MMA Meeting Agenda & Talking Points – February 2012
Welcome, Pledge of Allegiance
Fallen Local Brothers/Riders: MOMENT OF SILENCE
· none from January
Monthly MMA Membership, Announcements and Events
· June 6-8: Redwood Run
· June 25-30: Fireworks
· July 1-4: Fireworks
· August 18: Protect Our Rights (POR) Rally
· September 15-16: End of Summer Campout
· October 28: Division 1 Poker Run
· November 24: Toy Run Pre-Party, Sacramento
· November 25: Annual Toy Run, Sacramento
· December 9: Swap Meet
MMA Board of Directors Meeting held on Sunday, January 8
State Capital Rally held on Monday, January 9
· Lane Sharing now a topic of conversation at the State Capital
Calls to Action - Last 30 days
· January 31 - US Defenders issued a state-side CTA (Call to Action) for COC club members to contact their State Senators and ask them to support AB1047, prohibiting NHTSA funding for Motorcycle Only Checkpoints. The CTA provides a link to determine who your State Senator and a form letter which could be used. The bill is expected to be heard in the Senate Transportation and Housing Committee in February.
Guest Speakers
· ASK for Recommendations from members for upcoming meetings
· Refer to BOLT's Motorcycle Only Checkpoint Presentation
National News
Supreme Court Rules Making it Illegal For Police to Attach GPS Devices to your vehicle without a warrant based on a case in DC
The Supreme Court ruled in January that police violated the Constitution when they attached a Global Positioning System tracker to a suspect's vehicle without a valid search warrant, voting unanimously in one of the first major cases to test privacy rights in the digital era.
The decision offered a glimpse of how the court may address the flood of privacy cases expected in coming years over issues such as cell phones, email and online documents. But the justices split 5-4 over the reasoning, suggesting that differences remain over how to apply age-old principles prohibiting "unreasonable searches."
The minority pushed for a more sweeping declaration that installing the GPS tracker not only trespassed on private property but violated the suspect's "reasonable expectation of privacy" by monitoring his movements for a month. The majority said it wasn't necessary to go that far, because the act of putting the tracker on the car invaded the suspect's property in the same way that a home search would.
The government said Federal Bureau of Investigation agents use GPS tracking devices in thousands of investigations each year. It argued that attaching the tiny tracking device to a car's undercarriage was too trivial a violation of property rights to matter, and that no one who drove in public streets could expect his movements to go unmonitored. Police were free to employ the tactic for any reason without showing probable cause to a magistrate and getting a search warrant, the government said.
The justices seemed troubled by that position at arguments in November, where the government acknowledged it would also allow attaching such trackers to the justices' own cars without obtaining a warrant.
Emphasizing the Fourth Amendment's "close connection to property," Justice Scalia wrote that even a small trespass, if committed in "an attempt to find something or to obtain information," constituted a "search" under the Fourth Amendment.
**NOTE**
"The court merely held that the installation of the GPS was a Fourth Amendment 'search,'" George Washington University Professor of Law and computer law expert Orin Kerr wrote on The Volokh Conspiracy website.
"The court declined to reach when the installation of the device is reasonable or unreasonable. So we actually don't yet know if a warrant is required to install a GPS device; we just know that the installation of the device is a Fourth Amendment 'search.'"
But other experts have said the court did create a warrant requirement for installing GPS devices. They point to past Supreme Court rulings that held that all Fourth Amendment searches require warrants unless the police action meets a specific and well-delineated exception.
Illinois HB0930 is a "No Profiling" bill to stop motorcycle only checkpoints
ABATE of IL helped introduce the new bill on January 21st. The bill is still only a shell very much like CA1047 was when it was introduced.
NDAA updates
If the government calls you a terrorist, they can kill you and expect us to take their word for it.
Vets may be 1st target of NDAA
[They will probably start with those who have sniper and Special Forces training. It doesn't get more real than this.]
