The US Constitution guarantees DUE PROCESS, the right to trial, the right to face your accuser-----our US citizens are not labelled TERRORISTS if they are arsonists-----if they are serial killers---if they use explosives for crimes----they have for 300 years simply been CRIMINALS tried under our US system of courts.
What OBAMA and Clinton neo-liberals did during his terms was to create laws allowing these rights to be circumvented----for sovereign citizens to be called TERRORISTS. Remember, all those 99% of sovereign citizens overseas caught in continuous wars tied to building FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES were the ones our international media called TERRORISTS.
Behind the mask: The people in Antifa
Antifa often show up to counterprotest dressed in black, wearing masks. They say it’s to prevent violence, but many believe Antifa members provoke violence. CNN’s Sara Ganim went in search of Antifa members to find out who the people are, behind the masks. Warning: some content in this story is graphic.
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Antifa (United States)From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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An Antifa sticker
The Antifa (/ænˈtiːfə, ˈæntiˌfɑː/)[1] movement is a conglomeration of left wing autonomous, self-styled anti-fascist militant groups in the United States. The principal feature of antifa groups is their use of direct action, harassing those whom they deem to be fascists, racists and right wing extremists. Conflicts are both online and in real life. They engage in varied protest tactics, which include digital activism [12] property damage and physical violence. They tend to be anti-capitalist and they are predominantly far-left and militant left, which includes anarchists, communists and socialists. Their stated focus is on fighting far-right and white supremacist ideologies directly, rather than politically.
We speak often as to why these groups are FAKE-----being global banking 5% freemason/Greek civil unrest/civil war PLAYERS and not really American citizens especially LEFT CITIZENS taking this pathway to what they are claiming is protecting MUSLIMS/BLACK/GBLT/IMMIGRANTS. It is not even BELIEVABLE that our US 99% WE THE LEFT SOCIAL PROGRESSIVES or left socialist/communists would bring these violent and dark actions----protecting freedoms with violence? OH, REALLY????
So, ANTIFA is indeed tied to global banking -----to CIA/FOREIGN SOVEREIGNTY OF MALTA----it is tied to BUSH/CHENEY/WOLFOWITZ----and global hedge fund STANFORD. It is NOT far-left-----it is FAR-RIGHT WING GLOBAL BANKING 1% CORPORATE FASCISM.
What CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA are MOVING FORWARD is policy of arresting our US citizens as TERRORISTS ---setting precedence at the same time creating the environment of MARTIAL LAW surrounding what would be ORDINARY PEACEFUL, LEGAL PROTESTS.
THIS IS ALL FAKE NEWS----AND IT IS REALLY DANGEROUS FOR OUR US 99% WE THE PEOPLE BLACK, WHITE, AND BROWN CITIZENS.
Who are the antifa?
President Trump equated them with white supremacists.
Here's why he’s wrong.
By Mark Bray
August 16, 2017
On Monday, President Trump capitulated to the popular demand that he distance himself from his comment that “many sides” were to blame in Charlottesville by explicitly denouncing white nationalism. “Racism is evil,” he appeared to grudgingly concede, “including the KKK, neo-Nazis and white supremacists.”
A day later, however, Trump reversed course by clarifying that there were “very fine people” at the white power rally, while casting “blame on both sides” including the allegedly “alt-left” antifa.
First bursting into the headlines when they shut down far-right provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos in February at the University of California at Berkeley, antifascists again captivated the public imagination by battling the fascists assembled at the “Unite the Right” white power rally in Charlottesville.
But what is antifa? Where did it come from? Militant anti-fascist or “antifa” (pronounced ANtifa) is a radical pan-leftist politics of social revolution applied to fighting the far right. Its adherents are predominantly communists, socialists and anarchists who reject turning to the police or the state to halt the advance of white supremacy. Instead they advocate popular opposition to fascism as we witnessed in Charlottesville.
There are antifa groups around the world, but antifa is not itself an interconnected organization, any more than an ideology like socialism or a tactic like the picket line is a specific group. Antifa are autonomous anti-racist groups that monitor and track the activities of local neo-Nazis. They expose them to their neighbors and employers, they conduct public education campaigns, they support migrants and refugees and they pressure venues to cancel white power events.
