Martial Law: Police State America

[mrmom2]

Martial Law: Police State America - We're So Close Now
Special Report:Katrina/Rita Fallout Part One


by Steve Watson
For years we have warned that the police state is coming, how Martial Law will become the norm, how ancient laws, rights and freedoms are being overturned and replaced with repressive mechanisms of control.

For years we have presented the evidence, the Army War College documents, the domestic military takeover drills, the draconian legislation, officials left right and centre calling for more centralized military control domestically.

For years people refuted the evidence, or passed it off as being intended for something else, or simply refused to believe it. Now everything we warned you about is happening.

In the wake of the recent natural disasters on American soil, dangerous precedents have been set. We have been forced to watch how in times of crisis we must submit and follow the orders of Federal Commanders, no matter whether they deny us basic human rights or not.

Whether it be a state attack, a terrorist attack, an accident or a natural disaster matters not anymore, the outcome will be the same. We are just one event, ANY event away from Martial Law.

Getting rid of Posse Comitatus - Setting the precedent

“In a police state the police are national, powerful, authoritarian. Inevitably, national governments yield to the temptation to use the military to do the heavy lifting….once the military is used, however minor initially, the march toward martial law … becomes irresistible.” - Representative Ron Paul of Texas - June 25 1997.

The Posse Comitatus Act is a recognition that the framers of the Constitution had a deep distrust of centralized power, particularly centralized military power that might be used against the people. State militias were preferred over a national army. In times of major disaster or emergency, it has been state governors - not the president - who call out that state's contingent of the national guard.

We have witnessed over a long period of time how Posse Comitatus is systematically being erased. After 9/11 this was particularly accelerated. All the so called "experts" were calling for changes to long standing laws, in order to "protect" us. This led to scores of lower level Government officials pleading for exactly what the criminal elements higher up wanted all along.

Take the following AP report from November 2001:

"Our way of life has forever changed," wrote Sen. John Warner, R-Va., in a letter last month to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. "Should this law now be changed to enable our active-duty military to more fully join other domestic assets in this war against terrorism?"


So let's get this right, "terrorists" attack us because they "hate our freedoms" and the answer is to get rid of our freedoms?



Here's another mainstream report from 2002 documenting a senators call to abolish Posse Comitatus and let troops arrest US civilians.

Here's former Homeland Security dictator Tom Ridge saying the same thing. And here he is saying it again.

But before the war on terror it was clear that there was preparation afoot for such eventualities. Nothing is under review, this has always been the agenda. They were erasing Posse Comitatus 14 Years Ago. In 911: The Road to Tyranny Alex Jones presents footage of troops training to put Americans into Concentration Camps. This footage includes interrogations and a retired Marine admitting that in 1988 he was kicking down doors in Norfolk, Virginia. The Marines would be ordered to the local Police station where they would don Police uniforms. They would then go to the local gun shop or dealers home and "Take Them Down."

In Alex Jones' feature Police State 2000 he covers Operation Urban Warrior where actors posed as American citizens who were Unconstitutionally seized from their homes by the military and police. These Americans: were rounded up and confined behind barbed-wire.



The actors were told to demand to be let free and state that they had rights. They were also told to demand food and water. The troops in turn were taught to ignore them and to order them to behave in an orderly fashion. "Civil disobedience will not be tolerated" was one of the many disturbing statements heard to emanate from the military's loud speakers.



Over the years there have been countless drills of this nature. The media simply reports them as training for dealing with foreign enemies, yet the volunteers and the participants are always told differently.

Here's a report on another urban warfare drill entitled "The Millennium Challenge 2002". This drill was conducted secretly across 26 States in 2002.



Earlier this year details of just one of many Military operations on American soil was exposed in the run up to Lord Bush's coronation. A secret counterterrorism program code-named Power Geyser. A small group of super-secret commandos were hidden among 13000 police and troops and "stood ready with state-of-the-art weaponry to swing into action.".

There have been literally hundreds of these kind of operations in the planning and going on for years now. Many designed to use the military on the streets of American cities in direct violation of Posse Comitatus. The Pentagon has a full Command in operation working on these activities, the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC).

Whilst Studying US COIN (Counter Insurgency) doctrine at University I was subjected to weekly showings of videos where military operations were carried out in purpose built mock American towns and cities. We were also informed of how future Counter Insurgency would be predominantly conducted from Military bunkers as they had developed the technology to map out entire cities to pinpoint accuracy from satellite images. The cities in the prototypes were of course all American cities.

