Legal for U.S. Govt to Execute Citizens Without Trial Abroad, Coming to U.S. Soil? (Video)
December 4, 2011 By Leave a Comment
U.S. Says Americans Are MILITARY Targets in the War on Terror … And Says that Only the White House – and Not the Courts – Gets to Decide Who Is a Legitimate Target
December 4, 2011 By Leave a Comment
American Citizens on U.S. Soil May be Indefinitely Detained, Sent to Guantanamo or Assassinated 
As everyone realizes by now, Congress’ push for indefinite detention includes American citizens on American soil. As Huffington post notes:
The debate also has left many Americans scratching their heads as to whether Congress is actually attempting to authorize the indefinite detention of Americans by the military without charges. But proponents — led by Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) and Carl Levin (D-Mich.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee — say that is exactly what the war on terror requires. They argued that the bill simply codifies precedents set by the Supreme Court and removes uncertainty, which they said would better protect the country.
Here is John McCain justifying sending Americans to Guantanamo:
(As Emptywheel and Glenn Greenwald note, the White House has believed for many years that it possessed the power to indefinitely detain Americans)
But that’s not all.
The government can also kill American citizens. For more than a year and a half, the Obama administration has said it could target American citizens for assassination without any trial or due process.
But now, as shown by the debates surrounding indefinite detention, the government is saying that America itself is a battlefield.
AP notes today:
U.S. citizens are legitimate military targets when they take up arms with al-Qaida, top national security lawyers in the Obama administration said Thursday.
***
The government lawyers, CIA counsel Stephen Preston and Pentagon counsel Jeh Johnson … said U.S. citizens do not have immunity when they are at war with the United States.
Johnson said only the executive branch, not the courts, is equipped to make military battlefield targeting decisions about who qualifies as an enemy.
The courts in habeas cases, such as those involving whether a detainee should be released from the Guantanamo Bay detention facility in Cuba, make the determination of who can be considered an enemy combatant.
You might assume – in a vacuum – that this might be okay (even though it trashes the Constitution, the separation of military and police actions, and the division between internal and external affairs).
But it is dangerous in a climate where you can be labeled as or suspected of being a terrorist simply for questioning war, protesting anything, asking questions about pollution or about Wall Street shenanigans, supporting Ron Paul, being a libertarian, holding gold, or stocking up on more than 7 days of food.
And it is problematic in a period in which FBI agents and CIA intelligence officials, constitutional law expert professor Jonathan Turley, Time Magazine, Keith Olbermann and the Washington Post have all said that U.S. government officials “were trying to create an atmosphere of fear in which the American people would give them more power”, and even former Secretary of Homeland Security – Tom Ridge –admits that he was pressured to raise terror alerts to help Bush win reelection.
And it is counter-productive in an age when the government – instead of doing the things which could actually make us safer – are doing things which increase the risk of terrorism.
And it is insane in a time of perpetual war.
And when the “War on Terror” in the Middle East and North Africa which is being used to justify the attack on Americans was planned long before 9/11.
And when Jimmy Carter’s National Security Adviser told the Senate in 2007 that the war on terror is “a mythical historical narrative”. And 9/11 was entirely foreseeable, but wasn’t stopped. Indeed, no one in Washington even wants to hear how 9/11 happened, even though that is necessary to stop future terrorist attacks. And the military has bombed a bunch of oil-rich countries when it could have instead taken out Bin Laden years ago.
As I noted in March:
The government’s indefinite detention policy – stripped of it’s spin – is literally insane, and based on circular reasoning. Stripped of PR, this is the actual policy:
- If you are an enemy combatant or a threat to national security, we will detain you indefinitely until the war is over
- It is a perpetual war, which will never be over
- Neither you or your lawyers have a right to see the evidence against you, nor to face your accusers
- But trust us, we know you are an enemy combatant and a threat to national security
- We may torture you (and try to cover up the fact that you were tortured), because you are an enemy combatant, and so basic rights of a prisoner guaranteed by the Geneva Convention don’t apply to you
- Since you admitted that you’re a bad guy (while trying to tell us whatever you think we want to hear to make the torture stop), it proves that we should hold you in indefinite detention
See how that works?
And – given that U.S. soldiers admit that if they accidentally kill innocent Iraqis and Afghanis, they then “drop” automatic weapons near their body so they can pretend they were militants – it is unlikely that the government would ever admit that an American citizen it assassinated was an innocent civilian who has nothing at all to do with terrorism.
Source: https://www.washingtonsblog.com/2011/12/americans-are-military-targets-in-the-war-on-terror.html
Help Schapelle Corby: She Has Endured Years Of Cruelty, Suffering & Is Dying In The Squalor Of An Indonesian Prison Cell
December 3, 2011 By 3 Comments
Schapelle Corby is an innocent Australian woman, who has endured years of cruelty and suffering in the squalor of an Indonesian prison cell. She was sentenced to a political 20 YEARS for importing a few pounds of marijuana, which to her horror she discovered in her bag on arrival. There followed the most shocking injustice and human rights abuses. 
Incredibly, she has been deserted by her government for political expediency, who have used the media to subdue public opinion. Having had her soul finally broken, she is now confirmed mentally ill… literally dying in a squalid filthy overcrowded cell.
Yet appallingly she is still there, with the government doing nothing to help her. She needs YOUR help.
PLEASE SIGN & SHARE THE PETITION [Click on Link: https://www.thepetitionsite.com/2/People-For-Schapelle-Corby/]
URGENT: SCHAPELLE’S FAILING HEALTH
One of Australia’s top psychiatrists recently got access to Schapelle for a full examination. His report was devastating. For a young woman to be reduced to the shocking state she in is an affront to civilization. She is hanging on by a thread. Unless action is taken soon, she will die on the filthy rat infested floor of her cell, and return home in a box.
The inaction of the Australian government beggars belief. A mentally ill citizen is dying in a hell hole, and they hide behind protocol, presumably because there is no political cost to the death of a normal working class girl.
WE have to create that cost.
We have to tell the world about this.
We have to explain to Australians how the truth they saw some of in 2004/5 has been distorted and hidden.
We have to tell the two governmets that we the PEOPLE won’t walk away.
But we have to do it NOW. Please join us…… a life literally depends upon it.
Source: https://schapellecorby.org/
Bradley Manning: Welsh MEP’s Join Wikileaks Suspect Plea
December 3, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Two Welsh MEPs have added their names to a growing list of their colleagues concerned about the alleged treatment of Wikileaks suspect Bradley Manning. 
The US Army analyst, who grew up in Pembrokeshire, is due in court later this month accused of passing sensitive information to the website.
He has been in military custody in the US since May 2010, accused of making intelligence available to “the enemy”.
Plaid Cymru’s Jill Evans and Labour’s Derek Vaughan have signed the letter.
Ms Evans said US treatment of Pte Manning had become an important human rights issue.
“I think anyone who read about the conditions under which he has been held would be very disturbed… it is totally out of proportion to anything that he has been accused of”
During his detainment at a military prison at Quantico, Virginia, it is alleged that the soldier was held in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day and often made to sleep without clothing or bedding.
