Worrisome Matters -- part one
Planet Waves
Richard Reeves is a columnist we've talked about before. Reeves is a
moderate, he plays it safe ... he's very sensible. Today he titles
his column "The New American Police State." When even the moderates
can make that statement, and reference articles by Paul Craig Roberts
[we post him here frequently] ... put it out there finally, and
plainly ... then we can safely put on our tin foil hats because ...
DAMN ... if we look around we find our neighbor already wearing
theirs. And they've stocked up on ammo, too.
There are two kinds of "sleeper" out there -- one is too busy with
their "mundanes" to lift their head up to look at the larger picture;
the other is reasonable, rational and able to see both sides ... that
one gets side-swiped when the game shifts out of reason and
rationality and they're stuck in a kind of tentative shock, trying to
make sense of something that's simply unthinkable.
We don't want to be either.
I've kept a finger on the pulse of the the Lefty "wing nut" blogs for
years -- they have their piece of the puzzle. Interesting things
appear on their web pages. I archived a document that came up on
Infowars.com a couple of years ago -- good thing, since I can't find
it now. It was an article entitled "News Gathering Is Illegal Under
New Patriot Act ll." It was written by Alex Jones in November of
2004. In it, he "decodes" the proposed PAII [Domestic Security
Enhancement Act of 2003,] also called Son of Patriot. That proposal,
which never saw the legal light of day, was the John Ashcroft wish
list -- I'm listing some of the sections below.
You will notice, I'm sure, how many of them our government has simply
implemented illegally, almost as though Son of Patriot had sailed
through Congress with full vote and public embrace. Similar to
Cheney's seeming ability to declassify AFTER the fact, PAII was never
passed but we're living with it anyway, short and sweet. As you read
this you will probably be shocked to see how much of this has been
foisted on the public -- secretly, until lately when we found Section
106 in our daily papers and started to connect some of these dots --
and illegally. It would be well to consider what hasn't been
implemented, as yet, and as far as we know.
"As yet" MUST be a concern of ours, today ... even if wearing the
damned hat takes a little getting used to. I'm serious as a heart
attack. Up until now public opinion has been the invisible wall that
has kept the flood of government takeover at bay; but slowly and
surely over the last five years the infrastruction of our legal
protections has eroded to a dangerous level that will make that wall
moot. Even factoring in this administrations ineptitude, it would only
take another little "incident" like 9/11 to create a new wave of fear
to breach the Constitution. Until you can convince me that the monied
and powerful politico's in this nation didn't have their fingers in
that, I won't believe something similar couldn't happen as an
expediency to the NeoCon's P-NAC [Project for a New American Century.]
The Left is worried, and to their credit, even the Right is worried --
this week, consummate Righty George Will broke ranks to condemn the
Bushies for their "monarchical doctrine."
If we sniff the wind, we know stuff's up. Consider the rashness of
Bush's budget proposal. It's a joke ... the Congress knows it's a
joke. When the president doesn't even bother to pretend he's serving
the people, I get nervous. The level of pure stonewall [Gonzales
refusing to recuse himself from the Abramoff case ... the Senate's
cave-in to the spying probe due to White House strong-arm ... Cheney's
surprising new power to "declassify" after the act] is like throwing
down a gauntlet -- stop us if you can! We've entered a new phase with
these people. They are refusing to be held accountable, even as the
public shows disapproval and the minority party howls in dismay -- in
fact, they're more aggressive than ever.
The president is given his powers through the will of the people and
the Constitution. If both of those factors are gone, but the
government is still there -- that, my dears, is called a coup.
It's all at a very delicate place today. We tip back and forth on a
daily basis. It's imperative that we hold the Vision of the America we
love, stay alert and work to inform the public. Protest diligently,
pray that they continue to bungle every new assault ... and don't
blink twice.
The PAII sections -- and Reeve's article, then a companion piece by Will Pitt.
Jude
~ from Jone's examination of the Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003.
SECTION 501 (Expatriation of Terrorists) expands the Bush
administration's "enemy combatant" definition to all American citizens
who "may" have violated any provision of Section 802 of the first
Patriot Act. (Section 802 is the new definition of domestic terrorism,
and the definition is "any action that endangers human life that is a
violation of any Federal or State law.")
