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Sen. Rand Paul Speaks on the Senate Floor on Defense Authorization Act - 11/29/11
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Sen. Rand Paul Speaks on the Senate Floor on Defense Authorization Act - 11/29/11
Sen. Rand Paul Defends American Citizens Against Indefinite Detainment
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Sen. Rand Paul Defends American Citizens Against Indefinite Detainment
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Having More Than 7 Days Of Food Makes You A Suspected Terrorist
Sen. Rand Paul Defends Constitutional Liberties
Nov 29, 2011
WASHINGTON, D.C. - Today in the U.S. Senate, Sen. Rand Paul took to the Senate floor as well as recorded a video message against the indefinite detention of United States citizens in defense of constitutional liberties.
TRANSCRIPT:
James Madison, father of the Constitution, warned, "The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become instruments of tyranny at home."
Abraham Lincoln had similar thoughts, saying "America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter, and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
During war there has always been a struggle to preserve Constitutional liberties. During the Civil War the right of habeas corpus was suspended. Newspapers were closed down. Fortunately, these rights were restored after the war.
The discussion now to suspend certain rights to due process is especially worrisome given that we are engaged in a war that appears to have no end. Rights given up now cannot be expected to be returned. So, we do well to contemplate the diminishment of due process, knowing that the rights we lose now may never be restored.
My well-intentioned colleagues ignore these admonitions in defending provisions of the Defense bill pertaining to detaining suspected terrorists.
Their legislation would arm the military with the authority to detain indefinitely - without due process or trial - SUSPECTED al-Qaida sympathizers, including American citizens apprehended on American soil.
I want to repeat that. We are talking about people who are merely SUSPECTED of a crime. And we are talking about American citizens.
If these provisions pass, we could see American citizens being sent to Guantanamo Bay.
This should be alarming to everyone watching this proceeding today. Because it puts every single American citizen at risk.
There is one thing and one thing only protecting innocent Americans from being detained at will at the hands of a too-powerful state - our constitution, and the checks we put on government power. Should we err today and remove some of the most important checks on state power in the name of fighting terrorism, well, then the terrorists have won.
Detaining citizens without a court trial is not American. In fact, this alarming arbitrary power is reminiscent of Egypt's "permanent" Emergency Law authorizing preventive indefinite detention, a law that provoked ordinary Egyptians to tear their country apart last spring and risk their lives to fight.
Recently, Justice Scalia affirmed this idea in his dissent in the Hamdi case, saying:
"Where the Government accuses a citizen of waging war against it, our constitutional tradition has been to prosecute him in federal court for treason or some other crime."
He concluded: "The very core of liberty secured by our Anglo-Saxon system of separated powers has been freedom from indefinite imprisonment at the will of the Executive
Justice Scalia was, as he often does, following the wisdom of our founding fathers.
As Franklin wisely warned against, we should not attempt to trade liberty for security, if we do we may end up with neither. And really, what security does this indefinite detention of Americans give us?
The first and flawed premise, both here and in the badly misname patriot act, is that our pre-911 police powers were insufficient to combat international terrorism.
This is simply not borne out by the facts.
Congress long ago made it a crime to provide, or to conspire to provide, material assistance to al-Qaida or other listed foreign terrorist organizations. Material assistance includes virtually anything of value - including legal or political advice, education, books, newspapers, lodging or otherwise. The Supreme Court sustained the constitutionality of the sweeping prohibition.
And this is not simply about catching terrorists after the fact, as others may insinuate. The material assistance law is in fact forward-looking and preventive, not backward-looking and reactive.
Al-Qaida adherents may be detained, prosecuted and convicted for conspiring to violate the material assistance prohibition before any injury to an American. Jose Padilla, for instance, was convicted and sentenced to 17 years in prison for conspiring to provide material assistance to al-Qaida. The criminal law does not require dead bodies on the sidewalk before it strikes at international terrorism.
Indeed, conspiracy law and prosecutions in civilian courts have been routinely invoked after 9/11, to thwart embryonic international terrorism.
