Online Piracy and Internet Security: Congress Asks the Right Question but Offers the Wrong Answers

By Paul Rosenzweig
January 17, 2012

The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA) are well-intentioned House and Senate proposals aimed at stopping the theft of intellectual property through foreign-based websites. Intellectual property is a critical and important form of property. The Framers understood that well enough to authorize the establishment of intellectual property protections when they drafted the Constitution, and we have had copyright protection in America ever since.

Some malicious actors use the Internet as a means of violating the copyright interests of creative producers in a wholesale manner. It is common to find free copies online (often of pretty good quality) of many recent movie and recording releases that can be downloaded and enjoyed without the original creators receiving compensation. That is fundamentally wrong, and the intent of the pending bills—to end online piracy—is the right idea.

But the manner in which these bills attempt to achieve their ends likely would not work. In fact, they would make the Internet generally less secure for everyone.

Understanding Internet Protocols

At the heart of the problem is the requirement that, as PIPA puts it, operators of the Internet can be ordered to “take…technically feasible and reasonable measures” to prevent domain names from resolving to their own Internet protocol addresses. The Internet Protocol or IP address is the number string that is the actual address of a website; the domain name is its common text name. Typically, a domain name resolver function translates, for example, a domain name like “heritage.org” into “93.184.221.133.” What PIPA and SOPA say is that operators like Verizon could be ordered by a court to stop that translation function.

To understand why this is one of the significant problems raised by the bills requires a bit of a technical detour into the workings of the Internet. To begin with, the current protocols of the Internet do not have an “authentication” function. The Internet is designed to move information effectively and efficiently from one place to the next, but it does not have a general security system in place to warn people when their traffic is being hijacked.

Without that sort of security system, efforts to navigate the Web are susceptible to “man-in-the-middle” attacks where the malicious actor steps into the middle of a conversation and hijacks it by making independent connections with the victims. From the middle vantage point, he can relay messages between the victims, making them believe that they are talking directly to each other over a private connection, when in fact the entire conversation is controlled by the malicious actor.

The Internet is also susceptible to pure spoofing—for example, where your request to connect to your bank at “chase.com” is maliciously redirected to a phony “chase.com” website and your login information is collected. For many years, the engineers responsible for the specifications of Internet traffic (the Internet Engineering Task Force, or IETF) have been aware of this vulnerability—which costs millions of dollars every year in theft—and they have been working on a solution.

Internet Security Measures Already Proposed

That quest has resulted in a recent set of technical specifications adopted by the IETF that uses the acronym DNSSEC, which stands for Domain Name System Security Extension. Under DNSSEC, the IETF has proposed a suite of security add-on functionalities that would become part of the accepted Internet Protocol. The new security features would allow a user to confirm the authenticity of a domain name and assure the data integrity of the domain name system (DNS). In other words, the DNSSEC protocols would allow users to be sure that when they attempt to connect to a domain name, such as “whitehouse.gov,” they are reaching the whitehouse.gov website, and they have not been maliciously redirected to some phony facsimile.

Pursuant to DNSSEC, every website will have a certificate of authenticity that will verify that the site is, in fact, the site it purports to be. So, once DNSSEC is deployed, a “security resolver” function would be able to check the authenticity of the registration of the “chase.com” website that your browser is accessing and return to the user either a confirmation that the website is the real chase.com or a warning that its authenticity could not be verified.

Interfering with the Internet

So why is DNSSEC relevant to a discussion of SOPA and PIPA? Those bills are intended to stop online piracy, but instead of attacking the pirates directly—mostly because they are offshore and outside U.S. jurisdiction—SOPA and PIPA look at Internet Service Providers (ISPs) like Verizon and use them as the enforcement mechanism. Both SOPA and PIPA would allow the Attorney General to secure court orders that would require ISPs to prevent Internet traffic from going to pirating websites.

These bills would essentially allow the Attorney General to order ISPs to do something similar to what DNSSEC is trying to prevent: blocking an attempt to reach a website. From the browser code perspective, there is no practical difference between blocking access to the real chase.com and redirecting it to a phony one and blocking access to the real (but criminal) freeillegaldownloads.com—they are nearly identical operations.

To be sure, some differences remain. The latest versions of SOPA and PIPA (which used to have a “block and redirect” requirement but now have only a “block access” requirement) are slightly improved in that they no longer function exactly like criminals do. But they are still close enough to be troublesome. For one thing, the blocking function is likely to slow down domain-name resolution for the entire Internet. It will doubtless begin to erode the level of trust needed in the DNS system. And if American law establishes the principle of permitting DNS filtering, other countries will as well, and the concept of a universal addressing system will be degraded.

More fundamentally, if you disrupt the DNS resolution system, then…you disrupt it. We can really have no idea of the extent of the consequences of mandating the “block only” capability.  But adding that functionality—so that an ISP can, when ordered by a court, disregard the basic directions of the DNS system—would only add complexity to the Internet addressing function and make it more likely that malicious efforts to “block and redirect” traffic would succeed. Any “blocking” function would, at a minimum, interfere with the anticipated operation of DNSSEC, complicating its ability to enhance security.

Would SOPA Even Accomplish Its Goal?

Adding to their other problems, SOPA and PIPA simply would not work. Even if the Attorney General obtained a blocking order that stopped Verizon from letting one go directly to a pirate website, it is relatively easy to work around the block. We can reasonably predict that a host of redirector domains would soon spring up, many of them linked to ISPs outside the United States and outside the Attorney General’s jurisdiction. And after that, there would be downloadable program applications to get to those redirectors. Indeed, one such program, known as “DeSOPA,” has already been developed and deployed as a proof of concept effort and can be downloaded as a Mozilla Firefox extension.

One expert from Sandia labs has called the DNS filtering mandates of SOPA and PIPA a “whack-a-mole” approach.[1] The requirements are sufficiently easy to evade that one can almost predict that the next iteration of PIPA or SOPA will try to make writing, downloading, and using programs to avoid a SOPA/PIPA mandate illegal. That is an effort doomed to failure.

Perhaps most importantly, however, these bills put Congress in the business of managing an integral function of the Internet in ways that are likely to have unanticipated consequences. A working domain-name system is like a working mailing address—the rest of the system depends on it. If the addressing system is compromised, apps will not work, queries will not be answered, and emails will not be received. All those depend on domain names being resolved in the right way. Once you go down the road of allowing (or ordering) the functionality of domain-name filtering (even for a “good” purpose), you create the potential for restricting domain-name access for a host of other purposes.

