Full Spectrum Dominance

Honduras: A Second Human Rights Attorney Is Murdered

Weekly News Update on the Americas | September 30, 2012

Unidentified assailants gunned down Eduardo Manuel Díaz Mazariegos, a prosecutor with the Honduran Public Ministry, shortly before noon on Sept. 24 near his office in Choluteca, the capital of the southern department of Choluteca. Díaz Mazariegos had worked on human rights cases as well as criminal cases for the ministry. He was the seventh Honduran prosecutor murdered since 1994, and his killing came less than two full days after the similar murder of Antonio Trejo Cabrera, an activist private attorney who represented a campesino collective in a dispute over land in the Lower Aguán Valley in northern Honduras [see Update #1145]. (La Tribuna (Tegucigalpa) 9/24/12; EFE 9/25/12 via Univision)

The Associated Press wire service reported on Sept. 24 that Trejo had written a request in June 2011 for the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR, or CIDH in Spanish) in Washington, DC, to order emergency precautionary measures for his protection. “If anything happens to me, to my goods or to my family,” Trejo wrote, “I hold responsible Mr. Miguel Facussé [and two others that AP declined to name], who can attack my life through hit men, since they know that the lawsuits against them are going well and that the campesinos are going to recover the lands that [Facussé and the others] stole from them illegally.”

Cooking oil magnate Facussé is the main owner of disputed land in the Aguán; presumably Trejo also named the two other major landowners in the dispute, René Morales and Reinaldo Canales. After Trejo’s murder Facussé issued a written denial of any “direct participation of my person or of the personnel of my companies in so abominable an act,” although he added that Trejo had committed “fraudulent acts against [Facussé’s] company.” Marlene Cruz, an attorney who represents another Aguán collective, told AP that she and Trejo were scheduled to attend a hearing at the CIDH in Washington on Oct. 19. Cruz is now thought to be in danger.

Trejo, who came from a campesino family and was born in the San Isidro collective in northern Honduras, was also involved in another high-profie case: he had filed a complaint against a neoliberal project, the Special Development Regions (RED, also known as “Model Cities”), for creating privatized autonomous regions in the country. Trejo denounced the project in a television debate less than 24 hours before his assassination, saying it was backed by “Ali Baba and the 40 thieves of the government.” Michael Strong, the director of the US-based MGK Group, a leading “model cities” sponsor [see Update #1144], said he was “horrified” by the murder and that “if Trejo had lived long enough to be acquainted with us, he would have concluded that our approach is beneficial for Honduras.” (AP 9/24/12 via El Nuevo Herald (Miami))

Honduras: Lawyer for Aguán and “Model Cities” Struggles Is Murdered (alethonews.wordpress.com)

October 2, 2012 Posted by aletho | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Subjugation - Torture | El Nuevo Herald, Honduras, Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, Michael Strong, Trejo | Leave a comment

US: Student Rights Disappearing

Staff Writers | October 1, 2012

In the aftermath of 9/11, we’ve seen plenty of attacks on privacy and personal security, and students are not immune to this effect. From RFID tracking to mandatory drug and pregnancy testing, new laws and policies are slowly beginning to creep in and take over the privacy that students have enjoyed in the past. We’ve discovered nine troubling signs that student rights are in danger. If these can slip by, what’s coming next?

Some students are required to wear IDs:

At Northeast Mississippi Community College, students are required to keep their NEMCC ID badge in plain sight at all times or face warnings and tickets. The administration’s primary reason for the IDs is safety, but the policy raises privacy concerns for students, who cannot opt out of the program. Northeast Mississippi isn’t the only school adopting student IDs, and some are going so far as to include RFID in their IDs to assist with attendance records. Experts believe that this could become a trend in American schools, but some parents are outraged. In at least one elementary school, the push back has been so extreme that the RFID program was terminated due to privacy concerns.

Students are required to share their contact information with the Armed Forces:

High school students are automatically signed up to share their contact information with the Armed Forces, presumably for recruiting purposes. This is a part of the No Child Left Behind law, and although students can opt out, the parent or student must explicitly request otherwise. Releasing student contact information is viewed as a serious violation of student privacy.

Mandatory drug testing is becoming more prevalent:

Linn State Technical college, a small technical school with just 1,200 students, has become the first university in the country to make drug testing mandatory for enrollment. Every new student at LSTC is required to take a urine test within their first five to 10 days of the school year, or withdraw from the university. Students are also subject to random testing throughout the rest of the year. The university community has pushed back, asserting that mandatory drug testing is too much of an invasion, setting a dangerous precedent for the ability of schools to regulate students’ lives.

Pregnancy testing is also a concern:

In one Louisiana public school, female students who are suspected of being pregnant must submit to a pregnancy test. If they refuse to take the test or are found to be pregnant, they’re kicked out of school and forced to pursue homeschooling instead. This policy is in clear violation of federal law, specifically, Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 that mandates schools can’t exclude students based on pregnancy or related conditions. But it’s not just this one school with a problematic policy: the ACLU evidence suggests that illegal discrimination is a major contributing factor to the high dropout rate (70%) of teen girls who give birth.

Educational records can be shared with outside entities:

Schools are privy to lots of sensitive information about their students, including grades, discipline records, income, and even mental health issues. This is the sort of information that most families would prefer to keep private, but new rules allow it to be shared with entities outside the scope of education. That means student information can be placed in state databases without the consent of students and parents.

Students can be monitored via wiretaps:

The FCC has recently released a campaign that is forcing universities to comply with national wiretapping laws. This means that universities are altering their private networks and the Internet in order to allow for monitoring of Internet usage, instant messaging, and even cell phone texts. Additionally, these mandates allow universities to be subpoenaed for medical and other student records. Previously, universities were exempted from wiretapping due to their private networks, but following the 2001 terrorist attacks the Department of Justice asked the FCC to expand their reach.

Schools are blocking student access to LGBT websites:

Blocking pornographic websites is a common practice among public schools, but some are taking things a step further, blocking access to LGBT websites that are not at all pornographic. Many of the commonly used web filtering software packages block out LGBT-positive websites that share information about LGBT issues and organizations. These packages do not, however, block out anti-LGBT websites that condemn LGBT people and encourage them to change their sexual orientation. The ACLU has argued that this “viewpoint discrimination” violates students’ rights under the First Amendment.

Free speech is getting edged out:

On many college campuses, free speech is dramatically limited. Campuses typically have a “free speech zone,” but at some schools, this zone is in a low traffic area so far from the heart of campus that it’s not an ideal location to share messages. At other schools, free speech can be limited to certain days or hours, and even give administrators the right to review and approve of materials before they’re shared. For some students pursuing free speech, these restrictions can keep them from effectively sharing their message. Specifically, at Yuba College in California, students had to apply for permission to speak 14 business days in advance, register literature 48 hours prior to distribution, and are limited to the hours of 12 p.m. and 1 p.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays for public speeches, extreme measures for any student or group wanting to spread the word about their issue.

Student due process rights are being threatened:

It’s not hard to understand why many college campuses take a hard line on rape, but it’s important to remember that accused rapists have rights, too. Under the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act, it was proposed that universities receiving federal funding must allow sexual assault victims to appeal the results of college disciplinary hearings. That means that students accused of sexual assault could be tried twice for the same crime, a “double jeopardy” situation that is not allowed in U.S. courts. This is troublesome and an unfortunate way for presumably innocent accused rapists to be held back from moving on with their lives.

Peeing to participate (economist.com)
Hell No! Texas Students Revolt Against Mandatory RFID Tracking Chips – Video – MSM Ignores (jhaines6.wordpress.com)
Middle Schooler Forced to Take Drug Test to Join Scrapbooking Club (reason.com)
University Of Oregon Begins Mandatory Drug Testing for Athletes (thinkprogress.org)

October 2, 2012 Posted by aletho | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | Drug test, Identity document, LGBT, RFID | Leave a comment

Americans already detained under NDAA?

RT | September 28, 2012

The plaintiffs that are suing US President Barack Obama over his insistence on keeping the National Defense Authorization Act on the books said Thursday that they fear Americans are already being held indefinitely and without trial under the NDAA.

