Lose The L.O.S.T.!!....UPDATED

What is L.O.S.T.? The Law of The Sea Treaty was drawn up by The United Nations. That, in and of itself, is reason enough to oppose this treaty. to truly understand LOST, there is a video series here and therein one will find the treaty and the ramifications thereof fully explained. The treaty would subject the United States to the authority of the United nations. This is totally unacceptable.

We have been fighting for years to prevent Senate ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. This very objectionable treaty would put the United States in a de facto world government; it went into effect in 1994 but was never ratified by the U.S. Senate. Shocking as it is, President Bush is lobbying hard for passage of this massive, unprecedented redistribution of wealth from the United States to other countries. The Senate held a hearing last week, and is now poised to approve this treaty sometime before Congress' Christmas break. Please help us stop this very real threat to our sovereignty, security and economic health.

As you no doubt remember, this very dangerous treaty will seriously diminish our national sovereignty by transferring jurisdiction over the world's oceans and everything in them to United Nations agencies and bureaucrats. Yet I would remind you of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Black's admonition in Reid v. Covert, 354 U.S. 1 (1957), when he reminded us that our civil liberties cannot be subordinated by a treaty, by stating:

"It would be manifestly contrary to the objectives of those who created the Constitution, as well as those who were responsible for the Bill of Rights - let alone alien to our entire constitutional history and tradition - to construe Article VI as permitting the United States to exercise power under an international agreement without observing constitutional prohibitions. The court has regularly and uniformly recognized the supremacy of the Constitution over a treaty."

Yet today several U.S. Supreme Court justices are on record as using, and urging other justices to use, foreign law in deciding U.S. cases!

The LOST convention's purpose it to benefit Third World countries by fining and punishing the wealth and technological advantages of the industrialized West. The convention would subject our governmental, military and business operations to mandatory dispute resolution. Any disputes would be decided by the U.N. International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, a 21-member body representing 155 countries envious of American ingenuity and prosperity. The United States would have only one vote with which to protect American investment, and the transfer of sensitive, militarily useful and proprietary private technologies, and forced compliance with the Kyoto Protocol.

The LOST convention would be an open invitation to activist judges to interpret the convention's intentionally vague provisions against our national security and economic interests. In point of fact, were our Senate to approve the LOST convention, the odds are roughly 155 to 1 that the LOST tribunal would vote to cede U.S. claims to the North Pole and its oil riches to the Russians.

The LOST convention is a global tax mechanism, by which greedy U.N. hands will grab for billions of primarily American dollars to benefit corrupt nations around the world. The convention sets up a scheme to facilitate bribes and payoffs to U.N. officials that could make the U.N.'s oil-for-food scandal look like child's play. The Law of the Sea Treaty must be sunk!

This treaty cannot be allowed to be ratified and the ones cramming this treaty through the Senate must be arrested and tried for violating their Oaths of Office. This very treaty is an act of sabotage of American Sovereignty, plain and simple. International Law does NOT have authority over the Constitution of The United States unless, naturally, our CONgress Critters sign its citizens over to the United Nations.

Consider this an Emergency Action Alert.

ACTION TO TAKE

1. Contact your Senators (www.thomas.gov).

2. Contact Senator Mitch McConnell, Senate Minority Leader. Senator McConnell leads a block of 49 Republican votes - we only need 34 to stop LOST. Pressure on Senator McConnell is one of our best chances to stop this treaty.

3. Contact the White House (www.whitehouse.gov/contact/).

Tell them the Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST) remains a seriously flawed document, designed to transfer wealth and technology from industrialized states to those of the Third World. It is anathema to our Founding Principles and will threaten our national sovereignty.

Tell them the best protection of U.S. interests in the world's oceans is the U.S. Navy, which should not and must not be subject to orders or regulations made by any international tribunal.

Phone calls are the most effective way to contact your elected representatives. We may not have time to submit written letters. Call the Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121. The switchboard operator will connect you directly with the Senate office you request. To contact the White House, you have the choice of leaving comments at (202) 456-1111, or talk with a live switchboard operator at (202) 456-1414, or fax at (202) 456-2461.

E-mails and faxes are many times ignored. Members of Congress have been changing their e-mail addresses and fax numbers when we send out alerts. If you prefer, though, you can send an e-mail by going to each member's website at www.thomas.gov.

If you choose to write, and do not know your Senators' mailing addresses, you may simply address your letters as follows:

Office of Senator (Name)
United States Senate
Washington, D.C. 20510

Should we do nothing, it won't be long before the United Stats is no longer the United States and we won't have a Constitution to stand on.

Join Senator Vitter:

Sen. Vitter Leads Assault on Sea Treaty

By Cliff Kincaid

The Senate battle over ratification of Law of the Sea Treaty (United Nations Convention on Law of the Sea - Provides universal control for the management of marine natural resources and shipping rights. Opened for signature on December 10, 1982 ) is heating up and may be brought to vote this month. If passed, it will destroy American Sovereignty. Sen. Vitter is bravely standing against all globalist forces that want to de-nationalize the United States. Now is the time for you to make your opinions known to your Senators!

