Community Meeting Re. "Son of Patriot Act" Ordinance

& related issues, at the Hart Center mtg, 8/2/04 -- "revised & extended remarks, for the record":

Let me start by pointing out, as I did at the Patriot Act hearings, that I'm not anti-police in general, and I'm not down on the Sac Police Department. Police departments perform many vital functions in any contemporary urban community. Given the way society is organized nowadays, police services are an indispensable public utility.

So let me take this opportunity to thank the Sac PD, to publicly praise them for the exemplary way they've performed whenever called on during our Tuesday rushhour protest vigils at 16th & J Sts. Every single contact I've had with Sac PD personnel out there has been just great -- I can't say enough. (Alas, I must also note that over the years, there have been instances I can't describe in such glowing terms.)

The points I've come here to make, however, do not pertain to the conduct of individual personnel -- I'm here to address issues of Department and City policy.

We have the Brown Act requiring meetings of public bodies to be held openly, with adequate notice to the public. Now we've reached a point in history when we need a "Brown Act" that applies to the decision-making processes/structures providing governance of Law Enforcement organizations.

Our US Constitution provides for Civilian Control of our military establishment. So why is it unthinkable that we should have Civilian Control of our Law Enforcement establishment?

"We the Citizens" don't really know what our local law enforcement is doing. We know there is something called the Joint Terrorism Task Force, but we don't know much about it. We now know there are Homeland Security agents riding around in Sac PD squad cars, picking out US citizens to target for harassment.

To one who has observed a more than a few "crowd control" deployments, it's obvious that much of what went on at the "Ministerial" protest was part of what the Army calls a Practice Exercise. The numbers, the equipment, the various manuevers -- very little had anything to do with anything it was feared or expected the protesters might do.

Common sense says all this was carefully planned: there must have been meetings and communications between the Sac PD and federal agencies. But when, where, who called who, who was there, what was said, who set the agenda -- I doubt if the Council Members have any more idea than I do myself. So why all this to-do?

We're told it's "for our Security", to "keep us safe from Terrorists". But:

This whole "War on Terror" is as phony as a 3-dollar bill. As phony as the War on Drugs. As phony as the Missile Gap, the Yellow Peril, the Tonkin Gulf attack, the sinking of the Maine, and the rest of the snowjobs invented to scare the US public into going along with our ruler's plans for wars of conquest & expansion, and/or intensified exploitation of those who must work to eat.

Now Senator Mark Dayton of Ohio has exposed the Bush version of 9/11 as just another conspiracy theory among many. Actually the Bush Admin. has put out at least six different versions of the Air Defense response timelines, all of which conflict with the Kean Commission's conclusion.

We no longer put credence in the tall tale about the "WMD's", so why do we still put credence in the Conspiracy Theory about the "Nineteen Suicidal Saudis"? I myself am not so far convinced by any of the offered alternative theories -- but it's clear as day that Officialdom and Mediadom are once again lying to the public. "Lying like a President": what's The Coverup covering up this time?

The Patriot Act and these "increased Security Measures", all this Homeland Security nonsense, has been instituted for reasons that have nothing to do with the security of the citizenry. Nicolo Machiavelli laid it all out long ago: Our Rulers are planning to do things by which they expect to make many citizens very unhappy. Naturally they anticipate that citizens may want to express their dissatisfaction; in fact might even start organizing & demanding changes. So to deal with the expected "unrest", they are putting mechanisms in place now.

Whatever you think about that, we have a right to know what's going on between our local police department and the Red White & Blue Born-Again Gestapo back in Washington DC. You say that's all "wild speculation"? Okay, prove me wrong: take steps to provide some transparency, some accountability to the local community, that our tax-supported law enforcement agencies aren't being drawn into conspiracies hatched in Crawford Texas.

The Brown Act is a perfect starting point. Take it as a model & go from there.