©2022 Liberty Guard, Inc. All rights reserved.
Designed and Developed by Media Bridge LLC
by Bob Barr
Buried deep within the massive infrastructure legislation recently signed by President Joe Biden is a little-noticed “safety” measure that will take effect in five years. Marketed to Congress as a benign tool to help prevent drunk driving, the measure will mandate that automobile manufacturers build into every car what amounts to a “vehicle kill switch.”
As has become standard for legislative mandates passed by Congress, this measure is disturbingly short on details. What we do know is that the “safety” device must “passively monitor the performance of a driver of a motor vehicle to accurately identify whether that driver may be impaired.”
Everything about this mandatory measure should set off red flares.
First, use of the word “passively” suggests the system will always be on and constantly monitoring the vehicle. Secondly, the system must connect to the vehicle’s operational controls, so as to disable the vehicle either before driving or during, when impairment is detected. Thirdly, it will be an “open” system, or at least one with a backdoor, meaning authorized (or unauthorized) third-parties can remotely access the system’s data at any time.
This is a privacy disaster in the making, and the fact that the provision made it through the Congress reveals — yet again — how little its members care about the privacy of their constituents.
The lack of ultimate control over one’s vehicle presents numerous and extremely serious safety issues; issues that should have been obvious to Members of Congress before they voted on the measure.
For example, what if a driver is not drunk, but sleepy, and the car forces itself to the side of the road before the driver can find a safe place to pull over and rest? Considering that there are no realistic mechanisms to immediately challenge or stop the car from being disabled, drivers will be forced into dangerous situations without their consent or control.
The choice as to whether a vehicle can or cannot be driven — for vehicles built after 2026 — will rest in the hands of an algorithm over which the car’s owner or driver have neither knowledge nor control.
If that is not reason enough for concern, there are serious legal issues with this mandate. Other vehicle-related enforcement methods used by the Nanny State, such as traffic cameras and license plate readers, have long presented constitutional problems; notably with the 5th Amendment’s right to not self-incriminate, and the 6th Amendment’s right to face one’s accuser.
The same constitutional issues abound with this new technology, but with the added confusion surrounding what Congress even means by “impaired driving.” Does it mean legally drunk, or perhaps under the limit but still “impaired” to a degree? Would police be summoned automatically by the system in order to make that determination? These are questions that should have been addressed openly and thoroughly during the legislative process, not left to later, back-room negotiations between interested parties other than individual car buyers – manufacturers, regulators, insurance companies and law enforcement.
Ironically, or perhaps intentionally, there also is no detail in the legislation about who would have access to the data collected and stored by the system. Could it be used by police, and could they access this information without a warrant? What about insurance companies, eager to know with what frequency their customers drove after drinking alcohol, even if it was below the legal limit? Such a trove of data presents a lucrative prize to all manner of public and private entities (including hackers), none of which have our best interests at heart.
Adding what amounts to a mandatory, backdoor government “kill switch” to cars is not only a violation of our constitutional rights, but an affront to what is — or used to be — an essential element of our national character. Unless this regulatory mandate is not quickly removed or defanged by way of an appropriations rider preventing its implementation, the freedom of the open road that individual car ownership brought to the American Dream, will be but another vague memory of an era no longer to be enjoyed by future generations.
Bob Barr represented Georgia’s Seventh District in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1995 to 2003. He served as the United States Attorney in Atlanta from 1986 to 1990 and was an official with the CIA in the 1970s. He now practices law in Atlanta, Georgia and serves as head of Liberty Guard.
Townhall
by Bob Barr
For all the Left’s ongoing hoopla about the dire necessity for “common sense gun control,” nothing currently being proposed makes any more sense than measures already tried and failed. The American public has seen and heard it all before, and is even less interested in buying into it today than in years past.
But the Left keeps trying. Their latest gambit is to attack ammunition purchases.
Earlier this month, Democrats in the Florida legislature filed a bill they call “Jamie’s Law,” named after a victim in the 2018 school shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. The legislation would subject all purchases of ammunition to background checks.
When making this same proposal nearly three years earlier in the U. S. Senate, leading gun-control advocate Richard Blumenthal from Connecticut called the lack of background checks on ammunition sales a “ludicrous loophole” that allows would-be killers to amass “arsenals of ammunition.”
Even for the typical anti-gun nonsense spouted by Democrats, Blumenthal’s hyperventilating is extreme; but then again, so is the proposal, whether as federal or state law.
The basic premise of the legislation is that it would prevent people who are already prohibited by law from purchasing or possessing firearms, from buying ammunition. Really.
