- Jennifer Van Bergen is an author, activist and educator
who currently teaches English and writing at Sante Fe Community College
in Gainesville, Florida. Professionally, she's also a journalist, legal
analyst and non-practicing attorney who's written, spoken out and debated
widely on Patriot Act justice and other civil liberties issues. Her newest
book is titled "Archetypes for Writers: Using the Power of Your Subconscious."
It analyzes the component skills writers need to learn about their "own
already-existing characters" through a series of exercises in the
book.
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- Her other vitally important recent book and subject of
this review is called "The Twilight of Democracy: The Bush Plan for
America" written in 2005. It's a clear and powerfully relevant analysis
of the threat to freedom, democracy and justice in America today under
the Bush regime. As the author puts it: "(We live in a time when)
civil liberties have been broadly violated to an unprecedented degree....My
goal (in the book) is to lay bare what the government does and is doing,
and why it is so profoundly anti-democractic" and a danger to everyone.
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- The book is in two parts. In Book I, Van Bergen discusses
constitutional law, the types of courts and standards of review established
to administer it, and the dangerous path we're now on toward a fascist
state under George Bush. Book II then reviews "The Bush Plan"
for America under Patriot Act justice; the pervasive culture of fear, extreme
secrecy and illegal sweeping universal surveillance; permanent state of
war for world dominance; and network of barbaric torture-prisons where
anyone for any reason may be labeled an "unlawful enemy combatant"
and unjustly consigned to the awaiting hell within them.
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- Book I - Deciphering the Democratic Code
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- Van Bergen starts off by explaining the clear and present
danger of a president who disdains the law and ignores it in pursuit of
whatever he wishes. The result is "Freedom and democracy in America
are in grave danger," and all humanity is affected as well. By his
actions, Van Bergen believes the Bush administration declared war on the
Republic and has gone so far astray, "there may be no going back."
She may be right, it may already be too late, and she explains why in her
opening chapter.
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- Down the Road to Fascism
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- Van Bergen cites the following signs of a nation "already
more than three-quarters of the way down the road to fascism:" the
stolen 2000 presidential election, Patriot Acts I and II, illegal mass
surveillance, torture-prison gulag, culture of extreme secrecy and fear,
contempt for the rule of law, a permanent state of war and more. We may
already be past the tipping point of its classical definition:
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- -- a state combining corporatism with strong elements
of patriotism and nationalism;
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- -- a claimed messianic Almighty-directed mission; and
-- characterized by authoritarian rule backed by iron-fisted militarism
and homeland security enforcers, mass illegal spying, and intolerance of
dissent under a president who disdains the law.
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- Van Bergen calls these components "The Bush Plan
to subvert and overthrow democratic systems" and values. It's not
just the work of one man or a group of loyalist supporters. It's become
part of our corporate culture that thrives on achieving imperial global
dominance. It's being pursued by waging war on the world under a national
security Patriot Act-governed police state tolerating no dissent. Van Bergen
discusses the Act briefly before getting into a more in-depth treatment
in Book II. She shows how the law dilutes constitutional standards by amending
and combining three separate but parallel legal systems listed below. They
use different courts, are now merged and are exploited under Patriot Act
justice:
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- (1) criminal laws and procedures,
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- (2) foreign intelligence law, and
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- (3) immigration law.
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- Post 9/11, Van Bergen notes people are out of the loop
believing "constitutional law is hard to understand" and strictly
the realm of theoreticians. How does the Constitution relate to "getting
ahead in life, with making money," she asks. It's central to it if
people begin realizing it's what guarantees their rights in a free society
without which nothing is guaranteed but government repression against anyone
considered a threat, true or not. The basic laws of the land aren't hard
to understand. What's hard is getting people to know their rights under
them, realize they're now at risk and be willing to take a stand for what
they can't afford to ignore.
