Series 2558: Constituent Correspondence, 2000-2003
36388
From: <stopmnw@pacbell.net> BC: Governor Musgrove Created: 12/16/2001 10:44 PM Subject: How They Created The Police State - You Just Lost All Your Rights And Freedom Message: Yes, that is correct, it's called HR3162. If you don't have a copy of it, I suggest you get one. Now. It just removed the Constitution and the Bill Of Rights from our existence. Do NOT believe the lie that this document, and others like it, will be "Grand fathered" or simply done away with after four years. This will not happen. Do NOT take solace in the fact that this Legislation is "only" aimed at those weird, brown- skinned Arab types....you know, the ones with towels on their heads..... Think again - you and I are next. This is precisely the very same tract taken by every petty Dictator, Tyrant or wann-be starting with Rome, or before, running through Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini all those bozo's in Africa, and on, and on. That is exactly what has occurred in America - as you waved your flags and sang your songs. If you should take the time to research history, you will soon find this to be true.....and hopefully allow you draw those parallels necessary to today's times. If nothing else, read the following article concerning a young college student who had an anti-Bush poster in her room. Still think this is America? Wake up people, it is time to shed blood. "Our job is to give people not what they want, but what we decide they ought to have." -- Richard Salent, Former President CBS News. "News is what someone wants to suppress. Everything else is advertising". former NBC news president Rubin Frank "Nothing would be what it is. Because everything would be what it isn't. And contrary-wise, what it is, it wouldn't be. And what it wouldn't be, it would. You see?" -- Alice in Wonderland - America and the World Today Do not fear the enemy, for your enemy can only take your life. It is far better that you fear the media, for they will steal your HONOR. That awful power, the public opinion of a nation, is created in America by a horde of ignorant, self-complacent simpletons who failed at ditching and shoemaking and fetched up in journalism on their way to the poorhouse. - -Mark Twain. "There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws." And this, my friends, is PRECISELY what has occurred in America. "The American people have stood idly by and watched their freedoms and rights taken away without hardly a whimper. I simply do not understand how they could have allowed this. Using the (phony) excuse of "Terrorism", they have allowed the present Government to turn America into a Police State, all the while waving their flags and singing the National Anthem! I'm incredulous........are Americans actually that blind, that deaf that foolish that they could allow such hideous, evil acts to occur in front of their very eyes, and do nothing to stop them? Have they forgotten everything the founding fathers taught us, the lessons paid in blood for our freedoms by millions of men, dead and alive? Apparently so..........the people need look no further than the White House, and No. 10 Downing St. to find their "Terrorists". And, more accurately, the agents employed by various Federal Law Enforcement (that's a joke!!) agencies. If I may be so bold - there is no war on terrorism, but rather a war on the citizens of America, Britain, Canada and every other Nation. This type of operation is referred to as a "PsyOps", or psychological operations. The ultimate goal is to frighten people so badly that they will willingly give up their rights and freedoms - for a little "peace". I refer you to Ben Franklin's thoughts on that subject - "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." And might I add, will not have either. Knowing that America could never be disarmed, the ruling Regime has decided on a more subtle scheme, staged and orchestrated "Terrorist" acts. Evil, but brilliant, I must admit. the long and short of it people, is that Bush and Bush and their cronies have stolen your right, your ability to be a free American.....and you stand by and watch. I think that's enough........I must..... what? One last statement to the people of America.........? I've already said about all that I could possibly say to the people of America - there is no war on terrorism, people, but on your Freedom's. the Bush's are nothing more than proponent's of what is loosely referred to as the New World Order. Old man Bush is the biggest drug dealer in the world, he and the CIA, that is. I know, I used to work for him.......they are all Satanist's, dedicated to the principles set fourth by Weisnhaupt and Rothchild in 1756, of complete world domination and control - Satan's ultimate goal. They do not believe in what most people think - they don't believe in what so-called Republicans believe in, there is no difference (between a Democrat and Republican) anyway. They don't believe in God, or Family or right or wrong or any of that stuff, but only in their agenda, an agenda of total world control, of evil of murdering literally millions of people and enslaving what remains for the sole purpose of their bloody vision, a vision of a "New World Order". Derisive laugh......... there is nothing new about this "vision", it's the same old nonsense - the very few rich governing the very many poor.....that's you and I, by the way. You'll do what you are told or be incarcerated in a FEMA concentration camp or you'll be executed. Remember Nazi Germany, Stalin's Russia.....? And that's enough...