Abramoff gets 4 years in jail
September 20, 2008, 11:41 am
Filed under: 2008 Election, Congress, Department of justice, DOJ, FBI, florida, House, jack abramoff, John McCain, lobbyist, neocons, scandal, Senate, White House | Tags: corruption, corruption scandal
Filed under: 2008 Election, Congress, Department of justice, DOJ, FBI, florida, House, jack abramoff, John McCain, lobbyist, neocons, scandal, Senate, White House | Tags: corruption, corruption scandal
Abramoff gets 4 years in jail
AP
September 5, 2008
Jack Abramoff, the once powerful lobbyist at the heart of a far-reaching political corruption scandal, was sentenced to four years in prison Thursday by a judge who said the case had shattered the public’s confidence in government.
Abramoff, who fought back tears as he declared himself a broken man, appeared crestfallen as the judge handed down a sentence lengthier than prosecutors had sought.
Over the past three years, Abramoff has come to symbolize corruption and the secret deals cut between lobbyists and politicians in back rooms or on golf courses or private jets. The scandal shook Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House to Capitol Hill and contributed to the Republicans’ loss of Congress in 2006.
“I come before you as a broken man,” Abramoff said at his sentencing before U.S. District Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle. “I’m not the same man who happily and arrogantly engaged in a lifestyle of political and business corruption.”
He added later that, “My name is the butt of a joke, the source of a laugh and the title of a scandal.”
Already two years into a prison term from a separate case in Florida, Abramoff, 49, will have spent about six years in prison by the time he is released, far longer than he and his attorneys expected for a man who became the key FBI witness in his own corruption case.
With Abramoff’s help, the Justice Department has won corruption convictions against former Rep. Bob Ney, R-Ohio, former Deputy Interior Secretary J. Steven Griles and several top Capitol Hill aides.
Because of that cooperation, prosecutors were reserved in their comments to the court. Rather than regaling the court with a summary of the misdeeds and the seriousness of the corruption, the Justice Department said little in court while urging leniency.
Defense attorney Abbe Lowell portrayed Abramoff as a conflicted man. Yes, he corrupted politicians with golf junkets, expensive meals and luxury seats at sporting events. But he also donated millions of dollars to charity, and his good deeds were catalogued in hundreds of letters from friends.
“How can we be talking about the same person?” Lowell said. “But that’s the record: A modern-day ‘Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.'”
Although Abramoff expressed remorse Thursday, he also has spent his time in prison cooperating with a book that portrays him much differently: as a victim of Washington politics.
The book, set for publication later this month and obtained by The Associated Press, says Abramoff was pressured to plead guilty. The book blames The Washington Post and Sen. John McCain, the Republican presidential nominee whose Senate committee investigated Abramoff, for making him the fall guy.
“I never expected that I would have to go to prison,” Abramoff says in the book, “until it became clear that the media could not allow this play to close without the hanging of the villain.”
In “The Perfect Villain: John McCain and the Demonization of Lobbyist Jack Abramoff,” Boston journalist Gary Chafetz portrays Abramoff as an innocent man who excelled in an already corrupt system and was undone by biased prosecutors, reporters and political enemies.
McCain campaign spokesman Tucker Bounds did not immediately respond to an e-mail seeking comment.
That theory was nowhere to be found in court Thursday. Wearing green prison pants and a brown T-shirt, Abramoff wept as his attorney discussed his family’s suffering. He seemed shocked when Huvelle handed down her sentence, looking at his wife and children and shaking his head.
Huvelle could have sent Abramoff to prison for 11 years for conspiring to defraud the U.S., corrupting public officials and defrauding his clients, but she but showed leniency because of his work with the FBI. She rejected, however, proposals to reduce the sentence even further by giving Abramoff credit for the time he already has spent in prison on a fraudulent casino deal in Florida.
Abramoff could appeal the sentence because Justice Department infighting is partly responsible for the lengthy prison term. Prosecutors in Washington had hoped to combine the casino case and the corruption case into one plea deal. But Florida prosecutors refused to give up their piece, as did Washington prosecutors, so the deal was split in two.
Huvelle seemed perplexed by that decision, even as prosecutor Mary Butler asked her to treat the two cases as one. Neither Lowell nor the Justice Department spoke after court.
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U.S. Jailers allowed inmates to rape teenager
August 30, 2008, 6:15 pm
Filed under: Child Abuse, civil liberties, civil rights, Department of justice, DOJ, human rights, kentucky, Oppression, police brutality, Police State, rape, sexual abuse | Tags: Grant County, Kentucky Detention Center, sexual assault, Shawn Freeman, Shawn Sydnor, Wesley Lanham
Filed under: Child Abuse, civil liberties, civil rights, Department of justice, DOJ, human rights, kentucky, Oppression, police brutality, Police State, rape, sexual abuse | Tags: Grant County, Kentucky Detention Center, sexual assault, Shawn Freeman, Shawn Sydnor, Wesley Lanham
US Jailers Allow Inmates to Gang Rape 18 Year Old Brought in on Speeding Charges
Former Grant County, Kentucky Detention Center Officers Found Guilty of Civil Rights Violations in Teenager Rape Case
Comtex
August 15, 2008
A Kentucky jury convicted Wesley Lanham and Shawn Freeman, both former deputy jailers, on federal civil rights, conspiracy and obstruction charges, the Justice Department announced today. The defendants, former deputies at the Grant County Detention Center, were found guilty of conspiring to violate the civil rights of a teenage traffic offender when they arranged for him to be raped by inmates. The jury convicted the defendants on all charges and specifically found that the defendants were responsible for the aggravated sexual assault carried out by the inmates.
The defendants face up to life in prison when they are sentenced on Dec. 8, 2008.
The case stemmed from an incident that occurred on Valentine’s Day in 2003, when the defendants, along with their supervisor, former Sergeant Shawn Sydnor, taunted an 18-year-old high school student who had been brought to the detention center on a speeding charge. The deputies teased the teenager about his physical appearance and told him that he would make a good “girlfriend” for the other inmates. The defendants then solicited a group of convicted felons housed in a general population cell to scare the teenager. After eliciting an agreement from the inmates, the officers left the teenager in the cell where he was sexually assaulted by the other inmates.
Joe Biden’s pro-RIAA, pro-FBI tech voting record
August 30, 2008, 3:13 pm
Filed under: 1984, 1st amendment, 2-party system, 4th amendment, ACLU, Airport Security, apple, army, Barack Obama, biden, Big Brother, biometrics, Bush Sr., CIA, civil liberties, civil rights, Congress, copyright, Department of justice, Dianne Feinstein, DOJ, EFF, FBI, FCC, fingerprints, FISA, free speech, George Bush, Hillary Clinton, House, Iraq, joe biden, John McCain, left right paradigm, Microsoft, Military, nanny state, nation building, neocons, Neolibs, net neutrality, NSA, obama, occupation, OKC bombing, orwell, Patriot Act, Police State, Posse Comitatus, privacy rights, RIAA, Robert Gates, Ron Paul, Russ Feingold, Senate, Spy, Surveillance, tax, Taxpayers, telecoms, TSA, US Constitution, verison, war on drugs, War On Terror, warrantless search, warrantless wiretap, White House | Tags: Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, Comprehensive Counter-Terrorism Act, Digital Millennium Copyright Act, Digital Telephony law, Drano bomb, drug paraphernalia, ebay, Illicit Drug Anti-Proliferation Act, Improvised Munitions Handbook, kazaa, marijuana, news corp., Omnibus Counterterrorism Act of 1995, p2p, Perform Act, pgp, rave act, Senate Foreign Relations committee, tommy chong, Violent Crime Control Act, XM, Yahoo!, zfone
Filed under: 1984, 1st amendment, 2-party system, 4th amendment, ACLU, Airport Security, apple, army, Barack Obama, biden, Big Brother, biometrics, Bush Sr., CIA, civil liberties, civil rights, Congress, copyright, Department of justice, Dianne Feinstein, DOJ, EFF, FBI, FCC, fingerprints, FISA, free speech, George Bush, Hillary Clinton, House, Iraq, joe biden, John McCain, left right paradigm, Microsoft, Military, nanny state, nation building, neocons, Neolibs, net neutrality, NSA, obama, occupation, OKC bombing, orwell, Patriot Act, Police State, Posse Comitatus, privacy rights, RIAA, Robert Gates, Ron Paul, Russ Feingold, Senate, Spy, Surveillance, tax, Taxpayers, telecoms, TSA, US Constitution, verison, war on drugs, War On Terror, warrantless search, warrantless wiretap, White House | Tags: Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, Comprehensive Counter-Terrorism Act, Digital Millennium Copyright Act, Digital Telephony law, Drano bomb, drug paraphernalia, ebay, Illicit Drug Anti-Proliferation Act, Improvised Munitions Handbook, kazaa, marijuana, news corp., Omnibus Counterterrorism Act of 1995, p2p, Perform Act, pgp, rave act, Senate Foreign Relations committee, tommy chong, Violent Crime Control Act, XM, Yahoo!, zfone
Joe Biden’s pro-RIAA, pro-FBI tech voting record
CNET
August 23, 2008
By choosing Joe Biden as their vice presidential candidate, the Democrats have selected a politician with a mixed record on technology who has spent most of his Senate career allied with the FBI and copyright holders, who ranks toward the bottom of CNET’s Technology Voters’ Guide, and whose anti-privacy legislation was actually responsible for the creation of PGP.
That’s probably okay with Barack Obama: Biden likely got the nod because of his foreign policy knowledge. The Delaware politician is the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations committee who voted for the war in Iraq, and is reasonably well-known nationally after his presidential campaigns in 1988 and 2008.
Copyright
But back to the Delaware senator’s tech record. After taking over the Foreign Relations committee, Biden became a staunch ally of Hollywood and the recording industry in their efforts to expand copyright law. He sponsored a bill in 2002 that would have make it a federal felony to trick certain types of devices into playing unauthorized music or executing unapproved computer programs. Biden’s bill was backed by content companies including News Corp. but eventually died after Verizon, Microsoft, Apple, eBay, and Yahoo lobbied against it.
A few months later, Biden signed a letter that urged the Justice Department “to prosecute individuals who intentionally allow mass copying from their computer over peer-to-peer networks.” Critics of this approach said that the Motion Picture Association of America and the Recording Industry Association of America, and not taxpayers, should pay for their own lawsuits.
Last year, Biden sponsored an RIAA-backed bill called the Perform Act aimed at restricting Americans’ ability to record and play back individual songs from satellite and Internet radio services. (The RIAA sued XM Satellite Radio over precisely this point.)
All of which meant that nobody in Washington was surprised when Biden was one of only four U.S. senators invited to a champagne reception in celebration of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act hosted by the MPAA’s Jack Valenti, the RIAA, and the Business Software Alliance. (Photos are here.)
