Filed under: 1984, civil liberties, civil rights, corruption, dictatorship, empire, fascism, human rights, illinois, judicial system, nanny state, oppression, orwell, police corruption, police crimes, police state, prison industrial complex, prison system, protest | Tags: Elmhurst
Illinois Town Wants To Outlaw Eye-Rolling
The Consumerist
July 21, 2010
Next time you’re in line at the grocery store and you roll your eyes at the person with two carts full of items refusing to leave the 10-items-or-fewer line, you might be in trouble with the law — at least if you live in Elmhurst, Illinois. Officials of the Chicago suburb are looking into finding a way of putting an end to the practice by legal means.
The idiocy stems from a recent city council meeting where an Elmhurst resident was ejected from the room after rolling her eyes in reaction to something that was said by a council member.
Members of the Elmhurst city council have asked the City Attorney to look into the creation of a “disturbance and disorderly conduct” violation and to see if eye-rolling could somehow be shoehorned into its definition.
Illinois state law defines disorderly conduct is “an act in such unreasonable manner as to alarm or disturb another, or to provoke a breach of the peace.”
While she apparently is against a prohibition on eye-rolling, the Elmhurst citizen who was booted from the meeting says she’s all for having a definition of disorderly conduct in the city’s books.
“I’d like for them (city officials) to have a better understanding of the open meetings act and its meaning and to understand what disorderly conduct is,” she explained.
As for the City Attorney, who is slated to report back to the council on his findings on Jan. 26, he seems doubtful that rude behavior at a city council meeting should be an issue for law enforcement.
“It’s not in any way a punishable offense by a fine,” he said. “It’s a matter of decorum.”
What do you think: At what point does eye-rolling and such behavior cross the line and become something that could be considered disorderly conduct?
Elmhurst considers violation for eye-rolling [Triblocal.com]
Filed under: civil rights, dictatorship, empire, fascism, human rights, judicial system, oppression, police brutality, police crimes, police state, prison industrial complex, prison system, rape, sexual abuse
…like putting bacon in a cage full of dogs
Prison guards get away with raping female inmate
Mother Jones
May 8, 2010
Michelle Ortiz was serving one year at the Ohio Reformatory for Women, a state prison in Marysville, when she was molested by a male guard. A recent article in the Columbus Dispatch describes what happened next:
- When Ortiz reported the first assault to prison official Paula Jordan, the official told the inmate that the male guard was being transferred from the facility and was “just a dirty old man.” That same evening, the male guard assaulted her again.
Rebecca Bright, another prison official who launched an investigation, ordered Ortiz placed in solitary confinement, where she was handcuffed. Bright reportedly argued that Ortiz was talking about the incident with other inmates.
Other accounts were more specific: In the first assault, Ortiz was “fondled” by the guard, who then told her “I’ll get you tomorrow, watch.” In the second, which took place after she had appealed for help, the guard returned while Ortiz was asleep and raped her. The assaults took place back in 1996. Subsequently, Ortiz sued both prison officials in federal court for doing nothing to protect her from the guard and punishing her instead. A jury awarded her $625,000 in damages.
But Bright and Jordan appealed the verdict, and the US 6th Circuit Court of Appeals “ruled 2-1 that the prison officials had qualified immunity, shielding them from paying damages” to Ortiz. The third judge, however, issued an outraged dissent. As the AP reported:
- It is extremely rare for a prison inmate’s civil rights complaint to overcome preliminary legal obstacles and persuade a jury there was a violation, said Judge Martha Craig Daughtrey, the dissenting appeals court judge. Given the statistics, Daughtrey said, “I view this result as a legal travesty.”
The evidence against Bright and Jordan was strong, she said. “The majority’s decision to overturn the jury’s verdict strikes me not just as an unfortunate result in this case, but as one that is thoroughly senseless.”
Against the objections of Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray, the US Supreme Court–also not known for its sympathy to “prison inmate’s civil rights complaints”–has now agreed to review the case, and will hear arguments in the fall.
The wheels of justice move slowly, when they move at all. Back in 2003, the organization Stop Prisoner Rape–now renamed Just Detention International–published a report on the sexual abuse of prisoners by guards at the Ohio Reformatory for Women (ORW) Alerted to the problem by a prison psychiatrist, Stop Prisoner Rape (SPR) interviewed several staff whistleblowers, as well as prisoners, and discovered a “climate of abuse.”
- Inmates described a range of incidents, including violent encounters, threats and pressure to submit to sexual advances, trading sex for goods and favors, and relationships that were seemingly consensual. However, for women under near-total control of prison staff, the concept of “consenting” to sex is virtually meaningless (and Ohio law reflects this). The problems arising from this power imbalance are compounded by the past history of sexual abuse that many female inmates have endured.
SPR learned that women who report sexual misconduct are routinely sent to solitary confinement, unusually harsh conditions in the hole at ORW may compound the trauma. This use of isolation emboldens perpetrators who know that the practice discourages women from reporting abuse.
SPR concluded that the problem was compounded by the Ohio prison system’s “instututional response”–or lack of it. They found a “culture of silence and denial” at the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction that began its director, Reginald Wilkinson. Head of the sixth-largest prison system in the country, Wilkinson “repeatedly made public statements denying that any problem exists and discouraging suggestions for reform,” including the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA), which was passed unanimously by Congress in 2003. In an op-ed opposing the legislation, Wilkinson argued that the data on prison sexual assaults was “highly exaggerated” and based on “disingenuous data (self reporting).”
While investigating allegations at the Ohio Reformatory for Women, SPR interviewed Warden Deborah Timmerman. According to SPR’s report:
- Timmerman-Cooper confirmed that prisoners who complained of sexual abuse were transferred to segregation, losing their privileges while there. She justified this policy by saying that it was necessary in order to protect the inmate while officials investigated the incident, but could not explain why those inmates should be stripped of basic privileges and locked in isolation for 23 hours a day….
In summary, SPR has found extensive and credible evidence that an environment consistently conducive to sexual abuse exists at the Ohio Reformatory for Women and that a pattern of abuse may exist at other Ohio women’s facilities…
The isolation and punishment of inmates who report sexual assault is a practice that punishes victims and encourages staff misconduct. In Ohio, it is a policy that has fostered a climate of abuse and intimidation and undercut respect for human rights.
This happens to be a pivotal moment in the effort to combat the epidemic of sexual assaults in detention. The National Prison Rape Elimination Commission, which was created by the PREA in 2003, has issued recommendations for a new set of national standards to address the problem. As David Kaiser and Lovisa Stannow wrote earlier this year in their two excellent articles in the New York Review of Books on prison rape and how it can be stopped:
- One of the most pernicious myths about prisoner rape is that it is an inevitable part of life behind bars. This is simply wrong…In well-run facilities across the country it is being prevented—and this shouldn’t be surprising, the government has extraordinary control over the lives of those it locks up. Stopping sexual abuse in detention is a matter of using sound policies and practices, and passing laws that require them.
Attorney General Eric Holder has until June to review the recommended standards proposed by the National Prison Rape Elimination Commission and turn them into federal regulations, which would make them binding on prisons and other detention facilities. Predictably, they are being opposed by some leaders of the powerful corrections industry, and questioned on the basis of cost.
The Department of Justice has opened a 60-day public comment period on the standards. That comment period ends in one week, on May 10. Just Dentention International is hosting a petition urging Attorney General Eric Holder to enact the strongest possible standards. You can sign the petition on JDI’s web site here, or its Facebook page here.
