CONSTITUTIONAL FREE ZONES..

Here is what my research dug up:

Patriot Act Reauthorization:

On May 26, 2011, President Barack Obama used an Autopen to sign a four-year extension of three key provisions in the USA PATRIOT Act while he was in France.

Why didn’t he sign the reauthorization in the US? Why was it kept secret?

Do the Constitutional Free zones exist until May 26, 2015?

Constitution Free Zone: The Numbers October 22, 2008
The numbers below are taken from the 2007 U.S. Census. States that are not listed, have zero population within the 100 mile zone.

State	Estimated 2007 Border Population	Estimated 2007 State Population	Percentage of Population in Constitution-Free Zone
Alabama	1,104,926	4,627,851	23.88%
Alaska	584,156	683,478	85.47%
Arizona	5,570,479	6,338,755	87.88%
California	36,453,649	36,553,215	99.73%
Connecticut	3,502,309	3,502,309	100.00%
Delaware	864,764	864,764	100.00%
District of Columbia	588,292	588,292	100.00%
Florida	18,251,243	18,251,243	100.00%
Georgia	1,512,950	9,544,750	15.85%
Hawaii	1,283,388	1,283,388	100.00%
Idaho	199,202	1,499,402	13.29%
Illinois	9,847,235	12,852,548	76.62%
Indiana	2,607,575	6,345,289	41.09%
Louisiana	3,388,334	4,293,204	78.92%
Maine	1,317,207	1,317,207	100.00%
Maryland	5,516,123	5,618,344	98.18%
Massachusetts	6,449,755	6,449,755	100.00%
Michigan	10,071,822	10,071,822	100.00%
Minnesota	623,477	5,197,621	12.00%
Mississippi	976,345	2,918,785	33.45%
Montana	518,717	957,861	54.15%
New Hampshire	1,315,828	1,315,828	100.00%
New Jersey	8,685,920	8,685,920	100.00%
New Mexico	452,904	1,969,915	22.99%
New York	18,795,187	19,297,729	97.40%
North Carolina	2,795,661	9,061,032	30.85%
North Dakota	279,695	639,715	43.72%
Ohio	7,885,365	11,466,917	68.77%
Oregon	3,249,327	3,747,455	86.71%
Pennsylvania	10,890,623	12,432,792	87.60%
Rhode Island	1,057,832	1,057,832	100.00%
South Carolina	2,603,946	4,407,709	59.08%
Texas	10,301,403	23,904,380	43.09%
Vermont	584,802	621,254	94.13%
Virginia	6,282,997	7,712,091	81.47%
Washington	6,076,268	6,468,424	93.94%
West Virginia	233,344	1,812,035	12.88%
Wisconsin	4,716,621	5,601,640	84.20%

Below are the remarks of Craig Johnson on October 22, 2008, at the ACLU's press conference on the U.S. "Constitution-free Zone."

Good morning. I am Craig Johnson. I’m an associate professor of music at Point Loma Nazarene University in San Diego, CA. First, I want to thank you for allowing me to share my story with you. Point Loma, I’m proud to say, encourages its faculty and students to involve themselves in social justice and reconciliation issues. And it was through my involvement in one such event that my story begins.

On June 1 of this year I was privileged to participate, along with my two oldest children, in a vigil sponsored by the San Diego Foundation for Change and supported by members of the Point Loma campus community at the Border Field State Park on the U. S. border with Mexico. My involvement in this event was to demonstrate my opposition to the Federal government’s proposed construction of a dual layer border fence through this park and the nationally protected estuary and research center that are part of the grounds. One activity during the vigil was to have been what is known in some faith traditions as a “love feast” – it was to have been the sharing of food through the fence to demonstrate solidarity and hospitality between citizens of both countries. That day, however, there was a much stronger presence of Border Patrol agents, a dozen or more, than is typical at events of this nature. They informed us that if any food was passed through the fence, we would be arrested on violations of customs regulations. We took them at their word and the love feast became a love lament, with only the US citizens eating while our Mexican neighbors looked on. Incidentally, an article appeared in yesterday’s New York Times about this park and the Border Patrol agents, and it seems that they have softened their position on this considerably.

