Obama: Normalizing The Police State

Conor Friedersdorf of The Atlantic asks the liberal faithful (Ezra Klein and David Remnick, specifically) to stop marginalizing peace and civil liberties by defending Obama and blaming criticism of him on Republican partisanship and a bad economy he had no hand in creating:

“These are the sorts of treatments that permit well-educated Obama supporters to evade certain uncomfortable truths, like the fact that the president to whom they’ll give campaign contributions and votes violated the War Powers Resolution when he invaded Libya; that in doing so he undermined the Office of Legal Counsel, weakening a prudential restraint on executive power; that from the outset he misled Congress and the public about the likely duration of the conflict; that the humanitarian impulse alleged to prompt the intervention somehow evaporated when destitute refugees from that war were drowning in the Mediterranean.

In saying that Obama has “awakened to the miserable realities of Pakistan and Iran,” Remnick elides an undeclared drone war that is destabilizing a nuclear power, the horrific humanitarian and strategic costs of which Jane Mayer documents at length in The New Yorker; “Obama is responsible for an aggressive assault on Al Qaeda, including the killing of bin Laden, in Pakistan, and of Anwar al-Awlaki, in Yemen,” Remnick writes, never hinting that al-Awlaki was an American citizen killed by a president asserting the unchecked write to put people on an assassination list that requires no due process or judicial review, and that the administration justifies with legal reasoning that it refuses to make public. “He has drawn down forces in Iraq and Afghanistan,” Remnick writes, obscuring the fact that there are many more troops in Afghanistan than when Obama took office, and that in Iraq he has merely stuck to the timetable for withdrawal established by the Bush Administration, after unsuccessfully lobbying the government of Iraq to permit US troops to stay longer — instead, he plans to increase the presence of American troops elsewhere in the Persian Gulf, and to leave in Iraq a huge presence of State Department employees and private security.

Klein’s piece relies heavily on the reality that, for all his hope and change rhetoric, Obama was constrained in dealing with the economic crisis when he took office. Quite right. Only unjustifiable extrapolation permits Klein to reach the larger conclusion that GOP opposition and a bad economy explain his broken promises. Had Klein tried to come up with a control group to test his hypothesis, he might’ve looked to the policies over which Obama has substantial or complete control. Is Obama’s war on whistleblowers, also documented in the New Yorker by Jane Mayer, something that Republicans and a bad economy forced on him? Are they responsible for the White House’s utter failure to deliver anything like the transparency that Obama promised, and its abuse of the state secrets privilege? How does the economy explain the escalation of the drug war and federal raids on medical marijuana dispensaries in states where they are legal, or the Department of Homeland Security’s escalation of security theater to the point that Americans are being groped and undergoing naked scans in airports?……

Is Obama better than all the Republican candidates on these issues? Certainly not. He is worse than Gary Johnson and Ron Paul; arguably worse than Jon Huntsman too. Is he better than anyone likely to win the GOP nomination? Perhaps. Does it matter?…….

..What few of us saw in 2008 is that Bush Administration wasn’t “a temporary detour from our history’s long arc toward justice,” and the Obama Administration wasn’t a vehicle for change — it was the normalization of the post-9/11 security state.”

Europol Now Official Police Agent of EU

The New American (hat-tip to Michael Rozeff)

“According to the terms of its new status as the “official” criminal intelligence-gathering branch of the EU government, “Europol now benefits from increased powers to collect criminal information and a wider field of competence in supporting investigations.” Among these increased powers is the power to access the voluminous personal data stored on the computers of Scotland Yard if agents suspect a person may be participating in a “preparatory” act that may lead to criminal behavior.

As has been reported in The New American, the database of information compiled and stored by the government of Prime Minister Gordon Brown is the most extensive in any developed nation. The database was established in 1995 and is the world’s largest. It contains the DNA material of over five million Britons, a figure that represents 8 percent of the population of England and Wales. The recording system was initially developed, ostensibly, to aid the police in the investigation of crime scenes and function as a “vital crime-fighting tool” in tracking down elusive offenders.

Now, every byte of that very personal information is available to Europol, without regard for the national laws of the United Kingdom. The relevant data to which Europol now has unfettered access includes political affiliation, routine, places frequented, DNA, tax obligations, voiceprints, and sexual preference. In fine, everything stored on those massive mainframes is now firmly within the province of distant Europol investigators.

The standard for granting Europol access to the personal data of Britons is much different from that governing their own national law enforcement. According to terms of Title VI of the Maastricht Treaty, the Europol Convention, and the new directives, a mere suspicion of likely criminal behavior in the following vague areas will trigger Europol investigation: racism, environmental crime, xenophobia, computer fraud, and crimes against the environment.

You read that correctly, Europol can now extract “behavioral data” on any citizen of any member state that it suspects — rightly or wrongly — is likely participating in any of the above listed “serious crimes.”

Executive Order 12425: Interpol Brings Global Police State to US

John Whitehead of the Rutherford Institute (via Lew Rockwell) sounds the alarm over executive order 12425, which places the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol) beyond the reach of domestic laws,  freedom of information act requests and constitutional checks.

“It’s hard to know exactly what the fallout from this executive order will be, but the ramifications for the American people could be ominous. For instance, if Interpol engages in illegal and/or unconstitutional activities against American citizens, it will be impossible for U.S. citizens to obtain information – via subpoena or other commonly used legal methods – regarding its records or activities. Continue reading

Police Overpower “Dangerous” Double Amputee

Will Grigg at the Lew Rockwell blog:

“Responding to a domestic violence report, police in Merced, California helped child “protection” workers abduct the two-year-old daughter of 40-year-old Gregory Williams, a double amputee who is confined to a wheelchair.

Williams, a father of three who lost his legs to deep vein thrombosis six years ago and is currently unemployed, had been arguing with his wife. Rather than trying to defuse the situation, the police summoned a CPS worker who decided to seize the two-year-old, Ginni.

When Williams objected, the police placed him under arrest and attempted to force him into the familiar “prone-out” position….

This act of instinctive self-preservation was described as “resisting arrest”

So Officer John Pinnegar shoved his Portable Electro-Shock Torture device into Williams’ ribs and pulled the trigger twice.

At least one other officer, Sgt. Rodney Court, assisted the valiant Pinnegar in subduing the legless man. Hey, can’t be too careful — “officer safety” and all that. At one point Court shoved a knee into the middle of Williams’ back while Pinnegar cuffed the victim.

The double-amputee was left sitting on the pavement, handcuffed behind the back, with his pants pulled down below the waist — in broad daylight, in full view of the residents of his apartment complex.”