Filed under: 1984, 2-party system, 4th amendment, Barack Obama, Big Brother, bush = obama, civil liberties, civil rights, DOJ, FBI, George Bush, government crimes, left right paradigm, nanny state, obama, obama = bush, obama deception, orwell, Police State, search warrant, Surveillance, warrantless search, warrantless wiretap | Tags: obama fraud, obama lie
The Obama DOJ’s warrantless demands for e-mails
Salon
April 15, 2010
 I want your emails. |
A very significant case involving core privacy protections is now being litigated, where the Obama Justice Department is seeking to obtain from Yahoo “all emails” sent and received by multiple Yahoo email accounts, despite the fact that DOJ has never sought, let alone obtained, a search warrant, and despite there being no notice of any kind to the email account holders:
- In a brief filed Tuesday afternoon, the coalition says a search warrant signed by a judge is necessary before the FBI or other police agencies can read the contents of Yahoo Mail messages — a position that puts those companies directly at odds with the Obama administration.
As part of a case conducted largely under seal and thus hidden from public view, the DOJ demanded these emails from Yahoo without any effort to demonstrate probable cause to believe the email user was involved in the commission of any crime, but instead merely based on the vague claim that there is “reasonable grounds to believe” the emails “are relevant and material to an ongoing criminal investigation.” If the DOJ position were accepted, Americans would have substantially less privacy protections in their email communications.
Federal law is crystal clear that a search warrant is required for the Government to obtain any emails that have been stored less than 180 days — one that requires a showing of probable cause and that the documents sought to be described with particularlity. In contrast to the nation’s largest telecoms’ eager cooperation with Bush’s illegal surveillance programs, Yahoo — to its credit — refused to turn over any such emails to the Government without a search warrant. As a result, the DOJ is now seeking a federal court Order compelling the company to comply with its demands, and a coalition of privacy groups and technology companies — led by EFF and including Google — have now filed a brief supporting Yahoo’s position. Both Yahoo and that coalition insist that federal law as well as the Fourth Amendment’s search and seizure protection bar the Obama DOJ from acquiring these emails without a search warrant.
Obama will bypass Congress to detain suspects indefinitely
Obama Supports Renewing The PATRIOT ACT
Joe Biden’s pro-RIAA, pro-FBI tech voting record
Obama Votes YES on FISA Spy-Bill, McCain Skips
Obama Supports Giving Telecoms Amnesty for Illegal Wiretaps
Obama Implements ‘Precrime’ ‘Prolonged Detention’ for Detainees
Filed under: bank bailout, civil disobedience, civil liberties, civil rights, civil unrest, Dictatorship, Dissent, Empire, government bureaucracy, government control, human rights, Income Tax, insurance company bailout, main street, medical industrial complex, middle class, non compliance, Police State, Protest, strike, tax, tax strike, Taxpayers, tea party, US Constitution
Great American Tax Strike April 15-18th
Filed under: 1984, civil disobedience, civil liberties, civil rights, civil unrest, Dictatorship, Dissent, domestic terror, domestic terrorism, drone, Empire, Fascism, LRAD, Martial Law, militarized police, Military Industrial Complex, Nazi, New World Order, non compliance, NWO, Police State, political dissent, Protest, psychological warfare, Psyops, slavery, uav, urban warfare, War On Terror
Militarized Police State: LRAD on a UAV
Surveillance Drones To Zap Protesters Into Submission
Filed under: 1984, 2-party system, ACLU, Barack Obama, Big Brother, civil liberties, civil rights, Control Grid, Dictatorship, DNA Database, domestic spying, Empire, Fascism, gitmo, human rights, john yoo, left right paradigm, nanny state, Nazi, obama, obama deception, Oppression, orwell, Patriot Act, prison industrial complex, Torture, warrantless wiretap
Obama Supports DNA Sampling Upon Arrest
Wired
March 10, 2010
Josh Gerstein over at Politico sent Threat Level his piece underscoring once again President Barack Obama is not the civil-liberties Knight In Shining Armor many were expecting.
Gerstein posts a televised interview of Obama and John Walsh of America’s Most Wanted. The nation’s chief executive extols the virtues of mandatory DNA testing of Americans upon arrest, even absent charges or a conviction. Obama said, “It’s the right thing to do” to “tighten the grip around folks” who commit crime.
When it comes to civil liberties, the Obama administration has come under fire for often mirroring his predecessor’s practices surrounding state secrets, the Patriot Act and domestic spying. There’s also Gitmo, Jay Bybee and John Yoo.
Now there’s DNA sampling. Obama told Walsh he supported the 18 states, including the federal government, that have varying laws requiring compulsory DNA sampling of individuals upon an arrest for crimes ranging from misdemeanors to felonies. The data is lodged in state and federal databases, and has fostered as many as 200 arrests nationwide, Walsh said.
The American Civil Liberties Union claims DNA sampling is different from mandatory, upon-arrest fingerprinting that has been standard practice in the United States for decades.
A fingerprint, the group says, reveals nothing more than a person’s identity. But much can be learned from a DNA sample, which codes a person’s family ties, some health risks, and, according to some, can predict a propensity for violence.
The ACLU is suing California to block its voter-approved measure requiring saliva sampling of people picked up on felony charges. Authorities in the Golden State are allowed to conduct so-called “familial searching” — when a genetic sample does not directly match another, authorities start investigating people with closely matched DNA in hopes of finding leads to the perpetrator.
Wondering whether DNA sampling is legal?
The courts have already upheld DNA sampling of convicted felons based on the theory that the convicted have fewer privacy rights. The U.S. Supreme Court has held that when conducting intrusions of the body during an investigation, the police need so-called “exigent circumstances” or a warrant. That alcohol evaporates in the blood stream is the exigent circumstance to draw blood from a suspected drunk driver without a warrant.
Filed under: 1984, ADS, brain manipulation, brainwashing, CIA, civil disobedience, civil liberties, civil rights, civil unrest, Communism, Darpa, Dictatorship, Dissent, Empire, Eugenics, Fascism, FBI, Genocide, human rights, Illuminati, LRAD, michael aquino, Military, Military Industrial Complex, mind control, Nazi, New World Order, non compliance, NSA, NWO, occult, Oppression, orwell, Pentagon, Police State, political dissent, Protest, psychological warfare, Psyops, Raytheon, Russia, slavery, Soviet Union, State Sponsored Terrorism, stubblebine, super weapons, Surveillance, urban warfare, Waco, War On Terror | Tags: sci tech
Russia Creates Mind Control Weapons
Filed under: 1st amendment, army, Barack Obama, catatrophic event, civil liberties, civil rights, Civilian Security Force, DHS, Dictatorship, Dissent, DoD, domestic terror, domestic terrorism, Economic Collapse, Economy, Empire, enemy combatant, Executive Order, Fascism, free speech, Great Depression, Homeland Security, HR 6166, Martial Law, Military, Military Industrial Complex, national collapse, national guard, Nazi, New World Order, North American Union, NORTHCOM, NWO, obama, obama deception, Oppression, Police State, Posse Comitatus, stasi, stasi tactics, Troops, u.s. constitution, u.s. economy, urban warfare, War On Terror, White House | Tags: John Warner National Defense Authorization Act, universal civil defense training
Obama Executive Order Stokes Martial Law Fears
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
January 12, 2010
An Obama executive order that creates a council of state governors who will work with the feds to expand military involvement in domestic security has stoked fears that the administration is stepping up preparations for martial law.
The order, which is entitled Establishment of the Council of Governors (PDF), creates a body of ten state governors directly appointed by Obama who will work with the federal government to help advance the “synchronization and integration of State and Federal military activities in the United States”.
The governors will liaise with officials from Northcom, Homeland Security, the National Guard as well as DoD officials from the Pentagon “in order to strengthen further the partnership between the Federal Government and State governments,” according to the executive order.