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- The Law is King - If We Can Keep It
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- We like believing we're a country of laws, not men. It's
far from true, won't ever be unless demanded from the grassroots, and under
the Bush administration it's pure fantasy. Its officials scorn the law
at home and abroad. Van Bergen counts the ways:
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- -- refusing to adhere to the four Geneva Convention treaties
that are the supreme law of the land;
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- -- opting out of the International Criminal Court (ICC)
104 other nations belong to, including virtually all Western democracies;
in addition 42 others signed the Rome Statute but haven't yet ratified
it;
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- -- condoning torture and allowing or ignoring other human
rights abuses; the Nazis called torture "Verscharfte Vernehmung,"
or "enhanced interrogation" leaving few telltale signs of abuses
committed; George Bush secretly authorized his own version of harsh "enhanced
interrogation" in a July, 2006 executive order; it was unmentioned
on October 5 when he confronted a public uproar and contemptuously stated:
"This government does not torture people;" he also ignored secret
Department of Justice (DOJ) legal opinions confirming his administration
condones "the harshest interrogation techniques ever used by the CIA;"
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- -- scorning Bill of Rights laws that guarantee free expression,
religion, assembly, representation by competent counsel in a criminal proceeding,
fair and speedy trials by a jury of peers, protection from illegal searches
and seizures and much more.
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- These and other rights are constitutionally guaranteed
that in a nation of laws "is considered the bottom line" and
inviolate. Not so in the age of George Bush with the DOJ and courts taking
great "balancing test" liberties when the administration raises
issues of national security, justified or not. Van Bergen asks "Do
we want a country of laws and not of power-mongering men?" Getting
it means earning it and that begins with understanding our rights and how
legal systems work.
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- They're all underpinned by the supreme law of the land
in the benchmark Constitution most people know about but not what's in
it, what it means, and how, in fact, it works for good or ill. In spite
of it, governments always side with privilege and especially capital interests.
Ordinary private citizens are hard-pressed to get justice without competent
and generally expensive legal counsel few can afford.
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- Our Individual Rights
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- Here Van Bergen focuses on due process, free speech and
association, legal representation, and freedom from unreasonable searches
and seizures. She notes these rights aren't absolute because democratic
governments try to balance the "good of the one" against "the
good of the many" when it comes to issues of peace and security. The
result is individuals often lose out for the supposed greater good that
may only be the workings of a repressive state. That's what's happening
today in America.
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- Due Process
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- Also called "procedural due process," this
term only applies when a person's "life, liberty, or property"
is at stake, and the government is constitutionally required to provide
due process legal procedures so a person gets a proper defense. Often in
the past, this right wasn't afforded. Today it's being willfully swept
away under police state justice.
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- First Amendment Freedoms - Speech, the Press, Religion,
Assembly and Association
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- No rights are more vital than these as without them no
others are possible, but today, under George Bush, they're being lost.
As Van Bergen puts it: "democracy cannot exist without these freedoms."
Indeed not, and it's why earlier crumbs of them are now threatened more
than ever under Patriot Act justice and other harsh laws like the Military
Commissions Act enacted after Van Bergen's book was published. She points
out free expression, the press and right to assemble are most threatened
today even though they're constitutionally guaranteed.
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- That doesn't deter George Bush who on July 17, 2007 issued
another of his "one-man" Executive Order (EO) decrees "Blocking
Property of Certain Persons Who Threaten Stabilization Efforts in Iraq."
Nothing in the Constitution implicitly or explicitly allows for EOs, but
once issued, even illegally, they become the law of the land unless or
until courts rule otherwise. This one criminalizes dissent so that all
anti-war protests are now illegal, and persons participating in them are
subject to arrest, prosecution and loss of their property. That's how a
police state works, and that's the condition in America under George Bush's
contemptuous flouting of the law to crush all opposition.
