[Cid_Yama]

The McCarthy era has returned. This time sponsored by a Democrat.

The assault on the US Constitution by the Democratic Party is as determined as the assault by the Republicans. On October 23, 2007, the House passed a bill sponsored by California Democratic congresswoman Jane Harman, chairwoman of a Homeland Security subcommittee, that overturns the constitutionally guaranteed rights to free expression, association, and assembly.

The bill passed the House on a vote of 404-6.

Harman’s bill is called the “Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act.” [ http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h110-1955 ] When HR 1955 becomes law, it will create a commission tasked with identifying extremist people, groups, and ideas. The commission will hold hearings around the country, taking testimony and compiling a list of dangerous people and beliefs.

Who will be on the “extremist beliefs” list? The answer is: civil libertarians, critics of Israel, 9/11 skeptics, critics of the administration’s wars and foreign policies, critics of the administration’s use of kidnapping, rendition, torture and violation of the Geneva Conventions, and critics of the administration’s spying on Americans. Anyone in the way of a powerful interest group--such as environmentalists opposing politically connected developers--is also a candidate for the list.

This bill is a boon for nasty people. That SOB who stole your girlfriend, that hussy who stole your boyfriend, the gun owner next door--just report them to Homeland Security as holders of extreme beliefs. Homeland Security needs suspects, so they are not going to check. Under the new regime, accusation is evidence. Moreover, “our” elected representatives will never admit that they voted for a bill and created an “Extremist Belief Commission” for which there is neither need nor constitutional basis.

That boss who harasses you for coming late to work--he’s a good candidate to be reported; so is that minority employee that you can’t fire for any normal reason. So is the husband of that good-looking woman you have been unable to seduce. Every kind of quarrel and jealousy can now be settled with a phone call to Homeland Security.

We are beginning to see who will be the inmates of the detention centers being built in the US by Halliburton under government contract.

President Bush promises us that the wars he has launched will cause the “untamed fire of freedom” to “reach the darkest corners of our world.” Meanwhile in America the fire of freedom has not only been tamed but also is being extinguished.

The light of liberty has gone out in the United States.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.inf ... e19002.htm

http://www.rotten.com/library/history/huac/

[Bas]

the slippery slope of eroding civil liberties just became a whole lot steeper....

Very worrying indeed. Isn't the ACLU all over this though?

[katkinkate]

The ACLU is probably on the list.

[Falconoffury]

I don't see how the USA can expect to bring freedom to the rest of the world when it has lost freedom within itself.

It isn't about freedom. It is about economic friendliness towards the USA, to the detriment of their freedoms.

[Kingcoal]

Well, the harassment has begun. I say harassment because that's what McCarthyism was all about. I still haven't seen a suspension of habeas corpus and without that, all the government can do is investigate, i.e., harass.

I have a friend who is Chinese and does a lot of business between China and the US. He had a falling out with a business partner and that guy called the FBI alleging that he was involved in something illegal. FBI agents paid my friend a visit, interviewed him and wrote the whole thing off as just what it was; a dispute between business partners.

One thing you have to understand is that when a report is made to an authority, that authority is duty bound to follow up. They can investigate you all they want, but unless they find something illegal, they can't prosecute you. The authorities really don't have the time or resources to waste on this kind of thing; however it does open up an avenue for abuse. If a prominent government officer has it in for someone, they can abuse their power by ordering investigations where none were previously warranted. It's really just another form of police profiling.

However if habeas corpus is suspended, then we will have a full blown police state. Without the sacred "writ of liberty," authorities can engage in all kinds of unwarranted behavior. The writ of habeas corpus is the ONLY thing that stands between a Republic and a Principality. The power shifts completely into the hands of enforcement authorities who are ultimately employed by the President. A suspension of habeas corpus effectively turns the USA into a full blown dictatorship. In such a situation, the President can arbitrarily jail anyone and not have to provide a reason. That effectively scares the other branches of government in line. Congressmen, Judges, anyone can be jailed at the whim of the President.

Understand the law; understand habeas corpus and you'll sleep better at night.

Link

[I_Like_Plants]

Oh yes the Thoughtcrime Bill.

Overwhelmingly passed, I guess none of us should be surprised.

[Cid_Yama]

<b>"Brown Shirt Tactics" employed against critics of Bush Administration</b>

Citizens who have done no more than criticize the president are being banned from airline flights, harassed at airports, strip searched, roughed up and even imprisoned, feminist author and political activist Naomi Wolf reports in her new book, "The End of America."(Chelsea Green Publishing)
During one preboarding search, a TSA agent told her "You're on the list" and Wolf learned it is not a list of suspected terrorists but of journalists, academics, activists, and politicians "who have criticized the White House."
Apparently, favorite targets of the Bush tyranny are peace activists like Jan Adams and Rebecca Gordon, detained at the San Francisco airport; a political leader such as Nancy Oden, of the Green Party, prevented from flying from Maine to Chicago; King Downing and David Fathi, both of the American Civil Liberties Union and both detained (proves ACLU's case about Bush, eh what?); and Constitutional scholar Walter F. Murphy, of Princeton University, who had attacked the illegalities of the Bush regime. He was put on notice his luggage would be ransacked.
"When you are physically detained by armed agents because of something you said or wrote, it has an impact," Wolf writes. "you get it right away that the state is tracking your journeys, can redirect you physically, and can have armed men and women, who may or may not answer your questions, search and release you."

