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We've Gone from a Nation of Laws to a Nation of Powerful Men Making Laws in Secret
Preface: Some defendants are no longer allowed to see the "secret evidence" which the government is using against them. See this and this.
The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that judges can throw out cases because they don't like or believe the plaintiff ... even before anyone has had the chance to conduct discovery to prove their case.
In other words, judges' secret biases can be the basis for denying
people their day in court, without even having to examine the facts. Judges are also becoming directly involved in politics with the other branches of government.
Claims of national security are being used to keep the shenanigans of the biggest banks an corporations secret, and to crush dissent.
But this essay focuses on something else: the fact that the laws themselves are now being kept secret.
America is supposed to be a nation of laws which apply to everyone equally, regardless of wealth or power.
Founded on the Constitution and based upon the separation of powers, we escaped from the British monarchy - a "nation of men" where the law is whatever the king says it is.
However,
many laws are now "secret" - known only to a handful of people, and
oftentimes hidden even from the part of our government which is supposed
to make laws in the first place: Congress.
The Patriot Act
Congress just re-authorized the Patriot Act for another 3 years.
However,
Senator Wyden notes that the government is using a secret
interpretation of the Patriot Act different from what Congress and the
public believe. Senator Wyden's press release of today states:
Speaking
on the floor of the U.S Senate during the truncated debate on the
reauthorization of the PATRIOT ACT for another four years, U.S. Senator
Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) – a member of the Senate Select Committee on
Intelligence -- warned his colleagues that a vote to extend the bill
without amendments that would ban any Administration’s ability to keep
internal interpretations of the Patriot Act classified will eventually
cause public outrage.
Known as Secret Law, the official
interpretation of the Patriot Act could dramatically differ from what
the public believes the law allows. This could create severe violations
of the Constitutional and Civil Rights of American Citizens.
***
I
have served on the Senate Intelligence Committee for ten years, and I
don’t take a backseat to anybody when it comes to the importance of
protecting genuinely sensitive sources and collection methods. But the
law itself should never be secret – voters have a need and a right to
know what the law says, and what their government thinks the text of the law means,
so that they can decide whether the law is appropriately written and
ratify or reject decisions that their elected officials make on their
behalf.
As TechDirt points out:
It's not just the public that's having the wool pulled over their eyes. Wyden and [Senator] Udall are pointing out that the very members of Congress, who are voting to extend these provisions, do not know how the feds are interpreting them:
As
members of the Senate Intelligence Committee we have been provided
with the executive branch's classified interpretation of those
provisions and can tell you that we believe there is a significant
discrepancy between what most people - including many Members of
Congress - think the Patriot Act allows the government to do and what
government officials secretly believe the Patriot Act allows them to do.***
By far the most important interpretation of what
the law means is the official interpretation used by the U.S.
government and this interpretation is - stunningly -classified.What
does this mean? It means that Congress and the public are prevented
from having an informed, open debate on the Patriot Act because the
official meaning of the law itself is secret. Most
members of Congress have not even seen the secret legal
interpretations that the executive branch is currently relying on and
do not have any staff who are cleared to read them. Even if
these members come down to the Intelligence Committee and read these
interpretations themselves, they cannot openly debate them on the floor
without violating classification rules.
Here's Wyden's speech on the Senate floor.
The Surveillance State and Unauthorized Wars
Former constitutional lawyer Glenn Greenwald noted last week:
The
government's increased ability to learn more and more about the
private activities of its citizens is accompanied -- as always -- by an
ever-increasing wall of secrecy it erects around its own actions.
Thus, on the very same day that we have an extension of the Patriot Act
and a proposal to increase the government's Internet snooping powers, we have this:
The
Justice Department should publicly release its legal opinion that
allows the FBI to obtain telephone records of international calls made
from the U.S. without any formal legal process, a watchdog group
asserts.
***
The decision not to release the memo is noteworthy... By turning down the foundation's request for a copy,
the department is ensuring that its legal arguments in support of the
FBI's controversial and discredited efforts to obtain telephone records
will be kept secret.What's
extraordinary about the Obama DOJ's refusal to release this document is
that it does not reveal the eavesdropping activities of the Government
but only its legal rationale for why it is ostensibly
permitted to engage in those activities. The Bush DOJ's refusal to
release its legal memos authorizing its surveillance and torture
policies was unquestionably one of the acts that provoked the greatest
outrage among Democratic lawyers and transparency advocates (see, for
instance, Dawn Johnsen's scathing condemnation of the Bush administration for its refusal to release OLC legal reasoning: "reliance on 'secret law' threatens the effective functioning of American democracy"
and "the withholding from Congress and the public of legal
interpretations by the Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel (OLC)
upsets the system of checks and balances between the executive and
legislative branches of government."
