constitution

The United States House of Representatives passed HR 1540, a bill that authorizes indefinite military detention of American citizens for simply being suspected of supporting "terrorism". No due process or evidence required - just a unilateral accusation that you may be involved in or supporting terrorism.

I don't have much time to blog right now, so I won't be spending a lot of time on this. But I do want to point out that part of the DOJ/FBI criteria for being a terrorist is having at least one of the following traits: large amounts of ammunition, more than a week's worth of food, a finger that is damaged or missing, etc.

The Senate has again voted on an amendment that would attempt to fix the language in S 1867 that allows for indefinite detention of US citizens without trial if they are deemed hostile by the government.

And many Senate Republicans, including Oklahoma Senators Tom Coburn and Jim Inhofe, voted against an amendment today where that vote can only be interpreted one way: the vote shows that they undeniably support the notion that government has the power to declare when and where a citizen has the Right to Due Process, and that Due Process can be denied at the government's will.

Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) proposed Amendment No. 1126 with very simple and very clear language.

On page 360, between lines 21 and 22, insert the following:

Senator Tom Udall (D-NM) offered an amendment to S 1867 to strike the provision that would allow for the unconstitutional detainment of American citizens alleged to be involved in terrorism. According to Senator Rand Paul (R-KY), the criteria used by the Department of Justice includes such asinine traits like missing a finger or being in possession of more than 7 days' worth of food at a time.

The amendment failed.

The breakdown by party?

Democrats: 37-16-1

Republicans: 2-44-1

The 61 Senators who voted against the amendment, including Senators Tom Coburn and James Inhofe from Oklahoma, should be held accountable for their votes in the 2012 election.

Here's a scary read, especially with Congress currently considering SOPA and the PROTECT-IP Act which would give this kind of power to rights-holders by law.

Chanel has filed suit in Nevada against hundreds of alleged importers of counterfeit Chanel-branded goods. And Judge Kent Dawson deemed an investigation by Chanel finding that the sites were selling counterfeit goods good enough to enter an injunction against those sites.

That's right. Chanel, the rights-holder, conducted the investigation and drew the conclusions, rather than an independent third party. And the judge says that is enough to take down the websites which may or may not be located in the United States.

You may have noticed that I've been pretty silent on my blog for the past week or so. I've been so busy with work that I just haven't been able to keep up here. And for the next few weeks, I'm still going to be really busy, but I just wanted to touch on this subject since I have received a few requests asking for what I think.

By now, you probably have read or heard about the assassination of Anwar al-Aulaqi, a New Mexico born man with apparent and alleged ties to terrorism against the United States. And you probably also know that this is at least the second known attempt to take him out of the picture.

There seems to be a lot of questions about the legality and Constitutionality of the killing, as well as the fundamental question of whether this killing in particular was right or wrong. It is important to note that there are three independent questions to answer: legal vs illegal, Constitutional vs unconstitutional, and right vs wrong.

A friend of mine shared a link to the Constitutional Progressives website. On the home page is a pledge to support the "whole Constitution" and a spot for you to sign it.

But from my reading, it's not a pledge to support the whole Constitution. It's only a pledge to support the parts of the Constitution that the Constitutional Progressives agree with. Here it is, with my emphasis added in bold:

Through the Constitution, "We the People" created the most enduring government charter in world history.

Reason has a good article about Chicago's city-wide subject surveillance system, the most extensive in the nation, and the most comparable to that of the United Kingdom's. Apparently, Mayor Richard Daley is intent on putting these cameras on every street corner.

I personally refuse to visit cities that view their supposed citizens as mere subjects. In cities such as Chicago, it's easy to feel like you're Emilio Estevez in Halim's convenience store.

Daley claims that the cameras are a very effective deterrent, while the pioneer of such systems says otherwise. The UK claims that it's 4,000,000 cameras (over 1,000,000 in the city of London alone), are extremely ineffective.

In this clip from Fox News, it appears that Americans are guilty until proven innocent, at least in regard to "terrorism", according to Gretchen Carlson. It's only a minute long, so I'll let you just watch the video as it is rather self explanatory.

You hear it all the time. The GOP and much of the right wing claim unwavering support for the Constitution and freedom. Yet when a religious issue comes up, they go back against their words.

The latest example is the mosque that is slated to be built about two blocks away from where the World Trade Center fell. While it may indeed be an act of Islamic triumphalism, it is not the place of government to restrict a religious entity from building a place of worship.

On Thursday, Massachusetts District Judge Joseph Tauro issued rulings in two cases related to Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act.  Section 3 defines marriage at the federal level to be between on man and one woman.

The ruling in Gill v. Office of Personnel Management is based on Equal Protection through the Fifth Amendment; Massachusetts v. Dep't of Health & Human Services through the Tenth Amendment.  Neither case affects Section 2, which allows states to choose whether or not to recognize same-sex marriages from other states.