Administration Set to Use New Spy Program in United States!

The Bush administration said yesterday that it plans to start using the nation's most advanced spy technology for domestic purposes soon, rebuffing challenges by House Democrats over the idea's legal authority.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said his department will activate his department's new domestic satellite surveillance office in stages, starting as soon as possible with traditional scientific and homeland security activities -- such as tracking hurricane damage, monitoring climate change and creating terrain maps.

Sophisticated overhead sensor data will be used for law enforcement once privacy and civil rights concerns are resolved, he said. The department has previously said the program will not intercept communications.

"There is no basis to suggest that this process is in any way insufficient to protect the privacy and civil liberties of Americans," Chertoff wrote to Reps. Bennie G. Thompson (D-Miss.) and Jane Harman (D-Calif.), chairmen of the House Homeland Security Committee and its intelligence subcommittee, respectively, in letters released yesterday.

"I think we've fully addressed anybody's concerns," Chertoff added in remarks last week to bloggers. "I think the way is now clear to stand it up and go warm on it."

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Constitutional Exception Not Valid, Mukasey Says

Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey told senators yesterday that a 2001 Justice Department memo insisting that Fourth Amendment safeguards against unreasonable searches did not cover military activities within the United States is "not in force."

Under sharp questioning from Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) at an Appropriations Committee hearing, Mukasey said that the "Fourth Amendment applies across the board, regardless of whether we're in wartime or in peacetime," even though the memo by the department's Office of Legal Counsel had concluded otherwise.

Lawmakers pressed Mukasey to publish the unclassified document after department spokesmen said it was being withheld under a doctrine of attorney-client confidentiality. Members of the House and Senate have also sought other controversial memos issued by the OLC that underpinned the administration's counterterrorism efforts.

While promising the release of documents will be a "priority" this year, Mukasey cautioned members of the Appropriations Committee that other factors are at play.

The Justice Department, he said, needs to consider the interests of other federal agencies and to protect the flow of ideas, so that government lawyers are free to make judgments "without having their thinking then become the subject of congressional hearings simply because they offered an idea."

The House Judiciary Committee has asked John Yoo, a former OLC deputy who wrote many of the counterterrorism memos at issue, to testify at a hearing next month. Yoo, now a law professor at the University of California at Berkeley, has indicated he would prefer not to appear.

Lawyers Move To Get Torture Memo Author Yoo Tried As War Criminal

Steve Watson / Infowars.net

The National Lawyers Guild has called for the firing from Berkeley Law School of former assistant to the Attorney General John Yoo for what it describes as "complicity in establishing a policy" that has led to war crimes.

During his time in the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, Yoo authored various controversial memos in which he advocated the possible legality of torture and decreed that enemy combatants could be denied protection under the Geneva Conventions.

Yoo, a co author of the PATRIOT ACT, also suggested that it was legal to declare war anytime, any where, and on anyone the President deemed a threat.

In a press release, National Lawyers Guild President Marjorie Cohn stated:

"John Yoo's complicity in establishing the policy that led to the torture of prisoners constitutes a war crime under the US War Crimes Act,"

The National Lawyers Guild makes the case that Yoo's memos violate US law and establish a unduly expansive definition of presidential powers.

The release concludes:

"Congress should repeal the provision of the Military Commissions Act that would give Yoo immunity from prosecution for torture committed from September 11, 2001 to December 30, 2005. John Yoo should be disbarred and he should not be retained as a professor of law at one of the country's premier law schools. John Yoo should be dismissed from Boalt Hall and tried as a war criminal."

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AP: Cheney, others OK'd harsh interrogations

Bush administration officials from Vice President Dick Cheney on down signed off on using harsh interrogation techniques against suspected terrorists after asking the Justice Department to endorse their legality, The Associated Press has learned.

The officials also took care to insulate President Bush from a series of meetings where CIA interrogation methods, including waterboarding, which simulates drowning, were discussed and ultimately approved.

A former senior U.S. intelligence official familiar with the meetings described them Thursday to the AP to confirm details first reported by ABC News on Wednesday. The intelligence official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to publicly discuss the issue.

