Time to repeal the Patriot Act, NDAA and abolish DHS | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's Note: This article originally appeared in the Beaufort Observer.

    Many Americans have known for a long time that the IRS is a rogue agency that will readily break the law to accomplish its "mission."

    A friend of ours tells the story: He got a call from the local police department in the pre-dawn hours of a dark night. The dispatcher told him he needed to go immediately to his business, a heating and air conditioning business. When he arrived he learned that his business had been burglarized. The investigating police wanted him to determine what had been taken. After a couple of hours of searching he could find nothing noticeable missing. Even some cash had been left behind. "Well, you need to get ready for an IRS audit," the policeman said. Sure enough, a few days later when he arrived at work he found a chain and padlock on his door and a notice from the IRS to contact them.

    In case you're interested, the audit revealed that he was due a refund. Nobody paid any attention, even the Congressman whom the business man contacted.The result of what happens when government operates in secret - whether it be the Beaufort County Sheriff's Department and the Washington Police Department or the FBI/CIA, can be seen in the FISA Court. That's the apparatus set up by the Patriot Act to review government eavesdropping. We now learn that the "Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act" Court approved 99.97% of the government's request to snoop, and that many of them were aimed at Americans, within America, not foreigners outside the USA.

    In other reports recently we learned that a number of these snooping activities have been collecting information on high ranking government officials, giving rise to the concern about whether some of these officials are being blackmailed or subject to being intimidated in the performance of their official duties. Such officials include top Congressional and Judicial officials.

    Yet at a Congressional hearing last week, top National Security Agency officials testified that the massive spying program had prevent as many as 48 terrorists attacks, all but two of which were outside the United States.

    Don't let that statement slip past you. The U. S. has spend billions of taxpayer dollars to prevent just two homeland attacks. We know they missed more than that. And according to the public testimony of the spooks, the two terrorist attacks they claim were thwarted by the massive spying were only partially prevented by the spying programs but other counter terrorism methods also played a roll. So who is to say the spying even prevent a single attack.

    But the larger question is whether the American people are willing to give up their liberties to be protected from any number of attacks.

    What is not in doubt, in our mind, is that the Patriot Act, the National Defense Authorization Act and any number of Executive Orders should be repealed. Clearly the spying has exceeded the legal authorization that we have been led to believe existed. It is time to repeal the Patriot Act and NDAA, abolish the Department of Homeland Security and get this government back under control.

    If you want the details of the abuses of which we speak click here.