Zionist group fails to disrupt Ilan Pappe’s tour at California state universities
By Nora Barrows Friedman | The Electronic Intifada | February 18, 2012
The California State University (CSU) system has sent a letter in response to a Zionist group, rejecting their claim that Ilan Pappe, an Israeli historian and a frequent contributor to The Electronic Intifada, should not receive CSU sponsorship during his upcoming campus tour because of his criticism of Israeli policies.
Tammi Rossman-Benjamin and Leila Beckwith, professors and co-founders of the AMCHA initiative, appealed to the CSU chancellor and the presidents of CSU-Northridge, Cal Poly, and CSU-Fresno, urging them to “revoke sponsorship of Ilan Pappe’s tour.”
As I reported last month, Rossman-Benjamin and Beckwith are at the forefront of a campaign to discredit and punish professors who speak out against Israeli policies. Their targets include CSU-Northridge professor David Klein, who has been under attack from AMCHA for his outspoken support of the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement and for his organizing against CSU’s resumption of the Israel study abroad program.
In their appeal to the CSU administration, AMCHA wrote:
As you may know, Ilan Pappe is an Israeli Jew who harbors deep animus towards the Jewish state, has publicly called for its elimination, and engages in activities to harm its citizens, such as a campaign to boycott Israeli academics, which he helped to found. In addition, he openly supports the terrorist organization Hamas and falsely accuses Israel of “crimes against humanity,” including “genocide” and “ethnic cleansing.”
Pappe has readily acknowledged that his “scholarship” is driven by his anti-Israel political agenda, and his historical writings have been repudiated by numerous eminent scholars of Israel and the Middle East. Moreover, much of the rhetoric Pappe uses to demonize and delegitimize the Jewish state is anti-Semitic according to the working definition of anti-Semitism employed by the U.S. State Department, as is the academic boycott which he promotes in his talks and writings.
Although we are dismayed that Ilan Pappe is coming to speak at three CSU campuses, our concern is not with the events per se, but rather with the fact that these events are being organized and promoted by faculty and administrators of the California State University system, using the name, resources, and imprimatur of CSU, in order to vilify and harm the Jewish state and its supporters.
The letter included dramatic claims that professors who have organized Pappe’s lectures “have been permitted to exploit their University positions and taxpayer-funded University resources to promote their hatred of the Jewish state and their efforts to harm it.”
Additionally, the AMCHA initiative wrote that the lecture tour is in “clear violation of the will and intention of the CSU Trustees who formally resolved that ‘outside speakers brought to the campus will contribute to educational values, that is the pursuit of truth and citizenship values, and not be brought in for propagandizing purposes.’ Indeed, this resolution of the CSU Trustees introduces CSUF’s 2005 policy on outside speakers and events.”
They go on, wanting to appear as though they’re not asking to censor Pappe:
Please understand that we are NOT asking that these three events be cancelled or that Ilan Pappe be censored. Rather, we are calling on you to rescind all CSUF, Cal Poly, and CSUN sponsorship and support from the Ilan Pappe events, for the following reasons:
… These events are in violation of CSU policy and the California Education Code (89005.5), which prohibit the use of the name of any CSU campus for the support, endorsement, or advancement of political or partisan activity or program, with “boycott” specifically named.
The fact that events which will undoubtedly foment hatred of the Jewish state and its supporters are being organized and promoted by University faculty, senior administrators, departments, and colleges cannot help but create a hostile environment for Jewish students at CSUF, Cal Poly, and CSUN, in violation of Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
However, despite their hysterical pleas and citation of codes to fit their specific purpose of silencing dissent and discussion on campuses, CSU decided to unanimously stand up for academic freedom and dismissed AMCHA’s pressure. CSU officials stated in a letter:
Universities are charged with teaching students how to think for themselves. This includes accessing and processing knowledge and ideas and considering, discussing and debating them.
… There is no danger to a free society in allowing opposing views to be heard. The danger, instead, is in censoring them. It is easy to support free speech when we agree with what is being said. The real test is when we are asked to defend the expression of views with which we disagree.
Ilan Pappe’s CSU tour begins next week.
