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
Thanks Bruce, interesting article. Putting things into historical context, the most insidious practice today is “Blacklisting” in the computer and electronic age. It’s an invisible “color of law” crime by government officials and contractors.
Case in point: Former AG John Ashcroft used the federal “Material Witness Statute” to not only detain citizens but also destroy their employment (without their knowledge) and their employer couldn’t tell them why they were fired. The U.S. citizens detained were not a flight risk or ever intended as a witness in court. Innocent Americans destroyed without probable cause or ever charged with a crime. Federal courts have even stated Ashcroft misused his authority.
Most American blacklistees aren’t aware they are blacklisted or couldn’t prove it even if realized it since judges won’t police it. If you lose your employment or livelihood or marriage – you may not know the FBI, Attorney General or some other agency could be behind it. Since the citizen crime victim can’t link “cause & effect”, the citizen can’t file a police report or obtain evidence for legal standing in court (such evidence is designated secret).
Blacklisting during McCarthyism resulted in premature death and suicides of innocent Americans. During the Cold War, blacklisting by the East German Stasi earned Germany the #2 suicide nation in the world.
Today federal judges have the attitude that defenseless citizens must “prove it”. By design, it’s impossible for blacklistees to satisfy “legal standing” to even initiate a federal lawsuit. There are no cops on the beat that police blacklisting. Unless a blacklistee is independently wealthy – it’s impossible without federal judges upholding their duty to enforce the Bill of Rights.
This is so true Ross, and it seems that things are getting worse. Political power dynamics is getting more sophisticated and professionalized as “capture” of positions becomes the norm as an extension of influence and patronage has become more of politricks INC. We are getting a glimpse of the tip of this iceberg with the magic mountain of bullying and strong arm tactics plays out with New Jersey and Governor Chris Christy whose hubris is bigger than his ‘waste-line’. In other areas of this same politic, the idea of playing hard ball has become a normative phrase that reaches into the hoodlum world of protection rackets for models that use leverage as a policy feature of “strong leadership” and control over the apparatus of influence. The separation of citizens from the actual power process has been enhanced by an insidious growth of privatization that legitimizes barriers to entry as a members only club and justifies constraints that are disguised as tolls and fees. It gets worse as it also legislates secrecy as the norm.
regards:
Bruce
Using a little “legaleze” to stay in bounds, but my best guess is that federal, state and local law enforcement agencies – prior to 9/11 – kept “suspect lists” (based on probable cause) and the lower standard “person of interest” lists (without probable cause) since at least the 1980’s.
After 9/11, the bar for the constitutional “probable cause” standard was lowered to include the “person of interest” lists. In other words local and state police were uploading both lists onto national and international watchlists – not based on actual probable cause of any crime. Local and state officials were also receiving billions of federal dollars in “DHS Preemption & Prevention Grants” – to preempt “persons of interest” and “suspects” (since the 1980’s) uploaded from these lists.
For example: A local police officer in NYC or Washington, DC could merely see four teenagers walking down the street and obtain their IDs. Without any crime ever happening or even probable cause, that local officer would list those boys as a gang and their names could be listed on an “international” watchlist with INTERPOL. If those boys aren’t criminals or never get arrested they are never “confronted” and never knew they were on INTERPOL’s list. This could disqualify them from certain types of employment or security clearances and they are listed for life! (Documented in the book “The Rights of the People” by David K. Shipler).
Defenseless citizens can’t defend themselves from the most powerful agencies on Earth – only federal judges can police these agencies with a preemption policy.
http://libya360.wordpress.com/2013/12/15/ukraines-color-revolution-natos-prize-assault-on-russia-revenge-for-syria/
Ukraine’s Color Revolution: NATO’s Prize,
Alexandra Valiente / December 15, 2013
Reports compiled by Libya 360° and Stop NATO
The Eastern European Islands of the Global GULAG
Ukraine: NATO’s Eastern Prize
By Wayne Madsen
In the wake of what has been called the «Orange Revolution II» …
“Ukraine, which resisted efforts by the European Union to integrate it into Europe’s banker-led federation of austerity and poverty, came into the EU’s cross hairs after it abandoned an «Association Agreement» pact with the EU. Instead, Kyiv opted for a more lucrative economic union with Russia. That move triggered off a mass street uprising in Kyiv’s Maidan (Independence) Square that demanded the resignation of Ukraine’s democratically-elected President and government.
