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by Georgia State Rep. Brian Joyce |
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Milton "Buddy" Nix, Director of the GBI (Georgia Bureau of Investigation) was asked to provide data on Georgia's new instant check to the Public Safety Committee. I was invited to participate because I led the opposition against the Georgia Brady check in 1995 and repeatedly warned about its potential abuse.
The data showed that the instant background check, while catching a small number of felons, mainly hinders law-abiding citizens buying pistols.
The real eye-opener came from Paul Heppner, who when asked about the flow of data to National Crime Information Center (NCIC) computers, mentioned that the computer knows that any given background check is for a gun purchase. A code is sent with the request for information... thus a list is being created.
Although backers of the recent law assures us that no records would or could be kept by the feds, it just ain't so.
Some might as why this is important? Even a cursory look at history shows a disarmed public is prey to violent criminals, gangs, and abusive government. No other right found under the original Bill of Rights has been compromised and subverted as has the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. Our free Republic rises and falls on this issue.
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Chris W. Stark
Gun Owners of America - Texas Representative
e-mail: gunowner@onramp.net
Visit our Web Page at: http://rampages.onramp.net/~gunowner
Support "The only no-compromise gun lobby in Washington." Become
a member of GOA TODAY!
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"No class or group or party in Germany could escape its share of responsibility for the abandonment of the democratic Republic and the advent of Adolf Hitler. The cardinal error of the Germans who opposed Nazism was their failure to unite against it. ....the 63% of the German people who expressed their opposition to Hitler were much too divided and shortsighted to combine against a common danger which they must have known would overwhelm them unless they united, HOWEVER TEMPORARY, to stamp it out."
-William L. Shirer, author of "The rise and fall of the Third Reich" p.259
.....they who do not learn from History are DOOMED to repeat it!!
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Instant Check Aids Illegal Gun Registry
Texas Officials Using Brady Law to Register Gun Owners
Brady, instant background check equal instant gun registration
SOMETIMES THE NET SURFS YOU... PRO Newsletter 7-7-97
Privacy: don't accept gov't snooping or society's tolerance
of it
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This registration of gun owners is something that Gun Owners of America has warned about from the very start. No matter how many prohibitions against registration one writes into the law, the question arises: "Who guards the guardians?" Who will be responsible for punishing officials that break the law? Can we really depend on officials to prosecute their fellow brothers in blue for a crime that might be considered harmless by some?
Indeed, the former Congressional Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) admitted in 1991 that the instant background check was easily susceptible to abuse. The OTA said that "the potential [for registration] exists regardless of legal prohibitions."
Gun registration (or gun owner registration) is dangerous because of the potential for firearms confiscation. Consider that in New York City, police used gun registration lists to confiscate the firearms of law-abiding citizens. The Daily News (9/5/92) reported in 1992 that, "Police raided the home of a Staten Island man who refused to comply with the city's tough ban on assault weapons, and seized an arsenal of firearms....Spot checks are planned [for other homes]."
New York City police were able to use the gun registration lists, which were started in the 1960's, to determine which gun owners were not complying with the semi-auto ban. Clearly, gun owner registration can be, and often is, a prelude to gun confiscation.
The simple fact is that it is too great a temptation for officials to keep names on file even after they are supposed to be deleted. This is a risk that gun owners, and all law-abiding citizens, should be unwilling to take.
... To receive GOA alerts via e-mail send request to:davisda@rmi.net
Gun Owners of America, 8001 Forbes Place, Suite 102 Springfield, VA 22151, (703)321-8585, fax: 703-321-8408 http://www.gunowners.org
| Home | Ordering | Articles | Waco pics |
Instant Check Aids Illegal Gun Registry
Texas Officials Using Brady Law to Register Gun Owners
Brady, instant background check equal instant gun registration
SOMETIMES THE NET SURFS YOU... PRO Newsletter 7-7-97
Privacy: don't accept gov't snooping or society's tolerance
of it
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While most jurisdictions are intimidated by such federal pressure, a few brave officials, like Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, have taken steps to put teeth to the Court's decision.
Governor Huckabee Refuses Background Checks
Governor Huckabee insists that, because there is no state law authorizing a background check, yielding to the Clinton - Reno intimidation would violate the rights of Arkansas gun owners.
Gov. Huckabee should be commended by the entire pro-gun community for his stand. He seems to understand that the only persons who will voluntarily submit themselves to a background check are honest citizens, the least likely to ever commit a crime with a firearm.
The Governor's actions support the concept that law-abiding citizens should not be subjected to a background check, while criminals roam the streets in relative freedom. Law enforcement should not be forced to divert its limited resources from real crime fighting to processing paperwork on decent citizens. But not only are background checks costly and ineffective, they are the foundation for the registration of all gun owners.
This is the real reason Gov. Huckabee is to be applauded. He is presently setting up a roadblock to gun owners registration.
Defeat Snatched from the Jaws of Victory!
