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Did IntelCenter Photoshop AlQaeda Logo on Mutallab Photo?

Did IntelCenter Photoshop AlQaeda Logo on Mutallab Photo?

NoWorldSystem
January 4, 2009

Here’s a snippet from an excellent Signs of the Times article about the mysteries of the infamous Flight 253 patsy entitled “The Underwear Bomber – Crushing Freedom With Phony Arab Terrorism”.

    Initially, all we had was a Nigerian youth and a misguided effort to detonate what we are told was an explosive compound. Within 24 hours however, IntelCenter, a group of US ex-military and intelligence officials who over the years have somehow managed to produce many of the “al-Qaeda” videos and messages that they serendipitously find on “jihadist websites”, produced a picture of Mutallab with what they claim is the flag of the media arm of “al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula” and a message from the group claiming Mutallab as one of their own:

    “We tell the American people that since you support the leaders who kill our women and children … we have come to slaughter you (and) will strike you with no previous (warning), our vengeance is near,” the statement said

    Scared yet? Well, the people at Intelcenter really hope you are. They put a lot of effort into producing these messages and videos and images. For example, a 2006 ‘al-qaeda’ video featuring al-Zawahiri released by Intelcenter was analyzed by Neal Krawetz, a researcher and computer security consultant. During a presentation he gave at the BlackHat security conference in Las Vegas in 2007 about analyzing digital photographs and video images for alterations and enhancements, Krawetz showed that the video had been altered in a very interesting way.

    Using a program he wrote (and provided on the conference CD-ROM) Krawetz could print out the quantization tables in a JPEG file (that indicate how the image was compressed) and determine the last tool that created the image – that is, the make and model of the camera if the image is original or the version of Photoshop that was used to alter and re-save the image.


    A still from the the Intelcenter-faked “al-qaeda” video

    Krawetz took an image (above) from the 2006 video of al-Zawahiri showing the Mr Magoo look-alike sitting in front of a desk and banner with writing on it. After conducting his error analysis Krawetz was able to determine that the writing on the banner behind al-Zawahiri’s head was added to the image afterward and at the same time as the logo of IntelCenter, which released the video. In short, it seems very likely that IntelCenter produced the writing on the banner, and probably the entire video, from whole cloth.

    Despite this evidence, we are being asked to believe that the latest message and photo from ‘al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula’ that IntelCenter just happened to find on a “Jihadist internet message board” that links Mutallab with ‘al-Qaeda in Yemen’ is authentic!


    An image of Mutallab with ‘al-qaeda logo’ procured (manufactured?) by Intelcenter

Was Bin Laden’s Last Video Faked

 



Flight 253 Event a Pretext For Yemen War

Obama Blames al-Qaeda for Christmas False Flag, Sets Stage for Yemen Attack

Kurt Nimmo
Prison Planet.com
January 3, 2010

On Saturday, Obama said the Christmas day non-attack over Detroit was the work of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the latest incarnation of the perennial boogieman used by government to frighten people into accepting foreign invasions and occupations and an ever-growing police state grid at home.

“We know that [Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab] traveled to Yemen, a country grappling with crushing poverty and deadly insurgencies. It appears that he joined an affiliate of al Qaeda, and that this group — Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula — trained him, equipped him with those explosives and directed him to attack that plane headed for America,” Obama said in his address to the nation.

Nassir al-Wahishi is the new Osama bin Laden. He was appointed by Ayman al-Zawahiri to run AQAP in Yemen. Al-Zawahiri is a documented intelligence asset. His brother Zaiman al-Zawahiri fought for the CIA in Kosovo and ran terrorist camps under NATO protection in the U.S. zone in Kosovo.

Ayman, according to January 2000 U.S. Congressional testimony, was granted U.S. residence by the Immigration and Naturalization Service. This is almost impossible for many legitimate immigrants to obtain but is often granted to CIA assets that need to get in and out of the country as they perform their assignments.

Ayman al-Zawahiri founded the Egyptian Islamic Jihad with the help of the Muslim Brotherhood, an organization long ago penterated and comprmised by British intelligence. The CIA funneled support to the Muslim Brotherhood in an effort to overthrow Egyptian president Gamal Abddul Nasser, considered the father of Arab nationalism.

