Tyranny of the Highest Order

Many people survived 9/11 and naturally welcomed the Patriot Act as a necessary tool to fight terrorism in the United States.  Some quivered over the dismantling of basic constitutional freedoms that were stripped from us in that Act and warned of dire consequences to ordinary Americans.  The Founders created our tri-part government all with this in mind:  to protect the People against tyranny from their very government.  These patriots resisted and placed, life, liberty and fortunes on the altar and were not about to create a government where their rights could be stripped away again.  Sadly, the Patriot Act, perhaps created with the best of motives to protect our citizens from foreign terrorism, is now being utilized by the Department of Homeland Security, to quash freedom of speech and to intimidate and watch American citizens in a manner which would make the founders shudder.

It has been reported that an email was intercepted accidentally from a high level Department of Homeland Security personnel in Pennsylvania which reveals the DHS has been working with the gas industry to WATCH citizens who are actively voicing their opposition to hydraulic fracturing. Kind of like the SS in Nazi Germany, don't you think?  Not one meeting or gathering of activists has had any occurance that could be remotely suggested as violent or unruly, yet DHS is watching the people instead of the behemoth corporations who every day assault our citizens contamination, intimidation and work with our government to assault our basic rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.   I have been told a story of one individual who had a gun pulled on him on his own property by drunken gas company workers.  I have been told another, by a family where the gas company came on to their property to drill without an agreement and hired local armed sheriffs as their posse of intimidation and control.   Countless stories like these render us senseless in disbelief, because this is AMERICA.  How could this happen?  We need to reevaluate what we have relinquished to our government and perhaps now is the time to revise the Patriot Act before we look more like Nazi Germany.  The evidence that fracking causes irreparable harm to the aquifers is mounting. The EPA, just today ordered Halliburton and Schlumberger to reveal to their scientists all the chemicals they use in fracking.  Perhaps the EPA study on fracking is creating pressure and causing them to employ these mafioso tactics.   The apparent alliance of gas and government in opposition to our citizens suggests desperation. Again, as citizens we need to do everything we can to insure we don't slide down that proverbial slippery slope toward tyranny.

Read article:
http://www.propublica.org/article/do-environmental-extremists-pose-criminal-threat-to-gas-drilling
http://citypaper.net/blogs/clog/2010/09/09/in-private-email-pa-s-homeland-security-cheif-pledges-support-to-gas-drillers-but-not-groups-fomenting-dissent/