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2006-08-13T19:30:00.000-07:00

Mass hysteria - Telling the truth to the terrified

2006-05-22T14:48:00.000-07:00

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[img]http://www.economist.com/images/20060520/2006ST1.jpg[/img] Mass hysteria - Telling the truth to the terrified May 18th 2006 / From The Economist print edition

Knowing that anxiety causes the same symptoms as poisoning could help in a biochemical attack

AP - LAST December a mysterious illness broke out in a school in the Shelkovsk region of Chechnya. Symptoms included convulsions, nausea and breathing difficulties. The illness spread to neighbouring schools. Local doctors suspected mass poisoning, but when a delegation of medics arrived from Moscow, they attributed it to mass hysteria.

Chechnya has been the scene of Russian military operations since 1994, so understandably those affected have little faith in the official verdict. Meanwhile, without knowing the nature of the suspected toxin, local doctors are at a loss as to how to treat their patients. The only way to break the impasse, public health experts say, is to send in an investigating team from outside the former Soviet block�one that the Chechens will trust. If mass hysteria is to blame, they say, the truth is the best medicine.

Zsuzsanna Jakab is director of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control in Stockholm but, in 1996, she worked for the World Health Organisation and helped to investigate an outbreak of illness in Macedonia. It affected schoolchildren in the mainly Albanian district of Tetovo. Dr Jakab received reports from Albanian representatives of mass poisoning, which were denied by the Macedonian authorities. She led a team consisting of a paediatrician, an epidemiologist, a toxicologist and a clinical expert. They spent a couple of weeks in the region, taking samples that were sent to laboratories outside the country for analysis, reviewing the hospital's case reports, interviewing affected families and searching for possible environmental contaminants.

The team found no evidence of poisoning, and concluded that the illness was probably caused by stress resulting from high political tensions in Tetovo. Its report was rejected both by the Albanians, who continued to stick to the poisoning theory, and by the Macedonians, who denied that a climate of fear existed in the region. Nevertheless, after the team returned to explain its findings to the families, reports of symptoms gradually subsided. Dr Jakab says that a region where conspiracy theories and fear abound is a prime breeding ground for mass hysteria. In a war zone, allegations that a toxic agent has been deployed cannot be dismissed�indeed they need more urgent investigation, she says.

A familiar problem Mass hysteria, or medically unexplained epidemic illness, has been documented since medieval times. Simon Wessely, a director of the King's Centre for Military Health Research at King's College London, says such outbreaks tend to reflect a society's beliefs. In the past witchcraft or demonic possession were often blamed�they still are in some societies. In today's industrialised world, environmental contamination is more likely to be invoked. In 2001, after al-Qaeda's attacks on America, Dr Wessely predicted more of these outbreaks, because of the heightened risk of terrorism and, in particular, bioterrorism. The later anthrax attack, which killed five people, was second only to the assault on the twin towers in terms of the shock and anxiety it caused the American people.

Dr Wessely distinguishes acute episodes of mass hysteria from the chronic sort. He says that he has a huge boxful of reports of the first type, which often occur among schoolchildren and are investigated rapidly. Symptoms vanish within days, once the patients have been gently reassured that their imagined cause does not exist. When an outbreak occurs against a backdrop of social trauma, it can go on for months or longer. For an episode to become chronic, patients' beliefs that they are being poisoned must be reinforced by local physicians and media. Shelkovsk may be a case in point, he says.

Whether or not the Chechen incident turns out to be mass hysteria, the patients' symptoms are real enough. What people find hard to believe, says Dr Jakab, is that anxiety-related illness can so closely mimic illness caused by an organic cause. In 1987 thieves stole a canister containing highly radioactive caesium chloride that would have been used in radiation therapy from an abandoned hospital in Goi�nia, Brazil. They sold it to a junkyard owner, exposing a number of people to high doses of radiation. Some 112,000 people were screened, and 250 of them were found to have been contaminated. Yet another 5,000 people reported vomiting, diarrhoea and rashes�all symptoms of acute radiation sickness.

Dr Jakab says medical staff need to realise that the cause of these symptoms is anxiety so that patients can be treated accordingly. The World Health Organisation now has instructions describing what to do. Being told to stop faking it is unlikely to speed patients along the road to recovery. Instead, they should be removed from the stressful environment and persuaded that nothing is poisoning them except their own worries. People also need to be educated about the real risks of bioterrorism, says Dr Wessely. Ignorance breeds fear. The danger is that medical and social services will be overwhelmed, as they were in Brazil, and so take longer to identify the real victims of the incident. That, he says, is why biochemical warfare is really psychological warfare.

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Activist Sherman Skolnick Dies

2006-05-22T12:23:00.000-07:00

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Activist Sherman Skolnick Dies [img]http://img.viacomlocalnetworks.com/images_sizedimage_141212419/lg[/img] (CBS) CHICAGO Community activist and cable television host Sherman Skolnick has died at the age of 73.

Mr. Skolnick died at his home. Some dismissed Mr. Skolnick as a conspiracy theorist, but some have credited him with exposing a bribery scandal within the Illinois court system in the late 1960s and early 1970s, in a corruption scandal that led to the indictment of former Gov. Otto Kerner.

Mr. Skolnick founded the group the Citizen�s Committee to Clean up the Courts in 1963. He was also the host of the cable television program �Broadside.�

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Couple Arrested For Asking For Directions

2006-05-18T08:55:00.000-07:00

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Couple Arrested For Asking For Directions TheWBALChannel.com May 18 2006 [img]http://images.ibsys.com/2006/0517/9229777_240X180.jpg[/img] BALTIMORE -- Baltimore City police arrested a Virginia couple over the weekend after they asked an officer for directions.

WBAL-TV 11 News I-Team reporter David Collins said Joshua Kelly and Llara Brook, of Chantilly, Va., got lost leaving an Orioles game on Saturday. Collins reported a city officer arrested them for trespassing on a public street while they were asking for directions .

"In jail for eight hours -- sleeping on a concrete floor next to a toilet," Kelly said.

"It was a nightmare," Brook said. "I was in there thinking I was just dreaming and waiting to wake up."

Collins reported it was a nightmare ending to a nearly perfect day. He said the couple went to a company picnic and watched the Orioles beat Kansas City. It was their first trip to Camden Yards and asked two people for directions to Interstate 95 South when they left.

Collins said somehow they ended up in the Cherry Hill section of south Baltimore. Hopelessly lost, relief melted away concerns after they spotted a police vehicle.

"I said, 'Thank goodness, could you please get us to 95?" Kelly said.

"The first thing that she said to us was no -- you just ran that stop sign, pull over," Brook said. "It wasn't a big deal. We'll pay the stop sign violation, but can we have directions?"

"What she said was 'You found your own way in here, you can find your own way out.'" Kelly said.

Collins said the couple spotted another police vehicle and flagged that officer down for directions. But Officer Natalie Preston, a six-year veteran of the force, intervened.

"That really threw us for a loop when she stepped in between our cars," Kelly said. "(She) said my partner is not going to step in front of me and tell you directions if I'm not."

Collins reported the circumstances got worse. Kelly pulled 40 feet forward parking next to a curb and put his flashers on while Brook was on the phone to her father hoping he could help her with directions. Both her parents are police officers in the Harrisburg, Pa., area.

"(Brook's father) was in the middle of giving us directions when the officer screeched up behind us and got out of the car and asked me to step out. I obeyed," Kelly said. "I obeyed everything -- stepped out of the car, put my hands behind my back, and the next thing I know, I was getting arrested for trespassing."

"By this time, I was completely in tears," Brook said. "I said, 'Ma'am, you know, we just need your help. We are not trying to cause you any trouble. I'm not leaving him here.' What she did was walk over to my side of the car and said, 'Ok, we are taking you downtown, too.'"

Collins said the couple was released from jail without being charged with anything. Brook is now concerned the arrest may complicate a criminal background check she's going through in her job as a child care worker.

Collins said police left Kelly's car unlocked and the windows down at the impound lot. He reported a cell phone charger, pair of sunglasses and 20 CDs were stolen.

Baltimore City police said they are looking into the incident.

View news report here...

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Achtung teachers: RFID curriculum has arrived!

2006-05-16T11:14:00.000-07:00

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[img]http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/section/learning/teacher/lesson.gif[/img] Achtung teachers: RFID curriculum has arrived! Saturday, April 29, 2006

A California public school teacher recently sent us this NY Times "Daily Lesson Plan" designed to "educate" kids about the benefits of tracking people and things with RFID.

Since adults are pretty unconvincable on RFID (consistently, around 65% oppose RFID on privacy grounds) the spin-meisters have begun targeting our kids, instead. This reminded me of something Liz and I wrote in Spychips.

The "Nightmare Scenario" chapter opens with RFID godfather Kevin Ashton discussing predator and prey relationships, explaining how RFID helps the lions better identify, capture, and eat the zebras. I transcribed a section of a video where someone in a crowd of business executives asks Ashton what it's going to take for society to accept RFID and ubiquitous tracking.

This excerpt from the book takes it from there:

Without skipping a beat, the always cool-as-a-cucumber Ashton tells gathered pro-RFID executives, "We will have to die."

After awkward laughter from his audience, Ashton clarifies the seemingly outrageous statement. Our generation, he explains, will never fully embrace a world where everything can be tagged and tracked. It's just too new. But the next generation will.

Adolph Hitler understood this dynamic well, saying:

"When an opponent declares, 'I will not come over to your side.' I calmly say, 'Your child belongs to us already.' What are you? You will pass on. Your descendants, however, now stand in the new camp. In a short time they will know nothing else but this new community."

So while the average adult has never even heard of RFID, the spychip industry, the media, and government schools are colluding behind the scenes to brainwash our children into not only accepting, but defending the brave new tracking world they are working to create.

-Katherine Albrecht

ID Please! Developing a Plan For an RFID-Enabled Technology Author(s) Jennifer Rittner, The New York Times Learning Network Bridget Anderson, The Bank Street College of Education in New York City Thursday, March 16, 2006

Grades: 6-8, 9-12 Subjects: Civics, Language Arts, Social Studies, Technology

Interdisciplinary Connections

Overview of Lesson Plan:In this lesson, students share opinions about the technologies used to identify them and monitor their activities. They then develop plans for new uses of RFID-enabled technologies to share with the class, and write essays persuading readers to use their proposed technologies.

Review the Academic Content Standards related to this lesson.

Suggested Time Allowance:1 hour

Objectives:

Students will:

1. Share opinions about technologies used to identify and monitor people.

2. Learn about radio frequency identification (RFID) technology by reading and discussing the article "Study Says Chips in ID Tags Are Vulnerable to Viruses."

3. Develop a plan for a new use for RFID-enabled technology and present it as a poster.

4. Write a persuasive essay that addresses the issues raised in class work. Resources / Materials:

-pens/pencils -five large poster boards prepared as directed in the Warm-Up -classroom board -copies of the article "Study Says Chips in ID Tags Are Vulnerable to Viruses," found online at (one per student) -resources for investigating technologies and their uses such as special interest publications, science journals, library resources and computers with Internet access

Activities / Procedures:

1. WARM-UP/DO-NOW: Before class, prepare five posters with the following headings: "School," "Airport," "Online Retailer," "Government Building," and "Bank." In class, arrange desks in small groups and place a poster at each grouping. As students enter the class, have them work together to respond to the following prompt on their posters (written on the board): "What technologies do you depend on to identify yourself as you enter or conduct business in this location? How might these institutions use identification technologies to monitor your activities within their facilities and beyond?" After a few minutes, have students share their responses with the class. Ask them if they believe that technologies designed to monitor the activities and/or movements of people and/or goods should be considered an essential area for further development and application, and why.

2. As a class, read and discuss the article "Study Says Chips in ID Tags Are Vulnerable to Viruses" , focusing on the following questions:

a. How are radio frequency identification tags, or RFIDs, currently used? b. What development have researchers discovered about them? c. Why did researchers think this was not possible? d. How are RFID tags an improvement over bar codes? e. What debate has the chip innovation started and why? f. Why is the new development a cause for additional concern? g. If the researchers have not identified specific flaws, why do they continue to express concern? h. How might the researchers' knowledge of computer viruses and worms inform their study? i. How might those wishing to use a chip for malicious purposes use a common software error to their advantage? j. Why might money be in factor in determining the ability of others to use chips for malicious purposes? k. What other security problems has Peter Neumann identified? l. What are industry professionals doing to address the problem? m.How might attackers use encryption techniques to subvert a chip's intended purpose? n. What example do the researchers offer to support their proposal for additional protections and why might that be particularly relevant today? o. Why might a person wish to subvert pricing or misidentify a pet?

3. Explain to students that they will work in groups to develop a plan for a new RFID-enabled technology that they think will become essential for individuals and/or society as a whole. Begin by presenting a broader definition of RFID, as provided on the Vrije Universiteit researchers' Web site (). As a class, brainstorm the various areas of human interaction that might benefit from RFID technology, and note student responses on the board. The list below offers some ideas for consideration and may be used to prompt students. Have each group choose an idea from the list they brainstormed to investigate further.

Students will develop their plan as a poster and oral presentation to the class, responding to the questions listed below (provided as a handout for easier student access). They should include any visuals such as illustrations, photographs, graphs, and charts that might illuminate their plan.

AREAS FOR RFID DEVELOPMENT

Human populations (Alzheimer's patients, senior citizens, disabled people, prisoners or former prisoners, children, mental patients, general population) Animals (pets, livestock, wild animals, zoo animals) Commerce (store check-out counters, online shopping, credit cards) Communications (regular mail, packages, e-mail) Transportation/Navigation (global positioning systems, public transportation cards, toll taking machines) Sensitive goods (prescription drug packages, arms and arms-making materials, gems and jewelry) Miscellaneous (automobiles, luggage, movement of other goods)

QUESTIONS FOR CONSIDERATION

THE TECHNOLOGY -What would you monitor and why? -Where would the RFID chip be located? -What technology would be used to track the chip? -What back-up might be in place in case the technology were to break down? -What security concerns might arise with the use of this technology? SOCIAL CONCERNS -Why would this be a useful technology? -What are the potential benefits to the individual? What are the potential benefits to society? -How would the information be used and by whom? -Who would be responsible for monitoring (i.e., an individual, a commercial entity, a governmental agency)? -Would the person being monitored be aware? -How might you protect the device from malicious use? Toward the end of class, have students present their posters to the class.

4. WRAP-UP/HOMEWORK: Individually, students write a one to two page paper that persuades readers to use the technology they proposed in class. Have them consider the following questions (provided as a handout for easier student access):

-If the technology you developed were to be implemented tomorrow, how might it become an essential part of daily life? -How will it improve the way people live? -What are the potential benefits to individuals and society? -How might you address the concerns of citizens? -How might you consider potential disadvantages? -What potential privacy issues might you consider? -What kind of protections would you try to develop to prevent malicious use?

Present papers in a later class.

Further Questions for Discussion: -To what degree, if at all, do you want to know about the people or organizations that are monitoring your movements or activities?

-How might the widespread use of technologies to monitor human activities affect the way people behave in public and/or in private?

-To what degree should official agencies, such as federal or local governments, banks or financial institutions, or companies and retailers be permitted to monitor your activities either with or without your knowledge? Evaluation / Assessment: Students will be evaluated based on participation in the opening exercise, thorough completion and presentation of their plans, and effectual persuasive papers.

Vocabulary: microchip, surveillance, vulnerability, replicate, exploited, malicious, buffer, allocated, constraints, counterfeiting, disabling, encryption, subvert, contamination, smuggler

Extension Activities: 1. Produce a How-It-Works poster on the computer technologies mentioned in the article, such as microchips, RFID, viruses, worms, open-source operating systems and buffer overflow. Share posters with the class.

2. Create an illustrated timeline on the history of technological developments that might have been or currently are considered controversial (such as gun powder, nuclear fission, cloning, surveillance technologies or RFID). Investigate once development further to discover the essential questions surrounding its invention. Address who, what, where, when, why and how. Why was it considered controversial? Present a short report of your findings.

3. Write a story in which a character is monitored by or is monitoring others using a surveillance technology such as RFID. Investigate different ways of exploring the theme using humor, suspense and/or drama. Submit stories to the school literary journal for publication.

4. Investigate one example of a court case or legislation concerning an RFID technology. How might the rights of citizens be affected by the development and/or use of these technologies? What questions arose in the debates surrounding the technology? What was the outcome? What changes, if any, were made to the way the technology was developed, implemented or regulated as a result of the debate? Present the main points of the argument along with your reflection on the issues in an oral presentation to the class.

Interdisciplinary Connections: Economics - In the article, Peter Neumann states that cost is a factor in the adequacy of security. To what degree, if at all, should cost be allowed to affect quality? What role might cost play in the manufacturer's decisions about quality? What role might cost play in the consumer's decision to purchase the item? Should there be a standard of minimum quality for the production of RFID technologies (like the "Energy Star" standard for appliances regulated by the EPA)? Is there a difference between a regulation and a standard? Write a two to three page paper that responds to these questions.

Journalism - How might your technology proposals be received by the general public? Further develop your plans and present them in a public setting, like a technology expo, to the school. Develop a set of questions for a survey designed to gauge viewers' reactions to the plans. Which do they think are most feasible? Which might be most essential or have the greatest benefit to individuals and/or society? Conduct the survey during the expo and write an article based on your findings. Submit articles to the school newspaper for publication.

Media Studies - Develop a marketing strategy for the technology you developed in class.

Teaching with The Times - Read the Circuits section of The Times every week for one month and clip one article about a new and noteworthy technology for everyday life. If this technology were to be commonly-used among the population at large, how might life be different? Write a reflection that responds to this question. At the end of the month, write a reflection that summarizes the main issues that arise. To order The New York Times for your classroom, click here .

References: Association for Automatic Identification and Mobility () offers an explanation of the standards that regulate the development of technologies within its domain. Communications for the Association for Computing Machinery () will publish the research on RFID viruses in its May 2006 issue. Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers () provides news and information about the research and development of new technologies. Related Times Articles High Tech, Under the Skin () reports on new microchip implant technologies.

Academic Content Standards: This lesson plan may be used to address the academic standards listed below. These standards are drawn from Content Knowledge: A Compendium of Standards and Benchmarks for K-12 Education: 3rd and 4th Editions and have been provided courtesy of the Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning in Aurora, Colorado. Grades 6-8 Technology Standard 3 - Understands the relationships among science, technology, society, and the individual. Benchmarks: Knows that scientific inquiry and technological design have similarities and differences; Knows that technology and science are reciprocal; Knows ways in which technology and society influence one another Language Arts Standard 1 - Demonstrates competence in the general skills and strategies of the writing process. Benchmarks: Uses style and structure appropriate for specific audiences and purposes; Writes expository compositions; Writes compositions that speculate on problems/solutions Civics Standard 25 - Understands issues regarding personal, political, and economic rights. Benchmarks: Knows what constitutes personal rights; Understands the importance to individuals and society of such personal rights as freedom of conscience and religion, freedom of expression and association, freedom of movement and residence, and privacy Grades 9-12 Technology Standard 3 - Understands the relationships among science, technology, society, and the individual. Benchmarks: Knows examples of advanced and emerging technologies; Knows that mathematics, creativity, logic, and originality are all needed to improve technology; Identifies the role of technology in a variety of careers Language Arts Standard 1 - Demonstrates competence in the general skills and strategies of the writing process. Benchmarks: Writes compositions that are focused for different audiences; Writes compositions that fulfill different purposes; Writes expository compositions; Writes persuasive compositions that evaluate, interpret, and speculate about problems/solutions and causes and effects; Makes informed judgments about nonprint media Civics Standard 25 - Understands issues regarding personal, political, and economic rights. Benchmarks: Understands the importance to individuals and to society of personal rights such as freedom of thought and conscience, privacy and personal autonomy, and the right to due process of law and equal protection of the law; Understands how personal, political, and economic rights are secured by constitutional government and by such means as the rule of law, checks and balances, an independent judiciary, and a vigilant citizenry

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9/11 Pentagon video goes public for first time

2006-05-16T10:06:00.000-07:00

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[img]http://i.a.cnn.net/cnn/2006/US/05/16/pentagon.video/newt1.pentagon.dod.jpg[/img] 9/11 Pentagon video goes public for first time

Video showing a plane crashing into the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, will be seen publicly for the first time today, a judicial watchdog said. The Department of Defense will release tapes showing American Airlines Flight 77 striking its headquarters outside Washington to Judicial Watch, a public interest group that requested the video, the group said.

FULL STORY

Aftermath of the attack on the Pentagon

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The Precognitive Visions of ParaPolitical Researcher Alex Jones

2006-05-12T14:09:00.000-07:00

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The Precognitive Visions of ParaPolitical Researcher Alex Jones [img]http://www.parapolitics.info/images/alexjones/alexjones1.jpg[/img] Austin, Texas - Today marks only the second time this author has heard local radioshow host, parapolitical researcher and documentary filmmaker Alex Jones admit to his life-long history of prophetic, or precognitive, dreams.

On July 25th, 2001, I and countless other Central Texas cable subscribers watched Alex warn of the impending false-flag "terror attacks" against New York City to be blamed on former CIA assett Osama bin Laden. [1]

Though Alex routinely avoids discussion of topics he considers "new age" or "unprovable", preferring to stick to the "facts" reported in mainstream news sources, he did in fact state in his June 2003 interview with former Marine sniper Colonel Craig Roberts [2] that not only has he (Alex) had premonitory visions in dreams but that he specifically had a vision in the months before 911 that, combined with the mainstream news and behind-the-scenes intel he was receiving from insider sources, led him to make that dramatic July 25th broadcast that would soon thereafter prove prophetic. This admission came during a singularly anomalous interview with Colonel Craig Roberts that focused on Roberts' "extraordinary near-death experience and voyage to heaven".

Alex Jones has continued to remain silent about his personal experiences with precognitive visions for the obvious reason that it would be used as just another piece of ammunition by his destractors to undermine his credibility. Alex routinely states, "I am not a psychic" without referencing his own personal experiences that have proven to him that prophetic dreams are in fact a reality.

Today he broke his own rules again and, after fully discussing the main topic he had planned for his two guests [3] began engaging one of those guests on the subject of the military's psychic remote viewing programs. During this discussion with the military RV program's founder, Maj. Gen. Albert Stubblebine III, Alex again admited to his own personal experience with dream based psychic functioning.

Because the dialogue on the remote viewing subject began so late in the show there was not enough time for Alex to adequitely interview and investigate the claims of his guest. However, it was a great pleasure to once again have the protective layers Alex has built-up around his own personal ESP experiences slip aside long enough to verify what we first learned back in 2003.

References:

[1] July 2001, Alex Jones Warned of Globalist Plan to Use Bin Laden to Attack America

[2] Colonel Craig Roberts June 11 2003: Alex interviews Colonel Craig Roberts, former Marine sniper and now best-selling author. In change to the usual format, Roberts discusses his extraordinary near-death experience and voyage to heaven.

Download / Listen to MP3 Audio

Colonel Craig Roberts

[3] Alex welcomes Rima E. Laibow, M.D., a graduate of Albert Einstein College of Medicine (1970) who believes passionately in the right of Americans to choose their own health paths. She has practiced drug-free, natural medicine for 35 years and will be discussing her fight against the UN's horrible Codex Alimentarius.

Later Alex talks to the former Commanding General of the U.S. Army�s Intelligence School and Center who founded the Army's remote viewing program.

Audio Archive of this interview coming soon?

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WIPO Broadcast Treaty Could Wreck Freedom of Speech

2006-05-11T13:27:00.000-07:00

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WIPO Broadcast Treaty Could Wreck Freedom of Speech

Broadcast entities are eagerly pushing an obscure treaty known as the World Intellectual Property Broadcast Treaty, which would give first broadcasters control over everything they broadcast for fifty years after the date of first broadcast.

It would end "fair use" that enables other broadcasters to use small parts of tapes and other broadcast information, for example, in news reports. It would also mean that the creators of broadcast material, such as freelance journalists, would no longer be able to negotiate contracts for their work, and would be forced to sell it for 50 years or nothing.

To understand just how abusive this treaty is, if you were to upload a video that you had made at your own expense onto YouTube, YouTube would then gain all rights to it for the next fifty years, without having to compensate you in any way.

via ...

Broadcast Treaty has potential to grant unwarranted "protections" 2/22/2006 3:47:32 PM, by Peter Pollack

The subject of an ongoing series of discussions between the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), broadcasters, and representatives from a variety of nations, the WIPO Broadcast Treaty carries the promise of standardizing how certain types of intellectual property are treated around the world. It also presents the ominous threat of granting a powerful 50-year right of control to anyone who first broadcasts audio or video content.

A video featuring comments on the WIPO treaty by US Copyright Office head Marybeth Peters has recently surfaced. In it, she sheds some light on the fact that, although US broadcasters would love to see the additional control granted to them, at least some people in the government are not necessarily in agreement on the issue, and the topic is not yet decided. Because the WIPO Broadcast Treaty is not yet a hot-button issue, many people may not have heard much about it and a bit of background is in order.

For the purposes of our discussion, it should be noted that broadcasters are separate from content creators. Broadcasters are working to protect you (in theory) and themselves (most certainly) from evildoers who would steal a legitimate broadcast signal. They plan to institute this protection by gaining specific legal rights for themselves at the expense of the content creator and the fair use. If you've ever posted any kind of sound and video on the Internet, you could be affected by this provision of the Broadcast Treaty, should it be adopted.

First, let's try to envision an environment in which a person creates a work of audio and video. That person would then be considered the copyright holder. If that person licenses their work to a broadcaster, a contract would be created that enumerates exactly what the broadcaster is allowed to do, and for how long it can be done, e.g., the broadcaster has exclusive rights to broadcast the work for five years, etc. After the term of the contract, the copyright holder gets those rights back.

If that idea makes sense to you, take a look around, because that's essentially the situation we have in the United States right now. There are exceptions and nuances to copyright law that have been omitted for the sake of clarity, but the overall concept remains true.

In other parts of the world, the situation is somewhat different:

... nearly 50 years ago broadcasters in some countries got an additional right, layered on top of the copyright. Even if the material being broadcast was in the public domain, or the copyright holder had no objection to redistribution, the broadcaster was given a legal right to prevent it - a 20-year period of exclusivity. The ostensible reason was to encourage broadcasters to invest in new networks.

Read entire article here:

SMiles

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Allegations of Sexual Abuse by United Nations PeaceKeepers DOUBLES in One Year

2006-05-09T13:03:00.000-07:00

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UN sexual allegations double

Allegations of sexual abuse and exploitation by UN staff more than doubled last year, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has said in a report.

Most of the allegations, which include rape, sexual assault and sex with minors, involved UN peacekeepers.

Mr Annan says he is "deeply troubled" by the increase.

On Friday, four Nepalese soldiers flew home to face sex abuse charges. They served with the UN in DR Congo, where claims of misconduct arose in 2003.

The Nepalese army said the men would be investigated, and court-martialled if the charges were found to have substance.

Allegations of misconduct by UN troops in DR Congo in 2003 sparked an inquiry and an overhaul of procedures.

Exploitation claims

"The increase in allegations is deeply troubling," Mr Annan says in the report.

"Although allegations have doubled since 2003, the Secretariat is aware that the data may still not reflect the true extent of these deplorable incidents."

A total of 121 allegations of sexual exploitation and abuse were registered last year.

The majority of these - 105 in total - were levelled against peacekeepers.

The report says more may come to light as people feel more confident that reporting incidents will result in action.

Curfews

Almost half of the complaints against the peacekeeping troops involved sex with a minor and 15% involved rape or sexual assault.

Some 77,000 UN peacekeepers are deployed on missions including those in Ivory Coast, Liberia, DR Congo, Cambodia, Kosovo and East Timor.

Ten claims were also made against UN civilian personnel working for the UN refugee agency, UNHCR.

The UN has recently published a series of guidelines to change the way peacekeeping operations are run.

The proposals include withholding pay for peacekeepers found guilty of sexual abuse, creating a fund to assist the victims, and establishing a uniform set of rules so that all peacekeepers - troops and civilians - are held to the same standards of conduct.

The report said that missions in Ivory Coast, Liberia, DR Congo, Ethiopia, Kosovo and East Timor have already established no-go areas for peacekeepers.

A non-fraternisation policy has also been introduced.

Some 53 uniformed peacekeepers were sent home last year after allegations made against them were substantiated, the report says.

Story from BBC NEWS:

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Bush says fight against terror is 'World War III'

2006-05-06T07:30:00.000-07:00

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Bush says fight against terror is 'World War III'

US President George W. Bush said the September 11 revolt of passengers against their hijackers on board Flight 93 had struck the first blow of "World War III."

In an interview with the financial news network CNBC, Bush said he had yet to see the recently released film of the uprising, a dramatic portrayal of events on the United Airlines plane before it crashed in a Pennsylvania field.

But he said he agreed with the description of David Beamer, whose son Todd died in the crash, who in a Wall Street Journal commentary last month called it "our first successful counter-attack in our homeland in this new global war -- World War III".

Bush said: "I believe that. I believe that it was the first counter-attack to World War III.

"It was, it was unbelievably heroic of those folks on the airplane to recognize the danger and save lives," he said.

Flight 93 crashed on the morning of September 11, 2001, killing the 33 passengers, seven crew members and four hijackers, after passengers stormed the cockpit and battled the hijackers for control of the aircraft.

The president has repeatedly praised the heroism of the passengers in fighting back and so launching the first blow of what he usually calls the "war on terror".

In 2002, then-White House spokesman Ari Fleischer explicitly declined to call the hunt for Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda group and its followers "World War III."

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PKD's 'A Scanner Darkly' reveals the near future police state

2006-04-27T09:12:00.000-07:00

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[img]http://www.infowars.com/images2/media/scanner-darkly-04.jpg[/img] A Scanner Darkly reveals the near future police state Paul Joseph Watson/Prison Planet.com February 22 2006

A new movie set to hit the big screen this summer depicts a near future America that has lost the war on drugs and capitulated into the tentacles of a pervasive control grid. A Scanner Darkly represents the latest example of a refreshing and burgeoning trend in Hollywood that seeks to enlighten the viewer into recognizing the real world prison barriers being erected around society today.

The movie is based on the book of the same name by Philip K. Dick and is filmed in interpolated rotoscoping style, whereby live action photography is overlaid with an advanced animation process. This gives the impression of a graphic novel come to life and has the same unique impression as director Richard Linklater's previous cult classic, Waking Life.

[img]http://www.infowars.com/images2/media/scanner_darkly_posters.jpg[/img] Read entire article here:

AND

A Scanner Darkly Launches *an amazing* Website and Trailer Warner Brother's A Scanner Darkly

A Scanner Darkly is a powerful dystopic film set in the terrifying near future-- a world controlled by high-tech surveillance and ruled by a liberty-destroying police state. Director Richard Linklater picks up where he left off with his ground-breaking Waking Life-- its rotoscoped look has now advanced exponentially into a startling visual element which only supports the themes of this new film. A Scanner Darkly is a heavily researched, amazingly conceived blend of Phillip K. Dick's acclaimed novel and the frightening real technology emerging in our threatened world.

A Scanner Darkly stars Keanu Reaves, Robert Downy, Jr., Woody Harrelson, Winona Ryder and features Alex Jones himself-- still bullhorning the truth in the future nightmare world. The Warner Brothers film is currently slated for release on July 7, 2006.

If the quality of both the trailer and the website are any indication, this film is likely to blow open previous movie conventions and deliver a powerful warning of a not-so-distant world that we can only hope will not solidify into a permanent prison planet.

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The Real ID rebellion

2006-04-26T09:17:00.000-07:00

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The Real ID rebellion By Declan McCullagh [img]http://i.i.com.com/cnwk.1d/i/ne/p/video06/video_id_88x66.jpg[/img] In 1775, New Hampshire was the first colony to declare its independence from oppressive laws and taxes levied by the British crown.

Now it may become the first state to declare its independence from an oppressive digital ID law concocted in Washington, D.C.

New Hampshire's House of Representatives has overwhelmingly approved a remarkable bill, HB 1582, that would prohibit the state from participating in the national ID card system that will be created in 2008. A state Senate vote is expected as early as next week.

The federal law in question is the Real ID Act (here's our FAQ on the topic) that was glued on to a military spending and tsunami relief bill last year. Because few politicians are courageous enough to be seen as opposing tsunami aid, the measure sailed through the U.S. Senate by a 100-0 vote and navigated its way through the House 368 votes to 58.

Unless states issue new, electronically readable ID cards that adhere to federal standards, the law says, Americans will need a passport to do everyday things like travel on an airplane, open a bank account, sign up for Social Security or enter a federal building.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is currently devising regulations for these federalized ID cards. One possibility is that the "electronically readable" requirement will be satisfied by embedding a radio frequency identification (RFID) chip. (They'll already be appearing in U.S. passports starting in October.)

That prospect alarmed New Hampshire state Rep. Neal Kurk so much that he gave an impassioned floor speech during the March 8 debate saying the Granite State must not participate in the Real ID system.

"There are times, Mr. Speaker, when we must look beyond the mundane and the pragmatic and take a stand based on our values," Kurk said. "I believe this is one of those times...I don't believe the people of New Hampshire elected us to help the federal government create a national ID card."

Kurk invoked the memory of Patrick Henry's revolutionary speech, "Give me liberty or give me death," and New Hampshire's motto, "Live Free or Die."

