Below is today’s column in the Sunday Washington Post. The column addresses how the continued rollbacks on civil liberties in the United States conflicts with the view of the country as the land of the free. If we are going to adopt Chinese legal principles, we should at least have the integrity to adopt one Chinese proverb: “The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their right names.” We seem as a country to be in denial as to the implications of these laws and policies. Whether we are viewed as a free country with authoritarian inclinations or an authoritarian nation with free aspirations (or some other hybrid definition), we are clearly not what we once were. [Update: in addition to the column below, a later column in the Washington Post explores more closely the loss of free speech rights in the West].
Every year, the State Department issues reports on individual rights in other countries, monitoring the passage of restrictive laws and regulations around the world. Iran, for example, has been criticized for denying fair public trials and limiting privacy, while Russia has been taken to task for undermining due process. Other countries have been condemned for the use of secret evidence and torture.
Even as we pass judgment on countries we consider unfree, Americans remain confident that any definition of a free nation must include their own — the land of free. Yet, the laws and practices of the land should shake that confidence. In the decade since Sept. 11, 2001, this country has comprehensively reduced civil liberties in the name of an expanded security state. The most recent example of this was the National Defense Authorization Act, signed Dec. 31, which allows for the indefinite detention of citizens. At what point does the reduction of individual rights in our country change how we define ourselves?
While each new national security power Washington has embraced was controversial when enacted, they are often discussed in isolation. But they don’t operate in isolation. They form a mosaic of powers under which our country could be considered, at least in part, authoritarian. Americans often proclaim our nation as a symbol of freedom to the world while dismissing nations such as Cuba and China as categorically unfree. Yet, objectively, we may be only half right. Those countries do lack basic individual rights such as due process, placing them outside any reasonable definition of “free,” but the United States now has much more in common with such regimes than anyone may like to admit.
These countries also have constitutions that purport to guarantee freedoms and rights. But their governments have broad discretion in denying those rights and few real avenues for challenges by citizens — precisely the problem with the new laws in this country.
The list of powers acquired by the U.S. government since 9/11 puts us in rather troubling company.
Assassination of U.S. citizens
President Obama has claimed, as President George W. Bush did before him, the right to order the killing of any citizen considered a terrorist or an abettor of terrorism. Last year, he approved the killing of U.S. citizen Anwar al-Awlaqi and another citizen under this claimed inherent authority. Last month, administration officials affirmed that power, stating that the president can order the assassination of any citizen whom he considers allied with terrorists. (Nations such as Nigeria, Iran and Syria have been routinely criticized for extrajudicial killings of enemies of the state.)
Indefinite detention
Under the law signed last month, terrorism suspects are to be held by the military; the president also has the authority to indefinitely detain citizens accused of terrorism. While Sen. Carl Levin insisted the bill followed existing law “whatever the law is,” the Senate specifically rejected an amendment that would exempt citizens and the Administration has opposed efforts to challenge such authority in federal court. The Administration continues to claim the right to strip citizens of legal protections based on its sole discretion. (China recently codified a more limited detention law for its citizens, while countries such as Cambodia have been singled out by the United States for “prolonged detention.”)
Arbitrary justice
The president now decides whether a person will receive a trial in the federal courts or in a military tribunal, a system that has been ridiculed around the world for lacking basic due process protections. Bush claimed this authority in 2001, and Obama has continued the practice. (Egypt and China have been denounced for maintaining separate military justice systems for selected defendants, including civilians.)
Warrantless searches
The president may now order warrantless surveillance, including a new capability to force companies and organizations to turn over information on citizens’ finances, communications and associations. Bush acquired this sweeping power under the Patriot Act in 2001, and in 2011, Obama extended the power, including searches of everything from business documents to library records. The government can use “national security letters” to demand, without probable cause, that organizations turn over information on citizens — and order them not to reveal the disclosure to the affected party. (Saudi Arabia and Pakistan operate under laws that allow the government to engage in widespread discretionary surveillance.)