The vast majority of anti-fascist organizing is nonviolent. But their willingness to physically defend themselves and others from white supremacist violence and preemptively shut down fascist organizing efforts before they turn deadly distinguishes them from liberal anti-racists.
Antifascists argue that after the horrors of chattel slavery and the Holocaust, physical violence against white supremacists is both ethically justifiable and strategically effective. We should not, they argue, abstractly assess the ethical status of violence in the absence of the values and context behind it. Instead, they put forth an ethically consistent, historically informed argument for fighting Nazis before it’s too late. As Cornel West explained after surviving neo-Nazi attacks in Charlottesville, “If it hadn’t been for the antifascists protecting us from the neo-fascists, we would have been crushed like cockroaches.”
THAT GLOBAL BANKING 1% HEDGE FUND CORPORATION PRINCETON PROFESSOR CORNEL WEST---HE'S SO LEFT MARXIST!
Though antifa are often treated as a new force in American politics since the rise of Trump, the anti-fascist tradition stretches back a century. The first antifascists fought Benito Mussolini’s Blackshirts in the Italian countryside, exchanged fire with Adolf Hitler’s Brownshirts in the taverns and alleyways of Munich and defended Madrid from Francisco Franco’s insurgent nationalist army. Beyond Europe, anti-fascism became a model of resistance for the Chinese against Japanese imperialism during World War II and resistance to Latin American dictatorships.
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OBAMA was described in our US mainstream media as a second REAGAN-----indeed, soaring global banking 1% corporate fascism with OBAMA----the difference between a REAGAN AND OBAMA in being far-right wing is this:
REAGAN advanced global banking 1% HITLER/STALINIST fascism in America by taking hold of our sovereign military to be those FASCISTS overseas. So, REAGAN/BUSH/CLINTON had nothing on a HITLER in overseas continuous wars. While REAGAN started the SILENT COUP as MOVING FORWARD is called------he did not actually bring militant fascism INTO our nation.
OBAMA as phase two of REAGAN fascism-----is bringing MARTIAL LAW/CIVIL UNREST CIVIL WAR and making our US 99% WE THE PEOPLE the target of continuous wars.
So, these policies installed under the guise of HOMELAND SECURITY----NDAA----widely protested by both 99% right wing and left wing US citizens-----was the start of global banking 1% OLD WORLD KINGS AND QUEENS declaring war INSIDE America---and against US sovereign citizens.
Our US national media always headlines the LEAST damaging of talking points in bills being passed ----but these sets of policies if read for all that TRUTH hidden in the details opens the door for a far-right wing authoritarian HITLER FASCISM to suspend any US Constitutional rights or Federal 3 branches of government checks and balances. It basically creates the condition for an EXECUTIVE to be THAT DICTATOR.
REAGAN as global banking 1% corporate FASCIST used our US military and our American wealth to be that HITLER fascist war machine overseas----OBAMA as global banking 1% corporate fascist bringing what is now a global private military corporation as a war machine inside US.
Obama wins right to indefinitely detain Americans under NDAA
Published time: 18 Sep, 2012 15:55 Edited time: 18 Sep, 2012 20:48
A lone appeals judge bowed down to the Obama administration late Monday and reauthorized the White House’s ability to indefinitely detain American citizens without charge or due process.
Last week, a federal judge ruled that an temporary injunction on section 1021 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012 must be made permanent, essentially barring the White House from ever enforcing a clause in the NDAA that can let them put any US citizen behind bars indefinitely over mere allegations of terrorist associations. On Monday, the US Justice Department asked for an emergency stay on that order, and hours later US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit Judge Raymond Lohier agreed to intervene and place a hold on the injunction.
The stay will remain in effect until at least September 28, when a three-judge appeals court panel is expected to begin addressing the issue.
On December 31, 2011, US President Barack Obama signed the NDAA into law, even though he insisted on accompanying that authorization with a statement explaining his hesitance to essentially eliminate habeas corpus for the American people.
“The fact that I support this bill as a whole does not mean I agree with everything in it,” President Obama wrote. “In particular, I have signed this bill despite having serious reservations with certain provisions that regulate the detention, interrogation, and prosecution of suspected terrorists.”
A lawsuit against the administration was filed shortly thereafter on behalf of Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Chris Hedges and others, and Judge Forrest agreed with them in district court last week after months of debate. With the stay issued on Monday night, however, that justice’s decision has been destroyed.
