Jeff Cassman

Dear Diary, It’s Me, Jessica: Part 2

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Dear Diary,

It’s me, Jessica.

It has been a crazy, exciting week, but not in a good kind of way.

The day after Christmas, two things happened: 1) It snowed. Not much, a ‘dusting’ as Dad put it. It was mostly gone by noon, except in the deep shadows. Snow around here is rare. 2) The ‘HAM’ guy said there were reports of a ‘gang’ going around in trucks attacking remote homes and farms.

The next day two men on a dirt bike came speeding down our street. They had those big black rifles. No one has heard a car let alone a dirt bike in months. Everyone came out of their homes to see what was going on, many with their own guns. The guys on the dirt bike turned around and sped back the way they came.

Many in the neighborhood gathered in groups to talk about what they saw and what it meant. Jack showed up a few minutes later from his street and asked what happened. Once he heard what people were saying, he seemed to think for a moment. Jack then said while he was out trading with others in surrounding neighborhoods and way down in town, a few said they saw two trucks pulling RVs with another half dozen or so trucks, one with two dirt bikes in the beds going down Old River Road. Jack went and talked with the HAM guy to ask the local HAMs if they heard of anything unusual. The HAM guy said the net was ‘chattering’ about running trucks and the attacks. An old fisherman went to his favorite fishing hole off Old River Road, a remote boat launch and picnic site, to find it was occupied by two RVs, a bunch of trucks, and some mean-looking guys in ‘tactical’ gear. The fisherman high-tailed it out of there before they saw him. Jack did not think they would attack our neighborhood. He pointed to all the people with guns. If the two guys on the dirt bike were out scouting the area, the Miller farm, on the other hand, they would attack them.

Jack, who is the leader of the militia, split the militia into two. One group he called ‘home guard’ would stay in the neighborhood and keep watch. The other group, he called the ‘assault team’, made up of mostly combat veterans, would set up an ambush at the Miller’s farm.

It was early morning the next day, I was helping Mom turning over the compost pile in the back yard when we heard dull explosions…

Continue reading here

Communications Daily: Witnesses Cite FCC Cyber Push, Rip-and-Replace Funding Ahead of House Hearing

The Electronic Privacy Information Center says it believes the FCC “should adopt a dual-layer labeling solution” for the program that “would include an easily glanceable primary label and a secondary label that displays additional cybersecurity and privacy information, empowering consumers to make an informed purchase,” Executive Director Alan Butler says. EPIC supports the FCC’s proposal to “require data minimization” as part of its criteria for the Cyber Trust Mark, limiting a qualifying device to “collect only the data necessary to provide its essential functions and services.” The group opposes device manufacturers’ bid for a “safe harbor that would provide a shield against liability for insecure devices,” he says.

The County: Houlton installs 50 surveillance cameras police will monitor

Municipalities around the nation have used ARPA federal dollars to fund community surveillance cameras, according to the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a nonprofit research and advocacy center. But EPIC warns that once such systems are in place police can access and collect mass surveillance data leading to privacy issues.

The Markup: Each Facebook User is Monitored by Thousands of Companies

“This type of tracking which occurs entirely outside of the user’s view is just so far outside of what people expect when they use the internet,” Caitriona Fitzgerald, Deputy Director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, told The Markup in an interview. Fitzgerald said that while users are likely aware that Meta knows what they are doing while they are on Facebook and Instagram, “they don’t expect Meta to know what stores they walk into or what news articles they’re reading or every site they visit online.”

…

Fitzgerald echoed these recommendations, saying the problem lies with the fact that the burden is on the consumer to take action to prevent this data collection. Even a “global opt-out” mechanism allowing users to avoid having their data shared is not enough because “that still requires the user to take an action to protect their privacy. A lot of people are not going to have the time or knowledge to do that,” said Fitzgerald.

Vazquez, Meta’s spokesperson, said the company would “continue to invest in data minimization technologies to keep up with evolving expectations. As we cover in our terms, businesses are responsible for getting permission to share people’s information with companies like ours.”

