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POLICE STATE: Can't happen in America, right?
No this can't happen in America, right? Rhetorical question. -Michael
Military Police asked in the TimeBomb 2000 (Y2000) Q&A Forum
In the March 1999 issue of
Soldier of Fortune, there's an excellent overview of the merging and
blurring of function between military and police in the US, which will
apparently lead inexorably to a police state. Perhaps not news to this
NG's regular readers, but worth perusing for discussion. Many of the
developments noted are precise fulfillment's of Jacques Ellul's
prophecies of about future technology state, from the 1950's. Some
quotes below the line.
-RC
The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) admits that it is no longer capable of protecting Americans from incoming nuclear missiles. Yet NORAD enjoys hundreds of millions of dollars in annual funding, as part of a $1.8 billion systems upgrade, having convinced congress to assign NORAD the mission of tracking planes and ships that might be carrying drugs.
In 1986, the nation had 3,000 deployments of paramilitary police units. In 1996, it rose to 30,000.
The [black] helicopters, writes
[Prof. David] Kopel, "are part of the National Guard's marijuana
eradication program. They are flying over rural property as a result of
1981 and 1989 congressional amendments which created a partial drug
exception to the Posse Commitatus Act."
These days it's not just the radical
fringe types who warn of a police state. Rather it is quickly becoming
a mainstream concern.
"Once the military is used for local
police activity, however minor initially, the march toward martial law
with centralized police using military troops as an adjunct force
becomes irresistible." said Rep. Ron Paul R-Texas, addressing the
United States Congress.
The reign of Hitler began with a
mixing of police and military roles. "Modern societies are
characterized by a rather neat separation between police and military
forces; each maintaining very different principles of recruitment,
training and organizational functioning and operating under completely
different frameworks of legal rules and political supervision," writes
Prof. Hans Geser, of the University of Zurich's Institute of Sociology,
in a study of United Nations international policing.
"Law enforcement must serve persons
who are guaranteed presumptions of innocence and right not appropriate
when dealing with an enemy during times of war," Kopel writes. "Our
citizens are not supposed to perceive themselves as subjects of an
occupying force."
"A series of drug war amendments to
Posse Commitatus during the 1980s under Presidents Reagan and Bush, has
changed that and placed Marines on patrol at home," says Kevin B.
Zeese, president of Common Sense for Drug Policy, explaining why
Marines who shot Zeke Hernandez were patrolling the Texas/Mexico border
in the first place. Unlike a cop, the Marine's career isn't founded on
two fundamental rights: assumption of innocence and Miranda rights.
"Our soldiers are not trained to make arrests, Mirandize and bring to
justice. They are trained to kill," says Mr. Zeese.
Defense Secretary William Cohen went
so far as to suggest border states sign agreements to provide immunity
to local criminal laws, similar to the "status of forces agreements"
the department has with foreign governments.
With constant advancements in
technology, however, police are becoming more capable of finding crimes
- and therefore articulable suspicion – that would otherwise go
undetected. Random enforcement is becoming a thing of the past. Today's
police are like small armies that target groups in the name of social
reform. Now and in the future, you'll have to watch out who your
friends are. You can be targeted for who you associate with."
"There's an unsettling trend among
police to view demonstrations as crime scenes," says Blewitt. "Police
are beginning to view crowds of demonstrators as enemies of the state,
to be controlled, rather than groups of people exercising their
constitutional right the police should be working to uphold."
"It's all being done out in the
open, and many people don't see it as frightening," says defense lawyer
Blewitt. "That's because Americans have been conditioned to think it
will affect only criminals. They've been convinced society if being
destroyed by crime - even though violent crime has steadily decreased
in recent years - and these military style police are our only hope.
What they should worry about is an emerging police state that threatens
the very fabric of free society."
-- Runway Cat Runway_Cat@hotmail.com,
January 24, 1999
Answers
We became an official police state
last year with the passage of Janet Renos' wish list of extended
powers. These powers were tacked onto existing legislation completely
bypassing Congress. Under this expanded powers act any phone ascribed
to a suspect can be tapped without a warrant or court order. Justice
dept. Alphabet agents now can get blanket search warrants without a
specific address or search target, (i.e. drugs, guns, etc.)
Confiscation of assets was expanded to include a multitude of crimes
and is no longer dependent on conviction. You can be charged with a
crime, with absolutely no proof you committed one, and they can take
everything you own. Court proceedings to recover your property will
take years and cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. You cannot sue
the government to recover court cost.
Now let's revisit that original
power of wiretaps. Under this policy a government agency can move an
undercover agent into a neighboring home or apartment. Using his
clandestine cover as an enemy of the state they can then tap every
phone surrounding his location including private residences without a
court order or any evidence whatsoever that the owners of the phones
are criminals. If one of the tapped lines belongs to a targeted person
you now introduce an agent provocateur to either implicate the person
in a crime or plant false evidence in his residence. The courts have
also ruled that videotaping a person without their knowledge or consent
is not a crime as long as there is no audio on the tape. Using a
blanket search warrant they can enter your home while you are at work
and install hidden surveillance cameras. These cameras can be placed in
your bathroom, bedroom, anywhere they want them. Now if they have gone
to this much trouble do you seriously believe they will not have a
microphone installed separately? As long as it isn't an integral part
of the camera this also would be legal.
Now this week Clinton proposes a
completely new branch of the military to police the civilian
population. We're not talking happy face national guard troops here,
this is nothing more than an attempt to establish his own personal SS
unit whose sole duty will be to smash any group that dares stand up to
the nazification of America.
-- Nikoli Krushev doomsday@y2000.com, January 25,
1999.
Have a look at Gerry Spence's book, From
Freedom to Slavery : The
Rebirth of Tyranny in America.
Published 1996, ISBN: 0312143427
-- Tom Carey tomcarey@mindspring.com,
January 25, 1999.
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