"The war on our civil liberties is actually begun," Kurk said. "There's a price to be paid for independence. But I ask you, what price-- liberty?"

Kurk's impassioned plea prevailed. Even though a legislative committee had opposed the measure, the House overruled the committee's recommendations by a margin of 217 to 84.

A Real ID rebellion? While New Hampshire may be the first, it's not alone. Other state politicians are seething over how the federales are strong-arming them on national IDs.

The National Governors Association, hardly a bunch of libertarians, has called the Real ID Act "unworkable and counterproductive." The National Conference of State Legislatures wrote to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff in October, asking him to defer to states' expertise.

No doubt much of the political outcry is over money and would evaporate if the Feds wrote checks to cover the cost of upgrading state computer systems. (The governors' press release baldly admits they're "asking Congress to fund the changes required" by the Real ID Act. One taxpayer watchdog group puts the cost at $90 per Real ID card.)

That would be a shame. Privacy and autonomy are even better reasons to be skeptical of this scheme.

There are no rules governing what data that private companies (hotels, retailers, employers) will be able to extract from the Real ID when it's swiped or placed next to an RFID reader. Will information like a home address and Social Security number be disclosed? Will a federal database be alerted whenever the card is swiped or read? And can an RFID'ed license be read from 20 or 30 feet away?

Unanswered questions like those are why it's important that state legislators stand up to bullying by Washington. "If New Hampshire passes this bill, we'll be the first domino," Kurk, the state legislator, told me Friday. "We're told there will be other states that follow on."

A New Hampshire Senate committee is mulling over the bill (and being lobbied by the motor vehicle agency, because the Real ID Act included a $3 million grant) with a floor vote expected after April 23. A rally is planned for noon on April 22 at the Concord state capitol by an anti-RFID group, and a Web site has sprung up to lobby senators.

"Having a national ID would promote a surveillance society that we should all dread," Jim Harper, the director of information policy studies at the free-market Cato Institute, told the state Senate committee last week.

The sad thing is that the U.S. Constitution was written to prohibit the federal government from taking such drastic steps. The long-forgotten Tenth Amendment says that powers not explicitly delegated to the Feds "are reserved to the states" or to the people.

For now, though, the Real ID rebellion will continue. Patrick Henry's famous resolution in the Virginia legislature condemned "burdensome taxation" in the form of the hated Stamp Act. When more people learn about the Real ID Act, it might just spark a similar revolt today.

Biography: Declan McCullagh is CNET News.com's chief political correspondent. He spent more than a decade in Washington, D.C., chronicling the busy intersection between technology and politics. Previously, he was the Washington bureau chief for Wired News, and a reporter for Time.com, Time magazine and HotWired. McCullagh has taught journalism at American University and been an adjunct professor at Case Western University.

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Homeland inSecurity Wants Global ID System

2006-04-26T09:15:00.000-07:00

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Head of visitor tracking program wants global ID system By Jonathan Marino

The head of the Homeland Security Department's visitor tracking program on Tuesday called for the creation of a "global ID management system" to make travel easier while enhancing security.

Jim Williams, director of the US VISIT program within DHS, told attendees of the National Business Travel Association's annual meeting he is aware of the plight of the business traveler. Even he, despite his senior position in the department, once found himself temporarily unable to board a plane because he shared the name of an individual on a terrorist watch list, he said.

Williams said he wants to join forces with several DHS agencies to develop a global identification system that would cut wait times, reduce government fees for travelers, fight illegal immigration and, perhaps paramount, better defend nations from terrorists.

The US VISIT chief, who already oversees identity inquiries for nearly every visitor who enters the United States, said a worldwide identification system will better link nations in the fight against terrorism. In his speech, he likened al Qaeda operatives and sleeper cells - including the ones that attacked on 9/11 - to "submarines" that must surface to kill.

"In order for them to do what they want to do, they have to travel," Williams said.

He did not specify when, or how, the proposed global program would be implemented.

Williams suggested that a biometrics identification system might be used to better track travelers to the United States. A similar program is being tested in Great Britain, where such physical characteristics as fingerprints or iris scans are being tied to national identification cards. Proponents say it can cut the odds of success for immigration fraud.

Any program that can successfully ease both financial burdens and wait times for travelers will be welcomed with open arms, said Hank Roeder, vice president of global operations for the National Business Travel Association.

In his speech, Williams said an American version of the global ID plan would likely require the cooperation of US VISIT, the Customs and Border Protection bureau, the Transportation Safety Administration and U.S. Customs and Immigration Services, all under the DHS umbrella.

A TSA official declined to comment, saying the agency has no knowledge of the proposed plan. CBP and CIS could not be reached for comment.

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Synchronistic Small World - Juarez Research and Stanley Krippner

2006-04-25T08:23:00.000-07:00

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Synchronistic Small World - Juarez Research and Stanley Krippner [img]http://www.crimelibrary.com/graphics/photos/serial_killers/predators/ciudad_juarez/1-1(200)map_Ciudad_Juarez.jpg[/img] On Friday, Anomaly Archives volunteer on-site Assistant Curator JP Smith and archives founder SMiles Lewis were interviewed on the OUT THE RABBIT HOLE radio show about their independent research into the Ciudad Juarez Murder Mystery (not a pleasant subject).

J. Jimenez-Smith (pen-name of J.P. Smith) was interviewed concerning the creation and production of his latest work titled "Among the Sand and Smog" which examines the mysterious tragedy of over 400 missing and murdered young women in Ciudad Juarez and how it has affected that community. The play has garnered rave reviews and emotional responses from audiences in Texas.

Austin parapolitical researcher, informationalist, and gonzo alternative-media proprietor SMiles Lewis also joined in the discussion which is archived on line and can be listened to here...

Miles has been posting his research at this page here...

This weekend while reading one of my favorite research blogs that deals with some of the issues possibly involved in Juarez, I came across a link to an article (coincidentally posted the same day as our radio interview) that quoted none other than Dr. Stanley Krippner - no stranger to INACSters.

Then just minutes ago I stumbled upon ANOTHER Extremely Interesting Link to Stanley Krippner, the Ciudad Juarez situation, and an experiment in Dream Telepathy related to the killing crisis there in Mexico...

An Effort 18.Mar.2006 12:11 by Eric J. Lindblom PhD

Juarez: this is heartbreaking. I wanted to add and to the conversation.

"Goal: This website presents a scientific discovery process (not a finished product) to help raise consciousness about The Dead Women of Ju�rez. Our problems and issues are very serious to the point of being almost unthinkable. Project 14 is deadly serious.

In the interest of raising consciousness about women, several theories (ie: John Dewey, pragmatism) and several methods (ie: Stanley Krippner, dream telepathy) are proposed in detail, here on the various pages listed on The Navigation Bar at your left.

Data is being gathered (dreamwork) on that theoretical and methodological foundation. That shall lead to sharing with the community at large through publication and dialogue including acting-up. No other goal or agenda is being proposed or implied." Eric J. Lindblom PhD Harvard University

This is a fascinating, though disturbing, Rabbit Hole indeed.

Miles

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Bill forbids mandatory microchip implants

2006-04-25T07:07:00.000-07:00

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[img]http://starbulletin.com/2002/09/29/news/arto.jpg[/img] Bill forbids mandatory microchip implants But information chip would be legal with person's consent BY RYAN J. FOLEY / Associated Press

MADISON, Wis. � Former Gov. Tommy Thompson was one of the first high-profile supporters of tiny microchips implanted in people's arms that would allow doctors to access medical information.

Now the state he used to lead is poised to become the first to ban governments and private businesses from forcing such implants on employees, privacy advocates say.

A proposal moving through the state Legislature would prohibit anyone from requiring people to have the tiny chips embedded in them or doing so without their knowledge. Violators would face fines of up to $10,000.

The plan authored by Rep. Marlin Schneider, D-Wisconsin Rapids, won approval in the Assembly last month. The state Senate is scheduled today to consider the measure, which would allow for the implants if the person gives consent.

Gov. Jim Doyle would sign the bill, a spokesman said.

Schneider aides say the legislator wants the law in place before companies and governments could use them to keep track of their employees.

"I don't think most people had thought about this as an issue, but it's scary. It's reality now," said Michael Schoenfield, an aide to Schneider. "Companies can or will be ordering their employees to have chips implanted. We want to stop that before it begins."

VeriChip Corp. of Delray Beach, Fla., is the only company with federal approval to implant such chips in people. The company so far has implanted 2,500 people worldwide with chips the size of a grain of rice under the skin of their upper arms, said spokesman John O. Procter.

Thompson endorsed this application last year as a way to give hospitals easy access to patients' medical records when he joined VeriChip's board of directors and vowed to "get chipped" himself.

Procter said Monday that Thompson has not undergone the procedure, which he likened to getting a shot, but plans to do so once more hospitals adopt the technology. The chips give off a radio frequency signal identifying a patient. The signal is used to access personal information in an Internet database.

VeriChip is also marketing the implants as a way for companies or governments to limit access to high-security areas.

In February, a Cincinnati surveillance equipment company became the first U.S. business to use this application when a handful of employees voluntarily got implants to allow them to enter secure rooms. Some employees in the Mexico attorney general's office have also been implanted with chips, whose signals are recognized by readers in doorways.

Procter said VeriChip supports the spirit of Schneider's bill and would not work with companies forcing employees to get implants. However, he said the implants are superior to employee badges or key chains as a way to limit access.

"It's more secure. It's discreet and it can't be lost or stolen," he said.

Privacy advocates say they are unaware of any companies forcing implants but are worried the technology is taking off with little debate about potential abuses.

Wisconsin would be the first state to ban mandatory implants, said Katherine Albrecht, a New Hampshire privacy advocate and co-author of "Spychips: How Major Corporations and Government Plan to Track Your Every Move with RFID."

Albrecht said she recently handed Thompson a copy of her book when he was in New Hampshire giving a speech.

"What an interesting irony that the foremost chip promoter in the world comes from Wisconsin and Wisconsin would be the first state to say, 'Hey, at least get our permission first,' " Albrecht said. "It's good that lawmakers in Wisconsin are paying attention to the fact that this technology even exists."

The proposal would leave the door open for the state to order implants to track sex offenders or for parents to track their children under an amendment offered by Rep. Scott Suder, R-Abbotsford. Such applications are years away because the chips do not yet allow for surveillance tracking.

"The bill may be a little ahead of its time, but I think it prevents some very onerous activity," Suder said. "It is groundbreaking."

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New Hampshire's 'gun rack on motorcycle' crowd blamed in Public RFID Resistance

2006-04-24T12:29:00.000-07:00

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Political climate unfriendly to ID devices, backers say By Michael Martinez, National Journal's Technology Daily

Widespread misinformation about radio-frequency identification technology and high-tech identification cards has subverted federal and state legislation to modernize America's ID systems, a panel of industry officials and experts said Wednesday.

At the Smart Cards in Government Conference, advocates for RFID and tech-based "smart cards" said mandates to use modern technologies would dramatically improve the nation's security infrastructure. But resistance to such measures and technologies is swelling, they said.

Marc-Anthony Signorino, the director of technology policy at the tech group AeA, said that a fundamental misunderstanding of RFID spurred a series of poorly written bills in California, Illinois, New Hampshire and New Mexico to limit its use.

He said lawmakers have complicated measures to limit RFID usage because they have tried to make too many exemptions for uses they enjoy, such as smart cards for accessing highway toll lanes. "The legislation ends up looking like Swiss cheese," Signorino said.

Signorino said the political climate in New Hampshire has made it especially difficult for the industry to make a case for itself. The Granite State has been particularly active on the ID front. House lawmakers there last month passed a bill to reject a 2005 federal mandate for standard driver's licenses.

"We're scared to go to New Hampshire," he said. "They have gun racks on their motorcycles. They don't want anyone telling them what to do."

Robert Atkinson, the president of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, said RFID and smart-card advocates are facing an uphill battle because their opponents already have shaped the debate. "The ground has been so poisoned by the other side that I think it's going to be tough to move forward," Atkinson said.

The movement against RFID and federal driver's licensing standards has garnered support from all areas of the political spectrum, according to Atkinson.

He said an "unholy alliance" of groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union and the Eagle Forum, which is led by conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly, has choked the ability of the technology industry to gather political support. "This isn't a group of fringe players," he said.

Atkinson said he does not expect the Homeland Security Department to require embedded computer chips driver's licenses because detractors of the mandate have convinced enough people that such chips will do little to improve national security. "I just don't think it's going to happen," he said.

Richard Varn, the president of RJV Consulting and a former chief technology officer, said smart-card advocates should focus on convincing lawmakers to punish bad behavior instead of banning technology. He said lawmakers throughout the country need to "beef up" cyber-crime efforts.

"They are not investing sufficient money compared to the size of the crime to efficiently combat it," he said.

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CIA Reveals Bush, Cheney, Rice Were Personally Told Iraq Had No WMD in 02

2006-04-24T10:00:00.000-07:00

This message was sent from: ParaPolitics - General. <http://www.parapolitics.info/phorum/read.php?f=4&i=993&t=993> ----------------------------------------------------------------

60 Minutes: CIA Official Reveals Bush, Cheney, Rice Were Personally Told Iraq Had No WMD in Fall 2002 [img]http://thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2006/04/60min.jpg[/img] Tonight on 60 Minutes, Tyler Drumheller, the former chief of the CIA�s Europe division, revealed that in the fall of 2002, President Bush, Vice President Cheney, then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and others were told by CIA Director George Tenet that Iraq�s foreign minister � who agreed to act as a spy for the United States � had reported that Iraq had no active weapons of mass destruction program.

Watch it:

BRADLEY: According to Drumheller, CIA Director George Tenet delivered the news about the Iraqi foreign minister at a high level meeting at the White House.

DRUMHELLER: The President, the Vice President, Dr. Rice�

BRADLEY: And at that meeting�?

DRUMHELLER: They were enthusiastic because they said they were excited that we had a high-level penetration of Iraqis.

BRADLEY: And what did this high level source tell you?

DRUMHELLER: He told us that they had no active weapons of mass destruction program.

BRADLEY: So, in the fall of 2002, before going to war, we had it on good authority from a source within Saddam�s inner circle that he didn�t have an active program for weapons of mass destruction?

DRUMHELLER: Yes.

BRADLEY: There�s no doubt in your mind about that?

DRUMHELLER: No doubt in my mind at all.

BRADLEY: It directly contradicts, though, what the President and his staff were telling us.

DRUMHELLER: The policy was set. The war in Iraq was coming, and they were looking for intelligence to fit into the policy, to justify the policy. Read the full transcript HERE .

UPDATE: More at CBS News.

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Ultimate Fighting Anarchist takes on New World Order?

2006-04-23T10:03:00.000-07:00

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[img]http://www.inthesetimes.com/images/30/04/ufc.jpg[/img] Ultimate Fighting Anarchist By Gabriel Thompson

He is, without a doubt, the toughest subscriber to In These Times. Standing 5� 9� tall, weighing 240 pounds and sporting a shaved head, Jeff �The Snowman� Monson looks like a cartoon ready to pop, a compressed giant of crazy shoulders, massive biceps and meaty forearms.

When he sneers, people shudder. When he sweats, they turn away. When he�s angry, your best bet is to run.

He�s angry right now, even though his combat career in the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC)�an often-bloody tournament that combines martial arts disciplines like Brazilian Jujitsu and Muay Thai Kickboxing�is taking off. In February�s pay-per-view event, Monson easily beat his opponent with a chokehold in the first round. If things keep going this way, he could have a title shot in the heavyweight division, against the explosive Andrei �The Pit Bull� Arlovski. So no, it�s not his future career prospects that have him pissed. It�s the state of the world.

�I�m not some sort of conspiracy theorist,� Monson says of his political leanings. �I�m not talking about how the government is trying to hide UFOs. I just want to do away with hierarchy. I�m saying that our economic system, capitalism, is structured so that it only benefits a small percentage of very wealthy people. When I was traveling in Brazil, they had us staying at a really posh hotel. Outside the hotel there was a mom sleeping on the sidewalk with her two kids. That�s when reality hits you. What did that woman ever do? Who did she ever hurt?�

Monson wears his politics on his sleeve, as well as the rest of his body. An anarcho-syndicalist star is tattooed on his chest, an anarchy sign on his back and another �A� on his leg. While he loves his sport, he also feels a responsibility to use whatever exposure he receives for a larger purpose. �I don�t think I�m more important than anyone else, but since some people are paying attention, then I�m going to use this as a vehicle to express myself,� he says. Some fans have labeled him anti-American, but he shrugs off such criticism. He was slightly taken aback, however, when three Secret Service agents showed up at his gym in Olympia, Wash., last fall.

read entire article here ...

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Chinese President Hu Heckled At White House (VIDEO)

2006-04-20T10:22:00.000-07:00

This message was sent from: 1st Amendment Threats. <http://www.parapolitics.info/phorum/read.php?f=24&i=235&t=235> ----------------------------------------------------------------

Chinese President Hu Heckled At White House (VIDEO) [img]http://www.exposetheleft.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/04/hu-heckled.jpg[/img] The Drudge Report flashes:

FLASH: Heckler disrupts Chinese President Hu�s speech on south lawn at White House: �President Bush, stop him from killing�... �Stop persecuting the Falun Gong,� she yelled� She also shouted in Chinese, �President Hu, your days are numbered�... woman is taken away by uniformed secret service officers� right after Bush urged Hu to allow Chinese to �speak freely�...

DOWNLOAD � .WMV DOWNLOAD � .MP4

[img]http://us.news3.yimg.com/us.i2.yimg.com/p/ap/20060420/capt.whcd10704201444.us_china_bush_hu_visit_whcd107.jpg[/img] [img]http://us.news3.yimg.com/us.i2.yimg.com/p/ap/20060420/capt.whre10504201458.us_china_bush_hu_visit_whre105.jpg[/img]

From DRUDGEREPORT.com:

HU HECKLED ON SOUTH LAWN: 'YOUR DAYS ARE NUMBERED' Thu Apr 20 2006 12:10:16 ET

The arrival ceremony for Chinese president Hu Jintao was interrupted by a protester who appealed to President Bush to stop Hu from 'persecuting the Falun Gong,' a banned religious movement in China.

The woman began shouting from the top of a camera stand located directly in front of Hu and Bush.

'President Bush, stop him from killing'... 'Stop persecuting the Falun Gong,' she yelled... She also shouted in Chinese, 'President Hu, your days are numbered, No more time for China's ruling party.'

The incident occured right after Bush urged Hu to allow Chinese to 'speak freely'. The woman, had a temporary pass with a big 'T' on it, also unfurled a yellow 'Falun Gong' banner.

The woman was taken away by uniformed secret service officers.

Bush leaned over and whispered to Hu, 'You're okay.' Hu, who had stopped talking briefly, then resumed speaking.

On China TV: As Hu was speaking when yells of protesters became audible, the screen went black. When the feed came back the screen once again went black when woman was again heard. During CNN International's post-speech commentary, at mention of south lawn heckler, the screen also went black again. The CNN feed returned when the incident ended.

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Mandatory FingerPrinting of Realtors?

2006-04-20T10:09:00.000-07:00

This message was sent from: Mark of the Beast - Mandatory MicroChips. <http://www.parapolitics.info/phorum/read.php?f=30&i=133&t=133> ----------------------------------------------------------------

Mandatory FingerPrinting of Realtors in California, Colorado, Iowa, Florida and ...

DBPR offers electronic fingerprinting for real estate applicants The Business Journal of Jacksonville - April 11, 2006

The state's Department of Business and Professional Regulation is offering electronic fingerprinting to applicants for real estate licenses. Beginning July 1, electronic fingerprinting will be mandatory for all applicants for real estate agent and broker licenses.

Electronic fingerprinting is designed to reduce the chance of illegible fingerprints or missing information on the fingerprint card.

"The department is excited about the move to electronic fingerprint reporting for real estate applicants," said Simone Marstiller, secretary of the DBPR. "I encourage real estate applicants to take advantage of this new, faster, more reliable process."

DBPR has contracted with an electronic fingerprinting vendor to offer 15 sites across the state, including one on the Southside. Applicants' fingerprints will be scanned and submitted to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the FBI. The electronic process will take two to three days, compared to the three to six weeks with the paper copy method.

Come to DMCAR for FINGERPRINTS - Members Receive a Discount

Effective August 9, 2005 the Colorado Real Estate Commission requires all brokers licensed before July 1, 2004, whose licenses expire December 31, 2005 to have a fingerprint-based criminal history record check completed prior to renewal. For your convenience and as a benefit of membership, DMCAR will have fingerprinting services available every Wednesday and Thursday, 9am-1:00pm by appointment. To schedule an appointment, contact Al Martin at alrmartin@comcast.net or by calling 303.386.5241 The cost is $8/DMCAR members, $15/others.

Background Check & Fingerprinting

To receive a Background Check & Fingerprint Packet contact the Iowa Real Estate Commission at (515) 281-7393 or e-mail sandy.malek@iowa.gov. Once you have received the packet, follow the instructions carefully.

As part of your background check, the Iowa Real Estate Commission will submit your fingerprints to the FBI. You are required to obtain your fingerprints on a supplied fingerprint card. The FBI will NOT accept inkless fingerprints used by many law enforcement agencies. You must submit your fingerprints IN INK. Take the fingerprint card to an authorized finger printer and pay the cost, if any, for this service. Contact your local sheriff�s office or police department to set up an appointment to have your fingerprints taken.

Send the completed signed waiver, fingerprint card and check or money order for $46 to the Iowa Real Estate Commission at 1920 SE Hulsizer, Ankeny, Iowa 50021. Make checks payable to the Iowa Real Estate Commission.

You cannot apply for a license until you have been notified by the Iowa Real Estate Commission that the background check is complete. The background check can take 8 to 10 weeks to be completed and once completed it is valid for only 90 days. It is recommended that you consider this limitation when scheduling your pre-license course, license exam and application for your license.

Company/Title: Florida Fingerprint requirement Contact Name: Florida Real Estate Commission Telephone Number: 407-245-0800 Listing Description: Florida Fingerprint requirement Website: Additional Information: FINGERPRINTING REQUIREMENT

For Florida residents: Fingerprints may be taken through a Live-Scan method in all 67 counties. For electronic fingerprinting locations and other information specific to each county, go to our Electronic Fingerprinting Locations page and scroll to the specific county where you will be having fingerprints made.

The process for paying the required fingerprint processing fee is as follows for Florida residents:

Counties: Broward, Miami-Dade, Duval, Palm Beach

Fingerprint payments shall be made on the Internet at www.fldfsprints.com or by calling 888-717-5699.

All Other Counties: Fingerprint payments shall be made on the Internet at .

For nonresident agents: Fingerprint cards with instructions will be mailed to the applicant when the application is received by the Bureau of Licensing. Fingerprint payments shall be made on the Internet at www.fldfsprints.com or by calling 888-717-5699.

Note: Criminal history checks are valid for three (3) YEARS. This means that if an applicant applies for an additional class of insurance license during this three-year period, he/she will NOT be required to file another fingerprint card unless specifically requested to by the Department.

For more information specific to each county, go to the Electronic Fingerprinting Location site on our website.

Fingerprint rule snarls real estate biz by Michael Perrault / Denver Business Journal The Denver Business Journal - December 30, 2005

Thousands of Colorado real estate brokers will be unable to conduct business starting Jan. 1 after missing a Dec. 31 deadline to submit fingerprints to state and federal law enforcement officials.

A state law that went into effect July 1 mandated that all real estate brokers must submit fingerprints and fees to cover the cost of background checks. One-third of the state's approximately 46,000 agents were notified they had to do so by year-end -- but only about 8,000 had submitted ink-rolled or digital fingerprints plus accompanying fees by the deadline to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, said Debbie Campagnola, director of the Colorado Real Estate Commission.

The licenses of the remaining 4,000 to 8,000 real estate agents who had planned to renew their active broker status but missed the year-end deadline automatically will be placed on inactive status, she said. They still would be able to work as unlicensed personal assistants within a brokerage.

The remaining two-thirds of Colorado's active brokers must submit their fingerprints and fees in either 2006 or 2007, depending on when their licenses expire.

"There's been a lot of talk about it," said Skeeter Wilson, a real estate broker with Prestige Real Estate Group in Broomfield. And for good reason, she said.

"Without a license, you can't practice real estate," Wilson said.

Real estate agents without active licenses aren't supposed to take on listings or receive commissions, and their errors and omissions insurance isn't in force, Campagnola said. "Its a big deal. So if you have a closing in the works [and your license becomes inactive], that's a problem."

The new requirements caught many real estate agents by surprise -- despite several letters containing specific warnings from the real estate commission and educational sessions offered by the Colorado Association of Realtors and other industry trade organizations.

Brokerage managers have pushed agents to complete the fingerprinting task and urged them not to wait until the last minute.

But many agents simply put it off until it was too late.

"The first time you try to implement something like this, the biggest battle is getting the word out to people that it's even required," said Jacquie Wolff, director of education for the Denver Board of Realtors. "I still think there are a lot of people out there who aren't aware."

To streamline the process for its 2,700-plus members, the Denver Board of Realtors began offering fingerprinting services at its location. Nearly 1,200 real estate agents participated, Wolff said.

The licenses of brokers who met the Dec. 31 deadline but whose background checks weren't fully processed by year-end won't be put on inactive status, Campagnola stressed. The real estate commission passed an emergency ruling in October extending the processing deadline to Jan. 31.

But those who procrastinated beyond the Dec. 31 deadline likely will have to wait weeks to get their active licenses renewed. The CBI estimates that a Colorado fingerprint criminal history check requires one to two weeks, and a fingerprint criminal history check by the Federal Bureau of Investigation requires six to 10 weeks.

Once the CBI and FBI complete the criminal history records checks, results are forwarded to the real estate commission for review. Real estate brokers with arrest records come under closer scrutiny, and action could be taken against their licenses.

Brokers who've applied for their initial licenses have long had to submit fingerprints. But in 2005, 2006 and 2007, all real estate agents wanting to renew licenses must resubmit their fingerprints.

The task of collecting and processing 12,000 to 18,000 fingerprints has been frustrating for many brokers and cumbersome for understaffed law enforcement agencies. They and the real estate commission have been at least two weeks behind in processing fingerprints.

Frustrations have mounted for some brokers who completed the fingerprinting process weeks ago but who are still waiting to get results, said Tina Pernosky, executive director of the Durango Area Association of Realtors.

"I don't believe the Colorado Bureau of Investigation was prepared for this," Wilson said, noting that many brokers are unsure and worried about their status. "They've been afraid that their licenses won't be renewed."

Applicants seeking new broker licenses often have faced 60- to 90-day delays, Wilson said.

Campagnola acknowledged the volume of fingerprints from renewing brokers has extended waiting times for new license applicants' fingerprints to be processed. That's one reason the state's Division of Real Estate, within the Department of Regulatory Agencies, encourages real estate license candidates to submit their fingerprints while they're still in school.

The Colorado Association of Realtors and its Legal Hotline have been "inundated" with phone calls and questions about how to obtain fingerprint cards. The electronically processed fingerprints of some brokers turned out to be illegible, and they're upset that they have to redo the process.

State officials estimate that about 5 percent of some 12,000 active license renewals will have some arrest record, requiring the real estate commission to review about 600 licensee renewals.

Wilson isn't required to renew her license until next year, and she's glad not to be part of the first wave of renewals.

"I figure I'll just let them work all the bugs out," she said.

Become A Real Estate Agent In California

The requirements to become a real estate agent in California include being at least 18 years of age. The applicants for a real estate salesperson license must provide proof that they are a legal resident of the United States, and proof that they are honest and truthful. Conviction of a crime can result in the denial of a license. Fingerprints and a $56 fingerprinting fee are part of the application for the real estate exam. No experience is required for applying for a real estate salesperson license; however, the following educational requirements need to be met.

Realtors rush to meet new obligation Veteran agents had to submit fingerprints to keep licenses

By Greg Avery, Camera Business Writer January 28, 2006

Thousands of Colorado real estate brokers have flooded state regulators with fingerprints in recent weeks as agents scrambled to meet a new licensing renewal requirement for criminal background checks or face having their livelihood curtailed.

A state law that took effect in July required real estate brokers to submit fingerprints for criminal background checks in order to renew their state licenses. Failure to submit the prints would render their licenses inactive, a status that bars brokers from listing, showing or selling property.

State real estate broker licenses need renewing every three years. The first renewal application deadline under the fingerprinting rule was Dec. 31.

Officials with the Colorado Real Estate Commission, the licensing agency, expressed worry a few weeks ago to the Denver Business Journal when the deadline loomed and only half of the 16,000 affected brokers had submitted prints.

Since then, though, the ink-stained fingerprint cards flooded in.

"In late December and early January, we received thousands," said Debbie Campagnola, director of the real estate commission. "We measured the stack of paper in feet."

It now seems unlikely that many of brokers will be rendered inactive, she said.

The commission should know for sure by mid-February, when it finishes updating its licensing database with renewals.

Those in the profession understand the need for the new law, said Ken Hotard, the Boulder Area Realtor Association's vice president for public affairs.

"Realtors have access to all kinds of interesting information about people," he said. "No one wants to see that abused."

New brokers have been required for years to submit prints for background checks that the state commission reviews, rejecting those convicted of violent or financial crimes, Campagnola said.

Until the new law, thousands of brokers first licensed before the Colorado Bureau of Investigation established a fingerprint database had not been required to supply fingerprints when they renewed licenses.

The ranks of brokers in Colorado swelled to more than 45,000 in recent years as record numbers flocked to the profession. It reached a peak last summer, when about 500 new brokers received licenses each month.

That promises more fingerprint deluges at the commission. By 2008, every active broker should have submitted fingerprints.

Contact Camera Business Writer Greg Avery at (303) 473-1307 or averyg@dailycamera.com

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Reading RFID Tags from 30 feet away and the Dept of Homeland inSecurity

2006-04-20T09:32:00.000-07:00

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Reading RFID Tags from 30 feet away and the Dept of Homeland inSecurity The embattled RFID has received a nod from the Department of Homeland Security. By: Dave White / news.com.com

In a recent address to a smart card conference, DHS Director Jim Williams predicted that the little tracking chips would be embedded in many government-issued travel documents by 2008. Williams further said that the chips could be scanned by dedicated reading devices at distances of up to 30 feet.

That kind of distance would certainly make it easier and less time-consuming for travelers to go from country to country. But it also raises security fears, with RFID opponents shouting about the likelihood of identity thieves having their own RFID scanners and seizing sensitive information from afar. Government officials respond to those claims by pointing to stipulations that the RFID chips will contain nothing but a 96-digit number that will be compared to what is stored in federal databases and that hackers would have to break into not the flimsy chip but the database itself. Other security measures include anti-scanning technology built in to the cover of the passports.

The cards that Williams is referring to will be called People Access Security Service (PASS) cards. They are part of a federal law that will take effect on January 1, 2008 and will require anyone coming to the U.S. from Mexico or Canada to have a passport or some sort of "alternate" document�like a PASS card.

Like it or not, RFID is coming. It is already in use in a handful of countries around the world and will be standard issue in the U.S. beginning this October. How much security will be needed remains to be seen.

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US Allies are Behind the Death Squads and Ethnic Cleansing

2006-04-15T07:40:00.000-07:00

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Metaphors for America - Iraqi Civil Wars 'caused' by Militias?

US Allies are Behind the Death Squads and Ethnic Cleansing Iraq's American overlords at last seem to have grasped the danger posed by their friends' militias. But it may be too late. by Jonathan Steele in Baghdad Published on Friday, April 14, 2006 by the Guardian/UK

Much ink, as well as indignation, is being spent on whether Iraq is on the verge of, in the midst of, or nowhere near civil war. Wherever you stand in this largely semantic debate, the one certainty is that the seedbed for the country's self-destruction is Iraq's plethora of militias. In the apt phrase of Zalmay Khalilzad, the US ambassador in Baghdad, they are the "infrastructure of civil war".

He is not the first US overlord in Iraq to spot the danger. Shortly before the formal transfer of sovereignty to Iraqis, America's then top official Paul Bremer ordered all militias to disband. Some members could join the new army. Others would have to look for civilian work.

His decree was not enforced and now, two years later, this failure has come back to haunt Iraq. "More Iraqis are dying from militia violence than from the terrorists," Khalilzad said recently. "The militias need to be under control."

His blunt comment came in the wake of over 1,000 abductions and murders in a single month, most of them blamed on Shia militias. Terrified residents of Baghdad's mainly Sunni areas talk of cars roaring up after dark, uninhibited by the police in spite of the curfew. They enter homes and seize people, whose bodies turn up later, often garotted or marked with holes from electric drills - evidence of torture before assassination.

Khalilzad's denunciation of the militias was an extraordinary turnaround, given that the focus of US military activity since the fall of Saddam Hussein has been the battle against foreign jihadis and a nationalist Sunni-led insurgency. Suddenly the US faces a greater "enemy within" - militias manned by the Shia community, once seen by the US as allies, and run by government ministers.

The new line, if it sticks, marks an end to previous ambiguity. Under Bremer there was a tendency to see some militias as good, that is on the US side, such as the peshmerga fighters that belong to the two large Kurdish parties, and others as bad, such as the Mahdi army of the Shia cleric, Moqtada al-Sadr, who opposes the occupation.

A third militia, the Badr organisation, was also tolerated. It is the armed wing of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, a leading Shia political party which supported the invasion and is Washington's main interlocutor in the Shia coalition.

