The Neoconservatives Who Gave
Us 9/11 Gave Us The American Police State
The Neoconservatives Who Gave
Us 9/11 Gave Us The American Police State
Constitutional attorney John W.
Whitehead who runs the Rutherford institute defends the unjustly accused, and
he provides commentary on Americans’ loss of the civil liberty protections that
resided in the US Constitution.
In the article below Whitehead
explain how 9/11 was used to give Americans a Gestapo police state.
If you do not believe that the
US is a Gestapo police state, you will find out when it comes for you.
The Tyranny of 9/11: The
Building Blocks of the American Police State from A-Z
273 61 35
By John W. Whitehead
September 06, 2016
September 06, 2016
“No one man can terrorize a
whole nation unless we are all his accomplices.” ― Edward R. Murrow
We’ve walked a strange and
harrowing road since September 11, 2001, littered with the debris of our
once-vaunted liberties.
We have gone from a nation that
took great pride in being a model of a representative democracy to being a
model of how to persuade the citizenry to march in lockstep with a police
state. In doing so, we have proven Osama Bin Laden right. He warned that “freedom and human rights in America
are doomed.
The U.S. government will lead the American people in — and the West in general
— into an unbearable hell and a choking life.”
These past 15 years have indeed
been an unbearable, choking hell.
What began with the passage of the USA Patriot Act in October 2001 has
snowballed into the eradication of every vital safeguard against government
overreach, corruption and abuse.
The citizenry’s unquestioning
acquiescence to anything the government wants to do in exchange for the phantom promise of safety and
security has
resulted in a society where the nation is being locked down into a militarized,
mechanized, hypersensitive, legalistic, self-righteous, goose-stepping
antithesis of every principle upon which this nation was founded.
Set against a backdrop of
government surveillance, militarized police, SWAT team raids, asset forfeiture,
eminent domain, overcriminalization, armed surveillance drones, whole body
scanners, stop and frisk searches, roving VIPR raids and the like—all of which
have been sanctioned by Congress, the White House and the courts—our
constitutional freedoms have been steadily chipped away at, undermined, eroded,
whittled down, and generally discarded.
Our losses are mounting with
every passing day.
Free speech, the right to
protest, the right to challenge government wrongdoing, due process, a
presumption of innocence, the right to self-defense, accountability and
transparency in government, privacy, press, sovereignty, assembly, bodily
integrity, representative government: all of these and more have become
casualties in the government’s war on the American people, a war that has grown
more pronounced since 9/11.
Since the towers fell on 9/11,
the American people have been treated like enemy combatants, to be spied on,
tracked, scanned, frisked, searched, subjected to all manner of intrusions,
intimidated, invaded, raided, manhandled, censored, silenced, shot at, locked
up, and denied due process.
In allowing ourselves to be
distracted by terror drills, foreign wars, color-coded warnings, underwear
bombers and other carefully constructed exercises in propaganda, sleight of
hand, and obfuscation, we failed to recognize that the true enemy to freedom
was lurking among us all the while.
The U.S. government now poses a
greater threat to our freedoms than any terrorist, extremist or foreign entity
ever could.
While nearly 3,000 people died
in the 9/11 attacks, the U.S. government and its agents have easily killed at
least ten times that number of civilians in the U.S. and abroad since 9/11
through its police shootings, SWAT team raids, drone strikes and profit-driven
efforts to police the globe, sell weapons to foreign nations, and foment civil
unrest in order to keep the military industrial complex gainfully employed.
(Syria’s bloody civil war in which CIA-armed militias have been
fighting FBI-armed militias is a prime example of the government’s Machiavellian
schemes gone awry.)
No, the U.S. government is not
the citizenry’s friend, nor is it our protector, and life in the United States
of America post-9/11 is no picnic.
Here’s an A-to-Z primer to
spell out exactly what government tyranny means post 9/11.
A is for the AMERICAN POLICE
STATE. A
police state “is characterized by bureaucracy, secrecy, perpetual wars, a
nation of suspects, militarization, surveillance, widespread police presence,
and a citizenry with little recourse against police actions.”
