Top 10 Signs of the Impending U.S. Police State

[jose]

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.p...articleId=2574

1. The Internet Clampdown
One saving grace of alternative media in this age of unfettered corporate conglomeration has been the internet. While the masses are spoon-fed predigested news on TV and in mainstream print publications, the truth-seeking individual still has access to a broad array of investigative reporting and political opinion via the world-wide web. Of course, it was only a matter of time before the government moved to patch up this crack in the sky.

Attempts to regulate and filter internet content are intensifying lately, coming both from telecommunications corporations (who are gearing up to pass legislation transferring ownership and regulation of the internet to themselves), and the Pentagon (which issued an "Information Operations Roadmap" in 2003, signed by Donald Rumsfeld, which outlines tactics such as network attacks and acknowledges, without suggesting a remedy, that US propaganda planted in other countries has easily found its way to Americans via the internet). One obvious tactic clearing the way for stifling regulation of internet content is the growing media frenzy over child pornography and "internet predators," which will surely lead to legislation that by far exceeds in its purview what is needed to fight such threats.

2. "The Long War"

This little piece of clumsy marketing died off quickly, but it gave away what many already suspected: the War on Terror will never end, nor is it meant to end. It is designed to be perpetual. As with the War on Drugs, it outlines a goal that can never be fully attained -- as long as there are pissed off people and explosives. The Long War will eternally justify what are ostensibly temporary measures: suspension of civil liberties, military expansion, domestic spying, massive deficit spending and the like. This short-lived moniker told us all, "get used to it. Things aren't going to change any time soon."

3. The USA PATRIOT Act

[Saint Vern]

Quote by: jose 1. The Internet Clampdown One saving grace of alternative media in this age of unfettered corporate conglomeration has been the internet. While the masses are spoon-fed predigested news on TV and in mainstream print publications, the truth-seeking individual still has access to a broad array of investigative reporting and political opinion via the world-wide web. Of course, it was only a matter of time before the government moved to patch up this crack in the sky. Attempts to regulate and filter internet content are intensifying lately, coming both from telecommunications corporations (who are gearing up to pass legislation transferring ownership and regulation of the internet to themselves), and the Pentagon (which issued an "Information Operations Roadmap" in 2003, signed by Donald Rumsfeld, which outlines tactics such as network attacks and acknowledges, without suggesting a remedy, that US propaganda planted in other countries has easily found its way to Americans via the internet). One obvious tactic clearing the way for stifling regulation of internet content is the growing media frenzy over child pornography and "internet predators," which will surely lead to legislation that by far exceeds in its purview what is needed to fight such threats. 2. "The Long War" This little piece of clumsy marketing died off quickly, but it gave away what many already suspected: the War on Terror will never end, nor is it meant to end. It is designed to be perpetual. As with the War on Drugs, it outlines a goal that can never be fully attained -- as long as there are pissed off people and explosives. The Long War will eternally justify what are ostensibly temporary measures: suspension of civil liberties, military expansion, domestic spying, massive deficit spending and the like. This short-lived moniker told us all, "get used to it. Things aren't going to change any time soon." 3. The USA PATRIOT Act

Banks are reportedly filing suspicious activity reports on customers. When the federal government launches an investigation into that person's activities and source of funds, it has to freeze the assets of the person under investigation. The result is that until federal agents come to the conclusion, as they are in many cases, that the person being investigated was reported by his bank in error, that person's life is turned upside down while the feds snoop into his affairs to make sure that the money he claims to be from a year-end bonus or willed to him from his grandmother's estate is actually true.

Let's take another example. On October 1, 1997 President Clinton announced the establishment of the National Directory of New Hires, a massive federal database that would contain personal information on every American citizen starting a job, whether full or part time, after the establishment of that database. Employers would be forced to report that personal information to the government upon hiring a new employee. The idea behind the database was to catch those parents who owe child support.

At the time, an official for the Department of Health & Human Services called it "the largest effort on the part of the federal government to collect personal information on its citizens." The Los Angeles Times reported two years after the establishment of the database that 20 per cent of the information being entered in to the database was done in error. The result was, and continues to be, that people are receiving bills claiming that they owe child support for children who aren't theirs and even worse, until they "pay up", the government freezes their assets and garnishes their wages to ensure that they pay, when all along, they are innocent of the crime which the government is accusing them of having committed.

These of course are just a couple of examples but they illustrate a larger point. Namely we in the U.S. have gone from having a government that merely maintains order and encourages good to one that controlling its citizens and strong-arming them into doing it's will, which it defines as "good."

Two years ago many of us privacy advocates warned Americans across the country that if this [Clinton] Administration is not reined in, then our form of government will be changed before our very eyes. I would submit to you today that there is enough evidence to suggest that that warning has now become a reality

[US Independent]

As long as Americans are allowed to have guns and weapons the US will never become a police state. Piss enough people off and make enough people angry and people will respond with violence. I don't see the forecoming of a police state. What I do see coming is a detrimental effect on democracy. It's people that bring ideas of fascism and "police states" that bring democracy to its knees. These people are radicals that bring fear and despair to other people. It gives people the idea that gov't is unreliable and with that idea is born an idea that gov't, no matter if it is controlled by the people, is evil. The Patriot Act will die with the Bush administration. Can you name an incident where the Patriot Act has negatively affected you directly or someone close to you directly? I doubt that you can. I have faith in my fellow country man to keep the US gov't a free country where the people lead the gov't not the other way around.