Congressman wants safeguards for privacy; targets NDAA.

The House of Representatives has approved an amendment to the draconian National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that will limit the Department of Defense from using data collected by unmanned spy drones against Americans.

The Amendment, introduced by Congressman Landry (R-LA), will prohibit information collected by DoD drones without a warrant from being used as evidence in court.

The amendment, was approved early Thursday afternoon along with 19 other en bloc amendments, reads:

“Notwithstanding any other provision of law, information acquired by an unmanned aerial vehicle operated by the Department of Defense may not be admitted in a Federal court, State court, or court of a political subdivision of a State as evidence against a United States citizen unless such information was obtained by such unmanned aerial vehicle pursuant to a court order.”

Landry’s amendment is an important one given that a recently uncovered Air Force documentcontends that the Pentagon can use drones to monitor the activities of Americans.

CONTINUED at Prison Planet.

Opponents of a U.S. law they claim may subject them to indefinite military detention for activities including news reporting and political activism persuaded a federal judge to temporarily block the measure.

U.S. District Judge Katherine Forrest in Manhattan yesterday ruled in favor of a group of writers and activists who sued President Barack Obama, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and the Defense Department, claiming a provision of the National Defense Authorization Act, signed into law Dec. 31, puts them in fear that they could be arrested and held by U.S. armed forces.

The complaint was filed Jan. 13 by a group including former New York Times reporter Christopher Hedges. The plaintiffs contend a section of the law allows for detention of citizens and permanent residents taken into custody in the U.S. on “suspicion of providing substantial support” to people engaged in hostilities against the U.S., such as al-Qaeda.

“The statute at issue places the public at undue risk of having their speech chilled for the purported protection from al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and ‘associated forces’ – i.e., ‘foreign terrorist organizations,’” Forrest said in an opinion yesterday. “The vagueness of Section 1021 does not allow the average citizen, or even the government itself, to understand with the type of definiteness to which our citizens are entitled, or what conduct comes within its scope.”

CONTINUED at Bloomberg.

Fort Leonard Wood Public Affairs director Tiffany Wood has provided the first official response to the shocking U.S. Army document that outlines the implementation of re-education camps, admitting that the manual was “not intended for public release” and claiming that its provisions only apply outside the United States, a contention completely disproved by the language contained in the document itself.

Source: Prison Planet.

Document also describes forced labor.

A shocking U.S. Army manual that describes how “political activists,” including American citizens, are to be indoctrinated in re-education camps also includes rules on forced labor and separating political prisoners by confining them in isolation.

Aside from detailing how PSYOP teams will use “indoctrination programs to reduce or remove antagonistic attitudes,” as well as targeting “political activists” with indoctrination programs to provide “understanding and appreciation of U.S. policies and actions,” the manual directs political prisoners to be separated from the rest of the camp population.

On page 284, the manual (PDF) describes how “Malcontents, rabble-rousers, trained agitators, and political officers who may attempt to organize resistance or create disturbances within the I/R facility,” are to be confined “in isolated enclosures to deny them access to the general population.”

CONTINUED at Prison Planet. Written by Paul Joseph Watson.

My thoughts on what some in the Tea Party call the Conservative Savior. Who really is Marco Rubion and what does he stand for? Is he just a puppet for the Bush family? This and much more. Subscribe to my channel for weekly updates and follow me @Fabian4Liberty

An Exclusive interview, Alex Jones speaks with Sen. Rand Paul on NDAA, TSA undercover on Houston busses, Obama’s overall neglect of the Constitution, his possible impeachment and much more. This is a must see video.

*Written by Rob Rimes.

I haven’t written as much as I’d like to in the last month. My real job has been insane and sucking out a lot of my creative energy the last several weeks. On top of that, I find it hard to stay motivated as the 2012 primaries draw to a close and my guy is in last place out of the four remaining candidates. I guess all this heathen can do is act religious and pray for a brokered convention and then a miracle. Fat chance, I know but there really isn’t much else I can do to bring Ron Paul to the big dance. I guess Plan B a.k.a. Gary Johnson is the next card to play but realistically, as I’ve stated before, this is such a long shot that I have to pretty much accept the fact that Johnson won’t even get invited to the debates and Romney will win the GOP nomination and most likely go on to lose to Barack Obama who will stop at nothing to rape the Constitution harder than he did before he had to worry about re-election.

