by Stephen Lendman

Civil liberties in America, Britain, France, and other Western societies are gravely threatened. Already seriously eroded.

Expect more assaults on fundamental freedoms ahead. Based on the usual canards.

Protecting national security. Defending free society rights. How by enacting police state laws against them?

According to a July 2010 ACLU report titled "Establishing a New Normal," Obama administration officials waged unprecedented war on civil liberties.

Continuing the worst Bush era practices. Adding more extreme ones. The ACLU discussed the following top 10 post-9/11 abuses of power:

(1) Warrantless Wiretapping

Candidate Obama promised to end the practice. President Obama institutionalized it more than ever. Mass surveillance is pervasive. Big Brother watches everyone.

Secretly with virtually no congressional or judicial oversight. No public say over their own lives, rights and welfare. No concern about breaching fundamental rule of law principles.

(2) Torture, Kidnapping and Detention

Obama continues what Bush began. Anyone can be declared an enemy of the state for any reason or none at all.

Lawless arrests, detentions, torture, and at times cold-blooded murder follow. Targeted individuals can be held indefinitely without charge.

Innocence is no defense. Guilt by accusation suffices. Rule of law protections don't apply.

(3) The Growing Surveillance Society

Personal data on virtually everyone is collected and stored. Mass surveillance is more pervasive than ever.

America's intelligence apparatus, the military, state and local police, even private companies are involved.

Terrorism is the pretext. Unchallenged control the objective. Everyone targeted.

(4) Abuse of the Patriot Act.

Enactment eviscerated fundamental Bill of Rights freedoms. Federal investigators continue unconstitutional surveillance tactics against virtually everyone.

Lawful advocacy groups are monitored. War on Islam targets Muslims for their faith and ethnicity. At times their activism, prominence and charity.

(5) Government Secrecy

Candidate Obama promised transparency, accountability and reform. President Obama presides over the most secretive, unaccountable administration in US history.

Wanting free flowing information stifled. Total control over what's made public. Unprecedented amounts of government information classified to conceal what's vital for everyone to know.

Journalists are monitored. Their phone records accessed. Emails read. Personal movements tracked.

Independent journalism is threatened. Government wrongdoing suppressed. Whistleblowers criminalized for revealing it.

Police state extremism threatens everyone. "It's time to drastically" change what's ongoing," said ACLU Washington Legislative Office director Laura Murphy.

(6) Real ID

"Rammed through Congress in 2005." Attached to an unrelated "must pass" bill. Establishes the foundation for a national ID card.

Makes it harder for persecuted people to receive asylum. States must standardized driver's licenses. According to yet to be established guidelines.

Gives Washington access to state and local databases. Permits secret deportations. Makes non-citizens vulnerable to deportation for lawful speech or associations.

(7) No Fly and Selectee Lists

Targeting anyone for any reason labeled as security risks. Whether true or false. As of 2010, included about 720,000 names.

All with "mysterious or ill-defined criteria" for why designated. Lists are all-sweeping. Rife with errors. Even the late Senator Ted Kennedy was flagged.

Law Professor Francis Boyle was placed on a terrorism watch list. He's been stopped, searched and questioned when traveling abroad.

(8) Political Spying

NSA, FBI, DOD and other government agencies routinely spy extrajudicially. Through FOIA requests, ACLU learned about monitoring Quakers.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. Greenpeace. The Arab American Anti-Defamation Committee. The ACLU itself. Other civil and human rights organizations. Their officials.

(9) Abuse of Material Witness Statute

So-called "material witnesses" can be arrested and detained. Especially Muslims. Most targeted individuals committed no crimes. Or have knowledge about what authorities seek.

Innocent victims are detained indefinitely uncharged. At times because US officials "believe (they) might do something in the future," said ACLU.

Racial and religious profiling is rife. Activists are targeted on unfounded suspicions of providing "material support" for terrorism

(10) Attacks on Academic Freedom

"Censorship at the border" prevents scholars opposed to lawless US policies from entering the country. "(O)utright censorship and prescreening of scientific (and other articles) occur before publication."

Western free societies are threatened. Civil liberties in America are fast disappearing. Europeans are losing theirs.

Expect authorities to take full advantage of Paris killings. Instituting harsher than ever measures in response.

On January 11, The New York Times headlined "FBI Is Broadening Surveillance Role, Report Shows."

Saying the agency collects and "retain(s) unprocessed communications gathered without a warrant to analyze for its own purposes."

Allegedly on non-citizens. Heavily redacted FOIA information obtained conceals likely targeting virtually anyone.

FBI director James Comey warned about radicalized Islamists in Syria planning to attack America and/or its allies. "(V)ery, very soon," he said.

"Given our visibility, we know they're serious people, bent on destruction." CIA operatives and US special forces arm, train, fund and direct radicalized Islamists.

Death squads used as proxies. Against US enemies. Ravaging Syria. Comey didn't explain.

Britain's MI5 warned of Paris-style killings on UK soil. General Director of the Security Service Andrew Parker hyped a likely "mass casualty attack" coming.

So-called intelligence indicates "specific plots," he said. Including blowing up a passenger jet. Mass public killings.

Hit-and-run attacks using vehicles. Deadly threats are increasing, he said. So-called "terrorists" may be able "to operate beyond our reach."

Threats are "unlikely to abate for some time." Describing what he called the "phenomenon of the modern age."

Wants stepped up police and security services ability to act more forcefully against whatever are called terrorist threats.

If past is prologue, expect future attacks. False flags like previous ones. Blamed on the usual suspects. Islamic extremists.

Used as pretexts for waging imperial wars. More repressive legislation. Targeting civil liberties for elimination altogether. In Britain. America. France. Elsewhere.

