"ground zero Wall St."
A R C H I V E
linked articles prone to be ephemeral
     



9.11.02 NYC Times Square The war against terrorism is a fraud. After 3 weeks' bombing, not a single terrorist implicated in the attacks on America has been caught or killed in Afghanistan. Instead, one of the poorest, most stricken nations has been terrorised by the most powerful to the point where U.S. pilots have run out of dubious "military" targets and are now destroying mud houses, a hospital, Red Cross warehouses, lorries carrying refugees. Unlike the relentless pictures from NY, we are seeing almost nothing of this. Tony Blair has yet to tell us what the violent death of children, 7 in one family, has to do with Osama bin Laden.

Why are cluster bombs being used? The British public should know about these bombs, which the RAF also uses. They spray hundreds of bomblets that have only one purpose; to kill & maim people. Those that do not explode lie on the ground like landmines, waiting for people to step on them. If ever a weapon was designed specifically for acts of terrorism, this is it. I've seen the victims of American cluster weapons in other countries, such as the Laotian toddler who picked one up and had her right leg & face blown off. Be assured this is now happening in Afghanistan in your name.

None of those directly involved in 9.11.01 was Afghani. Most were Saudis, who apparently did their planning and training in Germany and the U.S. The camps which the Taliban allowed bin Laden to use were emptied weeks ago. Moreover, the Taliban itself is a creation of the Americans and the British. In the 1980s, the tribal army that produced them was funded by the CIA and trained by the SAS to fight the Russians. The hypocrisy does not stop there. When the Taliban took Kabul in 1996, Washington said nothing. Why? Because Taliban leaders were soon on their way to Houston, Texas, to be entertained by executives of the oil company, Unocal. With secret US govt approval, the company offered them a generous cut of the profits of the oil and gas pumped through a pipeline that the Americans wanted to build from Soviet central Asia through Afghanistan. A US diplomat said: "The Taliban will probably develop like the Saudis did." He explained that Afghanistan would become an American oil colony, there would be huge profits for the West, no democracy and the legal persecution of women. "We can live with that," he said. Although the deal fell through, it remains an urgent priority of the GWBush administration which is steeped in the oil industry. Bush's concealed agenda is to exploit the oil & gas reserves in the Caspian basin, the greatest source of untapped fossil fuel on earth and enough, according to one estimate, to meet America's voracious energy needs for a generation. Only if the pipeline runs through Afghanistan can the Americans hope to control it.

So, not surprisingly, Sec.State Powell is now referring to "moderate" Taliban, who will join an American-sponsored "loose federation" to run Afghanistan. The "war on terrorism" is a cover for this: a means of achieving American strategic aims that lie behind the flag-waving facade of great power. The Royal Marines, who will do the real dirty work, will be little more than mercenaries for Washington's imperial ambitions, not to mention the extraordinary pretensions of Blair himself. Having made Britain a target for terrorism with his bellicose "shoulder to shoulder" with Bush nonsense, he is now prepared to send troops to a battlefield where the goals are so uncertain that even the Chief of the Defence Staff says the conflict "could last 50 years". The irresponsibility of this is breathtaking; the pressure on Pakistan alone could ignite an unprecedented crisis across the Indian sub-continent. Having reported many wars, I am always struck by the absurdity of effete politicians eager to wave farewell to young soldiers, but who themselves would not say boo to a Taliban goose. In the days of gunboats, our imperial leaders covered their violence in the "morality" of their actions. Blair is no different. Like them, his selective moralising omits the most basic truth. Nothing justified 9.11.01 killing of innocent people, and nothing justifies the killing of innocent people anywhere else. By killing innocents in Afghanistan, Blair & Bush stoop to the level of criminal outrage. Once you cluster bomb, "mistakes" & "blunders" are a pretence. Murder is murder, regardless of whether you crash a plane into a building or order & collude with it from the Oval Office & Downing Street.

If Blair was really opposed to all forms of terrorism, he would get Britain out of the arms trade. On the day of the twin towers attack, an "arms fair", selling weapons of terror (like cluster bombs & missiles) to assorted tyrants & human rights abusers, opened in London's Docklands with the full backing of the Blair govt. Britain's biggest arms customer is the medieval Saudi regime, which beheads heretics and spawned the religious fanaticism of the Taliban. If he really wanted to demonstrate "the moral fibre of Britain", Blair would do everything in his power to lift the threat of violence in those parts of the world where there is great & justifiable grievance & anger. He would do more than make gestures; he would demand that Israel ends its illegal occupation of Palestine and withdraw to its borders prior to the 1967 war, as ordered by the Security Council, of which Britain is a permanent member. He would call for an end to the genocidal blockade which the UN, in reality America & Britain, has imposed on the suffering people of Iraq for more than a decade, causing the deaths of half a million children under the age of 5. That's more deaths of infants every month than the number killed in the World Trade Center.

There are signs that Washington is about to extend its current "war" to Iraq; yet unknown to most of us, almost every day RAF & American aircraft already bomb Iraq. There are no headlines. There is nothing on the TV news. This terror is the longest-running Anglo-American bombing campaign since World War Two. The Wall Street Journal reported that the US & Britain faced a "dilemma" in Iraq, because "few targets remain". "We're down to the last outhouse," said a US official. That was 2 years ago, and they're still bombing. The cost to the British taxpayer? £800 million so far. According to an internal UN report, covering a five-month period, 41% of the casualties are civilians. In northern Iraq, I met a woman whose husband & 4 children were among the deaths listed in the report. He was a shepherd, who was tending his sheep with his elderly father & his children when two planes attacked them, each making a sweep. It was an open valley; there were no military targets nearby. "I want to see the pilot who did this," said the widow at the graveside of her entire family. For them, there was no service in St Paul's Cathedral with the Queen in attendance; no rock concert with Paul McCartney. The tragedy of the Iraqis, and the Palestinians, and the Afghanis is a truth that is the very opposite of their caricatures in much of the Western media. Far from being the terrorists of the world, the overwhelming majority of the Islamic peoples of the MidEast & south Asia have been its victims largely of the West's exploitation of precious natural resources in or near their countries.

There is no war on terrorism. If there was, the Royal Marines & the SAS would be storming the beaches of Florida, where more CIA-funded terrorists, ex-Latin American dictators & torturers, are given refuge than anywhere on earth. There is, however, a continuing war of the powerful against the powerless, with new excuses, new hidden agendas, new lies. Before another child dies violently, or quietly from starvation, before new fanatics are created in both the east & the west, it is time for the people of Britain to make their voices heard and to stop this fraudulent war and to demand the kind of bold, imaginative non-violent initiatives that require real political courage. The other day, the parents of Greg Rodriguez, a young man who died in the World Trade Center, said this: "We read enough of the news to sense that our govt is heading in the direction of violent revenge, with the prospect of sons, daughters, parents, friends in distant lands dying, suffering, and nursing further grievances against us. "It is not the way to go … not in our son's name."

MotherGoose Parade 'reaffirmation' of American way
11.15.01   Sophy Chaffee Carlsbad, CA SD UT

55th annual Mother Goose Parade   619.444.8712
12:30pm Sun. along E.Main St, El Cajon CA free

In January, it seemed natural for organizers of the annual Mother Goose Parade to select "Mother Goose Salutes America's Military" as the theme for the 2001 parade, given the board of directors' strong ties to the military and their patriotic bent. After the attacks of Sept. 11, the decision took on a whole new significance. "The whole country is looking for something military, probably because a lot of events have been canceled," said parade exec. dir. Sandy Maynes, who noted that interest in the event has swelled, both in San Diego & the Southwest.

Approximately 400,000 people are expected at the parade, the second-largest in the western U.S. after the Rose Parade. "(The parade) is incorporating Thanksgiving, Christmas and America all in one day. People are looking for a reaffirmation, a reinforcement that all's going to be right with our world."

Robert Modrzejewski, one of three Congressional Medal of Honor recipients to march in the parade, concurs. "I think parades now are going to take on more meaning. Patriotism seems to be back in vogue. It gives the community a sense of being able to do something." While some suggested to Maynes that the event be canceled for security reasons, she said the board was resolute in marching forward. "No, we are not going to do what these terrorists want," she said. "We are not going to back down and run and hide because we're scared. We're going to do this because more and more the community needs this."

While some of the military personnel originally slated to participate were called to war, the military presence will still be strong. Among the military expected to participate are Marines re-enacting the raising of the flag at Iwo Jima, several color guards, the U.S. Navy Band Southwest, the Buffalo Soldiers, battalions of local servicemen and women, and a flyover by the Sons of the Confederate Soldiers aircraft. Also on hand will be look-alikes of Abraham Lincoln, John Wayne, Buffalo Bill, the Statue of Liberty and other patriotic figures.

For one of those playing an American icon, the highlight of the parade will be seeing parade Grand Marshal John Finn, who at 92 is the oldest living Congressional Medal of Honor winner. "His story just brings tears to your eyes," said Gary Marchinke, who will play Uncle Sam. During the attack on the Naval Station at Hawaii's Kaneohe Bay on Dec. 7, 1941, Finn shot a machine gun at enemy aircraft from a completely exposed section of a parking ramp. Although he was wounded several times, Finn would not leave his post until ordered to get medical attention. (Modrzejewski and the other medal of Honor recipient, John Baca, both served in Vietnam.)

The parade, founded in 1947 by businessman Thomas Wigton to give El Cajon children an early Christmas present, will also feature traditional holiday fare. Santa Claus, the Budweiser Clydesdales, Belgian horse brigades, floats, nursery-rhyme characters, the parade queen and her court and other longtime participants will travel down the 2.2-mile parade route. "It's time to lift spirits, especially around the holiday," said Linda Marchinke, who will play Betsy Ross (and is indeed married to "Uncle Sam"). "We do have a lot to be thankful for."

"Baa, baa black sheep, have you any wool?  
Yes sir, yes sir, Three bags full.  
One for my master. One for my dame.  
But none for the little boy who cries in the lane."  
  cit. father Zopilote
    No glory in unjust war on the weak
    10.14.01   Barbara Kingsolver LATimes
    auth. The Poisonwood Bible, Prodigal Summer
TUCSON   I cannot find the glory in this day. When I picked up the newspaper and saw "America Strikes Back!" blazed boastfully across it in letters I swear were 10 inches tall … , my heart sank. We've answered one terrorist act with another, raining death on the most war-scarred, terrified populace that ever crept to a doorway and looked out. The small plastic boxes of food we also dropped are a travesty. It is reported that these are untouched, of course; Afghanis have spent their lives learning terror of anything hurled at them from the sky. Meanwhile, the genuine food aid on which so many depended for survival has been halted by the war. We've killed whoever was too poor or crippled to flee, plus 4 humanitarian aid workers who coordinated the removal of land mines from the beleaguered Afghan soil. That office is now rubble, and so is my heart.