Now, it’s true that few Americans will cast their votes in November based on what the vice presidential candidate thinks of copyright law. But these pro-copyright views don’t exactly jibe with what Obama has promised; he’s pledged to “update and reform our copyright and patent systems to promote civic discourse, innovation and investment while ensuring that intellectual property owners are fairly treated.” These are code words for taking a more pro-EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation) than pro-MPAA approach.
Unfortunately, Biden has steadfastly refused to answer questions on the topic. We asked him 10 tech-related questions, including whether he’d support rewriting the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, as part of our 2008 Technology Voters’ guide. Biden would not answer (we did hear back from Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, John McCain, and Ron Paul).
In our 2006 Technology Voters’ Guide, which ranked Senate votes from July 1998 through May 2005, Biden received a mere 37.5 percent score because of his support for Internet filters in schools and libraries and occasional support for Internet taxes.
Privacy, the FBI, and PGP
On privacy, Biden’s record is hardly stellar. In the 1990s, Biden was chairman of the Judiciary Committee and introduced a bill called the Comprehensive Counter-Terrorism Act, which the EFF says he was “persuaded” to do by the FBI. A second Biden bill was called the Violent Crime Control Act. Both were staunchly anti-encryption, with this identical language:
It is the sense of Congress that providers of electronic communications services and manufacturers of electronic communications service equipment shall ensure that communications systems permit the government to obtain the plain text contents of voice, data, and other communications when appropriately authorized by law.
Translated, that means turn over your encryption keys. The book Electronic Privacy Papers describes Biden’s bill as representing the FBI’s visible effort to restrict encryption technology, which was taking place in concert with the National Security Agency’s parallel, but less visible efforts. (Biden was no foe of the NSA. He once described now-retired NSA director Bobby Ray Inman as the “single most competent man in the government.”)
Biden’s bill — and the threat of encryption being outlawed — is what spurred Phil Zimmermann to write PGP, thereby kicking off a historic debate about export controls, national security, and privacy. Zimmermann, who’s now busy developing Zfone, says it was Biden’s legislation “that led me to publish PGP electronically for free that year, shortly before the measure was defeated after vigorous protest by civil libertarians and industry groups.”
While neither of Biden’s pair of bills became law, they did foreshadow the FBI’s pro-wiretapping, anti-encryption legislative strategy that followed — and demonstrated that the Delaware senator was willing to be a reliable ally of law enforcement on the topic. (They also previewed the FBI’s legislative proposal later that decade for banning encryption products such as SSH or PGP without government backdoors, which was approved by one House of Representatives committee but never came to a vote in the Senate.)
“Joe Biden made his second attempt to introduce such legislation” in the form of the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA), which was also known as the Digital Telephony law, according to an account in Wired magazine. Biden at the time was chairman of the relevant committee; he co-sponsored the Senate version and dutifully secured a successful floor vote on it less than two months after it was introduced. CALEA became law in October 1994, and is still bedeviling privacy advocates: the FBI recently managed to extend its requirements to Internet service providers.
CALEA represented one step in the FBI and NSA’s attempts to restrict encryption without backdoors. In a top-secret memo to members of President George H.W. Bush’s administration including Defense Secretary Dick Cheney and CIA director Robert Gates, one White House official wrote: “Justice should go ahead now to seek a legislative fix to the digital telephony problem, and all parties should prepare to follow through on the encryption problem in about a year. Success with digital telephony will lock in one major objective; we will have a beachhead we can exploit for the encryption fix; and the encryption access options can be developed more thoroughly in the meantime.”
There’s another reason why Biden’s legislative tactics in the CALEA scrum amount to more than a mere a footnote in Internet history. They’re what led to the creation of the Center for Democracy and Technology — and the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s simultaneous implosion and soul-searching.
EFF staffers Jerry Berman and Danny Weitzner chose to work with Biden on cutting a deal and altering the bill in hopes of obtaining privacy concessions. It may have helped, but it also left the EFF in the uncomfortable position of leaving its imprimatur on Biden’s FBI-backed wiretapping law universally loathed by privacy advocates. The debacle ended with internal turmoil, Berman and Weitzner leaving the group and taking their corporate backers to form CDT, and a chastened EFF that quietly packed its bags and moved to its current home in San Francisco. (Weitzner, who was responsible for a censorship controversy last year, became a formal Obama campaign surrogate.)
“Anti-terror” legislation
The next year, months before the Oklahoma City bombing took place, Biden introduced another bill called the Omnibus Counterterrorism Act of 1995. It previewed the 2001 Patriot Act by allowing secret evidence to be used in prosecutions, expanding the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and wiretap laws, creating a new federal crime of “terrorism” that could be invoked based on political beliefs, permitting the U.S. military to be used in civilian law enforcement, and allowing permanent detection of non-U.S. citizens without judicial review. The Center for National Security Studies said the bill would erode “constitutional and statutory due process protections” and would “authorize the Justice Department to pick and choose crimes to investigate and prosecute based on political beliefs and associations.”
Biden himself draws parallels between his 1995 bill and its 2001 cousin. “I drafted a terrorism bill after the Oklahoma City bombing. And the bill John Ashcroft sent up was my bill,” he said when the Patriot Act was being debated, according to the New Republic, which described him as “the Democratic Party’s de facto spokesman on the war against terrorism.”
Biden’s chronology is not accurate: the bombing took place in April 1995 and his bill had been introduced in February 1995. But it’s true that Biden’s proposal probably helped to lay the groundwork for the Bush administration’s Patriot Act.
In 1996, Biden voted to keep intact an ostensibly anti-illegal immigration bill that outlined what the Real ID Act would become almost a decade later. The bill would create a national worker identification registry; Biden voted to kill an Abraham-Feingold amendment that would have replaced the registry with stronger enforcement. According to an analysis by the Electronic Privacy Information Center, the underlying bill would have required “states to place Social Security numbers on drivers licenses and to obtain fingerprints or some other form of biometric identification for licenses.”
Along with most of his colleagues in the Congress — including Sen. John McCain but not Rep. Ron Paul — Biden voted for the Patriot Act and the Real ID Act (which was part of a larger spending bill). Obama voted for the bill containing the Real ID Act, but wasn’t in the U.S. Senate in 2001 when the original Patriot Act vote took place.
Patriot Act
In the Senate debate over the Patriot Act in October 2001, Biden once again allied himself closely with the FBI. The Justice Department favorably quotes Biden on its Web site as saying: “The FBI could get a wiretap to investigate the mafia, but they could not get one to investigate terrorists. To put it bluntly, that was crazy! What’s good for the mob should be good for terrorists.”
The problem is that Biden’s claim was simply false — which he should have known after a decade of experience lending his name to wiretapping bills on behalf of the FBI. As CDT explains in a rebuttal to Biden: “The Justice Department had the ability to use wiretaps, including roving taps, in criminal investigations of terrorism, just as in other criminal investigations, long before the Patriot Act.”
But Biden’s views had become markedly less FBI-friendly by April 2007, six years later. By then, the debate over wiretapping had become sharply partisan, pitting Democrats seeking to embarrass President Bush against Republicans aiming to defend the administration at nearly any cost. In addition, Biden had announced his presidential candidacy three months earlier and was courting liberal activists dismayed by the Bush administration’s warrantless wiretapping.
That month, Biden slammed the “president’s illegal wiretapping program that allows intelligence agencies to eavesdrop on the conversations of Americans without a judge’s approval or congressional authorization or oversight.” He took aim at Attorney General Alberto Gonzales for allowing the FBI to “flagrantly misuse National Security Letters” — even though it was the Patriot Act that greatly expanded their use without also expanding internal safeguards and oversight as well.
Biden did vote against a FISA bill with retroactive immunity for any telecommunications provider that illegally opened its network to the National Security Agency; Obama didn’t. Both agreed to renew the Patriot Act in March 2006, a move that pro-privacy Democrats including Ron Wyden and Russ Feingold opposed. The ACLU said the renewal “fails to correct the most flawed provisions” of the original Patriot Act. (Biden does do well on the ACLU’s congressional scorecard.)
“Baby-food bombs”
The ACLU also had been at odds with Biden over his efforts to censor bomb-making information on the Internet. One day after a bomb in Saudi Arabia killed several U.S. servicemen and virtually flattened a military base, Biden pushed to make posting bomb-making information on the Internet a felony, punishable by up to 20 years in jail, the Wall Street Journal reported at the time.
“I think most Americans would be absolutely shocked if they knew what kind of bone-chilling information is making its way over the Internet,” he told the Senate. “You can access detailed, explicit instructions on how to make and detonate pipe bombs, light-bulb bombs, and even — if you can believe it — baby-food bombs.”
Biden didn’t get exactly what he wanted — at least not right away. His proposal was swapped in the final law for one requiring the attorney general to investigate “the extent to which the First Amendment protects such material and its private and commercial distribution.” The report was duly produced, concluding that the proposal “can withstand constitutional muster in most, if not all, of its possible applications, if such legislation is slightly modified.”
It was. Biden and co-sponsor Dianne Feinstein introduced their bill again the following year. Biden pitched it as an anti-terror measure, saying in a floor debate that numerous terrorists “have been found in possession of bomb-making manuals and Internet bomb-making information.” He added: “What is even worse is that some of these instructions are geared toward kids. They tell kids that all the ingredients they need are right in their parents’ kitchen or laundry cabinets.”
Biden’s proposal became law in 1997. It didn’t amount to much: four years after its enactment, there had been only one conviction. And instead of being used to snare a dangerous member of Al Qaeda, the law was used to lock up a 20-year old anarchist Webmaster who was sentenced to one year in prison for posting information about Molotov cocktails and “Drano bombs” on his Web site, Raisethefist.com.
Today there are over 10,000 hits on Google for the phrase, in quotes, “Drano bomb.” One is a video that lists the necessary ingredients and shows some self-described rednecks blowing up small plastic bottles in their yard. Then there’s the U.S. Army’s Improvised Munitions Handbook with instructions on making far more deadly compounds, including methyl nitrate dynamite, mortars, grenades, and C-4 plastic explosive — which free speech activists placed online as an in-your-face response to the Biden-Feinstein bill.
Peer-to-peer networks
Since then, Biden has switched from complaining about Internet baby-food bombs to taking aim at peer-to-peer networks. He held one Foreign Relations committee hearing in February 2002 titled “Theft of American Intellectual Property” and invited executives from the Justice Department, RIAA, MPAA, and Microsoft to speak. Not one Internet company, P2P network, or consumer group was invited to testify.
Afterwards, Sharman Networks (which distributes Kazaa) wrote a letter to Biden complaining about “one-sided and unsubstantiated attacks” on P2P networks. It said: “We are deeply offended by the gratuitous accusations made against Kazaa by witnesses before the committee, including ludicrous attempts to associate an extremely beneficial, next-generation software program with organized criminal gangs and even terrorist organizations.”
