Society Unravelling 
“Only a totalitarian society would even claim absolute safety as a worthy ideal, because it would require total state control over its citizens’ lives. Freedom is not defined by safety. Freedom is defined by the ability of citizens to live without government interference”. -Congressman Ron Paul, August 2004 in his weekly column Texas Straight talk.. 

It was a short visit to the US, but already I was getting used to standing in endlessly long airline boarding lines. I am a white middle aged woman in amongst people of all colours, waved into a special line destined for special attention because of my “foreign” ID. Once American, I have long ago adopted and been adopted by Australia, the ‘Lucky Country”. We waited, all of us stockinged or barefoot, looking pained and embarrassed. Surrounded by black suited unfriendly paramilitary looking men and officials with rubber gloves. Up ahead an Hispanic child of barely three, was being searched, her teddy bear falling to the ground. Rough hands retrieve it and probe the bear deeply for contraband. None is found. The child cries. The line is painfully slow. The linoleum chills my feet. My facial expression must betray my distaste. People talk in whispers. People glance around to spot the camera, careful to hide their mouth from the prying lens. A black man helps me to understand; “nine eleven” he whispers barely audibly. Others join in. Stories cautiously seep out whenever I stand in line with others. We begin an impromptu sociology lesson 101. Somebody’s friend with an Arabic name was arrested and disappeared for weeks, but never charged. Somebody else knew of a teacher who taught the Constitution in her classroom, and was censured. A student shared his political views in a classroom and was visited by the FBI. A person was detained for reading an airport novel that featured a gun on its cover. While somebody’s sister was in jail for a minor offence her child was taken to a foster home by the authorities. “Surely that can’t be right”, I say from my white middle aged Australian perspective. Laughs all round. “You got no money, you go to jail, man. It’s da rules,” explains a brown man with dreadlocks. I later discover that of the 80,000 women now in US jails, about 70 percent are non-violent offenders. And 75 percent of them have children. Entire archipelagos of prisons all over the world are owned by private corporations. Business is booming. Their share prices are going through the roof, a good investment for the rich. Multinational prison corporations have built and operated Australian detention centres where we, in the once lucky country, incarcerate refugees from the third world. There are two million people in US prisons: the highest prison population in the world. More than in Russia. (6) Of those; 70 % are illiterate, 50% are African Americans, 80% are drug users and alcoholics mixed in with the homeless, the mentally ill and non violent offenders. The prison corporations offer no treatment for the sick or help for the homeless. On the contrary, the sick and poor are mixed in with a genuine assortment of sociopaths. 

“The people I put in jail have more honour than the top administration in this organization”.
-Bob Hoffman, ATF agent, interview with Mike Wallace, on 60 Minutes, 1993-Jan

Final Boarding Call
“…since the Feds took over… Grandmothers are being frisked, the modesty of young girls violated, belts, shoes, coats, shirts and other clothing removed in public, innocent people arrested because they grimace at the wrong person, delays, searches and missed flights. I once was subjected to having my bare ankles fondled by a guard before being allowed on a plane. I guess looking at them was not enough. To this day I wonder how he thought I had imbedded some weapon under the skin and how I planned to have such a weapon removed for use. - Dr. Linda Johnstone MD

My boarding call is announced. I am relieved when the line shortens. It is my turn. I am waved up to a table by two rubber gloved uniformed persons. I notice that rubber gloves are very popular these days. I am motioned to stand with legs wide apart, my arms extended. The large male spills my bag’s contents onto a nearby table. My money purse bursts open. Coins spill out. A dime rolls and stops at my bare feet. On it I see the word “Liberty”. I reflexively reach out to prevent the contents of my bag from scattering on the floor. The large male shoots out his hand motioning me to stop. His other hand dives toward his belt which bristles with some kind of paraphernalia. I stand to attention again. The trigger happy moment is over. The female begins her search. She pats me down thoroughly, pausing at my crutch to ensure I haven’t stashed a weapon of mass destruction there. After she is satisfied, the female produces a cotton swab, the kind used to remove women’s makeup. She swabs carefully around the perimeter edge of my rucksack and places the swab into a machine nearby. I am told to stand there. No one explains what is happening. I wonder what they’re looking for. I take a brief inventory. Had I visited a botanical garden recently? Could I have traces of fertilizer on my bag? Could my bag have been contaminated by someone else’s? What happens to the millions of passengers that are now driving instead of flying? Will road blocks and barricades be erected? Will grandmothers and little girls be frisked at the roadside? Still standing to attention, I wondered what had happened to the America of my childhood and teenage years. Family picnics in the park. There was terrorism in the world then. But Kennedy presided over a Whitehouse without barricades. 9/11 is now the answer to all questions. But no one yet has satisfactorily answered the question about who really caused it. One thing is for sure. It has unleashed a global siege. 

