Who's Afraid of Osama Wolf?

Greg Palast
Monday, May 2, 2011
GregPalast.com

From Armed Madhouse, just so we don't forget:

So, Osama walks into this bar, see? And Bush says, "Whad'l'ya have, pardner?" and Osama says...

But wait a minute. I'd better shut my mouth. The sign here in the airport says, "Security is no joking matter." But if security's no joking matter, why does this guy dressed in a high-school marching band outfit tell me to take off my shoes? All I can say is, Thank God the "shoe bomber" didn't carry Semtex in his underpants.

I'm a bit nervous. It's a "YELLOW ALERT" day. That's a "lowered threat" notice. According to the press office of the Department of Homeland Security, lowered threat Yellow means that there will be no special inspections of passengers or cargo today. Isn't it nice of Mr. Bush to alert Osama when half our security forces are given the day off?

Hmm. I asked an Israeli security expert why his nation doesn't use these pretty color codes.

He asked me if, when I woke up, I checked the day's terror color.

"I can't say I ever have. I mean, who would?" He smiled.

"The terrorists." America is the only nation on the planet that kindly informs bombers, hijackers and berserkers the days on which they won't be monitored. You've got to get up pretty early in the morning to get a jump on George Bush's team.

And who will get us next? Don't assume they'll be clutching Korans. Another Hurricane Katrina and America won't need to look abroad for insurgents. Until September 11, 2001, the deadliest terror attack in American history was carried out by an all-American Gulf War veteran.

Outside the war zones we create, organized terror's power is diminishing, and for George Bush and Tony Blair, that is a political problem. That's why the attack by the loony London teenagers in 2005 was such a boon to the Al-Qaeda addicts in the White House and Downing Street: They needed a new terror fix. Even if it wasn't the real Al- Qaeda, it was enough for Bush and Blair to mainline into the body politic a big, fat dose of fear.

Once they had the world media all jumped up on a new fear high, Bush and Blair could resume their sales pitch for their two-barrel cure: less liberty, more weaponry.

Our leaders are counting on cowardice in the hearts of the heart- land. In 2004, the Republicans' unstated reelection campaign slogan was, "They are coming to get us." Americans, scared for their lives, soiled their underpants and waddled to the polls crying, "Georgie, save us!"

From his bunker, Mr. Cheney has created a government that is little more than a Wal-Mart of Fear: midnight snatchings of citizens for uncharged crimes, wars to hunt for imaginary weapons aimed at Los Angeles, DNA data banks of kids and grandmas, even the Chicken Little sky-is-falling Social Security spook-show.

In 1933, Franklin Roosevelt calmed a nation when he said, "We have nothing to fear but fear itself."

Today, George Bush says, "We have nothing to sell but fear itself."
*
Fear is the sales pitch for many products: from war on the Euphrates to billion-dollar submarines. Better than toothpaste that makes your teeth whiter than white, this stuff will make us safer than safe. It's political junk food, the cheap filling in the flashy tube.

Real security for life's dangers—from a national health insurance program to protecting teachers' jobs, would take a slice of the profits of the owning classes, the Lockheeds, the Halliburtons, the JP Morgans. The War on Terror has become class war by other means.
*
Oh, hey, you never got the punch line. So Osama walks into this bar, see, and George Bush says, "Whad'l'ya have, pardner?" and Osama says, "Well, George, what are you serving today?" and Bush says, "Fear," and Osama says, "Fear for everybody!" and George pours it on for the crowd. Then the presidential bartender says, "Hey, who's buying?" Osama points a thumb at the crowd sucking down their brew. "They are," he says — and the two of them share a quiet laugh.

On us.

This is an excerpt from Greg Palast's New York Times bestseller, "Armed Madhouse: Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf and other Strange Tales of a White House Gone Wild." Penguin 2006.

Jesse Ventura Vs. The TSA and DHS

After a brief media frenzy in November, news reports on the TSA abuse of airline passengers have nearly disappeared. Fortunately, that may be changing thanks to a lawsuit filed by Jesse Ventura. As reported by PrisonPlanet.com:
Former Governor Jesse Ventura has taken steps to sue the TSA and the Department of Homeland Security, naming their chiefs John Pistole and ‘Big Sis’ Janet Napolitano in a lawsuit that will take on invasive airport pat-downs. Ventura first told Alex Jones of his intent to sue the TSA privately back in November while traveling for the making of TruTV’s “Conspiracy Theory,” expressing grave concern about what he viewed as his country’s transformation into East Germany...

Ventura filed his lawsuit Monday, January 24, 2011 in Minnesota and news reports have named David Olsen as his lawyer. The former governor has indicated that his suit will include violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act and the 4th Amendment, arguing that he and others with disabilities have been discriminated against and unduly singled out by TSA despite presenting no threat and warranting no reason for lawful search. Further, Ventura has argued that his ability to travel freely has been infringed, hampering his ability to work.


The good news is Ventura has a great chance of winning, in no small part due to the TSA policies being bad for business. As PrisonPlanet.com notes: "Tourism is down by billions of dollars; angry travel and vacation industry representatives tried to get TSA to back down, citing some 41 million potential fliers who ‘avoided’ travel due to anxiety over airport security."

Ventura Strikes Back with Lawsuit Against TSA
Aaron Dykes & Alex Jones
January 25, 2011
http://www.prisonplanet.com/ventura-strikes-back-with-lawsuit-against-tsa.html

Did Just 170,000 Passengers Get Groped by Strangers Last Week?

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2010/11/23/did-just-170000-passengers-get-groped-by-strangers-last-week-or-a-million

Did Just 170,000 Passengers Get Groped by Strangers Last Week? Or a Million?
emptywheel
Tuesday November 23, 2010

You know how I mocked the White House for dismissing the problem of gate rape by saying only 170,000 passengers had had their genitalia groped by a stranger working for the government?

I noted that their pushback was potentially inconsistent. According to “administration officials,” just half of one percent of all passengers–or about 170,000–get their junk touched.

For instance, the administration noted that fewer than one half of one percent of the 34 million passengers who traveled on airplanes in or to the U.S. last week were subjected to crotch-area pat-downs.

But that same article quoted the DHS spokesperson saying that one out of a hundred would get groped.

In airports where body screening technology is available, about one in every 100 passengers are given pat-downs, according to another official, Sean Smith, the DHS spokesperson.

Meanwhile, other sources say closer to 3% of passengers get groped.

A Department of Homeland Security official writes that less than 3% of travelers get the controversial aggressive patdowns.

According to one Atlanta Journal Constitution report this week, there are some 24 million people expected to fly in American airports over Thanksgiving week. So 3% of 24 million is 720,000 aggressive patdowns in the U.S. this week, if my math is holding up.

Note, several things may be going on here. First, there’s the question of how many people are flying. The White House says 34 million passengers have passed through security; Rozen is using AJC’s number of 24 million. And there are several ways a person might get groped: if they opt-out of the RapeAScan machine, but also if they set off either the RapeAScan machine or a conventional metal detector. So the lower half percent may be just one of those subsets of the entire group that has been groped. Also, it may be that the numbers of gropes have increased (or decreased) as the procedure has been introduced across the country.

Frankly, I think expecting 170,000 people a week to have their genitalia groped each week by government workers to be unreasonable. But the numbers may be far, far higher.

TSA Launches New PERV Program

http://spnheadlines.blogspot.com/2010/03/faa-tiger-will-work-airport-security_19.html

Tuesday, November 16, 2010
TSA Launches New PERV Program
Tiger Woods Will Conduct Strip Searches
Safety Inspection today at O'Hair
International Airport in Chicago

(Washington, D.C.) by Robert Feeley - The Obama administration today announced strict new regulations regarding passenger clothing and invasive body searches for passengers boarding commercial flights in the United States. The TSA calls it the Program to Examine Random Voyagers, or PERV.

The modus operandi of Christmas Day airplane bomber Abdul Whacko al Kaboom, explosives in his underpants, prompted Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano to order that all passengers must wear thong underwear and be subject to random panty inspections effective immediately.

"Please drop your pants, miss"

The announcement brought a flood of employment applications for the position of Special PERV Inspector. Disgraced golfer Tiger Woods was first in line among dozens of other horndogs this morning at TSA headquarters and was hired for duty at Orlando International Airport. Mr. Woods spoke with SPN and said, "I'm looking forward to this new challenge. They want the lines to move fast at the airport and nobody gets a skirt up or a pair of pants down faster than me!"

Several members of congress will be touring the nation's airports on taxpayer funded fact-finding vacations, and Senator Barney Frank (D-Ma.) said he will personally volunteer to be strip searched as often as possible.

Big Sis Caught Lying To American People

http://www.prisonplanet.com/big-sis-caught-lying-to-american-people.html

Big Sis Caught Lying To American People
Propaganda piece attempts to quell massive backlash against naked body scanners, TSA molestation
Steve Watson
Prisonplanet.com
Monday, Nov 15th, 2010

Homeland Security head Janet Napolitano, now forever known as Big Sis – a reference to George Orwell’s 1984 – has been caught telling some big lies in an attempt to quell an enormous public backlash against the full body scanning technology and invasive pat-down procedures that have been implemented by the TSA in airports nationwide.

In a blatant propaganda piece published by USA Today, Napolitano describes the scanning machines as safe and the pat-downs as “discreet”, in the face of a flood of complaints from scientists, pilots, flight attendants, privacy groups, parents, Muslim groups and everyday passengers, all rebelling against over the top security.

“AIT machines are safe, efficient, and protect passenger privacy.” Napolitano writes in an article in which every single claim she makes can be easily disproved and revealed to be outright lies.

