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Religion
Czar
Our privacy has been invaded by
big government - big business tracking and databasing of our medical records,
employment records, education records, driving records, financial
records....etc. Now they want to monitor our religion.
Breaching the "Wall of Separation"
between Church and State
In the aftermath of the Jonestown massacre in
1978 came a congressional investigation of religious "sects," resulting in the
establishment of the principle that there is a legitimate federal interest in
the classification of and monitoring of religious organizations.
Government has clearly stated its role and interest in legislating on religious
matters in hearings associated with the "Freedom From Religious Persecution Act
of 1997," and the passing into law of the "International Religious Freedom Act
of 1998". This new law suggests that religious persecution is somehow a greater
evil than other forms of human rights violations and set's the U.S. into the
position of becoming the world policeman in matters of religious persecution in
countries around the world.
Primary promoters of Religious Monitoring
include Freedom
House, a Washington based organization which claims its purpose is to
monitor civil rights abuses and promote "the cause of liberty." It was founded
in 1943 by Wendell Willkie and Eleanor Roosevelt. Willkie is best known for his
book "One World", a call for world government promoting the concept of the
United Nations.
The Trustee Board of Freedom House is dominated by
members of the elitist Council on
Foreign Relations, including the Chairman Betty Bao Lord, Secretary Kenneth
Adelman, Chairmen Emeriti Leo Cherne and Max M. Kampelman, and Trustees
Zbigniew Brzezinski, former Ambassador to the United Nations Jeanne Kirkpatrick
and Samuel P. Huntington. Wendell Willkie II is also a
Trustee.
Surprisingly, there has been increasing support of a number of
highly respected conservative Congressmen, nationally known Christian leaders
and TV evangelists who would normally be expected to resist any growth of
government, especially where intrusion into religious freedom is
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HR1685,
Freedom from Religious
Persecution Act
The Freedom From Religious
Persecution Act of 1997, sponsored by Virginia's Rep. Frank Wolf and Sen. Arlen
Specter of Pennsylvania, would have created a new Office of Religious
Persecution Monitoring in the White House. The director, subordinate only to
the president, would be charged with reporting on abuses against religious
minorities. Serious abuses would trigger automatic economic sanctions.
Those fighting for privacy rights and religious freedom, knew that if this bill
was passed we would have a massive new bureaucracy set up to monitor religions
and track individuals. This bill would have created a Cabinet level agency
whose mandate would be to provide surveillance over religious groups. Nothing
in the language of this bill limits the new agency to foreign countries or
territories.
Michael Horowitz, a senior fellow at the globalist Hudson
Institute in Washington, the principle promoter of the bill and probably its
author, appeared on the Alan Keyes talk show lauding the bill and pleading for
support among conservative Christians because Democrats were opposing it. Mr.
Horowitz knows that the internationalist Democrats could not be dragged away
from voting for HR1685 because it produces a massive new bureaucracy, with
enormous powers.
Preparing the
way...
The enforcement of acceptable
religious standards is coming to the United States.
The federal
government's slaughter of the Branch Davidians near Waco, Texas should have
been a "wake-up" call for Americans to see that this government is unfit for
the job of monitoring and "protecting" religious minorities. Such an act of
religious persecution is unprecedented in the United States this century, but
the officials responsible have yet to be "sanctioned" and held accountable.
After the tragedy in Oklahoma City, Americans watched in disbelief as
Democrats and liberal pundits attempted to portray the maniac bombers with
conservative and religious Americans - especially those who fight for the
unborn child.
Writing in The Washington Post, Michael Lind made
that connection between the bombers and pro-lifers. He wrote, "The story of Oklahoma City and the militias should not make us
forget that the main form of political terrorism in the United States is
perpetuated by right wing opponents of abortion." |
HR2431,
International Religious
Freedom Act of 1998
The International Religious
Freedom Act of 1998 was signed into law [Public Law No.: 105-292] by President
Clinton on Oct. 27, 1998.
A noticeable difference in this law compared
to HR1685 is that it moved the Office of Religious Persecution Monitoring
(ORPM) from the White House to the State Department, giving the Secretary of
State new powers of overseeing religious discrimination and in
reporting its
findings. It exists today at the State Department as the
Office of
International Religious Freedom and works in close cooperation with the
independent United States
Commission on International Religious Freedom.
