MEDIA ROOTS- Follow the money and you will always find the truth.

U.S. Marine Major General Smedley Butler, one of only 19 people to be twice awarded the Medal of Honor, wrote War is a Racket in 1935:

“War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small ‘inside’ group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes.”

If General Butler were still alive, he would probably write, “The War on Terror is a Racket on Steroids.”

On Christmas Day in 2009, a young Nigerian man named Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab boarded Delta Airlines Flight 253 bound to Detroit from Amsterdam. During the flight, he was caught trying to detonate explosives that he’d hidden in his underwear. His photo and story was instant “breaking news” and was broadcasted worldwide over and over again.

The hysteria built up by the media was immediate and non-stop. They constantly parroted that “the system didn’t work,” “he slipped through the cracks,”  and “they didn’t’ connect the dots”.

Janet Napolitano, the present Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), attempted to quell the hysteria by stating on CNN that the system did work.  She was immediately ridiculed and wasn’t seen on TV again for weeks- but she was absolutely correct. The system did work. She apparently didn’t get the memo of what the “official” government story was supposed to be.

On Jan 27, 2010, there was a House Committee on Homeland Security hearing titled “Flight 253: Learning Lessons from an Averted Tragedy.”

During the hearing, Patrick F. Kennedy, Secretary Management of the Department of State, stated that “They had the individual under investigation and our revocation action would have disclosed the U.S. Governments interest in the individual and ended our colleagues’ ability to quietly pursue the case and identify terrorists’ plans and co-conspirators.”

According to a recent article, “The revelation that U.S. intelligence agencies made a deliberate decision to allow Abdulmutallab to board the commercial flight, without any special airport screening, has been buried in the media. ‘Revocation action would have disclosed what they were doing,’ Kennedy said in the testimony before the House Committee on Homeland Security. Allowing Adbulmutallab to keep his visa increased the chances that federal investigators would be able to get closer to apprehending the terror network he was accused of working with, ‘rather than simply knocking out one solider in that effort.'”

Additionally, there were eye witness reports from passengers on Flight 253 that the suspect was escorted onto the aircraft by a “sharp dressed man.” Why wasn’t this information breaking news like the original story was? The politicians and the media didn’t want it to be, because they wanted to use this event to justify the enforcement of the new body scanners.

Even though DHS Secretary Napolitano had been silenced, former DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff was featured on numerous news programs fear mongering the public into thinking that since the system failed, we now need these scanners to keep us safe.

One important thing he neglected to mention was that he works as a lobbyist for Rapiscan, the company that makes the body scanners.

The Washington Post reported that “Michael Chertoff, Former Department of Homeland Security, is the head of the Chertoff Group, the lead cheerleader for what is being called the Full Body Scanner Lobby.”

Furthermore, President Barack Obama recently handed Rapiscan a one billion dollar contract to deploy the scanners – no questions asked. On his recent trip to India, Obama traveled with Deepak Chopra, chairman and CEO of OSI Systems- the parent company of Rapiscan Systems. 

In the months leading up to Christmas of 2009, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) conveniently began removing the so-called “puffer machines” from U.S. airports at a cost of nearly one million dollars. Puffer machines are bomb detection machines that have been used for years, yet are suddenly now deemed unreliable. 

Thankfully, the American people are starting to wake up to these police state tactics and are now refusing to use these scanners. They are not yet mandatory, and you can still opt out of using them. But the TSA doesn’t advertise that little known fact.

Alarmingly, scientists are also warning that the full-body airport scanners pose serious health risks and could cause cancer.

On July 14, 2010,  two Senators proposed a bi-partisan bill, called “Securing Aircraft From Explosives Responsibly: Advanced Imaging Recognition, or the SAFER AIR Act”, which would make going through the scanners mandatory. The Democrats and Republicans can’t seem to agree on anything except forcing people to go through potentially cancer-causing X-ray machines in which the naked bodies of children and adults will be on display to everyone in the TSA.

Now, in a further attempt to intimidate flyers who refuse to submit to the scanners, the TSA has started a new much more invasive full body search much like the police do to criminals after arrest, which includes groping genitalia. However, flyers are reporting that even though they go through the scanners, they are still being subjected to physical “pat downs” as well.

In an attempt to dispel privacy fears, the TSA claimed that the scanners don’t and can’t store the naked body images. This is another lie. The simple fact is that the images are potential forensic evidence that must be kept and stored on record.

“The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) said documents it has obtained from DHS show the machines used by the department’s Transportation Security Administration at some U.S. airports also can record and store images from the body scanners even though they are slightly different from the scanners used at federal courts. When asked if TSA has stored any images from passengers, EPIC staff counsel Ginger McCall said TSA claims it has not stored such images, but EPIC believes that statement is false. She said the airport body scanners are not secure enough and voiced concern that the images stored on them could be transferred to an external device such as a USB flash drive.”