US President Barack Obama refrained from even once commenting on his efforts to keep his power to indefinitely detain Americans without charge when he appeared on Reddit.com recently and urged users to “Ask Me Anything.” His opponents in the matter aren’t shying away from speaking up online, though.

The plaintiffs in the case to ban the White House from imprisoning Americans indefinitely without trial or due justice took to Reddit on Thursday to answer questions involving the National Defense Authorization Act of Fiscal Year 2012, or the NDAA, and blamed corrupt media and a broken governmental establishment for letting the Obama administration maintain its [power] to book Americans in military prisons without charge.

On December 31, 2011, President Obama authorized the NDAA, and with it he approved a controversial provision that permits the government to indefinitely detain US citizens without trial for mere allegations of ties to suspected terrorists. Journalists and activists filed a lawsuit against the president earlier this year over the provision, Section 1021, which US Federal Judge Katherine Forrest in turn agreed was unconstitutional. Last month Judge Forrest decided that an earlier, temporary injunction on the clause should be made permanent, but the Obama Justice Department pleaded for an emergency stay only hours later. A lone federal appeals judge has since heard that plea and has momentarily blocked Judge Forrest’s injunction. Now pending the results of an appeals panel’s formal investigation, the NDAA’s indefinite detention provision remains on the books.

On Thursday, the plaintiffs in the case — journalist Chris Hedges, activist Tangerine Bolen, Pentagon Papers leaker Dan Ellsberg, their attorneys and others — told users of Reddit to ask them anything.

“The Obama DOJ has vigorously opposed these efforts, and immediately appealed her ruling and requested an emergency stay on the injunction – claiming the US would incur ‘irreparable harm’ if the president lost the power to use Section 1021 – and detain anyone, anywhere until the end of hostilities on a whim. This case will probably make its way to the Supreme Court,” the plaintiffs acknowledged in their introduction.

From there, President Obama’s opponents in federal court combed through hundreds of posts to answer questions regarding the NDAA over the course of several hours. And although the plaintiffs have not exactly been silent with the status of their fight since suing the White House earlier this year, the insight they offered on Reddit provided a fresh update on the case against the NDAA amid some of the government’s most unusual legal maneuvers yet.

Offering his take on the case, Hedges said that he even believes the NDAA’s indefinite detention clause is already being used to imprison Americans, “because they filed an emergency appeal.”

“If the Obama administration simply appealed it, as we expected, it would have raised this red flag,” Hedges added. “But since they were so aggressive it means that once Judge Forrest declared the law invalid, if they were using it, as we expect, they could be held in contempt of court. This was quite disturbing, for it means, I suspect, that US citizens, probably dual nationals, are being held in military detention facilities almost certainly overseas and maybe at home.”

“The signing statement is the most ridiculous part to this for me. He writes this statement saying he’s not happy about the power existing, but then his administration fights so hard to keep that specific power in place,” a Reddit user responded.

“If Obama didn’t want it to happen, he would not have signed it, especially after stating that he would veto it,” co-counsel Carl Mayer explained. Mayer has represented the plaintiffs in the case of Hedges v. Obama and said that he plans on continuing his pursuit to take indefinite detention off the books.

“We will do whatever it takes,” Mayers added. “We are prepared for a Supreme Court battle.”

Activist and journalist Tangerine Bolen is also insistent on prevailing over the Obama administration, but says “The biggest obstruction to our winning this case . . . is our broken systems.” Bolen blames a lack of media coverage, insufficient public awareness “and the government behaving very badly, even in court, on the record,” for the difficulties the plaintiffs have had to endure, adding that the Obama administration’s constant missteps have been noticed by no one except “seven plaintiffs, four attorneys, one federal judge and the activists who have been following this case.”

“Amazing,” she added.

Journalist Chris Hedges extrapolated on Bolen’s opinion, singling out “a corporate-owned system of information” for not informing Americans that they can be imprisoned without trial at this very moment.

“MSNBC, which is a propaganda arm of the Democratic establishment, just as Fox is a propaganda arm of the Republican establishment, is not going to raise this as Obama is as guilty as Romney. If we had a healthy press this would have gotten more coverage, although the print media, and in particular my old paper the NY Times, finally did good coverage,” Hedges wrote. […]

A three-judge appeals panel is expected to soon weigh in on the stay placed on Judge Forrest’s injunction, in the meantime keeping Section 1021 and the rest of the NDAA applicable to every American. – Full article

White House demands military prisons for Americans under NDAA (alethonews.wordpress.com)
Obama Administration Argues That Blocking the NDAA’s Indefinite Detainment Provision Will Harm the U.S. (reason.com)

September 29, 2012 Posted by aletho | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Progressive Hypocrite | Chris Hedges, Daniel Ellsberg, Human rights, National Defense Authorization Act, NDAA, Obama, Obama administration | Leave a comment

Cleansing the Internet of Terrorism: EU-Funded Project Seeks To Erode Civil Liberties

By Jillian C. York and Katitza Rodriguez | EFF | September 26, 2012

A new project aimed at “countering illegal use of the Internet” is making headlines this week. The project, dubbed CleanIT, is funded by the European Commission (EC) to the tune of more than $400,000 and, it would appear, aims to eradicate the Internet of terrorism.

European Digital Rights, a Brussels-based organization consisting of 32 NGOs throughout Europe (and of which EFF is a member), has recently published a leaked draft document from CleanIT.

On the project’s website, its stated goal is to reduce the impact of the use of the Internet for “terrorist purposes” but “without affecting our online freedom.” While the goal may seem noble enough, the project actually contains a number of controversial proposals that will compel Internet intermediaries to police the Internet and most certainly will affect our online freedom. Let’s take a look at a few of the most controversial elements of the project.

Privatization of Law Enforcement

Under the guise of fighting ‘terrorist use of the Internet,’ the “CleanIT project,” led by the Dutch police, has developed a set of ‘detailed recommendations’ that will compel Internet companies to act as arbiters of what is “illegal” or “terrorist” uses of the Internet.

Specifically, the proposal suggests that “legislation must make clear Internet companies are obliged to try and detect to a reasonable degree … terrorist use of the infrastructure” and, even more troubling, “can be held responsible for not removing (user generated) content they host/have users posted on their platforms if they do not make reasonable effort in detection.”

EFF has always expressed concerns about relying upon intermediaries to police the Internet. As an organization, we believe in strong legal protections for intermediaries and as such, have often upheld the United States’ Communications Decency Act, Section 230 (CDA 230) as a positive example of intermediary protection. While even CDA 230’s protections do not extend to truly criminal activities, the definition of “terrorist” is, in this context, vague enough to raise alarm (see conclusion for more details).

Erosion of Legal Safeguards

The recommendations call for the easy removal of content from the Internet without following “more labour intensive and formal” procedures. They suggest new obligations that would compel Internet companies to hand over all necessary customer information for investigation of “terrorist use of the Internet.” This amounts to a serious erosion of legal safeguards. Under this regime, an online company must assert some vague notion of “terrorist use of the Internet,” and they will have carte blanche to bypass hard-won civil liberties protections.

The recommendations also suggest that knowingly providing hyperlinks to a site that hosts “terrorist content” will be defined as illegal. This would negatively impact a number of different actors, from academic researchers to journalists, and is a slap in the face to the principles of free expression and the free flow of knowledge.

Data Retention

Internet companies under the CleanIT regime would not only be allowed, but in fact obligated to store communications containing “terrorist content,” even when it has been removed from their platform, in order to supply the information to law enforcement agencies.

Material Support and Sanctions

The project also offers guidelines to governments, including the recommendation that governments start a “full review of existing national legislation” on reducing terrorist use of the Internet. This includes a reminder of Council Regulation (EC) No. 881/2002 (art. 1.2), which prohibits Internet services from being provided to designated terrorist entities such as Al Qaeda. It is worth noting that similar legislation exists in the US (see: 18 U.S.C. § 2339B) and has been widely criticized as criminalizing speech in the form of political advocacy.

The guidelines spell out how governments should implement filtering systems to block civil servants from any “illegal use of the Internet.”

Furthermore, governments’ criteria for purchasing policies and public grants will be tied to Internet companies’ track record for reducing the “terrorist use of the Internet.”