Between 2002 and 2003, the Justice Department issued several memos from its Office of Legal Counsel that justified using the interrogation tactics, including ones that critics call torture.

"If you looked at the timing of the meetings and the memos you'd see a correlation," the former intelligence official said. Those who attended the dozens of meetings agreed that "there'd need to be a legal opinion on the legality of these tactics" before using them on al-Qaida detainees, the former official said.

The meetings were held in the White House Situation Room in the years immediately following the Sept. 11 attacks. Attending the sessions were then-Bush aides Attorney General John Ashcroft, Secretary of State Colin Powell, CIA Director George Tenet and national security adviser Condoleezza Rice.

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Cheney's Bogus Oil Argument

By Steve Benen / Salon / War Room

There are probably some grounded, halfway reasonable arguments against withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq, but the fact that the White House keeps relying on sheer nonsense suggests the Bush gang can't think of any, either.

Consider Dick Cheney's remarks on Sean Hannity's radio show yesterday.

HANNITY: If we pull out too early, what do you believe the consequences would be? [...]

CHENEY: For us to walk away from Iraq I think would have at least that bad an effect, probably worse, because if al Qaeda were to take over big parts of Iraq, among other things, they would acquire control of a significant oil resource. Iraq has almost 100 billion barrel reserves, producing 2.5-3 million barrels of oil a day. If you take a terrorist organization like al Qaeda and give it that kind of revenue, there's no telling the amount of trouble they could get into.

It's hard to overstate how far-fetched this is.

What's especially striking about this is that the president, about three weeks ago, emphasized the same point. Bush insisted that if we withdraw, there will be chaos in Iraq, which would lead al-Qaida to acquire Iraq's oil. At that point, the president said, the terrorist network "could pursue its ambitions to acquire weapons of mass destruction and to attack America and other free nations."

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McCain Advisers Tied to Foreign Lobbying

By Jim McElhatton and Jerry Seper / Washington Times

Two of Sen. John McCain's top advisers and fundraisers are among several Republican and Democratic presidential campaign officials whose lobbying firms have been paid more than $15 million by foreign governments since 2005.

The firms of McCain senior adviser Charlie Black, who until recently was the chairman of Washington-based BKSH & Associates, and campaign co-chairman Thomas G. Loeffler, who heads the Loeffler Group in San Antonio, received millions of dollars lobbying the White House, Congress and others as agents of nearly a dozen foreign clients in recent years.

"At no time have I discussed my clients with John McCain, and there have been many occasions where he has voted against my clients' interests, but that doesn't change my belief that John McCain is the best candidate to lead our nation," said Mr. Loeffler, a former Texas congressman, whose firm has received millions of dollars from Saudi Arabia.

The arrangements are legal, and hundreds of lobbyists are registered to work for foreign clients. But experts say conflict-of-interest questions can arise if lobbying and campaign activities overlap.

"I'm not sure it's a good idea that one person plays all these roles," said Toni-Michelle C. Travis, a political analyst and professor of government at George Mason University.

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Judge Orders Government to Provide Documents by 4-21-08

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) won another battle against the government Friday(4-7-08) over the release of information about a campaign to change federal surveillance law.

A federal judge ordered the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) to provide to EFF by April 21, 2008, records about telecom industry lobbying of their offices.

Congress is currently considering granting immunity to telecommunications companies that participated in unlawful electronic surveillance on millions of ordinary Americans as part of changes to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). Officials at the DOJ and ODNI have been vocal supporters of the immunity proposal. Using the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), EFF asked the DOJ and ODNI for any documents reflecting telecom carriers' efforts to avoid legal responsibility for their role in the government's surveillance operations, but the agencies failed to comply with EFF's requests.

"We went to court over the release of these documents because they could play a critical role in the national debate over telecom immunity. Denying Americans access to this information is not only unconscionable, but also illegal," said EFF Staff Attorney Marcia Hofmann. "We're pleased the judge recognized that time is of the essence here and ordered these agencies to follow the law."

