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
CIA Officer Explains New World Order’s Demise
CCTVandalism: ‘Camover’ game pokes Big Brother’s eye in Germany
http://rt.com/news/cctv-cameras-vandalism-protest-371/
“Scores and bonuses for destroying CCTV cameras – that’s what you get if you play a new ‘reality-game’ in Germany. The ‘Camover’ movement is spreading across the country, despite the fact that there’s no real prize.
To participate in Camover, players form a team and give it a name – the ‘brigade’ part seems to be a must – and then go around town destroying CCTV cameras. The process has to be taped and posted online. Each team gets point for the number of destroyed cameras, as well as for creativity of execution.
The players are clear about their goals: “Although we call it a game, we are quite serious about it: Our aim is to destroy as many cameras as possible and to have an influence on video surveillance in our cities,” the creator of Camover told the Guardian.”
When Wars Come Home
Tuesday, 19 February 2013 10:08
By Charles Derber and Yale Magrass, Truthout | Op-Ed
http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/14539-when-wars-come-home
Excerpts:
“In the flood of commentary about the Newtown massacre and broader US gun violence, liberals tend to blame failures of gun control while conservatives blame the mentally ill and Hollywood. But they are both missing one important and overlooked explanation: the domestic consequences of a militarized superpower engaged in chronic wars around the world.
The US spends more money on the military than the next ten countries together. It also has the highest level of domestic gun violence in the developed world. Highly militarized societies cannot compartmentalize foreign from domestic violence. They cannot prevent wars – and guns – from coming home.”
…
“Military societies cannot reproduce themselves without sustaining the commitment to guns and the morality of gun violence in the larger society. In his Farewell Address, President Eisenhower warned of the dangers of the penetration of the values and economic interests of the military-industrial complex into the heart of civil society. The Newtown massacre and the ex-LA police officer’s rampage are powerful reminders of Eisenhower’s understanding of how the military inevitably shapes the morality and conduct of civilians and companies, always threatening to bring wars home. As Martin Luther King lamented at the height of the war in Vietnam, “I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today – my own government.”
King went on to say: “The war in Vietnam is but a symptom of a far deeper malady within the American spirit.””
Americans need only look in the mirror for the answer to the question, “Why is “the U.S. no longer the land of the free”?” We no longer have have what it takes to be free. It’s that simple.
——————
The Nation
By Patricia J. Williams
“Full-Body Pat-Downs in America’s Schools: How the War on Drugs Is a War on Children”
“Criminalizing children will have constitutional implications for generations to come.”
Lessig on “Aaron’s Laws – Law and Justice in a Digital Age”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HAw1i4gOU4
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[why was the U.S. Secret Service involved in
the arrest off campus at Harvard?] see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Swartz
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Lessig on “Aaron’s Laws – Law and Justice in a Digital Age”
“US government accused of spying on 9/11 attorneys”
http://rt.com/usa/news/government-guantanamo-spy-gitmo-247/
“FBI hid microphones in Guantánamo, but no one listened, prison commander testifies”
http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/02/13/3232992/fbi-hid-microphones-in-guantanamo.html#storylink=cpy
from what I have read the new Samsung tv has ways of being able to see directly in where its placed.. and has audio listening capabilities as well. and a trusted source I know that works for one of the biggest cable companies contract installers says he installs filters on cable lines that feeds two ways now.. just something to think about!
Bugg(er)ing democracy:
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2013/02/somebody-bugged-meeting-rooms-guantanamo/62079/ (“Somebody Bugged the Meeting Rooms at Guantanamo”)
Hackers call US government’s latest cybersecurity efforts ‘a train wreck’
As Congress gears up to debate Cispa again, Anonymous threatens to shut down stream of Obama’s state of the union
Amanda Holpuch
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 12 February 2013 17.51 EST
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2013/feb/12/government-cybersecurity-efforts-train-wreck
Excerpt:
Leon Kaiser, of the hacking collective “which hacked Tumblr in December, said that anytime the US government attempts to craft cybersecurity legislation, it ends “in a train wreck”.
“The closest thing to ‘cybersecurity’ the old men in congress can even wrap their heads around amounts to ‘listen to all communications with no regard to privacy,'” Kaiser said in an email. “It’s taking a shotgun approach to security, and in the process, shooting the constitution.””
