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    New Plan for Old Biden: Tennis Shoes and Baby Stairs on Air Force One

    By
    Paul Crespo
    -
    6
    The White House, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

    ANALYSIS – In case you missed it, Joe Biden tripped again recently going down the stairs of Air Force One. And these weren’t the normal tall stairs used by proud Commanders in Chief, that rise all the way to the top of the majestic presidential aircraft, but the very short baby stairs that are used by ‘the help’ that go into the lower bowels of the plane.

    That is the new normal for our aging and decrepit occupant of the White House. That and tennis shoes worn with business suits and seeing a physical therapist. All to avoid tripping, slipping, or falling, and not being able to get back up.

    This latest slip occurred just hours after Axios reported Biden’s campaign is “working on a critical project for his re-election bid: Make sure he doesn’t trip.”

    ‘Operation Don’t Let Biden Fall’ would be laughable if it weren’t so sad. But as Axios notes: “Biden’s team is betting that any mockery he receives over using the shorter Air Force One steps and wearing tennis shoes will be worth it to avoid another public stumble.”

    Many Democrats worry about Biden having a bad fall like Republican presidential nominee Bob Dole, 73 at the time, had in September 1996, when he fell off a stage at a rally weeks before the election.

    Democrats already had been knocking Dole about his age compared to the 50-year-old Bill Clinton running for re-election.

    Biden has repeatedly stumbled and tripped in public, including, most dramatically on stage at the Air Force’s graduation in June. 

    Biden’s physician has diagnosed Biden’s stumbles as likely caused by “a combination of significant spinal arthritis” and “mild post-fracture foot arthritis.” 

    Folksy old Biden might just say he is getting long in the tooth.

    Biden, the oldest-ever serving U.S. president, turns 81 in less than two months. Three-fourths of Americans see Biden as too old for office, according to an AP-NORC poll last month.

    Another poll from the Washington Post and ABC News in late September found that 3 out of 5 Democrats would prefer someone else be the party’s 2024 nominee.

    The president’s doctor has recommended special exercises for balance, which he called “proprioceptive maintenance maneuvers.”

    Unfortunately, Axios noted, no one has ever heard of these “maneuvers.”

    “I have never heard the term ‘proprioceptive maintenance maneuvers.’ It is not a clinical term in standard use,” said Professor James Gordon, associate dean and chair of the Division of Biokinesiology and Physical Therapy at the University of Southern California.

    Biden’s doctor is just as good as Biden at using made up words or as good as the White House Press secretary is at blowing smoke.

    As bad as his obvious physical frailty is, Americans should be just as concerned, or more so, about Biden’s severe mental decline. 

    And it must be bad, when even the establishment media has noticed. NBC News reported in July:

    Apparent to anyone paying attention is that the Biden they may remember from the Robert Bork Supreme Court confirmation hearings of 1987, or the vice presidential debate with Sarah Palin in 2008, is a different man today. His gait is less steady, his speech not as fluid. He has confused Iraq with Ukraine and Rolling Fork, Mississippi, with “Rolling Stone.” At a conference last year, he looked out at the audience and called for a congresswoman who had recently died in a car crash.

    The outlet added that Biden is “relying on “extra-large font on his teleprompter and note cards to remind him of the points he wants to make in meetings.”

    I must note that I’ve seen the extra-large font on his teleprompter, and it is embarrassingly HUGE.

    Meanwhile, the New York Times reported in June that Biden’s “staff schedules most of his public appearances between noon and 4 p.m. and leave him alone on weekends as much as possible.”

    But there is only so much you can do to hide the fact that this man should be in a rocking chair with his grandkids, not leading the free world. 

    It is doubtful that Team Biden can keep their man from falling during the camapign, it is even more doubtful that – barring keeping him isolated in a soundproof bubble – they can keep him from babbling incoherently.

    Either way, we definitely don’t want Biden answering what Hillary Clinton in 2008 called “the 3am phone call” to the White House in a major crisis. And I can see a lot of those calls coming in over the next four years.

    Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.

    Congress Investigating Alleged Biden Attempt To Rig Election For Campaign Supporter

    By
    Donny Ferguson
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    2
    Missvain, CC BY 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons

    A congressional committee is now investigating allegations that the Biden White House tried to sway a major workplace unionization vote in favor of the United Auto Workers union bosses.

