Despite an earlier veto threat - followed by revisions by Congress - President Obama signed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).
The NDAA funds our military AND this particular one includes a number of highly radical and inexplicable provisions. For example: It authorizes the military to arrest American citizens 'suspected of terrorism' and - for the first time in our history - detain said American citizens indefinitely without charge or trial for... well, forever.
It's referred to as "Indefinite Detention" and, although Obama added a signing statement saying his Administration would not authorize it, theoretically, he could change his mind.
And, beyond that highly-unlikely event, it will continue to exist as law on the books.
Why is this noteworthy? Once again: Because "Indefinite Detention" is now "on the books". Because it has been signed into law. Which means that any future President could, at any time, decide to authorize "Indefinite Detention" and then... What?
(I sincerely hope none of us ever have to find out. Remember the recent instances of Constitutionally-Protected American protesters being assaulted by authorities?)
Simple Truth: "Indefinite Detention" is Un-American.
And yet, now that the NDAA has been signed into law (mind you, Congress's earlier versions were significantly worse) it is hanging over all of our heads - not unlike a guillotine. And, it will continue to do so - with the blade closing in on us - until the moment when yet another law is passed which will strike the provision of Indefinite Detention from the books, permanently.
Those politicians who've been working, tirelessly, to dismantle and do-away with two of America's most important ideals, namely Liberty and Freedom, have finally done it. They've not only spat on our Constitution and radically-altered our nation's laws... they've done it whilst, simultaneously, achieving those goals usually ascribed to anti-American Terrorists. (Uh... Congratulations?)
Because of their shenanigans, newly-unemployed, former terrorists are likely being forced to search for something else to do with their lives... Once they're able to stop those fits of uncontrollable, hysterical laughter...
Here's the story from The Rachel Maddow Show:
Showing posts with label Homeland Security. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Homeland Security. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 03, 2012
Saturday, November 18, 2006
Jeez!
Are there any jobs our country won't "outsource"?
First manufacturing jobs... IT Customer Service jobs...
Now...
Torture...
of (not-proven-guilty-of-anything) detainees.
Some of whom are grabbed because the spelling of their name is the same as a terror suspect's.
Could you imagine the public outrage and outcry... if the CIA's spook squads had lists of people with the name "SMITH", instead of "Ali-something" or "Mohammed"... and they were grabbing whomever had the name George Smith... John Smith... Jane Smith... and shipping them off to Egypt or Africa or wherever... to an unlit concrete cell to be tortured... until they confess... to what?!
As many military experts have declared... One can torture a person to a point where they will say anything... admit to anything... just to get the bamboo slivers removed from underneath their nails... so their "interrogators" will stop "dunking"/drowning them... so they will either take the electrodes off of you or disconnect them from the car battery...
"Oops! Sorry, Mr. Smith. We thought you were someone else. How 'bout this... We'll fly you back home, for free! You don't have to thank us... I'm sure the wife will be glad to find out your not dead... Tell her? No... We're a hush-hush, black ops organization... If we told her we'd have to kill her..."
Here's a very brief piece about the Bush Admin.'s Torture Flights - the brief and violent history of which includes cases of "mistaken identity" - I can hear the dorks in charge now... "... A-L-I... His name's spelled the same way... so he Must be our guy... the evil-doer... the Terrorist! Nah, we don't need to check anything else. What? Where he works? We know where he works... He works for Osama! Or the Taliban! Or Whatever! That's the name on the list... Book his flight, strip him, put a hood on him and 'Hasta la Vista'! He's not our problem anymore and we can check one more name off of our list, and maybe we'll get a promotion... or a Medal!".
It is based upon a recent New York Times article, which follows, in its entirety.
*Please note*
I added the pictures to the articles.
-L.
The UN General Assembly adopted a declaration in 1975 stating that:
"any act of torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment is an offence to human dignity and shall be condemned as a denial of the purposes of the Charter of the United Nations and as a violation of the human rights and fundamental freedoms proclaimed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights."
