This is being painted as a coup by a dictator in the US media. I have no illusions of where this could lead (no one at this stage is going to restore the Constitution).
The very best that one can say about Trump is that he is weak and has lost all power to do anything. That makes him dangerous - not, however for the reasons given by the Left which is giving support to leftist revolutionary forces.
This is all part of a slide since 9/11 and we ignore recent history at our peril.
With Reservations, Obama
Signs Act to Allow Detention
of Citizens
ABC,
December 31, 2011
In his last official act of business in 2011, President Barack Obama signed the National Defense Authorization Act from his vacation rental in Kailua, Hawaii. In a statement, the president said he did so with reservations about key provisions in the law - including a controversial component that would allow the military to indefinitely detain terror suspects, including American citizens arrested in the United States, without charge.
The legislation has drawn severe criticism from civil liberties groups, many Democrats, along with Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul, who called it "a slip into tyranny." Recently two retired four-star Marine generals called on the president to veto the bill in a New York Times op-ed, deeming it "misguided and unnecessary."
"Due process would be a thing of the past," wrote Gens Charles C. Krulak and Joseph P. Hoar. "Current law empowers the military to detain people caught on the battlefield, but this provision would expand the battlefield to include the United States - and hand Osama bin Laden an unearned victory long after his well-earned demise."
The president defended his action, writing that he signed the act, "chiefly because it authorizes funding for the defense of the United States and its interests abroad, crucial services for service members and their families, and vital national security programs that must be renewed."
Senior administration officials, who asked not to be named, told ABC News, "The president strongly believes that to detain American citizens in military custody infinitely without trial, would be a break with our traditions and values as a nation, and wants to make sure that any type of authorization coming from congress, complies with our Constitution, our rules of war and any applicable laws."
One official explained that President Obama does believe, however, that American citizens can be temporarily detained, and that the military has the right to capture and hold any citizen who is engaged in conflict against the United States. If various provisions in the law prove unworkable, the president could go back to Congress to ask for changes.
"The president is going to adhere to the policies that he has held over the last three years, making sure that none of these congressional provisions impede the ability of the counterterrorism and military professional from keeping the country safe," the official said.
Obama Executive Order
13528 Subverts Posse
Comitatus Act of 1878
ABC,
December 31, 2011
On January 11, 2010, President Obama signed Executive Order (EO) 13528 (PDF) — right after the over-hyped Flight 253 ‘terrorist’ attack, the fraudulently engineered Swine Flu pandemic and a few other man-made disasters — that, among other things, establishes a Council of Governors, chosen by the President who, as noted by the Intel Daily, will rubber-stamp long-sought-after Pentagon contingency plans to seize control of state National Guard forces in the event of a ‘National Emergency.’
Executive Orders are orders given by the President that are generally used to direct Federal Agencies and officials in their execution of laws or policies established by Congress. In many instances, especially during this past decade, Executive Orders have been used to guide agencies in directions contrary to Congressional intent. Executive Orders are controversial since they are sometimes use to make law without the consent of Congress. It’s time for a closer look at EOs & Directives and it’s time to fix the intentional, oft illegal, subversion of laws.
In keeping with tradition, no mention was made in the corporate media of President Obama’s EO 13528 that egregiously subverts the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878. A White House Press Release claims the ten member, bipartisan Council was created ‘to strengthen further the partnership between the Federal Government and State Governments to protect our Nation against all types of hazards.’
Once appointed, according to the White House Press Release, the council will be reviewing such matters as involving the National Guard of various States; Homeland defense; civil support; synchronization and integration of State and Federal military activities in the United States; and other matters of mutual interest pertaining to National Guard, homeland defense, and civil support activities.
Synchronizing and integrating state National Guard units with those of the Armed Forces would place them under the control of the United States Northern Command (USNORTHCOM) that was egregiously created in 2002, allegedly to help fight the ‘War on Terror’ — one of the largest acts of treason ever perpetrated against U.S. citizens by its Government.