I am going to have to keep pleading against this madness. I'll get scolded for it, I know. I've already been called every name in the Rush Limbaugh handbook: traitor, sinner, naive, liberal, peacenik, whiner. I'm told I am dangerous because I might get in the way of this holy project we've undertaken to keep dropping heavy objects from the sky until we've wiped out every last person who could potentially hate us. Some people are praying for my immortal soul, and some have offered to buy me a one-way ticket out of the country, to anywhere. I accept these gifts with a gratitude equal in measure to the spirit of generosity in which they were offered. People threaten vaguely, "She wouldn't feel this way if her child had died in the war!" I feel this way precisely because I can imagine that horror. More subtle adversaries simply say I am ridiculous, a dreamer who takes a child's view of the world, imagining it can be made better than it is. The more sophisticated approach, they suggest, is to accept that we are all on a jolly road trip down the maw of catastrophe, so shut up and drive.

I fight that as if I'm drowning. When I get to feeling I am an army of one standing out on the plain waving my ridiculous little flag of hope, I call up a friend or two. We remind ourselves in plain English that the last time we got to elect somebody, the majority of us, by a straight popular-vote count, did not ask for the guy who is currently telling us we will win this war and not be "misunderestimated." We aren't standing apart from the crowd, we are the crowd. There are millions of us, surely, who know how to look life in the eye, however awful things get, and still try to love it back. It is not naive to propose alternatives to war. We could be the kindest nation on Earth, inside amp; out. I look at the bigger picture and see that many nations with fewer resources than ours have found solutions to problems that seem to baffle us.
I'd like an end to corporate welfare so we could put that money into ending homelessness, as many other nations have done before us. I would like a humane health-care system organized along the lines of Canada's. I'd like the efficient

INS restructures after visa foul-up ¹
Immigration approved hijackers' visas after 9.11.01
3.15.02   AP   more forewarning   &185;

Immigration & Naturalization Service reassigned 4 midlevel employees Friday in the wake of the agency issuing visa approval notices for 2 9.11.01 hijackers 6 months afterwards. Immigration commissioner James Ziglar said the breakdown that led to the notices being issued "is unacceptable and will not be allowed." No one was fired. Pres. GWBush said Thu. that he was "stunned, and not happy" when he learned that the student visas for Mohamed Atta & Marwan Al-Shehhi. "Let me put it another way: I was plenty hot," he said. Bush said he was unhappy that the men remained in the immigration pipeline even though the names on the forms were widely known. He said Ziglar was responsible for "this embarrassing disclosure," but should be given a chance to rectify the problem. "His responsibility is to reform the INS; let's give him time to do so. He hasn't been there that long," Bush said. Friday AttyGen Ashcroft asked Congress to give him back authority to fire INS employees for violating Justice Dept rules. That power was not included in the current budget proposal. "It is essential that I have the authority to quickly discipline or terminate individuals for acts of negligence, mismanagement or disregard for Justice Dept policies," Ashcroft said.

INS changes affecting 4 career employees came just 2 days after President Bush ordered Ashcroft to investigate the latest embarrassment to hit the beleaguered agency. Officials did not identify the four employees reassigned, citing privacy laws, but provided the names for their replacements. Ashcroft has asked the Justice Dept inspector general to investigate what happened. The AG Thu. threatened to "hold individuals accountable," and called this week's incident "inexcusable, in my judgment." On Monday, Huffman Aviation in Venice FL received student visa approval forms for Atta & Al-Shehhi, who had trained at Huffman in 2000 & early 2001 and applied for visas to attend technical schools. Immigration officials have said the visa for Atta, an Egyptian, was approved in July and the visa for Al-Shehhi, from the United Arab Emirates, the following month. The paperwork received by the flight school was a routine repeat of notifications the INS had given the men and the school last summer.

Immigration agency spokesman Russ Bergeron said Thu. that the INS had no information "regarding these people and their link to terrorism" when the visas were granted. Critics maintained that the INS still had abundant reason to deny Atta's visa request, however. He had left the country and re-entered at least 3 times on previous expired visas; the third time, in January 2001, he aroused the suspicions of immigration officials who pulled him aside and questioned him for an hour. In addition, a warrant was out for his arrest because he had skipped a court hearing in May in Broward County FL where he had been arrested for driving without a license.

public-transit system of Paris in my city. I'd like us to consume energy at the modest level that Europeans do, and then go them one better. I'd like a govt that subsidizes renewable energy sources instead of forcefully patrolling the globe to protect oil gluttony. Because, make no mistake, oil gluttony is what got us into this holy war, and it's a deep tar pit. I would like us to sign the Kyoto agreement today, and reduce our fossil-fuel emissions with legislation that will ease us into safer, less gluttonous, sensibly reorganized lives. If this were the face we showed the world, and the model we helped bring about elsewhere, I expect we could get along with a military budget the size of Iceland's.

How can I take anything but a child's view of a war in which men are acting like children? What they're serving is not justice, it's simply vengeance. Adults bring about justice using the laws of common agreement. Uncivilized criminals are still held accountable through civilized institutions; we abolished stoning long ago. The World Court and the entire Muslim world stand ready to judge Osama bin Laden & his accessories. If we were to put a few billion dollars into food, health care and education instead of bombs, you can bet we'd win over enough friends to find out where he's hiding. And I'd like to point out, since no one else has, the Taliban is an alleged accessory, not the perpetrator, a legal point quickly cast aside in the rush to find a sovereign target to bomb. The word "intelligence" keeps cropping up, but I feel like I'm standing on a playground where the little boys are all screaming at each other, "He started it!" and throwing rocks that keep taking out another eye, another tooth. I keep looking around for somebody's mother to come on the scene saying, "Boys! Boys! Who started it cannot possibly be the issue here. People are getting hurt."

I am somebody's mother, so I will say that now: The issue is, people are getting hurt. We need to take a moment's time out to review the monstrous waste of an endless cycle of retaliation. The biggest weapons don't win this one, guys. When there are people on Earth willing to give up their lives in hatred and use our own domestic airplanes as bombs, it's clear that we can't out-technologize them. You can't beat cancer by killing every cell in the body; or you could, I guess, but the point would be lost. This is a war of who can hate the most. There is no limit to that escalation. It will only end when we have the guts to say it really doesn't matter who started it, and begin to try and understand, then alter the forces that generate hatred. We have always been at war, though the citizens of the U.S. were mostly insulated from what that really felt like until 9.11.01. Then, suddenly, we began to say, "The world has changed. This is something new." If there really is something new under the sun in the way of war, some alternative to the way people have always died when heavy objects are dropped on them from above, then please, in the name of heaven, I would like to see it now.

Changes at INS include:

  •   Renee Harris, former acting deputy chief for the Border Patrol, becomes acting dir. for intl affairs.
    model New World Order cops
  •   Johnny Williams becomes executive associate commissioner for field operations. He had been regional director for the western region.
  •   Janis Sposato, former special counsel to the commissioner, becomes assistant deputy executive associate commissioner for immigration services.
  •   Michael Cronin was named assistant commissioner for inspections. He had been acting executive associate commissioner in the office of programs.

    "Fetters imposed on liberty at home have ever been forged out of the weapons provided for defense against real, pretended, or imaginary dangers from abroad."
    James Madison
      • martial law
      Govt threatens police takeover
      2.15.01   World Briefs Detroit News
    LONDON   With muggings & violent crime soaring, the govt warned police chiefs Thursday that it will intervene if they fail to halt the growing lawlessness on British streets. Home Sec. David Blunkett, who is responsible for law and order, said the govt will use proposed new powers to take over local police forces losing the battle against crime.
      Operation TIPS coming Aug. 2002. Terrorist Information & Prevention System nationwide pgm giving millions of American truckers, letter carriers, train conductors, ship captains, utility employees, and others a formal way to report suspicious terrorist activity.
      Al Martin
    Project of U.S. Justice Dept, will begin as pilot program in 10 cities that will be selected. Involving one million workers in pilot stage, will be national reporting system that allows these workers, whose routines make them well-positioned to recognize unusual events, to report suspicious activity. Every participant in this new program will be given an Operation TIPS information sticker to be affixed to the cab of their vehicle or placed in some other public location so that the toll-free reporting number is readily available. Everywhere in America, a concerned worker can call a toll-free number and be connected directly to a hotline routing calls to the proper law enforcement agency or other responder organizations when appropriate.

    Ridge's refusal to testify is under fire
    Senators seek mtg w/ Bush; hint ties to defense bill
    3.15.02       AP

    2 senators asked Pres.GWBush on Friday for a meeting to discuss Homeland Security Dir. Ridge's refusal to testify before Congress. One of the senators went even further in the latest chapter in the dispute over the control of information that has pitted lawmakers from both parties against the White House. Appropriations Committee chair Robert Byrd D-WV linked answers from Ridge to the speed Congress could write next year's defense bill. In a speech in N.Carolina Fri., Bush said he expects lawmakers to make passage of his military request "the first order of business so we can plan for this war." "To those who ask Congress for quick action, we say we need answers to questions," Byrd said in an interview. "And the results will be faster and forthcoming if Congress can have answers to its questions from people like Mr. Ridge."
    White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe would not say whether Bush would meet with the senators. He said Byrd has so far rebuffed administration efforts to negotiate the dispute. "We're seeking ways to meet any legitimate congressional need for information from Gov. Ridge with the president's need to be able to receive confidential advice," Johndroe said. Early this month, Ridge rejected an initial request from Byrd and Sen. Ted Stevens R-AK, top Appropriations Committee Republican, that he testify before the panel. White House officials say Ridge is only an adviser to Bush, not a head of an agency that implements policy.