************************************************************************************
From: cbs5.com
Nov 16, 2006 9:21 pm US/Pacific
San Jose, CA Company Said To Plan Alleged CIA Terror Flights
Robert Lyles
(CBS 5) SAN JOSE You've heard about Abu Ghraib prison, Guantanamo Bay, and a host of other places where torture is alleged to have happened. But you've probably never heard that a company in downtown San Jose is said to have helped the Central Intelligence Agency get prisoners to the alleged torture sites.
The 16th floor of a gleaming tower on West Santa Clara Street is home to the Jeppesen corporation's International Trip and Flight Planning office.
But Charlotte Casey of South Bay Mobilization says they should be called the travel agents of terror.
"I really felt ill, sick to my stomach, that this was happening in San Jose," Casey said.
Casey is responding to an investigation by The New Yorker magazine that said Jeppesen regularly arranges what they call "spook flights" for the CIA.
"Torture Air Ankle Cuffs"
Aboard Boeing 737 business jets were shackled and hooded passengers accused of terrorism, The New Yorker reported in its Oct. 30 issue. They were sometimes stripped nude and chained to the cabin floor, the magazine said.
Casey said the CIA calls it "extraordinary rendition."
"They are basically kidnapped and taken to a third company where they can be tortured," Casey said.
The Englewood, Colo.-based company has offices located around the world and is a business subsidiary of Boeing, according to the Jeppesen Web site.
Boeing allegedly provides the jets. Jeppesen reportedly provides the logistics, flight plans, and even clearances into places like Baghdad and Kabul where the passengers are turned over as prisoners.
"The investigative analysis has shown that there have been over 150 of these kinds of flights in the last few years," Casey said.
In fact, a former Jeppesen employee reportedly told The New Yorker the company's managing director, Bob Overby, admitted to the practice, saying, "We do all the extraordinary rendition flights -- you know, the torture flights. Let's face it, some of these flights end up that way."
In return, American flight crews get kickbacks, resort vacations off the coast of Spain, using tax dollars, The New Yorker uncovered.
"The fact that these horrors are being carried out in our name, with our tax dollars, is completely unacceptable," Casey said.
Jeppesen would not comment Thursday.
The CIA also declined to comment.
***************************************************************************************
From: The New York Times
OUTSOURCING
THE C.I.A'S TRAVEL AGENT
Issue of 2006-10-30
Posted 2006-10-23
On the official Web site of Boeing, the world's largest aerospace company, there is a section devoted to a subsidiary called Jeppesen International Trip Planning, based in San Jose, California. The write-up mentions that the division "..offers everything needed for efficient, hassle-free, international flight operations,.. spanning the globe ..from Aachen to Zhengzhou..." The paragraph concludes, "..Jeppesen has done it all..."
Boeing does not mention, either on its Web site or in its annual report, that Jeppesen's clients include the C.I.A., and that among the international trips that the company plans for the agency are secret "extraordinary rendition" flights for terrorism suspects. Most of the planes used in rendition flights are owned and operated by tiny charter airlines that function as C.I.A. front companies, but it is not widely known that the agency has turned to a division of Boeing, the publicly traded blue-chip behemoth, to handle many of the logistical and navigational details for these trips, including flight plans, clearance to fly over other countries, hotel reservations, and ground-crew arrangements.
The Bush Administration has defended the clandestine rendition program, which began during the Clinton years, as an effective method of transporting terrorists to countries where they can be questioned or held. Human-rights activists and others have said the program's primary intent is to send suspects to detention centers where they can be interrogated harshly, and have criticized it as an illegal means of "outsourcing torture"
A former Jeppesen employee, who asked not to be identified, said recently that he had been startled to learn, during an internal corporate meeting, about the company's involvement with the rendition flights. At the meeting, he recalled, Bob Overby, the managing director of Jeppesen International Trip Planning, said, "We do all of the extraordinary rendition flights..you know, the torture flights. Let's face it, some of these flights end up that way." The former employee said that another executive told him, "We do the spook flights." He was told that two of the company's trip planners were specially designated to handle renditions. He was deeply troubled by the rendition program, he said, and eventually quit his job. He recalled Overby saying, "It certainly pays well. They....the C.I.A.....spare no expense. They have absolutely no worry about costs. What they have to get done, they get done."
