The United States Secret Courts, Secret Surveillance and Other Dealings in Secret Combinations Behind Closed Doors.

I've been reading about what a surveillance state actually is.  Remember Demolition Man?  It's the movie with Sylvester Stalone and Sandra Bullock in which a cop from the past is brought to the future...anywho, this future is ruled by laws where people get tickets for saying the wrong words and other behavioral things.  In other words, they don't get to have individual rights and therefore no individuality at all.

While members of Congress refuse to admit that they are in the know on the NSA secret snooping program, it has all been done with the approval of congress, so it is not very likely that the truth is being told here.  So, is there anyone in Washington who actually tells the truth?

"A top Republican lawmaker claimed Thursday terrorists have already started to change their behavior after a self-described NSA whistleblower leaked information about classified U.S. surveillance programs to various media outlets, saying the leaks may make it "harder to track bad guys." (Read more: Fox)

In steps the Electronic Frontier Foundation.  They had a victory Wednesday towards the release of a ruling on violations our precious (and now severely troubled) 4th Amendment rights.  Even the Director of National Intelligence has revealed that the SECRET FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE COURT (FISC) ruled that there has been 4th Amendment violations in the surveillance by our government.  While we talk about the citizens of China having a lack of freedoms, at least in China you know what to expect with the state.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation scored a remarkable — and remarkably timely — legal victory on Wednesday. The secret court at the center of the recent NSA surveillance revelations allowed the group's push for the release of a ruling on violations of Americans' Fourth Amendment rights to move forward.

In May, we reported on what was then a fairly sleepy issue, a distant node on the EFF's longstanding push to uncover how the NSA's intelligence-gathering systems conflicted with the Constitution. In July 2012, a letter from the Director of National Intelligence to Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon revealed that a ruling by the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) found Fourth Amendment violations in the government's surveillance. source: Atlantic Wire 

In the Federalist Papers, No. 16 (Hamilton), it reads that this secret surveillance is deemed unconstitutional.  It reads as follows...

The State leaders may even make a merit of their surreptitious invasions of it (the Constitution) on the ground of some temporary convenience, exemption, or advantage.

Hamilton also talks about the power hungry leaders and how they may have a tendency to be wanton of domination instead of working for the citizens they represent.

An experiment of this nature (exertion of unconstitutional power) would always be hazardous in the face of a constitution in any degree competent to its own defense, and of a people enlightened enough to distinguish between a legal exercise and an illegal usurpation of authority.

... The regulation of the mere domestic police of a State appears to me to hold out slender allurements to ambition.  Commerce, finance, negotiation, and war seem to comprehend all the objects which have charms for minds governed by that passion; and all the powers...would contribute nothing to the dignity, to the importance, or to the splendor of the national government.

Were the Founders and those who wrote the Federalist Papers psychic?  Sure seems like they envisioned a future much like what we have, which has exploded into scandal after scandal that is ignored by Obama and his administration.  I agree with the following statements regarding the attitude of Obama and his administration.  I know that this was not started under Obama, but it has literally exploded with corruption under his administration because he has ignored the U.S. Constitution, as he has stated that he thinks of it as a nice historical document.

Surely, you might think, such all-encompassing surveillance must be unconstitutional, and ultimately will be stopped or modified by the Supreme Court. 

Think again. President Obama, among many others, has assured us that the government’s spying operations are entirely legal. 

The problem is not that the president has taken leave of his senses, or suddenly taken the rest of us for fools. The problem is that he may well be correct, at least according to the way the Supreme Court has thus far interpreted the Constitution. 

Because of their classified status, and notwithstanding the recent press revelations, the NSA surveillance operations’ extent and exact methodology remain largely unknown. But from a civil liberties standpoint, what we do know isn’t very encouraging. 

Phone RecordsOperating under various code names, such as Trailblazer, Stellar Wind and Ragtime, authority for the collection of telephone metadata—the phone numbers each of us calls and the numbers of those who call us—derives from Sections 215 and 505 of the Patriot Act, which was initially passed in 2001 and amended key provisions of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. 

Section 215 (codified at 18 United States Code 1861) authorizes the FBI on behalf of the NSA to apply for court orders requiring phone companies to produce business records “to protect against international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities.” The section served as the legal basis for the order published by The Guardian that was issued in April by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to Verizon Business Services. 

The court deliberates in secret, issues its orders on an “ex parte” basis without hearing from those affected by them, and only rarely publishes its decisions, although the Justice Department reports annually to Congress on the overall volume of surveillance applications. In 2012, the FBI submitted 1,789 applications to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. One was withdrawn; all the others were approved. 

Section 505 (codified at 18 USC 2709) authorizes the FBI to issue national security letters, without any judicial oversight, to obtain subscriber information and toll billing records from telecom carriers. Recipients of national security letters are subject to gag orders that forbid them from ever revealing the letters’ existence. In 2011, the FBI issued 16,511 such letters.Those seeking to declare these sections unconstitutional face at least one enormous obstacle: the 1979 case of Smith v. Maryland, in which the Supreme Court held that telephone users have no reasonable expectation of privacy in the records of their calling activities. As the Smith ruling instructs, absent a privacy expectation, no illegal search within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment occurs. Unless the Supreme Court overrules or distinguishes Smith from the NSA’s current spying platforms, legal challenges to orders like the one issued to Verizon are likely to meet with little success. 

Internet Content SurveillanceThe obstacles facing those seeking to halt or limit the collection and reading of emails and other electronic communications under the PRISM program are in some ways even more daunting, courtesy of the Supreme Court’s decision in Clapper v. Amnesty International, released in February. In a 5-4 majority opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito, the court dismissed a complaint brought by Amnesty International and other human rights groups, reasoning that none of the organizations had suffered actual legal harm, and thus lacked “standing” to sue. None could show, the majority argued, that its communications in fact had been intercepted in the past or that they would likely be intercepted in the future.  

