disturbing the comfortable

As more people catch onto the implications of the power grab by the Executive Branch, the screams are getting louder. Now, it seems, the Co-Presidents, the Dynamic Duo, Dick and Dubya, want to squelch any stories that might truly expose the actualities of the situation. We know that the government spies on people without warrants; that habeas corpus is being selectively silenced, and that police powers have been so broadly interpreted that anyone’s phone call can be monitored by the feds.

There’s something just a little bit scary about that, eh?

It Has Happened Here
The growth of executive power in this country has some disturbing precedents

http://hartfordadvocate.com/gbase/News/content?oid=oid:138181

by Alan Bisbort - December 29, 2005

The World This Week
It has happened here, "it" being fascism, American-style. Sinclair Lewis satirized this latent impulse in It Can´t Happen Here , a 1935 novel. When he wrote it, prominent Americans like Henry "History is Bunk" Ford, Charles Lindbergh and Father Coughlin -- the Richard Mellon Scaife, Ollie North and Pat Robertson of their day -- were smitten with Mussolini, Hitler and Franco and their fascism, European-style.

Before Der Fuhrer's goose-stepping act segued into global war and Holocaust, American businessmen like Ford, "patriots" like Lindbergh and Christian radio blowhards like Coughlin admired the idea of state cultural control, suppression of dissent, crushing of unions, secret arrests, torture, military muscle-flexing and nativist pageantry. They felt right at home in a world in which the playground bully called the shots.

Novelists are America's real truth-tellers. Maybe that's why so many, like Lewis, drink themselves to death. Take Norman Mailer. He has suggested that fascism might be the most natural governmental state for Homo sapiens, that democracy is unnatural and hard to maintain; it requires vigilance, participation and a shared sense of the public good. And, always, this fascist tendency keeps creeping in like a flu virus. In a series of lectures after his book was published -- called "It Has Happened Here" -- Lewis said, "We [Americans] are slaves to the concept and practice of salesmanship; indeed, the salesman is the equivalent of the dictator in fascist countries."

Indeed, today's homegrown fascists are the corporate string-pullers who've infiltrated every facet of our lives, from government (where electoral "choice" is between two corporate whores), schools (where corporations dictate our kids' health-ruining diet), media (where fascists are held in high esteem and dissenters are scum) and communities (where developers, realtors, bankers and big-box merchandisers dictate land-use policy). Having been brought up on Sam Adams' Sons of Liberty, Jefferson's Declaration, Patrick Henry, Nathan Hale, Betsy Ross, et al., I never wanted to believe Mailer or Lewis were anything more than storytellers.

That's out the window now.

Before you don your gay apparel, let me propose one instructive reading exercise. The book is I Will Bear Witness: A Diary of the Nazi Years, 1933-1941 , by Victor Klemperer. Klemperer was a German historian and Jew who, to ward off his fears during Hitler's rise to power, immersed himself in writing and teaching. Slowly, one by one, he lost his professorship, car, phone, house, typewriter and then family members and friends. His diary began: "Jan. 30: Hitler Chancellor. What, up to election, I called terror, was a mild prelude É I heard a part of Hitlers's speech É I understood only occasional words. But the tone! The unctuous bawling, truly bawling, of a priest."

Klemperer's diary is filled with such passages, which have what Edmund Wilson called "the shock of recognition." He documents the inexorable crawl toward fascism in Germany. By Christmas 1941, for example, the Nazi overlords have decreed a "curfew for all Jews from the morning of December 24 to January 1," so that good Christians could celebrate the birth of the Prince of Peace without the "provocative behavior of a Jew in public."

Now we have a Bill O'Reilly-led demagogic campaign to rescue Christmas from "secularists" and non-Christians. His language is pure playground-bully fascism, singling out groups to imply their "provocative" existence.

Then there's Dick Cheney, who flew back from a "diplomatic trip" (there's an oxymoron!) to cast the tie-breaking vote on a bill to cut funds to the poor on the eve of Christmas. Not content with playing Scrooge, Cheney screamed for more power. "I believe in a strong, robust executive authority and I think that the world we live in demands it," he said, the drool dripping from his fangs.

Klemperer's book reminds us that fascism does not appear like Satan rearing up from a festering hole in the earth or arrive in full fiery regalia. It enters slowly, sometimes even comically. In a way, we're all Victor Klemperers now, bearing witness to this dark chapter in American history. If we survive it.

The United States has considered Latin America, for a very long time, as a sort of non-domestic collection of dependent states. As long as the citizens of those states stayed in their places, that is. Latin America has the non-distinction of being at the core of the American Empire, but the empire is crumbling. America has been unable to depose Castro and unable to silence Lula of Venezuela. Venezuela has, in fact, come to the aid of American poor by supplying low-cost heating oil to those who live on the east coast.

Bolivia has now joined the Revolt Against The Empire. Here's a speech from Evo Morales, Bolivia's new president. I only hope the Republican Guard is too busy elsewhere to try to depose him.

"I Believe Only In The Power Of The People"

By Evo Morales

countercurrents.org December 22, 2005
http://www.countercurrents.org/bolivia-morales221205.htm


Thank you for the invitation to this great meeting of
intellectuals "In Defense of Humanity." Thank you for
your applause for the Bolivian people, who have
mobilized in these recent days of struggle, drawing on
our consciousness and our regarding how to reclaim our
natural resources.

What happened these past days in Bolivia was a great
revolt by those who have been oppressed for more than
500 years. The will of the people was imposed this
September and October, and has begun to overcome the
empire's cannons. We have lived for so many years
through the confrontation of two cultures: the culture
of life represented by the indigenous people, and the
culture of death represented by West. When we the
indigenous people—together with the workers and even
the businessmen of our country — fight for life and
justice, the State responds with its "democratic rule
of law."

What does the "rule of law" mean for indigenous people?
For the poor, the marginalized, the excluded, the "rule
of law" means the targeted assassinations and
collective massacres that we have endured. Not just
this September and October, but for many years, in
which they have tried to impose policies of hunger and
poverty on the Bolivian people.

Above all, the "rule of law" means the accusations that
we, the Quechuas, Aymaras and Guaranties of Bolivia
keep hearing from our governments: that we are narcos,
that we are anarchists. This uprising of the Bolivian
people has been not only about gas and hydrocarbons,
but an intersection of many issues: discrimination,
marginalization , and most importantly, the failure of
neoliberalism.

The cause of all these acts of bloodshed, and for the
uprising of the Bolivian people, has a name:
neoliberalism. With courage and defiance, we brought
down Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada — the symbol of
neoliberalism in our country — on October 17, the
Bolivians' day of dignity and identity. We began to
bring down the symbol of corruption and the political
mafia.

And I want to tell you, companeras and companeros, how
we have built the consciousness of the Bolivian people
from the bottom up. How quickly the Bolivian people
have reacted, have said — as Subcomandate Marcos says
!ya basta!, enough policies of hunger and misery.

For us, October 17th is the beginning of a new phase of
construction. Most importantly, we face the task of
ending selfishness and individualism, and creating from
the rural campesino and indigenous communities to the
urban slums — other forms of living, based on
solidarity and mutual aid. We must think about how to
redistribute the wealth that is concentrated among few
hands. This is the great task we Bolivian people face
after this great uprising.

It has been very important to organize and mobilize
ourselves in a way based on transparency, honesty, and
control over our own organizations. And it has been
important not only to organize but also to unite. Here
we are now, united intellectuals in defense of humanity
— I think we must have not only unity among the social
movements, but also that we must coordinate with the
intellectual movements. Every gathering, every event of
this nature for we labor leaders who come from the
social struggle, is a great lesson that allows us to
exchange experiences and to keep strengthening our
people and our grassroots organizations.

Thus, in Bolivia, our social movements, our
intellectuals, our workers — even those political
parties which support the popular struggle —joined
together to drive out Gonzalo Sanchez Lozada. Sadly, we
paid the price with many of our lives, because the
empire's arrogance and tyranny continue humiliating the
Bolivian people.

It must be said, companeras and companeros, that we
must serve the social and popular movements rather than
the transnational corporations. I am new to politics; I
had hated it and had been afraid of becoming a career
politician. But I realized that politics had once been
the science of serving the people, and that getting
involved in politics is important if you want to help
your people. By getting involved, I mean living for
politics, rather than living off of politics. We have
coordinated our struggles between the social movements
and political parties, with the support of our academic
institutions, in a way that has created a greater
national consciousness. That is what made it possible
for the people to rise up in these recent days.

When we speak of the "defense of humanity," as we do at
this event, I think that this only happens by
eliminating neoliberalism and imperialism. But I think
that in this we are not so alone, because we see, every
day that anti-imperialist thinking is spreading,
especially after Bush's bloody "intervention" policy in
Iraq. Our way of organizing and uniting against the
system, against the empire's aggression towards our
people, is spreading, as are the strategies for
creating and strengthening the power of the people.

