The War Against Terror comes home and goes after the Cowboys!

Repost from Gregory Krasovsky (https://www.facebook.com/gkrasovsky):

The other day, a FB friend made the following comments on the current Ammon Bundy armed stand-off in Oregon:

"Call me crazy, but perhaps the use of drone strikes against armed terrorists should begin at home."

This struck my "card-carrying member of the ACLU" nerve and I responded as follows:

[Friend] I've known you a long time. To be honest, I'm disappointed and a little frightened with your comments -- "perhaps the use of drone strikes against armed terrorists should begin at home" -- for several reasons:

1. Drone strikes have killed thousands of innocent women and children around the world.

2. Drone strikes are state-ordered executions of merely suspects (people who are innocent until proven guilty) without constitutional due process, including a trial by a jury of their peers.

3. Bundy and his followers may be naive and foolish, but they haven't killed, hurt or taken hostage any people. Moreover, they haven't struck any vital civilian infrastructure (e.g. power stations, transportation hubs) that could cause damage to people, the economy or real national security.

4. Labeling domestic protesters -- when they're armed to protect themselves against federal law enforcement (last year over 1100 people were killed by police in the U.S.) -- as terrorists supports the philosophy and propaganda of many totalitarian regimes around the world who conveniently label armed opposition as terrorists to kill or incarcerate them without due process.

5. The following confrontations between activists who challenged state and/or federal laws and law enforcement have shown that your approach of "let's bomb these nuts" leads to deaths not only of the participants on both sides but also of innocent people, including women and children

The Pine Ridge Shootout 1975
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pine_Ridge_Indian_Reservation

MOVE Sieges of 1978 and 1985
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOVE

Ruby Ridge siege 1992
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruby_Ridge

Waco siege 1993
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waco_siege

6. When anti-terrorist legislation was enacted after the 9/11/2001 attacks, a number of law enforcement professionals, political scientists, attorneys, politicians and human rights activists expressed concern that the ulterior motive behind such laws was not to prevent future attacks by Al Qaeda but to grant our government additional (and unconstitutional) powers to combat future domestic dissenters, protesters and activists, who would be conveniently labeled as terrorists and treated as their Al Qaeda or ISIS counterparts, regardless of their American citizenship and actions on domestic soil.

Experts were also concerned with main-stream corporate media and government propaganda that was being used to prepare the U.S. population to accept such treatment of domestic "terrorists"

Now, I'm seeing a fellow Columbia University graduate (both College and Law School!) repeat this stuff!

7. As a former police officer and an attorney, I don't condone attacks on law enforcement and don't feel sorry for people who do so without the only mitigating factor possible -- self-defense against police brutality and unjustified use of deadly force by law enforcement.

But I cannot justify either as an attorney or a law enforcement supporter the unjustified and often disproportionate use of deadly force by any government agency (federal, state or local) against protesters or activists, especially when such abuse of police powers clearly violates our constitutional rights.

8. With all that in mind, please re-consider your statement -- after you read the linked article on the greater issue of federal land use rights that has gotten farmers like Bundy and Hammonds all worked up to the point of armed civil disobedience -- as statements like yours could lead our country down the slippery slope toward a police state or a totalitarian one.

********

The War Against the Cowboys

The Oregon stand off and US imperialism

by Justin Raimondo, January 04, 2016

http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2016/01/03/the-war-against-the-cowboys/

"The Hammond case has become a cause celebre West of the Mississippi, where federal control of huge swathes of real estate has become a life and death issue for ranchers and others who make their living off the land. As the feds encroach on their livelihood, they are pushing back, and nothing illustrates this better than the Hammond case.

In 2001, the Hammonds started a controlled burn on their own land to eliminate invasive junipers from ruining grazing for cattle: the fire spread to neighboring federal lands. As the Tri-State Livestock News reports:

“The first fire, in 2001, was a planned burn on Hammonds’ own property to reduce juniper trees that have become invasive in that part of the country. That fire burned outside the Hammonds’ private property line and took in 138 acres of unfenced BLM land before the Hammonds got it put out. No BLM firefighters were needed to help extinguish the fire and no fences were damaged.

“’They called and got permission to light the fire,’ Dwight’s wife, Susan, said, adding that was customary for ranchers conducting range management burns – a common practice in the area.

“’We usually called the interagency fire outfit – a main dispatch – to be sure someone wasn’t in the way or that weather wouldn’t be a problem.’ Susan said her son Steven was told that the BLM was conducting a burn of their own somewhere in the region the same day, and that they believed there would be no problem with the Hammonds going ahead with their planned fire. The court transcript includes a recording from that phone conversation.”

There was a second fire in 2006, started by Steven Hammond to counteract the lightning fires that threatened to envelope their land and their home. The Bureau of Land Management says that a single acre of federal land was affected by the fire –  and they pressed charges, even though lightning fires were raging all over the area and there was no way to determine which fires were burning what land.

The Hammonds were originally charged under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 with nine counts – including starting several other fires — but the jury saw otherwise and acquitted them of all but two counts: starting the fires they admitted to in the first place. The judge sentenced them to less than the federal mandatory, stating that what the government was asking – five years – was “disproportionate” and if imposed would’ve “shocked my conscience.”

The government wasn’t satisfied with that, and they appealed the decision. Judge Ann Aiken – the same judge who ruled that the prison system has a right to keep its safety standards confidential, even though a prisoner had died under dicey circumstances – agreed with the Justice Department, and the Hammonds must now serve full five-year sentences, minus time already served. They have agreed to turn themselves in, in spite of the protests on their behalf."

Court Ruling Builds a Barrier Against Challenges to NSA Spying on Americans?

Court Ruling Builds a Barrier Against Challenges to NSA Spying on Americans?
  