“The real Muslim Brothers are those whose hands are never dirtied with the business of killing and burning,” Robert Dreyfuss summarized in 1980. “They are the secretive bankers and financiers who stand behind the curtain, the members of the old Arab, Turkish, or Persian families whose genealogy places them in the oligarchical elite, with smooth business and intelligence associations to the European black nobility (Bilderberg) and, especially, to the British oligarchy.”

The Islamist movement and in particular the violent Jihadist movement are creations of the elite and are used for political purposes contrary to those declared by their wild-eyed adherents who are generally patsies and useful idiots.

Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula is but the latest assemblage of fanatics to be used by the elite to further their agenda of global domination and the mass murder and suffering it requires.

If Nassir al-Wahishi is connected to Ayman al-Zawahiri, it is a pretty safe bet to say he is a tool of the CIA as well. Nassir al-Wahishi also had a close relationship to the Big Kahuna of CIA operatives, the late Osama bin Laden.

“This is not the first time this group has targeted us,” Obama continued in his weekend address. “In recent years, they have bombed Yemeni government facilities and Western hotels, restaurants and embassies — including our embassy in 2008, killing one American. So, as president, I’ve made it a priority to strengthen our partnership with the Yemeni government-training and equipping their security forces, sharing intelligence and working with them to strike al-Qaeda terrorists.”

Obama’s statement came one day after Britain’s PM Gordon Brown called an “emergency summit” on “extremism” in Yemen. “Gordon Brown has invited key international partners to a high-level meeting in order to discuss how best to counter radicalization in Yemen,” a statement issued by Downing Street announced. “The prime minister will host the event on 28 January in London.”

“Yemen’s problems are many, and some are already spreading beyond its borders,” the establishment declares from the pages of The Washington Post. “Security and stability are deteriorating. The population is growing rapidly. The economy is collapsing. There are few good options today; things will look worse tomorrow. Immediate and sustained international attention is needed to at least lessen the impact of some problems.”

“While military and counterterrorism operations are critical, long-term development assistance is also necessary.”

Iranian Press TV comments: “Concerns are growing that the same fate as those of Afghanistan and Iraq, suffering violence despite years of foreign military presence, might await Yemen’s Muslim nation.”

 

Obama Administration Prepares Public Opinion for Attack on Yemen

globalresearch.ca
January 3, 2010

Five days after the unsuccessful attempt by a Nigerian student to set off a bomb aboard a Detroit-bound passenger jet, US military and intelligence officials are said to be preparing expanded military action against targets in Yemen, the Arab country where the student allegedly received terrorist training and was equipped with an explosive device.

A series of US media reports suggest that new US-backed military attacks inside Yemen are imminent. Citing “two senior US officials,” CNN reported: “The US and Yemen are now looking at fresh targets for a potential retaliation strike.”

The network said the officials “both stressed the effort is aimed at being ready with options for the White House if President Obama orders a retaliatory strike.” CNN continued: “The effort is to see whether targets can be specifically linked to the airliner incident and its planning. US special operations forces and intelligence agencies, and their Yemeni counterparts, are working to identify potential Al Qaeda targets in Yemen, one of the officials said.”

The network said the Obama administration and the long-time Yemeni dictator, Field Marshal Ali Abdullah Saleh, had reached an agreement to allow the US to fly cruise missiles, fighter jets and armed drones, used for remote-control assassinations, in Yemeni airspace. Talks were still ongoing on whether Saleh will give permission for the entry of US helicopter-borne Special Forces.

The report comes after a series of statements by top administration officials, including Obama himself, pledging that “all elements of US power” will be used in response to the failed attack on Northwest Flight 253. The White House has been under heavy fire from its Republican opponents over the evident security failure, and a military action would serve to divert public attention from the ongoing revelations of how the CIA and other US agencies ignored warnings about the impending attack.

Yemen’s foreign minister, Abu Bakr al Qirbi, told the BBC that his country was seeking stepped up military aid, presumably as part of a package deal—in effect, a bribe for allowing the country’s territory to be turned into a battlefield for US commandos.

The Wall Street Journal reported that the Obama administration was discussing nearly tripling its military and counterterrorism aid to Yemen in the coming year. US aid jumped from $4.6 million in 2006 to $67 million this year, and would rise to as much as $190 million in 2010, according to “a senior military official.

Reuters, citing unnamed “defense and counterterrorism officials,” reported that “the Obama administration was exploring ways to accelerate and expand US assistance to Yemeni forces to root out the Al Qaeda leadership in the country, while keeping the role of the US military and intelligence agencies as behind the scenes as possible.”

