MEDIA ROOTS – While it may be popular to blame George W. Bush for the terror war, it is actually President Obama who has escalated drone warfare from 45 strikes when he assumed office to an additional 292 strikes as of last month. This is in large part due to the relaxed standards this president has set with strikes occurring not just for specific (alleged) combatants but now include targets that merely appear to fit certain criteria.

To date, the office of the president has now approved of more slaughter from drones than the total number of victims on 9/11. The fear that once settled in America’s hearts following the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon – attacks that were supposedly executed by manned aerial vehicles – hardly compare to the terror that Pakistanis now suffer from the unmanned drones. And while America is not officially at war with Pakistan, 74% of Pakistanis now consider the United States an enemy, according to a report released last week titled Living Under Drones. But why is this genocide continuing with virtually no outcry from the American citizenry?

No compassion, no coverage

The latest drone strike occurred just yesterday in Yemen. Military officials claim that four al-Qaeda militants were killed in the strike but there is simply no way to verify if this information is accurate. Virtually no American news agency covered the event and even fewer media outlets questioned authorities on its legitimacy.

The separation of general society from the terror war is comparable to the president and his weekly kill list or drone operators and their targets. As the war on terror enters its twelfth year on Sunday, almost no corporate media outlet deems this historical mark worthy of reflection thus continuing to alienate Americans from the horrors that are taking place daily in their name.

The president advises drone operators that potential combatants are men of military age – between 18 and 65 – and supports targeting them for assassination from the comfort of armchairs thousands of miles away. Additionally, anyone rushing to the aid of these victims is immediately considered a suspected terrorist and is frequently targeted just seconds later. The result has been the creation of dysfunctional societies that not only fear the skies but also helping one’s neighbor.

 “What is absolutely true is that my first job, my most sacred duty as president and commander-in-chief, is to keep America safe,” President Obama explained in an interview last month. But a much more dangerous precedent is now taking place. David Kilcullen, a former adviser to General Patraeus, explained that for “every one of these dead noncombatants represents an alienated family, a new desire for revenge, and more recruits for a militant movement.”

Several American antiwar activists, including some from the women’s group Code Pink, are now on the ground in Islamabad in preparation for a march to northwest Pakistan that starts tomorrow. They are marching in protest of the seemingly unending barrage of drone-strikes in the region and are led by Imran Khan, a Pakistani official known for his days as one of the nation’s top cricket players.

No end in sight

These crimes against humanity are staggering. But the general tolerance for these crimes by the American electorate is what is of particular concern. How many times must this president murder children before other parents stand up? And will voters actually re-elect such an evil administration that is only perpetuating this terror war? With President Obama and Governor Romney leading in the polls, the outcome appears inevitable.

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Oskar Mosco for Media Roots.

Photo provided by Flickr user Jayel Aheram.

Living Under Drones is a video published by Brave New Foundation that highlights

a recent report that explains how drone warfare is terrorizing civilian populations.

MEDIA ROOTS – For the third straight election, an international convenience store chain is now offering coffee cups featuring President Barack Obama and Governor Mitt Romney. The unscientific poll currently claims to hold Obama over Romney, 58 to 42 percent respectively.

The marketing ploy has been labeled “7-Election” and offers cups featuring only the two establishment candidates running for office. However, several additional candidates continue to actively run while still not taken seriously by corporate establishments. Below are grassroots campaigns that voters might also consider to support this November despite them not having their face stamped on cups of joe.

Gary Johnson / Jim Gray – Libertarian Party

    Johnson is the sanest man running for president, according to GQ. He’s on the ballot in 47 states and believes the federal government spends too much because it does too much, such as subsidizing public energy resources and prolonging warfare.

Rocky Anderson / Luis Rodriguez – Justice Party

    The former mayor of Salt Lake City wishes to create a watchdog agency, instead re-enlisting Congress, to oversee the Federal Reserve while raising the federal minimum wage without first halting inflation.

