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USA using Patriot Act against its own citizens
Sixteen-year-old Ashton Lundeby’s bedroom in his mother’s Granville County home is nothing, if not patriotic. Images of American flags are everywhere on the bed, on the floor, on the wall.
But according to the United States government, the tenth-grade home-schooler is being held on a criminal complaint that he made a bomb threat from his home on the night of Feb. 15.
Bush administration memos on presidential powers stun legal experts
Secret memos from the Justice Department said that only the president could set rules in the war on terrorism — which law professors say flies in the face of the Constitution.
Reporting from Washington — Legal experts said Tuesday that they were taken aback by the claim in the latest batch of secret Bush-era memos that the president alone had the power to set the rules during the war on terrorism.
Yale law professor Jack Balkin called this a “theory of presidential dictatorship. They say the battlefield is everywhere. And the president can do anything he wants, so long as it involves the military and the enemy.”
Defenders of the administration emphasize that the memos were written during a time of national emergency after the Sept. 11 attacks. They say officials feared, and indeed expected, another terrorist attack within the U.S., and they were determined to take all possible steps to prevent it.
By the time the Bush administration came to an end, the views within the Justice Department had changed dramatically.
But critics said that some in the Bush administration took advantage of the moment.
“This was a period of panic, and panic creates an opportunity for patriotic politicians to abuse their power,” Balkin said.
The newly released memos were mostly written between 2001 and 2003, and they gave the Bush administration broad legal authorization for fighting a new war in a new way. Their common theme was that no laws can limit the president’s power in fighting terrorists.
Congress had prohibited the use of torture by U.S. agents, and said “no citizen shall be imprisoned” in this country without legal charges. The memos said neither law could stand in the way of the president’s power as commander in chief.
A March 2002 memo, for example, said that holding prisoners in wartime “is an area in which the president appears to enjoy exclusive authority, as the power . . . is not reserved by the Constitution in whole or in part to any other branch of government.”
Duke University law professor Walter Dellinger said the Constitution gives Congress considerable power for making wartime rules.
Article I says Congress has “all legislative powers,” including the power “to declare war . . . and make rules concerning captures on land and water” as well as “regulation of the land and naval forces.”
“You can never get over how bad these opinions were,” said Dellinger, who headed the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel in the Clinton administration. “The assertion that Congress has no role to play with respect to the detention of prisoners was contrary to the Constitution’s text, to judicial precedent and to historical practice. For people who supposedly follow the text [of the Constitution], what don’t they understand about the phrase ‘make rules concerning captures on land and water’?”
Most of the memos were written by John C. Yoo, a deputy director of the Office of Legal Counsel. This small, obscure office writes legal opinions for the attorney general and others in the government. Yoo’s memos gave legal guidance to the Defense Department and the White House.
Five days before the Bush administration came to an end, Steven G. Bradbury, the head of the office, wrote an 11-page memo “for the files” explaining how his office had gone wrong.
It reads like a “greatest mistakes” memo from one outgoing officeholder to guide his successor. Bradbury emphasized that many of the legal positions issued between 2001 and 2003 are “not consistent with the current views of OLC.” Others rest on “doubtful” propositions, he said.
Original article here.
Court sides with ACLU, strikes down Patriot Act gag provision
by Stephen C. Webster
Published: Tuesday December 16, 2008
ACLU victorious as federal court declares Patriot Act provision a violation of the First Amendment
A federal appeals court ruling late Monday is the cause célèbre of the American Civil Liberties Union, as another provision of the Bush administration’s Patriot Act falls to the judicial system.
Until the ruling, recipients of so-called “national security letters” were legally forbidden from speaking out. The letters, usually a demand for documents, or a notice that private records had been searched by government authorities, were criticized as a cover-all for FBI abuses.