Police get help with vets who are ticking bombs
By Kevin Johnson, 1/30/2012 - USA Today
WASHINGTON – The Justice Department is funding an unusual national training program to help police deal with an increasing number of volatile confrontations involving highly trained and often heavily armed combat veterans.
Developers of the pilot program, to be launched at 15 U.S. sites this year, said there is an "urgent need" to de-escalate crises in which even SWAT teams may be facing tactical disadvantages against mentally ill suspects who also happen to be trained in modern warfare.
"We just can't use the blazing-guns approach anymore when dealing with disturbed individuals who are highly trained in all kinds of tactical operations, including guerrilla warfare," said Dennis Cusick, executive director of the Upper Midwest Community Policing Institute. "That goes beyond the experience of SWAT teams."
Judiciary committee hears about gangs, including vets
Faithful members of the Vietnam Veterans Motorcycle Club may be a little surprised to find themselves on a list of “security threat groups” offered by the Department of Corrections to the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday.
Whether the aging vets at the local watering hole constitute a gang comes down to a definition from the Department of Justice.
According to information offered to the Senate Judiciary Committee, a gang designation is appropriate for a group three or more people with a common identifying sign, symbol or name who individually or collectively engage in criminal activity which creates an atmosphere of fear and intimidation.
Sen. Alice Nitka wasn’t so sure that the retirees of the motorcycle club in Windsor are a menace to society.
Why shouldn’t the club be lumped in with the home-grown Chittenden County White Boys or “Anybody Can Get It” (commonly-known as ACG-137 according to the department), or maybe even the Bloods and the Crips?
If all it takes for a “gang” to make the list is for a few members of a group to commit a crime, Sen. Jeanette White asked, will the Boys and Girls Club be next?
Police, Military Training Exercises Hit LA the week of January 23rd
** FEMA Camps, TSA Checkpoints on State Highways, now more of this .....
A joint military and police training exercise in which Black Hawk helicopters have been flying over the skies of downtown Los Angeles over the last few days ends Thursday night, officials said.
Los Angeles police say the training is part of an annual operation in which local police agencies participate with the U.S. military on tactics in urban environments, said LAPD Officer Norma Eisenman.
Residents could see and hear the thumping on Wednesday night of Black Hawk and OH-6 helicopters flying over downtown. Officials used Dodger Stadium as the staging area for some of the choppers.
The exercises were closed to the public, police said.
The exercises are designed to ensure the military’s ability to operate in urban environments, prepare forces for upcoming overseas deployments, and meet mandatory training certification requirements, police said.
Ron Paul Introduces Bill to Repeal NDAA's Indefinite Detention
Rep. Paul spoke on the House floor, on January 18 specifically against Section 1021 of the NDAA, which includes language which permits the government to detain anyone who “substantially supported al Qaeda, the Taliban, or associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States.” Paul fears — as do a number of other opponents to the law — that the language can be used against U.S. citizens as well.
"The bill is an historic threat to American citizens and others because it expands and makes permanent the authority of the president to order the military to imprison without charge or trial American citizens," senior legislative counsel Christopher Anders said in a statement.
What is particularly frightening is that if citizenship of an individual does in fact prove to be a deterrent in the case of indefinite detention under the NDAA, Senator Joe Lieberman has already introduced legislation which will help the federal government circumvent that issue: the Enemy Expatriation Act, which seeks to remove U.S. citizenship from those who “support hostilities against the United States.”
In fewer than 100 words, the text of Paul’s legislation, HR 3785, would overturn section 1021 of the NDAA:
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, Section 1. Repeal of Section 1021 of the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2012.
The bill, introduced on January 18, has since been referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs, in addition to the Committee on Armed Services.
In introducing his legislation on the House floor, Paul declared,
Section 1021 essentially codifies into law the very dubious claim of presidential authority under 2001 authorization for the use of military force to indefinitely detain American citizens without access to legal representation or due process of law. Section 1021 provides for the possibility of the U.S. military acting as a kind of police force on U.S. soil apprehending terror suspects, including Americans, and whisking them off to an undisclosed location indefinitely, no right to attorney, no right to trial, no day in court. This is precisely the kind of egregious distortion of justice that Americans have always ridiculed in so many dictatorships overseas.
