With almost a decade under its belt, our multi-front war on a vaguely defined notion of terrorism targeting never-really-defined enemies across the world and here in the newly rephrased ‘homeland’ has come to define the state of our nation. Even the meager limitations on presidential powers of the last six decades have in effect been nullified and replaced with a newly declared and interpreted authority mirroring those of past emperors and kings, and of any classic authoritarian regimes’ rulers. One look at the last decade’s successfully won legal arguments on behalf of the executive, the presidency, is enough to establish the common theme that ‘the war on terror is global and indefinite in scope, and that it effectively removes all traditional limits of wartime authority to the times and places of imminent or actual battle.’

Whether it is illegal domestic eavesdropping or unlawful detention and torture, these newly claimed and boldly practiced presidential entitlements rely on one factor, and that is the extraordinary claims of presidential war-making power. Here is a perfect example of the new permanent wartime presidency in action; boldly, loudly, and unfortunately thus far successfully:

On occasion the Bush administration has explicitly rejected the authority of courts and Congress to impose boundaries on the power of the commander in chief, describing the president’s war-making powers in legal briefs as “plenary” — a term defined as “full,” “complete,” and “absolute.”

The current status of our nation’s president’s war-making powers is defined, recognized, and has been practiced as ‘plenary;’ complete and absolute. Now, let’s add to this the fact that our multi-fronted war on terror is global and indefinite, a war open-ended in time and with no national boundaries. What do we have with this equation? A permanent wartime presidency with absolute powers. The Constitution indeed granted the president the power to fight with any resources Congress makes available in wartime, and accordingly the executive is expected to do whatever it takes to protect the nation, even if it leaves some room for abuse of this power. But did our founders factor in the notion of indefinite, open-ended, perpetual wars, and with them, a permanent wartime presidency status? The Constitution gave presidents the freedom to defend the nation, but what about the nation’s need to protect itself against the abuses of this freedom, including the creation of perpetual wars accompanied with indefinite and absolute presidential powers?

The following excerpts are from the Devil’s Advocate, John Yoo:

Critics of presidential war powers exaggerate the benefits of declarations or authorizations of war, and they also fail to examine the potential costs of congressional participation: delay, inflexibility, and lack of secrecy. Legislative deliberation may breed consensus in the best of cases, but it also may inhibit speed and decisiveness. In the post-Cold War era, the United States confronts several new threats to its national security: proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, the emergence of rogue nations, and the rise of international terrorism. Each of these threats may require pre-emptive action best undertaken by the president and approved by Congress only afterward.

…

The Constitution creates a presidency that can respond forcefully and independently to pre-empt serious threats to our national security. Instead of demanding a legalistic process to begin war, the framers left war to politics. Presidents can take the initiative and Congress would use their funding power to check him. As we confront terrorism, rogue nations, and WMD proliferation, now is not the time to engage in a radical change in the way our government has waged war for decades.

…

Mr. Yoo considers a thorough congressional review and authorization based on findings and careful review as tending to ‘exaggerate the benefits of declarations or authorizations of war.’ If put in an appropriate context, this exaggeration could probably have prevented a preemptive attack on Iraq based on false and made-up intelligence on nonexistent WMD, and we may have saved thousands of American soldiers’ lives, tens of billions of dollars of taxpayers’ hard-earned money, and would have prevented the loss of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians’ lives. Only in John Yoo’s book of ‘cost & benefits analysis’ would this make it to the ‘exaggerated cost column.’

As for ‘Congress would use their funding power to check him,’ his pretend innocence would not get a pass from even the most naïve or ignorant. Considering where the real funding of the inhabitants of our congress comes from, taking into consideration the old adage ‘thou shall not bite the hand that feeds you,’ and understanding the power of ‘bacon sent home,’ who is Mr. Yoo kidding here; really? Read more ?

Indeed, the interests of the oppressors lie in ‘changing the consciousness of the oppressed, not the situation which oppresses them‘- – Paulo Freire

The illegal domestic wiretapping of all Americans, the invasive search practices at every airport directed at every single US passenger, the compilation of all data on all citizens in not only one but multiple government databases, the unreasonable and warrantless search and seizure practiced on US masses facilitated arbitrarily by the FBI, are among many known and unknown government practices directed at the entire population of the United States of America.

Despite the current futility, many constitutionalists, legalists, analysts, and activists are writing, talking, and arguing about the legality or illegality, constitutionality or unconstitutionality, practicality or impracticality, of these surveillance and search practices of our ‘National Security State.’ There is a plethora of material out there for you to read or listen to on those points, so there is no need for me to cover all that has been covered already; over and over. I am not going to discuss the tedious and ambiguous laws, nor am I going to waste time on the vague and irrelevant notion of and argument on security. No. I intend to focus on the subjects of these practices; the people; the masses, in fact, the entire population as the willing recipients who have come to view and accept themselves as suspects. Isn’t this what we have become; a nation of suspects?

No one any longer questions the fact that our government has been engaged in domestic surveillance of our communication systems. The news came out. The practitioners admitted to it, in fact, proudly. These activities were challenged in courts and the challenges overridden, thus making the legality or illegality, constitutionality or unconstitutionality, all irrelevant; moot.  Several years have passed and it has become, it is, a fact of life; a fact in every American’s life. And for the majority, not a painful or aggravating fact of life; just ‘a fact’ of life. Why?

Many say ‘look, there are these bad guys out there called terrorists. The government is out there looking for them; everywhere. I ain’t doing nothin wrong, and I ain’t got nothin to hide. So why should I be concerned? My government is doing it to keep me, to keep us all, safe; to protect us against those bad terrorist people lurking here and there…’

If you were to ask most ‘but why do they tap your phone line and capture your data or conversation? You the good citizen?‘ The common answer would be along these lines, ‘I don’t know. They must know something. I don’t understand how intelligence and police stuff like this works. They must know something, if they think tapping my phone and listening to my conversation helps to fight terrorists and keep us safe…I just do my own thing and since I don’t have anything to hide it doesn’t bother me. They’ve got to do what they’ve got to do to protect us…’

Most of you know that the above dialogue is more or less what we get everywhere with almost everyone. I have had that exact same conversation with tens if not hundreds of people, and I can assure you that the above rendition is in no way exaggerated or downplayed. It is the general attitude. It is the common thought and response process. It is a fact of today’s life expressed by today’s people in our country. And to recognize these common beliefs, to draw the most logical conclusion, takes neither a genius nor a philosopher nor a psychologist…But let’s move to the next related fact, and see that same logical conclusion.

Starting immediately after the September 11 terrorist attacks, we began to see, and of course become subject to, jacked up security check points and searches in our airports. First, they already had us all going through big complex metal detectors. Then, they had us do the same thing but remove our belts and other metal containing garments and belongings. Then, they had us bend over like servants before kings, remove our shoes, and humbly walk barefoot through the big complex metal detectors. After that, they prohibited us from carrying our drinking water or any other liquid, and they made our lactating women open up their stored breast milk and sip it before the eyes of the traveling masses passing by…

Meanwhile we learned of their massive databases on fliers, where over one million people were divided into no fly lists, almost no fly lists, and maybe no fly lists, with further division into high-risk fliers, medium-risk fliers, and low-risk fliers…But, despite all these massive, complex and secret multiple lists and databases, we all had to go through those same detectors, with no shoes, no liquids, supposed random but all too frequent pat downs…So we never understood the rationale for having all those lists and databases anyway. No worries. We, most of us, said, ‘we may not understand, it may not make the slightest sense, it can defy all logic…but that doesn’t matter. The government must know things we don’t, and they are protecting us against the big bad terrorists…’ So we went on, kept putting up.

Recently, they said all those practices were not nearly enough, so they’ve been erecting body-scanner temples at security checkpoints, and asking us to step in them to be viewed naked-breasts, penises, arses and all. To be technically correct, they are not forcing us to go through the scanners; in fact, they are giving us options:

-You either step in the scanners and let us view you, all your private parts naked, or,

-You go through grabbing, groping, patting, and worse one-on-one searches.

They have been proudly justifying these invasive procedures by presenting them as reasonable options for people to choose from. Think of a rapist saying the following in court:

‘But I gave her a choice, and I made it clear. I said you either submit willfully and quietly while I rape you, or, you can fight and I’ll beat the hell out of you while I’m raping you….’

