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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWashington Post/10 reasons the U.S. is no longer the land of the free
[font size=2]By Jonathan Turley, Friday, January 13, 5:34 PM[/font]
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The list of powers acquired by the U.S. government since 9/11 puts us in rather troubling company.
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President Obama has claimed, as President George W. Bush did before him, the right to order the killing of any citizen considered a terrorist or an abettor of terrorism. Last year, he approved the killing of U.S. citizen Anwar al-Awlaqi and another citizen under this claimed inherent authority. Last month, administration officials affirmed that power, stating that the president can order the assassination of any citizen whom he considers allied with terrorists. (Nations such as Nigeria, Iran and Syria have been routinely criticized for extrajudicial killings of enemies of the state.)
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Under the law signed last month, terrorism suspects are to be held by the military; the president also has the authority to indefinitely detain citizens accused of terrorism. While the administration claims that this provision only codified existing law, experts widely contest this view, and the administration has opposed efforts to challenge such authority in federal courts. The government continues to claim the right to strip citizens of legal protections based on its sole discretion. (China recently codified a more limited detention law for its citizens, while countries such as Cambodia have been singled out by the United States for prolonged detention.)
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The government now routinely uses secret evidence to detain individuals and employs secret evidence in federal and military courts. It also forces the dismissal of cases against the United States by simply filing declarations that the cases would make the government reveal classified information that would harm national security a claim made in a variety of privacy lawsuits and largely accepted by federal judges without question. Even legal opinions, cited as the basis for the governments actions under the Bush and Obama administrations, have been classified. This allows the government to claim secret legal arguments to support secret proceedings using secret evidence. In addition, some cases never make it to court at all. The federal courts routinely deny constitutional challenges to policies and programs under a narrow definition of standing to bring a case.
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Read full article at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/is-the-united-states-still-the-land-of-the-free/2012/01/04/gIQAvcD1wP_story_1.html
rhett o rick
(55,981 posts)are beholding to big corporations. Be sure to vote, but dont expect it to change shit.
provis99
(13,062 posts)JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)On edit: Let's assume that we have a war on terror (however that is defined). To win a war, don't you have to target your resources carefully so as to achieve the most efficient, absolute victory?
And isn't subjecting extremely large numbers of people to surveillance, arbitrary confinement, extradition, torture, abuse, extortion, secrecy, deprivation of due process and fear an inefficient way to win a war?
Isn't one of the first rules in winning a battle that you have to know who your enemy is? Fighting everyone and anyone is inefficient. If you have to fight the majority of the people, you probably shouldn't be trying to govern. You will never prevail.
The spatter-paint methods the government is using to fight terrorism suggest that the government has no idea who or what the enemy is. It doesn't seem to know exactly what conduct it should focus on.
It's just scared of something. Who knows what? And in a panic eating away at the Bill of Rights -- bite by bite. First the Fourth Amendment, then the Fifth, then the First. Pretty soon, Americans will ask, "My freedom is gone. My friends are gone. What happened?" And then we won't be America any more.
The NDAA was not necessary and should be amended to guarantee that Americans may not be deprived of any of the rights guaranteed under the Bill of Rights -- not under any circumstances.
The acts that most of us would consider to be terrorist in nature are already crimes. So why have special laws that deprive "terrorists" of their Constitutional rights? It makes no sense at all.
woo me with science
(32,139 posts)the current move to control the Internet...and everything in this article...
All of these are alarming as hell.
And what is most alarming is that our President is consistently, inexcusably absent, complicit, or the architect of these things. We are moving into fascism.
Occupy NOW, because they are putting structures into place to prevent occupation tomorrow.
alp227
(31,960 posts)(basically replace "story" with "singlePage" in the washingtonpost URLs)
NorthCarolina
(11,197 posts)divide_and_rule
(16 posts)the usa started as a labor camp for so called indentured servants, aka white slaves, and it went from there. Then it became a pseudo democracy in about 1790. The only time it was really free for americans is for settlers many decades ago