Turning The Police State Apparatus Against Dissenters
Second major phase of the coordinated destruction of freedom in America targets those who refuse to go along with it
Steve Watson
Infowars.net
Friday, Nov 16, 2007
[align=left]A sustained media propaganda campaign in support of the move to swing the apparatus of tyranny away from phantom Muslim terrorists and towards the American people is in full operation and may pave the way for further attacks on US soil to be blamed on dissenting Americans who speak out against the war and the rise of the domestic police state.
Over the past decade we have witnessed an extreme acceleration of the physical implementation of a framework and infrastructure ready to receive those who will not go along with a coordinated destruction of traditional American values and freedom. With 9/11 came the first opportunity of the 21st century to radically alter the mentality of America and introduce a new order of society.
The corporate media is now preparing the psyche of the American public for a second major shift. This time the effort will be to direct the understanding of the manufactured and fraudulent "war on terror", away from "Islamofascists" and "Al Qaeda" and towards dissenting American citizens.
Over the past month or so we have highlighted this ongoing propaganda campaign in the following articles:
Complaints Flood CNN After Beck Smears Ron Paul Supporters As Terrorists
Neocon Attack on Ron Paul: Greasing the Skids for Implementation of H.R. 1955?
Framing The Truth Movement As Terrorists
Beck: 9/11 Truthers "Insane", "Dangerous Anarchists", "The Kind Of Group A Timothy McVeigh Would Come From"
Pitching For More Dead Americans: A Neo-Con Fetish
Establishment "news" hacks such as Glenn Beck, Bill O'Reilly, Hannity and Limbaugh are raising the same talking point ad infinitum, dubbing the global truth movement, along with the anti-war movement, as "anarchists" and violent individuals who are aiding terrorists.
In the event of another attack on US soil, an army of Neo-Cons secretly sharing the same fetish, would revel in exploiting a hollow opportunity to say "we told you so," even at the expense of thousands of dead dads, moms, sons, daughters and babies.
"But these are just the mindless frothings of talking heads looking for ratings" some might say. When you take them in context with the ongoing actions of the government, however, a clearer more deadly picture emerges.
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The propaganda coincides with a House Homeland Security Subcommittee hearing on "Terrorism and the Internet" held last week, broadcast on C-Span, which featured a panel of "experts", including representatives formerly of the RAND Corporation and the Simon Wiesenthal Center who presented 9/11 truth websites sites alongside sites that celebrate the attacks and offer training in terrorist tactics.
In the current context, this unified assault also dovetails with the advance of H.R. 1955, entitled the ??Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007", which is vaguely worded and could easily be used to label activist groups as terrorist recruiters.
Past legislation written up and in many cases implemented by the Bush administration has completely cleared the path for the targeting of American citizens as "enemy combatants" and systematically destroyed the Bill Of Rights. Here is a brief re-cap on some of that legislation: [/align]
- Executive Order, 'Blocking Property of Certain Persons Who Threaten Stabilization Efforts in Iraq'
Back in July this year this vaguely worded EO was signed and acts as an amendment to the National Emergencies Act. It states that any American citizen who "threatens the peace and stability of Iraq and undermines efforts to promote reconstruction and reform" there may have all their property and interests seized by the Treasury department without warning. Many within the anti-war movement have viewed this as a move to target protesters. it certainly is the case that anti-war protesters have been heavily surveilled by the FBI, the NSA and the Pentagon at meetings and rallies as many mainstream sources have reported this year. - HR 6166 - Military Commissions Act
[align=left]Slamming the final nail in the coffin of everything America used to stand for, the boot-licking U.S. Senate gave President Bush the legal authority to abduct and sexually mutilate American citizens and American children in the name of the war on terror in passing the Military Commissions Act and officially ending Habeas Corpus in September 2006. [/align]
There is nothing in the "detainee" legislation that protects American citizens from being kidnapped by their own government and tortured.
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The New York Times stated that the legislation introduced, "A dangerously broad definition of ??illegal enemy combatant? in the bill could subject legal residents of the United States, as well as foreign citizens living in their own countries, to summary arrest and indefinite detention with no hope of appeal. The president could give the power to apply this label to anyone he wanted."