“The appeals court invalidated parts of the statute that wrongly placed the burden on NSL recipients to initiate judicial review of gag orders, holding that the government has the burden to go to court and justify silencing NSL recipients,” said the ACLU in a release. “The appeals court also invalidated parts of the statute that narrowly limited judicial review of the gag orders – provisions that required the courts to treat the government’s claims about the need for secrecy as conclusive and required the courts to defer entirely to the executive branch.”
Because of the ruling, the government will now be forced to justify individual gag orders before a court, instead of casually wielding the power of a blanket gag as the Bush administration has done since the blindingly fast passage of the Patriot Act in Oct. 2001.
In Sept. 2007, a federal judge ruled unconstitutional provisions within the Patriot Act which allowed the government to obtain search warrants without probable cause.
The ACLU’s complete press release follows.
####
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 15, 2008
NEW YORK – A federal appeals court today upheld, in part, a decision striking down provisions of the Patriot Act that prevent national security letter (NSL) recipients from speaking out about the secret records demands. The decision comes in an American Civil Liberties Union and New York Civil Liberties Union lawsuit challenging the FBI’s authority to use NSLs to demand sensitive and private customer records from Internet Service Providers and then forbid them from discussing the requests. Siding with the ACLU, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit found that the statute’s gag provisions violate the First Amendment.
Fascist Morning Joe: Tase, Take 9/11 Truthers to Concentration Camps
Kurt Nimmo
Infowars
March 4, 2008
In response to the arrest of a 9/11 demonstrator during a Bill Clinton appearance in Corpus Christi, corporate media shill and former Republican Congress critter Joe Scarborough and his co-hosts demanded 9/11 truthers be tasered and taken to detention camps. “Where’s the taser?” Joe wants to know as MSNBC runs footage of the man’s arrest. “Tase him!” His co-host adds: “Led away in handcuffs and hopefully taken to one of those secret prisons in eastern Europe and never to be heard from again… I hope we have a special prison for 9/11 conspiracy theorists.”
In other words, the corporate behemoth MSNBC believes people who disagree with the government not only do not deserve First Amendment rights and protection, but also believe demonstrators should be kidnapped by the CIA and taken to a “special prison” to be tortured and ultimately killed, as this is the fate many who disappear suffer.
Is it possible the United States is about to become like Pinochet’s Chile? In 1973, thanks to the CIA and U.S. corporations, Chile became a brutal police state. Chileans were subjected to systematic and massive violations of their most basic human rights. Official figures indicate that nearly 3,000 people were executed, disappeared or lost their lives as a result of torture and political violence. It would seem “Morning Joe” would enthusiastically welcome the installation of a fascist state where those he disagrees with are disappeared, tortured, and murdered.
Last October, CNN host Glenn Beck called 9/11 truthers “insane” and “dangerous anarchists” in response to 9/11 truthers infiltrating the Real Time with Bill Maher show. “These truthers are exactly the kind of people who want to rock this nation’s foundation, tear us apart and plant the seeds of dissatisfaction in all of us… [this is] the kind of group a Timothy McVeigh would come from,” declared Beck, setting a precedence followed this morning by the scurrilous Joe Scarborough and his complaisant minions.
“In thousands of 9/11 protests over the course of the last six years, not one person has been arrested for violent conduct,” Steve Watson wrote at the time. “To cart blanches suggest that the truth movement is dangerous, ‘a threat to children’ and intent on violence is extremely inflammatory and indicates just how afraid of investigating and debating the facts people like Glen Beck actually are.”
The core of the 9/11 truth movement is composed of highly educated and progressive individuals who are strictly opposed to violence and are intent on protecting a free and peaceful society which has been under dire threat ever since the attacks of 9/11 and the ensuing cover up.
Furthermore the movement represents the very antithesis of anarchism in that it is actively seeking to restore and protect our traditional form of government which has been usurped by an unaccountable cabal that continues to operate outside of Constitutional law and with little restraint using 9/11 as justification.