With only Judge Lohier’s single ruling on Monday, the federal government has been once again granted the go ahead to imprison any person "who was part of or substantially supported al-Qaeda, the Taliban or associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners" until a poorly defined deadline described as merely “the end of the hostilities.” The ruling comes despite Judge Forrest's earlier decision that the NDAA fails to “pass constitutional muster” and that the legislation contained elements that had a "chilling impact on First Amendment rights”
Because alleged terrorists are so broadly defined as to include anyone with simple associations with enemy forces, some members of the press have feared that simply speaking with adversaries of the state can land them behind bars.
"First Amendment rights are guaranteed by the Constitution and cannot be legislated away," Judge Forrest wrote last week. "This Court rejects the Government's suggestion that American citizens can be placed in military detention indefinitely, for acts they could not predict might subject them to detention."
Bruce Afran, a co-counsel representing the plaintiffs in the case Hedges v Obama, said Monday that he suspects the White House has been relentless in this case because they are already employing the NDAA to imprison Americans, or plan to shortly.
“A Department of Homeland Security bulletin was issued Friday claiming that the riots [in the Middle East] are likely to come to the US and saying that DHS is looking for the Islamic leaders of these likely riots,” Afran told Hedges for a blogpost published this week. “It is my view that this is why the government wants to reopen the NDAA — so it has a tool to round up would-be Islamic protesters before they can launch any protest, violent or otherwise. Right now there are no legal tools to arrest would-be protesters. The NDAA would give the government such power. Since the request to vacate the injunction only comes about on the day of the riots, and following the DHS bulletin, it seems to me that the two are connected. The government wants to reopen the NDAA injunction so that they can use it to block protests.”
Within only hours of Afran’s statement being made public, demonstrators in New York City waged a day of protests in order to commemorate the one-year anniversary of the Occupy Wall Street movement. Although it is not believed that the NDAA was used to justify any arrests, more than 180 political protesters were detained by the NYPD over the course of the day’s actions. One week earlier, the results of a Freedom of Information Act request filed by the American Civil Liberties Union confirmed that the FBI has been monitoring Occupy protests in at least one instance, but the bureau would not give further details, citing that decision is "in the interest of national defense or foreign policy."
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The civil rights and anti-war protests of the 1960s somehow were carried off by millions of US citizens on both sides of politics with hardly ANY VIOLENCE. There were police in riot gear ----there were students yelling at police but these protests by ordinary citizens never included mention of MARXISTS ------physical and property violence. Today, that is all we have in our US media----MARXISTS AND FASCISTS MARXISTS AND FASCISTS. This was not heard in our 1960s civil unrest because Americans never thought in terms of FASCISM or MARXISM.
ACADEMIC MARXIST CONTROLLED TERRITORY.
This describing what our US universities controlled by far-right wing global banking 1% neo-liberalism.
T'he idea behind the “college tour was not to inspire pitched battles between our side and the Antifa,” Spencer said. The intent was to go “into the belly of the beast,” “academic Marxist-controlled territory” and introduce “alt-right” ideas to an intellectual debate, he said'.
What we are watching is the pretext of MARTIAL LAW inside US ------and the pretext that US 99% of WE THE PEOPLE are capable of violence and property damage when we PROTEST.
What did HITLER do after PRE-WEIMAR ROBBER BARON frauds sacking and looting 99% of German citizens and sending Germany into a GREAT DEPRESSION-----he passed EXECUTIVE MILITARISTIC policies abolishing Germany's Constitution and citizens' sovereign rights.
ANTIFA IS WINNING-----where the heck is ANTIFA----certainly not at ANY of the really far-right wing global banking 1% corporate fascist institutions.
‘Antifa is winning’: Richard Spencer rethinks his college tour after violent protests
By Susan Svrluga
March 12
Richard Spencer, the white nationalist who has been speaking on college campuses in recent months, said Sunday in a video posted on YouTube that he is rethinking his strategy for public events after violent protests led by Antifa and other opponents.
He said by phone Monday he will not stop going to college campuses, which he considers an important way to reach the public, but that he can no longer hold events publicized in advance because of the intense targeted opposition.
Opponents celebrated Spencer’s video as a win for their cause. Protesters have sought to shut down his events to keep him from academic platforms that might confer legitimacy to white nationalism.