Section 501 of the second Patriot Act directly connects to Section 125
of the same act. The Justice Department boldly claims that the
incredibly broad Section 802 of the First USA Patriot Act isn't broad
enough and that a new, unlimited definition of terrorism is needed.
Under Section 501 a US citizen engaging in lawful activities can be
grabbed off the street and thrown into a van never to be seen again. The
Justice Department states that they can do this because the person "had
inferred from conduct" that they were not a US citizen. Remember Section
802 of the First USA Patriot Act states that any violation of Federal or
State law can result in the "enemy combatant" terrorist designation.
SECTION 201 of the second Patriot Act makes it a criminal act for any
member of the government or any citizen to release any information
concerning the incarceration or whereabouts of detainees. It also states
that law enforcement does not even have to tell the press who they have
arrested and they never have to release the names.
SECTION 301 and 306 (Terrorist Identification Database) set up a
national database of "suspected terrorists" and radically expand the
database to include anyone associated with suspected terrorist groups
and anyone involved in crimes or having supported any group designated
as "terrorist." These sections also set up a national DNA database for
anyone on probation or who has been on probation for any crime, and
orders State governments to collect the DNA for the Federal government.
SECTION 312 gives immunity to law enforcement engaging in spying
operations against the American people and would place substantial
restrictions on court injunctions against Federal violations of civil
rights across the board. SECTION 101 will designate individual
terrorists as foreign powers and again strip them of all rights under
the "enemy combatant" designation.
SECTION 102 states clearly that any information gathering, regardless of
whether or not those activities are illegal, can be considered to be
clandestine intelligence activities for a foreign power. This makes news
gathering illegal.
SECTION 103 allows the Federal government to use wartime martial law
powers domestically and internationally without Congress declaring that
a state of war exists.
SECTION 106 is bone-chilling in its straightforwardness. It states that
broad general warrants by the secret FSIA court (a panel of secret
judges set up in a star chamber system that convenes in an undisclosed
location) granted under the first Patriot Act are not good enough. It
states that government agents must be given immunity for carrying out
searches with no prior court approval. This section throws out the
entire Fourth Amendment against unreasonable searches and seizures.
SECTION 109 allows secret star chamber courts to issue contempt charges
against any individual or corporation who refuses to incriminate
themselves or others. This sections annihilate the last vestiges of the
Fifth Amendment.
SECTION 110 restates that key police state clauses in the first Patriot
Act were not sunsetted and removes the five year sunset clause from
other subsections of the first Patriot Act. After all, the media has
told us: "This is the New America. Get used to it. This is forever."
SECTION 111 expands the definition of the "enemy combatant" designation.
SECTION 122 restates the government's newly announced power of
"surveillance without a court order."
SECTION 123 restates that the government no longer needs warrants and
that the investigations can be a giant dragnet-style sweep described in
press reports about the Total Information Awareness Network. One passage
reads, "thus the focus of domestic surveillance may be less precise than
that directed against more conventional types of crime."
*Note: Over and over again, in subsection after subsection, the second
Patriot Act states that its new Soviet-type powers will be used to fight
international terrorism, domestic terrorism and other types of crimes.
Of course the government has already announced in Section 802 of the
first USA Patriot act that any crime is considered domestic terrorism.
SECTION 126 grants the government the right to mine the entire spectrum
of public and private sector information from bank records to
educational and medical records. This is the enacting law to allow
ECHELON and the Total Information Awareness Network to break down any
and all walls of privacy. The government states that they must look at
everything to "determine" if individuals or groups might have a
connection to terrorist groups. As you can now see, you are guilty until
proven innocent.
SECTION 127 allows the government to take over coroners' and medical
examiners' operations whenever they see fit.
SECTION 128 allows the Federal government to place gag orders on Federal
and State Grand Juries and to take over the proceedings. It also
disallows individuals or organizations to even try to quash a Federal
subpoena. So now defending yourself will be a terrorist action.
SECTION 129 destroys any remaining whistle blower protection for Federal
agents.
SECTION 202 allows corporations to keep secret their activities with
toxic biological, chemical or radiological materials.
SECTION 205 allows top Federal officials to keep all their financial
dealings secret, and anyone investigating them can be considered a
terrorist. This should be very useful for Dick Cheney to stop anyone
investigating Haliburton.
SECTION 303 sets up national DNA database of suspected terrorists. The
database will also be used to "stop other unlawful activities." It will
share the information with state, local and foreign agencies for the
same purposes.
