Lies the government told you (40 page)

In 2005 it was uncovered that during one investigation of Las Vegas businesses, the FBI had issued tens of thousands of NSLs and obtained over a million financial, employment, and medical records of the customers of the target of the investigation. So your medical records, your financial records, and any other records that the government deems necessary will be opened for the world. And there will be not a thing you can do about it. All this, perhaps, because you spoke with the person sitting next to you on an airplane who was deemed suspicious by the government.

Be Careful What You Read

Dear reader, since you have actually picked up and read this book, it might be a little late for a warning. Just in case you thought you were safe to read whatever you choose, I want to warn you that your reading habits may be monitored for “suspicious” behavior. Considering the title of this book, your name might now be on a list authorized by the Patriot Act, which permits the FBI to review any tangible record, including reading habits. And the targets of these reading habit investigations need not be terrorists; the government does not even have to show the secret FISA court that the person is linked in any way to terrorism. Instead, all
agents are required to show to themselves
is that the records are required for an investigation of terrorism.

Even now, the Department of Justice has actually claimed that the secret FISA court has no authority to reject requests for FISA orders because all of them are acceptable, even when the
primary
purpose has nothing whatsoever to do with terrorism.
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The libraries and bookstores required to provide the surveillance information cannot reveal or notify anyone of that fact. And, like with National Security Letters, there is no judicial oversight of the secret warrants permitting access to such records.
²²
The only limitation
on access to such records is that the investigation cannot be launched
solely
if its basis is a First Amendment–protected activity; but if there is
any other
“unprotected” reason for the investigation, then that trumps the First Amendment.

The only bright light at the end of the tunnel is that librarians, after realizing the implications of the Act, have begun shredding records at the earliest possible time, so that they would not be able to provide the requested information under an NSL. But all that stands between what we choose to read and the government are the abilities of the librarians to shred faster than the government can collect.

No End in Sight

Democrats have admitted that the Patriot Act is unconstitutional, but they were willing to reauthorize the Act for four years, this coming from the party that is meant to stand for civil liberties and freedom.
²³
Even if the government admits to taking our liberties, trying to justify it by stating that it is necessary for our safety and security, would still be fallacious. No matter how often the government can claim to be able to protect us, and blame any of its inadequacies on lack of power, the argument is a lie. There is only one reason that the government takes away freedoms: Freedom is an obstacle to dominance, and almost everyone in government possesses what St. Augustine called
libido dominandi
, the lust to dominate.

The ruse that most persons fall for is that this is done for our safety. People want to feel secure, and their belief that the government can provide us with such security ensures that many are willing to sacrifice their safety. Yet, there is a reason that the Constitution exists in this country. As Congressman Ron Paul has stated, “These are not the most dangerous times in American history, despite the self-flattery of our politicians and media.”
²⁴

Rather, as he so aptly noted, America has survived the burning down of the White House, a Civil War, involvement in two World Wars, and has won a forty-year Cold War with the Soviet Union, a time where spying was rampant through the federal agencies and where citizens drawn by the rhetoric of Communism defected to the Soviet Union, and most notably, fingers were poised to press the nuclear launch button. Yet, somehow, America not only survived but flourished without the Patriot Act. It is in periods of crisis that we should strive to protect our liberties, not sacrifice them on the altar of a false sense of security.

During the reauthorization of the Patriot Act and an extension of its sunset provisions in 2005, many proponents made mention of the then-recent subway bombings in London as an argument in favor of the Patriot Act. They argued that government spying on Americans without judicially issued search warrants could prevent such actions here. But as Congressman Paul points out, London is “the most heavily monitored city in the world” and the British are “not hampered by our 4th Amendment or our due process requirements,” yet they were unable to protect themselves, proving that “even a wholesale surveillance society cannot be made completely safe against determined terrorists.”
²⁵
If the freedomless British cannot protect their cities from attack, why do politicians attempt to argue that stripping us of our liberties will work here at home?

There is no reason to believe that any of the actions taken under the Patriot Act can make us safer. All the justifications and endless explanations for the need of a Patriot Act have no support in reality and are just lies created by the government to lull us into acquiescence, to enhance the government’s power over us, and to make it appear to fearful or gullible Americans that because the government is curtailing our freedoms it must be making us safer by doing so. Be ashamed for accepting such arrant nonsense.

It is no surprise, considering the unconstitutional atrocities permitted by the Patriot Act, that seven states have passed resolutions condemning the Act. Each day, more fight to force President Obama to repeal it. But once it has managed to deceive us into granting it more power, the federal government is loath to return it. Unremarkably, therefore, even President Obama, who ran for office as a defender of civil liberties, now supports maintaining the existing law.

This Is America

The cynically named Patriot Act is a revolting and unconstitutional example of the federal government taking advantage of people during times of crisis. To pass the Act in the wake of September 11th 2001, was one thing; to reauthorize it after it has proven to be wildly unconstitutional and phenomenally ineffective is quite another. How do we expect to be the example of democracy in the Middle East and around the world when our government doesn’t even trust us, and goes out of its way to lie to us in order to strip us of our freedoms? As a result of the tragedy that was September 11th 2001, it is important to take terrorist threats seriously, but under no circumstances should we have to fear what we say, write, or type. This is America, isn’t it?