US officials paid lip service to the need to disband the militias, but never showed any sense of urgency. As a Pentagon report to Congress put it last year: "The realities of Iraq's political and security landscape work against completing the transition and reintegration of all Iraq's militias in the short term."

Iraqi leaders praised the militias, claiming they were subordinate to the defence and interior ministries, and therefore in no way a rogue element. The Badr organisation has even been put in charge of defending the home of the Shias' revered religious leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.

The prime minister, Ibrahim Jaafari, described the Badr organisation last summer as a "shield" defending Iraq, while the president, Jalal Talabani, claimed the Badr organisation and the peshmerga were patriots who "are important to fulfilling this sacred task, establishing a democratic, federal and independent Iraq".

The flaw in the picture was that while the Kurds and Shias had two militias each, the Sunnis had none. Sunni chiefs could rustle up a few gunmen from extended family ranks, when necessary, as had been done for centuries, but there was nothing on the scale of Badr, the Mahdi, or the peshmerga. Many Sunnis welcomed the anti-occupation insurgents as a kind of surrogate militia.

Sunni anger increased with evidence of secret prisons, run by the interior ministry, where hundreds of men and boys, mainly Sunnis, were tortured, and of "death squads" operating against Sunnis. In response, Baghdad's Sunni neighbourhoods have started to form vigilante groups to defend their turf.

US officials now view the militias differently. Phasing them out by integrating their members into the official forces of law and order is seen as risky, unless the leadership changes. In February this year the new Pentagon line was that integration could result in security forces that "may be more loyal to their political support organisation than to the central Iraqi government", according to a new study, Iraq's Evolving Insurgency and the Risk of Civil War by Anthony Cordesman, an Iraq expert at Washington's Centre for Strategic and International Studies. Now the US is trying to ensure that political control over the interior and defence ministries is jointly managed by an all-party security council.

The encouraging signs are that Iraqi leaders are denouncing sectarian violence. Provocations such as last week's suicide attack on a Shia mosque in Baghdad appear to be the work of "outsiders". No one has claimed responsibility, but they were probably planned by agitators, foreign or Iraqi, who want to split Iraq's fragile society for their own political ends. There is also comfort in the fact that sectarian street murders stem from militias who are controllable rather than from unorganised mobs.

Just as generals do, diplomats and journalists tend to refight the last war. Schooled in Bosnia and Kosovo, Washington's officials came to Iraq with the notion that because some Iraqis were Shia and others Sunni, these identities were bound to clash. This simplification was accepted by much of the media, influenced by their own Balkan experiences. It gathered weight when people watched the sectarian behaviour of Iraq's religious leaders, particularly among the Shia. They had led the resistance to Saddam and saw no reason to retreat from politics once he was gone.

In fact Iraq has no history of Balkan-style pogroms where neighbour turns against neighbour, burning homes and shops. But it could develop now. The rampaging by Shia militias and the rise of defensive Sunni vigilantes have launched a low-intensity ethnic cleansing. Up to 30,000 people have left their homes in the last few weeks.

The crucial question is whether the militias can be rolled back at this late stage. Having allowed them to defy their initial banning orders, as well as Iraq's new constitution, which outlawed them, can the US persuade or force its Iraqi allies to disband them? Confronting the Sunni insurgency means, in crude terms, confronting an enemy. Confronting the biggest militias, Badr and the Kurdish peshmerga, means the US must confront its friends.

j.steele@guardian.co.uk

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Duke President: Police Try to Search Dorms

2006-04-14T09:10:00.000-07:00

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Duke President: Police Try to Search Dorms

2006-04-14 Police attempted to search the dorm rooms of Duke University lacrosse players amid an investigation into the alleged rape of an exotic dancer at a team party, the school's president said Friday.

President Richard Brodhead said he was just learning about the Thursday night search attempts and didn't have many details, including whether investigators had search warrants and if they actually entered any rooms.

"I am aware that police attempted to enter those rooms, and I am now about to leave this news conference to learn the whole story," Brodhead said.

There were no warrants for any dorm rooms at Duke among those returned to the Durham County magistrate's office Friday morning, although police have 48 hours after executing a warrant to return it. The court clerk's office was closed for the Good Friday holiday. Police said they would not release any information Friday.

Read entire article here ...

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Wal-Mart Drops Gun Sales in Some Stores

2006-04-14T09:03:00.000-07:00

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Wal-Mart Drops Gun Sales in Some Stores

2006-04-14 Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has decided to stop selling guns in about a third of its U.S. stores in what it calls a marketing decision based on lack of demand in some places, a company spokeswoman said Friday.

The world's largest retailer decided last month to remove firearms from about 1,000 stores in favor of stocking other sporting goods, in line with a "Store of the Community" strategy for boosting sales by paying closer attention to local differences in demand.

"This decision is based on diminished customer relevancy and demand in these markets," said Wal-Mart spokeswoman Jolanda Stewart.

Stewart declined to specify what stores were affected.

Wal-Mart, based in Bentonville, Ark., has about 1,200 discount stores and 1,900 Supercenters, which include a full grocery section, in all 50 states. Wal-Mart says it sells rifles and shotguns. In Alaska, it also sells handguns.

Read entire article at ... Anomaly Radio dot com

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Be prepared for a crisis, EU regulators are told

2006-04-13T13:15:00.000-07:00

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Be prepared for a crisis, EU regulators are told By Graham Searjeant, Financial Editor The Times April 08, 2006

FINANCIAL regulators in all EU countries are to be asked today to prepare for the collapse of a big hedge fund or a similar sudden financial shock. EU finance ministers and central bankers, meeting in Vienna, were told that the collapse of a hedge fund could now destabilise European financial systems as well as the financial markets.

They have equally raised anxieties about the rapid growth of private equity. They fear that this could unravel if one of the key sources of funds or markets for selling on companies dries up. Officials also argue that many regulators do not understand the risks involved in the �10,000 billion market in credit derivatives, which are traded privately between banks rather than on public exchanges.

A private report drawn up by finance ministry officials of EU states says: �Hedge funds can contribute to market efficiency and sharing of risks but can also be a source of systems risks.� The report urges the central banks and regulators to monitor banks� exposure to hedge funds, both as lenders and as counterparties to massive speculative positions in financial and commodity derivatives. Banks are also heavy lenders to private equity buyouts, which provide them with more profitable but riskier business.

The officials complain that many of the EU�s financial regulators have simply failed to take the precautionary measures that were agreed by finance ministers, including Britain�s Gordon Brown, two years ago. They want ministers to call for their national regulators to run detailed simulation exercises to find out what they would need to do if faced with a domino collapse of liquidity or asset values in their markets. The biggest hedge fund collapse so far occurred eight years ago at the US fund Long Term Capital Management but it involved heavy positions in European asset markets. It led to Alan Greenspan, then chairman of the US Federal Reserve Board, organising an international support plan for LTCM and standing ready to supply cash to the financial markets if required.

Jean-Claude Trichet, the President of the European Central Bank, has created an otherwise upbeat atmosphere about the eurozone economy at the weekend talks hosted by Austria, which holds the EU presidency. After Thursday�s ECB meeting, which left interest rates unchanged, M Trichet said that it would be wrong to assume that a further rate rise would come in May.

As central bankers now usually try to prepare markets for rate changes rather than to surprise them, EU ministers now assume that rates will not be raised next month in spite of much hawkish talk.

NEW EURO NATION

Slovenia, the first part of the former Yugoslavia to join the European Union, is likely to become the thirteenth member of the eurozone next January after passing all the tests for membership. Lithuania, which had also hoped to join next year, is thought to have been rejected because it failed the Maastricht inflation test.

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Fox Turns to Texas PR Firm to Shape Mexico's Image in U.S.

2006-04-13T09:41:00.000-07:00

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Fox Turns to Texas PR Firm to Shape Mexico's Image in U.S. LA Times / 22 December 2005, By Sam Enriquez, Times Staff Writer

MEXICO CITY � President Vicente Fox has rehired the Texas PR man and political consultant who quietly helped engineer his election victory in 2000. This time, though, he wants Rob Allyn & Co. to put the brakes on what many Mexicans see as growing anti-immigration, anti-Mexican sentiment in the United States.

Last week, the U.S. House of Representatives approved a bill that would add 700 miles of border fencing and make illegal immigration a felony.

Fox denounced the measure as shameful. His foreign minister called it stupid and underhanded.

"How many of us don't have a relative in the United States, working and trying to make a living?" said Rodrigo Ivan Cortes Jimenez, an elected deputy in Mexico's lower house and a member of its commission on foreign affairs.

"It's about image, and they have a distorted image," he said of U.S. lawmakers. "The contributions of Mexicans in the United States, who are making their best effort, generating lots of wealth, are not known."

The immigration bill, which is expected to reach the Senate in February, has no provision for allowing temporary Mexican workers � a further slap, in Fox's view. He and President Bush agree on the need for a so-called guest worker program.

Fox cannot seek reelection next year, and his legacy may rest in part on his pledges to secure an agreement with the United States to grant legal status to the millions of Mexicans now living and working north of the border illegally.

So last week he turned to the political operative who helped him topple Mexico's longtime ruling party to win the presidency.

Rob Allyn helped George W. Bush defeat Ann Richards for the governorship of Texas in 1994. Three years later, he saw another potential winner in Fox, then governor of Guanajuato state.

Allyn agreed to join Fox's fledgling presidential campaign, but only in secret.

For three years, Allyn worked clandestinely, helping craft Fox's message of change, as well as his TV commercials, his polling and his wardrobe. The publicist made dozens of trips to Mexico, traveling under three pseudonyms.

Fox, of the National Action Party, or PAN, came from behind to defeat Francisco Labastida of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, which had ruled Mexico for seven decades.

During Mexico's official campaign season in the first six months of 2000, Allyn worked with Penn, Schoen & Berland, a polling and political consulting firm. They operated Democracy Watch, a nonpartisan group hired by Mexicans to conduct national exit polls as a hedge against election fraud.

Their secret role in the Fox campaign was revealed a week after the July 2 election by the Dallas Morning News. Allyn told the newspaper he hid his work for Fox because he didn't want to be a political liability. Mexicans are sensitive to foreign interference, especially involving the United States.

"Basically, for three years I'd go home from my real job to a secret job," he told the paper. "I led a second life for that period."

Allyn, who also worked on Bush's presidential campaigns, now faces a bigger challenge with the migration issue.

Demands for stemming illegal immigration are growing louder in the United States as Mexican and Central American workers spread across the country. Debate in states such as Minnesota, South Carolina and Virginia echoes arguments heard in California before voters in 1994 passed Proposition 187, which barred illegal immigrants from most public services, including schooling. That law was overturned by a federal court.

"Our focus is on public opinion, which influences policy outcomes in Congress," said Allyn, 46, who grew up in Huntington Beach and moved to Texas when he was in high school. "There is a huge misperception among the U.S. public about Mexico."

Mexican Foreign Minister Luis Ernesto Derbez said Allyn's message should be that Mexicans have sunk deep roots in their U.S. neighborhoods and that they contribute more to society through their work, taxes and families than they take away in public services.

Allyn, whose firm is now owned by Fleishman-Hillard, said he'd like to talk about the two countries' trade ties and the importance of Mexican labor to the U.S. economy. He'd also like to survey Americans' attitudes on Mexico and Mexicans.

"We're not going to be their Washington lobbyists," he said, "but I want to be honest about the point of influencing public opinion to help change attitudes about Mexico, about immigration, about border security."

Fox's former foreign minister, Jorge Casta�eda, said such a task would require more than a public relations firm.

"Allyn is perfectly competent," Casta�eda said. The two men worked together during the Fox campaign. "But the Mexican government has to use the embassy, the 45 consulates, and they all need to be speaking with the media, debating these issues and taking the case to the American people."

PULLED by LA TIMES ... Google headline:

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Coming Soon - ParaPolitical AudioBooks and Beyond

2006-04-11T12:08:00.000-07:00

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Coming Soon - Anomaly AudioBooks and Beyond

The Elfis Network is Proud to Annoucne the Upcoming Launch of All New Anomaly Audio Content Products and Services, including:

We hope you will watch these new websites for updates as we begin production on a host of paranormal and parapolitical audiobook content that will be available for Free Downloadable Audio Files as well as CD Audiobook Sales and Rentals.

COMING SOON!

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Whistle-Blower Outs NSA Spy Room

2006-04-10T10:08:00.000-07:00

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Whistle-Blower Outs NSA Spy Room By Ryan Singel Also by this reporter

AT&T provided National Security Agency eavesdroppers with full access to its customers' phone calls, and shunted its customers' internet traffic to data-mining equipment installed in a secret room in its San Francisco switching center, according to a former AT&T worker cooperating in the Electronic Frontier Foundation's lawsuit against the company.

Mark Klein, a retired AT&T communications technician, submitted an affidavit in support of the EFF's lawsuit this week. That class action lawsuit, filed in federal court in San Francisco last January, alleges that AT&T violated federal and state laws by surreptitiously allowing the government to monitor phone and internet communications of AT&T customers without warrants.

On Wednesday, the EFF asked the court to issue an injunction prohibiting AT&T from continuing the alleged wiretapping, and filed a number of documents under seal, including three AT&T documents that purportedly explain how the wiretapping system works.

According to a statement released by Klein's attorney, an NSA agent showed up at the San Francisco switching center in 2002 to interview a management-level technician for a special job. In January 2003, Klein observed a new room being built adjacent to the room housing AT&T's #4ESS switching equipment, which is responsible for routing long distance and international calls.

"I learned that the person whom the NSA interviewed for the secret job was the person working to install equipment in this room," Klein wrote. "The regular technician work force was not allowed in the room."

Klein's job eventually included connecting internet circuits to a splitting cabinet that led to the secret room. During the course of that work, he learned from a co-worker that similar cabinets were being installed in other cities, including Seattle, San Jose, Los Angeles and San Diego.

"While doing my job, I learned that fiber optic cables from the secret room were tapping into the Worldnet (AT&T's internet service) circuits by splitting off a portion of the light signal," Klein wrote.

The split circuits included traffic from peering links connecting to other internet backbone providers, meaning that AT&T was also diverting traffic routed from its network to or from other domestic and international providers, according to Klein's statement.

The secret room also included data-mining equipment called a Narus STA 6400, "known to be used particularly by government intelligence agencies because of its ability to sift through large amounts of data looking for preprogrammed targets," according to Klein's statement.

Narus, whose website touts AT&T as a client, sells software to help internet service providers and telecoms monitor and manage their networks, look for intrusions, and wiretap phone calls as mandated by federal law.

Klein said he came forward because he does not believe that the Bush administration is being truthful about the extent of its extrajudicial monitoring of Americans' communications.

"Despite what we are hearing, and considering the public track record of this administration, I simply do not believe their claims that the NSA's spying program is really limited to foreign communications or is otherwise consistent with the NSA's charter or with FISA," Klein's wrote. "And unlike the controversy over targeted wiretaps of individuals' phone calls, this potential spying appears to be applied wholesale to all sorts of internet communications of countless citizens."

After asking for a preview copy of the documents last week, the government did not object to the EFF filing the paper under seal, although the EFF asked the court Wednesday to make the documents public.

One of the documents is titled "Study Group 3, LGX/Splitter Wiring, San Francisco," and is dated 2002. The others are allegedly a design document instructing technicians how to wire up the taps, and a document that describes the equipment installed in the secret room.

In a letter to the EFF, AT&T objected to the filing of the documents in any manner, saying that they contain sensitive trade secrets and could be "could be used to 'hack' into the AT&T network, compromising its integrity."

According to court rules, AT&T has until Thursday to file a motion to keep the documents sealed. The government could also step in to the case and request that the documents not be made public, or even that the entire lawsuit be barred under the seldom-used State Secrets Privilege.

AT&T spokesman Walt Sharp declined to comment on the allegations, citing a company policy of not commenting on litigation or matters of national security, but did say that "AT&T follows all laws following requests for assistance from government authorities."

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Globalism and the DePopulation Cult

2006-04-07T07:37:00.000-07:00

This message was sent from: EU / UN / Globalist Agendas. <http://www.parapolitics.info/phorum/read.php?f=36&i=739&t=739> ----------------------------------------------------------------

Globalism and the DePopulation Cult

Dr. Death Gets FBI Visit The Austin-American Statesman today reports that Dr Eric Pianka, who has been at the center of a media firestorm for wishing death upon 90% of humanity via an airborne ebola bio-attack, today received a visit from the FBI after he was reported as a potential terrorist.

A Former Pianka Student Speaks Out I had this professor for a class, and he actually said this to us TWICE in class! [T]he 90% figure comes from the kill rate of ebola; it typically kills 9 out of 10 people it infects. ...Dr. Pianka clearly is a globalist.

Recent News: Dr. Death & The Religion Of Genocide

[VIDEO] MSNBC: Pianka's Doomsday Plan

Dr. Pianka: What nobody wants to hear, but everyone needs to know

Professor's "Kill 90% of Population" Comments Echo UN, Elite NGO policies

Top Scientist Advocates Mass Culling 90% Of Human Population

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What really happened to Ron Brown

2006-04-07T07:25:00.000-07:00

This message was sent from: Govt/Mil/Intel Shenanigans. <http://www.parapolitics.info/phorum/read.php?f=31&i=659&t=659> ----------------------------------------------------------------

What really happened to Ron Brown Posted: April 7, 2006 / 1:00 a.m. Eastern

In Argentina, during the dark days, they called them "los desaparecidos," the disappeared. On April 10, 1996, Ron Brown was buried with full honors at Arlington National Cemetery and then joined his fellow desaparecidos. So thoroughly has Brown disappeared from view that the only articles I could find on Google News about the 10th anniversary of his death were those that I had written myself.

What follows, unless new information breaks, is my last article on the subject. In it, I attempt to find the one scenario that makes sense of all the existing evidence. Although speculative in part, it follows the evidence in full. There are no loose ends.

Aviation systems manager Niko Jerkuic does not report in for work on the morning of April 3, 1996, but he has a busy day ahead of him. He is not looking forward to it. Just a day and a half earlier, embattled Commerce Secretary Ron Brown was ordered to fly to Jerkuic's airport in Dubrovnik, Croatia. A trip like this in a war-torn area would typically require weeks of security planning. Not this time.

Right after that change of plans, agents of the Croatian intelligence services gave Jerkuic an assignment he did not feel free to turn down. They needed to misdirect Brown's plane, and they required his assistance.

The project is not technically difficult. Jerkuic has seen a lot in his 46 years. He knows all about "meaconing" or "spoofing" as it is sometimes generically known. Since the 1940s, portable Non-Directional Radio Beacon stations have been available to military and civilian operators and have proved especially useful in war-torn areas like this one near the Bosnian border.

The agents with whom he is working have brought along a gasoline driven generator, a tunable transmitter, and a temporary antenna, all loaded into the back of a pickup truck. Together, they drive to an isolated spot just outside of Dubrovnik and only about three or four miles east-southeast of Kolocep Island, the site of the real Non-Directional Radio Beacon, the beacon on which pilots are supposed to fix in order to guide their planes into the Dubrovnik airport.

Jerkuic sets the frequency of his portable beacon at 318 kilohertz to match that of the Kolocep (KLP) beacon and encodes the KLP Morse code identifier. He cannot power it up, however, until all the earlier scheduled flights have landed.

Still about 100 miles away, a CT-43A, the military version of a Boeing 737 carrying Ron Brown and 34 others, is cleared "direct to the KLP NDB." The primary reason for Brown's trip is to broker a sweetheart deal between Croatia and the Enron Corporation. Croatia's anti-Semitic strongman Franjo Tudhman has agreed to the deal, one disastrous for Croatia, in the hope that by cooperating with Enron he can ingratiate himself to the Clinton administration and avoid indictment by the World Court for war crimes. He has cancer. He doesn't want to die in prison.

The pilots are told they are "number one for beacon approach." When the word comes from the Dubrovnik tower that Brown's plane has checked in at 2:46 p.m. local time and the other planes have landed, Jerkuic shuts down the normal NDB and activates the "rogue" NDB. The automatic direction finder in Brown's plane now points to Jerkuic's beacon near Dubrovnik.

At this distance, the needle shift is negligible. USAF pilots Ashley Davis and Tim Shafer scarcely notice. "Hmmm," Davis thinks to himself when he sees it, "the NDB's a little further east than I thought." But given its 318-kilohertz frequency, Davis naturally assumes the radio signal to be coming from Kolocep and flies toward it. The Dubrovnik tower has no radar. At this stage, the radio signal is the pilots' only real guide to the world below the clouds. In fact, Brown's itinerary was shifted to Dubrovnik only after the weather service confirmed that the next several days would be overcast in Croatia. These conditions were critical for the plan to work.

As the signal strengthens, Davis gradually aligns the automatic direction finder with the posted 119-degree setting. At 2:54 pm, he watches as the ADF swings back around to the bottom, now at a 299-degree reading. He has passed over the beacon and will navigate from the tail of the ADF needle.

"We're inside the locator, inbound," he radios the tower, and the tower clears his approach and landing. At that moment, the charts tell the pilots the airport is 12 miles straight ahead on a 119-degree course. They will be able to see the runway in about three minutes. In fact, however, the plane is now heading right toward St. John's Peak about eight miles away, as the AWACs plane hovering over head will later verify.

Word of the crash comes over Jerkuic's radio. He shuts down the temporary transmitter and reactivates the Kolocep beacon. Still, he has no stomach for this. The agents assigned to him sense his unease, but they have work to do, like finding the plane and making sure the person they were assigned to kill is dead.

They make their way to St. John's Peak and up the mountain. The bodies are scattered, and there are only a few black men among them. They pull out the photo of Brown and start checking. Brown is not hard to find. But what stuns the men is that he is farther from the plane than is anyone else. He appears to have crawled there.

The leader kneels down next to Brown and turns him over on his back. He is still not sure whether Brown is dead or not. He has no obvious fatal wound. The leader pulls out his pistol and fires skillfully into the laceration on the top of Brown's head. In this part of the world, no one even blinks at the sound of gunfire.

The men look around quickly for other survivors. Tech sergeant Shelly Kelly survived the crash in the rear jump sheet. But her back is broken, and she lies mutely amidst the rubble. The men don't see or hear her. They hustle back down the hill. Their colleague back at the airport has misdirected the search in the opposite direction, out over the Adriatic, for several hours. But the men on the hill do not want to hang around any longer than necessary. They exit the area with their portable beacon and deep six it. Kelly will die from that misdirection.

Three days after the crash, a memorial service is held at the Dubrovnik airport for those killed in the crash. Just hours later, Niko Jerkuic answers the knock on his door and greets the men who recruited him. He is still anxious, and they can see it. U.S. Air Force investigators will start interviewing airport personnel in two days. The Croatian agents cannot afford to let the Air Force talk to Jerkuic.

"We hate to do this," says the one agent as he shoots Jerkuic in the chest. They don't sweat the details as they know who will be investigating, Miroslav Tudjman, Franjo's son, the head of Croatian intelligence. Miroslav declares it a suicide.

Back at the Armed Force Institute in Pathology, in Dover, Del., pathologists discover the hole in Brown's head. By order of the White House, there is no autopsy, no forensic testing, no notification of the Brown family. Brown is quickly embalmed, and the head X-rays are destroyed.

In November 1996, just months after Brown's death and one week after President Clinton's re-election, Tudjman travels not to The Hague to be tried as a war criminal but to Walter Reed Hospital in Washington to have his cancer treated. The Croatia-Enron liaison, Zdenka Gast, later shows up in the Croatian equivalent of People Magazine arm in arm with her buddy Hillary Clinton at Alexis Herman's intimate wedding reception at the White House.

By this time, Ron Brown has long since joined the ranks of "los desaparecidos."

Related special offer: "Ron Brown's Body: How One Man's Death Saved the Clinton Presidency and Hillary's Future "

Related columns: Part 1: Did Ron Brown die for Enron's sins ? Part 2: How 'minority capitalism' undid Ron Brown Part 3: Competing against the Clintons for cash Part 4: Clinton's new "bagman" Part 5: Second 'black president' likely to build on legacy of first Part 6: Some dare call it treason Part 7: Wang Jun's excellent White House adventure Part 8: Sun peeked through 'worst storm in a decade' Part 9: The bullet hole that should have shaken Washington Part 10: How Monica buried Ron Brown and saved the Clinton presidency Part 11: Was Ron Brown murdered, and, if so, how and by whom?

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Fluoride debate may surge as treated water linked to cancer

2006-04-07T07:23:00.000-07:00

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Fluoride debate may surge as treated water linked to cancer By Jessica Fargen / Thursday, April 6, 2006

Young boys who drink fluoridated tap water are at greater risk for a rare bone cancer, Harvard researchers reported yesterday. The study, published online yesterday in a Harvard-affiliated journal, could intensify debate over fluoridation and mean more scrutiny for Harvard�s Dr. Chester Douglass,accused of fudging the findings to downplay a cancer link. �It�s the best piece of work ever linking fluoride in tap water and bone cancer. It�s pretty damning for (Douglass),� said Richard Wiles of the Environmental Working Group, which filed a complaint with the National Institutes of Health against Douglass. Douglass, an epidemiology professor at Harvard�s School of Dental Medicine, is paid as editor of the Colgate Oral Care Report, a newsletter supported by the toothpaste maker. Harvard and the NIH are investigating whether Douglass misrepresented research findings last year when he said there was no link, despite extensive research to the contrary by one of his doctoral students. The NIH gave Douglass at least $1 million for the research. That student, Dr. Elise Bassin, wrote in yesterday�s Cancer Causes and Control that boys who drink water with levels of fluoride considered safe by federal guidlines are five times more likely to develop osteosarcoma than boys who drink unfluoridated water. About 250 U.S. boys each year are diagnosed with osteosarcoma, the most common type of bone cancer and the sixth most common cancer in children. Bassin notes that more research is needed to �confirm or refute this observation.� Douglass, in a letter to the editor published in the same issue, said Bassin�s study was a �partial view of this ongoing study,� and urged readers to be �especially cautious� when interpreting the findings.

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The Bush Administration's Propaganda versus Fox News 'Hoaxes'

2006-04-06T15:00:00.000-07:00

This message was sent from: 1st Amendment Threats. <http://www.parapolitics.info/phorum/read.php?f=24&i=234&t=232> ----------------------------------------------------------------

Education Dept. paid commentator to promote law

Maggie Gallagher - Second Columnist Got Money from Bush Administration

Senators to Introduce 'Stop Government Propaganda Act'

Third Columnist paid by Bush Administration

USA Today - Report: PR spending doubled under Bush

How Team Bush Controls the Message - Stage the Event

Uncovering the History of Operation Mockingbird

Probe of Armstrong Williams Widens

Tommy 'Martial Law' Franks is a Paid Bush Admin Patriot

U.S. Military Covertly Pays to Run Stories in Iraqi Press

Pentagon rolls out stealth PR / Foreign Media PsyOp

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Google Censoring News Critical of Bush Administration?

2006-04-06T11:45:00.000-07:00

This message was sent from: 1st Amendment Threats. <http://www.parapolitics.info/phorum/read.php?f=24&i=232&t=232> ----------------------------------------------------------------

Even more mind-blowing (besides this being on FOX news) is that if you put the headline into ...

NO RESULTS FOUND.

But if you plug the headline into ...

Tons of results, NOT from mainstream news sources, but from groups and boards like 911TruthAction on yahoo groups.

Bush Administration Media Collusion Memos Surface Monday, April 3, 2006 WASHINGTON � In a disturbing turn of events for an administration already plagued by sagging poll numbers and waning support for the Iraq war, Friday's revelation that the Bush Administration issued direct guidelines for programming to media outlets is troubling even die-hard conservatives.

Late Friday a series of memos between senior Bush Administration officials and management at Viacom, Inc. were leaked calling for the media giant to focus on stories and programming choices that "reinforce the Administration's positions" and to "ignore and/or discredit points of view in opposition to the Bush Administration's foreign policy objectives for the purposes of National Security."

Democrats and key civil rights figures were quick to comment on this latest chapter of alleged government malfeasance. Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer issued a statement calling for a congressional inquiry. "This is it. This is a smoking gun. For years we've been saying that liberal and moderate points of view aren't being accurately reflected in the media and this proves our point. The Bush Administration is clearly out of touch with the American people, and Viacom should be ashamed."

Other prominent figures were less forgiving. Rev. Al Sharpton called the memos "treasonous" and "genocidal" and reiterated his desire for impeachment proceedings to commence. "What we have here is a complete disregard for the law, for what is morally correct and for the will of the people. It's been no secret to anyone with a brain that the majority of programming that we are exposed to by certain companies is negative, but now it's out in the open. Look at BET. Look at the exclusion of voices that accurately represent communities of color. It's insidious."

Media companies have come under increasing fire as of late for their portrayal of minorities and for inaccuracies in reporting stories of interest to activist communities.

Most recently, estimates in the participation numbers of protesters at anti-immigration legislation rallies were hotly disputed.

The media's alleged embracing of artists and stories depicting people of color in a derogatory manner has become a hot-topic issue with media watchdog groups and prominent entertainment commentators alike.

Davey D, a San Francisco-based music writer and hip-hop historian, echoed the sentiment. "It's true, there is no balance in the media, especially in hip-hop, where the negativity is most prevalent. All we hear of on a commercial level is pimps, players and gangsters. That's not all us. What about the revolutionary voices? What about artists like The Coup? Like Public Enemy and Paris? They have a new album out together that speaks on exactly what's going on right now, but they don't get played on commercial radio. We've always argued that our voices are systematically suppressed. Well, here's the proof."

Not all agree, however. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist took a more defensive stance. "Of course it raises some concerns, but we can't let this issue be blown out of proportion. Of course there have to be media guidelines. Hell, if we want to plant I.D. chips in people and torture their loved ones until they break, we will. I know the idea of governmental control over what the media can or cannot say during wartime may be an uncomfortable topic for some to digest, but it is a necessary fact of life when our enemies are trying to kill us."

Debra L. Lee, president and CEO of Viacom's Black Entertainment Television, agrees. "Even though our moniker is BET, our allegiance lies with our government and its directives, not the African-American community. Anyone who believes that we will endorse messages in contrast to our government's wishes, or that express dissent, is sorely mistaken."

Some entertainment industry insiders are becoming increasingly concerned, however. One longtime employee of Interscope Records, a leading record label and home to rap superstars 50 Cent and Eminem, stated recently under the condition of anonymity that the company "has a unique relationship with Viacom" and that it "deliberately focuses on marketing campaigns that depict black people in the worst possible light." When told of Rev. Sharpton's likening of the practice to 'genocide' on African-Americans, he agreed wholeheartedly, but expressed fears of reprisal should he publicly address his concerns.

"It's beyond national security. That was the reason given at first, but now they just tell us what we have to endorse, and what we have to avoid." He added, "these kids eat it up. They don't know the difference between what's real and what's fake."

An Interscope company spokesperson was unavailable for comment.

"We will get to the bottom of this," Sharpton continued, "and heads will roll. Now that their practices of propaganda are common knowledge even Americans with limited political awareness will demand change."

AND

77 TV stations aired 'fake news reports' 04/05/2006 @ 10:57 pm / Filed by Ron Brynaert

A study by a group that monitors the media reveals that, over a ten month span, 77 television stations from all across the nation aired video news releases without informing their viewers even once that the reports were actually sponsored content, RAW STORY has found.

One "news report" that aired on three stations relied on a video news release (VNR) produced by a PR firm on behalf of General Motors which was even apparently based on a "false claim."

Center for Media and Democracy's Fake TV News: Widespread and Undisclosed is "a multimedia report on television newsrooms' use of material provided by PR firms on behalf of paying clients," containing video footage of the 36 video news releases (VNRs) cited in the report, plus a map and spreadsheet of the stations cited.

General Motors, Intel, Pfizer and Capital One are among the companies who produced VNRs with the help of three PR firms, and "[m]ore than one-third of the time, stations aired the pre-packaged VNR in its entirety."

An Oklahoma City FOX station owned by Sinclair is pegged as the "report's top repeat offender," airing five VNRs in full on its news broadcasts, with "the publicist's original narration each time."

Three stations "not only aired entire VNRs without disclosure, but had local anchors and reporters read directly from the script prepared by the broadcast PR firm."

News broadcasts based on a General Motors VNR stand out in the report as a striking example of "fake news," not just because they were left largely unchanged when aired on stations in Louisiana and Pennsylvania.

"GM, who introduced the first manufacturer web site in 1996, has recently lowered prices, in some cases by thousands of dollars, on all of their models as a direct result of the customers' ability to comparison shop on the Internet," Medialink's Kate Brookes "reported" in all three broadcasts.

But the Center for Media and Democracy blasts GM's "historical claim" as "fake."

"A simple dated search for "automotive web site" in the Nexis news database revealed a press release from August 1995 in which Volkswagen heralded the launch of their web portal," the report states. "It wasn't until February 1996 that General Motors announced gm.com in their own press release."

A comparison between the General Motors VNR and one of the news broadcasts can be seen at this link.

Last year the New York Times published an article called "Under Bush, a new age of prepackaged TV news" - written by David Barstow and Robin Stein - which reported on the stealthy use of VNRs created by government agencies that crept into network news broadcasts.

The Times revealed that even though Radio-Television News Directors Association's "code of ethics" specifies to "clearly disclose the origin of information and label all material provided by outsiders," the Federal Communications Commission has "never disciplined a station for showing government-made news segments without disclosing their origin."

