"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 years, and in March 1946, when Kimball's file was opened, Bannerman was preoccupied with Alger Hiss.

    Then, as later, Kimball's case was no big deal, except to Kimball. One retired C.I.A. officer remembers Bannerman as a decent, able fellow who kept the gumshoe instincts of investigators under control during his years with the agency.
    Others, still bruised from run-ins, remember him differently. It depends on whom you ask. But Kimball's book is not the only one sparked by a Bannerman investigation. Back in the late 1950's Sylvia Press, a counterintelligence analyst for the O.S.S. during the war, who moved to the C.I.A. in its early years, published a novel, ''The Care of Devils", about the long investigation conducted by Bannerman that ended her career in intelligence. Like Kimball's book, the novel is full of bewildered hurt.
    Doctors bury their mistakes; directors of security are haunted by theirs in books, at least in America.

    Can a citizen's loyalty can be reliably determined by investigating his opinions. Investigators in Kimball's case left no evidence in the file that they even bothered to read anything he had written, a surprising oversight in a case involving a professional journalist. Instead, they relied exclusively on hearsay. The portrait in his file is far from matching the earnest, well-meaning, able, entirely orthodox and conventional man revealed in Kimball's book.
    He invites the judgment of the world and deserves more apologies than he is likely to get. He has tried to show what violence can be done to a man's life by a casual rummaging through his past. But investigators and the system for which they work are after trace odor of the one in 10,000 chance a man might betray his country. For them, a doubt is as significant as a conviction, and their files go on forever.

    Bush cabal turning U.S. into banana republic
    7.15.02  
    Al Martin

    … Sen. Daschle said the Bush administration's new plan actually makes it more difficult for whistle blowers to seek protection from the FBI. It is even more difficult for whistle blowers to get a percentage of the recovery. Bush administration wants to impose a minimum, which the IRS or SEC is allowed to collect before any whistle-blowers can collect.
    The House overwhelmingly approved the new Guns in the Cockpit Law. There's a small provision in the bill, which Homeland Security Off. snuck in the back door. Part of this bill extends the federal law enforcement shield of immunity to cockpit crewmembers.

    This is the first time that any law has been passed, which allows the federal govt to extend law enforcement immunity to civilians. When this takes place in Somalia, they're called "militias" or "warlords." In Serbia, they were called the "White Eagles." They act on behalf of govt. Even in this country, as long as they are listed as paramilitary forces, there is a legal difference. …

    If security has a silly season, we're in it. After 9.11.01, every two-bit peddler of security technology crawled out of the woodwork with new claims about how his product can make us all safe again. Every misguided & defeated govt security initiative was dragged out of the closet, dusted off, and presented as the savior of our way of life. The general public is increasingly being asked to make security decisions, weigh security tradeoffs, and accept more intrusive security. Unfortunately, the general public has no idea how to do this.

    But we in computer security do. We've been doing it for years; we do it all the time. And I think we can teach everyone else to do it, too. What follows is my foolproof 5 step, security analysis. Use it to judge any security measure.
    •   What problem does the security measure solve?
    You'd think this would be an easy one, but so many security initiatives are presented without any clear statement of the problem. National ID cards are a purported solution without any clear problem. Increased net surveillance has been presented as a vital security requirement, but without any explanation as to why. (I see the problem not as one of not having enough information, but of not being able to analyze & interpret the information already available.)

    ••   How well does the security measure solve the problem?
    Too often analyses jump from the problem statement to a theoretical solution, without any analysis as to how well current technology actually solves the problem. Companies pushing automatic face recognition software for airports & public places spend all their time talking about the promises of a perfect system, while skipping the fact that existing systems work so poorly as to be useless. Enforcing a no-fly zone around a nuclear reactor only makes sense if you assume a hijacker will honor the zone, or if it is large enough to allow reaction to a hijacker who doesn't.

    •••   What other security problems does the measure cause?
    Security is a complex & inter-related system; change one thing and the effects ripple. If the govt bans strong cryptography, or mandates back-doors, the resultant weaker systems will be easier for the bad guys to attack. National ID cards require a centralized infrastructure that is vulnerable to abuse. In fact, the rise of identity theft can be linked to the increased use of electronic identity. Make identities harder to steal through increased security measures, and that will only make the fewer stolen identities more valuable and easier to use.

    ••••   What are the costs of the security measure?
    Costs are not just financial, they're social as well. We can improve security by banning commercial aircraft. We can make it harder for criminals to outrun police by mandating 40 mph speed maximums in automobiles. But these things cost society too much. A national ID card would be enormously expensive. The new rules allowing police to detain illegal aliens indefinitely without due process cost us dearly in liberty, as does much of the PATRIOT Act. We don't allow torture (officially, at least). Why not? Sometimes a security measure, even though it may be effective, is not worth the costs.

    •••••   Given the answers to steps two through four, is the security measure worth the costs?
    This is the easy step, but far too often no one bothers. It's not enough for a security measure to be effective. We don't have infinite resources. We don't have infinite patience. As a society, we need to do the things that make the most sense, that are the most effective use of our security dollar. Some security measures pass these tests. Increasing security around dams, reservoirs, and other infrastructure points is a good idea. Not storing railcars full of hazardous chemicals in the middle of cities should have been mandated years ago. New building evacuation plans are smart, too. These are all good uses of our limited resources to improve security.

    When you start using this five-step process , you'd be surprised how ineffectual most security is these days. For example, only 2 of the airline security measures put in place since 9.11.01 have any real value: reinforcing the cockpit door, and convincing passengers to fight back. Everything else falls somewhere between marginally improving security & a placebo.


      "Detroit's would-be Christmas Day bomber Omar Farouk Abdulmutallab was indicted today, charged with attempted murder, possession of a firearm and 4 other counts.
      Commentator David Frum says when you add everything up, this case is really gonna cost us."
    Travel restrictions come with high price
    1.6.10   Amer.Enterprise Institute resident fellow David Frum Marketplace

    Let's do a little aviation-security math. In the year ending September 2009, there occurred a little under 710 million departures from U.S. airports, according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics.
    Let's hypothesize that the typical air passenger's time is worth $50 an hour, twice the average hourly pay. Now add an extra 15 minutes screening delay at the security gates to every flight. How much did we just spend?

    It's not a complex formula. It works out to almost $9 billion. Add 30 minutes, and we've spent almost $18 billion.
    In these trillion-dollar days, that may not sound like much. But it's still money. The entire University of California system, the nation's greatest, costs only slightly more at $19 billion.
    Unlike university funds, wasted money never shows up in a budget. It's experienced person by person, enterprise by enterprise. Yet, that cost is exacted by deliberate political choice.

    There are two ways to do aviation security: either look for bombs or look for terrorists. Looking for terrorists is easier. Out of 100 passengers, there can be at most 100 terrorists. But among them, these hundred passengers offer thousands of possibilities for secreting a bomb.
    Every time federal authorities are embarrassed by their failure to intercept a known terrorist suspect, they compensate by hunting ever more furiously for hidden bombs.

    It's expensive, it's dumb, and it's bad security. But it's the line of bureaucratic and political least resistance. No tangling with civil liberties groups. No complaints from anti-discrimination lawyers.
    Who dares say that all those hard-working men and women in the screening lines are looking for the wrong thing, in the wrong way?


    Keep Big Brother's hands off the Internet
    10.97   Sen. John Ashcroft R-MO, chair Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Consumer Affairs, Foreign Commerce & Tourism
    USIA Electronic Journal "Global Issues" v2#4

    The Internet provides a great opportunity to our country, in part by representing the most inviting form of communication ever developed. It draws people together from all corners of the globe to share and communicate on an unprecedented level, and brings all branches of govt closer to the public that they serve.
    The Internet allows small businesses to reach out across the globe and conquer the distances between them and potential customers. Individuals can view merchandise and make purchases without leaving home. The Internet also holds great promise for education. Students -- rural, suburban, and urban -- are increasingly able to access a wealth of information with their fingertips that was previously beyond their reach.

    In order to guarantee that the U.S. meets the challenge of this new means of commerce, communication, and education, govt must be careful not to interfere. We should not harness the Internet with a confusing array of intrusive regulations and controls. Yet, the Clinton administration is trying to do just that.
    The Clinton administration would like the Federal govt to have the capability to read any intl or domestic computer communications. The FBI wants access to decode, digest, and discuss financial transactions, personal e- mail, and proprietary information sent abroad, all in the name of national security. To accomplish this, President Clinton would like govt agencies to have the keys for decoding all exported U.S. software & Internet communications.

    This proposed policy raises obvious concerns about Americans' privacy, in addition to tampering with the competitive advantage that our U.S. software companies currently enjoy in the field of encryption technology. Not only would Big Brother be looming over the shoulders of intl cyber-surfers, but the administration threatens to render our state-of-the-art computer software engineers obsolete & unemployed. There is a concern that the Internet could be used to commit crimes and that advanced encryption could disguise such activity. However, we do not provide the govt with phone jacks outside our homes for unlimited wiretaps. Why, then, should we grant govt the Orwellian capability to listen at will and in real time to our communications across the Web?

    The protections of the Fourth Amendment are clear. The right to protection from unlawful searches is an indivisible American value. 200 years of court decisions have stood in defense of this fundamental right. The state's interest in effective crime-fighting should never vitiate the citizens' Bill of Rights.
    The president has proposed that American software companies supply the govt with decryption keys to high level encryption programs. Yet, European software producers are free to produce computer encryption codes of all levels of security without providing keys to any govt authority. Purchasers of encryption software value security above all else. These buyers will ultimately choose airtight encryption programs that will not be American-made programs to which the U.S. govt maintains keys.

    In spite of this truism, the president is attempting to foist his rigid policy on the exceptionally fluid and fast- paced computer industry. Furthermore, recent developments in decryption technology bring into question the dynamic of govt meddling in this industry. Three months ago, the 56-bit algorithm govt standard encryption code that protects most U.S. electronic financial transactions from ATM cards to wire transfers was broken by a low-powered 90MHz Pentium processor.
    In 1977, when this code was first approved by the U.S. govt as a standard, it was deemed unbreakable. And for good reason. There are 72 quadrillion (72,000 trillion) different combinations in a 56-bit code. However, with today's technology these 72 quadrillion combinations can each be tried in a matter of time. Two days after this encryption code was broken, a majority of the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee voted, in accordance with administration policy, to force American software companies to perpetuate this already compromised 56-bit encryption system.

    In spite of the fact that 128-bit encryption software from European firms is available on Web sites accessible to every Internet user. Interestingly, European firms can import this super-secure encryption technology (originally developed by Americans) to the U.S., but U.S. companies are forbidden by law from exporting these same programs to other countries.

    I believe that moving forward with the president's policy or the Commerce Committee's bill would be an act of folly, creating a cadre of govt "peeping toms" and causing severe damage to our vibrant software industries. Govt would be caught in a perpetual game of catch-up with whiz-kid code-breakers and industry advances. Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott has signaled his objection to both proposals.

    The leader and I would like to work to bring solid encryption legislation to the Senate floor. Any proposal should give U.S. encryption software manufacturers the freedom to compete on equal footing in the intl marketplace, by providing the industry with a quasi-governmental board that would decide encryption bit strength based on the level of intl technological development.
    U.S. companies are on the front line of on-line technologies, value-added industries of the future. Consider this: Every 18 months, the processing capability of a computer doubles. The speed with which today's fastest computers calculate will be slug-like before the next millennium or the next presidential election comes along. The best policy for encryption technology is one that can rapidly react to breakthroughs in decoding capability and roll back encryption limits as needed.

    The administration's interest in all e-mail is a wholly unhealthy precedent, especially given this administration's track record on FBI files and IRS snooping. Every medium by which people communicate can be subject to exploitation by those with illegal intentions. Nevertheless, this is no reason to hand Big Brother the keys to unlock our e-mail diaries, open our ATM records, read our medical records, or translate our intl communications.
    Additionally, the full potential of the Internet will never be realized without a system that fairly protects the interests of those who use the Internet for their businesses, own copyrighted material, deliver that material via the Internet, or individual users. The implications here are far-reaching, with impacts that touch individual users, companies, libraries, universities, teachers, and students.

    In Dec. 1996, 2 treaties were adopted by World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) diplomatic conference to update intl copyright law. These treaties would extend intl copyright law into the digital environment, incl the Internet. However, these treaties do not provide a comprehensive response to the many copyright issues raised by flourishing of the Internet and promise of digital technology. We must work to keep the scales of copyright law balanced, providing important protections to creators of content, while ensuring their widespread distribution. In an attempt to meet these goals, I introduced the Digital Copyright Clarification &Technology Education Act of 1997.

    Equally important, we must begin a process that is structured to balance the rights of copyright owners with the needs & technological limitations of those who enable the distribution of the electronic information, and with the rights & needs of individual end users. Current treaties & statements are not sufficient, and include some language that could create legal uncertainty. This vague language could lead to laws that ignore technical realities. The language must be clarified through the enactment of legislation in conjunction with the Senate's ratification of the treaties.

    Another issue that could prevent the Internet from reaching its potential is taxation. If we tax the Internet prematurely or allow discriminatory taxing, we may stifle a burgeoning technological development that holds much commercial, social, and educational promise for all Americans. Taxation should be considered only after we have fully examined and understood the impact that unequivocal taxation would have on this new means of commerce.
    The Internet Tax Freedom Act would allow for full consideration of the opportunities and possible abuses by placing a moratorium on further taxation of online commerce and technologically discriminatory taxes. It is important to note that S. 442 will allow states & local jurisdictions to continue to collect any tax already levied on electronic commerce.

    On-line communications technology is akin to the Wild West of the 19th century. To best settle this new frontier, we should unleash American know-how and ingenuity. The govt's police-state policy on encryption is creating hindrances and hurdles that will eventually injure our ability to compete internationally. Govt's role should be to break down barriers, to allow everyone to excel to their highest & best.

    Special forces get free rein
    11.23.01   Rowan Scarborough Wash.Times U.S. commandos inside Afghanistan have been given historic autonomy to plan & execute attacks when needed, resulting in "hundreds" of deaths of enemy soldiers, military officials say.
    One official described the special-operations forces' (SOF) rules of engagement as an "unrestricted hunting license" for Taliban militia & Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda terrorist army now in disarray. Specialoperations troops the past 2 weeks have conducted their first sustained ground combat in Afghanistan. Sources say small teams of Delta Force soldiers and other commando units have ambushed the enemy and killed them in small batches.
    "From the reports I've seen, they have killed in the hundreds," a sr administration official said. "There have been no deaths on our side." This official & others said in interviews they credit the success to a premium placed on special-operations training the past 20 years.

    They also praise the freedom granted the units by Gen. Tommy Franks. Gen. Franks, directing the war in Afghanistan as head of U.S. Central Command, is part of the "conventional" Army, and thus suspect in the eyes of hardened covert warriors.
    But some in the community are applauding the general's willingness to give SOF their loosest rein since Vietnam War. Then, Army Green Berets infiltrated enemy territory and attacked at will.

    Commandos are working in small teams at night in southern Afghanistan, attacking Taliban & al Qaeda soldiers around their stronghold of Kandahar. U.S. commandos can conduct reconnaissance, identify the enemy and plan missions to attack without getting approval from Central Command, officials said. "You've got to give these guys freedom to plan direct action because the intelligence is so fragile," an administration official said. "In conventional warfare, you can rely on older intelligence of enemy positions because the enemy is not as mobile. In direct action, they're going after people. They have to do their own intelligence and act on it right away. You have to give these guys some slack."
    In some cases, soldiers have used sniper fire, taking advantage of stealth & superior night-sight equipment. In other encounters, soldiers used Barret 50-caliber weapons, a heavy sniper rifle that can take out an armored vehicle, or a person, at 1,500 yards.

    The administration official said now that hundreds of SOF soldiers are behind enemy lines they must act quickly or lose their prey. "It's only when you operate in country that information becomes minutes old," the official said. Personnel in the special-operations community say Afghanistan has provided a playing field for SOF specialists to ply two classic trades at once: unconventional warfare & direct action.
    In unconventional warfare, Army Special Forces, or Green Berets, have worked with the Northern Alliance & other opposition groups. U.S. soldiers, trained in indigenous customs & language, give tactical advice, supply arms and bond with commanders who will one day run the country.

    In "direct action" carried out by Delta Force & other SOF units, commandos find targets for fighter jets to strike, blow up some targets themselves and conduct hit-&-run raids. "They're not leaving a footprint," said the administration official. "When these guys do sleep, they sleep on the ground. They don't have a fixed base camp."

    a Delta Force is under the control of U.S. Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), located at Pope AFB, which borders Ft Bragg NC, home to Army Special Operations Command. JSOC not only oversees the super-secret Delta anti-terrorism unit, but also the Navy's Seal Team Six.

    "There are elements of JSOC we don't talk about," an Army officer said. Under the command of Army Maj. Gen. Del Dailey, JSOC units train in total secrecy. Few outside the units know who they are or what they do. Gen. Dailey, an ex-member of the 800-strong Delta unit, personally briefed President Bush on their missions in Afghanistan before the war began. DefSecretary Rumsfeld visited Pope & Ft Bragg this week to fire up troops on whose shoulders much of the war's fate now rests.
    Backed by air power, they must not only kill terrorists, but also help catch or kill the 2 primary al Qaeda leaders: bin Laden & his top aide Ayman al Zawahiri.
    While at Ft Bragg, Rumsfeld credited SOF with turning the war in Afghanistan in U.S. favor. In the first weeks after the air campaign began Oct. 7, opposition forces made little headway. But once U.S. warriors entered the country in significant numbers and began finding crucial command & troop targets, the Taliban began its retreat.

    "The air war enabled the ground war to succeed," Mr. Rumsfeld said. "And it turned when we had Special Forces down there to help with the targeting. And God bless them for doing it."

      insider divestiture   ¹   ²

    Officials say they're using every means to cut money to terrorists; Ask Congress for more power   ¹
    10.3.01   Marcy Gordon AP

    WASHINGTON   Administration officials told Congress on Wednesday they are using every means they have to halt the flow of money to terrorist networks and appealed for expanded powers. Treasury Sec. Paul O'Neill & Justice Dept officials said U.S. allies are helping in the effort to dissect the complex financial network of Osama bin Laden. Lawmakers were sympathetic but said they have misgivings about law enforcement agencies' ability to work together against terrorists, given their history of turf fighting and reluctance to share information. "If you don't trust each other to share information, how can you expect us to trust you?" Rep. Sue Kelly R-NY, asked 3 officials from the FBI, Justice and Treasury Depts at a hearing by the House Financial Services Committee. Other lawmakers also noted that the FBI, a bureau of the Justice Dept, and the Customs Service, Drug Enforcement Administration and other Treasury agencies have had trouble cooperating.

    O'Neill acknowledged previous "blockages." Now for the first time, he said, enforcement agencies are engaged in "dedicated & determined" sharing of information to help the campaign against intl terror. "Currency can be as lethal as a bullet," O'Neill told the lawmakers. "If we are to root out terrorist cells that threaten to do violence to our people & our communities, we have to hunt the financial benefactors & the willfully blind financial intermediaries that underwrite murder & mayhem." He & the other officials asked for expansion of the govt's powers to fight money laundering and track money flows. The administration is seeking the new powers in an anti-terrorism package it proposed to Congress after 9.11.01 attacks. Some of the proposals have sparked opposition from liberals & conservatives alike, who fear they would infringe on civil liberties.