At Michigan State University last week, anti-fascist protesters marched toward the venue where Spencer planned to speak, intent on keeping his supporters out. Fights quickly broke out, and people were shoved to the ground, punched and pelted with sticks and dirt. Some people wanting to attend Spencer’s speech were forced back. More than 20 people were arrested, most of them people protesting Spencer.
Spencer has been a lightning rod as he seeks to spread his National Policy Institute’s white-nationalist views to the public, while others fight to keep that ideology from a forum that might lend it credibility.
Spencer’s events have exacerbated the same raw tensions that have led to clashes between far-left and far-right extremists at other events across the country. After he led a torchlight march at the University of Virginia that ignited a weekend of violence between white supremacists and protesters in Charlottesville last August, many universities tried to keep Spencer from speaking on campus, citing safety concerns.
Police officers carried a protester with his hands handcuffed behind his back last week after he laid down in the street to block a police vehicle at an event where white nationalist Richard Spencer spoke. (Jake May/The Flint Journal-MLive.com/AP)Michigan State leaders reluctantly agreed to let Spencer speak after settling a lawsuit brought by one of his supporters.
In the YouTube video, Spencer said he was committed to keeping his views in the public forum but acknowledged that anti-fascist extremists, sometimes known as Antifa, had been successful in preventing people from getting to his events.
At the University of Florida, where the governor declared a state of emergency in the days before Spencer’s visit and the public university spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on security, protesters chanted and shouted down Spencer and other speakers, effectively drowning them out and shutting down the speech.
The idea behind the “college tour was not to inspire pitched battles between our side and the Antifa,” Spencer said. The intent was to go “into the belly of the beast,” “academic Marxist-controlled territory” and introduce “alt-right” ideas to an intellectual debate, he said. What happened at Michigan State was “a near riot” outside the venue, he said. “When they become violent clashes and pitched battles, they aren’t fun,” he said.
“Antifa is winning,” he said, because of its willingness to go to extreme measures to stop the events.
Stop Spencer at Michigan State University, which had rallied people to march and keep supporters out of the speech, welcomed Spencer’s video, sharing it on social media.
Richard Spencer admits defeat because of our organizing here in East Lansing!!!! Everyone that was part of the effort...
Pete Johnson, a former MSU graduate student who helped organize the protest, said he was encouraged by Spencer’s video, and that their protests had been successful. He said it was important for Stop Spencer at Michigan State University to disrupt the event to avoid giving Spencer’s cause a platform, any sense of legitimacy and an opportunity to build the movement. He said it was “community self-defense,” and said their efforts were successful in keeping people who might be curious away from the event.
It’s not just that Spencer’s ideas are despicable, Johnson said; it was important to prevent the spread of those ideas at a time when some people feel emboldened by the rise of white-supremacist thinking in the country.
Asked if the violence directed at Spencer supporters was appropriate, Johnson said, “The self-defense efforts were effective. In that sense, it was appropriate.”
Spencer said Monday he will find different methods to speak on campuses. “We can’t name the place and time if the police refuse to do their job with regard to Antifa,” he said.
The University of Michigan has agreed to allow Spencer to speak if an event can be held safely, but no potential dates are being considered before the summer break.
Rick Fitzgerald, a spokesman for the University of Michigan, said he and other officials at the school had seen Spencer’s video, “which still was a bit vague on next steps. We have no updates to report from U-M.”
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We discussed often during OBAMA terms these steady list of HOMELAND SECURITY policies attacking our US 99% WE THE PEOPLE civil liberties. These discussions in media only highlight some of the LEAST WORRYING of laws designed to give what we all KNEW was coming in MOVING FORWARD US FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES----a MADMAN as DICTATOR------all kinds of ways to install MARTIAL law-----to suspend civil liberties-----this article as others only highlight a very few of the issues tied to MOVING FORWARD far-right wing global corporate fascism ---AKA ---LIBERTARIAN MARXISM.
The goal of having global banking 5% freemason/Greek civil unrest civil war PLAYERS pretending to be fighting for JUSTICE of any kind-----is to set the stage on mainstream MEDIA---for crack-downs coming soon on any kind of civil protest-----any kind of freedom of speech -----any kind of organized gatherings.
