First Amendment

US Secret Service Confirms New Power Over Free Speech

by

– US Secret Service Confirms New Power Over Free Speech (Sinclair News, Mar 20, 2012):

Today we received an email linking to a story on Gulag Bound

US Secret Service Says No Anti-Obama Rallies Allowed!

March 20, 2012, 11:28 am  By 6 Comments

Over the weekend I received an email from my local TEA Party Director that Barack Hussein Obama would fly into Carlsbad, NM airport on Wednesday 21 March, in order to “make an appearance at the South Easter NM oilfields.”  However, apparently after hearing that an immediate anti-Obama rally had been planned, Obama and his entourage changed the landing location to Roswell, NM… a city 77 miles from Carlsbad.

Note:  Interesting as, despite the fear and trepidation Obama is trying valiantly to instill into the American people, his own panic seems to be showing.

After having the above article brought to our attention we decided to contact the United States Secret Service to verify that the agency did in fact have the authority to determine who could or could not attend a public function on public property held by Barack Obama. We were told the following:

“We were sent a memo after the recent signing of the Federal Restricted Buildings and Grounds Improvement Act of 2011, advising we now had the authority to deny anyone access to any public event held by the President or Vice President. Prior to President Obama’s signing of HR 347 the Secret Service did not have any involvement in deciding who could or could not participate in any public function on public property by the President. Prior to HR 347 being signed the Secret Service only screened and approved or denied people for “ticketed” events which were designed for invited or ticketed guests only.”

So yes, it appears the United States Secret Service has wasted NO time in using their new found power to determine what “speech” is permitted around any public appearance of Barack Obama.

The Federal Restricted Buildings and Grounds Improvement Act of 2011

• March 16, 2012 7:35 pm

Andrew Napolitano condemns this recently enacted statute:

Last week, President Obama signed into law the Federal Restricted Buildings and Grounds Improvement Act of 2011. This law permits Secret Service agents to designate any place they wish as a place where free speech, association and petition of the government are prohibited. And it permits the Secret Service to make these determinations based on the content of speech.

Read moreUS Secret Service Confirms New Power Over Free Speech

Goodbye, First Amendment: ‘Trespass Bill’ Will Make Protest Illegal

by

– Goodbye, First Amendment: ‘Trespass Bill’ will make protest illegal (RT, Feb. 29, 2012):

Just when you thought the government couldn’t ruin the First Amendment any further: The House of Representatives approved a bill on Monday that outlaws protests in instances where some government officials are nearby, whether or not you even know it.

The US House of Representatives voted 388-to-3 in favor of H.R. 347 late Monday, a bill which is being dubbed the Federal Restricted Buildings and Grounds Improvement Act of 2011. In the bill, Congress officially makes it illegal to trespass on the grounds of the White House, which, on the surface, seems not just harmless and necessary, but somewhat shocking that such a rule isn’t already on the books. The wording in the bill, however, extends to allow the government to go after much more than tourists that transverse the wrought iron White House fence.

Under the act, the government is also given the power to bring charges against Americans engaged in political protest anywhere in the country.

Under current law, White House trespassers are prosecuted under a local ordinance, a Washington, DC legislation that can bring misdemeanor charges for anyone trying to get close to the president without authorization. Under H.R. 347, a federal law will formally be applied to such instances, but will also allow the government to bring charges to protesters, demonstrators and activists at political events and other outings across America.

The new legislation allows prosecutors to charge anyone who enters a building without permission or with the intent to disrupt a government function with a federal offense if Secret Service is on the scene, but the law stretches to include not just the president’s palatial Pennsylvania Avenue home. Under the law, any building or grounds where the president is visiting — even temporarily — is covered, as is any building or grounds “restricted in conjunction with an event designated as a special event of national significance.”

Read moreGoodbye, First Amendment: ‘Trespass Bill’ Will Make Protest Illegal

Free Speech Alert: California City Threatens To Fine Couple Up To $500 Every Time They Hold A Bible Study With Their Friends In Their Own Home!

by

– Freedom to gather freely annulled: City threatens to fine couple up to $500 every time friends come over for Bible study (NaturalNews, Sep. 25, 2011):

Chuck and Stephanie Fromm of San Juan Capistrano, Cal., have long enjoyed having their friends over for weekly dinner, fellowship, and a time of studying the Bible together. But according to a recent report from CBS 2 in Los Angeles, the city is not so pleased, as it considers such gatherings to be illegal.