In another alarming revelation, Forbes reports that the government is now deploying mobile full body scanners in vans that look like normal delivery trucks.  These vans have the capability to see through your clothes as you walk down the street, into your car and even your house!

I implore everyone to refuse to go through the scanners. Write and call your representatives in Congress to let them know you are against any mandatory body scanning, invasive body groping searches and mobile body scanners.

If you are on Facebook, there’s a body scanner protest page with over 14,200 members called Facebook Against Airport Full Body Scanners. I urge you to join it and spread the word.

If these violations are not stopped, I predict these mobile body scanners will soon be deployed at the mall, movie theaters, sporting events – everywhere.

The most important question we should be asking is: Why? Why are they deploying these police state devices and tactics? I don’t believe these scanners are being used for our safety, but for our control. We are now all assumed to be guilty until proven innocent.

General Butler would be absolutely horrified at the ultimate racket that is the “terror industrial complex” and the destruction of the U.S. Constitution because of it.

Written by Nick

Body Scanners: Just the Beginning?

COMPUTER WORLD– While everyone is concerned about privacy violations from Facebook Places, government agencies may be using powerful new technology to violate Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable searches.

Here’s what the Fourth Amendment says: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

The spirit of and the letter of this amendment is that government agencies are not allowed to go on hunting expeditions looking for violations or transgressions. If government officials want to search your property, they have to demonstrate good reason why they suspect you of committing a crime.

Let’s say a small town wanted to crack down on swimming pool permit violations. If local police went house to house, telling people they were going to look for swimming pools in everybody’s backyards, nobody would accept this because it would clearly violate the Fourth Amendment. However, if you do exactly the same thing using cameras in space, it’s somehow OK.

The town of Riverhead on Long Island used Google Earth to search all back yards in the town for illegal swimming pools.

They found about 250 pools built without permits and collected about $75,000 in fines. Critics say they did it for the money, but city officials said they’re concerned mainly about safety.

There’s no such ambiguity in Greece. Greek officials are spotting undeclared swimming pools — and they’re definitely doing it for the money. Faced with a budget crunch, Greece’s government is using Google Earth to hunt for swimming pools, giving officials a justification for collecting extra taxes.

The idea is this: Hey, we need more money. Let’s go find some.

The Greece example is similar in that respect to the use of Google Earth in the U.K. by fish thieves. In at least 12 documented cases, exotic-fish thieves used Google Earth to find backyard ponds. The crooks broke into the yards and stole expensive live fish that they intended to sell for big bucks.

The purpose of the Fourth Amendment is to prevent the U.S. government from doing what Greece’s government is doing, which is essentially what U.K. fish thieves are doing: Using arbitrary searches to hunt for opportunities to take something away from people.

Here’s the problem. If one town sets a precedent that’s it’s OK to violate Fourth Amendment protections as long as you use satellite imagery, then any government can do the same for any reason. And the technologies and methods for doing so are becoming very sophisticated.

A company called Remote Sensing Metrics is buying satellite pictures from privately owned satellite photography companies including DigitalGlobe and GeoEye, then it’s using those images to count cars in Wal-Mart parking lots and selling analysis of the data to hedge funds and other analysts. They’re selling it as a package discreetly billed as “satellite parking lot fill rate analysis.”

Other firms are monitoring crops to better predict commodity pricing for wheat, corn and so on.

The New York Police Department already uses satellite imagery to fight crime. It tracks crimes, looks for clusters where many crimes are occurring together and then floods those locations with police officers.

Those all sound like legitimate and creative uses for new technology. But where is it all going?

Once you combine all-seeing satellite imagery with sophisticated computerized number-crunching, you end up with massive potential for abuse — especially by government agencies.

One might imagine a dystopian future where automated systems constantly scan every house in the country to find all kinds of things, from heat escaping the house to backyard barbecues or the number of people coming and going from every house.

It’s the ol’ slippery slope argument, but it must be taken seriously. If it’s OK for municipal officials to peek into every backyard in Riverhead to find a handful of pool-permit violators, why would it not be acceptable for other agencies to look at all homes and businesses in the nation for a much wider variety of potential violations?

And if it’s OK to do that using satellite imagery, what about using other technologies?

A company called American Science and Engineering sells a high-end, tricked-out security vehicle called the Z Backscatter Van. Its sole purpose, if used by government agencies, is to violate the Fourth Amendment.

The van sits there by the side of the road and X-rays cars passing by. It’s like a full-body scan at the airport, but for cars. The manufacturer brags about the fact that the van keeps a “low profile.” The Web site says: “The system is unobtrusive, as it maintains the outward appearance of an ordinary van.”

What the van does is conduct unreasonable searches without probable cause and without the knowledge of the person who owns the property being searched. That’s its only function.

American Science and Engineering would no doubt argue that it’s selling the van to private companies, which raises yet another question. Is it acceptable for private companies to engage in activity that would be a Fourth Amendment violation if it were done by a government agency?

Private security companies can’t search your home without a warrant, and they can’t pull you over and search your car. So why can they search your car with an X-ray scanner?

