(Photo courtesy of Congressman Dennis J.
Kucinich)
Part Two: Just The Facts, Ma'am -- Just The Facts, And Here They Are
On May 9, 2007, U.S. president George W. Bush signed
National Security Presidential Directive 51, which essentially gives the
president the power over control of all forms of government -- Federal, state
and local -- in the event of a "catastrophic emergency". The
U.S. mainstream
press gave very little coverage to this, except in the
Washington Post. One
independent journalist and Harvard Ph.D. was
troubled by the national directive, which he said would give the
president George W. Bush or any future president the power of a king,
the kind of power
for example that King George III of England had over the Colonies
just prior to his defeat and overthrow during the American Revolution in 1776.
The U.S. Constitution, the independent journalist Jerome Corsi said, would be violated, rendering the time-honored edict
of separation of powers severely endangered. (In 2006, the president
argued for the unitary executive power, giving heightened powers to the
president above and beyond what he already has.) "I don't think the
American people are ready for King George W. Bush to undertake these kinds of
authorities without some very thorough discussion in the public debate," Mr.
Corsi said to Brian Lamb on C-SPAN cable television in 2007.
The following October 24, 2007, the U.S. House of Representatives passed
H.R. 1955, the Violent
Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Act Of 2007.
The bill passed, 404
in favor, with six voting against it.
Twenty-two others did not vote on it at all. The six consisted of
three Democrats (including former presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, who recently brought
impeachment proceedings against President Bush) and three Republicans. In
order for the bill to become law, the Senate must also vote on it -- and it must
pass with at least a two-thirds majority. To this date, the
Senate has not
yet voted on the bill. (Mr. Kucinich's
website was hacked into after he
brought the impeachment resolution in June 2008.)
Most Americans have no idea that H.R. 1955 was even voted on let alone that it existed. Yet it is a bill that affects every single person living in
the United States of America. H.R. 1955, after all the legalese is parsed,
states that the president can grant anyone an enemy combatant or homegrown
terrorist (i.e. a Timothy McVeigh -- perpetrator of the Oklahoma City Bombings of 1995, for
example) for merely expressing a viewpoint that may be criticizing the president
or the government in general. The extracts below are vague and specific at
the same time:
SEC. 899A. DEFINITIONS
(3) HOMEGROWN TERRORISM- The term `homegrown terrorism' means the use, planned use, or threatened use, of force or violence by a group or individual born, raised, or based and operating primarily within the United States or any possession of the United States to intimidate or coerce the United States government, the civilian population of the United States, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives.
(4) IDEOLOGICALLY BASED VIOLENCE- The term `ideologically based violence' means
the use, planned use, or threatened use of force or violence by a group or
individual to promote the group or individual's political, religious, or social
beliefs.
SEC. 899B. FINDINGS
(3) The Internet has aided in facilitating violent radicalization,
ideologically based violence, and the homegrown terrorism process in the United
States by providing access to broad and constant streams of terrorist-related
propaganda to United States citizens.
Under Sec. 899A (4) when one looks up the word
"force", the dictionary
definition does not necessarily mean violence as much as it does the
vigor of one's articulation of an argument or comment, whether verbal or
written, whether seen or heard, whether read in an e-mail or on a website (the
Internet as a terrorist tool as suggested in Sec. 899B(3)?) "Force" may mean the level of conviction one
has in making an argument. For example, your point of view about
politics
(or mine, or even this piece you are presently reading), if the President
decides -- whether that president be Bush, McCain, Obama or in the future
Chelsea Clinton, or whomever -- may be one that is deemed an endangerment to national
security and thus constitutes you as a threat to the government and thus a
homegrown terrorist. In May 2008, some
students from
Germany and elsewhere were deemed a threat to national security
when they
applied for permits to work in a U.S. government agency and grants to study in America. They were alarmed
at the pronouncement and when they asked the requisite offices issuing the
decision to revoke them, the office refused. In 2003, an attorney was arrested in
an upstate New York at a shopping mall
for refusing to remove a t-shirt he was
wearing that said "Peace On Earth" on it, when a
mall security guard had asked him
to.
So what happened to the First Amendment and freedom of speech? Are
incidents like the t-shirt arrest of a lawyer -- of all people -- a test of how
much a country can tolerate its freedoms slowly but surely being eroded from
under their noses? When you are no longer receiving real news from the
U.S. mainstream 24-hour cable television news stations, it's a bad sign that
either something wicked this way comes or that we are being lulled to sleep as a
nation.
Or both.