Click here for full CSU letter
Related articles
- The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine by Ilan Pappe (alethonews.wordpress.com)
- Confronting intimidation – Ilan Pappe (coalitionforpalestine.org)
- New Pappe book highlights plight of forgotten Palestinians (alethonews.wordpress.com)
- Socialist Worker: Interview Ilan Pappé Unequal under the law (themisanthropichumanist.wordpress.com)
- California professor under attack for opposing “study in Israel” scheme (alethonews.wordpress.com)
- Only 127 US academics (many retired) sign to oppose study abroad in Israel programs (alethonews.wordpress.com)
85 Things that Might Get You on a DHS Terrorist Watch List
By Robert Wenzel | Economic Policy Journal | February 17, 2012
Because the Department of Homeland Security has asked parts of the public to report suspicious activity through the “Communities Against Terrorism” program , if you visit an airport, stay in a hotel, drink coffee at an Internet café, or in some other way interact with one of the Halloween G-men in the American public, a full-fledged FBI investigation is only one phone call away, says LaTi.
LaTi lists 85 things that might get you on a watch list, if a Halloween G-man spots you in the act:
1) Use Google Maps to find your way around a strange city.
2) Use Google Maps to view photos of sports stadiums.
3) Install online privacy protection software on your personal computer.
4) Attempt to shield your computer screen from the view of others.
5) Shave your beard, dye your hair or alter your mode of dress.
6) Sweat.
7) Avoid eye contact.
8) Use a cell-phone camera in an airport, train station or shopping mall.
9) Seek to work alone or without supervision.
10) Appear to be out of place.
11) Have bright colored stains on your clothing.
12) Be missing any fingers.
13) Emit strange odors.
14) Travel an “illogical distance” to do your shopping.
15) Have someone pick you up from a beauty supply store.
33) Act impatient.
16) Be nervous.
17) Be a new customer from out of town.
18) Use a credit card in someone else’s name.
19) Chant environmental slogans near construction sites.
20) Enter a construction site after work hours.
21) Rent watercraft for an extended period.
22) Make comments involving radical theology.
23) Make vague or cryptic warnings.
24) Express anti-U.S. sentiments.
25) Purchase a quantity of prepaid or disposable cell phones.
26) Leave store without preprogramming disposable phones.
27) Be overly interested in satellite phones and voice privacy.
28) Ask questions about swapping SIM cards in cell phones.
29) Ask questions about how phone location can be tracked.
30) Rewire cell phone’s ringer or backlight.
31) Express out-of-place and provocative religious or political sentiments.
32) Purchase a police scanner, infrared device or 2-way radio.
33) Act impatient.
34) Drive a vehicle that appears to be overloaded.
35) Depart quickly when seen or approached.
36) Be a person “acting suspiciously.”
37) Make illegible notes on a map.
38) Take photos of the Statue of Liberty or other “symbolic targets.”
39) Overdress for the weather.
40) Ask questions in a hobby shop about remote controlled aircraft.
41) Demonstrate interest that does not seem genuine.
42) Request specific room assignments or locations at a hotel or motel.
43) Arrive at a lodging with unusual amounts of luggage.
52) Make notes that are illegible to passersby.
44) Refuse cleaning service.
45) Avoid the lobby of a hotel or motel.
46) Remain in your hotel or motel room.
47) Leave your hotel for several days, then return.
48) Leave behind clothing and toiletry items.
49) Park your vehicle in an isolated area.
50) Be observed switching a cell phone SIM card.
51) Be observed using multiple cell phones.
52) Make notes that are illegible to passersby.
53) Communicate through a PC game.
54) Download “extreme/radical” content.
55) Exhibit preoccupation with press coverage of terrorist attacks.
56) Wear a backpack when the weather is warm.
57) Speak to mall maintenance personnel or security guards.
58) Make racist comments.
59) Mumble to yourself.
60) Pass along any anonymous threats you may receive.
61) Discreetly take a photo in a mass transit site.
62) Arrive with a group of people and split off from them.
63)Demand “identity privacy.”
64) Appear to endorse the use of violence in support of a cause.
65) Make bulk purchases of meals ready to eat.
66) Arrive in America from a land where militant Islamic groups operate.
67) Take a long absence for religious education or charity work.
68) Travel to countries where militant Islam rules.
69) Study technical subjects that would aid a terror operation.
70) Work in a field that “serves as a cover for preparing for an operation.”
71) Exhibit ire at global policies of the U.S.
72) Balk at providing “complete personal information.”
73) Provide multiple names on rental car paperwork.
74) Receive an unusual number of package deliveries.
75) Replace rental property locks without permission.
76) Modify your property to conceal storage areas.
77) Fail to pay rent for a storage unit in a timely manner.
78) Inquire about security systems at your storage facility.
79) Place unusual items in storage units or dumpsters.
80) Avoid contact with rental facility personnel.
81) Access storage facilities an unusual number of times.
82) Request deliveries of items directly to a storage unit.