Lie: The scanners are safe

“They have been independently evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, and the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, who have all affirmed their safety.” Napolitano claims, expecting the public to simply swallow the claim that NIST and the FDA are somehow “independent” of the federal government.

As for Johns Hopkins University declaring the scanners safe, tell it to Dr Michael Love, who runs an X-ray lab at the department of biophysics and biophysical chemistry at the Johns Hopkins school of medicine. Love told AFP two days ago that “statistically someone is going to get skin cancer from these X-rays”.

“…we have a situation at the airports where people are so eager to fly that they will risk their lives in this manner,” he added.

So, unless you count skin cancer as safe, Napolitano is lying to you.

According to other numerous real “independent” scientists who continue to speak out over the health hazards associated with the x-ray technology, the body scanners are far from safe.

John Sedat, a University of California at San Francisco professor of biochemistry and biophysics and member of the National Academy of Sciences tells CNet that the machines have “mutagenic effects” and will increase the risk of cancer. Sedat previously sent a letter to the White House science Czar John P. Holdren, identifying the specific risk the machines pose to children and the elderly.

The letter stated:

“it appears that real independent safety data do not exist… There has not been sufficient review of the intermediate and long-term effects of radiation exposure associated with airport scanners. There is good reason to believe that these scanners will increase the risk of cancer to children and other vulnerable populations.”

The TSA has repeatedly stated that going through the machines is equal to the radiation encountered during just two minutes of a flight. However, this does not take into account that the scanning machines specifically target only the skin and the muscle tissue immediately beneath.

The scanners are similar to C-Scans and fire ionizing radiation at those inside which penetrates a few centimeters into the flesh and reflects off the skin to form a naked body image.

The firing of ionizing radiation at the body effectively “unzips” DNA, according to scientific research by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The research shows that even very low doses of X-ray can delay or prevent cellular repair of damaged DNA, yet pregnant women and children will be subjected to the process as new guidelines including scanners are adopted.

The Inter-Agency Committee on Radiation Safety concluded in their report on the matter that governments must justify the use of the scanners and that a more accurate assessment of the health risks is needed.

Pregnant women and children should not be subject to scanning, according to the report, adding that governments should consider “other techniques to achieve the same end without the use of ionizing radiation.”

“The Committee cited the IAEA’s 1996 Basic Safety Standards agreement, drafted over three decades, that protects people from radiation. Frequent exposure to low doses of radiation can lead to cancer and birth defects, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency,” reported Bloomberg.

Scientists at Columbia University also entered the debate recently, warning that the dose emitted by the naked x-ray devices could be up to 20 times higher than originally estimated, likely contributing to an increase in a common type of skin cancer called basal cell carcinoma which affects the head and neck.

“If all 800 million people who use airports every year were screened with X-rays then the very small individual risk multiplied by the large number of screened people might imply a potential public health or societal risk. The population risk has the potential to be significant,” said Dr David Brenner, head of Columbia University’s centre for radiological research.

Lie: The scanners are effective

“…the weapons and other dangerous and prohibited items we’ve found during AIT screenings have illustrated their security value time and again.” Napolitano claims in her propaganda piece.

In reality, the machines would not have prevented the Christmas Day bomber from boarding Flight 253, according to their designers, and other security experts who have dismissed the devices as “useless”.

The imaging machines cannot even detect explosive material, so claiming, as Napolitano does, that they are “our best defense against such threats” is misleading at best and at worst a complete lie.

If the machines had detected “dangerous items” “time and again”, rest assured that the DHS and the TSA would make sure it was all over the news – such success stories have been decidedly absent from the media, unless you count “dangerous items” as baby milk, tubes of toothpaste or contact lens fluid.

The idea that the machines are effective flies in the face of the viewpoint of surveillance experts who note that the scanners will do nothing to make air travel safer.

Lie: The scanners cannot store/print/transmit images

At first we were asked to believe that the imaging machines did not produce crisp images of naked bodies.

In an effort to downplay the intrusion of privacy they really represent, the TSA routinely claimed that the images produced by the scanners are “ghostly” or “skeletal”.

The passenger’s face is blurred and the image as a whole “resembles a fuzzy negative,” the TSA spokeswoman Kristin Lee told the media last year, prior to the underwear bombing attempt.

After months of researchers, reporters and everyday travelers outing this as a complete lie, the DHS/TSA abandoned that approach and instead claimed that, although they were detailed naked images, it’s fine and dandy because they cannot be saved or transmitted.

“The imaging technology that we use cannot store, export, print or transmit images.” Napolitano claims in her latest propaganda piece.

Again not true. As we have previously detailed, the images that show in detail the naked genitals of men, women and children that have passed through the scanners can be transmitted and printed.

As reported by Declan McCullagh of CNET earlier this year, “The U.S. Marshals Service admitted this week that it had surreptitiously saved tens of thousands of images recorded with a millimeter wave system at the security checkpoint of a single Florida courthouse.”

The proof comes in the form of a letter (PDF), obtained by The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), in which William Bordley, an associate general counsel with the Marshals Service, admits that “approximately 35,314 images…have been stored on the Brijot Gen2 machine” used in the Orlando, Fla. federal courthouse.

EPIC says it has also obtained more than 100 images of electronically stripped individuals from the scanning devices used at federal courthouses. The disclosures come as part of a settlement of an EPIC Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the U.S. Marshals Service.

Brijot, the manufacturer of the body scanning equipment in question, also admits that its machine can store up to 40,000 images and records.

EPIC, has filed two further lawsuits against the Department of Homeland Security over the scanners, claiming that the DHS has refused to release at least 2,000 images it has stored from scanners currently in use in U.S. airports.

EPIC’s lawsuit argues that the body scanners violate the Fourth Amendment, which prohibits “unreasonable” searches, as well as the Privacy Act, the Administrative Procedure Act, and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, referencing religious laws about modesty.

The group points to a further document (PDF) it has obtained from DHS showing that the machines used by the department’s TSA are not only able to record and store naked body images, but that they are mandated to do so.

The TSA has admitted that this is the case, but claims that it is for training and testing purposes only, maintaining that the body scanners used at airports cannot “store, print or transmit images”.

“In complying with our Freedom of Information Act request, the Marshals Service has helped the public more fully understand the capabilities of these devices,” EPIC President Marc Rotenberg said in a statement. “But the DHS continues to conceal the truth from American air travelers who could be subject to similar intrusive recorded searches in U.S. airports.”

As if it was needed, further evidence also points to the fact that the images are actively being transmitted and printed in airports.

Lie: Pat-downs are “discreet”

In her headline, Napolitano calls the pat-down procedure offered as an alternative to the naked body scanners, or used in addition to them, as “discreet”.

“Pat-downs have long been one of the many security measures used by the U.S. and countries across the world to make air travel as secure as possible.” she writes.

What she does not explain is that the new pat down procedure, which now allows TSA agents to forcefully feel around breasts and genitalia, is currently conducted in full view of queuing passengers and has been described by many, including New York Times reporter Joe Sharkey, as a deliberate form of humiliation to discourage others from refusing the full body scans.

The TSA also claims that the pat-downs are discreet, yet multiple accounts and reports prove otherwise.

Flight attendants and pilots unions in particular have taken up issue with the pat-downs, with one union declaring “We don’t want them in uniform going through this enhanced screening where their private areas are being touched in public… They actually make contact with the genital area.”

As reported by Reuters, parents are now demanding that the procedures be changed for children, after witnesses have described their children’s genitals being touched by men and women working for the TSA.

“I didn’t think it was going to be as horrible as he was describing,” one father noted after an agent told him what he was going to do to the child before conducting the full body search.

“At some point the terrorists have won.” the father added. The TSA says it is currently “reviewing” the procedure for children. Perhaps it should first review it’s policy on background checking its own employees, which by all accounts is woefully inadequate.

Lie: “Risk based” security procedure

Napolitano calls the TSA’s system “risk-based,” another total fallacy given the fact that the primary targets of airport oppression have been women, children, the elderly, and the physically disabled, all the categories of people who characteristically would pose the least risk in terms of terrorism.

The procedure is completely random, emphasizing the fact that everyone is categorized as a potential terrorist.

Lie: The scanners are popular with the public

“These machines are now in use at airports nationwide, and the vast majority of travelers say they prefer this technology to alternative screening measures.” Napolitano writes.

Another unsubstantiated claim, particularly given that a new Reuters poll shows that over 95% of Americans are now less likely to fly due to the crackdown in the wake of the dubious toner cartridge and underpants bombing scares.

Furthermore, documents released under the Freedom of Information Act before the issue recently hit headlines again, and before the majority of airports even had the machines installed, have revealed that there were more than 600 formal complaints about the devices last year.

Hardly a shining example of how popular the machines are.

Lies Lies Lies

Napolitano and the TSA have consistently lied to the American people about the open implementation of tyranny in our airports. They will continue to do so in an effort to make it appear that those who are revolting against their procedures are just a small minority, when in reality the the vast majority of sick and tired of being treated like slaves and having their fundamental freedoms trashed.

On November 24th, ‘national opt-out day’, the world will see thousands and thousands standing up against measures that are not only set to become commonplace in airports everywhere, but are also scheduled to be implemented on our streets if we do not resist.

OptOutDay.com declares:

It’s the day ordinary citizens stand up for their rights, stand up for liberty, and protest the federal government’s desire to virtually strip us naked or submit to an “enhanced pat down” that touches people’s breasts and genitals. You should never have to explain to your children, “Remember that no stranger can touch or see your private area, unless it’s a government employee, then it’s OK.”

