Refuses to buy stock over privacy concerns.

In an interview with CNN, Reddit founder Alexis Ohanian said he would refuse to buy Facebook stock because of the company’s appalling attitude to privacy and its support for the CISPA bill.

“I’m not planning on it…I understand the business value to what Facebook is doing. We’ve never seen a company like this before–ever. And it knows things about our private lives that no one else does. And one of the big issues that a lot of us in the tech community have had of late has been their support for bills like CISPA that make it really easy for companies like Facebook to hand over private data about us without any due process. So that’s why I’ll be holding off,” said Ohanian.

Reddit joins Mozilla as the only other major tech company to decry CISPA, with firms like Facebook, Microsoft, IBM, Intel, Oracle, Symantec, AT&T and Verizon all backing the bill. Last week, Mozilla released a statement calling the legislation an “alarming” threat to privacy, adding, “The bill infringes on our privacy, includes vague definitions of cybersecurity, and grants immunities to companies and government that are too broad around information misuse.”

CISPA has been identified by many as a greater threat to privacy than SOPA, which was opposed by a deluge of major tech firms after a viral online opposition campaign, but because CISPA has received less attention, corporate giants have found it easier to stay mute.

Not only would CISPA mandate ISPs to share Internet data of users with government “notwithstanding any other provision of law,” it also empowers the Department of Homeland Securityto monitor the communications of the federal courts and Congress, and intercept tax returns sent to the IRS.

The bill “gives companies a free pass to monitor and collect communications and share that data with the government and other companies, so long as they do so for ‘cybersecurity purposes,’” the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has noted. “Just invoking ‘cybersecurity threats’ is enough to grant companies immunity from nearly all civil and criminal liability, effectively creating an exemption from all existing law.”

CONTINUED at Prison Planet. Written by Paul Joseph Watson. Video at link.

*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.

Mozilla is first Silicon Valley entity to denounce bill.

Tech giant Mozilla has publicly slammed the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) which passed the House last week, labeling the legislation an “alarming” threat to privacy.

“While we wholeheartedly support a more secure Internet, CISPA has a broad and alarming reach that goes far beyond Internet security. The bill infringes on our privacy, includes vague definitions of cybersecurity, and grants immunities to companies and government that are too broad around information misuse. We hope the Senate takes the time to fully and openly consider these issues with stakeholder input before moving forward with this legislation,” Mozilla, which is best known for its Firefox browser, said in a statement.

The statement is important because it marks the first time any Silicon Valley entity has denounced CISPA, with an array of powerful companies lining up in support of the legislation which passed the US House of Representatives 248 to 168 and now heads to the Senate.

Facebook, Microsoft, IBM, Intel, Oracle, Symantec, AT&T and Verizon have all backed the bill, with Microsoft re-affirming its support yesterday after rumors the company was getting cold feet, while Google has refused to take either side.

CISPA has been identified by many as a greater threat to privacy than SOPA, which was opposed by a deluge of major tech firms after a viral online opposition campaign, but because CISPA has received less attention, corporate giants have found it easier to stay mute.

Not only would CISPA mandate ISPs to share Internet data of users with government “notwithstanding any other provision of law,” it also empowers the Department of Homeland Securityto monitor the communications of the federal courts and Congress, and intercept tax returns sent to the IRS.

The bill “gives companies a free pass to monitor and collect communications and share that data with the government and other companies, so long as they do so for ‘cybersecurity purposes,’” the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has noted. “Just invoking ‘cybersecurity threats’ is enough to grant companies immunity from nearly all civil and criminal liability, effectively creating an exemption from all existing law.”

“The government would be able to search information it collects under CISPA for the purposes of investigating American citizens with complete immunity from all privacy protections as long as they can claim someone committed a “cybersecurity crime”. Basically it says the 4th Amendment does not apply online, at all. Moreover, the government could do whatever it wants with the data as long as it can claim that someone was in danger of bodily harm, or that children were somehow threatened—again, notwithstanding absolutely any other law that would normally limit the government’s power,” writes TechDirt’s Leigh Beadon.

As we have documented, the Obama administration’s threat to veto the bill is little more than a crude stunt and carries no more weight than Obama’s promise to veto the National Defense Authorization Act, which he signed on New Year’s Eve after the White House itself lobbied for the NDAA’s most egregious provisions to be included.

Indeed, the White House’s primary beef with the legislation appears to be the fact that it doesn’t handenough power to the Department of Homeland Security.

CISPA now moves to the Senate where it will be amalgamated with one of two other bills before heading to Obama’s desk. Don’t hold your breath on that veto.

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

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: Infowars.

CarbonSat: Enforcing green fascism’s CO2 tax from space.

The European Space Agency is set to green light a new surveillance satellite that will measure man-made carbon emissions from space in order to “hunt down” violators of international climate agreements, allowing Big Brother to enforce a future tax on CO2 emissions.

