[slutsky]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '2')030 survivors have many wifes and can come out of the hole they live in.

[thebear]

an american? I am in way pushed my religion on you! You are a certifiable nut!

[shortonoil]

Anyone who supports this right wing dominicanist facism is either deluded or ignorant. Personally I think that the Constitution of the United States is the greatest document ever written to insure the peace and tranquillity of any populace. Our government has completely dismissed the law of the land and is thus the real criminal to be brought to justice. For those who want to do nothing but blat platitudes carry on. The Constitution even protects fools. For those who wish to bring our country back to a nation of law and justice read the evidence and then insists that our representives adhere to the law that has been put in place to prevent these kinds of travestries. Those sincerely interested I recommend the well documented book Crossing the Rubicon by Michael C. Ruppert. The book is 650 pages long and very disturbing but very reveally as to the nature of our government. Protecting the Constitution is not a fools errand, it is the responsibility of those privileged to be born here.

[small_steps]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('shortonoil', 'A')nyone who supports this right wing dominicanist facism is either deluded or ignorant. Personally I think that the Constitution of the United States is the greatest document ever written to insure the peace and tranquillity of any populace. Our government has completely dismissed the law of the land and is thus the real criminal to be brought to justice. For those who want to do nothing but blat platitudes carry on. The Constitution even protects fools. For those who wish to bring our country back to a nation of law and justice read the evidence and then insists that our representives adhere to the law that has been put in place to prevent these kinds of travestries.

[Sencha]

Small_steps, shortonoil, I'm with you!

I wish someone was taking action somewhere. It makes me think about those militant groups back in the '60s. Like the Weathermen and the Symbionese Liberation Army. There needs to be more of that. If we don't try to do something, the government will come down on all of us.

Politicians by nature, cannot sympathize with most people. They live in a somewhat nihilistic state of mind. They feel they can do whatever they want to us. They don't think or live on our level. When the worst comes, they won't care. The time will come where we've got to stand up for ourselves. Remember, although the american people is in large part responsible for peak oil, the politicians have the greatest power to do something about it.

Are they getting the word out? Are they launching unprecedented alternative energy programs? No! They are testing missile systems, waging resource wars, building secret internment camps for the crash. (Camp Edwards in Cape Cod is reserved for us in Mass.) Are we going to take this sitting down?

[sventvkg]

Too tired to read through the 2nd Patriot Act? Here are some highlights:

The second Patriot Act is a mirror image of powers
that Julius Caesar and Adolf Hitler gave themselves.
Whereas the First Patriot Act only gutted the First,
Third, Fourth and Fifth Amendments, and seriously
damaged the Seventh and the Tenth, the Second Patriot
Act reorganizes the entire Federal government as well
as many areas of state government under the
dictatorial control of the Justice Department, the
Office of Homeland Security and the FEMA NORTHCOM
military command. The Domestic Security Enhancement
Act 2003, also known as the Second Patriot Act is by
its very structure the definition of dictatorship.

I challenge all Americans to study the new Patriot Act
and to compare it to the Constitution, Bill of Rights
and Declaration of Independence. Ninety percent of the
act has nothing to do with terrorism and is instead a
giant Federal power-grab with tentacles reaching into
every facet of our society. It strips American
citizens of all of their rights and grants the
government and its private agents total immunity.

Here is a quick thumbnail sketch of just some of the
draconian measures encapsulated within this tyrannical
legislation:

SECTION 501 (Expatriation of Terrorists) expands the
Bush administration'?s enemy combatant definition to
all American citizens who may have violated any
provision of Section 802 of the first Patriot Act.
(Section 802 is the new definition of domestic
terrorism, and the definition is any action that
endangers human life that is a violation of any
Federal or State law. ) Section 501 of the second
Patriot Act directly connects to Section 125 of the
same act. The Justice Department boldly claims that
the incredibly broad Section 802 of the First USA
Patriot Act isn?t broad enough and that a new,
unlimited definition of terrorism is needed.