We cannot stand idly by and watch the elitists sell us to the World Courts.

Which flag shall we fly?


This is NOT my flag...

Threat Level

SEVERE

Quin Hillyer
Michelle Malkin

Track back: Miss Beth's Victory Dance

Wake Up America

UPDATE: check Col North's article at Townhall. Permission Slip For The Sea

WASHINGTON -- In his 2004 State of the Union Address, President Bush said, "America will never seek a permission slip to defend the security of our country." Members of both parties and both houses of Congress applauded. But if the Senate votes to ratify the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea -- known as the Law of the Sea Treaty -- or its appropriate acronym -- LOST -- he and his successors are going to need lots of permission slips.

In 1982, Ronald Reagan, concerned about the treaty's implications for our sovereignty and national security, formally rejected LOST because it did "not satisfy the objectives sought by the United States." In 1994, William Jefferson Clinton, eager to appease One World Government advocates in his own party and at the United Nations, negotiated a parallel "agreement" that purported to address Mr. Reagan's concerns -- and urged ratification. Since then, LOST has gathered dust in the bowels of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee. All that may be about to change. The deeply flawed, Soviet-era agreement giving unelected, unaccountable international bureaucrats control over 71 percent of the Earth's surface is now on a fast track to ratification.

Advocates for LOST -- among them Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joe Biden, D-Del. -- claim that the Clinton-negotiated parallel "agreement" eliminates concerns about empowering international organizations to collect heavy fees or interfere with the U.S. military or intelligence collection. Yet a careful reading of LOST's 202 pages -- and the so-called agreement -- proves that's not true.

The U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea already has created a Byzantine array of international organizations to administer the provisions of LOST. Everything from compliance with global environmental agreements, to the collection of "user fees" from private companies, to disputes about military operations above, on or under international waters are subject to mandatory dispute resolution by one or more of these international bodies.

According to the U.N., the purpose of LOST is to preserve international waters for peaceful purposes. But Articles 19 and 20 of the treaty would proscribe the U.S. Navy from training with weapons, collecting intelligence or interfering with enemy communications in the territorial waters of other countries without their expressed permission. Military aircraft are prohibited specifically from taking off and landing in these waters, and severe limitations would be imposed on loading and unloading "any commodity, currency or person" including military equipment. Submarines are required to travel on the surface and "show their flag in territorial waters." Article 30 states that warships not complying with the laws of a coastal nation can be forced to leave. Disputes about these issues would be adjudicated by international lawyers. Right.

LOST's proponents discount these concerns by claiming the U.S. simply will exempt military activities from the treaty's compulsory dispute resolution requirements. However, the "opt out" clause in Article 298 fails to define such operations. In our own Congress, intelligence functions are not considered to be military activities, so it is far from certain that the U.N. would accept the U.S. position that intelligence operations over, on or under the seas are indeed military activities. If there is a dispute as to what is or isn't a military activity, LOST requires the matter to be resolved by international arbitration.

In 2003, Navy Adm. Michael Mullen, now the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that rulings from these arbitration panels "could have an impact on operational planning and activities, and our security." Last week, in response to questions from Sen. David Vitter, R-La., during a committee hearing, professor Bernard Oxman, a witness supporting LOST, admitted that if the parties to a dispute can't agree on the arbitration panel, the U.N. secretary-general will chose the arbitrators. Lawyers in Pyongyang, Havana and Tehran: Call Turtle Bay.

LOST also opens the door to a long-sought U.N. goal: the redistribution of wealth by taxing Americans. The International Seabed Authority, a bloated, multinational bureaucracy headquartered in Jamaica, has the mandate to distribute revenues and "other economic benefits" on the basis of "equitable sharing criteria, taking into account the interests and needs of developing states." In addition to acting as a global IRS, the ISA also decides which companies from which nations will develop mineral resources on the seabed.

In urging ratification, former President Bill Clinton described LOST as "a far-reaching environmental accord" that would "harmonize" U.S. laws to "prevent, reduce and control pollution" in the "best practical means." But Article 213 requires nations to adopt "laws and regulations to prevent, reduce and control pollution of the marine environment from land-based sources." Thus, LOST could become a means of enforcing another agreement we never ratified: the Kyoto Protocol on global warming. Al Gore, call your office.

Before casting a vote to ratify LOST, all 100 senators should read Article 314 of this onerous treaty and Article II, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution. The U.N.-crafted document specifies that amendments to the treaty can be adopted -- and therefore enforced -- without the consent of any signatory. Yet our Constitution requires that two-thirds of our Senate concur in any treaty. Do 67 members of this Senate now want to surrender that authority to foreign governments?

Why do our CONgress Critters want to give our country away to foreign interests?

Also "sea": Eagle Forum