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Everthing
you need to know about how the USA Patriot Act...
(Source: http://www.furnitureforthepeople.com/actpat.htm)
This page contains the followign articles on The USA Patriot Act:
1) How the Patriot Act Compares to the Ermächtigungsgesetz
(Enabling Act)
2) A 21st Century Comparison of The Enabling Act and
The Patriot Act
3) Ten Key Dangers of the Patriot Act
4) Bill Moyer's NOW Comments on the Patriot Act
5) The USA Patriot Act, A Legal Analysis by Charles Doyle (link to PDA document)
Also: Read Alex
Jones' breakdown of the USA Patriot Act
on the Rickie Lee Jones website
CLICK HERE
1) How the Patriot Act
Compares to Hitler's Ermächtigungsgesetz
(Enabling Act)
 On March 23, 1933, the newly elected members
of the Reichstag met in the Kroll Opera House in Berlin to consider
passing Hitler's "Ermächtigungsgesetz". The "Enabling Act" was officially
called the 'Law for Removing the Distress of the People and the Reich.'
Opponents
to the bill argued that if it was passed, it would end democracy in
Germany and establish a legal dictatorship of Adolf Hitler. To
soften resistance to the passing of the Enabling Act, the Nazis
secretly caused confusion in order to create an atmosphere in which the
law seem necessary to restore order.
On February 27, 1933, Nazis
burned the Reichstag building, and a seat of the German government,
causing frenzy and outrage. They successfully blamed the fire on the
Communists, and claimed it marked the beginning
of a widespread terrorism and unrest threatening the safety of the
German "Homeland." On the day of the vote, Nazi storm troopers
gathered around the opera house chanting, "Full powers - or else! We
want the bill - or fire and murder!"
The Nazis used the opportunity to arrest 4,000
communists. Not only did the Nazis use the incident as a propaganda
against communists but they also arrested additional 40,000 members of
the opposition. Consequently, the Nazis had achieved their objective of
eliminating democracy and ensuring their majority in the parliament.
After the fire on
February 28, 1933, president Hindenburg and Hitler invoked Article 48
of the Weimar Constitution, which permitted the suspension of civil
liberties during national emergencies. Some examples of this Decree of
the Reich President for the Protection of the People and State
abrogated the following constitutional protections: Freedom of the
press, free expression of opinion, individual property rights, right of
assembly and association, right to privacy of postal and electronic
communications, states´ rights of self-government, and protection
against unlawful searches and seizures.
Before the vote, Hitler made a
speech to the Reichstag in which he pledged to use restraint. He also promised to end unemployment and promote
multilateral peace with France, Great Britain and the Soviet
Union.
In order to accomplish all this,
Hitler said, he first needed the Enabling Act.
Since this act would alter the German
constitution, a two-thirds majority was necessary. Hitler needed
31 non-Nazi votes to pass it. The Center Party provided these votes
after Hitler made a false promise to them. Four hundred and forty votes
were registered for the Enabling Act, while a mere 84 votes were
opposed – the social Democrats. In glory the Nazi Party stood to their
feet and sang the Nazi anthem, the Hörst Wessel song. The German
Democratic party had finally been eliminated, and Hitler’s dream for
Nazi command became closer to reality.
The
Enabling Act granted Hitler the power he craved and could use
without objection from the Reichstag. Shortly after the passing of The
Enabling Act all other political parties were
dissolved. Trade unions were liquidated and opposition clergy were
arrested. The Nazi party had, as Hitler said, become the state.
By August 1934, Hitler became commander-in-chief of the armed forces.
This was in addition to being President and Führer of the German
Reich, to whom every individual in the armed forces pledged
unconditional obedience. The Reichstag was no longer a place for
debate, but rather a cheering squad in favor of whatever Hitler might
say.
2)
A 21st Century Comparison of The Enabling Act and The Patriot Act
Last September, German Justice Minister Herta Daeubler-Gmelin pointed
out that George Bush is using Iraq to distract the American public from
his failed domestic policies. She capped her statement by reminding her
audience: "That's a popular method. Even Hitler did that." What was
lost in the reactions to Ms. Daeubler-Gmelin's
comments was that she
wasn't comparing Bush to the Hitler of the late 1930s and early 1940s;
but to the Hitler of the late 1920s and early 1930s.
Most Americans have forgotten that Hitler came to power legally. He and
the Nazi Party were elected democratically in a time of great national
turmoil and crisis. They themselves had done much to cause the turmoil,
of course, but that's what makes the Bush comparison so compelling.
