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1st Amendment Under Attack

Amendment I

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Fictional Story

Dateline May 15, 2021

Neither sanctions nor tariffs aimed at the Soviet Union have eased the alleged Internet attacks leveled at the fabric of American society. In a prompt and short news briefing a congressional press associate told reporters, “we have no other choice but to monitor Internet activity from Russia and associated states operating websites dedicated to posting fake and malicious stories about American leaders and issues in America. Those stories will be blocked.”

Past reports on the Bill in question cited Russian interference with the 2016 presidential elections as the main reason to limit Internet activity originating from Russia and its supporting states. In 2016 both parties accused one another of collaborating with the Kremlin to sway the election. The fact that the 2016 presidential election was the closest race in American history fueled speculation and accusations. Although no concrete evidence was made public over the 3 year investigation, the public is still fascinated by shreds of hearsay and sensationalized stories.

In its own news briefing White House press agents promised the American public, “this censorship is a necessary evil and will be restricted to a small group of individuals that have been massing misleading stories about congressional candidates as well as candidates in the 2020 presidential election. Technology has become so sophisticated, altered media of every type is believed to have played a major role in election results in the majority of states.”

In answer to this new law the Kremlin released this response.

“After all these years we finally see the United States show their real motives an intents. The US demanded the removal of the Berlin wall, the break of of the Soviet Union, and other measures to break down the people’s republic. Over all those years the United States has been demanding more freedom for the Soviet people. Now we see how serious the United States is about their freedom of speech. Forcing censorship upon the Soviet Union is only the beginning. It won’t take long for the United States allies to follow suit and introduce their own form of censorship. The Kremlin vows to preserve the rights of all Soviet citizens. The Kremlin will never change nor alter any of the rights the Union has worked to create and preserve.”

In a White House Tweet the American public was assured, “No American rights have been nor ever will be in jeopardy.” We are waiting for additional information to be released.

An undisclosed source told reporters. “Plans are in action to monitor and block additional sources of communication between USSR and America.” When asked if that included cell phones, no response was given. When asked if entire websites or individual stories would be blocked, no response was offered. When asked to define, “additional states,” no response was given.

Editorial

This of course is a fictional story. But could it happen? Where is the evidence Russia attempted to sway the 2016 presidential election? We know fake news agencies and so called, “reliable news sources,” tried their damnedest to sway the elections. Fake news agencies raked in millions of dollars while paying between $5000 to $10,000 for some of the most bizarre stories ever written. Fake news stories became easy money for the few lucky enough to sell a story to one of those agencies. Agency may be a stretch for some of those organizations. Many fake news agencies have small staffs. Many are one man bands. They are located all over the world. People jump on a money making bandwagon whenever they can.

Congress is addressing the situation at this time. Major social networks have vowed to eliminate fake news stories. Some may term their actions censorship. And it is. But there is no law penalizing any company for editing, rejecting, or otherwise restricting stories. That includes context on Internet sites. For the most part American businesses are still allowed to monitor and restrict forms of communication. As long as they do not discriminate against protected classes.

Fake news sites mimic well known news sites to such a degree, it is difficult to tell what site you are actually on. Here is a lost of fake news sites and the Websites they mimic.

New technology allows ad services to target certain groups. (Source) What does this mean to the average voter? As of October 2017, Gallup polling found that 31% of Americans identified as Democrat, 24% identified as Republican, and 42% as Independent.(Source) Even though the majority of voters in the US are independent, ads will focus on what party a computer program thinks they want you to see. What does this mean for American voters? If the software is biased, independent voters will be fed stories about one party and not the other. In the Cyber world that means, the other party doesn’t exist, or doesn’t stand a chance in the election. Can ads determine who will be president, and what party will control Congress? The answer is yes if the American public continues to rely on the Internet for information.

Historical References

Hitler was known for setting up fake attacks and events to start wars and limit the rights of ethnic groups he did not agree with. Even political partners cannot be trusted as Hitler proved in one of his political moves.

The Night of Long Knives

On July 13, Hitler gave a speech announcing the 74 “justified murders”: “If anyone reproaches me and asks why I did not resort to the regular courts of justice, then all I can say is this: In this hour I was responsible for the fate of the German people, and thereby I became the supreme judge of the German people” (Source).

By he proclaiming himself the supreme judge of Germany, he placed himself above law, making his word law. And, by aiding Hitler in the raid, the German army aligned themselves with Hitler.

The Reichstag Fire

Hitler, as we well know, did not stop here. Six days after the fire and his Reichstag Fire Decree, was a general election to dissolve the Reichstag. Even with a secret meeting at Hermann Göring’s residence with 20-25 industrialists, Hitler was unable to gain absolute majority in parliament. However, on March 15, he and his cabinet began to draw up new plans to rid him of this dependency. These plans would ultimately become the Enabling Act. Simply put, the Enabling Act made Hitler dictator over Germany. It also gave him power to enact laws without the involvement of the Reichstag. The full text to the Enabling Act, as well as Hitler’s speech prior to passing said act, can be found by clicking the underlined Enabling Act above.

The next day (February 28), “Hitler declared a state of emergency and issued the Decree of the Reich President for the Protection of the People and the State” (Blankman, Conspiracy 31). This decree would suspend all major civil liberties. This included: “Restrictions on personal liberty, on the right of free expression of opinion, including freedom of the press; on the rights of assembly and association; and violations of the privacy of postal, telegraphic and telephonic communications and warrants for house searches, orders for confiscations as well as restrictions on property, are also permissible beyond the legal limits otherwise prescribed” (Source).

Additional Research

What is being done to control the spread of fake news and targeted political ads? The FCC is adding new rules to curve targeted political ads.

