Police State on Display

Boston Offers Grim Preview of Coming Attractions
by DAVE LINDORFF


The Boston Marathon bombing has already demonstrated the best and the worst of America for all the world to see.

First, let’s talk about the best. When the bombs detonated, despite the shock and the horror of the blown-off legs and arms, and the blood on street and sidewalk, and without knowing what else might be coming, ordinary citizens jumped into action to try and help the gravely wounded and the dying. Average people with no experience in this kind of mayhem stepped up without hesitation to care for strangers, applying tourniquets, carrying people who couldn’t walk to hospital tents, or just holding a hand and calling for help.

People pored over their cellphone photo records and camera files, looking for photos that could help identify the killers. Without their volunteer actions, the police and federal agencies would have had no clue who they were looking for. With them, it was quick work pinpointing and identifying the two men who appear to have placed the two bombs.

Later, while police failed to catch one of the brothers suspected of having been a bomber, despite placing all of metropolitan Boston under a kind of martial law, it was a citizen who, after the so-called “lock-down” of the city had been lifted, spotted the suspect and alerted police.

Now for the worst.

Let’s start with the martial law. Okay, it wasn’t a declaration, but with police and the Mayor ordering everyone in Boston and its suburbs to stay inside and lock their doors, “answering only to police,” it was virtually the same thing. Cops, FBI, ATF and DEA agents were everywhere, and the streets were being patrolled too by National Guard troops and armored personnel carriers equipped with machine guns — this in pursuit of a single wounded 19-year-old on the run on foot! Talk about overkill. We’re lucky that police in this amped up man-hunt didn’t gun down anyone who might have been unaware of the “stay-inside” order, or who decided he or she needed a beer or an ice-cream and ventured outside. Look what the LAPD did to the Latina mother and daughter newspaper delivery team when they thought the pick-up they were driving was the truck of the rogue cop they were hunting — peppering it from behind without warning with over a hundred shots from pistols and automatic rifles. (As it is, the several cops who responded to the 911 call about a man hiding in a boat nearly blew away the chance to question him about his motive by mindlessly blasting away at him though he was pinned down inside the boat, until a federal agent ordered them to quit firing.)

The argument that the lock-down might have spared people from being shot by the fleeing Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is absurd. Considered armed and dangerous, he might, instead of slipping inside a canvas-covered boat, have broken into a home and taken a family hostage. In fact, arguably had people been out and about, Tsarnaev would probably never have managed to escape unnoticed on foot from the 20-block perimeter police had established around the scene of the initial shootout in Watertown. People would have noticed him wounded and running. Instead, they were all huddled inside their locked homes.

Worse is the precedent that was just set. Now when police have a “situation” anywhere in the country, it’s a good bet they’ll adopt the new Boston model as the option of choice, “locking down” (note that this is a prison term used to describe the tactic of locking all prisoners in their cells during disturbances — a pretty unsavory concept to apply to a community in a supposedly free society) whole towns or cities to give police a free hand.

Because Bostonians had been suitably frightened by the breathless coverage of the manhunt for the Tsarnaev brothers, people were, at least for the relatively short time the “lock-down” was in effect, willing to obey orders and stay inside, but had Dzhokhar not been found so quickly, and had authorities decided to extend the de facto martial law, it would have been illuminating to see how police would have responded to those people who did get tired of being cooped up and decided to go outside and run some errands, or go visit friends. Would they have been harassed? Probably. Arrested and taken in? Maybe. There were reports of people who stuck their heads out of doors being “yelled at” by police and “ordered” back inside.

And then we have the federal government’s response since Tsarnaev’s capture. The White House and Justice Department have announced that he will not be read his Miranda warning, which tells those who are arrested for a crime that they have the right not to answer questions from police, and the right to an attorney. Miranda warnings, the Supreme Court has long ruled, are an important part of upholding the intent of the Fifth Amendment which protects everyone in this country against being compelled to testify against themselves — one of the main grievances that led the colonists to fight to throw off British rule.

President Obama, by secret executive order two years ago, gutted that protection, saying that it would be okay to ignore the Miranda warning in the case of suspected terrorists. Will he be subjected to torture to get him to tell police whether he had any confederates beside his dead brother? We don’t know. The government has reserved the right to use coercive measures against alleged “terrorists” (even though experts have warned that statements obtained under torture are notoriously unreliable).

Note that the gutting of the Miranda rule for terrorists was not a court ruling. Nor was it a change in the Constitution. It was simply a presidential executive order. It and countless others are secret; we only know about that one because it was leaked.

We don’t know that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is a terrorist, unless you are of the view that any whack-job who kills a bunch of people is a terrorist. As far as we know, he was no different from Jared Lee Loughner, the guy who fired into a crowd of people coming to meet Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in Arizona, killing 6 and seriously wounding 13, including the congresswoman herself, or from James Holmes, who slaughtered 14 people in a Colorado movie theater. Mass murderers, yes. But terrorists? I don’t think so, if the word is to have any meaning.

Fascists like Sens. Lindsay Graham (R-SC) and John McCain (R-AZ) are calling for the US to forget the Constitution altogether, and to declare American citizen Tsarnaev an “enemy combatant,” thus depriving him of the right even to a trial, forget the Miranda thing. They want him run through some kangaroo military tribunal and then executed.

What’s happening is that US the government, and a disturbingly large segment of the American public, is losing patience with the wheels of justice in a free society. We’ve entered an Alice in Wonderland world where what is wanted is “sentence first, verdict later,” and where the trial part, with its presumption of innocence and its jury of peers, is either for show, or is simply left out entirely. (Remember, they have trials in China, Cuba, and even Myanmar, but they certainly don’t have justice.)

The thing is, if the only time we adhere to the concept of “innocent until proven guilty,” and the only time we require police to follow the Miranda procedure of advising those they arrest of their right to remain silent until they have an attorney is in cases like traffic violations and petty crimes, but we ignore those protections when it really matters, in the case of serious crimes, then we no longer have those critical protections against tyranny.

At that point, we are in a police state.

What we are seeing in Boston is a preview of that police state — a kind of “coming attractions” look at it. The mindless post-capture applause for the army of police who implemented the “lock-down” of the city after the marathon bombing was part and parcel of that police state.

Someday, those cheering images will make a great clip in some Leni Riefenstahl-style propaganda film glorifying whoever is the current maximum leader of the American dictatorship.

The "Sacred" Bond

GOP Seeks to Overturn Historic Civil Rights Law

Voting Rights Under Attack
Friday, September 7, 2012 by Common Dreams

Civil rights leader Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) told the audience at the Democratic National Convention Thursday night, “we have come too far together to ever turn back,” warning that Republican-led voter suppression laws are taking America back to the days when states had the right to deny voting capabilities to minority voters. Voting rights for minority voters continue to come under attack as Republican leaders are now turning to the Supreme Court to overturn historic civil rights legislation.

Several federal judges recently struck down voter suppression laws in multiple states, introduced by Republican legislators and governors, such as voter identification laws, provisional voting restrictions, limits on voter registration drives, and reduced availability for early voting.

The court rulings in Florida, Ohio, Texas, and Wisconsin, marked a widespread rejection of so called 'voter fraud' legislation, which seeks to greatly limit who can and cannot vote.

However, as Chris McGreal at the Guardian reports today, "Several state governments are [now] looking to the conservative-leaning supreme court, which has already expressed its doubts about racially-based policy," in order to overturn these rulings. This step would seek to challenge the historic Voter Rights Act of 1965, which gave the federal government some control over voting rules in states with a history of blocking African Americans from voting.

In question is Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, which requires "pre-clearance" for nine states – Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas and Virginia – before making changes to voting laws or procedures.

Civil rights leaders and activists have expressed concern over whether the Supreme Court will actually uphold this anti-discrimination law.

"The question is not whether Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act will be struck down, but when and how. Will it die a death of a thousand cuts? Or will it be killed with one swift blow?" Nathaniel Persily, a Columbia University law professor, told the Guardian.

"There has been a proliferation of cases that aim to take down and rip out this core provision of the Voting Rights Act," said Debo Adegbile, acting president and lead counsel of the NAACP legal defense fund. "I think it's fair to say that the supreme court invited these challenges."

Speaking to the DNC Thursday, Lewis continued:

Brothers and sisters, do you want to go back? Or do you want to keep America moving forward? My dear friends, your vote is precious, almost sacred. It is the most powerful, nonviolent tool we have to create a more perfect union. Not too long ago, people stood in unmovable lines. They had to pass a so-called literacy test, pay a poll tax. On one occasion, a man was asked to count the number of bubbles in a bar of soap. On another occasion, one was asked to count the jelly beans in a jar—all to keep them from casting their ballots.