Last June, Chris Baker at the Washington Times reported that the Radio-Television News Directors Association "submitted a 13-page statement that said few TV stations air VNRs, and those that do almost always identify the source" to the Federal Communications Commission. The statement drew from an "informal survey of 100 members" because, as the president of the Association told the Washington Times, "concrete data" was "hard to come by."

An article in Thursday's Times by Barstow (New York Times registered link) indicates that the Center "presented its findings yesterday to F.C.C. officials, including Jonathan S. Adelstein, a commissioner who has criticized video news releases."

Impressed by the "scope of what they found," Adelstein told the Times that it was a "disgrace to American journalism," and proof of "potentially major violations" of F.C.C. rules.

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FBI Investigates Prof Who Advocates Population Wipe-Out

2006-04-06T06:42:00.000-07:00

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FBI Investigates Prof Who Advocates Population Wipe-Out Professor's population speeches unnerve some He says he's issuing warning, but others see talk of pandemics as a threat. By Laura Heinauer / AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF / Wednesday, April 05, 2006

University of Texas professor Eric Pianka's enemies say he advocates wiping out 90 percent of the population and that his seemingly giddy obsession with death and disease coupled with power over young minds is dangerous and disturbing.

His supporters say while his rhetoric may be shocking at times, he's just trying to get people to think about the consequences of uncontrolled population growth.

"I've found that it takes courage to tell people what they don't want to know," Pianka, 67, said Tuesday, two days after a newspaper story in Seguin's Gazette-Enterprise ignited a firestorm that has resulted in e-mail threats on Pianka's life.

The controversy surrounds comments made during two recent speeches in which Pianka discussed the need for population control and the impending disease pandemic that might well just take care of it. Some heard the comments as simply a warning. To others, however, it sounded like Pianka was advocating the use of deadly viruses to kill off millions of people.

Pianka, who calls the latter interpretation nonsense, says the whole thing has blown out of proportion. Many, however, seem to be taking his critics seriously. Pianka said he is scheduled to meet with FBI officials today.

"Someone has reported me as a terrorist," he said. "They think I'm forming a cadre of people to release the airborne Ebola virus into the air. That I'm the leader and my students are the followers."

There's no denying that Pianka, even at first glace, seems a little eccentric.

His office, which he has inhabited for 38 years, is cluttered with books, stacks of paper, bones and even a few beers. There's a photo of him dressed like British naturalist Charles Darwin. Scattered pictures of lizards and a copy of his semi-autobiography, "The Lizard Man Speaks," reveal his area of expertise � lizards and evolutionary ecology. On his desk, he keeps a stuffed likeness of the Ebola virus that was sent to him by students who enjoyed his speeches.

He is particularly troubled by the recent explosion in the human population. He says we now take up about 50 percent of all livable space on Earth and that people should have no more than two children. Humans, and the way they've multiplied, are "no better than bacteria," he says.

Such talk makes Forrest Mims' skin crawl.

Mims, an author and amateur scientist who heard Pianka speak in early March before the Texas Academy of Science, said Pianka's remarks were degrading and that he was deeply disturbed by Pianka's comments comparing different diseases and their potential to decimate the human race. He's one of dozens of bloggers who have expressed displeasure with Pianka's point of view.

A Gazette-Enterprise reporter who heard Pianka speak Friday on the same topic quoted him saying disease "will control the scourge of humanity. We're looking forward to a huge collapse."

"It was 'Twilight Zone' material. It was like sitting in a science-fiction movie," Mims said Tuesday, adding that he is worried young doctors and scientists with access to deadly diseases might take literally what he claims is a call by Pianka to control population growth through the spread of disease. "The big concern is this professor is instilling this in the minds of students."

Pianka said only meant to warn about the potential for epidemics in the face of uncontrolled population growth. No recording or transcript of either that speech or another delivered last Friday at St. Edward's University in Austin was available. Pianka, who said his daughters are now worried about his and their safety, says his life has been turned upside-down by "right-wing fools."

Those roaming the corridors at Patterson Hall on the UT campus were very supportive of their teacher and colleague.

Fellow professor David Hillis said most people were sympathetic of the nationally renowned professor's plight. "There's a strong anti-science sentiment in the country right now," Hillis said. Pianka "has such a passion for life and diversity. How anyone could paint him as pro-death is unbelievable."

Tracy Heath, a doctoral student who has taken classes taught by Pianka, said he's known for living on a ranch, driving a Toyota Prius and raising bison. "He likes to captivate students with interesting pictures and stories," she said. "He's just trying to make waves to get people to think."

Pianka hopes this experience does just that. "We could be gods," he said. "We could be such great stewards of the Earth."

Oh, and one other thing � "Maybe it will help me sell a few books."

lheinauer@statesman.com; 445-3694

Eric R. Pianka

Born: Jan. 23, 1939, in Yreka, Calif. Now lives in Blanco County.

Education: Bachelors in biology, Carleton College 1960; doctorate in zoology, University of Washington, 1965; doctorate in ecology, University of Western Australia, 1990

Career: University of Texas, 1968 to present.

Family: Two brothers, a sister, two daughters, two granddaughters, two ex-wives and a small herd of American bison.

Publications: Several papers and more than a dozen books, including 'Varanoid Lizards of the World', 2004, and 'Lizards: Windows to the Evolution of Diversity', 2003, which won a Robert W. Hamilton Book award in 2005.

Hobbies: Chess, falconry

Worth noting: Guggenheim Fellow, 1978-79; Fulbright Senior Research Scholar, 1990-91; Denton A. Cooley Centennial Professorship in Zoology, 1986; Herpetologists League's 'Distinguished Herpetologist,' 2004; Texas Academy of Science 'Distinguished Scientist,' 2006

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Disney Phone Service Features GPS Tracking Of Children

2006-04-06T06:38:00.000-07:00

This message was sent from: Surveillance Society. <http://www.parapolitics.info/phorum/read.php?f=35&i=441&t=441> ----------------------------------------------------------------

[img]http://images.ibsys.com/2006/0405/8491187_240X180.jpg[/img] Disney Phone Service Features GPS Tracking Of Children

The Walt Disney Company unveiled a new wireless phone service Wednesday that allows parents to track their children on a map using Global Positioning System technology, according to Local 6 News.

The new "family friendly" service, called Disney Mobile, allows parents decide who their children can call and when, the report said.

Beyond the family-oriented features, Disney Mobile will offer wireless voice service, text and picture messaging, and a broad range of entertainment and content, a news release said.

"Given our strong commitment to embracing innovative technology, coupled with Disney's outstanding creative content, Disney Mobile is perfectly positioned to transform the way families come together and stay connected," said Robert A. Iger, president and chief executive officer of The Walt Disney Company.

The phone service will launch in June and has not been priced yet.

For more information, click disneymobile.com

Watch Local 6 News for more on this story.

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Spanish Media Organized Nationwide Mass Protests

2006-03-29T06:38:00.000-08:00

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Spanish Media Organized Nationwide Mass Protests [img]http://img.viacomlocalnetworks.com/images_sizedimage_084152923/lg[/img] (AP) LOS ANGELES The marching orders were clear: Carry American flags and pack the kids, pick up your trash and wear white for peace and for effect.

Many of the 500,000 people who crammed downtown Los Angeles on Saturday to protest legislation that would make criminals out of illegal immigrants learned where, when and even how to demonstrate from the Spanish-language media.

For English-speaking America, the mass protests in Los Angeles and other U.S. cities over the past few days have been surprising for their size and seeming spontaneity.

But they were organized, promoted or publicized for weeks by Spanish-language radio hosts and TV anchors as a demonstration of Hispanic pride and power.

In Milwaukee, where at least 10,000 people rallied last week, one radio station manager called some employers to ask that they not fire protesters for skipping work. In Chicago, a demonstration that drew 100,000 people received coverage on local television more than a week in advance.

"This was a much bigger story for the Latino media," said Felix Gutierrez, a professor at the University of Southern California's Annenberg School for Communication. "If the mainstream media had been paying better attention, there would not have been the surprise about the turnout."

Adrian Velasco first learned of House legislation to overhaul immigration policy on Los Angeles' Que Buena 105.5 FM. Over two weeks, the 30-year-old illegal immigrant soaked up details about the planned march against the bill from Hispanic TV and radio. On Saturday, he and three friends headed downtown.

"They told all the Hispanic people to go and support these things," Velasco said. "They explained a lot. They said, 'Here's what we're going to do."'

One of those doing the most talking was El Piolin, a syndicated morning show radio host who is broadcast in 20 cities.

El Piolin, whose real name is Eduardo Sotelo and whose nickname means "Tweety Bird," persuaded colleagues from 11 Spanish-language radio stations in Los Angeles to talk up the rally on air.

He said he devised the idea of telling protesters to wear white and carry flags to symbolize their peaceful intent and love of the United States. He also urged parents to bring their children to minimize chances of violence and reminded everyone to bring plenty of water and trash bags.

"I was talking about how we need to be united to demonstrate that we're not bad guys and we're not criminals," said Sotelo, 35, who crossed into the United States as a teenager and became legal in 1996.

In Milwaukee, the Spanish-language station WDDW 104.7 made a point of publicizing the House legislation and the protest against it on its morning and drive-time shows two weeks ahead of time.

Operations manager Armando Ulloa said his goal was at least 10,000 people -- and police estimated that was what the rally attracted. After the march, Ulloa said, he called some employers and asked them to be lenient on protesters who missed their shifts.

In Los Angeles, 10 prime-time Spanish-language news anchors filmed a promotion urging demonstrators to show respect, said Julio Cesar Ortiz, a television reporter who covers immigration.

"The Spanish media said, 'Do it in a proper way. Do it in a way where's there's pride behind it when you're done,"' Ortiz said.

Telemundo Chicago, a Spanish-language TV station, began its coverage blitz 1 1/2 weeks before a recent rally, though there was no urging that viewers attend, said news director Esteban Creste.

"We just told them what was going on," Creste said. "While we were not trying to mobilize people, it might have prompted people to decide to go there."

The protests continued Tuesday in at least four states, with thousands of students leaving school again in California, Arizona, Texas and Nevada.

In Los Angeles, the numbers were far smaller than the tens of thousands who marched Monday. Authorities thwarted efforts to block freeway traffic, rounding up some youngsters and issuing truancy citations.

In Phoenix, students marched to the state Capitol for the second day in a row. In Las Vegas, they rallied near the Strip after being directed away from casinos.

And in Dallas, students crowded in front of City Hall, waving Mexican and Salvadoran flags and shouting "We can do it" in Spanish.

The protests jammed roads. A Dallas school district spokesman said a girl's hand was severed when the sport utility vehicle she was in sped into an intersection and overturned.

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When police go bad...

2006-03-28T12:34:00.000-08:00

This message was sent from: Police State -. <http://www.parapolitics.info/phorum/read.php?f=34&i=369&t=369> ----------------------------------------------------------------

When the police are doing something wrong, whether incompetence or malice, what are the citizens to do? Even worse is when those in the police department are supposed to be keeping control of the police force, Internal Affairs investigating complaints, supervising officers, reprimanding ill behavior, and it is sloppy, selective, or worse. That seems to be the case in Eugene, OR, though it is likely not the only city in Oregon with such problems.

Maybe it is a growing society, Oregon being many times larger than it was 25 years ago (especially in areas like Eugene). Perhaps the system that worked then is no longer applicable. A hermit crab knows to change its shell when it feels the pressures of growth. Are the people of Oregon perceptive enough to feel the squeeze of running things the old way in a new world, or is that even the problem.

The following link leads to an article about the failing complaint process in Eugene. That very well may have led to such audacities such as the vicious crimes of Magana and Lara (two Eugene police officers more recently convicted of many violent crimes) going so long unnoticed, despite complaints for years. And the City does not seem to be doing very much to promptly and effectively fix this serious flaw.

Read the article�what do you think should be done about this sort of issue to resolve it? Is it something that you find important?

http://www.oregonreform.com/EPDIA.htm

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Mandatory MicroChips for Pets and Livestock

2006-03-28T07:43:00.000-08:00

This message was sent from: Mark of the Beast - Mandatory MicroChips. <http://www.parapolitics.info/phorum/read.php?f=30&i=131&t=131> ----------------------------------------------------------------

Mandatory MicroChips for Pets and Livestock: The following article is from New Zealand but if you follow the links below it you will find the relevant information on how this is being imposed in the United States including Texas. [img]http://www.horsemenscouncil.org/Illinois_Horse_Fair/Law-Scans.jpg[/img] Farmers snubbed over dog microchips 28 March 2006 / By KENT ATKINSON

The Government has snubbed farmers and their lobbyists by refusing to exempt farm dogs from rules that dogs first registered from July must be microchipped.

Prime Minister Helen Clark told a press conference yesterday that Cabinet would not be changing the law, which it authorised yesterday.

The law would be what the Associate Minister of Local Government Nanaia Mahuta, told parliament a couple of weeks ago, said Ms Clark: "One law for all dogs � it's very hard to make exceptions for some".

Ms Mahuta said the success of a nationwide system for electronic dog identification relied on as many dogs as possible having a tiny microchip inserted under their skin.

But at the same time, Agriculture Minister Jim Anderton � who holds a more senior ranking in Cabinet � told farmers he was prepared to have it look at the issue again.

Ms Clark said yesterday he had honoured that commitment in cabinet.

"He honoured that to the letter," she said. "It was raised again and discussed but the Cabinet wasn't of the mind to attempt to amend legislation which is coming into effect in three months time."

The new requirement under the Dog Control Act � to allow instant identification after a dog attack � was framed after a series of dog attacks, including one on Carolina Anderson, then aged seven, who was severely mauled in a central Auckland park in 2003.

Dogs already registered on July 1 do not need to be microchipped, but farmers have likened the cost of microchipping to the infamous "dog tax" which triggered armed confrontation between European authorities and the Hau Hau cult at Hokianga in April 1898.

Maori who refused to pay a council dog tax triggered an evacuation of Rawene when they threatened to march on the council offices.

Federated Farmers president Charlie Pedersen said the lobby argued against microchipping farm dogs on the grounds that they were well controlled and rarely left their farms.

"Farm dogs don't bite members of the public, because farm dogs stay on their farms," he said. Urban dogs were different, because they had members of the public going past their front gate.

Veterinarians lobbied against the farmers' stance, and their national association said that if "farmers got away with registering pet animals as exempted working dogs, then a lot of urban owners would be encouraged to do the same to avoid the cost of chipping.

Veterinary Association chief executive Murray Gibb said the distinction between working and pet dogs on farms was blurred, and an exemption could mean 35 per cent or more of the canine population was exempt and microchipping as a means of identifying dogs would fail.

Mr Gibb said that microchipping was a blunt tool to address a big social problem with "poorly socialised and poorly managed" dogs � often owned by people with a similar profile � and there society needed to change its attitude to such owners.

Mr Pedersen, of Himatangi, said farmers would keep up their battle.

"We just won't accept this," he said.

"We are going to continue to lobby for the removal of our dogs being caught up in this ridiculous piece of legislation".

But he ruled out carrying out the threat voiced during the lobbying by one regional representative, Taranaki Federated Farmers president Bryan Hocken, who said farmers might take their dogs to Parliament to protest.

"Our dogs will piss on the steps to Parliament. . . and we won't clean anything up," said Mr Hocken, of Tarata in North Taranaki.

"And if we end up in jail, then we'll take our dogs with us and they'll do their business on the floors there as well."

Mr Pedersen said farmers would talk to Opposition MPs, but whatever the federation did would be in good taste.

"Some people got a little too emotional and suggested dogs would be defiling the Parliament � we would never support that," he said.

South Canterbury farmers have urged Federated Farmers' head office to mount a civil disobedience campaign and call on farmers to ignore the microchipping law.

Animal & Premises Identification News

March 8: Texas Animal Health Commission Cancels March 23 Meeting

En Espa�ol: La Comisi�n de Salud Animal de Texas Cancela la Reuni�n del 23 de Marzo

February 17: Action on Texas' Proposed Premises Registration Regulations Postponed

En Espa�ol: Se Aplaza la Toma de Medidas sobre la Regulaci�n Propuesta para el Registro de Locales en Texas

February 17: Q&A Premise Regulations in Texas

En Espa�ol: Registro de Locales en Texas Preguntas & Respuestas

December 16: Summary of Regulation Changes Effective January 1, 2006

December 6: Animal & Premises ID Fact Sheet

November 28: Elk May Blaze the Animal ID Trail in Texas

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Justice in AmeriKa - Moussaoui testimony under threat of stun belt?

2006-03-28T07:30:00.000-08:00

This message was sent from: ParaPolitics - General. <http://www.parapolitics.info/phorum/read.php?f=4&i=989&t=989> ----------------------------------------------------------------

Justice in AmeriKa - Moussaoui testimony under threat of stun belt? MSNBC VIDEO: Moussaoui wore 'stun belt' for new testimony [img]http://www.total911.info/zmtrial.jpeg[/img] If you're looking for a reason why Zacarias Moussaoui suddenly testified today to a version of the 9/11 plotline that sounds more like the Official story than even the official Whitewash Commission report, this video may have the answer .

In it, NBC news reporter Pete Williams lets slip that Moussaoui is wearing a "Stun belt" underneath his clothing controlled by US Marshals. MSNBC host Dan Abrams gets some more details on the stun belt.

A taste of the exchange:

WILLIAMS: The old outbursts were gone... He was very docile today... We believe that he's wearing one of those stun belts, and it may be that he was very worried about doing anything that would cause those Marshals to press the button....

ABRAMS: A stun belt? They literally have sOmething around his waist? That they can push a button and?

WILLIAMS: [Pause] Well...

Only in 21st-century Amerika!

See also Demented Moussaoui changes story in open court

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U.S. Gives Chinese Firm No Bid Contract for Cargo Security Checks

2006-03-24T09:59:00.000-08:00

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FLASHBACK: China�s Military Planners Took Credit for 9/11 John O. Edwards / Wednesday, Sept. 25, 2002 [img]http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/en/9/97/Whampoa.jpg[/img] U.S. hiring Chinese firm for cargo security checks By TED BRIDIS AND JOHN SOLOMON THE ASSOCIATED PRESS / Friday, March 24, 2006

WASHINGTON -- In the aftermath of the Dubai ports dispute, the Bush administration is hiring a Hong Kong conglomerate to help detect nuclear materials inside cargo passing through the Bahamas to the United States and elsewhere.

The administration acknowledges the no-bid contract with Hutchison Whampoa Ltd. represents the first time a foreign company will be involved in running a sophisticated U.S. radiation detector at an overseas port without U.S. Customs agents present.

Freeport in the Bahamas is 65 miles from the U.S. coast, where cargo would likely be inspected again. The contract is currently being finalized.

The administration is negotiating a second no-bid contract for a Philippine company to install radiation detectors in its home country, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press.

While President Bush recently reassured Congress that foreigners would not manage security at U.S. ports, the Hutchison deal in the Bahamas illustrates how the administration is relying on foreign companies at overseas ports to safeguard cargo headed to the United States.

Hutchison Whampoa is the world's largest ports operator and among the industry's most-respected companies. It was an early adopter of U.S. anti-terror measures. But its billionaire chairman, Li Ka-Shing, also has substantial business ties to China that have raised U.S. concerns over the years.

"Li Ka-Shing is pretty close to a lot of senior leaders of the Chinese government and the Chinese Communist Party," said Larry Wortzel, head of a U.S. government commission that studies China security and economic issues. But Wortzel said Hutchison operates independently from Beijing, and he described Li as "a very legitimate international businessman."

"One can conceive legitimate security concerns and would hope either the Homeland Security Department or the intelligence services of the United States work very hard to satisfy those concerns," Wortzel said.

Three years ago, the administration effectively blocked a Hutchison subsidiary from buying part of a bankrupt U.S. telecommunications company, Global Crossing Ltd., on national security grounds.

And a U.S. military intelligence report, once marked "secret," cited Hutchison in 1999 as a potential risk for smuggling arms and other prohibited materials into the United States from the Bahamas.

The CIA currently has no security concerns about Hutchison's port operations, and the administration believes the pending deal with the foreign company would be safe, officials said.

Supervised by Bahamian customs officials, Hutchison employees will drive the trucklike radiation scanner that moves slowly over large cargo containers and scans them for radiation that might be emitted by plutonium or a radiological weapon.

Any positive reading would set off alarms monitored simultaneously by Bahamian customs inspectors at Freeport and by U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials working at an anti-terrorism center 800 miles away in Northern Virginia. Any alarm would prompt a closer inspection of the cargo, and there are multiple layers of security to prevent tampering, officials said.

"The equipment operates itself," said Bryan Wilkes, a spokesman for the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration, the agency negotiating the contract. "It's not going to be someone standing at the controls pressing buttons and flipping switches."

Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said, "Giving a no-bid contract to a foreign company to carry out the most sensitive security screening for radioactive materials at ports abroad raises many questions."

A spokesman for Hutchison's ports subsidiary, Anthony Tam, said the company "is a strong supporter in port security initiatives."

There are no U.S. Customs agents checking any containers at the Hutchison port in Freeport. Under the contract, no U.S. officials would be stationed permanently in the Bahamas with the radiation scanner.

FLASHBACK-China�s Military Planners Took Credit for 9/11 John O. Edwards / Wednesday, Sept. 25, 2002

See also: Hutchison Whampoa Limited the same Chinese company that recently took operational control of the Panama Canal is currently completing construction of the largest container port in the world in Freeport, Bahamas. In addition to the container port, Hutchinson has other investments on the island including a 370 acre resort in Lucayan that encompasses a 49 acre beach front site. Signifcant construction and development is underway on these resort investments.

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Military to conduct massive training excercise in downtown Winnipeg

2006-03-24T07:35:00.000-08:00

This message was sent from: Govt/Mil/Intel Shenanigans. <http://www.parapolitics.info/phorum/read.php?f=31&i=658&t=652> ----------------------------------------------------------------

Military to conduct massive training excercise in downtown Winnipeg Posted by Derek on Saturday, January 28th at 9:23 AM [img]http://winnipeg.indymedia.org//media/F/34/CFsoldier.jpg[/img] From April 30th to May 6th, 2006, more than 500 Canadian troops, backed by helicopters, armoured vehicles, and artillery, intend to transform downtown Winnipeg, Canada into an urban-warfare training playground in the largest training excercise of its kind ever held in Canada. Operation Charging Bison is intended to simulate situations Canadian soldiers "would encounter in places such as Afghanistan and Iraq."

What are we calling for? We are calling for a broad range of actions to counter this training, from high-school walk-outs, to street theatre, to teach-ins, to direct action, to a national convergence, to solidarity actions. We encourage people to take the initiative to plan their own autonomous actions, but we're also eager to see co-operation between organizing groups.

We are planning a major day of action on May 1st, International Workers' Day.

Why are we opposing this? Or, "But Canadian missions are only for peacekeeping. What's the problem?"

- The problem is that Canada's peacekeeping reputation is already in tatters around the world. We don't need to look that hard to see why. Here are the kinds of operations the military is training for.

- In Haiti, Canadian soldiers and RCMP are currently giving logistical assistance to the brutal Haitian National Police and participating in MINUSTAH, an international force which has been carrying out massacres in urban slums. All

- Two years ago, Canadian troops helped carry out a coup of Haiti's elected leader and oversee the installation of a government of business elites and sweatshop owners. The year before that, at the Ottawa Initiative on Haiti, Pierre Pettigrew and other members of the Canadian government decided alongside France, the U.S., and Latin American countries that the Haitian government must be overthrown.

- For more on occupied Haiti visit this national information site or the local Winnipeg-CHAN site.

- In Quebec City in 2001, 1000 soldiers were deployed against protestors of the Summit of the Americas, to stifle dissent against the governments' push for corporate control of the hemisphere.

- In Ts'peten, also known as Gustafsen Lake, British Columbia, in 1995, native demonstrators trying to protect their land from further encroachment were met with armoured peronnel carriers, .50 calibre machine guns, and land mines. The federal and provincial governments rejected any involvement by an impartial, independent, international adjudication process to settle the conflict, and even the presence of neutral peacekeepers, with the famous declaration "There shall be no alien intervention into the affairs of this state."

- In Afghanistan, top Canadian soldier Rick Hillier clarified the Canadian military's role, "We're not the public sevice of Canada. We're not just another department. We are the Canadian Forces and our job is to be able to kill people."

- Canadian forces joined the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. The military occupation continues today.

- In Kanehsatake in 1990, Canadian forces attempted to put down Mohawk resistance to the town of Oka's attempted expansion of a golf course on to territory including a Mohawk burial ground.

- In Iraq, we find Canadian troops again, despite the government's official position that they're staying out of the invasion. One Canadian Major General has thousands of U.S. troops under his command.

This is not a history of peacekeeping and good will, and the training operations in Winnipeg are an attempt to hone the Canadian military's tactics of repression.

Stop the "Charging Bison" in its tracks! For more info see the Stop the Bison website .

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Re: Bob Novak, the CIA's MOCKINGBIRD program & the Plame/Wilson Scandal

2006-03-22T11:02:00.000-08:00

This message was sent from: Ministry of DisInformation. <http://www.parapolitics.info/phorum/read.php?f=32&i=249&t=228> ----------------------------------------------------------------

A different perspective on the Wilson/Plame Affair:

http://www.geocities.com/larryjodaniel/23.html

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Arabic tongue flourishes in the new world order

2006-03-21T07:23:00.000-08:00

This message was sent from: EU / UN / Globalist Agendas. <http://www.parapolitics.info/phorum/read.php?f=36&i=736&t=736> ----------------------------------------------------------------

Arabic tongue flourishes in the new world order By William Wallis in Cairo Published: March 21 2006 [img]http://news.ft.com/cms/9fa587bc-4778-11d8-81c6-0820abe49a01.jpg[/img] There can be few subjects that unite Norwegian army officers, Uzbek religious students, Korean contractors and would-be CIA agents. A perhaps unintended consequence of the September 11 2001 al-Qaeda attacks on New York and Washington is that the Arabic language has become one.

For different reasons the events triggered by September 11 have sparked an upsurge in the numbers of students learning Arabic across the world. This in turn has translated into booming business for Cairo, traditionally the centre of learning in the Middle East for both religious students and foreign diplomatic services.

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Growing use of SWAT teams raises concerns

2006-03-21T06:20:00.000-08:00

This message was sent from: Police State -. <http://www.parapolitics.info/phorum/read.php?f=34&i=368&t=368> ----------------------------------------------------------------

[img]http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/41436000/jpg/_41436628_swat_ap203.jpg[/img] Death raises concern at police tactics By Matthew Davis / BBC News, Washington Some say police units increasingly resemble military teams

The recent killing of an unarmed Virginia doctor has raised concerns about what some say is an explosion in the use of military-style police Swat teams in the United States.

Armed with assault rifles, stun grenades - even armoured personnel carriers - units once used only in highly volatile situations are increasingly being deployed on more routine police missions.

Dr Salvatore Culosi Jr had come out of his townhouse to meet an undercover policeman when he was shot through the chest by a Special Weapons and Tactics force.

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Arab firm to oversee 6 U.S. ports

2006-02-13T09:54:00.000-08:00

This message was sent from: ParaPolitics - General. <http://www.parapolitics.info/phorum/read.php?f=4&i=986&t=986> ----------------------------------------------------------------

Arab firm to oversee 6 U.S. ports By TED BRIDIS / Associated Press [img]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/ac/NationalArmsofUAE.png[/img] WASHINGTON � A company in the United Arab Emirates is poised to take over significant operations at six American ports as part of a corporate sale, leaving a country with ties to the Sept. 11 hijackers with influence over a maritime industry considered vulnerable to terrorism.

The Bush administration considers the UAE an important ally in the fight against terrorism since the suicide hijackings and is not objecting to Dubai Ports World's purchase of London-based Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Co.

The $6.8 billion sale is expected to be approved Monday. The British company is the fourth largest ports company in the world and its sale would affect commercial U.S. port operations in New York, New Jersey, Baltimore, New Orleans, Miami and Philadelphia.

DP World said it won approval from a secretive U.S. government panel that considers security risks of foreign companies buying or investing in American industry.

The U.S. Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States "thoroughly reviewed the potential transaction and concluded they had no objection," the company said in a statement to The Associated Press.

The committee earlier agreed to consider concerns about the deal as expressed by a Miami-based company, Eller & Co., according to Eller's lawyer, Michael Kreitzer. Eller is a business partner with the British shipping giant but was not in the running to buy the ports company.

The committee, which could have recommended that President Bush block the purchase, includes representatives from the departments of Treasury, Defense, Justice, Commerce, State and Homeland Security.

The State Department describes the UAE as a vital partner in the fight against terrorism. But the UAE, a loose federation of seven emirates on the Saudi peninsula, was an important operational and financial base for the hijackers who carried out the attacks against New York and Washington, the FBI concluded.

Sen. Charles Schumer, a Democrat whose district includes the New York port, urged the administration to consider the sale carefully.

"America's busiest ports are vital to our economy and to the international economy, and that is why they remain top terrorist targets," Schumer said. "Just as we would not outsource military operations or law enforcement duties, we should be very careful before we outsource such sensitive homeland security duties."

Last month, the White House appointed a senior DP World executive, David C. Sanborn of Virginia, to be the new administrator of the Maritime Administration of the Transportation Department. Sanborn worked as DP World's director of operations for Europe and Latin America.

Critics of the proposed purchase said a port operator complicit in smuggling or terrorism could manipulate manifests and other records to frustrate Homeland Security's already limited scrutiny of shipping containers and slip contraband past U.S. Customs inspectors.

"When you have a foreign government involved, you are injecting foreign national interests," Kreitzer said. "A country that may be a friend of ours today may not be on the same side tomorrow. You don't know in advance what the politics of that country will be in the future."

Shipping experts noted that many of the world's largest port companies are not based in the U.S., and they pointed to DP World's strong economic interest in operating ports securely and efficiently.

"Does this pose a national security risk? I think that's pushing the envelope," said Stephen E. Flynn, who studies maritime security at the New York-based Council on Foreign Relations. "It's not impossible to imagine one could develop an internal conspiracy, but I'd have to assign it a very low probability."

Changing management over the U.S. ports "doesn't offer al-Qaida any opportunities it doesn't have now," said James Lewis, who worked with the U.S. committee at the State and Commerce departments. "It's in Dubai's interest to make sure this runs well. There is strong economic incentive to be sure these worries never materialize."

Flynn and others said even under foreign control, U.S. ports will continue to be run by unionized American employees. "You're not going have a bunch of UAE citizens working the docks," Flynn said. "They're longshoremen, vested in high-paying jobs. Most of them are Archie Bunker-kind of Americans."

Peninsular and Oriental and DP World set approval by the U.S. security committee as a condition for the sale. In regulatory papers, the companies said either the committee must agree not to formally investigate the purchase or Bush must not move to block the sale for national security purposes.

Since the Sept. 11 attacks, the FBI has said the money for the strikes was transferred to the hijackers primarily through the UAE's banking system, and much of the operational planning for the attacks took place inside the UAE.

Many of the hijackers traveled to the U.S. through the UAE. Also, the hijacker who steered United Airlines flight into the World Trade Center's south tower, Marwan al-Shehhi, was born in the UAE.

After the attacks, U.S. Treasury Department officials complained about a lack of cooperation by the UAE and other Arab countries trying to track Osama bin Laden's bank accounts.

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Bill Would Allow Arrests For No Reason In Public Place

2005-12-22T10:02:00.000-08:00

This message was sent from: Police State -. <http://www.parapolitics.info/phorum/read.php?f=34&i=367&t=367> ----------------------------------------------------------------

Bill Would Allow Arrests For No Reason In Public Place Citizens Would Also Have To Show ID

CLEVELAND -- A bill on Gov. Bob Taft's desk right now is drawing a lot of criticism, NewsChannel5 reported.

One state representative said it resembles Gestapo-style tactics of government, and there could be changes coming on the streets of Ohio's small towns and big cities.

The Ohio Patriot Act has made it to the Taft's desk, and with the stroke of a pen, it would most likely become the toughest terrorism bill in the country. The lengthy piece of legislation would let police arrest people in public places who will not give their names, address and birth dates, even if they are not doing anything wrong.

WEWS reported it would also pave the way for everyone entering critical transportation sites such as, train stations, airports and bus stations to show ID.

"It brings us frighteningly close to a show me your papers society," said Carrie Davis of the ACLU, which opposes the Ohio Patriot Act.

There are many others who oppose the bill as well.

"The variety of people who opposed to this is not just a group of the usual suspects. We have people far right to the left opposing the bill who think it is a bad idea," said Al McGinty, NewsChannel5�s terrorism expert.

McGinty said he isn't sure the law would do what it's intended to do.

"I think anything we do to enhance security and give power to protect the public to police officers is a good idea," he said. "It is a good law in the wrong direction."

Gov. Bob Taft will make the ultimate decision on whether to sign the bill.

WEWS was told that Taft is expected to sign the bill into law, but legal experts expect that it will be challenged in courts.

