The Militarization of America

[Dok]

The Militarization of America
The name of the so-called "U.S. Department of Homeland Security" has always disturbed and rankled me.

Created in the frenzied political aftermath of the 9-11-2001 terrorist attacks, it sounds like something  Hitler's propaganda minister, Josef Goebbels would have dreamed up to impress the gullible masses. Indeed, the attitude too often displayed at airports by the over paid DHS's minions of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is akin to that of storm troopers.

Two years ago I and others called attention to a dangerous provision slipped into an omnibus appropriation bill that gave the President of the United States the unprecedented power to deploy the U.S. military for domestic duty within the United States as he sees fit.

President Bush (or someone who had his ear) came up with the disturbing idea that the U.S. military should be put in charge of domestic police matters when a "major catastrophe" occurs within America.


Major Catastrophe


The operative factor here depends squarely on how one defines "major catastrophe" -- an elastic phrase that could be expanded at the stroke of a presidential pen. (Read some of the Presidential Emergency Declarations now in effect and you may have trouble sleeping nights).

Nevertheless, this extraordinary power was written into law. Now it has been announced that for the first time an active U.S. Army Infantry Brigade has been assigned "to provide command and control for federal homeland defense efforts and coordinate defense support of civil authorities."

A news article reports that these active duty troops will "learn new skills, use some of the ones they acquired in the war zone and more than likely will not be shot at while doing any of it. They may be called upon to help with civil unrest and crowd control."

One has to ask what possible rationale is there for permanently deploying the U.S. Army inside the United States -- under the command of any President -- for any purpose -- let alone things such as "crowd control," other traditional law enforcement functions, and a seemingly unlimited array of other uses at the President's sole discretion?

Perhaps they will be deployed to assure that the pending elections (or any Florida recounts) will be orderly. Or maybe they will be sent to Capitol Hill to convince a congressional majority that Wall Street deserves a $700 billion bailout.

Recalling the unconstitutional excesses perpetrated by the federal government under the misnamed PATRIOT Act, are we now to believe a military trained to kill the enemy is going to play the role of Officer Clancy on the local beat?


Bitter History Lessons


There are a great many very good reasons why long-standing statutory prohibitions against the military acting as domestic policemen should not be suspended, now or even in the event of a major emergency.

The 1878 Posse Comitatus Act limited the role of the U.S. military in our lives and kept America from becoming a banana republic. That law was adopted after a 15-year military occupation by the U.S. Army as post-Civil War law enforcement in the Southern States, the "Reconstruction," as the North liked to call it. (There's a major history lesson to be learned right there).

Until the Bush law was enacted, America's military always was prohibited, for the most part, from acting as a domestic police force. They were banned from participation in arrests, searches, seizure of evidence and other police activity on U.S. soil. (The U.S. Coast Guard and National Guard troops under the control of state governors are excluded from these historic prohibitions). That law doesn't stop the military from providing emergency supplies and keeping order in a natural disaster as a state governor directs.


Local Police Militarization


For the last 20 years America has experienced the horror of the militarization of its own local and state police.

Remember that there were military "advisors" during the Janet Reno’s DOJ slaughter at Waco, Texas. Who can forget a flack-jacketed federal agent waving a machine gun at a terrified Elian Gonzalez as he was dragged back to Castro’s Cuba, also courtesy of Reno. Or the slaughter of innocents at Ruby Ridge, Idaho.

But similar events, where people are assaulted in their homes by SWAT teams waving machine guns, threatening to shoot, and trashing a home as a tactical distraction, happen repeatedly in the U.S. It's all part of the failed war on drugs that has burdened us with a gigantic police state establishment spending billions every year to no good purpose.

The most dangerous aspect of police militarization isn't the SWAT teams in black masks and the machine guns at the ready.

It's the change the attitude of too many police.

In a constitutional republic policemen are supposed to be "peace officers." Police militarization promotes maximal use of force as a solution, even when no force at all is required. Police think of themselves as an occupying army, and the public comes to think of them as the same. That’s the real disaster!


