"How could this have happened in America? The answer....involves secrets and lies, moral cowardice and legal sophistry."

"Dark side" lawlessness was instituted. Prisoner abuse depravity became policy. Torture prisons proliferated. Guantanamo is one of many. Innocent victims are called "bad apples" or "ticking time bombs." Public debate is absent. So are legal considerations, morality, and other right and wrong issues.

Conspiracy is invented to "create an impenetrable circle of impunity."

Everyone involved is culpable, but no one's accountable.

Congress, the administration and courts share blame. So do media scoundrels through silence, misreporting, or supporting lawless policies.

"Today, we have a state of affairs" that shames the nation. No victim of America's torture policy had his or her day in court. "And not a single court" handling torture suits "addressed the core question of whether the victims' legal rights were violated."

Under Obama's indefinite detention law, everyone's at risk. Dark side justice threatens them. Congress overwhelmingly agrees. Criminal accountability no longer matters. Neither do constitution rights, including Fifth Amendment protections, stating no one shall "be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law."

Post-9/11, America had a choice. It embraced lawlessness, not rule of law principles and justice.

Racial Profiling Persecution

Muslims became public enemy number one. Political extremists and media scoundrels portray them as barbaric, violent, uncivilized, gun-toting terrorists.

They became scapegoated for their faith, ethnicity, and other reasons or none at all. They're targeted, arrested, convicted on bogus charges, given long sentences, and incarcerated as political prisoners.

Washington uses "religious, racial, and national-origin profiling as one of this nation's primary domestic counter-terrorism tools, even though experienced intelligence and law-enforcement officials agree that it is ineffective, inefficient....counter-productive," and lawless.

Allowing and encouraging fear-mongering divides America by race, religion, ethnicity, and core values. Obama expanded the worst Bush administration policies. Muslims are equated with violence. Constitutional protections were abandoned. More than ever, America's unsafe.

Unchecked Pervasive Surveillance

Checks and balances are absent. Police state surveillance is policy. Warrantless wiretaping and other privacy invasions were instituted. Whistleblowers are targeted and prosecuted. Freedom's under siege.

Patriot Act provisions expanded FBI "National Security Letter (NSL)" use.

They secretly demand telecommunications, credit, and financial information from companies on anyone deemed "relevant" to ongoing investigations.

Pre-9/11, NSLs applied only to suspected spies and international terrorists. Patriot Act law eliminated constraints. Without them, flagrant abuses followed. Congress went along by abandoning oversight authority.

Bush administration secrecy concealed unconstitutional surveillance. Obama expanded his policies. Unaccountability defines his administration. So does unprecedented criminality.

Data mining is one of many lawless practices. It's based on the spurious notion that "terrorist patterns" can be determined. State and local authorities now replicate federal policy. Everything's done secretly.

Despite years of secret pervasive surveillance, terror plots weren't uncovered. Bad guys weren't imprisoned. People were targeted for their race, ethnicity or religion, others for challenging government policy. As a result, America became less, not more, safe.

Its entire character changed. Freedom's now endangered. Dissent can be criminalized. Imperial lawlessness is policy. So is police state justice. After enacting indefinite detentions of US citizens, tyranny arrived in America.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening. http://www.progressiveradionetwork.c...ive-news-hour/.

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