PRISM program shows the surveillance state is already here

June 07, 2013

Writer

It's no small irony that 1984 was published 64 years ago yesterday. Earlier this year, Glenn was called a conspiracy theorist because he warned about the data collection of the federal government, all while the ribbon was being cut on the NSA's vault in Utah. Today, however, The Washington Post revealed that Microsoft, Yahoo, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube, and Apple are all part of a program called PRISM that gives the federal government access to the information on their servers.

"It is a brave new world. It is a brave new world. It is 1984. The things that we speculated against in the 1990s when I first read Ray Kurzweil's books and I started looking into what we were actually doing with technology. When we started thinking, what is possible when you ‑‑ when we watched Minority Report, the Tom Cruise movie, and we saw that they could monitor everything. We're here, gang. If anybody wants to talk about Common Core now and the collection of data, go ahead. Let's bring it on. Now's the time to talk to your friends about Common Core and the collection of data. Now's the time to stand up in Florida and say, 'Excuse me? You put a retinal scanner on your buses because you wanted my son or daughter's iris scan? I don't think so.' Now is the time to stand up because if you do not, if you want to play the game that this all started with George W. Bush, I don't care if it started with Jesus. 'Started with Moses, you know. He was the first one to start watching over people's stone cutting of tablets.' I don't care. Now is the time to stop it. How it started is meaningless. What they're doing with it now isn't."

"You know what amazes me is congress decided to talk about this and all they could talk about in congress is, 'Are you listening to our phone calls? Are you listening to members of congress' phone calls? Does your political machine have access to that?' Are you out of your mind, Senator? Is that really what matters to you? Well, thank you for being just like a member of the press. You only cared about it when they were attacking you. You called people like me just five weeks ago a conspiracy theorist while they were cutting the ribbon on the NSA vault in Utah. While they're cutting the ribbon of that, you call me a conspiracy theorist for saying they're collecting data, every piece of data and every keystroke of every computer online. 'Glenn Beck's out of his mind. He's crazy.' Am I now? Am I?"

"So now that you have the information that you denied, now what are you going to do with it? You didn't care about it five weeks ago but then you found out, Senator, that maybe you were being listened to. The AP didn't care about it but then they found out that, oh, maybe they're being listened to. And the American people, you're being listened to; you're being monitored. Do you care, or do you say, 'I'm not doing anything wrong; so it doesn't matter.' Welcome to 1984. 2 plus 2 equals 5. It doesn't matter. I told you when I was at CPAC. And the crowd liked it, but the elites did not when I said the disease is progressivism, the controlling of people, the people that think they're the ranchers and the average citizen is a cow. We're not cattle. We are your employers. When they're listening to us, it's fine, Senator, that they listen to us but not to you?"

"Wait a minute. What I'm doing in my bakery or as a truckdriver, whatever I'm doing, it's okay to monitor me because you're not sure about me. But as Lindsey Graham says, he's sure about him; so he doesn't mind. Lindsey, what is it that you have sold your soul for? What is it that you members of congress and the Senate, you people in the FBI, the NSA, the people in the White House. I'm not talking about Democrats or Republicans. I'm talking about human beings. I'm talking about people that, no matter what side of the spectrum you're on, unless you are a fascist or a Communist, no matter what side of the spectrum you're on, how do you sleep at night, justifying that you are listening and monitoring and collecting data on every purchase, every geotractking device I might have? All of my phone calls you say that you're not ‑‑ we can't really look in. We don't actually read. Oh, I'm supposed to believe you on this, when you didn't tell me the truth in the first place?"

"And the senators yesterday as they're talking and having their confab for the American people to get to the bottom of it, they ask Eric Holder, 'Are you listening to members of congress?' And he doesn't answer. In fact, here is, Cut 457."

VOICE: Could you assure to us that no phones inside the Capitol were monitored of members of congress that would give a future executive branch if they started pulling this kind of thing up, would give them unique leverage over the legislature?
HOLDER: With all due respect, Senator, I don't think this is an appropriate setting for me to discuss.

"Why not? Stop. Why not? Why not? The American people are listening."

"It is time for transparency. I'm sorry, but you can't have it both ways. You need to collect all the information on every single American, every single American. Make no mistake, America. They read every ‑‑ they have access to every single e‑mail that you write. Beyond that, they record and can record every single keystroke. So you write something and you're like, 'No, that's not quite right. Delete, delete, delete, delete, delete, delete.' They can record every keystroke."

"Now let me ask you something: How is it that the members of congress, the people in the White House can, A, tell us that there is no war on terror. We are not having a war on terror. There is no such thing as a war on terror. There is no such thing as jihad. It's a state of mind."

