Following the successful (at least temporarily) Wikiprotest against the SOPA/PIPA legislations in the United States Congress, others are trying to form protests against the equally disturbing National Defense Authorization Act.
Opponents of the NDAA have pointed to Section 1301 of the bill as giving the government power to send the military to arrest American citizens who are deemed to have materially supported Al-Qaeda. The question is who deems that a person has done so since the judge and jury is the military. George Mason worried about just such types of legislation. At the ratifying convention in June of 1788, he said, “I humbly conceive there is extreme danger of establishing cruel martial regulations. If at any time our rulers should have unjust and iniquitous designs against our liberties, and should wish to establish a standing army, the first attempt would be to render the service and use of militia odious to the people themselves; subjecting them to unnecessary severity of discipline in time of peace, confining them under martial law, and disgusting them so much, as to make them cry out, give us a standing army. I would wish to have some check to exclude this danger; as, that the militia should never be subject to martial law, but in time of war.”
The public event was started on Facebook By Suzanne Noel and is planned for February 3rd. Her event description reads, “Americans across the country will gather outside congressional offices Feb. 3rd from noon to 7 p.m. to protest NDAA 2012 (H.R. 1540). You will find your protest location by looking to see how your congressmen voted.” She adds links to the offices and votes of your senators and representatives.
The recent passage of NDAA has caused suspicion for liberty groups as to the intent of the bill with Section 1301 not specifically exempting American citizens from possible incarceration by the military and prosecution by court-martial. A handful of Republicans and Democrats attempted amendments to the bill to correct the language. All of them failed to pass the Senate. Montana has recently launched recall efforts against their representatives who voted for the bill.
Opponents of the legislation are jumping on the recently announced plans by the Los Angeles police department for a “routine training” exercise conducted by military personnel similar to on held in Boston last year (See video below). The brief press release reads:
Los Angeles: Multi-agency tactical exercises are to be conducted during evening hours around the downtown area January 22-26, 2012.
The Los Angeles Police Department will be providing support for a joint military training exercise in and around the great Los Angeles area. This will be routine training conducted by military personnel, designed to ensure the military’s ability to operate in urban environments, prepare forces for upcoming overseas deployments, and meet mandatory training certification requirements.
This training has been coordinated with local authorities and owners of the training sites. The training sites have been carefully selected to ensure the event does not negatively impact the citizens of Los Angeles and their daily routines.
Lastly, safety precautions have been taken to prevent risk to the general public and the military personnel involved.
As such, this training is not open to the public.
Liberty proponents contend that the NDAA makes void the nearly 134-year old Posse Comitatus act passed by Congress on June 18, 1878. Major Craig T. Trebilcock claims that it should not present a significant barrier to utilizing the military in “law enforcement” anyway. He notes, “In the past five years, the erosion of the Posse Comitatus Act has continued with the increasingly common use of military forces as security for essentially civilian events. During the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, over ten thousand U.S. troops were deployed under the partial rationale that they were present to deter terrorism.”
The training exercises in Boston, of course, occurred before NDAA passed and shows that exercises of this sort has been going on for some time.
Even if the exercises have nothing to do with the passage of NDAA with the controversial Section 1301, it certainly should evoke Orwellian images of police looking inside your apartment. This concept was used in the movie Blue Thunder. In the 1983 movie about a high-tech helicopter, the officers were upset when an official call interrupted their viewing of a woman undressing. Ironically, over LA.
With a growing number of Americans becoming alarmed at the recent passage of the National Defense Authorization Act because of its provisions allowing American citizens to be indefinitely detained and denied due process, some states and even counties are taking action. The state of Rhode Island, as well as Colorado’s El Paso County, have drafted resolutions to nullify the NDAA, a step that other states and counties are soon expected to follow. Likewise, the state of Montana has launched an effort to recall their Senators — Democrats Max Baucus and Jonathon Tester — as well as Republican Congressman Dennyi Rehberg, all of whom voted for the NDAA.
