Now we have Secret Laws???? WTF??? When/How did this happen??

SECRET LAWS....John Gilmore is suing the government because he doesn't think he should be required to show ID before boarding a commercial flight.

" The Bush administration...claims that the ID requirement is necessary for security but has refused to identify any actual regulation requiring it.

A three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals seemed skeptical of the Bush administration's defense of secret laws and regulations but stopped short of suggesting that such a rule would be necessarily unconstitutional. "How do we know there's an order?" Judge Thomas Nelson asked. "Because you said there was?"

....The Justice Department has said it could identify the secret law under seal, which would be available to the 9th Circuit but not necessarily Gilmore's lawyers. But any public description would not be permitted, the department said. "

WTF? Call me naive, but I've never heard of a secret law. I've heard of secret courts and secret evidence — which are bad enough already — but not secret laws. When did this happen? Seriously, is this true? I'm just gobsmacked. Congress is passing laws that the American public isn't allowed to know about? Any of us might be prosecuted under one of these laws that we don't know exists? Courts are being asked to interpret laws they've never seen?

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_12/007745.php

Secret laws have always been around. Of course, it still doesn't make it right

You seem to have a problem with democracy. Freedom isn't Georg'e gift to a curious world. It's God's gift.

On a serious note, it's terrible. Just terrible.

and shove them down in the krypt where the Skull & Boner occult kabal meets.

passed the laws?

In the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade
Center in New York City and the Pentagon in suburban Washington, DC, President
George W. Bush established, with E.O. 13228 of October 8, 2001, the Office of
Homeland Security and the Homeland Security Council within the Executive Office
of the President to assist with the planning and coordination of federal efforts to
combat terrorism and maintain the domestic security of the United States. On
October 29, 2001, the President issued the first instrument in a new series
denominated Homeland Security Presidential Directives (HSPDs) “that shall record
and communicate presidential decisions about the homeland security policies of the
United States.” Additional details about the issuance of HSPDs were not
immediately available, but they apparently are not being published in the Federal
Register. The initial directive concerned the organization and operation of the
Homeland Security Council. By the end of 2004, 11 of these directives had been
issued.

This PDF doc is long and sometimes boring, but it gives ya the essentials: http://www.fas.org/irp/crs/98-611.pdf

Great. Law the populace know nothing about.

I guess it's like those it's-illegal-to-roll-a-penguin-down-mainstreet-at-high-noon-on-consecutive-Sundays laws on the books.

And it just keeps getting crazier.

among the executive, legislative and judicial branches, and one of the things they were MOST concerned about was potential tyranny of the executive, most specifically on matters of war.

Congress abdicated its duty as the only branch of government that has SOLE POWER to "declare war" in October 2002, when it GAVE AWAY that power to George Bush. Every one of our representatives who voted for the Iraq War resolution broke the law that day and egregiously violated their oaths of office. And the same could be said for the Patriot Act, and for a number of other usurpations of power by the executive (Bush), with the unlawful consent of Congress.

THAT is our problem. And the main reason we have it is STOLEN ELECTIONS: in 2000--by fiat of the Supreme Court-- and in 2002 and 2004--by the installation of NON-TRANSPARENT electronic voting systems, run by Bush partisan companies (mainly Diebold and ES&S) with virtually no audit/recount controls. We've had a fraudulent voting SYSTEM since 2002, spotty at first--as Diebold and ES&S began taking over the system (with a $4 billion boondoggle from Congress, falsely named the "Help America Vote Act)--most notable in Georgia (with the impossible defeat of Max Cleland for the US Senate in '02, and the unlikely defeat of Walter Mondale--filling in for the dead Paul Wellstone--in Minnesota), and widespread in 2004, with a massive 4% to 5% flip of the presidential results in the east coast region and several battleground states, that put an illegitimate government in the White House, and fiddled Senate and House elections all over the country (notable in the No. Carolina Senate election, but not likely limited to that state).

Non-transparent elections are tyranny. That's what we have.

Recently, four Ohio ELECTION REFORM initiatives that were predicted to win by 60/40 votes were flipped over on election day to a 60/40 LOSS--the most audacious flipover yet. (The machines and their masters are now dictating election policy and preventing reform--a chilling Orwellian twist.)

See Bob Koehler's article on the Ohio initiatives:
http://www.tmsfeatures.com/tmsfeatures/subcategory.jsp?custid=67&catid=1824

We MUST reverse this tyranny WHERE IT IS OCCURRING: IN the election system. In the highly insecure, hackable electronic voting machines and central tabulators.

Throw Diebold and ES&S election theft machines into 'Boston Harbor' NOW!

------------------------------

Russ Holt's bill HR 550 will stop the corporate privatization of our elections in its tracks, and reverse it. It has 169 co-sponsors (mostly Dems). Sign the petition. http://www.rushholt.com/petition.html

The Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act (H.R. 550) will require full implementation of the following provisions by 2006:
--Prohibit the use of undisclosed software and wireless and concealed communications devices and internet connections in voting machines (!!)
--Mandate a voter-verified paper ballot for every vote cast in every federal election; a ballot verified by the voters rather than by the machines, that will serve as the vote of record vs. electronic records (!!);
--Provide Federal funding for voter-verified paper ballots;
--Require random, unannounced, hand-count audits of actual election results in every state, and in each county, for every Federal election;
--Protect HAVA voting rights for those with disabilities

For the recent GAO report on the horrendous insecurity of our election system in 2004:
access to pdf: http://www.gao.gov/docsearch/abstract.php?rptno=GAO-05-956
text only: http://www.gao.gov/htext/d05956.html

For an easy to read pamphlet on the perils of electronic voting ("MythBreakers"). (One of the myths is that HAVA mandated electronic voting; it did NOT; citizens and election officials still have a choice!)
www.votersunite.org

For a project for statistical monitoring and challenges of elections in '06 and '08:
www.UScountvotes.org

For more info: www.verifiedvoting.org

For analysis of the 2004 election results (and exit polls):
www.TruthIsAll.net

------------------

We need...

1. Paper ballots hand-counted at the precinct level (--Canada does it in one day, although speed should not even be a consideration, just accuracy and verifiability)

or, at the least...

2. Paper ballot (not "paper trail") backup of all electronic voting, a 10% automatic recount (at least), very strict security, and NO SECRET, PROPRIETARY programming code! (...jeez!).

We also need the Dem Party (or someone!) to sponsor INDEPENDENT exit polls in '06 and '08, and other verification tools. The war profiteering corporate news monopolies DOCTORED their exit polls (Kerry won), on everybody's TV screens, late on election day, to FIT the results of Diebold's and ES&S's secret vote tabulation formulae (Bush won), thus depriving the American people of major evidence of election fraud. This must not happen again! We must have independent exit polls!

It's not likely that Bush's "pod people" in Congress will permit Holt's HR 550 (clean elections) to pass. We're likely in for a long slog at the state/local level to get rid of these machines--or at least to get SOME KIND OF verification of results. But we must never give up on your right to vote! NEVER! It's the whole ballgame!

Laws (not evidence, or court proceedings) should be a a matter of public record.

IF, in this case, someone wanted to challenge the constitutionality of said law, but was prohibited.... words fail me.

The entire legal system is based on the people knowing exactly what is legal and what is not.

"Ignorance of the law is not a defense" is a general principle, but what are we to make of this?

Even this court has to take the word of the government (ie, the Judicial branch) as proof of violation of an unknown law.

When a law is unknown by a civil court (and also un-explainable to the participants), justice is never served.

:scared:

on edit: changed "Executive" to "Judicial"