    The 2 branches have also clashed over which business executives advised VP Cheney's energy task force, and a lack of familiarity on Capitol Hill with Bush's secret dispatching of federal officials outside Washington in case an attack incapacitates the govt. In their letter to Bush, Byrd & Stevens said they want more information on the administration's request that spending on domestic security double next year to $38 billion. They said Ridge has more power than the ordinary presidential adviser, coordinating spending by more than 80 federal agencies. "We request the opportunity to meet with you to explain our intentions directly, in order to perform our oversight functions while respecting your views on the appropriate role & prerogatives of the executive branch," the senators wrote. White House officials have said Ridge has given closed-door briefings to lawmakers. But in the interview, Byrd said he has not requested or received one. "What is there about this that is so secretive?" Byrd said. "Why shouldn't he appear before the committee that appropriates money and answer questions asked of him by the peoples' representatives?" Byrd said such portions of such a meeting could be closed to the public if the information was sensitive. "The president said he wanted to change the tone in Washington. And this is the same old tone, or worse, denying the right of Congress to have information it needs to do its work," Byrd said.

    Asked if he would subpoena Ridge to testify, Byrd said, "I hope it never comes to anything like that. I'm not seeking confrontation." Byrd also contested Bush's statement that quickly approving the defense budget would show Congress understands that the war against terrorism will be a long, hard effort. Bush has requested a $48 billion increase that would bring next year's Pentagon budget to $379 billion, which would be one of the biggest defense boosts in years. He noted that Congress approved an emergency $40 billion package for use against terrorism 3 days after 9.11.01 "Congress will be there, and we don't have to have instructions from anybody," Byrd said. "But at the same time, Congress will not issue a blank check, especially when there is adequate time to determine if and when the check is needed," he said, adding, "It is not unpatriotic to ask questions."

    Calif. town rebels against Patriot Act
    5.17.03   Michelle Locke AP

    Arcata, CA   More than 100 cities and one state have passed resolutions condemning the USA Patriot Act, saying it gives the federal government too much snooping power. But in this liberal fold of Northern California's Redwood Curtain, a simple denouncement just doesn't go far enough. To cooperate with the act, the City Council says, is criminal.
    Starting this month, a new city ordinance would impose a fine of $57 on any city dept head who voluntarily complies with investigations or arrests under the aegis of the Patriot Act, anti-terrorism bill passed after 9.11.01. Arcata's law is mostly symbolic, since federal law trumps any local ordinance. Still, the notion of civic disobedience is drawing plenty of attention.

    "We knew we were doing something a little bit bold," says councilman Dave Meserve who sponsored the ordinance. "It certainly did not occur to me that it would catch the imagination of the American public." In Arcata, the ordinance is the latest in a long line of actions that set the former mill town apart from the flannel-clad conservatism of California's North Coast. Home to about 16,000 and nearly 300 miles up the coast from San Francisco, Arcata made waves in the early 1990s as first city with a Green Party majority. Greens now hold 2 of 5 seats on the council, which recently issued a proclamation against war in Iraq.
    At Northtown Books, one of several businesses lining Arcata's charming town square, employees have followed reaction to the ordinance with interest. "Some of the reports of what's going on here have made it seem like, 'Oh, it's those crazy hippies in Arcata,'" Herzog said.

    USA Patriot Act gives govt new powers to use wiretaps, electronic surveillance and other information gathering. Opponents say it violates civil liberties; supporters say it has helped fight terrorism. "The Patriot Act has been an invaluable tool in the govt's efforts to prevent terrorist attacks," said Justice Dept spokesman Jorge Martinez, who said the act is constitutional and is being used only against people suspected of acting as agents of a foreign power or foreign terrorist organizations. But Martinez calls the groundswell of resolutions "merely symbolic. We haven't had an instance where localities are not complying."

    Portland OR   Portland police have refused a Justice Dept request for help in interviewing MidEastern immigrants as part of its sweeping terrorism investigation, saying it would violate state law. Atty General John Ashcroft announced earlier this month that the Justice Dept had distributed a list of 5,000 men it wanted to interview about 9.11.01 attacks, an effort that has been criticized by activist groups.The U.S. Atty's Office in Portland asked city police for cooperation last week, acting police Chief Andrew Kirkland said Tuesday. The request was denied because Oregon law says no one can be questioned by police unless they are suspected of being involved in a crime. "The law says, generally, we can interview people that we may suspect have committed a crime," Chief Kirkland said. "But the law does not allow us to go out and arbitrarily interview people whose only offense is immigration or citizenship, and it doesn't give them authority to arbitrarily gather information on them."

    Portland is believed to be the first city to refuse to cooperate with the Justice Dept in its anti-terrorism effort. Portland FBI spokeswoman Beth Anne Steele said Tuesday she couldn't comment on the investigation. Justice Dept officials later were unavailable for comment. Asst U.S. atty Charles Gorder in Portland, told NYTimes the interviews would be completed, with or without help from local police. Arabs & Muslims have expressed outrage at the U.S. Justice Dept's plan to interview the 5,000 men, who are not suspected of any crimes. The list is made up of men ages 18 to 33 who entered the U.S. since 1.1.00 from countries that have been linked to the 9.11.01 hijackers or were waystations for the terrorist organization, al Qaeda. Civil rights activists say the action constitutes racial profiling. The Justice Dept acknowledges the men are likely to be Arab and Muslim, but that the list isn't based on ethnic origin. Racial profiling is also against state law, Chief Kirkland said. Chief Kirkland, who is black, said profiling is an issue that hits home for him, but that's not why the Justice Dept's request was rejected. "I am sympathetic to that issue from a perspective of growing up African American. That doesn't factor into any decision to do this or not. We made that decision regarding racial profiling long before 9.11.01. That decision was made for us when the Legislature wrote the law."

    "You might catch some senior al-Qa'ida leaders & some senior Taliban leaders. If they are the kind you want to shoot, you shoot them."
    Def.Sec D.Rumsfeld
      Seizing dictatorial power
      11.15.01   William Safire NYTimes
    WASHINGTON   Misadvised by a frustrated & panic-stricken attorney general, a U.S. president has just assumed what amounts to dictatorial power to jail or execute aliens. Intimidated by terrorists and inflamed by a passion for rough justice, we are letting GWBush get away with the replacement of the American rule of law with military kangaroo courts. In his infamous emergency order, Bush admits to dismissing "the principles of law and the rules of evidence" that undergird America's system of justice. He seizes the power to circumvent the courts and set up his own drumhead tribunals, panels of officers who will sit in judgment of non-citizens who the president need only claim "reason to believe" are members of terrorist organizations. Not content with his previous decision to permit police to eavesdrop on a suspect's conversations with an attorney, Bush now strips the alien accused of even the limited rights afforded by a court-martial. His kangaroo court can conceal evidence by citing national security, make up its own rules, find a defendant guilty even if a third of the officers disagree, and execute the alien with no review by any civilian court.

    No longer does the judicial branch and an independent jury stand between the govt and the accused. In lieu of those checks & balances central to our legal system, non-citizens face an executive that is now investigator, prosecutor, judge, jury and jailer or executioner. In an Orwellian twist, Bush's order calls this Soviet-style abomination "a full & fair trial." On what legal meat does this our Caesar feed? One precedent the White House cites is a military court after Lincoln's assassination. (During the Civil War, Lincoln suspended habeas corpus; does our war on terror require illegal imprisonment next?) Another is a military court's hanging, approved by the Supreme Court, of German saboteurs landed by submarine in World War II. Proponents of Bush's kangaroo court say: Don't you soft-on-terror, due-process types know there's a war on? Have you forgotten our 5,000 civilian dead? In an emergency like this, aren't extraordinary security measures needed to save citizens' lives? If we step on a few toes, we can apologize to the civil libertarians later.

    Those are the arguments of the phony-tough. At a time when even liberals are debating the ethics of torture of suspects, weighing the distaste for barbarism against the need to save innocent lives, it's time for conservative iconoclasts and card-carrying hard-liners to stand up for American values. To meet a terrorist emergency, of course some rules should be stretched and new laws passed. An ethnic dragnet rounding up visa-skippers or questioning foreign students, if short-term, is borderline tolerable. Congress's new law permitting warranted roving wiretaps is understandable. But let's get to the target that this blunderbuss order is intended to hit. Here's the big worry in Washington now: What do we do if Osama bin Laden gives himself up? A proper trial like that Israel afforded Adolf Eichmann, it is feared, would give the terrorist a global propaganda platform. Worse, it would be likely to result in widespread hostage-taking by his followers to protect him from the punishment he deserves. The solution is not to corrupt our judicial tradition by making bin Laden the star of a new Star Chamber. The solution is to turn his cave into his crypt. When fleeing Taliban reveal his whereabouts, our bombers should promptly bid him farewell with 15,000-pound daisy-cutters and 5,000-pound rock-penetrators.

    But what if he broadcasts his intent to surrender, and walks toward us under a white flag? It is not in our tradition to shoot prisoners. Rather, President Bush should now set forth a policy of "universal surrender": all of Al Qaeda or none. Selective surrender of one or a dozen leaders, which would leave cells in Afghanistan and elsewhere free to fight on, is unacceptable. We should continue our bombardment of bin Laden's hideouts until he agrees to identify and surrender his entire terrorist force. If he does, our criminal courts can handle them expeditiously. If, as more likely, the primary terrorist prefers what he thinks of as martyrdom, that suicidal choice would be his, and Americans would have no need of kangaroo courts to betray our principles of justice.

    Defence lawyer appointed to protect the rights of David Hicks & other al-Qaeda suspects is a former leading aide to US pres. Geo.Bush Sr. The revelation has raised questions about the independence of USAF Col. Will A. Gunn, who has vowed to give the men the very best possible defence.
    Col. Gunn is the American Defence Dept's acting chief defence counsel and usually supervises the representation for the accused in military courts martial. His appointment by US Def.Sec Rumsfeld to defend al-Qaeda suspects has already caused major disquiet among human rights groups and MPs.

    The suspects, incl Australians Hicks & Mamdouh Habib, are among nearly 600 held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, who face a possible death sentence for alleged terrorists acts and involvement in the war in Afghanistan.
    Col. Gunn worked in Bush Sr's executive office. Between 1990-91 the Harvard law graduate, a career air force officer who specialises in environmental law, was seconded to the White House as associate director of Cabinet affairs. The executive office under Bush Sr arranged his meetings with sr Cabinet advisers and has been described as the eyes & ears for the Cabinet within the White House. ¹
    Last night it was unclear whether he had met Rumsfeld during his time in Washington. Many other sr officials in GWBush admin also worked for his father.