We’ve been complying with all that. We get to the checkpoints, and as one woman told me:

‘I just go into this auto pilot mode. I remove my shoes and other items. I move forward towards the screening machine while looking into empty space and avoiding any eye contact. I step in there, slightly spread my arms and legs, pause, and step out on the other side. I then let out a deep breath for making it, without sounding off any alarm bells, and without having to be touched, groped and patted everywhere…Then I walk away quickly and try to wipe away all the memories of those long minutes…It’s the best way to deal with these things…’

Again, this sounds very familiar. Just read through documented victim accounts on dealing with highly traumatic experiences. I used to read about and listen to such victims. A woman telling the story of being molested and raped by her father:

‘I used to pretend not being there…you know, almost like an out of body experience. He’d quietly come to my room, his breath reeking with alcohol…I’d close my eyes when he pulled down my panties…I’d spread my legs, close my eyes, and imagine not being there…imagine it was not happening…It was quicker that way. He’d be done and gone. And I would go on trying to forget, pretending I forgot…trying to erase all the memories and the feeling of being violated…’

Doesn’t it feel that way? Don’t we feel violated? Don’t we feel powerless? Doesn’t it feel like total submission to a force greater than any one of us, and obviously the total of all of us? Read more ?

The Quest for Clearance

It was late spring 2007, and I had arrived right before sunset at Centerville’s new ‘in place’ for the 30 something techie crowd. I was supposed to meet two friends there, have a drink, and then head to the restaurant next door for an early dinner. As soon as I walked in I spotted both of them, and a third person, a man in his early thirties whom I’d never met before, I’ll call him ‘Joe,’ and headed towards their table. After brief introductions the trio resumed their conversation where they’d left off. The topic had to do with current hot jobs and the latest career trends in the area, which caters to the federal government…

I was listening only half-heartedly until one of my friends, a woman in her mid thirties who worked for a midsize travel agency, started talking about how she’d been waiting for the completion of the process to get her security clearance, and that she couldn’t wait to get ‘the darn thing,’ and with it her promotion and a 15% salary increase. Now that perked up my ears and grabbed my full attention. After all, I’d been intimately familiar with security clearances and related issues for several years and dealt with them extensively, working with hundreds of national security whistleblowers, and networking with attorneys. What I couldn’t understand was this:

Why in the world would a travel agent working in a private travel agency need or want to have a security clearance?!

So, I asked: ‘What do you need the clearance for?’

And she responded: ‘The agency I work for has a contract with the federal government. We provide airline tickets, rental car and hotel reservations for some federal employees…’ 

I asked again: ‘So why do you need clearance to do that?’

She said: ‘Well, the government agency requires that only those employees with security clearance handle their account, and since it is a fairly large account the travel agency I work for assigns several travel agents.’

After a brief a pause it dawned on me, ‘Oh, I guess your account is with one of THOSE agencies…DOD, CIA… gotcha…’

My friend interrupted: ‘No, actually it’s not. It’s the Department of Commerce. And it’s not even for their executive level people…just regular employees.’

I kept asking myself why in the world the Commerce Department would require travel agents with security clearance to handle their good ole ordinary travel arrangements.

I guess I was thinking out loud because my friend tried to justify, well, at least her end of this deal: ‘The point is they pay much bigger bucks to my employer, and my employer pays those of us with clearance who handle this account 15% more in salary than the travel agents with no clearance who  have regular accounts…’

I guess it made sense; perfectly. Government agencies don’t pay from their own pockets; they have at their disposal unlimited access to taxpayers’ dollars. So someone in The Department of Commerce apparently made this ridiculous rule – padded their civil servant status and importance – treated their inferiority complex from being placed much lower in the chain of civil servants (waaaayyy below the CIA, DIA, FBI…, ),and made it a requirement to have cleared travel agents handle their travel. As for the travel agency’s perspective: Hallelujah!!! They get a contract with the feds where they can pad their prices and never worry about having to give the best deal in terms of price/value. In fact pad it enough to pay 15% increased salaries to those on the fed account, and still have plenty of profit left.

…………

TSC Compliance & Disclosure on Banging

As I was processing the above information and reasoning, the man, Joe, straightened his shoulders, and if I’m not mistaken, kind of puffed up his chest…you know the body language I’m talking about; right?

He said: ‘I’ve got TSC; Top Secret Clearance. I’ve had it for almost a year now. My pay went up 25% the day I got it.’

Since the other two were obviously familiar with his line of work I was the one with the first question: ‘So who do you service?’

He put on the coolest and most aloof expression he could manage, which ended up being neither cool nor aloof: ‘I can’t talk about it. All I can tell you is that I’m a software programmer and we’ve got big contracts all right…’

I decided not to press ‘who for or why’, and instead, try to find out how much he understood of the significance of having TSC as a private sector employee, both positive and negative.

Obviously he considered the 25% increase in salary as the major positive; well, obviously. And considering his body language and tone he appeared to regard his clearance status as something ‘cool,’ ‘important,’ and ‘ego-boosting.’ He was single, so maybe he thought it made him more of a chick magnet…So I decided to see if he perceived any downside to having a TSC.

I asked him bluntly: ‘There are bunch of things you end up giving up for TSC; some would even say ‘they get you by the …’ don’t you think?’

Joe, already on his third drink, nodded: ‘Yeah.’ And then he said something I was neither expecting nor prepared for, ‘It complicates everything in the banging department.’

After a brief pause I recovered:’ How so?’

Joe: ‘Well, basically, you have to report who you sleep with and all the details if the girl is not a citizen, or has an accent or something.’ He continued, ‘About 8 months ago I met this hot woman with a cute accent and we hit it off right away…stayed together that weekend…and that Monday I had to go and report the entire thing…’

I probed for more details: ‘You mean report in writing? – Orally?’

Joe:’ Both! First, I had to fill out this form, and then I was called in to answer questions and give more details…’

I interrupted him: ‘No kidding! They have a form for this??! What’s it called, ‘Banging Disclosure Form? BDF?’

If he got my sarcasm he didn’t show it, instead he continued very seriously: ‘Just a standard form to fill out general information on foreign persons you come in close contact with, name, nationality, etc. But once in the office for follow up, then they ask you all these details ‘What was her full name?’ ‘What’s her nationality?’ ‘Where does she live?’ ‘How many times did you do it? Over how long?’…you know!’

I nodded understandingly, and he went on: ‘I mean you don’t ask for your new woman’s exact date of birth! How am I supposed to know? Go through her bag for ID while she’s in the bathroom?!…They ask me where she’s from and I can’t even remember; Greece? Lebanon?… Anyway, I’m done with foreign or foreign sounding women…’

This was getting a bit too much for me; trying not to laugh at the absurdity. The man could only come up with, could only think of, one downside and that had to do with ‘chicks.’ And obviously to him Greece and Lebanon were almost the same, either geographically or linguistically. I couldn’t detect in him even a minute trace of political or legal understanding. So, I didn’t bother bringing up issues like:

What happens when you decide to publicly oppose the current butchering of our civil liberties and speak up about it? Won’t they use your TSC and threaten its removal, thus your employment? Or maybe you’ll decide on your own against speaking out; thinking self-preservation. Because in 2005 I received many e-mails/letters from people who told me they wished they could sign a certain petition against constitutional abuses, but they feared for their clearance and job security, so they felt and believed they couldn’t.

What happens when you or your spouse or your partner joins a rally, albeit a peaceful protest, against war(s) or other human rights abuses committed in our name? Won’t they use that constitutionally and democratically sanctioned action against your ‘clearance,’ your job, thus, against you? Because just last month when I called a good friend, who also happens to be antiwar, to join me in an antiwar rally in DC, she was almost in tears and told me she couldn’t because her husband had a clearance, and that they feared her participation in a rally might jeopardize that clearance and their livelihood.

What happens when you witness a criminal or fraudulent act related to your work, and since a contractor to the feds, one with consequences to citizens and taxpayers, and you rightfully feel obligated to report or disclose it to the public? Won’t they come after you with criminal prosecution threats for violating your clearance? Because many whistleblowers have been through this exact experience, and been left with no employment and almost no course of action.

No, I couldn’t tell him all that and more. Even if I did, what would my lone voice accomplish toward raising this guy’s awareness, when the media, the government, and all their related tentacles are doing the exact opposite? He believed he was cleared, he believed he was one of the chosen ones, and unless one day, even if by chance, he faces the dark realities of his valuable rights being substituted for being ‘cleared or chosen’, he’ll hang on to these beliefs.
…

The Nation of Cleared & Not Cleared

Based on GAO’s July 2009 data, about 2.4 million persons currently hold security clearances for authorized access to classified information. And this figure, 2.4 million, does NOT even include some of those with clearances who work in areas of national intelligence.

In fiscal year 2008 the Office of Personnel Management and the Defense Department processed about 450,000 requests for confidential, secret and top-secret clearances. According to bits and pieces of data here and there, there are over three million federal employees who require security clearances for jobs. These jobs range from: Read more ?

