RUSH: REGIME GRABS POWER TO DETAIN US CITIZENS

www.RushLimbaugh.com ^ | Jan 3, 2012 | Rush Limbaugh

[Yosemitest]

Regime Grabs Power to Detain US Citizens
January 03, 2012

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Yeah, and I can't believe that nobody's talking about that, either:
The thing Obama signed on New Year's Eve, the new Defense Authorization Act.
I don't know if people don't know what's in this or if other things take precedence.
Well, it is being reported because I saw it. I saw it reported.
Obama signed this thing, the new Defense Authorization Act on New Year's Eve.
Folks, you know what this thing does?
It allows the United States military to detain anybody for no reason!
They don't even have to charge you.
I mean, this is specified. This is not the Patriot Act.
This is way beyond. This is total authoritarianism.
This is the kind of stuff that exists in Third World banana republics.
The government can detain anybody! All they have to do...
They actually don't have to do anything.

They just have to say they suspect you of terrorism.

They don't have to prove it, they don't have to have any evidence, they can charge you.
They can put you away in a jail, you are not allowed a lawyer, you are not allowed habeas corpus.
It's the most amazing thing.
Obama even issued a signing statement with it in which he said:
Don't worry, I'm not going to do this.
Don't worry, I'm not gonna do it.
Well, he can, as can anybody in the military, as can any future president.
They can just decide to detain you. For no reason. I mean, literally no reason.
Where is the left on this?
Where are the civil libertarians?
This is...
You can talk about Bush and the Patriot Act all you want if you're a leftist and a Democrat.
Where are you people?
This is the biggest affront to the whole notion of civil rights that I can recall.
There is a column. Jonathan Turley, who is a legal beagle and a guest on TV shows.
He's a law professor at Georgetown or George Washington, I forget which.

He posted a column on his blog, and the UK Guardian asked for permission to publish it.
So it's on their website.
He basically says what I just said to you in terms of describing what this is.
The reason it was signed into law was so that the military could be funded.
The old argument was,
"If you don't sign this the military won't get funded."Nobody stood up against this.
It was the end of the year, everybody wants outta town to get home for the holidays or what have you.
But there it is.
Now, George W. Bush never even contemplated anything like this, and nobody's talking about it.
You can say,
"Well, Rush, come on.
They're not gonna just start detaining people left and right.
You know they're only gonna use this for people they suspect of being terrorists."

Well, how they gonna define "terrorism"?
If you are a liberal Democrat politician might you think that what happens on Fox is terrorism? (pause)
Might you? You know how wacky some of these people are.
So, anyway, it's out there.
It was signed on New Year's Eve, with a signing statement that said from Obama:
Don't worry, I'm not gonna do this.
That was his signing statement, essentially.
I'm paraphrasing the signing statements but that's essentially what he said.
And this from Business Insider.
"The United States authorities have offered to lift the threat of legal action against 11 Swiss banks in exchange for information."
This is part of a very long story.
"The justice department's doing everything it can to get the names of Americans who have Swiss bank accounts."

The Department of Justice damn near busted the United Bank of Switzerland over this a few years back
and now they're going after other Swiss banks.
The lawyers at the DOJ don't kid around. They're basically saying:
Give us the names of American account holders or we will sue the crap out of you.
So the IRS and the Department of Justice are now -- again, a Business Insider story -- grabbing new powers in the hunt for revenue.
There's two stories here.
The first is the Switzerland bank story where the DOJ is telling Swiss banks:
You tell us or we're gonna sue you until the cows come home,
and these banks are giving up the information.
Which, the coin of the realm in Swiss banking was privacy.
They're giving it up.
If you have a Swiss back the, the Department of Justice, Eric Holder, is going to learn about it.

They're gonna find out if you are doing something they don't like.
Not necessarily illegal.
Don't forget, now, they could say that what you're doing is aiding and abetting terrorism and detain you,
based on what they find in your bank account.
"A federal district court judge in California has given the IRS permission to serve a John Doe summons on the California State Board of Equalization"
that's the state IRS
"demanding the names of residents who transferred property to their children or grandchildren for little or no money from 2005 to 2010.
The IRS has used John Doe summons to seek lists of American taxpayers' unreported offshore accounts at Swiss bank USB and the HSBC bank in India.
These techniques have worked well in Switzerland, the hardworking folks at DOJ, IRS are now bringing them to California.
That means that the IRS can look at anybody's real estate transactions.

"With John Doe warrants they can go fishing and snooping in whatever they like."
Now, again, I'm reading this from Business Insider which is a website.
Think of it what you will.
"The country starved for revenue.
The outfit that's charged with collecting that revenue has an army of tough minded lawyers behind it.
It will have the power to turn over stones as it pleases.
In the end, this effort will raise some additional revenue, it'll scare the heck out of a few people as well;
some people will cheer it.
I see the John Doe warrants as a big and dangerous step and a very slippery slope," writes the writer here,
"sure won't do much for Uncle Sam's image but a lot of people aren't gonna care."