I believe only in the power of the people. That was my
experience in my own region, a single province —the
importance of local power. And now, with all that has
happened in Bolivia, I have seen the importance of the
power of a whole people, of a whole nation. For those
of us who believe it important to defend humanity, the
best contribution we can make is to help create that
popular power. This happens when we check our personal
interests with those of the group. Sometimes, we commit
to the social movements in order to win power. We need
to be led by the people, not use or manipulate them.

We may have differences among our popular leaders — and
it's true that we have them in Bolivia. But when the
people are conscious, when the people know what needs
to be done, any difference among the different local
leaders ends. We've been making progress in this for a
long time, so that our people are finally able to rise
up, together.

What I want to tell you, companeras and companeros what
I dream of - and what we as leaders from Bolivia dream
of - is that our task at this moment should be to
strengthen anti-imperialist thinking. Some leaders are
now talking about how we — the intellectuals, the
social and political movements — can organize a great
summit of people like Fidel, Chavez and Lula to say to
everyone: "We are here, taking a stand against the
aggression of the US imperialism." A summit at which we
are joined by companera Rigoberta Menchu, by other
social and labor leaders, great personalities like
Perez Ezquivel. A great summit to say to our people
that we are together, united, and defending humanity.
We have no other choice, companeros and companeras — if
we want to defend humanity we must change system, and
this means overthrowing US imperialism. That is all.
Thank you very much.

Recorded by Adam Saytanides Translated by Ricardo Sala

Ted Rall has become one of my favorite columnists: he’s witty and cynical, hard-headed and very readable. A lot of columnists fail in all those categories.

Spying on American citizens is the Number One news story these days. As if it just happened, yeah. Part of the shame of it is this is just old behavior. In this regard, the government is like the abusive husband: he promises never to hit his wife again and then, once she’s forgiven him, hits her. Spying and lying: America’s government at work.

Ted Rall: 'The return of Total Information Awareness: Bush asserts dictatorial 'inherent' powers'
Date: Thursday, December 29 @ 08:58:25 EST
Topic: The Constitution & Civil Liberties

TED RALL, YAHOO

NEW YORK--Civil libertarians relaxed when, in September 2003, Republicans bowed to public outcry and cancelled Total Information Awareness. TIA was a covert "data mining" operation run out of the Pentagon by creepy Iran-Contra figure John Poindexter. Bush Administration marketing mavens had tried to dress up the sinister "dataveillance" spook squad--first by changing TIA to Terrorism Information Awareness, then to the Information Awareness Office--to no avail. "But," wondered the Electronic Frontier Foundation watchdog group a month after Congress cut its funding, "is TIA truly dead?"

At the time I bet "no." Once a regime has revealed a predilection for spying on its own people, the histories of East Germany and Richard Nixon teach us, they never quit voluntarily. The cyclical clicks that appeared on my phone line after 9/11 corroborated my belief that federal spy agencies were using the War on Terrorism as a pretext for harassing their real enemies: liberals and others who criticized their policies. As did the phony Verizon employee tearing out of my building's basement, leaving the phone switching box open, when I demanded to see his identification. He drove away in an unmarked van.

So I was barely surprised to hear the big news that Bush had ordered the National Security Agency, FBI and CIA to tap the phones and emails of such dangerously subversive radical Islamist anti-American terrorist groups as Greenpeace, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, the American Indian Movement and the Catholic Workers, without bothering to apply for a warrant. "The Catholic Workers advocated peace with a Christian and semi-communistic ideology," an agent wrote in an FBI dossier, a man sadly unaware of the passings of J. Edgar Hoover and the Soviet Union.



Old joke: A suspect running away from a cop ducks down a long dark alley. When the policeman's partner catches up he finds the first cop walking around in circles under a bright streetlamp. "What are you doing?" the second officer asks. "The guy ran into that alley!" "I know," his colleague replies, "but looking for him out here is a lot easier."

No wonder they haven't found Osama bin Laden. Tapping the ACLU's phones is easier than traipsing through Pakistani Kashmir.

The return of brazen Nixon-style domestic eavesdropping --it undoubtedly occurred under presidents from Ford to Clinton, though on a smaller, more discreet scale--indicates that the White House is flipping ahead to the next page in its Hitler playbook, the part about exploiting a state of perpetual war to stifle internal dissent on a vast scale. "As part of the program approved by President Bush for domestic surveillance without warrants," the New York Times reports, "the NSA has gained the cooperation of American telecommunications companies to obtain backdoor access to streams of domestic and international communications." Maybe I should worry about the real Verizon guy too.

But then, last week, Bush also claimed the right to spy within the United States. Despite Congressional denials Bush said that the resolution that authorized him to use force to go after the perpetrators behind 9/11--which he used to invade Afghanistan--also gave him the right to listen in on Greenpeace and infiltrate a PETA seminar on veganism (yes, really). Attorney General and torture aficionado Alberto R. Gonzales cited the president's "inherent power as commander in chief."

Actually, as Peter Irons documents in his outstanding War Powers: How the Imperial Presidency Hijacked the Constitution, the Founding Fathers never intended for the "commander in chief" to have any powers beyond ordering troops to repel an invasion force. As everyone understood in 1787, the title was strictly ceremonial. A president can't declare war, much less violate our privacy, based on his commander-in-chief "authority."

Officials of a democratic republic derive their power and authority from law. As servants of the people, they can't do anything unless it's specifically authorized by law or judicial interpretations thereof. Only in authoritarian and totalitarian regimes may a legal theory be created that imbues the leader, as the personal embodiment of the state, with "inherent" powers. For example, the Nazi "führer principle," in which the head of state was answerable to no one and the legislative and judicial branches of governments were reduced to rubber stamps, required Hitler to assign himself inherent powers.

Bush and Gonzales' interpretation of their roles is alien, un-American. Do they understand our system of government? Or are they trying to change it to something more "efficient"--something closer to authoritarian state led by a strongman, or even outright fascism?

When I first read about Bush's domestic eavesdropping operation--which he promises to continue--I did what any left-of-center Bush-bashing cartoonist and columnist would do: I filed Freedom of Information Act requests to force the FBI, CIA and NSA to cough up whatever they've got on me. After all, if the feds are going after Ancient Forest Rescue, it isn't a big stretch to surmise that they might be interested in a guy who says that George W. Bush is illegitimate, dumb as a rock and the head of a cabal of sociopathic mass murderers who've done more to destroy the United States than Osama. I'll let you know what, if anything, turns up.

Interesting tidbit: When I visited the NSA's official website, my browser warned me that I was "about to enter a site that is not secure." Ain't that the truth.

Source: Yahoo
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ucru/20051228/cm_ucru/
thereturnoftotalinformationawareness

The URL for this story is:
http://www.SmirkingChimp.com/article.php?sid=24198

___________________

The second story in this mess is that the probable reason Bush went and broke the law regarding warrants is because the FISA court actually acted in a fair manner and objected to some of the government’s justifications for warrants. So, Bush-baby threw a tantrum and did it his own way, inventing—no, he didn’t invent it, he just got his lawyers to justify it enough to satisfy him—some sort of regal right to act outside—not “above”—the law. In other words, he was given rationalizations for his actions.


