Police
State America -
A Look Back And Ahead
By
Stephen Lendman
17 October,
2007
Countercurrents.org
Year
end is a good time to look back and reflect on what's ahead. If past
is prologue, however, the outlook isn't good, and nothing on the horizon
suggests otherwise. Voters last November wanted change but got betrayal
from the bipartisan criminal class in Washington. Their attitude shows
in an October Reuters/Zogby (RZ) opinion poll with George Bush at 24%
that tops Richard Nixon's worst showing of 25% at his lowest 1974 Watergate
point. And if that looks bad, consider Congress with "The Hill"
reporting from the same RZ Index that our legislators scored a "staggering
11%, the lowest (congressional) rating in history," but there's
room yet to hit bottom and a year left to do it. Why not with lawmakers'
consistent voter sellout and failure record that keeps getting worse.
It's been
that way ever since 9/11 with both sides of the aisle complicit with
the administration. This article looks back at the record, and year
end is a good time to review it. It's hard imagining another as bad
with a President defiling the law and once telling Republican colleagues
the Constitution is "just a goddamned piece of paper."
He didn't
just say it. He governs by it, gets away with it, and former Defense
Department analyst Daniel Ellsberg, of Pentagon Papers fame, says "a
coup has occurred (with another to come from) the next 9/11....that
completes the first (that's) seen a steady assault on every fundamental
(aspect) of our Constitution (to create) an executive government (to)
rule by decree" no different from a police state.
Author Naomi
Wolf spells it out in her April, 2007 Guardian article - "Fascist
America, In 10 Easy Steps." In it, she argues the Bush administration
is following the same script any "would-be dictator must take to
destroy constitutional freedoms," and she lists them. They range
from "invoking a terrifying internal and external enemy" to
"creat(ing) a gulag" to spying on everyone to harassing opposition
to controlling the media to calling dissent treason to "suspend(ing)
the rule of law." She also notes how much "simpler" it
is to shut down democracy than "to create and sustain" it,
and that's today's threat.
It's not
with jackboots in the streets but by a steady "process of erosion"
with the public largely unaware and distracted by media mind manipulators.
It's happening today, and Wolf sounds the alarm with the words of James
Madison saying "The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive,
and judiciary, in the same hands....is the definition of tyranny,"
and that's the condition now in America. This article reviews the record
for the past seven years. It's not pretty.
Even the
Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, (unlike every Pope in memory)
condemned it in a wide-ranging UK Muslim magazine interview. It was
quoted in a November 25 Sunday Times column headlined "US is 'worst'
imperialist" and wields its power more reprehensibly than Britain
ever did in its heyday. He explained that American overseas adventurism
led to "the worst of all worlds" and expressed pessimism about
the current state of western civilization and Washington's own misguided
sense of mission.
He critiqued
the "war on terror" and stated America lost the moral high
ground post-9/11 and needs to launch a "generous and intelligent
programme of aid to the (nations it) ravaged;....check (its) economic
exploitation of defeated territories" and demilitarize them. He
called the West fundamentally adrift and our "definition of humanity
(isn't) working." He denounced America's violence and belief it
can solve problems left for "other people (to clean up and) put....back
together - Iraq, for example." Another is the condition at home.
Since taking
office in January, 2001, George Bush signed a blizzard of Executive
Orders and attached dozens of "signing statements" to hundreds
of law provisions even though nothing in the Constitution allows this
practice, and the Supreme Court banned line-item vetos. He continues
to do it while Congress and the courts condone his claiming unconstitutional
"unitary executive" authority to ignore the law and do as
he pleases in the name of "national security" on his say alone.
It began
on 9/11 when George Bush addressed the nation and declared a "war
on terrorism," asked for world support to win it, and began what
became "our government's emergency (preventive war strategy) response
plans." The scheme was to ignore the law, go to war, and destroy
our civil liberties to keep us safe from "rogue states, 'bad guys,'
and evil-doers" throughout an "arc of instability" from
the South American Andean region (mainly Colombia) to North Africa through
the Middle East to the Philippines, Indonesia and elsewhere in Asia.
Congress as well acted right out of the box with two audacious resolutions
that surrendered its authority to the executive, allowed him to proceed,
and signaled what would come.
The first
one came September 18, 2001 in a joint "House-Senate Authorization
for Use of Military Force (AUMF)" that authorized "the use
of United States Armed Forces against those responsible for the recent
attacks launched against the United States." A second followed
in the October, 2002 "Joint Resolution to Authorize the Use of
the United States Armed Forces Against Iraq," and the rest is history.
This article reviews other key congressional legislation to the present
along with George Bush's blatant abuse of presidential power.
His first
action came November 13, 2001 when he issued Military Order Number 1
that one analyst called a "coup d'etat," and "watershed
moment in (the) country," that was a hint of what would follow.
This order violated the spirit and letter of a civil society under constitutional
law with a firewall separating it from the military. No longer, and
it got worse later on when its provisions resurfaced by act of Congress.