In October 2008, Northcom, a Unified Combatant Command of the United States military based out of Peterson AFB, Colorado Springs, was assigned the 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team returning from Iraq. An alarming September 8 Army Times report which was later denied after it sparked controversy stated that the troops would be used by Northcom to deal with “civil unrest and crowd control” in the aftermath of a national emergency.
The Obama executive order states that governors will help advise the feds on National Guard, homeland defense, and civil support activities.
The fact that the order further blurs the lines between state and federal power, as well as greasing the skids for more military involvement in domestic affairs has stoked fears that Obama may be laying the groundwork for his promised “national civilian security force”.
Conservatives and libertarians responded to the announcement by expressing their suspicion that Obama is preparing to give governors their marching orders in targeting “anti-government” types that have long been characterized as a terrorist threat by the feds in numerous reports stretching back over a decade.
“There is a definite purpose to this,” wrote one commenter on the popular Free Republic website, “The initial steps toward a domestic “Civilian Security Force” in each state, as called for by the fascisti during the campaign. It will be coordinated at the state level, under the authority of DHS and DoD and assorted agencies. The provision will be made for it to be “federalized” in an emergency, as is the National Guard.”
“This is a concrete step toward eliminating the independent authority and dissolving the sovereignty of the several States. It lays the groundwork for the end of the United States as a Republic,” she adds.
Others warn that Obama could be preparing to cancel elections under the justification of a national emergency, a fear that was often expressed when Bush was in office but one that never materialized.
However, the executive order clearly represents another assault on Posse Comitatus, the 1878 law that bars the military from exercising domestic police powers, which was temporarily annulled by the 2006 John Warner National Defense Authorization Act before parts of it were later repealed.
Filed under: 1st amendment, 2008 Election, ACLU, Barack Obama, civil liberties, civil rights, colorado, Dictatorship, Empire, free speech, John McCain, Michelle Obama, obama, obama deception, u.s. constitution | Tags: Blake Benson, nobama
Student arrested over “Nobama” sticker gets settlement
Howard Pankratz
The Denver Post
January 7, 2010
 Blake Benson showed up for a Michelle Obama speech at Dakota Ridge High School wearing a “Nobama” sticker on his shirt. (provided by ACLU) |
A Dakota Ridge High School student who wore a “Nobama” sticker taped across the front of his shirt prior to an appearance by Michelle Obama will receive $4,000 from Jefferson County authorities, the ACLU of Colorado announced today.
The $4,000 settlement agreement with the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Department and the Jefferson County School District avoided a potential lawsuit, according to a news release from Taylor Pendergrass, ACLU staff attorney.
On Nov. 3, 2008, Blake Benson showed up outside the high school gym as others were lined up to enter the gym to hear Michelle Obama speak.
Benson was one of three students who chose to “stay and campaign” for Sen. John McCain at the school prior to the speech.
According to the ACLU, Dakota Ridge school officials told Benson to leave. When he refused, officials had Benson handcuffed, searched and arrested for interference — a charge that carries up to six months in jail and a $750 fine.
Filed under: Air Force, Airport Security, civil liberties, civil rights, Flight 253, Fox News, IPC, islamist, Mainstream Media, Media, Military, muslims, mutallab, neocons, plane bomber, race war, racial profiling, Racism, racism in america, segregation, strip search, TSA, War On Terror | Tags: Alhaji Umaru Mutallab, christmas bomber, Thomas McInerney, Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab
“Strip Search All 18-28 Year Old Muslim Men At Airports”
Filed under: Airport Security, civil liberties, civil rights, CNBC, Conditioning, Flight 253, Fox News, Karl Rove, Larry Kudlow, Mainstream Media, Media, Media Manipulation, muslims, mutallab, neocons, plane bomber, Propaganda, race war, racial profiling, Racism, racism in america, segregation, TSA, War On Terror | Tags: Alhaji Umaru Mutallab, christmas bomber, Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab
Segregated Lines for Muslims at Airports?
CNBC: After Flight 253 “Racial Profiling is Warranted”
Filed under: 2-party system, Abu Ghraib, Afghanistan, Barack Obama, bush, bush = obama, Child Abuse, child torture, civil liberties, civil rights, Detainees, DOJ, Extraordinary Rendition, Geneva Convention, George Bush, gitmo, Guantanamo, Habeas Corpus, human rights, interrogation, Iraq, john yoo, left right paradigm, nation building, obama, obama = bush, obama deception, obamas war, occupation, rendition, Torture, War Crimes, War On Terror
Obama Protecting Bush’s “Testicle Crusher” Attorney
San Francisco Chronicle
December 8, 2009
The Obama administration has asked an appeals court to dismiss a lawsuit accusing former Bush administration attorney John Yoo of authorizing the torture of a terrorism suspect, saying federal law does not allow damage claims against lawyers who advise the president on national security issues.
Such lawsuits ask courts to second-guess presidential decisions and pose “the risk of deterring full and frank advice regarding the military’s detention and treatment of those determined to be enemies during an armed conflict,” Justice Department lawyers said Thursday in arguments to the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.
Other sanctions are available for government lawyers who commit misconduct, the department said. It noted that its Office of Professional Responsibility has been investigating Yoo’s advice to former President George W. Bush since 2004 and has the power to recommend professional discipline or even criminal prosecution.
The office has not made its conclusions public. However, The Chronicle and other media reported in May that the office will recommend that Yoo be referred to the bar association for possible discipline, but that he not be prosecuted.
Yoo, a UC Berkeley law professor, worked for the Justice Department from 2001 to 2003. He was the author of a 2002 memo that said rough treatment of captives amounts to torture only if it causes the same level of pain as “organ failure, impairment of bodily function or even death.” The memo also said the president may have the power to authorize torture of enemy combatants.
Filed under: 2nd Amendment, anti gun, civil liberties, civil rights, Concentration Camp, crime rate, death camps, Eugenics, Fascism, Fema Camps, firearms, Genocide, Gun Control, Gun Laws, Hitler, Holocaust, Martial Law, militia, Nazi, patriot movement, Police State, self defense, switzerland, US Constitution
Why Switzerland Has The Lowest Crime Rate In The World
Filed under: 1984, 1st amendment, 2nd Amendment, 9/11 Truth, Anti-War, Barack Obama, Big Brother, bill of rights, Bloggers, civil disobedience, civil liberties, civil rights, Communism, Congress, Control Grid, DHS, Dictatorship, Dissent, domestic terror, domestic terrorism, Empire, enemies list, Fascism, free press, free speech, gay rights, gestapo, Gun Control, hate crimes, Hate Crimes Bill, Hitler, Homeland Security, House, Illegal Immigration, internet, internet police, internet regulation, iron fist, MIAC report, nanny state, Nazi, Neolibs, New World Order, obama, obama deception, One World Government, Oppression, orwell, patriot movement, Police State, political dissent, political prisoner, political prisoners, political terrorism, precrime, preventative detention, Protest, Senate, socialism, sovereignty, Surveillance, thought crime, thought crimes, thought criminal, Truth Action, truth movement, US Constitution, War On Terror, White House
Hate Crime Bill Is A Trojan Horse Against Free Speech
NoWorldSystem.com
October 23, 2009
The U.S. Senate has passed the homosexual hate-crimes bill and will now send it to President Obama to sign it into law. This bill is a trojan horse to legitimize the creation of more laws that will completely obliterate the 1st amendment of the United States.
Many homosexual organizations say this is a victory, however they are just being used to further infringe on Americans rights to free speech.