I pondered on my rights and wondered by whose authority I was required to stand here in a hostage position when I had done nothing wrong. I had boarded scores of flights before 2001, but suddenly everything changed. Now I was treated like a suspect and so was the little three year old girl ahead of me and her teddy bear. Then I remembered that barely 45 days after 9/11 the 350 page Patriot Act had been written and passed by Congress without anyone but Ron Paul and a few African American Congressional representatives reading it. Politicians might be exempted from reading laws, however citizens are required to memorize the 100,000 new laws passed each year in the US, because “ignorance of the law is no defence”. The long arms of the Patriot Act claims to have powers over not just Americans but over all people in all countries of the world. The people of the world need to start reading. As for me, now seemed a good opportunity to recap the legislation. 

“There’s no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. When there aren’t enough criminals one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws….just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced nor objectively interpreted – and you create a nation of law-breakers.” Adolph Hitler in Mein Kampf

I remembered that the Patriot Act required me to refrain from attacking, setting fire to or disabling mass transportation systems, and spreading toxins or biological or radioactive weapons of mass destruction. The Act states that I must also refrain from attacking nuclear facilities and carrying a weapon, including a nail clipper onto an airplane. So far that wasn’t going to be difficult for me. The Patriot Act 2 however, exempts corporations from the penalties of those very acts. And they are not required to disclose information about toxins, biological or radioactive substances. Furthermore, any person interfering, even unintentionally with any supply, computer or pipeline to US facilities in or around any of the thousands of US bases (or US corporations) stationed around the world on the sovereign soil of other countries would be classed as an “enemy combatant” and deemed guilty of terrorism. They may be indefinitely detained, without charges, trial, or reasonable cause. That also includes people being in the wrong place at the wrong time such as the captured children under the age of 16 who find themselves indefinitely captive in Guantanamo Bay. It was dawning on me that the networks of prisons around the globe for “enemy combatants”, just like Guantanamo, were courtesy of the Patriot Act. It seems there are no more prisoners-of-war under the Geneva Convention. And torture is now allowed. 

“The terrorism Information and Prevention System, or TIPS, means the US will have a higher percentage of citizen informants than the former East Germany through the infamous STASI secret Police. The program would use a minimum of 4% of Americans to report “suspicious” activity”. Sydney Morning Herald July 14, 2002

The Patriot Act also requires me to report anyone I know who might be intending to do anything “intimidating” to the US Government, or even thinking about it. This requires special clairvoyant skills, but the penalty for not knowing what others are thinking is a stiff 10 years in a US federal penitentiary. In addition, if anyone in any other country in the world thinks about those things, I am required to report them to the US authorities. They can then be spied on in their own country with the aid of local version Anti-terrorist legislation which many countries have now passed through their Parliaments. It is designed to dovetail perfectly with the Patriot Act, empowering it over the peoples of other countries without anyone having discussed it, voted for it or consented to its powers. It seems that the sovereign nations of the world are deemed to be ruled under a foreign power. Perhaps it’s time for a referendum to find out what the people say-while it’s still legal to vote.

 
”The more laws that are written, the more criminals are produced.''
LaoTzu, Tao Te Ching

Suspects under the Act can be removed from their own country to the US or to any unknown whereabouts, and have their assets seized. (Echoes of Guantanamo again. Creating a prison planet for thought crimes. Foretold by Orwell.) If I should reveal the location where persons are secretly held without a trial, I will also be deemed a terrorist, and the penalty can be death. If I fail to report anyone thinking or talking about “intimidating” the US, I can have my own assets seized under section 806 of the Patriot Act, no matter where I live in the world. I have a demanding day job, but suddenly I realized we have all been recruited as part of the global police. This includes any action that “could result in a foreseeable risk”, anytime before the Act became law. I’m beginning to realize, as I stand barefoot in the airport, how high maintenance this law really is. I have to think back 40 years or so. It’ll take some time. Oh but wait there’s more; a DNA sample from anyone thinking about conspiring. That means a person is guilty of a crime by the mere thought of it. That’s a lot of samples. 
Then there’s the ban on “domestic terrorism”. That is any act that “appears intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population”. (I wondered whether that search of my groin was classed as “intimidating”.) The Act also prohibited influencing government policy by “intimidation”. Theoretically, that included the activities of Greenpeace. However, it was still legal for corporate lobby groups to “influence Government policy” by buying politicians. 

“Domestic terrorism” is also defined as “affecting government conduct by mass destruction, assassination or kidnapping”. I wondered whether the invasion of Iraq was in breach of the Patriot Act. Patriot 2, the horror sequel to Patriot 1, expands in SECTION 403 the definition of “weapons of mass destruction” as including any activity that affects US interstate commerce or US exports. Looks like corporations had moved into the seat of government when nobody was looking. 

Police State –A nation whose rulers maintain order and obedience by the threat of police or military force: one with a brutal, arbitrary government. Dictionary of Cultural Literacy 3rd Edition. 

The machine gave my swab a green light and I was free to gather the disheveled contents of my rucksack and board the aircraft. Thanks to the Patriot Act, my fellow travelers and all Americans could feel so much safer now that my groin was searched. 

”You know, a long time ago being crazy meant something. Nowadays everybody’s crazy.’’
-Charles Manson, serial killer and one time cult leader.

[ Part 2 ] [ Part 3 ]