That's discussed below. First, Military Order Number 1 and what's in
it:
-- it let
the President usurp authority to capture, kidnap or otherwise arrest
any non-citizens (and later citizens as well) anywhere in the world
if he claims they're involved in international terrorism and to hold
them indefinitely without charge, evidence or allowing them due process
in a court of law.
-- however,
IF trials are allowed, they would be by special ad hoc "military
commissions," not civil courts and in secret, with evidence obtained
by torture allowed, those found guilty given no right of appeal, and
they can be secretly executed.
-- no civil
court has authority in these cases even if victims are identified and
legal counsel wishes to represent them.
Few knew
then that on November 13, 2001 US citizens lost their civil liberties,
but that would come out later on. It's still ongoing with Congress and
the courts complicit in the willful destruction of our democracy that
was already on life support. Today, it's gone.
Use of National
Security ((NSPDs) and Homeland Security Presidential Directives (HSPDs)
In the Bush
administration, NSPDs replaced the Presidential Decision and Review
Directives under Bill Clinton and others under different names since
the Kennedy administration began the practice. Earlier ones remain in
force unless superseded. They're much like Executive Orders (EOs) with
the "full force and effect of law," relate to national security,
and for that reason remain classified unless or until made public. In
seven years, George Bush issued dozens of NSPD's that are too many to
review as well as over 20 Homeland Security Presidential Directives
(HSPDs). A few key ones are discussed below.
The October
25, 2001 NSPD-9 deserves special note and was titled "Defeating
the Terrorist Threat to the United States." On March 23, 2004,
Donald Rumsfeld gave this explanation of its classified contents to
the 9/11 Commission:
-- "To
eliminate the Al Queda network;
-- To use
all elements of national power to do so -- diplomatic, military, economic,
intelligence, information and law enforcement;
-- To eliminate
sanctuaries for Al Queda and related terrorist networks -- and if diplomatic
efforts to do so failed, to consider additional measures."
On April
1, 2004, the White House released this statement on the directive:
The NSPD
called on the Secretary of Defense to plan for military options "against
Taliban targets in Afghanistan, including leadership, command-control,
air and air defense, ground forces, and logistics (along with similar
efforts) against Al Queda and associated terrorist facilities in Afghanistan."
Here's the
problem. The administration adopted these measures on September 4, 2001,
seven days before 9/11. George Bush then signed them into binding law
in NSPD-9 on October 25, 2001 to conceal when they originated.
Other important
NSPDs relate to:
-- combatting
WMDs;
-- developing
and deploying an anti-ballistic missile defense that's for offense,
not defense;
-- biodefense;
-- deploying
nuclear weapons and domestic nuclear detection;
-- the Iraq
war;
-- a national
space policy as part of the goal for "full spectrum dominance"
over all land, surface and sub-surface sea, air, space, electromagnetic
spectrum and information systems to deter any domestic or foreign threat
or challenge to our global hegemony; and,
There's one
other crucially important combined NSPD-HSPD:
NSPD-51/HSPD-20
on April 4, 2007 - National Security and Homeland Security Presidential
Directive
This is a
combined directive from the White House and Department of Homeland Security
(DHS) to establish "Continuity of Government (COG)" procedures
under a "Castastrophic Emergency" defined as follows:
"any
incident (such as a terrorist attack), regardless of location, that
results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption
severely affecting the US population, infrastructure, environment, economy,
or government functions."
COG is then
defined as:
''a coordinated
effort within the Federal Government's executive branch to ensure that
National Essential Functions continue to be performed during a Catastrophic
Emergency."
Crucial to
understand is that this combined directive gives the President and DHS
unprecendented powers free from constitutional constraints. Under NSPD-51,
the President can declare a "national emergency" and declare
martial law without congressional approval. It allows him to create
a de facto militarized police state with him as dictator and DHS as
a national Gestapo to an even greater degree than it is already. It
also empowers the Vice-President to implement the directives' provisions
as part of the "Continuity of Government" plan that in the
case of Dick Cheney gives him even more power than George Bush the way
this administration operates. This combined directive alone is the face
of "police state America" in real time if it's implemented,
and it wasn't likely enacted as window dressing. But there's lots more
besides.
Other HSPDs
relate to:
-- combatting
"immigrant terrorism;"
-- a national
response plan to domestic incidents;
-- critical
infrastructure identification, prioritization, and protection;
-- national
preparedness;
-- comprehensive
terrorist-related screening procedures;
-- domestic
nuclear detection; and others.
Congressional
Legislation After 9/11
Post-9/11,
Congress acted in lockstep with the President and continues to pass
laws any despot would love. Written, on the shelf, and ready to go long
before 9/11, the USA Patriot Act was passed and signed by the president
45 days later on October 26, 2001. The legislative process capitalized
on a window of hysteria to grant unchecked powers to the executive but
created three grave civil liberties threats in the process:
-- the erosion
of Fifth and Fourteen Amendment due process rights by permitting indefinite
detentions of undocumented immigrants that can now apply to anyone anywhere
in the world; more on that below;
-- the First
Amendment loss of freedom of association that the Supreme Court considers
an essential part of free expression; now anyone may be charged and
prosecuted because of his or her claimed association with an "undesirable
group;" and
-- loss of
the Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches and
seizures, and as a consequence, the loss of privacy; the Act grants
the administration unchecked surveillance powers to access personal
records; monitor financial transactions; student records; conduct "sneak
and peak" searches through "delayed notice" warrants;
authorize roving wiretaps; track emails, internet and cell phone use;
use secret evidence in prosecutions; deny immigrants the right to counsel
if they're unable to get their own; and ends built-in safeguards to
let domestic criminal and foreign intelligence operations share information
so CIA can now spy domestically.
