Tuesday, April 8, 2008

Neocons, the Bible, False Flags and Martial Law

Thursday, August 16, 2007

By now, you have probably heard that the government has been training ministers to convince their congregations to submit to government authority in the event of a martial law crackdown, based upon Romans 13 (see also this).

Fundamentalist Christians argue that Romans 13 states that Christians must submit to government authority, since the government is divinely empowered and sustained. This is actually the argument which Adolph Hitler used in order to convince the German churches to follow him and his policies.

However, Romans 13 does not teach subservience. Rather, as explained by a Baptist minister, Romans 13 actually says something very different:
"Paul … said, ‘Wherefore ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but also for conscience sake.’ Meaning, our obedience to civil authority is more than just ‘because they said so.’ It is also a matter of conscience. This means we must think and reason for ourselves regarding the justness and rightness of our government's laws. Obedience is not automatic or robotic. It is a result of both rational deliberation and moral approbation.

Therefore, there are times when civil authority may need to be resisted. Either governmental abuse of power or the violation of conscience (or both) could precipitate civil disobedience."
The Bible therefore requires that Christians resist imposition of martial law based upon false pretenses or upon an abuse of power.

Similarly, Romans 13 teaches that any government that is a "terror to good works" is acting beyond its authority and must be resisted.

Therefore, Romans 13 compels us to resist and remove from power elements of the U.S. government which participated in the 9/11 attacks or are planning to carry out further false flag attacks.

And remember that neoconservatives use religion to manipulate people, even though they themselves are usually not religious. So the government hacks pushing Romans 13 as an excuse for fascism and government-sponsored terror likely do not themselves even believe in the Bible. More

This is not meant as an attempt to convert non-Christians to Christianity. 85% of the American population identifies itself as Christian, and millions more identify themselves as Jewish. Therefore, it is aimed at the vast majority of Americans who already believe in the Bible, or those who wish to reach them. If you are an atheist, mocking Christians will not help to persuade them of your view - it will just make them defensive. But educating them about what their own faith really teaches might help to persuade them.

Oh Keynesian, Where Art Thou?

Oh Keynesian, Where Art Thou? click here

The Age of Autism: 'A pretty big secret'

By DAN OLMSTED
UPI Senior Editor
CHICAGO, Dec. 7 (UPI) -- It's a far piece from the horse-and-buggies of Lancaster County, Pa., to the cars and freeways of Cook County, Ill.

But thousands of children cared for by Homefirst Health Services in metropolitan Chicago have at least two things in common with thousands of Amish children in rural Lancaster: They have never been vaccinated. And they don't have autism.

"We have a fairly large practice. We have about 30,000 or 35,000 children that we've taken care of over the years, and I don't think we have a single case of autism in children delivered by us who never received vaccines," said Dr. Mayer Eisenstein, Homefirst's medical director who founded the practice in 1973. Homefirst doctors have delivered more than 15,000 babies at home, and thousands of them have never been vaccinated.

The few autistic children Homefirst sees were vaccinated before their families became patients, Eisenstein said. "I can think of two or three autistic children who we've delivered their mother's next baby, and we aren't really totally taking care of that child -- they have special care needs. But they bring the younger children to us. I don't have a single case that I can think of that wasn't vaccinated."

The autism rate in Illinois public schools is 38 per 10,000, according to state Education Department data; the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention puts the national rate of autism spectrum disorders at 1 in 166 -- 60 per 10,000.

"We do have enough of a sample," Eisenstein said. "The numbers are too large to not see it. We would absolutely know. We're all family doctors. If I have a child with autism come in, there's no communication. It's frightening. You can't touch them. It's not something that anyone would miss."

No one knows what causes autism, but federal health authorities say it isn't childhood immunizations. Some parents and a small minority of doctors and scientists, however, assert vaccines are responsible.

This column has been looking for autism in never-vaccinated U.S. children in an effort to shed light on the issue. We went to Chicago to meet with Eisenstein at the suggestion of a reader, and we also visited Homefirst's office in northwest suburban Rolling Meadows. Homefirst has four other offices in the Chicago area and a total of six doctors.

Eisenstein stresses his observations are not scientific. "The trouble is this is just anecdotal in a sense, because what if every autistic child goes somewhere else and (their family) never calls us or they moved out of state?"