"How is it that that is winding down, it's almost over, it doesn't even exist, and yet they need to have this kind of security? How is it they say we can't invade people's privacy and ask them, ask them for their ID at the voting booth. How dare you stop someone on the street and ask them for their green card. How dare you ask anybody any question at all if you're near the border? How dare you violate civil rights, the civil rights of people who don't belong here? How dare you even ask me how many people are here without a visa? How dare you even expect me to know how many do have a visa and then never showed up at their schools? How dare you even ask those things, you racist, but yet you need to know everything that I do and every American in this country. How dare you. You can't have it both ways. It doesn't exist both ways. You have painted us as the enemy. You are not protecting us; you are protecting your own power. It is time for people to stand up and say 'We are the employers. You are the servant. We want access to all of the things that you do.'"

"Boy, it is very interesting. It is very interesting how these people have created the Bubba effect, how these people are on the verge of making people like Anonymous into heroes. And they say, 'Well, they had full briefing of this.' Well, I didn't. In fact, not only did I not receive full briefing on this as a taxpayer, as a shareholder, as an owner of this damn country, not only did I not receive a briefing, nor did any of the other shareholders and owners of this country, just an elite of the elite in Washington knew that and meanwhile you lied to the shareholders. You told us under oath you weren't doing any of these things. But you ask for our trust now? Read the Declaration of Independence, America. You better read it now. This is all about civil rights. What right do you have to read my information? What right do you have to follow me? What right do you have to scan my children's eyes? What right do you have to continue to grow this out‑of‑control state that at the best you say, 'Well, we're just sloppy.' Well, you're too damn sloppy."

"I have said for a while, give these people no more power. I have said for a while, 'You better get off Google. You better drop your damn Google mail.' Well, what are you going to do? Said for a while I don't carry a cellphone. I've told you what Ray Kurzweil told me, the head of Google intelligence, of what they can do. He laughed at me when I talked to him about my concerns, and he didn't laugh at me because it was a conspiracy theory but because it was an infantile understanding of what they can already do."

Globalize the Intifada? Why Mamdani’s plan spells DOOM for America

Bloomberg / Contributor | Getty Images

If New Yorkers hand City Hall to Zohran Mamdani, they’re not voting for change. They’re opening the door to an alliance of socialism, Islamism, and chaos.

It only took 25 years for New York City to go from the resilient, flag-waving pride following the 9/11 attacks to a political fever dream. To quote Michael Malice, “I'm old enough to remember when New Yorkers endured 9/11 instead of voting for it.”

Malice is talking about Zohran Mamdani, a Democratic Socialist assemblyman from Queens now eyeing the mayor’s office. Mamdani, a 33-year-old state representative emerging from relative political obscurity, is now receiving substantial funding for his mayoral campaign from the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

CAIR has a long and concerning history, including being born out of the Muslim Brotherhood and named an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terror funding case. Why would the group have dropped $100,000 into a PAC backing Mamdani’s campaign?

Mamdani blends political Islam with Marxist economics — two ideologies that have left tens of millions dead in the 20th century alone.

Perhaps CAIR has a vested interest in Mamdani’s call to “globalize the intifada.” That’s not a call for peaceful protest. Intifada refers to historic uprisings of Muslims against what they call the “Israeli occupation of Palestine.” Suicide bombings and street violence are part of the playbook. So when Mamdani says he wants to “globalize” that, who exactly is the enemy in this global scenario? Because it sure sounds like he's saying America is the new Israel, and anyone who supports Western democracy is the new Zionist.

Mamdani tried to clean up his language by citing the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, which once used “intifada” in an Arabic-language article to describe the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. So now he’s comparing Palestinians to Jewish victims of the Nazis? If that doesn’t twist your stomach into knots, you’re not paying attention.

If you’re “globalizing” an intifada, and positioning Israel — and now America — as the Nazis, that’s not a cry for human rights. That’s a call for chaos and violence.

Rising Islamism

But hey, this is New York. Faculty members at Columbia University — where Mamdani’s own father once worked — signed a letter defending students who supported Hamas after October 7. They also contributed to Mamdani’s mayoral campaign. And his father? He blamed Ronald Reagan and the religious right for inspiring Islamic terrorism, as if the roots of 9/11 grew in Washington, not the caves of Tora Bora.

Bloomberg / Contributor | Getty Images

This isn’t about Islam as a faith. We should distinguish between Islam and Islamism. Islam is a religion followed peacefully by millions. Islamism is something entirely different — an ideology that seeks to merge mosque and state, impose Sharia law, and destroy secular liberal democracies from within. Islamism isn’t about prayer and fasting. It’s about power.