“I think anyone who read about the conditions under which he has been held would be very disturbed,” said Ms Evans.
“It is totally out of proportion to anything that he has been accused of.”
An open letter has now been sent to President Obama signed by more than 60 members of the European Parliament, including Ms Evans and the Welsh Labour MEP Derek Vaughan.
The letter calls on the US president to allow Pte Manning to meet the United Nation’s special rapporteur on torture, Juan Méndez.
Human rights
The signatories also state they are concerned that the soldier has been charged with the offence of ‘aiding the enemy‘, which could carry the death penalty in the US.
Ms Evans said she hoped the letter would carry added weight in America as a trial date approaches.
“Human rights is an issue that the European Parliament has always fought very hard to protect, and something we feel we have a real role in doing on the world stage,” she added.
The 23-year-old is from Oklahoma but went to Tasker Milward school in Haverfordwest, where he lived with his mother.
He is accused of passing hundreds of thousands of diplomatic cables to the whistleblowing website, detailing operational information in Iraq and Afghanistan.
After mounting concerns were raised in America about his plight behind bars, US authorities announced in April that the soldier was being transferred to another military prison in Kansas, where the custodial regime was viewed as being more relaxed.
Pre-trial case
The US government said the decision had been taken because the Quantico facility had not been designed to hold pre-trial prisoners on a long-term basis.
Pte Manning’s lawyers say they now expect a pre-trial case, called an Article 32 hearing, to go ahead on 16 December.
Proceedings are expected to last around five days, after which recommendations will be made to a general, who will decide whether to proceed to a full trial.
Pentagon officials have previously said Pte Manning is being held in appropriate conditions considering the seriousness of the charges against him.
He has been charged with using unauthorised software on government computers to download classified information and to make intelligence available to “the enemy”, as well as other counts related to leaking intelligence and theft of public records.
The Entire United States Is Now A War Zone: S.1867 Passes The Senate With Massive Support
December 3, 2011 By 1 Comment
This is one of the most tragic events I have written about since establishing End the Lie over eight months ago: the horrendous bill that would turn all of America into a battlefield and subject American citizens to indefinite military detention without charge or trial has passed the Senate. 
To make matters even worse, only seven of our so-called representatives voted against the bill, proving once and for all (if anyone had any doubt remaining) that our government does not work for us in any way, shape, or form.
S.1867, or the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for the fiscal year of 2012, passed with a resounding 93-7 vote.
That’s right, 93 of our Senators voted to literally eviscerate what little rights were still protected afterthe PATRIOT Act was hastily pushed in the wake of the tragic events of September 11th, 2001.
The NDAA cuts Pentagon spending by $43 billion from last year’s budget, a number so insignificant when compared to the $662 billion still (officially) allocated, it is almost laughable.
The bill also contained an amendment which enacts strict new sanctions on Iran’s Central Bank and any entities that do business with it, a move which will likely have brutal repercussions for the Iranian people – just like the sanctions on Iraq did.
Not a single Senator voted against this amendment, which was voted on soon before the entirety of S.1867 was passed, despite the hollow threats of a veto from the Obama White House.
Based simply on historical precedent, I trust Obama’s promises as much as I trust thehomeless man who told me he was John F. Kennedy.
I wish that I could believe that the Obama administration would strike down this horrific bill but I would be quite ignorant and naïve if I did so.
Furthermore, the White House’s official statement doesn’t even say that they will veto the bill. In fact, it says, “the President’s senior advisers [will] recommend a veto.”
As Glenn Greenwald points out, the objection isn’t even about opposing the detention of accused terrorists without a trial, instead it is the contention that, “whether an accused Terrorist is put in military detention rather than civilian custody is for the President alone to decide.”
Obama’s opposition has nothing to do with the rule of law or protecting Americans, in fact, Senator Levin disclosed and Dave Kopel reported that, “it was the Obama administration which told Congress to remove the language in the original bill which exempted American citizens and lawful residents from the detention power”.
As I have detailed in two past articles entitled Do not be deceived: S.1867 is the most dangerous bill since the PATRIOT Act and S.1253 will allow indefinite military detention of American civilians without charge or trial, the assurances that this will not be used on American citizens are hollow, evidenced by the fact that the Feinstein amendment to S.1867, amendment number 1126, which, according to the official Senate Democrats page, was an attempt at “prohibiting military authority to indefinitely detain US citizens” was rejected with a 45-55 vote.
Let’s examine some of the attempts to convince the American people that this will not change anything and that we will still be protected under law.
Florida’s Republican Senator Marco Antonio said:
In particular, some folks are concerned about the language in section 1031 that says that this includes ‘any person committing a belligerent act or directly supported such hostilities of such enemy forces.’ This language clearly and unequivocally refers back to al-Qaida, the Taliban, or its affiliates. Thus, not only would any person in question need to be involved with al-Qaida, the Taliban, or its surrogates, but that person must also engage in a deliberate and substantial act that directly supports their efforts against us in the war on terror in order to be detained under this provision.
While this might sound reassuring to some, one must realize that the government can interpret just about anything as engaging “in a deliberate and substantial act that directly supports their efforts against us in the war on terror”.
Consider the fact that the Homeland Security Police Institute’s report published earlier this year partly focused on combating the “spread of the [terrorist] entity’s narrative” which sets the stage for the government being able to declare that spreading the narrative amounts to “a deliberate and substantial act that directly supports their efforts against us in the war on terror”.
At the time I wrote:
Part of these domestic efforts highlighted in the report is combating the ‘spread of the [terrorist] entity’s narrative’ but never addressed is why exactly extremist groups have the ability to spread their narrative.
A frightening conclusion that can be drawn from the focus on the ‘spread of the entity’s narrative’ is that such claims could be used to justify limiting the American right to free speech.
It would be very easy to justify eliminating free speech if much of the United States was convinced of the danger of spreading terrorist narrative.
The report doesn’t specifically explain what the narrative is or why it is so dangerous, but one could assume that any anti-government, anti-war, anti-corporatist and pro-human rights speech could be squeezed under this umbrella. Essentially, anything that criticizes or questions the United States could easily be demonized because it is allegedly spreading ‘the entity’s narrative’.
This raises an important question: could my work and the work of others devoted to exposing the fraud that is the “war on terror” and the intimate links between our government and the terrorist entities they are supposedly fighting be considered to be supporting these entities?
Unfortunately, the only conclusion I can come to is that it is possible for the following reasons:
1) The Department of Defense actually put a question on an examination saying that protests are an act of “low-level terrorism” (which they later deleted after the ACLU sent a letter demanding it be removed).
2) Anti-war activists and websites are deemed worthy of beingtreated as terrorists and being listed on terrorist watchlists.
3) We likely will never even be told how exactly the government is interpreting S.1867.
In the case of the PATRIOT Act (which is overwhelmingly used in cases that are unrelated to terrorism in every way), there is in fact a secret interpretation of the PATRIOT Act, as revealed by Senator Ron Wyden back in May.
