Tag: civil liberties

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Thought Crimes

“We are Arresting People for Talking About Things, Thinking About Things…” Federal Prosecutor in Alexandria, Virginia

There are days I cling to the idea that maybe I haven’t lost my mind– maybe it’s just a huge number of politicians, religious “leaders”, and police and military that have lost their minds.

In many cities in the U.S., any citizen can buy guns, camouflage, books on Marxism or Fascism, Timothy McVeigh’s autobiography, or the Turner Diaries, or American Psycho, or Mein Kampf, or the ranting and ravings of any of hundreds or thousands of fanatics or religious zealots. All with impunity.

But if you are Islamic. If you are Arabic or Asian…

Have you read this one?

The police admit that they are prosecuting these young Islamic men for nothing. They have committed no crimes. They have not planned or plotted or carried out a single terrorist act, or act of violence. The police actually seem proud of the fact that in today’s political climate they are now free to lock up people they frankly don’t like. Because, if there is no criteria that involves any factual evidence, any actual crimes, or any evidence of genuine intent, then we are allowing the police to choose people arbitrarily and lock them up. They do not choose white militarists. They don’t choose Dr. James Dobson or Al Gore or Barry Bonds. They choose these Arab youths.

They don’t choose members of the NRA, the IRA, or the Israeli army.

Not a single white militarist or survivalist or radical has even been charged in the U.S. since Timothy McVeigh blew up the Alfred P. Murrah building in Oklahoma City killing over 167 people on April 19, 1995.

Do you think that that is because they have all disappeared?

In fact, we now know with certainty, from the FBI’s own statistics, that more people in the U.S. were killed by domestic terrorists than Islamic terrorists in the past decade.

Exact Quote, from Washington Post, June 8, 2006: “We’re arresting people for talking about things, thinking about things, training for things,” said Andrew McBride, a former federal prosecutor in Alexandria. “I think you will see more of it as the government moves from a traditional criminal law model of post-event reaction to pre-event interdiction. But that’s where the civil liberties rubber meets the road.”

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Tyranny

The Bush administration has been diligently addressing some very important issues. Recently, articles in the Washington Post and the New York Times showed that the government was holding detainees illegally in foreign countries where they are tortured for information, and that the government was eavesdropping on telephone conversations without a warrant.

In a right-side up world, the government would now be arresting and charging those responsible for these criminal acts. If they were authorized by officials in the White House, they would have resigned and would be facing indictments. If the President himself authorized them, he would be facing impeachment.

Not this government. This government is arresting and charging those who told you that your government is breaking the law and that it is spying on you and torturing people.

It is totally weird that the mainstream press, and the Democrats, are not screaming bloody murder. The Bush administration has undertaken activities that are literally stunning in the depth and breadth of their violations of human rights and democratic principles. But, in a world that could only have been envisioned by Josef Goebbels

In my darker moments, the only conclusion I can draw is that all those flag-waving, patriotic, gun-toting Americans who sit there idly watching TV and not caring about these actions do not deserve democracy. In fact, they are no longer entitled to democracy. You have approved and accepted and embraced tyranny. Your government showed you a bogey man and said “boo” and you cried and wet your pants and said, please, oh please, stop them, I’ll let you do anything, I surrender all of my rights. It was that easy.

I never would have believed it. I grew up watching the Watergate scandal unfold, convinced that when Americans become aware of malfeasance by their own government, they react with disgust, they tell the pollsters that the government has no support, which empowers the loyal opposition — who are presently themselves timorously cowering in the corner–to take decisive action. Sadly, I believe that most Americans don’t care about Bush’s dictatorial powers because the word “terrorist” has become, in his mind, synonymous with “Arabic”.

On Mary O. McCarthy.

If Mary O. McCarthy really is guilty of leaking information about the CIA’s illegal activities to the press, I hope some organization with guts announces that she will given a real “Medal of Freedom”.  She is someone who has made a genuine sacrifice on behalf of democracy and civil liberties.

Did you know:

CIA employees are all required to take a “lie detector test” every five years.

The world is indeed very topsy turvey.  Lie detectors don’t work.  They never have and they probably never will.  Doesn’t matter.  Porter Gross over at the CIA looks like a fine hunter of leakers.  That’s all that matters.  His bosses think he’s a bloodhound.   I cannot believe though that not a single CIA employee has yet taken his or her employer to court over the issue.  I repeat– check this with objective analysts if you doubt me– the polygraph does not work.  It never has.  It probably never will.  There is a good reason why results from a polygraph are not admissible in court.  And anybody under suspicion of anything who would agree to take a polygraph is a fool.