(pushing back in his chair), I can't say anymore. Wake up America, open your eyes, your ears. You are about to be enslaved, and you are cheering them all the way." "Mike" turns around briefly as he exits the door, "by the way, word is the Government is planning on launching more of their staged terrorist attacks around Christmas. Don't know if it's true, but it never hurts to be prepared." Silence.........the door swings shut. "Mike", Federal Agent Inside The Beltway I Dont Buy It I was one of the first tenants in the World Trade Center (WTC) back in 1979. Back then----over 20 years ago----it was known to all the tenants of the WTC that the WTC was a no fly zone. If you came within 12 miles of the WTC, flying outside of a pattern where you were supposed to be, you were warned to back off. If you came within five miles, they would threaten to shoot you down. If you came within three miles, they could shoot you down. If I remember correctly, on the roof of tower No. 2 they had surface to air missiles for that purpose, plus also the Spatz helicopters (for that purpose). This policy has not changed in the past (20) years". "I had a friend who was flying a small plane who got warned away and they almost blew him out of the sky a few years ago because he was showing somebody a close view of the towers". I can see the first tower getting hit by surprise, but 15 minutes later the second tower also gets hit? I dont buy it. I don't buy any of it. The only way this could happen is it had to be sanctioned from someone high-up in Government or in Law Enforcement. "Walt", From an Interview on Radio Free America "Today, we need a nation of Minutemen, who are not only prepared to take arms, but citizens who regard the preservation of Freedom as the basic purpose of their daily lives, and who are willing to consciously work and sacrifice for that Freedom". ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ How They Created The Police State You Just Lost All Your Rights And Freedom Bullied and herded by the leaders of both parties, our witless Solons in Washington passed the "USA PATRIOT Act" by a huge margin. Since the bill wasn't even printed before the vote, they couldn't possibly have read this 372-page document. But even if they had read it, it's doubtful they would have balked at passing the most Draconian wartime measure since the infamous Alien and Sedition Acts. In the wake of 9/11, none but a few brave souls wanted to be seen as "soft on terrorism," and, in any case, the politicians' instinctive impulse to gather more power unto themselves was automatic, in this instance, as in any other. The big problem, however, is that a number of surprises are beginning to surface, as our congressional "patriots" realize that blindly playing follow-the-leader can often lead one over a cliff. SHOCKING THE BOURGEOISIE Much attention has been paid to the "civil libertarian" aspects of this hideous bill: it would permit indefinite detention of non-citizens; and give the authorities carte blanche to read email, open snail-mail, and eavesdrop on phone conversations - all without a warrant, and without having to answer to anyone. The Orwellian possibilities of a national chip-implanted ID card, and a national database to match, are pretty obvious, and these, too, are promised in the bill. But one key yet so far overlooked aspect of the "Patriot" Act is the draconian controls it imposes on American business, both large transnational mega-corporations and local mom-and-pop stores. Mr. and Mrs. Bourgeoisie tend to be GOP types, but what will these stolid Republican burghers say when they realize that they, too, are being "pressed into service on the home front in the war on terrorism," as the Boston Globe put it? DEPARTMENT OF SUSPICIOUS TRANSACTIONS In the name of "patriotism" and the "war on terrorism," retailers are being conscripted into an army of informants whose job it is to spy on their customers. Under the terms of this legislation, all businesses must report "suspicious transactions" to the Treasury Department. What makes a transaction "suspicious"? You can bet there will be a 500-page manual to answer all your questions, and if you want to stay in business you had better commit it to memory - or find yourself accused of aiding and abetting terrorism. TYRANNY BY