Mar 19, 2018 | Globalism, Liberty Articles
By Harold Pease, Ph. D
Recently I wrote that under seemingly worthy goals of stopping the spread of socialism, then drugs, then terrorism we seemingly invited ourselves into every world conflict. Were globalists covertly using these causes instead to build an American Empire? As a college professor teaching current events for 40 plus years, I had to come to this conclusion.
Foreign policy seems to have moved from defense to offense. Now no empire of yesteryear controls or influences more territory than we. We call this globalism where the United States becomes not only the world’s only super power but also the world’s “real” government. Globalism requires a global military and a media silent on the matter. We now have both.
Today Wikipedia documents US troops deployed in “more than 150 countries” around the world with thousands of military personnel still in World War II countries 73 years later. Approximately a third of our troops serve outside the US in places most Americans have never heard such as Aruba, Bahrain, Kenya, and Qatar. And we have approximately 800 military bases encircling the globe all in the name of “our” national security.
Numerous books and hundreds of articles have identified the heart of the nearing 100-year globalist movement as having been centered on three private industrialist/high finance dominated organizations. The most important of these was the Council on Foreign Relations (1921), to infiltrate both major political parties in the US with globalist thinking, the Bilderbergers (1954), to influence and consolidate the interests of high finance and politics in Europe, and the Trilateral Commission (1973), to influence and consolidate the interests of high finance and politics in the three most powerful regions of the globe North America, Europe and Japan.
None of this could have happened without big media, once the government’s watchdog now its lapdog, becoming accomplices to the new world order movement. This too has been documented by hundreds of articles over the last many decades with the New York Times, the foremost print mouthpiece of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) followed closely by the Washington Post and the Los Angels Times. This is nothing new as CFR members have dominated all major medias for decades.
What is new for most is the 2010-11 release of 2,325,961 secret State Department cables by WikiLeaks confirming beyond question the above and more. In it “the world saw what the USA really thought about national leaders, friendly dictators & supposed allies. It also discovered the dark truths of national policies, human rights violations, covert operations & cover-ups” (The WikiLeaks Files: The World According to US Empire, by Julian Assange).
Top secret has become, by-in-large, anything that the government does not want known, which in this case, is its working for world dominion. So their immediate reaction was to vilify WikiLeaks asking everyone to delete anything on the Internet from it. “Internet access to WikiLeaks was blocked by national libraries; major international studies journals rejected all manuscripts citing WikiLeaks material; and the Pentagon stopped all emails containing the organization’s name.” The definition of national security was enlarged to include concealing government globalist activities. Anyone willing to expose them were villainized as is the case of WikiLeaks. Much of this had little to do with actual national security but to keep the public from knowing, thus preventing, our government’s future conspiring toward world governance.
To counter the globalists censorship of this material and protect “the public’s right to know,” WikiLeaks “set up a Public Library of US Diplomacy (PlusD), containing the cables and other diplomatic records.” They also published a book The WikiLeaks Files to help sift through the over two million documents for easier assessment evaluation of the mountain of information. A chapter in this book by Sarah Harrison explains how to use it (Review of the WikiLeaks Files: the World according to US empire, By Alison Broinowski).
CFR members are in every federal position of importance, in every administration regardless of political party. With the exception of Presidents Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump both presidential party nominees for decades have been affiliated. The CFR is our government. It is no longer a theory. The extent of its influence was expressed by John J. McCloy, a longtime chairman of the Council and advisor to nine U.S. presidents who told the New York Times: “Whenever we needed a man we thumbed through the roll of the Council members and put through a call to New York.” CFR headquarter is located in New York City.
With respect to the establishment media’s participation, which, with the Julian Assange’s treasure trove of documentation, cannot be called anything less than a conspiracy. From this the Swiss Propaganda Research organization assembled the latest 2017 graphical depiction of CFR/Trilateral Commission/Bilderberg Group membership in the “uppity” plan to give world dominance to them. View at https://swprs.org/the-american-empire-and-its-media/.
It documents 190 top US journalists who are members of one or more of the globalist organizations identified. They exist in every major news outlet. They control your news, not only what you know but what you think about. They are the “Ruling Class Journalists”. If you are not already aware of their dominance it is because your favorite journalists have not told you and it is increasingly hard for this revelation to get into any news organ which explains why Assange resorted to the State Department dump.
Dr. Harold Pease is a syndicated columnist and an expert on the United States Constitution. He has dedicated his career to studying the writings of the Founding Fathers and applying that knowledge to current events. He taught history and political science from this perspective for over 30 years at Taft College. Newspapers have permission to publish this column. To read more of his weekly articles, please visit www.LibertyUnderFire.org.
