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In this new version the FBI no longer has to demonstrate a “predicate” to an investigation, effectively giving the agency the power to spy on whomever it wishes, for however long it wishes, even if that individual has never committed a crime or, more important, is not even suspected of one.
The agency responded to the criticism by gutting the office that analyzed domestic extremism. ...
And while right-wing radicals and white supremacists have been given less attention, the Homeland Security apparatus has been wielded in full force against others deemed enemies of the state, particularly those who undermine the interests of Congress’s chief lobbyists. The expanding category of national-security threats includes animal- and environmental-rights activists as well as left-leaning political protesters, whether antiglobalist, anticapitalist, or antiwar. Enhanced surveillance and wiretapping powers initially passed under the Patriot Act can now be used against citizens who are merely “suspected of associating with radical activists.”
The Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act, passed in 2006, expanded the scope of “domestic terrorism” to include any “interference” with such entities as medical researchers, grocery stores, zoos, and clothing stores. The measure, which was promoted by lobbyists working for the biomedical industry, covers, along with acts of vandalism, virtually anything that can affect a company’s bottom line. Another bill, the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Act, introduced in 2007 and passed in the House but not the Senate, called for a national commission to investigate potential domestic extremism. The bill was reportedly ghostwritten by the RAND Corporation, which had previously warned that the danger of “homegrown terrorism” is not merely from jihadist sleeper cells but from “anti-globalists” and “radical environmentalists” who “challenge the intrinsic qualities of capitalism.”
For those of you that thought they were not guilty, you should be a judge here in the US. For those of you thought the other............shame.
Originally posted by Icecream117
um this is a little off topic, but do any of you guys think we're being blacklisted just for being on sites like this? There's no way the government is unaware of these kinds of sites.
Originally posted by LIGHTvsDARK
Michigan Militia cleared of charges!
....
By the way, in jail for two years, I wonder if Holder will be apologizing for this? Maybe Obama can call for a beer summit.
Originally posted by Icecream117
um this is a little off topic, but do any of you guys think we're being blacklisted just for being on sites like this? There's no way the government is unaware of these kinds of sites.
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA v. HELLER Opinion of the Court There seems to us no doubt, on the basis of both text and history, that the Second Amendment conferred an individual right to keep and bear arms. Of course the right was not unlimited, just as the First Amendment’sright of free speech was not, see, e.g., United States v. Williams, 553 U. S. ___ (2008). Thus, we do not read the Second Amendment to protect the right of citizens to carry arms for any sort of confrontation, just as we do not read the First Amendment to protect the right of citizens to speak for any purpose. Before turning to limitations uponthe individual right, however, we must determine whether the prefatory clause of the Second Amendment comports with our interpretation of the operative clause. 2. Prefatory Clause. The prefatory clause reads: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State . . . .” a. “Well-Regulated Militia.” In United States v. Miller, 307 U. S. 174, 179 (1939), we explained that “theMilitia comprised all males physically capable of acting in concert for the common defense.” That definition comportswith founding-era sources. See, e.g., Webster (“The militiaof a country are the able bodied men organized into companies, regiments and brigades . . . and required by law to attend military exercises on certain days only, but at othertimes left to pursue their usual occupations”); The Federalist No. 46, pp. 329, 334 (B. Wright ed. 1961) (J. Madison)(“near half a million of citizens with arms in their hands”); Letter to Destutt de Tracy (Jan. 26, 1811), in The Portable Thomas Jefferson 520, 524 (M. Peterson ed. 1975) (“[T]hemilitia of the State, that is to say, of every man in it able to bear arms”). Petitioners take a seemingly narrower view of the militia, stating that “[m]ilitias are the state- and congressionally-regulated military forces described in the MilitiaClauses (art. I, §8, cls. 15–16).” Brief for Petitioners 12. Cite as: 554 U. S. ____ (2008) 23 Opinion of the Court Although we agree with petitioners’ interpretive assumption that “militia” means the same thing in Article I and the Second Amendment, we believe that petitioners identify the wrong thing, namely, the organized militia. Unlike armies and navies, which Congress is given the power to create (“to raise . . . Armies”; “to provide . . . aNavy,” Art. I, §8, cls. 12–13), the militia is assumed by Article I already to be in existence. Congress is given thepower to “provide for calling forth the militia,” §8, cl. 15; and the power not to create, but to “organiz[e]” it—and notto organize “a” militia, which is what one would expect ifthe militia were to be a federal creation, but to organize“the” militia, connoting a body already in existence, ibid., cl. 16. This is fully consistent with the ordinary definitionof the militia as all able-bodied men. From that pool,Congress has plenary power to organize the units that will make up an effective fighting force. That is what Congress did in the first militia Act, which specified that “each and every free able-bodied