Today it is unbelievable that there are Republican officials still trying to stop some people from voting. They are changing the rules, cutting polling hours and imposing requirements intended to suppress the vote. The Republican leader in the Pennsylvania House even bragged that his state’s new voter ID law is “gonna allow Governor Romney to win the state.” That’s not right. That’s not fair. That’s not just.

Spy Tech Companies & Their Authoritarian Customers, Part I: FinFisher And Amesys

FEBRUARY 16, 2012 | BY TREVOR TIMM - Electronic Frontier Foundation

Last week, EFF gave its recommendations to EU parliament on what steps to take to combat a growing and dangerous civil liberties concern: Western companies marketing and selling mass surveillance technology to authoritarian regimes. This technology has been linked to harassment, arrests, and even torture of journalists, human rights advocates, and democratic activists in many Middle East countries over the past year.

EFF recommended parliament approach the problem through a “know your customer” program whereby companies would investigate purchasers of surveillance technology and would refrain from doing business with a government or its agents if the sale would be used to assist in human rights abuses. This program would be voluntary for companies and encouraged via incentives but could, if necessary, become a formal requirement. As we’ve seen, transparency can be a powerful tool. The industry is notoriously secretive and a little sunlight can help spur protests and force companies to change their business practices.

Privacy International recently released a mapping of companies and countries that have attended the notorious I.S.S. World trade shows, where this technology is bought and sold. But their investigation is far from over and you can go here to help them file Freedom of Information requests, write to your representative, or dig though government spending reports.

In the first part of a new series, EFF will take a look at what we know about some of the worst offenders located in Europe and the United States. 

Part I will highlight two companies, United Kingdom based FinFisher and France based Amesys:

FinFisher, unit of Gamma International—based in the UK
Gamma International and its subsidiary FinFisher first made headlines after the fall of Hosni Mubarak in Egypt last year, when activists found the company’s records in an abandoned state security building, along with troves of surveillance files. The documents on Gamma and FinFisher showed how they provided Mubarak with a five-month trial of their sophisticated spying technology, most notably FinSpy, which can wiretap encrypted Skype phone calls and instant messages—a service once mistakenly trusted by activists for secure communications.

The Wall Street Journal has since reported about FinFisher’s techniques and its technology’s dangerous capabilities. It works much the same way online criminals steal banking and credit card information. Authorities can covertly install malicious malware on a user’s computer without their knowledge by tricking the user into downloading fake updates to programs like iTunes and Adobe Flash. Once installed, they can see everything the user can. The FinFisher products can even remotely turn on the user’s webcam or microphone in a cell phone without the user’s knowledge.

FinFisher doesn’t pretend to market their products for solely lawful use. In 2007, they bragged that they use and incorporate “black hat (illegal and malicious) hacking techniques to allow intelligence services to acquire information that would be very difficult to obtain legally,”according to a report by OWNI.

Gamma or FinFisher, of course, won’t comment on any of these facts that have come to light over the past year. They hid behind claims of client confidentiality, telling the Wall Street Journal that they “cannot otherwise comment upon its confidential business transactions or the nature of the products it offers." But of course you can’t use claims of confidentiality to hide illegal behavior in the US or the UK. Investigators, especially in the UK and wherever these companies have sufficient contacts to establish jurisdiction, should require them to come clean about their potentially illegal business practices and uphold human rights privacy standards in the tools they offer and the customers to whom they sell.

Amesys, unit of Bull SA—based in France
When trade restrictions on Libya were eased in the early 2000s, Libya’s leader, Muammar Qaddafi, began to capitalize on the change by bringing in Western technology companies to surveil Libya's citizens’ Internet use under the guise of stopping terrorism. Instead, and to no one’s surprise, the technology was “deployed against dissidents, human-rights campaigners, journalists or everyday enemies of the state,” as the Wall Street Journal documented after seeing Qaddafi’s abandoned Internet monitoring center in Tripoli.

The main company tasked assisting Libya with all its surveillance needs was a unit of the French company Bull SA, known as Amesys. With Amesys’ monitoring centers, Libyan authorities could read emails, get passwords, read instant message conversations, and map connections among criminals, or in many cases, journalists or dissidents. OWNI graphically mapped out just how massive the surveillance system was. Documents released by WikiLeaks in November revealed that Amesys gear was even allowing Libya to spy on dissidents and opposition figures living in the United Kingdom. And as AFP reported, Qaddafi’s “regime [had previously] been accused of sending agents to harass and even kill opposition figures in exile.”

Despite the ease in trade restrictions, it was no secret Libya had a long history of human rights abuses and Amesys should have known who they were helping. The head of Libyan intelligence, the notorious Abdullah Senussi, was convicted in absentia in France of the Lockerbie terrorist bombing in 1989 that killed 170 people. Yet the former head of Amesys and current CEO of Bull, Philippe Vannier, was seen in Tripoli meeting with the same Abdullah Senussi in 2007, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Abdullah Senussi has since been indicted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity for his role in the violent crackdown against Libyan citizens this past year.

The Amesys case highlights a problem with many of these companies—they are doing business with human rights violators that may have relations with the US or EU. As Amesys rightly points out, Libya was an “ally” of the west when their contract was signed and boasted of warm relations with France until NATO decided to take sides with the rebel forces late last year. "All Amesys activities strictly adhere to the statutory and regulatory requirements of both European and French international conventions," a spokeswoman said in Amesys’ defense. But this doesn’t excuse their behavior. EFF's know your customer standards address this problem by creating a framework in which companies study non-partisan human rights reports and not just the legal restrictions against the West’s perceived enemies.

"We are fully prepared to answer any questions which the legal authorities may ask us," the spokesman for Amesys also said. Authorities should take them up on their offer. In France, human rights groups have filed court documents asking for an investigation into Amesys for “possible violations of export rules and complicity in torture.” EFF encourages the French authorities to conduct a full investigation.

But Gamma and Amesys are far from the only transgressors. There are dozens of companies in both the US and EU that have been supplying this gear to authoritarian regimes as well, and EFF will soon highlight more of these companies until Congress and the EU countries act to prevent more of this dangerous technology from falling into the wrong hands.

Important Things You Should Know About Privacy and the Supreme Court Ruling on GPS Tracking

On its face, this represents an important victory against the surveillance state. But this is a narrow ruling that leaves many crucial questions unanswered. 

By Scott Lemieux, AlterNet
Posted on January 29, 2012

Antoine Jones was sentenced to life in prison on drug distribution charges. The key evidence against him came from a month’s worth of data collected by a GPS tracker that police had attached to Jones’s car. The GPS, however, was attached without a valid warrant (police had obtained a warrant, but is was expired and for another jurisdiction.) Jones appealed his conviction, arguing that the warrantless GPS tracking violated the Fourth Amendment’s prohibitions against “unreasonable search and seizures.” The government replied that the installation of the GPS did not constitute a “search,” and hence could not have violated Jones’s constitutional rights. The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit rejected the government’s argument, however. And earlier this week in United States v. Jones, the Supreme Court unanimously agreed that the police actions constituted a “search” and were subject to the restrictions of Fourth Amendment.

Here are some things you should know about this case and how the Bill of Rights might apply to modern technologies that increase the government’s power to invade private space:

1. While the Court ruled that Jones had been subject to a “search,” it did not address the question of whether the search was “unreasonable.” Because the search was conducted without a valid warrant, the search was presumptively unconstitutional. But – especially when it comes to cases involving the War On (Some People Who Use Some) Drugs – the Republican-dominated federal courts have been increasingly willing to carve out exceptions for warrantless searches. Until the courts decide this question, we don’t even know if the search of Jones will ultimately be ruled illegal.
2. Even in cases where a search has been held to be illegal, the Supreme Court has shown a willingness to water down the “exclusionary rule,” which holds that illegally obtained evidence cannot be used in courts. The provides strong incentives for the police to respect constitutional rights, because they cannot profit from illegal behavior; conversely, absent the exclusionary rule police have little incentive to comply with the law (civil remedies for violations of the Fourth Amendment are generally ineffective.) For example, in its infamous 2006 ruling Hudson v. Michigan, the Court ruled that while dangerous “no-knock” searches of homes were illegal, evidence obtained from them was admissible. If the courts rule that the search of Jones was illegal but the evidence can be admitted anyway, it will be a hollow victory for civil liberties indeed, as police will have strong incentives to push the envelope as new surveillance technologies emerge.
3. Justice Scalia’s majority opinion rested on grounds that actually have little application to new surveillance technologies. According to Scalia, since the GPS installation required trespassing private property, it “would have constituted a “search” within the original meaning of the Fourth Amendment.” While this isn’t necessarily wrong per se, as the concurrences by Justices Alito and Sotomayor point out ruling on this basis says nothing about more crucial questions about how the courts should assess searches that don’t require the direct invasion of physical property. As Justice Alito points out, “the Court’s reasoning largely disregards what is really important (the use of a GPS for the purpose of long-term tracking) and instead attaches great significance to something that most would view as relatively minor.” As a result, the long-term consequences of this decision are unclear.
4. Justice Alito’s concurrence proposes that rather than focusing on whether a trespass of property has occurred, the Court should focus on whether or not an individual had a “reasonable expectation of privacy” (the standard the Court has generally used since the early 1970s.) Again, there’s nothing wrong with this in and of itself, but in practice these kinds of balancing tests are only as good as the judges applying them. (In theory, the rule that abortion regulations that constitute an “undue burden” are unconstitutional could provide robust protection for reproductive freedom; in practice, it doesn’t.) Alito focuses on the relatively extreme facts of the case (tracking that lasted a month seeking evidence for a non-violent crime), which opens up the possibility that the state will be given wide latitude under this standard.
5. By far the strongest opinion, then, is Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s concurrence. As she notes, “[a]wareness that the Government may be watching chills associational and expressive freedoms.” Given the rapidly expanding tools that the executive branch has at its disposal to conduct surveillance on citizens, and the general unwillingness of legislatures to restrain intrusive searches, it is crucial that the courts not be behind the curve in applying Fourth Amendment protections. United States v. Jones could be a good first step – but only if the many questions it leaves open are answered in a way that takes the protection of privacy seriously. Justice Sotomayor’s concurrence provides a good road map. 

The Bipartisan War on Liberty

Liberal and conservative elites agree on one thing:
Americans are too free for their own good.

A. Barton Hinkle | November 18, 2011

To outward appearances, it might seem as though the left and right have never been more at odds. And for the average man in the street, drawn to the Tea Party on one side or the Occupy movement on the other, this might be true. But it is not so true for elite opinion. The nation's high and mighty may be divided about many things, but on one point they often agree: Americans are still too darn free.

For example: Not enough people exercise their right to vote. Problem, right? Well, William Galston of the Brookings Institution has a solution: Force them to. The other day he took to the pages of The New York Times to explain why we should be "Telling Americans to Vote, or Else." (It doesn't seem to have occurred to Galston that making people exercise a right takes that right away, by turning it into an obligation.)

Galston is hardly alone. Mitt Romney considers it a problem that many foreign nationals enter America without a government permission slip. His solution: Force every U.S. resident to carry a biometric ID card. (Just the thing to present at the polls when meeting your mandatory-voting requirement, eh? Great minds think alike.)

One of Romney's GOP primary opponents, Michele Bachmann, laments that many Americans—53% of them—pay no federal income tax. So she proposed forcing everyone to do so, even if they don't have any income to pay taxes on. That'll show 'em.

Time magazine proposed forcing every American into national service. A federal advisory board has decided, to much applause, that we should force boys as well as girls to receive the HPV vaccine. Proponents of ObamaCare believe the government should force everyone to buy health insurance.

The Obama administration also has lots of other bright ideas about how to bend the American people to its will. Last year Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood told those at a National Press Club that the administration's "livability" initiative "is a way to coerce people out of their cars." The administration also wants to force insurers to pay for birth control and abortifacients, and to force consumers to buy more fuel-efficient cars.

Voices outside the administration, however, fret that it is not being forceful enough. In a recent Washington Post column, Dana Milbank advised the president to emulate the ruthless tactics of JFK. Milbank recounts how Roger Blough, chairman of U.S. Steel, raised prices in defiance of the president's wishes. "'You have made a terrible mistake,' Kennedy told him. Subpoenas flew, FBI agents marched into steel executives' offices, and Kennedy spoke about IRS agents examining 'hotel bills and nightclub expenses [that] would be hard to get by the weekly wives' bridge group out at the country club.'"

Ahh, the good old days. When J. Edgar Hoover pulled stunts like that, liberals considered it proof that the dark night of fascism was descending across the land. But when their own guys do it, they call it getting things done. Nary a word from Milbank about what business the president has dictating steel prices, by the way.

Yet Milbank is a piker in the thuggery-worship category, at least when compared with The New York Times' Thomas Friedman. In 2009, Friedman penned a column about how China's one-party autocracy was better than America's two-party system: "One-party autocracy certainly has its drawbacks," he wrote, "but when it is led by a reasonably enlightened group of people . . . it can also have great advantages. That one party can just impose the politically difficult but critically important policies to move a society forward." He went on to list some of China's critically important policies, which were—surprise!—policies of which he personally approved.

Well, anyone can write a stinker of a column now and then (heaven knows!). But a year later Friedman was still at it, relating on Meet the Press how he has "fantasized" about "what if we could just be China for a day?" Then "we could actually, you know, authorize the right solutions." He didn't actually want America to "be China," mind you, he just wanted "my democracy to work with the same authority." That way, Friedman could impose his will on everyone else, and life would be grand.

This is what power fetishists always do: assume the power will be used in ways they like. (And since the ends are noble, they surely must justify the means, right?) Sometimes it is. But when power changes hands, the inheritors may be a rather different sort. The people pushing for more government power never seem to think of that—until it's too late.

Let's Explore the History of 'Class Warfare'

Sunday, September 25, 2011 by Minneapolis Star Tribune (Minnesota)

by Myles Spicer

 

 

Recently, Warren Buffett remarked that America was engaged in "class warfare." Conservative reaction was immediate, indignant, and anticipated. When President Obama followed up this week with his "Buffett Tax," conservatives again were aghast.

Words like "class warfare" are not commonly used anymore -- they were considered anachronisms from the days of "commies and socialists." Nevertheless, they are appropriate -- and Americans should not be horrified by them.

The fact is, "class warfare" has been an essential part of American history for more than a century. As the industrial revolution gained traction, and as America became less of an agrarian society, wealth and capital began to be accumulated and concentrated on a severely uneven basis. Between 1870 and 1900, the share of national wealth held by the richest 1 percent of households peaked at around 45 percent. The results were violent strikes, the rise of unions and the beginnings of the socialist movement in the United States. In short, "class warfare."

In the early 1900s, Republican Teddy Roosevelt arrived on the political scene to fight the excesses of the infamous "robber barons" whose greed had undermined economic fairness in America. He clashed with the superwealthy, like J.P. Morgan, and ordered the Justice Department to take antitrust action against monopolists. He introduced railroad regulation, and food and drug safety. He pushed for the adoption of an income tax, and a federal estate tax on the inheritances of wealthy families. He set precedents in federal regulation of manufacturing and commerce. He launched the federal government on an ambitious program of environmental protection and conservation. He was truly engaging in "class warfare."

Later, another Roosevelt, FDR, would engage in similar "class warfare" with the New Deal. His election in 1932 and his subsequent presidential terms marked a historic political realignment, creating a new Democratic majority of liberals, workers, immigrants, African-Americans and women, and laid the foundations of a limited American version of the welfare state. During World War II, he raised the top tax rate to 92 percent.

In short, what we really have here is a semantic argument. Conservatives know that "warfare" is a hot word and might resonate with the public. But call it any name you wish, and the reality of class warfare is the same (as defined by Wikipedia): "the tension or antagonism which exists in society due to competing socioeconomic interests between people of different classes."

This tension has been part of our culture (indeed of virtually all societies) forever. While violence may result from this class tension in many societies, in America we have generally found a better way to conduct this "war." With the ballot box.

Buffett reminds us that "my class is winning." Indeed it is. No need to revisit all the statistics, but quickly: the top 1 percent of Americans take home 24 percent of all income and control 42 percent of all financial wealth. The bottom 80 percent hold only 7 percent of the financial wealth of our nation. Some 46 million Americans live in poverty.

Obviously, this condition creates precisely the kind "tension and antagonism" that constitutes "class warfare." Those who deny it are disingenuous; those who decry it are insincere.

As to how to redress this, while the ballot box is the preferred American way, it is not being employed by those who would benefit by electing a more fair-minded Congress, or a hero in the mold of Teddy Roosevelt. In fact, in the 2010 election, which turned our country even further to the right, only 41 percent of Americans bothered to vote.

That is concerning, because other options for addressing this state of affairs are far less desirable. While conservatives can bask in their recent election victory and the superwealthy can continue to pile on unimaginable riches and the lobbyists for special interests can continue to wield their undue influence, warning flags should be raised.

