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.
The UK’s Daily Mail reported that the U.S. dropped charges against Bin Laden for the USS Cole and US Embassy bombings:
U.S. District Court judge Lewis Kaplan, who had been presiding over the bin Laden case in Manhattan federal court, issued an order called ‘nolle prosequi’, which means ‘do not prosecute’ in Latin, a typical legal move once a defendant is deceased.
Bin Laden was indicted back in 1998 in the Southern District of New York for his role in the al Qaeda attack on the U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya, which killed more than 200 people, including a dozen Americans.
The indictment was later revised to charge bin Laden in the dual bombings of two American embassies in East Africa that killed 224 on August 7, 1998, and in the suicide attack on the USS Cole in 2000. None of the charges involved the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
It was 5 long years ago that author Ed Haas had noticed that the FBI web page for Bin Laden did not mention the attacks of 9/11. He called the FBI to find out more:
On June 5, 2006, author Ed Haas contacted the Federal Bureau of Investigation headquarters to ask why, while claiming that bin Laden is wanted in connection with the August 1998 bombings of US Embassies in Tanzania and Kenya, the poster does not indicate that he is wanted in connection with the events of 9/11.
Rex Tomb, Chief of Investigative Publicity for the FBI responded, “The reason why 9/11 is not mentioned on Osama bin Laden’s Most Wanted page is because the FBI has no hard evidence connecting bin Laden to 9/11.” Tomb continued, “Bin Laden has not been formally charged in connection to 9/11.” Asked to explain the process, Tomb responded, “The FBI gathers evidence. Once evidence is gathered, it is turned over to the Department of Justice. The Department of Justice then decides whether it has enough evidence to present to a federal grand jury. In the case of the 1998 United States Embassies being bombed, bin Laden has been formally indicted and charged by a grand jury. He has not been formally indicted and charged in connection with 9/11 because the FBI has no hard evidence connecting bin Laden to 9/11.”
Since that report, the FBI has not displayed bin Laden’s web-page with information connecting him to the 9/11 attacks. Even further, the FBI has acknowledged evidence of controlled demolitions as “backed by thorough research” when presented by Richard Gage. That letter from the FBI is downloadable here. Watch Richard Gage here.
Lack of evidence to connect Bin Laden to 9/11 aside, many are wondering why the death of Usama does not translate into the death of the ill-named “War of Terror.” Quite the opposite has become the case actually.
Within days of killing Bin Laden a NATO air-strike was launched on Tripoli, Libya killing one of Gaddafi’s sons. The death was not confirmed by NATO and there are questions as to the veracity of the report as Al Jazeera noted, however the article also pointed out the following:
Gaddafi and his wife were in the Tripoli house of his 29-year-old son, Saif al-Arab Gaddafi, when it was hit by at least one missile fired by a NATO warplane late on Saturday, Libyan government spokesman Moussa Ibrahim said on Sunday.
Al-Arab’s compound in Tripoli’s Garghour neighbourhood was attacked “with full power” in a “direct operation to assassinate the leader of this country”, Ibrahim said, calling the strike a violation of international law.
“What we have now is the law of the jungle,” he told a news conference. “We think now it is clear to everyone that what is happening in Libya has nothing to do with the protection of civilians.”
Alongside the Libya campaign were drone strikes in Yemen; barely remembered at this point but not completely forgotten. Karen Greenburg reports at Salon:
Minutes before a midnight deadline, President Barack Obama signed into law a four-year extension of post-Sept. 11 powers to search records and conduct roving wiretaps in pursuit of terrorists.
“It’s an important tool for us to continue dealing with an ongoing terrorist threat,” Obama said Friday after a meeting with French President Nicolas Sarkozy.
With Obama in France, the White House said the president used an autopen machine that holds a pen and signs his actual signature. It is only used with proper authorization of the president.
Congress sent the bill to the president with only hours to go on Thursday before the provisions expired at midnight. Votes taken in rapid succession in the Senate and House came after lawmakers rejected attempts to temper the law enforcement powers to ensure that individual liberties are not abused.
The Senate voted 72-23 for the legislation to renew three terrorism-fighting authorities. The House passed the measure 250-153 on an evening vote.
A short-term expiration would not have interrupted ongoing operations but would have barred the government from seeking warrants for new investigations.
Congress bumped up against the deadline mainly because of the stubborn resistance from a single senator, Republican freshman Rand Paul of Kentucky, who saw the terrorist-hunting powers as an abuse of privacy rights. Paul held up the final vote for several days while he demanded a chance to change the bill to diminish the government’s ability to monitor individual actions.
by Layllah Therion source: Technorati May 29, 2011
American freedom just suffered two heartbreaking defeats in the span of two days. Yesterday President Obama signed the Patriot Act extension ensuring the FBI will go right on spying and tapping Americans communications. Two days ago the Senate Judiciary Committee passed the IP Protect Act which will allow the government to block websites and search engines accused of “copyright infringement”.
