Surveillance of Children: Good Idea?

On September 17, the House passed the "School Safety Enhancements Act of 2008." Passed by a voice vote, at a time lots of other things were happening.

Sounds like a good thing, right? Promoting "school safety", especially in these "dangerous times", what with student killings, etc. On the other hand, there really is something sinister about federally sponsoring surveillance of children in schools. And why does it have to be federally mandated? Can't school districts tailor their own security according to their own needs?

School Safety Enhancements Act of 2007 - Amends the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 to: (1) allow the placement and use of surveillance equipment in schools under the matching grant program for public elementary and secondary school security; (2) allow the use of grant funds to establish hotlines or tiplines for reporting potentially dangerous students and situations and for making capital improvements to make school facilities more secure; (3) set the federal matching share of program costs at 80%; and (4) revise application requirements for school security grants.

Requires the Director of the Bureau of Justice Assistance and the Secretary of Education to establish an interagency task force to develop and promulgate advisory school safety guidelines.

Amends the Higher Education Act of 1965 to require each institution of higher education participating in any program under title IV (Student Assistance) of that Act to: (1) conduct an annual campus safety assessment in consultation with local law enforcement officials; and (2) develop and implement a campus emergency response plan that addresses a comprehensive set of emergency situations, including natural disasters, active shooter situations, and terrorism.

The latter "emergency response plan" reminds me of my childhood safety drills, which included (now my age rears its head over Alaska and points south) air raid drills and what to do in case a telephone/electricity pole falls down - and "terrorism" is a safety issue, not to mention "active shooters", which was a thing we didn't hear about back in the Precambrian when I went to school.

And the latter paragraph refers to "higher education" where the word "children" doesn't exactly apply. But the issue here is that children will be under surveillance all across the country, and the law enforcement-school relationship doesn't need the federal government to mandate it in order to work. Law enforcement and schools should establish their own relationships in each community without there being strong federal mandates and coordination. Why? Because doing so makes a network that could be used for somehow "other purposes", and it gives us that feeling that the government is trying to control us unnecessarily.

Citizens in communities should be able to handle their own schools and police. What happened in Columbine was not because of lack of surveillance. The issues are much deeper than that, and surveillance and police-state tactics only exacerbate the marginalizing of students who may need more love and attention.

Richard Posner Favors Surveillance of All US Muslims

"There, but for the grace of God, go I." Under surveillance, Sheikh Posner! To the Kangaroo Court you go!"

The title is a link to this brainboggling article, which is the culmination of all things Orwellian where reason is replaced by the knee-jerk notion, "Have you screwed bin Laden today?"

Of course, it speaks volumes for the "First Freedom," freedom of religion. Which was right up there in the First Amendment along with freedom of speech until Mr. Posner came along and saw fit to class all Muslims with UBL, who has been trying hard to repent, but we just won't let 'im, folks.

Now bear in mind that Richard Posner is a possible Supreme Court Justice contender, and considered a "libertarian" or "liberal" as opposed to an "authoritarian". The Aussie article where this story broke, reports:

" Melbourne QC Tim Tobin said it was a shock to hear such hard and isolationist positions coming from a judge known as a liberal thinker. While he was disturbed by the judge's proposed crackdown on US and Canadian Muslims, he suspected the sentiment would be welcomed by the Howard Government.
Judge Posner raised the prospect of secret trials as a "tailored regime" to prosecute terrorists in cases where there was a concern about classified information going public.
Queensland SC Glenn Martin said he had been "jolted" by the address: "I hope we never have secret trials in Australia." "

It sounds like the notion of Big Brother and Kangaroo Courts is resonating in the supposed halls of justice. These guys no longer believe in justice. For justice cannot be meted out on the basis of fear, or on the basis of emotions. Maybe he never heard of the Salem witchcraft trials. Maybe he forgot about the Spanish inquisition. When emotions, especially fear, are running high, well, it's hard to really believe in due process. Ask any crime victim. On the other hand, shall we give up 200 years of due process for which our founding fathers fought so hard because some old guys are so whipped up into a state of fear that they forget the cause of all their terror in the first place?

And what's that "cause"? It's their own demons: greed, blindness, power-lust, oppression, cruelty, and prejudice. Withdraw the troops from invasive ill-begotten wars, stop financing the eternal Israeli occupation of the Palestinians (with oppression and murder and bulldozing rampant), take care of our own Americans, hold together our respected and free Republic, give what we can to the hungry and downtrodden, and the "terrorists", especially the "Islamic terrorists", will vanish into the sunset, quite suddenly. Leaving a struggling but peaceful, and terror-free landscape. Not a dream, not a promise, but an obvious, glaring truth.

One species, too many lies. Truth endures.

Taxin' & Spendin'... the Neocon Way

Ooooooh… the Evil Church of Liberalism…. Ooooooh….Dear Kaitlyn, Please check under your bed or an Evil Liberal may try to tax your Kool-Aid stand and put you out of business. And then spend all your hard-earned money on free-loaders who probably live in vermin-infested FEMA trailers on the Gulf Coast. The nerve! Oooooooh…!

Lions and tigers and liberal bears, oh my! Coulter 45, where are you?? The stock market will crash because big government spending will sit on it like a giant greenhouse gas bear, and investors will lose their matching funds for investing in the future of a Yellowstone Caldera Theme Park, “The Ultimate Extreme Disaster Thrill.”

Instead, we should all be thankful that we no longer have Liberals taxing and spending on Social Programs that Don’t Benefit Taxpayers unless they are so Out of the Loop that they engage in ancient Tribal Practices like having children, or not-yet-dead elderly parents who, unlike Model Grandpa G.H.W. Bush aka Senior, do not spend their time sky-diving or bungee jumping or other Cool Retirement Self-Sufficient Activities.