Although domestic wiretapping warrants issued by judges must be supported by probable cause, the collection of emails challenged in the Clapper case and involved in the PRISM program is governed by another set of legal provisions, found in Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (codified at 18 USC 1881). These permit the attorney general and the director of national intelligence to obtain Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court approval of surveillance operations against foreign targets upon certifications of reasonableness that fall short of the warrant requirement for probable cause. The provisions also authorize such operations to proceed without any court approval for up to seven days in “exigent circumstances,” as determined by the attorney general. 

Although the PRISM operation on its face is directed solely at foreign targets, even the sleuths at the NSA can’t always determine where a person is located. As a result, the agency reportedly collects information on targets believed with only 51 percent certainty to be outside the U.S. 

American journalists and others who investigate national security issues are thus left in a Kafkaesque dilemma, validly concerned that their emails to and from people abroad are being swept up in secret government data dragnets yet foreclosed on technical standing grounds from challenging the dragnets because they are unable to penetrate the very secrecy they object to.In the absence of a highly improbable constitutional turnaround by the Roberts court or some equally improbable decisive reform of the Patriot Act and FISA by Congress, this is the legal structure we will have for the foreseeable future. 

All nations have the right to protect themselves against terror. But in a country that prides itself on the values of transparency and the rule of law, we can do better than the current system, which seemingly falls short in both respects. source: Truth Dig

 What is a top secret court doing in our United States?!  They work in secret combinations behind closed doors, allowing for the signs of the times to come forth, written almost in exact wording with the Biblical prophecy.  They are an organization, like more organizations that we are finding out about, that are running our country from behind closed doors and by a few elite individuals.

Are we ready now for that discussion about secrecy? In December, in a holiday-season rush to reauthorize the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the U.S. Senate shot down several amendments intended to limit the powers the act grants to the government and to scale back the near-total secrecy that it authorizes. source: Bloomberg

Additionally, many are waking up to the fact that the votes for government leaders are fraudulent and are created behind closed doors as well.  What a frustrating thing to wake up to!  To wake up to the fact that your vote does not really count is a rough thing, especially for those of us who are instinctively and deeply patriotic to our United States of America.

The question for Barkin is not whether we should have a surveillance state since the surveillance state is certainly here but what type of surveillance state we will have. He notes that there are a number of dangers posed by the surveillance state. With all the data collected there may be a move towards a parallel track of preventative law enforcement that may be contrary to guarantees of a bill of rights.

Traditional law enforcement may begin also to follow this parallel track. With the vast data base of information collected by the government, local police forces will want to access and mine this information not just intelligence agents. Similarly social service providers will want access to information to serve clients better but also no doubt to weed out "undeserving" clients. Finally, Barkin claims that the government may use more and more private agencies to collect information for it, in order to circumvent constitutional guarantees. I am not sure that the government worries that much about such constitutional issues. James Clapper. National Intelligence Director, claims that the snooping is all perfectly legal under the Patriot Act and has been authorized by Congress:"Clapper said the data collection under the program, first unveiled by the newspapers The Washington Post and The Guardian in Britain, was conducted with the approval of the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Court and with the knowledge of Internet service providers."

The obvious reason to have the work done by private entities is that they can make a profit from this activity and then donate to election campaigns of politicians who helped privatize the data collection.

Balkin claims that there can be a democratic surveillance state or an authoritarian surveillance state. A democratic surveillance state collects as little data as possible and tells the public as much as possible about what it is being collected and what is being done with information. An authoritarian surveillance state will collect as much information as possible about its citizens and tell them as little as possible. Paul Krugman claims that the US should be classified as an authoritarian surveillance state. His position is stated in the appended video clip.
source: Digital Journal 

How do you feel about your 4th Amendment and about the secret dealings of our government?  I really want to hear from you!

Project Censored: Top 10 Underreported Stories By The Mainstream Media

(Yael Chanoff)  People who get their information exclusively from mainstream media sources may be surprised at the lack of enthusiasm on the left for President Barack Obama in this crucial election. But that’s probably because they weren’t exposed to the full online furor sparked by Obama’s continuation of his predecessor’s overreaching approach to national security, such as signing the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act, which allows the indefinite detention of those accused of supporting terrorism, even U.S. citizens.

We’ll never know how this year’s election would be different if the corporate media adequately covered the NDAA’s indefinite detention clause and many other recent attacks on civil liberties. What we can do is spread the word and support independent media sources that do cover these stories. That’s where Project Censored comes in.

Project Censored has been documenting inadequate media coverage of crucial stories since it began in 1967 at Sonoma State University. Each year, the group considers hundreds of news stories submitted by readers, evaluating their merits. Students search Lexis Nexis and other databases to see if the stories were underreported, and if so, the stories are fact-checked by professors and experts in relevant fields.

A panel of academics and journalists chooses the Top 25 stories and rates their significance. The project maintains a vast online database of underreported news stories that it has “validated” and publishes them in an annual book. Censored 2013: Dispatches from the Media Revolution will be released Oct. 30.

For the second year in row, Project Censored has grouped the Top 25 list into topical “clusters.” This year, categories include “Human cost of war and violence” and “Environment and health.” Project Censored Director Mickey Huff told us the idea was to show how various undercovered stories fit together into an alternative narrative, not to say that one story was more censored than another.

In May, while Project Censored was working on the list, another 2012 list was issued: the Fortune 500 list of the biggest corporations, whose influence peppers the Project Censored list in a variety of ways.

Consider this year’s top Fortune 500 company: ExxonMobil. The oil company pollutes everywhere it goes, yet most stories about its environmental devastation go underreported. Weapons manufacturers Lockheed Martin (58 on the Fortune list), General Dynamics (92), and Raytheon (117) are tied into stories about U.S. prisoners in slavery conditions manufacturing parts for their weapons and the underreported war crimes in Afghanistan and Libya.

