Tag: National Security State

Yes, anything can happen, but with the latest open disdain for 47% of the people in this country by Mitt Romney, it’s looking like a safe bet that the President will be reelected. There’s also more time for Romney to say even more stupid shit. It’s almost like he’s running against himself, so I’m looking past the President”s very likely reelection onto life or death issues.

In this introspection I sadly conclude that there is just not enough differences in this campaign when to comes to the wars and the national security state; none of them will consider rolling it back even though that is what will ultimately make us safer. Destroying the 4th amendment did not make us safer one bit.

What makes us even less safe is the hate bred through what is called the collateral death of innocent civilians that we in this country and our horse race mindset can’t seem to understand. This is not something human beings just get over and why should they? Who are we to tell them to get over it? They literally can’t get over it, and this war is spilling blood in our name as jpmassar outlined the other day in his extremely important diary.

I Know You Don’t Want to Hear It, But We Have Blood On Our Hands. 8 Women Just Killed in Afghanistan

How many times must the cannonballs fly

Before they are forever banned?

“...precision aerial munitions… as well as precision fire from aircraft…”

At least eight women have died in a Nato air strike in Afghanistan’s eastern province of Laghman, local officials say. Nato has conceded that between five and eight civilians died as it targeted insurgents, and offered condolences.

At his Balkinization site, Jack Balkin discusses how he had predicted the current state of increased national surveillance that were put in place by George W. Bush during the “war on terrorism”. It would not matter if the president was a Democrat or a Republican because it has little to do with 9/11 but more about the National Security State that was created after World War II and it would be expected that these policies would be expanded.

Barack Obama has largely confirmed these expectations, much to the dismay of many liberals who supported him. After issuing a series of publicly lauded executive orders on assuming office (including a ban on torture), he has more or less systematically adopted policies consistent with the second term of the George W. Bush Administration, employing the new powers granted to the President by Congress in the Authorization of the Use of Military Force of 2001, the Patriot Act of 2001 (as amended), the Protect America Act of 2007, the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 and the Military Commissions Acts of 2006 and 2009. These statutory authorizations have created a basic framework for the National Surveillance State, and have made Obama the most powerful president in history in these policy areas.

In spite of all the flowery rhetoric in public, behind the curtain Barack Obama is an extension of what is turning into an Imperial Presidency. This issue goes hand in hand with the expansion of the Military Industrial Complex that President Eisenhower warned of in his farewell address. David Swanson, author, blogger, and activist, and Bruce Fein, a constitutional and international lawyer discuss the current state of the growing surveillance state that is is making an end run Bill of Rights protections and expectations about procedure. The following four videos that were made on March 17 and moderated by attorney and author, John Whitehead of the Rutherford Institute are well worth the time.