The goal of National Opt Out Day is to send a message to our lawmakers that we demand change. No naked body scanners, no government-approved groping. We have a right to privacy and buying a plane ticket should not mean that we’re guilty until proven innocent.

We urge our readers to join forces with these groups and organise peaceful protests at the nearest airport to you that has implemented body scanners and enhanced TSA pat downs.

The issue has garnered such massive attention, largely due to coverage via The Drudge Report, that the federal government has been forced to declare it is considering scrapping the enhanced security procedures for pilots and flight attendants. The unified statements from pilots and flight attendants unions highlights the fact that coming together and declaring a mass refusal to submit to this can be effective, it is vital that it not be overlooked.
——————————————————————
Steve Watson is the London based writer and editor at Alex Jones’ Infowars.net, and regular contributor to Prisonplanet.com. He has a Masters Degree in International Relations from the School of Politics at The University of Nottingham in England.

Intelligence agencies shielded Flight 253 bomber

http://wsws.org/articles/2010/feb2010/f253-f03.shtml

Amid media blackout
Congressional hearing reveals US intelligence agencies shielded Flight 253 bomber
By Alex Lantier
3 February 2010

A January 27 hearing of the House Committee on Homeland Security established that US intelligence agencies stopped the State Department from revoking the US visa of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. The Nigerian student, whom US officials suspected of being affiliated with the Yemeni terrorist group Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, attempted to set off a bomb on Northwest Flight 253 into Detroit on Christmas Day. Revocation of Abdulmutallab’s visa would have prevented him from boarding the airplane.

The hearing was reported in a brief article posted January 27 on the web site of the Detroit News, headlined, “Terror Suspect Kept Visa to Avoid Tipping Off Larger Investigation.”

The revelation that US intelligence agencies made a deliberate decision to allow Abdulmutallab to board the commercial flight, without any special airport screening, has been buried in the media. As of this writing, nearly a week after the hearing, the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post and Los Angeles Times have published no articles on the subject. Nor have the broadcast or cable media reported on it.

This is despite—or perhaps more accurately, because of—the fact that this information exposes the official government story of the near-disaster to be a lie. President Obama, who has joined with top US intelligence, FBI and Homeland Security officials to insist that Abdulmutallab was inadvertently allowed to board the plane carrying explosives because of a failure to “connect the dots,” has from the start been deceiving the American people.

The official line strained credulity from the outset, given reports of multiple advance warnings that the Nigerian student was linked to terrorists in Yemen who were planning attacks on the US.

As was widely reported within hours of the failed bombing attempt, Abdulmutallab’s father—a former Nigerian government minister and prominent banker—went to the US embassy in Abuja in November to warn that his son was involved with radical Islamists in Yemen and had broken off contact with his family. The family said they had given US officials extensive information about their son in the expectation that they would “find and return him home.”

In his prepared statement to the House Committee on Homeland Security on January 27, State Department Under-Secretary for Management Patrick Kennedy said: “In the case of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, on the day following his father’s November 19 visit to the Embassy, we sent a cable to the Washington intelligence and law enforcement community through proper channels (the Visas Viper system) that ‘Information at post suggests [Farouk] may be involved in Yemeni-based extremists.’”

Kennedy confirmed that all US intelligence agencies received warnings that Abdulmutallab was training with terrorists in Yemen. He noted that the initial diplomatic cable from Abuja misspelled Abdulmutallab’s name. However, Kennedy continued, “At the same time, the Consular Section entered Abdulmutallab into the Consular Lookout and Support System database known as CLASS… The CLASS entry resulted in a lookout using the correct spelling that was shared automatically with the primary lookout system used by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and accessible to other agencies.”

Under questioning by the committee chairman, Rep. Bennie Thompson, Kennedy explained why the State Department might not revoke the US visa of a suspected terrorist: “We will revoke the visa of any individual who is a threat to the United States, but we do take one preliminary step. We ask our law enforcement and intelligence community partners, ‘Do you have eyes on this person and do you want us to let this person proceed under your surveillance so that you may potentially break a larger plot?’”

He added: “And one of the members [of the intelligence community]—and we’d be glad to give you that out of [open session]—in private—said, ‘Please, do not revoke this visa. We have eyes on this person. We are following this person who has the visa for the purpose of trying to roll up an entire network, not just stop one person.’”

Under questioning by Rep. Dan Lungren, Kennedy confirmed that Abdulmutallab’s case was one in which US intelligence officials had interceded to block a visa revocation.

In prepared remarks at the same hearing, National Counterterrorism Center Director Michael Leiter stated: “Within the intelligence community we had strategic intelligence that Al Qa’ida in the Arabian Peninsula [AQAP—the terrorist group in Yemen with which Abdulmutallab was in contact] had the intention of taking action against the United States prior to the failed attack on December 25th, but we did not direct more resources against AQAP, nor insist that watch-listing criteria be adjusted prior to the event.” He added that US intelligence analysts “did not push [Abdulmutallab] onto the terrorist watch-list.”

This inaction came despite the fact that US intelligence agencies were well aware of the threat posed by AQAP. According to Leiter: “The Intelligence Community highlighted the growing threat to US and Western interests in the region posed by AQAP, whose precursor elements attacked our embassy in [the Yemeni capital] Sana’a [in September 2008]. Our analysis focused on AQAP’s plans to strike US targets in Yemen, but it also noted—increasingly in the fall of 2009—the possibility of targeting the United States.”

Amazingly, the US government did not declare AQAP a terrorist group until January 19, 2010, even though it was referred to by that name in 2009. State Department spokesman Philip Crowley stated that declaring AQAP a terrorist group would “prohibit provision of material support and arms to AQAP and also include immigration-related restrictions that will help stem the flow of finances to AQAP.” Thus, for nearly a month after the attempted bombing, US officials were not required to implement a range of measures against AQAP, including “an asset freeze, travel ban, and arms embargo,” according to Crowley.

At the January 27 hearing, Leiter said that there had been “multiple” points of failure in the US government’s response to warnings of the impending attack. However, all three government officials testifying—Kennedy, Leiter and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Deputy Secretary Jane Lute—said no disciplinary action would be taken.

DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano, who was invited to the hearing and was in Washington at the time, refused to attend. She did not notify committee members beforehand. Napolitano was widely criticized for claiming on December 27 that the “system worked” prior to, during and after the attempted bombing.

Official testimony now records that US intelligence agencies deliberately let Abdulmutallab board Flight 253, putting the lives of hundreds of passengers at risk, in the course of an as yet undisclosed intelligence operation. Whether US agencies were unaware of Abdulmutallab’s plans, or consciously decided to allow an attack to proceed, remains unclear.

In this context, it should be noted that the reason for US inaction given at the hearing—that US intelligence did not want to alert Al Qaeda that it was watching Abdulmutallab—does not hold water. As congressmen noted during the hearing, US Customs and Border Protection had prepared to interrogate Abdulmutallab upon arrival in Detroit, as he was on the Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment database. This would be counterproductive if US agencies were mounting a concerted effort to hide their interest in Abdulmutallab.

There are a number of possible explanations for the decision to allow Abdulmutallab to board Northwest Flight 253. One possibility is that it was bound up with efforts by elements within the US intelligence apparatus to politically destabilize the Obama administration.

To seriously investigate the possible motivations behind the government’s actions, the question must be asked: What would have been the consequences of a successful attack? Hysterical media coverage would have provided fodder for the most right-wing factions in the ruling class to demand war against Yemen or other Muslim countries. At home, there would have been calls for a mass dragnet like that after the September 11 attacks, and immense political pressure for a new battery of police-state laws.

Even having failed, the attack was used as a pretext for expanding US military operations in Yemen, adding further security restrictions at airports, and expanding the “no-fly” passenger list and other databases by agencies unaccountable to the American people.

The testimony at the January 27 hearing also blows apart the line promulgated by the establishment media, which universally echoed the administration’s hackneyed phrase to explain the Flight 253 incident—a “failure to connect the dots” on the part of US intelligence agencies. This, of course, is the same phrase used in the official cover-up of the 9/11 attacks.

Thus, in a January 2 editorial entitled “Why Didn’t They See It?” the New York Times wrote: “No doubt sorting through heaps of information and determining what is urgent or even worthy of follow-up is daunting. Still, it is incredible, and frightening, that the government cannot do at least as good a job at swiftly updating and correlating information as Google.”

The Times itself, in a subsequent article published January 18, reported the results of its own investigation, based on interviews with senior White House and intelligence officials. The newspaper revealed more “missed clues,” including the fact that intelligence authorities learned in early November from a communications intercept of Al Qaeda followers in Yemen that a man named “Umar Farouk” had volunteered for a coming operation. Despite such evidence of an official cover-up, the Times maintained the line that the near-disaster was the result of mistakes, omissions and an inability to “connect the dots.”

It is now possible to answer the New York Times editorial of January 2: They did “see it,” and the Times’ incredulous and cynical attempt to explain the Flight 253 attack as the result of mere incompetence was part of a campaign of disinformation. This is a campaign in which, by its silence on the January 27 hearing, the Times continues to participate.

The Congressional hearing vindicates the analysis of the World Socialist Web Site, which exposed the highly dubious character of the official story, pointed to the possibility of US government involvement, and demanded that officials involved in handling Abdulmutallab’s case be named and investigated.

In a December 31 column (“The Northwest Flight 253 intelligence failure: Negligence or conspiracy?”) the World Socialist Web Site wrote: “The general outlines of the Northwest bombing attempt and the 9/11 attacks are startlingly similar. One might even say that what is involved is a modus operandi. In both cases, those alleged to have carried out the actions had been the subject of US intelligence investigations and surveillance and had been allowed to enter the country and board flights under conditions that would normally have set off multiple security alarms.

