WHY A CONGRESSMAN PAID THE FINE FOR MY ARREST IN CONGRESS
By Ann Wright, Retired US Army Reserve Colonel
What irony! I was arrested last week in a Capitol police abuse of power upon leaving a Congressional hearing on FBI abuses of our civil liberties.
I was arrested on March 20, 2007 in hallway outside the Judiciary Committee of the US House of Representatives. As I stood to walk out of the Judiciary hearing on the FBI’s abuse of National Security letters, I vocally agreed with a committee member that the public does not trust the FBI because of those abuses and thanked the committee for holding oversight hearings on the abuses. The Justice Department Inspector General had reported to the Congress that FBI officials have illegally obtained access to bank records, telephone bills and social security numbers without tying the need for access to specific investigations
When I stood and publicly agreed with the Committee’s actions, House Judiciary Committee chair John Conyers said that I could either stop speaking and sit down, or I could leave the hearing room. Since I was walking out of the committee hearing to drive to the airport to fly to a speaking engagement at Brown University later that day, I acknowledged the chairman’s admonition and continued out the door. I was escorted the last couple of steps by the police officer assigned to the hearing room.
Outside the hearing room, the police officer was joined by a Capitol Police Captain who ordered his fellow officer to arrest me. I protested saying that Congressman Conyers had not “gaveled” my arrest but had merely told me to either sit down or leave the room. The normal Congressional protocol is that if a committee chair gavels once the visitor is removed from the hearing room. If the committee chair gavels twice the visitor is arrested.
I know the protocol well as in the past 18 months I have stood and respectfully and quickly aired my views in many committee hearings and then have sat down following my comments. In other committee hearings I have been removed after my comments but not arrested. Prior to March 22, I had been arrested only once at a committee hearing. In July, 2006, wearing a “Gitmo orange” jumpsuit during the Senate Judiciary confirmation hearing on the nomination of William Haynes, Department of Defense General Counsel who was one of the architects of the Department of Defense torture policies, I loudly and strongly told the committee that Haynes should not be confirmed to the lifelong appointment as a US Circuit Court of Appeals judge as his actions in formulating the torture policy of the Bush administration had compromised the integrity and professionalism of the US military. As I spoke, Committee chair Arlen Specter gaveled about twenty times and I was arrested.
But this time, after I was detained in the hallway, Congressman Conyers’ chief of staff joined us and told the police Captain that the Congressman did not want me arrested. The Captain ignored the pleas of the chief of staff and told the officer to handcuff me and take me to the station. The Committee chair’s chief of staff protested my arrest, I protested and others in the hallway protested, but to no avail.
Handcuffed, I was driven to the Capitol Police station. As the two hours of processing at that station ended, a member of Congressman Conyers’ staff came to the station and paid the $35 fine for my “disorderly conduct.” The police officer who received the money from the Congressman’s staff member said that was the first time in her memory that a member of Congress had paid the fine of an activist.
Later I found out that other activists (Medea Benjamin and other members of Codepink Women for Peace) had been in the Judiciary Committee room earlier in the morning before the meeting began, introduced themselves to the witnesses and sat down. They were told by the hearing room staffer not to sit in particular chairs and later were told to leave the room. The police removed the activists from the room. As they were forced into the hallway, Congressman John Murtha walked by. The activists appealed to Murtha for help to let them stay in the hearing. Murtha said “This is not a police state and you should be in the hearing room,” and called the House of Representatives’ Sergeant at Arms and told him to let the activists back into the hearing room.
Less than one hour later, I went into the Committee room, eventually made my comments as I walked out of the hearing room and was ordered arrested by the Capitol Police Captain against the wishes of the Committee chair. No amount of explanation by me, the committee staffers or the police officers who observed my actions could prevent the arbitrary actions of the police captain who apparently was irritated from the earlier rebuke from Congressman Murtha via the Sergeant of Arms.
So my question is: Who runs the US Congress? The Congress or the Police? If it is the Congress then the head of the committee holding hearings should be the individual who decides if an individual should be removed from the hearing room or arrested for particular behavior in the hearing room. If removal or arrest is left to the discretion of police officers, I believe the officer’s individual political views and her views on the role of activists and protests could very easily be the basis for a decision on whether to arrest someone.
In peaceful, non-violent actions in Congressional committee rooms, the Congressional committee chairperson should decide when a person should be arrested, not the police.