Similar to the Bush administration, the Nazis were funded and
ultimately ushered into power by wealthy industrialists looking for
government favors in the form of tax breaks, big subsidies, and laws to
weaken the rights of workers. When the Reichstag (Germany's Parliament
building) was set ablaze in 1933 (probably by Nazis), the Nazis framed
their political rivals for it. In the general panic that followed, the
German Parliament was purged of all left-wing representatives who might
be soft on communists and foreigners, and the few who remained then
VOTED to grant Chancellor Hitler dictatorial powers. A long, hideous
nightmare had begun.
History teaches us that it is shockingly easy to separate reasonable
and intelligent people from their rights. A legally elected leader and
party can easily manipulate national events to whip up fear, crucify
scapegoats, gag dissenters, and convince the masses that their
liberties must be suspended (temporarily, of course) in the name of
restoring order. Consider the following two statements, and see if you
can identify the authors.
Statement Number One: "The
people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is
easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and
denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country
to danger. It works the same way in any country."
Statement Number Two: "To
those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty, my
message is this: Your tactics only aid terrorists, for they erode our
national unity and diminish our resolve."
The first statement is a quote
from Hitler's right hand man, Hermann Goering, explaining
at his war crimes trial how easily he and his fellow Nazis hijacked
Germany's democratic government. The second statement
is a quote from Bush's right hand man, John
Ashcroft, defending the Patriot Act and explaining why
dissent will no longer be tolerated in the age of terrorism. If that
doesn't send chills down your spine, nothing will.
When the shooting started at Lexington Green in 1775, those calling
themselves patriots were the men and women who refused to yield their
rights to an increasingly oppressive government. Today, according to
John Ashcroft and his Patriot Act of 2001, a patriot is someone who
kneels down in fear, and hands over his or her rights to the government
in the name of fighting terrorism. Isn't the hypocrisy of this all too
obvious? The Bush administration wants us to fight in Afghanistan, to
fight in Iraq, and to fight wherever terrorists may be hiding. And
what, pray tell, are we fighting for? Well, according to the White
House, we're fighting for freedom. Yet freedom is exactly what the
White House is demanding that we now SURRENDER in the name of fighting
terrorism.
So what's really going on? Well, it's all a lie, of course. The Bush
administration isn't any more interested in protecting our freedom from
terrorists than Hitler was in protecting Germans from communists, Jews,
and all the other groups he scapegoated. The Bush administration is
fighting only to protect itself and its corporate sponsors. It hides
behind a veil of national security and behind non-stop war headlines of
its own creation. And behind that smokescreen, Bush, Inc. is pursuing
Hitler’s old agenda from the 1920s and 1930s: serving the interests of
the corporate industrialists who brought it to power.
There is a name for governments that serve the
interests of Big Business at the expense of their own citizens:
fascist. Here's a short list of the rights we've already surrendered
since the September 11 attacks. Most of these
abuses are from a single piece of legislation called the Patriot Act of
2001, which was rushed through Congress with no debate in the aftermath
of the attacks. Many of the Congressmen who voted for it later admitted
that they hadn't even read it at the time.
3)
Ten Key Dangers of The Patriot Act
That Every American Should Know
No. 1: The
government can conduct "sneak and peek" searches in which agents enter
your home or business and search your belongings without informing you
until long after.
No. 2: Government agents can
force libraries and bookstores to hand over the titles of books that
you1ve purchased or borrowed and can demand the identity of anyone who
has purchased or borrowed certain books. The government can also
prosecute libraries and bookstores for informing you that the search
occurred or even for informing you that an inquiry was made. According
to ACLU staff attorney Jameel Jaffer, such "searches could extend to
doctors offices, banks and other institutions which, like libraries,
were previously off-limits under the law." Chris Finan, President of
the American Booksellers group adds: "The refusal of the Justice
Department to tell Congress how many times it has used its powers is
even more unsettling because it naturally leads to the suspicion that
it is using them a lot."
No. 3: Federal agents are
authorized to use hidden devices to trace the telephone calls or emails
of people who are not even suspected of a crime. The FBI is also
permitted to use its Magic Lantern technology to monitor everything you
do on your computer--recording not just the websites you visit but
EVERY SINGLE KEYSTROKE as well.