The way a
republic is supposed to function is that there is transparency for
those who wield public power and privacy for private citizens. The
National Security State has reversed that dynamic completely, so that
the Government (comprised of the consortium of public agencies and
their private-sector "partners") knows virtually everything about what
citizens do, but citizens know virtually nothing about what they do
(which is why WikiLeaks specifically and whistleblowers generally, as
one of the very few remaining instruments for subverting that wall of
secrecy, are so threatening to them). Fortified by always-growing
secrecy weapons, everything they do is secret -- including even the "laws" they secretly invent to authorize their actions -- while everything you do is open to inspection, surveillance and monitoring.
This
dynamic threatens to entrench irreversible, absolute power for reasons
that aren't difficult to understand. Knowledge is power, as the
cliché teaches. When powerful factions can gather unlimited
information about citizens, they can threaten, punish, and ultimately
deter any meaningful form of dissent ...
Conversely, allowing government officials to shield their own conduct from transparency and (with the radical Bush/Obama version of the "State Secrets privilege")
even judicial review ensures that National Security State officials
(public and private) can do whatever they want without any detection and
(therefore) without limit or accountability. That is what the
Surveillance State, at its core, is designed to achieve: the destruction
of privacy for individual citizens and an impenetrable wall of secrecy
for those with unlimited surveillance power. And as these three
events just from the last 24 hours demonstrate, this system -- with
fully bipartisan support --- is expanding more rapidly than ever.
***
So patently illegal is Obama's war in Libya as of today that media reports are now coming quite close to saying so directly; see, for instance, this unusually clear CNN article today from Dana Bash.
As a result, reporters today bombarded the White House with questions
about the war's legality, and here is what happened, as reported by ABC News' Jake Tapper:
Talk
about "secret law." You're not even allowed to know the White House's
rationale (if it exists) for why this war is legal. It simply
decrees that it is, and you'll have to comfort yourself with that.
That's how confident they are in their power to operate behind their
wall of secrecy: they don't even bother any longer with a pretense of
the most minimal transparency.
Secret Memos
Secret laws are not a brand new problem.
As I've previously noted:
Scott Horton - a professor at Columbia Law School and writer for Harper's - says
of the Bush administration memos authorizing torture, spying,
indefinite detention without charge, the use of the military within the
U.S. and the suspension of free speech and press rights:We may not have realized it at the time, but in the period from late 2001-January 19, 2009, this country was a dictatorship. The constitutional rights we learned about in high school civics were suspended. That was thanks to secret memos crafted deep inside the Justice Department that effectively trashed the Constitution. What we know now is likely the least of it.
Yale law professor Jack Balkin agrees, writing that the memos promoted "reasoning which sought, in secret, to justify a theory of Presidential dictatorship." Constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley says that the memos are the "very definition of tyranny". And former White House counsel John Dean says "Reading these memos, you've gotta almost conclude we had an unconstitutional dictator."
State of Emergency Cuts the Constitutional Government Out of the Picture
As I wrote in February:
The United States has been in a declared state of emergency
from September 2001, to the present. Specifically, on September 11,
2001, the government declared a state of emergency. That declared
state of emergency was formally put in writing on 9/14/2001:
A
national emergency exists by reason of the terrorist attacks at the
World Trade Center, New York, New York, and the Pentagon, and the
continuing and immediate threat of further attacks on the United States.NOW,
THEREFORE, I, GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States of
America, by virtue of the authority vested in me as President by the
Constitution and the laws of the United States, I hereby declare that
the national emergency has existed since September 11, 2001 . . . .
That
declared state of emergency has continued in full force and effect
from 9/11 to the present. President Bush kept it in place, and
President Obama has also.
