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Linder Letter: The Right to be Left Alone

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Photo Credit: Sean Gallup/Getty Images

Photo Credit: Sean Gallup/Getty Images

The makers of our Constitution…conferred, as against the government, the right to be let alone — the most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by civilized men.” ~ Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis, Dissenting, Olmstead v. United States, 277 U.S. 438 (1928).

It has been reported that the National Security Agency intercepts packages with electronics being shipped by UPS and FEDEX and infects them with computer bugs for future access. Both UPS and FEDEX chose not to deny the charge. This is the same agency that captures and catalogues five billion phone calls each day as well as all of our email communications.

Richard Higbie, a former criminal investigator for the State Department turned whistleblower, had his computer hacked and four years worth of messages were removed and permanently deleted. Some of the “lost” emails detailed his complaint against the government. Others were privileged communications with his attorney who also experienced a break-in in his office in which three computers were stolen.

“Fox News” reporter James Rosen’s reporting on North Korea led authorities to believe that he had a good source in the government. To track down the suspected leaker Attorney General Eric Holder lied in an affidavit before a judge to get approval to tap Rosen’s phones. His parent’s phones were also tapped.

Sharyl Attkisson is a “CBS” reporter who was covering the ATF gunrunning operation known as Fast and Furious. She also reported on Benghazi. Her work computer and her personal computers mysteriously turned on in the middle of the night. Nothing was taken from her personal information, but work product from her business computer was taken and the tracks were professionally covered.

Read more from this story HERE.

Small Businesses Claim U.S. Government Stealing their Ideas

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Photo Credit: Fox News

Photo Credit: Fox News

“They stole all my stuff and used taxpayer money to do it,” John Hnatio, a Maryland small business owner, says of the U.S. government.

Hnatio claims the government has put his company, FoodquestTQ, nearly out of business by stealing his firm’s software that was designed to be licensed to the Food and Drug Administration to monitor food safety.

The FDA “took our ideas, plagiarized my doctoral dissertation on which a patent was based, and then they infringed on our patent. The result was that it decimated our business,” he adds.

Hnatio says his company has been left hanging by a thread. He has had to fire employees and says that the remaining three, including himself, are receiving no salary and have been forced to go on unemployment insurance.

“I have never seen anything like it,” says Hnatio, who is a retired federal government official.

Read more from this story HERE.

Americans Don’t Think Health Care is Government Responsibility

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Photo Credit: Thinkstock ImageFifty-six percent of American adults say it’s not the federal government’s responsibility to ensure everyone in U.S. has health insurance, according to a new poll from Gallup.

Just 42 percent believe it is the responsibility of the government, the lowest number recorded since Gallup began tracking the opinions in 2000.

Photo Credit: Gallup

Read more from this story HERE.

Watchdogs: Government Paid Millions in Medicare to Deceased, Illegal Immigrants

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Photo Credit: APThe federal government has paid tens of millions of dollars in Medicare benefits to dead people and illegal immigrants, according to a pair of reports from federal watchdogs released on Thursday.

The Department of Health and Human Services’ Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services paid out $23 million to beneficiaries after their deaths in 2011, according to one report from HHS’ inspector general.

Another report tallied more than $28 million in payments from 2009 to 2011 to individuals who were in the country illegally.

In all, CMS paid Medicare benefits to 4,139 illegal immigrants and 17,403 deceased people, according to the two reports.

Read more from this story HERE.

Census Bureau: Means-Tested Gov’t Benefit Recipients Outnumber Full-Time Year-Round Workers

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Photo Credit: AP/Carolyn KasterAmericans who were recipients of means-tested government benefits in 2011 outnumbered year-round full-time workers, according to data released this month by the Census Bureau.

They also out-numbered the total population of the Philippines.

There were 108,592,000 people in the United States in the fourth quarter of 2011 who were recipients of one or more means-tested government benefit programs, the Census Bureau said in data released this week. Meanwhile, according to the Census Bureau, there were 101,716,000 people who worked full-time year round in 2011. That included both private-sector and government workers.

That means there were about 1.07 people getting some form of means-tested government benefit for every 1 person working full-time year round.

The Census Bureau counted as recipients of means-tested government programs “anyone residing in a household in which one or more people received benefits from the program.” Many of these people lived in households receiving more than one form of means-tested benefit at the same time.

Read more from this story HERE.

Ex-Apple CEO Sculley: Rollout Reflects Broken Government

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Photo Credit: gtsantos/flickrFormer Apple CEO John Sculley says it would be great if the Obamacare rollout fiasco led to a realization that the private sector works better than government. But he isn’t holding his breath.

“I think this huge belly-flop of the president’s most important program is really a great lesson for all of us of just how broken government is,” Sculley said Tuesday on Fox News Channel’s “Your World with Neil Cavuto.”

The White House tried initially comparing what it termed “glitches” in the HealthCare.gov website to issues with Apple products that it quickly fixes. That explanation has been panned by mainstream media outlets and even liberal supporters of the Affordable Care Act as it’s become clear the government knew about the problems even before the site was launched.