What begins overseas on foreign Land, unprotected by an Constitutional pretext or pretense, comes home to roost eventually in the domestic power structure. It is happening insidiously. How can the USA be the HOME/Land of the Free when it now treats torture as an export with many ports of call:
http://libya360.wordpress.com/2013/12/10/the-eastern-european-islands-of-the-global-gulag/
Excerpted materials:
The Eastern European Islands of the Global GULAG
Alexandra Valiente / December 10, 2013
By Nikolai Malishevski
“Among the first to report the existence of CIA special prisons and concentration camps in a number of countries, for example, in Poland, Romania, Lithuania, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Macedonia, and on the territory controlled by the Kosovar Albanian regime, were the Swiss media. In December 2005 the Polish newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza confirmed that the «main European secret CIA prison» is located in Poland. The scandal which was at that time hushed up has now resurfaced. In Strasbourg hearings have begun in the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) on a suit brought by two prisoners of the American Guantanamo Bay detention camp, Palestinians Al-Nashiri and Abu Zubaydah, who assert that in the early 2000s U.S. intelligence agencies detained them in a Polish military prison…
For several months lawyers demanded that the court hearings be held behind closed doors and that the press not be admitted. However, the results of the investigation and the details of the abductions and tortures were made public anyway.”
[and]
“The fact that the U.S. has created an entire network of concentration camps and secret prisons throughout the world is now common knowledge. The geography of the global GULAG is astounding. According to a statement by Dick Marty, a representative of the Legal Affairs and Human Rights Committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), European countries knew as early as 2004 of the existence of secret CIA prisons and U.S. treatment of suspected terrorists in these prisons.”
[final excerpt of interest]:
But let us return to the present. Not only concentration camps, but the B.E.A.S.T. computer, into which numeric codes for each person on earth are entered, is the brainchild of the leading country in «technical progress», the United States of America. As early as 1997, long before the scandals over global wiretapping, Snowden’s revelations, the «Manning affair», etc., the U.S. government allocated 500 million dollars for a program for total network computerization with the goal of taking control of all monetary transactions, medical services, etc., using biometric cards to link this system with the famous supercomputer with the symbolic name B.E.A.S.T. The implementation of biometric cards with all data of the human body could plunge humanity into technetronic slavery like the world has never seen.”
Hskiprob:
Aside from circumstantial evidence and FOIAs, the best hard evidence that I’ve seen was compliled by the ACLU website (www.ACLU.org) then enter “Surveillance Under the Patriot Act” into the search box. Those statistics are jaw dropping.
Essentially “terrorism” laws have been used for “non-terrorism” cases and even “non-criminal” cases. A fraud rate of more than 90% in some cases that could actually taint “non-terrorism” convictions (whatever that means).
Traditional crimes are governed by the Bill of Rights including during wartime. Article One & Two already have emergency clauses, like suspending habeas corpus, already built in.
How do think local police officers and national security personnel treated American citizens on those lists immediately after 9/11? Americans on those lists would very likey be abused regardless of their innocence. Judges should demand those lists from local, state and federal fusion centers.
@ Ross; You might want to go back to Mike Spindell’s very serious Historical review of our shared personal history here in the USA.
A Real History of the Last Sixty-Two Years?
(Posted in Congress,
Constitutional Law, Courts, Criminal law,
Free Speech,
Justice,
Media,
Military,
Politics,
Society,
Supreme Court
Posted on 1, March 17, 2012 | 83 Comments »)
by: Mike Spindell, Guest Blogger
Read Full Post »
http://jonathanturley.org/2012/03/17/a-real-history-of-the-last-sixty-two-years/
Hskiprob:
We no longer have Freedom of Speech – while most won’t be arrested for exercising our constitutional rights, the government will punish and blacklist citizens for Freedom of Speech – which is far worse than arrest. In the electronic age that means lifetime blacklisting and punishment for a non-crime and non-wrongdoing.
Judges, Internal Affairs, GAO, IGs, etc. will not police blacklisting crimes which longterm destroys reputations and livelihoods.
Hey Ross,
Yea, I figured this was going on but never had anything but hearsay stories or circumstantial evidence as proof. I often wanted to put together a book on the various stories I’ve heard and read about over the years and pull up or do FOIA requests for the supporting documentation.
It’s just like the 16th Amendment issue. If you read the book, The Law That Never Was, by Benson, it provides the evidence that the 16 Amendment was never properly ratified and yet the bad boys, including prosecutors and Judges, still wiggles out from around the truth.
If you were to teach people the truth, most of them would still not believe it.
Kathy, most of your rights have already been taken away along with our money. We still have free speech and a couple of others but so what, the political powers utilize over 115 different taxes and thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of pages of regulations, to do as they choose, which undermines our liberty.
