Google and YouTube Ban Alex Jones

At the height of the hysteria surrounding the latest WikiLeaks release, Google begins its clampdown, marking the end of the internet. What's next?

France has Now Grabbed Their People's Pension Funds to Give to Banks and Their Debt - Joining Hungary and Ireland

New Pension Could Look Like This

Sherry Questioning All

Seems all over the world countries are grabbing their People's Pension and Retirement accounts, they pass the laws very fast and spring the surprise on their people.  France has just joined the fray of taking their people's retirement accounts to give to the banks and buy the countries bonds.  They have taken 36 Billion of people's Pension and retirement accounts.

portion from above link:

Asset managers will have the chance to get billions of euros in mandates in the next few months for the €36bn Fonds de Réserve pour les Retraites (FRR), the French reserve pension fund, after the French parliament last week passed a law to use its assets to pay off the debts of France’s welfare system.

I had posted last week about Hungary taking their people's pension funds.

Ireland too is talking about taking their people's pensions and giving it to the banks.

Portion from above link:

Fine Gael, Labour and Sinn Féin attacked the intention to use the National Pension Reserve Fund to help provide a further €10 billion in further capital for the banks. In total, the banks could end up getting another €35 billion if their losses are bigger than expected.


So, does everyone see what is happening around the world?

The banks come before the people!  The people's money of which they saved and worked all their lives for is being grabbed by the leaders of countries to give to the banks.  Besides people having to pay more in taxes and get less in wages.  In Ireland the people have to take a cut in the minimum wage for their "bailout".

I have no doubt there will be demonstrations in the European countries regarding what the governments are doing there.  

But I will say again, it is simply a matter of time before the U.S. government passes a bill that allows them to take everyone's Private IRA/Pension and 401Ks.  They have had committee meetings on it already, it has been discussed many times.  Remember Federal and State Government Pension funds all over the U.S., are under water right now.  If you think the government will not over reach their powers by stealing everyone's private retirement accounts, then you have not been paying attention to what has been happening with crazy laws being passed or about to be voted on. 

I am including the S 510 "Safe Food Bill" which has enough support to pass the Senate and House - which then effectively makes growing your own vegetables illegal and forget being able to purchase food/vegetables at a farmers market - as those will be wiped out and made illegal also.  Completely Crazy and Outrageous.   But it seems they are intent on passing the bill, even though people have been calling their elected officials, saying "don't pass it" they are standing by the bill.   This will then give Monsanto control of all of our food and seeds.  In fact under the S 510 bill, it will be illegal to save your own seeds. 

We are living in bizarre times and as you think it can't get more outrageous, it does. 

So, look around, pay attention and if you want to be assured you have your own retirement account to use as you want, I would advise talking to an accountant, find out all the penalties of liquidating your Private IRA/pension/401K and do what makes sense to you.  Is it better to take a "tax" hit now and save your retirement money or leave it where it is and let the government possibly grab it for debt and the banks?  When they do/if make the grab, it will be fast with no fore warning, IMO, just as the other countries have done.  People have not had the time to get their money out, once the decisions have been made around the world to take the Pension funds.  So you make the decision to what feels right to yourself, just pay attention and wake up to the desperation of countries. 

When/if it does happen in the U.S. - it will be... one moment, you have your own private retirement account to invest as you want and the next it will be under government control for the banks and debt due to giving Trillions to the banks. 

Ask the French now, Hungarians, Irish, Argentinians, if they expected this to happen to them - in that their government swooped in and took their retirement accounts for their banks and debt of the countries.   I would bet it came as a complete surprise. 

An Idea ..... for the December 7th - bank run - it should also be a Private retirement account run too and put the money into metals - which has been the best investment of the year so far anyway.  The tax of liquidating retirement funds, compared to the increase of metals for the year so far..... which is more?.......  considering silver is up over 46% for the year.... you make that decision!

Wikileaks Claims Osama Bin Laden Still Alive

In proving to be one of the most useful tools for the Pentagon, Wikileaks resurrects "Bearded Time Lord" Osama Bin Laden and places him as one of the key masters of the resistance to U.S. occupation in Afghanistan.  This assertion is made despite the fact that 92% of the population in Afghanistan have never heard of 9/11.

Wikileaks documents claim that Osama Bin Laden has been personally overseeing the use of suicide bombers and roadside bombs targeting U.S. troops since the U.S. occupation of Afghanistan.  According to documents "leaked" by Wikileaks, Osama Bin Laden has been conducting monthly meetings with up to twenty people at a variety of locations.  Apparently, the Pentagon's intelligence network discovered each monthly meeting after they occurred and have never been able to gain foreknowledge of these meetings to capture Bin Laden, who was known to be on kidney dialysis in 2001.

As stated in the Telegraph, these documents provided by Wikileaks contradicts CIA director Leon Panetta's position that there had been no intelligence on the al-Qaeda leader since the “early 2000s”.  Wikileak documents also contradict a number of credible sources (including Pakistan's President Musharrof and Afghan President Karzai ) for Bin Laden's death in December, 2001.

FBI Creates Another “Terrorist” Teen: Meet Mohamed Osman Mohamud

American Everyman

FBI Given Credit for Stopping Bombing Attempt, that They Created

by Scott Creighton

So let me get this straight; they came across emails, supposedly in “code”, that stated “a Somali-born teenager“, Mohamed Osman Mohamud, wanted to go to Pakistan to help fight.

So of course, the FBI anti-terrorism task force, sends over an undercover agent who pumps the CHILD up with jihad talks, gives him a “test bomb” to set off in the woods, then has more agents make this CHILD a van bomb (starting to sound like the first WTC attack?), and a van, and DRIVES THE THING TO THE LOCATION WITH THE CHILD, then gets the kid to dial a number on a cell phone.