"Class warfare," of whatever kind, will not ultimately be good for the country, nor for the wealthy, nor, for that matter, for capitalism itself. History has shown that whenever wealth becomes excessively concentrated, tension and stress are created.

Class warfare -- by this or any other name -- is a condition that Americans of all political stripes must work to mitigate ... and soon.

Breaking out of Zip-tie Restraints

As a public service to protesters everywhere on the eve of greater days...

Significant Social Change...

What are You Going to Do About the Empire?

So You Say You Aren't a Secessionist
By THOMAS NAYLOR

Then what are you going to do about the Empire? More specifically, how will you deal with the following:

Governance

• The complete loss of moral authority of a government owned, operated, and controlled by Wall Street, Corporate America, and the Israeli Lobby.
  
• An empire which is economically, militarily, politically, morally, socially, and environmentally unsustainable because it is too big.
  
• A nation governed by a single political party disguised as a two-party system.
  
• Congressional gridlock – an ungovernable nation which is, therefore, unfixable.
  
• The fantasy of campaign finance reform as a panacea for solving most of our problems.
  
• A populace which still believes that only the U.S. government can solve all of our problems all of the time, failing to realize that the U.S. government is the problem.
  

Foreign Policy

• A foreign policy based on full spectrum dominance, imperial overstretch, might makes right, and the proposition, just be like us.
  
• The disproportionately large influence which the Israeli Lobby has on American foreign policy.
  
• Our inflammatory policy towards Iran.
  
• Our lack of commitment to an Israeli-Palestinian peace process.
  
• The support we provide to dictators and authoritarian leaders in the Middle East, North Africa, and the rest of the world.
  
• The Cuban embargo.
  
• Our predisposition towards the use of the military option in resolving international conflicts.
  

Military Might

• The never ending, highly racist war on terror (Islam).
  
• Our immoral, illegal, undeclared wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, Palestine (via Israel), and Yemen.
  
• The 1.6 million American troops stationed at over 1,000 military bases in 153 countries.
  
• The 80,000 American troops stationed in Europe, the 36,000 in Japan, and the 30,000 in Korea.
  
• NATO, the 27-nation Cold War relic which has lost its way.
  
• Ronald Reagan’s fantasy of a strategic missile defense system.
  
• The American led proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
  
• The unconditional military support provided to the right-wing Likud government of Israel.
  
• America‘s unchallenged position as the world’s leading arms merchant.
  
• American pilotless drone aircraft spreading death and destruction worldwide.
  
• The outrageously expensive F-35 fighter jets which cost $115 million a pop.
  
• The trillion-dollar plus military and national security budget.
  

Civil Liberties

• The Patriot Act, the Military Commissions Act, and the proposed Detainee Security Act.
  
• The highly intrusive, money-guzzling Department of Homeland Security.
  
• Prisoner abuse and torture.
  
• The rendition of terrorist suspects.
  
• White House ordered assassinations.
  
• The Guantanamo prison.
  
• Citizen surveillance and the suppression of civil liberties.
  

The Economy

• A moribund housing market.
  
• An inability to create enough real jobs to compensate for those exported to China, India, and elsewhere over the past two decades.
  
• Stagnant real incomes for all but the super-rich.
  
• An ever widening income gap between the rich and the poor.
  
• Increases in the number of people who find themselves to be among the poor, homeless, or uninsured (no health insurance).
  
• A multi-trillion dollar national debt.
  
• Increased dependence on China, Japan, and other foreign countries to finance our national debt.
  
• A government which prints money as though it were going out of style.
  
• Uncertainty about the future value of the U.S. dollar and the rate of inflation.
  
• An unreliable system of public and private retirement pension systems.
  
• Uncertainty over the sustainability of Social Security and Medicare.
  
• A financial regulatory system which favors Wall Street mega-banks at the expense of ordinary citizens.
  
• An organized labor movement which has been rendered impotent by two decades of hostile, anti-labor employers such as Wal-Mart.
  
• An economy driven by our intense psychological need to fill our spiritual and emotional vacuum with more and more stuff and the illusion that the accumulation of wealth and material possessions can provide meaning to life. Whoever dies with the most toys, wins the game.
  
• Wal-Mart with its seductive low prices and the promotion of the idea that what life is all about is unrestrained personal consumption.
  

Social Services

• A health care system driven by fear of death on the demand side and greed on the supply side which is spiraling out of control.
  
• Over two million people in prison.
  
• An international war on drugs that is a complete failure.
  
• A federal education program committed to a one-size-fits-all corporate model of education.
  
• A social welfare net that is woefully inadequate.
  
• Patronizing, racist programs of support for Native Americans, Native Hawaiians, Eskimos, and Inuits.
  

Energy and Environment

• Unabated dependence on imported foreign oil and its inherent price fluctuations.
  
• Under investment in alternative energy sources by government and private industry alike.
  
• A failure to confront the problem of climate change.
  

Infrastructure

• Widespread aging infrastructure including highways, bridges, tunnels, airports, dams, levees, and public water systems.
  
• Obsolete air traffic control system.
  
• Grossly inadequate railroad passenger train system.
  

Summary

A government that is too big, too centralized, too powerful, too undemocratic, too intrusive, too materialistic, too environmentally destructive, too racist, too violent, too militaristic, and too unresponsive to the needs of individual citizens and small communities.

SCOTUS rules there is no automatic right to lawyer in US civil court cases

By Agence France-Presse
Monday, June 20th, 2011

WASHINGTON (AFP) – The US Supreme Court ruled Monday that states did not have an automatic duty to provide counsel in civil courts in the case of a divorced father who was jailed for failing to pay child support.

By a majority 5-4 vote, the justices found that while the South Carolina father's rights had been violated because he was not given free counsel, US states did not have to provide such advice in all civil contempt cases.

The case was being highly watched and had become emblematic of what civil rights groups have called a trend towards "debtors' prisons" in America.

In the case before the Supreme Court, Michael Turner had been ordered to pay $51.73 a week in child support. But he had regularly fallen behind, and spent short spells in prison.

On his fifth infraction, the South Carolina family court sentenced him to six months in jail. But on his release he was $5,728 in arrears, and was then sentenced to 12 months in jail.

Turner appealed arguing his constitutional rights had been violated as he had not been given access to free counsel -- as is normal in criminal cases -- to argue that he had been unable to pay the funds due during his jail term.

In Monday's majority decision, the court ruled that a constitutional amendment "does not automatically require the State to provide counsel at civil contempt proceedings to an indigent noncustodial parent who is subject to a child support order, even if that individual faces incarceration."

It found that such a requirement could put the other parent at a disadvantage if they could not afford a lawyer creating "an asymmetry of representation that would alter significantly the nature of the proceeding."

Instead, recognizing that ability to pay is key in many child support cases, it called on the government to ensure safeguards were put in place, to significantly reduce the risk of an erroneous deprivation of liberty."

The ruling triggered a sharp response from the Constitution Project, a bipartisan group working for reform of the justice system.

The ruling "undermines the fundamental fairness of our justice system, putting Americans in danger of losing their liberty simply because they cannot afford a lawyer," it said in a statement.

"Michael Turner was incarcerated for one year because of his failure to pay court-ordered child support. Although his inability to pay would have constituted a legal defense to incarceration, Mr. Turner was unable to prove his inability to pay to the court.

"With this decision, the Supreme Court has effectively endorsed the expansion of the unjust use of debtors' prisons in America," it added.

US Supreme Court Deals Mortal Blow to Privacy

Sunday, June 5, 2011 by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution

by Michael Mears, Common Dreams

 

Last month, the United States Supreme Court, in an 8-1 decision in the case of Kentucky v. King, told the police in our nation that they may break into a home without a warrant if they believe that the occupants might be in the act of destroying evidence.

Only Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg realized that this might be the last nail in the coffin of one of the most important personal protections left for Americans. While the politicians in Washington are fiddling away our economic security, the Supreme Court has lit a match that will burn up what is left of the right of privacy and the Fourth Amendment’s protections against unreasonable searches and seizures.

While the tax-avoiding patriots were dumping taxable tea in the harbor at Boston, men like Patrick Henry and John Adams were more concerned, and rightly so, with the loss of personal liberties in the Colonies.

Perhaps none of the “protective” amendments to the U.S. Constitution has as much connection with the events leading up to the American Revolution against England and its king than does the Fourth Amendment.

This amendment, more than all of the other “Bill of Rights,” is directly associated with specific acts that led, ultimately, to the call for a complete break from England and for the establishment of a separate nation.

