Forced lockdown of a city. Militarized police riding tanks in the streets. Door-to-door armed searches without warrant. Families thrown out of their homes at gunpoint to be searched without probable cause. Businesses forced to close. Transport shut down.

These were not the scenes from a military coup in a far off banana republic, but rather the scenes just over a week ago in Boston as the United States got a taste of martial law. The ostensible reason for the military-style takeover of parts of Boston was that the accused perpetrator of a horrific crime was on the loose. The Boston bombing provided the opportunity for the government to turn what should have been a police investigation into a military-style occupation of an American city. This unprecedented move should frighten us as much or more than the attack itself.

What has been sadly forgotten in all the celebration of the capture of one suspect and the killing of his older brother is that the police state tactics in Boston did absolutely nothing to catch them. While the media crowed that the apprehension of the suspects was a triumph of the new surveillance state – and, predictably, many talking heads and Members of Congress called for even more government cameras pointed at the rest of us – the fact is none of this caught the suspect. Actually, it very nearly gave the suspect a chance to make a getaway.

The “shelter in place” command imposed by the governor of Massachusetts was lifted before the suspect was caught. Only after this police state move was ended did the owner of the boat go outside to check on his property, and in so doing discover the suspect.

No, the suspect was not discovered by the paramilitary troops terrorizing the public. He was discovered by a private citizen, who then placed a call to the police. And he was identified not by government surveillance cameras, but by private citizens who willingly shared their photographs with the police.

As journalist Tim Carney wrote last week:

“Law enforcement in Boston used cameras to ID the bombing suspects, but not police cameras. Instead, authorities asked the public to submit all photos and videos of the finish-line area to the FBI, just in case any of them had relevant images. The surveillance videos the FBI posted online of the suspects came from private businesses that use surveillance to punish and deter crime on their property.”

Sadly, we have been conditioned to believe that the job of the government is to keep us safe, but in reality the job of the government is to protect our liberties. Once the government decides that its role is to keep us safe, whether economically or physically, they can only do so by taking away our liberties. That is what happened in Boston.

Three people were killed in Boston and that is tragic. But what of the fact that over 40 persons are killed in the United States each day, and sometimes ten persons can be killed in one city on any given weekend? These cities are not locked-down by paramilitary police riding in tanks and pointing automatic weapons at innocent citizens.

This is unprecedented and is very dangerous. We must educate ourselves and others about our precious civil liberties to ensure that we never accept demands that we give up our Constitution so that the government can pretend to protect us.

Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit is given.

The front desk called called nervously as we closed in on a half hour before the press conference start time on April 17th. Two young men fully dressed in Ron Paul regalia, but unfortunately of the t-shirt and shorts variety, were desperate to get in to the press conference announcing Ron Paul’s new Institute for Peace and Prosperity. Unfortunately the venue had a dress code, and shorts and t-shirts were definitely out, Ron Paul fans or not. The young men were dejected, pleading with the front desk as I arrived downstairs.

“Please please if we can put some better clothes on can we come in to the conference,” they asked desperately. They pointed to a small group going upstairs in only slightly-more-formal-than-shorts jeans and casual button-down shirts, who somehow squeaked through the watchful eyes of the establishment.

I smiled and joked, “surely you can do better than that, but sure come back when you have changed.”

I rushed back upstairs to try and handle the million and one details and forgot about it.

After the conference up to me came two beaming fellows in matching but hilariously goofy khaki pants and pink shirts (one not very well-fitting). Twins of very different races.

“Hey, do you remember us? We were the guys who showed up in shorts! We ran as fast as we could to Union Station, grabbed some decent clothes, told the clerk not to bother to fold them or put them in a bag, dressed in the street as we ran back to the press conference! And here we are!”

I was so impressed with these young men. With their dedication and their determination. These are the types of supporters that Ron Paul has motivated and excited throughout the country and beyond. What a thrill to have people like that interested in Dr. Paul’s new venture. We will strive to live up to their hopes and expectations.

The press conference went off without a hitch, as can be seen in the video. It was standing room only and there were so many friends and colleagues who came out to see us, including a healthy delegation from the former Ron Paul Congressional office. Many of these are spread by the winds to different fields. But as we have all discovered, in a strange way we are all still colleagues and when we get together we still speak very much the same language. Even Dr. Paul has noticed this, remarking the other day how pleased he was that we all seemed to have a shared identity and retained collegiality.