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Flashback - National Lawyers Guild Calls for Prosecution of President Bush

2005-12-22T09:54:00.000-08:00

This message was sent from: ParaPolitics - General. <http://www.parapolitics.info/phorum/read.php?f=4&i=984&t=984> ----------------------------------------------------------------

[img]http://www.nlg.org/about/newbluebar.jpg[/img] NATIONAL LAWYERS GUILD CALLS FOR PROSECUTION OF PRESIDENT BUSH FOR ROLE IN TORTURE

2003 State of the Union Address Contained Implicit Admission

New York, June 18, 2004--The National Lawyers Guild calls for the prosecution of President George W. Bush with a "command responsibility" theory of liability under the War Crimes Act. Bush can be prosecuted under the War Crimes Act or the Torture Statute, if he knew or should have known about the U.S. military's use of torture and failed to stop or prevent it. A comment in the President's January 2003 State of the Union Address contained an implicit admission by Bush that he had sanctioned the summary execution of many when he said: "All told, more than 3,000 suspected terrorists have been arrested in many countries, and many others have met a different fate." "Let's put it this way," he continued, "they are no longer a problem for the United States and our friends and allies."

The Defense Department and the Justice Department each commissioned documents attempting to justify the use of torture under the President's war-making power, notwithstanding the Constitution's clear mandate that only Congress can make the laws. The Defense Department memo said that as commander-in-chief, the President has a "constitutionally superior position" to Congress. This blatant disregard for the tripartite Separation of Powers doctrine is also contrary to the landmark ruling in the Korean War case, Youngstown Sheet & Tire Co. v. Sawyers, in which the Supreme Court held, "In the framework of our Constitution, the President's power to see that the laws are faithfully executed refutes the idea that he is to be a lawmaker."

The Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment was ratified by the United States and is thus part of the supreme law of the land. Congress implemented U.S. obligations under this treaty by enacting the Torture Statute, which provides 20 years, life in prison, or even the death penalty if death results from torture committed by a U.S. citizen abroad. The USA PATRIOT Act added the crime of conspiracy to commit torture to the Torture Statute. The Convention Against Torture prohibits the intentional infliction of severe physical or mental pain or suffering on a person to (a) obtain a confession, (b) punish him or (c) intimidate or coerce him based on discrimination of any kind. To violate this treaty, the pain or suffering must be inflicted "by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity."

The Istanbul Protocol of 9 August 1999 is the Manual on the Effective Investigation and Documentation of Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. It sets forth international guidelines for the United Nations High Commission for Human Rights. Included in the Protocol's list of torture methods are rape, blunt trauma, forced positioning, asphyxiation, crush injuries, humiliations, death threats, forced engagement in practices violative of religion, and threat of attacks by dogs. The photographs and reports from prisoners in Abu Ghraib include all of these techniques. Moreover, the Defense Department analysis maintained that a torturer could get off it he acted in "good faith," not thinking his actions would result in severe mental harm. If the torturer based his conduct on the advice of these memos, he could according to this argument, have acted in good faith.

Referring to the 9/11 Commission's preliminary reports issued this week, National Lawyers Guild President Michael Avery said: "The Justice Department memorandum reads like a pre-trial brief on behalf of the Nazi defendants in the Nuremberg trial. It's rife with justification after justification for the use of torture."

Bush implicitly admitted sanctioning willful killing, torture and/or inhuman treatment in his 2003 State of the Union Address. The Constitution mandates the impeachment of a President for high crimes and misdemeanors. There is no higher crime than a war crime. Willful killing, torture and inhuman treatment constitute grave breaches of the Geneva Convention, which are considered war crimes under The War Crimes Act of 1996.

The National Lawyers Guild, founded in 1937, comprises over 6,000 members and activists in the service of the people. Its national office is headquartered in New York and it has chapters in nearly every state, as well as over 100 law school chapters. Guild members provide legal support to progressive demonstrations throughout the country, and well understand the nationwide trend toward increasingly repressive measures deployed against political protesters.

Contact: Michael Avery, President, 617-573-8551 Heidi Boghosian, Executive Director, 212-679-5100, ext. 11

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Re: 9-11 Inquiry: Adnan Khashoggi-John Gray Connection

2005-12-21T07:20:00.000-08:00

This message was sent from: Govt/Mil/Intel Shenanigans. <http://www.parapolitics.info/phorum/read.php?f=31&i=655&t=583> ----------------------------------------------------------------

Adnan is linked to Iran-Contra financier Ohrstrom's fake general &Marshal Herbert J.C. Bryant. He was president of U.S. Marshal's Foundation along with Rockeffer and had a gala party in Beverly Hills while Waco was going up in flames. Bryant bragged to me about his 12 year old girlfriend, and airlifting fleet of his cars will doing drug raids in South America. He was arrested for having false Marshal credentials and unregistered weapons. Ohrshrom family bank tied to Bush nazi gold. Adnan parties with the likes of Elizabeth Taylor. These ties are documented in well-guarded Hollywood Reporter files of Herbert Kassel, third in command of us marshal's foundation, and celeberity photographer Don Camp. They might not be aware of 9/11 ties, but they travel with the top elite new world order monsters. Someone should investigate their "parties"

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Re: On Letterman, Al Franken Jokes About Execution for Treason of Rove, Libby, B

2005-12-20T10:17:00.000-08:00

This message was sent from: ParaPolitics - General. <http://www.parapolitics.info/phorum/read.php?f=4&i=983&t=961> ----------------------------------------------------------------

There is an interested book excerpt about Karl Rove on Democrats.com's blog. It's from the new book "ROVE EXPOSED: How Bush's Brain Fooled America" by James Moore & Wayne Slater.

You can read the excerpt here:

http://www.democrats.com/node/7161

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Senate rejects reauthorization of Patriot Act

2005-12-16T10:53:00.000-08:00

Senate rejects reauthorization of Patriot Act Failure of vote to pre-empt filibuster is major defeat for administration BREAKING NEWS / The Associated Press Updated: 1:34 p.m. ET Dec. 16, 2005

WASHINGTON - The U.S. Senate on Friday rejected attempts to reauthorize several provisions of the nation's top anti-terror law as infringing too much on Americans' privacy, dealing a major defeat to President Bush and Republican leaders.

In a crucial vote early Friday, the bill's Senate supporters were not able to get the 60 votes needed to overcome a threatened filibuster by Sens. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., and Larry Craig, R-Idaho, and their allies. The final vote was 52-47.

Bush, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and GOP congressional leaders had lobbied fiercely to make most of the 16 expiring Patriot Act provisions permanent, and add new safeguards and expiration dates to the two most controversial parts: roving wiretaps and secret warrants for books, records and other items from businesses, hospitals and organizations such as libraries.

Feingold, Craig and other critics said that wasn't enough, and have called for the law to be extended in its present form so they can continue to try and add more civil liberties safeguards. But Bush, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and House Speaker Dennis Hastert have said they won't accept a short-term extension of the law.

If a compromise is not reached, the 16 Patriot Act provisions expire on Dec. 31.

Frist changed his vote at the last moment after seeing the critics would win. He decided to vote with the prevailing side so he could call for a new vote at any time. He immediately objected to an offer of a short term extension from Democrats, saying the House won't approve it and the president won't sign it.

"We have more to fear from terrorism than we do from this Patriot Act," Frist warned.

"Vital tools" in the war on terror If the Patriot Act provisions expire, Republicans say they will place the blame on Democrats in next year's midterm elections. "In the war on terror, we cannot afford to be without these vital tools for a single moment," White House press secretary Scott McClellan said. "The time for Democrats to stop standing in the way has come."

But the Patriot Act's critics got a boost Friday from a New York Times report saying Bush authorized the National Security Agency to monitor the international phone calls and international e-mails of hundreds � perhaps thousands � of people inside the United States. Previously, the NSA typically limited its domestic surveillance to foreign embassies and missions and obtained court orders for such investigations.

"I don't want to hear again from the attorney general or anyone on this floor that this government has shown it can be trusted to use the power we give it with restraint and care," said Feingold, the only senator to vote against the Patriot Act in 2001.

"It is time to have some checks and balances in this country," shouted Sen. Patrick Leahy, ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee. "We are more American for doing that."

Most of the Patriot Act � which expanded the government's surveillance and prosecutorial powers against suspected terrorists, their associates and financiers � was made permanent when Congress overwhelmingly passed it after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington. Making the rest of it permanent was a priority for both the Bush administration and Republican leaders on Capitol Hill before Congress adjourns for the year.

Compromise reached earlier The House on Wednesday passed a House-Senate compromise bill to renew the Act that supporters say added significant safeguards to the law. These supporters predict doom and gloom if the Patriot Act's critics win and the provisions expire.

"This is a defining moment. There are no more compromises to be made, no more extensions of time. The bill is what it is," said Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz.

"Those that would give up essential liberties in pursuit (of) ... a little temporary security deserve neither liberty nor security," said Sen. John Sununu, R-N.H. They suggested a short extension so negotiations could continue, but the Senate scrapped a Democratic-led effort to renew the USA Patriot Act for just three months before the vote began.

The bill's opponents say the original act was rushed into law, and Congress should take more time now to make sure the rights of innocent Americans are safeguarded before making the expiring provisions permanent.

3 groups have contracts for pro-U.S. propaganda

2005-12-15T07:42:00.000-08:00

3 groups have contracts for pro-U.S. propaganda By Matt Kelley, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON - The Pentagon's latest project to win hearts and minds in the war on terrorism relies on two large defense contractors and a small start-up firm to craft messages appealing to people across the globe. U.S. Special Operations Command awarded three five-year contracts in June for contractors to develop slogans, advertisements, newspaper articles, radio spots and television programs to build support for U.S. policies overseas. Each contract has a maximum value of $20 million per year for a total of $300 million.

The contractors include the Lincoln Group, a small firm that's under investigation for paying Iraqi newspapers to run pro-American articles ghostwritten under a separate military contract.

Lincoln Group spokeswoman Laurie Adler says the articles produced by the Lincoln Group are true and "counter the lies, intimidation and pure evil of terror."

Another contractor, San Diego-based Science Applications International Corp. (SAIC), won a no-bid Pentagon contract in 2003 to run an Iraqi media network that Defense Department investigators later said was mismanaged. The third company, SYColeman Inc., is led by a retired general who was a top official in the Defense Department agency that gave SAIC its Iraqi media contract.

The psychological warfare officials overseeing the project say the messages will be true, if not always attributed to the U.S. military.

"We're looking at programs, for example, to counter suicide bombers," says Mike Furlong of the Joint Psychological Operations Support Element (JPSE).

Lincoln had little experience

Lincoln, which Maryland records show was created in January 2004 as Iraqex, had no experience in public relations, advertising or other media work. Adler says the firm went to Iraq to work with Iraqi businesses and did its first "strategic communications" work at the request of U.S. commanders.

One of Lincoln Group's founders, a native Briton named Christian Bailey, had been a co-chairman of a political group aligned with the Republican Party called Lead 21. Adler says Bailey did not use his political ties to get government contracts.

SAIC is one of the nation's larger defense contractors. It had more than $7 billion in revenue last year.

Until July, one of its directors was retired Army general Wayne Downing, a former head of Special Operations Command. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has asked Downing to assess Special Operations Command and suggest possible improvements.

The Pentagon awarded SAIC a no-bid contract in 2003 to run the Iraqi Free Media Program, a network of newspapers as well as radio and television stations. The military paid the company more than $80 million but dropped the contractor amid criticism from the Pentagon's inspector general that the network was poorly managed.

SYColeman's president is retired Army lieutenant general Jared Bates, who spent six months in 2003 helping set up the Pentagon's Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance, which first governed postwar Iraq. That Pentagon agency gave SAIC the Iraq media contract.

Special Operations Command asked the three companies for ideas for anti-terrorism media campaigns and asked SYColeman to further develop its proposal, Furlong says.

The media campaign hasn't begun, and JPSE has spent only $700,000 on the project so far, Furlong says.

Disclosure worries

Paying journalists to plant stories contradicts efforts to encourage free and independent reporting in the Middle East, say critics of the military campaign.

"They say all's fair in love and war, but we shouldn't go so far as to violate our standards and traditions to achieve our goals," says Daniel Edelman, who founded the world's largest independent public relations firm that bears his name. During World War II, he worked on psychological operations while serving in the Army in Europe.

Contracting records show that contractors were worried about scrutiny by U.S. and foreign reporters.

During the bidding process for federal contracts, potential contractors can ask questions and make suggestions that are answered by contracting officials. One question for this contract was whether the command would "protect them from U.S. and foreign media inquiries into this project."

The command said it would follow the law but consult with contractors before answering requests for details filed under the Freedom of Information Act.

In a written response to questions from USA TODAY, JPSE says the military, not the contractor, is responsible for the work. Therefore, it would be "inappropriate" for contractors to discuss their work with reporters "without prior coordination with their government representative."

The companies also asked whether their employees would be allowed to arm themselves in dangerous places and whether they would have immunity from prosecutions in countries where they worked. The command said no in both cases; contractors aren't allowed to carry weapons without special exemption, and they would have no immunity and would have to "coordinate with other nations as required."

Contributing: Mark Memmott

Pentagon rolls out stealth PR / Foreign Media PsyOp

2005-12-15T07:41:00.000-08:00

Pentagon rolls out stealth PR USA Today / Matt Kelley December 14 2005 WASHINGTON - A $300 million Pentagon psychological warfare operation includes plans for placing pro-American messages in foreign media outlets without disclosing the U.S. government as the source, one of the military officials in charge of the program says.

Run by psychological warfare experts at the U.S. Special Operations Command, the media campaign is being designed to counter terrorist ideology and sway foreign audiences to support American policies. The military wants to fight the information war against al-Qaeda through newspapers, websites, radio, television and "novelty items" such as T-shirts and bumper stickers.

The program will operate throughout the world, including in allied nations and in countries where the United States is not involved in armed conflict.

The description of the program by Mike Furlong, deputy director of the Joint Psychological Operations Support Element, provides the most detailed look to date at the Pentagon's global campaign.

The three companies handling the campaign include the Lincoln Group, the company being investigated by the Pentagon for paying Iraqi newspapers to run pro-U.S. stories. (Related story: Contracts for pro-U.S. propaganda)

Military officials involved with the campaign say they're not planning to place false stories in foreign news outlets clandestinely. But the military won't always reveal its role in distributing pro-American messages, Furlong says.

"While the product may not carry the label, 'Made in the USA,' we will respond truthfully if asked" by journalists, Furlong told USA TODAY in a videoconference interview.

He declined to give examples of specific "products," which he said would include articles, advertisements and public-service announcements.

The military's communications work in Iraq has recently drawn controversy with disclosures that Lincoln Group and the U.S. military secretly paid journalists and news outlets to run pro-American stories.

White House officials have expressed concern about the practice, even when the stories are true.

National security adviser Stephen Hadley said President Bush was "very troubled" by activities in Iraq and would stop them if they hurt efforts to build independent news media in Iraq. The military started its own probe.

It's legal for the government to plant propaganda in other countries but not in the USA. The White House referred requests for comment about the contracts to the Pentagon, where officials did not respond.

Special Operations Command awarded three contracts worth up to $100 million each for the media campaign in June. Besides the Lincoln Group, the contractors are Science Applications International Corp. (SAIC) of San Diego and SYColeman of Washington.

SAIC and Lincoln Group spokesmen declined to comment on the contract. Rick Kiernan, a spokesman for SYColeman, says its work for Special Operations Command is "more in the world of advertising."

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has emphasized that Washington must promote its message better. "The worst about America and our military seems to so quickly be taken as truth by the press and reported and spread around the world," he said last week.

The Iraq example may cause Arabs to doubt any pro-American messages, says Jumana al-Tamimi, an editor for the Gulf News, an English-language newspaper published in the United Arab Emirates.

Placing pro-U.S. content in foreign media "makes people suspicious of the open press," says Ken Bacon, a Clinton administration Pentagon spokesman who heads the non-profit group Refugees International.

No contractor for the global program has made a final product, Furlong says. Approval will come from Rumsfeld's office and regional commanders. Some of the development work is classified.

"Sometimes it's not good to signal ... what your plans are," he says.

Comment: Who believes the BS about countering terrorist ideology? Do they think we were born yesterday? When was the last time you read a four page spread taken out by a terrorist? This is about selling the glorious virtue of global bloodletting by the coalition of the killing and is not 'pro-America' it is pro Neo-Con empire propaganda.

Another Hidden cam in bathroom; freshman faces expulsion for taking down

2005-12-15T07:29:00.000-08:00

Another Hidden camera in boy's bathroom; freshman faces expulsion for taking down by Kim Hynes / KWCH 12 Eyewitness News Wednesday, December 14, 2005

An East High freshman faces expulsion for something the district says never should have happened. Monday Charles Rogers discovered a camera in the foyer of the boy's bathroom. "The camera there period surprised me. It was a little spy camera, I didn't think anything like that was in the bathroom. I didn't think it was the schools, I thought it was a perverted janitor," Charles said.

He took the camera. He says it was in a little hole in the ceiling tile. He also took the receiver which was in the schools auditorium. "It looked like an irregular setup. It wasn't in a security room," his mom Melinda Rogers said.

Mrs. Rogers says what her son did was wrong. But she wants to know why there was a hidden camera to begin with. Eyewitness News asked the district that question.

It says cameras were installed in two boy's bathrooms at East High to see who was drawing graffiti. "The camera was outside the bathroom part, so nobody's privacy was violated. It's just so they could monitor people going in and out," spokeswoman Susan Arensman said. She says East High is the only school that used them. "It was a mistake and we admit this was a mistake and it won't happen again," Arensman said.

Arensman says the school put up the cameras sometime this year without telling the district. She says the other camera has now been removed.

Rogers has also been removed from East High. Next week he has an expulsion hearing for stealing the camera. "I think he should be punished. But to be expelled for the rest of the year is kind of tough. As misguided as it was, he thought he was doing good in taking down a hidden camera," his mom said. The hearing is next Tuesday, we'll keep you posted on what happens.

Principal resigns; handcuffed little girl and forced "medication" in class

2005-12-14T07:30:00.000-08:00

Principal resigns; handcuffed little girl and forced "medication" in class The Arizona Republic December 12, 2005 By Lindsey Collom

An elementary school principal has resigned amidst allegations she and a school psychologist restrained a troubled 8-year-old and forced the child to take prescribed medication in front of her classmates.

Washington Elementary School District board members on Monday voted unanimously to accept Cherri Rifenburg's resignation. The board also met in executive session with legal council to discuss the fate of school psychologist Burke Bretzing, but no action was taken.

Rifenburg's lawyer, Kay Hunnicutt, said her client chose to resign to "provide stability" for faculty and staff at Lakeview Elementary School, which has been under scrutiny since the incident.

Authorities said it began Nov. 15th when a woman called 911 to say she could not control her daughter. Phoenix police Officer William Buividas, 22, responded and handcuffed the girl with her mother's permission.

Buividas then escorted the woman as she drove her child to school. There, Rifenburg and Bretzing allegedly assisted the officer in restraining the girl as her third-grade classmates looked on. School administrators have acknowledged that the principal and psychologist forced the child to take prescribed medication.

An investigation to determine if Buividas used excessive force is ongoing. He remains on patrol.

Rifenburg and Bretzing were placed on paid administrative leave; neither had been back to work since.

Roni Snell, whose daughter is a former Lakeview student, said the incident "disgusts the heck out of me."

"It breaks my heart that a kid can get treated like that. There's got to be someone to speak for that 8-year-old girl," Snell said. "My concern as a parent - I've got a child in junior high. Is this going to happen while she's in school?"

District spokeswoman Karyn Morse said the child has not returned to class since the incident but officials hope to place her in another school "that is successful for her."

In a letter to the district's governing board president, Rifenburg said she would complete doctoral studies and plans to teach at the collegiate level. She will remain an employee until April 15, 2006, and serve in a capacity as determined by the superintendent.

Hunnicutt said her client is saddened by the situation and plans to issue a statement Tuesday.

"She's hurt," Hunnicutt said. "She really cares about kids."

Live Tracking of Mobile Phones Prompts Court Fights on Privacy

2005-12-11T12:51:00.000-08:00

Live Tracking of Mobile Phones Prompts Court Fights on Privacy By MATT RICHTEL Most Americans carry cellphones, but many may not know that government agencies can track their movements through the signals emanating from the handset.

In recent years, law enforcement officials have turned to cellular technology as a tool for easily and secretly monitoring the movements of suspects as they occur. But this kind of surveillance - which investigators have been able to conduct with easily obtained court orders - has now come under tougher legal scrutiny.

In the last four months, three federal judges have denied prosecutors the right to get cellphone tracking information from wireless companies without first showing "probable cause" to believe that a crime has been or is being committed. That is the same standard applied to requests for search warrants.

The rulings, issued by magistrate judges in New York, Texas and Maryland, underscore the growing debate over privacy rights and government surveillance in the digital age.

With mobile phones becoming as prevalent as conventional phones (there are 195 million cellular subscribers in this country), wireless companies are starting to exploit the phones' tracking abilities. For example, companies are marketing services that turn phones into even more precise global positioning devices for driving or allowing parents to track the whereabouts of their children through the handsets.

Not surprisingly, law enforcement agencies want to exploit this technology, too - which means more courts are bound to wrestle with what legal standard applies when government agents ask to conduct such surveillance.

Cellular operators like Verizon Wireless and Cingular Wireless know, within about 300 yards, the location of their subscribers whenever a phone is turned on. Even if the phone is not in use it is communicating with cellphone tower sites, and the wireless provider keeps track of the phone's position as it travels. The operators have said that they turn over location information when presented with a court order to do so.

The recent rulings by the magistrates, who are appointed by a majority of the federal district judges in a given court, do not bind other courts. But they could significantly curtail access to cell location data if other jurisdictions adopt the same reasoning. (The government's requests in the three cases, with their details, were sealed because they involve investigations still under way.)

"It can have a major negative impact," said Clifford S. Fishman, a former prosecutor in the Manhattan district attorney's office and a professor at the Catholic University of America's law school in Washington. "If I'm on an investigation and I need to know where somebody is located who might be committing a crime, or, worse, might have a hostage, real-time knowledge of where this person is could be a matter of life or death."

Prosecutors argue that having such information is crucial to finding suspects, corroborating their whereabouts with witness accounts, or helping build a case for a wiretap on the phone - especially now that technology gives criminals greater tools for evading law enforcement.

The government has routinely used records of cellphone calls and caller locations to show where a suspect was at a particular time, with access to those records obtainable under a lower legal standard. (Wireless operators keep cellphone location records for varying lengths of time, from several months to years.)

But it is unclear how often prosecutors have asked courts for the right to obtain cell-tracking data as a suspect is moving. And the government is not required to report publicly when it makes such requests.

Legal experts say that such live tracking has tended to happen in drug-trafficking cases. In a 2003 Ohio case, for example, federal drug agents used cell tracking data to arrest and convict two men on drug charges.

Mr. Fishman said he believed that the number of requests had become more prevalent in the last two years - and the requests have often been granted with a stroke of a magistrate's pen.

Prosecutors, while acknowledging that they have to get a court order before obtaining real-time cell-site data, argue that the relevant standard is found in a 1994 amendment to the 1986 Stored Communications Act, a law that governs some aspects of cellphone surveillance.

The standard calls for the government to show "specific and articulable facts" that demonstrate that the records sought are "relevant and material to an ongoing investigation" - a standard lower than the probable-cause hurdle.

The magistrate judges, however, ruled that surveillance by cellphone - because it acts like an electronic tracking device that can follow people into homes and other personal spaces - must meet the same high legal standard required to obtain a search warrant to enter private places.

"Permitting surreptitious conversion of a cellphone into a tracking device without probable cause raises serious Fourth Amendment concerns, especially when the phone is monitored in the home or other places where privacy is reasonably expected," wrote Stephen W. Smith, a magistrate in Federal District Court in the Southern District of Texas, in his ruling.

"The distinction between cell site data and information gathered by a tracking device has practically vanished," wrote Judge Smith. He added that when a phone is monitored, the process is usually "unknown to the phone users, who may not even be on the phone."

Prosecutors in the recent cases also unsuccessfully argued that the expanded police powers under the USA Patriot Act could be read as allowing cellphone tracking under a standard lower than probable cause.

As Judge Smith noted in his 31-page opinion, the debate goes beyond a question of legal standard. In fact, the nature of digital communications makes it difficult to distinguish between content that is clearly private and information that is public. When information is communicated on paper, for instance, it is relatively clear that information written on an envelope deserves a different kind of protection than the contents of the letter inside.

But in a digital era, the stream of data that carries a telephone conversation or an e-mail message contains a great deal of information - like when and where the communications originated.

In the digital era, what's on the envelope and what's inside of it, "have absolutely blurred," said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a privacy advocacy group.

And that makes it harder for courts to determine whether a certain digital surveillance method invokes Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches.

In the cellular-tracking cases, some legal experts say that the Store Communications Act refers only to records of where a person has been, i.e. historical location data, but does not address live tracking.

Kevin Bankston, a lawyer for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a privacy advocacy group that has filed briefs in the case in the Eastern District of New York, said the law did not speak to that use. James Orenstein, the magistrate in the New York case, reached the same conclusion, as did Judge Smith in Houston and James Bredar, a magistrate judge in the Federal District Court in Maryland.

Orin S. Kerr, a professor at the George Washington School of Law and a former trial attorney in the Justice Department specializing in computer law, said the major problem for prosecutors was Congress did not appear to have directly addressed the question of what standard prosecutors must meet to obtain cell-site information as it occurs.

"There's no easy answer," Mr. Kerr said. "The law is pretty uncertain here."

Absent a Congressional directive, he said, it is reasonable for magistrates to require prosecutors to meet the probable-cause standard.

Mr. Fishman of Catholic University said that such a requirement could hamper law enforcement's ability to act quickly because of the paperwork required to show probable cause. But Mr. Fishman said he also believed that the current law was unclear on the issue.

Judge Smith "has written a very, very persuasive opinion," Mr. Fishman said. "The government's argument has been based on some tenuous premises." He added that he sympathized with prosecutors' fears.

"Something that they've been able to use quite successfully and usefully is being taken away from them or made harder to get," Mr. Fishman said. "I'd be very, very frustrated."

GOP Launches More Partisan Theater - 'White Flag' Dem Attack

2005-12-09T07:15:00.000-08:00

This message was sent from: Ministry of DisInformation. <http://www.parapolitics.info/phorum/read.php?f=32&i=246&t=246> ----------------------------------------------------------------

GOP Launches More Partisan Theater - 'White Flag' Dem Attack: Retreat and Defeat [img]http://www.drudgereport.com/hdean.JPG[/img] The DRUDGE REPORT has learned from a top GOP operative that the Republican National Committee will provide state parties with a web video prior to release tomorrow afternoon that shows a white flag waving over images of Democrat leaders making anti-war remarks.

[VIDEO FEED]

The ad is in response to the controversial comments Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean and 2004 Democratic Presidential nominee John Kerry made earlier in the week.

A Democratic strategist who had the web ad described to her said, �This is way over the top but we have no one to blame but Dean, Kerry and others who continue to pander to the anti-war activists within our party.�

The web video advances the Republican contention that the Democrats only have a �retreat and defeat� message on the war in Iraq.

The video highlights the effect Democrats can have on the morale of U.S. soldiers.

One Republican strategist familiar with the ad said, �The Democrats, especially Howard Dean have a way of trying to turn the tables and say �that�s not what I meant� � its just those �evil Republicans� This video will make them crazy � it reinforces what they really believe with what they actually said � and that is devastating for the Democratic Party.�

Developing...

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911Podcast.info Cited at 911Blogger.com

2005-12-08T10:19:00.000-08:00

One of my favorite websites, 911blogger.com, has mentioned my ParaPolitical 911 Podcast. "We've gotten requests for podcasts, and I noticed the following 9/11 podcast here, check it out and lemme know if this works."

The Abramoff affair: Corruption scandal threatens Republican control of Congress

2005-12-05T09:54:00.000-08:00

This message was sent from: ParaPolitics - General. <http://www.parapolitics.info/phorum/read.php?f=4&i=980&t=980> ----------------------------------------------------------------

The Abramoff affair: Corruption scandal threatens Republican control of US Congress By Patrick Martin Michael Scanlon, a Republican political operative, publicist and former press spokesman for House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, pled guilty November 21 to conspiring with lobbyist Jack Abramoff to bribe a Republican congressman and cheat several American Indian tribes out of tens of millions of dollars.

Scanlon�s guilty plea�and even more his agreement to cooperate fully with federal prosecutors and testify against former colleagues�has sent a chill through Republican ranks and raised the prospect of numerous indictments, convictions and jail terms for congressmen and congressional staffers as well as Bush administration officials involved in the rampant corruption of official Washington.

By the end of last week, there were press reports that at least four Republican legislators and 17 staffers and former staffers were the targets of the Justice Department investigation into the Abramoff affair. The Wall Street Journal named DeLay, Congressman Robert Ney of Ohio, Congressman John Doolittle of California, and Senator Conrad Burns of Montana as targets, as well as several former Bush administration officials. The Washington Post reported that prosecutors had informed Congressman Ney that he was the subject of a bribery investigation and added that the wives of DeLay and Doolittle had also been linked to Abramoff�s influence-peddling schemes.

The Abramoff affair could have much wider implications. A reporter for BusinessWeek, on a television interview program, said that his Justice Department sources had told him that as many as 60 congressmen could be implicated in the bribery scandal�far more than enough to threaten control over the House of Representatives, where the Republican majority is 231-202, with one independent.

The Associated Press named eight more congressmen and senators who received contributions engineered by Abramoff in return for political favors, four Republicans and four Democrats. The Republicans were congressmen Charles Taylor of North Carolina, J. D. Hayworth of Arizona, Todd Tiahrt of Kansas and Dave Camp of Michigan. The Democrats included three senators, Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow of Michigan and Byron Dorgan of North Dakota (the senior Democrat on the committee now investigating the Abramoff affair), and Congressman Dale Kildee of Michigan.

Previous press accounts have noted that House Speaker Dennis Hastert of Illinois, a Republican, and the leading Democrat in the Senate, Minority Leader Harry Reid, received substantial campaign contributions from groups directed by Abramoff, most of them Indian tribes seeking congressional favors for their casino gambling operations.

While some of these contributions went to leading Democrats, particularly members of the Indian Affairs committees of both houses, the bulk of the cash went to the Republicans�both because they had the deciding role, as the majority party in both houses, and because Abramoff built his lobbying empire on his longstanding ties to top Republican figures like DeLay, chief Bush political aide Karl Rove, anti-tax lobbyist Grover Norquist and Ralph Reed, former head of the Christian Coalition.

When Abramoff was president of the National College Republicans in the mid-1980s, his two top deputies were Norquist and Reed. All three went on to prominent positions in far-right politics. Abramoff turned to lobbying for the Nicaraguan contras and anti-communist terrorist groups in southern Africa, and then, especially after the Republican takeover of Congress in 1994, to lobbying for commercial and business interests.

With the installation of the Bush administration, the well-connected Republican lobbyist could virtually name his price for influence-peddling, and he rapidly became a multi-millionaire wheeler-dealer, representing, among other companies, Tyco International and Unisys Corp.

The essential mechanism of Abramoff�s operations, as detailed in press accounts and Senate hearings over the past 18 months, was to plunder the extensive lobbying funds provided by Indian tribes with lucrative gambling operations. Abramoff directed much of these funds to Scanlon, who left DeLay�s office in 2000 to set up a publicity firm in Washington to cash in on his high-level Republican connections. Scanlon then kicked back half the profits secretly to Abramoff.

From 2001 to 2004, according to documents filed in federal court in Washington DC, Abramoff and Scanlon together raked in some $82 million in payments from the Indian tribes. Scanlon himself billed four Indian tribes $53 million during this period, while kicking back $19 million under the table to Abramoff.

The 35-year-old Scanlon, who was still paying off college loans from his congressional staff salary in 1999, became a millionaire overnight, buying several million dollars in beachfront property in Delaware shortly after going into business for himself. Five years later, even after agreeing to $19 million in restitution to the tribes, according to one press account, he still retains significant personal wealth.

Abramoff manipulated the Native American tribes, using his influence with Christian fundamentalist groups opposed to gambling in order to extract what amounted to political protection money. In the most notorious case, Abramoff mobilized the Christian fundamentalists to spike the bid of a smaller Indian tribe to establish a casino that would have undercut the profits of his clients, the Louisiana band of Coushatta Indians.

The Coushattas hired Abramoff and Scanlon to shut down a casino run by the Jena band, another Louisiana tribe, at Livingston, Texas, on the Texas-Louisiana border. At Abramoff�s direction, the Coushattas funneled money to various Republican political action committees and conservative groups, including two campaign committees run by DeLay, ARMPAC and TRMPAC.

Abramoff and Scanlon used Ralph Reed as their contact with Christian right groups and also contacted John Cornyn, then the Texas attorney general, now a US Senator, seeking legal action to block the Jena casino. Reed organized a group of 50 pastors to meet with Cornyn. He subsequently told Abramoff in an e-mail, �We have also choreographed Cornyn�s response. The AG will state that the law is clear... and pledge to take swift action to enforce the law.� The ministers were reportedly unaware that their moral outrage at gambling was being used to aid one gambling interest against another.

Even more brazen was the effort of Abramoff and Scanlon to funnel millions of dollars through Reed for a campaign to shut down the El Paso, Texas casino run by the Tigua tribe. After the casino was shut down, Abramoff and Scanlon induced the Tiguas to hire them to wage a campaign to allow the casino�s reopening. Although the Tiguas paid out millions, however, this effort failed.