Michael Chertoff, then head of the Justice Department's Criminal Division and later Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, testified shortly after 9/11 to the Senate Judiciary Committee. He underscored that, "the history of this government in prosecuting terrorists in domestic courts has been one of unmitigated success and one in which the judges have done a superb job of managing the courtroom and not compromising our concerns about security and our concerns about classified information."
Moreover, there is no evidence that criminal justice procedures have frustrated intelligence collection about international terrorism. Suspected terrorists have repeatedly waived both the right to an attorney and the right to silence. Additionally, Miranda warnings are not required at all when the purpose of interrogation is public safety.
The authors of this bill errantly maintain that the bill would not enlarge the universe of detainees eligible for indefinite detention in military custody. This is simply not the case.
The current Authorization for Use of Military Force confines the universe to persons implicated in the 9/11 attacks or who harbored those who were.
The detainee provision would expand the universe to include any person said to be "part of" or "substantially" supportive of al-Qaida or Taliban.
These terms are dangerously vague. More than a decade after 9/11, the military has been unable to define the earmarks of membership in or affiliation to either organization.
Some say that to prevent another 9/11 attack we must fight terrorism with a war mentality and not treat potential attackers as criminals. For combatants captured on the battlefield, I tend to agree.
But 9/11 didn't succeed because we granted the terrorists due process. 9/11 attacks did not succeed because al-Qaida was so formidable, but because of human error. The Defense Department withheld intelligence from the FBI. No warrants were denied. The warrants weren't requested. The FBI failed to act on repeated pleas from its field agents, agents who were in possession of laptop with information that might have prevented 9/11.
These are not failures of laws. They are not failures of procedures. They are failures of imperfect men and women in bloated bureaucracies. No amount of liberty sacrificed on the altar of the state will ever change that.
A full accounting of our human failures by 9/11 Commission would have proven that enhanced cooperation between law enforcement and the intelligence community, not military action or vandalizing liberty at home, is the key to thwarting international terrorism.
We should not have to sacrifice our Liberty to be safe. We cannot allow the rules to change to fit the whims of those in power. The rules, the binding chains of our constitution were written so that it didn't MATTER who was in power. In fact, they were written to protect us and our rights, from those who hold power without good intentions. We are not governed by saints or angels. Our constitution allows for that. This bill does not.
Finally, the detainee provisions of the defense authorization bill do another grave harm to freedom: they imply perpetual war for the first time in the history of the United States.
No benchmarks are established that would ever terminate the conflict with al-Qaida, Taliban, or other foreign terrorist organizations. In fact, this bill explicitly states that no part of this bill is to imply any restriction on the authorization to use force. No congressional review is allowed or imagined. No victory is defined. No peace is possible if victory is made impossible by definition.
To disavow the idea that the exclusive congressional power to declare war somehow allows the President to continue war forever at whim, I will also be offering an amendment this week to de-authorize the Iraq War.
Use of military force must begin in congress with its authorization. And it should end in congress with its termination. Congress should not be ignored or an afterthought in these matters, and must reclaim its constitutional duties.
The detainee provisions ask us to give up consist rights as an emergency or exigency but make no room for expiration. Perhaps the Emergency Law in Egypt began with good intentions in 1958 but somehow it came to be hated, to be despised with such vigor that protesters chose to burn themselves alive rather allow continuation of indefinite detention.
Today, someone must stand up for the rights of the American people to be free. We must stand up to tyranny disguised as security. I urge my colleagues to reject the language on detainees in this bill, and to support amendments to strip these provisions from the defense bill.
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S 1867, Indefinite detention, habeas corpus, posse comitatus, Enemy Belligerent Interrogation Detention Prosecution Act, judge napolitano, freedom watch, john mccain, carl levin, lindsey graham, rand paul, military, arbitrary arrest, us citizen, battlefield, prepper, food storage, weatherproof ammo, suspected terrorist,
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ATTENTION PREPPERS - Having More Than 7 Days Of Food Makes You A Suspected Terrorist
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ATTENTION PREPPERS - Having More Than 7 Days Of Food Makes You A Suspected Terrorist
MORE INFO - http://paul.senate.gov/?p=press_release&id=390
S 1867, Indefinite detention, habeas corpus, posse comitatus, Enemy Belligerent Interrogation Detention Prosecution Act, judge napolitano, freedom watch, john mccain, carl levin, lindsey graham, rand paul, military, arbitrary arrest, us citizen, battlefield, prepper, food storage, weatherproof ammo, suspected terrorist,
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Occupy Christmas!!!
