The Liberty Now Network™ Home of the "Legitimate Power" Talk Radio Program with Dr. Christopher A. Gower.  

Okay I know a lot of you are probably thinking "oh great, another one of Christopher's crazy big brother posts"...but I want you to do a little research as I did, when I heard about this agency. Not only does it scare the crap out of me, due to the language used in the law, but the law is so vague, and open to interpretation; that it can be used to confiscate all kinds of personal property that the government deems "unsafe". It starts with toys and ends with all matter of things that the government deems inappropriate for the maintenance of domestic tranquility...of course stomping on your 2nd Amendment right to protect your family and home. For those of you asleep in civics class, that is your right to bear arms. This is a long, but well worth the effort read. I put a lot of time and painstaking fact-checking, to be completely accurate and articulate with the facts.

One of the most disturbing quotes( sends shivers down my spine) you are going to read below is the following:

"We want to make sure that everybody knows what the rules of engagement are to help spur greater compliance, so that enforcement becomes less of an issue. But we're still going to enforce."

My GOD! Compliance...Enforce....It's smacks of Orwellian/NAZI/USSR( remember them ) control, and sounds mighty manifesto.

If you have been keeping up with my posts, and read them thoroughly, you know that this is exactly how Germany looked circa 1929. Seems innocent enough, and for the general welfare, but underneath; a vicious, and evil approach to the control of every aspect of our lives. OKay enough of my inference, check it out.

If you're planning a garage sale or organizing a church bazaar, you'd best beware: You could be breaking a new federal law. As part of a campaign called Resale Roundup, the federal government is cracking down on the second-hand sales of dangerous and defective products.

The initiative, which targets toys and other products for children, enforces a new provision that makes it a federal crime to resell anything that's been recalled by its manufacturer, or that the government deems unsafe.( scared yet? )

"Those who resell recalled children's products are not only breaking the law, they are putting children's lives at risk," said Inez Tenenbaum, the recently confirmed chairwoman of the Consumer Product Safety Commission.

The crackdown affects sellers ranging from major thrift-store operators such as Goodwill and the Salvation Army to everyday Americans cleaning out their attics for yard sales, church bazaars or — increasingly — digital hawking on eBay, Craigslist and other Web sites.( so basically anywhere people would go to trade, or sell or buy goods with their neighbors, friends and families )

Secondhand sellers now must keep abreast of recalls for thousands of products, some of them stretching back more than a decade, to stay within the bounds of the law.

Staffers for the federal agency are fanning out across the country to conduct training seminars on the regulations at dozens of thrift shops.

"Even before this law, we had good mechanisms in place for pulling recalled products," said Jim Gibbons, the chief executive of Goodwill. "The law just kicks it up a notch, so Goodwills around the country will continue to improve our process."

Goodwill uses $2 billion in annual sales at its 2,300 thrift shops nationwide to pay for its job-training and employment placement programs.

Gibbons said the nonprofit group was accustomed to inspectors from the Consumer Product Safety Commission making unannounced visits to its stores.

Scott Wolfson, a spokesman for the agency, said it wouldn't be dispatching bureaucratic storm troopers( isn't it funny that when politicians, or spokespeople who know the truth, but are trying to spin, try to lead you in another direction, they tell you exactly what they are truly thinking? I Learned a great deal about this, psychological slip of the toungue, in interogations in the service of this Great Country of Ours. ) into private homes to see whether people were selling recalled products from their garages, yards or churches.

"We're not looking to come across as being heavy-handed," he said. "We want to make sure that everybody knows what the rules of engagement are to help spur greater compliance, so that enforcement becomes less of an issue. But we're still going to enforce."

The agency is working with eBay, Wolfson said, to help the online sales giant install software filters that will flag auction items subject to manufacturers' recalls.

The commission's Internet surveillance unit is monitoring Craigslist and other "top auction and reselling sites" for recalled goods. If the agency discovers that a recalled product has been sold online, it will try to find and inform the buyer, Wolfson said.

To kick off its Resale Roundup, the federal agency released a list of the 11 most dangerous previously recalled children's products.

The oldest is the March 10, 1993, recall of 11,600 portable cribs sold as Playskool Travel-Lite Play Yards and made by Kolcraft, an Aberdeen, N.C., firm that's the nation's largest crib manufacturer.

