Free Speech...Really?

Text of the First Amendment.

"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."

In an interview on NPR, Eric Holder made these comments regarding the First Amendment. Here's the text of his remarks.

"The court has really struck down every government effort to try to regulate it. We tried with regard to pornography. It is gonna be a difficult thing, but it seems to me that if we can come up with reasonable restrictions, reasonable regulations in how people interact on the Internet, that is something that the Supreme Court and the courts ought to favorably look at." - May 28, 1999 NPR Morning Edition

(His statement is incorrect. Child pornography, for instance, is illegal regardless of the medium.)

Now that he's Attorney General of the United States, does he still want to restrict speech on the Internet? If it could be restricted there, why not restrict it in print? Twitter didn't exist at the time of he made those remarks. How would he propose to regulate it? Between having some Democrat Senators call for a return of the so-called "Fairness Doctrine" and the new AG's apparent attitude toward speech on the Internet, we better keep a close watch on our rights enumerated in the First Amendment .

They thought it was a big ocean.

A British and a French submarine collided in mid ocean. While it's surprising that they accidentally found each other, it's not surprising that neither could detect the other. After all, they're Boomers (ICBM carrying subs), their job is to not be found. But, as I found out once, they are sometimes found.

I was on a patrol in my trusty HH-3F Pelican one day off the coast of San Diego. We spotted a target on radar about 20 miles away and headed towards it. As we got closer, we looked and looked, but couldn't see a vessel. When we got very close, there still wasn't a boat in sight. Finally we saw something in the water right in front of us. "Is that a...periscope?" Yes, it sure was. We came into a hover right next to it. When it turned to where we would be visible, we waved. And it disappeared under the water. You can bet that was embarrassing.

I can imagine the words in the control room.

"$%&!"
"What sir?"
"Uhh...nothing. Just a #$@& Pelican. Down periscope."

Somebody's following me!

Unless you work for an alphabet soup agency of the U.S. government (CIA, FBI, MIB), are a cop leaving work, a diamond merchant, a family-law attorney, or are being stalked, somebody probably isn't following you. Seriously, most of us aren't interesting enough to follow. Sorry to disappoint you.

But, some people are followed home for criminal purposes. I haven't found any hard statistics on the frequency of follow-home crimes. News reports of them seem to be fairly rare. Even so, they do happen, as in a recent case in Southern California.

Maybe you have a good reason to think you may be followed. Perhaps you fit into one of the groups mentioned above, or are having a business dispute with Moose, Guido & Sons Collection Agency. If so, there are some precautions you might want to take.

First, vary your route home from work. Take a different off ramp or main thoroughfare. Randomly change the time you leave work if you can. Even if you don't have a reason to think somebody's following you, stay aware of your surroundings. It's called situational awareness (SA). An added benefit of maintaining a high situational awareness is that you're less likely to get involved in an accident.

Since you've maintained a high SA, you notice that the same nondescript, black SUV has been behind you for the last five miles or so. How do you figure out if you're being followed or are just being paranoid? You can try some counter-surveillance driving. Make a number of random turns that make no sense if you're headed for a specific destination, like in the video. Just make sure you don't end up stuck in a cul-de-sac.



If the car is still behind you, yes, you're being followed. And the people following you either don't care that you know or aren't very bright. Either way, you don't want to go straight home or stop to have a chat with them. Continue driving and call 911 to explain the situation. Arrange to meet the cops at a public place and keep driving around until they get there and can meet you. With any luck, they'll be able to have that chat with the reps from Moose, Guido & Sons.

Forest Jihad

I read the following article about the wildfires in Australia.

Forest Jihad

The discussion involved whether terrorists started, or could have started many of the fires. The conclusion of the experts interviewed was that terrorists probably were not involved, but were capable of it. An extremist website called on Muslims to launch a "forest jihad" in Australia, Europe, Russia and the United States. They may not have been involved in Australia's current disaster, but they certainly could be involved in future disasters.

The year is 1992 and the Rodney King riots are in full swing. I am flying a law-enforcement helicopter over Los Angeles in the evening. The scene is as surreal as anything out of Apocalypse Now. Scattered fires burn around the city, spewing columns of black smoke nearly straight up into a sky almost devoid of wind. It's a sight I'll never forget.

Thinking over the events of the riot later, I realized that a small, well-organized group could wreak havoc throughout the city and stretch emergency services to the breaking point. All they would need is a few dozen molotov cocktails or pipe bombs and a half-decent plan.

Similar thoughts cross my mind every fire season in Southern California. It's bad enough when we have multiple individual arsonists. I hate to think what would happen if a terrorist cell were to implement a mass arson plan. So far, it appears that the call for “forest jihad” has not been answered. But how long will it be until somebody answers the call? What can we do to prevent it? Sadly, not much. It's possible to harden small targets like banks and government buildings, but not vast expanses of forest. All we can do as individuals is to remain alert, especially the sheepdogs among us.

What's a sheepdog?

PelicanDriver?

What's a PelicanDriver? In U.S. military aviation parlance, a pilot is often referred to as a ____driver, as in "F-4 Driver" or "C-130 Driver." At a U.S. Coast Guard Air Station not terribly far away, at a time so long ago as to almost seem like another lifetime, I flew the USCG HH-3F helicopter. The HH-3F was designated the "Pelican" by the Coast Guard. Hence the nom de guerre PelicanDriver.

I flew the H-3 out of Coast Guard Air Station San Diego. As my tour and active duty commitments both were coming to an end, the Coast Guard was realigning its aviation assets. The H-3s were moved to Air Station San Francisco. My last flight as a Coast Guard Aviator was spent ferrying an H-3 to AirSta S.F., which concluded by flying under the Golden Gate bridge.

Here's one of my Pelicans.


This one I'm flying at the time.