Obama and Romney recently debated on national
television about domestic issues.
While the media lambasted Obama- and
rightfully so- for doing such a subpar job; the debate mainly concerned
economics and healthcare, not truly the full encompassment of domestic issues.
The debate ignored immigration, gun control and several other issues. While
both candidates made their positions known, with Obama seeming to emphasize the
similarities between the two on issues such as Social Security, there went an
unspoken truth: the fact that both candidates agree that they will not give you
back your freedoms. At the end of the day, neither Obama nor Romney is going to
end the police state that has occurred.
On domestic drones, both candidates are in complete
agreement that the government should be able to spy on US citizens or apprehend
them for ‘criminal’ activities. It was reported last December that
A US family has been
arrested with the help of a Predator drone, after a search for a missing cow
did not go to plan. By “drone” we do mean military reconnaissance and assault
flying machine used by the US Army and the CIA, mostly abroad.
This is the first time
in American history that an unmanned aircraft has been used to assist police in
making an arrest on US soil. To be precise, this is the same Predator drone
that the US army uses in military missions across Afghanistan, Pakistan and any
other theater of US-inspired conflict.
The drone was called to
the rescue when… six cows went missing in North Dakota. [1]
Now taking out the ridiculousness of the calling in
a drone to look for cows and putting it aside, the story is quite serious as it
is an example of how drones may be used in the future and that they will be
tools of surveillance and oppression rather than just not being used at all. These
drones will be being used as Big Brother’s eye in the sky and will be made to
ensure that you and I don’t do anything that isn’t wanted by the government.
It is
important to note that Obama signed the Federal Aviation Administration
Reauthorization law which allows for drones to be used domestically. [2] Thus,
Obama himself is actively playing a part destroying our freedoms even further.
However, let’s take a step into our time machine and
go back into 2001, not to long after the 9/11 attacks, when President Bush
signed the Patriot Act.
Doesn’t that just sound so wonderful and great? So
comforting? The government was going to protect us against the evils of
terrorism and we were going to be safe. However, that turned out to be quite
false.
The Patriot Act allowed the government to search and
seize Americans' papers and effects without probable cause to assist terror
investigation, jail Americans indefinitely without a trial, monitor religious
and political institutions without suspecting criminal activity, and monitor
conversations between attorneys and clients in federal prisons and deny lawyers
to Americans accused of crimes, as well as several other unconstitutional acts.
[3]
There are several instances of the Patriot Act being
used to assault citizens’ rights. In April of 2009 it was reported that a 16
year old by the name of Ashton Lundeby, was “being held on a criminal complaint
that he made a bomb threat from his home on the night of Feb. 15” and from that
the authorities came into Lundeby’s home and arrested him without a warrant.
Lundeby’s mother said on the issue:
We
have no rights under the Patriot Act to even defend them, because the Patriot
Act basically supersedes the Constitution[.] It wasn't
intended to drag your barely 16-year-old, 120-pound son out in the middle of
the night on a charge that we can't even defend. [4] (emphasis added)
As we can see, rule of
law was suspended in the name of so-called combating terrorism. However, the
greatest irony of all of this is the fact that the Democrats, who so ardently
attacked Bush while running for office and Obama, who also slammed Bush for the
Patriot Act, renewed it in its entirety, with Obama saying that it was “an
important tool for us to continue dealing with an ongoing terrorist threat.”
[5] Both Obama and the Democrats reveal themselves as hypocrites and liars,
wanting the same police state as do the Republicans. Romney
feels the exact same way about the Patriot Act as he recently stated.
"I
can assure when I become president … I
will not do things that interfere with our rights and our freedoms,"
Romney said, before saying he did
support legislation like the Patriot Act that expanded the
intelligence-gathering toolbox. [6] (emphasis added)
Looking through the contradictory statement, one can see that Romney
supports the Patriot Act. And here I was, thinking that Republicans were for
smaller government. But this support for the Patriot Act isn’t anything new
from Romney as he has supported it since 2007.
Yep, that’s right
folks. The greatest civil liberty Romney expects from his government is to keep
him alive. This is nothing but another reminder that
neither party cares about restoring of civil liberties.
But the story doesn’t
end there. It gets worse.
Last year around midnight, Obama signed the National
Defense Authorization Act of 2012, which gives the President the power to indefinitely
detain US citizens. However, before we go into that, let’s give some background
to the situation.
When the NDAA first came up, Obama was quite wary of
signing it, even going so far as threatening to veto it. Christian Science Monitor reported that the Obama administration
“strongly object[ed]” to the indefinite detainment provision and stated that it
would “raise serious and unsettled legal questions and would be inconsistent
with the fundamental American principle that our military does not patrol our
streets.” [7]
However, this “strong objection” did not stop him
from signing the bill into law. The Washington
Post stated on December 31st of last year that “President Obama
expressed misgivings about several provisions of a sweeping defense bill he
signed into law on Saturday, pledging that his administration will use broad
discretion in interpreting the measure’s legal requirements to ensure that U.S.
citizens suspected of terrorism are not detained indefinitely by the military.”