Secret evidence
The government now routinely uses secret evidence to detain individuals and employs secret evidence in federal and military courts. It also forces the dismissal of cases against the United States by simply filing declarations that the cases would make the government reveal classified information that would harm national security — a claim made in a variety of privacy lawsuits and largely accepted by federal judges without question. Even legal opinions, cited as the basis for the government’s actions under the Bush and Obama administrations, have been classified. This allows the government to claim secret legal arguments to support secret proceedings using secret evidence. In addition, some cases never make it to court at all. The federal courts routinely deny constitutional challenges to policies and programs under a narrow definition of standing to bring a case.
War crimes
The world clamored for prosecutions of those responsible for waterboarding terrorism suspects during the Bush administration, but the Obama administration said in 2009 that it would not allow CIA employees to be investigated or prosecuted for such actions. This gutted not just treaty obligations but the Nuremberg principles of international law. When courts in countries such as Spain moved to investigate Bush officials for war crimes, the Obama administration reportedly urged foreign officials not to allow such cases to proceed, despite the fact that the United States has long claimed the same authority with regard to alleged war criminals in other countries. (Various nations have resisted investigations of officials accused of war crimes and torture. Some, such as Serbia and Chile, eventually relented to comply with international law; countries that have denied independent investigations include Iran, Syria and China.)
Secret court
The government has increased its use of the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which has expanded its secret warrants to include individuals deemed to be aiding or abetting hostile foreign governments or organizations. In 2011, Obama renewed these powers, including allowing secret searches of individuals who are not part of an identifiable terrorist group. The administration has asserted the right to ignore congressional limits on such surveillance. (Pakistan places national security surveillance under the unchecked powers of the military or intelligence services.)
Immunity from judicial review
Like the Bush administration, the Obama administration has successfully pushed for immunity for companies that assist in warrantless surveillance of citizens, blocking the ability of citizens to challenge the violation of privacy. (Similarly, China has maintained sweeping immunity claims both inside and outside the country and routinely blocks lawsuits against private companies.)
Continual monitoring of citizens
The Obama administration has successfully defended its claim that it can use GPS devices to monitor every move of targeted citizens without securing any court order or review. It is not defending the power before the Supreme Court — a power described by Justice Anthony Kennedy as “Orwellian.” (Saudi Arabia has installed massive public surveillance systems, while Cuba is notorious for active monitoring of selected citizens.)
Extraordinary renditions
The government now has the ability to transfer both citizens and noncitizens to another country under a system known as extraordinary rendition, which has been denounced as using other countries, such as Syria, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Pakistan, to torture suspects. The Obama administration says it is not continuing the abuses of this practice under Bush, but it insists on the unfettered right to order such transfers — including the possible transfer of U.S. citizens.
These new laws have come with an infusion of money into an expanded security system on the state and federal levels, including more public surveillance cameras, tens of thousands of security personnel and a massive expansion of a terrorist-chasing bureaucracy.
Some politicians shrug and say these increased powers are merely a response to the times we live in. Thus, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) could declare in an interview last spring without objection that “free speech is a great idea, but we’re in a war.” Of course, terrorism will never “surrender” and end this particular “war.”
Other politicians rationalize that, while such powers may exist, it really comes down to how they are used. This is a common response by liberals who cannot bring themselves to denounce Obama as they did Bush. Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), for instance, has insisted that Congress is not making any decision on indefinite detention: “That is a decision which we leave where it belongs — in the executive branch.”
And in a signing statement with the defense authorization bill, Obama said he does not intend to use the latest power to indefinitely imprison citizens. Yet, he still accepted the power as a sort of regretful autocrat.
An authoritarian nation is defined not just by the use of authoritarian powers, but by the ability to use them. If a president can take away your freedom or your life on his own authority, all rights become little more than a discretionary grant subject to executive will.
The framers lived under autocratic rule and understood this danger better than we do. James Madison famously warned that we needed a system that did not depend on the good intentions or motivations of our rulers: “If men were angels, no government would be necessary.”
