PRESS RELEASE
The Secret Coup Apparatus in the U.S.
Oct. 18, 2011 (EIRNS)—The "military institution operating in secret," which Lyndon LaRouche cited on Oct. 12, features, among other institutions, the U.S. Northern Command (Northcom), established by then Vice President Cheney in 2002, i.e., after the 9/11 attacks. This was the first-ever military command designed to intervene in the United States homeland, and be prepared at any moment to take over law enforcement and government functions. The pretext given was the need to use the Army to help the government deal with attacks on U.S. soil, natural disasters, etc., but LaRouche immediately denounced it as an attempt to "create a Caesarian military dictatorship."
Another pillar of the coup apparatus set up under Cheney is the Patriot Act, which authorized large-scale surveillance of U.S. citizens on U.S. territory for the first time ever, and was announced as a temporary measure. However, in May 2010, President Obama expanded and consolidated the Patriot Act's worst police-state provisions for four years without even holding hearings, by cutting deals with cowardly Senators.
The three provisions which were extended were:
- the "business records" provision, which allows the FBI to obtain all types of financial records—telephone, e-mail, travel, credit card, etc.—without a subpoena and without showing any connection to terrorism or espionage;
- roving wiretaps under FISA (the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act), using much looser standards than exist for criminal investigations;
- the "lone wolf" provision, allowing wiretaps and surveillance of citizens, without the need to show any connection to a foreign power or to international terrorism.
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) warned his colleagues last May, after having received a classified briefing in the Senate Intelligence Committee, that there are two Patriot Acts: one which Congress has approved, and a second, secret program based on the Obama Administration's secret interpretation of the law.
"When the American people find out how their government has secretly interpreted the Patriot Act, they will be stunned and they will be angry," Wyden said, citing the public outrage that was sparked in the past by the discovery of other secret surveillance programs. Sen. Mark Udall (D-Col.), also a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, backed Wyden's account, declaring that "Americans would be alarmed if they knew how this law is being carried out."
Since then, the New York Times and its reporter Charlie Savage have sued the Justice Department under the Freedom of Information Act to obtain the Administration's classified interpretation of the Patriot Act.
Another secret deal arranged by President Obama was an unprecedented extension of FBI Director Mueller's term for two years—again without Congressional hearings, where Mueller could have been called to account for his doings.
Add to this the super-secret panel which decides which U.S. citizens should be "taken out" by government forces, because of the purported threat they pose to national security (cf. EIR, Oct. 14, 2011). According to reporter Mark Hosenball, there are no public records of the operations or decisions of the panel, which is a subset of the White House's National Security Council, nor any rules governing the criteria used to condemn suspects to death without trial.