Biden returned to the business of targeting P2P networks this year. In April, he proposed spending $1 billion in U.S. tax dollars so police can monitor peer-to-peer networks for illegal activity. He made that suggestion after a Wyoming cop demonstrated a proof-of-concept program called “Operation Fairplay” at a hearing before a Senate Judiciary subcommittee.
A month later, the Senate Judiciary committee approved a Biden-sponsored bill that would spend over $1 billion on policing illegal Internet activity, mostly child pornography. It has the dubious virtue of being at least partially redundant: One section would “prohibit the broadcast of live images of child abuse,” even though the Justice Department has experienced no problems in securing guilty pleas for underage Webcamming. (The bill has not been voted on by the full Senate.)
Online sales of Robitussin
Around the same time, Biden introduced his self-described Biden Crime Bill of 2007. One section expands electronic surveillance law to permit police wiretaps in “crimes dangerous to the life, limb, and well-being of minor children.” Another takes aim at Internet-based telemedicine and online pharmacies, saying that physicians must have conducted “at least one in-person medical evaluation of the patient” to prescribe medicine.
Another prohibits selling a product containing dextromethorphan — including Robitussin, Sucrets, Dayquil, and Vicks — “to an individual under the age of 18 years, including any such sale using the Internet.” It gives the Justice Department six months to come up with regulations, which include when retailers should be fined for shipping cough suppressants to children. (Biden is a longtime drug warrior; he authored the Illicit Drug Anti-Proliferation Act that the Bush administration used to shut down benefit concerts.)
Net neutrality
On Net neutrality, Biden has sounded skeptical. In 2006, he indicated that no preemptive laws were necessary because if violations do happen, such a public outcry will develop that “the chairman will be required to hold this meeting in this largest room in the Capitol, and there will be lines wandering all the way down to the White House.” Obama, on the other hand, has been a strong supporter of handing pre-emptive regulatory authority to the Federal Communications Commission.
Tommy Chong: Biden ’authored the bill that put me in jail’
KXMB
August 24, 2008
It turns out that Obama’s new running mate is one of the leading crusaders in the war on drugs. Which isn’t something that’s likely to sit well with Obama’s base of young, college-aged supporters
Earlier this week, in an interview with the Washington Post, Tommy Chong was asked what the average citizen can do to further the cause of decriminalization. “Check out the people you’re voting for,” Chong replied. “For instance, Joseph Biden comes off as a liberal Democrat, but he’s the one who authored the bill that put me in jail. He wrote the law against shipping drug paraphernalia through the mail – which could be anything from a pipe to a clip or cigarette papers.”
Barack Obama’s V.P. selection Sen. Joe Biden also spnsored the Rave Act, which targets music events where drug use is allegedly prevalent.
Experts: Many Americans Lost Homes Due to a Bill Championed by Biden
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=5670703&page=1
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=5670703&page=1
Barack Obama: The Next PRESIDENT Is Joe Biden
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RElChQ6g2Io
VP Choice Biden Unpopular in Iraq: He’s creator of the idea of dividing Iraq
http://africa.reuters.com/world/news/usnLN96984.html
Biden’s Bill: The Patriot Act
http://www.tnr.com/columnist..582-b6ec-444834c9df73&k=93697
Biden called for unilateral Iraq invasion – in 1998
http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/5492
Senators: FBI rules could target innocent people
August 26, 2008, 5:04 pm
Filed under: 1984, 1st amendment, 4th amendment, arlen specter, Big Brother, bill of rights, Control Grid, Department of justice, DOJ, FBI, free speech, mukasey, orwell, Patrick Leahy, privacy rights, racial profiling, Racism, Senate, stasi, stasi tactics, Surveillance, US Constitution, War On Terror | Tags: Dick Durbin, edward m. kennedy, Russ Feingold, sheldon whitehouse
Filed under: 1984, 1st amendment, 4th amendment, arlen specter, Big Brother, bill of rights, Control Grid, Department of justice, DOJ, FBI, free speech, mukasey, orwell, Patrick Leahy, privacy rights, racial profiling, Racism, Senate, stasi, stasi tactics, Surveillance, US Constitution, War On Terror | Tags: Dick Durbin, edward m. kennedy, Russ Feingold, sheldon whitehouse
Senators: FBI rules could target innocent people
AP
August 20, 2008
Proposed rules to help the FBI catch terrorists could lead to innocent Americans being spied upon by government agents or informants “all without any basis for suspicion,” a group of Democratic senators said Wednesday.
The rules, known as the attorney general guidelines, have not been approved or even publicly released yet, but four Democrats joined a growing chorus of lawmakers raising concerns after being briefed on what the guidelines say.
Among their fears: Americans could be targeted in part based on their race, ethnicity or religion — or free speech activities protected by the Constitution.
“As you know, attorney general guidelines were first implemented in the wake of the FBI abuses of the 1960s and 1970s, and serve as one of the most important bulwarks against future abuses,” the senators said in a letter to Attorney General Michael Mukasey.
The four Democrats — Sens. Dick Durbin of Illinois, Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island — indicated they remained concerned even after assurances from officials during the Justice Department briefings.
The lawmakers asked Mukasey to hold off finalizing the rules to allow a public review.
“Given the importance of these guidelines, providing a period of time for public comment would be a reasonable and responsible way to move forward and achieve the best possible end result,” the Democrats wrote.
Earlier this week, Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and the panel’s top Republican, Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, also called for delaying the guidelines.
Justice spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said the department will review the requests. Citing remarks earlier by Mukasey about the new rules, the spokesman said an investigation would not be opened based solely on a person’s race, ethnicity or religion.
“The guidelines will require all activities to have a valid purpose,” Roehrkasse said, adding that the rules will “include robust and effective oversight measures.”
The guidelines are expected to be finalized next week. They do not require congressional approval.
First reported last month by The Associated Press, the rules are intended to update policies governing investigations as the FBI shifts from a traditional crime-fighting agency to one whose top priority is protecting the United States from terrorist attacks.
Currently, the FBI must have evidence or allegations of wrongdoing before opening an investigation of U.S. citizens or legal residents from other countries. As described by some law enforcement officials, the new policy would let agents open preliminary terrorism investigations after mining public records and intelligence to build a profile of traits that, taken together, were deemed suspicious.
The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the rules, said factors that could trigger an inquiry would include travel to regions of the world known for terrorist activity and access to weapons or military training, along with the person’s race or ethnicity.
Following their briefings, the four Democrats said the guidelines would:
_Let the FBI use “a variety of intrusive investigative techniques” with no evidence of possible wrongdoing. The techniques could include: long-term FBI surveillance, interviewing neighbors and work-mates, recruiting informants and searching commercial databases for information on people “all without any basis for suspicion.”
“We are particularly concerned that the draft guidelines might permit an innocent American to be subjected to such intrusive surveillance based in part on race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, or on protected First Amendment activities,” the senators wrote.
_Allow the government to collect foreign intelligence information inside the United States without current legal protections for U.S. citizens or legal residents. The senators noted that the broad term “foreign intelligence” would cover any information relating to the activities of a foreign government, organization or person.
_Allow the information gathered to be broadly shared among government agencies. “We have serious questions about the scope of information sharing as it relates to U.S. persons who are under no suspicion of wrongdoing,” the senators wrote.
Government to Share Info on Americans With Police
August 17, 2008, 7:04 pm
Filed under: 1984, 4th amendment, Big Brother, Control Grid, data mining, Department of justice, DHS, DOJ, Executive Order, FBI, George Bush, Homeland Security, nanny state, neocons, NSA, Oppression, Police State, privacy rights, Spy, Surveillance, US Constitution, War On Terror, warrantless search, warrantless wiretap
Filed under: 1984, 4th amendment, Big Brother, Control Grid, data mining, Department of justice, DHS, DOJ, Executive Order, FBI, George Bush, Homeland Security, nanny state, neocons, NSA, Oppression, Police State, privacy rights, Spy, Surveillance, US Constitution, War On Terror, warrantless search, warrantless wiretap
Government to Share Info on Americans With Police
Washington Post
August 16, 2008
The Justice Department has proposed a new domestic spying measure that would make it easier for state and local police to collect intelligence about Americans, share the sensitive data with federal agencies and retain it for at least 10 years.
The proposed changes would revise the federal government’s rules for police intelligence-gathering for the first time since 1993 and would apply to any of the nation’s 18,000 state and local police agencies that receive roughly $1.6 billion each year in federal grants.
Quietly unveiled late last month, the proposal is part of a flurry of domestic intelligence changes issued and planned by the Bush administration in its waning months. They include a recent executive order that guides the reorganization of federal spy agencies and a pending Justice Department overhaul of FBI procedures for gathering intelligence and investigating terrorism cases within U.S. borders.
Bush’s Political Enemies Put on No-Fly List
August 17, 2008, 5:00 pm
Filed under: 2004 election, Airport Security, al-qaeda, Child Abuse, CNN, Congress, Department of justice, DHS, Dictatorship, DOJ, Empire, FBI, George Bush, Homeland Security, House, Karl Rove, Media, michael chertoff, national guard, neocons, Senate, TSA, War On Terror | Tags: drew griffin, jim moore
Filed under: 2004 election, Airport Security, al-qaeda, Child Abuse, CNN, Congress, Department of justice, DHS, Dictatorship, DOJ, Empire, FBI, George Bush, Homeland Security, House, Karl Rove, Media, michael chertoff, national guard, neocons, Senate, TSA, War On Terror | Tags: drew griffin, jim moore
Bush’s Political Enemies Put on No-Fly List
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Np5s2y-OPzE
7-Year Old Put On Terror Watch List
http://www.news.com.au/adelai..0,22606,24147755-5006301,00.html
Law Professor: There’s going to be an Internet 9/11
August 10, 2008, 1:07 pm
Filed under: 4th amendment, 9/11, 9/11 Truth, al-qaeda, civil liberties, civil rights, copyright, Department of justice, Dictator, DoD, Empire, False Flag, hackers, Hegelian Dialectic, Homeland Security, internet, Internet 2, michael chertoff, Nuke, Patriot Act, Problem Reaction Solution, Ron Paul, State Sponsored Terrorism, US Constitution, War On Terror | Tags: cyber security, cyber terrorism, EFF, electronic frontier foundation, HR 4279, i9/11, Information Card Foundation, Intellectual Property Enforcement Act of 2007, ipatriot act, lawrence lessing, PRO-IP Act, Richard Clarke, S. 522
Filed under: 4th amendment, 9/11, 9/11 Truth, al-qaeda, civil liberties, civil rights, copyright, Department of justice, Dictator, DoD, Empire, False Flag, hackers, Hegelian Dialectic, Homeland Security, internet, Internet 2, michael chertoff, Nuke, Patriot Act, Problem Reaction Solution, Ron Paul, State Sponsored Terrorism, US Constitution, War On Terror | Tags: cyber security, cyber terrorism, EFF, electronic frontier foundation, HR 4279, i9/11, Information Card Foundation, Intellectual Property Enforcement Act of 2007, ipatriot act, lawrence lessing, PRO-IP Act, Richard Clarke, S. 522
Law Professor: Counter Terrorism Czar Told Me There Is Going To Be An i-9/11 And An i-Patriot Act
Steve Watson
Infowars.net
August 5, 2008
Amazing revelations have emerged concerning already existing government plans to overhaul the way the internet functions in order to apply much greater restrictions and control over the web.
