Website Deadspin Begins Compiling Police Shooting Database

If one good thing has come out of the ugliness, race-baiting and national embarrassment ongoing in Ferguson, MO it is an increasing awareness of the American police state. The response to largely peaceful protests  by a small army of heavily militarized police goons has for the first time since September 11, 2001 – the day that changed everything – triggered an overdue pushback against the fascism that has been imposed on Americans.  The USA after that day ceased to exist as we knew it, being turned into something that is a blasphemy to the republic envisioned by the founding fathers.  The country is now often referred to as The Homeland, a label that  is eerily similar to the German term Heimat and the presence of paramilitary police stormtroopers makes it all the more foreign in nature.

There were wars waged for politics and profit, unprecedented domestic warrantless surveillance and data-mining on millions of innocent citizens and most of all, the arming and weaponizing of the police. For the first time the red, white and blue curtain has been pulled back and Americans have glimpsed the monster that has been hiding behind it. A rational person could have figured that the overwhelming paramilitary and police response in the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombings where a large portion of a major U.S. city was place under a state of martial law would have been a wake-up call. Black Kevlar clad thugs patrolled the streets, conducting warrantless house to house searches in search of one murderous little punk. It was overkill but being wrapped in the guise of vengeance it was not only accepted but later celebrated while providing Leviathan with the perfect chance to conduct a large scale martial law drill.

Ferguson was now quite so egregious but is coming to be the proverbial straw that broke the camels back. The police brutality, police shootings, police murdering of dogs and the growing “us versus them” mindset have been evident for quite some time now and the rise of social media have provided citizens with a tool to fight back. Today there is growing momentum to put a choke chain on the attack dogs of the police state and to take away all of their toys that belong on a battlefield and not American streets.

An example is the filming of a deranged police officer in Ferguson pointing his automatic weapon at the crowd and menacingly growling “I will f*cking kill you, get back”. This is not the conduct of a dedicated public servant but rather that of a psychotic, power-drunk fascist and thanks to social media the cop was quickly identified and removed from the area. An account of the incident as well as stills and videos can be seen at the watchdog website Police State USA "Cop aims rifle at crowd of protesters and journalists, says he “will f***ing kill” them":

FERGUSON, MO — In the middle of a crowded street filled with protesters and journalists, an officer erratically swept the crowd with his rifle and threatening to kill civilians.

The incident occurred on August 19th, 2014, on West Florissant Avenue which was filled with people holding cameras and signs, protesting police brutality and perceived government injustice.

Civilians with cameras spotted a deranged officer and became immediately alarmed at his behavior.

“Oh my God… gun raised, gun raised, gun’s pointed,” said a voice off-camera.

“My hands are up bro, my hands are up,” said a man filming the event, broadcasting live on his UStream account.

“I will f***ing kill you, get back,” hissed the unstable officer, sweeping his muzzle back and forth over a crowd of innocent people.

Someone in the group can be heard asking, “You’re going to kill him? What’s your name, sir?”

The officer replied: “Go f*** yourself.”

The crowd immediately latched onto the nickname, “Officer Go F*** Yourself.”

The officer was later identified as Lt. Ray Albers of the St. Ann Police Department, in St. Ann, Missouri. He is a 20-year veteran officer and severed 4 years in the U.S. Army.

Amazingly, the experienced officer managed to ignore years of firearm training by aiming his rifle directly at numerous innocent people. The act might have been called “gross negligence” up until the point where he actually articulated homicidal intentions to bystanders. At that point, he was demonstrating that he had both the means and the intention to kill innocent civilians.

Citizens routinely get shot on sight by police officers for holding garden hoses, golf clubs, cell phones, wallets, toys, and all manner of other harmless items. In this incident, Lt. Albers was actually sweeping a crowd with a real rifle — a deadly threat by any objective standard.

The act was witnessed by dozens, including other police officers. Albers was neither shot nor arrested. Instead of disarming and handcuffing the gunman, another officer was filmed gently redirecting him and walking away. The criminal behavior was apparently of no concern.

UPDATE: Lt. Albers has been suspended, pending an investigation.

Such behavior by so-called law enforcement has to end if we are to remain a free country and right now that is hanging by a very thin thread.  I am old enough to remember the days when the police did not roll up in military grade armored vehicles dressed in Darth Vader costumes and armed to the teeth with machine guns and grenade launchers. The motto of to “protect and to serve” now has been flipped to “search and destroy” stop.