My friend Oleg Kravchenko, acting Ambassador from Belarus, showed up to the event. Regardless of what one may feel about the internal political and economic dynamics of Belarus, my friendship with Oleg dates back to our shared opposition to the constant US intervention in the internal affairs of that country. How many millions of our tax dollars have been wasted trying to overthrow a leader in Belarus who means the US no harm and in fact would love to cultivate better relations? But US foreign policy is a zero sum game – do what we say and we will subsidize you, resist and we will overrthrow you or bomb you. There is simply no place for those who would rather pursue their own economic and political destinies – a phenomenon thhat logic would suggest is a natural development at the end of communist forced conformity.

Even many who call themselves “libertarian” refuse to consider this part of non-interventionism – leaving the other guy alone even if you disagree with how he is doing things. Like a know-it-all neighbor, they demand countries like Cuba and Belarus and China, and so on, do as we say or else. This is the point where they toss the non-aggression theory out the window and become indistinguishable from the neo-conservatives.

Oleg was one of the speakers at Dr. Paul’s regular Thursday luncheon group back in the Congressional office, delivering a message about the millions of dollars in lost trade and business opportunities for Americans in his country because of the wrong-headed US policy of sanctions to force “democratization.” Is it any more moral for the US government to deny its citizens the right to invest and profit from business activity in Belarus than any policy pursued by the government in Minsk?

This will be a focus of the Institute – the unintended consequencess of interventionism. Opposing an interventionist foreign policy is far more than simply being antiwar. US war on a foreign country is most often the last stages of a long policy of interventionism and internal manipulation. Non-interventionism begins with the first stages of attempted manipulation. From the National Endowment for Democracy, a thirty year plus neo-con regime change piggy bank, to cut-out funding of NGOs by USAID, who endeavor to influence elections overseas or to undermine governments who do not do as they are told, interventionism is at its core a violation of the golden rule and as such is to be resisted from its very conception. No more color revolutions in Ukraine, Iran, Moldova, Georgia, Venezuela, and so on. The track record is a disaster. And it is immoral. We must do better.

More on the press conference soon, but in the meantime you can now follow the Institute on Twitter @RonPaulInstitut and on Facebook as well.

Daniel McAdams is Executive Director of the Ron Paul Institute.

This week, as Americans were horrified by the attacks in Boston, both houses of Congress considered legislation undermining our liberty in the name of “safety.”  Gun control continued to be the focus of the Senate, where an amendment expanding federal “background checks” to gun show sales and other private transfers dominated the debate.  While the background check amendment failed to pass, proponents of gun control have made it clear they will continue their efforts to enact new restrictions on gun ownership into law.

While it did not receive nearly as much attention as the debate on gun control, the House of Representatives passed legislation with significant implications for individual liberty: the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA).  CISPA proponents claim that the legislation is necessary to protect Americans from foreign “cyber terrorists,” but the real effect of this bill will be to further erode Americans’ online privacy.

Under CISPA, Internet corporations are authorized to hand over the private information of American citizens to federal agents, as long as they can justify the violation of your privacy in the name of protecting “cyber security”.  Among the items that may be shared are your e-mails, browsing history, and online transactions.

Like the PATRIOT Act, CISPA violates the fourth amendment by allowing federal agencies to obtain private information without first seeking a warrant from a federal judge. The law also allows federal agencies to pass your information along to other federal bureaucrats — again without obtaining a warrant.  And the bill provides private companies with immunity from lawsuits regardless of the damage done to anyone whose personal information is shared with the government.

CISPA represents a troubling form of corporatism, where large companies cede their responsibility to protect their property to the federal government, at the expense of their customers’ privacy and liberty. In this respect, CISPA can be thought of as an electronic version of the Transportation Security Administration, which has usurped the authority over airline security from private airlines. However, CISPA will prove to be far more invasive than even the most robust TSA screening.

CISPA and the gun control bill are only the most recent examples of politicians manipulating fear to con the people into giving up their liberties.  Of course, the people are told the legislation is for  “limited purposes,” but authority granted to government is rarely, if ever, used solely for the purpose for which it is granted. For example, the American people were promised that the extraordinary powers granted the government by the PATRIOT Act would only be used against terrorism. Yet soon after the bill became law, reports surfaced that it was being used for non-terrorism purposes. In fact, according to data compiled by the American Civil Liberties Union, 76 percent of the uses of the controversial “sneak-and-peak” warrants where related to the war on drugs!

Sadly, I expect this week’s tragic attacks in Boston to be used to justify new restrictions on liberty. Within 48 hours of the attack in Boston, at least one Congressman was calling for increased use of surveillance cameras to expand the government’s ability to monitor our actions, while another Senator called for a federal law mandating background checks before Americans can buy “explosive powder.”

