mjh's blog

Donald Rumsfeld is Watching

Note that the Counterintelligence

Field Activity, or CIFA, with its Talon Reports, is different from earlier reports on the

href="http://www.edgewiseblog.com/mjh/nada/dump-duhbya/to-protect-and-uphold-the-constitution/">National Security Agency (which is

also a Defense Department agency, by the way). And it is different from the FBI spying on PETA and others. Or the CIA. Or your city,

county and state police. A vast network looking desperately for dots to connect. Are you a dot?

How much spying are we doing

domestically? That’s a secret. What’s it cost? That’s a secret. How many mistakes are made? That’s a secret.

Eisenhower warned

us about the Military-Industrial-Congressional Complex. Raygun revved up military spending ostensibly to bankrupt the Soviets (a model

bin Laden is well-aware of). With the winding down of the Cold War, what was a militarist-money-maker to do? Thank god we have an endless

war on a shadowy enemy who can never surrender.

I’m not saying that Our Savior is destroying our village to save it just because

it makes lots of money for his friends. No, I’m convinced Duhbya is mentally ill with Post Traumatic Shock Syndrome and guilt for 9/11

(perhaps coupled with prolonged oxygen deprivation after that pretzel choking incident). Perhaps Rumsfeld and Cheney are just as

deranged. These guys need help, but our healing begins with their departure. mjh

href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/10/AR2005121000893.html">Defense Facilities Pass Along Reports of

Suspicious Activity
Raw Information’ From Military, Civilians Is Given to Pentagon
By Walter Pincus, Washington Post Staff

Writer

Day after day, reports of suspicious activity filed from military bases and other defense installations throughout the

United States flow into the Counterintelligence Field Activity, or CIFA, a three-year-old Pentagon agency whose size and budget

remain classified.

The Talon [which stands for "threat and local observation notice"] reports, as they are called, are

based on information from civilians and military personnel who stumble across people or information they think might be part of a

terrorist plot or threat against defense facilities at home or abroad. …

Talon reports grew out of a program called

Eagle Eyes, an anti-terrorist program established by the Air Force Office of Special Investigations that “enlists the eyes and ears of

Air Force members and citizens in the war on terror,” according to the program’s Web site. …

A former senior CIA official with

wide counterintelligence experience, who is familiar with CIFA’s growth, said the agency’s mandate is “ambiguous, but the Defense

Department is using its assets in its broadest terms.” He added that efforts such as Talon “could be a well-intentioned effort and it

could develop important information.” But, he said that in his view, “the Pentagon has chosen to err on the side of over-collection” of

information.

His concern, he said, was who does the intelligence “go to, and what do they do with it.”

href="http://www.infoshop.org/inews/article.php?story=2005121510522317">Infoshop News – 1-800-CALL-SPY: Military intelligence database

short on threats, long on stupid Contributed by: arch_stanton

[T]he database, which contains reports such as those called in

to the DOD’s 1-800-CALL-SPY hotline, contains almost 50 anti-war meetings or protests, such as an anti-war meeting held by Quakers last

year. …

In the program’s first year, the agency received more than 5,000 TALON reports. The database obtained

by NBC News is generated by Counterintelligence Field Activity.

I’m a Soldier, Not a Spy by Grant Doty, a lieutenant colonel in

the Army

Yes, I took an oath to defend the United States against all enemies “foreign and domestic,” but the implication of

domestic intelligence-gathering by the military, even by a limited number of soldiers, should be sufficiently disturbing for American

citizens in and out of uniform that we think long and hard about crossing the line, even a little.

class="mine">Remember right after 9/11, when AssKraft came out in favor of folks like UPS, USPS, & FedEx delivery people, plus meter

readers, et. al., keeping their eyes open and letting the government know of anything suspicious. Even in the moment of our deepest shock

most people recoiled against that idea. AssKraft is gone (awaiting a Supreme Court nomination), but the ideas live on.