It really is not hard to follow today's MOVING FORWARD in US to that during pre-Weimar Germany because it looks EXACTLY the same.
New Bipartisan Bill Could Give Any President the Power to Imprison U.S. Citizens in Military Detention Forever
Jon Schwarz
May 1 2018, 3:29 p.m.
One of the most outrageous acts of Barack Obama’s presidency was his failure to veto the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2012.
The fiscal year 2012 NDAA included provisions that appeared to both codify and expand a power the executive branch had previously claimed to possess — namely, the power to hold individuals, including U.S. citizens, in military detention indefinitely — based on the Authorization to Use Military Force passed by Congress three days after 9/11.
The New York Times warned that the bill could “give future presidents the authority to throw American citizens into prison for life without charges or a trial.” Not surprisingly, Obama’s decision generated enormous outcry across the political spectrum, from Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, on the right to Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., on the left.
However, the NDAA did provide some weak restraints on the executive branch’s ability to use this power. In theory, the NDAA’s provisions only apply to someone involved with the 9/11 attacks or who “substantially supported al-Qaeda, the Taliban, or associated forces.”
But now, incredibly enough, a bipartisan group of six lawmakers, led by Sens. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., and Tim Kaine, D-Va., is proposing a new AUMF that would greatly expand who the president can place in indefinite military detention, all in the name of restricting presidential power. If the Corker-Kaine bill becomes law as currently written, any president, including Donald Trump, could plausibly claim extraordinarily broad power to order the military to imprison any U.S. citizen, captured in America or not, and hold them without charges essentially forever.
Even opponents of the bill do not believe this is the goal of Corker, Kaine et al. “I think they’re acting in good faith,” says Elizabeth Goitein, co-director of the Liberty & National Security Program at the Brennan Center at New York University Law School. Kaine himself has explained that they authored the bill because “for too long, Congress has given presidents a blank check. We’ve let the 9/11 and Iraq War authorizations get stretched. … Our proposal finally repeals those authorizations and makes Congress do its job by weighing in on where, when, and with who we are at war.”
But thanks to a combination of sloppy drafting and clear reluctance to take the executive branch head-on, Corker and Kaine’s proposed AUMF could do the opposite, handing genuinely tyrannical powers over to the president. Christopher Anders of the ACLU characterizes the bill as “a legislative dumpster fire.”
“There’s such a desire to put Congress back in the game,” says Goitein. The perspective of the new AUMF’s authors, she believes, seems to be “we have to do something. This is something. Therefore, we have to do this.”
Understanding the terrible potential consequences of this bill requires a close look at the relevant history and law.
Can the president hold U.S. citizens apprehended far away from a battlefield without charges in the military detention system?
During peacetime, the answer is obvious: absolutely not. It would be one of the clearest violations of the Bill of Rights imaginable.
But this changes in wartime. The 2001 AUMF did not give explicitly give this power to the executive branch, but the George W. Bush administration claimed that this language from the resolution provided it implicitly:
The administration used this purported power after José Padilla, a U.S. citizen born in Brooklyn, was arrested at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport in May 2002 when returning from the Mideast. Bush designated Padilla as an “enemy combatant,” claimed he was “closely associated with Al Qaeda,” and had “engaged in conduct that constituted hostile and war-like acts.” On this basis, Bush placed him in a military prison without charges or a trial.
The Supreme Court never ruled on whether this was legitimate; the Bush administration moved Padilla to the civilian court system before it could do so. But prior to Padilla’s transfer, a three-judge panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit declared that the 2001 AUMF did, in fact, give the president “the power to detain identified and committed enemies such as Padilla.” At the time, Padilla’s lawyer said this could mean “that the president conceivably could sign a piece of paper when he has hearsay information that somebody has done something he doesn’t like and send them to jail — without a hearing [or] a trial.”
This was the state of play when the FY 2012 NDAA was being written. The executive branch had claimed that the 2001 AUMF gave it the right to indefinitely detain individuals, including U.S. citizens who had not been captured on a battlefield, and a court had concurred.
