Secret Intelligence Court a Precursor to Tyranny

[marmar]

from truthdig:


Secret Intelligence Court a Precursor to Tyranny

Posted on Jul 10, 2013
By William Pfaff


The current of awkward revelations concerning the clandestine or publicly misrepresented practices of the present and recent American administrations goes on. A long exposition in the New York Times and International Herald Tribune from July 8 concerns a widely unknown American secret court dealing with intelligence actions. The court decides whether certain actions are or are not legal, issues its rulings in secret and creates a new body of American law (or lawlessness, when it contravenes established public and constitutional law, which it is accused of doing). This is the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

The justification for this secret court—as is usual in the development of 20th century secret police states—is national security. The American case differs from the prominent earlier examples of such states in Bolshevik Russia and Nazi Germany, in that this American secret court operates behind a screen of what seem to be guilty obfuscations, which their authors know will not stand up to serious examination. Such obfuscations simply provide the rationales for concealment of this legal mechanism from public, press, and all but a certain number of congressmen and senators, all willing to provide the simulacrum of oversight because of their personal commitment to the belief that the United States makes itself secure by walking on what former Vice President Richard Cheney melodramatically described as “the dark side.”

It is the public who gets left in the dark about this, so as to protect the system.

The “dark side” of international combat or security operations, such as political assassinations, kidnappings, use of torture, or secret and illegal sequestrations or imprisonments, has on the whole seemed to have produced more American national humiliation, disrepute,and political blowback than advantage. It also is not entirely new; it is a characteristic of bureaucracies. ...............................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/secret_intelligence_court_a_precursor_to_tyranny_20130710/?ln

[xchrom]

1. du rec.

[Savannahmann]

2. The single greatest line I've read in a very long time.

American secret court operates behind a screen of what seem to be guilty obfuscations

Need I say more?

[kentuck]

4. Or just another "pass the buck" by our House and Senate...

Because they would rather someone else make the decisions about what is best for we, the people.

By the way, here is the pop-up ad on my page:
http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/simgad/6342945519833177254

[Jackpine Radical]

5. We are all

boiled frogs now.

[Catherina]

23. Yes. This " If you do not use your eyes to see, you will need them to weep. Jean-Paul Sartre" n/t

[Laelth]

3. k&r for exposure. n/t

-Laelth

[Waiting For Everyman]

6. It sure is. (in response to the title)

Very well written.

[99Forever]

7. Truth to power.

Wake up America, anyone with a brain KNOWS where this shit is leading.

[Recursion]

8. The court that Carter and Ted Kennedy set up 35 years ago?

It must be a very slow-acting tyranny

[cali]

12. there have been changes.

http://www.pri.org/stories/politics-society/government/recent-rulings-expand-power-of-secretive-fisa-court-14335.html

[RufusTFirefly]

20. From "They Thought They Were Free," p. 166

"What happened here was the gradual habituation of the people, little by little, to being governed by surprise; to receiving decisions deliberated in secret; to believing that the situation was so complicated that the government had to act on information which the people could not understand, or so dangerous that, even if the people could not understand it, it could not be released because of national security."

[Hubert Flottz]

9. Great Post and I couldn't agree more.

Our government has long since crossed the Rubicon...the founders would be mortified.

America looks more like prewar Germany or post war Eastern Europe every day.

Our voices no longer mean anything to OUR government.

Not much difference between the "World Order" of 1939 and Poppy Bush and friend's "New World Order." Same shit, different assholes.

[Civilization2]

10. I am glad to see a sputtering of real criticism of the growing "dark side" corporate/police-state.

There have been an encouraging number of eloquent articles, posted here and elsewhere, applying logic and reason to the "terror" based fear that supports the rise of the secret-dark anti-democracy movement.

More please!

[N_E_1 for Tennis]

11. K&R

[WovenGems]

13. What a joke

Tyranny huh? Drama much????

[zeemike]

16. That's what the good Germans said.

How did that turn out for them?

[WovenGems]

21. Really?

If you see any parallels to 1930's Germany it comes from the TeaParty and not the NSA. The NSA does not listen to or read communications. The system ain't got a bit of magic in it. But people are good at imagining things.

[zeemike]

24. Yes really.....but by the 30s it was too late.

The Nazi party was not taken seriously in the early days...they thought Hitler was just a joke and could never come to power...but he did and never got more than 35% pf the vote.
And it does not come from the Tea Party....they are quite comfortable with the surveillance state as most authoritarians are...you don't see them protesting it.