As stated by Patrick Henry with conviction and passion, a democratic government will not last if its operations and policies are not visible to its public. The foundation of our democratic republic is supposed to be based on an open and accountable government. Transparency is what enables accountability.

For several decades post 1945, under the guise of the Cold War, with the creation of the Central Intelligence Agency and an aggressive foreign policy based on overt and covert intervention abroad, the seeds of excessive secrecy were planted, aggressively nurtured, and taken to heights not imaginable in our founding fathers’ vision of transparent and accountable government. Although the Watergate Scandal brought a short-lived wave of awakening, and to a certain degree defiance, by getting Americans to question the extent of and the real need for governmental secrecy, the subsequent political movements were eventually halted with no real action ever taken, thanks to a Congress unwilling to truly exercise its oversight authority over the intelligence community.

With the September 11 Terrorist Attacks the establishment had all it needed to take government secrecy to new heights where neither the Constitution nor the separation of powers would matter or be applicable. These new heights could never be reached in a functioning and live democracy, nor could they be sustained and flourish without a home marked by all the characteristics of a police state. Those new heights were indeed reached, and they surely have been not only sustained, but actually increased; notch by notch. Waving the national security flag nonstop, reminding us on a daily basis of some vague boogiemen terrorists who may be hiding under our beds, drilling the words terror-terrorists-terrorism every hour, did the magic; thanks to the US Media.

Let’s examine some of these new heights of secrecy we’ve reached and appear to have accepted:

The Cost

For the fiscal year 2005, based on an official report released by the National Archives, the total security classification cost estimates for Government was $7.7 billion. This figure represents costs provided by 41 executive branch agencies, including the Department of Defense. But it does not include the cost estimates of the CIA, which is classified by the agency. Here is the breakdown:

Personnel Security = $1.15 Billion
Physical Security = $1 Billion
Information Security = $4 Billion

Information Technology = $3.6 Billion
Classification Management = $310 Million
Declassification = $57 Million

Professional Education and Training = $219 Million
Security Management and Planning = $1.2 Billion
Unique = $6.6 Million

Total= $7.7 Billion

Based on the consensus among the knowledgeable this was truly a new height for government secrecy spun out of control. But wait, this new record height was short-lived! It climbed much higher very quickly. Here is the major new height for 2007 secrecy as reported by the US Information Security Oversight Office:

The U.S. Information Security

Oversight Office recorded an all-time-high record in the cost of implementing the national security classification system.

The annual report, released Thursday, representing the classification and declassification activity throughout the executive branch, said the cost of national security classifications totaled $9.91 billion in 2007. The total cost was a 4.6 percent increase over 2006 and became the highest total recorded in ISOO’s history.

That’s right. In two years the cost of our government’s classification and its secrecy increased from $7.7 Billion to $9.91 Billion. And, as with the 2005 cost this too does not include the CIA and other classified operations and entities we don’t know about. Just keep in mind all those rendition, detention and torture operations we’ve been engaged in around the globe.

The Trend

The following is a snap shot of a few items in the Secrecy Report Card for 2008 issued by Open the Government:

18% of DOD FY 2008 Acquisition Budget, equaling to more than $31 Billion, is classified.

Our Secret FISA Court issued 2,371 secret orders in 2007.

Over 25% of our Federal Government’s Contracts, equaling to $114 billion, were granted with no competition whatsoever.

Over 64% of the 7,067 meetings of Federal Advisory Committees on scientific technical areas were completely closed to the public.

What does this tell us? Secret Budgets, Secret Courts & Secret Orders, Secret Meetings, no-competition & no-oversight contracts paid by taxpayers’ dollars…

Secret Budgets, Secret Expenditures

What does it mean when we keep hearing secret budget for this agency, secret budget for that acquisition, secret budget for this and that operation? Take this example:

The Defense Department will spend $35.8 billion on secret technologies in 2010, according to a new report from the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.

“Restrictions placed on access to classified programs have meant that DoD and Congress typically exercise less oversight over classified programs than unclassified ones,” the report notes. That can result in big losses, when programs go awry.

Take the hush-hush Future Imagery Architecture program, meant to “develop the next generation of spy satellites for the National Reconnaissance Office.” “The electro-optical satellite component of the program was canceled in 2005 due to significant cost overruns and technical issues,” CSBA recalls, “resulting in what was reported as a $4 billion loss for the government.”

We’ve seen many examples like this; CIA, NSA, DOD, FBI…Here is another ludicrous example: Read more ?

I don’t know what you think of our ex President Harry Truman; as with all our presidents he too came with a mixed bag of good and bad. For our discussion here it really doesn’t matter where we stand on Truman. On the other hand, the quote provides an excellent starting point for my Part III of the Makings of a Police State: National Security Letters. I wish we could bring President Truman back to life and ask him the following question:

Mr. President, if forcing only one American to shut his mind and close his mouth means that all Americans are in peril, what happens when thousands of good American citizens are forced to shut their mouths?

I wonder what his answer would be. Perhaps something like ‘…then all Americans are in real deep trouble!’ Or, ‘…then we are all doomed!’ Or maybe, ‘…then all Americans deserve it for not rising up and grabbing our pitchforks!’

If you think I am talking in riddles and hypotheticals, you are dead wrong, and can be thankful to our media for keeping you in the dark. Here is a documented statement on the state of our liberties when it comes to the government forcing us to shut our mouth when we see and witness evil & wrongdoing:

A federal appeals court may have slapped the Federal Bureau of Investigation last year for its misuse of gag orders to prevent discussion of government investigations conducted under the authority of National Security Letters, but that hasn’t slowed the feds very much. According to the American Civil Liberties Union, despite a court’s finding that such gag orders are constitutionally suspect and should be subject to judicial review, the FBI continues to muzzle recipients of the controversial letters, preventing them from participating in public debate over the Patriot Act and the security state.

National Security Letters are powerful tools that allow federal agents to obtain information about investigation targets from third parties, such as telephone companies, financial institutions, Internet service providers, and consumer credit agencies on their own say-so, without judicial review. Some 47,000 such letters were issued in 2005 alone, according to the Department of Justice’s Office of the Inspector General (PDF). The letters don’t receive much public discussion, probably because many of the recipients are also issued gag orders, forbidding them to discuss the experience.

Okay, let me preempt you before you rush and make wrong assumptions about who the recipients of these government gag orders are, before you start envisioning the stereotyped boogie-looking-men in shalvars with long flea-infested curly dark beards:

Unable to speak out about their experiences as the subjects of National Security Letters, recipients of such letters, including businesspeople and librarians, can only stand on the sidelines while the discussion is conducted in theoretical terms.

That’s right! We are talking about good ole ordinary American citizens like librarians, small business owners, and in some cases healthcare providers. Also, the 47,000 number mentioned above is only for the year 2005. In a report published by the Bill of Rights Defense Committee an Inspector General Report delivered to Congress found that there were 143,074 NS Letters requested in two years, between 2003 and 2005. And here is another fire-raising fact from the same report:

From the 143,074 NSLs requested, there was only 1 confirmed terrorism-related conviction.

That’s right. And each NSL may demand tens of thousands of records containing private information on Americans. So please do the math by multiplying 143, 074 with let’s say 1000 to be safe, and let it sink in. Now put that number next to the ‘1’ terrorism case they had, and try to come up with a single sane reason or justification for our government going after, demanding, obtaining and then keeping these records.

Okay, back to what our President Truman considered ‘being in peril.’ Let’s get a bit up close and personal with one of the thousands of NSL recipients. This one happens to be extraordinarily brave since we have his name. Thousands of other recipients are prohibited, or intimidated into think they are, from disclosing their identity – thanks to the Gag Provision imbedded in this unconstitutional police tool called NSL, handed to our federal police by our Congress. Let’s get a bit acquainted with the brave NSL and gag order recipient, a librarian named Peter Chase, through an article published by the Baltimore Sun:

“In 2005, Mr. Chase, the director of the Plainville, Conn., public library and then-vice president of a consortium of 26 Connecticut libraries, received an FBI demand for library patron records via a National Security Letter authorized under the Patriot Act. The FBI also imposed a gag order prohibiting him from speaking to anyone about the demand – including Congress, when the Patriot Act was up for reauthorization in 2005.

Now, thanks to the American Civil Liberties Union, Mr. Chase has finally won the legal battle and has torn the Bush administration’s tape from his mouth. So he’s speaking out, and this is what he has to say: “The government was telling Congress that it didn’t use the Patriot Act against libraries and that no one’s rights had been violated. I felt that I just could not be part of this fraud being foisted on our nation.””
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Here is what I find the most disheartening, alarming, and simply frightening point in the above story: Peter Chase is one of only three brave Americans who have actually challenged the gag order imbedded in NSLs. Meaning what? Meaning of over 200,000 people who have received these unconstitutional police letters and the accompanying gag orders, ONLY 3 have found the courage, conviction, and real patriotism to stand up and challenge this assault on their constitutional rights and those of the entire nation. If this doesn’t rattle us Americans, the inhabitants of the land of the free, then may we deserve this and the highly probable worse to come.

