US Executes an American Citizen w/o Trial

[shann0]

wemeantwell.com/blog/2011/10/01/us-executes-an-american-citizen-without-trial/

Q: If a foreign organization kills an American overseas for political reasons, it is called…

A: Terrorism.



Q: If the United States kills an American overseas for political reasons, it is called…

A: Justice?




The Government of the United States, currently under the management of a former professor of Constitutional law, executed one of its own citizens abroad without any form of due process. This is generally seen as a no-no as far as the Bill of Rights, the Magna Carta and playground rules goes. The silly old Fifth Amendment to the Constitution guarantees “no person shall be deprived of life without due process of law” and include no exceptions for war, terrorism, or being a really shitty human being.

Anwar al-Awlaki, an American Citizen, was killed in Yemen on or about September 30. While no one has claimed actual responsibility, the choices for trigger puller are either the inept Yemen military or the United States, with its Skynet-like web of drones, satellites and intelligence tools.

America has been trying to kill al-Awlaki for some time. On or about May 7 a US military drone fired a missile in Yemen (which is another country that is not our country) aimed at American Citizen Anwar al Awlaki, then a real-live al Qaeda guy. The missile instead blew up a car with two other people in it, quickly dubbed “al Qaeda operatives” since we killed them. The US has shot at al Awlaki even before that, including under the Bush administration.

In justifying the assassination attempts previously, Obama’s counterterrorism chief Michael Leiter said al Awlaki posed a bigger threat to the U.S. homeland than bin Laden did, albeit without a whole lot of explanation as to why this was. But, let’s be charitable and agree al Awaki is a bad guy; indeed, Yemen sentenced him to ten years in jail (which is not execution, fyi) for “inciting to kill foreigners” and “forming an armed gang.”

The key factor in thinking this through is that no one has accused al-Awlaki of actual killing anyone. He is accused of talking to people, albeit about jihad and killing, and exchanging emails with evil people like the shoe bomber or the underwear bomber, I forget which, and the Fort Hood killer. None of these are nice people and I doubt any of the conversations were about nice things. Still, the true is uglier: the US executed an American Citizen because of what he said and what he thought.

Attorneys for al Awlaki’s father previously tried to persuade a US District Court to issue an injunction last year preventing the government from the targeted killing of al Awlaki in Yemen, though a judge dismissed the case, ruling the father did not have standing to sue. My research has so far been unable to disclose whether or not this is the first time a father has sought to sue the US government to prevent the government from killing his son but I’ll keep looking. The judge did call the suit “unique and extraordinary” so I am going to go for now with the idea that no one has previously sued the USG to prevent them from murdering a citizen without trial or due process. The judge wimped out and wrote that it was up to the elected branches of government, not the courts, to determine whether the United States has the authority to murder its own citizens abroad.

Just to get ahead of the curve, and even though my own kids are non-terrorists and still in school, I have written to the president asking in advance that he not order them killed. Who knows what they might do? One kid has violated curfew a couple of times, and another stays up late some nights on Facebook, and we all know where that can lead.

The reason I bring up this worrisome turn from regular person to wanted terrorist is because al Awlaki used to be on better terms with the US government himself. In fact, after 9/11, the Pentagon invited him to a luncheon as part of the military’s outreach to the Muslim community. Al Awlaki “was considered to be an ‘up and coming’ member of the Islamic community” by the Army. He attended a luncheon at the Pentagon in the Secretary of the Army’s Office of Government Counsel. Al Awlaki was living in the DC area at that same, the SAME AREA MY KIDS LIVE, serving as Muslim chaplain at George Washington University, the SAME UNIVERSITY MY KIDS might walk past one day.

Even though Constitutional law professor Obama appears to have skipped reading about the Fifth Amendment (release the transcripts! Maybe he skipped class that day!), courts in Canada have not.