Mar 12, 2018 | Globalism, Liberty Articles
By Harold Pease, Ph. D
As a college professor for over 40 years specializing in the Constitution and current events, I have been deeply troubled by our tendency to become easily involved in the problems of other nations and once militarily involved we seldom leave. For years I presented students a handout published by U.S. News and World Report, January 19, 1998, showing a military presence in 31 foreign countries, 53 years after World War II. These included; Germany (65,080), Japan (41,460), Italy (11,785) —even the United Kingdom (11,380).
Under seemingly worthy goals of stopping the spread of socialism, then drugs, then terrorism we seemingly invited ourselves into every conflict. Were globalists secretly using these causes instead to build an American Empire? We seemed to have moved from defense to offense. No empire of yesteryear controlled or influenced more territory than we do today.
Today Wikipedia documents US troops deployed in, not 31 countries, but “more than 150 countries” (The New York Times says 172—we have “troops in nearly every country”) around the world with thousand of military personnel still in the above named countries 73 years later. Approximately a third of our troops serve outside the US in places most Americans have never heard such as Aruba, Bahrain, Kenya, and Qatar. And we have approximately 800 military bases encircling the globe all in the name of “our” national security.
American solders are in active combat in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and “actively engaged” in Yemen, Niger, Somalia, Jordan, and Thailand. “Others are deployed as part of several peacekeeping missions, military attaches, or are part of embassy and consulate security. Nearly 40,000 are assigned to classified missions in locations that the US government refuses to disclose” (“America’s Forever Wars,” New York Times, 23 October 2017). I have no issue with embassy and consulate security.
We have four new bases in Bulgaria. New bases are also in Camp Bondsteel, Kosovo from where the US “controls ALL of the Balkans” and Manas Air Base in Kyrgystan “from where the US controls the airspace over Central Asia and most of the nations south of present-day Russia.” All once “member-states of the old Soviet Union.” And new bases have been popping up throughout Africa.
NASA has huge spy bases in Waihopai, New Zealand and Geraldton, Western Australia called the Global Electronic Surveillance System (sometimes dubbed America’s Secret Global Surveillance Network). Thus these US military bases “serve as surveillance and data centers,” on other countries.
Huge Naval bases throughout the world accommodate our gigantic US warships such as at Changi Navel Staten in Singapore. The US Navy also has floating military bases called aircraft carriers that can be positioned anywhere in the seven oceans. These are known for their incredible strike capabilities whether by planes dropping bombs in any direction hundreds of miles from them or by launching cruise missiles such as the Tomahawk. Then, there are super-carriers of which we have 12; no other nation has “supers.” The USS George Washington can carry more than 6,000 sailors (a floating fortress) 70 warplanes and “4 million pounds of bombs” (Cora Fabros, “Bases of Empire—The Global Spread of US Military and Intelligence Bases, Nov. 2008).
Bases differ in size. Some are city-size as is Ramstein Air Base in Germany, or Kadena Air Base in Okinawa, or Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean; others, called “lily pads,” are much smaller housing “drones, surveillance aircraft, or pre-positioned weaponry and supplies.” But all have some influence over the host nation (David Vine, “The United States Probably has more Foreign Military Bases than any Other People, Nation, or Empire in History,” September 14, 2015).
President George Bush best epitomized the globalist philosophy of military expansion when he wrote: “To contend with uncertainty and to meet the many security challenges we face, the United States will require bases and stations within and beyond Western Europe and Northeast Asia, as well as temporary access arrangements for the long-distance deployment of US forces” (George Bush, National Security Strategy, 2002) Unfortunately, this is the same doctrine historically advocated by other empire builders, even Stalin and Hitler. When is enough, enough?
But two presidents before him saw it differently; ironically each expressed such in farewell addresses just before leaving office. Dwight D. Eisenhower warned of the development of a “military-industrial complex,” a marriage feeding these entities, which is precisely what we have just described. Call it globalism. George Washington warned of the debt that could destroy us were we not to use “time of peace, to discharge the debts which unavoidable wars may have occasioned.” Unavoidable wars!!! We seek war!!
US bases within a country infer their loss of territorial sovereignty without formal political control, as was the old way of governing empires. It is a form of imperialism—even colonialism. The mere presence of military bases intimidates the host country and gives coercive power to the United States enabling it to gain concessions from its host, even interfere in domestic concerns. Some of us do not want our military to police the world, or our industrialists to govern it, or the crippling debt that accompanies it.
