Everyday our liberties and freedom come under fire. The American Republic once protected its citizens from arbitrary abuse, extortion, and deliberate social engineering. Now the very same public servants who were meant to work for us connive daily on how to control our lives. The Republic is gone and we are left to fend for ourselves, to put up resistance to every encroachment on individual self-determination. The Freedom Under Fire Report provides daily coverage of the most important issues, so that you remain informed and ready to defend yourself. Read on and pass this around to everyone you think could benefit:

Government Moving to Control Internet, Removing Anonymity. In the typical guise of trading freedom for security, the federal government is funding research that could lead to requiring “the equivalent of driver’s licences to permit someone to connect to a public computer network.” In coordination with industry, Congress is funding the Stanford Clean Slate project that is developing tools that would “ultimately give law enforcement officials more effective ways of tracking criminals through cyberspace.”

Law enforcement and government agencies will always want more control of everything. The current internet architecture “virtually guarantees anonymity to its users. But that anonymity is now the most vexing challenge for law enforcement.”

Nude Man Dies When Tasered by L.A. Sheriff’s Deputies. An irate man running through the L.A. suburb of Lakewood died after being pepper sprayed and tasered by sheriff’s deputies on Saturday. The officers attempted to calm the man, but unleashed the arsenal when he moved towards them. Deputies noticed the man was no longer breathing after he had been handcuffed.

Obama Talks Up Stimulus Bill, but Warns Not to Expect Results Any Time Soon. White House officials sought to temper expectations on the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, warning that the economy has yet to reach bottom and positive results from the massive $787 billion spending bill would “take time to show up in the statistics.” There is almost no way to know whether or not this spending makes a positive differnce. It would take years to judge, and even then we must realize that our economy is not a closed, controlled system. Causation and correlation are extremely difficult to gauge. One thing that’s certain, however, is that economists across the spectrum doubt the stimulus is a step in the right direction.

McCain Voices Concerns of Stimulus Bill: “Business as Usual”. “It was a bad beginning. It wasn’t what we promised the American people, that we would sit down together.” Obama talking to Republicans about why they should accept his bill is not how you conduct bipartisan negotiations; rather, “you sit down and discuss alternatives.” Not a single Republican voted for the bill in the House, with only 3 voting with Democrats in the Senate. Most importantly, McCain is disappointed that triggers were not layed in that would automatically cut spending when the economy turns around:

We are committing generational theft, laying a huge deficit on future generations. In our [Republican] proposal we had a trigger that when the economy improves this spending would stop.

“It’s a thousand pages, it’s 8 lbs, with many changes literally scribbled on the side of pages. This is ‘business as usual’ in Washington. McCain laments that “Republicans were guilty of this kind of behavior, but Americans want us to do things differently; they want us to work together.”

Stop Looking at Housing for Economic Growth. Nouriel Roubini and Nassim Taleb share their views on the economy and markets. Both say they are heavily in cash, looking for a 20% downside to global equities. Any rallies should be considered short-lived bear market rallies, not sustainable. Taleb debunks the idea that housing should be a focus of public policy. He urges us to “get rid of that mentality of building debt for housing and matters that are not really robust for the economy.” Rather, both recommend policymakers focus on relieving unemployment, encouraging labor productivity, having less people doing finance, and encouraging investment in real human and physical capital.” In general, they say that “to build robustness we’re going to have to get rid of debt.”

One thing that’s clear is that the government is doing the exact opposite of what both these men recommend, which is why Taleb says we should fire everyone in power who caused this mess. Both Roubini and Taleb predicted the current financial crash, and are two of the most sought after investment consultants in the world right now. In a recent talk they gave in Davos, people like Bill Gates and Michael Dell waited in line for hours to hear them. Fortunately, we don’t have to wait in line, just check out the video clips!

Bolivarian Revolution put to the Test: A Lesson for Americans. Venezualan President Hugo Chavez has been in power for 10 years already, with another 4 years remaining in his Constitutionally limited term. Rather than preparing to step down, Chavez is pushing a referendum that would change the law so that he can remain in power indefinitely. As is typical amongst dictators, Chavez is rejuvinating claims of “coup plots and assassination attempts” to stir up and justify pro-Chavez hassassment:

The desecration of a Caracas synagogue, the harrassment of opposition figures by pro-government militia, and demonstrations in favor of the referendum.

The rule of law has long broken down in Venezuela and has been supplanted with a populist dictatorship. Venezuela used to be one of the most liberal, free democracies in Latin America. Americans should be taking careful notes on how such a system could end up as it has. We are moving down a similar populist “Road to Serfdom.”

Argentina Offers New Deal to International Investors. In a move to avert defaulting on $95 billion in government bonds, Argentina is trying to swap their bonds for new 5-year paper, with a 2% capital reduction and a fixed 15.4% rate for the first year and variable thereafter. Once again our Latin American neighbors offer lessons for America: The United States is marching down the same path. Our government is borrowing and printing like a banana republic, with the result likely to be along the same lines as experienced by Argentina.

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