Revoking Passports without Due Process Under the Pretense of Terrorism

In 15 minutes, with virtually no media attention, the House of Representatives passed HR 237, the Foreign Terrorist organization (FTO) Passport Revocation Act, which allows the federal government  the power to arbitrarily strip you of your passport and right to travel without any due process.   Why? Like every "law" that's passed to strip us of our rights: to stop alleged "terrorists". In this case, to keep them from from traveling.

Now, define terrorist. Well,

“Are you a conservative, a libertarian, a Christian or a gun owner? Are you opposed to abortion, globalism, Communism, illegal immigration, the United Nations or the New World Order? Do you believe in conspiracy theories, do you believe that we are living in the “end times” or do you ever visit alternative news websites (such as this one)? If you answered yes to any of those questions, you are a “potential terrorist” according to official U.S. government documents. At one time, the term “terrorist” was used very narrowly. The government applied that label to people like Osama bin Laden and other Islamic jihadists. But now the Obama administration is removing all references to Islam from terror training materials, and instead the term “terrorist” is being applied to large groups of American citizens. And if you are a “terrorist”, that means that you have no rights and the government can treat you just like it treats the terrorists that are being held at Guantanamo Bay. So if you belong to a group of people that is now being referred to as “potential terrorists”, please don’t take it as a joke. The first step to persecuting any group of people is to demonize them. And right now large groups of peaceful, law-abiding citizens are being ruthlessly demonized."

In other words, anyone and everyone, no matter how law abiding you think you are,  is a potential terrorist in the U.S. 

The core of the Rule of Law in the United States is that governmental power be bound strictly by law in order to protect individual freedom or liberty.  It is realized through the judicial process. In other words, the Rule of Law holds that powers and rights vest naturally in individuals and that government is limited in its power to infringe upon those rights.

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Association of 34,000 Black Churches Strongly Against Drones.

Apparently, waging the war on terror using terrorist tactics is acceptable to 62% of American citizens, if, in fact, the Pew poll (left) is accurate.

Ironically, for Americans, the very idea of living in a country occupied by another nation's troops, and/or experiencing terror from the skies by  another nation's drone strikes, is unimaginable, and that may be the problem right there,  we, the people can't imagine it. Because the closest we've come to being attacked on our own soil is 9/11, and almost 12 years later, we're far from over it.  Our attitude--at least the people who approve the drone strikes--is one of being above the rule of law.  Not surprising considering the righteous "Manifest Destiny" and "American Exceptionalism" indoctrination inflicted upon us before we could speak in full sentences.

However, the National Black Church Initiative (NBCI), which is comprised of 34,000 churches representing some 15.7 million black Americans from 15 different denominations, slammed President Obama's drone policy as "evil in the Christian tradition."  If only the rest of us felt the same way.

"I do not know what to say after the pronouncement of his evil policy. This policy has led me to a life of prayer for the soul of this administration and for this president. Anyone who has anything to do with formulating a policy like this either in the Bush or Obama administration will have to answer before God one day. May God have mercy on their souls."--NCBI President Rev. Anthony Evans

Consider this.  Supposedly, when President Obama's press secretary was asked why they had killed the 16-year old son of Anwar al-Aulaqi, he responded, because he was the son of Anwar al-Aulaqi. As if that's enough to justify murder.  Sadly, as long as the order to kill comes from the executive branch--the judge, jury and executioner--even on American soil, it's not murder.

"Brennan, currently President Obama’s chief counterterrorism adviser, is the architect and director of the program of drone missile assassinations that is run out of the White House with the personal participation of Obama. Asked squarely, “Could the Administration carry out drone strikes inside the United States?” Brennan replied, “This Administration has not carried out drone strikes inside the United States and has no intention of doing so.”

This is what is known as a non-responsive answer. It is reasonable to assume that if the answer was “no,” Brennan would simply have written, “no.” Instead, in order to avoid a giving straightforward “yes,” he answered a different question than the one that was asked.

Brennan’s answers to the written questions make clear that there was nothing accidental about his refusal to rule out drone assassinations within the United States at his February 7 confirmation hearing before the Senate committee. It was, rather, an expression of a deliberate policy adopted by the Obama White House and the military/intelligence agencies.

