New Follow the Leader Epidemic Infects Washington!
October 21, 2001
The New Senate Anti-Terrorist Bill 1510 has actually been waiting in the wings for many years. It will give the FBI, DOD, CIA, Treasury department, and executive branch the power that it has so long craved. It's an old Christmas wish list that most of them would never dream actually obtainable, that is until now, where "today's congress" obviously feels overwhelmed and has caved into a severe case of the fearful(led) "follow the leader" epidemic . What kind of power does this bill give. The answer is very widespread power. Power over whom? You and I. This bill proposes not a small incremental encroachment upon our existing remaining rights, but it is a giant leap and it is most likely irreversible (governments in power do not easily give up their power without a fight). This particular bill specifically bequeaths such power in order to quash dissent.
On the other hand, yes, many people in modern society trust in external authority
and will not question it. They want more prisons, more police, higher penalties, and bigger
armies to protect them. They have abdicated their ability to think for themselves and as such
they have very large security issues and many are "freaked out" and hysterical enough
to surrender their rights to "trusted" authority figures and a totalitarian state.
However those who have learned to do their own thinking for themselves and are trained in critical
thought well understand that more laws which limit behavior, punish dissent, and reinforce
a larger and stronger totalitarian structure do not in the long run provide security, but rather
create the opposite, i.e., more stratification, hierarchy, obsequiousness, bureaucracy, inefficiency,
subjection, disparity, despair, in short slavery. Such measures in turn will not stimulate
creative and independent thought.
The president, attorney general, FBI, CIA, military,
and legislators are showing great audacity in proposing this carefully planned out war upon
the few individual legal rights that remain. Practicing legal experts (not that you will see
them on the corporate/state owned media) who have analyzed this bill agree that it has been
carefully crafted to successfully prosecute just about anyone the police state wants to put
away, silence, threaten, or intimidate. The general public "assumes" that this will
be used against "the bad guys" not themselves, i.e., that they and the government
are the "good guys". This assumption however is not in harmony with any known principles
of freedom.
Benjamin Franklin has said:
"Those who are willing to forfeit liberty for security will have neither."
Giving up power and abdicating responsibility to the state certainly is a psychological problem however such foolishness masqueraded as loyalty, is only a betrayal of one's responsibility to the earth and to future generations. It's easy to follow the leader, fly an American flag, parrot authority, and to "shop more to express your patriotism" (as the president has recently exhorted), but such is not be confused with the word, patriotism. To be a patriot, one has to be true to the founding principles and founding values of a country, not to some bastardization or crude misinterpretation. And if we are to take "patri" seriously then all of us may best be considered as compatriots of the earth, loyal to the founding principles and values of creation/creator first while not allowing our human governments to act astray. Regardless of one's definition of the word, patriot, it is not following authority blindly but staying true to foundational principles.
Consider these items in the new Senate Terrorist Bill 1510:
MONEY LAUNDERING ABATEMENT AND ANTI-TERRORIST FINANCING ACT OF 2001
Political Activists and Demonstrators should Zero in on S.1510. The bill's provisions
can be used to eradicate public dissent - - and you!
Under Senate Bill 1510, now being considered in the Senate as an
Anti-terrorism
act:
(1) An entire 501C3 organization or other organization, including its members, can have their assets seized for supporting bodily acts or international causes that the U.S. Secretary of State may deem terrorist activity. Political activities that were legal prior to SB.1510 may "RETROACTIVELY" be deemed terrorist activity by U.S. Government. Participants and supporters may be charged with terrorist and other offenses.
If you want to read this bill for yourself, go to http://Thomas.loc.gov, to the 107th Congress, and Senate Bill 1510.
(2). S.1510 "RETROACTIVELY" abolishes the "Statue of Limitations" for many past offenses where no one was injured. After passage of S.1510, any past offense that can be broadly alleged to have put someone "at risk" may be used by federal and state prosecutors to charge a citizen with a terrorist act - even 30 years after the Statute of Limitations period had already passed. Government will have no difficulty manufacturing evidence to prosecute citizens once Constitutional safeguards against passing Retroactive Laws are abolished after passage of S.1510.
(3) No "innocent owner defense" allowed against Asset Forfeiture when, after passage of S 1510, U.S. Government agencies will be able to seize assets of citizens, 501C3 and other organizations and their members without ever disclosing the evidence against their property.
Government need only allege that disclosing such evidence may compromise National security and/or an ongoing investigation. S 1510 provides for paying "unnamed informants huge rewards" resulting from arrests and forfeited assets. It is hard to believe any organization or citizen could ever recover their assets once they are seized by a government agency in the name of National Security. That may include a citizen's home in which an informant secretly alleges someone said the wrong thing.
(4) "D Below" is from the Senate Bill 1510.
So much for trusting attorneys!
"(d) UNDERCOVER ACTIVITIES- Notwithstanding any provision of State law, including disciplinary rules, statutes, regulations, constitutional provisions, or case law, a Government attorney may, for the purpose of enforcing Federal law, provide legal advice, authorization, concurrence, direction, or supervision on conducting undercover activities, and any attorney employed as an investigator or their law enforcement agent by the Department of Justice who is not authorized to represent the United States in criminal or civil law enforcement litigation or to supervise such proceedings may participate in such activities, even though such activities may require the use of deceit or misrepresentation, where such activities are consistent with Federal law.
