In November of 2003, Senator Max Cleland resigned from the 9/11 Commission investigation, directly disparaging it by way of the Warren Commission investigation. Senator Cleland said:

“The Warren Commission blew it. I’m not going to be part of that. I’m not going to be part of looking at information only partially. I’m not going to be part of just coming to quick conclusions. I’m not going to be part of political pressure to do this or not do that.”

The most obvious fact, to indicate that the true story of John F. Kennedy’s slaying is not as the government has presented, is the cover-up itself. Elaborate cover-ups spanning 50 years cannot orchestrate themselves, and there must be compelling reasons for hiding the truth from the American people, or else it would simply be declassified and revealed.

If the killing of the president was committed by a lone nut single shooter named Lee Harvey Oswald, because of his great love of Marxism, there would be no compelling reason to keep his files secret five decades after the fact. Quite the opposite, Mr. Oswald’s clear guilt and personal history would have been useful propaganda material in the ideological battle between the Western world and the Soviet bloc. The ongoing and arguably illegal suppression of assassination evidence by the US government should be taken as a clear indicator of some level of official complicity in the original assassination.

Despite the US government and major media pressing the official story for the last half decade, relatively few Americans still believe it. By 2004, 74 percent of Americans thought there was a “cover-up of the facts” about the assassination of JFK. Today, polls show a majority firmly behind the conspiratorial view, with the Associated Press finding that 59 percent of Americans think multiple people were involved in a conspiracy.

Of course, the 1979 House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) determined the killing was “probably” a conspiracy, with a pathetic guess to their final determination. The committee was “unable to determine” the identities of other shooters or the “extent of the conspiracy.” This is more evidence of a cover-up, especially given the sheer number of documents to be released after 1979, and, even more damaging, those that remain secret to this day. We know of at least 1,100 multi-page records related to the JFK hit that remain classified.

Among those still classified records are details of the CIA’s surveillance of Lee Harvey Oswald prior to the assassination. Other characters kept shielded from public scrutiny include Bill Harvey, who headed an assassination team for CIA code named “ZR-RIFLE,” and CIA operative David A. Phillips, who was allegedly seen with Oswald in Dallas two months before the slaying of a president. At least 332 hidden pages of classified text concern E. Howard Hunt, a CIA thug and Nixon “plumber” (plugged leaks) involved in Watergate. Hunt would confess on his deathbed to being part of the JFK hit, as published in Rolling Stone, although specifics of his story may be inaccurate. In his confession, E. Howard Hunt named Cord Meyer, Bill Harvey, David Morales, David A. Phillips, Frank Sturgis and then Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson as other culpable players.

The 1979 HSCA investigation in no way got to the truth of the matter, and nowhere is this more clearly shown than in its failure to interview Jerrol Custer when it addressed whether the Kennedy X-rays were forgeries or not. Custer was the x-ray technician who took the pictures, and yet he was not brought in to clarify that the images were authentic. Custer testified in 1997 to the Assassinations Records Review Board: “[W]hen I looked into the skull – I remember seeing an apparatus in there… It was non-human. It had – I’m not sure if it was metallic or plastic…” His commanding officer, Dr. Ebersole returned late that night with additional skull fragments from Dallas. “High-ranking people had talked to [Ebersole]. And he suggested to me that everything I see from now on, I should forget” (ARRB, “Deposition…” p146).

Three days after Kennedy’s killing, and just one day after Lee Harvey Oswald was also gunned down – while in police custody and having never confessed to anything – the assistant Attorney General of the United States, Nicholas Katzenbach, wrote a memo to a White House aide that included this point: “The public must be satisfied that Oswald was the assassin; that he did not have confederates who are still at large; and that the evidence was such that he would have been convicted at trial.”

Clearly, at this early juncture there was no way for Nicholas Katzenbach to know these things as facts. In explaining his memo, Katzenbach told the House Select Committee on Assassinations that his emphasis was on full disclosure and not on pressing the lone assassin theory. Katzenbach’s premature memo also noted some conspiracy theories that the Soviets were behind the Kennedy killing or that the extreme right wing was behind it in order to blame it on leftists. “Unfortunately, the facts on Oswald seem about too pat, too obvious.” So even as he relayed the premature determination that Oswald was solely responsible, Katzenbach expressed a reservation that it seemed “too obvious” that Oswald was so blatantly linked to the Soviet bloc.