Yale Law Professor Bruce Ackerman states in the L.A. Times, "The compromise legislation....authorizes the president to seize American citizens as enemy combatants, even if they have never left the United States. And once thrown into military prison, they cannot expect a trial by their peers or any other of the normal protections of the Bill of Rights." [/align]
Similarly, law Professor Marty Lederman explains: "this [subsection (ii) of the definition of 'unlawful enemy combatant'] means that if the Pentagon says you're an unlawful enemy combatant -- using whatever criteria they wish -- then as far as Congress, and U.S. law, is concerned, you are one, whether or not you have had any connection to 'hostilities' at all."
Subsection 4(b) (26) of section 950v. of the bill
contains a definition of "wrongfully aiding the enemy" which labels all American citizens who breach their "allegiance" to President Bush and the actions of his government as terrorists subject to possible arrest, torture and conviction in front of a military tribunal. Section 950j of the bill also preemptively criminalizes any challenge to the legislation's legality by the Supreme Court or any United States court and allows the use of torture that is, "incidental to lawful sanctions."
- John Warner Defense Authorization Act
[align=left]The Bush Junta quietly "tooled up" to utilize the U.S. military in engaging American dissidents after the next big crisis, with a frightening and overlooked piece of legislation that was passed alongside the Military Commissions Act, the
John Warner Defense Authorization Act, which greased the skids for armed confrontation and abolishes posse comitatus. [/align]
- Martial Law Presidential Decision Directive 51
[align=left]New legislation signed on May 9, 2007, declares that in the event of a "catastrophic event", the President can take total control over the government and the country, bypassing all other levels of government at the state, federal, local, territorial and tribal levels, and thus
ensuring total unprecedented dictatorial power. [/align]
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The National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive, which also places the Secretary of Homeland Security in charge of domestic "security", was signed earlier this month without the approval or oversight of Congress and seemingly supercedes the National Emergency Act which allows the president to declare a national emergency but also requires that Congress have the authority to "modify, rescind, or render dormant" such emergency authority if it believes the president has acted inappropriately. [/align]
[align=left]The scope of the program is so secretive that even
Homeland Security Committee member and Congressman Peter DeFazio was denied access to view the classified portion of the documents. [/align]
- [align=left] The USA Patriot Act
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[align=left]The party line often heard from Neo-Cons in their attempts to defend the Patriot Act either circulate around the contention that the use of the Patriot Act has never been abused or that it isn't being used against American citizens.
Here is an archive of articles that disproves both of these fallacies.
The Patriot Act was the boiler plate from which all subsequent attacks on the Constitution were formed. [/align]
- [align=left] USA Patriot Act II
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[align=left]The second Patriot Act was a mirror image of powers that Julius Caesar and Adolf Hitler gave themselves. Whereas the First Patriot Act only gutted the First, Third, Fourth and Fifth Amendments, and seriously damaged the Seventh and the Tenth, the Second Patriot Act reorganized the entire Federal government as well as many areas of state government under the dictatorial control of the Justice Department, the Office of Homeland Security and the FEMA NORTHCOM military command.
The Domestic Security Enhancement Act 2003, also known as the Second Patriot Act is by its very structure the definition of dictatorship.[/align]
[align=left] The once covert but now exposed "anti-terror" domestic wiretapping program has proven that the Bush administration has targeted American citizens in the "war on terror":[/align]
[align=left]"Months after the Sept. 11 attacks, President Bush secretly authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans and others inside the United States to search for evidence of terrorist activity without the court-approved warrants ordinarily required for domestic spying, according to government officials," reported the New York Times on December 16, 2005 [/align]
[align=left]The secret warrantless spying program was a complete violation of both the 4th Amendment and FISA.[/align]
[align=left]Not content with now being lawfully allowed to force ISP's and cell phone companies to turn over data about customers without a warrant, the Bush administration pushed for even more authority to spy on American citizens, and was handed a 6 month window this August within which to impose any surveillance policy it likes, and for that program to remain legal in perpetuity. [/align]
[align=left]These types of programs are not new of course, precursors such as COINTELPRO and many other incarnations of the same kind of surveillance programs have been targeting American citizens for decades.[/align]
Getting rid of Posse Comitatus - Setting the precedent
??In a police state the police are national, powerful, authoritarian. Inevitably, national governments yield to the temptation to use the military to do the heavy lifting?.once the military is used, however minor initially, the march toward martial law ? becomes irresistible.? - Representative Ron Paul of Texas - June 25 1997.
