The West's Political Class — Determined To Ignore The Will Of The People

Two snippets from Brexit, Trump’s wall, and the cynical inertia of the political class: In our democracies, politicians won’t do what people want:

...More people in the UK voted for Brexit — some 17 million — than have voted for anything at any time in the country’s history....

and

...Back by the Rio Grande, the people most affected are desperate for the wall to be built and for our immigration laws to be enforced. After pursuing other avenues and having been stymied, President Trump finally declared a national emergency to siphon funds from elsewhere to build the wall. The caterwauling over that would have been comical had it not been so obviously cynical. Between 2001 and 2013, various presidents have declared national emergencies 18 times and have diverted funds without Congressional appropriate to various projects. It’s different this time because it’s Trump....

Read the rest HERE.

So, what are WE THE PEOPLE supposed to be when we are regarded as peasants beyond the moat, peasants who, according to the oligarchy of all political parties, are incapable of understanding what we want for today and for our future?

I submit that we in the West are at a turning point: it's now or never for the future of our nations as representative governments.

The Transgender Movement Is About The Destruction of the Sexual Distinction, The Foundation of Family

From The Public Discourse:

As usual, tyranny comes disguised as “civil rights.” 

The latest exhibit of this general rule is President Obama’s directive that seeks to force a transgender bathroom, locker room and dorm policy on the entire nation, starting with schoolchildren. 

Many of us are taken aback by this news, but we really shouldn’t be. The order is merely the latest incarnation of a long line of social engineering. The goal, as is always the case with such movements, is to remake humanity. 

What the people behind this latest version won’t tell you is that their project requires each and every one of us to deny our own humanity. Let me explain. 

The transgender movement has never been about “gender.” It’s all about sex. Sex is the real target. “Gender” is merely the politicized linguistic vehicle that facilitates a legal ban on sex distinctions. 

There aren’t a whole lot of dots to connect to uncover the logic of where this leads: if you abolish sex distinctions in law, you can abolish state recognition of biological family ties, and the state can regulate personal relationships and consolidate power as never before.

GO READ THE WHOLE THING.

AND THEN THERE'S THIS:

New York City Lets You Choose From 31 Different Gender Identities

Get Ready For The Gun Grab

Obama's surrogates here in the Old Dominion are leading the way — via regulation, of course (December 22, 2015):

Virginia to stop recognizing concealed carry gun permits from 25 states

RICHMOND — Virginia Attorney General Mark R. Herring announced Tuesday that the commonwealth will no longer recognize out-of-state concealed handgun permits, part of a national push to circumvent legislatures opposed to tightening gun laws.

Herring (D) said 25 states have lax laws compared with Virginia, where a history of stalking, drug dealing or inpatient mental health treatment can disqualify someone from carrying a concealed handgun. The move is in step with actions governors and attorneys general are taking to address gun violence without going through Republican-controlled legislatures.

[...]

The states losing reciprocity are: Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Washington, Wisconsin and Wyoming.

Agreements will remain with West Virginia, Michigan, Oklahoma, Texas and Utah.

Six states will no longer recognize Virginia’s concealed-carry permits because they require mutual recognition of permits. They are: Florida, Louisiana, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Wyoming.

An end run around the principles of federalism as enshrined in the United States Constitution.

New World Order: Unanimous Vote At The UN

The tool for the global redistribution of wealth:

Obama Ambassador to UN Quotes COMMUNIST to Push New Socialist UN Sustainable Development Goals

It’s official. On Friday morning [September 25, 2015] the United States, and 192 other nations, unanimously adopted the new United Nations Sustainable Development goals. These “goals“, designed to eradicate world poverty and fight Climate Change, include the Socialist ideals of universal healthcare, universal education, universal employment, and wealth redistribution, all of which must in place by 2030.

Read the rest HERE.

Sloppy Legislation = Tyranny

Please watch this short video before reading my commentary:


For a moment, let's think about all this in different terms. Because I'm most comfortable discussing this matter in educational terms, allow me to do so for just a moment.

First, note these two examples of dangling participial phrases:

Hiking the trail, the birds chirped loudly.

Wishing I could sing, the high notes seemed to taunt me.

Grammatically correct revisions of the two above examples:

Wishing I could sing, I feel taunted by the high notes.

Hiking the trail, Squiggly and Aardvark heard birds chirping loudly.