Perhaps the most succinct observation about the dichotomy between those who see a continuing erosion of the Fourth Amendment and those who see it as an impediment to law enforcement officers and prosecutors can be found in a more reasoned Supreme Court decision from 1948. In that opinion, the court stated:

“The point of the Fourth Amendment, which often is not grasped by zealous officers, is not that it denies law enforcement the support of the usual inferences which reasonable men draw from evidence ... [it demands that] the right of privacy must reasonably yield to the right of search is, as a rule, to be decided by a judicial officer, not by a policeman or government enforcement agent.”

In February 1761 in Boston, there was a widely publicized debate over the issuance of general, limitless search warrants called Writs of Assistance. James Otis, a lawyer in Colonial Massachusetts, in a famous 1761 debate, condemned the use of these general search warrants, declaring them to be untenable in a land of free men.

But he did make a suggestion that later formed the basis for part of the Fourth Amendment. He suggested that any lawful searches be made only pursuant to warrants that contained explicit restrictions as to where the search was to take place and to the objects of the search, and that the warrants be issued only upon the making of specific oaths by the person seeking to carry out the search.

Patrick Henry followed the news reports of the debate over the use of these general search warrants (those authorizing searches at any time the holder of the search warrant deemed it necessary to search someone’s home or business) and he also argued against the abuses of such writs of assistance.

In 1778, during the constitutional debates before passage of the Bill of Rights, he argued for congressional consideration of a series of amendments to the constitution, one of which guaranteed the security of the citizenry against unreasonable government searches. This proposed amendment quite clearly presupposed that an “unreasonable” search could be avoided only by use of a warrant, and only if that warrant met certain standards.

After the adoption of the Fourth Amendment there appeared to be a general understanding of the nature and extent of the protections afforded citizens from searches without proper judicial warrants.

Up until the Supreme Court’s decision in Kentucky v. King, there was a general acknowledgment that the Fourth Amendment is a living creation with the ability to adapt its protections to new and ever-changing technology. Despite some erosion of the historical protections found in the Bill of Rights, there has been the hope that the Supreme Court would continue to regard the Fourth Amendment as necessary to protect citizens from the government.

Unfortunately, eight members of the present Supreme Court have decided that the Fourth Amendment is nothing more than a historical relic that has outlived its welcome in our “free” society.

We've Gone from a Nation of Laws to a Nation of Powerful Men Making Laws in Secret

May 29, 2011
Source: Washington's Blog

Preface: Some defendants are no longer allowed to see the "secret evidence" which the government is using against them. See this and this.

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that judges can throw out cases because they don't like or believe the plaintiff ... even before anyone has had the chance to conduct discovery to prove their case. In other words, judges' secret biases can be the basis for denying people their day in court, without even having to examine the facts. Judges are also becoming directly involved in politics with the other branches of government.

Claims of national security are being used to keep the shenanigans of the biggest banks and corporations secret, and to crush dissent.

But this essay focuses on something else: the fact that the laws themselves are now being kept secret.

America is supposed to be a nation of laws which apply to everyone equally, regardless of wealth or power.

Founded on the Constitution and based upon the separation of powers, we escaped from the British monarchy - a "nation of men" where the law is whatever the king says it is.

However, many laws are now "secret" - known only to a handful of people, and oftentimes hidden even from the part of our government which is supposed to make laws in the first place: Congress.

The Patriot Act

Congress just re-authorized the Patriot Act for another 4 years.

However, Senator Wyden notes that the government is using a secret interpretation of the Patriot Act different from what Congress and the public believe. Senator Wyden's press release yesterday states:

Speaking on the floor of the U.S Senate during the truncated debate on the reauthorization of the PATRIOT ACT for another four years, U.S. Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) – a member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence -- warned his colleagues that a vote to extend the bill without amendments that would ban any Administration’s ability to keep internal interpretations of the Patriot Act classified will eventually cause public outrage. Known as Secret Law, the official interpretation of the Patriot Act could dramatically differ from what the public believes the law allows. This could create severe violations of the Constitutional and Civil Rights of American Citizens.

***

I have served on the Senate Intelligence Committee for ten years, and I don’t take a backseat to anybody when it comes to the importance of protecting genuinely sensitive sources and collection methods. But the law itself should never be secret – voters have a need and a right to know what the law says, and what their government thinks the text of the law means, so that they can decide whether the law is appropriately written and ratify or reject decisions that their elected officials make on their behalf.

As TechDirt points out:

It's not just the public that's having the wool pulled over their eyes. Wyden and [Senator] Udall are pointing out that the very members of Congress, who are voting to extend these provisions, do not know how the feds are interpreting them:

As members of the Senate Intelligence Committee we have been provided with the executive branch's classified interpretation of those provisions and can tell you that we believe there is a significant discrepancy between what most people - including many Members of Congress - think the Patriot Act allows the government to do and what government officials secretly believe the Patriot Act allows them to do.

***

By far the most important interpretation of what the law means is the official interpretation used by the U.S. government and this interpretation is - stunningly -classified.

What does this mean? It means that Congress and the public are prevented from having an informed, open debate on the Patriot Act because the official meaning of the law itself is secret. Most members of Congress have not even seen the secret legal interpretations that the executive branch is currently relying on and do not have any staff who are cleared to read them. Even if these members come down to the Intelligence Committee and read these interpretations themselves, they cannot openly debate them on the floor without violating classification rules.

Here's Wyden's speech on the Senate floor.
The Surveillance State and Unauthorized Wars
Former constitutional lawyer Glenn Greenwald noted last week:

The government's increased ability to learn more and more about the private activities of its citizens is accompanied -- as always -- by an ever-increasing wall of secrecy it erects around its own actions. Thus, on the very same day that we have an extension of the Patriot Act and a proposal to increase the government's Internet snooping powers, we have this:

The Justice Department should publicly release its legal opinion that allows the FBI to obtain telephone records of international calls made from the U.S. without any formal legal process, a watchdog group asserts.

***

The decision not to release the memo is noteworthy... By turning down the foundation's request for a copy, the department is ensuring that its legal arguments in support of the FBI's controversial and discredited efforts to obtain telephone records will be kept secret.

What's extraordinary about the Obama DOJ's refusal to release this document is that it does not reveal the eavesdropping activities of the Government but only its legal rationale for why it is ostensibly permitted to engage in those activities. The Bush DOJ's refusal to release its legal memos authorizing its surveillance and torture policies was unquestionably one of the acts that provoked the greatest outrage among Democratic lawyers and transparency advocates (see, for instance, Dawn Johnsen's scathing condemnation of the Bush administration for its refusal to release OLC legal reasoning: "reliance on 'secret law' threatens the effective functioning of American democracy" and "the withholding from Congress and the public of legal interpretations by the Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) upsets the system of checks and balances between the executive and legislative branches of government."
The way a republic is supposed to function is that there is transparency for those who wield public power and privacy for private citizens. The National Security State has reversed that dynamic completely, so that the Government (comprised of the consortium of public agencies and their private-sector "partners") knows virtually everything about what citizens do, but citizens know virtually nothing about what they do (which is why WikiLeaks specifically and whistleblowers generally, as one of the very few remaining instruments for subverting that wall of secrecy, are so threatening to them). Fortified by always-growing secrecy weapons, everything they do is secret -- including even the "laws" they secretly invent to authorize their actions -- while everything you do is open to inspection, surveillance and monitoring.
This dynamic threatens to entrench irreversible, absolute power for reasons that aren't difficult to understand. Knowledge is power, as the cliché teaches. When powerful factions can gather unlimited information about citizens, they can threaten, punish, and ultimately deter any meaningful form of dissent ...
Conversely, allowing government officials to shield their own conduct from transparency and (with the radical Bush/Obama version of the "State Secrets privilege") even judicial review ensures that National Security State officials (public and private) can do whatever they want without any detection and (therefore) without limit or accountability. That is what the Surveillance State, at its core, is designed to achieve: the destruction of privacy for individual citizens and an impenetrable wall of secrecy for those with unlimited surveillance power. And as these three events just from the last 24 hours demonstrate, this system -- with fully bipartisan support --- is expanding more rapidly than ever

***

So patently illegal is Obama's war in Libya as of today that media reports are now coming quite close to saying so directly; see, for instance, this unusually clear CNN article today from Dana Bash. As a result, reporters today bombarded the White House with questions about the war's legality, and here is what happened, as reported by ABC News' Jake Tapper:

Talk about "secret law." You're not even allowed to know the White House's rationale (if it exists) for why this war is legal. It simply decrees that it is, and you'll have to comfort yourself with that. That's how confident they are in their power to operate behind their wall of secrecy: they don't even bother any longer with a pretense of the most minimal transparency.