Indeed, Beck and Scarborough are calling for such draconian measures simply because the 9/11 truth movement is comprised “of highly educated and progressive individuals who are strictly opposed to violence” and because of this they must be demonized as a threat to national security and thus the government must kidnap, torture, and murder them. Although Scarborough did not suggest 9/11 truth “idiots” be murdered, this is of course the ultimate fate of those who oppose militarized fascism, now gaining speed in the United States.
Original article here.
*******ACTION ITEM*******
Let MSNBC know what you think about their reporter’s comments about sending people who question 9/11 to secret prisons. This is the same network and Scarborough is the same anchor who last year hosted calls for Rosie O’Donnell’s death for questioning 9/11.
MSNBC
Phone: 212-664-4444
Fax: 212-664-4085
viewerservices@msnbc.com
GeneralComments@feedback.msnbc.com
letters@msnbc.com
MSNBC/Microsoft-NBC
30 Rockefeller Plz
3rd Fl
New York, NY 10112
(212) 664-4444
Mr. Phil Griffin,
Senior Vice President, News
NBC Television Network
30 Rockefeller Plz
New York, NY 10112
phil.griffin@nbc.com
Steve Capus,
President, NBC News
steve.capus@nbc.com
Truth as Terrorism
President Bush holds press conference
- MSNBC – February 28, 2008
Just who are these suspected terrorists that President Bush seeks a blank check to spy on? Recent reports in USA Today indicates that the government’s terrorist watch list has swelled to 755,000 names. In December of 2005 NBC News reported that a secret Defense Department document listed a Quaker Meeting House gathering of anti-war activists as a “threat.”
“This peaceful, educationally oriented group being a threat is incredible,” says Evy Grachow, a member of the Florida group called The Truth Project.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10454316/
MSNBC goes on to report:
… the Pentagon now collects domestic intelligence that goes beyond legitimate concerns about terrorism or protecting U.S. military installations, say critics.
In December 2005 the ACLU published a press release: New Documents Show FBI Targeting Environmental and Animal Rights Groups Activities as ‘Domestic Terrorism’
The ACLU said that some of the documents suggest infiltration by undercover “sources” at animal rights meetings and conferences.
At times, the documents show aggressive attempts by the FBI to link PETA, Greenpeace and other mainstream organizations to activists associated with the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) or Earth Liberation Front (ELF), said the ACLU. PETA, in particular, is repeatedly and falsely singled out as a “front” for militant organizations although in at least one document released today the FBI appears to acknowledge that it has no evidence to back up such assertions.
http://www.aclu.org/safefree/spying/23124prs20051220.html
Equally disturbing, on November 8, 2007 CSPAN aired a hearing of the Homeland Security Subcommittee’s “Terrorism and the Internet.” These hearings purported to identify “home grown terrorist recruiters” on the internet, in connection with House Bill HR 1955, “Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007.”
Nov 17, 2007
A Response to the Simon Wiesenthal Center and Mark Weitzman
— Richard Gage, AIA and contributors
AE911Truth.org is extremely concerned about the recent portrayal of our peaceful organization and website by the Simon Wiesenthal Center alongside Taliban militant websites at the recent “Homeland Security Hearing” hosted by Congresswoman Jane Harman. By implication we and other 9/11 Truth organizations are branded as terrorists. We are therefore actively pursuing non-legal and legal remedies. The following letter written to the SWC by John Stevenson is posted in order to also express our concern. We will post updates as events unfold. Thank you for your overwhelming show of support!
Richard Gage, AIA
(edited slightly for spelling, punctuation, formatting…)
From: Nila S.
Better yet, send it to every newspaper or media outlet you know. This really nails it dead center…
Dear Mr. Weitzman,
While I respect your efforts to prevent terrorism in all its forms, your suggestion that the 9/11 Truth Movement is in any way related to terror organizations, or could foment such interests, is ridiculous and dangerous.