A critical part of fighting the police state is in documenting the reports of abuses and the website Deadspin which is normally devoted to publishing an alternative version of sports stories has taken the lead. Deadspin is asking for the help of all volunteers in assisting with the compilation of information to put into the database. The article is here and is entitled "We're Compiling Every Police-Involved Shooting In America. Help Us" from which I excerpt:

The United States has no database of police shootings. There is no standardized process by which officers log when they've discharged their weapons and why. There is no central infrastructure for handling that information and making it public. Researchers, confronted with the reality that there are over 17,000 law enforcement agencies in the country, aren't even sure how you'd go about setting one up. No one is keeping track of how many American citizens are shot by their police. This is crazy. This is governmental malpractice on a national scale. We'd like your help in changing this.

Here, we're going to take a cue from Jim Fisher, who as far as we can tell has compiled the most comprehensive set of data on police shootings in 2011. Fisher's method was simple: He searched for any police-involved shooting every day for an entire year. By our lights, this is the best way to scrape this information—any time a police officer shoots and hits a citizen, it will almost certainly make a local news report, at least. However, this is a time-intensive process, and our manpower is limited. Having gathered some of the data, we can say it will take the few of us here a very long time to do this on our own. So, we're setting up a public submission form and asking for help with this project.

The guidelines for participation are listed in the article so please go and take a look for yourself. It is imperative for the survival of the very idea of America as a free country to get the police state under control now while there is still a chance. Hopefully Deadspin's project will lead to spin-offs that track actual incidents of no-knock nighttime raids, police beatings, puppycides and other examples of police harassment that can be further used to spread awareness and influence politicians.

The time to act is now before Orwell's grim vision of the future: "imagine a boot stamping on a human face -  forever" becomes  the enduring national legacy that is passed on to our children and grandchildren.

Surveillance Video Threatens National Debate Over Police Militarization

The surveillance video that was released on Friday by police in Ferguson, Missouri nicely serves to change the subject from the threat of the militarized police into yet another racially charged issue. The video does appear to show the teenager Michael Brown, who was gunned down by a local police officer in the process of committing what may be a crime. However, the series of events leading up to the shooting of Brown and the overwhelming response by fully weaponized police shock troops to the protests (and rioting) are two separate issues and should remain as such.

What is shown on the video, taken in a convenience store flies in the face of the narrative that Brown was a gentle giant instead of an intimidating, brown-skinned version of the incredible Hulk. The Ferguson police also can't get their stories straight about whether or not Brown was being stopped as a suspect in the stealing cigars from the convenience store.  Brown certainly was not an innocent, more likely was a bit of a gangsta and there will inevitably be more reports verifying his true nature. As for the video release, quite frankly the timing of it stinks of a deliberate distraction. There is after all a lot of money to be made in arming the police with battlefield style equipment and nobody with a vested interest wants to risk the killing of the goose that laid the golden egg.

Just when politicians and critics were beginning to acknowledge the danger of the heavily militarized police forces by publishing columns as Senator Rand Paul did in Time and calling for legislation the video was launched into the media spin cycle. After a day of relative calm when the armored St. Louis County goons were replaced by Missouri Highway Patrol, unrest again broke out in Ferguson last night in a reaction to the video release.

According to a story in The Guardian entitled "Ferguson police clash with Michael Brown protesters again overnight":

Police in riot gear clashed overnight with small groups of protesters in Ferguson, Missouri amid signs of renewed tensions over the shooting of an unarmed teenager by a local patrol officer.

 The flareups, breaking a period of relative calm, came after police released surveillance footage that implicated Michael Brown, 18, in the theft of a packet of cigars from a convenience store a few minutes before he was shot. Brown's family condemned the revelation as a "character assassination" designed to smear the teenager and divert attention from the actions of police.

One of the flashpoints in the early hours of Saturday came at the store where the robbery was alleged to have taken place. Police fired a teargas canister at a crowd of around 200 people who had gathered there. Some protesters threw bottles at officers in riot gear and shouted "hands up, don't shoot", the chant that has come to characterise the protests. According to some accounts, Brown had his hands up when he was shot.

A small crowd later looted the convenience store. A meat market was also looted and other businesses had windows smashed. Police did not intervene.

Ironically the store that was looted is the same one that the surveillance video allegedly came from. My personal opinion is that there is never an excuse for looting and those who engage in it are the worst type of criminals and parasites. They should be shot on sight - by the owners of the property exercising their Second Amendment rights.