    President Bush moved last week to freeze assets of bin Laden and 26 other people & organizations with suspected links to terrorism. The administration says that so far, some $6 million has been blocked and 50 bank accounts frozen, 30 in this country and 20 overseas. O'Neill said the administration had "taken decisive action domestically, and, just as importantly, scores of countries have followed suit with bank freezes and pledges to take measures to heighten scrutiny of suspicious transactions." O'Neill & deputy asst atty general Mary Lee Warren told the committee that legislation was needed to close legal loopholes that terrorists use to transfer money without detection. Committee Chairman Rep. Michael Oxley, R-OH and Rep. John LaFalce NY, its senior Democrat, proposed legislation Wed. that would expand the govt's authority. The measure contains similar provisions to those being sought by the administration.
    The House bill would establish a govt-industry partnership to block the financial backing of terrorists. Provisions directed at money laundering by drug traffickers as well as terrorists would make it a crime to smuggle more than $10,000 in cash or to knowingly falsify a customer's identity when making a transaction with a bank. The U.S. govt believes bin Laden & his al-Qaida network raise money through a variety of legitimate & illegal sources: charities, business enterprises and wealthy supporters as well as illegal weapons trafficking. Investigators & experts say members of the network make money any way they can to support the cause

      More signs of odd stock trades found
      9.26.01   Greg Farrell USA Today
    NEW YORK   Evidence continues to mount that unusual stock & option trading in the parents of American Airlines, United Airlines and other companies reached unusual levels in the days leading up to 9.11.01 attacks. Data from the NY Stock Exchange show that on Sept. 10, short interest, a bet on a falling stock price, in United Airlines' parent UAL had jumped 40% from the Aug. 10 level, to 4.4 million shares. Phil Erlanger, who tracks short interest & options, says that level of short interest in UAL is unprecedented. Compared with the 12-month average daily trading volume, UAL's short interest ratio reached 11.1 days. It was 7.8 in August. That means the number of shares sold short equaled more than 11 trading days of UAL's average volume. That ratio stood at 1.1 last year and has been building for 12 months. "You haven't seen this kind of short ratio in years," says Erlanger. …

    Suspicious trading points to advance knowledge by big investors   10.5.01   Barry Grey WSWS

    … 10.2.01 Wall St Journal reported ongoing investigation by the SEC into suspicious stock trades had been joined by a Secret Service probe into an unusually high volume of 5 year U.S. Treasury note purchases prior to the attacks. The Treasury note transactions included a single $5 billion trade. As the Journal explained: "5 year Treasury notes are among the best investments in the event of a world crisis, esp. one that hits the US. The notes are prized for their safety and their backing by the US govt, and usually rally when investors flee riskier investments, such as stocks." The value of these notes, the Journal pointed out, has risen sharply since 9.11.01 events. The article went on to quote Tucker Anthony Inc. bond market strategist Michael Shamosh, who said, "If they were going to do something like this they would do it in the 5 year part of the market. It's extremely liquid, and the tracks would be hard to spot."

    … on Tue. the Investment Dealers Assoc., the Canadian securities industry trade association, posted on its web site a list sent by the American SEC of 38 stocks. The US agency had asked the Canadians to look into trading in these stocks between Aug. 27 & Sept. 11. As soon as US officials became aware of the Internet posting, they demanded that the IDA yank it from the web site, and the Canadian organization complied. However, reporters & others were able to copy the list before it was pulled. The list incl parent companies of American, Continental, Delta, Northwest, Southwest, United and US Airways, as well as Carnival & Royal Caribbean cruise lines, aircraft maker Boeing and defense contractor Lockheed Martin. Several insurance companies are on the list: American Intl Group, Axa, Chubb, Cigna, CNA Financial, John Hancock and MetLife. The SEC list also includes several big companies that were tenants in the collapsed WTCtr: investment firms Morgan Stanley, the complex's largest occupant; Lehman Brothers; Bank of America; and the financial firm Marsh & McLennan. Other major companies listed incl General Motors, Raytheon, LTV, WR Grace, Lone Star Technologies, American Express, Bank of New York, Bank One, Citigroup and Bear Stearns.

    Testifying Wed. before House Committee on Financial Services, FBI Financial Crimes Section chief Dennis Lormel said, "To date, there are no flags or indicators ... that people took dvantage of this." However USA Today quoted PTI Securities co-founder Jon Najarian, described as an "active player" on the Chicago Board Options Exchange, who said, "The volumes were exceptional versus the norm." …

    SEC investigates trading in 38 companies' shares
    Asks brokerages to review records
    10.2.01   Marcy Gordon AP

    WASHINGTON   … IDA … sent a notice of the list to its approximately 190 member firms. "These are the ... securities the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating in the U.S. We ask that you review same with a view of determining any unusual trading patterns," the Web site posting said. The dealers' group enforcement vp Alex Popovic said Tue. that the SEC had asked brokerage firms to concentrate on stocks on the list, but not to limit their review. "One shouldn't be wearing blinders when looking at that sort of thing," he said by telephone from Toronto. SEC spokesman Michael Robinson would not comment Tue. SEC Chairman Harvey Pitt told Congress last week that the agency's top priority is to pursue its investigation of possible trading by people associated with the terrorists.

    If such trading is found to have occurred, "We will do everything within our power to track those people down and bring them to justice," Pitt said in testimony to the House Financial Services Committee. …

    Suppresed details of criminal insider trading lead directly into the CIA's highest ranks
    CIA exec. dir. Krongard managed firm that handled UAL "put" options   10.9.01   Michael C. Ruppert
    FTW

    Although uniformly ignored by the mainstream U.S. media, there is abundant & clear evidence that a number of transactions in financial markets indicated specific (criminal) foreknowledge of 9.11.01 … That evidence also demonstrates that, in the case of at least one of these trades, which has left a $2.5 million prize unclaimed, the firm used to place the "put options" on United Airlines stock was, until 1998, managed by the man who is now in the CIA #3 Exec. Dir. position. Until 1997 A.B. "Buzzy" Krongard had been chairman of investment bank A.B. Brown, which was acquired by Banker's Trust in 1997. Krongard then became, as part of the merger, vice chairman of Banker's Trust-AB Brown, one of 20 major U.S. banks named by Senator Carl Levin this year as being connected to money laundering. Krongard's last position at Banker's Trust (BT) was to oversee "private client relations." In this capacity he had direct hands-on relations with some of the wealthiest people in the world in a kind of specialized banking operation that has been identified by the U.S. Senate & other investigators as being closely connected to the laundering of drug money. Krongard joined the CIA in 1998 as counsel to CIA Dir. Geo. Tenet. He was promoted to CIA Exec. Dir. by Pres. GWBush March 2001. BT was acquired by Deutsche Bank in 1999. The combined firm is the single largest bank in Europe. Deutsche Bank played several key roles in events connected to 9.11.01.

      Scope of known insider trading
    … insider trading information being ignored by Reuters, NY Times and other mass media. … CIA has long monitored such trades, in real time, as potential warnings of terrorist attacks and other economic moves contrary to U.S. interests. Previous stories in FTW have specifically highlighted the use of Promis software to monitor such trades. It is necessary to understand only 2 key financial terms to understand the significance of these trades. "Selling Short" is the borrowing of stock, selling it at current market prices, but not being required to actually produce the stock for some time. If the stock falls precipitously after the short contract is entered, the seller can then fulfill the contract by buying the stock after the price has fallen and complete the contract at the pre-crash price. These contracts often have a window of as long as four months. "Put Options," purchased at nominal prices of, for example, $1.00 per share, are sold in blocks of 100 shares. If exercised, they give the holder the option of selling selected stocks at a future date at a price set when the contract is issued. Thus, for an investment of $10,000 it might be possible to tie up 10,000 shares of United or American Airlines at $100 per share, and the seller of the option is then obligated to buy them if the option is executed. If the stock has fallen to $50 when the contract matures, the holder of the option can purchase the shares for $50 and immediately sell them for $100, regardless of where the market then stands. A call option is the reverse of a put option, which is, in effect, a derivatives bet that the stock price will go up.

    9.21.01 story by the Israeli Herzliyya Intl Policy Institute for Counterterrorism, entitled "Black Tuesday: The World's Largest Insider Trading Scam?" documented the following trades connected to 9.11.01:

    • Between Sept. 6 & 7, Chicago Board Options Exchange saw purchases of 4,744 put options on United Airlines, but only 396 call options. Assuming that 4,000 of the options were bought by people with advance knowledge of the imminent attacks, these "insiders" would have profited by almost $5 million.
    • On 9.10.01, 4,516 put options on American Airlines were bought on the Chicago exchange, compared to only 748 calls. Again, there was no news at that point to justify this imbalance; Again, assuming that 4,000 of these options trades represent "insiders," they would represent a gain of about $4 million.
      ( The levels of put options purchased above were more than 6x higher than normal.)
    • No similar trading in other airlines occurred on the Chicago exchange in the days immediately preceding Black Tuesday.
    • Morgan Stanley Dean Witter & Co., which occupied 22 floors of the WTCtr, saw 2,157 of its Oct. $45 put options bought in the 3 trading days before Black Tuesday; this compares to an average of 27 contracts per day before Sept. 6. Morgan Stanley's share price fell from $48.90 to $42.50 in the aftermath of the attacks. Assuming that 2,000 of these options contracts were bought based upon knowledge of the approaching attacks, their purchasers could have profited by at least $1.2 million.
    • Merrill Lynch & Co., which occupied 22 floors of the WTCtr, saw 12,215 Oct. $45 put options bought in the 4 trading days before the attacks; the previous average volume in those shares had been 252 contracts per day (a 1200% increase!). When trading resumed, Merrill's shares fell from $46.88 to $41.50; assuming that 11,000 option contracts were bought by "insiders," their profit would have been about $5.5 million.
    • European regulators are examining trades in Germany's Munich Re, Switzerland's Swiss Re, and AXA of France, all major reinsurers with exposure to the Black Tuesday disaster.
      ( FTW note: AXA also owns more than 25% of American Airlines stock making the attacks a "double whammy" for them.)
    9.29.01 in a vital story gone unnoticed by major media, SF Chronicle reported, "Investors have yet to collect more than $2.5 million in profits they made trading options in the stock of United Airlines before the 9.11.01 attacks, according to a source familiar with the trades & market data. "The uncollected money raises suspicions that the investors, whose identities & nationalities have not been made public, had advance knowledge of the strikes." … "October series options for UAL Corp. were purchased in highly unusual volumes 3 trading days before the terrorist attacks for a total outlay of $2,070; investors bought the option contracts, each representing 100 shares, for 90 cents each. (This represents 230,000 shares). Those options are now selling at more than $12 each. There are still 2,313 so-called "put" options outstanding (valued at $2.77 million and representing 231,300 shares) according to the Options Clearinghouse Corp. … The source familiar with the United trades identified Deutsche Bank Alex. Brown, the American investment banking arm of German giant Deutsche Bank, as the investment bank used to purchase at least some of these options..." As reported in other news stories, Deutsche Bank was also the hub of insider trading activity connected to Munich Re. just before the attacks.

      CIA, the banks and the brokers
    Understanding the interrelationships between CIA and the banking & brokerage world is critical to grasping the already frightening implications of the above revelations. Let's look at the history of CIA, Wall St and the big banks by looking at some of the key players in CIA's history.

    Clark Clifford …
    John Foster & Allen Dulles …
    Bill Casey …
    David Doherty, current NYSE VP for enforcement is retired CIA General Counsel
    George Herbert Walker Bush …
    A.B. "Buzzy" Krongard …
    John Deutch, retired CIA Dir. from Clinton admin. currently sits on board at Citigroup, nation's second largest bank, …
    Nora Slatkin - retired CIA Exec. Dir. also sits on Citibank's board.
    Maurice "Hank" Greenburg, CEO of AIG insurance, manager of third largest capital investment pool in the world, was floated as a possible CIA Dir. in 1995. FTW exposed Greenberg's & AIG's long connection to CIA drug trafficking & covert operations in 2 part series interrupted just prior to 9.11.01. AIG's stock bounced back remarkably since. …

    Probe of terrorists' insider trading still inconclusive
    Agencies continue to search for evidence that some organizations may have profited from attacks
    10.18.01   Walter Hamilton LATimes

    Govt investigators don't appear to be coming up with quick answers in their probe of possible insider trading by terrorists ahead of the 9.11.01 attacks. Despite what seemed to some people initially to be a glaring case of market manipulation, no evidence has emerged publicly to indicate that those tied to the attacks tried to gain financially from them. "To date, there are no flags or indicators" showing that terrorists used trading strategies known as "short selling" to profit from the attacks, FBI financial-crimes unit chief Dennis Lormel told a Congressional committee Oct. 3. Some experts now say they doubt that such a scheme took place. What appears to be suspicious activity in some stocks may turn out to have been legitimate trading, they say. What's more, there is doubt that the terrorist organization that went to great lengths to plan & conceal the attacks would have risked leaving behind a paper trail that could expose its identity.

    "It would be out of pattern [for them] to just lead us so easily to their tracks," Temple Univ. intl financial crimes expert Nikos Passas. "If they [tried to manipulate the market] it would have been a strategic mistake on their part, and their track record so far shows they don't make such mistakes." Nevertheless, the FBI, SEC and other agencies continue to search for evidence that terrorists may have sought to profit from the post-attacks plunge in the securities of airlines and other companies. … To their advantage, regulators have conducted this sort of insider-trading probe many times in the last 2 decades. Though the stakes are higher than ever before, the process is the same: It involves combing through a labyrinth of trading records in the U.S. & abroad, an exercise at which the SEC has become quite skilled, experts say. Crucial to the investigation, they add, is the cooperation of other countries.

    Regulators are adept at tracing financial activities within the U.S., and can fairly easily obtain records from domestic brokerages, experts say. That process probably was completed in the initial days of the probe. But if the financial trail leads overseas, the probe's outcome could hinge on how successful U.S. regulators are at tracking down leads from abroad, several experts said. The SEC has worked hard in the last decade to forge close ties with its regulatory counterparts in other countries. The agency has information-sharing pacts with more than two dozen countries in which foreign regulators have pledged their assistance in such investigations. "There's a lot of pressure in every sense of the word being brought to bear on any one of these jurisdictions to cough up the information and cooperate," said former SEC enforcement chief William McLucas. Nevertheless, tracking assets & transactions overseas can be a slow & painstaking process that is rife with obstacles. Chief among those is the likelihood that any illegal trading would have been done through shell accounts in which the identity of account-holders is purposely disguised. In such cases, investigators must rely on foreign govts to reveal who controls the funds. "The govt's ability to trace information abroad is largely, almost exclusively, dependent on the cooperation of the govt of that country," said former Justice Dept prosecutor Bill Lawler, now a partner with Vinson & Elkins in Wash.DC. "Once they get to a country that says, 'No, we're just not going to help you,' that would be the dead-end."

    Some analysts aren't convinced that the evidence is compelling enough to suggest that illegal trading occurred. For example, open interest in AMR put options surged 73% on Sept. 10, a huge one-day jump, said Chris Johnson, an analyst at Schaeffer's Investment Research, a Cincinnati research firm. But that was only the fifth- largest one-day jump in AMR put options since 1990, Johnson said. And the weakening economy was hurting airlines well before the attacks, analysts note. On Sept. 7, AMR warned that it would have disappointing second-half results. "(The put-option activity was) significant, but at the same time it has happened in the past for reasons other than terrorist activities," Johnson said. "You can't rule out the fact that this was non-terrorist-related." However, questions linger. The number of put contracts that have yet to be closed out remains relatively high in AMR, Johnson said. Given that the plunge in AMR shares following the attacks made the puts very profitable, those contracts normally would be closed out as traders took their profits, Johnson said. That could be a sign that trading in the put options was legitimate, and that investors are holding on to the securities in the hope that AMR's stock price will fall further. But it also could signal that the accounts have been frozen or that the investors don't want to close out the trades for fear of drawing attention.

    House & Senate leaders clash on banking measure
    10.16.01   J.Kahn K.Eichenwald J.Peterson NYTimes

    Wash.D.C.   … Democratic leaders say that they will not take any more action on the overall bill unless it includes tougher banking rules. 9.11.01 terrorists left a long paper trail of bank accounts, credit cards and money transfers showing that they used the ordinary banking system with little scrutiny. … Money- laundering legislation in the House & Senate would impose similar mandates on banks to scrutinize customers and report suspicious activity. It would also give the Treasury secretary broad powers to track money overseas and to punish foreign govts that fail to help in the crackdown. … longstanding debate about whether banks are doing enough to make sure that criminals do not use intl financial system to help commit crimes. … Law enforcement officials, incl AG John Ashcroft, have pushed hard for new rules that would allow law enforcement officers to scrutinize bank accounts and have easier access to bank records filed with the IRS & other federal agencies. Treasury Sec. Paul H. O'Neill & White House economic adviser Lawrence B. Lindsey often criticized money-laundering rules as burdensome & ineffective before 9.11.01. Since, Mr. O'Neill has been leading the administration's high profile campaign to curtail terrorist access to the financial system. Mr. Lindsey has continued to oppose some new banking measures as draconian. His office has taken the lead in seeking to work out differences between House & Senate versions of the terrorism bills.

    Conservative groups & bankers have lobbied against the measures, although their approach has been low key relative to the intensive efforts to kill such legislation in the past. Some 25 conservative leaders organized by the Ctr for Freedom & Prosperity sent a letter to President Bush earlier this month urging him to reject the Senate's money- laundering proposals. They called the new rules a backdoor attempt to eliminate intl competition in the financial industry and complained that it gave too much power to the Treasury secretary. Some banking groups, incl influential Texas Bankers Assoc., have also pushed House supporters, incl Mr. Armey, to strip some of the most contentious provisions out of the banking bill, Congressional aides said. "Bankers are very uncomfortable with this bill. It tries to turn banks into spies for the govt," said banking consultant Bert Ely who opposes the new legislation. …

    Clinton White House axed terror-fund probe ¹
    4.2.02   Jerry Seper Wash.Times

    The Clinton administration shut down a 1995 investigation of Islamic charities, concerned that a public probe would expose Saudi Arabia's suspected ties to a global money-laundering operation that raised millions for anti-Israel terrorists, federal officials told The Washington Times. Law enforcement authorities & others close to the aborted investigation said the State Dept pressed federal officials to pull agents off the previously undisclosed probe after the charities were targeted in the diversion of cash to groups that fund terrorism. Former federal prosecutor John J. Loftus said 4 interrelated Islamic foundations, institutes and charities in Virginia with more than a billion dollars in assets donated by or through the Saudi Arabian govt were allowed to continue under "a veil of secrecy." "If federal agents had been allowed to conduct the investigation they wanted in 1995, they would have made the connection between the Saudi govt & those charities," said Mr. Loftus, now a St. Petersburg, FL lawyer who filed a lawsuit last week accusing a Florida charity of fraud. "Had the charities been shut down, they would have been unable to raise the millions that since have been used by terrorists in hundreds of suicide attacks," he said.

    Federal agents last week began a new investigation, known as "Operation Green Quest," into the funding by charities of suspected terrorists, raiding 14 Islamic businesses in Virginia. Agents from the U.S. Customs Service, Internal Revenue Service, Immigration & Naturalization Service and FBI, coordinated by a Treasury Dept counterterrorism task force, seized 2 dozen computers, along with hundreds of bank statements & other documents. Records in the case have been sealed and no arrests have been announced, although the probe is continuing.
    The Loftus suit, filed 3.20.02 under the Florida Consumer Protection Act, accuses the Saudi govt in massive scheme involving charities in VA & FL that routed cash to terrorists. The suit's main target is former Univ. of S.Florida prof. Sami Al-Arian who created or was associated with several Florida charities or think tanks, including Intl Committee for Palestine, Islamic Concern Project and the now- defunct World & Islam Studies Enterprise.

    Warrants served by agents in the Virginia raids last week targeted, among others, the International Institute of Islamic Thought in Herndon, major source of funding for Mr. Al-Arian's World & Islam Studies Inst. The warrants sought information on Islamic Jihad, Hamas, the Islamic Concern Project, the World & Islam Studies Enterprise, and Mr. Al-Arian. They also sought information on the SAAR Foundation, educational & health charity founded by the Al-Rajihi family of Saudi Arabia. The Islamic Concern Project and the World & Islam Studies Enterprise have been named by the State Dept as front organizations that raised funds for militant Islamic- Palestinian groups such as Islamic Jihad & Hamas. They have been tied to the diversion of millions of dollars to terrorists for weapons, safe haven, training and equipt.