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Vanunu's Fifth Year of Restrictions Begins and Norway Caves

On April 7, 2008 Mordechai Vanunu, a Nobel Peace Prize nominee for the last twenty-two years learned that Israel has continued the restrictions against his right to leave the state or to speak with human beings if they are not Israelis.

On April 9, 2008 it was reported that now Norway has joined Sweden, Canada and Denmark in refusing asylum to Vanunu.

Norway's Bergens Tidende recorded "that Vanunu's application for asylum in Norway had in fact been approved by the country's immigration agency UDI (Utlendingsdirektoratet) back in 2004. UDI was overruled, however, by Norway's center-right government at the time. Political considerations, not least Norway's efforts to remain on good terms with Israel and the US, were more important than Vanunu's human rights." [1]

UDI officials have a mandate to make asylum decisions without political interference. UDI officials had determined that Vanunu qualified for asylum and immigration authorities had determined that his application should be granted.

Israel developed its nuclear program with the help of Norwegian heavy water and between 1976 and 1985; Vanunu was employed as a mid level technician and shift manager at the Dimona nuclear weapons facility underground in the Negev desert where it was utilized.

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Cops and Former Secret Service Agents Ran Black Ops on Green Groups

By James Ridgeway / Mother Jones

A private security company organized and managed by former Secret Service officers spied on Greenpeace and other environmental organizations from the late 1990s through at least 2000, pilfering documents from trash bins, attempting to plant undercover operatives within groups, casing offices, collecting phone records of activists, and penetrating confidential meetings.

According to company documents provided to Mother Jones by a former investor in the firm, this security outfit collected confidential internal records—donor lists, detailed financial statements, the Social Security numbers of staff members, strategy memos—from these organizations and produced intelligence reports for public relations firms and major corporations involved in environmental controversies.

In addition to focusing on environmentalists, the firm, Beckett Brown International (later called S2i), provided a range of services to a host of clients. According to its billing records, BBI engaged in "intelligence collection" for Allied Waste; it conducted background checks and performed due diligence for the Carlyle Group, the Washington-based investment firm; it provided "protective services" for the National Rifle Association; it handled "crisis management" for the Gallo wine company and for Pirelli; it made sure that the Louis Dreyfus Group, the commodities firm, was not being bugged; it engaged in "information collection" for Wal-Mart; it conducted background checks for Patricia Duff, a Democratic Party fundraiser then involved in a divorce with billionaire Ronald Perelman; and for Mary Kay, BBI mounted "surveillance," and vetted Gayle Gaston, a top executive at the cosmetics company (and mother of actress Robin Wright Penn), retaining an expert to conduct a psychological assessment of her. Also listed as clients in BBI records: Halliburton and Monsanto.

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U.S. Military Expands Role in West Africa

Brightly painted tattoos snake down Sgt. Joe Palko's outstretched arms as he separates two fighters in protective headgear and boxing gloves.

It is morning onboard the USS Fort McHenry, a 600-foot amphibious landing ship, and US Marines are teaching martial arts on the "Well Deck" deep in the ship's hull. Staff Sgt. William Sudbrock restarts the timer and a group of Liberian soldiers watch as their comrades lay into each other.

For the past five months, the Fort McHenry has been visiting countries on the coast of West Africa's Gulf of Guinea as part of a new initiative called the Africa Partnership Station (APS).

With the US military's Africa Command (AFRICOM) facing skepticism as it prepares to become fully operational in October, the activities of APS, both onboard and onshore, reveal the shape of future US military relations with Africa. "APS is a case study in the strengths that AFRICOM brings to bear," says its commander, Capt. John Nowell.

It is, says Captain Nowell, about preventing conflict from erupting by training local militaries, improving safety and security – in this case on the seas – and about "soft power" through the delivery of humanitarian support.

He points out that more than 1,200 soldiers and sailors from eight different countries have received training so far. Many of these cash-strapped countries lack either a functioning coast guard or navy, allowing an alarming rise in oil theft, drug trafficking, illegal immigration, piracy, and illegal fishing. The Fort McHenry also helped deliver food aid to Chadian refugees who fled across the border to Cameroon during a coup attempt earlier in the year.