The underlying principle is known as “domain name universality”—the idea that all of the addressing routers on the system, no matter where they are, will take you to the same domain address for a given website. Everything about Internet communication is based on this principle, and one consequence of PIPA and SOPA is that the principle would be called into question. As a group of leading technology experts (some of whom actually built the Internet) stated:

Mandated DNS filtering would be minimally effective and would present technical challenges that could frustrate important security initiatives. Additionally, it would promote development of techniques and software that circumvent use of the DNS. These actions would threaten the DNS’s ability to provide universal naming, a primary source of the Internet’s value as a single, unified, global communications network…. DNS filtering will be evaded through trivial and often automated changes through easily accessible and installed software plugins. Given this strong potential for evasion, the long-term benefits of using mandated DNS filtering to combat infringement seem modest at best.[2]

Or, as Dr. Leonard Napolitano of Sandia Labs put it in his letter to Congress, the bills: “1) are unlikely to be effective, 2) would negatively impact U.S. and global cybersecurity and Internet functionality, and 3) would delay the full adoption of DNSSEC and its security improvements over DNS.”

Good Intentions, but Dangerous Flaws

SOPA and PIPA would not work; to the extent that they did, they would make Internet security protocols like DNSSEC more difficult to implement; and, at their core, the bills violate the fundamental principle of universality that makes the Internet function as a global communications system.

Late last week, Senator Patrick Leahy (D–VT), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and one of the sponsors of PIPA, indicated that he would consider removing the DNS blocking provisions from the bill and “study” the matter further. Though the inefficacy of DNS blocking probably needs no further study, his statement is a welcome recognition of the problematic nature of these provisions which, unfortunately, remain a part of the House version, SOPA.

One final point is not a technical argument, but a powerful policy principle: If the Chinese or Russians were proposing to do this to prevent access to dissident websites, the U.S. would be screaming bloody murder, and rightly so. Yet if this functionality were deployed, the ease with which censorship could occur would increase, and the United States would lose some of its moral authority to oppose information censorship. America has been struggling internationally to prevent the discussion of “cybersecurity” from mutating into a discussion of restricting Internet content—and these bills go in the opposite direction.

Paul Rosenzweig is a Visiting Fellow in the Center for Legal and Judicial Studies and the Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign Policy Studies, a division of the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for International Studies, at The Heritage Foundation.

What Is The Proper Role of the Courts?

January 20, 2012

In the Federalist Papers, Alexander Hamilton referred to the judiciary as the least dangerous branch of government, stating that judges under the Constitution would possess “neither force nor will, but merely judgment.” Yet recently, the courts have wielded great power, directing the President on questions as monumental as how to conduct war, and micromanaging the states concerning even the most minute details of local school and prison operations. What is the proper role of the courts?

“[T]he accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.” - James Madison, Federalist 47

The Founders studied political philosophy and the rise and fall of nations throughout history. When confronted with tyranny on their own shores, they rebelled against the dangerous consolidation of power in the British monarchy. Through reason and experience, they recognized that government can threaten liberty by abusing its powers, and they sought to avoid this by separating powers in the U.S. federal government. They believed that this separation of powers, coupled with a system of checks and balances, would make “ambition … counteract ambition.” Rather than depending on officeholders to restrain themselves (which given the power of ambition is unsafe), or on rules set down on paper (which are too easily ignored), the Founders gave each branch authority to exercise, and an interest in defending its own prerogatives, and thereby limited the ability of any one branch to usurp power.

Accordingly, the Founders vested the legislative power (the power to make the laws) in Congress, the executive power (the power to enforce the laws) in the President, and the judicial power (the power to interpret the laws and decide concrete factual cases) with the courts. But even these powers were not unfettered. Federal courts, for example, can hear only “cases or controversies”: they cannot issue advisory opinions. The courts cannot expound on a law of their choosing or at the request of even the President himself, but must wait for a genuine case between actual aggrieved parties to be properly presented to the court.

In explaining judicial power under the Constitution, Hamilton noted that the courts would have the authority to determine whether laws passed by the legislature were consistent with the fundamental and superior law of the Constitution. If a law was contrary to the Constitution, then it was void. Not surprisingly, the Supreme Court agreed, famously announcing its authority to rule on the validity of laws—known as judicial review—in the case of Marbury v. Madison. In weighing the validity of a provision of the Judiciary Act of 1789, Chief Justice John Marshall declared that “It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is.”

“Those who framed the Constitution chose their words carefully; they debated at great length the most minute points. The language they chose meant something. It is incumbent upon the Court to determine what that meaning was.” Attorney General Edwin Meese
July 9, 1985

But the Marbury Court did not claim that the courts possessed the exclusive or supreme authority to interpret the constitutionality of laws. The other branches of government are also legitimately responsible for interpreting the Constitution. The President, for example, takes an oath to support the Constitution, and carries out this oath by determining which laws to sign. While the President may sign or veto legislation for political or policy reasons, the President faithfully discharges his oath by vetoing legislation if he believes that it would violate the Constitution. If the law was signed by one of his predecessors, a President may engage in constitutional interpretation by choosing not to enforce it if he believes it to be unconstitutional.

Thus, President Thomas Jefferson ordered his Attorney General not to enforce the Alien and Sedition Acts because he believed that they violated the First Amendment. Jefferson did this even though some courts had held that the Acts were constitutional. Jefferson’s action is an early practical example of the President using his independent role and judgment to interpret the Constitution.

Members of Congress also take an oath to support the Constitution. Congress interprets the Constitution by deciding which laws to enact. Congress may (and does) choose to enact or reject legislation for political or policy reasons, but when its Members reject legislation that would violate the Constitution, they are acting in accordance with their oaths.

That is how our system is supposed to work. But over time, the Supreme Court has grabbed power by declaring that “the federal judiciary is supreme in the exposition of the law of the Constitution.” The Supreme Court has even gone so far as to declare that its decisions that interpret the Constitution are the supreme law of the land.

Unfortunately, the political branches have largely acceded to these bloated claims. For example, when Congress was considering the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act—popularly known as McCain-Feingold—which imposed numerous restrictions on election-related speech, its Members delivered speeches acknowledging that provisions of the Act were likely unconstitutional. That should have ended the debate.

But some Members surprisingly went on to state that questions of constitutionality were for the Supreme Court, not Congress, to decide, and that Congress should pass the legislation because it was too important not to enact. This was a flagrant abdication of Congress’s role in determining the constitutionality of legislation.