Secret Court Modified Wiretap Requests
By Stewart M. Powell
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/printer_122805Q.shtml
Saturday 24 December 2005
Intervention may have led Bush to bypass panel.
Washington - Government records show that the administration was encountering unprecedented second-guessing by the secret federal surveillance court when President Bush decided to bypass the panel and order surveillance of US-based terror suspects without the court's approval.
A review of Justice Department reports to Congress shows that the 26-year-old Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court modified more wiretap requests from the Bush administration than from the four previous presidential administrations combined.
The court's repeated intervention in Bush administration wiretap requests may explain why the president decided to bypass the court nearly four years ago to launch secret National Security Agency spying on hundreds and possibly thousands of Americans and foreigners inside the United States, according to James Bamford, an acknowledged authority on the supersecret NSA, which intercepts telephone calls, e-mails, faxes and Internet communications.
"They wanted to expand the number of people they were eavesdropping on, and they didn't think they could get the warrants they needed from the court to monitor those people," said Bamford, author of "Body of Secrets: Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency" and "The Puzzle Palace: Inside America's Most Secret Intelligence Organization." "The FISA court has shown its displeasure by tinkering with these applications by the Bush administration."
Bamford offered his speculation in an interview last week.
The 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, adopted by Congress in the wake of President Nixon's misuse of the NSA and the CIA before his resignation over Watergate, sets a high standard for court-approved wiretaps on Americans and resident aliens inside the United States.
To win a court-approved wiretap, the government must show "probable cause" that the target of the surveillance is a member of a foreign terrorist organization or foreign power and is engaged in activities that "may" involve a violation of criminal law.
Faced with that standard, Bamford said, the Bush administration had difficulty obtaining FISA court-approved wiretaps on dozens of people within the United States who were communicating with targeted al-Qaida suspects inside the United States.
The 11-judge court that authorizes FISA wiretaps has approved at least 18,740 applications for electronic surveillance or physical searches from five presidential administrations since 1979.
The judges modified only two search warrant orders out of the 13,102 applications that were approved over the first 22 years of the court's operation. In 20 of the first 21 annual reports on the court's activities up to 1999, the Justice Department told Congress that "no orders were entered (by the FISA court) which modified or denied the requested authority" submitted by the government.
But since 2001, the judges have modified 179 of the 5,645 requests for court-ordered surveillance by the Bush administration. A total of 173 of those court-ordered "substantive modifications" took place in 2003 and 2004 - the most recent years for which public records are available.
The judges also rejected or deferred at least six requests for warrants during those two years - the first outright rejection in the court's history.
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said last week that Bush authorized NSA surveillance of overseas communications by US-based terror suspects because the FISA court's approval process was too cumbersome.
The Bush administration, responding to concerns expressed by some judges on the 11-member panel, agreed last week to give them a classified briefing on the domestic spying program. U.S. District Judge Malcolm Howard, a member of the panel, told CNN that the Bush administration agreed to brief the judges after US District Judge James Robertson resigned from the FISA panel, apparently to protest Bush's spying program.
Bamford, 59, a Vietnam-era Navy veteran, likens the Bush administration's domestic surveillance without court approval to Nixon-era abuses of intelligence agencies.
NSA and previous eavesdropping agencies collected duplicates of all international telegrams to and from the United States for decades during the Cold War under a program code-named "Shamrock" before the program ended in the 1970s. A program known as "Minaret" tracked 75,000 Americans whose activities had drawn government interest between 1952 and 1974, including participation in the anti-war movement during the Vietnam War.
"NSA prides itself on learning the lessons of the 1970s and obeying the legal restrictions imposed by FISA," Bamford said. "Now it looks like we're going back to the bad old days again."

The president has a lot of defenders. They’re coming up with all sorts of justifications, mostly as expediencies, of his remarkable over-riding of the system of checks and balances and even of Constitutional guarantees of freedom and liberty. Most of them, of course, belong to the Republican Party. I associate the Republicans with the wealthy business powers in this country.

Imagine my surprise when I found this in what is the most important business-financial publication in America, Barrons.

Unwarranted Executive Power
The pursuit of terrorism does not authorize the president to make up new laws
By THOMAS G. DONLAN

http://online.barrons.com/article/SB113538491760731012.html


AS THE YEAR WAS DRAWING TO A CLOSE, we picked up our New York Times and learned that the Bush administration has been fighting terrorism by intercepting communications in America without warrants. It was worrisome on its face, but in justifying their actions, officials have made a bad situation much worse: Administration lawyers and the president himself have tortured the Constitution and extracted a suspension of the separation of powers.

It was not a shock to learn that shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks, President Bush authorized the National Security Agency to conduct intercepts of international phone calls to and from the United States. The 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act permits the government to gather the foreign communications of people in the U.S. -- without a warrant if quick action is important. But the law requires that, within 72 hours, investigators must go to a special secret court for a retroactive warrant.

The USA Patriot Act permits some exceptions to its general rules about warrants for wiretaps and searches, including a 15-day exception for searches in time of war. And there may be a controlling legal authority in the Sept. 14, 2001, congressional resolution that authorized the president to go after terrorists and use all necessary and appropriate force. It was not a declaration of war in a constitutional sense, but it may have been close enough for government work.

Certainly, there was an emergency need after the Sept. 11 attacks to sweep up as much information as possible about the chances of another terrorist attack. But a 72-hour emergency or a 15-day emergency doesn't last four years.

In that time, Congress has extensively debated the rules on wiretaps and other forms of domestic surveillance. Administration officials have spent many hours before many committees urging lawmakers to provide them with great latitude. Congress acted, and the president signed.
Now the president and his lawyers are claiming that they have greater latitude. They say that neither the USA Patriot Act nor the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act actually sets the real boundary. The administration is saying the president has unlimited authority to order wiretaps in the pursuit of foreign terrorists, and that the Congress has no power to overrule him.

"We also believe the president has the inherent authority under the Constitution, as commander-in-chief, to engage in this kind of activity," said Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. The Department of Justice made a similar assertion as far back as 2002, saying in a legal brief: "The Constitution vests in the president inherent authority to conduct warrantless intelligence surveillance (electronic or otherwise) of foreign powers or their agents, and Congress cannot by statute extinguish that Constitutional authority." Gonzales last week declined to declassify relevant legal reviews made by the Department of Justice.

Perhaps they were researched in a Star Chamber? Putting the president above the Congress is an invitation to tyranny. The president has no powers except those specified in the Constitution and those enacted by law. President Bush is stretching the power of commander-in-chief of the Army and Navy by indicating that he can order the military and its agencies, such as the National Security Agency, to do whatever furthers the defense of the country from terrorists, regardless of whether actual force is involved.

Surely the "strict constructionists" on the Supreme Court and the federal judiciary eventually will point out what a stretch this is. The most important presidential responsibility under Article II is that he must "take care that the laws be faithfully executed." That includes following the requirements of laws that limit executive power. There's not much fidelity in an executive who debates and lobbies Congress to shape a law to his liking and then goes beyond its writ.

Willful disregard of a law is potentially an impeachable offense. It is at least as impeachable as having a sexual escapade under the Oval Office desk and lying about it later. The members of the House Judiciary Committee who staged the impeachment of President Clinton ought to be as outraged at this situation. They ought to investigate it, consider it carefully and report either a bill that would change the wiretap laws to suit the president or a bill of impeachment.

It is important to be clear that an impeachment case, if it comes to that, would not be about wiretapping, or about a possible Constitutional right not to be wiretapped. It would be about the power of Congress to set wiretapping rules by law, and it is about the obligation of the president to follow the rules in the Acts that he and his predecessors signed into law.
Some ancillary responsibility, however, must be attached to those members of the House and Senate who were informed, inadequately, about the wiretapping and did nothing to regulate it.

Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV, Democrat of West Virginia, told Vice President Dick Cheney in 2003 that he was "unable to fully evaluate, much less endorse these activities." But the senator was so respectful of the administration's injunction of secrecy that he wrote it out in longhand rather than give it to someone to type. Only last week, after the cat was out of the bag, did he do what he should have done in 2003 -- make his misgivings public and demand more information.

Published reports quote sources saying that 14 members of Congress were notified of the wiretapping. If some had misgivings, apparently they were scared of being called names, as the president did last week when he said: "It was a shameful act for someone to disclose this very important program in a time of war. The fact that we're discussing this program is helping the enemy."

Wrong. If we don't discuss the program and the lack of authority for it, we are meeting the enemy -- in the mirror.

Editorial Page Editor THOMAS G. DONLAN receives e-mail at tg.donlan@barrons.com.

URL for this article:
http://online.barrons.com/article/SB113538491760731012.html

It would be easy to overlook this first story. Then I wouldn’t have to admit I made a mistake. But, I did. When I saw the original (and posted it the other day), I wondered why it was the professors that leaked the story. The student himself should have done it. I thought, well, maybe he was just too intimidated. Wrong. So, I apologize for not having my online-fully-automatic-shock-proof-shit-detector working.

However. There’s a subsequent story that does indicate some of the extremism going on in this country.

For years, the name Taft was synonomous with isolationism and conservatism. Conservatism, these days, has morphed into the definition of what used to be called “reactionaryism.” I don’t know what happened to regular old political conservatism; it seems to have vanished. The conservatives I can think of are people like Hillary Clinton, Gordon Smith, John McCain (on a good day), and Joe Lieberman. Centrists. The neo-con branch of the Republican Party would have been happy in the days of the Confederacy.


NewsNet5.com
Bill Would Allow Arrests For No Reason In Public Place
Citizens Would Also Have To Show ID

UPDATED: 7:22 pm EST December 19, 2005

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

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

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

WEWS reported it would also pave the way for everyone entering critical transportation sites such as, train stations, airports and bus stations to show ID.
***
Copyright 2005 by NewsNet5. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.