“Both then and now, the government and the media expect the public to accept that all that was involved was mistakes. But why should anyone assume that the failure to act on the extensive intelligence leading to Abdulmutallab involved merely ‘innocent’ mistakes—and not something far more sinister?”

In the January 18 New York Times article cited above, the newspaper also noted that Obama personally met on December 22 with CIA, FBI, and DHS officials because Obama was “worried about possible terrorist attacks over the Christmas holiday.” In another meeting the same day, the Times reported, Obama’s homeland security advisor John Brennan held talks on Yemen, “where a stream of disturbing intelligence had suggested that Qaeda operatives were preparing for some action, perhaps a strike on an American target on Christmas day.”

Nevertheless, Obama gave a December 28 internet and radio address in which he falsely described Abdulmutallab as an “isolated extremist.”

He also declared: “A full investigation has been launched into this attempted act of terrorism, and we will not rest until we find all who were involved and hold them accountable... We will continue to use every element of our national power to disrupt, to dismantle and defeat the violent extremists who threaten us.”

Over a month after Obama made these claims, it is clear that US intelligence agencies were deeply involved and the White House is overseeing a massive cover-up.

Video Portrays Average Americans As Terrorists

http://www.prisonplanet.com/dhs-video-portrays-average-americans-as-terrorists.html

DHS Video Portrays Average Americans As Terrorists
Owning gold or firearms, donating to charity, finding out information about things all constitute suspicious activity to be reported to the authorities
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Wednesday, October 7, 2009

A new video produced in association with the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI and narrated by former Denver Broncos quarterback John Elway urges people to report suspicious activity that could constitute terrorism, behavior that includes buying gold, owning guns, using a watch or binoculars, donating to charity, and all manner of mundane things.

The eight minute video was produced by the Colorado-based Center for Empowered Living and Learning (CELL) in conjunction with the International Association of Chiefs of Police conference to promote CELL’s $7 million dollar exhibit entitled “Anyone, Anytime, Anywhere: Understanding the Threat of Terrorism,” which is currently on display at the Mizel Museum in Denver, Colorado.

The production was funded by a $30,400 grant from the Department of Homeland Security and made in association with the Colorado Information Analysis Center.

The video wastes no time in advancing the DHS agenda to single out average Americans as the new target of the war on terror, a process that we have exhaustively documented for years through all manner of official reports, from the infamous MIAC document to the DHS “Domestic Extremism Lexicon” memo that equates people who question authority with violent extremism and terrorism.

In every single instance portrayed in the CELL video, the terrorists are either white or black American citizens. As the Denver Westworld blog notes, in John Elway’s world, everything is suspicious and everything is indicative of “a world where average-looking white people want to murder you and everyone around you.”

“Anyone can become a victim of terrorism, any time, anywhere. Together, we can change this. Each of us has a responsibility to protect our community and we can do so by recognizing the signs of terrorism and taking proper action to stop it,” says Elway.

The clip characterizes all manner of mundane activities as potential signs of terrorism, splitting them into eight different categories, and shows other Americans reporting people to the authorities for such behavior.

Under the heading of “funding,” the video shows an image of U.S. Liberty Head gold coins, suggesting that people who buy or handle gold bullion are probable terrorists. In the same montage, an image of a handgun is flashed, implying that gun owners are also under suspicion.

Using a watch, a pair of binoculars, or donating to a charity are all potential Al-Qaeda behavior, the video implies.

Do you use e mail or the telephone to find out information about things? You’re probably a terrorist, according to the DHS, which classifies such behavior as “elicitation,” one of the eight signs of terror.

Do you occasionally monitor police radio, as thousands did during the recent G20 protests in Pittsburgh? You’re a terrorist.

Do you notice surveillance cameras or occasionally attempt to watch big brother back? You’re a terrorist.

Petty criminal behavior such as theft and trespassing is also flagged as a sign of terrorism.

“The success of defending our community’s safety depends upon our shared commitment,” says Elway at the end of the clip. “It’s a beautiful day here in Colorado and there can be many more like this with the help of people like you.”

In other words, report your neighbors for everyday activity otherwise you’ll be hit by another 9/11.

As we have continually highlighted, the entire apparatus of the war on terror has been shifted to target the American people. By defining mundane activities as potential terror, those in power want to create a society where everyone feels under suspicion and guilty even if they are a completely law-abiding citizen. Indeed, the implication is that only those who join the tyranny and become informers for the state can feel truly patriotic and avoid the glare of big brother.

As we discussed with the MIAC report and a whole host of others, the federal government apparently has very little concern for any perceived terrorist threat to America coming from the MIddle East or Al-Qaeda cells within the country, and indeed if any such threat existed we are only in more danger, because the feds have been busy training law enforcement and brainwashing the public that law-abiding American citizens who exercise their legal right to purchase firearms, who own gold, who take photographs, donate to charities or who attempt to find out information about things, are potential terrorists who should be grassed up to the authorities without delay.

Administration declares 'emergency'

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0409/21710.html

Administration declares 'emergency'
By MIKE ALLEN & CARRIE BUDOFF BROWN
4/26/09

In an unusual Sunday briefing at the White House, administration officials said a “public health emergency” is being declared in the United States in order to mobilize maximum resources to combat fears of a global swine-flu pandemic.

The term "sounds more severe than it really is," said Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, who called the measure "standard operating procedure," adding, “I wish we could call it a declaration of emergency preparedness.” The same measures, she said, were taken for the inauguration and in cases of flood and hurricane.

Acting CDC Director Richard Besser said that health officials have reported 20 U.S. cases across five states – California, Kansas, New York, Ohio, and Texas – and expect the numbers to rise as doctors perform more tests to detect the illness, and warned that "more severe" cases are likely to surface here.

While the disease, which appears to have originated in Mexico, has killed more than 80 there and infected over 1,300, there have been no fatal American infections so far.

The government said it will release 25 percent of its stockpiles of the flu-fighting drugs Tamiflu and Relenza. Texas governor Rick Perry had previously requested 37,430 doses of Tamiflu be sent to his state from the Strategic National Stockpile.

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs dismissed any suggestion that administration's response would be hampered by the lack of confirmed appointees at the Department of Health and Human Services, the last Cabinet post to receive a secretary, or the yet to be filled post of surgeon general.

Gesturing to Napolitano, Brennan, and acting CDC Director Richard Besser, he said “There is a team in place, the team is standing behind me.”

Gibbs said "the president's health was never in any danger," when asked about reports that Obama's host on a museum tour in Mexico City died the next day, and had flu-like symptoms. The flu has a 24-48 hour incubation period, he said and Obama left Mexico nine days ago and has not shown symptoms of the flu nor has he been seen by a doctor or received preventative treatment.

Asked if the president’s decision to golf Sunday at Andrews Air Force Base was part of a White House strategy to reassure people, Gibbs chuckled and replied: “I'm not sure I'd draw a DIRECT conclusion.”

John Brennan, White House homeland-security adviser, said there is “no evidence whatsoever” of bioterrorism.

Napalitano said briefings will continue daily for awhile. The CDC is to brief reporters by teleconference at 3 p.m. ET.

“We’re preparing in an environment where we really don’t know," she said, "ultimately what the size or seriousness of this outbreak is going to be.”

U.S. Declares Public Health Emergency

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/27/world/27flu.html

U.S. Declares Public Health Emergency Over Swine Flu
By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.
April 26, 2009

Responding to what some health officials feared could be the leading edge of a global pandemic emerging from Mexico, American health officials declared a public health emergency on Sunday as 20 cases of swine flu were confirmed in this country, including eight in New York City.

Other nations imposed travel bans or made plans to quarantine air travelers as confirmed cases also appeared in Mexico and Canada and suspect cases emerged elsewhere.

Top global flu experts struggled to predict how dangerous the new A (H1N1) swine flu strain would be as it became clear that they had too little information about Mexico’s outbreak — in particular how many cases had occurred in what is thought to be a month before the outbreak was detected, and whether the virus was mutating to be more lethal, or less.

“We’re in a period in which the picture is evolving,” said Dr. Keiji Fukuda, deputy director general of the World Health Organization. “We need to know the extent to which it causes mild and serious infections.”

Without that knowledge — which is unlikely to emerge soon because only two laboratories, in Atlanta and Winnipeg, Canada, can confirm a case — his agency’s panel of experts was unwilling to raise the global pandemic alert level, even though it officially saw the outbreak as a public health emergency and opened its emergency response center.

As a news conference in Washington, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano called the emergency declaration “standard operating procedure,” and said she would rather call it a “declaration of emergency preparedness.”

“It’s like declaring one for a hurricane,” she said. “It means we can release funds and take other measures. The hurricane may not actually hit.”

American investigators said they expected more cases here, but noted that virtually all so far had been mild and urged Americans not to panic.

The speed and the scope of the world’s response showed the value of preparations made because of the avian flu and SARS scares, public health experts said.

The emergency declaration in the United States lets the government free more money for antiviral drugs and give some previously unapproved tests and drugs to children. One-quarter of the national stockpile of 50 million courses of antiflu drugs will be released.

Border patrols and airport security officers are to begin asking travelers if they have had the flu or a fever; those who appear ill will be stopped, taken aside and given masks while they arrange for medical care.

“This is moving fast and we expect to see more cases,” Dr. Richard Besser, acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said at the news conference with Ms. Napolitano. “But we view this as a marathon.”