Similarly, when President George W. Bush signed the legislation, he issued a statement asserting that he expected the courts to resolve his “reservations about the constitutionality” of provisions of the Act. This once again left the courts to answer constitutional questions that the President could have and should have decided himself. Thus, by the acquiescence of Congress and the President, the weakest branch has largely succeeded in its self-anointed claim of supremacy.

The federal courts have not only grabbed power. They have also changed how judges carry out one of the core function of the judiciary: interpreting laws. The proper role of a judge in a constitutional republic is a modest one. Ours is a government of laws and not men. This basic truth requires that disputes be adjudicated based on what the law actually says, rather than the whims of judges.

In determining whether a contested law is consistent with the Constitution, judges act within their proper judicial power when they give effect to the original public meaning of the words of the law and the Constitution. This necessarily means that judges acting in accordance with their constitutional duties will at times uphold laws that may be bad policy, and strike down laws that may be good policy. This is because judicial review requires the judge to determine not whether the law leads to good or bad results, but whether the law violates the Constitution.

In recent decades, judges have engaged in judicial activism, deciding cases according to their own policy preferences rather than by applying the law impartially according to its original public meaning. They have become enamored of ideas like “living constitutionalism,” the theory that the Constitution evolves and changes not through the amendment process set out in the Constitution itself, but as a result of the decisions of judges who supposedly serve as the supreme social arbiters. They have drawn on external sources like foreign laws when the outcome they desired did not comport with the original public meaning of the law under review.

“The danger is not, that the judges will be too firm in resisting public opinion … but, that they will be ready to yield themselves to the passions, and politics, and prejudices of the day.” - Joseph Story
1833

 

Liberal activist Justice William Brennan famously said that “With five votes you can do anything around here”—five votes being a majority of the Supreme Court. Living up to Brennan’s boast, the federal courts have awarded the federal government power to regulate matters well beyond its constitutional authority. The courts themselves have taken over school systems and prisons for decades at a time, created new rights found nowhere in the Constitution, whittled away at constitutional rights (like property rights) that they apparently dislike, and asserted that they have the authority to decide questions concerning how to conduct the War on Terror that are constitutionally reserved to Congress and the President.

The courts have increasingly intervened on what are properly political questions. They have thereby undermined the ability of the American people to decide important issues through their elected representatives. Not surprisingly, the courts have become increasingly politicized institutions, and the nomination and confirmation of judges has also been politicized.

The Constitution is resilient, and it provides its own mechanism for renewal. The President nominates, and the Senate confirms, federal judges to serve during good behavior. If America is to be again a country of laws, and not of men, the people must demand that their President nominate and Senators confirm only judges who will conform to the proper role of a judge, and rule based upon the words and the original public meaning of the Constitution.

Robert Alt is the Deputy Director of and Senior Legal Fellow in the Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at The Heritage Foundation.

 

Enduring Truths

• Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist Papers, No. 78, “The Judiciary Department,” and No. 81, “The Judiciary Continued, and the Distribution of the Judicial Authority.”
  Hamilton explains the importance of an independent judicial branch and discusses the meaning of judicial review. Thought by Hamilton to be “the least dangerous branch,” the judiciary has neither the ability nor the resources to create and enforce laws. It remains the “proper and peculiar province” of the courts to interpret statutes and determine whether they comport with the Constitution.
• Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, Book 3, Chapter IV, “Who Is the Final Judge or Interpreter in Constitutional Controversies.”
  One of the cornerstones of American jurisprudential interpretation, Commentaries provides a deep and methodical examination of the Constitution and reveals how the Constitution was viewed and interpreted after its adoption. In Chapter IV, Justice Story explains the nature of judicial review and sets forth a philosophy of judicial restraint.
• Edwin Meese, “Before the American Bar Association.” July 9, 1985, Washington D.C.
  In the first in a series of historic speeches, Attorney General Edwin Meese discussed the proper role of the Supreme Court and the singular importance of enforcing the Constitution’s original meaning. The proper way to interpret the Constitution is for judges to discern the original meaning of the constitutional text as it was written and publicly understood at the time of ratification. Because of this speech and the vigorous debate that followed, many judges have returned to a jurisprudence of originalism.
• Ronald Reagan, “The Investiture of Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Associate Justice Antonin Scalia at the White House,” September 26, 1986, Washington D.C.
  In a speech before the investiture of Chief Justice Rehnquist and Associate Justice Scalia to the Supreme Court, President Reagan outlines the importance of judicial restraint in order to ensure that our government remains one that is governed by the people. The role of the judicial branch is to interpret the law, while the ability to enact and enforce those laws is left to the legislative and executive branches. President Reagan understood that freedom is not preserved by one branch alone. Rather, our freedom is secure only when the entirety of our constitutional system works together and no branch is given the upper hand.

Current Issues

• EXPANSION OF POWER. Todd Gaziano, Randy Barnett, and Nathaniel Stewart, “Why the Personal Mandate to Buy Health Insurance Is Unprecedented and Unconstitutional,” December 9, 2009.
  The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, popularly known as “Obamacare,” includes a mandate that all private citizens enter into a contract with a private company to purchase a good or service, or be punished by a fine labeled a “tax,” which is unprecedented in American history. For this reason, there are no Supreme Court decisions authorizing this exercise of federal power. Although it is always difficult for the Supreme Court to thwart what is perceived to be the popular will, the majority of the justices who are inclined to preserve the system of enumerated powers and adhere to the original meaning of the text of the Constitution will have little inclination or incentive to stretch the Commerce Clause to uphold the unconstitutional scheme presented in Obamacare.
• JUDICIAL ACTIVISM. Robert Alt and Hans von Spakovsky, “The Liberal Mythology of an ‘Activist’ Court: Citizens United and Ledbetter,” June 15, 2010.
  Liberals are currently engaged in a concerted effort to redefine judicial activism. Rather than accepting the true definition of judicial activism—when a judge applies his or her own policy preferences to uphold a statute or other government action that is clearly forbidden by the Constitution—liberals now apply the term any time a statute is struck down or a court delivers an unfavorable decision. This new tactic is on display in the Left’s response to two major Supreme Court cases: Citizens United v. FEC and Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. These cynical and derisive attacks are unfair to the justices who participated in these decisions and injure the public’s faith and confidence in the judicial system.
• ELECTED JUDICIARY. Deborah O’Malley, “A Defense of the Elected Judiciary,” September 9, 2010.
  Activist judges and activist judicial rulings have led to the increasing politicization of judicial selection. A well-funded movement advocates “merit” selection in which unelected, unaccountable experts and special interests recommend the appointment—and in some cases actually select—judges as a way to combat politicization. This process simply moves the politics behind closed doors. Judicial elections are subject to potential flaws, but there are also due-process checks in that system. Judicial elections better meet the goals of promoting judicial independence and assuring public accountability than does so-called merit selection.