Under Section 501 a US citizen engaging in lawful
activities can be grabbed off the street and thrown
into a van never to be seen again. The Justice
Department states that they can do this because the
person had inferred from conduct that they were not a
US citizen. Remember Section 802 of the First USA
Patriot Act states that any violation of Federal or
State law can result in the enemy combatant terrorist
designation.

SECTION 201 of the second Patriot Act makes it a
criminal act for any member of the government or any
citizen to release any information concerning the
incarceration or whereabouts of detainees. It also
states that law enforcement does not even have to tell
the press who they have arrested and they never have
to release the names.

SECTION 301 and 306 (Terrorist Identification
Database) set up a national database of suspected
terrorists and radically expand the database to
include anyone associated with suspected terrorist
groups and anyone involved in crimes or having
supported any group designated as terrorist. These
sections also set up a national DNA database for
anyone on probation or who has been on probation for
any crime, and orders State governments to collect the
DNA for the Federal government.

SECTION 312 gives immunity to law enforcement engaging
in spying operations against the American people and
would place substantial restrictions on court
injunctions against Federal violations of civil rights
across the board.

SECTION 101 will designate individual terrorists as
foreign powers and again strip them of all rights
under the enemy combatant designation.

SECTION 102 states clearly that any information
gathering, regardless of whether or not those
activities are illegal, can be considered to be
clandestine intelligence activities for a foreign
power. This makes news gathering illegal.

SECTION 103 allows the Federal government to use
wartime martial law powers domestically and
internationally without Congress declaring that a
state of war exists.

SECTION 106 is bone-chilling in its
straightforwardness. It states that broad general
warrants by the secret FSIA court (a panel of secret
judges set up in a star chamber system that convenes
in an undisclosed location) granted under the first
Patriot Act are not good enough. It states that
government agents must be given immunity for carrying
out searches with no prior court approval. This
section throws out the entire Fourth Amendment against
unreasonable searches and seizures.

SECTION 109 allows secret star chamber courts to issue
contempt charges against any individual or corporation
who refuses to incriminate themselves or others. This
sections annihilate the last vestiges of the Fifth
Amendment.

SECTION 110 restates that key police state clauses in
the first Patriot Act were not sunsetted and removes
the five year sunset clause from other subsections of
the first Patriot Act. After all, the media has told
us: this is the New America. Get used to it. This is
forever.

SECTION 111 expands the definition of the enemy
combatant designation.

SECTION 122 restates the government?s newly announced
power of surveillance without a court order.

SECTION 123 restates that the government no longer
needs warrants and that the investigations can be a
giant dragnet-style sweep described in press reports
about the Total Information Awareness Network. One
passage reads, thus the focus of domestic surveillance
may be less precise than that directed against more
conventional types of crime.

SECTION 126 grants the government the right to mine
the entire spectrum of public and private sector
information from bank records to educational and
medical records. This is the enacting law to allow
ECHELON and the Total Information Awareness Network to
totally break down any and all walls of privacy.

The government states that they must look at
everything to determine if individuals or groups might
have a connection to terrorist groups. As you can now
see, you are guilty until proven innocent.

SECTION 127 allows the government to takeover
coroners? and medical examiners operations whenever
they see fit.

SECTION 128 allows the Federal government to place gag
orders on Federal and State Grand Juries and to take
over the proceedings. It also disallows individuals or
organizations to even try to quash a Federal subpoena.
So now defending yourself will be a terrorist action.

SECTION 129 destroys any remaining whistleblower
protection for Federal agents.

SECTION 202 allows corporations to keep secret their
activities with toxic biological, chemical or
radiological materials.

SECTION 205 allows top Federal officials to keep all
their financial dealings secret, and anyone
investigating them can be considered a terrorist. This
should be very useful for Dick Cheney to stop anyone
investigating Haliburton.

SECTION 303 sets up national DNA database of suspected
terrorists. The database will also be used to stop
other unlawful activities. It will share the
information with state, local and foreign agencies for
the same purposes.

SECTION 311 federalizes your local police department
in the area of information sharing.

SECTION 313 provides liability protection for
businesses, especially big businesses that spy on
their customers for Homeland Security, violating their
privacy agreements. It goes on to say that these are
all preventative measures â?? has anyone seen Minority
Report? This is the access hub for the Total
Information Awareness Network.