Overby, who was travelling last week, did not return several phone calls. Mike Pound, the head of corporate communications for Jeppesen, said that he would have no comment, and he added, "Bob Overby will have no comment as well." Tim Neale, the director of media relations for Boeing's corporate office in Chicago, said, "The flight-planning services we provide our customers are confidential, and we do not comment publicly on any work done for any customer without their consent." The C.I.A. had no comment. (*Let me guess... They said, "We can neither confirm nor deny...".-L).
The British journalist Stephen Grey, in a new book, ..Ghost Plane,.. refers to documents obtained by Spanish law-enforcement officials, along with flight logs, which indicate that international flight planners provided essential logistical support for many of the C.I.A's renditions, including that Khaled el-Masri, a German car salesman who was apparently mistaken for an Al Qaeda suspect with a similar name, in January of 2004. (Although documents show that Jeppesen provided this support, Grey's book does not mention the company.) Masri, who is a Muslim, was arrested at the border while crossing from Serbia into Macedonia by bus. He has alleged in court papers that Macedonian authorities turned him over to a C.I.A. rendition team. Then, he said, masked figures stripped him naked, shackled him, and led him onto a Boeing 737 business jet. Flight plans prepared by Jeppesen show that from Skopje, Macedonia, the 737 flew to Baghdad, where it had military clearance to land, and then on to Kabul. On board, Masri has said, he was chained to the floor and injected with sedatives. After landing, he was put in the trunk of a car and driven to a building where he was placed in a dank cell. He spent the next four months there, under interrogation. Masri was released in May, 2004, on the orders of Condoleezza Rice, then the national-security adviser, after she learned that he had mistakenly been identified as a terrorism suspect.
Ben Wizner, an A.C.L.U. attorney who is representing Masri in his lawsuit against the former C.I.A. director George Tenet and private aviation companies, says that if Boeing can be proved to have played a role in Masri's rendition (See: "Kidnapping."-L.) the A.C.L.U. may amend the lawsuit to name the company as a defendant.
The American flight crew fared better than their passenger. Documents show that after the 737 delivered Masri to the Afghan prison it flew to the resort island of Majorca, where, for two nights, crew members stayed at a luxury hotel, at (U.S.) taxpayers' expense.
Are there any jobs our country won't "outsource"?
First manufacturing jobs... IT Customer Service jobs...
Now...
Torture...
of (not-proven-guilty-of-anything) detainees.
Some of whom are grabbed because the spelling of their name is the same as a terror suspect's.
Could you imagine the public outrage and outcry... if the CIA's spook squads had lists of people with the name "SMITH", instead of "Ali-something" or "Mohammed"... and they were grabbing whomever had the name George Smith... John Smith... Jane Smith... and shipping them off to Egypt or Africa or wherever... to an unlit concrete cell to be tortured... until they confess... to what?!
As many military experts have declared... One can torture a person to a point where they will say anything... admit to anything... just to get the bamboo slivers removed from underneath their nails... so their "interrogators" will stop "dunking"/drowning them... so they will either take the electrodes off of you or disconnect them from the car battery...
"Oops! Sorry, Mr. Smith. We thought you were someone else. How 'bout this... We'll fly you back home, for free! You don't have to thank us... I'm sure the wife will be glad to find out your not dead... Tell her? No... We're a hush-hush, black ops organization... If we told her we'd have to kill her..."