Paul went on to compare the infringement upon American liberties found in the NDAA to the gulag system imposed by the Soviet Union.
Addressing what supporters claim about the NDAA, Paul continued:
Some have argued that nothing in Section 1021 explicitly mandates holding Americans without trial, but it employs vague language, radically expanding the detention authority to include anyone who has substantially supported certain terrorist groups or associated forces. No one has defined what those terms mean. What is an associated force?
* Note: There are now several petitions circulating seeking to block the detention provisions. One such petition was submitted to the Supreme Court of Alaska by a concerned state citizen
SOPA and PIPA Update - votes to be delayed in House and Senate
In the face of massive Internet protest today, key senate and house backers of the SOPA and PIPA web censorship bills - including Senators Marco Rubio, Roy Blunt, John Cornyn, Orrin Hatch, John Boozman and Jim DeMint, and Representatives Ben Quayle and Lee Terry - have dropped their support. So have a number of other senators.
At least 17,000 websites allegedly joined in the protest.
Google says that 4.5 million people signed their anti-SOPA petition
The bills are intended to narrowly address the problem of piracy on foreign Web sites. They differ slightly, but both measures grant the Justice Department the power to order “information location” services to remove links to Web sites that are suspected of pirating. Proponents of the legislation, including movie studios and recording companies, say that the bill protects American intellectual property and also protects consumers against counterfeit goods.
Critics say that the bills place an unreasonable burden on sites such as Google or Wikipedia to police links from their sites to see if they lead to Web sites flagged for bad behavior. They also argue that asking search engines to remove links from sites marked as being dedicated to piracy could be a threat to free speech. By effectively removing the “roads” to any given Web site by hiding it from search engines, they argue, sites using the material under the rules of fair use could be effectively blocked because a company has complained that doesn’t like what is being done with the copyrighted material. Those concerns are what prompted the Web firms to protest what they say is tantamount to government censorship.
Worldwide Population Control Inevitable?
The United Nations is warning that rapid population growth - which will likely see the number of humans living on the planet explode to 9 billion by 2040 - will condemn billions more to a life of poverty. The U.N.'s "High-Level Panel on Global Sustainability" cautions in the report, "We run the risk of condemning up to 3 billion members of our human family to a life of endemic poverty." By 2030 - the U.N. estimates the world will need to produce 50% more food, 45% more energy and 30% more water to sustain more people on the planet. The key is energy - because without energy - you can't produce food or distribute water nowadays. And needing to produce 45% more energy from fossil fuels to sustain 9 billion people might be impossible, as more and more scientists admit that peak has been reached worldwide. So what does all this mean for our crowded planet - and what can be done about it?
Does the President have too much power through FEMA?
What constitutes a disaster differs, in some cases drastically, depending on which presidential administration is issuing the declaration of disaster.
The Obama administration has, apparently, broken some records in this regard. According to the Heritage Foundation, the Obama administration tops all other administrations in regard to:
The total number of FEMA declarations: 242 versus 158 set in the 1996 election year;the number of Major Disaster Declarations (MDDs): 99 versus 75 set in 1996 and 2008; andthe number of Fire Management Assistance Declarations (FMADs): 114 versus 86 set in 2006.
Additionally, the current administration ranks in third place in the issuing of Emergency Declarations,and, this is the case despite the lack of any disasters such as Category 2 or higher hurricanes, earthquakes greater than 6.0 on the Richter Scale or successful terrorist offensives.
Does the President have too much power through FEMA?
The startling accession in the federalization of natural disasters began in 1993, under the direction of the Clinton administration and with the appointment of James Lee Witt as FEMA’s administrator.Clinton broke the 1977 record of 61 declarations with 158 declarations in his reelection year.In contrast, Obama issued 108 declarations in 2009 and another 108 in 2010. In 2011 he issued 243 declarations.