Criticizing Islamism is not Islamophobia. It is not an attack on peaceful Muslims. In fact, Muslims are often its first victims.

Islamism is misogynistic, theocratic, violent, and supremacist. It’s hostile to free speech, religious pluralism, gay rights, secularism — even to moderate Muslims. Yet somehow, the progressive left — the same left that claims to fight for feminism, LGBTQ rights, and free expression — finds itself defending candidates like Mamdani. You can’t make this stuff up.

Blending the worst ideologies

And if that weren’t enough, Mamdani also identifies as a Democratic Socialist. He blends political Islam with Marxist economics — two ideologies that have left tens of millions dead in the 20th century alone. But don’t worry, New York. I’m sure this time socialism will totally work. Just like it always didn’t.

If you’re a business owner, a parent, a person who’s saved anything, or just someone who values sanity: Get out. I’m serious. If Mamdani becomes mayor, as seems likely, then New York City will become a case study in what happens when you marry ideological extremism with political power. And it won’t be pretty.

This is about more than one mayoral race. It’s about the future of Western liberalism. It’s about drawing a bright line between faith and fanaticism, between healthy pluralism and authoritarian dogma.

Call out radicalism

We must call out political Islam the same way we call out white nationalism or any other supremacist ideology. When someone chants “globalize the intifada,” that should send a chill down your spine — whether you’re Jewish, Christian, Muslim, atheist, or anything in between.

The left may try to shame you into silence with words like “Islamophobia,” but the record is worn out. The grooves are shallow. The American people see what’s happening. And we’re not buying it.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

How private stewardship could REVIVE America’s wild

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The left’s idea of stewardship involves bulldozing bison and barring access. Lee’s vision puts conservation back in the hands of the people.

The media wants you to believe that Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) is trying to bulldoze Yellowstone and turn national parks into strip malls — that he’s calling for a reckless fire sale of America’s natural beauty to line developers’ pockets. That narrative is dishonest. It’s fearmongering, and, by the way, it’s wrong.

Here’s what’s really happening.

Private stewardship works. It’s local. It’s accountable. It’s incentivized.

The federal government currently owns 640 million acres of land — nearly 28% of all land in the United States. To put that into perspective, that’s more territory than France, Germany, Poland, and the United Kingdom combined.

Most of this land is west of the Mississippi River. That’s not a coincidence. In the American West, federal ownership isn’t just a bureaucratic technicality — it’s a stranglehold. States are suffocated. Locals are treated as tenants. Opportunities are choked off.

Meanwhile, people living east of the Mississippi — in places like Kentucky, Georgia, or Pennsylvania — might not even realize how little land their own states truly control. But the same policies that are plaguing the West could come for them next.

Lee isn’t proposing to auction off Yellowstone or pave over Yosemite. He’s talking about 3 million acres — that’s less than half of 1% of the federal estate. And this land isn’t your family’s favorite hiking trail. It’s remote, hard to access, and often mismanaged.

Failed management

Why was it mismanaged in the first place? Because the federal government is a terrible landlord.

Consider Yellowstone again. It’s home to the last remaining herd of genetically pure American bison — animals that haven’t been crossbred with cattle. Ranchers, myself included, would love the chance to help restore these majestic creatures on private land. But the federal government won’t allow it.

So what do they do when the herd gets too big?

They kill them. Bulldoze them into mass graves. That’s not conservation. That’s bureaucratic malpractice.

And don’t even get me started on bald eagles — majestic symbols of American freedom and a federally protected endangered species, now regularly slaughtered by wind turbines. I have pictures of piles of dead bald eagles. Where’s the outrage?

Biden’s federal land-grab

Some argue that states can’t afford to manage this land themselves. But if the states can’t afford it, how can Washington? We’re $35 trillion in debt. Entitlements are strained, infrastructure is crumbling, and the Bureau of Land Management, Forest Service, and National Park Service are billions of dollars behind in basic maintenance. Roads, firebreaks, and trails are falling apart.

The Biden administration quietly embraced something called the “30 by 30” initiative, a plan to lock up 30% of all U.S. land and water under federal “conservation” by 2030. The real goal is 50% by 2050.

That entails half of the country being taken away from you, controlled not by the people who live there but by technocrats in D.C.

You think that won’t affect your ability to hunt, fish, graze cattle, or cut timber? Think again. It won’t be conservatives who stop you from building a cabin, raising cattle, or teaching your grandkids how to shoot a rifle. It’ll be the same radical environmentalists who treat land as sacred — unless it’s your truck, your deer stand, or your back yard.

Land as collateral

Moreover, the U.S. Treasury is considering putting federally owned land on the national balance sheet, listing your parks, forests, and hunting grounds as collateral.