The Act also
creates the federal crime of "domestic terrorism" that broadens
the definition and applies to US citizens as well as aliens. It states
criminal law violations are considered domestic terrorist acts if they
aim to "influence (government policy) by intimidation or coercion
(or) intimidate or coerce a civilian population." By this definition,
anti-war or global justice demonstrations, environmental activism, civil
disobedience and dissent of any kind may be called "domestic terrorism."
The Patriot Act was just for starters. Much more was ahead with a bipartisan
Congress acting like a gift that keeps on giving and the President loving
it.
The Homeland
Security Act (HSA) of November 25, 2002 followed as a sweeping new anti-terrorism
bill, and like the Patriot Act, was planned long before 9/11. It created
the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) by combining previously separate
government agencies under this new authority to prepare for, prevent
and respond to domestic emergencies and give the federal government
broad new powers to protect the nation within and outside our borders.
In March, 2003, its largest investigative and enforcement arm was then
established - the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE).
It was charged with protecting public safety by identifying and targeting
"criminal" and "terrorist" threats to the country
who in most cases are NAFTA and globalized trade victims here out of
need, not choice, and who aren't terrorists.
DHS is part
of the administration's plan to centralize unprecedented military and
law enforcement power in the executive branch that aims for greater
global dominance - to rule the world unchallenged including repressively
at home by suppressing civil liberties in the name of "national
security." DHS and USA Patriot Act are two frightening measures
to do it.
DHS is insidious.
It encroaches on local authority by "mandat(ing) federal supervision,
funding, and coordination of 'local first responders.' " This refers
to police and "emergency personnel" comprising local law enforcement.
The Homeland Security Act (HSA) doesn't mandate local control. Instead,
it provides coordination and guidance as a first step measure with more
to come. That's why US Northern Command (USNORTHCOM) was established
in October, 2002 as an unprecedented move to militarize the mainland
plus Alaska, Canada, Mexico, Gulf of Mexico and Straits of Florida and,
for the first time ever, allow troops to be deployed on US streets to
counter drugs, an "insurrection" loosely defined, and combat
crimes with nuclear, chemical or biological weapons. In other words,
the President may now deploy military forces on US streets in the interest
of "national security." This power is unprecedented and dangerous.
So is another
affecting everyone. It's largely below the radar since it was was scheduled
to be fully operational in late September, 2006. It's the Pentagon's
New Offensive Strike Plan called the Joint Functional Component Command
for Global Strike and Integration - or simply Global Strike Command.
It grew out of the 2002 Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) that was updated
more belligerently in early 2006. NPR is a declaration of preventive
war on any nation, group or force anywhere on earth the administration
calls a "national security" threat and could be used by NORTHCOM
against US-based targets along with a HSA crackdown if martial law is
declared.
HSA goes
further still by creating a sweeping domestic intelligence agency called
the Directorate of Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection.
It's to create and maintain an all-inclusive intrusive public and private
information data base on everyone. It can include virtually everything
- financial transactions and records, medical ones, emails, phone calls,
purchases, books and publications read, organization memberships, and
any other personal habit or pattern.
USA Patriot
Act and HSA end the distinction between foreign and domestic intelligence
gathering and, up to now, the sacrosanct firewall between them. They
also no longer allow "critical infrastructure information"
from a federal agency to be disclosed through a FOIA request as part
of an official policy of secrecy characteristic of police states. There's
much more in both Acts as well that's frightening, dangerous and unknown
to the public. In sum, they end constitutional protections whenever
the executive suspends the law in the name of "national security."
That's how "police state America" works that's hidden from
public view.
The Detainee
Treatment Act of 2005
Torture is
official state policy for the Bush administration as its preferred means
of intimidation, retribution and social control. The McCain Detainee
(anti-torture) Amendment in October, 2005 was a futile effort to deter
it. It was passed and weakened by the Graham-Levin Amendment, became
the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005, and was attached to the 2006 Defense
Department's Appropriations Act. George Bush signed the legislation
after which he gutted its provisions relating to detainees in one of
his notorious "signing statements." Its language gave himself
the right (irrespective of the law) to "protect the American people
from further terrorist attacks" using all his self-given powers
as a "unitary executive" that places him above the law, Congress,
the courts, the people, and world public opinion.
