Post-Constitutional America: The Trap is Closing

We have been lied to and are being lied to again. Peter Farmer takes a close look at the ominous and insidious acts of our government under Bush and particularly Obama since 2009. Most people, especially us seniors, tend to forget what news events happened more than a few days ago, but when you see the list of events of a few recent years, the pattern and trend of those events jumps out at you.

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Bruce

'In the months following the September 11th attacks, the Bush administration and Congress created the Department of Homeland Security and enacted the Patriot Act.
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Whatever the intentions of George W. Bush, there can be little argument that the nescient national security super-state he helped to create has proven to fit the iron fist of his successor, Barack Obama, like a glove. Using a combination of executive orders, unaccountable appointed “czars,” extrapolations and modifications of existing regulations, and old-fashioned political strong-arming, Obama and his ideological comrades have shredded the constitution and seized vast new powers for themselves and the federal government.
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Each year, Congress passes a national defense authorization act (NDAA), which appropriates funds for the annual operation of the military and also sets forth modifications to national defense policy. Buried within its pages, the 2012 NDAA contained language authorizing the military to arrest and detain American citizens indefinitely without due process or habeas corpus, if they are suspected of being “terrorists” or what the act terms “covered persons.”

In addition to being a clear violation of the Posse Comitatus Act – which prohibits the U.S. military from conducting combat operations on American soil – the NDAA effectively abolishes the constitutional right to due process. The term “covered persons” is sufficiently vague as to be meaningless and thereby can be stretched to accommodate whatever purpose the government desires.
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The Department of Homeland Security, the Transportation Security Agency and other parts of the federal government recently have contracted for the purchase of 1.7 billion rounds of ammunition, including a recent purchase of 450 million rounds of .40 caliber hollow-point handgun ammunition.
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Why do these civilian agencies need that much ammunition? Hollow-point bullets are designed explicitly for anti-personnel use. The government claims this ammunition is strictly for target practice and annual qualifications drills. If so, why is so much HP ammunition required?
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In addition to the foregoing, it has just been disclosed that DHS has purchased 2,717 military-surplus MRAP (i.e., mine resistant ambush protected) armored personnel carriers from the military and is retrofitting them for use with that agency. The 18.9-ton MRAP was designed for service in combat; specifically, to withstand small-arms fire, improvised explosive devices, mines, rocket-propelled grenades and other military-grade threats. Why does a civilian agency of the federal government need such equipment – and in such quantity?
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whistle-blowers have come forward to disclose that the data center in Bluffdale, Utah will collect not only foreign signals, but domestic ones as well. When operable, the facility will have the ability to comprehensively collect and store all cell phone, text message, e-mail, and internet search engine traffic – not only collected from other nations, but those originating in the United States.
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for agencies like the CIA to surveil and spy upon ordinary citizens in their own homes, automobiles and places of business, “Items of interest will be located, identified, monitored, and remotely controlled through technologies such as radio-frequency identification, sensor networks, tiny embedded servers, and energy harvesters — all connected to the next-generation internet using abundant, low-cost, and high-power computing.” Common household items/goods such as automobiles, refrigerators, washers-dryers and thermostats will be “chipped,” connected to the internet and mined for data.
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It isn’t only household objects being wired for surveillance, either – but ubiquitous devices in the surrounding outdoor environment, such as streetlights. Streetlights? Yes, that is correct – high-tech streetlights funded by the government are being installed all over the country and have the capability to record both audio and video content.
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Americans have grown accustomed to reading about the use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) over foreign battlefields, but what about drones over our own soil?
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stipulate that the system shall be capable of “identifying a standing human being at night as armed or not” and also of direction-finding and signal capture of mobile phones, two-way radios and other forms of electronic communications.
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the trap is closing. America is rapidly becoming a garrison state.'