Its director is
empowered with sweeping authority to monitor religious groups around the world
to decide if they are suffering persecution and to apply economic sanctions
against the offending nation, entity or individual. This unprecedented power
has led some to refer to the ORPM Director as "the Czar of Religious
Monitoring."
The ORPM Director will have unrestricted authority to shut
down all trade, air traffic, loans and financial transactions beginning with
selectively targeted individuals to a complete embargo of designated countries.
While these dictatorial powers appear to be directed at persecuting
governments, they equally affect U.S. persons who wish to send money and food
to relatives and businessmen who have investments in targeted countries. Buyers
are deprived of necessary goods and sellers are deprived of their livelihood,
all without due process of law.
New Federal Law Requires U.S. Action
Who's Next?
HR2431appears to more specifically deliniate
these activities to foreign countries. However, it also premits the President
to waive any sanctions for governments when it serves U.S. national
interests.
A logical question every Christian should ask is, "Who will
be next?" What is to prevent "The Office" from deciding that "Extremist
Christians" are persecuting pro-abortion pantheists, or "gay" Unitarians, or
some sect of its own invention. If "The Office" has a right to classify one
religion as acceptable or not, why not all religions? The bill does not define
what it considers to be a "religion," so it is apparently free to make up its
own definition. This alone creates a serious concern for Christians.
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"Congress shall make no law respecting an
establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."
First Amendment of the U.S.
Constitution
This is precisely what Congress
has done.
This law does not increase freedom. Rather, it expands the
dictatorial power of the Executive Branch. The bill provides for a Cabinet
level equivalent agency whose mandate is to provide surveillance over religious
groups. The President, through appointees, would instantly enjoy enormous
powers to monitor and judge religious groups at his discretion, hitherto
forbidden by the First Amendment to the Constitution.
The 9/11
Connection
 Following the events of September 11, 2001, the United States has
been waging a war on international terrorism that has brought many of the
religious monitoring activites within the borders of the U.S.
With
strong bipartisan support President Bush created the
Department of Homeland
Security dedicated to protecting America from terrorism and transforming
the FBI into an agency whose primary mission is to prevent terrorist attacks.
The Terrorist Screening Center (TSC) was launched to consolidate
terrorist watch lists and provide continual operational support for Federal,
state, and local screeners and law enforcement. The TSC says it will not
independently collect any information on U.S. citizens - it only
receives information provided by the TTIC and the FBI. That information
can then be presumably shared by The Department of Homeland Security
Information Network that is connected to all 50 states and more than 50 major
urban areas.
While many of its activities are appropriate for a
government protecting our borders, there are some aspects of what the
government can now do that should send chills down your spine.
On the
surface, the
USA Patriot Act may seem reasonable, however, it also gives
intelligence and law enforcement officials new tools to track all American
citizens and deny their right of privacy. For example, it permits the FBI to
compel production of business records, medical records, educational records,
library records, and your Internet surfing habits from your ISP without a
showing of "probable cause". The law also includes privisions that
prohibit, under penalty of law, to tell anybody that you have been asked for
that information.
It allows "sneak-and-peek" searches to be conducted
without giving notice of the search or the issuance of a warrant. And, it's NOT
limited only to terrorist investigations. This change in the law applies to all
government searches for material that "constitutes evidence of a criminal
offense in violation of the laws of the United States" and is not limited to
investigations of terrorist activity. The expansion of this extraordinary
authority to all searches constitutes a radical departure from Fourth Amendment
standards and could result in routine surreptitious entries by law enforcement
agents.
It permits the FBI to spy on religious services, internet
chatrooms, political demonstrations, and other public meetings of any kind
without having any evidence that a crime has been or may be
committed.
It authorizes electronic surveillance of Internet traffic
under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) without establishing
probable cause that the target of the action is involved in terrorism,
espionage or another crime.
And, it expands the definition of domestic
terrorism in a manner that opponents believe would allow it to be used against
peaceful, political protesters.
For more information you might want to
take a look at:
The Patriot Act II: Terrorizing The American
People
and
Current Threats to Freedom of Speech, Religion, and
Assembly
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