In a 68-29 vote, senators passed 2010 National Defense Authorization Act, which includes the hate crimes measure that adds “sexual orientation” and “gender identity,” as well as disability, to the current categories — such as race, religion and gender — protected from hate crimes. The House of Representatives voted 281-146 on Oct. 8 for the same defense legislation, which was used as a vehicle for the hate-crimes measure though it is not directly related to the controversial provision. President Obama has said he would sign the bill.
Any “hate crimes” bill is a disaster for the 1st amendment and leads into the direction of a nanny government.. we are all grown-ups, correct? When someone puts you down whether it’s about race, gender, sexual orientation do we really want the federal government and the police to get involved in such petty affairs? And shouldn’t the police and the government be investing their time on more serious situations? Any ‘hate crimes’ bill is just a step towards the end of the 1st amendment and stepping into the direction of a nanny government, handing out fines and putting people in prison for hate speech.
I’m not implying that gay rights aren’t a good thing, I think anyone of any sexual orientation, gender, etc. should have a right to marry, but this hate crimes bill is nothing more than a foot-in-the-door for other tyrannical regulations that will criminalize any type of speech.
This bill could lead to an age of “Pre-Crime” and “Preventative Detentions“, if say the FBI suspects you of potentially committing a hate crime you can be prosecuted and detained even if no crime was even committed. It can also lead to cyber-bullying laws which could mean an expensive fine or prison-time for internet bullying, this bill can also lead to ‘political hate laws’ where any dissent against the government or its policies could make you a political prisoner.
The White House is already planning to create an “enemies list” where any dissent against its policies can land many into a permanent White House database. The U.S. Government and Homeland Security have established its hatred for dissidents in this country, they have established that anti-New World Order groups, Alternative Media Outlets (like this one) are potential violent terrorist tools. Anything about the U.S. Constitution, any partisan activists or any civil disobedience of any kind is now considered potential violent extremism by Homeland Security.
The unclassified Homeland Security memo even says people who are concerned about loss of U.S. sovereignty, illegal immigration and gun-control who are genuinely upset about encroaching freedom may be considered a potential insurgents against the U.S. government! Even liberal environmental activism, anti-war activism is considered potential violent extremism.
When you think of the phrase “hate crimes” remember that hate speech is a form of free speech and protected by the 1st amendment of the Bill of Rights and Constitution. The whole point of free speech is to protect unpopular speech like hate speech. When Obama signs this hate crimes bill into law the government will officially turn free speech into a criminal act, and soon it will become a terrorist/extremist act if Homeland Security (aka: the American Gestapo) gets its way.
Filed under: 2008 olympics, 2012 olympics, anti-olympics, Big Brother, Britain, Canada, civil liberties, civil rights, Communism, Conditioning, Control Grid, Dictatorship, Dissent, Empire, Europe, european union, Fascism, fines, free speech, human rights, nanny state, Nazi, olympics, Oppression, orwell, Police State, Protest, Surveillance, tax, thought crime, thought criminal, United Kingdom, Vancouver | Tags: illegal signs, Municipalities Enabling and Validating Act, paralympic winter games, Richmond, Whistler, winter games
Having anti-2010 Olympic signs during Vancouver games could mean $10,000-a-day fine, six-months in jail
CBC News
October 10, 2009
A proposed B.C. law would allow municipal officials to enter homes to seize unauthorized and possibly anti-Olympic signs on short notice, civil libertarians say.
Violators could be fined up to $10,000 a day and jailed up to six months, the B.C. Civil Liberties Association said Friday.
The proposed law was introduced Thursday as a bill to amend the Municipalities Enabling and Validating Act.
The government said in a statement that the changes will “provide the municipalities of Vancouver, Richmond and Whistler with temporary enforcement powers to enable them to swiftly remove illegal signs and graffiti during the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games.”
Filed under: 1984, 2-party system, 4th amendment, ACLU, amnesty, AT&T, Barack Obama, Big Brother, bush = obama, CIA, civil liberties, civil rights, Congress, DHS, domeestic terrorism, domestic terror, EFF, FBI, federal crimes, FOIA, George Bush, government bureaucrat, government control, government takeover, Homeland Security, immunity, left right paradigm, Military, neocons, Neolibs, NSA, obama, obama = bush, obama deception, orwell, Patriot Act, privacy rights, roving wiretaps, Russ Feingold, Senate, Sprint, Spy, Surveillance, telecoms, us constituion, US Constitution, verison, War On Terror, warrantless search, warrantless wiretap, White House
Dem-controlled Senate Judiciary Committee extends PATRIOT Act provisions
Capitol Hill Blue
October 9, 2009
Key US lawmakers passed legislation Thursday extending three key provisions of the PATRIOT Act, the sweeping intelligence bill enacted after the September 11, 2001 attacks.
Backing a White House request, the Senate Judiciary Committee passed the measure 11 votes to 8 to extend until 2013 three clauses that would have expired by 31 December. The bill now heads to the full Senate for a vote.
The provisions include the “roving wiretap” clause, used to monitor mobile communications of individuals using multiple telephone lines, and the “lone-wolf” provision, which enables spying on individuals suspected of terrorist activity but with no obvious connection to extremist groups.
Lawmakers also extended the life of controversial section 215, known as the “library records provision” that allows government agencies to access individual’s library history.
The committee had earlier met in a closed-door meeting with members of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the intelligence community on ensuring their actions would not impede investigations already underway.
The senators also debated freeing up law enforcement actions that have been hampered by legislation and court rulings since the first program was launched by former president George W. Bush in the wake of 9/11, which enabled collecting sensitive information for years without a court order.
Republicans senators have remained critical of placing restrictions on the intelligence community, saying they should more of a free hand in the early stages of investigations.
But their Democratic counterparts have decried the fact that the provisions still do not in their view adequately respect the privacy of ordinary Americans.
Democratic Senator Russ Feingold said he feared handing a “blank check” to law enforcement agencies and criticized the Democrat-controlled committee for not passing safeguards that even Republicans supported during the Bush administration.
“Among the most significant problems is the failure to include an improved standard for Section 215 orders, even though a Republican controlled Judiciary Committee unanimously supported including the same standard in 2005,” he said in a media advisory.
“But what was most upsetting was the apparent willingness of too many members to defer completely to behind the scenes complaints from the FBI and the Justice Department, even though the administration has yet to take a public position on any of the improvements that I and other senators have proposed. … [While] I am left scratching my head trying to understand how a committee controlled by a wide Democratic margin could support the bill it approved today, I will continue to work with my colleagues to try to make improvements to this bill.”
Michael Macleod-Ball, acting director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Washington legislative office said the rights group was “disappointed” that further moves were not made to protect civil liberties.
“This truly was a missed opportunity for the Senate Judiciary Committee to right the wrongs of the PATRIOT Act,” he said.
“We urge the Senate to adopt amendments on the floor that will bring this bill in line with the Constitution.”
Filed under: 1984, 2-party system, 4th amendment, amnesty, AT&T, Barack Obama, Big Brother, bush = obama, CIA, civil liberties, civil rights, Congress, DHS, domeestic terrorism, domestic terror, EFF, federal crimes, FOIA, George Bush, government bureaucrat, government control, government takeover, Homeland Security, immunity, left right paradigm, Military, neocons, Neolibs, NSA, obama, obama = bush, obama deception, orwell, Patriot Act, privacy rights, roving wiretaps, Senate, Sprint, Spy, Surveillance, telecoms, us constituion, US Constitution, verison, War On Terror, warrantless search, warrantless wiretap
Telephone Companies Are An Arm Of Government Admits DOJ
Wired News
October 9, 2009
 AT&T was the first of many telcos sued for helping the NSA spy on Americans without warrants |
The Department of Justice has finally admitted it in court papers: the nation’s telecom companies are an arm of the government — at least when it comes to secret spying.