83) Be part of a group requesting identical tattoos.
84) Request tattoos that could conceal extremist symbols.
85) Fly while appearing to be Muslim on September 11 of any year.
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Members of UK Parliament Recommend Censoring Online Extremism
By Natalie Nicol | EFF | February 15, 2012
In a report published last week, members of the United Kingdom Parliament concluded that the Internet plays a major role in the radicalization of terrorists and called on the government to pressure Internet Service Providers in Britain and abroad to censor online speech. The Roots of Violent Radicalisation places the Internet ahead of prisons, universities, and religious establishments in propagating radical beliefs and ultimately recommends that the government “develop a code of practice for the removal of material which promotes violent extremism” binding ISPs.
While the Terrorism Act 2006 authorizes British law enforcement agencies to order certain material to be removed from websites, lawmakers on the Home Affairs Committee stated that “service providers themselves should be more active in monitoring the material they host.” Their report raises serious concerns that political and religious speech will be suppressed. Security expert Peter Neumann who testified before the Committee asked why websites like YouTube and Facebook can’t be as “effective at removing . . . extremist Islamist or extremist right-wing content” as they are at removing sexually explicit content or copyrighted material that violates their own terms of service.
Citing “persuasive evidence about the potential threat from extreme far-right terrorism” and lauding the recent conviction of four London men who used the Internet to plot a bombing of the London Stock Exchange, Parliament Members commended the report saying, “[it] tackles the threat from home-grown terrorism on and off line.” A spokesman for the House of Commons Home Office stated that the Committee would continue to “work closely with police and internet service providers to take Internet hate off the web.”
In an interview with the International Business Times, Trend Micro security director Rik Ferguson criticized the Committee’s recommendations and argued that making ISPs “judge, jury and executioner” imposes responsibilities on ISPs that rightfully belong to law enforcement. “Material of a political or religious nature is by definition much more difficult to define and much more difficult to police without crossing the line to impact on freedom of expression,” Ferguson stated.
The Committee issued its recommendations in the midst of reports that Google India had taken down online content deemed offensive to Indian political and religious leaders in response to a lawsuit. The Washington Post points out that Google Transparency Reports indicate that the UK removed nearly as much content as India from January to June 2011. Google complied with more than 80% of requests from the UK to remove content from its services.
EFF believes that it is not the role of intermediaries to serve as gatekeepers for law enforcement. Fortunately, we’re not alone: the UK’s Internet Service Providers’ Association argues that “ISPs are not best placed to determine what constitutes violent extremism and where the line should be drawn. This is particularly true of a sensitive area like radicalisation, with differing views on what may constitute violent extremist.” Indeed–the strategy set forth by the Committee defines extremism as “vocal or active opposition to fundamental British values.” ISPs and other intermediaries must not be charged with determining what constitutes extremism, particularly when the definition of such is so vague. This type of state-mandated online censorship is inherently corruptible, especially when it is justified to combat national security threats.
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Israeli Troops Break Into Homes, Offices of Three Palestinian MPs
By George Rishmawi | IMEMC & Agencies | February 16, 2012
An Israeli military force invaded the offices and homes of three Palestinian members of Parliament and confiscated their computers and cell phones in the early hours of Thursday morning, Palestinian media sources reported.
According to the source, Israeli troops broke into the house and office of Ibrahim Dahbour, Khaled Suleiman and Khaled Yahia in the West Bank city of Jenin and were interrogated by an Israeli intelligence officer.
The invading troops took the cell phones, computers and some private documents form the MP’s homes without showing any search warrant.
Khaled Suleiman said the soldiers told him that they are closing the office until further notice, but gave him no written official order proving their claim.
Related articles
- Speaker Of Palestine Parliament Receives Six Months Administrative Detention (alethonews.wordpress.com)
- Israeli Troops Break Into House of IMEMC Board Member (alethonews.wordpress.com)
US federal agencies seek software to monitor social media
Press TV – February 13, 2012
US government agencies are looking for digital tools that can extract information from social media to predict everything from future terrorist attacks to foreign uprisings.
According to requests posted online, US federal law enforcement agencies are looking for potential contractors to build software that can monitor the entire universe of social media.
The Department of Defense, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and Federal Bureau of Investigation are among US agencies that are looking for ways to automate the process of identifying emerging threats and upheavals from social websites.
“Social media has emerged to be the first instance of communication about a crisis, trumping traditional first responders that included police, firefighters, EMT, and journalists,” the FBI wrote in its request.
“Social media is rivaling 911 services in crisis response and reporting,” the request added.
