We live in a post Constitutional era. Congress, the Courts, & two successive Presidents have acted to strip Americans of their rights in the name of national security. If it hasnt affected most Americans yet, that is not grounds to assume it wont. Terrorism has existed throughout American history. As horrific as it can be-for most of us-it will never affect us. But an all powerful government has never failed to abuse its power & strip its citizens of their rights. The failure to hold anyone accountable for torture, mass surveillance, kidnapping, the murder of civilians-including Americans, & other crimes is the result of the 9/11 legal framework; including the 2001 Authorization to use Military Forces that made the President all-powerful during “wartime” & established what amounts to martial law. It continues to this day. On Oct. 23, 2001, the Whitehouse Office of Legal Counsel issued a legal opinion entitled: “Authority for Use of Military Force to Combat Terrorist Activities within the United States.” The conclusion the OLC drew was that the President has constitutional authority to use the armed forces in military operations against those deemed to be terrorists within the US. Consequently, “these operations generally would not be subject to the constraints of the Fourth Amendment, so long as the armed forces are undertaking a military function.” This is a frightening prospect since the Fourth Amendment is what protects us against unreasonable searches and seizures, which can lead to arbitrary arrests. Terrorists operate within the US & “conceal themselves within the domestic society & economy.” Everyone is now “suspect.” Furthermore, they wrote, 9/11 created a situation “in which the battlefield has occurred, and may occur, at dispersed locations and intervals within the American homeland itself. As a result, efforts to fight terrorism may require not only the usual wartime regulations of domestic affairs, but also military actions that have normally occurred abroad. Additionally, “First Amendment speech & press rights may also be subordinated to the overriding need to wage war successfully. ‘When a nation is at war many things that might be said in time of peace are such a hindrance to its effort that their utterance will not be endured so long as men fight and that no Court could regard them as protected by any constitutional right.’” This OLC opinion laid the foundation for all the extra-constitutional actions by the Bush administration that would follow. They are still carried on by the Obama administration today with their assertions that the President can gather information about, secretly indefinitely detain, & kill American citizens without due process whether inside or outside the U.S. Edited by Principles NOT Parties By Todd E. Pierce published by CommonDreams.org & Consortium News. commondreams.org/views/2015/01/03/bushs-enduring-theories-martial-law
Posted on: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 01:47:02 +0000
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