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Military Police asked in the TimeBomb 2000 (Y2000) Q&A Forum
In the March 1999 issue of Soldier
of Fortune, there's an excellent overview of the merging and blurring of
function between military and police in the US, which will apparently lead
inexorably to a police state. Perhaps not news to this NG's regular readers,
but worth perusing for discussion. Many of the developments noted are precise
fulfillment's of Jacques Ellul's prophecies of about future technology
state, from the 1950's. Some quotes below the line.
-RC
The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) admits that it is no longer capable of protecting Americans from incoming nuclear missiles. Yet NORAD enjoys hundreds of millions of dollars in annual funding, as part of a $1.8 billion systems upgrade, having convinced congress to assign NORAD the mission of tracking planes and ships that might be carrying drugs.
In 1986, the nation had 3,000 deployments of paramilitary police units. In 1996, it rose to 30,000.
The [black] helicopters, writes [Prof.
David] Kopel, "are part of the National Guard's marijuana eradication program.
They are flying over rural property as a result of 1981 and 1989 congressional
amendments which created a partial drug exception to the Posse Commitatus
Act."
These days it's not just the radical
fringe types who warn of a police state. Rather it is quickly becoming
a mainstream concern.
"Once the military is used for local
police activity, however minor initially, the march toward martial law
with centralized police using military troops as an adjunct force becomes
irresistible." said Rep. Ron Paul R-Texas, addressing the United States
Congress.
The reign of Hitler began with a mixing
of police and military roles. "Modern societies are characterized by a
rather neat separation between police and military forces; each maintaining
very different principles of recruitment, training and organizational functioning
and operating under completely different frameworks of legal rules and
political supervision," writes Prof. Hans Geser, of the University of Zurich's
Institute of Sociology, in a study of United Nations international policing.
"Law enforcement must serve persons
who are guaranteed presumptions of innocence and right not appropriate
when dealing with an enemy during times of war," Kopel writes. "Our citizens
are not supposed to perceive themselves as subjects of an occupying force."
"A series of drug war amendments to
Posse Commitatus during the 1980s under Presidents Reagan and Bush, has
changed that and placed Marines on patrol at home," says Kevin B. Zeese,
president of Common Sense for Drug Policy, explaining why Marines who shot
Zeke Hernandez were patrolling the Texas/Mexico border in the first place.
Unlike a cop, the Marine's career isn't founded on two fundamental rights:
assumption of innocence and Miranda rights. "Our soldiers are not trained
to make arrests, Mirandize and bring to justice. They are trained to kill,"
says Mr. Zeese.
Defense Secretary William Cohen went
so far as to suggest border states sign agreements to provide immunity
to local criminal laws, similar to the "status of forces agreements" the
department has with foreign governments.
With constant advancements in technology,
however, police are becoming more capable of finding crimes - and therefore
articulable suspicion – that would otherwise go undetected. Random enforcement
is becoming a thing of the past. Today's police are like small armies that
target groups in the name of social reform. Now and in the future, you'll
have to watch out who your friends are. You can be targeted for who you
associate with."
"There's an unsettling trend among
police to view demonstrations as crime scenes," says Blewitt. "Police are
beginning to view crowds of demonstrators as enemies of the state, to be
controlled, rather than groups of people exercising their constitutional
right the police should be working to uphold."
"It's all being done out in the open,
and many people don't see it as frightening," says defense lawyer Blewitt.
"That's because Americans have been conditioned to think it will affect
only criminals. They've been convinced society if being destroyed by crime
- even though violent crime has steadily decreased in recent years - and
these military style police are our only hope. What they should worry about
is an emerging police state that threatens the very fabric of free society."
-- Runway Cat Runway_Cat@hotmail.com,
January 24, 1999
Answers
We became an official police state
last year with the passage of Janet Renos' wish list of extended powers.
These powers were tacked onto existing legislation completely bypassing
Congress. Under this expanded powers act any phone ascribed to a suspect
can be tapped without a warrant or court order. Justice dept. Alphabet
agents now can get blanket search warrants without a specific address or
search target, (i.e. drugs, guns, etc.) Confiscation of assets was expanded
to include a multitude of crimes and is no longer dependent on conviction.
You can be charged with a crime, with absolutely no proof you committed
one, and they can take everything you own. Court proceedings to recover
your property will take years and cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.
You cannot sue the government to recover court cost.
Now let's revisit that original power
of wiretaps. Under this policy a government agency can move an undercover
agent into a neighboring home or apartment. Using his clandestine cover
as an enemy of the state they can then tap every phone surrounding his
location including private residences without a court order or any evidence
whatsoever that the owners of the phones are criminals. If one of the tapped
lines belongs to a targeted person you now introduce an agent provocateur
to either implicate the person in a crime or plant false evidence in his
residence. The courts have also ruled that videotaping a person without
their knowledge or consent is not a crime as long as there is no audio
on the tape. Using a blanket search warrant they can enter your home while
you are at work and install hidden surveillance cameras. These cameras
can be placed in your bathroom, bedroom, anywhere they want them. Now if
they have gone to this much trouble do you seriously believe they will
not have a microphone installed separately? As long as it isn't an integral
part of the camera this also would be legal.
Now this week Clinton proposes a completely
new branch of the military to police the civilian population. We're not
talking happy face national guard troops here, this is nothing more than
an attempt to establish his own personal SS unit whose sole duty will be
to smash any group that dares stand up to the nazification of America.
-- Nikoli Krushev doomsday@y2000.com,
January 25, 1999.
Have a look at Gerry Spence's book,
From Freedom to Slavery : The
Rebirth of Tyranny in America.
Published 1996, ISBN: 0312143427
-- Tom Carey tomcarey@mindspring.com,
January 25, 1999.
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