US is a Classic Empire and Is Becoming a Repressive Police State at Home Dave Lindorff

Happy Independence Day as America celebrates with a military parade in the capital city.

If vigilance is the price of freedom, Americans need to wake up and stand up as the vise jaws close.

This Can't Be Happening
US is a Classic Empire and Is Becoming a Repressive Police State at Home

Dave Lindorff

See also

The Rutherford Insititute
It’s Time to Declare Your Independence from Tyranny, America
John W. Whitehead

Also

AlterNet
True patriots are rebels, not bootlickers

Meteor Blades

Zero Hedge — In Stunning Reversal, DHS Says Russians Were Not Behind Attempted Wisconsin Vote Hacking

Head shaker.

Zero Hedge
In Stunning Reversal, DHS Says Russians Were Not Behind Attempted Wisconsin Vote Hacking
Tyler Durden

Jon Rappoport — This is a coup: the Homeland Security takeover of US elections

Whether it is a coup or not remains to seen, but all the ducks are in place and there seem to be no checks and balances. More invasion of constitutional liberties like the Patriot Act and other measure that have led to the replacement of a liberal democracy with a national security - police state - surveillance state?

Interestingly, Russia was supposedly trying to undermine trust in the US electoral process but there is no evidence of actually tampering with the vote. But now DHS will apparently be in a position to do so with no oversight.

Regardless of the reality, which is impossible to determine, a significant number of Americas are now likely to perceive that the American electoral system in untrustworthy, something that many already suspect owing to previous incidents.

Another issue is moving out of the realm of marginal conspiracy theory into the mainstream.

Jon Rappoport's Blog
This is a coup: the Homeland Security takeover of US elections
Jon Rappoport

Department of WTF?

Sputnik International
WikiLeaks: Colbert Show Took Orders From Clinton Global Initiative

US State of Georgia Accuses Homeland Security of Election Systems Hack

Downing Street Claims Johnson's Views on Saudi Arabia Not Reflecting UK Position

Trump Nominee for Homeland Security John Kelley Favors Draconian Immigration Policy — Sharmini Peries interviews Dahr Jamail

SHARMINI PERIES: Dahr, this is the third General that Trump has chosen to join his cabinet -- James Mattis and Michael Flynn for Secretary of Defense and National Security Advisor. Now how should we interpret this? The previous interview I had done with Vijay Pershad, he says this is shaping up to look like the junta rather than the cabinet -- your thoughts on that?

DAHR JAMAIL: I would agree with that statement.

Real News Network
Trump Nominee for Homeland Security John Kelley Favors Draconian Immigration Policy

Sharmini Peries interviews Dahr Jamail,  Martha Gellhorn Award for Journalism and the James Aronson Award for Social Justice Journalism

karoli — Mother Jones Reporter Booted From SWAT Convention For Act Of Reporting

More new from the police state.

Crooks & Liars
Mother Jones Reporter Booted From SWAT Convention For Act Of Reporting
karoli

Cosme Caal — A Warning: The Latin Americanization of U.S. Police Forces

Counterpunch:

A Warning 

The Latin Americanization of U.S. Police Forces 

by COSME CAAL
Guatemala City 

From Guatemala City I have been keeping up with the events in Ferguson, Missouri and my heart goes out to those United States citizens who are actively resisting a brutal local police state. I sit awake at night and contemplate how one of the greatest nations in the world has become militarized and despotic. Impunity is now normalized in most police departments across the United States and in the minds of many Americans. I did not know I would live to see this phenomenon, yet, the more I peruse online news feeds, the more evident it is to me that Americans, especially minorities, are in great danger of militarized suppression as a matter of state policy. 