These powerful corporations work together more than most people think. In the chapter exploring the “global 1 percent,” writers Peter Philips and Kimberly Soeiro explain how a small number of well-connected people control the majority of the world’s wealth. In it, they use Censored story number 6, “Small network of corporations run the global economy,” to describe how a network of transnational corporations are deeply interconnected, with 147 of them controlling 40 percent of the global economy’s total wealth.

For example, Philips and Soeiro write that in one such company, BlackRock Inc., “The 18 members of the board of directors are connected to a significant part of the world’s core financial assets. Their decisions can change empires, destroy currencies and impoverish millions.”

Another cluster of stories, “Women and Gender, Race and Ethnicity,” notes a pattern of underreporting stories that affect a range of marginalized groups. This broad category includes only three articles, and none are listed in the top 10. The stories reveal mistreatment of Palestinian women in Israeli prisons, including being denied medical care and shackled during childbirth, and the rape and sexual assault of women soldiers in the U.S. military. The third story in the category concerns an Alabama anti-immigration bill, H.B. 56, that caused immigrants to flee Alabama in such numbers that farmers felt a dire need to “help farms fill the gap and find sufficient labor.” So the Alabama Department of Agriculture and Industries approached the state’s Department of Corrections about making a deal where prisoners would replace the fleeing farm workers.

But with revolutionary unrest around the world, and the rise of a mass movement that connects disparate issues together into a simple, powerful class analysis — the 99 percent versus the 1 percent paradigm popularized by Occupy Wall Street — this year’s Project Censored offers an element of hope.

It’s not easy to succeed at projects that resist corporate dominance, and when it does happen, the corporate media is sometimes reluctant to cover it. Number seven on the Top 25 list is the story of how the United Nations designated 2012 the International Year of the Cooperative, recognizing the rapid growth of co-op businesses, organizations that are part-owned by all members and whose revenue is shared equitably among members. One billion people worldwide now work in co-ops.

The Year of the Cooperative is not the only good-news story discussed by Project Censored this year. In Chapter 4, Yes! Magazine’s Sarah Van Gelder lists “12 ways the Occupy movement and other major trends have offered a foundation for a transformative future.” They include a renewed sense of “political self-respect” and fervor to organize in the United States, debunking of economic myths such as the “American dream,” and the blossoming of economic alternatives such as community land trusts, time banking and micro-energy installations.

As Dr. Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed writes in the book’s foreword, “The majority of people now hold views about Western governments and the nature of power that would have made them social pariahs 10 or 20 years ago.”

Citing polls from the corporate media, Mosaddeq writes: “The majority are now skeptical of the Iraq War; the majority want an end to U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan; the majority resent the banks and financial sector, and blame them for the financial crisis; most people are now aware of environmental issues, more than ever before, and despite denialist confusion promulgated by fossil fuel industries, the majority in the United States and Britain are deeply concerned about global warming; most people are wary of conventional party politics and disillusioned with the mainstream parliamentary system.”

“In other words,” he writes, “there has been a massive popular shift in public opinion toward a progressive critique of the current political economic system.”

And ultimately, it’s the public — not the president and not the corporations—that will determine the future. There may be hope after all. Here’s Project Censored’s Top 10 list for 2013:

1. Signs of an emerging police state

President George W. Bush is remembered largely for his role in curbing civil liberties in the name of his “war on terror.” But it’s President Obama who signed the 2012 NDAA, including its clause allowing for indefinite detention without trial for terrorism suspects. Obama promised that “my administration will interpret them to avoid the constitutional conflict” — leaving us adrift if and when the next administration chooses to interpret them otherwise. Another law of concern is the National Defense Resources Preparedness Executive Order that Obama issued in March 2012. That order authorizes the president, “in the event of a potential threat to the security of the United States, to take actions necessary to ensure the availability of adequate resources and production capability, including services and critical technology, for national defense requirements.” The president is to be advised on this course of action by “the National Security Council and Homeland Security Council, in conjunction with the National Economic Council.” Journalist Chris Hedges, along with co-plaintiffs including Noam Chomsky and Daniel Ellsberg, won a case challenging the NDAA’s indefinite detention clause on Sept. 1, when a federal judge blocked its enforcement, but her ruling was overturned on Oct. 3, so the clause is back.

2. Oceans in peril 

Big banks aren’t the only entities that our country has deemed “too big to fail.” But our oceans won’t be getting a bailout anytime soon, and their collapse could compromise life itself. In a haunting article highlighted by Project Censored, Mother Jones reporter Julia Whitty paints a tenuous seascape — overfished, acidified, warming — and describes how the destruction of the ocean’s complex ecosystems jeopardizes the entire planet, not just the 70 percent that is water. Whitty compares ocean acidification, caused by global warming, to acidification that was one of the causes of the “Great Dying,” a mass extinction 252 million years ago. Life on Earth took 30 million years to recover. In a more hopeful story, a study of 14 protected and 18 non-protected ecosystems in the Mediterranean Sea showed dangerous levels of biomass depletion. But it also showed that the marine reserves were well-enforced, with five to 10 times larger fish populations than in unprotected areas. This encourages establishment and maintenance of more reserves.

3. U.S. deaths from Fukushima 

A plume of toxic fallout floated to the U.S. after Japan’s tragic Fukushima nuclear disaster on March 11, 2011. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency found radiation levels in air, water and milk that were hundreds of times higher than normal across the United States. One month later, the EPA announced that radiation levels had declined, and they would cease testing. But after making a Freedom of Information Act request, journalist Lucas Hixson published emails revealing that on March 24, 2011, the task of collecting nuclear data had been handed off from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission to the Nuclear Energy Institute, a nuclear industry lobbying group. And in one study that got little attention, scientists Joseph Mangano and Jeanette Sherman found that in the period following the Fukushima meltdowns, 14,000 more deaths than average were reported in the U.S., mostly among infants. Later, Mangono and Sherman updated the number to 22,000.

