Bill Quigley has taken a hard and well-researched look at Obama’s continuation and escalation of what Quigley terms the “draconian domestic civil liberties intrusions pioneered under the Bush administration” (involving freedoms of speech, of assembly of association, to privacy, to a fair trial, of religion, etc.).
Quigley's article is a strong rejoinder to so much of the myopic, Obamacrat hype about Obama being the lesser of two evils. He only appears to be the lesser of two evils in the hypocritical talk Obama talks and guaranteed will be talking much more of in his ever-intensifying “Lucy and the football” campaign mode.
David Axelrod going after Romney’s hypocrisy on Meet the Press last Sunday provoked a bitter and painful laugh in me. Anyone EXCEPT Obama and his entourage have the right to call Mitt out on flagrant hypocrisy. The Obama administration’s industrial strength super-spin hypocrisy post the 2008 campaign and all that it has done to escalate war abroad and harden soft fascism in America is profound and tragic. This Obama administration is ferociously enabling and expanding fascistic, police state conditions in America.
Here are excerpts from Quigley’s article “Twenty Examples of the Obama Administration Assault on Domestic Civil Liberties”:
The Patriot ActOn May 27, 2011, President Obama, over widespread bipartisan objections, approved a Congressional four-year extension of controversial parts of the Patriot Act that were set to expire. In March of 2010, Obama signed a similar extension of the Patriot Act for one year. These provisions allow the government, with permission from a special secret court, to seize records without the owner’s knowledge, conduct secret surveillance of suspicious people who have no known ties to terrorist groups and to obtain secret roving wiretaps on people.Criminalization of Dissent and Militarization of the PoliceAnyone who has gone to a peace or justice protest in recent years has seen it – local police have been turned into SWAT teams, and SWAT teams into heavily armored military. ... Wireless fingerprint scanners first used by troops in Iraq are now being utilized by local police departments to check motorists. Facial recognition software introduced in war zones is now being used in Arizona and other jurisdictions. Drones just like the ones used in Kosovo, Iraq and Afghanistan are being used along the Mexican and Canadian borders. These activities continue to expand under the Obama administration.WiretapsWiretaps for oral, electronic or wire communications, approved by federal and state courts, are at an all-time high. Wiretaps in year 2010 were up 34% from 2009, according to the Administrative Office of the US Courts.Criminalization of SpeechMuslims in the US have been targeted by the Obama Department of Justice for inflammatory things they said or published on the internet. First Amendment protection of freedom of speech, most recently stated in a 1969 Supreme Court decision, Brandenberg v Ohio, says the government cannot punish inflammatory speech, even if it advocates violence unless it is likely to incite or produce such action.Domestic Government Spying on Muslim CommunitiesIn activities that offend freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and several other laws, the NYPD and the CIA have partnered to conduct intelligence operations against Muslim communities in New York and elsewhere. The CIA, which is prohibited from spying on Americans, works with the police on “human mapping,” commonly known as racial and religious profiling to spy on the Muslim community. Under the Obama administration, the Associated Press reported in August 2011, informants known as “mosque crawlers,” monitor sermons, bookstores and cafes.Top Secret AmericaIn July 2010, the Washington Post released “Top Secret America,” a series of articles detailing the results of a two-year investigation into the rapidly expanding world of homeland security, intelligence and counter-terrorism. It found 1,271 government organizations and 1,931 private companies work on counterterrorism, homeland security and intelligence at about 10,000 locations across the US. Every single day, the National Security Agency intercepts and stores more than 1.7 billion emails, phone calls and other types of communications. The FBI has a secret database named Guardian that contains reports of suspicious activities filed from federal, state and local law enforcement. According to the Washington Post Guardian contained 161,948 files as of December 2009. From that database there have been 103 full investigations and at least five arrests the FBI reported. The Obama administration has done nothing to cut back on the secrecy.Other Domestic SpyingThere are at least 72 fusion centers across the US which collect local domestic police information and merge it into multi-jurisdictional intelligence centers, according to