While there was a strong presence of agents at the park itself, other officers were recording license plates of all the vehicles in the parking lot, which unfortunately was a mile and a half away. In fact, one student’s car was even towed for expired registration during the event.

Six days later, on June 7, I went to Tijuana, Mexico to sing a benefit recital. On my re-entry into the U.S., I submitted my current passport to the Customs agent and was then told to freeze with both of my hands on the desk in front of me. After being asked if I had any weapons on me, I was handcuffed by Customs agents and told that I was listed as “armed and dangerous.” At that point I was escorted in front of literally hundreds of onlookers waiting to enter the U. S. and taken to a holding room where my suit coat, tie, outer shirt, belt, and shoes were removed, my pockets emptied and the contents confiscated and I was aggressively searched. This was not your typical airport security pat-down. Every inch and crack of my body was thoroughly pressed and probed. I was in complete bewilderment. I felt violated and frankly, I was embarrassed. I could not believe what was happening.

After this I was questioned about my reasons for being in Mexico, my length of stay there, and where specifically I would be returning to the U. S. After about 45 minutes I was released to collect my belongings and rejoin my friends with whom I had been in line.

I normally travel to Mexico for any reason that presents itself – escorting visitors from out of town or just going down for the sights and sounds of the country. I even worked regularly there in 2006 with Tijuana Opera and would cross the border several times per week. Never before my June 7 experience had I encountered the slightest problem.

It took me four months to muster the courage to try crossing again. I had hoped that this was a mistake and that I would be removed from “armed and dangerous” status. On October 5, I decided to go to Mexico to try re-entering in order put my mind to rest. I was hoping for the best, but prepared for the worst, and once again I was subjected to the same treatment – arrest, searching, questioning, and detainment.

I do not own firearms. I do not have a criminal record. Yet when I think of the treatment that my own government shows to me, I am alarmed. It’s frightening enough knowing that my personal and private data are being accessed with unknown consequences, but when I know what some of those consequences are, I am even more disturbed.

It took me four months to return to Mexico after June 1, not because I’m afraid of travelling outside of my own country, but rather because I’m afraid of returning home. This should not be.

Comment:

Is this Nazi Germany?
Since 9/11, fear mongering has led to the belief that if one has nothing to hide, one should be happy to submit to unwarranted searches, have their phones tapped, have their emails read....just slap an Orwellian name like Patriot Act on it and it becomes law.... and that is perfectly okay if the government holds people for years without a formal charge, without being able to consult an attorney or see their families...in the name of being "secure"...this is a false sense of security that I don’t share....It’s a big deal when someone is violated like this.

Freedom isn't something I'm willing to compromise on. Is, "Land of the Free" just empty words we speak, never considering what it even means?

About the Author Todd Miller

Todd Miller currently writes on border and immigration issues for NACLA Report on the Americas. He has researched...

The first time he experiences this newly hardened US-Canada border, it takes him by surprise. It’s a freezing late December day and Matthews, a lawyer (who asked me to change his name), is on the passenger side of a car as he and three friends cross the Blue Water Bridge from Sarnia, Ontario, to the old industrial town of Port Huron, Michigan. They are returning from the Reviving the Islamic Spirit conference in Toronto, chatting and happy to be almost home when the car pulls up to the booth, where a blue-uniformed US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agent stands. The 60,000-strong CBP is the border enforcement arm of the Department of Homeland Security and includes both customs and US Border Patrol agents. What is about to happen is the furthest thing from Matthews’s mind. He’s from Port Huron and has crossed this border “a million times before.

Todd Miller: After scanning their passports and looking at a computer screen in the booth, the agent says to the driver, as Matthews tells the story:

“Sir,  turn off the vehicle, hand me the key and step out of the car.”

He hears the snap of handcuffs going around his friend’s wrists. Disoriented, he turns around and sees uniformed men kneeling behind their car, firearms drawn.

“To my disbelief, situated behind us are agents, pointing their guns.”

The CBP officer asks Matthews and the remaining passengers to get out of the car and escorts them to a waiting room. Thirty minutes later, he, too, is handcuffed and in a cell. Forty-five minutes after that another homeland security agent brings him into a room with no chairs. The agent tells him that he can sit down, but all he sees is a countertop. “Can I just stand?” he asks.

And he does so for what seems like an eternity with the door wide open, attempting to smile at the agents who pass by. “I’m trying to be nice,” is how he put it.