When I ask people what rights our founding fathers are speaking of in Article IX, of the Bill of Rights, most people sadly get a blank stare on their faces.
“The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people”.
Sadly if you go down the list of inalienable rights, most of them will be either totally or substantially crossed out. If you go down the list of the Bill of Rights, the same thing will be found.
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I, myself do not want to follow anyone. as a US citizen my rights are slowly being taken away. as long as the government is allowed, I say allowed, BECAUSE the people of the US are letting it happen. WE as the people of the US need to make a change.! the US is pathetic, in my opinion, it is like all of US are saying ” PLEASE LEAD ME TO THE SLAUGHTER”. DOES THIS REMIND YOU OF ANYTHING? WAKE UP PEOPLE! where is the US? it is not, ALL FOR ONE AND ONE FOR ALL, IT IS, ME, ME, ME.
These are all indicators of a society that is in the final stages of it political cycle. Why all democracies fail?
America lost one of its freedoms when the unlawful taxation came along on the wages of income. Jon Siegel a graduate of GWU claims on his website that all Americans owe the Federal income tax on their income.I would like to know wht this “Turley” fellow thinks about the income tax of today?
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mespo727272, the United State doesn’t need to use nukes. Gas (“chemical weapons”) is just as effective and more selective. Also doesn’t frighten other nuke powers into thinking the US regime has gone mad. GB, France, Russia, China have the capacity to destroy much of the US but will not use their nukes first for the same reason the US will not: first to use a nuke gets wiped out by the other nuke powers.
roger gunderson, the right to petition for redress of grievances is not accompanied by a requirement that the government respond to, even acknowledge, the petition. That is part of the reason for the right to keep and bear arms, according to the “unanimous Declaration.”
shano, no one collects the FICA/SECA (“Social Security”)taxes he pays. It is all spent immediately. SS payouts are financed at the time of payment by current tax receipts and borrowing. Treasury bonds are not real debt instruments like privately issued bonds. TBs are promises to collect taxes and borrow money to pay them when they come due.
Jill, Saddam used gas and burning chemicals on the Kurds, who are not Arabs. By and large they consider themselves Kurds, not Iraqis. “Kurdistan” overlaps Iraq, Iran and Turkey, all of whose rulers view them as a foreign element in their respective countries.
Sling Trebuchet, the (supposed) 9/11 and other jihadists were/are not goatherders. All who have been identified were/are university educated middle and upper middle class professionals. Even Osama bin Laden was well educated and an heir to and member of a powerful Yemeni/Saudi Arabian family of vast wealth.
What the jihadists are motivated by is the presence of foreign “infidel” troops and power in “dar al-Islam,” the Muslim world. Their greatest hatred is for the “heretics” who cooperate with the “infidels” and facilitate the”infidel” powers to (in their view) occupy “dar al-Islam.”
Kitty Antonik Wakfer, how are these enforcers to be identified unless you are personally acquainted with them? When off duty they look like anyone. I am often suspected of being retired LE despite that I have never been in government whatsoever. Yet many LEOs don’t even have that “cop” look at all when they are not in uniform. LEO doctrine is already to associate only with other LEOs and their families socially – anyone not in the LEO tribe is to be viewed as a suspect and possible enemy. LEOs are now taught that they are an occupation army, the “thin blue line” between order and chaos.
(continued)
The question is, how can people think that they consent to their government, if all anyone can do is vote to elect four people– out of an oligarchy of 545 who share have absolute power over them?
The answer is: DOGMA, i.e. “The Emperor’s Robe” that they’ve always been told, until it becomes believed as truth; and thus they’ve never bothered to examine the facts or logic behind it, because there aren’t.
A “republic,” we’re told, is “necessary to prevent mob rule.” Somehow, they’re told, this allows the People to “have their cake and eat it too” with regard to being their own rulers, but not allowing mob rule, via an elected aristocracy of those “who know better-” who likewise see fit to limit their consent to only the names in power.
However this is not only nonsense, it’s false; in reality democracy not only requires absolute and full consent of the People, but that’s the law: i.e. each state was founded as a separate, sovereign state, or nation, unto itself– and the People of each respective state, are the absolute sovereign rulers thereof.
Some, like Akhil Reed Amar, try to infer that the Constitution changed this, saying that they voluntarily gave up their sovereignty by some wild inference in the Constitution.
