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The BIRCH BARK BBS / 414-242-5070
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THE NEW AMERICAN -- May 29, 1995
Copyright 1995 -- American Opinion Publishing, Incorporated P.O.
Box 8040, Appleton, WI  54913

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ARTICLE: Front Page
TITLE: Battling Terrorism With Tyranny
AUTHOR: William F. Jasper

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1968: Exploiting the assassinations of Martin Luther King and
Senator Robert Kennedy, a media-led campaign provided irresistible
pressure on Congress to pass President Lyndon Johnson's "Omnibus
Crime Control and Safe Streets Act." Among other things, the
massive bill banned the mail-order sale of handguns and established
the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration (LEAA), which began
nationalizing law enforcement with federal grants to state and
local governments.

1989: Paroled felon Patrick Purdy gunned down five children in a
Stockton, California schoolyard, furnishing all the grist needed
for the media to orchestrate a continuous clamor for a ban on
"assault weapons." A state ban was enacted in California and in
1993 a federal ban on designated "assault weapons" was passed.

1994: Following a year-long media blitz heralding a national
"crisis" of crime and violence, Congress was stampeded into passing
the Omnibus Crime Bill, effectively federalizing a multitude of
crimes and law enforcement activities previously reserved to the
jurisdiction of the states.

Unfortunately, these are only a few examples of political
"opportunity" and preparation converging to effect immense
accretions of federal power and a further erosion of the checks and
balances that are essential to limited constitutional government.
Wars, crises, tragedies, and infamous criminal acts have ever been
useful handmaids to ambitious and amoral politicians. It was this
age-old phenomenon of usurpation-through-crises that James Madison
was referring to when he warned in 1795 against those who would use
"the old trick of turning every contingency into a resource for
accumulating force in the government."

Two hundred years later that "old trick" is being played with a
vengeance for a massive accumulation of force in the federal
government. The contingency at hand, of course, is the fearful
prospect of future terrorist acts like the murderous April 19th
attack on Oklahoma City. On May 3rd President Clinton sent to
Congress, for its "immediate consideration and enactment," the
Antiterrorism Amendments Act of 1995. "This comprehensive act,
together with the Omnibus Counterterrorism Act of 1995," said the
President, "are critically important components of my
Administration's effort to combat domestic and international
terrorism."

Constitutional Concern

The President declared that the bill would "provide an effective
and comprehensive response to the threat of terrorism, while also
protecting our precious civil liberties." To those "civil
libertarians" not totally convinced by the President's pledge,
White House deputy chief of staff Harold Ickes offered additional
assurance: "This President is well familiar with the Constitution.
He has taught constitutional law and he is very concerned that
whatever is submitted conform to the Constitution." Senate Majority
Leader Bob Dole, House Speaker Newt Gingrich, and other members of
Congress assure us that they too are determined to balance our
security needs with constitutional protections against an intrusive
and tyrannical Big Brother. But after meeting with the President,
both Dole and Gingrich expressed a desire for bipartisan
"cooperation" on the bill and a hope that it would be quickly
enacted before Congress adjourns for Memorial Day.

Constitutional alarm bells should be ringing wildly. All the
repeated assurances notwithstanding, the 111-page Omnibus
Counterterrorism Act (S. 390 in the Senate and H.R. 896 in the
House) and the 18-page Antiterrorism Amendments Act offer plenty of
reasons for concern. For starters, they would:

*  Federalize a host of crimes now properly restricted to state
jurisdiction.

*  Strike a dangerous breach in our posse comitatus law which
prohibits the use of the military in law enforcement.

*  Grant vast discretionary power to the President to apply the
"terrorist" label to organizations and, thereby, subject the
members and associates of those groups to federal prosecution.

*  Broaden the "interstate commerce" clause to establish federal
authority over virtually everybody and everything that moves.

*  Permit law enforcement agencies much greater access to private
financial and credit reports.

*  Allow much wider use of wiretaps.

How We Got Here

Before spending any more time critiquing the proposed federal
"solutions" and prescribing some of our own, we would do well to
review how it is that we arrived at our current deplorable state of
vulnerability. Without thoughtful regard to the policies and
actions of the past that are responsible for our current
predicament we risk making matters even worse with misguided and
dangerous legislation.

A realistic approach to dealing with the threat of terrorism must
begin with the acknowledgment that it is impossible to guard
against every conceivable terrorist act by every deranged group
with an ideological, ethnic, sectarian, or irredentist axe to
grind. Erecting a garrison state complete with metal detectors and
bomb barriers for every public building, armed troops in our
streets, and a vast federal gestapo is neither a feasible nor a
desirable response.

