Campaign Spending and States' Rights

Last Hours for Montana

by JAMES MARC LEAS

 

Never, never, never. That appears to be the word from Montana Attorney General Steve Bullock as he charges toward judgment day on Thursday June 21 at the US Supreme Court with no assertion of Montana’s sovereign immunity, its best defense against summary reversal. The case came before the Supreme Court conference last Thursday but was held for further consideration at the Supreme Court conference this Thursday, giving Bullock one more chance. The Montana case is a state-level replay of Citizens United. The corporations suing Montana want the Supreme Court to grant review and then immediately issue a one-line decision summarily reversing the Montana Supreme Court decision upholding Montana’s Corrupt Practices Act that outlaws the kind of private money in elections in Montana that is flooding elections elsewhere.

But the clock is ticking down. When the Court closes its doors Wednesday night, Montana’s last best hope to file a motion asserting sovereign immunity under the 11^th Amendment–an action that would effectively void any risk of summary reversal–comes to an end, as described in an article “Montana Citizens United Case Hanging in the Balance.” Any exception to 11th Amendment immunity because a case originated in state court has been overturned, as illustrated by a 2011 Supreme Court decision.

On Thursday, the nine US Supreme Court justices meet in conference to give final consideration to this case. A New York Times article suggested that acceptance of this “historic” case for review and immediate summary reversal will be the likely result. Immediate summary reversal means a decision reversing the Montana Supreme Court decision and ending the case without any briefs, without any hearing, and without its day in court for Montana. In three recent cases the Supreme Court accepted cases and then summarily reversed in a five vote decision.

Some liberal Democrats play down any form of states’s right. But Steve Bullock appears to have made a fundamentalist religion of opposing state sovereign immunity in this case. No matter the extreme facts and how compelling the argument is to use it. And no matter the potential cost to election integrity in Montana and to the country as a whole.

Not so for other attorneys general. For example, in my state of Vermont, Attorney General Bill Sorrell listed sovereign immunity among the affirmative defenses in his response to the 2011 federal court suit against Vermont state officials by Entergy Corporation, which is seeking to keep our aging and leaking Fukushima-type nuclear power plant operating.

But the Vermont Yankee case presents not nearly as strong an argument for denying federal jurisdiction as does Montana’s case. The Montana case is so important, and the facts are so extreme, that all parts of the political spectrum can join in supporting state sovereign immunity in this case. And they can do so without any risk of adverse consequences to other vitally important issues because none of those issues have anywhere near the extreme features the Montana case has.

Two amicus briefs to the US Supreme Court filed by public interest organizations supporting Montana describe how the five most conservative justices on the US Supreme Court, led by Justice Anthony Kennedy, laid out the stringent conditions under which sovereign immunity can trump an individual or corporate suit against state officials in federal court.  If the real party in interest is the state itself, rather than the state officials, then the 11^th Amendment by its express terms prohibits the Supreme Court from taking jurisdiction over the suit. The state is the real party in interest when fundamental sovereignty interests of the state or the state treasury would be put at risk if the private or corporate party prevails. Another key factor is whether an alternate way exists, such as for the United States Government to defend its interest in enforcing federal law against the state. All of these line up in the Montana case, as described in the two amicus briefs and in the article, “Montana Citizens United Case Hanging in the Balance.”

First, the words of Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer summarize the sovereign legitimacy interests at stake in this suit: “This business of allowing corporations to bribe their way into government has got to stop.” Governor Schweitzer also said, “This is our government and we are not going to allow any corporation to steal it from us.”

Second, concern that defending states rights in this case would affect immigrant rights in Arizona, and race, gender, labor, and civil and political rights elsewhere does not apply. Just the opposite. In cases involving such rights, either Congress has already passed laws abrogating state’s immunity under the 11^th Amendment, or, as in the Arizona case, the United States Government has brought the action to force the state to comply with the Constitution. In the Montana case, Congress has not passed a law requiring the states to obey Citizens United or requiring states to defend themselves in federal court against private suits seeking to overturn state laws restricting money in elections. Nor has the Executive Branch brought suit against the state. Until one of those two things happens Montana should be immune under the 11^th Amendment from any corporate suit seeking to overturn its Corrupt Practices Act.