Notice and Take Action

Notice and take action policies allow law enforcement agencies (LEAs) to notify and act against Internet companies, who must remove “offending” content as fast as possible. This obligates LEAs to determine the extent to which content can be considered “offensive.” An LEA must “contextualize content and describe how it breaches national law.”

The leaked document contains recommendations that would require LEAs to, in some cases, send notice that access to content must be blocked, followed by notice that the domain registration must be ended. In other cases, sites’ security certificates would be downgraded.

Real Identity Policies

Under the CleanIT provisions, all network users, whether in social or professional networks, will be obligated to supply their real identities to service providers (including social networks), effectively destroying online anonymity, which EFF believes is crucial for protecting the safety and well-being of activists, whistle-blowers, victims of domestic violence, and many others (for more on that, see this excellent article from Geek Feminism). The Constitutional Court of South Korea found an Internet “real name” policy to be unconstitutional.

Under the provisions, companies can even require users to provide proof of their identity, and can store the contact information of users in order to provide it to LEAs in the case of an investigation into potential terrorist use of the Internet. The provisions will even require individuals to utilize a real image of him or herself, destroying decades of Internet culture (in addition to, of course, infringing on user privacy).

Semi-Automated Detection

The plan also calls for semi-automated detection of “terrorist content.” While content would not automatically be removed, any searches for known terrorist organizations’ names, logos or other related content will be automatically detected. This will certainly inhibit research into anything remotely associated with what law enforcement might deem “terrorist content,” and would seriously hinder normal student inquiry into current events and history! In effect, all searches about terrorism might end up falling into an LEA’s view of terrorist propaganda.

LEA Access to User Content

The document recommends that, at the European level, browsers or operating systems should develop a reporting button of terrorist use of the Internet, and suggests governments draft legislation to make this reporting button compulsory for browser or operating systems.

Furthermore, the document recommends that judges, public prosecutors and (specialized) police officers be able to temporarily remove content that is being investigated.

Banning Languages

Frighteningly, one matter up for discussion within the CleanIT provisions is the banning of languages that have not been mastered by “abuse specialists or abuse systems.” The current recommendation contained in the document would make the use of such languages “unacceptable and preferably technically impossible.”

With more than 200 commonly-used languages and more than 6,000 languages spoken globally, it seems highly unlikely that the abuse specialists or systems will expand beyond a select few. For the sake of comparison, Google Translate only works with 65 languages.

At a time when new initiatives to preserve endangered languages are taking advantage of new technologies, it seems shortsighted and even chauvinistic to consider limiting what languages can be used online.

What Is Terrorism, Anyway?

While the document states that the first reference for determining terrorist content will be UN/EU/national terrorist sanctions list, it seems that the provisions allow for a broader interpretation of “terrorism.” This is incredibly problematic in a multicultural environment; as the old adage goes, “one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.” Even a comparison of the US and EU lists of designated terrorist entities shows discrepancies, and the recent controversy in the US around the de-listing of an Iranian group shows how political such decisions can be.

Overall, we see the CleanIT project as a misguided effort to introduce potentially endless censorship and surveillance that would effectively turn Internet companies into Internet cops. We are also disappointed in the European Commission for funding the project: Given the strong legal protections for free expression and privacy contained in the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union [PDF], it’s imperative that any efforts to track down and prosecute terrorism must also protect fundamental rights. The CleanIT regime, on the other hand, clearly erodes these rights.

EU proposal to stop terrorist sites even more ridiculous than it sounds (arstechnica.com)
Leak shows EU’s plans for largescale surveillance of all communications (edri.org)
Leaked Clean IT Document Is Frightening (webpronews.com)
Police across Europe will “patrol” Facebook, Google and Twitter for postings supporting terrorism under an EU project says leaked report (familysurvivalprotocol.com)

September 27, 2012 Posted by aletho | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | CleanIT, European Commission, European Digital Rights, Jillian C. York, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act | Leave a comment

Press TV correspondent killed in Syrian capital

Press TV – September 26, 2012

Insurgents in the Syrian capital Damascus have attacked Press TV staff, killing the Iranian English-language news network’s correspondent Maya Naser, and injuring its Damascus Bureau Chief Hossein Morteza.

Naser came under attack while reporting on air just hours ago. He was shot and killed by a sniper.

Press TV and Al-Alam Damascus Bureau Chief Hossein Morteza also came under attack and was injured.

The two were covering twin blasts in Damascus and the ensuing fighting.

“We hold Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, who provide weapons and militants to kill civilians, military personnel and journalists, responsible for killing Maya,” Press TV’s News Room Director Hamid Reza Emadi said.

“Press TV will pursue the matter of the murder of Maya and would not let those who killed the correspondent feel like they can kill the media people and get away with it,” he emphasized.

Syria has been experiencing unrest since March 2011. Damascus says outlaws, saboteurs, and armed terrorists are behind the unrest, but the opposition accuses the security forces of being behind the violence.

The Syrian government says that the chaos is being orchestrated from outside the country, and there are reports that a very large number of the armed militants are foreign nationals.

French journalist killed by Syrian opposition: Report (alethonews.wordpress.com)

September 26, 2012 Posted by aletho | Full Spectrum Dominance, War Crimes | Press TV, Syria | Leave a comment

US Congress approves extension of secret surveillance under FISA

RT | September 12, 2012

The House of Representatives voted Wednesday to extend the government’s power to warrantlessly wiretap Americans for another five years by reauthorizing the 2008 amendments to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

Lawmakers in the House agreed from Washington, DC on Wednesday afternoon to reauthorize the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act’s Amendments Act of 2008 (FAA), a polarizing legislation that has been challenged by privacy advocates and civil liberties organizations alike around the country. The extension was approved by a vote of 301 to 118.

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act was first signed into law in 1978 by President Jimmy Carter, but amendments added two decades later under the George W Bush administration provide for the government to conduct widespread and blanketing snooping of emails and phone calls of Americans. The FISA Amendments added in 2008, specifically section 702, specify that the government can eavesdrop on emails and phone calls sent from US citizens to persons reasonably suspected to be located abroad without ever requiring intelligence officials to receive a court order.

If the US Senate echoes the House’s extension of the act, the FAA will carry through for another five years until 2017, ensuring the federal intelligence community that they will be able to conduct surveillance on the correspondence of the country’s own citizens well into the future. If no action is taken, the FAA is slated to expire at the end of 2012.

Earlier this year, a plea from two US senators to see how many times the FAA has been used was refused by the National Security Administration. Last month, San Francisco’s Electronic Frontier Foundation filed a lawsuit against the US Justice Department for failing to adhere to Freedom of Information Act requests for documents pertaining to the program.

“The FISA Amendments Act (FAA) of 2008 gave the NSA expansive power to spy on Americans’ international email and telephone calls,” the EFF explained in an official statement made after the suit was filed. “However, last month, in a letter to Senator Ron Wyden, a government official publicly disclosed that the NSA’s surveillance had gone even further than what the law permits, with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) issuing at least one ruling calling the NSA’s actions unconstitutional.”

Sen. Wyden, a Democratic lawmaker from Oregon who has also sit on the Senate intelligence committee for several years, originally asked for Senate to place a hold on the vote this past June. This week, Sen. Wyden tells Reuters, “My hold is on and it will stay on,” although that plea does not apply to the House, however, where lawmakers appeared eager on Wednesday to power through the vote.

So determined were some lawmakers to proceed, in fact, that the rules of the debates preceding Wednesday’s vote called for no more than one hour of discussion before ballots were cast. Several congressmen, including lawmakers that planned to vote yes on the FAA extension regardless, proposed a two year extension as a compromise, but no new amendments were allowed to be tacked on before Wednesday’s vote.

Despite opposition on and off the Hill, the FAA has received praise from some of Washington’s most elite members of the government, including Attorney General Eric Holder and long-standing lawmaker Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX), the sponsor of the FAA renewal who also infamously urged Congress to approve the since-defeated Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA, a broad and dangerous Internet legislation that threatened to reshape the Web as we know it.

In his address at Northwestern University School of Law this past March, Mr. Holder said section 702 of the FAA “ensures that the government has the flexibility and agility it needs to identify and to respond to terrorist and other foreign threats to our security,” but emphasized the fact that only persons thought to be outside the US — not Americans — can be targeted. When Sens. Wyden and Udall asked to know how often that snooping involved Americans at all, however, they were told by the NSA’s Inspector General that a “review of the sort suggested would itself violate the privacy of US persons.”

