Jesse Ventura, the best-selling author and former Independent Minnesota governor, joined my weekly radio show to discuss his fight against the ongoing assault on American freedoms. He described airport security as "gestapo" tactics designed to condition Americans to submit to searches, not measurably to increase security.
He said he would be willing to run for president in 2016, but only in what he called the "unlikely" event that a low-budget, grassroots campaign drafted him and could succeed in including him in the presidential debates, which the parties tightly control.
Washington Update co-host Scott Draughon and I hosted the one-hour weekly show broadcast live nationally via the My Technology Lawyer network. Tune in here to listen to an achive version of the show.
The former pro wrestler's latest book is DemoCrips and ReBloodLicans: No More Gangs in Government. He compares in it both major parties to the notorious Los Angeles criminal gangs.
Ventura is the nation's most outspoken highly credentialed opponent of two-party complicity in eroding traditional American liberties. The updated book, co-authored with Dick Russell, is available here following its release in paperback two weeks ago following best-seller status as a hardcover last year, when Russell appeared on our show.
The book is especially timely following continuing revelations of massive secret surveillance by federal agencies on the American public.
The latest was a Bloomberg news report June 13, U.S. Agencies Said to Swap Data With Thousands of Firms. The report, excerpted below, said, "Thousands of technology, finance and manufacturing companies are working closely with U.S. national security agencies, providing sensitive information and in return receiving benefits that include access to classified intelligence, four people familiar with the process said."
That report followed a week of denials by authorities in both parties that the surveillance exposed former National Security Agency (NSA) whistleblower Edward Snowden posed any danger to the public or traditional freedoms. Recent revelations and analysis excerpted below includes NSA's own account of its activities, and rebuttals by other experts. Two senators challenged the veracity of NSA Director Keith Alexander, who claimed that surveillance has thwarted many attacks: Udall and Wyden Question NSA Head’s Defense of Surveillance Programs.
Update: The Justice Integrity Project published on June 16: Backgrounder on Obama's Big Data Domestic Spying System. The purpose was to resolve conflicting claims about recent revelations about the Obama-Bush domestic spying program.
One of Ventura's ongoing protests has been against what he regards as excessive security at airports, which he describes as intended to condition Americans to give up their rights -- not to improve security. The Justice Integrity Project reported those 2010-era protests in TSA Boondoogle Defies Logic, Decency. A version was published also on the Huffington Post.
Ventura often clashes with mainstream media cable TV hosts who defend mainstream political leaders and question his judgment on security issues especially. He is a former member of the U.S. Navy Underwater Demolition Team 12, the precursor to SEALs. By comparison, he argues that the typical host knows little of security risks except what they are told.
Ventura was Minnesota's governor from 1999 to 2003 after election as an independent following careers as a famed pro wrestler and The former professional wrestler has also been an actor in such films as: The Running Man (1987) and Predator (1987). He is the author or co-author of such previous books as: I Ain't Got Time to Bleed: Reworking the Body Politic from the Bottom up (2000), Quotations of Chairman Jesse (2000), Do I Stand Alone?: Going to the Mat Against Political Pawns and Media Jackals (2001), Jesse Ventura Tells It Like It Is: America's Most Outspoken Governor Speaks Out About Government (2002), The New Prohibition: Voices of Dissent Challenge the Drug War (2004).
His book features prominently sayings such as the following:
“It shall be unlawful for any national bank, or any corporation organized by the authority of any laws of Congress, to make a money contribution in connection with any election to any political office.”
—Teddy Roosevelt, The Tillman Act, 1907
“[Political parties] become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government.”
—George Washington, 1796
More generally, Ventura believes that our government has lost touch with what our Founding Fathers had in mind: “They wanted us to vote for individuals and what each individual stood for, not the political agenda of a particular group.”
So what’s the solution?
“It is my hope that this book is a step toward winning back our country,” Ventura says. “I can’t be an advocate for third-party politics anymore because parties don’t run on ideas, they run on funding from sources interested in only amassing more power. This is why we can not have political parties in government.” Ventura states that DemoCRIPS and ReBLOODlicans will most certainly be a cornerstone for reforming our electoral system, if American citizens “come out of their denial” and decide they’re “not going to stand for this corruption anymore.”