Federal agents' visit was a hoax
Student admits he lied about Mao book
By AARON NICODEMUS, Standard-Times staff writer
http://www.southcoasttoday.com/daily/12-05/12-24-05/a01lo719.htm
NEW BEDFORD -- The UMass Dartmouth student who claimed to have been visited by Homeland Security agents over his request for "The Little Red Book" by Mao Zedong has admitted to making up the entire story.
The 22-year-old student tearfully admitted he made the story up to his history professor, Dr. Brian Glyn Williams, and his parents, after being confronted with the inconsistencies in his account.
Had the student stuck to his original story, it might never have been proved false.
But on Thursday, when the student told his tale in the office of UMass Dartmouth professor Dr. Robert Pontbriand to Dr. Williams, Dr. Pontbriand, university spokesman John Hoey and The Standard-Times, the student added new details.
The agents had returned, the student said, just last night. The two agents, the student, his parents and the student's uncle all signed confidentiality agreements, he claimed, to put an end to the matter.
But when Dr. Williams went to the student's home yesterday and relayed that part of the story to his parents, it was the first time they had heard it. The story began to unravel, and the student, faced with the truth, broke down and cried.
***
The story's release came at a perfect storm in the news cycle. Only a day before, The New York Times had reported that President Bush had allowed the National Security Agency to conduct wiretaps on international phone calls from the United States without a warrant. The Patriot Act, created in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to allow the government greater authority to monitor for possible terrorism activities, was up for re-authorization in Congress.
There was an increased sense among some Americans that the U.S. government was overstepping its bounds and trampling on civil liberties in order to thwart future attacks of terrorism. The story of a college student being questioned for requesting a 40-year old book on Communism fed right into that atmosphere.
In Thursday's retelling of the story, the student added several new twists, ones that the professors and journalist had not heard before. The biggest new piece of information was an alleged second visit of Homeland Security agents the previous night, where two agents waited in his living room for two hours with his parents and brother while he drove back from a retreat in western Massachusetts. He said he, the agents, his parents and his uncle all signed confidentiality agreements that the story would never be told.
He revealed the agents' names: one was Nicolai Brushaev or Broshaev, and the other was simply Agent Roberts. He said they were dressed in black suits with thin black ties, "just like the guys in Men in Black."
He had dates and times and places, things he had signed and sent back in order to receive the book. The tale involved his twin brother, who allegedly requested the book for him at UMass Amherst; his uncle, a former FBI attorney who took care of all the paperwork; and his parents, who signed those confidentiality agreements.
But by now, the story had too many holes. Every time there was a fact to be had that would verify the story -- providing a copy of the confidentiality agreements the student and agent signed, for example -- there would be a convenient excuse. The uncle took all the documents home to Puerto Rico, he said.
What was the address of the Homeland Security building in Boston where he and his uncle visited the agency and actually received a copy of the book? It was a brick building, he said, but he couldn't remember where it was, or what was around it.
He said he met a former professor at the mysterious Homeland Security building who had requested a book on bomb-making, along with two Ph.D. students and a one pursuing a master's degree who had also been stopped from accessing books. The student couldn't remember their names, but the former professor had appeared on the Bill O'Reilly show on Fox News recently, he said.
The former professor's appearance on The O'Reilly Factor did not check out.
Other proof was sought.
Were there any copies of the inter-library loan request? No.
Did the agents leave their cards, or any paperwork at your home? No.
His brother, a student at Amherst, told Dr. Williams that he had never made the inter-library loan request on behalf of his brother.
While The Standard-Times had tape recorded the entire tale on Thursday, the reporter could not reach the student for comment after he admitted making up the story. Phone calls and a note on the door were not returned.
At the request of the two professors and the university, The Standard-Times has agreed to withhold his name.
During the whole episode, the professors said that while they wanted to protect the student from the media that were flooding their voice mails and e-mail boxes seeking comment and information, they also wanted to know: Was the story true?
"I grew skeptical of this story, as did Bob, considering the ramifications," Dr. Williams said yesterday. "I spent the last five days avoiding work, and the international media, and rest, trying to get names and dates and facts. My investigation eventually took me to his house, where I began to investigate family matters. I eventually found out the whole thing had been invented, and I'm happy to report that it's safe to borrow books."
Dr. Williams said he does not regret bringing the story to light, but that now the issue can be put to rest.
"I wasn't involved in some partisan struggle to embarrass the Bush administration, I just wanted the truth," he said.
Dr. Pontbriand said the entire episode has been "an incredible experience and exposure for something a student had said." He said all along, his only desire had been to "get to the bottom of it and get the truth of the matter."
"When it blew up into an international story, our only desire was to interview this student and get to the truth. We did not want from the outset to declare the student a liar, but we wanted to check out his story," he said. "It was a disastrous thing for him to do. He needs attention, he needs care. I feel for the kid. We have great concern for this student's health and welfare."
Mr. Hoey, the university spokesman, said the university had been unable to substantiate any of the facts of the story since it first was reported in The Standard-Times on Dec. 17.
As to any possible repercussions against the student, Mr. Hoey said, "We consider this to be an issue to be handled faculty member to student. We wouldn't discuss publicly any other action. Student discipline is a private matter."
Dr. Williams said the whole affair has had one bright point: The question of whether it is safe for students to do research has been answered.
"I can now tell my students that it is safe to do research without being monitored," he said. "With that hanging in the air like before, I couldn't say that to them."
The student's motivation remains a mystery, but in the interview on Thursday, he provided a glimpse.
"When I came back, like wow, there's this circus coming on. I saw my cell phone, and I see like, wow, I have something like 75 messages and like something like 87 missed calls," he said. "Wow, I was popular. I usually get one or probably two a week and that's about it, and I usually pick them up."

Contact Aaron Nicodemus at anicodemus@s-t.com

This story appeared on Page A1 of The Standard-Times on December 24, 2005.

If this man is guilty of War Crimes, there are several “leading” Americans who also share guilt and deserve to be tried for the same crime.

But, people have accused me of being cynical to the max, so, perhaps I'm just over-reacting.


Dutch Merchant Found Guilty of War Crimes
The Associated Press
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/printer_122405D.shtml
Friday 23 December 2005

The Hague, Netherlands - A Dutch chemicals merchant was sentenced to 15 years in prison Friday for selling Saddam Hussein's regime the materials used to kill thousands in lethal gas attacks on Kurdish villages in the 1980s.

Frans van Anraat, 63, was not in the courtroom when the judges found him guilty of war crimes but acquitted him of genocide charges. Outside the courtroom, more than 100 Kurds sang, banged drums and danced in celebration.

***

But van Anraat argued he was unaware the materials would be used in chemical warfare, and that he was being unfairly targeted while countless others have not been prosecuted for supplying arms and military intelligence to Iraq.

Although the court determined that the slaughter of thousands of Kurds in the villages constituted genocide, it said van Anraat could not be held responsible for genocide since his chemicals were delivered to Iraq before the mass killings began.

He was instead found guilty of multiple counts of war crimes, violating the laws and customs of war and causing death and serious bodily harm to the whole or entire Kurdish population, said presiding Judge Roel van Rossum.

This from today’s Independent, in London. This sounds like one of Bush’s wet dreams (assuming he has them). I can see how every car sold or registered in the US can have a GPS sender to accomplish the same thing.

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/transport/article334686.ece
Britain will be first country to monitor every car journey
From 2006 Britain will be the first country where every journey by every car will be monitored
By Steve Connor, Science Editor
Published: 22 December 2005

Britain is to become the first country in the world where the movements of all vehicles on the roads are recorded. A new national surveillance system will hold the records for at least two years.

Using a network of cameras that can automatically read every passing number plate, the plan is to build a huge database of vehicle movements so that the police and security services can analyse any journey a driver has made over several years.

The network will incorporate thousands of existing CCTV cameras which are being converted to read number plates automatically night and day to provide 24/7 coverage of all motorways and main roads, as well as towns, cities, ports and petrol-station forecourts.

By next March a central database installed alongside the Police National Computer in Hendon, north London, will store the details of 35 million number-plate "reads" per day. These will include time, date and precise location, with camera sites monitored by global positioning satellites.

Already there are plans to extend the database by increasing the storage period to five years and by linking thousands of additional cameras so that details of up to 100 million number plates can be fed each day into the central databank.

Senior police officers have described the surveillance network as possibly the biggest advance in the technology of crime detection and prevention since the introduction of DNA fingerprinting.

But others concerned about civil liberties will be worried that the movements of millions of law-abiding people will soon be routinely recorded and kept on a central computer database for years.

The new national data centre of vehicle movements will form the basis of a sophisticated surveillance tool that lies at the heart of an operation designed to drive criminals off the road.

In the process, the data centre will provide unrivalled opportunities to gather intelligence data on the movements and associations of organised gangs and terrorist suspects whenever they use cars, vans or motorcycles.

The scheme is being orchestrated by the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo) and has the full backing of ministers who have sanctioned the spending of £24m this year on equipment.

More than 50 local authorities have signed agreements to allow the police to convert thousands of existing traffic cameras so they can read number plates automatically. The data will then be transmitted to Hendon via a secure police communications network.

Chief constables are also on the verge of brokering agreements with the Highways Agency, supermarkets and petrol station owners to incorporate their own CCTV cameras into the network. In addition to cross-checking each number plate against stolen and suspect vehicles held on the Police National Computer, the national data centre will also check whether each vehicle is lawfully licensed, insured and has a valid MoT test certificate.

"Every time you make a car journey already, you'll be on CCTV somewhere. The difference is that, in future, the car's index plates will be read as well," said Frank Whiteley, Chief Constable of Hertfordshire and chairman of the Acpo steering committee on automatic number plate recognition (ANPR).