    Saudi information office spokesman Nail Al-Jubeir in Washington called the accusations "simply nonsense," adding that Saudi Arabia has cracked down on terrorists & those who fund them. "There is not one iota of evidence to support these accusations," Mr. Al-Jubeir said. "It is nothing more than an effort to smear our name. If there is any proof, I would suggest it be taken directly to the U.S. govt." Mr. Al-Arian & Islamic Concern Project dir. Mazen Al-Najjar targeted by federal investigations since mid-1990s. No criminal charges filed against the two, although the govt shut down the World & Islam Studies Enterprise.
    Mr. Al-Najjar, who is Mr. Al-Arian's brother-in-law, was detained & ordered deported by the INS on visa violations after 9.11.01. He is being held at a FL federal detention center pending appeal. In the aborted 1995 investigation, the FBI said in a sealed affidavit that the Islamic Concern Project and World & Islam Studies Enterprise, working with VA charities, committed fraud and "served as a vehicle by which [Islamic Jihad] raised funds to support terrorist activities in the occupied territories." In that probe, investigators found that checks drawn on a bank account of the Intl Committee for Palestine had been cashed by people in MidEast. They said the checks had been signed by Mr. Al-Arian.

    Mr. Loftus is seeking an injunction blocking Florida charities, including those headed by Mr. Al-Arian, from transferring "money, weapons, equipt or communications gear" to terrorists. Mr. Al-Arian has vigorously denied any wrongdoing, calling the Loftus lawsuit a "publicity stunt." His atty, Robert McKee, did not return calls to his office for comment. Pres. Clinton spokeswoman Julie Payne did not repond to inquiries about State Dept policy in 1995 during his administration. Accusations that Saudi govt used charities as front organizations to fund international terrorism are long-standing, first surfacing 20 years ago when U.S. intelligence officials warned Congress that the Saudis had taken over the direct funding of terrorist groups such as Islamic Jihad and Hamas.

    One former & 3 current federal law enforcement officials said the new probe began after U.S. officials learned that intelligence agents in India had wiretapped the telephone of a Pakistani charity funded by the Saudi govt and discovered transfer of $100,000 to al Qaeda 9.11.01 hijacker Mohamed Atta. That information helped U.S. officials identify the 19 hijackers, 15 of whom were from Saudi Arabia, the officials said. Officials said Treasury's interagency task force was created after 9.11.01 to investigate ties between charitable organizations in this country and intl terrorist groups.

    4 arrested in TX on terror funding charges   ¹
    12.18.02   K.Arena, S. Candiotti & E.Lavandera CNN

    Dallas   4 brothers who work for a suburban Dallas computer company made an initial court appearance Wednesday on federal charges related to an alleged financing scheme for the radical Islamic group Hamas. No pleas were entered during the brief hearing, which came hours after the 4 were arrested by a federal joint terrorism task force in Dallas & the suburb of Richardson.
    All 4 brothers, Ghassan Elashi, 49; Bayan Elashi, 47; Basman Elashi, 46; and Hazim Elashi, no age given, were asked if they had read the indictments against them and understood the charges. Each said, "Yes." As he was being escorted out of the courtroom, Ghassan Elashi told CNN, "I think we are the victims here."

    A 33-count indictment filed Tuesday named the 4 brothers, another brother already in custody, an Islamic militant leader, his wife, and the computer company Infocom Corp. Investigators allege the group engaged in various export violations involving Libya & Syria, laundered money, conspired to deal in the property of a specially designated terrorist and funneled funds through Infocom.
    If convicted, the defendants could be sentenced to maximum penalties of 10 years in prison on illegal export charges, 10 to 20 years for money laundering, 10 years for dealing in the property of a designated terrorist, and 5 years in prison for making false statements, Atty General John Ashcroft said. "The defendants could also be subject to fines of up to $7.2 million," he said at a Washington news conference.

    FBI dir. Robt Mueller told reporters the investigation "relied upon an array of intelligence and law enforcement initiatives and tools that have characterized our post 9/11 efforts."
    Defense atty Mike Gibson, representing the 4 brothers, said there was "no evidence that I'm aware of that these gentlemen are involved in any kind of terrorist activities. At the end of the day, I think it's not quite what you read in the paper or what Mr. Ashcroft said in Washington today," Gibson said. Gibson said the charges appeared to involve legitimate business transactions. "So I think we may have a situation where things were sent to the Mideast to a proper country and somehow ended up in a terrorist country, and now they are trying to connect the dots and make it look like we intended to do that," he said.

    Fifth brother named in the indictment Ihsan Elashyi, also known as Sammy Elashyi, was placed in custody earlier on an unrelated charge. Mousa Abu Marzook, also known as Abu Omar, was the Islamic militant leader indicted. He has already been deported.
    Sources said Marzook is the political bureau chief of Hamas, Palestinian group labeled a terrorist organization by the U.S. State Dept. Hamas' military wing, Izzedine al Qassam, has admitted launching terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians & military personnel. Named along with Marzook in the indictment was his wife, Nadia Elashi, also known as Nadia Marzook & Um Omar. She was said to be the cousin of the 5 brothers.

    According to sources, Ghassan Elashi is Infocom vp & an official with the Holy Land Foundation, designated by U.S. as a financial supporter of terrorist organizations. The others are also employees of Infocom. The indictment named Bayan Elashi as chief executive officer.
    Ghassan Elashi has repeatedly denied those charges. "We are strictly a charitable organization and we have no relation with any terrorist organizations," he said 12.58.02. In mid-1990s, Marzook was designated a terrorist by the U.S., which made it illegal for anyone in the country to conduct business with him. Officials allege the suspects continued to engage in financial transactions with Marzook after the designation. The allegations incl trade violations involving Infocom, which deals in Internet technologies.

    Marzook was said to have made donations to the Holy Land Foundation in the early 1990s, according to a foundation atty. The Bush administration froze Holy Land's assets and raided its offices Dec. 2001 after determining the group was aiding a terrorist organization. Holy Land sued, claiming govt officials had not sufficiently proved a link to terrorism and had violated its constitutional rights.
    In an order filed last summer, U.S. District Court Judge Gladys Kessler refused Holy Land's request for a temporary injunction to unblock its assets. She also dismissed most of the claims in its lawsuit. Kessler decided, however, to allow one part of the case to move forward, the issue of whether a raid in which documents, computers and furniture were seized from Holy Land's offices violated the organization's Fourth Amendment right against unlawful search & seizure. The govt did not obtain a warrant for the search.
    In its suit, Holy Land maintained that the Office of Foreign Asset Control, arm of Treasury Dept, acted arbitrarily & capriciously in blocking its assets. The group insists it is a charitable organization aiding Palestinians, not a channel for terrorist funding.

    Muslim charities treading fine line on politics
    10.3.01   John Fullerton Reuters Quetta, Pakistan   A large billboard above a crowded street in downtown Quetta boldly proclaims the premises as being the local headquarters of the Al Rasheed Trust. The U.S. says it suspects it has links to terrorist organizations. Al Rasheed insists it is a charity. Al Rasheed is one of 27 groups or individuals whose assets were frozen by the U.S. in the aftermath of the 9.11.01 attacks because of alleged links to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network. The Pakistan govt, while complying with the U.S. order, says it believes Al Rasheed has only innocent aims, and is investigating further. There are scores of charities of all sizes scattered throughout Pakistan & the Muslim world that serve as a social security net where the govt's stretched resources cannot reach. Most have impeccable credentials. One of the 5 pillars of Islam insists on Muslims paying "zakat," or tax, to the less fortunate. Generosity is almost a fault among many Muslims, and deeply entrenched in Pakistan's culture where clan & family come long before self.

    On the surface, Al Rasheed appears typical of such charities. Based in the port city of Karachi it provides crucial food aid to widows & children in Pakistan and neighboring Afghanistan. Its biggest project is bakeries in the Afghan capital Kabul, which provide subsidized daily bread for tens of thousands of residents. In Pakistan's capital Islamabad Tuesday, dozens of children staged a rally to protest against the freeze on Al Rasheed, saying they faced being kicked out of school because their source of fees had dried up. Yet Al Rasheed does have some links with jihadi groups, which mushroom in Pakistan.

    The organization first raised eyebrows earlier this year when they offered to take over bakery projects in Kabul run by the World Food Program (WFP) during its standoff with Afghanistan's Taliban over the employment of local women in the project. Although that standoff was resolved, Al Rasheed's offer struck some aid officials as odd, and they wondered if it wasn't a ruse to siphon off food to the Taliban's fighters. There are signs that suggest while Al Rasheed may not actively support bin Laden & his al Qaeda network, 2 of its publications advocated Islamic jihad, or holy war, a common rallying call of all Islamic groups.

    Sharing Al Rasheed's building in Quetta is the office of "Dharb-i-M'umin," a weekly newspaper published by the trust and registered in Karachi. The paper's content leaves little doubt as to its political bent. The Urdu-language daily Islam, published from Karachi, is another newspaper of the trust focusing on jihadi activities & groups. "Muslims should be ready for the Jihad," screamed the banner headline on one recent front page. "4000 Jew employees in WTCtr absent on attack day," read another. An editorial suggested the attacks were a Jewish plot to discredit Muslims. ¹ ² A few minutes away from Al Rasheed's offices is HQ of Jaish-e-Mohammed (Army of the Prophet Mohammad), which first claimed then denied responsibility for Monday's suicide attack on the Kashmir provincial assembly in neighboring India in which 39 people were killed. The group, also on the U.S. watch list, is headed by Maulana Masood Azhar who has been a key member of various extremist Muslim groups that have been banned over the years.

    Azhar, detained for years in India because of his Kashmir activities, was released in Dec. 1999 in a complicated exchange involving hostages on a hijacked Indian airliner and 3 Kashmiri militants. New Muslim trusts & charities spring up as fast as old ones are banned. Critics say the leaders & activists remain essentially the same. So do their aims. "Wherever Muslims are under attack, we are ready to fight," said Abdul Jabar, the leader of Jaish-e-Mohammad in Pakistan's Baluchistan's province. "We are international," Jabar told Reuters. "Our goal, when Muslims are in trouble, is to free them, to fight with them against our common enemies, wherever that may be." Al Rasheed says its aims are more prosaic. "Al Rasheed Trust is a charity working for the welfare of people of Pakistan & Afghanistan," spokesman Abdullah told Reuters from Karachi. "We have been working for the last five to six years under the govt rules for non-governmental organizations and our accounts are audited annually," he said. "We are prepared to defend ourselves at any forum with all our books & accounts."

    U.S. freezes assets of British charity
    2.8.06   Jeannine Aversa AP

    Wash.D.C.   GWBush administration moved on Wednesday to financially incapacitate a charity and 3 companies in Britain for their alleged role in funneling money to an al-Qaida affiliate that has carried out terrorist acts in Libya and elsewhere. U.S. Treasury Dept action also applies to 5 people in Britain that U.S. suspects of providing financial support to the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, or LIFG, the al-Qaida affiliated terror organization.
    The action means that U.S. banks must freeze any assets belonging to the groups and people designated Wednesday and Americans are barred from doing business with them.

    The department alleges that Sanabel Relief Agency Limited, with addresses in London and other parts of the U.K. bills itself as a charity to help the sick and poor but that its "first priority is providing support to LIFG's jihadist activities." The department alleges that the charity is used to transfer money and documents for terrorist activities.
    Sara Properties Limited, Meadowbrook Investments Limited and Ozlam Properties Limited, each with U.K. addresses, also were covered by U.S. blocking order for allegedly helping to provide finds to LIFG. The 5 people, all with U.K. addresses, are: Abd al-Rahman al-Faqih, described by Treasury as a sr LIFG leader who also is involved in the provision of false passports to LIFG members; Ghuma Abd'rabbah, an associate of al-Faqih and a Sanabel charity trustee; Abdulbaqi Mohammed Khaled and Tahir Nasuf, each described as a member of LIFG; and Mohammed Benhammedi, a key LIFG financier, Treasury said.

    "The Libyan Islamic Fighting Group threatens global safety and stability through the use of violence and its ideological alliance with al-Qaida and other brutal terrorist organizations," said Treasury's terrorist financing and financial crime asst sec. Patrick O'Brien.

    Let's hit terrorists in wallet & halt tax evasion, too
    9.30.01   D.Bauder, D.Cervantes & B.Wood SD UT

    Let's not just try to strangle Osama bin Laden's banking relationships: Let's take this opportunity to reform the world's banking system, thwarting drug and terrorist money-laundering , and tax evasion, through offshore havens. Experts say that money-laundering absorbs between 2% & 5% of the world's economic output. As much as $500 billion to $1 trillion in illegal funds from organized crime, narcotics trafficking, terrorism and other criminal behavior is laundered each year, with half the loot going through U.S. banks. But that estimate only includes transactions that are illegal under U.S. laws: The numbers exclude much foreign activity.

    In March, legislation was introduced in Congress that would increase reporting requirements of U.S. financial institutions operating outside this country, require identification of people who use a foreign financial institution's correspondent account with a U.S. institution, require identification of foreign people using accounts at U.S. institutions, and impose conditions on U.S. institutions' correspondent accounts with foreign institutions. Last year, a similar bill was thwarted, largely by Sen. Phil Gramm, R-Texas, who responded to pressure from the banking industry. He opposes the current bill and refuses to say that he was wrong last year. The funds that helped finance the Sept. 11 tragedies probably came to the U.S. through the underground banking system known as "hawala." Through brokers, lawyers and others, money moves across borders without a paper trail. Key to the enterprise are secrecy-shrouded tax havens. Caribbean-based tax havens support terrorism, says Newport Beach- based fraud expert Jay Adkisson, "and Switzerland is by far the worst." Companies are involved, too.

    "The Commerce Dept actively helps to get companies to invest in the U.S.," says Adkisson, who has a Web site, www.quatloos.com. "Many that do are front companies for terrorist organizations." As a lawyer, in 1993 he defended a U.S. company fighting a hostile takeover attempt by an Iraqi company. "The Iraqi company purchased the U.S. company to acquire licenses to ship chemicals overseas," says Adkisson. "Later it turned out that the company was a front for Saddam Hussein. It looked like a legitimate foreign investment, but it was really a subterfuge to acquire those licenses." "The structuring for money-laundering that I am familiar with involved numerous front companies, many offshore, multilevel," says Oklahoma City attorney Michael Johnston, an expert in terrorist money-laundering. "After money passed through several of these front companies, it was difficult to trace the origins."

    Any U.S. company or individual should open the books if it is moving money offshore, says Adkisson. Similarly, "Someone coming into the U.S. with offshore money should open the books." Says Johnston, "It is not unreasonable for the U.S. to demand complete accounting of the origin of the funds, no matter how many accounts it passes through." This will bring howls from the privacy lobby and the low-tax crowd. Some of the privacy arguments are persuasive, but we are in a national emergency. Frankly, a tax evader screaming about privacy invasion is about as credible as a highwayman saying he simply believes in an equitable distribution of wealth, or a murderer claiming he is only practicing his passionate belief in negative population growth.

    "The people who will take a hard line against laundering drug and terrorist money will treat tax evasion with kid gloves," says Adkisson. That's putting it kindly. The political inability to pass meaningful legislation to crack down on our own banks' dealings with tax havens unwittingly played into the terrorists' and other launderers' hands, says Adkisson. Last summer, the Paris-based Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering, or FATF, part of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, proposed to fight deleterious offshore tax haven fraud. The Bush administration protested, believing the initiatives would put a burden on financial institutions. The FATF has a list of non-cooperative jurisdictions, tax havens that refuse to cooperate in an international crackdown: Cook Islands, Dominica, Egypt, Guatemala, Grenada, Hungary, Indonesia, Israel, Lebanon, Marshall Islands, Myanmar, Nauru, Nigeria, Philippines, Russia, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Vincent, the Grenadines and Ukraine. In June, the Bahamas, Cayman Islands, Liechtenstein and Panama were taken off the list, but the FATF said it would closely monitor them. Patriotism is sweeping the U.S.. Anti-terrorist money-laundering measures should pass in this environment. But tax evasion is unpatriotic, too. Illegal offshore tax scams cost the nation $70 billion a year. It's time for sweeping, not narrow, reform.

    U.S. freezes fewer terror assets
    1.30.06   Kevin Johnson USA Today

    The amount of assets frozen by U.S. anti-terrorism units is declining dramatically each year, prompting a former Bush admin official who helped oversee the program to suggest that a "lack of urgency" is hurting efforts to block terrorist fundraising.
    "This strategy is an important component of the overall anti-terror strategy," says former Treasury Dept undersecretary for enforcement Jimmy Gurule. "What I've witnessed is very, very disturbing."
    Treasury officials reject his criticism and say the decline in blocked assets is not an accurate measure of the effort against terrorism funding.

    U.S. & allied efforts to pursue the assets of individuals, charities and groups with suspected ties to terrorists began under a presidential directive after 9.11.01. It has been a key part of the Bush administration's strategy to make it more difficult for terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda to get money to operatives.
    In the 16 weeks after 9.11.01, 157 suspected terrorism fundraisers were identified and assets valued at $68 million were frozen. The numbers fell after the initial rush by authorities. However, Gurule says the totals for 2005, $4.9 million frozen in the accounts of 32 suspects or organizations, suggest the effort is losing intensity because of a lack of help from foreign govts and an uneven commitment by the U.S. govt to monitor suspicious transactions at financial institutions in the USA and abroad.

    "The strategy needs to be re-evaluated, restructured and refocused," says Gurule, who left the Bush administration in 2003 and is a University of Notre Dame law prof. "It's time for an overhaul."
    Treasury's undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence Stuart Levey says many of the program's successes cannot be disclosed because they are part of classified operations. He says evidence of the effort's success came from al-Qaeda sr members of. Levey says that in correspondence intercepted last year, Ayman al-Zawahri, Osama bin Laden's top deputy, asked Iraqi insurgent leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi for $100,000. Al-Zawahri said "many of the lines" for financial help "have been cut off."

    Levey also cites the 9/11 Commission's recent evaluation of govt's strategy against terrorism funding, which the panel gave a grade of A-minus. It was the highest score awarded in the commission's wide-ranging and mostly critical report on federal anti-terrorism efforts. The report did include some criticism of the push to go after terrorists' assets, however.
    "The govt has made significant strides in using terrorism financing as an intelligence tool," the report said. "However, the State Dept and Treasury Dept are engaged in unhelpful turf battles, and the overall effort is lacking leadership."
    In October 2005, the Govt Accountability Office, investigative arm of Congress, concluded that Treasury "lacks meaningful performance measures to assess its terrorist designation and asset blocking efforts."
    Levey says the GAO's findings are getting "high-level attention" at State and Treasury. "We are trying to react to improve our effort."

    Quetta, Pakistan   With nothing more than a telephone & a fax machine, Tarir Khan transfers money almost anywhere in the world, no questions asked, no names used and no trail for law enforcement to follow. Khan is a small cog in a far-reaching network of informal banking known as hawala, the Arabic word for trust. Although it is illegal in most countries, incl here in Pakistan, authorities estimate that billions of dollars flow unseen by regulators through the hawala system worldwide. A senior govt official in Pakistan said law enforcement authorities were certain that Osama bin Laden's network used hawala to transfer money to agents outside Afghanistan, along with conventional means. But the nature of hawala will make tracking those particular exchanges almost impossible.

    In the Kandahari bazaar here, many hawala dealers are concentrated in a 5 story concrete building that resembles a bunker, its interior dark and its offices lighted by dim bulbs. Outside, donkey-drawn carts vie for space with Toyota Land Cruisers, and 3 wheel motorized rickshaws dodge buses & pedestrians. The absence of women, save a couple of beggars, is striking. In Pakistan & Afghanistan, money business is men's business. Anyone can walk into a hawala shop in Quetta or a thousand other cities in southern Asia, put down a stack of cash and ask that the sum be transferred to a recipient in another country. Khan & his associate, found sitting cross-legged on the floor of their sparse office and sipping tea, keep transactions in a brown notebook on Khan's desk. When Khan receives a telephone call or a fax to confirm that money has been picked up elsewhere in the world, the relevant page is torn out of the notebook. Even the new scrutiny prompted by the 9.11.01 attacks is highly unlikely to disclose all the details of how bin Laden's money moves through the ancient system.

    Khan, for one, refuses to divulge the cities where he has associates, saying he fears the authorities."This system is made for transferring enough money to get a pilot's license or make a deposit on an apartment without raising an eyebrow," said Temple Univ. transnational crime expert Nikos Passas, consultant to govt agencies. Finance Minister Shaukut Aziz, former Citibank exec. vp in New York, said $2 billion to $5 billion moves through the hawala system annually in Pakistan, more than the amount of foreign transfers through the country's banking system. Pakistan is trying to draft laws to regulate the industry. But for now it thrives illegally in places like the Kandahari bazaar.

