- Walk with me through some of the factors that show an
emergence of a police state in America, and then come along for an interesting
view, provided by Chris Williams in the UK, of how the police power used
to be exercised very locally. "We" were the cops.
I believe we can and should recapture that control. "Delenda est cabal!"
Destroy the cabal that is foisting upon us a police state! Just
say No! Block their paychecks. It's easy. It's a
snap.
-
- AN UNPLEASANT Q&A FOR THE UNITED STATES, IN 2011
-
- Who is authorized to arrest you these days? Can
he enter your home without a warrant? Without knocking? Must
the arrest occur in daylight, or is 3.30 am permissible? Can
the cops read your written documents in your home? Can they order others
to exit your home while they are arresting you? Can they throw you to the
floor before announcing the purpose of their visit?
-
- Do the cops answer to the mayor of your town? What
is the role of county sheriff? What does it mean for cops to be 'deputized'
by a federal agency such as the FBI? What is a multi-jurisdictional
force? What is a Joint Terrorism Task Force, a JTTF? (Hmm.
Shouldn't that be called an Anti-Terrorism Force?) May they handcuff you
behind your back? Under what circumstances can they 'tase' you? Can they
tear-gas you?
-
- Must a cop reveal his name if you ask for it? Can
you be arrested and then detained without any charges being laid? If
you are unhappy with police, in a general way, to whom can you make your
complaint? Can you sue the police? If your property is taken from you,
under 'asset forfeiture,' who gets it? Does the Bill of Rights
protect you against searches by the TSA? When you are in prison, can you
be made to wear a stun belt?
-
- Are there times when US military persons may act as cops,
other than towards soldiers? Can you be made to hand over any guns that
you lawfully possess? Or any food you own? Can a 'contractor' arrest you? In
the event of a natural disaster, must you obey an order to leave your home?
-
- I believe that, as of mid-2011, a general answer to the
above questions can be provided in the following five observations:
-
- 1. Until a few decades ago, the Bill of Rights protected
Americans against invasion of their home, inspection of their papers or
appropriation of their goods, disarmament of their guns, etc., by police. The
police were not federal or military or contractors, nor were they 'deputized.' They
answered to their paymaster at a city, or county level, or a state level,
say, for 'state troopers.' Police brutality could be sorted out via lawsuit
and public opinion (as could such things as wire-tapping). The Constitution
grants only minimal police power to the feds, e.g., a Customs authority.
-
- 2. Beginning around 1980, and with reference to the 'drug
problem,' several inroads were made, giving the Army a role in drug-related
arrests. Congress's legislation for that can be seen as a violation of
the Constitution, although a case can be made that the 'commerce clause'
(Article I, section 8) provides for regulation of interstate drug traffic.
It cannot, however justify federal police or the domestic use of the Army.
It cannot breach the many protections guaranteed in the Bill of Rights.
That is, such legislation is unconstitutional.
-
- 3. When unconstitutional laws are passed, the checks
and balances should kick in. The states could have objected
but did not! The judicial branch can act when a citizen brings
a case to court. Some errors got corrected that way. It should
be mentioned that state politicians were pressured into accepting 'help'
from the feds, in that their local police forces were given subsidies for
performing new tasks. (This has been the main way in which state autonomy
is weakened, as in school funding; education is no way a federal prerogative,
but who refuses money?)
-
- 4. Beginning in the 1990s, Congress got more creative
about legislating for potential emergencies. It had done so since 1950,
related to natural disasters and to the Cold War scare of nuclear attack
by Communists. Thus there has been, 'on the books,' the right of the federal
government to do even such a remarkable thing as grab food from your home.
As to personnel, the executive trend toward 'privatization' led to contractors. In
private, profit-making prisons, the ability to stun a prisoner by remote
control, aimed at his electronic belt, is seen as justifiable because it
saves the hiring of guards to control him.
