The Unrule of Law
Erosion of Civil Rights
Saturday, February 03, 2018 5:57 AM
The most recent brouhaha in Washington involves a memo, generated by Devin Nunes’ staff, purporting to show that the FBI presented unverified evidence to the FISA court to obtain a warrant for wiretapping a T-Rump campaign advisor, Carter Page. As usually seems to happen in modern America, the corporate media follow merrily along behind, like children trailing a Pied Piper, whatever tune the politicians are humming that day. None are asking the quintessential question; why do we have a secret FISA court? How can the “land of the free and home of the brave” allow a secret court, with unidentified judges, to be petitioned covertly for a legal warrant by Executive branch law enforcement agencies for the purpose of unlimited clandestine spying, sweeping electronic surveillance and personal data gathering on American citizens? There was no charge, accusation or evidence of crime against Mr. Page at the time of the FISA warrant.
Granted, in this particular case my personal political persuasion makes me believe the investigation was “warranted”, still, it is a mechanism too dangerous and too opaque to be put in the hands of law enforcement. This, to me, is the penultimate example of the bastardization of what is blithely termed “the rule of law”. It highlights the gradual, always legally justified, degradation of civil rights we have come to in America. If the “law” allows a secretive approval process for clandestine surveillance of ordinary citizens by the Executive branch of our government, what other freedoms matter? The 4th Amendment to be secure against “…unreasonable searches and seizures…” and that “…no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation…” For a people to be bound by the “rule of law”, that law must be fair, just and applied equitably to all citizens.
I’ve attached some documents showing various other areas where law enforcement has been granted powers, once considered too detrimental to Constitutionally guaranteed liberties to be tolerated in a free society. Upon unbiased consideration, it should be obvious that those actors in society most prone to abuse power are the very ones who have been accumulating additional authority in recent history. Namely; the Chief Executive & Executive branch agencies, including the CIA, NSA, FBI and Justice Department. This has, subsequently, filtered down to state and local law enforcement agencies as well. And sadly, all of this has found approval from our most learned justices and the courts
Some shocking event or occurrence is often used to justify the usurpation of freedoms. The 9/11 terrorist attack led to dismantling the legal barrier between the FBI’s domestic and CIA’s foreign information gathering functions; and combining them, along with 16 other “intelligence” gathering agencies into a new Department of Homeland Security (or, as I prefer Dept. of the Fatherland). This also led to the FISA system. Government acquisition of unnecessary amounts of military equipment, generated by excessive defense spending to fund the bogus “War on Terror”; eventually led to the sale of all that surplus military gear to local law enforcement offices. The results could be seen during the Ferguson, MO protests in the fully protective military gear worn by police, the automatic weapons they bore and the armored vehicles they drove onto the streets of St. Louis.
[ Just an aside: if policy makers had carefully read the 9/11 Commission report, which they mandated, they would have learned that the various intelligence agencies had been loosely tracking the hijackers for some time, but without any coordination. Had there been a provision to allow CIA terrorist analysts to share information regarding suspect foreign nationals in the U. S. with FBI criminal investigators, they quite possibly would have apprehended some of the eventual hijackers, beforehand. They could have at least, been more carefully monitoring the movements and activities of these known suspect individuals. Even after Richard Clarke’s repeated warnings to the White House, no actions were taken to raise FBI awareness of the domestic threat, hence law enforcement’s apparent surprise on 9/11. Point being: the Dept. of Homeland Security was probably an unnecessary overreaction to the problem, in the first place. But from that point forward, the “Secret Surveillance State” has grown leaps and bounds, virtually without oversight. ]
There is so much more evidence, occurring on so many fronts that it is hard to digest the breadth of the changes. How did the legal definition for “person” come to include “corporations, companies, partnerships, etc.” in American law? The latest extension of this illogical concept brought us “Citizens United” and unlimited corporate election spending. Who was behind “Right to Work” laws that undermine the longstanding collective bargaining rights of workers. “Voter ID” laws that effectively disenfranchise poor and minority citizens. Who benefitted from dismantling the Voting Rights Act of 1965? How have 3 Presidents, now, waged wars on foreign soil without a Congressional declaration of war? Why are the many clandestine, domestic surveillance activities of the CIA & NSA, as revealed by Edward Snowden, allowed to continue?
In a recent random example, during the Dakota Access Pipeline protest, North Dakota’s governor declared a “state of emergency” (as did Gov. Nixon during Ferguson), which allowed him to call in additional police officers from 3 other states to “battle” the Standing Rock protestors. How did a small group of non-violent protestors constitute a “state of emergency”? Energy Transfer Partners (the pipeline owner) also hired an outside security firm, which in coordination with ND State Police, the local sheriff, the FBI and Bureau of Indian Affairs, waged a military style counter-insurgency campaign against the protestors. The security firm, in coordination with the FBI, held daily situational review and action meetings in the local sheriff’s office, employed drone surveillance to monitor the protest camp, researched background and criminal records of protestors and analyzed their Facebook, Snapchat & Twitter account archives.
The FBI inserted a native American “mole” into the DAPL protest camp, who provided detailed information of protestor’s activities and plans. Law enforcement set up a perimeter ring of surplus military, armored personnel carriers (mounted with 50 caliber machine guns) and heavy trucks. They flew daily surveillance drone flights over the scene. Police used tear gas, rubber bullets and water cannons to drive the unarmed protestors back into their camps. Since then, 29 states have either enacted or have pending ALEC modeled legislation, to make it a felony for any who protest or interfere with “critical infrastructure”.
[Progress Update: Iowa pipeline activist labeled “terrorist” by court, given 8 year prison sentence for burning an Energy Partners bulldozer.]
200 people protesting at the Trump inauguration were arrested and charged by Federal prosecutors, as a group, each with inciting to riot and felonious destruction of property. If convicted, all 200 protestors could face 10+ years in prison for the actions of a few rowdies that broke a Starbucks storefront window. Most of this was not even covered by a corporate news media obsessed with Trump’s twitter feed. Now, the 1st Amendment right to “peaceably assemble, and petition the Government for a redress of grievances” is being restricted.
Even the alternative media who did cover the pipeline protest, did not examine the even bigger 800 lb. bear in the room. How is it that private, for-profit energy conglomerates are granted the governmental authority of “eminent domain”? These companies are given legal rights to take possession of the land their pipeline will cross. They are able to force landowners to sell them whatever land their engineers have designated as being in the path of their private pipeline. The pipeline owner is also given the authority to decide what the fair value of that land is worth. In other words, in routing a new pipeline, the company can tell a private landowner that they are appropriating a portion of his land and how much they are going to pay him for it.
And, as the Dakota Access Pipeline showed, they can rely on Federal and state law enforcement officers to back them up. That particular pipeline, by the way, was originally engineered to run farther north, crossing the Missouri River near Bismarck, ND. Somehow, it got rerouted away from that city, the state capital, where the land was more expensive, to cross the river just adjacent to the Standing Rock reservation at their drinking water supply intake.
So yes, Trump is an embarrassment for our country, but while he keeps the media pre-occupied commenting on his buffoonery, we all keep losing our liberties. Drip by drip… and no one says a word.