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0709/S00044.htm

Martin Niemoeller, a priest and Member of the Council of the German Protestant Church, who spent himself 8 years in Nazi concentration camps, said this on the Nazi era: "When the Nazis started arresting the communists, I remained silent, for I was no communist. When they arrested the social democrats, I did not speak out, for I was no social democrat. When they imprisoned the trade unionists, I kept my mouth shut, for I was no trade unionist. When they took the Jews, I said nothing, for I was not Jewish. When they came to take me, there was no one left to speak out."

"When the concentration camps were opened it was the year 1933, and the people who were put in the camps then were Communists. Who cared about them? We knew it, it was printed in the newspapers. Who raised their voice, maybe the Confessing Church? We thought: Communists, those opponents of religion, those enemies of Christians - "should I be my brother's keeper?" Then they got rid of the sick, the so-called incurables. - I remember a conversation I had with a person who claimed to be a Christian. He said: Perhaps it's right, these incurably sick people just cost the state money, they are just a burden to themselves and to others. Isn't it best for all concerned if they are taken out of the middle [of society]? -- Only then did the church as such take note. Then we started talking, until our voices were again silenced in public. Can we say, we aren't guilty/responsible? The persecution of the Jews, the way we treated the occupied countries, or the things in Greece, in Poland, in Czechoslovakia or in Holland, that were written in the newspapers. … I believe, we Confessing-Church-Christians have every reason to say: mea culpa, mea culpa! We can talk ourselves out of it with the excuse that it would have cost me my head if I had spoken out.
We preferred to keep silent. We are certainly not without guilt/fault, and I ask myself again and again, what would have happened, if in the year 1933 or 1934 - there must have been a possibility - 14,000 Protestant pastors and all Protestant communities in Germany had defended the truth until their deaths? If we had said back then, it is not right when Hermann Goring simply puts 100,000 Communists in the concentration camps, in order to let them die. I can imagine that perhaps 30,000 to 40,000 Protestant Christians would have had their heads cut off, but I can also imagine that we would have rescued 30-40 million people."

Another truth respecting the vigilance with which a free people should guard their liberty, that deserves to be carefully observed, is this--that a <i>real tyranny</i> may prevail in a state, while the <i>forms</i> of a free constitution remain.

John Dickinson (Emphasis per original.)("Notes" in Political Writings)

http://cid-yama.livejournal.com/28785.html

[Zardoz]

And all because of 9/11.

No matter who you feel actually perpetrated it, the result is what really matters: Mission accomplished.

[Cid_Yama]

<b>The Constitution in Peril</b>

"All these measures would seem to violate the Bill of Rights (and in some cases the Geneva Conventions). The pervasive secrecy threatened the First Amendment's guarantee of free speech. The wiretaps flew in the face of Fourth Amendment guarantees that no warrants for searches (or, by extension, surveillance) would be issued without probable cause and specific details. The detentions, especially of American citizens designated "enemy combatants," defied the Sixth Amendment rights to a speedy trial, to be confronted with witnesses and to have legal counsel. And the interrogation techniques certainly were cruel and unusual punishments of a kind you'd think is prohibited by the Eighth Amendment. Indeed, these issues continue to be fought ferociously in the courts and debated in Congress. But the president's positions have been hard to roll back."

http://www.newsweek.com/id/41874

[AWPrime]

How many lists are there, or is it just one big list?

[Cid_Yama]

It does appear that we are all about to be lumped together under the term 'extremists'. (Interestingly, on 60 minutes during the Musharraf interview he corrected the interviewer's use of the term 'terrorists' saying they were pursuing 'extremists'. Guess the name change policy is in place.) That will make all dissenters terrorists under the new Bush lexicon.

Most important to bloggers, the bill specifically mentions the internet and is intended to squash dissent and contrarian views here. In other words, it is directed specifically at <i>us</i>.

[peaker_2005]

Now would be a good time to bug out.

[jasonraymondson]

To: My dear overlords,

If necessary to get a nicer cell and less torture, I will be happy to turn over any information regarding the people (We know them as evil doers ("Peak Oil nuts") ) Please contact me if you have any questions.

Signed Aaron.

P.S. I love my government.





... just teasing aaron

[kadoomsoon]

This peak oil web site will NOT exist in 2009.

[peaker_2005]

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtex ... =h110-1955

-- There's the actual text of this Act.

The fact that it has to go through DHS worries me, though.

All I can say is thank goodness I'm NOT living in the US.

The real concern is later modification of this Act after an attack.

[Grifter]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('kadoomsoon', 'T')his peak oil web site will NOT exist in 2009.

[peaker_2005]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Grifter', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('kadoomsoon', 'T')his peak oil web site will NOT exist in 2009.

[Plantagenet]

Obama will never let this kind of thing happen when he is president

[jboogy]

Sen. Mcarthy , your tables ready.