The fact is that the truth about Brown and the officer who killed him should be kept entirely separate from the response of the militarized police in the aftermath. Authorities and the courts will appropriately deal with sorting it out over time as an investigation is conducted. Still, no matter what Brown did which -  appears to be shoplifting - or as it is now being called by some in the media "strong-armed robbery" it does not merit an extrajudicial execution by police.

The cop, if he believed that he was being threatened by Brown then all that he had to do was to call for backup and once more units arrived an arrest could have been made. Tasers could have been used to subdue Brown being that he was not armed and his fat ass could have been thrown into a jail cell. It's really that simple. The race-baiting should be left to the racists on right-wing radio and FOX News as well as professional charlatans like the Reverends Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson. Both of whom have made a very nice career of descending like buzzards wherever they can find a fresh carcass to feast upon and to sow the seeds of racial discontent wherever they land. The only winners in a system where race is only used to divide and conquer are those who are a part of an entrenched and corrupt establishment.

The primary and most dangerous threat to the future of freedom in America are the militarized police forces and the mass surveillance apparatus that serves as the central nervous system of the police state. Let us not waste the opportunity to fight back now that there is real pressure being exerted on the war zone style response of heavily armed Kevlar coated police goons in Ferguson.

It is very important to keep our eye on the ball and to keep these two issues separate as the greatest benefit will be to those who profit from the continued militarization of the police.

Let the courts handle the criminals - whether they be uniformed ones or not.

Executive Order 12333: The Root of All Evil

The cornerstone of the post-September 11, 2001 new order of unaccountable mass surveillance, data-mining and the transformation of the United States of America into a land of war and woe called The Homeland truly began on December 4, 1981 with then President Ronald Reagan's Executive Order 12333. Long before the USA PATRIOT Act was rammed through a cowardly Congress in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks with no legitimate debate there was 12333 or "twelve-triple-tree" as insiders refer to it. With the continuing unveiling of different aspects of what is now obviously a "turnkey totalitarian" fascist state lurking just below the surface of the increasingly thinner outer veil that is the public government by whistleblowers like Edward Snowden, William Binney and Thomas Drake - as well as others who are still working anonymously (according to recent stories on NSA documents not provided by Snowden) we are on the precipice of losing even the pretense of freedom and democracy.

Executive Order 12333, which gave the intelligence apparatus a blank check to operate with impunity, to the point where it is arguable that it essentially created a shadow government  has been getting some long-deserved attention as of late. A story in McClatchy last year entitled "Most of NSA’s data collection authorized by order Ronald Reagan" is where the highly secret circumvention of the US Constitution broke out of the darkness and a recent follow-up editorial was published in the Washington Post entitled "Meet Executive Order 12333: The Reagan rule that lets the NSA spy on Americans" further shedding light on this most anti-American of diktats.  That 12333 was unleashed by Reagan, whose administration served as an incubator for the neocons who would resurface during the Bush-Cheney years after 9/11 was used as both a political cudgel to batter critics of the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq as well as to implement new NSA domestic surveillance programs that far exceeded the legitimate governing principles of the US. Reagan's administration also spawned the Iran-Contra cowboys, in particular Lt. Colonel Oliver North who facilitated covert arms and drug sales to finance extremist right-wing militias in Nicaragua.

North also had a fetish for surveillance, notable a program called REX 84 that was a prototype for martial law in America and dabbled with the advanced PROMIS software to spy on political dissidents and under a vaguely defined "national emergency" would suspend the constitution and put the control of the government under FEMA. Several years back journalist Christopher Ketcham did an outstanding piece entitled "The Last Roundup" which addressed the metastasizing cancer of the authoritarian surveillance-police state and the lists that were then being compiled for potential internment when that "national emergency" was declared. I excerpt the following from Ketcham:

The overzealous compilation of a domestic watch list is not unique in post-war American history. In 1950, the FBI, under the notoriously paranoid J. Edgar Hoover, began to "accumulate the names, identities, and activities" of suspect American citizens in a rapidly expanding "security index," according to declassified documents. In a letter to the Truman White House, Hoover stated that in the event of certain emergency situations, suspect individuals would be held in detention camps overseen by "the National Military Establishment." By 1960, a congressional investigation later revealed, the FBI list of suspicious persons included "professors, teachers, and educators; labor-union organizers and leaders; writers, lecturers, newsmen, and others in the mass-media field; lawyers, doctors, and scientists; other potentially influential persons on a local or national level; [and] individuals who could potentially furnish financial or material aid" to unnamed "subversive elements." This same FBI "security index" was allegedly maintained and updated into the 1980s, when it was reportedly transferred to the control of none other than FEMA (though the FBI denied this at the time).