Labeled CarbonSat, the satellite system will have the ability to differentiate between natural carbon emissions and man-made CO2 releases. Earlier this month, the ESA announced that it had contracted space company Astrium to develop the satellite, which will be ready for deployment by 2017.

The Astrium press releaseannouncing the project makes no mention of the fact that the satellite will be used to perform surveillance on individuals and businesses to keep tabs on their carbon footprint, instead presenting its role as merely measuring carbon emissions.

However, an interview with Astrium President Evert Dudok carried by a German climate alarmist website makes it clear that the technology will be used to spy on human activity from space and impose penalties for non-compliance with United Nations environmental treaties and regulations.

According to a translation by the prominent climate skeptic website No Tricks Zone, Dudok reveals that the primary function of the satellite will be to perform highly intrusive surveillance.

CONTINUED at Prison Planet. Written by Paul Joseph Watson.

A coalition of advocacy groups has begun a week of intensive protests against the latest attack on the free and open internet, The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA). The draconian legislation would force companies to ignore existing privacy laws and share information with the federal government.

After Dharun Ravi was convicted of “bias intimidation” crimes that carry a penalty of up to 10 years in prison, many people wondered why he had rejected a plea deal that would have kept him out of jail. Ravi’s lawyer explained that the 20-year-old defendant’s parents “didn’t believe their son acted with hate, or bias, and they didn’t want him labeled like that for life.” But it turns out you can be convicted of a hate crime without hating anyone, which only compounds the injustice of laws that punish people for their bigotry.

The jury acquitted Ravi of trying to intimidate his roommate at Rutgers University, Tyler Clementi, on September 19, 2010, when Ravi briefly used a webcam in his dorm room to watch Clementi kiss another man. But the jury nevertheless concluded that Clementi, who killed himself three days later for reasons that remain unclear, felt intimidated and “reasonably believed” he was targeted because he was gay. Under New Jersey law, that was enough.

To convict Ravi of this unintentional, hateless hate crime, the jury had to infer Clementi’s state of mind and conclude that the circumstances justified it. Those elements have reasonable doubt built into them in case like this, where the victim cannot testify and no one else knows what he was thinking. “We’ll never know exactly what he was feeling,” one juror conceded. “I can only assume.” Our system of justice demands more than that.

We do know, based on Clementi’s instant messages and posts, that he initially dismissed what he called Ravi’s “five sec peep” but upon reflection was angry, especially since Ravi had tweeted about it. Two days later, Ravi told his Twitter followers the same man was visiting Clementi again and dared them to watch.

The second viewing never happened, apparently because Clementi unplugged Ravi’s computer. He also applied online for a room change, complained to a resident adviser, and repeatedly checked Ravi’s Twitter feed. Still, the fact that Clementi had sex again in the same room suggests he was not exactly intimidated.

The jury concluded that the aborted second viewing was a deliberate attempt to intimidate Clementi “because of [his] sexual orientation.” Yet the prosecution’s own witnesses testified they had never heard Ravi, who was not shy about expressing his opinions, disparage gay people or Clementi.

CONTINUED at Reason. Written by Jacob Sullum.

When Justin Bassett interviewed for a new job, he expected the usual questions about experience and references. So he was astonished when the interviewer asked for something else: his Facebook username and password.

Bassett, a New York City statistician, had just finished answering a few character questions when the interviewer turned to her computer to search for his Facebook page. But she couldn’t see his private profile. She turned back and asked him to hand over his login information.

Bassett refused and withdrew his application, saying he didn’t want to work for a company that would seek such personal information. But as the job market steadily improves, other job candidates are confronting the same question from prospective employers, and some of them cannot afford to say no.

In their efforts to vet applicants, some companies and government agencies are going beyond merely glancing at a person’s social networking profiles and instead asking to log in as the user to have a look around.

“It’s akin to requiring someone’s house keys,” said Orin Kerr, a George Washington University law professor and former federal prosecutor who calls it “an egregious privacy violation.”

Questions have been raised about the legality of the practice, which is also the focus of proposed legislation in Illinois and Maryland that would forbid public agencies from asking for access to social networks.

CONTINUED at WTOP.

*Written by Rob Rimes.

Unlike Rick Santorum, I love gay people. Hell, I have a lot of gay friends. In fact, I get pretty perturbed when someone attacks them just for being themselves. You see, despite all the dramatic and bigoted bullshit, most gay people are very forgiving with the hateful rhetoric, as they can see the forest for the trees and recognize a hate-mongering piece of shit for what it is. They can take the heat and have for decades, if not centuries and I respect that. A punk ass bitch like Santorum, well, he can’t handle any sort of heat because he is a soggy-bottomed thin-skinned piss midget that bitches, whines and cries when things don’t go his way. Well this is one of those times when that shit pigeon is going to have to sniffle like the sensitive little Tina that he is because I’m not going to be all that kind to him or to the fucking morons who casted votes in his favor. I mean seriously people, if you voted for Rick Santorum, I don’t care who you are, you are a goddamned scumbag and lower than a piece of dried up shit smeared across the belly of a cockroach crawling through a grease trap! There is a special place in Hell for all of you but realistically, Hell probably doesn’t exist so you’re going to get a free pass most likely.