Fortunately, a judge says that relationship isn’t enough to squash a rights group’s open records request for communications between the nation’s telecoms and the feds.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation wanted to see what role telecom lobbying of Justice Department played when the government began its year-long, and ultimately successful, push to win retroactive immunity for AT&T and others being sued for unlawfully spying on American citizens.
The feds argued that the documents showing consultation over the controversial telecom immunity proposal weren’t subject to the Freedom of Information Act since they were protected as “intra-agency” records:
“The communications between the agencies and telecommunications companies regarding the immunity provisions of the proposed legislation have been regarded as intra-agency because the government and the companies have a common interest in the defense of the pending litigation and the communications regarding the immunity provisions concerned that common interest.”
U.S. District Court Judge Jeffery White disagreed and ruled on September 24 that the feds had to release the names of the telecom employees that contacted the Justice Department and the White House to lobby for a get-out-of-court-free card.
“Here, the telecommunications companies communicated with the government to ensure that Congress would pass legislation to grant them immunity from legal liability for their participation in the surveillance,” White wrote. “Those documents are not protected from disclosure because the companies communicated with the government agencies “with their own … interests in mind,” rather than the agency’s interests.”
The feds were supposed to make the documents available Friday, but in a motion late Thursday, the Obama administration is asking for a 30-day emergency stay (.pdf) so it can file a further appeal.
Filed under: Arizona, Chicago, Child Abuse, civil liberties, civil rights, disabled, human rights, illinois, mentally disabled, Oppression, police abuse, police brutality, police crimes, Police State, special needs, special needs children | Tags: Marshawn Pitts, Officer Brian Lilly, tony arambula
Cops shoot home owner instead of armed burglar
Cop assaults 15-year-old special needs student
Filed under: 1st amendment, ADS, civil disobedience, civil liberties, civil rights, Dictatorship, Dissent, domestic terror, domestic terrorism, Empire, Fascism, free speech, health and environment, human rights, militarization, Military, Military Industrial Complex, military weapons, mlitary, Nazi, nazi germany, Oppression, Pentagon, police brutality, Police State, Protest, riot squads, State Sponsored Terrorism, super weapons, swat, Taser Guns, urban warfare, US Constitution, War On Terror | Tags: Thermal Laser gun, Thermal Laser System, Thermal Laser weapon
Pentagon’s burn weapon could end up in police hands
Raw Story
September 30, 2009
A powerful hand-held weapon being developed by the Pentagon could end up in police hands, says a report in a UK science journal.
The Pentagon’s Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate has been developing the Thermal Laser System since 2005, with the purpose of developing a weapon that could disperse crowds or incapacitate individuals by causing them to experience burning sensations in their skin.
According to NewScientist magazine, the weapon has evolved into a rifle-mounted instrument, and there are plans for a hand-held model that could be used by police forces.
News of the possibility that police departments could obtain the burn weapon will likely concern civil-liberties advocates, who have been watching with alarm as the Taser conducted-energy weapon has gone into regular use in police forces across the United States.
As NewScientist notes, the weapon is still in the testing phase and kinks have yet to be worked out.
Filed under: 4th amendment, Bio Weapons, CDC, civil liberties, civil rights, Concentration Camp, Continuity of Government, detention, Dictatorship, door to door, Empire, Fascism, federal crimes, fema camp, Fema Camps, forced detention, forced quarantine, government bureaucrat, government control, government takeover, h1n1, h1n1 clinic, h1n1 vaccine, health and environment, human rights, influenza, innoculation, involuntary isolation, involuntary quarantine, involuntary vaccination, knock and talk, mandatory detention, mandatory quarantine, Martial Law, mental disorder, mental illness, Military, nanny state, Nazi, New World Order, NWO, Oppression, Pandemic, pandemic virus, parental rights, Police State, quarantine, swine flu, swine flu pandemic, swine flu vaccine, US Constitution, vaccinations, Vaccine, virus pandemic
Govt. Plans To Detain Mentally Ill During Swine Flu Outbreak
Management In Practice
September 23, 2009
The government plans to rush through measures allowing people with suspected mental health issues to be quickly detained because of fears over staff shortages in any forthcoming swine flu outbreak, it has been revealed.
The temporary changes to the Mental Health Act, as laid out in an unusually short consultation lasting just one month, would mean it would only take one doctor, rather than two, to have a person sectioned and put on medication without their consent.
The measures could have a serious effect on the thousands of patients with psychiatric issues who currently live outside state care, meaning many could be detained against their will on the word of just one health professional.
With very little information on the proposed changes published, many mental health experts have warned the government that they risk side-lining an already vulnerable community and have called on it to spell-out the full raft of changes proposed in the consultation.
CDC Drafts “Isolation Order” for H1N1
Kurt Nimmo
Infowars
September 29, 2009
The following draft of an “isolation order” was discovered on the CDC’s website. It is a template for state and local officials to impose quarantines and what would effectively be martial law.
“Your illness [as determined by state and local officials] requires that you be isolated and requires further public health investigation and monitoring.”
Failure to obey will result in imprisonment without bail prior to trial and the possibility of a two year prison term.
In other words, according to this document, officials can impose quarantine without evidence that somebody is actually infected with a virus that is now negligible at best. It may also be used to quarantine potentially millions of people suffering from any number of illnesses — or not suffering from any disease at the discretion of the state — that have nothing to do with H1N1. It is basically a carte blanche for martial law under the cover of protecting the public from a communicable disease that is demonstrably a manufactured and weaponized threat.
Filed under: 1984, Big Brother, boston, Checkpoints, civil liberties, civil rights, Concentration Camp, Continuity of Government, DHS, Dictatorship, door to door, Empire, Fascism, FEMA, FEMA buses, fema camp, Fema Camps, forced detention, forced quarantine, forced vaccination, forced vaccinations, government control, government takeover, h1n1, h1n1 clinic, h1n1 vaccine, Habeas Corpus, Homeland Security, homeland security buses, human rights, innoculation, involuntary detention, involuntary isolation, involuntary quarantine, involuntary vaccination, knock and talk, mandatory detention, mandatory quarantine, mandatory vaccination, Martial Law, Massachusetts, medical industrial complex, Military, Military Industrial Complex, nanny state, Nazi, New World Order, NWO, Oppression, orwell, Pandemic, Pandemic Influenza, pandemic virus, police brutality, Police State, Posse Comitatus, quarantine, swat, swine flu, swine flu pandemic, swine flu vaccine, Troops, US Constitution, vaccinations, Vaccine, vaccine checkpoints, vaccine teams
Swine flu vaccine recipients could be tracked with RFID bracelets using Big Brother medical technology
Mike Adams
Natural News
Sept 24, 2009
Here’s the scene from some dark, present-day action movie: David Balfour breathed hard. He could hear the thumping of heavy boots outside his door, down the hall, mixed with the muffled grunts of military men. He had known they would come. It was obvious from the moment he refused the VaxTrax bracelet at the county clinic. They said it would keep him safe because they could pinpoint his location if he ever suffered a heart attack or an accident. As a bonus, his entire medical history was also imprinted in the RFID chip, so even if he was found unconscious, they could determine his medical status and start treatment right away.
But he had refused on the spot. David didn’t want to be tracked. So he walked away from the clinic, without the vaccine and without the bracelet.
That was stupid, he now realized. They had apparently tracked him anyway… somehow… and now they were at his door, and their fists pounded loudly.
“Boston Police! Open up!”