Benjamin Franklin was more direct. In 1787, a Mrs. Powel confronted Franklin after the signing of the Constitution and asked, “Well, Doctor, what have we got — a republic or a monarchy?” His response was a bit chilling: “A republic, Madam, if you can keep it.”
Since 9/11, we have created the very government the framers feared: a government with sweeping and largely unchecked powers resting on the hope that they will be used wisely.
The indefinite-detention provision in the defense authorization bill seemed to many civil libertarians like a betrayal by Obama. While the president had promised to veto the law over that provision, Levin, a sponsor of the bill, disclosed on the Senate floor that it was in fact the White House that approved the removal of any exception for citizens from indefinite detention.
Dishonesty from politicians is nothing new for Americans. The real question is whether we are lying to ourselves when we call this country the land of the free.
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro professor of public interest law at George Washington University.
Washington Post (Sunday) January 15, 2012
I am born on God’s earth, a son of God, given dominion, agency, and possession, of the earth, equally with all others, as long as I hurt no one or damage no property, private or public, nor commit deliberate fraud in contract, I have not done any wrong, I have the right to travel in the mode of the time, for earning my daily sustenance, or merely for pleasure, I have the right to defend myself, with whatever tool I choose. I have the right to pronounce any contact that I have been entered into without full knowledge, and agreement as a nullity My rights are what I say they are as long as I do not transgress on any others rights, does anyone have superior authority from God?
No they do not have superior authority.. But the world belongs to the devil God gave that to him, we are persecuted and should be glad of this just as jesus was.. if they persecuted him why would they not persecute us?
http://www.apfn.org/apfn/travel.htm
excerpt: Right to Travel
my comment: One of the first major rights lost?
Dave, The common misconception is that we are citizens of the US.. Please look up the 30 facts every American should know or the straw man illusion. . We are debt slaves we can never truly own property our taxes are paid in tribute to England .. SSC checks are issued by the IMF not the US govt. and King of England funded both sides of the American Revolution. Oh and the CIA made facebook and Google so they could track what everyone is doing and those neat little on a map pins that put on a map everywhere you go is there for a reason..And the CIA FBI NASA AND FED RESERVE ARE NOT GOVT They are UN and fed reserve is owned by the 13 bloodlines of the free masons all our taxes are paid to them to pay back loans our govt takes out without our consent..
I am all too aware of what you have said, the color of law, because of the color of money, the frn notes, PRIVATE MONEY, are backed by the full faith and credit of the UNITED STATES, THEY LAY CLAIM TO YOU, BODY, SOUL, YOUR CHILDREN, HOUSE CAR, ETC. 1933 PUBLIC POLICY…ETC.
Yep you got it…So you hip to annunaki and reptillians?
Any rational person is aware that 9/11 was an inside job. Words like terrorism & non-terrorism, coming from supressive individuals in our mostly suppressive government departments mean little or nothing. If we can keep some freedom on the internet, our level of slavery might someday be upgraded. (a moment of silence for that kid who saved the internet from government and recently lost his life for his efforts) The White House itself has become another suppressive government department, going all the way back to Nixon, or perhaps before Roosevelt, though the Presidential Edict began its use and abuse in Nixon’s time. Anyone miss the Obama National Defence Act thirteen months ago? (or similar wording, please correct me) The serfs BEFORE the Magna Carta have more rights than Americans will have if Martial Law is declared. That’s why they want your guns, drug you & your children. And Psychiatry, not a help tool but a political tool for totalitarian government, as well as a Cash Cow with billions of your tax dollars, is at a center point in all this. Find out why white male terrorism is occuring in this country, from ‘going postal in 1987 to Columbine to Sandy Hook. Call CCHR ! 800 869 2247
If good Americans only knew what’s going on domestically… Who will be the first to leak it?
