Une approche critique du projet de nouvel ordre mondial que certaines institutions supra nationales et think tanks tentent de mener à bien sous prétexte de santé publique et de lutte contre le terrorisme ou le réchauffement climatique.
On Thursday, Congress passed a four year extension of the PATRIOT Act. Lawmakers rejected all attempts to moderate aspects of the legislation that weaken the Fourth Amendment.
Obama used an auto pen machine from France to sign the extension. Provisions of the PATRIOT Act were set to expire at midnight.
Congress would have signed the extension earlier if not for the efforts of Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, who opposes the extension on constitutional grounds, specifically its violations of the Fourth Amendment.
“We dissolve from within when we give up our liberties,” Paul warned. “Millions of innocent citizens are having their records looked at.”
“It’s an important tool for us to continue dealing with an ongoing terrorist threat,” Obama said after a meeting with French President Nicolas Sarkozy.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) agreed to strip the extension of any amendments.
“The Speaker supports this common-sense proposal because this law has been crucial to detecting and disrupting terrorist plots and protecting the American people,” Boehner spokesman Michael Steel said in a statement.
In an interview with Wired, Sen. Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, adds yet more confirmation to what many of us have known for years – the government has built a secret surveillance structure far more portentous and dangerous than anything devised by the PATRIOT Act now up for renewal.
Wyden points to the so-called “business-records provision” of the PATRIOT Act which empowers the FBI to force businesses, medical offices, banks and other organizations to turn over any “tangible things” it deems relevant to a so-called security investigation.
“It is fair to say that the business-records provision is a part of the Patriot Act that I am extremely interested in reforming,” Wyden told Wired. “I know a fair amount about how it’s interpreted, and I am going to keep pushing, as I have, to get more information about how the Patriot Act is being interpreted declassified. I think the public has a right to public debate about it.”
“Surveillance under the business-records provisions has recently spiked,” writes Spencer Ackerman. “The Justice Department’s official disclosure on its use of the Patriot Act, delivered to Congress in April, reported that the government asked the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court for approval to collect business records 96 times in 2010 — up from just 21 requests the year before. The court didn’t reject a single request. But it ‘modified’ those requests 43 times, indicating to some Patriot-watchers that a broadening of the provision is underway.”
During the Bush years, it was revealed that the NSA had engaged in a massive dragnet of electronic communications without court order in direct violation of the Fourth Amendment. In 2006, Bush waved off criticism of NSA snooping and said the program was “necessary to win this war and to protect the American people” against terrorism.
In 2006, the NSA argued that it is above the law and the Constitution and said a courtroom challenge to its surveillance program would expose sensitive state secrets and demanded it be thrown out.
In a filing with the Detroit court, Justice Department lawyers pointed to history in defending the NSA surveillance program, noting President Woodrow Wilson’s authorization for government agencies to intercept telephone, telegraph and cable communications during World War I and President Franklin D., Roosevelt approving the interception of “all telecommunications traffic” after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Gail Gibson wrote for the Baltimore Sun.
The NSA was created by secret presidential directive in 1952. It soon grew into a vast intelligence-gathering machine – and super-state structure – which intruded into the private lives and communications of all Americans.
A d v e r t i s e m e n t
The NSA program Operation Shamrock intercepted millions of telegrams to and from the United States. The NSA placed the names of law-abiding American citizens on watch lists and then disseminated their private communications to other government agencies such as the FBI and CIA, explains the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law.
As revealed by the Church Committee in the mid-1970s, the FBI and CIA repeatedly violated the rights of Americans engaged in constitutionally protected political activity.
During the NSA controversy in 2006, William M. Arkin, writing for the Washington Post, noted that government organizations have developed hundreds of software programs and analytic tools to “harvest” intelligence, and they’ve created dozens of gigantic databases containing the names of countless Americans.
“These cutting edge tools — some highly classified because of their functions and capabilities — continually process hundreds of billions of what are called ‘structured’ data records, including telephone call records and e-mail headers contained in information ‘feeds’ that have been established to flow into the intelligence agencies,” Arkin wrote. “The multi-billion dollar program, which began before 9/11 but has been accelerated since then.”
The amendment takes the Obama administration to task for “secretly reinterpret[ing] public laws and statutes.” It would oblige the Attorney General to “publicly disclose the United States Government’s official interpretation of the USA Patriot Act.”
The bill mentions “intelligence-collection authorities” embedded in the PATRIOT Act that the Obama administration briefed the Senate about in February.
Sen. Ron Wyden neglected to provide more detail on the government’s massive surveillance program because it is highly classified. His measured comments, however, are a haunting reminder that the government has erected a huge and largely secret high-tech surveillance and control grid.
It was not designed to ferret out al-Qaeda bad guys who hate us for our freedoms. It was engineered and constructed at tax-payer expense to monitor the political activity of the American people in much the same way the Stasi was created by a communist state to monitor the political activities of the people in East Germany during the so-called Cold War.