A Toronto judge was justified in freeing an alleged al Qaeda collaborator given the gravity of human rights abuses committed by the United States in connection with his capture in Pakistan, the Ontario Court of Appeal ruled. Judges are not expected to remain passive when countries such as the US violate the rights of alleged terrorists, the court said.

“We must adhere to our democratic and legal values, even if that adherence serves in the short term to benefit those who oppose and seek to destroy those values,” said the Canadian court.

Golly, this means that because the US gave up its own principles in detaining and torturing this guy, the Canadians are not going to extradite him to the US. That means that the US actions were… counterproductive… to our fight against terrorism. The Bill of Rights was put in place for the tough cases, not the easy ones. Sticking with it as the guiding principle has worked well for the US for about 230 years, so why abandon all that now?

Meanwhile, I’ll encourage my kids to stay inside when they hear drones overhead.

[emortimer]

WOW are we out of it

So we know he is planning things and is just like Osama but it is different since he was a US citizen.....NO blow him up and do not waste other American life on going in to get him to stand trial

I am good with that

[shann0]

Except... that leaves defining a terrorist up to the US government, who has classified christians and veterans as terrorists. This man had committed no crime, was not charged with anything. Obama essentially put a hit out on a US citizen. This mans father had gone to court to try to prevent the assassination of his son months earlier, and the court ruled that he had no standing to bring the suit against our government. Sorry, but regardless of whether this man was suspected of being a terrorist or not, the fact is there was no proof. He was given no opportunity to argue his innocence. It's against our constitution for American citizens to be deprived of their life by our government without the benefit of a trial. This is tyranny! What I'm left wondering is what did this man know that our Feral Government didn't want us to find out.

[emortimer]

so what you are saying is it all comes down to what country you are from? So Osama was not a citizen and the other was....Osama never stood trial and they both attacked the US just different levels...

what this really comes down to is we do not trust our government but we are doing nothing....now we can look at who is running for office and see there is no change in agenda with the ones currently holding the office...so nothing will change in the US for the better in a long time...so go to the root of the problem not some lame thing about a guy who hated the US and attacked it and lets change it so we can trust our government again and yes I am one of those terrorists that they say since I am a Christian and a veteran

[shann0]

Did I ever say that I agreed with the so called assassinattion of Osama? I didn't, in fact if it's true that they assassinated him, I was horrified. I don't actually believe they killed him at all this year, he's been dead for years, but don't get me started on that.

The truth of the matter is our government cannot be fixed by us or anyone currently residing on planet earth. Only Jesus Christ can fix this mess.

My intent on posting this article was to shine a light on this heinous crime. Most people seem content that "another bad guy got killed, yippee." This is flat out wrong. There is nothing stopping them from doing this to any one of us when all that is needed to execute someone without due process is the word of our "benevolent Big Brother".

[shann0]

Apparently I'm not the only one who sees this as a reprehensible violation of our constitutional rights....

www.nowtheendbegins.com/blog/?p=6780

The value of life

Outside the U.S. government, President Obama’s order to kill American citizen Anwar al-Awlaki without due process has proved controversial, with experts in law and war reaching different conclusions. Inside the Obama Administration, however, disagreement was apparently absent, or so say anonymous sources quoted by the Washington Post. “The Justice Department wrote a secret memorandum authorizing the lethal targeting of Anwar al-Aulaqi, the American-born radical cleric who was killed by a U.S. drone strike Friday, according to administration officials,” the newspaper reported. “The document was produced following a review of the legal issues raised by striking a U.S. citizen and involved senior lawyers from across the administration. There was no dissent about the legality of killing Aulaqi, the officials said.”


Isn’t that interesting? Months ago, the Obama Administration revealed that it would target al-Awlaki. It even managed to wriggle out of a lawsuit filed by his father to prevent the assassination. But the actual legal reasoning the Department of Justice used to authorize the strike? It’s secret. Classified. Information that the public isn’t permitted to read, mull over, or challenge.