recent report by the ACLU. These centers share information from federal, state and local law enforcement and some private companies to secretly spy on Americans. These all continue to grow and flourish under the Obama administration.Abusive FBI Intelligence OperationsThe Electronic Frontier Foundation documented thousands of violations of the law by FBI intelligence operations from 2001 to 2008 and estimate that there are over 4000 such violations each year. President Obama issued an executive order to strengthen the Intelligence Oversight Board, an agency which is supposed to make sure the FBI, the CIA and other spy agencies are following the law. No other changes have been noticed.WikileaksThe publication of US diplomatic cables by Wikileaks and then by main stream news outlets sparked condemnation by Obama administration officials who said the publication of accurate government documents was nothing less than an attack on the United States. The Attorney General announced a criminal investigation and promised “this is not saber rattling.” Government officials warned State Department employees not to download the publicly available documents. A State Department official and Columbia officials warned students that discussing Wikileaks or linking documents to social networking sites could jeopardize their chances of getting a government job, a position that lasted several days until reversed by other Columbia officials. At the time this was written, the Obama administration continued to try to find ways to prosecute the publishers of Wikileaks.Censorship of Books by the CIAIn 2011, the CIA demanded extensive cuts from a memoir by former FBI agent Ali H. Soufan, in part because it made the agency look bad. Soufan’s book detailed the use of torture methods on captured prisoners and mistakes that led to 9-11. Similarly, a 2011 book on interrogation methods by former CIA agent Glenn Carle was subjected to extensive black outs. The CIA under the Obama administration continues its push for censorship.Blocking Publication of Photos of U.S. Soldiers Abusing PrisonersIn May 2009, President Obama reversed his position of three weeks earlier and refused to release photos of US soldiers abusing prisoners. In April 2009, the US Department of Defense told a federal court that it would release the photos. The photos were part of nearly 200 criminal investigations into abuses by soldiers.Technological Spying... Western companies sell email surveillance software to repressive regimes in China, Libya and Syria to use against protestors and human rights activists. Surveillance cameras monitor residents in high crime areas, street corners and other governmental buildings. Police department computers ask for and receive daily lists from utility companies with addresses and names of every home address in their area. Computers in police cars scan every license plate of every car they drive by. The Obama administration has made no serious effort to cut back these new technologies of spying on citizens.Use of “State Secrets” to Shield Government and Others from ReviewWhen the Bush government was caught hiring private planes from a Boeing subsidiary to transport people for torture to other countries, the Bush administration successfully asked the federal trial court to dismiss a case by detainees tortured because having a trial would disclose “state secrets” and threaten national security. When President Obama was elected, the state secrets defense was reaffirmed in arguments before a federal appeals court. It continues to be a mainstay of the Obama administration effort to cloak their actions and the actions of the Bush administration in secrecy.In another case, it became clear in 2005 that the Bush FBI was avoiding the Fourth Amendment requirement to seek judicial warrants to get telephone and internet records by going directly to the phone companies and asking for the records. The government and the companies, among other methods of surveillance, set up secret rooms where phone and internet traffic could be monitored. In 2008, the government granted the companies amnesty for violating the privacy rights of their customers. Customers sued anyway. But the Obama administration successfully argued to the district court, among other defenses, that disclosure would expose state secrets and should be dismissed. The case is now on appeal.Material SupportThe Obama administration successfully asked the US Supreme Court not to apply the First Amendment and to allow the government to criminalize humanitarian aid and legal activities of people providing advice or support to foreign organizations which are listed on the government list as terrorist organizations. The material support law can now be read to penalize people who provide humanitarian aid or human rights advocacy.Chicago Anti-war Grand Jury InvestigationIn September 2010, FBI agents raided