From our experience in half a century in Latin America I can tell you that, once the human rights of a minority are compromised, it is only a matter of time before they are compromised for an entire nation. From that same experience I can tell you it will take decades before they can be regained. Militarized police forces take on a life of their down, at the expense of the society’s well-being. The social contract that gives the state the duty to organize police forces itself becomes obsolete, almost a joke. Citizens begin to obey agents of the state not out of respect or cooperation, but out of fear of those sworn to protect them. Eventually, the militarized power of the police reaches such magnitude that political leaders lose all ability to rein them in. We experienced this USA-backed militarized transformation of the police in Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Chile, and Colombia. What the U.S. helped do to Latin America, it is now doing to itself. 

Even when there will officers who want to adhere to the law, militarized policing organizations become an unstoppable and despotic force. The very ideologies that give them life become obsolete, as do all existing laws that protect citizens. Central American dictatorships backed and armed by the United States government in the 1970’s built police forces, outfitted them with military gear, and allowed them to brutalize and kill with impunity. The murder or incarceration of progressive democratic leaders who resisted this transformation was sanctioned by United States intelligence agencies.....

Ellen Brown — Is Homeland Security Preparing for the Next Wall Street Collapse?

The fact that we are actually talking about this, with links to the establishment media, is pretty shocking. The global financial crisis is not over, and the capitalist system is teetering.

Web of Debt
Is Homeland Security Preparing for the Next Wall Street Collapse?
Ellen Brown

Eric Dolan — Pennsylvania police chief: F*ck all you libtards out there, you take it in the a**

Pennsylvania police chief: F*ck all you libtards out there, you take it in the a** (via Raw Story )

The mayor of Gilberton, Pennsylvania is standing by her city’s police chief despite a series of profanity-laced and threatening videos. In a video that has received wide attention, police chief Mark Kessler repeatedly tells those upset by his use…

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William Pfaff — Secret Intelligence Court a Precursor to Tyranny

The justification for this secret court—as is usual in the development of 20th century secret police states—is national security. The American case differs from the prominent earlier examples of such states in Bolshevik Russia and Nazi Germany, in that this American secret court operates behind a screen of what seem to be guilty obfuscations, which their authors know will not stand up to serious examination. Such obfuscations simply provide the rationales for concealment of this legal mechanism from public, press, and all but a certain number of congressmen and senators, all willing to provide the simulacrum of oversight because of their personal commitment to the belief that the United States makes itself secure by walking on what former Vice President Richard Cheney melodramatically described as “the dark side.”

It is the public who gets left in the dark about this, so as to protect the system.

The “dark side” of international combat or security operations, such as political assassinations, kidnappings, use of torture, or secret and illegal sequestrations or imprisonments, has on the whole seemed to have produced more American national humiliation, disrepute,and political blowback than advantage. It also is not entirely new; it is a characteristic of bureaucracies.

Truthdig
Secret Intelligence Court a Precursor to Tyranny
William Pfaff

Radley Balko — 7 Ways The Obama Administration Has Accelerated Police Militarization

There were signs that President Barack Obama might rein in the mass militarization of America's police forces after he won the White House. Policing is primarily a local issue, overseen by local authorities. But beginning in the late 1960s with President Richard Nixon, the federal government began instituting policies that gave federal authorities more power to fight the drug trade, and to lure state and local policymakers into the anti-crime agenda of the administration in charge. These policies got a boost during Ronald Reagan's presidency, and then another during President Bill Clinton's years. Under President George W. Bush, all of those anti-drug policies continued, but were supplemented by new war on terrorism endeavors -- yet more efforts to make America's cops look, act and fight like soldiers....

Indeed, in his first interview after taking office, Obama's drug czar, Gil Kerlikowske, said that the administration would be toning down the martial rhetoric that had dominated federal drug policy since the Nixon years. "Regardless of how you try to explain to people it's a 'war on drugs' or a 'war on a product,' people see a war as a war on them," Kerlikowske told The Wall Street Journal. "We're not at war with people in this country."

