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
Real News Network: Video & Transcript
International Trade Panel Undermines National Systems of the Rule of Law
Watch full multipart Chakravarthi Raghavan on International Trade
Watch full multipart Economy
International Trade Panel Undermines National Systems of the Rule of Law
Chakravarthi Raghavan: The International Convention on Settlement on Investment Disputes has become a mechanism that reinforces multinational corporate property rights over a countries ability to create public policy in its people interest.
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=9269#.URgwJvLAGuI
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=9478#.URg0Y_LAGuI
Massive Cuts to Postal Service a Step Towards Privatization?
January 9, 2013
The Real News Network: Transcript and link to video
Plan to restructure post office a big real estate play and boon to private courier companies
Watch full multipart Economy
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Anonymous:
Little Known FACTs…should be re-distributed
CNBC recently took note of the economics-related war-games planned by the Pentagon, including the recent Unified Quest 2011, which will actually be looking at what happens domestically when the financial systems breakdown and how to handle the subsequent civil unrest.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232/?video=1653093678&play=1
If you look at Obama’s entire erratic policy grid of doublespeak compromises, it is not erratic at all. His message is based upon cognitive dissonance. His actions are entirely ONE PACKAGE. Everything actually delivered is not democratic at all, in fact it is hard right…even the gains are being turned back. Obama is succeeding where Bush failed. Social Security, first amendment rights for Corporations (unchallenged), Supreme Court dissent against the constitution; pension funds under attack; federal employees now being downsized with State Civil Service next; and the little discussed fact that small town America is bankrupt and struggling with the new “austerity” cuts without even the support that Wall Street receives with the big banks. Just as the big banks kept the monetary bailout at the top for themselves claiming “liquidity” as cure all, the corporate wealth is all being concentrated among the class structured elites. Apparently the “liquidity” cure is translated into a politically polluted “redistribution of wealth” when it comes to the lower 90% of the economy. We can only surmise that the top 10% is preparing a new Noah’s ark against a poverty flood that will wipe out all true liberty among Americans and have a domino impact on the rest of the world. The new “ownership” economy appears to be designing the new Imperial Empire of Ruler’s economy. The path we are on is to crash the economy and anyone who doesn’t see that at this point is simply living in a false consciousness. Political suppression is initiated outside the country in foreign contexts where constitutional factors don’t intercede; and then they are brought insidiously into the domestic dynamics under pretexts of national security. Count the infractions! Do the math!
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/pentagon-has-been-war-gaming-for-economic-disaster-since-early-09/ ; (Quote:
“Army officials met outside Washington last week for a thought experiment about the implications of a large-scale economic breakdown that would force the Army to absorb significant funding cuts and prepare the service for an increased role in keeping domestic order amid civil unrest,”
InsideDefense.com reported on the games.
The article says officials chose the global financial collapse scenario because “it was deemed a plausible course of events given the current global security environment.”
“In such a future,” it reports, “the United States would be broke, causing a domino effect that would push economies across the globe into chaos.”
The latest game included a grim outlook: cuts in defense and international relations, fragmentation of power, and consolidation of “common functions, like logistics, training, medical services and information systems.”
But there was one “sliver lining” according to the article: “The Army would have an influx of qualified recruits as the result of an unemployment rate between 25 percent and 30 percent.” (end quote)
…And those “recruits” will be your new enforcer …cold to Freedom, Liberty and Democracy as we understand it.
(Many thanks to anon…) Bruce
http://www.democracynow.org/2013/2/5/daniel_ellsberg_ndaa_indefinite_detention_provision
“A lawsuit challenging a law that gives the government the power to indefinitely detain U.S. citizens is back in federal court this week. On Wednesday, a group of academics, journalists and activists will present oral arguments in court against a provision in the National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA, authorizing the military to jail anyone it considers a terrorism suspect anywhere in the world without charge or trial. In a landmark ruling last September, Judge Katherine Forrest of the Southern District of New York struck down the indefinite detention provision, saying it likely violates the First and Fifth Amendments of U.S. citizens. We’re joined by Daniel Ellsberg, a plaintiff in the case and perhaps the country’s most famous whistleblower. Ellsberg leaked the Pentagon Papers in 1971, exposing the secret history of the U.S. involvement in Vietnam. [includes rush transcript]”
Chris Hedges: NDAA Lawsuit Update
http://youtu.be/QsGJpTAsV8k
Kill List Exposed: Leaked Obama Memo Shows Assassination of U.S. Citizens “Has No Geographic Limit” Feb 05, 2013 | Story
Daniel Ellsberg: NDAA Indefinite Detention Provision is Part of “Systematic Assault on Constitution” Feb 05, 2013 | Story
http://www.democracynow.org/2013/2/7/globalizing_torture_ahead_of_brennan_hearing
Bruce E. Woych,
I’m reposting the Paul Craig Roberts piece. The one on his own site is formatted and, as such, is a little bit easier to read.
http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2013/02/07/it-has-happened-here-paul-craig-roberts/
Thanks.
http://campaign.r20.constantcontact.com/render?llr=o8b4necab&v=001E6oef0cghO-0GwOOSDe5ksmU963ip7EscXgJV1VWyHqJ0kMu-CrRdiFTYQXSKV1tHQkncCE76NWBO4D3YPYYtJ0jAxDRlTXk1GdDnyT_YOY%3D
It Has Happened Here in America: The Police State is Real
By Dr. Paul Craig Roberts
Global Research, February 07, 2013 (excerpted quote)
“the government needs the police state in order to protect itself from
accountability for its crimes, lies, and squandering of taxpayers money. New
precedents for executive power have been created in conjunction with the
Federalist Society which, independent of the war on terror, advocates the
unitary executive theory, which claims the president has powers not subject to
check by Congress and the Judiciary. In other words, the president is a dictator
if he prefers to be.