the homes of seven peace activists in Chicago, Minneapolis and Grand Rapids seizing computers, cell phones, passports, and records. More than 20 anti-war activists were issued federal grand jury subpoenas and more were questioned across the country. Some of those targeted were members of local labor unions, others members of organizations like the Arab American Action Network, the Columbia Action Network, the Twin Cities Anti-War Campaign and the Freedom Road Socialist Organization.Punishing WhistleblowersThe Obama administration has prosecuted five whistleblowers under the Espionage Act, more than all the other administrations in history put together. They charged a National Security Agency advisor with ten felonies under the Espionage Act for telling the press that government eavesdroppers were wasting hundreds of millions of dollars on misguided and failed projects. After their case collapsed, the government, which was chastised by the federal judge as engaging in unconscionable conduct, allowed him to plead to a misdemeanor and walk. The administration has also prosecuted former members of the CIA, the State Department, and the FBI. They even tried to subpoena a journalist and one of the lawyers for the whistleblowers.Bradley ManningArmy private Bradley Manning is accused of leaking thousands of government documents to Wikileaks. These documents expose untold numbers of lies by US government officials, wrongful killings of civilians, policies to ignore torture in Iraq, information about who is held at Guantanamo, cover ups of drone strikes and abuse of children and much more damaging information about US malfeasance. Though Daniel Ellsberg and other whistleblowers say Bradley is an American hero, the US government has jailed him and is threatening him with charges of espionage which may be punished by the death penalty. For months Manning was held in solitary confinement and forced by guards to sleep naked. When asked about how Manning was being held, President Obama personally defended the conditions of his confinement saying he had been assured they were appropriate and meeting our basic standards.Solitary ConfinementAt least 20,000 people are in solitary confinement in US jails and prisons, some estimate several times that many. Despite the fact that federal, state and local prisons and jails do not report actual numbers, academic research estimates tens of thousands are kept in cells for 23 to 24 hours a day in supermax units and prisons, in lockdown, in security housing units, in “the hole”, and in special management units or administrative segregation. Human Rights Watch reports that one-third to one-half of the prisoners in solitary are likely mentally ill. In May 2006, the UN Committee on Torture concluded that the United States should “review the regimen imposed on detainees in supermax prisons, in particular, the practice of prolonged isolation.” The Obama administration has taken no steps to cut back on the use of solitary confinement in federal, state or local jails and prisons.Special Administrative MeasuresSpecial Administrative Measures (SAMS) are extra harsh conditions of confinement imposed on prisoners (including pre-trial detainees) by the Attorney General. The U.S. Bureau of Prisons imposes restrictions such segregation and isolation from all other prisoners, and limitation or denial of contact with the outside world such as: no visitors except attorneys, no contact with news media, no use of phone, no correspondence, no contact with family, no communication with guards, 24 hour video surveillance and monitoring. The DOJ admitted in 2009 that several dozen prisoners, including several pre-trial detainees, mostly Muslims, were kept incommunicado under SAMS. If anything, the use of SAMS has increased under the Obama administration.
Quigley: "These twenty concrete examples document a sustained assault on domestic civil liberties in the United States under the Obama administration. Rhetoric aside, how different has Obama been from Bush in this area?"
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Bill Quigley is a human rights lawyer and law professor at Loyola University New Orleans. He also serves as Associate Legal Director of the Center for Constitutional Rights. He can be reached at Quigley77@gmail.com
Bill Quigley is a human rights lawyer and law professor at Loyola University New Orleans. He also serves as Associate Legal Director of the Center for Constitutional Rights. He can be reached at Quigley77@gmail.com
[cross-posted at correntewire and sacramento for democracy]
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Gosh -- I feel safer already!
Someday we''l get that damn Constitution - thingy overturned -- its getting in the way of our safety!
Someday we''l get that damn Constitution - thingy overturned -- its getting in the way of our safety!
Thanks for your comment Spumey!
