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Begun, the Cyber Wars Have...

By Robert RomanoBERJAYA

In an unexpected move, on Jan. 19, the U.S. Department of Justice, along with New Zealand law enforcement officials, have taken down Hong Kong-based Megaupload.com, a popular file sharing site that had been promoted by pop culture icons Alicia Keys, Kim Kardashian, and Puff Daddy.

In response, the Anonymous hackers group has waged denial of service attacks on the Department of Justice, the U.S. Copyright Office, the White House, the FBI, MPAA, RIAA, BMI, and Universal Music.

Megaupload’s founders have been arrested, and charged with a criminal conspiracy to violate federal copyright laws, even though the company was based overseas.

More than anything, the move shows that new laws, such as SOPA and PIPA, to take out foreign infringing sites are completely unnecessary.

Which is what Americans for Limited Government Bill Wilson has been saying all along. In a statement before the indictments were announced, he said, “Existing law already provides for the removal of copyrighted material from the Internet domestically, and dealing with foreign infringement requires diplomacy with relevant nations overseas, not a regime of censorship here at home.”

Surely enough, with the cooperation of New Zealand, authorities had little trouble rounding up members of the company and handing down a multi-count indictment.

The company had been claiming to be a “file storage” company, but is accused of facilitating copyright infringement by refusing to process Digital Millennium Copyright Act takedown requests, and by falsely telling copyright owners materials had been removed when members of the company were replacing the url’s of pirated material.

Also, according to the indictment, it allegedly “made payments to uploaders who were known to have uploaded infringing copies of copyrighted works.” It also alleges that members of the company were uploading infringing works themselves.

If true, Megaupload.com would certainly have qualified as a foreign infringing site as defined by SOPA and PIPA.

Importantly, it means no change in existing laws is necessary at all to get at some of the largest infringing sites in the world.

That is why, in light of the charges, members of Congress should reconsider their support of these pieces of legislation.

The timing of the indictment does appear to be a warning shot to U.S.-based user networks. The bills under consideration in the House and Senate explicitly state that they would target foreign websites that would otherwise be eligible for seizure under existing domestic federal forfeiture laws.

It is already using those laws to seize domestic websites it alleges are engaged in piracy, and in some cases is doing so based on apparent bogus complaints, as in the case of www.dajaz1.com.

Considering the type of network Megaupload was — a user network that allows folks to upload pretty much anything they want — that means other networks that allow uploading need to be careful and diligent to process legitimate takedown complaints from copyright holders, and certainly not to share profits with known infringing users.

That said, this is a clear example why existing laws are sufficient for domestic issues, and international issues should be dealt with via diplomacy.

However, a word of warning.

The draconian tools in SOPA and PIPA could be easily leveraged against Wikipedia, Twitter, Google and Facebook. It is a striking coincidence that one of the largest copyright crackdowns in history came one day after many popular sites across the Internet demonstrated the need for careful deliberation on any new laws in this area.

These indictments must not be allowed to be used as a means of squelching dissent, and intimidating opposition to the legislation. It is our hope that the timing of this execution of law was not a message to the broader community, but it certainly could be construed that way. A frightening thought indeed.

Robert Romano is the Senior Editor of Americans for Limited Government.

Reelected Captain


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Are we over the edge?

BERJAYA

By Rick Manning

I wonder if we have lost our nation.

I don’t come to the conclusion lightly. But, If those Americans who take more in benefits from the government than they produce have not already overwhelmed the system to form an effective majority, they are perilously close.

As early as elementary school, I wondered how the Roman Empire fell and could not understand it. I learned something of the dole system that was established to help make the poor dependent upon the Imperial government, but did not fully understand the correlations.

Now, America is on the verge of putting itself on auto-pilot to insignificance, crushed under the weight of debt to support those who have the political numbers to protect themselves from the necessary spending cuts that would save our country.

The government itself has grown so large that too many Americans look at it as the founder of their feast rather than a necessary evil.

So, while the people will rise up on issues that affect their entertainment like the Wikipedia led outrage over the Internet piracy bill, they are sanguine on real issues that cut to the heart of our nation’s survival.