He advised Americans to wash their hands frequently, to cover coughs and sneezes and to stay home if they felt ill; but he stopped short of advice now given in Mexico to wear masks and not kiss or touch anyone. He praised decisions to close individual schools in New York and Texas but did not call for more widespread closings.

Besides the eight New York cases, officials said they had confirmed seven in California, two in Kansas, two in Texas and one in Ohio. The virus looked identical to the one in Mexico believed to have killed 103 people — including 22 people whose deaths were confirmed to be from swine flu — and sickened about 1,600. As of Sunday night, there were no swine flu deaths in the United States, and one hospitalization.

Other governments tried to contain the infection amid reports of potential new cases including in New Zealand, Hong Kong and Spain.

Dr. Fukuda of the W.H.O. said his agency would decide Tuesday whether to raise the pandemic alert level to 4. Such a move would prompt more travel bans, and the agency has been reluctant historically to take actions that hurt member nations.

Canada confirmed six cases, at opposite ends of the country: four in Nova Scotia and two in British Columbia. Canadian health officials said the victims had only mild symptoms and had either recently traveled to Mexico or been in contact with someone who had.

Other governments issued advisories urging citizens not to visit Mexico. China, Japan, Hong Kong and others set up quarantines for anyone possibly infected. Russia and other countries banned pork imports from Mexico, though people cannot get the flu from eating pork.

In the United States, the C.D.C. confirmed that eight students at St. Francis Preparatory School in Fresh Meadows, Queens, had been infected with the new swine flu. At a news conference on Sunday, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said that all those cases had been mild and that city hospitals had not seen a surge in severe lung infections.

On the streets of New York, people seemed relatively unconcerned, in sharp contrast to Mexico City, where soldiers handed out masks.

Hong Kong, shaped by lasting scars as an epicenter of the SARS outbreak, announced very tough measures. Officials there urged travelers to avoid Mexico and ordered the immediate detention of anyone arriving with a fever higher than 100.4 degrees Fahrenheit after traveling through any city with a confirmed case, which would include New York.

Everyone stopped will be sent to a hospital for a flu test and held until it is negative. Since Hong Kong has Asia’s busiest airport hub, the policy could severely disrupt international travel.

The central question is how many mild cases Mexico has had, Dr. Martin S. Cetron, director of global migration and quarantine for the Centers for Disease Control, said in an interview.

“We may just be looking at the tip of the iceberg, which would give you a skewed initial estimate of the case fatality rate,” he said, meaning that there might have been tens of thousands of mild infections around the 1,300 cases of serious disease and 80 or more deaths. If that is true, as the flu spreads, it would not be surprising if most cases were mild.

Even in 1918, according to the C.D.C., the virus infected at least 500 million of the world’s 1.5 billion people to kill 50 million. Many would have been saved if antiflu drugs, antibiotics and mechanical ventilators had existed.

Another hypothesis, Dr. Cetron said, is that some other factor in Mexico increased lethality, like co-infection with another microbe or an unwittingly dangerous treatment.

Flu experts would also like to know whether current flu shots give any protection because it will be months before a new vaccine can be made.

There is an H1N1 human strain in this year’s shot, and all H1N1 flus are descendants of the 1918 pandemic strain. But flus pick up many mutations, and there will be no proof of protection until the C.D.C. can test stored blood serum containing flu shot antibodies against the new virus. Those tests are under way, said an expert who sent the C.D.C. his blood samples.

Reporting was contributed by Sheryl Gay Stolberg from Washington, Jack Healy from New York, Keith Bradsher from Hong Kong and Ian Austen from Ottawa.

A version of this article appeared in print on April 27, 2009, on page A1 of the New York edition.

FBI Spied On Tea Party Protesters Nationwide

http://www.prisonplanet.com/source-fbi-spied-on-tea-party-protesters-nationwide.html

Source: FBI Spied On Tea Party Protesters Nationwide
COINTELPRO tactics in force as federal government intensifies Bushist police state under Obama administration
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Monday, April 20, 2009

The FBI were spying on Tea Party protesters nationwide during last week’s demonstrations as part of a covert program conducted without the knowledge of local law enforcement, according to a source named as a current FBI agent.

The Northeast Intelligence Network reports that a concerned unnamed FBI agent risked his career in blowing the whistle on the fact that Tea Party protesters were subject to covert surveillance.

The FBI agent allegedly told Doug Haggman, “The Department of Homeland Security Intelligence Assessment that is receiving so much attention is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg, and the true patriotic citizens of this country are on the Titanic. This is what bothers me. But is goes far beyond that assessment. There have been very significant changes made over the last few years that redirect the focus and assets of the intelligence community internally. These changes have greatly accelerated under this administration, and the threats have been redefined to include those who used to be patriots. It’s not only chilling but absolutely insulting to God-fearing Americans.”

The source claims that a single page FBI directive was dispatched from FBI headquarters in Washington DC on March 23 requesting that Special Agents in Charge (SACs) “verify the date, time and location of each TEA Party within their region and supply that information to FBI headquarters in Washington.”

Agents were then instructed to compile information on the organizers of the different protests and also send the information back to FBI headquarters. On April 6, they were subsequently asked to conduct covert surveillance and data collection of the protesters attending the Tea Party demonstrations. Surveillance was to be performed from “discreet fixed or mobile positions” and was to be performed “independently and outside of the purview of local law enforcement,” according to the source.

Although the level of detail collected from each operation is unclear, the information was reportedly submitted to Washington, where, “at the level of the National Security Branch (NSB), this information was to “include the office of the Directorate of Intelligence (DI), and integrated with a restricted access database, one that reportedly is accessible to only two agencies” [of the 14 agencies that comprise the U.S. intelligence community, according to the source.

“The implications to the citizens of the U.S. are ominous. It seems that there is a hostile political agenda coming from Washington that characterizes the supporters of our constitutional freedoms as threats to our domestic security, which is totally absurd. The redirection, the refocusing of domestic threats from al Qaeda cells to ‘flag waving right-wingers’ is something that has gone from a murmur a few years ago to a roar today.”

The notion that the FBI would be conducting covert surveillance and building databases on attendants of the Tea Party protests is thoroughly disturbing if not unsurprising. Indeed, before any major political event the FBI prosecutes aggressive surveillance of political groups to the point of harassment and beyond. Before the 2004 Republican Convention, the FBI initiated a nationwide campaign to track down leaders of protest groups and interrogate them, as “part of a national effort to chill dissent in this country,” according to William Dobbs, the spokesman for United for Peace and Justice.

Not long after 9/11, the FBI returned to tactics that were first made infamous during the days of J. Edgar Hoover, by collecting extensive information on anti-war and other protest groups. To highlight the non-partisan threat of the police state, the FBI is now treating so-called “right-wingers” and conservatives with the same disdain. Basically anyone who seeks to exercise their constitutional rights to peaceably assemble and express free speech is considered a threat and even a potential terrorist, as a recent Homeland Security directive implied.

From 1956 to 1971, the FBI’s COINTELPRO program worked to monitor and disrupt protest movements across America as part of an effort to stifle dissent. FBI Director Hoover ordered FBI agents to “expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit, or otherwise neutralize” the activities of these movements and their leaders. The final report of the Church Committee, which was tasked with investigating the legality of the program, concluded that the FBI had performed “unsavory and vicious tactics” in undertaking “secret surveillance of citizens on the basis of their political beliefs, even when those beliefs posed no threat of violence or illegal acts on behalf of a hostile foreign power.”

As we reported last week, The Maryland National Guard was put on alert in anticipation of the nationwide Tea Party protests, while a Homeland Security spokesman refused to deny that protesters would be under surveillance from the DHS.

The Maryland National Guard issued a Force Protection Advisory on April 11 which warned the National Guard to be on alert during the Tea Party protests because Guardsmen and Guard facilities might become “targets of opportunity.” The contact point for the document was listed as the Antiterrorism Program Coordinator.

The advisory was almost exactly the same as a United States Army Reserve Command Force Protection Advisory that was issued last November before the nationwide End the Fed protests, warning that protesters were congregating across the country to demonstrate against the private Federal Reserve.

During an interview on the Roger Hedgecock Show before last week’s demonstrations, Sean Smith, Assistant Secretary of DHS for Public Affairs, refused to deny that Homeland Security officials would be spying on Tea Party protesters when pressed by Hedgecock.

“Is the department sending people to video or record in any way the Tea Parties?” asked Hedgecock during the interview.

“Um, I can’t speak to sort of things that are law enforcement sensitive. Um, so I can’t speak to any current law enforcement operations,” responded Smith.

FBI surveillance of Tea Party protesters highlights the fact that the architecture of the police state, which was massively expanded under George W. Bush, has not been dismantled or relaxed by an Obama administration that promised “change,” and if anything has only grown bigger.

The Obama administration’s announcement that the illegal warrantless surveillance of American citizens, a program initiated under Bush, will continue and in fact intensify under Obama, is another shining example of the fact that - no matter who is in power and no matter the political persuasion of those being watched - all Americans who have the temerity to exercise constitutional rights are considered dangerous and worthy of being targeted by the federal government with surveillance tools supposedly introduced to fight terrorists.

DHS Document Created During Bush Administration

http://www.prisonplanet.com/dhs-%e2%80%9crightwing-extremism%e2%80%9d-document-created-during-bush-administration.html

DHS “Rightwing Extremism” Document Created During Bush Administration
Kurt Nimmo
Prison Planet.com
Friday, April 17, 2009

After the Department of Homeland Security’s report on “rightwing extremism” was leaked and posted on Infowars and other alternative news sites, so-called conservatives wasted little time blaming the Obama administration for the report.