However this is not only fase, since they only manifested intent to retain their sovereignty; but on the contrary, the simple fact is that a nation cannot voluntarily relinquish its sovereignty by inference. For obviously to allow this, this would void all national sovereignty; indeed any able conqueror could simply claim another nation as his own, and proceed to make good– and then, like modern cretins, argue the rule of “force de joure” in stating that all pesky legal details were “settled on the battlefield.”
Fortunately, it doesn’t work that way; and we the People of our respective American states, must not allow it. We did not even allow this by foreign conquerors of other lands, like Saddam Hussein claiming Kuwait as “the legal property of Iraq,” we certainly must not allow this same hoax to continue against ourselves and our nations. ONLY then, can we be truly free.
Does anyone not see this? For as Von Goethe wrote, “there’s no slave more hopeless than one who thinks he’s free;” and that perfectly describes today’s American people.
As stated in the Declaration of independence, a “free country” implies that the People consent to their government.
This was the law at the time of the Constitution, i.e. the People of a state were the ruling sovereigns, and they could overrule government to “alter or abolish” it by popular vote. Thus, the USA was an international federal republic of popularly sovereign states.
This changed with the years, as charlatans like Daniel Webster revised history to claim that the USA was always a single federated state from the beginning, rather than an international federal republic like the UN.
And this was made into de facto law, when the federal government put over 1/4 million people to the sword to resisted it.
Since then, the federal government has been the supreme dictator, while the People have only token consent via franchise, but can’t actually do anything.
Likewise, “libertarians” and others are completely fooled into thinking that franchise will set them free– if they just “use it right” by “electing the right candidates.”
This completely ignores Jefferson’s observation in The Kentucky Resolutions of 1798, that “that in cases of an abuse of the delegated powers, the members of the general government, being chosen by the people, a change by the people would be the constitutional remedy; but, where powers are assumed which have not been delegated, a nullification of the act is the rightful remedy: that every State has a natural right in cases not within the compact, (casus non fœderis) to nullify of their own authority all assumptions of power by others within their limits.”
So here, Jefferson observed the plain fact that franchise is only effective in changing constitutional laws– not unconstitutional ones. Clearly, the People cannot consent to a government that interprets its own limitations, while they may only change the names of those who interpret; rather this is limited consent, which is NO consent.
In any event, the law is clear: each state is popularly sovereign, and the People of each state merely delegate powers to subordinate agents in the federal government; however the postbellum administration forms a supreme oligarchy which offers only token consent, but tells the People that they are “their own rulers.”
However the People have been told that they have both a benevolent dictatorship in government, AND that they are the ones in charge; and this teaching binds them from ever being free.
So until people give up this denial, they’ll never get wise to how serious the problem really is… and they don’t want to believe that everything they’ve been told is a lie.
I was blocked (banned) from commenting on CNN and most other mass media websites and now my sound on Youtube was blocked on all videos. Where’s the free speech? I’m moving to another country.
The citizenry of the United States has no rights.
As a pro se litigant in the court system, I have had my Constitutional right to trial, the right to be heard denied and my civil cases dismissed, even through my pleading met the criteria of a lawsuit under procedural law (yes, I have legal training in my background).
This individual right – the right to trial, the right to be heard is the hinge on which all our rights depend, so observed Thomas Jefferson and he is absolutely right. Without access to the courts, no freedom and liberty can be had in this society.
Rule of law does not exist where the law is not exist where the law is not neutral and impartial. The destruction of (Constitutional) law signals the presence of arbitrary rule and a condition of freedom demands that citizens must have a public sphere where they are honored.
The practice of absolute power by our courts and Federal and State governments encourages the psychological and opportunistic financial abuse of our society and the workplace – a strategy to stamp out human nature and foster maliciousness in our society. This is a “soft” suppressive technique used by a functional tyranny.
Indeed, our social structure now resembles a tyranny: money and power concentrated by a small minority – 15% of the population, a minescule middle class and a huge, several tiered, lower class. An estimated 1/5 of our population is now on food stamps.
It doesn’t matter if the party is Democratic or Republican – it is all one legal monopoly who is always there to be elected. The media has brainwashed this society to consider alternative political parties as kooks and the cost of funding a campaign is beyond the reach of decent candidates.
What to do? I would welcome suggestions.
OK, now once Google let me post it after loading all the Google Necessaries into my PC, I proceed. While living in the USA I never was able to find a lawyer for any serious case not involving millions of dollars. Lawyers would shun my cases and it looks like people have no longer protection they need. No matter how much money I offer to the lawyer they would not take the case. Is there a secret agreement between “______” and the lawyers?