Since October 1, 2008, our nation has spent $5.2 trillion more than we have taken in, and the size and scope of government continues to expand. To put the total national debt into perspective, 15.2 trillion dollars is the equivalent of 15,251 billion dollars or one million dollars multiplied 15.251 million times. And we keep adding more than one million dollars multiplied by a million to it every year.

To make matters worse, the U.S. Congress’ Joint Committee on Taxation found that in 2009, 51 percent of all households, which includes filers and non-filers, paid no income tax for tax year 2009. In the same year, the Committee also found that 30 percent of households that filed taxes received more money back from the government than they paid into it throughout the year.

In addition, the Wall Street Journal quotes just released U.S. Census Bureau data which shows that 48.6 percent of Americans live in a household receiving some form of taxpayer funded assistance.

That’s right. Almost one half of Americans are at least partial beneficiaries of some kind of government dole, and according to USA Today only 54 percent of the people who file tax returns end up paying any taxes at all.

Just sixteen years ago, three out of four tax filers paid some taxes, making the lower taxes argument a clear political winner. But today, with almost half of tax filers not paying any taxes and many of those actually getting more back from the government than they paid in, the political advantage enjoyed by those who pay taxes over those who demand services has been lost.

The political advantage lies with the 49 percent of the people who are in households getting taxpayer assistance instead of those who make the money and pay the freight.

The very best case scenario is that America is at the tipping point where the balance between those who demand government services and those who pay for them is teetering, and the parasites are about to overwhelm the host.

Incredibly, in the end, the parasites are likely to not only demand that the producers provide for them, but also that their hosts apologize for providing goods or services of sufficient value to create an income that puts them in the taxed rather than beneficiary category.

This upcoming election will determine if the beneficiaries of government control the ballot box. If they do and Obama is re-elected, the producers of wealth in America can only hope to fight an ever more futile rear guard action as even the politicians who pretend to support them are truly only milking them for their personal gain.

Obama’s new normal will be established with ever lower expectations for individual wealth from an increasingly diminished economy, and the President will have kept his 2008 campaign promise to transform America.

There is no other issue facing our nation that is more important than this battle between those who are government wards and those who pay the freight.

America has a choice of who she wants to be in the future. I pray that the voters choose wisely.

Rick Manning is the Director of Communications for Americans for Limited Government. The views expressed herein are his alone and should not be construed as official positions of any organization.

Charles Manson energy

By Paul DriessenBERJAYA

“[G]leaming white wind turbines generating carbon-free electricity carpet chaparral-covered ridges and march down into valleys of Joshua trees.” This is “the future” of American energy — not “the oil rigs planted helter-skelter in [nearby] citrus groves,” nor the “smoggy San Joaquin Valley” a few miles away.

The Forbes article’s poetic paean to Aeolian energy nevertheless voiced consternation that a 300-megawatt “green” turbine project might kill some of the magnificent California condors that are just coming back from the edge of extinction — and the project might be cancelled as a result.

Indeed, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS) has asked Kern County to “exercise extreme caution” in approving projects in the Tehapachi area, because of potential threats to condors. The “conundrum will force some hard choices about the balance we are willing to strike between obtaining clean energy and preserving wild things,” the article suggested. Hopefully, it concluded, new “avian radar units” will be able to detect condors and automatically shut down turbines when one approaches.

All Americans hope condors will not be sliced and diced by giant Cuisinarts. But most of us are puzzled that so few “environmentalists” and FWS “caretakers” express concern about the countless bald and golden eagles, hawks, falcons, vultures, ducks, geese, bats and other rare, threatened, endangered and common flying creatures imperiled by turbine blades.

And many of us get downright angry at the selective, indeed hypocritical ways in which endangered species and other wildlife laws are applied — leaving wind turbine operators free to exact their carnage, while harassing and punishing oil companies and citizens.