Why? What justification can there be for President Obama and his lawyers to keep secret what they’re asserting is a matter of sound law? This isn’t a military secret. It isn’t an instance of protecting CIA field assets, or shielding a domestic vulnerability to terrorism from public view.

This is an analysis of the power that the Constitution and Congress’ post September 11 authorization of military force gives the executive branch. This is a president exploiting official secrecy so that he can claim legal justification for his actions without having to expose his specific reasoning to scrutiny. As the Post put it, “The administration officials refused to disclose the exact legal analysis used to authorize targeting Aulaqi, or how they considered any Fifth Amendment right to due process.”

Obama hasn’t just set a new precedent about killing Americans without due process. He has done so in a way that deliberately shields from public view the precise nature of the important precedent he has set. It’s time for the president who promised to create “a White House that’s more transparent and accountable than anything we’ve seen before” to release the DOJ memo. As David Shipler writes, “The legal questions are far from clearcut, and the country needs to have this difficult discussion.” And then there’s the fact that “a good many Obama supporters thought that secret legal opinions by the Justice Department — rationalizing torture and domestic military arrests, for example — had gone out the door along with the Bush administration,” he adds. “But now comes a momentous change in policy with serious implications for the Constitution’s restraint on executive power, and Obama refuses to allow his lawyers’ arguments to be laid out on the table for the American public to examine.” What doesn’t he want to get out? source – The Atlantic

[emortimer]

8-)I will put back on my pants if you still like me

[shann0]

Of course I still like you. Put those pants back on.

[maeday5]

Have mixed emotions on the assassination. Understand the principle he's an American Citizen and the fears of who will be targeted next in this country as a terrorist. Still, if any American citizen, an escaped killer, comes to my back door, I'm not going to worry about his, "due process", if he's threatening my life.
I can see both sides to this argument.

[shann0]

It's one thing if he's at your door threatening your life, that's self defense. It's another when he's off in another country minding his own business. If our government had something to charge this man with, they should have done so. What they did is illegal on so many levels it's not even funny.

[maeday5]

Don't believe he was off minding his own business. How is he still a citizen anyway, when was the last time he lived here? Did he pass muster on keeping his citizenship intact. Just wondering, considering all the circumstances.
travel.state.gov/law/citizenship/citizenship_778.html
he Department of State is responsible for determining the citizenship status of a person located outside the United States or in connection with the application for a U.S. passport while in the United States.

POTENTIALLY EXPATRIATING ACTS

Section 349 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1481), as amended, states that U.S. citizens are subject to loss of citizenship if they perform certain specified acts voluntarily and with the intention to relinquish U.S. citizenship. Briefly stated, these acts include:

obtaining naturalization in a foreign state (Sec. 349 (a) (1) INA);
taking an oath, affirmation or other formal declaration to a foreign state or its political subdivisions (Sec. 349 (a) (2) INA);
entering or serving in the armed forces of a foreign state engaged in hostilities against the U.S. or serving as a commissioned or non-commissioned officer in the armed forces of a foreign state (Sec. 349 (a) (3) INA);
accepting employment with a foreign government if (a) one has the nationality of that foreign state or (b) an oath or declaration of allegiance is required in accepting the position (Sec. 349 (a) (4) INA);
formally renouncing U.S. citizenship before a U.S. diplomatic or consular officer outside the United States (sec. 349 (a) (5) INA);
formally renouncing U.S. citizenship within the U.S. (but only under strict, narrow statutory conditions) (Sec. 349 (a) (6) INA);
conviction for an act of treason (Sec. 349 (a) (7) INA).

ADMINISTRATIVE STANDARD OF EVIDENCE

As already noted, the actions listed above can cause loss of U.S. citizenship only if performed voluntarily and with the intention of relinquishing U.S. citizenship. The Department has a uniform administrative standard of evidence based on the premise that U.S. citizens intend to retain United States citizenship when they obtain naturalization in a foreign state, subscribe to a declaration of allegiance to a foreign state, serve in the armed forces of a foreign state not engaged in hostilities with the United States, or accept non-policy level employment with a foreign government.

