Examining Fascism in America

[UniverseSeven]

Bennett: Black Abortions Would Lower Crime

The Associated Press
Friday, September 30, 2005; 10:59 AM


The Associated Press
Friday, September 30, 2005; 10:59 AM

WASHINGTON -- The White House on Friday criticized former Education Secretary William Bennett for remarks linking the crime rate and the abortion of black babies.

"The president believes the comments were not appropriate," White House press secretary Scott McClellan said.



Bennett, on his radio show, "Morning in America," was answering a caller's question when he took issue with the hypothesis put forth in a recent book that one reason crime is down is that abortion is up.

"But I do know that it's true that if you wanted to reduce crime, you could, if that were your sole purpose, you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down," said Bennett, author of "The Book of Virtues."

He went on to call that "an impossible, ridiculous and morally reprehensible thing to do, but your crime rate would go down. So these far-out, these far-reaching, extensive extrapolations are, I think, tricky."

Responding later to criticism, Bennett said his comments had been mischaracterized and that his point was that the idea of supporting abortion to reduce crime was "morally reprehensible."

Bennett was education secretary under President Reagan and director of drug control policy when Bush's father was president.

[jonnygemini]

William Bennett reportedly lost millions gambling

By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE
New York Times

WASHINGTON -- William J. Bennett, author of "The Book of Virtues" and one of the nation's most relentless moral crusaders, is a high-rolling gambler who has lost more than $8 million at casinos in the last decade, according to online reports from two magazines.

The Washington Monthly said on its website that "over the last decade Bennett has made dozens of trips to casinos in Atlantic City and Las Vegas, where he is a 'preferred customer' at several of them, and sources and documents provided to The Washington Monthly put his total losses at more than $8 million."

In an article that depends on much the same reporting, the online version of Newsweek said that 40 pages of internal casino documents show that Bennett received treatment typical of high-stakes gamblers, including limousines and "tens of thousands of dollars in complimentary hotel rooms and other amenities."

Bennett declined to be interviewed Friday by The New York Times, with a spokesman saying that he needed to digest the articles before responding.

The fact of Bennett's gambling is not new. He has said over the years that he likes to gamble and that it relaxes him. What is unusual is the apparent extent of his losses; neither magazine reported his winnings.

Bennett told the magazines that he has basically broken even over the years.

"I play fairly high stakes," he said, but added: "I don't put my family at risk, and I don't owe anyone anything."

The magazines said they had no documentation that he was in debt but suggested that he had lost more than he had won. In response, Bennett is quoted as saying, "I've made a lot of money and I've won a lot of money," adding, "You don't see what I walk away with." He said he gave some of his winnings to charity and reported everything to the Internal Revenue Service.

The magazines said that in one two-month period, Bennett wired one casino more than $1.4 million to cover his losses.

The magazines said he earns $50,000 for each appearance in speaking fees on the lecture circuit, where he inveighs against various sins, weaknesses and vices of modern culture.

But Bennett exempts gambling from this list.

He has said in the past that he does not consider gambling a moral issue. When his interviewers reminded him of studies that link heavy gambling with a variety of societal and family ills, Bennett said he did not have a problem himself and likened gambling to drinking alcohol.

"I view it as drinking," he said. "If you can't handle it, don't do it."

Bennett is popular among social conservatives, but many of them consider gambling a serious problem. . James C. Dobson, the president of Focus on the Family and a member of a federal commission that studied gambling, said in 1999: "Gambling fever now threatens the work ethic and the very foundation of the family. Thirty years ago, gambling was widely understood in the culture to be addictive, progressive and dangerous."

During the 1990s, leaders of the conservative Christian Coalition joined with other religious leaders to create the National Coalition Against Legalized Gambling. Ralph Reed, the former executive director of the Christian Coalition, called gambling "a cancer on the American body politic" that was "stealing food from the mouths of children."

Friends of Bennett were reluctant Friday to criticize him directly.

"It's his own money and his own business," said Grover G. Norquist, the president of Americans for Tax Reform, a conservative advocacy group. "The downside of gambling losses is that the government gets a third of the money, which is unfortunate and probably a sin in and of itself," said Norquist, whose group advocates smaller government.

William Kristol, editor of The Weekly Standard and another conservative ally of Bennett, agreed that this was a matter between Bennett, his wife and his accountant.

"It would be different if he had written anti-gambling screeds," Kristol said. "I'm sure he doesn't regard gambling as a virtue but rather as a rather minor and pardonable vice and a legal one and one that has not damaged him or anyone else."

Kristol said that Bennett was not being hypocritical. "If Bill Bennett went on TV encouraging young people to gamble the rent money at a Las Vegas casino or was shilling for gambling interests, that would be inconsistent" with his moral crusades, Kristol said.

As Bennett told The Las Vegas Review-Journal in 1995, "I've played poker all my life and I shouldn't be on my high horse about it."

[jonnygemini]

Deadly biohazard hits D.C. anti-war protests


A week after the massive anti-war demonstrations in Washington, it has been revealed that biohazard sensors detected the dangerous tularemia bacteria over the crowds.

Just so you understand the implications, here is a brief history (from the Journal of the American Medical Association) of tularemia and how it is stockpiled as a bioweapon by the U.S. military ...

Tularemia was first described as a plaguelike disease of rodents in 1911 and, shortly thereafter, was recognized as a potentially severe and fatal illness in humans. Tularemia's epidemic potential became apparent in the 1930s and 1940s, when large waterborne outbreaks occurred in Europe and the Soviet Union and epizootic-associated cases occurred in the United States. As well, F tularensis quickly gained notoriety as a virulent laboratory hazard. Public health concerns impelled substantial early investigations into tularemia's ecology, microbiology, pathogenicity, and prevention.