SECTION 311 federalizes your local police department in the area of
information sharing.
SECTION 313 provides liability protection for businesses, especially big
businesses that spy on their customers for Homeland Security, violating
their privacy agreements. It goes on to say that these are all
preventative measures -- has anyone seen Minority Report? This is the
access hub for the Total Information Awareness Network.
SECTION 322 removes Congress from the extradition process and allows
officers of the Homeland Security complex to extradite American citizens
anywhere they wish. It also allows Homeland Security to secretly take
individuals out of foreign countries.
SECTION 402 is titled "Providing Material Support to Terrorism." The
section reads that there is no requirement to show that the individual
even had the intent to aid terrorists.
SECTION 403 expands the definition of weapons of mass destruction to
include any activity that affects interstate or foreign commerce.
SECTION 404 makes it a crime for a terrorist or "other criminals" to use
encryption in the commission of a crime.
SECTION 408 creates "lifetime parole" (basically, slavery) for a whole
host of crimes.
SECTION 410 creates no statute of limitations for anyone that engages in
terrorist actions or supports terrorists. Remember: any crime is now
considered terrorism under the first Patriot Act.
SECTION 411 expands crimes that are punishable by death. Again, they
point to Section 802 of the first Patriot Act and state that any
terrorist act or support of terrorist act can result in the death
penalty.
SECTION 421 increases penalties for terrorist financing. This section
states that any type of financial activity connected to terrorism will
result to time in prison and $10-50,000 fines per violation.
SECTION 427 sets up asset forfeiture provisions for anyone engaging in
terrorist activities. There are many other sections that I did not cover
in the interest of time. The American people were shocked by the
despotic nature of the first Patriot Act. The second Patriot Act dwarfs
all police state legislation in modern world history. ++
THE NEW AMERICAN POLICE STATE
Richard Reeves
Fri Feb 17
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ucrr/20060218/cm_ucrr/thenewamericanpolicestate
NEW YORK -- "When I saw that the neoconservative response to 9/11 was to
turn a stateless war against terrorism into military attacks on Muslim
states, I realized that the Bush administration was committing a
strategic blunder with open-ended disastrous consequences for the United
States that, in the end, would destroy Bush, the Republican Party and
the conservative movement."
I agree with that, but I didn't write it. No liberal did.
The author is Paul Craig Roberts, one of the creators and champions of
"supply-side economics," the great conservative cause of the early
1980s. As a Wall Street Journal editorial writer and then assistant
secretary of the treasury under President Reagan, Roberts was a true
believer and an effective advocate. His political stance is pretty well
summed up in the title of his newest book: "The Tyranny of Good
Intentions: How Prosecutors and Bureaucrats Are Trampling the
Constitution in the Name of Justice."
Roberts is a syndicated columnist now, an honorable profession, and a
fellow at the Hoover Institution, a temple of talented political
thinkers devoted to all the Right things, beginning with Reaganism. His
essay, "My Epiphany: From Reaganaut to Anti-War Radical," is, as they
say these days, sweeping the Internet. (You can read the text on
VDARE.com, the Web site of the Lexington Institute.)
Roberts begins by emphasizing that he does not believe he is betraying
old friends or old causes, saying that he never considered himself a
slave to party or ideology. Apparently not. He has been writing strong
stuff:
"Americans have forgotten what it takes to remain free. Instead, every
ideology, every group is determined to use government to advance its
agenda. ... The United States is undergoing a coup against the
Constitution, the Bill of Rights and democracy itself. The 'liberal
press' has been co-opted. ... Media concentration permitted in the 1990s
has put news and opinion in the hands of a few corporate executives who
do not dare risk their broadcasting licenses by getting on the wrong
side of government, or their advertising revenues by becoming
'controversial.'"
He talks of "years of illegal spying" giving the White House the power
of "blackmail" over media and political opposition. I might not use the
same words, but I do believe that we, the people, are in jeopardy: New
spying and eavesdropping technologies and their delighted abuse by
intelligence-gathering organizations and their political masters are
turning the United States into an emerging police state.
"Homeland Security and the Patriot Act are not our protectors," he adds.