Obama has kept the constitution in GWB's wastebasked. Actually, it is now BHO's wastebasket. A bigger wastebasket. Who would have dreamed. Obama's hopey changey dream for us all became our collective nightmare. Listening to his 2012 latest bullshit of championing the people and people once again buying it is nauseating and stupefying. About his latest campaign speech with Obama's latest faux-populist rhetoric Tuesday in Kansas Jerry White had this to say. (When he campaigns and objects to national conditions he acts like he is running for the first time, not that he was responsible for letting the corporatists keep on and even escalate their their economic and military terrorism, as well as his collusion with the crackdowns (federal of FBI and DHS) against occupations):
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2011/dec2011/pers-d08.shtml
"Yet under his [Obama's] watch, not a single banker, hedge fund manager or financial regulator responsible for the economic catastrophe has been prosecuted, let alone convicted. On the contrary, the president has handed them the keys to the national treasury and tailored his policies to enable them to continue their speculative activities and make more money than ever.
"The fury of the state has been reserved for those who have sought to protest against the plundering of society by the financial elite and the resulting growth of poverty, unemployment and inequality. They, for the most part student youth, have been assaulted by baton-wielding police in riot gear, packing rubber bullets and using pepper spray. The protesters have been arrested in the thousands. Obama, with his silence, has signaled his support for these attacks, carried out for the most part by Democratic mayors.
"Obama strained to present his policies as diametrically opposed to those of the Republicans. After the worst economic crisis in eighty years, he said, the Republicans “want to return to the same practices that got us into this mess.”
"This from a president who has made “bipartisanship” the watchword of his administration and done his best to restore credibility to the Republicans after they were repudiated in the 2008 election that brought him to power.
"In every aspect of domestic and international policy, Obama has continued and escalated the policies of his Republican predecessor. He has gone beyond Bush in slashing social programs, waging aggressive war, and attacking democratic rights—including officially ordering the assassination of American citizens.
"After attributing the entire blame for the deregulation of big business and the growth of inequality to the Republicans, ignoring the fact that these processes proceeded apace under Democratic as well as Republican administrations, Obama declared that his solution began with “making education a national mission.”
"This is yet another example of shameless hypocrisy from a president who has adopted the education program that was previously the province of the Republican right, and spearheaded an unprecedented assault on the jobs and conditions of teachers and the very principle of public education.
"Lodged within the fog of populist phrase-mongering were code words inserted in the speech—verbal winks and nods—to reassure Wall Street: “the free market is the greatest force for economic progress in human history… It’s not a view that says we should punish profit or success… business, and not government, will always be the primary generator of good jobs… This isn’t about class warfare.”
"With tens of millions out of work and new reports each week detailing record levels of poverty and inequality, Obama declared that capitalism has “led to a prosperity and a standard of living unmatched by the rest of the world.”
snip
"Obama and the entire bourgeoisie are now seeking to utilize the economic crisis to repeal the 20th century and destroy all of social gains of the working class.
"For all his pseudo-populist bluster and his invocation of an earlier period of progressive reform, Obama could offer no serious measures to address the social crisis. His only concrete proposal was passage of an extension of his payroll tax deduction—a measure that is striking only for its hopeless inadequacy. It is fundamentally reactionary to boot, since it will allow corporations to reduce their Social Security taxes, thereby draining the government benefit fund for seniors.
"The president’s central focus is to join with the Republicans in shredding what remains of the social safety net. “To reduce our deficit,” he boasted, “I’ve already signed nearly $1 trillion of spending cuts into law and I’ve proposed trillions more, including reforms that would lower the cost of Medicare and Medicaid.”
We will leave it to the professional apologists for the Democratic Party, from the New York Times to the affluent upper-middle class types who occupy the offices of the Nation, the AFL-CIO trade union apparatus and various pseudo-left groups to try to paint in “progressive” colors what has turned out to be the most right-wing administration in modern American history."