Draft FEC Rules Target Political Ads on Social Media

News publishers protest Facebook’s new political ad rules

Ad Targeting

New technology allows advertisers to not only target audiences, but to custom tailor ads for individuals based on taste, habits, life style, location, and other data collected through computers and smart phones. Take for instance. Your smart phone occasionally registers in a fast food restaurant at 5:30 PM. New technology would allow ad companies to raise advertising rates by bidding off ad space in time segments. Fast food restaurants would fall over one another to capture your business. Automobiles now communicating with the Internet would tell ad companies when your oil needs changing, when a trouble light appears, and when maintenance is require. This opens the door to premium ad targeting on an individual level.

YouTube’s new ad tech automatically personalizes ads, can now target using Google Maps, app install data

Here’s how Facebook ad tracking and targeting works

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The Night of Long Knives

June 30-July 2, 1934: Operation Hummingbird: A purge in Nazi Germany, designed to insure and strengthen Hitler’s absolute power over Germany.

Background:

By mid-1934, there were over 4,000 Nazi stormtroopers (SA) or “brown shirts” (Gretchen’s brother, Reinhard, in Prisoner of Night and Fog &Conspiracy of Blood and Smoke was a brown shirt).

The SA was a paramilitary branch of the NSDAP and significant to Hitler’s rise to power. “It’s primary purposes were providing protection for Nazi rallies and assemblies, disrupting the meetings of opposing parties, fighting against the paramilitary units of the opposing parties, especially the Red Front Fighters League (Rotfrontkämpferbund) of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD), and intimidating Slavic and Romani people, unionists, and Jews – for instance, during the Nazi boycott of Jewish businesses” (Source). However, they predated Hitler’s Nazi party, having originally been used in WWI as specialized assault troops.

While the SA helped Hitler gain power, once Hitler and his Nazis had said power, it became clear that the SA was becoming “increasingly eager for power itself” (Source). As a way to prevent too much SA power, Hitler reassigned the off-shoot branch, the SS, to Heinrich Himmler. And, as a result, the SS became more and more important to Hitler, slowly replacing the SA as his official bodyguards. He simply came to see them as being “better suited to carry out [his] policies, including those of a criminal nature” (Source).

See, the SA took more seriously the “socialist” part of National Socialism then, perhaps, Hitler wanted them to. They wanted a second revolution, even though other Nazis were completely content with the results of their first.

Meanwhile, they and their leader, Ernst Röhm, were posing a real threat to the regular Army High Command, whom Hitler had promised to restore to “former military glory and break the ‘shackles’ of the Treaty of Versailles, which limited the Army to 100,000 men and prevented modernization” (Source).

A former street brawler himself, Röhm had been with Hitler from the very beginning, an instrumental part. As a result, Röhm had been given a seat at the National Defence Council, where over time, he became more and more demanding about his say in military matters, much to the annoyance and concern of other members, General Werner von Blomberg (Minister of Defence) and General Walther von Reichenau (Chief of the Reichswehr’s Ministerial Department).

[Below: An SA parade with leader, Ernest Röhm]

Meanwhile, the SA party members were becoming more disliked throughout Germany because of their “arrogant, gangster-like behavior, such as extorting money from local shop owners, driving around in fancy new cars showing off, often getting drunk, beating up and even murdering innocent civilians” (Source). Many of Hitler’s lieutenants (even Hitler himself) were becoming progressively more worried by Röhm’s “growing power and restlessness” (Source). SS leaders Heinrich Himmler and Reinhard Heydrich, along with Hermann Göring, Joseph Goebbels, and Rudolf Hess began plotting against Röhm. By May 1934, “lists of those to be ‘liquidated’ started to circulate amongst Göring and Himmler’s people, who engaged in a trade, adding enemies of one in exchange for sparing friends of the other” (Source).

Many world leaders tried telling Hitler the importance of taking away power from Röhm and the SA. But he didn’t immediately listen. Eventually, Blomberg had to warn Hitler that if he did not intervene himself, “that Hindenburg was close to declaring martial law and turning the government over to the Reichswehr if Hitler did not take immediate steps against Röhm and his brownshirts” (Source). This pressure gave Hitler no choice but to act. He now intended both “destroying Röhm and settling scores with old enemies” (Source).

In preparation, Himmler and Heydrich concocted evidence suggesting that “Röhm had been paid 12 million Reichsmark by France to overthrow Hitler” (Source). On June 25, the Reichswehr were placed on high alert and the promise of the army’s full cooperation was secured.

On June 30, “Hitler first ordered the arrest of the SA” (Source). That taken care of, a car took Hitler, Hess, and others to an SS-secured resort hotel, where Röhm and the present SA men were arrested and sent to Stadelheim prison (just outside Munich) to be executed.

At 10 am, Hitler called Göring in Berlin, exchanging the code word: Hummingbird. This code word unleashed “a wave of murderous violence in Berlin and twenty other cities” (Source). The SS and Göring’s own personal police took to the streets, executing anyone appearing on the prepared list. Röhm, however, was “given a pistol containing a single bullet to commit suicide” (Source). But Röhm refused, insisting Hitler had to do it. Instead, SS guards, Theodore Eicke (commander of the Totenkopf (Death’s Head) guards at Dachau), entered Röhm’s cell and “shot him point blank” (Source).

The bloody purge lasted until July 2nd, but did not end before Hitler held a tea party for his cabinet members in the garden of the Chancellory as a ploy to ensure citizens that all was going back to normal. When it was all over, deaths totaled, some say, as high as 1,000 or more. Only half of those deaths were actually SA officials.

By he proclaiming himself the supreme judge of Germany, he placed himself above law, making his word law. And, by aiding Hitler in the raid, the German army aligned themselves with Hitler.

[Below: Removal of Murdered SA bodies.]

Up Next:

Hitler’s Violation of the Treaty of Versailles

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