We would see things very differently if China or Russia had military bases in the United States or even Mexico. John F. Kennedy almost went to war with the USSR when it sought to place nuclear missiles in Cuba.
Dr. Harold Pease is a syndicated columnist and an expert on the United States Constitution. He has dedicated his career to studying the writings of the Founding Fathers and applying that knowledge to current events. He taught history and political science from this perspective for over 30 years at Taft College. Newspapers have permission to publish this column. To read more of his weekly articles, please visit www.LibertyUnderFire.org.
Mar 5, 2018 | Constitution, Liberty Articles
By Harold Pease, Ph. D
The present assault on the 2nd Amendment reminds us of the 2013 Western States Sheriff’s Rebellion stopping cold President Barack Obamas’s new 23 executive orders further restricting the right of gun owners without authorization from Congress. But today Republicans need to be reminded that neither the executive branch, through executive orders, nor the legislative branch, through laws, can constitutionally legislate away an amendment of the Bill of Rights, so banning AR-15’s or bump stocks is unconstitutional. Only a new amendment with 3/4ths support of the states, as outlined in Article V of the Constitution, can alter an amendment.
Many may not remember their basic U.S. History courses as to why the Second Amendment exists in the first place. Certainly, when enacted, there was no thought of restricting type of firearm, or where, or who could carry. So its placement as the second most valued freedom in the Bill of Rights had nothing to do with personal safety or even hunting, these were already assumed. It was specifically placed right after freedom of religion, speech, press and assembly to make certain that these freedoms were never taken from us. It was aimed (pun intended) squarely at the government. But certainly we need have no fear of the government today?
One must remember that the early patriots did not ask the existing British government if they could revolt against them. They argued in The Declaration of Independence, that they were “endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” coming from a much higher source than mere man and that “whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government.” God is referenced five times in this document and thus, they believed, He sanctioned their rebellion. They were expected to suffer evils while sufferable, “but when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariable the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.”
The right of revolution requires the means of revolution and this is why the Second Amendment exists. Normally the ballot box is the only self-correction needed but they had no intention of giving up the same right that they exercised to give us freedom in the first place. Nor were they pious enough to assume that their correction would stay in place and that future generations would never need the more serious self-correction they used.
The wordage of the 2nd Amendment was stronger than any other sentence in the Constitution. “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.” They saw this right as essential to freedom and specifically forbade the federal government any authority with respect to arms because historically it was always a government that took away liberty.
An armed populace had twice proved its value to liberty in the Revolutionary War. Many do not remember why Lexington and Concord were so important. The Americans learned that the British planned to go door to door to confiscate their firearms so they gathered and hid them in these two villages. Now the British night gun raid, and Paul Revere’s desperate midnight ride warning the Americans en-route, make sense. The Battle of Saratoga preventing British conquest of the northeast by General Johnny Burgoyne was stopped, not by the military, but by angry farmers with their own military styled assault rifles. This American victory encouraged other countries, notably France, to come into the war on our side. It is doubtful that we would have won the war without an armed citizenry.
The Founders’ attitude regarding guns—even military issue— was clear. Thomas Jefferson wrote: “No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms.” And George Washington said: “A free people ought not only to be armed,” but also, “they should promote such manufacturies [sic] as tend to remind them independent of others for essential, particularly military, supplies” (Gun Control, Freemen Report, May 31,1975, p. 1).
The Utah Sheriff’s Association letter to Obama was the most vocal in the Sheriff’s Rebellion of 2013. It read in part, “We respect the Office of the President of the United States of America. But, make no mistake, as the duly-elected sheriffs of our respective counties, we will enforce the rights guaranteed to our citizens by the Constitution. No federal official will be permitted to descend upon our constituents and take from them what the Bill of Rights—in particular Amendment II—has given them. We, like you, swore a solemn oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, and we are prepared to trade our lives for the preservation of its traditional interpretation.”
This is commendable but will Congress, under Republicans, remember that an amendment, unlike a law, may not be altered to destroy or weakened—it “shall not be infringed?” The 2nd Amendment can only be altered by 3/4th of the states with a new amendment and this is not likely to happen when so many Americans fear their own government.
Dr. Harold Pease is a syndicated columnist and an expert on the United States Constitution. He has dedicated his career to studying the writings of the Founding Fathers and applying that knowledge to current events. He taught history and political science from this perspective for over 30 years at Taft College. Newspapers have permission to publish this column. To read more of his weekly articles, please visit www.LibertyUnderFire.org.