Montana is just one of nine states with constitutional provisions asserting the right to recall members of its congressional delegation for reasons including a violation of their oath of office. The Montana Code 2-16-603 reads: “(2) A public officer holding an elective office may be recalled by the qualified electors entitled to vote for the elective officer’s successor.”
The other eight states are Arizona, Colorado, Louisiana , Michigan, Nevada, North Dakota, Oregon, and Wisconsin. In New Jersey, efforts to pass such a law failed when a state judge declared that “the federal Constitution does not allow states the power to recall U.S. senators.” Critics of that decision contend that the 10th Amendment to the Constitution in fact does permit such a law.
The Obama administration has been ignoring federal immigration laws in failing to deport thousands of illegal aliens as they have been identified and detained. And now that defiance of federal law has resulted in the murder of three people, one of which was a 15 year old girl.
In 2006, 23 year old Kesler Dufrene from Haiti, was convicted of his second felony for burglary. A judge in Bradenton, Florida sentenced Dufrene to five years in prison. Since he was also an illegal immigrant, his felony conviction caused an immigration judge to order that he be deported back to Haiti upon his release from prison.
Dufrene was released from prison in September, 2010 and handed over to immigration officials. In October 2010 and under the directions from Obama who ordered a temporary halt to deportations to Haiti due to the massive earthquake that devastated the island nation, Dufrene was released from custody by immigration officials. Even though he was a two time felon and an illegal alien, Dufrene was free to walk the streets of Florida.
Four “Arab-American” teens are being charged with felony assault charges for attacking the quarterback of the opposing Lutheran team because “After the snap, however, the four arrested Star players burst through the line and allegedly manhandled Lutheran’s quarterback.” Their lawyer was quick to point out that they were being persecuted because they are “Arab-American.”
After being told by the referee to make no contact with the quarterback because he intended to take a knee, the four persecuted “Arab-Americans” allegedly attacked the quarterback knocking him to the ground hard enough to cause a concussion.
The Lutherans were beating the Star International Academy team 47-6.
In the House, Rep. Ben Quayle, R-Ariz., who originally co-sponsored SOPA, withdrew his name from the list of sponsors on Tuesday, reported Politico.
The Internet community’s rally cry against anti-piracy legislation is triggering its intended effect, though the final outcome remains far from settled.
American lawmakers were flooded with calls Wednesday in response to an online blackout by technology companies, including Wikipedia, Moveon.org, Reddit and thousands of other sites protesting two related bills that would crack down on websites that use copyrighted materials and sell counterfeit goods. Some key lawmakers who’ve supported or co-sponsored the legislation are also backing off.
Many of the sites that went dark Wednesday explained the legislation and entreated users to call their representatives by listing their phone numbers and email addresses.
“It’s busy,” says Patrick Chiarelli, a staffer for Representative Jay Inslee, D-Wash. Staffers at other lawmakers’ offices also say their call volumes spiked.
The legislation — the Stop Online Piracy Act (a House bill commonly called SOPA) and the Protect IP Act in the Senate (called PIPA) ? allows U.S. attorneys general and copyright holders to crack down on websites that display or link to copyrighted intellectual property or counterfeit goods.
NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly told CBS in New York his department is looking to deploy Terahertz Imaging Detection scanners on the street in the war on “illegal guns.”
Kelly said the scanners would be used in “reasonably suspicious circumstances” and intended to cut down on the number of stop-and-frisks on the street. So called stop-and-frisks are considered a violation of the Fourth Amendment.
New York City is largely a Second Amendment free zone. The city’s mayor, Michael Bloomberg, has said that citizens “acting outside of any governmental military effort” should not be allowed to protect themselves with firearms.
A Navy construction crew passing by the scene of a horrific wreck joined forces with emergency rescue workers to keep a mangled BMW carrying a California mother, her 10-year-old daughter and 10-week baby from slipping off a bridge and plunging into a 100-foot deep ravine.