Seeing

Wolfowitz’s name throughout this report did nothing to reassure me. mjh

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Whatever it takes

href="http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/12/23/bushs_false_choices?mode=PF">Bush’s false choices

By Ellen Goodman

We have been handed yet another in an endless series of false choices. Those who don’t blindly trust the

president are dismissed as amnesia victims. Americans who don’t connect the dots from 9/11 to Iraq or spying or torture are cast as

actors living in a foolish, fearless, fantasy world. Indeed, 9/11 was the day the president became the commander in chief. The words he

often repeats were spoken to him by a rescue worker at the World Trade Center: ”Whatever it takes.” …

But gradually, 9/11

became the all-purpose excuse for . . . whatever it takes. …

”Whatever it takes” does not mean ”whatever the

president says it takes.” It does not mean becoming our own worst enemies. It does not mean approving torture or domestic

spying. And it most certainly does not mean watching silently as a commander in chief takes on the uniform of a generalissimo.

Who

owns September 11? The White House has built its own memorial and raised a stiff price of admission. It only allows in those who agree

with the president. …

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The Beast Master

I’ve long thought that the selection

of Duhbya, so obviously unqualified for the presidency, by the Radical Right was part of their campaign to prove government feckless and

worthless. Like putting an idiot in charge of a business you want to run into bankruptcy for tax purposes.

If that seems a bit off

to you, consider that the Radical Right is deliberately running up the deficit to “starve the beast.” Why not give “the beast” an inept

handler? mjh

American Prospect Online – The Death and Life of American Liberalism By Robert

Kuttner

The conservative movement is rooted in a coherent, easy-to-summarize ideology: Government doesn’t work, except to

protect you from terrorists; you deserve to keep more of your own money; cherished American family values, including national security,

are under assault from liberals. The right has fine-tuned and segmented its rhetorical symphony so that the bass notes rock its

political primitives while a softer timbre appeals to the moderate ear.

The right’s famed echo chamber now can “narrowcast”

complementary messages to every major demographic group. “For conservative voters in Peoria,” says Rob Stein of the Democracy Alliance,

“there’s something for everyone. The businessman gets it from The Wall Street Journal editorial page. The soccer mom has FOX News. The

24-year-old beer-drinking guy has Rush [Limbaugh]. The religious right can get the word from Pat Robertson.”

A movement ideology

also produces unity. Despite schisms, the right is simply more disciplined. The discipline is reinforced by new forms of patronage — tax

breaks for the elite, godliness for the base. Worldly sinners among Wall Street Republicans may smirk at the fundamentalists in their

governing coalition, but are happy to share the bounty. They may privately oppose the immense budget deficits, but the heavily

Republican Concord Coalition, so publicly alarmed at the (Republican legacy) deficits of the 1990s, is today prudently silent.

Conversely, social conservatives may wince at the antics and views of Rudy Giuliani and Arnold Schwarzenegger, but the coalition holds.

Genuine Republican moderates, meanwhile, have been coerced or co-opted into near silence. The resulting legislative unity is also

unprecedented.

Finally, there’s a war on, a conveniently permanent one. The right manipulates fear of terrorism

into public and media acquiescence for a politics that would never prevail in normal times.

And yet, this overpowering structural

tilt conceals some surprisingly good news. Despite its immense advantages, the right barely prevailed in the last two presidential

elections, even against feckless Democratic campaigns. The superior infrastructure just offset the extremism. The country remains

skeptical about most Republican policies, from Social Security privatization to the assault on the courts. As John B. Judis and Ruy

Teixeira have documented, potentially liberal groups are demographically ascendant. There is a latent liberal majority, if liberals can

once again learn to do politics.

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Another Victim of American Torture: Maher Arar

Maher Arar is yet another victim of American torture, like

href="http://www.edgewiseblog.com/mjh/nada/dump-duhbya/america-kidnapped-me/">Khaled El-Masri. How many more are there that we will

never hear about? mjh

Maher Arar
Maher Arar is a

34-year-old wireless technology consultant. Arar was born in Syria and at the age of 17, came to Canada with his family. He became a

Canadian citizen in 1991 and in 1997 moved to Ottawa.

