Bill Lindner
American Chronicle
Thursday, January 29, 2009
It has become increasingly clear over the past several years — it’s just become more blatantly obvious since the appointment of the Bush administration to the White House — that the U.S. Congress that is supposed to protect and speak for the people they’re elected to represent has been doing quite the opposite, once again introducing potentially unconstitutional legislation that tramples rights and liberties.
After the attacks of 9/11 — that could and should have been prevented by the Bush administration, but weren’t — the American public was repeatedly served with illegal, unconstitutional ‘legislation’ by a corrupt, complicit Congress designed to destroy Democracy, rights and freedoms. The Bush administration is finally gone, although it will take years to rid the government of the leftover trash, the illegal, unconstitutional legislation isn’t. It’s not surprising when you consider the fact that many in Congress were bought off by large corporations and lobbyists years ago.
Almost a year ago, The San Francisco Chronicle had a report entitled “Rule by fear or rule by law?” that detailed how, since 9/11, seemingly without the notice of most Americans, the federal government has assumed the authority to institute martial law, arrest a wide swath of dissidents (citizen and noncitizen alike), and detain people without legal or constitutional recourse in the event of “an emergency influx of immigrants in the U.S., or to support the rapid development of new programs.”
One has to wonder what kind of ‘new programs’ require the construction and refurbishment of detention facilities in nearly every state of the union with the capacity to house millions of people.
Since 1999, the U.S. government has employed a series of single-bid contracts with Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR) to build detention camps at undisclosed locations inside the U.S. The same KBR who is responsible for electrocuting U.S. troops in Iraq as well as giving them contaminated supplies that made several of them sick. The government has also contracted with several companies to build thousands of railcars, some reportedly equipped with shackles, allegedly to transport detainees.
Diplomat and author Peter Dale Scott says the KBR contract is part of a Homeland Security plan entitled ENDGAME that sets as its goal the removal of all removable aliens and potential terrorists.
Section 1042 of the 2007 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), that never became law, says “Use of the Armed Forces in Major Public Emergencies,” gives the executive the power to invoke martial law, meaning that for the first time in over a century, the president could authorize the use of the military in response to a natural disaster, a disease outbreak, a terrorist attack or any other condition deemed necessary by the President in a situation where its determined that domestic violence has occurred to the extent that state officials cannot maintain public order.
Slow and Methodical Destruction Of Democracy, Rights and Freedoms
The Military Commissions Act of 2006, ramrodded through Congress just before the 2006 midterm elections, “to authorize trial by military commission for violations of the law of war, and for other purposes,” allows for the indefinite imprisonment of anyone who donates money to a charity that turns up on a list of “terrorist” organizations, or who speaks out against the government’s policies. It calls for secret trials for citizens and noncitizens alike.
In 2007, the Bush administration quietly issued National Security Presidential Directive 51(NSPD-51) to ensure “continuity of government” in the event of what is vaguely called a “catastrophic emergency.” According to the directive, if the president determined that such a state of emergency occurred, he and he alone is empowered to do whatever he deems necessary to ensure “continuity of government,” including everything from canceling elections to launching a nuclear attack.
Senator Jane Harman (D-CA) authored another draconian piece of legislation — that fortunately never became law — known as the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007, passed by the U.S. House of Representatives by a 404-6 margin, that would set up a commission to “examine and report upon the facts and causes” of alleged violent radicalism and extremist ideology, then make legislative recommendations on combatting it.
There is also the egregious USA PATRIOT ACT whose intent is “to deter and punish terrorist acts in the United States and around the world, to enhance law enforcement investigatory tools, and for other purposes.”
You’ll notice that all the draconian ‘terrorism’ legislation is intentionally loosely defined, leaving plenty of room for the words to be twisted around to suit a particular need. All the ‘legislation’ mentioned above has resulted in nothing more than destroying Democracy, rights and freedoms while slowly and methodically shifting the U.S. towards becoming a police state.
Congress Wants To Authorize & Legalize FEMA Camp Facilities
Apparently the ‘legislation’ mentioned above hasn’t already done enough damage and destruction to America and all who live here.
Lee Rogers from Rogue Government reported on new legislation designed to authorize and legalize FEMA camp facilities. A new bill was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives called the National Emergency Centers Act or H.R. 645, that if passed into law, will direct the Secretary of Homeland Security to establish national emergency centers otherwise known as FEMA camp facilities on military installations.
The proposed legislation is incredibly disturbing since there is already an apparatus in place to setup nationwide martial law. Even though there are already FEMA detention centers in place, Congress now wants to legalize the construction of FEMA camps on military installations using the excuse that the facilities are for the purposes of a national emergency.
Section 2 of the legislation determines that the Secretary of Homeland Security shall establish not fewer than 6 national emergency centers on military installations to provide temporary housing, medical and humanitarian assistance to individuals and families dislocated due to an emergency or major disaster, to provide centralized locations for training and ensuring coordination of Federal, State, and local first responders, to provide centralized locations to improve coordination of preparedness, response, and recovery efforts of government, private, and not-for-profit entities and faith-based organizations and to meet other appropriate needs, as determined by the Secretary of Homeland Security.
More Dangerous, Loosely Worded ‘Legislation’
Notice there is plenty of leeway and no definition of appropriate needs, other than ‘as determined by the Secretary of Homeland Security.’ That could for all intents and purposes, mean anything. Note that the legislation says the Secretary of Homeland Security shall establish not fewer than 6 national emergency centers on military installations, which implies that they can setup as many FEMA camps as they want as long as there are 6 of them.
Taxpayers will only have to pay $180,000,000 per year for the facilities that could end up treating them as criminals or worse. It appears from the language of the bill that it’s meant to legalize what they’ve already been doing and the rationale behind the legislation is most likely to serve as a mechanism of control if the authorities need facilities to hold large amounts of dissenting people.
After everything Congress has put the people through these past eight years, it’s unlikely that the bill is meant to help people. As noted by Rogers from Rogue Government, one only needs to take a look at what happened during Hurricane Katrina to see how obvious it is that the government doesn’t care about the people, or for that matter, what they think. These proposed facilities and the proposed legislation will most likely not be utilized for the people’s interest.
These so-called ‘national emergency’ centers would be used in a national emergency only if the national emergency requires a large number of people to be rounded up and detained. If that isn’t the case, why have national emergency facilities built in military installations?
What does Congress know that they aren’t telling us? Haven’t they already inflicted enough damage with their egregious, unconstitutional ‘legislation?’ As noted by The San Francisco Chronicle, what could the government be contemplating that leads it to make contingency plans to detain without recourse millions of its own citizens?
It’s time for the ruling by fear to stop and the ruling by law to begin and it’s time for the rule of law to apply to everyone, including politicians who violate it, not just the rest of us.
Research related articles:
- New Legislation Authorizes FEMA Camps In U.S.
- Treasury Sends to Congress Legislation to Buy Troubled Assets
- Rangel To Push Universal Military Draft Legislation Once More
- Congress Should Rescind the State of Emergency Declared by Bush
- Congress Ends 9/11 Workers’ Health Care Bill
- Kucinich: Demand that Congress Issue Subpoenas for Continuity of Government Plans
- US National Debt Limit Raised Ahead of Budget Busting Bailout Legislation
- Author: Some in Congress calling for war crimes trials
- The Do-Something Congress
- Who is Putting “Intense Pressure” on Bush and Congress to Pass the Bailout?
- 573,639: The disturbing number of Britons with no criminal record but now registered on Labour’s DNA database
- McCain Adviser: Treasury Doesn’t Need Congress for Bailout
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