WR - What are these freedoms we are fighting for?

04-23-2007, 08:44 AM

ddoubleez

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What are these freedoms we are fighting for?

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In the words of Willie Nelson:
Where are the freedoms we are fighting for?

Mark Twain profoundly said: 'Loyalty to the country always, loyalty to the government when it deserves it.'

Reciently I have had suggested to me that I leave and move to canada, in so many words:

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my point was they could move there (to canada) instead of STAYING HERE AND WHINING ABOUT IT WHILE ENJOYING THE BENIFITS OF THE USA instead of being a part of the answer.

First is I moved I can not be apart of the answer. Being apart of the answer is not cheerleading for a government that is distroying what it is to be american.

The challange I am bringing to this thread is as easy as telling me what these benifits are, and telling me what these VERY YOUNG kids are killing and dieing for.

The next several posts on this thread will be from me and they will be tangable, house bills, Executive orders from the Patriot Act and the like and to me they are WORSE than what the KGB were doing.

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04-23-2007, 08:49 AM

ddoubleez

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Re: What are these freedoms we are fighting for?

Quote:

CONTACT: Tony Newman (212) 613-8026; Elizabeth Méndez Berry (212) 513-8036

Senior Republican Proposes "Draft" for the War on Drugs
New Bill Would Require All Americans to Spy on Their Neighbors - Including Going Undercover and Wearing a Wire - or Face Jail Time

Instead of Dismantling Draconian, Unpopular Mandatory Minimum Sentences, Legislation Would Also Establish "Mandatory Minimums" for Every Federal Crime

A Senior Republican in Congress has proposed what would essentially be a draft for the War on Drugs. The legislation would require all Americans who witness or learn about certain drug offenses to report them to the police within 24 hours and go undercover and wear a wire to catch the offenders if ordered to do so - even if the offender is their son or daughter. Introduced by Congressman James Sensenbrenner (R-WI), the "Safe Access to Drug Treatment and Child Protection Act" (HR 1528), would also overturn a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision by making all federal sentencing guidelines essentially mandatory and enacting new draconian penalties for a variety of non-violent drug offenses.

"It’s frightening that a senior member of Congress wants to draft every American into the War on Drugs and make them agents of the state," said Bill Piper, director of national affairs for the Drug Policy Alliance. "This totalitarian legislation forces citizens to spy on each other and pits family member against family member."

NOW I don't support drugs or those who use them, but I will NEVER support a law that tells me I have to wear a wire to spy on my neighbor who would be obviously dangerous. I am not the Police and I will not put myself in harms way, because they spend my taxes on everything but police protection. In houston, a city of 4 million, there are 4000 cops, THATS a problem not a benifit.

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04-23-2007, 09:07 AM

ddoubleez

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Re: What are these freedoms we are fighting for?

The following is a Presedental Executive order 11000, which empowers the presedent to put us into forced labor in a national emergency. The law is crafted to where the presedent at a stroke of a pen can claim national emergency and congress can not revisit the decision for 6 months.

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Executive Order 11000
ASSIGNING EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS FUNCTIONS TO THE SECRETARY OF LABOR
SECTION 1. Scope. The Secretary of Labor (hereinafter referred to as the Secretary) shall prepare national emergency plans and develop preparedness programs covering civilian manpower mobilization, more effective utilization of limited manpower resources including specialized personnel, wage and salary stabilization, worker incentives and protection, manpower resources and requirements, skill development and training, research, labor-management relations, and critical occupations. These plans and programs shall be designed to develop a state of readiness in these areas with respect to all conditions of national emergency, including attack upon the United States.

SEC. 2. Functions. The Secretary shall:

(a) Civilian manpower mobilization. Develop plans and issue guidance designed to utilize to the maximum extent civilian manpower resources, such plans and guidance to be developed with the active participation and assistance of the States and local political subdivisions thereof, and of other organizations and agencies concerned with the mobilization of the people of the United States. Such plans shall include, but not necessarily be limited to:
(1) Manpower management. Recruitment, selection and referral, training, employment stabilization (including appeals procedures), proper utilization, and determination of the skill categories critical to meeting the labor requirements of defense and essential civilian activities.
(2) Priorities. Procedures for translating survival and production urgencies into manpower priorities to be used as guides for allocating available workers.

(3) National guidance. Technical guidance to States for the utilization of the nationwide system of public employment offices and other appropriate agencies for screening, recruiting, and referring workers, and for other appropriate activities to meet mobilization and civil defense needs in each community.

