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The Israel Lobby Never Sleeps

By Philip Giraldi | The Passionate Attachment | May 10, 2012

There has been no media reporting on H.R.4133 — United States-Israel Enhanced Security Cooperation Act of 2012 introduced into the House of Representatives of the 112th Congress on March 5th “To express the sense of Congress regarding the United States-Israel strategic relationship, to direct the President to submit to Congress reports on United States actions to enhance this relationship and to assist in the defense of Israel, and for other purposes.” The sponsors include Eric Cantor, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, and Howard Berman (all of whom are Jewish) and also Steny Hoyer of Maryland, who is Norwegian but might as well be Jewish given his frequently expressed love for Israel. The bill provides Israel with a blank check drawn on the US taxpayer to maintain its “qualitative military superiority” over all of its neighbors combined. It is scheduled for passage on a “suspension of the rules,” which means it will not actually be voted on and will be approved by consent of Congress.

It is perhaps no coincidence that on Monday the Republicans in the guise of the redoubtable Howard “Buck” McKeon released their proposal for increased defense spending (yes, increased) for 2013. It includes a cool $1 billion for Israel to upgrade its missile defenses. That’s on top of the $3 billion it already receives plus numerous co-production programs that are off the books and defense spending that is not considered to be part of the annual grant. Perhaps “Buck” should consider changing his sobriquet to “Warbucks.” Buck is not Jewish but he is a Mormon, perhaps a sign of what will be coming if we are so unlucky as to vote into office the born again Hawk Mitt Romney. Mitt has a foreign policy team consisting of more than thirty stalwarts, mostly drawn from the Bush Administration, and nearly all of whom are neocons. It features Robert Kaplan, John Bolton, and Dan Senor.

Israel and its partisan hacks in Congress are utterly shameless. At a time when the country is screaming for some measure of restraint in government spending, Israel is the one budget line that only sees increases.

Philip Giraldi is the executive director of the Council for the National Interest and a recognized authority on international security and counterterrorism issues.

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May 9, 2012 Posted by | Militarism, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Drones: The Nightmare Scenario

By Jay Stanley, Senior Policy Analyst, ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology Project | May 2, 2012

In our drones report, we discuss the coming onslaught of domestic drones and the weak state of the privacy laws that should protect us, and we outline our recommendations for protections that Congress and local governments should put in place.

But if nothing is done, how might things go? Let’s take a look at how police drone use could unfold:

  1. The FAA’s new rules go into effect. Acting under orders from Congress, the FAA in coming months and years will significantly loosen the regulations that have been holding back broader deployment of drones. Starting later this year, for example, the FAA must allow any “government public safety agency” to operate any small drone (under 4.4 pounds) as long as certain conditions are met.
  1. More and more police departments begin using them. The FAA’s new rules allow for the release of pent-up demand among police departments for cheap aerial surveillance. Ownership of drones quickly becomes common among departments large and small. Organizations are formed by police drone operators, who exchange tips and advice. We also begin to hear about their deployment by federal agencies, other than on the border.
  1. We start to hear stories about how they’re being used. Most departments and agencies are relatively careful at first, and we begin to hear stories about drones being put to use in specific, mostly unobjectionable police operations such as raids, chases, and searches supported by warrants.
  1. Drone use broadens. Fairly quickly, however, we begin to hear about a few departments deploying drones for broader, more general uses: drug surveillance, marches and rallies, and generalized monitoring of troubled neighborhoods.
  1. Private use is banned. A terrorist like the pilot who crashed his plane into an IRS building in Texas uses an explosives-laden drone to try to attack a public facility. In response, the government clamps down on private use of the technology. The net result is that the government can use it for surveillance but individuals cannot use it to watch the government.
  1. Drones become able to mutually coordinate. Multiple drones deployed over neighborhoods can be linked together, and communicate and coordinate with each other (see this video for an early taste of what that could look like). This allows a swarm of craft to form a single, distributed wide-area surveillance system such as that envisioned by the “Gorgon Stare” program.
  1. The analytics gets better. At the same time, drones and the computers behind them become more intelligent and capable of analyzing the video feeds they are generating. They gain the ability to automatically track multiple vehicles and bodies as they move around a city or town, with different drones handing off the tracking to each other just as a mobile phone network passes a signal from one cell to another as a user rides down the highway.
  1. Flight durations grow. Technology improvements (involving blimps, perhaps, or solar-power innovations) allow for drones to stay aloft for longer periods more cheaply, which becomes key in permitting their use for persistent surveillance.
  1. The cycle accelerates. The advancing technology incentivizes agencies to buy even more drones, which in turn spurs more technology development, and the cycle becomes self-perpetuating.
  1. Laws are further loosened. As drones get smarter and more reliable and very good at sensing and avoiding other aircraft, FAA restrictions are further loosened, permitting even autonomous flight.
  1. Pervasive tracking becomes common. Despite opposition, a few police departments begin deploying drones 24/7 over certain areas. The media covers the controversy but Congress takes no action, and eventually it becomes old news, and the practice spreads until many or most American towns and cities are subject to the practice.
  1. Technologies are combined. Drone video cameras and tracking analytics are combined or synched up with other technologies such as face recognition, gait recognition, license-plate scanners, and cell phone location data.
  1. The data is mined. With individuals’ comings and goings routinely monitored, databases are able build up records of where people live, work, and play—what friends they visit, bars they drink at, doctors they visit, what houses of worship, or political events, or sexually oriented establishments they go to—and who else is at those places at the same time. Computers comb through this data looking for “suspicious patterns,” and when the algorithms kick up an alarm, the person involved becomes the subject of much more extensive surveillance.