    U.S. House Education and the Workforce Committee Chairwoman Virginia Foxx (R-NC) “probed senior Biden administration officials for their attempts to sway the outcome of a Mercedes-Benz unionization election,” the Committee announced in a statement

    “In a letter to Jake Sullivan, Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, Chairwoman Foxx is demanding information regarding the Biden administration’s attempts to influence the outcome of a unionization vote at the Mercedes-Benz plant in Vance, Alabama, as voting was underway,” the statement reads.

    The UAW is a major donor and political supporter of Democrats, spending a reported total of $22.64 million on politics in the 2020 election cycle, according to OpenSecrets.

     “On May 17, Mercedes-Benz employees at a plant in Vance, Alabama, voted not to join the United Auto Workers (UAW). In this election, 56 percent of the workers cast their ballots against UAW membership, with more than 90 percent of eligible workers voting in the election. Simultaneously, the UAW became the first U.S. union to file charges using a new German supply chain law. The Committee on Education and the Workforce (Committee) is concerned about recent reports of unusual and inappropriate communications between you and German government officials in what appears to be an attempt to impact the outcome of this election,” Foxx writes in in the letter.

    “On May 6, a news report stated that U.S. government officials had a phone call with German government officials and raised concerns over the Mercedes-Benz representation election in Alabama. … A later report regarding the call also indicated that you prodded Germany to examine the UAW’s allegations against Mercedes-Benz at the direct request of UAW President Shawn Fain. On May 16, the UAW announced that the German government was investigating Mercedes-Benz as a result of charges filed by the UAW in Germany. … It appears the Biden administration, through your actions, sought to put its thumb on the scale to benefit the UAW as the Mercedes-Benz election in Alabama was pending,” Fox continues, adding “It also suggests the UAW sought to use your influence and the White House’s bully pulpit to impact a union representation election.”

    Foxx asked the White House for answers to the following questions:

    Did you raise concerns with German government officials over the Mercedes-Benz representation election in Vance, Alabama, at the request of the UAW?

    In your call with German government officials, did you or any other White House official ask Germany to initiate an investigation of Mercedes-Benz before the Mercedes-Benz union representation election in Alabama concluded?

    Was the purpose of the call with German government officials to discuss the Mercedes-Benz union representation election in Alabama? Were other labor issues or representation elections discussed?

    When did the call with German government officials take place? Provide any White House call logs related to this call.

    Did you discuss your call with German government officials with any employees of the Department of Labor or the NLRB? If so, who?

    Is a local union representation election a national security issue? Why is a local union representation election occupying the time of the U.S. National Security Advisor?

    Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.


    GOP Bill Says Only US Flags Will Fly Over Our Embassies Abroad – But What About Fed Buildings at Home?

    By
    Paul Crespo
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    2

    ANALYSIS – As a former Marine Corps officer and military attaché who served at several embassies overseas in the 1990s, it has infuriated me to see partisans and ideologues impose their radical agendas on our foreign embassies during Joe Biden’s tenure at the White House.

    Flying extremely divisive, and to many host countries, offensive, flags representing controversial sexual agendas (LGBTQ+), which includes the extreme ‘trans’ movement, and private groups which espouse hate toward one race and law enforcement (Black Lives Matter – BLM), has been an egregious abuse pushed hard by the Biden State Department since last year.

    Our embassies and consulates are official extensions of the United States. They are even considered sovereign U.S. territory. 

    They are there on behalf of the entire U.S. nation, as represented by our national flag, not sectarian views, or radical and controversial agendas. 

    This is true, even when these same radical agendas are being forced on our executive branches of government. 

    Thankfully, the new GOP House is proposing to quickly change that abuse.

    The Old Glory Only Act, introduced Monday by South Carolina Republican Rep. Jeff Duncan would prohibit any flag other than the American flag to be flown over U.S. embassies and consulates.

    Newsmax reported:

    “Our beautiful flag, Old Glory, should be the only flag flying and representing our country over our diplomatic and consular posts worldwide,” Duncan said in a press release announcing the bill’s introduction in the House Monday. “The American flag is a beacon of liberty, and no other flag or symbol better portrays our shared values than the Stars and Stripes. It is important to ensure that Old Glory only is flown at American embassies to represent our ideals abroad.”

    The New York Times previously reported that Biden Secretary of State Antony Blinken authorized U.S. embassies to fly ‘gay pride’ flags in April 2021, prior to May 17, which is the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia, and to continue displaying the flag through the end of the month.