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- Fourth Amendment Rights
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- This law protects people from illegal searches and seizures,
it's not absolute under the best of conditions, and it's practically null
and void today. Later in her book, Van Bergen shows how the Patriot Act
allows the government "to mix standards from different, incompatible
areas of law" (such as criminal investigations, foreign intelligence
and immigration) that amounts to a "witch's brew....of ingredients
poisonous to a democratic government or way of life."
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- The Sixth Amendment Right to Counsel
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- This law provides that defendants shall "have the
assistance of counsel" in all criminal prosecutions during and prior
to trial and to free assistance if unable to pay for it. In addition, attorney-client
confidentiality and privilege are protected under law. Patriot Act justice
threatens these rights for immigrants, so-called "unlawful enemy combatants,"
cases in which the government feels national security trumps confidentiality,
and in situations where lawyers (like Lynne Stewart) are targeted for defending
"unpopular" clients.
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- Van Bergen concludes this section saying 9/11 changed
everything, the gloves came off, and constitutionally protected rights
no longer apply at the government's discretion. Real democracies don't
work that way, America always fell short in the past, but the bar was lowered
to bottom-scraping standards post-9/11. Now the unjustifiable is justified
in the name of national security because the president says so, law or
no law. That, however, openly constitutes "an exact reversal of the
principles in our Constitution." That's the condition today and why
Van Bergen's book is so important to explain it.
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- The Constitutional Code
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- Van Bergen calls the constitutional doctrines of separation
of powers, judicial review and probable cause "code words invest(ing)
the Constitution with meaning." How they're abused, however, explains
a lot about today's frightening situation under a president who thinks
and acts (in his words) like the Constitution is "just a goddamned
piece of paper."
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- 1. Separation of Powers
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- The framers crafted a government in three parts so no
one of them got too much power although it never worked out that way from
the start. Nonetheless, their idea was for the legislative branch to make
laws, the executive to execute them, and the judiciary to interpret them.
The doctrine is called the "separation of powers" that's the
"core protection against tyranny" if enforced and utterly meaningless
if not like today under George Bush.
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- Since 9/11, Democrats and Republicans abdicated their
responsibility and have marched ever since in lockstep on virtually everything
the administration wants. Rhetoric aside, almost nothing's changed to this
day in spite of six and a half years of disastrous and reckless governance
outside the law. Van Bergen sums it up saying, in the absence of checks
and balances, "government power (has) run amok" under the Bush
Plan.
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- 2. Judicial Review
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- According to law professor Jethro Lieberman, judicial
review is "the power of courts to declare laws and acts of government
unconstitutional" although nothing in the Constitution allows this
practice. Van Bergen adds, without this check on the other two branches,
there's "no remedy for bad laws (and in fact) no democracy."
It differs from the notion of "judicial supremacy" meaning the
High Court is the final arbiter on all constitutional issues.
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- 3. Court Stripping
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- Examples of this practice are found in extremist laws
like the 1996 Anti-Terrorism Law (AEDPA), Patriot Acts I and II and other
recent legislation as they restrict the ability of courts to review executive
actions, and that's not how democratic states function.
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- 4. Probable Cause
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- Under the Fourth Amendment, neither arrest or search
warrants are allowed without evidence of "probable cause" of
criminal activity. The Bush administration, however, views all legal constraints
as quaint and fanciful. It simply sweeps them away to do as it pleases
to target anyone for any reason, real or concocted, in its sham "war
on terrorism." Weak as they always were, post-9/11, constitutional
protections are now an illusion. They simply no longer exist despite all
the pretense they do.