-
- 5. Beginning in 2001, 'terrorism' was the engine that
drove citizen rights down, especially the allegation that foreigners among
us were poised to attack. New alphabet agencies were formed, such as TSA,
and weird terms like 'homeland security' were used. The word
'joint' in Joint Task Force meant the FBI could come into a city police
office (with a state's acquiescence) and deputize cops to perform 'security'
functions jointly with the FBI. This makes it hard to know who is arresting
you, and to whom you can complain. 'Katrina' gave contractors
a chance to push people out of their homes and take their guns away.
-
- As I argue in my book "Prosecution for Treason,"
the emergence of a police state was not happenstance. The cabal
(the few men who run World Government) had it planned down to the last
particular. And of course one cannot logically say the either the drug
sales or the terrorist attacks 'caused' government to respond by cracking
down. It was the cabal that arranged for drugs to enter our
cities and the cabal that arranged 9/11, the OKC bombing, and other 'terrorist'
attacks. They even played God and used HAARP to cause Hurricane
Katrina.
-
- It appears that the answer is Yes to most of the nasty
questions listed above. Yes, they can 'legally' enter your home, in the
wee hours, without knocking, and throw you to the floor. Yes, they can
remove your property, and if you ask for their name, or where to recover
the property, its unlikely they will give you a respectful answer. Later,
if you sue them the court may well dismiss your claim, so the constitutionality
never gets tested.
-
- It is worth comparing our experience with that of the
UK. Parliament's passage of the Police Act of 1964 quietly shifted
control over police forces from the local level to the national level.
I am hoping that the following tour of British events will help us to recognize
that policing is the job of the society as a whole. It is not
matter of some entity called 'government' or 'cops' having authority of
its own. We are the authorities. We employ
police to do as we instruct.
-
- HOW BRITAIN'S POLICE FORCES GOT REMOVED FROM DEMOCRATIC
CONTROL
-
- It is startling to see the parallels between the US and
the UK, regarding a national take-over of the policing power. Here I shall
provide a quick summary, based on information from an article entitled "Britain's
police forces: forever removed from democratic control?" by
Chris Williams, at the website <http://historyandpolicy.org>historyandpolicy.org.
-
- She notes that in the 1800s, local government held the
policing power. The 1835 Municipal Corporations Act had made the towns
of England and Wales self-governing. They would select a select
a 'watch committee' from their number to run the police force. The town
could veto individual prosecutions.
-
- By contrast, rural areas had a county bench of magistrates. They
were judges who also had non-judicial responsibilities. Counties named
a chief constable, who then ran the force as he saw fit. "He was far
more independent than his borough counterpart," William says. This
was not a good thing.
-
- Let us assume that people understood the importance of
controlling the police, and that they knew better than to hand their authority
over to a national body. In1856, "the Home Office's attempts to pass
police bills that limited the rights of boroughs to control their own police
forces were defeated by the boroughs."
-
- In response the national government cleverly offered
'funding.' Thus per an Act in 1857, "central government paid a quarter
of the costs of 'efficient' forces for all towns of more than 5,000."
Meanwhile, in the counties, "a precedent was set in 1888 that would
have far-reaching consequences. Police were not included in the remit of
the newly-created, elected county councils." Oh dear.
-
- Now have a look at the twentieth century developments
in the UK, as to how police got removed from local control. World War I
saw increased national control over policing. "The cherished
independence of the watch committees could be extinguished at will, and
their forces temporarily amalgamated with the counties in the interests
of efficiency."
-
- Then, just after the war, there were police strikes in
1919. (Hmm. I wonder who provoked that?) This led to the Desborough Committee.
It "recommended that police wages be increased, and that they be set
centrally for the first time." Not too many cops would
object to that, would they?
-
- Home Office quietly took five further measures to remove
the police from local democratic control. First, it "proclaimed
the independence of Chief Constables." The decision by Whitehall (the
civil service bureaucracy)"to support the authority of the independent
Chief Constable, both borough and county, was justified by referring to
the doctrine that since the ordinary constable was ultimately responsible
to the law rather than to his superiors, therefore the Chief Constable
was too" (Wow).
-
- Naturally the judiciary came to the aid of the emerging
police state: "In 1930 the contentious decision 'Fisher v Oldham'
declared that the constable was the servant of the Crown, not the local
authority." Second, there were 'red scares' in the early
1920s. Thus, "the expansion in the 'security state' saw
an unprecedented level of peacetime planning for counter-insurgency."