The proposals have raised privacy concerns among advocates who worry that such monitoring efforts could breach user’s privacy.
The FBI says their proposed system is only meant to monitor publicly available information and words that relate to criminal activities.
The software sought by the Defense Department would track information posted by the social media to identify threats that could affect US soldiers in the battlefield.
Germany halts ACTA approval
RT – February 10, 2012
Germany has delayed its approval of the ACTA treaty after the Justice Ministry voiced its concerns about the legislation. It is the third EU country after Poland and the Czech Republic to challenge the controversial treaty.
The Justice Ministry said that the European Parliament should vote on ACTA before it is considered by the state’s parliament.
Three of Germany’s parties, the Pirate Party, the Left Party and the Greens, have also spoken out against ACTA.
German protesters are expected to stage demonstrations in over 60 towns across the country on Saturday.
Earlier Poland and the Czech Republic had refused to approve the agreement. Both countries saw major protests in the streets. Critics of ACTA accuse its authors of hammering out the agreement in secret and say the deal will limit online freedom of speech.
On January 26, the controversial ACTA treaty was signed by the 22 of 27 European Union member states, and the EU itself. It now has to be ratified by the European Parliament and is scheduled to be debated in June.
ACTA is an international agreement aimed at protecting intellectual property. It shares similarities with the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the US, which was shelved by lawmakers after a partial blackout by Wikipedia and Google in protest.
The ACTA treaty was negotiated by industrialized countries struggling for ways to fight intellectual property theft. The US, most of the EU, Australia, Canada, Japan and several other countries have signed the treaty.
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US: Congress Trying to Fast-Track Domestic Drone Use, Sideline Privacy
ACLU | February 6, 2012
Congress is poised to give final passage to legislation that would give a big boost to domestic unmanned aerial surveillance — aka “drones.”
As we explained in our recent report, drone technology is advancing by leaps and bounds, and there is a lot of pent-up demand for them within the law enforcement community. But, domestic deployment of unmanned aircraft for surveillance purposes has largely been blocked so far by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which is rightly concerned about the safety effects of filling our skies with flying robots (which crash significantly more often than manned aircraft).
As we also explained in our report, the FAA is under pressure to loosen the reins and permit broader deployment of drones by government agencies.
One result of that pressure is this legislation (H.R. 658 — see conference report for more details), which authorizes appropriations for the FAA through fiscal 2014. Unfortunately, nothing in the bill would address the very serious privacy issues raised by drone aircraft. This bill would push the nation willy-nilly toward an era of aerial surveillance without any steps to protect the traditional privacy that Americans have always enjoyed and expected.
Congress — and to the extent possible, the FAA — need to impose some rules (such as those we proposed in our report) to protect Americans’ privacy from the inevitable invasions that this technology will otherwise lead to. We don’t want to wonder, every time we step out our front door, whether some eye in the sky is watching our every move.
On Friday, the House gave final passage to the legislation. House approval came on a quite partisan vote, with most Republicans in favor and most Democrats opposing. The Senate is scheduled to take up the bill later today.
Here are details on what the bill would do in terms of drones:
- Require the FAA to simplify and speed up the process by which it issues permission to government agencies to operate drones. It must do this within 90 days. The FAA has already been working on a set of proposed regulations to loosen the rules around drones, reportedly set for release in the spring of 2012.
- Require the FAA to allow “a government public safety agency” to operate any drone weighing 4.4 pounds or less as long as certain conditions are met (within line of sight, during the day, below 400 feet in altitude, and only in safe categories of airspace).
- Require the FAA to establish a pilot project within six months to create six test zones for integrating drones “into the national airspace system.”
- Require the FAA to create a comprehensive plan “to safely accelerate the integration of civil unmanned aircraft systems into the national airspace system.” “Civil” drones means those operated by the private sector; currently it is all but impossible for any non-government entity, except for hobbyists, to get permission to fly drones (for-profit use of drones is banned). Industry groups and their congressional supporters see this as a potential area for growth. Congress specifies that the plan must provide for the integration of drones into the national airspace system “as soon as practicable, but not later than September 30, 2015.” The FAA has nine months to create the plan. The FAA is also required to create a “5-year roadmap for the introduction” of civil drones into the national airspace.
- Require the FAA to publish a final rule within 18 months after the comprehensive plan is submitted, “that will allow” civil operation of small (under 55 pounds) drones in the national airspace, and a proposed rule for carrying out the comprehensive plan.
