S.1867
National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012 (Engrossed in Senate [Passed Senate] December 2, 2011?
The Hacker group, Anonymous posted a video on December 3rd bringing this to the attention of many. In response to this bill, civil libertarians aren’t so happy. Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) said it “denigrates the very foundations of this country.” Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) added, “it puts every single American citizen at risk.”
Uh, what?
You know, we have been running scared since 9/11. I can understand it in the beginning, for the first few months. I could be persuaded to understand it over the first few years (maybe). But it's been now how long? We just had the ten year anniversary. And we're still doing things as if we'd just been bitch slapped by a big bully in the schoolyard.
But to be accurate, we're still being scared after having blown the bully's brains out. What happened to John Wayne? Kicking some ass and taking names? But continuing our American way here at home, not suspending our rights in a vain attempt at going back to the days of McCarthyism.
Now that may not sound like me. I'm usually pretty level headed about things, even when it happens.
On the morning of 9/11, I was riding a ferry to work in Seattle. I'm divorced now, but my lovely wife at the time called me to tell me a plane had just flown into the World Trade Center. I said that it's possible it was an accident but you can't just fly a plane into a building on accident. While she was talking to me, the second plane hit the second tower. I commented to her then that we were technically in a state of war. People around me on the ferry gave me strange looks, probably thinking I was nuts.
But I didn't freak out. I wasn't "Terrorized". I was pissed off, angry at whomever had attacked us. All through the ensuing years since the event, I've been angry at people who think that killing especially innocent people, is some kind of just cause. Life, is a calculated risk. We calculate some risk for freedom. When we start giving up freedom for fake security (TSA, Homeland Security, locking our borders), then this isn't America any longer.
My view on that next day or two after 9/11 were that someone needed to be made accountable. We needed to wipe out who ever did that on our soil (we have). They didn't deserve to get credit for what they had done (they did), nor did they deserve to continue breathing air (they don't).
So we went to war with Iraq? Well, I guess this is where the John Wayne paradigm begins to break down.
Okayyyy... I'm still not sure why Iraq. But then, I'm not sure why we didn't kick Sadman Insane's ass out of office when he was defeated the first time by Bush Sr. I was incensed that we didn't go to Bagdad and take him from power. I'm still annoyed that we didn't push the Russians out of Berlin and Germany back at the end of WWII, when Patton said we should. But I wasn't born yet, and that is a moot point now. But look what not doing what we should do has cost us over the years.
We have the Posse Comitatus laws to protect our citizens from what has been done in country after country throughout history, which was that the government would impose martial law and use the military to put down the popular vote, voting done with action, and not poll booths. Military and citizens don't mix well.
We have been in that mood lately, the mood to rebel, to yell, to demand proper government. Have you noticed? The "Occupy" movements all over our country? People have been in that pre revolutionary mode for some time now. Our government is a bit afraid, no doubt. Good, makes for a healthy government, responsive to its citizens, to whom it SERVES (or should).
Corporations, the ones who SHOULD be afraid, aren't. For them it seems to be business as usual.
First of all, people have misunderstood what the Posse Comitatus law is all about and what has happened to it over the years. In the article about this on homelandsecurity.org (not homelandsecurity.gov),
The hacker group Anonymous, who have taken on the persona of the character from V for Vendetta, which is kind of cool and interesting, put out a video on December 3rd that a law has been passed commuting the Posse Comitatus law. I would take with a grain of salt, whatever Anonymous has to say. But I wouldn't ignore it. Because like a seller on eBay, they don't want to muck up their reputation, I'm sure. So something they are saying is most likely true.
What good they are now, is to point things out for us to look into. So look into it. Be afraid if necessary. But don't be afraid like our fat and rich leaders are, selling off our freedoms. We have had too many freedoms taking away by our increasingly PC, touchy feely culture, as it is. Add fear into that, fear of death, terrorism, loss of money, and you have a perfect storm for the end of our freedoms, period.
There is an article on Forbes about this: The National Defense Authorization Act is the Greatest Threat to Civil Liberties Americans Face. It says in part:
"If Obama does one thing for the remainder of his presidency let it be a veto of the National Defense Authorization Act – a law recently passed by the Senate currently which would place domestic terror investigations and interrogations into the hands of the military and which would open the door for trial-free, indefinite detention of anyone, including American citizens, so long as the government calls them terrorists."
