Police State
The federal government of the United States now claims the authority to monitor every phone call you make, every e-mail you send, and every website you visit. They claim the authority to kidnap you and torture you to death in secret, or to simply assassinate you outright. They are not doing this to protect you from terrorists. They are doing this to protect corporate interests from you. According to the Pentagon, protesting is a form of low-level terrorism. Don’t like the banks robbing Americans blind? Don’t like that the military is bombing half a dozen different countries? You are the terrorist. Fortunately, you are not alone.
1940 - Germany opens the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp. Over a million people will be executed there.
1941 - The Nazis open the Chelmno, Majdanek, Maly Trostinets, and Sajimiste death camps, at which hundreds of thousands will be executed.
1942 - President Roosevelt signs Executive Order 9066, authorizing the internment of Japanese-Americans. Over 110,000 Japanese-Americans will eventually be confined to camps.
1942 - The Nazis open the Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka death camps, where over a million and a half people will eventually be executed.
1942 - Britain imprisons Indian independence leader Mahatma Gandhi.
1945 - Projects SHAMROCK and MINARET begin. The government copies and accumulates all telegraphic data entering or exiting the United States. No court has authorized the operation, and there are no warrants.
1950 - Congress overrides the veto of President Truman to pass the Subversive Activities Control Act. The law requires members of certain political parties to submit to a national registry and allows for the detention of dangerous, disloyal, or subversive persons in times of war or "internal security emergency," among other provisions.
1952 - The National Security Agency is formed.
1952 - The CIA begins Project HTLINGUAL (also known as SRPOINTER and SGPOINTER), intercepting and reading mail being sent to Russia and China.
1956 - The FBI begins COINTELPRO, an illegal program aimed at surveying, infiltrating, discrediting, and disrupting domestic political organizations.
1961 - The National Reconnaissance Office is formed to design, build, and operate the U.S.'s spy satellites.
1962 - South African police arrest Nelson Mandela following a detailed tip from the CIA.
1965 - Following the murder of civil rights activist Jimmie Lee Jackson by Alabama State Trooper James Fowler, a march in his honor from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, is brutally attacked by police in an incident known as Bloody Sunday.
1967 - The CIA begins Operation MHCHAOS, Project RESISTANCE, and Project MERRIMAC to spy on the student anti-war movement.
1970 - Congress passes the Controlled Substances Act, codifying the illegal status of many drugs.
1970 - The Ohio National Guard opens fire on a group of unarmed anti-war demonstrators at Kent State University. Four students are killed and nine others are wounded. None of the guardsmen are convicted of any criminal charges.
1970 - A peaceful Chicano anti-war demonstration in Los Angeles is broken up by police firing tear gas. A riot ensues and the police subsequently kill four people: Gustav Montag, Lyn Ward, José Diaz, and journalist Rubén Salazar. Although many believe that the Salazar killing in particular was a premeditated act (due to his civil rights and police brutality reporting), no officer is punished for any of the deaths.
1971 - President Nixon Declares the War on Drugs.
1971 - The FBI creates the Administrative Index (ADEX), to file information on U.S. citizens and others believed to be involved in subversive activities.
1972 - The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) is formed.
1973 - The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) is formed to enforce federal drug laws.
1978 - The Federal Emergency Management Agency is created for the avowed purpose of responding to disasters. It will also be used to illegally spy and collect data on millions of Americans.
1978 - The NSA begins a program called BLARNEY, which collects information from top-level telecommunications facilities through which most U.S. telecommunications traffic flows. An example of such a facility is AT&T's Room 641A.
1981 - The Military Cooperation with Civilian Law Enforcement Agencies Act is passed. It grants the U.S. military the authority to assist domestic law enforcement with counterdrug operations, assistance for civil disturbances, special security operations, combating terrorism, explosive ordnance disposal, and other activities.
1982 - FEMA creates Main Core, a database of personal and financial information of Americans deemed to be a threat to national security. The information is collected without any warrants or court order, and eventually information on over eight million people will be added to the system.
1985 - During an armed stand-off with members of the MOVE organization, Philadelphia Police use a helicopter to drop two bombs on top of the MOVE house. The explosion and ensuing fire kill 11 people, including five children and MOVE leader John Africa. The fire spreads to destroy 60 other houses on the block.
1988 - In California v. Greenwood, the Supreme Court rules that a warrant is not required to search garbage bins left outside of a home.