The bottom line is: domestic drones are potentially extremely powerful surveillance tools, and that power — like all government power — needs to be subject to checks and balances. We hope that Congress will carefully consider the privacy implications that this technology can lead to.
Wall Street’s Secret Spy Center, Run for the 1% by NYPD
How 60 Minutes Blew the Story
By PAM MARTENS | CounterPunch | February 6, 2012
On September 25, 2011, just eight days after the Occupy Wall Street protests began in Zuccotti Park in lower Manhattan, the much acclaimed CBS News program, 60 Minutes, aired a fawning look at the thousands of surveillance cameras affixed to buildings and lampposts throughout New York City. The cameras feed live images of people going about their everyday lives to a $150 million computer center equipped with artificial intelligence to integrate and analyze the daily habits of what are, for the most part, law-abiding Americans.
The thrust of the 60 Minutes program was the fine job of counter terrorism being done by the NYPD and its Commissioner, Raymond Kelly. It was a triumph in public relations for a police department about to go on an assault spree – pepper spraying and punching peaceful protestors; kicking, ramming and arresting journalists attempting to cover the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations.
On air, the reporter, Scott Pelley, said the surveillance center was “housed in a secret location,” as one would expect of a real counter terrorism program — as opposed to a program to simply quash dissent. Mr. Pelley also said the program was run by the NYPD. As it turns out, neither of those assertions were accurate.
The New York Times, the worldwide news agency Agence France-Presse (AFP), Wired Magazine, the New York City Council had all previously reported the location of the supposedly super secret counter terrorism center on their public web sites: 55 Broadway in the bowels of the financial district. What was a secret about the operation, and not reported by 60 Minutes to its viewers, despite being well aware of the facts, is that the center is jointly staffed and operated by the NYPD along with the largest Wall Street firms – the same firms under investigation in 50 states for mortgage and foreclosure fraud and widely credited with causing the Nation’s economic collapse. The Wall Street firms that were involuntarily bailed out by the 99% are now policing the 99%.
In a telephone conversation with the co-producer of the program, Robert Anderson, he conceded that he was aware of the presence of the Wall Street firms in the center. It would have been hard to miss them. The facility is designed with three long rows of computer workstations. The outside of each cubicle bears a brass plaque with the names of the occupants: Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, JPMorganChase, etc.
You won’t find photographs showing these firms in the surveillance center in any U.S. corporate news outlet, but a foreign news service has them openly displayed – a news organization servicing countries of the former Soviet Union. These photos were taken during a large gathering of reporters and photographers at the invitation of the NYPD. As shown in the photos, the event was hosted by Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly. Very secret counter terrorism operation, indeed, with global reporters and photographers coming and going in both 2010 and 2011.
As we reported in October, the surveillance plan became known as the Lower Manhattan Security Initiative and the facility was dubbed the Lower Manhattan Security Coordination Center. It operates round-the-clock with 2,000 private spy cameras owned by Wall Street firms and other corporations, together with approximately 1,000 more owned by the NYPD. At least 700 additional cameras scour the midtown area and also relay their live feeds into the downtown center where all film is integrated for analysis. The $150 million of taxpayer money that’s funding this corporate/police spying operation comes from both city and Federal sources, with the cost rising daily as more technology is added.
Not only is it unprecedented for corporations under serial and ongoing corruption probes to be allowed to spy on law abiding citizens under the imprimatur of the largest police force in the country, but the legality of the operation by the NYPD itself is highly questionable.
During the 60 Minutes program (at elapsed time 8:50), the following exchange takes place between the reporter Scott Pelley and Jessica Tisch, the NYPD Director of Counterterrorism Policy and Planning who played a significant role in developing the Lower Manhattan Security Coordination Center. (Tisch is in her early thirties and did not come up through the ranks of counter terrorism or law enforcement. She is the granddaughter and one of the heirs to the fortune of now-deceased billionaire Laurence Tisch, who built the Loews Corporation. Her father, James Tisch, is the CEO of the Loews Corporation and was elected by Wall Street banks to sit on the Federal Reserve Bank of New York until 2013, representing the public’s interest. Ms. Tisch is apparently standing in for the public’s interest in this surveillance operation: rather than public hearings, Ms. Tisch drafted the guidelines for the program herself.)
Pelley: “Tisch showed us how the system can search for a suspicious person based on a description – a red shirt for example.”
Tisch: “And I can call up in real time all instances where a camera caught someone wearing a red shirt.”
Pelley: “So the computer looks essentially through all the video, finds all of the red shirts and puts it together for you.”
Tisch: “Video canvasses that used to take days and weeks to do, you’ll now be able to do with the snap of a finger.”