The only situation in which Jaime’s Law might be considered even remotely applicable would be in stopping an individual from purchasing ammunition for a firearm they acquired illegally. It does not take a firearms expert or criminology PhD to know that finding ammunition is far easier even than for a criminal to get their hands on an illegal firearm
For the sake of argument, though, let us take Democrats at their word and assume there is an actual need for this proposed law. For instance, a “prohibited” person erroneously passes the first background check to purchase a firearm, and (for reasons that defy logic) later goes back to buy ammunition, subjecting himself to a second background check that hypothetically would prevent that purchase. What this scenario — which serves as the sole justification for Jamie’s Law — clearly suggests is that the background check system itself is the problem, not that more background checks are needed.
The suggestion is not entirely off-base (though the proposed solution is). Failures of the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) allowed the killers in both the 2015 Charleston, South Carolina, and the 2017 Sutherland Springs, Texas, church shootings to obtain firearms they should have been prevented from purchasing.
The obvious – dare I say, “common sense” — solution to tragedies such as these, however, lies with better and more consistent enforcement of the existing background check system on firearms, notwithstanding that the system even as currently configured has worked remarkably, but not perfectly, well for over two decades.
Creating a whole new background check criteria and database for purchasing rounds of ammunition is wholly unnecessary and would be phenomenally costly and disruptive to the industry and to lawful firearms owners — which, of course, may be exactly what Blumenthal and his fellow gun-control advocates in the Florida legislature want.
Ironically, albeit predictably to anyone with even a passing familiarity with government data systems, proposals such as Jamie’s Law would wind up reducing the effectiveness of federal background checks, and placing citizens in greater danger, by overwhelming NICS with requests. Ammunition purchases by nature are exponentially more common than sales of firearms, and there simply is no way NICS could handle such volume, meaning more purchases would be approved by default (as required by law now).
In addition to making NICS less effective, an ammunition check procedure would come at a significant cost to law-abiding citizens who could no longer easily pick up ammunition for a trip to the range or before a hunt.
Jamie’s Law is a solution in search of a problem. Fortunately, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis understands both the constitutional and practical consequences of such a proposal, and never would sign such legislation even if it were to somehow make it through the Florida legislature. Still, if history of the gun control movement is our guide, this and other counterproductive and unconstitutional measures will continue to have life breathed into them by gun control advocates in the Sunshine State and elsewhere.
Bob Barr represented Georgia’s Seventh District in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1995 to 2003. He served as the United States Attorney in Atlanta from 1986 to 1990 and was an official with the CIA in the 1970s. He now practices law in Atlanta, Georgia and serves as head of Liberty Guard.
Not even one full year into her term as Vice President, and Kamala Harris is having a hard time finding friends. How do we know this is a problem? Watch today’s episode of Bob Barr’s Laws of the Universe and discover one of the hard truths about politics in our nation’s Capital.
by Bob Barr
The indictment charging former Trump adviser Steve Bannon with contempt of Congress has all the trappings of a legitimate government proceeding. All the linguistic fluff aside, however, it is nothing more than a partisan abuse of power hatched by congressional Democrats and abetted by President Joe Biden and his Justice Department.
The authority according to which the House of Representatives charged Mr. Bannon with contempt derives from H. Res. 503. This resolution passed the House on June 30 and established a 13-member “Select Committee” to inquire into the January 6, 2021 turmoil in and around the U. S. Capitol Building.
That Bannon was a prime target of the inquiry became clear shortly after the committee organized itself and got down to the business of trying to link Trump, Bannon and others close to him to the Jan. 6 events on Capitol Hill. In September, Bannon was subpoenaed to appear before the committee and to produce documents. Following his refusal, the committee voted to hold him in contempt, a step the full House quickly rubber-stamped. The contempt resolution then was transmitted to the United States Attorney for the District of Columbia.
In earlier, more “normal” times, that would be where the matter would remain.
For example, of the five criminal contempt citations referred by the House to the Department of Justice since 2008, none resulted in grand juries returning indictments. In fact, the most recent examples of criminal contempt of Congress cases actually being successfully prosecuted took place in the 1970s as part of the Watergate scandal.
One reason for the dearth of criminal prosecutions for contempt of Congress is the obvious: only rarely will an attorney general belonging to a political party different from the House majority voting for such prosecution actually present the matter to a grand jury.
Another reason is that in most such disputes cooler heads prevail, with the Congress relying on the far less-heavy handed civil contempt power at its disposal to obtain information it needs; that is, if actually obtaining information is its real goal, as opposed to punishing an individual not of the majority’s liking.
In this current episode, with the Executive Branch and the House majority in Democrat Party hands, history, comity and evidence count for little.
Legally, however, the questions surrounding and underpinning the propriety of the contempt action against Bannon are more problematic for the Democrats than they might at first blush appear.