We see an official policy to stick to the lone assassin theory, and specifically not to blame the JFK hit on the Soviets or Cuba, even from President Johnson. During a phone call one week after the slaying to Senator Richard Russell, Johnson said, “[W]e’ve got to take this out of the arena where they’re testifying that Khrushchev and Castro did this and did that and kicking us into a war that can kill 40 million Americans in an hour…” The direct threat of nuclear war supposedly took precedent rather than full disclosure, at least from the mouth of President Johnson. This rationale for covering up the facts was already established and on the record, inside the White House, one week after President Kennedy’s murder.

Discrepancies with the Oswald legend would emerge later. Particularly curious is this bit of skullduggery: “In one taped conversation, Oswald — or someone saying he was Oswald — called the Soviet embassy. Then-FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover listened to the tape and told President Lyndon Johnson that it wasn’t Oswald’s voice.” That tape disappeared forever. Perhaps Katzenbach’s “too obvious” speculation was spot on.

Oliver Stone’s JFK film included another spot on point. As Associated Press states plainly, “Pamphlets Oswald had in his possession bore an address of a local anti-Castro operation connected to a former FBI agent with ties to organized crime.” So was Lee Harvey Oswald supposed to be pro-Castro, anti-Castro, or undercover?

Check out Breaking The Set‘s report on the assassination of JFK:

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50 Years Later: Exposing the Truth on JFK’s Life & Death

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A cognitive dissonance surrounds this issue, particularly in the corporate media. Investigators routinely report highly suspicious facts only to attempt to spin them away and diminish their importance. An example of this behavior is former Washington Post reporter Jefferson Morley, who has taken on the Kennedy case. Claims Morley: “This is not about conspiracy, this is about transparency… I think the CIA should obey the law.”

The definition of conspiracy is when multiple parties, or an organization such as CIA, break the law. Establishment journalists are so terrified of accusing the government of conspiracy, that they even seem prepared to attack the English language rather than to open themselves up to accusations of being a dreaded “conspiracy theorist.”

The CIA made its propaganda agenda clear in April of 1967 in a document entitled, “Countering Critics of the Warren Report.” Therein, the agency sought to, “employ propaganda assets to answer and refute the attacks of the critics” (Nurnad). That meant “book reviews” and “feature articles” as well as “friendly elite contacts (especially politicians and editors).” Countering critics of the Warren Report with propaganda was a clear breach of the CIA’s charter, and operating domestically was and remains illegal. That propaganda effort, similar to the more formal “Operation Mockingbird,” would constitute additional official conspiracies peripherally related to the killing of President John F. Kennedy. In other words, official cover-ups tend to veer into technically criminal activities.

Jefferson Morley, who already disparaged the idea of a JFK conspiracy earlier in the AP article, presented another curious revelation: “The idea that Lee Harvey Oswald was some unknown quantity to CIA officers was false… There was this incredible high-level attention to Oswald on the eve of the assassination.”

On the eve of the assassination, says Morley, as in prior to the killing in Dallas by the alleged lone nut assassin who just decided out of the blue to murder a president passing by below his place of employment. There was not only attention to Oswald, it was “high-level attention,” which was “incredible.” Morley’s evidence is hard to locate, as his sourcing was not included in his story.

What is known is that anti-Castro Cuban exiles, working with the CIA, were monitoring Lee Harvey Oswald three months prior to the JFK assassination. A lawsuit was filed to release records connected with George Joannides, who was the “chief of the CIA’s anti-Castro ‘psychological warfare’ operations in Miami.” What makes Joannides even more relevant to the cover-up is that he served as the Central Intelligence Agency’s “liason” to the HSCA in 1978-9, but he never revealed to the investigation his own involvement in 1963. George Joannides was, of course, an expert in psychological warfare, the art of disinformation – which is plentiful in this particular murder case. He was later accused of obstructing justice by deceiving the congressional committee.