white male citizen of the respective states, resident therein, who is or shall be of the age of eighteen years, and under the age of forty-five years (except as is herein after excepted) shall severally and respectively be enrolled in the militia.” Act of May 8,1792, 1 Stat. 271. To be sure, Congress need not conscript every able-bodied man into the militia, because nothing in Article I suggests that in exercising its power to organize, discipline, and arm the militia, Congress must focus upon the entire body. Although the militia consists of all able-bodied men, the federally organized militia may consist of a subset of them. Finally, the adjective “well-regulated” implies nothingmore than the imposition of proper discipline and training.See Johnson 1619 (“Regulate”: “To adjust by rule ormethod”); Rawle 121–122; cf. Va. Declaration of Rights§13 (1776), in 7 Thorpe 3812, 3814 (referring to “a well-regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, 24 DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA v. HELLER Opinion of the Court trained to arms”). b. “Security of a Free State.” The phrase “security of a free state” meant “security of a free polity,” not securityof each of the several States as the dissent below argued,see 478 F. 3d, at 405, and n. 10. Joseph Story wrote in histreatise on the Constitution that “the word ‘state’ is used in various senses [and in] its most enlarged sense, it means the people composing a particular nation or community.” 1 Story §208; see also 3 id., §1890 (in referenceto the Second Amendment’s prefatory clause: “The militia is the natural defence of a free country”). It is true that the term “State” elsewhere in the Constitution refers to individual States, but the phrase “security of a free state” and close variations seem to have been terms of art in 18th-century political discourse, meaning a “‘free country’” or free polity. See Volokh, “Necessary to the Securityof a Free State,” 83 Notre Dame L. Rev. 1, 5 (2007); see, e.g., 4 Blackstone 151 (1769); Brutus Essay III (Nov. 15, 1787), in The Essential Antifederalist 251, 253 (W. Allen & G. Lloyd eds., 2d ed. 2002). Moreover, the other instances of “state” in the Constitution are typically accompanied by modifiers making clear that the reference is tothe several States—“each state,” “several states,” “any state,” “that state,” “particular states,” “one state,” “no state.” And the presence of the term “foreign state” inArticle I and Article III shows that the word “state” did not have a single meaning in the Constitution. There are many reasons why the militia was thought tobe “necessary to the security of a free state.” See 3 Story§1890. First, of course, it is useful in repelling invasions and suppressing insurrections. Second, it renders largestanding armies unnecessary—an argument that Alexander Hamilton made in favor of federal control over the militia. The Federalist No. 29, pp. 226, 227 (B. Wright ed. 1961) (A. Hamilton). Third, when the able-bodied men of a nation are trained in arms and organized, they are Cite as: 554 U. S. ____ (2008) 25 Opinion of the Court better able to resist tyranny. 3. Relationship between Prefatory Clause and Operative Clause We reach the question, then: Does the preface fit with an operative clause that creates an individual right to keep and bear arms? It fits perfectly, once one knows the history that the founding generation knew and that we have described above. That history showed that the way tyrants had eliminated a militia consisting of all the able-bodied men was not by banning the militia but simply by taking away the people’s arms, enabling a select militia or standing army to suppress political opponents. This is what had occurred in England that prompted codification of the right to have arms in the English Bill of Rights. The debate with respect to the right to keep and beararms, as with other guarantees in the Bill of Rights, wasnot over whether it was desirable (all agreed that it was) but over whether it needed to be codified in the Constitution. During the 1788 ratification debates, the fear thatthe federal government would disarm the people in order to impose rule through a standing army or select militiawas pervasive in Antifederalist rhetoric. See, e.g., Letters from The Federal Farmer III (Oct. 10, 1787), in 2 TheComplete Anti-Federalist 234, 242 (H. Storing ed. 1981). John Smilie, for example, worried not only that Congress’s“command of the militia” could be used to create a “select militia,” or to have “no militia at all,” but also, as a separate concern, that “[w]hen a select militia is formed; the people in general may be disarmed.” 2 Documentary History of the Ratification of the Constitution 508–509 (M.Jensen ed. 1976) (hereinafter Documentary Hist.). Federalists responded that because Congress was given nopower to abridge the ancient right of individuals to keepand bear arms, such a force could never oppress the people. See, e.g., A Pennsylvanian III (Feb. 20, 1788), in The 26 DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA v. HELLER Opinion of the Court Origin of the Second Amendment 275, 276 (D. Young ed., 2d ed. 2001) (hereinafter Young); White, To the Citizens of Virginia, Feb. 22, 1788, in id., at 280, 281; A Citizen of America, (Oct. 10, 1787) in id., at 38, 40; Remarks on the Amendments to the federal Constitution, Nov. 7, 1788, in id., at 556.
Originally posted by LIGHTvsDARK
reply to post by usmc0311
Thanks for the additional media report. In your article, they state that unregistered guns is a felony charge? Wow, I am kind of glad all my guns fell into the lake that one time I went boating. Close one.
Originally posted by Icecream117
um this is a little off topic, but do any of you guys think we're being blacklisted just for being on sites like this? There's no way the government is unaware of these kinds of sites.