Here's a very brief piece about the Bush Admin.'s Torture Flights - the brief and violent history of which includes cases of "mistaken identity" - I can hear the dorks in charge now... "... A-L-I... His name's spelled the same way... so he Must be our guy... the evil-doer... the Terrorist! Nah, we don't need to check anything else. What? Where he works? We know where he works... He works for Osama! Or the Taliban! Or Whatever! That's the name on the list... Book his flight, strip him, put a hood on him and 'Hasta la Vista'! He's not our problem anymore and we can check one more name off of our list, and maybe we'll get a promotion... or a Medal!".
It is based upon a recent New York Times article, which follows, in its entirety.
*Please note*
I added the pictures to the articles.
-L.
The UN General Assembly adopted a declaration in 1975 stating that:
"any act of torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment is an offence to human dignity and shall be condemned as a denial of the purposes of the Charter of the United Nations and as a violation of the human rights and fundamental freedoms proclaimed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights."
************************************************************************************
From: cbs5.com
Nov 16, 2006 9:21 pm US/Pacific
San Jose, CA Company Said To Plan Alleged CIA Terror Flights
Robert Lyles
(CBS 5) SAN JOSE You've heard about Abu Ghraib prison, Guantanamo Bay, and a host of other places where torture is alleged to have happened. But you've probably never heard that a company in downtown San Jose is said to have helped the Central Intelligence Agency get prisoners to the alleged torture sites.
The 16th floor of a gleaming tower on West Santa Clara Street is home to the Jeppesen corporation's International Trip and Flight Planning office.
But Charlotte Casey of South Bay Mobilization says they should be called the travel agents of terror.
"I really felt ill, sick to my stomach, that this was happening in San Jose," Casey said.
Casey is responding to an investigation by The New Yorker magazine that said Jeppesen regularly arranges what they call "spook flights" for the CIA.
"Torture Air Ankle Cuffs"Aboard Boeing 737 business jets were shackled and hooded passengers accused of terrorism, The New Yorker reported in its Oct. 30 issue. They were sometimes stripped nude and chained to the cabin floor, the magazine said.
Casey said the CIA calls it "extraordinary rendition."
"They are basically kidnapped and taken to a third company where they can be tortured," Casey said.
The Englewood, Colo.-based company has offices located around the world and is a business subsidiary of Boeing, according to the Jeppesen Web site.
Boeing allegedly provides the jets. Jeppesen reportedly provides the logistics, flight plans, and even clearances into places like Baghdad and Kabul where the passengers are turned over as prisoners.
"The investigative analysis has shown that there have been over 150 of these kinds of flights in the last few years," Casey said.
In fact, a former Jeppesen employee reportedly told The New Yorker the company's managing director, Bob Overby, admitted to the practice, saying, "We do all the extraordinary rendition flights -- you know, the torture flights. Let's face it, some of these flights end up that way."
In return, American flight crews get kickbacks, resort vacations off the coast of Spain, using tax dollars, The New Yorker uncovered.
"The fact that these horrors are being carried out in our name, with our tax dollars, is completely unacceptable," Casey said.
Jeppesen would not comment Thursday.
The CIA also declined to comment.
***************************************************************************************
From: The New York Times
OUTSOURCING
THE C.I.A'S TRAVEL AGENT
Issue of 2006-10-30
Posted 2006-10-23
On the official Web site of Boeing, the world's largest aerospace company, there is a section devoted to a subsidiary called Jeppesen International Trip Planning, based in San Jose, California. The write-up mentions that the division "..offers everything needed for efficient, hassle-free, international flight operations,.. spanning the globe ..from Aachen to Zhengzhou..." The paragraph concludes, "..Jeppesen has done it all..."
Boeing does not mention, either on its Web site or in its annual report, that Jeppesen's clients include the C.I.A., and that among the international trips that the company plans for the agency are secret "extraordinary rendition" flights for terrorism suspects. Most of the planes used in rendition flights are owned and operated by tiny charter airlines that function as C.I.A. front companies, but it is not widely known that the agency has turned to a division of Boeing, the publicly traded blue-chip behemoth, to handle many of the logistical and navigational details for these trips, including flight plans, clearance to fly over other countries, hotel reservations, and ground-crew arrangements.
