02/24/14 – Mike Maharrey – The Scott Horton Show

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All right, y'all, welcome back to the show.
I'm Scott Horton.
This is my show, The Scott Horton Show.
More about Ukraine and Venezuela and Palestine and Iran and a ton of more news coming up on the show.
But first, we go to Michael Meharry of the Tenth Amendment Center and Nullify the NSA.
Welcome back to the show, Michael.
How are you doing?
I'm doing good, Scott.
How are you?
I appreciate you joining us again today and very happy, I think, I will be very happy in just a moment to hear all the news update us on all the recent successes and benchmarks of progress being made by the Nullify NSA movement.
Man, we are rocking.
It's pretty exciting.
I think last time we talked, I can't remember if the Utah bill had been...
I think it was just about to be introduced and then, in fact, it was.
And it has been.
And you know, the cool thing about it, that really grabs the media attention.
You know, that's part of the game that we're playing here is we really want to get some focus on this state-level effort.
And we were fortunate enough to have the Guardian actually break the Utah bill.
One of the guys that does a lot of their national security writing, and he wrote a really nice piece on the campaign and on the bill itself.
And, you know, that kind of exposure, not only in the United States, but across the world is very positive for the movement.
And since then, we've got a bill that's been introduced in Alaska that deals with the data sharing aspect, you know, stopping the state and local law enforcement from using unconstitutionally gathered data in their criminal investigations.
By the way, let me ask you about that real quick.
I was talking with Cade Crockford, one Cade on Twitter.
She's from the ACLU, Massachusetts.
And I brought that up about, I always forget the jargon that they use, but, you know, the laundering of this intelligence community data compiled on Americans, then through to the domestic police agencies, federal, state and local, especially through the DEA, and then how they go back and kind of recreate a fake evidence trail of how they gain their probable cause in the first place to start their criminal investigation.
Since they're banned by law, the domestic police from fishing expeditions, they have to explain how they got onto the case.
So they just make stuff up to cover up the fact that it's the NSA giving them the data.
And she was saying as worrying as that is, just think about the fact that in the 18,000 American police jurisdictions that there are all the different local police.
The other, the real effect is going the other way, where it's true, they're the closest to you to put their grubby mitts on you.
But they're ultimately there are millions of them.
And as they're compiling all this data, and as they're almost as lawless in the NSA and all their spying on us, and then they're turning all that data over to the feds and giving it up through their, you know, the through the fusion centers and whatever other processes.
And they're basically they're really beginning to integrate, even though not quite a name yet, they're really beginning to integrate all the local police into a national police force by way of the information sharing more than anything else.
Yeah, it's very true.
And you know, that's why it's so important to kind of touch on another, another legislative issue.
It's why it's so important for states to get their heads wrapped around these drone issues and get the use of drones circumscribed by warrants and whatnot, because you know, most states right now, they can just fly these drones, any old place, the DHS is funding drones at the state level.
And that's exactly why the feds are doing it.
They want the states to use these drones, because it's an information gathering way.
And then they use the information sharing and get it, you know, set up the chain.
So that's why these drone bills are so important.
And we're seeing a bunch of them in there, and they seem to be gaining a lot of momentum in legislatures that prescribe the use of drones and require warrants and at least put some type of constraints on their use.
This kind of stuff is so important.
And we're looking at some other aspects.
We've seen a couple of bills introduced, one in Tennessee and one in another state.
I can't remember off the top of my head that would ban these quote-unquote voluntary police checkpoints that they're doing.
They're supposedly for studies, and basically they pull you over and they bribe you to give you your DNA or your blood sample so that they can, quote, study and see how many people are drinking and driving.
Of course, when a guy with a gun on his hip pulls you over, calling it voluntary is ridiculous in the first place.
So we're going to start looking at this and see if we can get this introduced to more states because we've got to get a wall built back between these local and federal police agencies because, like you said, it's very dangerous.
And now, so as far as nullifying the NSA, obviously Utah is getting a lot of attention because that's where they have this new thing, Bluff Springs or whatever it's called, right?
Bluffdale or whatever the hell it's called.