SECTION 321 authorizes foreign governments to spy on
the American people and to share information with
foreign governments.

SECTION 322 removes Congress from the extradition
process and allows officers of the Homeland Security
complex to extradite American citizens anywhere they
wish. It also allows Homeland Security to secretly
take individuals out of foreign countries.

SECTION 402 is titled Providing Material Support to
Terrorism. The section reads that there is no
requirement to show that the individual even had the
intent to aid terrorists.

SECTION 403 expands the definition of weapons of mass
destruction to include any activity that affects
interstate or foreign commerce.

SECTION 404 makes it a crime for a terrorist or other
criminals to use encryption in the commission of a
crime.

SECTION 408 creates lifetime parole (basically,
slavery) for a whole host of crimes.

SECTION 410 creates no statute of limitations for
anyone that engages in terrorist actions or supports
terrorists. Remember: any crime is now considered
terrorism under the first Patriot Act.

SECTION 411 expands crimes that are punishable by
death. Again, they point to Section 802 of the first
Patriot Act and state that any terrorist act or
support of terrorist act can result in the death
penalty.

SECTION 421 increases penalties for terrorist
financing. This section states that any type of
financial activity connected to terrorism will result
to time in prison and $10-50,000 fines per violation.

SECTIONS 427 sets up asset forfeiture provisions for
anyone engaging in terrorist activities.

There are many other sections that I did not cover in
the interest of time. The American people were shocked
by the despotic nature of the first Patriot Act. The
second Patriot Act dwarfs all police state legislation
in modern world history.

more: http://www.infowars.com/articles/ps/pat ... s_bush.htm

Before you freak out and call Alex Jones a Right wing fanatic, Sit with the Legislation and look at what's written here and compare...See if it's accurate..I can assure you, it does...There is nothing more to see....Welcome to the New World Order.

[BabyPeanut]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('thebear', 'I') dare say I am one of the 99.99 % that won't be affected

[Pops]

99.9%…

First they took away the rights of Americans they labeled “Terroristâ€

[k_semler]

Text of S. 2845

Text of H.R. 10

Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003

Coming soon to a state line near you:
Sign at the border reads, "Vehicles are searched at random. Identification requred to proceed. You must halt your vehicle, and turn off your engine."
Border gaurd greets you, "May I see your papers, Comerade? Why are you leaving your zone of residence?"

You know the rest. It was done between 1917 and 1992 in a little country called the USSR. There was also another occurance of a bill passing similar to this one. That bill was entitled "Ermächtigungsgesetz", (Enabling Act), which was passed on March 23, 1933 by the Reichstag. Immediatly prior to the vote, Adolf Hitler made a speech where he pleged to use restraint.

[i]“The government will make use of these powers only insofar as they are essential for carrying out vitally necessary measures.. .The number of cases in which an internal necessity exists for having recourse to such a law is in itself a limited one.â€

[highlander]

Well, what was passed was not patriot act two, nor did it call for a national drivers license. It did set minimum standards for states to meet if they want federal funding for some programs. It is not the enabling act per se, but it is another step. Notice the part about going to Canada or mexico without visas, that does look like some kind of national ID. Just remember, Kerry was for this stuff too.

[savethehumans]

BEAUTIFUL, Pops!

And thanks, Svent, for outlining the PA2 provisions. It's a keeper!

I just finished a post elsewhere saying we need to deal with a coming police state NOW, or we won't be around to deal with one LATER. This thread just proves the point.

[shortonoil]

The great holocaust occured because the sheep followed willing.

[savethehumans]

Oh, we've got a LOT of sheep here in America, SOO. And not just the 51% who voted (or DID they?) for Bush, either!

Everything will be all right, of course. We'll think of something. Some great new technology will arise. We're invincible!

(That can be Germans in 1945, or Americans in 2004. Take your pick! )

[MonteQuest]

Here's some excerpts from my book, Madmen at the Helm:

The Loss of Civil Liberties
There are many Americans who feel that the awesome physical damage Bin Laden and company did to us on Dark Tuesday is nothing compared to the blow to our vanishing liberties through the Patriot Act of 2003. Once alienated, an “inalienable rightâ€

[Schneider]

I always tought the United States of America might become a Totalitarian Regime, but watching the process is a bit frightening !