The Bush Administration has defended the clandestine rendition program, which began during the Clinton years, as an effective method of transporting terrorists to countries where they can be questioned or held. Human-rights activists and others have said the program's primary intent is to send suspects to detention centers where they can be interrogated harshly, and have criticized it as an illegal means of "outsourcing torture"
A former Jeppesen employee, who asked not to be identified, said recently that he had been startled to learn, during an internal corporate meeting, about the company's involvement with the rendition flights. At the meeting, he recalled, Bob Overby, the managing director of Jeppesen International Trip Planning, said, "We do all of the extraordinary rendition flights..you know, the torture flights. Let's face it, some of these flights end up that way." The former employee said that another executive told him, "We do the spook flights." He was told that two of the company's trip planners were specially designated to handle renditions. He was deeply troubled by the rendition program, he said, and eventually quit his job. He recalled Overby saying, "It certainly pays well. They....the C.I.A.....spare no expense. They have absolutely no worry about costs. What they have to get done, they get done."
Overby, who was travelling last week, did not return several phone calls. Mike Pound, the head of corporate communications for Jeppesen, said that he would have no comment, and he added, "Bob Overby will have no comment as well." Tim Neale, the director of media relations for Boeing's corporate office in Chicago, said, "The flight-planning services we provide our customers are confidential, and we do not comment publicly on any work done for any customer without their consent." The C.I.A. had no comment. (*Let me guess... They said, "We can neither confirm nor deny...".-L).
The British journalist Stephen Grey, in a new book, ..Ghost Plane,.. refers to documents obtained by Spanish law-enforcement officials, along with flight logs, which indicate that international flight planners provided essential logistical support for many of the C.I.A's renditions, including that Khaled el-Masri, a German car salesman who was apparently mistaken for an Al Qaeda suspect with a similar name, in January of 2004. (Although documents show that Jeppesen provided this support, Grey's book does not mention the company.) Masri, who is a Muslim, was arrested at the border while crossing from Serbia into Macedonia by bus. He has alleged in court papers that Macedonian authorities turned him over to a C.I.A. rendition team. Then, he said, masked figures stripped him naked, shackled him, and led him onto a Boeing 737 business jet. Flight plans prepared by Jeppesen show that from Skopje, Macedonia, the 737 flew to Baghdad, where it had military clearance to land, and then on to Kabul. On board, Masri has said, he was chained to the floor and injected with sedatives. After landing, he was put in the trunk of a car and driven to a building where he was placed in a dank cell. He spent the next four months there, under interrogation. Masri was released in May, 2004, on the orders of Condoleezza Rice, then the national-security adviser, after she learned that he had mistakenly been identified as a terrorism suspect.
Ben Wizner, an A.C.L.U. attorney who is representing Masri in his lawsuit against the former C.I.A. director George Tenet and private aviation companies, says that if Boeing can be proved to have played a role in Masri's rendition (See: "Kidnapping."-L.) the A.C.L.U. may amend the lawsuit to name the company as a defendant.
The American flight crew fared better than their passenger. Documents show that after the 737 delivered Masri to the Afghan prison it flew to the resort island of Majorca, where, for two nights, crew members stayed at a luxury hotel, at (U.S.) taxpayers' expense.
Friday, June 09, 2006
How many licks does it take...
Current mood: cynical
Category: News and Politics
Ding...Dong...Zarqawi's "Dead"..... Again.
I have so many doubts about the reliability of anything... Sheesh!... Everything that is reported in the mainstream press. Have doubted the veracity of their stories for longer than I can remember. Maybe it isn't all of their fault...maybe it is just that they are repeating what they were told by the "authorities"/spin secretaries. Maybe they should begin their news broadcasts with a disclaimer..."Everything we report to you tonight as "news', may or may not be true and may be retracted/revised at a later date." Sounds a lot like the "We can neither confirm not deny...." line of the intelligence community (...and I use that term loosely.)