Tisch snaps her fingers for added emphasis.
Unfortunately, electronic surveillance of individuals at the snap of a finger is exactly what New York State law prohibits. New York Code, Section 700.15, requires a warrant for video surveillance and the warrant is only issuable “Upon probable cause to believe that a particularly described person is committing, has committed, or is about to commit a particular designated offense.” Blanket surveillance of hundreds of thousands of law-abiding citizens with cameras that pan, tilt and rotate to track individuals to the doorsteps of their psychiatrist, debt counselor, Alcoholics Anonymous, or prosecutor’s office – shared with corporations that employ hundreds of thousands of these same individuals, is breathtaking in its blatant disregard for privacy rights.
In a letter dated March 26, 2009 to Police Commissioner Kelly, following years of being stonewalled with its Freedom of Information Law requests for more details on the surveillance program, the New York Civil Liberties Union warned: “…virtually all of the enormous information gathered and maintained by the system will be about people engaged in wholly lawful activity…we believe this entire enterprise is illegitimate and inappropriate…”
In a 2006 formal report on the camera surveillance network, the NYCLU noted that “Today’s surveillance camera is not merely the equivalent of a pair of eyes. It has super human vision. It has the capability to zoom in and ‘read’ the pages of the book you have opened while waiting for a train in the subway.” The report further explained that “New York City has a long and troubled history of police surveillance of individuals and groups engaged in lawful political protest and dissent. Between 1904 and 1985 the NYPD compiled some one million intelligence files on more than 200,000 individuals and groups — suspected communists, Vietnam War protesters, health and housing advocates, education reform groups, and civil rights activists.”
An even bigger problem for New York City came on January 23 of this year when the U.S. Supreme Court issued a rare unanimous decision in United States v. Jones. All nine justices agreed that the use of an electronic GPS tracking device placed on an automobile by law enforcement constituted a search under the Fourth Amendment and required a warrant.
Writing the decision for the court, Justice Antonin Scalia stated: “As Justice Brennan explained in his concurrence in Knotts, Katz did not erode the principle ‘that when the Government does engage in physical intrusion of a constitutionally protected area in order to obtain information, that intrusion may constitute a violation of the Fourth Amendment.”
Writing a concurring opinion, Justice Sonia Sotomayor expanded on the potential for unconstitutional law enforcement actions using electronic surveillance devices: “GPS monitoring generates a precise, comprehensive record of a person’s public movements that reflects a wealth of detail about her familial, political, professional, religious, and sexual associations. See, e.g., People v. Weaver, 12 N. Y. 3d 433, 441–442, 909 N. E. 2d 1195, 1199 (2009) (‘Disclosed in [GPS] data . . . will be trips the indisputably private nature of which takes little imagination to conjure: trips to the psychiatrist, the plastic surgeon, the abortion clinic, the AIDS treatment center, the strip club, the criminal defense attorney, the by-the-hour motel, the union meeting, the mosque, synagogue or church, the gay bar and on and on.’) The Government can store such records and efficiently mine them for information years into the future.”
Electronic surveillance cameras deployed in New York City, however, do for more than GPS devices: they film the individual, their features, their companions, and show just what doorsteps they are entering in their comings and goings throughout the day; week after week; 24/7.
What zealous prosecutor or Wall Street whistleblower or investigative reporter is safe from being targeted by this surveillance juggernaut.
The electronic tracking capability described by Ms. Tisch on 60 Minutes, where an individual in the snap of a finger is tracked all over Manhattan, with no warrant and no more probable cause than wearing a red shirt, seems just what Justices Scalia and Sotomayor had in mind as illegal activities.
Mara Verheyden-Hilliard and Carl Messineo are civil rights attorneys who co-founded the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund. They have filed a class action lawsuit against Police Commissioner Kelly, Mayor Bloomberg and the City of New York over the arrest on October 1, 2011 of more than 700 peaceful protestors on the Brooklyn Bridge. Ms. Verheyden-Hilliard had this to say about the sprawling surveillance program in New York City:
“The clearly stipulated and clearly defined requirement of probable cause, a central guarantee that protects individuals from over-reaching police authority, has been eviscerated in practice and in policy by the all-pervasive surveillance tools that make certain people and groups the ‘usual suspects’ in an environment that authorizes racial, religious and political profiling as the de facto law of the land. The NYPD is engaged in mass surveillance and mass aggregation of data on persons who not only have engaged in no criminal activity, but for whom there is no probable cause or individualized suspicion to believe they have engaged, or are engaged, in criminal activity. This is a perversion of civil rights and civil liberties by the government that is spreading across the country.”