Significantly, however, Congress had not explicitly affirmed anything on this subject. That changed with the now-notorious Section 1021 of the NDAA:
So this provided a congressional codification of the executive branch’s power “to detain covered persons” under the 2001 AUMF. But it also expanded it, giving a legislative imprimatur to previous broad executive and judicial interpretations of the AUMF. The AUMF had spoken only to anyone involved in the 9/11 attacks, in language that the NDAA reproduced in paragraph (b)(1) above. But paragraph (b)(2) defines “covered persons” to also include “a person who was a part of or substantially supported al-Qaeda, the Taliban, or associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners, including any person who has committed a belligerent act or has directly supported such hostilities in aid of such enemy forces.”
The NDAA provision did not define “associated forces,” “a belligerent act,” or “direct support” — terms which, in the hands of an unscrupulous president, could mean anything, including criticizing the U.S. government.
It does, however, define the “disposition under the law of war” to which covered persons are subject. This can include detention by the military without trial until the 2001 AUMF is repealed, or even transfer to a foreign country:
Does this mean that the NDAA explicitly grants the president the power to detain any U.S. citizen forever? Not exactly. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., attempted to amend the NDAA so that it clarified that the above language did not apply to Americans, but was voted down. However, this paragraph was added to Section 1021:
But there is less here than meets the eye: Again, the executive branch had already successfully claimed that the 2001 AUMF alone gave it the authority to detain Padilla and by extension, other U.S. citizens. So while the NDAA did not affirm this, it also did not repudiate it. It simply appears not to address it — while expanding the universe of malefactors for which a U.S. citizen could be accused of performing “a belligerent act.”
With Padilla and others moved to the civilian court system, the purported presidential power to detain U.S. citizens had for years “flown under the radar because of decisions made during the late Bush administration and the Obama administration that this was more trouble than it’s worth,” according to Deborah Pearlstein, a professor of constitutional and international law at Cardozo Law School. But, she says, it remained “latent.”
This was made clear by Obama’s signing statement for the NDAA. In it, he declared that Section 1021 “does nothing more than confirm authorities that the Federal courts have recognized as lawful under the 2001 AUMF,” but “my Administration will not authorize the indefinite military detention without trial of American citizens.” In other words, the president can hold Americans indefinitely, but Obama himself was choosing not to.
On the other hand, supporters of the NDAA’s new provisions excitedly averred that they were new and did apply to U.S. citizens. Sen. Lindsay Graham, R-S.C., claimed that the bill would “basically say in law for the first time that the homeland is part of the battlefield,” and individuals could now be imprisoned by the military without charge, “American citizen or not.”
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REAL left social progressives have always encouraged our US 99% WE THE PEOPLE to read the entire BILL when US national media all come out with articles HEADLINING only a few sections----as we see here. We will find that this INDEFINITE DETENTION is the least of the problems with NDAA----and don't forget----these kinds of HOMELAND SECURITY policies are found in other LAWS not tied to NDAA.
'When you look at sections 1021 and 1022 of the National Defense Authorization Act objectively, they become scary in their potential. If the administration does try to use it to lock up American citizens without habeas corpus, the Supreme Court probably will void the incarceration and require a civilian trial. But in the normal course of events, vindicating one’s rights could take years.
Of course, in America, we traditionally don’t lock up citizens on mere suspicion. . . .
Or is that is now changing'?
Why are today's US citizens coming out in protest VIOLENTLY as we try to encourage our US 99% WE THE PEOPLE to come together PEACEFULLY in rolling protests? Our global banking 5% freeemason/Greek civil unrest PLAYERS black, white, and brown better think twice about taking ANY JOB.
No doubt lots of ALPHA DELTA SIGMA PHI PI KAPPA ZETA being made very tiny BETTA FISH out there in this land of FAKE CIVIL UNREST.
NDAA Sections 1021 and 1022: Scary Potential
By: Rob Natelson|Published on: Feb 6, 2012|Categories: Current Events, Featured, Founding Principles
Are the detainment provisions of the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act serious?
Yes they are.
This is a complicated area, and there has been a lot of word-fudging in spinning this subject. So bear with me as we take things step by step.
* The U.S. Constitution generally guarantees the “Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus.” The writ of habeas corpus is a court order a prisoner can obtain requiring the jailer to come into court and justify his detention of the prisoner. It is a traditional way in which those held can demand a fair trial by jury in a civilian court. The writ of habeas corpus is a treasured part of our traditional liberty. Belief that the British were infringing it was one cause of the American Revolution. (The writ is called a “privilege” rather than a “right” because it is a creation of the legal system rather than a natural right, like the right to free speech.)
