Many thanks to all the constitutionalists around the country who've supported our work this year, either through donations or volunteer time. We have our work cut out for us in 2010, but together, we CAN -- and WILL -- restore the rule of law.

Please join with me to get our democracy back. Post this message on your Walls. Network. Let’s try to get 1,000,000 people to join the Facebook Group – “Urge President Obama to Support a Truth Commission.” Sincere thanks.

An open letter to President Obama:

You promised us change, but what we got is a continuation of a Psychological Reign of Terror on the American people in the form of organized gang stalking by a nationwide group of Stasi-like Citizen Stalkers and a continuation of many of the civil liberties policies of the past administration that spit in the ... See Moreface of our Constitution. Change would have meant reinstating anti-COINTELPRO regulations that the Attorney General's Guidelines released on May 30,2002 rescinded, so it would once again be illegal for the FBI to monitor and conduct surveillance of citizens without evidence of wrongdoing. Change would have been to put a stop to the growth of Watch Lists which already contain the names of over 1.1 million Americans. Change would have been to create a mechanism for citizens to discover if federal or local intelligence police units have been monitoring them. Change would have been creating a framework for the review and audit of intelligence files by a neutral third party. Change would have been to create better oversight for the 100 fusion centers now in our country. Change would have been to put limits on the ability of police departments to conduct surveillance of First Amendment activities in the absence of criminal wrongdoing. Change would have been to stop the abuse of the states secret doctrine to hide government misconduct. Change would have been to stop police from using GPS to track American citizens without first getting a warrant. Change would have been to review surveillance law to stop the expansion of the government's authority to conduct domestic surveillance without evidence of wrongdoing. Change would have been to stop the use of organized gang stalking tactics to surveill and harass citizens 24/7 for years – using some of the same tactics that are used on hardened terrorists – social isolation, noise, sleep deprivation, psychological torture, dogs. Change would have been nominating a full complement of members to The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board. Change, Mr. President, would have been for you to restore the Constitutional protections of our liberty that due process and checks and balances afforded us before the War on Terror took them away from us. It's not too late, Mr. President, to be a guardian of our civil liberties. You can be the President who creates a new cabinet level department, The Department of Civil Liberties, so that never again would there be Red Squads in America, or the FBI using COINTELPRO tactics, or Americans who have committed no wrongdoing being put under 24/7 surveillance and subjected to organized gang stalking tactics. Go to www.trackedinamerica.org and see the shameful surveillance administration after administration have thrust on their own people. The man who brought us real change, President Obama, wrote – “We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness – That to secure these Rights, Government are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the consent of the Governed.” The Imperial President, George W. Bush, marched us in the direction of totalitarian government far away from the ideal articulated by Thomas Jefferson ; we cried on your election day that maybe finally we would have CHANGE. And you took our hope and in action after action showed us you were Bush II. Go to my web site – www.theintrovertspeaks.com and see the ugly specter America has become. It is not too late, Mr. President. Give us a “bipartisan independent investigatory Commission” to look into the policies and practices of the United States Government in the War on Terror. Give us the CHANGE you promised.

We need to know if abuses committed in the past are also being committed in the execution of the War on Terror.

From: Intelligence Activities and the Rights of Americans 1976 US Senate Report on Illegal Wiretaps and Domestic Spying by the FBI, CIA and NSA by the Church Committee (US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Activities Within the United States)

1. “targets of intelligence activity have ranged far beyond persons who could properly be characterized as enemies of freedom and have extended to a wide array of citizens engaging in lawful activity.” P. 7... See More

2. “The government has often undertaken the secret surveillance of citizens on the basis of their political beliefs, even when those beliefs posed no threat of violence or illegal acts on behalf of a hostile foreign power.” P.10

3. “Government officials – including those whose principla duty is to enforce the law – have violated or ignored the law over long periods of time and have advocated and defended their right to break the law.” P. 11

4. “Most domestic intelligence issues have not reached the courts, and in those cases when they have reached the courts, the judiciary has been reluctant to grapple with them.” P. 11

5. “Intelligence agencies have collected vast amounts of information about the intimate details of citizens’ lives and about their participation in legal and peaceful political activites.” P. 12