By taking a fundamentalist position against even asserting Montana’s 11^th Amendment right not to be sued in federal court Steve Bullock is putting Montana’s 100-year-old anti-corruption law at risk. Bullock is putting even more at risk, for if Montana prevails against the corporate bullies and raiders, Montana sets a template for all the states to free themselves from rule by self-dealing private corporations and plutocrats.

Montana AG Steve Bullock has just hours left to reconsider and to file a one page conditional motion with the US Supreme Court saying that Montana wishes to assert its defense of sovereign immunity under the 11^th Amendment if the Court decides to accept the case. His motion can include the request that the Court consider whether it has jurisdiction in view of Montana sovereign immunity before making any decision–including summary reversal–on the merits.

Montana could mention the previous cases in which the Supreme Court decided that jurisdiction can be raised at any stage of the proceedings and that jurisdiction is the first thing to be decided–before any decision on the merits, including summary reversal. This way Montana can avoid the heavy risk of summary reversal. Montana should assert its sovereign immunity right today, as the last day it can approaches, or the nation and Montana voters can forever wonder why it did not.

Citizens United Revisited? Buckle Up, Chief Justice Roberts

Saturday, February 18, 2012 by Common Dreams
by Josh Silver

On Friday night, the U.S. Supreme Court blocked the Montana Supreme Court's December, 2011 decision upholding the state's century-old ban on corporate political spending. The implications of this are huge, as it paves the way for a potential re-opening of the disastrous Citizens United decision that has spawned billionaire-sponsored super PACs. And if that happens, Chief Justice John Roberts better buckle up for a grassroots mobilization unlike any the court has seen in years.

Friday's decision was in response to a request by the American Tradition Partnership (ATP) to reverse the Montana ruling. ATP -- a conservative group that that says it fights "the radical environmentalist agenda" -- has six weeks to formally ask the Supreme Court to review the case. If they don't, the Montana ban on corporate spending will stand.

Since the Citizens United ruling over two years ago, millions of dollars have flowed from the super-rich and corporations to elect or defeat candidates. A handful of billionaires have manipulated election outcomes in a matter of days, buying vicious ads through super PACs that candidates pretend are independent from their own campaigns -- while their former colleagues and pals run those PACs. As Ari Berman wrote in The Huffington Post: some 196 individual donors have provided nearly 80 percent of the money raised by super PACs in 2011 by giving $100,000 or more each. Secret donors using 501C4's have purchased 40 percent of total GOP primary ads with no disclosure of who is signing the checks.

The Supreme Court justified Citizens United by ruling that super PACs do not allow corruption or the appearance of corruption.

Webster's dictionary defines corruption: "Impairment of integrity, virtue, or moral principle, inducement to wrong by improper or unlawful means (as bribery); a departure from the original or from what is pure or correct."

If our current campaign finance system isn't corrupt, what is? A handful of billionaires can decide who the next president will be. If our Supreme Court doesn't find that corrupt, or at least creating the appearance of corruption, then they are using a very different dictionary than the rest of America; one shape-shifted solely to consolidate power into the hands of the super-rich, the rest of us be damned.

From Occupy on the left to the Tea Party on the right, conservatives and liberals agree that crony capitalism is out of control, and is central to our nations myriad problems: banking, energy, jobs, health care... you name it. The people are mad as hell, and they're not going to take it any more.

And if the court takes up Citizens United again, you can be sure the American people won't sit quietly with their hands folded while the high court deliberates. They're going to shake the bars of the prison that our democracy has become, and demand a ruling that protects ordinary people, not plutocrats.