* By the Constitution’s original meaning, the privilege of habeas corpus is guaranteed to all those in “allegiance” to the United States. “Allegiance” is an old technical legal term that includes both citizens and aliens legally in the country.
* By successfully convincing a judge to issue a writ of habeas corpus, citizens, foreign visitors, and legal residents may obtain a hearing that may induce the judge to order a civilian trial. It matters not how heinous the crimes they are accused of. For example, a person charged with trying to blow up a building on behalf of a foreign power can be charged with treason. But while still merely accused, he is entitled to all the protections of due process, including a fair, public trial before a jury of his peers.
* By the Constitution’s original meaning, habeas corpus does NOT apply if the Congress, as an incident to its war power, “suspends” the writ for a particular time and place. However, the Constitution says that Congress may “suspend” the writ only “when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it.” Congress has not suspended the writ, and it is doubtful that occasional acts of terrorism constitute a sufficient “rebellion or invasion” to justify doing so. Even if Congress could suspend the writ, a Bill of Suspension would be a serious, much-debated measure for which Congress would have to assume direct political accountability. Political accountability is not a big priority with Congress right now.
* Members of all belligerent armed forces (both sides) are subject to military, not civilian, law.
* Thus, by the law of war, the executive (and the military officers under him) may incarcerate for the duration of the conflict any enemy combatants captured in the theater of war.
* By the Constitution’s original meaning the executive has no constitutional power (without formal congressional suspension of the writ) to lock up citizens or lawful aliens apprehended outside the war theater. If accused of crime, the accused has the privilege of a jury trial in a civilian court. By the Constitution’s original meaning, this constitutional right does not apply to enemy aliens, wherever apprehended.
* In 2008, the U.S. Supreme Court (erroneously, in my view) held that alien Guantanamo detainees have the right to habeas corpus to determine if they are really enemy combatants. Still, under this case if they are found to be enemy combatants they can go back to prison indefinitely.
Now, with that background, let’s look at the critical language of the Act, again step by step:
§1021: (a) Congress affirms that the authority of the President to use all necessary and appropriate force pursuant to the Authorization for Use of Military Force . . . includes the authority for the Armed Forces of the United States to detain covered persons . . . pending disposition under the law of war.
Comment: The Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) is the resolution passed in the wake of 9/11 authorizing the President to fight terrorism. The National Defense Authorization Act is sometimes justified as mere clarification of the AUMF.
(b) . . A covered person under this section is any person as follows:
Comment: This provision includes people accused of certain terror-related crimes. Fine— but it does not exempt U.S. citizens or legal aliens with U.S. territory. Thus, far, it appears they can be “detain[ed] . . . pending disposition under the law of war.” But what does that mean?
c) . . The disposition of a person under the law of war . . may include the following:
(1) Detention under the law of war without trial until the end of the hostilities authorized by the Authorization for Use of Military Force. . .
Comment: This clarifies that the government may detain anyone so charged “without trial until the end of the hostilities.” Apologists for the law point out that it permits other dispositions “under the law of war,” including civilian trial. But the point is that the law does not require those other dispositions. The administration can simply decide to detain you “without trial until the end of hostilities.”
(d) . . . Nothing in this section is intended to limit or expand the authority of the President or the scope of the Authorization for Use of Military Force.
Comment: This is a basis for the argument that all Congress is really doing is clarifying the AUMF. But this is cold comfort, because the position of the Obama administration is that the AUMF always authorized rounding up citizen-suspects and holding them without trial!
(e) . . . Nothing in this section shall be construed to affect existing law or authorities relating to the detention of United States citizens, lawful resident aliens of the United States, or any other persons who are captured or arrested in the United States.
Comment: This provision is sometimes touted as protecting citizens because it preserves existing Supreme Court decisions. The problem is that, as yet, there are no Supreme Court decisions that squarely provide the full measure of habeas corpus protection to citizens or legal aliens accused within our borders. This is true because neither the Bush nor the Obama administration has had the audacity to round up U.S. citizens without our borders and hold them indefinitely without trial.
Here are the principal Supreme Court decisions the law preserves:
(1) A post-Civil War case (Ex Parte Milligan) saying a citizen non-combatant incarcerated outside the theater of war is entitled to habeas corpus. (This holding doesn’t help those accused of being combatants.)