In October, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a lawsuit (read the PDF here) in an attempt to force the government to reveal the details of the secret interpretation of the PATRIOT Act.
As of now, we still do not know how the PATRIOT Act is interpreted by the government, meaning that we have no idea how it is actually being used.
I do not believe that it would be reasonable to make the assumption that S.1867 would be interpreted in a straightforward manner, meaning that all of the assurances being made by Senators are worthless.
Glenn Greenwald verifies this in writing the following as an update to the post previously quoted in this article, “Any doubt about whether this bill permits the military detention of U.S. citizens was dispelled entirely today when an amendment offered by Dianne Feinstein — to confine military detention to those apprehended “abroad,” i.e., off U.S. soil — failed by a vote of 45-55.”
Furthermore, as I detailed in my previous coverage of S.1867, Senator Lindsey Graham clearly said, in absolutely no uncertain terms whatsoever, “In summary here, [section] 1032, the military custody provision, which has waivers and a lot of flexibility doesn’t apply to American citizens. [Section] 1031, the statement of authority to detain does apply to American citizens, and it designates the world as the battlefield including the homeland.”
The fact that the establishment media continues to peddle the blatant lie that is the claim that S.1867 will not be used on American citizens is beyond me.
This is especially true when one considers the fact that lawyers for the Obama administrationreaffirmed that American citizens “are legitimate military targets when they take up arms with al-Qaida,” although we all know that no proof or trial is required to make that assertion.
As evidenced by the case of Anwar al-Awlaki, no trial is needed for our illegitimate government to assassinate an American citizen.
We can only assume that it is just a matter of time until American citizens are declared to be supporting al Qaeda and killed on American soil without so much as a single court hearing.
CNN claims, “Senators ultimately reached an agreement to amend the bill to make clear it’s not the bill’s intent to allow for the indefinite detention of U.S. citizens and others legally residing in the country.”
Yet, of course, they fail to cite the amendment, and quote Senator Feinstein in saying, “It supports present law,” even though Feinstein’s amendment was not passed.
The Associated Press reported, “Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, D-Mich., repeatedly pointed out that the June 2004 Supreme Court decision in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld said U.S. citizens can be detained indefinitely.”
Yet they still quoted senior legislative counsel for the ACLU Christopher Anders who said, “Since the bill puts military detention authority on steroids and makes it permanent, American citizens and others are at greater risk of being locked away by the military without charge or trial if this bill becomes law.”
The fact that the corporate-controlled establishment media is barely covering this – if at all – is just another piece amongst the mountains of evidence showing that they are complicit in the criminal conspiracy that is dominating our government.
Every single Senator that voted for this amendment is a traitor. It’s that simple. 97 of our so-called representatives, which you can see listed in full here, are actively working against the American people.
They are turning the United States into such a hellish police state that the world’s most infamous dictators would be green with envy.
Unsurprisingly, the top stories on Google News makes no mention of the atrocious attack on everything that America was built upon that is embodied by S.1867.
This legislation is clearly being minimized and marginalized in the press, as if it is some minor bill that will never be invoked in order to detain Americans indefinitely without charge or trial.
That is patently absurd and to assume such would be nothing short of ignorant to an extreme degree, given that the American government utilizes every single possible method to exploit, oppress and assault Americans who stand up for their rights.
Furthermore, the Senators who voted against S.Amdt.1126, the amendment to S.1867 which would have limited “the authority of the Armed Forces to detain citizens of the United States under section 1031” should be considered traitorous criminals of the highest order, not to say that all 97 of those who voted for S.1867 are any better.
These Senators are not only defying their oath of office in waging war on the Constitution, they are also fighting to destroy the most critical rights we have in this country and in doing so are desecrating everything that our forefathers gave up their lives for.
Instead of British troops patrolling the streets in their red coats, it will be American soldiers who have the authority to detain you forever without a shred of evidence if they decide you’re a terrorist or supporting any organization affiliated with al Qaeda.
How they define that is anyone’s guess, but given that the entire interpretation of the PATRIOT Act is regarded as a state secret, we can assume that we will never even get to know.
Moreover, the fact that no charges or trial are needed under S.1867, the government needs no proof of supporting, planning, or committing terrorism whatsoever.
Since no evidence will ever be presented given that no trial or charges will ever be filed, they need not worry about that pesky thing called habeus corpus or anything resembling evidence of any kind.
All they need to do is declare that you’re an enemy combatant and suddenly you’re eligible to be snatched up by military thugs and locked away never to see the light of day again.
As far as I have seen, there are no detailed requirements set forth in the bill which have to be met before the military can indefinitely detain, and torture (or conduct “enhanced interrogation” if you’d prefer the government’s semantic work-around), Americans and people around the world.
What is stopping them from creating accounts for Americans who are actively resisting the fascistic police state corporatocracy which our once free nation has become on some jihadi website and using it has justification to claim these individuals are involved with terrorists?
What is stopping them from manufacturing any flimsy piece of evidence they can point to, even though they never actually have to present it or have it questioned in a court of law, in order to round up American dissidents?
The grim answer to these disturbing questions is: nothing. I regret having to say such a disheartening thing about the United States of America, a country I once thought was the freest nation in the world, but it is true.
I must emphasize once again that our government considers even ideology and protest to be a low-level act of terrorism, so if you’re anti-war, pro-peace, pro-human rights, pro-justice, anti-corruption, or even worse, if you’re like me and expose the criminal government in Washington that supports terrorism while criminalizing American citizens, you very well might be labeled a terrorist.
Keep in mind that the House sister bill, H.R.1540, was passed with a 322-96 vote on May 26th, now all that is stopping this ludicrous from utterly eliminating the Bill of Rights is resolving the differences which will be done by the following appointed conferees: Levin; Lieberman; Reed; Akaka; Nelson NE; Webb; McCaskill; Udall CO; Hagan; Begich; Manchin; Shaheen; Gillibrand; Blumenthal; McCain; Inhofe; Sessions; Chambliss; Wicker; Brown MA; Portman; Ayotte; Collins; Graham; Cornyn; Vitter.
Unsurprisingly, not a single person who voted against S.1867 is included in that list.
I do not hesitate in saying that what our so-called representatives have done is an act of treason that represents the single most dangerous move ever made by our government.
Every single square inch of the United States is now a war zone and you or I could easily be declared soldiers on the wrong side of the war and treated as such.
No proof, no charges, and no trial are required. They do not even have to draw spurious links to terrorist organizations in order to indefinitely detain you as they could easily declare the evidence critical to national security and thus withhold it for as long as they please.
I will continue to hope that Obama decides to go against every single thing he has done after being sworn in, but I think the chances are so slim that it is almost delusional to believe that he will do this.
After all, the only reason his administration is opposing it is because it doesn’t give the executive enough power, not because it strips away every legal protection we have.
If this is not the most laughably illegitimate reason to oppose the attack on all Americans that is S.1867, I don’t know what is.
