"It seems that Menezes [London subway] and Alpizar [Miami airport] were picked at random, for a demonstration of new 'anti-terror' law enforcement powers... The police can now snatch or shoot anyone, without recourse, to 'protect the public'...

The message is, if you see your neighbours being rounded up or shot, hear nothing, see nothing, say nothing and do nothing, it is for your protection. Stay indoors, close the curtains and cower in fear, because it could be you next."

-- Hazel McKinlay

"In the Anglo-American legal tradition, law is a shield of the accused. This is necessary in order to protect the innocent. The accused is [assumed to be] innocent until he is proven guilty in an open court. There are no secret tribunals, no torture, and no show trials...

The damage terrorists can inflict pales in comparison to the loss of the civil liberties that protect us from the arbitrary power of law used as a weapon."

See: Paul Craig Roberts essay (2005-10)

"From 1933-1939, Hitler steadily, gradually, changed law after law, rule after rule, and definition after definition, so he could impose his internal dictatorship; however, he took such tiny steps over this period of time that he did not raise the ire of his opposition. Only after he had legalized every act he wanted to carry out did he begin his world war and his internal genocide.

Our leaders are following exactly the same script today. They are carefully setting every paperwork change in place while taking care to not enact any of these new powers now, thus lulling most citizens to sleep, thinking these new powers will never be enacted."

The article continues with a table showing the parallels between the 1930s and the present decade.

See: Michael Haupt article

A woman returning from a pleasant vacation cruise was grabbed off the ship by a Federal goon squad and thrown into the slammer just because their "Total Information" system (incorrectly) told them she had failed to pay a lousy $50 ticket! Imagine what life will be like once these boneheads start arbitrarily flagging people as "terrorists".

"Hope Clarke, 32, crying and in leg shackles, told the judge she was rousted at 6:30 a.m. by federal agents after the ship returned to Miami from [Cancun] Mexico. She insisted that she had been required to pay the $50 fine [for leaving some marshmallows at a campsite] before she could leave Yellowstone Park..."

See: AP article (2004-06-23)