Yeah, Bluffdale.
The NSA.
The data center.
The data center.
So this is a big deal, but now there are 50 states in the Union, and I know they have a gigantic thing down in San Antonio, and God knows what they have in Texas, you know, here there, the other place.
And I guess we're up to, what, 10 different states now are at least considering some kind of legislation along these lines.
So what about all of them?
What about, I'm just going to make up a state and pretend that I think that everybody knows there's nothing like this in Wyoming at all.
Is it worth it for the Wyoming government to nullify too?
What can they nullify about the NSA if there's not a data center there?
Absolutely.
Actually, there's 16 states now.
If you count the ones that are dealing with the data sharing, there's actually up to 16.
That's pretty awesome.
That is great.
But that's a really good question, and a lot of people might say, and the perfect example was Arizona.
Arizona was the first state, Senator Kelly Ward down there was the first person to say, hey, I'm going to run this bill.
And they don't have any that we know of, any NSA infrastructure in place in the state.
So the question is, well, you know, why are you bothering with this?
Well, first off, it deals with the data sharing that we've already talked about, and that's happening everywhere, all 50 states.
So that's important.
Secondly, you've got these affiliations with the various state universities, and that's in almost every state as well, where they have these, they call them Centers for Academic Excellence, which I think is very Orwellian-sounding.
And essentially, they're recruiting grounds, you know, you send Will Jr. off to college and the NSA recruits him to spy on his parents, essentially.
And then, of course, the research dollars that are used to develop the encryption-breaking programs and all of this kind of stuff.
So this is going on in almost every state with the state universities.
This Fourth Amendment Protection Act bans that.
And then, I think it's important, too, just to say, you know what, you're not welcome here.
So when they do decide to move, and we know that they're dealing with capacity problems, you know, that's why they moved out of Maryland in the first place.
They were running out of power grid.
So as they try to expand, we don't know where they're going to expand next.
It's better to have these bills in place in every state so that when the NSA comes to call and they know that they're not going to get any material support from that state, and that's exactly what Kelly Ward says.
She says, we want the NSA to know that they're not coming south out of Utah down into Arizona.
They're not welcome.
Yeah, that's great.
I really like that attitude, too.
Yeah, absolutely.
Pull the welcome mat out, that's what I say.
So out of 16 states, oh, I know what I was going to ask you.
I've read this thing in Ars Teca, where they complain that, you know what, maybe this is overbroad.
I think they quote the Utah bills language as saying, you know, no one may have any association whatsoever with this, that, the other.
In other words, the way they say it, it even violates free speech, the free speech rights of government employees or civilians either, I guess, to even talk with the federal government about this.
It's so broadly written.
I wonder whether it would be better to say, you know, no corporation may enter into business negotiations with the government about this.
The state government may not do this particular set of, you know, engage in this particular set of behaviors or contributions to the program, rather than making it so broad that it can be struck down.
Well, you know, I've heard this a little bit, and I haven't heard it from a lot of different places, but it seems like most of the people that talk about overbroad language have some other agenda.
And I don't, you know, I don't know with this particular article where they're coming from exactly.
But, you know, material support is something pretty specific, and talking with the federal agency is not providing material support.
I mean, that's just, you know, that's kind of, it's kind of out there a little bit.
What they quote is, the sample state level legislation reads, quote, is the policy of this state to refuse material support.
Oh, see, it's not really making it a crime to do it.
It's saying to refuse the policy of the state to refuse material support, participation or assistance to any federal agency.
And so they're saying, you know, that is really broad.
That could even mean meeting with them for donuts to talk about what they could do to get the law repealed or something like that, you know?
Well, you know, and obviously, an individual, it doesn't bind every individual in the government.
It binds the agencies and the state itself from providing material support.
It doesn't, you know, keep anybody from the state from expressing their own opinion on things.
And I think, you know, we've had a lot of different legal people look at this, and I think the legal language is pretty tight.
Okay, great.
Well, I'm very happy to hear that.
You might even contact this guy.
It's Cyrus Farivar at Ars Technica.