On his part, Sen. Wyden has written, “that if no one has even estimated how many Americans have had their communications collected under the FISA Amendments Act . . . Then it is possible that this number could be quite large.”

“Since all of the communications collected by the government under section 702 are collected without individual warrants, I believe that there should be clear rules prohibiting the government from searching through these communications in an effort to find the phone calls or emails of a particular American, unless the government has obtained a warrant or emergency authorization permitting surveillance of that American,” the lawmaker wrote in an official press release earlier this year.

Rep. Smith, the sponsor of both this bill and SOPA, has said, “We have a duty to ensure the intelligence community can gather the intelligence they need to protect our country.”

On Thursday, Rep. Smith claimed, “Foreign nations continue to spy on America to plot cyber-attacks and attempt to steal sensitive information from our military and private sector industries,” and that Congress has “a solemn responsibility to ensure that the intelligence community can gather the information” necessary to hinder these attempts.

Rep. Dan Lungren (R-California) added on Wednesday from the Hill that reauthorizing the FAA is “critical to the protection of the American people,” claiming that the United States, “as a nation had not done enough to connect the dots to warn us sufficiently to protect” against another terrorist attack on par with the ones that devastated America on September 11, 2001.

Rep. Trey Gowdy, a Republican congressman from South Carolina, also used the attack on the Twin Towers to justify the necessity of extending the FAA.
“If we could come together to remember 9/11, surely we can come together to prevent another one,” said Rep. Gowdy.

Opponents of the act, however, say that the attempts to do as such come at a cost too great for civil liberties.

“We’ve been told that we can’t even tell how many people are being subjected to this process located in the United States, and that we don’t know and they can’t tell us,” Rep. John Conyers (D-Michigan ) pleaded earlier this year in opposition to the act. “I think we can get a little bit closer. There can be some reasonableness. It’s this kind of vagueness that creates in those of us in the Congress, suspicions that are negative rather than suspicions that are positive.”

“Why can’t we know how many people are affected by FISA amendment act in the US?” Rep Conyers asked. “This kind of vagueness creates suspicions.”

Former Democratic presidential hopeful Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) said on his own part that those suspicions are even more validated since the Justice Department has declined to adhere to a Freedom of Information Act request for information on the FAA, explaining on Wednesday, “Everyone becomes suspect when big brother is listening.”

Rep Hank Johnson (D-GA) also threw his weight behind efforts to reject the act on Wednesday, saying it the FISA amendments allow for “illegal surveillance of an untold number of American citizens” with absolutely no oversight.

“Not even the NSA knows the extent to which FISA amendment acts have potentially been approved,” Rep Earl Blumenhauser (D-Oregon) added from the House floor before the vote.

The American Civil Liberties Union reports that, every day, the NSA intercepts and stores around 1.7 billion emails, phone calls, text and other electronic communications thanks to laws like FISA. To put it into perspective, they add, “that’s equivalent to 138 million books, every 24 hours.”

“After four years, you’d hope that some basic information or parameters of such a massive spying program would be divulged to the public, or at least your rank-and-file member of Congress, but they haven’t,” says Michelle Richardson, a counsel at the ACLU’s Washington Legislative Office. “Only a small handful of members have either personally attended classified briefings or have staff with high enough clearances to attend for them.Sen. Ron Wyden — who has been on the Senate Intelligence Committee for years—has even been stonewalled by the Obama administration for a year and a half in his attempts to learn basic information about the program, such as the number of Americans who have had their communications intercepted under the FAA.”

“Can you believe that 435 members of Congress who have sworn to uphold the Constitution are about to vote on a sweeping intelligence gathering law without this basic information?” she asks.

US: House to Vote on FISA Amendments Act Wednesday (alethonews.wordpress.com)
NSA Surveillance Violated Constitution, Secret FISA Court Found (cato-at-liberty.org)

September 12, 2012 Posted by aletho | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Timeless or most popular | FISA, Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, Ron Wyden, United States | Leave a comment

US: House to Vote on FISA Amendments Act Wednesday

By Michelle Richardson, ACLU Washington Legislative Office – September 10, 2012

It’s back. On Wednesday the House of Representatives is scheduled to vote on a five-year reauthorization of the FISA Amendments Act (FAA), the 2008 law that legalized the Bush administration’s warrantless wiretapping program and more. It permits the government to get year-long orders from the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court to conduct dragnet surveillance of Americans’ international communications—including phone calls, emails, and internet records—for the purpose of collecting foreign intelligence. The orders need not specify who is going to be spied on or even allege that the targets did anything wrong. The only guarantees that the FAA gives are that no specific American will be targeted for wiretapping and that some (classified) rules about the use of intercepted information will be followed.

After four years, you’d hope that some basic information or parameters of such a massive spying program would be divulged to the public, or at least your rank-and-file member of Congress, but they haven’t. Only a small handful of members have either personally attended classified briefings or have staff with high enough clearances to attend for them. Sen. Ron Wyden—who has been on the Senate Intelligence Committee for years—has even been stonewalled by the Obama administration for a year and a half in his attempts to learn basic information about the program, such as the number of Americans who have had their communications intercepted under the FAA.

Yet the House ambles on, ready to rubber stamp another five years of expansive surveillance that can pick up American communications without meaningful judicial oversight and without probable cause or any finding of wrongdoing. Instead of blind faith in the executive branch, every member of the House should demand that the administration publicly disclose the following before proceeding with reauthorization:

• Copies of FISA court opinions interpreting our Fourth Amendment rights under the FAA, with redactions to protect sensitive information (the Department of Justice can write summaries of law if necessary);

• A rough estimate of how many Americans are surveilled under the FAA every year;

• A description of the rules that govern how American information picked up by FAA surveillance is protected.

Can you believe that 435 members of Congress who have sworn to uphold the Constitution are about to vote on a sweeping intelligence gathering law without this basic information?

Act now to let them know that it’s time for Congress to fix FISA.

Testing “The Most Transparent Administration in History” (cato-at-liberty.org)
NSA Surveillance Violated Constitution, Secret FISA Court Found (cato-at-liberty.org)

September 11, 2012 Posted by aletho | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | FAA, FISA, Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, Ron Wyden, United States | Leave a comment

Photographers in Los Angeles considered terrorists under official LAPD policy

RT | September 7, 2012

The next time a tourist snaps a picture of the famous Hollywood sign, their photo won’t be the only item added to the annals. The LAPD considers photography a suspicious activity, and trying to take certain shots may add a page to your personal file.

A memo released last month by Police Chief Charlie Bucks re-categorizes certain behaviors — including photo shoots in public spots — to constitute suspicious activity, which is enough to have cops file a report, open an investigation and forward any further information about a suspect to the federal authorities — all over just an itchy shutter finger.

In an interdepartmental statement dispatched on August 16, Beck writes, “Taking pictures or videos of facilities/buildings, infrastructures or protected sites in a manner that would arouse suspicion in a reasonable person” is enough of a red flag to have authorities file a suspicious activity report, or SAR. According to departmental policies, those SAR files are then sent into a Consolidated Crime and Analysis Database (CCAD), where they are occasionally added to a Crime Analysis Mapping System (CAMS) for further investigation. From there, intelligence can be stored in a Information Sharing Environment (ISE) Suspicious Activity Reporting (SAR) Shared Space and accessed at fusion centers across the country, such as the LA area’s Joint Regional Intelligence Center, where other intel is interpreted, dissected and divulged by agencies like the FBI and the US Department of Homeland Security.

In a 2010 evaluation conducted by the US Justice Department, the DoJ writes, “Ultimately, the ISE-SAR EE, through the use of the Shared Spaces concept, provides a solution for law enforcement agencies to share terrorism-related suspicious activity information, while continuing to maintain control of their data through a distributed model of information sharing.”(.pdf)

Further in the report, the Justice Department determined that “The FBI and DHS should continue to support the interface with the Shared Space environment to allow continue ease of sharing SAR data with all law enforcement agencies,” which now includes any reports written up for something as boring as a blurry snapshot. Under the LAPD’s 2008 guidelines, taking photographs or video footage “with no apparent esthetic value” could warrant filing a SAR, but the department has now broadened what they considered potential terroristic activity.