4. FBI agents responsible for terrorist plots 

We know that FBI agents go into communities such as mosques, both undercover and in the guise of building relationships, quietly gathering information about individuals. This is part of an approach to finding what the FBI now considers the most likely kind of terrorists, “lone wolves.” Its strategy: “seeking to identify those disgruntled few who might participate in a plot given the means and the opportunity. And then, in case after case, the government provides the plot, the means, and the opportunity,” writes Mother Jones journalist Trevor Aaronsen. The publication, along with the Investigative Reporting Program at the University of California-Berkeley, examined the results of this strategy, 508 cases classified as terrorism-related that have come before the U.S. Department of Justice since the 9/11 terrorist attacks of 2001. In 243 of these cases, an informant was involved; in 49 cases, an informant actually led the plot. And “with three exceptions, all of the high-profile domestic terror plots of the last decade were actually FBI stings.”

5. Federal Reserve loaned trillions to major banks 

The Federal Reserve, the U.S.’s quasi-private central bank, was audited for the first time in its history this year. The audit report states, “From late 2007 through mid-2010, Reserve Banks provided more than a trillion dollars … in emergency loans to the financial sector to address strains in credit markets and to avert failures of individual institutions believed to be a threat to the stability of the financial system.” These loans had significantly less interest and fewer conditions than the high-profile TARP bailouts, and were rife with conflicts of interest. Some examples: the CEO of JP Morgan Chase served as a board member of the New York Federal Reserve at the same time that his bank received more than $390 billion in financial assistance from the Fed. William Dudley, who is now the New York Federal Reserve president, was granted a conflict of interest waiver to let him keep investments in AIG and General Electric at the same time the companies were given bailout funds. The audit was restricted to Federal Reserve lending during the financial crisis. On July 25, 2012, a bill to audit the Fed again, with fewer limitations, authored by Rep. Ron Paul, passed the House of Representatives. H.R. 459 was expected to die in the Senate, but the movement behind Paul and his calls to hold the Fed accountable, or abolish it altogether, seem to be growing.

6. Small network of corporations run the global economy 

Reporting on a study by researchers from the Swiss Federal Institute in Zurich didn’t make the rounds nearly enough, according to Censored 2013. They found that, of 43,060 transnational companies, 147 control 40 percent of total global wealth. The researchers also built a model visually demonstrating how the connections between companies — what it calls the “super entity” — works. Some have criticized the study, saying control of assets doesn’t equate to ownership. True, but as we clearly saw in the 2008 financial collapse, corporations are capable of mismanaging assets in their control to the detriment of their actual owners. And a largely unregulated super entity like this is vulnerable to global collapse.

7. The International Year of Cooperative

Can something really be censored when it’s straight from the United Nations? According to Project Censored evaluators, the corporate media underreported the U.N. declaring 2012 to be the International Year of the Cooperative, based on the co-op business model’s stunning growth. The U.N. found that, in 2012, 1 billion people worldwide are co-op member-owners, or one in five adults over age 15. The largest is Spain’s Mondragon Corporation, with more than 80,000 member-owners. The U.N. predicts that by 2025, worker-owned co-ops will be the world’s fastest growing business model. Worker-owned cooperatives provide for equitable distribution of wealth, genuine connection to the workplace, and, just maybe, a brighter future for our planet.

8. NATO war crimes in Libya

In January 2012, the BBC “revealed” how British Special Forces agents joined and “blended in” with rebels in Libya to help topple dictator Muammar Gadaffi, a story that alternative media sources had reported a year earlier. NATO admits to bombing a pipe factory in the Libyan city of Brega that was key to the water supply system that brought tap water to 70 percent of Libyans, saying that Gadaffi was storing weapons in the factory. In Censored 2013, writer James F. Tracy makes the point that historical relations between the U.S. and Libya were left out of mainstream news coverage of the NATO campaign; “background knowledge and historical context confirming Al-Qaeda and Western involvement in the destabilization of the Gadaffi regime are also essential for making sense of corporate news narratives depicting the Libyan operation as a popular ‘uprising.’”

9. Prison slavery in the U.S.

On its website, the UNICOR manufacturing corporation proudly proclaims that its products are “made in America.” That’s true, but they’re made in places in the U.S. where labor laws don’t apply, with workers often paid just 23 cents an hour to be exposed to toxic materials with no legal recourse. These places are U.S. prisons. Slavery conditions in prisons aren’t exactly news. It’s literally written into the Constitution; the 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery, outlaws “slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted.” But the articles highlighted by Project Censored this year reveal the current state of prison slavery industries, and its ties to war. The majority of products manufactured by inmates are contracted to the Department of Defense. Inmates make complex parts for missile systems, battleship anti-aircraft guns and landmine sweepers, as well as night-vision goggles, body army and camouflage uniforms. Of course, this is happening in the context of record high imprisonment in the U.S., where grossly disproportionate numbers of African Americans and Latinos are imprisoned, and can’t vote even after they’re freed. As psychologist Elliot D. Cohen puts it in this year’s book: “This system of slavery, like that which existed in this country before the Civil War, is also racist, as more than 60 percent of U.S. prisoners are people of color.”