More About Intelligence Agencies (CIA/DNI) Spying
January 18, 2013
http://www.aclu.org/spy-files/more-about-intelligence-agencies-ciadni-spying
“Central Intelligence Agency. Because of the excessive secrecy surrounding CIA operations, little is known about its domestic activities. In its 1947 charter, the CIA was prohibited from spying against Americans, in part because President Truman was afraid that the agency would engage in political abuse. But the law didn’t stop the CIA from spying on Americans. During the 1960s, in clear violation of its statutory mission to co-ordinate foreign intelligence operations only, the CIA ventured into the domestic spying business through “Operation Chaos,” in which it spied on as many as 7,000 Americans involved in the peace movement.
Unfortunately, the exposure of intelligence failings before the 9/11 attacks caused policy makers to promote “information sharing” among intelligence and law enforcement agencies as a cure-all, creating the likelihood that the CIA would increasingly operate domestically. Today we know that the CIA is a participant in FBI Joint Terrorism Task Forces, which engage in both foreign and domestic terrorism investigations. And the USA Patriot Act eased restrictions on the sharing of information the FBI collects in grand jury investigations and law enforcement wiretaps with the CIA. An ACLU lawsuit revealed that the CIA has also used National Security Letters to demand Americans’ personal financial records without prior court approval. The CIA has acknowledged using National Security Letters “on a limited basis” to obtain financial information from U.S. companies. The history of the CIA’s abuse of power and the continuing lack of public accountability over CIA operations make such revelations concerning to civil liberties advocates. The CIA’s involvement in the NYPD intelligence activities targeting innocent Muslim communities in the Northeast reveal the CIA is once again treating Americans as suspected enemies.
Director of National Intelligence. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), a new agency created in 2004 and tasked with coordinating, tasking and overseeing intelligence operations across the Intelligence Community, now has broad access to information collected domestically by the FBI and DHS. And the DNI’s Information Sharing Environment (ISE) has become a platform for what may become the largest domestic intelligence collection ever developed: the “suspicious activity reporting” (SAR) program. SAR leverages collection efforts by federal agencies like the FBI and DHS, the U.S. military, and state and local law enforcement. The SAR program is expanding to encourage the public to report the suspicious activities of their neighbors, reminiscent of the TIPS program promoted by former Attorney General John Ashcroft but blocked by Congress in 2002.
National Counterterrorism Center. The National Counterterrorism Center is yet another component of the DNI that increasingly engages in collecting intelligence. Under its original guidelines, written in 2008, the NCTC was barred from collecting information about ordinary Americans unless the person was a terror suspect or part of an actual investigation. When the NCTC gobbled up huge data sets it had to search for and identify any innocent US person information inadvertently collected, and discard it within 180 days. This crucial check meant that NCTC was dissuaded from collecting large databases filled with information on innocent Americans, because the data had to then be carefully screened. But in 2012, the Obama administration amended the NCTC guidelines to eliminate this check, allowing NCTC to collect and “continually assess” information on innocent Americans for up to five years.
Once information is acquired, the new guidelines authorize broad new search powers. As long NCTC says its search is aimed at identifying terrorism information, it may conduct queries that involve non-terrorism data points and pattern-based searches and analysis (data mining), a technique which has been thoroughly discredited as a useful tool for identifying terrorists. As far back as 2008, the National Academy of Sciences found that data mining for terrorism was scientifically “not feasible” as a methodology, and likely to have significant negative impacts on privacy and civil liberties. The guidelines allow the NCTC to broadly share this “non-terrorism” information on US persons with “a federal, state, local, tribal, or foreign or international entity, or to an individual or entity not part of a government” – literally anyone, even for non-terrorism related purposes. The ACLU has filed Freedom of Information Act requests to get further information about this broad new authority the NCTC claims.”
Much of the purpose of the CIA is breaking the laws of foreign countries with which the United State is not at war or even preparing for war with, so why be surprised if CIA occasionally shows its contempt for domestic laws?