According to the latest LAPD memo, the office notes that the suspicious behavior included on their updated list is “generally protected by the First Amendment” and should not be reported in a SAR, but could be considered if the witness thinks the action in question is “reasonably indicative of criminal activity associated with terrorism,” an explanation that is as broad and open ended as the NDAA, the federal legislation signed last year that lets the government imprison Americans without charge over suspected ties with affiliates of al-Qaeda.

On the official website of the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU writes, broadly speaking, “Taking photographs of things that are plainly visible from public spaces is a constitutional right… Unfortunately, there is a widespread, continuing pattern of law enforcement officers ordering people to stop taking photographs from public places, and harassing, detaining and arresting those who fail to comply.”

University of Chicago law professor Geoffrey Stone tells the Center for Investigative Reporting that just as any civilian can shoot photos in public spaces, though, surveillance from the authorities is allowed as well. “This would be constitutional under existing law, as long as the government is not doing this in a discriminatory manner,” Stone says. “There may be some constitutional limitations on the government’s use or preservation of such information, but at present, such limitations do not exist, except perhaps in truly egregious circumstances.”

In the days after the latest memo was made public, a backlash directed at the LAPD forced the police commission to establish a five-member civil oversight panel to decide on a set of guidelines for when SARs can be written. The Los Angeles Times reports that the panel unanimously approved an order that will continue to allow officers to write up SARs on any activity that can be interpreted, somehow, as a terroristic threat, however, and things don’t end there either.

Trying to take a picture isn’t the only action being elevated to the level of potential-terrorism in LA. In last month’s memo, Chief Bucks writes, “Demonstrating unusual interest in facilities/buildings, infrastructures or protected sites beyond mere casual or professional (e.g., engineers) interest, such that a reasonable person would consider the activity suspicious.” Examples, he adds, include observations through binoculars, taking notes and attempting to measure distances.

Days after the LAPD memo was made public, Deputy Chief Michael Downing, commanding officer of the LAPD’s counter-terrorism unit, told members of the media, “In this region we have active terrorist plots, in this region, right now,” although authorities have not corroborated those claims with details for the public yet. Chief Downing later told the Times that he was unaware of any specific terrorism plot aimed at targeting the city, but was adamant that law enforcement should be on the ready to handle any reports.

The lengths at which they will go to in an effort to stay ahead of the game has others worried scared, though.

“We ought to be ashamed of ourselves,” National Lawyers Guild attorney Jim Lafferty tells the Times.

In an op-ed published this week in the Huffington Post, Yaman Salahi of the American Civil Liberties Union says the LAPD’s latest memo makes it so that cops can consider “Anyone snapping a photograph or taking notes in a public place [as] a potential threat to public safety.”

“This kind of information sharing might sound good in theory, but a recent study from George Washington University, co-authored by the LAPD’s very own Deputy Chief Michael Downing, the head of the LAPD’s Counter-Terrorism and Special Operations Bureau, found that suspicious activity reporting has ‘flooded fusion centers, law enforcement, and other security entities with white noise.’ In practice, the profusion of SAR reports ‘complicates the intelligence process and distorts resource allocation and deployment decisions,’” Salahi writes. “The head of LAPD’s own counterterrorism bureau knows that low value SAR reports hurt counterterrorism efforts more than they help. So we should ask the LAPD to take the simple steps necessary to protect our free speech and privacy rights, and to stop harassing people engaged in perfectly lawful – and often, constitutionally protected – activities.”

Because the LAPD is now narrowing their eyes to focus in on suspicious activity at critical infrastructure sites, seemingly normal behavior anywhere — from power plants and theme parks to even a basketball game — can get you in trouble. In 2004, then Mayor Jim Hahn said, “Los Angeles’ critical infrastructure goes beyond power plants and water mains and includes facilities like Staples Center, which generates millions of dollars for our economy and is, thanks to the Lakers, an internationally-known symbol of Los Angeles.”

LA was awarded $3 million that year through the Urban Area Security Initiative Operation Archangel grant to protect its infrastructure, including the Staples Center, Disneyland and Hollywood Boulevard, and began their involvement in the Nationwide Suspicious Activity Reporting (SAR) Initiative (NSI) a few years later.

As RT wrote earlier this year as part of their ongoing investigation into the TrapWire surveillance system, the portal on the LAPD’s website that allows for civilians to contribute anonymous SARs is linked with an international intelligence database, as are surveillance cameras across the city. The iWatch reporting program has also been picked up in Washington, DC, where emails perpetrated to have been hacked from the servers of Strategic Forecasting last year suggest that the police department and closed-circuit cameras across the nation’s capital are tied to TrapWire as well. Intelligence collected in those instances are also fed to nationally-run fusion centers.

LAPD Now Arresting Photographers (poorrichards-blog.blogspot.com)
Photographers in Los Angeles considered terrorists under official LAPD policy (EndtheLie.com)

September 7, 2012 Posted by aletho | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | American Civil Liberties Union, LAPD, Los Angeles, Los Angeles Police Department | Leave a comment

Politics of Power: Burying Truth through Resolutions

By William A. Cook | Palestine Chronicle | September 4, 2012

‘In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man. Support Israel Defeat Jihad.’ — (Pamela Geller, San Francisco ad campaign)

The California Assembly’s resolution passed on August 23, 2012, HR 35, purports to condemn “anti-Semitism” in public post-secondary institutions of higher learning by denying expression of opinions or statements that might be construed as expressing hatred of the Jewish people or critical of the state of Israel. Pamela Geller’s ad campaign quoted above, and placed in public vehicles in the city of San Francisco, expresses an opinion that demeans a group of people who are unquestionably Semitic by blood and language, yet would not be protected by the Assembly resolution since the term as defined is based upon the European Union’s definition that is exclusive, protecting Jews only.

The ad has created considerable reaction; a parallel poster expresses the same statement with a change of wording: “in any war between the colonizer and the colonized, support the oppressed, support the Palestinian right of return.” In short, Geller’s ad campaign began a dialogue that has illumined quite opposing perspectives: what is the meaning of civilized man on the one hand and what is the meaning of colonized on the other. Perhaps out of this dialogue understanding will arise. Freedom of expression triumphs.

Unfortunately, the Assembly sought a different end, an end that would stifle discussion and oppose open expression that allowed for understanding and research that would be critical of one side. Two actions were sought by the passage: the Assembly “unequivocally condemns all forms of intolerance, including anti-Semitism, on public postsecondary educational institution campuses in California, and, “calls upon …(officials) of those institutions to increase their efforts to swiftly and unequivocally condemn acts of anti-Semitism on their campuses and to utilize existing resources, such as the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights’ working definition of anti-Semitism, to help guide program discussion about, and promote, as appropriate, educational programs for combating anti-Semitism on their campuses.”

Condemning all forms of intolerance on the campuses of public postsecondary educational institutions in California would appear to be a desirable goal, and with the additional reference—“including anti-Semitism”—a furtherance of explicitness to guide deliberations, but only helpful if that term can be defined specifically and concretely to achieve meaningful discussion.

However, the context for this “working definition” comes from the EU where freedom of speech is not free if it can be alleged to be “hate speech.” This is the working definition:

“Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.” (Summary overview of Antisemitism in the European Union (Dec 2006), Anti-Semitism Reference Center, Zionism on the Web).

Geller’s ad could not be considered “hatred toward Jews” and hence safe from condemnation by the EU definition the university officials would use to “guide program discussion…”; however, it certainly could be considered “hatred of Palestinians” expressed through her use of “savage” people. The irony here of course is obvious since it is the Palestinian people who are Semites and who suffer the consequences of occupation. The victim becomes the offender.

I bring attention to this control of thought not because I condemn Geller’s uncivilized advertisement; on the contrary, I support her right to express her views. By openly advertising her hatred of the Palestinians, Geller reveals for all how civilized she is, supporting as she does the actions of a state that has been condemned year upon year for 63 years by the overwhelming majority of nation states in the community of nations, the United Nations, as denying the rights of the true owners of the land of Palestine as proposed in UNGA Resolution 181. In short she supports, and wants the people of San Francisco to support, a state that defies international opinion and International Law. Impunity for crimes comes with control of minds, and hence control of the U.S. Congress, of communications and of rights of freedom of speech by voting denial of the very free expression she so brazenly demands. But that in her mind is civilized behavior.