The legislation's
final form went further as well. It denied detainees habeas rights,
let US forces use any cruel, abusive, inhumane or degrading treatment
in the interests of "national security," prohibited detainees
from bringing suits as a result, and allowed statements gotten coercively
to be used as evidence against them. It also followed previous policies
as far back as September 17, 2001 when George Bush signed a secret "finding"
authorizing CIA to kill, capture and detain "Al Qaeda" members
anywhere in the world, rendition them to black site torture-prisons
for interrogation, and obtain it by any means. From then to now, torture
and abuse of anyone have been standard operating procedures for the
Bush administration with complicity from Congress and the courts.
Other
Repressive Legislation and More
The 107th,
108th, 109th and 110th Congresses will be remembered for likely having
done more than all others before them to defile the rule of law and
our constitutional protections. They conspired with a rogue administration,
wrecked the republic, and for the 109th Congress, October 17, 2006 stands
out shamelessly as a day that will live in infamy.
The Military
Commissions Act
In a White
House ceremony, George Bush signed the Military Commissions Act (MCA)
now known as "the torture authorization act," but it's more
far-reaching than that. It grants the administration extraordinary unconstitutional
powers to detain, interrogate and prosecute alleged terror suspects
and anyone claimed to be their supporters. It also lets the President
call anyone anywhere in the world an "unlawful enemy combatant"
and empowers him to arrest and incarcerate those accused indefinitely
in military prisons without needing corroborating evidence proving guilt.
The law states for persons detained that "no court, justice, or
judge shall have jurisdiction to hear or consider any claim or cause
for action whatsoever.... relating to the prosecution, trial, or judgment
of a military commission....including challenges to the lawfulness of
procedures of military commissions."
MCA further
scraps habeas protection (dating back to 1215 in the Magna Carta) for
domestic and foreign enemies of the state, citizens and non-citizens
alike, and says "Any person is punishable... who....aids, abets,
counsels, commands, or procures" and in so doing helps a foreign
enemy, provides "material support" to alleged terrorist groups,
engages in spying, or commits other offenses previously handled in civil
courts.
Other key
elements of the act include:
-- legalizing
torture against anyone and lets the President decide what procedures
can be used on his own authority;
-- denying
detainees international law protection and lets the executive interpret
it;
-- empowering
the President to convene "military commissions" to try anyone
he designates an "unlawful enemy combatant," and hold them
in secret detention indefinitely;
--denying
speedy trials or any at all;
-- allowing
evidence obtained by torture or coerced testimony to be used against
detainees in trial proceedings;
-- permitting
hearsay and secret evidence to be used; and
-- denying
due process, destroying human dignity, mocking the rule of law, and
establishing the principle of kangaroo court justice for anyone the
executive targets.
Revising
the 1807 Insurrection Act and Ending 1878 Posse Comitatus Protection
Also on October
17, 2006, the president privately signed into law a hidden provision
in Sections 1076 and 333 of the John Warner National Defense Authorization
Act for Fiscal Year 2007. It amended the Insurrection Act of 1807 and
Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 that prohibit using federal and National
Guard troops for law enforcement inside the country except as constitutionally
allowed or expressly authorized by Congress in times of a national emergency
like an insurrection. The executive can now claim a public emergency,
effectively declare martial law, suspend the Constitution for "national
security," and deploy federal and National Guard troops on the
nation's streets to suppress whatever he calls disorder. That means
First Amendment-guaranteed peaceful public demonstrations and all organized
acts of dissent are no longer constitutionally protected. Neither is
the republic in "police state America."
The new law
also authorizes the Pentagon to transfer state-of-the-art crowd control
weapons and technology to state and local responders. It's to militarize
them and blur the distinction between federal and local law enforcement
agencies as an operational police state tactic.
The
Real ID Act of 2005
Congress
passed the Act that threatens personal privacy, it's scheduled to become
effective in May, 2008, and it will require states to meet federal ID
standards if in takes effect next spring. That's now in question as
two dozen or more states passed laws prohibiting its use and refused
to fund it.
The federal
law mandates that every US citizen and legal resident have a national
identity card that in most cases will be a driver's license. It requires
that it contain an individual's personal information and means this
ID will be needed to open a bank account, board an airplane, be able
to vote, or conduct virtually any other essential type business.
In the future,
the law may also require that the card contain a radio frequency identification
(RFID) technology computer chip that will be able to track all movements,
activities and transactions of everyone, everywhere, at all times. In
other words, with this technology embedded, the card will become an
empowered police state dream (and an Orwellian nightmare) to be able
to monitor everyone having one all the time wherever they are.
However,
growing state opposition to the law puts its status in doubt. It's because
it's costly to establish and administer and will create a bureaucratic
nightmare besides. It thus looks likely it won't be adopted in its current
form, but it may be revised and reintroduced, so don't yet count this
one out as some are ready to do. As of now, measures have been introduced
in the House and Senate to repeal it by adopting national ID standards
in other legislation and increase federal funding for it. So going forward,
the issue of mandating national ID measures is very much alive. It looks
like something on it will emerge as federal law going forward, but the
cure may be worse than the disease if states adopt it to give "police
state America" another repressive tool.