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Maryland DNA Bill Convicts Before Trial

The Examiner

Innocents and criminals alike, watch out. Starting next year, if you are charged with a violent crime, police will sample your DNA to enter into a database of offenders.

Gov. Martin O’Malley hailed the legislation authorizing the taking of genetic evidence as “our top public safety priority.” For whom? The government or those it serves?

How it does not pole-vault over constitutional protections against illegal search and seizure puzzles us.

DNA is no fingerprint or photograph. It is a sophisticated identification system that needs no witnesses to corroborate and is more accurate than fingerprints when — if — the people storing and analyzing the data work right.

It also treats those charged as if they were criminals before a court reviews their cases. How does that mesh with “innocent until proven guilty”?

The new legislation requires law enforcement to automatically expunge data if those charged are not convicted. And it prohibits using the database to track down relatives of a person charged with a crime.

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Afghans Hold Secret Trials for Men That U.S. Detained

Dozens of Afghan men who were previously held by the United States at Bagram Air Base and Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, are now being tried here in secretive Afghan criminal proceedings based mainly on allegations forwarded by the American military.

The prisoners are being convicted and sentenced to as much as 20 years’ confinement in trials that typically run between half an hour and an hour, said human rights investigators who have observed them. One early trial was reported to have lasted barely 10 minutes, an investigator said.

The prosecutions are based in part on a security law promulgated in 1987, during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Witnesses do not appear in court and cannot be cross-examined. There are no sworn statements of their testimony.

Instead, the trials appear to be based almost entirely on terse summaries of allegations that are forwarded to the Afghan authorities by the United States military. Afghan security agents add what evidence they can, but the cases generally center on events that sometimes occurred years ago in war zones that the authorities may now be unable to reach.

“These are no-witness paper trials that deny the defendants a fundamental fair-trial right to challenge the evidence and mount a defense,” said Sahr MuhammedAlly, a lawyer for the advocacy group Human Rights First who has studied the proceedings. “So any convictions you get are fundamentally flawed.”

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NAFTA Superhighway: Progress on the Trans Texas Corridor Continues

An article carried by Reuters, March 10, 2008, datelined Madrid reports that the Spanish company Cintra said it had closed financing to build segments 5 and 6 of its SH-130 toll road between San Antonio and Austin, Texas in the U.S. It plans to invest $1.36 billion in this leg of the project.

In a statement to Spain's stock market, Cintra said $197 million of the investment came from consortium partners and the rest from a bank loan and debt from the U.S. Department of Transportation.

The newly financed segment is part of the Trans Texas Corridor, a 4,000 mile plan of super toll ways. The Corridor plan calls for a superhighway with 12 passenger vehicle lanes, 4 truck lanes, 2 passenger train tracks, 2 commuter train tracks, 2 freight train tracks, underground lines for water, natural gas, petroleum, telecommunication fiber optics, and overhead high-voltage electric transmission lines and towers.

Plans also include gas stations, garages, restaurants, hotels, stores, billboards, warehouses, freight interchanges, inter-modal transfer areas, bus stations, passenger train stations, parking facilities, dispatch control centers, maintenance facilities, pipeline pumping stations, and toll booths.

The Trans Texas Corridor is the largest engineering project ever undertaken in Texas, costing over $180 billion dollars.

A consortium led by the Cintra Concesiones Infraestruturas SA, known as Cintra, announced the contract to build the Trans Texas Corridor in December, 2004, and said it expected to develop 6 billion U.S. dollars of motorway projects during the following five years as part of the project.

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Met Police officers to Be Microchipped

Every single Metropolitan police officer will be 'microchipped' so top brass can monitor their movements on a Big Brother style tracking scheme, it can be revealed today.

According to respected industry magazine Police Review, the plan - which affects all 31,000 serving officers in the Met, including Sir Ian Blair - is set to replace the unreliable Airwave radio system currently used to help monitor officer's movements.