When asked at the hearing whether he believed that the Obama administration could carry out drone assassinations on US soil, Brennan responded that he was determined to “optimize transparency on these issues, but at the same time, optimize secrecy and the protection of our national security.” He thus completely evaded the question, and no member of the committee, Democrat or Republican, pursued the matter further.

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Sentinal Ruling: You Have No Legal Right To Your Money.

Jon Corzine stole $1.6 billion from segregated client accounts during the collapse of MF Global, and now he has a legal precedent to officially support him thanks to the August 9th  Sentinel Management Group decision.

This egregious ruling not only sets precedence for futures brokerages, it sets precedence for every depository institution.   In other words, your funds--customer funds--are now the legal property of the mega-banks. That's right. The banksters can legally use your money to fund its casino transactions with legal impunity.  Not that it makes much difference in an environment where the rich and powerful are above the law.

But, for what its worth, this 7th circuit court decision--that puts Bank of New York Mellon ahead of former customers of Sentinel in the line of those seeking the return of money lost--punishes innocent account holders everywhere. Because, to be sure, the appeals court that affirmed an earlier district court ruling that the bank had a "secured position" on a $312 million loan it gave to Sentinel, which turned out to have been secured by customer money, did so in order that its ruling will be applied in perpetuity.

“Basically, there is a new 7th Circuit opinion saying that there is no reason to impose a constructive trust on a lender's takings of customers' funds from client commodity firms that were used (inappropriately) to secure the firms' borrowings, as long as the lender can say that it did not know WITH CERTAINTY that customers' funds were being repledged. Negligence and misappropriation (vs. knowing criminal intent) are now a sufficient excuse for letting the lender keep the money and go to the head of the line for distributions in bankruptcies of the client commodity firms. Spread the word.” -- Walker Todd of AIER, former legal counsel, Federal Reserve Banks of New York and Cleveland

Links:

Sentinel indictments: Feds say 2 reaped $500 million in fraud

"Federal authorities announced Friday the indictment of Eric Bloom and Charles Mosley, the former chief executive and head trader, respectively, of bankrupt Sentinel Management Group Inc., on charges of defrauding some 70 customers of more than $500 million.

The case, described as one of the largest criminal financial fraud cases prosecuted in federal court in Chicago, stems from the sudden August 2007 collapse of Sentinel, a long-standing, well-connected money-management firm based in Northbrook that allegedly misled clients by exposing their accounts to a portfolio of highly risky derivatives.

$1.6 Billion in Missing MF Global Funds Traced

Email Ties Corzine to Missing Funds

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First Six Amendments Assume Government is Corrupt.

Driving along today, I started fiddling around with the radio stations when I came across this guy explaining what his law professor (Professor Cloud, I think) had explained to him: that the first six amendments are a unified body of logic, based on the assumption that government is bad.

You must also assume that government is your enemy.  That's right, assume that the government will trample your rights, target certain political and religious minorities, and come after you without probable cause (especially when they employ Rape-a-scan to gate rape you and your 6-year old at airports).

“The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first.”
by Thomas Jefferson

Thus, the first six amendments were created.  So, the First amendment  guarantees free speech, free assembly, free religious expression, and freedom to petition.

However, what's to stop governments from coming after people who partake in these freedoms?  Nothing.

Hence, the creation of the second amendment: the right to bear arms. Why? To protect you from officials who overstep their boundaries.

But what happens when the police force show up at your door? The army? And, rest assured, they will if you dare to pull a gun on a fed. So, that's where the third amendment comes in, as it guarantees that the government will not house troops in your home or private property without your consent.

Nevertheless, who remembers the third amendment, right? No one.

That's where the 4th amendment comes in. So, when the government forgets the third amendment, and sends out the troops to invade your house, the 4th says they cannot go through your stuff. Uhm, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out if they kick your door down, they will go through your stuff.

Hence, the creation of the 5th amendment. Anyone who watches the boob tube remembers this one, because of the often recited phrase: "I plead the 5th."  The 5th also guarantees Americans the right to trial by Grand Jury.