(e) ADMISSIBILITY OF EVIDENCE- No violation of any disciplinary, ethical, or professional
conduct rule shall be construed to permit the exclusion of otherwise admissible evidence in
any Federal criminal proceedings".
This bill is similar to the one Adolf Hitler pushed through the Reichstag after
the Reichstag fire in the early 1930's. German Jews, horrified by the chaos in Germany after
the fire, supported Hitler's legislation - then found he could (and planned to) use it against
them.
This is worse legislation than the Sedition Laws of the 1790's, later declared
unconstitutional and leading to the end of John Adams' presidency.
It must be made clear that as this bill is now written (read intentionally crafted) "YOU" and anyone connected with any organization be it a 501(c)(3), church, Rotary, or ANY OTHER ORGANIZATION can be snagged under this legislation. Lifting the Statute of Limitations means that you could have your home and other assets seized if you were a member of an organization that supported, for example, Leonard Peltier, or sent food or medicine to Cuba, or even protested against nukes in the '60s - and the U.S. government decided that that organization was then or is now in any way associated with someone or some organization that is somehow connected to a "terrorist organization."
Of course, it will be said that that is highly unlikely to happen if you keep your nose clean, act conservatively, "shape up", and don't give financial or other support to any "suspect" organization. In other words go along with conventional wisdom and conform to teh adminsitartions way of thinking or suffer the consquences.
There are thousands of people in our prisons now, put there by the testimony of paid/"rewarded" informers. All it takes is for some such person to provide "testimony" that the ACLU or the Sierra Club or Pastors for Peace, or other organization is "supporting" terrorists. Or maybe some member of such an organization does provide support to a terrorist: all members are liable to imprisonment and seizure of their assets.
Who, under a law like that, is going to give funding to any 501(c)(3) organization or any other "actionist" group - even for work with rehabilitating prisoners or drug addicts, or providing housing for the poor?
In other words there are tens of thousands of NGOs (Non-Government Organizations) in the US that are mostly involved in doing the many needed jobs that the government does not do. It is actually "good" that these groups of people have taken initiative and provided a participatory democratic outlet to get the job done. Such groups will be hurt most and there will be even less "ability" and empowerment for our citizens to come together and do anything for themselves (individually or as a group) while corporate/state sanction would appear to be the "safest" alternative.
For example the "official" list of suspected terrorist groups increase daily. The Zapitista organization in Chiapas Mexico is one of them. Many ecology groups and NGOs have sent them support. Under this law if you supported a group which supported or has supported in the past a terrorist group, you are guilty. This is only one example of the possible misuse of this law that could be legally used against "the opposition" (whoever the government chooses that to be) if passed as presently worded..
President Bush's statement in October (2001) justifying the International Red Cross
bombings in Kabul, despite the protest of the president of the International Red Cross and
UNESCO seemed absurd to me, but then again I may be getting old.
.
"We want
to send a very clear message. If you feed a terrorist, you are a terrorist and you will be
treated as a terrorist. If you shelter a terrorist, you are a terrorist and you will be treated
as a terrorist. If you aid and terrorist, you are a terrorist and you will be treated as a
terrorist."
"When the well's dry, we know the worth of water."
Benjamin Franklin
Perhaps it is wise at this time to suggest to your freaked out legislators that the remaining individual freedoms should be preserved (window dressings as many have become) and suggest that they receive inoculations for "follow your leader virus" or "totalitarian fever". Let's remind them that they are supposed to serve the people and protect their rights, rather than serve the government abdicating even a semblance of responsibility to its citizens (democracy). The corporate/military/police state and their legislative servants in their avarice and fear have gone too far!
Maybe it is already too late and the legislators having jumped on the bandwagon hoping for some of the spoils (if there will be any). Are they and many other "Americans" simply giving up any pretense of resistance and simply showing their true colors? Hard to tell from "here" where Washington seems to be very much out of "touch".
I pledge allegiance to the planet on which I stand
One Earth
One People
One Being
One Rich and Vast Great Integrity
Intelligent, Interconnected, and Whole
One Spirit
One Love
Great Peace
RESISTANCE by John Trudell from his book, Stickman
"We want to be free of a value system that is being imposed on us. We do
not want to participate in that value system. We don't want to change that value
system. We want to remove it from our lives forever.
"We must never underestimate our enemy. Our enemy is committed against us twenty-four hours a day. They use one hundred percent of their effort to maintain their materialistic status quo. One hundred percent of their effort goes into deceiving us and manipulating us against each other. We have to devote our lives, we have to make our committment, we have to follow a way of life that says we are going to resist that forever ... a resistance: something that we can pass on as strength to the coming generations."
"A resistance where organizational egos don't get in the way. A resistance where individual egos do not get in the way. A resistance where the infiltrators and the provocateurs and the liars and the betrayers and the traitors, they do not get in the way ... a resistance of consciousness. This is our obligation to the earth. And only by fulfilling our obligation to the earth can we fulfill our obligations to the people.
"We must go beyond the arrogance of human rights. We must go beyond the ignorance of civil rights. We must step into the reality of natural rights because all of the natural world has a right to existence and we are only a small part of it. There can be no trade-off."
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