You can learn more about dangling participles at Grammar Girl.

Now let's look at an example from the classroom:

A student turns in a composition to me. I find all sorts of errors in logic, dangling participles, and the like. I point out to the student what he has actually said in the essay.

He replies: "That's not what I meant."

I respond: "But that's what you said."

Then we laugh because the errors actually conveyed absurd images: in the first example, the birds were hiking the trail; in the second example, the notes were singing the high notes.

From that point on, the student is more careful to write exactly what he means.  And he proofreads, too.

Words matter — or used to matter.  United States Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was spot on when he stated in his dissent to the SCOTUS ObamaCare decision of June 25, 2015: "Words [now] have no meaning..."

According to the Roberts Doctrine, which overthrows the United States Constitution, my students no longer have to revise.  They can be a sloppy as they like with their words. HOORAY!  [sarcasm]

Furthermore, the words in all contracts to which you have penned your name mean nothing. Sound farfetched to you? Think again! A few short years ago could you have imagined that America would be in the sorry state which she is in today? And so rapidly?

Congress, packed with lawyers who should know how to write legislation correctly, drafted sloppy legislation and, worse, did not read the final gargantuan piece of ObamaCare legislation.  Of course, President Obama, a Harvard Law School graduate, also didn't read the law. In my view, all of them committed political malpractice.

Political malpractice is tyranny!

If Only!

Great idea! And require a $50,000/year deductible per family member. Redistribute the wealth!

House bill would force the Supreme Court to enroll in ObamaCare

And every federal employee and politician, too. Give 'em a taste of their own medicine. NOW!

I don't count on the GOP to do any such thing, of course.

Stick a fork in our republic. She's done.

Additional reading: The Roberts Doctrine and ObamaCare (at my blog Always On Watch).

White House Above The Law (FOIA)

With a hat tip to Constitutional Insurgent of Libertas and Latte from USA Today (March 16, 2015):

White House office to delete its FOIA regulations

The White House is removing a federal regulation that subjects its Office of Administration to the Freedom of Information Act, making official a policy under Presidents Bush and Obama to reject requests for records to that office.

The White House said the cleanup of FOIA regulations is consistent with court rulings that hold that the office is not subject to the transparency law. The office handles, among other things, White House record-keeping duties like the archiving of e-mails.

But the timing of the move raised eyebrows among transparency advocates, coming on National Freedom of Information Day and during a national debate over the preservation of Obama administration records. It's also Sunshine Week, an effort by news organizations and watchdog groups to highlight issues of government transparency.

"The irony of this being Sunshine Week is not lost on me," said Anne Weismann of the liberal Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, or CREW.

"It is completely out of step with the president's supposed commitment to transparency," she said. "That is a critical office, especially if you want to know, for example, how the White House is dealing with e-mail."

Unlike other offices within the White House, which were always exempt from the Freedom of Information Act, the Office of Administration responded to FOIA requests for 30 years....

On we go, marching on the road to serfdom.

WE THE PEOPLE have lost the power we once had.

Orwellian times.

The Coming FCC Regulations

As I understand the matter, these regulations will take effect on February 26, 2015. According to Hot Air, these regulations will result in new taxes, a slower Internet, and fewer choices.

From the above link:

First, President Obama’s plan marks a monumental shift toward government control of the Internet. It gives the FCC the power to micromanage virtually every aspect of how the Internet works. It’s an overreach that will let a Washington bureaucracy, and not the American people, decide the future of the online world. It’s no wonder that net neutrality proponents are already bragging that it will turn the FCC into the “Department of the Internet.” For that reason, if you like dealing with the IRS, you are going to love the President’s plan.

Second, President Obama’s plan to regulate the Internet will increase consumers’ monthly broadband bills. The plan explicitly opens the door to billions of dollars in new taxes on broadband. Indeed, states have already begun discussions on how they will spend the extra money. These new taxes will mean higher prices for consumers and more hidden fees that they have to pay.

Third, President Obama’s plan to regulate the Internet will mean slower broadband for American consumers. The plan contains a host of new regulations that will reduce investment in broadband networks. That means slower Internet speeds. It also means that many rural Americans will have to wait longer for access to quality broadband.

