TMR: Davis, CA Orders Removal of Armored Vehicle, Celebrity Photo Hack Reveals iCloud Security Issues, and an Open Letter to Ron Paul
What's that? It's Tuesday already? Well, even Lions of Liberty need to kick back and take a break once in a while, and Labor Day seemed like an appropriate enough time. What, you're saying advancing the ideas of liberty isn't "labor?" Hmph!Anyway, on to your Tuesday Morning Roar, with a look at a few stories that may have passed you by if you were disconnected from the wide world of liberty news over the holiday weekend.Davis, CA Orders Removal of Armored VehicleA few weeks ago, Lions of Liberty contributor John Odermatt wrote about a possible silver lining that could emerge from the recent events in Ferguson, MO, in that they have served to highlight the rapid militarization of police forces in the United States. It seems public sentiment on this issue is already beginning to shift and produce a political backlash, as the city of Davis, CA is demanding that its police department return an armored military vehicle which had recently come into its possession. From CBS5 KPIX in San Francisco:
The Davis City Council has told the Davis Police Department to return its armored vehicle to the military within 60 days and to consider other alternatives for protection on four wheels.Davis Police Department received the military vehicle — valued at nearly $700,000 — for free through a federal military surplus property program administered in California by the Office of Emergency Services.It’s intended to protect officers at active shooting scenes or other dangerous situations. But some members of the community objected.A petition is circulating asking the council to press the police to either get rid of or destroy the vehicle.“I would like to say I do not suggest you take this vehicle and send it out of Davis, I demand it. I demand it!” shouted a man dressed in a “Tank The Tank” T-shirt.
In many ways, the focus on "militarization" of police forces is a distraction from the bigger issues regarding the generally poor philosophy most individuals hold towards their fellow man. The vast majority of people advocate for a legal system which does not emphasize individual rights; in fact, it routinely violates them. The injustices created by this system inevitably lead to an "us vs. them" mentality, as those who feel they are oppressed by the law backlash against the enforcers of the law.Considering the current predicament, it certainly makes sense to advocate for the de-militarization of police forces in the United States, knowing how this equipment will likely be used against many civilians who have committed no crime against their fellow man. Police militarization also serves to further the us vs. them mentality by presenting domestic policy in the manner of a foreign invading force.But too much of a focus on the specific equipment used by police forces can serve to distract from the larger injustices which must be addressed, and the philosophical roots behind those injustices.Celebrity Photo Hack Reveals iCloud Security IssuesOver the weekend it was revealed that someone had hacked revealing photographs of many famous female celebrities such as Jennifer Lawrence, Kate Upton and many more. Now The Guardian is reporting that the likely source of these photographs may be iCloud backup servers, which raises some serious questions about security for the many millions and millions of people across the globe which use the service.
Apple has still issued no statement on how many accounts on its iCloud service were broken into.But it has come in for strong criticism over the lack of protection against “brute-force” attacks that would yield a password. “If the celebs’ iCloud account passwords were brute forced, the problem seems to be lack of rate limiting by Apple, not lack of crypto,” commented Christopher Soghoian, principal technology at the American Civil Liberties Union.“Once Apple’s privacy and PR teams respond to the celeb iCloud fiasco, I hope Apple donates several million dollars to usable security research… Blame the tech companies for delivering products with crappy default security settings, not the non-expert users whose accounts are hacked.”Some have suggested that the source of some of the photos could even be staff with the ability to access iCloud backups. However Apple says in its support documents that iCloud backups - including photographs - are encrypted: “This means that your data is protected from unauthorised access both while it is being transmitted to your devices and when it is stored in the cloud.”
Of course, there are other theories out there, and a rumor has even sprung up that an NSA whisteblower is responsible for the hacks, in an effort to prove how deep the NSA's abilities to invade privacy go.Regardless it is clear that in this digital age, whether it is our own government or just snoopy hackers with plenty of time on their hands, there are many threats to privacy which can prey on our reliance on digital storage of our most personal of materials.I discussed privacy issues, including practical steps people can take to protect their online privacy, with Pablo Serrato of Restore the Fourth Los Angeles in a recent Lions of Liberty Podcast.An Open Letter to Ron Paul, by Dennis FusaroMany people, ourselves included, were thrust into the liberty movement through the 2008 and 2012 presidential campaigns of Ron Paul. And while Ron Paul has been a great messenger for the ideas of liberty in many ways, there has been much criticism and concerns among many in the movement regarding those who ran his political campaigns and various connected organizations.These criticisms have recently crossed over from online forums to the legal realm, as elements of "Ron Paul, Inc", as EPJ"s Robert Wenzel often refers to the political operatives surrounding Ron Paul, are under investigation for a political payoff to Kent Sorenson, who defected from the Michele Bachmann campaign to the Ron Paul camp just before the 2012 Iowa Caucus. The scandal has already caused the resignation of Jesse Benton, Ron Paul's son-in-law and former campaign manager, from his role as Mitch McConnell's campaign manager for his 2014 reelection bid.One outspoken critic of Ron Paul, Inc - a former top aide to Ron Paul and source of internal emails given to opensecrets.org - isDennis Fusaro. Fusaro recently penned an "Open Letter to Ron Paul", published at Economic Policy Journal. It is reprinted here with permission from EPJ's Robert Wenzel. The letter raises some important questions that anyone who invested time and money in the Ron Paul campaign should be interested in hearing some answers to.