The article goes on to quote the President saying
“I have signed this
bill despite having serious reservations with certain provisions that regulate
the detention, interrogation, and prosecution of suspected terrorists,” Obama
said. “I want to clarify that my Administration will not authorize the
indefinite military detention without trial of American citizens. Indeed, I
believe that doing so would break with our most important traditions and values
as a Nation.” [8]
Yet, the fact of the matter is that he signed a law
into bill that would allow for the indefinite detention of US citizens. Don’t
take my word for it, let’s go to Jonathan Turley who
- Is the second most cited law professor in the country
- Has worked as both the CBS and NBC legal analyst during national controversies
- Is one of the top 10 lawyers handling military cases
- Has served as a consultant on homeland security and constitutional issues
- Is a frequent witness before the House and Senate on constitutional and statutory issues [9]
He stated on his
blog about the supposed changes made to the NDAA to soothe citizens that
The White House is saying that changes to the law made it unnecessary to
veto the legislation. That spin is facially ridiculous. The changes were the inclusion of some meaningless rhetoric after key
amendments protecting citizens were defeated. The provision merely states that
nothing in the provisions could be construed to alter Americans’ legal rights.
Since the Senate clearly views citizens are not just subject to indefinite
detention but even execution without a trial, the change offers nothing but
rhetoric to hide the harsh reality.
The Administration and Democratic members
are in full spin — using language designed to obscure the authority given to
the military. The exemption for American
citizens from the mandatory detention requirement (section 1032) is the screening language for the
next section, 1031, which offers no exemption for American citizens from the
authorization to use the military to indefinitely detain people without charge
or trial. [10] (emphasis
added)
There is
currently some confusion as to whether or not the provision in the bill that
allows for the indefinite detention of US citizens is still on the books. In
June, a judge ruling the NDAA unconstitutional [11], however,
it was reported by Antiwar.com on October 3rd that “A federal appeals court of three Obama-appointed judges has rejected a previous ruling barring
the government from enforcing the indefinite detention provisions in a recent
national defense bill” [12] and that same federal appeals court granted a stay
on the case.
Please note, a “stay” means that
there is a “suspension of the case’s proceedings.” Thus this means that the
issue is on hold, however, in the mean while Obama can keep on detaining US
citizens as he pleases. Ironic isn’t it? Obama said that he had a “strong
objection” to the bill due to the provision in question; however, he is
currently fighting to maintain that provision in the bill.
Romney isn’t much
better as it was reported on October 10th that he sidestepped
questions on the NDAA stating that he “didn’t have
enough information on the law” and that “when it comes to the issue of
indefinite detention he would try to strike a balance between protecting
personal liberties and protecting the nation from terrorist attacks.” [13] This
is quite surprising. How could he not have enough information on such a crucial
issue? Romney, a Republican who is in favor of small government wouldn’t have
enough information about something which you could use to utter cripple your
opponent?
The final nail in the
coffin for both candidates is that they are both in favor of killing US
citizens, as can be seen in the case of Anwar al-Awlaki, a member of Al Qaeda
that was assassinated last year.
Anwar
al-Awlaki was killed in September last year. It is important to note that
Awlaki was never actually accused of being involved in any terrorist acts [14],
just inciting them and while that is horrid, it does not change the fact that
he was a US citizen at the time of his death. Joshua Keating of Foreignpolicy.com
wrote on the matter:
It was once possible to lose one's
U.S. citizenship by fighting in another country's army against the United
States -- whether Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula counts as an army is
another question -- but as the legal blog Opinion Juris
explained on Twitter this morning, the Supreme Court has found that [killing
Awlaki was] unconstitutional under the 14th amendment. Ironically, the
virulently anti-Semitic cleric's citizenship was protected by a case that
involved a dual U.S.-Israeli citizen fighting to keep his U.S. citizenship
after voting in an Israeli election.
In order to lose his citizenship,
it must be shown that the U.S. citizen joined the foreign military or swore
allegiance to another state "with the intention of relinquishing United
States nationality" -- a very tough standard. There's no evidence that
Awlaki ever formally renounced his U.S. citizenship.
[..] [T]he Obama administration never
denied Awlaki's citizenship when it targeted him for assassination. [15]
(emphasis added)
However, some argued that it
was a legal killing, yet it eventually came out that al-Awlaki’s death was
justified by a secret memo. The New York Times states that this secret memo
found that it would be legal to kill Awlaki “only if it were not feasible to
take him alive, according to people who have read the document” and that the
memo supposedly
provided
the justification for acting despite an executive order banning assassinations,
a federal law against murder, protections in the Bill of Rights and various
strictures of the international laws of war, according to people familiar with
the analysis. The memo, however, was narrowly drawn to the specifics of Mr.
