Today in History - Sep 23 - The McCarran Internal Security Act

September 23 is the anniversary of The McCarran Internal Security Act of 1950. It gave the totalitarian government overwhelming power to oppress its political opponents. Specifically designed to allow the government to crack down on the communist party, it authorised the government to spy on its own citizens and detain them without cause. (Amusingly enough, it also made it a felony to make steps to making a totalitarian government. The congressmen involved saw no jail time). This was too much even for the mass murderer Harry Truman, who was president at the time. He had this to say about the bill:

It would put the Government of the United States in the thought control business

It would give Government officials vast powers to harass all of our citizens in the exercise of their right of free speech.

Congress passed it anyway. It was later amended due to protests from the ethnic Japanese survivors of the WW2 concentration camps in the US, to have the bit about rounding up communists and putting them in concentration camps. Having been through that quite recently, they didn't want a repeat. It took 21 years to win that argument. The rest of the law was repealed in 1993 after the fall of the Soviet Union.

This whole law illustrates that justice in the USA is neither blind nor fair. Whilst accusing their enemies of arbitrarily locking up political opponents and silencing opposition, they are passing laws that explicitly allow them to do just that. Only being repealed because of loud outcry from the people who they'd previously done it to.

This day also saw Emitt Till's murderers go free in 1955. (mentioned briefly on the day of the murder) Further demonstrating that the US's vaunted human rights are only for some humans.

"We wouldn't have taken so long if we hadn't stopped to drink pop."

You're only free if you're a white coloniser.