The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 Prohibits Using the Military for Civilian Law Enforcement
The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 — which EO 13528 clearly subverts — bars the use of the military for civilian law enforcement. For years Bush tried to accomplish the same thing, especially after his administration’s criminal inactions during the 2005 Hurricane Katrina disaster.
During the height of the 2005 Hurricane Katrina crisis, Bush tried citing presidential prerogatives for using the National Guard troops under the Insurrection Act, a draconian statute that authorizes the President to federalize National Guard units when state governments fail to ‘suppress rebellion.’ The plight of Katrina victims was twisted — aided and abetted by complicit corporate media — into an act of ‘rebellion’ and a new criminal category was concocted to criminalize the traumatized New Orleans residents.
As noted by The Intel Daily, given the serious implications such proposals would have for a functioning democracy, the media’s deafening silence on Obama’s Executive Order is hardly surprising. As the cheerleaders in the illegal occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, and now Pakistan with Iran and Yemen coming soon, the censorship by the media says a lot about the state of affairs in ‘new normal’ America. As with his predecessors, Mr. hope and change will try to illegally forge ahead and invest the permanent National Security bureaucracy with unprecedented power.
Under the guise of the 2008 National Defense Authorization Act — more potentially illegal ‘legislation’ — the President will establish the bipartisan Council of Governors to advise, and exchange views and information with the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of Homeland Security, and the White House Homeland Security Council on matters related to the National Guard and civil support missions. The Secretary of Defense will designate the Executive Director of this toothless Council.
In ‘exchanging views’ with the Assistant to the President for Intergovernmental Affairs and Public Engagement, the Assistant Secretary for Defense for Homeland Defense and Americas Security Affairs, the Commander, United States Northern Command, the Chief National Guard Bureau, the Commandant of the Coast Guard and other appropriate officials of the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Defense as well as appropriate officials of other executive departments or agencies designated by the Secretary of Defense or the Secretary of Homeland Security, the council will serve as civilian cover for political decisions made by the Executive Branch and the security apparatus.
Obama Had Previously Proposed Expanding Military Use in Domestic Disasters
Last summer Obama proposed expanding the military’s authority to respond to domestic disasters. His proposal was opposed by the National Governors Association (NGA) because it would invite confusion on critical command and control issues, complicate inter-agency planning, establish stove-piped response efforts and interfere with gubernatorial Constitutional responsibilities to ensure the safety and security of their citizens.
EO 13528 further erodes the constitutional limits on Executive Branch power, and actually has little to do with catastrophic emergency response. It is however, the latest attempt to expand the National Security state and the Continuity of Government (COG) programs that are, and have been, illegally kept secret from Congress and the American people.
Many members of Congress are not authorized to view information on COG plans, procedures, capabilities and facilities, as well as the classified annexes of National Security Presidential Directive 51 and Homeland Security Presidential Directive 20
(NSPD 51/HSPD 20), two other draconian, illegal pieces of ‘legislation.’ Despite Obama’s vows of openness and transparency, even the redacted version of those documents have been removed from the White House web site.
Reagan-era EO 12656 defines a national security emergency as ‘any occurrence, including natural disaster, military attack, technological emergency, or other emergency that seriously degrades or seriously threatens the national security of the United States.’ The problem is, the U.S. Government has a history of terrorizing its own citizens and creating disasters and false flag attacks.
Secretive Continuity of Government Plan Raises a Lot of Questions
George W. Bush’s Homeland Security Presidential Directive 8 (HSPD-8), also removed from the White House web site, established ‘a national program and multi-year planning system to conduct homeland security preparedness-related exercises.’ That program, details of which are unavailable to Congress and the American people, is to be carried out in collaboration with state and local governments and private sector entities. The secrecy surrounding the shady creation of illegal ‘law’ raises a lot of questions and concerns.
Loosely worded definitions concerning the Defense Department’s role during such emergencies leave the door open for potential abuses by unscrupulous politicians and their corporate partners. USNORTHCOM’s role in all of this is shrouded in secrecy. As the past decade has shown, the egregious amount of corruption in Washington has gotten entirely out of hand and something needs to be done to stop it. The fact that corrupted military leaders are now courting corrupted politicians also raises a lot of flags.