    The push to fly the rainbow ‘gay pride’ flag actually began in 2014, under the Obama-Biden term. That flag has flown over U.S. embassies in more than a dozen countries since then, including Russia, Spain, Sweden and South Korea.

    President Trump’s Secretary of State banned the ‘pride’ flags from being flown but his order was quickly  reversed by Blinken.

    In May, another cable from Blinken’s State Department authorized flying Black Lives Matter flags at U.S. diplomatic facilities worldwide, Foreign Policy reported at the time.

    The BLM flag has been flown at U.S. embassies in Brazil, Greece, Spain, Bosnia, Cambodia and South Korea, according to Duncan’s office.

    This, even though violent BLM rioters had spent months attacking the federal courthouse in Portland and laying siege to dozens of cities nationwide just months earlier in 2020.

    The BLM riots caused over $2 billion in property damage, more than any other similar event in U.S. history, injured over 2,000 local and federal police officers, and resulted in numerous deaths of civilians. 

    According to the NYT, a cable from the State Department at the time gave the chiefs of missions (COMs), who lead our overseas diplomatic stations, a “blanket written authorization” to display the flags if it was “appropriate in light of local conditions.” 

    While the Times noted this was an “authorization, not a requirement,” few COMs will ignore the pressure to follow the boss’ lead, and the more woke embassies and consulates quickly started flying these unofficial flags.

    Republicans are optimistic the new GOP leadership will hold a vote on the bill since there is broad GOP support for the idea.

    But why stop there? Why not ban these divisive flags from being flown over any federal buildings, period – including all of the ones here at home?

    According to the General Services Administration (GSA), More than 40 federal buildings across the country opted to raise the Pride Flag to show their support of “diversity, equity, and inclusion” in the federal workforce.

    What they are actually doing is flying the flags of exclusive, divisive and radical private groups on federal property paid for by the U.S. taxpayer.

    This too must end. 

    Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.

    Amanda Head: Debunking Leftists’ Lies About Thanksgiving

    By
    Amanda Head
    -
    3

    Every year as families and friends gather to give Thanks a coalition of left-wing woke harpies descend on the holiday to remind you to make sure to politicize every aspect of your life. In recent years liberals have targeted the controversial story of Thanksgiving as a way to attack White colonizers and sing a song of sympathy for Native Americans.

    Watch Amanda de-dunk the biggest lies peddled by the left about Thanksgiving.

    Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.

    Judge Blocks Biden-Big Tech Censorship Collusion on July 4th

    By
    Paul Crespo
    -
    1
    Photo via Gage Skidmore Flickr

    ANALYSIS – Let Freedom ring! – In a major victory for free speech in America, and a major vindication for conservatives who have been warning of Democrats using the government to censor them on social media, a federal judge is blocking federal agencies from communicating with Big Tech firms to censor posts.

    The Democrats using federal agencies and other official political bodies to coerce or direct social media firms is being called government “censorship ‘by proxy.”

    This injunction is particularly heartening to me, since I was a victim of this censorship when LinkedIn permanently banned my account for ‘multiple violations of their terms of service and user agreement. 

    In other words, I wrote about Hunter Biden’s laptop, the likelihood that COVID-19 leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology biolab.

    All since proven valid.

    I also noted that there are only two sexes, based on science, and refused to use ‘preferred gender pronouns.’

    All these topics were effectively banned by the major social media companies, and as has since been proven via Elon Musk’s ‘Twitter Files’ expose, and other investigations, much of this banning was done at the behest of the U.S. government, primarily for partisan political or ideological reasons.

    In the preliminary injunction, appropriately made on July 4th, the judge, Terry A. Doughty, wrote (pdf) that: 

    Opposition to COVID-19 vaccines; opposition to COVID-19 masking and lockdowns; opposition to the lab-leak theory of COVID-19; opposition to the validity of the 2020 election; opposition to President Biden’s policies; statements that the Hunter Biden laptop story was true; and opposition to policies of the government officials in power. All were suppressed.

    He added that government agencies, including the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency (CISA), the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the U.S. Department of State, the Department of Justice (DOJ), and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) are prohibited from taking a range of actions related to communicating or dealing with social media companies.

    The judge provided very limited exceptions, allowing government officials to contact social media companies to alert them of criminal activity or clear threats to national security.

    He also allowed, reported the Epoch Times: “contacts notifying social media companies about posts intending to mislead voters about voting requirements or procedures as well as communicating with companies about suppressing posts that are not protected free speech.”