DISPOSITION OF CASES WHEN ADMINISTRATIVE PREMISE IS APPLICABLE

In light of the administrative premise discussed above, a person who:

is naturalized in a foreign country;
takes a routine oath of allegiance to a foreign state;
serves in the armed forces of a foreign state not engaged in hostilities with the United States, or
accepts non-policy level employment with a foreign government,

and in so doing wishes to retain U.S. citizenship need not submit prior to the commission of a potentially expatriating act a statement or evidence of his or her intent to retain U.S. citizenship since such an intent will be presumed.

When, as the result of an individual's inquiry or an individual's application for registration or a passport it comes to the attention of a U.S. consular officer that a U.S. citizen has performed an act made potentially expatriating by Sections 349(a)(1), 349(a)(2), 349(a)(3) or 349(a)(4) as described above, the consular officer will simply ask the applicant if there was intent to relinquish U.S. citizenship when performing the act. If the answer is no, the consular officer will certify that it was not the person's intent to relinquish U.S. citizenship and, consequently, find that the person has retained U.S. citizenship.

PERSONS WHO WISH TO RELINQUISH U.S. CITIZENSHIP

If the answer to the question regarding intent to relinquish citizenship is yes , the person concerned will be asked to complete a questionnaire to ascertain his or her intent toward U.S. citizenship. When the questionnaire is completed and the voluntary relinquishment statement is signed by the expatriate, the consular officer will proceed to prepare a certificate of loss of nationality. The certificate will be forwarded to the Department of State for consideration and, if appropriate, approval.

An individual who has performed any of the acts made potentially expatriating by statute who wishes to lose U.S. citizenship may do so by affirming in writing to a U.S. consular officer that the act was performed with an intent to relinquish U.S. citizenship. Of course, a person always has the option of seeking to formally renounce U.S. citizenship abroad in accordance with Section 349 (a) (5) INA.

DISPOSITION OF CASES WHEN ADMINISTRATIVE PREMISE IS INAPPLICABLE

The premise that a person intends to retain U.S. citizenship is not applicable when the individual:

formally renounces U.S. citizenship before a consular officer;
serves in the armed forces of a foreign state engaged in hostilities with the United States;
takes a policy level position in a foreign state;
is convicted of treason; or
performs an act made potentially expatriating by statute accompanied by conduct which is so inconsistent with retention of U.S. citizenship that it compels a conclusion that the individual intended to relinquish U.S. citizenship. (Such cases are very rare.)

Cases in categories 2, 3, 4 and 5 will be developed carefully by U.S. consular officers to ascertain the individual's intent toward U.S. citizenship.

APPLICABILITY OF ADMINISTRATIVE PREMISE TO PAST CASES

The premise established by the administrative standard of evidence is applicable to cases adjudicated previously. Persons who previously lost U.S. citizenship may wish to have their cases reconsidered in light of this policy.

A person may initiate such a reconsideration by submitting a request to the nearest U.S. consular office or by writing directly to:

Express Mail:
Director
Office of Policy Review and Inter-Agency Liaison (CA/OCS/PRI)
Overseas Citizens Services
Bureau of Consular Affairs
U.S. Department of State
4th Floor
2100 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20037
Phone: [phone]
Fax: [phone]
Email: [e-mail]

Regular Mail
Director
Office of Policy Review and Inter-Agency Liaison (CA/OCS/PRI)
Overseas Citizens Services
Bureau of Consular Affairs
U.S. Department of State
SA-29, 4th Floor
Washington, D.C. 20520

Each case will be reviewed on its own merits taking into consideration, for example, statements made by the person at the time of the potentially expatriating act.