Since more than three people typically come over to the Fromms house every week, the city claims the couple is violating a local ordinance, and must obtain a conditional use permit if it wishes to continue having guests on the property. But to obtain such a permit, the Fromms would have to jump through all the same regulatory hoops as a local business or church would have to, including conducting extensive traffic and environmental impact reports, making their home accessible to wheelchairs, and paying additional fees.

“We’re just gathering and enjoying each other’s company and fellowship. And we enjoy studying God’s Word,” said Stephanie Fromm to CBS 2, emphasizing the fact that she and her husband have done everything possible to make sure that the gatherings and presence of their guests are not a nuisance to nearby neighbors.

The city has already fined the Fromms twice for their weekly gatherings, however, having never even notified them prior to the first citation that they were in violation. The combined total of the two fines is $300, but if the couple continues to hold meetings without getting a conditional use permit, the fines could escalate to as high as $500 an incident.

Read moreFree Speech Alert: California City Threatens To Fine Couple Up To $500 Every Time They Hold A Bible Study With Their Friends In Their Own Home!

The DOJ’s Escalating Criminalization Of Speech

by

– The DOJ’s escalating criminalization of speech (Salon, Sep 4, 2011):

(updated below)

Over the past several years, the Justice Department has increasingly attempted to criminalize what is clearly protected political speech by prosecuting numerous individuals (Muslims, needless to say) for disseminating political views the government dislikes or considers threatening.  The latest episode emerged on Friday, when the FBI announced the arrest and indictment of Jubair Ahmad, a 24-year-old Pakistani legal resident living in Virginia, charged with “providing material support” to a designated Terrorist organization (Lashkar-e-Tayyiba (LeT)).

What is the “material support” he allegedly gave?  He produced and uploaded a 5-minute video to YouTube featuring photographs of U.S. abuses in Abu Ghraib, video of armored trucks exploding after being hit by IEDs, prayer messages about “jihad” from LeT’s leader, and — according to the FBI’s Affidavit — “a number of terrorist logos.”  That, in turn, led the FBI agent who signed the affidavit to assert that “based on [his] training and experience, it is evident that the video . . . is designed as propaganda to develop support for LeT and to recruit jihadists to LeT.”  The FBI also claims Ahmad spoke with the son of an LeT leader about the contents of the video and had attended an LeT camp when he was a teenager in Pakistan.  For the act of uploading that single YouTube video (and for denying that he did so when asked by the FBI agents who came to his home to interrogate him), he faces 23 years in prison.

Let’s be very clear about the key point: the Constitution — specifically the Free Speech clause of the First Amendment — prohibits the U.S. Government from punishing someone for the political views they express, even if those views include the advocacy of violence against the U.S. and its leaders.  One can dislike this legal fact.  One can wish it were different.  But it is the clear and unambiguous law, and has been since the Supreme Court’s unanimous 1969 decision in Brandenburg v. Ohio, which overturned the criminal conviction of a Ku Klux Klan leader who had publicly threatened violence against political officials in a speech.

Read moreThe DOJ’s Escalating Criminalization Of Speech

Now It Is Illegal To Describe What The TSA Did To You: Female Blogger Threatened With Defamation Suit For Writing About TSA ‘Rape’

by

– Female Blogger Threatened With Defamation Suit For Writing About TSA ‘Rape’ (Forbes, Sep. 6, 2011):

Attacking the TSA for its privacy-invasive screening procedures has become a favorite activity for many journalists, especially Matt Drudge. TSA horror stories are often featured prominently on The Drudge Report and he has taken to calling Janet Napolitano, Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (of which the TSA is a part) “Big Sis.”

Napolitano, who doesn’t think Drudge “means [the nickname] kindly” said at a recent Politico event that Drudge is wrong in describing DHS programs as Orwellian and that “the privacy impact of new airport screening technology and similar programs are thoroughly vetted before they are implemented,” in Josh Gerstein’s words.

“We want to be conscious of civil liberties and civil rights protections—and we are,” Napolitano said, as reported by Politico.