10. H.R. 347 criminalizes protest

H.R. 347, sometimes called the “criminalizing protest” or “anti-Occupy” bill, made some headlines. But concerned lawyers and other citizens worry that it could have disastrous effects for the First Amendment right to protest. Officially called the Federal Restricted Grounds Improvement Act, the law makes it a felony to “knowingly” enter a zone restricted under the law, or engage in “disorderly or disruptive” conduct in or near the zones. The restricted zones include anywhere the Secret Service may be — places such as the White House, areas hosting events deemed “National Special Security Events,” or anywhere visited by the president, vice president and their immediate families; former presidents, vice presidents and certain family members; certain foreign dignitaries; major presidential and vice presidential candidates (within 120 days of an election); and other individuals as designated by a presidential executive order. These people could be anywhere, and NSSEs have notoriously included the Democratic and Republican National Conventions, Super Bowls and the Academy Awards. So far, it seems the only time H.R. 347 has kicked in is with George Clooney’s high-profile arrest outside the Sudanese embassy. Clooney ultimately was not detained without trial — information that would be almost impossible to censor — but what about the rest of us who exist outside of the mainstream media’s spotlight?

THERE IS SOOOO MUCH MORE AT THIS WEBSITE THAT YOU MUST CHECK IT OUT!!!

HERE IS THE SITE URL...http://govtslaves.info/project-censored-top-10-underreported-stories-by-the-mainstream-media/

Obama To Declare Martial Law, Hinging On Israel's Reaction To Iran, Halting U.S. Elections.

By now you may have heard the rumors about Obama declaring Martial Law to halt the elections so that he can remain president and have total control over the U.S. people.  To me, it sounds outlandish.  However, outlandish things have happened before.  Here is the current story as I can give it to you with current news stories to show the possibilities.  Of course, this is the Internet, so believe these things as far as the Internet is believable.  I will first try to define martial law and then go forward with the news articles that paint a path either toward martial law or against it.

Martial law is the imposition of military rule by military authorities over designated regions on an emergency basis—(usually) only temporary—when the civilian government or civilian authorities fail to function effectively (e.g., maintain order and security, and provide essential services), when there are extensive riots and protests, or when the disobedience of the law becomes widespread. In most cases, military forces are deployed to subdue the crowds, to secure government buildings and key or sensitive locations, and to maintain order. Generally, military personnel replace civil authorities and perform some or all of their functions. In full-scale martial law, the highest-ranking military officer would take over, or be installed, as the military governor or as head of the government, thus removing all power from the previous executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government.

Martial law can be used by governments to enforce their rule over the public. Such incidents may occur after a coup d'état (Thailand 2006); when threatened by popular protest (China, Tiananmen Square protests of 1989); to suppress political opposition (Poland in 1981); to stabilize insurrections or perceived insurrections (Canada, The October Crisis of 1970). Martial law may be declared in cases of major natural disasters, however most countries use a different legal construct, such as a "state of emergency".

Martial law has also been imposed during conflicts and in cases of occupations, where the absence of any other civil government provides for an unstable population. Examples of this form of military rule include post World War II reconstruction in Germany and Japan as well as the southern reconstruction following the U.S. Civil War.

Typically, the imposition of martial law accompanies curfews, the suspension of civil law, civil rights, habeas corpus, and the application or extension of military law or military justice to civilians. Civilians defying martial law may be subjected to military tribunal (court-martial).

source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martial_law

Iran’s anti-Israel rhetoric ups the ante

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER

Either Israel is engaged in the most elaborate ruse since the Trojan Horse or it is on the cusp of a pre-emptive strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

What’s alarming is not just Iran’s increasing store of uranium or the growing sophistication of its rocketry. It’s also the increasingly menacing annihilationist threats emanating from Iran’s leaders. Israel’s existence is “an insult to all humanity”, says President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. “Anyone who loves freedom and justice must strive for the annihilation of the Zionist regime.”

Explains the country’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei: Israel is “a true cancer tumour on this region that should be cut off”.

Everyone wants to avoid military action, surely the Israelis above all. They can expect a massive counter-attack from Iran, 50,000 rockets launched from Lebanon, Islamic Jihad firing from Gaza, and worldwide terror against Jewish and Israeli targets, as happened last month in Bulgaria.

Yet Israel will not sit idly by in the face of the most virulent genocidal threats since Nazi Germany. The result then was 6 million murdered Jews. There are 6 million living in Israel today.

Time is short. Last-ditch negotiations in Istanbul, Baghdad and Moscow have failed abjectly. The Iranians are contemptuously playing with the process. The strategy is delay until they get the bomb.

What to do? The sagest advice comes from Anthony Cordesman, military analyst at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, hard-headed realist and a believer that “multilateralism and soft power must still be the rule and not the exception”.

He may have found his exception. “There are times when the best way to prevent war is to clearly communicate that it is possible,” he argues. Today, the threat of a US attack is not taken seriously. Not by the region. Not by Iran. Not by the Israelis, who therefore increasingly feel forced to act before Israel’s more limited munitions – far less powerful and effective than those in the US arsenal – can no longer penetrate Iran’s ever-hardening facilities.

Cordesman therefore proposes threefold action.

1. Clear US redlines

It’s time to end the ambiguity about American intentions. Establish real limits on negotiations – to convince Iran that the only alternative to a deal is pre-emptive strikes, and to convince Israel to stay its hand.

2. Make it clear to Iran that it has no successful options

Either their program must be abandoned in a negotiated deal (see point 1, above) on generous terms from the West (see point 3, below) or their facilities will be physically destroyed. Ostentatiously let Iran know about the range and power of our capacities – how deep and extensive a campaign we could conduct, extending beyond just nuclear facilities to military-industrial targets, refineries, power grids and other concentrations of regime power.

3. Give Iran a face-saving way out

Offer Iran the most generous possible terms – economic, diplomatic and political. End of sanctions, assistance in economic and energy development, trade incentives and a regional security architecture. Even Russian nuclear fuel.