Ultimately, such surveillance leads to an oppressive atmosphere where people learn to think twice about everything they do, knowing that it will be recorded, charted, scrutinized by increasingly intelligent computers, and possibly used to target them.

I’m not sure how realistic this scenario is. Perhaps it is far-fetched (I hope so). But the questions to ask are: which of the above steps is unlikely to take place, and why? And if we don’t end up in the situation described, how close will we get?

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May 2, 2012 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

One Thing Maine, Virginia and Arizona Have in Common: Opposition to the NDAA

By Allie Bohm | ACLU | April 27, 2012

This week, the House Armed Services Committee has turned its attention back to the National Defense Authorization Act and began working on this year’s bill. You remember last year’s perversion that, for the first time in American history, codified indefinite military detention without charge or trial far from any battlefield? State legislators and activists and concerned citizens on the right and the left — and everyone in between — haven’t forgotten.

On Wednesday, Arizona’s state legislature sent a bill opposing the detention provisions in the NDAA to their governor. And, last week, a similar bill became law in Virginia, about a month after Maine passed a joint resolution to the same effect. Add to that list the cities and counties that have passed resolutions urging Congress to repeal the problematic provisions in the NDAA — Fairfax, Calif.; Santa Cruz, Calif.; El Paso County, Colo.; Fremont County, Colo.; Moffat County, Colo.; Weld County, Colo.; Cherokee County, Kan.; Northampton, Mass.; Alleghany County, N.C.; Macomb, N.Y.; Elk County, Pa.; and New Shoreham, R.I. — and the map starts looking awfully full. This is not a red state issue or a blue state issue or a purple state issue. A few of the resolutions are under-inclusive, but their message is still clear: across social and political lines, no one likes the idea of indefinite detention or mandatory military detention far from any battlefield. (Okay, except maybe Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and a few other misguided members of Congress.)

Will your town, city, county, or state be the next to speak up? You can make that happen. Check out our model legislation and activist toolkit for legislative language, talking points, and tips to help you get started. Our bill sends a message from your local legislative body to Congress that the indefinite military detention provisions of the NDAA should be repealed. The model legislation prohibits state and local employees from aiding the federal armed forces in the investigation, arrest, detention, or trial of any person within the United States under the NDAA. It also sends a message from your legislative body to Congress that the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force should expire at the end of the war in Afghanistan so that the government cannot continue to use the AUMF as justification for its claims that war is everywhere and anywhere and that the president can order the American military to imprison without charge or trial people picked up far from any battlefield.

And while you’re at it, head over to our Action Center and urge your member of Congress to fix the NDAA. The time is now. This year’s NDAA provides the perfect opportunity for Congress to fix last year’s debacle. And, we need you — and your state legislators and city council members — to speak up if we’re going to get Congress to finally do the right thing.

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April 27, 2012 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , , , , | 1 Comment

A Slick Trick on the NDAA and Indefinite Detention; Don’t Be Fooled!

By Chris Anders | ACLU | April 19, 2012

It looks like there is slick little trick brewing in Congress. Supporters of locking people up without charge or trial are getting ready to play yet another trick on the American people.

Late yesterday, Congressman Scott Rigell and 26 other members of Congress introduced a bill, H.R. 4388, which he is trying to sell to the American people as a “fix” for the National Defense Authorization Act. But in fact, it is a useless bill that might actually end up causing harm.

That’s right. The plan in the House of Representatives seems to be to try to fool Americans into thinking that they are fixing the indefinite detention problems with the NDAA and the Authorization for the Use of Military Force, when in fact, they are doing nothing good.

Don’t be fooled!

Here’s how they hope their trick will work. H.R. 4388, which was sneakily mistitled as the “Right to Habeas Corpus Act,” states that no one in the United States will lose their habeas rights under the NDAA. That might sound like something good, but it’s meaningless.

The question with the NDAA was never whether habeas rights are lost. Instead, the question is whether and when any president can order the military to imprison a person without charge or trial. The NDAA did not take away habeas rights from anyone, but it did codify a dangerous indefinite detention without charge or trial scheme. And nothing in the proposed bill by Rigell would change it. The Rigell bill won’t stop any president from ordering the military lockup of civilians without charge or trial.

And there’s more. Not only is it a useless bill, but it could end up causing harm too. It doesn’t accurately and fully list who is entitled to habeas (for example, it doesn’t even mention American citizens traveling outside the country), which could end up causing confusion.