Secret Memos
Secret laws are not a brand new problem.
As I've previously noted:

Scott Horton - a professor at Columbia Law School and writer for Harper's - says of the Bush administration memos authorizing torture, spying, indefinite detention without charge, the use of the military within the U.S. and the suspension of free speech and press rights:

We may not have realized it at the time, but in the period from late 2001-January 19, 2009, this country was a dictatorship. The constitutional rights we learned about in high school civics were suspended. That was thanks to secret memos crafted deep inside the Justice Department that effectively trashed the Constitution. What we know now is likely the least of it.

Yale law professor Jack Balkin agrees, writing that the memos promoted "reasoning which sought, in secret, to justify a theory of Presidential dictatorship." Constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley says that the memos are the "very definition of tyranny". And former White House counsel John Dean says "Reading these memos, you've gotta almost conclude we had an unconstitutional dictator."

State of Emergency Cuts the Constitutional Government Out of the Picture
As I wrote in February:

The United States has been in a declared state of emergency from September 2001, to the present. Specifically, on September 11, 2001, the government declared a state of emergency. That declared state of emergency was formally put in writing on 9/14/2001:

A national emergency exists by reason of the terrorist attacks at the World Trade Center, New York, New York, and the Pentagon, and the continuing and immediate threat of further attacks on the United States.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, I hereby declare that the national emergency has existed since September 11, 2001 . . . .

That declared state of emergency has continued in full force and effect from 9/11 to the present. President Bush kept it in place, and President Obama has also.

***

On September 10, 2010, President Obama declared:

Section 202(d) of the National Emergencies Act, 50 U.S.C. 1622(d), provides for the automatic termination of a national emergency unless, prior to the anniversary date of its declaration, the President publishes in the Federal Register and transmits to the Congress a notice stating that the emergency is to continue in effect beyond the anniversary date. Consistent with this provision, I have sent to the Federal Register the enclosed notice, stating that the emergency declared with respect to the terrorist attacks on the United States of September 11, 2001, is to continue in effect for an additional year.
The terrorist threat that led to the declaration on September 14, 2001, of a national emergency continues. For this reason, I have determined that it is necessary to continue in effect after September 14, 2010, the national emergency with respect to the terrorist threat.

The Washington Times wrote on September 18, 2001:

Simply by proclaiming a national emergency on Friday, President Bush activated some 500 dormant legal provisions, including those allowing him to impose censorship and martial law.

***

Continuity of Government ("COG") measures were implemented on 9/11. For example, according to the 9/11 Commission Report, at page 38:

At 9:59, an Air Force lieutenant colonel working in the White House Military Office joined the conference and stated he had just talked to Deputy National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley. The White House requested (1) the implementation of continuity of government measures, (2) fighter escorts for Air Force One, and (3) a fighter combat air patrol over Washington, D.C.

***

The Washington Post reported in March 2002 that "the shadow government has evolved into an indefinite precaution." The same article goes on to state:

Assessment of terrorist risks persuaded the White House to remake the program as a permanent feature of 'the new reality, based on what the threat looks like,' a senior decisionmaker said.

As CBS pointed out, virtually none of the Congressional leadership knew that the COG had been implemented or was still in existence as of March 2002:

Key congressional leaders say they didn’t know President Bush had established a “shadow government,” moving dozens of senior civilian managers to secret underground locations outside Washington to ensure that the federal government could survive a devastating terrorist attack on the nation's capital, The Washington Post says in its Saturday editions.

Senate Majority Leader Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.) told the Post he had not been informed by the White House about the role, location or even the existence of the shadow government that the administration began to deploy the morning of the Sept. 11 hijackings.

An aide to House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.) said he was also unaware of the administration's move.

Among Congress's GOP leadership, aides to House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (Ill.), second in line to succeed the president if he became incapacitated, and to Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott (Miss.) said they were not sure whether they knew.

Aides to Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D-W. Va.) said he had not been told. As Senate president pro tempore, he is in line to become president after the House speaker.

Similarly, the above-cited CNN article states:

Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-South Dakota, said Friday he can't say much about the plan.
"We have not been informed at all about the role of the shadow government or its whereabouts or what particular responsibilities they have and when they would kick in, but we look forward to work with the administration to get additional information on that."

Indeed, the White House has specifically refused to share information about Continuity of Government plans with the Homeland Security Committee of the U.S. Congress, even though that Committee has proper security clearance to hear the full details of all COG plans.

Specifically, in the summer 2007, Congressman Peter DeFazio, on the Homeland Security Committee (and so with proper security access to be briefed on COG issues), inquired about continuity of government plans, and was refused access. Indeed, DeFazio told Congress that the entire Homeland Security Committee of the U.S. Congress has been denied access to the plans by the White House (video; or here is the transcript). The Homeland Security Committee has full clearance to view all information about COG plans. DeFazio concluded: "Maybe the people who think there’s a conspiracy out there are right”.

As University of California Berkeley Professor Emeritus Peter Dale Scott warned:

If members of the Homeland Security Committee cannot enforce their right to read secret plans of the Executive Branch, then the systems of checks and balances established by the U.S. Constitution would seem to be failing.

To put it another way, if the White House is successful in frustrating DeFazio, then Continuity of Government planning has arguably already superseded the Constitution as a higher authority.

Indeed, continuity of government plans are specifically defined to do the following:

***

• Those within the new government would know what was going on. But those in the “old government” – that is, the one created by the framers of the Constitution – would not necessarily know the details of what was happening

• Normal laws and legal processes might largely be suspended, or superseded by secretive judicial forums

• The media might be ordered by strict laws – punishable by treason – to only promote stories authorized by the new government

See this, this and this.

***

In 2007, President Bush issued Presidential Directive NSPD-51, which purported to change Continuity of Government plans. NSPD51 is odd because:

• NSPD51 was passed without Congressional input
• Even the New York Times wrote in an editorial:

Beyond cases of actual insurrection, the President may now use military troops as a domestic police force in response to a natural disaster, a disease outbreak, terrorist attack, or to any ‘other condition.’ Changes of this magnitude should be made only after a thorough public airing. But these new Presidential powers were slipped into the law without hearings or public debate.

So continuity of government laws were enacted without public or even Congressional knowledge, and neither the public or even Congress members on the Homeland Security Committee - let alone Congress as a whole - are being informed of whether they are still in effect and, if so, what laws govern.

Postscript: As I've repeatedly noted, economics, politics and law are inseparable and intertwined. As Aristotle pointed out thousands of years ago, "The only stable state is the one in which all men are equal before the law." Without the rule of law, the state crumbles, and the government bonds and other investments crumble with it.

As I wrote last year:

What's the hole that is swallowing up the economy? The failure to follow the rule of law.
The rule of law is what provides trust in our economy, which is essential for a stable economy.
The rule of law is the basis for our social contract. Indeed, it is the basis for our submission to the power of the state.
We are supposed to be a nation of laws, not of men. That's what humanity has fought for ever since we forced the king to sign the Magna Carta.
Indeed, lawlessness - the failure to enforce the rule of law - is dragging the world economy down into the abyss.

79 Senators vote to Increase The “War of Terror”

And Trash the Constitution

May 29, 2011

By Marti Oakley - Activist Post


If you haven’t received the memo yet, let me update you on your status as it pertains to the Constitution and your civil liberties; you have neither.  79 Senators who snickered as they swore an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States, voted to render you guilty in advance, with no chance of proving your innocence.  The unlawful data mining and collection, the compilation of dossiers on virtually every person in the US, the unwarranted wire-tapping, the rifling through personal records of all kinds for no other reason than to collect information to be used at a later date if the government decides to prosecute you for whatever reasons, was extended.

The Patriot Acts were sold to the public as part of the war of terror perpetrated by the Bush administration after the false flag attacks of 9/11.  A “War of Terror” is being perpetrated by our own government against its own people and is blessed by both Democrat and Republican alike.  “We the people” are the terrorists the government fears. The Constitution be damned.

Nothing in the Patriot acts is remotely connected to fighting terrorism from foreign invaders.  It is a precisely targeted bill which amounted to a massive assault on liberty and freedom right here at home.

We had more than 1500 laws already on the books (never invoked) to fight terrorism prior to this Act, and even these could not stop an attack; what makes anyone think or believe the Patriot Acts could perform such a feat?  If you think this Act could prevent terrorism, try waving a copy at a TSA agent and see if he (or, she) runs away in fear.

Had the intent of the Patriot Act actually been to fight terrorism, the federal government would have had to turn its efforts inward and waged “war” on itself.