Abramoff and Scanlon discussed their devious operations in language of unvarnished cynicism, as revealed in e-mail exchanges made public by the Senate Indian Affairs Committee. In one memo to Abramoff, Scanlon wrote, referring to the Christian fundamentalists: �The wackos get their information through the Christian right, Christian radio, mail, the internet and telephone trees. Simply put, we want to bring out the wackos to vote against something and make sure the rest of the public lets the whole thing slip past them.�

This could serve as a crude but nonetheless telling summary of the entire political strategy of the Bush administration: mobilize the �wackos� while keeping everyone else in the dark.

While there has been substantial media publicity over Abramoff�s gulling of the Indian tribes, the Republican lobbyist has been indicted so far only in an unrelated case of business swindling in south Florida, when he and an associate took control of SunCruz, a cruise line that offered gambling tours, using allegedly fraudulent financial information and bad checks.

With Scanlon�s testimony, however, an indictment for swindling the Indian tribes could be forthcoming shortly. The most recent Wall Street Journal and Washington Post accounts reveal that the Justice Department task force looking into the influence-peddling cases has grown to 35-40 people, suggesting that multiple high-level criminal cases could be brought.

Particularly ominous, from the standpoint of targeted congressmen, is the prospect that criminal bribery charges could be brought over campaign contributions, even though the cash did not go directly into the congressmen�s pockets, but to finance their reelection efforts. The whole purpose of the elaborate Federal Election Commission ritual has been to legalize the escalating financial subsidies from corporate interests to legislators.

One of Abramoff�s favorite tactics was to hire the wives of congressional staffers or of the congressmen themselves, providing what amounted to a direct payoff under the cover of employment. One Abramoff-linked company, Alexander Strategy Group, run by former DeLay staffers Edwin Buckham and Tony Rudy, hired Christine DeLay, the congressman�s wife, �to determine the favorite charity of every member of Congress,� according to a Washington Post account. This not terribly complex job�presumably 435 phone calls would have sufficed�resulted in payments to Christine DeLay of $3,200 to $3,400 a month for three years, for a total of $115,000. The DeLays� family lawyer, Richard Cullen, told the Post, �It wasn�t like she did this 9 to 5, but it was an ongoing project. This was something that she found to be very interesting, very challenging and very worthwhile.�

As the criminal information published by the Justice Department in connection with Scanlon�s guilty plea states, the contributions to the congressional campaign funds as well as personal gifts, such as Super Bowl tickets, vacation trips, and expensive restaurant meals, were �in exchange for a series of official acts.� These included passing legislation, agreeing to put statements into the Congressional Record, contacting federal officials to influence decisions, meeting with Abramoff�s clients, and awarding contracts for improvements in congressional office buildings.

While the Republican lobbyist has so far only been indicted in the Florida case, and has not yet been convicted of any crime, the details flooding out into the media demonstrate the extraordinarily corrupt alliance of Christian fundamentalists, Jewish ultra-Zionists, anti-tax zealots and rabid neo-conservative ideologues in the service of corporate America.

The scandal�the word is unavoidable but inadequate, since it is here describing the rule, not the exception, in today�s Washington�reaches into the highest rungs of the Republican Party leadership and the Bush administration. DeLay, forced to step down as House Majority Leader after his indictment on an unrelated political corruption case in Texas, is the first top-level casualty. He once described Abramoff as �one of my closest and dearest friends.�

A mid-level White House official, David Safavian, chief procurement officer at the Executive Office and previously chief of staff at the General Services Administration, was indicted last month on charges that he lied to federal investigators about a junket he took with Abramoff, Reed and Congressman Ney to Scotland.

There may well be further White House reverberations. According to documents released November 9, Abramoff sought a $9 million payment from the West African nation of Gabon to arrange a meeting with President Bush. Abramoff asked for the money to be paid through wire transfers to a company he controlled privately, rather than to the lobbying firm of Greenberg Traurig, where he was then employed. President Omar Bongo met with Bush in the Oval Office 10 months later, but there has as yet been no confirmation that he either made the payment to Abramoff or received the invitation in return. White House officials denied any connection, claiming that the Bongo visit was �part of the president�s outreach to the continent of Africa.�

LAX Pilot Says Mystery Missile Fired at Jetliner

2005-12-02T07:01:00.000-08:00

Pilot Reports 'Missile' Fired at Jetliner Near LAX (11/28/05) FBI agents and Homeland Security officials spent the weekend investigating the report of a possible missile fired at an American Airlines plane taking off from Los Angeles International Airport. Sources tell ABC News the pilot of American Airlines Flight 621, en route to Chicago, radioed air traffic controllers after takeoff from LAX. He told them a missile had been fired at the aircraft and missed.

The plane was over water when the pilot said he saw a smoke trail pass by the cockpit.

FBI agents believe it was a flare or a bottle rocket, but say they may never know if that's what it actually was.

World Health Org Bans Hiring of Smokers

2005-12-02T06:54:00.000-08:00

This message was sent from: Surveillance Society. <http://www.parapolitics.info/phorum/read.php?f=35&i=438&t=438> ----------------------------------------------------------------

[img]http://images.google.com/images?q=tbn:fTz8kmwKkv8J:www.wilkinarts.com/pics_b/paintings/smkrguylg.jpg[/img] [img]http://images.google.com/images?q=tbn:55qqtTp_HaMJ:www.wilkinarts.com/pics_b/paintings/smkrldylg.jpg[/img] WHO puts a stop to the hiring of smokers By Andrew Jack in London

The World Health Organisation yesterday became the largest international employer to ban the hiring of smokers in an effort to promote its public health campaign against tobacco use.

In a memo circulated to its 8,000 staff this week, the WHO stressed that it had "a responsibility to ensure that this [its campaign] is reflected in all its work, including recruitment practices".

The move is an escalation of action taken against smokers. Several countries have introduced legislation banning smoking in pubs, restaurants and public places, while some employers ban smoking on their premises.

The WHO has taken the lead in the fight against tobacco, which it says kills 5m people a year.

Its job advertisements now carry the statement "WHO has a smoke-free environment and does not recruit smokers or other tobacco users". Applicants will be asked if they are smokers and if so, if they would continue to smoke if employed by the WHO.

The ban will not apply to existing WHO staff or those on temporary contracts who apply for permanent jobs for the next two years. But the agency said it was already offering programmes to help staff to stop smoking.

In the US, a number of employers have recently launched recruitment bans, driven by concern about rising health insurance premiums for smokers.

As a United Nations agency, the WHO has fewer employment constraints than many national companies. But in the UK and other countries, experts said there were no specific anti-discrimination clauses that protect smokers.

Simon Clark, director of Forest, a pro-smoking group, said: "This is very discriminatory. It could mean a loss of jobs for what is a perfectly legal habit."

Amanda Sandford, research manager at ASH, the UK anti-smoking lobby, said: "We don't think this is a very good way of tackling the issue." It was better to help people quit, she said.

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Students Find / Remove Camera in School Bathroom Now Face Suspension

2005-12-01T07:50:00.000-08:00

This message was sent from: Surveillance Society. <http://www.parapolitics.info/phorum/read.php?f=35&i=437&t=437> ----------------------------------------------------------------

Students Find / Remove Camera in School Bathroom Now Face Suspension [img]http://www.wltx.com/assetpool/images/051218106_georgia_cam_in_bathroom.gif[/img] A Jasper County mother says her 8th grade son found a video camera taping in the school bathroom this week. But now, he is the one in trouble.

Cindy Champion says her son, Mac Bedor, and a few of his friends took the camera out of the ceiling because they felt it violated their privacy. Champion says her son brought the camera home to show her that afternoon. She says when she contacted the Jasper County Comprehensive School, she found out high school principal, Howard Fore, put the camera there. She says Fore told her he put the camera in the boys' bathroom to catch students vandalizing. Champion says her son is now suspended for taking school property.

CINDY CHAMPION, MOTHER: "I had told the high school principal, Mr. Fore, that he needed to come up with another solution. That this wasn't appropriate. His response to me was he was going to continue to film."

Jasper County Superintendent, Jay Brinson, sent a faxed response to Eyewitness News. Brinson says high school principal, Howard Fore, placed the camera in the bathroom last Sunday to control vandalism. He says Fore put the camera there "to discover the identity of those doing the damage." Brinson says the principal did tell Cindy Champion that the camera would be installed again. But in his statement Brinson says, "The camera was not placed back in the restroom, and will not be placed back in the restroom."

Eyewitness News tried to contact the Ocmulgee Circuit District Attorney about the legality of placing hidden cameras in public school rest rooms. He covers that area. Eyewitness News was not able to get in touch with him. But, Eyewitness News did talk with Bibb County District Attorney, Howard Simms. He says cameras in public school bathrooms are legal because schools have more leeway on privacy issues.

Compare this story to this recent similar Central Texas story and other past articles covered by ParaPolitics.info:

Superintendent Resigns After Camera Found in Bathroom by BRYCEVILLE-EDDY / Nov 22, 2005, 02:56 PM CST

The Bruceville-Eddy school district superintendent has resigned -- five days after his arrest for allegedly hiding a camera in a women's restroom.

Dan Doyen allegedly planted the secret video camera in the women's restroom in the school administration building.

Monday night, the school board met for 15 minutes before accepting Doyen's resignation. Trustees named intermediate school principal Gary Herbert to be interim superintendent at least until the end of the school year.

Doyen remains free on bail after his arrest last week on charges of improper photography or visual recording.

The crime is punishable by up to two years in a state jail.

Board President David Duty says Doyen will receive his annual salary of $87,500 through the end of June. Doyen had been under contract through June 2008.

Bryceville-Eddy is about 20 miles south of Waco.

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Ohio man files $1.5M suit against Marriott: Hidden camera found in bathroom 10-30-02

25 September 2002, Ohio, USA: "Ohio man files $1.5M suit against Marriott: Hidden camera found in bathroom," by Randy Kenner, News-Sentinel staff writer. An Ohio man filed a $1.5 m

Total Violation of Police Privacy: Cameras Discovered in Police Locker Room 09-27-04

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U.S. Military Covertly Pays to Run Stories in Iraqi Press

2005-11-30T09:26:00.000-08:00

This message was sent from: Ministry of DisInformation. <http://www.parapolitics.info/phorum/read.php?f=32&i=245&t=245> ----------------------------------------------------------------

U.S. Military Covertly Pays to Run Stories in Iraqi Press Troops write articles presented as news reports. Some officers object to the practice. by Mark Mazzetti and Borzou Daragahi [img]http://images.google.com/images?q=tbn:JPRdCi1tzooJ:news.bbc.co.uk/media/images/40490000/jpg/_40490863_baghdad_2ap300.jpg[/img] WASHINGTON � As part of an information offensive in Iraq, the U.S. military is secretly paying Iraqi newspapers to publish stories written by American troops in an effort to burnish the image of the U.S. mission in Iraq.

The articles, written by U.S. military "information operations" troops, are translated into Arabic and placed in Baghdad newspapers with the help of a defense contractor, according to U.S. military officials and documents obtained by the Los Angeles Times.

Many of the articles are presented in the Iraqi press as unbiased news accounts written and reported by independent journalists. The stories trumpet the work of U.S. and Iraqi troops, denounce insurgents and tout U.S.-led efforts to rebuild the country.

Though the articles are basically factual, they present only one side of events and omit information that might reflect poorly on the U.S. or Iraqi governments, officials said. Records and interviews indicate that the U.S. has paid Iraqi newspapers to run dozens of such articles, with headlines such as "Iraqis Insist on Living Despite Terrorism," since the effort began this year.

The operation is designed to mask any connection with the U.S. military. The Pentagon has a contract with a small Washington-based firm called Lincoln Group, which helps translate and place the stories. The Lincoln Group's Iraqi staff, or its subcontractors, sometimes pose as freelance reporters or advertising executives when they deliver the stories to Baghdad media outlets.

The military's effort to disseminate propaganda in the Iraqi media is taking place even as U.S. officials are pledging to promote democratic principles, political transparency and freedom of speech in a country emerging from decades of dictatorship and corruption.

It comes as the State Department is training Iraqi reporters in basic journalism skills and Western media ethics, including one workshop titled "The Role of Press in a Democratic Society." Standards vary widely at Iraqi newspapers, many of which are shoestring operations.

Underscoring the importance U.S. officials place on development of a Western-style media, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on Tuesday cited the proliferation of news organizations in Iraq as one of the country's great successes since the ouster of President Saddam Hussein. The hundreds of newspapers, television stations and other "free media" offer a "relief valve" for the Iraqi public to debate the issues of their burgeoning democracy, Rumsfeld said.

The military's information operations campaign has sparked a backlash among some senior military officers in Iraq and at the Pentagon who argue that attempts to subvert the news media could destroy the U.S. military's credibility in other nations and with the American public.

"Here we are trying to create the principles of democracy in Iraq. Every speech we give in that country is about democracy. And we're breaking all the first principles of democracy when we're doing it," said a senior Pentagon official who opposes the practice of planting stories in the Iraqi media.

The arrangement with Lincoln Group is evidence of how far the Pentagon has moved to blur the traditional boundaries between military public affairs � the dissemination of factual information to the media � and psychological and information operations, which use propaganda and sometimes misleading information to advance the objectives of a military campaign.

The Bush administration has come under criticism for distributing video and news stories in the United States without identifying the federal government as their source and for paying American journalists to promote administration policies, practices the Government Accountability Office has labeled "covert propaganda."

Military officials familiar with the effort in Iraq said much of it was being directed by the "Information Operations Task Force" in Baghdad, part of the multinational corps headquarters commanded by Army Lt. Gen. John R. Vines. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were critical of the effort and were not authorized to speak publicly about it.

A spokesman for Vines declined to comment for this article. A Lincoln Group spokesman also declined to comment.

One of the military officials said that, as part of a psychological operations campaign that has intensified over the last year, the task force also had purchased an Iraqi newspaper and taken control of a radio station, and was using them to channel pro-American messages to the Iraqi public. Neither is identified as a military mouthpiece.

The official would not disclose which newspaper and radio station are under U.S. control, saying that naming them would put their employees at risk of insurgent attacks.

U.S. law forbids the military from carrying out psychological operations or planting propaganda through American media outlets. Yet several officials said that given the globalization of media driven by the Internet and the 24-hour news cycle, the Pentagon's efforts were carried out with the knowledge that coverage in the foreign press inevitably "bleeds" into the Western media and influences coverage in U.S. news outlets.

"There is no longer any way to separate foreign media from domestic media. Those neat lines don't exist anymore," said one private contractor who does information operations work for the Pentagon.

Daniel Kuehl, an information operations expert at National Defense University at Ft. McNair in Washington, said that he did not believe that planting stories in Iraqi media was wrong. But he questioned whether the practice would help turn the Iraqi public against the insurgency.

"I don't think that there's anything evil or morally wrong with it," he said. "I just question whether it's effective."

One senior military official who spent this year in Iraq said it was the strong pro-U.S. message in some news stories in Baghdad that first made him suspect that the American military was planting articles.

"Stuff would show up in the Iraqi press, and I would ask, 'Where the hell did that come from?' It was clearly not something that indigenous Iraqi press would have conceived of on their own," the official said.

Iraqi newspaper editors reacted with a mixture of shock and shrugs when told they were targets of a U.S. military psychological operation.

Some of the newspapers, such as Al Mutamar, a Baghdad-based daily run by associates of Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Chalabi, ran the articles as news stories, indistinguishable from other news reports. Before the war, Chalabi was the Iraqi exile favored by senior Pentagon officials to lead post-Hussein Iraq.

Others labeled the stories as "advertising," shaded them in gray boxes or used a special typeface to distinguish them from standard editorial content. But none mentioned any connection to the U.S. military.

One Aug. 6 piece, published prominently on Al Mutamar's second page, ran as a news story with the headline "Iraqis Insist on Living Despite Terrorism." Documents obtained by The Times indicated that Al Mutamar was paid about $50 to run the story, though the editor of the paper said he ran such articles for free.

Nearly $1,500 was paid to the independent Addustour newspaper to run an Aug. 2 article titled "More Money Goes to Iraq's Development," the records indicated. The newspaper's editor, Bassem Sheikh, said he had "no idea" where the piece came from but added the note "media services" on top of the article to distinguish it from other editorial content.

The U.S. military-written articles come in to Al Mutamar, the newspaper run by Chalabi's associates, via the Internet and are often unsigned, said Luay Baldawi, the paper's editor in chief.

"We publish anything," he said. "The paper's policy is to publish everything, especially if it praises causes we believe in. We are pro-American. Everything that supports America we will publish."

Yet other Al Mutamar employees were much less supportive of their paper's connection with the U.S. military. "This is not right," said Faleh Hassan, an editor. "It reflects the tragic condition of journalists in Iraq. Journalism in Iraq is in very bad shape."

Ultimately, Baldawi acknowledged that he, too, was concerned about the origin of the articles and pledged to be "more careful about stuff we get by e-mail."

After he learned of the source of three paid stories that ran in Al Mada in July, that newspaper's managing editor, Abdul Zahra Zaki, was outraged, immediately summoning a manager of the advertising department to his office.

"I'm very sad," he said. "We have to investigate."

The Iraqis who delivered the articles also reaped modest profits from the arrangements, according to sources and records.

Employees at Al Mada said that a low-key man arrived at the newspaper's offices in downtown Baghdad on July 30 with a large wad of U.S. dollars. He told the editors that he wanted to publish an article titled "Terrorists Attack Sunni Volunteers" in the newspaper.

He paid cash and left no calling card, employees said. He did not want a receipt. The name he gave employees was the same as that of a Lincoln Group worker in the records obtained by The Times. Although editors at Al Mada said he paid $900 to place the article, records show that the man told Lincoln Group that he gave more than $1,200 to the paper.

Al Mada is widely considered the most cerebral and professional of Iraqi newspapers, publishing investigative reports as well as poetry.

Zaki said that if his cash-strapped paper had known that these stories were from the U.S. government, he would have "charged much, much more" to publish them.

According to several sources, the process for placing the stories begins when soldiers write "storyboards" of events in Iraq, such as a joint U.S.-Iraqi raid on a suspected insurgent hide-out, or a suicide bomb that killed Iraqi civilians.

The storyboards, several of which were obtained by The Times, read more like press releases than news stories. They often contain anonymous quotes from U.S. military officials; it is unclear whether the quotes are authentic.

"Absolute truth was not an essential element of these stories," said the senior military official who spent this year in Iraq.

One of the storyboards, dated Nov. 12, describes a U.S.-Iraqi offensive in the western Iraqi towns of Karabilah and Husaybah.

"Both cities are stopping points for foreign fighters entering Iraq to wage their unjust war," the storyboard reads.

It continues with a quote from an anonymous U.S. military official: " 'Iraqi army soldiers and U.S. forces have begun clear-and-hold operations in the city of Karabilah near Husaybah town, close to the Syrian border,' said a military official once operations began."

Another storyboard, written on the same date, describes the capture of an insurgent bomb-maker in Baghdad. "As the people and the [Iraqi security forces] work together, Iraq will finally drive terrorism out of Iraq for good," it concludes.

It was unclear whether those two storyboards have made their way into Iraqi newspapers.

A debate over the Pentagon's handling of information has raged since shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks.

In 2002, the Pentagon was forced to shut down its Office of Strategic Influence, which had been created the previous year, after reports surfaced that it intended to plant false news stories in the international media.

For much of 2005, a Defense Department working group has been trying to forge a policy about the proper role of information operations in wartime. Pentagon officials say the group has yet to resolve the often-contentious debate in the department about the boundaries between military public affairs and information operations.

Lincoln Group, formerly known as Iraqex, is one of several companies hired by the U.S. military to carry out "strategic communications" in countries where large numbers of U.S. troops are based.

Some of Lincoln Group's work in Iraq is very public, such as an animated public service campaign on Iraqi television that spotlights the Iraqi civilians killed by roadside bombs planted by insurgents.

Besides its contract with the military in Iraq, Lincoln Group this year won a major contract with U.S. Special Operations Command, based in Tampa, to develop a strategic communications campaign in concert with special operations troops stationed around the globe. The contract is worth up to $100 million over five years, although U.S. military officials said they doubted the Pentagon would spend the full amount of the contract.

Published on Wednesday, November 30, 2005 by Los Angeles Times

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Feds to Fund Controversial School Surveillance

2005-11-30T07:50:00.000-08:00

This message was sent from: Surveillance Society. <http://www.parapolitics.info/phorum/read.php?f=35&i=436&t=436> ----------------------------------------------------------------

Feds to Fund Controversial School Surveillance by Catherine Komp [img]http://www.parapolitics.info/images/moving-camera.gif[/img] In what some allege is a thinly veiled attempt to normalize surveillance, a federal agency is pumping more money into Big Brother programs that track students despite declining needs for school security.

Nov 29 - As debate over government surveillance rages in adult society, the US Department of Justice is quietly enticing school districts to implement controversial technologies that monitor and track students. Critics fear these efforts will normalize electronic surveillance at an early age, conditioning young people to accept privacy violations while creating a market for companies that develop and sell surveillance systems.

A few of the nation's schools are already running pilot programs to monitor students' movements using radio frequency identification (RFID). The highly controversial programs, implemented in the name of student protection, see pupils wearing tags around their necks and submitting themselves to electronic scanning as they enter and leave school property. Now, a new federal grant could lure more districts into using these or similar technologies.

Even though school violence is at its lowest rate in a decade, according to the federal government's own statistics, the Justice Department's "School Safety Technologies" grants will be distributed to schools that develop proposals in four broadly defined areas: integrated physical security systems, bus-fleet monitoring systems, low-level force devices and school safety training.

In its call for the grant proposals, the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) � an arm of the Justice Department � says the money will be distributed to schools proposing "effective technology solutions to protect the students, teachers, school personnel, and the educational infrastructure from criminal activities, particularly crimes of violence."

The NIJ states that the current systems used in schools are costly, invasive, labor intensive, and "objectionable to various segments of the community." The Department's vision for improvements are "integrated physical security systems," which would include "non-obtrusive sensors" to detect drugs and weapons, as well as to track students, staff, visitors, and intruders on school grounds. It also asks applicants to develop systems that enable law enforcement personnel to track the time and place that students enter and exit school buses.

In one of the more controversial areas of the grant solicitation, the NIJ states that "non-cooperative" identification and tracking is preferred over a "cooperative" system. A non-cooperative identification system captures and tracks personal or biometric data automatically, without a person knowing that they have been screened by a surveillance system.

Catherine Sanders, a spokesperson with the NIJ, would not elaborate on the specific technology that could be proposed to qualify for the grant money. She said doing so would create an uneven playing field for applicants. However, the types of technology solutions described by the NIJ are similar to RFID surveillance and biometric data programs. Companies that manufacture these products often describe "cooperative and non-cooperative tracking" components of their systems.

Maximum-security Schools Such technologies have already been implemented in some school districts. North of Houston, Texas, 16,000 elementary students in the Spring Independent School District wear RFID tags, embedded with chips that indicate their locations on a computerized map. The school also has 750 surveillance cameras mounted throughout its facilities, with plans to install 300 more.

In New York, RFID systems are also being used in schools. The Brockport Central School District in northern New York is testing school bus fleet monitoring with GPS technology and scanning students IDs as they enter and exit the bus. Students at the Enterprise Charter School in Buffalo wave their RFID tags in front of two kiosks at the school entrance which automatically transmit attendance to teachers and administrators.

The use of RFID tracking technology in schools is troubling to electronic privacy advocates. They say it further compromises the already minimal civil rights of students while reinforcing a demeaning environment that erodes trust and respect between young people and adults.

Lee Tien, senior staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a public-interest organization, believes the increasing use of RFID technology in schools could affect how the public views surveillance.

"It creates an atmosphere where you normalize the use of surveillance technology� [and] the idea that you should accept that you are being tracked," said Tien.

Katherine Albrecht, director of the group Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering (CASPIAN) and author of Spychips : How Major Corporations and Government Plan to Track Your Every Move with RFID, is also concerned about technological surveillance in schools. She says RFID companies are targeting captive audiences with their products.

"They're going for prisons, they're going for the schools; they're going for the military; they're going for the people who are not in a position to say 'no'," Albrecht told The NewStandard. "And who is less in a position to say 'no' than a child? I think it's absolutely unconscionable, absolutely unethical."

The NIJ also asks grant applicants to develop proposals for "low-level force devices."

New York City Detective Kevin Czartorysky says low-level force, or non-lethal devices currently used by law enforcement include batons, mace, pepper spray, beanbag launchers, and Taser electroshock weapons. However, he adds that these devices would likely draw sharp criticism if used in schools.

The NIJ says candidate weapons should be "inherently safe, causing no long-term or permanent injury" and "should also not engender objection from the public, the media or government."

The Safest Place to Be While school administrators justify the use of RFID and other high-tech systems to protect children and facilities, some question whether more security in schools is even necessary.

Frank Zimring, a University of California at Berkley law professor and author of several books on youth violence, says that whether adolescents are rich or poor, school is the safest place they can be.

Indeed, crime in school has been falling since the early 1990s. According to information released by the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics in late November, one percent of students reported being a victim of violence in school. Between July 2001 and June 2002, there were seventeen homicides and five suicides on school property for school-aged youth in the United States between the ages of five and 19. The study also found declining rates of school fights, lower percentages of students bringing weapons to school and less overall fear at school.

"If you try to create too much security in a school setting, you're going to make it a branch of the law enforcement enterprise instead of a branch of the educational enterprise," said Zimring.

Federal Government and RFID The government's use of RFID technology is expanding. The US government has used RFID technology in Department of Defense for more than two decades, and this year, the Department of Homeland Security started a pilot program to track immigrants by putting RFID chips in visas.

But the money flows both ways. Accenture, a global consulting and technology company that specializes in RFID, was the top business services contributor during the 2004 election cycle, with its owners and employees giving approximately $778,589 to federal candidates, 69 percent of which went to Republicans, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. And Deloitte & Touche, a global accounting and consulting company that helps companies implement RFID technologies, gave more than $2.2 million to candidates in the 2004 cycle, 71 percent to Republicans.

An explanation for the increasing use of RFID technology by federal bodies could be found in a government document discovered by CASPIAN, the RFID watchdog group � and it may have less to do with actual need than with supporting the private interests that support politicians. A December 2004 bulletin from the General Services Administration, which manages federal purchasing, encourages agencies "to consider action that can be taken to advance the industry by demonstrating the long-term intent of the agency to adopt RFID technological solutions."

In a statement released shortly after the bulletin was discovered, Albrecht criticized the government for finding "excuses to purchase and promote controversial technology at taxpayers' expense."

The deadline for the federal "School Safety Technologies" grant applications was November 25, and the full review and approval process takes six to eight months. NIJ spokesperson Sanders would not say how much funding will be made available or disclose the number of proposals received.

Meanwhile, Tien and Albrecht continue to raise awareness about what they see as the dangers of tracking technology and the lowering threshold for permissible government surveillance.

"The burden of proof is no longer on someone who wants to institute surveillance, but rather on those who object to it," Tien told TNS with regret. "And I think that's a big change in the way people look at social privacy."

Albrecht believes that today's adults � as members of the last generations to enjoy privacy and anonymity � have a huge responsibility in fighting for responsible uses of technology. "If a generation of school children grows up accepting as perfectly normal the idea that someone would and should be able to watch and keep track of where you are, as adults those people are going to have no concept whatsoever of the kind of privacy that you and I take for granted," said Albrecht. "And that would be a huge loss."

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Arvada woman said 'no' at Federal Center while on public bus

2005-11-29T07:52:00.000-08:00

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Refusal to present ID sparks test of rights Arvada woman said 'no' at Federal Center while on public bus By Karen Abbott, Rocky Mountain News [img]http://mas.scripps.com/DRMN/2005/11/29/432752127-_o.jpg[/img] Maria J. �Vila - Deborah Davis, of Arvada, visits the Denver office of attorney Gail Johnson. Federal prosecutors are reviewing whether to pursue charges against Davis, who refused to show identification to officers at the Federal Center in Lakewood while she was riding a public bus to work at another location. She was ticketed Sept. 26.

Federal prosecutors are reviewing whether to pursue charges against an Arvada woman who refused to show identification to federal police while riding an RTD bus through the Federal Center in Lakewood.

Deborah Davis, 50, was ticketed for two petty offenses Sept. 26 by officers who commonly board the RTD bus as it passes through the Federal Center and ask passengers for identification.

During the Thanksgiving weekend, an activist who has helped publicize other challenges to government ID requirements posted a Web site about the case, which he said had logged more than 1.5 million visitors by lunchtime Monday.

"The petty offense ticket was issued by police on the scene," Colorado U.S. attorney's spokesman Jeff Dorschner said Monday. "The status of the matter is now under review."

A decision on whether the government will pursue the case is expected in a week or two.

Davis said she commuted daily from her home in Arvada to her job at a small business in Lakewood, taking an RTD bus south on Kipling Street each morning from the recreation center in Wheat Ridge, where she left her car. She said the bus always passed through the Federal Center and some people got off there.

Guards at the Federal Center gate always boarded the bus and asked to see all passengers' identification, she said.

She said the guards just looked at the IDs and did not record them or compare them with any lists.

When she refused to show her ID, she said, officers with the Federal Protective Service removed her from the bus, handcuffed her, put her in the back of a patrol car and took her to a federal police station within the Federal Center, where she waited while officers conferred. She was subsequently given two tickets and released.

She said she arrived at work three hours late. She no longer has that job and did not identify her former employer.

The Federal Protective Service in Colorado referred inquiries to Carl Rusnok of Dallas, a spokesman for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which oversees the federal police. Both are part of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

Rusnok said the federal officers in Colorado told him the policy of checking the IDs of bus passengers and others entering the Federal Center began shortly after the April 1995 terrorist bombing of a federal building in Oklahoma City.

"It's one of the multiple forms of security," Rusnok said. "The identification is one means of making sure that, whoever comes on base, that you know that they are who they say they are.

"There are a variety of other means that bad people could take to circumvent that, but that's why there are multiple layers of security," he said.

Security 'high priority'

Between 7,000 and 8,000 people work at the Federal Center in Lakewood and between 2,000 and 2,500 people visit it every day, Rusnok said.

"Security to protect the employees and the visitors is a high priority," Rusnok said.

RTD spokesman Scott Reed said federal guards only check IDs of bus passengers when the Federal Center is on "heightened alert," which may not be known to the general public.

"It's periodic," Reed said.

"That is something we don't control," Reed said. "It is Federal Center property, and the federal security controls the ID-checking process. We try to cooperate as best we can and inform the public that this will occur."

Davis is to appear before a magistrate judge in Colorado U.S. District Court on Dec. 9.

"We don't believe the federal government has the legal authority to put Deborah Davis in jail, or even make her pay a fine, just because she declined the government's request for identification," said Mark Silverstein, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado, which has taken up the case.

"She was commuting to her job," Silverstein said. "She wasn't doing anything wrong. She wasn't even suspected of doing anything wrong."

"Passengers aren't required to carry passports or any other identification documents in order to ride to work on a public bus," he said.

Davis also is represented by volunteer attorneys Gail Johnson and Norm Mueller of the Denver law firm Haddon, Morgan, Mueller, Jordan, Mackey & Foreman, P.C. She also has the backing of Bill Scannell, an activist who has helped publicize other challenges to government requirements that people show identification. Scannell created a Web site during the Thanksgiving weekend about Davis' case: papersplease.org/Davis.

"This is just a basic American issue of what our country's all about," Scannell said. "It has nothing really to do with politics, and everything to do with what kind of country we want to live in."

'Rosa Parks'

Some supporters have called Davis "the Rosa Parks of the Patriot Act generation," a reference to the African-American woman who became a civil rights heroine after she refused to give up her seat on a public bus to a white man, Scannell said.

Davis said she showed her ID when a Federal Center guard asked to see it for the first couple of days she rode the RTD bus through the center. But it bothered her.

"It's wrong," she said Monday. "It's not even security. It's just a lesson in compliance - the big guys pushing the little guys around."

For a few subsequent days, she told the guards she wasn't getting off in the Federal Center and didn't have an ID. They let her stay on the bus.

Finally, on a Friday, a guard told Davis she had to have an ID the next time. Davis said she spent part of the weekend studying her rights and e-mailing Scannell.

That Monday, when a guard asked if she had her ID with her, Davis just said, "Yes."

"And he said, 'May I see it?' " she recalled, "and I said no."

The guard told her she had to leave the bus, but she refused. Two officers with the Federal Protective Service were called.

"I boarded the bus and spoke with the individual, Deborah N. Davis . . . asking why she was refusing," wrote the first Federal Protective Service officer in an incident report posted on Scannell's Web site. The officer was not identified.

"She explained she did not have to give up her rights and present identification," the officer wrote. "I informed her she was entering a federal facility and that the regulations for entrance did require her to present identification, before being allowed access."

"She became argumentative and belligerent at this time," the officer wrote.

Eventually, one officer said, "Grab her," and the two officers took hold of her arms and removed her from the bus, Davis said.

Davis has four children, including a 21-year-old son serving in Iraq with the Army and a 28-year-old son who is a Navy veteran. She has five grandchildren.

abbottk@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-892-5188

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Miami Police Take New Tack Against Terror; Vow 'Surprise' ID Sweeps

2005-11-29T06:49:00.000-08:00

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[img]http://us.news3.yimg.com/us.i2.yimg.com/p/rids/20051117/i/r1724626017.jpg[/img] Miami Police Take New Tack Against Terror; Vow 'Surprise' ID Sweeps By CURT ANDERSON / Associated Press Writer

MIAMI - Miami police announced Monday they will stage random shows of force at hotels, banks and other public places to keep terrorists guessing and remind people to be vigilant.