The news agency reported a clash between Yemeni security forces and Al Qaeda fighters in the western Hudaydah province, around the town of Deir Jaber.

The Los Angeles Times cited a Yemeni terrorism expert as the source of an estimate that Al Qaeda has “as many as 2,000 militants and sympathizers exploiting the country’s economic and political chaos to create a base for jihad at the edge of the Persian Gulf.” This is ten times more than other media estimates of the number of such militants in Yemen, and 20 times the number of Al Qaeda forces said by US officials to be in Afghanistan now.

The Times report is part of an effort by the US media to portray Yemen as a lawless hotbed of terrorism and a major threat to the United States, in order to justify in advance an American attack, or even a full-scale invasion.

It was followed by an even more apocalyptic comment by “terrorism expert” Steven Emerson, interviewed Wednesday morning on CBS’ “Early Show.” He said that while the Pakistan-Afghanistan border was still “number one” for terrorist activity, the area surrounding the Gulf of Aden, including Yemen and Somalia, was “fast coming up the ladder.”

    “Yemen possibly could surpass Pakistan in the next year, given the terrorist trajectory for providing a haven for Al Qaeda,” he claimed. In light of the fact that the Obama administration is mobilizing 100,000 American troops as well as hundreds of warplanes and drones for combat along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, such a comparison is extremely ominous.

    Emerson took particular note of “literally scores of American Muslim students studying and being trained in Yemen to this day…. There’s a pool of potential terrorists out there that have Western passports that can board planes without visas.”

The clear goal of such far-fetched claims is to create a pogrom atmosphere directed against all young American Muslims, particularly those of Arab or East African origin.

These comments were made one day after press reports of an alleged abortive attempt by a Somali man equipped with explosive powder and a syringe to board a passenger jet in Mogadishu, the capital city. This is the same modus operandi as that of the Nigerian man, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, aboard Northwest Flight 253 on Christmas Day. The Somali was arrested by African peacekeeping troops on November 13 and never succeeded in getting on the plane.

The Washington Post, the leading newspaper in the US capital, published an editorial Wednesday noting that in the wake of the Christmas Day bombing attempt, allegedly originating in Yemen, “some are asking whether the United States should launch a military offensive in that impoverished Arabian nation.” The editorial continued: “The answer, of course, is that it already has.”

Citing a series of raids conducted by Yemeni and US forces, the Post praised the Obama administration for having “significantly stepped up US counterterrorism operations in Yemen,” including the dispatch of CIA and Special Forces personnel. But it warned: “Still, Yemen’s steady slide toward failed-state status in recent years means that it, like nearby Somalia, will probably demand concerted and multifaceted US engagement for years to come. More than Special Forces and missile strikes are needed.”

While declaring that “US ground troops are not needed, for now, in Yemen or Somalia,” the newspaper suggested that such forces may well be required in the future. It declared, “in those countries, as in Afghanistan, a strategy limited to counterterrorism will not eliminate the threat.”

Once again, as in the case of Afghanistan and Iraq, American imperialism is preparing a military bloodbath in an impoverished country, using a terrorist attack—in this case a failed attempt—as the pretext. According to reports by the UN and Yemeni government statistics, some 35 percent of the adult population of the country is unemployed. Yemen is the poorest of the Arab countries, has exhausted its very limited oil export capacity, and now faces severe water shortages.

But Yemen possesses, like Afghanistan and Iraq, a highly strategic geographic location, adjacent to Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest oil exporter, and the Red Sea, controlling access to the Suez Canal. Yemen also borders on the Gulf of Aden, the shipping route for much of the oil leaving the Persian Gulf.

US military forces are already deployed across the strait of Bab el Mandeb in Djibouti, the former French Somaliland, which remains a virtual French colony. Djibouti hosts thousands of French and US troops who could quickly move into Yemen if so ordered by Paris and Washington. A large US and NATO war fleet patrols shipping lanes through the Gulf of Aden and south along the Indian Ocean coast of Somalia.

 

Summary of Facts: Flight 253 Event

Examiner
January 2, 2009

The US government who lied for wars in other resource-rich countries are lying about what happened on Delta Flight 253 with an alleged underwear/crotch bomber. Below is a summary of facts reported at this time, along with a 4-minute news interview from Webster Tarpley, followed by an extensive interview of Mr. Tarpley by Alex Jones.:

Before the flight to the US:

    * Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab traveled to Yemen to meet with “terrorists.” However, his mother also lives in Yemen, which could also explain the visit.