In 2011, following an intensive million-dollar, 45-day helicopter search for dead birds in North Dakota oil fields by FWS officials, US Attorney Timothy Purdon prosecuted seven oil and gas companies for inadvertently killing 28 mallard ducks, flycatchers and other common birds that were found dead in or near uncovered waste pits. Under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, the companies and their executive officers faced fines of up to $15,000 per bird, plus six months in prison. (They eventually agreed to plead guilty and pay $1,000 per bird.)

Also in 2011, an FWS agent charged an 11-year-old Virginia girl with illegally “taking” a baby woodpecker that the girl had rescued from a housecat, even though she intended to release the bird after ensuring it was OK. The threatened $535 fine was finally dropped, after the FWS was deservedly ridiculed in the media.

The mere possession of an eagle feather by a non-Indian can result in fines and imprisonment, even if the feather came from a bird butchered by a wind turbine: up to $100,000, a year in prison or both for a first offense. Poisoning or otherwise killing common bats that have nested in one’s attic can cost homeowners thousands of dollars in fines.

Wind turbine companies, officers and employees, however, are immune from prosecution, fines or imprisonment, regardless of how many rare, threatened, endangered or migratory birds and bats they kill. In fact, FWS data show that wind turbines slaughter some 400,000 birds every year. If “helter-skelter” applies to any energy source, it is wind turbines, reflecting their Charles Manson effect on birds.

The hypocritical Obama-Purdon-FWS policy certainly protects, promotes and advances an anti-hydrocarbon, catastrophic global warming agenda that is increasingly at odds with environmental, scientific, economic, job-creation and public opinion reality. It also safeguards wind turbines that survive solely because of government mandates, taxpayer subsidies … and exemptions from laws that penalize and terrorize the rest of us.

It may be true that housecats and reflective windows kill more songbirds than turbines do. However, that oft-cited defense of wind energy Cuisinarts is irrelevant to the birds and bats discussed here.

Even if avian radar and turbine shutdown systems do eventually work, and can actually and abruptly stop turbine blades before they butcher an approaching bird, should they be limited to condors? Shouldn’t they be required for eagles and falcons — and for hawks, ducks, flycatchers, bats and other protected species? Geese, for example, to prevent a repeat of the December 7, 2011 massacre of numerous snow geese by wind turbines along upstate New York Route 190, as reported by a motorist?

Why aren’t wind developers and permitting authorities required to consider the lost economic benefits of butchered birds and bats, which do so much to control rats and insects that carry diseases and destroy crops? Shouldn’t that analysis be made mandatory, as more wind projects are proposed, thereby posing an ever-increasing threat to numerous species — and even to the survival of some?

Of course, even condor protection alone could reduce affected turbine electricity output to 20 or even 10 percent of rated capacity, instead of their current 30 percent average. Adding other protected species would drive nearly all actual wind turbine electricity output down below 5 percent — making the turbines virtually worthless, and driving the exorbitant cost of wind energy even higher.

But why should wind turbines be above the law? In fact, why should we even worry about reducing their electricity output?

America’s environmentalists, legislators, judges and bureaucrats have already made hundreds of millions of acres of resource-rich land off limits — and rendered centuries of oil, gas, coal, uranium, geothermal and other energy unavailable. The Environmental Protection Agency’s anti-coal zero-pollution rules, intense opposition to the Keystone pipeline, and looming restrictions on hydraulic fracturing for natural gas are already further impairing electricity and other energy availability and reliability.

This government-imposed energy deprivation is already driving families into energy poverty and sending more jobs overseas.

Put bluntly, wind energy is unsustainable. It kills unconscionable numbers of bats, raptors and other birds. It requires billions in perpetual subsidies — and billions more for (mostly) gas-fired backup generators. It impacts millions of acres of scenic, wildlife and agricultural land — and depends on vast amounts of raw materials, whose extraction and processing further impairs global land, air and water quality. Its expensive, unreliable electricity kills two jobs for every one supposedly created.

A far more rational public policy would cut out the costly, unreliable middleman. It would forget about wind turbines, simply build more gas, coal and nuclear generators, to generate reliable, affordable, sustainable electricity — and apply the same laws fairly and equitably to all energy sources.