However, recent evidence reveals the report has nothing to with the supposed “Marxist” (as Michael Savage and others would have it) persuasion of the Obama administration. It is a product created by a government not interested in the artificial divides of the right-left paradigm and concentrates on one primary objective – to demonize and criminalize all effective opposition.

The “Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment” document was produced during the Bush administration, as a quick check of the PDF document’s properties reveals. It was created on January 23, 2007.

In other words, the document is not a reflection of the supposed sinister political coloration of the Obama administration, said by many “conservatives” to be socialist or Marxist. It is a document produced specifically as part of a larger effort to demonize and eliminate all opposition regardless of political persuasion.

An earlier report produced by the Strategic Analysis Group, Homeland Environment and Threat Analysis Division of the DHS concentrated on “leftwing extremism” ( Leftwing Extremists Likely to Increase Use of Cyber Attacks over the Coming Decade), again demonstrating the government does not hold an ideological bias when it comes demonizing groups and individuals opposed to the government.

The latest DHS report is designed to portray anti-government groups as dangerous and potentially violent terrorists and thus scare off and balkanize supporters. It also provides the corporate media with an excuse to polarize important issues and dismiss supporters as either misled or as deluded and violent conspiracy theorists.

In particular, some observers claim the report was released and hyped by the corporate media in order to deligitimize Tea Party demonstrations against government spending and taxes held around the country. For instance, the Huffington Post reports: “If you think the conservative ‘Tea Party’ movement is daunting, take a look at a new report issued by the Department of Homeland Security that says right-wing extremism is on the rise throughout the country.”

As another example of this dismissal of the Tea Party movement by the corporate media, consider the rather disgusting and juvenile effort by CNN’s Anderson Cooper (the Yalie of Vanderbilt lineage who interned for the CIA and may thus be considered a Mockingbird asset). Appearing with David Gergen, a member of the Trilateral Commission and Bilderberg Group (who has romped at Bohemian Grove), Cooper said it is difficult for Republicans to find their voice when they are “teabagging.” The Urban Dictionary defines a “teabagger” as “a person who is unaware that they have said or done something foolish, childlike, noobish, lame, or inconvenient.” It is also used to define a pornographic act.

Around the same time the Bush administration’s DHS produced the “rightwing extremism” document, the FBI received a request to work on a similar report. “Fox News’s Catherine Herridge revealed that the report, along with an earlier report on radicalized left-wing groups, was actually ‘requested by the Bush administration’ but not completed until recently,” Think Progress reported on April 15.

The report, entitled “White Supremacist Recruitment of Military Personnel since 9/11,” begins with an “intelligence assessment” claiming “white supremacist extremist groups have attempted to increase their recruitment of current and former US military personnel.” According to the FBI, these “[p]ost-9/11 activities by current or former military personnel involved in the extremist movement span the range of activities engaged in by their extremist compatriots who lack military experience, and include weapons violations, physical violence, paramilitary training, intelligence collection, drug violations, fraud, threats, and arson,” that is to say all manner of evil and criminal activity.

It is no mistake this “disgruntled military veteran” appears in the DHS document. It is also no mistake the report claims “white supremacist and violent antigrovernment groups” present an ominous threat to Obama, primarily due to his race. The lines separating racist nationalism (a marginal threat at best) and opposition to the government are blurred in the document.

The Council on Foreign Relations reiterated the parameters of the DHS and FBI documents on April 21, 2008. A CFR “bakckgrounder” entitled “Militant Extremists in the United States” touches on both “rightwing” and “leftwing” extremism covered in the DHS and FBI reports. The CFR report states:

The September 11, 2001, attacks in New York and Washington were the most destructive ever on U.S. soil. But law-enforcement officials have also long struggled with a range of U.S.-based terrorist groups. Domestic extremists include hate groups motivated by ultra-conservative ideals that are often anti-Semitic and racially motivated; ecoterrorists who use violence to campaign for greater environmental responsibility; and socialist groups who oppose the World Trade Organization. While homegrown Muslim extremists have proven more lethal in Europe than in the United States, U.S. authorities continue to worry about the prospect of attacks by militant Muslims who are American citizens.

The SPLC and the ADL work closely with the DHS, FBI, and apparently the CFR. The CFR cites materials provided by the Southern Poverty Law Center in its report.

Prior to the CFR “backgrounder,” the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Intelligence Project issued a report claiming in “the 10 years since the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing killed 168 people, roughly 60 right-wing terrorist plots have been uncovered in the United States,” according to U.S.News & World Report. “The plots demonstrate that the Department of Homeland Security still needs to closely monitor right-wing groups, says Heidi Beirich, with the Intelligence Project.”

On March 26, after Alex Jones exposed the MIAC document, the Americans for Legal Immigration PAC (ALIPAC) issued a national advisory to all local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies and officers, along with all DHS Fusion Centers, warning against “any reliance upon faulty and politicized research issued by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and Anti Defamation League (ADL).”

ALIPAC would like to advise all media sources, law enforcement officers and agencies, that the ADL and SPLC are political organizations, with stated political goals and agendas which are contrary to the candidates, political parties, and millions of Americans besmirched by the MIAC documents.

While both the ADL and SPLC actively market themselves and seek roles as advisers to law enforcement and the media, both groups regularly engage in political tactics like those observed in the now withdrawn Missouri Documents. Materials from one or both organizations contributed to this scandal.

The ADL and SPLC are notorious for targeting “rightwing” groups and individuals while the FBI has a long track record of going after “leftwing” groups, as evinced by COINTELPRO (the CIA also participated in this effort under its Operation CHAOS). The FBI also sponsored so-called “right-wing vigilantes,” who were given “funds and information, so long as they confined their attacks to COINTELPRO targets,” consisting mostly of anti-war and Black, American Indian, and Chicano “liberation” groups. (see Brian Glick, COINTELPRO Revisited: Spying & Disruption)

The FBI considered the putative “Militia movement” so threatening (primarily due to its constitutional underpinnings) it orchestrated the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995 in order to demonize and criminalize the movement (and scare off support).

A declaration from alleged Timothy McVeigh co-conspirator Terry Nichols, filed in U.S. District Court in Salt Lake City in 2007, reveals McVeigh was taking orders from Larry Potts, a top FBI official. “Potts was no stranger to anti-government confrontations, having been the lead FBI agent at Ruby Ridge in 1992, which led to the shooting death of Vicki Weaver, the wife of separatist Randy Weaver. Potts also was reportedly involved in the 51-day siege of the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas in 1993, which resulted in a fire that killed 81 Branch Davidian followers,” the Desert Morning News reported on February 22, 2007.

The DHS, FBI, and we can assume military intelligence and the CIA (along with other intelligence agencies), are intimately involved in a highly orchestrated effort to demonize and criminalize activists opposed to the government, in particular the patriot movement.

In the corporate media realm – a corporate media long in the orbit of intelligence agencies – this process is limited to propaganda designed to make constitutionalists and patriots look either absurd or dangerous. The fact the latest document was leaked a few days before the Tea Party demonstrations held around the country is probably not coincidental.

Demonizing and criminalizing the patriot movement – characterizing them as “rightwing extremists” and white supremacists with the help of SPLC and ADL propaganda – is a last ditch effort on the part of the globalists and international bankers in control of the government. Our rulers realize the threat posed by a large grassroots movement – especially one including veterans – demanding less government intrusion in our lives and a return to a constitutionally limited Republic.

NSA Monitored All Communications

http://www.prisonplanet.com/nsa-monitored-all-communications.html

NSA Monitored All Communications
Kurt Nimmo
Prison Planet.com
Thursday, January 22, 2009

On January 21, former National Security Agency analyst Russell Tice appeared Keith Olbermann’s MSNBC show. Tice, who helped expose the NSA’s warrantless wiretapping in December 2005, told Olbermann government programs designed to spy on the American people are more extensive and far reaching than previously admitted. “The National Security Agency had access to all Americans’ communications — faxes, phone calls, and their computer communications,” Tice said. “It didn’t matter whether you were in Kansas, in the middle of the country, and you never made foreign communications at all. They monitored all communications.”

During the Bush administration, it was claimed the intercepts involved foreign communications and the intelligence gathered was integral to the conduct of the so-called global war on terrorism. In order to get around the warrant requirements of FISA, a bill authorizing the use of United States Armed Forces against those supposedly responsible for the attacks on September 11, 2001, was passed (Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Terrorists). The authorization granted Bush the authority to use all “necessary and appropriate force” against those whom he determined “planned, authorized, committed or aided” the September 11th attacks, or those who harbored said persons or groups. AUMF allowed the Bush administration to avoid FISA and Wiretap Act restrictions.

But according to Tice, the NSA program was not limited to alleged al-Qaeda members, as Attorney General Alberto Gonzales claimed at the time, but included “news organizations and reporters and journalists” in the United States. The data “was digitized and put on databases somewhere.” It was not simply journalists, however, the NSA spied on and likely continues to spy now.

“Spying on Americans by the super-secret National Security Agency is not only more widespread than President George W. Bush admits but is part of a concentrated, government-wide effort to gather and catalog information on U.S. citizens, sources close to the administration say,” Doug Thompson wrote for Capitol Hill Blue on December 27, 2005. “Besides the NSA, the Pentagon, Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Department of Homeland Security and dozens of private contractors are spying on millions of Americans 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year.”

