logic

PRISM Schism

/ L. M. Walker / 1 Comment

Heads or Tails?

– By: Larry Walker II –

Carla Dean: “Well, who’s gonna monitor the monitors of the monitors?” – Quotes from Enemy of the State

PRISM is allegedly a covert collaboration between the NSA, FBI, and nearly every tech company you rely on daily. PRISM has allegedly allowed the government unprecedented access to your personal information for at least the last six years. I say allegedly because every tech company in question denies its existence.

According to the Washington Post:

The National Security Agency and the FBI are tapping directly into the central servers of nine leading U.S. Internet companies, extracting audio and video chats, photographs, e-mails, documents, and connection logs that enable analysts to track foreign targets… Equally unusual is the way the NSA extracts what it wants, according to the document: “Collection directly from the servers of these U.S. Service Providers: Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube, Apple.”

However, Apple, Microsoft, Yahoo, and Google have all given full-throated denials of any involvement whatsoever. According to Google (emphasis mine):

You may be aware of press reports alleging that Internet companies have joined a secret U.S. government program called PRISM to give the National Security Agency direct access to our servers. As Google’s CEO and Chief Legal Officer, we wanted you to have the facts.

First, we have not joined any program that would give the U.S. government—or any other government—direct access to our servers. Indeed, the U.S. government does not have direct access or a “back door” to the information stored in our data centers. We had not heard of a program called PRISM until yesterday.

Second, we provide user data to governments only in accordance with the law. Our legal team reviews each and every request, and frequently pushes back when requests are overly broad or don’t follow the correct process. Press reports that suggest that Google is providing open-ended access to our users’ data are false, period. Until this week’s reports, we had never heard of the broad type of order that Verizon received—an order that appears to have required them to hand over millions of users’ call records. We were very surprised to learn that such broad orders exist. Any suggestion that Google is disclosing information about our users’ Internet activity on such a scale is completely false.

Schism

Now we hear that the federal government may be launching an investigation in order to find the person who leaked details regarding PRISM to The Guardian and Washington Post newspapers. In other words, the government wants to know who, within its ranks, blew the whistle. Sounds like another government-manufactured conundrum to me.

Great, so now the government is going to waste time and resources finding out who leaked the details of a program which never existed. Seems to me like the White House would be a great place to start, especially since its Deputy National Security Adviser, Ben Rhodes, has a master’s degree in fiction-writing from New York University. What’s up with that? I mean, in the mind of a fiction writer, wouldn’t it seem like one of the best ways to deal with a series of scandals would be to manufacture an even bigger one, and then quash it?

By that time won’t everyone have forgotten about Benghazi, the IRS Scandal, James Rosen, Eric Holder, Verizon, the Budget Crisis, Illegal Immigration, the Secret Kill List, Obamacare and everything else? Well, not in the real world. Nevertheless, for my two cents, if there is a leak investigation, in an effort to save both time and precious taxpayer resources, it should be performed by a Special Prosecutor, and should begin and end at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

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Addendum

I’ve actually known about Comverse Technology, Inc. since around 1994. The company merged with Verint Systems, Inc. early this year. This video discusses how the Verint Communications and Cyber Intelligence products and solutions help make the world a safer place (i.e. a less private place).

Verint CIS Solutions from Verint on Vimeo.

Debt Ceiling: Evidence of Absence

/ L. M. Walker / Leave a comment

“Raising the debt ceiling does not authorize more spending. It simply allows the country to pay for spending that Congress has already committed to.” ~ POTUS ::

:: By: Larry Walker II ::

Wow, that was enlightening. I really had no idea. Now I get it. He must be talking about last year, when Congress voted unanimously in favor of the president’s budget, then walked it over to the Senate, which also unanimously approved. That’s when Congress committed to another trillion dollars of deficit spending, right?

Too bad that never happened. In reality, the president’s budget failed to attain a single vote in Congress.

“Before taking up their own budget plan for next year, House Republicans pushed a version of President Obama’s $3.6 trillion budget to the floor for a vote, and it was it was unanimously defeated, 414-0.” ~ Fox News (March 28, 2012)

“President Obama’s budget suffered a second embarrassing defeat Wednesday, when senators voted 99-0 to reject it.” ~ Washington Times (May 16, 2012)

Well, perhaps he meant this year, when Congress approved an across-the-board tax hike on every American, and at the same time delayed the previously committed automatic spending cuts for two months? But wasn’t that less about spending and more about fairness (or something)?