On the other hand, the position espoused by leading opponents of
stepped-up internal security -- that present law enforcement and
intelligence tools and resources are perfectly adequate and that
all proposals to combat terrorism are veiled threats against "civil
liberties" -- is equally untenable.

It seems that we are hopelessly caught between the Scylla of the
police state and the Charybdis of complete vulnerability and
anarchy. Is there no safe and reasonable path between these
extremes? Of course there is, but a great deal of effort is being
made to obscure that path.

What far too few Americans appreciate is that until fairly recently
we were the beneficiaries of multiple layers of efficient law
enforcement and internal security mechanisms that not only provided
our society with reasonable protection against terrorism,
espionage, subversion, and revolution by foreign and domestic
enemies, but against oppression by an all-powerful central
government as well. Much of that multi-layered protection is now
gone, destroyed or greatly weakened by a vast and insidious long-
range, multi-pronged campaign. The story of that subversive crusade
is a fascinating and tragic saga the understanding of which is
crucial to any hope of solving our current terrorism dilemma.

Launched by the Communist Party and its allies in the 1920s, this
perfidious campaign grew steadily in the 1930s, '40s, and '50s, and
escalated to a fever pitch in the 1960s and '70s. Targeted for
destruction or neutralization were all of our nation's front-line
law enforcement and intelligence-gathering agencies and
institutions: the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the
Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Central Intelligence Agency,
congressional investigative committees, and the domestic
intelligence divisions of the military services and municipal
police departments.

In 1920, the official journal of the Communist Labor Party of
America, Communist Labor, stated: "The National Executive Committee
of the Communist Labor Party advises all its members, whatever
nationality, to oppose deportation with all means at their
command.... It is the duty of everyone to get out on bail as
quickly as he can and then to remain as long as he can in the ranks
of the Communist Labor Party as an active worker to hasten the
triumph of Communism in the United States."

At the time those instructions were given, the Communist Party in
the U.S. was heavily dependent upon Moscow's foreign agents for
leadership at all levels. It would remain so for many decades.
Lenin -- and Stalin after him -- kept a steady stream of
revolutionaries flowing into America, usually with false names and
forged papers. Many of these were discovered, arrested, and
deported.

In 1922, the Communist International (Comintern) formed the
International Red Aid, a worldwide apparatus with tentacles in over
50 countries, for the purpose of protecting its agents from
deportation and battering down national immigration controls. The
American section of the apparatus was known as the International
Labor Defense, and, later, as the American Committee for the
Protection of the Foreign Born (ACPFB). By June 25, 1942, after
hearing numerous witnesses -- including those like Humberto
Galleani who had been members or officials of both the Communist
Party and the ACPFB -- the House Committee on Un-American
Activities (HCUA) reported that there "was no doubt about the
party's complete control" of the ACPFB.

The ACPFB was joined in its efforts to thwart and undermine our
immigration laws by the communist front National Lawyers Guild
(NLG) and the communist-founded American Civil Liberties Union
(ACLU). This unrelenting attack on our borders, our national
sovereignty, and our national security by these radical attorneys
continues to this day, and has been exposed in all its lurid
details by William R. Hawkins in his recent book, Importing
Revolution: Open Borders and the Radical Agenda.

With the help of their allies in the Establishment media cartel,
this same cadre of revolutionary lawyers succeeded in not only
hamstringing the INS and the Border Patrol, but in neutering or
abolishing the House and Senate internal security subcommittees,
the Attorney General's Subversives List, the Subversive Activities
Control Board, the counterintelligence units of the Armed Forces,
the investigative committees of most state legislatures, and the
intelligence units of most state and municipal police
organizations.

Sharing "credit" with the ACLU and NLG for these "accomplishments"
is a national network of anti-police and anti-security groups
affiliated with the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS), a Marxist
think tank tied to the Cuban DGI, the Soviet KGB, and numerous
terrorist groups. Foremost among these is the IPS-created Center
for National Security Studies (CNSS).

Shocked to Reality

In the aftermath of the Oklahoma City bombing, the questions have
arisen again and again: Why didn't the FBI have any clue ahead of
time about this plot? Could it have been prevented? Shouldn't some
of these "right-wing militias" being accused of complicity in this
crime have been investigated and infiltrated?

In answer to these and related questions it should be noted that
indeed there is a far greater likelihood that this plot would have
been uncovered ahead of time and the terrible loss of life avoided
had the FBI and the other layers of intelligence and law
enforcement listed above not been severely damaged and restricted
by the subversive campaign of the last few decades. Although there
is no evidence publicly available at this point that any of the
suspects in the Oklahoma case are, or were, involved with various
militia groups, under the "Levi Guidelines" governing FBI
activities there is little likelihood that the FBI would have been
able to investigate any of these organizations in any case.

