In many countries, people who cross the line in opposing the government risk incarceration, torture, or murder.

Until recently, it was hard for American dissidents to cross that line. If they wanted to get arrested for saying something subversive, mere ideas weren't enough; they would have to actually threaten to physically harm the President or another high official.

But the post-9/11 USA is no longer a beacon of human rights. As former President Jimmy Carter recently wrote in the New York Times, “The United States is abandoning its role as the global champion of human rights.” In his article, Carter points out that top US officials are now openly targeting US citizens for political assassination, “disappearance,” unlimited surveillance, and other forms of gross human rights abuse.

Since we now know that a secret National Security committee is ordering the murder of American citizens, and since we know the CIA has the power to easily simulate deaths from illness and accident, we might as well assume that every time a dissident dies unexpectedly, he or she has been murdered by the US government.

Consider the chilling words of Obama's information czar Cass Sunstein, who openly advocates that the US government should “disable the purveyors of conspiracy theories.” Sunstein's article “Conspiracy Theories: Causes and Cures” argues that “conspiracy theories” (by which he means the 9/11 truth movement) are so dangerous that the government should “cognitively infiltrate” 9/11 truth groups, “disable” those who spread these ideas, and possibly even make the ideas illegal.

One way to “disable the purveyors of conspiracy theories” is to terrorize them with death threats. This is precisely what happened recently in Seattle, Washington and Vancouver, British Columbia.

On June 13, Dr. James Fetzer, the founder of Scholars for 9/11 Truth, was scheduled to speak at the University Heights Community Center in Seattle. Shortly before the event, the Community Center received a letter that read:

“Community Center, the 9/11 truth event on June 13th is going to be attacked to Kill Jim Fetzer because he says 'Space Beams' brought down the Twin Towers. The attack may be a bomb or fire bomb or maybe just gun fire. The Bombing may come at a future date to pay you back for supporting the 9/11 truth movement. Kill Jim Fetzer and the 9/11 truth movement. Kill Jim Fetzer (repeated 6 times). Kill University Heights Community Center (repeated twice) Kill you now.”

Detective Kerry Hays of the Seattle Police Department is currently investigating the case.

The Community Center hastily canceled Dr. Fetzer's talk. Fortunately, an alternate venue was found at the last minute.

Then a few days later, a similar death threat was emailed to the owner of the Denman Theater in Vancouver, British Columbia, where Dr. Fetzer was organizing the Vancouver 9/11 Hearings. This time, the threat named me and Press TV Canadian correspondent Joshua Blakeney as well as Dr. Fetzer. Fortunately, the theater owner was too busy hosting the event to read his email, so he did not become aware of the threat until the Hearings were over.

Death threats are one way to “disable the purveyors of conspiracy theories.” Actual assassinations are another.

A long list of people who were trying to expose the truth of 9/11 have met with untimely, suspicious deaths. Barry Jennings, the deputy director of Emergency Services Department for the New York City Housing Authority on 9/11, appears to have been murdered after speaking publicly about explosions he witnessed that partly demolished World Trade Center Building 7 on the morning of 9/11. (The demolition of WTC-7, begun in the morning, was completed shortly after 5:20 that afternoon, after WTC owner Larry Silverstein and colleagues “made the decision to pull” the building according to Silverstein's own statement.)

Another 9/11 truth advocate and eyewitness, Dr. David Graham of Shreveport, Louisiana, was murdered - apparently by the FBI - for writing a book about two of the alleged 9/11 hijackers, who were obvious intelligence assets controlled by people at Barksdale Air Force Base. Graham was poisoned with ethelene glycol (antifreeze). The case is discussed in Sander Hicks' new book Slingshot to the Juggernaut.

It might be objected that Jennings and Graham were murdered because they were eyewitnesses to a State Crime Against Democracy, or SCAD, not because they were dissidents. Is there any evidence that the US government (or a rogue network infiltrating it) is “disabling the purveyors” of dangerous ideas by killing or otherwise physically harming them, even if they are not eyewitnesses?

Mike Ruppert, the original leader of the 9/11 truth movement, writes that his office was attacked by microwave and/or EMF weapons after he began publishing critiques of the official story of 9/11. The attacks may have contributed to Ruppert's poor health and distraught frame of mind, which led him to quit the 9/11 truth movement and temporarily flee the USA in 2006.

Another early 9/11 truth advocate, publisher Byron Belitsos, told me that he and many other 9/11 truth organizers in California were targeted by EMF or microwave weapons during the first years after 9/11. Belitsos says the weapons were wielded by men in plain white vans that would park in front of the victim's house, and that victims suffered immediate and sometimes extreme health effects including headaches, ringing in the ears, nausea, vomiting, severe depression, dizziness, and loss of consciousness.

It does seem that bad things have happened to far too many of the most trail-blazing, prestigious, and/or effective 9/11 truth leaders. Justin Raimondo, the pioneer investigator of Israeli complicity in 9/11, was warned away from the subject - and after he disregarded the warning, he suffered a severe heart attack, despite his relative youth and excellent physical condition. Since his mysterious heart attack, Raimondo has stayed away from the subject of 9/11, and has remained in good health.

David Ray Griffin, the world's leading voice of 9/11 truth, suffered a partially-disabling stroke in the summer of 2010. While he has recovered sufficiently to continue to write and research, the stroke left him with a slight aphasia that has ended his career as a prolific public speaker.

Dr. Bob Bowman, the former head of Star Wars under two US presidents, has had his 9/11 truth efforts slowed by his struggle with cancer.

Even more tragically, the most prestigious scientist ever to take up the cause of 9/11 truth, Lynn Margulis, died of a stroke November 22, 2011. When I last spoke to Lynn, less than a year before her death, she told me she did not want to speak publicly about 9/11 any more, because “politics is too dangerous.” She sounded scared - like someone had warned or threatened her.

Steven Jones, the physics professor who was forced out of Brigham Young University for researching the demolition of the World Trade Center, was warned to stop by a “connected” colleague. Jones did the right thing: he immediately went public about the apparent threat.

Richard Gage, the founder of Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth, may have been attacked by the type of EMF or microwave weapon described by Ruppert and Belitsos. In the summer of 2009, in Washington, DC, Gage suddenly suffered vertigo and hearing loss. Activist colleagues who were present suspect some kind of covert attack. Today, Gage still suffers from the after-effects: partial loss of hearing in one ear.

Though some consider microwave and EMF weapons the stuff of science fiction, Maj. Doug Rokke, Ph.D., the former head of the US Army's depleted uranium cleanup project after Gulf War I, says these weapons are very real, and commonly used in military circles. He described to me how he personally used such weapons on a regular basis while training with Special Forces at US Army facilities: “We had them van-mounted, truck-mounted, plane-mounted, and hand-carried. We would go around zapping each other for fun. This was during exercises, or sometimes just as a practical joke.” Rokke assured me that, based on his firsthand knowledge of US military mind-set and capabilities, 9/11 truth activists have undoubtedly been targeted by exotic non-lethal (and lethal) weapons.

Will writing this article put me on a US government hit list? Twenty years ago, such a question would have sounded absurd. Today, with the USA becoming more of a banana republic every day, it sounds increasingly realistic.

A government that extra-judicially murders, disappears, and tortures its own citizens should clean up its own act before it criticizes other nations. The US should heed former President Carter and start obeying its own Constitution if it wants to have any credibility on human rights.

KB/HJL