(January 31, 2006) — A provision in the “Patriot Act” creates a new federal police force with 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.”

The new police are assigned a variety of jurisdictions, including “an event designated under Section 3056(e) of Title 18 as a special event of national significance” (SENS).

“A special event of national significance” is neither defined nor does it require the presence of a “protected person” such as the president in order to trigger it. Thus, the administration, and perhaps the police themselves, can place the SENS designation on any event. Once a SENS designation is placed on an event, the new federal police are empowered to keep out and to arrest people at their discretion.

The language conveys enormous discretionary and arbitrary powers. What is “an offense against the United States”? What are “reasonable grounds”?

You can bet that 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 United States, 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 break up opposition. The Brownshirts are now arming themselves with a Gestapo.

Many naive 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 naive 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.

In Nazi Germany, did no one but the 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.

It is extremely difficult to hold even local police forces accountable. Who is going to hold accountable a federal police protected by Homeland Security and the president?

Paul Craig Roberts, senior research fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, writes for Creators Syndicate.

Yahoo Is Tracking Group Members
Rense.com

(January 14, 2006) — If you belong to ANY Yahoo Groups – be aware that Yahoo is now using “Web Beacons” to track every Yahoo Group user. It’s similar to cookies, but allows Yahoo to record every website and every group you visit, even when you’re not connected to Yahoo.

Look at their updated privacy statement at http://privacy.yahoo.com/privacy.

About half-way down the page, in the section on cookies, you will see a link that says WEB BEACONS.

Click on the phrase “Web Beacons.” On the page that opens, find a paragraph entitled “Outside the Yahoo Network.”

In that section find a little “Click Here to Opt Out” link that will let you “opt-out” of their snooping. Be careful! NOT to click on the next button shown. It is an “Opt Back In” button that, if clicked, will UNDO the opt-out.

Note that Yahoo’s invasion of your privacy – and your ability to opt-out of it — is not user-specific. It is MACHINE specific. That means you will have to opt-out on every computer (and browser) you use.

Please forward this to your other groups. You might complain, too, but I’m not sure if anyone is listening..