By Patrick Louis Knudsen and Emily Goff
November 1, 2011Revised and Updated on January 12, 2012

Download a PDF version with hyperlinks to House and Senate Appropriations Committee documents: Appropriations Tracker: FY 2012

Designed to inform American policymakers and citizens, the Appropriations Tracker: FY 2012 monitors the progress of appropriations bills as they move through the House and Senate. This tracker will be updated regularly to reflect the most recent status of these discretionary spending bills as they progress through each chamber.

Appropriators are aiming to meet the $1.043 trillion limit established under the Budget Control Act (BCA), the product of last summer’s debt ceiling negotiations. (The BCA does not specify amounts for individual appropriations bills.) Because this spending target is disturbingly high, the tracker measures the appropriators’ bills against three other important benchmarks.

The first comparison is with enacted FY 2011 levels, which total approximately $1.05 trillion. Second, the tracker compares bills with amounts in the House-passed budget resolution for FY 2012, which reduced total appropriations to $1.019 trillion (excluding war funding). This is the minimum degree of spending reduction appropriators should be striving for.

Third, the spending bills are compared to the FY 2008 spending levels to show how much work Congress has to do just to return to the levels in place prior to the stimulus and bailout spending binge of 2009–2010.

As of November 1, the House has passed six of the 12 FY 2012 appropriations bills. Three other House appropriations bills have been reported by the House Appropriations Committee and are awaiting a vote by the full House. One bill is still in the Appropriations Committee, while two bills are still in progress in the Appropriations Subcommittee.

The Senate, which never passed a budget resolution this year, has passed only one bill as of November 1. Ten other measures have been reported by the Appropriations Committee and are awaiting a vote by the full Senate, and one bill is currently being drafted by the Subcommittee. Senators this week plan to take up three bills—Agriculture, Commerce-Justice-Science, and Transportation-HUD—in a single package called a “minibus.” These bills are denoted with a pound sign (#) in the tracker.

As they stand at this point, spending in the House appropriations bills totals $1.040 trillion, $3 billion below the BCA cap but well above both the budget resolution and FY 2008 levels. The total for the Senate bills to date exceeds even the BCA cap by $800 million. Both the House and Senate have indicated they plan to provide the President’s request of $126.5 billion for war funding, which is not counted against the cap levels.

As these bills move through the Congress, check back here to monitor their progress.

RFID chips are being embedded in everything from jeans to paper money, and your privacy is at stake.

Bar codes are something most of us never think about. We go to the grocery store to buy dog food, the checkout person runs our selection over the scanner, there’s an audible beep or boop, and then we’re told how much money we owe. Bar codes in that sense are an invisible technology that we see all the time, but without thinking about what’s in front of our eyes.

Bar codes have been with us so long, and they’re so ubiquitous, that its hard to remember that they’re a relatively new technology that took a while to catch on. The patent for bar codes was issued in 1952. It took twenty years before a standard for bar codes was approved, but they still didn’t catch on. Ten years later, only 15,000 suppliers were using bar codes. That changed in 1984. By 1987 – only three years later! – 75,000 suppliers were using bar codes. That’s one heck of a growth curve.

So what changed in 1984? Who, or what, caused the change?

Wal-Mart.

When Wal-Mart talks, suppliers listen. So when Wal-Mart said that it wanted to use bar codes as a better way to manage inventory, bar codes became de rigeur. If you didn’t use bar codes, you lost Wal-Mart’s business. That’s a death knell for most of their suppliers.

The same thing is happening today. I’m here to tell you that the bar code’s days are numbered. There’s a new technology in town, one that at first blush might seem insignificant to security professionals, but it’s a technology that is going to be a big part of our future. And how do I know this? Pin it on Wal-Mart again; they’re the big push behind this new technology.

So what is it? RFID tags.

RFID 101

Invented in 1969 and patented in 1973, but only now becoming commercially and technologically viable, RFID tags are essentially microchips, the tinier the better. Some are only 1/3 of a millimeter across. These chips act as transponders (transmitters/responders), always listening for a radio signal sent by transceivers, or RFID readers. When a transponder receives a certain radio query, it responds by transmitting its unique ID code, perhaps a 128-bit number, back to the transceiver. Most RFID tags don’t have batteries (How could they? They’re 1/3 of a millimeter!). Instead, they are powered by the radio signal that wakes them up and requests an answer.

Most of these “broadcasts” are designed to be read between a few inches and several feet away, depending on the size of the antenna and the power driving the RFID tags (some are in fact powered by batteries, but due to the increased size and cost, they are not as common as the passive, non-battery-powered models). However, it is possible to increase that distance if you build a more sensitive RFID receiver.

RFID chips cost up to 50 cents, but prices are dropping. Once they get to 5 cents each, it will be cost-efficient to put RFID tags in almost anything that costs more than a dollar.

Who’s using RFID?

RFID is already in use all around us. Ever chipped your pet dog or cat with an ID tag? Or used an EZPass through a toll booth? Or paid for gas using ExxonMobils’ SpeedPass? Then you’ve used RFID.

Some uses, especially those related to security, seem like a great idea. For instance, Delta is testing RFID on some flights, tagging 40,000 customer bags in order to reduce baggage loss and make it easier to route bags if customers change their flight plans.

Three seaport operators – who account for 70% of the world’s port operations – agreed to deploy RFID tags to track the 17,000 containers that arrive each day at US ports. Currently, less than 2% are inspected. RFID tags will be used to track the containers and the employees handling them.

The United States Department of Defense is moving into RFID in order to trace military supply shipments. During the first Gulf War, the DOD made mistakes in its supply allocation. To streamline operations, the U.S. military has placed RFID tags on 270,000 cargo containers and tracks those shipments throughout 40 countries.

On a smaller level, but one that will instantly resonate with security pros, Star City Casino in Sydney, Australia placed RFID tags in 80,000 employee uniforms in order to put a stop to theft. The same idea would work well in corporate PCs, networking equipment, and handhelds.

In all of these cases, RFID use seems reasonable. It is non-intrusive, and it seems to balance security and privacy. Other uses for RFID, however, may be troublesome.