Adele Meyer is the executive director of the National Association of Resale and Thrift Shops, which represents more than 1,100 store owners.

"Even before it was criminal to resell recalled goods, our members have always been diligent because children's safety is always foremost in their minds," she said. "But having consumers look out for recalled products that are sold at garage sales and flea markets, that is a problem, and hopefully this law will help."(note: controlling the distribuiton of goods and services is a foundational precept of socialism/communism/marxism)

Nancy Lothrop, a mother of two in Monroe, Wash., was surprised to learn that she might be violating the law by selling about $200 worth of Polly Pocket dolls and accessories on Craigslist that her 12-year-old daughter no longer wants.

In two large recalls from November 2006 to August 2007, the El Segundo, Calif.-based Mattel asked consumers to return 9.7 million units of several dozen different sets of Polly Pocket dolls.

The recalled dolls and accessories, made for Mattel in China, had tiny magnets that could become loose and then swallowed or inhaled by young children. The magnets have caused three serious injuries — intestinal tears requiring surgery — that the Consumer Product Safety Commission knows of.

Lothrop's daughter, Laura, was upset about four years ago when Mattel changed the clothing for many of the Polly Pocket dolls from a rubber-type material to plastic and inserted small magnets to hold it on the figures.

Laura didn't like the new material or the way it fit her dolls. So, at 8, she e-mailed a complaint to Mattel. The toy giant never responded.

Now, Nancy and Laura Lothrop must do a painstaking inventory of her collection, searching for tiny model numbers to see whether they match any of the recalled items. If they find matches, they'll pull the recalled dolls and accessories from the group that they're selling.

Nancy Lothrop, though, doesn't quite understand why the dolls are being singled out.

"Many toys have small pieces that could be dangerous," she said. "My son played with army men, Lego blocks, all kinds of things with little parts. A toddler can put anything in his mouth. Parents need to have common sense. Ultimately, the parent needs to really evaluate and be watchful of what the child is playing with. We as consumers have to be careful. It really comes back to us."

The Resale Roundup is being enforced under the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act, which Congress passed and President George W. Bush signed into law last year.

The law has a number of other beefed-up consumer protections, including much tougher standards for selling products that contain lead or lead-based paint. After stalling for years, the legislation gained new life after widely publicized massive recalls of Chinese-made dolls and toys with lead paint that started in late 2007.

The law also restored the full five seats on the Consumer Product Safety Commission for the first time in a quarter-century.

President Barack Obama and Democratic congressional leaders are crafting an appropriations bill that would boost the agency's funding next year by more than 11.4 percent — to $117 million — and it's already hiring new inspectors and other employees in anticipation of the funding infusion.

Now before those of you who buy into the lie, and are saying "my god Christopher don't you think you are blowing things way out of proportion, this is to protect our kids.." let me remind you of a simple matters of fact, that have happened in our human, not so distant history:

"The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to allow the subject races to possess arms, or items that will destroy themselves, or the ruling class. History shows that all conquerors who have allowed their subject races to carry arms have prepared their own downfall by so doing. Indeed, I would go so far as to say that the supply of arms to the underdogs is a sine qua non for the overthrow of any sovereignty. So let's not have any native militia or native police. German troops alone will bear the sole responsibility for the maintenance of law and order throughout the occupied Russian territories, and a system of military strong-points must be evolved to cover the entire occupied country." --Adolf Hitler

On April 6, 1933, the Main Office for Press and Propaganda of the German Student Association (Deutsche Studentenschaft) proclaimed a nationwide "Action against the Un-German Spirit", to climax in a literary purge or "cleansing" ("Säuberung") by fire. Local chapters were to supply the press with releases and commissioned articles, sponsor well-known Nazi figures to speak at public gatherings, and negotiate for radio broadcast time. On April 8 the students association also drafted its Twelve Theses, deliberately evoking Martin Luther; the theses declared and outlined a "pure" national language and culture. Placards publicized the theses, which attacked "Jewish intellectualism", asserted the need to "purify" German language and literature, and demanded that universities be centers of German nationalism. The students described the "action" as a response to a worldwide Jewish "smear campaign" against Germany and an affirmation of traditional German values.