Wired.com talks about this issue also: Senate Wants the Military to Lock You Up Without Trial.
Both these magazines are reputable. So there is something to this.
Here is the page for the bill, and here is the actual pdf of the bill; so make up your own mind. I'm not here to give you the answers. Find out for yourself, go to the source. Look it up. But don't just sit there and let it happen.
The full text from the Anonymous posting on YouTube on Dec 3, 2011
Dear brothers and sisters. Now is the time to open your eyes!
In a stunning move that has civil libertarians stuttering with disbelief, the U.S. Senate has just passed a bill that effectively ends the Bill of Rights in America.
The National Defense Authorization Act is being called the most traitorous act ever witnessed in the Senate, and the language of the bill is cleverly designed to make you think it doesn't apply to Americans, but toward the end of the bill, it essentially says it can apply to Americans "if we want it to.
Bill Summary & Status, 112th Congress (2011 -- 2012) | S.1867 | Latest Title: National Defense Authorization Act for.
This bill, passed late last night in a 93-7 vote, declares the entire USA to be a "battleground" upon which U.S. military forces can operate with impunity, overriding Posse Comitatus and granting the military the unchecked power to arrest, detain, interrogate and even assassinate U.S. citizens with impunity.
Even WIRED magazine was outraged at this bill, reporting:
Senate Wants the Military to Lock You Up Without Trial
...the detention mandate to use indefinite military detention in terrorism cases isn't limited to foreigners. It's confusing, because two different sections of the bill seem to contradict each other, but in the judgment of the University of Texas' Robert Chesney — a nonpartisan authority on military detention — "U.S. citizens are included in the grant of detention authority."
The passage of this law is nothing less than an outright declaration of WAR against the American People by the military-connected power elite. If this is signed into law, it will shred the remaining tenants of the Bill of Rights and unleash upon America a total military dictatorship, complete with secret arrests, secret prisons, unlawful interrogations, indefinite detainment without ever being charged with a crime, the torture of Americans and even the "legitimate assassination" of U.S. citizens right here on American soil!
If you have not yet woken up to the reality of the police state we've been warning you about, I hope you realize we are fast running out of time. Once this becomes law, you have no rights whatsoever in America. — no due process, no First Amendment speech rights, no right to remain silent, nothing.
The US senate does not want us to speak. I suspect even now orders are being shouted into telephones and men with guns will soon be on their way. Why? Because while the truncheon may be used in lieu of conversation, words will always retain their power. Words offer the means to meaning and for those who will listen, the enunciation of truth. And the truth is, there is something terribly wrong with this country, isn't there?
Cruelty and injustice...intolerance and oppression. And where once you had the freedom to object, to think and speak as you saw fit, you now have censors and systems of surveillance, coercing your conformity and soliciting your submission. How did this happen? Who's to blame? Well certainly there are those who are more responsible than others, and they will be held accountable. But again, truth be told...if you're looking for the guilty, you need only look into a mirror.
I know why you did it. I know you were afraid. Who wouldn't be? War. Terror. Disease. There were a myriad of problems which conspired to corrupt your reason and rob you of your common sense. Fear got the best of you and in your panic, you turned to the now President in command Barack Obama. He promised you order. He promised you peace. And all he demanded in return was your silent, obedient consent.
More than four hundred years ago, a great citizen wished to embed the fifth of November forever in our memory. His hope was to remind the world that fairness. Justice, and freedom are more than words - they are perspectives. So if you've seen nothing, if the crimes of this government remain unknown to you, then I would suggest that you allow the fifth of November to pass unmarked. But if you see what I see, if you feel as I feel, and if you would seek as I seek...then I ask you to stand beside one another, one year from November 5th, 2011, outside the gates of every court house of every city DEMANDING our rights!!
Together we stand against the injustice of our own Government.
We are anonymous.
We are Legion.
United as ONE.
Divided by zero.
We do not forgive Censorship.
We do not forget Oppression.
US SENATE...
Expect us!!
Music by: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Requiem
well done!!!! well done!!!!!!
ReplyDeleteI have nothing to add. Very thoughtful and concise; with all the links provided, gives it an even more openly democratic feel....[within a build of information] tres bon!
I appreciate the appreciation. :)
ReplyDelete