According to Thompson and his sources in the government, the “Pentagon has built a massive database of Americans it considers threats, including members of antiwar groups, peace activists and writers opposed to the war in Iraq.” In response to publicity, the Pentagon claimed it was “reviewing the files” to determine if the information was necessary to the conduct of the putative war on terrorism. “Given the military’s legacy of privacy abuses, such vague assurances are cold comfort,” Gene Healy of the CATO Institute told Thompson. “There’s a long and troubling history of military surveillance in this country,” added Healy. “That history suggests that we should loathe allowing the Pentagon access to our personal information.”

In addition to spying by the NSA and the Pentagon, documents released in 2006 revealed the FBI and its Joint Terrorism Task Force monitored and infiltrated several nonviolent activist groups. “Labeling law abiding groups and their members ‘domestic terrorists’ is not only irresponsible, it has a chilling effect on the vibrant tradition of political dissent in this country,” Ann Beeson, Associate Legal Director of the ACLU, said at the time.

According to a Washington Post report, the NSA has turned over information to the Defense Intelligence Agency, FBI, CIA and Department of Homeland Security.

Although the NSA monitors all communications — faxes, phone calls, and computer communications — it is impossible to collect all of this data, according to Tice. “What was done was sort of an ability to look at the metadata … and ferret that information to determine what communications would ultimately be collected,” he told Olbermann.

Obviously, the NSA, FBI, CIA, DIA, and the Department of Homeland Security are not interested in “every conversation I had with my little nephew in upstate New York,” as Olbermann sarcastically put it. They are primarily interested in the communications of “domestic terrorists,” or those opposed to government policies.

Well before president Truman established the NSA in 1952, government cryptologists were spying on Americans under the Armed Forces Security Agency’s Project Shamrock, a program that worked with telegraphic companies to turn over the telegraphic correspondence of Americans to the government. “The NSA kicked its spy campaign into high gear in the 1960s,” writes Earl Ofari Hutchinson. “The FBI demanded that the NSA monitor antiwar activists, civil rights leaders, and drug peddlers. The Senate Select Committee that investigated government domestic spying in 1976 pried open a tiny public window into the scope of NSA spying,” but this window was slammed shut in the name of national security. “The few feeble Congressional attempts over the years to probe NSA domestic spying have gone nowhere. Even though rumors swirled that NSA eyes were riveted on more than a few Americans, Congressional investigators showed no stomach to fight the NSA’s entrenched code of silence.”

More recently, Congress has not only “showed no stomach” when it comes to illegal and unconstitutional spying of Americans, it has worked hand-in-hand with the executive and intelligence agencies to facilitate this process. In essence, the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security serve as a domestic political police force little different than the NKVD of the former Soviet Union. The domestic political police force in the United States, like the NKVD’s Special Board, is interested in “socially dangerous” people, that is to say people opposed to the government.

Unlike Stalin’s NKVD, the FBI and Homeland Security have yet to engage in a Great Purge of arrests, interrogation, torture, imprisonment, and deportation. Bush, however, through the Military Commissions Act and other draconian legislation, has set the stage for a political purge, especially if another false flag attack occurs in the United States. Executive Orders associated with FEMA stand ready to suspend the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and round up “socially dangerous” people and send them to newly constructed KBR concentration camps.

Unfortunately, far too many people naively believe all of this will change under Barack Obama. Mr. Obama, however, is merely a figurehead and window dressing packaged for public consumption, a friendly and smiling face slapped as a deceptive cover on the secret government of the bankers. If and when push comes to shove — another manufactured terrorist attack or civil disturbances related to an economic depression — Obama will pen an executive order sending “socially dangerous” people to concentration camps.

U.S. forces city to give up land for border fence

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/24897.html

U.S. forces Texas city to give up land for border fence
Dave Montgomery
McClatchy Newspapers
January 16, 2008

WASHINGTON — Landowners and political leaders intensified their opposition to a controversial border fence Wednesday after the Justice Department forced the border city of Eagle Pass, Texas, to relinquish 233 acres of land in a prelude to constructing the barrier.

Eagle Pass Mayor Chad Foster assailed the Bush administration's actions as "sneaky underhanded measures" as he responded to a district court order forcing the city to temporarily turn over the land. The Justice Department sought the property to allow government surveyors to begin assessing sites for construction of the fence.

"We haven't figured out what we did to make the big guy mad," Foster said.

A U.S. district judge in Del Rio, Texas, ruled in favor of the Bush administration as the Department of Homeland Security began pressing ahead with more than 100 lawsuits to begin seizing property from holdout landowners in Texas, Arizona and California in its efforts to construct hundreds of miles of fencing by the end of the year.

DHS spokeswoman Laura Keehner stressed that the lawsuits are designed to give the government temporary access to the land for surveying and site assessment in preparation for construction. At least some of the property, she said, may not wind up as a site for the fence.

"This is just the first step," she said. "There are certain locations where we need to access and survey the land in order to determine where the fence should be built and if so what type."

The DHS is under a congressional mandate to have 670 miles of fencing in place by the end of the year to toughen security on the porous southwestern border. The plan calls for roughly 400 miles of new fencing that will be added to existing barriers.

After months of discussions with municipal officials and protesting landowners, the DHS toughened its stance in December by announcing that it planned to move forward with condemnation proceedings to gain access to the property. The Justice Department suit handled by District Judge Alia Moses Ludlum marked the start of that process.

Foster said Eagle Pass officials were stunned by the development and had no advance notice of the Justice Department intentions. City officials, he said, had been working amicably with the Border Patrol, a branch of the DHS, to help improve enforcement against illegal immigrants.

"We don't know why we got sued," Foster said. He and leaders from other Texas border cities discussed their options in a teleconference but have no plans to file a countersuit, he said. The municipal leaders, he said, hope to meet with Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff later this month.

The leader of CASA, a coalition of border area residents and property owners, said the lawsuit likely would prompt the group to step up its opposition to the fence.

"It's outrageous," said Elizabeth Garcia of Brownsville, Texas. "They're taking away from the people their basic rights."

The umbrella group, which represents 12 organizations and includes at least three holdout landowners, will consult its attorneys to map out possible recourse. Members of the coalition, who have held several demonstrations, also plan "door-to-door" visits in cities along the border to enlist more opponents to the fence.

Rep. Henry Cuellar, a Democrat from the border city of Laredo, Texas, said he understands the anger and frustration along the border but said the DHS is responding to legislation that Congress passed requiring fencing along the border.

"I support the border communities," he said, "but the law's the law."

Mike Friel, a spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection, said government planners are approaching the project with "a sense of urgency" but must first complete environmental and engineering assessments before beginning construction. He declined to speculate on the construction start date.

e-mail: dmontgomery@mcclatchydc.com

New ID Rules May Complicate Air Travel

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20080111/D8U3VK8O0.html

New ID Rules May Complicate Air Travel
Jan 11, 2008
By DEVLIN BARRETT

WASHINGTON (AP) - Millions of air travelers may find going through airport security much more complicated this spring, as the Bush administration heads toward a showdown with state governments over post-Sept. 11 rules for new driver's licenses.

By May, the dispute could leave millions of people unable to use their licenses to board planes, but privacy advocates called that a hollow threat by federal officials.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, who was unveiling final details of the REAL ID Act's rules on Friday, said that if states want their licenses to remain valid for air travel after May 2008, those states must seek a waiver indicating they want more time to comply with the legislation.

Chertoff said that for any state which doesn't seek such a waiver by May, residents of that state will have to use a passport or certain types of federal border-crossing cards if they want to avoid a vigorous secondary screening at airport security.

"The last thing I want to do is punish citizens of a state who would love to have a REAL ID license but can't get one," Chertoff said. "But in the end, the rule is the rule as passed by Congress."

The plan's chief critic, the American Civil Liberties Union, called Chertoff's deadline a bluff - and urged state governments to call him on it.

"Are they really prepared to shut those airports down? Which is what effectively would happen if the residents of those states are going to have to go through secondary scrutiny," said Barry Steinhardt, director of the ACLU's technology and liberty program. "This is a scare tactic."

So far, 17 states have passed legislation or resolutions objecting to the REAL ID Act's provisions, many due to concerns it will cost them too much to comply. The 17, according to the ACLU, are Arkansas, Colorado, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Maine, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee and Washington.

Maine officials said Friday they were unsure if their own state law even allows them to ask for a waiver.

"It certainly seems to be an effort by the federal government to create compliance with REAL ID whether states have an interest in doing so or not," said Don Cookson, spokesman for the Maine secretary of state's office.

The Sept. 11 attacks were the main motivation for the changes: The hijacker-pilot who flew into the Pentagon, Hani Hanjour, had four driver's licenses and ID cards from three states.

The Homeland Security Department and other officials say the only way to ensure an ID is safe is to check it against secure government data; critics such as the ACLU say that creates a system that is more likely to be infiltrated and have its personal data pilfered.

Congress passed the REAL ID law in 2005, but the effort has been delayed by opposition from states worried about the cost and civil libertarians upset about what they believe are invasions of privacy.

Under the rules announced Friday, Americans born after Dec. 1, 1964, will have to get more secure driver's licenses in the next six years, over which time the new requirements would gradually be phased in.

A key deadline would come in 2011, when federal authorities hope all states will be in compliance, and the regulations would not take full effect for all Americans until 2017.

To make the plan more appealing to cost-conscious states, federal authorities drastically reduced the expected cost from $14.6 billion to $3.9 billion, a 73 percent decline, said Homeland Security officials familiar with the plan.

By 2014, anyone seeking to board an airplane or enter a federal building would have to present a REAL ID-compliant card, with the notable exception of those older than 50, Homeland Security officials said.

The over-50 exemption was created to give states more time to get everyone new licenses, and officials say the risk of someone in that age group being a terrorist, illegal immigrant or con artist is much less. By 2017, even those over 50 must have a REAL ID-compliant card to board a plane.