    The decision comes as a response to Republican state attorneys general (AGs) who sued the Biden administration. According to the judge, the AGs “have produced evidence of a massive effort by Defendants, from the White House to federal agencies, to suppress speech based on its content.”

    Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey hailed the ruling on Twitter.

    Tweet

    “The Court has granted our motion to BLOCK top officials in the federal government from violating the First Amendment rights of millions of Americans.”

    “What a way to celebrate Independence Day.”

    In an accompanying memorandum Judge Doughty stated that the plaintiffs are “likely to succeed on the merits in establishing that the Government has used its power to silence the opposition.”

    In an earlier ruling in March, according to The Epoch Times, Doughty wrote: “This suit arises out of the alleged coercion by the Biden Administration and various government agencies and officials of social-media companies, urging those companies ‘to censor viewpoints and speakers disfavored by the Left.’” 

    He added that the plaintiffs allege that “this censorship was encouraged—perhaps even mandated—by the Biden Administration and several key governmental departments.”

    The judge’s current order notes the various nefarious means in which the Biden administration colluded with Big Tech to censor opposing or dissenting views.

    These means include, per the injunction, “engaging in any communication of any kind with social-media companies urging, encouraging, pressuring, or inducing in any manner for removal, deletion, suppression, or reduction of content containing protected free speech.” 

    The Epoch Times reported:

    The agencies are also barred from flagging content on posts on social media platforms and forwarding them to the companies with requests for action such as removing or otherwise suppressing their reach.

    Encouraging or otherwise egging on social media companies to change their guidelines for the removal, suppression, or reduction of content that contains protected free speech by the government is also not allowed.

    To prevent Team Biden and other Democrats from circumventing the order by outsourcing their dirty deeds, it specifically applies to agents, officers, employees, and contractors. 

    While this is just a preliminary injunction, expect more to come in the fight against Democrat censorship.

    Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.

    Amanda Head: We Are Winning!

    By
    Amanda Head
    -
    0

    The latest polls show why liberalism sucks…

    It’s unavoidable and now more Americans are sick and tired of Biden’s leadership has resulted in nothing but an epic failure.

    Let Amanda break down the latest situation below:

    Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.

    Amanda Head: Is Bud Light Feeling Enough Pain?

    By
    Amanda Head
    -
    1
    Mike Mozart, CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons

    Bud Light’s latest partnership with transgender activist and influencer Dylan Mulvaney has proved to be a public relations nightmare for the brand. Will Bud Light recover?

    Watch Amanda explain the situation below:

    Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.

    Trump Appeals To Supreme Court Over Colorado Banning Him From Ballot

    By
    Paul Crespo
    -
    1
    Duncan Lock, Dflock, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

    ANALYSIS – This could be huge. Donald Trump is appealing to the U.S. Supreme Court – which he helped shape as president – following a ruling in Colorado to bar him from its presidential primary ballot over his engagement in an “insurrection.”

    Colorado’s all Democrat appointed, left-leaning Supreme Court has ruled 4 to 3 that former President Donald Trump is disqualified from holding office again because he engaged in an “insurrection” over the U.S. Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021.

    Republicans see the Colorado court’s decision as yet another egregious example of the Democrats’ ongoing campaign of election interference against Trump.

    The majority justices’ decision reversed a Denver district judge’s finding last month that Section 3 of the 14th Amendment did not apply to the presidency.

    The three justices who dissented did so on procedural grounds. In three separate dissenting opinions, each based on different legal arguments, they all concluded that the Colorado Supreme Court had overstepped its authority.

    Colorado’s decision will go into effect on Jan. 4, 2024 – the eve of Colorado’s March 5 Republican primary.

    In the wake of the decision, Team Trump came out swinging. As The New York Times reported:

    “Unsurprisingly, the all-Democrat appointed Colorado Supreme Court has ruled against President Trump, supporting a Soros-funded, left-wing group’s scheme to interfere in an election on behalf of Crooked Joe Biden by removing President Trump’s name from the ballot and eliminating the rights of Colorado voters to vote for the candidate of their choice,” a campaign spokesman, Steven Cheung, said. “We have full confidence that the U.S. Supreme Court will quickly rule in our favor and finally put an end to these un-American lawsuits.”

    Similar challenges in New Hampshire, Michigan and Minnesota have all been dismissed in court, because the idea is nonsense. The courts there also decided that the Constitution is unclear about whether Section 3 of the 14th Amendment applies to the president.

