Patriot
Act Reauthorization:
On May 26, 2011, President Barack
Obama used an Autopen to sign a four-year extension of three key provisions in
the USA PATRIOT Act while he was in France.
Why
didn’t he sign the reauthorization in the US? Why was it kept secret?
Do
the Constitutional Free zones exist until May 26, 2015?
Below are the remarks of Craig Johnson on October 22,
2008, at the ACLU's press conference on the U.S. "Constitution-free Zone."
Good morning. I am Craig Johnson. I’m an associate
professor of music at Point Loma Nazarene University in San Diego, CA. First, I
want to thank you for allowing me to share my story with you. Point Loma, I’m
proud to say, encourages its faculty and students to involve themselves in
social justice and reconciliation issues. And it was through my involvement in
one such event that my story begins.
On June 1 of this year I was privileged to participate,
along with my two oldest children, in a vigil sponsored by the San Diego
Foundation for Change and supported by members of the Point Loma campus
community at the Border Field State Park on the U. S. border with Mexico. My
involvement in this event was to demonstrate my opposition to the Federal
government’s proposed construction of a dual layer border fence through this
park and the nationally protected estuary and research center that are part of
the grounds. One activity during the vigil was to have been what is known in
some faith traditions as a “love feast” – it was to have been the sharing of
food through the fence to demonstrate solidarity and hospitality between
citizens of both countries. That day, however, there was a much stronger
presence of Border Patrol agents, a dozen or more, than is typical at events of
this nature. They informed us that if any food was passed through the fence, we
would be arrested on violations of customs regulations. We took them at their
word and the love feast became a love lament, with only the US citizens eating
while our Mexican neighbors looked on. Incidentally, an article appeared in
yesterday’s New York Times about this park and the Border Patrol agents,
and it seems that they have softened their position on this considerably.
While there was a strong presence of agents at the park
itself, other officers were recording license plates of all the vehicles in the
parking lot, which unfortunately was a mile and a half away. In fact, one
student’s car was even towed for expired registration during the event.
Six days later, on June 7, I went to Tijuana, Mexico to
sing a benefit recital. On my re-entry into the U.S., I submitted my current
passport to the Customs agent and was then told to freeze with both of my hands
on the desk in front of me. After being asked if I had any weapons on me, I was
handcuffed by Customs agents and told that I was listed as “armed and
dangerous.” At that point I was escorted in front of literally hundreds of
onlookers waiting to enter the U. S. and taken to a holding room where my suit
coat, tie, outer shirt, belt, and shoes were removed, my pockets emptied and
the contents confiscated and I was aggressively searched. This was not your
typical airport security pat-down. Every inch and crack of my body was
thoroughly pressed and probed. I was in complete bewilderment. I felt violated
and frankly, I was embarrassed. I could not believe what was happening.
After this I was questioned about my reasons for being in
Mexico, my length of stay there, and where specifically I would be returning to
the U. S. After about 45 minutes I was released to collect my belongings and
rejoin my friends with whom I had been in line.
I normally travel to Mexico for any reason that presents
itself – escorting visitors from out of town or just going down for the sights
and sounds of the country. I even worked regularly there in 2006 with Tijuana
Opera and would cross the border several times per week. Never before my June 7
experience had I encountered the slightest problem.
It took me four months to muster the courage to try
crossing again. I had hoped that this was a mistake and that I would be removed
from “armed and dangerous” status. On October 5, I decided to go to Mexico to
try re-entering in order put my mind to rest. I was hoping for the best, but
prepared for the worst, and once again I was subjected to the same treatment –
arrest, searching, questioning, and detainment.
I do not own firearms. I do not have a criminal record.
Yet when I think of the treatment that my own government shows to me, I am
alarmed. It’s frightening enough knowing that my personal and private data are
being accessed with unknown consequences, but when I know what some of those
consequences are, I am even more disturbed.
It took me four
months to return to Mexico after June 1, not because I’m afraid of travelling
outside of my own country, but rather because I’m afraid of returning home.
This should not be.
Comment:
Is this Nazi Germany?
Since 9/11, fear mongering has led to the belief that if one has nothing to
hide, one should be happy to submit to unwarranted searches, have their phones
tapped, have their emails read....just slap an Orwellian name like Patriot Act
on it and it becomes law.... and that is perfectly okay if the government holds
people for years without a formal charge, without being able to consult an
attorney or see their families...in the name of being "secure"...this
is a false sense of security that I don’t share....It’s a big deal when someone
is violated like this.
Freedom isn't something I'm willing
to compromise on. Is, "Land of the Free" just empty words we speak,
never considering what it even means?
About the Author
Todd Miller
Todd Miller
currently writes on border and immigration issues for NACLA Report on the
Americas. He has researched...
The first time
he experiences this newly hardened US-Canada border, it takes him by surprise.
It’s a freezing late December day and Matthews, a lawyer (who asked me to
change his name), is on the passenger side of a car as he and three friends
cross the Blue Water Bridge from Sarnia, Ontario, to the old industrial town of
Port Huron, Michigan. They are returning from the Reviving the Islamic Spirit
conference in Toronto, chatting and happy to be almost home when the car pulls
up to the booth, where a blue-uniformed US Customs and Border Protection (CBP)
agent stands. The 60,000-strong CBP is the border enforcement arm of the Department
of Homeland Security and includes both customs and US Border Patrol agents.