Less than two months after the September 11 terrorist attack, while driven by panic and hysteria, our elected representatives rushed to enact the PATRIOT ACT, which was speedily, and conveniently, drafted by the Executive Branch. This unconstitutional set of laws handed our federal police and intelligence agencies unprecedented power to secretly and arbitrarily spy into Americans’ lives without any justification, any evidence of wrongdoing, or any oversight whatsoever.

Here are a few highlights on National Security Letters (NSL):

A National Security Letter (NSL) is a letter request for information from a third party that is issued by the FBI or by other government agencies with authority to conduct national security investigations. Government agency issues the request for information without prior judicial approval. Obtaining NSL requires no probable cause or judicial oversight. They also contain a gag order preventing the recipient of the letter from disclosing that the letter was ever issued. The non-disclosure rules have helped prevent the full extent of the NSL program from becoming known, as the FBI has systematically underreported to Congress the number of letters sent. Unlike other subpoenas and warrants, no approval from the Judicial Branch is required to issue an NSL. An NSL may be issued by “the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, or his designee in a position not lower than Deputy Assistant Director at Bureau headquarters or a Special Agent in Charge in a Bureau field office designated by the Director” with no checks and balances in place until after the NSL has been delivered.

An internal FBI audit found that the bureau violated the rules more than 1000 times in an audit of 10% of its national investigations between 2002 and 2007. According to the September 9, 2007 New York Times report on the FBI’s use of NSLs to obtain broader information for data mining purposes, “In many cases, the target of a national security letter whose records are being sought is not necessarily the actual subject of a terrorism investigation and may not be suspected at all. Under the USA PATRIOT Act, the F.B.I. must assert only that the records gathered through the letter are considered relevant to a terrorism investigation.” (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/09/washington/09fbi.html?_r=1 )

In April, 2008, the American Civil Liberties Union alleged that the military was using the FBI to skirt legal restrictions on domestic surveillance to obtain private records of Americans’ Internet service providers, financial institutions and telephone companies. The ACLU based its allegation on a review of more than 1,000 documents turned over to it by the Defense Department in response to a suit the rights group filed in 2007 for documents related to national security letters.
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The fear factor and the accompanying hysteria were the initial ingredients leading to the enactment of these laws befitting dictatorships and police states. The Bush-Cheney Administration’s war-mongering and absolute power-externally and internally, doctrine, kept the Patriot Act alive and in full implementation. The media fulfilled its significant role in promoting the fear-mongering which was, and is, the necessary ingredient in hushing the critics and hooraying the architects and implementers of the Patriot Act. Then came the President of Changes, and here is what he’s been doing to not only keep these unconstitutional police powers alive, but actually bolster them even further:

Last month, in a letter from the Justice Department to the Senate Judiciary Committee, the Obama administration went on record supporting the extension of key provisions of the USA Patriot Act, including the provision that gives the government the power to subpoena library records of any individual. The sections that our president is so keen to keep alive and take even further; allow roving wire taps on multiple phones, access to business records, and a never-used provision to conduct surveillance of a non-U.S. citizen who may not be part of a recognized terrorist group.
…

This same president, while an Illinois State Senator, considered the PATRIOT Act shoddy and dangerous and pledged to replace it. Well, as with all his promises of ‘change,’ he has done a hundred eighty degree change on this one, and been advocating for the continuation and expansion of this draconian police-state tool. You can read my brief piece on President Obama’s PATRIOT ACT Advocacy here.

While the federal police and intelligence agencies snoop on ordinary Americans and slap them with gag orders (forced by fear to shut their mouths), the public outrage appears to be in very short supply. Well, when you think of it, if of the known 200,000 + recipients only 3 refuse to shut their mouth, what would be a reasonable expectancy for hundreds of millions of Americans who don’t think these police-state practices affect their lives whatsoever?

How in the world did we get here? With hundreds of thousands of Americans being forced to shut their eyes, minds, and mouths, are we all in peril? In real big trouble? Doomed? And if you are like me and answer ‘yes,’ where is the outrage translated into action? Are we still sitting and waiting for a lobby and interest driven Congress to act in our behalf? Do we hope to see a President’s changes on his promised changes do yet another 180 degree change and change this? Or have we given up all hope and chosen to sit on the sidelines with our mouths shut waiting to be totally doomed?

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Around 1:00 p.m. on March 9, 2009 I stood in front of the US Air ticket counter in Ft Myers, Florida, and sighed with relief. I had just checked in two suitcases and had an hour and fifteen minutes before boarding my plane to Washington, DC. I was relieved because it is no simple task to make it this far with a teething seven month old baby, two suitcases, a carry on bag, and a diaper bag. However, I was counting my chickens too early.

I joined a fairly long line at the entrance of the TSA security screening station, and did a quick inventory of preparations needed to make it to the other side: My infant girl was securely nestled against my chest inside her baby carrier; I had no liquids in the diaper bag or elsewhere, and that included the bottled water I would need to fix her formula later while on the plane (I had enough time to purchase the water on the other side); I was wearing fairly easy to remove trainers, knowing the difficulty of removing shoes while carrying my infant and holding my boarding passes and drivers license…Basically, based on the Transportation Security Agency’s (TSA) posted rules, I was all set, or so I thought.

I bent over, removed my trainers and placed them on the screening belt. By this time I could sense my infant daughter’s tension from the way she was holding on to me. I couldn’t blame her; with the suffocating congestion of hassled and rushed people in the line closing in on her, the sound of screaming TSA officers reciting the rules at the security check point’s entrance ‘make sure you remove your shoes…’ ‘place all your liquid containers in clear plastic bags…,’ and with her mommy almost squashing her to bend over and remove my shoes, how could I blame her?!

As I approached the metal detector portal I looked ahead and sighed with relief one more time. A few more seconds, and I’d be there; among ‘the checked and let through’ on the other side; one of the lucky crowd who’d made it through.

My daughter and I went through the detector smoothly and silently – the darn thing didn’t blow it’s darn ear-scratching siren. However, waiting on the other side with hands on her plump hips was a badge wearing TSA officer. She pointed at me and sternly yelled, ‘Ma’am, go back again! Remove that baby carrier, put it on the belt, and come through the detector again.’

Confused, I looked at her and asked, ‘But why? I didn’t set off the detector! There are no metal pieces on this carrier, and as you see, it is fabric with no pockets or bags attached…’

The Badge-Woman yelled even louder, ‘Ma’am, you are holding up the line. Just go back and do as I say! We don’t allow wearable baby carriers through the detectors…’

I knew that was not true. I had traveled with my child several times and had gone through screening stations at several airports while carrying my child in the carrier attached in the front, same as here. But I didn’t want to hold up the lines and add hassle to the already hassled crowd waiting in line right behind me. Those of you who are parents and have traveled with infants don’t need me to tell you, but for those of you who have not experienced it let me put it this way, ‘it’s no easy task’! I tucked the boarding pass and my license under my chin. Next, I unbuckled the side-fasteners of the carrier, while watching carefully where I was stepping, because the tiled floor was smeared with some syrupy soda making it slippery. Then, I wiggled my daughter out if the carrier, tucked her under my left arm, while unfastening the rest of the carrier from my waist and shoulder…By this time my baby was wailing; from top of her lungs.

I passed through the detector again with the wailing baby tucked under my arm. Now I had to retrieve my shoes, my hand bag, my carryon, the baby carrier, the diaper bag, which were all piled up at the other end of the security screening belt. Have you ever done this while holding a baby? I don’t think I have to tell you what hell that is…

After I gathered my stuff, with sweat pouring from every pore, I turned around and made my way towards the badge-woman. I stopped right in front of her, looked her in the eye, and said,‘I would like to know why you put me through that when I was cleared first time through. I have gone through five airport security points with my child in a carrier, and no one ever asked me to remove the carrier. I believe TSA rules are supposed to be uniform.’

She snapped back ‘Move on. I don’t have to answer your question.’

I tried very hard to remain calm, and responded, ‘Yes you do. You need to provide me with a response; with an answer…’ She took out her hand-held radio and called her supervisor, ‘We have a big problem here. Someone is disrupting our procedure…’

In less than two minutes two female supervisors clad in suits showed up. The older one with hair glued in the air with two cans of hairspray and make-up two inches thick listened as I repeated my question, then she responded,

‘I am afraid we cannot provide you with an answer. We can’t share our security criteria with you. They are all classified.’

