The New Due Process

"Due Process and Judicial Process are not one and the same, particularly when it comes to National Security."
~Attorney General Eric Holder

Eric Holder's recent clarification of our constitutional right to Due Process is nothing short of a declaration of lawlessness that removes any standard for justice in the world. He was justifying the Obama administrations use of pilotless drones to assassinate US citizens abroad, a specific example with broad implications, especially considering the timing of his speech in the period between the signing of the 2012 NDAA and it's implementation in early March. In the past months the shock of Obama's passage of the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act has been wearing off and people are starting to wonder exactly what it means and how it will be implemented. It is not hyperbole to suggest that, in it's extreme, the provisions of this bill allowing for indefinite detention of civilians by military authorities without due process could be used to justify a declaration of Martial Law under any number of perceived threats to the Nation. Though Holder's examples of targeting al-Qaeda may be the emotional triggers that compel many Americans to agree with such a drastic departure from our right to a trial by jury, his statements made to justify the assassination of  a US citizen was shockingly broad in scope.

"We must also recognize that there are instances where our government has the clear authority, and I would argue, the responsibility to defend the United States through the appropriate and lawful use of lethal force. This principle has long been established under both US and international law. In response to the attacks perpetrated,  and the continuing threat posed by al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and associated forces, congress has authorized the president to use all necessary and appropriate force against those groups. Because the United States is in an armed conflict, we are authorized to take action against enemy belligerence under International law. The constitution empowers the president to protect the nation from any imminent threat of violent attack. And international law recognizes the inherent right of national self defense. None of this is changed by the fact that we are not in a conventional war."
~Attorney General Eric Holder

What is security if the greatest military super power in the history of the world can be so easily threatened by particular individuals? The US government is the mighty hero, or the damsel in distress depending on which mask suits it better at anytime, and often plays both roles simultaneously. The US government, outlined in the constitution, was designed to protect the rights, and provide for the security of the people. Ironically, this great power is more concerned with it's own security, and seems to be showing signs of paranoid schizophrenia. During the entire cold war with a perceived equal power the US government never made such drastic compromises of our constitutional right to trial by jury. Though the Bush/Cheney administration had expanded the powers of the executive branch in the direction of an all powerful monarch, Obama's supporters had "hoped" he might restore the balance of powers and the rights of the people. Instead, Obama is proud of his assassination program that has taken the lives of hundreds of innocent civilians, and we must take the his word for it when those who are assassinated are labeled "guilty."

If this is how Obama treats his people in response to an old foe who has not struck in over a decade, how might our government respond to an internal threat that could potentially lead to widespread unrest or even revolution? After all, the US is a legal fiction, like a corporation, so would it not be ultimately threatened by a revolution, however peaceful, that could possibly replace it, render it redundant, or revoke it's charter? There are many who feel strongly that the US has no rights, especially in relation to natural born human beings, real entities with eyes to read these words; and that the only mandate a government has is by the consent of the governed, but not under duress by a government that perceives threats in it's own people. To write in the vein of our forefathers, to write with the passion of Thomas Paine, is all one needs to do to be on this ever-growing list of threats to a system of government that has long since lost it's legitimacy by the standards outlined in it's own constitution. There are some who are calling for an Article V convention under the constitution making a group of citizens an equal branch of power in checking the other branches, and authorizing a convention of citizens to amend the constitution. Perhaps these US citizens will be perceived as threats to this legal fiction called the US government, if they were seeking assurance from Holder's speech there was no comfort in his words to be found.

Holder vehemently defended Obama's right to assassinate US citizens based on the following criteria:

"First, the US government has determined after a thorough and careful review that the individual poses an imminent threat of violent attack against the United States; second, capture is not feasible; and third, the operation will be conducted in a manner consistent with applicable law of war principles."
~Attorney General Eric Holder

Again, it can't be overstated that one cannot attack a legal fiction, and when done in war it is usually from a force of comparable or considerable size. That the president can deliberate over which petty criminal crosses the line into a viable threat against an entire nation in the secrecy of the oval office is perhaps the greatest threat this nation has ever known. The oath of office makes a distinction between enemies of the constitution being foreign or domestic, but it does not place one beneath the other. So what of those who believe that their own government officials, in the service of the wealthy corporations, have subverted the constitution in a manner that could lead one to declare them the enemy of the constitution? What of those who feel that Barack Obama is a far greater threat to the US for his consistent attacks on the constitution than any so-called terrorist hiding in the mountains of central Asia? Could it not be said that "capture is not feasible" for those in the Government and corporate elite who are perceived threats to the US in the eyes of it's own people? Holder's speech was a declaration of war on the citizens of the United States "consistent with applicable law of war principles" and strongly implies the imminent state of martial law on US soil.

The movement of Occupy Wall Street has brought our disturbing state of affairs to the foreground to be observed by even the most prudent skeptics, and the facts all add up to a Plutocratic coup d'etat in which our corporations select our congress members and presidents, they write our legislation and send it to the capital for a rubber stamp, and there seems to be little we the Natural born persons (as opposed to corporate persons) can do to stop this subversion of democracy. So now the Corporate persons are the only interests being represented in congress, and nothing threatens them more than OWS. It seems we are being prepared for an act of congress so heinous, so authoritarian, that only a series of shocking advances and overblown threats can deliver it in a short enough timescale. That timescale is based around the presidential election season, and by election day 2012 all of the pieces will be in place needing only to be implemented, the groundwork for all of the legal justification having been laid out piece by draconian piece. It doesn't matter who wins the election, the 1% is always the president, and he has no choice but to carry out their will lest he go the way of JFK. When a leader declares war on another country he does so with booming voice from the presidential podium for all to hear, when he declares war on his own people he uses legal jargon in hushed tones.

The week before Holder's speech a young unarmed black teenager was shot dead while pleading for his life in a gated community in Florida. His attacker, George Zimmerman was a self appointed neighborhood watch patrol man armed with a 9mm handgun who had a past of calling in suspicious black individuals in the neighborhood. Under a controversial new Florida law called the "Stand you ground" law, anyone who feels "threatened" can essentially get away with murder, and apparently if they only murder a black person they aren't even brought in for questioning. Zimmerman simply told the police who arrived on the scene that he felt threatened, though he was an armed adult 80lbs heavier than the young unarmed boy, and he admittedly pursued the boy who attempted to evade him out of fear. If one takes Holder's remarks in regards to threats against the nation and replaces the word "Nation" with "Neighborhood" a disturbing parallel begins to emerge. Trayvon Martin, the young black teen gunned down by Zimmerman was a perceived threat to the neighborhood based on the flimsiest of pretense, and was summarily executed on site without judicial process, but he must have claimed some form of due process. Because what is "Due Process" if it isn't "Judicial Process?" Isn't it simply a way of denying one their right to a trial by jury; to gun someone down in the streets and simply declare that they got what they deserved, what was Due? In other words, lawlessness, at least by the standards guaranteed in our constitution. But perhaps we the people no longer have rights, rights are now the sole property of nations and corporations and we'd best not get in their way because they may decide we are due for the process.