"What the data centre should be able to tell you is where a vehicle was in the past and where it is now, whether it was or wasn't at a particular location, and the routes taken to and from those crime scenes. Particularly important are associated vehicles," Mr Whiteley said.

The term "associated vehicles" means analysing convoys of cars, vans or trucks to see who is driving alongside a vehicle that is already known to be of interest to the police. Criminals, for instance, will drive somewhere in a lawful vehicle, steal a car and then drive back in convoy to commit further crimes "You're not necessarily interested in the stolen vehicle. You're interested in what's moving with the stolen vehicle," Mr Whiteley explained.

According to a strategy document drawn up by Acpo, the national data centre in Hendon will be at the heart of a surveillance operation that should deny criminals the use of the roads.

"The intention is to create a comprehensive ANPR camera and reader infrastructure across the country to stop displacement of crime from area to area and to allow a comprehensive picture of vehicle movements to be captured," the Acpo strategy says.

"This development forms the basis of a 24/7 vehicle movement database that will revolutionise arrest, intelligence and crime investigation opportunities on a national basis," it says.

Mr Whiteley said MI5 will also use the database. "Clearly there are values for this in counter-terrorism," he said.

"The security services will use it for purposes that I frankly don't have access to. It's part of public protection. If the security services did not have access to this, we'd be negligent."

Britain is to become the first country in the world where the movements of all vehicles on the roads are recorded. A new national surveillance system will hold the records for at least two years.

Using a network of cameras that can automatically read every passing number plate, the plan is to build a huge database of vehicle movements so that the police and security services can analyse any journey a driver has made over several years.

The network will incorporate thousands of existing CCTV cameras which are being converted to read number plates automatically night and day to provide 24/7 coverage of all motorways and main roads, as well as towns, cities, ports and petrol-station forecourts.

By next March a central database installed alongside the Police National Computer in Hendon, north London, will store the details of 35 million number-plate "reads" per day. These will include time, date and precise location, with camera sites monitored by global positioning satellites.

Already there are plans to extend the database by increasing the storage period to five years and by linking thousands of additional cameras so that details of up to 100 million number plates can be fed each day into the central databank.

Senior police officers have described the surveillance network as possibly the biggest advance in the technology of crime detection and prevention since the introduction of DNA fingerprinting.

But others concerned about civil liberties will be worried that the movements of millions of law-abiding people will soon be routinely recorded and kept on a central computer database for years.

The new national data centre of vehicle movements will form the basis of a sophisticated surveillance tool that lies at the heart of an operation designed to drive criminals off the road.

In the process, the data centre will provide unrivalled opportunities to gather intelligence data on the movements and associations of organised gangs and terrorist suspects whenever they use cars, vans or motorcycles.

The scheme is being orchestrated by the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo) and has the full backing of ministers who have sanctioned the spending of £24m this year on equipment.

More than 50 local authorities have signed agreements to allow the police to convert thousands of existing traffic cameras so they can read number plates automatically. The data will then be transmitted to Hendon via a secure police communications network.

Chief constables are also on the verge of brokering agreements with the Highways Agency, supermarkets and petrol station owners to incorporate their own CCTV cameras into the network. In addition to cross-checking each number plate against stolen and suspect vehicles held on the Police National Computer, the national data centre will also check whether each vehicle is lawfully licensed, insured and has a valid MoT test certificate.

"Every time you make a car journey already, you'll be on CCTV somewhere. The difference is that, in future, the car's index plates will be read as well," said Frank Whiteley, Chief Constable of Hertfordshire and chairman of the Acpo steering committee on automatic number plate recognition (ANPR).

"What the data centre should be able to tell you is where a vehicle was in the past and where it is now, whether it was or wasn't at a particular location, and the routes taken to and from those crime scenes. Particularly important are associated vehicles," Mr Whiteley said.

The term "associated vehicles" means analysing convoys of cars, vans or trucks to see who is driving alongside a vehicle that is already known to be of interest to the police. Criminals, for instance, will drive somewhere in a lawful vehicle, steal a car and then drive back in convoy to commit further crimes "You're not necessarily interested in the stolen vehicle. You're interested in what's moving with the stolen vehicle," Mr Whiteley explained.

According to a strategy document drawn up by Acpo, the national data centre in Hendon will be at the heart of a surveillance operation that should deny criminals the use of the roads.

"The intention is to create a comprehensive ANPR camera and reader infrastructure across the country to stop displacement of crime from area to area and to allow a comprehensive picture of vehicle movements to be captured," the Acpo strategy says.

"This development forms the basis of a 24/7 vehicle movement database that will revolutionise arrest, intelligence and crime investigation opportunities on a national basis," it says.

Mr Whiteley said MI5 will also use the database. "Clearly there are values for this in counter-terrorism," he said.

"The security services will use it for purposes that I frankly don't have access to. It's part of public protection. If the security services did not have access to this, we'd be negligent."

Another blast from the past. Remember how hard the US fought the anti-apartheid movement? The US and Israel were two of South Africa’s pillars of support. Now we see the fruits of that—Israel constructed a border fence to keep out Palestinians, much like South Africa did, and the US is going to build one along the US-Mexico border. What’s similar? How about all three countries being run by a European-based ruling class trying to exclude non-Europeans? That similar enough?

MSNBC.com

Where’s the Outrage?
Bush’s defense of his phone-spying program has disturbing echoes of arguments once used by South Africa’s apartheid regime. Why Americans should examine the parallels.
WEB-EXCLUSIVE COMMENTARY
By Arlene Getz
Newsweek
Updated: 3:33 p.m. ET Dec. 21, 2005

Dec. 21, 2005 - Back in the 1980s, when I was living in Johannesburg and reporting on apartheid South Africa, a white neighbor proffered a tasteless confession. She was "quite relieved," she told me, that new media restrictions prohibited our reporting on government repression. No matter that Pretoria was detaining tens of thousands of people without real evidence of wrongdoing. No matter that many of them, including children, were being tortured—sometimes to death. No matter that government hit squads were killing political opponents. No matter that police were shooting into crowds of black civilians protesting against their disenfranchisement. "It's so nice," confided my neighbor, "not to open the papers and read all that bad news."

I thought about that neighbor this week, as reports dribbled out about President George W. Bush's sanctioning of warrantless eavesdropping on American conversations. For anyone who has lived under an authoritarian regime, phone tapping—or at least the threat of it—is always a given. But U.S. citizens have always been lucky enough to believe themselves protected from such government intrusion. So why have they reacted so insipidly to yet another post-9/11 erosion of U.S. civil liberties?

I'm sure there are many well-meaning Americans who agree with their president's explanation that it's all a necessary evil (and that patriotic citizens will not be spied on unless they dial up Osama bin Laden). But the nasty echoes of apartheid South Africa should at least give them pause. While Bush uses the rhetoric of "evildoers" and the "global war on terror," Pretoria talked of "total onslaught." This was the catchphrase of P. W. Botha, South Africa's head of state from 1978 to 1989. Botha was hardly the first white South African leader to ride roughshod over civil liberties for all races, but he did it more effectively than many of his predecessors. Botha liked to tell South Africans that the country was under "total onslaught" from forces both within and without, and that this global assault was his rationale for allowing opponents to be jailed, beaten or killed. Likewise, the Bush administration has adopted the argument that anything is justified in the name of national security.



Botha was right about South Africa being under attack. Internally, blacks and a few whites were waging a low-level guerrilla war to topple the government. Externally, activists across the globe were mobilizing economic sanctions and campaigns to ostracize Pretoria. By the same token, we all know that Bush is right about the United States facing a very real threat of further terror. Yet should Americans really be willing to accept that autocratic end-justifies-the-means argument?

For so many around the world, the United States is as much a symbol as a nation. Outsiders may scoff at American naiveté in thinking that their conversations are private, but they envy them for growing up in a society so sheltered that it made such a belief possible. Among those who feel this way is Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the South African Anglican leader who won a Nobel Peace Prize for his principled fight for justice in his native country. "It's unbelievable," he told me in an interview, "that a country that many of us have looked to as the bastion of true freedom could now have eroded so many of the liberties we believed were upheld almost religiously."

Tutu recalled teaching in Jacksonville, Fla., when Bush won re-election in 2004. "I was shocked," he said, "because I had naively believed all these many years that Americans genuinely believed in freedom of speech. [But I] discovered there that when you made an utterance that was remotely contrary to what the White House was saying, then they attacked you. For a South African the déjà vu was frightening. They behaved exactly the same way that used to happen here—vilifying those who are putting forward a slightly different view." Tutu made these comments to me exactly a year ago next week. I haven't seen any reaction from him about the latest eavesdropping revelations, but I doubt he is remotely surprised at the U.S. president's response: a defense of the tactic, together with a warning that the government would launch an investigation to find out who leaked the news to The New York Times.