Francisella tularensis has long been considered a potential biological weapon. It was one of a number of agents studied at Japanese germ warfare research units operating in Manchuria between 1932 and 1945; it was also examined for military purposes in the West. A former Soviet Union biological weapons scientist, Ken Alibeck, has suggested that tularemia outbreaks affecting tens of thousands of Soviet and German soldiers on the eastern European front during World War II may have been the result of intentional use. Following the war, there were continuing military studies of tularemia. In the 1950s and 1960s, the US military developed weapons that would disseminate F tularensis aerosols; concurrently, it conducted research to better understand the pathophysiology of tularemia and to develop vaccines and antibiotic prophylaxis and treatment regimens. In some studies, volunteers were infected with F tularensis by direct aerosol delivery systems and by exposures in an aerosol chamber.

F tularensis was one of several biological weapons stockpiled by the US military. According to Alibeck, a large parallel effort by the Soviet Union continued into the early 1990s and resulted in weapons production of F tularensis strains engineered to be resistant to antibiotics and vaccines.

There is currently an outbreak of this very same disease in Russia, where nearly 500 people have so far been reported ill.


Insect bites and contaminated food/water are known vectors of this disease,as is the handling of infected animal carcasses; however, the unprecedented number of cases -- many of which have occurred in the vicinity of known bioweapons labs-suggests this outbreak has "other-than-natural" causes: whether it "leaked" from carelessly-handled containers, or whether it was deliberately transported to several areas.

Back to the article in this morning's Washington Post:

Health authorities in the Washington area were notified yesterday that the bacteria were found in and near the area between the U.S. Capitol and the Lincoln Memorial, where crowds gathered Saturday for an antiwar rally and a book festival.

The notification, which came from federal health officials, said that after the initial detection, subsequent tests "supported the presence of low levels" of the bacteria. However, officials also said they did not believe the findings posed a health problem.

"We pretty much feel there is no public health threat here," said Von Roebuck, a spokesman for the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, noting that there have been no reports of tularemia, the disease that is caused by the bacteria. "We just wanted to alert the medical community to watch out for cases."

Health officials said the usual incubation period for tularemia is less than a week.

D.C. Public Health Director Gregg A. Pane seems a little suspicious about the whole thing:

But he said it was puzzling that the finding was from a day when the Mall was packed with people.

"Why that day? That's what is not explained," Pane said. "It was just this 24-hour period and none since."

While the Authorities say it's nothing to be worried about, they also say ... well, it just might be something to worry about:

Authorities recommend that people who visited the Mall between 10 a.m. Sept. 24 and 10 a.m. Sept. 25 should see a physician if they experience symptoms.

George W. Bush and his handlers were huddled in the Northcom bunkers in Colorado on the night before and day of the massive protests outside the White House. The Sept. 24 protest was the largest anti-war action by Americans since the Vietnam War.

Just three days before the long-planned protests, "above top secret" military exercises began on the streets of Washington, D.C.

The top secret exercises involving the nation's intelligence agencies, national laboratories and U.S. military troops on the ground in America's capital were coordinated and controlled by Northcom in Colorado.

The Washington Post reported on Sept. 21:

Granite Shadow is yet another new Top Secret and compartmented operation related to the military's extra-legal powers regarding weapons of mass destruction. It allows for emergency military operations in the United States without civilian supervision or control ...

That's where Granite Shadow comes in. U.S. Northern Command (NORTHCOM), the military's new homeland security command, is preparing its draft version of CONPLAN 0400 for military operations in the United States, and the resulting Granite Shadow plan has been classified above Top Secret by adding a Special Category (SPECAT) compartment restricting access.

Further, Granite Shadow posits domestic military operations, including intelligence collection and surveillance, unique rules of engagement regarding the use of lethal force, the use of experimental non-lethal weapons, and federal and military control of incident locations that are highly controversial and might border on the illegal.

The sensitivities, according to military sources, include deployment of "special mission units" (the so-called Delta Force, SEAL teams, Rangers, and other special units of Joint Special Operations Command) in Washington, DC and other domestic hot spots. NORTHCOM has worked closely with U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM), as well as the secret branches of non-military agencies and departments to enforce "unity of command" over any post 9/11 efforts

Both plans seem to live behind a veil of extraordinary secrecy because military forces operating under them have already been given a series of "special authorities" by the President and the secretary of defense. These special authorities include, presumably, military roles in civilian law enforcement and abrogation of State's powers in a declared or perceived emergency.

The New York Times news service distributed a very interesting article on tularemia ... also on Sept. 21:

A Cold War bug has become a hot topic for scientists who are trying to understand how an obscure germ that causes a harmless infection in rabbits can kill people when sprayed into the air.

That quest has turned San Antonio, Texas, into a major location for the study of tularemia, a disease carried by several small mammals that national defense authorities say is now a potential bioterrorism threat.

Karl Klose, a professor of biology at the University of Texas at San Antonio, leads a team of investigators who want to understand how the bug makes people sick and how they can prevent infection with a vaccine.

Klose and fellow investigators from UTSA and the University of Texas Health Science Center have secured a $6.4 million grant under a new federal bioterrorism initiative that began in the aftermath of 9/11. Now the National Institutes of Health is pouring millions into the study of tularemia and other diseases that may have been turned into biological weapons by groups or governments hostile to the U.S.

"Sept. 11 and the anthrax scare really woke up the U.S. government as to how vulnerable we are," Klose said. "Anthrax got a lot of attention, but tularemia is just as dangerous as anthrax."

Not mentioned in the article is the established fact that the anthrax used in the October 2001 attacks against opposition political leaders and perceived "liberal" media personalities was produced by bioweapons labs in the United States, and nobody has ever "solved" the attacks that terrorized the American psyche just weeks after the attacks of Sept. 11.

Posted on October 01, 2005 at 01:47 PM

[jonnygemini]

October 1, 2005 -- Upcoming Special Report. "Clearing the baffles for 911."

When submarines are trying to detect the presence, through the use of sonar, of trailing enemy subs, they use a process called "clearing the baffles." The submarine turns at least 120 degrees in either direction to detect potential trailing adversaries. The top leadership of U.S. intelligence and law enforcement also "cleared the baffles" prior to the 911 terrorist attacks -- and any intelligence and law enforcement officer detected, either directly or peripherally, trailing the network we now reflexively call "Al Qaeda," was systematically removed from their duties.