Power to the People


Isn't it bad enough that domestic U.S. policing is approaching a sad state of militarization. Must we step off the precipice and turn the country over to an occupying U.S. Army under control of the White House, assisted by the Pentagon?

I hope not. As the current national economic problems have proven, the people of the United States and properly-run government can meet any major catastrophe -- if we have good leadership at all levels -- and if we put an end to power grabs at the expense of peoples' liberties and the Constitution.

[Dok]

Deployed in the U.S.A.:
The Creeping Militarization of the Home Front
by Gene Healy

Gene Healy is senior editor at the Cato Institute. His previous studies include "There Goes the Neighborhood: The Bush-Ashcroft Plan to 'Help' Localities Fight Gun Crime" and "Arrogance of Power Reborn: The Imperial Presidency and Foreign Policy in the Clinton Years."


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Executive Summary

As its overwhelming victories in Afghanistan and Iraq have demonstrated, the U.S. military is the most effective fighting force in human history. It is so effective, in fact, that many government officials are now anxious for the military to assume a more active policing role here at home.

Deploying troops on the home front is very different from waging war abroad. Soldiers are trained to kill, whereas civilian peace officers are trained to respect constitutional rights and to use force only as a last resort. That fundamental distinction explains why Americans have long resisted the use of standing armies to keep the domestic peace.

Unfortunately, plans are afoot to change that time-honored policy. There have already been temporary troop deployments in the airports and on the Canadian and Mexican borders and calls to make border militarization permanent. The Pentagon has also shown a disturbing interest in high-tech surveillance of American citizens. And key figures in the Bush administration and Congress have considered weakening the Posse Comitatus Act, the federal statute that limits the government's ability to use the military for domestic police work.

The historical record of military involvement in domestic affairs cautions against a more active military presence in the American homeland. If Congress weakens the legal barriers to using soldiers as cops, substantial collateral damage to civilian life and liberty will likely ensue.

Full text: PDF  http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa503.pdf

[Dok]

It concerns the USA PATRIOT Act, a U.S. law about which I often comment in The A-Letter, but one that is not widely understood. You need to understand it because this Act could have a major impact on you -- and on your wealth.

THREE QUESTIONS

Consider these serious questions, the answers to which could determine what happens to your cash, your investments and, ultimately -- to you and your family:

If you are a U.S. citizen or resident of the United States, and you have an account at a bank, do you know the name of your banker?
Do you know the name of even one official that works at the bank where your accounts are kept?
If all the cash in your bank account suddenly was frozen, who would you call? What would you do? How would you get it unfrozen?
Chances are, if you're like most Americans (and like me), you don't have answers to these questions. Even if you have a private banker whom you know well, what I am about to say still applies to you -- even more so, since greater wealth is involved.

But your banker -- whether you know him or not -- knows everything about you -- and he and his staff are watching your every move -- because the U.S. government forces bankers to act as spies, reporting on you, on all of us, to the federal money police at the U.S. Treasury Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FINCen).

HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?

A national crisis, such as the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, immediately encourages a 'do something' reaction in politicians of every stripe. The greater the crisis, the swifter -- and more unthinking -- the solution politicians concoct.

At such times, a herd mentality takes hold that overcomes logic and reason. Having served eight years in the U.S. House of Representatives, I can attest first hand to this dangerous political phenomenon. Just six weeks after the September 11th attacks, on October 26, 2001, a panicked U.S. Congress adopted the so-called 'USA PATRIOT Act.'

The PATRIOT Act became law with great haste and secrecy. In the name of the 'war on terrorism,' Congress passed this questionable legislation giving the U.S. executive branch and its police agencies sweeping new powers that undermine the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. The Act (all 362 pages of it) was passed with little debate by senators and congressmen, most of whom did not, and could not even read the bill, because when the final vote was taken, no printed copies were available.

But once it became law, opposition to the Act was portrayed by its backers, inlcuding President Bush, as near treason. Thus it was that in 2006 the Act was renewed by Congress with little more than cosmetic changes.

In my opinion, the Act constitutes the greatest single governmental assault on personal and financial privacy in U.S. history. Already three U.S. district courts have ruled parts of the Act to be unconstitutional.

