Welcome to the new American Gestapo

Capitol Hill Blue ^ | Nov 20, 2002, 08:32 | By DOUG THOMPSON

[dts32041]

Welcome to the new American Gestapo

  Wonder if any of the vast sums of money approved Tuesday for the new Department of Homeland Security are set aside for black uniforms with knee-length boots and black leather trench coats? Should be. Since we've gone to all this trouble to create the new American Gestapo we might as well let them look the part.

Excuse me if I don?t join in all the senseless celebration over creation of yet another mammoth bureaucracy of the federal government. Pardon me if I don?t go ga-ga over a federal agency that has been given unlimited powers to spy on Americans, trample all over the First and Fourth Amendments, ignore the privacy of anyone it chooses and violate the rights of every man, woman and child who used to live in the Land of the Free. Our own paranoia has accomplished what Osama bin Laden and his minions could not with hijacked airplanes and vague threats about future attacks ? these fears have forced America to abandon its principles and create a police state.

This new Department of Homeland Security has the power to wiretap any American it wants, without a court order, without cause and without justification to any higher authority. Homeland Security goon squads will have the power to enter any American home, without a search warrant, without probable cause, simply because someone somewhere says ?hey, this guy might be a threat.? No checks and balances, no due process. Nothing. Video cameras at ATMs, convenience stores, department stores and office building lobbies already record Americans living in urban areas 75-100 times on any given day but that isn?t enough for the new American Gestapo. They plan to erect video cameras on streets, along public highways, in neighborhoods and deploy them on helicopters and police cars to record everything you and I do every day of the year.

"We are entering a new era of domestic surveillance," says retired FBI agent Franklin Postel. "One where the constitution is secondary to the cause. The new department has the power to document the day-to-day actions of any American it chooses."

A secret court decision last May already gives the Justice Department expanded powers to wiretap phones, spy on Americans and "share information" with other law enforcement agencies.

These powers, granted under a dangerous piece of legislation called the "USA Patriot Act," allow Attorney General John Ashcroft to sign away the normal rights and protections that Americans used to enjoy "little things like just cause, due process and the now forgotten belief that any accused is assumed innocent until proven guilty. Ashcroft says he will implement the new powers ?immediately" and is already increasing surveillance of Americans.

Look closer at the powers granted under the act and you will find things that would make Hitler proud. They include provisions to allow private citizens to spy on other private citizens without fear of prosecution if the Department determines their actions were conducted "in the national interest."

"I've read some of the abstracts on the new law and they take the handcuffs off people like me," says private detective Andrew Burlingame. "I can tap anyone I damn well please. All I have to do is claim I thought the guy was a terrorist." Under the new law, an agent of the Department of Homeland Security can walk into your bank, flash a badge and demand to see your checking and saving account records. No court order. All they need is the "presumption of guilt." They can stop you in your car without cause and search it and you. They can hold you in jail for 30 days or more without filing any charges or allowing you to make any phone calls.

They can call up America Online and put a trace on all your Internet activity without a court order. They can require Visa to turn over all your credit card activity records without notice.

In other words, they can do any damn thing they want and there isn?t a thing that any of us can do about it. "An evil exists that threatens every man, woman and child of this great nation," the leader of another country once wrote. "We must take steps to ensure our domestic security and protect our homeland."

That was Adoph Hitler, writing about creation of the Gestapo in Nazi Germany.

Wecome to the American Gestapo. Be careful what you way and do. They are watching.

[dts32041]

Is it time to shoot the bastards, yet?

[TLBSHOW]

That was Adoph Hitler, writing about creation of the Gestapo in Nazi Germany.

CHRISTIANS ARE NOT SAFE IN POWELL AND BUSH'S AMERICA

[ppaul]

WASHINGTON, UNITED STATES, 19-NOV-2002: US Senate Majority Leader Elect Trent Lott, R-MI, (C) with Senator Rick Santorum, R-PA, (R) and Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-TX, talks with reporters outside the US Senate Chamber about the possible passage today of the Homeland Security Bill and the defeat this morning of the Daschle Ammendment on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. A pleased President George W. Bush congratulated the Senate for clearing the way for a final vote creating a Homeland Security super-agency aimed at protecting the country from terrorist attacks. </CLARI-ITEM CAPTION>

[finnman69]

Where is the barf alert?

[FReepaholic]

>>..."We are entering a new era of domestic surveillance," says retired FBI agent Franklin Postel. "One where the constitution is secondary to the cause...<<

Yeah, but who's cause?

[x-navy seal]

Where is the barf alert?

Here ya go!

[MoGalahad]

Christians,committed ones that is, are not safe anywhere in the world nor have they been for sometime now. The Muslims, Modernists, Post-Modernists, Socialists, and Communists are all waging protracted wars against us.

[dts32041]

Getting fitted for your trench coat, Huh?

[billbears]

And that picture is supposed to make me feel safe how again? I'm sorry but Powell and the White House statements on 'extremists' the past couple of days have unnerved me

[CWRWinger]

The conference you attended was probably put together with old information. "Homeland Tyranny" will change what you just learned.

[TLBSHOW]

Powell is a danger to us all!

[newgeezer]

I just returned from a high-level academic and law enforcement conference on electronic privacy, and just about nothing this guy says is true.

Well, as they say, "the devil is in the details." Next time, see if you can get past the "high-level" view. ;-)

Seriously, though, please provide an example or two of any substantive points in this article which you care to refute.

[Savage Beast]

I strongly support President Bush, and I think this legislation was necessary, but Americans have every reason to be apprehensive. Imagine such power falling into the wrong hands. Imagine the potential for abuse by federal agents.

[UnBlinkingEye]

"An evil exists that threatens every man, woman and child of this great nation," the leader of another country once wrote. "We must take steps to ensure our domestic security and protect our homeland."

Sounds awfully familiar doesn't it?

[Cyber Liberty]

Someday, in the year 2018, Doug Thompson will learn to give it a rest.

[My2Cents]

"We are entering a new era of domestic surveillance," says retired FBI agent Franklin Postel. "One where the constitution is secondary to the cause. The new department has the power to document the day-to-day actions of any American it chooses."

Well, if you're engaged in something illegal or unseemly, I suppose you have reason to worry.

[dirtboy]

Getting fitted for your trench coat, Huh?

That's way out of line. I've seen so much false press about the contents of the Homeland Security Act that I resorted to actually reading the bill myself (I'm up to about page 300). Doug doesn't make some of of the factual errors that folks such as Safire have committed - for example, he correctly sources these issues with searches to the earlier Patriot Act, not the HSA - but I am interested in what folks who are getting PROFESSIONAL training regarding these new search and seizure powers can add to the debate.

[dts32041]

Depends on what your definiton of illegal is?

Yesterday celebrating National Ammo Day, (bought a brick of 22 long rifle) that could be illegal to preform in Illinois in six months.

I could have smoked in a no smoking zone?

Is that worthy of survelliance with the New Gestapo Act it would be.

But you say it wasn't meant to be that way, and the white house is not suppose to look at raw FIBI's files, no one if i remember correctly was ever prosceuted for that.

[dirtboy]

This article is wildly inaccurate. I just returned from a high-level academic and law enforcement conference on electronic privacy, and just about nothing this guy says is true.

Please elaborate if you can, and ignore guys like dts32041 - some folks here, for some inexplicable reason, believe stuff a journalist claims without pursuing confirming information.