On the same day as this piece came out, TechDirt reports on a passenger who would likely disagree with the Secretary. After a particularly aggressive patdown in March that might be better termed a feel-up, advice blogger Amy Alkon graphically described how she sobbed loudly while a TSA agent put her hands “into” her — four times. She screamed “You raped me” after the LAX patdown and took the agent’s name with plans to file charges of sexual assault. Those plans fell through after consulting an attorney, but she did blog about it and included the agent’s name, thereby inflicting her own assault — on the agent’s Google search results.

The TSA agent then hired a lawyer who contacted Alkon asking her to remove the post, threatening her with a defamation lawsuit, and asking for a settlement of $500,000. “Rape is a very serious charge,” writes lawyer Vicki Roberts on Thedala Magee’s behalf. She also says that Alkon, on a return trip to the airport in May called her client “a bad person” who had “sexually molested” her.

Free speech lawyer Marc Randazza has stepped in to assert Alkon’s right to post about her patdown experience, and to defend both her definition of the patdown as rape and, regardless of that, her right to rhetorical hyperbole. Techdirt has a copy of the letter Randazza drafted in response to the defamation threat.

“After [the agent Thedala] Magee’s assault on Ms. Alkon’s vagina and dignity, Ms. Alkon exercised her First Amendment right to recount this incident to others in person and through her blog,” writes Randazza. “This was not only her right — it was her responsibility.”

Read moreNow It Is Illegal To Describe What The TSA Did To You: Female Blogger Threatened With Defamation Suit For Writing About TSA ‘Rape’

Minnesota Jury Says Blogger Has To Pay $60,000 In Damages For His Words Even Though He Did Not Lie

by

On Friday, a Minnesota jury found that a blogger must pay $60,000 in damages because of statements he published in his blog about a public figure who was subsequently fired from his job. Internet publishers and free speech advocates should pay close attention to this case if it is appealed because the blogger was found liable even though the jury did not find that the blogger’s statements were false.

This decision is the latest example of the law’s apparent struggle to apply basic constitutional protections to internet publishers. If the Minnesota ruling holds up, it will mean that bloggers will have to worry they will be forced to pay for true statements that they publish that cause a person damages.

Read moreMinnesota Jury Says Blogger Has To Pay $60,000 In Damages For His Words Even Though He Did Not Lie

Supreme Court Rules That ‘Hate Speech’ Is Protected By The Constitution

by

If there is a hell – and there isn’t – then these people are already in hell, right here and now.

If your children died and you have to face such idiots, do not allow yourself to get insulted by them, because that is exactly what they want.

“Always forgive your enemies – nothing annoys them so much.”
– Oscar Wilde

And then stop seeing them as enemies, but as the ignorant and divine fools that they are.

And then you should tell other parents to get their ‘children’ out of the army if they can, because this is the mindset of the elite puppets that they are fighting for:

(Soldiers are) dumb, stupid animals to be used as pawns for foreign policy.
(as quoted in Woodward and Bernstein’s “The Final Days”, ch. 14)
– Henry Kissinger

Yes, even Henry (Heinz) Kissinger is only an elite puppet.

And knowing the truth, that your children are seen as cannon fodder by the elitists and died fighting in illegal wars, is even more painful then to face some ignorant fools:

– Tony Blair Was Warned By All 27 Senior Government Lawyers That Iraq War Was Illegal (Daily Express)

– Tony Blair ‘knew Iraq did not have WMD before war started’ (Times)

– US and UK knew that Iraq Didn’t Have WMDs

– Dutch Inquiry: Iraq War Was Illegal, Had ‘No Basis In International Law’ (Guardian)

Your children died for the money, power and control agenda of elite criminals and that is extremely painful.

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that a grieving father’s pain over mocking protests at his Marine son’s funeral must yield to First Amendment protections for free speech. All but one justice sided with a fundamentalist church that has stirred outrage with raucous demonstrations contending God is punishing the military for the nation’s tolerance of homosexuality.

The 8-1 decision in favor of the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kan., was the latest in a line of court rulings that, as Chief Justice John Roberts said in his opinion for the court, protects “even hurtful speech on public issues to ensure that we do not stifle public debate.”

The decision ended a lawsuit by Albert Snyder, who sued church members for the emotional pain they caused by showing up at his son Matthew’s funeral. As they have at hundreds of other funerals, the Westboro members held signs with provocative messages, including “Thank God for dead soldiers,” `’You’re Going to Hell,” `’God Hates the USA/Thank God for 9/11,” and one that combined the U.S. Marine Corps motto, Semper Fi, with a slur against gay men.