    Yesterday a Amnesty Intl spokesman said: "No matter how strenuously Col. Gunn stresses the professionalism of his position, the fact remains that the entire system is a military one and cannot produce a fair trial. The military commission and defence counsel appointed by Pres.Bush & Rumsfeld is likely to be guided by political, rather than judicial, concerns."
    A sr British Foreign Office source said the Govt would increase pressure to ensure British citizens received a fair trial.

      US free to tap Hicks' calls
      7.8.03   Rebecca DiGirolamo The Australian
    Wash.D.C. cleared the way to eavesdrop on private phone conversations between Australian Taliban fighter David Hicks & lawyers. Solicitors acting for Hicks, named last week as one of the first 6 Guantanamo Bay detainees ready to face military tribunals, have already been prevented from representing him because of a ban on non-American lawyers from proceedings.
    Officials in Washington have now told American lawyers who wish to defend Hicks that they must waive their right of confidentiality during discussions with their client. Australian Govt says it has US assurances that Hicks will have the right to a US civilian defence lawyer and an Australian legal representative, but they will have to waive confidentiality.

    "(The waiver) was part of our considerations in reaching our position on the military tribunal," Atty Gen. Daryl Williams' spokeswoman said yesterday. "There are similar provisions in US criminal law. They are used in extreme circumstances."
    Adelaide-born Hicks, 27, has been held without charge at the Cuba camp since his Nov. 2001 capture in Afghanistan. Fresh instructions governing the trials require Hicks's civilian counsel to sign a written agreement relinquishing confidentiality. Part of the agreement states: "I understand that my communications with my client, even if traditionally covered by the attorney-client privilege, may be subject to monitoring or review by govt officials, using any available means, for security & intelligence purposes."

    Monitoring of client-attorney conversations will occur in "limited circumstances" and will not be used in proceedings against the accused. Hicks's Adelaide-based lawyer, Franco Camatta, described the rule as an "unbelievable" denial to independent advice and a fair trial. "The process is a mockery of justice and we can give (David) no certainty that he will get a fair trial," he said.
    "It basically means you may as well forget about having a lawyer because whatever you say is not confidential." Hicks's stepmother, Beverley Hicks, said the US Govt's treatment of David had been a continuous abuse of basic rights. "I think it's absolutely disgusting. They are taking away everybody's rights," she said. She was "extremely worried" about Hicks's fate despite assurances from Williams's office last Thursday that his rights would be protected. "They said not to worry too much, that they had the matter in hand and (David) would have all his rights," she said.

    Hicks's father Terry is retracing his son's steps to an Islamic school in Pakistan before heading to Afghanistan to make a documentary. Hicks Sr, who left Adelaide for Pakistan last Thursday, was flying via Bangkok when Pres. GWBush announced Hicks was one of the first 6 detainees eligible for a military trial.

      Executive excess   11.15.01   op-ed SD UT
      Military courts unnecessary to try terrorists
    San Diego CA   Throughout American history, wartime often has prompted the federal govt to curtail civil liberties. Now President Bush is in danger of doing precisely that with his sweeping executive order permitting closed military tribunals for noncitizens suspected of terrorism. Bush's rationale for this measure is, of course, understandable. He wants to ensure that those who might present a danger to the country are dealt with promptly, without compromising U.S. intelligence sources or methods. Military courts are known for speedy trials and high conviction rates. Such tribunals are unencumbered by many of the rules that govern civilian criminal proceedings. In military courts, govt has a much freer hand to introduce evidence or statements that would be excluded from a civilian trial. Military courts, moreover, might be more likely to opt for the death penalty than civilian juries. And the condemned likely would not benefit from the prolonged delays common in civilian appeals courts. Military courts judicial expediency could undermine the right of defendants to be presumed innocent until proven guilty.

    Using military tribunals is nothing new. Abraham Lincoln made extensive use of them during Civil War. He suspended writ of habeas corpus and allowed military courts to jail civilians who opposed the war or provided aid to the enemy. The Supreme Court refused to review these military proceedings until the war's end, when the justices ruled that a defendant's trial & conviction by military commission was illegal. It should be noted, however, that a military court tried & convicted those involved in Lincoln's assassination. In 1942, a dozen Nazi saboteurs were secretly transported to the East Coast aboard 2 German submarines. The FBI arrested both groups and turned them over to the military which, under President F.D.Roosevelt's direction, promptly tried & convicted them. 6 of the saboteurs were executed. The Supreme Court upheld their sentences, ruling that the defendants were enemy combatants who tried to sneak into the country to wage war against innocent people.

    President Bush is seeking similar clarity in his executive order, which would enable him to decide who is subject to trial by a military tribunal. While we respect the president's determination to convict terrorists and to prevent the disclosure of intelligence sources in open court, both objectives can be achieved in civilian courts. It may take a little longer, but that is the price this country should be prepared to pay to preserve its liberties.

    Justice Dept with too much time on its hands
    11.14.01   Lionel Van Deerlin     SD UT

    San Diego CA   Did the people in charge really have nothing better to do? That question could have occurred quite often at critical moments of the past. As when Emperor Nero, with Rome going up in flames, sat strumming on a lyre. Or when Sir Francis Drake, advised that the Spanish armada was headed his way, chose the moment to go bowling on the Plymouth green. … news stories in recent days suggest that not every American in a position of leadership has been fixed on combatting terrorism. Agriculture Dept last week issued new rules abolishing standards for composition of pizza. No longer, if the order stands, must a 12-incher contain cheese, a tomato-based sauce and at least 10% of meat by weight. … Was there nothing more helpful to be done at the ag dept?
    In a small suburb of Peoria IL, 10 members of Dunlap High School football team refused to own up to accusations they had attended a party where liquor was served. School trustees resolved the ensuing impasse by forcing all 10 to take a polygraph test in the principal's office. AP called this the first such use of a lie detector against school students. 7 of Dunlap's lads failed the test and were barred from a state playoff game which the school thereupon lost, 28-7.

    Week's uncontested "Don't They Have Anything Better to Do?" lead player is U.S. AttyGen John Ashcroft attempted overturn of a state law twice approved by Oregon voters. The statute allows medical patients with terminal illnesses to opt for a painless, self-induced death instead, with the help of a licensed physician. Aside from the clearly humane aspects of Oregon's law, it is almost beyond belief that Ashcroft, a deep-dyed conservative, would turn his back on such fundamentally conservative doctrine as state's rights. On medical control laws especially, govt has traditionally yielded to state authority. And yet, in the first week of November, the Justice Dept moved to hold physicians in violation of federal law if they prescribe barbiturates in amounts needed for "assisted suicide" under the Oregon statute.

    As was to be expected, the action prompted a high-level legal confrontation. The state atty general in Salem immediately went to court in defense of Oregon's right to regulate such a matter without federal intrusion. A temporary restraining order was granted. Pending permanent ruling, cautious doctors will not risk federal prosecution by continuing to assist patients who wish to die. Oregon's suicide measure passed narrowly when first proposed, but won 60%approval in a second referendum. 70 patients average age 71 have utilized the law. More than a dozen applications presently on file will be delayed until and unless Ashcroft's order fails the judicial test. In actions like this, the attorney general reveals himself to be religiously fanatical. Only the U.S. Supreme Court's 1973 decision in Roe vs. Wade keeps him from going after abortion doctors as well. He seems to equate a state-assisted suicide law with legalized abortion.
    The sectarian underpinnings of Ashcroft's Oregon action will seem even clearer when his drug enforcement administrator, former Arkansas Rep. Asa Hutchinson, moves to implement it. Hutchinson is a proud graduate of the tightly evangelical Bob Jones Univ. in Greenville SC … Why now? Has massive Justice Dept team gained control of both terrorism & anthrax threat?

    … Overnight, we've gone from a nation to a "homeland," from national security to homeland security, and from a nation of laws to governance by polls & military justice. To stomp out "evil," we're asked to sacrifice our right to know, question, debate and express ourselves freely. In effect, we're being asked to don political burkas. … undeclared & undefined war. Extraordinary decrees have essentially gone unchallenged because they're purportedly temporary and target only "aliens."
    They actually make it easier to spy on anyone, to ethnically profile & round up people by the thousands, to detain people indefinitely and in secret (purportedly to protect their rights) without charges and then try them in kangaroo courts. … system of checks & balances was designed to prevent the rise of emperors, dictators and other kinds of strongmen. … A world without terrorism can still leave tyranny, exploitation and oppression intact. …

    Global Eye op-ed Weather Report   media
    11.13.01   Chris Floyd St. Petersburg Times

    … As in Rome, all the old forms will still be there: legislatures, elections, campaigns, plenty of bread and circuses for the folks. But the "consent of the governed" will no longer apply; actual control of the state will have passed to a small group of nobles who rule largely for the benefit of their wealthy peers and corporate patrons.
    There will be factional conflicts among this elite, and a degree of free debate will be permitted, within limits; but no one outside the privileged circle will be allowed to govern or influence state policy. Dissidents will be marginalized, usually by "the people" themselves. Deprived of historical knowledge by an impoverished educational system designed to produce complacent consumers, not thoughtful citizens, and left ignorant of current events by a media devoted solely to profit, many will internalize the force-fed values of the ruling elite, and act accordingly. There will be little need for overt methods of control.

    The rulers will often act in secret. For reasons of "national security," the people will not be permitted to know what goes on in their name. Actions once unthinkable will be accepted as routine: govt by executive fiat, the murder of "enemies" selected by the leader, undeclared war, torture, mass detentions without charge, the looting of the national treasury, the creation of huge new "security structures" targeted at the populace. In time, all this will come to seem "normal," as the chill of autumn feels normal when summer is gone.

    It will all seem normal
    President GWBush signed an     executive order about ten days ago overturning a law requiring the release of presidential papers 12 years after the end of an administration, AP reports. Bush officials say the president has "reinterpreted" the law, ordinarily the job of the Supreme Court under the old Republic, to mean that no papers can be released unless both the current president and the former president in question agree to it.
    Historians, journalists or ordinary citizens seeking information about the actions of past administrations will have to file suit to show a "demonstrated, specific" need for access to the blocked material. The mere assertion of a "right to know" about govt affairs will not be sufficient. Such a right no longer exists.