In a symbolic act of ominous significance, on May 10, 1933 the students burned upwards of 25,000 volumes of "un-German" books, presaging an era of state censorship and control of culture. On the night of May 10, in most university towns, nationalist students marched in torchlight parades "against the un-German spirit." The scripted rituals called for high Nazi officials, professors, rectors, and student leaders to address the participants and spectators. At the meeting places, students threw the pillaged and unwanted books into the bonfires with great joyous ceremony, band-playing, songs, "fire oaths," and incantations.

Not all book burnings took place on May 10, as the German Student Association had planned. Some were postponed a few days because of rain. Others, based on local chapter preference, took place on June 21, the summer solstice, a traditional date of celebration. Nonetheless, in 34 university towns across Germany the "Action against the Un-German Spirit" was a success, enlisting widespread newspaper coverage. And in some places, notably Berlin, radio broadcasts brought the speeches, songs, and ceremonial incantations "live" to countless German listeners.

So here is The Nature of a Secret Police/Agency( taken directly off of "OUR" DEA website( public domain & funded by our tax dollars):

Enforcement of the law has required, in nearly all socialized societies, a certain amount of secrecy, particularly in the investigation of crime and the identification of what are often considered conspiracies. The emergence of a uniformed, clearly recognizable police force is of much more recent origin than secret bodies formed by governments for their protection from internal and external attack. In its wider meaning, the term secret police embraces all those members of any police force that operate, often out of uniform, without giving warning to the suspected criminal. Some countries have laws limiting the role of such secret police to investigation only, giving the indicted offender the right to an open trial and complete access to the evidence.

Wherever these interrelated conditions are not fulfilled, a secret police in the narrower sense of the term either exists or is in process of developing. This secret police is a body officially or in fact endowed with authority superior to other law-enforcing agencies. It investigates, apprehends, and sometimes even judges the suspect in secrecy, and is often accountable only to the executive branch of the government. In extreme cases such a secret police force may even have its own courts and prisons, and its activities are kept secret not only from the mass of the population but also from the legislative, judiciary, and executive authorities of the state, except at the topmost level.

The Evolution of Secret Police Forces

Some argue that secret police forces have always been primarily concerned with the security of the state and that they are invariably created by governmental action, but this is not the case. Thus the formidable Vehmgericht of medieval Germany was a spontaneous creation of a segment of the people to protect its interests; it may be argued that the Vehme and similar institutions were secret societies rather than bodies of secret police, but the distinction is not always easy to make.

The institution of a secret police has existed in most societies where a minority has exercised an uneasy rule over a majority. In ancient Sparta, a well-organized secret police controlled the helots and ruthlessly suppressed any sign of rebellion. In Rome, particularly under the Julian emperors, a professional class of informers who received a share of their victims' confiscated fortunes, was employed by the state. Among the earliest secret police forces organized along modern lines were the Venetian Inquisition (see Ten, Council of) and the Oprichina of Czar Ivan IV of Russia. The institution has reached its most menacing aspect in the modern state—largely because of the improved technology at its disposal. Two 20th-century examples, that of Russia and later the Soviet Union and that of Nazi Germany, illustrate the workings of modern secret police forces.

Russia and the Soviet Union

After the abortive Decembrist coup of 1825, a powerful secret police was organized in Russia at the order of the repressive Nicholas I. This notorious Third Section (thus named because it was the third department of the czar's chancery), established a rigid and complicated system of censorship and sought to suppress not only subversive activity but even subversive thought. (The culmination of this trend, typical of police states, was symbolized by the name of the Japanese secret police before 1945—Thought Police.) The use of agents provocateurs by the czarist police led to such extremes that secret police, posing as revolutionists, actually helped to assassinate government officials.

After the Russian Revolution of 1917 the Soviet government instituted its own secret police, the Cheka (the Russian acronym for All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for the Suppression of Counterrevolution and Sabotage), under Felix Dzerzhinsky. This was reorganized (1922) as the GPU, later the OGPU (United State Political Administration). In 1934 the functions of the OGPU were transferred to the NKVD (People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs), which was also responsible for all places of detention (e.g., forced labor camps) and for the regular police. In 1936, Stalin named Nikolai Yezhov as its head, and under Yezhov's direction Stalinist purges culminated in the wave of terror (1936–38) known as the Yezhovshchina. When Yezhov himself was convicted of conspiracy in the 1938 Moscow treason trials, he was succeeded by Lavrenti Beria.