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- Types of Courts and Standards of Review
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- Van Bergen lists four types today, each functioning under
very different legal standards:
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- -- regular federal civil and criminal courts called an
"Article III court;" here, in theory, convictions depend on there
being proof beyond a reasonable doubt; in practice, justice depends on
how much of it defendants can buy in the form of competent legal counsel,
and too few people can buy enough or any;
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- -- immigration (or Executive branch) courts that rule
on asylum and deportation issues; they're also called the Executive Office
of Immigration Review (EOIR); these courts administer immigration law and
handle cases under it involving asylum, deportation, immigration crimes
and detentions pending review;
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- -- military courts and tribunals don't come under the
federal civil justice system; they're for trying members of the armed services
under the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) and are used under the
oppressive Military Commissions Act for anyone the president calls an "unlawful
enemy combatant," real or imagined; the greatest danger these courts
pose is that under a real or concocted state of emergency, the president
can declare martial law, suspend the Constitution, and consign any targeted
individual to justice under these courts with no trial by jury, no habeas
rights, no assigned competent defense counsel, and no right of appeal;
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- -- FISA courts (or FISC made up of 11 district court
justices) rule on obtaining foreign intelligence warrants under which no
Fourth Amendment protections apply; The Patriot Act amended FISA to allow
surveillance of US citizens whenever the administration claims it relates
to a foreign intelligence investigation with obvious implications what
this means; the Democrat-led Congress went even further in early August
as discussed below.
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- The above-listed courts operate under hugely differing
standards, and Van Bergen notes a stark one in the case of military tribunals
where civilians may now be tried on the whim of the president. In these
courts, due process is a fantasy as they're run by, untrained in civil
law, military officers, yet they're empowered to render final judgments,
beyond appeal, up to and including death sentences. Serious abuses are
common enough in civil and criminal courts. In immigration, FISA and military
ones, the notion of due process and fair and equal justice under the law
is a non-starter.
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- All the above examples today, in fact, add up to a shredding
of notions of "guilt beyond a reasonable doubt," due process
under the law, and "probable cause of criminal activity" to justify
arrests and searches in the age of George Bush. Van Bergen notes under
the Patriot Act alone, criminal constitutional procedural standards are
severely undermined so that the rule of law no longer applies any time
the government says so. That's pretty scary if you're the target.
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- Book II - "The Bush Plan"
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- Here Van Bergen gets into the meat of her book under
"The Bush Plan" that contains "the elements of fascism."
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- The Demise of Democracy - Part One
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- Intentional or not, the Bush administration charted a
post-9/11 course straight toward a full-blown national security fascist
police state. It already has all its oppressive trappings dressed up in
modern-day garb, including high-sounding, fear-engendering, doublespeak
language disguising it. Strip off the mask and here's a look:
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- -- Patriot Acts I and II,
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- -- the Military Commissions Act (aka the "torture
authorization act" and much more),
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- -- a permanent state of preventive wars under the concocted
doctrine of "anticipatory self-defense" using first strike nuclear
weapons;
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- -- a climate of fear and extreme secrecy;
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- -- universal illegal surveillance for any purpose all
the time;
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- -- disdain for domestic and international law with George
Bush unconstitutionally usurping "unitary executive" powers Chalmers
Johnson calls a "bald-faced assertion of presidential supremacy....dressed
up in legalistic mumbo jumbo;"
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- -- criminalizing dissent (Jefferson called "the
highest form of patriotism") through legislation and illegal "one-man"
decree Executive Orders;
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- -- stealing elections;
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- -- shredding civil liberties and rendering human rights
a non-starter;
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- -- controlling information through the dominant mass
media functioning as collective national thought police gatekeepers "filtering"
in all acceptable state propaganda and suppressing all vital and relevant
information and analysis;
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- -- rampant corruption in a corporatocracy;
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- -- a culture of out-of-control militarism, and much more
under the phony "war on terrorism" making democracy in America
pure fantasy.
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- Van Bergen reviews all of the above in detail and other
elements Laurence W. Britt listed in his article titled "Fascism Anyone?"
Her conclusion: "Using Britt's list, it is no stretch to call the
Bush government fascist....if Britt is believed, we're already there."