    A Bush spokesperson acknowledged that anyone requesting to see such documents would be tied up in expensive court battles for years. However, the use of executive fiat to abrogate the function of the Supreme Court and overturn a law passed by the people's representatives was necessary in order to protect "national security," the spokesperson said. … recalcitrant prisoners can always be exported to friendly regimes, like Egypt or Kenya, where they don't bother with such prissy concerns. Information "extracted" there can then be used in U.S. trials.
    Wouldn't evidence acquired by such heinous and unconstitutional methods be thrown out by the courts?
    Ordinarily, yes, under the old Republic. But in America's new weather, the judiciary will no doubt "give heightened deference to the judgments of the political branches," etc. And if all else fails, a handy executive order can always "reinterpret" the Constitution to accommodate the needs of "national security."

    Normal
    Armed with the sweeping new powers of the "USA Patriot Act" passed late last month, the Bush administration is acting to "shift the primary mission of the FBI from solving crimes to gathering domestic intelligence," the Washington Post reports. In other words, the feds will move from protecting the people to spying on them. The CIA has also been given authority to take part in domestic surveillance and investigation for the first time. These domestic "black ops" will be overseen by a secret court appointed by Chief Justice Wm Rehnquist.
    Last week, President Bush demanded that Congress pass his "economic stimulus" bill by the end of the month, the NYTimes reports. The bill would give $25 billion in federal money directly to the nation's wealthiest corporations, incl IBM, Genereal Mototrs and General Electric, refunding taxes they paid over the last 15 years. In all, the bill will give $112 billion in tax breaks to the wealthiest individuals & corporations over the next 2 years.

    Ashcroft kicks off Patriot Act campaign
    8.19.03   Curt Anderson AP

    Wash.DC   Atty Gen Ashcroft defended the Patriot Act Tuesday, saying the anti-terrorism measure passed by Congress after 9.11.01 has been key to the nation's efforts to thwart attacks against Americans. In a speech to conservative-leaning think tank American Enterprise Institute, Ashcroft sought to counter critics who say the act gives law enforcement unnecessary & overreaching powers that threaten the privacy rights of innocent people.
    Ashcroft said the law gives police & prosecutors tools needed to thwart would-be terrorists within parameters of the Constitution. He gave several examples where the act allowed law enforcement officials to bring charges against suspects thought to be plotting attacks or supporting terror groups.

    "If we knew then what we know now, we would have passed the Patriot Act 6 months before 9.11.01 rather than 6 weeks after the attacks," he said. " … The cause we have chosen is just. The course we have chosen is constitutional."
    Ashcroft cited elements of the law that he says make it easier for law enforcement officials to pursue suspected criminals. For example, prosecutors no longer must get permission for different wiretaps every time a suspect changes cell phones. Instead, the wiretap provision applies to the suspect rather than a specific phone.

    Ashcroft's speech marked start of a campaign-style offensive aimed at countering criticism from leading Democrats & civil liberties advocates about the Patriot Act. He plans a road trip Wed. & Thu., with remarks to law enforcement audiences in Philadelphia, Cleveland, Detroit and Des Moines, Iowa. Among the dozen or so future stops are Salt Lake City and Boston, officials said.
    Justice Dept put up an Internet site to reinforce the pro-Patriot Act message and all 94 U.S. attorneys are being encouraged to hold town hall-style meetings to stress the law's benefits in fighting terrorism. "There is a lot of confusion about what the Patriot Act does & does not do," said U.S. atty Mary Beth Buchanan in Pittsburgh. "We are going to try to better educate the public."

    In his speech, Ashcroft highlighted the Patriot Act's removal of a barrier that had prevented intelligence agents from sharing information with criminal investigators & prosecutors. Also highlighted will be such provisions as the "roving wiretap" authority that enables investigators to track phones over multiple jurisdictions under a single warrant.
    The law is a political punching bag for the Democratic presidential candidates & other top party members. Earlier this month, former VP Gore said in a speech at New York Univ. that the law allows President Bush to "send his assistants into every public library in America and secretly monitor what the rest of us are reading."Justice officials say that claim is one of many examples of misperceptions about the law. They say that books, documents or other records from any source, including a library, can only be examined by the FBI under the Patriot Act in an intl terrorism or intelligence investigation and only with approval of a federal judge.

    Still, such perceptions have led to passage of anti-Patriot Act resolutions by legislators in Alaska, Hawaii and Vermont and by more than 142 local govts. The Republican-led House also voted recently to restrict so-called "sneak & peek" searches that allow for delayed notification of the target.
    American Civil Liberties Union insists these actions show growing concern that the Patriot Act could expose innocent citizens to improper surveillance and searches. "How often do you see the atty general go on a charm offensive?" asked ACLU's Washington office dir. Laura Murphy. "I see this as a defensive measure on his part. It is a political campaign."

    Michigan State Univ. poli sci prof. David Rohde noted Ashcroft's initial foray takes him through swing states in the 2004 presidential race: Pennsylvania, Michigan and Ohio. The campaign could help prevent the eventual Democratic nominee from using perceptions about the Patriot Act against Bush, Rohde said.
    "The hope is that if the Democrats can draw people's attention to things they don't like about the Patriot Act, eventually that will spill over onto President Bush," Rohde said. "The criticism of the Patriot Act is also a way of motivating core Democratic constituencies."

    Ashcroft defends secret searches in Patriot Act
    8.20.03   Reuters

    Philadelphia   With an oversize image of the U.S. flag as a backdrop, Atty Gen Ashcroft on Wednesday defended one of the most contentious police powers authorized by the USA Patriot Act, secret govt searches. Taking aim at congressional efforts to suspend the controversial anti-terrorism law's "sneak & peek" search provision, Ashcroft warned govt would risk "tipping off the terrorists" unless it had sufficient secrecy to conduct searches, identify suspects and coordinate arrests.
    "These delayed-notification search warrants have been used for decades in drug & organized crime cases, and they've been upheld fully as constitutional by the courts," he told about 220 law enforcement officials at Philadelphia's National Constitution Ctr.

    Congress passed Patriot Act soon after 9.11.01, granting a series of new police powers to the government, incl ability to search the property of suspects secretly for evidence, notifying them only afterward that a court-ordered warrant had been issued. Critics contend the search provision violates the U.S. Constitution and a long-standing common law principle that says an owner must be notified before the govt can enter or search a property.
    Last month, U.S. House voted 309-118 to block Justice Dept from using any federal funds for such searches. Measure's sponsor Rep. C.L. "Butch" Otter R-ID warned that the Patriot Act provision could lead to nationwide search warrants and open the door to CIA or National Security Agency involvement in domestic affairs.

    Ashcroft suggested there was strong public support for the new search powers. "Most Americans expect that law enforcement tools used for decades to fight organized crime & drugs should be available to protect lives & liberty from terrorists. The Patriot Act makes that possible," he said in a 25-minute speech that was closed to the public. The Justice Dept told Congress in July that it had executed 47 "sneak & peek" searches and sought to delay notification of search warrants in 250 cases.

      Ashcroft speech interrupted by protester
      8.21.03   Reuters
    Detroit   A room packed with police officers failed to shield Atty Gen Ashcroft 8.21.03 from a protester accusing him of lying about 9.11.01 & declared war on terror. Ashcroft was in Detroit as part of nationwide tour he began 8.20.03, aimed at defending provisions of controversial anti-terrorism law passed soon after 9.11.01. He was about midway through a 25-minute speech at an event closed to the public but attended by more than 150 top policemen from across Michigan, when a self-described follower of perennial presidential campaigner Lyndon LaRouche interrupted him.

    "Mr. Ashcroft, I'm with Lyndon LaRouche. We would like to know which of your terrorists are going to be used for a new 9.11.01, you and (Vice President) Dick Cheney," said the heckler, who got into the room in a downtown Detroit convention center by posing as a TV reporter. "Tell them how you lie to the American people," he added.
    Ashcroft and more than one red-faced police officer were visibly angered by the outburst from the man, who then left the convention center unescorted and joined dozens of anti-govt demonstrators outside.

        The torture law
      Military Commissions Act of 2006
      Signed into into law by Shrub 10.17.06, it "immunizes govt officials for past war crimes, cuts U.S. obligations under Geneva Conventions and all but eliminates access to civilian courts for non-citizens"
      per         Michael Dorf

    passed in the House almost solely on GOP party majority

    Shame on us all
    10.18.06   Robt Parry

    … even American citizens who are accused of helping terrorists can be shunted into the military tribunal system where they could languish indefinitely without constitutional protections.

      “Any person is punishable as a principal under this chapter who commits an offense punishable by this chapter, or aids, abets, counsels, commands, or procures its commission,” the law states.
      “Any person subject to this chapter who, in breach of an allegiance or duty to the United States, knowingly and intentionally aids an enemy of the United States, or one of the co-belligerents of the enemy [presumably U.S. military allies, such as Great Britain and Israel], shall be punished as a military commission … may direct. …

      “Any person subject to this chapter who with intent or reason to believe that it is to be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of a foreign power, collects or attempts to collect information by clandestine means or while acting under false pretenses, for the purpose of conveying such information to an enemy of the United States, or one of the co-belligerents of the enemy, shall be punished by death or such other punishment as a military commission … may direct. …

      “Any person subject to this chapter who conspires to commit one of the more substantive offenses triable by military commission under this chapter, and who knowingly does any overt act to effect the object of the conspiracy, shall be punished, if death results to one or more of the victims, by death or such other punishment as a military commission … may direct, and, if death does not result to any of the victims, by such punishment, other than death, as a military commission … may direct.”

    In other words, a wide variety of alleged crimes, including some specifically targeted at citizens with “an allegiance or duty to the United States,” would be transferred from civilian courts to military tribunals, where habeas corpus and other constitutional rights would not apply.

    Secrecy, not the principle of openness, dominates these curious trials.
    Under the military tribunal law, a judge “may close to the public all or a portion of the proceedings” if he deems that the evidence must be kept secret for national security reasons. Those concerns can be conveyed to the judge through ex parte, or one-sided, communications from the prosecutor or a govt representative.
    The judge also can exclude the accused from the trial if there are safety concerns or if the defendant is disruptive. Plus, the judge can admit evidence obtained through coercion if he determines it “possesses sufficient probative value” and “the interests of justice would best be served by admission of the statement into evidence.”