Here are Greg Krasovsky's thoughts on this article and its implications:

Should Americans be surprised that U.S. Federal judges -- who are pro-establishment figures that were appointed by the U.S. President for life after being nominated by either the Democratic or Republican parties -- are protecting the U.S. Federal government's unconstitutional spying on U.S. citizens?

If the current political establishment has decided and petitioned (ordered) its representatives in the executive, legislative and judicial branches to have the U.S. Government conduct wide-scale surveillance on Americans (in violation of the U.S. Constitution), then why would U.S. citizens expect federal judges (who represent the same establishment and pursue its agenda within their jurisdiction) to go against the system and protect ordinary citizens from unlawful government surveillance?   
  
As they say, the worst type of tyranny and corruption is the type that's fully "legal", bears the seal of government approval and is protected by the state as lawful activity. 

In this case, the Federal Court System has once more created a hurdle that's almost impossible to overcome for plaintiffs -- individuals whose basic and fundamental constitutional rights have been violated -- a demand that the plaintiff must show proof (legally obtained, of course -- i.e. not from Ed Snowden or other whistle-blowers) of unlawful government surveillance before he can have standing to sue the government in order to protect his rights, stop the unconstitutional surveillance and seek compensation.
  
So if Americans can't rely on the U.S. Federal judiciary to protect their constitutional rights, then where can they seek protection? From the President? From Congress? Does that seem likely if both the executive and the legislative branch are populated and controlled by the same establishment representatives that instituted and supported such illegal surveillance?
  
Basically, as long as Americans continue to elect the same establishment candidates to Congress and the White House -- candidates from the Democratic and Republican parties -- the system will continue to further and protect the interests of the establishment (the less that 1% of the U.S. population and the financial-industrial groups that they work for, own and represent). 

So despite the shocking revelations made by Ed Snowden, the system will continue to do what's necessary to protect its interests on the mass surveillance front through

- Executive Orders (public and secret) issued by an establishment president,
- Laws passed by a Congress controlled by establishment parties and politicians, and
- Federal court decisions written by judges nominated by establishment senators & parties and appointed for life by an establishment President.

In a nutshell, the Judiciary branch of the U.S. government is supposed to be able to police the executive and legislative branches by making sure that executive and legislative action is in full accordance with the supreme law of the land -- the U.S. Constitution.

But if the Judiciary Branch is not elected by the people, but appointed by the Executive Branch, then we don't really have an independent judiciary, especially since federal judges are nominated by (and loyal to!) the same establishment political parties that control the Executive and Legislative branches.

As past State Supreme Court elections have shown (especially in West Virginia), having an elected judiciary isn't a panacea -- elected judges tend to prove their loyalty to those who funded their election campaigns -- money spent mostly on mass election campaign advertising in corporate establishment media to convince the electorate that the establishment candidate will protect the average voter (instead of his establishment paymasters and sponsors). 

With all that in mind, if Americans want to see any meaningful change in government policy, including any stoppage in the erosion of their constitutional rights, then we must

1. Stop voting for establishment candidates in municipal, state and federal elections,

2. Reject and stop the duopoly (stranglehold) of the two establishment parties -- Democratic and Republican -- in the American political system and elections in
   -- all three branches of government (executive, legislative and judicial) 
   -- on all three levels (municipal, state and federal);

3. Stop the Justice Department's control by the Executive Branch by having the U.S. Attorney General elected by the people;

4. Have the Federal judiciary be directly elected by the people, including members of the U.S. Supreme Courts, instead of being staffed by and loyal to the President and the nominating actors (political parties and senators).

5. Stop the control of political campaigns by big business -- through PACs and etc. -- by limiting campaign financing (including of political advertising) to individuals with reasonable limits (such as $5,000.00 per individual contributor).
    
So if we want meaningful change in our state capitals and Washington, then we need to start implementing the above simple and straight-forward five point plan that we can count on the fingers of one hand. 

And since the media is often called the 4th branch of government (the fourth estate?), then we need to make sure that corporate establishment media holding companies do not control over 90% of our mass media resources and brainwash our population into supporting the establishment candidates, politicians and status quo.

Sound good?

If not, then let's keep on doing what we've always done and we'll get what we've always gotten, especially recently -- more erosion of our constitutional rights and more government policy that benefits the top 1% -- the Establishment -- at the expense of the rest of America and, thanks to globalization, at the expense of rest of the world. 

In this case, even ten more Ed Snowdens won't help us.
   
**************
  
"Back in December of 2013, critics of massive government surveillance appeared to have won a victory in challenging the system in a case called Klayman v. Obama. U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon of the District of Columbia stated that the National Security Agency’s bulk collection of metadata from telephones, a clandestine program exposed by Edward Snowden, was probably a violation of the Fourth Amendment."

"However, at the end of August, an appeals court in the D.C. Circuit decided that the plaintiffs did not have adequate evidence that their data had been collected and never should have been allowed to pursue the case. Essentially, that court didn’t state that the NSA program was legal, but it suggested this case shouldn’t challenge the program’s legality."

“I’m not aware of any other situation in law where you have to have the defendant admit what they did before you can even go to court,” Cindy Cohn, executive director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told Truthdig. 

   “It would be as if the police couldn’t arrest somebody unless they admitted they committed the crime first.” Cohn and Vladeck both said that the U.S. Supreme Court has previously stated plaintiffs don’t have this kind of burden of proof to establish a court case and that it seems to be a practice reserved for secret spying programs.

“Given what the government has said about the scope of its program, there is certainly circumstantial evidence that exists,” Cohn said. 

    “Many people are rotting in jail right now based on circumstantial evidence, and they never admitted their crime. It’s a double standard [being set up] in these cases.”

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/court_ruling_builds_a_barrier_against_challenges_to_nsa_spying_on_americans