We don’t like the idea of government as a Big Brother who bails you out when you’re in trouble or helps children or the poor and vulnerable or provides programs to prevent crime in poor and inner-city areas. What a waste! Freeloaders! When we could be spending all that hard-earned money on surveillance, propaganda, wars, weapons, weapons delivery systems, search and arrest of civilians, interrogations, more surveillance, intimidation, propaganda, torture by proxy, more wars, fake “diplomatic” junkets to make it look like we “exhausted every avenue” so we can FIGHT MORE COOL WARS AND GET THOSE DAMN RATINGS UP.

We like a Big Bro who watches your every move, who suspects your trips to the library, who treats everyone with an Arab or foreign-sounding name (Jews exempted) as Potential Covert Operatives of a Terrorist Cell. Think of it as big Brother Protecting You. Keeping you informed. Terror level: Orange.

Now instead of educating the poor and so-called underprivileged whom we rightly and sanctimoniously call the Lazy No-Gooders, the freeloaders, we are putting them where they belong, in prisons, where instead of doing productive work and paying taxes and contributing to society, they are being fed, clothed, and locked up in tight expensive security and under surveillance - this is the keyword here, “under surveillance” - and thus NO LONGER POSE A THREAT.

Because ultimately, free people pose a threat to our security. Taxpayers could be terrorists, paying taxes to cover for their evil schemes. Today he contributes to society - tomorrow he wants a free lunch. The only ones you can trust these days are Established Names, names with Something Behind Them. Names like Exxon, Shell Oil, Lockheed Martin, Proctor & Gamble, Dow Chemical, Wal-Mart, Enron, Wait! - scratch that last one, I mean, Verizon, or was it Disney-Warner Brothers-NBC-Microsoft-Pixar-General Electric? Forgive me, it’s hard to keep up with the Monster Lovefest and Corporate Bonding. But in any case, THEY are our Real American Heroes. They are our titans, our benefactors, providers, our safety net, our icons. Big Business. It’s the American Way. They don’t blow up buildings. They build buildings. They don’t hold up convenience stores. They make the videos and franchise the stores to catch the thieves whom they pay taxes to build prisons and pay prison staff for at 100X the cost of whatever the criminals stole. Big Business is the solution, and they will take care of all our problems and the benefits will trickle down, and see?

See how big and healthy they all are? We want all Americans to get on the bandwagon of the American Dream, which means to make a killing, or at least a quick buck, and to hell with the environment and the so-called children of the “future”. “Future” - now there’s an evil concept from the Evil Church of Liberalism who wants to tax your Kool-Aid stand so they can give money to criminals to keep them from coming back to prison after they get out because of some fake vegetarian weenie tax-n-spend unpatriotic flag-burning thing they call “future.”

We want NOW. ONLY. PERIOD. Kill the terrorists - NOW! Define “terrorism” later. Arrest suspects - NOW! Come up with reasons later. Go to war to make democracy in all the world NOW! Figure out what the hell that means or what the hell to do LATER. Tap all phones and emails of everyone in the U.S. NOW! Stop all suspicious activity NOW! Decide what to do with the logjam of keywords and rounded up civilians LATER. Send Israel nukes and missiles and stand back while they decimate their neighbors NOW! Explain to the world LATER. Kill NOW! Talk to make lame excuses and argue like angry flies LATER. Annihilate all Muslims and Arabs NOW! Explain why LATER. Lock up the liberals NOW! Attack them NOW! Claim that you wanted a free discussion LATER. ACT NOW! But think? --- THINK… in your liberal keyword so-called FUTURE.

But we will NEVER think. Because we don’t believe in a “future”. We believe in a “vision.” A “vision” where Republicans win and Big Business controls everything and all taxes are spent only on war and surveillance and barbed wire and walls and Big Bro watches everyone and we control elections so candidates we want will win and if the so-called people elect someone we don’t want in ANY OTHER COUNTRY, we, the Superpower, will send some thugs to track down the elected leaders and kidnap them and thus get rid of them.

Remember the keyword: security: they no longer pose a threat. Just like the cool macho Israelis did with the Palestinians.
Our vision is We’re Number One! Our vision is Victory at any spin. Our vision is war. Without war, how can you have Victory? Right, victory! The bigger, the better. Let’s go for Biggest! Apocalypse NOW! Our vision is Armageddon.

Our battle cry: Remember 911! Because of 911, we must start invading other countries NOW! Revenge, NOW! Deal with the real issues LATER… Why wait for a near earth object? Let the companies pollute the air and water so they can make money NOW. Think of ourselves as incendiary devices. The whole world is a THREAT. So let’s invade it - NOW. Compromise is vegan, hippie, Hilary, liberal, evil, and poses a threat. If you compromise, someone will get a free lunch. We’ll spend our hard-earned tax money on someone else’s infrastructure, so they can live a better life at our expense.

Spend that money for us on our guns and weapons systems, so we can show them who’s boss, who runs the show. We run the show and we don’t want some weenie environmentalist extremist animal-rights freaks telling us how to run foreign policy and threaten corporate profits.


We run the show, we pave the way, we support the fascists and kings and dictators as long as they do our bidding, but in the name of the red, white and blue. Unlike the evil liberals from the evil church of liberalism who do not wear flag tie tacks or patriotic bumper stickers and tax and spend on so-called “social programs” which are just socialism plain and simple.

We tax & spend trillions on weapons and war toys and trillions more on the oil to run them, so we can kill more people, pollute more skies & water, and destroy more infrastructure and resources than any nation in the history of the planet.

We are the true patriots, the party of everything big, bad and destructive, the great Goliath, the true Superpowers, the party of the bully, the party of the Elephant! Stop us if you can … weenies!