This week a judge in New York ruled in a case similar to the San Bernardino case that Apple should not be compelled to do work for the government against its will, in these cases providing a back door to its encrypted products. Both the FBI and Apple were on the Hill this week to present their sides of the case, and Congress will likely soon step in to try and settle the dispute. Does anyone think Congress will come down on the side of privacy over government snooping? Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-IL) has given us a clue which side Congress will come down on when he told Apple's lawyers, "I warn you, you won't like what comes out of Congress." What to expect from Congress? Tune in to the Liberty Report... read on...
Greece is wracked by financial meltdown but is hosting tens of thousands of migrants who are blocked from their intended journey northward. Calais in France is home to makeshift refugee camps where thousands hope to travel to the UK. The EU social welfare system attracts migrants from poorer regions, but Brussels following Washington's policy of destabilizing the Middle East has resulted in a perfect storm of hundreds of thousands seeking a better life in relatively rich Europe. Brussels is demanding that all EU Member states take in tens of thousands of migrants to share the burden equally. Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban is resisting such demands and has called a referendum to let Hungarians decide if they want to take in migrants. Brussels is furious. Will this migrant crisis be the final undoing of the European Union? Tune in to today's Liberty Report... read on...
President Obama has made his final effort to fulfill a campaign promise to close down the US detention facility at the Guantanamo naval base in Cuba, sending Congress a plan that would see a new facility constructed in the US to house those of the 91 remaining prisoners who were not cleared for release. The plan is dead in the water in Congress, however, as Republicans in charge of the House and Senate have signaled a refusal to even work with the president on the issue. But this political tussle over the facility is in reality just a sideshow. Neither side wants to bring up the flawed and anti-American nature of Guantanamo and the undeclared and vague "war on terror" that prompted its creation. On the Liberty Report, however, that is precisely what we are interested in... read on...
Washington's hawks are already trashing the Syria ceasefire deal that the US and Russia presented yesterday. The Russians will never honor their agreement, they argue. Nevertheless the agreement offers some slight hope that the five year war might be coming to a close -- but only if some of the dangerous ambiguities in the agreement are spelled out properly. What else will have to change if this deal has any chance? Tune in to the Liberty Report to find out... read on...
As co-chairs of the International Syria Support Group, the US and Russia announced yesterday an agreement on the "cessation of hostilities" in Syria that is scheduled to go into effect at midnight on February 27th. According to the agreement, the militaries of the US-led coalition, Russia, and Syria would at that point cease hostile acts against opposition groups not named in UN Security Council Resolution 2254 (ISIS and al-Qaeda's Nusra Front) who "indicate to the Russian Federation or the United States...their commitment to and acceptance of the terms for the cessation of hostilities."
In other words, opposition groups who agree to this deal and have not been named "terrorist" by the UN will not be targeted militarily and will in turn agree to stop trying to take territory by means of force. The US, Russia, Syria, and their allies have agreed to the same.
The Syrian government was not a party to the negotiations, but presumably the Russians have impressed upon Damascus the need to accept the agreement.
As to the changes on the ground one might logically foresee once the agreement is in place, it is difficult to see how much will change from the Russian perspective. Russia has claimed that it has concentrated its bombing campaign on ISIS and elements of al-Qaeda in Syria, and it has already reached out to cooperate with several moderate opposition groups. Russia contends that it will continue to bomb ISIS and Nusra unabated -- permitted by the agreement -- and both the ISIS "capital" Raqqa and the Nusra stronghold Aleppo are on the verge of liberation by the Syrian army with Russian backing. read on...
Why is the Justice Department trying to keep the Senate report on CIA torture under wraps? The same reason the CIA officer in charge of the torture program gave when he ordered the torture tapes destroyed: "the heat from destroying [the torture videos] is nothing compared to what it would be if the tapes ever got into the public domain." As it stands, not even government officials with the required security clearances are allowed to read the report. So much for oversight! More on this travesty on today's Liberty Report... read on...
What a thrill it was for Dr. Paul to receive an email the other day from a young scholar and translator in Shanghai, China, to inform him that the Chinese language version of his very important book, Pillars of Prosperity, was now available on Amazon China! Imagine the power of these ideas in the hands of millions of Chinese!
As Ron Paul has said so many times, the ideas of liberty are popular. But they are not only popular here in the US. As we noticed when we started the Ron Paul Institute, support for peace and prosperity comes from every corner of the globe. Ours is a worldwide phenomenon and many of you are reading this message from Germany, Australia, Chile, Japan, and elsewhere -- in addition to every state in the US. read on...
The FBI wants Apple to create software that will allow the Feds to break into the latest iPhones. Ironically, Apple upgraded its iPhone encryption as a result of the Snowden revelations about government spying on innocent Americans. The pretext for the government's demand is that the San Bernardino attackers used iPhones and the FBI needs to see their data. The mainstream media, as usual, takes the side of government and along with officials like Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) is demonizing Apple for resisting what amounts to forced conscription of Apple engineers for the US government. What is really at stake? Another government grab at our Constitutional liberties under the guise of "keeping us safe." How many terrorist plots has the FBI foiled through the use of surveillance on the rest of us? Zero. More today on the Liberty Report... read on...
Preservation of our civil liberties are very much tied up in the Constitutional separation of powers. We see daily in both the Legislative and Executive Branches the distortion and dysfunction of this important concept, where presidents legislate by Executive Order and Congress ignores its obligations regarding the use of military force. In the Judicial Branch this distortion of separation of powers occurs under the concept of "judicial review," which is the misguided idea that the courts somehow have veto power on actions by the other branches of government. What should the Supreme Court really look like if we are to preserve our liberties? Today's Liberty Report takes a look... read on...
After four days of bombing US allies in Syria -- the Kurdish YPG militia -- the Turkish government is now requesting that the US begin a ground invasion of Syria. Saudi fighter jets have reportedly arrived in Turkey to take part in the invasion if the US agrees. Meanwhile, the US has asked the Turks to stop bombing Washington's Kurd allies. And Turkey is also bombing Russian-backed Syrian government forces. We try to unravel this all in today's Liberty Report... read on...