The most important question that remains unanswered, for which I am not sure that I have a viable solution, is: how do we stop this? Is there any way we can bring down a criminal government packed to the brim with traitorous co-conspirators in a just, peaceful manner?
After all, if the American people resort to violence, we are no better than those bloodthirsty members of our armed forces and law enforcement who kill and beat human beings around our nation and the world with impunity.
However, if our military and police forces realize that at any moment they too could be deemed enemy combatants and treated like subhuman scum and thus decide to refuse all unlawful orders and arrest the real terrorists in Washington, we might be able to reinstate the rule of law, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights which once defined our nation.
Source: https://www.activistpost.com/2011/12/entire-united-states-is-now-war-zone.html
30 Signs That The United States Of America Is Being Turned Into A Giant Prison
December 3, 2011 By 2 Comments
If you live in the United States of America, you live in a giant prison where liberty and freedom are slowly being strangled to death. In this country, the control freaks that run things are obsessed with watching, tracking, monitoring and recording virtually everything that we do. Nothing is private anymore. Everything that you do on the Internet is being monitored. All of your phone calls are being monitored. 
In fact, if law enforcement authorities suspect that you have done something wrong, they will use your cell phone microphone to listen to you even when you think your cell phone is turned off. In many areas of the country, when you get into your car automated license plate readers track you wherever you go, and in many major cities when you are walking on the streets a vast network of security cameras and “smart street lights” are constantly watching you and listening to whatever you say.
The TSA is setting up “internal checkpoints” all over the nation, Homeland Security is encouraging all of us to report any “suspicious activity” that our neighbors are involved in and the federal government is rapidly developing “pre-crime” technology that will flag us as “potential terrorists” if we display any signs of nervousness. If you are flagged as a “potential terrorist”, the U.S. military can arrest you and detain you for the rest of your life without ever having to charge you with anything. Yes, the United States of America is rapidly being turned into a “Big Brother” prison grid, and most Americans are happily going along with it.
The sad thing is that this used to be “the land of the free and the home of the brave”.
So what in the world happened?
A fundamental shift in our culture has taken place. The American people have eagerly given up huge chunks of liberty and freedom in exchange for vague promises of increased security.
Our country is now run by total control freaks and paranoia has become standard operating procedure.
We were told that the terrorists hate our liberties and our freedoms, and that we needed to fight the terrorists so that we could keep our liberties and our freedoms.
But instead, the government keeps taking away all of our liberties and our freedoms.
How in the world does that make any sense?
Have the terrorists won?
As a country, we have moved so far in the direction of communist China, the USSR and Nazi Germany that it is almost impossible to believe.
Yes, turning the United States of America into a giant prison may make us all slightly safer, but what kind of life is this?
Do we want to be dead while we are still alive?
Is this the price that we want to pay in order to feel slightly safer?
Where are the millions of Americans that still yearn to breathe free air?
America is supposed to be a land teeming with people thirsting for independence. For example, “Live Free or Die” is supposedly the official motto of the state of New Hampshire.
But instead, the motto of most Americans seems to be “live scared and die cowering”.
We don’t have to live like this.
Yes, bad things are always going to happen. No amount of security is ever going to be able to keep us 100% safe.
We need to remember that a very high price was paid for our liberty and we should not give it up so easily.
As one very famous American once said, when we give up liberty for security we deserve neither.
The following are 30 signs that the United States of America is being turned into a giant prison….
#1 A new bill that is going through the U.S. Senate would allow the U.S. military to arrest American citizens and hold them indefinitely without trial. This new law was recently discussed in an article posted on the website of the New American….
In what may be a tale too bizarre to be believed by millions of Americans, the U.S. Senate appears ready to pass a bill that will designate the entire earth, including the United States and its territories, one all-encompassing “battlefield” in the global “war on terror” and authorize the detention of Americans suspected of terrorist ties indefinitely and without trial or even charges being filed that would necessitate a trial.
U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham is a big supporter of the bill, and he says that it would “basically say in law for the first time that the homeland is part of the battlefield”.
According to the PPJ Gazette, the following are three things that this new law would do….
1) Explicitly authorize the federal government to indefinitely imprison without charge or trial American citizens and others picked up inside and outside the United States;
(2) Mandate military detention of some civilians who would otherwise be outside of military control, including civilians picked up within the United States itself; and
(3) Transfer to the Department of Defense core prosecutorial, investigative, law enforcement, penal, and custodial authority and responsibility now held by the Department of Justice.
#2 U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman is asking Google to install a “terrorist button” on all Blogger.com blogs so that readers can easily flag “terrorist content” for authorities.
#3 Most Americans have no idea how sophisticated the “Big Brother” prison grid has become. For example, in Washington D.C. the movements of every single car are tracked using automated license plate readers (ALPRs). The following comes from a recent Washington Post article….
More than 250 cameras in the District and its suburbs scan license plates in real time, helping police pinpoint stolen cars and fleeing killers. But the program quietly has expanded beyond what anyone had imagined even a few years ago.
With virtually no public debate, police agencies have begun storing the information from the cameras, building databases that document the travels of millions of vehicles.
Nowhere is that more prevalent than in the District, which has more than one plate-reader per square mile, the highest concentration in the nation. Police in the Washington suburbs have dozens of them as well, and local agencies plan to add many more in coming months, creating a comprehensive dragnet that will include all the approaches into the District.
#4 In some American schools, RFID chips are now being used to monitor the attendance and movements of children while they are at school. The following is how one article recently described a program that has just been instituted at a preschool in California….
Upon arriving in the morning, according to the Associated Press, each student at the CCC-George Miller preschool will don a jersey with a stitched in RFID chip. As the kids go about the business of learning, sensors in the school will record their movements, collecting attendance for both classes and meals. Officials from the school have claimed they’re only recording information they’re required to provide while receiving federal funds for their Headstart program.
#5 Increasingly, incidents of misbehavior at many U.S. schools are being treated as very serious crimes. For example, when a little girl kissed a little boy at one Florida elementary school recently, it was considered to be a “possible sex crime” and the police were called out.
#6 But what happened to one very young student in Stockton, California earlier this year was even worse….
Earlier this year, a Stockton student was handcuffed with zip ties on his hands and feet, forced to go to the hospital for a psychiatric evaluation and was charged with battery on a police officer. That student was 5 years old.
#7 In the United States today, police are trained to respond to even the smallest crimes with extreme physical force. For example, one grandfather in Arizona was recently filmed laying unconscious in a pool of his own blood after police rammed his head into the flood inside a Wal-Mart on Black Friday night. It was thought that he was shoplifting, but it turns out that he says that he was just trying to tuck a video game away so other crazed shoppers would not grab it out of his hands.
#8 Did you know that the government actually sets up fake cell phone towers that can intercept your cell phone calls? The following is how a recent Wired articledescribed these “stingrays”….
You make a call on your cellphone thinking the only thing standing between you and the recipient of your call is your carrier’s cellphone tower. In fact, that tower your phone is connecting to just might be a boobytrap set up by law enforcement to ensnare your phone signals and maybe even the content of your calls.
