The
thing about a police state is that it tends to creep up on you. One day
you think the Bill of Rights is intact and the freedoms you take for
granted are intact, but the next day you find out that under the
National Defense Authorization Act (HR 1540), signed into law by
President Obama on December 31, 2011, you can be arrested and detained
without recourse to an attorney or the courts.
HR
1540 kills the concept of Habeas Corpus by permitting the detention of
U.S. citizens without trail. In 2009 the National Emergency Centers Act,
HR 645, was introduced for the
establishment of “internment camps.” I have not been able to determine
if it was passed and signed into law, nor have I found any explanation
why the Congress of the United States either passed or even considered
these laws.
The
2001 Patriot Act was justified as a response to 9/11 and revised in
2012. It gives the government unprecedented powers of surveillance and
enforcement in the name of deterring terrorism.
One
of Obama’s many executive orders permits him to “commandeer” all
domestic U.S. resources, including food and water supplies, energy
productions, and transportation, even in times of peace, with no
congressional oversight. On March 16, 2012, the National Defense
Resources Preparedness EO expands on a law from the 1950s as the Cold
War was heating up and there were fears of a conflict with the Soviet
Union.
President
Obama, obsessed with leaks to the press, has now turned the entire
federal government into a workplace where employees are expected to
report “suspicious activity” of their co-workers. Failure to do so could
result in penalties including criminal charges. Though figures differ,
by 2010 there were an estimated 2.5 million full-time federal employees.
According to an article by Jonathan S. Landay and Marisa Taylor, two reporters for McClatchy newspapers, the October 2011 executive order
mandating the program is “based on behavioral profiling techniques that
are not scientifically proven to work, according to experts and
government documents.” The program, deemed flawed, “could result in
illegal ethnic and racial profiling and privacy violations.”
As
Americans have been learning in airports across the nation, the
Transportation Security Authority routinely engages in profiling and
highly intrusive physical “pat downs” that many find humiliating.
In
2011, the TSA’s “VIPR teams” conducted an estimated 8,000 unannounced
security screenings at subway stations, bus terminals, seaports, and
highway rest stops in which Americans were required to show some proof
of identity. This is the same administration that opposes voter ID, but
not when the police functions of the TSA are concerned.
In
bits and pieces, news of activities at the Department of Homeland
Security (DHS) has been reported and, when the dots are connected, some
very scary conclusions can be reached. Why has DHS purchased 1.6 billion
bullets as of March of this year? That is reportedly twenty times more
than the amount of bullets expended in the Iraq War. Why is the DHS
reportedly sending thousands of heavily armored vehicles and combat gear
to cities and towns around the nation for use by police forces that are
increasingly being militarized?
One can find a list of actions by the Obama administration
that, together, portray preparations for the implementation of a police
state as Americans are detained, as per a DHS report, because they are
deemed to be potential terrorists because they hold beliefs and ideologies that include:
# “being fiercely nationalistic (as opposed to international in orientation)”
# “anti-global”
# “suspicious of centralized federal authority”
# “reverent of individual liberty”
# “believe in conspiracy theories”
# “a belief that one’s personal and/or national ‘way of life’ is under attack”
#
“a belief in the need to be prepared for an attack either by
participating in paramilitary preparations and training or survivalism”
# “impose strict religious tenets or laws on society (fundamentalists)”
# “anti-abortion”
And
those are just some of the “suspicious” activities or beliefs that can
get you hauled off to a detention camp without the benefit of a trial.
While
there have been a handful of incidents where terrorist acts have been
perpetrated by those inspired by Islam, they do not justify preparations
that clearly suggest the Obama administration anticipates a perceived
national uprising against the federal government. Indeed, a number of
marches in Washington, D.C. are planned, including one on September 9.
The
legislation that has been passed and the executive orders put in place
suggest that there are plans in place to ensure that the implementation
of a police state can be swiftly imposed on Americans, contrary to all
the protections of the Constitution. Indeed, given their existence, are
we not already living in a police state?
© Alan Caruba, 2013
9 comments:
To answer the question - in a nutshell, yes.
Agreed, Stephen. There are places where it's more readily noticed, but ... yes.
Yep, we are, we just don't realize it yet...
Yes, the framework is in place. No, because too many of us refuse to shut up.
The future? We don't know, so long as we keep yapping. If we shut up, then the future is clear.
NFO, that' probably true for most folks.
WSF, that's a good summary. Thanks.
We are getting there. We have a society that is so self focused and so uninformed about history that it goes obliviously along, happy as long as they themselves are not disturbed.
Agreed, PH.
Well, at least when they round us all up, we'll be among friends....
Chickenmom, I'm not sure that'll be much consolation, but yes ... there's that. :)
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