I got the Dixie College her in St George to accept my Bulletin today as a PSA. Meanwhile, CCHR, Citizens Commission on Human Rights got thousands of PSAs out across the country in the last few days. It very simple: Psychiatric Drugs are to blame for the Young White Male Terrorists in this country. Our Government pays for Psychiatry with your tax dollars, so many of them, like our current President, are more guilty than the Mass Murderers themselves. We need a new word for Mass Mass Murderers; multiplying the evil deeds by government networking, while the Media puts on its own poker face and buries the truth. These Psych drugs SUCK OUT THE SERATONIN! Yes, they’re supposed to increase it, but what medical drug does not have side effects! Then again, it is probably deliberate: the drugs work perfectly if you’re wired like Vlad the Impaler. Add to that the occasional drug hypnosis, CIA/Hinkley style. If the people of this country were knowledgeable AND sane, they’d be lynching Obama tomorrow or getting out the Guiletine. Every time he rails against guns, he says ‘I’m guilty’ & tries to pretend our guns are only for hunting 4 legged animals & birds. In 2012 he practically did away with the 1st Amendment! Have you seen some of the wording in the National Defence Act?! (signed30 Dec 2011)
Well, you lost me on the Kafkaesque; sounds very Morocan… Anyway, its good to keep this dialog going in this contemporary Land of the Fee, Home of the Slave. This is certainly what recent presidents have planned for us as they lie to & falsely flatter “the American People”. When do we string up our current miscreant for Mass Murder as he keeps the Murder/Suicide thing going for his & the New World Order’s profit? My President certainly is a Child/Mass Murderer & I’m keeping that bumper sticker on my car. Two major radio stations have accepted my ‘Mass Murder/Suicide’ buletin for a PSA, but it really needs much broader coverage. There is practically no dialog out there in any media with real answers. We have the real answers & can end these Shootings. Read my bulletin please & give a call to the Citizens Commission on Human Rights 800 869 2247.
Targeted Killings
Obama’s Playbook: Still Killing Outside the Lines
By Matthew Harwood, 01/25/13
http://www.aclu.org/blog/national-security/obamas-playbook-still-killing-outside-lines (with video)
Anders noted the Kafkaesque nature of the secrecy during the program. “To say we follow the rule of law, but we don’t even know what the rules are, and then the rules don’t apply to the biggest player is a little bit of a joke.”
(http://www.aclu.org/blog/organization-news-and-highlights/week-civil-liberties-1252013 This Week in Civil Liberties (1/25/2013))
Well, okay. But it IS, of course, at least for the social among us (merely not antisocial is what I mean).
There might be a big guy in the sky’
But you’re a god & so am I!
Its a funny thing but people go on & on about the Creator & who to blame or praise for all this. I think its a cop out. Why should you not be as responsible as any? Anyway you can never prove a supreme being, except by shaky logic. But you can prove the spiritual to self or others. Simply put you are you, not a body or a mind, though you notice that you have these & can sense anything else. That might not be enough for everyone, but there are little drills on that theme to make it easier to grasp.
Whatever else you do, say, or believe….
Never abandon your own godliness!
What you say makes sense, only because the suppressives have taken or are trying to take, control. They are the epitomy of lost souls, but one cannot afford sympathy in their case, especially since they infect many more, perhaps 20% that they bring down to their level or simply make them sick or have accidents.
Well at least you figured it out now that government is not always in our best interests.But don’t go too far the other way and trust no-one. A good balance is to keep informed but also read and live by a little booklet called The Way To Happiness. You can find it in a bookstore or library if you have never been handed a copy; its in book and pamphlet form and is not a religious text, just very common sense and helpful. I would not get too stuck on the depopulation thing; some nasty experiments have occured, but the attention seems to be more on ‘control’ at the moment. They will always make mistakes, so we can be smarter and win.The truly suppressive 2.5% tend to gravitate to pretended help groups like Psychiatry where their evil deeds go unpunished. We should concentrate on this aspect now. Can you imagine a full exposure that even the media cannot ignore?! If it became obvious that our own president had condoned & used these killings for evil political ends? (not exonerating earlier presidents of either party but this one is more blatant and already obvious to some of us) In such a case, a town square execution would not be an unreasonable request.
I understand not to gravitate on those tactics but most people find it harder to believe this is a spiritual realm we are living in..