He glanced at the window behind him. Too late to plan an escape route. Maybe he should have thought of that earlier, but no, fleeing out the window was the stuff of Hollywood fiction, not here-and-now reality in Boston, Massachusetts.
“Mr. Balfour!” the police shouted. “You have ten seconds to open this door, or we are coming in.”
They weren’t bluffing. Pretending he wasn’t home clearly wouldn’t work. Maybe he could talk his way out of it. “I’ve broken no law!” he screamed back at the door.
“Mr. Balfour,” came the voice in authoritative tones, “You have refused to wear the VaxTrax bracelet as mandated by the National Pandemic Protection Act, and as we cannot determine your vaccination status, you are considered a danger to the people of this city.”
“You have five seconds.”
There was no way to fight this, he realized. So David stood, reached out to the door and began to slide the locking mechanism open…
BAM! The door burst open, striking David across the chest and forehead, flinging him backwards, stumbling, then collapsing with a gasp onto the living room floor. A mass of armored military men swarmed into the room, grabbed his wrists and forced his hands behind his back to be painfully handcuffed. He tried to scream but discovered himself too disoriented to find his voice. All he could do was hurt.
The scramble was over in seconds. He found himself face down, nose buried into the patterns of his living room rug, half conscious, with a hard knee pressed sharply into his kidney. There was a pause.
Then he heard footsteps… not those of military boots, but the soft shuffling of worn walking shoes. This was someone different, someone more… civilian.
“I’m doctor Argosy,” a voice hummed above and behind him. “Mr. Balfour, you are now going to receive an FDA-approved H1N1 vaccination and be fitted with a VaxTrax bracelet. Please remain calm.”
So this is what it has come to, he thought. Face down on the floor of his own home, a squad of vaccine enforcers standing on his back, a pair of handcuffs, a shattered front door, a probable black eye and a doctor, hidden from view, about to inject him with something he knew couldn’t possibly be safe.
The vaccine shot itself was painless and quick. Maybe it was the adrenaline, he thought, that masked the pain. He felt the cold plastic of a tracking bracelet being zipped around his wrist, then the handcuffs slid away and the pressure in his back released. “There, Mr. Balfour. You’re all set,” said the voice of the doctor. “Have a nice day.”
Before leaving, one of the police officers leaned close to him, almost whispering in his ear, “And don’t try to take off your VaxTrax, or we’ll know, and we’ll have to come back here.”
They marched out almost as quickly as they had entered, stomping down the hall for a few moments, and then the sounds paused. A pounding on another door broke the silence. David heard them shouting through the door of his neighbor’s apartment. “Mrs. Henderson, open up. This is the Boston Police!”…
This may not be fiction for very long
The above fictional account may not remain fiction for long. Late last year, the city of Boston began fitting vaccine recipients with RFID tracking bracelets, allowing health authorities to visually track the vaccine status of city residents on a large digital map. This map shows the location and status of anyone wearing an RFID tracking bracelet, thereby revealing areas of the city where vaccination rates are low, too.
By identifying these “low vaccination” areas, city officials could roll in with mobile vaccination units and law enforcement personnel, then march door to door, vaccinating and tagging residents either voluntarily or at gunpoint, depending on the circumstances. It’s all perfectly legal, by the way, under Massachusetts laws that are being put in place right now to handle the expected swine flu pandemic.
This RFID vaccine tracking technology isn’t fiction. It exists right now and was reported by the Boston Globe (http://www.boston.com/news/local/ma…) which revealed that vaccine-tracking bracelet trials were in place nearly a year ago.
“Several hundred people are expected to queue up for immunizations at the headquarters of the Boston Public Health Commission,” the Boston Globe reports. “Each of them will get a bracelet printed with a unique identifier code. Information about the vaccine’s recipients, and the shot, will be entered into handheld devices similar to those used by delivery truck drivers.”
This effort, says the Boston Globe, is “aimed at eventually creating a citywide registry of everyone who has had a flu vaccination. The resulting vaccination map would allow swift intervention in neighborhoods left vulnerable to the fast-moving respiratory illness.”
This is an open admission that the kind of scenario depicted in the fictional snapshot at the top of this article could potentially become reality. “Swift intervention” means “rapid-fire vaccinations.” And people who resist those vaccines aren’t going to have much of an opportunity to say no.
The worse the pandemic gets, the more aggressive these actions will become.
If people start dying from the pandemic in larger numbers, the “vaccine squads” are likely to be out in full force, injecting victims at road checkpoints and possibly even in their own homes via door-to-door sweeps. People who refuse to be vaccinated can be legally arrested and detailed by authorities, and to use the exact terms that are about to be passed into law in Mass., they can be “involuntarily transported” to a quarantine camp. Almost sounds like fun, huh? A free ride, free food, free showers… oh yeah, and a free vaccine shot, too, courtesy of the state.
To repeat, this part isn’t fiction: It’s written right into proposed laws that are very likely to be passed and aggressively enforced if a runaway pandemic scenario unfolds. You can read about some of these proposed laws right here: http://www.naturalnews.com/026934_h…
Your papers, please
Beyond the RFID tracking technology, there’s another disturbing development you need to be aware of: Law enforcement all over the country are now reportedly being briefed about the possibility of “vaccine checkpoints.” These could be set up on key roads and highways, and people passing through those checkpoints will have to prove they have been vaccinated or they may face being arrested and “involuntarily transported” to a quarantine camp.
Of course, it might not take much documentation to get past the checkpoints. There’s no formalized vaccine ID card that exists yet, so a letter from your doctor (or some reasonably believable rendition of such) will likely be sufficient, unless they actually mandate vaccine tracking bracelets for everyone (but even that would take years to implement simply due to the manufacturing and distribution logistics).
I’m also not too sure that the masses of American sheeple will be willing to wear RFID bracelets that report their real-time positions to the U.S. government. It’s just a little too close to being barcoded like a Jewish prisoner in a Nazi concentration camp. People generally don’t like that.
Then again, as the Boston Globe reported in 2008, hundreds of Bostonians actually lined up and volunteered to wear these bracelets, even knowing they would be tracked in real time by their own government. This is disturbing evidence that lots of people just can’t wait to be medically enslaved by the state. Some will actually raise their hands and line up for the opportunity!
On the other end of the spectrum, there are a whole lot of people who will refuse to be medically enslaved by the state. Known as “refuseniks,” these are the people like you and me who choose not to be injected with some hastily-approved chemical cocktail that’s never been long-term tested on anyone. Let the volunteers be the guinea pigs, if they’re really that anxious to get injected. The rest of us will take care of our own immune systems through more natural methods, thank you very much.
Action items: What to do
Here’s the word for those who wish to avoid problems at vaccine checkpoints: Acquire some “proof” of vaccination as soon as possible after the vaccinations begin. And keep it with you at all times.
I’m not actually suggesting you get vaccinated just to get the paperwork, by the way. In fact, there’s a chance you’re already immune to H1N1. You may already have antibodies for the virus, meaning you’ve been “naturally vaccinated” even without a shot. (http://www.naturalnews.com/027037_s…)
Your healthy immune system, you see, will create its own built-in vaccine upon exposure to the pandemic virus, and within a few days after being exposed, you will generate your own H1N1 antibodies, just like all the other people who were vaccinated. Except your antibodies will be even stronger than theirs, because you were exposed to a live virus, while they were only exposed to a weakened one (via the vaccine). So in effect, you will be far better vaccinated against H1N1 than the people who got the vaccine shots!
Even without the vaccine, H1N1 swine flu is no more fatal than a regular seasonal flu, and why should anybody have to prove they’ve been vaccinated against a flu that’s so mild it only kills roughly 1 out of 100,000 people who get infected?