The vehicle dangled off the bridge Thursday after being rear-ended by a tractor-trailer, which broke through the concrete barriers and fell into the creek bed. The truck driver was killed.
Santa Barbara County, Calif., Fire Department rescue workers had been trying to pry Kelli Lynne Groves and her children out the car when the Navy Seabees were driving by with their equipment.
“No experiment can be more interesting than that we are trying, and which we trust will end in establishing the fact, that man may be governed by reason and truth. Our first objective should therefore be, to leave open to him all the avenues of truth. The most effectual hitherto found, is the freedom of the press. It is, therefore, the first shut up by those who fear the investigation of their actions.”–Thomas Jefferson
STANFORD, Calif.–President Obama is planning to hand the U.S. Commerce Department authority over a forthcoming cybersecurity effort to create an Internet ID for Americans, a White House official said here today
It’s “the absolute perfect spot in the U.S. government” to centralize efforts toward creating an “identity ecosystem” for the Internet, White House Cybersecurity Coordinator Howard Schmidt said.
That news, first reported by CNET, effectively pushes the department to the forefront of the issue, beating out other potential candidates, including the National Security Agency and the Department of Homeland Security. The move also is likely to please privacy and civil-liberties groups that have raised concerns in the past over the dual roles of police and intelligence agencies.
The announcement came at an event today at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, where U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke and Schmidt spoke.
The Obama administration is currently drafting what it’s calling the National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace, which Locke said will be released by the president in the next few months. (An early version was publicly released last summer.)
Citing Article I, Section 5 (sic)[This should probably be Section 8], Clauses 4 and 18 of the United States Constitution, Representative Darrell Issa of the 49th district of California submitted HR-45 entitled the Criminal Alien Accountability Act. The act would change 8 U.S.C. 1326 to provide stiffer penalties for aliens reentering the U.S. or committing crimes while in the U.S. The only cosponsor of the bill is Representative Brooks of Missouri. No Arizona representative cosponsored the legislation.
This title applies to aliens who:
(1) has been denied admission, excluded, deported, or removed or has departed the United States while an order of exclusion, deportation, or removal is outstanding, and thereafter
(2) enters, attempts to enter, or is at any time found in, the United States, unless
(A) prior to his reembarkation at a place outside the United States or his application for admission from foreign contiguous territory, the Attorney General has expressly consented to such alien’s reapplying for admission; or
(B) with respect to an alien previously denied admission and removed, unless such alien shall establish that he was not required to obtain such advance consent under this chapter or any prior Act,
The bill would add stiffer mandatory sentencing for these aliens. Changes in Subsection B are:
Paragraph 1 would read: “whose removal was subsequent to a conviction for commission of three or more misdemeanors involving drugs, crimes against the person, or both, or a felony (other than an aggravated felony), such alien shall be fined under title 18, imprisoned not more than 10 years, imprisoned for a term of not less than 5 years and not more than 10 years or both;”
Paragraph 2 would read, “whose removal was subsequent to a conviction for commission of an aggravated felony, such alien shall be fined under such title, imprisoned not more than 20 years, imprisoned for a term of not less than 10 years and not more than 20 years or both;
(4) who was removed from the United States pursuant to section 1231 (a)(4)(B) of this title who thereafter, without the permission of the Attorney General, enters, attempts to enter, or is at any time found in, the United States (unless the Attorney General has expressly consented to such alien’s reentry) shall be fined under title 18, imprisoned for not more than 10 years, imprisoned for a term of not less than 5 years and not more than 10 years or both.
The last change would probably be moot since the Attorney General has opened the way for drug traffikking and human smuggling by attacking Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa county stopping the efforts of the Sheriff to enforce these laws. The report of the justice department complains of the Sheriff’s Office “profiling,” yet they have not investigated the profiling done in their own office or that of the DHS concerning “domestic terrorists” that carry a copy of the Constitution or have a Ron Paul sticker on their car.