So-called stingrays are one of the new high-tech tools that authorities are using to track and identify you. The devices, about the size of a suitcase, spoof a legitimate cellphone tower in order to trick nearby cellphones and other wireless communication devices into connecting to the tower, as they would to a real cellphone tower.
The government maintains that the stingrays don’t violate Fourth Amendment rights, since Americans don’t have a legitimate expectation of privacy for data sent from their mobile phones and other wireless devices to a cell tower.
#9 U.S. border agents are allowed by law to search any laptop being brought into the United States without even needing any reason to do so.
#10 In the United States of America, everyone is a “potential terrorist”. According to FBI Director Robert Mueller, “homegrown terrorists” represent as big a threat to American national security as al-Qaeda does.
#11 Most Americans are not that concerned about the Patriot Act, but that might change if they understood that the federal government has a “secret interpretation” of what the Patriot Act really means. U.S. Senator Ron Wyden says that the U.S. government interprets the Patriot Act much more “broadly” than the general public does….
“We’re getting to a gap between what the public thinks the law says and what the American government secretly thinks the law says.”
#12 The FBI is now admittedly recording Internet talk radio programs all over the United States. The following comes from a recent article by Mark Weaver of WMAL.com….
If you call a radio talk show and get on the air, you might be recorded by the FBI.
The FBI has awarded a $524,927 contract to a Virginia company to record as much radio news and talk programming as it can find on the Internet.
The FBI says it is not playing big brother by policing the airwaves, but rather seeking access to what airs as potential evidence.
#13 The federal government has decided that what you and I share with one another on Facebook and on Twitter could be a threat to national security. According to a recent Associated Press article, the Department of Homeland Security will soon be “gleaning information from sites such as Twitter and Facebook for law enforcement purposes”.
#14 What you say on your cell phone is never private. The truth is that that the FBI can demand to see your cell phone data whenever it wants. In addition, according to CNET News the FBI can remotely activate the microphone on your cell phone and listen to whatever you are saying….
The FBI appears to have begun using a novel form of electronic surveillance in criminal investigations: remotely activating a mobile phone’s microphone and using it to eavesdrop on nearby conversations.
The technique is called a “roving bug,” and was approved by top U.S. Department of Justice officials for use against members of a New York organized crime family who were wary of conventional surveillance techniques such as tailing a suspect or wiretapping him.
#15 In some areas of the country, law enforcement authorities are pulling data out of cell phones for no reason whatsoever. According to the ACLU, state police in Michigan are now using “extraction devices” to download data from the cell phones of motorists that they pull over. This is taking place even if the motorists that are pulled over are not accused of doing anything wrong.
The following is how a recent article on CNET News described the capabilities of these “extraction devices”….
The devices, sold by a company called Cellebrite, can download text messages, photos, video, and even GPS data from most brands of cell phones. The handheld machines have various interfaces to work with different models and can even bypass security passwords and access some information.
#16 The federal government has become so paranoid that they have been putting GPS tracking devices on the vehicles of thousands of people that have not even been charged with committing any crimes. The following is a short excerpt from a recent Wired magazine article about this issue….
The 25-year-old resident of San Jose, California, says he found the first one about three weeks ago on his Volvo SUV while visiting his mother in Modesto, about 80 miles northeast of San Jose. After contacting Wired and allowing a photographer to snap pictures of the device, it was swapped out and replaced with a second tracking device. A witness also reported seeing a strange man looking beneath the vehicle of the young man’s girlfriend while her car was parked at work, suggesting that a tracking device may have been retrieved from her car.
Then things got really weird when police showed up during a Wired interview with the man.
The young man, who asked to be identified only as Greg, is one among an increasing number of U.S. citizens who are finding themselves tracked with the high-tech devices.
The Justice Department has said that law enforcement agents employ GPS as a crime-fighting tool with “great frequency,”and GPS retailers have told Wired that they’ve sold thousands of the devices to the feds.
#17 New high-tech street lights that are being funded by the federal government and that are being installed all over the nation can also be used as surveillance cameras, can be used by the DHS to make “security announcements” and can even be used to record personal conversations. The following is from a recent article by Paul Joseph Watson for Infowars.com….
Federally-funded high-tech street lights now being installed in American cities are not only set to aid the DHS in making “security announcements” and acting as talking surveillance cameras, they are also capable of “recording conversations,” bringing the potential privacy threat posed by ‘Intellistreets’ to a whole new level.
#18 If you choose to protest in the streets of America today, there is a good chance that you will be brutalized. All over the United States law enforcement authorities have been spraying pepper spray directly into the faces of unarmed protesters in recent weeks.
#19 In many areas of the United States today, you will be arrested if you do not produce proper identification for the police. In the old days, “your papers please” was a phrase that was used to use to mock the tyranny of Nazi Germany. But now all of us are being required to be able to produce “our papers” for law enforcement authorities at any time. For example, a 21-year-old college student named Samantha Zucker was recently arrested and put in a New York City jail for 36 hours just because she could not produce any identification for police.
#20 According to blogger Alexander Higgins, students in kindergarten and the 1st grade in the state of New Jersey are now required by law to participate “in monthly anti-terrorism drills”. The following is an excerpt from a letter that he recently received from the school where his child attends….
Each month a school must conduct one fire drill and one security drill which may be a lockdown, bomb threat, evacuation, active shooter, or shelter-in place drill. All schools are now required by law to implement this procedure.
So who in the world ever decided that it would be a good idea for 1st grade students to endure “lockdown” and “active shooter” drills?
To get an idea of what these kinds of drills are like, just check out this video.
#21 With all of the other problems that we are having all over the nation, you would think that authorities would not be too concerned about little kids that are trying to sell cups of lemonade. But sadly, over the past year police have been sent in to shut down lemonade stands run by children all over the United States.
#22 The federal government has decided to invest a significant amount of time, money and energy raiding organic farms. The following example comes from Natural News….
It is the latest case of extreme government food tyranny, and one that is sure to have you reeling in anger and disgust. Health department officials recently conducted a raid of Quail Hollow Farm, an organic community supported agriculture (CSA) farm in southern Nevada, during its special “farm to fork” picnic dinner put on for guests — and the agent who arrived on the scene ordered that all the fresh, local produce and pasture-based meat that was intended for the meal be destroyed with bleach.
#23 It is an absolute disgrace that all of us (including grandmothers and young children) must either go through body scanners that reveal the intimate details of our naked bodies or endure “enhanced pat-downs” during which our genitals will be touched before we are allowed to get on an airplane.
It is also an absolute disgrace that the American people are putting up with this.
#24 Invasive TSA security techniques are not just for airports anymore. Now, TSA “VIPR teams” are actively conducting random inspections at bus stations and on interstate highways all over the United States. For example, the following comes from a local news report down in Tennessee….
You’re probably used to seeing TSA’s signature blue uniforms at the airport, but now agents are hitting the interstates to fight terrorism with Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response (VIPR).