***
On September 10, 2010, President Obama declared:
Section
202(d) of the National Emergencies Act, 50 U.S.C. 1622(d), provides
for the automatic termination of a national emergency unless, prior to
the anniversary date of its declaration, the President publishes in
the Federal Register and transmits to the Congress a notice stating
that the emergency is to continue in effect beyond the anniversary
date. Consistent with this provision, I have sent to the Federal
Register the enclosed notice, stating that the emergency declared with
respect to the terrorist attacks on the United States of September
11, 2001, is to continue in effect for an additional year.
The
terrorist threat that led to the declaration on September 14, 2001, of
a national emergency continues. For this reason, I have determined
that it is necessary to continue in effect after September 14, 2010,
the national emergency with respect to the terrorist threat.
The Washington Times wrote on September 18, 2001:
Simply
by proclaiming a national emergency on Friday, President Bush
activated some 500 dormant legal provisions, including those allowing
him to impose censorship and martial law.
***
Continuity of Government ("COG") measures were implemented on 9/11. For example, according to the 9/11 Commission Report, at page 38:
At
9:59, an Air Force lieutenant colonel working in the White House
Military Office joined the conference and stated he had just talked to
Deputy National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley. The White House requested (1) the implementation of continuity of government measures, (2) fighter escorts for Air Force One, and (3) a fighter combat air patrol over Washington, D.C.
***
The Washington Post reported in March 2002 that "the shadow government has evolved into an indefinite precaution." The same article goes on to state:
Assessment of terrorist risks persuaded the White House to remake the program as a permanent feature of 'the new reality, based on what the threat looks like,' a senior decisionmaker said.
As CBS pointed out,
virtually none of the Congressional leadership knew that the COG had
been implemented or was still in existence as of March 2002:
Key
congressional leaders say they didn’t know President Bush had
established a “shadow government,” moving dozens of senior civilian
managers to secret underground locations outside Washington to ensure
that the federal government could survive a devastating terrorist attack
on the nation's capital, The Washington Post says in its Saturday
editions.Senate Majority Leader Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.) told
the Post he had not been informed by the White House about the role,
location or even the existence of the shadow government that the
administration began to deploy the morning of the Sept. 11 hijackings.An aide to House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.) said he was also unaware of the administration's move.
Among
Congress's GOP leadership, aides to House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert
(Ill.), second in line to succeed the president if he became
incapacitated, and to Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott (Miss.) said
they were not sure whether they knew.Aides to Sen. Robert C.
Byrd (D-W. Va.) said he had not been told. As Senate president pro
tempore, he is in line to become president after the House speaker.
Similarly, the above-cited CNN article states:
Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-South Dakota, said Friday he can't say much about the plan.
"We
have not been informed at all about the role of the shadow government
or its whereabouts or what particular responsibilities they have and
when they would kick in, but we look forward to work with the
administration to get additional information on that."
Indeed,
the White House has specifically refused to share information about
Continuity of Government plans with the Homeland Security Committee of
the U.S. Congress, even though that Committee has proper security
clearance to hear the full details of all COG plans.
Specifically,
in the summer 2007, Congressman Peter DeFazio, on the Homeland
Security Committee (and so with proper security access to be briefed on
COG issues), inquired about continuity of government plans, and was refused access. Indeed, DeFazio told Congress that the entire Homeland Security Committee of the U.S. Congress has been denied access to the plans by the White House (video; or here is the transcript). The Homeland Security Committee has full clearance to view all information about COG plans. DeFazio concluded: "Maybe the people who think there’s a conspiracy out there are right”.
As University of California Berkeley Professor Emeritus Peter Dale Scott warned:
If
members of the Homeland Security Committee cannot enforce their
right to read secret plans of the Executive Branch, then the systems
of checks and balances established by the U.S. Constitution would
seem to be failing.
To put it another way, if
the White House is successful in frustrating DeFazio, then Continuity
of Government planning has arguably already superseded the Constitution as a higher authority.
Indeed, continuity of government plans are specifically defined to do the following:
***
-
Those within the new government would know what was going on. But
those in the “old government” – that is, the one created by the framers
of the Constitution – would not necessarily know the details of what
was happening
- Normal laws and legal processes might largely be suspended, or superseded by secretive judicial forums
- The media might be ordered by strict laws – punishable by treason – to only promote stories authorized by the new government
***
In
2007, President Bush issued Presidential Directive NSPD-51, which
purported to change Continuity of Government plans. NSPD51 is odd
because:
- NSPD51 was passed without Congressional input
- Even the New York Times wrote in an editorial:
Beyond
cases of actual insurrection, the President may now use military
troops as a domestic police force in response to a natural disaster, a
disease outbreak, terrorist attack, or to any ‘other condition.’