The Movement to Overturn Citizens United Swamps the Internet

Montana High Court Says 'Citizens United' Does Not Apply In Big Sky State

State Supreme Court Issues Remarkable Ruling Against Corporate Speech 

By Steven Rosenfeld, AlterNet
Posted on January 1, 2012

Montana’s Supreme Court has issued a stunning rebuke to the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision in 2010 that infamously decreed corporations had constitutional rights to directly spend money on ‘independent expenditures’ in campaigns.

The Montana Court vigorously upheld the state’s right to regulate how corporations can raise and spend money after a secretive Colorado corporation, Western Tradition Partnership, and a Montana sportsman’s group and local businessman sued to overturn a 1912 state law banning direct corporate spending on electoral campaigns.

“Organizations like WTP that act as a conduit for anonymously spending by others represent a threat to the political marketplace,” wrote Mike McGrath, Chief Justice of the Montana Supreme Court, for the majority. “Clearly the impact of unlimited corporate donations creates a dominating impact on the political process and inevitably minimizes the impact of individual citizens.”

The 80-page ruling is remarkable in many respects. Throughout, including in a lengthy dissent by a state Supreme Court justice who felt Montana was dutibound to abide by the U.S. Supreme Court ruling, the Montana Court attacked the thinking behind the Citizens United decision and the impact of big money in political culture, including the notion that corporations are deserving of the same political speech rights as citizens.

“While, as a member of this Court, I am bound to follow Citizens United, I do not have to agree with the [U.S.] Supreme Court’s decision,” wrote Justice James C. Nelson, in his dissent. “And, to be absolutely clear, I do not agree with it. For starters, the notion that corporations are disadvantaged in the political realm is unbelievable. Indeed, it has astounded most Americans. The truth is that corporations wield enormous power in Congress and in state legislatures. It is hard to tell where government ends and corporate America begins: the transition is seamless and overlapping.”

“It should be noted that the Montana Corrupt Practices Act was adopted in 1912 at a time when the country’s focus was on preventing political corruption, not on protecting corporate influence,” wrote Nelson, later in his dissent.

Western Tradition Partnership
The lead group that sued to overturn the Montana ban on direct corporate spending in campaigns followed a very deliberate course of clashing with virtually every aspect of Montana campaign finance law. The lawyers behind the litigation believe that they should face no limits or accountabililty for any political fund-raising or spending.

The Montana Supreme Court’s majority opinion described why Western Tradition Partnership was as slippery an organization as one finds in modern politics. They noted how the groups lawyers claimed that they should be allowed to spend freely because the group would have to disclose that activity under Montana law, when as the state’s Chief Justice noted in his opinion, the same group, using another name, actually had sued the state to overturn those very disclosure laws.

Moreover, the ruling quoted a fund-raising brochure that said, “If you decide to support this program, no politician, no bureaucrat, and no radical environmentalist will ever know you made this program possible.” The group also is involved in a third suit challenging the state’s campaign spending disclosure law.

“We take note that Western Tradition appears to be engaged in a multi-front attack on both contribution restrictions and the transparency that accompanies campaign disclosure requirements,” the Court said, adding in a footnote that the Montana Commissioner of Political Practices called the group a “sham” because it failed to register with the state, and refused to disclose the sources of its funds or its spending—as required by law.

Rebutting Citizens United
Lawyers attacking the Montana ban on direct corporate spending said the U.S. Supreme Court in its 2010 Citizens United ruling removed any barrier to corporate spending. But the Montana Supreme Court disagreed and took a more nuanced view.

The U.S. Supreme Court in Citizens United found there was no compelling reason why a non-profit corporation that produced an anti-Hillary Clinton video should be prevented from showing that video in the weeks before Election Day—as a new federal campaign law had banned. But the Citizens United ruling did not remove all bans on corporate speech, the Montana Court said. “The Supreme Court held that laws that burden political speech are subject to strict scrutiny, which requires the government to prove that the law furthers a compelling state interest and is narrowly tailored to that interest.”

