Freedoms are eroding on the homeland and soon a lot of patriots won’t even be able to get out. Americans are being corralled like cattle in a legal manner and soon to be imprisoned in their own country.
In a radical attack on the due-process rights of Americans that received virtually no media attention, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives voted to give the Obama administration the unilateral power to strip you of your passport and right to travel without a trial or even criminal charges. The scheme does not even include a way to challenge your status as a non-person involuntarily trapped inside U.S. borders on orders from the secretary of state. Lawmakers, some of whom could themselves be caught in the dragnet along with myriad administration officials, praised the effort as a way to stop alleged terrorists from travelling. But critics said it was yet another attack on the fundamental rights of Americans, such as due-process protections, and that it must be resisted.
As if to illustrate how out of touch with the U.S. Constitution most members of Congress have become, the legislation, HR 237, also known as “FTO (foreign terrorist organization) Passport Revocation Act,” did not even receive a recorded vote — supposedly because it was so “uncontroversial.” It passed after 15 minutes of alleged “debate.” Bill sponsor Ted Poe (R-Texas) claimed the measure, adopted under a “suspension of the rules” typically used for trivialities such as renaming post offices, was passed unanimously. Of course, in an age in which the White House openly claims the unilateral authority to murder or indefinitely detain American citizens without even charging them with a crime, passport revocations likely seem trivial by comparison. But opponents of the measure said it was a big deal nonetheless.
Under the bill, “the Secretary of State may refuse to issue a passport to any individual whom the Secretary has determined has aided, assisted, abetted, or otherwise helped an organization the Secretary has designated as a foreign terrorist organization,” the text states. “The Secretary of State may revoke a passport previously issued to any individual” whom Secretary of State John Kerry, or future administrations that could be even more radical, unilaterally decides may have done any of those things. The terms are left undefined, opening up widespread potential for abuse, and there is no appeals process outlined in the legislation.In essence, if approved by the Senate and signed into law by Obama, one man — far-left radical Kerry, for now — would have the power to strip you of your unalienable, God-given rights enshrined in the U.S. Constitution. Under the measure, individuals targeted by Kerry or his successors would have no right to due-process of law — no trial by jury, no chance to contest the findings in open court (or anywhere else), no right to be presumed innocent before proven guilty, not even a right to see the accusations. Indeed, even actual criminal charges are unnecessary under the scheme for somebody to be permanently trapped in or out of the United States based on secret evidence, with no mechanism to appeal.
Lawmakers who supported the measure, though, put a different spin on it. “Daily, deadly attacks around the world remind us that radical Islamic terrorists are spreading their murderous rampage worldwide,” said Rep. Poe, who sponsored the legislation and has a 70 percent cumulative score on the Freedom Index. “The threat to America from these groups has never been greater. But some of our own citizens have travelled [sic] to the terrorist hotbeds in Syria and beyond to fight for the other side. These Benedict Arnold traitors who have turned against America and joined the ranks of foreign radical terrorist armies should lose all rights afforded to our citizens.”
Of course, after being proven guilty of terrorism or treason in a court of law, actual terrorists and traitors would — and regularly do — lose the rights guaranteed to Americans in the U.S. Constitution. However, Rep. Poe fails to mention that, and instead of a trial by jury to determine guilt, individuals would lose their rights merely on the word of one administration official. “This will help law enforcement locate these individuals by making it easier to flag the individuals who are trying to travel internationally,” Poe continued. “Most importantly, this legislation will help prevent turned Americans from coming back to the United States undetected.”
“The House has now acted to locate and contain these traitors,” Rep. Poe added, without explaining the implications of giving the Obama administration the unilateral authority to declare somebody a “traitor” without any semblance of due process. “It’s time for the Senate to quickly do the same. These people are not returning to America to open coffee shops; they are coming back to kill. Let’s stop them from coming back at all.” Other Republican lawmakers issued similar statements in support of the measure. Existing U.S. statutes already allowed Americans’ passports to be revoked for “national security,” but apparently the administrative appeals process available under that program was too much for Congress.
Full article: Lawmakers Vote to Let Obama Take Your Passport Without Trial (The New American)
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