    * The alleged terrorists in Yemen had been in Guantanamo Prison. They were released without trial by the Bush Administration even though they were reported as among the most dangerous detainees.

    * The government of Yemen reports that Islamic terrorists there have been arrested who have proven ties to Israeli intelligence.

    * Abdulmutallab’s father, though we are told is a retired “Nigerian banker,” ran their defense industry in close cooperation with Israeli Intelligence (Mossad).

    * Abdulmutallab’s father warned US embassy officials of his son’s dangerous behavior; this is corroborated with other US intelligence of warning.

    * Abdulmutallab’s visa to the US was never withdrawn, though he was on a “terrorist watchlist.” This would make his trip impossible unless protocol was ignored.

    * Flying from Nigeria, Abdulmutallab entered the Netherlands without passing through customs; impossible to do without assistance from an intelligence agency.

    * At the Amsterdam airport, Abdulmutallab was assisted by a man appearing to be Indian, who claimed Abdulmutallab was a Sudanese refugee with no passport (he would not have been allowed to enter the EU without a passport through customs). This man and whoever authorized boarding without a passport are huge stories we haven’t heard. Where is the airport videos of this?

    * Airport security in Amsterdam is contracted to an Israeli company with the most sophisticated technologies who had developed the concept of security profiling.

During the flight to the US:

    * Witnesses reported a man standing ten rows behind Abdulmutallab stand and use his camcorder to film the incident before it began. This important testimony was not pursued to discover the identity and role of this seemingly complicit person.

    * Witnesses report Abdulmutallab was oddly vacant and calm; typical of a programmed

    “Manchurian Candidate.” This might explain the behavior of the person filming: a “handler” who gave the code for Abdulmutallab to perform an act. Manchurian Candidates are now acknowledged historical fact. Research this if you are unfamiliar with the disclosed history.

After the flight:

 



Coast Guard Terror Drill Scares Many On 9/11 Anniversary

Coast Guard Conducts Terror Drill Near The Pentagon On The Anniversary of 9/11
Coast Guard refused to apologize for Potomac drill even though it wasn’t good to scare people during the most tragic day of American history.

NY Daily News
September 11, 2009

The Coast Guard launched Operation “Felony Stupid” Friday: A panic-inducing Potomac River terror training session near the Pentagon on the anniversary of 9/11.

The radio chatter from the exercise was so realistic the FBI and U.S. Park Police raced to the river, fearing another attack was unfolding. Neither agency had been told about the drill.

CNN and Fox News interrupted Sept. 11 tributes to report on the developing drama, which was magnified because President Obama was at the Pentagon for a wreath-laying ceremony.

Cops and TV stations were reacting to Coast Guard radios, which crackled with the warning: “Stop your vessel. …You will be fired on.”

It was followed by a man barking: “bang, bang.”

The Coast Guard blew it, big time, said retired top FBI counterterror official Thomas Fuentes.

“This is what law enforcement calls ‘felony stupid,'” said Fuentes. “That ‘bang, bang’ was the sound of the Coast Guard shooting itself in the foot.”

The incident was eerily similar to the unannounced Air Force One photo-op flyby of the Statue of Liberty this spring.

That event shocked and frightened thousands in New York, and forced the White House to apologize. The aide who OK’d the flight was later fired.

Coast Guard chief of staff Vice Adm. John Currier admitted his service didn’t inform any other agency in advance, but he refused Friday to apologize.

“No, I’m not issuing an apology,” Currier told reporters. He said no shots were actually fired. “This was a routine, low-profile, normal training exercise.”

And Currier had no qualms about training while Obama and military leaders paid tribute to the victims of the nation’s worst terror attack. “I don’t think that our operational commander saw any reason not to train,” Currier said.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs accused the media – particularly CNN – of creating the confusion by reporting on an unconfirmed river shootout. “Before we report things like this, checking would be good,” Gibbs sniffed.

But ex-President George Bush’s counterterror adviser Frances Townsend said, “It shouldn’t have been lost on the commanders that this wasn’t a day to be doing exercises.”

“People are already on edge” on 9/11, she added.

In a video of Friday’s drill,Coast Guard boats are seen circling on the water as Obama’s motorcade crossed a nearby bridge – though his protective detail didn’t notice them, sources said.

