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Social Repression and Internet Surveillance
H. Res.
1695, 1955 & S.1959
By Nikki
Alexander
01/04/08
"ICH" -- - Perhaps a clear and simple law is needed that
states: “Congress shall pass no law abridging the freedom of
speech. Speech includes ‘the broad and constant streams of
information’ freely exchanged on the Internet.” Does the
Internet need to be singled out? Or is this self-evident in the
First Amendment to the Constitution? “Congress shall make no
law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the
free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of
the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and
to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”
Clearly, Jane
Harman (D-CA) who sponsored H.Res.1955 does not respect the
Constitution. Nor does her partner, Dave Reichert (R-WA), who
authored the original bill,
H.Res.1695. Both bills seriously violate the most precious
amendments to the Constitution, the Bill of Rights. Susan
Collins (R-ME) and Joe Lieberman (I-CT) are preparing to follow
suit with a Senate companion bill, S.1959. Did any of the 404
members of the House of Representatives who voted for the
passage of this bill understand that they violated our
Constitutional rights, once again? The “immanent threat” charade
seems to nullify their capacity for critical thinking and erase
their memory of the Constitution, as well as their oath to
defend it. How many Senators will succumb to terrorist fear
tactics and betray the American people?
Among the
Powers granted to the Federal Government by the People of the
United States which one authorizes Congress to investigate the
so-called “belief systems” of private citizens? Which Power
granted by the People endows Congress with authority to
investigate the motivations and clairvoyantly predict the
intentions of private citizens? Which Power granted by the
People authorizes Government surveillance and censorship of the
Internet? Which Power granted by the People authorizes the
Government to data mine the personal records of US citizens,
subjectively filter the personal beliefs of Americans and
categorize them for acceptability or to infiltrate local
communities and eradicate ‘unacceptable’ beliefs? Which Power
authorizes the Federal Government to gather intelligence on
American citizens for use by Federal, State and local law
enforcement? What is the Constitutional authority for Frau
Harman’s storm troopers to terrorize the public through
“vertical information sharing from the Intelligence Community to
the local level and from local sources to State and Federal
agencies”?
Is this
Congress aware of the Fourth Amendment to the United States
Constitution? “The right of the people to be secure in their
persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable
searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants
shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath
or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be
searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”
Is this
Congress unclear about its Constitutional boundaries? Which
rights are reserved to the People? The Ninth Amendment to the
Constitution states: “The enumeration in the Constitution, of
certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage
others retained by the People.” The Tenth Amendment states: “The
powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution,
nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States
respectively, or to the People.” In other words, the People
retain all rights not specifically granted to the Government.
The rights to think freely, to exchange information, to choose
values and beliefs and to freely associate with others are
reserved to the People.
If current
employees of the Federal Government are not happy with the laws
that govern this country and would prefer to live under
totalitarian regimes they are free to exit and live elsewhere.
They are not free to pervert our laws to conform with their own
personal belief systems and ideologically based values. In fact,
they have sworn to uphold and defend the Constitution as a
prerequisite for holding public office.
This bill
establishes a National Commission and Center of so-called
“Excellence” to censor and crush social concerns which are
subjectively perceived to be “threats” by RAND spokesmen, who
supplied the content for this bill. RAND coined the folksy
epithets “homegrown terrorism,” “violent radicalization” and
“ideologically based violence” to invalidate expressions of
social conscience that conflict with corporate interests. RAND
does not propose restraints on corporate abuse or explore US
policy corrections that acknowledge the validity of these
concerns. Rather, it characterizes individuals who care deeply
about international human rights, national sovereignty and
ecological protection as “homegrown terrorists” who have been
“violently radicalized” by “extremist belief systems.” This bill
quotes RAND ideology verbatim.
The People of
the United States did not elect RAND Corporation or its
emissaries on Capitol Hill to rewrite the laws of our nation “to
advance political and social change” that serves the special
interests of selected individuals. Our Constitution was
carefully crafted to protect citizens from precisely this type
of despotism. Regardless of emotional pretexts which appeal to
fear, it is not the Constitutional prerogative of Congress to
investigate, evaluate, censor or suppress the personal beliefs
of United States citizens.
The Internet,
which is a public channel of communication, is being
systematically strangled by
surveillance devices that police the flow of information;
filtering web servers, search engines, web sites, email content
and keystrokes. Specifically, the information-sharing
networks of citizens whose concerns are inconsistent with global
corporate objectives are being censored, blacklisted and
suffocated. In direct violation of our Constitution, channels of
communication which are protected by the First Amendment are
under surveillance by the National Security Agency. The Open Net
Initiative reports, “With respect to online surveillance, the
United States may be among the most aggressive states in the
world in terms of listening to online conversations.”
This bill is a
direct assault on Internet privacy and freedom of speech.
Packaged as a pretext for “preventing terrorism”, the authors of
this bill claim that, “The Internet has aided in facilitating
violent radicalization, ideologically based violence, and the
homegrown terrorism process in the United States by providing
access to broad and constant streams of terrorist-related
propaganda to United States citizens.”
Even if this gibberish were
true, it would not legitimize Government censorship. There is no
Constitutional authority for Government supervision of
information freely chosen by American citizens. This assault on
the First Amendment is a transparent attempt to police the
Internet by slandering the personal values of citizens and
denouncing their activities, a practice well underway in Britain
where Internet Service Providers are required to install
software with secret “offender” lists that block out blacklisted
websites.
China’s 60,000 strong Internet police force uses western
surveillance technology to repress its citizens. There are
currently 64 Chinese citizens in prison for signing online
petitions. The
Open Net Initiative reports that
“Australia
maintains some of the most restrictive Internet policies of any
Western nation.
