Flying the Fascist Skies

By Anthony Gregory

Boy, I miss the days when the future depicted in Terminator appeared ridiculously dystopian. The Washington Times reports:

The legislation would order the FAA, before the end of the year, to expedite the process through which it authorizes the use of drones by federal, state and local police and other agencies. The FAA currently issues certificates, which can cover multiple flights by more than one aircraft in a particular area, on a case-by-case basis.

Drones have been used as surveillance but also as killing devices, particularly in Afghanistan and Pakistan, in the war on terrorism. Hundreds, almost surely, have been snuffed out by these machines, which kill reportedly kill far more civilians than targeted militants. Credible reports indicate that the CIA has a favorite practice of targeting rescuers who show up to help others hurt by these strikes. From the New York Times:

The report, by the London-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism, found that at least 50 civilians had been killed in follow-up strikes after they rushed to help those hit by a drone-fired missile. The bureau counted more than 20 other civilians killed in strikes on funerals. The findings were published on the bureau's Web site and in The Sunday Times of London. . . .

The bureau counted 260 strikes by Predator and Reaper drones since President Obama took office, and it said that 282 to 535 civilians had been "credibly reported" killed in those attacks, including more than 60 children.

To be clear, I am not suggesting that American politicians and law enforcers will soon be blowing up Americans on American soil with these drones. But we can nevertheless draw some troubling conclusions:

1) High officials of the US government see nothing wrong with having drones fly over the nation spying on the people--and surely no relevant implications for the Fourth Amendment or American liberty.

2) High officials do not foresee any massive public relations fallout from unleashing such surveillance drones when the very government they work for has killed many civilians in its drone warfare abroad.

3) High officials are likely correct about the latter, as the public appears relatively accustomed to significant assaults on their privacy, particularly since 9/11, and seem to trust the government to wage war at home and abroad. Significant precedents in detention policy, spying without warrants, and targeting individuals at home and abroad for torture, imprisonment, and even executive killing--including even American citizens--have been set in the last decade, precedents that in some cases would have appeared completely paranoid to predict even thirty years ago in the twilight of the Cold War.

4) Neither political party is led by or represents Americans strongly opposed to either civilian-killing drones flying over other countries, or domestic surveillance drones.

5) The tolerance the American people have toward various government measures that would have likely been regarded as obscene and totalitarian only a few years ago appears to have grown.

6) Domestic law enforcement has taken on an increasingly militaristic flavor in recent decades, thanks to the wars on drugs, crime, and terrorism. SWAT teams used to be unusual and now occur dozens of times a day. Nearly every city and town has a police force associated with the federal government and employing increasingly formidable military hardware and tactics in its enforcement of the law.

7) While it might be hard to imagine Americans tolerating drones being used to target and even kill suspects on American soil in the next year or so, it no longer seems crazy to expect such practices would be tolerated, even cheered, within a generation, given the steady decline in American concern for civil liberties and the frightening trajectory of domestic law enforcement and military policy.

8) It would indeed be preferable for most of us to live in a country where the latter point would sound completely absurd.

9) If we ever lived in such a country we do not now.

10) Americans by the tens of millions have to snap out of it, wake up and smell the not-so-slowly creeping fascism, or else we will all likely wake up to find ourselves in a country completely unrecognizable as being remotely free.

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Rwolf

Posted: Feb 16 2012, 5:04 PM

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Next The Arrests: Your Future?
Most Americans haven’t awaken to the fact they are subject to an array of recently passed Fascist Laws including The National Defense Authorization Act and perhaps soon—the Enemy Expatriation Act that U.S. Government can unleash against the public. Congress gave U.S. Government the power to arrest and indefinitely detain Americans without probable cause or bringing charges. Detained U.S. Citizens now have no right to an attorney or trial or right to learn the charges against them—if any. If that isn’t Fascism what is?

Each day it is increasingly clear U.S. Government will in the future, use (vague) new Police State laws—to arrest and indefinitely detain lawful Americans that exercise 1st Amendment and other Constitutional Rights e.g. on mere suspicion of supporting or being involved in terrorism or being a belligerent—to shutdown public dissent. Soon there will be 30,000 drones in U.S. air space photographing Citizens’ movements, recording what Americans say on the street, inside their home: facilitating the arrest of Americans on suspicion because of what someone said—and or forfeit their home and other assets under Patriot Act Section 806.

Americans appear powerless to Stop their government turning into a Police /Surveillance State. If U.S. Government Americans tomorrow there would be no Congressional Elections, what could they do? Without elections how could U.S. Citizens elect new representatives to change a “Police State Government?” U.S. Government is now on the threshold of having surveillance cameras and drones most everywhere; and TSA Checkpoints in addition to airports—on highways, at bus and train stops and ports. Government intends to monitor without warrants—journalists, U.S. Citizens’ emails, phone calls, Internet Activity, and faxes. Soon Americans won’t be able to arrange a 1st Amendment meeting, business or doctor’s appointment or other activity without government knowing about it in advance. It is foreseeable Americans under constant police / government surveillance may be afraid to attend peaceful protests and political meetings out of fear they might be arrested or lose their job, especially if they work for a government agency or contractor. That happened in Nazi Germany.

Considering the Fascist direction U.S. Government appears headed, it won’t be a surprise in the future to learn Americans have been arrested for posting an opinion or article on the Internet or verbally expressed an opinion against an entity of U.S. Government or coalition partner—arrested under the Patriot Act or Defense Authorization Act—or deemed by U.S. Government (someone likely to engage in, support or provoke violent acts or threaten National Security) to justify incarceration of American writers, publishers and ordinary Citizens.

Americans should ask who are the players behind getting passed the Patriot Act, The National Defense Authorization Act; that caused Introduction of the Enemy Expatriation Act and similar recently passed legislation that brought America to the edge of Fascism.

FBI Wasting No Time Building National Network of INFORMANTS

A New FBI Flyer is being distributed to U.S. merchants that says Paying For A Cup Of Coffee With Cash is potential terrorist activity and urges Coffee Chop Owners to report customers.

Ridiculous? Since the real estate crash, the ascendancy of the “Lesser Depression” and near record unemployment, millions of Americans no longer have credit cards, bank accounts or debit cards to pay for their coffee and other inexpensive items. Are these millions of Americans to be considered potential terrorists according to the FBI because they paid cash for a cup of coffee or cheap store item? On the surface the new FBI merchant Flyer appears absurd: if one in 50 coffee shops reported a customer paying cash for a cup of coffee, an already under staffed FBI would be crushed responding to calls. The new FBI Flyer provided merchants fails as a propaganda vehicle because it is absurd to think in this economy small business owners are going to report customers paying cash for inexpensive items—“as potential terrorists.” However looking below the surface, the FBI has done something "brilliant" here that even the East German Secret Stasi never thought of to develop an army of national informants. It took the Stasi two decades to build an army of neighborhood and other informants to spy for the communist government. The FBI flyers that ask merchants and businesses to inform, to report customers paying cash for something so small as a cup of coffee will (definitely attract Americans) that want to be government informants; the FBI won’t have to spend years like the Stasi Police coercing Citizens, shaking the bushes to find informants to build its U.S. network of American informants. The Stasi developed an army of several hundred thousand informants; neighbors spying on neighbors, workers reporting workers. It got to the point East German married couples were afraid to discuss things inside their home and would leave the house to talk. Is this the direction America is headed?

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