Had they left the kid alone, he would be in Pakistan at this point and probably killed by a CIA death squad.

The bomb was a dud supplied by the agents and the public was never in danger, authorities said.

Authorities allowed the plot to proceed in order to build up enough evidence to charge the suspect with attempt. (NO. They CREATED the plot. BIG DIFFERENCE)

Oregonian newspaper that show the sting operation began in June after an undercover agent learned that Mohamud had been in regular e-mail contact with an “unindicted associate” in Pakistan’s northwest…

The two used coded language in which the FBI believes Mohamud discussed traveling to Pakistan to prepare for “violent jihad,” the documents said.

In June an FBI agent contacted Mohamud “under the guise of being affiliated with” the suspected terrorist. But the documents did not say how federal officials first became aware of Mohamud.

An undercover agent met with him a month later in Portland, where they “discussed violent jihad,” according to the court documents.

As a trial run, Mohamud and agents detonated a bomb in Oregon’s backcounry earlier this month.

Friday, an agent and Mohamud drove to downtown Portland in a white van that carried six 55-gallon drums with detonation cords and plastic caps, but all of them were inert, the complaint states.

( http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/27/mohamed-osman-mohamud-portland-car-bomb_n_788695.html )

Remarkably, the article goes on to say that “U.S. authorities have been struggling against a recent spate of terror plans by U.S. citizens or residents.” and then they list each of the recent “terrorist” plans and in each case they mention how the U.S. authorities had created the plans themselves.

Thank god the FBI is there to foil the terrorist attacks that they created.

Endgame Legislation: Lame Duck Session Ushers in Tyranny

Activist Post

When most of us think about "lame duck" Congressional sessions we think of a "do-nothing" government. However, this so-called lame duck session appears to be a time where legislation that has the most restrictions to individual rights is being rammed through.

It seems the members of government who have been recently voted out of office are vying for corporate jobs by pushing such legislation as the Food Safety Modernization Act and the Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act which are now on the fast track to becoming law. Both of these laws reek of tyranny for the citizens and a means of corporate consolidation for the big boys.

It seems whenever a piece of legislation has the word "safety" in it we can expect to lose our right to make our own decisions.  For example, consumer protection groups pushed hard for the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act in 2008 after large numbers of Chinese-made toys and other products proved to have dangerously unhealthy toxins. 

Consequently, the bill was passed with 407 Ayes, 0 Nays in the House. Only later did the public find out that the bill did more to regulate, tax, and impose fines on neighborhood garage sales than it did to stop dangerous Chinese imports.  Clearly, the bill is used to clamp down on an individual's right to sell their used items without governmental oversight.  In other words, the corporate-government will not allow any form of black market to threaten their cartel control of consumerism.

The Food Safety Modernization Act has the backing of establishment liberals who think more big government regulation will protect us from food-borne diseases derived from factory farming.  Their heart seems to be in the right place, but placing trust in this horribly corrupt government to "protect" us makes them utterly gullible. The vote of 74-25 in the Senate proves the bill was more broadly supported than just with progressives, indicating strong corporate support from the Big-Agri lobby that wrote the bill. According to Darrell Castle of the Constitution Party, the bill purports to:

Preclude the public’s right to grow, own, trade, transport, share, feed and eat each and every food that nature makes.

It will more than likely make Michael Taylor (former Monsanto executive) the Food Czar.

End U.S. sovereignty over its own food supply by forcing compliance with WTO guidelines.

Even direct sales of food between individuals could be defined as smuggling under the language of the bill.

Codex Alimentarius, a global system of control over food and food supplements, would control all U.S. food and supplements. Access to natural food supplements would be removed under Codex rules.

Control of all seeds would transfer to Monsanto and other global multinationals.

The National Animal Identification System ( NAIS ) would be enacted, forcing bio-chipping and other identification and tracking methods for all animals, whether food or pets.

What is left of the American food system would be transferred into total control of Multinational Corporations under the guise of global governance.

Despite the draconian intentions of the bill, many respected alternative agriculture experts like Michael Pollan and Grist have given their lukewarm blessing to the bill as "as step in the right direction."  Controversial bills typically have enough seemingly logical solutions that become the focus of selling new regulations.  This bill is no different, as it gives the appearance of cracking down on large factory farms, exempting small family farms, creating better tracing methods for the origin of food-borne diseases, and certainly injects more financial resources into government agencies tasked with regulating food.  All of these were sold to the public amidst the fear of massive egg and meat recalls because of E. coli and Salmonella contamination.

We should know by now that nearly all legislation is not written or read by our elected officials, but rather by heavy-handed corporate interests who seek nothing less than total domination over their industries.  Yet, the public is still easily swayed.

The second piece of legislation that was flushed out of the Judiciary Committee last week with a 19-0 vote is the Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA).  This bill is pure tyranny against Internet freedom.  In other words, they're not even using the guise of protecting the people to hammer this one home.  This bill seeks to arbitrarily create an Internet "Blacklist" of domains, much like the arbitrary "Terror Watch List."  The government is seeking the power to shut access to sites it flags . . . no judge, no evidence, no jury. The law will also apply to websites hosted outside the U.S. where the corporate-government will claim global control over information on the Internet.  The government plans to enforce the blocking of these Blacklisted websites by using major Internet service providers (ISPs).

To demonstrate how draconian this bill is, Copyright Laws are already very clear where if a media corporation can demonstrate that a given website used their material against Fair Use rights, they can be sued individually for damages.  This new law will bypass the current legal system of innocent until proven guilty with no warnings, presentation of evidence of wrong-doing, or determination of fault by a jury of peers.  Although the legislation is said to be focused on sharing movies, music, and television shows; the copyright violations are defined very broadly and will surely extend to any usage of Associated Press or Reuters stories (or the like) and/or images.