1992 - Following the acquittal of several police officers in the Rodney King police brutality trial, widespread riots break out in Los Angeles. The National Guard is brought in. 53 people are killed and over 2,000 are injured in the course of the riots.
1992 - At Ruby Ridge in Idaho, the FBI, ATF, and U.S. Marshals Service raid the home of Randy Weaver to confiscate illegal firearms. Weaver's wife and son are killed during the ensuing shootout, along with a U.S. Marshal.
1993 - The ATF, FBI, and Texas National Guard raid a ranch near Waco, Texas, used as a headquarters by a religious group called the Branch Davidians. Authorities claim members of the group own illegal weapons. A firefight and multi-week standoff ensue. A fire breaks out on the ranch after authorities fire pyrotechnic devices into the building, killing over 80 men, women, and children. Evidence also indicates that authorities fired on people attempting to flee the burning building.
1993 - The Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act is signed into law, creating federal background checks on handgun purchasers.
1996 - Billed as being a response to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and the 1995 Oklahoma City Bombing, Congress passes the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act.
1996 - The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency is formed.
1996 - An 81-day standoff between the FBI and the Montana Freemen ends peacefully when the Christian Patriot group surrenders.
1997 - The FBI implements Carnivore, a program allowing them to monitor all Internet activities of targeted individuals.
2001 - Congress passes the USA PATRIOT Act despite most of them not having actually read it. Most of the law was drafted years prior to 9/11, and it drastically infringes on Americans civil liberties by claiming governmental authority to largely ignore the 4th amendment.
2001 - As part of the President's Surveillance Program, the NSA begins Operation Stellar Wind and the Terrorist Surveillance Program, data mining the communications of American citizens, including e-mail communications, phone conversations, financial transactions, and Internet activity.
2002 - The NSA begins a series of programs known collectively as RAGTIME to monitor domestic phone calls and e-mails.
2002 - The Homeland Security Act is passed, reducing the privacy of U.S. citizens while increasing the secrecy of governmental actions.
2002 - The Department of Defense creates TALON, a database tracking U.S. anti-war activists.
2002 - DARPA creates the Information Awareness Office (IAO), bringing together several surveillance projects. The projects are defunded the following year amidst public controversy, but are quickly funded again under different names.
2003 - AT&T begins operating Room 641A, a telecommunications interception facility, for the NSA.
2003 - The Domestic Security Enhancement Act is drafted by the Justice Department. Although it is never introduced in whole in Congress, many of its provisions are inserted into subsequent seemingly-innocuous bills such as Senate Spending bills. The provisions include allowing local police to spy on domestic groups, allowing the FBI to conduct searches and surveillance without a court order, creating a DNA database of suspected terrorists, the ability to arrest suspected terrorists in secret, criminalizing the use of encryption, expanding the list of crimes eligible for the death penalty, the ability to revoke citizenship from anyone suspected of belonging to or supporting a terrorist group, and more.
2004 - The Department of Homeland Security begins a massive data mining program known as ADVISE.
2004 - Data analysis company Palantir is founded by Peter Thiel and others with funding from the CIA.
2005 - New Orleans and the surrounding area are hit by the massive Hurricane Katrina. Over 1,800 people are killed and more than $100 billion of property damage occurs. The inept response of both local and national government agencies is widely criticized. At one point, local police force residents to surrender all firearms despite there being no legal mandate to do so, and despite the fact that violence and looting were widespread.
2005 - The NSA begins a data-collection program called Turbulence.
2007 - The Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act is introduced. The author of the bill identifies groups which question the official story of 9/11 as being potential sources of terrorism. The bill passes the house but is voted down in the Senate.
2007 - TALON, a DoD program monitoring anti-war activists, is shut down over concerns that it is blatantly illegal. It is immediately picked up, however, by the FBI and renamed Guardian.
2007 - President Bush issues Executive Directive 51, allowing the executive branch to seize control of more or less all infrastructure during a declared national emergency.
2007 - The NSA begins PRISM, a clandestine mass electronic surveillance data mining program, in conjunction with Britain's GCHQ.
2007 - Israel begins a land, air, and sea blockade of the Gaza Strip.
2008 - In violation of the Posse Comitatus Act, U.S. Marines are deployed to conduct a sobriety/driver's license checkpoint in San Bernadino County of California.
