On Wed, 01 Nov 2006 01:02:36 GMT, "Brig Gen Tuttle USAF
NI-Freedom_Forces........69778..." <Brig Gen .. Tuttle USAF
NI.Freedom_Forces.........@.....gov.pen....roomBGy7985.icsncg.69785848..30607.DCwash.usand
their crimes...> wrote:

Bush Moves Toward Martial Law
In a stealth maneuver, President Bush has signed into law a
provision
which, according to Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont), will actually
encourage the President to declare federal martial law

You mean he may declare open season on liberals ? WOW !!!
That would be great. Is there a bounty ?

Bush Moves Toward Martial Law
Frank Morales | October 26, 2006
In a stealth maneuver, President Bush has signed
into law
a provision which, according to Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont),
will
actually encourage the President to declare federal martial law (1).
It does
so by revising the Insurrection Act, a set of laws that limits the
President's ability to deploy troops within the United States. The
Insurrection Act (10 U.S.C.331 -335) has historically, along with the
Posse
Comitatus Act (18 U.S.C.1385), helped to enforce strict prohibitions
on
military involvement in domestic law enforcement. With one cloaked
swipe of
his pen, Bush is seeking to undo those prohibitions.

Public Law 109-364, or the "John Warner Defense
Authorization Act of 2007" (H.R.5122) (2), which was signed by the
commander
in chief on October 17th, 2006, in a private Oval Office ceremony,
allows
the President to declare a "public emergency" and station troops
anywhere in
America and take control of state-based National Guard units without
the
consent of the governor or local authorities, in order to "suppress
public
disorder."

President Bush seized this unprecedented power on
the very
same day that he signed the equally odious Military Commissions Act of
2006.
In a sense, the two laws complement one another. One allows for
torture and
detention abroad, while the other seeks to enforce acquiescence at
home,
preparing to order the military onto the streets of America. Remember,
the
term for putting an area under military law enforcement control is
precise;
the term is "martial law."

Section 1076 of the massive Authorization Act, which
grants the Pentagon another $500-plus-billion for its ill-advised
adventures, is entitled, "Use of the Armed Forces in Major Public
Emergencies." Section 333, "Major public emergencies; interference
with
State and Federal law" states that "the President may employ the armed
forces, including the National Guard in Federal service, to restore
public
order and enforce the laws of the United States when, as a result of a
natural disaster, epidemic, or other serious public health emergency,
terrorist attack or incident, or other condition in any State or
possession
of the United States, the President determines that domestic violence
has
occurred to such an extent that the constituted authorities of the
State or
possession are incapable of ("refuse" or "fail" in) maintaining public
order, "in order to suppress, in any State, any insurrection, domestic
violence, unlawful combination, or conspiracy."

For the current President, "enforcement of the laws
to
restore public order" means to commandeer guardsmen from any state,
over the
objections of local governmental, military and local police entities;
ship
them off to another state; conscript them in a law enforcement mode;
and set
them loose against "disorderly" citizenry - protesters, possibly, or
those
who object to forced vaccinations and quarantines in the event of a
bio-terror event.

The law also facilitates militarized police
round-ups and
detention of protesters, so called "illegal aliens," "potential
terrorists"
and other "undesirables" for detention in facilities already
contracted for
and under construction by Halliburton. That's right. Under the cover
of a
trumped-up "immigration emergency" and the frenzied militarization of
the
southern border, detention camps are being constructed right under our
noses, camps designed for anyone who resists the foreign and domestic
agenda
of the Bush administration.

An article on "recent contract awards" in a recent
issue
of the slick, insider "Journal of Counterterrorism & Homeland Security
International" reported that "global engineering and technical
services
powerhouse KBR [Kellog, Brown & Root] announced in January 2006 that
its
Government and Infrastructure division was awarded an Indefinite
Delivery/Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contract to support U.S.
Immigration and
Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities in the event of an emergency."
"With a
maximum total value of $385 million over a five year term," the report
notes, "the contract is to be executed by the U.S. Army Corps of
Engineers,"
"for establishing temporary detention and processing capabilities to
augment
existing ICE Detention and Removal Operations (DRO) - in the event of
an
emergency influx of immigrants into the U.S., or to support the rapid
development of new programs." The report points out that "KBR is the
engineering and construction subsidiary of Halliburton." (3) So, in
addition
to authorizing another $532.8 billion for the Pentagon, including a
$70-billion "supplemental provision" which covers the cost of the
ongoing,
mad military maneuvers in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other places, the new
law,
signed by the president in a private White House ceremony, further
collapses
the historic divide between the police and the military: a tell-tale
sign of
a rapidly consolidating police state in America, all accomplished
amidst
ongoing U.S. imperial pretensions of global domination, sold to an
"emergency managed" and seemingly willfully gullible public as a
"global war
on terrorism."