INCREMENTS According to the text of the Act, "any person engaged in trade or business" must report all transactions over $10,000 to Washington bureaucrats: failure to do so could result in punishment far worse than a mere fine. Here is a perfect example of how the principle of incrementalism works in favor of the expansion of state power. Before the passage of the Bank Secrecy Act of 1970, this requirement previously applied only to pawnbrokers and car dealers, as a way to track down stolen goods. The Banking Secrecy Act, passed in the name of fighting the "war on drugs," extended the reporting system to banking institutions of one sort or another. The USA PATRIOT Act universalizes this surveillance, and, in the process, gives government officials a key weapon that may be utterly useless in fighting terrorism, but may prove invaluable in the government's perpetual battle to expropriate wealth and centralize power. THE ROAD TO CORRUPTION If I buy three $4,000 shipments of, say, tea imported from Japan, the fight against terrorism is not going to be helped one whit if I report it to the Economic Surveillance Unit of the Office of Homeland Security. Who may be helped, however, is my competitor in the tea trade who, perhaps, has a "friend" in the bureaucracy with access to this information. To know what the competition is buying, and how much they're paying - what business rival wouldn't pay through the nose to obtain this vital information? If you think corruption is already endemic, wait until you see what life in wartime is like. 'OPEN THE BOOKS!' Aside from the corruption angle, this little-known aspect of the "Patriot" Act practically fulfills one of the key demands in the old Marxist program: back in the old days, the Commies would always demand of "big business" that they "open the books" - that is, reveal the details of their business operations. The idea was that once the profit margins of the capitalists were exposed to public view, such a display of wealth and greed would seem so obviously obscene and exploitative that it would inevitably lead to a socialist revolution. What the Commies never managed to pull off, George W. Bush and his fellow Republicans have accomplished in a single day's session of Congress and the stroke of a presidential pen. The books of American business have been pried open, not by the proletariat, but by the leaders of the world's leading capitalist country. SNEAK ATTACK Headlines proclaim the glorious "liberation" of Afghanistan, as the progress of our noble allies from one victory to another is breathlessly analyzed and celebrated. Has Kunduz fallen? Will the Northern Alliance keep Kabul? And what of Herat? The fate of cities half a world away is trumpeted from the rooftops, but news of another sort of sneak attack, this time against our free enterprise system, is barely heard above a whisper. "This is a big deal, and a big change, for the vast majority of American businesses," says Joe Rubin, chief lobbyist for the US Chamber of Commerce. "But I don't think anybody realizes it's happened." JOE EVERYMAN, MARTYR TO WAR Oh god, I can't wait until they find out! Let us anticipate the following scenario with unalloyed and unapologetic glee: pro-war blowhard Joe Everyman, who runs a small electronics business out of his home, is suddenly confronted with reams of paperwork before he can purchase or sell anything of consequence. As he encounters costly delays, and watches his small savings melt away against the backdrop of a general economic downturn, perhaps he'll stop railing against "ragheads" long enough to realize he's been had. Or, then again, if he's a real dumbo, maybe he'll just scream all the louder that we have to start bombing Iraq, and perhaps Syria, funneling his inchoate anger at an acceptably "patriotic" target. This, at any rate, is what the War Party is hoping for, as they gear up for "phase two" of Operation Enduring Freedom - not to mention phases three through three-hundred-and-ten. OH SO CONVENIENT This war is oh so convenient for so many people that it is no wonder they're telling us it could last a whole generation. If we ask the key question - "Who benefits?" - the results are like doing a Google-search on the phrase "grassy knoll" - the results are too numerous to even list, let alone describe. One overlooked political benefit to the current administration is that the war is an excellent diversion from the bad economic news on the home front. An economic downturn that can always be blamed on Osama Bin Laden would have come, anyway: the "almost official" declaration that we are in a recession hardly comes as news to the markets, which have been in a radical downswing that shows no signs of abating anytime soon. And here we come to the economic uses of this war, as the real meaning of what our rulers have in store for us becomes all too apparent. THE WWII ANALOGY & ITS USES The War Party is fond of referring to what is essentially a