I almost gasped, ‘Why?’

She responded: ‘Because to announce our criteria, our rules, would tip off the terrorists.’

I countered that: ‘You have a list of rules at the check point entrance regarding liquid, shoes, lighters and matches…There is no section there referring to baby carriers. And, I have been through several airports, and none had any issue with the carriers. Are you saying there is a rule on carriers but it is considered secret and classified?’

She blinked several times with eyelashes bending downward from the weight of gunky mascara mud clumped on top of them. Next, with a voice raised about two notches higher she responded ‘Okay. It is not in the actual classified rules. We do things based on ‘Discretion.’ This is one of those. We have discretion.’

I asked again, ‘Okay. I would like to see the guidelines governing this discretion. That way I’ll know how to prepare for security in the future, as I did with your rules on shoes, water, liquid baby formula…’

She snapped back, ‘we have unlimited discretion. There are no rules. And we don’t have to answer your questions…’

I didn’t move, and I repeated my question, and added ‘Unlimited discretion? You mean you can also take us in and do a cavity search based on this discretion? This sounds like unlimited authority, and as a citizen, as a taxpayer, I have the right to know…’

At this point she took out her radio and called the airport police while I stood there looking and listening in disbelief. When two uniformed local airport police showed up, the TSA supervisor told them, ‘This lady insists on seeing our internal rules and classified procedures. I believe she poses a threat at this point and would like to have you either arrest her or keep her under observation until we decide to clear her for travel…’

That’s right. As a petite 5’4, 105 pound mother with an infant I was either being placed under arrest or observation as a security threat because I dared to question my rights and my government’s rules on security screening of its citizens.

The police officer, a gentlemanly young man, looked disgusted with the TSA supervisor. He turned to me and said,

‘Ma’am, why don’t you stop asking these questions and just proceed to your gate? We don’t want to be forced to act on this.’

I calmly responded, ‘Officer, I will proceed as soon as I am provided with an answer. If this is a cause for arrest now, and if you think you can back it up with probable cause, then please go ahead. You know and I know that this is not lawful.’

At the end of the security screening belt, as these events were unfolding, people were rushing past us towards their gates. Most of them were avoiding eye contact; maybe it was too much for them to actual see the reality and the state of their mobility on display before them. Some were shooting quick wondering glances. A very few brave ones actually slowed down or paused to whisper things like, ‘This is disgusting,’ or ‘they have no right to treat people like this,’ or, ‘this is a shame,’…

The TSA supervisor, seeing that her bluff did not have the desired effect and a bit nervously, changed her tune,

‘All we are doing is protecting you and everyone else from the terrorists. These procedures, these measures, are all for your own good; for your own safety.’

I repeated myself one more time, ‘And how do baby carriers pose a threat? How about the endangerment you caused my infant by having me walk across the slippery floor while holding her, handling my belongings…?’

She gave her best line of reasoning, ‘If I remember correctly some one, in some country, tried to hide explosives in a baby toy, or a baby stroller, or something like that…You know how the terrorists used airplanes and lack of airport security to blow up and kill thousands of our people…’

I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry at this lame and irrational excuse, ‘Okay, in Bali and in India terrorists blew up resorts and hotels, and people got injured and killed. Does this mean we now have to stack up barriers in front of our hotels and resorts, and have government security agents march in front of them? The terrorists hit some fast food chain joint in Turkey; does this mean we now have to have metal detectors and guards in front of our restaurants? With this line of reasoning where will we stop? Will we ever stop?’

By this time I had already missed my plane. Disgustedly I walked towards the US Air counter to get my refund, go rent a car, and drive 20 hours back home. As I walked away with the two police officers accompanying me, the young male officer said sympathetically,‘Ma’am, I am so sorry for that. Even we can’t argue with these TSA guys. Now they are carrying badges and guns, and we see all sorts of abuses, dumb calls, but they are high with a sense of power…’

I don’t know how but I managed to smile, and said ‘I know. My organization has 50 or so DHS/TSA whistleblowers, and I’ve heard stories worse than this…They are able to assert these abusive powers and practices because most people, the majority, just like you, would rather back off and put up with their abuse of power…Does this sound American to you?’

Before I turned the corner I stopped, turned around, and looked at the line moving forward at the security check point. The imagery was almost symbolic. People stopping by the security belt; bending over humbly, as if before Roman Gods or Pharos, to remove their shoes. Then, like a herd of sheep, while holding up their IDs and boarding passes, they took little steps towards the detectors while looking at the other side, hoping soon they’d be ‘cleared’ and ‘allowed’ to join the others who’d ‘made’ it.

The No Fly List, also called the terrorist watch list, is a secret list created and maintained by the US government of people who are not permitted to board a plane for travel in or out of the country. The list includes at least 1 million names as of now, up 32% since 2007 as reported by USA Today in March 2009. On September 11, 2001, the FBI’s ‘no transport’ list had the names of 16 people were considered to present a specific known or suspected threat to aviation.

Let’s look at TSA’s definition of No Fly and Selectee list from their own website:

What are the watch lists?

Historically, nine government agencies maintained watch lists with names of known or suspected terrorists and criminals. Two of these lists, the “No Fly” and “Selectee” lists were maintained by TSA. The “No Fly” list is a list of individuals who are prohibited from boarding an aircraft. The “Selectee” list is a list of individuals who must undergo additional security screening before being permitted to board an aircraft. After 9/11 the Terrorist Screening Center (TSC) was created through a Presidential Directive to be administered by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, U.S. Department of Justice, in cooperation with the Departments of Homeland Security, Defense, State, and Treasury, as well as the Central Intelligence Agency. The purpose for the TSC is to consolidate terrorism based watch lists in one central database, the Terrorist Screening Center Database (TSDB), and make that data available for use in screening. Intelligence and law enforcement agencies nominate individuals to be put on the watch list based on established criteria, with the list maintained by the TSC. TSA’s “No-Fly” and “Selectee” lists are subsets of the TSDB and are maintained by the TSC.

According to a report issued by the General Accounting Office, the “no fly” list is just one of 12 terrorist and criminal watch lists maintained by the federal government.

In the sub header of this piece I refer to this list and the entire system as a ‘black hole’ because the list is sort of a secret, how you end up there is sort of a secret, their criteria for the list is sort of a secret, and if or how an innocent citizen can get off this list also happens to be a secret. Pay attention to the vague, ambigious definition by the TSA cited above. Go to and comb through their entire site and you’ll still come up empty handed as to how or why you may end up on their list, or how you can find out about it, or how you can get yourself off of their list.

The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) issued a report after it obtained limited information on the No Fly and Selectee lists through FOIA:

“Since the TSA took over, the watch list “has expanded almost daily as Intelligence Community agencies and the Office of Homeland Security continue to request the addition of individuals to the No-Fly and Selectee lists.” (TSA Watchlists memo) The names are approved for inclusion on the basis of a secret criteria. The Watchlists memo notes that “all individuals have been added or removed … based on the request of and information provided, almost exclusively by [redacted].”

There are two primary principles that guide the placement on the lists, but these principles have been withheld. The documents do not show whether there is a formal approval process where an independent third party entity is charged with verifying that the names are selected appropriately and that the information is accurate.”

As one of our readers, Jean Carbonneau, brought to our attention, one of the main reasons people don’t react as they should to such a Kafkaesque police system is that they don’t consider themselves ‘affected.’ They may get a bit grumpy at those long lines in the airports, or the patting and probing, but many consider it just ‘necessary added security,’ move on, and get used to it. When these people, the majority, read about these lists they brush it off as tools directed towards real criminals and terrorists suspects; you know, a tool to protect us against those darn hairy dark-skin foreigners who spend their lives planning to blow us up… They need to see and hear and read about tens if not hundreds of thousands of good ole Americans with spotless records who for one reason or another have ended up in the DHS’ black hole, and most likely due to some ‘discretion.’ Sure, the mainstream media has covered it a tiny bit; certainly not enough; at least not as much as they’ve been covering and exagerating the threats of vague terrorists and boogiemen.

If you come across those, which I am sure you do every single day, have them read the story of a Former US Diplomat John Graham, who actually received an award by the first President Bush for his NGO work, and who somehow ended up in the black hole. Let them read Graham’s own words:

“I’m being accused of a serious–even treasonous–criminal intent by a faceless bureaucracy, with no chance (that I can find) to refute any errors or false charges. (…) Whether it’s a mistake or whether somebody with the power to hassle me really thinks I am a threat, the stark absence of due process is unsettling. The worst of it is that being put on a list of America’s enemies seems to be permanent. The TSA form states: “the TSA clearance process will not remove a name from the Watch Lists. Instead this process distinguishes passengers from persons who are in fact on the Watch Lists by placing their names and identifying information in a cleared portion of the Lists” (which may or may not, the form continues, reduce the airport hassles).