This broad definition will essentially put all alternative news websites in violation despite their Fair Use rights. In fact, nearly every article or commentary about world events that is covered by independent news organizations that quote or link to mainstream media stories as a reference may be in violation (including this article you're reading).  The COICA will effectively crush any opposition to the mainstream media's domination on the currently free and open world wide web.  If properly debated and dissected there is no way this bill would be passed, hence the rushing to pass it under a quiet Congressional session.

Both of these bills will likely become laws given their overwhelming support in Congress.  When enacted, the corporate-government tyranny will begin to work stealthily to regulate their competition out of the marketplace.  By the time the vast majority of people realize this tyranny, it will be too late to complain as the independent voices will assuredly be Blacklisted from any debate.

U.S. Soldiers Liberate Fingers in Afghanistan

Brave U.S. Troops Continue to Set an
Example for the Rest of the World

Common Dreams

JOINT BASE LEWIS-MCCHORD, Washington - An investigator told how he found dismembered fingers near the quarters of an alleged rogue US army unit accused of killing Afghans for sport and taking trophies from the bodies.



The gruesome testimony came as a third US soldier faced a pre-trial hearing over the alleged killings -- after which the rogue soldiers allegedly posed for photos with their victims -- in southern Afghanistan earlier this year.
If proved in a full court martial, the crimes would be among the worst committed by US forces in Afghanistan, and could deal a blow to efforts to win over the support of ordinary Afghans in the war-torn country.
Private Andrew Holmes, one of five soldiers accused of going rogue, listened quietly as Special Agent Benjamin Stevenson described finding severed fingers near where members of the unit lived.

Army prosecutors allege Holmes participated in the execution of an Afghan the southern Kandahar province in January, kept a finger bone from an Afghan corpse and smoked hashish with some of the other killers.

On Monday, Stevenson, testifying by speakerphone, said he had a map provided by the army's star witness, Corporal Jeremy Morlock, showing where investigators could find the digits allegedly taken from Afghan civilians.

Using Morlock's map, Stevenson said he and another agent located a large, protective dirt barrier near the soldiers' residences in Forward Operating Base Ramrod.

On top of the barrier, they found a plastic bottle containing two fingers, wrapped in cloth.

"Right where we were told the fingers would be, there they were," Stevenson said. Another bone was found nearby.

Investigators also discovered a bone over a foot (30 cm) long, possibly a leg, in a house believed to be that of another soldier, Adam Kelly, who faces charges over covering up the alleged killings, but is not charged with murder.

Holmes's attorney Dan Conway pointed out that the bones were found near the housing unit of Staff Sergeant Calvin Gibbs, the alleged ringleader of the rogue unit.

Speaking with reporters during a break, Conway said his client did once have a bone that a superior officer forced him to take and that Holmes got rid of it "as soon as practically possible."

Specialist Ryan Mallet, an eye-witness to the January shooting leading to Holmes murder charge, testified that he was on a hill in a small village when he saw Morlock call a man over from a field.

Mallet looked away, but then heard Morlock yell: "Grenade, hes got a grenade. Holmes, shoot him."

Holmes fired several rounds, according to Mallet, after which the man was still standing. The defense contends that Holmes did not fire the fatal shots and is fighting with the army to release photos Conroy says will show that.

After the rounds were fired, a grenade exploded, Mallett said.

When the dust cleared, the Afghan man was on the ground, unmoving.

Another soldier shot him twice.

Mallet, who described Holmes as a friend, said that the odd thing about the shooting was that despite shouting a grenade warning, Morlock "never raised his rifle that I could see."

Conway told reporters that Holmes did not know that his team leader was staging a killing and that his team leader was using him as an unwitting participant in a cover story.

The soldiers participating in the alleged execution plots, allegedly orchestrated by Gibbs, were all members of the Bravo Company, 2nd Battalion, 1st Division's Stryker brigade at Ramrod.

Morlock, the army's main witness against the accused killers including Holmes, is also charged with murdering Afghan civilians. He was the first to face a pre-trial hearing in September, and his case will now go to a full court martial.

Monday's proceeding is part of a series of pre-trial hearings to determine if the soldiers accused in the murders and the cover-up of the killings will face full courts-martial.

The Holmes pre-trial hearing is due to wrap up on Tuesday.

26 Arrested Protesting “School of Assassins”

Nonviolent civil disobedience action followed by indiscriminate arrests and targeting of journalists. Among those arrested by Columbus police were three journalists, including unrelated bystanders.

Thousands of human rights activists, torture survivors, veterans, faith-based communities, union workers, students, musicians and others from across the Americas are gathered today at the gates of the U.S. military base Fort Benning to call for the closure of the School of the Americas (renamed Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation).

Following the SOA Watch rally, human rights activists brought their nonviolent witness to close the SOA into the street leading onto the military base. The activists briefly shut down the road with a large sign that said, "Stop: This is the End of the Road for the SOA." Their action is part of a longstanding tradition of creative civil disobedience to call attention to the atrocities committed by graduates of the School of the Americas. 10-12 people were arrested, and others charged, including the 90-year old Jesuit priest Bill Brennan, and ordained Catholic priest Janice Sevre-Duszynska.

Two human rights activists crossed onto Fort Benning through the highway entrance. They have been charged with federal trespass and face up to six months in federal prison and a fine up to $5,000.

