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The consolidation of power at the federal level in the guise of public safety is a national trend and should be guarded against at all costs. This erosion of rights, however incremental, is the slow death of freedom.
We have reached a point where the power of the federal government is such that they can essentially target anyone of their choosing.
We are citizens, not subjects, and we must stay ever vigilant that we remain so.
These guys love to show their creds, thought Reece to himself. He wondered if they knew the rest of the military thought they were all just guys who couldn’t get into the FBI or CIA but didn’t have the balls to be street cops, instead choosing to hide out in NCIS for a career of busting eighteen-year-old kids who pop positive on the monthly Navy drug tests.
Even their name was deceptive. Despite leading with an N for Naval, NCIS was not even a part of the Navy. Rather, it was a federal law enforcement agency staffed with civilian special agents focused on investigating naval personnel. No one liked them much.
They own the big media outlets, dangle access to interviews, and exert their influence to manipulate the story while intimidating the press corps. It’s not as bad as what my family endured in Czechoslovakia in the eighties, but it’s getting there.
Find yourself a used iPhone, maybe from Craigslist, where you have no relationship with the seller. Pay cash for it, toss the SIM card, and restore it to factory settings. You’ll need to set up a burner email to get an anonymous iTunes account. Do that from a library computer or one not associated with you.
“Use cash to buy an iTunes gift card so you can download Signal. It’s a private messaging service from the app store. Make this your username.”
“It’s basically a texting app. You’ll need cell service to get Signal, so just use a prepaid SIM bought with cash. After that, don’t use cell again. Only use it over public Wi-Fi. Also download a VPN from Private Internet Access. Pay for it with a gift card you buy with cash. Keep Wi-Fi turned off when you are not actively using it. In fact, keep the phone turned off when you are not using it.
“We do a lot more than just swim around and shoot bad guys these days. Plus, all Team guys are paranoid about communication and social media. A lot of us use little tricks like this to keep Big Brother at bay. We’ve seen the capability we have to track our targets overseas using their phones and we don’t want anyone doing that to us.
He never understood military base policies that prohibited those in uniform from carrying personal weapons on base or even keeping them in their cars. Reece could check out fully automatic machine guns and grenades from the same base upon which he was not allowed to carry his 9mm pistol. Policies created by bureaucrats in uniform essentially disarmed some of the most highly trained and competent warriors on earth. It was only a matter of time until the enemy took advantage.
“In Judges, Gideon asks God how to choose his men for battle. The Lord told Gideon to take his men down to the river and drink. The men who flopped down on their bellies and drank like dogs were no good to him. Gideon watched as some of his men knelt down and drank with their heads watching the horizon, spears in hand. Though they were few, they were the men he needed. You’ve always been one of the few, James. Keep watching the horizon.”
“Not directly. We pay her husband ten percent to be our consultant. Technically, contingency lobbying is illegal, but we pay him ten million for his services out of last year’s appropriation to give everything the appearance of being aboveboard. It’s obviously a sham, but nobody’s looking too hard. People think that politicians are on the take and they’re right, but it’s not in the way that everyone thinks.
Nobody takes bags of cash these days. If you did, you’d end up in federal prison. It’s all done with undisclosed conflicts of interest. You show me a member of Congress who’s part of the appropriations process and I’ll show you a wife, child, or brother-in-law with a company that benefits from federal dollars. Everybody does it. The Hartleys are just playing on a different level.”
“They, they have this program where they radicalize at-risk individuals from target populations. They recruit them to what they think is a radical Islamic movement and then use them as expendable assets. I know it sounds crazy, but it’s true. I swear.”
There was only one place where a lazy lawyer who was scared of the courtroom could thrive: government service. A law school friend told him about the Navy JAG program, and he was immediately sold.