Chris Dunn, Associate Legal Director of the NYCLU, said in response to my question concerning the significance to New Yorkers of the Jones Supreme Court decision: “This decision opens the door to the argument that police camera systems that systematically track the movements and whereabouts of people in public places trigger constitutional scrutiny. We have long believed that LMSI [Lower Manhattan Security Initiative] violates the privacy rights of law-abiding New Yorkers, and this ruling from the Supreme Court supports that view.” (Mr. Dunn is also an adjunct professor at the NYU School of Law where he teaches in the Civil Rights Clinic and he authors the Civil Rights and Civil Liberties column in the New York Law Journal. He has written a detailed analysis of the United States v. Jones decision in his current column.)
Mr. Dunn’s opinion is buttressed by a powerful corporate law firm, Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale, which ironically lists among its clients the Wall Street firms Citigroup, Goldman Sachs and JPMorganChase. The firm co-authored the 2007 report for the Constitution Project titled: “Public Video Surveillance: A Guide to Protecting Communities and Preserving Civil Liberties.”
The report singles out New York, interpreting its law as follows: “Several state statutes regulate aspects of public use of video surveillance. In New York, for example, video surveillance can only be conducted as part of a police investigation into the allegedly criminal behavior of an individual pursuant to a warrant. Because of what the statute terms ‘the reasonable expectation of privacy under the constitution of this state or of the United States,’ the bar for authorizing or approving such a warrant is set quite high, and the alleged crimes must be quite serious. Arizona, in contrast, merely makes it a misdemeanor for a person to use video ‘surveillance’ in a public place without posting notice.”
This vast surveillance program in New York City has had no public hearings to develop proper guidelines, no public overseers, no legislative mandate and is operating with no checks and balances.
The City Council’s Committee on Public Safety, chaired by Peter Vallone, did tour the Lower Manhattan Security Coordination Center on June 16, 2011. The minutes of the meeting on the City Council’s public web site list only the date, time and location. A phone call and email request to Mr. Vallone’s office to make the full minutes available to the public was met with silence.
I asked Michael Cardozo’s office, Corporation Counsel for New York City, to give me a statement as to the legality of this NYPD-Wall Street surveillance program. Mr. Cardozo declined to be quoted but his associate, Deputy Communications Director, Connie Pankratz, said: “It is perfectly legal to use security cameras in public spaces. This is no different than having a police officer watch or follow someone on a public street.”
That analogy is like comparing a pea shooter to a heat-seeking missile. These cameras can pan, tilt, rotate and zoom. The live feeds are integrated with cameras from all over Manhattan which can simultaneously analyze the images using artificial intelligence to look for specific human features or clothing colors. To quote Ms. Tisch on 60 Minutes: “Nobody has a system like this.”
I filed two Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) requests with the NYPD in the Fall of 2011. New York State has an inspiring sunshine law, which acknowledges that “The people’s right to know the process of governmental decision-making and to review the documents and statistics leading to determinations is basic to our society. Access to such information should not be thwarted by shrouding it with the cloak of secrecy or confidentiality. The legislature therefore declares that government is the public’s business and that the public, individually and collectively and represented by a free press, should have access to the records of government in accordance with the provisions of this article…”
Notwithstanding the noble intent of the law and notwithstanding the legislative mandate to respond in 5 business days or a period reasonable to the request, both of my requests received a written response stating it would take five months to answer — five months or 30 times longer than the legislative intent. The NYPD has 15,000 non uniformed employees available to fulfill the legislative mandate to permit participatory government. If it wanted to honor the legislative mandate, it could assign more staff to the Records Access Department. Until it does, it is functioning in contravention of the state legislative mandate.
In the 2010 book “Heat and Light: Advice for the Next Generation of Journalists” by Mike Wallace and Beth Knobel, the producer of the 60 Minutes episode on the surveillance center, Robert Anderson, is quoted as follows:
“Mike [Wallace] has always said that we are seekers of truth, and that’s what we are. We are seekers of truths that people would be better off knowing, and that they probably don’t know. And we are looking for something that is hopefully of some significance, because the more significant it is, the better the story it is for us.”
There are two significant stories at the surveillance center at 55 Broadway. The first is that the largest police force in the country has secretly deputized as its partners the same giant Wall Street firms that are serially charged with looting the public but never prosecuted, no matter how big the crime. The second significant story is that the largest police force in the country has tapped the public coffers to the tune of $150 million to operate what legal experts say is an illegal program.