Unfortunately, at the same time Gov. Huckabee is standing firm against registration, some factions within the pro-gun community are using his example as proof that the federal instant registration check should be "on-line" as quickly as possible.
In effect, since states could not be forced to conduct the background checks, the alternative being offered is to have the federal government perform the checks instead. Thus, a significant victory for gun owners and the Second Amendment may be turned into devastating defeat. We did not fight the imposition of Brady on the states only to have those very functions turned over to the federal government.
Highly respected Second Amendment attorney Stephen Halbrook, who argued the Brady case before the Supreme Court, commented that the decision is "a great victory not just for gun owners but the American people generally, because it helps stem the tide of increasing federal encroachment on the powers of the states and localities and hence on the sovereignty of this country."
The victory that Halbrook speaks of is lost if we allow the federal government to grant permission to individuals through the background check approval system. If the instant registration check becomes a reality, gun owners would lose any ground gained by the Brady decision, resulting in a tremendous victory for gun control proponents.
Instant Check Leads to Registration
Not only does the instant check have the capability to register gun owners, it has already done so in at least one state, Ohio.
When names are checked against a federal database, all names (with their social security numbers) are coded to indicate that they are gun owners. So far, over 300,000 Ohians have had their names illegally stored by the government. Quite simply, in spite of the prohibitions in Brady and Ohio law, a gun owner registration list is at present being compiled.
That names of gun owners are being stored in a database should come as no surprise if one understands the nature of the system. The instant check laws stipulate that the names of honest gun owners cannot be stored indefinitely. But here's the rub. Citizens are entrusting government bureaucrats, via computer databases, with the names of gun purchasers.
Citizens then expect these same bureaucrats, who are on a never-ending quest for power, so simply destroy the names. In other words, we are trusting the wolf to protect the sheep. Oh, sure, the wolf can offer protection from other wolves, i.e., criminals, but who is to stop the wolf if it decides to lunge at the sheep's neck?
Our founding fathers understood that power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. They also understood that government was all about power, which led George Washington to say it was, like fire, a dangerous servant and a fearful master.
The government, through the instant registration check, purports to offer us some protection from violent criminals. It can offer no such protection because criminals will not oblige the system by subjecting themselves to a police search of their criminal history. Meanwhile, what have we lost in terms of liberty for the illusion of protection?
Governor Huckabee sets an example for others to follow. All states should follow the lead of the Arkansas Governor and refuse to treat all citizens as "guilty until proven innocent."
Gun Owners of America has steadfastly opposed the creation of a national, instant registration check. Please stand with us to defeat what may prove to be the greatest threat to our Second Amendment liberties that we have yet to face.
| Home | Ordering | Articles | Waco pics |
Instant Check Aids Illegal Gun Registry
Texas Officials Using Brady Law to Register Gun Owners
Brady, instant background check equal instant gun registration
SOMETIMES THE NET SURFS YOU... PRO Newsletter 7-7-97
Privacy: don't accept gov't snooping or society's tolerance
of it
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What we are talking about is a recent report by CNN on what they euphemistically called a "bug" in Netscape. For the computer illiterate, Netscape is a program you run on your computer to access the World Wide Web. The World Wide Web is a modern protocol update to the older Internet information transfer methods. The two PC programs used almost exclusively to "surf" the Internet are Netscape and the competing one from Microsoft.
CNN reports that "The bug makes it possible for Web-site operators to read anything stored on the hard drive of a PC logged on to the Web site." Got that? In effect the "bug" (PRO would call it a "feature") allows any website that you log onto to in a manner unknown to you, to be AT THE SAME TIME copying files off YOUR computer. CNN proved the "feature" DOES EXIST!
As usual this is diabolically clever. By getting the major manufacturers of net software to open this "backdoor" (PRO has heard repeatedly of the same "bug" in Microsoft (tm) netware long before we heard this), millions of PCs can be scanned for files of interest.
For example, "someone" could start up a website which claims to be a "militia site" but as each of those "anti-government types" check in, it scans all of their files for things of interest!
An Internet user comments: "The host site must know what files to look for. Interesting that in the course of my TWA 800 research, while accessing some U.S. military webpages that once existed but now would no longer come in, the small icons on the lower right hand side of my screen would indicate that quite a lot of data was being uploaded to the host server. The lights would go from the icon representing my computer to the host computer for almost a minute, the opposite of the normal download light sequencing. My hard drive would also be activated during this time. Gee whiz... ?? ...Probably there's another explanation for the reverse sequence, but in light of this report, it's worth pondering."
Worth pondering indeed! This writer still uses an old style shell account with a primitive terminal program that cannot be made to perform the reverse function, but there seems to be tremendous pressure out there to force us shell users out of business and into Netscape. You don't suppose this is somehow all connected do you? Nah.