What is about to happen is the furthest thing from Matthews’s mind. He’s from
Port Huron and has crossed this border “a million times before.
Todd Miller: After
scanning their passports and looking at a computer screen in the booth, the
agent says to the driver, as Matthews tells the story:
“Sir, turn off the vehicle, hand me the key and step
out of the car.”
He hears the
snap of handcuffs going around his friend’s wrists. Disoriented, he turns
around and sees uniformed men kneeling behind their car, firearms drawn.
“To my
disbelief, situated behind us are agents, pointing their guns.”
The CBP officer
asks Matthews and the remaining passengers to get out of the car and escorts them
to a waiting room. Thirty minutes later, he, too, is handcuffed and in a cell.
Forty-five minutes after that another homeland security agent brings him into a
room with no chairs. The agent tells him that he can sit down, but all he sees
is a countertop. “Can I just stand?” he asks.
And he does so
for what seems like an eternity with the door wide open, attempting to smile at
the agents who pass by. “I’m trying to be nice,” is how he put it.
Finally, in a
third room, the interrogation begins. Although they question Matthews about his
religious beliefs and various Islamic issues, the two agents are “nice.” They
ask him: Where’d you go? What kind of law do you practice? He tells them that a
former law professor was presenting a paper at the annual conference, whose
purpose is to revive “Islamic traditions of education, tolerance and
introspection.” They ask if he’s received military training abroad. This, he
tells me, “stood out as one of their more bizarre questions.” When the CBP lets
him and his friends go, he still thinks it was a mistake.
However, Lena
Masri of the Council of American Islamic Relations-Michigan (CAIR-MI) reports
that Matthews’s experience is becoming “chillingly” commonplace for Michigan’s
Arab and Muslim community at border crossings. In 2012, CAIR-MI was receiving
five to seven complaints about similar stops per week. The detainees are all
Arab, all male, all questioned at length. They are asked about religion, if
they spend time at the mosque and who their Imam is.
According to CAIR-MI
accounts, CBP agents repeatedly handcuff these border-crossers, often brandish
weapons, conduct invasive, often sexually humiliating body searches and detain
people for from two to twelve hours. Because of this, some of the detainees
have lost job opportunities or jobs, or given up on educational opportunities
in Canada. Many are now afraid to cross the border to see their families who
live in Canada. (CAIR-MI has filed alawsuit against the CBP and other
governmental agencies.)
Months later,
thinking there is no way this can happen again, Matthews travels to Canada and
crosses the border, this time alone, on the Blue Water Bridge to Port Huron.
Matthews still hadn’t grasped the seismic changes in Washington’s attitude
toward our northern border since 9/11. Port Huron, his small hometown, where a
protest group, Students for a Democratic Society, first famously declared
themselves against racism and alienation in 1962, is now part of the
“frontline” in defense of the “homeland.” As a result, Matthews finds himself a
casualty of a new war, one that its architects and proponents see as a
permanent bulwark against not only non-citizens generally but also people like
Matthews from “undesirable” ethno-religious groups or communities in the United
States.
While a
militarized enforcement regime has long existed in the US-Mexico borderlands,
its far more intense post-9/11 version is also proving geographically
expansive. Now, the entire US perimeter has become part of a Fortress USA
mentality and a lockdown reality. Unlike on our southern border, there is still
no wall to our north on what was once dubbed the “longest undefended border in
the world.” But don’t let that fool you. The US-Canadian border is increasingly
a national security hotspot watched over by drones, surveillance towers and
agents of the Department of Homeland Security
In a video shown to reporters at a
national press conference event Wednesday, retired San Diego social worker Vince
Peppard complained that he and his wife were stopped at a checkpoint on a road
east of San Diego on I-94, many miles after crossing back into the United
States with tiles he'd bought in Mexico.
When he refused
to let the Customs and Border Protection officer search his car, the officer
led him to a bench, called in the contraband dog and then "ransacked"
his car.
"I didn't
feel like I was inside the U.S.," Peppard said, calling the search on the
side of the road embarrassing. "I felt like I was in a B-movie with Nazis
asking for my papers."
ACLU attorney
Chris Calabrese is certain there are more people who have been negatively
affected than have complained.
As an example,
he cited Seattle's domestic ferries, where DHS agents ask passengers for ID to
check their citizenship and use license plate readers.
"The people
who live on these islands are undergoing this extra scrutiny just when they are
going to get their groceries," Calabrese said.
Customs and
Border Protection Cilberti's says he did not specifically look into Peppard's
case, but said that refusing a search does not create probable cause for a
search and that if a CBP agent searched his car, it's because their experience
and training made them believe they had probable cause.
The ACLU hopes
that Congress will include changes to the border zone in traveler privacy
protection bills that focus on prohibiting suspicion-less searches and seizures
of laptops at the border. Congress is currently out of session and would not
move on any legislation until sometime in 2009 at the earliest.