“Where is a terrorist more apt to be found? Not these days on an airplane more likely on the interstate,” said Tennessee Department of Safety & Homeland Security Commissioner Bill Gibbons.
Tuesday Tennessee was first to deploy VIPR simultaneously at five weigh stations and two bus stations across the state.
TSA “VIPR teams” now conduct approximately 8,000 “unannounced security screenings” a year at subway stations, bus terminals, ports and highway rest stops.
#25 More than a million hotel television sets all over America are now broadcasting propaganda messages from the Department of Homeland Security promoting the “See Something, Say Something” campaign. In essence, the federal government wants all of us to become “informants” and to start spying on one another constantly. The following comes from an article posted by USA Today….
Starting today, the welcome screens on 1.2 million hotel television sets in Marriott, Hilton, Sheraton, Holiday Inn and other hotels in the USA will show a short public service announcement from DHS. The 15-second spot encourages viewers to be vigilant and call law enforcement if they witness something suspicious during their travels.
#26 Certain “types” of American citizens are being labeled as potential threats in official U.S. government documents. An unclassified Department of Homeland Security report published a couple years ago entitled “Right-wing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment” claims that a belief in Bible prophecy “could motivate extremist individuals and groups to stockpile food, ammunition and weapons.” The report goes on to state that such people are potentially dangerous.
#27 Back on February 20, 2009, the State of Missouri issued a report entitled “MIAC Strategic Report: The Modern Militia Movement“. That report warned that the following types of people may be potential terrorists….
*anti-abortion activists
*those that are against illegal immigration
*those that consider “the New World Order” to be a threat
*those that have a negative view of the United Nations
#28 As I have written about previously, a very disturbing document that Oath Keepers has obtained shows that the FBI is now instructing store owners to report many new forms of “suspicious activity” to them. According to the document, “suspicious activity” now includes the following….
*paying with cash
*missing a hand or fingers
*”strange odors”
*making “extreme religious statements”
*”radical theology”
*purchasing weatherproofed ammunition or match containers
*purchasing meals ready to eat
*purchasing night vision devices, night flashlights or gas masks
Do any of those “signs of suspicious activity” apply to you?
#29 Soon you may get labeled as a “potential terrorist” if you are just feeling a little nervous. A new “pre-crime” technology system that is currently being tested by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security will soon be in use all over the nation. It is called “Future Attribute Screening Technology” (FAST), and it is very frightening. The following description of this new program comes from an articlein the London Telegraph….
Using cameras and sensors the “pre-crime” system measures and tracks changes in a person’s body movements, the pitch of their voice and the rhythm of their speech.
It also monitors breathing patterns, eye movements, blink rate and alterations in body heat, which are used to assess an individual’s likelihood to commit a crime.
The Future Attribute Screening Technology (FAST) programme is already being tested on a group of government employees who volunteered to act as guinea pigs.
#30 The truth is that nobody puts more people into prison than America does. The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world and thelargest total prison population on the entire globe.
To read about some of the crazy things that the control freaks running things have planned for the future, just check out this article by Natural News: “10 outlandish things the ‘scientific’ controllers have in mind for you in the near future“.
Once again, despite all of this outrageous “security”, it is inevitable that a lot of really bad things are going to happen in the United States in the years ahead.
When there are incidents of violence, it is also inevitable that there will be calls for even more “Big Brother” security measures.
We are going to be caught in a never ending spiral of tyranny where the “solution” is always even tighter security.
Eventually, we will have lost all of our liberties and freedoms, and we will probably be even less safe than we are today.
Do not be deceived. We could put a soldier on every corner, a video camera in every room of every home and an RFID chip in every citizen but that would not make us “safe”.
Every single lawmaker that is backing these laws which strip our liberties and freedoms away deserves to be voted out of office.
If you love the United States of America, please stand up and say something while you still can.
Please use this article and other articles like it as tools. Share them with your friends and your family. If we can get enough people to wake up, perhaps there is still enough time to turn the direction of this country around.
Will the final chapters of the history of the United States of America be mentioned in the same breath as communist China, the USSR and Nazi Germany, or will the final chapters of the history of the United States of America be the greatest chapters of all?
The choice, America, is up to you.
Source:
White House Repeats Threat To Veto US Defense Bill
December 3, 2011 By Leave a Comment
WASHINGTON (AFP) - The White House on Friday reaffirmed its threat to veto the Pentagon budget after the Senate passed a funding bill that requires military detention for terrorism suspects and indefinite detention without trial in some cases.
White House spokesman Jay Carney accused the Senate of engaging in “political micromanagement” by including provisions that he said would restrict US flexibility in the fight against Al-Qaeda. 
“Any bill that challenges or constrains the president’s critical authority to collect intelligence, incapacitate dangerous terrorists and protect the nation will prompt his senior advisors to recommend a veto,” Carney said.
The provisions were in a $660 billion 2012 defense bill that passed the Senate on Thursday in a 93-7 vote.
It would require that terrorism suspects be held by the military, and either be tried by US military commissions or in some cases be held indefinitely.
The White House sees the provisions as a constraint on the administration’s ability to transfer prisoners from Guantanamo Bay to the United States, try them in civilian court, or even transfer them to foreign countries.
“Counterterrorism officials from the Republican and Democratic administrations as you know have said that the language in this bill would jeopardize the national security by restricting flexibility in our fight against Al-Qaeda,” Carney said.
“By ignoring these non-partisan recommendations, including the recommendations of the secretary of defense, the director of the FBI, the director of national intelligence and the attorney general, the Senate has unfortunately engaged in a little political micromanagement at the expense of sensible national security policy,” he added.
Source: https://www.activistpost.com/2011/12/white-house-repeats-threat-to-veto-us.html
‘Battlefield’ Today: Congress Unveils 53 ‘Jihadist’ Plots Since 9/11
December 3, 2011 By 1 Comment
US is facing a spike in homegrown jihadist-inspired terrorist activity, research by Congress says. It seems that a new bill that allows for Americans to be held for terrorism-related charges and detained without trial will not go to waste. 
The Congressional Research Service (CRS) report, released November 15, has criticized President Obama’s domestic Countering Violent Extremism strategy (CVE) saying “the Administration’s CVE strategy lacks specifics” including only “general philosophical statements and the insistence that the strategy does not center solely around fighting one particular radical ideology.”
As of December 3, American counter-terrorist strategy is very specific, targeting Americans with all available military might. Under the new bill, Americans can be arrested, detained, tortured and interrogated without charge or trial. The bill was passed through the Senate on December with overwhelming support from 93 per cent of lawmakers.
The report, largely overlooked by the media, seems to have conveniently been conducted prior to the vote for the new legislation, as if to inspire support. It warns of a “spike” of homegrown terrorist activity in the US.
Altogether since September 11, 2001, CRS estimates that there have been 53 homegrown violent jihadist plots or attacks, with 32 people arrested between 2009 and 2011. Two of those plots resulted in attacks that killed 14 people.