Justice Samuel Alito, the lone dissenter, said Snyder wanted only to “bury his son in peace.” Instead, Alito said, the protesters “brutally attacked” Matthew Snyder to attract public attention. “Our profound national commitment to free and open debate is not a license for the vicious verbal assault that occurred in this case,” he said.

The ruling, though, was in line with many earlier court decisions that said the First Amendment exists to protect robust debate on public issues and free expression, no matter how distasteful. A year ago, the justices struck down a federal ban on videos that show graphic violence against animals. In 1988, the court unanimously overturned a verdict for the Rev. Jerry Falwell in his libel lawsuit against Hustler magazine founder Larry Flynt over a raunchy parody ad.

Read moreSupreme Court Rules That ‘Hate Speech’ Is Protected By The Constitution

Operation Dark Heart: Book Burning by Obama Administration

by

Operation Dark Heart (Anthony Shaffer) – Book Burning by Obama Administration

Book Burning is no longer the sole shame of Nazi Germany. On September 25, 2010, the Obama administration (through the Pentagon) burned all 9,500 first run copies of Anthony Shaffer’s memoir “Operation Dark Heart”.

**IF YOU CARE ABOUT YOUR FREEDOM, PLEASE PUT THIS VIDEO ON YOUR FACEBOOK WALL, EMAIL IT TO YOUR FRIENDS, DO EVERYTHING YOU CAN TO GET THIS STORY OUT. THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA IS TRYING TO SQUASH THE STORY AND THE AUTHOR IS LIMITED IN HOW MUCH HE CAN SAY BECAUSE HE IS STILL A MEMBER OF THE US MILITARY RESERVES.**

Based on his experience as a Lt. Col. in the US Armed Forces, Operation Dark Heart was deemed a threat to national security after it had already passed two separate Army reviews and had already been published.

Burning books that have already been published seems like an obvious affront to free speech and seems particularly dangerous coming from the Obama administration, which has sought access to nearly every piece of American personal lives through its massive expansion of government.

This is not a right or left issue. It is not a democrat or republican issue. It is an issue of free speech and the government burning published books. It happens to have been done by a Democratic administration. If it had been done by a Republican administration, I would have made the same video criticizing that person.

If you think this story is fake, please Google “Operation Dark Heart”. I wish it was fake.

Read moreOperation Dark Heart: Book Burning by Obama Administration

Paul Craig Roberts: Death of the First Amendment – The Nazification of the United States

by

Change!

Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury during President Reagan’s first term. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal. He has held numerous academic appointments, including the William E. Simon Chair, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Georgetown University, and Senior Research Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University.

paul-craig-roberts

Chuck Norris is no pinko-liberal-commie, and Human Events is a very conservative publication. The two have come together to produce an important article, “Obama’s US Assassination Program.”

It seems only yesterday that Americans, or those interested in their civil liberties, were shocked that the Bush regime so flagrantly violated the FlSA law against spying on American citizens without a warrant. A federal judge serving on the FISA court even resigned in protest to the illegality of the spying.

Nothing was done about it. “National security” placed the president and executive branch above the law of the land. Civil libertarians worried that the US government was freeing its power from the constraints of law, but no one else seemed to care.

Encouraged by its success in breaking the law, the executive branch early this year announced that the Obama regime has given itself the right to murder Americans abroad if such Americans are considered a “threat.” “Threat” was not defined and, thus, a death sentence would be issued by a subjective decision of an unaccountable official.

There was hardly a peep out of the public or the media. Americans and the media were content for the government to summarily execute traitors and turncoats, and who better to identify traitors and turncoats than the government with all its spy programs.

Read morePaul Craig Roberts: Death of the First Amendment – The Nazification of the United States

US Supreme Court: WikiLeaks war logs posting ‘will lead to free speech ruling’

by

Now that is what the ‘WikiCIAleaks Gambit’ is for! Nice (but predictable) chess move!

See also:

– CIA memo on United States as ‘exporter of terrorism’ published by Wikileaks

More on WikiCIAleaks:

– F. William Engdahl: Something stinks about Wikileaks …

Oh, not to forget Sonia Sotomayor:

– President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee: “Second Amendment Rights Do Not Apply To The States”:

“… the right to possess a gun is clearly not a fundamental right.”