FEMA, however—then known as the Federal Preparedness Agency—already had its own domestic surveillance system in place, according to a 1975 investigation by Senator John V. Tunney of California. Tunney, the son of heavyweight boxing champion Gene Tunney and the inspiration for Robert Redford's character in the film The Candidate, found that the agency maintained electronic dossiers on at least 100,000 Americans, which contained information gleaned from wideranging computerized surveillance. The database was located in the agency's secret underground city at Mount Weather, near the town of Bluemont, Virginia. The senator's findings were confirmed in a 1976 investigation by the Progressive magazine, which found that the Mount Weather computers "can obtain millions of pieces [of] information on the personal lives of American citizens by tapping the data stored at any of the 96 Federal Relocation Centers"—a reference to other classified facilities. According to the Progressive, Mount Weather's databases were run "without any set of stated rules or regulations. Its surveillance program remains secret even from the leaders of the House and the Senate."

Ten years later, a new round of government martial law plans came to light. A report in the Miami Herald contended that Reagan loyalist and Iran-Contra conspirator Colonel Oliver North had spearheaded the development of a "secret contingency plan,"—code named REX 84—which called "for suspension of the Constitution, turning control of the United States over to FEMA, [and the] appointment of military commanders to run

state and local governments." The North plan also reportedly called for the detention of upwards of 400,000 illegal aliens and an undisclosed number of American citizens in at least 10 military facilities maintained as potential holding camps.

North's program was so sensitive in nature that when Texas Congressman Jack Brooks attempted to question North about it during the 1987 Iran-Contra hearings, he was rebuffed even by his fellow legislators. "I read in Miami papers and several others that there had been a plan by that same agency [FEMA] that would suspend the American Constitution," Brooks said. "I was deeply concerned about that and wondered if that was the area in which he [North] had worked." Senator Daniel Inouye, chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Iran, immediately cut off his colleague, saying, "That question touches upon a highly sensitive and classified area, so may I request that you not touch upon that, sir." Though Brooks pushed for an answer, the line of questioning was not allowed to proceed.

Wired magazine turned up additional damaging information, revealing in 1993 that North, operating from a secure White House site, allegedly employed a software database program called PROMIS (ostensibly as part of the REX 84 plan). PROMIS, which has a strange and controversial history, was designed to track individuals—prisoners, for example—by pulling together information from disparate databases into a single record. According to Wired, "Using the computers in his command center, North tracked dissidents and potential troublemakers within the United States. Compared to PROMIS, Richard Nixon's enemies list or Senator Joe McCarthy's blacklist looks downright crude." Sources have suggested to Radar that government databases tracking Americans today, including Main Core, could still have PROMIS based legacy code from the days when North was running his programs.

In the wake of 9/11, domestic surveillance programs of all sorts expanded dramatically. As one well-placed source in the intelligence community puts it, "The gloves seemed to come off." What is not yet clear is what sort of still-undisclosed programs may have been authorized by the Bush White House. Marty Lederman, a high-level official at the Department of Justice under Clinton, writing on a law blog last year, wondered, "How extreme were the programs they implemented [after 9/11]? How egregious was the lawbreaking?" Congress has tried, and mostly failed, to find out.

12333 was very fortuitous for the opportunist North, a traitor if there ever were one and the rest of his Iran-Contra cabal who are to this day turning up in positions of influence as the Obama regime relentlessly targets that longtime neocon object of hatred Russia. Reagan's executive order is now even more dangerous given the ridiculous criteria that the US government is using to place law-abiding citizens on an ever expanding "terorist" watch list as was just documented in a huge story by Jeremy Scahill and Ryan Devereaux at The Intercept entitled  "Blacklisted: The Secret Government Rulebook for Labeling You a Terrorist" where the secret Obama administration enhanced rulebook was published. What we have here is absolute power with absolutely no accountability and with the courts and congress being weaponized against the people no realistic chance to effect any meaningful reform of these out of control agencies and programs.