The report titled American Jihadist Terrorism: Combating a Complex Threat defines the term “jihadist” as “radicalized individuals using Islam as ideological and/or religious justification for their belief in the establishment of global caliphate,” a jurisdiction governed by a Muslim civil and religious leader known as a caliph.
According to CRS most of the 2009-2011 homegrown plots “likely reflect a trend in jihadist terrorist activity away from schemes directed by core members of significant terrorist groups such as Al-Qaeda.”
This means homegrown violent jihadists are acting on their own accord, without coordination and support from international terrorist networks. That results in a number of conventional shortcomings, such as lack of “deep understanding of specialized tradecraft such as bomb making.” Financing, training camps and support networks are also unavailable to American jihadists; all of that keeps them from independently engaging in large-scale suicide strikes.
The report says that because of these limitations, homegrown jihadists are likely to turn to violence that requires less preparation, “such as assaults using firearms.” This new strategy pose challenges for law enforcement, intelligence and security officials who detect and investigate terrorist activity in the US.
An airline bombing attempt by Farouk Abdulmutallab, aka “the underwear bomber”, “shoe bomber” Richard Reid, and the perpetrators of the Transatlantic Airlines plot of 2006 are not addressed in the report because it does not study terrorist activity against the US conducted by foreigners, only the “homegrown” variety.
Source: https://rt.com/news/us-homegrown-violent-jihadists-935/
Do Not Be Deceived: S. 1867 Is The Most Dangerous Bill Since The Patriot Act
December 2, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Recently I reported on the highly controversial bill S. 1253, the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for the fiscal year of 2012 which was introduced back in June. 
This bill was replaced by the one introduced on the 15th of November, S. 1867. Today Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky and Senator John McCain of Arizona faced off on the floor ofthe Senate over a proposed amendment to S. 1867.
The minimal coverage this bill is getting in the corporate-controlled establishment media, especially when it comes to the massive danger it poses to everything America was built upon, is nothing short of deplorable.
This amendment would, according to Senator Paul, put “every single American citizen at risk.” Paul rightly pointed out that if the amendment were to pass, “the terrorists have won.”
I couldn’t agree more and this is the major fact that McCain and far too many others in Washington seem to miss. Or, equally likely, McCain and others are well aware of the erosion of civil liberties and have no interest in stopping it.
After all, it isn’t the sycophantic corrupt politicians in Washington that have to endure being groped by TSA goons or surreptitiously blasted with X-Rays by a passing DHS van; it is everyday Americans like you and me that are subjected to such absurd “counterterrorism” measures.
John McCain is a man who revels in death and suffering in true sociopathic style: joking about bombing Iran, calling for military operations in Syria, and supporting the murderous and thoroughly racist al Qaeda-affiliated Libyan rebels.
McCain is the epitome of Washington doublethink: in Libya, al Qaeda is good. Yet, is al Qaeda still the biggest threat to humanity, so much so that it justifies turning the entire world into a theater of war in which all rights are suspended in the name of the war on terror?
Senator Paul argued against the amendment to S. 1867 that McCain co-sponsored by saying, “Should we err today and remove some of the most important checks on state power in the name of fighting terrorism, well then the terrorists have won. [D]etaining American citizens without a court trial is not American.”
Unfortunately, the PATRIOT Act has already removed “some of the most important checks on state power in the name of fighting terrorism,” but there are very few politicians who will put their careers on their line in saying this fact.
McCain quickly attempted to defend the amendment he’s been peddling on the Senate floor by saying, “Facts are stubborn things. If the senator from Kentucky wants to have a situation prevail where people who are released go back in to the fight to kill Americans, he is entitled to his opinion.”
This is the typical, “Either you’re with us, or you’re with the terrorists,” fallacious logic employed by those in Washington who will take every opportunity to exploit the non-threat of terrorism as a method of control and erosion of civil liberties.
McCain, who is the ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, is a member of the camp of individuals who either lie on a regular basis while knowing the facts, or are so deluded and removed from reality that they actually fear the al Qaeda bogeyman.
Senator McCain, just like the non-profit groups that are directly linked to the Department of Homeland Security, promotes a fear of terrorism that is completely at odds with the facts, using this climate of fear and paranoia to justify otherwise unacceptable legislation like S. 1867 and the PATRIOT Act.
McCain’s proposed amendment would allow the executive branch, which has already murdered American citizens abroad without so much as a single charge, to have power over whether a suspect is put through the civilian court system or through the military tribunal system.
Military tribunals are the complete antithesis of the civilian justice system, and putting American citizens through such a system would signal the death of everything the American justice system was built upon.
The most dangerous aspect of S. 1867 is not only that it could subject American citizens to military tribunals and detention, but also that individuals could be imprisoned indefinitely without charge or trial.
Even if this was not used on American citizens, it represents a deplorable move that would only make the rest of the world hate us that much more, knowing that it is explicitly allowed for the American government to snatch up people and detain them forever without charge or trial.
If any other government were to even consider engaging in such behavior, people like Hillary Clinton who laughably claim to support human rights, would likely decry such moves.
Yet, the nonsensical logic of American exceptionalism makes people like McCain think that America has the right to operate outside of the rule of law (not to mention common decency and respect for other human beings) at home and abroad, so long as it is supposedly to combat terrorism.
Senator Paul countered McCain’s absurd assertion by saying, “I don’t think it necessarily follows I am arguing of the release of prisoners. I am simply arguing that particularly American citizens should not be sent to a foreign prison without due process.”
It amazes me that any such thing would have to even be argued. The Constitution is supposed to protect us from such egregious breaches of our inalienable rights; and our so-called representatives take an oath to protect the Constitution from enemies both foreign and domestic.
It is now clear that the true enemies of the Constitution, the ones that truly put our liberties in danger, are domestic.
They wear expensive suits and happily stroll through the halls of power in Washington, seemingly confident that they will not be treated as the traitorous criminals that they are.
McCain is one of these traitors who are launching an all-out assault on our way of life and our civil rights, S. 1867 is just the most recent, and most virulent, manifestation of this.
“An individual, no matter who they are, if they pose a threat to the security of the United States of America, should not be allowed to continue that threat,” McCain said in defense of his attack on our rights.
“We need to take every stop necessary to prevent that from happening, that’s for the safety and security of the men and women who are out there risking their lives … in our armed services,” McCain added.
The real people who put the men and women in our armed services at risk are warmongers like McCain who happily put Americans in the line of fire in order to keep their war profiteering croniessatisfied.
44 Republican Senators and 15 Democrats along with one Independent voted to keep the new detainee provisions in the NDAA, with Senator Paul and Senator Mark Kirk of Illinois being among the few Republicans who broke party ranks and sided with a majority of Democrats who voted to block the new provisions.
Paul argued, “If these provisions pass, we could see American citizens being sent to Guantanamo Bay,” while Republican Senator Lindsey Graham countered, “To be clear: These provisions do not apply to U.S. citizens.”
Did that stop the American government from murdering a citizen of the United States in Yemen in a drone attack?