The Montana Court then launched into detailed explanations of sufficiently compelling state interests to merit sustaining the century-old law. The majority opinion read like a history lesson that recounting how the state, especially in the decades following its founding in 1889, struggled to restrict the power and influence of mining corporations. In 1906, the citizenry amended the state Constitution to allow for ballot initiatives. Six years later it passed the ban on corporate spending, specifically to curb mining companies based in Butte. The Court noted that the state—then and now—was beset with corporate players whose money, power and influence easily overshadow individuals.

“What was true a century ago is as true today: distant corporate interests mean that corporate dominated campaigns will only work ‘in the essential interest of outsiders with local interests a very secondary consideration,’” the opinion said, quoting a historian’s testimony from a lower state court that reviewed the case. “While specific corporate interests come and go in Montana, they are always present.”

The Court said Montana had a political tradition that has emerged in intervening decades and they wanted Montana to remain a state where candidates run low-budget, personal campaigns and do not rely on anonymous, well-financed messaging from outsiders.

The Court pointed out that judicial elections were particularly vulnerable to anonymous spending by large corporations. Montana’s 2008 Chief Justice race had advertising from all candidates costing about $60,000, it noted. “It is clear that an entity like Massey Coal, willing to spend even hundreds of thousands of dollars, much less millions, on a Montana judicial election could effectively drown out all other voices.”

These various factors—a history of citizenry fighting corporate corruption, political traditions of low-budget campaigning, and the vulnerability of judicial elections to corporate spending—were sufficiently compelling, the Court said, to preserve the century-old ban on corporate spending in the face of the Citizens United ruling.

“The question then, is when in the last 99 years did Montana lose the power or interest sufficient to support the statute, if it ever did,” the majority said. “We think not. Issues of corporate influence, sparse population, dependence upon agriculture and extractive resource development, location as a transportation corridor, and low campaign costs make Montana especially vulnerable to continued efforts of corporate control to the detriment of democracy and the republican form of government.”

Concluding, the Court said that the sportsman’s group and businessman who sued to overturn the law were not prohibited from participating in politics by the ban on direct corporate spending. And it said Western Tradition Partnership could follow the same rules as anyone else. “WTP can still speak through its own political committee/PAC as hundreds of organizations in Montana do on an ongoing basis,” the Court said. “The difference then is that under Montana law the PAC has to comply with Montana’s disclosure and reporting laws.”

There is little doubt that the anonymous money behind Western Tradition Partnership will appeal the Montana Supreme Court ruling in federal court—and even seek to take the case to the U.S. Supreme Court. However, even it it does that, the ruling issued Friday by Montana’s Supreme Court will endure as a monumental defense of a state’s right to curb political corruption and the excesses of big-money politics.

Corruption and Corporate Personhood
Justice Nelson, who dissented because he believed that the state had to follow the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling, concluded by fervently disagreeing with the assumptions behind the Citizens United ruling, starting with the Roberts Court’s assumption that spending large sums in campaigns was not inherently corrupting.

Nelson said independent expenditures by corporations in political campaigns—where political players are not supposed to coordinate their actions with candidate campaigns—absolutely were noticed and influenced the lawmaking process. “In the real world of politics,” he wrote, “the “quid pro quo” of both direct contributions to candidates and independent expenditures on their behalf is loyalty. And, in practical effect, experience teaches us that money corrupts, and enough of it corrupts absolutely.”

Nelson closed by slamming the legal theory of corporate personhood—that corporations, because they are run and owned by people, should have the same constitutional freedoms as individuals under the Bill of Rights. Corporatist judges, such as the Roberts Court, believe that corporations and people are indistinguishable under the law. In contrast, constitutional conservatives know very well that the framers of the U.S. Constitution distrusted large economic enterprises and drafted a document to protect individual businessmen, farmers and tradespeople from economic exploitation.