(4) Improving mobilization base. Programs for more effective utilization of limited manpower resources, and in cooperation with other appropriate agencies, programs for recruitment, training, allocation, and utilization of persons possessing specialized competence or aptitude in acquiring such competence.

(b) Wage and salary stabilization. Develop plans and procedures for wage and salary stabilization and for the national and field organization necessary for the administration of such a program in an emergency, including investigation, compliance and appeals procedures; statistical studies of wages, salaries and prices for policy decisions and to assist operating stabilization agencies to carry out their functions.
(c) Worker incentives and protection. Develop plans and procedures for wage and salary compensation and death and disability compensation for authorized civil defense workers and, as appropriate, measures for unemployment payments, re-employment rights, and occupational safety, and other protection and incentives for the civilian labor force during an emergency.

(d) Resources. Periodically assess manpower resources in total, by specific skills categories and occupations, and by geographical locations, in order to estimate availability under an emergency situation, analyze resource estimates in relation to estimated requirements in order to identify problem areas, and develop appropriate recommendations and programs. Provide data and assistance before and after attack for national resource evaluation purposes of the Office of Emergency Planning.

(e) Requirements. Develop, in coordination with manpower-usage agencies, plans, procedures and standards for presenting claims for civilian manpower, periodically obtain and analyze or make estimates of requirements for manpower, in total and by specific skill categories and occupations currently and for any emergency, taking into account the estimates of needs for military and civilian purposes; and advise other agencies on the manpower implications of alternative program decisions. Such evaluation shall take into consideration the geographical distribution of requirements under emergency conditions.

(f) Claimancy. Prepare plans to claim materials, equipment, supplies and services needed in support of assigned responsibilities and other essential functions of the Department from appropriate agencies and work with such agencies in developing programs to insure the availability of such resources in an emergency.

(g) Skill development and training. Initiate current action programs to overcome or offset present or anticipated manpower deficiencies including those identified as a result of resources and requirements studies.

(h) Labor-management relations. Develop, after consultation with the Department of Commerce, the Department of Defense, the National Labor Relations Board, the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, the National Mediation Board, and other appropriate agencies and groups including representatives of labor and management, plans and procedures including organization plans for the maintenance of effective labor-management relations during a national emergency.

(i) Damage assessment. Maintain a capability to assess the effects of attack upon manpower resources, departmental installations, and State Employment Security agencies, both at national and field levels, and provide data to the Department of Defense.

(j) Critical occupations. Develop and maintain a list of critical occupations for use, when appropriate, with lists of essential activities as developed by the Department of Commerce. With the Secretary of Defense, the Director of Selective Service System, and such other persons as the President may designate, the Secretary shall develop policies applicable to the deferment of registrants whose employment in occupations or activities is necessary to the maintenance of the national health, safety, or interest.

During world war two, we were encouraged to ration and provide for oursleves, but with the exception of the Japanese, it was all volentary.

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04-23-2007, 09:12 AM	#4
ddoubleez Test Tickel Join Date: Feb 2007 Location: houston, texas Posts: 1,769/2.53 Threads: 78 Friends Network	Re: What are these freedoms we are fighting for? Without Congressional approval, the President now has the power to transfer whole populations to any part of the country, the power to suspend the Press and to force a national registration of all persons. The President, in essence, has dictatorial powers never provided to him under the Constitution. The President has the power to suspend the Constitution and the Bill of Rights in a real or perceived emergency. Unlike Lincoln and Roosevelt, these powers are not derived from a wartime need, but from any crisis, domestic or foreign, hostile or economic. Roosevelt created extraordinary measures during the Great Depression, but any President faced with a similar, or lesser, economic crisis now has extraordinary powers to assume dictatorial status. Many of the Executive Orders cited here have been on the books for over a quarter of a century and have not been applied. Therefore, what makes them more dangerous today than yesteryear? There has been a steady, consistent series of new Executive Orders, originating from President Richard Nixon and added to by Presidents Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter and George Bush that provide an ominous Orwellian portrait, the portrait of George Orwell's 1984[QUOTE] EXECUTIVE ORDER 10990 allows the government to take over all modes of transportation and control of highways and seaports. EXECUTIVE ORDER 10995 allows the government to seize and control the communication media. EXECUTIVE ORDER 10997 allows the government to take over all electrical power, gas, petroleum, fuels and minerals. EXECUTIVE ORDER 10998 allows the government to take over all food resources and farms. EXECUTIVE ORDER 11000 allows the government to mobilize civilians into work brigades under government supervision. EXECUTIVE ORDER 11001 allows the government to take over all health, education and welfare functions. EXECUTIVE ORDER 11002 designates the Postmaster General to operate a national registration of all persons. EXECUTIVE ORDER 11003 allows the government to take over all airports and aircraft, including commercial aircraft. EXECUTIVE ORDER 11004 allows the Housing and Finance Authority to relocate communities, build new housing with public funds, designate areas to be abandoned, and establish new locations for populations. EXECUTIVE ORDER 11005 allows the government to take over railroads, inland waterways and public storage facilities. EXECUTIVE ORDER 11051 specifies the responsibility of the Office of Emergency Planning and gives authorization to put all Executive Orders into effect in times of increased international tensions and economic or financial crisis. EXECUTIVE ORDER 11310 grants authority to the Department of Justice to enforce the plans set out in Executive Orders, to institute industrial support, to establish judicial and legislative liaison, to control all aliens, to operate penal and correctional institutions, and to advise and assist the President.