Nevertheless, even if that indictment is obtained, the 6th amendment guarantees you the right to a judgement by a fully informed petit jury. Not only does this jury judge the individual facts, but can also judge the law, itself.

The bottom line is that even legally obtained power can, and more than likely will (to some degree) abuse that power and show utter disregard for constituted law and order.

Links:

Freedom Law Self-help law clinic and law library.

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Cybersecurity, the Internet Kill Switch and the Rule of Law.

The recent communications blackout in Egypt has given us a glimpse at what could possibly happen here. For decades, Egypt, a strong U.S. ally-and the second-largest recipient of U.S. foreign aid, after Israel-has been the recipient of approximately $2 billion in American aid every year, almost all of it in military aid, according to the Congressional Research Service, since the 1979 Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty.

In other words, for the last 30-years, Egypt has been/still is a U.S.-supported dictatorship under President Hosni Mubarak. You don't have to be a rocket-scientist to figure out which side receives the most U.S. support.   Why most, and not all? In order to keep the Military Industrial Complex strong, it's necessary that the U.S. prop up both sides of any conflict, because when you dig  below the surface, you will see the money cycles right back to line the pockets of the Military Industrial Complex: Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics Corp, Boeing, Northrop Grumman Corp, Raytheon Co.  Therefore, generating conflict in and of itself is what's key.

Anyway, this dynamic could be easily seen as the Egyptian government pulled the Internet kill switch, disconnecting its people. While the US claims non-support of the Egyptian blackout, the US State Department continues to lobby for Boeing, the company who owns Narus, the creator and distributor of the  Internet off switch, and who sold to Telecom Egypt, "real-time traffic intelligence" or "Deep Packet Inspection" equipment needed to repress protester dissent, according to Tim Karr of the media policy group Free Press.

So, now that Egypt has returned to the Internet, what about us? What about the Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act? Well, unfortunately, this legislation will return.

Senator Susan Collins, the Republican ranking member on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee and one of the sponsors of the Act, said, “My legislation would provide a mechanism for the government to work with the private sector in the event of a true cyber emergency. It would give our nation the best tools available to swiftly respond to a significant threat.” Moreover, it shall "not be subject to judicial review".

Here's the thing.  The Communications Act of 1934 already grants the President unchecked authority in times of emergency. Stated in the 1934 Act, it says, if a "state of public peril or disaster or other national emergency" exists, the president may "authorize the use or control of any...station or device." Why do we need more legislation? Why block judicial review?  Why give Homeland Security and DHS secretary Janet Napolitano, in particular, the final word over the courts? It's just another excuse to throw away the "rule of law" whenever the powers that be decide to manufacture declare a "crisis".

"Egypt's information blackout is an extreme step designed to disrupt planned marches, to block images of police brutality, and to silence dissent once and for all. But the shuttering of the Internet and most telecommunications by the Egyptian government also means that the government can take unmonitored action against its citizens, which poses a dire threat to human rights." -- Joe Stork, deputy Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch.

Links:

RE: Civil Liberties Issues in Cybersecurity Bill

How Egypt Shut Down the Internet

Future Nightmare Scenario: An Internet Block
The following statement is enough of a nightmare in and of itself, nevertheless, the rest of the article is very interesting.

"Less than an hour later, Rep. Boehner (R-Ohio), Speaker of the House of Representatives, is sworn in as the 45th President of the United States."

FreeNet is free software which lets you anonymously share files, browse and publish "freesites" (web sites accessible only through Freenet) and chat on forums, without fear of censorship. Freenet is decentralised to make it less vulnerable to attack, and if used in "darknet" mode, where users only connect to their friends, is very difficult to detect.

Communications by Freenet nodes are encrypted and are routed through other nodes to make it extremely difficult to determine who is requesting the information and what its content is.

Egyptians Find New Routes to the Web

"When countries block, we evolve," an activist with the group We Rebuild wrote in a Twitter message Friday.