Fourth, President Obama’s plan to regulate the Internet will hurt competition and innovation and move us toward a broadband monopoly. The plan saddles small, independent businesses and entrepreneurs with heavy-handed regulations that will push them out of the market. As a result, Americans will have fewer broadband choices. This is no accident. Title II was designed to regulate a monopoly. If we impose that model on a vibrant broadband marketplace, a highly regulated monopoly is what we’ll get. We shouldn’t bring Ma Bell back to life in this dynamic, digital age.

Fifth, President Obama’s plan to regulate the Internet is an unlawful power grab. Courts have twice thrown out the FCC’s attempts at Internet regulation. There’s no reason to think that the third time will be the charm. Even a cursory look at the plan reveals glaring legal flaws that are sure to mire the agency in the muck of litigation for a long, long time.

And sixth, the American people are being misled about what is in President Obama’s plan to regulate the Internet. The rollout earlier in the week was obviously intended to downplay the plan’s massive intrusion into the Internet economy. Beginning next week, I look forward to sharing with the public key aspects of what this plan will actually do.

[...]

...The commissioners can see the plan before they cast their votes. But the rest of us can’t. Lobbyists will likely be able to discover key details affecting their clients, and some details will leak out in the press. But the full text of the plan won’t be made public at all before the vote....

More information at Hot Air.

An Orwellian noose is tightening.

Is there any way to prevent this?

Obama Wants The Internet

From the National Journal: Obama Backs Government-Run Internet.

Get ready for it. The Congress critters we have are impotent.

Obama White House: Moral Responsibility To Abrogate The First Amendment

The end of journalistic and blogging anti-jihad?  Daily Caller article in its entirety (emphases mine)....

White House: Obama Will Fight Media To Stop Anti-Jihad Articles

President Barack Obama has a moral responsibility to push back on the nation’s journalism community when it is planning to publish anti-jihadi articles that might cause a jihadi attack against the nation’s defenses forces, the White House’s press secretary said Jan. 12.

“The president … will not now be shy about expressing a view or taking the steps that are necessary to try to advocate for the safety and security of our men and women in uniform” whenever journalists’ work may provoke jihadist attacks, spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters at the White House’s daily briefing.

The unprecedented reversal of Americans’ civil-military relations, and of the president’s duty to protect the First Amendment, was pushed by Earnest as he tried to excuse the administration’s opposition in 2012 to the publication of anti-jihadi cartoons by the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.

The White House voiced its objections in 2012 after the magazine’s office were burned by jihadis, followings its publication of anti-jihadi cartoons.

Earnest’s defense of tho 2012 objections came just five days after the magazine’s office was attacked by additional jihadis. Eight journalists, two policeman and a visitor were murdered by two French-born Muslims who objected to the magazine’s criticism of Islam’s final prophet.

In 2012, “there was a genuine concern that the publication of some of those materials could put Americans abroad at risk, including American soldiers at risk,” Earnest said.

“That is something that the commander in chief takes very seriously,” he added, before saying that “the president and his spokesman was not then and will not now be shy about expressing a view or taking the steps that are necessary to try to advocate for the safety and security of our men and women in uniform.”

In December, Congress approved and the president signed a $585 billion defense budget to train and equip soldiers, marines, sailors and airmen to defend Americans — including journalists — from foreign threats. The nation’s media industry does not have a defense budget to protect soldiers.

Earnest tried to rationalize the president’s opposition to the publication of anti-jihadist materials as a moral duty.

Whenever journalists consider publishing materials disliked by jihadis, “I think there are a couple of absolutes,” he told the reporters.

The first is “that the publication of any kind of material in no way justifies any act of violence, let alone an act of violence that we saw on the scale in Paris,” he said.

The second absolute is the president’s duty to lobby editors and reporters against publishing anti-jihadi information, he said. ”And there is — this president, as the commander in chief, believes strongly in the responsibility that he has to advocate for our men and women in uniform, particularly if it’s going to make them safer,” Earnest said.

He repeated the two-fisted formulation a moment later. ”What won’t change is our view that that freedom of expression in no way justifies an act of violence against the person who expressed a view. And the president considers the safety and security of our men and women in uniform to be something worth fighting for,” he said.

Throughout the press conference, Earnest repeatedly said the media would be able to decide on its own whether to publish pictures, articles or facts that could prompt another murderous jihad attack by Muslim against journalists.

But he did not say that his government has a constitutional and moral duty to use the nation’s huge military to protect journalists from armed jihadis, but instead hinted strongly that journalists should submit to jihadi threats.

