The USAPATRIOT and USAFREEDOM Acts

The USAPATRIOT and USAFREEDOM acts, as well as their historical parent legislation such as FISA, Roosevelt’s Executive Order 9066, and the various Alien and Sedition acts throughout American history, are glaring examples of hostility, distrust, xenophobia, and racism as a matter of public law. To me, it is no different than Jim Crow, or the Dredd Scott 1857 ruling. PATRIOT and FREEDOM are draconian legislation, and an authoritarian’s wet dream. The instituting of PATRIOT into American domestic policy was intended, just like FISA and Order 9066, to give credence to war hysteria, paranoia, and to justify violence. Historically, sources have reported that following 9/11 and the passing of PATRIOT (the fastest legislation ever to be pushed through Congress and enacted as law in centuries), violence against brown-skinned immigrants by American citizens rose somewhere close to 800% when compared to pre-9/11 citizen-on-immigrant violence. A similar rise in violent crimes against ethnic minorities has increased 500% if memory serves, in recent years following the Trump inauguration.

I recently achieved a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice, and the future may hold further education and certification in law studies. And as a student of law, I am not interested in the “war on terror”. I am far less concerned about vague and terror inducing “Islamic threats abroad” when the government that is supposed to be serving the people and abiding by a constitution can so easily ignore that constitution in favor of a historical trend of racist legislation that was specifically designed to give the CIA, NSA, DHS, other agencies, and police departments carte blanche to violate rights and freedoms however they will. This is not the first time that I have brought forth my feelings on these issues, and I have been ridiculed by fellow students and even professors, for my “unpatriotic, un-American” views. Because I do not believe that America is perfect, I do not believe that “we are the good guys”, I do not believe that America is justified in its actions, and I do not believe that I or anyone else should be rewarded for such blind, unthinking, and un-empathetic “patriotism”. If this is what patriotism is, I want nothing of it. America has historically been a racist, xenophobic, conservative, slow-changing and un-empathetic nation. I do not trust America to do the right thing. I do not trust this nation, or its leaders, to support and defend their own constitution, much less to abide faithfully by an international standard of universal human rights and ethics. PATRIOT and FREEDOM are simply the authoritarian icing on the cake.

Regarding torture, this is an act justified under PATRIOT, continued through FREEDOM, and justified or disguised throughout the Bush, Obama, and now Trump administrations by referring to torture as “enhanced interrogation techniques”.

“…the Inspector General’s findings reinforce the argument that torture is not effective, that efforts to legalize its use under controlled conditions are futile, and that, even where torture is permitted by higher authorities, recriminations against the perpetrators are still likely to ensue. Furthermore, torture tends not to be aimed at thwarting imminent threats. Its use by the CIA in the War on Terror is no exception. In any case it has yielded little evidence that could not have been obtained through legitimate means.”

Ignoring advice from multiple international military figures and advisors, these three presidential administrations have legalized torture, expanded its use, explained it away, gave it a more palatable name, or have simply lied about the extent of its use. Conservative majority congresses repeatedly and aggressively blocked any attempt from Former President Obama to shut down Guantanamo Bay, due to its use of torture, and other human rights violations. This is to say nothing of the numerous unconstitutional CIA black sites across the world, justified under the blanket of “national security”, which engage in torture. Senator John McCain has been very vocal in his repeated attempts to convince Americans and other nations that torture is completely ineffective, does not guarantee the truth will be given, and in many ways can psychologically damage the torturer as well as the victim.

There is no greater example of this truth than the defunct Army SERE training. SERE (Survive, Evade, Resist, Escape) was a controversial training program designed to teach American soldiers and intelligence officers how to resist torture when captured, how to effectively escape a facility and kill one’s captors. The program had run for decades without much problem until the Army was unable to continue funding the training, and given the “war on terror”, the CIA took it over. With the CIA’s oversight, the training regimen was expanded. In addition to being subjected to starvation, dehydration, sleep deprivation and freezing temperatures, the CIA added other sensory deprivation, beatings, electrocution, and even rapes. CIA operatives were getting paid to run a program where they tortured and raped American soldiers. The program deteriorated until it was less about training soldiers to survive, and more about teaching CIA spooks how to get better at torture. It went from a survival school to a torture school. After thousands of soldiers started speaking up, the Secretary of the Army and the Joint Chiefs got involved, and the program was shut down entirely. It was supposed to eventually be given back to the Army and reformed, although I wouldn’t be surprised if the CIA continues its “Torture and Rape 101” classes in their black sites.

Things such as this are justified under PATRIOT and FREEDOM. American foreign and domestic policy is very nearly becoming the stuff of Stalin and Mao, and if the pitiful actions of the Trump administration in its first month are any indication, this problem will only become worse, until the American flag may in the future quite literally adorn a reborn Fourth Reich; an authoritarian, militarized, fascist empire. America is already a heavily militarized global empire which is growing more authoritarian by the day, and this was a long time coming, ever since 9/11. If a country is ruled by nothing but fear and aggression, if due process is gone, the equal rights and freedoms of all citizens are erased, and the response to protest and dissent is a press secretary who claims that the authority of the President will not be questioned; in what semblance is America going to still be free, and for how long?

“Isn’t it interesting how fascists always steal the word freedom?” — Henrik Vanger, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Cited: Blakeley, R. (2011). Dirty hands, clean conscience? The CIA inspector general’s investigation of “enhanced interrogation techniques” in the war on terror and the torture debate. Journal of Human Rights, 10(4), 544–561.