Do you realize that if a pharmaceutical being tested in clinical trials killed the same percentage of people as the swine flu virus, it would be declared astonishingly SAFE by the FDA? The swine flu, as currently circulating, isn’t dangerous. It’s the vaccines that pose the greater risk to your health, in my view. Only time will tell how many people the vaccines end up killing, of course.
Are nasal vaccines safer?
Should you, for some reason, wish to actually get a vaccine in order to acquire vaccine documentation, I recommend nasal vaccines over injected vaccines. They’re inherently safer, in my view, because the nose is one of the natural pathways through which viruses enter your body anyway (as opposed to a hole in your arm). Nasal vaccines don’t contain thimerosal, either.
The FluMist nasal vaccine, just so you know, contains “Live Attenuated Influenza Vaccine,” meaning it is made out of live viruses (http://www.cdc.gov/FLU/about/qa/nas…). But your uncle Charlie probably also contains live influenza, so this isn’t anything to be too worried about. If you plan to get lots of rest, have strong immune system support, get lots of vitamin D and spend a few days recuperating with little or no stress, your chances of being harmed by the nasal vaccine are virtually nil, unless you’re obese and suffer from a preexisting respiratory condition or immune system problem, in which case you shouldn’t be receiving a nasal vaccine in the first place.
If you actually do get a vaccine, hold on to the paperwork. That’s what will get you through the vaccine checkpoints, if they are indeed put into play. In reality, there are likely to be hundreds of different documents showing “proof” of vaccination, so anything that looks even remotely convincing will probably get you through. What the checkpoint police will really be looking for are people who are completely clueless and haven’t gone through the trouble to come up with any paperwork at all. Those are the ones likely to be injected or detained.
Dealing with a mandatory RFID bracelet
So what happens if everybody is required to wear RFID bracelets that track their whereabouts and vaccination status?
I think this is highly unlikely in the short term, as there probably aren’t enough bracelets to go around (unless huge truckloads of bracelets have been secretly manufactured and stored somewhere, which seems really unlikely). But I wouldn’t put it past these people in the medium term: This is the perfect way to enslave the population under some medical pretext. Some percentage of the population will even line up and volunteer to be outfitted with such devices.
If such bracelets do get forced upon the population, within a few days you’ll start to see websites appearing on the ‘net with instructions for hacking or disabling your bracelet. Since those websites don’t exist yet, I can’t point you to them, but it’s a fairly easy Google search on the term “disable RFID.” That search will pull up sites like this one: http://blog.makezine.com/archive/20…
And that website advises the following:
“The last (and most covert) method for destroying a RFID tag is to hit it with a hammer. Just pick up any ordinary hammer and give the chip a few swift hard whacks. This will destroy the chip, and leave no evidence that the tag has been tampered with. This method is suitable for destroying the tags in passports, because there will be no proof that you intentionally destroyed the chip.”
Obviously, don’t hit the bracelet with a hammer if you are still wearing it, or the RFID chip won’t be the only thing you’ll disable. Anyone who fails this intelligence test should probably just put the bracelet back on and hopelessly do what they’re told.
Don’t worry about being caught with a “failed” chip. Chip failures will be common, so the authorities will be used to the idea that a lot of bracelets just don’t work correctly. If they ask why yours isn’t working, just shrug and say, “Dunno. I thought it was working fine. Maybe it got bumped or something…”
Don’t freak out over this
So is this RFID tracking bracelet a sign of things to come? Possibly. They’re clearly experimenting with the technology not only to see how well the tech works, but more importantly to get some answers on the psychology: Will people accept tracking bracelets? Will they feel protected, or enslaved? Will they try to remove or disable the bracelets?
For now, I’m not aware of any serious talk of tracking bracelets being made mandatory, nor is there even any real chatter about making swine flu vaccinations mandatory for the public at large (although certain professionals such as day care workers and hospital staffers are being told to get vaccinated or lose their jobs…). But all this could change almost overnight. One mutation of H1N1 could rewrite the entire play book on this by increasing the fatality rate of the infection. From there, it would be a simple matter for vaccination mandates to be swiftly put into place, and mandatory tracking bracelets could soon follow.
Let’s hope that scenario doesn’t unfold. I know there are many good law enforcement professionals out there who would never go along with such a Nazi-inspired medical enslavement scheme, but sadly there are more than enough who will be willing to follow orders and carry through with whatever they’re told to do. Let us hope our law enforcement community is never forced to make that decision.
If things get worse, however, be prepared to produce your vaccination documentation (”papers, please”) at roadblocks and checkpoints. And make sure you dutifully wear your vaccination RFID tracking bracelet, too, even if you’ve hammered the RFID chip into scrap.
Filed under: 2-party system, 4th amendment, Barack Obama, bush = obama, CIA, civil liberties, civil rights, Congress, Detainee, Detainees, detention, DOJ, domeestic terrorism, domestic terror, Extraordinary Rendition, federal crimes, FISA, forced detention, George Bush, Guantanamo, Habeas Corpus, left right paradigm, mandatory detention, Marines, Military, military commissions act, Military Industrial Complex, neocons, Neolibs, NSA, obama, obama = bush, obama deception, Patriot Act, preventative detention, quantanamo, rendition, roving wiretaps, Senate, soldiers, Torture, Troops, US Constitution, USMC, war crime, War Crimes, War On Terror, warrantless search, warrantless wiretap
Obama will bypass Congress to detain suspects indefinitely
John Byrne
Raw Story
September 24, 2009
President Barack Obama has quietly decided to bypass Congress and allow the indefinite detention of terrorist suspects without charges.
The move, which was controversial when the idea was first floated in The Washington Post in May, has sparked serious concern among civil liberties advocates. Such a decision allows the president to unilaterally hold “combatants” without habeas corpus — a legal term literally meaning “you shall have the body” — which forces prosecutors to charge a suspect with a crime to justify the suspect’s detention.
Obama’s decision was buried on page A 23 of The New York Times’ New York edition on Thursday. It didn’t appear on that page in the national edition. (Meanwhile, the front page was graced with the story, “Richest Russian’s Newest Toy: An N.B.A. Team.”)
Rather than seek approval from Congress to hold some 50 Guantanamo detainees indefinitely, the administration has decided that it has the authority to hold the prisoners under broad-ranging legislation passed in the wake of Sept. 11, 2001. Former President George W. Bush frequently invoked this legislation as the justification for controversial legal actions — including the NSA’s warrantless wiretapping program.
“The administration will continue to hold the detainees without bringing them to trial based on the power it says it has under the Congressional resolution passed after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, authorizing the president to use force against forces of Al Qaeda and the Taliban,” the Times‘ Peter Baker writes. “In concluding that it does not need specific permission from Congress to hold detainees without charges, the Obama administration is adopting one of the arguments advanced by the Bush administration in years of debates about detention policies.”
Constitutional scholar and Salon.com columnist Glenn Greenwald discussed the policy in a column in May. He warned that the ability for a president to “preventively” detain suspects could mushroom into broader, potentially abusive activity.
“It does not merely allow the U.S. Government to imprison people alleged to have committed Terrorist acts yet who are unable to be convicted in a civilian court proceeding,” Greenwald wrote. “That class is merely a subset, perhaps a small subset, of who the Government can detain. Far more significant, ‘preventive detention’ allows indefinite imprisonment not based on proven crimes or past violations of law, but of those deemed generally ‘dangerous’ by the Government for various reasons (such as, as Obama put it yesterday, they ‘expressed their allegiance to Osama bin Laden’ or ‘otherwise made it clear that they want to kill Americans’). That’s what ‘preventive’ means: imprisoning people because the Government claims they are likely to engage in violent acts in the future because they are alleged to be ‘combatants.’”