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/10/aclu-assails-10.html
Quote
You're driving
along a remote, dusty road, when suddenly you come upon a border patrol
checkpoint. There, agents demand to see your identity papers, and search your
car. You are taken by surprise, because you know you haven?t wandered across
the Texas-Mexico border. In fact, you?re quite sure of that, because you?re
driving through rural Wisconsin countryside west of Green Bay. Even the
Canadian border is more than 90 miles away.
This scene is
not as far-fetched as you might want to believe. The government is turning vast
swaths of our country into a "Constitution-Free Zone" in which U.S.
Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is allowed to exercise extraordinary
authority that would not normally be permitted under the Constitution. The
government says that "the border"- where there is a longstanding view
that the Constitution does not fully apply- actually stretches 100 miles inland
from the nation's "external boundary." And increasingly, we are
seeing DHS vigorously utilize that authority.
Today we held a
press conference at the National Press Club here in D.C. to try to draw
attention to this problem ? and the fact that, as we showed, nearly two-thirds
of the U.S. population live within this "Constitution-Free Zone."
That?s 197.4 million people.
We calculated
this using the most recent, 2007 numbers from the U.S. Census, and released a
map showing the cities and states that are enveloped by this zone. It includes
some of the largest metropolitan areas in the country: New York City, Boston,
Chicago, Los Angeles and Portland, Oregon. States that are completely within
this Constitution-Free Zone include Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii,
Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Hampshire, New Jersey, and Rhode Island.
When you say "border," they think "all of New England."
CBP has been
setting up checkpoints far inland - on highways in states such as California,
Texas and Arizona, and at ferry terminals in Washington State. Typically, the
agents ask drivers and passengers about their citizenship. People are also
reporting that even after they provide passports or state driver's licenses,
CBP continues to interrogate them and try to pressure them into permitting a
search.
- EPIC
Obtains New Details on PATRIOT Act: As the result of a Freedom of
Information Act request, EPIC has obtained more than 650 pages of
documents related to the PATRIOT Act. EPIC had requested information
related to the FBI's abuse of PATRIOT Act authorities and documents
concerning the 2009 sunset of the PATRIOT Act. The documents disclosed by
the FBI include training
presentations, answers to questions from Senators Leahy and Specter, and a list of
reporting requirements. In an answer to Senator Leahy, the
FBI stated that while it would discontinue the use of exigent letters,
which the Inspector General had previously noted as a frequent source of
abuse, the agency planned to continue its use of the emergency disclosures
provision of the Electronic Communications
Privacy Act. For more information, see EPIC: USA
PATRIOT Act. (Apr. 4, 2012)
- Senator
Leahy Pursues Bipartisan PATRIOT Act Reform: As Congress
consider renewal of the PATRIOT Act, Senator
Patrick Leahy (D-VT) has proposed adoption of an
amendment that will
establish new privacy and civil liberties safeguards. The Amendment,
cosponsored with Senator Rand Paul [R-KY], would sunset National
Security Letter authority authority, mandate public reporting
requirements, and create other protections. A similar amendment was
endorsed by a majority of the Senate Judiciary Committee earlier this
year. EPIC has obtained over 1,500 pages of
government documents obtained through a related Freedom of
Information Act lawsuit against the Department of Justice concerning
PATRIOT Act abuses. For more information, see EPIC: USA
PATRIOT Act. (May. 24, 2011)
Congress>
Common Law court puts down 'Constitution Free Zone'
Patricia
Johnson-Holm ruprose2002a at yahoo.com
Sat
Jun 12 16:52:24 CDT 2010
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Extra
Extra Read all about it:
Common
Law Court puts down the 100 Mile Constitution Free Zone in the 3rd Circuit
Common Law Court on King County Washington.
"1.
All Constitution Free Zones and any Legislation such as the Patriot Act, FEMA
Regulations, Executive Orders if not allowed by the US Constitution or the
Washington constitution 1878 are null and void."
"2.
Sheriffs, Police, De facto governmental authorities, et al. are, to understand
that they too are answerable to the US Constitution and there are NO
CONSTITUTION FREE ZONES. Any Obstruction of the Constitutional Rights as per
the US Constitution 1791, can and will be brought forward in a Common Law court.
All orders given or taken must adhere to the Constitution or they are null and
void."
"3.
De facto Courts decisions, that are not Lawful as per the US Constitution 1791
(which includes the Bill of Rights) and the Washington Constitution 1878, are
null and void."
"4.
Make provisions that the Common Law courts will be held in the proper esteem
befitting their long standing position, held in Judicial history. Each
plaintiff or defendant will have the right to choose the De facto courts or the
common law courts."
Now
how about the rest of you doing the same?
Why
not simply get 10 persons signatures or more in your area to confirm the
findings of the Western Judicial 3rd Circuit Common Law Court. Sign your names
and email address then send them to me at scantv77 at gmail.com.
Stand
behind your oath to protect and defend the Constitution against all enemies
both foreign and domestic. When you do so we will email you a list of how to
proceed with your own common law courts if you request it.
Looking
forward to hearing from you.
