Emergency Management and Planning Newsletter (War Powers Act, Equal Time Doctrine, FISA Law Update)
- From: dk <sales@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 28 Jul 2007 09:22:16 -0700
Emergency management and planning newsletter
© 2007 by David Kanecki, All Rights Reserved
Vol. 15, No. 11, Copy 203
July 28th, 2007
By David Kanecki, Bio. Sci., A.C.S.
david@xxxxxxxxxxx
P.O. Box 866 * Kenosha, WI 53141 * UNITED STATES
(Former Chairman of Emergency Management and Planning for SCS,
1992-1999)
SPECIAL EDITION
Thoughts on the Value of a Free Society
Thoughts on Current Security Information Gathering Proposals
What Happens When a Democracy Starts or Becomes A Theocracy
Thoughts on the One Superpower Model
-------------------------------------
Thoughts on the Value of a Free Society
By D. Kanecki, MBA
In a free society, all ideas are valid. But, what I am seeing is a
great divide between groups who claim to be liberal, like all views,
and those who claim to be balanced, and are perceived as conservative.
The problem I have with the new liberal approach of excluding thought
that they do not like and forcing business to adhere to their beliefs
is that they are becoming their own enemy. The new liberals say they
are protesting different businesses and news bureaus because those
entities are seen as supporting only one viewpoint. But, their counter
argument is that people should march lock-step and agree to black
listing of business's or news organizations.
The idea of forcing advertisers to drop their advertising is the same
as blacklisting, and these two sides are now applying it. Two wrongs,
black listing to promote one view or black listing against someone or
company as perceived as promoting one still is not right. I always
feels that it is important for everyone to speak without fear, black
listing increases fear and prevents people from speaking.
In conclusion, as the Founding Fathers believe in one founding
philosophy by Voltaire:
"I may not agree with what you are saying, but I will defend your
right to say it..."
Thoughts on Current Security Information Gathering Proposals
By Anonymous
[ This report was sent to me by someone I know who has worked as
consultant to various services, and shares her concerns. She was a
member of the Ada Joint Projects group, which was cancelled in 1998
(they made great progress in their short live as a government
agency).]
This week there is a proposal to increase the role of FISA in
updating the 1978 act to include information gathering via cell
phones, internet, and other digital assets that were not available to
the public at that time. The most important issue is that we must
guard that we honor the principle that "security should not be allowed
to encroach on freedom."
Based upon the use of medical transport visa's and EU transport
visa's, it is acceptable that when a group is known to have violated
the spirit of those transport visa's, then their right to use those
visa's should be curtailed. For example, if a medical group, who is
Muslim, has violated the spirit of a medical transport visa, by doing
harm, as opposing to following proper medical practice of DO NOT HARM,
then it is right for a people to deny them passage or entry into their
area until they have been vetted and provide a mechanism that they
prove that their intentions are honorable.
In responding to intelligence gathering of citizens, it is important
that certain guarantees be honored. For example, as in the "Sound of
Music," we do not wish to have a government that feels they can at any
time read a telegram or someone's mail or other communication at will
without proper oversight and legal basis. In addition, the problem of
increasing surveillance on all types of digital information needs to
be done in steps as this is a slippery slope that can lead a country
to move from a democracy into a Fascist state suddenly, through a
cooperative process. The cooperative process is what the Nazi's
discovered, it is hard for someone to take the first step becoming a
SS officer, but the next steps become easier and easier, until the
person is not longer a human being, but a tool/robot of the state.
A third point that needs to be addressed is that guarantees are put
that all new information surveillance is done to keep a democracy, not
a theocracy, or one party state. The reason I am concerned about this
is that I see more lay people exposing the value of a Church State in
the United States, which is contrary to the Founding Fathers vision
and basis that Church and State are to remain separate. Since the
1980's and onward, this distinction is has been lessened to a point
that we are only step away from losing a democracy and becoming a
theocracy. In the great depression of the 20th century, FDR realized
that local Theocracy's of services to help those affected, did not
work, and the only way to solve the problem was to have a federal
government approach for social programs, which is right, because local
Theocracy's of social reserved the privileged of not providing service
to those who were not deemed Christian or unworthy. So, our basis for
increasing security should to increase the benefits of democracy.
What Happens When a Democracy Starts or Becomes A Theocracy
By Anonymous
What happens when a democracy becomes a Theocracy? First, all social
support programs are assigned to states theocracy's, governments, and
local theocracy's, government to process. The result is that those who
are in need are denied because they did not attend mass last week, do
not go to church enough times, do not accept the totem pole rank in
the church hierarchy. A second underlying result is that the
disenfranchised will seek help from other sources. These other sources
would not have to work hard to get recruits because they would simply
agree to follow the negation of the Theocracy policies.