For a moment, imagine that you are awakened one night by a heavily-armed team of federal agents dressed in all black breaking into your home. As you confront them, they hand you a piece of paper that says that your son has been identified as a “terrorist” and that they are there to take him away. They pull your son out of bed, they throw him on the floor and the use a taser on him repeatedly. Then they handcuff him and haul him away without telling you a thing about where they are taking him. Your son suddenly has no rights because the Patriot Act supersedes the U.S. Constitution. That’s right – because your son has been identified as a “terrorist” because of something that he has said on the Internet he no longer has any constitutional rights. Your underage son is held indefinitely and is subjected to “enhanced interrogation” because he has been identified as a “threat”. You are not able to get your son back for years even though it turns out that he is completely and totally innocent. If you think that such a thing cannot happen to you then you are a fool, because this kind of thing is happening over and over across the United States and it is all legal because of the Patriot Act.
America is rapidly turning into a horrible Big Brother police state and most of our politicians are fully supporting this transformation. In fact, the U.S. House of Representatives gave us quite a Valentine’s Day gift the other day when it voted to once again extend provisions of the Patriot Act that allow for domestic surveillance of American citizens, wire tapping of American citizens and warrantless searches of the homes of American citizens.
What was perhaps most disappointing was that a large number of “Tea Party politicians” cast votes in favor of renewing the Patriot Act provisions.
The majority of Americans were absolutely disgusted when the Bush administration instituted the Patriot Act and many other police state measures and they voted for Barack Obama hoping for something different.
Well, it turns out that Barack Obama has been even worse.
Have you been to an airport lately? Yeah, those “naked body scanners” and “enhanced pat-downs” are a lot of fun, aren’t they?
Many Americans voted for Tea Party candidates during the last election hoping that they would be willing to stand up for liberty and freedom.
Well, it turns out that many of them caved when it came time to vote on the extension of Patriot Act provisions.
So is there anyone out there that we can vote for that will stand up for liberty and freedom?
The truth is that this is not a conservative issue and it is not a liberal issue.
This is an American issue.
But doesn’t the Patriot Act keep us safe from terrorism?
No.
Just the other day Dr. Vahid Majidi, the FBI’s assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Weapons of Mass Destruction Directorate, admitted that even with all of our “security measures” the chance that the U.S. will be hit a weapon of mass destruction is 100 percent….
“There’s a probability of 100 percent that a WMD event will happen.”
But even if the Patriot Act could keep us “safer”, is that any reason for us to live the rest of our lives as “cattle” in a Big Brother police state that is becoming more like George Orwell’s 1984 every single day?
Are we willing to forever renounce being “the land of the free and the home of the brave” just so that we can feel a bit more secure?
The truth is that the U.S. government is not really protecting us anyway. Our border with Mexico is wide open and millions of people have been pouring across it unchecked. It would be ridiculously easy for any potential “terrorists” to smuggle dangerous weapons into this country.
A d v e r t i s e m e n t
So please don’t try to tell me that the U.S. government is actually serious about national security. Until the U.S. government is willing to do something about the border they should not be asking the American people to give up a single ounce of liberty or freedom for the sake of “security”.
But instead of securing the border and doing other practical things that would actually keep this country safer, our government has become absolutely obsessed with watching us, tracking us, listening to us, “assessing” us and controlling us.
In the process, the America that we all once loved is rapidly being destroyed. Because of laws like the Patriot Act, our country now more closely resembles East Germany during the Cold War than the nation that our founding fathers originally established.
Government whistleblower Susan Lindauer, who has been arrested under the Patriot Act for protesting the Iraq war, recently authored an article in which she described why Americans should be much more frightened by the Patriot Act….
The American people are not nearly as frightened as they should be. Many Americans expect the Patriot Act to limit its surveillance to overseas communications. Yet while I was under indictment, Maryland State Police invoked the Patriot Act to wire tap activists tied to the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, an environmental group dedicated to wind power, solar energy and recycling. The DC Anti-War Network was targeted as a “white supremacist group.” Amnesty International and anti-death penalty activists got targeted for alleged “civil rights violations.”
Lindauer is speaking from experience when she talks about the Patriot Act. Just hope and pray that you never have to go through what she had to go through because of the Patriot Act….
I cannot forget. I cannot forget how I was subjected to secret charges, secret evidence and secret grand jury testimony that denied my right to face my accusers or their accusations in open court, throughout five years of indictment. I cannot forget my imprisonment on a Texas military base for a year without a trial or evidentiary hearing.
I cannot forget how the FBI, the US Attorneys Office, the Bureau of Prisons and the main Justice office in Washington — independently and collectively verified my story— then falsified testimony to Chief Justice Michael Mukasey, denying our 9/11 warnings and my long-time status as a U.S. intelligence Asset, though my witnesses had aggressively confronted them. Apparently the Patriot Act allows the Justice Department to withhold corroborating evidence and testimony from the Court, if it is deemed “classified.”
I cannot forget threats of forcible drugging and indefinite detention up to 10 years, until I could be “cured” of believing what everybody wanted to deny— because it was damn inconvenient to politicians in Washington anxious to hold onto power.
