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Police State USA
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01/24/06, Counterpunch.org
Unfathomed Dangers in Patriot
Act Reauthorization
Patriot Police
By PAUL CRAIG
ROBERTS
A provision in the "Patriot Act" creates a new
federal police force with power to violate the Bill of Rights.
You might think that this cannot be true as you have not read
about it in newspapers or heard it discussed by talking heads
on TV.
Go to House Report 109-333 -USA PATRIOT
IMPROVEMENT AND REAUTHORIZATION ACT OF 2005 and check it out
for yourself. Sec. 605 reads:
"There is hereby created
and established a permanent police force, to be known as the
'United States Secret Service Uniformed
Division'."
This new federal police force is "subject
to the supervision of the Secretary of Homeland
Security."
The new police are empowered to "make
arrests without warrant for any offense against the United
States committed in their presence, or for any felony
cognizable under the laws of the United States if they have
reasonable grounds to believe that the person to be arrested
has committed or is committing such felony."
The new
police are assigned a variety of jurisdictions, including "an
event designated under section 3056(e) of title 18 as a
special event of national significance" (SENS).
"A
special event of national significance" is neither defined nor
does it require the presence of a "protected person" such as
the president in order to trigger it. Thus, the
administration, and perhaps the police themselves, can place
the SENS designation on any event. Once a SENS designation is
placed on an event, the new federal police are empowered to
keep out and to arrest people at their discretion.
The
language conveys enormous discretionary and arbitrary powers.
What is "an offense against the United States"? What are
"reasonable grounds"?
You can bet that the
Alito/Roberts court will rule that it is whatever the
executive branch says.
The obvious purpose of the act
is to prevent demonstrations at Bush/Cheney events. However,
nothing in the language limits the police powers from being
used only in this way. Like every law in the US, this law also
will be expansively interpreted and abused. It has dire
implications for freedom of association and First Amendment
rights.
We can take for granted that the new federal
police will be used to suppress dissent and to break up
opposition. The Brownshirts are now arming themselves with a
Gestapo.
Many naive Americans will write to me to
explain that this new provision in the reauthorization of the
"Patriot Act" is necessary to protect the president and other
high officials from terrorists or from harm at the hands of
angry demonstrators: "No one else will have anything to fear."
Some will accuse me of being an alarmist, and others will say
that it is unpatriotic to doubt the law's good
intentions.
Americans will write such nonsense despite
the fact that the president and foreign dignitaries are
already provided superb protection by the Secret Service. The
naive will not comprehend that the president cannot be
endangered by demonstrators at SENS at which the president is
not present. For many Americans, the light refuses to turn
on.
In Nazi Germany did no one but Jews have anything
to fear from the Gestapo?
By Stalin's time Lenin and
Trotsky had eliminated all members of the "oppressor class,"
but that did not stop Stalin from sending millions of "enemies
of the people" to the Gulag.
It is extremely difficult
to hold even local police forces accountable. Who is going to
hold accountable a federal police protected by Homeland
Security and the president?
Paul Craig Roberts was
Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan
administration. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street
Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of National
Review. He is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions.He
can be reached at: pcroberts@postmark.net
http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts01242006.html
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