No. 4: Government agents are
permitted to arrest and detain individuals "suspected" of terrorist
activities and to hold them INDEFINITELY, WITHOUTCHARGE, and WITHOUT an
ATTORNEY. (That could be you or me for sending or receiving this Email,
by the way)
No. 5: Federal agents are
permitted to conduct full investigations of American citizens and
permanent legal residents simply because they have participated in
activities protected by the First Amendment, such as writing a letter
to the editor or attending a peaceful rally.
No. 6: Law enforcement agents
are permitted to listen in on discussions between prisoners and their
attorneys, thus denying them their Constitutional right to confidential
legal counsel.
No. 7: Terrorism suspects may
be tried in secret military tribunals where defendants have no right to
a public trial, no right to trial by jury, no right to confront the
evidence, and no right to appeal to an independent court. In short, the
Constitution does not apply.
No. 8: The CIA is granted
authority to spy on American citizens, a power that has previously been
denied to this international espionage organization.
No. 9: In addition to the
Patriot Act, the Bush administration has given us Operations TIPS, a
government program that encourages citizens to spy on each other and to
report their neighbors activities to the authorities. It's EXACLTY the
kind of thing for which we used to fault East Germany and the Soviet
Union, and for which we currently fault Red China and North Korea.
Fortunately, Operation TIPS (or AmeriSnitch, as it's known to its many
detractors) seems to have been recalled to the factory--at least for
now. (Incidentally, in a clever variation of
"two-can-play-at-that-game”, Brad Templeton has set up a website at
http://www.all-the-other-names-were-taken.com/tipstips.html where you
can report people you suspect of being informants for Operation TIPS.
It's an interesting and amusing site, well worth a look.)
No. 10: In the wake of
Operation TIPS came something even worse: Total Information Awareness.
TIA is a program of the Defense Department that when fully operational
will link commercial and government databases so that the DOD can
immediately put its finger on any piece of information about you that
it wants. New York Times columnist William Safire writes: "Every
purchase you make with a credit card, every magazine subscription you
buy and medical prescription you fill, every Web site you visit and
e-mail you send or receive, every academic grade you receive, every
bank deposit you make, every trip you book and every event you attend
all these transactions and communications will go into what the Defense
Department describes as a virtual, centralized grand database." And
that's not all. Who did our president appoint to head the TIA? Who gets
to be Big Brother himself? Why it's none other than John Poindexter, a
man convicted in 1990 on five counts of lying to Congress, destroying
official documents, and obstructing congressional inquiries into the
Iran-contra affair. Another Hermann Goering, if there ever was one.
4) BILL MOYERS' NOW COMMENTS On THE PATRIOT ACT
At the same time the Bush administration is probing into your private
life, it is shielding itself from all public scrutiny. It has shredded
the Freedom of Information Act; it has locked away presidential records
not only of the current administration but of administrations going all
the way back to Reagan as well; and it has even locked up George W.
Bush's gubernatorial records so that the people of Texas can't see what
he did to them while serving as their governor.
Not surprisingly, the Bush administration is also using anti-terror
legislation and executive orders to protect its corporate sponsors from
scrutiny and from prosecution. The drug company Eli Lilly, for
instance, was recently granted immunity from all cases brought against
it-–even those initiated long before the war on terrorism--related to a
vaccine it manufactured that turned out to cause autism in many
children. (Eli Lilly contributed over $3 million in the last two
election campaigns.) The Bush administration also protected the Bayer
Corporation1s patent on the antibiotic Cipro throughout the anthrax
scare, whereas other countries, such as Canada, broke that patent so
that other companies could make cheaper versions of the drug in case of
emergency.
It is interesting to note that during WWII Bayer was part of the I.G.
Farben conglomerate, the top financial contributor to the Nazi Party.
I.G. Farben produced petrol and rubber for the Nazi war machine and it
manufactured the Zyklon B gas that was used to exterminate millions of
Jews and other "enemies of the state." In exchange for these services,
the Nazis provided Farben (and Bayer) with lucrative government
contracts and with slave labor from concentration camps.
Under George W. Bush's kinder, gentler fascism, U.S. corporations are
now allowed to do business with the Homeland Security Department even
if they cheat the government out of vast amounts of tax revenues by
setting up offshore business fronts in the Caribbean Islands. It used
to be that tax-evaders were tracked down and punished. Now they're
rewarded with fat government contracts. Could the slave labor be far
behind?