The bill would add a provision for persons who knowingly assist an alien to reenter:
Any person who knowingly aids or assists any alien violating section 276(b) to reenter the United States, or who connives or conspires with any person or persons to allow, procure, or permit any such alien to reenter the United States, shall be fined under title 18, United States Code, or imprisoned for a term imposed under paragraph (2), or both
The bill was introduced in January of 2011 and referred to the Subcommittee on Immigration Policy and Enforcement in February where it languishes. The bill would probably have to be resubmitted in the next session of Congress if is to ever see the light of day.
LEESBURG—It may have looked like they were ready for war or some deranged person looking for his late Social Security benefits.
But it was only Federal Protective Service officers with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security who were conducting a random training operation early Tuesday morning when they surprisingly showed up at the Social Security Administration office in downtown Leesburg.
With their blue and white SUVs circled around the Main Street office, at least one official was posted on the door with a semiautomatic rifle, randomly checking identifications. And other officers, some with K-9s, sifted through the building.
There is something so far-fetched and so extravagant in the idea of danger to liberty from the militia, that one is at a loss whether to treat it with gravity or with raillery; whether to consider it as a mere trial of skill, like the paradoxes of rhetoricians; as a disingenuous artifice to instil prejudices at any price; or as the serious offspring of political fanaticism. Where in the name of common-sense, are our fears to end if we may not trust our sons, our brothers, our neighbors, our fellow-citizens? What shadow of danger can there be from men who are daily mingling with the rest of their countrymen and who participate with them in the same feelings, sentiments, habits and interests? What reasonable cause of apprehension can be inferred from a power in the Union to prescribe regulations for the militia, and to command its services when necessary, while the particular States are to have the SOLE AND EXCLUSIVE APPOINTMENT OF THE OFFICERS? If it were possible seriously to indulge a jealousy of the militia upon any conceivable establishment under the federal government, the circumstance of the officers being in the appointment of the States ought at once to extinguish it. There can be no doubt that this circumstance will always secure to them a preponderating influence over the militia.—Alexander Hamilton, Federalist Paper No. 29, Concerning the Militia
In a 2008 article at the RAW Story web site, Craig Johnson, an associate professor at Point Loma Nazarene University, took place in a demonstration against expanding the border fence. He alleged that the border patrol was taking license plate numbers more than a mile away from the border.
Johnson said that he traveled to Mexico about a week after the protest and when he returned, he was handcuffed when his name came up as armed and dangerous.
The ACLU web site has an interactive map display the 100-mile border area which they call “Constitution-Free” zones in which the Department of Homeland Security, apparently, reserves the right to stop and search any vehicles for any reason. They are apparently taking intelligence on American citizens, as well.
Gun deaths have declined in New York City, while killings involving knives have increased 50 percent. The issue isn’t guns or knives but people who use guns and knives.
I live just a few miles from the most pro-gun city in the United States – Kennesaw Georgia – where gun ownership is mandatory. It’s not the “Wild West” like some people predicted when it passed a mandatory gun ownership law. “The city of Kennesaw was selected by Family Circle magazine as one of the nation’s ‘10 best towns for families.’ The award was aimed at identifying the best communities nationally that combine big-city opportunities with suburban charm, a blend of affordable housing, good jobs, top-rated public schools, wide-open spaces, and less stress.”[1]
In 1982 the city passed the following ordinance [Sec 34-21] which was a response to a handgun ban in Morton Grove, Ill.
(a) In order to provide for the emergency management of the city, and further in order to provide for and protect the safety, security and general welfare of the city and its inhabitants, every head of household residing in the city limits is required to maintain a firearm, together with ammunition therefore.
(b) Exempt from the effect of this section are those heads of households who suffer a physical or mental disability which would prohibit them from using such a firearm. Further exempt from the effect of this section are those heads of households who are paupers or who conscientiously oppose maintaining firearms as a result of beliefs or religious doctrine, or persons convicted of a felony.