After speaking with several former members of the CIA, Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), FBI, and National Security Agency (NSA), WMR is able to report that there was a concerted and coordinated effort by senior intelligence and law enforcement officials in both the George W. Bush and Clinton administrations to stifle attempts to track down and incapacitate terrorists and associated drug dealers and street criminals who would later be involved in the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Contrary to the findings of the 911 Commission, there were several attempts after the 1998 U.S. embassy attacks in East Africa and the 2000 USS Cole bombing in Aden by CIA, DIA, and FBI officers to coordinate their activities but every one of these efforts were met by coordinated resistance from the FBI hierarchy led by then-Director Louis Freeh, the Department of Defense of both Secretaries William Cohen and Donald Rumsfeld, current Homeland Security Secretary and then-head of the Bush Justice Department Criminal Division Michael Chertoff, CIA Director George Tenet, NSA Director Michael Hayden, and DIA Director Admiral Thomas Wilson. The details of acts of commission and omission, some of which are clearly treasonous in nature and others that involve organized crime and drug smuggling syndicates, will be spelled out in tomorrow's special report.

Over ten former top U.S. cops and spies all agree: 911, the USS Cole bombing, and the U.S. embassy attacks in East Africa were products of acts of commission and omission by the top leadership of U.S. intelligence and law enforcement

[jonnygemini]

Well lookie here...no surprise, eh???


slate.msn.com/id/2126479/

You Can´t Handle the Truth
Psy-ops propaganda goes mainstream.
By Sharon Weinberger
Posted Monday, Sept. 19, 2005, at 3:31 AM PT

A live "ops center" in a country SCL won´t identify

LONDON—Over the past 24 hours, seven people have checked into hospitals here with telltale symptoms. Rashes, vomiting, high temperature, and cramps: the classic signs of smallpox. Once thought wiped out, the disease is back and threatening a pandemic of epic proportions.

The government faces a dilemma: It needs people to stay home, but if the news breaks, mass panic might ensue as people flee the city, carrying the virus with them.

A shadowy media firm steps in to help orchestrate a sophisticated campaign of mass deception. Rather than alert the public to the smallpox threat, the company sets up a high-tech "ops center" to convince the public that an accident at a chemical plant threatens London. As the fictitious toxic cloud approaches the city, TV news outlets are provided graphic visuals charting the path of the invisible toxins. Londoners stay indoors, glued to the telly, convinced that even a short walk into the streets could be fatal.

This scenario may sound like a rejected plot twist from a mediocre Bond flick, but one company is dead set on making this fantasy come to life.

Strategic Communication Laboratories, a small U.K. firm specializing in "influence operations" made a very public debut this week with a glitzy exhibit occupying prime real estate at Defense Systems & Equipment International, or DSEi, the United Kingdom´s largest showcase for military technology. The main attraction was a full-scale mock-up of its ops center, running simulations ranging from natural disasters to political coups.

Just to the right of the ops center, a dark-suited man with a wireless microphone paces like a carnival barker, narrating the scenarios. Above him a screen flashes among scenes of disaster, while to his right, behind thick glass, workers sit attentively before banks of computer screens, busily scrolling through data. The play actors pause only to look up at a big board that flashes ominously between "hot spots" like North Korea and Congo.

While Londoners fret over fictitious toxins, the government works to contain the smallpox outbreak. The final result, according to SCL´s calculations, is that only thousands perish, rather than the 10 million originally projected. Another success.

Of course, the idea of deluding an entire city seems, well, a bit like propaganda.

"If your definition of propaganda is framing communications to do something that´s going to save lives, that´s fine," says Mark Broughton, SCL´s public affairs director. "That´s not a word I would use for that."

Then again, it´s hard to know exactly what else to call it. (Company literature describes SCL´s niche specialties as "psychological warfare," "public diplomacy," and "influence operations.") The smallpox scenario plays out in excruciating detail how reporters would be tapped to receive disinformation, with TV and radio stations dedicated to around-the-clock coverage. Even the eventual disclosure is carefully scripted.

In another doomsday scenario, the company assists a newly democratic country in South Asia as it struggles with corrupt politicians and a rising insurgency that threatens to bubble over into bloody revolution. SCL steps in to assist the benevolent king of "Manpurea" to temporarily seize power.

Oh, wait, that sounds a lot like Nepal, where the monarchy earlier this year ousted a corrupt government to stave off a rising Maoist movement. The problem is, the SCL scenario also sounds a lot like using a private company to help overthrow a democratically elected government. Another problem, at least in Nepal, is that the king now shows few signs of returning to democracy.

The company, which describes itself as the first private-sector provider of psychological operations, has been around since 1993. But its previous work was limited to civil operations, and it now wants to expand to military customers.

If SCL weren´t so earnest, it might actually seem to be mocking itself, or perhaps George Orwell. As the end of the smallpox scenario, dramatic music fades out to a taped message urging people to "embrace" strategic communications, which it describes as "the most powerful weapon in the world." And the company Web page offers some decidedly creepy asides. "The [ops center] can override all national radio and TV broadcasts in time of crisis," it says, alluding to work the company has done in an unspecified Asian country.

The government´s use of deception in the service of national security is not new. During World War II, for example, Allied forces conducted a massive misinformation campaign, called Operation Fortitude, designed to hide plans for the Normandy invasion. More recent efforts have met with controversy, however. In 2002, the Pentagon shuttered its brand new Office of Strategic Influence after public outcry over its purported plans to spread deceptive information to the foreign press.

Government deception may even be justified in some cases, according to Michael Schrage, a senior adviser to the security-studies program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "If you tell the population that there´s been a bio-warfare attack, hospital emergency rooms will be overwhelmed with people who sincerely believe they have all the symptoms and require immediate attention," Schrage says.

