Sabtu, 14 April 2012

Police State Updates.....

http://democraticwatchdog.blogspot.com/2012/03/criminalization-of-protest-say-goodbye.html


The Criminalization of Protest: Say Goodbye To Free Speech in America


A new bill, HR 347, the Federal Restricted Buildings and Grounds Improvement Act of 2011, also known as the “Trespassing Bill,” is soon to be signed into law by President Obama. This bill effectively criminalizes protest and will hurt protest groups and movements such as Occupy quite hard.


The bill as states that anyone who knowingly “enters or remains in any restricted building or grounds without lawful authority to do so” with the “intent to impede or disrupt the orderly conduct of Government business or official functions, engages in disorderly or disruptive conduct in or [in] proximity to, any restricted building or grounds” or “impedes or disrupts the orderly conduct of Government business or official functions” will be punished with a fine or “or imprisonment for not more than 10 years, or both.” (emphasis added)

There are already many problems with the bill as it does not attempt to define what “imped[ing] or disrupt[ing] the orderly conduct of government business or official functions” is, nor does it specify what “government business” is or what an “official function” is. This vagueness will allow for the US government to effectively stifle protest and free speech, thus criminalizing such actions like the upcoming Occupy Chicago anti-NATO/G-8 protests. In addition to this, such a law will make it impossible for Americans to exercise their First Amendment rights when “government business” is being attended to or “official functions” are occurring.Unsurprisingly, only three people voted against the measure: Paul Broun (R-GA-10), Justin Amash (R-MI-3) and Ron Paul (R-TX-14). This law would allow federal law enforcement “to bring these charges against Americans engaged in political protests anywhere in the country, and violators will face criminal penalties that include imprisonment for up to 10 years.” HR 347 will is ripe for abuse, as the NYPD has, as of recent, assumed the notion that taking photos and videotaping is a form of disorderly conduct. 

The fact that only three people in the House, all Republicans and absolutely no Democrats (see the voting list here), only shows just how both parties are just two sides of the same coin.

This law comes at the heels of the US government having debated over whether or not to indefinitely detain US citizens and Attorney General Eric Holder- the Obama administration’s version of John Yoo, arguing that the President can assassinate US citizens without providing any evidence whatsoever to anyone.

Free speech may very well soon be nothing but a distant relic of the past.
and......