Feb 26, 2018 | Liberty Articles
By Harold Pease, Ph. D
In our thousands of public schools there have been eleven mass shootings since 2000: elementary (3), high schools (3) and colleges (5). These follow with year and number of deaths: 2005 Red Lake Senior High School (7), 2006 West Nickel Mines School (6), 2007 Virginia Tech (33), 2008 Northern Illinois University (6), 2012 Oikos University (7), 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School (28), 2013 Santa Monica College (6), Marysville Pilchuck High School (5), 2015 Umpqua Community College (10), 2017 Rancho Tehama Reserve Elementary School (6), and now Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida (17), on 14 February 2018.
Some mass shooter’s carried more than one gun, nine had handguns. In the deed seven preferred the handgun, one used a shotgun and three used AR-15’s. All but three shooters committed suicide when confronted with police. Teachers or staffs were victims in all but one of the eleven mass shootings.
Two things were common in all eleven mass shootings: it took too much time for police to confront shooters, and schools were targeted primarily because they were “gun free.” A third, common in ten, it took a gun to stop a gun. All three could have been resolved more promptly had teachers, and others with student responsibilities, the right to protect themselves and those under their care.
In the Umpqua Community College massacre, “Just one gun somewhere near the premise could have been enough,” one victim told her father in the hospital. The shooter had eight minutes of unrestrained killing time before police arrived after 911 notification and before he took his life ending the massacre. If but one armed concealed weapons permit holder had been in the classrooms, or close by, he/she could have saved several minutes of indiscriminant slaughter. In the recent “Valentines Day” Massacre of 17 high school students in Parkland, Florida, the killer finished his slaughter and had enough time in addition to get half a mile off campus before being confronted by police.
This is not to suggest that every teacher must participate, only those who wish to. Hundreds of regular permit holding citizens in each city or county where the slaughters occurred already carry concealed weapons everywhere except in “gun free zones” (sometimes called “free kill zones”) many teachers among them. I was one of them.
Law enforcement normally see permit holders as an asset, the ultimate backup should they need extra help, and also because cops know they can’t be everywhere at the same time, as some Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School students learned the hard way. Why not let them do so on school grounds as well, allowing them to be an asset of protection wherever they are? Teachers and staff are on the scene, care for their students, are a trusted profession in society, and, most importantly, are themselves threatened. It would cost the schools nothing. Chances are every college has several concealed weapons permit holders among its faculty and staff already.
Permit holders are among our finest citizens. Obtaining a concealed weapons permit requires a thorough investigation, a near perfect record from law enforcement, a stated need to carry, and some training. Normally they are older more mature folks and, in the case of teachers, society already trusts their young people with them several hours a day. They are already on the scene where a policeman could not possibly be. What a deterrent to a would-be killer if he knew schools are not so vulnerable.
“Gun free” zones clearly do not work as most massacres in the United States happen in them. Rather than deter, they entice killers giving them access to large groups of unprotected, good, and innocent victims—often children. Presently the only hope that a teacher, wishing to protect his/her students, has is to hide them or lock the classroom.
In my classroom of many years there was one door opening outwardly that required manually pulling a rubber block on the door from inside the classroom to lock the room. Everyone inside, including me, was set up to be a victim unless someone could get to the rubber block before a shooter entered the classroom. It remains this way. Better yet, a teacher or staff member inside with a concealed weapons permit, need only pull out a weapon from pocket or purse and fire a couple of rounds at a very surprised—then very dead— child killer.
Elected officials, please give teachers and staff a fighting chance to survive. Teachers have done nothing that should justify disarming us, or fearing us, and thus leaving us with virtually no hope of survival. You may answer, “We can’t just let anyone have a weapon of mass destruction!” You already do!! Anyone, 16 and older, can drive an automobile, which is decidedly a weapon of mass destruction—even if he might commit crimes with it.
In the case of the eleven mass school shootings in this century the killers did their deeds in locations they supposed to be “gun free” and ceased their rampage, in all but the most recent massacre, only when confronted with another gun. Next time let that person be a teacher or staff member with a concealed weapon, and a vested interest in his and the safety of those around him, whose immediate action would allow so many more students to live.
Dr. Harold Pease is a syndicated columnist and an expert on the United States Constitution. He has dedicated his career to studying the writings of the Founding Fathers and applying that knowledge to current events. He taught history and political science from this perspective for over 30 years at Taft College. Newspapers have permission to publish this column. To read more of his weekly articles, please visit www.LibertyUnderFire.org.