The problem, he adds, is that in a democracy, a large-scale ruse would work just once.

The U.S. government has generally sought to limit disinformation; some agencies—such as the CIA—are explicitly prohibited by law from misleading domestic press. And while the CIA is fond of concealment, it takes pride in the belief that truth is necessary for an open government, a sentiment chiseled into the agency´s lobby.


A successful outcome means thousands, not millions, will die in a catastrophe

What makes SCL´s strategy so unusual is that it proposes to propagate its campaign domestically, at least some of the time, and rather than influence just opinion, it wants people to take a particular course of action. Is SCL simply hawking a flashier version of propaganda?

The spokesman´s answer: "We save lives."

Yes, Broughton acknowledges, the ops center is not exactly giving the truth, but he adds, "Is it not worth giving an untruth for 48 hours to save x million people´s lives? Sometimes the means to an end has to be recognized."

Who buys this stuff? Broughton declined to mention many specific clients, noting that disclosing SCL´s involvement—particularly in countries with a free and open media—could make its campaigns less effective. However, he says that post-apartheid South Africa has employed SCL. So has the United Nations, he says.

The company´s Web site is even vaguer, mentioning international organizations and foreign governments. A Google search produces only a handful of hits, mostly linked to the company´s Web site. The company´s work is based on something that even the spokesman admits you "won´t find on the Web": the Behavioral Dynamics Institute, a virtual lab led by Professor Phil Taylor of Leeds University.

But the company, which is funded by private investors, is now taking on a higher profile, and visitors flocked to the flashy setup here at the show. "Basically, we´re launching ourselves this week on the defense market and homeland security market at the same time," Broughton explained.

If SCL has its way, its vision of strategic communications—which involves complex psychological and scientific data—could be used to shape public response to tsunamis, epidemics, or even the next Hurricane Katrina.

Well aware that the company may face controversy, particularly with its push into the defense market, Broughton emphasizes the company´s role in saving lives.

"It sounds altruistic," he said. "There is some altruism in it, but we also want to earn money."

Sharon Weinberger, a writer based in Washington, is working on a book about the Pentagon and fringe science.

[jonnygemini]

Bush Considers Military Role in Flu Fight
Oct 04 12:38 PM US/Eastern


By JENNIFER LOVEN
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON

President Bush, increasingly concerned about a possible avian flu pandemic, revealed Tuesday that any part of the country where the virus breaks out could likely be quarantined and that he is considering using the military to enforce it.

"The best way to deal with a pandemic is to isolate it and keep it isolated in the region in which it begins," he said during a wide- ranging Rose Garden news conference.

The president was asked if his recent talk of giving the military the lead in responding to large natural disasters such as Hurricane Katrina and other catastrophes was in part the result of his concerns that state and local personnel aren't up to the task of a flu outbreak.

"Yes," he replied.

After the bungled initial federal response to Katrina, Bush suggested putting the Pentagon in charge of search-and-rescue efforts in times of a major terrorist attack or similarly catastrophic natural disaster. He has argued that the armed forces have the ability to quickly mobilize the equipment, manpower and communications capabilities needed in times of crisis.

But such a shift could require a change in law, and some in Congress and the states worry it would increase the power of the federal government at the expense of local control.

Bush made clear that the potential for an outbreak of avian flu is much on his mind, and has him talking with "as many (world) leaders as I could find" and reading a book on the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic that killed 40 million and consulting staff and experts.

"I have thought through the scenarios of what an avian flu outbreak could mean," he said.

He acknowledged that a quarantine _ an idea sure to alarm many in the public _ is no small thing for the government to undertake and that enforcing it would be tricky.

"It's one thing to shut down airplanes," Bush said. "It's another thing to prevent people from coming in to get exposed to the avian flu."

He urged Congress to give him the ability to use the military, if needed.

"I think the president ought to have all ... assets on the table to be able to deal with something this significant," he said.

Bush also said he has been urging world leaders to improve reporting on outbreaks of the virus, and exploring how to speed the production of a spray, now in limited supply, that "can maybe help arrest the spread of the disease."

"One of the issues is how do we encourage the manufacturing capacity of the country, and maybe the world, to be prepared to deal with the outbreak of a pandemic?" he said.

Experts agree there will certainly be another flu pandemic _ a new human flu strain that goes global. However, it is unknown when or how bad that global epidemic will be _ or whether the H5N1 bird flu strain now circulating in Asian poultry will be its origin.

Just in case, experts are tracking the avian flu, which has swept through poultry populations in large swaths of Asia since 2003, jumped to humans and killed at least 65 people.

Most human cases have been linked to a contact with sick birds, but the World Health Organization has warned the virus could mutate into a form that spreads easily among humans _ changing it from a bird virus to a human pandemic flu strain.

[jonnygemini]

Because he can't be exploited by superstition anymore
Because he can't be bribed or bought
by the things that you adore - Bob Dylan

It looks like a lot of liberals have twisted themselves into knots again over Hugo Chavez. He tends to make a certain kind of liberal do that, just as he makes a kind of headline writer misrepresent his remarks: "Venezuela's president is afraid of Halloween", for instance, or "Chavez seeks Halloween ban".

What he said was something else: that it is not a Venezuelan custom for families to dress their children as ghouls and witches - it "is contrary to our ways" - and that Halloween is a US "game of terror," an aspect of the culture of "terrorism, putting fear into other nations, putting fear into their own people."

Is Chavez superstitious, as the press of the Northern Hemisphere would have it? I've quoted "right-hand path" occultist Dion Fortune's Psychic Self-Defense for her warning of the dangers posed by black lodges to children, and her advice to victims of occult attack. In Sane Occultism (reissued as What Is Occultism?) , Fortune describes superstition as "the tribute paid by ignorance to knowledge of which it recognises the value but does not understand the significance." That's not Chavez.