“Once known, the details of the proposal could — and likely will — make this even more extreme by extending the ‘preventive detention’ power beyond a handful of Guantanamo detainees to anyone, anywhere in the world, alleged to be a ‘combatant,’” Greenwald continues. “After all, once you accept the rationale on which this proposal is based — namely, that the U.S. Government must, in order to keep us safe, preventively detain “dangerous” people even when they can’t prove they violated any laws — there’s no coherent reason whatsoever to limit that power to people already at Guantanamo, as opposed to indefinitely imprisoning with no trials all allegedly ‘dangerous’ combatants, whether located in Pakistan, Thailand, Indonesia, Western countries and even the U.S.”
The Obama Administration appears to have embraced “preventive detention” in part because of problems with how Guantanamo prisoners’ cases — and incarceration — were handled under President Bush. Military prosecutors have said that numerous cases could not be brought successfully in civilian courts because evidence was obtained in ways that wouldn’t be admissible on US soil. The Bush Administration originally sought to try numerous detainees in military tribunals, but the Supreme Court ruled that at least some have the rights to challenge their detention in US courts.
Baker notes that Obama’s decision to hold suspects without charges doesn’t propose as broad an executive authority claimed by President Bush.
“Obama’s advisers are not embracing the more disputed Bush contention that the president has inherent power under the Constitution to detain terrorism suspects indefinitely regardless of Congress,” Baker writes.
In a statement to Baker, the Justice Department said, “The administration would rely on authority already provided by Congress [and] is not currently seeking additional authorization.”
“The position conveyed by the Justice Department in the meeting last week broke no new ground and was entirely consistent with information previously provided by the Justice Department to the Senate Armed Services Committee,” the statement added.
Roughly 50 detainees of the more than 200 still held at the US prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba are thought to be affected by the decision.
Filed under: 1984, 2-party system, 4th amendment, amnesty, AT&T, Barack Obama, Big Brother, bush = obama, CIA, civil liberties, civil rights, Congress, Detainees, DHS, domeestic terrorism, domestic terror, Extraordinary Rendition, federal crimes, FISA, forced detention, George Bush, Habeas Corpus, Homeland Security, HR 6166, left right paradigm, mandatory detention, Military, military commissions act, neocons, Neolibs, NSA, obama, obama = bush, obama deception, orwell, Patriot Act, preventative detention, quantanamo, rendition, roving wiretaps, Senate, Sprint, Spy, Surveillance, telecoms, Torture, US Constitution, verison, War On Terror, warrantless search, warrantless wiretap | Tags: obama = bush
Obama Pushes For Renewal of Warrantless Spying
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
September 16, 2009
President Barack Obama has once again betrayed his promise to restore liberties eviscerated by the Bush regime by pushing Congress to renew Patriot Act provisions that allow for warrantless spying on American citizens, even in cases where there is no link to terrorism whatsoever.
According to a Wired News report, the “Obama administration has told Congress it supports renewing three provisions of the Patriot Act due to expire at year’s end, measures making it easier for the government to spy within the United States.”
Obama’s support for the provisions should come as little surprise because he first voted for warrantless wiretapping of Americans in 2008 when he was an Illinois Senator, while also lending support for immunizing the nation’s telecommunications companies from lawsuits charging them with being complicit in the Bush administration’s wiretapping program.
One of the provisions Obama is pushing to renew is the so-called “lone wolf” provision, enacted in 2004, which allows for the electronic monitoring of an individual without the government having to prove that the case has any relation whatsoever to terrorism or a foreign power. This is in effect a carte blanche for the government to use every method at their disposal to spy on any American citizen they choose.
The “lone wolf” provision is opposed by the ACLU, whose legislative counsel Michelle Richardson told Wired, “The justification for FISA and these lower standards and letting it operate in secret was all about terrorist groups and foreign governments, that they posed a unique threat other than the normal criminal element. This lone wolf provision undercuts that justification.”
Another Patriot Act provision Obama wants Congress to renew gives the government access to business, library and medical records, with the authorities generally having to prove that the investigation is terrorism related. However, since according to Homeland Security guidelines the new breed of terrorist is classified as someone who supports a third party, puts a political bumper sticker on their car, is part of the alternative media, or merely someone who disagrees with the authorities’ official version of events on any given issue, the scope for the government to use this power against their political adversaries is wide open.
The third provision Obama is pushing to renew allows a FISA court to grant “roving wiretaps” without the government having to even identify their target. This is another carte blanche power that gives the state the power to monitor telephone calls, e mails and any other form of electronic communication.
Barack Obama swept into office on a mandate of “change” and a commitment to restore liberties that were eviscerated under the Bush regime. Despite promising to do so, he has failed completely to overturn Bush signing statements and executive orders that, according to Obama, “trampled on liberties.” Indeed, despite promising to end the use of signing statements, he has continued to use them.
Obama has failed to close Guantanamo Bay or any other CIA torture “black site” as he promised to do.
Obama has failed in his promise to “reject the Military Commissions Act” and instead has supported the use of military commissions.
Obama has continued to allow the rendition and torture of detainees, while protecting Bush administration officials who ordered torture from prosecution and blocking the release of evidence related to torture.
Obama has gone even further than the Bush administration in introducing “preventative detention” of detainees, ensuring people will never get a trial.
In restating his support for warrantless wiretapping of American citizens, Obama has once again proven that his promise of “change” was nothing more than a hollow and deceptive political platitude to ensure his election. Since he took office, Obama has betrayed almost every promise he made and effectively become nothing more than the third term of the Bush administration.
Filed under: big pharma, Child Abuse, civil liberties, civil rights, Detainee, Dictatorship, Empire, federal crimes, forced quarantine, forced vaccination, forced vaccinations, France, government control, government takeover, h1n1, h1n1 clinic, h1n1 vaccine, Habeas Corpus, health and environment, Human Experiments, human rights, influenza, innoculation, involuntary quarantine, involuntary vaccination, mandatory quarantine, mandatory vaccination, mandatory vaccinations, medical Experiments, medical industial complex, medical industrial complex, Military, nanny state, Oppression, Pandemic Influenza, pandemic virus, parental rights, Police State, prison industrial complex, public school, swine flu, swine flu pandemic, swine flu vaccine, vaccinations, Vaccine, vaccine squads, vaccine teams, virus pandemic
France To Use Swine Flu ‘Threat’ To Gut Liberties
Infowars / AFP
September 9, 2009
In case of a swine flu pandemic the French government has a plan to introduce emergency measures that would gut legal protections for citizens, the daily Liberation reported Tuesday.
According to documents provided to the daily by a judges’ union, the plan would extend the period police can keep a suspect in detention without charge or a hearing before a judge to up to six months.
Suspects would also not be able to contact a lawyer until after spending 24 hours in custody.
Under the plan children could be tried in adult courts and more trials held behind closed doors.
The Syndicat de la Magistrature called the measures “revolting” and said they would amount to “liberticide,” and called on Justice Minister Michele Alliot-Marie to abandon the plan.
This news comes on the back of last week’s revelations that the French government plans to impose a mass swine flu vaccination program on the entire population.
According to a leaked internal document singed by the French Health Minister and the Minister of the Interior, the program would be focused around regional vaccination centers and would be carried out by H1N1 injection teams, completely bypassing medical establishments and GP’s.
According to the document, schoolchildren will also be vaccinated by mobile injection squads who will travel from school to school, covering the entire country. Babies from 6 months old will also be given the shot.
To date just fifteen people have died of swine flu related complications in France.
noworldsystem.com 