While it is somewhat encouraging that "twelve-triple-three" is finally getting noticed and according to a story that was published yesterday in The Guardian entitled "US warned: surveillance reform hinges on change to Reagan executive order" the same former State Department official who wrote the Washington Post editorial on 12333 is pushing for awareness that any serious reform must start with the rollback of this crown jewel of the fascist state. I excerpt from The Guardian piece:

Like Snowden, Tye means to spark a debate on the proper boundaries of NSA authorities. His focus is on an obscure, Reagan-era executive order that serves as a foundational set of rules for the intelligence apparatus. The order, known as Executive Order 12333, renders the current surveillance debate hollow, he said, even as it shows signs of traction in the Senate.

"Without reform of activities under 12333, changes to the 215 program won't address the major challenges to Americans' privacy from the NSA," Tye, who until April worked on promoting internet freedom issues at Foggy Bottom, told the Guardian, using legal shorthand for the domestic phone data collection.

Without recourse to the trove of documentation Snowden disclosed to journalists – and speaking somewhat obliquely to underscore his stated refusal to discuss classified information – Tye said that 12333 provides NSA with a pathway to collect and retain Americans' data without a warrant, routing around laws intend to restrict and control both.

Tye is correct but the clock is ticking and time is rapidly running out. With half the world ablaze with war and social unrest - largely due to a deranged US foreign policy - and Obama and Kerry hellbent on starting World War III to avenge personal slights by Putin we very well are nearing that "national emergency" that Lt. Colonel North was setting up a response for. Any "terrorist" attack - either legitimate or that promised Dick Cheney special will firmly lockdown this country forever and all of that data that has been mined will be used to generate the pickup lists. If you are even reading this there is a damned good chance that you will be on one.

Biden Shamelessly Exploits Boston Marathon Bombing Tribute

Tuesday, on the one year anniversary of the Boston Marathon bombing allegedly to be the work of two lone wolf Muslim “terrorists”, both of whom managed to slip through the NSA’s “collect it all” net of total national surveillance was either commemorated or celebrated, probably a combination of both across the fruited plain of The Homeland. The incident, a heinous criminal act consisting of the planting of two shrapnel filled pressure cooker bombs at the finish line permanently altered forever the livesof hundreds of innocent people, a good number of who lost limbs was allegedly perpetrated by two young Muslim men the Tsarnaev brothers, Dzhokhar and Tamerlan. The older brother,Tamerlan who had a mysterious background that seems to have included trips abroad and possible involvement in acts of violence domestically was killed in a shootout. The younger Dzokhar was the target of what was the rollout of a state of martial law and went on to gain national infamy when a flattering picture of him adorned the cover of Rolling Stone magazine – not to bother with the hypocrisy that a similar picture was published in the establishment New York Times and other papers without similar ginned up outrage.

Vice President Joe Biden, still a potential 2016 Democratic party presidential contender until the unstoppable juggernaut that is Hillary Clinton formally announces that she is running (if she is) showed up in Beantown on Tuesday to like the state-corporate media milk the anniversary of the tragedy for all that it was worth. In a soaring and often inspirational speech at the tribute Biden mixed platitudes and Tony Robbins style motivational with the standard demagoguery of the post September 11, 2001 permanent warfare state. The media prepped the masses with the constant reminder that the 3 actual deaths and 264 injured was the WORST TERRORIST ATTACK ON AMERICAN SOIL SINCE 9/11 and the Vice President seized upon that to hammer home his message of hope and American exceptionalism all nice and tightly bound up and then dipped in a coating of pure bullshit to keep it together.

The city of Boston, unified in grief, outrage and I would imagine a good deal of shame after their neighborhoods were swarmed by legions of black clad paramilitary police forces conducting house to house searches at gun point in what for all intents and purposes looked like martial law. The nifty bumper sticker slogan “Boston Strong” was rolled out in the aftermath of the bombing and it was seized upon by locals, the national baseball league Red Sox who used it as a motivator for their World Series run and most of ally by self-serving authoritarian types to push for their police state as well as to use for cheap politics.

Vice President Joseph Biden was one of them. According to a Reuters story Biden thundered:

"We refuse to bend, refuse to change, refuse to yield to fear"... "that is what makes us so proud of this city and this state, what makes me be so proud to be an American. It's that we have never, ever yielded to fear. Never"

While it wasn't exactly George W. Bush standing on the smoldering debris of the World Trade Center the point was made that under the existing poisoned and compromised political class that The Homeland that was birthed on 'the day that everything changed' is here to stay. Biden though is full of crap because FEAR is exactly what Americans yielded to after that pristine Tuesday morning back in 2001  turned into a horror show.  Biden is a liar though because yielding to fear is exactly what Americans did after that day. 

