Despite establishment media hype predicting a repeat of the violence at the 1968 Democratic convention, the anti-NATO protests in Chicago have so far been largely non-violent.

Chicago cops tried to create a riot but not much came of it.
As of Sunday, a mere 45 protesters were arrested. “No details on the arrests were immediately available, but it appeared from the clashes that played out in front of television cameras that many of those arrested were taken into custody after refusing a police order to disperse,” the AP reports.
Chicago and the federal government squandered millions of tax payer dollars on a not-so secret “command center” to keep a watchful electronic eye on Americans exercising the First Amendment. The proudly advertised purpose of the high-tech fusion center was to protect “foreign ministers” who arrived to plot future NATO conquests and war crimes. Of course, these bureaucrats were never really in danger.
Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel’s government worked with the Secret Service to turn downtown Chicago into a ghost town and deny workers and small businesses income. Eight foot tall “security fencing” created a declared “security perimeter” around downtown, Grant Park, and McCormick Place where the NATO war council convened.
Emanuel squandered over a million bucks on “riot equipment” for riots that have not so far taken place. Instead of rounding up violent anarchists and the like, the Chicago police have shut down miles of highway and streets so cars and pedestrians are prevented from accessing the city and thus inconveniencing ministers of war and globalist chaos at McCormick.
So absurd was the propaganda, we were told plans were on hand to evacuate the entire city, something that has not been contemplated since the fake threat of insane commies nuking America.
On Sunday, The Guardian reported that
the Chicago police – as well as myriad other federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies, such as the FBI and the US secret service – were out in force on riot-geared horses, bikes, and patrols – batons at the ready. Philadelphia Police Department is sending over reinforcements to help out; Chicago has also asked for recruits from police departments in Milwaukee and Charlotte-Mecklenburg, NC. Meanwhile, F-16 warplanes “screamed through the skies as part of a pre-summit defense exercise” and helicopters hovered incessantly.
An exaggerated government response to a minimal threat – including patsies with dangerous beer-making equipment – always outweighs the interest of mere citizen-subjects and a shrinking business sector that produces wealth (invariably confiscated in large part by government).

Millions spent for a threat that does not exist.
Massive and completely unwarranted police and military response to people protesting the self-congratulatory confabs of the global elite has nothing to do with security. Each progressively bizarre militarized object lesson underscores the elite’s demand that we submit to authority at gun-point or face phantom enemies who are so inept they cannot figure out how to blow up airplanes with underwear bombs.
Next up: the Olympics in London. It will serve as a platform for the continuation of over-the-top displays of grotesque military power. With every event, the outrageous demonstrations of police state technology coupled with missile launchers and armored vehicles drive home an unmistakable message eloquently spoken by the cartoon character Pogo: We have seen the enemy and he is us.

Sometimes, the greatest deeds are done by those who are just doing their jobs, like Judge Katherine Forrest who last week struck down the indefinite detention provision (§1021) of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

It would be all too easy in this age of ever-encroaching authoritarianism in America for a judge ruling on a matter like this to just go with the government line and throw water over the plaintiffs. After all, telling truth to power has consequences. Forrest was appointed by Obama, but after this ruling one wonders whether she is about to meet a career dead-end. Power — especially narcissistic power — does not like being told uncomfortable truths.

Everything about this case is shameful; it should be obvious to anyone who can read the Constitution that indefinite detention without trial (just like assassination without trial — something else that Obama and his goons have no problem practicing and defending) is hideously and cruelly unconstitutional. It defecates upon both the words and the spirit of the document.

It is directly and completely in contravention to the Fifth Amendment:

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
It is shameful that this law was proposed, it is shameful that any legislator would vote for it, and it is shameful that the President would sign it into law, albeit with a flimsy signing-statement claiming that he would not use the indefinite detention provision against American citizens.

More shameful still is the fact that when this challenge was brought that the Obama administration tried to dismiss it on a technicality — they tried to make the case that because none of the plaintiffs were to be indefinitely detained that they could not challenge the law. Judge Forrest’s investigation of this claim was revealing. Naomi Wolf notes:

Forrest asked repeatedly, in a variety of different ways, for the government attorneys to give her some assurance that the wording of section 1021 could not be used to arrest and detain people like the plaintiffs. Finally she asked for assurance that it could not be used to sweep up a hypothetical peaceful best-selling nonfiction writer who had written a hypothetical book criticizing US foreign policy, along lines that the Taliban might agree with. Again and again the two lawyers said directly that they could not, or would not, give her those assurances. In other words, this back-and-forth confirmed what people such as Glenn Greenwald, the Bill of Rights Defense Committee, the ACLU and others have been shouting about since January: the section was knowingly written in order to give the president these powers; and his lawyers were sent into that courtroom precisely to defeat the effort to challenge them. Forrest concluded: ”At the hearing on this motion, the government was unwilling or unable to state that these plaintiffs would not be subject to indefinite detention under [section] 1021. Plaintiffs are therefore at risk of detention, of losing their liberty, potentially for many years.“
Very simply, it is now obvious that the NDAA was written not to deal with terrorists or potential terrorists. After all, if the government has evidence that an individual or group is planning to commit a terrorist attack then they do not need an indefinite detention provision; all they need is to arrest such individuals and prove beyond reasonable doubt before a jury of their peers that a crime has been committed. That is how justice works — if the evidence exists you can bring a successful prosecution. After all if they do not have the evidence to prove that a group or individual was planning to commit an act of terrorism then they have no business arresting them or charging them with any offense. Suspects — lest we forget — are innocent until proven guilty.

These new powers have nothing to with combatting terrorism. If the government has no evidence that can stand up in a court of law it has no business detaining anyone. No, this new power grab has an entirely different target — like the plaintiffs in this case: writers, investigative journalists, bloggers, philosophers, dissidents, human rights activists, libertarians, free-thinkers, tax protestors, critics of fractional-reserve banking, whistleblowers — people like Chris Hedges, Noam Chomsky, Daniel Ellsberg, Jennifer Bolen, and Birgitta Jonsdottir. People like Congressman Justin Amash and Congressman Adam Smith who tried to amend indefinite detention out of the bill. People like me — and to some degree, if you are reading this, people like you.

The fact that the Obama administration could not give assurances about those who simply criticise U.S. foreign policy indicates very strongly that this power grab is about shutting-up and frightening critics of the U.S. government and the Obama administration.

But — for now —  §1021 of the NDAA, that implement of fascism, has been struck down and thrown out as “facially unconstitutional” as well as having a “chilling impact on First Amendment rights”.

We should thankful for this brave judge’s actions, and for the plaintiffs actions in standing up to tyranny, and vigilant against future incursions.

On the other hand, every politician involved in writing, legislating and authorising this hideous unconstitutional law should be reminded of the words of the Declaration of Independence — it is the right of the people to alter or abolish any government that becomes destructive to liberty.

As of about 11:10 a.m. local time, the Chicago Police Department website, cityofchicago.org/police, as well as the main portal for the city of Chicago, cityofcity.org, were down, an NBC affiliate in Chicago reports.