Part 5 (2/2)

Laws can be repealed, but treaties cannot. The Supremacy Clause of the US Const.i.tution characterizes all treaties as ”the supreme law of the land” akin to const.i.tutional provisions. Treaties supersede acts of Congress or of the various state legislatures and American courts are required to enforce these treaties in most instances. There are only two ways to get out of a treaty: (1) if the other signatories let us (all 190 nations that sign them in most cases) or (2) by pa.s.sing a const.i.tutional amendment.

The treaties Obama and Hillary are rus.h.i.+ng to completion will permanently cede vast swaths of our national sovereignty to the UN.

We wrote briefly about these treaties in ”Tricks or Treaties,” chapter 2 of our previous book, Screwed!. But since that book's publication in early May 2012, these threats to our freedom have multiplied and gained momentum even as brand new threats-as that to Internet freedom-have come into public view. So we write this volume to explain the a.s.sault against our values and our nationhood so we can act to preserve our country from these threats while there is still time.

Here's what Obama and Hillary are trying to do:

Law of the Sea Treaty

Signed by the president. Up for Senate ratification before the end of the year, it would:

Give the UN control of the 71 percent of the earth's surface covered by oceans and seas and all minerals and fish underneath.

It would likely subject the US to international rules on carbon emissions such as the Kyoto Treaty (never ratified by the Senate) and might be used to force us into a global cap-and-trade system.

It would curb the ability of the US Navy to perform its historic mission of protecting freedom of the seas and vest the power in a tribunal appointed by the UN secretary-general.

Give the International Seabed Authority-a group of 193 nations in which we would have but one vote-the power to tax offsh.o.r.e oil and gas wells and pay the revenues, at their discretion, to any third world nation it chooses.

Oblige our oil and gas companies to share, for free, all of our most modern offsh.o.r.e drilling technology.

UN Control of the Internet

A treaty giving the United Nations control over the Internet is now under negotiation (in secret). Responding to proposals by Russia, China, Brazil, and India, the negotiators hope to present a final treaty for signature by the nations of the world at a conference in Dubai in December 2012. It would:

Give the UN power to regulate online content.

Allow nations to inspect private email communications by their citizens.

Permit nations to charge Internet traffic coming in from abroad a fee akin to that charged for long-distance phone calls. So Google, Facebook, Apple, etc., would have to pay tolls to send their content into these nations.

Give the UN authority to allocate Internet addresses and require it to turn over to member nations (like China) the IP addresses (a unique set of numbers that indicate the geographic location of each and every computer) of each user.

The negotiations are ongoing. The US negotiators will probably succeed in diluting some of these provisions, but the chances for eventual pa.s.sage of these destructive changes is such that Vinton Cerf, one of the two founders of the Internet, said that the free Internet is now under more threat than ever before.

Gun Control

At a global meeting in New York on July 27, 2012, the nations of the world-including the US-were scheduled sign an Arms Trade Treaty (ATT), which will empower an international body to regulate the international arms trade. Its goal is eventually to establish a system of worldwide gun control. While paying lip service to the right of private individuals to own, buy, sell, or transfer arms, the body will have a life of its own and the power to require of the signatory nations measures to effectuate the goal of the treaty. These could include gun confiscation and will almost certainly call for universal registration and licensing.

And the global governing body the treaty establishes can pa.s.s whatever rules it wants without having to come back to the Senate or to any national legislative body for approval.

The treaty signing was canceled after fifty-one senators said they would oppose its ratification. But it is likely to be approved and finalized by a two-thirds vote of the General a.s.sembly of the UN. Then it would go into effect if ratified by sixty-five nations (easily done). At that point, the US could either sign it or not. If it signed the treaty, we would be bound, under the Vienna Convention, until it was rejected for Senate ratification or renounced by a future president.

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