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Banned
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Originally Posted by Seaver
Now THAT is premature. I dislike the Patriot Act as much as anyone else, but suggesting the government will step in and prevent him from writing?
1) Either he, or you, have FAR overestimated his influence
2) Both of you need to put on your tin foil hats.
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Seaver, recently.......we've come as close to having that very
thing happen, as I ever want to see us get to:
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(Quote is near the bottom) - <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010926-5.html">http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010926-5.html</a>
Q As Commander-In-Chief, what was the President's reaction to television's Bill Maher, in his announcement that members of our Armed Forces who deal with missiles are cowards, while the armed terrorists who killed 6,000 unarmed are not cowards, for which Maher was briefly moved off a Washington television station?
MR. FLEISCHER: I have not discussed it with the President, one. I have --
Q Surely, as a --
MR. FLEISCHER: I'm getting there.
Q Surely as Commander, he was enraged at that, wasn't he?
MR. FLEISCHER: I'm getting there, Les.
Q Okay.
MR. FLEISCHER: I'm aware of the press reports about what he said. I have not seen the actual transcript of the show itself. But assuming the press reports are right, it's a terrible thing to say, and it unfortunate. And that's why -- there was an earlier question about has the President said anything to people in his own party --<b> they're reminders to all Americans that they need to watch what they say, watch what they do. This is not a time for remarks like that; there never is.</b>
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<a href="http://www.charlotte.com/mld/observer/news/editorial/11064325.htm">http://www.charlotte.com/mld/observer/news/editorial/11064325.htm</a>
.............Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.V., a noted parliamentary historian, accused the Republicans of seeking to "turn the law inside out" and compared their behavior to that of Adolf Hitler, who used "the cloak of legality" for his own evil purposes.
Such intemperate language naturally did not sit well with Republican National committee chairman Ken Mehlman, who called Byrd's remarks "reprehensible beyond the pale."
But in the thrust of his remarks Byrd was eloquent in defense of the filibuster: "The Senate is a place designed, from its inception, as expressive of minority views. ... Without the filibuster ... the president of the United States can simply rule by executive order if his party controls both houses of Congress and majority rule reigns supreme ... the power of dissenting views will be diminished and freedom of speech will be attenuated.".............
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<a href="http://www.supremelaw.org/sls/email/box048/msg04833.htm">http://www.supremelaw.org/sls/email/box048/msg04833.htm</a>
>> In 1982, President Ronald Reagan issued National Security Directive
>>58 which empowered Robert McFarlane and Oliver North to use the National
>>Security Council to secretly retrofit FEMA (Federal Emergency Management
>>Agency) to manage the country during a national crisis. The 1984 "REX
>>exercises" simulated civil unrest culminating in a national emergency
>>with a contingency plan for the imprisonment of 400,000 people. REX 84
>>was so secretive that special metal security doors were installed on the
>>FEMA building's fifth floor, and even long-term officials of the Civil
>>Defense Office were prohibited entry. The ostensible purpose of this
>>exercise was to handle an influx of refugees created by a war in Central
>>America, but a more realistic scenario was the detention of American
>>citizens.
>>
>>STATE OF EMERGENCY
>>
>>
>> Under "REX" the President could declare a state of emergency,
>>empowering the head of FEMA to take control of the internal
>>infrastructure of the United States and suspend the constitution. The
>>President could invoke executive orders 11000 thru 11004 which would: 1-
>>Draft all citizens into work forces under government supervision. 2-
>>Empower the postmaster to register all men, women and children. 3- Seize
>>all airports and aircraft. 4- Seize all housing and establish forced
>>relocation of citizens.
>>
>> FEMA, whose black budget comes from the Department of Defense, has
>>worked closely with the Pentagon in an effort to avoid the legal
>>restrictions of Posse Comitatus. While FEMA may not have been directly
>>responsible for these precedent-setting cases, the principle of federal
>>control was seen during the Los Angeles riots in 1992 with the
>>federalization of the National Guard and during the siege at Waco, where
>>Army tanks equipped with flame throwers were involved in the final
>>conflagration.
>>
>>GOVERNMENT VIOLENCE IS "LEGITIMATE"?
>>
>>
>> <b>The Deputy Attorney General of California commented at a conference
>>that anyone who attacks the State, even verbally, becomes a
>>revolutionary and an enemy by definition.</a> Louis Guiffreda, who was head
>>of FEMA, stated that "legitimate violence is integral to our form of
>>government, for it is from this source that we can continue to purge our
>>weaknesses."
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Quote:
<a href="http://slate.msn.com/id/2114506/">http://slate.msn.com/id/2114506/</a>
Patriot Games
Spinning the invalidation of the government's spy laws.
By Robert Poe
Posted Tuesday, March 8, 2005, at 2:11 PM PT
In a case in which a federal judge found a key provision of the Patriot Act unconstitutional last year, the government insisted on blacking out from legal papers the phrase "the [still redacted] NSL violates the First, Fourth and Fifth Amendments."