I remember asking the lecturer what the point was in developing this technology for use in foreign insurgency wars in places such as the mountains of Afghanistan, and why were the drills and testing of the technology being carried out purely in American towns and cities. The answer was of course that in the event of a major terror attack on US soil these types of things would go into operation. The Pentagon does indeed have "War Plans" drafted in the event of any type of terror attack, which would be coordinated by Northcom in conjunction with the Department of Homeland Security and would involve Martial Law and thousands of troops on the streets.



According to respected military affairs analyst William Arkin, Northcom has defined three levels of operations, each of which triggers a larger set of authorized activities. The levels are "extraordinary", "emergency" and "temporary". During emergencies, the military can provide similar support, mostly in response to specific events such as the attacks on the World Trade Center. It is only in the case of extraordinary domestic operations that the unique capabilities of the Defense Department are deployed. These include not just such things as air patrols to shoot down hijacked planes or the defusing of bombs and other explosives, but also bringing in intelligence collectors, special operators and even full combat troops.

But as Arkin's article makes clear, Northcom is doing more than mere coordinating. "Under the banner of 'homeland security', the military and intelligence communities are implementing far-reaching changes that blur the lines between terrorism and other kinds of crises and will break down long-established barriers to military action and surveillance within the US."


He also said the Pentagon reviewed the Posse Comitatus Act and determined that it would not be a violation to deploy the National Guard to protect critical infrastructure in some circumstances. He said he expects more presidential directives in the future to expand the military's homeland defense role.

Then of course we have General Tommy Franks stating that a major terror attack on US soil would mean the Constitution will likely be discarded in favor of a military form of government.


Some say this is nothing new. In a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations in January, former US senator Gary Hart said American founders "created such an army and called it the militia: citizen-soldiers under the immediate command of the various states that can be deployed in times of emergency. Since the late 19th century these militias have been known as the National Guard, and they were created and given constitutional status as the first responders and the first line of defense in the case of an attack on our homeland".

This is clearly an alteration of reality. The reason why the founding fathers employed militias and later created Posse Comitatus was that they knew a centralized national army could be used in a future environment to take over the country and take away the rights of everyone.




Police State infrastructure - Already in place (and in use)

We have further exposed how the infrastructure for a Martial Law Police State is already in place, and in many cases is in use. We have a whole archive on the revelations that FEMA has Concentration camps set up and ready to go in the event of any emergency that is deemed suitable for their use. As we have also seen recently, these camps need not have barbed wire and observation towers, they can simply be well guarded sports stadiums.

Detention centers are common features of any public protest event now, as we recently saw at the Republican National Convention and G8 protests.

We have also exposed the development of police State weapons that make Tasers look like water pistols. See this article on The Pentagon's Secret Scream Sonic devices that can inflict pain--or even permanent deafness. These type of devices that are routinely used in Iraq have recently been in use in New Orleans in the Katrina aftermath.



The use of Unmanned drone aircraft has also been documented recently in New Orleans. Again, such weapons are being used not only in foreign reconnaissance but also domestically for spying on "citizens" and controlling crowds. Industry representatives are enthusiastic about the drones' potential.

"I believe we will see Predator and Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) watching over major events, such as the Olympic Games and the Super Bowl, in the not-too-distant future," Brad Brown, then-president of the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International wrote earlier this year.

Alex's most recent film Martial Law: Rise of the Police State also documents the use of huge corporate sponsored surveillance blimps. The Department of Homeland Security is developing 900 ft long so called "Super Blimps" for surveillance, intended to fly about 65,000 feet, well above commercial airliner traffic.




We have also documented the rise in use of the national guard to break up public events. On multiple occasions we have carried stories, photos and video of tanks and armed troops on the streets of America. We saw earlier this year how such deployments are used not only to break up protests, but even something as insignificant as a rave in a field.

Future technology under development includes robot police that have the ability to run. Its like we are living in the Twilight Zone or in a futuristic dystopian film. Yet when you mention these kind of things to people they either don't believe you or simply laugh at you. Well here's a wake up call, IT'S THE YEAR 2005, not 1955, and these things are real
Heres the link Here

 

[mrmom2]

FCC Releases Orders for Internet Backdoor Wiretap Access
Sep 29 - Quietly last week, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) released a 59-page document outlining new rules forcing broadband internet and voice-over-IP (VoIP) phone service providers to open up their systems to federal, state and local law enforcement officials.
In releasing the rules, the FCC opened up a 30-day public comment period. The regulations, which are planned for implementation in 2007, were decided upon in the beginning of August and made public Friday without a news release or other announcement.

