[GPSCC-chat] Notes from Glenn Greenwald in Santa Clara 10/5/12

[Brian Good]

Notes from the Glenn Greenwald talk in Santa Clara 10/5/12


As we get further from 9/11, the lawless abuses against civil liberties continue unabated.
There is more FBI entrapment of phony terrorists now than there was 10 years ago.  There
has even been a prosecution of a Youtuber.  And now Obama claims the right to assassinate
American citizens with no transparency.  Bush never claimed that right.

War is an ultimate expression of pure lawlessness and unchecked power, and in the 
post-9/11 environment the entire world is seen as one big battlefield.  Today we're 
being told that the greatest threat is not al Qaeda but home-grown terrorists.  Miranda
rules have been watered down, and the accused have been stripped of citizenship.

Extremist policies enacted in a panic after 9/11 are now regarded as normal, a 
development served by media and a political apparatus that were acquiescent, subservient, 
and submissive.  The USAPATRIOT Act was regarded as radical even by Congress when
it was enacted, so a four-year sunset provision was incorporated--but it was renewed
in 2005 with an 89-10 vote even after predictable abuses.  It was renewed again in 2009
with almost no debate, and only 3 Senators opposed it.  Extremism becomes part of
Americanm culture:  eavesdropping and detention without due process was controversial
in the Bush years, but now Obama claims not just those powers but also the power to 
execute people without cause.  Kids in high school today have never known anything
other than the post-9/11 world.

Society becomes lawless as we allow our government to ignore the Bill of Rights.  Those
in power are supposed to fear being held accountable by the people.  But increasingly
people fear the government.  Wikileaks was declared an Enemy of the State by the 
Pentagon.  Greenwald wrote an article celebrating Wikileaks's power to bring 
transparency, and advocated that people support it financially.  Dozens of people wrote
to him expressing their fear of donating--their fear of exercising their constitutional
rights caused them to voluntarily relinquish their their rights out of fear that the 
government would abuse its power.  Why is Bradley Manning being openly abused?
So the government can show that they can, so they can send a signal that there are
no limits to what they can do to you.


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The talk was a benefit for the Muslim Legal Fund of America and the National Coalition 
to Protect Civil Freedoms.  http://www.civilfreedoms.org/    

I didn't get the names of the speakers from the MLFA and the NCPCF.  Here's what   
they said:

Their purpose is to roll back extremist policies including pre-emptive prosecution, 
secret evidence, anonymous experts, and prisoner abuse including a federal 
isolation unit for muslim prisoners (the Communication Management Unit), and 
promotion of the Politics of Fear.  Lawyers went as high as the Supreme Court 
trying to get a definition of "material support" that could clarify legislation 
outlawing material support to terrorists and the Supreme Court refused, leaving 
it to the DoJ's discretion.  Legally, these issues are all up in the air with one jury
deciding one way and then another jury deciding another. 

The DoJ Inspector General recommended that for a broad category of cases the
NCPCF considers abusive that they all be revisited to check whether the DoJ had
turned over all exculpatory evidence to the defense as the rules demand.

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