Washburn's World

My take on the world. My wife often refers to this as the WWW (Weird World of Washburn)

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Location: Germantown, Wisconsin, United States

I am a simple country boy transplanted from the Piehl Township in northern Wisconsin to the Milwaukee metropolitan area who came down "sout" in 1980 for college and have stayed in the area since.
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Wednesday, October 10, 2007

US Star Chambers

If Star Chamber Court(s) are not already set up in the USA there is nothing in current US law to prevent it.

To undertand why this is important you need to understand history and why the disappearance of the Rule of Law from America is dangerous. Nothing does both like this excerpt from the play, "A Man For All Seasons", by Robert Bolt:

Alice: Arrest him!
More: Why, what has he done?
Margaret: He's bad!
More: There is no law against that.
Roper: There is! God's law!
More: Then God can arrest him.
Roper: Sophistication upon sophistication.
More: No, sheer simplicity. The law, Roper, the law. I know what's legal, not what's right. And I'll stick to what's legal.
Roper: Then you set man's law above God's!
More: No, far below; but let me draw your attention to a fact -- I'm not God. The currents and eddies of right and wrong, which you find such plain sailing, I can't navigate. I'm no voyager. But in the thickets of the law, oh, there I'm a forester.I doubt if there's a man alive who could follow me there, thank God.
Alice: While you talk, he's gone!
More: And go he should, if he was the Devil himself, until he broke the law!
Roper: So now you'd give the Devil benefit of law!
More: Yes. What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?
Roper: I'd cut down every law in England to do that!
More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country's planted thick with laws from coast to coast -- man's laws, not God's -- and if you cut them down -- and you're just the man to do it -- do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake. (source)

Here is what happens when all the laws are flat and the Devil turns round on you. You are kidnapped, rendered to Afghanistan, and then tortured for 10 months because of mistaken identity as in the case of Khaled el-Masri

If you think this can not happen to you, an American Citizen, then you have not been paying attention. The Military Commissions Act of 2006 (MCA 2006) allows this to be done to American Citizens. See paragraph ii of the definition of unlawful combatant found in section 948a of the MCA 2006. This coupled with the ruling in the John Gilmore case that laws and regulations can be secret even from the defendant means the regulations creating those "other competent tribunals" under the MCA 2006 do not need be made public. Also, little noticed by Americans, is that the Posse Commitatus Act was largely gutted in December 2006 when the John Warner Defense Appropriation Act was signed.

So, under current US law, the President or Secretary of Defense can create a "competent tribunal" by administrative rule (MCA 2006). The "competent tribunal" can be created without public notice in the Federal Register or the Code of Federal Regulations (Gilmore v. Ashcroft/Gonzales). Then, this secret, "competent tribunal" can declare a US citizen (e.g YOU) an unlawful combatant. Once declared an unlawful combatant you can then be "disappeared" ala Eva and Juan Peron and shipped on a rendition flight to Afghanistan, Gitmo, or Syria to be imprison and/or tortured indefinitely. Moreover, if the "competent tribunal" decides you are part of a "conspiracy", then under the restructured Posse Comitatus Act the armed forces (rangers, seals, MP's, etc.) can be used to kidnap give you Schutzhaft.

Welcome the Empire. All hail the Decider! May his benvolence reign lightly opon you.

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