It doesn't take much persuasion these days to sell the case that the "War on Terror" is a lie. Much of the deceit has been laid bare, and safe assumptions can now be made about that which yet hasn't. It's only faith-based denial that holds anyone still in the dark. But it's more than a lie, and that's not so widely recognized. It is also a superstition - the combustion of ignorance ignited by fear - and it means to do more than knock over a few resource-rich nations. It's also intended to be a new foundation for social control.

A healthy culture maintains its health from a sustaining mythology. Not lies, but true myths, that nurture our better selves. But that's not where we are today. The dominant culture is sick unto death, and the longtime rot in its founding myths of democracy and liberty has finally hollowed out the concepts and left nothing but the words: signs, pointing to nothing.

Americans - and not just the citizens, but all of America's imperial subjects - are being slipped a death-obsessed superstition in place of a mythology of life, because misrule has squandered the power of the Old Stories, and as we come crashing towards a convergence of crises this century, the ruling elite has exhausted the means of maintaining control by gentler methods. I wish those calling for UFO "disclosure" would realize that when it arrives, what arrives will be another officially-sanctioned superstition; another system of control. Because they don't want us to know, they need us to fear. And they need us to fear, because they fear us.

And let's note how today's generalized terror, which finds specificity in nightmares such as Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay, is of a continuity with the covert application of the occult establishment's strategy of control, as described in official and unofficial histories and numerous survivors' accounts. Horrification, and the dislocation of identity by a perpetuating state of anxiety, belongs to the method of the fascist left-hand path.

It may be November 2, but in Washington it's still Halloween.

[UniverseSeven]

Handguns banned in San Francisco
www.japantoday.com/e/?content=news&cat=8&id=354894

[jonnygemini]

"Oh, it's not that bad," said the wise man, "It's worse."
11/14/2005

Economists Expect Sharp Recession After Real-Estate Bubble Bursts :.

Much of the nation has had a lovely real estate boom for the past five years, but the house party is almost over and the cleanup won't be pretty.

That's the word from economists and investors who have watched housing prices march ever higher.

"The collapse of the housing bubble will throw the economy into a recession, and quite likely a severe recession," warned a July report by the Center for Economic and Policy Research.

In recent weeks, many major investment firms have concurred. Said a Lehman Brothers report, " turn in the housing market is central to our economic forecast."

"The demographic story behind the housing market boom, as we always thought, was a giant hoax," wrote Merrill Lynch & Co.'s North American economist, David Rosenberg, in a recent report.

If housing prices decline sharply, the effects could be broad. Lehman estimates one-third of the past year's U.S. economic growth was a consequence of the housing boom. Housing construction is equal to 5 percent of the national economy.

A downturn in housing could mean more than 1.3 million lost jobs, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. predicts, bumping up the national unemployment rate by 1 percent and the unemployment rate in house-mad California by 2 percent. Those numbers don't include likely job cuts in housing-dependent businesses, such as banking, furniture and building materials.

The Center for Economic and Policy Research predicts worse, saying a bubble burst would mean the loss of 5 million to 6.3 million jobs.

The housing run-up has financed consumer spending, creating more than $5 trillion in bubble wealth, the center estimates. Consumers have used "cash-out" mortgages to pay for everything from new kitchens to college tuition.

A final nightmare scenario: A federal bailout of the mortgage market is likely if housing crashes, the center predicts. So, if corporate pension funds continue to falter and this dire prediction does come true, the Feds could conceivably be holding your mortgage and your pension.

[jonnygemini]

from:
The Dirt Files
www.dirtfiles.com/



FOLKS, yer old pal Jerky has been suffering the tortures of the damned these last few weeks. I've got a wicked blockage that's as thick and grey and fixed as the pharmaceutically-induced fecal impaction that killed our old pal Elvis on his throne... only it's in my brain, not my bowels.

In short, I've got writer's block. Again. Only this time, it's so bad, there is actual, physical pain involved. It hurts worse than an Amaretto hangover, or one of those twice-per-decade, wake-up-screaming calf muscle cramps. In my skull.

Whenever I get these blocks -- which, I note with no small distress, is with increasing regularity -- I try to think my way out of it by doing a little mental plumbing. What is it, exactly, that's interrupting the flow? In this most recent case, I think I've got it figured out.

See, the thing is, I'm the kind of guy who doesn't like to give an opinion on a subject until I feel that I understand it. I know; that's pretty fucking presumptuous for someone who's spent the last seven years churning out quasi-satirical copy for a porno-blog with an ever-dwindling readership, an exercise as futile as life itself. And yet, there it is: a spreading blind-spot of uncertainty that eats away at my confidence and saps at my will to communicate.

It was while meditating on this dilema that a flickering intuition triggered a minor epiphany. I assume most of you are familiar with the Buddhist parable of the blind men and the elephant. If not, here it is:

"Once upon a time there was a certain raja who called to his servant and said, 'Come, good fellow, go and gather together in one place all the men of Savatthi who were born blind... and show them an elephant.'

'Very good, sire,' replied the servant, and he did as he was told.

He said to the blind men assembled there, 'Here is an elephant,' and to one man he presented the head of the elephant, to another its ears, to another a tusk, to another the trunk, the foot, back, tail, and tuft of the tail, saying to each one that that was the elephant.

When the blind men had felt the elephant, the raja went to each of them and said to each, 'Well, blind man, have you seen the elephant? Tell me, what sort of thing is an elephant?'

Thereupon the men who were presented with the head answered, 'Sire, an elephant is like a pot.' And the men who had observed the ear replied, 'An elephant is like a winnowing basket.' Those who had been presented with a tusk said it was a ploughshare. Those who knew only the trunk said it was a plough; others said the body was a grainery; the foot, a pillar; the back, a mortar; the tail, a pestle, the tuft of the tail, a brush.

Then they began to quarrel, shouting, 'Yes it is!' 'No, it is not!' 'An elephant is not that!' 'Yes, it's like that!' and so on, till they came to blows over the matter."

The superficial, "exoteric" message of this parable seems pretty clear. We shouldn't jump to conclusions based on incomplete observations. It's a good lesson, worth taking to heart. But the more I thought about it, the more this parable seemed to contain hidden depths in the form of multiple, "esoteric" messages.

