[Winstonm]

Regardless of what you believe about the attacks of September 11, 2001, and the subsequent fall of the towers, there is no denying that there has been a massive shift of power to the executive branch since that time.

Here are some of the changes and how they have been applied. For example, did you know that....

1). President Bush has signed into law a provision which, according to Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont), will actually encourage the President to declare federal martial law (1). It does so by revising the Insurrection Act, a set of laws that limits the President's ability to deploy troops within the United States. The Insurrection Act (10 U.S.C.331 -335) has historically, along with the Posse Comitatus Act (18 U.S.C.1385), helped to enforce strict prohibitions on military involvement in domestic law enforcement. With one cloaked swipe of his pen, Bush is seeking to undo those prohibitions.

Public Law 109-364, or the "John Warner Defense Authorization Act of 2007" (H.R.5122) (2), which was signed by the commander in chief on October 17th, 2006, in a private Oval Office ceremony, allows the President to declare a "public emergency" and station troops anywhere in America and take control of state-based National Guard units without the consent of the governor or local authorities, in order to "suppress public disorder."

Comment: The principle of Posse Comitatus has been the single most important difference between the U.S.A. and countries like the old U.S.S.R. In the U.S.A., it has been illegal to use the military for "police" action - until now.

2) The Patriot Act:
A) Las Vegas Review-Journal confirmed that the FBI had ham-handedly used so-called "national security letters" to seize the travel and hotel records of over 300,000 visitors to the city. The bureau did so without any actual intelligence suggesting an imminent attack in Las Vegas. National security letter authority was expanded by the Patriot Act and a 2003 intelligence spending bill to allow agents to seize credit, business and communications records without the assent of a judge or grand jury, let alone a showing of criminal probable cause.

B) LAS VEGAS (AP) - The FBI used the USA Patriot Act to obtain financial information about key figures in a political corruption probe centered on striptease club owner Michael Galardi, an agent said.

Investigators used a section of the Patriot Act to get subpoenas for financial documents, said Special Agent Jim Stern, a spokesman for the Las Vegas FBI office.

"It was used appropriately by the FBI and was clearly within the legal parameters of the statute," Stern said.

C) ST. HELENS, Ore. - So far as she knows, Pufferbelly Toys owner Stephanie Cox hasn't been passing any state secrets to sinister foreign governments, or violating obscure clauses in the Patriot Act.

So she was taken aback by a mysterious phone call from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to her small store in this quiet Columbia River town just north of Portland.

When the two agents arrived at the store, the lead agent asked Cox whether she carried a toy called the Magic Cube, which he said was an illegal copy of the Rubik's Cube, one of the most popular toys of all time.

He told her to remove the Magic Cube from her shelves, and he watched to make sure she complied.

Virginia Kice, a spokeswoman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said agents went to Pufferbelly based on a trademark infringement complaint filed in the agency's intellectual property rights center in Washington, D.C.

Rubik's Cube patent had expired.

Comment: Osama bin-Laden is known to have plans to bring down the Brooklyn Bridge with thousands of fake Rubik's Cubes hurled simultaneously.

3) The Department of Homeland Security:

The Department of Homeland Security's Air and Marine Interdiction Division (AMID) says its mission is to "Protect the Nation's borders and the American people from the smuggling of narcotics and other contraband with an integrated and coordinated air and marine interdiction force."

So it is easy to understand why Texans were scratching their heads when they learned that the division's Air and Marine Interdiction and Coordination Center in Riverside, California, played a critical role in tracking down the Democratic legislators who went missing from the Texas Capitol this week.

Comment: Because it is common knowledge that Democrats are notorious drug smugglers...duh!

4) The Military Commissions Act

Professor Jonathan Turley, who teaches constitutional law at George Washington University, agrees that the bill contains no provision in which American citizens are exempt from the intent of the legislation, and outlined this during a recent appearance on Keith Olbermann's MSNBC show.

Comment: You better watch out, you better not cry, better not pout, I'm telling you why....

5) NSE Domestic Spying

The laws we have in place make it easy to engage in surveillance of all types against terrorist suspects like this. Few things would be easier than eavesdropping on these conversations and communications by complying with the law -- i.e., by going to a FISA court and obtaining a warrant. And nobody opposes that. The "argument" being made assumes that the Government can't engage in surveillance on terrorist communications unless it breaks the law. What person with a working brain is incapable of understanding how self-evidently false that premise is?

Comment: Yeah, but how else will you find those drug-smuggling, commie Democrats hiding out in Texas?

6) U.S.A. - Torture capital of the world.

A columnist for the conservative British newspaper the Daily Mail wrote, “this is a bewildering and shocking experience. Even the SS were treated better than this.” The security chief of the European Union, Javier Solana, called for the detainees to be treated as POWs entitled to the protection of international law.

Comment: This is too sick upon which to comment. War crimes are war crimes, no matter who is involved.

So there you have a summary of the changes created since 9-11: The Department of Homeland Security finding missing Democrats, The Patriot Act invading a toy store owner, The Military Commissions Act threatening anyone with jail and loss of habeus corpus rights and free reign to toruture, The John Warner Defense Act allowing the president to declare martial law, and the NSE domestic spying program listening in without oversight on any call it wants.

Do you feel safer or do you feel outraged for allowing this to happen? Does this sound like the America you thought you knew?

More importantly, what are we going to do?

[jikl]

You forgot about the nation that does not exist, Guantanamo Bay.

Sean