The action by the Assembly is of interest to me because I have edited a volume, The Plight of the Palestinians: a Long History of Destruction, published by Palgrave Macmillan world-wide publishers of academic texts; the volume carried the title when first presented to Macmillan, As the World Watches: Genocide in Palestine. Macmillan did not favor that direct statement.

On the other hand, the promotional blurb on the back of the book states: The Plight of the Palestinians: A Long History of Destruction is a collection of voices from around the world that establishes in both theoretical and graphic terms the slow, methodical genocide taking place in Palestine beginning in the 1940s, as revealed in the Introduction. From Dr. Francis A. Boyle’s detailed legal case against the state of Israel to Uri Avnery’s “Slow Motion Ethnic Cleansing,” Richard Falk’s “Slouching toward a Palestinian Holocaust,” and Ilan Pappe’s “Genocide in Gaza,” these voices decry in startling, vivid and forceful language the calculated atrocities taking place, the inhumane conditions inflicted on the people, and the silence that exists despite the crimes—nothing short of state sponsored genocide against the Palestinians.”

The entire content of this book, the very concept imbedded in it, that genocide is taking place in Palestine in the first decade of this new century, is condemnable under the Assembly resolution. Over twenty writers from Israel, Palestine, Australia, the Netherlands, London, Canada, America, and the UN would be condemned for contributing to such a text. The Resolution in effect denies freedom of expression to those who critique the state of Israel for actions that defy International Law. The only law that pertains to Israel is Israeli Law and control of International Law by U.S. veto power of UN resolutions that would bring Israel before the UNCHR and/or the International court of Justice.

Years ago, I prepared a paper for an international conference held at Oxford University titled “Blinded by Belief,” the application and abuse of religious and political mythologies in current political policy in the West, most damningly in Britain, Canada, Israel and the United States. The paper forced me as a researcher to search out conditions that prevailed in Mandate Palestine when Britain had international authority to govern the strip of land we call Palestine. That authority was relinquished on May 15th, 1948. Of particular interest was the period from November 1947 when the UNGA proposed the partition of Palestine to May 15 when Britain left Palestine. During that period, the terrorism undertaken by the Zionists against the British authorities from 1939 to November became even more brutal than it had before, since the Jewish Agency and its affiliate organizations, the Irgun, Stern and Hagana armed groups (armies) saw the mandate Police and Soldiers as lame ducks incapable of stopping the Zionists from aggressively taking by force the whole of Palestine regardless of the UNGA Partition Plan. The details and evidence to establish these points is presented in the Introduction to The Plight of the Palestinians.

A review of this period, the silence about the British Mandate Period even in Britain, and almost until this day, has been deafening. Why? No reasoned individual who knows the extent of the savagery committed by the Zionists against the Brits and the Arabs in Palestine could call their behavior “civilized” and seek support from the American people for their civilized behavior. What civilized people could secretly break a peace agreement with the people of Deir Yassin, a small village between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, surround the village, attack them in their homes, rape the women and massacre virtually the whole population with the exception of about a 100, shackle them in trucks and parade them through Jerusalem to demonstrate how fierce the Jewish fighters could be to put fear in the hearts of the Palestinians, and then drive them back and kill them. Is civilized behavior the determination to plan the destruction and theft of the towns and villages of the Palestinians, that had been portioned for them by the UN, before the stated date for that partition plan would take effect? Does civilized behavior include the many massacres committed by these Zionist armies, including torture and rape, as reported by the Israeli historian Benny Morris? Does kidnapping British soldiers, hanging their bodies from trees and booby trapping those bodies to mock their comrades who came to rescue them for burial while they laughed to see even more Mandate soldiers assassinated. Is civilized behavior the deception of false flag operations like that which blew apart the King David Hotel as Zionists dressed as Arabs entered the basement with milk containers filled with explosives? Richard C. Catling dove beneath the admission’s desk when the bombs went off and lived to testify about the rapes that took place in Deir Yassin.

Richard C. Catling, Deputy Head of the Criminal Investigation Division of the Jerusalem Mandate Police, kept a “Top Secret” file in the archives of the Oxford Rhodes House Library, filled with close to 500 pages of evidence that conclusively demonstrated the savagery of the Zionist powers that clandestinely controlled the Israeli immigrants entering Palestine. Two reports illustrate the terrorism inflicted by these people against their hosts, the British government that made possible the eventual “home” of the Jewish people. I have presented that evidence in numerous articles and the Introduction to The Plight of the Palestinians. Is it important that the truth hidden away these many years be brought into the discussions that should and must be presented before the students of California’s public institutions if they and the politicians that govern this state and this nation are to govern with justice for all?

There is something sacred about freedom of speech; it is the secular equivalent of “Let there be Light.” Chris Hedges opened a book review years ago, a review of two books about the Vietnam War, with the words “The vanquished know war. They see through the empty jingoism of those senseless killing, war profiteering, and chest-pounding grief. They know the lies the victors often do not acknowledge, the lies covered up in stately war memorials and mythic war narratives, filled with stories of courage and comradeship. They know the lies that permeate the thick, self-important memoirs by amoral statesmen who make wars but do not know war. The vanquished know the essence of war—death. They grasp that war is necrophilia. They see that war is a state of almost pure sin with its goals of hatred and destruction.”

The Zionists knew during the Mandate Period how to abuse the glory of words: to make massacres actions of their enemy, to hide every atrocity they committed under the rubric of self-defense, to turn patriotism into a word responsive only to their cause, to hide the deafening cries of women and children in utter silence, to erase memories from the living by burying towns and villages beneath mounds of earth, to confiscate deeds and birth certificates, to bulldoze mosques and schools, to literally wipe people from existence even as they walked the earth. They wrote the history; they controlled, yea they created, the mythologies of Exodus that have become the truth of Palestine, and they became the victims surrounded by millions who wanted to destroy them to steal the land they were given by their G-d regardless of the passage of centuries and millennia and the existence now of International Law governed by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Conventions that determine Justice and War.

In time a researcher realizes that the subject of his quest contains a narrative of its own. In my years studying Nathaniel Hawthorne’s work, Hawthorne himself emerges as the narrator, a mind seeking understanding of his time and place even when he writes of Padua or Rome. As an American, he lives in constant sensitivity that the equality so eloquently expressed in the nation’s Declaration of Independence and its Bill of Rights is a fantasy since one fifth of its people are enslaved, women have virtually no rights despite their nature that demands expression as Hester conveys in The Scarlet Letter, and another people who wander the American landscape, an incalculable number, ethnically isolated on reservations that shrink as more land theft is confiscated by his government, a government that he has served as Custom House Officer and Consul. Always in quest, he seeks more and more the substance of this existence.

In March of 1862, Hawthorne, along with the Atlantic Monthly publisher, William Ticknor, headed to Washington to see the nation at war firsthand. Perhaps it was this last attempt to comprehend the contradictions present in this new nation that brought him to express through the voice of old Doctor Grim, a man roughly the age of Hawthorne as he penned Doctor Grimshawe’s Secret, these caustic and cynical words that capture the essence of human darkness, aloneness and ultimate meaninglessness:

“Whence did you come?” the good doctor says to his young ward, Ned, “Whence did any of us come? Out of the darkness and mystery; out of nothingness; out of a kingdom of shadows; out of dust, clay, mud, I think, and to return to it again. Out of a former state of being, whence we have brought a good many shadowy revelations, purporting that it was no very pleasant one. Out of a former life, of which the present one is the hell!–And why are you come? Faith, Ned, he must be a wiser man than Doctor Grim who can tell why you or any other mortal came hither; only one thing I am well aware of,–it was not to be happy. To toil and moil and hope and fear; and to love in a shadowy, doubtful sort of way, and to hate in bitter earnest,–that is what you came for!”

