Top 10 Signs of the Impending U.S. Police State

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" Stevo " <blue_meanie_9

Sun, 28 May 2006 14:01:12 -0700 (PDT)

Top 10 Signs of the Impending U.S. Police State

 

 

 

 

 

Top 10 Signs of the Impending U.S. Police State

By Allan Uthman, Buffalo Beast. Posted May 26, 2006.

 

From secret detention centers to warrantless wiretapping, Bush and Co.

give free rein to their totalitarian impulses.

Is the U.S.. becoming a police state? Here are the top 10 signs that

it may well be the case.

 

1. The Internet Clampdown

 

One saving grace of alternative media in this age of unfettered

corporate conglomeration has been the internet. While the masses are

spoon-fed predigested news on TV and in mainstream print publications,

the truth-seeking individual still has access to a broad array of

investigative reporting and political opinion via the world-wide web.

Of course, it was only a matter of time before the government moved to

patch up this crack in the sky.

 

Attempts to regulate and filter internet content are intensifying

lately, coming both from telecommunications corporations (who are

gearing up to pass legislation transferring ownership and regulation

of the internet to themselves), and the Pentagon (which issued an

" Information Operations Roadmap " in 2003, signed by Donald Rumsfeld,

which outlines tactics such as network attacks and acknowledges,

without suggesting a remedy, that US propaganda planted in other

countries has easily found its way to Americans via the internet). One

obvious tactic clearing the way for stifling regulation of internet

content is the growing media frenzy over child pornography and

" internet predators, " which will surely lead to legislation that by

far exceeds in its purview what is needed to fight such threats.

 

2. " The Long War "

 

This little piece of clumsy marketing died off quickly, but it gave

away what many already suspected: the War on Terror will never end,

nor is it meant to end. It is designed to be perpetual. As with the

War on Drugs, it outlines a goal that can never be fully attained --

as long as there are pissed off people and explosives. The Long War

will eternally justify what are ostensibly temporary measures:

suspension of civil liberties, military expansion, domestic spying,

massive deficit spending and the like. This short-lived moniker told

us all, " get used to it. Things aren't going to change any time soon. "

 

3. The USA PATRIOT Act

 

Did anyone really think this was going to be temporary? Yes, this

disgusting power grab gives the government the right to sneak into

your house, look through all your stuff and not tell you about it for

weeks on a rubber stamp warrant. Yes, they can look at your medical

records and library selections. Yes, they can pass along any

information they find without probable cause for purposes of

prosecution. No, they're not going to take it back, ever.

 

4. Prison Camps

 

This last January the Army Corps of Engineers gave Halliburton

subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root nearly $400 million to build detention

centers in the United States, for the purpose of unspecified " new

programs. " Of course, the obvious first guess would be that these new

programs might involve rounding up Muslims or political dissenters --

I mean, obviously detention facilities are there to hold somebody. I

wish I had more to tell you about this, but it's, you know... secret.

 

5. Touchscreen Voting Machines

 

Despite clear, copious evidence that these nefarious contraptions are

built to be tampered with, they continue to spread and dominate the

voting landscape, thanks to Bush's " Help America Vote Act, " the

exploitation of corrupt elections officials, and the general public's

enduring cluelessness.

 

In Utah, Emery County Elections Director Bruce Funk witnessed security

testing by an outside firm on Diebold voting machines which showed

them to be a security risk. But his warnings fell on deaf ears.

Instead Diebold attorneys were flown to Emery County on the governor's

airplane to squelch the story. Funk was fired. In Florida, Leon County

Supervisor of Elections Ion Sancho discovered an alarming security

flaw in their Diebold system at the end of last year. Rather than fix

the flaw, Diebold refused to fulfill its contract. Both of the other

two touchscreen voting machine vendors, Sequoia and ES & S, now refuse

to do business with Sancho, who is required by HAVA to implement a

touchscreen system and will be sued by his own state if he doesn't.

Diebold is said to be pressuring for Sancho's ouster before it will

resume servicing the county.

 

Stories like these and much worse abound, and yet TV news outlets have

done less coverage of the new era of elections fraud than even 9/11

conspiracy theories. This is possibly the most important story of this

century, but nobody seems to give a damn. As long as this issue is

ignored, real American democracy will remain an illusion. The midterm

elections will be an interesting test of the public's continuing

gullibility about voting integrity, especially if the Democrats don't

win substantial gains, as they almost surely will if everything is kosher.

 

Bush just suggested that his brother Jeb would make a good president.

We really need to fix this problem soon.