Unfortunately, while not insignificant, the change in rhetoric has largely been only that. The Obama administration may no longer call it a "war," but there's no question that the White House is continuing to fight one. Here's a quick rundown of where and how Obama's policies have perpetuated the garrison state:

The Huffington Post
7 Ways The Obama Administration Has Accelerated Police Militarization
Radley Balko

Washington's Blog — The Fact that Mass Surveillance Doesn’t Keep Us Safe Goes Mainstream

Top Terrorism Experts Say that Mass Spying Doesn’t Work to Prevent Terrorism

Washington's Blog
The Fact that Mass Surveillance Doesn’t Keep Us Safe Goes Mainstream
WashingtonsBlog

Zero Hedge — Richard Nixon: "Anything The NSA Did Is Totally Defensible"

In that same conversation, Nixon anticipated a story saying ''the President authorized a super-duper activity in 1970'' involving ''burglary, etc., and wiretapping.'' Defiantly, he said Americans would understand the plan was to control riots by people protesting the Vietnam War.

Zero Hedge

Richard Nixon: "Anything The NSA Did Is Totally Defensible"

Submitted by Tyler Durden

More dark days for America as the country picks up speed down the slippery slope.

Fascism Alert — Corey Robin: Think you have nothing to hide from surveillance? Think again.

The selective invocation and application of criminal prosecutions and penalties is one of the oldest tools of repressive government. (Anyone wanting a refresher should consult Otto Kirchheimer’s classic discussion of “patterns of prosecution” in his Political Justice: The Use of Legal Procedures for Political Ends. As Kirchheimer writes, “Modern administrative practices create infinite ways to become liable to criminal prosecution.”) The sheer sprawl of federal (and don’t forget state and local) law—and the surveillance of men and women that now accompanies that sprawl—only enables this furhter.

Think you have nothing to hide from surveillance? Think again.
Corey Robin

Read in conjunction with Franz Kafka, The Trial; George Orwell, 1984, and the files of Stasi, KGB, and other secret police in fascist and totalitarian regimes along with the secret tribunals and show trials.

For the first time in its history the US as a secret police agency (DHS) that operates with the military, blurring the lines between civilian and military. Moreover, the president has assumed dictatorial powers indistinguishable from other tyrants. due to secrecy. 

This is a very slippery slope for the US to be sliding down. It is undermining American soft power as the "beacon of liberty" and the "shining city on the hill" of purported American exceptionalism as the world discovers that America has feet of clay.

Steven Rosenfeld — 10 Things Americans Underestimate About Our Massive Surveillance State

There are two relevant questions. The first is what is the optimal way to keep American safe while also protecting human, civl, and constitutional rights. The second is, what has the government been doing, what is it doing now and what does it plan to do — which are being guarded as state secrets known only to those "with a need to know."

What is the tradeoff between liberty and security? Is it possible to have both, or must one suffer. If the later, which one is most important? On what decision criteria?

AlterNet

10 Things Americans Underestimate About Our Massive Surveillance State

Steven Rosenfeld

Al Jazeera — Turkey angry at US comments on protests

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu has contacted US Secretary of State John Kerry to object to recent statements from Washington expressing concern over Turkey's handling of mass anti-government protests, a foreign ministry diplomat said....

Kerry on Monday said he was concerned by reports of excessive use of force by Turkish police to quell the biggest protests since Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's decade in power, urging all sides to "avoid any provocations or violence."
Davutoglu assured Kerry an investigation was under way into the police response, the ministry source said.

The diplomat added that the foreign minister told Kerry the protests were not "extraordinary", comparing them to the Occupy Wall Street movement that sprang up in the United States in 2011.

Al Jazeera
Turkey angry at US comments on protests

Talk about rank hypocrisy. 

At least Turkey is promising to conduct an inquiry into police actions. In the US, where operations were coordinated by the Department of Homeland Security (read "secret police"), not so much. This would be laughable if it were not so pathetic.