For now, the lack of a federal privacy law leaves consumers in most states with few options. “I think people should be encouraging their elected officials to pass privacy laws that require businesses to change some of these business practices to stop this ubiquitous tracking of our every click and every movement,” said Fitzgerald.

A Philosophical View of Immigration and ‘Open’ Borders?

By: Gary D. Barnett

“The system of private property is the most important guaranty of freedom, not only for those who own property, but scarcely less for those who do not.”

~ Friedrich August von Hayek

The single idea of ‘immigration’ is one of the most misunderstood subjects argued today. It is downright embarrassing to witness and listen to all the whining, bawling, complaining, preaching, blaming, political maneuvering, and stupidity, that consumes the so-called ‘immigration’ problem. Real immigration is not and has never been the problem; all government, all rule, and private property destruction are the problems. By focusing on just the headlines and minutia instead of the State-plotted outcome, without regard for all the underlying agendas, is not only ignorant, incorrect, and asinine, it plays perfectly into the hands of those perpetrating this egregious assault on society, so that the end result and those wanting a better life are demonized, while the plot to destroy the people goes forward unabated. In the case of the U.S. and other western countries, considering the voluntary support and acceptance of rule, the people exhibit fault without having a clue about their complicity or about the big picture concerning this subject matter.

Hmm, I bet I hit more than a few nerves with my opening remarks, but then, hitting nerves is my objective, as truth and honesty is avoided at all cost by the duped servants of the State, so blunt and brutal candor is sometimes necessary in order to awaken the sleeping and indifferent minds of the pathetic sheeplike masses, whose primary objective in life today seems to be hiding from reality instead of facing it head-on. These attitudes are devastating to liberty, as they promote open tyranny meant to assist the master class in its efforts to control, while muddling the argument with targeted and divisive propaganda.

Obviously, every country’s situation is different, and as properly pointed out by Ryan McMaken of the Mises Institute, small and large countries have unique situations concerning immigration, just as do wealthy and poverty stricken countries. All face distinct problems, but the real enemy is still always the State. This fact is often, almost always actually, left out of any discussion of immigration, and this can only lead to illogical, inconclusive, and disastrous assumptions. This is exactly what is sought by the evil governments that control nation-states, who are the same criminals in governments who control borders. So long as the blame is placed on the immigrants themselves, on outside countries, or on one side or the other political faction, the State’s adverse immigration agendas (and all others) are most everywhere achieved.

The arguments surrounding immigration in the U.S., are largely concentrated in conversations about how many are coming into the country, who they are, where they are coming from, the jobs they are supposedly taking away from Americans, the ‘illegality’ of the ‘alien’ invader, the criminal and terroristic possibilities, and whether or not to build a wall to lock out these ‘aliens’,…

EPIC Testifies at House Hearing on Securing Communications Networks

EPIC Executive Director and President Alan Butler will testify before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Communications and Technology in a hearing regarding “Safeguarding Americans’ Communications: Strengthening Cybersecurity in a Digital Era.”

“Securing our nation’s communications systems is essential to protect national security, public safety, consumers, and our economy,” Butler will tell members of the Subcommittee. “This Subcommittee has the opportunity to promote important legislation to establish privacy and data security protections that are desperately needed across the digital ecosystem. And there is a range of other important work ahead to implement the National Security strategy and develop strong cybersecurity standards, to properly align industry incentives to invest in robust cybersecurity practices, and to better secure the devices and systems that play such an essential role in our day-to-day lives.”

Butler will advocate for the enactment of a strong and comprehensive privacy and data security law like the American Data Privacy and Protection Act (ADPPA). Watch the hearing at 10 AM ET here.

Mr. Butlerreleased the following statement about the hearing:

“Americans are facing a barrage of attacks on their personal data, their private communications, and their identities. Our communications networks and services are vulnerable, and breaches of those systems fuel identity theft, threats to public safety, and risks to national security. This is an urgent problem and we are glad to see the subcommittee take this up, especially given the committee’s prior work on comprehensive privacy legislation and the opportunity to take that up in 2024.”