When the rally participants tried to leave the vigil area, the police blocked off all exit points. After a few minutes, the police allowed people to leave on the sidewalk, only to follow them, indiscriminately arresting people who had neither committed any crimes nor engaged in civil disobedience. Among those arrested were journalists, who were filming the police misconduct and bystanders. All arrestees are currently being held in the Muscogee County Jail for up to a $5,500 bond.

Evidence for Informed Trading on the Attacks of September 11

Foreign Policy Jounal

Kevin Ryan

Just after September 11^th 2001, many governments began investigations into possible insider trading related to the terrorist attacks of that day.  Such investigations were initiated by the governments of Belgium, Cyprus, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Monte Carlo, the Netherlands, Switzerland, the United States, and others.  Although the investigators were clearly concerned about insider trading, and considerable evidence did exist, none of the investigations resulted in a single indictment.  That’s because the people identified as having been involved in the suspicious trades were seen as unlikely to have been associated with those alleged to have committed the 9/11 crimes.

This is an example of the circular logic often used by those who created the official explanations for 9/11.  The reasoning goes like this: if we assume that we know who the perpetrators were (i.e. the popular version of “al Qaeda”) and those who were involved in the trades did not appear to be connected to those assumed perpetrators, then insider trading did not occur.

That’s basically what the 9/11 Commission told us.  The Commission concluded that “exhaustive investigations” by the SEC and the FBI “uncovered no evidence that anyone with advance knowledge of the attacks profited through securities transactions.”  What they meant was that someone did profit through securities transactions but, based on the Commission’s assumptions of guilt, those who profited were not associated with those who were guilty of conducting the attacks.  In a footnote, the Commission report acknowledged “highly suspicious trading on its face,” but said that this trading on United Airlines was traced back to “A single U.S.-based institutional investor with no conceivable ties to al Qaeda.”[1]

With respect to insider trading, or what is more technically called informed trading, the Commission report was itself suspect for several reasons.  First, the informed trades relating to 9/11 covered far more than just airline companystock.  The stocks of financial and reinsurance companies, as well as other financial vehicles, were identified as being associated with suspicious trades.  Huge credit card transactions, completed just before the attacks, were also involved.  The Commission ultimately tried to frame all of this highly suspicious trading in terms of a series of misunderstandings.  However, the possibility that so many leading financial experts were so completely wrong is doubtful at best and, if true, would constitute another unbelievable scenario in the already highly improbable sequence of events represented by the official story of 9/11.

In the last few years, new evidence has come to light on these matters.  In 2006 and 2010, financial experts at a number of universities have established new evidence, through statistical analyses, that informed trades did occur with respect to the 9/11 attacks.  Additionally, in 2007, the 911 Commission released a memorandum summary of the FBI investigations on which its report was based.[2] A careful review of this memorandum indicates that some of the people who were briefly investigated by the FBI, and then acquitted without due diligence, had links to al Qaeda and to US intelligence agencies.  Although the elapsed time between the informed trades and these new confirmations might prevent legal action against the guilty, the facts of the matter can help lead us to the truth about 9/11.

Full Story

FBI RAID VICTIMS GET NEW GRAND JURY SUBPOENAS

Evidence of Iran Nuclear Weapons Program May Be Fraudulent

Truthout

Since 2007, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) - with the support of the United States, Israel and European allies UK, France and Germany - has been demanding that Iran explain a set of purported internal documents portraying a covert Iranian military program of research and development of nuclear weapons. The "laptop documents," supposedly obtained from a stolen Iranian computer by an unknown source and given to US intelligence in 2004, include a series of drawings of a missile re-entry vehicle that appears to be an effort to accommodate a nuclear weapon, as well as reports on high explosives testing for what appeared to be a detonator for a nuclear weapon.

In one report after another, the IAEA has suggested that Iran has failed to cooperate with its inquiry into that alleged research, and that the agency, therefore, cannot verify that it has not diverted nuclear material to military purposes.

That issue remains central to US policy toward Iran. The Obama administration says there can be no diplomatic negotiations with Iran unless Iran satisfies the IAEA fully in regard to the allegations derived from the documents that it had covert nuclear weapons program.

That position is based on the premise that the intelligence documents that Iran has been asked to explain are genuine. The evidence now available, however, indicates that they are fabrications.

The drawings of the Iranian missile warhead that were said by the IAEA to show an intent to accommodate a nuclear weapon actually depict a missile design that Iran is now known to have already abandoned in favor of an improved model by the time the technical drawings were allegedly made. And one of the major components of the purported Iranian military research program allegedly included a project labeled with a number that turns out to have been assigned by Iran's civilian nuclear authority years before the covert program is said to have been initiated.

The former head of the agency's safeguards department, Olli Heinonen, who shaped its approach to the issue of the intelligence documents from 2005 and 2010, has offered no real explanation for these anomalies in recent interviews with Truthout.

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Citigroup attempts to disappear its Plutonomy Report #2

Real-World Economics Review Blog
In 2005 and 2006 Citigroup issued two now notorious but highly significant reports for the exclusive use of its richest clients.  The first, from October 16, 2005, was “Plutonomy: Buying Luxury, Explaining Global Imbalance”

The World is dividing into two blocs – the Plutonomy and the rest. The U.S., UK, and Canada are the key Plutonomies – economies powered by the wealthy. Continental Europe (ex-Italy) and Japan are in the egalitarian bloc.

Equity risk premium embedded in “global imbalances” are unwarranted. In plutonomies the rich absorb a disproportionate chunk of the economy and have a massive impact on reported aggregate numbers like savings rates, current account deficits, consumption levels, etc. This imbalance in inequality expresses itself in the standard scary “global imbalances”. We worry less.

There is no “average consumer” in a Plutonomy. Consensus analyses focusing on the “average” consumer are flawed from the start.