In fact the entire Democrat Party voting base is gonna be encouraging this. The entire Occupy Wall Streeters.
Go get a John Doe summons and find every transaction of everybody that's got any money
and find out if they're giving money away to their kids or whatever or putting their real estate in their kids' names or what have you.
As far as the Defense Authorization Act,
"According to Senator Carl Levin, it was Obama who required indefinite detainment that included US citizens."
Remember, we have killed an American citizen with a drone. Al-Awlaki.
We've done that. He was an American citizen.

"According to Senator Levin, it was Obama who required that his powers to be able to detain anybody for no reason, include US citizens.
The original bill was focused on enemies of America, terrorists specifically.
Levin said there was language in the bill to exempt US citizens but Obama asked for that language to be removed. Lindsey Graham has said the same thing, according to the Congressional Record."
Lindsey Graham said,
"Why did we take out the language Senator Levin wanted me to put in about an American citizen could not be held indefinitely if caught in the homeland?
The administration asked us to do that."

So while Obama's out there trying to blame this on Congress and having a signing statement saying,
"Well, you know, I'm never gonna do this,"
it was Obama who required the language be in the legislation.
This was on New Year's Eve.
So it's like four days ago that this was signed,
of course it's a weekend, and not a whole lot of this is being reported, certainly not being discussed.
I'm telling you what's in the bill
and I'm telling you what's a in the signing statement --
and, of course, the message is gonna be,
"Well, wait a minute now. Why are you concerned?
If you're not doing any anything wrong, you'll not show up on anybody's radar."
Well, let's define doing something "wrong."
You live in Venezuela and you say something about Hugo Chavez gaining weight while on chemo
and you don't believe he's really got cancer and you could end up in jail.
That's what dictators do.



END TRANSCRIPT

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• The NDAA's Historic Assault on American liberty - Jonathan Turley
  
• Business insider: The IRS & DOJ Are Grabbing New Powers In The Hunt For Revenue
  
  
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January 03, 2012m paraphrasing the signing statements but that January 03, 2012m paraphrasing the signing statements but thatbrm paraphrasing the signing statements but that

January 03, 2012li

[Yosemitest]

Thanks Rush.

Thanks to Michael Savage for bringing this up on his Radio Show Monday Night on "The Savage Nation".

Please read Hitler / Obama Comparisons: Is Barack Obama Like Adolf Hitler or The Nazis? from Thursday, August 27, 2009 by W. E. Messamore.

[Responsibility2nd]

Yep. Not only did Obama lie when he said he was going to close Gitmo.

Now we shall see AMERICAN CITIZENS being sent there.

Brave New World, folks. The next 4 years will make the previous 4 seem like a Sunday school picnic.

[HiTech RedNeck]

Who brewed this one up?

Surely it can’t be the same clique that clamored for foreign terrorists in Gitmo to be seen in court?

This has got to fail. It’s a suspension of habeas corpus for Americans.

[Deo volente]

Scary stuff indeed.

[ngat]

So who’s gonna be the first Republican Candidate to make some political hay by promising to repeal this? Any guesses?

[emax]

Except this is not really true, there is nothing govt can do under NDAA 2012 that it couldnt already do under the combined provisions of the Patriot Act and AUMF of 2001. It does not expand the scope and the provisions 1031, 1032 and 1033 do not give the govt new power to detain US authorities based on suspicion of terrorism. If you say so, than it suggests your understanding of existing law is not there. If this was passed before Bush, you know full well he would have signed it. I really hope that those who are in such hysterics over the notion that NDAA 2012 helps create a police state were at least somewhat against the Patriot Act and the AUMF 2001 and didnt just wholeheartedly cheer it on.

http://www.lawfareblog.com/2011/12/ndaa-faq-a-guide-for-the-perplexed/

Does the NDAA expand the government’s detention authority?
Nope. Under current law, the Obama administration claims the authority to detain:

persons that the President determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, and persons who harbored those responsible for those attacks. The President also has the authority to detain persons who were part of, or substantially supported, Taliban or al-Qaida forces or associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners, including any person who has committed a belligerent act, or has directly supported hostilities, in aid of such enemy armed forces.