Romney has racked up victories in Puerto Rico and Illinois as well as Guam and the Virgin Islands. Keep in mind however that Ron Paul really won the Virgin Islands yet the Republican establishment changed the rules so that Romney magically walked away with the most delegates. Not bad for a guy who didn’t finish first as the guy who did only got one delegate.. yes, one! Paul also potentially won Maine but the votes from several counties weren’t counted and Romney was awarded that state with only a few hundred votes separating him and Paul. Missouri has also been a haven for Paul supporters the last few weeks as he is taking over that state, yet the media ignores it, the establishment and police have been caught on multiple occasions manipulating the caucuses and they are still only talking about Santorum’s beauty pageant win a month ago where no delegates were handed out. The true caucuses that actually award delegates in Missouri haven’t handed out their delegates yet. The fact is, the media ignores the fraud and foul play even though it is practically wide out in the open. This is a disgusting and careless travesty that is all a part of a bigger plan. That plan is control – control by a giant duopoly two-party system that will do absolutely anything it can to hold on to it’s power: that same power that controls and manipulates the mainstream corporate media as well.

So as I sit at my dinner table, which has been converted to my writing desk, chewing on some terrible lo mein and sipping on a bottle of Hibiki 12-Year-Old Japanese whisky, I find it absolutely perplexing that after all the rhetoric, the hatred, the money spent and the time wasted – this country is only going to continue down a very dark path. It really doesn’t matter who wins between Obama or Romney and hell, Rick Santorum would probably be the worst president ever. What matters is the fact that America has failed once again and I am just sick of it: disgusted really.

With the mainstream media showing blatant bias and blatant irresponsibility in reporting accurately, there is nowhere for true Americans to turn to for fact-based reporting other than the Internet, which they are trying effortlessly to censor and control, mind you. With the Republican establishment on the national and many local levels playing dirty pool, it only proves to me that not only is the political system broken beyond any sort of reasonable repair, it is also just a predetermined game being played out by unknown decision makers who are shaping the world regardless of how any of us feel about it. When our angry voices fall on deaf ears and we are seemingly powerless to change anything within a perpetually tyrannical system, it may be time to break down that system and start over. At this point, this country may just need to completely fail and fall in shambles. Maybe it is true when that old adage states, “Things have to get worse before they can get better.” Maybe this is all beyond saving and America does have to crash and burn. I’m not opposed to that idea and truthfully, it probably needs to happen and is going to happen regardless of what any of us try to do about it.

Our greatest president Thomas Jefferson once said, “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.” Maybe this is what’s happening. It’s been over 200 years since those words were expressed and that’s a long time for the tyrants to get their claws into liberty’s flesh and tear it to shreds. Figuratively speaking, the tyrants drew first blood yet we, as the patriots, continue to take their abuse while kidding ourselves that our vote will change something. Sure, we’re all pissed and we all talk a big game about what we are going to do but so far, big picture-wise, we haven’t done anything to truly upset the establishment and regain order. How can we when the establishment fully controls the order and our votes and voices are often times casted aside through blatant voter fraud, establishment hijinks and a pen that has been held in several hands that were quick to sign off on executive orders?

The answer, in it’s simplest form, is that we must remain positive and vigilant. We must question everything our leaders tell us and hold them accountable. Even if our votes don’t matter, the people will always outnumber their masters and throughout history, it has been the downtrodden, sick-of-it-all masses that have torn down the castles and palaces of tyrants and taken their freedom back. I don’t think that the revolution needs to be a violent one, we’re beyond that unless of course the tyrants fully turn on us, which isn’t far-fetched thanks to the PATRIOT Act and the NDAA. However, we need not stoop to that level unless it comes to defending our lives, our families and our property. What I’m saying here is that the fight must go on, the message must continue to exist and grow and when there is an opening, and there will be – there always is, we must act. It’s the people who shape the world, not the few tyrannical schemers sitting fat atop the tree of liberty pruning its branches.