Feb 19, 2018 | Constitution, Economy, Liberty Articles
By Harold Pease, Ph. D
Avoiding national debt was one of George Washington’s greatest admonitions yet neither liberals nor conservatives have paid much attention to it. It would be well to reflect on his advice this President’s Day.
The trillion dollar Republican proposal will raise overall spending caps by about $300 billion over the next two years and will make interest on the debt the largest growing part of the federal budget. This expenditure of the people’s hard-earned taxes purchases nothing—simply vanishes.
This prompted Senator Rand Paul to say, “When the Democrats are in power, Republicans appear to be the conservative party. But when Republicans are in power, it seems there is no conservative party.” He added, “The dirty little secret is that, by and large, both parties don’t care about the debt.” We borrow “a million dollars every minute.”
On Sept. 19, 1796, just prior to leaving the presidency, President George Washington issued his famous Farewell Address. He warned posterity of possible pitfalls that could undermine or destroy liberty. His warnings may well be timelier 222 years later as we near his birthday February 22.
In strong terms he asked that we avoid debt. “As a very important source of strength and security cherish public credit… use it as sparingly as possible, avoiding occasion of expense… [Use the] time of peace, to discharge the debts which unavoidable wars may have occasioned, not ungenerously throwing upon posterity the burden which we ourselves ought to bear.” Unavoidable wars?
Today our national debt sits at over $20.5 trillion—the highest in our history. I once viewed a CNN clip, “How Much is a Trillion Dollars,” that showed a trillion dollars stacked atop one another the combined thickness going 68,000 miles into the sky—a third of the way to the moon. Applying this formula to our twenty-plus trillion dollars debt would take us to the moon and back, $6 trillion, to the moon and back a second time, 12 trillion, to the moon and back a third time, 18 trillion, and 2/3rds of the way to the moon a fourth time. Obviously today neither party has taken Washington’s advice. Presently the debt per taxpayer is over $170,370. We are spending our way into oblivion (See USDebtClock.org real time).
But Washington gave other unheeded advice as well. He pled that the nation kept religion and morality strong. He said: “Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports…. Let it simply be asked, where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths which are the instruments of investigation in courts of justice? Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.” The Founding Fathers never supported the notion of separation of religion and government—only the separation of an organization of religion from government. What would Washington say of the immorality that prevails today?
But the warning about foreign aid was especially good. He told us that gift giving in foreign affairs is a good way to be universally hated. He said it placed us “in the condition of having given equivalents for nominal favors, and yet of being reproached with ingratitude for not giving more.” Today there is hardly a nation in the world that does not have its hand out and when, after once giving, the amount is reduce or terminated, we are hated all the more for it.
He warned against the origin of “combinations and associations” whose intent was to suppress the desires of the majority in favor of the minority. He called them artificial power factions. What would he say of the influence of the Deep State in our government today or of the Council on Foreign Relations, Trilateral Commission or Bilderbergers? Would not this include Clinton’s foundation to pedal political influence for millions or Hillary’s rigging the DNC against Bernie Sanders or against Donald Trump with a fake dossier?
Such factions, he said, “May answer popular ends and become potent engines by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government….” The antidote for this, Washington explained, was “to resist with care the spirit of innovation” upon basic constitutional principles or premises no matter how flowery, appealing or “specious the pretext.”
Washington worried about posterity not holding their elected officials strictly to the limits imposed by the Constitution. He knew many would seek to undermine that document by twisting it to give power they could not acquire without the distortion. Sound familiar? He said: “But let there be no change by usurpation; for though this, in one instance, may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed.” Today much of what the federal government does is not even mentioned in the Constitution.
But patriots are not likely to be popular, as for instance Rand Paul. Washington explained, “Real patriots, who may resist the intrigues of the favorite, are liable to become suspected and odious; while its tools and dupes usurp the applause and confidence of the people, to surrender their interests.” One need not look far for the “tools and dupes” they seem to be everywhere and in both parties.
Dr. Harold Pease is a syndicated columnist and an expert on the United States Constitution. He has dedicated his career to studying the writings of the Founding Fathers and applying that knowledge to current events. He taught history and political science from this perspective for over 30 years at Taft College. Newspapers have permission to publish this column. To read more of his weekly articles, please visit www.LibertyUnderFire.org.
