Dark

In cooperation with Western Rifle Shooters Association, ST&L goes "dark" for 09/11/13.

We are offline for 9/11/2013 and pledge to commit no commerce for the entire day, denying the NSA, the US Government and all other consumers of tax dollars our productive output.

We are taking this action because of the outrageous nature of the NSA’s and other government agency actions — acts that disrespect the unalienable rights delineated in the Declaration of Independence, enshrined in The Constitution and which all Federal, State and Local governments are obliged to honor.

In addition to the above the rank hypocrisy of our government’s blacklisting of Huawei’s products — made in China, and a blacklist that this site has openly supported — while our government is and has been engaging in the very same conduct is utterly unsupportable and is likely to have a materially-destructive impact on US technology firms and our economy.

We pledge that should this protest be ignored we will escalate with additional consecutive days of similar protest in coming months, until our demands are addressed.

We demand:

1. An immediate end to all warrantless interception, collection, storage and retention of data from American Citizens on US Soil, including the public destruction of all currently-stored data. All future collection shall take place pursuant only under a valid, issued warrant as specified by the 4th Amendment, delineating with specificity what is to be searched or seized and specifying the probable cause upon which each item to be searched or seized is based. “Data” shall have the broadest-possible interpretation and shall include but not be limited to voice, text, images, video, internet, IP address, location, billing information and other “metadata” irrespective of how it is generated. All warrants for the search or seizure of data generated by US Citizens upon US soil shall be issued by a sitting judge, shall not be issued in blank or without the personal inspection of the claims of probable cause and the list of data to be searched or seized by said judge and shall not be classified or privileged from disclosure or challenge. Such protections and requirements by definition preclude “bulk collection” by any party whether performed by the government directly or at its behest by third parties.

2. The introduction and passage of federal legislation creating a criminal penalty of not less than ten (10) years imprisonment for any person, irrespective of agency in Federal, State, County or Local government, that violates the strictures of (1) above, in addition to the imposition of personal civil liability under 42 USC 1983 for Deprivation of Rights Under Color of Law or Authority. Said legislation shall provide that such a complaint, once sworn by a citizen, shall be pursued by the Department of Justice under pain of each person failing or refusing to do so being subject to the same penalty as the original offender. Said law shall also specify that all information developed, delivered or collected as a consequence of such an unconstitutional search or seizure as delineated in (1) above shall be suppressed in any civil or criminal action brought by any government instrumentality within the United States.

3. Due to the incessant, outrageous and escalating militarization of our police forces and the rampant abuses that same have and do engage in all officers with police power shall be required to wear a video and audio recording device at all times while exercising their jurisdiction and such record of their interaction with any citizen shall be provided at the time of that citizen’s initial appearance for any citation or criminal offense alleged. The failure to so-produce, obstruction with the provision thereof or destruction of said evidence except when caused by the direct act of the suspect(s) so-involved shall serve as cause for dismissal of charges with prejudice for any and all acts alleged to have occurred for which said production is refused, tampered with, altered or obstructed.

Other links embedded in original found here:
http://westernrifleshooters.wordpress.com/2013/09/10/denninger-tomorrow-we-go-dark/
http://market-ticker.org/
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-09-10/nsa-phone-records-spying-violated-court-rules-for-years.html
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-09-10/nsa-spying-seen-risking-billions-in-u-s-technology-sales.html

Amended to suggest...

It might also be a good day to visit your bootlegger.  Swing by the alphabet store and tell the clerk there that you won't be buying any government likker this day, and you're on your way (or you just came from) your favorite moonshiner.  That'll get 'em.