Ventura's background includes a stint as a visiting fellow at Harvard Kennedy School of Government, and New York Times bestselling author. He is currently the host and executive producer of TruTV’s Conspiracy Theory with Jesse Ventura. He has a reputation as the ultimate non-partisan truth-seeker and he has no qualms about questioning authority. His official website is: www.facebook.com/OfficialJesseVentura.
The book is available from Barnes and Noble and Amazon.com, among other places. His next book is due out October 1: They Killed Our President: 63 Facts That Prove a Conspiracy to Kill JFK.
What They're Saying About Jesse Ventura's Latest Book
In the paperback release of DemoCRIPS and ReBLOODlicans: No More Gangs in Government (Skyhorse Publishing, May 28, 2013), New York Times bestselling author and former Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura continues to expose how the two major parties have allowed corporations, lobbyists, wealthy individuals, and Super PACs to manipulate elections, bribe elected officials, and silence the average American voter. Both the Democrats and the Republicans are equally responsible for “annihilating the foundations of our democracy,” Ventura states.
Through analyzing historical documents such as the Bill of Rights, the Constitution, and letters of forewarning from the Founding Fathers, Ventura uncovers the development of the two-party system and unravels the ineptitude and gang-like mentality of both parties to reveal new evidence:
• The Bill of Rights is in the Shredder: Obama extended FISA for five more years. This bill allows “surveillance of our emails, text messages, and Internet searches without a warrant, in clear violation of the Fourth Amendment. The Director of National Intelligence has said as much himself.”
• The War on Drugs: “Here’s a novel idea to combat our debt and deficit debacle: Remove marijuana from the Controlled Substances Act, let the states decide whether they want to legalize pot for recreational or medical use, and slap on taxes similar to those we now have for alcohol and tobacco. According to two members of the House who’ve introduced such a bill, shifting from criminal enforcement to taxation could make a $100 billiondifference in the federal budget! Hats off to Reps. Jared Polis of Colorado and Earl Blumenauer of Oregon!”
• Legalizing Marijuana: “About 660,000 Americans were arrested in 2011 for possession of marijuana. To the feds, weed is still in the same legal class as LSD and heroin. The Justice Department already has issued a legal challenge to the initiatives passed [in Colorado and Washington], which six more states are also planning to consider. Nearly half of all Americans favor legalizing pot. So are the Democrips and Rebloodlicans gonna tell people that their vote doesn’t matter? Will they now wage war on citizens because we didn’t vote the way they wanted?”
• Overtaxing the Middle Class: “Taxes are going up on the middle class, while close to 20 million Americans are unemployed or underemployed, and one out of every five home-owners are still underwater. This while total corporate profits more than doubled between 2003 and 2001, from $900 billion to almost $2 trillion.”
• Corporate Tax Breaks: “Last year, while average gas prices reached a record high, ExxonMobil earned $45 billion in profit and passed Apple to become the most valuable company on the planet. Exxon also got $600 million in tax breaks and paid just 13 percent in taxes in 2011. I can’t think of one person who paid so little on such high earnings. But now that corporations are considered people, I suppose I do.”
• The Postal Service: “At age 236, the U.S. Postal Service is older than the Constitution. Congress used this financially sound institution as a slush fund by borrowing the retirement and Social Security benefits of the employees. Couple that with the Postal Accountability Enhancement Act and it’s obvious that UPS and FedEx have nothing to do with USPS branches closing around the country or discontinuing first class Saturdaymail delivery.”
• Insider Trading in Congress: “On average, members of Congress beat the market by 12 percent a year. This is way beyond luck or just being smart. Not even Warren Buffett does that well. No wonder they gave Goldman Sachs a $30 billion taxpayer-funded loan at .01 percent interest. In return, our interest rates for late credit card payments rose over 25 percent.”
• The Media: “Otherwise known as slaves to their advertisers, the media cares more about ratings than covering the important issues. They have no incentive to report reliable, unbiased news when their corporate sponsors advocate the idea that there are only two sides to politics.”
Editor's Recommendations
National Security Agency, Utah Data Center, Government website (accessed June 12, 2013.) The Utah Data Center, code-named Bumblehive, right, is the first Intelligence Community Comprehensive National Cyber-security Initiative 
(IC CNCI) data center designed to support the Intelligence Community's efforts to monitor, strengthen and protect the nation. NSA is the executive agent for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) and will be the lead agency at the center. The steady rise in available computer power and the development of novel computer platforms will enable us to easily turn the huge volume of incoming data into an asset to be exploited, for the good of the nation.