If only this were the extent of the Bush administration's ramble down
the road to fascism. Way back in November of 2001, William Safire
accused the Bush administration of "seizing dictatorial power." Well,
Mr. Safire, you ain't seen nothing yet. Just when you thought it
couldn't get any worse, just when you thought we can't lose any more of
our liberties and still call ourselves a "free society," we learn that
the Bush administration wants to take away even more of our rights. A
secret document was just leaked out of John Ashcroft's Justice
Department and turned over to the Center for Public Integrity. Titled
the Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003, this document turns out
to be a draft of new anti-terrorism legislation, a vastly more muscular
sequel to Patriot Act. If passed, it would grant the executive branch
sweeping new powers of domestic surveillance, and it would eliminate
most of the few remaining checks and balances that protect us from
tyranny.
It's the Patriot Act on steroids. Charles Lewis of the Center for
Public Integrity shared this document with Bill Moyers, who examined it
on NOW, his weekly PBS program. That episode aired Friday, February 7,
yet even now no mainstream news broadcaster has picked up this
incredible story. Read the NOW transcript and see the document itself
online at http://www.pbs.org/now/.
You can also read the Center for Public Integrity's analysis of the
document at http://www.publicintegrity.org/.
Dr. David Cole, a Law professor at Georgetown University and author of
Terrorism and the Constitution assessed the document, saying, "I think
this is a quite radical proposal. It authorizes secret arrests. It
would give the Attorney General essentially unchecked authority to
deport anyone who he thought was a danger to our economic interests. It
would strip citizenship from people for lawful political associations."
"Secret arrests”? Did we hear that right? It seems that the Homeland
Security Department (HSD) is about to become the KGB. The first Patriot
Act already allows for people to be locked up indefinitely without a
lawyer and without being charged with a crime. If Patriot Act II
passes, then arrests would also be secret. That means that dissenters
(or anyone else, for that matter) could disappear without a trace, just
as they did in Nazi Germany, in Stalinist Russia, and in Pinochet's
Chile.
Patriot Act II would also grant even more immunity to Big Business. A
corporation could pour toxins into your local river, for instance, and
you wouldn't know about it until all the fish died and your neighbor’s
kids were born with missing limbs. And then when you went to court and
demanded to know what
the company was dumping in your river, the company could deny you that
information on the grounds that it's a national security secret.
JimHightower put it this way: "All a company has to do to shield
anything it wants to keep from the public eye--say, an embarrassing
chemical spill--is give the documents to the Homeland Security
Department and call them "critical infrastructure information."
Ah, but there's even more to be concerned about here. The document was
created back in early January, but so far it appears that the only
members of Congress who even know of its existence are House Speaker
Dennis Hastert and Vice-president Dick Cheney. (The Vice-president
presides over the Senate, which makes him a member of the legislative
branch as well as the executive branch.) This raises a troubling
question: Why has the White House been sitting on this bill for a
month? If the CEOs down at Bush, Inc. really believe that they need
these broad new powers to protect us from terrorists, why not roll out
that bill and start the debate? The answer is all too plain. In all
likelihood, the Bush administration was planning to avoid debate
entirely by springing this bill on the American people in the midst of
a perceived national crisis. Perhaps during the war with Iraq, for
instance. Or perhaps in the aftermath of the next terrorist attack. Or
perhaps right after the Reichstag fire.
Had some courageous soul not leaked this document out of the Justice
Department, the White House might easily have succeeded in passing it
through Congress without debate in the midst of our next perceived
national crisis, much as it did with the first Patriot Act in the
aftermath of the September 11 attacks. A thorough debate of this bill
right now, under fairly stable circumstances, would defuse it and
prevent its passage even under more frightening circumstances later on.
There's just one problem. The debate can't begin until more Americans
know about this bill, but so far the Washington Post is the only major
news outlet to even MENTION this story since Bill Moyers broke it on
Friday night.
 Here's what you can do to help
First, forward this email to everyone
you know. Second, send an email to the Center for Public
Integrity and to the producers of NOW thanking them for
breaking this story. Here's a sample message that you can use or modify:
I am writing to express
my heartfelt thanks and admiration to the Center for Public Integrity,
to Bill Moyers, to the producers of NOW, and especially to the brave
unnamed patriot who valued the Bill of Rights over his or her own
personal well-being and, at great personal risk, leaked a draft of the
Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003 out of the Justice Department.
Sincerely,(Your name, city, and state.)
Center for Public Integity: mailto:feedback@publicintegrity.org.
NOW with Bill Moyers: mailto:now@thirteen.org.
click here to read:
5) THE USA PATRIOT ACT
A Legal Analysis by Charles Doyle
Senior Specialist, American Law Division
published online as a PDA document
back to the home page
go to the Free Press
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