Awlaki’s case and did not establish a broad new legal doctrine to permit the
targeted killing of any Americans believed to pose a terrorist threat. [16]
Oh yes, the case was specific to Awlaki, never could it ever be used to create a legal precedent to kill US citizens. However, it seems that some people such as Jameel Jaffer, the deputy legal director of the ACLU, have a different opinion on the matter. Jaffer made a statement on the same day Awlaki was killed. He stated that “As we’ve seen today, it’s a program under which U.S. citizens far from any battlefield can be executed by their own government without judicial process and on the basis of standards and evidence that are secret.” [17]
Romney, too, is a fan
of killing US citizens. He stated back in 2011 that he "absolutely"
would have made the same call as Mr. Obama, going on to say
"In
this case, this is an individual who had aligned himself with a -- with a group
that declared war on the United States of America. And if there's someone
that's going to join with a group like al Qaeda that declares war on America,
and we're in a -- in a war with that entity, then, of course, anyone who is
bearing arms with that entity is fair game for the United States of America.”
[18]
This statement blatantly
ignores the aforementioned information which clearly states that Awlaki was
still, legally speaking, a US citizen as the time of his death and thus still had the rights of a US citizen.
Unfortunately,
whether we vote for Obamney or Rombama, the outcome for our civil liberties
will be the same- we aren’t getting them back.
1: “US Farm Drama: Predator Drone Assists In Arrest,” Russia Today, December 12, 2011 (http://rt.com/news/predator-drone-us-arrest-583/)
2: Cal Thomas and Bob Beckel, “Column: Domestic use of drones? Bad idea,” USA Today, March 30, 2012 (http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/opinion/forum/story/2012-05-30/domestic-drones-privacy-faa-uavs/55288498/1)
3: Seattle Community Network, Patriot Act vs. Constitution, http://www.scn.org/ccapa/pa-vs-const.html
4: “Mom says Patriot Act stripped son of due process,” WRAL, April 29, 2009 (http://www.wral.com/news/local/story/5049867/)
5: Jim Abrams, “Patriot Act Extension Signed By Obama,” Huffington Post, May 27, 2011 (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/27/patriot-act-extension-signed-obama-autopen_n_867851.html)
6: Justin Sink and Ben Geman, “Romney looks to use his debate momentum to blunt Obama in Ohio,” The Hill, October 10, 2012 (http://thehill.com/blogs/e2-wire/e2-wire/261263-romney-seeks-to-use-debate-boost-to-blunt-obama-in-ohio)
7: Brad Knickerbocker, “Guantánamo for US citizens? Senate bill raises questions,” Christian Science Monitor, December 3, 2011 (http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Justice/2011/1203/Guantanamo-for-US-citizens-Senate-bill-raises-questions)
8: Obama signs defense bill, pledges to maintain legal rights of U.S. citizens,” Washington Post, December 31, 2011 (http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obama-signs-defense-bill-pledges-to-maintain-legal-rights-of-terror-suspects/2011/12/31/gIQATzbkSP_story.html)
9: George Washington University, Jonathan Turley, http://www.law.gwu.edu/faculty/profile.aspx?id=1738
10: Jonathan Turley, “Final Curtain: Obama Signs Indefinite Detention of Citizens Into Law As Final Act of 2011,” Jonathan Turley, January 2, 2012 (http://jonathanturley.org/2012/01/02/final-curtain-obama-signs-indefinite-detention-of-citizens-into-law-as-final-act-of-2011/)
11: “NDAA unconstitutional: Federal judge bans Obama from indefinitely detaining Americans,” Russia Today, June 7, 2012 (http://rt.com/usa/news/ndaa-judge-obama-forrest-295/)
12: John Glaser, “Appeals Court Restores NDAA’s Indefinite Detention Provisions,” Antiwar, October 3, 2012 (http://news.antiwar.com/2012/10/03/appeals-court-restores-ndaas-indefinite-detention-provisions/)
13: Seth McLaughlin, “Romney sidesteps questions on detaining US citizens,” Washington Times, October 10, 2012 (http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/oct/10/romney-sidesteps-questions-guantanamo/)
14: Brian Ross and Lee Ferran, “How Anwar Al-Awlaki Inspired Terror From Across the Globe,” ABC News, September 30, 2011 (http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/anwar-al-awlaki-inspired-terror/story?id=14643383#.UHzCcFQfq25)
15: Joshua Keating, “Was Anwar al-Awlaki still a U.S. citizen?,” Foreign Policy, September 30, 2011 (http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/09/30/was_anwar_al_awlaki_still_a_us_citizen)
16: Charlie Savage, “Secret US Memo Made Legal Case to Kill A Citizen,” New York Times, October 8, 2011 (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/09/world/middleeast/secret-us-memo-made-legal-case-to-kill-a-citizen.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1&)
17: Sal Gentile, “ACLU criticizes killing of Anwar al-Awlaki, a U.S. citizen, calling it a ‘dangerous’ precedent,” PBS, September 30, 2011 (http://www.pbs.org/wnet/need-to-know/the-daily-need/aclu-criticizes-killing-of-anwar-al-awlaki-a-u-s-citizen-calling-it-a-dangerous-precedent/11813/)
18: Corbett B. Daly, “Gingrich, Romney back Obama killing American accused of turning on U.S.,” CBS News, November 12, 2011 (http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-57323700-503544/gingrich-romney-back-obama-killing-american-accused-of-turning-on-u.s/)