Rosanne Barr / Cindy Sheehan – Peace and Freedom Party

    Barr calls for an end to the prohibition of marijuana, rejects continued war support for Israel, and supported Sheehan’s congressional campaign in 2008. But who will run with Barr now that Sheehan has resigned from the campaign?

Dr. Jill Stein / Cheri Honkala – Green Party

    This team has based their campaign around their Green New Deal and wishes to create millions of green jobs. But Dr. Stein admits a vote for her would “take votes away from Obama who would be better for the 99% than Romney.”

Virgil Goode / Jim Clymer – Constitution Party

    Goode does support an audit of the Federal Reserve but believes that “legal immigration must be reduced not increased.” He rejects Obamacare and continued funding of Planned Parenthood but does support capital punishment, the utilization of nuclear power, and the expansion of domestic oil drilling opportunities.

The campaign of Dr. Ron Paul is now over with the official selection of Mitt Romney for the Republican Party’s ticket.

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Oscar Mosko for Media Roots.

Photo provided by Flickr user sashafatcat.

MEDIA ROOTS – This article by David Noriega, published on TheNewInquiry, vividly diagrams the pressures inherent on a young college graduate when he goes to work for the NYC Civilian Complaint Review Board, wherein he investigates citizens’ complaints against NYPD officers. Where other areas that have the means use attorneys for the important task of holding peace officers accountable to citizens, the overextended CCRB provided steady employment for recent grads like Mr. Noriega, as long as they could accomplish the task of minimizing paperwork and consequences for the NYPD.

Younger, more inexperienced workers were more likely to follow orders and be amenable to a culture that valued exoneration of officers, discounting citizen grievances, and not taking a stand on controversial issues like stop-and-frisk. The author expresses some guarded hope, and lists some recent, albeit limited, improvements to the CCRB’s function. This cautionary tale will give you a glimpse of what it feels like to be on the inside of a powerless bureaucratic machine whose ostensible task is keeping the NYPD from abusing its authority. 

Laurie Kirchner for Media Roots

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THENEWINQUIRY – I will always remember the first time a cop lied to me. Or rather, the first time that I knew beyond a doubt that a cop was lying to me, sitting right there in the interview room with a tape recorder in front of him.

It was early in my tenure as an investigator at the New York City Civilian Complaint Review Board, the city agency established in 1993 to investigate allegations of misconduct against NYPD officers. The case was a fairly straightforward stop-and-frisk incident near the massive New York City Housing Authority complexes along Avenue D in Manhattan. The complainant, a man in his early 20s, alleged that a plainclothes cop had stopped, frisked, and searched him after he stepped out of a bodega. He’d given a guy a cigarette, and before he knew it, the cop came up from behind him, grabbed him by the coat, and after a quick scuffle, pushed him against a wall.

I’d already interviewed the cop’s unusually forthcoming partner, whose testimony matched the complainant’s. That’s how I knew the cop was making stuff up. Lots of stuff.

Continue reading The Thin Blue Line

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photo by Jean-Edouard BABIN under creative commons

MEDIA ROOTS – It may be a sign of a public awakening when news of government surveillance hits the front page of Gawker’s future and technology blog, io9. The scope of federal survellience was widened on August 10 when Wikileaks released documents that exposed the TrapWire system to the public. The security technology helps group private surveillance recordings into one larger network that may be monitored by the government.

It was top secret software that was designed by former CIA agents. Now TrapWire is trending on Twitter as more enlightening information has been surfacing. International news outlet, RT – America even ties the TrapWire information to the White House and its various three letter agencies, as well as intelligence gathering organizations across the globe.

While conspiracy theories are claimed and refuted, the discussion around TrapWire remains particularly relevant. Thomas Drake, the noted NSA surveillance whistleblower of yesteryear, tweeted the following last week: “#Trapwire not bogus. No liberty w/o privacy.Secret surveillance of people is tyranny. Universal wiretap & profile 4 all?”