(Let's see, the menace of Communism, wonder who stirred that one up.)
-
- Third, the Home Office "took increasing responsibility
for producing a class of leaders for police forces, and thus intervened
increasingly in matters of training and promotion. The Hendon Police College
was set up in 1933. By the 1950s, Whitehall introduced a policy of refusing
to appoint any Chief Constable who had no experience in a different force:
this was clearly designed to create a more nationally homogenous force."
-
- Fourth, thanks to World War II, funding from Whitehall
became greater than 50%. "In 1946 the centrally-provided Block Grant
was retained in order to meet the problem of geographical inequality in
services." (Makes me think of New Hampshire's fight against
nationally-mandated kindergarten in 2007. Mustn't have inequality,
must we?)
-
- Fifth, there were scandals of 'police corruption' leading
to, what else, a Royal Commission in 1960 and follow-up legislation, the
1964 Police Act. The commission included a submission "from the Inns
of Court Conservative and Unionist Association [one of whose signatories
was Margaret Thatcher], which recommended a professional and national
force free from 'political' interference." (Royal Commissions
are like the Warren Commission, generally speaking.)
-
- "By the 1960s, concludes Chris Williams, the boroughs
were finding it hard to articulate a convincing view of localism against
the logic of 'efficiency', and if anything they were embarrassed at the
extent of their powers: powers that most watch committees had not used
for decades."
-
- SO LET'S BE EMBARRASSED BY OUR POWER!
-
- To sum up, in the US we lost our control over local police
by means of Congressional legislation that merely used a few tricks to
get us emotionally prepared. Examples mentioned above were:
the Cold War emergencies that 'justified' handing power to the president
of the US (rather than the governors, which is where this power constitutionally
belongs); the 'drug crisis' of the 1970s, and the terrorism stuff, post
9/11.
-
- This is not the place for me to argue the point made
in my book "Prosecution for Treason," that all three of those
fear-mongering episodes were "Tavistockian." All three were invented
in order to get the public into an emotional state that would allow quick
surreptitious takeover at the top. I see this mainly a trick that was played
on Congress. Presumably even if your elected representative was aware of
the trick, he/she did not 'dare' to be seen voting against 'safety' measures.
-
- The 'historic events' that 'caused' the police state
to emerge were never real. The Cold War was a fake from start to finish,
as we were in cahoots with the Soviets. The drug crisis was caused by the
federal government; our own military and covert agencies imported the drugs
and saw to their distribution to inner cities. (On this point, see the
amazing new book about New York's Chinatown, "The Hunt for Kuhn Sa"
by Ron Felber) As for 9/11 type terrorism, I somehow don't see Bin Laden
knocking down Building 7 with his bare hands, do you?
-
- All of that said, and Britain's parallels revealed, there
is no reason for us to put up with a police state. We should
return to what the Bill of Rights provides. By the way, the
Bill of Rights wasn't written by the Framers at the Constitutional Convention
in 1787. It was proposed by the first Congress in 1789, as amendments.
The promise of this Bill was made during the states' debates over ratification
of the Constitution, in 1788, in order to persuade the skeptics. Those
debates, often quite heated, are published on the Internet. Hooray!
-
- It is time for us to be embarrassed by our great constitutional
power. The cabal, operating in Britain, the US, and for that matter everywhere,
has oh-so-cutely shifted power to a Gestapo. (That word simply means
'secret state police, and is a compacting of the first letters in the each
of three German words Ge-heime Sta-ats po-lizei.) But we can
oh-so-cutely take back our power, by undoing what they did.
-
- This has to be done at the local and state level, Congress
being too cowardly, and the Courts being too sissy (though Justice Thomas
has promised to revisit the federal police power). I'll bet
you anything the cops themselves do not like their bully bosses and would
be glad of a return to local control. All you need do is explain
to your neighbors that the local cops' pay must be withheld until they
assert their independence.
-
- So do it. Delenda est cabal!
-
- ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
- Mary W Maxwell, PhD, is at trineday.com.
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