coldly into our eyes, right in front of our goddamned faces but we aren’t grabbing the fucking horns! Why?!

This isn’t a dose of pessimism, it’s a dose of realism. With that said, to be real, I feel the need to point out that, in this case, the proverbial “beacon of light that guides freedom-loving people everywhere” could just be Senator Rand Paul. An article I came across on Business Insider’s website this morning talks about Rand’s potential 2016 or 2020 presidential run and how he is already working towards building a solid relationship with many of the key people that can help him reach levels greater than his father. Hell, the Evangelical sect of the voting public is taking to the younger Paul even though historically, they have not been too supportive of his father. Christian TV producer Justin Machacek said it best when comparing Rand to his father:

From my perspective, Rand is certainly more popular. I think he’s from a younger generation and I think he speaks a more modern language. He’s easier to understand, so I think his message is much clearer. Not that it’s a different message from a policy standpoint, but I think his communication style resonates much better.

Things are looking up for the Paul legacy, despite whatever the horrible results of the 2012 election will be, and if the right people are won over before the next election cycle and the message of constitutionalism continues to expand, the future could be bright. Of course, playing devil’s advocate, this is assuming that the Republican Party can actually change or that a third party could actually rise to challenge the two party monopoly. As hopeless as it seems, it’s very much possible if we want it badly enough.

Now grab the fucking horns.

New legislation would abolish government involvement in airport security.

Senator Rand Paul has issued a press release in which he vows to lead the charge to “end the TSA” and put a stop to the needless and humiliating groping of toddlers and grandmothers.

Earlier this year, Paul was detained by the TSA after refusing to submit to an invasive pat down after already having passed through a body scanner. The incident prompted national headlines and caused the Senator to miss his flight.

“It’s time to END the TSA and get the government’s hands back to only stealing our wallets instead of groping toddlers and grandmothers,” says Paul in the statement.

The accompanying article sent out to Campaign for Liberty members encourages recipients to sign a petition in support of Rand Paul’s ‘End the TSA’ bill.

The legislation would forcibly privatize the TSA and kick government out of airport security entirely. A recently passed bill actually allows airports to replace TSA screeners with private security but they have to go through a complex TSA permission process to do so, meaning only a handful of small airports have applied to evict the TSA.

Financial contributions are also being sought to launch a “full, targeted media campaign to convince representatives and senators to either get on board or be held responsible for this continuing outrage.” A previous ‘End the TSA Money Bomb’ started by Congressman Ron Paul following his son’s treatment at the hands of the federal agency has already raised over $1.6 million dollars.

The email points out that the TSA’s invasive and dangerous body scanners have been proven to be completely useless, most recently by engineer Jon Corbett who was able to fool the device by simply sowing an object into a side pocket.

The email lists a handful of recent TSA outrages amidst the deluge that occur on a weekly basis.

- A TSA agent patting down a young girl at New Orleans’ Louis Armstrong International Airport in 2011. The video shows a cooperative family, and when the girl’s mother asks, “Can’t you just re-scan her?” the agent replies, “No” and proceeds to grope the poor child;

- A cancer survivor in Charlotte was forced to remove a prosthetic breast;

- A young mother of a two-week-old infant in Florida was harassed to open the bottles of baby formula she was traveling with on her flight, which would have spoiled the only food available to the infant;

- Detroit TSA officers ignored a man’s warning about a colostomy bag, breaking it and forcing him to board a plane covered in urine.

Read the full text of Rand Paul’s statement below. Donate to the ‘End the TSA’ cause by clicking here.

Sometimes our liberty slips away silently, and it is almost hard to notice what went wrong and where. The one fortunate thing about the TSA is that they certainly don’t fit that definition.

The American people shouldn’t be subjected to harassment, groping, and other public humiliation simply to board an airplane. As you may have heard, I have some personal experience with this, and I’ve vowed to lead the charge to fight back.

Please read the email below from my friend Matt Hawes at Campaign for Liberty. Campaign for Liberty is leading the fight to pressure Congress to act now and restore our liberty. It’s time to END the TSA and get the government’s hands back to only stealing our wallets instead of groping toddlers and grandmothers.

I hope you will join Campaign for Liberty in this fight.