Lawrence Lessig, a respected Law Professor from Stanford University told an audience at this years Fortune’s Brainstorm Tech conference in Half Moon Bay, California, that “There’s going to be an i-9/11 event” which will act as a catalyst for a radical reworking of the law pertaining to the internet.
Lessig also revealed that he had learned, during a dinner with former government Counter Terrorism Czar Richard Clarke, that there is already in existence a cyber equivalent of the Patriot Act, an “i-Patriot Act” if you will, and that the Justice Department is waiting for a cyber terrorism event in order to implement its provisions.
During a group panel segment titled “2018: Life on the Net”, Lessig stated:
There’s going to be an i-9/11 event. Which doesn’t necessarily mean an Al Qaeda attack, it means an event where the instability or the insecurity of the internet becomes manifest during a malicious event which then inspires the government into a response. You’ve got to remember that after 9/11 the government drew up the Patriot Act within 20 days and it was passed.
The Patriot Act is huge and I remember someone asking a Justice Department official how did they write such a large statute so quickly, and of course the answer was that it has been sitting in the drawers of the Justice Department for the last 20 years waiting for the event where they would pull it out.
Of course, the Patriot Act is filled with all sorts of insanity about changing the way civil rights are protected, or not protected in this instance. So I was having dinner with Richard Clarke and I asked him if there is an equivalent, is there an i-Patriot Act just sitting waiting for some substantial event as an excuse to radically change the way the internet works. He said “of course there is”.
Watch Lessig reveal the details at 4.30 into the following video:
Lessig is the founder of Stanford Law School’s Center for Internet and Society. He is founding board member of Creative Commons and is a board member of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and of the Software Freedom Law Center. He is best known as a proponent of reduced legal restrictions on copyright, trademark and radio frequency spectrum, particularly in technology applications.
These are clearly not the ravings of some paranoid cyber geek.
The Patriot Act, as well as its lesser known follow up the Domestic Security Enhancement Act 2003, also known as USA Patriot Act II, have been universally decried by civil libertarians and Constitutional scholars from across the political spectrum. They have stripped back basic rights and handed what have been described by even the most moderate critics as “dictatorial control” over to the president and the federal government.
Many believed that the legislation was a response to the attacks of 9/11, but the reality was that the Patriot Act was prepared way in advance of 9/11 and it sat dormant, awaiting an event to justify its implementation.
In the days after the attacks it was passed in the House by a majority of 357 to 66. It passed the Senate by 98 to 1. Congressman Ron Paul (R-Tex) told the Washington Times that no member of Congress was even allowed to read the legislation.
Now we discover that exactly the same freedom restricting legislation has already been prepared for the cyber world.
An i-9/11, as described by Lawrence Lessig, would provide the perfect pretext to implement such restrictions in one swift motion, as well as provide the justification for relegating and eliminating specific content and information on the web.
Such an event could come in the form of a major viral attack, the hacking of a major city’s security or transport systems, or some other vital systems, or a combination of all of these things. Considering the amount of unanswered questions regarding 9/11 and all the indications that it was a covert false flag operation, it isn’t hard to imagine such an event being played out in the cyber world.
However, regardless of any i-9/11 or i-Patriot Act, there is already a coordinated effort to stem the reach and influence of the internet.
We have tirelessly warned of this general movement to restrict, censor, control and eventually completely shut down the internet as we know it, thereby killing the last real vestige of free speech in the world today and eliminating the greatest communication and information tool ever conceived.
Our governments have reams of legislation penned to put clamps on the web as we know it. Legislation such as the PRO-IP Act of 2007: H.R. 4279, that would create an IP czar at the Department of Justice and the Intellectual Property Enforcement Act of 2007: S. 522, which would create an entire ‘Intellectual Property Enforcement Network’. These are just two examples.
In addition, we have already seen how the major corporate websites and social networks are decentralizing and coming together to implement overarching identification, verification and access systems that have been described by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg as “the beginning of a movement and the beginning of an industry.”
Some of these major tech companies have already joined efforts in projects such as the Information Card Foundation, which has proposed the creation of a system of internet ID cards that will be required for internet access. Of course, such a system would give those involved the ability to track and control user activity much more effectively. This is just one example.
In addition, as we reported yesterday, major transportation hubs like St. Pancras International, as well as libraries, big businesses, hospitals and other public outlets that offer wi-fi Internet, are blacklisting alternative news websites and making them completely inaccessible to their users.
These precedents are merely the first indication of what is planned for the Internet over the next 5-10 years, with the traditional web becoming little more than a vast spy database that catalogues people’s every activity and bombards them with commercials, while those who comply with centralized control and regulation of content will be free to enjoy the new super-fast Internet 2.
We must speak out about this rampant move to implement strict control mechanisms on the web NOW before it is too late, before the spine of the free internet is broken and its body essentially becomes paralyzed beyond repair.
Homeland Security Invokes Internet Nuclear Bomb Senario
http://earthhopenetwork.net/forum/printthread.php?tid=572
http://earthhopenetwork.net/forum/printthread.php?tid=572
The Future of the ‘iPatriot Act’
http://futureoftheinternet.org/the-future-of-the-ipatriot-act
Handwriting Analysis Fails to Link Ivins to Anthrax Letters
August 8, 2008, 2:19 pm
Filed under: 9/11, 9/11 Mysteries, 9/11 Truth, anthrax, Bio Weapons, biochemicals, Biological Attack, biological warfare, Department of justice, DOJ, False Flag, FBI, Fort Detrick, inside job, lone nut, Military, State Sponsored Terrorism, War On Terror | Tags: handwriting analysis, polygraph
Filed under: 9/11, 9/11 Mysteries, 9/11 Truth, anthrax, Bio Weapons, biochemicals, Biological Attack, biological warfare, Department of justice, DOJ, False Flag, FBI, Fort Detrick, inside job, lone nut, Military, State Sponsored Terrorism, War On Terror | Tags: handwriting analysis, polygraph
Handwriting Analysis Fails to Link Ivins to Anthrax Letters
World Net Daily
August 7, 2008
Casting further doubt on the FBI’s anthrax case, accused government scientist Bruce Ivins passed two polygraph tests and a handwriting analysis comparing samples of his handwriting to writing contained in the anthrax letters, U.S. officials familiar with the investigation say.
The Justice Department yesterday closed the case, announcing the late “Dr. Ivins was the only person responsible for these attacks.”
Ivins passed the first polygraph to satisfy a security requirement prior to working with the FBI as part of a team of scientists at the Fort Detrick, Md., lab who originally helped analyze the anthrax letters. He passed a second exam after he became a suspect.
WND has learned that the FBI was so frustrated with the exam results that last October authorities asked a judge for permission to search Ivins’ home and vehicles specifically for evidence of any materials, such as books, that would have helped him “defeat a polygraph.”
Also, officials confirm that FBI handwriting analysts were unable to conclusively match samples of Ivins’ handwriting with the writing on the anthrax envelopes and letters, which sounded as if they were written by jihadist accomplices of the 9/11 hijackers. The crude notes declared: “DEATH TO AMERICA. DEATH TO ISRAEL. ALLAH IS GREAT.”
Investigators also failed to uncover other critical evidence linking Ivins directly to the letters. For instance:
- No textile fibers were found in his office, residence or vehicles matching fibers found on the scotch tape used to seal the envelopes;
- No pens were found matching the ink used to address the envelopes;
- Samples of his hair failed to match hair follicles found inside the Princeton, N.J., mailbox used to mail the letters.
Also, no souvenirs of the crime, such as newspaper clippings, were found in his possession as commonly seen in serial murder cases.
What’s more, the FBI could not place Ivins at the crime scene with evidence, such as gas station or other receipts, at the time the letters were mailed in September and October 2001.
While acknowledging the circumstantial nature of their case against Ivins, prosecutors argue they’re confident they would have been able to prove his guilt “beyond a reasonable doubt” in court.
They say they used new forensic technology to narrow the deadly spores used in the attacks down to a batch stored in Ivins’ lab. However, they concede that more than 100 other people – including some Arab-American scientists – had access to the batch and that the virulent Ames strain was found elsewhere.
Should ABC News reveal its anonymous sources?
http://bloggasm.com/should-abc-news-reveal-its-anonymous-sources-2
http://bloggasm.com/should-abc-news-reveal-its-anonymous-sources-2
DOJ: Ivins Alone Caused Anthrax Attack
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/2..t=As8JxOsHyuberdeQck6d0oOWwvIE
Questions about the Anthrax Suspect and His Interactions with Mental Health Professionals
http://georgewashington2.blogspot.c..s-about-anthrax-suspect-and-his.html
The Real “Anthrax Killer” Caught on Security Camera
http://noworldsystem.com/2008..r-caught-on-security-camera/
Army Scientist Accused of Anthrax ’Commits Suicide’
http://noworldsystem.com/2008/..%e2%80%99commits-suicide%e2%80%99/
The Real “Anthrax Killer” Caught on Security Camera
August 5, 2008, 2:47 pm
Filed under: 9/11, 9/11 Mysteries, 9/11 Truth, aids, al-qaeda, anthrax, army, Bio Weapons, biochemicals, Biological Attack, biological attack military, biological warfare, Department of justice, DOJ, False Flag, FBI, Fort Detrick, inside job, Israel, jews, lone nut, man made diseases, maryland, Military, Mossad, muslim, neocons, Patriot Act, Propaganda, Racism, State Sponsored Terrorism, Surveillance, us army, USAMRIID, virginia, War On Terror, White House, Zionism | Tags: chris murray, Cipro, Dr. Ayaad Assaad, Dr. Marian Rippy, dr. philip zack, Dr. Steven Hatfill, FAS, federation of american scientists, hanta virus, Lt. Col. Michael Langford, Lt. Col. Philip Zack, Marian Rippy, michael fury, Michael Langford, mike rivero, Paul F. Kemp, philip zack, Steven Hatfill, Subpoena, Thomas M. DeGonia, tom daschle, United States Army Medical Research Institute
Filed under: 9/11, 9/11 Mysteries, 9/11 Truth, aids, al-qaeda, anthrax, army, Bio Weapons, biochemicals, Biological Attack, biological attack military, biological warfare, Department of justice, DOJ, False Flag, FBI, Fort Detrick, inside job, Israel, jews, lone nut, man made diseases, maryland, Military, Mossad, muslim, neocons, Patriot Act, Propaganda, Racism, State Sponsored Terrorism, Surveillance, us army, USAMRIID, virginia, War On Terror, White House, Zionism | Tags: chris murray, Cipro, Dr. Ayaad Assaad, Dr. Marian Rippy, dr. philip zack, Dr. Steven Hatfill, FAS, federation of american scientists, hanta virus, Lt. Col. Michael Langford, Lt. Col. Philip Zack, Marian Rippy, michael fury, Michael Langford, mike rivero, Paul F. Kemp, philip zack, Steven Hatfill, Subpoena, Thomas M. DeGonia, tom daschle, United States Army Medical Research Institute
The Real “Anthrax Killer” Caught on Security Camera
Surveillance tape shows Dr. Philip Zack entering Fort Detrick laboratory containing the Anthrax spores after he was fired for racist attacks on an Egyptian co-worker.