< And it continued:

We project that the plutonomies (the U.S., UK, and Canada) will likely see even more income inequality, disproportionately feeding off a further rise in the profit share in their economies, capitalist-friendly governments, more technology-driven productivity, and globalization.

The full report is available here http://www.scribd.com/doc/23321255/Citigroup-Mar-5-2006-Plutonomy-Report-Leaked-Citigroup-Memo-Part1Citigroup’s second Plutonomy report, titled “Revisiting Plutonomy: The Rich Getting Richer”, was issued on March 5, 2006 and began:

The latest Survey of Consumer Finance data was released Friday 24th of February. It shows that the rich in the US continue to be in great shape. We thought this was good time to bang the drum on plutonomy.

Back in October, we coined the term ‘Plutonomy’ (The Global Investigator, Plutonomy: Buying Luxury, Explaining Global Imbalances, October 14 2005). Our thesis is that the rich are the dominant drivers of demand in many economies around the world (the US, UK, Canada and Australia). These economies have seen the rich take an increasing share of income and wealth over the last 20 years, to the extent that the rich now dominate income, wealth and spending in these countries. Asset booms, a rising profit share and favourable treatment by market-friendly governments have allowed the rich to prosper and become a greater share of the economy in the plutonomy countries. Also, new media dissemination technologies like internet downloading, cable and satellite TV, have disproportionately increased the audiences, and hence gains to “superstars” – think golf, soccer, and baseball players, music/TV and movie icons, fashion models, designers, celebrity chefs etc. These “content” providers, the tech whizzes who own the pipes and distribution, the lawyers and bankers who intermediate globalization and productivity, the CEOs who lead the charge in converting globalization and technology to increase the profit share of the economy at the expense of labor, all contribute to plutonomy. Indeed, David Gordon and Ian Dew-Becker of the NBER demonstrate that the top 10%, particularly the top 1% of the US – the plutonomists in our parlance – have benefited disproportionately from the recent productivity surge in the US.

Both reports were leaked and made available on the WEB. Michael Moore referred to them inCapitalism: a love story, and the now retired US newscaster Bill Moyers has called attention to them.  But they seem to have been largely ignored by scholars. They should be required reading.  But now Citibank is trying to suppress “Revisiting Plutonomy: The Rich Getting Richer”.  They have succeeded in getting the second plutonomy report removed from Scrib.  Where it used to be, it now reads “This content was removed at the request of Citigroup, Inc.”  It is still available here http://www.mygreencard.com/downloads.php?file=CitigroupPlutonony_October2009.pdf  Scholars should download both Plutonomy Reports while they are still available.

Federal Judge Orders CIA to Release Records on Secret Experiments on Soldiers

The CIA is being forced to produce specific information regarding secret tests conducted on thousands of soldiers over a 25-year period.

 

In response to a lawsuit filed by three veterans groups and six individual veterans, a federal judge, James Larson, ordered the CIA and other government agencies to turn over documents about testing programs and the substances used on soldiers from 1950 through 1975. The plaintiffs allege that the government used about 7,800 military personnel as human guinea pigs to research biological, chemical and psychological weapons at Edgewood Arsenal and Fort Detrick in Maryland.

 

The soldiers volunteered for the testing, but were not told at the time to what they were being exposed. They also were required to sign an oath of secrecy about their participation.

 

The CIA has put forth a variety of arguments to avoid revealing information about the 35-year-old experiments, including privacy protections, state-secrets privilege, the fact that the Department of Defense is conducting its own investigation, the passage of time, the fact that witnesses no longer work for the government, that the gathering of relevant information would take too much time, and the questionable claim that it never funded or conducted research on military personnel.

 

Judge Larson has insisted that the CIA must produce evidence relating to a 1963 CIA Inspector General report on an experiment called MKUltra; the basis for each redaction in that report; the doses and effects of certain substances administered to test subjects; any payments made to contractors or university researchers, any outside-party proposals concerning the experiments; a confidential Army memo about the use of volunteers in research; all government-led human experiments from 1975 to date involving specific drugs; and whether the government secretly administered MKUltra materials to “the patrons of prostitutes” in safe houses in New York and San Francisco, as the veterans allege.

Web Censorship Bill Sails Through Senate Committee

Wired.com

On Thursday, the Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously approved a bill that would give the Attorney General the right to shut down websites with a court order if copyright infringement is deemed “central to the activity” of the site — regardless if the website has actually committed a crime. The Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA) is among the most draconian laws ever considered to combat digital piracy, and contains what some have called the “nuclear option,” which would essentially allow the Attorney General to turn suspected websites “off.”

COICA is the latest effort by Hollywood, the recording industry and the big media companies to stem the tidal wave of internet file sharing that has upended those industries and, they claim, cost them tens of billions of dollars over the last decade.

suing college students. They’ve tried suing internet startups. Now they want the federal government to act as their private security agents, policing the internet for suspected pirates before making them walk the digital plank.

Many people opposed to the bill agree in principle with its aims: Illegal music piracy is, well, illegal, and should be stopped. Musicians, artists and content creators should be compensated for their work. But the law’s critics do not believe that giving the federal government the right to shut down websites at will based upon a vague and arbitrary standard of evidence, even if no law-breaking has been proved, is a particularly good idea. COICA must still be approved by the full House and Senate before becoming law. A vote is unlikely before the new year.

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Activists Thwart Condi Rice Book Signing in Portland Oregon

Didn't attend this Portland 9/11 Truth Alliance event but the folks who did had great coverage.