I think of this perspective when I search through the “Top Secret” files of Sir Richard C. Catling, a man of simple background, son of a small town butcher in England, who became Deputy Head of the CID for Britain as the Zionists went to war, their words, against the British Government that had promised them a home within the limitations of their authority to both the natives of Palestine and the immigrants arriving at its shores. He lived to witness the Zionists become terrorists as early as 1941 when, as Harold MacMichael, High Commissioner in Mandate Palestine, wrote “A second matter which deeply impressed me is the almost Nazi control exercised by the official Jewish organization over the Jewish community…” The evidence in Catling’s file attests to the reality of that observation.

These men and their soldiers and police were forced to survive as the Zionist controlled armies destroyed eventually 418 towns and villages belonging to the indigenous people, killed thousands and drove out of their land close to 800,000, the sons and daughters of whom live in refugee camps in sundry mid-east countries. These were the soldiers who became the lost soldiers of Britain, forgotten men whose diligence and endurance and patriotism have yet to be recognized by the British government. Why should research of this nature, which tells a different story than our controlled media has presented, not receive the exposure it should so the citizens of the United States and the students at California’s public institutions can determine for themselves what is true and what is not.

Without freedom of speech, truth will never be told. Let people open their minds and their souls to the light of human judgment, and as Jesus noted, few will step forward to throw the first stone because they are pure in spirit. The Gellers of this world will step forward to expose themselves as vulgar, as barbaric, as heedless of their fellows because they care for none but themselves– heartless, soulless, lacking “human sympathy” which alone can bring peace into this world.

– William A. Cook is a Professor of English at the University of La Verne in southern California. His most recent book is Decade of Deceit, 2002-2012: Reflections on Palestine, published in June by Lambert Academic Publishing of Germany. Contact him at: wcook@laverne.edu.

September 5, 2012 Posted by aletho | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, Timeless or most popular | Antisemitism, California State Assembly, Israel, Jews, Palestine, Pamela Geller, United States, Zionism | Leave a comment

The Battle for Privacy Intensifies in Australia

By Rebecca Bowe | EFF | August 31, 2012

Australians are fending off threats to their right to privacy from all directions. First, there was Australian Attorney General Nicola Roxon’s push to expand government online surveillance powers, submitted to Parliament in a package of reforms sought in a National Security Inquiry.

Then, on Aug. 22, the Australian Senate approved the Cybercrime Legislation Amendment Bill 2011, granting authorities the power to require phone and Internet providers to store up to 180 days worth of personal communications data. The purpose is to aid in investigations by both foreign and domestic law enforcement agencies, making it especially controversial since it can result in granting foreign governments access to Australian citizens’ communications data. The legislation only allows for data retention in the cases of specifically targeted individuals.

The bill is based on the Council of Europe Convention on Cybercrime – which we’ve flagged in the past as one of the world’s worst Internet law treaties – and the passage of the bill opens the door for Australia to join the Convention.

At least we can welcome the news that one of the most controversial aspects of Roxon’s National Security Inquiry proposal, a vague mandatory data retention provision that would have required service providers to retain all users’ communications data for up to two full years, seems to have been placed on hold – for now, anyway.

Yet at the same time, the newly approved Cybercrime Legislation Amendment Bill 2011 is viewed by some in Australia as a kind of “data retention lite,” and a precursor to the mass, untargeted surveillance that the more extreme proposal may yet usher in. An outcome of the approval of this bill, after all, is that providers will now have to install systems enabling data retention for up to 180 days – and pay for it themselves.

Public Fights Back

Despite the steady march toward expanded online snooping powers for law enforcement in the name of “national security,” a hefty pile of submissions landed in Parliamentary chambers last week, reflecting strong public opposition to the proposed reforms. A total of 177 submissions, representing thousands of individuals and organizations, flowed in to the Joint Parliamentary Committee on Intelligence and Security even though the government allowed only a brief time frame for comment.

Below, we collected some reactions of various Australian stakeholders who drafted lengthy submissions to convey their serious concerns. Civil liberties advocates aren’t the only ones worried about where this is going. The Australian Mobile Telecommunications Association and Communications Alliance, a telecom industry group, also chimed in to express concerns about costly new requirements for telecoms that would come attached to these surveillance measures. Since data retention disproportionately burdens smaller ISPs affected by requiring expensive equipment upgrades, the measure has the potential to hamper innovation by discouraging new startups from entering the market.

Re: Making it a Crime to Refuse to Aid in Decryption

One of the worst ideas contained in the National Security Inquiry package is the creation of a new crime under the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act of 1979: Refusing to aid law enforcement in the decryption of communications. That interception law granted law enforcement agencies, such as the Australian Federal Police (AFP) and the Australian Crime Commission (ACC), the ability to legally intercept communications for the first time. Reactions to the proposal hinged on the threat it poses to Australians’ right to silence.

Senator Scott Ludlam, speaking on behalf of the Australian Green Party, had this to say:

While the integrity of Australianʹs right to silence has been damaged by the anti‐terrorism laws, with regard to other criminal offences it remains intact. This proposal further degrades the right to silence, presumably to pre‐trial investigations and undermines the privilege against self incrimination. … The Committee should oppose this proposal as a serious erosion of the legal and human rights of Australians.

Electronic Frontiers Australia, a digital civil liberties organization (which is not formally affiliated with EFF), pointed out a number of problems with this idea:

EFA is concerned about the possible creation of an offence for failing to assist in the decryption of communications for the following reasons:

it undermines the right of individuals to not cooperate with an investigation

it poses a threat to the independence of journalists and their sources, particularly in  circumstances involving whistle-blowing activity related to cases of official corruption

it could undermine the principles of doctor-patient and lawyer-client confidentiality and  other trusted relationships

there are foreseeable and entirely legitimate circumstances in which decryption of data is  not possible, such as where a password has been forgotten and is unrecoverable.

EFA therefore believes that the Committee should reject this proposal.

Re: Extending the Regulatory Regime to “Ancillary Service Providers”

A discussion paper submitted as part of the National Security Inquiry proposal makes it clear that the Australian government is “considering the need for a new interception regime that better reflects the contemporary communications environment,” i.e. a total overhaul of existing legislation to allow law enforcement to pry into communications taking place over platforms like Facebook or Twitter. The discussion paper defines “ancillary service providers” as “Telecommunications industry participants who are not carriers or carriage service providers.” Ultimately, this suggests the government is angling to bring all forms of online communications into the reach of interception laws.

The Australian Privacy Foundation cited the privacy concerns inherent in this proposal.

Telecommunications legislation already goes much further than regulation in most other sectors in mandating a role for private sector businesses as agents of the state in surveillance and law enforcement (banking and finance is the other main area where this has happened). These proposals would see a further significant extension of this role. Online intermediaries in particular host our communications with our friends, relatives, co-workers etc. They host a vast amount of information, the volume and scope of which is growing exponentially as we move to the cloud, use social networks, etc. Using online intermediaries as an agent of the State dramatically impacts on the state’s surveillance capabilities. Even minor changes in what they are required to do on behalf of government agencies can have very broad implications for people’s privacy.

Ludlam, of the Australian Greens, also blasted the idea.

The Attorney Generalʹs paper does not explain how covering ʹancillary service providersʹ – the many and ever increasing forms of social media – in legislation will address ʹcurrent potential vulnerabilities in the interception regime that are capable of being manipulated by criminalsʹ. The Greens believe it is excessive to extend the reach of surveillance into the retention of all social media exchanges. Does this include all business exchanges on video conferencing platforms?

And EFA pointed out that this proposal could expose anyone to law enforcement scrutiny, not just people suspected of wrongdoing.

Central to many of the services that Australians deliberately sign-up for— e.g. Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Apple iCloud, etc.—is the concept of sharing across networks. In surveilling a target’s activities in such services, shared friends or media objects connect target and non-target individuals such that following one surveillance target inescapably involves collateral surveillance necessarily breaching the privacy of non-targets. …. Indeed, “cloud computing” itself underlies “social networking”. As such, the information flows pertaining to individuals cross and recross such services to the point where, again, separating surveillance of a particular target is almost inevitably going to encounter that of other individuals, but in this case in ways that cannot be anticipated and very deeply undermine Australians’ reasonable expectation of privacy.

