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Dead Constitution See other Dead Constitution Articles Title: Congress Authorizes Unlimited Spying on US Citizens Congress Authorizes Unlimited Spying on US Citizens by Stephen Lendman Merriam-Webster call police states "political unit(s) characterized by repressive governmental control of political, economic, and social life usually by an arbitrary exercise of power by police and especially secret police in place of regular operation of administrative and judicial organs of the government according to publicly known legal procedures." Police state ruthlessness defines today's America. Affirmed by congressional legislation. Executive order diktats. So called National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directives. NSPD-51 lets presidents claim national emergencies. Whether or not warranted. Declare martial law. Suspend constitutional protections. Without congressional authorization. Continuity of government (COG) authority gives presidents and homeland security unprecedented powers. Free from constitutional constraints. Patriot Act legislation compromised First Amendment rights. Fifth and 14th Amendment due process protection is lost. Indefinite detentions of undocumented immigrants are authorized. Now affecting anyone anywhere. Including targeted law abiding US citizens. Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable searches and seizures is gone. Unchecked surveillance was authorized. More on this below. Sixth Amendment rights guaranteeing defendants fair trials without delay are lost. Eighth Amendment prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment no longer applies. Domestic terrorism criminality was created for the first time. Broadening the definition. Affecting US citizens and aliens. Attempts to influence government policy by whatever Washington calls "intimidation or coercion" is now called terrorism. Endangering human rights workers. Anti-war and environmental activists. Global justice advocates. Anyone engaging in justifiable civil disobedience. Or publicly criticizing government policy. Homeland Security is America's Gestapo. Combining 22 federal agencies. Under one repressive authority. Creating unprecedented executive powers. Police state ones. A dagger in freedom's heart. For the first time, America was officially militarized. Troops may be deployed on US streets. Suppressing whatever is called disorder. Earlier permitted only in times of insurrection or justifiable national emergencies. No longer. Presidents can operate ad libitum. By diktat authority. Mocking checks and balances. Eviscerating democratic freedoms. Consigned to history's dustbin. Anyone can be targeted for any reason or none at all. Detained. Held indefinitely. Uncharged. Untried. Denied fundamental international law/constitutionally protected rights. Obama presides over a police state apparatus. Things go from bad to worse. Big Brother watches everyone. Now more than ever. In May, House members passed HR 4681: Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2015. By a 345 - 59 majority. A Senate amendment required revoting. Passage followed. By a 325 - 100 majority. On Tuesday, Senate members passed the bill unanimously. By voice vote. House members intended the same. Rep. Justin Amash (R. MI) intervened. Attempted an 11th hour effort to block passage. Concerned about Section 309. Authorizing "the acquisition, retention and dissemination" of private communications. Including those of US citizens. Without judicial authorization. Giving them to state and local police departments. For criminal or other investigations. Amash called the measure "(o)ne of the most egregious sections of law I've encountered during my time as a representative." Saying "(i)t grants the executive branch virtually unlimited access to the communications of every American." On his Facebook page, he posted the following for his colleagues, constituents and others, saying: "When I learned that the Intelligence Authorization Act for FY 2015 was being rushed to the floor for a vote - with little debate and only a voice vote expected (i.e., simply declared 'passed' with almost nobody in the room) - I asked my legislative staff to quickly review the bill for unusual language." "What they discovered is one of the most egregious sections of law I've encountered during my time as a representative: It grants the executive branch virtually unlimited access to the communications of every American." "On Wednesday afternoon, I went to the House floor to demand a roll call vote on the bill so that everyone's vote would have to be recorded. I also sent the letter below to every representative." "With more time to spread the word, we would have stopped this bill, which passed 325-100. Thanks to the 99 other representatives - 44 Republicans and 55 Democrats - who voted to protect our rights and uphold the Constitution. And thanks to my incredibly talented staff." Amash's letter was as follows: "Block New Spying on U.S. Citizens: Vote 'NO' on H.R. 4681 Dear Colleague: The intelligence reauthorization bill, which the House will vote on today, contains a troubling new provision that for the first time statutorily authorizes spying on US citizens without legal process. Last night, the Senate passed an amended version of the intelligence reauthorization bill with a new Sec. 309 - one the House never has considered. Sec. 309 authorizes 'the acquisition, retention, and dissemination' of nonpublic communications, including those to and from US persons. The section contemplates that those private communications of Americans, obtained without a court order, may be transferred to domestic law enforcement for criminal investigations." To be clear, Sec. 309 provides the first statutory authority for the acquisition, retention, and dissemination of US persons’ private communications obtained without legal process such as a court order or a subpoena. The administration currently may conduct such surveillance under a claim of executive authority, such as E.O. 12333. However, Congress never has approved of using executive authority in that way to capture and use Americans’ private telephone records, electronic communications, or cloud data. Supporters of Sec. 309 claim that the provision actually reins in the executive branch’s power to retain Americans’ private communications. It is true that Sec. 309 includes exceedingly weak limits on the executive’s retention of Americans’ communications. With many exceptions, the provision requires the executive to dispose of Americans’ communications within five years of acquiring them - although, as HPSCI admits, the executive branch already follows procedures along these lines. In exchange for the data retention requirements that the executive already follows, Sec. 309 provides a novel statutory basis for the executive branch’s capture and use of Americans’ private communications. The Senate inserted the provision into the intelligence reauthorization bill late last night. That is no way for Congress to address the sensitive, private information of our