LOSS OF NATIONALITY AND TAXATION

P.L. 104-191 contains changes in the taxation of U.S. citizens who renounce or otherwise lose U.S. citizenship. In general, any person who lost U.S. citizenship within 10 years immediately preceding the close of the taxable year, whose principle purpose in losing citizenship was to avoid taxation, will be subject to continued taxation.

See …

Internal Revenue Service Instructions for Completion of Form 8854
Internal Revenue Service Guidance on Expatriation Reporting Requirements
Internal Revenue Service Expatriation Tax

Copies of approved Certificates of Loss of Nationality are provided by the Department of State to the Internal Revenue Service pursuant to P.L. 104-191. Questions regarding United States taxation consequences upon loss of U.S. nationality should be addressed to the U.S. Internal Revenue Service.

DUAL NATIONALITY

Dual nationality can occur as the result of a variety of circumstances. The automatic acquisition or retention of a foreign nationality, acquired, for example, by birth in a foreign country or through an alien parent, does not affect U.S. citizenship. It is prudent, however, to check with authorities of the other country to see if dual nationality is permissible under local law. Dual nationality can also occur when a person is naturalized in a foreign state without intending to relinquish U.S. nationality and is thereafter found not to have lost U.S. citizenship: the individual consequently may possess dual nationality. While recognizing the existence of dual nationality and permitting Americans to have other nationalities, the U.S. Government also recognizes the problems which it may cause. Claims of other countries upon dual-national U.S. citizens often place them in situations where their obligations to one country are in conflict with the laws of the other. In addition, their dual nationality may hamper efforts to provide U.S. diplomatic and consular protection to them when they are abroad.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

See also information flyers on related subject available via the Department of State, Bureau of Consular Affairs home page on the internet at travel.state.gov. These flyers include:

Dual Nationality
Advice About Possible Loss of U.S. Citizenship and Seeking Public Office in a Foreign State
Advice About Possible Loss of U.S. Citizenship and Foreign Military Service
Renunciation of United States Citizenship
Renunciation of U.S. Citizenship by Persons Claiming a Right of Residence in the United States

02/ 01/2008

Return to Citizenship and Nationality

[shann0]

We have no proof that he was doing anything wrong. I myself have said things against our government. So if all that's needed is the word of our government that those who speak against them are a threat then I guess they should execute me by drone next.

[emortimer]

Oct 4, 2011 12:18:03 GMT -5 shann0 said:

We have no proof that he was doing anything wrong. I myself have said things against our government. So if all that's needed is the word of our government that those who speak against them are a threat then I guess they should execute me by drone next.

NO me first ;D ;D

[shann0]

Gosh, I feel so safe now, don't you? I guess this is a good cover for when the drones start executing Americans on US soil...

Plausible deniability.

www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/10/virus-hits-drone-fleet/

Exclusive: Computer Virus Hits U.S. Drone Fleet

A computer virus has infected the cockpits of America’s Predator and Reaper drones, logging pilots’ every keystroke as they remotely fly missions over Afghanistan and other warzones.

The virus, first detected nearly two weeks ago by the military’s Host-Based Security System, has not prevented pilots at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada from flying their missions overseas. Nor have there been any confirmed incidents of classified information being lost or sent to an outside source. But the virus has resisted multiple efforts to remove it from Creech’s computers, network security specialists say. And the infection underscores the ongoing security risks in what has become the U.S. military’s most important weapons system.

“We keep wiping it off, and it keeps coming back,” says a source familiar with the network infection, one of three that told Danger Room about the virus. “We think it’s benign. But we just don’t know.”

Military network security specialists aren’t sure whether the virus and its so-called “keylogger” payload were introduced intentionally or by accident; it may be a common piece of malware that just happened to make its way into these sensitive networks. The specialists don’t know exactly how far the virus has spread. But they’re sure that the infection has hit both classified and unclassified machines at Creech. That raises the possibility, at least, that secret data may have been captured by the keylogger, and then transmitted over the public internet to someone outside the military chain of command.



