Year: 2006

Today’s winner is …. The Patriot Act.

Perhaps President Bush should designate the funerals of returning soldiers as special events of national significance. New provisions in the Patriot Act (see excerpt below) would then allow the Secret Service to step and put an end to it. Why not put the Patriot Act to some good use? We do not need any new laws to stop the anti-soldier, anti-gay, God is punishing you protesters. The Secret Service can just arrest them. Tired of all the screaming surrounding the political conventions, just call the Secret Service. Hate the atmosphere of dissension as the pro-life and pro-choice groups march – no problem. I hope that you see where I am going with this train of thought. I can not think of any group of protesters who are so deserving of this as the idiotic hateful antics of the Rev. Fred Phelps, his family, and all whom contend that American soldiers are being killed in Iraq as vengeance from God for protecting a country that harbors gays, It/They is/are so wrong in so many ways.

The potential abuse of power lays buried within the sections of The Patriot Act awaiting their ascendancy.

As for the Rev. Phelps and his group of collective nuts (my opinion) – your zero’s.

US Patriot Act TITLE VI—SECRET SERVICE
SEC. 601. SHORT TITLE.
This title may be cited as the ‘‘Secret Service Authorization and
Technical Modification Act of 2005’’.
SEC. 602. INTERFERENCE WITH NATIONAL SPECIAL SECURITY
EVENTS.
(a) IN GENERAL.—Section 1752 of title 18, United States Code,
is amended—
(1) in subsection (a)—
(A) by amending paragraph (1) to read as follows:
‘‘(1) willfully and knowingly to enter or remain in any posted,
cordoned off, or otherwise restricted area of a building or
grounds where the President or other person protected by the
Secret Service is or will be temporarily visiting;’’;
(B) by redesignating paragraphs (2), (3), and (4) as
paragraphs (3), (4), and (5), respectively;
(C) by inserting after paragraph (1) the following new
paragraph:
‘‘(2) willfully and knowingly to enter or remain in any posted,
cordoned off, or otherwise restricted area of a building or
grounds so restricted in conjunction with an event designated
as a special event of national significance;’’;

Dubai Ports World pledged to transfer operation of U.S. ports it has acquired from the British company P&O to a U.S. entity. Now the questions remain to define the “U.S. entity” and how will this be handled so that DP World does not suffer a financial loss.

Here is the text of the company’s announcement:

“Because of the strong relationship between the United Arab Emirates and the United States and to preserve this relationship, DP World has decided to transfer fully the U.S. operations of P and O Ports North America Inc. to a U.S. entity. This decision is based on an understanding that DP World will have time to effect the transfer in an orderly fashion and that DP World will not suffer economic loss. We look forward to working with the Department of the Treasury to implement this decision.”

Statement of H. Edward Bilkey, chief operating officer, DP World

As rumors of “Halliburton Eyed for Dubai Ports Deal” have gone around I do wonder. NewsMax and Chron reported this idea. Then there is CSX.
As with all things, time will tell.

The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it to be always kept alive.” – (Thomas Jefferson To Abigail Adams, 2/22/1787)

Thirty-five years ago today, a group of anonymous activists broke into the small, two-man office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Media, Pa., and stole more than 1,000 FBI documents that revealed years of systematic wiretapping, infiltration and media manipulation designed to suppress dissent. LATimes

COINTELPRO (Counter Intelligence Program) an FBI program that targeted organizations that were considered politically radical. Their operations in were discontinued in April of 1971 due to their exposure. I should state “officially” discontinued. The Church Commission”—the 1975 Senate committee on intelligence, headed by Senator Frank Church, of Idaho, which investigated C.I.A. abuses during the previous two decades brings up a familiar.

In 1971 The Citizens Committee to Investigate the FBI released secret files on the FBI’s domestic counterintelligence program, COINTELPRO, to the press, revealing that ordinary citizens had been FBI targets, as had Albert Einstein, Dr. Benjamin Spock, Martin Luther King, John Lennon and Elvis Presley.

Other interesting info found while researching this subject:

10/15/2003 an FBI Intelligence Bulletin no. 89 is sent to police departments The New York times and other media reported that this memo revealed that the federal government is advocating that local authorities spy on U.S. citizens. When the Atlanta Police Department acknowledges that it routinely places antiwar protesters under surveillance, Georgia Rep. Nan Orrock tells the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “This harkens back to some very dark times in our nation’s history.”

Here is the FBI’s response to the media and the original bulletin

Nixon talking to Donald Rumsfeld from the 1971 tapes:

PRESIDENT NIXON: You should be thinking down the road. My view is if we can survive, which I think we can, and do the …(inaudible), I think …(inaudible) can do, as far as I’m concerned, anything in the Cabinet field, except I wouldn’t put you in Defense. I wouldn’t put you in State, obviously, because I think those two, at this time, …(inaudible) Well, you’d have a hell of a lot more experience, but would not appear to be something that you can, or actually, you could be a …(inaudible). But in any other position, …(inaudible) HEW, HUD, Transportation, Interior– you wouldn’t want Agriculture?

RUMSFELD: No.

Even Nixon did not think Rumsfeld belonged in Defense.

lyrics to COINTELPRO by Ryan Harvey