Government plots and mistakes no longer occur, according to the mass media of today
From day to day and, in general, we’re focused on the trivial, rather than what’s important. Until we tackle the sins of the past, we will never make progress. We won’t ever “be free” again, unless we first “look back.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/feb/13/italy-cia-rendition-abu-omar (“Italy’s ex-intelligence chief given 10-year sentence for role in CIA kidnapping”, “Such accountability for high-level government officials is inconceivable in the US, highlighting its culture of impunity” by Glenn Greenwald, today)
http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/02/12/16937192-italy-ex-spy-chief-sentenced-to-10-years-over-cia-extraordinary-rendition?lite
Lets not forget the other edict he decreed in March of last year. Mugabe would be proud of him! Now its illegal to demonstrate anywhere near him or his secret service personnel! How did these two bills pass without a riot?
With Obama’s NDA Act, white males like me get to experience the discrimination that blacks, browns & Muslims have had. This A/H cannot be permitted to take our guns in the wake of his suppressive edicts & complicity in the mass murders he cites as an ‘excuse’. That’s like a 12th grader showing up late in class with the excuse of: ‘Sorry I’m late, I had to blow away the 1st grade in order to get guns banned!’ FOY the NDAA, passed without Congress or Senate, so technically illegal but on the books for 13 months, thanks to this MASS MURDERER, Barack Husein Obama, allows anyone, citizen or not, to be held indefinitely without trial, tortured or killed! Did you hear his silver tongue tonight?! When he opens his mouth, forget the eloquence. Think Goebels & Hitler! My president is a bloody mass murderer! A Child Murderer! A Child/Mass Murderer! Multiple Times! Our words are not heinous enough to describe this evil beast in one sentence!
“The Demographic Unit” becomes the more politically correct “Zone Assessment Unit”? good god!
http://www.constitution.org/mil/lawnanti.htm
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2013/02/2013211102339764399.html ( “Towards a police state in New York”,
“Muslims in the New York City area experiencing major violations of their civil and human rights, says author.”)
http://youtu.be/t8tMlFTk6Nk
To the drones question ABSOLUTELY NOT!!!! To the Michael Moore & Chris Hodges along with his suit chalenging the NDAA, I say FANTASTIC! Definitely time, 13 months after this disgusting law. Been in LA lately so got to hear them both on the KP station 90.7 I believe. The same sex and social spending plans are boring, but KPFC is awesome when it comes to fighting tyrany, as they were in 2003, prior to the Iraqui war; all its listeners, including myself, were totally aware that ‘weapons of mass destruction’ was a very harmful lie. Don’t forget to call CCHR at 800 869 2247 to resolve this shootings problem & definitely keep your guns, especially while the National Defence Authorisation Act is on the books. Drone in the USA is probably considered merely to shut people like myself & many of you up. Can you imagine? Who would want to live in a country like that!?
Michael Moore, Chris Hedges on Challenging NDAA Indefinite Detention and the “Corporate Coup d’etat”
02/11/13
http://www.democracynow.org/2013/2/11/michael_moore_chris_hedges_on_challenging
The ability of the U.S. government to jail people without charge or trial is now back in court. A group of reporters, scholars and activists are suing the Obama administration over the controversial provision in the National Defense Authorization Act, saying it could allow for the indefinite detention of journalists and others who interact with certain groups. On Wednesday, the Justice Department asked an appeals court to reverse a judge’s earlier decision blocking indefinite detention, saying the ruling would hamper its ability to fight terrorism. On the same day, the Academy Award-winning filmmaker and activist Michael Moore and the case’s lead plaintiff, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Chris Hedges, took part in a panel featuring some of those who were in the courtroom opposing the NDAA. We air excerpts of their remarks. [Transcript to come. Check back soon.]
Guests:
Chris Hedges, Senior fellow at The Nation Institute. A former foreign correspondent for the New York Times, he was part of a team of reporters awarded a Pulitzer Prize in 2002 for the paper’s coverage of global terrorism. He is the author of the new book, Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt, with illustrator Joe Sacco.