Start with the language written into H. Res. 503.
The resolution repeatedly refers to the “domestic terrorist” attack perpetrated by “insurrectionists” on and leading up to Jan. 6. By framing the purposes and functions of the committee in this way, the Congress is proposing to investigate acts that are neither defined in nor made criminal under federal law; there simply is no such crime as “domestic terrorism.” Even if there were, trying to shoe-horn the vandalism that took place on Jan. 6 into the subject matter of legitimate congressional legislative power would be a stretch to say the least.
Importantly, federal caselaw, including opinions by the Supreme Court of the United States, requires that for a criminal contempt of Congress to withstand legal challenge, the subject matter underlying the contempt must fall within the legitimate legislative jurisdiction of the House (or, Senate, as the case may be). Use of a congressional subpoena to gather information that is not based on any existing federal crime or linked reasonably to any legislation, appears to fail this threshold test.
The Democrats who drafted H. Res. 503 appear to have made a half-hearted stab at linking the formation of the select committee (and giving it subpoena power) to some sort of legislative function. After seven pages of incendiary verbiage about “insurrection” and “domestic terrorism” (acts not charged against a single of the nearly 700 individuals arrested for activities relating to the Jan. 6 disturbances), the resolution declares three “corrective measures” that possibly could result from the committee’s work.
This rhetorical fig leaf, however, should never be permitted to serve as the basis for convicting an American citizen for simply refusing to aid the Democrat Party in a vendetta against a former president.
Bob Barr represented Georgia’s Seventh District in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1995 to 2003. He served as the United States Attorney in Atlanta from 1986 to 1990 and was an official with the CIA in the 1970s. He now practices law in Atlanta, Georgia and serves as head of Liberty Guard.
by Bob Barr
In one breath, liberals call local police “racists” and demand their departments be defunded, and in the very next they rush to federal law enforcement agencies for help at the slightest hint of trouble. This is the whipsaw effect of how the Left views law enforcement – local cops bad, federal cops good. It is a perspective totally at odds with the framework on which our federal Republic was constructed.
Consider our public schools.
Leftists for years have fought tooth and nail to remove resource officers from schools, claiming their presence is “detrimental to the welfare of our children, leading to the increased criminalization of youth for child-like behaviors” (ACLU of Washington). And yet, as The Intercept reports, last month school district officials in Maryland’s Prince George’s County reached out to the Department of Homeland Security for help with monitoring the social media accounts of students, in hopes of curbing an outbreak of violence in two area high schools.
The Deep State’s abuses of national security powers in our post-9/11 world are numerous and well-known, from the Bush Administration’s unconstitutional directive to cell phone carriers to conduct warrantless surveillance of customers’ phones, to the continued use of the USA PATRIOT Act for investigations having nothing to do with national security. This mindset now has filtered down to community school board meetings.
Even in the face of severe criticism, for the Biden administration, it’s “damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead.” Attorney General Merrick Garland refuses to rescind his recent directive that the FBI and United States Attorneys across the country develop plans to address disruptions at local school board meetings.
No serious debate today can be had that using federal law enforcement’s powers and resources to monitor local school board meetings or the social media activity of students fits within any reasonable or historically permissible definition of “federal jurisdiction.” It is a recipe for a terribly unappetizing constitutional banquet – federal law enforcement agencies with a history of abuse and a systemic lack of accountability, secretly surveilling the protected rights of students and parents, in defense of the “woke” agenda favored by many public-school administrators and teachers.
Being the target of a federal investigation is no casual matter. The mere possibility that your presence at a school board meeting may be monitored by police and the FBI has a decided chilling effect on such activities; as does the fact that social media posts are being monitored by the Department of Homeland Security. In addition to this chilling effect, the legal resources needed to defend oneself in any resulting federal investigations can easily drain the finances of all but the most well-off families.
Working-class families in Prince George’s County, who are most likely to be swept up in Homeland Security’s most recent dragnet, do not stand a chance. Nevertheless, the irony of using the full weight of the federal government to pursue targets least able to defend themselves, appears no longer relevant to the “woke” liberals behind this madness.
Making the situation even more irksome is that school officials are pursuing this sledgehammer-to-kill-a-mosquito plan because they find themselves in a situation of their own making, after years of removing resource officers from schools even as they turned a blind eye to troublemakers for fear of “labeling” the students as “troublemakers” or being branded “racist” themselves.
The trend of leaning on federal agencies for local issues did not start under Joe Biden, but his Administration, with the active support of Attorney General Garland, has taken it to a new and dangerous level.