One thing to consider: the president, or at least former U.S. Iraq/Afghanistan
General Tommy Franks would say that in the event of a national emergency or tragedy,
the Bill Of Rights and all other civil liberties in the
U.S. Constitution are
suspended, even though H.R. 1955 says that any
violation of such rights are to be avoided.
But there's more: On December 16, 2005, The New York Times published a
lengthy story, which it delayed for one whole year
at the behest of the Bush White House in 2004, which was in the middle of a general
election against John Kerry. The story, written by James Risen and Eric Lichtblau, said that the president had authorized spying on and wiretapping of
American citizens within the U.S. without first getting a warrant from the
relevant federal district court as required by FISA, aka the
Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Act of 1978. This spying began before September 11,
2001 -- in fact, in January 2001, when George W. Bush first took office.
The privacy rights of millions of Americans living in the U.S. were violated,
and between January 2001 and September 2007 and perhaps even beyond, the
nation's telecommunications companies -- Verizon, Sprint, AT&T/Cingular and many
others,
except Qwest, turned over cell phone records, phone numbers, credit card
information and social security numbers of their own customers to the Government
(Homeland Security, Department of Defense, FBI, etc.,) so that they could
monitor and spy on anyone they so chose, without obtaining any warrant
whatsoever or providing any justification other than the right to do so because
they believed that the person constituted a terrorist threat. President
Bush strongly argued for the civil legal immunity of these telecom on
companies from lawsuits from the general public who would claim that their
rights were violated.)
And on March 13, 2008, the U.S. House of Representatives, for the only the sixth
time in its history -- including just three times since 1825 -- had a secret meeting on Capitol Hill
in Washington, D.C., a
meeting closed to the cameras of C-SPAN cable television. This must-see prelude to
this highly unusual move was documented on C-SPAN that night (parts
one,
two,
three,
four,
five,
six,
seven,
eight
and
nine.)
Republican Congressional Minority Leader Roy Blunt's comments in part nine, in
which he mentions nuclear weapons, is interesting.
The extraordinary meeting was presumably about the same FISA amendment and illegal wiretapping
of Americans. But perhaps a lot more was going on than that. Perhaps
the discussion was about another possible terror attack on the U.S. and the
safety of the nation? Who knows? During the prelude to the secret
session Democratic Representative Marcy Kaptur of Ohio's 9th District said, "I'm
just extraordinarily uncomfortable with being asked to hold this (secret)
session tonight. I won't attend . . . I would just urge our leadership to
not approve this."
Again,
most Americans had no idea that the secret meeting even took place.
Democratic Representative Diane Watson of California's 33rd District said that
she was "feel[ing] manipulated." Sheila Jackson Lee, Congresswoman from
Texas's 18th District in Houston, said that a House meeting "'closed to the
American people' sounds ominous."
Various
international publications, notably one in Australia, said that some sinister
things were being discussed that involved the tanking of the U.S. economy in
September 2008 and
the status of Americans in their own country. The laws of the secret meetings preclude House
members present at the meeting from telling anyone not present at the meeting what took place, so the
idea of sinister things can only be speculation.
A
chilling story on privacy invasion and a broader analysis, which must be read
to understand the gravity and implications of the privacy breaches and
violations of fourth amendment rights of all Americans by telecommunications
companies, is
here. It is
a story that is
vitally important to read.
If you think that the article is a conspiracy rant and that the government isn't
collecting unprecedented heaps of information on millions of ordinary innocent,
everyday Americans, and abusing and exceeding the authority of the Patriot Act
just take a look at
this
and
this.
The U.S. government itself in 2007 ran an investigation on the FBI and found
that the FBI broke the law, going way too far beyond even the USA Patriot Act's
strictures in searching the data and personal information of American citizens
and non-citizens in the U.S. The Patriot Act was objected to by many civil
rights groups as being too invasive, but according to the U.S. Justice
Department under the Bush Administration, the FBI went further than that.
Despite this,
a March 2007 CNN poll
revealed of the over 88,000 who voted, 68% were not concerned that the FBI might
be spying on them.
To some San Francisco voters as well as many other
Americans around the nation, Democrat Nancy Pelosi, the first woman to become
Speaker Of The House -- the third most-powerful person in America after the
President and Vice President -- has been a major disappointment, particularly
regarding the FISA Amendment of 2008. Ms. Pelosi, shown here at another
event, was seen laughing at President Bush's Oval Office skit about "where are
the weapons of mass destruction? None here!", during the 2004 White House
Correspondents Dinner in Washington, D.C. Cindy Sheehan, the anti-war
activist whose son was killed in Iraq, is running against Speaker Pelosi for her
seat in San Francisco for the election on November 4, 2008. (Photo of
Speaker Pelosi from her website)
It is helpful to know that on June 20, 2008, the same U.S. House of
Representatives that were part of the secret meeting in March 2008 that also last October
2007 voted on the Homegrown Terrorism Act (H.R. 1955),
spearheaded by the Democratic leadership of
Speaker of The House Nancy Pelosi
(San Francisco) and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (Maryland),
voted 293 in favor, with 129 voting against, passed
H.R. 6304, the bill to amend the FISA law of 1978.