“President Obama signed into law the American Taxpayer Relief Act (H.R. 8) late Jan. 2, permanently extending the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts for individuals earning up to $400,000 and postponing automatic, across-the-board spending cuts for two months.” ~ Bloomberg BNA (January 7, 2013)

Now I’m confused. Exactly when did Congress commit to another trillion dollars in deficit spending?

Evidence of Absence

Evidence of absence is evidence of any kind that suggests something is missing or that it does not exist. For example: If it’s raining outside, then the streets will be wet. So it may be assumed that if the streets are not wet, then it is not raining outside. Does that make sense? If so, then so should the following:

The national debt increases when government spending is out of control, so if the national debt does not increase, then government spending is under control.

So what is a debt ceiling? Is it not a limit which prevents the nation from incurring additional debt, beyond a level which Congress has already committed to? If so, then POTUS may have it backwards (as usual). If raising the debt ceiling does not authorize more spending, as POTUS so stated, then it may also be said that, not raising the debt ceiling does not authorize less spending. But that’s just nonsense.

I hate to spoil the party, but since the previous increase to the debt ceiling has already been spent, we must conclude that government spending is indeed out of control. Thus, the real issue is not whether Congress should raise the debt ceiling (once again), but rather who, or what, keeps authorizing the federal government’s blatantly obvious spending problem.

Let us be clear. The absence of positive action to increase the debt ceiling will cause the size of government to decrease. Contrariwise, the act of raising the debt ceiling leads to increased spending, more indebtedness, higher taxes and bigger government. If the debt ceiling is not raised, then the federal government must live within its means. So what’s it going to be? Shall we begin living within our means, or will we trudge forward, wantonly borrowing, seemingly without limit?

References:

Evidence of Absence

Appeal to Ignorance (Shifting the Burden of Proof)

Argument from Ignorance

List of Fallacies

Obamacare, Obamanomics and Inverse Logic

/ L. M. Walker / 2 Comments

Do the math

“If an object is a polygon then it is a triangle (false).”

By: Larry Walker, Jr.

You can’t solve a problem until it has been defined. The Federal government, once again, has failed to define the problem. Being led by the novice, Nobel Prize Winning, Barack Obama, the Congress has become another hostage on the road to Socialism. What is the real problem?

The Problem

Firstly, per the Bureau of Labor Statistics, since the start of the recession in December 2007, the number of unemployed persons has increased by 7.6 million to 15.1 million, and the unemployment rate has doubled to 9.8 percent (1).

Secondly, per my research in, “The IRS as Health Insurance Police,” there are currently 12.6 million delinquent taxpayers who owe the Federal Government $115.5 billion (2).

And finally, per my last blog, “Common Sense vs. Obamanomics,” where are the jobs (3)?

The Plan to Nowhere

The Government’s plan: Pass a massive health care bill with the ‘hope’ that (a) the 12.6 million will pay their back taxes along with the new increase for mandatory health care, and (b) the 15.1 million will miraculously find jobs (on their own) to be able to pay for their health care. Sounds to me like a plan going nowhere.

The Real Cost?

Based on my research in, “The Health Insurance Black Hole,” when it’s all said and done and we have Universal Health Care, the cost will be approximately $747 per month for an individual, and $2,990 per month for a family of four. That’s $35,880 per year for a family, and $8,964 for an individual (4). To me this is an outrageous increase from my present rate of $188 per month with an H.S.A. Plan. And according to Congress, this will reduce the deficit (which they have run up with reckless abandon) in the long-term.

I’m sure! Raising every American’s health insurance costs by $6,708 per year should reduce the deficit in the long run, but what does that do for our individual health? It seems to me that health care reform has just become a crafty way of raising taxes by playing on the sympathies of kindhearted American’s. No matter how you frame it, it’s a tax increase.

“If a policy is a tax increase then it is a tax cut (false).”

Questions Unanswered

  1. How will the 15.1 million unemployed American’s pay for their health insurance? Will the employed have to pay more to cover them?

  2. How will the 12.6 million who already owe back taxes be able to pay them while paying for the new health care tax?

  3. If you subtract the 27.7 million who can’t pay for their health insurance, how much will it really cost those who are employed?