It is ironic but perhaps sadly appropriate that Attorney General Eric Holder would choose a law school, Northwestern University, to deliver a speech earlier this month in which he demolished what was left of the rule of law in America.

In what history likely will record as a turning point, Attorney General Holder bluntly explained that this administration believes it has the authority to use lethal force against Americans if the President determines them to be a threat to the nation. He tells us that this is not a violation of the due process requirements of our Constitution because the President himself embodies “due process” as he unilaterally determines who is to be targeted. As Holder said, “a careful and thorough executive branch review of the facts in a case amounts to ‘due process.’” That means that the administration believes it is the President himself who is to be the judge, jury, and executioner.

As George Washington University Law Professor Jonathan Turley wrote of the Holder speech:

“All the Administration has said is that they closely and faithfully follow their own guidelines — even if their decisions are not subject to judicial review. The fact that they say those guidelines are based on notions of due process is meaningless. They are not a constitutional process of review.”

It is particularly bizarre to hear the logic of the administration claiming the right to target its citizens according to some secret selection process, when we justified our attacks against Iraq and Libya because their leaders supposedly were targeting their own citizens! We also now plan a covert war against Syria for the same reason.

I should make it perfectly clear that I believe any individual who is engaging in violence against this country or its citizens should be brought to justice. But as Attorney General Holder himself points out in the same speech, our civilian courts have a very good track record of trying and convicting individuals involved with terrorism against the United States. Our civilian court system, with the guarantee of real due process, judicial review, and a fair trial, is our strength, not a weakness. It is not an impediment to be sidestepped in the push for convictions or assassinations, but rather a process that guarantees that fundamental right to be considered innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.

I am encouraged, however that there appears to be the beginning of a backlash against the administration’s authoritarian claims. Just recently I did an interview with conservative radio talk show host Laura Ingraham who expressed grave concern over using these sorts of tactics against Americans using the supposed war on terror as justification. Sadly, many conservative leaders were silent when Republican President George W. Bush laid the groundwork for this administration’s lawlessness with the PATRIOT Act, warrantless wiretapping, indefinite detention without trial, and other violations. Similarly, as Professor Turley points out, “Democrats previously demanded the ‘torture memos’ of the Bush administration that revealed poor legal analysis by Judge Jay Bybee and Professor John Yoo to justify torture. Now, however, Democrats are largely silent in the face of a president claiming the right to unilaterally kill citizens.” The misuse of and disregard for our Constitution for partisan political gain is likely one reason the American public holds Congress in such low esteem. Now the stakes are much higher. Congress and the people should finally wake up!

Read more Ron Paul articles at his Congressional website.

Government greases the skids for America’s Greece-style meltdown.

The Obama administration’s move to update an executive order to allow the government to seize control of virtually every aspect of society in both emergency and non-emergency situations lays the groundwork for the future nationalization of the U.S. economy.

Entitled “National Defense Resources Preparedness,” Obama signed the executive order late Friday afternoon. Such timing is normally a deliberate ploy to prevent a controversial issue from being picked up by the news cycle. Recall that Obama signed the highly contentious National Defense Authorization Act on New Year’s Eve.

Under section 201, the EO allows the federal government to take control of;

Sec. 201. Priorities and Allocations Authorities. (a) The authority of the President conferred by section 101 of the Act, 50 U.S.C. App. 2071, to require acceptance and priority performance of contracts or orders (other than contracts of employment) to promote the national defense over performance of any other contracts or orders, and to allocate materials, services, and facilities as deemed necessary or appropriate to promote the national defense, is delegated to the following agency heads:

(1) the Secretary of Agriculture with respect to food resources, food resource facilities, livestock resources, veterinary resources, plant health resources, and the domestic distribution of farm equipment and commercial fertilizer;

(2) the Secretary of Energy with respect to all forms of energy;

(3) the Secretary of Health and Human Services with respect to health resources;

(4) the Secretary of Transportation with respect to all forms of civil transportation;

(5) the Secretary of Defense with respect to water resources; and

(6) the Secretary of Commerce with respect to all other materials, services, and facilities, including construction materials.