I think I said that wrong.
This is where Ed Snowden used to hang out in the comments section here at Ars Technica.
Oh, cool.
I'll check it out for sure.
Yeah.
So, you know, he seems like a fair-minded guy.
Maybe, you know, he's worth contacting, and it could be that he would like to add the context that you provide there, you know?
Yeah, definitely.
You know, we've seen in several states, you know, and Arizona is the state that has kind of worked through the process the farthest.
It's actually passed one committee vote already, and I actually think it might have a hearing today.
So, you know, we were getting a sense, and we've made some language tweaks through the legislative process, and that's what the legislative process is for.
You know, you see some things that might be weak in the language, especially in a specific state, and you can take some action to correct that.
So, you know, there's definitely some things that can be tweaked in any bill, and so we're trying to walk the line between making sure that the bill does what it's supposed to do, and that's making it more difficult for the NSA to spy on everybody in the world, and making sure that the bill is fair and doesn't create other unforeseen consequences that we don't want to.
But, you know, interestingly, the biggest pushback that we're seeing in Arizona is from law enforcement.
You know, law enforcement doesn't like the idea of having any constraints on what data they can and can't use, so you're getting all these...
The Prosecutors Association in Arizona sent out, they basically said it could potentially shut down their operation.
Like, okay, we can't use unconstitutional data anymore, therefore we'll never be able to prosecute a criminal again in Arizona.
It's so ridiculous.
Right.
Well, you know, I think this is going to be good for the cause, because first of all, the people are on our side, and so is the Bill of Rights, and all of that, so it comes down to brass tacks.
We have to win.
This is our liberty at stake.
But also, I think something that's working for a benefit here is that the idea of nullification and interposition from the states, obstructing the federal government like this, is so frightening to the people who have been depending on this trend of centralization and nationalization of everything for so long here.
And their terror, and I use that term loosely, their overblown hysteria about this is going to help publicize it to the rest of the country.
They're going to end up siding with us.
I think they already are siding with us.
We'll be right back with Michael Meharry from the Tenth Amendment Center, offnow.org, right after this.
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All right, y'all.
Welcome back to the show here.
I'm Scott Horton, and I probably just got everybody in a bunch of trouble now.
I use the T-word.
Well, I was just, I only meant, you know, Rachel Maddow and everyone who agrees with her, so 100 million panicking liberal Democrats and their besweated nightmare coming true, you know, of decisions being made by people outside of Washington, D.C.
I mean, there are a lot of liberals, and they've proven this.
They would rather see us all enslaved by D.C. than able to protect our rights or limit the reach of the federal government over our lives by invoking state power.
Just because they're so hell-bent, as we've seen in numerous articles in Salon and Alternet and whatever, that somehow Michael Meharry, the day after he's done nullifying the National Security Agency, he's going to nullify the entire New Deal and whatever other, you know, liberal social programs.
The abolition of Jim Crow, which was waged mostly at the, you know, at the federal level against the states, that all of that is going to all go away if people in Colorado can decide to legalize weed, if people in Montana can decide to legalize guns, if people in Utah can decide that they don't want to pay the water bill for the National Security Agency to spy on them all day.
And, you know, the Rachel Maddow, the MSNBC security mom, you know, demographic out there, that's all I was referring to as far as terror, and all I was really, I meant to just crack a joke about how ridiculous it is that anyone should be terrified about the American people doing whatever it takes, including terribly subversive things like going to their state legislatures in order to protect their rights.
You know, as outlined right there in the program in the first place, Amendment No.
4, and each state constitution has one just like it, you know, they're breaking the deal.
All we're trying to do is hold them to the deal.
Isn't that right, Michael?
That's absolutely right.
And, you know, you make a good point.
It's not like this is a bunch of people marching in the streets, throwing rocks, or trying to burn down the NSA headquarters.
I mean, this is working through legitimate political channels to enact change, and, you know, if the state of Utah doesn't want to have their resources and their money going to support an agency that's violating their rights, then they're going to get that pushed through their legislature, and it's a valid action of the people, and it's hard to wrap your head around why anybody would oppose that, but I think you hit the nail on the head.
