RUSH: REGIME GRABS POWER TO DETAIN US CITIZENS

www.RushLimbaugh.com ^ | Jan 3, 2012 | Rush Limbaugh

[Yosemitest]

Regime Grabs Power to Detain US Citizens
January 03, 2012

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Yeah, and I can't believe that nobody's talking about that, either:
The thing Obama signed on New Year's Eve, the new Defense Authorization Act.
I don't know if people don't know what's in this or if other things take precedence.
Well, it is being reported because I saw it. I saw it reported.
Obama signed this thing, the new Defense Authorization Act on New Year's Eve.
Folks, you know what this thing does?
It allows the United States military to detain anybody for no reason!
They don't even have to charge you.
I mean, this is specified. This is not the Patriot Act.
This is way beyond. This is total authoritarianism.
This is the kind of stuff that exists in Third World banana republics.
The government can detain anybody! All they have to do...
They actually don't have to do anything.

They just have to say they suspect you of terrorism.

They don't have to prove it, they don't have to have any evidence, they can charge you.
They can put you away in a jail, you are not allowed a lawyer, you are not allowed habeas corpus.
It's the most amazing thing.
Obama even issued a signing statement with it in which he said:
Don't worry, I'm not going to do this.
Don't worry, I'm not gonna do it.
Well, he can, as can anybody in the military, as can any future president.
They can just decide to detain you. For no reason. I mean, literally no reason.
Where is the left on this?
Where are the civil libertarians?
This is...
You can talk about Bush and the Patriot Act all you want if you're a leftist and a Democrat.
Where are you people?
This is the biggest affront to the whole notion of civil rights that I can recall.
There is a column. Jonathan Turley, who is a legal beagle and a guest on TV shows.
He's a law professor at Georgetown or George Washington, I forget which.

He posted a column on his blog, and the UK Guardian asked for permission to publish it.
So it's on their website.
He basically says what I just said to you in terms of describing what this is.
The reason it was signed into law was so that the military could be funded.
The old argument was,
"If you don't sign this the military won't get funded."Nobody stood up against this.
It was the end of the year, everybody wants outta town to get home for the holidays or what have you.
But there it is.
Now, George W. Bush never even contemplated anything like this, and nobody's talking about it.
You can say,
"Well, Rush, come on.
They're not gonna just start detaining people left and right.
You know they're only gonna use this for people they suspect of being terrorists."

Well, how they gonna define "terrorism"?
If you are a liberal Democrat politician might you think that what happens on Fox is terrorism? (pause)
Might you? You know how wacky some of these people are.
So, anyway, it's out there.
It was signed on New Year's Eve, with a signing statement that said from Obama:
Don't worry, I'm not gonna do this.
That was his signing statement, essentially.
I'm paraphrasing the signing statements but that's essentially what he said.
And this from Business Insider.
"The United States authorities have offered to lift the threat of legal action against 11 Swiss banks in exchange for information."
This is part of a very long story.
"The justice department's doing everything it can to get the names of Americans who have Swiss bank accounts."

The Department of Justice damn near busted the United Bank of Switzerland over this a few years back
and now they're going after other Swiss banks.
The lawyers at the DOJ don't kid around. They're basically saying:
Give us the names of American account holders or we will sue the crap out of you.
So the IRS and the Department of Justice are now -- again, a Business Insider story -- grabbing new powers in the hunt for revenue.
There's two stories here.
The first is the Switzerland bank story where the DOJ is telling Swiss banks:
You tell us or we're gonna sue you until the cows come home,
and these banks are giving up the information.
Which, the coin of the realm in Swiss banking was privacy.
They're giving it up.
If you have a Swiss back the, the Department of Justice, Eric Holder, is going to learn about it.

They're gonna find out if you are doing something they don't like.
Not necessarily illegal.
Don't forget, now, they could say that what you're doing is aiding and abetting terrorism and detain you,
based on what they find in your bank account.
"A federal district court judge in California has given the IRS permission to serve a John Doe summons on the California State Board of Equalization"
that's the state IRS
"demanding the names of residents who transferred property to their children or grandchildren for little or no money from 2005 to 2010.
The IRS has used John Doe summons to seek lists of American taxpayers' unreported offshore accounts at Swiss bank USB and the HSBC bank in India.
These techniques have worked well in Switzerland, the hardworking folks at DOJ, IRS are now bringing them to California.
That means that the IRS can look at anybody's real estate transactions.