B is for our battered BILL OF
RIGHTS. In
the cop culture that is America today, where you can be kicked, punched,
tasered, shot, intimidated, harassed, stripped, searched, brutalized,
terrorized, wrongfully arrested, and even killed by a police officer, and that
officer is rarely held accountable for violating your rights, the Bill of
Rights doesn’t amount to much.
C is for CIVIL ASSET
FORFEITURE. The
latest governmental scheme to deprive Americans of their liberties—namely, the
right to property—is being carried out under the guise of civil asset
forfeiture, a government practice whereingovernment agents (usually the
police) seize private property they “suspect” may be connected to criminal
activity.
Then, whether or not any crime is actually proven to have taken place, the
government keeps the citizen’s property.
D is for DRONES. It is estimated that at least
30,000 drones will be airborne in American airspace by 2020, part of an$80 billion industry. Although some drones will be
used for benevolent purposes, many will also be equipped with lasers, tasers
and scanning devices, among other weapons—all aimed at “we the people.”
E is for ELECTRONIC
CONCENTRATION CAMP. In
the electronic concentration camp, as I have dubbed the surveillance state, all
aspects of a person’s life are policed by government agents and all citizens
are suspects, their activities monitored and regulated, their movements
tracked, their communications spied upon, and their lives, liberties and
pursuit of happiness dependent on the government’s say-so.
F is for FUSION CENTERS. Fusion centers, data collecting
agencies spread throughout the country and aided by the National Security
Agency, serve as a clearinghouse for information shared
between state, local and federal agencies. These fusion centers constantly monitor
our communications, everything from our internet activity and web searches to
text messages, phone calls and emails. This data is then fed to government
agencies, which are now interconnected: the CIA to the FBI, the FBI to local
police.
G is for GRENADE LAUNCHERS and
GLOBAL POLICE. The
federal government has distributed more than $18 billion
worth of battlefield-appropriate military weapons, vehicles and equipment such as drones, tanks,
and grenade launchers to domestic police departments across the country. As a
result, most small-town police forces now have enough firepower to render any
citizen resistance futile. Now take those small-town police forces, train them
to look and act like the military, and then enlist them to be part of the
United Nations’ Strong Cities Network program, and you not only have a
standing army that operates beyond the reach of the Constitution but one that
is part of a global police force.
H is for HOLLOW-POINT BULLETS. The government’s efforts
to militarize and weaponize its agencies and employees is reaching epic
proportions, with federal agencies as varied as the Department of Homeland
Security and the Social Security Administration stockpiling millions of lethal
hollow-point bullets, which violate international law. Ironically, while the
government continues to push for stricter gun laws for the general populace,
the U.S. military’s arsenal of weapons makes the average American’s handgun
look like a Tinker Toy.
I is for the INTERNET OF
THINGS, in
which internet-connected “things” will monitor your home, your health and your
habits in order to keep your pantry stocked, your utilities regulated and your
life under control and relatively worry-free. The key word here, however, is
control. This “connected” industry propels us closer to a
future where police agencies apprehend virtually anyone if the government
“thinks” they may commit a crime, driverless cars populate the highways, and a
person’s biometrics are constantly scanned and used to track their movements,
target them for advertising, and keep them under perpetual surveillance.
J is for JAILING FOR PROFIT. Having outsourced their
inmate population to private prisons run by private corporations, this profit-driven form of mass
punishment has
given rise to a $70 billion private prison industry that relies on the
complicity of state governments to keep their privately run prisons full by
jailing large numbers of Americans for inane crimes.
K is for KENTUCKY V. KING. In an 8-1 ruling, the Supreme
Court ruled that police officers can break
into homes, without a warrant, even if it’s the wrong home as long as they think
they have a reason to do so. Despite the fact that the police in question ended
up pursuing the wrong suspect, invaded the wrong apartment and violated just
about every tenet that stands between us and a police state, the Court
sanctioned the warrantless raid, leaving Americans with little real protection
in the face of all manner of abuses by law enforcement officials.