This scenario playing out in public schools and school boards across the country is not occurring in a vacuum. Rather, it reflects a broad national phenomenon decades in the making, of a citizenry increasingly comfortable calling on the government to solve every problem and to meet every need. In this environment, where the “default” is to call on Uncle Sam, it is not only appropriate to bring in federal law enforcement to address problems within community school districts, it is the preferred solution.
When the Left sees everything from racism to bullying to global warming as a national emergency, there is no activity in which citizens engage that can be considered safe from the heavy hand of federal power.
Bob Barr represented Georgia’s Seventh District in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1995 to 2003. He served as the United States Attorney in Atlanta from 1986 to 1990 and was an official with the CIA in the 1970s. He now practices law in Atlanta, Georgia and serves as head of Liberty Guard.
Today we present Bob Barr’s Laws of the Universe #106 IF THE GOVERNMENT IS PUSHING A POLICY THAT APPEARS TO MAKE NO SENSE, CHANCES ARE, IT DOESN’T. BUT OF COURSE, THE GOVERNMENT WILL NEVER ADMIT THAT THE POLICY MAKES NO SENSE. In the face of government overreach, a federal judge decided that OSHA had no authority to enforce vaccine mandates on employers with 100+ employees. Well, Biden’s all-powerful regime didn’t agree. See in today’s episode how the white house continues to encourage and enable egregious government overreach in today’s episode of Bob Barr’s Laws of the Universe.
by Bob Barr
Last week was especially bad for President Joe Biden’s plan to force all Americans to be vaccinated against the COVID-19 virus. How the administration responds to the setbacks will reveal whether we have a president who actually believes in and will abide by the rule of law, or one who considers himself above such a bothersome technicality.
On September 9, Biden angrily lectured the American people about the COVID-19 pandemic, laying out plans for vaccination mandates to include all civilian and military federal employees and contractors, and for anyone working for a private company with 100 or more employees.
Biden’s plan was indeed bold. As it turns out, it was too bold. On Friday, a federal appeals court in New Orleans, answering one of some two dozen pending federal court challenges to Biden’s COVID mandates, told him to go back to the drawing board.
Biden’s plan hit another snag last week. The Army general in charge of Oklahoma’s National Guard issued an order declaring that no troops under his command will be required to be COVID vaccinated; this in direct defiance of a mandate issued in August by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.
The November 12 opinion by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit dealt with the November 5 “Emergency Temporary Standard” issued by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) purporting to implement the 100 employee mandate portion of Biden’s September edict. (The court had issued a preliminary stay of the mandate on November 6.)
Despite Biden’s declaring that this mandate was among those he deemed essential to save the country from the continued ravages of COVID-19, the appeals court disagreed with him in every respect. It determined that OSHA had failed to meet a single requirement needed to be able to enforce the regulatory mandate, even had the agency possessed the legal power to do so, which the court said it did not.
The appeals court could not have been more clear in dousing Biden’s far-reaching plan with cold water; at one point deriding the OSHA plan as an unlawful “sledgehammer.”
When that court issued its November 6 temporary order staying the OSHA regulations, the administration puffed up its chest and publicly urged American citizens and businesses to ignore the court and carry out the administration’s wishes regardless. It remains to be seen whether the administration will be as brash in urging citizens and businesses to violate last Friday’s far more detailed, crystal-clear order.
While the Fifth Circuit’s November 12 opinion did contain a lifeline for the administration, in that its stay of the OSHA mandate holds only until the court considers the underlying relief for a permanent injunction sought against the government, it likely will be extremely difficult for the administration to find a way around this opinion.
Not only did the three-judge Fifth Circuit panel provide legal and factual grounds defeating every argument on which OSHA based its “emergency” regulations, the judges explicitly told the agency it was to “take no steps to implement or enforce the Mandate.” This directive appears to be a warning to the administration not to make further public statements urging that the court’s orders be ignored.
The November 11 order by the commander of the Oklahoma National Guard rejecting the Defense Secretary’s COVID mandate for all troops presents the administration with a completely different predicament than that faced now by OSHA, and sets up what may prove to be a serious challenge to the power Uncle Sam legally can exercise over the National Guard units of an individual state. Regardless of how this particular problem is resolved, for now it further undercuts the mandate-heavy approach preferred by this president
As things stand now, the Biden administration lacks even a rubber mallet with which to enforce many of its beloved COVID-19 mandates. It will be interesting to see what legal rabbits it pulls out of its hat in the coming days.
Bob Barr represented Georgia’s Seventh District in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1995 to 2003. He served as the United States Attorney in Atlanta from 1986 to 1990 and was an official with the CIA in the 1970s. He now practices law in Atlanta, Georgia and serves as head of Liberty Guard.
©2022 Liberty Guard, Inc. All rights reserved.
Designed and Developed by Media Bridge LLC