Tellingly, however, Cordesman does not join those who suggest yielding on nuclear enrichment. That’s important because a prominently leaked proposed “compromise” would guarantee Iran’s right to enrich, though not to high levels.

read more at http://afr.com/p/opinion/iran_anti_israel_rhetoric_ups_the_3BHH0D2rHInwm7eZfDL2YN

Israel, U.S. divided over latest IAEA report on Iran

Israel believes the report backs up claims that Tehran has sped up its nuclear project, while the White House insists that findings don’t change the working assumption that there is still time to resolve the crisis diplomatically.

By Barak Ravid | Aug.26, 2012

The IAEA's Herman Nackaerts, Iran's Ambassador to the IAEA, Ali Asghar Soltanieh after talks at the permanent mission of Iran, Vienna, August 24, 2012. 

Israel and the United States are split over the significance of a new International Atomic Energy Agency report expected to accuse Iran of installing hundreds of new centrifuges at its underground enrichment facility near Qom.

Israel believes that the IAEA report, due to be published this week, backs up claims that Tehran has accelerated its nuclear project. The White House, however, insists that the findings do nothing to alter the working assumption that there is still time to resolve the crisis diplomatically.

The new centrifuges are thought to be capable of enriching uranium to a level higher than the 20 percent needed for research purposes.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who met on Friday in Jerusalem with U.S. Congressmen Mike Rogers, who heads the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said that the new information contained in the soon-to-be-released report is "further proof that Iran is galloping toward obtaining nuclear capability and that it continues to ignore the demands of the international community."

In contrast to Netanyahu's unequivocal interpretation of the new IAEA report, the White House was more circumspect. Speaking to the New York Times, White House spokesman Tommy Vietor said that "there is time and space" for a diplomatic solution to the Iranian nuclear crisis.

Another senior American official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the New York Times that the new information contained in the IAEA report is "not a game-changer."

According to the official, while it is true that Iran has increased the rate at which it is enriching uranium to a level of 20 percent, any move to enrich uranium to a level of 90 percent - the level needed for military purposes - "would not be a quiet affair." The official added that "the IAEA is in the facility regularly and they would detect a move" to build a weapon.

Over the weekend, representatives of the IAEA met with Iranian officials to discuss a demand to allow United Nations inspectors to visit the Parchin facility. Iran has been accused of researching and developing its military nuclear project at Parchin. This weekend's contacts - which come after a two-month hiatus - ended without agreement and without a date being set for the next round of negotiations.

Meanwhile, a U.S. think tank published satellite imagery on Friday which it said showed "pink colored material" covering a building at a sensitive military site in Iran which UN nuclear inspectors want to visit.

The Institute for Science and International Security said the tarp at the Parchin military complex might be an attempt to conceal alleged clean-up work there at a time when Iran is under growing international pressure to open up its disputed nuclear program to scrutiny.

read more at: http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/israel-u-s-divided-over-latest-iaea-report-on-iran.premium-1.460690

An Israeli attack on Iran would help, not harm, Obama’s reelection

Hard to believe that a seasoned Americanologist such as PM Netanyahu would think otherwise.

By Chemi Shalev

President Barack Obama pauses during an interview with The Associated Press at the White House, Aug. 23, 2012, in Washington. 

In many of the conspiracy theories that have been presented in recent weeks in the Israeli press concerning the possibility of an imminent Israeli attack on Iran, one theme has been constant: it would put President Barack Obama in a bind and possibly hurt his chances in the November elections as well.

Both developments, according to press reports, were part and parcel of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu considerations in pressing for an early attack. Republicans, it was said, not only subscribed to this assessment but also were egging Netanyahu on to in order to help Mitt Romney’s chances in November. 

The Israeli commentators, it sometimes seemed, accepted this conventional wisdom as if it was cast in stone.

It was left to political strategist Karl Rove, grandmaster of Republican tactics and chief advisor to the pro-Republican super-PAC “American Crossroads”, to blow this cockamamie theory out of the water. 

Appearing on Fox News last week, Rove made clear that any flare up with Iran would only serve Obama’s interests. Americans, he said, would instinctively rally around their Commander in Chief and Obama’s standing in the polls would immediately improve.

Rove went a step further and more or less warned Israel not to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities too early. In a comment that did not receive the media attention it deserved, Rove said that a military strike on Iran needs to wait until what Rove described as “a moment of vulnerability” - and that won’t happen until the Iranians bring all their fissile material “to a central site in order to be machined into a weapon or weapons.”

“They’ve got to wait until it’s brought together”, Rove said, and one can assume that such a moment won’t arrive, according to Rove’s strategic calculated, before November 6.

All four panelists on NBC’s Chris Matthews show this Sunday concurred with the political part of Rove’s analyses. A war with Iran, former ABC broadcaster Sam Donaldson said, would change the dynamics of the election campaign, draw attention away from the troubled economy and allow Obama to showcase his experience while accentuating Mitt Romney’s lack thereof. Foreign affairs and national security, after all, is the one area in which Obama enjoys a clear advantage over Romney in all the public opinion polls, they noted.

Another misplaced piece of the misguided conventional wisdom in Jerusalem is that an Israeli attack that would take place before the elections would force Obama to suppress his supposedly natural inclination to abandon Israel in its time of need. He would have to succumb to overwhelming public pressure and support Israel, both diplomatically and militarily, because of pure electoral considerations, according to this theory.

But this assessment may also be light years away from reality, a by product of the irrationally critical view of Obama’s shared by strident Republican Jewish critics who are close to Netanyahu and to some of his officials and who genuinely believe that Obama is a socialist/pacifist who would like nothing better than to see Israeli cities burn. Only his sense of self-preservation before the elections, they believe, might cause Obama to act against his usual anti-Jewish instincts.