Getting back to Ricky Baby, I have to mention that the nasty Bible-fucking bastard followed up three big wins on Super Tuesday with some big wins in the Deep South. Truthfully, the people of that region just proved that they are as dumb as the rest of the country thinks that they are. We would all probably benefit from a great flood in that region. I mean, spare the children, the dogs and the house cats but please wipe the rest of these people off of the face of the Earth, especially if they have a Santorum sign in front of their podunk rusty trailer. The planet would be so much better if the rest of the world didn’t have to live their lives affected by the decisions of these moronic rednecks and evangelical fear turtles. Rick Santorum’s success is proof that Americans are a mad breed of people. No, not mad as in angry but mad as in insane and ravenous! Like starving hyenas eating their own faces off because the lions have continually beaten them to the kill. To be fair, not all Americans are insane but a very big portion of them are, simply because of the fact that this guy is riding high in second place in this ridiculous Republican primary.

Now, I’ve written about this closeted cock-smuggler before but I’ve refrained from revealing the real evil stuff. I mean, this pompous pontificating pansy has done some really weird and dark shit and fuck it, I refuse to pull punches at this point because the people deserve to see the layers peeled back on this guy. Sure, the media has mentioned these things before but not at a mainstream level, except where it was to bash one of their own for putting one of these stories out there. The reason why they don’t bring this up is pretty obvious. First, the media lies and only reports on what they feel will help shape their agenda. With that being said, CNN and MSNBC don’t want this stuff out there because they would rather have a weakling cockpuppet like Santorum go against their messiah – Barack Obama in November. Fox News doesn’t want this stuff out there because they believe that Rick Santorum is actually a viable candidate and they have to protect him going into November, that is if you even remotely entertain the idea that this douche can win – unfortunately, this is still possible and nothing would surprise me at this point. Truth is, the man is sick and twisted and so is the mainstream media who have been incredibly irresponsible in not covering these horrific tales.

The first of these insane true stories may make your skin crawl, as it had a very disturbing effect on mine. Now Fox News’ own Alan Colmes reported on this and received a ton of heat from it by his colleagues and then, as quickly as this news surfaced, it was buried and shelved away. What I am referring to is an incident where Rick Santorum’s child died shortly after birth and he and his wife felt it was necessary to bring their corpse of a newborn home to show their living children. On one hand, this sounds insane, on the other hand, many people may be pissed at the mere mention of this, as they probably believe that people should be able to grieve and raise their kids in their own way. I get that argument, I do, but considering that Rick Santorum sees it necessary for the government to be in our bedrooms and in our lives, why should any of us respect his family’s privacy? Sure, this may seem like I am taking the low road but the fact of the matter is that this did indeed happen and it should be known, as this guy is running for the highest office in the land and as bewildering as it is to me, he could magically win the election – and I only say this because somehow he has gotten this far. Now I understand that the loss of a child is horrific and I’m not trying to make fun of the Santorum family or downplay the situation but these actions are strange and a little unsettling, if you can’t see why, you may need a mental examination.

However, it gets even weirder. Karen Santorum came out and talked about this incident and while I feel horrible about their loss, the next reveal really put the cherry on top of this insane sundae. She admitted that after showing the deceased infant to their living children, that she and her husband slept with it! I’m sorry, while the grieving process is hard and the loss of a child is by far one of the hardest things anyone could ever go through, this is just morbid and disturbing on so many levels. The most disturbing thing however, is how this family has often times told the story of their deceased child and their other child who has severe health issues in an effort to drum up sympathy and compassion from the voting public. They certainly don’t parade around the fact that they brought their dead child home, showed it to their children and slept with it but they do pull on the sympathy strings by continually mentioning their dead son and their daughter who nearly died and has continually had life-threatening medical problems.

Rick Santorum’s strange kid stories don’t stop there. He served on the board of directors of Universal Health Services, Inc., which is a hospital chain that was plagued with dozens of allegations of abuse during Santorum’s time on the board. These allegations include rape, neglect, patient suicides over bad care as well as murder. While all of those ghastly things are revolting and unacceptable, nothing may be more disturbing than the fact that one of these hospitals performed an exorcism on a boy suffering from autism! Hell, here is what the Huffington Post had to say about it:

Over the years, states have barred children from attending UHS facilities over safety concerns and the feds have put UHS on their radar. Department of Justice lawyers have filed two lawsuits accusing the chain of fraudulent activities. One lawsuit settled for $27.5 million. Another suit still pending in federal court in Virginia centers on a facility called Keystone Marion Youth Center.