Pervasive
Spying on Americans
Under George
Bush, spying is a national pastime, but it's no joke. The New York Times
reported on December 16, 2005 that his administration had been secretly
spying on Americans without warrants since late 2001. He authorized
the National Security Agency (NSA) to intercept international communications
of US citizens with known links to Al Queda, related "terrorist"
organizations, or for any other reasons at its discretion. The operation
was called the "Terrorism Surveillance Program."
It made no
difference to the administration that wiretapping without probable cause
or judicial oversight violates Fourth Amendment protections and the
1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). In the current atmosphere,
the rule of law is out the window, Congress and the courts condone it,
and that's the problem.
It surfaced
again when Congress passed the Protect America Act of 2007 that amends
FISA with doublespeak language Orwell would love. It supposedly aims
to close "communication gaps" but will allow virtual unrestricted
mass data-mining monitoring and intercept of domestic and foreign internet,
cell phones and other new technology as well as transit international
phone call traffic and emails. The Act claims to restrict surveillance
to foreign nationals "reasonably believed to be outside the United
States" and must be renewed. In fact, the law targets everyone
including US citizens inside the country if the Attorney General or
Director of National Intelligence claim they pose a potential terrorist
or "national security" threat, but no evidence is needed to
prove it.
This law
allows virtual unrestricted warrantless spying of anyone for any claimed
"national security" reason. It thus renders the notion of
illegal searches and privacy rights null and void. But that already
went on earlier post-9/11 through other unconstitutional speech-related
monitoring activities. One was the short-lived Operation TIPS that was
dropped when civilian informers refused to be spies. Then, there was
the Pentagon's Total Information Awareness (TIA), later renamed Terrorism
Information Awareness, that was also ended under pressure but resurfaced
in new form so illegal military spying continues. The Threat and Local
Observation Notice (TALON) program was part of it to collect domestic
intelligence through a huge database focused on "terrorism"
that means everyone legally opposing Bush administration practices is
targeted.
MATRIX is
another new data mining tool that stands for the Multistate Anti-Terrorism
Exchange Program. It violates our privacy by mass monitoring the lives
and activities of ordinary people on the pretext of learning whether
they may be engaging in any type terrorist or criminal activity.
Privacy isn't
mentioned in the Constitution, but Supreme Court decisions affirmed
it as a fundamental human right. In addition, it's protected under the
Ninth Amendment, the Third prohibiting quartering troops in homes, the
Fourth prohibiting unreasonable searches and seizures, and the Fifth
safeguarding against self-incrimination. MATRIX and other intrusive
laws violate the letter and spirit of the law and permits Patriot and
HSA justice in "police state America."
Executive
Orders Issued by George Bush
George Bush
loves big numbers. They show up in budgets and spending, in his number
of signing statements to congressional legislation, and in over 250
Executive Orders (EOs) in almost seven years. A key one is reviewed
below.
July 17,
2007 Executive Order (EO): Blocking Property of Certain Persons Who
Threaten Stabilization Efforts in Iraq
The US Constitution
has no provision that gives a President power to make new law through
one-man executive order decrees. That never deterred others in the past
from issuing them, but none ever abused this practice more than George
Bush who's issued over 250 of them thus far with more sure to come.
This one
on July 17 is especially egregious but right in character for a President
who disdains the law and shows it. It starts off: The President's power
stems from "the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution
and the laws of the United States of America" as well as the International
Economic Powers Act he also invokes.
The order
continues: "....due to the unusual and extraordinary threat to
the national security and foreign policy of the United States posed
by acts of violence threatening the peace and stability of Iraq and
undermining efforts to promote economic reconstruction and political
reform in Iraq and to provide humanitarian assistance to the Iraqi people,"
George Bush, in fact, unconstitutionally usurped authority to criminalize
the anti-war movement, make the First Amendment right to protest it
illegal, and empower himself to seize the assets of persons violating
this decree.
By this action,
the President again, on his own authority, violated the Constitution,
criminalized dissent, and moved the nation another step closer to tyranny
in "police state America."
Secrecy
As Policy under George Bush
In November
1, 2001, George Bush signed Executive Order 13233: Further Implementation
of the Presidential Records Act. In so doing, he established an official
administration policy of secrecy in violation of the 1978 Presidential
Records Act, the 1974 Freedom of Information Act, and James Madison's
1822 warning that "A popular Government, without popular information,
or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy;
or perhaps both." He also violated the Supreme Court's 1977 decision
in Nixon v. Administrator of General Services that ruled "executive
privilege" is subject to "erosion over time" after a
president leaves office, and Congress decided that little or none of
an executive's communications with his advisors should remain secret
after 12 years.
Secrecy threatens
democracy because it avoids accountability and empowers an imperial
president way beyond issues of national security that are justifiable.
On his own authority, George Bush placed limits on presidential records,
the Freedom of Information Act, and a free and open society by giving
himself the power to classify information for national security and
create a whole new array of categories called "sensitive"
information that includes anything he so designates. The result is that
classified information doubled since 2001 and efforts to declassify
material was stopped by invoking the "State Secrets" privilege
to avoid court challenge. These actions characterize police states and
represent another threat to a free and open society under an administration
that disdains the law and operates freely without constraint.
