The Challenge to Illegal Spying

To continue on with this week's theme of illegal spying on Americans by the government, today's post will delve into what response the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) did to fight for our rights after the initial story broke in the New York Times. The following is taken directly from the ALCU website www.aclu.org.

It's been nearly two years since we first found out that our own government has been tapping our phones and reading our e-mails. In 2005, the nation learned that President Bush has repeatedly authorized the National Security Agency to monitor the phone calls and emails of people inside the United States, without a warrant and in violation of the Constitution. Authorized days after September 11, 2001, this warrantless wiretapping program is part of a broad pattern of the executive branch using "national security" as an excuse for encroaching on the privacy and free speech rights of Americans without adequate oversight.

The ACLU won the first round of its legal challenge in August 2006, when U.S. District Court Judge Anna Diggs Taylor ruled the NSA program violates the First Amendment, the Fourth Amendment, and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act in her ACLU v. NSA decision. "It was never the intent of the Framers to give the President such unfettered control," Taylor wrote in the decision, "particularly where his actions blatantly disregard the parameters clearly enumerated in the Bill of Rights."

After this initial victory, the ACLU returned to court on January 31, 2007, where the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments from both sides. Despite the Bush administration's January announcement that wiretapping warrants are now subject to FISA court approval, the president is still claiming the "inherent authority" to engage in warrantless eavesdropping - even his own attorneys acknowledged that nothing would stop him from resuming warrantless surveillance at any time. Then ACLU Associate Legal Director Ann Beeson urged the court to exercise its proper authority and require the president to follow the law.

In July 2007, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed the case, ruling the plaintiffs in the case - which includes scholars, journalists, and national nonprofit organizations - had no standing to sue because they could not state with certainty that they have been wiretapped by the NSA.

The decision "insulates the Bush administration's warrantless surveillance activities from judicial review and deprives Americans of any ability to challenge the illegal surveillance of their telephone calls and e-mails," said ACLU Legal Director Steve Shapiro. He added the ruling "did not uphold the legality of the government's warrantless surveillance activity. Indeed, the only judge to discuss the merits clearly and unequivocally declared that the warrantless surveillance was unlawful."

Because the appeals court refused to rule on the legality of the program, Americans were denied the chance to contest the warrantless surveillance of their telephone calls and e-mails. In October 2007, the ACLU appealed the ruling to the Supreme Court of the United States. The Court declined the case in February 2008.

In August 2007, following the passage of the so-called Protect America Act - a law that vastly expands the Bush administration's authority to conduct warrantless wiretapping of Americans' international phone calls and emails - the ACLU filed a request with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court for court orders and legal papers pertaining to the government's authority to secretly wiretap Americans.

In December 2007 the FISC ruled that, despite the fact that release of the orders would inform the public about the government's surveillance powers, the court would not conduct a review to determine whether the legal rulings were properly determined to be classified.

The Senate Judiciary Committee has asked the Bush Administration no less than nine times for information about the NSA's illegal spying. On June 27, 2007, the Senate Judiciary Committee issued subpoenas to the White House, Vice President and the Justice Department for documents about this warrantless surveillance program. After missing a second deadline in August, Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) declared he would move towards holding the adminstration in contempt. In October, after nearly four months without meaningful reply, the ACLU once again asked the Committee to go forward with contempt proceedings against White House officials for refusing to cooperate with the subpoenas and reminded Congress of its constitutional authority to do so.

www.aclu.org

This is just further confirmation that the manipulators have total control of the government at all levels, including the judicial branch. Thus, having faith in our democracy, separation of powers, checks and balances, etc. are all mute when considering we are a bankrupted country. The receivership of that bankruptcy, the Federal Reserve (operating on behalf of the shareholders of the World Bank), gets to make the decisions on how things are done. This includes the President, Congress, and the Supreme Court. This has been the case since 1933 when Roosevelt signed the bankruptcy agreement.

Notice above in red that the Supreme Court denied hearing the case. They didn't want to have egg on their face by exposing that they are not in control of the law and that the President can do whatever he wants, or more accurately, what he is directed to do. They know that the President is in violation of the FISA law when he ordered the eavesdropping on American citizens. And despite all the raucous raised by the ACLU and other government watchdogs, none of that matters. The slaves can not rule the plantation. The slaves have to be freed before they can make the rules.

Did I just blow your mind? Unless you are already aware of all of this information, I should have. Go back and read the History of Money series in this blog beginning on January 28th, 2008 for more of the details. Do a little research on these topics and you will find that it is all true. That is of course, unless you want to live in a state of ignorant bliss and think that all of the present anomalies in the markets are normal.

The greatest transfer of wealth in the history of the world will happen in the next few years and most people are not even aware that this is all being planned and executed by very smart individuals. Their simple plan - control everything. When that happens (if it hasn't already), everyone on the planet will answer to their every whim. Think on these things for a minute. Is this the kind of world you want to live in? Is this what you want for your children and grandchildren? If it is, do nothing.

As always, the choice is yours.

As with all Saturdays, I will recap key financial indicators that provide many clues as to what is happening in the financial world and the overall plan of what lies ahead. The US dollar strengthened for the second week in a row mainly due to the fall of the price of oil. That drove precious metal prices down again, but not significantly. Gold closed Friday afternoon at $929.20 per ounce. Silver also closed lower at $17.37 per ounce. The price of oil as mentioned, went down for the second straight week closing at $123.43 per barrel. This strengthened the US dollar index, a measure of stability against the other major world currencies. It closed on Friday at 72.81.

With the decrease in the price of oil, the manipulators are stalling the markets until the conditions are right for execution of their plan. Since the dollar has been falling for most of the year, this was accelerating the demise of the economy too fast. By this stalling action, it allows for the victims to get comfortable with the market actions before the rug is swept out from beneath their feet. This is just normal, or that is what they want you to believe. Believe me, the conditions down the road are anything but normal. As I said above, the greatest transfer of wealth in the history of the world will happen in the next several years. Are you ready for that?

Ignore this warning at your peril.

To repeat the consequence from yesterday's scripture passage:
The Israelites persisted in all the sins of Jeroboam and did not turn away from them until the LORD removed them from his presence, as he had warned through all his servants the prophets. So the people of Israel were taken from their homeland into exile in Assyria, and they are still there. II Kings 17:22-23 (NIV)

If you have comments or questions, please feel free to contact me at the address below.
Email: DeltaInspire@panama-vo.com