“While I recognize that this doctrine is firmly entrenched in law,” Nelson began, “I find the concept entirely offensive. Corporations are artificial creatures of law. As such, they should enjoy only those powers—not constitutional rights, but legislatively-conferred powers—that are concomitant with their legitimate function, that being limited liability investment vehicles for business. Corporations are not persons. Human beings are persons, and it is an affront to the inviolable dignity of our species that courts have created a legal fiction which forces people—human beings—to share fundamental natural rights with soulless creations of government. Worse still, while corporations and human beings share many of the same rights under the law, they clearly are not bound equally to the same codes of good conduct, decency, and morality, and they are not held equally accountable for their sins. Indeed, it is truly ironic that the death penalty and hell are reserved only to natural persons.”

As Nelson said, ending his dissent, “the [U.S.] Supreme Court has spoken. It has interpreted the protections of the First Amendment vis-a-vis corporate political speech. Agree with its decision or not, Montana’s judiciary and elected officers are bound to accept and enforce the [U.S.] Supreme Court’s ruling…”

But the Montana Supreme Court has also spoken—and with a clarity that is rare to behold.

*****

(Bravo, Montana Supreme Court. And thank you! I hope other state courts will follow suit.--jef)

Defense Act Affirms Indefinite Detention of US Citizens

Friday, December 30, 2011 by Inter Press Service

by Matthew Cardinale 

 

ATLANTA, Georgia - Civil liberties groups and many citizen activists are outraged over language in the National Defense Authorization Act of 2011 (NDAA) that appears to lay the legal groundwork for indefinite detention of U.S. citizens without trial.

David Gespass, president of the National Lawyers Guild, called it an "enormous attack on the U.S. and our heritage" and a "significant step" towards fascism, in an interview with IPS.

"For a very long time the U.S. has been moving towards what I personally think of as fascist - the integration of monopoly capital with state power, that's combined with an increased repression at home and greater aggression around the world. I don't think we're there yet, but I do see that we're going in that direction," Gespass said. "I think the... act is a significant step in that direction."

"It's quite severe. If this continues, people will not be able to count on constitutional protections at all," Debra Sweet, national director of the group World Can't Wait, told IPS.

Subtitle D of the act contains several controversial provisions on indefinite detention of terrorism suspects.

The executive branch - starting with the George W. Bush administration shortly after Sept. 11, 2001 - began indefinitely detaining terrorism suspects without trial at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
When those detentions were challenged in the courts, the federal government argued that the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), passed by the U.S. Congress on Sep. 18, 2001, allowed for the detentions to occur. In 2004, the Supreme Court agreed in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld.

"I know a lot of people who voted in favour of it (AUMF) back then didn't think they voted in favor of what ended up happening, but what it said is the president is authorized (to do) whatever is necessary," Gespass said. "The language as I recall it is not at all restrictive."

The current language in the NDAA seeks to legislatively affirm that the U.S. has the right to detain people, even though the courts already ruled, at least in the case of Hamdi, a prisoner captured during armed conflict in Afghanistan, that it already has that power.

Section 1021 defines who can be detained by the military.

The definition of "covered persons" under the provision includes not only those who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2011, but also "a person who was a part of or substantially supported al-Qaeda, the Taliban, or associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners, including anyone who has committed a belligerent act or has directly supported such hostilities in aid of such enemy forces."

Critics say problems with this language include the vagueness of the terms "substantial support", "belligerent act", or "directly supported".

Moreover, because the act allows for individuals suspected of support or belligerence to be held indefinitely without trial - until the end of the "war on terror", which could be never - there could be no opportunities for these individuals to challenge the vagueness of the charges against them.

Section 1021(e) says the act does not alter any rights of U.S. citizens, meaning that the Bill of Rights of the Constitution remains "intact." It might be up to the courts, however, to eventually determine whether the application of these NDAA provisions to a U.S. citizen would be constitutional.

However, if they are being detained indefinitely with no lawyer, then how does anyone know they are there, to appeal to the civilian courts on their behalf?

Another section says "the requirement to detain a person in military custody under this section does not extend to citizens of the United States". It does not say military custody is not an option; merely that it is not required.