[Dustlawyer]

14. We have a shadow government that owns most of our politicians at both the Federal and state levels.

We need to march in the streets and demand publicly funded elections! After a HUGE battle to take back control of our government, should we win we would then have to break up the big banks, insurance companies, media conglomerates and rebuild our political system to assure that Representative Democracy can survive!

[Old Codger]

15. Call it by any name

But the name that comes to mid for me is "Star Chamber"



Advantages of the Star Chamber:
The Star Chamber offered expeditious resolution to legal conflicts. It was popular during the reigns of the Tudor kings, because it was able to enforce the law when other courts were plagued by corruption, and because it could offer satisfactory remedies when the common law restricted punishment or failed to address specific infractions. Under the Tudors, Star Chamber hearings were public matters, so proceedings and verdicts were subject to inspection and ridicule, which led most judges to act with reason and justice.
Disadvantages of the Star Chamber:
The concentration of such power in an autonomous group, not subject to the checks and balances of common law, made abuses not only possible but likely, especially when its proceedings were not open to the public. Although the death sentence was forbidden, there were no restrictions on imprisonment, and an innocent man could spend his life in jail.
The End of the Star Chamber:
In the seventeenth century, the proceedings of the Star Chamber evolved from above-board and fairly just to secretive and corrupt. James I and his son, Charles I, used the court to enforce their royal proclamations, holding sessions in secret and allowing no appeal. Charles used the court as a substitute for Parliament when he tried to govern without calling the legislature into session. Resentment grew as the Stuart kings used the court to prosecute nobility, who would otherwise not be subject to prosecution in common-law courts.

[Octafish]

17. Must-read.

Pfaff has been on to the warmongering gangsters since Poppy was just a secret policestateman.

[truebluegreen]

18. This is what I think is most important:

“...dark side” of international combat or security operations, such as political assassinations, kidnappings, use of torture, or secret and illegal sequestrations or imprisonments, has on the whole seemed to have produced more American national humiliation, disrepute,and political blowback than advantage.

All this BS about "keeping us safe" is just that, imho. I understand the necessity for spying on the enemy in a war, like WWII. I understand that the "Cold War" with the Soviet Union enshrined spying as a necessity for most of our lives. But that war was over almost 25 years ago and we are still doing it.

In fact we are expanding it. It is insane. The odds of being killed by a terrorist in this country are 20 million to one. I submit they are only that high because of the crap we do around the world to keep ourselves "safe". It is a racket, counter-productive and horrifically dangerous.

It is paranoid "crackpot realism"....

http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=798

http://www.counterpunch.org/2006/07/31/the-triumph-of-crackpot-realism/

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2013/06/20136161233436695.html

[Uncle Joe]

19. When the justice system goes rogue, this reminds me of the final scene

Why should this be so in an American nation historically and constitutionally committed to the rule of law? In which most of the temporarily appointed officers of government in such an administration as that of President Barack Obama (sometime lecturer in constitutional law at the University of Chicago), and many members of the permanent civil service of American government, are usually lawyers, while lawyers make up the single largest professional group in the United States Congress, as well as in a great many state legislatures.

It is astonishing that no one or no group of these professionals, sworn to defend the American Constitution, seems to have felt an obligation to make public the existence of this secret system of law courts. Perhaps the proliferation of lawyers simply promotes the number and ingenuity of acts of lawlessness in government. Criminal gang leaders always need their consigliere, according to novels and movies.

The existence of this secret system in the American justice establishment lacks both effective oversight and institutionalized contestation. It judges itself, which means that it does what governmental superiors want of it, or pursues its own inherent dispositions, which, as in nearly all matters concerning power, means aggrandizement and institutionalization.

The effect of this is sinister and subversive of justice and democracy since this court has been created to deal secretly with large issues of American foreign policy and internal security.

from "Judgement At Nuremberg."

Thanks for the thread, marmar.

[1-Old-Man]

22. I don't see the secret Court as a precursor, I see it as entrenchment

Secret Law
Secret Court
Secret Police
Secret Weapons
Secret Military Operations
Secret Surveillance
Secret Kill Lists
Secret Executive Orders
and Secret software reports back to us the results of our elections.

[indepat]

25. The government of, by, and for the people learning from the masters of totalitarian secret

police states, Nazi Germany and Bolshevik Russia. What could possibly go wrong?

[cantbeserious]

26. Thank You For Sharing - Very Illuminating

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