Deputy Police Chief Frank Fernandez said officers might, for example, surround a bank building, check the IDs of everyone going in and out and hand out leaflets about terror threats.

"This is an in-your-face type of strategy. It's letting the terrorists know we are out there," Fernandez said.

The operations will keep terrorists off guard, Fernandez said. He said al-Qaida and other terrorist groups plot attacks by putting places under surveillance and watching for flaws and patterns in security.

Police Chief John Timoney said there was no specific, credible threat of an imminent terror attack in Miami. But he said the city has repeatedly been mentioned in intelligence reports as a potential target.

Timoney also noted that 14 of the 19 hijackers who took part in the Sept. 11 attacks lived in South Florida at various times and that other alleged terror cells have operated in the area.

Both uniformed and plainclothes police will ride buses and trains, while others will conduct longer-term surveillance operations.

"People are definitely going to notice it," Fernandez said. "We want that shock. We want that awe. But at the same time, we don't want people to feel their rights are being threatened. We need them to be our eyes and ears."

Howard Simon, executive director of ACLU of Florida, said the Miami initiative appears aimed at ensuring that people's rights are not violated.

"What we're dealing with is officers on street patrol, which is more effective and more consistent with the Constitution," Simon said. "We'll have to see how it is implemented."

Mary Ann Viverette, president of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, said the Miami program is similar to those used for years during the holiday season to deter criminals at busy places such as shopping malls.

"You want to make your presence known and that's a great way to do it," said Viverette, police chief in Gaithersburg, Md. "We want people to feel they can go about their normal course of business, but we want them to be aware."

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Cali Congressman Cunningham Guilty of Bribes / Conspiracy

2005-11-28T14:41:00.000-08:00

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Calif. Congressman Admits Taking Bribes By ELLIOT SPAGAT / Associated Press Writer [img]http://www.breitbart.com/images/2005/11/28/D8E5M32OA/D8E5M32OA_preview.jpg[/img] SAN DIEGO - Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham pleaded guilty Monday to conspiracy and tax charges and tearfully resigned from office, admitting he took $2.4 million in bribes to steer defense contracts to conspirators.

Cunningham, 63, entered pleas in U.S. District Court to charges of conspiracy to commit bribery, mail fraud and wire fraud, and tax evasion for underreporting his income in 2004.

Cunningham answered "yes, Your Honor" when asked by U.S. District Judge Larry Burns if he had accepted bribes from someone in exchange for his performance of official duties.

Later, at a news conference, he wiped away tears as he announced his resignation.

"I can't undo what I have done but I can atone," he said.

Cunningham, an eight-term Republican congressman, had already announced in July that he would not seek re-election next year.

House Ethics rules say that any lawmaker convicted of a felony no longer should vote or participate in committee work. Under Republican caucus rules, Cunningham also would have lost his chairmanship of the House Intelligence subcommittee on terrorism and human intelligence.

The former Vietnam War flying ace was known on Capitol Hill for his interest in defense issues and his occasional temperamental outbursts.

After the hearing, Cunningham was taken away for fingerprinting and released on his own recognizance until a Feb. 27 sentencing hearing. He could receive up to 10 years in prison.

He also agreed to forfeit to the government his Rancho Santa Fe home, more than $1.8 million in cash and antiques and rugs.

In a statement, prosecutors said Cunningham admitted to receiving at least $2.4 million in bribes paid to him by several conspirators through a variety of methods, including checks totaling over $1 million, cash, rugs, antiques, furniture, yacht club fees and vacations.

"He did the worst thing an elected official can do _ he enriched himself through his position and violated the trust of those who put him there," U.S. Attorney Carol Lam said. The statement did not identify the conspirators.

The case began when authorities started investigating whether Cunningham and his wife, Nancy, used the proceeds from the $1,675,000 sale to defense contractor Mitchell Wade to buy the $2.55 million mansion in Rancho Santa Fe. Wade put the Del Mar house back on the market and sold it after nearly a year for $975,000 _ a loss of $700,000.

He drew little notice outside his San Diego-area district before the San Diego Union-Tribune reported last June that he'd sold the home to Wade.

Cunningham's pleas came amid a series of GOP scandals. Rep. Tom DeLay of Texas had to step down as majority leader after he was indicted in a campaign finance case; a stock sale by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist is being looked at by regulators; and Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff was indicted in the CIA leak case.

___

Associated Press reporter Erica Werner in Washington contributed to this report.

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Commuting By Bus In Denver? Papers, Please.

2005-11-28T10:38:00.000-08:00

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Commuting By Bus In Denver? Papers, Please. Next Stop: Big Brother [img]http://www.papersplease.org/davis/_img/buspass1.gif[/img] Will it come to this? The ID card above is satire, but how soon before it becomes reality? When honest, law-abiding citizens can't commute to work on a city bus without a demand for their "papers," something is very, very wrong.

Meet Deborah Davis. She's a 50 year-old mother of four who lives and works in Denver, Colorado. Her kids are all grown-up: her middle son is a soldier fighting in Iraq. She leads an ordinary, middle class life. You probably never would have heard of Deb Davis if it weren't for her belief in the U.S. Constitution.

One morning in late September 2005, Deb was riding the public bus to work. She was minding her own business, reading a book and planning for work, when a security guard got on this public bus and demanded that every passenger show their ID. Deb, having done nothing wrong, declined. The guard called in federal cops, and she was arrested and charged with federal criminal misdemeanors after refusing to show ID on demand.

On the 9th of December 2005, Deborah Davis will be arraigned in U.S. District Court in a case that will determine whether Deb and the rest of us live in a free society, or in a country where we must show "papers" whenever a cop demands them.

Commuting By Bus In Denver? Papers, Please.

DEB DAVIS LIKES to commute to work by public bus. She uses the time to read, crochet or pay bills. It's her quiet time. What with the high price of gas, she saves money, too: a week's worth of gas money gets her a month's worth of bus rides.

The bus she rides crosses the property of the Denver Federal Center, a collection of government offices such as the Veterans Administration, the U.S. Geological Survey, and part of the National Archives. The Denver Federal Center is not a high security area: it's not Area 51 or NORAD.

On her first day commuting to work by bus, the bus stopped at the gates of the Denver Federal Center. A security guard got on and demanded that all of the passengers on this public bus produce ID. She was surprised by the demand of the man in uniform, but she complied: it would have meant a walk of several miles if she hadn't. Her ID was not taken and compared to any "no-ride" list. The guard barely glanced at it.

When she got home, what had happened on the bus began to bother her. 'This is not a police state or communist Russia', she thought. From her 8th grade Civics class she knew there is no law requiring her, as an American citizen, to carry ID or any papers, much less show them to anyone on a public bus.

She decided she would no longer show her ID on the bus.

For the next two weeks she said had no ID. The guards would then ask her if she was getting off on Denver Federal Center property. When she told them 'no', they would let her alone: not once was she ever asked to get off the bus.

The Compliance Test

On Monday, September 26th 2005, Deb Davis headed off to work on the route 100 bus. When the bus got to the gates of the Denver Federal Center, a guard got on and asked her if she had an ID. She answered in the affirmative. He asked if he could see it. She said no.

When the guard asked why she wouldn't show her ID, Deb told him that she didn't have to do so. The guard then ordered her off the bus. Deb refused, stating she was riding a public bus and just trying to get to work.

The guard then went to call his supervisor, and returned shortly with a federal policeman. The federal cop then demanded her ID. Deb politely explained once again that she would not show her ID, and she was simply commuting to work. He left, returning shortly thereafter with a second policeman in tow.

The Second Compliance Test

This second cop asked the same question and got the same answer: no showing of ID, no getting off the bus.

The cop was also annoyed with the fact that she was on the phone with a friend and didn't feel like hanging up, even when he 'ordered' her to do so.

The second cop said everyone had to show ID any time they were asked by the police, adding that if she were in a Wal-Mart and was asked by the police for ID, that she would have to show it there, too.

She explained that she didn't have to show him or any other policeman my ID on a public bus or in a Wal-Mart. She told him she was simply trying to go to work.

The Arrest

Suddenly, the second policeman shouted "Grab her!" and he grabbed the cell phone from her and threw it to the back of the bus. With each of the policemen wrenching one of her arms behind her back, she was jerked out of her seat, the contents of her purse and book bag flying everywhere. The cops shoved her out of the bus, handcuffed her, threw her into the back seat of a police cruiser, and drove her to a police station inside the confines of the Denver Federal Center.

Once inside, she was taken down a hall and told to sit in a chair, still handcuffed, while one of the policemen went through her purse, now retrieved from the bus.

The two policemen sat in front of their computers, typing and conferring, trying to figure out what they should charge her with. Eventually, they wrote up several tickets, took her outside and removed the handcuffs, returned her belongings, and pointed her toward the bus stop. She was told that if she ever entered the Denver Federal Center again, she would go to jail.

She hasn't commuted by public bus since that day.

The Legal Case Deborah Davis' case is about one thing: the right to travel.

The reason why she was charged has absolutely nothing to do with security. The guard at the Denver Federal Center wasn't checking IDs against a 'no ride' list: there is no such thing. The demands made against Deb Davis were nothing more than a compliance test, a demand that she kowtow to officialdom. And lest we forget, having to show your ID is a search without a warrant.

The significance of Deb's case was readily apparent to the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado, who immediately arranged free legal representation. The first-rate legal team of ACLU volunteers Norman Mueller and Gail Johnson � attorneys from the prominent Colorado criminal defense firm of Haddon, Morgan, Mueller, Jordan, Mackey & Foreman, P.C. � are mounting a vigorous defense on Deborah Davis' behalf.

Deborah Davis responded to this compliance test in a way that would have made the Founding Fathers proud. She is being prosecuted for no reason other than being 'uppity' in the face of authority.

When Deb is arraigned in U.S. District Court on the 9th of December, she will most likely be charged with the following federal criminal misdemeanors: 41 CFR � 102-74.375 (Admission to Property) and 41 CFR � 102-74.385 (Conformity to Official Signs and Directions).

Through these charges, it appears that the Feds are claiming that people were on notice that they had to show ID. Nowhere is this evident, unless 'Public Welcome' flags are bureaucratese for 'Papers, please'. In addition, Deb wasn't even visiting the Denver Federal Center. That the public bus transits the facility isn't her fault. If the Center really is Denver's answer to Area 51, then public buses should be driving around � not through � the Center.

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PsiOps - Networks Prime Psychic Pump with 'End of America' TV PsyOp Series

2005-11-27T22:03:00.000-08:00

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DrudgeReport.com report: NETWORKS PLOT 'END OF AMERICA' TV SHOWS... [img][/img] The TV networks are getting edgier in their '06 pilot plans.

The nets have filled their development slates with a bevy of brave ideas and bold format experiments, VARIETY reports on Monday, including shows about THE END OF AMERICA! [img]http://media.teamxbox.com/games/boxart/1123180452.jpg[/img] [img]http://www.2kgames.com/templates/img/sunion_small.jpg[/img] ABC alone has at least two would-be shows set in post-apocalyptic America ("Resistance" and "Red & Blue") while Gavin Polone and Bruce Wagner are teaming for the comfy-sounding plague drama "Four Horsemen" at CBS (which also is developing "Jericho," about life in a small town after America is destroyed).

Says Fox exec VP Craig Erwich: "The creative community appears to be really inspired this year," he says. "It was an exciting time to be buying. I came away pretty encouraged about network TV."

Developing...

FLASHBACK: New Video Game Preparing Gamers for New American Civil War

Googling the "End of America"

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JFK/911 - There Will Be a Reckoning ... And it Will Be Terrible

2005-11-22T18:16:00.000-08:00

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JFK/911 - There Will Be a Reckoning ... And it Will Be Terrible [img]http://www.mackwhite.com/OswaldET.GIF[/img] Mack White dug up this foreboding quote from Jeff Well's excellent blog, Rigorous Intuition. Please click the link and read the whole article circa Sept. 2004.

America is well on its way to paying an apocalyptic price for not having gone there in the immediate aftermath of Kennedy's murder. The truth may have been too awful then, but in the 40 years since the crimes have only compounded, the lies become more fantastic, the cognitive dissonance more acute. The petro-fascist Cheney/Bush cabal would never have seized power if Kennedy's killers had been brought to justice, because they are Kennedy's killers, all in spirit and some in deed. Americans cannot forever ignore or excuse the CIA's perpetual tampering with the storehouse of their historical memory. There will be a reckoning for not going there, and it will be terrible...

Live with Regis and Harvey Lee

Thanks again to Mack White for the find and to Jeff Wells for his continuing efforts.

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Toll Collectors Get Body Armor

2005-11-22T14:56:00.000-08:00

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[img]http://www.parapolitics.info/images/RiotCopPics/BostonDNC/74.jpg[/img] Golden Gate Bridge toll collectors get body armor

Toll collectors at San Francisco's landmark Golden Gate Bridge have been issued body armor to guard against armed bandits.

"We did a review of safety procedures and added this tool to the toll box for collectors," bridge authority spokeswoman Mary Currie said Tuesday. "This is really the right thing to do."

The "bullet resistant" protective vests have been bought for all 42 toll collectors at a total cost of 21,000 dollars, Currie said.

Wearing vests is optional, but about half of the collectors have chosen to be protected while on duty. The vests are reportedly most popular with those working evenings or nights.

"The folks that are wearing them are pleased to have that added psychological edge," said Curry.

The spokeswoman said the Golden Gate Bridge is typically a friendly environment for toll takers, with some motorists giving them gifts of chocolates or flowers during the winter holiday season.

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Would the U.S. Terrorize Its Own People? Yes! Read Operation Northwoods

2005-11-22T10:48:00.000-08:00

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Would the U.S. Terrorize Its Own People? [img]http://images.google.com/images?q=tbn:INnaOSV37mEJ:www.mackwhite.com/white1.jpg[/img] [img]http://images.google.com/images?q=tbn:1ENyhKFUM6gJ:www.infowars.com/headline_photos/April/northwoods_cartoon2.gif[/img] [img]http://images.google.com/images?q=tbn:q4VPXZ-nbMoJ:www.mackwhite.com/white3.jpg[/img] [img]http://images.google.com/images?q=tbn:wZOc6o84TNkJ:www.asile.org/citoyens/numero13/northwoods/northwoods01.gif[/img] "This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when he first appears he is a protector." - Plato

"If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy." - U.S. President James Madison

"Terrorism is the best political weapon for nothing drives people harder than a fear of sudden death". - Adolph Hitler

"Why of course the people don't want war ... But after all it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship ... Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country." - Hermann Goering, Nazi leader.

"The easiest way to gain control of a population is to carry out acts of terror. [The public] will clamor for such laws if their personal security is threatened". - Josef Stalin

But could this happen in modern America? Initially, it is now fairly well-accepted that the Gulf of Tonkin Incident was a fabrication. See this article .

More importantly, official, recently declassified documents show that in the 1960's, the American Joint Chiefs of Staff signed off on a plan to blow up AMERICAN airplanes (using an elaborate plan involving the switching of airplanes), and also committing terrorist murders against U.S. citizens on American soil, and then blaming it on the Cubans in order to justify an invasion of Cuba. If you view no other links in this article, please read the following ABC news report ; the official documents ; and watch this interview with former Washington Investigative Producer for ABC's World News Tonight with Peter Jennings (click link entitled "Joint Chiefs Guilty-Northwoods").

But Al-Qaeda is different -- powerful, organized, and out to get us, right? Maybe, but take a look at this Los Angeles Times Article , reviewing a BBC documentary entitled "The Power of Nightmares".

And did you know that the FBI had penetrated the cell which carried out the 1993 world trade center bombing, but had -- at the last minute -- cancelled the plan to have its FBI infiltrator substitute fake power for real explosives, against the infiltrator's strong wishes (summary version is free; full version is pay-per-view)?

And did you know that the CIA is alleged to have met with Bin Laden two months before 9/11?

And did you see the statement by the CIA commander in charge of the capture that the U.S. LET Bin Laden escape from Afghanistan ?

And have you heard that the anthrax attacks -- which were sent along with notes purportedly written by Islamic terrorists -- used a weaponized anthrax strain from the top U.S. bioweapons facility, the Fort Detrick military base? Indeed, top bioweapons experts have stated that the anthrax attack may have been a CIA test "gone wrong" ; and see this article by a former NSA and naval intelligence officer . It is also interesting that the only congress people mailed anthrax-containing letters were key democrats, and that the attacks occurred one week before passage of the freedom-curtailing Patriot Act, which seems to have scared them and the rest of congress into passing that act without even reading it. And it might be coincidence, but White House staff began taking the anti-anthrax medicine before the Anthrax attacks occurred .

Even the threat of terror works, as shown by this brief essay showing that the administration issues terror alerts when its poll numbers go down .

If we do not learn our history, we are doomed to repeat it. See this article on the Reichstag fire , and this article on the perennial ploy of those grabbing power .

Indeed, many credible people are now warning that the U.S. government may very well use terror (again) on the American people:

On November 15th, the former associate editor of the Wall Street Journal and former Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury expressed his dire warning that the Neo-Cons in the Bush administration may be set to stage another terror attack in the US as part of a black operation to demolish growing dissent and coerce the public to rally behind the government once again .

Also in November, an allegedly leaked GOP memo touts a new terror attack as a way to reverse the party's decline .

In October, a retired 27-year CIA analyst who prepared and presented Presidential Daily Briefs and served as a high-level analyst for several presidents , stated that

if there was another major attack in the U.S., it would lead to martial law. He went on to say: "We have to be careful, if somebody does this kind of provocation, big violent explosions of some kind, we have to not take the word of the masters there in Washington that this was some terrorist event because it could well be a provocation allowing them, or seemingly to allow them to get what they want." The former CIA analyst would not put it past the government to "play fast and loose" with terror alerts and warnings and even events themselves in order to rally people behind the flag.

That same month, current U.S. Congressman Ron Paul stated that the government "is determined to have martial law", and that the government is hoping to get the people "fearful enough that they will accept the man on the white horse"

Also in October, the Former UN Weapons Inspector who stated before the Iraq war started that there were no weapons of mass destruction is now saying that he would not rule out staged government terror by the U.S. government .

And Daniel Ellsberg, the famous Pentagon Papers whistleblower, is now hinting at the same thing .

And a member of the British Parliament recently stated that "there is a very real danger" that the American government will stage a false flag terror attack in order to justify war against Iran and to gain complete control domestically .

Would the U.S. government terrorize its own people? Yes, unless we expose their tricks.

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PayolaPress-Newark City Council Awards 100k Dollar No-Bid Contract for Good News

2005-11-22T09:17:00.000-08:00

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Printing good news pays off for New Jersey newspaper By Mark Rutledge The Daily Reflector Saturday, October 29, 2005 [img]http://www.parapolitics.info/images/corruption.jpg[/img] [img]http://www.parapolitics.info/images/corruptiondev.gif[/img] People like to ask newspaper reporters, "Why don't you ever print any good news?" Some reporters like to answer that question with the age-old retort: "What do you expect for 50 cents?"

The Newark Weekly News, in Newark, N.J., has taken that response to an unprecedented level. The newspaper � a term used here in the broadest possible sense � recently was awarded a $100,000 no-bid contract by the Newark City Council to publish nothing but positive news about the city, according to The Associated Press.

The idea originated with the owner of the newspaper, Howard Scott. He presented the notion to the City Council, which unanimously approved the contract a few weeks ago.

Without "critical" or "investigative" reporters, Scott said, publishing only good news is the newspaper's niche.

Most newspapers used to print a motto in their page-one nameplate. The New York Times is famous for "All The News That's Fit To Print." The Atlanta Journal had "Covers Dixie Like The Dew."

If it doesn't already have one, the Newark Weekly News should borrow its motto from TV's Hee Haw: "May Your Pleasures Be Many, Your Troubles Be Few."

In its endeavor to print only positive stories about the happenings inside Newark city government, who decides when a particular bit of information is good news or bad news? The answer here might also borrow from Hee Haw and one of the show's classic comedy bits.

The Newark Weekly News city government reporter could pretend to be Roy Clark and the mayor could play Archie Campbell. Roy could visit Archie's barber chair once a week to determine what can or cannot be reported, based on the good-news-only contract.

Roy: What's the good news at city hall this week, mayor?

Archie: Well, the City Council and I just got back from a weeklong retreat with the National Organization of Public Entities.

Roy: NOPE?

Archie: Yep.

Roy: Well, that's good.

Archie: No, that's bad. The retreat was in Las Vegas.

Roy: That's bad.

Archie: No, that's good. The food was cheap, and the liquor was free as long as the council members kept gambling.

Roy: Oh, that's good.

Archie: No, that's bad. They gambled all night the first night and ran through half a million of the taxpayer's dollars.

Roy: That's bad.

Archie: No, that's good. With her last dollar, Councilwoman Mavis Potts hit a one-armed bandit for $2 million.

Roy: Say, that is good.

Archie: No, that's bad. She went straight over to one of them quickie-wedding chapels, married up with a Wayne Newton impersonator and headed for Mexico.

Roy: That's bad.

Archie: No, that's good. She split half her winnings with the rest of us before she and The Newton Illusion drove off, dragging a case of empty beer cans behind a rented limo.

Roy: That's good.

Archie: No, that's bad. Turns out The Newton Illusion was an undercover FBI agent investigating the council for misuse of public funds.

Roy: That's bad.

Archie: It gets worse. The FBI is holding the $2 million as evidence, we're all under indictment and I'm afraid there's no way to spin that one as good news in your newspaper. And that, indeed, is bad.

Roy: No, that's good. I think I've already got the headline for this week's good-news story.

Archie: What's that?

Roy: "Thank God we got our $100,000 in advance."

Mark Rutledge can be contacted at mrutledge@coxnc.com

Newark Pays Paper to Write Only Good News Oct 24, 2005 7:23 am US/Eastern

New Jersey's largest city is engaging in pay-to-praise journalism.

Newark is paying a newspaper 100-thousand dollars to publish positive stories about the city.

The no-bid contract was awarded to the Newark Weekly News. The city already advertises heavily in the paper.

The newspaper must generate stories based on leads from the city's public information office.

Newspaper owner Howard Scott tells The Star-Ledger of Newark he's providing a service much the same way as other newspapers print legal advertisements for municipalities.

The Daily Pollyanna: All the news that's sunny We say we want more positive news. A New Jersey city even pays a newspaper to print more of the good stuff. But is that really what we want - or need? By SUSAN ASCHOFF, Times Staff Writer Published November 7, 2005

Some days, it does seem all the news, printed and broadcast and blogged, is bad. Okay. We'll give you that.

A person tires of hearing about bullying hurricanes and car wrecks and politicians with a foot in their mouth and a hand in your pocket.

Wouldn't it be refreshing if all news was sweetness and light?

In Newark, N.J., one of the more tart U.S. cities in which to live, the City Council decided it is worth $100,000 a year to get good news to its citizens, contracting with a community newspaper to publish positive stories.

Ethicists cried foul: No reputable news outlet takes money for stories with a certain slant. The Project for Excellence in Journalism in Washington, D.C., says any time a news organization enters into an agreement with someone it covers, it's in "murky territory."

In fact, the publicity that ensued after the Oct. 12 Newark council vote on the deal with Legacy Media Group seemed to make everyone less, um, sweet. City Council President Donald Bradley did not return numerous phone calls. The city's communications manager did not communicate, nor did Newark mayor Sharpe James.

The publisher who got the no-bid contract talked.

"I found a niche that is needed," says Howard Scott, president and editor in chief of Legacy Media Group. "The city of Newark realizes it's important to get these stories out."

He says there is nothing questionable about his business deal with the city. He says he will still report what he chooses in the Newark Weekly News and Visions Metro Weekly, the 32-page free tab he started in 1995, which now prints 25,000 copies weekly.

"Why should I drop what I think is right just because you don't like it? You have no idea what this paper has done to help people," Scott says.

The daily Star-Ledger reports on drugs and prostitution and crime, he says. It fails to publicize that Newark is "a new Newark, a Newark in renaissance."

So what kind of story will Scott publish that the Star-Ledger will not?

He says he attended a United Way breakfast and saw a labor activist honored for his volunteer service. "I was there," Scott says. No one from the daily Star-Ledger, circulation 402,000, appeared to be.

Perhaps those other reporters were too busy figuring out why the city wants to spend more than $200-million on a hockey arena for the New Jersey Devils instead of services for residents whose median household income is barely $27,000.

"We've raised a lot of questions," says Star-Ledger managing editor Rick Everett. "We have a somewhat adversarial relationship with the city."

Critics call the paper the Star-Liar, Everett says. He will not call Visions a newspaper.

To be fair, there is a "longstanding view among the public that the press focuses on the negative too much," says Amy Mitchell, associate director at the Project for Excellence in Journalism.

In the 1990s, media across the country began to pay more attention to community news, Mitchell says. Newspapers created neighborhood sections to highlight everyday accomplishments, from military graduates to a new playground.

Consumers nationwide still complain that the press is just too darn negative. They answer surveys by saying they want positive stories, then list the sensational, macabre and sexually explicit when pinned down about which ones they actually read, watch or click on, according to the Project for Excellence in Journalism.

It is hard to put a sunny spin on everything. Here in Florida, reporting a hurricane warning is not good news. Perhaps telling people to get the heck out of the way is.

"Journalism is map-making," Mitchell says. The press needs to tell people about their community, both good and bad.

An October poll by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press found that the percentage of the public who view the federal government favorably has fallen 14 percent since last year. Business corporations are at their lowest level in two decades. The Department of Defense and political parties have also slid.

The news industry, though viewed positively by only 52 percent, was one of the rare institutions that did not slip further into disfavor.

Good news.

- Susan Aschoff can be reached at 727 892-2293 or aschoff@sptimes.com

Newark paying $100G for good news in weekly The Jersey Journal, NJ - Oct 25, 2005 ... The council has hired a fledgling newspaper called Newark Weekly News to publish "positive news" about the city - and will pay $100,000 over the next year for ...

Journalism For Sale At The Newark Weekly News NewsBusters - Oct 29, 2005 But now the Newark city council has awarded a $100,000 no-bid contract for the Newark Weekly News to publish only the good news about Newark and the city ...

Newark paying weekly newspaper to print only good news about city Ottawa Sun, Canada - Oct 24, 2005 The Newark City Council has awarded the Newark Weekly News a $100,000 US no-bid contract to publish positive news about the city. ...

Journalism for sale Freeport Journal Standard, IL - Nov 13, 2005 ... Memo to Newark Weekly News owner and �editor� Howard Scott: You are in the wrong business, my friend, and you are doing our profession and the cause of ...

To Publicize Its Good News, Newark Makes Deal With a Newspaper New York Times, United States - Oct 24, 2005 ... So, Ms. Purnell said, the city decided to team up with Visions Metro Weekly, also known as Newark Weekly News, to get "the good news out." The arrangement ...

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The End Of Habeas Corpus in Great Britain

2005-11-22T08:06:00.000-08:00

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The End Of Habeas Corpus in Great Britain by Jean-Claude Paye [img]http://images.google.com/images?q=tbn:DihOU32M2egJ:www.scr.org/season/04-05season/images/HCFinal.jpg[/img] The British Parliament adopted a new antiterrorist law, the Prevention of Terrorism Act, on March 11, 2005. By doing so, Parliament made it possible for the government to carry out the long-standing project of expanding the emergency provisions to which foreigners are subjected within the context of the war on terrorism to cover the whole population, including citizens. This change is important because it calls into question the notion of habeas corpus. The law attacks the formal separation of powers by giving to the secretary of state for home affairs judicial prerogatives. Further, it reduces the rights of the defense practically to nothing. It also establishes the primacy of suspicion over fact, since measures restricting liberties, potentially leading to house arrest, could be imposed on individuals not for what they have done, but according to what the home secretary thinks they could have done or could do. Thus, this law deliberately turns its back on the rule of law and establishes a new form of political regime.

The Prevention of Terrorism Act is a modification of Part Four of the Antiterrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001, specific provisions of which concerning detention of foreigners accused of terrorism expired on March 14, 2005.

The 2001 Antiterrorism, Crime and Security Act

The attacks of September 11, 2001, allowed the British government to force the urgent adoption of a new antiterrorist law, the Antiterrorism, Crime and Security Act, which was enacted on December 14, 2001. In comparison with the 2000 Terrorism Act, which is still in force, the 2001 legislation authorizes the indefinite detention, without an indictment, of a foreigner suspected of terrorist activities, just as in the United States. Article 21 allows indefinite incarceration based on a certificate issued by the secretary of state for home affairs. �The Secretary of State may issue a certificate under this section in respect of a person if the Secretary of State reasonably believes that (a) the person present in the United Kingdom is a risk to national security, and (b) suspects that the person is a terrorist.�1 No objective fact is necessary to justify the decision. The time limit for �conviction� is entirely subjective. The power of detention is effective until November 10, 2006.

The certificate issued by the home secretary permits the detention of the accused person within the terms of the Immigration Act of 1971, i.e., for the purpose of either expulsion or return to the country of origin. The possibility of detention for an indefinite period is necessary when expulsion is prevented by an international agreement or another reason. In this case, the person has a choice between remaining in indefinite detention in the United Kingdom or returning to his or her country of origin and being subjected there to a whole set of proceedings that are exceptional under the terms of international law. Most often, the countries of origin of the incarcerated persons are well known for their systematic violations of human rights. It is in these terms, moreover, that the debate was presented to Parliament.2 The foreigner suspected of terrorism by the English government thus enters into a global system of non-law in which every option is closed to him or her.

A Suspension of the Law

By permitting potentially unlimited detention, this act effectively suspends the law for all persons not having British citizenship or legal residence or not benefiting from the right of protection as refugees. Thus, the suspension of habeas corpus is less extensive than in the United States, where all foreigners are affected.

In order to pass this law, the British government instituted an exception to the European Convention on Human Rights. This exception is based on the notion of a state of emergency and is thus an exception to Article 5, Paragraph 1 of this convention, which guarantees the liberty of persons. According to Article 15 of the convention, exceptional measures must be limited strictly to the minimum necessary as required by the situation. As judged by the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC), this is not true of unlimited detention. The SIAC was created in order to assure some control over detentions. The law does not allow appeals to be made before this commission. That has not prevented the latter from ordering the release of nine out of the eleven detained under this law, the other two having chosen expulsion. The government reacted to the judgment by announcing its intention to resort to other procedures that would allow it to pursue incarceration. It has thus clearly announced that it does not intend to respect the judgment of a special commission that it established. The government appealed and the higher court fundamentally found in its favor on the question of discrimination between foreign nationals and British citizens.3

Suspension of the Law Questioned by the Law Lords

On December 22, 2004, the secretary-general of the Council of Europe demanded the immediate abrogation of the 2001 Terrorism Act: �Antiterrorist legislation in the United Kingdom must be changed immediately. We will not win the war on terrorism if we undermine the foundation of our democratic societies.�4 This position follows a decision reached by the Appeals Court of the House of Lords, the highest judicial body in Great Britain, on December 16, 2004, that considers the unlimited detention, without indictment and trial, of foreigners suspected of terrorist activities as illegal and contrary to the European Convention on Human Rights.5

The judgment resulted from a challenge made by the same nine detainees who had earlier, in July 2002, obtained a victory before the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC). However, they had seen their demand for release rejected once again in August 2004 by the Appeals Court in London.

None of the applicants is the subject of legal proceedings nor have any charges been filed. The appellants contest the legality of their detention, asserting that it is contrary to the obligations assumed by the United Kingdom with regard to the European Convention on Human Rights and thus with the Human Rights Act 1998, which integrates this convention into British law.

In its opinion, the Appeals Court of the House of Lords found in favor of the applicants. The judgment indeed recognizes that the 1971 Immigration Act provides the possibility of detaining an individual who is not a British citizen with the intention of proceeding with that individual�s extradition, but specifies that this law does not grant any mandate permitting a long or indefinite detention.

