RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19490/data-privacy-collection

[T]he NSA’s surveillance network “has the capacity to reach roughly 75% of all U.S. Internet traffic”… the NSA, working with the FBI, engaged in the bulk collection of phone records of U.S. citizens’ phone records. Other programs may allow for data collection from Google, Facebook, YouTube and other platforms. These are the alleged capabilities that have been leaked to the media and government watchdog groups. One can only imagine what the federal government’s more secretive and advanced programs might be capable of collecting.

We also must consider data collected by the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency, and from our constellation of spy satellites.

Then there are the other federal security and surveillance agencies such as the FBI, the Department of Justice, the Department of Homeland Security and the Internal Revenue Service, to name but a few.

[I]t is time for Congress to fully update the laws surrounding data collection and privacy. This also would give us the ability to see what still works, determine best practices to protect American security and civil liberties, and to end the things that do not — especially those that leave open a backdoor for abuse.

[W]e must examine whether the government has deferred to the rights of American citizens, or has utilized perceived openings to expand its reach and power.

Law enforcement has acted in a way that enhances its capabilities and erodes the rights of American citizens. Three examples include the FBI’s use of Section 215, where the FBI can get secret court orders for business records.

A second example is the use given the FBI of National Security Letters (NSLs). These can be issued by the FBI without a court order. The use of NSLs has expanded massively. In 2000, about 8,500 NSLs were issued. From 2003-2006 that number increased to 192,000. “Sneak and peek” warrants are also now being used more extensively. Without any notification, these allow law enforcement to raid and search someone’s home and computers, among other private property. The target may not be notified of the search for months.

In an investigation involving conservative attorney Victoria Toensing, the FBI used the sneak and peek authorization to gain access to personal records without notifying her, even though she was not a target of any investigation. After 18 months, the Justice Department notified her the case was being closed without ever identifying who was being investigated or even what the issue being investigated was.

With the advent of new technologies, and passage of legislation after 9/11 that possibly has not aged well, the legal framework protecting American citizens’ rights has been shredded. It seems abundantly clear that our government at multiple levels likely abused its powers, and the Select Subcommittee on Weaponization has a tremendous opportunity to set things right.

Recently the U.S. House of Representatives created the new Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, chaired by Congressman Jim Jordan, a Republican from Ohio. There are at least three areas where this Subcommittee needs to do extensive research. They include but are not limited to:

The scope and extent of the information that the various federal government agencies collect and store.
The restrictions and their effectiveness that are built into the process to protect the rights of American citizens.
Evidence that government policies may have been broken and individuals or organizations may have been targeted inappropriately by the federal government.

https://www.racket.news/p/in-fbi-case-the-first-amendment-takes

Racket readers may recall that in November, shortly before the Twitter Files began, I ran an interview with Steve Friend, a onetime FBI agent who lost his career after blowing the whistle on the Bureau.

Friend refused to participate in a bureaucratic scheme to put local agents across the country in charge of J6 cases that were really being run out of the Washington office, a plan that made one Washington-based case look like a national map full of domestic terror cases popping up everywhere. He also objected to heavy-handed tactics like the use of S.W.A.T. teams for a suspect communicating voluntarily through an attorney, and the questioning of people in connection with J6 in cases where the state had little to no evidence. From that story:

Friend didn’t think the interview was warranted, and worried the feds showing up at someone’s door without cause “might do more harm than good” in a part of the country where government was unpopular already. He sucked it up and did the “knock and talk” anyway.

“I said, ‘Hey, were you at the Capitol?’” Friend recalls. “And he said, ‘No, that was my son’s funeral that day. I wasn’t there.’”

He shakes his head. “It hit me like a ton of bricks. I thought, I can’t believe I just made this guy relive that. And for what? Even if he’d admitted to being there, if he said, ‘I was there, I don’t wanna talk about it,’ I couldn’t even charge that.”

But even though Friend had reservations about some of the cases, his main concern was procedural — that by playing bureaucratic games with who was running these investigations, and putting locals nominally in charge of cases where they were really in supporting roles, they put all of the court cases in jeopardy. “A lot of these guys are bad dudes, and they should go to jail,” he said, about the Oath Keepers. But if “we didn’t follow our rules… we set ourselves up to get crushed at trial,” adding, “I want to win.”

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2023/03/inflation_good_news__democratstyle.html

Today’s inflation news will be something Joe Biden crows about, but only if you don’t need to eat.

As per its schedule, the U.S. government’s Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released its monthly report on the February 2023 Consumer Price Index (CPI) at 8:30 a.m. (EDT) this morning, confirming what most of us have noticed.  