    U.S. Treasury Dept study identified hawala as the principal means of money-laundering from drug trafficking & other crimes in Pakistan. The report said that Pakistan, India and Dubai on the Persian Gulf form the "hawala triangle" to move money secretly worldwide. In hawala, sums large & small are sent halfway around the world on a handshake & a code word. Records of transactions are kept just until the deal is completed. Then they are destroyed. No cash moves across a border or through an electronic transfer system, the places where authorities are most likely to spot or record the transaction. The sender does not have to provide his name or identify the recipient. Instead, he is given a code word, which is all the recipient needs to pick up the same amount of cash from an associate of the original trader. The transaction can occur in the time it takes to make a couple of phone calls or send a fax.

    The system was in place long before Western banking. The ancient Chinese used a similar method called "flying money," or fei qian. Arab traders used it as a means of avoiding robbery along the Silk Road. Millions of Pakistanis, Indians, Filipinos and other people from southern Asia working in foreign countries use the system to send money home to relatives. "They don't feel comfortable walking into a bank," Aziz said in an interview. Khan, who arrived in Quetta from Afghanistan many years ago, said yesterday, "It's very dangerous to talk about this, because it is illegal. I can't tell you much." A colleague shook his head and told Khan to keep quiet. Trust, Khan said, is the essential quality of a hawala trader. Most of his customers are from the same part of Afghanistan. So there is an innate sense of trust. He said transfers were usually sent among family members and involved a few hundred dollars. Sometimes transactions are for as little as $50. He provides a five-digit code word, a letter and four numbers, that the recipient takes to one of Khan's associates as far away as the U.S., Germany or Russia. The same associates accept money for transfer to relatives in Quetta. "They tell the code word, and we hand over the money," he said. "Then we tear up the records on both ends."

    Direct link uncovered ¹
    Hijacker wired money to bin Laden ally
    10.2.01   Knight Ridder News Service

    Wash.D.C.   Federal investigators have discovered that Mohamed Atta, the hijacker believed to have piloted the first jetliner into the WTCtr, wired several thousand dollars to a top associate of bin Laden 3 days before the deadly attack. Investigators say the transactions provided them with a direct financial link between Atta, considered a leader of the 9.11.01 attacks, and Mustafa Ahmad, longtime bin Laden ally believed to have helped finance the terrorists. Two other men identified as hijackers, Marwan al-Shehhi and Waleed Alshehri, also wired money from the U.S. to the United Arab Emirates. Investigators said they believe the money was left over from funds they received to finance the hijackings. "The wire transfers have been like fingerprints at a crime scene," said a federal investigator familiar with the money trail who asked not to be identified by name. "It's a very promising lead."

    Separately, senior officials in the UAE said 3 of the identified hijackers each wired $5,000 to an unidentified Saudi man in the UAE. The man, who landed in the UAE in June from neighboring Qatar, left for Karachi, Pakistan, with the $15,000 on Sept. 11. It's not clear if that man, who was not identified by authorities in the UAE, was Ahmad, the known bin Laden associate. Since the terrorist attacks, federal investigators have been serving subpoenas on financial institutions looking for the hijackers' bank accounts. The FBI has also collected electronic cash transfer records from Western Union outlets in Maryland, where Atta sent the money.
    Last week, Pres. GWBush froze the U.S. assets of 27 organizations & individuals that he said had terrorist links. One of the people on the list was Shayk Saiid, also known as Mustafa Muhammad Ahmad. On Sept. 8, Atta sent 2 separate wire transfers, about $2,000 each; from retail outlets in Laurel, Md., to Ahmad in the UAE, according to federal documents & interviews. The next day, investigators say, Atta boarded a US Airways flight from Baltimore to Boston. The managers at 2 Western Union outlets are cooperating with FBI agents, who have seized records of the transactions. The outlets are a grocery store and a Mail Boxes Etc. within 1.5 miles of the Valencia Hotel in Laurel, where the hijackers allegedly stayed.

    Age-old way of moving cash leaves little trail
    9.26.01   J.Daniszewski Islamabad & P.Watson Peshawar L.A.Times

    There is something about the Al Rashid Trust office, located on the second floor of a trading building in a posh neighborhood here in Pakistan's capital, that makes one think this is not an ordinary charitable organization. Maybe it is the Islamic sword painted on a huge billboard outside, beneath the slogan "The Blow of the Pious." Or maybe it is the tea server, a gray-bearded ex-army captain who carries a pump-action shotgun when he greets visitors at the door. The Al Rashid Trust is one of Pakistan's most visible philanthropic groups, soliciting funds for widows, orphans and the disabled. It also has been named by the U.S. govt as part of shadowy financial empire that keeps money flowing to terrorism … ancient & nearly invisible route known as hawala in the Arab world, or hundi in Pakistan.
    … The city of Peshawar, near Pakistan's northwestern border with Afghanistan, is a place where Bin Laden has old roots and strong support, where people are suspicious of outsiders and accustomed to having things their way. A leading money-changer, who works on the edge of Chowk Yadgar square in a shop the size of a walk-in closet, summed up America's chances of cutting the terrorists' secret cash lifeline here: "Impossible." Colleagues reclining on the floor nodded in agreement. "If you arrest one person, or keep watch on another in the market, someone will just replace him. There are a lot of people involved in this [hawala] business. Everyone needs money. Everyone needs hard currency. So how can you stop this?"

    Hawala banking, which is illegal in Pakistan, relies on something older than money itself: a person's word. Nothing could be more discreet. There is no need to smuggle large amounts of cash from one country to another or to fill out bank forms that can draw unwanted attention. No need, in fact, for detailed bank records. A person simply hands over cash at one end and it is paid out at the other, leaving virtually no paper trail to follow. Here's how it works: The hawala banker who takes a deposit writes down the phone number or address of the payer's representative in the receiving country. Then he instructs his partner, a money trader or group of traders in that country, to pay out the required sum. Generally the contact is made by telephone or e-mail. A code word, or a recognized face or voice, is all that is required to complete the transaction. No cash is moved through legal banking channels. The hawala money trader & his partner simply keep straight between themselves who owes what to whom and settle their own debts in cash, gold or other commodities when convenient.

    There are many permutations that muddy the trail of anyone trying to follow the money, said a banker in Islamabad familiar with the system. For instance, when multimillion-dollar sums are needed, groups of money traders will split the transaction among themselves to make the payment. They also may turn to friendly offshore banks to issue cashier's checks. It would be difficult to audit the money-changers, said the Islamabad banker, who insisted that he not be identified for security reasons. The groups in Pakistan keep on hand only as much cash as they need. Any excess is regularly carried by plane to such locations as Singapore or the United Arab Emirates and deposited in joint accounts. Only the traders among themselves know who owns what in those pooled accounts. Asked what happens if someone tries to cheat, the banker frowned. "These are very bad people," he said. "In this business, you don't cheat."

    Most hawala transactions are in the hundreds of dollars, such as remittances that Pakistani workers in Persian Gulf states send to their families back home. But the only limit on a hawala transfer is the amount of cash you bring to the counter, said the Peshawar money-changers, all members of the executive board of the Money Changers' Assn. of Peshawar, who spoke on condition that they not be named because they fear more visits from the police. Hawala persists in Pakistan because it serves an important function. The Islamabad banker said it plays a huge part in the nation's black market economy, which could total billions of dollars. During the former Soviet Union's occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s, billions of dollars in U.S. & other Western military aid were secretly channeled to Afghan moujahedeen fighters, who included bin Laden, through the Bank of Credit & Commerce Intl. The bank had Pakistani managers and wealthy Arab backers from the Gulf states and was the preferred banker for intelligence agencies, drug traffickers & money launderers of various sorts until it collapsed 7.5.91. That is when the financial acumen & personal wealth of bin Laden, scion [ inaccurate word choice ] of a wealthy Saudi family, made him so important to the radical Islamist movement he would soon come to lead, according to investigators.

    Hawala bankers, sympathetic govts, wealthy Arab benefactors and the heroin trade all played a part in developing the intricate Al Qaeda financial network that Washington is now trying to tear apart in its war against terrorism. Pakistan's govt has been trying for several years to put hawala bankers out of business but has only succeeded in driving them underground, the money-changers said. The crackdown began after 1998 tests of nuclear weapons by Pakistan & India. The govt in Islamabad knew that it would be slapped with U.S. economic sanctions as punishment and ordered police raids to stop people from moving huge sums of U.S. dollars & other hard currency offshore, the money-changers said. But hawala bankers still operate secretly in Peshawar's money bazaar, and more openly in a region of Pakistan's NW frontier province known as the "tribal areas," where gun markets also flourish and ethnic Pushtuns are more likely to obey their own traditions than national laws.

    Like the hawala system, the Islamic charitable funds that the Bush administration believes are a source of the money for bin Laden's group are based on cash & trust and, therefore, are largely free any independent scrutiny. Though many have ties to militant Koranic schools or to mullahs known for extremist views, the funds have proved adept at attracting money from the rich & poor by promising to use it for laudable causes. During a reporter's visit to the Al Rashid Trust Tue., an old man came in with about $20 that he wished to give as a zakat, a gift to the needy that under Islam is required of all Muslims who can afford it. Ghyass Uddin, the bookkeeper on duty, took the cash and put it aside, recorded the gift in a ledger and handed the man a glossy receipt that looked something like a check. It was filled in with the man's name, the date, the amount of money given and the purpose, in this case simply "Afghanistan."

    Uddin, whose office is across the street from Islamabad's American Ctr and only a short distance from the Supreme Court, denied that such money could ever be put to criminal purposes. "All our money & its uses are documented," he said. But asked how anyone could be sure where the money went, he said with a benign look, "You trust the Trust." There is no independent oversight, he said. Al Rashid Trust, headquartered in Karachi, has branches all over Pakistan and, according to Uddin, takes in a steady stream of funds. The group's literature denounces the U.S. for its policies toward Israel, Iraq and Saudi Arabia and praises Islamic fighters. Yet Al Rashid says it spends its money only on social causes such as aiding needy Muslims, providing disaster relief and spreading knowledge about the faith.

    At least some of its goals, however, hint at a more political agenda, such as aiding "illegally jailed" prisoners, cleansing the media of pornography and creating books "to promote in the people & the elite the fear of the Last (Judgment) Day." And even a cursory glance at its publications hints at links between Al Rashid & Afghanistan's Taliban movement. A recent edition of The Blow of the Pious newspaper included on its front page a decree by Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar threatening any Muslim country that sides with the U.S.
    At the bottom was a poem praising Omar as "a savior unto mankind." And most of the first 4 pages is filled with articles, photos and graphics about the 9.11.01 attacks, insinuating that Jews were responsible. Despite all that, Uddin offered tea to an American guest and said he was surprised that Bush would try to freeze the assets of groups like Al Rashid. "What proof do they have?" the young man said calmly, sitting on the floor behind a desk with his ledger book. "How can he do it, if there is no proof?"

    Al-Qaeda eludes financial clampdown
    6.19.02   BBC

    Osama Bin Laden's al-Qaeda network has largely eluded a US-led effort to find and freeze its financial assets, the Wash.Post says, partly by moving its money into commodities such as gold & diamonds.The Post quotes American & intl officials saying that al-Qaeda shifted its funds from areas such as Swiss bank accounts into precious stones even before 9.11.01. "It was a paradigm shift in the financial organization that we missed," one unnamed investigator told the paper. "Everyone was trying to find bank accounts in Geneva when al-Qaeda was greatly reducing their exposure in the formal financial sector," the investigator said. "Now we are finding tentacles into all kinds of precious stones and metals."

    Diamonds, tanzanite and sapphires became part of the al-Qaeda's portfolio, the paper says, because they are easy to store and move, if necessary. Small amounts can also be put on the market at a time to avoid alerting authorities. As a result, much of the network's money has eluded a worldwide effort to cut off terrorist financing, the Post reports. Pres.GWBush ordered clampdown on terrorist financing after 9.11.01, blocking bank accounts linked to a dozens of groups & individuals. The UN and EU backed move resulted in the freezing of more than $100m worth of alleged terrorist funds around the world. But since Feb., much has been unfrozen because of lack of evidence, the Post said.

    All 189 UN members were supposed to file reports on their compliance with a Security Council resolution to crack down on terrorist funding, but only 43 have done so. Of those, more than half said they found no terrorist funds to freeze at all. The efforts to track al-Qaeda's cash flow have also been hindered by a lack of co-ordination between various US agencies such as the CIA, FBI and the Treasury & Justice Depts, the paper reported.

    bin Laden's 'cash link' to hijackers
    10.01.01   BBC

    There are reports that US investigators have uncovered evidence of financial transfers linking Osama Bin Laden to 9.11.01 attacks on America. According to FBI sources, Mustafa Mohamed Ahmad, suspected Bin Laden financial operative, transferred money to Mohamed Atta, one of the hijackers, in the days running up to the attacks Furthermore Atta & 2 of the other hijackers transferred some $15,000 back to an account under the same name just 2 days before the attacks. Mr Ahmad, also known as Sheikh Saeed, is one of 27 individuals or groups with a known link to Bin Laden who have had their assets in America frozen. He worked as a financial manager for bin Laden when he was based in Sudan and is believed to be a financial operative for the al-Qaeda organisation.

    Cash transfers were made to Atta via a money service in Florida on Sept. 8 & 9 from an account in Dubai, under the name of Mustafa Ahmad. Atta is believed to have been the ringleader of the 19 hijackers. Atta & 2 other hijackers, Waleed al-Shehri & Marwan al-Shehi, then each sent $5,000 from the US to an account in Dubai, also under the name of Mustafa Ahmad, 2 days before the attacks. The money is believed to have been unused surplus from the fund for the attacks, which investigators say may have amounted to about $500,000.
    The man who collected the funds in the UAE then travelled to Karachi in Pakistan on the day of the attacks using a Saudi passport, according to Sheikh Abdullah, the son of UAE President Sheikh Zaid bin Sultan al-Nahayan. Records also show that the man had arrived in the UAE at the end of June from Qatar. …

    Money laundering in a changed world
    12.11.01   Sam Vaknin auth. After the Rain How the West Lost the East"

    As far as money laundering goes, Sept 11 may be perceived as a watershed as important as the precipitous collapse of communism in 1989. (Commentary) Israel has always turned a blind eye to the origin of funds deposited by Jews from South Africa to Russia. In Britain it is perfectly legal to hide the true ownership of a company. Underpaid Asian bank clerks on immigrant work permits in the Gulf states rarely require identity documents from the mysterious and well-connected owners of multi-million dollar deposits. Hawaladars continue plying their paperless and trust-based trade, the transfer of billions of US dollars around the world. American and Swiss banks collaborate with dubious correspondent banks in off shore centres. Multinationals shift money through tax free territories in what is euphemistically known as "tax planning". Internet gambling outfits and casinos serve as fronts for narco-dollars. British Bureaux de Change launder up to 2.6 billion British pounds annually. The 500 Euro note will make it much easier to smuggle cash out of Europe. A French parliamentary committee accuses the City of London of being a money laundering haven in a 400 page report. Intelligence services cover the tracks of covert operations by opening accounts in obscure tax havens, from Cyprus to Nauru. Money laundering, its venues and techniques, are an integral part of the economic fabric of the world. Business as usual?

    Not really. In retrospect, as far as money laundering goes, Sept 11 may be perceived as a watershed as important as the precipitous collapse of communism in 1989. Both events have forever altered the patterns of the global flows of illicit capital.

    What is money laundering ?
    Strictly speaking, money laundering is the age-old process of disguising the illegal origin and criminal nature of funds (obtained in sanctions-busting arms sales, smuggling, trafficking in humans, organized crime, drug trafficking, prostitution rings, embezzlement, insider trading, bribery, and computer fraud) by moving them untraceably and investing them in legitimate businesses, securities, or bank deposits. But this narrow definition masks the fact that the bulk of money laundered is the result of tax evasion, tax avoidance, and outright tax fraud, such as the "VAT carousel scheme" in the EU (moving goods among businesses in various jurisdictions to capitalize on differences in VAT rates). Tax-related laundering nets between 10-20 billion US dollars annually from France and Russia alone. The confluence of criminal and tax averse funds in money laundering networks serves to obscure the sources of both.

    The scale of the problem
    According to a 1996 IMF estimate, money laundered annually amounts to 2-5% of world GDP (between 800 billion and 2 trillion US dollars in today's terms). The lower figure is considerably larger than an average European economy, such as Spain's.

    The system
    It is important to realize that money laundering takes place within the banking system. Big amounts of cash are spread among numerous accounts (sometimes in free economic zones, financial off shore centers, and tax havens), converted to bearer financial instruments (money orders, bonds), or placed with trusts and charities. The money is then transferred to other locations, sometimes as bogus payments for "goods and services" against fake or inflated invoices issued by holding companies owned by lawyers or accountants on behalf of unnamed beneficiaries. The transferred funds are re-assembled in their destination and often "shipped" back to the point of origin under a new identity. The laundered funds are then invested in the legitimate economy. It is a simple procedure - yet an effective one. It results in either no paper trail - or too much of it. The accounts are invariably liquidated and all traces erased.

    Why is it a problem ?
    Criminal and tax evading funds are idle and non-productive. Their injection, however surreptitiously, into the economy transforms them into a productive (and cheap) source of capital. Why is this negative?
    Because it corrupts government officials, banks and their officers, contaminates legal sectors of the economy, crowds out legitimate and foreign capital, makes money supply unpredictable and uncontrollable, and increases cross-border capital movements, thereby enhancing the volatility of exchange rates.

    A multilateral, co-ordinated, effort (exchange of information, uniform laws, extra-territorial legal powers) is required to counter the international dimensions of money laundering. Many countries opt in because money laundering has also become a domestic political and economic concern. The United Nations, the Bank for International Settlements, the OECD's FATF, the EU, the Council of Europe, the Organisation of American States, all published anti-money laundering standards. Regional groupings were formed (or are being established) in the Caribbean, Asia, Europe, southern Africa, western Africa, and Latin America.

      money laundering in the wake of 9.11.01
    Regulation
    The least important trend is the tightening of financial regulations and the establishment or enhancement of compulsory (as opposed to industry or voluntary) regulatory and enforcement agencies. New legislation in the US which amounts to extending the powers of the CIA domestically and of the DOJ extra-territorially, was rather xenophobically described by a DOJ official, Michael Chertoff, as intended to "make sure the American banking system does not become a haven for foreign corrupt leaders or other kinds of foreign organized criminals." Privacy and bank secrecy laws have been watered down. Collaboration with off shore "shell" banks has been banned. Business with clients of correspondent banks was curtailed. Banks were effectively transformed into law enforcement agencies, responsible to verify both the identities of their (foreign) clients and the source and origin of their funds. Cash transactions were partly criminalized. And the securities and currency trading industry, insurance companies, and money transfer services are subjected to growing scrutiny as a conduit for "dirty cash".

    Still, such legislation is highly ineffective. The American Bankers' Association puts the cost of compliance with the laxer anti-money-laundering laws in force in 1998 at 10 billion US dollars - or more than 10 million US dollars per obtained conviction. Even when the system does work, critical alerts drown in the torrent of reports mandated by the regulations. One bank actually reported a suspicious transaction in the account of one of the Sept 11 hijackers, only to be ignored.
    Treasury Dept established Operation Green Quest, an investigative team charged with monitoring charities, NGO's, credit card fraud, cash smuggling, counterfeiting, and the Hawala networks. This is not without precedent. Previous teams tackled drug money, the biggest money laundering venue ever, BCCI (Bank of Credit and Commerce International), and ... Al Capone. The more veteran, New-York based, El-Dorado anti money laundering Task Force (established in 1992) will lend a hand and share information.

    More than 150 countries promised to co-operate with the US in its fight against the financing of terrorism - 81 of which (including the Bahamas, Argentina, Kuwait, Indonesia, Pakistan, Switzerland, and the EU) actually froze assets of suspicious individuals, suspected charities, and dubious firms, or passed new anti money laundering laws and stricter regulations (the Philippines, the UK, Germany). A tabled EU directive would force lawyers to disclose incriminating information about their clients' money laundering activities. Pakistan initiated a "loyalty scheme", awarding expatriates who prefer official bank channels to the much maligned (but cheaper and more efficient) Hawala, with extra baggage allowance and special treatment in airports.
    The magnitude of this international collaboration is unprecedented. But this burst of solidarity may yet fade. China, for instance, refuses to chime in. As a result, the statement issued by APEC last week on measures to stem the finances of terrorism was lukewarm at best. And, protestations of close collaboration to the contrary, Saudi Arabia has done nothing to combat money laundering "Islamic charities" (of which it is proud) on its territory.