Damn,be sure of one thing : I will make a 1 mins of silence for you Americans WHEN (not "if" ) the Patriotic Act 2 will pass..

Why not "if" !? After seeing a large part of the United States doing nothing to stop Irak invasion,to swallow the first Patriotic Act and worst, put AGAIN A MASS MURDERER in the White House, how anybody can doupt it ?

Watching the Americans doing _nothing_ make me remember a famoust quote i've see in Hitler : The Rise of Evil (by the way,i recommend to watch the trailer at http://www.cbs.com/specials/rise_of_evil/av/ ) :

[i]"All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing."[/i

— Edmund Burke

I hope for the best,but right now i see the worst coming,quickly !

Schneider
French-Canadian

[gg3]

Here's another oldschool conservative, and hawk on foreign policy, who is very very concerned about this.

IMHO it's necessary for government to prove beyond reasonable doubt, and make a strict empirical and logical case, whenever it intends to extend its powers in a manner that could infringe fundamental liberties.

Now re. the so-called Patriot II:

Section 501: "extends enemy combatant definition to
all American citizens who may have violated any
provision of Section 802 of the first Patriot Act."

MAY HAVE: that language is past-tense! May have in the past! That's ex-post-facto law, that is absolutely unconstitutional.

The Justice
Department states that they can do this because the
person had inferred from conduct that they were not a
US citizen.

INFERRED: What the hell kind of crappy standard of proof is that?!

criminal act for any member of the government or any
citizen to release any information concerning the
incarceration or whereabouts of detainees.

DISAPPEARANCES! Byebye Habeas Corpus, hello Banana Republic!

expand the database to
include anyone associated with suspected terrorist
groups and anyone involved in crimes or having
supported any group designated as terrorist.

Did you hear the phase eco-terrorist being used against a bunch of people who vandalized SUVs at a car dealership? Charge them with vandalism, break-and-enter, etc., and make them pay the civil penalties as well, but calling them terrorists is absurd! Meanwhile, those who blow up gynecological clinics are only committing "anti-abortion *violence,*" note that the T-word isn't used *there*!. This one has obvious partisan implications, and it can be used the other way 'round by a subsequent administration.

designate individual terrorists as
foreign powers

This makes a person into the legal equivalent of a country? This is also crazy, and obviously written with some weird implications in mind.

any information
gathering, regardless of whether or not those
activities are illegal, can be considered to be
clandestine intelligence activities for a foreign
power. This makes news gathering illegal.

Bye-bye investigative journalism, byebye First Amendment. (I've already had second thoughts about taking photos of industrial infrastructure, which is something I like to do for purely innocent reasons: construction sites, the new bridge going up, all those cranes towering over the water, an oil refinery against the backdrop of the night sky, the nuclear plant near a family property, etc. etc., all that stuff is aesthetic to me, but now taking pictures of it makes me a foreign spy?!)

government agents must be given immunity for carrying
out searches with no prior court approval.

Byebye Fourth Amendment. Blanket immunity is a free ticket to any abuses that one could concieve of.

allows secret star chamber courts to issue
contempt charges against any individual or corporation
who refuses to incriminate themselves or others.

Please operationalize and quote the language. Part of me still refuses to believe we've sunk THAT far, but if we have, Hello Canada!

the right to mine
the entire spectrum of public and private sector
information from bank records to educational and
medical records.

That would radically change the "corporate culture" of NSA (and probably NRO) which really resents it like hell when domestic agencies come asking for fishing expeditions. The NSA slang for which is "ad-hoc requirements," meaning, "some bozo came in and wants me to waste CPU cycles spying on Americans..."


allows corporations to keep secret their
activities with toxic biological, chemical or
radiological materials.

Form a corporation, conceal a WMD program? Loophole big enough to drive a truckbomb through?


national DNA database of suspected
terrorists.

