It only took a few paragraphs in a $500 billion, 591-page bill to raze one of the most important limits on federal power.
How’s that for an opening line? Listen: this is how many Democrats and Republicans handed over another nugget of power to our dear Chimperor in September of 2006:
More Below the Chimp…
Above, Bush scolds ‘Mercuns for not trusting his decisions
Section 1076 of the John Warner National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2007 changed the name of the key provision in the statute book from “Insurrection Act” to “Enforcement of the Laws to Restore Public Order Act.”
Rather Orwellian and definitely creepy, don’t you think? Before I get into the mechanics of this redefined Act, here’s a little bit of “Insurrection Act” history for those of you, like me, who fell asleep during history class:
Congress passed the Insurrection Act in 1807 to severely restrict the president’s ability to deploy the military within the United States…The Insurrection Act of 1807 stated that the president could deploy troops within the United States only “to suppress, in a State, any insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination, or conspiracy.”
Here’s the nifty part about Section 1076–it adds on these choice words: “natural disaster, epidemic, or other serious public health emergency, terrorist attack or incident, or other condition” thereby expanding our Megalomaniac-in-Chief’s power over the other branches as well as our Constitution.
Scratching your head right now? Like I was, you’re probably wondering how that shit got slipped in and was passed with near-unanimous consent. In the immortal words of John Conyers (paraphrased because of poor memory):
“My dear boy, do you really think that we read every bill that comes before us?”
Here’s a partial list of the guilty parties–and please don’t be drinking or eating food when you read this:
…Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), the ranking Democratic member on the Senate Armed Services Committee, co-wrote the provision along with committee chairman Sen. John Warner (R-Va.). Sen. Ted Kennedy openly endorsed it, and Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.), then-chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, was an avid proponent.
Kudos to Senator Patrick Leahy, however, as he fought the inclusion of Section 1076 and continues to fight it today, commenting: “Using the military for law enforcement goes against one of the founding tenets of our democracy.”
Maybe there are some of you that think this diary is alarmist. That’s cool. But many people thought that critics of the PATRIOT Act, Gitmo, the Iraq War, warrantless wiretapping and COINTELPRO-era tactics against protesters were full of hot air. And if that doesn’t make you pause, just stop and think: what if some lone nutball decides to blow up a pipe bomb in a heavily populated area, like a ballpark or in the Capital? Do we really need to give the other nutball in the White House another reason to trample our rights in the name of “national security” Newspeak?
Be afraid. Be very afraid.
UPDATE: Fuck fear. The junta on Pennsylvania Ave. is already selling that. Contact your Congresscritters and tell them to join that wonderful curmudgeon from Vermont in opposing Section 1076.
Snippets from The American Conservative with special thanks to James Bovard for his excellent analysis over at 9.11 Truth.org