Obama has kept the constitution in GWB's wastebasked. Actually, it is now BHO's wastebasket. A bigger wastebasket. Who would have dreamed. Obama's hopey changey dream for us all became our collective nightmare. Listening to his 2012 latest bullshit of championing the people and people once again buying it is nauseating and stupefying. About his latest campaign speech with Obama's latest faux-populist rhetoric Tuesday in Kansas Jerry White had this to say. (When he campaigns and objects to national conditions he acts like he is running for the first time, not that he was responsible for letting the corporatists keep on and even escalate their their economic and military terrorism, as well as his collusion with the crackdowns (federal of FBI and DHS) against occupations):
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2011/dec2011/pers-d08.shtml
"Yet under his [Obama's] watch, not a single banker, hedge fund manager or financial regulator responsible for the economic catastrophe has been prosecuted, let alone convicted. On the contrary, the president has handed them the keys to the national treasury and tailored his policies to enable them to continue their speculative activities and make more money than ever.
"The fury of the state has been reserved for those who have sought to protest against the plundering of society by the financial elite and the resulting growth of poverty, unemployment and inequality. They, for the most part student youth, have been assaulted by baton-wielding police in riot gear, packing rubber bullets and using pepper spray. The protesters have been arrested in the thousands. Obama, with his silence, has signaled his support for these attacks, carried out for the most part by Democratic mayors.
"Obama strained to present his policies as diametrically opposed to those of the Republicans. After the worst economic crisis in eighty years, he said, the Republicans “want to return to the same practices that got us into this mess.”
"This from a president who has made “bipartisanship” the watchword of his administration and done his best to restore credibility to the Republicans after they were repudiated in the 2008 election that brought him to power.
"In every aspect of domestic and international policy, Obama has continued and escalated the policies of his Republican predecessor. He has gone beyond Bush in slashing social programs, waging aggressive war, and attacking democratic rights—including officially ordering the assassination of American citizens.
"After attributing the entire blame for the deregulation of big business and the growth of inequality to the Republicans, ignoring the fact that these processes proceeded apace under Democratic as well as Republican administrations, Obama declared that his solution began with “making education a national mission.”
"This is yet another example of shameless hypocrisy from a president who has adopted the education program that was previously the province of the Republican right, and spearheaded an unprecedented assault on the jobs and conditions of teachers and the very principle of public education.
"Lodged within the fog of populist phrase-mongering were code words inserted in the speech—verbal winks and nods—to reassure Wall Street: “the free market is the greatest force for economic progress in human history… It’s not a view that says we should punish profit or success… business, and not government, will always be the primary generator of good jobs… This isn’t about class warfare.”
"With tens of millions out of work and new reports each week detailing record levels of poverty and inequality, Obama declared that capitalism has “led to a prosperity and a standard of living unmatched by the rest of the world.”
snip
"Obama and the entire bourgeoisie are now seeking to utilize the economic crisis to repeal the 20th century and destroy all of social gains of the working class.
"For all his pseudo-populist bluster and his invocation of an earlier period of progressive reform, Obama could offer no serious measures to address the social crisis. His only concrete proposal was passage of an extension of his payroll tax deduction—a measure that is striking only for its hopeless inadequacy. It is fundamentally reactionary to boot, since it will allow corporations to reduce their Social Security taxes, thereby draining the government benefit fund for seniors.
"The president’s central focus is to join with the Republicans in shredding what remains of the social safety net. “To reduce our deficit,” he boasted, “I’ve already signed nearly $1 trillion of spending cuts into law and I’ve proposed trillions more, including reforms that would lower the cost of Medicare and Medicaid.”
We will leave it to the professional apologists for the Democratic Party, from the New York Times to the affluent upper-middle class types who occupy the offices of the Nation, the AFL-CIO trade union apparatus and various pseudo-left groups to try to paint in “progressive” colors what has turned out to be the most right-wing administration in modern American history."
And more laws and legislation coming to ensure the elimination of social programs. It really does not matter who's who. Thank you, Libby, Well done. R
Thanks, Thoth!