Visa is combining smart cards and RFID chips so people can conduct transactions without having to use cash or coins. These smart cards can also be incorporated into cell phones and other devices. Thus, you could pay for parking, buy a newspaper, or grab a soda from a vending machine without opening your wallet. This is wonderfully convenient, but the specter of targeted personal ads popping up as I walk through the mall, a la Minority Report, does not thrill me.

Michelin, which manufactures 800,000 tires a day, is going to insert RFID tags into its tires. The tag will store a unique number for each tire, a number that will be associated with the car’s VIN (Vehicle Identification Number). Good for Michelin, and car manufacturers, and fighting crime. Potentially bad for you. Who will assure your privacy? Do you really want your car’s tires broadcasting your every move?

The European Central Bank may embed RFID chips in the euro note. Ostensibly to combat counterfeiters and money-launderers, it would also enable banks to count large amounts of cash in seconds. Unfortunately, such a move would also makes it possible for governments to track the passage of cash from individual to individual. Cash is the last truly anonymous way to buy and sell. With RFID tags, that anonymity would be gone. In addition, banks would not be the only ones who could in an instant divine how much cash you were carrying; criminals can also obtain power transceivers.

Several major manufacturers and retailers expect RFID tags to aid in managing the supply chain, from manufacturing to shipping to stocking store shelves, including Gillette (which purchased 500 million RFID tags for its razors), Home Depot, The Gap, Proctor & Gamble, Prada, Target, Tesco (a United Kingdom chain), and Wal-Mart. Especially Wal-Mart.

The retail giant, the largest employer in America, is working with Gillette to create “smart shelves” that can alert managers and stockboys to replenish the supply of razors. More significantly, Wal-Mart intends for its top 100 suppliers to fully support RFID for inventory tracking by 2005. Wal-Mart would love to be able to point an RFID reader at any of the 1 billion sealed boxes of widgets it receives every year and instantly know exactly how many widgets it has. No unpacking, no unnecessary handling, no barcode scanners required.

RFID Issues

Right now, you can buy a hammer, a pair of jeans, or a razor blade with anonymity. With RFID tags, that may be a thing of the past. Some manufacturers are planning to tag just the packaging, but others will also tag their products. There is no law requiring a label indicating that an RFID chip is in a product. Once you buy your RFID-tagged jeans at The Gap with RFID-tagged money, walk out of the store wearing RFID-tagged shoes, and get into your car with its RFID-tagged tires, you could be tracked anywhere you travel. Bar codes are usually scanned at the store, but not after purchase. But RFID transponders are, in many cases, forever part of the product, and designed to respond when they receive a signal. Imagine everything you own is “numbered, identified, catalogued, and tracked.” Anonymity and privacy? Gone in a hailstorm of invisible communication, betrayed by your very property.

But let’s not stop there. Others are talking about placing RFID tags into all sensitive or important documents: “it will be practical to put them not only in paper money, but in drivers’ licenses, passports, stock certificates, manuscripts, university diplomas, medical degrees and licenses, birth certificates, and any other sort of document you can think of where authenticity is paramount.” In other words, those documents you’re required to have, that you can’t live without, will be forever tagged.

Consider the human body as well. Applied Digital Solutions has designed an RFID tag – called the VeriChip – for people. Only 11 mm long, it is designed to go under the skin, where it can be read from four feet away. They sell it as a great way to keep track of children, Alzheimer’s patients in danger of wandering, and anyone else with a medical disability, but it gives me the creeps. The possibilities are scary. In May, delegates to the Chinese Communist Party Congress were required to wear an RFID-equipped badge at all times so their movements could be tracked and recorded. Is there any doubt that, in a few years, those badges will be replaced by VeriChip-like devices?

Surveillance is getting easier, cheaper, smaller, and ubiquitous. Sure, it’s possible to destroy an RFID tag. You can crush it, puncture it, or microwave it (but be careful of fires!). You can’t drown it, however, and you can’t demagnetize it. And washing RFID-tagged clothes won’t remove the chips, since they’re specifically designed to withstand years of wearing, washing, and drying. You could remove the chip from your jeans, but you’d have to find it first.

That’s why Congress should require that consumers be notified about products with embedded RFID tags. We should know when we’re being tagged. We should also be able to disable the chips in our own property. If it’s the property of the company we work for, that’s a different matter. But if it’s ours, we should be able to control whether tracking is enabled.

Security professionals need to realize that RFID tags are dumb devices. They listen, and they respond. Currently, they don’t care who sends the signal. Anything your companies’ transceiver can detect, the bad guy’s transceiver can detect. So don’t be lulled into a false sense of security.

With RFID about to arrive in full force, don’t be lulled at all. Major changes are coming, and not all of them will be positive. The law of unintended consequences is about to encounter surveillance devices smaller than the period at the end of this sentence.

Scott Granneman teaches at Washington University in St. Louis, consults for WebSanity, and writes for SecurityFocus and Linux Magazine.

Posted: 4:56 p.m. Friday, Jan. 6, 2012

Parents outraged over math problems referring to slavery, beatings

By Kerry Kavanaugh

Several Gwinnett parents contacted Channel 2 Action News in outrage after their children brought home a math assignment that referenced slavery and beatings.

Christopher Braxton talked with Channel 2′s Kerry Kavanaugh and said he couldn’t believe it when he read his 8-year-old son’s math homework Wednesday.

“It kind of blew me away,” Braxton said. “Do you see what I see? Do you really see what I see? He’s not answering this question.”

The question was a word problem that said, “Each tree had 56 oranges. If eight slaves pick them equally, then how much would each slave pick?”

Another math problem said, “If Frederick got two beatings per day, how many beatings did he get in one week?”

“I was furious at that point in time,” Braxton said.

“Something like that shouldn’t be imbedded into a kid of the third, fourth, fifth, any grade,” parent Terrance Barnett said. “I’m having to explain to my 8-year-old why slavery or slaves or beatings are in a math problem. That hurts.”

Both fathers said they contacted the principal of Beaver Ridge Elementary school in Norcross. They wanted to know what the third-grade math teachers were thinking.

Kavanaugh brought that question to Gwinnett County School District officials.

“In this one, the teachers were trying to do a cross-curricular activity,” district spokeswoman Sloan Roach said.

Roach explained the teachers were trying to incorporate social studies lessons into the math problems, which is something the school district encourages. But the problem with the questions is there is no historical context.
“We understand that there are concerns about these questions and we agree that these questions were not appropriate,” Roach said.

“Whoever put together this paperwork and everything else, the schools and everything else, shouldn’t teach it this way,” said Braxton.

The parents were told the school vice principal had collected the assignment to shred them so that they didn’t resurface.