The timing of the deployment of U.S. combat troops as an on-call federal response force coinciding with the greatest economic emergency and financial disaster since the 1930s that was fraudulently created by Wall Street is peculiar and suspicious.
The fact that COG plans are shrouded in secrecy and kept from members of Congress and the American people is very disturbing and very revealing. It raises a LOT of questions. In keeping with the tradition of creating tyranny while destroying any semblance of law — like his predecessor — President Obama’s EO 13528 undermines the democratic rights of the American people. Mr. Obama needs to start paying attention to those that elected him, keep his promises that put him in office and quit running Bush’s third term. It’s time for accountability and it’s time to restore the rule of law.
Not only that, but there is precedent in the use of federal troops
https://www.justsecurity.org/70482/the-president-the-military-and-minneapolis-what-you-need-to-know/
John W. Whitehead is someone I have considerable respect for, especially from the Obama years.
This is from a human rights point-of-view and in my mind does not totally encompass what is happening - which is a 4-yeat-long coup and an ongoing insurrection
The Federal Coup to Overthrow the States and Nix the 10th Amendment Is Underway
By John W. Whitehead
July 21, 2020
“I don’t need invitations by the state, state mayors, or state governors, to do our job. We’re going to do that, whether they like us there or not.”—Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf’s defense of the Trump Administration’s deployment of militarized federal police to address civil unrest in the states
This is a wake-up call.
What is unfolding before our very eyes—with police agencies defying local governments in order to tap into the power of federal militarized troops in order to put down domestic unrest—could very quickly snowball into an act of aggression against the states, a coup by armed, militarized agents of the federal government.
At a minimum, this is an attack on the Tenth Amendment, which affirms the sovereignty of the states and the citizenry, and the right of the states to stand as a bulwark against overreach and power grabs by the federal government.
If you’re still deluding yourself into believing that this thinly-veiled exercise in martial law is anything other than an attempt to bulldoze what remains of the Constitution and reinforce the iron-fisted rule of the police state, you need to stop drinking the Kool-Aid.
This is no longer about partisan politics or civil unrest or even authoritarian impulses.
This is a turning point.
Unless we take back the reins—and soon—looking back on this time years from now, historians may well point to the events of 2020 as the death blow to America’s short-lived experiment in self-government.
The government’s recent actions in Portland, Oregon—when unidentified federal agents (believed to be border police, ICE and DHS agents), wearing military fatigues with patches that just say “Police” and sporting all kinds of weapons, descended uninvited on the city in unmarked vehicles, snatching protesters off the streets and detaining them without formally arresting them or offering any explanation of why they’re being held—is just a foretaste of what’s to come.
One of those detainees was a 53-year-old disabled Navy veteran who was in downtown Portland during the protests but not a participant. Concerned about the tactics being used by government agents who had taken an oath of office to protect and defend the Constitution, Christopher David tried to speak the “secret” police. Almost immediately, he was assaulted by federal agents, beaten with batons and pepper sprayed
Another peaceful protester was reportedly shot in the head with an impact weapon by this federal goon squad.
The Trump Administration has already announced its plans to deploy these border patrol agents to other cities across the country (Chicago is supposedly next) in an apparent bid to put down civil unrest. Yet the overriding concerns by state and local government officials to Trump’s plans suggest that weaponizing the DHS as an occupying army will only provoke more violence and unrest.
We’ve been set up.
Under the guise of protecting federal properties against civil unrest, the Trump Administration has formed a task force of secret agents who look, dress and act like military stormtroopers on a raid and have been empowered to roam cities in unmarked vehicles, snatching citizens off the streets, whether or not they’ve been engaged in illegal activities.
As the Guardian reports, “The incidents being described sound eerily reminiscent of the CIA’s post-9/11 rendition program under George W Bush, where intelligence agents would roll up in unmarked vans in foreign countries, blindfold terrorism suspects (many of whom turned to be innocent) and kidnap them without explanation. Only instead of occurring on the streets of Italy or the Middle East, it’s happening in downtown Portland.”