Within a few years, we’ll have technology that can see through walls on a large scale. We’ll be able to feed the data into supercomputers and get information about trends and other analysis.

We need to figure out what’s OK and what isn’t. The first step is to apply the Fourth Amendment to searches conducted without probable cause via Google Earth.

Riverhead officials should be forced to give back all fees collected for unpermitted swimming pools, for example, and banned from future hunting expeditions.

Technology should not be used to exempt government agencies from the Constitution. Unfortunately, technology empowers governments to violate our rights with ruthless efficiency.

I wonder if satellites can detect America’s Founding Fathers rolling over in their graves?

Mike Elgan writes about technology and global tech culture. Contact Mike at [email protected], follow him on Twitter @mike_elgan, or read his blog, The Raw Feed.

© COMPUTER WORLD, 2010

The Kent State Truth Tribunal visited San Francisco to collect stories from those who witnessed the murder of student protesters on the Kent State campus in Ohio on May 4, 1970. Sabrina Jacobs filed this report on with KPFA – Pacifica Radio, in Berkeley, California.

http://www.truthtribunal.org/

ACLU– Group Releases 18-Month Review Of President’s National Security Policies And Civil Liberties

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: (212) 549-2666; [email protected]

NEW YORK – The Obama administration has repudiated some of the Bush administration’s most egregious national security policies but is in danger of institutionalizing others permanently into law, thereby creating a troubling “new normal,” according to a new report released today by the American Civil Liberties Union.

“Establishing a New Normal: National Security, Civil Liberties, and Human Rights Under the Obama Administration,” an 18-month review of the Obama administration’s record on national security issues affecting civil liberties, concludes that the current administration’s record on issues of national security and civil liberties is decidedly mixed: President Obama has made great strides in some areas, such as his auspicious first steps to categorically prohibit torture, outlaw the CIA’s use of secret overseas detention sites and release the Bush administration’s torture memos, but he has failed to eliminate some of the worst policies put in place by President Bush, such as military commissions and indefinite detention. He has also expanded the Bush administration’s “targeted killing” program.

The 22-page report, which was researched and written by staff in the ACLU’s National Security Project and Washington Legislative Office, reviews the administration’s record in the areas of transparency, torture and accountability, detention, targeted killing, military commissions, speech and surveillance and watchlists.

“President Obama began his presidency with a bang, signing executive orders that placed the power of the presidency behind the restoration of the rule of law and gave meaning to the president’s stated view that America must lead with its values,” said Anthony D. Romero, Executive Director of the ACLU. “Unfortunately, since that time, the administration has displayed a decidedly mixed record resulting, on a range of issues, in the very real danger that the Obama administration will institutionalize some of the most troublesome policies of the previous administration – in essence, creating a troubling ‘new normal.’ We strongly urge the president to shift course and renew his commitment to the fundamental values that are the very foundation of our nation’s strength and security.”

According to the ACLU’s report, the first 18 months of Obama’s presidency have been marked by a pattern wherein significant achievements for civil liberties have often been followed by setbacks. For instance, the positive step of releasing Justice Department memoranda that purported to authorize the Bush administration’s torture regime was followed by the troubling decision to fight the release of photos depicting the abuse of prisoners in CIA custody. The administration’s commitment to dismantle Guantánamo has been undermined by its assertion of the authority to detain people indefinitely without charge or trial. And prohibitions against torture have been weakened by the failure to hold top Bush administration officials accountable for their role in the torture program.

“The Obama administration should work with Congress to restore the rule of law, and discourage any legislation that would institutionalize policies that were widely regarded as unlawful under President Bush. Together, Congress and the White House should make sure that abuses of power like the Patriot Act are dismantled, not extended, and that policies like indefinite detention are never signed into law,” said Laura W. Murphy, Director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office. “It is not too late for President Obama to build a legacy of justice and fairness.”

The report concludes that, in addition to the initial executive orders, the administration has taken other positive steps and made genuine progress in some areas such as improvements to the government’s handling of Freedom of Information Act requests, the release of key documents related to the U.S. torture program and an executive order disavowing torture. It also addresses more troubling practices such as the use of the “state secrets” doctrine to block lawsuits brought by torture survivors, the revival of the discredited military commissions to prosecute some Guantánamo detainees, the assertion of broad surveillance powers and the authorization of a “targeted killing” program to kill terrorism suspects, including American citizens, wherever they are located, without due process.

“In its first days, the Obama administration took some important steps to restore civil liberties and the rule of law,” said Jameel Jaffer, Deputy Legal Director of the ACLU. “It has not, however, abandoned the ‘global war’ framework that was the basis for many of the last administration’s counterterrorism programs. Indeed, some of the Obama administration’s policies – like the policies on indefinite detention, military commissions and targeted killings – are entrenching this framework, presenting a profound threat to human rights and the rule of law. We urge the Obama administration to recommit itself to the ideals it articulated in its very first days. President Obama should not make ‘global war’ the new normal.”