Learn to read Sonia Sotomayor! Then start reading the constitution.

US supreme court likely to have to rule on issue of balancing national security and freedom of speech, says judge

sonia-sotomayor
Sonia Sotomayor described the balance between national security and free speech as ‘a constant struggle in this society’. Photograph: Ed Andrieski/AP

US supreme court justice Sonia Sotomayor has said the court is likely to have to rule on the issue of balancing national security and freedom of speech due to WikiLeaks posting a cache of US military records about the Afghan war.

Sotomayor said the incident, which has been condemned by the Pentagon, was likely to provoke legislation in Congress that would require judicial scrutiny.

Her comments came in response to a question about security and free speech by a student at Denver university. The judge said she could not answer because “that question is very likely to come before me”. She said the “incident, and others, are going to provoke legislation that’s already being discussed in Congress, and so some of it is going to come up before [the supreme court]”.

WikiLeaks posted more than 76,900 records of incidents and intelligence reports about the Afghan war on its website last month, providing a devastating portrait of the war. They revealed how coalition forces have killed hundreds of civilians in unreported incidents and how Nato commanders fear neighbouring Pakistan and Iran are fuelling the insurgency.

The publication of the files, which were made available to the Guardian, the New York Times and the German weekly Der Spiegel, was one of the biggest leaks in US military history. The Pentagon has said the leak put the lives of US service personnel and Afghan informants at risk – a charge WikiLeaks denies.

Sotomayor said the balance between national security and free speech is “a constant struggle in this society, between our security needs and our first amendment rights, and one that has existed throughout our history.”

(Dictators and elite criminals do struggle with the constitution. That was the intent!!!)

Read moreUS Supreme Court: WikiLeaks war logs posting ‘will lead to free speech ruling’

Free speech in Obama’s America: Whatever you say, say nothing

by

See also: CNN Senior Editor Fired For A Tweet

Journalists are being fired for saying what they think while politicians on the Left and Right are being allowed to get away without being questioned

octavia-nasr-senior-editor-of-middle-east-affairs-at-cnn
Octavia Nasr, senior editor of Middle East affairs at CNN, is leaving the US television news network after praising the late Shiite cleric Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah on Twitter (AFP/Getty Images)

Freedom of speech may be part of the United States Constitution but perhaps the First Amendment that enshrines it could do with a caveat or two being added.

Congress may make no law “abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press”, the Bill of Rights lays down. That still holds true but, increasingly, speaking freely can get you fired or tarred for life.

Even more ominously, the internet and the increased ease of free communication is allowing the cannier politicians to escape scrutiny rather than be held to account.

Ironically, it is the mainstream media itself that is on the attack against press freedom. Last week, Octavia Nasr, a Lebanese Christian who was CNN’s Senior Editor for Arab Affairs, was summarily fired after 20 years for tweeting that she was “sad” about the death of Sheikh Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, describing him as “one of Hezbollah’s giants I respect a lot”.

We can debate the wisdom of that statement and question whether respect was what Fadlallah, who praised Palestinian “martyrdom operations” and was acclaimed as the spiritual leader of a group whose hands are drenched in blood, really deserved.

But Hezbollah is part of the Lebanese government and Nasr’s sentiments are shared by millions in the Middle East. Her opinion was considerably milder than the gushing praise for Fadlallah from the British ambassador to Lebanon. Firing her for expressing it was boneheaded and killed any chance of intelligent discussion.

Dave Weigel, a Washington Post blogger, has also found himself out of a job after his colourful venting about conservatives in a private email group was maliciously leaked. Now, even the private opinions of journalists are grounds for dismissal? Reporters have to blog and tweet and show edge and attitude and be controversial – except when it becomes uncomfortable.

General Stanley McChrystal, a legendary Special Forces officer and the man who President Barack Obama had chosen to win the war in Afghanistan, is now spending his time on long walks in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley.

Why? Because of the idiotic utterances of some of his junior aides when they got stuck in Paris within earshot of a Rolling Stone reporter who wanted to make a name for himself.

Read moreFree speech in Obama’s America: Whatever you say, say nothing

Fall Of The Republic – The Presidency Of Barack H. Obama (The Full Movie HQ)

by

“When the people find they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.”
– Benjamin Franklin


Added: 22. October 2009

Fall Of The Republic documents how an offshore corporate cartel is bankrupting the US economy by design. Leaders are now declaring that world government has arrived and that the dollar will be replaced by a new global currency.