The NDAA, as negotiated between the U.S. House and Senate, passed the U.S. House 283-136 on Dec. 14. It passed the U.S. Senate, in a vote of 86 to 13, on Dec. 15, with both Democrats and Republicans among those opposing it.

The bill was presented to President Barack Obama on Dec. 21 and signed Dec. 31, 2011.

However, numerous members of Congress have raised concerns.

Prior to its passage, on Dec. 12, Representatives Hank Johnson, Martin Heinrich and 30 others sent a letter to the chairs and ranking members of the U.S. House and Senate's respective Armed Services Committees.

They expressed their opposition to "an expansive authorization for detention of and use of military force against broadly defined adversaries substantially exceeding the scope of such authorizations already in law."

"The expanded authority has no geographical limits, provides authority for open-ended armed conflict, and is unacceptably broad," they wrote.

The NDAA "authorizes indefinite military detention of suspected terrorists without protecting U.S. citizens' right to trial," they wrote.
"We are deeply concerned that this provision could undermine the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, and Eighth amendment rights of U.S. citizens who might be subjects of detention or prosecution by the military," they wrote.

On Dec. 15, Senator Dianne Feinstein introduced the Due Process Guarantee Act of 2011 (DPGA), with 15 co-sponsors.

This legislation states, "An authorization to use military force, a declaration of war, or any similar authority shall not authorize the detention without charge or trial of a citizen or lawful permanent resident of the United States apprehended in the United States, unless an Act of Congress expressly authorizes such detention."

A companion piece was introduced in the U.S. House on Dec. 16; it has 29 co-sponsors.

Meanwhile, in Montana, activists have begun an effort to recall their entire Congressional delegation for supporting the NDAA.

Missoulians Are Fighting to Overturn 'Citizens United' -- And You Can, Too

By Jim Hightower, Other Words
Posted on December 19, 2011

In November's elections, the national media gave extensive coverage to a proposed "personhood amendment" to Mississippi's state constitution. This extremist, anti-choice ballot initiative declared that a person's life begins not at birth, but at the very instant that a sperm meets the egg.

However, extending full personhood to two-cell zygotes was too far out even for many of Mississippi's anti-choice voters, so the proposition was voted down.

Meanwhile, the national media paid no attention to another "personhood" vote that took place on that same day. This was a referendum in Missoula, Montana on a concept even more bizarre than declaring zygotes to be persons with full citizenship rights.

It was a vote on overturning last year's democracy-killing decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in the now-infamous Citizens United case. A narrow, five-man majority had decreed that — abracadabra — lifeless, soulless corporations are henceforth persons with human political rights.

Moreover, said the five justices, these tongueless entities must be allowed to "speak" by dumping unlimited sums of their corporate cash into our election campaigns, thus giving them a far bigger voice than us real-life persons.

Missoulians, of course, cannot single-handedly overrule the Supremes, but they can be at the forefront of a grassroots movement demanding a constitutional amendment to reverse the high Court's perverse ruling.

And that's just what Missoulians did, with a whopping 75 percent of voters calling on Congress to send such an amendment to the states for prompt ratification.

We can all be Missoulians. People in California, Colorado, Maine, Vermont, Wisconsin, and elsewhere are pushing such resolutions. For information on how to get your city and state to join in this call, visit this website: www.wethepeoplecampaign.org/toolkit.

Cops For Sale

The New Praetorian Guard

by GEORGE OCHENSKI

 

Alarms went off when it was revealed that the armed forces of the United States were using increasing numbers of private contractors to provide everything from transportation to security in war zones around the globe.

Those alarms clanged louder when the indiscriminate slaughtering of unarmed Iraqi civilians by the notorious security firm formerly known as Blackwater were exposed.

Now, the war has come home as wealthy private corporations hire not only security firms, but also public law enforcement officers to ensure that the riff-raff, formerly known as citizens of the U.S., stay out of the way of their money-making schemes and political manipulations.