I would not be surprised if the Transportation Security Administration uses this tragedy to claim new authority to “screen” Americans before they can attend sporting or other public events. The Boston attack may also be used as another justification for creating a National ID Card tied to a federal database with “biometric” information. The only thing that will stop them is if the American people rediscover the wisdom of Benjamin Franklin that you cannot achieve security by allowing government to take their liberties.

As we see each new administration, regardless of claimed ideological or political differences, pursuing the same destructive policies abroad and trampling our civil liberties at home, we must now face the key issues of our time. The issues of war or peace, republic or empire, liberty at home or the encroaching police state, can no longer be ignored. We find ourselves at the edge of a precipice, where it is obvious that the failed policies of the past cannot be repackaged under a new name to solve our crisis today.

Many still believe each four years that if only their candidate – with the newly-minted and freshly-printed slogans – is elected, we will finally be led to a new springtime in America, to peaceful and prosperous days ahead. But regardless of party, with only cosmetic differences the same policies are being pursued.

Those disgusted by the wars pursued by the Bush Administration, based on lies and manipulation, eagerly waved signs welcoming “change” and voted for new management. But the new manager turned out to be just as bad as the previous one, and in many cases even worse.

The festering wound called Guantanamo Bay has not been closed even as most of its dehumanized prisoners have been cleared for release. Those left there, most of whom not found guilty of anything, are resorting to secret hunger strikes in the hopes of perishing in peace rather than being forced to endure the misery.

The current administration has taken its predecessor’s flirtation with the use of drones to kill anonymously anywhere it chooses and turned it into the cornerstone of US foreign policy.

In Pakistan alone, this administration has killed nearly four thousand people, many of them civilians, with drone strikes. By some estimates, including a recent study by Stanford University, as many as 50 civilians are killed by drones for every terrorist. The administration uses “signatures” to determine who to kill, but these behavior patterns are not at all defined and most often encompass the normal day-to-day activities of farmers and others in Pakistan and elsewhere.

When the administration was forced recently to answer the question of whether it believed it had the legal right to kill Americans on American soil by drone strike, it did not, contrary to press coverage, deny that “right.” Instead, it merely reassured us that it would not kill any American at home by drone who was not considered a “combatant.” And who determines that? Under the precedent set by the previous Bush Administration, it is claimed the president has that imperial privilege.

Just a couple of years ago, Congress passed and the president signed a military spending authorization bill, the NDAA for 2012, which told the president that he has the right to indefinitely detain anyone, even Americans on US soil, indefinitely and without trial if he determines they have provided any sort of material support for terrorist groups or associated forces. What does “material” and “associated” mean? They won’t tell us.

Congress has allowed itself to be made irrelevant, behaving like children while deferring to the president the important decisions it is required to make by the Constitution. On Iraq, Congress left it to the president to decide what to do. On Libya, when in 2011 the president launched an illegal war under false pretenses, Congress did not bother to make a sound. As the president commits the US military to acts of war — covert and overt — against Iran, Syria, Mali, and so on, Congress watches meekly on the sidelines.

There are exceptions, of course, including many Members I have worked closely with over the years in attempt to win our colleagues back over to the side of the Constitution. Many of these friends and former colleagues continue this struggle from inside and they should be commended and supported. I am afraid they are at present still a small minority, largely ignored by House leadership of both parties. But their ranks are growing.

The framers of the Constitution viewed Congress not only as a co-equal branch, but as the first among equals — the people’s branch of government. The people’s branch has nearly lost all relevance today. No wonder poll after poll shows that the American people are disgusted with the whole process. According to the most recent Rasmussen survey, only eight percent of Americans believe Congress is doing a good job, and 53 percent of those surveyed do not believe either party really represents the American people.

We need something new.

We need a hard look at the key issues of our time: the future of freedom, the future of the human race, and of the United States. Neither the Republican nor the Democrat party are pro-peace. They are merely partisan. How many of our pro-peace allies during the Bush administration have disappeared now that a Democrat is in office pursuing the same policies? Also, see how many of the Bush-era hawks have questioned “Obama’s wars” only for petty partisan reasons. It is about political advantage rather than principle. But this is all coming to an end. It cannot be sustained. Every day more and more come over to our camp, the non-interventionists.

At the hands of the warmongers millions have died for nothing. Iraq, Korea, Iran, Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Mali, Venezuela, Iraq, Yemen, Somalia, Sudan, and so on. How can we even know the full extent?