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- The Patriot Act - Part Two
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- Van Bergen states this act gives "tremendous powers
to central authorities, undermine(s) civil liberties, and enable(s) suppression
of opposition." It's the "mainstay of government oppressive power
(as it) authorizes and codifies a near-absolute and permanent invasion
of (our) private lives, sets vast precedents in immigration law....dissolving....human
rights (and erecting) a massive law enforcement apparatus (targeting) immigrant(s)
and citizen(s) (worldwide)."
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- Van Bergen discusses the issues below before getting
into the meat of the Act that opens the way for a vast menu of other abuses.
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- Guantanamo, Enemy Combatants, and Abu Ghraib
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- The Bush Administration usurped the unconstitutional
right to detain any foreign national or US citizen without evidence and
deny them due process, habeas or competent counsel with the right of appeal.
It also flouts domestic and international laws it denounces as "quaint
and out of date." It won't allow them or any nation, body or individual
to impede its plans for unchallengeable worldwide imperial dominance. Anyone
in the way may be consigned to torture-prison hellholes like Guanatanamo
that was purposefully placed on foreign soil because those locations present
a "minimal 'litigation risk.' " Being offshore was believed to
make possible the denial of due process, habeas and judicial review rights
as well as to be able to hold detainees beyond the law indefinitely.
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- Iraq: Preemptive war and International law
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- Van Bergen states "The invasion of Iraq established
the doctrine of preemptive (or preventive) war" with the US usurping
an illegal right to attack another nation it claims is a current or future
threat with no justifiable evidence to prove it. The 1945 Nuremberg Charter
said doing that is the "supreme international crime against peace"
that constitutes the worst of all crimes of war and against humanity. Van
Bergen asserts attacking Iraq (and Afghanistan) "signal(s) an end
of the rule of law and avoid(ance) of accountability on a global scale."
She cites other examples of contempt for the law as well.
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- The Coup in Haiti
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- The US has a long and disturbing history of intervening
in Haiti's affairs, deposing its leaders, and replacing them with acceptable
puppets. The Bush administration continued this practice on February 29,
2004 when US Marines abducted and forcibly removed democratically elected
President Jean-Bertrand Aristide and flew him against his will to the repressive
Central African Republic. Today he remains in exile in South Africa vowing
to return even though the Bush administration asserts the right to prevent
him from doing it.
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- US administrations have deposed many foreign leaders,
and the Bush administration violates international laws "left and
right," so what's the significance of Haiti, asks Van Bergen? "There
is no (other) 'third world' country (anywhere) closer (in proximity) to
the US," it's also the "first (ever) black republic," the
sole one in the Western Hemisphere, and it won its independence through
armed rebellion against repressive French foreign rule. Haiti is much like
what former Mexican dictator Porfirio Diaz said about his own country:
"Poor Mexico, so far from God, so close to the US." Proximity
to America has been Haiti's curse for over 200 years, and it still is.
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- Withdrawal from the International Criminal Court (ICC)
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- The ICC was created by the 1998 Rome Statute and established
in 2002 to prosecute individuals for genocide, crimes against humanity
and war. As of mid-2007, 146 countries signed the Statute and 104 ratified
it to become members except for a big absentee - America with Van Bergen
saying withdrawing from the ICC (after the Clinton administration signed
the Statute) "frees up the United States from international accountability
for war crimes." The Bush administration made sure over 100 nations
won't extradite Americans to the Hague by signing Bilateral Immunity Agreements
(BIAs) with them, and in August, 2002, Congress passed the American Servicemembers
Protection Act (called the Hague Invasion Act) authorizing the President
"any means necessary" to secure release of any American detained
by or on behalf of the Court.
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- Prosecutions and Proceedings
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- Activists are prime Bush administration targets in its
effort to crush all dissent and opposition. It's using the Patriot Act
to do it along with bending other current and obscure older laws to bring
criminal indictments. Then on July 17, George Bush issued another Executive
Order criminalizing dissent by targeting anyone opposing the administration's
Iraq war effort with threats to seize their property. Another EO followed
August 2 against anyone seen undermining Lebanon's corrupted pro-Western
government claiming "Such actions constitute an unusual and extraordinary
threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States."