In Liberty,

Senator Rand Paul

*********************

Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a regular fill-in host for The Alex Jones Show and Infowars Nightly News.

Source: Prison Planet.

Missiles mean business, especially if you’re sitting on top of one pretending it’s a penis of mass destruction. And now the U.K. Ministry of Defense has notified some London apartment dwellers that they could be adding missile launchers to the top of their buildings as part of heightened security precautions for the upcoming Olympics. Obviously, some residents aren’t too happy about it because they’re sissies. Me? I sleep with a knife taped to one hand and a live grenade in the other.

One resident Brian Whelan wasn’t too happy to find posters and leaflets priming people about the missile defense launchers:
“They say they’ll only use them as a last resort, but… you’d shower debris across the east end of London by firing these missiles.”

The Ministry of Defence defended itself by saying that the missiles would only be used to “counter threats from very high performance, low-flying aircraft” and that the location was chosen because it’s relatively close to the Olympic Park.

Great, now I want missile launchers on my building. Ol’ Brian here is complaining about them, but I’d let you install one ON MY BALCONY and then MAKE ME PAY TO HAVE IT THERE. As long as I can touch it whenever I want you’ve got yourself a deal. *calling friend* Dude — you won’t believe what the government just installed on my balcony. Come over and bring a hammer!

Source: Geekologie.

Occupy Wall Street demonstrators, whose anti-greed message spread worldwide during an eight-week encampment in Lower Manhattan last year, plan marches across the globe tomorrow calling attention to what they say are abuses of power and wealth.

Organizers say they hope the coordinated events will mark a spring resurgence of the movement after a quiet winter. Calls for a general strike with no work, no school, no banking and no shopping have sprung up on websites in Toronto, Barcelona, London, Kuala Lumpur andSydney, among hundreds of cities in North America, Europe and Asia.

CONTINUED at Bloomberg.

The world’s biggest banks are working with one another and police to gather intelligence as protesters try to rejuvenate the Occupy Wall Street movement with May demonstrations, industry security consultants said.

Among 99 protest targets in midtown Manhattan on Tuesday are JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America offices, said Marisa Holmes, a member of Occupy’s May Day planning committee.

Events are scheduled in more than 115 cities, including an effort to shut down the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, where Wells Fargo investors relied on police to get past protests at their annual meeting this week.

“Our goal is to kick off the spring offensive and go directly to where the financial elite play and plan,” she said.

After evictions and arrests from Manhattan’s Zuccotti Park to London that began last year, the movement against income inequality and corporate abuse will regain strength, said Brian McNary, director of global risk at Pinkerton Consulting & Investigations.

CONTINUED at The San Francisco Chronicle.

In the past four decades, cars have grown significantly cleaner and more fuel efficient, but it’s been a bumpy road getting there. These are Jalopnik readers’ picks for the ten most expensive, inefficient measures to make cars “green.”

Welcome back to Answers of the Day — our daily Jalopnik feature where we take the best ten responses from the previous day’s Question of the Day and shine it up to show off. It’s by you and for you, the Jalopnik readers. Enjoy!

Photo Credit: GM

10.) Solar Power

Suggested By: 3pedalsgood

Why it failed: The Solar Car Challenge is a yearly competition for high schools to build and race a solar-powered car. It’s a fine idea for getting people involved with engineering. But solar-powered cars? Other than a limited use of solar for powering accessories in vehicles like the Fisker Karma, it’s not happening anytime soon.

Photo Credit: Pspatry.

9.) Cadillac V8-6-4

Suggested By: zacarious

Why it failed: Today, more and more engines employ cylinder deactivation. What the systems do is shut down a number of cylinders when the driver is just cruising on the highway, using very little throttle.

Back in 1981, when the technology was new, GM decided that Cadillac should try it out to make their big V8s more fuel efficient. The engines were completely crude, the shut-off was the opposite of smooth, and the cars broke down regularly. Oh, and it produced 140 horsepower out of six liters of displacement.

Photo Credit: Cadillac/Old Car Brochures.

8.) California’s Cool Cars Initiative

Suggested By: Buckus

Why it failed: California’s Air Resources Board has one of the least enviable jobs of a government agency: cleaning up the air in a smog-ridden state that loves cars. Some of their draconian rules about smog equipment and old car certification can be seen as necessary evils, but CARB’s “Cool Cars” plan of the late 2000s was a complete flop.