What happens if America defaults on its debt?

David McNew / Stringer | Getty Images

Do you think our creditors won’t come calling? Imagine explaining to your kids that the lake you used to fish in is now under foreign ownership, that the forest you hunted in belongs to China.

This is not hypothetical. This is the logical conclusion of treating land like a piggy bank.

The American way

There’s a better way — and it’s the American way.

Let the people who live near the land steward it. Let ranchers, farmers, sportsmen, and local conservationists do what they’ve done for generations.

Did you know that 75% of America’s wetlands are on private land? Or that the most successful wildlife recoveries — whitetail deer, ducks, wild turkeys — didn’t come from Washington but from partnerships between private landowners and groups like Ducks Unlimited?

Private stewardship works. It’s local. It’s accountable. It’s incentivized. When you break it, you fix it. When you profit from the land, you protect it.

This is not about selling out. It’s about buying in — to freedom, to responsibility, to the principle of constitutional self-governance.

So when you hear the pundits cry foul over 3 million acres of federal land, remember: We don’t need Washington to protect our land. We need Washington to get out of the way.

Because this isn’t just about land. It’s about liberty. And once liberty is lost, it doesn’t come back easily.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

EXPOSED: Why the left’s trans agenda just CRASHED at SCOTUS

Anna Moneymaker / Staff | Getty Images

You never know what you’re going to get with the U.S. Supreme Court these days.

For all of the Left’s insane panic over having six supposedly conservative justices on the court, the decisions have been much more of a mixed bag. But thank God – sincerely – there was a seismic win for common sense at the Supreme Court on Wednesday. It’s a win for American children, parents, and for truth itself.

In a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court upheld Tennessee’s state ban on irreversible transgender procedures for minors.

The mostly conservative justices stood tall in this case, while Sotomayor, Kagan, and Jackson predictably dissented. This isn’t just Tennessee’s victory – 20 other red states that have similar bans can now breathe easier, knowing they can protect vulnerable children from these sick, experimental, life-altering procedures.

Anna Moneymaker / Staff | Getty Images

Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the majority opinion, saying Tennessee’s law does not violate the Equal Protection Clause. It’s rooted in a very simple truth that common sense Americans get: kids cannot consent to permanent damage. The science backs this up – Norway, Finland, and the UK have all sounded alarms about the lack of evidence for so-called “gender-affirming care.” The Trump administration’s recent HHS report shredded the activist claims that these treatments help kids’ mental health. Nothing about this is “healthcare.” It is absolute harm.

The Left, the ACLU, and the Biden DOJ screamed “discrimination” and tried to twist the Constitution to force this radical ideology on our kids.

Fortunately, the Supreme Court saw through it this time. In her concurring opinion, Justice Amy Coney Barrett nailed it: gender identity is not some fixed, immutable trait like race or sex. Detransitioners are speaking out, regretting the surgeries and hormones they were rushed into as teens. WPATH – the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, the supposed experts on this, knew that kids cannot fully grasp this decision, and their own leaked documents prove that they knew it. But they pushed operations and treatments on kids anyway.

This decision is about protecting the innocent from a dangerous ideology that denies biology and reality. Tennessee’s Attorney General calls this a “landmark victory in defense of America’s children.” He’s right. This time at least, the Supreme Court refused to let judicial activism steal our kids’ futures. Now every state needs to follow Tennessee’s lead on this, and maybe the tide will continue to turn.

Insider alert: Glenn’s audience EXPOSES the riots’ dark truth

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Glenn asked for YOUR take on the Los Angeles anti-ICE riots, and YOU responded with a thunderous verdict. Your answers to our recent Glennbeck.com poll cut through the establishment’s haze, revealing a profound skepticism of their narrative.

The results are undeniable: 98% of you believe taxpayer-funded NGOs are bankrolling these riots, a bold rejection of the claim that these are grassroots protests. Meanwhile, 99% dismiss the mainstream media’s coverage as woefully inadequate—can the official story survive such resounding doubt? And 99% of you view the involvement of socialist and Islamist groups as a growing threat to national security, signaling alarm at what Glenn calls a coordinated “Color Revolution” lurking beneath the surface.

You also stand firmly with decisive action: 99% support President Trump’s deployment of the National Guard to quell the chaos. These numbers defy the elite’s tired excuses and reflect a demand for truth and accountability. Are your tax dollars being weaponized to destabilize America? You’ve answered with conviction.

Your voice sends a powerful message to those who dismiss the unrest as mere “protests.” You spoke, and Glenn listened. Keep shaping the conversation at Glennbeck.com.

Want to make your voice heard? Check out more polls HERE.

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