{"id":6673,"date":"2021-01-09T04:25:45","date_gmt":"2021-01-09T04:25:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/caitlinjohnstone.com\/?p=9349"},"modified":"2021-01-09T04:25:45","modified_gmt":"2021-01-09T04:25:45","slug":"the-boot-is-coming-down-hard-and-fast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/01\/09\/the-boot-is-coming-down-hard-and-fast\/","title":{"rendered":"The Boot Is Coming Down Hard And Fast"},"content":{"rendered":"

A lot’s been happening really fast. It’s a white noise saturation day and it’s impossible to keep track of everything going on, so I’m just going to post my thoughts on a few of the things that have happened.<\/p>

\u2756<\/p>

Biden has announced<\/a> plans to roll out new domestic terrorism laws in the wake of the Capitol Hill riot.<\/p>

“Mr. Biden has said he plans to make a priority of\u00a0passing a law against domestic terrorism, and he has been urged to create a White House post overseeing the fight against ideologically inspired violent extremists and increasing funding to combat them,” Wall Street Journal<\/em> reports.<\/p>

Did you know that Biden has often boasted<\/a> about being the original author of the US Patriot Act?<\/p>

The first draft of the\u00a0civil rights-eroding<\/a>\u00a0USA PATRIOT Act was magically\u00a0introduced one week after the 9\/11 attacks<\/a>. Legislators\u00a0later admitted<\/a>\u00a0that they hadn\u2019t even had time to read through the hundreds of pages of the history-shaping bill before passing it the next month, yet somehow its authors were able to gather all the necessary information and write the whole entire thing in a week.<\/p>

This was because most of the work had already been done. CNET\u00a0reported the following<\/a>\u00a0back in 2008:<\/p>

\u201cMonths before the Oklahoma City bombing took place, [then-Senator Joe] Biden introduced another bill called the\u00a0Omnibus Counterterrorism Act of 1995<\/a>. It previewed the 2001 Patriot Act by allowing secret evidence to be used in prosecutions, expanding the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and wiretap laws, creating a new federal crime of \u2018terrorism\u2019 that could be invoked based on political beliefs, permitting the U.S. military to be used in civilian law enforcement, and allowing permanent detention of non-U.S. citizens without judicial review. The Center for National Security Studies\u00a0said the bill would erode<\/a>\u00a0\u2018constitutional and statutory due process protections\u2019 and would \u2018authorize the Justice Department to pick and choose crimes to investigate and prosecute based on political beliefs and associations.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>

Biden\u2019s bill\u00a0was never put to a vote<\/a>, but after 9\/11 then-Attorney General John Ashcroft reportedly credited his bill with the foundations of the USA PATRIOT Act.<\/p>

\u201cCivil libertarians were opposed to it,\u201d Biden\u00a0said in 2002<\/a>\u00a0of his bill. \u201cRight after 1994, and you can ask the attorney general this, because I got a call when he introduced the Patriot Act. He said, \u2018Joe, I\u2019m introducing the act basically as you wrote it in 1994.’\u201d<\/p>The post 9\/11 era is over. The single greatest national security threat right now is our internal division. The threat of domestic terrorism. The polarization that threatens our democracy. If we don't reconnect our two Americas, the threats will not have to come from the outside. pic.twitter.com\/ADgGcf7qEo<\/a><\/p>

— Rep. Elissa Slotkin (@RepSlotkin) January 8, 2021<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>