The so-called racial justice activists who have made looting, violence, vandalism and intimidation tactics the hallmarks of their protests have played right into the government’s hands
They have delivered all of us into the police state’s hands.
There’s a reason Trump has tapped the Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Customs and Border Protection for this dirty business: these agencies are notorious for their lawlessness, routinely sidestepping the Constitution and trampling on the rights of anyone who gets in their way, including legal citizens.
Indeed, it was only a matter of time before these roving bands of border patrol agents began flexing their muscles far beyond the nation’s borders and exercising their right to disregard the Constitution at every turn.
Except these border patrol cops aren’t just disregarding the Constitution.
They’re trampling all over the Constitution, especially the Fourth Amendment, which prohibits the government from carrying out egregious warrantless searches and seizures without probable cause.
As part of the government’s so-called crackdown on illegal immigration, drugs and trafficking, its border patrol cops have been expanding their reach, roaming further afield and subjecting greater numbers of Americans to warrantless searches, ID checkpoints, transportation checks, and even surveillance on private property far beyond the boundaries of the borderlands.
That so-called border, once a thin borderline, has become an ever-thickening band spreading deeper and deeper inside the country.
Now, with this latest salvo by the Trump administration in its so-called crackdown on rioting and civil unrest, America itself is about to become a Constitution-free zone where freedom is off-limits and government agents have all the power and “we the people” have none.
The Customs and Border Protection (CBP), with its more than 60,000 employees, supplemented by the National Guard and the U.S. military, is an arm of the Department of Homeland Security, a national police force imbued with all the brutality, ineptitude and corruption such a role implies.
As journalist Todd Miller explains:
In these vast domains, Homeland Security authorities can institute roving patrols with broad, extra-constitutional powers backed by national security, immigration enforcement and drug interdiction mandates. There, the Border Patrol can set up traffic checkpoints and fly surveillance drones overhead with high-powered cameras and radar that can track your movements. Within twenty-five miles of the international boundary, CBP agents can enter a person’s private property without a warrant.
Just about every nefarious deed, tactic or thuggish policy advanced by the government today can be traced back to the DHS, its police state mindset, and the billions of dollars it distributes to local police agencies in the form of grants to transform them into extensions of the military.
As Miller points out, the government has turned the nation’s expanding border regions into “a ripe place to experiment with tearing apart the Constitution, a place where not just undocumented border-crossers, but millions of borderland residents have become the targets of continual surveillance.”
In much the same way that police across the country have been schooled in the art of sidestepping the Constitution, border cops have also been drilled in the art of “anything goes” in the name of national security.
In fact, according to FOIA documents shared with The Intercept, border cops even have a checklist of “possible behaviors” that warrant overriding the Constitution and subjecting individuals—including American citizens—to stops, searches, seizures, interrogations and even arrests.
For instance, if you’re driving a vehicle that to a border cop looks unusual in some way, you can be stopped. If your passengers look dirty or unusual, you can be stopped. If you or your passengers avoid looking at a cop, you can be stopped. If you or your passengers look too long at a cop, you can be stopped.
If you’re anywhere near a border (near being within 100 miles of a border, or in a city, or on a bus, or at an airport), you can be stopped and asked to prove you’re legally allowed to be in the country. If you’re traveling on a public road that smugglers and other criminals may have traveled, you can be stopped.
If you’re not driving in the same direction as other cars, you can be stopped. If you appear to be avoiding a police checkpoint, you can be stopped. If your car appears to be weighed down, you can be stopped. If your vehicle is from out of town, wherever that might be, you can be stopped. If you’re driving a make of car that criminal-types have also driven, you can be stopped.
If your car appears to have been altered or modified, you can be stopped. If the cargo area in your vehicle is covered, you can be stopped.
If you’re driving during a time of day or night that border cops find suspicious, you can be stopped. If you’re driving when border cops are changing shifts, you can be stopped. If you’re driving in a motorcade or with another vehicle, you can be stopped. If your car appears dusty, you can be stopped.
If people with you are trying to avoid being seen, or exhibiting “unusual” behavior, you can be stopped. If you slow down after seeing a cop, you can be stopped.