constituents - especially when we are asked to expand our government’s surveillance powers. I urge you to join me in voting 'no' on H.R. 4681, the intelligence reauthorization bill, when it comes before the House today. Justin Amash Member of Congress" HR 4681 expands bogus war on terror powers. Police state ones writ large. Ones just societies prohibit. What America prioritizes. Waging war on freedom. Eroding it in plain sight. Heading toward eliminating it altogether. With bipartisan support. Expect Obama to sign HR 4681 into law. Increasing his power. Taking full advantage. Political philosopher Montesquieu (1689 - 1755) once said: "There is no greater tyranny than that which is perpetrated under the shield of law and in the name of justice." Edmund Burke (1729 - 1797) said "(t)he only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." Jefferson said "law is often but the tyrant's will, and always when it violates the rights of the individual." "A Bill of Rights is what people are entitled to against every government," he explained. Justice Louis Brandeis said "(w)e can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both." Justice William O. Douglas said "(t)he liberties of none are safe unless the liberties of all are protected." Justice William J Brennan, Jr called liberty "a fragile thing. You can't give up" fighting for what's right. In a mid-1980s speech he said: "We do not yet have justice, equal and practical, for the poor, for the members of minority groups, for the criminally accused, for the displaced persons of the technological revolution, for alienated youth, for the urban masses." "Ugly inequities continue to mar the face of our nation. We are surely nearer the beginning than the end of the struggle." Liberty is too precious to lose. Keeping it requires commitment. No matter how long the odds. Or sacrifices made. The alternative is too intolerable to accept. Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. His new book as editor and contributor is titled "Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III." http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com. Listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network. It airs three times weekly: live on Sundays at 1PM Central time plus two prerecorded archived programs. Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest
#1. To: Stephen Lendman (#0)
So the solution is??? We can be spied on, or we can choose to not be spied on. Good bye cell phones and internets. "Call Me Ishmael" -Ishmael, A character from the book "Moby Dick" 1851. "Call Me Fishmeal" -Osama Bin Laden, A character created by the CIA, and the world's Hide And Seek Champion 2001-2011. -Tommythemadartist
The fat Katz sitting in the smoke filled back rooms of the super banks around the world have tears running down their caviar filled jowls from laughing at the masses inability to do anything about this sort of spying crap. Unable to discard Facebook, or Google, people around the world have allowed their addiction to social gossip unfettered freedom, damn the spies, full speed ahead. I think that every time we discover a company that builds destructive items to be used against Americans we should destroy them. "I do not ask that you place hands upon the tyrant to topple him over, but simply that you support him no longer; then you will behold him, like a great Colossus whose pedestal has been pulled away, fall of his own weight and break in pieces.". Étienne de La Boétie
We can be spied on, or we can choose to not be spied on. Good bye cell phones and internets. Funny how the tools of liberty also become the weapons of oppressionary entities, isn't it.
They were never our tools to begin with. I do not have facebook. I do not use e-mail often. I only post on this forum. My footprint on the internet is very small. I have grown to absolutely loathe this government and all who are in it for the simple fact that the same policies and even more stringent legislation were passed, that were decried under the 8 years of Bush. I have said ad nauseum, that the legislation passed that abridges liberty is not for the administration that passes it, but for the next administration so that when it is enforced, people will look on the previous administration with longing. Remember all of the patriot act stuff was actually written under Clinton. We the citizens are watching our borders stay wide open, while terrorists are supposedly trying to kill us. Our nation bitches about how we don't have any money and have to borrow from China, yet our porous borders are the reason we are trillions in the hole. Let's not even talk about Israel, or any of the other foreign aid we have pissed away over the last 50 years that nobody has paid us back on. The government does not represent you, or your interests. It doesn't even represent the United States or the Constitution. It's an illusion of governance. It is the ultimate fiction. The only way to fix the problems we have in this country, are the same solutions brave men used in 1776. Period. But this time, We hang not only the politicians, but the bankers, the lawyers, and the dual citizenship crowd who have betrayed us since 1913. "Call Me Ishmael" -Ishmael, A character from the book "Moby Dick" 1851. "Call Me Fishmeal" -Osama Bin Laden, A character created by the CIA, and the world's Hide And Seek Champion 2001-2011. -Tommythemadartist
The government does not represent you, or your interests. It doesn't even represent the United States or the Constitution. It's an illusion of governance. It is the ultimate fiction. very well articulated, Tommy To question is to value the ideal of truth more highly than the loyalties to nation, religion, race, or ideology.
Agree with that. I will say however that the internet and youtube has contributed greatly to the waking up of those that might listen. It has only been over what, the last ten years or so, that anyone could post a recently created video to the internet and have billions be able to view it worldwide. In our former world we were spoon fed what "news"/propaganda that the PTB wanted us to imbibe via their preordained outlets of choice all with bought gatekeepers. I hadn't realized that the Patriot Act was written prior to the W administration. Then again, most of this stuff has been on the books as it were. Just goes to show us how little who's actually in office really matters. I mean had Obama not been in there now, they'd simply have been pushing another side of the overall agenda, but this is why the "left v. right" thing works like a charm, because both sides look the other way when the Constitution and liberty are usurped when it's for reasons in their ideological political portfolios. This also why, amidst the charade of opposite ideologies between the two parties, nothing ever gets reversed or undone when the other takes control, which should be an enormous red flag for anyone that isn't off in La La Land. eg, will the next GOP pres undo Obamacare? Clearly not. That would go against his/her master's wishes.
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