CPI for all items rises 0.4% in February as shelter increases

In February, the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers increased 0.4 percent, seasonally adjusted, and rose 6.0 percent over the last 12 months, not seasonally adjusted. The index for all items less food and energy increased 0.5 percent in February (SA); up 5.5 percent over the year

“…less food and energy…” 

Oh.

Food, which all living things need, jumped on an annual basis to 9.5%.  For those who eat at home, food prices zoomed up 10.2 %.  If that is too much for some, be reassured that “food away from home” in the past 12 months gulped up “only” 8.4%.  

Yeah, yeah…I know.

But there was some better yearly news on energy; really.  Energy costs (only)  increased 5.2% as energy commodities (oil, gas) dropped 1.4%. 

Drill, drill, explore, and drill some more.

https://issuesinsights.com/2023/03/15/this-is-good-inflation-news-not-if-you-need-food-heat-or-a-place-to-live/

Inflation eased again.” “CPI inflation rate slows to 6%.” “Inflation fell for the eighth straight month in February.” Those are the headlines that greeted the latest Consumer Price Index Report. Why aren’t those ungrateful families celebrating?

Prices in February climbed 0.4% from the month before and 6% from the year before. Both are down slightly from January.

President Joe Biden cheered the news, saying that “today’s report shows annual inflation is down by a third from this summer” and is “the slowest annual increase since September 2021.”

Huzzah!

OK, sure, that 6% year-over-year bump is still three times the average inflation for the past three decades. And sure, it comes on top of the 7.9% jump in prices in February 2022. And, yes, it means that the Consumer Price Index has now risen 15% in the short time Biden has been in office.

But fear not! Because Biden is on top of the situation, and his “inflation reduction act” is clearly working. Right?

The problem with the focus on the overall CPI – which measures cost changes in a “basket of goods” – is that people aren’t buying this basket every month. Most are just trying to make ends meet. They’re trying to feed their families. Keep the lights on. Avoid eviction.

https://asiatimes.com/2023/03/feds-try-to-stop-bank-crisis-of-their-own-making/

NEW YORK – US bank regulators on Sunday announced a massive response to last week’s run on Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) and the risk of copycat runs against other regional banks.

The Federal Reserve will provide one-year loans against banks’ security portfolios through a new Bank Term Funding Program, eliminating the risk that banks might be forced to sell their US$4.4 trillion in government securities at a loss.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), meanwhile, will make whole all SVB depositors, as well as those of the Signature Bank of New York, closed by New York state authorities on “systemic risk” grounds.

Federal regulators have slapped a rather large bandage on a gaping wound that they cut into the banking system. By tightening credit to control a wave of inflation that had nothing to do with credit in the first place, the Treasury and Federal Reserve have created a credit problem where none existed before. There are few comparable instances of self-sabotage in the annals of bank regulation.

Although depositors won’t lose money, holders of bank bonds may take substantial losses. That augurs poorly for a recovery in credit markets already stressed by Federal Reserve tightening.

Sunday’s announcement will ease market fears that the run on SVB, which saw $45 billion in deposits leave the bank in little more than a day, might spread to other regional banks. The value of regional banks’ stocks collapsed on March 10 in response to the fear of a general run.

https://openthebooks.substack.com/p/the-silicon-valley-bank-coverup-and

Last Friday, when the Silicon Valley Bank quickly imploded and rocked the U.S. financial sector, it was taken over by federal regulators. The bank was known for backing tech start-ups, and had come under fire for prioritizing investments into climate change and social ventures rather than those that could make a predictable return.

The executive roster of the bank had a questionable track record. For example, SVB’s Chief Administrative Officer, Joseph Gentile, was the CFO of Lehman Brothers investment bank when it collapsed. SVBs Chief Risk Officer position was left vacant for nine months through January 2023.

The CEO, Greg Becker, was a director at the San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank from 2019 until termination on Friday. Becker’s also under investigation for selling $3.6 million in bank stock during a period when SVB was in the markets to raise $2 billion from investors— an effort to keep the bank solvent.

Silicon Valley Bank’s “Behested” $100,000 Gift To Newsom’s Nonprofit

Our auditors at OpenTheBooks.com found that California Governor Gavin Newsom, through a nonprofit organization his wife, Jennifer Siebel Newsom founded, the California Partners Project, has very close ties to the bank.

In 2021, SVB gave $100,000 in corporate gifts to the Newsom nonprofit. These gifts are so intertwined with the Newsom’s that they are listed as a matter of California ethics law on a state government website, California Fair Political Practices Commission.