The fact that there has been a cover-up of the JFK assassination is undeniable. The conflicting conclusions of the two main investigations, Warren vs. HSCA, establish that a one has taken place. Ongoing suppression of evidence by the CIA further establishes this cover-up. Defenders of the official story would attribute such illegal behavior to institutions avoiding embarrassment or hiding negligence. Establishment journalist Jefferson Morley is an example of this view, as his own conspiracy theory suggests that: “release would show the CIA trying to keep secret its own flawed performance before the assassination.”

The majority of the American people don’t see it that way, however. They believe a far more sinister explanation is likely, and for good reasons. The CIA has a history of criminal activity including overthrowing democracies, torture and politically-motivated murders. The Kennedy killing would not have been an aberration in tactics, only in the choice of target.

Written by Joe Giambrone for Media Roots

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Works Cited

Assassination Records Review Board, Assassination of John F. Kennedy, “Deposition of Jerrol Francis Custer,” Miller Reporting Company Inc., Washington DC, 28 Oct.1997, hosted at www.aarclibrary.org, The Assassination Archives and Research Center, Web, 10 Nov. 2013.

Federation of American Scientists (FAS), “The Evolution of the U.S. Intelligence Community-An Historical Overview,” Page INT022, 23 Feb. 1996, Web, 10 Nov. 2013.

Katzenbach, Nicholas, “Memorandum For Mr. Moyers,” FBI 62-109060 JFK HQ File, Section 18, US Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, 25 Nov. 1963, hosted at maryferrell.org, The Mary Ferrell Foundation, Web. 10 Nov. 2013.

Nurnad, Clayton P., “Countering Critics of the Warren Report,” CIA no. 1035-960, US Government, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), reprinted in Stone, Oliver and Sklar, Zachary, “JFK: The Book of the Film (Applause Screenplay Series) First Edition,” Applause Theatre & Cinema Books, 1 Feb.2000, p.550.

Select Committee on Assassinations of the U.S. House of Representatives, “Volume VII, Section IV: Authenticity,” Report of the Select Committee on Assassinations of the U.S. House of Representatives, Washington, DC: United States Government Printing Office, 1979, hosted at John McAdams’ Web Site, Marquette University, Web, 10 Nov. 2013.

Some of you may already be familiar with Zeitgeist, a controversial documentary film trilogy that challenges everything you think you know about the world. If you aren’t, do yourself a favor and get acquainted.

The first movie release, Zeitgeist, analyzes the social constructs that keep humanity’s consciousness stunted; Zeitgeist: Addendum dissects the unsustainability of the current economic system; The epilogue, Zeitgeist: Moving Forward, outlines the notion of structural violence, mechanization and the blueprint for a new system – one that can exist harmoniously with nature.

The viral film series has since spawned a global collective called The Zeitgeist Movement or TZM, an international initiative of activism and awareness pushing the notion that the current social and economic structure is inherently flawed, and must be transformed in order to ensure a sustainable future for all.

The Zeitgeist trilogy, as well as its follow-up Culture in Decline series, have challenged many of my preconceived paradigms as well as greatly inspired my activism, so it was awesome to sit down with Peter Joseph, founder of The Zeitgeist Movement Global, for an in-depth interview. Whether or not you agree with his philosophy, it’s undeniably thought-provoking and deserves to be heard.

Abby 

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Peter Joseph Breaks the Set on The Zeitgeist Movement

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LIKE Breaking the Set @ http://fb.me/BreakingTheSet
FOLLOW Abby Martin @ http://twitter.com/AbbyMartin

The Declaration has uncovered troubling revelations regarding law enforcement operations at Philadelphia’s Delaware Valley Intelligence Center (DVIC), which include the fact that the DVIC, an “all crimes, all hazards” fusion center that assists law enforcement agencies in four states, appears to operate without any privacy policy in place, while its privacy officer position has been vacant since 2010.

In a related development, before the fusion center officially opened, the Philadelphia Police Department operated what one private contractor and a Senate subcommittee labeled a “DVIC Cell”. This unit’s existence indicates probable Constitutional violations dating as far back as 2009, as there doesn’t appear to be any indication of privacy or civil liberties protections attached to the “cell’s” operations.