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Occupy Christmas!!!
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Bird Flu: Scientists Develop New Strain Of H5N1, Avian Influenza, That Could Kill Millions
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Bird Flu: Scientists Develop New Strain Of H5N1, Avian Influenza, That Could Kill Millions
It sounds like the setup for a Hollywood thriller: scientists in a lab create a virus as contagious as the flu that kills half of those infected. We're safe as long as the virus remains locked up, but if it escapes or gets into the hands of bioterrorists, it has the potential to become a pandemic and kill millions around the world.
But this isn't the latest summer blockbuster. According to New Scientist magazine, researchers in the Netherlands studying H5N1 -- commonly referred to as the bird flu or avian influenza -- have created a strain of the virus that's easily passed between mammals, and it's just as lethal as the original virus.
According to the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, the H5N1 virus has infected more than 500 people in more than a dozen countries and is known to kill around 60 percent of those that become infected.
Ron Fouchier, a researcher at the Erasmus Medical Centre in Rotterdam, led the team that successfully created the mutation. Fouchier presented the findings at a conference in Malta in September and, according to NPR, is now seeking publication of his results.
But some in the scientific community are debating whether or not that's a good idea.
"It's just a bad idea for scientists to turn a lethal virus into a lethal and highly contagious virus. And it's a second bad idea for them to publish how they did it so others can copy it," Dr. Thomas Inglesby, the director and CEO of the Center for Biosecurity at the University of Pittsburgh, told NPR.
Others, like Michael Osterholm, the director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP), told Science magazine that "These studies are very important."
The study is currently being reviewed by the U.S. National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity, a "federal advisory committee chartered to provide advice, guidance, and leadership regarding...biological research with legitimate scientific purpose that may be misused to pose a biologic threat to public health and/or national security."
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Cases reveal how government undermining rights of parents
When your child belongs to the state
What parent hasn't wondered at some point, "Are those really my kids?"
Now comes a combination of state, federal and international organizations to tell fathers and mothers that, no, they aren't. At least not entirely.
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Does your child belong to state?
Cases reveal how government undermining rights of parents
What parent hasn't wondered at some point, "Are those really my kids?"
Now comes a combination of state, federal and international organizations to tell fathers and mothers that, no, they aren't. At least not entirely.
That's according to a new project from the Homeschool Legal Defense Association, a half-hour docudrama, "Overruled: Government Invasion of Your Parental Rights," produced by its affiliate organization, ParentalRights.org, in an effort to gain support for a Parental Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
ParentalRights.Org President Michael Farris, who also is co-founder and general counsel of HSLDA, contends in the docudrama that America needs a wake-up call to action against governmental control of their children before it's too late.
"The vast majority of parents and adults in general," Farris said, "think that the normal, traditional rules of parents' rights are still in place … that parents can make decisions for their children in the areas of education, their upbringing, medical care, the whole gamut of parental decision making."
But author, family advocate and expert for the Heritage Foundation Rebecca Hagelin asserts in the video that even though most "believe that moms and dads should be able to parent as they see fit … what they don't understand is there's no legal right that allows them to do so."
In fact, parental rights were so well established at the time the U.S. was launched, the Founders did not specifically recognize them in the Constitution.
For do's and don't's, one has to shuffle through bundles of U.S. Supreme Court decisions to find the constantly evolving standard on such rights, which the video states is the core of the current problem.