http://rt.com/usa/news/trespass-bill-obama-secret-227/

Only days after clearing Congress, US President Barack Obama signed his name to H.R. 347 on Thursday, officially making it a federal offense to cause a disturbance at certain political events — essentially criminalizing protest in the States.
RT broke the news last month that H.R. 347, the Federal Restricted Buildings and Grounds Improvement Act of 2011, had overwhelmingly passed the US House of Representatives after only three lawmakers voted against it. On Thursday this week, President Obama inked his name to the legislation and authorized the government to start enforcing a law that has many Americans concerned over how the bill could bury the rights to assemble and protest as guaranteed in the US Constitution.
Under H.R. 347, which has more commonly been labeled the Trespass Bill by Congress, knowingly entering a restricted area that is under the jurisdiction of Secret Service protection can garner an arrest. The law is actually only a slight change to earlier legislation that made it an offense to knowingly and willfully commit such a crime. Under the Trespass Bill’s latest language chance, however, someone could end up in law enforcement custody for entering an area that they don’t realize is Secret Service protected and “engages in disorderly or disruptive conduct” or “impede[s] or disrupt[s] the orderly conduct of Government business or official functions.”
The Secret Service serves as the police that protects not just current and former American presidents, but are also dispatched to monitor special events of national significance, a category with a broad cast of qualifiers. In the past, sporting events, state funerals, inaugural addresses and NATO and G-8 Summits have been designated as such by the US Department of Homeland Security, the division that decides when and where the Secret Service are needed outside of their normal coverage.
Mara Verheyden-Hilliard of the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund tells the International Business Times that the Trespass Bill in its current form “means it's easier to prosecute under 'knowingly,'” instead of both knowingly and willfully, “which is an issue because someone could knowingly enter a restricted but not necessarily realize they are committing a crime.” Speaking with IB Times, Verheyden-Hilliard tries to lay to rest claims that the Constitution will be crippled by the Trespass Bill, but acknowledges that it does indeed allow law enforcement to have added incentive to arrest protesters who could be causing a disturbance.
"[HR 347] has been described as a death knell for the First Amendment, but that isn't supported by the facts,"Verheyden-Hilliard adds. "This has always been a bad law."
Gabe Rottman of the American Civil Liberties Union adds to IB Times, "Bottom line, it doesn't create any new violations of the law.” So far, however, it has raised awareness of the levels that the US government are willing to go to in order to make it harder to express ones’ self.
Under the act, protesting in areas covered by Secret Service could land a demonstrator behind bars, and the thing about the Secret Service (in case you couldn’t tell by their name), is that they don’t always make it clear where they are. You could even say that the service they provide, at times, is kept secret.
Presidential hopefuls Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum are now officially covered under Secret Service protection, making it a federal offense to disrupt a campaign stop. That means whether it’s by way of a glitter bomb protest or causing a disturbance on the same Holiday Inn hotel floor that Santorum is staying in, doing such could cause a bit of a legal battle for the persons involved.
Although the G-8 Summit originally scheduled for Chicago this spring would have made much of the Windy City a protected area where crimes could easily be tacked on to arrested protesters, the event was moved this week to the presidential retreat at Camp David. In turn, many have suggested that the White House is only going out of their way to limit protesting rights. While a Chicago summit would have meant the Trespass Bill could have been enforced in the same area where thousands of demonstrators were expected to protest, moving the event to a heavily fortified rural location will instead deter protesters from likely coming close atto the meeting at all.
And before you forget, the president can now detain you for getting too close to his front yard, order your assassinationif the country considers you a threat and lock you away for life with no charge if you’re alleged to be a terrorist. You, on the other hand, can’t yell obscenities at Newt Gingrich without risking arrest.
and....

Meet the new Boss in Town: ICE spawns... HSI Homeland Security Investigations, for great justice & cocaine cowboys