Michael Chertoff's Company Manufactures TSA Naked Scanners

Boston.com

WASHINGTON - Since the attempted bombing of a US airliner on Christmas Day, former Homeland Security secretary Michael Chertoff has given dozens of media interviews touting the need for the federal government to buy more full-body scanners for airports.

What he has made little mention of is that the Chertoff Group, his security consulting agency, includes a client that manufactures the machines. Chertoff disclosed the relationship on a CNN program Wednesday, in response to a question.

An airport passengers’ rights group on Thursday criticized Chertoff’s use of his former government credentials to advocate for a product that benefits his clients.

“Mr. Chertoff should not be allowed to abuse the trust the public has placed in him as a former public servant to privately gain from the sale of full-body scanners under the pretense that the scanners would have detected this particular type of explosive,’’ said Kate Hanni, founder of FlyersRights.org, which opposes the use of the scanners.

Chertoff’s advocacy for the technology dates to his time in the Bush administration. In 2005, Homeland Security ordered the government’s first batch of the scanners - five from California-based Rapiscan Systems. Rapiscan is one of only two companies that make full-body scanners in accordance with current contract specifications required by the federal government.

Currently 40 body scanners are in use among 19 US airports. The number is expected to skyrocket, at least in part because of the Christmas Day incident. The Transportation Security Administration has said it will order 300 more machines.

In the summer, TSA purchased 150 more machines from Rapiscan with $25 million in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds. Rapiscan was the only company that qualified for the contract because it had developed technology that performs the screening using a less-graphic body imaging system, which is also less controversial. (Since then, another company, L-3 Communications, has qualified for future contracts, but no new contracts have been awarded.)

Amnesty International wants Bush on trial over torture

Press TV

The London-based Amnesty International (AI) has called for a criminal investigation into former US President George W. Bush's admission of torture.

The rights group's call comes after Bush confirmed in his recently released memoirs, Decision Points, that he authorized the use of "enhanced interrogation techniques" against detainees held in secret US custody.

Exactly six days after the September 11 attacks, Bush authorized the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to set up secret detention facilities outside the US.

Amnesty claims multiple human rights violations were committed against detainees in the name of the so-called 'war on terror.'

Additionally, in an 8 November 2010 interview with Matt Lauer on NBC, Bush stated that he had authorized the use of "water boarding" and other "enhanced interrogation techniques" against alleged "high-value detainees." During the interview, Bush focused on the case of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

"Would it be OK for a foreign country to waterboard an American citizen?" Lauer asked.

"It's all I ask is that people read the book. And they can reach the same conclusion. If they'd have made the same decision I made or not," replied Bush.

According to a report released by the CIA Inspector General, Mohammed was water-boarded 183 times. Mohammed had spent three and a half years in a solitary confinement in secret locations before being transferred to military custody in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where he continues to languish without trial.

Amnesty is calling for Bush and others involved in torture to be tried under the UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, which the US ratified in 1994.

"Under international law, the former President's admission to having authorized acts that amount to torture are enough to trigger the USA's obligations to investigate his admissions and if substantiated, to prosecute him," AI said.

"Failure to investigate and prosecute in circumstances where the requisite criteria are met is itself a violation of international law," it added.

The Real Reason For Obama's Trip To India: The Sixth Biggest Arms Deal In U.S. History

Business Insider

President Obama is traveling to India this weekend to make a $5 billion sale for 10 of Boeing's C-17 cargo planes. If India signs the contract, this would be the sixth biggest arms deal in U.S. history. This and the pending $60 billion deal with Saudi Arabia will certainly help to jump-start the economy, as they have for the past fifty years.
We've identified the biggest sales since 1973 with help from William Hartung at the Arms and Security Initiative at New America Foundation.
"There's no question it's big business," he said. "But relative to the overall size of our economy and other things we export it's not like these deals will make or break us."

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Chomsky: US-led Afghan war, criminal

Press TV

Renowned Jewish-American scholar Noam Chomsky says US invasion of Afghanistan was illegal since to date there is no evidence that al-Qaeda has carried out the 9/11 attacks.

"The explicit and declared motive of the [Afghanistan] war was to compel the Taliban to turn over to the United States, the people who they accused of having been involved in World Trade Center and Pentagon terrorist acts. The Taliban…they requested evidence…and the Bush administration refused to provide any," the 81-year-old senior academic made the remarks on Press TV's program a Simple Question.

"We later discovered one of the reasons why they did not bring evidence: they did not have any."

The political analyst also said that nonexistence of such evidence was confirmed by FBI eight months later.

"The head of FBI, after the most intense international investigation in history, informed the press that the FBI believed that the plot may have been hatched in Afghanistan, but was probably implemented in the United Arab Emirates and Germany."

Chomsky added that three weeks into the war, "a British officer announced that the US and Britain would continue bombing, until the people of Afghanistan overthrew the Taliban... That was later turned into the official justification for the war."

"All of this was totally illegal. It was more, criminal," Chomsky said.

The 2001 US-led invasion of Afghanistan was launched with the official objective of curbing militancy and bringing peace and stability to the country.

Nine years on, however, the American and Afghan officials admit that the country remains unstable and civilians continue to pay the heaviest price.

Is Jan Brewer's Election a Failure of Arizona's Media?

All of Arizona's mainstream news outlets refused to remind the public about the lack of election transparency in its two largest counties, expose those involved with election shenanigans and point out the crucial effect SB 1070 has on the voter turnout of legal immigrants. Would the Arizona governor's race have had a different outcome if the press did its job?