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So Anxious to Kick-Start Executions the Terminator Tries to Ignore Rule of Law

California officials charged into court this week to request that executions resume as early as September, knowing full well that the state of California has a time-out on executions, put in place in 2006, when Federal District Judge Jeremy Fogel stayed the execution of Michael Morales based upon Mr. Morales’ arguments against lethal injection as cruel and unusual punishment (inmates may suffer inhumane deaths from the state's three-drug cocktail of lethal drugs). This is not the first time Gov. Schwarzenegger tried to circumvent the law in an effort to terminate people.

A task force named by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger rewrote the execution procedures behind closed doors in 2007. But they were deemed illegal by Marin County Superior Court Judge Lynn O'Malley Taylor because they had been adopted without public input. It was Taylor's injunction that Adams ruled was still in force.

The very next day, a state court judge issued an order stating that executions remain on hold, in order to carry out the independent, judicial review of the execution process to ensure that California’s plan for carrying out executions conforms to state law and the Constitution.

But that didn't stop the Gov. and Attorney General Jerry Brown from telling the press that they intend to prepare for an execution anyway. Regardless of the federal and state judge ruling, the State of California started issuing death warrants. Albert Greenwood Brown was the first Death Row inmate to get a death warrant. The State scheduled his execution for September 29, 2010. They also said that they would ask for another execution date for the death row inmate, Michael Morales, knowing that the federal court order halting his execution remains in place.

Why so blood-thirsty? 

I realize many of the men on death row are guilty of heinous crimes.  However, at the same time, the state (we, the people), so impatient to start killing again, is equally, if not more guilty of heinous crimes, as we eagerly pursue what we seek to condemn, the deliberate taking of human life. The innocence or guilt of the condemned individual matters little. The wealth of the individual matters most.

Capital punishment is a form of human sacrifice when you consider that only a select, mostly indigenous few, are chosen to die in a ritual of power, where the state/privileged class demonstrates its ultimate authority as they decide who shall live and who shall die. 

Tell Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Attorney General Jerry Brown that if they can’t follow the law, they can’t execute people.

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Will Justice for Sale Undermine the Rule of Law?

Justice Sandra Day O'Connor warns this may very well be the case, as special interest pressure on judges continues to increase.

“This crisis of confidence in the judiciary is real and growing,” Justice O’Connor warned. “Left unaddressed, the perception that justice is for sale will undermine the rule of law that the courts are supposed to uphold.” -- Justice Sandra Day O'Connor wrote in the forward of the new report on judicial elections.

The new report The New Politics of Judicial Elections, 2000-2009: Decade of Change reveals that special-interest money in state court races from 2000-2009 exploded.  For over a decade, partisans and special interests have been growing more organized in their efforts to use elections to tilt the scales of justice in their direction as millions of dollars, raised by candidates from parties who may appear before them, millions more poured in by interest groups, nasty and misleading ads, and pressure on judges to signal courtroom rulings on the campaign trail continue to escalate.

Dan Eggen from the Washington Post said, “that much of the increase has been fueled by outside groups funding attack ads of the kind commonly found in partisan races for the White House, Congress, or governors’ mansions. Industry groups, trial lawyers and others are increasingly targeting specific judges for removal over rulings that hurt their financial bottom line.”

NPR's Report: Too Much Money Going To State Court Races said the study "documents an arms race that’s escalating among business groups, trial lawyers and unions. They’re all competing to raise money to put their favorite candidates on the bench.”

A few personal examples of the grave and growing challenges to the impartiality of our nation’s courts (from the comments section of On Point's radio show entitled: Electing Judges: Justice for Sale?):

I tried to find a lawyer to represent me in what could have been a suit against a particular company which is a member of a particular business “type” in my state. I called at least seven lawyers, and they all said, “no, I won’t take the case because I get a lot of business from that company, and I don’t want to sue them on your behalf, thus risking my law firm’s ability to continue getting business from the company you want to take action against in the future. They send a lot of business my way.”