The Obama regime is taking advantage of this Republican theory. The regime has
used the Republican desire for a strong executive outside the traditional checks
and balances together with the fear factor to complete the creation of the
Bush/Cheney police state.”
Url of this article:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/it-has-happened-here-in-america-the-police-state-is-real/5322223
US Media covered-up Drone Base for White House
February 9, 2013. Washington. Are mysterious US drone bases around the world a secret worthy of national security status? Multiple major US news outlets felt it was, especially after the urging of the Obama administration and the CIA. Now, more than a year later, the corporate media outlets are coming clean. But only because someone in the Justice Dept is leaking details of secret assassinations of Americans.
http://www.whiteoutpress.com/articles/q12013/us-media-covered-up-drone-base-for-white-house/
Thursday, February 7, 2013
Globalizing Torture: Ahead of Brennan Hearing, International Complicity in CIA Rendition Exposed
http://www.democracynow.org/2013/2/7/globalizing_torture_ahead_of_brennan_hearing
“As counter-terrorism czar John Brennan appears on Capitol Hill for his confirmation hearing to head the CIA, a new report provides a detailed look at global involvement in the agency’s secret program of prisons, rendition and torture in the years after 9/11. In “Globalizing Torture,” the Open Society Justice Initiative says 54 countries helped the CIA detain 136 people, the largest tally to date. The report’s author, Amrit Singh, joins us to discuss her findings, and Brennan’s role in the expansive program she’s documented.
Guest:
Amrit Singh, senior legal officer at the National Security and Counterterrorism program at the Open Society Justice Initiative. She is the author of the new report “Globalizing Torture: CIA Secret Detention and Extraordinary Rendition.”
My bumper sticker is a large “My President Is A Child/Mass Murderer”. The Mass Murder Suicide bulletin is on a side window. Lets stick to the real issues. We can use Democracy against them too. Enough exposure of the REAL causes of these shootings will take the pressure off of guns & onto the really evil behaviour of our president, many politicians & the mind control experiment called psychiatry.
No matter whether you like them or not, this is why every rational citizen needs to fight efforts at gun control laws.
It is fight, or, DIE!!!!!!
Alister Crowley, One of the co founders of the illuminati is George bush’s descendant.. have you ever read in Samuel where the devil directs david to take the census and in chronicles they refer to him as the spirit of the lord angered directs him to take the census..
I wonder if anyone else in America or the world had the thought I had watching the glorious preamble to the Superbowl. You know, the honorable servicemen, homage to the motherland, the Sandy Hook school children (whose friends were sacrificed to rid America of guns). Here was the thought: THIS LOOKS JUST LIKE NAZI GERMANY IN 1930!
I have an interesting picture that has Obama with little children all around him and hitler with little children all around him.. its erie how similar this is to Nazi Germany and the start of the next world war
Lets keep on track here. You are entitled to whatever religion you believe in or practice, but it tends to obscure the reality & what must be done to fix it. You can trace the Illuminati to the British Monarchy, the Christian Church, Ancient Babylon or the star system Draco. David Ike wrote an excellent book on 9/11, but I give his shapeshifter books a miss as they are not provable or necessary to resolve our situation as becoming more & more cows out to pasture for the pleasure of evil farmers. Here IS something we can use: the pretence of democracy is their Archilie’s heel. They use it against us but dare not do away with the illusion just yet. Read my piece on Mass Murder/ Suicide. Then call CCHR at 800 869 2247. This ‘one life’ thing is a bit of a racket. But you’ll be around even if this planet becomes as bald as a billiard ball. So get educated. Then speak up & act. Now! Not in 20 years!
Shapeshifters are this. Demonic forces that you cannot see that directs peoples actions.. annunaki is in the bible they are named the anakim.. I believe our government is setting us up to have an alien.invasion just by what Hollywood is focusing on these days its a coming..whether its real or illusion of real it will cause the same uproar..
Kristy: “But the world belongs to the devil God gave that to him …”
The devil acquired the world by man’s rebellion against our Creator and King. It is therefore mankind who gave the world to the devil.
I often wonder why gods would even put a tree in the garden that we could not eat from.. it kinda reminds of the cia putting drugs on the street expecting not to do them!
Kristie , I know little of annunaki and reptillians, but I do not believe much can be done ..about something till it happens, if you have anything I should know, send me an email wmdcrain@gmail.com
I have made peace with my maker, and trained myself, today is truly a good day to die, it is also a good day to live, but give me freedom or give me death.
I know im here to share the love of Jesus and bless those who curse me.. I have been sold out by people who called themselves my friend and I am getting first hand knowledge of the persecution jesus got.. The NSA has labeled me a terrorist, crystal meth dealer, I have been followed around by open govt, they have tapped my phone, they made me a targeted individual…