Roach said there is a process in place to review questions before they are handed out to students, which didn’t happen here.

Roach said the administration will work with teachers on how to develop better questions that are “meaningful and appropriate.”

by Andrea Shea King

Updating you on the battle being waged to control access to certain websites on the Internet, the players involved were engaged in more debate last week.

First, Hollywood agent Ari Emanuel (brother of Rahm), after being asked by Internet giant Marc Andreessen (Netscape) and investor Ron Conway if the entertainment industry “wanted to turn the United States into China?” with the Stop Online Privacy Act, or SOPA, said that he would help fight the bill. Observers wonder what the entertainment industry agent’s clients think of that?

Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications and Information Larry Strickling recently told an audience at the Brookings Institution that increasing the role of governments in cyberspace could spell disaster for the free nature of the Internet.

“Each challenge,” he said, “no matter how well-intentioned the request, they are providing ammunition to other countries who would like to see governments take control of the Internet. … An Internet constrained by an international treaty will stifle the innovators and entrepreneurs who are responsible for its awesome growth.”

Mark Cooper, research director at the Consumer Federation of America, issued caution: “Governments can really break the Internet, companies not so much. We have to know who the bad guys really are.”

Speaking for the Obama Administration, Victoria Espinel, White House copyright czar; Aneesh Chopra, U.S. chief technology officer; and Howard Schmidt, special assistant to the president for cybersecurity, backed away from proposed legislation to mandate changes to Internet infrastructure to fight online copyright and trademark infringement. Surprising, given the Administration’s penchant for mandating other things, like the individual mandate included in the so-called “Affordable” Healthcare Act.

“Proposed laws must not tamper with the technical architecture of the Internet through manipulation of the Domain Name System (DNS), a foundation of Internet security,” the Obama administration said in a statement.

And the author of the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act has apparently buckled somewhat under intense pressure.

Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee and the chief sponsor of SOPA, said he will remove a major provision that would have forced Internet Service Providers to redirect users to different DNS sites..

The announcement followed one from Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., the main sponsor of the Senate’s PIPA, that the Senate would drop the same provision.

But both Leahy and Smith, in what appears to be face-saving measures, warned that redirecting DNS sites could be brought back in at a later time, despite the fact that security experts say the plan would sabotage U.S. government-approved efforts to secure DNS against hackers and break the Internet’s unified naming system by introducing lies into infrastructure.

Following that, Tech Dirt reported that Rep. Darryl Issa, R-Calif., postponed a “nerd” hearing that had been scheduled in the House Oversight Committee. Why? Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., promised him that he wouldn’t bring the bill to the floor unless there’s real consensus on the bill.

Polling shows that American voters believe free market competition will protect Internet users more than government regulation, and they fear that regulation will be used to push a political agenda.

We’re keeping a close eye on SOPA/PIPA. You should be too. Tell these elected do-gooder busybodies what you think in an email to their personal inboxes via GradeGov.com

More voters relying on Internet for election results.

According to a poll conducted by Rasmussen, the Internet will provide election coverage for a quarter of the nation.

Most voters (32 percent) will continue to rely on either cable or traditional television news. Twenty-four percent will primarily rely on the Internet for coverage of Election 2012. Nine percent still rely on print newspapers, and seven percent count on radio. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

Regs, Spending Sink U.S. to 10th Place on Index of Economic Freedom

January 12, 2012

Nation’s global score slips for fourth straight year

WASHINGTON, JAN. 12, 2012—Sharp increases in government spending and more costly regulations contributed to another decline in the United States’ ranking in the annual Index of Economic Freedom published by The Wall Street Journal and The Heritage Foundation.

A growing sense that policymakers put special interests above the public interest also was a factor as the U.S. score for economic freedom dropped by 1.5 points in the 2012 Index, to 76.3 on a 0-100 scale. When compared to its competitors, the U.S. ranking fell from ninth to 10^th among 179 countries.

It was the fourth straight year of decline on the Index for the United States. As recently as 2008, the U.S. ranked seventh worldwide, earned a score of 81 and was considered a “free” economy. Today, the U.S. is only a “mostly free” economy, placing it in the Index’s second-highest category.

The United States continues to score far above the world average of 59.5 and the regional average of 73.8. It also remains in second place among the three countries in the North America region – ahead of Mexico but behind Canada.

For the 18^th straight year, the Index ranked Hong Kong as the world’s freest economy. Its score of 89.9, a slight improvement over 2011, was enough to outdistance runner-up Singapore by more than two points. Australia, New Zealand, Switzerland, Canada, Chile, Mauritius and Ireland also were ranked above the United States.

Launched in 1995, the Index evaluates countries in four broad areas of economic freedom: rule of law; regulatory efficiency; limited government; and open markets. Based on its aggregate score, each of 179 countries was classified as “free” (i.e. combined scores of 80 or higher); “mostly free” (70-79.9); “moderately free” (60-69.9); “mostly unfree” (50-59.9); or “repressed” (under 50).

The U.S. drop of 1.5 points fueled a regional decrease for North America of 1.3 points, the largest decline among six regions in the world. North America also was the only region in which every country registered a decline in economic freedom. Canada slipped from “free” into the “mostly free” category, and Mexico lost ground in six of 10 measures.

The Index’s editors attributed about half the U.S. decline to increases in government spending and another third to the explosive growth of intrusive regulations, particularly in health care and finance.

The United States now ranks 127^th in the world in government spending. Spending by government consumes 42.2 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), and total public debt now is larger than the entire the economy. The U.S. tax structure – which leans heavily on taxes on capital and investment that restrict growth – also contributed to the falling scores.

The regulatory burden continues to grow and hinder the economic recovery, the editors noted. More than 70 major rules imposed since 2009 cost Americans nearly $40 billion last year. These factors led to a loss of five full points – the largest U.S. decline in any category. As a result, the U.S. placed 133^rd in the world in fiscal freedom.

Perhaps most worrisome, however, is the four tenths of a point drop in the category of freedom from corruption. Index editors said this stems from both the growing perception of corruption in government bailouts of troubled industries, including automakers and investment houses, and regulatory exemptions granted to politically well-connected companies and special-interest groups. More than 1,100 companies won exemptions from provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, President Obama’s signature health care legislation.

“Corruption is a growing concern as the cronyism and economic rent-seeking associated with the growth of government have undermined institutional integrity,” the editors wrote.

The United States continues to enjoy the best score in the world on labor freedom – 95.8. Its trade scores were unchanged. Improvement in trade is difficult because of “Buy America” restrictions and other legislative measures, the editors said.