And that's just one of the details the ACLU released today, about government attempts to cloak in secrecy the lawsuit that led to the invalidation, last September, of the National Security Letters provision of the USA Patriot Act. NSLs allow the FBI to demand sensitive customer records from providers of electronic communication services and other businesses without judicial oversight, and they do so under guidelines so broad that critics have said they amount to blanket permission to spy on innocent Americans. After the NSL provision was deemed unconstitutional, the Justice Department appealed the decision in late December.
These redactions were the legal equivalent of trying to contain an explosion while it is still happening. The explosion was the lawsuit itself—which exposed for the first time the operation of a law meant to function in complete darkness. The entire process also demonstrated an immutable law of democracy: If you keep squeezing more and more secrecy into a limited space, it will eventually reach critical mass and blow up in your face. The overturned law contained such strict secrecy rules that it effectively cut citizens off from each other and from judicial recourse, which was the main reason the judge declared the law unconstitutional. ..............................
It all started sometime before April of last year, when the FBI sent a National Security Letter to an Internet service provider, similar to hundreds of similar letters apparently sent to other electronic communication service providers following the passage of the Patriot Act in October 2001. The letter instructed the ISP to turn over to the FBI certain information, which still remains secret but apparently included some sort of customer records. The letter "further advised" the ISP that the law prohibited him or anyone working for him from disclosing even the existence of the letter itself to "any person."
If that letter meant what it said—and it would take a bold soul to bet it didn't—even talking to an attorney could have meant going directly to jail. Additionally, and though a non-lawyer might not have known it, the law allows the FBI to send these letters without the prior approval of a judge or anyone but an FBI "Special Agent in Charge" in a field office. In short, there was no way for a judge to decide the merits of these letters either before or after they were sent. Meaning there could never be a constitutional challenge to the letters, nor to the law that authorized them. ..............................
The FBI, free of any need for a judge's OK, could conceivably issue NSLs in at least three ways: in accordance with the new, looser rules; in accordance with the older, more restrictive rules; or in violation, intentional or not, of any and all rules. It's also conceivable that at least some of the resulting NSLs could violate the constitutional rights of citizens. For example, Judge Marrero himself noted that the FBI could theoretically use an NSL to demand that a political campaign turn over the names of everyone with an e-mail address through the campaign's computer system, or to discern the identity of the author of an anonymous blog critical of government. Previous decisions, he observed, have established such constitutional rights as anonymous association and speech.
Ultimately, Judge Marrero had no need to decide whether any given type of NSL violated any specific constitutional rights of individuals, nor did he need to gauge the honesty of the FBI. All he needed to know was that such violation was possible and that the secrecy provisions built into the law meant there was no way to have a future judge probe any such question about any NSL. That lack of recourse made the entire law unconstitutional in his view.
Marrero ruled that NSLs, at the time of the lawsuit, presented a serious enough threat to citizens' constitutional rights that the lack of access to judicial review was a fatal flaw. That means those who want to claim that the ruling had nothing to do with the Patriot Act have their work cut out for them. To make their case, they have to penetrate the mind of the judge and discern that he would have made the same decision about pre-Patriot Act NSLs that he did about post-Patriot Act ones. And that would be a hard sell, given that the earlier NSLs carefully targeted only spies and terrorists.
In one sense, it doesn't matter whether the public believes the decision overturned a part of the Patriot Act or part of the ECPA. The practical effect, if the ruling is upheld on appeal, will be that the government no longer has these vastly expanded powers of surveillance over ordinary American citizens it received under the Patriot Act. In fact, it will have lost the powerful NSL tool itself, unless lawmakers introduce new legislation to reinstate such powers.
But that's where, in another sense, it does matter what ordinary people think happened in that New York court. If the ruling signals that judges may have serious doubts about the constitutionality of the Patriot Act, at least in terms of government surveillance of citizens, writers of future such legislation will tread cautiously. If the ruling seems merely about the flaws of an older, relatively innocuous law, they'll be bolder. And any unwarranted boldness, even if later corrected in court, can do a lot of damage in the meantime.
If Judge Marrero's ruling is overturned on appeal, of course, this boldness is warranted. Either way, the renewal of the sections of the Patriot Act due to sunset this year could hinge on the outcome of this appeal, and on the spin campaign that accompanies it.
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Seaver, did you know that facism is:
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<a href="http://www.couplescompany.com/Features/Politics/Structure3.htm">http://www.couplescompany.com/Features/Politics/Structure3.htm</a>
An interesting note to end this article: As of January 2004, the United States fulfills all fourteen points of fascism and all seven warning signs are present. But we're not alone. Israel also fulfills all fourteen points and all seven warning signs as well. Welcome to the new republic, redefined, revised and spun. It is not too late to reverse this in either country, but it will be soon. The first step is realizing it. The second step is getting involved. As the propaganda slogan disguising our current war goes, "Freedom isn't free." But our war for freedom isn't abroad; it's here at home.
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Last edited by host; 03-10-2005 at 12:19 AM..
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