Justin Raimondo
Antiwar.com
February 22, 2002
Barbara Hatch Rosenberg, director of the Federation of American Scientists’ chemical and biological weapons program, says the US government has “a strong hunch” about who is behind the anthrax letters, but is “dragging its feet” in the investigation because the chief suspect is a former government scientist with knowledge of “secret activities that the government would not like to see disclosed.” Rosenberg has written a very interesting analysis of the anthrax attacks that leads to one and only one ineluctable conclusion: that the chief culprit was not some Arab terrorist, associated with Al Qaeda or similar groups, but an American, a former US government employee – one who, furthermore, is a middle-aged “insider” in the biodefense field, with a doctoral degree, who probably worked in the USAMRIID laboratory, at Fort Detrick, Maryland, still has access – and had some dispute with a government agency.
Furthermore, given the information compiled by Rosenberg, and with the aid of Google.com, anyone with computer access can identify by name the person or persons in possession of the key to unlocking the mystery of the anthrax attack.
The strain of weaponized anthrax used in the attacks narrows the search for the perpetrator(s) down to a few US labs: but law enforcement agencies have yet to issue a single subpoena for employee records at the four labs with a history of working with this strain. We know about the anthrax letters, of course, and the several hoax letters, but a major clue in this investigation is an anonymous letter, sent before the anthrax hysteria, in late September, to the military police at the Marine base in Quantico, Virginia, accusing a US government bio-engineer, Egyptian-born Dr. Ayaad Assaad, of being behind a bio-terrorist plot. The letter-writer revealed a detailed knowledge of Dr. Assaad’s life and work at USAMRIID, including details of his personal life that only someone who worked with him could have possibly known: indeed, the poison-pen author claimed to have formerly worked with Dr. Assaad.
While FBI spokesman Chris Murray confirmed that Assaad was not under suspicion, he also stated to reporters that the FBI is not trying to find out who sent the anonymous hate-letter – which the FBI won’t show to Assaad. The odd timing of the letter – sent after the anthrax letters were mailed, but before their deadly contents were known – doesn’t even have them mildly curious.
Rosenberg believes that the poison-pen missive was written by the real perpetrator of the anthrax attacks, who sought to ride the wave of anti-Arab, anti-Muslim hysteria that swept the nation after 9/11. This also fits the pattern of masquerade that characterizes the anthrax letters to NBC, Daschle, Leahy, et al, with their anti-Israel, pro-Muslim slogans neatly printed in block letters. Indeed, the one thread that seems to run throughout this story is anti-Arab animus, as the astonishing – and truly frightening – story of what happened at Ft. Detrick in the early 1990s makes all too clear….
Things were turning up missing at USAMRIID, and Lt. Col. Michael Langford was baffled. He suspected that someone was tampering with records, perhaps in order to conduct unauthorized research. He told a lab technician to “make a list of everything that was missing,” and ” it turned out that there was quite a bit of stuff that was unaccounted for,” 27 sets of specimens, including anthrax, hanta virus, simian AIDS virus “and two that were labeled ’unknown’ – an Army euphemism for classified research whose subject was secret,” as this chilling Hartford Courant story by Jack Dolan and Dave Altimari puts it. One set of specimens has since been found: the rest are still missing….
An investigation was launched that exposed the shockingly lax security measures at the lab, and raised the possibility that some specimens may never have been entered in lab records. Also uncovered was a tape from a surveillance camera showing the entry of an unauthorized person into the lab, at 8:40, on January 23, 1992, let in by Dr. Marian Rippy, lab pathologist. The night visitor was Lt. Col. Philip Zack, a former employee who had left as a result of a dispute with the lab over his alleged harassment of Dr. Assaad. The Courant reports:
“Zack left Fort Detrick in December 1991, after a controversy over allegations of unprofessional behavior by Zack, Rippy, [lab technician Charles] Brown and others who worked in the pathology division. They had formed a clique that was accused of harassing the Egyptian-born Assaad, who later sued the Army, claiming discrimination.”
Related: The Hidden Anthrax Letters Suspect
Related: Anthrax Cover-up:We know who the suspects are – then why no arrests?
Related: Philip Zack Steals Anthrax
Attorneys for Bruce Ivins Respond to Client’s Suicide
The Wall Street Jounal
August 1, 2008
Earlier today, we noted the suicide of Bruce Ivins, a biodefense researcher who the DOJ was close to filing criminal charges against. Ivins, 62, was a leading military anthrax researcher who worked for the past 18 years at the government’s biodefense labs at Fort Detrick, Maryland. Ivins had reportedly been told of the impending prosecution. For their part, the prosecutors had planned to seek the death penalty against Ivins.
This afternoon, Ivins’ attorneys at Venable, Paul F. Kemp and Thomas M. DeGonia, released the following statement:
“For more than a year, we have been privileged to represent Dr. Bruce Ivins during the investigation of the anthrax deaths of September and October of 2001. For six years, Dr. Ivins fully cooperated with that investigation, assisting the government in every way that was asked of him. He was a world-renowned and highly decorated scientist who served his country for over 33 years with the Department of the Army. We are saddened by his death, and disappointed that we will not have the opportunity to defend his good name and reputation in a court of law. We assert his innocence in these killings, and would have established that at trial. The relentless pressure of accusation and innuendo takes its toll in different ways on different people, as has already been seen in this investigation. In Dr. Ivins’ case, it led to his untimely death. . . .”
Army Scientist Bruce E. Ivins Accused of Anthrax ’Commits Suicide’
http://noworldsystem.com/2008/08/0..%80%99commits-suicide%e2%80%99/
http://noworldsystem.com/2008/08/0..%80%99commits-suicide%e2%80%99/
Scientists Question FBI Probe On Anthrax
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-..008080201632.html?nav=hcmodule
FBI was told to blame Anthrax scare on Al Qaeda by White House officials
http://www.nydailynews.com/n..s_told_to_blame_anthrax_scare_on_a.html
Washington Post Scrubs Own Story Questioning Case Against ’Anthrax Killer’
http://www.democraticunderground…_topic&forum=389&topic_id=3725177
Mounting questions over US anthrax probe and scientist’s alleged suicide
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/aug2008/anth-a04.shtml
Iraqi detainees put in wooden crates
August 4, 2008, 1:28 pm
Filed under: 9/11, ACLU, Baghdad, Britain, Centcom, CIA, civil liberties, civil rights, Department of justice, Detainee, Dick Cheney, DOJ, Europe, european union, Extraordinary Rendition, federal crime, FOIA, Geneva Convention, Habeas Corpus, human rights, Impeach, interrogation, Iraq, john ashcroft, london, Mi5, Military, Nancy Pelosi, nation building, occupation, rendition, Torture, Troops, United Kingdom, War Crimes, War On Terror, waterboarding, White House | Tags: diego garcia, indian ocean, island of diego garcia, prisoner boxes, wooden crates
Filed under: 9/11, ACLU, Baghdad, Britain, Centcom, CIA, civil liberties, civil rights, Department of justice, Detainee, Dick Cheney, DOJ, Europe, european union, Extraordinary Rendition, federal crime, FOIA, Geneva Convention, Habeas Corpus, human rights, Impeach, interrogation, Iraq, john ashcroft, london, Mi5, Military, Nancy Pelosi, nation building, occupation, rendition, Torture, Troops, United Kingdom, War Crimes, War On Terror, waterboarding, White House | Tags: diego garcia, indian ocean, island of diego garcia, prisoner boxes, wooden crates
Iraqi detainees put in wooden crates
The Memory Hole
July 23, 2008
In Iraq, some prisoners/detainees are kept in wooden crates known as “prisoner boxes,” so I filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the US Central Command asking for the following:
“Vanity Fair (Feb 2005 issue) has reported the existence of wood “prisoner boxes” being used by the US military in facilities in and around Baghdad. They are used to hold individual prisoners and detainees.
“I hereby request all photographs of these boxes, including empty boxes as well as boxes holding prisoners and detainees.”
Around nine and a half months later, CentCom responded by sending the three photographs on this page.
Another Secret Terror War Prison Found
Huffington Post
August 1, 2008
The existence of a secret, CIA-run prison on the island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean has long been a leaky secret in the “War on Terror,” and recent revelations in TIME — based on disclosures by a “senior American official,” who was “a frequent participant in White House Situation Room meetings” after the 9/11 attacks, and who reported that “a CIA counter-terrorism official twice said that a high-value prisoner or prisoners were being interrogated on the island” — will come as no surprise to those who have been studying the story closely.
The news will, however, be an embarrassment to the US government, which has persistently denied claims that it operated a secret “War on Terror” prison on Diego Garcia, and will be a source of even more consternation to the British government, which is more closely bound than its law-shredding Transatlantic neighbor to international laws and treaties preventing any kind of involvement whatsoever in kidnapping, “extraordinary rendition” and the practice of torture.
2002 DOJ Memos OKed Torture
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/..6my6QSyHcMGDyb_qe2WwvIE
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/..6my6QSyHcMGDyb_qe2WwvIE
ACLU: Memos authorized CIA torture
http://rawstory.com//news/2008/A..horized_CIA_torture_0724.html
Former Gitmo Prosecutor Says Trials Rigged
http://blogs.cqpolitics.com/spytalk/2008/07/former-gitmo-prosecutor-says-t.html
MI5 Outsourced Torture
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jul/15/humanrights.civilliberties
`Terrorist’ Loses 60 Pounds on Cheney Torture Diet
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/new..8&sid=as7YVr4Wamak&refer=home
Why Pelosi won’t impeach: She knew about the torture
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w88NXHsgi08
Ashcroft: Waterboarding ‘Consistently’ Seen As Legal, Refuses To Say Use On U.S. Troops Is ‘Unacceptable’
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/07/17/ashcroft-torture/
White House caught providing ’talking points’ to Fox News
August 2, 2008, 3:47 pm
Filed under: Afghanistan, Alberto Gonzales, brainwashing, Chris Matthews, Conditioning, Department of justice, DOJ, Fox News, Hardball, Iraq, Keith Olbermann, Media, Media Fear, MSNBC, nation building, neocons, occupation, Propaganda, Psyops, Scott Mcclellan, War On Terror, White House | Tags: talking points
Filed under: Afghanistan, Alberto Gonzales, brainwashing, Chris Matthews, Conditioning, Department of justice, DOJ, Fox News, Hardball, Iraq, Keith Olbermann, Media, Media Fear, MSNBC, nation building, neocons, occupation, Propaganda, Psyops, Scott Mcclellan, War On Terror, White House | Tags: talking points
White House caught violating anti-propaganda laws, provided ’talking points’ to Fox News
Blue Tidalwave
July 29, 2008
Last week former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan appeared on MSNBC’s “Hardball with Chris Matthews” and said the White House distributed “talking points” to friendly Fox journalists.