    The law permits, too, the introduction of secret evidence “while protecting from disclosure the sources, methods, or activities by which the United States acquired the evidence if the military judge finds that … the evidence is reliable.”
    During trial, the prosecutor would have the additional right to assert a “national security privilege” that could stop “the examination of any witness,” presumably by the defense if the questioning touched on any sensitive matter.

    The prosecution also would retain the right to appeal any adverse ruling by the military judge to the U.S. Court of Appeals in the District of Columbia. For the defense, however, the law states that “no court, justice, or judge shall have jurisdiction to hear or consider any claim or cause of action whatsoever … relating to the prosecution, trial, or judgment of a military commission under this chapter, including challenges to the lawfulness of procedures of military commissions.”

    Further, the law states “no person may invoke the Geneva Conventions or any protocols thereto in any habeas corpus or other civil action or proceeding to which the United States, or a current or former officer, employee, member of the Armed Forces, or other agent of the United States is a party as a source of rights in any court of the United States or its States or territories.”
    In effect, that provision amounts to a broad amnesty for all U.S. officials, including President Bush and other senior executives who may have authorized torture, murder or other violations of human rights.
    Beyond that amnesty provision, the law grants President Bush the authority “to interpret the meaning and the application of the Geneva Conventions.”

    per MCA, "an "unlawful enemy combatant" is a person who is not part of a country's uniformed armed forces but "who has engaged in hostilities or has purposefully and materially supported hostilities against the U. S."
    It does not say who makes that determination or what evidence, if any, is required.

    Alternatively, an unlawful enemy combatant is anyone so labeled by a Combatant Status Review Tribunal, which can apply its own definition.
    The law bars detainees who are not U.S. citizens from challenging their detention in federal court, so they have no legal recourse outside the executive branch. The govt can arrest "aliens," including legal visitors and residents, and hold them indefinitely, based on nothing more than the president's unilateral determination that they qualify as unlawful enemy combatants.

    The best for the worst   Jacob Sullum 10.4.06
    Losing a war, winning a police state
    9.26.06   Nat Parry

    1934   "[The] United States Chamber of Commerce issues report 'Combating Subversive Activities in the United States,' [think USA PATRIOT Act] that blueprinted a legislative and intelligence program against the political left that would last through the 1950's, maybe beyond. [The] report demanded passage of anti-subversive legislation, including a sedition law and demanded an agency within the Justice Dept. be created to deal with subversive activities.
    Neil Smith   chronology
    'Living in a police state'
    4.24.02   J.Wisely & S.W.Huber     Oakland Press (MI)

    Two new laws which took effect Monday as part of anti-terror efforts also shield from public scrutiny the reasons for police searches. Defense lawyers & civil libertarians are outraged at the laws, which make search warrants & supporting documents such as affidavits non-public records. "If you think the police did secretive work before, just wait," defense atty William Cataldo said. "It gives more power to the ignorant and more power to those who would take your rights." Defense lawyer Walter Piszczatowski said: "This is nuts, this is beyond nuts. What happened to the Fourth Amendment? We're living in a police state." That means the public, the press, and in some cases even the person accused of the crime, can't know why the police entered a home without permission. Under previous laws, the records were public, unless a judge ordered them sealed for a specific reason. In federal courts, that remains the case. But now, search warrants in state courts are automatically closed to public view.

    "I think this is absolutely unconstitutional," said First Amendment lawyer Dawn Phillips with Michigan Press Association. "We objected to it at the time. This thing passed like greased lightning." House portion of the bill passed unanimously; Senate version passed 27-8. Chief sponsor of the bill in the state senate was Shirley Johnson (R-Royal Oak) while Bill Bullard (R-Highland Township) was a cosponsor. In the state House, Nancy Cassis (R- Novi) was among 20 sponsors. American Civil Liberties Union also objected to the law's change. ACLU spokeswoman Wendy Wagenheim said the group is reviewing the law. Law enforcement supported the changes. Oakland County Prosecutor David Gorcyca said the laws protect victims, witnesses and confidential informants. Gorcyca said the procedure for obtaining a search warrant didn't change, nor did the rights of the defendant to challenge a bad warrant or the ill-gotten gains of an illegal search.
    "When affidavits are filed, previously they divulged a large portion of the investigation and where it was heading and that could hamper the investigation and the direction of the investigation," Gorcyca said. "It doesn't mean you can circumvent the judicial process. All we're doing is suppressing the contents of the affidavit.
    [ Secret affidavits aren't affidavits. ]

    It does prevent the public & the media from obtaining information during the investigation but it doesn't prevent the defendant & the defense attorney from challenging the search warrant." Gorcyca cited drug conspiracy cases as those where witnesses are frequently in danger unless their identity is kept private during the investigation. "In the drug world, witnesses are fearful all the time," he said. "Those are reluctant witnesses who are afraid to come forward and testify. In those cases, fear & intimidation is real. That's why grand juries are so vital. And this provides the same secrecy as a grand jury and does not impugn anyone's rights."
    Civil libertarians say those goals can be met with a much narrower approach, like the one used in federal court. "A judicial finding needs to be made on a case-by-case basis," said Wayne State Univ. constitutional law prof. David Moran in Detroit.

    When police are investigating a crime and they believe evidence is stored in someone's home, car or other private place, they must submit a sworn affidavit to the court spelling out their case. A judge reviews the document, then decides if there is enough evidence to search without the owner's permission. The Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution requires "probable cause" to issue a warrant and notes they must be written "particularly describing the place to be searched and the persons or things to be seized." The changes are contained in 2 new laws, public acts 112 & 128. State Court administrator John Ferry Jr. spelled out the changes to courts across the state in a memo last Friday.

    Public act 112 makes "all search warrants, affidavits and tabulations in any court file or record retention system nonpublic," according to Ferry's memo. The memo goes on to say that public act 128 "provides for suppression of a search warrant affidavit upon a showing that it is necessary to protect an ongoing investigation or the privacy or the safety of a victim or witness." Contacted Tue. for clarification on the memo, spokeswoman for the state court administrator's office declined comment. Marcia McBrien said the laws could appear before the Supreme Court for interpretation and it would be improper for her to offer one in advance. The new laws could also create headaches for court recordkeepers. In many courts, search warrants are filed along with the case file. It's unclear how clerks will keep the 2 separate.
    The new law also affects the rights of people who are searched. According to a analysis of the law done in the House of Representatives, the state Court of Appeals ruled that affidavits be given along with a warrant at the time of a search. The new law changes that. "An officer executing a search is not required to give a copy of the affidavit to the person or leave a copy at the place from which the property was taken," according to Ferry's memo.

    Congress not advised of shadow govt ¹ ²
    Bush calls security 'serious business'
    3.2.02   Amy Goldstein & Juliet Eilperin Wash.Post

    Des Moines   Key congressional leaders said yesterday the White House did not tell them that President Bush has moved a cadre of senior civilian managers to secret underground sites outside Washington to ensure that the federal govt could survive a devastating terrorist attack on the nation's capital. Senate Majority Leader Thomas A. Daschle D-SD said he had not been informed about the role, location or even the existence of the shadow govt that the administration began to deploy the morning of 9.11.01. An aide to House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt D-MO said he similarly was unaware of the administration's move. Among Congress's GOP leadership, aides to House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert R-IL, second in line to succeed the president if he became incapacitated, and to Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott R-MS said they were not sure whether they knew. Aides to Sen. Robert C. Byrd D-WV said he had not been told. As Senate president pro tempore, he is in line to become president after the House speaker.

    Bush acknowledged yesterday that the administration had taken extensive measures to guarantee "the continuity of govt," after it was revealed that about 100 top officials, spanning every executive branch department, have been sent to live & work in two fortified locations on the East Coast. This system, in which high-ranking administrators are rotating in & out of the two sites, represents the first time a president has activated the contingency plan, which was devised during the Cold War of the 1950s so that federal rule could continue if Washington were struck by a catastrophic attack. It was unclear yesterday whether any federal documents -- prepared either by the current White House or by Bush's predecessors dating to Dwight D. Eisenhower -- specify whether congressional leaders should be told if the plan is put into effect. At least one relatively general document, a 1988 executive order entitled "Assignment of Emergency Preparedness Responsibilities," said the White House's National Security Council "shall arrange for Executive branch liaison with, and assistance to, the Congress & the federal judiciary on national security-emergency preparedness matters."

    The executive order, signed by President Ronald Reagan, is a precursor to documents outlining the contingency plans in greater detail, which have not been made public. Regardless of whether Bush had an obligation to notify legislative leaders, the congressional leaders' ignorance of the plan he set in motion could raise the question of how this shadow administration would establish its legitimacy with Congress in the event it needed to step in for a crippled White House. At least some members of Congress suggested yesterday that the administration should have conferred about its plans, which were first reported in The Washington Post yesterday. "There are 2 other branches of govt that are central to the functioning of our democracy," said Rep. William Delahunt D-MA, a member of the House Judiciary Committee. "I would hope the speaker & the minority leader would at least pose the question, 'What about us?' " Other lawmakers said they believe the federal govt lacks adequate plans to be certain that all 3 of its branches could function if terrorists disabled Washington.

    White House officials did not elaborate on why the president did not consult with congressional leaders. "The president addressed this earlier today, and I will have to refer you to his comments," spokesman Taylor Gross said. Speaking yesterday on a trip to Des Moines, Bush did not describe the deployment in detail. He said he had "an obligation as the president [to] put measures in place that, should somebody be successful in attacking Washington, D.C., [would guarantee] there's an ongoing govt." "This is serious business," the president said. "I still take the threats that we receive from al Qaeda killers & terrorists very seriously." He made clear the extent to which he believes that terrorism poses a lingering threat to the U.S. govt. "That's one reason why the vice president was going to undisclosed locations," Bush told reporters. "And I will tell you, there are people still in this world who want to harm America," the president said, vowing that "we're doing everything in our power to protect the American people." At the Pentagon, which routinely rotates top military officials to secure locations, spokeswoman Victoria Clarke said: "It is absolute common sense, absolutely appropriate that the govt should have all the parts and all the pieces in place so in case of a crisis, in case of an emergency, the govt can & will continue to function."