If the Policy Exists, We Won’t Show it to You

Our research into the South Philly fusion center began in the summer of 2012. At that time the only readily discoverable item of any official nature was a brochure made by architect LR Kimball. Formal inquiries, which began in January of 2013, followed by multiple editorial admonitions published on our website and repeated communication with officials both on and off the record over a 10-month period, have not yielded any official policies. Local police officials have been unwilling – or unable – to produce any documents. They have on numerous occasions tried to assure us that a policy exists.

The Declaration also contacted the Department of Homeland Security’s Civil Liberties office, who upon first contact told the Declaration they would quickly locate the document. Our inquiry is now frozen after being passed to the Fusion Center Training Coordinator Ada Albright, whose final communication with us was a deferral to a telephone number which the Declaration has called countless times.

The officer or employee who answered the phone and confirmed that he was indeed at the DVIC told us that he knew Director Walt Smith already had our request, and that “he’d be best to deal with it.” The stonewall continues.

Additionally, a thorough online search for a DVIC policy will lead you to the National Fusion Center Association website and their list of member facility’s privacy policies. The “Delaware Valley Fusion Center” is on the page, with no link to a policy. A very important note sits at the bottom of that page:

FY 2010 DHS grant funds may not be used to support fusion center-related initiatives unless the fusion center is able to certify that privacy and civil rights/civil liberties (CR/CL) protections are in place that are determined to be at least as comprehensive as the ISE Privacy Guidelines by the ISE Privacy Guidelines Committee (PGC) within 6 months of the award date on this FY 2010 award. If these protections have not been submitted for review and on file with the ISE PGC, DHS grants funds may only be leveraged to support the development and/or completion of the fusion center’s privacy protections requirements.

SEPTA police chief Thomas Nestel III, the DVIC’s privacy officer until July of 2010, told The Declaration that he resigned because he could not perform the on-site, full time duties he felt the position required. He believes he had “seen the final draft approved by the Department of Homeland Security.”

Furthermore, in an emailed statement given to us this morning, Nestel says that he “assisted in the creation of the privacy policy and it does exist. Since I no longer hold a position with the DVIC, I am reluctant to release the policy without [Philadelphia Police Inspector Walt Smith’s] permission.”*

Another law enforcement official, on condition of anonymity, also confirms that the DVIC has yet to hire a privacy officer, and describes the facility as not yet fully operational – despite a much-publicized opening on June 28th of this year – in part because the DVIC plans to hire “civilian intelligence analysts.”

These revelations cast strong doubt on the legality of the DVIC’s operations, as fusion centers across the country must adhere to basic standards – outlined in the Department of Homeland Security’s Fusion Center Guidelines as well as the agency’s Baseline Capabilities supplement – standards that include civil liberty and privacy protections. These standards must be implemented in order to receive federal funding.

Privacy guidelines, which the Department of Homeland Security provides a template for on its website and which other fusion centers across the country have in place, establish protocols for the types of intelligence DVIC analysts gather, as well as how that information can be used or disseminated to federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies throughout the four-state region.

Pre-Crime, Suspicious Activity Reporting, and No Privacy: A Troubling Mix

One facet of a fusion center’s day-to-day operations involves either civilian or privatized intelligence analysts examining “suspicious activity reports” filed by law enforcement. These analysts then create threat assessments based on these reports and will often upload them to a federal database, such as the FBI’s e-Guardian system. These assessments are accessible to other local, state, and federal agencies too, as part of a networked law enforcement ecosystem.

During last month’s International Association of Chiefs of Police conference in Philadelphia, The Declaration had the opportunity to attend a presentation on the controversial Nationwide Suspicious Activity Reporting Initiative, often known as “See Something, Say Something.”