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04-23-2007, 09:16 AM	#5
ddoubleez Test Tickel Join Date: Feb 2007 Location: houston, texas Posts: 1,769/2.53 Threads: 78 Friends Network	Re: What are these freedoms we are fighting for? Aug 12 2005, in a letter from the treasury deparment, the power to sieze assets (including gold and guns), makes the ownership of gold or silver illegal in a state of emergency, therefore making currency(which is attached to nothing of wealth) the only system of barter. You would not be able to feed yourself. The dollar is currently in a freefall, what will it be worth in an economic collaps.

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04-23-2007, 09:29 AM

ddoubleez

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Re: What are these freedoms we are fighting for?

They were spying on us before 9/11, what was the reason then.. It was not to 'get attackers'.

I hate Clinton for opening trade with China, it was the worst thing any president did until the attack on Iraq..... We shed 200 billion from our economy to drive a communsit country. Even Malcom X was smart enough to know to support a local economy, even if you hate him listen or read his ballad of the bullet. He lectures his people for spending money outside of their local economy, because it is counter productive.

Clintion, both Bushes, Reagan, Carter, and Nixon all spied for political gain. Reagan called in false alligations on rival actors to fbi to harrass them and we the people were ok with that and still voted him in!

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Executive Summary

In the greatest surveillance effort ever established, the US National Security Agency (NSA) has created a global spy system, codename ECHELON, which captures and analyzes virtually every phone call, fax, email and telex message sent anywhere in the world. ECHELON is controlled by the NSA and is operated in conjunction with the Government Communications Head Quarters (GCHQ) of England, the Communications Security Establishment (CSE) of Canada, the Australian Defense Security Directorate (DSD), and the General Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) of New Zealand. These organizations are bound together under a secret 1948 agreement, UKUSA, whose terms and text remain under wraps even today.

The ECHELON system is fairly simple in design: position intercept stations all over the world to capture all satellite, microwave, cellular and fiber-optic communications traffic, and then process this information through the massive computer capabilities of the NSA, including advanced voice recognition and optical character recognition (OCR) programs, and look for code words or phrases (known as the ECHELON “Dictionary”) that will prompt the computers to flag the message for recording and transcribing for future analysis. Intelligence analysts at each of the respective “listening stations” maintain separate keyword lists for them to analyze any conversation or document flagged by the system, which is then forwarded to the respective intelligence agency headquarters that requested the intercept.

But apart from directing their ears towards terrorists and rogue states, ECHELON is also being used for purposes well outside its original mission. The regular discovery of domestic surveillance targeted at American civilians for reasons of “unpopular” political affiliation or for no probable cause at all in violation of the First, Fourth and Fifth Amendments of the Constitution – are consistently impeded by very elaborate and complex legal arguments and privilege claims by the intelligence agencies and the US government. The guardians and caretakers of our liberties, our duly elected political representatives, give scarce attention to these activities, let alone the abuses that occur under their watch. Among the activities that the ECHELON targets are:

Political spying: Since the close of World War II, the US intelligence agencies have developed a consistent record of trampling the rights and liberties of the American people. Even after the investigations into the domestic and political surveillance activities of the agencies that followed in the wake of the Watergate fiasco, the NSA continues to target the political activity of “unpopular” political groups and our duly elected representatives. One whistleblower charged in a 1988 Cleveland Plain Dealer interview that, while she was stationed at the Menwith Hill facility in the 1980s, she heard real-time intercepts of South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond. A former Maryland Congressman, Michael Barnes, claimed in a 1995 Baltimore Sun article that under the Reagan Administration his phone calls were regularly intercepted, which he discovered only after reporters had been passed transcripts of his conversations by the White House. One of the most shocking revelations came to light after several GCHQ officials became concerned about the targeting of peaceful political groups and told the London Observer in 1992 that the ECHELON dictionaries targeted Amnesty International, Greenpeace, and even Christian ministries.