The Posse Comitatus Act is a recognition that the framers of the constitution had a deep distrust of centralized power, particularly centralized military power that might be used against the people. State militias were preferred over a national army. In times of major disaster or emergency, it has been state governors - not the president - who call out that state's contingent of the national guard.
We have witnessed over a long period of time how Posse Comitatus is systematically being erased. After 9/11 this was particularly accelerated. All the so called "experts" were calling for changes to long standing laws, in order to "protect" us. This led to scores of lower level government officials pleading for exactly what the criminal elements higher up wanted all along.
Take the following AP report from November 2001: "Our way of life has forever changed," wrote Sen. John Warner, R-Va., in a letter last month to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. "Should this law now be changed to enable our active-duty military to more fully join other domestic assets in this war against terrorism?"
So let's get this right, "terrorists" attack us because they "hate our freedoms" and the answer is to get rid of our freedoms?
Here's another mainstream report from 2002 documenting a senators call to abolish Posse Comitatus and let troops arrest US civilians.
Here's former Homeland Security dictator Tom Ridge saying the same thing.And here he is saying it again.
But before the war on terror it was clear that there was preparation afoot for such eventualities. Nothing is under review, this has always been the agenda. They were erasing Posse Comitatus 14 Years Ago. In 911: The Road to Tyranny Alex Jones presents footage of troops training to put Americans into Concentration Camps. This footage includes interrogations and a retired Marine admitting that in 1988 he was kicking down doors in Norfolk, Virginia. The Marines would be ordered to the local Police station where they would don Police uniforms. They would then go to the local gun shop or dealers home and "Take Them Down."
In Alex Jones' feature Police State 2000 he covers Operation Urban Warrior where actors posed as American citizens who were Unconstitutionally seized from their homes by the military and police. These Americans: were rounded up and confined behind barbed-wire.
The actors were told to demand to be let free and state that they had rights. They were also told to demand food and water. The troops in turn were taught to ignore them and to order them to behave in an orderly fashion. "Civil disobedience will not be tolerated" was one of the many disturbing statements heard to emanate from the military's loud speakers.
Over the years there have been countless drills of this nature. The media simply reports them as training for dealing with foreign enemies, yet the volunteers and the participants are always told differently.
Here's a report on another urban warfare drill entitled "The Millennium Challenge 2002". This drill was conducted secretly across 26 States in 2002.
In 2005 details of just one of many Military operations on American soil was exposed in the run up to Bush's second coronation. A secret counterterrorism program code-named Power Geyser. A small group of super-secret commandos were hidden among 13000 police and troops and "stood ready with state-of-the-art weaponry to swing into action.".
There have been literally thousands of these kind of operations in the planning and going on for years now. Many designed to use the military on the streets of American cities in direct violation of Posse Comitatus. The Pentagon has a full Command in operation working on these activities, the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC).
Whilst Studying US COIN (Counter Insurgency) doctrine at University I was subjected to weekly showings of videos where military operations were carried out in purpose built mock American towns and cities. We were also informed of how future Counter Insurgency would be predominantly conducted from Military bunkers as they had developed the technology to map out entire cities to pinpoint accuracy from satellite images. The cities in the prototypes were of course all American cities.
I remember asking the lecturer what the point was in developing this technology for use in foreign insurgency wars in places such as the mountains of Afghanistan, and why were the drills and testing of the technology being carried out purely in American towns and cities. The answer was of course that in the event of a major terror attack on US soil these types of things would go into operation. The Pentagon does indeed have "War Plans" drafted in the event of any type of terror attack, which would be coordinated by Northcom in conjunction with the Department of Homeland Security and would involve martial law and thousands of troops on the streets.