Opponents of the proposed rules argue that the "backdoor" requirements pose the opportunity for privacy rights violations and will be prohibitively expensive for companies and the consumers they will ultimately pass the cost along to. In addition, Internet phone companies allege that the FCC rules are designed to prop up faltering traditional telephone companies, which are losing ground in competition with the relatively versatile and inexpensive VoIP services.

In a statement yesterday, Electronic Freedom Foundation attorney Kurt Opsahl said that "a tech mandate requiring backdoors in the Internet endangers the privacy of innocent people, stifles innovation and risks the Internet as a forum for free and open expression."

Opsahl's organization is a nonprofit electronic privacy advocate that has grown vocal in opposition to increasing government regulation of electronic communications in recent years. The Electronic Freedom Foundation is considering a court challenge to the FCC's proposed rules, the statement noted.

In a related resolution made public Friday, the FCC agreed to incorporate four new principles into its mission, including a deferential guideline stating that "consumers are entitled to run applications and use services of their choice, subject to the needs of law enforcement." Commission members did not expand on the intent of the statement included in the three-page decision
Source

 

[Ocean Breeze]

Hope this fits in here, without starting another thread

America is silently becoming a military regime




To keep its dream alive, America must end its military obsession

The US is dynamic and adaptable, but it needs to pay more attention to its fragile economy to save itself from future shocks

As dusk fell, they danced barefoot on the grass, small children and straw-hatted grannies, fat and slim, rich and poor, white, black, Hispanic-American, Indian-American, Chinese-American, while the irresistible beat of the zoot-suited Big Bad Voodoo Daddy band pounded from the stage. Some of the dancers looked great, others ridiculous, but they didn't give a damn. Then fireworks erupted into the spacious night sky, and a leather-faced man in a cowboy hat cried: "Red! White! Blue!"

The concert to mark Independence Day here at Stanford University in California, earlier this year, showed America at its best. It was an authentic, infectious celebration of freedom and national togetherness, but also of a very particular kind of equality. Not the European kind, which looks to a state-guaranteed social standard for all citizens, but the American kind, which claims that anyone, coming from anywhere, has an equal chance to make their own way to the top.
Where else would you get men and women of such diverse origins dancing so exuberantly together, barefoot on the grass, to celebrate a national holiday? Perhaps in Australia, Canada, or London, which is a small multinational country in itself. But even there, would it have quite the same pizzazz and largeness of spirit?

This was the enactment of a dream, of course. The statistical reality of social mobility in today's United States is rather different. But a dream in which enough people believe is itself a kind of reality, and that has long been the case of the American dream. It's a remarkable fact that, in surveys, many poorer Americans oppose high taxes on the rich - presumably because they believe they might one day be rich themselves. There are just enough success stories of outstanding individuals from poor and immigrant backgrounds to keep the dream alive.

Two months later we saw America at its worst, as members of the black underclass in the ninth ward of New Orleans drowned, grew sick and were preyed upon by violent gangs, while government failed to help or protect them. There are even reports (unconfirmed, and perhaps apocryphal) of American women changing their name from Katrina, since Hurricane Katrina has become a synonym not just for natural disaster but for human and political failure. How could the richest and most powerful country in the world, capable of hitting a flea in Afghanistan with a precision laser-guided missile, fail its own poor so miserably?

And then there was Rita. I returned last week from Iran (where an ayatollah at Friday prayers used Katrina to illustrate the inhumanity of the Great Satan America) to an America engulfed in preparations for the onslaught of Hurricane Rita. Watching television, which reported virtually nothing else, 24 hours a day for several days at a time, this felt like a country facing up to a Martian invasion, as in H G Wells' The War of the Worlds. As the 1938 radio broadcast of The War of the Worlds famously triggered a mass exodus from American cities, so now an estimated one million people fled north from Texas. "Galveston is virtually a ghost town now," reported one correspondent, "which is encouraging." While that multicoloured rotating swirl in the weather-map simulations attacked the Gulf coast again and again, like an alien spaceship, the governor of Louisiana warned people: "If you choose to stay, write your social security number on your arm in indelible ink." So they can identify the corpse, you see.