Now with moar National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center ... Security unit targets ‘worst’ in world crime - John Lantigua, Palm Beach Post, Nov 26 2011
HSI is a new directorate within the Immigration and Customs Enforcement service. Formed in September, its agents are responsible for investigating large-scale international crime, such as narcotics or arms smuggling, human trafficking, money laundering and any form of terrorism. They also defend against the illegal appropriation and exporting of technology that is crucial to U.S. security.
"In other words we're looking for illegal activity that is crossing the border into the country or crossing the border out of the country," Pino says.
The HSI Special Response Team serves warrants and apprehends international criminals considered too dangerous for other law enforcement to go up against.
"A lot of these criminal organizations are very well-armed, very well-funded and some of them may come from military backgrounds in their home countries," Pino says.
While its name is new, the response team can be traced to the 1980s, before the Department of Homeland Security existed.
"It started here in Miami, in the old cocaine cowboy days," HSI Special Agent in Charge Mike Shea says. "This is the oldest and best tactical entry team in the country. High-risk entry is the core mission."
HSI consists of more than 10,000 employees, including 6,700 special agents, who are assigned to more than 200 U.S. cities and 47 countries .
A relatively monstrous SWAT style truck leads us to a whole new blob of police state developments, busy hands with little to do and a lot of hardware to do it. It's yet another plateau of mad new security bureaucracy, something in this case I was loosely aware of tectonic plates moving, but a little digging revealed quite a nasty new nucleus. Let's plow in and see what was beta-tested through the willingness of politicians to throw money at repressing immigrants. The results begin with big, black scary trucks. And the biggest intelligence group inside the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and more. Surprise!
Via CopBlock.org's Facebook page:
Homeland Security SRT riot truck
What in the hell is the Special Response Team, why do they have eight of these things? etc. What turns up is an entirely new nasty agency gestating with Immigration & Customs Enforcement, from the burbling mass of confused federal police... a new team emerges. With exciting competitions and lurid ways of guarding the Super Bowl from Terrorist Attack - a National Special Security Event. The wikipedia page outlines the bizarre weave of this particular bureaucratic nucleus. And the List of special response units on the ol Wiki shows a spreading motif -- but this Homeland Security super-swat is perhaps the swattiest of all.
HSI SRT Training to jump off shiny new helicopters to save the Super Bowl in Miami - yayyyy!!
(this is why your schools/bridges are crumbling, America, the purposeless authoritarian spectacle at its finest ;)
This recently reorganized, months-old ICE Homeland Security Investigations (formerly known as ICE Office of Investigations) should really be on the radar of anyone because this year they are apparently 'filling in the gaps for the Secret Service' at NSSEs like G20, NATO summits and the Republican and Democratic national conventions. (unfortunately the Secret Service is now a part of DHS, not Treasury.) The Federal Protective Service, which likes to take photos around the Twin Cities (see my 2010 Fort Snelling Undercover Fail video, classic times) is now part of some weird directorate but briefly passed through ICE after being removed from the General Services Administration.
The HSI Special Response Teams are seemingly the top layer of a lot of things, from the war on terror / war on drugs motif, to the Super Bowl, to whatever the hell they are planning to do to immigrants on the I-5 near LA, which was where this pic was taken according to Copblock. ICE has a large number of staff on the Joint Terrorism Task Forces that do statistic-generating police state busywork around the country, and interestingly this HSI group is now officially becoming publicly distinguished from the rest of ICE -- and the theory of course is HSI would be spun out of ICE to become a freestanding 'directorate', a more modern and insane paramilitary FBI or whatever.
I wonder if the Secure Communities biometric collection program which was forced upon all counties in Minnesota, regardless of state & local wishes, would feed citizens' data into HSI.... just like the monstrous truck above, now moving more into the "non immigrant" category of freeform federal police activity. Perhaps they shall do some serious black ops against occupier groups angling to get to the conventions? Nevar!
Wikipedia:
The Special Agents of HSI use their broad legal authority to investigate and combat a range of issues that threaten the national security of the United Statessuch as strategic crimes, human rights violationshuman smugglingart theft,human traffickingdrug smugglingarms trafficking and other types of smuggling(including weapons of mass destruction), immigration crimes, gang investigations; financial crimes including money laundering, bulk cash smuggling, financial fraud, and trade based money laundering; terrorismcomputer crimes including the international trafficking of child pornography over the Internet, intellectual property rights crimes (trafficking of counterfeit trademark protected merchandise), cultural property crimes (theft and smuggling of antiquities and art), and import/export enforcement issues. HSI special agents conduct investigations aimed at protecting critical infrastructure industries that are vulnerable to sabotage, attack or exploitation.[8] HSI special agents also provide security details for VIPs, witness protection, and support the U.S. Secret Service's mission during overtaxed times such as special-security events and protecting candidates running for U.S. president.
HSI was formerly known as the ICE Office of Investigations (OI). HSI Special Agents have legal authority to enforce the U.S. Immigration and Nationality Act (Title 8), U.S. Customs Laws (Title 19), along with Titles 5, 6, 12, 18 (Federal Criminal Code and Rules), 21 (drugs), 22, 26, 28, 31 (exclusive jurisdiction over Money and Finance investigations), 46, 49, and 50 (War and National Defense) statutes; giving them the broadest federal law enforcement jurisdiction of any agency. HSI has more than 8,500 Special Agents, making it the second largest federal law enforcement and criminal investigative agency within the United States government next to the FBI.
The change of names from ICE OI to HSI was announced in June 2010. Part of the reasoning behind the name change was to better describe the general activities of the agency, and to avoid the uninformed stigma that this agency only investigates immigration-related issues (ex. OI/HSI special agents duties were often mistaken by the public, other LE agencies and the media to mirror ERO agents/officers). HSI does have a public relations problem. Its the second largest investigatory agency, but the general public has never heard of it. ICE held it close to the belt and until recently, didn't publicly make the distinction as TSA does with Federal Air Marshals and CBP does with Border Patrol. In 2012, ICE and HSI have mandated a public distinction be made between both organizations. Most often news reports bury HSI's efforts as "immigrations agents" or as ICE efforts, and frequently Department of Justice and US Attorney's Office press releases of HSI-led investigations get spun up to sound like DOJ or FBI investigations that received assistance from local partners and ICE.
The name change to HSI better reflects that it is the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's primary investigative body, and as a result, its thought that someday it will be pulled out from under the ICE umbrella and stand independent under the DHS. An obscure fact is the original planned name before settling on ICE was the Bureau of Investigations and Criminal Enforcement, but the brothers at the FBI didn't approve and made their complaints heard.