According to respected military affairs analyst William Arkin, Northcom has defined three levels of operations, each of which triggers a larger set of authorized activities. The levels are "extraordinary", "emergency" and "temporary". During emergencies, the military can provide similar support, mostly in response to specific events such as the attacks on the World Trade Center. It is only in the case of extraordinary domestic operations that the unique capabilities of the Defense Department are deployed. These include not just such things as air patrols to shoot down hijacked planes or the defusing of bombs and other explosives, but also bringing in intelligence collectors, special operators and even full combat troops.
But as Arkin's article makes clear, Northcom is doing more than mere coordinating. "Under the banner of 'homeland security', the military and intelligence communities are implementing far-reaching changes that blur the lines between terrorism and other kinds of crises and will break down long-established barriers to military action and surveillance within the US."
He also said the Pentagon reviewed the Posse Comitatus Act and determined that it would not be a violation to deploy the National Guard to protect critical infrastructure in some circumstances. He said he expects more presidential directives in the future to expand the military's homeland defense role.
Then of course we have General Tommy Franks stating that a major terror attack on US soil would mean the constitution will likely be discarded in favor of a military form of government.
Some say this is nothing new. In a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations in 2005, former US senator Gary Hart said American founders "created such an army and called it the militia: citizen-soldiers under the immediate command of the various states that can be deployed in times of emergency. Since the late 19th century these militias have been known as the National Guard, and they were created and given constitutional status as the first responders and the first line of defense in the case of an attack on our homeland".
This is clearly an alteration of reality. The reason why the founding fathers employed militias and later created Posse Comitatus was that they knew a centralized national army could be used in a future environment to take over the country and take away the rights of everyone.
Police State infrastructure - Already in place (and in use)
FEMA, Northcom and the tools of tyranny
We have further exposed how the infrastructure for a martial law police state is already in place, and in many cases is in use. We have a whole archive on the revelations that FEMA has concentration camps set up and ready to go in the event of any emergency that is deemed suitable for their use. As we have also seen recently, these camps need not have barbed wire and observation towers, they can simply be well guarded sports stadiums.
Detention centers are common features of any public protest event now, as we saw at the 2004 Republican National Convention and G8 protests.
In May 2006, we also exposed the existence of a nationwide FEMA program which is training Pastors and other religious representatives to become secret police enforcers who teach their congregations to "obey the government" in preparation for the implementation of martial law, property and firearm seizures, mass vaccination programs and forced relocation.
A whistleblower who was secretly enrolled into the program told us that the feds were clandestinely recruiting religious leaders to help implement Homeland Security directives in anticipation of a potential bio-terrorist attack, any natural disaster or a nationally declared emergency.
Though some doubted the accuracy of this report at the time due to its fundamentally disturbing implications, the story was later confirmed by a KSLA 12 news report, in which participating clergy and officials admit to the existence of the program.
Watch the video:
Please note that this video is often removed once we highlight it in articles, we encourage readers to circulate it on the web. Search youtube with this link for an alternative should the above video be removed.
A cursory re-cap of the actions of FEMA in the wake of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita two years ago also reveals how the infrastructure of the police state can and has been turned on American citizens.
FEMA deliberately sabotaged relief efforts in New Orleans, making things worse than need be.
FEMA, its officials and the people it employs have a long history of incompetence, corruption, fraud and criminality.
The federal government illegally initiated total gun confiscation of law abiding citizens and forcibly removed them from their property in New Orleans. Federal forces led criminal gangs of police in an America-killing gun grab.
Along with forced gun grabs and evacuation, we have further exposed the intricacies of the operative federalized Police State, with the presence of foreign troops, SWAT teams, privately employed security mercenaries, the treatment of citizens as "insurgents" and evacuees as "internees" and the euthanization and inoculation of survivors.
The bottom line on Katrina is that whether you believe it was all incompetence or part incompetence and part malevolence, the lasting pretext is the same. When a disaster takes place, you have no rights and the federal government can arrest you if you don??t follow their every order.
FEMA clearly used the human catastrophe in New Orleans as a means of executing its decade long plans and providing the pretext for future takeover scenarios of all major American cities.