In protecting ourselves, we can’t allow our leaders to continue to create a climate of fear and mistrust, to destroy our civil liberties and, in so doing, to change who we are as a nation. What a victory that would be for our enemies! And what a betrayal of real patriots, and to so many in the wider world who still remember this country as a source of inspiration and hope.”

…or have them check out many stories of US veterans, nuns, doctors, starred generals, librarians…who found themselves in this nightmare of being listed by their government, and learned that there isn’t much they can do to clear themselves:

Bill McDonald, 60, a retired Air Force colonel has a chest full of ribbons and enough frustration with the TSA to fill a bucket.

“With my two tours in Vietnam and active service in support of Desert Storm I find myself a terrorist suspect?,” McDonald says. “Seemingly not even my Top Secret, nuclear and satellite related clearances plus over 26 and half years of service mean much,” he says. “You can surely imagine my disgust at being identified on a terror watch list.”

Although McDonald has flown several times since 9/11, it wasn’t until just last year that he started having problems checking in. McDonald and his wife were fond of online check-in procedures but were rejected and told to report to the ticket counter. “That was our first clue something was wrong.”

When a ticket agent told McDonald he was on the watch list, he was stunned. He took out his military I.D. card that he always carries, but it was of little help. He missed that flight because of the added security.

“I was just kind of flabbergasted that I had to play this game, but decided that I wasn’t going to be reactive,” he said.

He has pulled together all the needed information to apply for clearance, but says he’s hesitating submitting the forms because of all the information they require.

“Somehow, hearing about the wrongful use of info by the TSA does not give me a comfort zone,” McDonald said. “I say this despite the fact that I know I am all over the data bases in the government.”

…or have them watch the following video of the TSA detention, harassment, and abuse of a Ron Paul organization official which was caught on tape at a St. Louis airport:

YouTube Clip:

…tell these people that they or their family members or their friends can easily end up on a secret list for secret reasons by secret persons working behind the walls of their government secret’s agencies. And, that there ain’t a darn thing they can do, or anywhere or any person to go to, even if there were, they wouldn’t know about it, since that too would be secret.

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“When an opponent declares, ‘I will not come over to your side,’ I say calmly, ‘Your child belongs to us already…What are you? You will pass on. Your descendants, however, now stand in the new camp. In a short time they will know nothing but this new community’.”- – Adolf Hitler

Our children who were born on and around September 11, 2001 are now almost eight years old. These children, who we usually refer to as ‘the future,’ have only known a nation that has been engaged in perpetual wars, and to them it is ‘forever.’ How many times a day do they hear and read the word ‘war’? Whether it’s the TV they are tuned in to, or their parents’ daily paper they happen to get a glimpse of, or the radio news program they listen to during their car rides…they can’t help but hear and see ‘wars’: war on terror, war in Iraq, the Afghan war…

They know a nation whose state is defined by a color coded alert system. They are being told and taught to be ‘alert’ against a vague and never-defined threat posed by an even more vague enemy.

To them the days when their parents traveled with dignity is a sweet bed-time story; one that starts with ‘Once upon a time we boarded our planes without going through metal detectors and puff-machines, without bending over before the ‘badge-men’ to remove our shoes, without being searched and probed…without fear; the fear of becoming a chosen one by our state and it’s badge-men…’

Their national pride before international eyes is forced to adopt a coping mechanism: How to defend their nation’s record on torture; how to explain their government’s world-wide kidnapping as extraordinary renditions prompted by even more extraordinary circumstances; how to justify the civilian death tolls accumulated nonstop by their government’s never-justified wars; and more.

As bad as all this sounds we may wish this was the extent of it, when it comes to our children, our new generation; our future. But we don’t always get what we wish for; do we? Sometimes it takes more than ‘wishful thinking.’

The strength and maintenance of any police state depends largely on the loyal unquestioning following of its masses. What better target than the young minds of the youth ready to soak up whatever information and training is designed for and directed toward them? What better method than misdirecting the passionate patriotism and innate sense of self-preservation against ‘perceived’ threats? What better place to create this than in our schools through ‘specialized’ education?

Our Nation’s New Scouts

On May 15 this year Telegraph UK ran an article on a nationwide Boy Scouts training program on combating terrorism. The reported number of scouts between the ages of 14 and 21 who are currently enrolled in law enforcement and terrorism programs across the United States is around 35,000. Learning for Life, a subsidiary of the Boy Scouts of America Organization, runs and manages this project.

“Many agencies, such as the Border Patrol, are heavily involved in shaping the activities and admit they see the programme as a useful recruitment tool. Although law enforcement exploring originally stuck to learning the policing basics, organisers say the training has become more specialised since the September 11 attacks …”

Can you picture our cute youngster scouts in their new scout environment, carefully designed and put in place after September 11? Here is a little glimpse:

“Dressed in combat fatigues and armed with air guns firing tiny plastic pellets, they are taught how to assault buses, raid marijuana fields and rescue terrorist hostages from buildings.”

Speaking of methods, how about this to define the new concept of being a true American? The new definition of honor and bravery?

“This is about being a true-blooded American guy and girl. It fits right in with the honour and bravery of the Boy Scouts,” said AJ Lowenthal, a sheriff’s deputy and Explorer leader in Imperial, California.”

I vaguely recall the words of a dictator spoken in a not too distant past. How did it go? Was it ‘This is about being a true-blooded German youth representing their country with pride and bravery…’ or something like that? Do you too recall what I am trying to remember? Or this – from the scouts’ role in Mussolini’s Italy, Opera Nazionale Balilla (ONB):

“Mussolini assigned ex-Ardito and deputy-secretary for Education Renato Ricci the task of “reorganizing the youth from a moral and physical point of view”. Ricci sought inspiration with Robert Powell, the founder of Scouting, meeting with him in England. The ONB included children between the ages of 8 and 18.The organization surpassed its purpose as a cultural institution that was intended to serve as the ideological counterpart of school, and served as a paramilitary group, training for future assignments in the Italian Army.Male children enrolled wore uniform. During military exercises, they were armed (the guns were replaced with toy versions for the Figli della Lupa).”

I for one see an amazing parallel. Is it because I am looking for it? I don’t think so.

Our High Schools & the National Security Curriculum

LA Times reports on Meade High School in Northern Maryland, the first high school in the country to offer a four-year course in Domestic Security. The article’s ‘sexy’ title goes like this: ‘The School Mixes Algebra, Homeland Security.’ The goal is identified as ‘to help graduates build careers in one of America’s few growth industries.’ By the ‘few growth industries’ they mean not only the intelligence agencies, Department of Homeland Security, etc, but all the parasitic related private contractors such as private weapons companies and mercenary contractor firms like well-known Blackwater.

“the 90 ninth-graders who chose the new homeland security program this last school year focused on topics torn from the headlines: Islamic jihadism, nuclear arms, cyber-crime, domestic militias and the like.”

The story starts getting a bit sadly comical with the following lines:

“New themes even were added to their science, social studies and English classes.” There’s a lot of homeland security issues in ‘Romeo and Juliet,’ ” said Bill Sheppard, the program coordinator. “Like, how do you deal with infiltration in your own family?””

What is this man really saying? We must now prepare our youngsters to detect infiltration; however this infiltration is to be defined by the state, even in one’s own family? Do you remember the loyal Nazi youth who reported their own parents? Didn’t we make hundreds of movies about the Stazi and how they trained the youth to collaborate with them and act as their snitches?

You don’t need much imagination to envision a description of the homeland security class, but here is a short one for you:

“Edler’s classroom is on the lower level, near the woodworking shop. One corner has armchairs, another a table covered with military and intelligence magazines. The walls are lined with students’ posters that compare extremist groups at home and abroad.”…

and here is how they lure these poor naïve kids:

“”This course will help me get a top-secret security clearance,” said Darryl Bagley, an eager 15-year-old. “That way I can always get a job.” Since the Sept. 11 attacks, about 320 colleges and universities have begun awarding graduate or postgraduate certificates or degrees in emergency management, bio-defense and other security-related fields. Federal grants and a steady growth in jobs have driven the surge.”

Now how many naïve kids can resist the misguided lure and glamour of getting ‘security clearance,’ the prospect of becoming a 007 like spy, the possibility of carrying badges and guns…and doing all that for one’s ‘state’ and being told that it’s for the protection and the good of the country? How many?