    As Trump’s lawyers have already said he will appeal the verdict. The shock ruling will put an exceptional case before the U.S. Supreme Court – possibly being forced to decide the question for all 50 U.S. states.

    The U.S. Supreme Court is made up of nine justices, six of whom are conservatives, or “constitutionalists,” three of whom were appointed by President Trump.

    Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.

    This article was republished with permission from American Liberty News.

    FBI Director’s ‘Contempt of Congress’ is Part of Bigger Problem

    By
    Paul Crespo
    -
    9

    ANALYSIS – FBI Director Christopher Wray has steadfastly refused to provide the House Oversight and Accountability Committee an internal Bureau document that alleges Joe Biden took a $5 million bribe from Chinese sources. 

    The committee issued a subpoena for it a while ago. Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) has said he learned about the allegations from a whistleblower whom he declined to identify but has described as “very credible.”

    With the committee’s deadline passing yesterday, Comer has said he will seek to hold Wray in contempt of Congress, rejecting Wray’s offer to allow lawmakers to view the FD-1023 form in a secure location instead of handing over the document.

    A contempt vote would be the most significant confrontation between House Republicans and federal law enforcement since the GOP took control of Congress in January.

    Wray insists that the FD-1023 form contains unverified claims from a single confidential human source (CHS), and that turning it over is irresponsible. Sources need to know their identities will be protected. 

    And allegations shouldn’t be publicized without being corroborated.

    Wray is right. 

    In the past, neither party would push much on an issue like this because they understood that need. But they also trusted the Bureau to be nonpartisan.

    As the National Review notes:

    …the mere fact that a CHS may have alleged that Biden took part in a bribery scheme doesn’t mean it happened. It can’t be dismissed out of hand — there’s too much indication of Biden’s sleazy self-dealing and outright lying for that. But people in positions of authority get falsely accused of wrongdoing all the time. The FBI rightly keeps such allegations under wraps because those people are presumed innocent and the bureau can’t investigate without being discrete. Congress has traditionally given the FBI a wide berth because lawmakers know secrecy is a necessity for competent investigations — and it has assumed that the FBI is competent and non-partisan.

    Unfortunately, those days are gone, and the FBI director can’t decide what part of a Congressional subpoena to honor or reject. Wray has no legal basis to keep it hidden.

    And due to the recent history of partisanship and politicization at the Bureau, most egregiously the Trump-Russiagate hoax, this is only part of a much bigger problem.

    The Bureau can no longer be trusted to be fair and apolitical. As the National Review explains:

    [The FBI] is a contented cog of the progressive administrative state. In the Obama years, it was put in the service of the Democratic Party. It marched to President Obama’s beat, whitewashed and abetted Hillary Clinton’s malevolence, undertook to destroy Donald Trump’s presidency, spent years covering its tracks, and insulated his 2020 opponent from scrutiny. It has spent the Biden years helping Democrats craft a political narrative of a nation besieged by white-supremacist domestic terrorism — all the while slow-walking the investigation of the Biden family’s influence-peddling business.

    National Review continues:

    [FBI] abuses have proceeded under Wray’s stewardship — the FBI’s (a) illegal surveillance under FISA; (b) general participation in the suppression of political speech on social media; (c) specific complicity in the Democrats’ and the intelligence community’s suppression of the Biden influence-peddling scandal; (d) collaboration in the Democrats’ crafting of a political narrative that the country is overrun by white-supremacist domestic terrorists; and (e) retaliation against whistleblower agents who’ve reported to Congress about some of these issues (at least according to three of those agents, who testified under oath at a recent House hearing).

    So, while normally, I would be understanding of the director’s arguments and attempts to limit dissemination of a form that could expose investigative sources and methods, in this case, the FBI simply can’t be trusted.

    It needs to turn over the document to the committee, with minimal redactions, or Wray should be held in contempt. This is about a much bigger problem.

    Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.

    Pentagon Spying on Everything for Bad Comments About Generals

    By
    Paul Crespo
    -
    2
    David B. Gleason from Chicago, IL, CC BY-SA 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

    ANALYSIS – Big Brother keeps growing – As part of the broader government war against free speech, the Department of Defense (DoD) is now using Orwellian means to search the internet, social media, and just about everything else, for things we say or post.

    And it’s not just for legitimate physical threats against generals, it will also be looking for simple negative comments about our top military leaders.