Government thinks about special interests, not about customers, Sculley told Cavuto. When he worked for Apple, the rule was to start with “clear thinking,” then constantly simplify, he said.

Read more from this story HERE.

Government Watchdog Warns about Menu Police

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Photo Credit: WNDA government watchdog organization on Thursday warned about the new menu police that could soon sweep the nation – and the legal liabilities that could be presented to food service operations from public schools to college cafeterias and others.

Under the resolution of a dispute that involved Lesley University in Massachusetts, according to a report from officials at the Washington watchdog Judicial Watch, food allergies have to be treated as a disability, and provisions made to accommodate those with that “disability.”

According to a settlement document cited by Judicial Watch, “Food allergies may constitute a disability under the [Americans with Disabilities Act]. .. Individuals with food allergies may have an autoimmune response to certain foods, the symptoms of which may include difficulty swallowing and breathing, asthma and anaphylaxis.”

Commented Judicial Watch, “Sounds pretty dramatic, but the food industry is now fearful of the widespread consequences of this decree. In fact, it leaves all facilities that serve food – schools and restaurants – exposed to legal challenges if they don’t accommodate people with food allergies.”

The fight over the college’s food services actually happened late in 2012.

Read more from this story HERE.

Obama: Republicans Would Own Government Shutdown

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

President Obama on Friday pushed Republicans to pass a spending bill and warned that he would not give in to their demands to defund Obamacare as Washington careened closer to a shutdown.

“If Congress chooses not to pass a budget by Monday, they will shut down the government,” Obama told reporters at a hastily-arranged press conference from the White House briefing room.

Obama said blame for a shutdown would rest solely on Republicans whom he accused of undermining the recovery because they “can’t get their way.”

The White House and Congress are facing an Oct. 1 deadline to keep the government funded and have achieved scant progress on a compromise thus far. In addition to the government-shutdown fight, leaders are up against an Oct. 17 deadline to increase the nation’s borrowing limit.

Conservatives are using the fiscal fights to try to block Obama’s healthcare reform law. Last week the House GOP passed a short-term spending bill that defunded Obamacare.

Read more from this story HERE.

U.S. Gov’t ‘Buying Up’ AK-47 Rifles (+video)

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ak-47Secretary of State John Kerry signing the a United Nations small arms treaty is nothing more than empty symbolism, and President Obama will get nowhere in his latest attempt to advance gun-control legislation, says Bill Frady, host of “Lock ‘n’ Load Radio” presented by Gun Owners of America, who also noted that the U.S. government has been buying up AK-47 rifles and ammunition.

Kerry signed the U.N.’s Arms Trade Treaty this week while in New York City for the opening of the U.N. General Assembly. Supporters say it would clamp down on weapons trafficking between rogue regimes and terrorist organizations. Frady told WND it would have a restricting effect on law-abiding gun owners in the U.S. as well.

“It also dictates to the signing states that they have to impose new rules and regulations within their nations to make sure they’re able to comply with this treaty and that covers small arms,” Frady said. “Terrorists are not running around with American-made weapons. They’re running around with AKs. There’s various nations that will underwrite any cause (such as) Russia, China. The AK is the prevalent weapon on the planet. So we’re not the problem. I did notice that along the way (Obama) did manage to get in there and back Syrian rebels to the tune of $340 million.

“I’m sure he wants to arm them,” he said. “The United States Army has been buying AKs and AK magazines and AK ammo. I’m just presuming that they want to send that to our Syrian brethren, the great rebel freedom fighters, so they’ll have something they’re accustomed to.”

Like any treaty, this one would need two-thirds support in the U.S. Senate to be ratified in this country. A procedural vote months ago shows the plan cannot even draw a simple majority in the Democratically controlled chamber. As a result, Frady said Kerry and Obama embracing the treaty is just window dressing.

Read more from this story HERE.

House Defunding of Obamacare May Lead to Delay in Individual Mandate (+video)

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john_boehner_034In a bold move, Republican Speaker John Boehner and his leadership have done what grassroots organizations have been encouraging them to do all summer: defund ObamaCare. Given the Senate’s Democratic leadership and their refusal to consider this option, the GOP’s move may lead to a compromise to delay the individual mandate at the very least.

As The Washington Times reported, the House vote on the continuing resolution (CR) was 230-189 to eliminate the funding for ObamaCare, stopping its implementation. The Affordable Healthcare Act, which isn’t so affordable, has not been implemented in accordance with its own provisions with the Obama administration missing over half of the legally imposed deadlines.

In addition, the Obama administration has delayed the employer mandate for one year, but not the individual mandate to purchase insurance. With the exchanges set to open October 1, this is the final opportunity to stop ObamaCare.

Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat from Nevada, says that the GOP version of the CR is not going to go anywhere in the Senate. President Obama’s press secretary says that Obama will not negotiate with the Republicans on this issue, either. As a result of Obama’s unwillingness to work with the Republicans, Speaker Boehner asks, why will President Obama negotiate with Putin but not the Republican party in his own country?

Read more from this story HERE.