State of Emergency

The grounds for the decision clarify the opposition between the classic definition of the state of emergency, limited in time and objectively defined, defended by the Law Lords and the position of the government, which wants to implement an indefinite and unverifiable suspension of constitutional liberties. The decision stipulates that the indefinite incarceration authorized by the 2001 Terrorism Act, which would not be, moreover, the result of any judicial verdict, is indeed contrary to Article 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which guarantees the liberty of persons. At the same time, the decision invalidates the exception to this article instituted by the government. This exception refers to Article 15 of the convention that stipulates: �In time of war or other public emergency threatening the life of the nation, any High Contracting Party may take measures derogating from its obligations under this Convention to the extent strictly required by the exigencies of the situation....�

The court agreed with the argument presented by the applicants that the exceptions to Article 5, which are strictly limited to situations of war or emergency in which the life of the nation is threatened, are not applicable in the present situation. For the court, the state of emergency is limited in time. There must be an imminent danger or exceptional circumstances that must be objectively determined. Article 15 does not refer to the specific nature of the danger, but this question was treated by the European Court as a necessary condition of the suspension of Article 5. The Court quoted from the Siracusa Principles in this context: �The principle of strict necessity shall be applied in an objective manner. Each measure shall be directed to an actual, clear, present, or imminent danger and may not be imposed merely because of an apprehension of potential danger.�6

By returning to these basic principles, the Law Lords opposed the argument presented by the attorney general, for whom a situation of emergency is not necessarily temporary and can cover a considerable number of years. For him, it falls within the competence of the executive power to protect the population. He did �resist the imposition of any artificial temporal limit to an emergency of the present kind....�7 For the executive power, the question of the suspension of liberties is a purely political matter, in the narrow sense of the term. It is a matter for its own initiative and under the control of Parliament. As �it is the function of political and not judicial bodies to resolve political questions,�8 the question of the exception to the law must be outside the jurisdiction of various judicial authorities. The Law Lords opposed to this position the idea that the role of the courts consists of verifying the legality of the acts of various authorities. By doing this, the highest British judicial authority evoked the principle of separation of powers and did �not accept the full breadth of the Attorney General�s argument on what is generally called the deference owed by the courts to the political authorities.�9

The Prevention of Terrorism Bill

The decision of the Lords of Appeal is a simple opinion without constraining force. The government can choose not to take it into account. But in the end, the government concluded that taking the decision into consideration was a good occasion to legitimize the generalization of the emergency provisions to the whole population. The highest British court found that the indefinite detention, without indictment or trial, of foreigners suspected of terrorist activities is illegal and contrary to the European Convention on Human Rights.10 It also considered the distinction between foreigners and citizens as discriminatory.

A Generalized State of Exception

The Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005 appears to be non-discriminatory since it concerns British citizens as much as foreigners. By pushing the enactment of a modification to Part 4 of the Terrorism Act 2001, which allows the indefinite detention of foreigners without evidence or trial, the English prime minister succeeded in extending to British citizens a whole series of exceptional procedures that call into question the individual liberties of all Britons. Tony Blair appealed to fear in order to justify his project. He claimed: �The present law is called for by the police and security services. Voting it down would mean jeopardising the country�s security.�11

Tony Blair has been able to impose on the United Kingdom what George W. Bush has not succeeded in imposing on the United States, i.e., the possibility for the government to take measures that call into question the right of citizens to self-determination within the context of the war on terrorism. In the United States, the procedures that would extend to citizens the provisions of the Patriot Act that authorize imprisonment of indefinite duration, without charges or indictment, of any foreigner suspected of terrorism have not been adopted. The Bush administration has been unable to put the bill, known as Patriot II,12 on the Congressional agenda.

The End of Habeas Corpus

The Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005,13 passed on March 11, 2005, authorizes the home secretary to initiate control orders over a person, potentially leading to house arrest, when he has reasons to suspect that an individual is or was implicated in an action linked to terrorism. He would also be able to prohibit the use of a mobile telephone, limit access to the internet, prevent that person from having contacts with certain persons, oblige him or her to be at home at certain times, and authorize the police and special services to have access to his or her home at all hours. He also has the possibility of limiting access to employment or to an occupation. The list of fifteen control orders provided for by the law is not exhaustive and is only provided as a list of examples. The government has the possibility of indefinitely introducing new provisions that limit the freedom of movement of the persons concerned. If the latter do not respect these orders, they are liable for imprisonment. These provisions could be taken when the home secretary considers that the individual in question presents a danger to national security, but that the facts in his possession do not allow him to take the case before a court. Home Secretary Charles Clarke declared before Parliament that control orders could be taken �on the basis of an intelligence assessement provided by the Security Service (where) there are reasonable grounds for suspecting that an individual is, or has been, concerned with terrorism.�14

A Subjective Law

The justification for the decision to place a person under supervision is not found in objective facts, but in the suspicion that falls on that person or in the intention that is attributed to that person. Terrorist activity is defined as: �(a) the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism; (b) conduct which facilitates the commission, preparation or instigation of such acts, or which is intended to do so; (c) conduct which gives encouragement to the commission, preparation or instigation of such acts, or which is intended to do so; (d) conduct which gives support or assistance to individuals who are known or believed to be involved in terrorism-related activity.�15 Thus the law does not concern definite acts, but punishes assistance to persons who are simply suspected of activities or intentions linked to terrorism. This notion is particularly indeterminate and subjective. Its area of application is very large, nearly unlimited, and totally unverifiable. What is an activity linked to terrorism? Is it, for example, to have accommodated persons who later were suspected of participating or of having had the intention of participating in actions designated as terrorist? Does it include belonging to a support group for political prisoners?

The reaction of the House of Lords was problematic for the government. Initially, the lords rejected the project, considering the text as an attack on liberties. It ended up accepting it after thirty hours of debate and after having gotten agreement that control orders would be taken with the consent of a court. In accordance with the new text, the home secretary must apply to a judge before carrying out a house arrest, but, in cases of emergency, he could immediately order minimal measures and ask for a court�s concurrence within seven days. Above all, the upper house laid down the condition that passage of the law must be accompanied by a sunset clause effective in one year. Thus the law would have to be submitted to debate again in July 2006. The work of an independent commission, charged with following the application of the law, must serve as the basis for future parliamentary work.

Even if the home secretary makes a decision with the consent of a court, this judicial guarantee obtained by the House of Lords has nothing in common with the classic judicial procedure that guarantees the rights of the defense. Under the provisions of this law, the defense has no access to the file containing the alleged facts and no possibility of contesting them. The only ones with access to these facts are the judge and �special attorneys� selected by the home secretary. The special attorneys are responsible for representing the point of view of the defense, but without providing the defense with the �proof� alleged against it and without giving it the possibility of refuting that proof. The decision is made in the absence of the incriminated person.

Contrary to what the home secretary claims, this exceptional procedure has nothing in common with long-term preventive detention as applied in matters of terrorism by countries such as Spain or Germany. In those countries, the detention is exclusively ordered by a judge, the incriminated person knows the charges that are held against him or her and the defense has the possibility of contesting the evidence or the reasons for the detention. This new procedure results in the abolition of the presumption of innocence that is normally granted to persons prosecuted within a judicial context.

An Evaluation by Secret Services

Control orders can be made based on information provided by a security service. This source can be from outside the United Kingdom, from the United States, for example. During the debates in the House of Lords, the government had conceded that the prosecution could not use evidence obtained through torture. However, the government does not appear to have renounced using such information. The Independent related the statements of the foreign secretary who claimed that �while torture is of course thoroughly unacceptable, our country cannot dismiss intelligence that has been gained in this way by the US, especially when the lives of 3,000 people are at stake.�16

The assessment made by the security services can rely on a great diversity of sources, many of which could not serve as proof in judicial proceedings. It is not only a question of intercepting telephone calls or e-mails, but all of the intrusive acts implemented by a secret service, such as video surveillance, infiltration, and information obtained by undercover agents. The information contained in the reports or statements made by such agents or informers are evaluated according to a scale of plausibility dependent on �various degrees of truthfulness and accuracy.� The evaluation made by the intelligence services on the danger to national security presented by an individual is separate from the observation of a specific act. An individual can be considered dangerous and subjected to control orders if he or she is suspected of being �a member of or associated with suspect organizations.� It is not necessary that the �proofs� established on the basis of information supplied by the secret services be objective. They can amount to the subjective evaluation of a potential danger to which a determinate level of dangerousness is attributed. The law�s explanatory notes insist on the preventive character of the surveillance provisions, since these measures are designed to prevent terrorist attacks on Great Britain.

The fate reserved by the government for English citizens imprisoned at Guant�namo is a good example of the anticipated implementation of this law. Four Britons, detained at Guant�namo for more than three years, were freed in January 2005. After having been interrogated by the English antiterrorist police, they were freed one day later. No charge was filed against them. This fact did not prevent the home secretary from considering them a terrorist danger for Great Britain. He initiated control orders on them, such as prohibiting travel to foreign countries and making it impossible to obtain a passport. He justified these measures on the basis of information obtained from interrogations at Guant�namo.17 Thus, on the basis of �intelligence� given by the United States, obtained in conditions of torture or mistreatment, and without possibility of verification or contestation, the prisoners freed from Guant�namo remain in an international system of non-law.

The End of a Double Judicial System

The most significant part of the Prevention of Terrorism Bill is the fact that it expands the suspension of law to include citizens. It puts an end to a double judicial system: rule of law for citizens and pure violence for foreigners. The suppression of habeas corpus is extended to the whole population. It is now a generalized state of exception. This law, like the American Patriot II project, must be envisaged as the first step in a process intended to extend measures that suspend the law to the entire population, including citizens, within the context of the war on terrorism. The home secretary already revealed this project. He also spoke of the possibility of trying simple suspects in special courts of law. The accused would not have the choice of his or her attorney. The latter would be selected by the executive power, on the basis of a list approved by the secret services.

The USA Patriot Act and the English 2001 Antiterrorism, Crime and Security Act are still based on the existence of a double judicial system: on the one hand, protection of the law for citizens, even if it is increasingly restricted, and, on the other hand, suspension of the law for foreigners. It is this double judicial order that begins to disappear, with the Patriot II project as well as the Prevention of Terrorism Bill. The war on terrorism thus marks a rupture in the western mode of political organization, founded traditionally on a double system that takes the form of the rule of law inside a society and the use of �pure violence� outside of it. The exception becomes the rule. The rule, which inscribes the exception in the law, is constructed as a function of it. This is exactly the process that is unfolding before our eyes

State of Emergency or Dictatorship?

By imposing a review clause (sunset provision) on the 2005 Prevention of Terrorism Act that authorizes evaluation of the law after one year, the House of Lords kept that law within the formal context of a state of emergency, since these measures could be abrogated after one year. The government did not want to set any temporal limit, the war on terrorism being viewed as a war of long duration against a multiform enemy. It has not, however, renounced its project and wishes to profit from the review procedure by pushing for the adoption of control orders freed from their temporal constraints.

However, this law is no more than formally part of a state of emergency. It gives judicial prerogatives to the home secretary. A person is designated as terrorist not by the decision of a court, but by a certificate issued by a representative of the executive power. At no point does the latter have to justify a decision that is applied to simple suspects. Objective facts, which should be used as the basis of these suspicions, are not even necessary since they remain secret. It suffices that the administrative authority assert that it is detaining the suspects and that this declaration be corroborated by a court. What is the guarantee of a judicial control that is exercised without the possibility for the defense to assert its rights, even to know what it is being charged with? What independence can the judicial power assert in a decision-making process in which it does not have the means to verify the information that is given to it as well as the means of proof?

This law represents one step forward in the dismantling of the rule of law. It is an example of a purely subjective law, allowing a maximum of interpretation. It is a law that assures the primacy of firm belief over facts. The executive power concentrates in its hands all the power, including judicial prerogatives. With this legislation, the United Kingdom moves into a new type of political regime called by the theory of law a dictatorship.

Notes

Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001,

Home Affairs Select Committee, �The Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Bill,� HC(2001-O2) 351,10/11/2001, First Report.

Elspeth Guild, �Facettes de l�ins�curit�. Agamben face aux juges. Souverainet�, exception et antiterrorisme,� Cultures et Conflits, no. 51.

Statewatch News Online, December 22, 2004,

Opinions of the Lords of Appeal for judgement in the cause: A(FC) and others(FC) (appellants) v. Secretary of State for the Home department (Respondent), House of Lords, session 2004-05, (2004) UKHL 56, December 16, 2004.

Opinions of the Lords of Appeal, 13

Opinions of the Lords of Appeal, 15

Opinions of the Lords of Appeal, 17

Opinions of the Lords of Appeal.

Jer�me Rassetti, �Blair revoit sa copie antiterroriste,� Le Soir, March 9, 2005.

Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003,

Prevention of Terrorism Bill, Statewatch report, �The exceptional and draconian become the norm,� 9, Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005, Article 1(9),

Colin Brown, �Straw: Britain cannot ignore evidence obtained by torture,� The Independent, March 11, 2005. Statewatch report, �The exceptional and draconian become the norm,� 8.

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Another Downing Street Memo - Blair Talked Bush Out of Bombing Al-Jazeera?

2005-11-22T07:47:00.000-08:00

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EXCLUSIVE: BUSH PLOT TO BOMB HIS ARAB ALLY Madness of war memo By Kevin Maguire And Andy Lines [img]http://images.icnetwork.co.uk/upl/dailyrecord2/jul2005/5/7/00021DB9-FCA3-12CC-AA670C01AC1BF814.jpg[/img] PRESIDENT Bush planned to bomb Arab TV station al-Jazeera in friendly Qatar, a "Top Secret" No 10 memo reveals.

But he was talked out of it at a White House summit by Tony Blair, who said it would provoke a worldwide backlash.

A source said: "There's no doubt what Bush wanted, and no doubt Blair didn't want him to do it." Al-Jazeera is accused by the US of fuelling the Iraqi insurgency.

The attack would have led to a massacre of innocents on the territory of a key ally, enraged the Middle East and almost certainly have sparked bloody retaliation.

A source said last night: "The memo is explosive and hugely damaging to Bush.

"He made clear he wanted to bomb al-Jazeera in Qatar and elsewhere. Blair replied that would cause a big problem.

"There's no doubt what Bush wanted to do - and no doubt Blair didn't want him to do it."

A Government official suggested that the Bush threat had been "humorous, not serious".

But another source declared: "Bush was deadly serious, as was Blair. That much is absolutely clear from the language used by both men."

Yesterday former Labour Defence Minister Peter Kilfoyle challenged Downing Street to publish the five-page transcript of the two leaders' conversation. He said: "It's frightening to think that such a powerful man as Bush can propose such cavalier actions.

"I hope the Prime Minister insists this memo be published. It gives an insight into the mindset of those who were the architects of war."

Bush disclosed his plan to target al-Jazeera, a civilian station with a huge Mid-East following, at a White House face-to-face with Mr Blair on April 16 last year.

At the time, the US was launching an all-out assault on insurgents in the Iraqi town of Fallujah.

Al-Jazeera infuriated Washington and London by reporting from behind rebel lines and broadcasting pictures of dead soldiers, private contractors and Iraqi victims.

The station, watched by millions, has also been used by bin Laden and al-Qaeda to broadcast atrocities and to threaten the West.

Al-Jazeera's HQ is in the business district of Qatar's capital, Doha.

Its single-storey buildings would have made an easy target for bombers. As it is sited away from residential areas, and more than 10 miles from the US's desert base in Qatar, there would have been no danger of "collateral damage".

Dozens of al-Jazeera staff at the HQ are not, as many believe, Islamic fanatics. Instead, most are respected and highly trained technicians and journalists.

To have wiped them out would have been equivalent to bombing the BBC in London and the most spectacular foreign policy disaster since the Iraq War itself.

The No 10 memo now raises fresh doubts over US claims that previous attacks against al-Jazeera staff were military errors.

In 2001 the station's Kabul office was knocked out by two "smart" bombs. In 2003, al-Jazeera reporter Tareq Ayyoub was killed in a US missile strike on the station's Baghdad centre.

The memo, which also included details of troop deployments, turned up in May last year at the Northampton constituency office of then Labour MP Tony Clarke.

Cabinet Office civil servant David Keogh, 49, is accused under the Official Secrets Act of passing it to Leo O'Connor, 42, who used to work for Mr Clarke. Both are bailed to appear at Bow Street court next week.

Mr Clarke, who lost at the election, returned the memo to No 10.

He said Mr O'Connor had behaved "perfectly correctly".

Neither Mr O'Connor or Mr Keogh were available. No 10 did not comment.

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Flashback COPA 2002 - MK-JFK ParaMilitary Covert-Ops

2005-11-21T22:06:00.000-08:00

This message was sent from: Govt/Mil/Intel Shenanigans. <http://www.parapolitics.info/phorum/read.php?f=31&i=654&t=654> ----------------------------------------------------------------

"Four Days In Dallas" / MK-JFK: ParaMilitary Covert-Ops From JFK, MLK, RFK to 911 [img]http://www.parapolitics.info/copa/copa2002gallery/thumbnails/JohnJudge1.jpg[/img] [img]http://www.parapolitics.info/copa/copa2002gallery/thumbnails/DickGregory1.jpg[/img] [/img]http://www.parapolitics.info/copa/copa2002gallery/thumbnails/Tcarter1.jpg[/img] COPA - Coalition On Political Assassinations with Audio Files 2002 Regional Meeting, November 21st - 24th, 2002

"Our choice now seems to be between a 'new war' and a new world. As always, the forces of reaction and wealth are telling us we have no choice but war, and no right or power to decide. They are calling for a secret investigation, a secret conviction, a secret method of execution, and a totally secret war abroad. The American people as a whole are the only ones in the world who have the right to decide on a national response to this tragedy, and it must be one that takes into account the rights of all the other peoples and nations of the world." --John Judge, 9/23/01

[img]http://www.parapolitics.info/copa/copa2002gallery/thumbnails/JohnJudge1.jpg[/img] John Judge - Host and Master of Ceremonies

John is a long time researcher into various political assassinations and hidden history and author of Judge for Yourself. Judge was a co-founder of Committee for an Open Archives, editor of Prologue and Open Secrets magazines, and executive director of COPA for many years.

John's voluminous research was applied before and after nearly every speaker at the conference. Never at a loss for words, John can cite chapter and verse of practically any issue raised related to parapolitical avenues of inquiry. Please give he and COPA your support:

Coalition On Political Assassination c/o John Judge PO Box 7147 Washington, DC 20044

John Judge on MLK Files and JonesTown Massacre Connections

When John Judge Met "Oswald"

Walt Brown, Ph.D. - Keynote Speaker & Counter Critics panel

Exhaustive researcher into the Warren Commission and the JFK assassination, author of People v. Lee Harvey Oswald, The Warren Omission, and a CD index to the Commission volumes. Walt is the editor of Deep Politics Quarterly , a magazine about the Kennedy murder.

[img]http://www.parapolitics.info/copa/copa2002gallery/thumbnails/BillTurner1.jpg[/img] William Turner - Keynote Speaker, RFK, Jim Garrison & JE Hoover panels

Former FBI agent from the reign of J. Edgar Hoover who has been blowing the whistle on their lies and excesses for many years, Turner has authored and co-authored several books on the political assassinations, including his recent memoir, Rear View Mirror.

[img]http://www.parapolitics.info/copa/copa2002gallery/thumbnails/GaryAguilar1.jpg[/img] Dr. Gary Aguilar - Counter Critics & New JFK evidence panels

Expert on the medical evidence in the JFK case, contributor to Murder in Dallas, and co-author of a new book with Dr. Charles Crenshaw on the Dallas medical evidence. Gary spoke on the Counter Critics panel about the skeptic Posner as well as on the JFK panel about his perspectives on the autopsy evidence.

[img]http://www.parapolitics.info/copa/copa2002gallery/thumbnails/BillKelly1.jpg[/img] Bill Kelly - Counter Critics, JFK, & 911 panels and Future of COPA meeting

Journalist and researcher who has studied political assasssinations for many years. Co-founder with John Judge of the Committee for an Open Archives, a founding group of COPA. Bill continues to write for the online network called JFK Research, and is pursing full release of records and a Grand Jury reopening of the JFK murder. He spoke on these efforts as well as the "smoking gun" evidence for a deliberate standing down of military aircraft during the September 11th hijackings.

"... am attempting to get additional witnesses and suspects deposed under oath, gather evidence and to attempt to get Grand Jury indictments against those responsible for crimes related to the assassination - obstruction of justice, perjury, destruction of evidence, Smith Act, etc. I have not concentrated my research on the scientific areas, but would like to know why the scientific community has not taken up the work on the acoustics? I too was perplexed by the UFO phenom among JFK assassination research - and was not surpised to learn that A.F. General Charles Cabell, bro of the Dallas mayor, was in charge of Project Bluebook, that UFOs were used to protect the U2 and were used in psychological warfare operations. The 1947 Seatle, Washington sightings were first reported by Fred Crisman, believed to be one of the Tramps and a Jim Garrison suspect. What really threw me however, was when I tracked down Arthur Young, shortly before he died. Young is Michael Paine's step-father, and inventor of the Bell Helicopter. As I interviewed him for two hours, with tape recorder running, he figured out my astrology chart and asked me if I was an alien! He thought I was from the Pleadies, and showed me a book written by a retired AF officer from Arizona that had photos of aliens from the Pleadies. When I got home I called the author of the book, who did not have any more copies to sell (limited edition), but confirmed that he had worked at Wright-Pat AFB in Dayton, Ohio and was assigned to Project Bluebook under General Cabell."

[img]http://www.parapolitics.info/copa/copa2002gallery/thumbnails/LisaPease1.jpg[/img] Lisa Pease - RFK and JFK panels

A lifelong information activist, Lisa is also former editor (with Jim DiEugenio) of the now-defunct Probe. She presented ample evidence for Mind Control and Conspiracy within the Robert F. Kennedy assassination involving alleged MK patsy Sirhan Sirhan - who may only be guilty of firing blanks at RFK as cover for the other gunmen's bullets. She also spoke on James Jesus Angleton's involvement with the Kennedy Assassination. She contends that James Angleton, the infamous spymaster who for twenty-five years headed the CIA's counterintelligence unit, was deeply involved with the Oswald / JFK saga both before and after the assassination of President Kennedy. PROBE & CTKA Citizens for Truth about the Kennedy Assassination Her two part article on James Jesus Angelton & JFK's Assassination & The Assassinations - Probe Magazine on JFK, MLK, RFK & Malcolm X

[img]http://www.parapolitics.info/copa/copa2002gallery/thumbnails/LarryTeeter1.jpg[/img] Larry Teeter - RFK panel

Larry is the current counsel for imprisoned RFK "assassin" Sirhan Sirhan. For RealAudio/Video of Mr. Teeter's presentation at past Press Conferences on behalf of his client visit this link: For a 1994 interview with Mr. Teeter:

Donald Thomas - New JFK evidence panel

Mr. Thomas presented Echo Location analysis of existing audio tapes from the time of the Dealey Plaza assassination: "Donald Thomas, an investigative author for Britain's Forensic Science Society, conducted a new acoustical study of the sound recordings and again mapped out a fourth shot coming from the infamous Grassy Knoll. 'The gunshot-like sounds occur exactly synchronous with the time of the shooting,' wrote Donald Thomas for the publication Science and Justice."

Mr. Thomas' work was also used in proving precisely which shots at Kent State were fired by which individual. When confronted with the evidence the individuals confessed: "... acoustics study of the Kent State shooting for the Department of Justice. ... using the exact same procedure - echo location - and the audio record of the incident, Barger had identified the physical locations to within ten feet of where the first several gunshots were fired. Using photographs and films of the incident, the Department of Justice identified the individual National Guardsmen in those specific locations. When these men were arrested - all admitted that they had fired their weapons."

[img]http://www.parapolitics.info/copa/copa2002gallery/thumbnails/JFKpanel1.jpg[/img] Jerry Smith - New JFK evidence panel

Jerry presented the famous Zapruder film with specific attention focused on the parts of the film stock not projected but which still record visual information. He contends that their is evidence in that specific region of the film which suggests the original film has in fact been altered and may have been shot at a faster film speed.

[img]http://www.parapolitics.info/copa/copa2002gallery/thumbnails/THATguy.jpg[/img] Researcher debunking allegations of the manipulation of the Zapruder film

[img]http://www.parapolitics.info/copa/copa2002gallery/thumbnails/Tcarter2.jpg[/img] [img]http://www.parapolitics.info/copa/copa2002gallery/thumbnails/Tcarter3.jpg[/img] T Carter - New JFK evidence, 911 and MLK update panels

T is a dedicated researcher who has worked on both JFK and MLK cases with Judge Joe Brown, among others. Her first report was on her efforts to weigh the infamous Minox camera held in the National Archives. The effort to weigh the alleged CIA spy cam "found" at Oswald's residence is to discover what if anything may have been used to seal and/or fill the interior portion of the Bic lighter sized camera. The camera has been impenatrable. As it turns out the camera does weigh more than the 200 or more weighed by T. Carter. On the second night of the conference gave an update on the Martin Luther King case related to securing of the rifle everyone believes is NOT the real assassination weapon and how Denny's (!) has taken up sponsorship of the MLK Assassination museum. The final day of the event, Ms. Carter related her connections to the September 11th case. She is a flight attendant and one of her usual routes was Flight 77 - the plane that went into the Pentagon. Prior to 911, she shared a flight with one of the alleged hijackers on his test runs. She said that she believes the plane actually went into the Pentagon, contrary to a popular internet theory. Her friends bodies and aircraft wreckage were recovered from the scene of the impact which she visited. Other revelations included privy knowledge of her flight attendant friends personal cell phone call to her mother. During the call the flight attendant friend to the mother that there were SIX hijackers - contradicting the number claimed by the Government "authorities." She implored the audience to research September 11th for this and other "discrepancies."

[img]http://www.parapolitics.info/copa/copa2002gallery/thumbnails/BobGroden1.jpg[/img] Robert Groden - New JFK Evidence

Former investigator for the House Select Committee on Assassinations, and author of two books on the photographic and documentary evidence of conspiracy, The Killing of A President and The Search for Lee Harvey Oswald. Groden addressed recent claims that the Zapruder film has been altered or faked. His own work on the acoustic evidence convinced the HSCA that there was a second gunman. It was Groden who passed a copy of the Zapruder film to Dick Gregory who then passed it to Geraldo Rivera who then played it on National Television for the first time ever, allowing the American people to see the truth for themselves.

[img]http://www.parapolitics.info/copa/copa2002gallery/thumbnails/JoeBiles1.jpg[/img] Joe Biles - Jim Garrison panel

By far the youngest light in the JFK research community, Joe has sparked hope that there are indeed a new generation of investigators to carry the torch. Joe is a student in Lubbock and has garnered much attention for his contribution to the research community: In History's Shadow -�Lee Harvey Oswald, Kerry Thornley and the Garrison Investigation.

Andrew Kiel - J Edgar Hoover panel

History teacher and author of the new book, J. Edgar Hoover: The Father of the Cold War, presented his thesis on the role played by anti-Communist Hoover in both the obstruction of the Warren Commission investigation, and the escalation of the war in Vietnam.

Philip Melanson, Ph.D. - MLK updates panel

Expert in all three major political assassinations, and author of numerous books including Spy Saga, The Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, and two books on the murder of Dr. Martin Luther King. He has recently completed a book about the culture of government secrecy.

Lyndon Barsten - MLK updates panel

Independent researcher who has developed new evidence and documents concerning the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. He presented his findings linking US intelligence agencies to James Earl Ray, and other insights. "The contacts and methods utilized in the murder of Dr. King bear the signature of the CIA, including the probable use of MK-Ultra mind control techniques. Parallel psychiatric irregularities at the Missouri prison system are described by James Earl Ray and Jim Green, including the shocking drugging of inmates which could render the indication of hypnosis easier or otherwise enhance its usefulness. It seems highly likely that Jim was subjected to psychological assessment and manipulation, the results of which directed back to Federal Intelligence Agencies."

Michael Nurko - 911 panel

Mike cited numerous news items familiar to Alex Jones listeners and affcianados of the 911 conspiracy. Mr. Nurko gave added detail to the story of a CIA station chief meeting with Osama bin Laden in an American hospital in Dubai the July before September 11th.

[img]http://www.parapolitics.info/copa/copa2002gallery/thumbnails/DickGregory2.jpg[/img] [img]http://www.parapolitics.info/copa/copa2002gallery/thumbnails/DickGregory3.jpg[/img] [img]http://www.parapolitics.info/copa/copa2002gallery/thumbnails/DickGregory4.jpg[/img] Dick Gregory - 911 panel & Future of COPA meeting

Mr. Gregory was "on the frontline in the sixties during the Civil Rights Era. Gregory's activism continued into the 1990s. In response to published allegations that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had supplied cocaine to predominantly African American areas in Los Angeles, thus spurring the crack epidemic, Gregory protested at CIA headquarters and was arrested. In 1992 he began a program called 'Campaign for Human Dignity' to fight crime in St. Louis neighborhoods."

Obviously Mr. Gregory and the others had a lot MORE to say. Much more than we can print here. But rest assured, all of these presentations, in fact the entire conference) will be repeatedly broadcast on Austin Community Access Cable. For information on show times send email to

Misc. Audio Files:

John Judge AfterTalk 1

Paris Flammonde

Johh Judge on "Hoakum" Heston

Speakers Unable To Attend:

Jim DiEugenio - founder of Citizens for Truth About the Kennedy Assassinations (CTKA) and author of Destiny Betrayed, a defense of the investigation by D.A. Jim Garrison in New Orleans. Jim has also edited Probe magazine for many years.

Peter Dale Scott, Ph.D. - a long time researcher into the deep politics of the Kennedy assassination and U.S. covert operations and foreign policy abroad. Author of Deep Politics and the Murder of JFK.

Additional Speakers Not Originally Scheduled:

Chris Cox on the Cuban Pilots and JFK Assassination Families

Additional COPA Resources on this Site:

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Project Paperclip: Dark side of the Moon

2005-11-21T16:24:00.000-08:00

This message was sent from: Govt/Mil/Intel Shenanigans. <http://www.parapolitics.info/phorum/read.php?f=31&i=653&t=653> ----------------------------------------------------------------

[img]http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/41040000/jpg/_41040846_paperclip.203.jpg[/img] Project Paperclip: Dark side of the Moon By Andrew Walker / BBC News

[img]http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/41028000/jpg/_41028124_vonbraun.jpg[/img] Wernher von Braun: Nasa icon and former SS officer

Sixty years ago the US hired Nazi scientists to lead pioneering projects, such as the race to conquer space. These men provided the US with cutting-edge technology which still leads the way today, but at a cost.

The end of World War II saw an intense scramble for Nazi Germany's many technological secrets. The Allies vied to plunder as much equipment and expertise as possible from the rubble of the Thousand Year Reich for themselves, while preventing others from doing the same.

The range of Germany's technical achievement astounded Allied scientific intelligence experts accompanying the invading forces in 1945.

Supersonic rockets, nerve gas, jet aircraft, guided missiles, stealth technology and hardened armour were just some of the groundbreaking technologies developed in Nazi laboratories, workshops and factories, even as Germany was losing the war.

And it was the US and the Soviet Union which, in the first days of the Cold War, found themselves in a race against time to uncover Hitler's scientific secrets.

In May 1945, Stalin's legions secured the atomic research labs at the prestigious Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in the suburbs of Berlin, giving their master the kernel of what would become the vast Soviet nuclear arsenal.

US forces removed V-2 missiles from the vast Nordhausen complex, built under the Harz Mountains in central Germany, just before the Soviets took over the factory, in what would become their area of occupation. And the team which had built the V-2, led by Wernher von Braun, also fell into American hands.

Crimes

Shortly afterwards Major-General Hugh Knerr, deputy commander of the US Air Force in Europe, wrote: "Occupation of German scientific and industrial establishments has revealed the fact that we have been alarmingly backward in many fields of research.

"If we do not take the opportunity to seize the apparatus and the brains that developed it and put the combination back to work promptly, we will remain several years behind while we attempt to cover a field already exploited."

Thus began Project Paperclip, the US operation which saw von Braun and more than 700 others spirited out of Germany from under the noses of the US's allies. Its aim was simple: "To exploit German scientists for American research and to deny these intellectual resources to the Soviet Union."

Events moved rapidly. President Truman authorised Paperclip in August 1945 and, on 18 November, the first Germans reached America.

There was, though, one major problem. Truman had expressly ordered that anyone found "to have been a member of the Nazi party and more than a nominal participant in its activities, or an active supporter of Nazism militarism" would be excluded.

Under this criterion even von Braun himself, the man who masterminded the Moon shots, would have been ineligible to serve the US. A member of numerous Nazi organisations, he also held rank in the SS. His initial intelligence file described him as "a security risk".

And von Braun's associates included:

Arthur Rudolph , chief operations director at Nordhausen, where 20,000 slave labourers died producing V-2 missiles. Led the team which built the Saturn V rocket. Described as "100 per cent Nazi, dangerous type".

Kurt Debus , rocket launch specialist, another SS officer. His report stated: "He should be interned as a menace to the security of the Allied Forces."

Hubertus Strughold , later called "the father of space medicine", designed Nasa's on-board life-support systems. Some of his subordinates conducted human "experiments" at Dachau and Auschwitz, where inmates were frozen and put into low-pressure chambers, often dying in the process. All of these men were cleared to work for the US, their alleged crimes covered up and their backgrounds bleached by a military which saw winning the Cold War, and not upholding justice, as its first priority.

And the paperclip which secured their new details in their personnel files gave the whole operation its name. Sixty years on, the legacy of Paperclip remains as vital as ever.

With its radar-absorbing carbon impregnated plywood skin and swept-back single wing, the 1944 Horten Ho 229 was arguably the first stealth aircraft.

The US military made one available to Northrop Aviation, the company which would produce the $2bn B-2 Stealth bomber - to all intents and purposes a modern clone of the Horten - a generation later. Cruise missiles are still based on the design of the V-1 missile and the scramjets powering Nasa's state-of-the-art X-43 hypersonic aircraft owe much to German jet pioneers.

Added to this, the large number of still-secret Paperclip documents has led many people, including Nick Cook, Aerospace Consultant at Jane's Defence Weekly, to speculate that the US may have developed even more advanced Nazi technology, including anti-gravity devices, a potential source of vast amounts of free energy.

Cook says that such technology "could be so destructive that it would endanger world peace and the US decided to keep it secret for a long time".

But, while celebrating the undoubted success of Project Paperclip, many will prefer to remember the thousands who died to send mankind into space.

Story from BBC NEWS:

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