Changes of this magnitude should be made only after a thorough public
airing. But these new Presidential powers were slipped into the law
without hearings or public debate.
So continuity of government laws were enacted without public or even Congressional knowledge, and neither the public or even Congress members on the Homeland Security Committee - let alone Congress as a whole - are being informed of whether they are still in effect and, if so, what laws govern.
Postscript: Postscript: As I've repeatedly noted, economics, politics and law are inseparable and intertwined. As Aristotle pointed out
thousands of years ago, "The only stable state is the one in which all
men are equal before the law." Without the rule of law, the state
crumbles, and the government bonds and other investments crumble with
it.
As I wrote last year:
What's the hole that is swallowing up the economy? The failure to follow the rule of law.
The rule of law is what provides trust in our economy, which is essential for a stable economy.
The rule of law is the basis for our social contract. Indeed, it is the basis for our submission to the power of the state.
We
are supposed to be a nation of laws, not of men. That's what humanity
has fought for ever since we forced the king to sign the Magna Carta.
Indeed, lawlessness - the failure to enforce the rule of law - is dragging the world economy down into the abyss.
- advertisements -
Like speed cameras cause people to look at their speedos more than the road they are so worried about getting more points on their licence. Does that make safer driving? More points means more money for the government and also for insurance companies... nice little earners eh!
+a bazzilion
I will add my personal pet peeve simply because its de rigueur these days...food laws.
They're not for cleanliness, they're for ingredients.
The government has decided how much butter or salt or whatever is proper for everyone...everyone but themselves of course.
If you doubt me pull up any state dinner menu or current picture of Hillary ;-)
Right on,
There is not an American on this site not guilty of a felony.
Period.
You just have no clue what you did or did not do, that's illegal.
Now Someone explain to me something
If they all swear on the bible to respect and defend the constitution how we end up withl statues that violates the constitution
Why we allow those puppets to put the statues before the constitution. ?
Because there are not enough MEN with balls to call a Con Con, and stop this shit.
38 Lousy states.
YESTERDAY, I called my two Senators DEMANDING them to Demand to see the SECRET PATRIOT ACT LAWS!!!.
I told them, if you are not on the committee, you have NO CLUE what your passing..........
You must find out.Ask someone on the Committee, and see if THEY will tell you anything....................they WILL NOT.
Why?, because they have cloaked it as National Security!!!,so the committees members are vowed to silence, and scared to death.
THIS is what will start the shooting in the USA.
When the LAW, stops obeying the LAW,but expects the citizens to do so, it's OVER.
Calling your member of Congress is pointless. Fighting the system is pointless. You want to really fuck with them? Turn your back on the system entirely... It's non-violent, and it's the only thing that will work. Don't vote, don't participate. As Charles Hugh Smith says "opt out".
Be a part of the gray market or the black market. Grow your own food. Go solar. Don't "shop", try to trade or barter instead. If you have to shop, only shop locally.
The system is crashing. It's inevitable. The parasites (the elites and the unproductive) are scared shitless. Expedite their demise by turning your back on their system.
You got it.
The only way to throw out this garbage is for everyone in America and freedom-loving peoples from around the world to sit on our hands! Do nothing- or at least as little as you have to. Don't work overtime for the man. In fact, tell the man why you're doing this and he may slow his factory. Educate your parents and your children. Tell everyone you can why this is so wrong.
But the truth is, from Full Metal Jacket, "It's a giant shit sandwich and we're all going to have to take a bite." Everyone must sacrifice and suffer to rid our world of this incestuous disease we have allowed to flourish!
Once the bosses of small business and medium-sized businesses slow this country down, They will really begin to get the message. Resist their counter-attack with all your might! Plus, with all the free time we will have, we can educate hundreds of millions, if not billions around the globe to put an end to this madness. To the world, I say, "Stop doing and start talking."
Nurses, doctors and firemen, lend me your ears...
You are vital to the well-being of humanity in our society. Please continue your valued work. If you are not one of these people, one of those vital for our fellows to remain alive, then you should have a voluntary work slow-down or even stoppage.