"If we're going to protect parents' rights once and for all, we've got to put it into the text of the Constitution itself," Farris says. "The Parental Rights Amendment is an effort to put the traditional legal standards of 'parents can make decisions for their kids' in the actual text of the Constitution. There are three sections that do three simple things: the first section says 'Parents have the fundamental right to make decisions for their kids.' The second section says, 'If the government is going to try and invade your rights, they've got to have clear evidence to do so.' And the third section says, 'International law, stay out.' Whenever the government says, 'We're going to make the decision for you,' with the Parents Rights Amendment, we're saying 'No, we'll make the decision as a family.'"
Many believe the current interpretation of parental rights is put in the wrong hands.
"For the first time in American history, the majority of the Supreme Court no longer treats a parent's right to control and direct the upbringing of their child as a fundamental liberty," said William Wagner, former U.S. magistrate judge. "We now have a new situation where government itself becomes the standard and whoever's in power gets to say what your liberty is."
And this warrants concern for former Michigan congressman Peter Hoesktra:
"There are people each and every day who are scheming to take away parental rights to start to destroy the family structure," he said. "What we've seen over the last 40 to 50 years is continual legislative and judicial overreach going into areas that we never thought they would reach into."
This is seen as the government's intrusion inside the family's boundaries.
"The government has a role, but it's not the role of a partner ‒ it's the role of a backstop," Farris said. "If you abuse your kids, if you neglect your kids, and they have evidence of that, the government moves in, and they should move in under those circumstances. But when they treat all of us as if we're child abusers, that's absolutely outrageous and we can't stand for it."
This overstepping of the states' role can be traced to oppressive European regimes of the not-so-distant past.
"Karl Marx said that in order to establish a perfect socialist state, you have to destroy the family," said family psychologist and author John Rosemond. "You have to substitute the government and its authority for parental authority in the rearing of children."
One of the vehicles to usher in socialist policies over children is an international treaty known as the United Nations Convention of the Rights of the Child, or the UNCRC. Adopted by the UN in 1989, this essentially says that "anytime there is a conflict or dispute between a child and a parent, a government bureaucrat gets to decide what is in the best interest of the child instead of the parent deciding what is in the best interest of the child," said Wagner.
ParentalRights.org showcases three dramatizations of real-life situations concerning the government's excessive intervention in children’s lives.
One of the docudrama's real-life stories re-enacts a UNCRC-implemented experiment in Washington State, where a state law was passed to enforce core provisions of the treaty ‒ that a child's wishes must be adhered to as a standard.
It portrays Farris in 1984 defending parents' rights to take their 13-year-old son to church. After being counseled by officials at school who explained the children's rights provisions under the new law, the teen told a school counselor that he didn't like his parents taking him to church three times a week and was tired of them telling him what to do.
"There was nothing unusual about the church," Farris shared about his case. "The counselor was outraged that parents made a child go to church that often … It was a Friday and they thought that it was such an egregious situation that they did an emergency removal of this boy. They are not supposed to do an emergency removal of a child unless there was a clear and present danger or some real harm … We'll it's Friday, and Sunday is coming … he's going to have to go to church twice. The social worker just took the child directly from the school and put him in foster care for the weekend. They just made the decision on their own. They didn't go to court, they didn't get the police, they didn't get the parents' permission. They just did it. Then they notified the parents afterward that they removed the boy."
The judge ruled that he thought once-a-week church attendance was sufficient for a 13-year-old boy, and if the parents disagreed with the ruling, child protective services would retain custody of their son.
"The two core principles of this Washington State law are almost word for word the core principles of the CRC," Farris explained. "Washington State subsequently changed them because of so many bad cases like this one. We don't have to guess how this treaty would work … we know how this treaty would work, and it's terrible."
But the UNCRC doesn't stop there.
"One of the things the Convention of the Rights of the Child states is that children have the right to access any media or any information that they want. It also means that a predator has the ability to access children through the Internet and the parents have no right to protect their children," former President of Concerned Women of America Wendy Wright stated in the video. "So this treaty that purports to give rights to children really makes children more vulnerable to being exploited and abused."