To begin with, it presents us with a pretty accurate working model of how media functions today. We information consumers are the blind men. The raja's servant deliberately leads us to the most confusing and narrow view of that which we seek to understand. At his master's command, he creates a multiplicity of erroneous certainties, each of which calls the others into question, engendering strife, conflict and division.

Is this beginning to sound uncomfortably familiar? It should, because the raja's servant behaves in exactly the same way -- and serves exactly the same function -- as today's mainstream, corporate media. We blind ones are not meant to understand, but we can't help wanting to. So the Powers That Be (the raja) reward our insolent curiosity by ordering their media lackeys (the raja's servant) to confuse us, distract us and sow discord in our ranks. They let us feel out just enough anatomy to jump to one or more of many carefully crafted, pre-determined conclusions about the nature of the Beast we're fondling.



Continuing our Straussian deconstruction of the elephant parable leads us down a windowless, institutional corridor of pale yellow ceramic, lit from above by buzzing fluorescent tubes behind rough iron grating. The slime-spattered walls are lined with oversized steel doors, all without handles and all double-bolted. Pressing our ears against the cold, impervious metal yields little more than muffled echoes; indecipherable save for the barest hint of tone. Does that rising voice signal distress? The silence afterwards, contemplation? Murmurs and the faint squeak of a chair being pushed across a polished marble floor... if only we could hear what they were saying!

Further down the corridor, the doors give way to a series of evenly distributed holes, roughly every ten feet or so, each the size of a dinner plate. On the other side is darkness, and the air whistles as it, and we, are sucked towards the holes. Our arms slip through, and we touch what's on the other side.

At the first hole, our fingers metaphorically caress Preznit Dubya's almost unbelievably belligerent Veterans' Day speech, and we suspect we might be dealing with a psychotic regime of New World Order absolutists hell-bent on consummating their "unipolar moment" by ejaculating hot, white Will to Power into the screaming, upturned faces of anybody unfortunate enough to be in their way.

Moving on to the next hole, we stick our fingers in the federal response to Hurricane Katrina and wonder if it's not a world historic ideological conspiracy we're facing, but a confederacy of dunces, an incompetocracy hopelessly hobbled by the crippling effects of abject cronyism. Then we push a little deeper, feeling out FEMA's decision to evict an estimated 150,000 evacuees from their government-subsidized digs after doing less than nothing for them, or the fact that countless rotting corpses were left behind for terrified loved ones to accidentally stumble across, and the hairs on our arms stand up. Do they see some socio-political silver lining to New Orleans' black Diaspora? Are we then dealing with racists?

At the third hole, we rub the Pentagon's admission that they've used White Phosphorous as a weapon -- and not just for "illumination", as a slew of apologists have attempted to spin -- and momentarily believe we're dealing with run-of-the-mill war criminals.

New hole, new horror. We probe and palpate Chickenhawk Cheney's abiding bloodlust and wonder who but the most wicked and unrepentant of sadists would dare to make such an indefensible stand? And what does it say about us that he feels perfectly secure in doing so publicly? I mean, Christ almighty, even John "Death Squad" Negroponte thinks Cheney's gone too far!

And so we move from hole to hole, from story to story, our perceptions and presumptions being jerked violently in all directions simultaneously. We read about how the first priority in Iraq and Louisiana were the oil rigs, and about Halliburton's no bid contracts, and we think we're dealing with unmitigated greed. We read about multiply-disgraced con artist Ahmed Chalabi being warmly greeted during secret, closed-door meetings with Rumsfeld, Cheney and Hadley, and we think we're dealing with an impossibly intricate charade.

We read about the return of Saddam's fabled rape camps under new All-American management, and the homosadistic pseudo-buggery taking place there, and we start to wonder about potential alternate explanations for why the soldiers at Abu Ghraib committed their hypersexual degradations to digital immortality.

Another story makes us wonder if they're religious lunatics, laying the groundwork for an Apocalypse they so desperately crave. Yet another suggests these True Believers are being played for fools. One story suggests a White House in turmoil; another, a White House in complete control.

So which is it? All of the above? None of the above? For the time being, yer old pal Jerky is certain of only one thing: regardless of the political party involved, this is no mere elephant that we're dealing with. We are all of us being sniffed at by an abomination of a far more Lovecraftian nature; a vast and shuddering Beast -- part swine, part vulture, all evil -- that starves even as it hunkers feasting over a boundless field of carrion.

Maybe we should keep our fingers away from the thing until we get a decent look at it.

[jonnygemini]

Project Paperclip: Dark side of the Moon
By Andrew Walker
BBC News

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:
news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/magazine/4443934.stm

[jonnygemini]

from rotten.com

The Reagan Era
We must now dip into the truly creepy conspiracy arena for a while, to claims and conspiracies so extraordinary that they defy belief, to the shadowy corners of the unknown and unproven... except that (uh-oh) they're true, known and proven. Damn.

The year, oh-so-appropriately, is 1984. Sounds bad already? It gets soooooo much worse. Then-President Ronald Reagan issues an executive order for the Federal Emergency Management Agency to start running "Readiness Exercises" for national emergencies, such as a massive terrorist attack.

The simulations, known as REX-84 and Night Train 84, were drafted and run by FEMA's contact person with the National Security Agency, one Lt. Col. Oliver North. No, really. This is actually, honest-to-God true.

North worked with FEMA from 1982 to 1984, drafting a variety of emergency contingency plans for declared national emergencies (the U.S. has been in a continuously declared state of National Emergency since 1933 and is currently under several new ones in the wake of the 9/11 al Qaeda attack on America).

Among the REX-84 simulations devised with North's assistance was a plan to declare martial law and "temporarily" suspend constitutional protections such as freedom of speech and due process in criminal prosecutions.

A draft executive order based on North's fantasy scheme gave the president and FEMA the power to institute these plans on the president's say-so. The draft order was presented by the White House to then-Attorney General William French Smith, who was appalled and said so. The White House then "dropped" the plan, at least as far as Smith and the public were concerned.