Finally, in a third room, the interrogation begins. Although they question Matthews about his religious beliefs and various Islamic issues, the two agents are “nice.” They ask him: Where’d you go? What kind of law do you practice? He tells them that a former law professor was presenting a paper at the annual conference, whose purpose is to revive “Islamic traditions of education, tolerance and introspection.” They ask if he’s received military training abroad. This, he tells me, “stood out as one of their more bizarre questions.” When the CBP lets him and his friends go, he still thinks it was a mistake.

However, Lena Masri of the Council of American Islamic Relations-Michigan (CAIR-MI) reports that Matthews’s experience is becoming “chillingly” commonplace for Michigan’s Arab and Muslim community at border crossings. In 2012, CAIR-MI was receiving five to seven complaints about similar stops per week. The detainees are all Arab, all male, all questioned at length. They are asked about religion, if they spend time at the mosque and who their Imam is.

According to CAIR-MI accounts, CBP agents repeatedly handcuff these border-crossers, often brandish weapons, conduct invasive, often sexually humiliating body searches and detain people for from two to twelve hours. Because of this, some of the detainees have lost job opportunities or jobs, or given up on educational opportunities in Canada. Many are now afraid to cross the border to see their families who live in Canada. (CAIR-MI has filed alawsuit against the CBP and other governmental agencies.)

Months later, thinking there is no way this can happen again, Matthews travels to Canada and crosses the border, this time alone, on the Blue Water Bridge to Port Huron. Matthews still hadn’t grasped the seismic changes in Washington’s attitude toward our northern border since 9/11. Port Huron, his small hometown, where a protest group, Students for a Democratic Society, first famously declared themselves against racism and alienation in 1962, is now part of the “frontline” in defense of the “homeland.” As a result, Matthews finds himself a casualty of a new war, one that its architects and proponents see as a permanent bulwark against not only non-citizens generally but also people like Matthews from “undesirable” ethno-religious groups or communities in the United States.

While a militarized enforcement regime has long existed in the US-Mexico borderlands, its far more intense post-9/11 version is also proving geographically expansive. Now, the entire US perimeter has become part of a Fortress USA mentality and a lockdown reality. Unlike on our southern border, there is still no wall to our north on what was once dubbed the “longest undefended border in the world.” But don’t let that fool you. The US-Canadian border is increasingly a national security hotspot watched over by drones, surveillance towers and agents of the Department of Homeland Security

In a video shown to reporters at a national press conference event Wednesday, retired San Diego social worker Vince Peppard complained that he and his wife were stopped at a checkpoint on a road east of San Diego on I-94, many miles after crossing back into the United States with tiles he'd bought in Mexico.

When he refused to let the Customs and Border Protection officer search his car, the officer led him to a bench, called in the contraband dog and then "ransacked" his car.

"I didn't feel like I was inside the U.S.," Peppard said, calling the search on the side of the road embarrassing. "I felt like I was in a B-movie with Nazis asking for my papers."

ACLU attorney Chris Calabrese is certain there are more people who have been negatively affected than have complained.

As an example, he cited Seattle's domestic ferries, where DHS agents ask passengers for ID to check their citizenship and use license plate readers.

"The people who live on these islands are undergoing this extra scrutiny just when they are going to get their groceries," Calabrese said.

Customs and Border Protection Cilberti's says he did not specifically look into Peppard's case, but said that refusing a search does not create probable cause for a search and that if a CBP agent searched his car, it's because their experience and training made them believe they had probable cause.

The ACLU hopes that Congress will include changes to the border zone in traveler privacy protection bills that focus on prohibiting suspicion-less searches and seizures of laptops at the border. Congress is currently out of session and would not move on any legislation until sometime in 2009 at the earliest.

http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/10/aclu-assails-10.html

Quote

You're driving along a remote, dusty road, when suddenly you come upon a border patrol checkpoint. There, agents demand to see your identity papers, and search your car. You are taken by surprise, because you know you haven?t wandered across the Texas-Mexico border. In fact, you?re quite sure of that, because you?re driving through rural Wisconsin countryside west of Green Bay. Even the Canadian border is more than 90 miles away.

