Bye Bye 1st Amendment and Due Process

Imagine that there was no March on Washington led by the late great Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., or that there was no Montgomery to Selma March or Bus boycott as a direct consequence of the actions of a Rosa Parks, or even no sit in's at Woolworths. All may have never have happened if legislation was existence during that time like the recently passed H.R. 347. Last week on a late Monday evening, the bill described by some as the Federal Restricted Buildings and Grounds Improvement Act of 2011 was passed by the US House of Representatives voted 388-to-3.

In simple terms it is another way of further reducing the constitutional First Amendment rights guaranteed to all US citizens. Through this legislation, Congress makes it illegal to trespass on the grounds of the White House and any building or grounds where the president is visiting even if just for a moment or temporarily. According to the legislation, these are considered areas “restricted in conjunction with an event designated as a special event of national significance." Consequently it allows the government to charge anyone who enters a building without permission or with the intent to disrupt a government function via protest or civil disobedience with a federal offense if Secret Service is on the scene.

Yes that is correct, any person protected by the Secret Service is covered under the bill meaning it will be a federal offense to even accidently disrupts an event attended by a person thus abrogating the right to assemble and peacefully protest as stated in the constitution. We all know that they not only protect past Presidents and current candidates, they also protect foreign dignitaries, many of which are mass murderers, supporters of state sponsored terrorist and human rights violators. To protest the former South African regime that practiced apartheid or even the current Syrian President Haffad al- Assad would be a federal offence punishable by a fine under this title or imprisonment for not more than 10 years, or both, for a violation. In simple terms the federal government could consider a demonstration against any foreign president on American soil as a violation of federal law, if perceived to be “disruptive.”

I was under the assumption that Brandenburg V. Ohio concluded that the state cannot prohibit inflammatory speech unless it incites or produces “imminent lawlessness.” Brandenburg, a leader in the Ku Klux Klan, made a speech at a Klan rally and was later convicted under an Ohio criminal syndicalism law. The Court's Per Curiam opinion held that the Ohio law violated Brandenburg's right to free speech. The Court used a two-pronged test to evaluate speech acts: (1) speech can be prohibited if it is "directed at inciting or producing imminent lawless action" and (2) it is "likely to incite or produce such action."

We as a people are slowly losing all of our constitutional guarantees. It may even be considered against the law to even assert such. We have already seen the president approve the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012, essentially suspending habeas corpus from American citizens and now what is an obvious assault on the freedom to assemble via this “Trespass Bill”. In many places it is even illegal to film police making arrest on your own property. To top it off, US Attorney General Eric Holder made a speech at Northwestern University last week in which he gave the current administrations legal justification for assassination of U.S citizens. When asked about it while addressing a hearing on the FBIs budget held by House lawmakers, FBI Director Robert Mueller said he would have to check with the Department of Justice whether Attorney General Eric Holder's "three criteria" for the targeted killing of Americans also applied to Americans inside the U.S.

This albeit as former CIA Officer Philip Giraldi wrote, “The Fifth and Sixth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution guarantee a citizen due process and a public trial, as well as the right to confront his accuser. The Obama administration is arguing that these American turncoats do not have constitutional rights because they are not physically in the United States and are actively engaged in planning terrorist acts that the government has the right to disrupt by killing them preemptively.”

Giraldi also notes that the assignation of dissident “citizens without due process is not a unique practice. Libyans, Iranians, and Soviets all did it in the 1980s and 1990s” but suggest it is out of the ordinary for a self-purported “liberal democracy.”

So if any of you all have any bright ideas about expressing your constitutional right wile in Chicago this spring for the 2012 G8 and NATO summits, be forewarned. These fools or idiots have absolved the first amendment and have curtailed due process. Although it is written, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances,” this is not the case anymore.