Analyst's note:  Absolutely must read and carefully consider.  As much as we want it to be so, this issue doesn't seem to be going away.  It seems to remain "cloaked" to the average American citizen.  Don't miss the entire original article or the related items presented below.

An old adage reads, "If it quacks like a duck, then it's probably a duck."  The push by the Obama Administration to progressively strip Americans of basic liberties in the pursuit of political objectives has now taken on more draconian overtones, and no one seems to have noticed. 

While the media quibbles over Romney versus Gingrich, the Occupy movement, and other diversions, President Obama continues to undermine law and order, dismantling the US Constitution piece by piece.  When public officials seek to limit freedom, it can be concluded that these officials want to rule instead of govern.  Cloaking seizures of power in clever misnomers does not validate the abuse of public office.  What else can we conclude when Obama claims the illegal power to assassinate citizens at his whim?  If citizen assassination were the only example of executive malfeasance emanating from Washington, Americans could breathe easier, except that citizen assassination, e.g. Awlaki, has opened the floodgates for a barrage of new power seizures.  The ground softened, the first brick laid, Obama can now proceed unchallenged. 

As I warned repeatedly in multiple articles over the last two years, the machinery put in place to thwart Islamic terrorism could be turned against citizens for political purposes, due to the broad constructions used in terror definitions.  Only no one could have imagined the speed at which these things would come to pass: 

The broad and ambiguous language found in the PATRIOT Act gives the president, whoever that may be, the power to determine what is and is not "terror."  Section 411, G, vi, II of the PARIOT Act defines a terrorist as anyone "designated, upon publication in the Federal Register, by the Secretary of State in consultation with or upon the request of the Attorney General."

Everything that follows is contingent on this loose definition -- i.e. warrantless wiretapping, warrantless entry, human tracking, access to bank statements and phone records, access to internet records, "enhanced" interrogation, and now assassination. 

Illustrating the danger of such a legal construction is the fact that "terrorism" is increasingly used as a subjective slur to intimidate opponents.  Recall that Democrats recently accused Republicans of "terrorism," in place of presenting actual solutions to America's budget crisis.  The definition is adaptable it seems.

When the first citizen was felled by President Obama's new citizen assassination program, the act was lauded by members of both parties as a tough and needed measure to successfully prosecute the war on terror.  I counseled that this new and self-declared power would quickly morph into something dangerous to both democratic dialogue and the expression of ideas, potentially putting anyone with the temerity to criticize the President at risk.  Since no one has seen the names of the persons supposedly on the classified "hit list," there is no accountability in the way the new program is leveraged or organized.

[....] To the everlasting shame of conservatives, certain members of the GOP are lending their support to these gargantuan power-grabs.  Sen. Lindsey Graham praised the indefinite detention provisions, rejoicing "for the first time that the homeland is part of the battlefield" and that people can be detained without trial, "American citizen or not."  God help us.

Together, citizen assassination and indefinite detention represent the biggest attack on freedom and human rights in American history, and this assessment includes the Alien and Sedition Acts. 

The founding fathers had a word to describe the events transpiring in America today, the disregard of the Constitution, the centralization of power in a few hands: tyranny. 

This will either be a nation of free men and women, or it will be the next in a long line of tyrannies.  There is no one to save America if America falls.  This generation must decide the fate of American liberty. 

Related items:

Dialog: East Coast - West Coast ... Our rogue federal gov't

In America: Government Fears You

U.S. Military given go-ahead to detain U.S. citizen terrorist suspects without trial

'President' Obama is NOT a 'natural born citizen ... now what?

ATTENTION PREPPERS - Having More Than 7-Days Of Food Makes You A Suspected Terrorist

Documents emerge showing ATF used 'Fast and Furious' to make the case for U.S. gun control

Dialog: East Coast - West Coast on 'Battlefield America'