L is for LICENSE PLATE READERS, which enable law enforcement
and private agencies to track the whereabouts of vehicles, and their occupants,
all across the country. This data collected on tens of thousands of innocent
people is also being shared between police agencies, as
well as with fusion centers and private companies. This puts Big Brother in the
driver’s seat.
M is for MAIN CORE. Since the 1980s, the U.S.
government has acquired and maintained, without warrant or court order, a
database of names and information on Americans considered to be threats to the
nation. As Salon reports, this database, reportedly dubbed “Main Core,” is to be used by the Army
and FEMA in times of national emergency or under martial law to locate and
round up Americans seen as threats to national security. As of 2008, there were
some 8 million Americans in the Main Core database.
N is for NO-KNOCK RAIDS. Owing to the militarization of
the nation’s police forces, SWAT teams are now increasingly being deployed for
routine police matters. In fact, more than 80,000 of these paramilitary raids
are carried out every year. That translates to more than 200 SWAT team raids every day
in which police crash through doors, damage private property, terrorize adults
and children alike, kill family pets, assault or shoot anyone that is perceived
as threatening—and all in the pursuit of someone merely suspected of a crime,
usually possession of some small amount of drugs.
O is for OVERCRIMINALIZATION. Thanks to an
overabundance of 4500-plus federal crimes and 400,000 plus rules and
regulations, it’s estimated that the average American actually commits three
felonies a day without knowing it. As a result of this overcriminalization, we’re seeing an uptick in
Americans being arrested and jailed for such absurd “violations” as letting
their kids play at a park unsupervised, collecting rainwater and snow runoff on
their own property, growing vegetables in their yard, and holding Bible studies
in their living room.
P is for PATHOCRACY and
PRECRIME. When
our own government treats us as things to be manipulated, maneuvered, mined for
data, manhandled by police, mistreated, and then jailed in profit-driven private prisons if we dare step out of
line, we are no longer operating under a constitutional republic. Instead, what
we are experiencing is a pathocracy: tyranny at the hands of a
psychopathic government, which “operates against the interests of its own
people except for favoring certain groups.” Couple that with the government’s
burgeoning precrime programs, which will use fusion centers, data collection agencies,
behavioral scientists, corporations, social media, and community organizers and
by relying on cutting-edge technology for surveillance, facial
recognition, predictive policing, biometrics, and
behavioral epigenetics in order to identify and
deter so-called potential “extremists,” dissidents or rabble-rousers. Bear in
mind that anyone seen as opposing the government—whether they’re Left, Right or
somewhere in between—is now viewed as an extremist.
Q is for QUALIFIED IMMUNITY. Qualified immunity allows officers to walk
away without paying a dime for their wrongdoing. Conveniently, those deciding
whether a police officer should be immune from having to personally pay for
misbehavior on the job all belong to the same system, all cronies with a vested
interest in protecting the police and their infamous code of silence: city and
county attorneys, police commissioners, city councils and judges.
R is for ROADSIDE STRIP
SEARCHES and BLOOD DRAWS. The courts have increasingly erred on the side of giving
government officials—especially the police—vast discretion in carrying out
strip searches, blood draws and even anal probes for a broad range of
violations,
no matter how minor the offense. In the past, strip searches were resorted to
only in exceptional circumstances where police were confident that a serious
crime was in progress. In recent years, however, strip searches have become
routine operating procedures in which everyone is rendered a suspect and, as
such, is subjected to treatment once reserved for only the most serious of
criminals.
S is for the SURVEILLANCE
STATE. On
any given day, the average American going about his daily business will be
monitored, surveilled, spied on and tracked in more than 20 different ways, by
both government and corporate eyes and ears. A byproduct of this new age in
which we live, whether you’re walking through a store, driving your car,
checking email, or talking to friends and family on the phone, you can be sure
that some government agency, whether the
NSA or some other entity, is listening in and tracking your behavior. This doesn’t even begin to
touch on the corporate trackers that monitor your purchases, web browsing,
Facebook posts and other activities taking place in the cyber sphere.
T is for TASERS. Nonlethal weapons such as
tasers, stun guns, rubber pellets and the like have been used by police as
weapons of compliance more often and with less restraint—even against women and
children—and in some instances, even causing death. These “nonlethal” weapons also enable
police to aggress with the push of a button, making the potential for overblown
confrontations over minor incidents that much more likely. A Taser Shockwave,
for instance, can electrocute a crowd of people at the touch of a button.