President Obama has brazenly violated Article 1 Section 9 of the US Constitution by seating himself at the head of United Nations’ Security Council, thus becoming the first US president to chair the world body.

A scientific dictatorship is in its final stages of completion, and laws protecting basic human rights are being abolished worldwide; an iron curtain of high-tech tyranny is now descending over the planet.

A worldwide regime controlled by an unelected corporate elite is implementing a planetary carbon tax system that will dominate all human activity and establish a system of neo-feudal slavery.

Read moreFall Of The Republic – The Presidency Of Barack H. Obama (The Full Movie HQ)

Paul Craig Roberts: Israel and the Goldstone Report – War Criminals Are Becoming Arbiters of the Law

by

Israel calls this ‘self-defense’!!!:

(Click on image to enlarge.)
israel_stealing_palestine

…. and Hitler was ‘defending’ Germany???

Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury during President Reagan’s first term. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal. He has held numerous academic appointments, including the William E. Simon Chair, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Georgetown University, and Senior Research Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University.

paul-craig-roberts
Paul Craig Roberts

The double standard under which the Israeli government operates is too much for everyone except the brainwashed Americans. Even the very Israeli Jerusalem Post can see the double standard displayed by “all of Israel now speaking in one voice against the Goldstone report”:

“This is the Israeli notion of a fair deal: We’re entitled to do whatever the hell we want to the Palestinians because, by definition, whatever we do to them is self-defense. They, however, are not entitled to lift a finger against us because, by definition, whatever they do to us is terrorism.

“That’s the way it’s always been, that’s the way it was in Operation Cast Lead.

“And there are no limits on our right to self-defense. There is no such thing as ‘disproportionate.’

“We can deliberately destroy thousands of Gazan homes, the Gazan parliament, the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Interior, courthouses, the only Gazan flour plant, the main poultry farm, a sewage treatment plant, water wells and God knows what else.

“Deliberately.

“Why? Because we’re better than them. Because we’re a democracy and they’re a bunch of Islamo-fascists. Because ours is a culture of life and theirs is a culture of death. Because they’re out to destroy us and all we are saying is give peace a chance.

“The Goldstones of the world call this hypocrisy, a double standard. How dare they! Around here, we call it moral clarity.”

A person would never read such as this in the New York Times or Washington Post or hear it from any US news source. Unlike Israeli newspapers, the US media is a complete mouthpiece for the Israel Lobby. Never a critical word is heard.

This will be even more the case now that the Israel Lobby, after years of effort, has succeeded in repealing the First Amendment by having the Hate Crime Bill attached to the recently passed military appropriations bill. This is the way the syllogism works: It is anti-semitic to criticize Israel. Anti-semitism is a hate crime. Therefore, to criticize Israel is a hate crime.

As the Jerusalem Post notes, this syllogism has “moral clarity.”

Britain’s ambassador to the United Nations, John Sawers, stepped into the hate crime arena when he told Israel Army radio that the Goldstone report on Israel’s military assault on Gaza contains “some very serious details which need to be investigated.”

A year from now when the Anti-Defamation League has its phalanx of US Department of Justice (sic) prosecutors in place, Sawers would be seized and placed on trial. Diplomatic immunity means nothing to the US, which routinely invades other countries, executes their leaders or sends them to the Hague for trial as war criminals.

Read morePaul Craig Roberts: Israel and the Goldstone Report – War Criminals Are Becoming Arbiters of the Law

ACLU sues the Department of Homeland Security over laptop searches

by

laptop-searches
An airport screener looks at a laptop computer. The U.S. Customs and Border Patrol now has the ability to copy the contents of laptops from any travelers entering the United States. (AP)

The American Civil Liberties Union on Wednesday sued the Department of Homeland Security in an effort to uncover documents related to laptop searches at the border.

“The ACLU believes that suspicionless searches of laptops violate the First and Fourth Amendments,” the group wrote in the suit, filed in a New York District Court.

In July 2008, the Customs and Border Protection agency within DHS published formal guidelines for laptop border searches that gave CBP officials permission to search laptops and electronic devices at the border. Court cases on the topic have generally found that citizens should have diminished expectations of privacy when re-entering the country because the U.S. has a right to protect itself and control what crosses its borders.