FEMA is not an elected body, it does not involve itself in public disclosures, and it even has a quasi-secret budget in the billions of dollars. It has more power than the president of the United States or the congress, it has the power to suspend laws, move entire populations, arrest and detain citizens without a warrant and hold them without trial, it can seize property, food supplies, transportation systems, and can suspend the constitution. Not only is it the most powerful entity in the United States, but it was not even created under constitutional law by the congress.
In the aftermath of the hurricanes the police state was touted as the savior. So called "Homeland security experts" called for federal troops that don't need 72 hours for call-up, as some National Guard units require, capable of dropping into a disaster zone as the damage is being done, rather than afterward. The media called for the TOTAL FEDERALIZATION of America.
It was federalization and the criminal negligence and sabotage on the part of the feds that caused the mass disruption in New Orleans, yet the call was for MORE federalization? The call was for troops on our streets, stopping traffic, searching people, seizing property and making arrests?
The desperate call went up for "military authorities" to supersede "civilian authorities". When did we stop being people and become "civilians"?
FEMA executive orders have been paving the way for the police State for many years. For a full synopsis of FEMA's executive orders in light of hurricane Katrina, click here.
FEMA is not the only entity central to the continuing crackdown on American dissenters. After Katrina and before Rita, George W Bush canceled a scheduled trip to Texas and instead visited Colorado Springs, Colorado and the U.S. Northern Command Headquarters.
Our sources informed us at that time that far from this being a change of plan, Bush was visiting Northcom to be witness to a martial law takeover drill which was directly connected to Granite Shadow, which the Washington Post reported, "is yet another new Top Secret and compartmented operation related to the military??s extra-legal powers regarding weapons of mass destruction. It allows for emergency military operations in the United States without civilian supervision or control.
A joint task force for Rita was being created under the jurisdiction of NorthCom. Operating out of Austin Texas, in liaison with NorthCom in Colorado, under the command of Army Lt. Gen. Robert Clark. A "standing joint force headquarters" was established in Austin, Texas.
Homeland Security secretary Michael Chertoff subsequently classified Hurricane Rita as an "incident of national significance," which justifies the activation of a so-called "National Response Plan"(NRP).
As Michael Chossudovsky pointed out in his article on this, The National Response Plan (NRP) is effective upon issuance with a phased implementation process during the first year. During the first 120 days of this implementation process, the Initial NRP (INRP), Federal Response Plan (FRP), U.S. Government Domestic Terrorism Concept of Operations Plan (CONPLAN), and Federal Radiological Emergency Response Plan (FRERP) remain in effect. (For further details, consult the complete document at http://www.dhs.gov/interweb/assetlib...RPbaseplan.pdf
So essentially, the period of time during which the NRP would be in operation would extend far beyond the emergency period in the disaster area. In all likelihood, the NRP would modify the functions of civilian government.
The Washington Post reported that The Northern Command would be the lead agency in domestic terror response. The Pentagon "has devised its first-ever war plans for guarding against and responding to terrorist attacks in the United States, envisioning 15 potential crisis scenarios and anticipating several simultaneous strikes around the country, according to officers who drafted the plans."
Northcom has a history of calling for the end of Posse Comitatus and officials there seem to be hell bent upon a military takeover. Head of Northcom Gen. Ralph E. Eberhart was quoted in the New York Times in 2002 as saying
"My view has been that Posse Comitatus will constantly be under review as we mature this command, as we do our exercises, as we interact with FEMA, F.B.I., and those lead federal agencies out there,"
This is precisely the point, the erosion of Posse Comitatus has been ongoing for a long time. As revealed earlier in this report, military takeover drills and exercises have been in operation for years.
Eberhart has also said that he is anxious to use new technology, including unmanned surveillance blimps cruising at 70,000 feet and Predator drones scanning American coastlines.
The general said it was also possible that the North American Aerospace Defense Command would expand beyond the United States and Canada to include Mexico.
"To defend this nation, we have to defend as far out as possible...Therefore we need the support of Canada and Mexico to be able to defend our interests."
A recent Council On Foreign Relations document corroborates this proposed move. The 59-page CFR document spells out a five-year plan for the "establishment by 2010 of a North American economic and security community" with a common "outer security perimeter."