It's not fair, of course, to suggest that all citizens are indifferent to violations of their privacy and their rights to free speech. Yet as I've watched this debate play out, it's hard to avoid the conclusion that not enough Americans really care. Like my Johannesburg neighbor, they seem to hope that unpleasant news will disappear if you just ignore it. It didn't then, and it won't now.

© 2005 Newsweek, Inc.

© 2005 MSNBC.com

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10562528/site/newsweek/

Continuing the theme of “Gee, ain’t it great,accepting your fate, in the fascist state,” here’s something useful.

Know Your Rights: What to do if You're Stopped by the Police (7/30/2004)

What to do if you're stopped by The Police


To fight police abuse effectively you need to know your rights. There are some things you should do, some things you must do and some things you cannot do. If you are in the middle of a police encounter, you need a handy and quick reference to remind you what your rights and obligations are.
You can photocopy this and carry it in your wallet, pocket or glove compartment to give you quick access to your rights and obligations concerning police encounters.



Think carefully about your words, movement, body language, and emotions.
Don't get into an argument with the police.
Remember, anything you say or do can be used against you.
Keep your hands where the police can see them.
Don't run. Don't touch any police officer.
Don't resist even if you believe you are innocent.
Don't complain on the scene or tell the police they're wrong or that you're going to file a complaint.
Do not make any statements regarding the incident. Ask for a lawyer immediately upon your arrest.
Remember officers' badge & patrol car numbers.
Write down everything you remember ASAP.
Try to find witnesses & their names & phone numbers.
If you are injured, take photographs of the injuries as soon as possible, but make sure you seek medical attention first.
If you feel your rights have been violated, file a written complaint with police department's internal affairs division or civilian complaint board.
KEEP THIS CARD HANDY!
IF YOU HAVE A POLICE ENCOUNTER, YOU CAN PROTECT YOURSELF.

1. What you say to the police is always important. What you say can be used against you, and it can give the police an excuse to arrest you, especially if you bad-mouth a police officer.
2. You must show your driver's license and registration when stopped in a car. Otherwise, you don't have to answer any questions if you are detained or arrested, with one important exception. The police may ask for your name if you have been properly detained, and you can be arrested in some states for refusing to give it. If you reasonably fear that your name is incriminating, you can claim the right to remain silent, which may be a defense in case you are arrested anyway.
3. You don't have to consent to any search of yourself, your car or your house. If you DO consent to a search, it can affect your rights later in court. If the police say they have a search warrant, ASK TO SEE IT.
4. Do not interfere with, or obstruct the police -- you can be arrested for it.
IF YOU ARE STOPPED FOR QUESTIONING

1. It's not a crime to refuse to answer questions, but refusing to answer can make the police suspicious about you. If you are asked to identify yourself, see paragraph 2 above.
2. Police may "pat-down" your clothing if they suspect a concealed weapon. Don't physically resist, but make it clear that you don't consent to any further search.
3. Ask if you are under arrest. If you are, you have a right to know why.
4. Don't bad-mouth the police officer or run away, even if you believe what is happening is unreasonable. That could lead to your arrest.
IF YOU'RE STOPPED IN YOUR CAR

1. Upon request, show them your driver's license, registration, and proof of insurance. In certain cases, your car can be searched without a warrant as long as the police have probable cause. To protect yourself later, you should make it clear that you do not consent to a search. It is not lawful for police to arrest you simply for refusing to consent to a search.
2. If you're given a ticket, you should sign it; otherwise you can be arrested. You can always fight the case in court later.
3. If you're suspected of drunk driving (DWI) and refuse to take a blood, urine or breath test, your driver's license may be suspended.
IF YOU'RE ARRESTED OR TAKEN TO A POLICE STATION

1. You have the right to remain silent and to talk to a lawyer before you talk to the police. Tell the police nothing except your name and address. Don't give any explanations, excuses or stories. You can make your defense later, in court, based on what you and your lawyer decide is best.
2. Ask to see a lawyer immediately. If you can't pay for a lawyer, you have a right to a free one, and should ask the police how the lawyer can be contacted. Don't say anything without a lawyer.
3. Within a reasonable time after your arrest, or booking, you have the right to make a local phone call: to a lawyer, bail bondsman, a relative or any other person. The police may not listen to the call to the lawyer.
4. Sometimes you can be released without bail, or have bail lowered. Have your lawyer ask the judge about this possibility. You must be taken before the judge on the next court day after arrest.
5. Do not make any decisions in your case until you have talked with a lawyer.
IN YOUR HOME

1. If the police knock and ask to enter your home, you don't have to admit them unless they have a warrant signed by a judge.
2. However, in some emergency situations (like when a person is screaming for help inside, or when the police are chasing someone) officers are allowed to enter and search your home without a warrant.
3. If you are arrested, the police can search you and the area close by. If you are in a building, "close by" usually means just the room you are in.
We all recognize the need for effective law enforcement, but we should also understand our own rights and responsibilities -- especially in our relationships with the police. Everyone, including minors, has the right to courteous and respectful police treatment.
If your rights are violated, don't try to deal with the situation at the scene. You can discuss the matter with an attorney afterwards, or file a complaint with the Internal Affairs or Civilian Complaint Board.
Produced by the American Civil Liberties Union.

Does this sound like a Muslim Pat Robertson? Sure does! Is there much of a difference? A lot less than one might think, considering distance, culture, and religion; it seems that the fascist mind appears everywhere. And America's "Christian" churchmen all too often echo the same attitudes as tyrants.


Tsunami Was God's Revenge for Your Wicked Ways, Women Told
By Nick Meo
The Times Online UK
http://www.truthout.org/issues_05/printer_122205WA.shtml
Thursday 22 December 2005

Religious extremists are using last year's storm to oppress the survivors.

Aceh - Marluddin Jalil, a Sharia judge who has ordered the punishment of women for not wearing headscarves, was uncompromising: "The tsunami was because of the sins of the people of Aceh."

Thundering into a microphone at a gathering of wives, he made clear where he felt the fault lay: "The Holy Koran says that if women are good, then a country is good."

A year after the disaster which many see as a divine punishment, emboldened Islamic hardliners are doing their best to eradicate sin - and women are their prime targets.

With reconstruction slow, irrational fears of a second tsunami high, and nearly 500,000 still homeless along 500 miles of coastline, the stern message falls on fertile ground. A Sharia police force modelled on Saudi moral enforcers enthusiastically seeks out female wrong doers for public humiliation.

The Wilayatul Hisbah, which loosely translates as "Control Team", has arrested women, lopped off their hair, and paraded them in tears through the streets while broadcasting their sins over a megaphone.

More than 100 gamblers and drinkers - men and women - have been caned in public and some clerics are calling for thieves' hands to be amputated.

The Islamic law introduced without popular enthusiasm in 2002 has been implemented rigorously since the tsunami, especially in towns such as Lhokseumawe, where Fatimah Syam, of Indonesian Women for Legal Justice, knows of 20 women who have fallen foul of it.

AP News just announced the story: Dick Cheney voted to cut spending on the poor, breaking a tie in the Senate. I guess we should feel cheered that the President's budget was stupid and reactionary enough that even some Republicans didn't like it. But, even so, it's going to hurt many many people. But they'll be poor people and the vast majority of the Republican Party is not poor.

Maybe someday they will be poor. That's what I want for Christmas, Santa.

This says it better than I can:


Big Brother Bush: The President Took a Step toward a Police State
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette | Editorial
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/121905L.shtml
Sunday 18 December 2005

The Bush administration is continuing its assault on Americans' privacy and freedom in the name of the war on terrorism.

First, in 2002, according to extensive reporting in The New York Times on Friday, it secretly authorized the National Security Agency to intercept and keep records of Americans' international phone and e-mail messages without benefit of a previously required court order. Second, it has permitted the Department of Defense to get away with not destroying after three months, as required, records of American Iraq war protesters in the Pentagon's Threat and Local Observation Notice, or TALON, database.

Both practices mean that a government agency is maintaining information on Americans, reminiscent of the Johnson and Nixon administrations' approach to Vietnam War protesters. The existence of those records should be seen against a background of the Bush administration's response to criticism of the Iraq war by retired Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson. His wife's career at the CIA was ended in revenge for an article he wrote unmasking a dodgy piece of intelligence that President Bush had used in a State of the Union message to seek to support his decision to go to war.

It appears that the phone and e-mail messages of thousands of Americans and foreigners resident in America have been or are being monitored and recorded by the NSA. Such action is not supposed to be taken without an application to and an order approved by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. Mr. Bush issued an executive order in 2002, months after the Sept. 11, 2001, attack, removing - secretly - that legal safeguard of Americans' privacy and civil rights.

The Pentagon's action as part of TALON will be put forward as an oversight, but the idea of the Department of Defense maintaining files on American war protesters, perhaps with easy cross-reference to the NSA's records based on the results of their monitoring of phone calls and e-mails of potentially those same protesters, makes possible a very serious violation of Americans' civil rights.