The U.S. scores reflect broad global trends. Worldwide, overall scores for economic freedom slipped from 59.7 to 59.5. Freedom dipped globally in the categories of property rights (-0.2 points), freedom from corruption (-0.1) and trade (-0.3), and climbed in the categories of investment (+0.5), business freedom (+0.4), financial freedom (+0.1) and fiscal freedom (+0.6). The big swings came in monetary freedom (+1) and government spending (-4.1).

Index editors said the policies needed to improve U.S. scores – lowering taxes, broadening the tax base, curbing rent-seeking – also were critical for bringing down high unemployment rates and reducing public debt to manageable levels.

“Restoring the U.S. economy to the status of a ‘free’ economy will require significant policy changes to reduce the size of government, overhaul the tax system and transform costly entitlement programs,” the editors wrote.

See the full text, including charts and graphs – CLICK HERE

The “illegal” and “defunded” ACORN has been resurrected in the form of various names and organizations.

ACORN was supposedly de-funded in 2010. However, it is still very much alive and well—and even financially backing “Occupy Wall Street.” New York State Attorney General’s staff still refuses to comment to us about the ongoing investigation of an ACORN off-shoot—New York Communities for Change (NYCC).

Rep. Issa, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee asked Brooklyn-based U.S. Attorney Loretta Lynch if New York Communities for Change (NYCC) “engaged in fraud through its participation in the Occupy Wall Street protests.” NYCC is an off-shoot of ACORN, utilizing the same building and the basically the same staff!

A New York Communities for Change (NYCC) insider source said that money raised to helps schools “isn’t going to the campaign…it’s just going to the protests (Occupy Wall Street)!”

Please CLICK HERE to FAX every Member of Congress to demand an investigation of and a TOTAL cut off of funding to any government agency that does business with ACORN or its front groups.

Obviously, the funding of Occupy Wall Street in New York is a mere “practice run” for the widespread operations of ACORN derivatives, obsessed with stealing the next presidential election.

ACORN is very much BACK IN BUSINESS—except under different names. Different front groups help assist this “defunded” group of “hoodlums.” Their ultimate goal is to re-elect Barack Obama as the President of the United States in the next election! That is their main goal and purpose.

But here’s a very serious outcome—the Department of Justice has been fingered as COORDINATING some of the vote manipulation with one of the ACORN affiliates!

Recently discovered documents imply widespread coordination and communications between the Department of Justice Voting Section and prior ACORN associate Project Vote.

Records reveal that Project Vote seems to be guiding DOJ resources toward specific states; is arranging discussions with DOJ staff; and is even advocating lawyers to function in the Justice Department Voting Section that will supervise the 2012 presidential election!

It is obvious that Project Vote had “special access” to Department of Justice officials. This activist group, an offshoot of ACORN, apparently has had DIRECT ACCESS to top leadership of the Department of Justice. This is insane!

Additional emails suggest that Project Vote was guiding criticisms to the persons at the Department of Justice responsible for organizing election checking sources, urging them to dedicate resources to political races around the country, particularly where Tea Party groups were most active fighting voter fraud!

This is just another instance of where “under the watch” of Attorney General Eric Holder the DOJ has performed shady, illegal deals to impact upcoming elections!

Your fax will stop this farce of front organizations that are really still “ACORN.”

Please CLICK HERE to FAX every Member of Congress to demand an investigation of and a TOTAL cut off of funding to any government agency that does business with ACORN or its front groups.

We do not want the 2012 elections to be stolen and commandeered by a group of paid thugs! These radical left-wing groups must be defunded—no matter what name they use!

ACORN leaders have made numerous visits to the Obama White House and the Department of Justice. According to White House visitor logs, at least FIVE ACORN leaders have visited the White House in 2011! One of these ACORN leaders, former ACORN attorney Estelle H. Rogers, is now director of advocacy at ACORN-affiliated “Project Vote.”

As you will recall, Barack Obama at one time was a lawyer for ACORN!

In fact, in 1992, Obama stated: “All our people must know that politics and voting affects their lives directly. If we’re registering people in public housing, for an example, we talk about aid cuts and who’s responsible.”

Mr. Obama will use whatever and whomever means he can to make sure re-election votes comes his way! Anything!

Of course ACORN, rather, its name off-shoots, will use whatever techniques are available to them, as far as voter fraud and voters who are dead, as it has been proven they did in previous elections.

Don’t permit these left-wingers to ROB us of a just election in 2012.

Please CLICK HERE to FAX every Member of Congress to demand an investigation of and a TOTAL cut off of funding to any government agency that does business with ACORN or its front groups.

Of course you remember the undercover video footage taken of a couple getting advice from an ACORN representative on how to manipulate votes, girls, drugs, etc. We don’t need to relive that entire sick scenario. But it put a “mark” on ACORN that will never be erased.

That doesn’t include the TENS OF THOUSANDS of votes that ACORN was responsible for raising up (even from dead people) during the last two election cycles!

Project Vote’s (ACORN) founder, Sanford Newman, actually says that his group assists the Left almost totally. He admitted: “While our work is nonpartisan, it is realistic to assume that upward of 90 percent of the people we register on unemployment and other social service distribution lines will oppose politicians who have supported cuts in the programs on which they rely. They are likely to vote Democratic in most instances.”

U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa is demanding that the Obama administration investigate allegedly fraudulent fundraising practices that ACORN’s New York front group has used to raise funds for Occupy Wall Street (OWS).

Your faxes are extremely important today, so we can clamp down on this ACORN OUTRAGE!

Please CLICK HERE to FAX every Member of Congress to demand an investigation of and a TOTAL cut off of funding to any government agency that does business with ACORN or its front groups.

In “concert” with ACORN front groups, Eric Holder last month called for an end to state laws requiring voters to show identification at polling places. He wants people to not have to produce any proof of who they are at a polling place.

Republicans are increasingly worried that Mr. Obama wants to loosen voter identification laws in states with significant numbers of likely illegal voters to help Barack Obama WIN in the 2012 election!

Eight states (Alabama, Kansas, Mississippi, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Wisconsin) have passed laws insisting on voters showing government-issued photo identification at polling stations.

Mr. Holder, ACORN, and its derivatives, oppose these efforts to prevent voter fraud.

They, in “coordination,” want to see the election go to Mr. Obama, ACORN’s former legal advisor!

ACORN saw to it that “VOTER FRAUD” was “the order of the day” both in the 2008 and the 2010 elections! They re-invented themselves, by using several names and front organizations. But they STILL have a chance to “steal the election” by engaging in voter fraud!

