No Liberty or Security Ten Years After 9/11

September 16, 2011

But there is plenty of paranoia! – Brian @ NCT

by Robert Taylor   source: SF Examiner   Sep 16, 2011

As the tenth anniversary of 9/11 approaches, many Americans have  unfortunately had a casual disregard for infringements on our civil  liberties that have occured since that fateful day.

The most glaring examples of government abuses include the TSA, warrantless wiretaps and searches, and  the violations  of financial and personal privacy by the PATRIOT Act.

But there are also smaller and creeping threats to civil liberties that have  not surfaced, but threaten to radically change basic constitutional protections  in America. The Department of Justice recently arrested and indicted Jubair Ahmad, a  24-year-old Pakistani legal resident living in Virginia, for the dangerously  vague crime of “providing material support” to a designated terrorist  organization. Ahmad uploaded a YouTube video showing Abu Ghraib photos, U.S.  Iraqi war footage, and Islamic prayers. For this, he faces more than twenty  years in prison.

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Posted by Brian

Paul McCartney Regrets Hawkish Reaction To 9/11 Song Written for 9/11 First Responders

May 28, 2010

Too little too late?

Paul, maybe you should write a new song that makes it implicitly clear:

“No war. More freedom. 9/11 was a SHAM – We will lose our rights, We are losing life . Now is the time – let’s make a stand. C’mon everybody join your hands.”

Anything along those lines would be just fine for me. Cheers.

source: Philadelphia 102.9 MGK   May 28, 2010

Paul McCartney regrets that his 2001 song “Freedom,” which was debuted in the wake of 9/11 at The Concert For New York City, went on to inspire the more hawkish members of his audience. The song, which McCartney went on to play at the 2002 Super Bowl pre-game show, as well as the world tour that followed it, was soon retired from his setlists as the Iraq War escalated.

McCartney regrets that the song’s ultimate meaning was lost in the rush to war, with the message resonating with an urge for revenge — rather than justice, telling The Telegraph, “I think it got hijacked a bit, and (turned into something) a bit militaristic. Mine was in the spirit of ‘We Shall Overcome’; you know, ‘fight for your rights,’ in the Civil Rights sense, (it) doesn’t mean ‘Go out and hit people.’ It was a pity: it kind of stopped me doing it, actually.”

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Posted by Brian

The Impact of 9/11 and the New Legal Landscape

April 24, 2010

I found this the other day browsing around but unfortunately I cannot open or download the file. I am hoping someone out there has an account with this group Palgrave Connect. All the chapter contents seem to be very interesting. I somehow get the feeling the issue will say basically that the means will justify the end. See comments below.

source: Palgrave Connect  April 24, 2010

The Day that Changed Everything?

The Impact of 9-11: The New Legal Landscape is the third volume of the six-volume series The Day that Changed Everything? edited by Matthew J. Morgan.  The series brings together from a broad spectrum of disciplines the leading thinkers of our time to reflect on one of the most significant events of our time.  With a foreword by the former Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Senator Bob Graham, the volume’s contributors include Alan Dershowitz, Aziz Huq, William Weaver, and other leading scholars.

List of Contents:

Acknowledgments * About the Contributors * Foreword – Bob Graham * Introduction – Matthew J. Morgan *  The Preventative State: Uncharted Waters after 9/11 – Alan M. Dershowitz * Section I: The Impact on American Civil Liberties *  The Logic of Suspending Civil Liberties – Dewi Williams *  The Use of “Speech Zones” to Control Public Discourse in 21st Century America - Paul Haridakis and Amber Ferris *  Challenges to Academic Freedom since 9/11 - Peter N. Kirstein *  The Right to Bear Arms and Gun Control after 9/11 - David B. Kopel, Paul Gallant, and Joanne Eisen *  National Security Letters and Diminishing Privacy Rights – Christopher P. Banks *

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2 Comments | 9/11, Censorship, civil liberties/ human rights, War of Terror | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Brian