There's a certain segment of the population, and these people exist on both the left and the right, that really it's not about anything but creating more power for themselves so that they can push through their agenda, and I don't trust anybody from any point of view that wants to push their point of view by accumulating more power, and, you know, I've even seen that a little bit in some libertarian circles, where they want to use centralized power to advance liberty, and I just can't wrap my head around that.
I mean, you're the most free when you have the least power up above you, and so, you know, ultimately I'd like to see no power above me at all, so let's decentralize it as much as possible.
Right.
And now, by the way, I should really hasten to mention, since I've come down on Maddow so hard, that over at Counterpunch, they had a great article defending the nullify NSA movement, and defending left-wing and liberal participation and alliance with libertarians on issues like this, and even good right-wingers on issues like this, because, after all, this is our liberty at stake here, and so it was sort of, it's good to see, not just a liberal saying, you know, I'm not worried about that, I want to, you know, ally with these libertarians anyway, but seeing them kind of push back against that idea that somehow this ought to be verboten, that, I mean, think about that, pretend to be a liberal for a minute, really, the libertarians are your worst enemies than the conservatives are?
That just can't be right, no matter how afraid of free markets you are, that just can't really be the position you're coming from, not after the 21st century as we've lived it so far, you know?
Come on.
No way.
Well, you know, the truth of the matter is, we've got a lot of progressive support for the nullify NSA movement, I mean, we've got a number of organizations and activists and people on the ground, you know, I was on a couple of conference calls last week with grassroots activists in both Maryland and Utah that are committed to working through this avenue, not just this year, but, you know, in the long term, and these are- What about conservatives, too?
Do you have many conservatives who are kind of practicing what they preach about the Constitution, at least while Democrats are in power, or pretty much not?
Well, yeah, absolutely we do.
I mean, you know, a lot of the sponsors to these bills are Republicans, so, you know, you kind of have a, it's kind of weird, it's like you have, it's almost a reorganization of the political alliances that you're used to, and it's like you've got this block of liberty-minded, civil liberties-concerned people that are from the left and the right, you know, you've got your Justin Amash and those type of people, and then you've got your old-school civil liberty-minded progressives that have kind of come together, and then you've got what I call the establishment security state, you know, and that's your Peter Kings and your Feinsteins that, you know, they're more concerned about consolidating power and keeping things centralized.
But then the populist right, they're pretty good, at least when liberals are in power, it does tend to be kind of a partisan thing, and in fact, I think probably right now the stars are aligned pretty well, because if it was a Republican in power, the right would be completely silent about this other than calling for Snowden's head, and the left would be better, but the left tends to be pretty good on this stuff anyway, even with an Obama in there, certainly the actual activists anyway, if not the mass of opinion on the left.
And even the mass of opinion on the left, I think, stays pretty good on this.
And then you have the right, who they all like to pose as constitutionalists, at least when Democrats are in power.
So if there's a time where the partisan stars are aligned, it may be right now, especially you have a Democrat president, and you have almost all the states, it's almost a super majority of the states are controlled by Republican governors and legislatures at this point almost, I think.
That could be wrong, but it's at least a majority.
Yeah, and you're right, it's interesting to watch the dynamics play out.
I'll tell you something funny, kind of along this line, one of the senators in Maryland, and I'm going to butcher her name, but that's okay, because she doesn't really deserve to have her name pronounced properly, Senator Mikulski, she was interviewed by U.S. News about the Fourth Amendment Protection Act being introduced in Maryland, and she went absolutely apoplectic.
I mean, she just freaked out, and the funniest thing was, she started talking all Ronald Reagan.
Okay, this is a liberal Democrat, she's talking all Ronald Reagan, how can the Republicans do this?
How can they threaten our national security?
And Ronald Reagan brought down the Soviets in the Cold War, and it was really quite amusing, and I actually was able to contribute a quote to the story, and I said it was really weird for me to hear Democrats picking up for the Bush spy legacy.
That kind of stuff is really weird to me, but you're right, the principal people on both the left and the right are lining up, and they're working hard to get this done, and I like seeing these new alliances, because it breaks down the paradigms.