The Patriot Acts are the systematic criminalization of American citizens. Terrorists, and terrorism are only mentioned when the assaults on Constitutional rights and civil liberties were so egregious, so blatantly obvious that the veiled threat of another attack, if we objected, was ever present.

No true terrorist gives a rat’s behind what laws we pass; if they did, they wouldn’t be terrorists.  Nothing in the Patriot Acts will stop terrorism especially when it emanates from within.

These Acts will however:

• Stop YOU from traveling unmolested by government agents.
• Will also violate your right to privacy and to be,
• Secure from illegal search and seizure
• Makes legal (not lawful) warrantless searches
• Allows unwarranted data mining of any and all information on you, including:
• Any comments, beliefs, political opinions, social positions, religious beliefs, political party affiliation, and any other belief system or political view not approved by government.
• These Acts are the foundation of the police state being systematically assembled and implemented by Homeland Security

The hunting of the American people

They aren’t looking for terrorists…..they are looking for you.

There is far more to this police state Act than we can go into here.  We all know this Act for what it is: The end of our Constitutional Republic and the rise of the police state. And 79 of our Senators took it upon themselves to vote away our liberty and to allow this monster to grow.

Too many of us dutifully comply with the sexual assaults perpetrated by TSA agents across the country.  As passengers mewl and whine about how they “are just trying to keep us safe” I have to wonder just how egregious the invasion of our property and most especially the invasion of our persons has to become before we admit that what TSA is doing has nothing to do with your safety.  It has everything to do with conditioning and training you to submit and comply, and god knows there are plenty of perverts more than willing to spend their days fondling the genitals of compliant passengers or watching the naked body scanner images.  The sexual assaults perpetrated on the public have produced not ONE terrorist unless of course you count the TSA agents.

TSA is now planned for public buildings, malls, train stations and stadiums.  And bunches of you sheeple will whine about how they are just trying to keep you safe!  And to add insult to injury, the 2002 homeland Security Act has been amended to include a snitching-for-dollars program which we like to call “The Stool Pigeon Protection Act”.

Fusion Centers are proliferating across the country.  These centers do nothing but data mine, snoop, and collect any and all data they can, indiscriminately and without regard to your liberty or civil protections.  These are manned by your friends, neighbors and family members who lack morality and any sense of patriotism; people who quickly forgot who they are and where they come from.

Obama and several state senators and governors are contemplating a “per mile” surveillance tax system to be paid for by taxpayers.  This new system would require surveillance equipment to be installed on your vehicle, not so much to generate revenue, but more to track your movements so that information could be added to your CIA/FBI/NSA dossier.  Once identified in this new system, your ability to purchase gas could be shut off instantly simply by deactivating your vehicle ID number.  It could shut off access for one vehicle . . . or all vehicles.

Our police and sheriff departments have been militarized under Homeland Security.  Our police and sheriff department vehicles no longer have the words “To protect and Serve” emblazoned on the sides.  This, thanks to a SCOTUS ruling that said law enforcement was under no obligation to protect us unless they arrest us, and then only in a limited fashion . . . and besides . . . they are essentially military units now.

They are hunting US citizens

SCOTUS has become a threat to the country at large, ruling time and again against the Constitution and your liberty and protected rights, and in favor of corporate interests many of whom now openly run various agencies of government.  When Citizens v United came down, this court should have been immediately disbanded.  This decision vested incorporeal, fictional entities with human rights.

We have major cities across the country now purchasing military equipment for use against their communities.  A 911 call will elicit a SWAT team response, replete with star wars gear and uniforms, worn by badge heavy, testosterone pulsing storm troopers who don’t care if you have committed a crime or not.  They have guns and other weapons and carte blanche to break any and all laws (that apply to civilians) in defense of “government”.  These law enforcement officers, once the hero’s of children and many adults are now a menace to their communities and present a greater threat than your run of the mill criminal.

For those law enforcement personnel who swear to uphold the law and your rights and to refuse orders to violate your rights, the Southern Poverty Law Center will quickly add their names and organizations to their lists; lists which are then sold for millions of dollars to the federal government indicating which groups and individuals are to be targeted.  These men and women are now “unique terrorists”, suspected terrorists; to be viewed with suspicion and arrested whenever possible.  And why?  For refusing to violate your rights and for refusing to participate in the growing police state. Anyone who expresses patriotism is considered a “nativist extremist” by SPLC.  Think about that the next time you say the pledge of allegiance; maybe it will keep you from thinking about the McCarthy-esque nerds populating the SPLC.

Homeland Security has ordered 500 roving vans complete with x-ray scanners to be used across the country.  You can be scanned walking down the street, in public places or even in your own yard.  Why? You might be a terrorist.  With our economy in shambles, and the national debt posing a real threat, the best they could come up with is to spend another estimated ½ billion dollars on vans to cruise our streets and surreptitiously x-ray to see if we have weapons on us?  Really?

There is far more to this than the few items listed here.  A repeal of the Patriot Act 1 and the misnamed Security Enhancement Act of 2003…an expansion of the first Act, would go along way in restoring the integrity of government and our freedom.  But today, 79 Senators decided you were not worth it.  79 Senators committed an act of treason against the people they are supposed to represent and sold off their freedom, liberty and rights.

79 Senators…that’s all it took to lay waste to the Constitution.  Not to worry!  Several of them will be on various cable news shows talking about “keeping America safe”, “national security”, “the war of terror”, and trying to convince us that the only way we can be safe is if we forfeit our rights, freedom and our Constitution.

79 Senators…and not one of them will admit that the terrorists you need to fear, the people you need to be protected from…..is them.
______________________
Fusion Centers
http://epic.org/privacy/fusion/
SPLC paranoia
http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-report/browse-all-issues/2011/spring/the-year-in-nativism/nativist-extremists
Stool Pigeon Protection Act
http://ppjg.wordpress.com/2011/03/10/stool-pigeon-protection-act/
Homegrown terrorism..The threat of Homeland Security
http://ppjg.wordpress.com/2011/03/10/homegrown-terrorism-the-threat-of-homeland-security-and-spy-agencies/
Drones inAmerica: The ultimate no-knock warrant
http://ppjg.wordpress.com/2011/03/09/drones-in-america-the-ultimate-no-knock-warrant/

What Facebook Is Hiding From You

In their online lives, most people are shielded from viewpoints that do not mesh with their own, making it difficult to build the diverse coalitions that lead to real change. 

By Jonathan Matthew Smucker, AlterNet
Posted on May 24, 2011

Eli Pariser's new book The Filter Bubble: What the Internet Is Hiding from You is a must-read for pretty much anyone who uses the Internet. Eli breaks down troubling trends emerging in the World Wide Web that threaten not only individual privacy but also the very idea of civic space.

Of key concern to Eli is "web personalization": code that maps the algorithms of your individual web use and helps you more easily find the things that the code "thinks" will pique your interest.

There's a daunting amount of information out there, and sometimes it can feel overwhelming to even begin sorting through it. Personalization can help. For instance, I can find music that fits my tastes by using Pandora, or movies I like through Netflix. The services provided by companies like Pandora, Netflix, Amazon, et al are designed to study us—to get to know us rather intimately—to the point where Netflix can now predict the average customer's rating of a given movie within half a star. Eli paints a picture of your computer monitor as "a kind of one-way mirror, reflecting your own interests while algorithmic observers watch what you click."

Whatever the benefits, the intent of these services isn't just to benevolently help us find the things we're looking for. They're also designed to help companies find unwitting customers. When you open your web browser to shop for a product—or really for any other reason—you yourself are a product whose personal information is literally being sold. Companies that you know, like Google and Facebook, and companies you've probably never heard of (e.g. Acxiom) are using increasingly sophisticated programs to map your personality.

And it's not just creepiness and individual privacy that's at issue here. Personalization is also adding to a civic crisis. It's one thing for code to help us find music, movies and other consumer products we like. But what about when code also feeds us our preferred news and political opinions, shielding us from alternative viewpoints? Personalization now means that you and your Republican uncle will see dramatically different results when you run the same exact Google news search. You're both likely to see results that come from news sources that you prefer — sources that tend to reinforce your existing opinions. Maybe your search will pull articles from NPR and Huffington Post, while his will spotlight stories from FOX News. Both of you will have your biases and worldviews fed back to you — typically without even being aware that your news feed has been personalized.

Web personalization is invisibly creating individual-tailored information universes. Each of us is increasingly surrounded by information that affirms—rather than challenges—our existing opinions, biases, worldviews, and identities.