How can you tell when a local, state, or regional area is moving to a
Theocracy? First, you see move local social service handled by Church
groups. Second, you see a greater percentage of who qualify for things
like food stamps, being denied, and the region increasing its' rank in
the country in terms of denying people.
Why is a theocratic state bad? A theocratic state is bad for many
reasons. First, it stops creative people and thought. All thought and
speak, like in 1984, Escape from LA, are canonized into one form and
everyone monitors everyone else closely. Any deviation is speak or
thought patterns is reported and harshly punished. Secondly, the
search for new understanding, new ways to do things, is all controlled
and stopped unless approached by a Church elder panel, and done by
someone who they approve of doing it. The problem with this is
creative development is not usually accomplished by those in power or
wealth, it is achieved by those outside of power of and wealth. For
example, Thomas Edition, the inventors of the integrated circuit were
employees not business or political barons, the computer revolution of
the 1970's, (with which whose benefits we enjoy today), and others.
Is the United States moving to close to a Theocracy? Yes! The reason
is that when I see groups like BattleCry.com and others expose that we
should solve and reason certain issues only by faith, as creationism
over evolution for one example. In a firing line debate held by
William Buckley in the early 1990's, a very good discussion occurred
between both sides. The resolution reached by both sides is that
evolution needs to be understood as well as creationism in that there
are gaps in our information and explanation of the formation of life.
To the scientist in me, this is a middle ground, I can accept. In
addition, one wonders when a senator or representative accepts large
donations from religious PACS whether he or she will really uphold the
constitution as they pledge or honor their contributors, and practice
religious government over constitutional government.
What can be done to done to move the United States closer to side of
a democracy? First, we all elected officials to publicly affirm that
the constitution is the law of the land, and their decisions and laws
will be based upon the constitution. Next, we need to provide the
equal time doctrine, and have it restated to provide a balance so that
all groups can speak, not those with the most money and power.
Third, we need to re-implement the "war powers act" so that the
balance of power rest equally with the legislative, judicial, and
executive office as opposed to resting soley with the executive office
as what has happened since 1999. For those who were not born after the
1960's, the "war powers act" limited military operations to 90 days
and required congressional approval for a military operation to
continue. In addition, it put limits on the executive as to what
constituted an a act of war, and mandated that any military operation
had to specific goals and objectives along with an approved exit
strategy. The basis of the act was to have all think first before
going to war.
Thoughts on the One Superpower Model
By D. Kanecki, MBA
In the 1980's, the Soviet Union started to change its' policy by
means of Glassnost, openness. One of the first international overtures
to this was the dismantling of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Later, with
Yeltsin who provided leadership to show that the East and West could
start to work past détente' of the 1970's.
After the Soviet Union was disestablished, the world has one
remaining superpower. In the 1990's, the one superpower model worked
because it was tempered with the understanding and knowledge that
"absolute power corrupts absolutely" and to try to avoid practicing
that dictum. The policy of one superpower moderation was continued
into the early new millennium. Today, it is being re-examined.
The basis for the re-examination is that the one supermodel has one
major flaw that is similar to other one superpower models that has
existed throughout history, the center of the world hypothesis. In the
15th century, Portugal thought it was the center of the world since
they found had the greatest sailing fleet. Then, Spain went further
than the Azores and America was discovered. Next, Spain thought is was
the center of the world and was destroyed by the inquisition of
creative people's, and England became the one world superpower for
many years to come.
The point is that although one may believe or are the lone
superpower, one has to guard against thinking that way. In evaluating
and implementing change management policies in large scale
organizations, the first thing I noticed is that when members of an
organization think they are a monopoly, lone superpower, they begin to
act like a monopoly, and think that their customers, other countries,
may not notice or cannot do anything about it. A big mistake because
their customers, former countries, will not be customers for long
because they will find someone else to get supplies and services from,
even if it means starting from the ground up. The result is that when
the members discover the customer, country revolt, they say that they
have changed management, but by that time, their customer base is
lost, and their customers will only support a plurality rather than a
single power, superpower. This theory, I have seen time and again, to
be true in all operational levels, and organizational sizes.
Individuals realize that they do have a choice and eventually will
gather the courage to exercise that choice, so it is important to
treat all individuals with respect and not judge them because of their
current size.
.
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