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- Van Bergen notes these type actions by individuals or
groups signal the notion that "activists = terrorists" and linking
them together is the administration's way to control, suppress and remove
all opposition it finds threatening. Activists are being targeted by grand
jury subpoenas. Before them they're required to testify about unspecified
federal law violations and then later allow that testimony to be used against
them to charge perjury for some slightly incorrect or inaccurate statements.
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- Data Mining under MATRIX
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- MATRIX is a data mining effort standing for the Multistate
Anti-Terrorism Exchange Program that police and federal authorities are
using in some states. It's a form of mass scrutiny over the lives and activities
of innocent people to learn if targets exhibit signs of being a terrorist
or other type criminal.
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- MATRIX creates a "terrorism quotient" or High
Terrorist Factor (HTF) that measures the likelihood individuals in the
database are terrorists. Van Bergen noted the ACLU believes the program
is "an effort to recreate the discredited Total Information Awareness
(TIA) data mining program at the state level." It shows the federal
authorities are deep into efforts at all levels to spy on US citizens.
MATRIX is an unprecedented effort to do it within or outside the law. It
constitutes a massive invasion of privacy and violates our rights in a
free society and is one of many repressive post-9/11 unconstitutional tools
the nation's 16 spy agencies are using against us.
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- The Constitution doesn't specifically mention a right
to privacy, but Supreme Court decisions affirmed it over the years as a
fundamental human right. As such, it's protected under the Ninth Amendment
as well as the Third prohibiting the quartering of troops in homes, the
Fourth affording protection from unreasonable searches and seizures, and
the Fifth protecting against self-incrimination. MATRIX and other intrusions
enhance Patriot Act powers allowing them to persist outside of congressional
oversight and judicial review. It's another part of the overall scheme
to subvert the rule of law under George Bush police state justice.
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- Secrecy
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- The Bush administration built a culture of extreme secrecy
from the start. Van Bergen call this trait the "watchword of the Bush
adminstration" by quoting Judge Keith of the Third Circuit Court of
Appeals saying "Democracy dies behind closed doors" where under
this administration they're locked shut and bolted. Policy for the last
six and a half years has been a "blatant power grab....an American
coup, an American military dictatorship (and) an American fascist empire"
that's highlighted by what's going on at Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and other
torture-prisons free from oversight or public scrutiny.
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- Van Bergen sums up saying the Bush administration exhibits
the "common threads found in all fascist states," and that should
scare everyone. This government, she says, is run "by a ruling elite
of (extremist Christian) religious fanatics" wielding "unrestrained
oppressive power" violating constitutional law, including the most
precious of our rights under the First Amendment. It's flouted the rule
of law and smashed civil liberties after "sull(ying) the name and
reputation of the United States Supreme Court" by using the Court's
authority to seize power lawlessly and keep it. Ever since, it's been on
the march for total world dominance and now threatens all humanity by its
out-of-control actions.
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- The Patriot Act - Mainstay of Oppressive Power
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- Van Bergen calls this act "the most vivid component
of the Bush Plan." Its danger lies in placing too much unchecked power
in executive branch hands that creates an "enabling structure for
fascism and oligarchy" that endangers democracy. Specifically, the
act creates three main threats to civil liberties: the erosion of due process,
freedom of association, and the right to be free from unreasonable searches
and seizures, and as a consequence, the loss of privacy.
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- (1) The Threat to Due Process
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- The Patriot Act threatens due process in two ways:
-
- -- by permitting indefinite detentions of undocumented
immigrants, it represents a slippery slope as law professor David Cole
explains: "(W)hat we do to foreign nationals today often paves the
way for what will be done to American citizens tomorrow," and it's
already happening under the concocted notion of "unlawful enemy combatants"
anyone for any reason can be called and face prosecution.