This filter bubble impacts everyone. And it poses big challenges for grassroots activists and organizers in particular.

Values reflected back: the illusion of doing somethingIf you're an activist, then probably a lot of your Facebook friends are activists too. Your friend Susan has been posting all week about the public workers in Wisconsin. Jacob posted an insightful read about white privilege that's at the top of your newsfeed — 50 of your friends "like" it. Sam is a climate activist, and her Facebook presence reflects it. And you just posted an article about an upcoming protest to end the U.S. occupation in Afghanistan.

When you log in on Facebook as an activist, it might feel like you're part of a mass movement. Social justice issues are front and center — as if that were the main thing people used Facebook for. That's how web personalization works on Facebook. When you click on a lot of posts about gay marriage, you will start seeing more similar posts. When you check out certain people's profiles, they'll show up more often in your newsfeed. If these folks think a lot like you do, you'll see a lot of stuff that reinforces your worldview.

It's fun and validating to see a lot of stuff you agree with. But consider the implications. People who are opposed to gay marriage are seeing a lot of articles that reinforce their beliefs too. And, perhaps more important, folks who aren't that interested in the issue probably won't see anything about it at all. Maybe you fancy yourself an agitator with your Facebook posts, but the folks who might feel agitated—and the more persuadable folks in the middle—typically aren't seeing those posts at all. Furthermore, even if you think you're right about all your beliefs, how are you going to be equipped to persuade others if you're not exposed to their views?

You can spend your whole day expressing your political identity on Facebook. You can also use it to mobilize the usual suspects to take some online action — or maybe even to get some of them out to an "offline" political event. But to mistake this kind of thing for grassroots organizing is a big problem.

Grassroots organizing is a process that happens within—and within deep relationship to—already constituted social blocs. It's a process of articulating demands in language that means something to the community and making those demands actionable. It is moving the community into action as a community — not just fishing for a handful of radicals who come out as individuals. But most activist spaces today are spaces for self-selectors, where folks do enter as individuals. And to really enter these spaces, you often have to assimilate to an activist subculture, and check some aspects of your identity at the door.

I don't know of any mass movement in the history of the world that was composed of all self-selecting individuals (at least no movement that lasted longer than a flash). Take the Civil Rights Movement. If Bob Moses, Ella Baker, Martin Luther King, and Rosa Parks had been oriented toward the center of a small circle of self-selectors, they would not have been the leaders of a movement. (Picture them inspiring each other with status updates like, "No one should have give up their bus seat because of the color of their skin. Please post as your status if you agree.") It only became a movement when these and other good leaders helped to move whole communities—most notably black churches and schools—into action as communities. Membership in these communities came to imply movement participation. This is how movements become movements.

Self-selection on steroidsWeb personalization shouldn't be blamed for starting this pattern where people gravitate toward the things they "Like"™. Eli is quick to point out how Americans had been clustering into likeminded groups for a few decades before the web was even a big deal. We have literally been migrating into values-homogenous social spaces since the late 1960s.

Discussing the ideas of Ron Inglehart, Bill Bishop, Robert Putnam, and others, Eli paints a picture of an increasingly fractured society.

For the past four decades or so we've been rearranging our lives to surround ourselves with people who think a lot like we do — phasing out folks who don't share our opinions and tastes.  We've chosen our neighborhoods, religious congregations, civic and political organizations, the cultural spaces we frequent, and our friendship circles so that we can experience our worldview reflected back to us and minimize dissonance. With or without web personalization, it makes sense that we would continue to follow the same pattern in our online communities.

Hierarchy of Needs

Ron Inglehart's explanation for the trend is based on Abraham Maslow's "hierarchy of needs": once our basic survival and material needs are provided for, we then focus more attention on social networks and individual expression. This explains why dramatic outbursts of self-expressiveness hit every industrialized society in the world simultaneously in the late 1960s. According to Bill Bishop (in The Big Sort), a generation that "grew up in relative abundance" started to display "a politics of self-expression." And apparently, self-expressive people prefer to express themselves in like-minded company.

So what's the big deal? I like my friends and I'm glad they share my values. It's affirming. It makes me feel good. I can relax in like-minded company. What's the problem?

Eli discusses several problems with this trend. I want to discuss, for an activist audience, a political problem — political in the sense of collective power. My friends and I may be satisfying our identity needs when we talk politics at the bar—or when we share political posts on each other's Facebook walls—but what are we accomplishing? What can we accomplish? What do we, as a small, self-selecting, self-segregating group of folks have the capacity to accomplish — if we're not connecting with others?

See, if you love to play the online game World of Warcraft and—for reasons I can only guess at—you want to spend all your time doing that, then living in a bubble doesn't pose much of a problem for you. By surrounding yourself with other folks who are equally obsessed with this admittedly pretty cool videogame, you can be an all-W.O.W.-all-the-time kind of person. Best to you.

If, on the other hand, you set out to stop global warming, you will absolutely fail if you only surround yourself with people just like you. You need a heck of a lot more people to get on board. The magnitude of your task demands that you break out of your activist ghetto and go beyond the boundaries of self-selection. If you want to build the kind of collective power needed to take on the fossil fuel industries—with all their money, power, and entrenched webs of influence—then you have to somehow infuse your goal into the identities of many, many sectors of society.

But are you, climate activist, up for this task? Or will you instead orient yourself toward the center of a small, insular climate activist subculture? Will you frame your message strategically to connect with people who live beyond the boundaries of your group? Or will you content yourself to signal only to your friends? The world may be going to hell in a hand basket, but at least you're there taking a righteous stand, surrounded by other righteous eco-warriors, right?

As a grassroots organizer, one of things that troubles me most about the filter bubble is its potential to take the tendency of insularity among would-be social change agents and to inject it with steroids. I've seen some of the most committed social justice activists strangely resembling folks who are obsessed with World of Warcraft. They structure their lives around something that they're really into. And no one else is paying attention.

The very concept of a group of activists speaks to this fragmentation. It's as if activism has morphed into a specific identity that centers on a hobby—like being a skater or a "theater person"—rather than a civic responsibility that necessarily traverses groups and interests. In a way, the very label "activist"—its individualizing, identifying affects—excuses everyone else from civic responsibility. I may or may not have an opinion about a given issue, but I can't be expected to do anything about it because "I'm not an activist," or "I'm not really into politics."

In a society that is self-selecting into ever more specific micro-aggregations, it makes sense that "activism" itself could become one such little niche. But when it comes to challenging entrenched power, we need more than little niches. We need huge swaths of society bought in.

Bursting BubblesReaching a broader audience is an indispensible task of social change agents. If we are to leverage the kind of collective power it takes to make the kind of change worth talking about, we need to construct broad alignments of heterogeneous social forces. This task becomes more challenging as the public information landscape becomes increasingly ghettoized. Here's Eli:

...the Internet has unleashed the coordinated energy of a whole new generation of activists—it's easier than ever to find people who share your political passions. But while it's easier than ever to bring a group of people together, as personalization advances it'll become harder for any given group to reach a broad audience. In some ways, personalization poses a threat to public life itself.

If we're not intentional, the task of reaching a broader audience won't just be harder; it'll be hopeless. If activists are themselves ensnared in self-selecting, self-affirming—one might even say narcissistic—filter bubbles, they will lack even the inclination to attempt bridging beyond the boundaries of comfortable little clubs.

Political expression that doesn't engage beyond self-selectors is essentially apolitical. There is no politics without friction. Civics is not easy or clean or pure or contained. It's messy. Civic engagement requires us to break out of bubbles, to dive into the mess, and to lean into the friction.

The hopeful nugget here is that social change work has always started with a belief that reality is dynamic, not static. Things change all the time, even seemingly fixed structures. And we can step up and be self-conscious agents who influence the direction of change. The filter bubble, and all the constraints that come along with it, is another kind of structure we have to engage. Recognizing the structure is an important first step. To that end, Eli's book is a great contribution. Then we've got to do some stuff that may make us feel uncomfortable.

Bob Moses wouldn't have been a leader in the Civil Rights Movement if he had stayed in the north and only surrounded himself with other Harvard-educated young black academics and professionals. For the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) to help catalyze a movement, he and others would have to enter some of the most dangerous segregated areas in the South and talk with some of the poorest, least educated, and most disenfranchised people in the entire country — probably at times an altogether uncomfortable experience.

While Bob Moses sets a pretty high measure to compare ourselves with, perhaps we can at least take a little inspiration and conceptual wisdom from his approach. If he and other Civil Rights leaders could muster the courage to step so far out of their comfort zones, perhaps we can at least start consciously taking a few small steps in that direction.