Park Police and FBI agents scrambled to the river after hearing of gunfire in an off-limits area. Flights were halted at nearby Reagan National Airport.

Minutes after Obama was safely back inside the White House at 10 a.m., a cop on the shoreline radioed his commanders about “shots fired to a boat” by the Coast Guard. Minutes later, a dispatcher replied, “The Coast Guard says it was a training incident only.”

“Information passed to me was the Coast Guard had fired shots at a vessel inside the [restricted zone],” the apparently confused Park Police officer explained.

Currier said the flap was “instructive” and promised a review.

 



Trader Highlights Possible 9/11 and 7/7 Insider Trading

“Rogue” Trader Highlights Possible 9/11 and 7/7 Insider Trading
“Best trading day in the history of Société Générale was September 11, 2001″

Steve Watson
Infowars.net
January 23, 2009

According to an article in The London Times today, Société Générale rogue trader Jérôme Kerviel profited enormously on the day of the 7/7 London bombings. He has also revealed how his company
made huge profits on September 11th 2001, prompting some to return to questions over insider foreknowledge of both terrorist attacks.

The article states:

“The best trading day in the history of Société Générale was September 11, 2001,” he said. “At least, that’s what one of my managers told me. It seems that profits were colossal that day.

“I had a similar experience during the London attacks in July 2005.”

A few days earlier he had bet on a fall in the share price of Allianz, the German insurance giant, he told Le Parisien. Everyone was losing money when the 7/7 bombings sent the insurance sector into a downward spiral “except for me”, he said. “Thanks to the positions I had, I earned €500,000 in a few minutes. It was the jackpot. I was jubilant.”

After the celebrations Mr Kerviel said he paused for thought. “I understood that I was having fun when people had just been hit by the bombs. I ran to the toilet and I was sick. But the moment of weakness did not last long. I went back into the trading room and I returned to work.”

Kerviel was charged almost exactly one year ago in the Société Générale trading loss incident which cost the financial services company an estimated €4.9 billion.

Until the Bernard Madoff fraud incident last month, it was reported to be the largest fraud in banking history.

Société Générale claimed that Kerviel worked the trades alone, and without its authorization. Kerviel told investigators that such practices are widespread and that huge profits routinely give the upper echelons of financial institutions cause to turn a blind eye.

Many questions have been raised regarding massive trades that foreshadowed the events of 9/11, with put options placed in large quantities against American and United Airliners in the days immediately prior to the attacks.

The investigation as to who was responsible for authorizing the transactions led directly back to former CIA director Buzzy Krongard.

In the case of the London bombings, the pound fell 6 per cent against the dollar for no apparent reason in the days before the attack.

“Currencies of established countries simply do not fall that fast based upon any kind of economic or financial analysis,” said a 35 year veteran economist. “Somebody – somewhere – knew something. Or maybe I should say ’somebodies.’”

It is considered that such anomalous activity betrays prior knowledge of the incidents.

We have since seen other suspicious trading incidents dovetailing with foiled terror attacks. Specifically, in August 2006, surrounding the infamous “liquid bomb plot” and one year later in August 2007 with the so-called “Bin Laden trades” when a mystery trader placed 245,000 put options on the Dow Jones Eurostoxx 50 index.

Yet another military exercise occurring on Sept. 11, 2001 uncovered
http://www.911blogger.com/node/19186

 



Liberty City Seven Shows Terror War Is Fraud

Liberty City Seven Shows Terror War Is Fraud

Lee Rogers
Rogue Government
December 14, 2007

In a stunning defeat for the federal government, seven Miami men dubbed the “Liberty City Seven” who were accused of plotting to join forces with Al-Qaida to blow up the Chicago Sears Tower in 2006 were let go. One man was acquitted and a mistrial was declared for the six others after a federal jury ended up in a deadlock. What makes this case significant, is that the FBI actually utilized a paid informant to infiltrate the group posing as a fake Al-Qaida member in order to convince the men to blow up the Chicago Sears Tower. The group itself never made contact with any real so called Al-Qaida members and never acquired any weapons or explosives. Prosecutors even acknowledged that the alleged terror cell was aspirational versus operational. The FBI actually tried to create a threat that didn’t exist and the jury’s actions confirms that there was not adequate information to convict these men. Since the public isn’t buying the phony war on terror, the federal government with help from the establishment media tries to invent phony terror threats.

The following is taken from an Associated Press article covering the event.