FEAR allowed for the rollback of civil liberties

FEAR provided the basis for an illegal invasion of Iraq, a country that did not threaten America

FEAR unleashed the fully militarized police state on America, as seen in action in Beantown last year two days after the bombing as thousands of black clad paramilitary types ransacked neighborhoods to hunt down one punk. 

FEAR provided the excuse for the NSA and it's private and foreign collaborators to usurp the Constitution and to conduct massive data-mining and warrantless surveillance on millions of law abiding citizens.

FEAR allowed for the redirection of trillions of taxpayer dollars into a monstrous surveillance machine, a Top Secret America that became a Surveillance State Gomorrah and continues to grow daily. 

FEAR allowed the Bush administration to turn the USA into a torture state and Obama is still covering up conduct that was so over the line that it rivaled that of Nazi war criminals hanged at Nuremberg. 

I could continue but I don't have the time...

 Biden also paid tribute to the arrogant form of American imperialism that currently has the world on the brink of a war to end all wars thanks to the hubris, moral rot and bloodlust that permeates from the administration which he is a member of.  The applause line that "We are America, we own the finish line" is ironically appropriate in more ways than one, the real finish line is coming as the Empire is on a collision course with nuclear power Russia as well as economic power that is China, both of whom our neocon infested policy establishment is hellbent at confronting.

The reference to the "finish line" is also fitting for Boston in that after the triumphant World Series win of the Red Sox who rode "Boston Strong" like a gravy train there was a pilgrimage of revelers who actually showed up at that exact same finish line to kiss the street - they had better get used to doing exactly that if and when the martial law drill conducted last year goes live.

FEAR has a twin brother named SHAME and Americans should be ashamed of ourselves for allowing charlatans the likes of Biden and his ilk to have exploited the former without any semblance of the latter. 

SCOTUS Justice: Internment Camps Can Happen Here

In a stunning moment of truth Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia let it slip during an appearance before University of Hawaii law school students that internment camps are a possibility in The Homeland. While this sort of pathology is commonplace among the authoritarian elite who have seized control of this once great country and while it should come as no shock to readers here an admission such as this should scare the hell out of Americans. With each new glimpse into the hive mind of the American fascists the so-called "conspiracy theorists" are validated, first with the Snowden revelations of mass NSA surveillance and data-mining and now with a prominent SCOTUS judge admitting that the government would have no qualms about rounding up and imprisoning Americans during "wartime" - such as the permanent phony "war on terror" in which we have been mired for over twelve years now.

According to an AP story, Scalia when speaking of the World War II herding up of law-abiding Japanese American citizens and putting them into detention facilities such as Manzanar stated that:

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia told law students at the University of Hawaii law school Monday that the nation's highest court was wrong to uphold the internment of Japa­nese-Americans during World War II but that he wouldn't be surprised if the court issued a similar ruling during a future conflict.

Scalia was responding to a question about the court's 1944 decision in Kore­ma­tsu v. United States, which upheld the convictions of Gordon Hira­ba­ya­shi and Fred Kore­ma­tsu for violating an order to report to an internment camp.

"Well, of course, Kore­ma­tsu was wrong. And I think we have repudiated in a later case. But you are kidding yourself if you think the same thing will not happen again," Scalia told students and faculty during a lunchtime question-and-answer session.

Scalia cited a Latin expression meaning "In times of war, the laws fall silent."

"That's what was going on — the panic about the war and the invasion of the Pacific and whatnot. That's what happens. It was wrong, but I would not be surprised to see it happen again, in time of war. It's no justification but it is the reality," he said.

The obvious targets in The Homeland, especially if the NSA were to 'fail to stop' another terrorist attack would be Muslims who a certain number of right wing demagogues who have long been calling for such an action. It would not however stop with Muslims and much like President Woodrow Wilson's Sedition Act targeting dissent during World War I the NSA would rapidly put all of that information gleaned from their illegal spying to use in doing likewise to any who dare to ask the inconvenient questions or dare to question the permanent warfare state of Oceania. Scalia is a Ronald Reagan appointee and it is no coincidence that this was the administration that so openly contempt of the Constitution that members engaged in the scandalous Iran-Contra affair in particular Lt. Colonel Oliver North of the REX 84 program to round up and detain American citizens under vague circumstances. 

So much for Cass Sunstein's "paranoid libertarian" hogwash. 