    Still, a universal code is emerging, based on the work of the OECD's FATF (Financial Action Task Force) since 1989 (its famous "40 recommendations") and on the relevant UN conventions. All countries are expected by the West, on pain of possible sanctions, to adopt a uniform legal platform (including reporting on suspicious transactions and freezing assets) and to apply it to all types of financial intermediaries, not only to banks. This is likely to result in ...

    Decline of off shore financial centres and tax havens
    By far the most important outcome of this new-fangled juridical homogeneity is the acceleration of the decline of off shore financial and banking centres and tax havens. The distinction between off-shore and on-shore will vanish. Of the FATF's "name and shame" blacklist of 19 "black holes" (poorly regulated territories, including Israel, Indonesia, and Russia) - 11 have substantially revamped their banking laws and financial regulators. Coupled with the tightening of US, UK, and EU laws and the wider interpretation of money laundering to include political corruption, bribery, and embezzlement - this would make life a lot more difficult for venal politicians and major tax evaders. The likes of Sani Abacha (late President of Nigeria), Ferdinand Marcos (late President of the Philippines), Vladimiro Montesinos (former, now standing trial, chief of the intelligence services of Peru), or Raul Salinas (the brother of Mexico's President), would have found it impossible to loot their countries to the same disgraceful extent in today's financial environment. And Osama bin Laden would not have been able to wire funds to US accounts from the Sudanese Al Shamal Bank, the "correspondent" of 33 American banks.

    Quo vadis, money laundering ?
    Crime is resilient and fast adapting to new realities. Organized crime is in the process of establishing an alternative banking system, only tangentially connected to the West's, in the fringes, and by proxy. This is done by purchasing defunct banks or banking licences in territories with lax regulation, cash economies, corrupt politicians, no tax collection, but reasonable infrastructure. The countries of Eastern Europe - Yugoslavia (Montenegro and Serbia), Macedonia, Ukraine, Moldova, Belarus, Albania, to mention a few - are natural targets. In some cases, organized crime is so all-pervasive and local politicians so corrupt that the distinction between criminal and politician is spurious.

    Gradually, money laundering rings move their operations to these new, accommodating territories. The laundered funds are used to purchase assets in intentionally botched privatizations, real estate, existing businesses, and to finance trading operations. The wasteland that is Eastern Europe craves private capital and no questions are asked by investor and recipient alike.
    The next frontier is cyberspace. Internet banking, Internet gambling, day trading, foreign exchange cyber transactions, e-cash, e-commerce, fictitious invoicing of the launderer's genuine credit cards, hold the promise of the future. Impossible to track and monitor, ex-territorial, totally digital, amenable to identity theft and fake identities, this is the ideal vehicle for money launderers. This nascent platform is way too small to accommodate the enormous amounts of cash laundered daily - but in ten years time, it may. The problems is likely to be exacerbated by the introduction of smart cards, electronic purses, and payment-enabled mobile phones.

    In its "Report on Money Laundering Typologies" (February 2001) the FATF was able to document concrete and suspected abuses of online banking, Internet casinos, and web-based financial services. It is difficult to identify a customer and to get to know it in cyberspace, was the alarming conclusion. It is equally complicated to establish jurisdiction.
    Many capable professionals, stockbrokers, lawyers, accountants, traders, insurance brokers, real estate agents, sellers of high value items such as gold, diamonds, and art, are employed or co-opted by money laundering operations. Money launderers are likely to make increased use of global, around the clock, trading in foreign currencies & derivatives. These provide instantaneous transfer of funds and no audit trail. The underlying securities involved are susceptible to market manipulation & fraud. Complex insurance policies (with the "wrong" beneficiaries), and the securitization of receivables, leasing contracts, mortgages, and low grade bonds are already used in money laundering schemes. In general, money laundering goes well with risk arbitraging financial instruments.

    Trust-based, globe-spanning, money transfer systems based on authentication codes and generations of commercial relationships cemented in honour and blood - are another wave of the future. The Hawala and Chinese networks in Asia, the Black Market Peso Exchange (BMPE) in Latin America, other evolving courier systems in Eastern Europe (mainly in Russia, Ukraine, and Albania) and in Western Europe (mainly in France & Spain).

    In conjunction with encrypted e-mail and web anonymizers, these networks are virtually impenetrable. As emigration increases, diasporas established, and transport and telecommunications become ubiquitous, "ethnic banking" along the tradition of the Lombards and the Jews in medieval Europe may become the the preferred venue of money laundering. 9.11.01 may have retarded world civilization in more than one way.



    IGCA stock sale runs into Enron backlash
    2.26.02   Ken Ward Gaming Today

    In a sudden reversal, state regulators have sent Innovative Gaming Corp. of America back to the drawing board. The Nevada Gaming Commission, at the company's request, returned for staff review a planned million$ public offering. That ICGA stock offering had been approved this month by the Gaming Control Board.
    The latest move was prompted by SEC requiring additional disclosure on IGCA's pending merger with GET Systems of Australia. Also requested were further details on various other financial transactions.

    "It looks like there's going to be a lot mor scrutiny in this post-Enron era," explained one observer. "We'll see a much tighter profile exerted by the SEC & FTC."


    Nauru map
    Intl Money Laundering Abatement & Financial Anti-Terrorism Act of 2001 will affect the way that banks deal with their customers and the manner in which the U.S. Treasury and other govt agencies interact with the banking industry. Following is a brief summary of some of the key provisions. Financial institutions will be asked to: Other provisions:
    Suva, Fiji   In addition to the application of Recommendation 21, FATF recommends the application of further counter-measures which should be gradual, proportionate and flexible regarding their means and taken in concerted action towards a common objective. It believes that enhanced surveillance & reporting of financial transactions and other relevant actions involving the concerned jurisdictions is required, incl possibility of
    •   Stringent requirements for identifying clients & enhancement of advisories, incl jurisdiction-specific financial advisories, to financial institutions for identification of the beneficial owners before business relationships are established with individuals or companies from these countries;
    •   Enhanced relevant reporting mechanisms or systematic reporting of financial transactions on the basis that financial transactions with such countries are more likely to be suspicious;
    •   In considering requests for approving the establishment in FATF member countries of subsidiaries or branches or representative offices of banks, taking into account the fact that the relevant bank is from an NCCT;
    •   Warning non-financial sector businesses that transactions with entities within the NCCTs might run the risk of money laundering.
    Nauru to introduce anti money laundering changes
    12.6.01   Pacific News Service

    Yaren  … In another development, Australia's Foreign Affairs minister Alexander Downer will visit Nauru next week to discuss the nation's crippling financial plight. Air Nauru was grounded this week after it failed to pay maintenance bills to Qantas. Downer said the airline's grounding is symptomatic of problems facing Nauru's economy. He said the federal govt has been working with Nauru to try to find a solution.

    Suva, Fiji   Members of the Financial Action Task Force will apply counter-measures (1) to Nauru in addition to Recommendation 21 (2). This decision is the result of the Nauru govt's failure to enact, by 30 November 2001, appropriate legislative amendments to its Anti-Money Laundering Act of 28 August 2001. The FATF will follow the situation in Nauru closely and discuss it again at the next FATF Plenary meeting in Hong Kong, China on 30 January-1 February 2002. The FATF hopes that Nauru will rectify the deficiencies in the above-mentioned Act prior to that meeting.
    FATF is an independent intl body whose Secretariat is housed at the OECD. The 29 member countries & govts of the FATF are: Argentina; Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Denmark Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, China, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Kingdom of the Netherlands, NZ, Norway, Portugal, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, UK and U.S. 2 intl organisations are also members of the FATF: the European Commission & the Gulf Cooperation Council.

    Background
    (2) 21. Financial institutions should give special attention to business relations and transactions with persons, incl companies & financial institutions, from countries which do not or insufficiently apply these Recommendations. Whenever these transactions have no apparent economic or visible lawful purpose, their background & purpose should, as far as possible, be examined, the findings established in writing, and be available to help supervisors, auditors and law enforcement agencies.

    Nauru has blamed its failure to meet an OECD deadline to pass anti-money-laundering laws on the resources it has spent on handling asylum seekers for Australia. The govt called an emergency session of parliament yesterday to try to rush through the laws. Paris-based FATF threatened "counter-measures" against Nauru because it had not met a November 30 deadline to pass the legislation.
    S.Sea dump & wash A spokeswoman for Australia's Foreign Affairs Minister, Alexander Downer, said yesterday: "In terms of any connection with the asylum seekers' issue, it's a different thing. It's not connected in any way." The counter- measures include stringent requirements on identification of clients before people are allowed to enter into business with individuals or companies from Nauru. If employed, it would be the first time the task force has acted against a country in its 12-year history.

    Nauru issued a statement on Wednesday, saying it would pass anti-money laundering legislation. Chief Sec. Mathew Batsuia defended its tardiness in meeting the deadline. "We are a very small country with limited infrastructure, so it is understandable it has taken time to amend the legislation. "Significant Govt resources have been engaged in other prominent matters affecting our country, including the asylum seekers and upcoming elections," he said.A govt spokesman could not confirm last night if the laws had been passed. The tiny island, accused of laundering $136.7 billion from the Russian mafia, has 450 offshore banks.
      Nauru debates response to sanctions
      12.7.01   Grant Holloway CNN & Reuters
    YAREN, Nauru   Tiny Pacific nation Nauru is first country to face intl business sanctions over its suspected role in global money laundering. OECD's Financial Action Task Force announced Wednesday that its 29 member countries would take counter-measures against Nauru for its failure to sufficiently crackdown on the recycling of "dirty money". "This decision is the result of the Nauru govt's failure to enact by 11.30.01 appropriate legislative amendments to its 8.28.01 Anti-Money Laundering Act," the agency said in a statement. Nauru's Parliament will now debate amendments to its Anti-Money Laundering Act introduced in Aug. in a bid to forestall the sanctions. "I expect the amendments will put to rest any concerns that Nauru did not have the tightest possible legislation against money laundering," Nauru Chief Sec. Mathew Batsiua told Reuters news service. Batsiua said the sanctions were "premature and destructive".

    Nauru, 21 sq. km (7 sq mi) population 12,000, is also commercial headquarters of about 400 banks. U.S. Treasury Dept says $70 billion of illicit money left Russia destined for accounts in Nauru in 1990 alone. Some Australian & U.S. banks & financial institutions are thought to have been implicated in the recycling of Russian crime money through Nauru, although no charges have ever been laid. Nauru uses the highly traded Australian dollar as its unit of currency. Nauru Pres. Rene Harris announced in Aug. that his govt would ban money-laundering practises, saying "undesirable elements" had exploited Nauru's banking system. The Nauru govt also set up a regulatory body to supervise the banking sector. However, these actions have not been sufficient to appease the task force.

    The sanctions incl not allowing Nauru banks or financial institutions to win any new banking licenses in task force countries, and govt warnings to banks & firms on the risks of doing business in Nauru. Russia & the Philippines got a similar ultimatum from the task force, but got off the hook after passing emergency laws to tighten up their rules and make it harder for banks to turn a blind eye to money from crime syndicates or tax evaders. The task force is comprised of mainly industrialized countries and includes Australia, Canada, Britain, U.S., Hong Kong, Singapore and New Zealand.

    Alternative income
    NW Papua New Guinea, UN member since 1999, Nauru … prior to independence administered by Australia which seized the country from Germany during WWI. Australian businesses developed & exploited Nauru's rich phosphate reserves which are used to make agricultural fertilizer. Phosphate income rapidly diminishing as reserves dwindle, Nauru has been forced to find alternative sources of income. Most recently it has received financial assistance from Australia in return for housing in detention camps hundreds of asylum seekers originally bound for Australian shores.

      Armed detainees attempt escape ¹
      1.26.02   AAP
    S.Sea Afghan refugees Asylum seekers armed with metal bars have tried to escape from the Woomera detention centre during a mass protest. One asylum seeker was injured when caught in razor wire on perimeter fencing of the compound in S. Australia's north and a security guard was injured when hit on the head by a rock thrown by a detainee. About 200 asylum seekers jumped onto rooftops at the centre about 11am (CDT) while others damaged an interior fence as they tried to escape. Chanting "visa, visa" and holding signs saying "Freedom or death", the asylum seekers could be seen running across the rooftops.
    The protest occurred on the 11th consecutive day of a hunger strike by a group of 188 asylum seekers at the centre. It was unclear if those involved in today's mass protest were hunger strikers. A medical team was summoned to the centre as detainees, some armed with metal bars, gathered in groups around internal fencing while others remained on top of buildings.

    Earlier, the Immigration Dept said 2 asylum seekers required medical attention within the centre overnight. A dept spokesman said the 2 asylum seekers remained in the medical centre at the facility in S.Australia's north. The spokesman said the 2 were not involved in incidents of self-harm but could not provide further details. He said 188 asylum seekers at Woomera remained on the hunger strike today. The hunger strikers included 16 women and 9 children, the spokesman said. Of the 188, 37 people, incl one child, had sewn their lips together, he said.

    Wellington   NZ's banking reputation is intact despite near neighbours Niue, Nauru and the Cook Islands being placed on intl watchdog's "terrorist financing" hit list. After weeks of investigation linked to a targeting of "terror money" by the Paris-based Financial Action Task Force (FATF) since 9.11.01 U.S. attacks, no evidence of financial activity linked to terrorism has been found in NZ. Despite NZ's close relationship with Pacific islands, Cook Islanders are NZ citizens, while Wellington has responsibility for Niue's external affairs, Reserve Bank legal adviser Steve Dawe says the NZ financial system won't be tainted. "NZ's reputation isn't tarnished at all," said Dawe. "In fact, probably the opposite. The FATF & its members are very complimentary of NZ's leadership role and the willingness of NZ to provide technical & other assistance to Pacific jurisdictions to help them meet intl standards."

    The task force incl Cook Islands, Nauru and Niue on list of 15 banking jurisdictions which are "non-cooperative" in the intl fight against dirty money. An FATF report said the jurisdictions had "serious systematic problems with money laundering controls and they must improve their rules & practices as expeditiously as possible or face possible sanctions." Set up in 1989 as an independent intl body, FATF polices money laundering & terrorist financing. NZ is one of 29 member countries & govts. … The task force says that offshore banking centres, incl Pacific islands, fall short by having loopholes in financial regulations, obstacles raised by other regulatory requirements, obstacles to intl cooperation & inadequate resources. In NZ, submissions closed last week on the Terrorist (Bombing & Financing) Bill which is proceeding through Parliament in order to meet recommendations from the FATF. During a session in Wash.DC late last month, which Mr Dawe attended, 8 recommendations were issued which the FATF said would "deny terrorists & their supporters access to the intl financial system".

    In terms of NZ, Dawe confirmed banks & financial institutions were continuing with searches of their records for suspicious activity. "I was talking to one bank early this week," Dawe said. "They have been through their records four or five times but haven't found anything suspicious. "Overall everyone is working hard and looking very closely at transactions but at this stage no assets with links to terrorist activity have been located or frozen in NZ."

      Boat people arrive at Nauru
      9.17.01   BBC
    More than 600 asylum seekers on board an Australian troopship have arrived off the coast of the Pacific island of Nauru, where they will be housed while their claims are processed. However, the migrants are all expected to remain on board after a group of more than 200, mainly Iraqi asylum seekers, refused to leave the vessel, the HMAS Manoora.
    Another group on board, of more than 400 mainly Afghan asylum seekers who were refused entry to Christmas island after they were rescued from a sinking ship, are staying on board waiting for the outcome of a ruling by the Australian High Court on their case. The court, considering a govt appeal against an earlier ruling that it illegally detained the refugees while removing them from Australian waters, is expected to give its decision on Monday. An Australian navy helicopter flew Intl Org. for Migration (IOM) dir. Mark Getchell to the ship for talks with the boat people on board. Mr Getchell returned from the Manoora saying 230 of those on board do not want to land on Nauru, but are insisting they be taken to Australia.

    Australian govt refused to allow either group of asylum seekers to land on Australian soil. Instead, it struck a deal with Nauru to accept more than 500 refugees while their asylum claims are processed in return for millions of dollars of aid. NZ agreed to accept the remainder.

    Wasteland
    World's smallest republic Nauru is a barren wasteland of bare limestone rock. All vegetation is gone from the centre of the island, result of years of over-mining of now-exhausted phosphate reserves. Many Nauruans do not see why their island, the world's smallest republic, should have to shoulder Australia's burden. The original plan was to house most of the boat people in air-conditioned bungalows by Nauru's seashore, originally built for the now cancelled world weightlifting games. But that plan has been dropped after local landowners demanded extra compensation. Instead, the Afghans will have to live in the stifling heat of the island's interior at the Topside Sports Field, a bleak strip-mined piece of land in the centre of the island, currently lacking water, electricity or sanitation.

      Asylum seekers in daring break-out
      1.2.03 Reuters
    Canberra   6 asylum seekers broke out of a remote Australian detention center Monday, helped by outsiders wearing balaclavas & armed with tyre levers, and injuring 2 staff as they fled, the govt said. Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock said up to 5 outsiders used a mechanical jack to prise open the fence of the Woomera detention center in the South Australian desert shortly after midnight and the escapees fled in 2 vehicles.
    "One of the detention officers was attacked around the legs with a tyre lever, another was hit in the chest with a similar implement," Ruddock told reporters. "This was premeditated, very deliberate." Ruddock said up to 15 detainees had tried to escape but were held back by camp guards. The 2 injured officers were taken to hospital for treatment.

    The break-out was the latest in a string of escapes, riots and threatened suicide bids at 7 mainland Australia detention ctrs that house asylum seekers, illegal workers, and those overstaying visas. Intl human rights groups condemned Canberra's hard line of detaining all illegal arrivals, incl women & children, while their cases for asylum are handled, because it can mean years behind barbed wire.
    Ruddock said the escapees were all male, and incl 3 from Iran, 2 from Afghanistan and one from Iraq. Although he was uncertain of the exact status of these men, he said most of the 91 detainees at Woomera were awaiting deportation as their applications for refugee status had failed.

    Woomera, set in harsh outback about 450 km (280 miles) north of Adelaide, is the most controversial immigration camp because of its isolation; the govt is in the process of mothballing it. Up to 43 buildings at Woomera were destroyed or damaged in deliberately lit fires in late December as a spree of violent protests swept Australia's immigrant centers.
    Early last year, Woomera detainees staged a mass hunger strike, sewed their lips up and threatened suicide to protest against the length of their detention.


      Pressure grows over Nauru boatpeople
      6.14.02   Grant Holloway CNN Sydney
    Canberra, Australia   Australian govt says processing all Tampa asylum seekers held on Pacific island of Nauru will be completed by the end of this month, with most refugee claims expected to be rejected. Pressure growing on govt over the mainly Afghan & Iraqi boatpeople, with UN urging Australia not to force unsuccessful applicants to return to Afghanistan. At same time, Nauru pres. Rene Harris, is concerned that assurances that all detainees would be off the island by 5.31.02 have not been met.

    More than 400 asylum seekers were sent to Nauru last year after being rescued from a sinking ferry bound for Australia. The fate of the boatpeople sparked an international incident after the Australian govt denied entry to the Norwegian freighter, Tampa, which had rescued the boatpeople. Conservative John Howard govt arranged for them to be transferred to Nauru to have their applications for refugee protection visas assessed there, rather than in Australia. U.N. now rejected more than half of the applications but also warns it is still too dangerous for the unsuccessful applicants to return to Afghanistan. Those rejected can appeal their decisions, a process than can take many months, even years, to complete.