The plans called for the assumption of emergency powers and granted the president to power to enact emergency legislation and judicial functions, essentially destroying the entire fundamental structure of the U.S. Constitution.

As part of REX-84 and the related executive orders, provisions were made for the detention of aliens, enemy aliens and citizens, and restricting the movements of the population. A draft executive order was given to Reagan which would have activated the provisions of Rex-84 according to presidential whim, according to the Miami Herald, which reported that it could not confirm whether or not the order was actually signed.

Finally, we may for a moment flee the unrelenting and horrific true and verifiable portion of our story to venture into the unproven and merely rumored. According to various sources with less credibility (on the face of it) than the Miami Herald, Rex-84 was in fact activated.

According to these stories, FEMA set up detention camps all around the U.S. for use in case of that so-called "emergency" scenario. Some claim that these camps have in fact been built and are fully staffed, just waiting for the day they will be put into use.

Even better, some claim that these concentration camps are already in use, possibly as many as hundreds of them! The FEMA goon who drafted the plans based his blueprint on a scheme he concocted for mass arrests and detentions of black militants during the 1970s. Grant Morrison's epic comic-book paen to paranoia The Invisibles suggests the camps are already being used for exactly that — the detention and "disappearance" of black radicals. Others have floated this idea, as well as its opposite, that the camps are currently being used to secretly incarcerate white supremacists and members of right-wing militia groups.

Welcome to Amerika! But it doesn't end there...
Permanent Emergencies
Back to the cold, hard reality. When al Qaeda bombed the World Trade Center and the Pentagon with hijacked commercial jets, President George W Bush finally got the chance to start throwing some of these nifty, non-Constitutionally-sanctioned powers around.

On September 11, 2001, the FAA grounded the entire domestic air travel industry. The White House and every major federal facility were evacuated. The president himself was swept into the air and tossed about from secret location to secret location like a hot potato. Part of lower Manhattan was evacuated, U.S. financial markets were crippled and shut completely down, and states of emergency were declared in New York and Washington, D.C. And the emergency powers hit parade began.

Within hours of the attacks, long before the smoke had stopped rising from the rubble, the White House had authorized Attorney General John Ashcroft to begin massive roundups of Arab-Americans and foreign nationals of Arabic descent. Whole families were arrested and detained without charges.

No formal accounting of the detentions has ever been offered, so it's impossible to know just how many were taken, but even low estimates run into the thousands. Their locations were kept secret. Without knowing who was taken, it is also impossible to know how many were deported and how many are still being held.

While many of these detentions were shrouded in secrecy, the war on Afghanistan yielded a bumper crop of prisoners who had to be accounted for. Many were transferred to Camp X-Ray, a heavily fortified compound located in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in order to circumvent any efforts to apply the U.S. judicial process on behalf of those being held. Prisoners included citizens of several countries, including some U.S. citizens. Detention at Camp X-Ray is an indefinite sentence — releases happen only at the whim of the U.S. military, and that whim is rare. Camp X-Ray, presumably the most humanitiarian of the detention facilities in use, is a harsh but apparently semi-humane set-up, with Orwellian propaganda posters in abundance and tiny razor-wire cells sized just large enough to allow prisoners to lie down.

Other high-security prisoners are being kept in unknown locations around the world, under unknown conditions. According to various media reports, prisoners at military compounds in Afghanistan and elsewhere are kept under duress in order to encourage "cooperation." Some prisoners, such as accused dirty bomber Jose Padilla are kept in mainland military brigs. Others, like al Qaeda mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, have completely disappeared from any documented location for "special" treatment.

Shortly after 9/11, crazy apocalyptic Attorney General John Ashcroft called for the creation of detention camps to hold anyone designated as an "enemy combatant" in the War on Terrorism. As seen in Padilla's case, this can include noncombatants arrested by domestic law enforcement on U.S. soil. The White House is arguing in court that the president has the sole authority to designate an enemy combatant for any reason the president sees fit, and the Justice Department has further argued that U.S. courts have no jurisdiction to challenge such a designation.

After a flurry of public protest, the "detention camp" discussion went sub rosa. But under existing presidential authorities and executive orders issued both before and after 9/11, there is no need for public discussion. The camps could (under the sketchy legal justifications drafted by current and previous administrations) be open for business without a word ever being spoken in public.

Furthermore, it's been explicitly stated by various federal, state and local officials that if the U.S. terror alert status ever rises to Code Red, anything goes — and that includes martial law, tanks on city streets, enforced curfews, restricted travel, unlimited secret arrests and unlimited mass detentions... Sky's the limit, Oliver North-style!

Welcome to Amerika! Who knows what tomorrow will bring? Hell, who wants to?

[jonnygemini]

Fears of Post-9/11 Terrorism Spur Proposals for New Powers

By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, November 27, 2005; A06

The Defense Department has expanded its programs aimed at gathering and analyzing intelligence within the United States, creating new agencies, adding personnel and seeking additional legal authority for domestic security activities in the post-9/11 world.

The moves have taken place on several fronts. The White House is considering expanding the power of a little-known Pentagon agency called the Counterintelligence Field Activity, or CIFA, which was created three years ago. The proposal, made by a presidential commission, would transform CIFA from an office that coordinates Pentagon security efforts -- including protecting military facilities from attack -- to one that also has authority to investigate crimes within the United States such as treason, foreign or terrorist sabotage or even economic espionage.

The Pentagon has pushed legislation on Capitol Hill that would create an intelligence exception to the Privacy Act, allowing the FBI and others to share information gathered about U.S. citizens with the Pentagon, CIA and other intelligence agencies, as long as the data is deemed to be related to foreign intelligence. Backers say the measure is needed to strengthen investigations into terrorism or weapons of mass destruction.