Among other details of the REAL ID plan:

_The traditional driver's license photograph would be taken at the beginning of the application instead of the end so that if someone is rejected for failure to prove identity and citizenship, the applicant's photo would be kept on file and checked if that person tried to con the system again.

_The cards will have three layers of security measures but will not contain microchips as some had expected. States will be able to choose from a menu which security measures they will put in their cards.

_After Social Security and immigration status checks become nationwide practice, officials plan to move on to more expansive security checks. State DMV offices would be required to verify birth certificates; check with other states to ensure an applicant doesn't have more than one license; and check with the State Department to verify applicants who use passports to get a driver's license.
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On the Net:

Homeland Security Department: http://www.dhs.gov/

ACLU Web site opposing REAL ID: http://www.realnightmare.org/

Senate Bill 1959

http://www.newstarget.com/z022308.html

November 28 2007
Senate Bill 1959 to Criminalize Thoughts, Blogs, Books and Free Speech Across America
by Mike Adams

The end of Free Speech in America has arrived at our doorstep. It's a new law called the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act, and it is worded in a clever way that could allow the U.S. government to arrest and incarcerate any individual who speaks out against the Bush Administration, the war on Iraq, the Department of Homeland Security or any government agency (including the FDA). The law has already passed the House on a traitorous vote of 405 to 6, and it is now being considered in the Senate where a vote is imminent. All over the internet, intelligent people who care about freedom are speaking out against this extremely dangerous law: Philip Giraldi at the Huffington Post, Declan McCullagh at CNET's News.com, Kathryn Smith at OpEdNews.com, and of course Alex Jones at PrisonPlanet.com

This bill is the beginning of the end of Free Speech in America. If it passes, all the information sources you know and trust could be shut down and their authors imprisoned. NewsTarget could be taken offline and I could be arrested as a "terrorist." Jeff Rense at http://www.rense.com/ could be labeled a "terrorist" and arrested. Byron Richards, Len Horowitz, Paul Craig Roberts, Greg Palast, Ron Paul and even Al Gore could all be arrested, silenced and incarcerated. This is not an exaggeration. It is a literal reading of the law, which you can check yourself here:

http://thomas.loc.gov/home/gpoxmlc110/h1955_rfs.xml

The bill states:

‘...ideologically based violence’ means the use, planned use, or threatened use of force or violence by a group or individual to promote the group or individual’s political, religious, or social beliefs...

Note that this means the "planned use of force to promote a political or social belief" would be considered an act of terrorism. This all hinges on the definition of "force," of course. Based on the loose use of logic in Washington these days, and the slippery interpretation of the meaning of words, "force" could mean:

• A grassroots campaign to barrage Congress with faxes
• A non-violent street protest
• A letter-writing campaign that deluges the Senate with too much mail
• A sit-in protest that blocks access to a business or organization
• A grassroots e-mail campaign that overloads the e-mail servers of any government department or agency

You get the idea. "Force" could be defined as practically anything. And since the "planned use of force" would be considered a criminal act of terrorism, anyone who simply thinks about a grassroots action campaign would be engaged in terrorist acts.

If you stopped someone on the street and handed them a Bible, for example, this could be considered an act of terrorism ("...use of force to promote the individual's religious beliefs...")

If you sent a barrage of angry letters to Washington about global warming and the destruction of the environment by the U.S. military, this could also be considered an act of terrorism ("...to promote the individual's political beliefs...")

If you believe in same-sex marriage and you wrote a letter threatning a sit-in protest in front of your state's capitol building, this could also be considered an act of terrorism, even if you never carried it out! ("...planned use of force to promote a social belief...")

The United States is on the fast track to fascism, and the Congress is working right alongside this nation's traitorous leaders to criminalize any thoughts, words or speeches that disagree with current government policies regarding war, terrorism, domestic surveillance and civil liberties. Simply speaking out against the war on Iraq could soon be labeled a crime. Merely thinking thoughts against the war on Iraq could be considered a criminal act.

Must-see video: Naomi Wolf's lecture on 10 steps to fascism

There's a video lecture you simply MUST watch. It's by Naomi Wolf, author of The End of America. She covers this topic with great elegance and a deep understanding of history. See her video on YouTube at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjALf12PAWc

In her lecture and book, Naomi reveals the ten steps to fascist, then reveals how the United States of America is pursuing all ten! This S.1959 legislation, the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act, represents one of the ten steps to achieve a fascist state!

It is designed to squash all opposition to the State's ongoing march towards blatant fascism, where secret police and secret prisons dominate the law enforcement landscape, stripping U.S. citizens of all civil liberties and Constitutional protections.

Thoughtcrimes are about to become a reality in the United States of America, and Congress is pushing this through as quickly as possible so that each individual member of Congress can claim that he or she is "against terrorism." But this bill doesn't merely target terrorism: It targets anyone who speaks or even thinks thoughts against the U.S. federal government.

With this bill, the U.S. government is officially labeling the People of the United States as criminals. It is drawing a line in the sand and stating that from now on, it's the Government vs. the People.

If we don't stop this bill from becoming law, we are lost as a nation.

There is no turning back from tyranny once the government turns its own citizens into criminals, enforcing only the thoughts, ideas, words and speeches that it approves or tolerates. Everything is at stake here!

Take action now, or lose your freedoms forever

If you live in the U.S., it is urgent that you call your senators right now and voice your strong opposition against this extremely dangerous law.

Here are the phone numbers for the U.S. Senate switchboard:

1-877-851-6437
1-800-833-6354
1-888-355-3588
1-866-220-0044
1-866-808-0065
1-877-762-8762
1-866-340-9281
1-800-862-5530

How to do this:

1) Make sure you know the names of your Senators.
2) Call the U.S. Senate switchboard using one of the numbers above.
3) Ask to speak to the offices of your Senators.
4) Tell them you are strongly opposed to S. 1959, the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act
5) Ask for their fax number.
6) Follow up your phone call with a written, signed letter that you fax to your Senators.

Stopping this bill from becoming law is the single most important thing all Americans can do right now. If this becomes law, all free speech about health freedom, the crimes of the FDA, the crimes of the Bush Administration, America's role in global warming and any other topics could all be criminalized. YOU could be labeled a terrorist, kidnapped by government thugs, taken from your home, thrown in a secret prison, denied access to legal representation, denied due process and essentially "disappeared" into a system of such corruption and evil that it now begins to blatantly mirror Nazi Germany.

Think it couldn't happen here? It's happening right now! This is exactly how it happened in Nazi Germany. First, burn the Reichstag and blame it on the "enemy." Pass new police state laws. Disarm the people. Spread fear. Erect secret prisons and secret police. Call anyone who disagrees with you a "traitor." Control the mainstream media. Sound familiar? This is all happening right now in the United States of Amerika, and if we don't work to stop it, this nation will rapidly devolve into a fascist police state where no one is truly free.

We are but a few small steps away from it right now. All it would take is one dirty bomb in a major U.S. city. Bush would declare Martial Law and take over the National Guard. Troops on the streets. Anyone who writes a blog against the government would be arrested. Authors of "alternative" books would be kidnapped and have their books burned on the street. It could all happen at the stroke of a pen. The infrastructure for tyranny is in place right now, just waiting to be invoked.

Our best weapons: Non-violent protest and speaking the truth

How can we fight back against this onslaught of tyranny? We must use what remaining free speech freedoms we have right now to alert our fellow citizens to what's happening. We must rise up and tell the truth while urging our representatives in Washington to resist the temptation to vote for more "anti-terrorism" legislation that only works to enslave the American people.

We must use our phones, faxes, emails and blogs to rally our friends, family members and anyone who will listen to oppose these police state laws, and we must organize mass (peaceful) protests against this government that is attempting to marginalize the rights and freedoms of our People.

We must not be lulled into a sense of false security by the purveyors of hatred and fear -- the Sean Hannitys, Rush Limbaughs and Bill O'Reillys of the world. Instead, we must listen to the voices of freedom. In terms of the upcoming election for U.S. President, there is only one candidate that actually believes in freedom: Ron Paul. He needs your support to win:
http://www.ronpaul2008.com/

All the other candidates are nothing more than tyrants of different political affiliations. Ron Paul is the only candidate that truly understands the fundamentals of freedom. That's why he's the only real choice for our next President. Can you imagine what Hillary Clinton would do with the police state powers that Bush has now created? That's the danger of all laws that centralize power in Washington: It's not necessarily what today's President will do with them, but what some future President will do with them.

That's why it's never good enough to say, "Well, we intend to only apply these laws to terrorists and not to U.S. citizens at home." That may be the intention right NOW, but virtually all such laws creep into areas of enforcement for which they were never intended. Just look at the application of RICO laws which were originally designed to fight organized crime operations but are now applied to virtually anyone (and yet they are never applied to Big Pharma, which operates almost exactly like organized crime!). All these anti-terrorism laws run the danger of expanding in enforcement to the point where they are applied against the People of this country. At first, it's only illegal for "terrorists" to think thought crimes, but before long, it's illegal for anyone to think those same thoughts. That when the domestic arrests of authors, journalists, bloggers and thought leaders will kick off, and the country will plunge itself into outright tyrannical fascism.

Again, we're on the track right now. This is happening, folks. You're LIVING through an amazing chapter of history right now. You're actually witnessing the downfall of a free nation and the rise of a superpower fascist state. You're actually part of it.

When it's all over, will you look back and realize you did nothing? Or will you now take a stand against tyranny and oppose these dangerous laws and lawmakers who threaten the Constitutional freedoms of you and your children?