What comes next?

According to the io9 article, the Electronic Frontier Foundation might have built a legal standing to prove that TrapWire is not only illegal, but in violation of the Fourth Amendment of the US Constitution. From the EFF:

“In January 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously confirmed that Americans have constitutional protections against GPS surveillance by law enforcement, holding that GPS tracking is a “search” under the Fourth Amendment.”

To date, there are no pending legal challenges to TrapWire. That is almost certain to change, as more information is uncovered and the general public begins to acknowledge that privacy isn’t merely for those who have something to hide.

Sean Reid is a guest contributor to Media Roots.

Photo provided by Flicker user SE17.

MEDIA ROOTS – Support to repeal the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012 (NDAA) is growing as the Bush-Obama administrations continue to pursue the ongoing global ‘War on Terror’ of nearly twelve years.

Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Chris Hedges is on the front lines of the battle to nullify section 1021 – the indefinite detention clause of the NDAA – along with professor Noam Chomsky, activist Daniel Ellsberg, and author Naomi Wolf. Less than one month after President Obama signed the bill into law, this astute group sued the federal government for clauses that are, at best, constitutionally vague. Consequentially, Manhattan Federal Court temporarily sided with the plaintiffs by having issued an injunction on the indefinite detention clause which has since been appealed by the Obama administration.

The call to nullify the NDAA continues to surge around the country. Last month, the Clark County Republican Party Central Committee of Nevada unanimously called for its appeal while legislators in Michigan are currently considering a bill that could virtually revoke the federal law in that state.

Additionally, Ben Swann of WXIX recently suggested the president, and some members of Congress, may be in direct violation of the very law that they created by recently supporting Al-Qaeda-affiliated Syrian opposition forces. He explains that “late last year, when Sen. John McCain co-wrote the National Defense Authorization Act, and President Obama signed it into law, they crafted a law that gave the president the authority to use all necessary and appropriate force during the current armed conflict with Al-Qaeda and the Taliban and associated forces, including the power to indefinitely detain anyone caught supporting Al-Qaeda, which in this case is the president and members of Congress.”

Oskar Mosco for Media Roots.

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TRUTHDIG –  [Section 1021] of the NDAA, signed into law by Obama on Dec. 31, 2011, obliterates some of our most important constitutional protections. It authorizes the executive branch to order the military to seize U.S. citizens deemed to be terrorists or associated with terrorists. Those taken into custody by the military, which becomes under the NDAA a domestic law enforcement agency, can be denied due process and habeas corpus and held indefinitely in military facilities. Any activist or dissident, whose rights were once protected under the First Amendment, can be threatened under this law with indefinite incarceration in military prisons, including our offshore penal colonies. The very name of the law itself—the Homeland Battlefield Bill—suggests the totalitarian credo of endless war waged against enemies within “the homeland” as well as those abroad.

In May, Judge Forrest issued a temporary injunction invalidating Section 1021 as a violation of the First and Fifth amendments. It was a courageous decision. Forrest will decide within a couple of weeks whether she will make the injunction permanent.

Barack Obama’s administration has appealed Judge Forrest’s temporary injunction and would certainly appeal a permanent injunction. It is a stunning admission by this president that he will do nothing to protect our constitutional rights. The administration’s added failure to restore habeas corpus, its use of the Espionage Act six times to silence government whistle-blowers, its support of the FISA Amendment Act—which permits warrantless wiretapping, monitoring and eavesdropping on U.S. citizens—and its ordering of the assassination of U.S. citizens under the 2001 Authorization to Use Military Force, or AUMF, is a signal that for all his rhetoric, Obama, like his Republican rivals, is determined to remove every impediment to the unchecked power of the security and surveillance state. I and the six other plaintiffs, who include reporters, professors and activists, will most likely have to continue this fight in an appellate court and perhaps the Supreme Court.

Read Chris Hedges’ complete article at Truthdig.

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Photo provided by Flickr user DonkeyHotey.