Commercial espionage: Since the demise of Communism in Eastern Europe, the intelligence agencies have searched for a new justification for their surveillance capability in order to protect their prominence and their bloated budgets. Their solution was to redefine the notion of national security to include economic, commercial and corporate concerns. An office was created within the Department of Commerce, the Office of Intelligence Liaison, to forward intercepted materials to major US corporations. In many cases, the beneficiaries of this commercial espionage effort are the very companies that helped the NSA develop the systems that power the ECHELON network. This incestuous relationship is so strong that sometimes this intelligence information is used to push other American manufacturers out of deals in favor of these mammoth US defense and intelligence contractors, who frequently are the source of major cash contributions to both political parties.

While signals intelligence technology was helpful in containing and eventually defeating the Soviet Empire during the Cold War, what was once designed to target a select list of communist countries and terrorist states is now indiscriminately directed against virtually every citizen in the world. The European Parliament is now asking whether the ECHELON communications interceptions violate the sovereignty and privacy of citizens in other countries. In some cases, such as the NSA’s Menwith Hill station in England, surveillance is conducted against citizens on their own soil and with the full knowledge and cooperation of their government.

This report suggests that Congress pick up its long-neglected role as watchdog of the Constitutional rights and liberties of the American people, instead of its current role as lap dog to the US intelligence agencies. Congressional hearings ought to be held, similar to the Church and Rockefeller Committee hearings held in the mid-1970s, to find out to what extent the ECHELON system targets the personal, political, religious, and commercial communications of American citizens. The late Senator Frank Church warned that the technology and capability embodied in the ECHELON system represented a direct threat to the liberties of the American people. Left unchecked, ECHELON could be used by either the political elite or the intelligence agencies themselves as a tool to subvert the civil protections of Constitution and to destroy representative government in the United States.

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04-23-2007, 09:40 AM

ddoubleez

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Re: What are these freedoms we are fighting for?

Your vote does not even count!

In 2001 Clint Eugine Curtis testified in involvement in voter fraud, where he testified that systems were designed to show a 49 to 51 percent split on the votes.

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Initial allegations against Yang Enterprises and Tom Feeney
In 2001, Curtis first achieved public attention for a series of allegations against his former employer, Yang Enterprises, and against Tom Feeney, who was at that time serving as a Florida state legislator and as Yang's attorney and as Yang's lobbyist for local governments.

On May 10, 2001, shortly after leaving Yang and accepting a job with the Florida Department of Transportation, Curtis reported that Yang had overbilled the FDOT and hired an illegal alien.[3] Approximately a year later, on April 1, 2002, Curtis and his supervisor were both fired, allegedly for violated FDOT policies.[4] (Although Curtis's supervisor later settled a retailiation lawsuit brought relating to her firing, Curtis reports that he did not sue because he "missed the filing deadline.")[5] During that same year, Curtis's accusations against Yang were the subject of a series of articles in the Daytona Beach News-Journal.[6]

Yang Enterprises denied Curtis's allegations, and alleged that Curtis was a disgruntled former employee. According to the St. Petersburg Times, Curtis made his initial accusations against Yang one day after attorneys for Yang Enterprises questioned whether Curtis' employment with the FDOT violated a non-compete agreement and whether Curtis had taken a confidential computer program with him when he left Yang. According to the St. Petersburg Times, "Curtis said he would not have filed complaints about Yang if the company had not harassed him."[3] Curtis denies that he stole any software from Yang Enterprises, and as of August 10, 2006, a lawsuit between Yang and Curtis was ongoing in Leon County, Florida.[5]

Ultimately, Curtis's initial allegations led to mixed results:

After investigation, the Florida Department of Transportation demanded that Yang repay $97,000 in "questionable charges," but was unable to conclude whether Yang had engaged in intentional misconduct, largely because of poor recordkeeping and Yang's refusal to permit the FDOT to audit Yang's files directly during the course of litigation.
A Florida state investigation concluded that the employee Curtis accused of being an illegal alien was in fact in the country legally. However, as a result of an unrelated 1999 federal investigation, that employee pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor count of shipping technology to China without proper records and received a fine of $100 and probation.[5]
Curtis's charges that then-state representative Tom Feeney improperly lobbied the Florida Department of Transportion on behalf of Yang, were considered, but ultimately rejected by the Florida State Commission on Ethics.[7]
In September 2004, Curtis self-published Just a fly on the wall, a book critical of the George W. Bush administration, Yang Enterprises, and Tom Feeney.[8],[5] In the edition of that book published before the 2004 election, Curtis focused on his earlier accusations against Yang, as well as accusations that Feeney used his influence with the Florida State government to Yang's benefit.[3], [5]

[edit] Vote-rigging allegations
Curtis specifically alleged that:

At the behest of Rep. Tom Feeney, in September 2000, he was asked to write a program for a touchscreen voting machine that would make it possible to change the results of an election undetectably. This technology, Curtis explained, could also be used in any electronic tabulation machine or scanner. Curtis assumed initially that this effort was aimed at detecting Democratic fraud, but later learned that it was intended to benefit the Republican Party.

West Palm Beach was named as an intended target, but used punched card ballots in the 2000 elections. Indeed, West Palm Beach was famous for the "hanging chad" recounts of that election.

Curtis explained that the software could be used in any electronic tabulation machine or scanner. He spoke about this to the Conyers Voting Forum, after Conyers left the forum and turned over the dais on December 13, 2004[citation needed].

[edit] Feeney's response to allegations
In 2005, Feeney responded to Curtis's allegations in a news article posted in the St. Petersburg Times. According to the newspaper, Feeney stated:

that he had no recollection of ever meeting Curtis or of discussing vote fraud with anyone;
that he could not have discussed a plan to commit fraud in touch screen voting machines in September or October 2000, as alleged by Curtis, because, "touch screen voting machines were not even contemplated until November 2000"; and
that although Curtis accused Feeney of a wide variety of misconduct in a 2004 book, Curtis never mentioned the alleged vote fraud scheme.[3]

Next:
George W. Bush’s vote tallies, especially in the key state of Florida, are so statistically stunning that they border on the unbelievable.

While it’s extraordinary for a candidate to get a vote total that exceeds his party’s registration in any voting jurisdiction – because of non-voters – Bush racked up more votes than registered Republicans in 47 out of 67 counties in Florida. In 15 of those counties, his vote total more than doubled the number of registered Republicans and in four counties, Bush more than tripled the number.

Statewide, Bush earned about 20,000 more votes than registered Republicans.

By comparison, in 2000, Bush’s Florida total represented about 85 percent of the total number of registered Republicans, about 2.9 million votes compared with 3.4 million registered Republicans.

Bush achieved these totals although exit polls showed him winning only about 14 percent of the Democratic vote statewide – statistically the same as in 2000 when he won 13 percent of the Democratic vote – and losing Florida’s independent voters to Kerry by a 57 percent to 41 percent margin. In 2000, Gore won the independent vote by a much narrower margin of 47 to 46 percent.

[For details on the Florida turnout in 2000, see h**p://www.msnbc.com/m/d2k/g/polls.asp?office=P&state=FL. For details on the 2004 Florida turnout, see h**p://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/pages/results/states/FL/P/00/index.html]

Exit Poll Discrepancies

Similar surprising jumps in Bush’s vote tallies across the country – especially when matched against national exits polls showing Kerry winning by 51 percent to 48 percent – have fed suspicion among rank-and-file Democrats that the Bush campaign rigged the vote, possibly through systematic computer hacking.

Republican pollster Dick Morris said the Election Night pattern of mistaken exit polls favoring Kerry in six battleground states – Florida, Ohio, New Mexico, Colorado, Nevada and Iowa – was virtually inconceivable.

“Exit polls are almost never wrong,” Morris wrote. “So reliable are the surveys that actually tap voters as they leave the polling places that they are used as guides to the relative honesty of elections in Third World countries. … To screw up one exit poll is unheard of. To miss six of them is incredible. It boggles the imagination how pollsters could be that incompetent and invites speculation that more than honest error was at play here.”

But instead of following his logic that the discrepancy suggested vote tampering – as it would in Latin America, Africa or Eastern Europe – Morris postulated a bizarre conspiracy theory that the exit polls were part of a scheme to have the networks call the election for Kerry and thus discourage Bush voters on the West Coast. Of course, none of the networks did call any of the six states for Kerry, making Morris’s conspiracy theory nonsensical. Nevertheless, some Democrats have agreed with Morris's bottom-line recommendation that the whole matter deserves “more scrutiny and investigation.” [The Hill, Nov. 8, 2004]

NOT TO MENTION HE WAS COURT APPOINTED, a first in american history. And the fact that he is a son of a former president, this would make him a prince not a president.