police action against a ragtag band of fanatics as the moral and military equivalent of World War II: the propaganda purposes of this sort of hyperbole are manifold. Not only does it demonize the other side as the modern-day equivalent of Hitler and the Nazis - "Islamic fascism," you'll recall, is the source of the New Popular Front's ire - but it also gives a sense of scale to the struggle. Clearly, in their minds, this is a gigantic battle that must not be confined to the wilds of Afghanistan, or Somalia, or wherever they decide to go next. It must permeate every aspect of American life: we must be perpetually "on alert," and not only against young Middle Eastern-looking men and their ubiquitous box-cutters. We must also be on guard against "suspicious transactions" - and those who fail to report them. Oh, what a field day politically-connected business interests are going to have against their less influential competitors! In addition to the toll-free "Report-a-Raghead" hotlines opened up by the FBI and Homeland Security, we'll have an economic saboteur hotline, where stool pigeons can rat on their rivals and the whole system of bribery and outright thievery that characterized the Clinton era can metastasize into a permanent condition. SOCIALISM WITH A 'CAPITALIST' FACE The economic regulations enshrined in the "Patriot" Act have more to do with the government's war on American business than with any "war on terrorism." The war spirit, transferred to the economy, gives us - socialism, or something damn near it. Who can doubt that this information - encoded, of course, in a national database - will be put to other uses, such as "economic planning"? That the Sovietization of the American economy was accomplished, not by a Leninist vanguard party, but by two ostensibly capitalist parties, the Republicans and the Democrats, is an irony that few will note - until it is too late. A SOVIET AMERICA Oh, and don't let them tell you that these are only "emergency" measures, and will be repealed once the war is over. To begin with, if we take the overblown rhetoric of the War Party at face value, we may not live to see the end of this war. Secondly, since when has any government ever surrendered power voluntarily?: a government prerogative, once granted during wartime, tends to stay encoded in law. Look at New York City's rent control laws, enacted as an emergency wartime measure, still in force after all these years. No, the longer the "Patriot" Act is allowed to subvert the Constitution, and trample on our liberty, the more likely it is to become a permanent feature of American life. Congress must be forced - forced by a popular outcry - to take a second look. This onerous legislation, which lays the foundations for a Soviet socialist America, must be repealed. 'DON'T TREAD ON ME!' As the first phase of a campaign to get rid of this Orwellian monstrosity, and warn our rulers that we won't put up with it, it is high time to turn the propaganda of the War Party on its head: that is, to use their own tactics against them. Our ruling elites are overjoyed, of course, that patriotism is "in," and do their best to ensure that any expression of dissent is angrily dismissed as disloyalty or worse. The popularity of displaying the American flag is being touted as proof of the blind loyalty of the masses to anything the government says or does, when, of course, it is nothing of the kind. The red-white-and-blue hangs outside my door, and I am certainly not giving the US government a blank check to go on a rampage, either at home or abroad. People are literally waving the flag out of sheer defiance, and legitimate anger at the sheer unspeakable horror of the 9/11 attack, not out of knee-jerk support for any particular government policies. One way to visibly register dissent from the all-out assault on our civil liberties is to bring out another, older flag, the one that preceded Old Glory. A banner showing a coiled snake - the Gadsden flag - was popular during the American Revolution, because it was emblazoned with a message to King George and any potential oppressor or attacker: "Don't Tread on Me"! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ November 21, 2001 A Durham student activist gets a visit from the Secret Service B Y J. E L L I S T O N Threat or dissent? A.J. Brown and her anti-Bush poster and the New American Police State A.J. Brown, a 19-year-old freshman at Durham Tech, was thanking God it was Friday. It was 5 p.m., the school week was over, and in an hour she'd be meeting her boyfriend to unwind. Then: Knock, knock ... unexpected guests at Brown's Duke Manor apartment. Opening the door, she found a casually dressed man, and a man and woman in what appeared to be business attire. Her first thought, she says, was, "Are these people going to sell me something?" But then the man in the suit introduced himself and the woman as agents from the Raleigh office of the U.S. Secret Service. The