EPIC has previously written about the need for a comprehensive privacy law as well as the role privacy principles like data minimization and data security must play in the White House’s National Cybersecurity Strategy.

FDR against the Bill of Rights

In this week’s column, I’d like to raise two questions suggested by David Beito’s excellent book The New Deal’s War on the Bill of Rights, which I reviewed last week. First, how can it be that Franklin Roosevelt has acquired a reputation among leftist historians as a champion of liberty, with his internment of Japanese Americans during World War II regarded as an aberration, in the face of the manifold violations of civil liberties that occurred during his administration? Second, given Roosevelt’s authoritarian proclivities, why wasn’t he successful in imposing the complete regime of censorship he wanted?

The answer to the first question is that Roosevelt preferred in most cases to work behind the scenes, aiding and abetting others to do his work. We see this in the activities of Hugo Black and Sherman Minton, both senators and later Supreme Court justices, whom Roosevelt assiduously encouraged and promoted.

Black, who from 1935 chaired the US Senate Special Subcommittee to Investigate Lobbying Activities, subpoenaed a vast number of telegrams from opponents of the New Deal, putting their activities under surveillance in an effort to intimidate them. As Beito explains,

The committee monitored private communications on a scale previously unrivaled in US history, at least in peacetime. Working in tandem with the Federal Communications Commission and the Roosevelt administration, it examined literally millions of private telegrams with virtually no supervision or constraint. Those singled out for this surveillance were anti–New Deal critics, including activists, journalists, and lawyers.

In acting in this fashion, Black was doing what Roosevelt wanted.

The committee’s most powerful champion was Roosevelt himself, though he carefully avoided tipping his hand in public. . . . Roosevelt responded to [Raymond] Moley with “a long discourse of how Black’s invasion of privacy had ample precedent.” The inference drawn by Moley was that for Roosevelt “the end justified the means.” The conversation left Moley “with the harrowing intimation that Roosevelt was looking forward to nothing more than having the opposition of his ‘enemies’—the newspapers, the bankers, the businessmen—reelect him.” . . . The Black Committee was first and foremost a creature of Roosevelt’s wish to establish a congressional committee to discredit opponents. After the president had made that decision, he sought out Black, a loyal political foot soldier, to take charge.

Roosevelt appointed Black to a vacancy on the Supreme Court in 1936, knowing that he could count on that stalwart New Dealer to uphold all his unconstitutional programs. When it became public knowledge the next year that Black had, in the words of Charles Tansill, “hidden his face beneath the hooded robes of a Klansman,” there was a clamor for Black to resign, but Roosevelt did not join it, even though Black admitted having been a KKK member. Many years later, Black ironically earned a reputation as a “free speech” absolutist, although he still defended his vote in Korematsu v. United States upholding Roosevelt’s order to intern Japanese Americans in concentration camps. According to Beito, “Black . . . was unrepentant. In 1971, he asserted that ‘[p]eople…

12 Solid Alternatives to Sandbags Against Flooding

Floods are among the most common and devastating disasters that can befall people anywhere around the world. The rule of thumb is that anywhere it can rain, it can flood, and your flood risks are geometrically worse in areas of high precipitation, near any body of water concourse, or in a low-lying area.

Even minor flooding can ruin your home and possessions, and severe flooding can devastate entire regions, often killing dozens or hundreds of people.

Floods seem like one of those things that you just have to endure or escape from, but with the right approach and enough time to react that isn’t necessarily true.

It’s always possible to sandbag properties to reduce flood damage by redirecting water or holding it at bay. But filling sandbags is highly laborious and often cannot be done in time.

Luckily, there are functional alternatives to traditional sandbags. Some of them use the floodwater itself to provide that protection. I’ll tell you about some good sandbag alternatives below in the rest of this article…

Aqua Dams

Aqua dams, alternatively cold hydro dams or water dams, are basically humongous, flexible tubular, or pad-shaped containers that use the weight of water to hold back even bigger quantities of water. Basically, they are water-inflated containers that look like a giant water pack or ice pack once they are full.