Kevin Tedesco, Executive Director of 60 Minutes, had this to say about my concerns with the program: “We find your inquiry somewhat puzzling. This was a story about defending against terrorism, probably the most important issue of our times. You have only to look at 60 Minutes’ record to see that we frequently report on Wall Street institutions, the most recent of which, “Prosecuting Wall Street” was broadcast on December 4. Robert Anderson, the producer of the story on the command center, produced “The Next Housing Shock,” an investigation about misleading and fake mortgage documentation that cast a harsh light on financial institutions when it was broadcast on August 7 and April 3. No one told us what to report or not report in those stories and neither did anyone in this one. We appreciate the chance to respond.”
I willingly concede that 60 Minutes regularly provides outstanding investigative reports. I have previously referenced their groundbreaking work in my writing. Robert Anderson’s work on “The Next Housing Shock” brings the audacity and collusiveness of the foreclosure crimes into sharp focus and admirably serves the public interest.
But rather than deflecting my criticisms, Mr. Tedesco ends up making my case by pointing to the December 4 broadcast of “Prosecuting Wall Street.” This is a story alleging systemic corruption at Citigroup made by a Vice President of the firm, Richard Bowen; a man so confident of his facts that he testified before the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission. Mr. Bowen had his duties reassigned and was retaliated against and told to remain off the premises once he brought the corruption to the attention of the most senior executives at Citigroup.
Charges like these have been made for over a decade against Citigroup by other key employees. No senior executives have ever been prosecuted. Now a Citigroup representative sits alongside police in a high tech center where it can monitor the comings and goings of pedestrians, including potential whistleblowers. If that’s not significant, I don’t know what is.
Pam Martens worked on Wall Street for 21 years. She spent the last decade of her career advocating against Wall Street’s private justice system, which keeps its crimes shielded from public courtrooms. She maintains, along with Russ Martens, an ongoing archive dedicated to this financial era at www.WallStreetOnParade.com. She has no security position, long or short, in any company mentioned in this article. She is a contributor to Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion, forthcoming from AK Press. She can be reached at pamk741@aol.com
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Union condemns Israel extending journalist detention
Ma’an – 05/02/2012
RAMALLAH – The journalists’ union on Saturday condemned Israel’s decision to hold a Palestinian journalist in jail for a further three months, without pressing charges.
Israeli forces detained Nawwaf al-Amer, a program coordinator for al-Quds satellite TV station, in June from his home near Nablus in the northern West Bank.
In October his administrative detention order was renewed for four months, without notifying him of the accusations against him, media freedoms group MADA said. Al-Amer’s detention without charge was renewed again this week, the union statement said.
The journalists union said Amer suffers from diabetes and high blood pressure, and needs constant medical attention. It called on international journalists’ groups to intervene to halt Israel’s violation of media freedoms.
“The international silence towards the constant Israeli violations against journalists shows that Israel has immunity from the law,” the group said in a statement.
Israeli forces detained eight journalists in Dec. 2011, MADA said in its latest report. There are currently 280 Palestinian prisoners in administrative detention in Israeli jails.
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From the Archives
Britain’s secret role in the brutal US war in Vietnam
By Mark Curtis | MintPress News | November 16, 2022
There is a myth the UK did not support Washington’s war against Vietnam in the 1960s and 1970s. In fact, Labour and Conservative governments backed every phase of US military escalation and played secret roles in the conflict, declassified files show.
- UK sent SAS team to Vietnam in 1962, flew secret RAF missions to deliver arms, and provided intelligence to US
- UK governments lied to parliament they were not providing military advice to South Vietnam’s brutal regime
- Labour government secretly gave arms to US for use in Vietnam, stressing need for “no publicity”
- It also connived with Washington to deceive UK public over its support for US
- UK governments knew of atrocities against civilians but backed US war aims
- Whitehall only started to advocate a peaceful solution, on US terms, once the war became unwinnable
During its war in Vietnam in the 1960s and 1970s the US dropped more bombs than in the whole of World War Two, in a conflict that killed over two million people. The wholesale destruction of villages and killing of innocent people was a permanent feature of the US war from the beginning, along with widespread indiscriminate bombing.
Britain’s role in the war has been largely buried and must be almost completely unknown to the public. When the UK media mentions the war now, reports often simply reference the refusal by Harold Wilson’s government to agree to US requests to openly deploy British troops.
Although this was certainly a public rebuff to Washington, Britain did virtually everything else to back the US war over more than a decade, the declassified documents show. … continue
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