Prosecutors said the “Liberty City Seven” — so-named because they operated out of a warehouse in Miami’s blighted Liberty City section — swore allegiance to al-Qaida and hoped to forge an alliance to carry out bombings against America’s tallest skyscraper, the FBI’s Miami office and other federal buildings.

The group never actually made contact with al-Qaida. Instead, a paid FBI informant known as Brother Mohammed posed as an al-Qaida emissary.

The defense portrayed the seven men as hapless figures who were either manipulated and entrapped by the FBI or went along with the plot to con “Mohammed” out of $50,000.

The group never actually made contact with al-Qaida and never acquired any weapons or explosives. Prosecutors said no attack was imminent, acknowledging that the alleged terror cell was “more aspirational than operational.”

When the arrests of these men first became public, the arrests were made a national joke by
John Stewart
mocking the press conference with then Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. Gonzales and the Feds had admitted at that time that the men had no means to carry out a terror attack yet still considered them a viable terrorist threat.

The deadlocked jury combined with admitted statements from the federal government is obvious proof that there was no terror threat from the “Liberty City Seven” and that this whole situation was provoked by the FBI. Other incidents like the Fort Dix Six raise additional questions about the federal government’s credibility on the subject of this phony war on terrorism. The war on terror isn’t real and if it was the government wouldn’t need to send FBI informants to entrap a group of crazy people hanging out in a warehouse.

Sears Tower Bomb Plot Case Falls Apart
http://news.aol.com/story/_a…14080009990001

Jon Stewart: Seven dipshits living in a warehouse prepared to take on the United States, right!
http://www.onegoodmove.org/1gm/1gm…a_once.html

Chicago bomb defendant is cleared
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7143553.stm

 



Lecture by Naomi Wolf – ‘The End of America’

Lecture by Naomi Wolf – ‘The End of America’

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjALf12PAWc

Charles Goyette Interviews Naomi Wolf
http://mparent7777-2.blogspot.com/20…rviews-naomi-wolf.html

 



Olbermann: Bush Admin’s Bogus Terror Threat ’most overt accusation yet’

Olbermann Bush adminstration use of bogus terror threat is ‘most overt accusation yet’

Raw Story
September 25, 2007

Former US Associate Deputy Attorney General Bruce Fein joined Keith Olbermann to discuss recent charges that the Bush administration employed false intelligence to convince lawmakers they should temporarily expand domestic spying powers under the Federal Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). “These charges…are the most overt accusation yet of a government gone so wrong that it is using the terrorist’s weapon of fear against its own people–and against other legislators who will not go along with the program,” Olbermann said. At a forum on FISA hosted by the Center for American Progress, Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA) said that on Aug. 2, word of specific intelligence prompted increased security on Capitol Hill. The House and Senate passed the FISA expansion bill days later. In what she called a “Rovian strategy of using terrorism as a wedge political issue,” Rep. Harman charged that the threat, “it turned out, was bogus; the intelligence agencies knew that.” “The President continues to insist…that he can spy on Americans without warrants irrespective of what a statute says–that he has constitutional authority to override whatever Congress may do,” said Fine. “There is no disinclination of this administration,” he continued “to stoop to misrepresentations and omissions to heighten the sense of danger to get whatever they wish in the legislative package.” Before passage of the FISA expansion, Fein said that “the administration was openly telling members of Congress if they voted against the bill that the administration insisted upon, Americans would die.” “There wasn’t any substantiation of that,” he said. “It was just: ‘Trust me, we always tell the truth.” Fein insisted that the president would continue to “have his way if he continues to frighten the Congress and Congress refuses to demand information and facts rather than just rumor.” “The mind reels,” Olbermann responded. The following video is from MSNBC’s Countdown, broadcast on September 24.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJ3DFJOK1MU

Republicans pushed ‘bogus’ terror threat to expand FISA; Lawmaker says http://rawstory.com//news/2007/Repu…terror_threat_to_0919.html

 



Republicans pushed ’bogus’ terror threat to expand FISA

Republicans pushed ‘bogus’ terror threat to expand FISA; Lawmaker says

Nick Juliano
Raw Story
September 19, 2007

Republicans and the Bush administration used a ‘bogus’ terror threat that raised specific fears of an attack on the Capitol to scare lawmakers into adopting a dramatic temporary expansion of the government’s spy powers last month, a former top intelligence committee Democrat said Wednesday.

