Abandoning Liberty; Gaining Insecurity
By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS

Should Americans have to give up the Bill of Rights in order to be "safe" from terrorists? Actually, it doesn't matter what Americans think. The trade has already been made--and without any input from the people. The "democracy" that America is exporting is in fact a Homeland Security State with more surveillance powers than Saddam Hussein.

Americans no longer have any privacy from government. You may not be able to find out about your daughter's abortion or your son's college grades, but neither you nor your children have any secret whatsoever from your government. Banks, airlines, libraries, credit card companies, medical doctors and health care organizations, employers, Internet providers, any and everyone must turn over your private information at government demand.

Government demand no longer means a court approved warrant. A myriad of intelligence, security, military, and police agencies can on their own volition mine your personal data and feed it into data banks. Your democratic government does not have to tell you. Your bank, library, etc., are forbidden to tell you.

The government can monitor you as you use your computer, noting the web sites that you visit and reading the emails that you send and receive. Americans have privacy rights only against intrusions by private individuals and private organizations.

In 2000 Larry Stratton and I published a book documenting the erosion of all of the legal principles that protect the innocent: no crime without intent, the attorney-client privilege, due process, and the prohibitions against retroactive law and self-incrimination. The law was lost before the September 11 terrorist attack on the US.

The Patriot Act and executive branch decrees have put paid to habeas corpus. The government can pick up anyone it wishes and hold them as long as it wishes without evidence or trial. The government can torture those so detained if it wishes or murder them and say it was a suicide. Saddam Hussein may have indulged in these practices in a more thorough-going way than the US Homeland Security State has to date, but there are no essential differences in the police state powers.

While granting an element of truth, readers may see rhetorical overstatement in these words. This is because they believe, mistakenly, that the Supreme Court reined in the government in its rulings last June 28 on permitted treatment of "enemy combatants." However, as Harvey Silverglate has pointed out, this is not the case.

Silverglate's analysis shows that the Supreme Court's rulings "preserve the look and feel of liberty while sacrificing its substance." The rulings left the government with enough flexibility to prevail. One ruling created for the government a flexible due process standard invoking, in the Court's words, "the exigencies of the circumstances" and creating "a presumption in favor of the Government's evidence." Silverglate notes that this ruling overthrows a defendant's presumption of innocence that formerly could be overcome only by evidence proving guilt beyond reasonable doubt.

Another of the Supreme Court's rulings supported the government's position that a US citizen can be declared an enemy combatant and held without charge. Justice O'Connor found support for the demise of habeas corpus in the Authorization for the Use of Military Force passed by Congress after the September 11 attacks.

Defenders of the new American police state emphasize that the government's new powers only apply to terrorists. This is disingenuous. The government decides who is a terrorist and does not need to present evidence to back its decision. The person on whom the arbitrary decision falls can be held indefinitely. This is a return to the pre-Magna Carta practice of executive arrest.

Are Americans in such danger of terrorist attacks that they needed to give up legal protections won over eight centuries of struggle against the arbitrary power of governments? Surely not.

Terrorists have achieved their aims. Bringing down the World Trade Center towers gave them a great propaganda victory. Any other American target would be anti-climatic. The US invasion of Iraq gave them an opportunity for revolution in the Middle East--the real focus of their energy.

What Osama bin Laden and others of his persuasion desire is a unified Islamic Middle East shorn of US bases and puppet rulers. The US invasion of Iraq has brought Shias to power and created a Shia crescent from Iran to Lebanon. The ground is shaking under the perches of US puppets in Egypt, Jordan and Pakistan. The US demonstration of "shock and awe" in Iraq sealed Muslim hearts and minds against America and opened them to bin Laden.

The Bush administration handed these enormous opportunities to bin Laden on a silver platter. These opportunities, not terrorism in America, will absorb the energies of those seeking to build a new Islamic world in the Middle East.

Americans fearful of terrorism should keep in mind that their country is a very large place. If further terrorist attacks occur, very few Americans are likely to witness them except on TV. The police, however, are everywhere, and like all bureaucracies will have to show results for their new powers. If no real terrorists show up, our protectors will invent them, or they will interpret their powers expansively and apply them to ordinary felonies.

For example, Child Protective Services was set up on the pretense that child abuse was rampant. It was not, so the vast bureaucracy has had to invent its clients. Playground and sports bruises, injuries from falls and accidents all become evidence of child abuse, justifying CPS seizure of children from parents.

RICO, the Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations Act, was only supposed to apply to the Mafia, but quickly jumped outside these bounds. Asset forfeiture was only supposed to be used against drug barons, but has mainly been used to seize the property of Americans unconnected to the drug trade.

Americans might never again experience a domestic act of terrorism except from their own police state.

Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of National Review. He is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions.He can be reached at: pcroberts@postmark.net




WWW http://www.counterpunch.org

But, let me guess, you support socialized healthcare?

The Internet's dictionary.com website defines "police state" as: "A state in which the government exercises rigid and repressive controls over the social, economic and political life of the people, especially by means of a secret police force."