In practice, that's unlikely to account for the pronounced absence of autism, says Eisenstein, who also has a bachelor's degree in statistics, a master's degree in public health and a law degree.

Homefirst follows state immunization mandates, but Illinois allows religious exemptions if parents object based either on tenets of their faith or specific personal religious views. Homefirst does not exclude or discourage such families. Eisenstein, in fact, is author of the book "Don't Vaccinate Before You Educate!" and is critical of the CDC's vaccination policy in the 1990s, when several new immunizations were added to the schedule, including Hepatitis B as early as the day of birth. Several of the vaccines -- HepB included -- contained a mercury-based preservative that has since been phased out of most childhood vaccines in the United States.

Medical practices with Homefirst's approach to immunizations are rare. "Because of that, we tend to attract families that have questions about that issue," said Dr. Paul Schattauer, who has been with Homefirst for 20 years and treats "at least" 100 children a week.

Schattauer seconded Eisenstein's observations. "All I know is in my practice I don't see autism. There is no striking 1-in-166," he said.

Earlier this year we reported the same phenomenon in the mostly unvaccinated Amish. CDC Director Dr. Julie Gerberding told us the Amish "have genetic connectivity that would make them different from populations that are in other sectors of the United States." Gerberding said, however, studies "could and should be done" in more representative unvaccinated groups -- if they could be found and their autism rate documented.

Chicago is America's prototypical "City of Big Shoulders," to quote Carl Sandburg, and Homefirst's mostly middle-class families seem fairly representative. A substantial number are conservative Christians who home-school their children. They are mostly white, but the Homefirst practice also includes black and Hispanic families and non-home-schooling Jews, Catholics and Muslims.

They tend to be better educated, follow healthier diets and breast-feed their children much longer than the norm -- half of Homefirst's mothers are still breast-feeding at two years. Also, because Homefirst relies less on prescription drugs including antibiotics as a first line of treatment, these children have less exposure to other medicines, not just vaccines.

Schattauer, interviewed at the Rolling Meadows office, said his caseload is too limited to draw conclusions about a possible link between vaccines and autism. "With these numbers you'd have a hard time proving or disproving anything," he said. "You can only get a feeling about it.

"In no way would I be an advocate to stand up and say we need to look at vaccines, because I don't have the science to say that," Schattauer said. "But I don't think the science is there to say that it's not."

Schattauer said Homefirst's patients also have significantly less childhood asthma and juvenile diabetes compared to national rates. An office manager who has been with Homefirst for 17 years said she is aware of only one case of severe asthma in an unvaccinated child.

"Sometimes you feel frustrated because you feel like you've got a pretty big secret," Schattauer said. He argues for more research on all those disorders, independent of political or business pressures.

The asthma rate among Homefirst patients is so low it was noticed by the Blue Cross group with which Homefirst is affiliated, according to Eisenstein.

"In the alternative-medicine network which Homefirst is part of, there are virtually no cases of childhood asthma, in contrast to the overall Blue Cross rate of childhood asthma which is approximately 10 percent," he said. "At first I thought it was because they (Homefirst's children) were breast-fed, but even among the breast-fed we've had asthma. We have virtually no asthma if you're breast-fed and not vaccinated."

Because the diagnosis of asthma is based on emergency-room visits and hospital admissions, Eisenstein said, Homefirst's low rate is hard to dispute. "It's quantifiable -- the definition is not reliant on the doctor's perception of asthma."

Several studies have found a risk of asthma from vaccination; others have not. Studies that include never-vaccinated children generally find little or no asthma in that group.

Earlier this year Florida pediatrician Dr. Jeff Bradstreet said there is virtually no autism in home-schooling families who decline to vaccinate for religious reasons -- lending credence to Eisenstein's observations.

"It's largely non-existent," said Bradstreet, who treats children with autism from around the country. "It's an extremely rare event."

Bradstreet has a son whose autism he attributes to a vaccine reaction at 15 months. His daughter has been home-schooled, he describes himself as a "Christian family physician," and he knows many of the leaders in the home-school movement.

"There was this whole subculture of folks who went into home-schooling so they would never have to vaccinate their kids," he said. "There's this whole cadre who were never vaccinated for religious reasons."

In that subset, he said, "unless they were massively exposed to mercury through lots of amalgams (mercury dental fillings in the mother) and/or big-time fish eating, I've not had a single case."