U is for UNARMED CITIZENS SHOT
BY POLICE. No
longer is it unusual to hear about incidents in which police shoot unarmed
individuals first and ask questions later, often attributed to a fear for their
safety. Yet the fatality rate of on-duty patrol
officers is reportedly far lower than many other professions, including construction,
logging, fishing, truck driving, and even trash collection.
V is for VIPR SQUADS. So-called “soft target”
security inspections, carried out by roving VIPR task forces, comprised of federal air
marshals, surface transportation security inspectors, transportation security
officers, behavior detection officers and explosive detection canine teams, are
taking place whenever and wherever the government deems appropriate, at random
times and places, and without needing the justification of a particular threat.
W is for WHOLE-BODY SCANNERS. Using either x-ray radiation or
radio waves, scanning devices and government mobile units are being used not
only to “see” through your clothes but to spy on you within the privacy of your
home. While these mobile scanners are being sold to the
American public as necessary security and safety measures, we can ill afford to
forget that such systems are rife with the potential for abuse, not only by
government bureaucrats but by the technicians employed to operate them.
X is for X-KEYSCORE, one of the many spying programs
carried out by the National Security Agency that targets every person in the
United States who uses a computer or phone. This top-secret program “allows analysts to search with no
prior authorization through vast databases containing emails, online chats and
the browsing histories of millions of individuals.”
Y is for YOU-NESS. Using your face,
mannerisms, social media and “you-ness” against you, you can now be tracked
based on what you buy, where you go, what you do in public, and how you do what
you do. Facial recognition software promises to create a society in which every
individual who steps out into public is tracked and recorded as they go about
their daily business. The goal is for government agents to be able to scan a
crowd of people and instantaneously identify all of the individuals present. Facial recognition programs are
being rolled out in states all across the country.
Z is for ZERO TOLERANCE. We have moved into a new
paradigm in which young people are increasingly viewed as suspects and treated
as criminals by school officials and law enforcement alike, often for engaging in little more
than childish behavior. In some jurisdictions, students have also been penalized
under school zero tolerance policies for such inane "crimes" as
carrying cough drops, wearing black lipstick, bringing nail clippers to school,
using Listerine or Scope, and carrying fold-out combs that resemble
switchblades. The lesson being taught to our youngest—and most
impressionable—citizens is this: in the American police state, you’re either a
prisoner (shackled, controlled, monitored, ordered about, limited in what you
can do and say, your life not your own) or a prison bureaucrat (politician,
police officer, judge, jailer, spy, profiteer, etc.).
As I make clear in my
book Battlefield America: The War on the
American People,
the reality we must come to terms with is that in the post-9/11 America we live
in today, the government does whatever it wants, freedom be damned.
The choices before us are
straight-forward.
We can live in the past, dwell
on what freedoms we used to enjoy and shrug helplessly at the destruction of
our liberties.
We can immerse ourselves in the
present, allowing ourselves to be utterly distracted by the glut of
entertainment news and ever-changing headlines so that we fail to pay attention
to or do anything about the government’s ongoing power-grabs.
We can hang our hopes on the
future, believing against all odds that someone or something—whether it be a
politician, a movement, or a religious savior—will save us from inevitable
ruin.
Or we can start right away by
instituting changes at the local level, holding our government officials
accountable to the rule of law, and resurrecting the Constitution, recognizing
that if we fail to do so and instead follow our current trajectory, the picture
of the future will be closer to what George Orwell likened to “a boot stamping
on a human face—forever.”
WC: 2954
Constitutional attorney and
author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute.
His bookBattlefield America: The War on the
American People (SelectBooks,
2015) is available online at www.amazon.com. Whitehead can be contacted at johnw@rutherford.org.
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Dr. Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate. He has had many university appointments. His internet columns have attracted a worldwide following. Roberts' latest books are The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and Economic Dissolution of the West, How America Was Lost, and The Neoconservative Threat to World Order.
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