Here's a look at the results in some of the nations that adopted the UNCRC:
- Holland – children start sex education at four years of age
- Sweden – homeschooling is illegal and those who do it face criminal charges and risk having their children removed from their homes
- Belgium – doctors can terminate the lives of babies under a year old if they feel the child is somehow disabled or deficient ‒ in 16 percent of the cases, they didn't even ask for the parents’ consent.
The U.S. is the only nation that hasn't ratified the treaty, but the consequences of signing it would be much more severe than for other nations.
"The rest of the world doesn't treat treaties the way we do," Farris explained. "They're just making political promises. Our Supremacy Clause says that a treaty becomes a part of the supreme law of the land and overrides state laws and overrides state constitutions. Almost all of American law of parenting kids is state law, so this treaty becomes supreme over virtually all American law of parents and children."
Bill Clinton approved the treaty during his administration, so all it takes is two-thirds of the U.S. Senate to approve it in order for it to become a part of the supreme law of the land.
Another real-life scenario in the video depicts parents taking their 13-year-old son to the doctor for chest pains after he passed out, only to be told by the physician that he needed to get permission from the child before going over drug results with them.
"I never thought that my rights as a parent could be taken away from me," said the father, Sid Daugherty. "I cannot get medical records to my son without his permission because the law says so. How could somebody tell me that the law says that a parent cannot get medical records over my own child? It's not right. It's outrageous. It's offensive to think that that would go on."
The Parkers, of Massachusetts, were just as outraged when their five-year-old son came home from school in 2005 with a school-issued book bag filled with materials to get him on board with the homosexual agenda.
"I'm realizing that this material had somehow been deemed appropriate to even be placed in my five-year-old's hands," Tonia Parker said after discovering the book "My Two Dads" in her son's school bag. "It was a book meant to introduce and normalize homosexuality."
"This is about introducing to my child sexuality issues at a very early age ‒ even before he's introduced by his parents," the father, David Parker, commented. "I just could not believe that they were doing this in kindergarten."
Once they shared their concern with the school principal, they were directed to the Gay, Lesbian, Straight Educational Network (GLSEN) workshop entitled "How and Why to Talk to Your Children about Diversity."
After attending the meeting promoting homosexuality, the parents requested notification in advance before their child was subjected to instruction on homosexuality so they would have the opportunity to opt him out. This was met with a deceptive reply from the principal, who said it looked like something could be worked out with the superintendent.
The father could not believe the lengths through which he had to go to protect his son.
"Who are we talking about here? We're talking about my child," he said. "I'm not talking about the rest of the school. We didn't say 'Never do this.' We said, 'When you do do it ‒ as they stated they would ‒ notify us first,' and we want the option to opt out if we don't think he's ready for that. What I didn't realize was they weren't actually taking that extra time to accommodate; they were formulating another plan. They were keeping me there by leaving me with this promise and calling the police."
Eventually, the principal had the father arrested for not cooperating with the sex education indoctrination program.
"When I was led out and put in the police car, I thought to myself, 'How far are they willing to go to deny us our parental rights?'" the father shared. "Any form of authority which undermines the interaction and the guidance of a parent for their child has to be stopped. Parents need some form of protection because this type of thing is happening more and more and more."
"We have to ask ourselves the question, 'What are our parental rights worth to us?'" ParentalRights.org Board Chairman Scott Sharpen asks viewers. "How much are we willing to sacrifice, how much are we willing to invest to make sure that today and for the future those rights that we hold so dear, so that we can direct the upbringing and education and raising our kids how we see fit?"
He said to protect parents' rights, one can:
- Sign the petition on ParentalRights.org in support of the Parental Rights Amendment
- Tell others about the amendment
- Write your local papers
- Contact your congressman
- Support the work of ParentalRights.org.
According to a 2010 Zogby Poll of more than 2,000 Americans, a vast majority is already on board, as 93 percent support parental rights and agree with its definition ‒ that parents have the right to direct the upbringing of their children as they see fit.
But the amendment is considered to be much more than just a means of protecting parents’ rights.
"The Parents Rights Amendment is really the last bulwark against the implementation of socialism in America." Rosemond said.
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