McClellan’s confirmation of an operation inside the White House of providing comprehensive talking points to Fox News and other Conservative talk show personalities to manipulate the media and control the message regarding the Iraq War and the “war on terror” is a violation of anti-propaganda laws. By law the government sources must be disclosed by the reporting news outlets.
Yesterday a report prepared by the Justice Department’s inspector general and its internal ethics office found that a few aides to Alberto Gonzales and White House officials were actively involved in hiring decisions for non political positions at the DOJ. Being a loyal Republican was the main criteria for being hired, not education or experience.
Olbermann admits White House gave him talking points in 2004
Judiciary Committee approves contempt charge for Karl Rove
August 1, 2008, 2:35 pm
Filed under: Congress, Department of justice, Dictatorship, DOJ, Empire, federal crime, judiciary committee, Karl Rove, Media, MSNBC, Nancy Pelosi, scandal, Valerie Plame, War Crimes, White House | Tags: contempt, linda sanchez, pelosi, Subpoena
Filed under: Congress, Department of justice, Dictatorship, DOJ, Empire, federal crime, judiciary committee, Karl Rove, Media, MSNBC, Nancy Pelosi, scandal, Valerie Plame, War Crimes, White House | Tags: contempt, linda sanchez, pelosi, Subpoena
Judiciary Committee approves contempt charge for Karl Rove
Raw Story
July 30, 2008
The House Judiciary Committee has voted 20-14 to approve a contempt of Congress resolution against former White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove for his failure to appear after a Congressional subpoena.
Voting along party lines Wednesday morning, the committee said Rove broke the law by failing to appear at a July 10 hearing on allegations of White House influence over the Justice Department, including whether Rove encouraged prosecutions against Democrats.
The committee decision is a recommendation. It remains unclear whether Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) will allow a final vote.
Rove has denied any involvement with Justice Department decisions, and the White House has said Congress has no authority to compel testimony from current and former advisers.
Yesterday afternoon, a coalition of groups including CREDO Mobile, People For the American Way, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, The Nation, Campaign for America’s Future, and Progress Now, delivered a petition calling for Rove’s contempt to Rep. Linda Sanchez (D-CA).
“I think it’s ridiculous that Karl Rove thinks that he doesn’t have to follow the law,” Sanchez said in a release. “Nobody in this country should be above the law.”
Excerpts from the markup memo of the resolution sent to reporters follows. Rove was overseas at the time of the hearing and alleged that the trip had been planned in advance.
Turd Blossom runs from questions of contempt charge
IP Bill allows govt. to confiscate property of copyright offenders
July 29, 2008, 2:50 pm
Filed under: 1984, 4th amendment, Big Brother, Bloggers, Britain, Censorship, China, civil liberties, civil rights, Congress, Control Grid, Department of justice, DHS, Dictatorship, Dissent, Empire, Europe, european union, Fascism, FBI, free speech, Homeland Security, House, internet, Internet Filtering, internet police, internet tax, IP, Nazi, Oppression, Police State, Senate, Surveillance, Uncategorized, United Kingdom, US Constitution | Tags: copyright, copyright czar, copyrighted material, Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights Act of 2008, intellectual property, IPEC, music piracy, Patent Office, PIRATE Act, PRO-IP Act, property seizure, state department, trademarks
Filed under: 1984, 4th amendment, Big Brother, Bloggers, Britain, Censorship, China, civil liberties, civil rights, Congress, Control Grid, Department of justice, DHS, Dictatorship, Dissent, Empire, Europe, european union, Fascism, FBI, free speech, Homeland Security, House, internet, Internet Filtering, internet police, internet tax, IP, Nazi, Oppression, Police State, Senate, Surveillance, Uncategorized, United Kingdom, US Constitution | Tags: copyright, copyright czar, copyrighted material, Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights Act of 2008, intellectual property, IPEC, music piracy, Patent Office, PIRATE Act, PRO-IP Act, property seizure, state department, trademarks
IP Bill allows govt. to confiscate property of copyright offenders
Ars Technica
July 25, 2008
Intellectual property legislation introduced in the Senate on Thursday would combine elements of two controversial IP enforcement bills: The PRO-IP Act, which passed the House by a wide margin in May, and the PIRATE Act, which has won Senate approval several times since its first introduction in 2004. The law would increase penalties for counterfeiting, empower federal prosecutors to bring civil suits against copyright infringers, create a federal copyright czar to coordinate IP enforcement, and provide for the seizure of property used to violate copyrights and trademarks.
Like PRO-IP, the Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights Act of 2008 would double statutory damages for counterfeiting, with damages as high as $2 million for “willful” trademark violations. It also empowers the president to appoint an Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator (or “copyright czar”), who would develop a “joint strategic plan” meant to harmonize the IP enforcement efforts of diverse federal agencies, including the Department of Justice, Patent Office, State Department, and Department of Homeland Security. The Attorney General is directed to deploy five further IPECs as liaisons to foreign countries where piracy is rampant, and to establish a dedicated IP task force within the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The law also appropriates $25 million annually for grants to state and local government agencies working to crack down on IP violations.
Some of the strongest criticism of PRO-IP has been directed at a provision, replicated here, that would allow for the seizure of “property used, or intended to be used, in any manner or part to commit or facilitate” a copyright or trademark infringement. While this language is presumably meant to target the equipment used by commercial bootlegging operations, it would also appear to cover, for example, the computer used to BitTorrent a movie or album.
Cybersecurity Will Take A Big Bite of the Budget
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy..07/20/AR2008072001641_pf.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy..07/20/AR2008072001641_pf.html
Court Strikes Down Internet Censorship Law
http://blog.aclu.org/2008/07/22/court-strikes-down-internet-censorship-law/
Britain Agrees To Tackle Online Music Piracy
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080724/tc..REzZAdg6o3.IzHsZ8nDzNU.3QA
Music industry to tax downloaders
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-..stry-to-tax-downloaders-875757.html
Police director sues for critical bloggers’ names
http://www.commercialappeal.com/..d-identity-blogger-critica/
Chinese Arrest Internet Dissident
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080723/wr_nm/china_dissident_dc
DOJ lawyer says lunatics running the country
July 28, 2008, 10:59 am
Filed under: Abu Ghraib, Department of justice, Detainee, Dick Cheney, Dictatorship, DOJ, Empire, Extraordinary Rendition, George Bush, Guantanamo, intimidation, neocons, rendition, Torture, White House
Filed under: Abu Ghraib, Department of justice, Detainee, Dick Cheney, Dictatorship, DOJ, Empire, Extraordinary Rendition, George Bush, Guantanamo, intimidation, neocons, rendition, Torture, White House
DOJ lawyer says lunatics running the country
4 arrested for attempting citizens arrest on Karl Rove
http://youtube.com/watch?v=BWQ5ZMnz25I
July 26, 2008, 2:16 pm
Filed under: ABC, Afghanistan, afghanistan deaths, CIA, citizen's arrest, CNN, Department of justice, Dictatorship, Dissent, DOJ, Empire, federal crime, George Bush, House, House Subcommittee, Iowa, Iraq, iraq deaths, judiciary committee, Karl Rove, Media, MSNBC, nation building, neocons, occupation, Protest, scandal, Troops, Valerie Plame, War Crimes | Tags: contempt, roy sekoff, Subpoena
Filed under: ABC, Afghanistan, afghanistan deaths, CIA, citizen's arrest, CNN, Department of justice, Dictatorship, Dissent, DOJ, Empire, federal crime, George Bush, House, House Subcommittee, Iowa, Iraq, iraq deaths, judiciary committee, Karl Rove, Media, MSNBC, nation building, neocons, occupation, Protest, scandal, Troops, Valerie Plame, War Crimes | Tags: contempt, roy sekoff, Subpoena
4 arrested for attempting citizens arrest on Karl Rove
Iowa Politics
July 25, 2008
Four Iowans were arrested today while attempting to make a Citizens’ Arrest of Karl Rove in Des Moines, Iowa. Citing Iowa Code provisions for making Citizen’s Arrests as well as citing Federal Statute violations they claimed Rove had violated, the four were stopped at the gate of the Wakonda Country Club in Des Moines where Rove was scheduled to speak at a Republican Fundraiser.
The four arrested were retired Methodist minister and Peace and Justice Advocate, Rev. Chet Guinn, 80, as well as three Des Moines Catholic Workers, Edward Bloomer, 61, Kirk Brown, 25, and Mona Shaw, 57. All four were cited for trespassing and released.
The four maintained that they were acting within the guidelines of Iowa Code that obligate private citizens to make such an arrest if they believe a felony has been committed and turn Rove over to police officials to bring Rove before a judge for formal indictment. By law, a federal judge should consider the charges and determine if an indictment should be made.
Brown and Shaw made a similar attempt last March when Rove spoke at the University of Iowa, Iowa City. Brown and Shaw were arrested and released without charges following that attempt. Deaths in the Middle East since the March attempt number in the thousands including, 151 more US troops have been killed in Iraq, and 284 killed in Afghanistan as well as far more citizens of those two nations.
Rove remains unindicted and recently refused to cooperate with a Congressional subpoena in the Valerie Plame leak investigation. Despite mounting evidence of Rove’s wrongdoing concerning leading the U.S. to war as well as other actions, Congress and the U.S. judicial system remain reluctant to bring charges against either Rove or the Bush administration. Recent evidence includes Articles of Impeachment that will again be presented by Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich tomorrow. Vincent Bugliosi’s new book “The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder” carefully lays out a case against Bush and his administration for war crimes and felony murder. Bugliosi was prosecutor for the Charles Manson Family murders and author of the book “Helter Skelter,” which dealt with that crime.
To date there have been 4125 US Military deaths in Iraq, 896 in Afghanistan, 66,775 casualties (wounded as well as those removed for other injuries and illnesses), and more than 200,000 Iraqi and Afghani citizens killed and many, many more wounded.