Re: Zarqawi:
I came across a posted response to a Blog (on Blogger's "The Truth Will Set You Free") that piqued my interest...basically it poses the question... "If a fire on a few floors of the WTC can cause it to fall in on itself, (...don't get me started on that one...oh boy!) how is it that 1000 lbs of military explosive ordinance dropped on Zarqawi seems to have only left his body with a bloody nose? What's he made of? I guess he ate his Wheaties. The rubble that was the "safe-house" he was in fared far worse than he did. Besides, isn't this the 3rd or 4th time he's been killed? I guess previous reports of his "...death have been greatly exagerrated."
The "Good News" is that, whether or not it is true, if this spec-ops attack was orchestrated to try to impede the free-fall of Bush's ratings (which ripples out to damage his party), and be a image booster/photo-op, it failed miserably. Bush, when talking about the reported death of Zarqawi, decided to invoke the names of the Americans Zarqawi (allegedly, there's no evidence it was he, they all had masks on) beheaded. The father of one young man, now a Green Party candidate for office, said he took no joy in Zarqawi's death. He said that both the terrorists in Iraq and the terrorists in D.C. (my terms for them) just keep going back and forth lobbing violent vengeful acts at each other and it will never stop until someone on one of the sides says, "Enough! I am not going to participate in this violence anymore!". (Good Luck!) He also said that he won't be happy until our troops are home and Bush is "...gone.". I second that emotion!!
And another thing...
Regarding: "The Canadian 17".
There seems to be a sudden silence in the press about the 12 men and 5 boys arrested and facing domestic terrorism charges in Canada. Considering the 'authorities' claimed that they planned to attack the Parliament and "behead" the Prime Minister (what an terror-izing thing to say.)... Well... I just think that, if the allegations were true and backed up by real evidence, wouldn't that deserve some more ink or airtime?
One other thing regarding them.... What 'terrorist' worth his or her salt would be soooo stupid as to purchase excessive amounts of the chemicals/ingredients necessary to build a bomb, in a way that can be traced back to them??? I am sure there are other ways. Also, I have heard that they were aware that they were under surveillance...yet gleefully continued to attempt to manufacture mayhem..... Hmmmm.... Curiouser and curiouser.
?
What better way to manufacture support for militarism/suppression of Constitutional and Civil Rights than make it look like there are boogeymen here, there..and ....Oh my God! ... Look Out! ... They are Everywhere! And they want to behead the Canadian Prime Minister! Those bastards!!!
Don't worry...it will all be over soon. :-)
L
Current mood: cynical
Category: News and Politics
Ding...Dong...Zarqawi's "Dead"..... Again.
I have so many doubts about the reliability of anything... Sheesh!... Everything that is reported in the mainstream press. Have doubted the veracity of their stories for longer than I can remember. Maybe it isn't all of their fault...maybe it is just that they are repeating what they were told by the "authorities"/spin secretaries. Maybe they should begin their news broadcasts with a disclaimer..."Everything we report to you tonight as "news', may or may not be true and may be retracted/revised at a later date." Sounds a lot like the "We can neither confirm not deny...." line of the intelligence community (...and I use that term loosely.)
Re: Zarqawi:
I came across a posted response to a Blog (on Blogger's "The Truth Will Set You Free") that piqued my interest...basically it poses the question... "If a fire on a few floors of the WTC can cause it to fall in on itself, (...don't get me started on that one...oh boy!) how is it that 1000 lbs of military explosive ordinance dropped on Zarqawi seems to have only left his body with a bloody nose? What's he made of? I guess he ate his Wheaties. The rubble that was the "safe-house" he was in fared far worse than he did. Besides, isn't this the 3rd or 4th time he's been killed? I guess previous reports of his "...death have been greatly exagerrated."