"With John Doe warrants they can go fishing and snooping in whatever they like."
Now, again, I'm reading this from Business Insider which is a website.
Think of it what you will.
"The country starved for revenue.
The outfit that's charged with collecting that revenue has an army of tough minded lawyers behind it.
It will have the power to turn over stones as it pleases.
In the end, this effort will raise some additional revenue, it'll scare the heck out of a few people as well;
some people will cheer it.
I see the John Doe warrants as a big and dangerous step and a very slippery slope," writes the writer here,
"sure won't do much for Uncle Sam's image but a lot of people aren't gonna care."

In fact the entire Democrat Party voting base is gonna be encouraging this. The entire Occupy Wall Streeters.
Go get a John Doe summons and find every transaction of everybody that's got any money
and find out if they're giving money away to their kids or whatever or putting their real estate in their kids' names or what have you.
As far as the Defense Authorization Act,
"According to Senator Carl Levin, it was Obama who required indefinite detainment that included US citizens."
Remember, we have killed an American citizen with a drone. Al-Awlaki.
We've done that. He was an American citizen.

"According to Senator Levin, it was Obama who required that his powers to be able to detain anybody for no reason, include US citizens.
The original bill was focused on enemies of America, terrorists specifically.
Levin said there was language in the bill to exempt US citizens but Obama asked for that language to be removed. Lindsey Graham has said the same thing, according to the Congressional Record."
Lindsey Graham said,
"Why did we take out the language Senator Levin wanted me to put in about an American citizen could not be held indefinitely if caught in the homeland?
The administration asked us to do that."

So while Obama's out there trying to blame this on Congress and having a signing statement saying,
"Well, you know, I'm never gonna do this,"
it was Obama who required the language be in the legislation.
This was on New Year's Eve.
So it's like four days ago that this was signed,
of course it's a weekend, and not a whole lot of this is being reported, certainly not being discussed.
I'm telling you what's in the bill
and I'm telling you what's a in the signing statement --
and, of course, the message is gonna be,
"Well, wait a minute now. Why are you concerned?
If you're not doing any anything wrong, you'll not show up on anybody's radar."
Well, let's define doing something "wrong."
You live in Venezuela and you say something about Hugo Chavez gaining weight while on chemo
and you don't believe he's really got cancer and you could end up in jail.
That's what dictators do.



END TRANSCRIPT

Related Links



• The NDAA's Historic Assault on American liberty - Jonathan Turley
  
• Business insider: The IRS & DOJ Are Grabbing New Powers In The Hunt For Revenue
  
  
• Digital Journal: Obama Demanded NDAA Include Americans for Indefinite Detainment
  
  

January 03, 2012m paraphrasing the signing statements but that January 03, 2012m paraphrasing the signing statements but thatbrm paraphrasing the signing statements but that

January 03, 2012li

[emax]

Well a few things:

1. If Americans would tolerate a govt going after them like this, we are WAY past worrying about whose the President, whose in Congress and what it says on those Bills they pass. As it is, we as a people have not shown even the slightest willingness to tolerate Americans being detained for a prolonged period of time without trial. In cases where the govt tried that-and note that these such cases are quite rare indeed-uproars and massive protests and huge legal fiascos followed. Again, see the Padilla case, eventually brought to civilian courts, see the Hamdi case, which the govt lost when it was brought to the Supreme Court.

2. It is about a balancing act, always, Back in your day, I am thinking that there wasnt the major threat of Islamic jihadists-including jihadists with US CITIZENSHIP-who intended on utterly exploiting and taking advantage of our freedoms to bring us down. It naturally had to lead to some degree of fewer freedoms and more restrictions, and during the Bush years, for sure in the few years after 9/11, conservatives by and large were okk with it. Imagine if the AUMF 2001 and the Patriot Act were passed inn the 60s or 70s ! Who knows how violently Americans would have reacted. Ditto with areas like high schools; we can see how restrictive high schools are relative to the 50s or 60s. But that’s in no small part because students back then didnt respond to being angry and frustrated by gunning down classmates. Now I am no fan of Zero Tolerance policies and I am aware of the need to watch the govt for expanding their rule beyond what is needed. The govt is full of people who have a human nature to crave more power once they have been given a certain degree of it. But it is about balance.