"Americans need to understand that many interests are using the 'war on
terror' to achieve their agendas. The Federalist Society is using the
war on terror to achieve its agenda of concentrating power in the
executive and packing the Supreme Court to this effect. The
neoconservatives are using the war to achieve their agenda of Israeli
hegemony in the Middle East. Police agencies are using the war to make
themselves less accountable. Republicans are using the war to achieve
one-party rule ..."
"Debate is dead," Roberts concludes. "One certainty prevails. Bush is
committing America to a path of violence and coercion, and he is getting
away with it."
I asked Roberts what has been the reaction since these words were
published 10 days ago.
"I have had thousands of e-mails, about 99.9 percent favorable, full of
praise from Democrats and Republicans alike," he answered. "They say the
country is desperate for a straight talker. ... People want to hear
more. People want me to run for the Senate or for president."
I, for one, would consider voting for him, though I would hope he will
finally give up on supply-side theory. ++
The Enemy
William Rivers Pitt
Friday 17 February 2006
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/021706A.shtml
They called it "Cyber Storm," and it was a war-game exercise run last
week by the Department of Homeland Security. The war game had nothing to
do with testing the security of our shipping ports, borders,
infrastructure or airports. "Cyber Storm" was testing the government's
ability to withstand an onslaught of information and protest from
bloggers and online activists.
"Participants confirmed," wrote the Associated Press, that "parts of the
worldwide simulation challenged government officials and industry
executives to respond to deliberate misinformation campaigns and
activist calls by Internet bloggers, online diarists whose "Web logs"
include political rantings and musings about current events."
Say what? Online expressions of political opinion are so dangerous that
the Department of Homeland Security must war-game scenarios to deal with
them? Bloggers are potential terrorists now? Bloggers are the enemy?
Last week, as far as DHS was concerned, they were.
We hear a great deal about enemies these days. Don't criticize the war,
or you'll embolden the enemy. The enemy is clever and cruel. Stick with
the White House and we'll defeat the enemy. Since the Bush
administration no longer likes to mention the name Osama bin "Stayin'
Alive" Laden in public, lest everyone remember a dramatic promise long
broken, any specific definition of an enemy changes with the moment.
Sometimes, the enemy is in Iraq, and we fight them over there so we
don't have to fight them over here. Sometimes, the enemy is in Iran,
allegedly toiling with all its collective might to manufacture nuclear
weapons. Sometimes, the enemy is in Palestine, where Hamas used George
W. Bush's exported democracy to take over the government. Sometimes, the
enemy is an American face on a television offering criticism of the
White House. Last week, the enemy was a blogger making a political
expression.
The enemy is never in Saudi Arabia, though that nation is the very
birthing bed of international terrorism. The enemy is never in Israel,
though that nation's far-right leadership has been a good deal of the
impetus behind the Bush administration's calamitous push into Iraq. The
enemy is never in China, even when they smack our planes out of the sky,
because they own a substantial portion of our debt. The enemy is never
in Pakistan, though that nation's fundamentalist wing allies itself with
the Taliban, and though they actually do possess nuclear weapons. The
enemy is occasionally mentioned as being in North Korea, but not often,
because we want no part of that fight.
For a time, the enemy was in the United Arab Emirates. Two of the
hijackers of the September 11 aircraft were citizens of the United Arab
Emirates, and the funding behind those attacks was wired through the
UAE's banking system. Republican and Democratic Senators believe the UAE
has been used as a conduit for the proliferation of nuclear technology.
That was then, however. A company named Dubai Ports World intends to
spend $6.8 billion to gain control of the management of shipping ports
in New York and New Jersey, as well as in Baltimore, Philadelphia, New
Orleans and Miami. Dubai Ports World is foreign-owned, but is backed
financially by the government of the United Arab Emirates. In other
words, a nation suspected of being a significant player in the September
11 attacks is being allowed to take control of our borders. For the
record, US ports handle an estimated two billion tons of cargo annually,
with only 5% of that cargo undergoing inspection. The deal has already
been granted regulatory clearance by the White House.
We hear a great deal about enemies, both real and contrived. Let us
ponder, for a moment, the existence of another enemy so insidious that
it operates fully in daylight but beyond control. This enemy seeks to
destroy the rule of constitutional law in the United States. This enemy
seeks to destroy the seed-corn defense against tyranny in this nation,
the separation of powers. This enemy gathers more and more power to
itself to achieve these goals, and uses fear and division to do so. This
enemy will lie with impunity, stonewall endlessly and ruin anyone who
might disrupt its plans.