6. “The overwhelming number of excesses continuing over a prolonged period of time were due in large measure to the fact that the system of checks and balances – created in our Constitution to limit abuse of Government power – was seldom applied to the intelligence community. “P. 17

7. “But in the most basic harm was to the values of privacy and freedom which our Constitution seeks to protect and which intelligence activity infringed on a borad scale.” P. 18

8. “In light of the record of abuse revealed by our inquiry, the Committee is not satisfied with the position that mere exposure of what has occurred in the past will prevent its recurrence. Clear legal standards and effective oversight and controls are necessary to ensure that domestic intelligence activity does not itself undermine the democratic system it is intended to protect.” P. 22

9. “Since the re-establishment of federal domestic intelligence programs in 1936, there has been a steady increase in the government’s capability and willingness to pry into, and even disrupt, the political activities and personal lives of the people. The last forty years have witnessed a relentless expansion of domestic intelligence activity beyond investigation of criminal conduct toward the collection of polticial intelligence and the launching of secret offensive actions against Americans.” P. 22

10. “Viewed separately, each finding demonstates a serious problem in the conduct and control of domestic intelligence operations.” P. 97

11. “A distressing number of programs and techniques developed by the intelligence community involved transgressions against human decency that were no less serious than any technical violations of the law.” P. 100

12. “At times knowledge of illegal programs and techniques has been concealed from Congress as well as executive branch officials.” P. 108

13. “The central problem posed by domestic intelligence activity has been it departure from the standards of law.” P. 117

14. Some of the things done:
1. exaggerated the threat of Communism – p. 41
2. investigated the NAACP for 25 years p. 40
3. “conducted covert programs in violation of laws protecting the rights of Americans” p. 44
4. kept information from Congress and the Attorney General P. 44
5. targeted domestic dissenters P. 50
6. developed covert programs to disrupt and discredit domestic political groups p. 53
7. “As domestic intelligence activity increasingly broadened to cover domestic dissenters under many different programs, the government intensified the use of covert techniques which intruded upon individual privacy.”
8. “The targets for FBI intelligence collection have included:
the Women’s Liberation Movement
the conservative Christian Front and Christian Mobilizers of Father Coughlin
the conservative American Christian Action Council of Rev. Carl McIntyre
a wide variety of university, church and political groups opposed to the Vietnam War
those in the non-violent civil rights movement, such as Martin Luther King’s Southern Christian Leadership Council, the National Association for Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and the Council on Racial Equality (CORE).
“The Army’s nationwide intelligence surveillance program created files on some 100,000 Americans and an equally large number of domestic organizations encompassing virtually every group seeking peaceful change in the United States” P. 118

And please don't forget to SHARE the link with your family, friends, and network so that they sign as well!

The Bill of Rights Defense Committee should ask President Obama to nominate Caroline Kennedy to the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board. We need a high profile advocate for civil liberties and with her writings on the topic she has shown she would perfectly fit the bill.

The army won't let the media cover a Palin event. Is this the new repressive America?

The problem with fusion centers:
1. suspicious behavior is reported - the information databased - what's missing is due process - the person is never informed of the charges against them - has no right to rebut them - this is ripe for abuse, personal vendettas - trashes the constitution
2. anti-COINTELPRO regulations were rescinded in the Bush administration - Obama's Attorney General has not submitted different guidelines - allows the FBI to do the things it did in former COINTELPRO programs to those whose "suspicious behavior was reported"
3. the Bush surveillance program was massive federal inspectors general reported to Congress in July 2009 - and classified - we don't know what those secret programs are (unless you are a target of one) - hence names are being data based on the reporting of suspicious behavior - without due process - and possibly (targets know for a fact) covert harassment/conspicuous surveillance undertaken for the life of the target
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This is unAmerican. We have a Constitution. We use to have the Rule of Law not men (Bush signing executive orders/setting up secret programs even Congress didn't know about). We need a Commission to review the policies and programs of the War on Terror. Without it Americans will never know the depth of the loss of their civil liberties.
Bonnie

good work

I’m extending an invitation to visit my Facebook Group, “Watching FBI Surveillance,” to begin to understand U.S. Surveillance Policy.