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04-23-2007, 09:41 AM	#8
ddoubleez Test Tickel Join Date: Feb 2007 Location: houston, texas Posts: 1,769/2.53 Threads: 78 Friends Network	Re: What are these freedoms we are fighting for? Those who vote decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything. Josef Stalin

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04-23-2007, 09:52 AM

ddoubleez

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Re: What are these freedoms we are fighting for?

Forced vaccinations of even experimental drugs or identification devices for tracking:

Senate Bill 1873:

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The National Vaccine Information Center, the country’s largest and oldest consumer-led vaccine safety organization, has issued a “Code Red Alert” against S 1873, the “Biodefense and Pandemic Vaccine and Drug Development Act of 2005” -- a newly introduced congressional bill that would allow rapid development of certain drugs and vaccines, at the same time shielding the manufacturers from liability, even if their products turn out to be lethal.

Nicknamed BioShield Two, after a related measure passed and signed into law last year [PL 108-296], S 1873 is a “drug company stockholder’s dream and a consumer’s worst nightmare,” says Barbara Loe Fisher, president of NVIC, in a hard-hitting press release. “The legislation will eliminate both regulatory and legal safeguards applied to vaccines, as well as take away the right of children and adults harmed by vaccines and drugs to present their case in front of a jury in a civil court of law.”

Sharing Fisher’s concerns, journalism professor John Hanchette, rips S 1873 in the Niagara Falls Reporter, calling the 88-page proposed measure “a legislative genuflection to Big Pharma the steamroller, powerful drug-making sector of the economy. The pharmaceutical mega-firms contribute millions to the coffers of congressional members, but if this is signed into law, they potentially could save billions."

“This bill is a slavering wolverine masquerading as a furry little lab rat,” Hanchette declares.

And that slavering wolverine is running on a fast track, its progress on the Hill fueled by media-generated hysteria about bird flu.

“The legislation is being rushed through Congress without time for voters to make their voices heard by their elected representatives,” Fisher warns.

Authored and introduced by Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., S 1873 sailed through the powerful Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee following a voice vote on Tuesday, Oct. 18, just one day after it was introduced.

It could land on the Senate floor any time this week or next and be approved without debate or roll call. Opponents fear a similar bill is being readied on the House side, but is being kept under wraps, away from public scrutiny.

To the bill’s author and co-sponsors -- Republican Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn.; Senate HELP Committee Chairman Mike Enzi, R-Wy.; and Senate Budget Committee Chairman Judd Gregg, R-N.H. -- S 1873 is all about public safety, anti-terrorism and the national defense.

“We need to improve our ability to prepare for, and respond to, bioterrorism attacks and natural outbreaks with a comprehensive approach,” said Sen. Burr, who chairs the HELP Subcommittee on Bioterrorism and Public Health Preparedness where the bill sat momentarily before being rushed to the full committee.

Burr told the committee that S 1873 “creates a true partnership” between the federal government, the pharmaceutical industry and academia to walk the drug companies “through the Valley of Death” in bringing a new vaccine to market. It will give the Department of Health and Human Services “additional authority and resources to partner with the private sector to rapidly develop drugs and vaccines.”

Specifically, S 1873 would:

Set up a new agency -- the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Agency, or BARDA, to be the single point of authority within the federal government for the advanced research and development of medical countermeasures, including drugs and vaccines, in response to bioterrorism and natural disease outbreaks.

Encourage potential researchers, manufacturers, and health care delivery partners to commit substantial resources to bring new drugs and vaccines to market more quickly.

Provide incentive for the domestic manufacturing of medical countermeasures for pandemic and epidemic diseases.

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The senator does not explain that Sec. 6 of the bill amends the Public Health Service Act [in Title 42 of the U.S. Code] by inserting a provision that manufacturers, distributors, and administrators of “a security countermeasure, or a qualified pandemic or epidemic product,” and health care providers using the product “shall be immune from suit or liability caused by or arising out of the design, development, clinical testing and investigation, manufacturing,” and so on, of the product.

“…No cause of action shall exist against a person described in subsection (a) for claims for loss of property, personal injury, or death arising out of, reasonably relating to, or resulting from the design, development, sale… use” … of a product “that is a designated security countermeasure or a qualified pandemic or epidemic product by the Secretary [of HHS] in a declaration …”

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