The "Good News" is that, whether or not it is true, if this spec-ops attack was orchestrated to try to impede the free-fall of Bush's ratings (which ripples out to damage his party), and be a image booster/photo-op, it failed miserably. Bush, when talking about the reported death of Zarqawi, decided to invoke the names of the Americans Zarqawi (allegedly, there's no evidence it was he, they all had masks on) beheaded. The father of one young man, now a Green Party candidate for office, said he took no joy in Zarqawi's death. He said that both the terrorists in Iraq and the terrorists in D.C. (my terms for them) just keep going back and forth lobbing violent vengeful acts at each other and it will never stop until someone on one of the sides says, "Enough! I am not going to participate in this violence anymore!". (Good Luck!) He also said that he won't be happy until our troops are home and Bush is "...gone.". I second that emotion!!
And another thing...
Regarding: "The Canadian 17".
There seems to be a sudden silence in the press about the 12 men and 5 boys arrested and facing domestic terrorism charges in Canada. Considering the 'authorities' claimed that they planned to attack the Parliament and "behead" the Prime Minister (what an terror-izing thing to say.)... Well... I just think that, if the allegations were true and backed up by real evidence, wouldn't that deserve some more ink or airtime?
One other thing regarding them.... What 'terrorist' worth his or her salt would be soooo stupid as to purchase excessive amounts of the chemicals/ingredients necessary to build a bomb, in a way that can be traced back to them??? I am sure there are other ways. Also, I have heard that they were aware that they were under surveillance...yet gleefully continued to attempt to manufacture mayhem..... Hmmmm.... Curiouser and curiouser.
?
What better way to manufacture support for militarism/suppression of Constitutional and Civil Rights than make it look like there are boogeymen here, there..and ....Oh my God! ... Look Out! ... They are Everywhere! And they want to behead the Canadian Prime Minister! Those bastards!!!
Don't worry...it will all be over soon. :-)
L
Saturday, May 13, 2006
For my first posting: A copy of the email i just sent to The NY Times and USA Today:
(With acknowledgement and thanks to writer Greg Palast.)
Dear Friends/NY Times Staff:
The Real Domestic Surveillance Story is Not The Phone Call Logging.
The following came to me from writer Greg Palast.
Please take a look at it. He has researched Choicepoint, the Republican-run data mining company that brought us, among other things, the false list of 94,000 "felons" that were removed from the voter rolls in Florida, pretty much for "voting while black". Which insured King George's taking of the throne.
They now have billions in contracts with Homeland Security, the FBI, et al. to collect and sell information on you and I and everyone to those organizations (including our DNA!)who couldn't collect it themselves, that would be illegal. But thanks to the Patriot Act (Ugh!), they can buy it from other companies.
This is a major story! Please don't ignore it. That would only increase the damage they are able to do.
Thank You.
Name Witheld
San Francisco
Greg Palast writes:
The leader in the field of what is called "data mining," is a company,
formed in 1997, called, "ChoicePoint, Inc," which has sucked up over a
billion dollars in national security contracts.
Worried about Dick Cheney listening in Sunday on your call to Mom?
That ain't nothing. You should be more concerned that they are linking
this info to your medical records, your bill purchases and your entire
personal profile including, not incidentally, your voting registration.
Five years ago, I discovered that ChoicePoint had already gathered 16
billion data files on Americans -- and I know they've expanded their ops
at an explosive rate.
They are paid to keep an eye on you -- because the FBI can't. For the
government to collect this stuff is against the law unless you're
suspected of a crime. (The law in question is the Constitution.) But
ChoicePoint can collect if for "commercial" purchases -- and under the Bush
Administration's suspect reading of the Patriot Act -- our domestic
spying apparatchiks can then BUY the info from ChoicePoint.
Who ARE these guys selling George Bush a piece of you?