In September 2002, Arar was in Tunisia, vacationing with his wife Monia

Mazigh and their two small children. On Sept. 26 while in transit in New York’s JFK airport, he was detained by US officials and

from there transferred to a Syrian prison.

In Syria, he was held in a tiny “grave-like” cell for ten months and ten days

before he was moved to a better cell in a different prison. He was beaten, tortured and forced to make a false confession.

href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/arar/">CBC News Indepth: Maher Arar: Timeline

Oct. 27, 2005
A fact-finder appointed

by the Arar inquiry releases a report concluding that Arar was tortured when in Syrian custody three years ago. “I am convinced that his

description of his treatment in Syria is accurate,” Stephen Toope wrote. …

Oct. 6, 2003:
Arar returns to Montreal, 375 days

after U.S. immigration officials arrested him. …

Oct. 29, 2002:
Canada issues travel advisory to all Canadians born in Iran,

Iraq, Libya, Sudan or Syria to reconsider entering the United States. It follows a U.S. decision to photograph and fingerprint people

born in those countries who enter the U.S.

mjh’s

blog — America kidnapped me

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Let Me See Your ID

Ohio

leads the way to a New American Fascism. If you look at the list of those voting, you’ll find Republicans and Democrats on both sides of

the vote. Stopping the erosion of our freedoms is a non-partisan activity. mjh

href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/wews/3133362;_ylt=ArGReUW1ECq12DeewBwxK6gDW7oF;_ylu=X3oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl">Bill Would Allow

Arrests For No Reason In Public Place

The Ohio Patriot Act has made it to the Taft’s desk, and with the stroke of a pen, it

would most likely become the toughest terrorism bill in the country. The lengthy piece of legislation would let police arrest people in

public places who will not give their names, address and birth dates, even if they are not doing anything wrong.

[I]t would also

pave the way for everyone entering critical transportation sites such as, train stations, airports and bus stations to show ID.

“It brings us frighteningly close to a show me your papers society,” said Carrie Davis of the ACLU, which opposes the Ohio Patriot

Act.

ACLU Urges Governor Taft to Veto

Ohio’s Patriot Act

The most controversial provisions were sections requiring people to provide identification to police

officers if they are traveling though “transportation infrastructure sites”, a provision requiring those applying for certain types of

licenses to fill out a questionnaire about ties to terrorism, and a section that aimed to discourage municipalities from speaking

out against the USA PATRIOT Act.

mjh’s blog — FBI Papers Show Terror Inquiries Into PETA; Other Groups Tracked

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Police Infiltrate Protests

So, cops are free to pretend to be part of any group and even to agitate?

mjh

Police Infiltrate Protests,

Videotapes Show – New York Times By JIM DWYER

Undercover New York City police officers have conducted covert

surveillance in the last 16 months of people protesting the Iraq war, bicycle riders taking part in mass rallies and even

mourners at a street vigil for a cyclist killed in an accident, a series of videotapes show.

In glimpses and in glaring detail,

the videotape images reveal the robust presence of disguised officers or others working with them at seven public gatherings since August

2004.

The officers hoist protest signs. They hold flowers with mourners. They ride in bicycle events. At the vigil for the

cyclist, an officer in biking gear wore a button that said, “I am a shameless agitator.” She also carried a camera and videotaped the

roughly 15 people present.

Beyond collecting information, some of the undercover officers or their associates are seen on

the tape having influence on events. At a demonstration last year during the Republican National Convention, the sham arrest of

a man secretly working with the police led to a bruising confrontation between officers in riot gear and bystanders.

Until Sept. 11, the secret monitoring of events where people expressed their opinions was among the most tightly

limited of police powers.

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It’s not fascism when we do it!

I know this is rude, but it is very artfully done. mjh

From

href="http://oldamericancentury.org/">www.oldamericancentury.org/ via Cocoposts.

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