The new electronic tracking device - called the Automated Personal Location System (APLS) - means that officers will never be out of range of supervising officers.

But many serving officers fear being turned into "Robocops" - controlled by bosses who have not been out on the beat in years.

According to service providers Telent, the new technology 'will enable operators in the Service's operations centres to identify the location of each police officer' at any time they are on duty - whether overground or underground.

Although police chiefs say the new technology is about 'improving officer safety' and reacting to incidents more quickly, many rank and file believe it is just a Big Brother style system to keep tabs on them and make sure they don't 'doze off on duty'.

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Structural Engineers Now Publicly Challenge Government's Explanation for Destruction of the World Trade Center

A prominent engineer with 55 years experience, in charge of the design of hundreds of major building projects including high rise offices, former member of the California Seismic Safety Commission and former member of the National Institute of Sciences Building Safety Council (Marx Ayres) believes that the World Trade Centers were brought down by controlled demolition (see also this)

Two professors of structural engineering at a prestigious Swiss university (Dr. Joerg Schneider and Dr. Hugo Bachmann) said that, on 9/11, World Trade Center 7 was brought down by controlled demolition (translation here)

Kamal S. Obeid, structural engineer, with a masters degree in Engineering from UC Berkeley, of Fremont, California, says:

"Photos of the steel, evidence about how the buildings collapsed, the unexplainable collapse of WTC 7, evidence of thermite in the debris as well as several other red flags, are quite troubling indications of well planned and controlled demolition"

Ronald H. Brookman, structural engineer, with a masters degree in Engineering from UC Davis, of Novato California, writes:

"Why would all 110 stories drop straight down to the ground in about 10 seconds, pulverizing the contents into dust and ash - twice. Why would all 47 stories of WTC 7 fall straight down to the ground in about seven seconds the same day? It was not struck by any aircraft or engulfed in any fire. An independent investigation is justified for all three collapses including the surviving steel samples and the composition of the dust."

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Sources: Top Bush Advisors Approved 'Enhanced Interrogation'

In dozens of top-secret talks and meetings in the White House, the most senior Bush administration officials discussed and approved specific details of how high-value al Qaeda suspects would be interrogated by the Central Intelligence Agency, sources tell ABC News.

The so-called Principals who participated in the meetings also approved the use of "combined" interrogation techniques -- using different techniques during interrogations, instead of using one method at a time -- on terrorist suspects who proved difficult to break, sources said.

Highly placed sources said a handful of top advisers signed off on how the CIA would interrogate top al Qaeda suspects -- whether they would be slapped, pushed, deprived of sleep or subjected to simulated drowning, called waterboarding.

The high-level discussions about these "enhanced interrogation techniques" were so detailed, these sources said, some of the interrogation sessions were almost choreographed -- down to the number of times CIA agents could use a specific tactic.

The advisers were members of the National Security Council's Principals Committee, a select group of senior officials who met frequently to advise President Bush on issues of national security policy.

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D.C. Government Plans to Begin Centralized Monitoring of Citizens

By Mary Beth Sheridan / Washington Post

The D.C. government plans to begin centralized monitoring of about 5,000 security cameras it maintains throughout the city, giving emergency-management officials a broad look into schools, public housing and other sites.

The city says the system will save money and provide 24-hour monitoring, rather than the sporadic attention in the current patchwork of camera systems. But civil liberties advocates expressed alarm.

"Having it all together in one place brings us one step closer to the kind of scary movie scenario where they can track somebody moving across the city," said Art Spitzer, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union for the Washington area.

D.C. police will continue to watch their 73 surveillance cameras in high-crime neighborhoods, Darrell Darnell, head of the D.C. Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency, said yesterday. But his agency will set up a center to monitor an array of other closed-circuit TV cameras, including nearly 3,500 inside D.C. public schools, 131 used by the Department of Transportation and 720 used by the D.C. Housing Authority.

City Administrator Dan Tangherlini said yesterday that the concept of the single network was developed in meetings in which officials determined that the city could save money through consolidation.