Without a serious leap of imagination, particularly with the list of those under surveillance not available to anyone outside the NSA and the Pentagon, it is also possible to project that political critics of the Bush administration could end up among those being tracked. The Nixon administration, a previous Republican administration beleaguered by war critics, maintained "enemies lists."

The White House needs to tell the Pentagon promptly to destroy the records of protesters as required, within three months. It also needs promptly to tell the NSA to return to following the rules, to get the approval of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court before monitoring Americans' communications. The idea that all of this is being done to us in the name of national security doesn't wash; that is the language of a police state. Those are the unacceptable actions of a police state.

-------

We’re like frogs in a pot of water that is being gradually brought to a boil; the temperature change is slow enough that, by the time we notice hot the water is, it’s too late—we’re nearly dead. There isn’t any one day where the government says “Welcome to the Police State.” No fanfare, no major announcement. It’s bit by bit, piece by piece, degree by degree.

We’ve been warned. We’ve seen the erosion of the Bill of Rights. We’ve all heard Bush The Dimmer and Cheney the Mean tell us what’s happening. But there are the little goodies that come along: the diversions of Christmas shopping, planes crashing and nearly-crashing, celebrities getting married and divorced. Just enough stuff to keep us diverted.

Here’s another indication of how close the water is to boiling:


* Feds pay a visit to a library user

Agents' visit chills UMass Dartmouth senior
By Aaron Nicodemus, Standard-Times staff writer
New Bedford (MA) Standard Times

http://www.s-t.com/daily/12-05/12-17-05/a09lo650.htm

NEW BEDFORD -- A senior at UMass Dartmouth was visited
by federal agents two months ago, after he requested a
copy of Mao Tse-Tung's tome on Communism called "The
Little Red Book."

Two history professors at UMass Dartmouth, Brian Glyn
Williams and Robert Pontbriand, said the student told
them he requested the book through the UMass Dartmouth
library's interlibrary loan program.

The student, who was completing a research paper on
Communism for Professor Pontbriand's class on fascism
and totalitarianism, filled out a form for the request,
leaving his name, address, phone number and Social
Security number. He was later visited at his parents'
home in New Bedford by two agents of the Department of
Homeland Security, the professors said.

The professors said the student was told by the agents
that the book is on a "watch list," and that his
background, which included significant time abroad,
triggered them to investigate the student further.

***

Contact Aaron Nicodemus at anicodemus@s-t.com

From the Huffington Post:

Kansas City Star: “The Struggle With Foreign Enemies Does Not Simply Give Him A Blank Check”… Denver Post: Adm. Has Lost “Balance Between Essential Anti-Terrorism Tools And Encroachment On Liberties”… LA Times: “Stunning,” “One Of The More Egregious Cases Of Governmental Overreach”… Wash. Post: "The Tools Of Foreign Intelligence Are Not Consistent With A Democratic Society"… Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: “Unacceptable Actions Of A Police State”… St. Petersburg Times: “So Dangerously Ill-Conceived And Contrary To This Nation's Guiding Principles”… NY Times: Bush "Secretly And Recklessly Expanded The Govt.'s Powers In Dangerous And Unnecessary Ways"…

What else is there to say, besides:

"Impeach him!"

No: there isn’t much to laugh at on the domestic front of the War On Terror. We have a president who believes in the Constitution about as much as James Dobson believes in evolution. Our Secretary of State is somewhere to the right of John Foster Dulles, and the country is in big trouble.

But the FBI is reported—according to the NY Times (11 Dec.)—as seething over their inability to obtain check-out records from America’s libraries. According to the article, an internal FBI memo said:
"While radical militant librarians kick us around, true terrorists benefit from Office of Intelligence Policy and Review's failure to let us use the tools given to us..."

I wonder how many “militant librarians” any of us have ever met. The image of a librarian standing up to the FBI is....well, unusual. I’ve known quite a few librarians, at least professionally, and “militant” is a term that’s never popped in my head when I’ve contemplated their personalities. Most have been helpful—asking a librarian for help is like asking a Labrador Retriever to fetch a stick. A few have been giggly, some surly, some intriguing, in a perverse way, but “militant”? Nope. Never.

I guess what the memo shows is that FBI agents are bureaucrats: not moral agents. They’re given a job to do, shown the paperwork already done and the paperwork they’ll need to do during and after the task, and away they go. No exactly robots, but people so eager to function within a system that they just function. Moral or immoral, the actions they perform are just actions. Banal, you might say—as in the banality of evil.

This article from Capitol Hill Blue, is one of the most depressing pieces I've seen in the last couple of days. Unfortunately, it rings true. 'Nuff said:


From Capitol Hill Blue
http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/printer_7779.shtml
The Rant
Bush on the Constitution: 'It's just a goddamned piece of paper'
By DOUG THOMPSON
Dec 9, 2005, 07:53

Last month, Republican Congressional leaders filed into the Oval Office to meet with President George W. Bush and talk about renewing the controversial USA Patriot Act.

Several provisions of the act, passed in the shell shocked period immediately following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, caused enough anger that liberal groups like the American Civil Liberties Union had joined forces with prominent conservatives like Phyllis Schlafly and Bob Barr to oppose renewal.

GOP leaders told Bush that his hardcore push to renew the more onerous provisions of the act could further alienate conservatives still mad at the President from his botched attempt to nominate White House Counsel Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court.

“I don’t give a goddamn,” Bush retorted. “I’m the President and the Commander-in-Chief. Do it my way.”

“Mr. President,” one aide in the meeting said. “There is a valid case that the provisions in this law undermine the Constitution.”

“Stop throwing the Constitution in my face,” Bush screamed back. “It’s just a goddamned piece of paper!”

I’ve talked to three people present for the meeting that day and they all confirm that the President of the United States called the Constitution “a goddamned piece of paper.”

And, to the Bush Administration, the Constitution of the United States is little more than toilet paper stained from all the shit that this group of power-mad despots have dumped on the freedoms that “goddamned piece of paper” used to guarantee.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, while still White House counsel, wrote that the “Constitution is an outdated document.”

Put aside, for a moment, political affiliation or personal beliefs. It doesn’t matter if you are a Democrat, Republican or Independent. It doesn’t matter if you support the invasion or Iraq or not. Despite our differences, the Constitution has stood for two centuries as the defining document of our government, the final source to determine – in the end – if something is legal or right.

Every federal official – including the President – who takes an oath of office swears to “uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States."

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia says he cringes when someone calls the Constitution a “living document.”

“"Oh, how I hate the phrase we have—a 'living document,’” Scalia says. “We now have a Constitution that means whatever we want it to mean. The Constitution is not a living organism, for Pete's sake.”

As a judge, Scalia says, “I don't have to prove that the Constitution is perfect; I just have to prove that it's better than anything else.”

President Bush has proposed seven amendments to the Constitution over the last five years, including a controversial amendment to define marriage as a “union between a man and woman.” Members of Congress have proposed some 11,000 amendments over the last decade, ranging from repeal of the right to bear arms to a Constitutional ban on abortion.

Scalia says the danger of tinkering with the Constitution comes from a loss of rights.

“We can take away rights just as we can grant new ones,” Scalia warns. “Don't think that it's a one-way street.”

And don’t buy the White House hype that the USA Patriot Act is a necessary tool to fight terrorism. It is a dangerous law that infringes on the rights of every American citizen and, as one brave aide told President Bush, something that undermines the Constitution of the United States.

But why should Bush care? After all, the Constitution is just “a goddamned piece of paper.”

© Copyright 2005 Capitol Hill Blue

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The news that the Pentagon has increased it’s spying on American citizens is being treated as something unheard of.

Maybe if this wasn’t the United States of Amnesia people would have done something about this a year or two or three back.

We’ve seen it before. During the Viet Nam “Experience,” the military, the FBI, local police, the NSA and DIA and CIA all spied on American citizens. Same thing happened during out dirty little wars in Central America—any group that dissented, that said, “this isn’t right,” found themselves photographed, followed, recorded, and stalked by certified snoops. That’s what these people do; their calling in life, vocation, is to spy on other people. I don’t know why that is.

Totalitarian societies—police states—are godsends to these folks: they can get rewarded for doing this. As I said in an earlier rap, the Nazis were experts at tapping into these personality types: they maintained control by having informers all over the place. People always have grudges. There’s no easier way to deal with packing a grudge than to bust the person who’s the target of the resentment.

This has been a constant through history. As long as there are people who can’t deal with things straight-on, we’ll have snitches.

Arianna Huffington, in a recent Los Angeles Times op-ed, said this better than I can:

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-huffington15dec15,0,6606855.story

One of the ways Hitler's Gestapo operated so well was by depending on neiborhood snitches. In a current article, Arianna Huffington mentions the phone hot-line 1-800-CALL-SPY. Snitches are the mainstay of drug prosecutions. As the government builds bigger and bigger databases of potential threats to the status-quo, more and more snitches are going to be needed.