The proposals, and other Pentagon steps aimed at improving its ability to analyze counterterrorism intelligence collected inside the United States, have drawn complaints from civil liberties advocates and a few members of Congress, who say the Defense Department's push into domestic collection is proceeding with little scrutiny by the Congress or the public.

"We are deputizing the military to spy on law-abiding Americans in America. This is a huge leap without even a [congressional] hearing," Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), a member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said in a recent interview.

Wyden has since persuaded lawmakers to change the legislation, attached to the fiscal 2006 intelligence authorization bill, to address some of his concerns, but he still believes hearings should be held. Among the changes was the elimination of a provision to let Defense Intelligence Agency officers hide the fact that they work for the government when they approach people who are possible sources of intelligence in the United States.

Modifications also were made in the provision allowing the FBI to share information with the Pentagon and CIA, requiring the approval of the director of national intelligence, John D. Negroponte, for that to occur, and requiring the Pentagon to make reports to Congress on the subject. Wyden said the legislation "now strikes a much fairer balance by protecting critical rights for our country's citizens and advancing intelligence operations to meet our security needs."

Kate Martin, director of the Center for National Security Studies, said the data-sharing amendment would still give the Pentagon much greater access to the FBI's massive collection of data, including information on citizens not connected to terrorism or espionage.

The measure, she said, "removes one of the few existing privacy protections against the creation of secret dossiers on Americans by government intelligence agencies." She said the Pentagon's "intelligence agencies are quietly expanding their domestic presence without any public debate."

Lt. Col. Chris Conway, a spokesman for the Pentagon, said that the most senior Defense Department intelligence officials are aware of the sensitivities related to their expanded domestic activities. At the same time, he said, the Pentagon has to have the intelligence necessary to protect its facilities and personnel at home and abroad.

"In the age of terrorism," Conway said, "the U.S. military and its facilities are targets, and we have to be prepared within our authorities to defend them before something happens."

Among the steps already taken by the Pentagon that enhanced its domestic capabilities was the establishment after 9/11 of Northern Command, or Northcom, in Colorado Springs, to provide military forces to help in reacting to terrorist threats in the continental United States. Today, Northcom's intelligence centers in Colorado and Texas fuse reports from CIFA, the FBI and other U.S. agencies, and are staffed by 290 intelligence analysts. That is more than the roughly 200 analysts working for the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, and far more than those at the Department of Homeland Security.

In addition, each of the military services has begun its own post-9/11 collection of domestic intelligence, primarily aimed at gathering data on potential terrorist threats to bases and other military facilities at home and abroad. For example, Eagle Eyes is a program set up by the Air Force Office of Special Investigations, which "enlists the eyes and ears of Air Force members and citizens in the war on terror," according to the program's Web site.

The Marine Corps has expanded its domestic intelligence operations and developed internal policies in 2004 to govern oversight of the "collection, retention and dissemination of information concerning U.S. persons," according to a Marine Corps order approved on April 30, 2004.

The order recognizes that in the post-9/11 era, the Marine Corps Intelligence Activity will be "increasingly required to perform domestic missions," and as a result, "there will be increased instances whereby Marine intelligence activities may come across information regarding U.S. persons." Among domestic targets listed are people in the United States who it "is reasonably believed threaten the physical security of Defense Department employees, installations, operations or official visitors."

Perhaps the prime illustration of the Pentagon's intelligence growth is CIFA, which remains one of its least publicized intelligence agencies. Neither the size of its staff, said to be more than 1,000, nor its budget is public, said Conway, the Pentagon spokesman. The CIFA brochure says the agency's mission is to "transform" the way counterintelligence is done "fully utilizing 21st century tools and resources."

One CIFA activity, threat assessments, involves using "leading edge information technologies and data harvesting," according to a February 2004 Pentagon budget document. This involves "exploiting commercial data" with the help of outside contractors including White Oak Technologies Inc. of Silver Spring, and MZM Inc., a Washington-based research organization, according to the Pentagon document.

For CIFA, counterintelligence involves not just collecting data but also "conducting activities to protect DoD and the nation against espionage, other intelligence activities, sabotage, assassinations, and terrorist activities," its brochure states.

CIFA's abilities would increase considerably under the proposal being reviewed by the White House, which was made by a presidential commission on intelligence chaired by retired appellate court judge Laurence H. Silberman and former senator Charles S. Robb (D-Va.). The commission urged that CIFA be given authority to carry out domestic criminal investigations and clandestine operations against potential threats inside the United States.

The Silberman-Robb panel found that because the separate military services concentrated on investigations within their areas, "no entity views non-service-specific and department-wide investigations as its primary responsibility." A 2003 Defense Department directive kept CIFA from engaging in law enforcement activities such as "the investigation, apprehension, or detention of individuals suspected or convicted of criminal offenses against the laws of the United States."

The commission's proposal would change that, giving CIFA "new counterespionage and law enforcement authorities," covering treason, espionage, foreign or terrorist sabotage, and even economic espionage. That step, the panel said, could be taken by presidential order and Pentagon directive without congressional approval.

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said the CIFA expansion "is being studied at the DoD [Defense Department] level," adding that intelligence director Negroponte would have a say in the matter. A Pentagon spokesman said, "The [CIFA] matter is before the Hill committees."

Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said in a recent interview that CIFA has performed well in the past and today has no domestic intelligence collection activities. He was not aware of moves to enhance its authority.

The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence has not had formal hearings on CIFA or other domestic intelligence programs, but its staff has been briefed on some of the steps the Pentagon has already taken. "If a member asks the chairman" -- Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) -- for hearings, "I am sure he would respond," said Bill Duhnke, the panel's staff director.

[jonnygemini]

Miami Police Take New Tack Against Terror
Nov 28 9:28 PM US/Eastern
Email this story

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."

[UniverseSeven]

Bush on the Constitution: "It's just a goddamned piece of paper"

By DOUG THOMPSON
Dec 9, 2005, 07:53

www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_7779.shtml


On FOX news today they stated that 120,000 search warrants had been issued without a judges approval under the USA Patriot Act since it took effect in 01'