Lie #17
“America Has a Free Market”

As hue and cry abound around the current economic crisis, and blame is passed from Wall Street to Main Street and back again, it is strange to note that we hear so little about the blame that should rest in Washington, D.C. And the blame that does come to rest on the shoulders of the government seems largely focused on “too little government intervention,” which permitted “too much capitalism.”
¹
Apparently, all those acronyms that the government is so famous for producing and the regulations it enforces are not considered intervention.

The government has managed to convince most Americans not only that they are living in a country whose economy is based on laissez-faire capitalism but also that the free market is to blame for all our problems. And until those myths are rebutted and the truth of the matter is revealed, we will continue on the path forged by the Great Depression, and ending with central economic planning in Washington, privately owned entities under government control, and nationalization of businesses that are “too big to fail.”

The Unaffordable Cost of “Affordable Housing”
²

Ever since FDR and his New Deal policies in the 1930s, the federal government has inserted itself into housing policy in order to ensure—it contends—that everyone has access to affordable housing. Beginning with rent control, the trend continued with encouraging homeownership, with the establishment of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 (CRA), forcing banks to make loans to those they would normally reject as dangerous credit risks. Somehow, the Reinvestment Act claimed that is was unfair for banks to reject certain parts of the community based on credit, because everyone deserved to own a house, whether he or she could actually afford it or not. Basically, Fannie and Freddie, capitalized with taxpayer dollars, took the under-performing mortgages, that the CRA forced the banks to make, off the banks’ balance sheets. So, credit-risky owners got homes they couldn’t afford, banks got fees for lending to risky borrowers, and taxpayers got stuck with the risks and the eventual losses.

Yet, even with all the laws and regulations around, the government continues to blame deregulation and the “free” market. How it can do so with a straight face, considering that we have “
seventy-three thousand
pages of detailed government [economic] regulations,”
³
is beyond me. And the regulations and government intervention are directly to blame for the mess we are in now, no matter how hard the government tries to lie to us and blame Wall Street or Main Street or deregulation. It was the government that encouraged, enticed, and compelled banks to loan to people whom they would usually deny as bad credit risks.

It was the government that created the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), which guaranteed billions of dollars in loans. And, of course, if a loan is guaranteed by the government, there is no reason for a bank to look at the borrower’s ability to return the money.
⁴
Slowly, too, HUD lowered its standards, and the government’s approval for granting mortgage insurance became almost automatic. Such guarantees brought about new banks, like Countrywide Financial, which were opened around the nation, centered on serving that portion of the population that could not get “prime” loans because of poor credit history, and providing them with “sub-prime” mortgages, sometimes
with no money down, to buy houses they could ill afford.

Many were expecting house prices to continue to rise and therefore bought million-dollar houses on incomes of less than $30,000, with no money down. So when the housing bubble burst, as all bubbles eventually do, these people had mortgage payments due that they could not afford, and their houses were worth less than the mortgage that they had to pay. So the banks foreclosed on homes that were not worth the money that had been loaned in order to purchase them.

These same mortgages had also been wrapped up into securities, called mortgage-backed securities, which were then sold by the banks to investors, which provided the banks with additional money to make more loans. Sometimes Fannie and Freddie were the investors. But the value of these securities depended on the mortgage payments being paid in full and on time. When the housing boom collapsed and people stopped paying, these securities became worthless, and losses of billions accumulated in those who had invested.

Many of those who had invested were investment banks, which then had losses of billions, and they collapsed as well. The market went into free fall, largely because the government induced and forced banks to loan to people with poor credit, because it felt that everyone deserved affordable housing and so it had to provide it, through any means necessary. But what the government tends to forget is that there is no such thing as a free lunch. So now, we will soon be paying in higher taxes and inflation for the so-called “affordable housing” that the government was desperate to provide.

The Bailout: Free Money for the Incompetent

By bailing out banks and related companies, the government has essentially ensured what it claimed it was trying to prevent, market instability. Now that certain firms are aware that they are too big to fail, they will be much more likely to engage in riskier investment schemes. They are aware that if their risky investment fails, the government will ensure their survival, and if it succeeds, there will be a large payout, as there is with any risky investment that succeeds.

But the payout will be theirs and theirs alone. As the
Wall Street Journal
so aptly described the process, “[t]heir profit is privatized but their risk is socialized.”
⁵

Economists often state that the Great Depression was inordinately long, due in large part to the inflexibility of wages and other forms of government intervention.
⁶
The government responded by printing money, artificially stabilizing prices, employing the population on worthless projects, and thereby, according to the Austrian economists, expanding the Great Depression by around fifteen years.
⁷
The Great Depression was “great” because of its duration (from 1929 to 1946) and its duration was assured by FDR’s central planning.

On the other hand, when the stock market crashed on October 19th 1987—a day known as Black Monday—and the Dow Jones dropped 508 points in one day,
⁸
while 205 banks failed that year,
⁹
President Reagan ignored the cries for help and did nothing. The government took not one step to intervene in the markets, though panic was widespread. Within a few months, the market stabilized and prosperity came slinking back. It has now been nearly eighteen months since the markets had their September 2008 collapse, and as much as the Federal Reserve is claiming that things are looking up, the markets are unstable and unemployment, even with the Bush and Obama bailouts, is over 10 percent.

Everyone claims that the bailout of the system is necessary in order to prevent another Great Depression. Yet, as Llewellyn Rockwell has pointed out, “[it] makes no sense to warn that we will repeat the past if we fail to do the things that actually made the past as bad as it was.”
¹⁰
Maybe, rather than emulating a government that prolonged the Great Depression, we might think about emulating the administration that managed to allow Black Monday to be only a three-month-long affair.