The Act is being used for purposes that have nothing to do with fighting terrorism undefined but everything to do with unchecked police surveillance, wiretapping and secret searches of homes and offices. Fully 125 pages of this Act concern individual financial activities as well as U.S. and offshore banking and finance.

WHAT IS THE THREAT?

The PATRIOT Act permits:

secret FBI and police searches of your home and office
secret government wiretaps on your phone, computer and/or Internet activity
secret investigations of your bank records, credit cards and other financial records
secret investigations of your library and book activities
secret examination of your medical, travel and business records.
the freezing of funds and assets without prior notice or appeal
the creation of secret 'watch lists' that ban those named from air and other travel
You may think you are immune from these radical police powers - but as many innocent Americans have discovered, anyone can be caught in the government's unthinking surveillance web -- with little or no judicial review or appeal.

In 2004, in the same week that the New York City Council voted to condemn the PATRIOT Act, a USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll found that while most Americans back the anti-terrorism ideas behind the Act, they are not only confused, but woefully ignorant of the provisions of the law and how it is being administered.

[Triadtropz]

The patriot act just shreds the constitution..like everything they do..the constitution is dead...all thats left is the Declaration...we just need a militia to enact it..

[Nailer]

US PATRIOT ACT II


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


A Brief Analysis of the Domestic Security Enhancement Act 2003
Also Known as USA Patriot Act II

by Alex Jones

Congressman Ron Paul (R-Tex) told the Washington Times that no member of Congress was allowed to read the first Patriot Act that was passed by the House on October 27, 2001. The first Patriot Act was universally decried by civil libertarians and Constitutional scholars from across the political spectrum. William Safire, while writing for the New York Times, described the first Patriot Act's powers by saying that President Bush was "seizing dictatorial control." On February 7, 2003 the Center for Public Integrity, a non-partisan public interest think-tank in DC, revealed the full text of the Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003. The classified document had been leaked to them by an unnamed source inside the Federal government. The document consisted of a 33-page section by section analysis of the accompanying 87-page bill.

The bill itself is stamped "Confidential - Not for Distribution." Upon reading the analysis and bill, I was stunned by the scientifically crafted tyranny contained in the legislation. The Justice Department Office of Legislative Affairs admits that they had indeed covertly transmitted a copy of the legislation to Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, (R-Il) and the Vice President of the United States, Dick Cheney as well as the executive heads of federal law enforcement agencies.

It is important to note that no member of Congress was allowed to see the first Patriot Act before its passage, and that no debate was tolerate by the House and Senate leadership. The intentions of the White House and Speaker Hastert concerning Patriot Act II appear to be a carbon copy replay of the events that led to the unprecedented passage of the first Patriot Act.

There are two glaring areas that need to be looked at concerning this new legislation:

1. The secretive tactics being used by the White House and Speaker Hastert to keep even the existence of this legislation secret would be more at home in Communist China than in the United States. The fact that Dick Cheney publicly managed the steamroller passage of the first Patriot Act, ensuring that no one was allowed to read it and publicly threatening members of Congress that if they didn't vote in favor of it that they would be blamed for the next terrorist attack, is by the White House's own definition terrorism. The move to clandestinely craft and then bully passage of any legislation by the Executive Branch is clearly an impeachable offense.

2. 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."

*Note: Over and over again, in subsection after subsection, the second Patriot Act states that its new Soviet-type powers will be used to fight international terrorism, domestic terrorism and other types of crimes. Of course the government has already announced in Section 802 of the first USA Patriot act that any crime is considered domestic terrorism.

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 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. See how this is like Bill Clinton's special medical examiner he had in Arkansas that ruled that people had committed suicide when their arms and legs had been cut off.

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 whistle blower 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 - 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.

[EvadingGrid]

Very good post.

In particular I like the reasoning regarding "Who are your Bankers ?" as this is kind of arguement I can see being used to create a seed of doubt in the toughest minds.

The need to effective hide identity is also practiced by Police, Judges, Landlords.... they act safe in the knowledge that nobody is going to knock on there door and demand real answers.