Karl Rove should be in jail for contempt
http://youtube.com/watch?v=BWQ5ZMnz25I
Rove refuses subpoena, leaves country
http://noworldsystem.com/2008/..es-subpoena-leaves-country/
McCain Fundraiser Funded Columbian Terrorist Organization
July 4, 2008, 1:59 pm
Filed under: 2008 Election, colombia, Department of justice, DOJ, GOP, John McCain, Military, Military Industrial Complex, neocons, Nicaragua, War On Terror | Tags: daniel ortega, thad cochran, united self-defense of colombia
Filed under: 2008 Election, colombia, Department of justice, DOJ, GOP, John McCain, Military, Military Industrial Complex, neocons, Nicaragua, War On Terror | Tags: daniel ortega, thad cochran, united self-defense of colombia
McCain Fundraiser Funded Columbian Terrorist Organization
Nico Pitney
Huffington Post
July 2, 2008
The co-host of a recent top-dollar fundraiser for Sen. John McCain oversaw the payment of roughly $1.7 million to a Colombian paramilitary group that is today designated a terrorist organization by the United States.
Carl H. Lindner Jr., the billionaire Cincinnati businessman, was CEO of Chiquita Brands International from 1984 to 2001, and remained on the company’s board of directors until May 2002. Beginning under his tenure, Chiquita executives paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (known by the Spanish acronym AUC), which is described by George Washington University’s National Security Archive as an “illegal right-wing anti-guerrilla group tied to many of the country’s most notorious civilian massacres.”
Following a Justice Department indictment last year, Chiquita admitted to illegally funding the paramilitaries and agreed to pay a $25 million fine. Chiquita’s payments to the AUC began in 1997 and lasted seven years; roughly half of the funds came after the group was designated a Foreign Terrorist Organization by the U.S. State Department in 2001.
According to the Justice Department, the payments “were reviewed and approved by senior executives” of Chiquita, who knew by no later than September 2000 “that the AUC was a violent, paramilitary organization.”
Late last week, Lindner co-hosted a $25,000-per-person fundraiser for McCain and the Republican Party in the wealthy Indian Hills neighborhood of Cincinnati, Ohio. The event raised about $2 million; Lindner also serves on McCain’s Ohio Victory Team.
GOP senator: McCain roughed up Nicaraguan
Washington Times
July 2, 2008
One of John McCain’s Republican colleagues says he saw the presumed GOP presidential nominee roughly grab an associate of Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega and lift him out of his chair during a diplomatic mission to the Central American nation in 1987.
A former McCain aide who was along on the mission said he doesn’t recall an incident like the one described by Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Miss.
Cochran said he saw McCain, who has a reputation for being hot tempered, rough up an Ortega associate during a trip to Nicaragua led by former Sen. Bob Dole, R-Kansas.
McCain wants much larger U.S. military
http://www.reuters.com/article/burningIssues/idUKN0119815920080702
http://www.reuters.com/article/burningIssues/idUKN0119815920080702
Justice Department Considers Letting FBI Target Muslims
July 4, 2008, 12:13 pm
Filed under: 9/11, Congress, Department of justice, DHS, DOJ, FBI, George Bush, Homeland Security, racial profiling, War On Terror | Tags: muslim
Filed under: 9/11, Congress, Department of justice, DHS, DOJ, FBI, George Bush, Homeland Security, racial profiling, War On Terror | Tags: muslim
Justice Department Considers Letting FBI Target Muslims
AP
July 3, 2008
The Justice Department is considering letting the FBI investigate Americans without any evidence of wrongdoing, relying instead on a terrorist profile that could single out Muslims, Arabs or other racial and ethnic groups.
Law enforcement officials say the proposed policy would help them do exactly what Congress demanded after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks: root out terrorists before they strike.
Although President Bush has disavowed targeting suspects based on their race or ethnicity, the new rules would allow the FBI to consider those factors among a number of traits that could trigger a national security investigation.
Currently, FBI agents need specific reasons — like evidence or allegations that a law probably has been violated — to investigate U.S. citizens and legal residents. The new policy, law enforcement officials told The Associated Press, would let agents open preliminary terrorism investigations after mining public records and intelligence to build a profile of traits that, taken together, were deemed suspicious.
Read Full Article Here
Utility Workers Hired As Stasi Informants
July 4, 2008, 11:56 am
Filed under: 1984, 4th amendment, abc news, ACLU, Arizona, Big Brother, California, CIA, civil liberties, civil rights, colorado, Communism, Control Grid, Denver, Department of justice, DHS, Dictatorship, DOJ, Empire, Fascism, FBI, firefighters, florida, Germany, Hitler, Homeland Security, nanny state, Nazi, paramedics, Police State, stasi, stasi tactics, Surveillance, US Constitution, utility workers, war on drugs, War On Terror, WW2 | Tags: Terrorism Liaison Officers, TLO
Filed under: 1984, 4th amendment, abc news, ACLU, Arizona, Big Brother, California, CIA, civil liberties, civil rights, colorado, Communism, Control Grid, Denver, Department of justice, DHS, Dictatorship, DOJ, Empire, Fascism, FBI, firefighters, florida, Germany, Hitler, Homeland Security, nanny state, Nazi, paramedics, Police State, stasi, stasi tactics, Surveillance, US Constitution, utility workers, war on drugs, War On Terror, WW2 | Tags: Terrorism Liaison Officers, TLO
Utility Workers Hired As Stasi Informants In Colorado, California, Arizona
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet
July 2, 2008
Hundreds of police, firefighters, paramedics and utility workers have been trained and recently dispatched as “Terrorism Liaison Officers” in Colorado, Arizona and California to watch for “suspicious activity” which is later fed into a secret government database.
According to a Denver Post report, “It’s a tactic intended to feed better data into terrorism early-warning systems and uncover intelligence that could help fight anti-U.S. forces. But the vague nature of the TLOs’ mission, and their focus on reporting both legal and illegal activity, has generated objections from privacy advocates and civil libertarians.
“Suspicious activity” is broadly defined in TLO training as behavior that could lead to terrorism: taking photos of no apparent aesthetic value, making measurements or notes, espousing extremist beliefs or conversing in code, according to a draft Department of Justice/Major Cities Chiefs Association document.”
“We don’t snoop into private citizens’ lives. We aren’t living in a communist state,” claims Lt. Tony Lopez, commander of Denver’s intelligence unit – but the program bears close parallels to the East German Stasi system, which at its height employed one informant for every seven citizens.
Democracy Now interviewed the Denver Post writer and an ACLU representative about the program.
It is also reminiscent of the supposedly canned 2002 Operation TIPS program, which would have turned 4 per cent of Americans into informants under the jurisdiction of the Justice Department.
TIPS lived on in other guises, such as the Highway Watch program, a $19 billion dollar Homeland Security-run project which trains truckers to watch for suspicious activity on America’s highways.
More recently, ABC News reported that “The FBI is taking cues from the CIA to recruit thousands of covert informants in the United States as part of a sprawling effort…..to aid with criminal investigations.”
Since authorities now define mundane activities like buying baby formula, beer, wearing Levi jeans, carrying identifying documents like a drivers license and traveling with women or children or mentioning the U.S. constitution as the behavior of potential terrorists, the bounty for the American Stasi to turn in political dissidents is sure to be too tempting to resist.
Indeed, last month Southwest Florida Crime Stoppers and the New York Times heartily celebrated the fact that an increasing number of Americans are becoming informants and turning in their neighbors and family members to the authorities in return for cash rewards.
Citing gas prices, foreclosure rates and runaway food price inflation, The Times lauded the fact that citizens are reporting on each other, ensuring “a substantial increase in Crime Stopper-related arrests and recovered property, as callers turn in neighbors, grandchildren or former boyfriends in exchange for a little cash.”
As any budding dictator will tell you, the creation of an informant society where individuals self-regulate their behavior in fear of being turned in by a citizen spy is one of the key stepping stones to tyranny. To have the media celebrate the fact that people are reporting on their neighbors and grandchildren puts the icing on the cake.
U.S. Media Blackout On Bilderberg 2008
June 7, 2008, 12:43 pm
Filed under: 2008 Election, Afghanistan, Ahmadinejad, airstrikes, Alex Jones, Barack Obama, bernanke, bilderberg, Britain, Chicago, Condoleezza Rice, Coup, Daniel Estulin, David Rockefeller, Department of justice, Dianne Feinstein, DOJ, eric schmidt, Europe, european union, False Flag, fannie mae, Federal Reserve, George Bush, global elite, global government, Globalism, google, Henry Kissinger, Hillary Clinton, International Bankers, Internet 2, Iran, Iraq, jim johnson, jim tucker, logan act, Media, media blackout, military strike, New World Order, obama, Pakistan, paul wolfowitz, Preemptive Strike, preemptive war, queen beatrix, Richard Perle, Rick Perry, Robert Zoellick, Russia, secret meetings, Secret Societies, spain, Taxpayers, Tehran, United Kingdom, virginia, War On Terror, Washington D.C., World Bank, ww4 | Tags: ipod, marriott
Filed under: 2008 Election, Afghanistan, Ahmadinejad, airstrikes, Alex Jones, Barack Obama, bernanke, bilderberg, Britain, Chicago, Condoleezza Rice, Coup, Daniel Estulin, David Rockefeller, Department of justice, Dianne Feinstein, DOJ, eric schmidt, Europe, european union, False Flag, fannie mae, Federal Reserve, George Bush, global elite, global government, Globalism, google, Henry Kissinger, Hillary Clinton, International Bankers, Internet 2, Iran, Iraq, jim johnson, jim tucker, logan act, Media, media blackout, military strike, New World Order, obama, Pakistan, paul wolfowitz, Preemptive Strike, preemptive war, queen beatrix, Richard Perle, Rick Perry, Robert Zoellick, Russia, secret meetings, Secret Societies, spain, Taxpayers, Tehran, United Kingdom, virginia, War On Terror, Washington D.C., World Bank, ww4 | Tags: ipod, marriott
U.S. Media Blackout On Bilderberg 2008
Condi Rice, Ben Bernanke, Head of Google and many others in attendance
Lee Rogers
Rogue Government
June 6, 2008
The 2008 Bilderberg Meeting is now in full swing at the Westfields Marriott in Chantilly, Virginia, USA but you wouldn’t know it from the media blackout of this event by virtually all mainstream media outlets in the United States. Each year, Bilderberg hosts some of the most powerful people in North America and Europe where these individuals set and shape policies for the world. The 2008 Bilderberg Meeting is slated to run from June 5th through June 8th. Since 1954, Bilderberg has met in secrecy primarily thanks to the intentional lack of media attention paid to it. One would think that an event where over 100 of the most high profile and powerful people from North America and Europe are meeting would receive a great deal of mainstream media attention, but there is virtually none. As a result of the media blackout, only independent journalists and alternative researchers have been covering this event on a year to year basis. Due to a greater amount of attention being paid to this event, a press release on the Bilderberg Meeting was issued from a group that identified themselves as the American Friends of Bilderberg. The press release provides spin on how wonderful Bilderberg is and even provides a contact number that can be used to obtain a list of attendees. The Logan Act states that it is illegal for those holding public office in the United States to attend secret meetings like Bilderberg where policy is set. Regardless, that has not stopped people like Rick Perry from attending the 2007 Bilderberg Meeting as the sitting Texas governor. Jim Tucker, who has covered the Bilderberg meeting for over 30 years, has accurately made future predictions based upon information he has received from moles within Bilderberg. There is no doubt that policy is set at this meeting and quite frankly if you think that some of the most powerful people in the world are getting together just for laughs, you are sorely mistaken.