The Praetorian Guard was established by the emperors of Rome to ensure that neither citizens nor disgruntled military units could harm them. While it may have made sense at first, the story soon changed as the Praetorians became less of a security force to protect Rome’s rulers than hired killers for those who could afford them.

Now a new and dangerous Praetorian Guard is emerging in the U.S. What makes it even worse is that our new Praetorians are not simply hired killers like Blackwater, but officers of public police forces whose salaries and pensions are provided by taxpayers until such time as they are needed by those with the wealth to hire them for private purposes.

If that sounds far-fetched, consider the actions of the “white shirts” I mentioned in last week’s column, in the ongoing Occupy Wall Street protests. A New York City policeman wearing a white shirt, which is supposed to differentiate supervisors from the blue-uniformed line officers, walked up to several women who were already corralled in a police barricade and blasted them in their faces with pepper spray. The women collapsed screaming in pain as the officer who sprayed them turned away smiling.

Shortly after that incident, it was revealed that JP Morgan Chase, one of Wall Street’s most powerful players, had donated $4.6 million to the New York City Police Foundation, the largest such donation ever. JP Morgan Chase CEO and Chairman Jamie Dimon could not have been more revealing, saying, “These officers put their lives on the line every day to keep us safe. We’re incredibly proud to help them build this program and let them know how much we value their hard work.”

The donation is supposed to pay for 1,000 new patrol car laptops and security monitoring software for the NYPD main data center. Surely such a donation couldn’t buy off the cops, could it?

Consider that last week’s column also noted that 700 citizens were arrested trying to cross the Brooklyn Bridge. Where were they headed? To protest in the Chase Manhattan Plaza.

Maybe the donation and the arrests aren’t connected. But if you believe that, perhaps you’d be interested in buying that bridge.

There’s no need for speculation as to whether those with enough money can buy public police protection. They can. In a program started by former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani called the “Paid Detail Unit,” private corporations can hire New York City policemen to protect their interests for a mere $37 per hour each, with a 10 percent “administrative fee” paid directly to the police department.

According to a recent CounterPunch article by Pam Martens, not only do these hired cops get to carry guns and handcuffs, they also have the authority to arrest citizens at the behest of the private wealth that hired them. In 2010, corporations such as Goldman Sachs, the World Financial Center and the New York Stock Exchange spent almost $12 million doing just that.
 
There’s no need to look to the East Coast, though, when we have examples right here at home.

Remember those mega-loads Exxon Mobil wanted to ship through Idaho and Montana on narrow, two-lane roads? Guess whom they hired to ensure that no protestors barred their way?

Our own Montana Highway Patrol.

Like most Montanans, I’ve always respected our Highway Patrol officers. So how is it that they are now for hire by anyone with the money to do so, and they can sweep the citizens who normally pay their wages out of the way of private corporations?

Exxon Mobil is “required to pay for a two-car safety escort by the Montana Highway Patrol,” the Missoulian noted recently. Yet the corporations aren’t even required to tell the Highway Patrol before they move their loads. “‘To be honest, we’re kind of lost, too,’” Montana Highway patrol Sgt. Jason Holdenstab told the paper. Holdenstab, based in Helena, is in charge of scheduling the safety escorts. “I’m at the mercy of [transport company Mammoet] when they send me a schedule,” he said.

Having our Highway Patrol “at the mercy” of a mega-corporation doesn’t sound like a very good idea.

Nor does getting beaten, gassed or arrested by privately hired cops.

But that’s the state of America today, as the new Praetorian Guard emerges to stand between citizens and the corporations who plunder them. And the silence from our political leaders is deafening.

Medical-pot users fuming over ATF’s gun-sale ban

By Valerie Richardson

The Washington Times

Thursday, October 6, 2011 

DENVER — You can have your gun, or you can have your medical marijuana. But the Obama administration now says you can’t have both.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is in the crosshairs for a recent memo prohibiting gun merchants from selling firearms to anyone who uses marijuana, including those with state-issued medical-marijuana cards.