Drones have become America’s tool of choice in both its conventional and shadow wars, allowing U.S. forces to attack targets and spy on its foes without risking American lives. Since President Obama assumed office, a fleet of approximately 30 CIA-directed drones have hit targets in Pakistan more than 230 times; all told, these drones have killed more than 2,000 suspected militants and civilians, according to the Washington Post. More than 150 additional Predator and Reaper drones, under U.S. Air Force control, watch over the fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq. American military drones struck 92 times in Libya between mid-April and late August. And late last month, an American drone killed top terrorist Anwar al-Awlaki — part of an escalating unmanned air assault in the Horn of Africa and southern Arabian peninsula.

But despite their widespread use, the drone systems are known to have security flaws. Many Reapers and Predators don’t encrypt the video they transmit to American troops on the ground. In the summer of 2009, U.S. forces discovered “days and days and hours and hours” of the drone footage on the laptops of Iraqi insurgents. A $26 piece of software allowed the militants to capture the video.

The lion’s share of U.S. drone missions are flown by Air Force pilots stationed at Creech, a tiny outpost in the barren Nevada desert, 20 miles north of a state prison and adjacent to a one-story casino. In a nondescript building, down a largely unmarked hallway, is a series of rooms, each with a rack of servers and a “ground control station,” or GCS. There, a drone pilot and a sensor operator sit in their flight suits in front of a series of screens. In the pilot’s hand is the joystick, guiding the drone as it soars above Afghanistan, Iraq, or some other battlefield.

Some of the GCSs are classified secret, and used for conventional warzone surveillance duty. The GCSs handling more exotic operations are top secret. None of the remote cockpits are supposed to be connected to the public internet. Which means they are supposed to be largely immune to viruses and other network security threats.

But time and time again, the so-called “air gaps” between classified and public networks have been bridged, largely through the use of discs and removable drives. In late 2008, for example, the drives helped introduce the agent.btz worm to hundreds of thousands of Defense Department computers. The Pentagon is still disinfecting machines, three years later.

Use of the drives is now severely restricted throughout the military. But the base at Creech was one of the exceptions, until the virus hit. Predator and Reaper crews use removable hard drives to load map updates and transport mission videos from one computer to another. The virus is believed to have spread through these removable drives. Drone units at other Air Force bases worldwide have now been ordered to stop their use.

In the meantime, technicians at Creech are trying to get the virus off the GCS machines. It has not been easy. At first, they followed removal instructions posted on the website of the Kaspersky security firm. “But the virus kept coming back,” a source familiar with the infection says. Eventually, the technicians had to use a software tool called BCWipe to completely erase the GCS’ internal hard drives. “That meant rebuilding them from scratch” — a time-consuming effort.

The Air Force declined to comment directly on the virus. “We generally do not discuss specific vulnerabilities, threats, or responses to our computer networks, since that helps people looking to exploit or attack our systems to refine their approach,” says Lt. Col. Tadd Sholtis, a spokesman for Air Combat Command, which oversees the drones and all other Air Force tactical aircraft. “We invest a lot in protecting and monitoring our systems to counter threats and ensure security, which includes a comprehensive response to viruses, worms, and other malware we discover.”

However, insiders say that senior officers at Creech are being briefed daily on the virus.

“It’s getting a lot of attention,” the source says. “But no one’s panicking. Yet.”

Photo courtesy of Bryan William Jones

[emortimer]

www.hallindsey.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=67&Itemid=49

This is how you argue the point
I have to agree with Hal

As you will hear treat them as an enemy combatant and then give them their rights
He did his homework

[shann0]

Napolitano: Obama 'Shredding the Constitution'

Saturday, 22 Oct 2011 06:41 PM

By Martin Gould and Ashley Martella

President Barack Obama is shredding the U.S. Constitution faster than any of the 42 men who preceded him in office, according to Fox News judicial analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano, author of the brand new "It is Dangerous to be Right when the Government is Wrong."