This scene is not as far-fetched as you might want to believe. The government is turning vast swaths of our country into a "Constitution-Free Zone" in which U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is allowed to exercise extraordinary authority that would not normally be permitted under the Constitution. The government says that "the border"- where there is a longstanding view that the Constitution does not fully apply- actually stretches 100 miles inland from the nation's "external boundary." And increasingly, we are seeing DHS vigorously utilize that authority.

Today we held a press conference at the National Press Club here in D.C. to try to draw attention to this problem ? and the fact that, as we showed, nearly two-thirds of the U.S. population live within this "Constitution-Free Zone." That?s 197.4 million people.

We calculated this using the most recent, 2007 numbers from the U.S. Census, and released a map showing the cities and states that are enveloped by this zone. It includes some of the largest metropolitan areas in the country: New York City, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles and Portland, Oregon. States that are completely within this Constitution-Free Zone include Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Hampshire, New Jersey, and Rhode Island. When you say "border," they think "all of New England."

CBP has been setting up checkpoints far inland - on highways in states such as California, Texas and Arizona, and at ferry terminals in Washington State. Typically, the agents ask drivers and passengers about their citizenship. People are also reporting that even after they provide passports or state driver's licenses, CBP continues to interrogate them and try to pressure them into permitting a search.

• EPIC Obtains New Details on PATRIOT Act: As the result of a Freedom of Information Act request, EPIC has obtained more than 650 pages of documents related to the PATRIOT Act. EPIC had requested information related to the FBI's abuse of PATRIOT Act authorities and documents concerning the 2009 sunset of the PATRIOT Act. The documents disclosed by the FBI include training presentations, answers to questions from Senators Leahy and Specter, and a list of reporting requirements. In an answer to Senator Leahy, the FBI stated that while it would discontinue the use of exigent letters, which the Inspector General had previously noted as a frequent source of abuse, the agency planned to continue its use of the emergency disclosures provision of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act. For more information, see EPIC: USA PATRIOT Act. (Apr. 4, 2012)
• Senator Leahy Pursues Bipartisan PATRIOT Act Reform: As Congress consider renewal of the PATRIOT Act, Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) has proposed adoption of an amendment that will establish new privacy and civil liberties safeguards. The Amendment, cosponsored with Senator Rand Paul [R-KY], would sunset National Security Letter authority authority, mandate public reporting requirements, and create other protections. A similar amendment was endorsed by a majority of the Senate Judiciary Committee earlier this year. EPIC has obtained over 1,500 pages of government documents obtained through a related Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the Department of Justice concerning PATRIOT Act abuses. For more information, see EPIC: USA PATRIOT Act. (May. 24, 2011)

Congress> Common Law court puts down 'Constitution Free Zone'

Patricia Johnson-Holm ruprose2002a at yahoo.com

Sat Jun 12 16:52:24 CDT 2010

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Extra Extra Read all about it:

Common Law Court puts down the 100 Mile Constitution Free Zone in the 3rd Circuit Common Law Court on King County Washington.

"1. All Constitution Free Zones and any Legislation such as the Patriot Act, FEMA Regulations, Executive Orders if not allowed by the US Constitution or the Washington constitution 1878 are null and void."

"2. Sheriffs, Police, De facto governmental authorities, et al. are, to understand that they too are answerable to the US Constitution and there are NO CONSTITUTION FREE ZONES. Any Obstruction of the Constitutional Rights as per the US Constitution 1791, can and will be brought forward in a Common Law court. All orders given or taken must adhere to the Constitution or they are null and void."

"3. De facto Courts decisions, that are not Lawful as per the US Constitution 1791 (which includes the Bill of Rights) and the Washington Constitution 1878, are null and void."

"4. Make provisions that the Common Law courts will be held in the proper esteem befitting their long standing position, held in Judicial history. Each plaintiff or defendant will have the right to choose the De facto courts or the common law courts."

Now how about the rest of you doing the same?

Why not simply get 10 persons signatures or more in your area to confirm the findings of the Western Judicial 3rd Circuit Common Law Court. Sign your names and email address then send them to me at scantv77 at gmail.com.

Stand behind your oath to protect and defend the Constitution against all enemies both foreign and domestic. When you do so we will email you a list of how to proceed with your own common law courts if you request it.

Looking forward to hearing from you.