Feb 12, 2018 | Constitution, Liberty Articles
By Dr. Harold Pease
The just released House Intel findings regarding the Trump Dossier, documented it as having been assembled by anti-Trump British spy Christopher Steele, from Russian disinformation, paid by the Democratic National Convention and Clinton Campaign to the tune of $160,000 as opposition research in a presidential election and did not support alleged Putin/Trump collusion in the election. The dossier was used by the FBI and Obama Justice Department to get a warrant from the FISA Court to spy on the opposing Trump campaign to destroy Trump’s candidacy and, if elected president, to provide the ammunition to have him impeached thereafter. The Grassley-Ghaham Senate Intel Memo documents more fully the above.
All of this renews interest in the government’s secret FISA Court, long-time opposed to by Constitutionalist, Libertarians and many Democrats. Ironically, it was created as a response to President Richard Nixon’s usage of federal resources to spy on political activist groups during his tenure as president, which likely violated the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution. But now apparently used by the Democratic Party to spy on a contending presidential candidate prior to and after his election—something far worse than Nixon’s Watergate.
Initiated by Democratic Senator Ted Kennedy and signed into law by Democratic President Jimmy Carter, The 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) created this secret court with bipartisan support. The government’s surveillance of its own citizens formerly, until now, opposed by most Democrats, dates back 39 years. I told my students of this court for at least 33 years.
Ironically the solution to Nixon’s spying on political activists groups was legalizing and extending it to individuals through FISA, a greater violation of the 4th Amendment than before. Few voices opposed giving the government extra spy-power during the “Cold War” when it seemed that the whole planet was falling under the influence of communism but, once legalized in 1978, the surveillance escalated.
Liberal CBS News commentator Dan Rather, in his “Eye on America,” was one of the first to speak out on the intricacies of this secret court. In 1994 he correctly argued that all federal courts are supposed to be open, that the Constitution has no place for secret courts. He opened, “Chances are you have never heard of this court because it does operate in secret.” The FISA court “holds no public hearings, classifies its rulings top secret and has wide freedom to order domestic spying in the name of national security.” Alan Deshowitz, a defense attorney at the time, was cited as having said, “The idea of there being a secret court in America is so un-American and the end result is that the rights of American citizens are being violated by this court. What is at stake here is the liberty of the American people. Secrecy and liberty are incompatible.”
He continued, “Behind the stone walls of the Justice Department’s sixth floor the court sits in an ultra-high security vault, guarded by impenetrable double doors. There, seven federal judges hear surveillance requests from the FBI, the CIA, and the Department of Defense. And it appears the court has never heard a request it didn’t like. Over the years the government has asked for 7,500 surveillance warrants. The number refused by the court is zero. The government has never been denied.”
It gets worse. “Questions under FISA aren’t quite as tough as they are in even an ordinary criminal case. In any other court for an ordinary surveillance warrant a judge must find that a suspect is involved in a crime. Under FISA the standard is lowered to ‘may be involved.’ An ordinary wiretap runs 90 days. FISA taps can last a year. A suspect under ordinary criminal surveillance ‘must be told’ about it eventually but not under FISA. And finally, if prosecuted, a defendant is never allowed to see the top-secret warrant applications used against him.” Ironically, the program concluded, all this is happening “in a windowless vault just beyond Constitution Avenue.”
The U.S.A. Patriot Act of 2001 increased the number of FISA Court judges to eleven, all appointed by the Chief Justice of the United States, none with congressional “advice or consent” as required by the Constitution, each serving fixed terms of seven years. In court only the Department of Justice is allowed to provide information. Appeals of their decisions are made to a three-judge panel, which has assembled only twice it its history. One reason is that the Court does not inform those upon whom it spied—not even the president of the United States. If you do somehow find that you were spied upon, you cannot obtain the evidence from the FISA court that such actually happened.
Historically the court has approved 99.99 % of the requests for spying. As of 2013 the secret court had reviewed 33,900 requests denying, in its then 35-year history, only eleven— so much for oversight.
The names of the eleven current FISA Court justices can be found at 2016 Membership should readers wish to ask the judges why they authorized four separate requests to spy on Trump’s campaign and presidency.
FISA power must end. If Democrats can use the so-called justice system to authorize spying on a Republican president as shown, and there are not deterring high penalties for doing so, it is only a matter of time when the Republican Party will do something similar to a Democratic president.
Dr. Harold Pease is a syndicated columnist and an expert on the United States Constitution. He has dedicated his career to studying the writings of the Founding Fathers and applying that knowledge to current events. He taught history and political science from this perspective for over 30 years at Taft College. Newspapers have permission to publish this column. To read more of his weekly articles, please visit www.LibertyUnderFire.org.