Bloomberg, U.S. Agencies Said to Swap Data With Thousands of Firms, Michael Riley, June 13, 2013. Thousands of technology, finance and manufacturing companies are working closely with U.S. national security agencies, providing sensitive information and in return receiving benefits that include access to classified intelligence, four people familiar with the process said. In addition to private communications, information about equipment specifications and data needed for the Internet to work -- much of which isn’t subject to oversight because it doesn’t involve private communications -- is valuable to intelligence, U.S. law-enforcement officials and the military. These programs, whose participants are known as trusted partners, extend far beyond what was revealed by Edward Snowden, a computer technician who did work for the National Security Agency. The role of private companies has come under intense scrutiny since his disclosure this month that the NSA is collecting millions of U.S. residents’ telephone records and the computer communications of foreigners from Google Inc (GOOG). and other Internet companies under court order. Many of these same Internet and telecommunications companies voluntarily provide U.S. intelligence organizations with additional data, such as equipment specifications, that don’t involve private communications of their customers, the four people said.
Zero Hedge, Thousands Of Firms Trade Confidential Data With The US Government In Exchange For Classified Intelligence, Tyler Durden, June 14, 2013. hThe rabbit hole just got deeper. A whole lot deeper. On Sunday we predicated that "there's one reason why the administration, James Clapper and the NSA should just keep their mouths shut as the PRISM-gate fallout escalates: with every incremental attempt to refute some previously unknown facet of the US Big Brother state, a new piece of previously unleaked information from the same intelligence organization now scrambling for damage control, emerges and exposes the brand new narrative as yet another lie, forcing even more lies, more retribution against sources, more journalist persecution and so on." And like a hole that just gets deeper the more you dug and exposes ever more dirt, tonight's installment revealing one more facet of the conversion of a once great republic into a great fascist, "big brother" state, comes from Bloomberg which reports that "thousands of technology, finance and manufacturing companies are working closely with U.S. national security agencies, providing sensitive information and in return receiving benefits that include access to classified intelligence, four people familiar with the process said." The companies extend far wider than the legacy telcos, such as Verizon, that launched the entire NSA-spying scandal a week ago: "Makers of hardware and software, banks, Internet security providers, satellite telecommunications companies and many other companies also participate in the government programs. In some cases, the information gathered may be used not just to defend the nation but to help infiltrate computers of its adversaries."
Wired, Connecting the Dots on PRISM, Phone Surveillance, and the NSA’s Massive Spy Center, James Bamford, June 6, 2013. Physically, the NSA has always been well protected by miles of high fences and electrified wire, thousands of cameras, and gun-toting guards. But that was to protect the agency from those on the outside trying to get in to steal secrets. Now it is confronting a new challenge: those on the inside going out and giving the secrets away. As someone who has written many books and articles about the agency, I have seldom seen the NSA in such a state. Like a night prowler with a bag of stolen goods suddenly caught in a powerful Klieg light, it now finds itself under the glare of nonstop press coverage, accused of robbing the public of its right to privacy. Despite the standard denials from the agency’s public relations office, the documents outline a massive operation to secretly keep track of everyone’s phone calls on a daily basis – billions upon billions of private records; and another to reroute the pipes going in and out of Google, Apple, Yahoo, and the other Internet giants through Fort Meade – figuratively if not literally.
But long before Edward Snowden walked out of the NSA with his trove of documents, whistleblowers there had been trying for years to bring attention to the massive turn toward domestic spying that the agency was making. In my new cover story for Wired’s July issue, which will be published online Thursday, I show how he has become the most powerful intelligence chief in the nation’s history. Never before has anyone in America’s intelligence sphere come close to his degree of power, the number of people under his command, the expanse of his rule, the length of his reign, or the depth of his secrecy. The article also sheds light on the enormous privatization not only of the intelligence agencies but now also of Cyber Command, with thousands of people working for little-known companies hired to develop the weapons of cyber war, cyber targeting, and cyber exploitation. The Snowden case demonstrates the potential risks involved when the nation turns its spying and eavesdropping over to companies with lax security and inadequate personnel policies. The risks increase exponentially when those same people must make critical decisions involving choices that may lead to war, cyber or otherwise.