Suspected according to who? DNA obtained how? With what legal safeguards? See my item in the open discussion topic, about DNA and drivers' licenses.


provides liability protection for
businesses, especially big businesses that spy on
their customers for Homeland Security, violating their
privacy agreements.

Today they "may", tomorrow perhaps they "must," and here come a swarm of Little Brothers with their magic telescreens...


xpands the definition of weapons of mass
destruction to include any activity that affects
interstate or foreign commerce.

Such as medical marijuana and growing your own wheat...? Beware the commerce clause, there's a loophole big enough to drive a Nuremburg Rally or Red Square May Day Parade through.


any terrorist act or
support of terrorist act can result in the death
penalty.

Such as publishing the names of disappeareds?


---


I have to scoot for an appointment, so I'll stop here for now. .

Look folks, forget the "liberal/conservative" crap. I have friends who are liberals. We debate politics all the time, which is a good American pastime. Sometimes we manage to change each others' opinions on stuff, which is cool. But we stick together, and we put first things first.

Using this "liberal/conservative" stuff to divide Americans is a smokescreen, it is being used by the powers-that-be to keep us fighting each other when the really big deal is happening behind the curtain over there.

We all have common cause.

Liberty and justice for all!

[savethehumans]

Schneider, I didn't think I'd be around to see it, either, and I'm glad that my dad (a WWII vet) didn't live to see it! But here it is!

gg: Yep. We ARE in common cause here. But I don't really think we can stop it. What we CAN do is set up the basis to build something from its ashes, cuz post-peak and die-off won't let the Empire survive.

Of course, we're all becoming aware that the Empire WANTS the system to collapse, so it can rebuild it in their own image. Ironic, that that "image" won't have a leg to stand on--or the energy to keep it running! Idiots, they, but DANGEROUS idiots....

[spear]

Wow.If I were there,Id probably be planning a little vacation right about now til things cool down.

[k_semler]

http://www.freenewmexican.com/news/7652.html#


U.S. government moves to muzzle dissident voices

By Scott Martelle | Associated Press
December 7, 2004

In the summer of 1956, Russian poet Boris Pasternak -- a favorite of the recently deceased Joseph Stalin -- delivered his epic "Doctor Zhivago" manuscript to a Soviet publishing house, hoping for a warm reception and a fast track to readers who had shared Russia's torturous half-century of revolution and war, oppression and terror.

Instead, Pasternak received one of the all-time classic rejection letters: A 10,000-word missive that stopped just short of accusing him of treason. It was left to foreign publishers to give his smuggled manuscript life, offering the West a peek into the soul of the Cold War enemy, winning Pasternak the 1958 Nobel in literature and providing Hollywood with an epic film.

These days, Pasternak might not have fared so well.

In an apparent reversal of decades of U.S. practice, recent federal Office of Foreign Assets Control regulations bar American companies from publishing works by dissident writers in countries under sanction unless they first obtain U.S. government approval.

The restriction, condemned by critics as a violation of the First Amendment, means that books and other works banned by some totalitarian regimes cannot be published freely in the United States, a country that prides itself as the international beacon of free expression.

"It strikes me as very odd," said Douglas Kmiec, a constitutional law professor at Pepperdine University and former constitutional legal counsel to former Presidents Reagan and Bush. "I think the government has an uphill struggle to justify this constitutionally."

Several groups, led by the PEN American Center and including Arcade Publishing, have filed suit in U.S. District Court in New York seeking to overturn the regulations, which cover writers in Iran, Sudan, Cuba, North Korea and, until recently, Iraq.

Violations carry severe reprisals -- publishing houses can be fined $1 million and individual violators face up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

"Historically, the United States has served as a megaphone for dissidents from other countries," said Ed Davis of New York, a lawyer leading the PEN legal challenge. "Now we're not able to hear from dissidents."

Yet more than dissident voices are affected.

The regulations already have led publishers to scrap plans for volumes on Cuban architecture and birds, and publishers complain that the rules threaten the intellectual breadth and independence of academic journals.

Shirin Ebadi, the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize winner, has joined the lawsuit, arguing that the rules preclude American publishers from helping craft her memoirs of surviving Iran's Islamic revolution and her efforts to defend human rights in Iranian courts.