Critics of the policy claim that laptop searches are an invasion of privacy – a personal computer holds a lot more information than a suitcase full of clothes or briefcase full of paperwork. What’s to stop CBP from copying the contents of your computer and keeping it on file indefinitely, they have argued

As a result, the ACLU wants to know exactly what types of data the government has collected. The organization first filed a Freedom of Information request in June 2009, but after some back and forth between the ACLU and DHS, the ACLU said that it had “exhausted the applicable administrative remedies” and that “DHS and its components have wrongfully withheld the requested records from the ACLU.”

Read moreACLU sues the Department of Homeland Security over laptop searches

Paul Craig Roberts: Criminalizing Criticism of Israel. The End of Free Speech?

by

Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury during President Reagan’s first term. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal. He has held numerous academic appointments, including the William E. Simon Chair, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Georgetown University, and Senior Research Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University.


Paul Craig Roberts

On October 16, 2004, President George W. Bush signed the Israel Lobby’s bill, the Global Anti-Semitism Review Act. This legislation requires the US Department of State to monitor anti-semitism world wide.

To monitor anti-semitism, it has to be defined. What is the definition? Basically, as defined by the Israel Lobby and Abe Foxman, it boils down to any criticism of Israel or Jews.

Rahm Israel Emanuel hasn’t been mopping floors at the White House.
As soon as he gets the Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009 passed, it will become a crime for any American to tell the truth about Israel’s treatment of Palestinians and theft of their lands.

It will be a crime for Christians to acknowledge the New Testament’s account of Jews demanding the crucifixion of Jesus.

It will be a crime to report the extraordinary influence of the Israel Lobby on the White House and Congress, such as the AIPAC-written resolutions praising Israel for its war crimes against the Palestinians in Gaza that were endorsed by 100 per cent of the US Senate and 99 per cent of the House of Representatives, while the rest of the world condemned Israel for its barbarity.

Don’t miss: US no longer ruled by law: Paul Craig Roberts

It will be a crime to doubt the Holocaust.

It will become a crime to note the disproportionate representation of Jews in the media, finance, and foreign policy.

In other words, it means the end of free speech, free inquiry, and the First Amendment to the Constitution. Any facts or truths that cast aspersion upon Israel will simply be banned.

Given the hubris of the US government, which leads Washington to apply US law to every country and organization, what will happen to the International Red Cross, the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, and the various human rights organizations that have demanded investigations of Israel’s military assault on Gaza’s civilian population? Will they all be arrested for the hate crime of “excessive” criticism of Israel?

This is a serious question.

A recent UN report, which is yet to be released in its entirety, blames Israel for the deaths and injuries that occurred within the United Nations premises in Gaza. The Israeli government has responded by charging that the UN report is “tendentious, patently biased,” which puts the UN report into the State Department’s category of excessive criticism and strong anti-Israel sentiment.

Israel is getting away with its blatant use of the American government to silence its critics despite the fact that the Israeli press and Israeli soldiers have exposed the Israeli atrocities in Gaza and the premeditated murder of women and children urged upon the Israeli invaders by rabbis. These acts are clearly war crimes.

Read morePaul Craig Roberts: Criminalizing Criticism of Israel. The End of Free Speech?

Do the Secret Bush Memos Amount to Treason? Top Constitutional Scholar Says Yes

by

In case you have missed this: G. W. Bush and Adolf Hitler signed a Directive 51

Legal expert Michael Ratner calls the legal arguments made in the infamous Yoo memos, “Fuhrer’s law.”

In early March, more shocking details emerged about George W. Bush legal counsel John Yoo’s memos outlining the destruction of the republic.

The memos lay the legal groundwork for the president to send the military to wage war against U.S. citizens; take them from their homes to Navy brigs without trial and keep them forever; close down the First Amendment; and invade whatever country he chooses without regard to any treaty or objection by Congress.

Read moreDo the Secret Bush Memos Amount to Treason? Top Constitutional Scholar Says Yes

Paul Craig Roberts: From One Assault On The Constitution To Another

by

Paul Craig Roberts [email him] was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury during President Reagan’s first term. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal. He has held numerous academic appointments, including the William E. Simon Chair, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Georgetown University, and Senior Research Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University.

The US Constitution has few friends on the right or the left.