Paul Driessen is senior policy advisor for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow and author of Eco-Imperialism: Green power – Black death.

Obama says no to Keystone pipeline, no to energy independence and no to American jobs

By Rebekah RastBERJAYA

President Obama has made his decision in regards to the Keystone XL pipeline. He said no.

No to extending America’s efforts for energy independence and no to creating jobs, all while pointing the finger at Republicans saying his decision is their fault.

According to the payroll tax cut extension passed at the end of last year, President Obama had 60 days to decide whether to approve or dismiss the Keystone XL pipeline. His final decision is clear, but it is also a punch in the gut for those Americans who could have had a job.

“This announcement is not a judgment on the merits of the pipeline, but the arbitrary nature of a deadline that prevented the State Department from gathering the information necessary to approve the project and protect the American people,” Obama said in a statement. “I’m disappointed that Republicans in Congress forced this decision, but it does not change my Administration’s commitment to American-made energy that creates jobs and reduces our dependence on oil.”

But the Keystone pipeline is not a new idea. It would carry oil from Canada to refineries in Texas, passing through Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas and Oklahoma. The administration has known about it for two years and it seems the State Department did have some time to deal with the proposal as it reported last summer that the pipeline would create up to 6,000 jobs during construction alone (though some say this is a low estimate). The pipeline also has approval from Nebraska State’s governor and senators who are open to the project as long as it steers clear of an environmentally sensitive area of the state, which a provision the payroll tax cut extension allows.

Yet the screams of opposition from the environmentalists were loud and clear. Is that why the president caved? Those speaking on behalf of the environment feared this pipeline would lead to a possible oil spill. Never mind the nation’s more than 2 million miles of other pipelines safely deliver trillions of cubic feet of natural gas and hundreds of billions of ton/miles of liquid petroleum products each year.

Even with environmentalist opposition, this pipeline will be built with or without America’s help. If not through the U.S., Canada has proposed building the pipeline through its own country to the West Coast for shipment to China or other markets, so why aren’t the environmentalists fighting that idea?

Maybe Obama didn’t say no because of the environmental concerns. Maybe it was for a different reason.

President Obama’s next favored group is the unions. Where do they stand on the Keystone pipeline? They are in full support. Remember, construction workers were one of the most hardest hit groups during this ongoing recession and many of them are still left without a job. They needed this pipeline more than anyone.

So why say no, Mr. President?

Ah yes, he is up for reelection this year, and according to the polls, his chances of continuing his reign don’t look too good.

Without the heavy funds he receives from environmentalist fundraisers he might not be reelected at all. Besides why should he lose his job over a pipeline that could provide thousands of Americans a job? The political game comes before the nation in a year like this.

Maybe if he could have delayed the decision another year, when he hopes to be sitting comfortably in the White House yet again, the outcome of the pipeline would have been different. After all, that is what the State Department asked for. Go figure. Meanwhile, those without a job since President Obama took office can sit tight knowing he isn’t working for them.

Or for America.

Rebekah Rast is a contributing editor to Americans for Limited Government (ALG) and NetRightDaily.com. You can follow her on twitter at @RebekahRast.

Could We Learn From The Rise And Fall Of Greece?

Video by Frank McCaffrey

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SOPA Support Implodes

By Robert RomanoBERJAYA

It is telling that on the same day the Wall Street Journal published a lead editorial in favor of legislation that would censor the Internet in the name of protecting copyright that the bill lost no less than 14 previous backers, who dropped their support of the legislation.

Eight were in the Senate alone, including Senators Marco Rubio, Jim Inhofe, John Cornyn, Orrin Hatch, John Boozman, David Vitter, Kelly Ayotte, and Roy Blunt. On the House side, former cosponsors Representatives Ben Quayle, Lee Terry, Dennis Ross, Steve Scalise, Tim Griffin and Tim Holden also bolted from a bill that can only be said to be imploding.