In a further wrinkle, even if publishers obtain a license for a book -- something they are loathe to do -- they believe the regulations bar them from advertising it, forcing readers to find the dissident works on their own.

"It's absolutely against the First Amendment," fumed Arcade editor Richard Seaver, who hopes to publish an anthology of Iranian short stories. "We're not going to ask permission (to publish). That reeks of censorship. And `censorship' is a word that gets my hackles up very quickly."

Officials from the U.S. Treasury Department, which oversees OFAC, declined comment on the lawsuit, but spokeswoman Molly Millerwise described the sanctions as "a very important part of our overall national security."

"These are countries that pose serious threats to the United States, to our economy and security and our well being around the globe," Millerwise said, adding that publishers can still bring dissident writers to American readers as long as they first apply for a license.

"The licensing is a very important part of the sanctions policy because it allows people to engage with these countries," Millerwise said. "Anyone is free to apply to OFAC for a license."

Critics say they shouldn't have to.

"We have a long tradition of not accepting prior restraint," said Wendy Strothman of Boston, who hopes to serve as Ebadi's literary agent should the regulations be struck down. "The notion of getting a license seems to me to be completely counter to the spirit of the First Amendment. ... It's really, for me, mostly about the notion of freedom of expression."

The literature that might be lost to American readers is impossible to measure, but in recent months the bestseller lists have been dominated by Azar Nafisi's "Reading Lolita in Tehran," a memoir she wrote in exile. And Marjane Satrapi's graphic novel, "Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood," written and published after her family left Iran for France, has found an international audience.

Tom Miller, author of "Trading With the Enemy: A Yankee Travels Through Castro's Cuba," said the regulations not only "nullify the First Amendment" but would dampen the hopes of censored Cuban writers.

"It would be all the more depressing," said Miller, who travels to Cuba several times a year under U.S. licenses for journalistic, academic or cultural purposes. "There are two places Cubans get published outside of Cuba -- Spain and the States. To cut that short list in half is devastating. In the U.S., it means less artistic and literary infusion from overseas."

Curt Goering, deputy executive director for the Amnesty International human rights monitoring group, criticized the regulations as "a violation of some fundamental human rights."

Goering said international covenants recognize the right of people to receive and distribute information regardless of political boundaries. "It's yet another example of the hypocrisy of this administration on human rights," Goering said, adding that while the United States defends its role in Iraq as a defense of liberty at home it is "blocking" publication of dissident voices.

Kmiec, who is not part of the legal challenge, said the First Amendment -- and subsequent court rulings -- generally preclude the government from restricting publications before they are made.

"It does allow for limitations where there are clear and present dangers and compelling foreign policy or other interests that can be tangibly and authentically demonstrated," Kmiec said. "But short of that special application and very rare circumstance, government censorship is properly off-limits. These efforts to restrain in advance are almost sure to fail."

The dispute centers on a Treasury Department interpretation this year of regulations rooted in the 1917 "Trading With the Enemy Act," which allows the president to bar transactions with people or businesses in nations during times of war or national emergency. A 1988 amendment by Rep. Howard Berman, D-Calif.,relaxed the act to effectively give publishers an exemption while maintaining restrictions on general trade.

In April, OFAC regulators amended an earlier interpretation to advise academic publishers that they can make minor changes to works already published in sanctioned countries and reissue them.

But the regulators said editors cannot provide broader services considered basic to publishing, such as commissioning works, making "substantive" changes to texts, or adding illustrations.

The regulations seem shaded by Joseph Heller's classic novel "Catch-22."

American publishers are allowed to reissue, for example, Cuban communist propaganda or officially approved books but not original works by writers whom the Cuban government has stifled.

In a letter to Treasury officials this past spring, Berman described the regulations as "patently absurd" and said they form a "narrow and misguided interpretation of the law."

"It is in our national interest to support the dissemination of American ideas and values, especially in nations with oppressive regimes," Berman said. "At the same time, (the Berman amendment) is intended to ensure the right of American citizens to have access to a wide range of information and satisfy their curiosity about the world around them."

[mindfarkk]

i'm going to go throw up.