The prevailing explanation for Brewer's victory places great emphasis on the national notoriety and polarizing effect of Arizona's SB 1070. Jan Brewer suddenly became the galvanizing centerpiece for racist, hysterical tea-baggers across the country and was met with equal resistance by those outraged by the discrimination sanctioned in the new law. Mainstream media fell for this puppet show hook, line and sinker. The only reporter who seems to understand the motivation behind this bill was Greg Palast, who presented the likely purpose of SB 1070 as a means of disenfranchising Arizona's growing legal Hispanic population. Palast was watching Brewer very closely, because he reported her purging 100,000 Hispanics from the Arizona voter rolls in 2005 when she served as Arizona's Secretary of State.

He states, "What moved GOP Governor Jan Brewer to sign the Soviet-style show-me-your-papers law is the exploding number of legal Hispanics, U.S. citizens one and all, who are daring to vote—and daring to vote Democratic by more than two to one."

Palast is no stranger to voter disenfranchisement, because he discovered the game-changing numbers of citizens thrown off of the voter rolls through a fraudulent, inaccurate list of convicted felons in Florida's 2000 election debacle. Despite his expertise, Arizona's press ignored him and, instead, covered the obvious hoopla surrounding their new controversial law.

Long before SB 1070, the Arizona's Democratic political machine was in the process of grooming their next candidate for governor. Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard was presented as the candidate to defeat Jan Brewer, the so-called "accidental governor" appointed as a result of Janet Napolitano's ascension to Secretary of Homeland Security when Barack Obama was elected president. Whatever the monied interests behind the Democratic political machine had in mind, selecting Terry Goddard for this task will prove to be a horrific blunder for the state of Arizona.

Like Jan Brewer, Terry Goddard failed with his most important duty before the Governor's race and, like Jan Brewer, this failure involved a responsibility to ensure the integrity of elections. After repeated requests by those who discovered evidence of illegal activity in the Pima County Elections department, AZ Attorney General Terry Goddard conducted an investigation into the election of a two billion dollar bond measure for the Regional Transportation Authority (RTA) in Pima County. Citizens discovered that the current elections division in Pima County manipulated the electronic database files for that May 2006 election. A successful three-year lawsuit by the Pima County Democratic Party against Pima County reaffirmed that electronic database files were public records and collected a mountain of evidence suggesting that the 2006 RTA election was rigged.

As early as the summer of 2007, it became excruciatingly clear that Terry Goddard's investigation was an exercise in public relations designed to falsely reassure the public about the reliability of the Pima County's Elections Division and the 2006 RTA election itself. It was also evident that, in coordination with local corporate press, a campaign was initiated to undermine the efforts of the election integrity movement and confuse the public about the issues surrounding this case.

At the height of Goddard's "dog and pony show", both ballots and poll tapes were snatched by his staff and moved up to Maricopa county for an audit that was proven to be woefully inadequate. The poll tapes provide signed precinct totals that serve as a valuable auditing function when checking the ballots. Attorney General Terry Goddard's decision to take the ballots and poll tapes appears to have been made after it became clear to him that the Democratic Party was close to obtaining the poll tapes and that their expert could detect foul play by examining them.

Goddard's behavior was consistent with somebody wishing to prevent the discovery of foul play through the poll tapes. Not only did he refuse to examine the poll tapes, he also prevented the Democratic party from gaining access to these same poll tapes for a year.

Still the peculiar response of Arizona's media and the Democratic Party's political leadership was silence, even when citizens finally gained access to the poll tapes only to discover that thirty percent of them were missing.

Meanwhile, in Maricopa, the largest county in Arizona, the same election integrity activists sued the Maricopa Elections Department for a number of legal violations. Enough violations to undermine the integrity of this year's elections. Ironically, if any police activity was used to enforce SB 1070 on election day (against Hispanics who haven't already moved out of Arizona), it would be through Maricopa County's Sheriff Joe Arpaio, a willing participant in Maricopa's election audit process.

Arizona's press was all but absent when it came to reporting about Maricopa County conducting a hand count audit before disclosing the figures to be audited. They also failed to report how Maricopa allowed overnight storage of pre-audit ballots in Sheriff Joe Arpaio's warehouse without video cameras, refused to allow precincts to post their totals immediately after the polls closed, blocked observers from seeing the central tabulator's monitors and provided little or no transparency when transporting election materials.

The reason why election integrity was not a bedrock issue in Arizona's gubernatorial race was because both major candidates have compromised election integrity in their careers and the press refused to challenge either candidate on that issue.

What could have happened if the press did its job? Let's assume there was adequate reporting of the RTA debacle in Pima County. Imagine a press that scrutinized Terry Goddard's behavior from the beginning of his investigation. Such coverage would have included asking the right questions at the press conferences and providing and placing reasonable emphasis on all aspects of the RTA election. Would Terry Goddard have been replaced by the Democratic Party machine or challenged in the primary? If so, with a vigilant press and accompanying public pressure, Terry Goddard's replacement would likely support meaningful involvement of citizens in the election process.

Let's fantasize more about the press. Let's assume the press was also analyzing the effect that SB 1070 would have on legal Hispanics daring to vote. In this fantasy, Maricopa's court case was not only reported in an electronic blog in Phoenix, but garnered well deserved attention with coverage throughout the state.

Let's go way overboard and assume this fantasy candidate can form complete sentences and is willing to engage Jan Brewer, whose strategy in the last election was to avoid any interaction or debate until the polls closed.

Could the press have played a role in the outcome of this race? Here's a direct quote from Jimmy Boegle, the editor of the Tucson Weekly: "the election-integrity issue didn't even rate as an issue in the minds of anyone in the statewide race."

This begs the question, "Who's fault is that?"

A tale of two ghettoes

Kalle Lasn, National Post, Nov. 2, 2010

Why is Shoppers Drug Mart pulling 3,500 copies of Adbusters, my magazine, off its shelves?