Policemen, you know the real score. You have been to the meetings and have heard the paranoia-driven drivel coming out of the mouths of "authority." I urge you to resist that nonsense, for you know it's not true. Refuse to participate in the rape of freedom.
Veterans of foreign wars, reservists and active military, please listen to your hearts and your common sense and directly oppose what the authorities are planning, for it is you who will be on the front lines, to either make war against your brethren or to resist the fascist authority that you know to be evil in its structure and intent.
Resist, America! Do not fight. Do not draw attention to yourself and family. Simply refuse to participate in this world gone wrong. Refuse the Fourth Reich! Deny these criminals the bounty that seeps from the sweat of our brow and the value they skim from the steel of our backs.
Do no more.
Starve them.
Starve them to Death.
Oorly, sounds great, except won't work.
If you WON'T the man will find 100 in line waiting for your place, more than happy to send you home, and to Chap 11.
Now let me ask you this:
If the congress will pass a law that doesn't respect the constitution, is any way We the People to sue them ?
Serious it should be a way to make those puppets to respect the constituion
Vv,
No, only way is a CON CON.
A minimum of 38 States file for a Constitutional Convention, the states get to pick their OWN delegates.
Congress MUST allow it, and the states change the Const by Amending it, to take away MOST of the power from the entire three branches.........
Including EO's, PDD's, and the powers to declare a war, and call it something else.
Rid the states of the IRS, and NEA, etc, etc,, and ANY other useless vampire agencies.
Time the people took this step, if we are ever going to have a chance with a peaceful settlement.
Otherwise, get ready, or leave, ASAP.
Dos--Con Con opens EVERYTHING up, not just the initial question.
Are YOU ready for that?
I'm not--too much other manipulation possible.
- Ned
And there's also far too much legislating from the bench occurring. See "shadows emanating in penumbras", and all that...
God forbid Obama gets to put another Sotomayor or Kagan on the Supreme Court, then it is FULL OUT Bolshevik time.
Joooooooooo communists gon' drink yo blood and gitcho mama. Oogah boogah!
"We are supposed to be a nation of laws, not of men. That's what humanity has fought for ever since we forced the king to sign the Magna Carta."
Once the West declared itself a multicultural paradise, we committed to running away from the fields of Runnymede. Only some nations can choose to become a nation of laws, not of men. A soup of nations is not a nation, and a non-nation has never (and will never) become a nation of laws.
Good luck to us all, Mike
The Magna Carta is a living breathing document that is subject to intepretation by today's scholars. Freedom could easily be interpreted as slavery. Private property could easily mean state ownership of all property, including your body.
Duh. Time to move. Let's make a list of where all the United States evacuees can go shall we? Each country should not have laws that allow creditors from the U.S. or any other authority from the U.S. Diaspora.
That's where it looks like it's going Cammy. I don't know where to go either. Extraditiion? They are going to come and get me if I leave with a clean slate? If that's what you are inferring and that is on the horizon, them were all f'd.
That's where it looks like it's going Cammy. I don't know where to go either. Extraditiion? They are going to come and get me if I leave with a clean slate? If that's what you are inferring and that is on the horizon, them were all f'd.
I've been thinking about Argentina
Not sure about their extradition laws though.
There's always France, all other non extradition countries I know of are 3rd world cesspools.
The United States maintains diplomatic relations, but does not have extradition treaties with the following countries: Afghanistan, Algeria, Andorra, Angola, Armenia, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brunei, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cambodia, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Chad, China (People's Republic of China), Union of the Comoros, Congo, Democratic Republic of the, Cote d' Ivoire, Djibouti, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, Gabon, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Indonesia, Jordan, Kuwait, Laos, Lebanon, Libya, Madagascar, Maldives, Mali, Marshall Islands, Mauritania, Micronesia, Moldova, Mongolia, Mozambique, Myanmar, Namibia, Nepal, Niger, Oman, Qatar, Russian Federation, Rwanda, São Tomé and Príncipe, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Serbia and Montenegro, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Togo, Tunisia, Uganda, Vanuatu, Vietnam, Western Samoa, Yemen, and Zimbabwe.Read more: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_countries_have_non-extradition#ixzz1NZorkVQm
Read the actual text of the treaty with Argentina. Most treaties aren't blanket authorizations to move people by force between countries at the behest of a single party. In addition, there can be be factors external to the treaty itself that come into play, such as the European Convention on Human Rights. If you are serious about picking up and moving- then spend the money to discuss your specific concerns with a local attorney in the country you are considering moving to who specializes in this area of law.
http://untreaty.un.org/unts/144078_158780/13/1/5023.pdf
Depends upon how you define "extradition". Eg...Osama Bin Laden.
forced austerity.. thru not raising the debt ceiling!
