5 Ways the U.S. Government Has Built 'An Architecture of Oppression'

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http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/5-ways-us-government-has-built-architecture-oppression



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1. The Patriot Act

The big daddy of reactionary power grabs, the Patriot Act was put before Congress on a rare fast-track by Attorney General John Ashcroft just nine days after September 11. It was passed in a whirlwind of jingoistic fervor with only two hearings in the House and none by the Senate Judiciary Committee. Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) was the only senator who voted against it.

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2. Killing US Citizens and the Use of Drones

There is no legal framework for the targeted assassination of US citizens without due process. In an address last month, Obama acknowledged for the first time what the world has known to be true thanks to courageous reporting: that in the span of one month, three American citizens were killed by drone strikes in Yemen in 2011. One of those killed, Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, was just 16 years old.

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3. Cracking Down on Activists

Activism used to be the way people voiced their grievances to elected officials and the powerful, but recent government crackdowns on peaceful protest have demonstrated that in this country, now more than ever, dissent is being criminalized.

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4. Prosecuting Whistleblowers

The Obama administration has prosecuted more whistleblowers than every other previous administration combined. Since 2009, Obama’s Department of Justice has used the Espionage Act, an archaic law drafted during World War I, to prosecute six whistleblowers: Thomas Drake, Stephen Jin-Woo Kim, John Kiriakou, Shamai K. Leibowitz, Jeffrey Sterling and Pfc. Bradley Manning.

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