I asked if I had a potentially “good” case. They said, “yes.” I asked if I were not entitled to representation in court. They said, “you are, but I don’t have to give it to you.” So many (seven )law firms said this same thing, that I think it is parallel to this topic today: big money in the courts. -- Posted by A.J., on August 17th, 2010 at 10:18 AM

Justice Taylor, a guest of the show, received, over the course of several elections, considerable (read millions) donations from Business Groups, Insurance Companies, and physician groups.

Now, why would Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan give to a judge’s campaign? Shortly after the 2000 election, in which insurance gave lots, Justice Taylor penned a decision forcing a higher standard for Plaintiffs in order to pursue medical malpractice complaints. In the Scarsella case, which has its own behind-the-scenes procedural anomalies, Taylor institutionalized (read “interpreted into precedent”) a procedural set of steps only sketched out by the legislature. In short, Taylor repaid the insurance industry by limiting the number of cases of med mal–that is, by setting the entrance fee to the court just a little higher.

This is one small example of how campaign monies are repaid.  -- Posted by Bill Jackson, on August 18th, 2010 at 10:04 AM

American democracy is not where majority rules, rather where it's safe to be in the minority. The courts are supposed to protect the rights of the people, even if that means going against popular opinion, however the new politics of judicial elections furthers corporate or monied interests at the expense of individual justice.

"In a democratic society, the longstanding consensus on the need to limit corporate campaign spending should outweigh the wooden application of judge-made rules. The majority’s rejection of this principle “elevate(s) corporations to a level of deference which has not been seen at least since the days when substantive due process was regularly used to invalidate regulatory legislation thought to unfairly impinge upon established economic interests." Bellotti , 435 U. S., at 817, n. 13 (White, J., dissenting).

At bottom, the Court’s opinion is thus a rejection of the common sense of the American people, who have recognized a need to prevent corporations from undermining self-government since the founding, and who have fought against the distinctive corrupting potential of corporate electioneering since the days of Theodore Roosevelt. It is a strange time to repudiate that common sense. While American democracy is imperfect, few outside the majority of this Court would have thought its flaws included a dearth of corporate money in politics." -- Former Justice Stevens' dissent in Citizens United vs FCC

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Did Bush Set Precedent For the Palin Administration?

I posted this back in early December, however since then, President Obama has made it clear he will not pursue the crimes of the Bush administration when he said, "I don't believe that anybody is above the law," he responded, but "we need to look forward as opposed to looking backwards."

If that's true, than why bother investigating any crime? President Obama, more than anything else, reestablish the "rule of law" as that is what makes this country great. Ignoring the Bush Administration's blatant disregard for the law sends the opposite message...that as long as you are rich enough, powerful enough...the law does not apply to you.

Barack Obama may not choose to indulge in the dangerous legal precedent the Bush administration has set, however, unless that legal precedent is overturned, it's very likely, that a President, like, let's say, Sarah Palin, will cite George W. in an attempt to push her agenda forward.

More than three decades ago, David Frost asked Nixon to respond to the following:

"So what in a sense, you're saying is that there are certain situations, and the Huston Plan or that part of it was one of them, where the president can decide that it's in the best interests of the nation or something, and do something illegal."

Nixon: "Well, when the president does it that means that it is not illegal."

23-years later, we emerge from an imperial presidency - no doubt, inspired by former President Nixon's statement, 31-years ago, that he is above the law. If 13 words from an impeached president, who resigned in disgrace, can bring on eight years of a president who declares himself immune from the "rule of law"...imagine what might foment in the future if we allow the precedent of illegal wire-tapping, suspension of habeas corpus, and systematically justifying torture as legal dogma, to stand.

Scott Horton, a New York attorney specializing in international law and human rights, who wrote the cover story in the latest issue of Harper's Magazine, " Justice After Bush: Prosecuting an Outlaw Administration" believes a presidential commission of inquiry would be the swift, clear way to proceed. Normally, the justice system conducts such investigations, however as Horton points out, the justice department itself is the crime scene in this case.

President Bush is doing as much damage as he can on his way out. These are not the actions of a man who will redeem himself - if that's even possible - in the future. However, whether President Bush repents or not is not the issue. If it were, we could afford to let him off the hook, and concentrate on repairing what his administration destroyed, however, this goes far beyond what President Bush, the individual deserves or doesn't deserve and has everything to do with
renewing our nation's commitment to the rule of law.