In the event, it was not so bad as they feared. Three things struck me about this week of Ritamania. First, how often people reached for the word "hero". "Hero docs ride out the storm," said a report on ABC. Of course our tabloids do the same, but this has a different quality and frequency to it. When a military man briefing President Bush said the response to Hurricane Katrina had been "a train wreck", meaning a complete mess, Bush responded: "Having said that about Katrina, there were still some amazingly heroic rescues ... "

It would be interesting to do a word count for mentions of the word "hero" in American public life, as compared with Britain, France or Germany. A hundred years ago, conservative nationalist Germans used to characterise the "true" Germans as heroes and the Jews as wheeler-dealers: Helden against Händler. Today, we have a different stereotype: true Americans as Helden and limp-wristed Europeans as Händler. Yet in practice, of course, you had the same mix of true bravery and, as one journalist on the spot noted, "real raw panic" in the response to Rita and Katrina as you would in most societies.

The second thing that struck me was the way the Bush administration fell back on to the military. After the breakdown of public order following Katrina, members of the 82nd Airborne swept the streets of New Orleans, guns at the ready, as if this was Somalia, Kosovo or Iraq. Not just once but twice in the past few days, Bush has been shown being briefed by military commanders. The president confided that he was thinking about the circumstances "in which the department of defence becomes the lead agency". In the run-up to Rita we were shown the deployment of an entire, fully transportable accident and emergency department, with all mod cons, entirely owned and run by the military. Spick and span, and eerily empty. I could not help reflecting that the poor inhabitants of the ninth ward in New Orleans could have done with one of those in everyday life. But that's not where the money has gone in the past few years.

The third thing that struck me very forcefully was the number of people left destitute, or shouldering mounting debt, by the damage to their homes. Why? Because they had no savings. Indeed, many of the poor evacuees from New Orleans did not even have a bank account. The possessions in the house, some of them purchased on the never-never, were all they had. That's why some poor African-Americans refused to leave their homes. This is not just about poverty; it's also about a consumer culture, a relentless commercial pressure to spend, spend, spend, which has given the United States its lowest average personal savings rate since 1959, and one of the lowest in the developed world.

There's very little padding there to absorb another shock, such as the soaring petrol prices which are America's other current obsession. On Monday President Bush even suggested that Americans might think of driving a bit less. If I had any shares in the manufacturers of gas-guzzling SUVs, I would sell at once.

Now I believe the United States will meet this challenge, precisely because of the spirit and diversity I saw in that Independence Day celebration. This is still a very dynamic society, full of enterprising people who want to be here and want to make it. It's also good at scientific and technological adaptation, which can go a long way to address the country's oil dependency. But as I leave Stanford to return to Europe, I do come away feeling that this country needs to spend the next few years concentrating more on its economy and less on its military. When the next recession comes along, it will be no use sending for the marines.


SOURCE

The Guardian, "To keep its dream alive, America must end its military obsession", 29 September 2005.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1580427,00.html

 

[Ocean Breeze]

The Police State Is Closer Than You Think

By Paul Craig Roberts

10/08/05 "ICH" -- -- Police states are easier to acquire than Americans appreciate.

The hysterical aftermath of September 11 has put into place the main components of a police state.

Habeas corpus is the greatest protection Americans have against a police state. Habeas corpus ensures that Americans can only be detained by law. They must be charged with offenses, given access to attorneys, and brought to trial. Habeas corpus prevents the despotic practice of picking up a person and holding him indefinitely.

President Bush claims the power to set aside habeas corpus and to dispense with warrants for arrest and with procedures that guarantee court appearance and trial without undue delay. Today in the US, the executive branch claims the power to arrest a citizen on its own initiative and hold the citizen indefinitely. Thus, Americans are no longer protected from arbitrary arrest and indefinite detention.

These new "seize and hold" powers strip the accused of the protective aspects of law and give rein to selectivity and arbitrariness. No warrant is required for arrest, no charges have to be presented before a judge, and no case has to be put before a jury. As the police are unaccountable, whoever is selected for arrest is at the mercy of arbitrariness.

The judiciary has to some extent defended habeas corpus against Bush’s attack, but the protection that the principle offers against arbitrary seizure and detention has been breeched. Whether courts can fully restore habeas corpus or whether it continues in weakened form or passes by the wayside remains to be determined.