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- -- by the act's "designation provision" that
authorizes the Attorney General or Secretary of State to call a foreign
organization a terrorist group even if it isn't. Further, the administrative
designation is sealed to effectively render it beyond review or challenge.
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- (2) The Threat to Freedom of Association
-
- "Designation" also threatens freedom of association
as aliens and US citizens may be charged and prosecuted because of their
claimed association with an "undesirable group." Van Bergen notes
that post-9/11, many thousands of Muslims and Arabs were illegally rounded
up, detained, imprisoned, abused, tortured and/or deported solely because
of their faith. By Bush administration reasoning, Muslims = "terrorists"
and "Islamofascists," especially those not white enough.
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- (3) The Fourth Amendment Threat: Surveillance and Privacy
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- Patriot Act privacy issues fall under FISA that just
got worse as prior to its August recess Congress cravenly caved to the
politics of fear and hastily passed the White House crafted Protect America
Act 2007 that amends FISA with doublespeak language Orwell would love.
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- The new law supposedly closes so-called "communication
gaps" but will allow virtual unrestricted mass data-mining, monitoring,
and intercept of domestic and foreign internet, cell phones and other new
technology as well as transit international phone call traffic and emails.
The Act claims to restrict surveillance to foreign nationals "reasonably
believed to be outside the United States" and will sunset in six months
unless renewed as Congress is about to do for at least most of its provisions
for six years. In fact, this law targets everyone, including US citizens
inside the country, if the AG or DNI claim they pose a potential terrorist
or national security threat, and no evidence is needed to prove it. Further,
in an election year, renewal is virtually guaranteed with even harsher
provisions added.
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- In point of fact, the new law allows near-unrestricted
warrantless spying of anyone at the discretion of the AG or DNI. It thus
renders any notion of illegal searches and privacy rights null and void.
The Act effectively legalizes illegality by Fourth Amendment standards
that Patriot Act provisions pretty much swept away earlier. This is how
things work in a police state where laws render privacy issues (and all
other freedoms) null and void, and everyone is under constant surveillance
and stripped of their rights.
-
- When FISA was enacted, it was done to collect "foreign
intelligence information" between or among "foreign powers"
with FISC warrants only targeting foreigners. The Patriot Act then amended
the law to effectively target anyone the government so designates as long
as it relates "to an ongoing investigation (for a) significant foreign
intelligence purpose." Van Bergen highlights the threat (now even
greater) with this example: "if you speak to a friend or relative
in the Middle East and that person gave money....to an (humanitarian aid
providing) organization....suspected of ties to terrorism....you are a
legitimate target for wire, phone, or computer taps under FISA." Even
worse, you can be charged with terrorism, arrested, tried in a military
tribunal as an "unlawful enemy combatant" and renditioned to
a torture-prison hellhole forever - for having made an innocent phone call.
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- Van Bergen concludes saying the Patriot Act (even without
the new Protect America Act) is so sweeping in scope, it's impossible relating
everything about it in a short book, let alone this review. Instead, she
highlighted areas in it relating to civil rights protections affecting
due process and under the First and Fourth Amendments. This oppressive
act severely weakened them and with prosecutorial finesse effectively renders
them null and void that threatens everyone with police state justice in
the age of George Bush.
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- Ashcroft's Way - A Closer Look at the Patriot Act
-
- In the hands of a man like former Attorney General John
Ashcroft (as well as Alberto Gonzales and Michael Mukasey), laws like the
Patriot Act become repressive police state tools that sweep aside the rule
of law. Van Bergen shows how easily this Act can be twisted and misused
by citing assertions about it Ashcroft made to justify its use and under
what circumstances.
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- Preserving Life and Liberty
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- Ashcroft gave four reasons to justify using the Patriot
Act to, in his judgment, preserve life and liberty.
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- (1) It provides tools for investigating terrorism and
other crime while ignoring that laws were already available to do it pre-Patriot.