    The House & Senate each has a contingency plan. "Precautions have been taken and arrangements have been made to move the work of Congress to another location," Daschle said. Bush made his remarks at the Printer Inc., a relatively small Des Moines business that the White House chose as a backdrop to tout changes the administration favors to the nation's pension laws. The printing plant assists workers with 401(k) plans and encourages them to take an active role in saving money for retirement. For the second day in a row, Bush sought to draw attention to his plans for what he has begun to call "retirement security," a combination of pension changes & redesign of Social Security. "You see, we're going to have to encourage more savings in America, because people are going to live longer lives," Bush said. Alluding to his more controversial view that workers should be allow to invest some of their Social Security taxes in the stock market, Bush said: "We ought to do everything we can in Washington, D.C., to encourage people to own a piece of the future."

    His visit to Iowa of slightly more than three hours followed a formula the White House has used since New Year's, as the president has begun to travel to states in which GOP candidates face tight races in the fall elections. These visits combine a forum to promote one of the administration's legislative priorities with a political fundraiser. Bush attended a luncheon on behalf of Rep. Tom Latham (R-Iowa), a quiet conservative first elected in the "Republican Revolution" of 1994. He has easily won reelection since then, but his prospects are far less certain this year because his district, until now heavily Republican, has been redrawn to include more Democratic voters. The luncheon raised $275,000 for Latham and $200,000 for the Iowa Republican Party. This was Bush's fourth trip to Iowa since becoming president. The state is significant to the GOP's struggle to retain its majority in the House and to win back control of the Senate this fall and to Bush's reelection aspirations in 2 years. Bush narrowly lost the state to Vice President Al Gore in 2000.

    Rights caught in dragnet ¹   Hundreds detained by U.S. since 9.11.01 do not have usual legal protections. Officials defend practice, but some worry innocent people will be hurt in rush to justice.
    9.26.01   Richard A Serrano L.A.Times

    Manassas Park, VA   On the night of Sept. 11, Khalid S.S. Al Draibi was picked up here while driving on a flat tire. He was arrested not far from Dulles Intl Airport, the departure point that morning of American Airlines Flight 77, which was hijacked and then slammed into a side of the Pentagon. Al Draibi told police he was a U.S. citizen, but in truth he is Saudi Arabian. He was a drifter, in this country for several years with no family or permanent address. He once had taken pilot training, and law enforcement officials found a flight instruction manual inside his white well-worn Lincoln Town Car. To make matters worse for Al Draibi, his name and birth date closely match those of one of the 21 suspected terrorists whose financial assets are being investigated. Al Draibi is still in custody. Is he a prime suspect?
    His lawyer insists he is guilty of nothing and has been unjustly swept up in a law enforcement stampede following the terrorist attacks on America. He is not a terrorist, the attorney says, but he is terrified. Al Draibi is among about 350 people who have been detained on immigration infractions or other violations, or as material witnesses in the terrorist attacks in New York and at the Pentagon, as well as the crash of a hijacked plane in Pennsylvania. Like Al Draibi, some have been in custody since the day of the attacks. Little is known about who they are and why they are being held. Authorities also are looking for nearly 400 others who they say may have information about the attacks.Yet, thus far, there has been no public announcement of any criminal charges directly related to the conspiracy.

    In fact, federal authorities announced Tuesday that one of their material witness detainees, a San Antonio radiologist, had been set free. Dr. Al-Badr Al-Hazmi's release Monday came after numerous statements by some federal govt sources describing him as a key player who had provided funds for the hijackers. Because of the dramatic circumstances of Sept. 11, and the public clamor for justice, federal law enforcement officials are taking full advantage of a wide range of federal statutes in trying to determine who helped 19 hijackers kill as many as 6,900 people. They are using immigration laws to hold suspects indefinitely and are detaining others as material witnesses by claiming they may have some knowledge of the conspiracy. Authorities can keep the detainees in jail simply by telling a judge that they might flee the country.
    Because the case is so complex, law enforcement officials say it is crucial that no suspects be exonerated until there is a clearer picture of the scope of the conspiracy. Indeed, the detention process that authorities are so vigorously invoking is legal. Authorities are able to hold these suspects without first establishing probable cause that they have committed a crime, an otherwise fundamental tenet of the American judicial system. On Monday, Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft defended the process before the House Judiciary Committee. "We are conducting this effort with a total commitment to protect the rights and privacy of all Americans and the constitutional protections we hold dear," Ashcroft said. But, he added, "we cannot wait for terrorists to strike to begin investigations and make arrests. The death tolls are too high, the consequences too great."

    The idea of using material witnesses is a relatively new tool for federal law enforcement. It began primarily to help authorities along the U.S.-Mexico border investigate crimes involving suspected criminals and witnesses who are illegal immigrants and who might want to flee the U.S.. It also has been used effectively in pursuing organized crime figures and in the case of a man who killed two people eight years ago in front of CIA headquarters in Washington. But recent history shows that federal agents racing to make arrests in high-profile crimes sometimes have ended up with the wrong person. In some instances, those suspects endured agonizing ordeals. Some have never recovered.
    Wen Ho Lee, a nuclear weapon scientist, was held for 278 days on suspicion of espionage before his release last year from a New Mexico jail. An angry federal judge declared the govt's treatment of Lee had "embarrassed this entire nation and each of us who is a citizen of it." James Nichols, whose brother Terry was sentenced to life in prison for conspiracy in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, served 32 days before he was cleared of any criminal involvement. During his days and nights in custody, he was constantly watched by prison guards in the hope that he would break down and confess. Finally, a federal judge declared that "there is not an iota of evidence of dangerous acts" by the Michigan farmer.

    Also in the aftermath of the Oklahoma City bombing, Palestinian American Abraham Ahmad was arrested, photographed, fingerprinted, strip-searched, handcuffed, paraded before the public and held for three days before he was set free. An angry mob surrounded his house, spat on his front door and threw trash on his lawn. "The U.S. was always a dream for me and my family," a tearful Ahmad said later. The arrest "was against everything I thought the U.S. was supposed to be." When radiologist Al-Hazmi was arrested, he was not allowed to contact his lawyers at first and was interviewed without their being present, one of his attorneys said. His wife, who does not speak English, worried for his safety as the case against him seemed to build. "This is exactly the wave of nationalism and pride and fear of 'them against us' in which Hitler rose to power," said Cynthia Orr, one of Al-Hazmi's lawyers. "It's in that zeal of responding to such a horrible atrocity that we are allowing atrocities to occur at our own hands."

    Other defense lawyers and constitutional law experts worry where the hunt for suspects will lead--whether to actual criminal charges or to abuse. Mark Tushnet, a law professor at Georgetown University, noted the irony involved in being a material witness. Many of those detained in the last two weeks, unlike defendants already charged with crimes, do not automatically have a right to bail and other legal protections. "There's something troubling about doing things to people you cannot even show have probably committed a crime," he said. Stanley Cohen, a New York attorney who has represented many in the country's Islamic community, said what is taking place "proves the judiciary is being bullied by the FBI in all this hysteria. They are operating a chamber of horrors." Added Daniel Dodson, a spokesman for the National Assn. of Criminal Defense Lawyers in Washington: "I get a sense there's been a de facto suspension of habeas corpus, which I guess is allowed during a declaration of war."

    It is unclear how many of those arrested are being held as material witnesses. The overwhelming majority were swooped up on immigration violations. Some others have been snared for identification fraud and other offenses. Many appear to have been brought to the New York area, where they are being held in detention centers. William M. Baker, former chief of the FBI's criminal investigative division, said in an interview that agents must proceed slowly and weigh each clue and arrest as the complex case develops. It is helpful, he said, to keep suspects in jail while everything is being sorted out, and that may mean holding people longer, whether they are ultimately charged in the case or released. "You need to use whatever legal remedies you have, and this is one of them," Baker said. The added bonus of holding people, he said, is that it tends to "sweat" some of them out. "You are applying pressure," he acknowledged.

    When James Nichols was released after 32 days, he was near tears, but he never gave authorities information that tied him along with his brother and Timothy J. McVeigh to the Oklahoma City bombing. Nichols recalled being taken from his farm in the thumb of Michigan and placed in a federal prison facility near Ann Arbor. There he lingered, first as a material witness and later, to keep him longer, on a much less serious charge of detonating small explosives on his farm. "They didn't have one shred of evidence," he said in a recent interview. "It was just a big game." His cell was 6 by 8 feet, he said. It was in a special housing unit far from other prisoners. He was deprived of a radio, he said, and not given access to a TV until he complained. Two guards watched him at the same time, all the time, taking notes on every word he said, on his mood, his attitude. "They hoped that I would break down," Nichols said. "It's all part of their psychological warfare. . . . They wanted me to say whatever they wanted, like I was some terrorist mad dog."

    How the cases of those now being held will end is not known. Al Draibi, the 32-year-old sometime cabdriver, tried to pass himself off as a U.S. citizen because he was frightened about being stopped on the day of the attacks, said his lawyer, Drewry Hutcheson Jr. He first was noticed because he was driving on the wheel rim of a flat tire, but then authorities quickly spotted some warning signs. He appeared to be deceptive. He seemed to be rootless, without a real home, and told officers he was trying to get both to Richmond, Va., and to Washington. He also said he wanted to get a ticket from the Saudi Embassy to fly to Saudi Arabia. The flight manual found in his car was another red flag. FBI agents later learned Al Draibi had taken flight lessons several years ago in Bessemer, AL, and that he always paid in cash. But he never earned his wings, said Shawn Patterson, director of marketing for the Bessemer Aviation School. "He wanted to cut corners and not really follow procedures," Patterson said. "He just seemed to be a lazy pilot. He did things that jeopardized safety, and his instructors wouldn't fly with him anymore."

    Then, on Labor Day, just eight days before the terrorist hijackings, Al Draibi was stopped by the police chief in tiny Guin, AL., for running a red light and driving without proof of insurance. Chief Bryan McCraw said Al Draibi seemed to be in a hurry. He complained that he had already gotten a traffic ticket that day in Mississippi and did not need another one. "He was belligerent; he just kept running his mouth," McCraw said. "I looked inside his car and he had papers scattered all about. I looked a little further in and saw a blanket and a pillow in the back seat." Were these signs of someone anxious and hot-headed? Of someone determined about something, someone on the move? Hutcheson, his lawyer, insists Al Draibi has done nothing to deserve being jailed and treated as a terrorist. "He said to me, 'This was not my lucky day. I've been arrested for what some other people did,' " Hutcheson said.