Make no mistake about it: the de-facto repeal of the
Posse
Comitatus Act (PCA) is an ominous assault on American democratic
tradition
and jurisprudence. The 1878 Act, which reads, "Whoever, except in
cases and
under circumstances expressly authorized by the Constitution or Act of
Congress, willfully uses any part of the Army or Air Force as a posse
comitatus or otherwise to execute the laws shall be fined under this
title
or imprisoned not more than two years, or both," is the only U.S.
criminal
statute that outlaws military operations directed against the American
people under the cover of 'law enforcement.' As such, it has been the
best
protection we've had against the power-hungry intentions of an
unscrupulous
and reckless executive, an executive intent on using force to enforce
its
will.

Unfortunately, this past week, the president dealt
posse
comitatus, along with American democracy, a near fatal blow.
Consequently,
it will take an aroused citizenry to undo the damage wrought by this
horrendous act, part and parcel, as we have seen, of a long train of
abuses
and outrages perpetrated by this authoritarian administration.

Despite the unprecedented and shocking nature of
this act,
there has been no outcry in the American media, and little reaction
from our
elected officials in Congress. On September 19th, a lone Senator
Patrick
Leahy (D-Vermont) noted that 2007's Defense Authorization Act
contained a
"widely opposed provision to allow the President more control over the
National Guard [adopting] changes to the Insurrection Act, which will
make
it easier for this or any future President to use the military to
restore
domestic order WITHOUT the consent of the nation's governors."

Senator Leahy went on to stress that, "we certainly
do not
need to make it easier for Presidents to declare martial law. Invoking
the
Insurrection Act and using the military for law enforcement activities
goes
against some of the central tenets of our democracy. One can easily
envision
governors and mayors in charge of an emergency having to constantly
look
over their shoulders while someone who has never visited their
communities
gives the orders."

A few weeks later, on the 29th of September, Leahy
entered
into the Congressional Record that he had "grave reservations about
certain
provisions of the fiscal Year 2007 Defense Authorization Bill
Conference
Report," the language of which, he said, "subverts solid, longstanding
posse
comitatus statutes that limit the military's involvement in law
enforcement,
thereby making it easier for the President to declare martial law."
This had
been "slipped in," Leahy said, "as a rider with little study," while
"other
congressional committees with jurisdiction over these matters had no
chance
to comment, let alone hold hearings on, these proposals."

In a telling bit of understatement, the Senator from
Vermont noted that "the implications of changing the (Posse Comitatus)
Act
are enormous". "There is good reason," he said, "for the constructive
friction in existing law when it comes to martial law declarations.
Using
the military for law enforcement goes against one of the founding
tenets of
our democracy. We fail our Constitution, neglecting the rights of the
States, when we make it easier for the President to declare martial
law and
trample on local and state sovereignty."

Senator Leahy's final ruminations: "Since hearing
word a
couple of weeks ago that this outcome was likely, I have wondered how
Congress could have gotten to this point. It seems the changes to the
Insurrection Act have survived the Conference because the Pentagon and
the
White House want it."

The historic and ominous re-writing of the
Insurrection
Act, accomplished in the dead of night, which gives Bush the legal
authority
to declare martial law, is now an accomplished fact.

The Pentagon, as one might expect, plays an even
more
direct role in martial law operations. Title XIV of the new law,
entitled,
"Homeland Defense Technology Transfer Legislative Provisions,"
authorizes
"the Secretary of Defense to create a Homeland Defense Technology
Transfer
Consortium to improve the effectiveness of the Department of Defense
(DOD)
processes for identifying and deploying relevant DOD technology to
federal,
State, and local first responders."

In other words, the law facilitates the "transfer"
of the
newest in so-called "crowd control" technology and other weaponry
designed
to suppress dissent from the Pentagon to local militarized police
units. The
new law builds on and further codifies earlier "technology transfer"
agreements, specifically the 1995 DOD-Justice Department memorandum of
agreement achieved back during the Clinton-Reno regime.(4)

It has become clear in recent months that a critical
mass
of the American people have seen through the lies of the Bush
administration; with the president's polls at an historic low, growing
resistance to the war Iraq, and the Democrats likely to take back the
Congress in mid-term elections, the Bush administration is on the
ropes. And
so it is particularly worrying that President Bush has seen fit, at
this
juncture to, in effect, declare himself dictator.

Source:

(1)
http://leahy.senate.gov/press/200609/091906a.html and
http://leahy.senate.gov/press/200609/092906b.html See also,
Congressional
Research Service Report for Congress, "The Use of Federal Troops for
Disaster Assistance: Legal Issues," by Jennifer K. Elsea, Legislative
Attorney, August 14, 2006

(2)
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill+h109-5122

(3) Journal of Counterterrorism & Homeland Security
International, "Recent Contract Awards", Summer 2006, Vol.12, No.2,
pg.8;
See also, Peter Dale Scott, "Homeland Security Contracts for Vast New
Detention Camps," New American Media, January 31, 2006.

(4) "Technology Transfer from defense: Concealed
Weapons
Detection", National Institute of Justice Journal, No 229, August,
1995,
pp.42-43.

:: Article nr. 27769 sent on 27-oct-2006 03:18 ECT

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