“I think that there are any number of reasons that [U.S.] media organizations have made a decision not to reprint the cartoons” after the January attack, he said. “In some cases, maybe they were concerned about their physical safety. In other cases, they were exercising some judgment in a different way. So we certainly would leave it to media organizations to make a decision like this.”

“What I’m saying is that individual news organizations have to assess that risk for themselves,” he said. “I think the point in the mind of the president and certainly everybody here at the White House is that that is a question that should be answered by journalists.”

“I’m confident in saying that for the vast majority of media organizations, that [fear is] not the only factor. But I would readily concede that it is one in the minds of many of those news executives. But again, that is a decision for all of them to make,” he said.

Obama’s willingness to pressure media outlets, to quit defending First Amendment rights and also to mollify jihadis, reflects Obama’s overall policy of minimizing conflict with militant Islam.

Throughout his presidency, Obama has tried to shift the public’s focus away from the jihadi threat toward his domestic priorities.

He also repeatedly praised Islam and Muslims, and criticized criticism of Islam. “The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam,” he told a worldwide TV audience during a September 2012 speech at the United Nations.

“As a student of history, I also know civilization’s debt to Islam,” he declared in a 2009 speech in Cairo. “It was Islam — at places like Al-Azhar [seminary] — that carried the light of learning through so many centuries, paving the way for Europe’s Renaissance and Enlightenment,” he claimed.

Obama ha also tried to elevate the status of Islam in the West. “As a student of history, I also know civilization’s debt to Islam,” he told his audience in Cairo. “It was Islam — at places like Al-Azhar — that carried the light of learning through so many centuries, paving the way for Europe’s Renaissance and Enlightenment. … I also know that Islam has always been a part of America’s story.”

To reduce the public’s focus on jihadis, Obama has even named the jihadi threat as a non-specific issue of “violent extremism,” and has repeatedly said jihadis have no connection with Islam. “Those who have studied and practiced this religion would tell you — Islam is a peaceful religion. … [Violent acts are] entirely inconsistent with the basic principles of that peaceful religion,” Earnest said Jan. 12.

But that claim of a peaceful Islam was repeatedly coupled with Obama’s policy of pressuring journalists not to anger aggressive Muslim believers. ”I will say that there have been occasions … where the administration will make clear our point of view on some of those assessments based on the need to protect the American people and to protect our men and women in uniform,” Earnest said.

“I wouldn’t rule out making those kinds of expressions again,” he added.

Infidels, care to look into your crystal ball and tell us what you see therein?

Smoke And Mirrors

Two proverbs: "A rose by any other name smells as sweet" and "A rotten mackerel by moonlight still stinks."

From Obama issues 'executive orders by another name' (USA Today, December 16, 2014):

...Obama has made prolific use of memoranda despite his own claims that he's used his executive power less than other presidents. "The truth is, even with all the actions I've taken this year, I'm issuing executive orders at the lowest rate in more than 100 years," Obama said in a speech in Austin last July. "So it's not clear how it is that Republicans didn't seem to mind when President Bush took more executive actions than I did."

Obama has issued 195 executive orders as of Tuesday. Published alongside them in the Federal Register are 198 presidential memoranda — all of which carry the same legal force as executive orders....

<

Read the entire article HERE. Then retrieve your jaw from the floor.

Congress Quietly Authorizes Surveillance Of All Americans

From this source:

Congress this week quietly passed a bill that may give unprecedented legal authority to the government's warrantless surveillance powers, despite a last-minute effort by Rep. Justin Amash to kill the bill.

[...]

The provision in question is "one of the most egregious sections of law I've encountered during my time as a representative," Amash wrote on his Facebook page. The tea-party libertarian, who teamed up with Rep. John Conyers in an almost-successful bid to defund the National Security Agency in the wake of the Snowden revelations, warned that the provision "grants the executive branch virtually unlimited access to the communications of every American."

The measure already passed the Senate by unanimous consent on Tuesday, and it is now on its way to the White House, where President Obama is expected to sign it.

The objections from Amash and others arose from language in the bill's Section 309, which includes a phrase to allow for "the acquisition, retention, and dissemination" of U.S. phone and Internet data. That passage will give unprecedented statutory authority to allow for the surveillance of private communications that currently exists only under a decades-old presidential decree, known as Executive Order 12333....