They are hoping you will fall for their trick and waste all your time and energy on something meaningless — and not fight for legislation that actually protects people from indefinite detention without charge or trial.

They are hoping you will ignore the bills that actually are first steps towards fixing the NDAA. Congressman Adam Smith and Sen. Mark Udall introduced H.R. 4192/S. 2175, which codifies a ban on the military imprisoning civilians without charge or trial or trying persons before military commissions within the United States, as well as repeals section 1022 of last year’s NDAA. Also, Congressman Ron Paul has sponsored H.R. 3785, which repeals section 1021 of the NDAA. Both are meaningful first steps towards fixing a problem.

Supporters of last year’s NDAA indefinite detention provisions hope you will fall for their trick. They want you to spend your time pushing for the Rigell bill, instead of working on something meaningful. For more information about our opposition to the bill, you can read the letter that we sent to congressional offices earlier this week. Retweet our tweet to Rigell to tell him to stop playing games with indefinite detention without charge or trial.

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April 20, 2012 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception | , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Dying for AIPAC

By Philip Giraldi | The Passionate Attachment | March 15, 2012

In ancient Greece and Rome the front line soldiers were drawn from the wealthiest class of citizens. That was partly because each soldier had to provide his own equipment and armor was expensive, but it was also due to the belief that men who had the most to lose would fight best. It also guaranteed that wars would be no more frequent than necessary, would be short in duration, and would be decisive in nature. America’s Founding Fathers clearly had similar ideas, envisioning only a small national army and much larger state militias where the local property owners would come out on weekends and drill with their weapons on the village green, developing the skills necessary to defend their homes.

I was thinking about the duties entailed in citizenship as I watched television coverage of the spectacle of the annual conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). I wondered about the six thousand plus attendees at the conference and their hubristic sense of entitlement minus any sense of responsibility for what they advocate. The entire conference was dedicated to going to war with Iran, a war that is manifestly not in America’s interest. But there they were, welcoming more than half of Congress and a majority of Supreme Court Justices as well as the President of the United States, as they called for war on behalf of a foreign country.

I asked myself how many of those at AIPAC would pay any price at all for going to war with Iran? How many of them have children in the military? With a little searching I could only find ten members out of the 535 members of Congress having recently had sons or daughters in the military and I would imagine the numbers among other AIPAC attendees would be even lower. I would bet the percentage is miniscule. And how many of those at AIPAC will be contributing their wealth to support another absolutely senseless foreign war? None, most likely as America has become addicted to going to war on a credit card. Instead, the AIPAC attendees have learned that it is possible to start wars by using much smaller sums of money to buy influence and votes on Capitol Hill and compliant editorial writers in the media, meaning that AIPAC’s $65 million budget can easily translate into a war that costs the American taxpayer several trillion dollars, as occurred with Iraq.

AIPAC understands that there is no need to sacrifice one’s children or spend anything more than necessary when there are other people’s children out there who are ready, willing and able to die for your cause and for the foreign land that you hold most dear. It is a coward’s way to go to war without pain, without grief, and without cost to you personally, where fighting and dying by others is little more than an abstraction. It is one more powerful reason why groups like AIPAC, instead of being celebrated, should be placed under Justice Department supervision and strictly monitored as collaborative and subversive agents of foreign powers, which is precisely what they are. And when they step out of line by stealing secrets or suborning politicians it should mean hard time in prison. No one deserves to die in someone else’s fight, particularly in a bad cause, and no one should be able to start a war and escape the consequences.

Philip Giraldi is the executive director of the Council for the National Interest.

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March 15, 2012 Posted by | Corruption, Wars for Israel | , , , , , | Leave a comment

US House panel passes bill to monitor Iran-Latin America ties

Press TV – March 1, 2012

The US House of Representatives’ Foreign Affairs subcommittee on terrorism has endorsed a bill obliging the State Department to brief the Congress on Iran’s activities in Latin America.

The bill, titled “Countering Iran in the Western Hemisphere Act” and approved on Thursday, had been sponsored by representatives of Republican and Democratic parties.

According to the bill, Iran has increased the number of its embassies in Latin America from five in 2005 to 11 in 2012.

If the whole Congress approves the bill, the State Department would have to inform it of Iran’s activities in Latin America within 180 days.

Iran has been seeking to expand relations with Latin American countries over the past few years, describing the endeavor as one of its major foreign policy strategies.

Major Latin American nations have also enhanced their diplomatic and trade ties with Iran in recent years while their relations with the United States have been downgraded amid popular demands for an end to dependence on Washington.

Iran’s rising popularity in Latin America has raised major concerns in Washington, which regards the region as its strategic backyard and traditional sphere of influence.

On January 6, the US warned Latin American states against expanding diplomatic and business ties with Iran, expressing concern over “Iran’s outreach to the Western Hemisphere.”

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March 1, 2012 Posted by | Timeless or most popular | , , , , , | Leave a comment

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