Blood Vengeance for Beantown

The Feds, particularly the Department of Justice have officially announced their intent to kill Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev which will likely provide an extra boost to alcohol sales in Beantown this Super Bowl weekend. Attorney General Eric Holder, Barack Obama’s top hatchet man released the news on Thursday that the U.S. government was seeking to exact the ultimate revenge even if the state in which the crime was committed does not allow the death penalty. Now before I even get into this at length I want emphasize that I am in no way defending the vicious little punk nor his dead brother for this heartless criminal act. They do however remain as suspects and as a result have yet to have their due guilt affirmed by a court of law which don’t seem to matter very much anymore in The Homeland.  What is troubling at a far deeper level than the heinous acts perpetrated upon innocent men, women and children last April 15^th at a sporting event that is of no small degree of public pride for the city of Boston is the manner in which that wanton act of barbarity became a symbol in the aftermath. That April 15th is Patriot's Day in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts while September 11th post-2001 has been at least somewhat officially tabbed as Patriot Day - in the phony war on terror it is important that the state be able to assign symbolic importance to such dates as they wage their real war against the Constitution.

The bombings proved a very fortuitous event for the police state as it became a live drill for how to impose a state of de facto martial law upon a portion of a major American city. Paramilitary shock troops roamed the streets backed up by military grade hardware and technology all justified on the basis of chasing down one young punk, the word overkill is not sufficient to describe the response of the authorities as they hunted down Tsarnaev. The paramilitary forces engaged in warrantless and unconstitutional house to house searches, more often than not welcomed by cowardly residents. The fact that they had no real choice than to allow the state sanctioned home invasions is terrifying and had the least bit of resistance been put up, given the level of bloodlust unleashed  by that monstrously criminal act the person who would have done so would not be alive today.

It was a despicable  act and permanently altered the lives of hundreds but Tsarnaev has not even been found guilty yet, the trial has yet to occur. This latest iteration of The Homeland is one more area where the government is unchaining itself from the Constitution, death has already been preordained by the state. Tsarnaev will at least get a trial albeit one in a kangaroo court carried out with maximum assistance from the state-corporate media and while it won’t be O.J. Simpson it will be every bit the circus in its own right. Similar rights to due process, no matter how stacked that the deck will be against the defendant were not extended to the victims of Obama’s extrajudicial killings by drone, the American citizens Anwar al-Awlaki and his 16 year old son Abdulrahman al-Awlaki nor will they be for Edward Snowden.

Holder's announcement of the death penalty for Tsarnaev is all about symbolism, the city of Boston passed the test as the successful Guinea pigs in the grand experiment of American fascism. Not only did they acquiesce to the black clad goon squads while they were in hot pursuit of their vastly outnumbered prey but in a perverse reaction that defies the history of the city itself, which prides itself on Revolutionary War legends not only rolled over but actually fucking celebrated the violation of their Constitutional rights. Boston Strong became the central organizing maxim in the aftermath of the city being raped by the fascist police state. Hell, the Boston Red Sox baseball team, seeing great opportunity to seize upon a motivational theme for the great post-Bobby Valentine crusade glommed onto the sick exploitation of the bombings in their crusade that ultimately resulted in a World Series win. Red Sox players, once and forever proving that highly paid professional athletes should just shut the hell up and stay out of politics freely used the terrorist attacks for their own self-promotion and the state media eagerly played along with it. When the last out of the decisive game six had been registered and the hardware ensured drunken BoSox fans made their very own pilgrimage to their Mecca, the finish line of the Boston Marathon to kiss the street.

The announcement that the Feds have already predetermined that the suspect will be put to death is just the latest road sign that we have whipped past upon the highway to hell, careening towards the imminent collapse and the subsequent headfirst plunge into the abyss. 

Citing Secret Report Fascist Rogers Claims Snowden Aided Terrorists

In the manner befitting the defenders of the NSA mass surveillance programs House Intelligence Committee head Mike Rogers has now accused former government contractor turned NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden of putting our blessed troops in danger. Rogers and his crony Congressman Dutch Reppersberger (D-Md)  whose district just happens to contain Fort Meade where the the American Stasi headquarters are located used a secret Pentagon report to back their latest media crusade against reforming the fascist spying colossus. Not only are they accusing Snowden of putting our heroic imperial stormtroopers in danger but have like the criminally inclined Michael Hayden come out and hung the traitor label on the man and are now escalating the government's war on accountability by alleging that Snowden helped "terrorists" as well. The conflict of interest ridden Reppersberger who has no place sitting on any serious investigative panel given his close proximity to NSA HQ declared “Snowden handed terrorists a copy of our country’s playbook and now we are paying the price, which this report confirms”. He is at least partially correct in that fascists who are running this data-mining show view all who challenge their power, especially American citizens with a respect for transparency and the Constitution are indeed "terrorists". This is the way that it works in any authoritarian state run by dangerous control freaks and let's face it, these NSA surveillance programs have never been about actual terrorism prevention anyway, they have been able to prove that they have stopped on single plot against American interests. They are now and have from their inception been about crushing domestic political opposition that gets in the way of their ongoing criminality and consolidation of power.

