The PPJ Gazette
November 29, 2011
Marti Oakley
I am sometimes baffled by how quickly many people quickly assume that because they were not personally named in some piece of legislation, that somehow the provisions of that legislation do not and could not apply to them. Having spent a great deal of time over the years dissecting legislative language, backtracking changes to code & title and the ever popular “redefinition of terms” used to change the entire common understanding of what a word or phrase means within these tortured constructs called legislation, I know better.
My recent article on S.1867 elicited comments to the effect that a few commenters had read the bill and that I was simply being inflammatory and emotional. Yes…..of course….that must be it.
Lest anyone forget:
- The insidious Patriot Act followed by
- The Security Enhancement Act of 2003,
- the infamous Military Commissions Act 2006,
- followed by the John Warner Defense Authorization Act 2007 and,
- which called for the suspension of habeas corpus (4th Amendment due process)
- all of which gave the president the power to arbitrarily determine on his own, that any one of us was a “domestic terrorist” and going even further to
- allow the president to strip us of our citizenship at his discretion with no oversight.
Each of these unconstitutional bills was a piece of the puzzle being constructed incrementally as the Constitution and our rights were being trashed.
These anti-American laws were not the only affront to the Constitution, our rights and the advancement of the police state. Now why, you might be asking, would anyone want to give the president of the United States the arbitrary authority to strip any US citizen of their citizenship with no evidence other than his/her belief that one of us is a terrorist, or supports terrorism, without the evidence supporting that contention, or being officially charged with a crime? Hmmm. Where to start on this one.
Let’s go back to the redefining of prisoners of war (POW’s) as “enemy combatants”. This change in terminology allowed the Bush regime, and now Obama, to by-pass the Geneva conventions on treatment of prisoners, including what has become our government’s proclivity for torture and avoided much of the international rules of war. It didn’t seem like much at the time, but we know now that it was to redefine the individuals targeted; if we don’t call them prisoners of war we don’t have to abide by the rules. Simple.
Next came Homeland Security’s determination that US citizens who oppose government policy, mention the Constitution, support third party candidates like Ron Paul and Chuck Baldwin, were to viewed as possible domestic terrorists along with social advocates, religious advocates and anyone who attended a rally or protest among many other things.
This was followed by the discovery of Homeland Security documents describing who was to be viewed as a clear and present danger to the federal government (not the country) citing the use of REX84 black ops program along with Presidential Directive 51, that no one has been allowed to see, to conduct “Knock & Talk , Sneak & Peek, checkpoints; exigent search and seizure; meaning far more than what would be determined reasonable.
Next came the launching of TSA which had been planned long before 9/11. The unlawful detaining of legal US citizens with the accompanying exigent search and molestation continues to this day for no other reason than they are traveling. HSD has compiled no-fly lists, suspect lists, black lists, suspected domestic terrorists list and a host of other lists most of will never know we are on for reasons we will never actually know. Originally called Total Information Awareness (TIA), the program was shut down in 2003. Like all things the government does, TIA never went anywhere but simply got parceled out to other agencies making it harder to track while the core program was simply renamed TSA.
Most recently, Obama has approved a new program which allows him to authorize the targeted killing of people in foreign countries that the administration decides is a threat (to them) and includes targeting of US citizens right here at home and abroad. This program, which is nothing more than sanctified murder, is a violation of international laws which prohibit the killing of individuals outside of armed combat zones.
The program will allow the CIA or the military the unchecked authority to murder at will, US citizens and others, around the globe without any evidence of crime, threat or violent activity towards the United States, other than they said so.
The intent through all of these assaults on the Constitution and our protected rights has been to find the means to redefine any one of us as a non-military enemy combatant to facilitate the police state. Once redefined, once the definitive description of who and what we are has been altered to suit the government agenda, it is open season on any one of us.
This brings us right back to S. 1867 Defense Authorization Act of 2011. The striking of an amendment stating clearly:
S.1254 included Section 1031
(d) Constitutional Limitation on Applicability to United States Persons- The authority to detain a person under this section does not extend to the detention of citizens or lawful resident aliens of the United States on the basis of conduct taking place within the United States except to the extent permitted by the Constitution of the United States.
http://www.govtrack.us
S.1254 was the predecessor to S.1867 and the latter no longer contains this provision. Now why would anyone remove what is clearly a section meant to protect the citizens of the United States from the actions of their own government?
Section 1031 d) now reads:
Construction- Nothing in this section is intended to limit or expand the authority of the President or the scope of the Authorization for Use of Military Force. http://www.govtrack.us
Considering the president has already been given the authority to strip us of our citizenship, declare us a domestic terrorist and non-military enemy combatant, and to have us killed if he chooses to what is there to limit or expand?
In what is clearly an effort to manipulate public thinking,
Sen. Lindsey Graham said about it on the Senate floor:
CSPAN video
“1031, the statement of authority to detain, does apply to American citizens and it designates the world as the battlefield, including the homeland.”
Apparently, I was not as inflammatory and emotional as some would have you believe. Shocked, maybe. Angered for sure.
_________________________________________________________
- http://ppjg.wordpress.com/2011/11/27/s-1867-hunting-americans/
- https://epic.org/privacy/terrorism/hr3162.html
- http://www.constitution.org/abus/terror/dsea2003.htm
- http://www.loc.gov/rr/frd/Military_Law/MC_Act-2006.html
- http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h109-5122
- http://www.angeloffaith777.com/uploads/2/4/9/0/2490131/dhs_rightwingextremistreport.pdf
- http://www.govtrack.us
- http://www.govtrack.us
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