(2) The World War II-era Quirin decision that permitted President Roosevelt to detain, try in a secret military hearing, and execute a U.S. citizen captured on U.S. territory and accused of being a German spy. Obviously, this decision—which is widely acknowledged to be egregious—offers no protection against the National Defense Authorization Act.
(3) The 2004 Hamdi case, which says that a U.S. citizen captured bearing arms in the war theater is NOT entitled to habeas corpus. He is entitled only to a minimal military hearing without a jury and without many of the traditional due process protections.. (Some apologists for the National Defense Authorization Act are claiming the Hamdi case granted a right of habeas corpus; this claim is flatly wrong.)
(4) The 2008 Boumedienne decision, which held that alien Guantanamo detainees are entitled to habeas corpus and a civilian hearing to show that they were non-combatants.
Obviously, none of these prior holdings addresses the habeas corpus rights of a U.S. citizen or legal alien apprehended within the U.S. and charged with being an enemy combatant. So there is no Supreme Court case providing the necessary protection preserved by the law’s provision that “existing law or authorities” are preserved.
§ 1022: (b) (1) . . . The requirement to detain a person in military custody under this section does not extend to citizens of the United States.
(2) . . . The requirement to detain a person in military custody under this section does not extend to a lawful resident alien of the United States on the basis of conduct taking place within the United States, except to the extent permitted by the Constitution of the United States.
When you look at sections 1021 and 1022 of the National Defense Authorization Act objectively, they become scary in their potential. If the administration does try to use it to lock up American citizens without habeas corpus, the Supreme Court probably will void the incarceration and require a civilian trial. But in the normal course of events, vindicating one’s rights could take years.
Of course, in America, we traditionally don’t lock up citizens on mere suspicion. . . .
Or is that is now changing?
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The mistake any of our US 99% WE THE PEOPLE and those dastardly global banking 5% freemason/Greek players/pols would make in today's MOVING FORWARD inside US FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES installing a MORPHING from CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA far-right wing global banking 1% neo-liberalism/neo-conservatism -----to far-right wing authoritarian, militaristic, extreme wealth extreme poverty LIBERTARIAN MARXISM-----is this:
Last century's wars and fascist dictatorships ended with a rebuilding of our WESTERN social progressive capitalist civil society. People in US and Europe went back to being citizens in a Western I AM MAN AGE OF ENLIGHTENMENT democracy.
That is NOT happening in MOVING FORWARD ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE----FINAL SOLUTION. Global banking 1% OLD WORLD KINGS AND QUEENS KNIGHTS OF MALTA TRIBE OF JUDAH are installing a permanent DEEP DEEP REALLY DEEP STATE-----that will make STALIN/HITLER/MAO green with envy.
Please STAND UP and be US CITIZENS------come together as a 99% vs global 1%.
We need all those wicked witch winged monkey civil unrest players to WAKE UP NOW------please stop BEING PLAYED.
Was there a constitution in Nazi Germany?
Graeme Shimmin, Amateur military historian.
In theory.
All legal and constitutional - theoretically.
The Constitution of the German Reich technically remained in effect throughout the Nazi era from 1933 to 1945.
However, in an artificially-created atmosphere of terror about a ‘Communist revolution’ following the Reichstag fire, the Nazis forced through the Enabling Act of 1933 which gave ‘the government’ (1) plenary powers – complete and absolute authority with no limitations – for four years, renewable for further four year terms by the legislature (Reichstag).
Within months of passing the Enabling Act, all the political parties except the Nazis were eliminated and eventually ‘the government’ decreed that the Nazi Party was the only legal party.
Three Reichstag elections were held during the Nazi era. However, as the only legal party was the Nazis, the only candidates were Nazis (with a few Nazi-approved ‘independents’).
So, of course, with a Reichstag consisting entirely of Nazis, ‘the government’s’ plenary powers were extended twice, in 1937 and 1941.
In practice, this meant that Hitler ruled Germany by decree and his power to do so would have been extended indefinitely if the Allies hadn't intervened.
So, a warning from history - constitutions can become meaningless very quickly.
In practice, ‘the government’ meant Hitler, cabinet meetings became rarer and rarer until it ceased meeting entirely in 1938.