    In meantime, UN says Australia should be patient and house the asylum seekers until safe for them to return. Australian govt is keen to dissuade asylum seekers from the appeal option, and is offering rejects A$2,000 (U.S.$1,140), A$10,000 for families resettlement offer to go back to Afghanistan. The offer is considered generous given the annual average Afghani income is only A$200. Many of the Afghani asylum seekers have had their claims rejected because of the fall of the Taliban govt. Australia's Minister for Foreign Affairs Alexander Downer, said Thu. Australia would encourage unsuccessful refugee applicants to return to Afghanistan. "We have a welcoming & positive approach to people who wish to migrate legally to Australia or to come as part of our refugee resettlement program," Downer said. "But we are very tough on people who try to get here illegally and on people smugglers who are trying to accumulate personal wealth on the back of who they mislead into believing that they can get into Australia illegally. It's an approach that's been effective and I think there is a lot of interest in Europe about how we've made this work so well," Downer said.

    The U.N. says more than 915,000 Afghan have returned to their homeland and it expects that as many as 2 million Afghans could return this year. "Despite the precarious conditions inside Afghanistan, repatriation is already largest & fastest seen since Iraqi Kurds returned home 1991, surpassing even the massive 1999 return to Kosovo," U.N. spokesman Kris Janowski said earlier this week.
    The U.N. refugee agency is not encouraging refugees to return home, only assisting Afghanis who have already up made their minds. UNHCR is worried that Afghanistan will not be able to absorb the high number of Afghan returnees following recent reductions in reintegration aid, food and transport assistance as a result of lagging donor support for relief agencies operating in the war-ravaged country. "The Afghans' enthusiasm has exceeded expectations, but in light of the declining pace of donor contributions, we fear that the sustainability of the refugees' return could be in jeopardy," Janowski said.


      Wahhabi  
    est. 80% of U.S. mosques under control of Wahhabi imams
    Sufi Hisham al-Kabbani, nee Lebanon now in U.S.
      The 'New Wahhabi' movement
      10.17.01   Sue Lackey MSNBC
    Beirut, Lebanon   In a middle-class neighborhood in West Beirut near the squalor of the Shatila refugee camp, Palestinians live side by side with Shiite Muslims who fled the Israeli occupation in southern Lebanon. Graffiti & banners reflect the local sympathy for the "martyrs" of their respective causes: the fight for a Palestinian homeland and the Shiite Hezbollah movement, considered a terrorist group by the U.S. govt. Nestled among these militant groups, however, are religious schools that U.S. intelligence officials regard as far more dangerous. They are the madrassas of the Saudi-funded Wahhabi sect, part of a worldwide network of Muslim extremists that now figures at the center of the 9.11.01 attacks. In this neighborhood & several others like it, puritanical Wahhabi schools indoctrinate young men in radical militancy. Between the ages of 7 & 15, they are taught the fundamentals of strict Islam & religious obligations. Between the ages of 15 & 25, these young men are trained to fight and prepared for the jihad, or holy war, in this case conquest of Wahhabi Islam. The students they are charged with fulfilling missions related to the jihad.

    Many Muslims & Koranic scholars denounce this radical interpretation of Islamic precepts as one that distorts Islam's holiest text into a cookbook for violent action. "It is a religion of peace," American Muslim Council spokeswoman Farkhunda Ali said. "These types of acts are not Islam. They are manslaughter." An internal security officer in an Arab country, who asked not to be identified, put it more bluntly: "They're killers. By the time they're teen-agers, they're capable of being recruited as terrorists." It is important to stress that not all of the young men who attend Wahhabi schools will turn to violence. A number will go on to become religion teachers themselves. The Wahhabi pride themselves on adherence to Islamic values such as honesty & piety in their dealings with each other. Wahhabi communities are generally well organized & well financed, and residents carry on normal lives as tradesmen. The vast majority of Wahhabi communities do not openly maintain armed militias, though they do engage in paramilitary training. With the notable exception of the Taliban, weapons or other arms are kept concealed. These communities are different than Wahhabi factions that have developed in Palestinian refugee camps, particularly in Lebanon. There, many members are criminals & fugitives who have turned to radical Islam and receive financing in return.

    The Wahhabi movement flourishes in every Muslim country despite the fears of govts, and in some cases because of those fears. This has given suspected terrorist Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida organization an intl ideological & operational network. In Lebanon, where factional politics flourish, the Wahhabi movement is estimated by internal security officials to be about 4,000 strong. The movement is far larger in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. It goes by many names, Ikhwan, Wahhabi, Salifiyya, Mowahabin and now, famously, Taliban. What all of them have in common is a militant view of Sunni Islam and financial support at the highest levels of the Saudi Arabian govt. Over the past 10 years, Saudi Arabia, either directly or indirectly through non-govtal organizations, has financed all of the Wahhabi movements in the region, says one prominent Islamic scholar in Lebanon. "This was really a strategic mistake," he says. "The Arab rulers, as well as the policy analysts, have really underestimated the [fundamentalist] regeneration in the region. I would expect a war of Wahhabism against the gulf countries, particularly Saudi rulers." By funding the Wahhabi sect, the Saudi royal family purchased immunity for itself, but this now appears to be ending.
    As soon as the U.S. air strikes against Afghanistan began on Oct. 7, one of the most prominent Islamic scholars in the kingdom published a "fatwah" against the royal family, warning, "Whoever supports the infidel against Muslims is considered an infidel. It is a duty to wage jihad [holy war] on anyone who attacks Afghanistan." Since then, other clerics inside & outside the country have added their voices, in effect ex-communicating Saudi Arabia's ruling family for aiding the U.S.-led attacks on Afghanistan, which is ruled by the Taliban and has been a refuge for bin Laden.

    For their part, the U.S. & Britain, which saved the Saudi kingdom from almost certain conquest by Iraq in 1990-91, are furious at the emerging evidence that Saudi money bankrolled the 9.11.01 killers. The militancy that the U.S. believes is behind the Sept. 11 bombings has been dubbed the New Wahhabism. But it is really only the latest manifestation of a centuries-old feud within Islam. The Wahhabi movement began in 1740 on the Arabian Peninsula, where harsh & primitive conditions bred an unyielding & violent strain of Islam. When Saudi Arabia founder and father of the current rulers Abdul Aziz Ibn Saud conquered the peninsula in the 1920s, he used the Wahhabis to drive out his Hashemite rivals, who now rule Jordan. The Wahhabis eventually turned on Abdul Aziz for not adhering to their fundamentalist view of Islam, and he killed or imprisoned most of their leadership. Now, bin Laden has remade the Wahhabi movement in his own image. First & foremost, bin Laden would like to see New Wahhabism overthrow the Saudi govt, which he denounces for corruption and for allowing U.S. soldiers to be based on Saudi soil following the Persian Gulf War.

    The West & Arab govts such as Saudi Arabia's are not the only targets of the New Wahhabism. This harsh fundamentalist view of Islam sees all who do not adhere to its beliefs as infidels, even moderate Sunni Muslims & Shiites, who form the majority in Iran & Lebanon and substantial minorities in other Arab countries. Also beyond the pale to these puritans, of course, are members of any other religion. Many Islamic scholars who disagree with these views see bin Laden's call for a holy war against America as a distraction from his larger intentions. In reality, they say, the Wahhabis' personal & organizational beliefs ultimately will force a war within Islam, as well. "There is hatred between Wahhabism & Shiaism," says an Arab expert on fundamentalism. "This is very crucial. They consider that everyone has deviated." The repressive nature of many Arab regimes has provided fertile ground for this ideology, particularly among poorer & less educated people who have no access to the window that the Internet or satellite television provides to the outside world. Where many govts have been unable or unwilling to provide social services, Islamic associations, including Wahhabi groups, have stepped in, fostering loyalty to Islam instead of a state. To keep social unrest at bay, many regimes, from Egypt to Saudi Arabia to Pakistan, encourage demonization of Israel & the West.

    Fundamentalism, with its abhorrence of modernity, ensures that the poor & illiterate will receive one narrow view of world events. "Bin Laden has recruited without a physical presence in the street," says one Arab expert on fundamentalism. "Why? Because whether you like it or not, the average citizen in this part of the world is perceiving what's happening as a clash of civilizations, despite the emphasis of the U.S. & Europe." The U.S. may destroy the Taliban with its airstrikes, but this expert says that the Wahhabis will win out in the end because they are disciplined and have the money & recruiting system to build their following. "The [other Islamic factions] fight the Wahhabis as an independent movement, they think they are backwards. But finally they are going to give up and become Wahhabis. The money is coming from the Wahhabis; it's as simple as that."

    Saudi royal family rocked by December riots
    1.6.02  
    World Tribune

    Abu Dhabi   Saudi Arabia is downplaying reports of widespead rioting last month but diplomatic sources said the nation was rocked by the worst Islamic unrest in years. Saudi govt as well as Western diplomatic sources confirmed reports of massive Muslim riots attacking foreigners & Saudi families. Muslims destroyed property and voiced calls against the regime for what they asserted was its refusal to abide by Islamic principles.
    A diplomatic source assessed the Jedda riot as aimed directly at the regime. Several leading royal family members were in the port city during the Muslim holiday when several thousand Muslims took to the street. "The riot was organized and came within one step of being an actual attack on the royal family," the source said. "The family was in complete panic." In Jeddah, Muslims attacked women & families along the beach as well as on the main thoroughfare. They also blocked traffic, smashed windows & cars, including a police vehicle.

    Police were unable to stop the violence. Sources said most of the protestors escaped when security forces arrived. 2 Saudi princes were among 300 arrested, the sources said. They said Saudi police refused to arrest the princes until they were ordered to by senior commanders. The worst rioting took place in Jedda during last month's Eid al Fitr holiday. But other cities, including Dammam, were also sources of unrest. Diplomatic sources tried to downplay the violence by linking it to Osama Bin Laden; strength of feeling and the manner of its expression alarmed the regime. Saudi officials & newspapers confirmed the riots, but attributed them to unidentified young people.
    "This is the second year in a row that young men have been the cause of trouble during Eid," Raid Qusti reported in the Riyad-based Arab News. "Have authorities & officials done anything about it since last year? Were measures taken this year to prevent such things from happening again? No. Not a thing was done." In Kharj, a Saudi police officer was shot dead in broad daylight 12.29.01. A suspect was arrested, but Saudi authorities would not disclose motive of the killing. Saudi sources said the motive appeared political.

    Dearborn, Michigan   From all over the country, representatives of organizations and individual activists came together 5.18-19.02 at Arab Community Ctr for Economic & Social Services (ACCESS) for the National Summit to Stop Repression Against Muslim, Arab & South Asian Immigrants. Immediately after 9.11.01, over 1,200 people, overwhelmingly Arabs, Muslims and South Asians, were detained based mainly on their national origin, language, race, and religion. Many of these people have disappeared; the govt will not even acknowledge they are in custody. Summit participants were starkly reminded of this as they walked into the conference room. Covering most of one wall were 8½x11 sheets of paper with information and detainees released by the U.S. Justice Dept Joint Anti-Terrorist Task Force in response to a lawsuit by the ACLU. There were 92 names with addresses, etc. For another 725 people there were lists in which everything, incl the person's name, had been blacked out except country of birth, date of arrest.

    About 60 committed activists of all ages & nationalities came from or officially represented local & national organizations, including ACCESS, American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), Arab American Institute (AAI), American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), National Lawyers Guild (NLG), Triangle Foundation, South Asians Against Police Brutality and Racism, Solidarity USA, Refuse & Resist! and its youth network, La Resistencia, Committee Against the U.S. Empire (CAU$E), supporters of the Revolutionary Communist Party, Libros Revolución in L.A., Revolution Books Outlet in Detroit, the Revolutionary Communist Youth Brigade (RCYB), La Resistencia Student & Youth Network, American Muslim Council, Muslim-American Society Political Action Committee, and anti-war coalitions from Houston, Chicago, and northern California.

    Pastor Martin Niemoeller's quote from Nazi Germany had served as an orientation building for the summit: "First they came for the Communists and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, but by that time, no one was left to speak up."
    People discussed the current situation in light of this quote.

    One of the speakers on the opening panel was Mo Nishida, as a child interned in WW2 concentration camps for Japanese-Americans. He said he wanted to comment on fear & fascistic moves. He pointed out before WW2, the FBI had said that Japanese-Americans were no threat, but they were interned anyway. In the discussion Travis Morales, a supporter of the RCP and a member of La Resistencia from Houston, picked up on that and added that the govt did that because they had a bigger goal, to create hysteria, to create an "enemy within," to terrorize people to go along with them.

    Participants pointed out that Arabs, Muslims and South Asians are only the first people the govt is targeting. Imad Hammad of the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee said, "American citizens, look at these laws and see how they affect all Americans, not just me." Randall Hamud, an Arab-American attorney from San Diego who on Sept. 12 was defending detainees, pointed out how citizenship does not protect people. He gave two examples of Arab-Americans in custody by the U.S. and by Israel.

    A mission statement was arrived at through very vigorous and principled discussion among participants of very varied political views. It emphasized the purpose of the Blue Triangle Network and laid the basis for a plan of action. The statement read in part:
    "...Insisting that national security is at risk, the govt has launched wide-scale assault on constitutional rights and civil liberties. In order to defend these violated human and constitutional rights, this network dedicates itself to mobilizing the broadest number of people to challenge and oppose this repression. We do not accept the racial profiling, erosion of civil liberties, roundups, indefinite detentions, secret charges, secret evidence, secret military tribunals and demonizing of Muslims, Arabs, South Asians and others based upon where they were born, the language that they speak, the color of their skin or the religion that they practice."

    The action plan included adopting the blue triangle as a symbol and the name Blue Triangle Network. In the Nazi death camps, members of various groups were forced to wear different symbols, yellow Star of David for Jews, the pink triangle for gay men, the blue triangle for immigrants & stateless people. This hated symbol of oppression will now be transformed into a symbol of resistance.
    A fact sheet will be written and distributed nationwide.

      Ch.4 § Tale of the Teacher
      1981   Robt. Lacey The Kingdom (HBJ)
    Muhammad ibn Abdul Wahhab b. 1703 dedicated his life to God & studying Koran. By 1740 ministering in Nejd and organizing purges of idolatrous objects standing between man and the true God. Working as quadi, judge, he used his position to have holy shrines demolished and to destroy tombs to which pilgrimages were made. Arabian muslims superstitiously revered fertility trees & monuments to the dead.
    "Mud cannot save you," taught ibn Abdul Wahhab. "Pray to God and God alone".

    ƒ It is thought MiAW was particularly influenced by the teachings of 13th cent. A.D. Syrian Hanbali,Taqi al Din ibn Taimiyah. The Teacher interpreted the law in all its strictness, the law of God, the Shariah, dictated by God to the Prophet Muhammad at the beginning of Islam but now only practised laxly. When the Teacher came upon a woman guilty of adultry, he organized her punishment prescribed, stoning her to death.
    Many resented the changes; after the stoning, those sheltering him no longer would have him as their qadi. Dar'iyah ruler Muhammad ibn Sa'ud welcomed him as qadi, saying "Welcome to a country that is better than your own country." The Teacher reformed Dar'iyah; smoking, dancing and music were banned as detractions from contemplating God. Shrines & luxury were swept away.
    Until Wahhab, Sa'ud lineage, Anazah tribal origins in 1446 A.D., was a minor shiekhly clan like many others in Nejd, townsmen & farmers trading in dates & horse breeding, joining with desert tribes to raid outwards when they felt strong, but in no way empire builders. Ten generations later son of Sa'ud allied with Wahhab.

    Wahhabi preached conversion as duty of good Muslims once they put their own life in order, to purify those around him. If persuasion failed, the ruler must proclaim jihad, holy war. Soon after Wahhab's coming, the al Sa'ud attacked nearby Riyadh, then rode into Nejd to subdue Arabia's heartland. They conquered to the shores of the Persian Gulf.
    After many years & death of first ibn Sa'ud as well as Wahhab, their sons continued partnership in Nejd. In 1802 they turned west toward holy Islam cities & massacred every male who didn't escape Taif on the cliff edge above Mecca. Mecca & Medina opened its gates in terror. Nejd men smashed evdry shrine & image and turned away Egyptian & Syrian pilgim caravans as idolators. For the first time since Islam's early days, most of Arabia, a million sq. miles from Red Sea to Persian Gulf & Yemen to Syrian deserts, was united under single authority. In 1804, they took tribute from more territory & more people than the U.S.

    Constantinople's sultan-caliph sent Egyptian viceroy Muhammad Ali & armies to retake Mecca & Medina in 1813 but they were rebuffed when moving inland. M.Ali's second son Ibrahim Pasha leading Turkish troops & bribed bedouin tribes eventually sieged Dar'iyah for 6 months, first time in recorded history foreign troops invaded & conquered Arabian heartland. Sa'ud leader was beheaded in Constantinople for failing to recant. Sa'ud regrouped a dozen miles from Dar'iyah in Riyadh to be exiled to Kuwait from a more modesty hegemony in 1891 Rasheed dynasty conquest from north. Abdul Aziz al Sa'ud, founder of dynasty ruling Saudi ever since, recaptured Riyadh recapture Jan. 1902. & soon married Tarfah, daughter of Riyadh qadi & chief religious leader Sheikh Abdullah ibn Abdul Lateef, Wahhab's direct blood descendant.
    Tarfaf was mother of Faisal.

      Ikhwan   Wahhabi religious militia which formed the main military force of the Arabian ruler Ibn Saud and played a key role in establishing him as ruler of most of the Arabian Peninsula, in his new state of Saudi Arabia.
    After the conquest of the Hijaz in 1926 brought all of the current Saudi state under Ibn Saud's control, the monarch found himself in some conflict with elements of the Ikhwan. He succeeded in crushing the Ikhwan's resistance in 1929, following which the militia was reorganised as the Saudi Arabian National Guard.
    for Jami'at al-Ikhwan al-Muslimin
      cf. Muslim Brotherhood.
    Ground zero & the Saudi connection
    9.01   Stephen Schwartz, auth.
    Intellectuals & Assassins, Anthem Press

    The first thing to do when trying to understand Islamic suicide bombers is to forget the clichés about the Muslim taste for martyrdom. It does exist, of course, but the desire for paradise is not a safe guide to what motivated 9.11.01 attacks. Throughout history, political extremists of all faiths have willingly given up their lives simply in the belief that by doing so, whether in bombings or in other forms of terror, they would change the course of history, or at least win an advantage for their cause. Tamils are not Muslims, but they blow themselves up in their war on the govt of Sri Lanka; Japanese kamikaze pilots in the second world war were not Muslims, but they flew their fighters into US aircraft carriers. Islamofascist ideology of Osama bin Laden and those closest to him, such as the Egyptian & Algerian Islamic Groups, is no more intrinsically linked to Islam or Islamic civilisation than Pearl Harbor was to Buddhism, or Ulster terrorists are to Christianity. … orthodox Muslim theology, which cautions soldiers in the way of Allah to fight their enemies face-to-face, without harming non-combatants, women or children. … if you ask educated, pious, traditional but forward-looking Muslims what has driven their umma, or global community, in this direction, many of them will answer you with one word: Wahhabism, a strain of Islam that emerged not at the time of the Crusades, nor even at the time of the anti-Turkish wars of the 17th century, but less than two centuries ago. It is violent, it is intolerant, and it is fanatical beyond measure. It originated in Arabia, and it is the official theology of the Gulf states. Wahhabism is the most extreme form of Islamic fundamentalism, and its followers are called Wahhabis.

    Not all Muslims are suicide bombers, but all Muslim suicide bombers are Wahhabis except, perhaps, for some disciples of atheist leftists posing as Muslims in the interests of personal power, such as Yasser Arafat or Saddam Hussein. Wahhabism is the Islamic equivalent of the most extreme Protestant sectarianism. It is puritan, demanding punishment for those who enjoy any form of music except the drum, and severe punishment up to death for drinking or sexual transgressions. It condemns as unbelievers those who do not pray, a view that never previously existed in mainstream Islam. It is stripped-down Islam, calling for simple, short prayers, undecorated mosques, and the uprooting of gravestones since decorated mosques & graveyards lend themselves to veneration, which is idolatry in the Wahhabi mind. Wahhabis do not even permit the name of the Prophet Mohammed to be inscribed in mosques, nor do they allow his birthday to be celebrated. Above all, they hate ostentatious spirituality, much as Protestants detest the veneration of miracles & saints in the Roman Church. Ibn Abdul Wahhab, founder of this totalitarian Islamism, was born in Uyaynah, in the part of Arabia known as Nejd, where Riyadh is today, and which the Prophet himself notably warned would be a source of corruption & confusion. Anti-Wahhabi Muslims refer to Wahhabism as fitna an Najdiyyah or the trouble out of Nejd. From the beginning of Wahhab's dispensation in the late 18th century, his cult was associated with the mass murder of all who opposed it. For example, Wahhabis fell upon the city of Qarbala in 1801 and killed 2,000 ordinary citizens in the streets & markets.