According to the US Special Operations Forces commander, Adm. William H. McRaven, testifying before the Senate Armed Services emerging threats subcommittee earlier this month, “On any day of the year you will find special operations forces [in] somewhere between 70 and 90 countries around the world.”

Why? To what end? And most importantly, where is the authorization? On whose permission does the US Special Forces Command conduct war in 70 to 90 countries at any given time? Are there stacks of hidden declarations of war somewhere that no American knows about? The constitution gives the president no power at all to make war on any given day in 70 to 90 countries, to use secret forces to undermine domestic political currents in favor of movements and politicians that the US elites judge to be “in line” with their interests. Again it is the sign of a nation that has lost its way.

It is time for us to stand up for peace, a peace that is intricately connected to justice, shared human values, and prosperity. A peace that leaves us safer than the empty lies of the warmongers. A peace that leaves our economic future with some glimmer of hope, that leaves our next generations with some glimmer of hope. A peace that frees up the economic resources that can prevent our children from being slaves to the impoverishing imperial ambitions of those directing our current foreign policy.

We are the real patriots. We believe in the United States. We believe the time is now to advance our issues as they have never been advanced before. Above all, we are the optimists. We believe in a brighter future.

The Cold War, as we now know, was itself largely hyped up by beneficiaries of the military build-up, but at the very least we should have expected at the end of the thousands of missiles pointed at us some sort of peace dividend. Instead, thanks to those whose careers and fortunes depended in some manner on the military industrial complex, we stumbled from the end of the war on communism to the war to control the world. This war has failed.

This is the agenda that we are going to advance. This is why I have decided to found my own peace institute that seeks friends and allies beyond all political, party, and ideological lines. We have a great battle of ideas ahead of us. It is time for all like-minded individuals, regardless of political, ideological, or other orientation to join this battle of ideas. We are ready to provide guidance.

I feel so strongly about this issue, the issue of war and peace at home and abroad, that I have for the first time given my name to an institute.

We do not have to agree on every single issue. We should tolerate those views that we may otherwise find objectionable — as long as they do not contradict our main shared values: an end to the American empire overseas and the assault on our civil liberties at home. At the end of my 2008 presidential run I gathered together the candidates of the “minor” political parties to see whether we could find some common ground, to see whether there might be some momentum to push forward a new kind of program beyond the domination of the two major parties. The joint statement we came up with then can very well serve as a guideline for our shared mission to restore peace and liberty to this country. To secure a better future for coming generations.

The statement reads:

We Agree

Foreign Policy: The Iraq War must end as quickly as possible with removal of all our soldiers from the region. We must initiate the return of our soldiers from around the world, including Korea, Japan, Europe and the entire Middle East. We must cease the war propaganda, threats of a blockade and plans for attacks on Iran, nor should we re-ignite the cold war with Russia over Georgia. We must be willing to talk to all countries and offer friendship and trade and travel to all who are willing. We must take off the table the threat of a nuclear first strike against all nations.

Privacy: We must protect the privacy and civil liberties of all persons under US jurisdiction. We must repeal or radically change the Patriot Act, the Military Commissions Act, and the FISA legislation. We must reject the notion and practice of torture, eliminations of habeas corpus, secret tribunals, and secret prisons. We must deny immunity for corporations that spy willingly on the people for the benefit of the government. We must reject the unitary presidency, the illegal use of signing statements and excessive use of executive orders.

The National Debt: We believe that there should be no increase in the national debt. The burden of debt placed on the next generation is unjust and already threatening our economy and the value of our dollar. We must pay our bills as we go along and not unfairly place this burden on a future generation.

The Federal Reserve: We seek a thorough investigation, evaluation and audit of the Federal Reserve System and its cozy relationships with the banking, corporate, and other financial institutions. The arbitrary power to create money and credit out of thin air behind closed doors for the benefit of commercial interests must be ended. There should be no taxpayer bailouts of corporations and no corporate subsidies. Corporations should be aggressively prosecuted for their crimes and frauds.

This is an historic moment. The era of the neo-conservative control over our foreign policy is passing. Those pushing authoritarianism at home are being challenged and rejected. The American people are turning away from a foreign policy of empire because they understand that they cannot afford it, that it does not make us safer but rather the opposite; that the price of empire abroad is a police state at home, and that throughout history all empires fall and fall in a catastrophic way. We can avoid this terrible fate if we stand up together.

Please, join us. Support our efforts. Become involved in our mission. Peace and prosperity.