Indiana Passes Anti-NDAA Bill: Interview With PANDA Indiana
P.A.N.D.A. People Against The NDAA
February 16, 2013
The National Defense Authorization Act’s provisions that call for the indefinite detention of American citizens through the use of the military and without due process of law has no doubt, received concern throughout many states – to say the least. SLN has reported on states like Arizona, Washington, Kansas and now, Indiana.
S.B. 400 has gained grounds in the Indiana Senate and on Tuesday passed the Corrections and Criminal Law Committee, receiving great support from Senator Jim Banks and even vocal support from Elkhart County Sheriff Bradley Rodgers. Sen. Banks told colleagues that looking into the NDAA of 2012 and reading sections 1021 and 1022 should strike a core among civil liberties advocates – calling it unconstitutional.
James Kerner of Indiana’s Panda, People Against the NDAA, an organization dedicated to overturning the federal government’s indefinite detention provisions said, “I suggest the ACLU, Occupy movement, Tea Party movement and Oath Keepers throw their full support behind Sen. Banks. He should be made a household name like Ron Paul.” It seems that besides nullification of the NDAA popping up nationwide, so are brand new lawmakers, which happen to be following in the footsteps of former Congressman Ron Paul.
Sen. Banks legislation passed the Senate committee 8-0 and obviously received little to no opposition. In addition to nullifying the indefinite detention provisions in the state of Indiana, the legislation reads as well, “A person who, being an official, agent, or employee of the United States or an employee of a person providing services to the United States, knowingly or intentionally enforces or attempts to enforce the indefinite detention provision of the NDAA commits unlawful indefinite detention, a Class A misdemeanor.” So, any violation of S.B. 400 would result in a Class A misdemeanor charge.
SLN contacted Sen. Banks office, however due to the fact SLN carries no “accredited source” label, we were unable to get common questions answered. However, SLN managed contact with the head of Indiana’s People Against the NDAA (PANDA) team. SLN asked James Kerner, “Do you feel our liberties are truly at risk in 2013 and beyond?” Kerner went on to say, “Yes I do. Even if President Obama doesn’t abuse the authority given in the AUMF of 2001 or the NDAA of 2012 leaving vague legislation like that on the books is very dangerous for future generations. What happens if a tyrant or a war criminal reaches the Oval office? The NDAA of 2012 allows for government sanctioned kidnappings.”
Questioning Kerner more, SLN sought out whether or not he was positive about this legislation passing as well as other bills around the nation. Kerner commented, “I’m not positive. This is my perspective. I voted Nadar 04, Ron Paul 08, and Gary Johnson 2012. I’ve been arrested for protesting simply holding an umbrella in the rain on public ground, walking down the street, or standing. 7,000+ Occupy arrests without a comment from Obama suggests I may not have been the only American politically silenced. My point being if we cannot peacefully assemble on the most visible public land in my state where can we peacefully assemble? This makes the executive order Obama signed on CISPA all the more disturbing. Our tool for educating the masses, the internet is vulnerable.”
Hypocrisy: US Arms Al Qaeda in Syria, Mass-Slaughters Civilians in Afghanistan
by Tony Cartalucci
Land Destroyer
February 13, 2013 (LD) – AFP has reported that a recent NATO airstrike in Afghanistan has killed over 10 civilians in an all-too-familiar headline glossed over by the Western media in an exercise of both depravity and hypocrisy. RT’s article, “NATO airstrike kills 10 Afghan civilians, mostly women and children – officials,” notes in particular that up to 11,864 civilians were killed in Afghanistan between 2007 and 2011, and that civilian deaths before 2007 were not even tracked by the UN.
Such facts reveal alarming hypocrisy as the UN keeps almost daily, inflated tallies of civilian deaths elsewhere, in particular, in nations like Libya and Syria where Western interests have been heavily involved in regime change and in dire need of manipulating public perception worldwide. The United Nations had in fact pieced together a dubious report crafted from “witness accounts” compiled not in Syria, or even beyond its borders in a refugee camp, but instead, in Geneva by “witnesses” supplied by the so-called Syrian “opposition.”
Image: Just some of the corporate members of the US-Qatar Business Council, whose president just so happens to sit on the same board of directors of the Middle East Policy Center as Karen AbuZayd, co-author of one of many conveniently timed UN Human Rights Council reports on Syria.