This enemy stood by and did nothing while a major American city was
devoured by the ocean. When New Orleans was drowned, many voices were
raised in panicked unison that the White House must do something, and do
something now. A conference call was held between key members of the
Department of Homeland Security and other administration officials on
August 29th, the day the catastrophe began for real. Investigators are
seeking the transcript of this call, but administration officials claim
the transcript has somehow disappeared. There are many transcripts of
calls before and after this one, but the five-hour call on August 29th,
the specific call investigators want to see, simply cannot be found.
This enemy deliberately reached out and destroyed the career of a
deep-cover CIA agent named Valerie Plame, because her husband dared to
criticize the White House about its "uranium from Niger" lie regarding
Iraq. Plame, among other things, worked clandestinely to track any
person, group or nation that would give weapons of mass destruction to
terrorists; in other words, Plame worked to track the individuals this
White House never fails to label as the enemy. Her work was derailed and
her network destroyed because this White House did not want any
discussion of the fact that no weapons of mass destruction were found in
Iraq, despite miles of claims that the stuff was there.
TruthOut correspondent Jason Leopold reported this week that Attorney
General Alberto Gonzales is refusing to turn over incriminating emails
to special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, emails that allegedly indicate
the involvement of Vice President Dick Cheney and other high-ranking
administration officials in the unmasking of Agent Plame. "The emails
Gonzales is said to be withholding contained references to Valerie Plame
Wilson's identity and CIA status and developments related to the
inability to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq," reported
Leopold. "Moreover, according to sources, the emails contained
suggestions by the officials on how the White House should respond to
what it believed were increasingly destructive comments [Plame's
husband] Joseph Wilson had been making about the administration's
pre-war Iraq intelligence."
I. Lewis Libby, chief of staff to Vice President Cheney, was recently
indicted by Fitzgerald for lying under oath during the investigation
into this matter. Recently, Libby stated that he was authorized by his
superiors to expose the classified name of Valerie Plame. Given his
position, Libby's main superior is none other than Cheney himself.
Cheney recently claimed that he is authorized by an Executive Order to
declassify any information he pleases. "I have certainly advocated
declassification. I have participated in declassification decisions,"
said Cheney this week. "There's an executive order that specifies who
has classification authority, and obviously it focuses first and
foremost on the president, but also includes the vice president."
This is a new trend for the White House: rendering an illegal act legal
retroactively by fiat. The trend manifested itself in another area of
illegal activity by the White House, the warrantless wiretapping of
thousands of American citizens by the National Security Agency, in
defiance of the black-letter law contained within the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978. For several weeks now, Congress
has been threatening to hold hearings on the matter. Bush advisor Karl
Rove worked feverishly behind the scenes to keep such hearings from
taking place, and has succeeded. Rather than investigate the matter,
Congress will instead rewrite the FISA law, thus rendering retroactively
legal White House activities that blatantly broke the law.
We hear a great deal about enemies these days, and many of them are
quite real and quite perilous. It is difficult to imagine a more
perilous enemy, however, than the one operating out of Washington today.
This enemy would set itself on high, beyond control or censure, and
create of itself that permanent faction James Madison so earnestly
warned us of. This enemy deletes or hides evidence of its calumny, or
simply alters existing laws that would otherwise derail its plans. This
enemy destroys lives out of hand, lives by the tens of thousands, and
reaps a pretty profit in the process.
The difference between the enemies we hear about and the one in
Washington is simple and deadly: only the enemy in Washington can
annihilate the constitutional government we have enjoyed for more than
two centuries. The idea that is America cannot be terminated by
terrorists or rogue states. Were the nation entire to be somehow
obliterated, the idea that is America would endure. Only its keepers can
kill it completely. They are well on their way.
"As nightfall does not come at once," wrote Justice William O. Douglas,
"neither does oppression. In both instances, there's a twilight where
everything remains seemingly unchanged, and it is in such twilight that
we all must be aware of change in the air, however slight, lest we
become victims of the darkness."
We must deal with the enemy within the halls of our government, the
enemy whose power to destroy far outstrips any enemy beyond our borders.
In doing so, we save that which is unique in the world. In doing so, we
deal a death blow to all other enemies. In doing so, we save ourselves
from that darkness. ++
It is not enough to be compassionate; you must act.
-- The Dalai Lama
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