This new breed of programming the education of our youth seems to be mushrooming and spreading:

“Joppatowne High School in northern Maryland started a similar program in 2007. And two more schools, one near Baltimore and the other in the state’s western panhandle, will follow next fall, said state education department spokesman Bill Reinhard. Schools in other states, including California, are watching closely.”

Mother Jones reports further on Joppatowne High School:

“Dedicated to everything from architecture to sports medicine, “career academies” claim to offer high school kids focus, relevancy, and solid job prospects. Now add a new kind of program to the list: homeland security high. In late August, Maryland’s Joppatowne High School became the first school in the country dedicated to churning out would-be Jack Bauers. The 75 students in the Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness magnet program will study cybersecurity and geospatial intelligence, respond to mock terror attacks, and receive limited security clearances at the nearby Army chemical warfare lab.”

And here we can see the difference in reporting:

“The new school is funded and guided by a slew of federal, state, and local agencies, not to mention several defense firms. Officials say it will teach kids to understand the “new reality,” though they hasten to add that the school isn’t focused just on terrorism. School administrators, channeling Cheneyesque secrecy, refused to be interviewed for this story. But it’s no secret that the program is seen as a model for the rest of the country, with the Pentagon and other agencies watching closely.”

Now think about it: how many public schools can resist getting this funding? To them, adding and offering these ‘Motherland – Fatherland’ programs means: tons of money (by their standards), real prestige (by blind and misguided standards), and maybe even the misguided positive stigma of being closely attached to the federal intelligence and police agencies.

The article goes appropriately to the real punch line:

“The school’s main goal is to get its grads jobs in the booming $24-billion-a-year homeland security industry. It’s certainly in the right location: Northeast Maryland has become a mecca for the military-industrial complex. The Army’s Aberdeen Proving Ground is the county’s biggest employer, and all manner of defense contractors have set up shop nearby, including weapons maker Northrop Grumman.”

Doesn’t it always come down to money? This is exactly how they (The Feds) diminished the role and power of the individual states and this is how they are going about taking control of the public schools. This is the bait they dangle before our new generation’s noses: we’ll give you security clearance, mysterious and glamorous policing jobs, guaranteed employment and money. Now go and resist this in the name of real Americanism, independence, and the love of liberties. How many do you think will?

Military and Para-Military Training for our Schools

Last week another relevant story got my attention. Marine Corps Times published a piece titled
‘Marine-Themed Public Schools Meet Resistance’ about how the corps is wooing public schools throughout the country to expand it’s network of military academies despite criticism.

“Marine officials are talking with at least six districts — including in suburban Atlanta, New Orleans and Las Vegas — about opening schools where every student wears a uniform, participates in Junior ROTC and takes military classes, said Bill McHenry, who runs the service’s Junior ROTC program. Those schools would add to more than a dozen public military academies that have opened nationwide, a trend that’s picking up speed as the Defense Department looks for ways to increase the number of units in Junior Reserve Officers Training Corps.”

Here is a single quote on the opposition side:

“Critics such as Mike Hearington, a 56-year-old Vietnam War veteran whose son attends Shamrock Middle School in DeKalb County, say the schools are breeding grounds for the military.“To pursue children like they are is criminal in my mind,” Hearington said.”

Is it me, or did they try to depict critics as die-hard Jane Fonda Style Vietnam war critics?

Now as for the ‘money’ angle:

“In DeKalb County, the school district would get about $500,000 a year plus $1.4 million in startup funds from the Corps, Lewis said. The school would open with 150 cadets, growing eventually to about 650…Last year, Congress passed a defense policy bill that included a call for increasing the number of Junior ROTC units across the country from 3,400 to 3,700 in the next 11 years, an effort that will cost about $170 million, Defense Department spokeswoman Eileen M. Lainez said. The process will go faster by opening military academies, which count as four or more units, McHenry said.”

To some of you these amounts may not seem much, while tremendous to others. Just take a look at most of these public schools’ budgets and you’ll see that $2 million or so is enough to have school administrators panting and drooling all over themselves…

Here is more in another article covering the same topic on Chicago schools:

“One in 10 public high school students in Chicago wears a military uniform to school and takes classes — including how to shoot a gun properly — from retired veterans. That number is expected to rise as junior military reserve programs expand across the country now that a congressional cap of 3,500 units has been lifted from the nearly century-old scheme.”

And…

“Opponents say the programs divert critical resources from crumbling public schools and lead to a militarization of US society.” To call these young people child soldiers might be technically inaccurate, but it does reveal the truth of it,” said Oscar Castro, a spokesman for the National Youth and Militarism Program, an advocacy group.”

The Nazis were aware that education would create loyal Nazis by the time they reached adulthood. Hitler Youth, Hitler-Jugend, HJ, was organized into corps under adult leaders, and the general membership was comprised of boys aged fourteen to eighteen:

“One aim was to instill the motivation that would enable HJ members, as soldiers, to fight faithfully for the Third Reich. Many HJ activities closely resembled military training, with weapons training, assault course circuits and basic tactics.The HJ was also seen as an important stepping stone to future membership of the elite Schutzstaffe, SS. The HJ also maintained several corps designed to develop future officers for the Wehrmacht. The corps offered specialist pre-training for each of the specific arms for which the HJ member was ultimately destined. The Marine Hitler Youth, for example, was the largest such corps and served as a water rescue auxiliary to the Kriegsmarine.”

Again, is it me looking for parallels, or is it really there, clear and present?!

We all know how Adolf Hitler’s regime after taking over Germany went about organizing the youth to have them become the future warriors for their armed forces. These young Germans were to be manipulated and put into service for the good of the Third Reich and would also go on to become the future warriors that would carry out the total war policies of Hitler and his loyal henchmen. Here is a paragraph on the role of the paramilitary training for the youth in schools:

“To add more excitement, a new phase began for the Hitler Youth with increased emphasis on para-military training in direct association with the Wehrmacht (Army) Luftwaffe (Air Force) and Navy. In 1937, a Hitler Youth rifle school was also established. About 1.5 million boys were trained in rifle shooting and military field exercises over the next few years with over 50,000 boys earning a marksmanship medal that required near perfect shooting at a distance of 50 meters (164 feet).”

Let’s not leave out colleges and universities. Our new President of ‘Change’ has come up with some ‘change’ plans for this segment of our youth too.

Our favorite man, Pincus, at The Washington Post seems to be having fun while reporting on our President of Change’s Spy-Rearing project plans for Universities; here is his opening:

“To the list of collegiate types — nerds, jocks, Greeks — add one more: spies in training. The government is hoping they’ll be hard to spot.”

“The Obama administration has proposed the creation of an intelligence officer training program in colleges and universities that would function much like the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps run by the military services. The idea is to create a stream “of first- and second-generation Americans, who already have critical language and cultural knowledge, and prepare them for careers in the intelligence agencies,” according to a description sent to Congress by Director of National Intelligence Dennis C. Blair.”

Keep reading my friends, the story gets hotter:

“The students’ participation in the program would probably be kept secret to prevent them from being identified by foreign intelligence services, according to an official familiar with the proposal.”

How do you like that? Where will the classes be held: some underground bunkers in Utah?! Maybe they will hold the classes in the wee hours of the night and have the students clad in camouflage!

Here comes the section on the alluringly attractive money bait being dangled before the college students’ noses:

“Students attending participating colleges and universities who agree to take the specialized courses would apply to the national intelligence director for admittance to the program, whose administrators would select individuals “competitively” for financial assistance. Much like the support provided to those in the military programs, the financial assistance could include “a monthly stipend, tuition assistance, book allowances and travel expenses,” according to the proposal. It also would involve paid summer internships at one or more intelligence agencies.”

I am planning to write a piece on the massive baggage that comes with obtaining Security Clearance, but here is how the new administration is planning to hook our college youth big time:

“Applicants to the intelligence training program would have to pass a security background investigation, although it is unclear when they would have to do so. Students who receive a certain amount of financial assistance would be obligated to serve in an intelligence agency for the same length of time as they received their subsidy.”

Just so that you know, a background check to receive clearance includes a background check of all your family members and friends, since you as an applicant have to provide information about everyone you regularly associate with…

The least these college babes can get out of it is becoming a good old-fashion snitch for agencies like the FBI. So for those who in the end may not score high enough, there are always positions like this:

“The FBI is taking cues from the CIA to recruit thousands of covert informants in the United States as part of a sprawling effort to boost its intelligence capabilities.According to a recent unclassified report to Congress, the FBI expects its informants to provide secrets about possible terrorists and foreign spies, although some may also be expected to aid with criminal investigations, in the tradition of law enforcement confidential informants. The FBI did not respond to requests for comment on this story.