Not only is the NSA spying on everyone, hoarding and storing data in their Utah facility as well as a location where the Main Core database containing information on political troublemakers (left and right alike), civil libertarians, writers, lawyers, intellectuals and all else who defend the constitution but readying for when the day that The Last Roundup is authorized. This will be when all of Rogers and Reppersberger's "terrorists" will be dealt with, likely when the economic collapse inevitably comes as the current system is unsustainable or perhaps sooner as their fellow traitors in the U.S. Senate are dangerously close to undermining the P5+1 Iran talks and pushing the country into one final, ruinous war. Rest assured that is is coming though and given past history all of what are mocked as tin-foil hat style "conspiracy theories" about internment camps should perhaps be given a bit more of a serious bit of consideration given the existance of  programs that have already been revealed and the zeal to defend them. Mr. Obama plans to announce "reforms" to the surveillance programs this coming Friday but they will be largely cosmetic and as effective at restoring a system of checks and balances, the rights of Americans to not be subjected to unreasonable searches and the future of this country as a band aid on a sucking chest wound.

Rogers has already used every opportunity provided to him by the corrupt media to attack Snowden, defend the unconstitutional surveillance of millions of law-abiding Americans but Reppersberger has not had quite the media prominence. Notably per his bio he is that he is a member of the so-called Gang of Eight, a powerful of congressional leaders which has an inordinate level of control over legislative policy and is an affront to the Constitution, not that the document matters to any of the elected representatives who are supposed represent the people but instead enrich themselves at the expense of the republic. Former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates' book "Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War" has the beltway punditry and the other arms of the state-corporate media atwitter over his jabs at the cunning Barack Obama and the boob Joe Biden but it has been largely played down that some of his most withering salvos are directed at the U.S. Congress, an enemy of the American people if there ever were one.  Gates vents appropriately at the cancer that has metastasized throughout the legislative branch:

"I saw most of Congress as uncivil, incompetent at fulfilling their basic constitutional responsibilities (such as timely appropriations), micromanagerial, parochial, hypocritical, egotistical, thin-skinned and prone to put self (and re-election) before country."

Yes indeed, that part about putting self "before country" especially applies to the renegade Senate bloc that continues to grow in number and is about to act to eradicate any chance of normalized, non-hostile relations with the new moderate regime in Iran. This would for the first time since the CIA backed 1953 overthrow of democratically elected Iranian leader Mohammad Mosaddeq that hostilities can be dialed down and U.S. business interests could benefit from a new market and open trade with the country. But the meddlesome Saudis and right-wing Israelis cannot tolerate that under any circumstances. The Kingdom's pull on U.S. foreign policy due to being a major source of oil would be torpedoed by improved relations with Tehran and an increasingly malevolent Israeli nationalist state led by the unstable Netanyahu would lose face along with his desired destiny as the historical equivalent of the sainted Sir Winston Churchill. Both are frantically working behind the scenes to support the Senate traitors that Gates exposed as venal, disloyal rats. For the record Gates also “worried about the influence of the Israelis and the Saudis in the White House… and their desire to have problems like Iran ‘taken care of’ while Bush was still president.” Bush eventually distanced himself from Cheney's sway and having to this point failed to suck Obama into an attack on Iran the focus has obviously turned to Congress.

Rogers and Reppersberger must be salivating at the prospect of another war, this time a damned big one that will unlike Iraq and Afghanistan require appeals to the public for sacrifices to support the war effort. Perhaps as the conflagration grows and the body count mounts, when conditions deteriorate to the point that Russia and China become involved that there will be a renewed effort to begin conscription for the first time since the Vietnam war era. A national military draft would do much to solve the ongoing problem of joblessness and the NSA will ensure that those who would oppose the restoration of mandatory military service (with the exception of the children and grandchildren of the wealthy and the U.S. Congress) will have been silenced.