An open letter dated Sept. 21 from Arthur Herbert, ATF assistant director for Enforcement Programs and Services, said that, “any person who uses or is addicted to marijuana, regardless of whether his or her State has passed legislation authorizing marijuana use for medicinal purposes, is an unlawful user of or addicted to a controlled substance, and is prohibited by Federal law from possessing firearms or ammunition.”

That didn’t sit well with Montana Attorney General Steve Bullock, who fired off a letter this week to Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. saying that the policy raises “serious legal issues under the Second Amendment, and the Equal Protection and Due Process clauses of the Fifth Amendment.”

The conflict illustrates the contradictory state of affairs between the states and federal government on the subject of medical marijuana. Sixteen states and the District of Columbia have passed medical-marijuana laws, a situation the Justice Department has agreed to tolerate despite continuing to enforce federal laws banning marijuana use.

Where the agency draws the line is often a source of confusion. The Sept. 21 letter was issued in response to gun sellers who asked the agency for guidance because buyers were showing them medical-marijuana cards as identification.

Mr. Bullock blasted the ATF for failing to consult with state officials before issuing the directive, saying a cooperative approach “would be much better than the type of unilateral proclamation represented by the ATF letter.”

Critics contend that the law unfairly discriminates against marijuana users because patients who take other controlled substances, such as OxyContin, have no such restrictions. In his letter, Mr. Bullock pointed out federal law allows those who are prescribed controlled substances by a physician to possess or buy firearms and ammunition.

“The ATF letter does not take this into account,” said Mr. Bullock, who called on the department to work with the states in “exploring a reasonable solution to the problems created by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives letter.”

Mr. Herbert states in his letter that marijuana, as a Schedule 1 controlled substance, cannot be prescribed under federal law, “even if such use is sanctioned by state law.”

The policy puts gun dealers in a difficult position, say critics.

Potential gun buyers must state on an ATF form whether they use marijuana at the time of sale. If they answer “yes,” they are denied the purchase, but even if they answer “no,” the seller cannot complete the sale if there is “‘reasonable cause to believe’ that the person is an unlawful user of or addicted to a controlled substance,” according to the directive.

“The dealers have no way of knowing whether someone smokes pot unless they come in toking,” said Gun Owners of America executive director Larry Pratt. “It’s just one more way to aggravate the dealers and play ‘gotcha’ with the dealers. They [the ATF] are totally out of control.”

In an editorial this week, the Denver Post blasted the directive, calling it an “assault on constitutional rights.” Colorado voters legalized medical marijuana in 2000.

“[U]sers of medical marijuana are faced with two choices: pass on gun ownership or illegally lie about their use of marijuana,” the Post said. “Unbelievable.”

Morgan Fox, spokesman for the Marijuana Policy Project, said his organization is drafting a letter asking the ATF to use its discretion “to be more compassionate toward medical-marijuana patients.”

“The ATF said their hands were tied, but that’s not the case,” Mr. Fox said. “This is just another way to single out and harass medical-marijuana patients.”

Montana voters legalized medical marijuana in 2004, but its use exploded after the Justice Department’s 2009 memorandum saying federal authorities would not target marijuana users as long as they comply with state law, Montana Justice Department spokesman John Doran said.

“We went from 3,000 to 30,000 medical-marijuana cardholders in the space of about a year,” he said. “We also saw an increase in the number of types of businesses.”

Those included so-called “cannibis caravans,” which traveled throughout the state signing up people for medical-marijuana cards. Often there was no doctor on site, but rather a doctor from another state who spoke with patients via computer, Mr. Doran said.

The Montana legislature cracked down on the industry earlier this year with a bill that repealed the voter-passed initiative and replaced it with tighter restrictions. In response, advocates gathered enough signatures to place the more liberal version on the November 2012 ballot.

“States, including Montana, have acted to address problems and explore workable solutions,” Mr. Bullock said. “In doing so, however, we also face issues that are, candidly, created or exacerbated by federal actions and policies that do not always reflect the kind of careful approach and appropriate accommodation that should be accorded the states.”