On June 10, 2008 Congressmen Dennis Kucinich and Robert Wexler cosponsored 35 articles of impeachment for indicting George Bush. Included in the list of impeachable offenses:

• Authorization and encouragement of torture as official policy
• Fabrications about Iraq’s nuclear weapons
• Lies about Iraq’s connections to al Qaeda
• Retaliation against those who tried to tell the truth
  
• Direct responsibility for extraordinary rendition
• Illegal detention of U.S. citizens and foreign captives (including the imprisonment of children)
• Warrantless wiretapping
• Failure to protect the U.S. by heeding pre-9/11 warnings
• Failure to protect soldiers in Iraq with proper armor
• Failure to protect the residents of New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina
• Instructing subordinates to disregard congressional subpoenas
• 1,100 signing statements releasing him from carrying out even those laws passed during his own administration.

Faces of the Fallen

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Contempt of Congress

No one was all that surprised when the Bush administration announced Thursday that it would not cooperate with congressional demands for documents and testimony by prominent former officials that would likely confirm this White House's reckless disregard for the rule of law.

What was surprising, and encouraging, was the decisiveness with which key players in Congress responded.

After the White House asserted executive privilege in rejecting subpoenas issued by the House and Senate Judiciary committees as part of the ongoing probe of abuses within the Department of Justice, House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers wasted no time expressing his sense that a Contempt of Congress citation is in order.

"The President's response to our subpoena shows an appalling disregard for the right of the people to know what is going on in their government," explained Conyers, a Michigan Democrat who is the only Judiciary Committee to have participated in the fight between Congress and the Nixon White House for Watergate-related documents. "At this point, I see only one choice in moving forward, and that is to enforce the rule of law set forth in these subpoenas."

The best way to enforce the rule of law is by issuing a Contempt of Congress citation. The rules of Congress permit standing committees, such as the House and Senate Judiciary panels, to compel witnesses to produce documents and testimony required to complete inquiries. Committee chairs are permitted to issue subpoenas seeking documents and testimony. And, when the targets of those subpoenas refuse to cooperate, a Contempt of Congress citation -- outlining a criminal offense against the legislative branch of the federal government -- can be drawn up.

The issuance of a Contempt of Congress citation would provoke the sort of Constitutional showdown that it now appears will be required if this administration is to be held to account for its abuses of power. In such a showdown between the legislative and executive branches, the third branch of the federal government, the judiciary, would be asked to decide whether the White House has a right to assert, as White House counsel Fred Fielding did in a letter telling the committee chairs that their demands would not be met.

The "fear of being commanded to Capitol Hill to testify or having their documents produced to Congress" would prevent presidential advisers from communicating "openly and honestly" with the president," wrote Fielding.

Senate Judiciary Committee chair Patrick Leahy suggests, there is another sort of fear in play: the fear of having improper and potentially illegal schemes exposed.

Fielding's assertion of executive privilege came in response to subpoenas for documents and testimony relating to the firing of nine federal prosecutors in 2006. Leahy and members of his committee have explored the question of whether those U.S. Attorneys were dismissed for improper political reasons as part of a broad move by the White House to politicize federal investigations and prosecutions.

"This White House cannot have it both ways," says Leahy. "They cannot stonewall Congressional investigations by refusing to provide documents and witnesses, while claiming nothing improper occurred."

The Vermont Democrat described assertion of executive privilege in an investigation of official misconduct as a "further shift by the Bush administration into Nixonian stonewalling."

"Increasingly," says Leahy, "the president and vice president feel they are above the law -- in America no one is above law."

The senator is right, at least in theory.

But, in practice, this administration has operated above, or more precisely outside the law for more than six years. Without proper congressional and judicial oversight, the White House has expanded the reach and authority of the executive branch far beyond the limits imagined by the founders. And it will continue to do so until Congress reasserts itself as a coequal branch of government.

That process begins with the issuance of Contempt of Congress citations.

For the sake of the Republic, those citation cannot be dispatched quickly enough.

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