The price of not being shredded by a nail bomb at Starbucks?
Just imaging that if we had followed the path of energy independence, started by Jimmy Carter back in the ’70’s and were not involved in the middle east to the extent we have been for the past 40 years, there would most likely be no need for these measures. But we choose to go along with the energy barons and we are paying the price for protecting their business interests. There would, in all likelyhood, be no significant terrorists, and global warming may not even part of our lives. There should significant discussions about NATIONALIZING OUR ENERGY RESOURCES and taking them out of the hands of people who are so rich they do not feel the effects of their poorly plotted deeds.
Oh no! One thing worse than corporate barrons is our federal government! Actually big entrepreneurs without government help & a minimum of intervention are no problem. On the contrary, they would add to the wealth of all, along with small business. This goes for all government, tho the Feds are more anti American people than other government. If your gov gives a handout on one hand and the Patriot or National Defence Act on the other, reject it please. Your thinking is based on the false notion that the gov is in your interest. It is not, Unless you favor the one world slave state of the New World Order. Cows have better masters than what our Gov is to us.
Our government has been very good at making the people dependent on them so when depopulation time comes those who can’t fin for themselves are the first to go.. America was founded to make us debt slaves the ELITE.. They own the FED Reserve and We with our taxes pay back the trillions that we have borrowed.. It really pisses me off that I actually did at one time believed I lived in a free society!
Cut the crap! See my essay just before. You too are pissing against the wind & have not learned anything. Get a grip. Its almost too late but not quite.
Thinking in Bad-O-Meters is never recommendable, bad is bad.
The thing is, NarioG, Democrat and Republican presidents
always follow a politic of state.
Obama is just doing what was left undone by Bush.
It’s hard to know if a politician really had good intentions at some moment.
And the actual situation of the country
it’s just the result of what politicians were doing all the centuries.
Now everything is about getting power and enriching the riches.
One thing is hard to know as the mass murderers kill themselves: whether or not they were hypnotized as well as drugged. However, drugs like Prozac alone, depress all the seratonin in the body, which is enough to turn the perpetrator/victim into a super angry killer. The first was apparently in 1987 with a postal employee, from where we got the term ‘going postal’. After his killing spree he went to his post to do postal admin as if nothing had happened. You have to understand the evil in Psychiatry; these guys brought us the Nazi Holocaust. Of course, this evil has spread to the government & the media.with their ‘1984’ plans. A proper perspective would be to put the President on trial for execution for complicity in these horrific mass murders. That it will unlikely occur is no reason not to call for it.Call Citizens Commission On Human Rights at 800 869 2247. I am a supporter not a spokesperson but I know what is going on. You can also visit the Psychiatric Chamber of Horrors in Los Angeles or if it tours near you in North America or Europe. It is totally true & not fiction but be ready to confront the evil in this world. Man is basically good, but some of the truly evil 2.5% have got into top positions. The players are: Psychiatry, close to 100%; the Federal Government (not 100% by any means but loaded at the top), the major Media (its looking like 90% or worse, as junior members just do what they are told & getting a story used is more important than finding or telling the truth). Those three are your enemy & Psychiatry can & should be abolished, not gun ownership, which may be our only saving grace against the planned one world slave state that Obama hinted at when he passed that National Defence Act one year ago, the one that allows anyone to be picked up & held indefinitely without trial, once martial law is declared.
The plot is to get your guns, drug your children with psychiatric drugs & declare martial law. The media is a key player in this evil plan. Every shooter was on psychiatric drugs or withdrawing from them. The NRA is right to try to maintain our 2nd ammendment rights, but only CCHR is getting to the bottom of this & can stop the shootings with your help. 800 869 2247
USA could change its skin (President),
but will never change what it has inside.
The outside (President) is currently worse than the inside.
Don’t you kid yourself. You are pissing against the wind. See my blog before yours. It’s what’s REALLY going on. You are being a theedy weedy dickhead! Honest! Get a grip or lose your chance.
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