The document entitled "Building a North American Community," asserts that George W. Bush, then Mexican President Vicente Fox, and then Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin "committed their governments" to this goal when they met at Bush??s ranch and at Waco, Texas on March 23, 2005. The three adopted the "Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America" and assigned "working groups" to fill in the details.
So there we have Orwell's Oceania coming to pass. A unionized Americas under the control of a military dictatorship.
Over the years we have also exposed the development of other police State weapons that make Tasers look like water pistols. See this article on The Pentagon's secret scream sonic devices that can inflict pain--or even permanent deafness. These type of devices that are routinely used in Iraq were also used in New Orleans in the Hurricane Katrina aftermath.
The use of unmanned drone aircraft was also documented in New Orleans, since then such craft have been flown over American soil and are now routinely used by the Department of Homeland security. Again, such weapons are being used not only in foreign reconnaissance but also domestically for spying on "civillians" and controlling crowds. Industry representatives are enthusiastic about the drones' potential.
"I believe we will see Predator and Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) watching over major events, such as the Olympic Games and the Super Bowl, in the not-too-distant future," Brad Brown, then-president of the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International wrote.
Alex Jones' 2004 film Martial Law: Rise of the Police State also documents the use of huge corporate sponsored surveillance blimps. The Department of Homeland Security is developing 900 ft long so called "Super Blimps" for surveillance, intended to fly about 65,000 feet, well above commercial airliner traffic.
We have also documented the rise in use of the national guard to break up public events. On multiple occasions we have carried stories, photos and video of tanks and armed troops on the streets of America. Such deployments are used not only to break up protests, but even something as insignificant as a rave in a field.
Future technology under development includes robot police that have the ability to run. Its like we are living in the Twilight Zone or in a futuristic dystopian film. Yet when you mention these kind of things to people they either don't believe you or simply laugh at you. Well here's a wake up call, IT'S THE YEAR 2007, not 1947, and these things are real and in place.
[align=left]Winning the "war on terror"[/align]
[align=left]The infrastructure is in place, the propaganda campaign to target American dissenters is well underway as eluded to at the beginning of this report, so what constitutes "winning" this "war on terror" for the criminal cabal heading the government?
Back in September 2006, we reported on a White House strategy document for "winning the war on terror," in which conspiracy theorists were targeted as a wellspring of terrorism. The document threatens to "address" and "diminish" the problems they are causing the government in fulfilling their agenda. [/align]
The document states that terrorism springs from "subcultures of conspiracy and misinformation," and that "terrorists recruit more effectively from populations whose information about the world is contaminated by falsehoods and corrupted by conspiracy theories. The distortions keep alive grievances and filter out facts that would challenge popular prejudices and self-serving propaganda."
Bush referred to the strategy paper as "an unclassified version of the strategy we've been pursuing since September the 11th, 2001," that takes into account, "the changing nature of this enemy."
The Neo-Con talking heads announcing that anti-war protesters and 9/11 truthers are in league with terrorists are actually parroting White House propaganda handed down to them by the Bush administration.
You can even trace the legacy right back to Bush's November 10, 2001 speech to the U.N., in which he said that "outrageous conspiracy theories concerning the attacks of September the 11th" should not be tolerated.
For years we have warned that the police state is coming, how Martial Law will become the norm, how ancient laws, rights and freedoms are being overturned and replaced with repressive mechanisms of control. We warned how the mechanisms of the police state would be turned onto the average Americans who refused to go along with it.
For years we have presented the evidence, the Army War College documents, the domestic military takeover drills, the draconian legislation, officials left right and centre calling for more centralized military control domestically.
For years people refuted the evidence, or passed it off as being intended for something else, or simply refused to believe it. Now everything we warned you about is happening.
In the wake of recent natural disasters on American soil, dangerous precedents have been set. We have been forced to watch how in times of crisis we must submit and follow the orders of Federal Commanders, no matter whether they deny us basic human rights or not.
Now the propaganda is flowing in full force, media heads are attacking and labeling as terrorists anyone who stands up against the new order, including Ron Paul and his supporters.
But as sure as night follows day the propaganda is also intended to frighten and silence a hotbed of dissent and exposure that has exploded into a mainstream movement and kept freedom in America alive in the 21st century.