Federal health authorities and mainstream medical groups emphatically dismiss any link between autism and vaccines, including the mercury-based preservative thimerosal. Last year a panel of the Institute of Medicine, part of the National Academies, said there is no evidence of such a link, and funding should henceforth go to "promising" research.

Thimerosal, which is 49.6 percent ethyl mercury by weight, was phased out of most U.S. childhood immunizations beginning in 1999, but the CDC recommends flu shots for pregnant women and last year began recommending them for children 6 to 23 months old. Most of those shots contain thimerosal.

Thimerosal-preserved vaccines are currently being injected into millions of children in developing countries around the world. "My mandate ... is to make sure at the end of the day that 100,000,000 are immunized ... this year, next year and for many years to come ... and that will have to be with thimerosal-containing vaccines," said John Clements of the World Health Organization at a June 2000 meeting called by the CDC.

That meeting was held to review data that thimerosal might be linked with autism and other neurological problems. But in 2004 the Institute of Medicine panel said evidence against a link is so strong that health authorities, "whether in the United States or other countries, should not include autism as a potential risk" when formulating immunization policies.

But where is the simple, straightforward study of autism in never-vaccinated U.S. children? Based on our admittedly anecdotal and limited reporting among the Amish, the home-schooled and now Chicago's Homefirst, that may prove to be a significant omission.

--

This ongoing series on the roots and rise of autism welcomes comment. E-mail: dolmsted@upi.com

1 in every 350 Americans is considered a possible “terrorist

This really makes you ask, am I one of them? Of course not… right? Do not be so sure… The Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act redefines what a terrorist is. The Act’s definition of a terrorist is so broad that an protester, for just about anything, could be labeled a terrorist. Also do not fly in and out of the country more than a few times… they may suspect you.

Almost 1 million people will be put on the “watch list” by years end. This is incredible and utterly insane. How can the government expect us as citizens to believe that 1 in every 350 people need to be watched. When I heard this news all I could think was that 1984 is already here. I am afraid just by writing this and posting it online I will be added to the list.

People amaze me how they can still say “Patriot Act” is for our protection. Watching 1 million people is not for our protection! How big must the government be to be able to watch this many people! I already knew I couldn’t enter the city with out being caught on camera 1,000 times but this is incredible. Spying on 1 million people makes the government the biggest terrorist of them all…If your not doing anything wrong why does it matter? That is by far the worst argument I have ever heard!

I would rather vote for a democrat that taxed me more and controls my health care plan than a candidate who supports this. Of course Ron Paul is the greatest proponent of civil liberties alive today. If Ron Paul doesn’t win I will be starting a petition among republicans not to vote for the nominee unless they promise to actively pursue repealing this thing.

Going fishing? Pack your passport

By Mimi Hall, USA TODAY

Rick Ungar's charter fishing service promises a great time on Lake Erie. But there's a catch — and it's not freshwater fish. It's the Homeland Security Department's new anti-terrorism rules.
When the 2008 charter season begins next month, U.S. citizens paying to fish on Lake Erie will have to bring either a passport or two other IDs if they plan to cross the northern border's invisible watery line.

When they get back to shore in the USA, they'll have to drive to a local government reporting station and pose for pictures. They won't be posing with their fish, but for Customs officers via a videophone connection.

That's because half of Lake Erie — as it happens, the half with the deeper and cooler waters that often spawn the best fishing — is in Canada. The Homeland Security Department intends to enforce new border security rules — largely focused on those coming into the country by land and air — on fishermen re-entering the country.

Ungar and many of his fellow charter boat captains — Lake Erie alone has 600-plus — are incensed.

They say the rules are difficult to follow, will dramatically cut down on tourism and won't protect against terrorism.

"How does this secure our country?" asks Ungar, a retired Cuyahoga Heights, Ohio, police chief. "I'm not insensitive to law enforcement issues, but these are fishermen, for God's sake."

The rules apply to all the Great Lakes, but opposition is most potent on Erie because the geography of the lake means the best fish are often over the international line.

Some operators haven't decided whether they'll continue fishing in Canadian waters. If they do, the operators will be required to:

•Fax in passengers' personal information — name, date of birth and government ID number — to the local Customs and Border Protection office an hour before they leave shore. The names will be run against terrorist watch lists.