Under Beria's long tenure the vast apparatus of the Soviet security organs became the most powerful and the most feared section of society. The NKVD was split (1943) into the NKVD and the NKGB (People's Commissariat for State Security), the former retaining responsibility for internal security; in 1946 the NKVD became the MVD (Ministry of Interior), and the NKGB became the MGB (Ministry of State Security). After Stalin's death in 1953 the two ministries were fused into a new MVD under Beria. Later in the year Beria was arrested on charges of conspiracy and was killed; the charges illustrated the inherent danger of a strong secret police and its potential for overthrowing the very state that it is supposed to protect.

After Beria's fall the Soviet security service was placed under the KGB (Committee of State Security). Although the KGB's functions resembled those of its predecessors, it employed terror to a far lesser degree. Subordinated to party control, its main duties were concerned with internal intelligence. Much of what is now known about the secret police in the Soviet Union was made public in reports by Khrushchev. Under Gorbachev's policies, the power of the KGB was strongly curtailed, and in the aftermath of the attempted coup (1991) against him, in which KGB leaders played a major role, reformers were named to head the KGB and Interior Ministry. The KGB was then renamed and restricted to counterintelligence, economic crimes, and air and rail security. Foreign intelligence gathering was assigned to the new Central Intelligence Service.

With the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia absorbed the KGB's remnants, combining most of them under the Security and Internal Affairs Ministry. President Boris Yeltsin ordered the ministry replaced with a new Federal Counterintelligence Service (FSK) in 1993. In 1995 the FSK was given expanded powers and renamed the Federal Security Service (FSB). Since the collapse of Communism and the breakup of the Soviet Union, many documents have been made available concerning the activities of the secret police.

Nazi Germany

Although the secret police in Italy during Mussolini's rule were notorious, probably the most extreme and terrible example was that in Germany under Adolf Hitler. Under National Socialism, Germany became a police state, a state where the power of the police, and especially the secret police, over security and justice was tyrannically applied with virtually no procedural checks.

The German secret police had its genesis in the SS, or Schutzstaffel [defense echelon], created as Hitler's bodyguard under the SA (the military arm of the Nazi party), and in the SD, or Sicherheitsdienst [security service], organized in 1931 as the intelligence branch of the SS. From 1929, Heinrich Himmler controlled the SS. The Gestapo (secret state police) originated in 1933 under Hermann Goering and was ultimately merged with the SD. Just as the Gestapo had its secret operatives among the mass of the population, the SD had agents, known only to the chief SD officers, in every department of the German government, in the armed forces, in the Nazi party, among chief industrial executives, and among the Gestapo itself. While the Gestapo was known and feared, the existence of the SD was known to few.

The powers of the Gestapo, the SS, and the SD were vast; virtually any person suspected of disloyalty to the regime or of social aberration could be summarily arrested, executed, or interred in a concentration camp. The SS, literally a separate army, was responsible to Himmler alone; thus, probably for the first time in history, a secret police wielded virtually absolute power. The crimes and atrocities of the Nazi authorities in Germany itself and throughout German-occupied Europe during World War II were largely carried out by the SS and the Gestapo, who controlled the concentration and extermination camps, and who set up their subsidiary agencies in every conquered country.

Other Modern Nations

Many states, including Chile, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Romania, and South Africa, have used secret police to control internal dissent; the former East Germany's much feared Stasi (State Security Ministry) controlled every aspect of life, including the postal service and communications industry. Before 20,000 Germans stormed its headquarters, it included an extremely loyal 10,000-man army alongside 86,000 regulars, and owned its own prisons, hospitals, and construction firms. In the United States, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has been accused of operating as a secret police force. Documents released under the Freedom of Information Act reveal a history of domestic political spying on famous authors such as Ernest Hemingway, on civil-rights leaders such as Martin Luther King, Jr., and on a wide variety of legitimate organizations. These domestic counterintelligence programs (COINTELPROs) used infiltration, eavesdropping, and disinformation campaigns to harass and destroy such groups as the Black Panthers and the American Indian Movement.

Christopher A Gower, PhD., "Legitimate Power"
Nationally Syndicated Talk-Show Host, The Liberty Now Network