The
Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act (AETA)
On November
27, 2006, George Bush signed AETA into law to amend the Animal Enterprise
Protection Act of 1992. The new Act has broad and vague language to
criminalize First Amendment activities advocating for animal rights
like peaceful protests, leafleting, undercover investigations, whisleblowing
and boycotts. It shows how out of hand things have gotten with animal
protection advocacy now a crime.
Under the
old law, anyone convicted of a physical disruption causing $10,000 in
damages to an animal enterprise was subject to a $10,000 fine or 10
years to life imprisonment. The new AETA is even harsher with penalties
far exceeding comparable offenses under other laws. It expands the original
Act by changing activity "for the purpose of causing physical disruption"
to actions "for the purpose of damaging or disrupting" an
animal enterprise. In this case, "disruptive" means any activity
that results in "losses and increased losses" over $10,000
by peaceful protests for consumers boycotts, advocating harmful practice
reforms, or a whisleblower doing the same things.
The Act also
goes further. It allows for expanded surveillance of animal rights organizations
to include criminal wiretapping and makes it easier for a court to find
probable cause for the vague crime of economic damage or disruption
than for one requiring hard evidence a person or group plans to commit
these acts.
The bill
exempts "lawful public, governmental or business reaction to the
disclosure of information about an animal enterprise," but that
provision only applies to economic disruption claims, not damage and
makes it hard to distinguish between the two. In addition, AETA:
-- expands
the kinds of facilities covered by adding ones that use or sell animals
or animal products;
-- it covers
any person, entity or organization with a connection to an animal enterprise;
-- it applies
to any form of advocacy;
-- it criminalizes
threatening conduct and protected speech as well as communication with
individuals who engage in these practices; and
-- it potentially
includes any form of communication such as emailing across state lines
to boycott abusive animal activities;
-- it protects
corporate animal abusers with a vested interest in silencing dissent;
and
-- it effectively
singles out any form of civil disobedience or protest activity and brands
animal advocates as terrorists even when nothing they do causes physical
harm; even worse, the bill's language is so broad and vague it's hard
to know the difference between legal and illegal behavior; this Act
is another nail in the coffin of free expression, the rule of law in
a free society, and the right of everyone to be protected by law, not
targeted by it.
The Violent
Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007 (HR 1955)
The House
overwhelmingly passed this measure on October 23 that some observers
call "the thought crime prevention bill." It's now in the
Senate (S 1959) where if passed and signed by George Bush will establish
a commission and Center for Excellence to study and take action against
"thought criminals." The commission will be empowered to subpoena
and investigate anyone that will automatically create a perception of
guilt that may be highlighted in the media for added emphasis.
This Act
is a direct assault on democratic freedoms in the current atmosphere
with both parties and a President determined to end them. The bill's
language hides its possible intent as "violent radicalization"
and "homegrown terrorism" may be whatever the administration
says they are. "Violent radicalization" is defined as "adopting
or promoting an extremist belief system (to facilitate) ideologically
based violence to advance political, religious or social change."
"Homegrown terrorism" is used to mean "the use, planned
use, or threatened use, of force or violence by a group or individual
born, raised, or based and operating primarily within the United States
or any (US) possession to intimidate or coerce the (US) government,
the civilian population....or any segment thereof (to further) political
or social objectives."
This and
other repressive laws may be used against any individual or group with
unpopular views - those that differ from established state policy, even
illegal ones, and historian Howard Zinn is concerned. He says: "This
is the most recent of a long series of laws passed in times of foreign
policy tensions, starting with the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798,
which sent people to jail for criticizing the Adams administration."
Under Woodrow Wilson in WW I, "the Espionage (and) Sedition Act(s)
(jailed) close to a thousand people (who spoke) out against the war."
From HR 1955 and other post-9/11 laws, authorities now have the same
power to target anti-war protesters or anyone expressing views this
Act alone calls "terrorist-related propaganda." Persons charged
and convicted face stiff penalties in an effort to deter others. This
measure is still another step toward full-blown tyranny in "police
state America."
Sections
1615 and 1622 of the 2008 Defense Authorization Act
These provisions
authorize DOD to militarize the country under martial law by merging
the military with state and local law enforcement during a national
emergency described as "an incident of national significance or
a catastrophic incident." It also gives the Defense Secretary extraordinary
power to determine what military capabilities are needed, to provide
them to "active (and) reserve components of the armed forces for
homeland defense missions, domestic emergency responses, and (to provide)
military support to civil authorities (for) at least five years."
The Act designates
the Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman to review NORTHCOM civilian, reservist
and military positions and increase their number in preparation for
a potential catastrophic event requiring "homeland defense missions,
domestic emergency response, (and the need for) military support to
civil authorities."
Section 1622
then establishes a Council of Governors to advise the Secretaries of
Defense and Homeland Security and the White House "on matters related
to the National Guard and civil support missions."