3. It is still disheartening to believe that our military would stand for something like that-an issue that has not really come up in all of this. I know how scary it is with our new govt., But FR always emphasizes the need to “support out troops” more than anyone. Doesnt that mean having some level of faith in them to do the right thing and uphold basic American liberties ?

[Sprite518]

I find it comical how, through your own words, you admit that you are not really sure about this. However, at the very same time you passionately argue a point you are not sure about? So who is paying you to write your propaganda?

Seriously why would ANYONE defend a position they admit they do not know? It's absolutely astounding and the only conclusion I can come up with is that someone is paying you to do this.

Obama admits he NOW has this power, but you are saying he does not. LOL!

[emax]

Where did you get the notion that Obama admitted the new power ? Because of his signing statement where he said he will not authorize detaining Americans ? For all the issues one may have with Obama, this implies you know what he is thinking. He said “I will not authorize the detention of US citizens”; using that to say Obama thinks he has a new power amounts to saying you can read his mind. You cant. No one is paying me to do this, BTW. Debating these things using rationality and knowledge of American history and law is something I do not need to get paid to do.

[Ron H.]

I just hope you are right but I will be keeping my powder dry as I have less faith in government and therefore it politicians and in some cases my fellow American than some seem to have. I read somewhere, don't remember just where now that down through the (last 30-45) years members of our armed forces have been polled on what they thought about our forces having to be used on American citizens and the latest numbers have started to discourage me.

The numbers as I seem to recall were something like less that 15% thought it wasn't something they thought would be a good idea or would be willing to do or some similarly phrased response back in around 1965 and by the year 1995 or so that number was up to around 42% felt they wouldn't have any problems in allowing their forces to be used in an urban environment should their government order them to. I find those trending numbers troublesome if indeed they are true.

In any event the times are changing and not necessarily for the better. I agree much of what you said but as I said I still have my reservations as I've seen too much change that troubles me much and for the willingness of too many Americans to capitulate when it comes to protected rights v/s a sense of false security via self-serving laws.

[emax]

Well I see why you need to keep guard. I concur that those results about are troubling, but context is still needed. Is it referring to using the military to restore order and keep people safe in the event that cities start to get completely chaotic and too violent for police to control ? Thanks in no small part to welfare and public housing, cities are often a helluva a lot more dangerous in 1965 then they were in 1995. Using the military in a city is hardly the same thing as having the military round up people simply for protesting. I also note that it specifically said urban and not urban or rural. Perhaps it was meant to refer to cities that have become violent hellholes that could conceivably break out into full fledged anarchy, like Paris and parts of London have, tomorrow. In fact, the newer poll apparently took place a couple years after the massive LA Riots, which I suspect had something to do with those results. We would have to see how the questions are worded and phrased before we can draw any real conclusions. Use of military in urban areas can mean just about anything. It is still about balance here. Remember that in asking military to simply do mass roundups of Americans suggests ordering large numbers of them to eventually start arresting family, relatives and close friends.

One thing that is vital is keeping Americans educated and we now, luckily, have ways to keep ourselves informed about US history, our Constitution, how it relates to Congressional laws, Presidential actions and Court rulings, including SCOTUS, District and Appeals Court rulings, and what previous laws have allowed govt to do. For everyone on the left and right, having this education is critical. Otherwise we will never be able to tell if the govt just doing its job as outlined in the Constitution or trying to ursurp too much power. That is a key thing that I have been trying to do this whole time. Any Socialist-Communist dictator will tell you that the people need to be uneducated if you want to ensure you can control them. I am as worried, or at least close to being as worried, as you are about our peoples’ lack of education, apathy, self entitlement, refusal to understand American laws and history and refusal to take any kind of real action. So we should continue to change it immediately.