It is so bad he should be impeached over the murder of American terror suspect Anwar al-Awlaki – and if Congress won’t take that action, he should be indicted once he is out of office.

In an exclusive interview with Newsmax.TV, Napolitano said it doesn’t matter that Awlaki was probably guilty – the fact is he was a U.S. citizen and the Constitution outlaws his killing without due process.

Story continues below video.



“We live in a time in which the government recognizes no limits on its own power,” he said. “It doesn’t recognize the natural law. It doesn’t recognize the federal law. It doesn’t recognize the Constitution.

“The president in the past couple of weeks became judge, jury and executioner for a very hated and probably guilty individual. But the Constitution says no person shall be denied life, liberty or property –much less an American which this guy was – without due process of law.”

“The killing of an American is unforgiveable under the Constitution and it is an impeachable offence and the president, if not being impeached, should be indicted for it after he leaves office.”

Napolitano hosts the libertarian show Freedom Watch on the Fox Business Channel. His sixth book on human freedom, “It is Dangerous to be Right when the Government is Wrong,” was released on Tuesday. Its title comes from a quotation attributed to 18th Century French civil libertarian Voltaire.

In the interview, the judge admitted that Obama is not the first president to undermine the Constitution. “I have never hesitated to attack the administration of George W. Bush,” he said. “In fact I have argued in this book and elsewhere that the Patriot Act is the most abominable Congressional assault on personal freedom since the Alien and Sedition Acts which were enacted in the late 1700s.

“The Obama administration, notwithstanding the president’s lofty words as a candidate and even as president, has actually ratcheted up the police state; has ratcheted up the assault on personal liberties.”

Napolitano said that shortly after 9/11, he and colleagues at Fox debated whether a president could kill an American who was a danger to national security. “When I posed that question, we all laughed, saying this could never happen, this is the United States of America, we have the Constitution. Now it happens and nobody does anything about it.

“I remember arguing, could the president start a war on his own? And the answer was no, of course not, the Constitution says only the Congress can declare war. Well, we’re in Libya and the Congress never declared it.

“The president is shredding the Constitution more so than George W. Bush did. It’s not only this president who does it, but he is doing it in a more in-your-face, more obvious and, if I may, more boastful way.”

Napolitano, a former superior court judge in New Jersey, claimed the assault on Americans’ freedoms – “real serious heavy-duty nanny-state regulation,” – started in earnest under Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson in the early 20th Century.

“That’s when the administrative state begins. That’s when the federal government creates administrative agencies that are neither fish nor fowl – they are not in the executive branch and they are not in the legislative branch. They don’t run for office but they acquire power through appointment, they survive from one president to the next.

“The administrative agencies began regulating private behavior and it started about 100 years ago. Coincidentally that’s also when the Federal Reserve and when the Income Tax started.”

He said one of the most important tests of the Constitution will be decided by the Supreme Court this year in the Antoine Jones case, where police attached a GPS device to a suspected drug dealer’s car to track his movements.

“The government claims it can come on to your property and open your garage door and go into your garage and open up your car and put a GPS tracking device in there if you don’t carry a cellphone. Can the government do that? Answer: The Supreme Court will tell us in a couple of months. In the interim, the government does this.”

Napolitano, like many libertarians, said he has sympathy for many of the causes of the Occupy Wall Street protesters.

“They have a legitimate complaint that their future in the economic world is grim. It is grim because the government has spent the future’s money today and has mortgaged the future by printing cash and borrowing against the future. It is grim because the government fights wars of opportunity.

“When they say end the Fed and end the wars, I am with them,” he said. “But when they say take from the rich and give to those who don’t have it, the Constitution is supposed to prevent that from happening.

“The political side of this is just as dangerous,” he added. “The political side of this is that labor unions and hard left organizations and entities of the Democratic National Committee are going to co-opt those young people and take over the message.”

Read more on Newsmax.com: Napolitano: Obama 'Shredding the Constitution'
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