Incidents like Paris killings aren't random. French authorities closely monitored individuals involved for years.

In 2005, Cherif Kouarchi was sentenced to three years in prison for "association with wrongdoers with the intention of committing a terrorist act."

His sentence was later suspended. He and brother Said reportedly got Al Qaeda training. Fought against Assad in Syria.

Returned home. Were on a French intelligence watch list. Yet managed to pull off Charlie Hebdo killings with military precision.

Then get away easily despite heavily policed Paris. Before tracked down and killed. Along with grocery store hostage-taker Amedy Coulibaly.

Eliminated to silence them. Dead men tell no tales. UK Prime Minister David Cameron signaled what's likely coming.

Citing "a challenge to our security." Saying "we have to fight this terrorism with everything we have…(D)efending the values we all hold dear."

Forget about Islamist extremists. State-terrorism alone matters. Threatening fundamental freedoms.

Committing false flag attacks. Blamed on the usual suspects. So-called radicalized Islamists. Targets of choice.

Using the Kouarchi brothers and Coulibaly as convenient patsies. Heavily armed with an arsenal of weapons and munitions, reports said.

How gotten not explained. Murdering them to silence them. Denying them due process.

Wanting the official narrative left unchallenged. Wanting Paris killings used as pretexts for likely harder than ever hardline policies to follow.

On January 11, Reuters headlined "White House to hold global security summit Feb. 18: US official." On "countering violent extremism."

Saying Obama invited allies to discuss ways to prevent terrorism. In Paris, Attorney General Eric Holder said:

"We will bring together all of our allies to discuss ways in which we can counteract this violent extremism that exists around the world."

White House press secretary Josh Earnest issued a statement saying:

"On February 18, 2015, the White House will host a Summit on Countering Violent Extremism to highlight domestic and international efforts to prevent violent extremists and their supporters from radicalizing, recruiting, or inspiring individuals or groups in the United States and abroad to commit acts of violence, efforts made even more imperative in light of recent, tragic attacks in Ottawa, Sydney, and Paris."

"This summit will build on the strategy the White House released in August of 2011, Empowering Local Partners to Prevent Violent Extremism in the United States, the first national strategy to prevent violent extremism domestically."

In September, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson first announced it. Citing a growing threat from Islamic State militants.

Saying an October summit would be held. Why postponed wasn't explained.

"Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) efforts rely heavily on well-informed and resilient local communities," said Earnest.

"(O)ur partners around the world are actively implementing programs to prevent violent extremism and foreign terrorist fighter recruitment."

"The summit will include representatives from a number of partner nations, focusing on the themes of community engagement, religious leader engagement, and the role of the private sector and tech community."

French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said his European counterparts agreed to increase cooperative efforts to prevent future terrorist attacks.

Including more inclusive watch lists. Travel restrictions. Preventing online use for whatever authorities call terrorism or terrorist related activities.

"We need to work more closely with Internet companies to guarantee the reporting and if possible removal of all content that amounts to an apology of terrorism or calls for violence and hatred," he said.

An upcoming EU interior justice meeting is planned to discuss further action. Perhaps repressive legislation is already drafted.

In France. Britain. America. Elsewhere. Ready to be enacted. Hundreds of pages of detailed Patriot Act provisions became US law six weeks after 9/11.

Months are needed to draft legislation this complex and inclusive. Including agreeing on measures wanted.

At the time, congressional members said they had no time to review the measure in advance. Bipartisan House members passed it 357 - 66.

Former Senator Russ Feingold was the sole Senate no vote. Not another profile in courage joined him. The measure passed 98 to 1.

It bears repeating. Expect likely further attacks on civil liberties ahead. En route to eliminating them altogether.

Police states operate this way. America is most threatening of all.

A Final Comment

Police Commissioner Helric Fredou investigating Charlie Hebdo killings died mysteriously. A near-total media blackout followed.

An exception was France 3 Limousin Poitou Charentes. A regional television service. Part of France 3's network.

Headlining "Limoges: suicide d'un commissaire de police." Needing no translation. Providing little information. Suggesting depression from burnout.

21st Century Wire headlined "New Twist: Charlie Hebdo Police Investigator Turns Up Dead, 'Suicided.' "

Saying "this latest bizarre bombshell…fuel(s) speculation as to the covert nature of the Charlie Hebdo false flag affair."

Lots of people are depressed. Few commit suicide. Did Fredou take his own life? Or was he killed? If so, why?

Was he about to reveal what French authorities want suppressed? Perhaps refuting key parts of the official story.

Maybe suggesting what this writer and others believe. Paris killings were less about terrorism and more about state-sponsored false flag deception.

Why is there a near-total media blackout? Why no reporting on something demanding headlines. Nothing from all major Western news sources.

Silence suggests coverup. What little information came out said Fredou shot himself in his office for "unknown" reasons.

An almost identical incident occurred in November 2013. In Limoges. In west/central France.

At the time, Le Parisien headlined "Limoges: un commissaire de police se suicide avec son arme (weapon)."

He was third-ranked SRPJ officer (Service regional de police judicaire). Shot himself with his own gun in a police hotel.

Following Ferdou's death, Le Parisien headlined "Deux suicides de commissaire en deux ans." Two commissioner suicides in two years.

Explaining little. No likely connection between Ferdou's death and his ongoing Charlie Hebdo investigation.

Little more is known at this time. Coverup is rife. It bears repeating. Ferdou perhaps had information French authorities want suppressed.

Contradicting the official narrative. Exposing false flag deception. Ferdou can't explain. Dead men tell no tales.

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Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

His new book as editor and contributor is titled "Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks World War III".

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

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