other man was an investigator from the Durham Police Department. "Ma'am, we've gotten a report that you have anti-American material," the male agent said, according to Brown. Could they come in to have a look around? "Do you have a warrant?" Brown asked. They did not. "Then you're not coming in my apartment," she said. And indeed, they stayed outside her doorway. But they stayed a while--40 minutes, Brown estimates--and gave her a taste of how dissenters can come under scrutiny in wartime. And all because of a poster on her wall. Though she's still a teenager, Brown is already more informed about political repression than most Americans. She's been politically aware and involved since grade school. "In second grade, I saw the Gulf War on television, and seeing those bombs drop, it did something to me," she says. "I knew from some news reports that there were innocent people dying." In middle school, Brown became interested in environmentalism and civil liberties. She made the shift to full-fledged activist at Jordan High School when she became involved with Youth Voice Radio, a media collective with a leftist bent. Most recently, she's been involved with the movement against the war in Afghanistan. Brown and fellow activists often discuss government encroachments on free speech and political organizing, she says, as do some of her favorite hip-hop artists. She loves her music--and that may have been what sparked the turn of events that brought the Secret Service to her door. Brown suspects it began with the noise complaints. On Oct. 22, a Monday evening, she stayed up late playing some new CDs for her boyfriend. By her own admission, she was playing them too loud. Around midnight, a Durham police officer came by to tell her to turn it down, and she obliged. Two nights later, someone from Duke Manor called in another noise complaint, and again a police officer came to Brown's door. This time, she says, her music wasn't playing at an offensive volume. The police officer speculated that the call may have been about someone else's stereo. During this visit, and unlike the first, the officer had a full view of the wall that faces Brown's front doorway, a detail that would become relevant two days later: On that wall hung The Poster. Brown got it at an "anti-inauguration" protest in Washington, D.C. Distributed to hundreds of activists, it depicts George W. Bush holding a length of rope against a backdrop of lynching victims, and reads: "We hang on your every word. George Bush: Wanted, 152 Dead"--a reference to the number of people executed by the state of Texas while Bush was governor. Brown believes that the message caused the Durham policeman who paid the second visit to her apartment to recommend a third. On Friday, Oct. 26, two Secret Service agents, along with Durham police investigator Rex Godley, came to Brown's apartment. Special Agent Paul Lalley, who did most of the talking, spoke first. "Ma'am, we've gotten a report that you have anti-American material, or something like that, in your apartment," he said, according to Brown. Then the female agent asked if they could come inside. When Brown pressed them for a warrant and refused to allow them in, she says, "They started to talk to me about how, 'We're not here to take you away or put you in jail.' They were like, 'We need to follow up on every report we get.' I said, 'That's understandable, but how would you even know what's in my apartment?' "They just said they had gotten information from some place," she says. She speculates that it was from the police officer who visited for the second noise complaint. Godley, the Durham police investigator, won't say where the authorities got their tip about Brown's poster. "The only thing I can tell you is that we were assisting the Secret Service on one of their cases," he says. Lalley referred questions about the visit to Special Agent Craig Ulmer, who heads the Secret Service office in Raleigh. "We went in the first place because we received a tip about a threat against the president," Ulmer says. He refuses to identify the source of the tip, except to say that it was a "concerned citizen" and not a law enforcement officer. It's Secret Service policy to keep such sources confidential. "We can't discuss who gives us information like that, because we want people to bring us information," Ulmer says. "If we burn our bridges, so to speak, we're not going to get help from the public." Ulmer added that the poster "was in plain view, even from the window, so anyone could have tipped us off." The agents persisted in their effort to get a peek inside the apartment. "They were being friendly, trying to get me to let them in," Brown says. After a while, Brown called her mother, an IBM employee who is in the Army Reserve. "She said to absolutely not let them in," Brown says. Not sure what else to do, Brown passed the phone--with her mother still on the line--to one of the agents. The standoff