Back on earth, however, it is far from clear that there would be any real pressure by the American public to get the US involved in another Middle East war. Opinion polls on the American public’s attitude towards US military involvement in Iran are all over the place, depending on the wording of the questions, but they consistently show wide support for Obama’s policy of exploring all other options first. They may very well accept the President’s judgment even if he opts against committing the US to a military confrontation.
Secondly, most people who know Obama maintain that if his hand is forced, either by Iran or by Israel, the President would not hesitate to send the American bombers on their way, elections or no elections, not only if Iran attacks American targets directly but also to help Israel, if it turns out that it cannot fend for itself. At the height of an election campaign, such a crisis would doubtlessly entail the fringe benefit of forcing Republican candidates Romney and Paul Ryan to support the President and to put aside their criticism while guns are blazing and American lives are in danger. And any reckoning with Jerusalem over its refusal to accede to the Administration’s demand to give peace another chance my indeed come - but only after the situation has stabilized and the elections are long over.


In fact, the very foundations of a theory that a war before elections would hurt Obama’s chances in the elections are so far fetched that it is actually unreasonable to believe that a seasoned Americanologist such as Netanyahu would subscribe to it. But now that Republicans appear to be actually warning him off – does this mean that war has been postponed? On the other hand, would Netanyahu’s Republican benefactors ever forgive him if it turned out that it was his decision to pull the trigger that actually ensured Obama’s second term?

source: http://www.haaretz.com/blogs/west-of-eden/an-israeli-attack-on-iran-would-help-not-harm-obama-s-reelection.premium-1.460819

ALERT: A BRAND NEW Executive Order 

just signed by Barack Hussein Obama on July 6th, ONCE AGAIN brings America a step closer to finding itself under MARTIAL LAW with Obama -- this time by giving him dictator-type powers over ALL communications during any so-called "crisis" that he might declare!

As reported by "Tea Party Economist" blogger, Dr. Gary North:

“Obama has signed an executive order outlining the nationalization of the entire communications system. It is written in bureaucratese. I have no doubt that it was not understood by Obama. It is too detailed. It sets up a powerful new bureaucracy. The language is limited to a national emergency. But an emergency on this scale is almost inconceivable. The government never discusses what could justify an executive order this comprehensive.

If such a threat to the nation (and the world) really exists, the voters should be given a detailed description of its nature. Congress should debate this. Solving it should be a high national priority. If the answer is, "discussing this would create panic," then democracy is a sham. If the answer is, "we don't know what might happen, so we are asserting total control in advance," then this executive order should never have been signed. It transfers too much power to bureaucrats to determine when to implement it.

 
As Dr. North declares, "This is no longer a nation run by the Constitution." 

The executive order itself is long, and very few people will actually bother to read it. But what it does is very clear: it authorizes the White House to take over the entire communications system, simply on "the authority of the President." 

The bottom line is this: Obama thinks that this power belongs to the President. 

It's more and more obvious that Barack Obama is preparing to DECLAREMARTIAL LAW -- we MUST STOP HIM NOW! 

We’ve seen this coming. We even reported on how, just recently, a government"whistleblower" inside the Obama regime has blown the lid off of why Barack Hussein Obama has recently signed Executive Orders that give him the power todeclare martial law across America! Obama, through the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and other agencies and "czars," is plotting a major "Reichstag" event to generate racial riots and produce the justification for martial law, delaying the November 2012 elections... possibly indefinitely! 

A DHS whistleblower informed the Canada Free Press"that the DHS is actively preparing for massive social unrest inside the United States. He then corrected himself, stating that 'a civil war' is the more appropriate term. 'Certain elements of the government are not only expecting and preparing for it, they are actually facilitating it.'" 

A "Reichstag event" refers to a fire started in Germany's legislature during Hitler's rise to power. The fire allowed him to grab emergency powers and eliminate his opposition. While he blamed it on Communists, historians have long believed that Hitler started the fire himself. 

According to the anonymous "whistleblower" inside Obama's DHS, this "Reichstag event" would take the form of a staged assassination attempt against Barack Obama, "carefully choreographed" and manufactured by Obama operatives. It would subsequently be blamed on "white supremacists" and used to enrage the black community to rioting and looting, the DHS source warned. 

The Obama administration would then use the violence and chaos they created as justification for the imposition of martial law in major urban cities in America, the creation of DHS checkpoints, restriction of travel, and the indefinite delay of the November 2012 elections: 

"The DHS takes their marching orders from the Obama administration, from Obama himself, but mostly from his un-appointed czars. And Jarrett, especially Valerie Jarrett. Don't think for a minute that the administration is doing anything to stabilize events in the U.S. They are revolutionaries, and revolutionaries thrive on chaos," he added.

This is getting TOO BIG to hide -- now, even the MEDIA is starting to pick up on the shocking news: 

Barack Hussein Obama has signed Executive Orders giving him the power todeclare MARTIAL LAW in America! 


Source: http://www.rightmarch.com/martiallaw.htm

Tennessee lawmaker warns of fake Obama assassination plot to stop 2012 elections

By Eric W. Dolan

Tennessee state Rep. Kelly Keisling (R) on Tuesday morning forwarded an email to his constituents that warned President Barack Obama was planning to impose martial law and indefinitely delay the November elections.

The Huffington Post reported that the email was sent from Keisling’s state email account to residents across the state’s 38th district.

“Republicans in the legislature are bound and determined to turn Tennessee into a laughing stock with their ridiculous antics,” Tennessee Democratic Party Chairman Chip Forrester said. “For Kelly Keisling to use state resources to send out a rumor-filled and dangerous email is an egregious abuse of power and tax payer dollars.”

The email, originally written by Florida-based conservative blogger Joe Angione, said there were unconfirmed rumors that Obama planned to stage an assassination attempt on his own life. The incident would be blamed on white supremacists, stirring racial unrest and allowing the President to impose martial law across the nation.