Michael Moore, Acclaimed Academy Award-winning documentary filmmaker.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obama-weighing-executive-actions-on-housing-gays-and-other-issues/2013/02/10/e966cc06-7065-11e2-8b8d-e0b59a1b8e2a_story.html (“Obama weighing executive actions on housing, gays and other issues”)
The NDAA and the Death of the Democratic State
Posted on Feb 11, 2013
By Chris Hedges
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_ndaa_and_the_death_of_the_democratic_state_20130211/
Excerpt:
“Alexa O’Brien, another plaintiff and a co-founder of the US Day of Rage, learned after WikiLeaks released 5 million emails from Stratfor, a private security firm that does work for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the Marine Corps and the Defense Intelligence Agency, that Stratfor operatives were trying to link her and her organization to Islamic radicals, including al-Qaida, and sympathetic websites as well as jihadist ideology. If that link were made, she and those in her organization would not be immune from detention.
Afran said at the Culture Project discussion that he once gave a donation at a fundraising dinner to the Ancient Order of Hibernians, an Irish Catholic organization. A few months later, to his surprise, he received a note of thanks from Sinn Féin. “I didn’t expect to be giving money to a group that maintains a paramilitary terrorist organization, as some people say,” Afran said. “This is the danger. You can easily find yourself in a setting that the government deems worthy of incarceration. This is why people cease to speak out.”
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The government attempted in court last week to smear Sami Al-Hajj, a journalist for the Al-Jazeera news network who was picked up by the U.S. military and imprisoned for nearly seven years in Guantanamo. This, for me, was one of the most chilling moments in the hearing.
“Just calling yourself a journalist doesn’t make you a journalist, like Al-Hajj,” Loeb told the court. “He used journalism as a cover. He was a member of al-Qaida and provided Stinger missiles to al-Qaida.”
Al-Hajj, despite Loeb’s assertions, was never charged with any crimes. And the slander by Loeb only highlighted the potential for misuse of this provision of the NDAA if it is not struck down.
The second central argument by the government was even more specious. Loeb claimed that Subsection 1021(e) of the NDAA exempts citizens from detention. Section 1021(e) states: “Nothing in this section shall be construed to affect existing law or authorities relating to the detention of United States citizens, lawful resident aliens of the United States, or any other persons who are captured or arrested in the United States.”
Afran countered Loeb by saying that Subsection 1021(e) illustrated that the NDAA assumed that U.S. citizens would be detained by the military, overturning two centuries of domestic law that forbids the military to carry out domestic policing. And military detention of citizens, Afran noted, is not permitted under the Constitution.
Afran quoted the NDAA bill’s primary sponsor, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who said on the floor of the Senate: “In the case where somebody is worried about being picked up by a rogue executive branch because they went to the wrong political rally, they don’t have to worry very long, because our federal courts have the right and the obligation to make sure the government proves their case that you are a member of al-Qaida and didn’t [just] go to a political rally.”
Afran told the court that Graham’s statement implicitly acknowledged that U.S. citizens could be detained by the military under 1021(b)(2). “There is no reason for the sponsor to make that statement if he does not realize that the statute causes that chilling fear,” Afran told the judges.
After the hearing Afran explained: “If the senator who sponsored and managed the bill believed people would be afraid of the law, then the plaintiffs obviously have a reasonably objective basis to fear the statute.”
In speaking to the court Afran said of 1021(e): “It says it is applied to people in the United States. It presumes that they are going to be detained under some law. The only law we know of is this law. What other laws, before this one, allowed the military to detain people in this country?”
This was a question Judge Lohier, at Afran’s urging, asked Loeb during the argument. Loeb concurred that the NDAA was the only law he knew of that permitted the military to detain and hold U.S. citizens.”
Real News Network: Video & Transcript:
Why Can Corporate Interests Trump Sovereign Rights?
Chakravarthi Raghavan Pt2: International trade agreements have given corporations the rights colonial powers used to wield
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=9646#.URgrY_LAGuI
Bio
An international trade and investment expert, Chakravarthi Raghavan, served as Chief Editor of South-North Development Monitor, SUNS , 1980-2005 and now as Editor Emeritus. He formerly served as Editor of Third World Economics & Geneva Representative of Third World Network. Raghavan has authored numerous books including ‘A Rollback for the Third World’ , Recolonization: GATT, Uruguay Round and Third World and a book on Developing countries and services trade: Chasing a black cat in a dark room, blindfolded
The notion that corporations have colonial-type rights is so much crap. Corporations cannot break the law just like everyone else. In a capitalist society they are provided certain incentives to compensate them for the risk they take with their own money while providing jobs for everyone else and economic development for the entire country. The alternative is what happened to the old Soviet Union, or Cuba or Zimbabwe or Venezuela.