Britain has been criticized for leading a ‘Web takedown’
culture where Internet Service Providers immediately remove
content that is allegedly defamatory for fear of facing
law suits.” Comcast, the second largest US Internet Service
Provider is
forging TCP RST packets with faked return addresses that
disrupt file sharing among its customers, using equipment sold
by the Canadian company,
Sandvine. These are the exemplary democratic models of
“lessons learned by foreign nations” that this bill declares the
United States “can benefit from”; citing Canada, Australia and
the UK.
The
Baltimore Sun reported
In November that George Bush requested $154 million in
preliminary funding to “prevent cyberspace attacks”, which
current and former government officials say is expected to
become a seven-year, multibillion-dollar program to “track
threats” in cyberspace on both government and private
networks. A lawless administration which is notorious for covert
surveillance and conjuring up fictitious threats of immanent
danger can hardly be trusted to identify genuine threats
or use this revenue in the public interest. Nor would an
incoming administration be able to alleviate these
unconstitutional invasions of our privacy. These Government
crimes would be permanently institutionalized through the
National Security Agency
CAEIAE program, the Center of so-called “Excellence”
designated by this bill. There is nothing excellent about
unlawful surveillance and social repression by storm troopers.
What Harman
describes as “vertical information sharing from the Intelligence
Community to the local level and from local sources to State and
Federal agencies” is equivalent to The Third Reich’s Ministry
for Popular Enlightenment and Propaganda which terrorized German
citizens from Party Headquarters through a chain of command that
reached all the way down into local communities. With modern
telecommunications technology this terror campaign of
“intelligence sharing” will persecute citizens in the privacy of
their homes, monitoring their online conversations and reporting
dissidents to the Gestapo. Lawmakers who voted for this
malicious operation have forgotten that pogroms always begin by
targeting a contrived enemy and expand exponentially to
terrorize the whole society. We have laws for a reason.
Inventing a
special “Civil Rights and Civil
Liberties Officer” embedded in this unlawful operation to
create rules for handling the Constitutional rights of US
citizens should raise a red flag for lawmakers. Those procedures
have been on the books for two hundred and thirty years. All
civil servants in every branch of Government are required to
uphold the Constitution and follow the rules established by the
Bill of Rights. Assigning one individual to tailor those rules
to an illegal Cointelpro operation is an indication of deep
antisocial contempt for the Constitutional rights of all
citizens protected by our system of law.
Masquerading
as an “academic” assembly, the political appointees to
this Commission will have “relevant expertise” in Information
Technology, Juvenile Justice, Corrections, Counterterrorism,
Intelligence and Local Law Enforcement. All members of the group
will be endowed with sweeping investigative powers and unlimited
access to classified files in all branches of government ~ A
McCarthy Inquisition with a mandate to hold hearings, administer
oaths, take testimony and propose “initiatives to intercede” in
the so-called “radicalization process,” a RAND euphemism for
crushing social dissent. This mandate to subjectively define and
eradicate “unacceptable” social values and beliefs is a gross
violation of our Constitution and Bill of Rights. The operation
neatly sidesteps peer review systems and strict academic privacy
safeguards for data collection that would be imposed on
genuine academic scholars and conveniently bypasses the
process of competitive bids for taxpayer-funded recommendations
deemed “necessary” by this coterie of political insiders. If
this assemblage of political appointees had wholesome objectives
it would not have been released from congressional oversight and
public transparency secured by The Federal Advisory Committee
Act. The bill requires only that the Commission produce a public
“version” of its findings before disbanding, permitting secret
versions to permanently remain at the Center of so-called
“Excellence” as a catalyst for Government abuse by Federal,
State and local law enforcement agents trained to believe that
their targets deserve persecution.
The
Waco Texas massacre is a perfect example of citizens being
assaulted without provocation by Government agents who
‘believed’ they were targeting “radicals”. The men, women and
children who were poisoned and set on fire by Federal agents had
not committed any crime, nor were their religious beliefs posing
any threat to the community. Yet these Government agents
tormented their victims for 51 days, violently destroying their
homes and gassing 76 American citizens including 21 children.
This bill would authorize exactly this type of ideological
profiling perpetrated by self-righteous bigots under Color
of Authority whose personal values direct them to commit
acts of ‘ideologically based violence.’
RAND
spokesman, Brian Jenkins whose personal ideology is fully
incorporated into this bill said to Jane Harman’s Committee:
“Unless a way of intervening in the radicalization process can
be found, we are condemned to stepping on cockroaches one at a
time.” This statement perfectly expresses the deep contempt for
Constitutional law that pervades this legislation. Is there any
doubt that exterminating people would come easily to someone who
views his victims as cockroaches? This particular
characterization of human beings is the precise terminology that
was used by Nazis to justify exterminating Jews.
If members of
Congress were the intended victims of this malicious legislation
they would instantly comprehend why the price of freedom is
eternal vigilance. Make no exceptions to the rule of law.
Violating the Constitutional rights of any group or individual
jeopardizes the security of our whole society.
“We hold
these truths to be self-evident; that all Beings are
created equal, that they are endowed by Creation with certain
inalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the
pursuit of Happiness; that to secure these Rights
governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers
from the consent of the governed ~ that whenever any Form of
Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of
the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new
Government, laying its foundation on such principles and
organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most
likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed,
will dictate that Government long established should not be
changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all
experience hath shown, that mankind is more disposed to suffer
than to right itself by abolishing the forms to which it is
accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations,
pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce
them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their
duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards
for their future security.”
~ The Declaration of Independence,
1776.
Nikki
Alexander is a freelance writer and fine art painter living in
southern California.
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