•Make sure passengers carry either a passport or a government ID and a proof-of-citizenship document.

•Send the passengers to a local border protection reporting station after landing, so they can call in on a videophone.

Officers will be watching and doing spot checks on patrol boats and government aircraft. "Our concerns are anything from terrorists and terrorist weapons to drugs and undocumented aliens," says Brett Sturgeon, a spokesman for Customs and Border Protection.

Jim Bonner, whose Sunshine Charters business has been taking tourists fishing on Lake Erie for 25 years, calls the rules "a waste of taxpayers' money."

"It's a shame" he says. "It's just wide-open water."

THE LIE OF THE CENTURY

THE LIE OF THE CENTURY, click here

Orwell meets Vanunu and The Industrial Military Media Security/Surveillance Complex

By Eileen Fleming

4/7/08

Recently Senator John McCain erroneously claimed Iran is training and supplying al-Qaeda in Iraq. McCain corrected himself after Senator Joseph Lieberman [of whom it has been whispered holds dual USA and Israeli citizenship] whispered in his ear, “You said that the Iranians were training al-Qaeda. I think you meant they’re training in extremist terrorism.”

McCain prefaced and ended with an apology “the Iranians are training extremists, not al-Qaeda, not al-Qaeda. I’m sorry.”

Robert Dreyfuss, investigative reporter whose latest article in The Nation is entitled, “Hothead McCain” explains, “If you thought George Bush was bad when it comes to the use of military force, wait ’til you see John McCain.”

McCain thinks that the Vietnam War could have been won if we had just stayed another five, ten or fifteen years, and he is gleefully prepared to do the same in Iraq, despite the fact that Iraqi journalist Ghaith Abdul-Ahad’s blows the doors off the US military surge by traveling into the belly of Baghdad: an open air prison which divides Sunni and Shia populations behind 12ft high walls.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2008/mar/17/baghdad.city.of.walls


Those concrete walls in Baghdad are dwarfed by the 30ft high concrete ones in the ‘Holy’ Land; which is in pieces, Bantustans. Both builders of those walls claim to be democracies and that the walls are for Security. Both builders of those walls exhibit the schizophrenic discipline of thinking two contradictory truths at the same time. Coined by Orwell as doublethink, the Ministry of Peace wages war, the Ministry of Truth fabricates lies and the Ministry of Love tortures and kills any it deems threatening. Most threatening for Big Brother are those with independent thought.

In 2007, Naomi Klein, in her book The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, argued that at the height of the 2003-07 economic boom, the military industrial complex was driving Israel’s tremendous economic growth, and Israel had the largest GDP growth of any Western country.

Klein theorized that the source of Israel’s tremendous economic growth in the past five years cannot be attributed simply to its encouragement of high tech entrepreneurship and basic science. Its success must be understood, rather, as a product of its ability to use the occupation of Gaza and the West Bank as a laboratory for defense industry innovation — and to showcase their wares.

“Young Israeli computer scientists and engineers gain their training in the military, and then go on to start the kind of technology companies that have proliferated wildly in Israel and whose products are much sought after abroad. The entire Israeli hi-tech sector and not just military technology per se, is thus an outgrowth of Israel’s hyper militarization. The Israeli economy’s tech sector grew by 20% in 2006 alone, and Israel is now the foreign country with the second most US stock exchange-listed companies. Klein’s point that Israel’s military-derived technologies are an economic growth-driver because they can be tested in situ is correct, but it is insufficient for describing the magnitude of the military’s tremendous penetration of the country’s economy. Palestinians under occupation can indeed be seen as human “guinea pigs” and not just merely military targets, as Klein claims, but the society’s militarization is far more profound than even she suggests.” [1]