The Act is
more proof of "police state America." It establishes a martial
law apparatus to be used in case of a "catastrophic event"
of any kind and empowers the President or Vice-President under NSPD-51
to implement it in a "national emergency" without congressional
approval.
Operation
FALCON - Police State America in Real Time
Mike Whitney
won a 2008 Project Censored Award for his February, 2007 article titled
"Operation FALCON and the Looming Police State." In it, he
reported that the Bush administration "carried out three massive
sweeps in the last two years, rolling up more than 30,000 minor crooks
and criminals" that he calls a "blueprint for removing dissidents
and political rivals" reminiscent of Nazi Germany or any other
repressive police state. Those chickens now reside at home, but the
public is largely unaware and unconcerned. We all should be as Whitney
raises a "red flag for anyone who cares at all about human rights,
civil liberties, or simply saving his own skin."
Operation
FALCON stands for "Federal and Local Cops Organized Nationally"
and came out of the Bush Justice Department and right-wing think tanks
"where fantasies of autocratic government have a long history"
and are now playing out in real time. The scheme centralizes power in
Washington and uses resources of local authorities for its own purposes.
Whitney traces
its short history starting in the week of April 4 - 10, 2005 when over
10,000 criminal suspects were arrested in "the largest criminal
sweep in the nation's history" in a "single initiative."
Its aim was "quantity," not "quality," but Whitney
asked why did the Feds get involved in local police work and suggested
something more sinister was involved "than just ensuring public
safety." His answer - "to enhance the powers of the 'unitary'
executive" by giving Washington power over local law enforcement,
and that makes perfect sense under an administration obsessed with wanting
unchallengeable control.
Operation
FALCON II followed a week later from April 17 - 23 and swept up another
9037 "alleged fugitives." The final FALCON III came from October
22 - 28, 2006 with 10,773 more arrests. Each sweep was the same and
concentrated on alleged criminal types out of character for a federal
operation, so clearly another motive was involved. Further, no one arrested
was charged with a terrorist-related crime, and that alone looks fishy.
Whitney thought so and called FALCON "new drills for a new world
order" that's waging permanent war, defiles the law, ignores checks
and balances, condones torture, repealed habeas, and illegally spies
on everyone.
Muslim and
US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) Sweeps
As FALCON
targeted petty crooks and criminals, Muslims are the administration's
main "war on terrorism" victims. Post-9/11, thousands were
mercilessly harassed and persecuted through mass witch-hunt roundups,
detentions, prosecutions and deportations. Their assets were frozen,
and legal immigrants among them were subjected to secret federal immigration
court status hearings where those found guilty of minor past infractions
were illegally held or returned to their countries of origin where they
faced possible arrest and torture.
Others fared
even worse and became political prisoners. Professor Sami Al-Arian was
one of them because of his faith, beliefs and activism. Palestinian
refugee, scholar, academic, community leader, civic activist, and freedom
and justice advocate for his people made him a Bush administration target.
His ordeal began when he was arrested in February, 2003 and unjustly
charged with supporting terrorism, conspiracy to commit murder, racketeering,
giving material support to an outlawed group, extortion, perjury and
other offenses proved spurious in his subsequent trial in which he was
exonerated. Yet he remains imprisoned under harsh conditions as the
Bush Justice Department finds ways to hold him.
Another victim
was Dr. Rafil Dhafir, a Muslim American of Iraqi descent and practicing
oncologist until his license was suspended. He was convicted in a shameless
kangaroo court trial of 59 of 60 trumped up charges of violating the
Iraqi Sanctions Regulations (IEEPA) for using his own funds and what
he could raise through his Help the Needy charity to bring desperately
needed essential to life humanitarian aid to Iraqis under sanctions.
He's now serving a 22 year sentence in a special Terre Haute, IN "Communications
Management Unit" (CMU) for Muslims and Arabs for his "crime
of compassion" (see dhafirtrial.net, Katherine Hughes) where he,
like Sami Al-Arian, is a Bush administration "trophy" prisoner
in the "war on terrorism."
Undocumented
Latino immigrants have also been targeted with ICE shock troops mandated
to do it. The agency was established in March, 2003 as the largest DHS
investigative and enforcement arm and charged with protecting the public
safety by identifying and targeting "criminal" and "terrorist"
threats to the country. In most cases, they're innocent victims of NAFTA
and globalized trade coming north to survive. ICE heads them off at
the border, hunts them down ruthlessly once they're here, and boasts
how well their multi-billion dollar budget lets them conduct a reign
of terror against vulnerable people.
Workplace
assaults continue, and on October 3, ICE said it swept up and deported
(or will deport) more than 1300 "criminal aliens, immigrations
fugitives, and immigration violators" in the "largest-ever"
operation of its kind in the Los Angeles area. Most were Mexican nationals,
but some were from 30 other countries, and ICE called them "immigration
violators." They're Bush administration targets in its "war
on terrorism" that soon may come for us.
Police
State America Preparations
Today, dissent
is an endangered species, and preparations are underway for mass detentions
in the "war on terrorism" targeting anyone seen as a threat.
