Brown Shirt Alert! "United States Secret Service Uniformed Division"

[IndyOp]

I hadn't fully absorbed what this meant until I read Roberts -->

January 24, 2006
Unfathomed Dangers in PATRIOT Act Reauthorization by Paul Craig Roberts

A provision in the "PATRIOT Act" creates a new federal police force with the power to violate the Bill of Rights. You might think that this cannot be true, as you have not read about it in newspapers or heard it discussed by talking heads on TV.

Go to House Report 109-333 USA PATRIOT Improvement and Reauthorization Act of 2005 and check it out for yourself. Sec. 605 reads: "There is hereby created and established a permanent police force, to be known as the 'United States Secret Service Uniformed Division.' This new federal police force is "subject to the supervision of the Secretary of Homeland Security." The new police are empowered to "make arrests without warrant for any offense against the United States committed in their presence, or for any felony cognizable under the laws of the United States if they have reasonable grounds to believe that the person to be arrested has committed or is committing such felony."

You can bet the Alito/Roberts court will rule that it is whatever the executive branch says.... The obvious purpose of the act is to prevent demonstrations at Bush/Cheney events. However, nothing in the language limits the police powers from being used only in this way. Like every law in the U.S., this law also will be expansively interpreted and abused. It has dire implications for freedom of association and First Amendment rights. We can take for granted that the new federal police will be used to suppress dissent and to break up opposition. The Brownshirts are now arming themselves with a Gestapo.

<snip>

In Nazi Germany, did no one but Jews have anything to fear from the Gestapo?

By Stalin's time, Lenin and Trotsky had eliminated all members of the "oppressor class," but that did not stop Stalin from sending millions of "enemies of the people" to the Gulag.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

1. This has already been debunked...

...in two other threads today:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x2388126

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x2384724

[onenote]

2. thanks yibbehoppa

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

5. I already find this story to be a perfect example...

...of the trouble you run into with getting your news from blogs. I'm not suggesting that blogs aren't a good thing, but they certainly have their own problems and are simply one part of a balanced information diet.

[Danieljay]

3. We're screwed...plain and simple. "reasonable grounds" what happened `

the fourth amendments "Probable Cause". We no longer need probable cause, hey, if its "reasonable", we can arrest you without warrant.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

6. Probable Cause is for searches.

And it's never been hard for the police to arrest you without a warrant if they think you're commiting a crime.

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

4. There already is a USSS Uniformed Division,

has been for years.

They guard embassy gates, and other such places... white house... et cetera

[ret5hd]

7. Does anyone else find it hilarious that...

the SECRET service has a UNIFORMED division? I know i do.

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

9. Even the "secret" part is less-than-secret

IMHO

[mom cat]

13. But this is a whole new extention of their powers...

[mod mom]

8. MCM's book Fooled Agian gives good first hand accounts. A sad

chapter in our history.

[rogerashton]

10. Odd - perhaps a different guy with the same name --

but the Paul Craig Roberts I knew of was a RW pundit a few years back.

[Marleyb]

11. this is an expansion of their powers

they use to be under control of the treasury dept...now it will be under control of homeland security. Now they can commandeer local police officers, arrest people for looking funny etc.

Anyone who believes this is an innocent change in bureaucracy just hasn't been paying attention.

Many naïve Americans will write to me to explain that this new provision in the reauthorization of the "PATRIOT Act" is necessary to protect the president and other high officials from terrorists or from harm at the hands of angry demonstrators: "No one else will have anything to fear." Some will accuse me of being an alarmist, and others will say that it is unpatriotic to doubt the law's good intentions.

Americans will write such nonsense despite the fact that the president and foreign dignitaries are already provided superb protection by the Secret Service. The naïve will not comprehend that the president cannot be endangered by demonstrators at SENS at which the president is not present. For many Americans, the light refuses to turn on.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

12. Right.

Except that nobody has yet been able to explain specifically how their powers have expanded, and what the consequences are in terms other than hyperbole.

[Moderator]

14. locking

Links to anti-war.com are not permitted.