The bill gave Verizon, Sprint and all the other companies (Qwest refused to give
the government its own customers' cell phone records) immunity from civil law
suits - although customers could still have their day in criminal court in a
prosecution of Verizon, etc. Privacy groups, such as the ACLU, expressed
deep concern about it. Senator McCain, who had said
he supported Bush's wiretapping program, and Senator Obama both supported
H.R. 6304, with Mr. Obama saying that as president he would monitor the program
for violations of Americans' civil rights and privacy.
Some of those House members voting against H.R. 6304 expressed their horror
about it. One member, Democratic representative Barbara Lee of Oakland,
California said on the floor of the House during debate on June 20, 2008, that
"this bill scares me to death!" Others
seconded Ms. Lee's concerns, while those voting for it, such as Pelosi, in an
extraordinary middle-of-the-road fifteen-minute floor
speech, said that it was an improvement over a prior Senate bill proposal
which was eventually scrapped.
Ms. Pelosi voted for H.R. 6304.
(By the way, Democratic Speaker Nancy Pelosi was on camera at the 2004
White House Correspondents Dinner laughing in reaction to President Bush's
"joke" about not finding any weapons of mass destruction in the Oval Office.
You can see her laughing during the film "Free For All!", which is now on the
Internet at
www.freeforall.tv.
Ms. Pelosi had run in 2006 with a promise to hold the Bush Administration
accountable. Instead, she has done little to uphold her campaign promise
of 2006. Cindy Sheehan, the mother who lost her son in Iraq in 2004 and
tried to get President Bush to meet with her in the summer of 2005 or 2006 in
Crawford, Texas -- but to no avail,
will be running
against Nancy Pelosi this November for the District 8 seat
Pelosi holds in San Francisco.)
It is worth noting that the Senate is yet to vote on the bill, and 15
senators have said that they will do all they can to prevent it from coming to a
vote. Unfortunately last week they were defeated in their desire.
The bill is expected to come to the Senate next week or thereafter or even perhaps later
in the year in the new 111th Congress in October. At this moment, H.R. 6304 is not law, but if the Senate votes
yes in the required majority, it will become law.
[Note: On July 9, 2008, the U.S. Senate voted to approve the FISA amendment,
which will grant more widespread ability by the government to spy on Americans
within America, via e-mail, phone, etc., without having to go before a court to
ask for a warrant. Telecommunications companies (Sprint, Verizon, etc.)
who turned over all the cell-phone records of their paying customers/subscribers
to the U.S. government for the last six years will not face any civil lawsuits
-- they will be immune. Going forward the same companies will not face any
civil lawsuits -- they will be able to continue to break the law by violating
your privacy -- and it is unlikely that they will face criminal prosecution,
either. You can see
here
which senators voted "yes" and which voted "no" on July 9, a day upon which
historians will look back and say that the U.S. Constitution wept on the path to
dying a slow death. Did the senators in your state vote "yes" for what
amounts to an abolition of the Fourth Amendment? By the way, Senator
Barack Obama voted "yes", while Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton voted "no".
Senator John McCain did not vote at all.]
As a curious footnote, racial tension has seemed to increase via the American
media, at least, in 2008. Starting in the early part of the year with the
"go out back and lynch" Tiger Woods reference by Golf Channel anchor Kelly
Tilgheman, to the hangman's noose on the cover of a golf magazine, to the
nastiness exhibited by the Clintons in subtle racial remarks about Barack Obama
(the former president's comparison of the senator to Jesse Jackson in South
Carolina; the former First Lady's reference to hard, working, Americans, white
Americans), the racist remarks of Geraldine Ferraro about Senator Obama being
lucky to be in the presidential race because he is black, the whole Jeremiah
Wright episode, the Michael Phleger episode, the Harriet Christian outburst
outside the DNC meeting on May 31 about Obama being "an inadequate black male",
comments by Mike Huckabee about Obama being shot at and falling off a chair, the
assassination comment of Senator Clinton in May and much more. There is
likely to be more of this on the way during the election campaign, but why now
(apart from the obvious)? The CNN series "Black In America" is also coming
up this month.
Click here for part three:
Fearing For Sarah's Safety