Telecom Immunity--Orwellian Nightmare Continued
Contrary to Congressional flacks and the irresponsible corporate media, there is no such thing as legal immunity for the illegal participation of the telecoms in the illegal warrantless wiretapping ordered by the presidential usurper, Bush, months before the 9-11 attacks in 2001.
There might be something further from Constitutional truth, but that one is a whopper. "No ex post facto law ... shall be passed." The Constitution says that. There is no such thing as legal retroactive immunity for crimes already committed.
The Constitution's bar against ex post facto law means that the people have the right to be governed by law that is not ex post facto. That right is protected in the statutes by 18 USC 241, felony conspiracy against rights.
The Criminal Congress wants you to think that they can pass any law they want, because they have legislative immunity. However, when a law they pass is clearly a felony conspiracy against rights, in clear violation of 18 USC 241, then their felony forfeits their legislative immunity. "... They shall in all cases," the Constitution says, "except treason, felony, and breach of the peace, be privileged from arrest...".
There is no get-out-of-felony-free card for political poobahs of any stripe.
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For weeks now, we've been force-fed the fiction that Congress can, if it wishes, grant legal immunity to the telecoms for the anti-Constitutional invasions of privacy that they've perpetrated for years.
There might be something further from Constitutional truth, but that one is a whopper. "No ex post facto law ... shall be passed." The Constitution says that. There is no such thing as legal retroactive immunity for crimes already committed.
Just as the authors of the Constitution held future Congressional politicians responsible for being able to recognize ex post facto, so we can hold our current Congress responsible for recognizing ex post facto.
Well -- except that our current Congress is set in a 3-branch fascist despotism. Everybody there lives above the law, perpetrating any crime that the traffic will bear. As long as the traffic doesn't start lynching politicians, judges, and CEOs, they're all safe in their cronyism and collusions against the rule of law.
For the past some weeks, hundreds of writers, millions of citizens, and at least two federal judges have been pushing unconstitutional privacy rights violations up Congress' nose. By Nuclear Friday, 16 November 2007, parts of both Houses of our Criminal Congress had taken little baby half steps toward dropping telecom immunity, but were still rampant on warrantless wiretapping.
We should be convinced of two things. Congress' little baby half steps toward dropping telecom immunity are (1) temporary, and (2) all about doing the foxtrot with public opinion and nothing about honoring the law or their oaths to uphold the Constitution.
Dropping a policy that has focused the public wrath, and then bringing it back weeks or months later for a stealth sneak-through drive-by, has been a hallmark of the Bush Regime and its 3-branch fascist despotism. Many writers have dealt with that political hallmark. And, as usual, their write-ups are all hand-wringing and clothes-clutching, with everything hung in the politics-as-usual frame of reference.
Americans seem to have forgotten Nixon's criminal politics and the crucial move that we made from the political tap-dancing stage to the legal arena. Corporate media, of course, is all too happy to thump up emphasis for the Bush Regime's political tap-dancing. They do that thumping with increasing determination now because they seem to know that if Americans ever take the Bush Regime and its 3-branch despotism into the legal arena, weapons of mass incarceration will pop up all over the landscape.
Legal arena realities dealing with the Bush crimes will be Nixon times 10, perhaps times 100. Along with politicians, judges, and CEOs, the probable legal intensity might well sweep up prominent reporters, columnists, editors, and publishers in felony-conspiracy and felony accessory-after-the-fact charges. Importantly, the rewards of advertizing dollars and social inclusions, which have marked media cronyism with the corruption masters of govt and corporate elites since the 1972 Business Roundtable's pro-Nixon startup will become worthless to the working news media. Pushing past politics-as-usual, and into the legal arena, clearly means a serious sea change for the working press.
Most writers -- corporate media and alt media -- want to stay marginalized by writing up everything that this criminal, 3-branch despotism does as simply politics as usual. And no wonder. As Voltaire pointed out, "It's dangerous to be right, when your government is wrong." If the fascist govt doesn't get you, their parasitic thugs will.
However, govt criminality, in commission and omission, will not stop until it is stopped. It simply will not stop on its own.
One of laws that the 3-branch despotism lives above for now is the federal statute, 18 USC 241. It reads --
"If two or more persons conspire to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any person in any State, Territory, Commonwealth, Possession, or District in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the United States, or because of his having so exercised the same; or -- If two or more persons go in disguise on the highway, or on the premises of another, with intent to prevent or hinder his free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege so secured -- They shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; and if death results from the acts committed in violation of this section or if such acts include kidnapping or an attempt to kidnap, aggravated sexual abuse or an attempt to commit aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to kill, they shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for any term of years or for life, or both, or may be sentenced to death."
This law defines a statute conspiracy against rights. The law's specified imprisonment of up to ten years for a non-death incident makes the minimum violation of this law a serious crime and a felony conspiracy.
The Criminal Congress wants you to think that they can pass any law they want, because they claim absolute legislative immunity. Wrong.
There is no such thing as absolute legislative immunity. Referring to senators and representatives, Article 1, section 6, of the Constitution says: "... They shall, in all cases, except treason, felony, and breach of the peace be priviledged from arrest ...".