Intelligence

Intelligence is a subcomponent of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI). The Office of Intelligence uses its Intelligence Research Specialists for the collection, analysis, and dissemination of strategic and tacticalintelligence data for use by the operational elements of ICE and DHS. Consequently, the Office of Intelligence works closely with the Central Intelligence AgencyIRS the Federal Bureau of Investigation and U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

International Affairs

IA is a subcomponent of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI). The Office of International Affairs, with agents in over 60 locations around the world, represents DHS’ broadest footprint beyond US borders. ICE Attaché offices work with foreign counterparts to identify and combat transnational criminal organizations before they threaten the United States. IA also facilitates domestic HSI investigations.
Oh good, the CIA and FBI together at last... (and let's not forget the ICE/DHS network of detention facilities: Detention Facilities official front page- what is the HSI role for something like that applied to - somehow - non-immigrants?)
The ICE Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) directorate is a critical asset in the ICE mission, responsible for investigating a wide range of domestic and international activities arising from the illegal movement of people and goods into, within and out of the United States.
HSI investigates immigration crime, human rights violations and human smuggling, smuggling of narcotics, weapons and other types of contraband, financial crimes, cybercrime and export enforcement issues. ICE special agents conduct investigations aimed at protecting critical infrastructure industries that are vulnerable to sabotage, attack or exploitation.
In addition to ICE criminal investigations, HSI oversees the agency's international affairs operations and intelligence functions. HSI consists of more than 10,000 employees, consisting of 6,700 special agents, who are assigned to more than 200 cities throughout the U.S. and 47 countries around the world.
Report suspicious activity. Complete our tip form.....
HSI conducts criminal investigations against terrorist and other criminal organizations who threaten national security. HSI combats worldwide criminal enterprises who seek to exploit America's legitimate trade, travel and financial systems and enforces America's customs and immigration laws at and beyond our nation's borders.
HSI comprises six key divisions:
-Domestic Operations
-Intelligence
-International Affairs
-Investigative Programs
-Mission Support
-National Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) Coordination Center
The official page for the HSI Special Agent in Charge Field Offices of which there are 26:
Homeland Security Investigations has 26 Special Agent in Charge (SAC) principal field offices throughout the United States. The SAC offices are responsible for the administration and management of all investigative and enforcement activities within the geographic boundaries of the office. The SACs develop, coordinate, and implement enforcement strategies to ensure conformance with national policies and procedures and to support national intelligence programs. SACs coordinate law enforcement activities with the highest level of Federal, state, and local governments, as well as intelligence organizations and international law enforcement entities. In addition, SACs supervise all administrative responsibilities assigned to the office and ensure a responsive Internal Controls Program is developed.
To efficiently manage their designated geographic regions, SAC offices maintain various subordinate field offices throughout their areas of responsibility, which support the enforcement mission. These subordinate field offices, Deputy Special Agents in Charge (DSAC), Assistant Special Agents in Charge (ASAC), Resident Agents in Charge (RAC) and Resident Agents (RA), are responsible for managing enforcement activities within the geographic boundaries of the office.
SAC Minneapolis/St. Paul

2901 Metro Drive, Suite 100

Bloomington, MN 55425

Main (952) 853-2940

Fax (612) 313-9045
If you search for 2901 Metro Drive Suite 100 that is the same office for other immigration, ICE & Homeland Security sub-offices.
These guys also have the completely insane National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center, a hearty reminder that the kafkaesque nature of what they call "intellectual property" combined with bureaucratic bloatware budget and an aggressively fascist private industry-friendly design, can truly combine to make one of the most awful, yet admittedly bold, authoritarian government logos of all time. Our Partner Agencies — National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center

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