    In the 19th century, Wahhabism took the form of Arab nationalism v. the Turks. The founder of the Saudi kingdom, Ibn Saud, established Wahhabism as its official creed. Much has been made of the role of the US in creating Osama bin Laden through subsidies to the Afghan mujahedin, but as much or more could be said in reproach of Britain which, three generations before, supported the Wahhabi Arabs in their revolt against the Ottomans. Arab hatred of the Turks fused with Wahhabi ranting against the decadence of Ottoman Islam. The truth is that the Ottoman khalifa reigned over a multinational Islamic umma in which vast differences in local culture & tradition were tolerated. No such tolerance exists in Wahhabism, which is why the concept of US troops on Saudi soil so inflames bin Laden. Bin Laden is a Wahhabi. So are the suicide bombers in Israel. So are his Egyptian allies, who exulted as they stabbed foreign tourists to death at Luxor not many years ago, bathing in blood up to their elbows and emitting blasphemous cries of ecstasy. So are the Algerian Islamist terrorists whose contribution to the purification of the world consisted of murdering people for such sins as running a movie projector or reading secular newspapers. So are the Taleban-style guerrillas in Kashmir who murder Hindus. The Iranians are not Wahhabis, which partially explains their slow but undeniable movement towards moderation & normality after a period of utopian & puritan revivalism. But the Taleban practise a variant of Wahhabism. In the Wahhabi fashion they employ ancient punishments such as execution for moral offences and they have a primitive & fearful view of women. The same is true of Saudi Arabia¹s rulers. None of this extremism has been inspired by American fumblings in the world, and it has little to do with the tragedies that have beset Israelis & Palestinians.

    But the Wahhabis have two weaknesses of which the West is largely unaware. The first is that the vast majority of Muslims in the world are peaceful people who would prefer the installation of Western democracy in their own countries. They loathe Wahhabism for the same reason any patriarchal culture rejects a violent break with tradition. And that is the point that must be understood: bin Laden & other Wahhabis are not defending Islamic tradition; they represent an ultra-radical break in the direction of a sectarian utopia. Thus, they are best described as Islamofascists, although they have much in common with Bolsheviks. The Bengali Sufi writer Zeeshan Ali has described the situation touchingly: Muslims from Bangladesh in the US, just like any other place in the world, uphold the traditional beliefs of Islam but, due to lack of instruction, keep quiet when their beliefs are attacked by Wahhabis in the US who all of a sudden become "better" Muslims than others. These Wahhabis go even further and accuse their own fathers of heresy, sin & unbelief. And the young children of the immigrants, when they grow up in this country, get exposed only to this one-sided version of Islam and are led to think that this is the only Islam. Naturally a big gap is being created every day that silence is only widening. The young, divided between tradition and the call of the new, opt for Islamic revolution and commit themselves to their self-destruction, combined with mass murder.

    The same influences are brought to bear throughout the ten-million-strong Muslim community in America, as well as those in Europe. In the U.S., 80 per cent of mosques are estimated by the Sufi Hisham al-Kabbani, born in Lebanon and now living in the US, to be under the control of Wahhabi imams, who preach extremism, and this leads to the other point of vulnerability: Wahhabism is subsidised by Saudi Arabia, even though bin Laden has sworn to destroy the Saudi royal family. The Saudis have played a double game for years, more or less as Stalin did with the West during WW2. They pretended to be allies in a common struggle against Saddam Hussein while they spread Wahhabi ideology everywhere Muslims are to be found, just as Stalin promoted an antifascist coalition with the US while carrying out espionage & subversion on American territory.
    The motive was the same: the belief that the West was or is decadent & doomed. One major question is never asked in American discussions of Arab terrorism: what is the role of Saudi Arabia? The question cannot be asked because American companies depend too much on the continued flow of Saudi oil, while American politicians have become too cosy with the Saudi rulers. Another reason it is not asked is that to expose the extent of Saudi & Wahhabi influence on American Muslims would deeply compromise many Islamic clerics in the US. But it is the most significant question Americans should be asking themselves today.

    If we get rid of bin Laden, who do we then have to deal with? The answer by UCSD political science professor Seyyed Vali Reza Nasr, author of an authoritative volume on Islamic extremism in Pakistan,: If the U.S. wants to do something about radical Islam, it has to deal with Saudi Arabia. The "rogue states" Iraq, Libya, etc. are less important in the radicalisation of Islam than Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia is the single most important cause & supporter of radicalisation, ideologisation, and the general fanaticisation of Islam. From what we now know, it appears not a single one of the suicide pilots in New York and Washington was Palestinian. They all seem to have been Saudis, citizens of the Gulf states, Egyptian or Algerian. Two are reported to have been the sons of the former second secretary of the Saudi embassy in Washington. They were planted in America long before the outbreak of the latest Palestinian intifada; they seem to have begun their conspiracy while the MidEast peace process was in full, if short, bloom. Anti-terror experts & politicians in the West must now consider the Saudi connection.

    Lawrence of Arabia
    Classic film has new look after Sept. 11
    1.7.02   John Soat
    Information Week

    The image of U.S. Special Forces on horseback riding across the Afghan desert reminded me of one of my favorite movies … 2 important points …
    At the time the movie takes place, oil hadn't transformed area geopolitics. It was being produced in Persia, Iran, and dug for in Mesopotamia, Iraq, but the major finds in Saudi Arabia came in the 1930s. …
    … tribal dynamics illustrated in Lawrence still influence developments in that region, and, by extension, the rest of the world.

    Arab revolt during WWI was led by the family of Sherif Hussein, belonging to the Sunni sect of Islam, the Beni Hashem tribe claiming direct descent from Mohammed. This struggle was not a Jihad, holy war, against infidels, which is why the British were allowed to participate.
    In the movie, Hussein's son Feisal is speaking with Lawrence about how the Arab people had paved, lighted cities at a time when London was a village.
    "Yes, you were great," says Lawrence.
    "9 centuries ago," says Feisal. ¹

    A later Arab revolt in the 1930s, led by the family of Ibn Saud, was helped by tribes belonging to the radical Wahhabi sect of Muslims. … That revolt was a Jihad that established control of the Arab peninsula under the Saudi family and established Wahhabi Islam in that area.
    When WWI ended, the British & French divided the area into "protectorates" under their control, and their influence wasn't completely thrown off until the 1960s. …


    The Network plans to participate in the proposed national demonstration in Wash.DC Labor Day with National Coalition to Protect Political Freedom. Teach-ins will be organized on selected campuses in the fall. The case of Rabih Haddad of Ann Arbor, Michigan will be taken up across the country as a concentrated case while the cases of others such as Farouk Muhti in Brooklyn & Jamal Salim in the Paterson, NJ detention facility will be promoted on the web site to be built. Cultural events will be organized.
    The Network will take part in building a national campaign to stop colleges from cooperating with federal agencies seeking to locate, identify and harass foreign students in the U.S. Each individual & organization will support govt lobbying efforts of Arab-American Institute as they see fit within the scope of their political orientation. Youth plan on putting out a call for youth to come to Detroit for a week in late summer to do work to stop the repression of immigrants. Discussions will be held with the NLG, ACLU and Solidarity USA to figure out a strategy for legal actions and supportive actions in the streets.
    At the end of the summit, participants felt they had taken a big first step to stop the post 9-11 increasing repression of immigrants. They had a plan, a commitment to carry out the plan and a beginning organizational structure to carry out the plan. As one participant from a Houston anti-war coalition said, "We have to go home and build a movement."

    media
    What you will see on CBS's 9/11 is a tale of heroism & courage.... What you won't see are gruesome, violent images of the devastation. The special, hosted by quintessential New Yorker Robert DeNiro, is a documentary shot through the eyes of 2 men whose cameras just happened to be rolling that fateful September morning. The CBS documentary is a unique look at the heroic rescue effort by some of NYC's firefighters. The footage was shot by 2 brothers, Jules & Gedeon Naudet. The French film students were in the midst of shooting a firefighter documentary about a downtown firehouse when the first plane struck the North Tower.
    Amid all of the chaos, Jules & Gedeon went into the heart of the action, shooting nonstop for 2 hours in & around WTC towers. They captured previously unseen images which depict the inside lobby of the North Tower moments before its collapse. Besides 10 seconds of video from the first tower hit, none of the footage has been aired. Some of the victims' families think it is too soon to broadcast this footage, but Robert DeNiro, who hosts the 2-hour special, disagrees. "CBS felt it was important, and they wanted to show it in a certain way," said DeNiro about the special. "They felt it warranted special presentation and I thought that would be something I would do."

    Access Hollywood attended a special screening of the documentary along with People Magazine's Bob Meadows & Time's James Poniewozik, who like most critics had concerns of it being exploitive. "It's not as graphic as I feared it would be," said Poniewozik. "It's a very intense film, but it's also very respectful." "It was well done," said Meadows. "The brothers wanted to show the honor & bravery of these firefighters, and that definitely & absolutely came through." In fact, the documentary is almost bloodless & free of gore. It does contain uncensored language, 4 letter words are not edited out. But the power of this documentary comes not from what you see, but from what you hear. Unforgettable sounds, like that of a roaring airplane engine, are used instead of graphic images. "It shows these firefighters as human beings. You learn about their dedication to their job and then you see it very much in practice," said Poniewozik. CBS' special, 9/11, airs commercial free 3.10.02 9pm.

    bin Laden video   editorial cartoons   refuted

    How al-Qaida keeps in touch ¹ ² ³
    Officials say group still uses high-tech to send msgs
    3.6.02   Robt. Windrem NBC News

    Despite its losses on the battlefield, Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida is still attempting to communicate. U.S. officials say they have indications the group is using most, if not all, of their original high-tech means to do so. Ironically, al-Qaida has taken advantage of Internet & security technology developed by American companies. A combination of low-tech methods with high technology to communicate & send messages related to planned terrorist attacks with a high degree of privacy include

    •   Floppy disks or Zip disks   An al-Qaida courier delivers the disk with encrypted data to a third party who in turn takes it to the cell planning an attack. The data is encrypted by common commercial encryption programs like PGP security software, which can be downloaded for free.
    •   Internet-based e-mail   Al-Qaida operatives are able to use free e-mail to communicate anywhere there is a web connection, often using Internet cafes & public libraries to log in. U.S. officials confirm 9.11.01 hijackers used both Yahoo Mail & MSN Hotmail to communicate with each other & higher command levels. Zacarias Moussaoui used Hotmail account pilotz123@hotmail.com to set up his flight school training.
      Many advantages to Internet-based e-mail incl . accounts set up in minutes free. Little personal information is required. Multiple accounts can be set up or several individuals can use the same account as long as they have the password. In the latter case, e-mail does not even have to be sent to be retrieved. An individual can create a message in the "drafts" file but not send it. Another individual can then retrieve it by using his password to access the account. The providers of Internet-based e-mail do not keep extensive backups, dumping them within weeks of their creation.
    •   Instant messaging   Al-Qaida also used Internet-based programs which permit real time text communications as well as file transfers. Yahoo, MSN and other services both in & outside U.S. provide such services. Ironically, instant messaging was pioneered by an Israeli company, ICQ.
    •   Chat rooms   Al-Qaida used Internet chat rooms, specifically sports chat rooms, to communicate with individuals told in advance what time to monitor the chat and watch for coded messages.
    •   Satellite telephones   Al-Qaida used encrypted satellite telephones. Bin Laden's phone, called a Compact M model, according to testimony in the embassy bombing trial, was purchased from O'Gara Satellite Networks in Deer Park, NY
    •   Steganography   Science of hiding messages inside audio, video & picture files; employed by al-Qaida. Readily available software simply encrypts & hides a message in the "free space" inside any of these files, then unlocks them with a password at the other end. German co. that sells steganographic software, Steganos, issued a statement shortly after 9.11.01 that "as Steganos Security Suite is the worldwide market leader in steganography, it cannot be ruled out that this software was used in conjunction with these attacks." Full version of the Steganos Suite can be purchased for little more than $30 and simpler versions can be downloaded from the Internet free of charge.
    Pentagon to close information office
    Rumsfeld accuses news organizations of crippling agency
    2.26.02   A.Johnson
    MSNBC,AP & Reuters

    Wash.DC   DefSec Rumsfeld said Tue. the Pentagon would close its new Office of Strategic Influence, complaining that even though it was not true the office would spread false news stories abroad, scathing media reports & commentary had made it impossible for the agency to do its job.
    Strong criticism erupted abroad & in Congress last week after NY Times reported the new office, created to sway public opinion overseas after 9.11.01, might be used to spread false information among overseas reporters, civic leaders & others in both friendly & unfriendly countries.
    Pres. GWBush signaled his unhappiness with the reports Mon. and indicated he had told Rumsfeld to shut down the agency. "We'll tell the American people the truth," Bush said. Rumsfeld told reporters Tue."while much of the thrust of the criticism and the cartoons & comment has been off the mark, the office has been damaged so much that it could not operate effectively."

    Rumsfeld said he met Tue. morning with defense undersecretary Douglas Feith who oversaw the office, and that Feith said he had decided to close the office. Defense Dept will continue trying to get its message across overseas, Rumsfeld said, just not through the OSI. "The office is done. What do you want, blood?" he said at Pentagon news conference. NBC News reported last week the OSI had circulated classified proposals to disseminate explicitly false information in overseas news reports about U.S. activities. The Times reported that the proposals also would have involved e-mailing messages promoting U.S. views to journalists, civic leaders & foreign leaders from addresses that hid their military origins.
    Few details of the agency have been made public, incl its budget, which was in emergency Pentagon spending authorized by Congress in Oct. Defense officials told NBC News on condition of anonymity Monday that some of the proposals went much further than had been previously reported. The officials, who said they opposed the program and described it as disturbing & dangerous, told NBC's Jim Miklaszewski the plan was a detailed proposal that would have included a sweeping campaign of disinformation not only overseas but also in the U.S. The officials said the plan called for a campaign of lies, coercion and "influence" against clerics, schools & news organizations. Some of the propaganda would have been aimed at Muslims inside the country, they said. News organizations that did not "follow the Pentagon line" would be punished in unspecified ways, the officials said.

    The Pentagon last week described the proposals as preliminary ideas being considered among a range of possible options that had not reached Rumsfeld's desk. Rumsfeld said on "Meet the Press" that he had never seen the charter setting up the new office. But that characterization of Rumsfeld's limited knowledge was called into question Monday, when the Times reported the new office's asst for operations Thomas Timmes, said at a recent industry conference that Rumsfeld had been briefed on the office's purpose & goals at least twice and had given his general support. "We're into the frustrating part of ironing out differences within our family," Timmes, a former Army colonel & psychological operations officer, said 2.8.02 in Arlington, VA.

      per USA PATRIOT * Act

    * Uniting & Strengthening By Providing Appropriate Tools Required To Intercept & Obstruct Terrorism
    It may not provide him much comfort, but tenured Univ. of S.Florida prof. Sami Al-Arian, recently fired after his appearance on a conservative talk show revived discredited, years-old allegations of ties to anti-Israel terrorists, may be the first computer science professor ever mugged by four of the nation's most influential news organizations. USF administrators fired the Kuwaiti-born professor after he appeared on national television for 5 minutes of punditry last fall. His crime? Not telling viewers that his views did not necessarily reflect those of the school. It was a tortured rationale that all but guaranteed future litigation.
    As Salon recently reported, the Al-Arian episode raises disturbing questions about free speech, academic freedom and the future of tenured status. But what's also important to understand is the crucial role the press played in the unfolding saga. Univ. of S.Florida is ultimately responsible for firing Al-Arian. But equally culpable are Fox News Channel, NBC, Media General (specifically its Tampa newspaper) and the giant radio conglomerate Clear Channel Communications.

    In the wake of 9.11.01, all four media giants, eagerly tapping into the country's mood of vengeance and fear, latched onto the Al-Arian story, fudging the facts and ignoring the most rudimentary tenets of journalism in their haste to better tell a sinister story about lurking Middle Eastern dangers here at home.
    The story went national when Al-Arian was invited on the Fox News Channel's "The O'Reilly Factor" show 9.26.01. Host Bill O'Reilly revived inflammatory charges against Al-Arian dating back, in some cases, 15 years. Those charges were that a now-defunct Islamic think tank Al-Arian founded and ran in conjunction with USF operated as a sort of home away from home for radical Palestinians and terrorists. The charges had been thoroughly investigated and rejected by USF, and an immigration judge; the FBI has been looking for years and has never filed any charges.

    Not even his harshest critics suggest Al-Arian has done anything in the last 5 years that could be even remotely construed as aiding terrorist organizations.

    The entire controversy sprang from the fact that viewers became enraged after old allegations were re-aired, albeit often in mangled form, by O'Reilly. O'Reilly's accusatory & hectoring interrogation of Al-Arian, filled with false statements and McCarthy-like smears, climaxed in a chilling parting shot in which the host repeatedly told his stammering guest that if he were with the CIA, "I'd follow you wherever you went", clearly implying that he believed Al-Arian was a terrorist. Not surprisingly in the fearful & hysterical climate after 9.11.01, the show resulted in a torrent of angry calls, including death threats against al-Arian, to USF. Before firing him, USF placed Al-Arian on paid leave, saying his presence made the campus unsafe and pointing to an avalanche of hate mail and death threats. But the Gulf Coast hysteria was entirely created by the media. Without the Tampa Tribune, which undertook a dubious 7 year crusade against al-Arian, there would have been no story to begin with. Without "The O'Reilly Factor", a showcase for noisy right-wing ranting whose producers apparently didn't even know that Al-Arian had been cleared of charges before they handed him over to their equally ignorant hanging-judge host, the controversy would never have been revived. Without incendiary, know-nothing Clear Channel radio jocks, led by a gentleman named Bubba the Love Sponge, there would almost certainly have been far fewer USF death threats. Without NBC's sloppy work on "Dateline", there would probably have been no firing.

    The Al-Arian story reveals what happens when journalists, abandoning their role as unbiased observers, lead an ignorant, alarmist crusade against suspicious foreigners who in a time of war don't have the power of the press or public sympathy to fight back. It's called a pile-on, and this game first began in Tampa, 7 years ago.

    Official: Terrorism suspect attended Wh.House mtg
    Indicted prof. accused of links to Palestinian Islamic Jihad   2.23.03   CNN

    Wash.D.C.   The Florida professor indicted last week on terrorism charges was granted entry to the White House complex and briefed by a senior administration official as part of a 160-person group in June 2001, according to a White House official. Officials would not release the name of the senior administration official who briefed the group. A member of the president's Office of Faith-Based & Community Initiatives also briefed them, according to the White House.

    Sami Al-Arian, 45, was arrested Thursday and charged with conspiracy to commit murder in connection with his alleged support of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which the State Dept has labeled a terrorist organization. If convicted, he faces up to life in prison. Al-Arian, who taught at Univ. of South Florida, has 5 children and denied any links to terrorism.
    The White House said Al-Arian entered the Eisenhower Executive Office Bldg with the American Muslim Council as part of what the White House called an "outreach meeting." "This demonstrates that the Justice Dept is pursuing terrorism regardless of whether someone attended a White House meeting or not," White House spokesman Taylor Gross said.
    This meeting was the only time Al-Arian was on the White House grounds during the Bush administration. However, the White House official said Secret Service records show Al-Arian also visited 6.23.00, during the Clinton administration.

    A Kuwait native, Al-Arian came under the scrutiny of federal authorities in 1995, when he & another USF instructor Ramadan Abdullah Shallah founded an Islamic think tank, World & Islam Studies Enterprise (WISE). About a year later, Shallah returned to the MidEast as the new head of Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
    Thursday's indictment said Al-Arian was the leader of the group in U.S. and acted as the secretary for the group's governing body. It also alleges that he transferred tens of thousands of dollars to the group and relatives of its jailed members.
    His lawyer, Nicolas Matassini, called the indictment "a work of fiction."

    censorship    
    Since it's the threat of obscurantism we're hoping to thwart, let's be blunt: The Bush administration's plan to strip the Govt Printing Office's authority is a threat to democracy.
    Office of Management & Budget dir. Mitch Daniels wants to transfer control of information management from the printing office to individual Cabinet agencies. That would spell the end of the current system, in place since the Jeffersonian era, which requires executive branch agencies to send their documents & reports to neutral librarians, who then make them available to the public both online and in 1,300 public reading rooms nationwide.