David Sobzyk, the scheduled speaker, asserted almost immediately after beginning the presentation that the Nationwide SAR Initiative (NSI) contains built-in privacy and civil liberties protections, yet in the same breath notes that the NSI has 16 behaviors which authorities claim are “indicative of terrorist activity”. In other words, “pre-crime” behavior that could deem an individual or group of people eligible for increased scrutiny by authorities. Other revealing statistics cited by Sobzyk include the fact that 57% of fusion center directors have less than one year of experience; over 85,000 emergency personnel ranging from police officers to 9-1-1 operators and EMS workers have taken SAR training; and a standard SAR training for emergency personnel only consists of a one hour course.

It’s no surprise, then, that a recent ACLU document dump of a Los Angeles fusion center’s suspicious activity reporting made quite a stir among civil libertarians and the press – and this particular center has a published and publicly available privacy policy.

The Declaration submitted a Right-to-Know request in September with the police department for DVIC suspicious activity reporting, which was then rejected. We have since refiled, will appeal if denied again, and are prepared to litigate if necessary.

The potential for operational abuse at the DVIC, then, only increases the need for Constitutional protections that will only come with increased oversight by lawmakers and public scrutiny.

The DVIC’s Troubled Birth

As previously reported, the DVIC received intense criticism from a bi-partisan Senate subcommittee in October of 2012. Their findings indicated (Page 72) that federal grant money was likely being misappropriated by Southeastern Pennsylvania Regional Task Force (SEPA-RTF) officials. SEPA-RTF is multi-county task force that obtained grant funds for a regional intelligence center through the FEMA Homeland Security Grant Program in 2006, and with a consortium of private contractors named the System of Systems Security Consortium (SOSSEC, Inc), was tasked with developing and making the fusion center operational while adhering to federal grant regulations.

According to the subcommittee’s conclusions, the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency (PEMA) cut off federal grant money to SEPA-RTF and DVIC development in 2011, because PEMA became aware of plans to illegally use those funds for construction of a Philadelphia Police Department Real Time Crime center at the site of what would become the fusion center. The Senate subcommittee report notes that any planned use of Homeland Security grant money for building construction is prohibited by federal law.

Another curious thread contained in the Senate report, and one which may be another reason PEMA felt it necessary to pull funding in 2011: the existence of a fusion center, listed on the DHS website, that in reality “didn’t exist” according to FEMA testimony before the Senate subcommittee.

The contracting agent tasked with planning and developing the DVIC from 2009 until December of 2011, SOSSEC, Inc., also assisted in the creation of a “DVIC Cell”, a precursor to the current facility.

SOSSEC Vice President Eugene Del Coco, in a lengthy interview with The Declaration this week, revealed the existence of this offsite “microcosm” fusion center launched on July 15th, 2011. Because the DVIC project was experimental, in that it brought together resources and contacts from every jurisdictional tier within a large geographic area, Del Coco says DVIC planners thought it beneficial to establish a prototype operation where a minimal staff could familiarize themselves with the concept of an intelligence center, and gain practical experience and insight into technology and information sharing practices. This offsite center was relocated to the DVIC facility in December, according to a schedule we obtained, and is quite likely one of the mysterious “virtual fusion centers” referred to in testimony by DHS to the same Senate Subcommittee in response to questions about why the DHS listed centers on its site that it knew did not physically exist.

While the general notion of providing advance training to fusion center personnel is rational, given the sensitivity of the operation, the existence of the “Cell” is another example in a litany of cases where the fusion center has been conducting operations which pose serious dangers to Constitutional protections, without significant oversight, and with no record available to the public as to how authorities are ensuring those protections. Del Coco says SOSSEC was originally supposed to complete Phase III-b, “Implementation,” but in December 2011, at the request of the city and SEPA-RTF, relinquished all fusion center responsibilities.

It is Time for Answers

In October, the DVIC facility was host to a Mounted Unit ceremony, an Asian American Advisory Board meeting which apparently included a briefing on the police department’s intelligence gathering practices for members, and an untold number of formal and informal tours for out of town colleagues during the recent International Association of Chiefs of Police, including a former government intelligence officer who now works for IBM and who requested their name not be used for this article. It only seems fair, by matter not only of best transparency practices but simple intuition, that a privacy policy – the most conspicuous public offering regarding the facility – should indeed be available to the public.

Written by Dustin Slaughter and Kenneth Lipp, Image by Dustin Slaughter