continued, and eventually the agents explained why they had come by: "We already know what it is; it's a target of Bush," one of them said, according to Brown--apparently a reference to the poster. She informed them it was no such thing. They then said, "Well, it's Bush hanging himself." Nope, she told them. Finally, Brown relented a bit, agreeing to open the door and show them her poster wall. "They looked in, and the lady was like, 'Ohhhh, that's not that bad.'" The male agent added, "We've seen worse." Still, Brown's brush with the authorities wasn't over. "Since they were just gawking at my wall, I decided to explain it." The wall features Brown's favorite art and mementos: a high-school photo project showing the perils of smoking cigarettes; a Pink Floyd poster ("It has that phrase, 'Mother should I trust the government,' so I had to get it"); posters for two Japanese cartoon shows; several pictures she took at protests and rallies; and a headband with "Democracy" on it. And, of course, the Bush-as-hangman poster. Having seen the poster, Brown says, the agents questioned her further, asking: "Do you have any Afghanistan stuff in your apartment, or anything pertaining to that? Any pro-Taliban stuff?" "I kept saying no," Brown says, "and I was like, personally, I think the Taliban are a bunch of assholes." With that, the investigator and the agents bid her adieu. Brown was temporarily rattled by the visit from the Secret Service, she says, but the poster's still up, and she's still committed to her activism. "I'm definitely going to be vocal," she says. "If things get really hairy and they decide to come after activists, then I'd have to just grit my teeth and go through it." Ulmer rejects the notion that Brown was targeted because of her politics, and he insists that the Secret Service would have checked this tip out even if it had come in before the events of Sept. 11. "We were doing our job in this particular case," he says, "and I don't think we could have done it any better." "The Secret Service takes all threats against the president seriously, and we go out to check on every one. A citizen thought that there was a threat, and we went and talked to Ms. Brown and we found that there was not a threat." The poster, he says, was "misconstrued" by the tipster. "So it's not a big issue. The issue is that someone misinterpreted some writing." But when "some writing" on a poster is investigated by federal authorities, constitutional issues come into play. Some legal analysts are warning that the new national security vigilance, and new laws passed to counter terrorism, might impinge on free speech in big and small ways. "A poster of Bush, even if he's in a noose, is protected speech during wartime or peacetime," notes Alex Charns, a Durham attorney who specializes in civil rights. Such speech is all the more protected, he points out, when it's displayed within a person's home. "If a trained police officer doesn't know the difference between political speech and a threat to the president, then we're all in trouble," Charns says. "If the Secret Service has nothing better to do than check on political posters, that's a bad sign." So, for all of you stupid Republicans, and Democrates for that matter, who voted for Bush Jr. thinking he would change things, thinking he would "make things better", thinking he was a God fearing, family loviing conservative, well??????? Still think that? Jsut because someone says he/she is a Republican does NOT automatcially make them (a God fearing, family loving conservative). Perhaps now you are finally realizing this fact. You are about to get exactly what you deserve, slavery. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- IN THE LOOP Cheney Says Hes Involved in Decisions, Despite Remote Location. (He's in a remote location allright, he's in Arizona with the likes of such garbage as Bush Sr., Kissenger, the heads of the 13 Illuminati familes planning the future of the world, planning your future and mine - or so they think. They are not planning my future..........) Nov. 30 Vice President Dick Cheney says he's fully involved in the wartime decision-making process, despite frequently being apart from other senior presidential advisers a security precaution he says will likely continue indefinitely as the war against terrorism proceeds. "I'm in constant touch with the White House, have several video conferences a day with my own staff, with NSC [the National Security Council], or [National Security Adviser] Condi Rice, [Secretary of State] Colin Powell, [Defense Secretary] Don Rumsfeld, and with the president," Cheney said. In an interview with ABCNEWS' Diane Sawyer for Primetime Thursday, Cheney added that the United States is bearing down on Osama [ Message Truncated ] - Attachment Filename: C:\archives\governor\mail\Governor Musgrove\_attach\9\TEXT.htm - Attachment Filename: C:\archives\governor\mail\Governor Musgrove\_attach\9\Mime 3.822