Otherwise, the police will run the Congress.
About the Author: Ann Wright is a 29 year US Army veteran who retired as a Colonel. She also spent 16 years in the US diplomatic corps in Grenada, Nicaragua, Somalia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Sierra Leone, Micronesia and Mongolia. She was on the first team into Kabul, Afghanistan to reopen the US Embassy there in December, 2001. She was one of three US diplomats who resigned in March, 2003 in opposition to the war on Iraq.
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American Democracy: 1789-2001 R.I.P
To answer the question, we now live in a police state, simple as that. All the laws and procedures for oppression are fully in place. The new state's reach is limited only by the number of state operatives available at any given time and place. Obviously, there are greater concentrations of state police resources at the seat of government. I'm confident that defect will be rectified over time. Enjoy what few liberties are left to you (or not yet subject to official management). None but the new American nomenclatura will enjoy them in the future.
American Democracy ...
has always been endangered by indifference, fear, paranoia and ignorance, but it officially died on Sept. 11th, 2001.
We now live in a police state, and (as far as I know) few Americans have uttered a word in protest about the death of American Democracy. They've learned to accept life in a police state, because it's clothed in "good intentions" which have been further emphasized by the resurgence of the victory culture, which works hand in hand with the police state to induce people to become docile and easily controlled by playing (and preying) upon their worst fears and the lowest common denominators within the human personality.
For Americans who are in the grip of deep insecurity, fear and paranoia, especially after 9/11, a police state is palatable because they believe "big brother" will keep them safe and protected from a mean, hateful, vicious world and the less-than-human beings who want nothing more than to obliterate America from off the map.
In their minds, the loss of liberties is the price one pays for "peace, safety and security", and for those Americans who see themselves as the perpetual victims of the world's depradations, anyone who offers them safety and protection from this "mean world", and the less-than-human beings who live in it, is seen as a savior, and they're glad to hand over what liberties they have left to the police state in exchange for peace, safety, security and the ability to continue to enjoy their iPods, Prozac, McDonald's burgers and American Idol.
Oppression will come wearing the American flag and carrying the cross of the crucified Christ, proclaiming that certain groups and individuals are "subverting" Christianity and are complicit in the destruction of Christianity and of the nation itself. Therefore, all "good Christians" are to join the state police force, become "good American Christian soldiers", and wipe out the mean, vicious, un-Christian secular humanists, LGBT's, and anyone else who threatens the "American Christian" way of life.
All the laws and procedures for oppression are in place, put there by our elected officials, whose own deep-seated fears, sense of insecurity, paranoia, ignorance, and mindset of perpetual victimization are clearly reflected in the laws and procedures necessary to wage a successful campaign of oppression against those who have been deemed to be an "enemy of the state".
Welcome to the United Police State of America ...
way down the rabbit hole, Ms. Wright, are we....
between the two decades of doing the 'slow slide into dictatorship', and the lure of apathetic oblivion and consumption making american's just yawn while their civil liberties were stolen from them by the oligarchs and the war-mongers/war profiteers and fascists, we now are finding ourselves on the very precipice of an 'abyss' so deep that, once over it, we are irrevocably destroyed and undone as a nation living under what some of us used to think was 'Rule of Law', and that's the state of the union today. apathy, maybe some awakening to the clarion call of alarm, and an ever tightening 'noose' being honked down on by thugs, right wing bastards, theocratic assholes, and moron Limbaugh listeners, the Hannity and Coulter followers. The idiot savant believers and apostles of hatred and murder.
I'm amazed that a congressman paid your fine. most of them are bought and paid for, haven't worked for 'us' for a very, very VERY LONG TIME, Ms. Wright. for those of us who wore uniforms and thought we bought security and some modicum of 'freedom' for future generations, perhaps even 'ourselves', how foolishly naieve we were, weren't we? to think that service to one's nation, honorable, distinguished service, bought and paid for by the blood of our fellow servicemen, would ensure democracy would reign and remain intact and unspoiled here. how very wrong we were, Ms. Wright. How pathetically wrong we were.