What was behind the defections? A flood of thousands of emails and phone calls from concerned Americans, prodded on by super-popular websites like Wikipedia.org that went dark on Jan. 18 in protest of the legislation. Instead of being able to look up information, the thousands of sites that went black urged regular users to contact their Senators and Congressmen in opposition to the bills.

It appears to be working, and more defections are expected. A number of previously undeclared legislators have also come out against the bill, striking a significant blow to the legislation’s momentum.

“Wikipedia and other websites are to be praised for going black today, and showing what the world might be like without websites that depend on user contributions,” commented Americans for Limited Government President Bill Wilson.

Wilson criticized provisions of the legislation for going too far in the name of protecting intellectual property. “Whether intended or not, SOPA and PIPA will result in a regime of censorship on the Internet, particularly targeted at sites that allow users to upload content without restriction,” he said, explaining, “Because of the broad language of the bills in both houses, any site that allegedly ‘facilitates’ features that could be used for posting copyrighted materials could be targeted, along with their revenue streams and visibility in search engines, by the government. The problem is that’s any site that allows uploading, which is practically every social network and blogging website on the Internet.”

It appears that the legislation may not even be necessary to protect copyright domestically, Wilson noted, pointing to federal law that’s been on the books for over a decade: “Existing protections under the Digital Copyright Millennium Act already provide for the removal of copyrighted material from user-based websites, and give safe harbor to sites that actively remove content that violates intellectual property. SOPA and PIPA will override those safe harbor provisions, and take the posture that websites are guilty until proven innocent.”

Wilson concluded, “In a free society, that is unacceptable. It is un-American.”

Fortunately, it appears the legacy media’s support for the bills is not helping it along. While new media sites like Wikipedia, Google, and Facebook were galvanizing hundreds of thousands of Americans against the legislation, leading to at least 14 defections, there were no reports of previous opponents of the legislation who had turned into supporters.

All of which may tell us a lot about how much weight the mainstream media even carries anymore.

By our count, that’s Wikipedia 14, Wall Street Journal 0.

Robert Romano is the Senior Editor of Americans for Limited Government.

McMorris Rodgers bill repeals $100 billion IMF credit line

BERJAYA

By Bill Wilson

As originally reported by The Washington Examiner.

Under Article 1, Section 9 of the Constitution, "no money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in consequence of appropriations made by Law."

And yet in 2009, Congress under the leadership of then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid adopted legislation that boosted the U.S. quota at the International Monetary Fund by $8 billion and created an open-ended $100 billion credit line to the organization.

The $64 billion quota is money the IMF already has at its disposal, while the $100 billion credit line is like a home equity loan or credit card limit that has not been tapped.

To access the funds from the $100 billion credit line, called "New Arrangements to Borrow," the IMF does not need to return to Congress. That will be true even if the monies are used for controversial bailouts of troubled governments and financial institutions in Europe that bet poorly on the sovereign debt of bankrupt socialist states like Greece.

In fact, the IMF — with U.S. funding — is already engaged in a bailout of Europe, having already committed up to €78.5 billion, or about $100 billion, to propping up Greece, Ireland and Portugal. This is more than 39 percent of the IMF's total commitments worldwide of about $254 billion. Already, the European crisis is eating up a disproportionate portion of the IMF's funding, and the IMF is just getting started. This illustrates that the IMF was never intended to be used to solve a debt crisis of this magnitude.

To date, according to the IMF, $22 billion of our nation's $64 billion quota has been tapped. On top of that, the IMF has already accessed and used $7.2 billion of the $100 billion credit line.

That means $29 billion of U.S. taxpayer money is already being use by the IMF to finance outstanding commitments worldwide.

As the $100 billion credit line is increasingly tapped, the nation's stake in the IMF will become dramatically larger — and U.S. taxpayer funds will be put increasingly at risk of European defaults. That is why what remains of the $100 billion credit line needs to be pulled back as soon as possible.

Fortunately, legislation has been offered by Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., to roll back the $100 billion credit line — before it is all wasted financing unsustainable Greek pensions and insolvent Irish banks.

The Obama administration never should have promised the $100 billion credit line to begin with at the April 2009 G-20 meeting, and Congress certainly should have never approved it.