59% or Americans receive some form of government assistance!
That means that 59% of Americans will be hungry.. or worse maybe 59% of Americans will watch their children be hungry!
All these people with cup that runneth over that have pontificated on and fucking on about Americans pulling themselves up by their bootstraps! They will have their wish come true!
Now when their wife gets shot in the face for $20 so some American can feed his children! I will not feel bad and I don’t wanna hear the crying “Why Me?”!! it’s called Karma Bitchez!!
You wanna be Christian Conservatives selectively hammering the Po Folks of America and letting the Corporations run ALL over everyone! I hope the Poor eat ALL of you fuckers! ALIVE!!
And please, I have 1 silver eagle for a scalp and “W” sticker that goes with that scalp!
Time to pay for your stupidity! But America will be so much better after you fuckers are all gone! So it is what it is! A cleansing! And you idiots brought it upon yourselves! LOL!!!
http://vimeo.com/6475921 Control in Modern Times! Easier to Kill a Million People than Control a Million People in these modern politically awaken times. Revolution will come, will you be a spectator or will you help change your own future.. your children’s future, for the better?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/02/AR2009110202712.html
U.S. sees shortage of ammunition
A SHORTAGE OF AMMUNITION
Demand is up despite drop in crime rate
Only 10 Billion bullets a year are available... 14 Billion demand! LOL!!
Please allow my art to wash over you, my jazzing up of metaphors is for color only! Peace is the best way to solve problems.. peace, talking and voting for one of the two parties presented for us to choose from! violence solves nothing!
1,000 RD BOXES OF:
handgun- 9MM, .45, .40, .357mag, .44mag
rifle- .223, .308, .338 win mag, .50 BMG
shotgun- 12gauge various shot, mostly 00 and slugs
stacked neatly in the wine cellar and ready to roll.
;-)
The Chicago Way is to pass draconian laws, then exempt your cohorts from those laws while selectively enforcing them against people you don't like.
That can't go on forever.
"The only stable state is the one in which all men are equal under the law." --Aristotle
Obamacare exemptions?
EPA cracking down on all power plants except those owned by GE?
Selective civil rights enforcement?
A Quiet Coup.
Financially backed.
EOS
US. We believe in:
1. Self determination for other people [sorry about that whole Iraq and Libya thingy]
2. Democracy, where our representatives do our bidding and a real choice of candidates exist [our representative vote against the will of the constituencies, and we are given two non-choices to pick from];
3. That people have a right to privacy in their own homes [Fourth Amendment, DOA];
4. That people should be seen as equal before the law [Sorry about celebrities and rich folks getting special privileges];
5. That the police are here to protect the masses [sorry about those beating with batons and electrical devices]
6. The government is designed to protect property rights [mortgage fraud anyone?]
Did I miss any? THE REASON THIS COUNTRY WAS ONCE GREAT WAS OUR FIRST PRINCIPLES, ONCE YOU ABANDON FIRST PRINCIPLES THE COUNTRY BECOMES INDISTINGUISHABLE FROM OTHER OLIGARCHIES.
the real problem goes back many years...ie, Congress can pass a law for regulation, the enforcement is subject to bureaucrats interpretation and enforcement; congress passes a law and it is subject to interpretation by the Court system; the "people" pass a referendum and it is subject to dismissal by the courts. The point....we have moved away from original intent of law and order as envisioned by our Founders. the constitution is considered by too many to be something written by a bunch of old men 200 plus years ago and no longer valid in todays society...it is subject to change. So where is the surprise that laws are now passed in "secret" ????? Congress has given up its constitutional rights to the Feds and guess what ???
Wow, GW, notice how the shills and sock puppets have yet to hit on a Friday before a long weekend. I'm sure this will get their attention soon enough.
Note to .gov coders: keep your software automatically polling the web site for the GW posts. Once one hits you must auto-alert your best disinformation associate on duty to get a few posts in. This will better cover up your pattern of responses. And if you are always late to the fire then how can you expect to put it out?
TPOG