At least there are a few members of Congress that attempted to oppose the renewal of the Patriot Act. For example, Senator Rand Paul recently explained why he opposes renewal of this freedom-killing law….
“The Senate yesterday proposed a three-year extension of the PATRIOT Act, a move that would not have allowed for any hearings, amendments, or debate. I objected to this deal. I realize that I might not have the votes to stop this bill, but we should at least discuss this in public as adults.
“We should have the opportunity to explain why the Constitution is being violated. We should talk about how we do not have to give up who we are in order to fight terrorism. It is not acceptable to willfully ignore the most basic provisions of our Constitution—in this case—the Fourth and First Amendments—in the name of ‘security.’”
Unfortunately, most of our other politicians have stood by and have done nothing to stop the horrific abuses that are taking place under this law. A good friend of ours, Charlie McGrath, recently lamented this fact in a recent video….
What in the world is happening to this country?
One of the worst things about all of this is that Christians are actually some of the strongest supporters of the Patriot Act.
The mainstream media has brainwashed many of them into believing that the Patriot Act is “conservative” and that it is going to keep us safe from terrorism. Somehow Christians have been duped into believing that the more power Barack Obama and his minions have to control our lives the safer we all are going to be.
But the truth is that laws like the Patriot Act are transforming this nation into a totalitarian regime. We are becoming more like North Korea, Communist China, the USSR and Nazi Germany every single day.
As a Christian, I deeply oppose laws such as the Patriot Act. The Scriptures warn us of a time when a future world government will attempt to brutally dominate all the nations on the planet. Just read the book of Revelation some time.
Any law that takes our liberties and freedoms away is another step in the direction of totalitarianism. Every time another new law like the Patriot Act gets passed we get closer to the time when government completely dominates and controls every single aspect of our lives.
Christians should be loudly denouncing any attempt to strip our liberties and freedoms away. Christians should be loudly denouncing the destruction of our constitutional rights.
Transforming our government into a hardcore socialist police state and handing it all kinds of extreme “Big Brother” powers is not going to make us safer.
We were sold a pack of lies by the Bush administration and now the Obama administration is trying to cram even more lies down our throats.
Many of us had hoped that Tea Party politicians would be different and would stand up for our liberties and freedoms, but now we can clearly see that many of them will not.
In the past, Americans would ready George Orwell’s 1984 and would think that nothing like that could ever happen in the United States of America.
Well, it is happening in the United States of America.
Are you going to stand up and say anything about it?
The Republican-led House on Tuesday failed to pass a short-term extension of the USA Patriot Act favored by GOP leaders, an unexpected political setback that shows the difficulty the party faces in keeping control of their new majority, with its legion of tea party-inspired members.
Key provisions of the terrorist surveillance law expire at the end of the month, and a coalition of veteran Republican lawmakers and conservative new members blocked passage of a measure that many tea party activists see as federal government over-reach into private affairs.
The unexpected turn of events will require the White House, which is seeking to extend the Sept. 11-era bill through 2013, to work with congressional leaders to devise a new strategy for passage.
The three most contested provisions of the legislation expire on February 28.
The temporary reauthorization is supported by the Obama White House. “The administration would strongly prefer enactment of reauthorizing legislation that would extend these authorities until December 2013,” a statement from the Obama administration said.
It looks like some members of the Tea Party also support the legislation. Ryan Hecker, a Houston lawyer and tea-party organizer, told the Wall Street Journal he believes the act has helped curb terrorism and “the movement should remain agnostic.”
A d v e r t i s e m e n t
Despite opposition to the act by Republicans such as Rand Paul of Kentucky and Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, reauthorization enjoys wide support in Congress.
Rand highlighted his opposition to the PATRIOT Act during his Senate campaign.
On Monday, Paul said he has “had a lot of reservations about the Patriot Act” and added that he is “reviewing it and we’re going over it, and we will have something out probably in the next couple of days.”
Rand’s father, Texas Rep. Ron Paul, was one of three Republicans lawmakers who opposed the legislation when the House passed it in October, 2001.
One reason for bipartisan support for reauthorization, according to the Journal, is the perceived threat of homegrown terrorism, seen in the absurd Times Square barbeque canister and underwear non-bombings last year. Both events and others staged by FBI agents provocateurs have led to a hysterical propaganda campaign obviously designed not only to get the PATRIOT Act reauthorized, but also expand various police state measures, including an internet kill switch, the takeover of media by the Department of Homeland Security (see our Obama Launches Total Takeover of Media System posted earlier today), and the steady militarization of law enforcement and emergency services, an effort that has been underway at least since the days of the Reagan administration.
Wyden points to the so-called “business-records provision” of the PATRIOT Act which empowers the FBI to force businesses, medical offices, banks and other organizations to turn over any “tangible things” it deems relevant to a so-called security investigation.
America is rapidly turning into a horrible Big Brother police state and most of our politicians are fully supporting this transformation. In fact, the U.S. House of Representatives gave us quite a Valentine’s Day gift the other day when it voted to once again extend provisions of the Patriot Act that allow for domestic surveillance of American citizens, wire tapping of American citizens and warrantless searches of the homes of American citizens.