That it is now being used to bail out Europe would be deeply disturbing to the majority of Americans, as the IMF lacks the resources to prop up all of the consolidated debts of Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece and Spain, which total more than €3 trillion, or about $3.8 trillion. The IMF was never intended to be used to prop up major financial powers, and certainly not in the West.

With a rash of European credit downgrades by rating agencies, now is the time for the U.S. to get back its $100 billion credit line — with the help of McMorris Rodgers' legislation — before it is too late and it is poured down the drain.

It is time Congress had its say. This open-ended commitment to the IMF must come to an end, and the power of our representatives to approve all appropriations be restored.

Bill Wilson is president of Americans for Limited Government.

Romney's Missed Opportunity on Europe

By Bill WilsonBERJAYA

In the Jan. 16 Republican presidential debate in South Carolina, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney was asked another question whether he would support the use of taxpayer dollars to finance a bailout of banks in Europe that bet poorly on the sovereign debt of socialist governments like Greece.

Call it a missed opportunity. Not to offer a generic sound bite, which he did by saying, “the right course for us is not to think we have to go run over to Europe to try and save their banking system”.

Instead, it was a missed opportunity to educate the American people about the $100 billion elephant in the room. Which is what, through the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the U.S. is already offering to finance a bailout in Europe via a credit line created by the Pelosi-Reid Congress in 2009. This is something that Romney could have called special attention to.

The $100 billion credit line comes in addition to the nation’s $64 billion quota in the IMF, bringing the nation’s total stake in the Fund to $164 billion.

Of that, $22 billion has already been used from the quota and $7.2 billion used from the credit line according to the Fund, in bailouts all over the world, including Europe. And unless it is rescinded, as the problems in Europe continue to grow, American taxpayers’ stake in the crisis will continue to grow.

Fortunately, of the $100 billion credit line, $93 billion still remains. Legislation offered by Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, a Romney supporter, would repeal the credit line and protect the taxpayers from funding further bailouts.

Romney at the debate said, “What you don’t want to do is to give the president or anyone else a blank check or a slush fund to take care of their friends or take care of industries or companies they think they want to save.”

That’s good, but the problem is that the Obama Administration and the IMF already have an open-ended commitment from the U.S., a slush fund if you will, to bail out Europe. To access what remains of the money, the IMF does not need to return to Congress. That’s why supporting McMorris Rodgers’ legislation is so important.

Romney, sadly, is still treating the issue as if it were hypothetical, which is exactly what he called it at the Oct. 2011 debate hosted by Bloomberg. Then, he said a U.S. bailout of Europe was “a scenario that's obviously very difficult to imagine… I'm afraid it is a hypothetical.”

In the Nov. 2011 CNBC Republican presidential debate, Romney was pressed on the issue again about whether the U.S. should bail out Europe. He said, “We don't want to step in and try and bail out their banks and bail out their governments.” Again, still as if it were theoretical, even though billions of taxpayer funds are already at risk.

Maria Bartiromo, one of the moderators at that debate, no fool, followed up with the right question, “But the U.S. does contribute to the International Monetary Fund, and the IMF has given $150 billion to the eurozone. Are you saying the U.S. should stop contributing to the IMF?”

To which, Romney replied, “I'm happy to continue to participate in world efforts like the World Bank and the IMF.” Which was not the right answer.

Romney had an opportunity in South Carolina to move in the right direction on this critical issue. In 2008, Republicans lost touch with their base when they supported bailouts of banks that had made poor investment choices in U.S. housing. But it is not too late to reclaim the mantle of the anti-bailout party, a pledge House Republicans made in the 2010 elections.

Romney still has an opportunity to be specific and to support the McMorris Rodgers legislation that will save American taxpayers $100 billion — and begin to bring an end to the bailouts once and for all. He says he against bailing out foreign banks. Now he needs to put his money where his mouth is.

Bill Wilson is the President of Americans for Limited Government.

How Spending Cuts Brought About The Roaring '20s

Video by Frank McCaffrey

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