Those guidelines instituted 20 years ago by former Attorney General
Edward Levi (who had been a member of the National Lawyers Guild)
represent an immense victory for the communists and all forces of
revolution, anarchy, and lawlessness. Under the Levi restrictions,
the FBI is not even allowed to keep files of public source
documents, such as newspaper clippings, on violent or avowedly
subversive groups unless there is evidence that they are
committing, or are imminently about to commit, a federal crime.
"Those guidelines," said former FBI Acting Associate Director W.
Mark Felt in a 1983 interview with this magazine's predecessor, The
Review of the News, "for all practical purposes put the FBI out of
the Domestic Security business."

Recalls Felt: "When I retired from the FBI in June of 1973, my
recollection is that there were over 20,000 Domestic Security cases
under investigation. In May of 1982, there were 20 Domestic
Security cases being investigated. It is accurate to say that under
the current Levi Guidelines the FBI cannot now investigate until
after the bomb goes off."

A Vicious Attack

Edward Levi, however, went far beyond establishing these guidelines
and launched a vicious campaign against the FBI, indicting Acting
Director of the Bureau L. Patrick Gray, former Chief of
Counterintelligence Edward Miller, and W. Mark Felt on charges of
"conspiring to injure and oppress citizens of the United States."
Who were these injured and oppressed "citizens"? They were members,
supporters, and associates of the Weather Underground Organization
(WUO), an avowedly violent communist organization controlled and
directed by the Cuban DGI and Soviet KGB. This terrorist network
had been deeply involved in bombings, robbery, and murder. Citing
genuine national security concerns, Mark Felt had authorized 13
surreptitious entries of suspected Weatherman hideouts during
1972-73.

After a bitter court battle during which the trial judge
retroactively applied the 1976 guidelines to the defendants, Felt
was sentenced to pay a fine of $5,000 and Miller to pay $3,000.
Legal expenses in the Felt/Miller case, however, exceeded one
million dollars. But that was not all. One hundred and forty FBI
agents were prosecuted for their lawful efforts to apprehend the
WUO terrorists. Understandably, this had a chilling effect on the
FBI's counterintelligence operations.

In testimony before the Senate Subcommittee on Security and
Terrorism in 1982, FBI Director William Webster said, "My problem
today is not unleashing the FBI. My problem is convincing those in
the FBI that they can work up to the level of our authority. Too
many people have been sued. Too many people have been harassed and
their families and life savings tied up in litigation and the
threat of prosecution, so that we, and others like us, run the risk
that we will not do our full duty in order to protect ourselves."

Many current and retired FBI agents have confirmed that the problem
expressed by Webster more than a decade ago is still with us today.
That same problem exists in many local police departments which
have been subjected to similar harassing lawsuits by the ACLU-NLG-
IPS-CNSS cabal.

Bearing a major burden of responsibility for this situation are
those members of Congress and their staffs who not only have been
adamant foes of internal security, but who have been active
supporters of the IPS and its anti-American agenda: Senators Chris
Dodd, Mark Hatfield, Edward Kennedy, Joseph Biden, Representatives
Ronald Dellums, Don Edwards, George Brown, Patricia Schroeder,
George Miller, John Conyers, and dozens more of their colleagues
from the Hill.

Frightening Potential

An understanding of the foregoing is essential to making
intelligent decisions about what must be done. Are we going to
accept wrong-headed and dangerous solutions from the very people
who put us into our present precarious predicament? The Clinton
Administration and the congressional offices are filled with people
who have led the assault on our internal security for the last
three decades. Clinton National Security Adviser Anthony Lake, for
example, was an active aparatchik at the IPS, the CNSS, and the
Center for International Policy. Heading the Center for National
Security Studies' attack on the police and intelligence communities
at the time was Lake's comrade, Morton Halperin, who now holds a
senior staff post on Clinton's National Security Council.

The President's proposed legislation has frightening potential.
Section 101 of the Omnibus Counterterrorism bill, for instance,
offers a dangerous breach in the posse comitatus law which
prohibits the use of military forces in law enforcement activities.
The new law would permit the Attorney General, when investigating
violations of section 101, to request assistance "from any Federal,
State, or local agency, including the Army, Navy, and Air Force,
any statute, rule, or regulation to the contrary notwithstanding."

Americans exercising their rights guaranteed under the First
Amendment to, for example, protest the visit of leaders from
Russia, China, or Vietnam might find their legitimate actions an
indictable offense under the law if, "in the judgment" of the
Attorney General or her subordinates, "such offense, or any
activity preparatory to its commission, transcended national
boundaries and that the offense appears to have been intended to
coerce, intimidate, or retaliate against a government or a civilian
population, including any segment thereof." Since the visiting
official transcended U.S. boundaries in coming to this country, it
is not difficult to see how this legalism might be invoked to quell
dissent.