[bobby.223]

You have outlined this traitorous 1930’s Nazi Germany NDAA bill 100% correctly on this thread. You have asked questions with nothing but B/S, ‘agent provocateur’ rope-a-dope responses so I agree with your conclusion.....there can be no other reason. Good work Sprite.

[emax]

The anaology doesnt really work when you note that the laws that Nazi germany passed are different from the law we are talking about. This one clearly-and in fact explicitly-ensures that for US citizens the govt does not have authority it did not have under the AUMF and the Patriot Act. Americans, including and perhaps especially Conservative Americans, during the years following 9/11 either didnt understand how broad the govt’s authority was with the AUMF or, more likely, found it necessary and acceptable at the time. I recognize that having Obama leading the executive branch makes things a lot scarier for many of us, but understanding the balancing act that is needed to fight terror stands. In the past decade, Conservatives were often the first to argue that being safe from terror threats means giving up certain freedoms that at one time Americans would have violently rioted at the thought of giving up. God knows how engraged Americans would have gotten if the Patriot Act and AUMF of 2001 were passed in the 60s or 70s. Hardly the same case as Nazi Germany, where there really was no terrorist threat comparable to what Americans have now. And we would have to look at the laws that were actually passed in succession in Nazi Germany to see how clearly they targeted Jews at first and then over time to look at that analogy any further.

[Sprite518]

Look it obvious you are in denial. What's funny is that you ADMIT you do not know what you are talking about? Yet at very same time you argue passionately.

Here is a quote,

“I want to clarify that my Administration will not authorize the indefinite military detention without trial of American citizens.”

Now why would he say that if that power was not there? The ACLU, the Cato institute both left and right say this is the President's new power.

This is very real and I think you are denial. Here are some more links since you think all these people are just making it up.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2012/jan/02/ndaa-historic-assault-american-liberty

http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/275-42/9236-focus-naomi-wolf-ndaa-congress-signed-its-own-arrest-warrants

Rupert Murdoch: “Obama decision on terrorist detention very courageous - and dead right!” via his Twitter. Reactions to this rather contrarian view were not polite, to say the least.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/ndaa-outrage-continues-to-grow-online-2012-1#ixzz1ibjrVetV

It's been on Drudge, Rush, Savage, etc... Even the far left and the rest of the world is talking about it. It's a lot of people. I would have to guess about over 200 million people understand this. Like I said you are one the few that's probably in denial.

[Sprite518]

Thanks!

[emax]

The ACLU and Naomi Wolf for years said the same things about Ex-President Bush. And this law basically says Congress agrees with President Bush. That’s it. That’s all its really saying. And I am NOT saying that isnt a problem; anytime Congress supports the President’s position, it is always potentially threatening to our system of checks and balances. Especially on something this serious. But what I have been saying this whole time is that the notion that Obama designed this as a scheme to arrest pro Life protesters any anyone he doesnt like doesnt maks sense. And 200 million ? I’ll place a hundred grand on the table that there arent 200 million people who read the provisions before making up their mind on it. Certainly not 200 million who read it and also understand what current law allows the president to do.

[emax]

Edit, Congress agrees with Ex President Bush and with President Obama-note that for all the issues with Obama’s domestic and foreign policy, his views on who can be detained under AUMF, including potentially US citizens, has basically been the same as those of Bush before him. Ergo, calling this a Nazi bill is tantamount to saying Bush is Hitler.

[emax]

Edit, Congress agrees with Ex President Bush and with President Obama-note that for all the issues with Obama’s domestic and foreign policy, his views on who can be detained under AUMF, including potentially US citizens, has basically been the same as those of Bush before him. Ergo, calling this a Nazi bill is tantamount to saying Bush is Hitler.

[B Knotts]

Yes, he did. Rand Paul pretty much stood alone in defense of the Constitution, and liberty.

The rest of them...well, they’re there to enrich themselves with money and power.

[Theophilus]

Yes, he did. Rand Paul pretty much stood alone in defense of the Constitution, and liberty.

Best vote I ever cast. I don't think I could ever vote for McConnell again.