What a great way to get rid of people you don't like.

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Home News & Politics Arts & Life Business & Tech Health & Science Style & Shopping Travel & Food Sports Slate on NPR Output Options About Us Search Slate Advanced Search FEATURED ADVERTISER LINKS Olbermann on MSNBC! Click here for what's on. Rita Cosby on MSNBC! Click here for what's on. Scarborough on MSNBC! Click for what's on. Refinance a $200,000 loan for $770/mo. Get travel tips and deals... and a chance to win a trip for two! jurisprudence The law, lawyers, and the court. Bait and Snitch The high cost of snitching for law enforcement. By Alexandra Natapoff Posted Monday, Dec. 12, 2005, at 5:41 PM ET From Baltimore to Boston to New York; in Pittsburgh, Denver, and Milwaukee, kids are sporting the ominous fashion statement, prompting local fear, outrage, and fierce arguments over crime. Several trials have been disrupted by the T-shirts; some witnesses refuse to testify. Boston's Mayor Thomas M. Menino has declared a ban: "We're going into every retail store that sells them," he declared to the Boston Globe, "and we're going to take them off the shelves." With cameo appearances in the growing controversy by NBA star Carmelo Anthony of the Denver Nuggets and the rapper Lil Kim, snitching is making urban culture headlines. The "Stop Snitchin' " T-shirt drama looks, at first blush, like a dustup over a simple counterculture message launched by some urban criminal entrepreneurs: that friends don't snitch on friends. But it is, in fact, a symptom of a more insidious reality that has largely escaped public notice: For the last 20 years, state and federal governments have been creating criminal snitches and setting them loose in poor, high-crime communities. The backlash against snitches embodies a growing national recognition that snitching is dangerous public policy—producing bad information, endangering innocent people, letting dangerous criminals off the hook, compromising the integrity of police work, and inciting violence and distrust in socially vulnerable neighborhoods. The heart of the snitching problem lies in the secret deals that police and prosecutors make with criminals. In investigating drug offenses, police and prosecutors rely heavily—and sometimes exclusively—on criminals willing to trade information about other criminals in exchange for leniency. Many snitches avoid arrest altogether, thus continuing to use and deal drugs and commit other crimes in their neighborhoods, while providing information to the police. As drug dockets swell and police and prosecutors become increasingly dependent on snitches, high-crime communities are filling up with these active criminals who will turn in friends, family, and neighbors in order to "work off" their own crimes. Continue Article Critics of the T-shirts tend to dismiss the "stop snitching" sentiment as pro-criminal and antisocial; a subcultural expression of misplaced loyalty. But the T-shirts should be heeded as evidence of a failed public policy. Snitching is an entrenched law-enforcement practice that has become pervasive due to its crucial role in the war on drugs. This practice is favored not only by police and prosecutors, but by legislatures: Mandatory minimum sentences and restrictions on judges make snitching one of the only means for defendants to negotiate in the face of rigid and drastic sentences. But the policy has turned out to be a double-edged sword. Nearly every drug offense involves a snitch, and snitching is increasingly displacing more traditional police work, such as undercover operations and independent investigation. According to some agents and prosecutors, snitching is also slowly crippling law enforcement: "[I]nformers are running today's drug investigations, not the agents," says veteran DEA agent Celerino Castillo. "Agents have become so dependent on informers that the agents are at their mercy." According to a study conducted by professor Ellen Yaroshefsky of Cardozo Law School, some prosecutors actually "fall in love with their rats." A prosecutor in the study describes the phenomenon: "You are not supposed to, of course. But you spend time with this guy, you get to know him and his family. You like him. [T]he reality is that the cooperator's information often becomes your mindset." In this view, criminal snitching is a sort of Frankenstein's monster that has turned on and begun to consume its law enforcement creator. The government's traditional justification for creating criminal snitches—"we-need-to-flip-little-fishes-to-get-to-the-Big-Fish"—is at best an ideal and mostly the remnant of one. Today, the government lets all sorts of criminals, both big and little, trade information to escape punishment for nearly every kind of crime, and often the snitches are more dangerous than the targets. As reported by Wall Street Journal reporter Laurie Cohen last year: "The big fish gets off and the little fish gets eaten. ... [T]he procedure for deciding who gets [rewarded for cooperation] is often haphazard and tilted toward higher-ranking veteran criminals who can tell prosecutors what they want to know." Snitching thus puts us right through the looking glass: Criminals direct police investigations while avoiding arrest and punishment. Nevertheless, snitching is ever more popular with law enforcement: It is easier to "flip" defendants and turn them into snitches than it is to fight over their cases. For a criminal system that has more cases than it can litigate, and more defendants than it can incarcerate, snitching has become a convenient case-management tool for an institution that has bitten off more than it can chew. And while the government's snitching policy has gone mostly unchallenged, it is both damaging to the justice system and socially expensive. Snitches are famously unreliable: A 2004 study by the Northwestern University Law School's Center on Wrongful Convictions reveals that 46 percent of wrongful death penalty convictions are due to snitch misinformation—making snitches the leading cause of wrongful conviction in capital cases. Jailhouse snitches routinely concoct information; the system gives them every incentive to do so. Los Angeles snitch Leslie White infamously avoided punishment for his crimes for years by fabricating confessions and attributing them to his cellmates. Snitches also undermine law-enforcement legitimacy—police who rely on and protect their informants are often perceived as favoring criminals. In a growing number of public fiascos, snitches actually invent crimes and criminals in order to provide the government with the information it demands. In Dallas, for example, in the so-called "fake drug scandal," paid informants set up innocent Mexican immigrants with fake drugs (gypsum), while police falsified drug field tests in order to inflate their drug-bust statistics. Finally, as the T-shirt controversy illustrates, snitching exacerbates crime, violence, and distrust in some of the nation's most socially vulnerable communities. In the poorest neighborhoods, vast numbers of young people are in contact with the criminal-justice system. Nearly every family contains someone who is incarcerated, under supervision, or has a criminal record. In these communities, the law-enforcement policy of pressuring everyone to snitch can have the devastating effect of tearing families and social networks apart. Ironically, these are the communities most in need of positive role models, strong social institutions, and good police-community relations. Snitching undermines these important goals by setting criminals loose, creating distrust, and compromising police integrity. The "Stop Snitchin' " T-shirts have drawn local fire for their perceived threat to law-abiding citizens who call the police. But in the outrage over that perceived threat, the larger message of the shirts has been missed: Government policies that favor criminal snitching harm the communities most in need of law-enforcement protection. While snitching will never be abolished, the practice could be substantially improved, mostly by lifting the veil of secrecy that shields law-enforcement practices from public scrutiny. As things stand, police and prosecutors can cut a deal with a criminal; turn him into a snitch or cut him loose; forgive his crimes or resurrect them later; release him into the community; or decide to pick him up. They do all this at their discretion, without legal rules, in complete secrecy with no judicial or public accountability. As a result, we have no idea whether snitching even reduces crime or actually increases it, and we can only guess at the collateral harms it imposes on high-crime communities. The government should reveal snitching's real costs, including data on how many snitches are released into high-crime neighborhoods and what sorts of snitch crimes are forgiven. The government should also be required to establish the concrete benefits of a policy that releases some criminals to catch others, by accounting for how much crime actually gets stopped or solved by snitch information. Only then can we rationally evaluate how much government-sponsored snitching makes sense. Until we can know the real value of snitching, the T-shirts remain an important reminder that this particular cure for crime may be as bad as the disease. Alexandra Natapoff is an Associate Professor at Loyola Law School, Los Angeles, and the author of a University of Cincinnati Law Review article titled, Snitching: The Institutional and Communal Consequences. She can be reached at alexandra.natapoff@lls.edu. More jurisprudence The Get-Out-of-Torture-Free Card Why is Congress banning torture but allowing the use of torture testimony? posted Dec. 15, 2005 Emily Bazelon Judgment Day Arnold's star turn as a California Court justice. posted Dec. 15, 2005 Judy Coleman Mexican Standoff The complex—and imbalanced—legalities of cross-border justice. posted Dec. 14, 2005 Noah Leavitt Billable Horrors ASlatereader contest for wicked lawyers. posted Dec. 13, 2005 Dahlia Lithwick Bait and Snitch The high cost of snitching for law enforcement. posted Dec. 12, 2005 Alexandra Natapoff Search for more Jurisprudence in our archive. What did you think of this article? Join the Fray, our reader discussion forum POST A MESSAGE READ MESSAGES Travel & Food Baja, Top to Bottom It's time to (reluctantly) leave this idyllic beach where I've been camping. But there's a problem. I can't get out... More News & Politics I Voted for My Dad in the Iraqi Election Election Day started a bit too early for me. 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