ChoicePoint's board has more Republicans than a Palm Beach country
club. It was funded, and its board stocked, by such Republican sugar
daddies as billionaires Bernie Marcus and Ken Langone -- even after Langone
was charged by the Securities Exchange Commission with abuse of inside
information.
I first ran across these guys in 2000 in Florida when our Guardian/BBC
team discovered the list of 94,000 "felons" that Katherine Harris had
ordered removed from Florida's voter rolls before the election.
Virtually every voter purged was innocent of any crime except, in most cases,
Voting While Black. Who came up with this electoral hit list that gave
Bush the White House? ChoicePoint, Inc.
And worse, they KNEW the racially-tainted list of felons was bogus.
And when we caught them, they lied about it. While they've since
apologized to the NAACP, ChoicePoint's ethnic cleansing of voter rolls has
been amply assuaged by the man the company elected.
And now ChoicePoint and George Bush want your blood. Forget your phone
bill. ChoicePoint, a sickened executive of the company told us in
confidence, "hope[s] to build a database of DNA samples from every person
in the United States ...linked to all the other information held by CP
[ChoicePoint]" from medical to voting records.
And ChoicePoint lied about that too. The company publicly denied they
gave DNA to the Feds -- but then told our investigator, pretending to
seek work, that ChoicePoint was "the number one" provider of DNA info to
the FBI.
"And that scares the hell out of me," said the executive (who has since
left the company), because ChoicePoint gets it WRONG so often. We are
not contracting out our Homeland Security to James Bond here. It's
more like Austin Powers, Inc. Besides the 97% error rate in finding
Florida "felons," Illinois State Police fired the company after discovering
ChoicePoint had produced test "results" on rape case evidence ... that
didn't exist. And ChoicePoint just got hit with the largest fine in
Federal Trade Commission history for letting identity thieves purchase
145,000 credit card records.
But it won't stop, despite Republican senators shedding big crocodile
tears about "surveillance" of innocent Americans. That's because FEAR
is a lucrative business -- not just for ChoicePoint, but for firms such
as Syntech, Sybase and Lockheed-Martin -- each of which has provided
lucrative posts or profits to connected Republicans including former
Total Information Awareness chief John Poindexter (Syntech), Marvin Bush
(Sybase) and Lynn Cheney (Lockheed-Martin).
But how can they get Americans to give up our personal files, our phone
logs, our DNA and our rights? Easy. Fear sells better than sex -- and
they want you to be afraid. Back to today's New York Times, page 28:
"Wider Use of DNA Lists is Urged in Fighting Crime." And who is
providing the technology? It comes, says the Times, from the work done on
using DNA fragments to identity victims of the September 11 attack. And
who did that job (for $12 million, no bid)? ChoicePoint, Inc. Which
is NOT mentioned by the Times.
"Genetic surveillance would thus shift from the individual [the alleged
criminal] to the family," says the Times -- which will require, of
course, a national DNA database of NON-criminals.
It doesn't end there. Turn to the same newspaper, page 23, with a
story about a weird new law passed by the state of Georgia to fight illegal
immigration. Every single employer and government agency will be
required to match citizen or worker data against national databases to
affirm citizenship. It won't stop illegal border crossing, but hey,
someone's going to make big bucks on selling data. And guess what local boy
owns the data mine? ChoicePoint, Inc., of Alpharetta, Georgia.
The knuckleheads at the Times don't put the three stories together
because the real players aren't in the press releases their reporters
re-write.
But that's the Fear Industry for you. You aren't safer from terrorists
or criminals or "felon" voters. But the national wallet is several
billion dollars lighter and the Bill of Rights is a couple amendments
shorter.
And that's their program. They get the data mine -- and we get the
shaft.
**********
Greg Palast is author of Armed Madhouse: Who's Afraid of Osama Wolf?,
China Floats Bush Sinks, The Scheme to Steal '08, No Child's Behind
Left and Other Dispatches from the Front Lines of the Class War, out June
6.
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