Federalizing Local Police Departments

All on my own, I came to this same conclusion about 48 hours ago when I kept asking myself, "What is the Obama Administration up to now?"

From What’s Really Going on with Holder’s Civil-Rights Crusade against Police Departments: Federal investigations of the Garner and Brown cases are just a pretext by Andrew C. McCarthy:

Holder and his constitutional-scholar boss are not banging the civil-rights drum because they believe these are prosecutable cases. It is just a pretext for unleashing Justice Department community organizers on state and municipal police departments.


[...]

...have the feds come in and hamstring police with “social justice” guidelines...

Read the entire essay HERE.

Federalizing the local police departments so that they are, in effect, operated by the federal government in the name of helping to right perceived or actual wrongs (the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner and others).

The lemmings out there protesting (in some cases, rioting and looting) are falling right into line with this agenda.They think that Ronald Reagan was the worst President ever, I'm sure, so the wisdom of these words mean nothing to them:

Unprecedented Territory

Our nation will be entering unprecedented territory if the President grants immigration amnesty via executive order.

Constitutional scholar Jonthan Turley on that topic:



In December 2013, about the President's changes to the ACA, Mr. Turley stated the following in his Congressional testimony about the separation of powers and the dangers of unilateral action:

The danger is quite severe. The problem with what the president is doing is that he's not simply posing a danger to the constitutional system. He's becoming the very danger the Constitution was designed to avoid. That is the concentration of power in every single branch....

Time and again, Obama himself has stated that he cannot unilaterally declare immigration policy:



Nevertheless, indications are that Obama is knowingly and willfully precipitating a Constitutional crisis some 15 days after the November 2014 Elections, which did not go the way of the Democratic Party.

Lawlessness At The Top

Welcome to AmeriKa:

Barack Hussein Obama has a pen and a phone. Furthermore, he knows that he is not going to be impeached. He is ruling with impunity.

WE THE PEOPLE and Barack Hussein Obama don't have the same definition of "the public good," and he really does hold all the cards — never mind the results of the 2014 Elections and the parameters of the United States Constitution.

EU Tyranny: New Law against Democratically Dismantling EU from Within

It looks as if this new law is meant to serve as a severe roadblock to parties that would like to dismantle the EU in a democratic and peaceful way from within. A rather dull semantic trick pro-EU figures usually apply, is calling their opponents "anti-Europe."

Two years ago, the European Commission proposed a law that would authorize an "independent authority" within the European Parliament [EP] to decide whether EP parties would receive an official legal status as EP parties. This legal status is needed for a party to obtain EP party subsidy, which is designed to cover 85% of party expenditures.

Despite a British and Dutch lobby against the law, it was passed by the EP on September 29, 2014.

Among the demands parties have to meet are that of "internal party democracy" and that they must "respect the values on which the European Union is based."

The law states that: "decisions regarding a party's respect for values on which the EU is based, may only be taken following a special procedure and in cooperation with a committee of independent prominent individuals."

(continue reading...)

Bank Account Seizures By The IRS

On the grounds of suspicion, no crime required.

From Bunkerville (citing the New York Times):

For almost 40 years, Carole Hinders has dished out Mexican specialties at her modest cash-only restaurant. For just as long, she deposited the earnings at a small bank branch a block away — until last year, when two tax agents knocked on her door and informed her that they had seized her checking account, almost $33,000.

The Internal Revenue Service agents did not accuse Ms. Hinders of money laundering or cheating on her taxes — in fact, she has not been charged with any crime. Instead, the money was seized solely because she had deposited less than $10,000 at a time, which they viewed as an attempt to avoid triggering a required government report....

I almost always make deposits of less than $10,000. Furthermore, because of the nature of my small business, I make frequent deposits (mostly checks). I'm probably safe on this one. So far.

Still our government keeps stepping outside the bounds of our Constitution.

How long are WE THE PEOPLE going to submit to creeping tyranny?

Property Confiscation

Most readers of this blog have likely heard about the Cattle Battle at the Bundy Ranch. Technically, this confrontation did not involve eminent domain but rather the Bureau of Land Management and grazing rights on public lands.

Now something similar is afoot in Texas.  Before continuing to read this blog post, please go to THIS LINK to read the article and to watch the video about another possible impending land grab on the part of the Bureau Land Management.

The BLM aside, the matter of eminent domain (objected to by our Founders Thomas Jefferson and James Madison), particularly as redefined by the Kelo v. City of New London decision of 2005, should be of concern to all Americans — no matter where they live.