That claim of authority is based on the Authorization for Use of Military Force (“AUMF”) passed by Congress shortly after the September 11 attacks, as informed by the law of war. The Bush Administration previously claimed very similar authority, albeit invoking not just the AUMF but also the inherent power of the President under Article II of the Constitution. In any event, such claims have been subjected to judicial challenge repeatedly, most commonly in the context of the Guantanamo detainee habeas litigation. As we explain below, the courts have had a decidedly mixed reaction in the pair of cases involving persons captured within the United States, but as for persons captured abroad, they have largely endorsed the government’s position. The D.C. Circuit, in fact, has tentatively adopted a definition of the class detainable under the AUMF that is, if anything, broader than what the administration seeks. While the administration–and now Congress–would detain only on the basis of “substantial support,” the D.C. Circuit has articulated a standard which would permit detention of those who “purposefully and materially support” the enemy, even if not substantially.

In light of all this, a law that writes the administration’s successful litigating position into statute cannot reasonably be said to expand the government’s detention authority. In fact, to the extent that the new statutory language will preempt the arguably broader D.C. Circuit definition, it may actually narrow it–if only very slightly. So let’s compare the language of the administration’s claimed authority (quoted above) to the language of the NDAA:

(1) A person who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored those responsible for those attacks.

(2) A person who was a part of or substantially supported al-Qaeda, the Taliban, or associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners, including any person who has committed a belligerent act or has directly supported such hostilities in aid of such enemy forces.

They are almost verbatim the same. The NDAA is really a codification in statute of the existing authority the administration claims. It puts Congress’s stamp of approval behind that claim for the first time, and that’s no small thing. But it does not–notwithstanding the widespread belief to the contrary–expand it. Nobody who is not subject to detention today will become so when the NDAA goes into effect.

The one area in which the NDAA could theoretically be said to expand detention authority involves people held on the basis not of membership in an enemy group but mere support for one. As noted above, the government has long claimed this authority already, and the DC Circuit has in fact endorsed a slightly broader formulation. But so far, anyway, it has done so in dicta only–that is, not in any case where the fact pattern actually depended on the resolution of that issue. In theory, then, the circuit (or the Supreme Court) might at some point have concluded that support alone is insufficient to support a detention. The NDAA will ensure that this does not happen by making clear that independent support does count as a ground for detention (or at least it will do so as a matter of statutory interpretation; in theory, the door would remain open to some form of constitutional challenge, though it is difficult to see how that would work). So even as it marginally narrows the detainable class, the NDAA also tends to ensure that courts will not narrow the scope of that class further.

[eak3]

Dems have already called Tea Partiers domestic terrorists, hell right wing extremism was even labeled in memos as terrorists. Obama on record has said he will rule by Executive Order if he has too, now he can detain anyone he wants too. My friends we are under a defacto dictatorship.

[emax]

The govt has already reserved the right to suspend Habeus Corpus in certain cases, so there isnt a lot of new stuff here in that department.

[Winstons Julia]

Thank you... but still I think it’s time to re-read “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich.”

[dforest]

The questuion is, do any of them know about it?

[emax]

And it was brewed by a mixture of liberal and genuinely conservative members of Congress. In fact, almost all Republicans, sans Ron Paul and Kirk, supported it too.

[HiTech RedNeck]

If the shoe were on liberals’ foot, they’d be screaming to the Supreme Court with their motions to pre-empt the law. So when liberals stuff it on conservatives’ foot, they do... nothing? I can’t believe this is going without a whimper, except for Rush Limbaugh’s jeremiad. Where is the legal fund to fight this?

[dforest]

questuion=question, oops

[HiTech RedNeck]

The GOP really believed Obama when he said he wouldn’t use this B.S. against them? Obama complains it ain’t quite ideal... I don’t believe that. He snickered all the way to his signing desk in his jackboots.

[formosa]

Homeland considers almost all of middle America to be terrorist suspects. If you are evangelical, if you store food, if you don’t like homo’s...This is scary because the current admins definition of a terrorist is truly broad.

[Hawthorn]

>> Except this is not really true <<

Looks as if Rush has joined the tinfoil-hat gang. He ought to leave this kind of nutty stuff to Alex Jones and Michael Savage. Very sad to see what appears to be the decline into irrelevance of a once-great man.

[Ron H.]

I am literally astounded that my friends think I've gone off the deep end when I try to educate them on what this all about. I shouldn't be surprised really. So many of them thought 'Dubya' Bush was Christ himself reincarnated but finally realized in the end that he wasn't. The very same ones now think that Obama would never try this in America, that Americans wouldn't let him get away with it.

I told some them to go hide and watch. The new FEMA camps will be busting at the seams IMO not long after the Obaummer starts his crackdown on us conservative dissidents. Heil Obama!

[HiTech RedNeck]

So he don’t need no stupid law to do that. Then why pass this supposedly redundant turd upon the land?

[Theophilus]

Rand Paul stood against it.

[maddogtiger]

Will Tea Partiers have the guts to show up at rallys this election ?