Halliburton is the beneficiary with a DHS contingency contract worth
nearly $400 million to build US-based camps for "detention and
processing" in case of an "emergency influx of immigrants....or
to support the rapid development of new programs (for planned) expansion
facilities (for anyone with capacity for 5000 or more persons)."
This language
is cover for planned US-based concentration camps for anyone labeled
an enemy of the state or threat to "national security." The
plan is clear - to have facilities in place if martial law is declared
with plenty of reasons to fear it's coming. Why else these camps and
why all the repressive laws, EOs, NSPDs, and HSPDs put in place if they
weren't for a purpose.
The Pentagon
is also ready with a DOD action plan called "Strategy for Homeland
Defense and Civil Support." It envisions an "active, layered
defense" both within and outside the country that pledges to "transform
US military forces to execute homeland defense missions in the....US
homeland." It lays out a strategy for increased reconnaissance
and surveillance to "defeat potential challengers before they threaten
the United States." It also "maximizes threat awareness and
seizes the initiative from those who would harm us."
These are
ominous developments that suggest a likely real or contrived homeland
terror attack severe enough to warrant suspending the Constitution and
declaring martial law with the public acquiescing out of fear. If it
comes, anyone may be targeted as a "national security" threat,
indefinitely detained in a camp, and no evidence is needed for proof.
The state and military will be empowered by law to act preventively
through mass roundups and detentions that appears the reason for three
test-run FALCON operations.
Full-scale
militarization of the country is already lawful under the 1988 Reagan
administration's "national security emergency" EO 12656. It
was meant for "Any occurrence, including natural disaster, military
attack, technological or other emergency, that seriously degrades or
seriously threatens the national security of the United States."
"Police state America" has been in the works a long time,
and it now may be near the boiling point.
The
Role of Blackwater USA in Police State America
Most people
know about Blackwater but not how it operates. We better learn because
it's coming to a neighborhood near you, and that means trouble. Author
Jeremy Scahill wrote the book on the company he calls "the world's
most powerful mercenary army" and describes it as a "shadowy
mercenary company (employing) some of the most feared professional killers
in the world accustomed to operating without worry of legal consequences
(and) largely off the congressional radar." It has friends in high
places who give it "remarkable power and protection within the
US war apparatus" with unaccountable license to practice street
violence with impunity to include cold-blooded murder wherever their
paramilitaries are deployed.
For now,
that's mostly abroad, and controversy surfaced about the company after
its mercenaries killed two dozen or more Iraqis and wounded dozens more
in al-Nisour on September 16. It was the latest incident involving a
company with a disturbing history of unprovoked violence and then claiming
self-defense. Blackwater is contracted to provide security services
for US diplomats, officials and others that once was assigned to the
military at one-sixth or less what the company charges under an administration
that believes anything government can do private business does better,
so let it whatever the cost.
Using Blackwater
and other paramilitaries is part of the scheme to militarize America,
and New Orleans is its first test case. Scahill wrote that "about
150 heavily armed Blackwater troops dressed in full battle gear"
arrived in the Crescent City right after Katrina hit and spread out
into the city's chaos. Others came later. Their cover was to provide
hurricane relief, but that was a ruse as local residents still around
in the wrong places soon discovered. They patrolled like Gestapo in
SUVs with tinted windows and their logo on the back. Others used unmarked
cars with no license plates, and relief wasn't their mandate. They came
to secure neighborhoods from their legal residents and treat those wanting
to return like criminals. They wore flak jackets, carried automatic
weapons and had extra guns strapped to their legs. They weren't for
show.
Instead of
helping hurricane victims, they came as vigilantes to terrorize them
and be empowered by federal, state and local authorities to do it. Blackwater
USA is the face of paramilitarism on US streets as the "war on
terrorism" comes to a neighborhood near you with New Orleans the
first test case to see if the company can operate here the way it does
in Iraq and get away with it. It's doing it.
More than
two years after Katrina, New Orleans is still a disaster zone, and many
thousands of its residents are still without homes. Instead of helping
them rebuild and restore their lives, federal funds instead go to private
mercenaries to protect the privileged from desperate people needing
help. Blackwater is another element in place in "police state America"
where the streets of Boston, Boise or Buffalo may one day resemble Baghdad
and bring the "war on terror" to the homeland with chilling
implications of what that means.
A
Look Ahead in Police State America
This article
began and will end with the same chilling thought. It past is prologue,
the outlook isn't good in "police state America" under neocon
rule that won't appreciably change when the White House has a new occupant
in 2009. The nation is at war and laws are in place that end constitutional
protections, militarize the country, repress dissent, and our government
is empowered to crush freedom and defend privilege from beneficial social
change it won't tolerate. It's the price of imperial arrogance we the
people are paying, and that won't end until the spirit of resistance
gets aroused enough to stop it in our own self-defense. We better hope
that happens in time with potentially little of it left.
Stephen
Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at [email protected].
Also visit
his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen
to The Steve Lendman News and Information Hour on TheMicroEffect.com
Mondays at noon US Central time.
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