Americans may be unaware of what it means to be stripped of the protection of habeas corpus, or they may think police authorities would never make a mistake or ever use their unbridled power against the innocent. Americans might think that the police state will only use its powers against terrorists or "enemy combatants."

But "terrorist" is an elastic and legally undefined category. When the President of the United States declares: "You are with us or against us," the police may perceive a terrorist in a dissenter from the government’s policies. Political opponents may be regarded as "against us" and thereby fall in the suspect category. Or a police officer may simply have his eye on another man’s attractive wife or wish to settle some old score. An enemy combatant might simply be an American who happens to be in a foreign country when the US invades. In times before our own when people were properly educated, they understood the injustices that caused the English Parliament to pass the Habeas Corpus Act of 1679 prohibiting the arbitrary powers that are now being claimed for the executive branch in the US.

The PATRIOT Act has given the police autonomous surveillance powers. These powers were not achieved without opposition. Civil libertarians opposed it. Bob Barr, the former US Representative who led the impeachment of President Clinton, fought to limit some of the worst features of the act. But the act still bristles with unconstitutional violations of the rights of citizens, and the newly created powers of government to spy on citizens has brought an end to privacy.

The prohibition against self-incrimination protects the accused from being tortured into confession. The innocent are no more immune to pain than the guilty. As Stalin’s show trials demonstrated, even the most committed leaders of the Bolshevik revolution could be tortured into confessing to be counter-revolutionaries.

The prohibition against torture has been breeched by the practice of plea bargaining, which replaces jury trials with negotiated self-incrimination, and by sentencing guidelines, which transfer sentencing discretion from judge to prosecutor. Plea bargaining is a form of psychological torture in which innocent and guilty alike give up their right to jury trial in order to reduce the number and severity of the charges that the prosecutor brings.

The prohibition against physical torture, however, held until the US invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. As video, photographic, and testimonial evidence make clear, the US military has been torturing large numbers of people in its Iraq prisons and in its prison compound at Guantanamo, Cuba. Most of the detainees were people picked up in the equivalent of KGB Stalin-era street sweeps. Having no idea who the detainees are and pressured to produce results, torture was applied to coerce confessions.

Everyone is disturbed about this barbaric and illegal practice except the Bush administration. In an amendment to a $440 billion defense budget bill last Wednesday, the US Senate voted 90 to 9 to ban "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment" of anyone in US government custody. President Bush responded to the Senate’s will by repeating his earlier threat to veto the bill. Allow me to torture, demands Bush of the Senate, or you will be guilty of delaying the military’s budget during wartime. Bush is threatening the Senate with blame for the deaths of US soldiers who will die because they don’t get their body armor or humvee armor in time.

It will be a short step from torturing detainees abroad to torturing the accused in US jails and prisons.

The attorney-client privilege, another great achievement, has been breeched by the Lynne Stewart case. As the attorney for a terrorist, Stewart represented her client in ways disapproved by prosecutors. Stewart was indicted, tried, and convicted of providing material support to terrorists.

Stewart’s indictment sends a message to attorneys not to represent too dutifully or aggressively clients who are unpopular or demonized. Initially, this category may be limited to terrorists. However, once the attorney-client privilege is breeched, any attorney who gets too much in the way of a prosecutor’s case may experience retribution. The intimidation factor can result in an attorney presenting a weak defense. It can even result in attorneys doing as the Benthamite US Department of Justice (sic) desires and helping to convict their client.

In the Anglo-American legal tradition, law is a shield of the accused. This is necessary in order to protect the innocent. The accused is innocent until he is proven guilty in an open court. There are no secret tribunals, no torture, and no show trials.

Outside the Anglo-American legal tradition, law is a weapon of the state. It may be used with careful restraint, as in Europe today, or it may be used to destroy opponents or rivals as in the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany.

When the protective features of the law are removed, law becomes a weapon. Habeas corpus, due process, the attorney-client privilege, no crime without intent, and prohibitions against torture and ex post facto laws are the protective features that shield the accused. These protective features are being removed by zealotry in the "war against terrorism."

The damage terrorists can inflict pales in comparison to the loss of the civil liberties that protect us from the arbitrary power of law used as a weapon. The loss of law as Blackstone’s shield of the innocent would be catastrophic. It would mean the end of America as a land of liberty.