Below is taken directly from the press release on the Bilderberg Meeting issued by the American Friends of Bilderberg which provides positive spin for the Bilderberg Meeting.
The 56th Bilderberg Meeting will be held in Chantilly, Virginia, USA 5 – 8 June 2008. The Conference will deal mainly with a nuclear free world, cyber terrorism, Africa, Russia, finance, protectionism, US-EU relations, Afghanistan and Pakistan, Islam and Iran. Approximately 140 participants will attend, of whom about two-thirds come from Europe and the balance from North America. About one-third is from government and politics, and two-thirds are from finance, industry, labor, education and communications. The meeting is private in order to encourage frank and open discussion.
Bilderberg takes its name from the hotel in Holland, where the first meeting took place in May 1954. That pioneering meeting grew out of the concern expressed by leading citizens on both sides of the Atlantic that Western Europe and North America were not working together as closely as they should on common problems of critical importance. It was felt that regular, off-the-record discussions would help create a better understanding of the complex forces and major trends affecting Western nations in the difficult post-war period. The Cold War has now ended. But in practically all respects, there are more, not fewer, common problems – from trade to jobs, from monetary policy to investment, from ecological challenges to the task of promoting international security. It is hard to think of any major issue in either Europe or North America whose unilateral solution would not have repercussions for the other. Thus the concept of a European-American forum has not been overtaken by time. The dialogue between these two regions is still – even increasingly – critical. What is unique about Bilderberg as a forum, is the broad cross-section of leading citizens that are assembled for nearly three days of informal and off-the-record discussion about topics of current concern especially in the fields of foreign affairs and the international economy; the strong feeling among participants that in view of the differing attitudes and experiences of the Western nations, there remains a clear need to further develop an understanding in which these concerns can be accommodated; the privacy of the meetings, which has no purpose other than to allow participants to speak their minds openly and freely. In short, Bilderberg is a small, flexible, informal and off-the-record international forum in which different viewpoints can be expressed and mutual understanding enhanced.
No where in the press release does it explain why many alternative researchers and independent journalists have been harassed and in many cases threatened in their attempts to cover this meeting. In fact, for many decades there were consistent denials of Bilderberg’s existence so it is quite amazing that they have finally decided to make an official recognition of the meeting. Not only that, but if the meeting really is just an informal discussion to allow its participants to speak openly and freely, than there shouldn’t be any need for threats, harassment and decades of secrecy. The meeting has been kept secret for many years because it is quite obvious that the participants do not want sunlight shone on the meeting’s agenda. This press release is nothing more than a smoke screen to make the average person believe that this is a legitimate meeting when it is not. All of of these very powerful people would not be meeting once a year if there wasn’t a real specific purpose for them to do so.
According to the official list of Bilderberg attendees, there is no doubt that this is the who’s who of elites in the Western world. The list includes the likes of banking and oil tycoon David Rockefeller, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Google CEO Eric Schmidt, World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz, Robert Zoellick, CEO of the Washington Post Donald Graham, Richard Perle, the Queen of Spain and many other incredibly powerful and well known people. Often times the list of Bilderberg attendees does not actually include everyone who makes an appearance.
There is also speculation that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama met at the Bilderberg Meeting yesterday. Jim Johnson the former Fannie Mae CEO and 2008 Bilderberg attendee is one of the individuals tasked to choose Obama’s running mate so an appearance at Bilderberg by Obama and Clinton makes perfect sense. Despite that, the media has been running a story saying that Clinton and Obama met at Senator Dianne Feinstein’s house which flies in the face of logic. There is a distinct possibility that this story is actually cover so Obama and Clinton could briefly attend Bilderberg and possibly work out a deal. Of course, we will probably never know the entire truth. Despite that, both Clinton and Obama were in the Washington DC area yesterday, and Obama’s campaign actually misdirected the press core that follows him. While Obama stayed in the Washington DC area, the media was told to fly out to Chicago only to find out Obama did not fly out with them. Needless to say, the press was not very happy about this. But either way, why all the secrecy if Clinton and Obama are just meeting at Feinstein’s house? The more likely answer is that the secrecy and misdirection was required to conceal the fact that they were actually going to Bilderberg to work something out. If the media tracked down Clinton or Obama to the Bilderberg Meeting, the chances of the mainstream media covering Bilderberg would increase substantially. Currently, several protesters have gathered outside of the Westfields Marriott expressing disgust at the secretive and conspiratorial agenda that these elites have to destroy United States sovereignty and form a centralized world government. There is little doubt that the Bilderberg Meeting would quickly turn into a media circus if mainstream media outlets tracked Obama back to this location.
It remains to be seen what sort of agenda the Bilderberg Group will decide to push forward throughout the next year, but we should find out bits and pieces over the next few weeks and months. The lack of mainstream media coverage of this event is simply incredible especially considering that the American Friends of Bilderberg issued a press release on the meeting. This is more evidence that the mainstream media is run by a bunch of fascist hacks. When over 100 of the most powerful people in the world meet in one location it should be front page news. Instead, the corporate controlled media prefers to focus in on tabloid news stories covering the antics of celebrities and other rubbish. The fact that there has been almost no media coverage of this event in the United States is evidence as to how bought and paid for the corporate controlled media in the United States actually is. Be sure to continue to check out the alternative media for coverage on this very important yearly meeting of the global elite. Simply put, it doesn’t look as if the corporate controlled media has the balls to cover Bilderberg so the alternative media has to do their job for them.
Inside the Bilderberg Hotel
Department of Justice ordered 125 ipods for Bilderberg Group
Your tax dollars at work…
Infowars
June 5, 2008
Infowars has received an anonymous email reporting that the Department of Justice has placed an order for a large number of ipods with “Bilderberg 2008″ engraved on the back and shipping to Chantilly, Virginia, at American tax payer expense. According to the source, the DOJ is “freaking out” because the order will arrive late.
Of course, it should probably come as no surprise a gaggle of global elitists, meeting in secret outside of the District of Criminals to plot their one world agenda, would get engraved iPod freebies. It is, however, yet another indication that a Bilderberg coterie indeed exists and is meeting in Chantilly, Virginia this week. Thanks to Alex Jones, Jim Tucker, Daniel Estulin and others, we have a better understanding of the Bilderberg agenda, never mind the concerted effort of the corporate media to characterize the Bilderbergers as a harmless association of politicians and business types.
Jim Tucker On the Scene at This Year’s Bilderberg
Recent News:
Video from Bilderberg
http://www.infowars.com/?p=2570
http://www.infowars.com/?p=2570
Bilderberg Announces 2008 Conference
http://www.centredaily.com/business/story/640197.html
Bilderberg meeting attracts prominent politicians, businessmen
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/..minent_politicians_businessmen_0606.html
Official 2008 Bilderberg Participant List
http://prisonplanet.com/articles/june2008/060608_b_list.htm
Secretive meeting held in United States
http://www.turkishdailynews.com.tr/article.php?enewsid=106654
Photos: Bilderberg 2008 at the Westfields
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/june2008/060608Photos.htm
Dutch PM and foreign minister visit Bush & Bilderberg
http://www.radionetherlands.nl/new..-PM-and-foreign-minister-visit-the-US
Portuguese Newspaper Admits Bilderberg Kingmaker Power
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/..bilderberg_kingmaker.htm
Spooks Infest Marriott Hotel As Bilderberg Begins
Alex Jones’ Bilderberg Report on Coast to Coast AM
Bilderberg, Shadow Supergovernment
Cheney: ’Damn right’ I back Bush use of waterboarding
February 9, 2008, 5:57 am
Filed under: 9/11, 9/11 hijackers, 9/11 Truth, Abu Zubaydah, CIA, CNN, Congress, CPAC, Department of justice, Detainee, Dick Cheney, DOJ, Extraordinary Rendition, George Bush, Guantanamo, Habeas Corpus, Impeach, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, Michael Mukasey, neocons, Torture, War Crimes, War On Terror, waterboarding, White House, Wolf Blitzer
Filed under: 9/11, 9/11 hijackers, 9/11 Truth, Abu Zubaydah, CIA, CNN, Congress, CPAC, Department of justice, Detainee, Dick Cheney, DOJ, Extraordinary Rendition, George Bush, Guantanamo, Habeas Corpus, Impeach, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, Michael Mukasey, neocons, Torture, War Crimes, War On Terror, waterboarding, White House, Wolf Blitzer
Cheney: ‘Damn right’ I back Bush use of waterboarding
Raw Story
February 7, 2008
http://youtube.com/watch?v=w2aNncCkSgY
The controversial interrogation technique of waterboarding was a hot topic in a House Judiciary Committee hearing today, at which Attorney General Michael Mukasey said the Justice Department would not investigate the legality of the actions of U.S. interrogators on terror detainees.
CNN’s Situation Room reports that Vice President Dick Cheney, an ardent defender of U.S. tactics in the war on terror, was “defiant” about the use of waterboarding on suspects in an appearance today at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, D.C.
Cheney said that he supported President Bush’s national security decisions, which included the approval of waterboarding along with other harsh interrogation tactics. “I’ve been proud to stand by [Bush], by the decisions he’s made,” said Cheney, who then asked aloud, “Would I support those decisions today?”
“You’re damn right I would,” he answered himself, to loud cheers.
CIA Chief: We Waterboarded
ABC News
February 5, 2008
http://youtube.com/watch?v=HnI-mu_l9AQ
CIA director Michael Hayden confirmed in an open session of Congress Tuesday his agency’s use of an interrogation technique many consider torture — a technique at the center of a national debate on the treatment of U.S. detainees in the war on terror and in the war in Iraq. In acknowledging that CIA officers and contractors used waterboarding on three “high-value” detainees, Hayden revealed information nearly identical to that shared by a former CIA officer last December with ABC News, which prompted the CIA to request a criminal prosecution. Until Hayden’s comments before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence today, no senior U.S. intelligence official had publicly acknowledged the technique. Hayden, who prohibited the practice of waterboarding by CIA agents in 2006, confirmed that his agency waterboarded Khalid Sheik Mohammed, Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim Nashiri, in efforts to compel the men to talk. He told senators the agency believed at the time “that additional catastrophic attacks were imminent.” The men told CIA interrogators things that “led to reliable information,” Hayden told reporters after the hearing.
Bush administration acknowledges and defends use of torture technique
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/feb2008/tort-f07.shtml
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/feb2008/tort-f07.shtml
noworldsystem.com 