No, in fact, the National Security Council’s secret death panel makes these decisions outside of all legislation and accountability, so Graham’s claim that it wouldn’t apply to American citizens is hollow, at best.
A couple of days ago Glenn Greenwald, a journalist for Salon and a former Constitutional and civil rights lawyer tweeted a very similar sentiment:
With very few exceptions, the McCain-Levin bill, awful though it is, doesn’t create any powers beyond what the O[bama] Admin[istration] thinks it now has.
The problem is that this bill would make it explicitly legal for the United States to conduct the horrific operations they have already been carrying out.
If this were to pass, there would be absolutely nothing standing in the way of the governmentrounding up dissidents who they could easily label terrorists or individuals planning/supporting terrorism (given the absurdly broad definition used).
They could then imprison them without charge or trial for however long they please, and if they have their way, they would be able to openly torture them, not just the torture deceptively labeled “enhanced interrogation” but torture that can go by no other name.
Of course, that is not to diminish the fact that the tactics now employed by the CIA and others are indeed torture. Just ask people like conservative radio host Mancow who was waterboarded and came to the conclusion that it is indeed torture after having held the complete opposite opinion previously.
Or if that isn’t enough proof, take the Vanity Fair article written by Christopher Hitchens in which he describes his experience being waterboarded which brought him to the exact same conclusion: waterboarding is torture.
Even Bahrain ostensibly has more democratic accountability for torture, although I think we all know that is about as legitimate as calling waterboarding “enhanced interrogation.”
McCain laughably claimed that the changes would “help defend our nation against the threat posed by al Qaeda while upholding our values and honoring our Constitution.”
This is especially hilarious given that McCain said that the al Qaeda-affiliated Libyan rebels “inspired the world” in carrying out their bloody revolution.
Does McCain actually believe that he has the power to pick and choose when individuals and groups directly linked to al Qaeda are good or bad?
How can they actually reconcile such absurdist moral relativism? Personally, I don’t think that McCain can actually believe the things he says unless he has actually been able to eliminate every bit of sense and logic that is innate in human beings.
To the many people commenting and emailing me claiming that this is overblown and it will not apply to American citizens, you might want to listen to Republican Senator Lindsey Graham’s own words on the Senate floor.
“In summary here, [section] 1032, the military custody provision, which has waivers and a lot of flexibility doesn’t apply to American citizens. [Section] 1031, the statement of authority to detain does apply to American citizens, and it designates the world as the battlefield including the homeland,” Graham said.
Is there really anything even remotely unclear here? Our government is making the final strides towards turning the brutal military apparatus that has slaughtered so many people abroad in the name of “freedom” back to our own people.
What we are witnessing now is truly historic, the American government is trying to explicitly codify the ability to detain Americans without trial or charge in a military facility under military rule with military tribunals.
While I argue that we already live in a police state, based on the citizen spying programs, ludicrous amounts of domestic surveillance, collection and storage of massive amounts of biometric information, and the Department of Homeland Security’s invisible surveillance state (just to mention a few) the passage of this bill would bring about a new dangerous paradigm in America.
Even if it was sold as something that wouldn’t apply to American citizens, like the PATRIOT Act was sold as a counterterrorism bill, it would undoubtedly be used against us regardless of these claims, just as the PATRIOT Act has been utilized in cases wholly unrelated to terrorism.
Even the officials from the Department of Justice readily admit that the PATRIOT Act is being used against non-terrorist American citizens.
Is anyone really naïve enough to believe that the government will actually restrict the usage of S. 1867 to terrorists and not Americans who stand up to their corrupt, out of control, and wholly illegitimate criminal government?
To make matters even worse, the usage of drones in the United States is being considered by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).
The Los Angeles Times recently reported that the FAA plans to propose new rules this coming January, which would give free license to police departments and other domestic agencies to use them in the United States.
Yet, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), or drones, have been used by law enforcement in the United States for some time now.
In fact, The Washington Post reported on the usage of aerial drones domestically in January of this year along with Homeland Security News Wire.
Currently, law enforcement agencies supposedly have to seek out emergency authorization from the FAA to use drones, which, according to The Washington Post is “only occasionally” granted.
The new FAA regulations coupled with turning the United States into a battlefield in which all Americans could be enemy combatants is dangerous, to say the least.
Given the fact that our current administration under the traitorous warmonger Barack Obama has no problem killing children with drones abroad, do we really think that they wouldn’t conduct such operations at home?
To an administration that commits extrajudicial executions of American citizens – and their 16-year-old child who was born in Denver, Colorado – is anything off the table?
The unfortunate and thoroughly disturbing reality is that our government has no problem carrying out such operations and S. 1867 would just make it that much easier by codifying it and creating an explicit legal apparatus through which they can operate.
I highly recommend that you explore at least some of the 344 proposed amendments for S. 1867 in the Library of Congress’ Thomas system which can be found here.
You can track all of the updates on the act with the amendments organized by date on this Library of Congress page.
As you can tell, the 28th was by far the busiest day so far in the life of S. 1867 with over 100 amendments considered in that single day, although this very well might be beat in coming days when our so-called representatives continue to debate turning the United States into a giant battlefield.
UPDATE: If the ridiculous assault on our inalienable rights embodied by S. 1867 wasn’t enough, the Senate is also considering repealing the anti-torture measures currently in place (lax though they may be).
This flies in the face of the fact that torture does not provide actionable intelligence or anything even remotely reliable unless you’re looking for a false confession to anything from terrorism to the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.
This bill must be stopped if we want to preserve anything that America is supposed to stand for. The PATRIOT Act was a crippling blow to the Constitution but S. 1867 would be the death of every last bastion of hope and freedom that was left after the vicious attacks on our civil liberties that have brought us to this point.
Source: https://www.activistpost.com/2011/12/do-not-be-deceived-s-1867-is-most.html
CIA Using Secret Somalia Facility, Prison: Report
December 2, 2011 By Leave a Comment
WASHINGTON (AFP) - The US Central Intelligence Agency is using a secret facility in Somalia for counterterrorism purposes as well as a secret prison in the Somali capital, the magazine The Nation reported Tuesday. 
The report said the CIA has “a sprawling walled compound” on the coast of the Indian Ocean which looks like a small gated community, with more than a dozen buildings behind large protective walls.
According to the magazine, the site has its own airport and is guarded by Somali soldiers, but the Americans control access.
The Nation said the effort is part of a focus on the Shebab, the Al Qaeda-linked group in the region blamed for a number of plots against the United States. It said the CIA seeks to build “an indigenous strike force capable of snatch operations and targeted ‘combat’ operations” against the Shebab.
The report said the CIA also uses a secret prison buried in the basement of Somalia’s National Security Agency (NSA) headquarters, where prisoners suspected of being Shebab members or of having links to the group are held.
Some prisoners have been captured in Kenya or other locations, according to the magazine, which said the prison is officially run by the Somali NSA, but that US intelligence personnel pay the salaries and interrogate detainees.
Source: https://www.activistpost.com/2011/07/cia-using-secret-somalia-facility.html
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