Although the executive order is an update to the almost identical EO 12919, which was signed by Bill Clinton in 1994, in Section 201(b) of the new version, the words “under both emergency and non-emergency conditions” have been added.

In other words, the federal government is claiming the power to seize totalitarian control of the whole economy – nationalization über alles.

The administration’s move to allow an executive order designed for a time of national crisis to be applied in non-emergency peace time represents a significant ratcheting up on the richter scale of martial law, a measurement Infowars has been upgrading since the late 1990′s.

Just because Obama’s predecessor’s like Clinton and Bush did not use this executive order doesn’t mean it’s not anathema to the U.S. constitution. Obama may not use it either, but just as the President has promised to not use the ‘kidnapping’ provisions of the NDAA which his administration pushed for, that does nothing to prevent a future administration from indefinitely detaining American citizens under the law.

America is already under a state of martial law, but many have been conditioned to accept it because the degree to which it has been implemented has not yet reached its maximum. You don’t have to witness a Waco siege every day with tanks and the government killing citizens to be under a state of martial law.

- We already have the executive branch claiming the power to have Americansabducted and imprisoned without trialunder the NDAA.

- We already have the executive branch claiming the power to assassinate American citizens with no legal process whatsoever.

- We already have checkpoints manned by TSA goons as well as other militarized forces spreading across America.

- We already have the Pentagon claiming it doesn’t have to even recognize Congress to launch wars and that the only superior body it has to answer to is the United Nations.

- We already have the Department of Defense characterizing protest as “low level terrorism” while the federal government is busy labeling banal activities and behavior as indicative of terrorism.

Those five things alone illustrate beyond any conceivable doubt that America is already under a degree of martial law.

Martial law is primarily used as a tool of the elite to rob the people blind. Once the next big crisis hits, the degree to which America is under martial law will increase once again.

The fact that this new executive order greases the skids for the government to nationalize the entire economy, placing the means of production of virtually everything under the control of the state, is yet another sign that the feds are preparing for America’s descent into Greece-style austerity hell.

Just as Greece and many countries in Europe have been overthrown by unelected technocrats who have seized control of their economies, America is being primed for the same final act of complete usurpation.

*********************

Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a regular fill-in host for The Alex Jones Show and Infowars Nightly News.

Source: Infowars.

‘Council of Governors’ member McDonnell could try to sabotage anti-NDAA law.

The Virginia Senate has passed a law that forbids authorities in the state from using the ‘indefinite detention’ provisions of the National Defense Authorization Act against Americans, but whether or not Governor Bob McDonnell will sign it remains to be seen given the fact that he is a member of Barack Obama’s infamous ‘Council of Governors’, whose role it is to increase military involvement in domestic affairs.

“Today, the Virginia State Senate nearly unanimously passed my bill, HB 1160, to prevent Virginia’s state and local government agencies from cooperating with the federal government in the indefinite detention of Virginians under the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012 (“NDAA”). I am grateful that the vote in the Senate to accede to the bill as passed by the House of Delegates was 37-1,” said a statement by Delegate Bob Marshall, who was the driving force behind the bill.

“Congress, by including this provision in a must pass bill affecting our Armed Forces, made a terrible mistake in empowering this or any future President and the military to arrest and detain American citizens indefinitely, without charges, without the chance to confront their accusers, without legal counsel, and without a trial.”

Having already passed the Virginia House by a vote of 96-4 last month, the final bill will be sent to Governor Bob McDonnell. However, McDonnell has already attempted to sabotage the legislation using “secretive, backdoor” tactics, according to Marshall, so whether he agrees to sign the bill without trying to weaken its language remains to be seen.

The fact that McDonnell was included on President Obama’s infamous ‘Council of Governors’ probably explains why he has been so reticent to support the bill.

The executive order which established the Council of Governors (PDF), created a body of ten state governors directly appointed by Obama to work with the federal government to help advance the “synchronization and integration of State and Federal military activities in the United States”.

CONTINUED at Prison Planet. Written by Paul Joseph Watson.