 

6. Signing Statements

 

Bush has famously never vetoed a bill. This is because he prefers to

simply nullify laws he doesn't like with " signing statements. " Bush

has issued over 700 such statements, twice as many as all previous

presidents combined. A few examples of recently passed laws and their

corresponding dismissals, courtesy of the Boston Globe:

 

--Dec. 30, 2005: US interrogators cannot torture prisoners or

otherwise subject them to cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment.

 

Bush's signing statement: The president, as commander in chief,

can waive the torture ban if he decides that harsh interrogation

techniques will assist in preventing terrorist attacks.

 

--Dec. 30, 2005: When requested, scientific information ''prepared

by government researchers and scientists shall be transmitted [to

Congress] uncensored and without delay. "

 

Bush's signing statement: The president can tell researchers to

withhold any information from Congress if he decides its disclosure

could impair foreign relations, national security, or the workings of

the executive branch.

 

--Dec. 23, 2004: Forbids US troops in Colombia from participating

in any combat against rebels, except in cases of self-defense. Caps

the number of US troops allowed in Colombia at 800.

 

Bush's signing statement: Only the president, as commander in

chief, can place restrictions on the use of US armed forces, so the

executive branch will construe the law ''as advisory in nature. "

 

Essentially, this administration is bypassing the judiciary and

deciding for itself whether laws are constitutional or not. Somehow, I

don't see the new Supreme Court lineup having much of a problem with

that, though. So no matter what laws congress passes, Bush will simply

choose to ignore the ones he doesn't care for. It's much quieter than

a veto, and can't be overridden by a two-thirds majority. It's also

totally absurd.

 

7. Warrantless Wiretapping

 

Amazingly, the GOP sees this issue as a plus for them. How can this

be? What are you, stupid? You find out the government is listening to

the phone calls of US citizens, without even the weakest of judicial

oversight and you think that's okay? Come on -- if you know anything

about history, you know that no government can be trusted to handle

something like this responsibly. One day they're listening for Osama,

and the next they're listening in on Howard Dean.

 

Think about it: this administration hates unauthorized leaks. With no

judicial oversight, why on earth wouldn't they eavesdrop on, say,

Seymour Hersh, to figure out who's spilling the beans? It's a

no-brainer. Speaking of which, it bears repeating: terrorists already

knew we would try to spy on them. They don't care if we have a warrant

or not. But you should.

 

8. Free Speech Zones

 

I know it's old news, but... come on, are they fucking serious?

 

9. High-ranking Whistleblowers

 

Army Generals. Top-level CIA officials. NSA operatives. White House

cabinet members. These are the kind of people that Republicans

fantasize about being, and whose judgment they usually respect. But

for some reason, when these people resign in protest and criticize the

Bush administration en masse, they are cast as traitorous,

anti-American publicity hounds. Ridiculous. The fact is, when people

who kill, spy and deceive for a living tell you that the White House

has gone too far, you had damn well better pay attention. We all know

most of these people are staunch Republicans. If the entire military

except for the two guys the Pentagon put in front of the press wants

Rumsfeld out, why on earth wouldn't you listen?

 

10. The CIA Shakeup

 

Was Porter Goss fired because he was resisting the efforts of Rumsfeld

or Negroponte? No. These appointments all come from the same guys, and

they wouldn't be nominated if they weren't on board all the way. Goss

was probably canned so abruptly due to a scandal involving a crooked

defense contractor, his hand-picked third-in-command, the Watergate

hotel and some hookers.

 

If Bush's nominee for CIA chief, Air Force General Michael Hayden, is

confirmed, that will put every spy program in Washington under

military control. Hayden, who oversaw the NSA warrantless wiretapping

program and is clearly down with the program. That program? To weaken

and dismantle or at least neuter the CIA. Despite its best efforts to

blame the CIA for " intelligence errors " leading to the Iraq war, the

picture has clearly emerged -- through extensive CIA leaks -- that the

White House's analysis of Saddam's destructive capacity was not shared

by the Agency. This has proved to be a real pain in the ass for Bush

and the gang.

 

Who'd have thought that career spooks would have moral qualms about

deceiving the American people? And what is a president to do about it?

Simple: make the critical agents leave, and fill their slots with

Bush/Cheney loyalists. Then again, why not simply replace the entire

organization? That is essentially what both Rumsfeld at the DoD and

newly minted Director of National Intelligence John are doing -- they

want to move intelligence analysis into the hands of people that they

can control, so the next time they lie about an " imminent threat "

nobody's going to tell. And the press is applauding the move as a

" necessary reform. "

 

Remember the good old days, when the CIA were the bad guys?

 

http://www.alternet.org/story/36553/