The facility, located in Marion, Va., is a residential treatment center for troubled boys with mental-health issues. The majority of patients come from states’ child-welfare and juvenile-justice systems. The center promises stability, schooling, and clinically-approved therapies. It was also approved to accept Medicaid patients.

It did not have approval to perform an “exorcism.”

But that is what appeared to be happening in an empty room at Marion in May 2007, according to a facility teacher who passed by the room, which was occupied by at least one nurse, a supervisor, a janitor and a boy with autism. Several in the room appeared to be hovering over the boy and praying, according to the teacher, who recounted the incident shortly after to Barbara Jones, the center’s director of education at the time.

The severity of the boy’s autism left him hardly able to speak and unable to walk on his own, Jones says.

“‘They were trying to exorcise him. That’s why he had the autism, he had a demon in him,’” Jones recounted what the teacher told her to The Huffington Post. “The cleaning lady was trying to cast out the demons.”

Santorum was one of the overseers of UHS when this happened. In fact, he’d still be there sitting high if he didn’t leave to focus on his campaign. Maybe this is an extreme example but with NDAA passed and the indefinite detention of American citizens now being a reality, who is to say that this self-righteous Jesus freak won’t round up those causing dissent in an attempt to exorcise them of their anti-Santorum “demons”. This article alone might make me a prime candidate for Mr. Santorum’s special brand of theocratic cleansing. The man is mad!

With UHS’s horrific track record, I’m sure that this isn’t just an isolated incident. Considering that children have been barred from their hospitals by those more competent than UHS’s medical staff, one has to wonder if every atrocity has made it to the light of day. I’m sure if one were to dig deeper, they would find much more. Besides, you can’t tell me that Rick Santorum wasn’t aware of all of this? Why hasn’t he come forward and condemned it? Is it because he sees nothing wrong with the actions of this vile institution that he helped manage at the highest level? Is he hoping that this story won’t see the light of day? Well, the conservative media won’t run it and maybe the liberal media is just holding off on pushing this story until the time comes for them to use it more effectively – like if Ricky Baby were to actually win the nomination.

In every sense of the word, the man is sick and if you are in denial about that, you are probably just as big of a wicked bastard. I don’t feel bad about sharing this, as he has no qualms about making our privacy transparent and outlawing certain activities that many of us do in our own homes behind closed doors. When he points the finger at everyone that doesn’t share his arcane beliefs and says that he intends to force us into his box, well it’s only fair for those of us he’s speaking to to point back at him and let him know that he’s a sick fuck in his own way and he is not holier than thou. Besides, he is running for office and under a microscope – that was his choice by choosing to ride this train. Think what you will about any of this. Sure, I interjected my opinion throughout this piece but the fact that many will find it offensive, either because of Santorum’s actions or because of my reveal on things in his personal life, has proven that it is relevant and that it is necessary to see the light of day, even though you can argue against that point until you are blue in the face. The fact is, the American public has a right to know all of this and to think otherwise is ignorant and careless.

The point is, this man must not be allowed to get the Republican nomination and certainly not the chair in the Oval Office. Mitt Romney and Barack Obama are both bastards in their own right but Rick Santorum is a Bible-carrying beast that wants to breed a culture of big government religio-fascism the likes of which we’ve never seen before in this country. The blood is on all of our hands if he succeeds.

Court hearing scheduled for next week in ongoing effort by privacy group to expose details of working relationship.

The Department of Justice will ask a federal court to uphold the secrecy that surrounds the working relationship between Google and the National Security Agency in a hearing that is scheduled for next week.

Privacy watchdog group The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) is returning to court once again in an effort to disclose more information regarding the widely publicized partnership between the spy agency and the search engine giant.

EPIC is suing to obtain documents that detail the relationship, and will appeal against the NSA’s so-called “Glomar” response, claiming it “could neither confirm nor deny” the existence of any information about its relations with Google, because “such a response would reveal information about NSA’s functions and activities.”

The NSA’s response stated that the agency “works with a broad range of commercial partners and research associations” in order to oversee the security of important information systems, but did not provide any further detail.

The issue rose to prominencein January 2010 following a highly sophisticated and targeted cyber attack on the corporate infrastructure of Google and some twenty other large US companies.

The attack was blamed on the Chinese government, prompting Google to embrace a collaborationwith the federal agency in charge of global electronic surveillance.

Anonymous sources informed The Washington Post at the time that “the alliance is being designed to allow the two organizations to share critical information”, adding that the agreement will not allow the NSA access to users’ search details or e-mails.

The DOJ is backing NSA’s Glomar response, as The Legal Times reports:

CONTINUED at Prison Planet. Written by Steve Watson.