After the dot-com bubble burst in 2000, Israel’s economy was devastated, but then came 9/11, and “suddenly new profit vistas opened up for any company that claimed it could spot terrorists in crowds, seal borders from attack and extract confessions from closed-mouthed prisoners…Many of the country’s most successful entrepreneurs are using Israel’s status as a fortressed state, surrounded by furious enemies, as a kind of twenty-four-hour-a-day showroom–a living example of how to enjoy relative safety amid constant war…Israel now sends $1.2 billion in “defense” products to the United States—up dramatically from $270 million in 1999…That makes Israel the fourth-largest arms dealer in the world…Much of this growth has been in the so-called “homeland security” sector. Before 9/11 homeland security barely existed as an industry. By the end of this year, Israeli exports in the sector will reach $1.2 billion–an increase of 20 percent. The key products and services are …precisely the tools and technologies Israel has used to lock in the occupied territories. Israel has learned to turn endless war into a brand asset, pitching its uprooting, occupation and containment of the Palestinian people as a half-century head start in the “global war on terror… Israel’s policy of erecting walls and checkpoints to seal off the occupied territories are also “laboratories where the terrifying tools of our security states are being field-tested Palestinians–whether living in the West Bank or what the Israeli politicians are already calling “Hamasistan”–are no longer just targets. They are guinea pigs…”


Poster-boy for Israel’s Industrial Security/Surveillance Complex is the Christian convert from Judaism, Mordechai Vanunu. Every email Vanunu has ever written, snail mail received, phone call conversation and walk he has ever taken through east Jerusalem, has potentially been monitored 24/7, since his release from an Israeli prison in 2004.

During my first-of five-trips to east Jerusalem since June 2005, Vanunu told me that during the first two years of his 18 years in jail [most all in solitary confinement] a light shone above his head 24/7 in a tomb sized cell. When ever he closed his eyes a guard would come in and shine a brighter light into his face and say, “Just checking if you had committed suicide yet.”

A few weeks ago, and thirty odd years from my first time, I reread Orwell’s 1984, that was published in 1949. I was struck at how much Vanunu reminded me of Winston Smith, Orwell’s man with an independent thought that Big Brother; The Party incarnate found so threatening they tortured him beyond his endurance in order to break him, brainwash him and strip him of his humanity.

In 1987, in Ashkelon Prison, Vanunu wrote, I had “no choice. I’m a little man, a citizen, one of the people, but I’ll do what I have to. I’ve heard the voice of my conscience and there’s nowhere to hide…yes, it’s there all right. I’m all right. I do see the monster. I’m part of the system. I signed this form. Only now I am reading the rest of it. This bolt is part of a bomb. This bolt is me…Who else knows? Who has seen? Who has heard?” [3]

“A working prophet, is able to see deeper than most of us into the human soul. Orwell in 1948 understood that despite the Axis defeat, the will to fascism had not gone away…the irresistible human addiction to power were already long in place…the means of surveillance in Winston Smith’s era…[are] primitive next to the wonders of computer technology…most notably the Internet.” [4]

“Universal peace and justice are the goals of man, and the prophets have faith that in spite of all errors and sins…[and] although under the illusion of fighting for peace and democracy…all the fighting nations lost moral considerations…the unlimited destruction of civilian populations…atomic bombs…can human nature be changed so that man will forget his longing for freedom, dignity, integrity, love-can man forget that he is human?” [5]

The “Fabric of Life Road” in occupied Palestine is in reality an apartheid road; separate and unequal. Palestinians must travel through sewage and tunnels, but Israelis ride on only well maintained contiguous highways. At the checkpoint from Jerusalem to the little town of Bethlehem in occupied territory, the Ministry of Tourism draped a thirty foot high doublespeak sign that proclaims: “Peace be with you” a loose translation of “War is Peace.”

In Orwell’s epic, Winston Smith played the role of the archetype of all threats to Big Brother; an individual with an open and free mind, independent thought, memory of history, a voice of dissent and willing to take bold action. Orwell’s Big Brother tortured all threats in order to get inside their head and then to brainwash them into accepting doublethink as truth.

The atomic bomb which was dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was a baby step compared to the 21st century slaughter that can be achieved by thermonuclear weapons with capacities to wipe out 100% of a country within minutes. The Industrial Military Complex cranks out new weapons about every five years and soon the minds driven mad with doublethink-”war is peace”- will create 100 or 1,000 megaton bombs.

“Orwell demonstrates the illusion of the assumption that democracy can continue to exist in a world preparing for nuclear war…leaders…have only one aim, and that is power…and power means to inflict unlimited pain and suffering to another human being……how can a minority of one be right?…we spend a considerable part of our income and energy in building thermonuclear weapons, and close our minds to the fact that they might go off and destroy one third or one half of our population and that of the enemy…another example of doublethink-from a Christian standpoint” is the evil of killing any other. [Ibid]

Vanunu threatens Israel in 2008, far more than he did in 2004.