The city’s website states that Kennesaw “has the lowest crime rate in Cobb County,” one of the most populace counties in Georgia. In fact, from 1982 through 2009, Kennesaw had been nearly murder free with one murder occurring in 2007.
If you haven’t heard of the Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA, you might not spend enough time online. But recent exposure of Marvel’s support for the bill has outraged fans across the internet on major comics news sites, blogs and forums and Twitter, calling for retaliation against The House of Ideas.
I understand why Marvel would support the bill. First, and most importantly, being an owned subsidiary of The House of Mouse (Disney/ABC/ESPN, etc) they now have to toe the corporate line. Second, comics are incredibly pirated products. Just doing a search on major bit torrent sites and you can. . . .well, pretty much download most every major Marvel comic from the last 70 years and fit it on a large external hard drive. That’s pretty terrible if you think about it. And, let’s be fair- DC is pro-SOPA as well, at least inasmuch as they are a part of the larger Time Warner family of corporations.
Let me state again, for the record, that we at BSR are ANTI-piracy. We are pro-comics, and piracy is a major problem with the industry today, just as with all entertainment media. We respect the rights of creators who put their genius into delivering greatness into our hands every week, every month, and respect their rights to get paid. We even point you to some of our favorites in the realm of digital comics– one of which, I would like to point out, is about Marvel digital comics on sale. We love comics, we are anti-piracy and pro-digital distribution. Absolutely.
But, just as categorically I can state that SOPA will not help one bit. The bill will allow any person to make a claim against a website (say BigShinyRobot. . . or Google. . . or YouTube. . .or Flikr) that it is hosting copyrighted materials, and without an investigation, without a warrant, without any probable cause– just a complaint– the host ISP has to shut the ENTIRE SITE down. Take, for example, the image I’ve used to in this post. This is one of my favorite comic book covers from books I collected when I was younger. I’ve added the “This is what Wolverine does to Pirates” which makes my use of this image fall under “fair use.” But if someone were to complain, they could– and shut down the entire site without any adjudication by any legal authority. Not only does SOPA violate basic principles of due process, it uses a nuclear bomb to strike at a gnat.
HELP WANTED: Must be able to travel to Washington D.C. Satan need not apply.
BY Sean Alfano
Daily News Staff Writer
The Catholic Church is having a devil of a time searching for priests who can perform exorcisms.
In their effort to fight evil, Catholic bishops are holding a conference aimed at training clergy on how to perform the rite.
According to Bishop Thomas Paprocki, only five or six American priests know how to perform exorcisms, and they are finding themselves overwhelmed with requests.
“Actually, each diocese should have its own resource (person). It shouldn’t be that this burden should be placed on a priest when his responsibility is for his own diocese,” he told the Catholic News Service prior to the two-day conference that ends Saturday in Baltimore.
More than 50 bishops and 66 priests signed up to attend, The Associated Press reported.
February 5, 2012 1906 John Carradine 1920 Frank Muir CBE 1946 Charlotte Rampling 1948 Barbara Hershey 1948 Lord Haden Guest 1948 Sven-Goran Eriksson 1952 Russell Grant 1962 Jennifer Jason Leigh 1966 Jose Maria Olazabal
Have a question concerning the Constitution and your rights? You can try our U.S. Succinct Court Office.. WE ARE NOT LAWYERS and we CANNOT GIVE ADVISE on any case that may be pending for or against you. We can, however, provide links to resources that might answer your questions. Feel free to use our Contact Form.
The Constitutional Republic Party web site is NOT a non-profit organization for tax purposes. We do not provide candidates for office, but we support candidates with Constitutional views. Our current purpose is to provide education about the true purpose of the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and other historic documents. We do provide information and news which may have an impact on your Constitutional rights.
We will publish almost any, intelligent articles and opinions that do not contain cursing and do not advocate physical violence against an individual or group of individuals---even if they are belligerent. Those opinions expressed and comments in reply to such opinions are solely those of the authors.
Loading ...