Roxon edges towards keeping online data for two years (smh.com.au)
Roxon backs new online data powers (theage.com.au)
Australian Government Moves to Expand Surveillance Powers (alethonews.wordpress.com)
Australian customers could pay for govt spying (zdnet.com)

September 4, 2012 Posted by aletho | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | Australia, Australian Crime Commission, Australian Federal Police, Convention on Cybercrime, Electronic Frontiers Australia, Internet service provider, Scott Ludlam | Leave a comment

WikiLeaks: End Your War On 9/11 Truth

By Saman Mohammadi | The Excavator | August 19, 2012

“I’m constantly annoyed that people are distracted by false conspiracies such as 9/11, when all around we provide evidence of real conspiracies, for war or mass financial fraud.” – WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, from the article, “Wanted by the CIA: Julian Assange – Wikileaks founder,” Belfast Telegraph, July 19, 2010.

“The US war on whistleblowers must end.” – Julian Assange, in a speech given from the balcony of the Ecuadorian embassy in London on August 19, 2012.

Since when did WikiLeaks become the tip of the spear in the global war for truth, transparency, knowledge, and freedom? Did I miss something? An organization that rejects the truth that 9/11 was an inside job is not working to promote transparency, free speech, and truth, but more nefarious causes.

Those who seek to marginalize the global 9/11 truth and justice movement are not on the right side of history. Assange lost all credibility when he made the statement in 2010 to the Belfast Telegraph that the 9/11 conspiracy theory is an example of “false conspiracies.” Reality disagrees.

People can choose to reject 9/11 conspiracy theories all they want, but they will not go away because they are based on hard facts and scientific data. The official 9/11 fable does not rest on solid foundations, but on totalitarian propaganda and trauma-based collective brainwashing.

By endorsing the 9/11 fable, WikiLeaks proved itself to be a compromised organization that has no interest in revealing secret truths to the masses of the world.

WikiLeaks is False Advertising

It is very suspicious that WikiLeaks is interested in releasing secret diplomatic cables that should not be aired out in public, rather than in broadcasting open source truths like the one about 9/11 being an inside job.

Assange has the world’s ear and what does he say? He gives empty, generic slogans, and says nothing specific.

On the WikiLeaks pulpit, Assange has never addressed the biggest scandal of modern intelligence operations and espionage, which is the 9/11 fraud and its subsequent cover-up. Objective truth-tellers cannot take such a person seriously.

If the objective is to “embarrass the U.S. government” then WikiLeaks has been victorious. But this is a hollow and dishonorable victory. To me, embarrassing U.S. officials is not a worthy or noble objective. It is childish.

Besides, top U.S. officials like Clinton, Holder, Geithner, and Obama embarrass themselves daily, and they do so just by speaking. You don’t even have to take their words out of context. Examples: all of Clinton’s remarks on the situation in Syria; and all of Obama’s remarks on the Wall Street fraud crisis.

The objective of the global 9/11 truth and justice movement is not to embarrass U.S. officials, but to awaken the international community to its feet and discredit the mythical “clash of civilizations” that has caused the destruction of numerous innocent countries. This movement is educational and it is not at war with any government. It transcends petty loyalty to states and ideologies.

Putting A Hole In The Well-Crafted Mythos of WikiLeaks

It is easy to be deceived by the hype surrounding WikiLeaks. Its founder, Assange, says all the right words, claims to be at war with the American government and the powers that be, and presents himself as a knight in shining armor.

But what kind of Knight of Truth disowns the biggest truth movement in the world and mocks them as chasers after “false conspiracies”?

This is not a knight I can follow and trust in these dark woods.

Assange says the U.S. is engaged in a witch hunt against WikiLeaks. This may be true, but it would be a mistake to believe that WikiLeaks is synonymous with truth-telling and whistleblowing. It is not.

The video of the U.S. pilots who killed Reuters journalists in an Iraqi neighbourhood that was released by WikiLeaks in April 2010 was not an example of real journalism, but a cheap shot at the men in the U.S. military. Real journalism exposes the big lies that lead to war, not the honourable men who fight in them.

In case people need to be reminded, WikiLeaks is not the center of the world. The world of truth-telling and journalism does not revolve around Assange.

The hijacked U.S. government is conducting an idiotic and illegal worldwide witch hunt against the people of the Middle East along with its psychopathic brother-in-arms, Israel, not against Assange and WikiLeaks.

The real victims of this witch hunt are not affiliated with WikiLeaks. The real victims are hazardly defined “terrorists,” and “militants,” who are innocent villagers, many of whom had never heard about 9/11 until Western journalists mentioned it to them.

To understand the true nature of Washington’s post-9/11 witch hunt, read: “The CIA’s Inquisition: How Terrorism And Conspiracy Theory Became The New Blasphemy And Heresy,” and, “The Propaganda Battlefield: Militants Abroad, Conspiracy Theorists At Home.”

The claim made by WikiLeaks that it is defending the interests of those who are being illegally persecuted, jailed, and bombed under the rubric of the “war on terror” is false since it fails to expose the biggest lie told by Washington that justifies this illegal global war: the 9/11 lie.

Has the Wiki-Knight Assange ever brought up the fact in his widely publicized speeches that extremist Islamic terrorists like Al-Qaeda are being funded and armed by Washington, London, and Tel Aviv in Syria and across the region to destabilize it? No? Why is that? Is it because WikiLeaks does not care about the truth? Is that why?

Back in January 2011, historian Webster Tarpley put a big hole in the well-crafted mythos of WikiLeaks, writing, “Assange’s various document dumps tell us nothing of importance about 9/11, the Rabin assassination, Iran-contra, the 1999 bombing of Serbia, the Kursk incident, the various CIA color revolutions, or many of the other truly big covert operations of the past decades.” Also, read Tarpley’s article, “Wikileaks helps West to justify attack on Syria,” that was written last month.

Shining a light on the realities that Al-Qaeda is a child of the CIA and that USraeli state terrorists were behind the false flag 9/11 events should be the top objective of every truth-telling individual, website, and organization. This is a global and non-violent fight for the restoration of truth, freedom, sanity, and peace.

Having mocked and ridiculed 9/11 truth-tellers, WikiLeaks is obviously not part of this historic fight.

WikiLeaks and Latin America (Aletho News)

August 20, 2012 Posted by aletho | Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular | al-Qaeda, Assange, Julian Assange, WikiLeaks | Leave a comment

Israeli soldiers attack, injure and arrest journalists at Kafr Qaddum

On Friday, August 17, five were injured and eight arrested at Kafr Qaddum. … Full text of ISM article

Media Forum condemns IOF attack on six journalists

Palestine Information Center – 18/08/2012

GAZA– Palestinian Media Forum strongly condemned the Israeli occupation forces’ attack on six Palestinian journalists and detaining them for hours while they were covering a peaceful demonstration in the occupied West Bank on Friday.

The Forum said in a statement Saturday, that IOF soldiers attacked the journalists while dispersing the weekly peaceful march against the separation wall in Kafr Qaddum in Qalqilya in the West Bank, and transferred them to Kedumim settlement established on the village lands.

It affirmed that the detainees were released after the occupation soldiers forced them to sign a pledge not to perform their work as journalists in Kafr Qaddum. … Full PIC article

Israeli forces raid Qalqilya, arrest people (altahrir.wordpress.com)

August 18, 2012 Posted by aletho | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, Solidarity and Activism, Timeless or most popular, Video | International Solidarity Movement, Israel, Kafr Qaddum, Palestine, Qalqilyah, West Bank, Zionism | Leave a comment

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From the Archives

Genetic baloney in thick slices

MAYBE COULD BE INC.

By Jon Rappoport | No More Fake News | July 8, 2021

Gene research companies tend to come and go. They start out banging and popping like fireworks in the sky, and then they fade out—selling themselves to larger outfits who’ve hired better liars…

Once upon a time, it sounded easy. Start with a disease, find the gene responsible for the disease, and correct the problem.

Then, researchers wondered, was disease the result of one gene or a group of genes acting together?

Either way, the proof would be in devising cures for diseases using gene therapy. “Not yet, but soon…”

And regardless, the major need was: money. Lots and lots of money.

This need required good PR people. “We have to pump up the idea that we’re on the edge of tremendous breakthroughs. We’re always on that edge…”

This hype also needed to obscure the fact that there wasn’t (and isn’t) ANY gene cure for ANY disease. … continue

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