But PRO does caution all Internet users to be sure that files you don't wish to be stolen or viewed by other parties (example: PRO membership lists!) are NOT on the same computer you use to access the Internet with netscape. Even commercial theft is facilitate by the "bug". For example programmers who sell expensive programs could be lured onto web sites that could then scan their computers for the source code. That could amount to millions for the right program!
One simple and effective file security solution is to get these hard drive drawers that allow you to remove the drive from your computer or turn it off with a key. What you do is have a small cheap hard drive you use to store all your netstuff and use other larger drives for more personal and important files. When accessing the net you use the keys to turn off all but the cheap net drive. This blocks any reading of your important files. The drawers are available from a place called "Dirt Cheap Drives" which advertises in Computer Shopper magazine.
The drawers also allow you to remove your drives and put them in a safe place if you are away for an extended period. You can replace your computer...that's only money, but your files represent hours and hours of work and some might never be replaced if someone steals your computer. Keeping serious data separate from empty offices also discourages "black bag jobs" aimed at acquiring confidential files.
PRO says a word to the wise should be sufficient. Be careful out there!
| Home | Ordering | Articles | Waco pics |
Instant Check Aids Illegal Gun Registry
Texas Officials Using Brady Law to Register Gun Owners
Brady, instant background check equal instant gun registration
SOMETIMES THE NET SURFS YOU... PRO Newsletter 7-7-97
Privacy: don't accept gov't snooping or society's tolerance
of it
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ESSAY / By WILLIAM SAFIRE January 8, 1998 |
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Encouraged by an act of Congress, Texas and California now demand thumbprints of applicants for drivers' licenses -- treating all drivers as potential criminals.
Using a phony excuse about airplane security, airlines now demand identification like those licenses to make sure passengers don't exchange tickets to beat the company's rate-cutting promotions.
In the much-applauded pursuit of deadbeat dads, the Feds now demand that all employers inform the government of every new hire, thereby building a data base of who is working for whom that would be the envy of the K.G.B.
Although it makes it easier to zip through tolls at bridges and highways, electric eyes reading license plates help snoopers everywhere follow the movements of each driver and passenger.
Hooked on easy borrowing, consumers turn to plastic for their purchases, making records and sending electronic signals to telemarketers who track them down at home.
Stimulated by this demographic zeroing-in, Internet predators monitor your browsing, detect your interests, measure your purchases and even observe your expressed ideas.
Nor are Big Brothers limited to government and commerce. Your friends and neighbors, the Nosy Parkers, secretly tape regular calls you make to them, and listen in to cellular calls to third parties, enhancing the video surveillance of public streets by government and private driveways by security agencies.
Enough.
Fear of crime and terrorism has caused us to let down our guard against excessive intrusion into the lives of the law-abiding. The ease of minor borrowing and the transformation of shopping into recreation has addicted us to credit cards. Taken together, the fear and the ease make a map of our lives available to cops, crazies and con men alike.
(Here comes the "to-be-sure" graph.) Crime is real; some court-ordered taps of Mafiosi and surveillance cameras of high-violence playgrounds are justifiable. So are random drug and alcohol tests of nuclear- response teams. The S.E.C. should monitor insider stock trades, and no sensible passenger minds the frisking for bombs at airports.
But doesn't this creeping confluence of government snooping, commercial tracking and cultural tolerance of eavesdropping threaten each individual American's personal freedom? And isn't it time to reverse that terrible trend toward national nakedness before it replaces privacy as an American value?
Here's how to snatch your identity back from the intruders:
1. Sign as little as possible. Warranty postcards are for suckers (your sales receipt is your guarantee), and sweepstakes are devices to show your gullibility to purchasers of your address. Throw away all mail with Ed McMahon's name on it. (I just chucked a document assuring me of being a winner of $10 million. Easy go.)
2. Write your local legislator demanding that a Privacy Impact Statement be required before passage of any new law, and call on your local U.S. President to convoke a White House Conference on Privacy, thereby demonstrating the sleeper issue's nonpartisan political clout.
3. Use snail mail, harder to intercept than E-mail. And resist mightily requests for your Social Security number. If you're a lawyer, take the state to court over drivers' fingerprinting. When a telemarketer calls, shout an imprecation and hang up. Get your kids to show you how to "disable a cookie" and download free software that lets you surf the Web in anonymity.
4. Persuade a foundation to issue a quarterly "Intrusion Index," measuring with scholarly authority the degree to which your privacy is being violated by pols, polls and peepers.
Above all -- 5. Pay cash. Costs less than borrowing and keeps you in control of your own records.
Remember: Cash is the enemy of the intruders. Use it to buy back your freedom.
The New York Times
Posted for education, research and discussion. Not for commercial
use.
| Home | Ordering | Articles | Waco pics |
Instant Check Aids Illegal Gun Registry
Texas Officials Using Brady Law to Register Gun Owners
Brady, instant background check equal instant gun registration
SOMETIMES THE NET SURFS YOU... PRO Newsletter 7-7-97
Privacy: don't accept gov't snooping or society's tolerance
of it