    Hackers face life imprisonment under 'Anti-Terrorism' Act   Justice Dept proposal classifies most computer crimes as acts of terrorism.
    9.22.01   Kevin Poulsen     Security Focus

    Hackers, virus-writers and web site defacers would face life imprisonment without the possibility of parole under legislation proposed by the Bush Administration that would classify most computer crimes as acts of terrorism. The Justice Dept is urging Congress to quickly approve its Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA), a 25 page proposal that would expand the govt's legal powers to conduct electronic surveillance, access business records, and detain suspected terrorists. The proposal defines a list of "Federal terrorism offenses" that are subject to special treatment under law. The offenses include assassination of public officials, violence at intl airports, some bombings and homicides, and politically-motivated manslaughter or torture.

    Most of the terrorism offenses are violent crimes, or crimes involving chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons. But the list also includes the provisions of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act that make it illegal to crack a computer for the purpose of obtaining anything of value, or to deliberately cause damage. Likewise, launching a malicious program that harms a system, like a virus, or making an extortionate threat to damage a computer are included in the definition of terrorism. To date no terrorists are known to have violated the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. But several recent hacker cases would have qualified as "Federal terrorism offenses" under the Justice Dept proposal, including the conviction of Patrick Gregory, a prolific web site defacer who called himself "MostHateD"; Kevin Mitnick, who plead guilty to penetrating corporate networks and downloading proprietary software; Jonathan "Gatsby" Bosanac, who received 18-months in custody for cracking telephone company computers; and Eric Burns, the Shoreline, Washington hacker who scrawled "Crystal, I love you" on a U.S. Information Agency web site in 1999. The 19-year-old was reportedly trying to impress a classmate with whom he was infatuated.

    The Justice Dept submitted the ATA to Congress late last week as a response to the Sept 11th terrorist attacks in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania that killed some 7,000 people. As a "Federal terrorism offense," the 5 year statute of limitations for hacking would be abolished retroactively, allowing computer crimes committed decades ago to be prosecuted today, and the maximum prison term for a single conviction would be upped to life imprisonment. There is no parole in the federal justice system. Those convicted of providing "advice or assistance" to cyber crooks, or harboring or concealing a computer intruder, would face the same legal repercussions as an intruder. Computer intrusion would also become a predicate offense for the RICO statutes.
    DNA samples would be collected from hackers upon conviction, and retroactively from those currently in custody or under federal supervision. The samples would go into the federal database that currently catalogs murderers and kidnappers. Civil liberties groups have criticized the ATA for its dramatic expansion of surveillance authority, and other law enforcement powers. But Attorney General John Ashcroft urged swift adoption of the measure Monday. Testifying before the House Judiciary Committee, Ashcroft defended the proposal's definition of terrorism. "I don't believe that our definition of terrorism is so broad," said Ashcroft. "It is broad enough to include things like assaults on computers, and assaults designed to change the purpose of govt." The Act is scheduled for mark-up by the committee Tuesday morning.

    Global economic meltdown
    7.4.02       Al Martin

    In other news, the Office of Homeland Security has ordered the FBI to search public library records. … This program is actually part of a national database effort undertaken by Homeland Security pursuant to the Office of Internal Security's CTAC Program (Civilian Threat Assessment Classification). They're looking for any books that "espouse views contrary to the security of the state."
    This is from the CTAC Memorandum conducted under the auspices of the Office of Internal Security, part of Homeland Security program to establish a national database on all citizens, a national profile on all citizens by the Off. of Internal Security to assign every American citizen a CTAC classification number.

    Numbers will go from 1 to 8; 1 means that you are a loyal naïve flag waving GOP white heterosexual blond haired blue eyed.
    Any citizen with a CTAC classification number of 4 or above will have their file referred to the yet to be created Office of State Security, which will be under the auspices of the Defense Dept. The only thing that is holding up the creation of the Office of State Security is the overturning of posse comitatus. This can't be done until domestic law enforcement has been militarized.

    Ordeal by hearsay   re The File auth. Penn Kimball
    12.11.83   Thomas Powers N.Y. Times

    Until now, the life of Penn Townsend Kimball has been without public blemish. He was editor of the college paper at Princeton and a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, and then rose from private to captain as a marine in the Pacific during World War II.
    Since then he has held a number of plum jobs in journalism, was an aide to Gov. Chester Bowles of Connecticut and Gov. W. Averell Harriman of New York, and he is a professor of journalism at Columbia University. He has never been divorced or arrested and, until now, has never caused a scene in a public place.

    About the only thing you can say against Penn Townsend Kimball is that he had a shaky grasp of the mechanics of self-advancement. Every time one of his jobs began to look like the beginning of a serious career, he quit, generally for something doubtful but interesting like trying to elevate The New Republic into a liberal rival of Time and Newsweek, or trying to rescue Collier's magazine. It's an amiable fault.

    Now Kimball published a book drawing the attention of the world to a fact that had been enshrouded in secret govt files for more than 30 years. In 1946, after 3 separate investigations by State Dept and F.B.I., the State Dept concluded Kimball was a Communist sympathizer, conceivably even a secret member of the party, too clever by half and unfit to be trusted with his country's secrets.
    Kimball tells us, he was declared ''a definite security risk". In addition to revealing the charge, Kimball directed attention of govt investigators to evidence tending to support their case but overlooked back in 1946. One might safely assure him that, like other books, his will stir the interest of counterintelligence specialists at the C.I.A., who still sift through ancient files trying to unravel the code names of several dozen Soviet agents of the 1930's gleaned from intercepted cable traffic collectively referred to as the Venona material.

    Until 5 years ago, Kimball did not even know he had a security problem. Now he hastened to tell the world. Why?
    One reason was a chance discovery that 30 years earlier Arthur Schlesinger Jr. had described Kimball in a memo ''as a smart and cool party liner, at least.'' Schlesinger, then a leader of Americans for Democratic Action, had prepared the memo for the A.D.A., Mr. Kimball says, and circulated it ''among friendly and influential journalists'' after meeting Kimball and other editors of The New Republic at a staff lunch in 1947.

    In 1977, an academic friend of Kimball found a copy of the Schlesinger memo among the papers of the columnist Joseph Alsop in the Library of Congress. Kimball then remembered that in 1950 Sen. William Benton told him Schlesinger had telephoned to warn him against appointing Kimball his executive secretary on the grounds he was either a Communist or a fellow traveler.
    Benton checked with a friend at State Dept who told him there was something in a file about Kimball's employment by the liberal New York newspaper PM in the 1940's. Benton, who had once owned stock in PM, hired Kimball.

    But mention of Schlesinger's memo, even though it was not part of a govt dossier, piqued Kimball's interest in the govt file he vaguely remembered, and he formally requested to see it under the Freedom of Information Act. Thereupon followed 5 years of what Kimball calls ''trial by postal service'' during which he prodded govt agencies by mail and received irregular replies while govt chewed its way through hundreds of pages of documents, inked out the names of ''confidential informants'' and slowly released Mr. Kimball's files in dribs and drabs between 1978 and 1982. … a routine case of small consequence among the thousands of security investigations conducted over the years.

    In 1946, Kimball had applied to join the Foreign Service. He passed the various examinations and was offered a post in Saigon. But he decided to take a job with Time magazine instead and requested a postponement. It was granted. His application had triggered a routine background investigation.
    One informant suggested that Kimball's employment at PM ''might indicate his sympathies". The F.B.I. was invited to join the case by State Dept dir. of security Robert L. Bannerman. The initial check concluded Kimball was no security risk, but a second said he was.

    A third investigation was undertaken when another official at State thought the latter conclusion rested on shaky ground since it consisted mainly of hearsay and disregarded the testimony of leading journalists and govt officials like David Lawrence of U S News and World Report, Kenneth Crawford of Newsweek and Philip Kaiser, later an ambassador under Presidents Kennedy and Carter, who said Kimball was able and conscientious, loyal and reliable, a model citizen eminently qualified to serve govt.
    But along the way unnamed informants, peripheral figures in Kimball's life, some of whom he managed to identify after he got his file, kept saying he was a liberal, or ''Communistic,'' or at least definitely not on the side of the anti-Communists.

    New York Post editor and columnist James Wechsler, who died recently and who had worked at PM, told the investigators that Kimball was not on his side, the antiCommunist side, at least in the ideological wars that bedeviled PM and split the members of the American Newspaper Guild who worked there into bitter factions.
    Kimball hoped that Wechsler's testimony now would clear him in a new hearing if he could obtain one. Wechsler did everything he could to avoid discussing Kimball's file with him, but finally he did. Kimball says, ''Once I knew the identity of a confidential source, I could persuade a fair-minded person to look at the case against me in the proper context. Wechsler, for what it was worth, had denied the accuracy of the statements attributed to him and cast doubt on the competence of the special agents who had interviewed him".

    A ''supervisor'' at Time drove in the final nail with a claim that Kimball was ideologically untrustworthy. Kimball managed to guess the identities of some Government informants, but others eluded him and he made a determined, even obsessive, attempt to figure out who they were.
    ''It takes a while to sense the full bouquet of a govt security file,'' he writes. The ''charges'' against him boil down to casual remarks overheard in corridors by colleagues. In November 1946, Bannerman summed up the case against Kimball as ''a definite security risk'' and the verdict was accepted by the State Dept.

    Thereafter his file stirred occasionally as various govt agencies asked for a look. In the late 1950's, the C.I.A. took an interest, apparently when it was considering approaching Kimball about a job of some kind. The only complete copy of the file now resides at the C.I.A., since the F.B.I., the State Dept and the Office of Naval Intelligence (which had a file because Mr. Kimball had been in the Marines) all claim to have destroyed their documents.
    It is possible that the file squelched Kimball's chances of getting various govt jobs at one point or another; the prospects mysteriously evaporated. Kimball doesn't know. He remarks that Bannerman's name disappears from State Dept biographic registers in 1947.

    ''The hand of God?'' He wonders about the disappearance of the man who found him unworthy of trust when he was young and trying to pick up his career at the end of World War II. ''Off to some new secret mission?'' Again Kimball doesn't know. But his second guess, as it turns out, was the right one.
    Bannerman joined the Office of Security at the C.I.A. when the agency was founded in 1947, rose to become director of security in 1963 and later assistant director for administration before retiring in 1970. He now lives in Florida, where I reached him by telephone. He said, predictably, that he remembers nothing whatever of the case of Penn Kimball. Many thousands of security investigations crossed his desk over the