“The more we talk about the potential for a staged, bogus presidential assassination that would trigger massive civil unrest and possible martial law, the stronger is our defense against it actually occurring,” Angione wrote.

The email warned that the Department of Homeland Security was helping to coordinate the “false flag” operation. The federal agency, according to the email, was “taking their orders from the White House” and hoped to delay the November elections indefinitely.

Keisling has expressed regret for sending out the email.

read more at http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/08/01/tennessee-lawmaker-warns-of-fake-obama-assassination-plot-to-stop-2012-elections/

Will Obama attempt to declare martial law before November election?

Canada Free Press contributor Doug Hagmann has reported that a longtime friend and Department of Homeland Security official revealed to him “…the uppermost echelon of the DHS is actively preparing for massive social unrest inside the United States,” and not only “…expecting and preparing for it, they are actually facilitating it.”

According to Hagmann’s DHS source, the Obama Regime—which initiates Department agenda and dominates its thinking—will proceed by implementing “economic chaos, chaos through racial division and chaos through class division, all joined by Barack Hussein Obama and his stable of unelected czars.”

For three years, the Administration has worked to destroy the private sector and destabilize the value of the dollar. It has injected race and class into every argument, setting the stage for “summer riots” organized by Regime operatives. And when economic calamity and civil unrest are at their zenith, “…a false flag event against Obama or his family, something that will outrage ‘black America’ ” will be crafted, its purpose, to “…evoke the ugliest of reactions and create racial chaos in this country that will make the Watts riots, 1968 and the Rodney King riots pale in comparison.”

At this juncture, the federal government will be “forced” to take a hand for the well-being of the nation and the American public, of course. Martial law will be declared by an appropriately “reluctant” Barack Obama, who will offer a television persona clearly dis-inclined to the exercise of such staggering authority. Naturally, he will promise the duration of his absolute power to be brief and its use, strictly and fairly measured.  The 2012 election will–for the purposes of fairness and equity—be indefinitely postponed.

Although claims in the Canada Free Press article sound very much like the ravings of “tin foil hat”-wearing conspiracy theorists, it should be remembered who the enemy is, the extraordinary sweep and authority they have already attained, and the arrogance and lust for power that drives them.

Read More at Western Journalism.  By Doug Book.

Martial Law will NOT be declared

By: Diane Sori

Lately all you see people posting on Facebook are articles that quote unnamed, so-called inside sources all saying that Barack Hussein Obama is going to declare Martial Law to stop the elections from going forward. The sources these articles are taken from are sources whose credibility is anything but stellar as any source that does not name names really has NO credibility whatsoever.

Yet these posts keep appearing all claiming that the Obama administration is working on creating a deliberate racial and/or economic war based on class warfare so that he can declare Martial Law and shut down the elections.   However, concrete details are sketchy at best or are the stuff of urban legends.  The urban legends are the worst, like the claim that the government is stockpiling every weapon possible to use against ‘We the People’ as they round us up once Martial Law is declared and put us in re-education centers or worse...concentration camps.

Now one ‘supposed’ credible site is even claiming that a staged assassination attempt will be made against Obama that would then be blamed on white supremacists and be used to inflame the black community to start rioting and looting.

Oh please...do you really think the black community will fall for this nonsense.  Some like the New Black Panthers and their ilk might feed into this but the majority of the black population can see through this just as easily as you and I can.

Then we have those sites claiming that the National Defense Resources Preparedness Executive Order signed back in March is a lead-in to Obama declaring Martial Law, and all because it authorizes the federal government to identify "requirements for the full spectrum of emergencies, including essential military and civilian demand," and to "control the general distribution of any material (including applicable services) in this civilian market."

However, and a much as I dislike Obama and all he stands for, this order is just your standard government readiness policy.  In fact it’s almost identical to those orders issued by administrations ever since the days of the Cold War, including by the administrations of Dwight Eisenhower, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush.

With Obama losing support daily as Mitt Romney gains traction. Obama in desperation will try all sorts of bravado to try and keep us from getting out and voting and the fear of Martial Law is the mother lode of all bravado...or so he thinks.

First, you need to understand what Martial Law really is and that it is NOT that easy to declare.  Martial Law is basically temporary rule by state or national military authorities, imposed on civilian populations during times of war or when civil authority has broken down.   

Martial Law has been declared in this country on the national level only once and that was during the Civil War.  On the regional level Martial Law was declared also only once and that was during World War II. Otherwise, it’s been limited to the states.  Civil uprisings, massive political protests, labor strikes, and riots have caused a few state governors to rightly declare some measure of Martial Law at one time or another.

Under Article I, Section 8, Clause 15, of the Constitution, Congress has the power "[t]o provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress insurrections and repel Invasions." Article II, Section 2, Clause 1, of the Constitution declares that "[t]he President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States."  The Supreme Court has interpreted this to mean that a declaration of Martial Law can be imposed by the president or Congress.  A governor, on the other hand, may declare Martial Law within their state as the power to do so is usually in their state constitution.

However, both federal or state courts must first still rule if the implementation of Martial Law and the use of troops is justified because Martial Law is legally considered an act of last resort.

So armed with this knowledge you can see that Martial Law cannot just be declared at whim even by a sitting president.  The circumstances would have to be extraneous with the chance of total chaos and violence being present for Martial Law to be approved by the courts .   

Barack Hussein Obama and his minions might indeed try to instigate a course of events that could lead up to his being able to declare such an action but it’s up to us to NOT fall into that trap.

read more at http://thepatriotfactor.blogspot.com/2012/05/normal-0-false-false-false-en-us-x-none_16.html

WHAT DO YOU GUYS THINK OF THIS?  MARTIAL LAW OR NO MARTIAL LAW?  HALT OF THE ELECTIONS OR ELECTIONS GOING ON?