I write this with a heavy heart and tears welling in my eyes. The country I was born and raised in has become a foreign nation overnight. Innocent until proven guilty died a very undignified death, and censorship has rooted itself in virgin territory.
Melodramatic, not if you enjoy reading non-government subsidized media or surfing underground sites. The road to “Big Brother’s” White-house is awash with the blood of our fellow citizens who now have died for an America relegated to the past.
Osama Bin Ladens death doesn’t seem like much of a victory in light of the Patriot Act extension; buying money orders at the bank is still out of the question if you don’t deposit matching funds. I never really understood that aspect of the Patriot Act. How many terrorists buy money orders? Does the average black market arms dealer prefer a traceable check over cash? The track ability is why I like to pay my bills with them, it avoids that annoying phone call from the utility company claiming they didn’t get my payment when in actuality they got it, cashed it, and lost it!
The digital rights advocacy group Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) announced Thursday it had discovered violations stemming from the FBI’s use of expiring provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act.
Documents obtained by the group as the result of pending Freedom of Information Act litigation suggest that abuses of surveillance powers granted by the PATRIOT Act had been flagged by the FBI.
President Obama on Friday signed into law a bill that extends three Patriot Act surveillance authorities until late May.
Obama signed the “FISA Sunsets Extension Act of 2011,” which refers to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Surveillance authorities under that act were extended in part by amending the USA Patriot Improvement and Reauthorization Act.
With Obama’s signature, the ability of the United States to access business records, conduct roving wiretaps and monitor individual terrorists is maintained until May 27. The administration has said it supports a longer extension, and the Senate next week will begin working on a three-year extension.
The US House of Representatives voted Monday to extend controversial provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act.
The bill, known as HR 514, will now head to the Senate, which already has three bills of its own pending.
Rep. Nadler (who helped author and pass the James Zadroga 9/11 Health Bill) voiced opposition to the Bill:
“I cannot support this extension when the House has done nothing to consider these provisions, or possible reforms, or even to hold a hearing or a markup,” Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) said on the House floor Monday. “While in the past, Members have had the opportunity to receive classified briefings, we have dozens of new Members who have received no such briefings.”
In a busy schedule 2 days ago had started to write this..I could not finish it until today though. In the time that passed, a similar piece was written by Steve and Paul Watson. I recommend it if this piece interests you.
In perfect timing, Homeland Security Secretary Napolitano said thison Wednesday:
“….. the threat today may be at its most heightened state since the attacks nearly 10 years ago.”
“We understand full well that Islamist-inspired, Al-Qaeda-inspired, however you want to call it, terrorism, be it coming from abroad or now being homegrown, is part and parcel of the security picture that we now have to deal with in the United States…”
Top Senate Republicans called Friday for the three powers to be made permanent — a step rejected in the original law in favor of “sunsets” to ensure regular reviews by Congress to ferret out possible abuse.
Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said doing so would give US intelligence and law enforcement officials “the highest degree of operational certainty that’s practicable.”
The week of February the 22nd through the 28th regarding news relating to 9/11, summarized.
The ripple effects of the Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth press conference are continuing to be seen. (Last weeks news here.) The Washington Times carried an article entitled “Explosive News“, regarding the questions that AE911Truth brings to the table. The Examiner is another outlet that carried the AE911Truth press conference. Canadian and Russian have picked up on the story of over 1000 architects and engineers calling for a new investigation into 9/11 as well.
It has only been 1 week since the conference announcing the 1,000 and they’re already at 1,080 architects and engineers! (Probably more by the time I’m done writing this. ) One observant fellow noticed that in the 18 days of February before the conference 23 architects or engineers were added to the list, while in the 10 days of February after the conference 38 newly verified architects or engineers signed on for a new investigation. That is some good news!
Democrats have retreated from adding new privacy protections to the primary U.S counterterrorism law, stymied by Senate Republicans who argued the changes would weaken terror investigations.
The proposed protections were cast aside when Senate Democrats lacked the necessary 60-vote supermajority to pass them. Dashing the hopes of liberals, the Senate Wednesday night instead passed — by voice vote without debate — a one-year extension of key parts of the USA Patriot Act that would have expired on Sunday.
Thrown away were restrictions and greater scrutiny on the government’s authority to spy on Americans and seize their records.
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.
Posted by Brian 