Federal felony charges for "terrorism" may also be brought if "the
offense obstructs, delays, or affects commerce in any way or degree
or would have so obstructed, delayed, or affected commerce if the
offense had been consummated," if "any victim, or intended victim,
of the offense is, at the time of the offense, traveling in
commerce," or if "any victim, intended victim, or offender is not
a national of the United States." (Emphasis added.) Considering the
multifarious ways in which federal officials have tortured the
interstate commerce clause to advance every imaginable federal
usurpation, the mind reels at the "opportunities" that could be
advanced for even more oppressive abuses under such language.

Section 102 makes it "unlawful for any person within the United
States ... to directly or indirectly, raise, receive, or collect on
behalf of, or furnish, give, transmit, transfer, or provide funds
to or for an organization or person designated by the President" to
be involved in terrorism. Consider the very real possibility that
the Zulu-led Inkatha Freedom Party in South Africa might have to
resort to armed force to protect itself from annihilation by
Mandela's regime. It would assuredly be labeled "terrorist" by the
UN and the Clinton Administration, and U.S. citizens would be
prohibited from bringing Zulu Chief Buthelezi or any other Inkatha
representative here, or providing even humanitarian aid to their
cause. The same would apply to Cuban, Haitian, Taiwanese,
Vietnamese, Croat, or Serb organizations.

Alarming Presidential Power

Even more alarming is the fact that this fund-raising prohibition
applies to "any terrorist organization designated by proclamation
by the President after he has found such organization to be
detrimental to the interest of the United States." Since this
clause appears in Section 202 concerning the removal of "alien
terrorists," it might be argued that it could not be taken to give
the President authority to label as "terrorist" those domestic
organizations he finds "detrimental" to U.S. interests. But when it
comes to advancing his agenda, President Clinton has already shown
himself willing to make even longer reaches than that.

Consider for example his use of the RICO statute to prosecute pro-
life activists and others who couldn't possibly be considered
legitimate targets of the law under any reasonable interpretation.
RICO, which was passed ostensibly to deal with organized crime,
provides a frightening illustration of the means by which this new
legislation could be harnessed for political purposes under the
guise of combating terrorist groups. And since we're on the subject
of RICO abuse, we ought to take note of the fact that Section 603
of the bill would add a couple dozen new expansions to the RICO
arsenal, the abusive potential of which is impossible to evaluate
at this point.

Section 956 makes "Conspiracy to kill, kidnap, maim, or injure
certain property in a foreign country" a terrorist offense -- which
may seem reasonable until one considers that family members and
friends of POWs in Vietnam sitting around their kitchen table and
planning a rescue or surreptitious investigation attempt in
Indochina could also be covered by the definition. In view of the
hostility which the federal government has shown to such POW
families, that is not stretching the application in the least.

There are many more provisions of the Clinton package that would
present  cause for grave concern with even the best of Presidents
in office. Considering the Clinton Administration's undisguised
lust for power, its revolutionary socialist zeal to "reinvent"
American government, its implacable hostility toward the Second
Amendment, and its shameless exploitation of the Oklahoma tragedy
for political gain, this power grab is doubly alarming.

As the John Birch Society noted in a recent "Action Alert" to its
members urging opposition to the bills, the proposed legislation is
"a prescription for wholesale nationalization of criminal law and
concentration of broad discretionary powers under the President
using the facade of fighting international terrorism." The John
Birch Society, which for decades has been a leading advocate for
restoring the House Internal Security Committee and local police
intelligence, warned in its alert that "coming from a government
which includes in its concept of 'navigable waters' dumping a load
of clean fill into small puddles in the middle of a 600-acre
private farm, the wording of the bills includes just about
everything under the sun."

Daniel Webster warned, "Good intentions will always be pleaded for
every assumption of power.... It is hardly too strong to say that
the Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers
of good intentions." We will not vouch for the intentions, good or
bad, behind this legislation, but the plea for power should
definitely put all Americans on guard.

President Clinton, like his predecessors, has the authority to
change the subversive Levi Guidelines, but has refused to do so.
How genuinely good can his intentions be when he refuses to use the
legitimate powers he does possess to deal with a threat to the
nation in order to justify a grab for illegitimate powers that are
not needed to deal with the threat. Such illegitimate powers are
themselves an even greater threat to the security of the people
than that which the President claims they will protect us against.

END

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THE NEW AMERICAN -- May 29, 1995
Copyright 1995 -- American Opinion Publishing, Incorporated P.O.
Box 8040, Appleton, WI  54913

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