The idea was to reduce the amount of air conditioning people would use. Air conditioning uses engine power, which sucks gas. The regulation would require manufacturers to use reflective paints in their cars. First, people thought that CARB was banning black paint, and then they realized that most of the heat soak in cars was through the windows. Over fears that GPS systems, cellphones, and ankle monitors wouldn’t work, CARB gave up on the whole plan in early 2010.

Photo Credit: Hashem Akbari, Berkeley Lab.

7.) Arizona alternative fuel rebate

Suggested By: iowncalculus

Why it failed: Back in 2000, Arizona offered to pay half the cost of any alternative fuel vehicle, in an effort to promote clean cars and improve the state’s surprisingly bad air quality. People figured out that they could fit a one-gallon compressed natural gas tank to an SUV and get the state to pay half the price.

When Arizona realized they would be paying half the cost of $50,000 leather-lined Excursions at an estimated total cost of $600 million dollars (that was 10% of the state’s yearly budget) they quit the plan, leaving people to foot the bill on these CNG-equipped vehicles themselves.

Photo Credit: GMC.

6.) E85

Suggested By: Viperfan1

Why it failed: Corn ethanol seems to make sense – there’s too much corn in the Midwest, so why not make it into a fuel that’s got a higher octane rating than pump gas? Well, you can’t put it in a pipeline, so you have to truck it everywhere, and it cuts into your gas mileage. Biofuels are really fantastic, but E85 is not the way of the future.

Photo Credit: Getty Images.

5.) CAFE’s light truck loophole

Suggested By: KillerKoala

Why it failed: CAFE stands for Corporate Average Fuel Economy. It defines how fuel efficient a car manufacturer’s vehicles must be, and it is broken down into different categories based on size and weight. Each different kind of vehicle has a different standard.

CAFE started out in the 1970s with much lighter fuel economy standards for light trucks than full-size family cars. This seemed to make sense, as trucks were used for work, and businesses needed cheap, powerful engines. US carmakers, however, capitalized off the growing market for recreational trucks and started building SUVs intended for people to just drive around in. These SUVs were cheap to build ad they didn’t have to comply with the tough emissions and fuel economy standards of regular cars.

This loophole meant that Americans just switched from driving big, heavy sedans to big heavy SUVs, without effecting any real change in fuel economy.

Photo Credit: Ford.

4.) SUV hybrids

Suggested By: claiborne

Why it failed: The most egregious manifestation of the light trucks loophole are SUV hybrids. The worst offenders are the ones from GM and Chrysler that come with big “Hybrid” badges to show off their mileage numbers bested by just about any station wagon on the market. In cities where hybrids are allowed special privileges, like exemption from London’s inner-city congestion charge, they’re just insulting.

Photo Credit: Cadillac.

3.) Cash for clunkers

Suggested By: My X-type is too a real Jaguar

Why it failed: The idea behind cash for clunkers was to get people out of smog-producing old cars and into new fuel-efficient ones. New car sales spiked only for a few months, used car prices have gone up and stayed up, and we’ve seen the death of all kinds of strange, beautiful old machines. It wasn’t worth it.

Photo Credit: Detroit Free Press.

2.) GM’s EV1

Suggested By: Wolc

Why it failed: Everyone loved the EV1. Everyone but GM. The car was doomed to slow sales, so GM cut the program early and crushed the cars. Ask anyone who owned one and they loved it. While Toyota was content to lose money for years developing the Prius, GM couldn’t stand a little bit of an investment in clean tech.

Photo Credit: Associated Press.

1.) 55 MPH speed limit

Suggested By: Irving Washington

Why it failed: In the year following the 1973 Oil Crisis, the Congress enacted the Emergency Highway Energy Conservation Act setting a national speed limit at 55. The double nickel was supposed to greatly cut fuel consumption and the ensuing pollution, as cars create significantly more drag at highway speeds. studies found it was a mere 22-45% as effective as anyone hoped.

This hellish restriction on the nation’s transportation network was finally fully repealed in 1995, after getting bumped up to 65 in December 1987. It was a dark time for this country.

Photo Credit: Associated Press.

Source: Jalopnik.