Made by various manufacturers, a large and properly sited aqua dam can hold back a truly gargantuan amount of water, as much as 6 feet or a little more. It is one the very best options for protecting flood-vulnerable waterways or properties, and they are reasonably easy to move into place with a team of men or a vehicle.

However, they take a long time to fill in order to render maximum protection, and specialized pumping rigs are needed to fill them from nearby water sources or the flood water itself.

Concrete / Cement Bags

One of the most interesting, and divisive, improvised methods for flood defense on our list here is concrete or cement bags. When you think about it, they work kind of like sandbags, right?

I mean they’re flexible, they can hold back water and the fill even reacts with water. What could be better?

Properly placed, concrete or cement bags will definitely hold back water, and as the water activates the mix inside it’s going to get even stronger!

Yes, this is undoubtedly true, but the problem comes when it’s time to clean up: you’re going to have an impossibly heavy and durable concrete wall to deal with! Or, at best, a mass of concrete right in front of your door, garage or anywhere else you happen to place it.

I don’t much look forward to the notion of jackhammering or sledgehammering that concrete into chunks and then carting it away, but I suppose if the alternative is losing my home and everything in it, or using concrete…

How to Process Chickens and Rabbits

(Continued from Part 1. This concludes the article.)

Now for the wings. Separate the wing at the first joint by using your knife, in the same manner as the feet removal. Due to the small amount of meat from the first joint to the tip of the wing, this part can be discarded.

Turn the bird around so you can see the neck. There is very little meat on the neck (although it is delicious and quite tender) so the neck can be cut short. You will need to remove the esophagus which can be found in the upper part of the cavity, as you go in from the neck area. The esophagus looks like a ribbed tube. Pull it out and discard it in your bucket.
You have now eviscerated your chicken. It is time to thoroughly rinse the inside and the outside of your bird. Remove any remaining feathers.

Your chicken can be cooked and enjoyed now or canned for later.

I have found that when I am processing chickens by myself, it helps to have a 35 gallon barrel cut in half horizontally and filled with ice water. Then after I get one bird plucked, it will go into the barrel until I get all the birds plucked. This seems to keep the process rolling smoothly, while keeping the birds from becoming an unsafe temperature.

The process for me looks like this: Grab a chicken and behead it and let it drain. Go grab another chicken and with one hand grab the first chicken and place it in the hot water pot and then behead the second chicken. While the second chicken is bleeding out, I take the first chicken and pluck it, the place it in the ice water barrel. Then I grab the third chicken and go through it all again.

Once you have dispatched, plucked, and eviscerated the chicken, rinse them thoroughly. There may be some of the smaller feathers that need removed. There will probably be some blood that needs to be removed also.

You can now cut up your chicken or leave it whole to cook it, which is what I do. I cook it at 350 degrees F until internal temperatures reach 160 degrees F in the breast area. Then I pressure can the meat (10 PSI for 90 minutes, for quarts). Continue reading “How to Process Chickens and Rabbits”

DHS Releases Data Mining Report After EPIC FOIA Request

DHS publicly released the 2021 Data Mining Report after EPIC submitted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request in June 2023 seeking the “2020 DHS Data Mining Report and all subsequent DHS data mining reports.” According to the DHS Data Mining Report page, DHS published the report in August 2023—two months after EPIC requested the document. DHS only informed EPIC of the release last week. The 2021 report also covers the year 2020 because according to DHS, “The DHS 2020 Data Mining Report to Congress was not submitted as planned.” The 2021 report is dated August 2022 suggesting DHS did not move to release the report until EPIC requested it.

The Federal Agency Data Mining Reporting Act of 2007 requires DHS to publish a report on its data mining activities on an annual basis. The reports are required to describe the data mining activity and technology used, the data sources, and the impact on privacy and civil liberties among other things. In the 2021 report, DHS identified a new data mining program: “Continuous Immigration Vetting for Operation Allies Welcome, utilizing ATS, conducted by CBP.” EPIC will continue to seek the data mining report for 2022, which still has not been released to the public.