63 Documents the Government Doesn't Want You to Read - Jesse Ventura [6]
The Fourth Amendment speaks to our right to be secure “against unreasonable searches and seizures.” The Patriot Act says the government can search and seize Americans’ papers and effects without probable cause.
The Sixth Amendment entitles anyone accused of a crime to “a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury.” The Patriot Act says the government can jail Americans indefinitely without a trial.
The Sixth Amendment says an accused person has “compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.” The Patriot Act says the government can monitor conversations between attorneys and clients in federal prisons and even deny lawyers to Americans accused of crimes.
The Sixth Amendment also says an accused criminal must “be confronted with the witnesses against him.” The Patriot Act says Americans can be jailed without even being charged, let alone face any witnesses.
What troubles me more than anything is how Congress can simply vote to supersede the Constitution. They’re not allowed to do that, to vote in new rules arbitrarily. Changing the Constitution requires you to go through many hoops. How can we allow this kind of unprecedented change to happen? Now in response to WikiLeaks, Congress is considering a so-called Shield Bill, which would make it a crime for anybody to “knowingly and willfully” disseminate classified information “in any manner prejudicial to the safety or interest of the United States.” That includes not just the leaker, but anybody who publishes it! First Amendment, so long!
At the same time, it’s recently been reported that our government is building up a huge domestic spying network to collect information on us all, involving local police, state and military authorities feeding information into a database on people who’ve never been accused of wrongdoing. Homeland Security has given billions of dollars in grants to state governments since 9/11, and there are now more than 4,000 organizations in the domestic apparatus. The FBI keeps the ultimate file, with profiles on tens of thousands of Americans reported to be “acting suspiciously.” (I’m sure I’m one of them.) Also the technologies we’ve developed for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars are now being used by law enforcement agencies at home—handheld fingerprint scanners, biometric data devices, unmanned aircraft monitoring our borders with Mexico and Canada. And there are now 440,000 people on the goverment’s secret terrorist watch list, with no recourse to petition to get yourself taken off it or even find out if you’re listed on it.
In other words, we the taxpayers are funding our own government to keep tabs on what we do! This is outrageous, but it’s been a long time coming. Our tax dollars have paid for mind control experiments and assassination attempts and fake attacks to draw us into war. Our tax dollars have funded drug runners and “extraordinary rendition” of detainees. And they’ve not been used in places where they should be going—like to help our veterans cope with Gulf War Syndrome and to keep the nation of Rwanda from mass genocide. What right does the government have to abuse our money like that? This is diabolical!
I’ve put together this book because it’s become crystal clear that our democracy has been undermined from within and it’s been going on for a long time. We the people have got to wake up and start demanding accountability! Let’s never forget the words of Patrick Henry: “The liberties of a people never were, nor ever will be, secure, when the transactions of their rulers may be concealed from them.”
PART ONE
OUR SCANDALOUS POSTWAR HISTORY
1
ASSASSINATIONS
The CIA’s Secret Assassination Manual
What follows are