    And we should all be outraged. This really is scary stuff. This even goes beyond recent reports of the government buying our detailed personal information from data brokers, which I wrote about here.

    The military runs a little-known outfit called the Army Protective Services Battalion under the Army’s Criminal Investigation Division (CID). Think of it as the Pentagon’s Secret Service for generals.

    Its mission specifically falls under CID’s Executive Protection and Special Investigations Field Office. And it has a lot of resources. Its new webpage notes:

    With over 400 assigned special agents, police officers, analysts, physical security specialists, and professional support personnel spread across three continents, the Executive Protection Field Office is the largest office within CID providing worldwide dignitary protection for the Secretary of Defense, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Secretary of the Army, Chief of Staff of the Army, and over a dozen other protectees in domestic and overseas locations.

    Executive Protection also protects foreign counterparts during official visits to the United States, along with designated former or retired Department of Defense officials. Army CID’s dignitary protection mission is supported by robust protective intelligence and threat management investigative capabilities. [Emphasis added].

    This perfectly legitimate organization exists to safeguard our senior military brass, as well as foreign brass visiting our country. As part of its duties, it conducts legitimate ‘protective intelligence’ to identify potential physical threats to its protectees. 

    I am very familiar with their mission having worked with some of these folks as a military attaché during high-level foreign visits by our Defense Secretary and generals. I also have professional experience with dignitary protection. 

    All this is very good and vital stuff.

    The problem arises when the scope of the protective intelligence mission expands to include things that it shouldn’t. In this case, the unit is tasked to protect current and former high-ranking military officers from “assassination, kidnapping, injury or embarrassment.” 

    Yes, among the big threats is “embarrassment.” 

    That’s bad enough since it opens the door to looking into things that they shouldn’t just because they might embarrass a general. 

    But now, according to an Army procurement document from September 2022, reports the Intercept, the detachment’s mission has expanded to include monitoring social media for “direct, indirect, and veiled” threats and identifying “negative sentiment” regarding its protectees. 

    And it’s hiring a technology contractor to do its dirty work.

    “Negative sentiment” – that is almost as bad as “mean tweets.” It is beyond outrageous.

    I have expressed ‘negative sentiment’ toward a few senior military leaders numerous times online and in published articles – including Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General Mark Milley.

    And I will continue to do so, as is my 1st amendment right.

    The line should be when anyone makes veiled or direct physical threats against any political or military leader, not just says mean things.

    As The Intercept reports: “There may be legally valid reasons to intrude on someone’s privacy by searching for, collecting, and analyzing publicly available information, particularly when it pertains to serious crimes and terrorist threats,” Ilia Siatitsa, program director at Privacy International, said.

    “However,” he added, “expressing ‘positive or negative sentiment towards a senior high-risk individual’ cannot be deemed sufficient grounds for government agencies to conduct surveillance operations.”

    Siatitsa rightly concluded: “The ability to express opinions, criticize, make assumptions, or form value judgments — especially regarding public officials — is a quintessential part of democratic society.”

    Beyond that, what if the Army is protecting a Chinese general visiting the United States? Will they surveil or target Americans who are critical of this foreign adversary’s general or of China?

    And according to the documents uncovered by The Intercept, the program the Army is procuring for its newly expanded intelligence mission is a dystopian surveillance nightmare. 

    It will scour everything, everywhere, and then even pinpoint the location of the person making the comment.

    This is extremely frightening.

    The Army describes their surveillance system as “a reliable social media threat mitigation service” with an “Open-Source Web-based toolkit with advanced capabilities to collect publicly available information (PAI).”

    Information is not only grabbed up from Twitter’s “firehose” but also from 4Chan, Reddit, YouTube, Discord, Telegram, private contractors like Dataminr, as well as smartphone apps and advertisers.

    Combined with cellular location data the Army could also precisely pinpoint those who might make a mean tweet about current or former military officials. 

    The Intercept adds that all this data, plus CCTV feeds, radio stations, personal records, and even webcams – would be available via a “universal search selector.” That means they can access just about anything.

    The Army also wants the contractor to preserve the “anonymity and security needed” by “using various egress points globally to mask their identity.” This means they can conveniently make it look like the folks doing the snooping are in China or Russia.

    This is a very scary domestic spying capability to use against Americans. Congress must investigate this Orwellian program immediately and remove elements that will infringe on our constitutional rights.

    Or it will soon be used against you.

    Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.

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