The bureau has arranged to use elements of CIA training to teach FBI agents about “Source Targeting and Development,” the report states. The courses will train FBI special agents on the “comprehensive tradecraft” needed to identify, recruit and manage these “confidential human sources.” According to January testimony by FBI Deputy Director John S. Pistole, the CIA has been working with the bureau on the course.”

A good friend and a source in the FBI tells me that they in fact have been very active on the college-universities circuit; hiring students away as informants, aka snitches.

As we said, children are the future. This article details the current status of our youth as defined by the state. Is this our future?

*Please take a few seconds to participate in our survey on the left column.

To Ela:

I have dedicated Part 1 of my ‘The Makings of a Police State’ series to our children, the youth, and our future. My daughter’s birthday may have had something to do with this, so this is for my daughter, Ela, on her birthday, shared with all of you, something I almost never do; share my private and family life. I make this exception due to the alarming state of our nation and our government’s apparent action-plan already in motion targeting our youth:

You’ll be one year old tonight at 7:05 P.M. US EST, July 18, 2009.

I don’t want you to have to pass through metal detectors like a potential criminal before attending your classes at school. I won’t let that happen.

I don’t want you in schools where you will be subjected to regular searches, your lockers sniffed by dogs, be treated as an untrustworthy suspect, and worst of all, have you get used to all that and view it as ‘normal’ life. I won’t let that happen.

I don’t want to see you join a once-upon-a-time honorable scouts program where you’ll be clad in army fatigues, carry pellet guns, and play the hunter in search of a suspect to turn in, or take out. I won’t let that happen.

I don’t want you to come home from school and excitedly tell me about being taught how to detect and turn in ‘Islamists’, terrorists, or, maybe by then, war protesters or civil liberties activists. I won’t let that happen.

My parents rescued me and my sister from a nation, a government, that targeted the youth; to clad them in veils, force them to pray five times a day, control what they read and listened to…

I rescued me and my freedom of speech by leaving the military regime of my home country behind and immigrating to a land that was famous worldwide for it’s ‘freedom of speech’ and it’s valuing of liberties.

I didn’t come here and become a citizen to have a government whose buildings and offices were buried behind piles of concrete and metal barricades; where the gates and doors were protected by armed men, metal detectors, and cameras.

I didn’t settle here to have my conversations and writings monitored by big brother around the clock.

I didn’t take my citizenship oath just to let my rights be easily quashed by privileges befitting kings and the like.

I didn’t consent to be a tax paying law abiding citizen so that the fruits of my labor could be spent on murder, torture, kidnapping, snitching services, and abusive gun carrying badge-men…

No I didn’t. Neither did I intend nor consent to ‘this’ state of being for you. I didn’t, I don’t, and I won’t.

On your first birthday, in addition to everything else I am giving you, I give you my solemn pledge: I will do everything I can, fight as much and as long as I can, and do whatever it takes to protect you from what my parents escaped, what I left behind in my home country, and what I have been fighting against here the last eight years. You are my love, my future, and as all children must be to their parents, you are worth fighting for.

Happy Birthday to you, Ela.

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I am starting my new series on a topic that for some reason, or reasons, has been designated as another of those ‘no no’ subjects. Even the mentioning of this topic is enough to get one labeled as an extremist, radical, nutty, kooky…Why do most people react this way? As with other issues here too we are looking at multiple factors.

For the government, the establishment, side of it, the reasons are obvious, and fit any government that is, has been, or was ever considered a police state. Have you ever come across a police state that actually considered itself to be a ‘police state’? Exactly, I didn’t think so. The governing/ruling powers of police states always seek to legitimize their police measures; whether made necessary by external threats, domestic threats, economic threats, security or terrorism threats…there is always a big threat(s) they point to and base their justification upon, and they always, and I mean always, claim that their measures are for the good of the public, for the security of their people, for the protection of their constituents. They portray their dissenters as collaborators in whatever ‘threat’ they claim they are fighting against, and silence their critics either with extreme authoritarian measures, or, if they are able to, by simply labeling them as radical, nutty, and kooky, enough to marginalize them and neutralize their potential effect.

The same holds true for the media side of this phenomena. After all, one of the major characteristics of a police state is social control and indoctrination through control of the media. These states utilize the media to spread their propaganda, to manufacture consent, to evilize chosen enemies, to paint dissent as unpatriotic, the dissenters as the enemies of the state, and of course the critics as the radical and nutty minority.

Now how about the people? Why are the majority of our people so quick to write off even the possibility of us becoming a police state, and do so in a similar manner as the government and media as described above? Aside from being indoctrinated by the establishment’s calculative presentations, most people seem to be guided by their own biased beliefs and misplaced values. It may be from misdirected patriotism, when their love of our nation subconsciously is coupled with the love of whoever may be ruling it. It may be the simple act of denial; just as parents blinded by their parental love and pride refuse to see and acknowledge the negative realities in their children, there are those who willingly put on blinders before their eyes just so that they don’t see the ugly realities inflicting the country they love and value. Maybe it is a case of extreme pride being misdirected towards those misperceived…

Whatever the reasons, the almost uniform response to those who even attempt to raise the police state question seems to be the same. Perhaps this is the reason why the very few outspoken legal experts, historians, and civil liberties activists, carefully, almost timidly, choose their words when it comes to the question of a police state in the USA. What I hear, what I read is usually along the following lines:

We may be moving toward a police state.

At this rate we may become a police state.

Are we on our way to become a police state?

These people talk about a ‘police state’ as if there is this exactly defined state with even more exactly defined prerequisites, so that when this state is reached it can be uniformly declared by all as a police state at the exact same time. However, most of these same people, when I talk with them privately, in a hushed voice tell me that they actually think we are there, or almost there. They are so afraid to come out and say it. They are terrified at the prospect of being attacked, labeled, and marginalized. So this is why you get the careful phrasing, and when you get close, the hushed voices.

Anyhow, I am not known to shy away too much from being labeled, attacked, and/or ostracized. I have serious concerns for my country, where it is today, and where it’s headed. I have questions that I’ve been seeking answers for, which I want to share and discuss with you, openly and loudly, not in whispers. My main question pertaining to a police state is ‘aren’t we there?’ rather than ‘are we there?’ I keep scrutinizing the broad definitions and characteristics of a police state in every encyclopedia and other source I can get my hands on, then I check and compare those aspects with what we have today as a national security state, and every time I do this my checkmark list tells me we seem to be ‘there’ already:

On Invoking, Creating and Maintaining Perpetual Wars:

Our ambigious unending War on Terror, Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq

On Control and Monitoring Mass Communication:

NSA’s domestic spying on US Citizens are made legal & advocated as necessary

On Search & Seizures with No Probable Cause or Judicial Oversight:

FBI’s National Security Letters to be used on American Citizens with its Gag Order Provision

On Controlling & Restricting Citizens’ Mobility:

TSA’s ever expanding secretive No Fly List with the ‘known’ inclusion of One Million Americans

On Government Operating in Extreme Secrecy:

Government expenditures of nearly $10 BILLION to maintain tens of millions of secret documents and operations, and unconstitutional uses of Executive Privileges such as State Secrets Privilege

On Control and Usage of Media as Government’s Own Propaganda Machine:

The American Mainstream Media today is an extension and mouthpiece of the Federal Government

On Silencing & Persecution of Dissent:

Our government’s well-established record of its treatment of whistleblowers and critics, whether by gag orders or other overt and covert measures

On General Disregard for Human Rights and Related International Laws:

Our Government’s documented record on Rendition and Torture

I can easily go on and list more items, and justify every single one of them with supporting documents, cases, and reports, but for now the above criteria should suffice for our upcoming discussions and analyses. While I am at it I want to preempt one expected argument I have heard more than once:

‘Of course we are not a police state, since you and others can write and talk about these issues without getting arrested or executed. Just look at all these bloggers and independent media…’

First, that’s confusing a totalitarian government with a police state. You don’t have to be a totalitarian state in order to be a police state. In fact police states can and do emerge in democratic countries – with the consent and acceptance of the populace. Totalitarianism is simply an extreme version.

Next, not being ‘there’ yet in this regard does not mean we don’t fulfill most if not all other criteria to be considered a police state. Nations gradually creep towards becoming a police state, in various stages and by various degrees.

Finally, this aspect may actually be an indicator of an even more pathetic situation. Meaning, by having complete control over the mass media and utilizing successful propaganda and indoctrination the government doesn’t even feel the need to go after the irate vigilant minority. They let their PR machine marginalize these voices and ensure their exclusion from the broad medium of communication channels.

Okay, now it is your turn. Don’t be shy, and please don’t censure yourself. Where do you see us as a nation? How do you define a police state? Do you think we are already there?

And take a few seconds to participate in our survey on the left column.

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