DOJ claims the new law provides enhanced enforcement by strengthening its
use of surveillance that was never prohibited in the past but wasn't as
unrestricted as now under Patriot. Unlike before, this Act denies constitutional
protections nominally in place for all type criminal investigations pre-Patriot,
and therein lies its danger.
-
- (2) The Act allows "roving (telephone) wiretaps"
that apply to the person, not the place. Thus, if someone uses different
phones, all of them may be tapped. DOJ claims this provision allows federal
agents to "follow sophisticated terrorists trained to evade detection."
Van Bergen explains these taps don't require probable cause of criminal
behavior and thus evade constitutional protections. Under Patriot, federal
agents are immune from Fourth Amendment restrictions against unreasonable
searches and seizures that renders this protection null and void for everyone.
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- (3) The Act allows what's called "sneak and peak"
searches through issuance of "delayed notice" warrants. Under
it, targets aren't notified until a later time and at the government's
discretion so investigators won't tip off suspects in advance. Again, this
type warrant has been available for decades provided law enforcers could
show a judge it was justified under special conditions. That's all changed
now, and anything goes for any criminal investigation involving a physical
or electronic search.
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- (4) Patriot gives federal agents court-ordered access
to "third party records" of all kinds - financial, medical, educational,
virtually anything requested. For any national security claimed purpose,
it allows the government to pry into any aspect of our lives, justified
or not.
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- Information Sharing
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- Ashcroft claimed the "Patriot Act facilitated information
sharing and cooperation among government agencies so they can better 'connect
the dots.' " Van Bergen notes separate government agencies never were
impeded from working together, but Patriot tore down built-in safeguards
against abuses that are now a thing of the past. Today under the Act, our
constitutionally-protected civil liberties are severely compromised and
effectively off the table because of the latitude law enforcement is now
allowed under this law.
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- In a word, the Patriot Act poses real dangers to democratic
freedoms that are now on very shaky footing. In fact, they're practically
non-existent at the whim of law enforcers who can operate ad libitum in
the name of national security that's freely interpreted to mean virtually
anything. Van Bergen asks: "(Is it) ever wise to leave our liberty
and our country in the unaccountable hands of those who by their positions
must always be 'cast in the role of adversary' against those whose liberties
they seek to invade." Answer: never, especially if the "adversaries"
are in the Bush administration.
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- The Cheney Plan for Global Dominance
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- Van Bergen lays out the threat straightaway saying if
there's any doubt about the Bush administration's "fascist and imperial
objectives," the "Cheney Plan for global dominance must quell
it." Under GHW Bush, Defense Secretary Cheney and his undersecretary
Paul Wolfowitz were tasked to shape America's post-Cold War strategy. Wolfowitz
and convicted and commuted Cheney aide Lewis Libby drafted the scheme in
their Defense Planning Guidance some call the Wolfowitz doctrine. It was
so extreme, it was kept under wraps until it was leaked to the New York
Times. Its exposure got it shelved until it was revived under GW Bush in
2001 as an updated scheme for world dominance. It's spelled out clearly
in the 2002 National Security Strategy (NSS) that was revised in 2006 in
even more extreme form.
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- NSS is an "imperial grand strategy" declaration
of preemptive or preventive war against any country or force the administration
claims threatens our national security, true or false. Along with the 2001
Nuclear Policy Review, it gives the government the unilateral right to
declare and wage future wars using first strike nuclear weapons under the
doctrine of "anticipatory self-defense" that has no basis in
international law or anywhere else outside Washington. Van Bergen explains
that "the Cheney Plan (aka the Bush Plan)....is an exceedingly dangerous
doctrine" in play in the Middle East and Central Asia that may be
cataclysmic if it's unleashed in its most extreme form.
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- Global Dominance in Action - Military Necessity or War
Crimes? - Violating the Geneva and Hague Conventions
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