When a law they pass is clearly a violation of 18 USC 241, then their felony conspiracy forfeits their legislative immunity.
If any of our govt's office holders or appointees perpetrate a felony on the job, all of the immunities that protect them are forfeit. Felony forfeits executive immunity. It forfeits judicial immunity. And it forfeits legislative immunity, no matter what smokescreen they pull out of the "Speech and Debate Clause".
There is no get-out-of-felony-free card for political poobahs of any stripe.
If we were on a level legal playing field, about 500 of the members and senators of our Criminal Congress would already be in federal prison, dating at least from the 18 USC 241 violation of soldiers' rights (to be sent to war only on the expressed order of Congress) in the October 2002, anti-Constitutional give-away of war-powers to Usurper Bush -- when the Constitution clearly says that declaration of war is purely a legislative branch function -- and when a 1935 SCOTUS decision (Schechter Poultry, 295 US 495) barred the Congress from giving away any of its core powers as specified in the Constitution.
When a rights violation under 18 USC 241 results in death, that death is felony murder. The penalties of life imprisonment or death, as specified in 18 USC 241, turn Iraq war deaths into felony murder. There's no statute of limitations on felony murder.
For an analysis of the wide and deep Iraq invasion felony conspiracy, and the guilt of the Congressional co-conspirators in the felony murder of every US soldier who has been killed in Iraq, see especially the essay, "Criminal Conspiracy and the Laws of War--Iraq".
We'll keep this short and skip the naming of the Congressional felons in the USA Patriot Act and several others.
The American people have the Constitutional right to be governed by law that is not ex post facto. For Senate felons, see the Senate roll call vote that passed the "Military Commissions Act of 2006", S3930, PL 109-366, with its multiple ex post facto provisions. For House felons, see the House roll call vote on the passage of S3930.
The American people have the Constitutional right to personal privacy. For Senate felons, see the Senate roll call vote that passed the "Protect America Act of 2007", S1927, PL 110-055, with its multiple privacy violating felonies. For House felons, see the House roll call vote on the passage of S1927.
The only thing saving those about-500 fascist criminals who masquerade as members and senators of Congress from being indicted, prosecuted, convicted, and imprisoned are their cross-branch, felony conspiracy collusions with other Constitution-breaking criminals in the Department of Justice.
Not only do the Congressional felons have a lock on zero accountability, they also clearly have a deep contempt for the American people. These felony conspiracies just could not happen otherwise.
In purifying Usurper Bush's warrantless wiretaps with the PAA and RESTORE Act, and in cranking up for more ex post facto lawmaking with telecom immunity, the Congressional Wing of the 3-Branch Despotism knows that it will not be criminally prosecuted by the Executive Wing of the 3-Branch Despotism. And, even if criminal prosecution should happen -- because of bizzaro circumstances -- they know that the Judicial Wing of the 3-Branch Despotism will keep them safe from harm.
It's coverup in coverup on coverup. Congress uses the telecom immunity issue to coverup the PAA's warrantless wiretapping. Yeah. Usurper Bush and his DOJ cronies use the PAA to coverup the years of 18 USC 241 violations in anti-Constitutional NSA wiretaps. Yeah. The 3-branch fascist despotism wins. Yeah. The do-nothing American people do nothing. Yeah.
Until the do-nothing American people get their collective thumb out of their collective mouth, chew out of the cocoons socially engineered by the governing elites for the past decades, set aside their beliefs-driven cognitive dissonance in favor of political reality, and take responsibility for the political abortions that kill the Constitution's delivery of citizen rights, the nazis in the 3-branch despotism will go right on.
We need a peaceful revolution, not the lynchings. We can't get one iota more in a bloody revolution than in a peaceful one -- and we will lose too much in a bloody revolution.
At the risk of being the proverbial broken record, we need to organize for (1) massive boycotts, (2) a national system of jury nullification, and (3) the reduction of ten to fifteen partisan bicameral state legislatures to nonpartisan unicamerals on the still-successful 1934 Nebraska model -- with clean-money-only nonpartisan campaigns and zero gerrymandering added.
And we need to add whatever other tactics will help trigger THE FEAR in our criminal representatives so that we can force passage of at least two, stand-alone Constitutional amendments. To end the 3-branch fascist despotism, we need the sovereign people to gain a Swiss-like share of governance power. I've been working on my proposals for the two power-sharing amendments most of this month. In the end, of course, I'm just another proposer, and it's 'let the people decide'.
Are we clear? There's no help coming from the Republicratic Fascist Bund. Staying with political party politics only insures more political criminality.
Happy holidays.
God rest ye merry gentlemen,
Let nothing you dismay.
Remember Bush is goosestepping
Across the USA,
To kill the rights of all mankind,
And get you extra pay.
Oh, Republicrats for havoc and coin,
Havoc and coin,
Oh, Republicrats for havoc and coin.
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Modified Tue 04 Dec 2007, at 8:10 am CST
© 2007 by Stephen Neitzke
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