I say Occupy Media. Media that hypnotizes us, over 300 million citizens, that out of this number there are only 3 men capable of running the US, 2 Mr. Evil Republicans and Mr. Supposedly Less Evil Dem?????? It is outrageous. We really are lemmings, or sheeple in pens. Such robust and witty criticism of the clowns in the Republican Party, on the not really liberal MSNBC media, but what about the horrifying gutting of the constitution by THIS administration and the Dem Party colluding with the banksters and fraudsters along with the Repub party. Greenwald calls them rotating villains. Media didn't even comment on us losing our due process for protesting or the grotesque of money in the war funding bill. So much evil is being normalized and institutionalized. Something is really really really really rotten in the United States. How long will we be free to even express that, the few of us willing to???? libby
I say Occupy Media. Media that hypnotizes us, over 300 million citizens, that out of this number there are only 3 men capable of running the US, 2 Mr. Evil Republicans and Mr. Supposedly Less Evil Dem?????? It is outrageous. We really are lemmings, or sheeple in pens. Such robust and witty criticism of the clowns in the Republican Party, on the not really liberal MSNBC media, but what about the horrifying gutting of the constitution by THIS administration and the Dem Party colluding with the banksters and fraudsters along with the Repub party. Greenwald calls them rotating villains. Media didn't even comment on us losing our due process for protesting or the grotesque of money in the war funding bill. So much evil is being normalized and institutionalized. Something is really really really really rotten in the United States. How long will we be free to even express that, the few of us willing to???? libby
I am so happy to find someone who notices the same thing I do with the current sitting president Libby.
Please keep writing and posting. I am posting this to Facebook and hoping it gets more views there.
My view is this is all evil and the continuation of the military/industrial/police state our country has morphed into, all while using double speak crying about freedom.
Sad for us all, but speaking out is the right thing to do.
for if we do not, then we must be supporting this very evil that threatens to bring us to our knees....
Please keep writing and posting. I am posting this to Facebook and hoping it gets more views there.
My view is this is all evil and the continuation of the military/industrial/police state our country has morphed into, all while using double speak crying about freedom.
Sad for us all, but speaking out is the right thing to do.
for if we do not, then we must be supporting this very evil that threatens to bring us to our knees....
They think that all decisions must be based on lies dictated to the public by those in power which guarantees disaster big and small even when it isn't related to secrecy. The latest Virginia Tech shooting might not have anything to do with spying but the ideology that accompanies it almost certainly contributed to preventing social problems from being addressed that contribute to many incidents like this probably including this one.
Thanks, mission. So well said! We awakened citizens must stay vigilant the challenges are so dire and profound to what is left of our democracy! Psyops seduction to fascism in America. Craven media lockstep with craven politicians pimped by power and control oligarchs! American sheeple penned and shorn and ready for economic terrorist slaughter!
Zachd, was just commenting on your wonderful blog. I wonder what further manufactured "shock and awe" (Bloomie did a bit of this after his monstrous behavior with Occupy with the "terrorist" stuff) will hit us soon to distract from the occupy messaging leaking through. The powers that be must demonize the occupiers further or they must bring out DHS as white-hatted heroes to scare the citizens into giving up what little rights they have left. Nothing like domestic "white flag" ops. Virginia Tech latest tragedy, yes, it is all so disturbing. Will the symptoms of growing fascism be an excuse to escalate fascism? That seems to be the playbook. libby
Zachd, was just commenting on your wonderful blog. I wonder what further manufactured "shock and awe" (Bloomie did a bit of this after his monstrous behavior with Occupy with the "terrorist" stuff) will hit us soon to distract from the occupy messaging leaking through. The powers that be must demonize the occupiers further or they must bring out DHS as white-hatted heroes to scare the citizens into giving up what little rights they have left. Nothing like domestic "white flag" ops. Virginia Tech latest tragedy, yes, it is all so disturbing. Will the symptoms of growing fascism be an excuse to escalate fascism? That seems to be the playbook. libby
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