Dear Dr. Paul,You denied the payments and offers of payments to Kent Sorenson in an interview with Chris Wallace on national TV:https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZH3Dd4CfJLgYou were wrong that day.So what else are you missing that's been going on inside the machine that Jesse Benton, Doug Stafford, John Tate and Mike Rothfeld - Ron Paul, Inc. - built "for you"?Or was it really built for them?Who knows what will come out next in the Ron Paul scandals?Did Rothfeld and Guy Short negotiate a truce between the Paul and Bachmann campaigns right after the Sorenson switch?Did this reported negotiation avert dueling FEC complaints because both campaigns knew Sorenson was being paid by the other under the table? What do the emails and text messages show? Hello NSA?What I want to know is whether or not Steve Bierfeldt, the former Executive Director of RPI, was right when he asserted back in late 2012 that there was a pay off of hush $$ to cover up a sexual harassment complaint against Dimitri Kesari, your RP for Prez 2012 Deputy Campaign Manager.(Was that why Dimitri Kesari was suspended for a time from the campaign in mid-2012? )If so, were the hush $$ laundered through the campaign in a way similar to the secret payments to Kent Sorenson? Was it another series of sham payments to a "campaign vendor" that were then forwarded to the complaining party?Last year (2013) I sent you the memorialized text message exchange I had with Steve Bierfeldt along with other evidence of your staffer's inappropriate behavior toward others. Did you do anything about it?I didn't want my contributions to RP for Prez 2012 diverted in this manner to fund this sort of nonsense. If true, it is a fraud on your grassroots donors and supporters.What did John Tate know? What did Mike Rothfeld know? What did Jesse Benton know? What did Fernando Cortez know? (Isn't Fernando an old friend of Bierfeldt's from his LI days?)Now that the financial records are opened in the ongoing scandal investigation, every expenditure to so-called "vendors and consultants" should be scrutinized and chased down vigorously. Prove to the grassroots donors they were legit!Why should grassroots Ron Paul donors have been conned to pay for hush money to cover up sexual harassment allegations?And why should grassroots Ron Paul donors have been conned to pay for power mongering consultants to insult them in emails by calling them Ron Paul "sheeple" and "Cwazy Wabbits"? (See the EPJ post on this.) Will you, Dr. Paul, defend them or will you defend the Ron Paul, Inc. machine that hijacked your 2012 Prez campaign for what was obviously their own agenda? These "clever" operatives clearly used their insider advantages to help stop your name from being put into nomination in Tampa in 2012.Remember, as one of the infamous senior advisors to you and Rand Paul likes to say, "The goal is to take power!" And by that he means over you, over me, and over our families. And he has no necessary self-interest in your well being or your family's well being. But he is "worshipped" and called "guru" by his sycophants in politics in Virginia and beyond.And for this big-name, powerful Virginia-based political operative, electing Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012 was what he wanted for his agenda and his business. And you paid him big $$ while he advocated just that in seminars and teach ins across America. (Wow! What a deal. Get paid by Ron Paul while telling grassroots activists that voting for the election of Barack Obama is the principled thing for conservatives and libertarians.)Dr. Paul? Are you hearing and seeing what these arrogant, power-grasping operatives have done?I gave Benton 6 months to come clean and take responsibility for the actions of his subordinates in your campaign. I gave him the benefit in spite of my doubts about him. After I waited his only response was to insult me.I have heard some speculate that you must know about all this.Others say you are a saintly old grandpa living in a fog who has put his personal and professional responsibility into a blind trust.I don't know what to believe.Please get to the bottom of this on your own initiative. Don't wait for the DOJ to do it.Take back control of C4L. Some won't like this, but I say we need its voice, its resources, its grassroots energy added to the foreign policy debate this country desperately needs. Who is stopping that from happening, you or Ron Paul, Inc?Sincerely,Dennis Fusaro
The jury is out on what Ron Paul knew and when regarding the behind-the-scenes machinations of Ron Paul, Inc. But the truth will come out eventually, and it would be better to hear from Ron Paul on this sooner or later. I will personally always appreciate the way Dr. Paul ignited the modern liberty movement, and brought issues like the War on Drugs to the political spotlight along with a constant emphasis on individual rights. But as someone who put a lot of time and money into both Ron Paul campaigns, I'm sure I'm not alone in wanting some answers, and seeing some justice, in regards to the any chicanery that may have gone on with the campaign. Read The Morning Roar every weekday Monday-Friday!The Lions of Liberty are on Twitter, Facebook & Google+Receive access to ALL of our EXCLUSIVE bonus audio content – including “Conspiracy Corner”, “Degenerate Gamblers” and the “League of Liberty Podcast” by joining the Lions of Liberty Pride and supporting us on Patreon!