Vanunu has not only continued to speak out for a nuclear free Middle East, he has also become a spokesperson regarding the Christian Exodus from east Jerusalem [7], where he has lived these last four years.

Over the last four years of house arrest, Vanunu has met thousands of tourists and pilgrims. Everyone of them understands that the only way Vanunu can harm Israel is with bad PR.

If Israel had practiced justice and mercy, they would have let Vanunu go in 2004, and chances are, that by now Vanunu would have faded into a footnote in history, instead of keep making it.

In Israel’s 60th anniversary year, Vanunu exposes how the Jewish state is a democracy in name only, for it continues to forbid him-an Israeli Christian the right to speak to a sister or brother in Christ if they happen to be from a foreign country.

However, 21st century Big Brother: The Industrial Military Media Security/Surveillance Complex, has not yet found the way to stop the flow of independent thought streaming through the world wide web.

Vanunu had been scheduled to return to court on Easter Sunday, fighting a six month jail sentence, handed down in July 2007 that was rendered because he spoke to professional foreign media in 2004. Vanunu was being punished for attempting to travel by cab the five miles into the little town of Bethlehem; occupied territory, on Christmas Eve 2004; but he ended up in a jail cell that night too.

DHS ignores civil liberties in domestic spy satellite plan, lawmakers say

04/07/2008
Filed by Nick Juliano

Homeland Security Committee members fault Chertoff for delaying legal framework for new office
A controversial plan that would allow domestic law enforcement agencies to use data gathered by US spy satellites still lacks necessary civil liberties and privacy protections, and three Democratic lawmakers are urging Department of Homeland Security Chair Michael Chertoff to established a legal framework for the new plan he promised six months ago.

DHS plans to create a new office that would expand law enforcement and other civilian agencies' access to data gathered by powerful intelligence and military satellites orbiting the earth. The National Applications Office will oversee who can access such satellite data, which is typically used to monitor climate change and track hurricane damage, among other uses.

DHS still has not laid out legal frameworks or standard operating procedures for the office, according to a letter from three members of the House Homeland Security Committee.

"We recently learned that the Department has begun to advertise for positions at the NAO. While we applaud the Department's efforts to prepare for the future, we are disappointed by its continuing pattern of putting the cart before the horse," wrote Reps. Bennie G. Thompson, the committee's chair; Jane Harman, chair of an intelligence subcommittee; and Christopher P. Carney, chair of an oversight subcommittee.

The lawmakers said they were concerned about the "privacy and civil liberties challenges" posed by the domestic satellite program. They said a legal framework for the program was missing from the NAO's charter, which "had been finalized without any input from this committee ... or the privacy and civil liberties community.

"Instead of crafting a privacy and civil liberties solution for the Department's NAO law enforcement customers or updating us about a summer date for its completion, the NAO Charter now makes clear that this critical undertaking will be postponed until an unspecified time in the future," they write. "This is unacceptable."

The domestic spy satellite plan was first proposed last August, and its expected launch in October was delayed because of privacy concerns. The lawmakers' letter, which was sent Monday, makes clear those concerns remain.

Although we support any Department effort to engage in more effective and responsive information sharing with our nation's first preventers, the serious privacy and civil liberties issues that the NAO raises are manifold and multifaceted. Doing business with the NAO's law enforcement and other customers therefore requires a robust and detailed legal framework and SOPs that provide clearly defined privacy and civil liberties safeguards. Merely mentioning Posse Comitatus and other laws in the NAO Charter does not provide needed assurances that the Department will not transform NAO into a domestic spying platform. Furthermore, delaying the hard work of addressing the privacy and civil liberties issues specific to law enforcement customers further erodes our confidence that you are serious about serving their needs. It's frankly time for the Department to lead on privacy and civil liberties in this area -- not shirk a difficult duty.
The NAO would expand access to data gathered by Measurement and Signal Intelligence (MASINT) satellites, which according to reports use radar and infrared imaging technologies to see through cloud cover, forest canopies and even concrete barriers. Allowing local police forces access to such data raises substantial questions about whether the door to 4th Amendment violations is being flung open.

A Congressional Research Service report prepared last month outlined some of these concerns. It concluded that privacy concerns were likely to be dependent upon the type of technology used. That, the lawmakers said in their letter Monday, has still not been clarified by DHS