Prior to the Kelo decision, privately-owned land was typically not confiscated by the government and transferred to another private owner. Rather, the power of seizing private property via the power of eminent domain was restricted to certain public-use situations so as to prevent the abuse of government power:

...Jim Saleet worked in the pharmaceutical industry, paid off his house and then retired. Now, he and his wife plan to spend the rest of their days there [in Lakewood, Ohio], and pass their house on to their children.

But Lakewood's mayor, Madeleine Cain, has other plans. She wants to tear down the Saleets' home, plus 55 homes around it, along with four apartment buildings and more than a dozen businesses.

Why? So that private developers can build high-priced condos, and a high-end shopping mall, and thus raise Lakewood's property tax base.

The mayor told 60 Minutes that she sought out a developer for the project because Lakewood's aging tax base has been shrinking and the city simply needs more money.

"This is about Lakewood's future. Lakewood cannot survive without a strengthened tax base. Is it right to consider this a public good? Absolutely," says the mayor, who admits that it's difficult and unfortunate that the Saleets are being asked to give up their home....

Returning for a moment to the case of New London, Connecticut, land was confiscated from the owners of private property and ownership transferred to another private owner for "the public good."  Today, that land in New London, Connecticut, is a "temporary dump":

The case arose in the context of condemnation by the city of New London, Connecticut, of privately owned real property, so that it could be used as part of a “comprehensive redevelopment plan.” However, the private developer was unable to obtain financing and abandoned the redevelopment project, leaving the land as an empty lot, which was eventually turned into a temporary dump.

In Philadelphia, there has been another recent case involving the overreach of eminent domain in Philadelphia.


Learn more about the case involving artist James Dupree HERE, HERE, and HERE.

Learn more about James Dupree's art studio HERE.

This should now be running through your head:

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out-- Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out-- Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out-- Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me--and there was no one left to speak for me.

If True, A Very Bad Sign

From WND:

Armed fed raid prompted by safety rules

Critics of the way federal agencies in Montana handled a recent raid on a company that recycles brass for ammunition are calling for an investigation.

Government officials have declined to respond to allegations that armed officers with weapons drawn locked up USA Brass employees, confiscated their cell phones and otherwise violated their rights.

The incident in Bozeman, Mont., drew little attention from media.

To protect against lead contamination, USA Brass had installed filters and added training. The company had passed a subsequent inspection before officers from the Environmental Protection Agency and FBI arrived, apparently with guns drawn....

...[S]ome have explained the event as an “audit,” but then the question is why it escalated into “a full-blown, armed raid.”...

Read the rest HERE.

Now, I'm wary of WND as a reliable source. But the same is true of mainstream news sources.

So, does anybody here at IBA know if the above story is true?

The NSA And The Heartbleed Bug

Are any of us surprised to learn that this might have been the case?

From the article "NSA Exploited Heartbleed Bug for Years, Exposing Consumers":

The U.S. National Security Agency knew for at least two years about a flaw in the way that many websites send sensitive information, now dubbed the Heartbleed bug, and regularly used it to gather critical intelligence, two people familiar with the matter said.

The agency’s reported decision to keep the bug secret in pursuit of national security interests threatens to renew the rancorous debate over the role of the government’s top computer experts. The NSA, after declining to comment on the report, subsequently denied that it was aware of Heartbleed until the vulnerability was made public by a private security report earlier this month.

[...]

Heartbleed appears to be one of the biggest flaws in the Internet’s history, affecting the basic security of as many as two-thirds of the world’s websites. Its discovery and the creation of a fix by researchers five days ago prompted consumers to change their passwords, the Canadian government to suspend electronic tax filing, and computer companies including Cisco Systems Inc. and Juniper Networks Inc. to provide patches for their systems.

Putting the Heartbleed bug in its arsenal, the NSA was able to obtain passwords and other basic data that are the building blocks of the sophisticated hacking operations at the core of its mission, but at a cost. Millions of ordinary users were left vulnerable to attack from other nations’ intelligence arms and criminal hackers....

Read the entire article HERE.  The NSA has denied any malfeasance. Of course.

BTW, my Always On Watch account at AOL has been hacked! AOL was not supposed to have been affected by Heartbleed, so I didn't change my AOW password when I changed all my other passwords on Thursday evening. I've now changed my AOL password.