Congress agreed to give President Bush and the nation’s intelligence agencies extra authority to spy on Americans just hours before lawmakers left for a month-long recess in August. In the legislative session’s final week, news emerged of an impending plot by foreign terrorists to attack the US Capitol, and Republicans pointed to the reports as justification to expand the administration’s powers.

“That specific intelligence claim, it turned out, was bogus; the intelligence agencies knew that,” Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA) said at a forum on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act organized by the Center for American Progress in Washington. However, lawmakers did not learn of the claim’s unreliability until “the day” they approved the FISA expansion, she said.

Harman was among Congress’s “Gang of Eight” in 2002 when she served as ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee. The gang was briefed in 2002 on President Bush’s warrantless wiretapping program initiated after 9/11 before the New York Times revealed its existence in December 2005. The group comprises the chairs and ranking members of the House and Senate intelligence committees plus each party’s leader in both parties.

Congress’s ongoing debate over how to make permanent needed modifications to FISA without trampling Americans’ civil liberties was the subject of Wednesday’s forum. Later that afternoon, Bush toured the National Security Agency’s headquarters outside Washington and urged lawmakers to expand his authority under FISA not restrict it.

Harman, who now chairs the Homeland Security Subcommittee on Intelligence, Information Sharing and Terrorism Risk Assessment, accused the Bush administration of pursuing a “Rovian strategy of using terrorism as a wedge issue” in seeking to expand the president’s power rather than focusing on the needs of foreign surveillance.

Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell has been making the rounds on Capitol Hill to push lawmakers not only to make permanent the provisions of the expansion, known as the Protect America Act, but to further limit redress against civil liberties violations by providing immunity to the telecommunications companies that facilitated the warrantless wiretapping program.

Harman said the administration’s “trust me theory” that would diminish oversight of intelligence activities was not acceptable. Democrats and Republicans in Congress, she said, are committed to ensuring the nation’s spy agencies would be able to effectively gather intelligence from foreign suspects as long as they had assurances that Americans’ rights are protected.

“There is a deal to be made if this administration is serious,” she said. “If it just wants this as a wedge issue, then I hope Congress will fight this with every breath that we have.”

Appearing alongside Harman at Wednesday’s forum was Bruce Fein, a constitutional lawyer and former Reagan administration official, who has emerged as a harsh critic of President Bush. Fein noted that FISA grew out of concerns over Nixon administration scandals and revelations that foreign intelligence resources were being abused.

“Unchecked spying invariably leads to abuses in collection for political purposes, not national security purposes,” Fein said. The danger inherent in giving Bush — or any president — authority to spy on Americans without oversight is that “it will be hijacked to advance a political agenda.”

Fein invoked the Founding Fathers’ warnings against concentration of power in government, and he compared the president’s arguments about how 9/11 “changed everything” to justify expanded authority to the government’s decision to lock up Japanese Americans who had committed no crimes during World War II.

The Bush administration is operating on the belief that it is “infallible,” Fein said, and the public and Congress have a right to know which activities the administration authorized so it can avoid an unconstitutional power grab.

“That’s exactly what the Founding Fathers feared: hubris, a goal to dominate and manipulate,” he said.

Fein also argued that the authority the administration is requesting would give them power beyond simply intercepting foreign-based communications, which the administration has offered as the necessity to update the law. He argued the president could authorize warrantless searches of people’s homes or mail if it was justified as part of the “war on terror.”

A third panelist, Greg Nojeim a senior counsel to the Center for Democracy and Technology, invoked home searches as a metaphor to explain abuses that could exist even as the administration has promised to “minimize” the use of data on Americans gathered by NSA spies.

In his testimony Tuesday, McConnell acknowledged that NSA wiretaps on people abroad sometimes will pick up Americans conversatons when the foreign targets call into the US. The use of information intercepted in this way is a crux of the debate over FISA.

To say the information is “minimized,” is akin to police breaking into an individuals home to search it and remove evidence without a warrant but then say no civil liberties were violated “as long as when they got back to the police station they threw it out,” Nojeim said.

He noted that the NSA collects and analyzes information from domestic phone calls before deciding whether to pursue a warrant for further surveillance, and he noted reports that the data was sometimes shared with other agencies. So to say it has been “minimized” is not accurate.

“Words don’t have their normal meaning,” he said. “Up is down, black is white … John Ashcroft is a civil libertarian, this is the world of FISA.”