RT (Russia Today), ‘NSA ‘bamboozling’ lawmakers for access to Americans’ private data’ – agency, Staff report, June 12, 2013. American citizens hoping to change the way the NSA monitors their everyday activities have little hope of recourse, longtime agency veteran Bill Binney told RT. He said the way the Patriot Act is interpreted is the a big first step toward totalitarianism. American citizens hoping to change the way the NSA monitors their everyday activities have little hope of recourse, longtime agency veteran Bill Binney told RT. He said the way the Patriot Act is interpreted is the a big first step toward totalitarianism.
RT: I’m sitting here with Mr. William Binney -- he’s a thirty-two year veteran of the NSA who helped design a top-secret program that he says broadly changed Americans’ personal data. And he actually helped crack those codes, and enter into this. He’s now a whistleblower. Mr. Binney, thank you so much for joining me. So first of all, let’s talk about the latest information that has come out from this NSA spying on Americans.
Bill Binney: Well, first of all, the FISA warrant that was issued to the FBI to get the data from Verizon…that’s been going on, according to the paper anyway, since 2007. And this is like being renewed every three months. So if you look at the top-right corner of that order, it’s 13-80 -- that means it’s the 80thorder since this year of 2013. So when you start to say, so what are the other 79 orders? You can figure other companies. And this is like the second order of 2013, for each company. So that maximum -- you would divide 80 by two, and the maximum number of companies that could be involved in this order would be 40. But I’m sure that there are other things, that they have other orders they are issuing than just this kind, for the service providers, or the telecoms.
Atlantic, The Irrationality of Giving Up This Much Liberty to Fight Terror, Conor Friedersdorf, June 11, 2013. When confronted by far deadlier threats, Americans are much less willing to cede freedom and privacy. Of course we should dedicate significant resources and effort to stopping terrorism. But consider some hard facts. In 2001, the year when America suffered an unprecedented terrorist attack -- by far the biggest in its history -- roughly 3,000 people died from terrorism in the U.S. Let's put that in context. That same year in the United States: 71,372 died of diabetes. 29,573 were killed by guns. 13,290 were killed in drunk driving accidents. That's what things looked like at the all-time peak for deaths by terrorism.
Related News Coverage
Rolling Stone, Michael Hastings, 'Rolling Stone' Contributor, Dead at 33, Tim Dickinson, June 18, 2013. The bold journalist died in a car accident in Los Angeles. Michael Hastings, the fearless journalist whose reporting brought down the career of General Stanley McChrystal, has died in a car accident in Los Angeles, Rolling Stone has learned. He was 33. Hastings' unvarnished 2010 profile of McChrystal in the pages of Rolling Stone, "The Runaway General," captured the then-supreme commander of the U.S.-led war effort in Afghanistan openly mocking his civilian commanders in the White House. See also his two major articles: BuzzFeed, Exclusive: The Tragic Imprisonment Of John McTiernan, Hollywood Icon, Michael Hastings, May 24, 2013. The legendary director of Die Hard and The Hunt for Red October, John McTiernan, left, is serving a year in federal prison thanks to a Hollywood wannabe prosecutor, a remake of Rollerball, and a rogue private eye. In an exclusive interview, McTiernan’s wife Gail says, “I don’t know if he’s going to make it.” Also, Buzzfeed, Why Democrats Love To Spy On Americans, Michael Hastings, June 7, 2013. Besides Senators Ron Wyden and Mark Udall, most Democrats abandoned their civil liberty positions during the age of Obama. With a new leak investigation looming, the Democrat leadership are now being forced to confront all the secrets they’ve tried to hide.
FireDogLake, Uncle Sam = Big Brother? U.S. Rep. Alan Grayson, June 14, 2013. In George Orwell’s novel 1984, “Big Brother” is the dictator of Oceania. No one knows whether Big Brother is a real person, or simply the personification of the dictatorship. Big Brother spies on every citizen through “telescreens.” Everyone is reminded constantly, “Big Brother is Watching You.” Let’s compare that to the recent revelations about the Orwellian-named National Security Agency (NSA), an arm of the U.S. Department of Defense. See also, Sag Harbor Basement Films via YouTube,
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