And, these repressive controls over social, economic and policial life of the people would be?

The transfer of gay people into internment camps?

The imprisonment of 9/11 Truth Movement? The shootings of protestors?

Preventing business analysts from talking about recession (which in economic terms we are not in) on the airwaves?

Preventing MoveOn.org from advertising?

Preventing third party voices from being heard and sometimes shoving them into jail to quet them?

Censoring the internet (despite the articles you post are often solely internet based, harsh criteria of government) with only government mandated material?

Ahh, I remember those really old Germans that live down town saying "Dah, 'tis a gut thing" when homeland security was established. Hitler didn't have as much power with the Gestapho as the current Amercian government has with the Articles of the patriot act. Welcome to the Police state people, don't try to blame anyone else for it's existance, we did it.

We sat quietly, waved flags and shouted about what was "supporting the troops" while our government took away our rights. We blindly believed our government was "making us safe," when in truth, no one is ever safe at any time. A meteor could fall from the sky any second, you could trip over your own feet, mother nature might decide you need a volcano in your back yard. All just as likely as terrorism to kill you, maybe even more likely.

We have allowed a government that in the 30's said "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself," to change to a government that says "fear today, and fear tomorrow." It uses fear to drive everything. Fear your daughter might get pregnant to allow the passing of condoms in schools, fear your son might smoke a joint, so us adults don't get too, fear you might get some horrible disease, so we pull food from our shelves. All of these "fears" cost us more and more in taxes, and only get worse when we let the government spend money on them. You know what I fear? Letting the government handle any situation. They will only make it worse, and I'll have to pay for it.

The American health care is lower than in many other countries and that is due to the policies of profits before people .

So, you want the government in control of our health? And, you complain about a corrupt government police state interferring with our lives? But, giving them more control and power and size would be a good idea? Uhhhhh....

Prisons certainly aren't expanding because more crimes are being committed. Since 1980, the national crime rate has meandered down, then up, then down again -- but the incarceration rate has marched relentlessly upward every single year. Nationwide, crime rates today are comparable to those of the 1970s, but the incarceration rate is four times higher than it was then. It's not crime that has increased; it's punishment. More people are now arrested for minor offenses, more arrestees are prosecuted, and more of those convicted are given lengthy sentences. Huge numbers of current prisoners are locked up for drug offenses and other transgressions that would not have met with such harsh punishment 20 years ago.
http://www.motherjones.com/news/special_reports/prisons/overview.html

And, your point as how this ties to a prison state according to the definition you posted earlier of what a prison state is? Let me guess the drugs or other offenses they were charged and imprisoned for were all a plant by the government to imprison the troublemakers for when they took over and installed a dictatorship?

Just a littlle article about the howes and whys we have more people incarcerated per capita than any other country on earth, take a read and if you have your doubts there is a little tab there that says sources or resources used and you can view them and see if the article is on the up and up.

He's right about the prisons though. The United States imprisons more of it's own citizens (either per capita, or just in gross numbers, doesn't matter) than any other nation in the world. We have over twice the number of prisoners in our jails and prisons as does China, a country with 4 times our population. This does not include people on probation or parole. These are just people in jails.

If you included the overall criminal population, our numbers would skyrocket. I read our papers out here, 70% of people convicted of less than a class B felony are given probation (at least here). Minor drug charges, no jail time. Drunk driving, suspended sentence. These types of crimes which occur everyday in this country do not count into our overall prison statistics. So yes, we probably do have enough arrests of citizens in this country to qualify. Remember, an arrest is not a conviction.

Greed controls our health...

I haven't been on this site for three months. However, things have not changed. Madman, you are still trashing America.

Yes the U.S. is indeed a police state and its getting worse. And the police are actually the military. So its becoming a kind of military dictatorship. Its really bad where I live. The police can do anything they want. Its no different than the Taliban except here they have better military weapons to murder and torture civilians with. Unless you are related to the police or work for them NO ONE is safe from being brutalized. In all my life I have NEVER seen the police stop an actual crime in progress. They always show up after the fact American police are the worst in the world. Total garbage.

The police in this country routinley brutalize children,the elderly, and anyone that trys to defend themselves. The entire legal system is built on money. About 85% of all police are sadistic maniacs Most court municipalities are basically terrorist organizations. They are this way because they are enriching themselves on court fees and fines which go straight into their pockets. The only people that will tell you different are cop families or people who are profiting from the brutalization and terrorizing of their fellow Americans Its a cash and carry business

Sounds exactly like where I live The police (really the military) use undercover cops to tape record and set up Americans they wish to bring down. They usually do this if the need a patsy so some richboy politician can get elected by pretending to be "tough on crime".The police are nothing more than arrogant ,greedy, violent, criminal mercernaries They are the ones taking our rights away. The legal system is a total sham. Nothing but a kangaroo court.

OOPS! Don't look now but your anti American counter culture mentality is showing.

At one time they use to shoot traitors...lucky you.

I was making a general statement... Feeling guilty?