Declan McCullagh — Homeland Security cuts off Dwolla bitcoin transfers

Immigration and Customs Enforcement confirms an "ongoing investigation" that led to Dwolla cutting off bitcoin transfers to Mt. Gox.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security confirmed it has initiated legal action that prompted the Dwolla payment service to stop processing bitcoin transactions.

Nicole Navas, a spokesperson for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, confirmed the legal action to CNET this afternoon.

CNET
Homeland Security cuts off Dwolla bitcoin transfers
Declan McCullagh

Matt Sledge — Homeland Security Tracked Occupy Wall Street 'Peaceful Activist Demonstrations'

A Department of Homeland Security division produced daily briefings on "peaceful activist demonstrations" during the height of the Occupy Wall Street protests, documents released Tuesday revealed.

The 252 pages of documents were obtained in a March 14 letter from DHS by the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund, which in November 2011 launched a campaign to unearth public records that would show whether the federal government was spying on Occupy Wall Street. FBI records obtained by the group in Decembershowed that the bureau investigated Occupy as a potential "domestic terrorism" threat.

"Taken together, the two sets of documents paint a disturbing picture of federal law enforcement agencies using their vast power in a systematic effort to surveil and disrupt peaceful demonstrations," Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, executive director of the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund, said in a statement. "The federal agencies’ actions were not because Occupy represented a 'terrorist threat' or a 'criminal threat,' but rather because it posed a significant grassroots political challenge to the status quo."

The Huffington Post
Homeland Security Tracked Occupy Wall Street 'Peaceful Activist Demonstrations'
Matt Sledge

Stephen C. Webster — Massive ACLU initiative aims to measure police state’s growth

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said Wednesday that chapters in 23 states have filed over 255 open records requests pertaining to the militarization of local police departments around the country since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, in what the group is calling its most concentrated effort yet to assess the growth of America’s police state.

You will probably want to read the whole piece. It is short and suggests how out of hand this is getting, especially with the assertion of the AG that drones can be used to assassinate Americans on US soil. So much for Obama as constitutional law professor. He joins John Yoo as a traitor to constitutional law.

It's no wonder that advocates of Second Amendment rights are so vocal. This is not just paranoia, even though there may be a lot of paranoia involved, too.

The Raw Story
Massive ACLU initiative aims to measure police state’s growth
Stephen C. Webster

Chris Hedges calls "fascism"

Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, executive director of the PCJF, said in a written statement about the released files: “This production [of information], which we believe is just the tip of the iceberg, is a window into the nationwide scope of the FBI’s surveillance, monitoring, and reporting on peaceful protesters organizing with the Occupy movement. These documents show that the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security are treating protests against the corporate and banking structure of America as potential criminal and terrorist activity. These documents also show these federal agencies functioning as a de facto intelligence arm of Wall Street and Corporate America.”

The FBI documents are not only a chilling example of how widespread this surveillance and obstruction has become, they are an explicit warning by the security services to all who consider dissent. Anyone who defies corporate power, even if he or she is nonviolent and acting within constitutional rights, is a suspect. These documents are part of the plan to make us fearful, compliant and disempowered. They mark, I suspect, a government attempt to end peaceful mass protests by responding with repression to the grievances of Americans. When the corporate-financed group FreedomWorks bused in goons to disrupt Democratic candidates’ town hall meetings about the federal health care legislation in August 2009, Eric Zuesse of the Business Insider notes, “there was no FBI surveillance of those corporate-organized disruptions of legitimate democratic processes. There also were no subsequent FreedomWorks applications for Freedom of Information Act releases of FBI files regarding such surveillance being used against them—because there was no such FBI campaign against them.”

The combination of intimidation tactics by right-wing fringe groups, which speak in the language of violence and hate, with the state’s massive intrusion into the personal affairs of the citizen is corporate fascism. And we are much farther down that road than many of us care to admit. [emphasis added]

Truthdig
Chris Hedges: New Documents on Activist Surveillance May Be "Just the Tip of the Iceberg"
Chris Hedges | News Analysi
(h/t Kevin Fathi via email)