Not including the police department, the city is spending an estimated $1.7 million to operate and monitor its cameras this year, but that could be cut in half beginning next year, city officials said.

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Stolen NIH Laptop Held Social Security Numbers

Social Security numbers for more than 1,200 participants in a National Institutes of Health study were stored on a stolen laptop containing their medical records, putting those patients at risk of identity theft, agency officials said yesterday.

NIH officials had initially assured the more than 3,000 patients whose records were on the laptop that the computer's contents -- unencrypted, in violation of federal policy -- did not contain any information that could put their identity or finances at risk.

But an ongoing review of the computer's last-known contents, performed on data backed up from the laptop before it was stolen, has found a file that, unbeknownst to the lead researcher, had been loaded onto the laptop by a research associate.

That file included Social Security numbers for at least 1,281 of the 3,078 patients enrolled in the multi-year study, which is sponsored by the NIH's National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI).

NIH spokesman John Burklow said yesterday that letters are being sent to all those affected, informing them of the risk and offering them free registration for a service that will allow them to monitor their credit reports. The NIH is also insuring each participant for up to $20,000 in losses from identity theft.

The cost to taxpayers for those services is estimated to be $18,400.

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U.N. Official Urges New Investigation To Study Neocon Role in 9/11

By Eli Lake / nysun.com

A new U.N. Human Rights Council official assigned to monitor Israel is calling for an official commission to study the role neoconservatives may have played in the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

On March 26, Richard Falk, Milbank professor of international law emeritus at Princeton University, was named by unanimous vote to a newly created position to report on human rights in the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs. While Mr. Falk’s specialty is human rights and international law, since the attacks in 2001, he has devoted some of his time to challenging what he calls the “9-11 official version.”

On March 24 in an interview with a radio host and former University of Wisconsin instructor, Kevin Barrett, Mr. Falk said, “It is possibly true that especially the neoconservatives thought there was a situation in the country and in the world where something had to happen to wake up the American people. Whether they are innocent about the contention that they made that something happen or not, I don’t think we can answer definitively at this point. All we can say is there is a lot of grounds for suspicion, there should be an official investigation of the sort the 9/11 commission did not engage in and that the failure to do these things is cheating the American people and in some sense the people of the world of a greater confidence in what really happened than they presently possess.”

Mr. Barrett, who is the co-founder of the Muslim-Jewish-Christian Alliance for 9/11 Truth, said in an interview yesterday of Mr. Falk, “I would put him on a list of scholars who are sympathetic to the 9/11 truth movement.”

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How U.S. Strategy Is Hastening Iraq's Demise

By Steven Simon / ForeignAffairs.org

In January 2007, President George W. Bush announced a new approach to the war in Iraq. At the time, sectarian and insurgent violence appeared to be spiraling out of control, and Democrats in Washington -- newly in control of both houses of Congress -- were demanding that the administration start winding down the war.

Bush knew he needed to change course, but he refused to, as he put it, "give up the goal of winning." So rather than acquiesce to calls for withdrawal, he decided to ramp up U.S. efforts. With a "surge" in troops, a new emphasis on counterinsurgency strategy, and new commanders overseeing that strategy, Bush declared, the deteriorating situation could be turned around. More than a year on, a growing conventional wisdom holds that the surge has paid off handsomely. U.S. casualties are down significantly from their peak in mid-2007, the level of violence in Iraq is lower than at any point since 2005, and Baghdad seems the safest it has been since the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime five years ago.

Some backers of the surge even argue that the Iraqi civil war is over and that victory on Washington's terms is in sight -- so long as the United States has the will to see its current efforts through to their conclusion. Unfortunately, such claims misconstrue the causes of the recent fall in violence and, more important, ignore a fatal flaw in the strategy. The surge has changed the situation not by itself but only in conjunction with several other developments: the grim successes of ethnic cleansing, the tactical quiescence of the Shiite militias, and a series of deals between U.S. forces and Sunni tribes that constitute a new bottom-up approach to pacifying Iraq.

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