Please FAX NOW to make sure that our Congress investigates and gets to the bottom of not only this Occupy Wall Street illegal funding, but how to prevent voter fraud in the next presidential election, and to stop any funding that incorporates the DOJ coordinating with the ACORN affiliates!

Respectfully,

Conservative Action Alerts
www.conservativeactionalerts.com

P. S. We must fax to prevent rampant voter fraud by ACORN or its new front groups. Be sure to fax today!

Please CLICK HERE to FAX every Member of Congress to demand an investigation of and a TOTAL cut off of funding to any government agency that does business with ACORN or its front groups.

You can also CLICK HERE to send a FREE message directly to YOUR U.S. Representative and Senators!

Dear Friend,

For 38 years, nine unelected men and women on the Supreme Court have played God with innocent human life.

They have invented laws that condemned to painful deaths without trial more than 56 million babies for the crime of being “inconvenient.”

In 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade ruling forced abortion-on-demand down our nation’s throat.

In the past, many in the pro-life movement have felt limited to protecting a life here and there — passing some limited law to slightly control abortion in the more outrageous cases.

But some pro-lifers always seem to tiptoe around the Supreme Court, hoping they won’t be offended.

Now the time to grovel before the Supreme Court is over.

Working from what the Supreme Court ruled in Roe v. Wade, pro-life lawmakers can pass a Life at Conception Act and end abortion using the Constitution instead of amending it.

That is why it’s so urgent you sign the petition to your Senators and Congressman that I will link to in a moment.

You see, while the national media has talked a lot about the impact of economic issues on this past election the untold story is just how well pro-life candidates did.

So it is vital every Member of Congress be put on record.

A Life at Conception Act declares unborn children “persons” as defined by the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, entitled to legal protection.

This is the one thing the Supreme Court admitted in Roe v. Wade that would cause the case for legal abortion to “collapse.”

When the Supreme Court handed down its now-infamous Roe v. Wade decision, it did so based on a new, previously undefined “right of privacy” which it “discovered” in so-called “emanations” of “penumbrae” of the Constitution.

Of course, as constitutional law it was a disaster.

But never once did the Supreme Court declare abortion itself to be a constitutional right.

Instead the Supreme Court said:

“We need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins . . . the judiciary at this point in the development of man’s knowledge is not in a position to speculate as to the answer.”

Then the High Court made a key admission:

“If this suggestion of personhood is established, the appellant’s case [i.e., "Roe" who sought an abortion], of course, collapses, for the fetus’ right to life is then guaranteed specifically by the [14th] Amendment.”

The fact is, the 14th Amendment couldn’t be clearer:

“. . . nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty or property, without due process of law, nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the law.”

Furthermore, the 14th Amendment says:

“Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.”

That’s exactly what a Life at Conception Act would do.

But this simple, logical and obviously right legislation will not become law without a fight.

And that’s where your help is critical.

Please click here to sign your petition right away.

By turning up the heat through a massive, national, grass-roots campaign in this session of Congress, one of two things will happen.

If you and other pro-life activists pour on enough pressure, pro-lifers can force politicians from both parties who were elected on pro-life platforms to make good on their promises and ultimately win passage of this bill.

But even if a Life at Conception Act doesn’t pass immediately, the public attention will send another crew of radical abortionists down to defeat in the next election.

Either way, the unborn win . . . unless you do nothing.

That’s why the National Pro-Life Alliance is contacting hundreds of thousands of Americans just like you to mobilize a grass-roots army to pass a Life at Conception Act.

The first thing you must do is sign your petition by clicking here.

They are the key ingredient in the National Pro-Life Alliance’s plan to pass a Life at Conception Act. They’ll also organize:

… Hard-hitting TV, radio and newspaper ads to be run just before each vote, detailing the horrors of abortion and mobilizing the American people.

… Extensive personal lobbying of key members of Congress by rank and file National Pro-Life Alliance members and staff.

… A series of newspaper columns to be distributed free to all 1,437 daily newspapers now published in the United States.

… An extensive email, direct mail and telephone campaign to generate at least one million petitions to Congress like the one linked to in this letter.

Of course, to do all this will take a lot of money.

Just to email and mail the letters necessary to produce one million petitions will cost at least $460,000.

Newspaper, TV and radio are even more expensive.

But I’m sure you’ll agree pro-lifers cannot just sit by watching the slaughter continue.

The National Pro-Life Alliance’s goal is to deliver one million petitions to the House and Senate in support of a Life at Conception Act.

When the bill comes up for a vote in Congress, it is crucial to have the full weight of an informed public backing the pro-life position.

I feel confident that the folks at National Pro-Life Alliance can gather those one million petitions.

But even though many Americans who receive this email will sign the petition, many won’t be able to contribute. That’s why it’s vital you give $10, $25, $50, $100, or even more if you can.

Without your help the National Pro-Life Alliance will be unable to gather the one million petitions and mount the full-scale national campaign necessary to pass a Life at Conception Act.

A sacrificial gift of $35 or even $100 or $500 now could spare literally millions of innocent babies in years to come.  But if that’s too much, please consider chipping in with a donation of $10.

You should also know that a National Pro-Life Alliance supporter wants to make your decision to give easier by agreeing to match your donation, no matter the size, increasing its value by 50%!

So please respond right away with your signed petition.

And please help with a contribution of at least $25 or $35. Some people have already given as much as $500. Others have given $50 and $100.

But no matter how much you give, whether it’s chipping in with $10 or a larger contribution of $150, I guarantee your contribution is urgently needed and will be deeply appreciated.

That’s why I hope and pray that you will not delay a moment to make a contribution of $1000, $500, $100, $50, $25, or even $10 if you can.

Your contribution to the National Pro-Life Alliance and your signed petition will be the first steps toward reversing Roe v. Wade and waking up the politicians about where our barbarous pro-abortion policy is taking us.

Sincerely,

Rand Paul,
United States Senator

P.S.  The Supreme Court itself admitted — if Congress declares unborn children “persons” under the law, the constitutional case for abortion-on-demand “collapses.”

Please help make that happen. Sign your petition today to the National Pro-Life Alliance to reverse Roe v. Wade, along with a sacrificial contribution of $100, $50, $25.  If that’s too much, please consider chipping in with a donation of $10.

You should also know a generous donor has agreed to match all contributions, no matter the size, increasing your gift to the National Pro-Life Alliance by 50%!

My man Zo….well said and absolutely right….as usual….it’s been a while