Judge Orders Freedom for Alleged 9/11 Plotter Tortured on Rumsfeld’s Orders

March 23, 2010

Bullshit. I want to “call” out all their cards. I want to see who is locked up, where they are locked up, and for how long. How much of this is real, and how much of it comes from the mouths of senior intelligence officials declining to be named, spouting talking points to a severly mono-controlled media? KSM for example was declared dead in 2002, apparently even the FBI was there. Yet we hear about KSM in Guantanamo for the last 6 years, being tortured numerous times daily. To what extent is psychological warfare waged, and on whom? –  NorCalTruth

by Stephen Webster  source: Raw Story  March 23, 2010

A (alledged) terror war prisoner, once considered of such high value by the Bush administration that former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld ordered he be tortured, has taken his first step toward freedom thanks to a federal district court judge, who ordered the government to free him after nearly 10 years of imprisonment at Guantanamo Bay.

Though 39-year-old Mohamedou Slahi, an alleged 9/11 conspirator, won his habeas corpus appeal before U.S. District Judge James Robertson on Monday, he likely does not know it yet. That’s because the judge’s decision was classified, according to published reports.

“After the [9/11] attacks, he was fingered by a senior al Qaeda operative for helping assemble the so-called Hamburg cell, which included the hijacker who piloted United 175 into the South Tower,” The Wall Street Journal reported in 2007.

After being captured and imprisoned in Guantanamo Bay, he was repeatedly subjected to torture by his American captors, with Rumsfeld himself ordering “special” interrogation tactics be set aside for Slahi.

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Posted by Brian

Ron Paul Suggests ‘Agenda’ to Expand Terror War, Attack American Liberty

December 31, 2009

source: Raw Story

How does a massive, costly security apparatus fail to stop a known terrorism threat from boarding an airplane and wrecking devastation?

It happened on Sept. 11, 2001, and again on Dec. 25, 2009.

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Posted by Brian

One Day We’ll All Be Terrorists

December 30, 2009

 

by Chris Hedges,  source: Truthdig

Syed Fahad Hashmi can tell you about the dark heart of America. He knows that our First Amendment rights have become a joke, that habeas corpus no longer exists and that we torture, not only in black sites such as those at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan or at Guantánamo Bay, but also at the federal Metropolitan Correctional Center (MCC) in Lower Manhattan. Hashmi is a U.S. citizen of Muslim descent imprisoned on two counts of providing and conspiring to provide material support and two counts of making and conspiring to make a contribution of goods or services to al-Qaida. As his case prepares for trial, his plight illustrates that the gravest threat we face is not from Islamic extremists, but the codification of draconian procedures that deny Americans basic civil liberties and due process. Hashmi would be a better person to tell you this, but he is not allowed to speak.

This corruption of our legal system, if history is any guide, will not be reserved by the state for suspected terrorists, or even Muslim Americans. In the coming turmoil and economic collapse, it will be used to silence all who are branded as disruptive or subversive. Hashmi endures what many others, who are not Muslim, will endure later. Radical activists in the environmental, globalization, anti-nuclear, sustainable agriculture and anarchist movements–who are already being placed by the state in special detention facilities with Muslims charged with terrorism–have discovered that his fate is their fate. Courageous groups have organized protests, including vigils outside the Manhattan detention facility. They can be found at www.educatorsforcivilliberties.org or www.freefahad.com. On Martin Luther King Day, this Jan. 18 at 6 p.m. EST, protesters will hold a large vigil in front of the MCC on 150 Park Row in Lower Manhattan to call for a return of our constitutional rights. Join them if you can.

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Posted by Brian

Hayek: “Emergencies Have Always Been the Pretext on Which the Safeguards of Individual Liberty Have Eroded

November 14, 2009

source: Washingtons Blog

Well-known Austrian economist Friedrich von Hayek wrote:

 ”Emergencies” have always been the pretext on which the safeguards of individual liberty have eroded.

 Rahm Emanuel famously said:

Never let a serious crisis go to waste. What I mean by that is it’s an opportunity to do things you couldn’t do before. Read the rest of this entry »

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Posted by Brian

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