Worse yet, that UN report was co-authored by Karen Koning AbuZayd, a director of the US Washington-based corporate think-tank, Middle East Policy Council. Its board of directors includes Exxon men, CIA agents, representatives of the Saudi Binladin Group (Osama Bin Laden’s family business), former ambassadors to Kuwait, Oman, and Qatar, US military and government representatives, and even the president of the US-Qatar Business Council, which includes amongst its membership, Al Jazeera, Chevron, Exxon, munitions manufacturer Raytheon (who supplied the opening salvos during NATO’s operations against Libya), and Boeing.
In other words, the very underwriters of the armed militancy that is consuming Syria are sitting along side the head of the UN commission producing reports portraying the Syrian government as guilty of “war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The hypocrisy does not end there. The pretense the US and NATO have used for over a decade to occupy, subjugate and slaughter the people of Afghanistan – in a conflict increasingly creeping over both Afghanistan’s borders with Pakistan and Iran – is supposedly to fight “terrorism.” Western interests have been allowed to fight this “war on terrorism” with impunity, and even without UN monitoring for years, while Syria was immediately condemned for fighting against Al Qaeda terrorists overtly flooding into their nation with NATO assistance.
Indeed, as NATO claims to fight terrorism in Afghanistan, it has already handed over the North African nation of Libya to Al Qaeda terrorists, specifically the the US State Department, United Nations, and the UK Home Office (page 5, .pdf)-listed terrorist organization, the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG). The US in particular oversaw the rise of the Al Qaeda terror-emirate Benghazi, even having a US ambassador slain there by the very terrorists it had armed, funded, trained, provided air support for, and thrust into power.
These same terrorists have been documented extensively as spearheading the invasion of northern Syria via NATO-member Turkey, with NATO cash and weapons in cooperation with Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
The glaring hypocrisy of so-called “international law” and “international institutions” is on full display. Nations like Russia, China, Iran, India, Pakistan, Indonesia, Brazil, and many others should give serious thought to peeling away from the United Nations, the compromised International Criminal Court, and other corrupt, Western-serving institutions that will, and in many cases already are, being turned against them, their interests, and national sovereignty.
For the people of the world, we must realize that these institutions were created for and by big-business special interests, and the legitimacy they are portrayed as having is a mere illusion created by the corporate media. We must begin identifying these special interests, boycotting and replacing them permanently at a local level. If it is peace we want, it is clear that the UN, NATO, and all institutions in between, sow only death and destruction amidst a myriad of hypocrisy, double standards, and immeasurable corruption, and we must move into the future without them.
Victory! Indiana, South Carolina Anti-NDAA Bills Fly Through Committee
P.A.N.D.A. People Against The NDAA
February 13, 2013
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact:
|
Dan Johnson |
James Kerner PANDA Indiana jarkerne@gmail.com |
Indiana, South Carolina Anti-NDAA Bills Fly Through Committee
Today, Feb. 12, “anti-NDAA” legislation passed senate committees in both Indiana and South Carolina.
In Indiana, S.B. 400 was championed by Sen. Jim Banks and Elkhart County Sheriff Bradley Rodgers who both spoke before the Corrections and Criminal Law Committee hearing in support of the bill.
Sen. Banks pointed out the sections of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012 that violated the U.S. Constitution, specifically Sections 1021 and 1022 that allow for the indefinite detainment of American citizens without due process.
PANDA Indiana Team Leader James Kerner praised Sen. Banks’s speech, saying, “I suggest the ACLU, Occupy movement, Tea Party movement and Oath Keepers throw their full support behind Sen. Banks. He should be made a household name like Ron Paul.”
Sheriff Rogers spoke of the oath he took to uphold the Constitution and asked if he would be prohibited from taking action if federal agents illegally kidnapped citizens in his district.
The committee’s answer: “No.” The bill passed unanimously, 8-0.
Likewise in South Carolina, word comes from the Tenth Amendment Center that legislation seeking to nullify the “indefinite detention” provisions of the 2012 NDAA was approved by the state Senate Judiciary Committee today, 14-6.
The bill was pre-filed last fall by Sen. Tom Davis and called Sections 1021 and 1022 of the 2012 NDAA “a direct threat to the liberty, security and well-being of the people of South Carolina.”
The next step for the bills in each state is to reach the floors of their respective senates for a vote.
Thanks to organizations such as the Tenth Amendment Center, American Civil Liberties Union, Bill of Rights Defense Committee and tireless grassroots activists everywhere, successes for defeating the 2012 NDAA are starting to happen all across the country.