    Daniels would replace that system with a more secretive one in which individual agencies would manage and possibly sanitize their own electronic databases. Currently, a federal agency such as the Pentagon can't delete an embarrassing passage from a historical document without first going through the hassle of asking each reading room to obscure the passage with a black marker.
    If Daniels gets his way, all an agency will have to do is call up the document in Microsoft Word and quietly hit Control X to delete the passage for eternity. Daniels says he's only trying to save taxpayer money. Giving Cabinet-level agencies the ability to select printing services on the basis of "quality, cost and time of delivery," he wrote, could save up to $70 million a year.

    That's a dubious claim, however, because the printing office already sends nearly two-thirds of its work to the private contractor with the lowest bid. As library experts have recently pointed out, privatization might or might not save money, but it certainly would diminish the public's access to information needed to make informed decisions.
    As Information Today's usually dispassionate columnist Barbara Quint fumed in Sept., Daniel's current push "threatens to gut federal document dissemination and fast."
    In his 1644 pamphlet "Areopagitica," English poet John Milton (reacting to how the Catholic Church had arrested & silenced Galileo simply because the astronomer's views on the universe conflicted with its doctrines) warned that citizens who didn't know what their govt was doing couldn't hold it accountable.

    In the late 18th century the words of an American lawyer Patrick Henry helped persuade Congress to pass legislation protecting the public's right to know. "The liberties of a people never were, nor ever will be, secure," Henry said, "when the transactions of their rulers may be concealed from them."
    In deciding whether to keep the library system that works to keep executive branch agencies honest, Congress has a choice: trust the upstarts in the Bush administration or heed the wisdom that has guided the country for more than 2 centuries.

    AP, other news organizations urge Gonzales to rethink FOIA rules
    7.28.05  
    AP

    Wash.D.C.   Associated Press and other news organizations are encouraging Atty General Alberto Gonzales to rescind a policy restricting public access to government information. The change was put in place by Gonzales' predecessor, John Ashcroft, shortly after 9.11.01.
    "Where agencies were once encouraged to disclose unless disclosure would do harm, they are currently encouraged to withhold if there are legal grounds for doing so," Tom Curley, AP president and chief executive officer, said in a letter to Gonzales. "We think this change was a terrible mistake."

    In an AP interview this week, Gonzales said he would reconsider the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) guidance established by Ashcroft. Deanna Sands, managing editor of the Omaha, Neb., World-Herald and president of the Associated Press Managing Editors Association, also sent a letter to Gonzales encouraging him to change the policy because Americans "deserve a more responsive govt."
    Jay Smith, president of Cox Newspapers Inc. and chair of the Newspaper Association of America, applauded Gonzales' willingness to review the FOIA policy. "I'm heartened that you may share my view," he wrote.
    Lucy Dalglish, executive director of The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, said her organization is preparing a letter that will be endorsed by some 30 journalism organizations.
    "We looked at his statement as an invitation to make suggestions for improving the situation," Dalglish said.

    During the Clinton administration, federal agencies were urged to resolve FOIA requests by erring on the side of releasing, not withholding, govt information. Ashcroft changed that policy by making federal agencies carefully consider national security and law enforcement concerns before releasing information. His memo said information sought under FOIA should be released "only after full and deliberate consideration of the institutional, commercial, and personal privacy interest that could be implicated by disclosure of the information."
    More than 4 million FOIA requests were made to the federal govt last year by the public and the media. Many requests drag on for years without resolution. President Bush said last spring he would look at ways to speed FOIA responses, conceding that there is "suspicion" his administration is too security-conscious.
    Curley said the Ashcroft guidance "has been a major contributor to the troubled relations between this administration and the news media."
    \

    The American Society of Newspaper Editors said Ashcroft's policy "is at odds with the intent and spirit" of the FOIA law.
    "As journalists, we rely upon the Freedom of Information Act to inform the citizenry, and for that reason, we applaud your decision to review Justice Department guidance," said a letter signed by Rick Rodriguez, ASNE president and executive editor at The Sacramento Bee, and Andrew Alexander, chairman of the ASNE Freedom of Information Committee and Washington bureau chief for Cox Newspapers.
    Justice Dept had no immediate comment.

    David Frum, credited with authoring headline "axis of evil" phrase in Pres. Bush's State of the Union address, has left the White House speechwriting staff. … Mr. Frum specifically denied commentator Robert Novak's claim, made yesterday on CNN's "Inside Politics," that he was ousted from the speechwriting team because the president was angered by an e-mail from Frum's wife that became public this month. Author Danielle Crittenden e-mailed friends after 1.29.03 State of the Union address expressing "wifely pride" that her husband had contributed the "axis of evil" phrase. Mrs. Crittenden's e-mail was published in an Internet journal by writer Timothy Noah … As for his role in the "axis of evil" speech, Frum said: "I contributed language to the president's speech. That is what I was paid to do. But what matters is not the language that is proposed to the president; what matters is the language the president decides to use. … The words become important only because the president uses them."
      "Where Did the Sixties Come From?
      auth David Frum sr fellow Manhattan Inst A powerful neo-conservative group is launching a new public relations campaign in support of Pres.GWBush's war on terrorism. At Tue. gathering of National Press Club, members of new Americans for Victory Over Terrorism (AVOT) declared intention to "take to task those groups & individuals who fundamentally misunderstand the nature of the war we are facing." Those groups & individuals, AVOT claims, need to be resisted both here & abroad. Full-page AVOT ad in 3.10.02 Sunday NYTimes pointed to radical Islam as "an enemy no less dangerous & no less determined than twin menaces of fascism & communism faced in the 20th century." At same time, $128,000 ad lambasted those at home "who are attempting to use this opportunity to promulgate their agenda of 'blame America first.' Both [internal & external] threats," the ad continues, "stem from either a hatred for the American ideals of freedom & equality or a misunderstanding of those ideals & their practice."

    To expose internal "threats," AVOT has compiled a sample list of statements by professors, legislators, authors and columnists that it finds objectionable. The strategy appears similar to an earlier, much-criticized effort to monitor war dissidents by the American Council of Trustees & Alumni (ACTA) group founded by Lynne Cheney, wife of VP Cheney, and Sen. Joseph Lieberman D-NY. AVOT's list of speakers it considers threatening incl:
    •   Cong. Maxine Waters D-CA who said, "Some of us, maybe foolishly, gave this president the authority to go after terrorists. We didn't know that he, too, was going to go crazy with it."
    •   President Jimmy Carter, who assailed Bush "axis of evil" phrase arguing it's "overly simplistic & counter-productive."
    •   Cong. Dennis Kucinich D-OH who accused GWBush of "canceling, in effect, the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth and Eighth Amendments" and called the war "the patriot games, the lying games, the war games of an unelected president."
    •   American Prospect editor Robt Kuttner's criticism of "Bush's dismal domestic policies" & "dubious notion of permanent war"
    •   Lewis Lapham, editor "Harper's Magazine," in recent editorial said Washington itself has used terrorist tactics during the 1990s, incl bombing of civilian targets in Baghdad & the Balkans.

    AVOT's chair is former Sec.Ed. & drug czar Wm Bennett. Senior Advisors incl former CIA dir. R. James Woolsey; former Reagan Pentagon official Frank Gaffney; Geo.Bush Sr atty general Wm P. Barr; and mega- political donor Lawrence Kadish. AVOT is project of Empower America, also co-chaired by Bennett, whose principal members incl Jeane Kirkpatrick, Jack Kemp, Vin Weber and Wm Cohen. During the press conference, Bennett insisted "We do not wish to silence people," adding that for now, AVOT plans to hold teach-ins & public education events, particularly on college campuses.
    In response to AVOT criticism, Harper's Lewis Lapham said Bennett is a "wrong-headed jingo & an intolerant scold." He added AVOT appeared to be a new "front organization for the hard neo-con right," which gained unprecedented influence in Bush administration, particularly among top political Pentagon appointees & VP Cheney's office. "This is the war-monger crowd," he said.

    AVOT is initially funded primarily by Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC) chair Lawrence Kadish, top GOP donor. Kadish, NY & FL real estate investor, was cited by Mother Jones magazine as one of country's top individual donors, having given $532,000 to the GOP. His RJC has long tried to build links between GOP, incl Christian Right component, and American Jews.
    Bennett, Gaffney, and Woolsey are all veteran members of network of groups with overlapping boards of directors that long championed rightist Israel govts and urged strong U.S. action against Iraqi Pres. Saddam Hussein, Islamic govt in Iran, and Palestine Authority Pres. Yasser Arafat. Both Gaffney & Bennett, for example, were 2 of about 3 dozen mainly neo-conservative signers of open letter sent to Bush in name of the "Project for a New American Century" 9 days after 9.11.01. It called not only for the destruction of Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network, but also to extend the war to Iraq, and possibly to Iran, Syria, Lebanon and the Palestine Authority unless those nations ceased their alleged support of terrorist groups opposed to Israel.

    Woolsey was sent by Pentagon's Defense Policy Board to Britain in late Sept. to gather evidence that could link Iraq to 9.11.01. He since became one of the most visible commentators in the media in favor of extending the war to Baghdad. Woolsey is also on Jewish Institute for National Security board, hawkish pro-Israel group. AVOT is also linked through many channels to Pentagon's Defense Policy Board chair Richard Perle. like Jeane Kirkpatrick full time at American Enterprise Institute (AEI), neo-con think-tank that has emerged as the hub of an "axis of incitement". At Tuesday's press conference. Woolsey told reporters he agreed with those who are "calling the war we're in now World War IV." Gaffney, most strident speaker at event, said we should be skeptical of "new-found friends" in the war on terror. "pay special attention to friends like Saudi Arabia &asmp; Egypt whose ongoing use of media are creating problems for our allies," (Israel). Any criticism of administration war conduct, he added, could be "interpreted in such a way as to hurt national resolve … and embolden the enemy."


    When Bob Woodward publishes, people listen, argue and get angry, which is pretty much what's happening over Bush at War. A Woodward book is a publishing event, and has been since the Redford-Hoffman days of "All the President's Men," through books on the high court, Belushi, the Gulf War, Quayle, the '96 campaign and the inner workings of the Bush White House.
    But Woodward's role has changed over the years. …
      (preface)

    Salon's Joe Conason … "(This matrix of deception is likewise exposed in Woodward's scoop about the back-channel advice on public opinion provided to the White House by Fox News chief Roger Ailes. An old Bush family employee, Ailes runs a network that frequently promotes the false but uplifting notion that Bush has no interest in polls.)"
    Slate's Chatterbox columnist, Tim Noah, picks up the Ailes issue, incl the Fox man's denial:

      "Bob Woodward's new book, Bush at War, contains an anecdote that puts a serious dent in Fox News' claim to be scrupulously nonpartisan. ('We report. You decide.') According to Woodward, shortly after the 9.11.01, Roger Ailes sent Bush's chief political aide Karl Rove a confidential memo. Ailes had previously been a media adviser to George H.W. Bush. But 'Ailes was not supposed to be giving political advice,' Woodward notes, because he was now running Fox News.

      According to Woodward, the memo's 'back-channel message' was that Bush had to convey to the American public that he was taking the harshest possible actions. If he did so, the public would agree to be patient about when to retaliate. "Ailes now says Woodward has it wrong. Here is what he had to say in a prepared statement:

        "'Bob Woodward's characterization of my memo is incorrect. In the days following 9.11.01, our country came together in nonpartisan support of the president. During that time, I wrote a personal note to a White House staff member as a concerned American expressing my outrage about the attacks on our country. I did not give up my American citizenship to take this job.'
      "It isn't obvious what part of Woodward's characterization Ailes finds 'incorrect.' He admits he sent the note ('to a White House staff member,' presumably Rove) and gets huffy about any insinuation that it was improper to do so. Chatterbox thinks Ailes is saying that in his note he expressed outrage but didn't tell Bush what to do. So how did the note read?
      "'Dear Karl: The attacks on the World Trade Center & the Pentagon were a goddamned outrage. All best, Roger.' That seems unlikely. No, Chatterbox's money is on Woodward. The only real question is whether Ailes' advice was as pompous and banal as Woodward makes it sound or whether it contained unrevealed subtleties. "For the record, Chatterbox is not at all shocked that Ailes gave Bush advice. It's certainly possible to be a journalist and have opinions, even partisan ones, at the same time.
      Chatterbox is rather irritated, though, that Ailes was a sneak about his exchange with Rove and that even now he won't answer reporters' inquiries truthfully."
    Ailes was plenty steamed, telling The Post : "Woodward got it all screwed up, as usual. The reason he's not as rich as Tom Clancy is that while he & Clancy both make stuff up, Clancy does his research first." Woodward said of the old Nixon adviser: "It's the Watergate spin apparatus that is still in play with Ailes. You know what? President Bush has gotten beyond that."
    By the time he appeared on the King show, Woodward said that Ailes, a "gentleman," had called him and "there really is no factual dispute between Ailes and myself on this."

    On to the Hill, where the partisan wrangling continues:
    "House Majority Whip Tom DeLay yesterday threatened to call the House back to Washington if Senate Democrats stripped Republican-backed provisions from the homeland security bill," the Washington Times reports. "The Texas Republican accused Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, South Dakota Democrat, of 'obstruction' in the face of a Nov. 5 electoral mandate for President Bush's policy. … "Senate Democrats want to delete from the House bill provisions that, among other things, would protect vaccine makers against lawsuits. Sen. John McCain, Arizona Republican, announced yesterday that he would vote with Democrats to strip the long-delayed bill of the provisions."

    Wall St Journal says Bush wants to kick-start the economy:

      "Trying to capitalize on electoral successes, the president's economic advisers are debating a wide range of tax cuts for individuals & businesses, incl moving up to 2003 the tax breaks for families that were scheduled to take effect later on.
      A strong economy is critical for Mr. Bush as he prepares for the 2004 election season, and he has made clear that he is worried that the recovery is faltering. … In an effort to woo Democrats, targeted tax cuts for lower-income workers may also become part of the package. … But administration officials worry that a stimulus bill could get ensnared in the slow-moving Senate, where Republicans lack a filibuster-proof majority of 60 votes."
    You'll be reading that sentence many, many times in the coming months.

    In the Atlantic Monthly, picked up at length in Sunday's NY Times, about how the seemingly vigorous JFK was often in severe pain and taking up to 8 medications a day. None of this was made public at the time; Kennedy & his people lied. Old Nixon hand Wm Safire is offended. From The Times:

      "What else is there in the taxpayer-subsidized Kennedy Library that might provide students of history material that goes beyond the transcripts and adulatory movies showing a crisp, alert president saving the world from missiles in Cuba?
      "During the 70's firestorm about secret taping in the Nixon White House, hoots of derision were aimed at Nixonites who protested lamely that 'everybody did it.' I was told that the J.F.K. loyalist Dave Powers destroyed tapes of telephone conversations on the president's private line. Frankly, only prurient interest is served by further documentation of indiscretions; wide coverage of that did not discourage a subsequent president.
      "More significant are 100 hours of tapes, recorded secretly in the Oval Office and Cabinet Room by history-minded J.F.K., known to be under lock & key."
    The most immediate denunciations of Gore for embracing govt-run health insurance has come from those journalists who have lived under such a system. Such as former Bush speechwriter David Frum, a Canadian, in National Review:
      "Brave or tone-deaf. "But let's not talk politics: Let's talk about the merits of the idea. No question, single-payer has many appealing virtues. It is amazingly hassle-free. No Canadian thinks about health insurance before switching jobs. The self-employed get the same treatment as the employees of the country's biggest bans. There are few forms to fill out, no waiting for checks in the mail. If you are sick, you go to the doctor or hospital, flash your card, and get your medicine.
      Or rather, you wait for your medicine. And wait. And wait. How long can you wait?
      Every year Canada's leading free-market think-tank, the Fraser Institute, compiles waiting times across Canada in a report called 'Waiting Your Turn.' Here are some highlights from this year's edition.

        "Median waiting time for radiation treatment for breast cancer in province of Ontario: 8 weeks
        "Median waiting time for angioplasty in the province of British Columbia: 12 weeks
        "Median waiting time for radiation treatment for prostate cancer in province of Quebec: 12 weeks
        "Median waiting time for cataract removal in the province of Ontario: 20 weeks.
        "Median waiting time for cataract removal in the province of Saskatchewan: 52 weeks.
        "Median waiting time for a tonsillectomy in the province of Saskatchewan: 80 weeks."
    British import Andrew Sullivan says of Gore:
      "Maybe he should take a look at yet another story from Britain's vaunted National Health Service. Here's a testimony from a man who is still attached to the idea of collectivist healthcare, but who saw what it means when it mattered most. He needed urgent radiotherapy for a brain tumor. Nuh-huh:

        "'[T]he best estimate I could get from the NHS was a 6 week wait. I have medical insurance through my employer and I am lucky enough to now have started privately arranged treatment on Wednesday, less than 2 weeks after my diagnosis. There are thousands of cases like mine every year in this country and most will not have that option.'
      "Notice that in Britain, if you actually need good care, you have to both pay higher taxes and get private insurance for healthcare inferior to much that is available here. This is what Al Gore wants to bring to America. …
    A long-running Washington tradition apparently ended last night when, for the first time in memory, the doyenne of the White House press corps was not called on in a presidential press conference. Syndicated columnist Helen Thomas, who has covered every president since John F. Kennedy, was relegated to the third row in last night's East Room event and, if the memory of press corps veterans is accurate, received her first presidential snub.
    One reporter who has covered the past 6 presidents said: "I don't remember a press conference in which [Mrs. Thomas] didn't get a question."
    For many years, it was a tradition for Mrs. Thomas to ask the first question at White House news conferences and end them by saying, on behalf of the press corps, "Thank you, Mr. President." However, in recent years, her influence has waned, although she was still afforded one of the first questions and continues to enjoy a front-row seat at regular White House briefings.
    For 4 decades the White House correspondent for United Press Intl, Mrs. Thomas, 82, has in recent months harangued Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer, asking how President Bush can slaughter innocent Iraqis in a quest for oil.

    Now syndicated by Hearst Newspapers, Mrs. Thomas has also denounced Mr. Bush outside the confines of the White House briefing room. "This is the worst president ever," Mrs. Thomas told the Daily Breeze of Torrance CA, in January. "He is the worst president in all of American history."
    Also snubbed by Mr. Bush at last night's news conference was Mike Allen of The Washington Post, the second consecutive time that the president has skipped over The Post's correspondent, who was seated last night in the front row.

      [ con muchisimas gracias a maestra SM ]
    It was the first day of school and a new student named Suzuki, son of a Japanese businessman, entered 4th grade. The teacher said, "Let's begin by reviewing some American history. Who said 'Give me Liberty, or give me Death?' " She saw a sea of blank faces, except for Suzuki, who had his hand up. "Patrick Henry, 1775", he said.
    "Very good! Who said 'Govt of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth'"? Again, no response except from Suzuki: "Abraham Lincoln, 1863.", said Suzuki

    The teacher snapped at the class, "Class, you should be ashamed. Suzuki, who is new to our country, knows more about its history than you do."   She heard a loud whisper: "Screw the Japs."
    "Who said that?" she demanded. Suzuki put his hand up. "Lee Iacocca, 1982."
    At that point, a student in the back said, "I'm gonna puke." The teacher glared and asked "All right! Now, who said that?" Again, Suzuki says, "George Bush to the Japanese Prime Minister, 1991."

    Now furious, another student yells, "Oh yeah? Suck this!" Suzuki jumps out of his chair waving his hand and shouts to the teacher, "Bill Clinton, to Monica Lewinsky, 1997!"
    Now with almost a mob hysteria someone said, "You asshole! If you say anything else, I'll kill you." Suzuki frantically yells at the top of his voice, "Rosanne, to Tom Arnold, 1999."

    The teacher fainted. And as the class gathered around the teacher on the floor, someone said, "Oh shit, we're in BIG trouble! and Suzuki said, "The Taliban! 2001."



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