In Portland, which is 400 miles from the border, protesters didn’t even have to be near federal buildings to be targeted. Some claimed to be targeted for simply wearing black clothing in the area of the demonstration.
Are you starting to get the picture yet?
This was never about illegal aliens and border crossings at all. It’s been a test to see how far “we the people” will allow the government to push the limits of the Constitution.
We’ve been failing this particular test for a long time now.
It was 1798 when Americans, their fears stoked by rumblings of a Quasi-War with France, failed to protest the Alien and Sedition Acts, which criminalized anti-government speech, empowered the government to deport “dangerous” non-citizens and made it harder for immigrants to vote.
During the Civil War, Americans went along when Abraham Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus (the right to a speedy trial) and authorized government officials to spy on Americans’ mail.
During World War I, Americans took it in stride when President Woodrow Wilson and Congress adopted the Espionage and Sedition Acts, which made it a crime to interfere with the war effort and criminalized any speech critical of war.
By World War II, Americans were marching in lockstep with the government’s expanding war powers to imprison Japanese-American citizens in detainment camps, censor mail, and lay the groundwork for the future surveillance state.
Fast-forward to the Cold War’s Red Scares, the McCarthy era’s hearings on un-American activities, and the government’s surveillance of Civil Rights activists such as Martin Luther King Jr.—all done in the name of national security.
By the time 9/11 rolled around, all George W. Bush had to do was claim the country was being invaded by terrorists, and the government was given greater powers to spy, search, detain and arrest American citizens in order to keep America safe.
The terrorist invasion never really happened, but the government kept its newly acquired police powers made possible by the nefarious USA Patriot Act.
Barack Obama continued Bush’s trend of undermining the Constitution, going so far as to give the military the power to strip Americans of their constitutional rights, label them extremists, and detain them indefinitely without trial, all in the name of keeping America safe.
Despite the fact that the breadth of the military’s power to detain American citizens violates not only U.S. law and the Constitution but also international laws, the government has refused to relinquish its detention powers made possible by the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).
Then Donald Trump took office, claiming the country was being invaded by dangerous immigrants and insisting that the only way to keep America safe was to build an expensive border wall, expand the reach of border patrol, and empower the military to “assist” with border control.
That so-called immigration crisis has now morphed into multiple crises (domestic extremism, the COVID-19 pandemic, race wars, civil unrest, etc.) that the government is eager to use in order to expand its powers.
Yet as we’ve learned the hard way, once the government acquires—and uses—additional powers (to spy on its citizens, to carry out surveillance, to transform its police forces into extensions of the police, to seize taxpayer funds, to wage endless wars, to censor and silence dissidents, to identify potential troublemakers, to detain citizens without due process), it does not voluntarily relinquish them
This is the slippery slope on which we’ve been traveling for far too long.
As Yale historian Timothy Snyder explains, “This is a classic way that violence happens in authoritarian regimes, whether it’s Franco’s Spain or whether it’s the Russian Empire. The people who are getting used to committing violence on the border are then brought in to commit violence against people in the interior.”
Sure, it’s the Trump Administration calling the shots right now, but it’s government agents armed with totalitarian powers and beholden to the bureaucratic Deep State who are carrying out these orders in defiance of the U.S. Constitution and all it represents.
Whether it’s Trump or Biden or someone else altogether, this year or a dozen years from now, the damage has been done: as I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, we have allowed the president to acquire dictatorial powers that can be unleashed at any moment.
There’s a reason the Trump Administration is consulting with John Yoo, the Bush-era attorney notorious for justifying waterboarding torture tactics against detainees. They’re not looking to understand how to follow the law and abide by the Constitution. Rather, they’re desperately seeking ways to thwart the Constitution.
As Harvard constitutional law professor Laurence Tribe recognizes, “The dictatorial hunger for power is insatiable.
This is how it begins.
This is how it always begins.
Don’t be fooled into thinking any of this will change when the next election rolls around.
ABOUT JOHN W. WHITEHEAD
Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. His new book Battlefield America: The War on the American People is available at www.amazon.com. Whitehead can be contacted at johnw@rutherford.org.
This is from 4 years ago
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