The 9/11 Truth Movement is a non-violent effort by thousands (if not tens of thousands) of highly respected professionals in numerous areas of expertise (and potentially millions of other concerned citizens) to demand a legitimate and impartial investigation into the events surrounding the 9/11 attacks. There are countless weaknesses, flaws, and overt misrepresentations in the official account that are painfully obvious to those who actually KNOW something about the Systems and Material science involved in building collapse, as well as the numerous suspicious activities by government and various other domestic groups to suppress and even destroy evidence involved in this crime, for reasons at this point unknown. There are far too many important questions unanswered that can be answered with a legitimate investigation, rather than simply sweep this tragic crime under the rug. Is that what you suggest we do?
And if you are suggesting that simply demanding that a woefully inadequate investigation be conducted properly can in any way be aligned with terrorism, you do so in direct conflict with everything this country was founded upon, and in direct opposition to the basic principles of the U.S. Constitution — and that IS in some circles considered a crime.
While I believe your efforts are well-meaning, I strongly request, before you promote such assumptions, that you actually INVESTIGATE for yourself the aspects of 9/11 which are questioned by these experts I mention previously, and, regardless of your conclusion, refrain from incorrectly and libelously suggesting that anyone involved in this movement has any connection to terrorist activities or threats, simply based on their opinions or completely legal efforts in this regard. In doing so you denigrate the noble work the Simon Wiesenthal Center has done in the past, and the lives of those who died over the centuries for our freedoms. The right to freely question and investigate our government at any time and about ANYTHING is critical to the survival of our freedom and this country I love.
Sincerely,
John Stevenson
California, USA
NSA Domestic Surveillance Began 7 Months Before 9/11, Convicted Qwest CEO Claims
By Ryan Singel
October 11, 2007
Did the NSA’s massive call records database program pre-date the terrorist attacks of 9/11?
That startling allegation is in court documents released this week which show that former Qwest CEO Joseph Nacchio — the head of the only company known to have turned down the NSA’s requests for Americans’ phone records — tried, unsuccessfully, to argue just that in his defense against insider trading charges.
Nacchio was sentenced to 6 years in prison in 2007 after being found guilty of illegally selling shares based on insider information that the company’s fortunes were declining. Nacchio unsuccessfully attempted to defend himself by arguing that he actually expected Qwest’s 2001 earnings to be higher because of secret NSA contracts, which, he contends, were denied by the NSA after he declined in a February 27, 2001 meeting to give the NSA customer calling records, court documents released this week show.
AT&T, Verizon and Bellsouth all agreed to turn over call records to an NSA database, according to reporting in the USA Today in 2006. At that time, Nacchio’s lawyer publicly stated that Nacchio declined to participate until served with a proper legal order.
The government has never confirmed or denied the existence of the program, but is trying to win legal immunity for telecoms being sued for their alleged participation in the call records program and the government’s warrantless wiretapping of Americans. Turning over customer records to anyone, including the government, without proper legal orders violates federal privacy laws.
CONSCRIPTED INTO A NEW WORLD ORDER By TYRANTS
By Jim R. Schwiesow
August 5, 2007
NewsWithViews.com
“A tempest of tyranny and treachery blows across the land, a mantle of suppression settles upon us with stifling weight. Demons incarnate tread upon our freedoms. Our liberties are sacrificed to gods of a new order. By their command riders of the dragon steal our dignity. The inglorious slaves of a tyrannical master smother the spirit, and the hot breath of evil pursues us and deadens our souls. No patriot deliverer lifts us from the abyss; no righteous mortal exempts us from delusional pursuits. We are damned to extinction and doomed to oblivion by the corrupt and the depraved that have, with our commendation, consigned us to a hell of the devil’s making. Such is the fate of the faint-hearted many at the hands of a perfidious few.”