we're on the precipice, we have precious little time to regain real equilibrium and pull our nation off the brink of this 'abyss' the republican and yes, the democrats, have taken us to, but make no mistake about it, we are with a whole lot of thug, murderer inertia pushing us closer to the darkness. we are the very same as Nazi germany was, it too, a 'democracy', circa 1939 or so, Hitler had not fully crushed all opposition to his madness yet, but he was working on it, and he had a whole lot of 'good germans' (repubican's and theocrats here) helping him take that democracy into ruin.
can the Senate Judiciary save us? I don't think so. Can the American People save us? Yes. Actually, the 'people' are the only hope now, that the government has more or less 'capitulated' and 'rolled over' and made only a few mute protestations against the fascism, the endless war, and the impending descendency into HELL that america is headed for. The american people, who, at present, do not fully realize, that, in the twenty or thirty years of apathetic and misplaced trust in our government, still, to some extent, think that some kind of 'miracle' will somehow save us.
no miracle will save us, Ms. Wright. only sane, rational, non-compliant, fully awake and ready to fight and die to save us, can save this nation from imminent destruction from within.
we have so very little else, except a flicker of a flame burning in the hearts of american's everywhere, to either "breathe free" or "die in the struggle to breathe free"
the time for action is rapidly disappearing in the rearview mirror, and we are headed over the abyss into a nightmare nation of silent, compliant, frightened slaves who would rather cower and shiver than stand up and fight for freedom and democracy, and cast away the shackles of paranoia and unjustified fear of concocted demons and boogeymen who neither threaten us or wish us harm.
our nation is dying wholly from within. wholly from within.
wow, they treated her worse than Cynthia McKinney!
So things are progressing. I won't say regressing because there has never been such a time in American history.
I am equally horrified to hear about Sen. Specter's behavior. Incredibly disrespectful and this from a guy who obviously made terrific mistakes regarding his support for the war.
People don't like being found to be in the wrong, I suppose!
I Shall Be Blunt
George W. Bush, the 43rd President(?) of the United States has committed treason and has forfeited his office thereby.
His Vice President, current Attorney General (Gonzalez), former Attorney General (Ashcroft), Secretary of State, over 50% of the Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States, and most all other appointees of the Bush Administration should all be forcibly removed from their respective offices for acting as ENABLERS of George W. Bush's treasonous acts while in office for over six years.
1. Failure to heed warnings of threatened acts by bin Laden and his terrorist organization (or was it intentional misfeasance to ensure PNAC's "new Pearl Harbor?)
2. The knee-jerk railroading through of the "Patriot Act"
3. The diversion of troops, military and financial resources from Afganistan to invade Iraq
4. Domestic spying and the unraveling of FISA
5. The unraveling of the USA's tradition of not only crafting the Geneva Convention but stooping to new and unprecidented depths of tortutious conduct
6. The unconscionable lack of response to the devastation to the Gulf Coast rendered by Hurricane Katrina
7. Unprecedented levels of secrecy and classification of the business of WE THE PEOPLE
8. Taking the trust of WE THE PEOPLE and basically vending it to his and the GOP's most vigorous contributors
9. Tax policy specificallly designed enrich the already wealthy minutist minority of Americans at the expense of the middle class and poor people of America
10. Allowing insurance, oil, chemical, logging, coal, pharmaceutical and other industries free reign to draft legislation favorable to each industry and detrimental to WE THE PEOPLE
11. Bush's complete incognizance of his Constitutional duty (I REPEAT D U T Y) to "take care that the laws of the United States of America be faithfully ( I REPEAT F A I T H F U L L Y
E X E C U T E D)
George W. Bush's record, of which I have listed a select few items, clearly provides a foundation upon which objective scrutiny can be performed. Much of the preliminary work has already been done by many authors and scholars. Coordination and refining is all that need to be done to formulate the requisite documents to proceed with the Constitutional processes.
Members of the Congress have been disrespected by this Administration in a burgeoning manner over the last six years. It is time for Congress, in a bipartisan manner to reassert its rightful place as one of the three co-equal branches of our Constitutional governing process. This no longer of political party thing. This crisis is a critical challenge pitting the extra-Constitutional concept of the "unitary executive" against the Founders system of Checks And Balances.
May the representatives of WE THE PEOPLE make the wise choice.
Whereas, WE unanimously 'gavel' this unitary executive !
IMPEACH BUSHCO & RICO PNAC/AIPAC> "OUT" ANTI-AMERICAN CABALS !
http://tinyurl.com/2we5dm
http://tinyurl.com/a8uz9