Yeah, and listen, I'm not one to push the myth that American democracy is great and works well and all these things, but on the other hand, trying is important, and you guys have proven already that it's worthwhile.
I mean, like you talked about, just the attention and the discussion along these lines is extremely valuable going forward here, and you know, one of the other things that Kate Crockford said on the show was that, remember the COINTELPRO documents were liberated from that FBI office in Media, Pennsylvania back in 71.
Well, the Church Committee and all the reforms and all that stuff that came out of it wasn't until 78.
It took a long time of people rallying around those disclosures and then, you know, forcing further committee hearings and further investigations and further disclosures that ended up with the Church Committee reforms, not that they were perfect or anything, but point being that we have a window of opportunity here.
We really can make a difference if people try hard.
You know, it's difficult to find ways to hold them accountable, but really, that's the genius of this thing, of the entire premise of the Tenth Amendment Center, is to give people a way that they can participate, that they can actually really see the effect of their participation at the state and local level.
I mean, in fact, the average guy probably knows somebody who knows somebody who knows a state senator or a state congressman that they could get a meeting with, especially if they can get ten friends to call themselves the group of people who believe in this or that, and they want to go and have a meeting with these guys, and in fact, just calling them when they do stuff like introduce a bill like this and letting them hear rounds of applause and ovations and let them tell anecdotes to each other about how, yeah, people really liked that when I did that thing there, and whatever.
I mean, this can really, it can make a difference, and like I say in that spot, Edward Snowden has given us this chance.
We have to take it, and I think the offnow.org nullify NSA movement is absolutely brilliant, and it's already working, and it can be much more effective, and now I say all that mostly to just give you a minute, not even half a minute, to tell us about how people can join up the Tenth Amendment Center, how they can be members, how they can get this legislation out to their state reps, etc.
Very quickly.
There's two places you need to go.
First, go to offnow.org, and that has all the information you need on this campaign to stop the NSA at the state level.
Click the links.
There's places to get involved.
Do that.
Second thing you can do to help us out is go to tenthamendmentscenter.com.
It's all spelled out, and peruse our website.
We've got all kinds of information on bills we're tracking, and you can become a member there.
That will help us out.
Make a donation.
Volunteer to help.
All the links are right there.tenthamendmentscenter.com.
Man, you're doing good work there, Michael.
I sure appreciate it.
I always appreciate coming on the show, man.
I love it.
All right, y'all.
That is Michael Meharry at the Tenth Amendment Center, offnow.org.
Offnow.org.
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Don't worry about things you can't control.
Isn't that what they always say?
But it's about impossible to avoid worrying about what's going on these days.
The government has used the war on guns, the war on drugs, and the war on terrorism to tear our Bill of Rights to shreds.
But you can fight back.
The Tenth Amendment Center has proven it, racking up major victories.
For example, when the U.S. government claimed authority in the NDAA to have the military kidnap and detain Americans without trial, the nullifiers got a law passed in California declaring the state's refusal to ever participate in any such thing.
Their latest project is offnow.org, nullifying the National Security Agency.
They've already gotten model legislation introduced in California, Arizona, Oklahoma, Missouri, and Kansas meant to limit the power of the NSA to spy on Americans in those states.
We'd be fools to wait around for the U.S. Congress or courts to roll back Big Brother.
Our best chance is nullification and interposition on the state level.
Go to offnow.org, print out that model legislation, and get to work nullifying the NSA.
The hero Edward Snowden has risked everything to give us this chance.
Let's take it.offnow.org.
Hey y'all, Scott Horton here for WallStreetWindow.com.
Mike Swanson is a successful former hedge fund manager who provides his subscribers with a very real window into his investments, updating them on every move he makes in the markets.
Right now, Mike's anticipating a bear and is dumping all the stocks while the getting is good, investing instead in gold and the commodities.
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And check out Mike Swanson's great contribution to the history of the rise of the American Empire in the war state, available at scotthorton.org slash Amazon.
Hey y'all, Scott here.
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