In my last article, “The Setting Up Of The Devil’s Kingdom On Earth” I applied a Biblical perspective to the coming to pass of a new world order of the devil’s design. Those who are in the world, but not of the world understand that the fate of the world, and that of the United States, rests neither with the present god of this world who calls the nations his own nor with his human disciples. Though his evil falls upon us and his mentored prevail against us, he, and they, are not the arbiters of our fate, the ultimate destiny of the world, this nation, and every soul upon the earth rests with the Son of the most-high God; the creator of the heavens and the earth and of everything in and upon them.
We petition for redress of the afflictions upon us in all the wrong channels, and we look for a savior in all the wrong places. Since our pleadings are sown to the wind we reap the whirlwind. The powers that have brought these adversities upon us are not going to deliver us from that of their own making.
The tyranny that encroaches upon our liberties and steals our God-given rights is no longer being incrementally established or veiled from the conscious. The agents of a new order stand boldly before us. They flaunt their power and spit in our eye daring us to resist, and are increasingly emboldened by the cowardly response that they perceive.
Columnists write of a coming dictatorship and of a looming fascist control of our nation, they contend that the formation of the same is fast upon us. The truth is that it is already here, we are firmly clutched in the treacherous claws of an established totalitarian regime of fascist design. We just have not recognized it in its present guise. I submit that that we are under the rule of a fully established fascist consortium, a consortium with a shared commonality of mind, a consortium of agents dedicated to the final destruction of the pitiful vestiges of a once gallant Republic, a consortium of which George W. Bush is the head.
Papers, Please
Brother Elliott of Beit Shalom Ministries Arrested by Indiana Police
Today, Sunday, July 8, 2007 Brother Elliott was arrested and detained by West Terre Haute Police officers in the state of Indiana for “Failure to Identify” because he refused to show identification to Indiana law enforcement officials. I have phoned the Vigo County Jail where Brother Elliott was taken and I was told:
These actions by Indiana police are blatantly un-Constitutional. The 4th Amendment to the Constitution reads:
The right of the People to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects against unreasonable searches and seizure shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
The brothers have not broken any laws and are not suspected of committing any crimes, yet are commanded to “Show Your Papers!” by Indiana law enforcement or be subject to arrest and persecution. This police state mentality from those who serve us, must not go unchallenged. Please take the time to voice your opinion by politely calling the following Indiana state agencies.
West Terre Haute Police Department
812.533.2114
Vigo County Sheriff’s Department
812.462.3226
Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels
317-232-4567
Indiana House of Representatives
(800) 382-9842
Indiana Senate
(800) 382-9467
Indiana Attorney General Steve Carter
317-232-6201
UPDATE: Brother Elliott has produced his papers and has been released by the Vigo County Jail and has a court appearance on Monday, July 9th. After being released, and upon inspection of their private property, the brothers learned that Indiana law enforcement had tampered with, and destroyed personal property and evidence relating to this case. As my listeners know, Beit Shalom Ministries has been documenting their Denver to D.C. Walk for Truth on video. Indiana law enforcement seized a video camera belonging to Beit Shalom Ministries, rewound the tape to the beginning of their confrontation with the brothers, placed the lens cap on the lens, and hit the record button, thereby destroying valuable documentary footage and possible evidence in any future legal action.
UPDATE: Brother Elliott has produced his papers and has been released by the Vigo County Jail and has a court appearance on Monday, July 9th.
UPDATE 2: Elliott and Raymond have just retrieved their video camera, to find that the incident, which had been entirely caught on tape, is no longer recorded. Rather, the time is filled with black silence. A hearing has been scheduled for tomorrow morning. If Elliott pleads not guilty, the judge will hear the case at that time.
FINAL UPDATE: 7/9 2:15 CDT: This email message just in from Brother Raymond:
“Once again I hope people see that what we are doing is not illegal. This morning the County Attorney dismissed all charges against Elliott because the Police actions were unconstitutional. As the neo-cons would say as they enslave and destroy Iraq, freedom isn’t free and if we desire to have liberty in this country it is only through people being willing to suffer for the truth. Thank you for your prayers. Shalom, Brother Raymond.”
