December 2, 2011 at 17:19:46

S 1867: Killing The Bill of Rights and Declaring War on Americans

By Timothy Gatto (about the author)

Anti-Torture by Shrieking Tree

This is an article that I MUST write about. If I don't write this article than I have no right to ever write another. The reason is because the most despicable and damaging piece of legislation ever passed was passed in the Senate late last night without hardly a whimper in the morning from the American mainstream press. Under the cover of darkness, the United States Senate virtually declared war on the people of this nation by passing the darkest piece of legislation ever passed in America.

If the House of Representatives passes its version and the President then puts his signature on it and turning it into law, almost every right under the Bill of Rights will be stripped away from the people of the United States. This will be the final nail in the coffin of democracy in America. We will become a military police state and cease to be a democracy or a representative republic or whatever else it has been called. According to the definition under this amendment to the military appropriations bill, the nation will become a part of a world-wide "battle zone"." If this is signed into law, it will shred the remaining tenants of the Bill of Rights and unleash upon America a total military dictatorship, complete with secret arrests, secret prisons, unlawful interrogations and indefinite detainment without people ever being charged with a crime. It will cause the torture of Americans and even the "legitimate assassination" of U.S. citizens overseas and also right here on American soil!

If you have not yet woken up to the reality of this looming police state we've been morphing into, the police state that so many have warning about, I sincerely hope that most of you realize that we are fast running out of time. Once this becomes law, you will be living in a different kind of America, one that no longer guarantees certain inalienable rights. Americans will have no rights whatsoever in America -- no due process, no First Amendment speech rights, no right to remain silent or to be tried by a jury of your peers. You will only have the right to a military tribunal with a military judge and a military lawyer. In other words, Americans will be afforded the same rights as an enemy combatant in the "battlefield" of America.

Some of you may be wondering why you haven't been told about this by the major news networks? That is a legitimate question. The information about this bill, S.1867, is conflicting. According to "Wired"

"Here's the best thing that can be said about the new detention powers the Senate has tucked into next year's defense bill: They don't force the military to detain American citizens indefinitely without a trial. They just let the military do that. And even though the leaders of the military and the spy community have said they want no such power, the Senate is poised to pass its bill as early as tonight. There are still changes swirling around the Senate, but this looks like the basic shape of the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act. Someone the government says is "a member of, or part of, al-Qaida or an associated force" can be held in military custody "without trial until the end of the hostilities authorized by the Authorization for Use of Military Force." Those hostilities are currently scheduled to end the Wednesday after never. The move would shut down criminal trials for terror suspects".

The language of the bill is ambiguous. Also from "Wired" " So despite the Sixth Amendment's guarantee of a right to trial, the Senate bill would let the government lock up any citizen it swears is a terrorist, without the burden of proving its case to an independent judge, and for the lifespan of an amorphous war that conceivably will never end. And because the Senate is using the bill that authorizes funding for the military as its vehicle for this dramatic constitutional claim, it's pretty likely to pass."

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and CIA Director David Petraeus both say that they are opposed to the bill. Why then is it being written into the Defense Budget that is very likely to pass? Who is behind this most brazen attack on the rights of Americans in history? Senator Carl Levin is the architect of this bill but the two men that are really behind this savaging of American's basic rights are Senators John McCain and Senator Lindsay Graham along with Joe Liebermann according to InfoWar's Alex Jones. Levin defends the bill by claiming that "The requirement to detain a person in military custody under this section does not extend to citizens of the United States." Still, while the bill would not force the government to try American citizens by military tribunal, it nevertheless would allow them to do so.

Civil libertarians aren't so sure. Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) said it "denigrates the very foundations of this country." Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) added, "it puts every single American citizen at risk."

http://liberalpro.blogspot.com

Former Chairman of the Liberal Party of America, Tim is a retired Army Sergeant. He currently lives in South Carolina. A regular contributor to OpEdNews, he is the author of Kimchee Days or Stoned Cold Warriors and is currently at work on a new (more...)