‘Don’t drone me, bro!’ Protesters disrupt Brennan CIA chief approval hearing [video]
Russia Today
February 7, 2013
The US Senate Intelligence Committee briefly postponed the confirmation hearing for CIA director nominee John Brennan after demonstrators disrupted the proceedings. “Brennan killing civilians with drones,” one sign held up by a protester read. Others took turns jeering, “torture is always wrong” and “you are a traitor to democracy.” Another attempted to call attention to the number of civilian casualties caused by US drones. MORE INFO & PHOTOS: http://on.rt.com/n7wjtz
RT LIVE http://rt.com/on-air
Subscribe to RT! http://www.youtube.com/subscription_c…
Like us on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/RTnews
Follow us on Twitter http://twitter.com/RT_com
Follow us on Google+ http://plus.google.com/+RT
Foreign-backed Syria opposition pledges allegiance to Israel
Friends of Syria
February 11, 2013
The leader of the foreign-backed Syrian opposition coalition, Ahmed Moaz al-Khatib, has pledged allegiance to the Israeli regime if he manages to form a “new regime in Syria.”
In a recent interview with the Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth, Khatib stated that Israel should not be worried about the Syrian government’s chemical weapons as his so-called Syrian National Coalition ‘is working with other countries to prevent chemical munitions from falling to the hands of the Lebanese resistance movement, Hezbollah.’
This is while the Syrian government has taken measures to further secure its chemical arsenal and has warned that the militants may use such arms against the people.
Khatib added that, “We’ll spare no effort to prevent any military or chemical weapons passing to it (Hezbollah). We realize that this topic is of major concern to Israel.”
Khatib also admitted to having received information from US, French and German intelligence agencies on the bases and movements of the Syrian army.
The remarks come nearly two weeks after an Israeli airstrike on a military complex near the Syrian capital of Damascus.
The Syrian army said in a statement on January 30 that two people were killed and five others injured in an Israeli airstrike on a scientific center in Jamraya, located 25 kilometers (15 miles) northwest of Damascus.
Syria has been experiencing unrest since March 2011. Many people, including large numbers of security forces, have been killed in the turmoil.
The Syrian government says the chaos is being orchestrated from outside the country, and there are reports that a very large number of the militants are foreign nationals.
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/02/11/288377/khatib-vows-allegiance-to-israel/
Sunbury Constable and Activists Urge Council to Approve Anti-NDAA Ordinance
P.A.N.D.A. People Against The NDAA
February 7, 2013
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Ed Quiggle Jr.
PANDA Pennsylvania
frankleedg@gmail.com
Sunbury Constable and Activists Urge Council to Approve Anti-NDAA Ordinance
On Monday, January 28, 2013, a group of about 30 individuals came out to support the introduction of the Liberty Preservation Ordinance to the Sunbury, PA City Council and Mayor. Attendees included members of the People Against the NDAA, American Civil Liberties Union, Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association, Oathkeepers and the Susquehanna Valley Liberty Alliance.
Also in attendance was State Constable Ed Quiggle, Jr., the Constable for Sunbury’s 9th Ward, who signed a similar resolution for his ward last year. Constable Quiggle introduced the ordinance to the city council speaking in favor of its passage and reminded the councilmembers of their oath to support and defend the U.S. and Pennsylvania Constitutions.
Specifically, the ordinance would require non-cooperation with the indefinite detention provisions of the 2012 NDAA from all of the city’s law enforcement agencies, including the Sunbury Police Department and the Offices of Constable for the various wards of Sunbury. It would also ask that they interpose to stop the indefinite detention of U.S. citizens by the federal government within the city.
The councilmembers indicated they would need extra time to digest the information given. It is expected that the ordinance will be placed on the table for a vote at the next City Council meeting on Monday, February 11, 2013.
Mayor David Persing also said he needed to do more research to verify what the presenters told them, but if true, he couldn’t imagine anyone on the City Council voting against the Liberty Preservation Ordinance.
P.A.N.D.A. Pennsylvania, the Sunbury P.A.N.D.A. Chapter and the Susquehanna Valley Liberty Alliance are encouraging people to once again come out to the City Council meeting on February 11th and support the Liberty Preservation Ordinance.
The meeting on the 11th begins at 6:15pm and is held in the Sunbury Municipal Building, 2nd floor, 225 Market Street, Sunbury, Pa. 17801.
Video of the meeting here:
Zhirinovsky: no meteorites, it’s new US weapons test
by Aleksandras Budrys
The Moscow News
February 15, 2013
The leader of Russia’s Liberal Democratic Party and vice speaker of the State Duma Vladimir Zhirinovsky accused on Friday the United States of testing new weapons over Russia immediately after reports of a meteorite explosion appeared.
[hat tip: Louise Koster]
PN 