During the first eight years of the 21st century, the Republicans mercilessly assaulted civil liberties. The brownshirt Bush regime ignored the protections provided by habeas corpus. They spied on American citizens without warrants. They violated the First Amendment. They elevated decisions of the president above US statutory law and international law. They claimed the power to withhold information from the people’s representatives in Congress, and they asserted, and behaved as if, they were unaccountable to the people, Congress, and the federal courts. The executive branch claimed the power to ignore congressional subpoenas. Republicans regarded Bush as a Stuart king unaccountable to law.

The Bush brownshirt regime revealed itself as lawless, the worst criminal organization in American history.

Now we have the Democrats, and the assault on civil liberty continues. President Obama doesn’t want to hold Bush accountable for his crimes and violations of the Constitution, because Obama wants to retain the powers that Bush asserted. Even the practice of kidnapping people and transporting them to foreign countries to be tortured has been retained by President Obama.

The civil liberties that Bush stole from us are now in Obama’s pocket.

Will it turn out that we enjoyed more liberty under Bush than we will under Obama? At least the Republicans left us the Second Amendment. The Obama Democrats are not going to return our other purloined civil liberties, and they are already attacking the Second Amendment.

Read morePaul Craig Roberts: From One Assault On The Constitution To Another

Fifth Grader Suspended For Wearing Anti-Obama Shirt

by

This child just forgot to add Bush, Cheney, McCain, Clinton, Paulson etc.

The other side of the shirt should read: “Ron Paul, Freedom’s Best Friend.”
_________________________________________________________________________

An 11-year-old boy in Colorado was suspended from school after he refused to take off a shirt that read, “Obama is a terrorist’s best friend.” His father says that the school is violating his son’s First Amendment rights.

Daxx Dalton, a fifth grader at Aurora Frontier K-8 School in Aurora, Colo., wore the homemade shirt on a day when students were asked to show their patriotism by wearing red, white and blue, according to MyFOXColorado.com.

When he was given the choice of turning the shirt inside out or being suspended, Dalton chose suspension.

“They’re taking away my right of freedom of speech,” he said. “If I have the right to wear this shirt I’m going to use it. And if the only way to use it is get suspended, then I’m going to get suspended.”

Read moreFifth Grader Suspended For Wearing Anti-Obama Shirt

Bloomberg’s End-run Around the Second Amendment

by

“In other words, New York is a Constitution free zone. But then so is much of the rest of the country, thanks to Bush, who considers the Constitution “just a goddamned piece of paper.”

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

In New York, the notorious gun-grabber Michael Bloomberg wants to censor the Second Amendment. “New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has moved from outrage to atrocity, said the Second Amendment Foundation, by asking anti-gun activist federal Judge Jack B. Weinstein to ban any reference to the Second Amendment during a civil lawsuit trial beginning May 27 against Georgia gun dealer Jay Wallace, proprietor at Adventure Outdoors,” reports PR Newswire.

But the “billionaire demagogue who considers himself so far above the law,” as Alan Gottlieb, founder of the Second Amendment Foundation, characterizes Bloomberg, wants to go after the First Amendment, too. Bloomberg wants a gag order slapped on the case. In “Mikey’s world… a fair trial is one in which a defense attorney is muzzled, and the defendant is already guilty until proven innocent. Bloomberg missed his calling. Instead of being mayor of an American city, he should have been the administrator of a gulag.”

Reports the New York Sun:

City lawyers, in a motion filed Tuesday, asked the judge, Jack Weinstein of U.S. District Court in Brooklyn, to preclude the store’s lawyers from arguing that the suit infringed on any Second Amendment rights belonging to the gun store or its customers. In the motion, the lawyer for the city, Eric Proshansky, is also seeking a ban on “any references” to the amendment.

“Any references by counsel to the Second Amendment or analogous state constitutional provisions are likewise irrelevant,” the brief states

In other words, New York is a Constitution free zone. But then so is much of the rest of the country, thanks to Bush, who considers the Constitution “just a goddamned piece of paper.” Bush and his coterie of Straussian neocons need to get rid of the Second Amendment in particular because militarized police states don’t go far if people have guns. Come marital law, Bush and crew may want to begin with New York, Chicago, and D.C., where restrictive gun laws rule. Short of some draconian law, it will be hard going out here in the hinterlands.

Read moreBloomberg’s End-run Around the Second Amendment