A week ago, in the National Post, the Canadian Jewish Congress (CJC) accused Adbusters of anti-Semitism for publishing side-by-side photographs of the Gaza and Warsaw ghettos ( "Anti-Semitism on your magazine rack -- courtesy of Adbusters," Oct. 23). The CJC has since successfully lobbied senior management at Shoppers Drug Mart into pulling our magazine off the Canadian newsstands.

Here is the story from the Adbusters viewpoint.

In October 1939, the German Wehrmacht reached the city of Warsaw, and over the following months, the Jewish population was forced into a small section of the city called "the Jewish quarter." The situation inside the ghetto was unbearable: Nazis controlled the movement of goods, basic utilities and even food. Each person was allotted a starvation diet of 250 calories per day.

Acts of rebellion were brutally suppressed. When two German soldiers were killed in a local restaurant, 106 men in the ghetto were shot in reprisal. Arrests and random executions were common. In April 1940, the ghetto was walled off on all sides.

Services such as hospitals and schools were derelict, relying on an ever-decreasing stream of supplies allotted by the Nazis. For a while, the supplies were supplemented by goods smuggled in through tunnels, but such services were eventually forced to close.

A resistance movement was organized during the Soviet advance, but it was brutally defeated and the Warsaw ghetto was razed to the ground.

In September 2005, Israel dismantled its settlements in Gaza and withdrew its troops after 38 years of military occupation. For Israel, this marked an end to their occupation. For Palestinians confined in Gaza, however, the occupation had simply progressed into a new phase: the ghetto. The year 2005 marked the establishment of Gaza as an open air prison.

Israel controls the movement of all goods, including food and basic necessities, in and out of the Gaza strip. A study done by Johns Hopkins University in 2002 found that 17% of children aged 6-59 months suffer from chronic malnutrition, and almost half of women and children are anemic. Thirteen percent of children under five are stunted.

Israel controls all of Gaza's borders and airspace. The long ocean border, once a viable source of income for Gazans through trade and fishing, is now strictly controlled. Humanitarian missions are turned away with lethal force.

Israel responds to every Palestinian provocation with disproportionate force. The Israeli response to the murder of three civilians by Palestinian rockets in 2008 was the wide-scale destruction of Gaza, the use of white-phosphorus munitions in the area of a UN school and the killing of over 1,000 civilians.

Comparing events today with events in Nazi-occupied Europe must never be done lightly. When events are so serious as to lend themselves to such comparisons, however, there is a moral imperative to speak up.

Though the stated goal of Israel has never been the complete destruction of the Palestinian people, many of the tactics and policies supported by the state of Israel are deeply troubling and worthy of an open public discussion.

Last week, in a move to silence criticism of Israeli policies, the Canadian Jewish Congress labelled Adbusters -- and anyone who makes the above historical analogy -- anti-Semitic. The CJC has lobbied Shoppers Drug Mart not to carry Adbusters. Three-thousand-five-hundred copies of Adbusters will no longer be sold at Shoppers Drug Mart's 515 Canadian stores.

Full story

See also: Gaza Freedom Graffiti in the Warsaw Ghetto

9/11 Family Group Releases TV Ad Calling for World Trade Center Building 7 Investigation

9/11 Blogger

NEW YORK CITY — The NYC Coalition for Accountability Now (NYC CAN) is launching a television ad campaign on Election Day in New York City calling for an investigation into the destruction of World Trade Center Building 7, the third building to collapse on 9-11. Building 7 came down at 5:20 in the afternoon although it had not been hit by an aircraft.

The ad, which is entitled “BuildingWhat?” and can be viewed at BuildingWhat.org, will air 350+ times from November 2 through November 10 and is estimated to be seen by millions of viewers in the New York Metropolitan Area, reaching core target audiences multiple times. The ad will appear on thirteen channels including MSNBC, CNN, Comedy Central, HGTV, Logo TV, Bio TV, Versus TV, MSG, Sports NY, VH1, HLN, CNBC and Bravo.

NYC CAN’s goal is to generate public pressure on the New York City Council to open an investigation into the destruction of Building 7, which until 9-11 housed the City’s Emergency Operations Center, also known as “Mayor Giuliani’s bunker.”

“We’ve been educating the City Council about Building 7 and the need for a new investigation for the past six months,” said Bob McIlvaine, father of Bobby McIlvaine and one of the 9/11 family members who appear in the ad. “We are asking them now to do something about it.”

Patricia Perry, mother of NYPD officer John Perry, opens the ad saying, “Most people don’t know that a third tower fell on September 11^th.” Footage of Building 7’s destruction begins to play while other 9/11 family members explain that 1,200 architects and engineers have examined the evidence and disagree with the official report issued by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), which concluded that office fires brought down Building 7. This would mark the first and only time in history that fire has caused a steel-framed skyscraper to collapse. The ad closes by asking viewers to go to BuildingWhat.org to learn more.

The “BuildingWhat?” campaign is also being sponsored by the group of architects and engineers referred to in the ad. According to their website, www.AE911Truth.org, they now number 1,346 verified architectural and engineering professionals who have put their professional reputations on the line to publicly voice their disagreement with NIST’s findings.

“The most irrefutable evidence is the free fall descent of the building,” said Anthony Szamboti, a mechanical engineer in the aerospace industry. “You can’t go from zero movement to free fall acceleration instantaneously without an external force simultaneously removing all of the columns in the lower part of the building. If the upper structure has to do any work crushing what’s below it, it’s going to slow down.” According to Mr. Szamboti, NIST acknowledges in its report that the building underwent free fall, but it does not explain how.

For more information and to view the TV ad, go to: www.BuildingWhat.org